Intertek Group Plc (ITRK.L) said that it remains on track to deliver its 2016 target of robust revenue growth at constant currency with stable margin and strong cash generation. The company expects its Product related businesses to deliver robust organic growth, Trade related businesses to report solid organic growth performance, while the market conditions will remain challenging in Resource related businesses. In its trading statement for the period from 1 January to 31 October 2016, the company reported that its revenue for the period rose 17.9 percent to 2.10 billion pounds, while it was up 9.9% at constant rates. Organic revenue was up 7.2%, but it was flat at constant rates. "In the first ten months, the Group has delivered 10% revenue growth at constant rates and is on track to deliver robust revenue growth, with strong operational discipline, stable margin and good cash generation in 2016," the company said. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News The euro advanced against its major counterparts in European morning trading on Tuesday amid risk appetite, with a surge in crude oil prices and continued optimism about Donald Trump's presidency supporting sentiment. Oil extended overnight gains on growing hopes of an OPEC output agreement next week and Russia's preparedness to freeze production at present levels. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday said that his country was ready to freeze production at "today's level" to stabilize oil production. News over the weekend that German Chancellor Angela Merkel will run for a fourth term in the 2017 election also underpinned the currency. Merkel's decision was seen as sign of stability following the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU as well as shaping relations with the U.S. under Donald Trump. Investors await Eurozone consumer confidence and US existing home sales data later in the day for more direction. The currency showed mixed performance in the Asian session. While the euro held steady against the franc and the pound, it rose against the yen. Against the greenback, the euro declined. The single currency strengthened to 1.0746 against the Swiss franc, its strongest since November 16. If the euro-franc pair extends rise, 1.09 is possibly seen as its next resistance level. Data from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs showed that Switzerland's trade surplus declined in October as exports declined amid a rebound in imports. The trade surplus fell to CHF 2.7 billion from CHF 4.3 billion in September. The euro reversed from an early low of 1.0605 against the greenback to hit a 5-day high of 1.0658. Continuation of the euro's uptrend may see it challenging resistance around the 1.08 region. The 19-nation currency that closed yesterday's trading at 0.8498 against the pound climbed to 0.8552. Further rally may see the euro finding resistance near the 0.87 area. Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that the U.K. budget deficit narrowed in October. Public sector net borrowing, excluding public sector banks, decreased by GBP 1.6 billion from prior year to GBP 4.8 billion in October. The expected level of budget deficit was GBP 6 billion. The euro was trading in a positive territory against the yen, with the pair worth 117.80. This may be compared to a low of 117.39 hit at 7:15 pm ET. The euro is seen finding resistance around the 122.00 area. Data from the Japan Department Stores Association showed that Japan's department store sales declined for the eight consecutive month in October, though at a slower pace than in the previous month. Department store sales fell 3.9 percent year-over-year in October, following a 5.0 percent decrease in September. The euro recovered to 1.5054 against the kiwi, from its early near 2-week low of 1.5002. On the upside, the euro may locate resistance around the 1.52 level. Looking ahead, at 6:30 am ET, Bank of England MPC Member Kristin Forbes is expected to speak at the JP Morgan Cazenove "Best of British" Conference, in London. In the New York session, Canada retail sales data for September, U.S. existing home sales data for October and U.S. Richmond manufacturing index for November and Eurozone consumer confidence index for November are set to be announced. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Forex News Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. (DPS) announced an agreement to acquire Bai Brands, LLC and its portfolio of premium antioxidant infused beverages. The company said the cash purchase price of $1.7 billion includes a tax benefit of approximately $400 million on a net present value basis. Dr Pepper Snapple Group expects Bai will generate approximately $425 million in net sales in 2017 and add an incremental $132 million to current net sales expectation for 2017. The transaction is expected to be approximately $0.03 dilutive to reported EPS in 2017. The transaction is expected to be accretive to reported EPS in 2018. Bai was founded by beverage industry veteran Ben Weiss in 2009 and has grown rapidly with its products now distributed by Dr Pepper Snapple Group among others. Bai will operate within the Packaged Beverages segment and continue to be led by founder Ben Weiss. Dr Pepper Snapple Group noted that it has no plans to change its existing shareholder dividends and share repurchase distributions. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Canadian stocks look to sustain upward momentum Tuesday, with Toronto's main index starting the day at its highest level in more than a year. Powered by energy stocks, the S&P/TSX Composite Index finished up 175.84 points at 15,039.87, the first close above 15,000 since last June. Crude oil futures leveled off this morning, however, slipping near $47. Profit taking may occur in the energy sector, although optimism over U.S. president-elect Donald Trump's energy policies may help lure investors. In corporate news, Bombardier (BBD.B.TO) won a contract valued at C$331 million ($247.14 million) from Montreal's regional transport authority. George Weston (WN.TO) said its quarterly profit jumped 72% due to a drop in restructuring charges. Yesterday, SunLife (SLF.TO) said it would begin selling life insurance to people who are HIV-positive. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Market Analysis At a high-level United Nations forum under way in the United Arab Emirates aimed at exploring the role of space in socio-economic and sustainable development, former US astronaut Scott Kelly was named as the UN Champion for Space. Kelly holds the record for the most cumulative number of days spent in space by an American astronaut on board the International Space Station. Over the next two years, Kelly, known for his "year in space," will help the UN promote space as a tool for achieving the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). "We are thrilled and honoured to have Mr. Kelly's support as United Nations Champion for Space. In this role, Mr. Kelly will combine his demonstrated passion for making our world a better place with his expertise and experience in space. I look forward to working with Mr. Kelly to bring global attention to the important role that space can play in sustainable development," said Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News Duke Energy Corp (DUK) issued statement related to an agreement between the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio and Duke Energy Beckjord, LLC regarding a 9,000-gallon diesel fuel oil spill into the Ohio River in August 2014. Terms of the agreement include one misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act, a fine of $1 million and a $100,000 contribution to the Foundation for Ohio River Education (FORE). In addition, the company has already reimbursed government and private entities approximately $950,000 for costs incurred in connection with the spill. Duke Energy said it immediately apologized for the oil spill at Beckjord facility in Ohio, took responsibility for the accident and responded quickly in coordination with dozens of state and federal agencies to ensure that people and the environment remained safe and well protected. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Circuit City is now planning to make a comeback in 2017, having postponed its earlier plan to re-launch in June this year, the company's CEO Ronny Shmoel told TWICE. Circuit City existed in a big-box store format from 1984 until 2009, then filed for bankruptcy and liquidated in 2009. IT supplier Systemax bought the brand name after Circuit City's bankruptcy and had used it to sell electronics and media as an online retailer CircuitCity.com, until late December 2012. In October 2015, the brand name and associated intellectual property was sold by Systemax to New York area veteran retailer Ronny Shmoel. Circuit City was planning to make a comeback as an electronics boutique store. Shmoel had earlier projected a June 2016 opening for a Dallas prototype store and the re-launch of CircuitCity.com, with a plan to further expand across the country. However, Shmoel told TWICE that he has postponed the plan on the re-opening of physical stores to work on the store concept. Circuit City has now reportedly dropped its plan to franchise stores and also changed the showroom concept. The planned stores have now been altered from mini stores of 4,000 square feet to mini big boxes of 20,000 square feet. The company is also said to be studying certain retail technologies that will provide a more engaging, personalized and highly curated shopping experience across multiple distribution channels. In addition, the original launch market of Dallas may be reconsidered. At the time of liquidation in 2009, Circuit City was the second largest U.S. electronics retailer after Best Buy Co Inc. (BBY). For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Editors Pick CVS Health Corp. on Wednesday reported a hefty loss in its third quarter on charges, despite higher revenues. Adjusted earnings and revenues topped market estimates. Further, the health insurer trimmed its fiscal 2022 outlook for reported earnings, but raised adjusted earnings view in line or above analysts' estimates. In pre-market activity on the NYSE, CVS shares were gaining around 1 percent. Elon Musk, who is now in charge of Twitter following its $44 billion acquisition, said the social media platform will charge $8 per month for a blue tick verification. In a tweet, he said, "Twitter's current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn't have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month." A federal judge has blocked Publisher Penguin Random House's $2.18 billion merger deal with peer Simon & Schuster citing competition concerns for author payouts, reports said. The ruling comes in favor of the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust challenge that the intended merger would unlawfully curtail competition. Donald Trump has frequently utilized Twitter to attack his political opponents and critics, but the results of a new Quinnipiac University poll found that a majority of American voters think the president-elect should stop tweeting. Fifty-nine percent of voters said Trump should shut down his personal Twitter account, while 35 percent think he should be keep his personal account. Trump recently came under fire for using Twitter to attack the cast of the hit Broadway musical "Hamilton" for delivering a statement directly to Vice President-elect Mike Pence after a recent performance. The billionaire-turned-politician claimed "Hamilton" is highly overrated and demanded the cast and producers of the musical apologize to Pence. Trump also recently used Twitter to attack the New York Times as a "failing" publication that has inaccurately covered him with a nasty tone before meeting with reporters and editors from the paper. "Voters tell President-elect Donald Trump, 'You've got the job. Now be a leader not a tweeter,'" said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. The poll also found that voters have mixed views regarding whether Trump will be a "good" president or a "bad" president. Seventeen percent of voters said Trump will be a "great" president and 32 percent said he will be a "good" president, while 17 percent said he will be "not so good" and 26 percent said he will be "bad." Quinnipiac noted that Trump is also widely seen as a strong and intelligent person with good leadership skills, although most say he is not honest or level-headed. While voters also said Trump will improve the and create jobs, they don't expect him to get Mexico to pay for a border wall or take out the terrorist group known as ISIS. The Quinnipiac survey of 1,071 voters was conducted November 17th through 20th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. (Photo: Gage Skidmore) For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., released a statement Tuesday expressing disappointment with President-elect Donald Trump's pledge to withdraw from the massive free trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump said in a video outlining some of his policy plans that he would pull out of the TPP on his first day in the White House, calling the agreement a "potential disaster for the country." In a statement, McCain said the announcement was anticipated but still a disappointment to those who believe in free trade and the importance of America's strategic role in the Asia-Pacific region. "This decision will forfeit the opportunity to promote American exports, reduce trade barriers, open new , and protect American invention and innovation," McCain said. "And it will create an opening for China to rewrite the economic rules of the road at the expense of American workers," he added. "Already, China is intensifying its push for a new regional trade agreement, which excludes the United States." McCain claimed withdrawing from the TPP will have serious consequences for American workers and American national security. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News James Corden, the host of "The Late Late Show" on CBS, has been announced as the host for the 59th Annual Grammy Awards. The music awards show is scheduled to be broadcast live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California on February 12. Corden will take over hosting duties from actor and hip hop star LL Cool J, who has hosted the Grammy Awards for the past five years. Corden is no stranger to the world of music. The "Carpool Karaoke" segment of "The Late Late Show" has had some of the industry's biggest stars as guests, including Lady Gaga, Adele and Elton John. Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow said of Corden, "the Recording Academy couldn't be more excited to welcome his passion and enthusiasm for music, both as an entertainer and a fan." For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Entertainment 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- I-Net Bridge Construction Corruption: Hammer falls on Auditors who signed off financial statements of JSE-listed construction companies that paid millions to bribe competitors to submit losing bids for tenders. The spotlight has fallen on auditors who signed off financial statements of JSE-listed construction companies that paid millions to bribe competitors to submit losing bids for tenders. These external auditors assured shareholders that there was sufficient evidence to support the financial statements prepared by the firms throughout the years covered by the Competition Commissions investigations. Among the crimes uncovered by the anti-trust watchdog, for which the firms were collectively fined R1.46-billion, were payment of fees to competitors as compensation for submitting dummy bids. These bids allowed a predetermined winner to make the cheapest bid for construction projects. Although the consent agreements ratified by the Competition Tribunal last week did not disclose the amount of fees paid in all cases, those that were disclosed ranged from R500000 to R1.5-million. The commission says these were mostly disguised as plant hire in the financial statements. Yet auditing giants like Ernst & Young, Deloitte and Mazars conducted audits on those companies guilty of paying or receiving losers fees. It is not clear if these amounts and the presumably fake documents used to support them in those firms that hid them under plant hire were not picked up by the auditors or were wilfully ignored. Grinaker-LTA, a subsidiary of listed firm Aveng, was implicated in six cases of paying or receiving losers fees. Those disclosed were a R750000 payment to a consortium led by WBHO, Group Five and Stefanutti Stocks for the Durban International Convention Centre project, and a total payment of R1.5-million to Concor, Murray & Roberts, and Civilcon for a water project in Hartebeesfontein, North West. Grinaker was closely followed by Group Five, another listed giant, with four cases ranging from R750000 to R1-million. Group Five was one of three firms that did not sign any consent agreements as they found the commissions terms hard to accept, but it was implicated by other firms that confessed to the commission. Eduard Jardim, group communications officer at Murray & Roberts, said the company and Concor, which it merged with recently, was implicated only through submissions by competitors. We decided to also include and settle these transgressions based on the admissions of other construction companies, he said. [We] could not find any evidence dating back to 2001 and 2004, respectively, of losers fees being paid, or monies hidden from auditors or any other party for that matter. Esorfranki paid R1-million to Stefanutti Stocks and Bressan to bow out of another project. Invoices were raised by Stefanutti, which we paid as contract expenses, said Bernie Krone, Esorfranki CEO. So nothing was hidden from auditors. Aveng did not respond by Friday afternoon. Asked to explain what happened, auditors for Aveng and Murray & Roberts declined to comment, citing client confidentiality. Mark Snow, Stefanuttis auditor during the time investigated by the commission, is now working for the company as its group risk officer. But the disguising of the losers fees has raised red flags for the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors. We have discussed the issue internally, and identified the industry as a potential risk area in respect of audits, said Bernard Agulhas, the regulators CEO. The taxman is also circling around the construction industry. The SA Revenue Service (SARS) has flagged the industry as the least tax-compliant sector in the economy, according to an April update on its compliance programme, launched last year by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. SARS said in a statement that despite efforts to improve compliance, the industry collectively owed it more than R4-billion in outstanding taxes. There are 129759 outstanding returns, of which over half are VAT-related, it said. The analysis and profiling of companies and individuals that received government tenders resulted in 172 profiled cases, with 88 companies being selected for full audits. It has been suggested the industry might have overstated expenses in hiding losers fees, which would have reduced their fair share of tax. Patrice Rassou, head of equities at Sanlam Investment Management 8.59% shareholder in Group Five said if fraudulent documents were used to disguise losers fees, auditors could not be held responsible. Someone at the company must be held accountable, said Rassou. Auditors will only be held responsible if they knowingly missed something. By SA Commercial Prop News Cape Town is a key attraction for foreign tourists with the favourable currency exchange adding to the city's aesthetic allure. South Africa's Hospitality Industry is gearing up for a bumper festive season and set to benefit from more International and local visitor spending this year. South Africa is having a bumper year for tourism with close to five million tourists having visited the country in the first half of the year. This represents a five percent increase from the same period last year and, as the year draws to a close, even more tourists are arriving. And as the year draws to a close, even more tourists are arriving. Cape Town is a key attraction for foreign tourists with the favourable currency exchange adding to the city's aesthetic allure. "What's also in our favour is the exchange rate. If you look at the international market the exchange rate is the key factor for spend within a destination. Another reason is what visitors say. UK travellers voted Cape Town the best destination in the world," said Enver Duminy of the Cape Town Tourism Authority. Bed and breakfast owners are also having a profitable time. "The numbers are up, considerably on last year, and definitely on the year before. I would say this year, first half of the summer, October November December, turnover is 20% up," said B&B owner Gary Pentland-Smith. The Cape's Tourism Authority says last year's airport arrivals were the highest on record, and this year's figures are expected to be even better. By SA Commercial Prop News High electricity pricing could stunt South African economic growth and impact on its competitiveness, credit insurance group Coface said on Monday. Asking whether SA is doing enough to mitigate the impact of the current power shortage, Coface suggested that alternative energy sources needed to be made a priority to meet demand. "It is likely that SA's electricity woes will continue in the short to medium term. The two new power plants are expected to be completed in 2013/2014. This follows a general rule of thumb that it takes approximately eight years to build a coal fired power plant," Coface senior ratings analysts Luke Marowitz said. Current trials are underway on solar power, and there are talks of nuclear power becoming a viable option again, though the lead time to construct a nuclear power plant is much the same as coal. "Economic growth is likely to be stunted until such time as the energy crisis is resolved. There is an opportunity for government to work with privately run energy producers to assist in the alleviation of energy demand, thereby supporting economic growth," said Marowitz. The latest CPI figures released for August have all but put a hold on an expected rate cut at the end of the year. A large component of the CPI is housing and utilities. This figure comprises five sub-sectors: actual rentals for housing; owners' equivalent rent; maintenance and repair; water and other services; and electricity and other fuels. One of the major reasons for this particular sector contributing so much to the final 5.3% August year-on-year CPI figure for is the increase in electricity prices. "A major concern for the local economy is the effect these continued price increases will have on the competitiveness of SA. Considering the already stringent labour legislation South African companies face and the uncertainty in the exchange rate, the increase in electricity could not come at a worse time," said Marowitz. Comparatively, the price of 1kWh of electricity in the US is US$0.112c whereas the same unit would cost US$0.171c in SA. This is further exacerbated by the fact that China sells renewable energy for a price of US$0.16c per kWh. "Not only is it cheaper, its greener too. Considering the fact that renewable energy is considered more expensive to produce, is SA doing enough to combat the current power shortage," Marowitz asked. The lack of infrastructure in Africa is also a concern. The entire continent has the same power generation capacity as Germany and lack of investment in this area has resulted in insufficient production and poor maintenance of the current infrastructure. Marowitz said improvement to this vital sector of the economy and further development would have far reaching consequences for the growth of the continent. "Recent investments in mining across Africa will count for nothing if the power required to run these numerous operations is not available," he said. A first-of-its-kind journey along India and Pakistan border What binds the two most talked about nations - India and Pakistan together? What makes the New county jail halfway through construction Construction is at its halfway mark at the new county jail. The Saline County Commission toured the site Tuesday. The pledge by President-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to swiftly repeal the Affordable Care Act -- followed by months or even years of deliberation over a replacement is no doubt troubling news to many of the roughly 20 million Obamacare beneficiaries. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have vowed to jam through legislation as early as January to dismantle the heart of President Obamas signature 2010 health insurance program, while leaving the question of precisely how they would replace it and when that new system would be put in place unanswered. Related: GOP Cuts in Medicare May Be Next After Dismantling Obamacare But the GOPs crusade to finally destroy Obamacare has the health care industry in an uproar, with strong indications that major insurers could accelerate their departure from the ACA exchanges. At the same time, hospital administrators are in a panic, fearing that they will incur massive financial losses if millions of Americans lose their health care coverage under Obamacare or expanded Medicaid. To be clear, Obamacare already is reeling from a high profile exodus of major insurers, including Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and Blue Cross-Blue Shield, which suffered millions of dollars in losses during the first few years of the programs operation. But health care experts and state insurance administrators say that insurers would have even less incentive to stick around beyond the upcoming 2017 season without knowing precisely what to expect at the end of the transition. "The discussion right now about repeal and replacement is making the market very, very nervous," Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, a Democrat, said at a press conference last week organized by the liberal Center for American Progress. "I would not be surprised to see the potential for a stampede to exit the market." CAP officials contend that even if the Republicans delay the effective date of repeal as part of expedited budget legislation in January, that approach would still cause massive disruption and chaos in the individual market for health insurance and a complete unraveling of the market by the end of 2017. Story continues Related: Five Things Trump Wants to Do That Liberals Would Love Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell predicted in an interview with The Huffington Post on Monday that health insurers would abandon the Obamacare markets in droves by 2018 if they dont know how Republicans intend to replace the system. She said that the GOP leaderships current strategy of postponing the effective date of the repeal to give the incoming Trump administration and Republicans time to devise an alternative would do nothing to calm the insurance companies jittery nerves. This idea of repeal and wait two years to replace that is repeal, Burwell said. The uncertainty that gets created for consumers, for insurers, for states by having that is very, very damaging. While major insurers may continue to retreat from the Obamacare market to avoid more losses down the road, the biggest loser may be the hospital industry, which counted on a major expansion in business with a flood of newly insured patients under Obamacare and Medicaid. Charles Kahn, chief executive of the Federation of American Hospitals, told Kaiser Health News this week that his industry was caught by surprise by Trumps victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton and that the working assumption had been that we had a program that wasnt going anywhere. Related: Ryan Declares GOP Has a Mandate to Enact Sweeping Changes As part of the negotiations that led to passage of Obamacare, hospitals agreed to substantial cuts in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for seniors and the poor, with the expectation that those cuts would be more than offset by increases in the volume of paying customers who were newly insured. If that expanded insurance coverage now begins to fade away, Kahn indicated, those cuts in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements will have to be restored or else the hospitals will take a substantial financial beating. Sheryl R. Skolnick, director of research at Mizuho Securities USA, warned clients Tuesday to avoid investing in hospitals because of the growing uncertainty over the future of the health care system. She said in a note that the combination of a repeal of Obamacare and a likely GOP overhaul of Medicare and Medicaid makes hospitals dangerous ground for investing. Even as they have pressed for over six years to undermine Obamacare, House and Senate Republicans have been unable to come close to agreement on a replacement package. Trump, Ryan and House Budget Committee Chair Tom Price (R-GA) have offered differing approaches that rely largely on market forces, tax credits, enhanced inter-state competition and encouraging more employers to provide coverage. Trump said recently that he would favor preserving portions of Obamacare, including keeping children on their parents policies until they turn 26 and the ban on insurers discriminating against people with chronic health problems. But some, including Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chair of Health, Education and Labor Committee, warn that it will take many more years perhaps beyond Trumps first term to finally reach a consensus on the future of the U.S. health care system. Related: Obamacare Suffers Another Big Blow as Aetna Pulls Out of 11 States Joseph Antos, a health care expert with the American Enterprise Institute, said Wednesday that insurers and hospital administrators may be jumping the gun in their angst-ridden reaction to an emerging GOP policy. Its premature, Antos said. Trump hasnt named his chief health people yet, so until that happens, we really would have a hard time doing anything other than speculate about what might happen. All of this talk about a quick repeal and then waiting two years to replace leaves out what happens during the intervening two years, he added. And the one thing Trump has actually said is he doesnt want to have any gaps. So that implies to me, at least, pretty much a steady-as-you-go in terms of financing health insurance until the new system whatever that specifically means is ready to go on line. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: A Medical delegation from Guangdong Province in China has been helping Samoa for the past two days. Working with the National Health Services at Motootua, the delegation also donated equipment for the national hospital. According to Dr. Hai Rihan and Professor Zhang Xinyu, the visit was part of a partnership between Samoa and hospitals in Guangdong province. The programme started in 2012 but this is the first time they have had a delegation visit Samoa and do practical work on patients here. The delegation included a Cardiologist specialist, Ophthalmologist specialists and a team of Physicians. Chinese treatment widely known as acupuncture, which is used to deal with back pain, joint pains and other ailments, was also introduced to the hospital. Dr. Hai said she treated many local patients on Monday and the feedback was very positive. They came back today and said the pain is gone, and they feel much better, said Dr. Hai. Although it was just a two-day visit, it has been very positive. We are coming back again and we will stay longer to treat more patients. Professor Zhang, who is an Optometrist specialist, said this was her second time in Samoa. We are looking forward to come back and staying longer. Because there is a waiting list of more than 100 patients who need treatment. The team is heading to Vanuatu before they return home to China. Yesterday was a day of celebration for Samoa Primary School, thanks to some great gifts from Australia. Twelve computers, a projector, electronic whiteboard and four iPads were part of 20ft container full of resources gathered by four Christian schools in Queensland Australia and sent to Samoa. The donation was organised by Australian teacher, Don Waterson, who personally brought over the gifts with his team from Australia. I have been a teacher for about 50 years. I love teaching and I love students; it is my passion, Mr. Waterson told the school. I was a headmaster for many years. Why do we bring these goods to you? Samoa has given me so much. My daughter has gotten a husband with a very good standard of living, I have got three wonderful grandchildren and I have been coming here for over 20 years and the Samoans have been very friendly. Samoa has given me a lot. So I thought to myself, its time to give something back to Samoa. Mr. Waterson then explained how the resources were brought together. So because I am a teacher and I know a lot of teachers in Australia, I phoned up four Christian schools and said some of the students in Samoa need the resources, he said. So they gave some resources. We collected a big 20ft container and brought it over to you. Last week I came over to the Samoa Primary school and went over to the staff room. I had a look at the school and said to the teachers and I asked them what they needed and they said 12 computers. Mr. Waterson also mentioned that he will be doing checkups to make sure that the school will make the most of the resources they received. Equipment was also given to a number of government schools in both Upolu and Savai'i. The reconstruction of the Maota Fono at Mulinuu is well underway with the foundation of the building nearing completion. The building has been designed by a consultant team led by Manteena Australia and is being constructed by Craig Construction Limited. Project Manager, Daniel Nazdin, of Manteena says they have completed extensive work operations to provide a strong and stable base for the structure. We have made significant progress in placing the concrete foundations, beams and slabs, with concrete columns and walls to be going in after the new year, he said. We will start seeing progress on the steel roof structure by March-April 2017. Thats when the new building will finally become visible over the construction fence. Mr. Nazdin also commended the local contractors, Craig Construction Limited, for the high standard of work. The building meets the Samoan Building Code and relevant Australian and New Zealand Construction Standards. It takes into account climate resilience and occupational health and safety guidelines. The government of Australia is funding the project with support from the government of Samoa. Australias High Commissioner, Sue Langford, said she was pleased with the progress so far, which was discussed at bilateral talks between Australia and Samoa recently. This important project is testament to the strong relationship between Australia and Samoa. The company leasing the Returned Services Association (R.S.A) building is facing a lawsuit from the Returned Services Association of Western Samoa Incorporated. R.S.A. Inc. is taking the Tatiana Investment Company Limited to Court claiming its lease is overdue and owes the Association more than $80,000. However, a counter claim from Tatiana Limited claims the R.S.A. Inc. owes the company $240,000 for upgrading the building. The matter was called in the Supreme Court on Monday. Leota Raymond Schuster is representing the Tatiana Company. Travis Lamb is the lawyer for R.S.A. Inc. Justice Vui Clarence Nelson presided. Mr. Lamb told the Court he had served application on statutory demand last Thursday and statement of defense on counter claim. He argued that the respondent had filed an application to set aside the statutory demand out of time in terms of Companies Act. However, Leota argued that time was not an issue and deny any liability. Justice Vui reminded Leota that if its not an issue he needs to provide valid grounds and document to substantiate his argument. Justice Vui then adjourned the matter until 5th December for respondent hear the preliminary issues. After cyclone Ofa and Val in 1990 the Tatiana company took over the R.S.A. building and turned it into a night club that is now known as R.S.A. IRBIL, Iraq (AP) Iraqi troops gained a foothold Tuesday in another neighborhood in the northern city of Mosul after fierce battles against Islamic State militants dug in behind heavy fortifications, according to a top Iraqi commander. A new analysis, meanwhile, has found that there is a high risk that IS will deploy chemical weapons against Mosul civilians or Iraqi troops fighting to retake the city. According to IHS Markit, the extremist group has used chemical weapons at least 52 times in Iraq and Syria since 2014, including 19 times in the Mosul area alone. Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil, of the Iraqi special forces, told The Associated Press that IS fighters were firing rockets and mortars as his forces "cautiously" advanced in the densely populated Zohour neighborhood. "There are too many civilians still living there," he said. Iraqi troops began their siege of Zohour on Sunday as they fortified their positions in neighborhoods already retaken in eastern Mosul. Suicide bombings, sniper fire and concerns over the safety of civilians there are 1 million still in Mosul have combined to slow down progress in the campaign to liberate the city, which began Oct. 17. Mosul is Iraq's second-largest city and the largest to have fallen to the militants. Most gains in the campaign so far have been made by the special forces operating east of the Tigris River. Other forces, including the Kurdish peshmerga and volunteer Sunni militiamen, are advancing on the city from different directions, and the U.S.-led coalition is providing airstrikes and other support. A coalition airstrike on Monday destroyed a major bridge over the Tigris in the southern part of Mosul, cutting IS supply lines to the east bank, where most of the fighting is taking place. The coalition has destroyed three bridges in Mosul, and Iraqi officers said the two remaining bridges in the city are also likely to be hit. They spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters. The Iraqi troops are expected to use U.S.-made pontoon bridges when they need to cross the Tigris later in the campaign. IS captured Mosul in a matter of days in the summer of 2014, when it swept across northern and central Iraq. IHS Markit, a London-based intelligence analysis firm, says the extremists later used the city as a center for the production of chemical weapons. The experts believe IS moved the materials and its chemical weapons specialists out of Mosul ahead of the Iraqi offensive, but may still use crude chemical weapons like chlorine and mustard agents as the troops press deeper into the city. Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari meanwhile told reporters during a visit to Budapest that 1,700 militants have been killed and 120 captured since the battle for Mosul began. A third of Ninevah province, where Mosul is the capital, has been liberated so far, he said, adding that progress in the city has been slowed by the militants' use of human shields. He said that because of Iraq's "extraordinary situation," it would need to increase its crude oil output, which provides 90 percent of state revenues, and be exempt from OPEC quotas. A hero and an explorer told their stories at the 2016 Celebration of Life Dinner held by Biocom, the San Diego-based life science trade group. The hero: Stephanie Decker, the events patient-advocate speaker. She lost most of both legs in shielding her two young children as her house collapsed. Thanks to advanced prosthetics, which enabled her to stand as she spoke at last weeks dinner, she has recovered her mobility. The explorer: keynote speaker Rob Knight, a UC San Diego professor known internationally for his research on the human microbiome the universe of microbes in and on people and its influence on health. Advertisement Their stories reflect how biomedical research and the products resulting from that research can improve lives. And they gave a theme to Biocoms superhero-inspired dinner, which was attended by 700 people, up from 650 last year. Biocom itself is growing, Joe Panetta, its president and CEO, told the audience before the speeches. Biocom has grown to 825 members, with an office in downtown Los Angeles and a presence in San Francisco. Its the largest statewide life-science association in the country, he said. Battling back To provide some motivation for the coming year, Decker described how she was able to rebuild her life thanks to biomedical science. Deckers journey into an unknown world began on March 2, 2012, when tornadoes tore through her town of Henryville, Ind. Two of them smashed her house, raining down debris. She shielded her 8-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter with her body. The children walked away without a scratch, Decker said. For her, it was a different story. Her legs were crushed and partially severed under the cascade of debris. Decker sent her children away to get help while she stayed trapped until an ambulance arrived. I had this overwhelming urge to close my eyes to take away the pain, Decker said. But there was something that said, You cant close your eyes, you cant go into shock You cant go to sleep, you may not wake up. Fear of her children growing up without a mother, and her husband without a wife, kept her going. Decker left the hospital as a double amputee left leg severed above the knee, right leg severed below the knee. She immediately began to fight to get back what she had lost. She learned of the prosthetics developed for amputee veterans, not yet available to civilians. So she reached out all the way to President Barack Obama to plead her case. Hats off to our soldiers. They absolutely deserve it first, Decker described her plea. But why dont I deserve it? I want to be able to run with my kids. I want to be able to get my prostheses wet. Decker eventually got her wish. And she urged the dinner guests to continue their work, to help others get their life back as she did. Thats a gift that you have in all that you do scientists, doctors, engineers, manufacturers, companies. All these devices improve lives, and I am absolute proof of that. More information about Decker and her work in helping the disabled recover can be found at www.stephaniedecker.com. Microbes inside Speaking after Decker, UC San Diegos Knight described some findings about the microbiome, such as how its linked to a persons health, how it can turn bad and how it might be corrected to restore proper health. Characteristic populations of microbes inhabit specific areas of the body, Knight said, using a light touch of humor. These include the mouth, the skin, the vaginal community, the fecal community sorry to do this to you at the dinner, he said as the audience laughed. Its almost like different continents on this microbial map. One of the great questions about managing the microbiome to improve health is whether correlations of changed microbes with diseases truly indicate a causal relationship. Knight said that relationship has been increasingly well-established with the fecal microbiome and even obesity. The foods we eat influence our microbiome, which in turn influences weight, Knight said. Fries make you gain weight, while yogurt is the best food for weight loss. But the effect is surprisingly small. For every extra serving of yogurt every day, the average weight loss was a little bit over a kilo (2.2 pounds) every year, Knight said. What it means is that every day you virtuously give up a serving of fries and instead you eat a serving of yogurt, on average you would expect that to make a difference of only two pounds. Biocom also honored organizations and individuals that contributed to the life sciences. The Community Partner of the Year award went to UC San Diego. The James McGraw Distinguished Contribution Award went to Jennifer Cayer, Mark Wiggins, Jim Schaeffer and Igor Bilinsky. They are the co-founders and co-chairs of the annual Biocom Global Life Science Partnering Conference. That conference will take place March 1 at The Lodge at Torrey Pines. bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1020 Yucca Mountain is back on the bargaining table on Capitol Hill. And if the nuclear waste repository in Nevada gets back on track and thats a big if, considering the controversial site has been debated for going on 40 years and six presidential administrations it could provide a destination for the 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste now beached at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. There will almost certainly be efforts to reintroduce legislation that would re-start the Yucca process, said David Victor, chairman of the Community Engagement Panel, which acts as a liaison between the public and the operators at San Onofre. Advertisement Whats interesting is this is not a normal left-right (political) issue. Located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Yucca Mountain at one time was determined to be the best site to deposit the nations nuclear waste, which has now reached more than 70,000 metric tons at some 120 sites across the country. The site was slated to open in 2017. But Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, who loathed the idea of storing waste in his home state, became the Senate Majority Leader after the 2006 elections. During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama said Yucca Mountain was an expensive failure and should be abandoned. The Obama administration cut off funding for Yucca Mountain in 2010. But Reid is retiring from the Senate in January and the Obama administration is on its way out as the administration of President-elect Donald Trump comes in. That has led to speculation that Yucca Mountain which has already cost taxpayers between $9 billion to $15 billion could be revived and re-funded. The view from the top of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility in Nevada. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times ) Trump has not taken a position on Yucca but last month during a campaign stop in Nevada, he said he was going to take a look at it. A report from Bloomberg News on Nov. 14 cited two people familiar with Trumps transition planning who said reopening Yucca Mountain is being actively discussed by advisers. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Illinois, considered to be in line to become chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has long maintained that Yucca Mountain represents the fastest, best and most viable solution for storing waste. Should the Yucca Mountain debate return to the halls of Congress, Victor said its best chance for survival would come if it is combined with another potential nuclear waste solution: consolidated interim storage. Under consolidated storage, sites would be built in isolated locations like the desert where multiple plants could deposit their waste. A combination of Democrats and Republicans many of them anxious to get waste shipped out of their home states have introduced legislation to help clear the way for consolidated storage. One site in West Texas and another in eastern New Mexico have been mentioned as potential destinations for San Onofres waste and could open as early as the 2020s a short time period by nuclear waste timetables if they can clear a series of daunting political and regulatory hurdles. I think you can get a bigger coalition by linking Yucca to consolidated storage, said Victor, who is also a professor of international relations at UC San Diego. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, echoed those remarks last Wednesday. We have tried year after year to get a pilot waste program, Feinstein said at a Senate subcommittee hearing. We know there are people who want to build it, a waste facility, because even if Yucca went ahead, Yucca would be filled. Feinstein has co-sponsored nuclear waste legislation with two Republicans and another Senate Democrat. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, has also co-sponsored a bill to find alternative sites for nuclear waste. The San Onofre nuclear plant is in Issas congressional district. Obviously we would love it if we had a permanent site, especially one that had so much time and money spent on it, Issa told the Union-Tribune on Friday. But if Congress reopens the question, we shouldnt open it with a prejudice that it must be good. And we shouldnt allow the prejudice that Harry Reid always had that it must be bad. The in-between is putting together the proper balance of pros and cons and have it fairly and scientifically re-evaluated. Issa is involved in a tight re-election race with Democrat Doug Applegate that has election officials in San Diego and Orange counties still counting remaining ballots. The Union-Tribune attempted to get reaction from Applegate regarding Yucca Mountain but multiple phone calls to his campaign did not produce any comment. The issue is of particular importance to California, where more than 3,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel is stranded. Victor was quick to point out that efforts to reach a political solution on Yucca Mountain could end up on the back-burner as other policies promoted by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate take center stage. There are going to be other things that are going to be much higher on their list Obamacare, for one, Victor said. Those are going to be very complicated issues that could really suck the oxygen out of the legislative process. And Victor noted that even if a deal on nuclear waste is reached on Capitol Hill, there is still a regulatory process that has be navigated. Congress cant legislate Yucca to open, Victor said. Congress can restart the process of Yucca going through all the regulatory approvals, which it is nearly done with, but not completely. That does not insulate Yucca from all sorts of local problems and possible changes in administrations in the future. rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski ALSO Why San Onofres nuclear waste stays on the beach Judge allows San Onofre waste lawsuit to advance Pro nuclear green group: Bring back San Onofre The 2-year-old S&M Sausage & Meat, known for its provocative name, exotic game meats and the occasional animal rights protest, is closing for good this week. The Hillcrest restaurant announced on its Facebook page news of the impending closure, just nine days after hosting its second anniversary party. The last day of service will be Wednesday. This restaurant was more than a brick and mortar business where food and beverage was provided, it became a community beacon for the adventurous foodie and gathering spot in an otherwise vacant strip of Park Blvd., read the message. Advertisement While not directly referencing the periodic picketing that targeted the restaurant, the owners thanked its diners for standing with us while others feel they could attack. For the first month after it opened in 2014, a small group of animal-rights activists holding Meat is Murder signs would picket weekly. The restaurants bacon- and sausage-laden menu, not to mention its logo depicting a hog on its back, feet in the air and an apple in the mouth, seemed to make it a lightning rod for the anti-animal cruelty crowd. The S&M pickets, while not officially organized by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, had the support of the national animal rights group. Although it would not take credit for the restaurant closing, PETA said it was buoyed by the news. Meat pimps will soon be a thing of the past, the organization said in a statement. Its no surprise that a restaurant serving kangaroo hotlinks and fried pig ears is going out of business, while hot new vegan burgers such as the Beyond Burger and Impossible Burger are selling out in stores and restaurants all over the country. Asked whether the occasional protests played any role at all in the restaurants closing, co-owner Scott Slater said absolutely not. S&M in fact capitalized on the attention it got, employing some cheeky marketing. No way did PETA hurt the business, said Slater, who also owns Slaters 50/50, known for its half-beef, half-bacon burgers. Whenever they showed up it was our best night. Why? Consider the Twitter posts with the hashtag, freebaconwhenpetashowsup. There was also the PETA barbecue post that chided, People Eating Tasty Animals. Join us as we roast a whole suckling pig. Slater said he preferred not to comment on why a decision was made to close the restaurant. lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-2251 Twitter:@loriweisberg Giant malls, big box outlets and Amazon may beckon, but this year, San Diego will out-rank all other cities when it comes to shopping at locally based retailers. Thats according to Yelp, an online forum for rating local businesses that for three years has assembled a list of the top 20 cities in the country for shopping local. With the holiday shopping season about to shift into high gear, Yelp on Tuesday released its list of those cities that it says are the best for finding local gifts. After isolating stores that are not a part of retail chains and limiting reviews to only those authored by locals and that included the word gift, Yelp created a gifting score. The top-ranked cities represent those with the largest concentrations of highly rated retailers. Advertisement Yelp is really committed to supporting local businesses so we thought it would be really interesting to see the top cities for shopping locally, said Hannah Cheesman, a spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Yelp. The whole idea is to look at all of the businesses that people shop at during the holidays, so we excluded some places like vape shops, mattress shops, a garage door store, guns and ammo, adult stores. Last year, San Diego didnt even make the top 20 ranking, but because this is the first year Yelp included surf and skateboard shops in the shopping mix, that may account, in part, for this years No. 1 ranking, she said. Another factor that may have worked in San Diegos favor is that Yelp limited the reviews to just those from locals. San Diego shop owner Brian Beevers, whose roots in local retailing run deep, says hes a little mystified as to why San Diego would rise to the top in Yelps list. He runs several local farmers markets and owns a North Park shop, Simply Local, that showcases the work of local artists. It kind of baffles me but I think it might be that we have great weather year round, so we can support farmers markets year round and we have craft fairs all year long, said Beevers, whose store sells everything from custom T-shirts and body care products to craft beer-branded goods. I always considered San Diego as a place that didnt have people who would think of supporting small businesses over shopping at a large store. But its a pleasant thing for me to hear. Similarly perplexed is Brian Miller, owner of San Diego-based toy store chain, Geppettos, which has nine outlets in the county and takes pains to market its stores as locally based. In advertisements, well use a tagline that says A local San Diego toy tradition for over 40 years, said Miller, whose revenues during the month before Christmas account for 20 percent of the chains volume for the entire year. We also post something in the store -- the story about my company and how were so appreciative to the local, loyal customer. Con Yeager (left) and his daughter Jessi ponder a purchase of Nkuto Organics shea butter at North Parks Simply Local, which showcases the wares of local artisans. (Eduardo Contreras/San Diego Union-Tribune ) He noted that while there are a lot of shoppers who make their purchase decisions based solely on pricing, he finds there is still a good percentage of consumers who place a premium on supporting local businesses and appreciate the enhanced customer service that comes with that. To distinguish ourselves, we offer complimentary gift wrapping and shopping advice, which you dont get online, and most of our stores are in neighborhoods where customers are very local and their visits are more frequent, observed Miller. Jessica Effress, a mother of three, is one of those loyal customers, having regularly shopped at the La Jolla toy store for the last 11 years. She will shop online, but Geppettos is her go-to store for birthday party gifts. We like locally owned restaurants, and I like to shop at Warwicks bookstore, Effress said. I just think local businesses define the character of the community. At Geppettos, the staff is always really helpful, and they always know the latest, coolest toy for kids at all ages. The increasing popularity of San Diegos still gentrifying central city neighborhoods like South Park and North Park is no doubt fueling the appeal and growth of local retailers, suspects Brad Bohensky, Yelps community director in San Diego. Its the revival of these neighborhoods thats a testament to why these local shops may be doing well, Bohensky said. In Golden Hill 10, 15 years ago, people were leaving but now younger generations are coming back and theres this new awesome vibe. Barbara Blake, who oversees the Greater San Diego Business Association, a chamber that works on behalf of LGBT businesses, said local business districts have done a great job marketing their neighborhood commercial nodes. As an example, she pointed to South Parks quarterly walkabout where businesses stay open late at night to showcase their offerings. More and more, San Diego is becoming a city of walkable communities, so we can live in places like South Park and walk wherever we want without getting in our cars, said Blake, originally from Boston. In Boston, we became very loyal to our neighborhoods, and now you see that happening in San Diego. Top 5 cities to shop local in 2016 1. San Diego 2. Austin 3. Denver 4. Reno 5. Seattle lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-2251 Twitter: @loriweisberg San Jose-based Orchard Supply Hardware will open its first San Diego County store next week at the long-vacant corner of Navajo Road and Lake Murray Boulevard in San Carlos. An empty building that once housed the now defunct Fed-Mart and a Ralphs grocery story was torn down earlier this year and building started in earnest in the spring. OSH, as it is also known, has its nearest Southern California stores in Irvine and Mission Viejo. The retail hardware company, since 2013 under the Lowes company umbrella, has more than 80 stores throughout California and Oregon. Orchard Supply Hardware focuses on paint, repair and the backyard. It began as as a non-profit cooperative in 1931. Advertisement The store, which opens on Nov. 29, is at the border of El Cajon in the city of San Diego at 8780 Navajo Road, but is a member of the La Mesa Chamber of Commerce. Regular store hours are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday. Mary England, chamber CEO, said there will be a ribbon cutting at 6 p.m. at the store on Dec. 8. A grand opening is also set for Dec. 10, said store manager Shane Holly. This is our first time in San Diego and thanks to the warm welcome weve received, we already feel like were part of the community, Holly said. We look forward to helping the community with all of their hardware and home project needs. OSH is expanding further, according to its website. They will open new stores later this year in Rolling Hills and Culver City. Another store set to open next year in Hollywood. Hundreds of kids of all ages lined the streets of downtown El Cajon on Sunday for the 70th annual Mother Goose Parade. Giant helium balloons including the goose from Mother Goose, a scaled down version of the Midway ship, a penguin, a shark and a nutcracker were carried by dozens of people marching down Main Street from El Cajon Boulevard to First Street. Six-year-old Samiah Bullock was all eyes as she watched the floats, equestrians, Santa Claus and marching bands stroll by. Advertisement The kindergarten student came down from Camarillo in Ventura County with her mother, Krystle Shannon, to meet up with her father Jason Bullock, a U.S. Navy veteran who lives in El Cajon. I like it because of the (balloons) like the nutcracker and the penguin, Samiah said in between bites of candy. I like all the balloons, the way they float up in the air, and they look pretty. Nearly 100 participants took part in the parade, including Grand Marshal Mark Grant, the former San Diego Padres pitcher and current TV broadcaster, and honorary grand marshals Shotgun Tom Kelly and Ken Kramer. Sen. Joel Anderson and about 20 interns marched by foot. Anderson said he thought the parade might be the only place to see synchronized trash can dancing by Waste Management employees. This parade is a jewel of East County, Anderson said. Im grateful the community comes together for this, it brings a lot of joy to people. The parade bills itself as the largest parade in San Diego County, and the largest of its type west of the Mississippi. It is always held the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Grant had never been to the parade and, like Kelly and Kramer, he sat in the back seat of classic convertibles smiling and waving to fans who called their names. To be part of an event that is so rich in tradition, in a great city like El Cajon, was a joy to experience, Grant said. What stood out to me was seeing the families and the smiles on all the kids faces. It was awesome to see them having a good time. Construction has started on the new hospital tower on the campus of Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center. Local elected officials, community members and dignitaries gathered for a ground-breaking event Nov. 10 to celebrate the nearly $245 million next-generation hospital for South County residents. Sharp Chula Vista is at the center of one of the countys fastest growing regions, which means more and more people count on us for care each year, said Pablo Velez, hospital CEO and senior vice president. Over the last 70 years, Sharp has broken ground on many exciting projects and each one has raised the bar for health care. Advertisement The new tower is expected to open in 2019 to serve the South Bays 480,000-plus population. The seven-floor tower will have 138 private patient rooms, including 10 intensive care rooms, six operating rooms, a rooftop cafe with panoramic views and a room for visitors to spend the night, among other features. The tower will be built on the northeastern edge of the existing hospital campus, connecting to the rest of the hospital on its first and second floors. The new hospital will have state-of-the-art diagnostic imaging equipment in operating rooms. Velez said this allows surgeons to collaborate with other specialists, such as radiologists, during surgery and make assessments using real-time images. The design-build team for the project includes Hensel Phelps, SmithGroupJJR and AVRP Studios. What really makes this project special is that so many of the craftsmen on the project call the South Bay home and utilize Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center for their health care needs, says Damian Buessing, director of operations at Hensel Phelps. Their hard work will help create a place of healing that will serve their families and the community for generations to come. The City Council in October approved a height variance from 45 feet to 120 feet for the tower. Within the last decade, Sharp has expanded its hospital, including: Its emergency room ($12 million), from 20 beds to 48 beds The Douglas and Nancy Barnhart Cancer Center ($36 million) New parking structure ($16 million) with 718 parking stalls, enough for the existing campus and the expansion Sharp HealthCares new tower is the largest single investment to date and is being funded through philanthropic donations to Sharp HealthCare Foundation, bonds, cash reserves, the Medi-Cal Hospital Fee Program and a $50 million fundraising campaign. While construction continues on a long-awaited shopping center at the corner of Ninth Street and Palm Avenue in Imperial Beach, the developer and some residents are at odds over a newly proposed tenant. Construction began in May on the 45,000-square-foot Breakwater Town Center, a public/private partnership between Sudberry Properties, LLC and Imperial Beach. The five-acre site extends over a three-block area on state Route 75/Palm Avenue. So far its slated for a Grocery Outlet, Starbucks, T-Mobile, Baskin Robbins and Chipotle, among others. Advertisement And now, a proposed hotel. Zoning for the property is mixed-use, which includes residential and therefore, hotels. The project still must get approval from a design review board and City Council, for which neither meetings are yet scheduled. Residents will be able to provide more input at those meetings. RELATED: I.B. shopping center breaks ground City officials say Sudberry informed the city in July that it wanted to build a four-story hotel instead of more retail. The news was relayed to residents during a community meeting later that month, and the response was mostly negative. At a Nov. 17 meeting, attended by about 50 people, the reaction was similar. Residents living near the project site and others voiced concerns about lack of privacy due to its proximity to a single-family residential neighborhood. They also cited building height, graffiti, alley traffic and general safety issues. Estean Lenyoun, a partner with Sudberry, said theres a demand in the city for a quality hotel thats not on the beach. What we kept hearing was (people wanted) first-class but moderately priced and affordable, he said. Colton Sudberry, president of Sudberry Properties, said the hotel would be a business-select type hotel to the likes of a Fairfield Inn & Suites by the Marriott. In June, a community needs assessment conducted by the city ranked resident priorities. The No. 1 response was a swimming pool, which the hotel would have along with other amenities. Lenyoun said that privacy issues have been addressed with fencing and landscaping and the fact that the hotel does not have balconies. Isabella Hartley, 35, who attended Thursdays meeting with her husband Justin, has lived in her home on Donax for 33 years. She said she feels like the city is losing its small town feel. She described a host of issues with the project. They included less safety and privacy, more traffic and just an overall sense that a hotel would ruin the small town atmosphere by bringing in too many strangers. Also, construction related to the project has closed Palm Avenue heading west at Seventh and Old Palm since May. Hartley said the detours have caused speeding motorists to cut through residential streets with no temporary stop signs or speed bumps installed in the meantime. The Hartleys have two kids, 9 and 11, who skate and bike to school. Donax and Delaware has become Highway 75, she said. My kids have almost been hit. Theres no police presence, no monitoring. City Manager Andy Hall said city staff went to the site Friday and are planning to make the intersection of Donax Avenue and Seventh Street safer, potentially with a temporary stop sign. Its really dangerous right now, he said. Lenyoun empathized. Were frustrated, too, he said. We want to get this done yesterday. Hall said it appears unlikely that the hotel proposal would go before the design review board this year. Kanye West was reported to be under observation at a Los Angeles area hospital late Monday afternoon, following the sudden cancellation earlier in the day of all 21 of his remaining The Saint Pablo concert tour dates. The hospitalization was reported by NBC News and TMZ. NBC cited multiple authorities familiar with the case. According to an unnamed NBC source familiar with the case, Los Angeles police responded to what was described as a medical welfare call around 1:20 p.m. Monday. There was no criminal activity involved, according to the source, and Wests hospitalization was apparently made for his own health and safety. Advertisement West may have been suffering from sleep deprivation, according to a TMZ source, who said West had to be restrained while being taken to an as yet unidentified hospital. There has been no comment as yet from Wests representatives. No reason was given for the abrupt Monday cancellation of Wests tour. The decision to abort the tour followed the sudden cancellation of his Sunday night show at the Los Angeles Forum, which was called off just three hours before its scheduled start time. This in turn followed the abrupt end of his Saturday night show in Sacramento, which ended when he walked off stage just three songs after it began. But before the Saturday concerts quick conclusion, West ranted on stage at among others Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Jay Z and Beyonce. Ive been sent here to give yall my truth, even at the risk of my own life, West told his Sacramento audience. At the risk of my own success. Ill give yall the truth. Jay Z, call me, you still aint called me. Jay Z, I know you got killers. Please dont send them at my head. Just call me. Talk to me like a man. Following the sudde n cancellation of his Sunday Los Angeles concert, West posted 99 caption-less photos on his Instagram page showing items from the Paris-based fashion house Maison Margiela. Why he did so is unclear. He has previously stated that he would only join Instagram under the condition no one can ask me or try to tell me what to Instagram. Its my art. West, 39, was booed Thursday night at his San Jose concert, after telling his fans that had he voted Nov. 8 he would have cast his ballot for Donald Trump. Tickets for his canceled dates on his tour, which bypassed San Diego, can be refunded at point of purchase. Twitter @georgevarga george.varga@sduniontribune.com The Navys largest, most technologically advanced and expensive destroyer is laid up in a Panama dock after suffering a slew of engineering issues, according to a statement from U.S. Third Fleet commander Vice Adm. Nora Tyson. She ordered the $4 billion, stealthy and sleek guided-missile warship Zumwalt to delay its journey to its home port of San Diego so a timeline for repairs can be determined by officials at Naval Sea Systems and Naval Surface Forces. Tyson cautioned that this schedule for analysis and repairs of the Zumwalt, the lead ship in its class, will remain flexible to ensure the vessel and its crew of 147 sailors can arrive in San Diego safely. Advertisement The latest mechanical snafu occurred while the Zumwalt was transiting the Panama Canal, the Third Fleet said late Monday. Officials hesitated to pinpoint the cause of the glitch, but it appears to involve the propulsion system. Both civilian and Navy experts are speeding to the vessel to diagnose the problem. Originally planned for a production run of 32 ships, the nearly $23 billion Zumwalt-class program has been scaled back to only three vessels. In September, the Navy discovered seawater leaking into the Zumwalts lubrication system for one of its propeller shafts and it underwent repairs in Norfolk, Virginia. Before arriving in the canal, the Zumwalt visited Baltimore for its commissioning, went to the Navys Mayport station in Florida and then sailed to Cartagena, Colombia, according to the Pentagon. Once it arrives in San Diego, the Zumwalt is expected to undergo testing, training and continued innovation, making it ready for combat deployments in about a year, the Navy estimates. The second ship in the class, the Michael Monsoor, is scheduled to be fully operational in 2018, and the Lyndon B. Johnson is expected to reach that same milestone three years later. cprine@sduniontribune.com With his criminal trial weeks away, former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was in court Tuesday, battling with prosecutors over whether a key witness can testify about his mental health. Also during the hearing in a downtown federal courtroom, an attorney for The Times said the newspaper would fight an effort by prosecutors to force a former reporter to testify about an interview with Baca, on the grounds that reporters are shielded from having to testify about their reporting. Lawyers for Baca argued that Dr. James Spar, a psychiatrist at UCLA, should be allowed to take the stand during the trial, which is scheduled to begin on Dec. 6. Advertisement Spar specializes in mental illnesses affecting the elderly and would tell jurors that although Baca was not diagnosed with Alzheimers disease until this year, it is likely he was already suffering from the early stages of the degenerative illness in April 2013, when he agreed to be questioned by federal investigators, attorney Nathan Hochman said. Assistant U.S. Atty. Brandon Fox objected strongly, saying Spars conclusions were unfounded and amounted to junk science. U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson did not rule Tuesday, saying he would issue a decision on Spars testimony at a later date. The proposed testimony by Spar, a well-regarded authority, is an important component of the defense that Bacas legal team is hoping to mount at trial. Spar is expected to tell jurors it is reasonable to believe Bacas memory had already begun to deteriorate at the time of the interview, leaving him incapable of clearly recalling what had occurred two years earlier. During that interview, Baca told investigators repeatedly that he had not been involved in or even known about various aspects of a scheme subordinates carried out two years earlier to obstruct an FBI probe into abuses by sheriffs deputies working in county jails. Prosecutors allege Bacas claims of ignorance were untrue and have charged the former sheriff with lying to federal officials a felony. Fox, the lead prosecutor in the case, emphasized repeatedly in making his case against Spar that the psychiatrist had not relied on any hard evidence in Bacas medical record, but instead was cherry-picking isolated examples of forgetfulness to support his conclusion. This is pure speculation, Fox said. Jurors will be unfairly swayed to feel sympathy for Baca if Spar is allowed to testify, Fox added. Anderson appeared doubtful about allowing Spars testimony. He grilled Hochman relentlessly, forcing the attorney to concede that no medical tests had been conducted to assess Bacas mental acuity at the time of the 2013 interview. Hochman countered that, despite the lack of tests, Spar could accurately extrapolate that the disease had taken hold in 2013 based on his review of Bacas responses during the interview and what is known about the progression of the disease in the years before symptoms become apparent. The legal jostling is the latest turn in a remarkable fall from grace for the 74-year-old Baca, who served for 15 years as L.A. Countys top law enforcement official before resigning in 2014 amid questions about his role in the blossoming scandal. Bacas downfall stems from 2011, when sheriffs officials discovered FBI agents were secretly gathering evidence of widespread beatings of inmates and other abuses by deputies. In the weeks that followed, a group of deputies and mid-level commanders led by Bacas second in command, then-Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, worked to thwart the federal investigation by hiding an inmate who was working as an FBI informant and threatening the lead agent in the case with arrest. A team led by Fox has successfully prosecuted many deputies and sheriffs officials either for beatings or playing a role in the obstruction plan. Most recently, Tanaka was convicted earlier this year and sentenced to five years in prison a verdict he is appealing. As he watched his colleagues either be convicted or plead guilty, Baca maintained his innocence. But in February, after prosecutors made it clear to him that they were preparing to bring charges against him, the former sheriff agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of lying to investigators as part of a deal with prosecutors. Despite Bacas diagnosis of Alzheimers, Anderson, the judge, rejected the deal because it called for Baca to serve no more than six months in prison a sentence the judge found was too lenient. Uncertain of how harshly Anderson planned to come down on him, Baca opted to withdraw his guilty plea and take his chances at trial. Shortly after Baca backed out of the deal, he was indicted on charges he obstructed the FBI investigation, conspired to carry out the plan with others and made several false statements during the 2013 investigation. The question of Bacas mental health has largely shaped the lead-up to trial. With Bacas attorneys indicating they would use Bacas Alzheimers diagnosis as part of their defense, Fox preemptively asked Anderson to order that Bacas competency to stand trial be assessed by an independent expert. The results of that evaluation have been kept confidential, but both sides agreed in a court filing that Baca is able to understand the charges against him and is fit to go to trial. Whether or not Spar is allowed to testify, Hochman must still defend Baca against the obstruction and conspiracy charges that Baca played a role in the plan to interfere with the FBI probe in 2011. On Tuesday, under questioning from Anderson, Hochman conceded that Spar, if he is allowed to testify, would not claim there was reason to believe Bacas alleged actions in 2011 were a result of Alzheimers. The two sides also made arguments on a separate matter: whether Hochman should be allowed to play excerpts of the audio recording of the 2013 interview, which the attorney argued were needed to fairly depict the statements by Baca that prosecutors say were lies. Anderson said he would rule on that question next week. At the end of the hearing, Fox alerted Anderson to a subpoena the government had served on Robert Faturechi, a former Times reporter who wrote about the jail investigation and obstruction scheme as they were unfolding. Fox said he wanted Faturechi, who now works for Pro Publica, an investigative news organization, to testify about an interview he conducted with Baca in 2011. Based on the interview, The Times published an article in which Baca, among other things, defended the decision to have deputies approach the FBI agent at her house in an attempt to question her. In the article, Baca did not say whether he was aware in advance of the plan to confront the agent. At the hearing Tuesday, however, Fox told Anderson that Baca admitted to Faturechi that he was involved in the decision to dispatch the deputies. It was not clear what Fox was basing that claim on. Attorney Kelli Sager told Anderson that The Times and Faturechi wanted the subpoena thrown out. The government, she said, was violating legal protections that shield reporters from having to testify on behalf of the government about their reporting. Sager requested that, if Anderson decides Faturechi must take the stand, the judge limit Fox and Hochman to questions about what the reporter included in his article. Anderson scheduled a hearing on the matter for next week. joel.rubin@latimes.com Follow @joelrubin on Twitter ALSO Kanye West exhausted, Kris Jenner says; rapper hospitalized after LAPD visit More than two decades after a young mothers murder, finally an answer Tragedy in the church: Man accused of killing 4-year-old daughter by drowning her in baptismal pool UPDATES: 10:10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional information. 8:05 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details from the court hearing. This article was originally published at 6:50 a.m. Six people were hospitalized Monday after a man crashed into planter during a test drive and sent shards of concrete into a crowd outside the Los Angeles Auto Show in downtown Los Angeles, police said. A total of eight people were evaluated after the crash outside the Los Angeles Convention Center. Six people, including the driver, were taken to area hospitals. The injuries were described as non-life-threatening. Advertisement The accident occurred at 1:13 p.m. during a test drive in the 1200 block of South Figueroa Street. At some point, the 24-year-old man drove onto the curb and crashed into the concrete pot, said Sgt. Jack Richter, a spokesman for Los Angeles Police Department. The pot shattered, sending shards of concrete into people standing outside the auto show, he said. The driver was possibly unlicensed, Richter said. The Fire Department tweeted a photograph of the wrecked car showing extensive damage to the hood, engine and windshield. The small red car apparently was participating in the show. The photograph shows a decal on the drivers side door that reads, Drive today! At the auto show. veronica.rocha@latimes.com For breaking news in California, follow @VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter. ALSO Home buyers and sellers interests must be protected when the same firm represents both, state Supreme Court rules Here I am above average: Chinese parachute kids are coming to the U.S. at younger ages Rain triggers surge in Los Angeles County freeway crashes UPDATES: 4 p.m.: This article was updated with police saying the driver took a test drive and crashed into a planter, which concrete shrapnel into the crowds. This article was originally published at 1:55 p.m. The wreckage of a small airplane that was reported missing early Tuesday has been found on a steep hillside near Upland, authorities said. A Piper PA28 flying to Riverside was reported missing before 5 a.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said. Air traffic controllers lost communication with the plane at about 4:30 a.m. after it took off from Upland, the FAA said. Authorities requested a sheriffs search and rescue team after they lost communication with the aircraft, said Los Angeles County Sheriffs Lt. Elisabeth Sachs. Searchers found the aircraft crashed on a grass- and brush-covered hillside between two canyons about a mile east of San Antonio Dam about 6 a.m., Sachs said. Advertisement The planes lone occupant was found dead, the San Bernardino County Fire Department tweeted. The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash. Joseph.serna@latimes.com For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter. ALSO As trial approaches, Baca fights with feds over key witness Robbery suspect killed after shooting at sheriffs deputies outside La Mirada convenience store Tragedy in the church: Man accused of killing 4-year-old daughter by drowning her in baptismal pool UPDATES: 9:50 a.m.: This article was updated with the condition of the pilot. This article was originally published at 6:55 a.m. Authorities are looking for a woman who scrawled anti-Donald Trump graffiti on four Los Angeles County buildings. Surveillance cameras filmed the woman Sunday as she used a can of blue spray paint to deface multiple walls in downtown L.A. with [Expletive] Trump and other anti-Trump writings, according to Deputy Kelvin Moody, a spokesman for Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. The markings were found on the Hall of Justice, Hall of Records, Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center and the countys Central Heating and Refrigeration Plant. Advertisement The graffiti caused about $9,000 in damage. Crews were working to remove the writing. The woman had blue hair and was described as short with a thin build, light skinned and between 30 and 40 years old. She was wearing blue jeans, a long-sleeved red-and-black plaid shirt and carrying a burgundy tote bag. Anyone with information is asked to call the Sheriffs Departments County Services Bureau at (213) 613-3908, or Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477. veronica.rocha@latimes.com For breaking news in California, follow @VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter. One year ago this week, an L.A. judge exonerated a California man who had spent 16 years in prison for three rapes that updated DNA analysis proved he did not commit. Leading the charge to win Luis Vargas freedom was the California Innocence Project based at San Diegos California Western School of Law. In spite of his overturned conviction, however, Vargas, a Mexico native, remained in custody long after the ruling because of his cloudy immigration status. He wanted to stay in the United States to be near family members here, including his mother and daughter, now 27. Advertisement Alex Simpson, associate director of the Innocence Project, said Vargas case now is in his immigration attorneys hands. Vargas was released on bond on May 26 (six months after his 55 years-to-life sentence was overturned). He is under a supervision order and awaits an immigration case hearing on whether or not hell be deported to Mexico. He is with his family and very hopeful his immigration status gets resolved soon, Simpson said. Innocence Project attorney Raquel Cohen received a call from Vargas the day after his conviction was overturned. He apologized for crying so hard in court: It was so overwhelming to have the judge believe Im innocent, he told her. She reported he had become a model prisoner and, despite his ordeal, doesnt have a negative thing to say. Sue Braun, a board member of the San Diego Child Care Advisory Board, meeting with other board members in October, 2003. (Roni Galgano/SDUT ) Somethings phishy: It could have been a skit from the old-time comedy duo of Mike Nichols and Elaine May. When former San Diego Board of Education head Sue Braun answered her phone last week, she was greeted by a childs voice, Grandma? Since I have seven grandkids, almost any one of them whom that could have been, I responded, she says. It wasnt until the youngster informed her that he had forgotten his lunch and wanted her to drop it off that Braun realized something was wrong. My grandkids live so far away they could not have asked me to bring their lunch to school, she says. She had to gently break the news to the hungry lad that, while she was a grandma, she wasnt his grandma. Sobering thought: As Thanksgiving approaches, a local business executive has something special to be thankful for sobriety. Jeanne McAlister, CEO of the McAlister Institute, will celebrate 60 years of sober living on Nov. 23. Not many CEOs work at 84, but McAlister is so committed to the drug and alcohol recovery program she pioneered through her institute, she continues to run the operation full-time. She is inviting San Diegans for lunch and cake to celebrate her anniversary from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the El Cajon office at 1365 N. Johnson Ave. You can be sure, though, there will be no wine or Champagne. Timing is everything: During a charity auction, the San Diego Rotary Club photographer asked member Nancy Scott to pose with her bidding paddle. Bad idea. She raised her paddle for the picture just as the auctioneer was calling for bids. To Scotts dismay, she unwittingly made an $1,800 bid for a dinner for 10. Luckily, as she tried to protest, someone outbid her. The auctioneer cautioned photographer Paul Nestor to please refrain from asking folks to raise their paddles for future pictures. diane.bell@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1518 Twitter: dianebellSD Facebook: dianebell.news A school bus driver who authorities say was speeding along a narrow, winding road when he wrapped his vehicle around a tree was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide in the deaths of five children. The wreck Monday afternoon plunged the city of Chattanooga into mourning, with parents stricken by the news and people lining up to donate blood. The most unnatural thing in the world is for a parent to mourn the loss of a child, Mayor Andy Berke said. There are no words that can bring comfort to a mother or a father. So today, the city is praying for these families. Advertisement Police said Johnthony Walker, 24, was driving well over the posted 30 mph limit when he lost control of the bus. He was jailed on $107,500 bail for a court appearance Nov. 29 on charges that also included reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Thirty-five Woodmere Elementary School students from kindergarten through fifth grade were aboard when the bus flipped onto its side and hit a tree. No other vehicle was involved. Emergency crews needed almost two hours to get all the youngsters off the bus. Bloodied children lay on stretchers, while others walked away dazed with their parents. More than 20 injured students were taken to the hospital, police said. Twelve remained hospitalized Tuesday, six in intensive care, said Kirk Kelly, interim school superintendent. Three of the children killed were in fourth grade, one was in first grade and another in kindergarten, Kelly said. Their families were notified, but their names were not released. The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to investigate, and police obtained a warrant to remove the bus black box, which contains data on the vehicles movements. Craig Harris, a parent of two children who were on the bus, told ABCs Good Morning America that the bus driver sometimes drove too fast. There has been times where Ive seen him going a little faster than he probably should be going, Harris said. He said his daughter and stepson were in shock and pain after the crash. The driver was employed by an outside bus contractor, Durham School Services. Walker appeared to have no criminal record in Tennessee, state and local authorities said. Walker had an accident involving property damage in September, and his license was suspended for about a month in 2014 for failure to show proof of insurance, according to state commercial driver records. Durham CEO David A. Duke issued a statement on Twitter saying the company was devastated by the accident and working with police and school officials to investigate. Durham has had other drivers who have run into legal trouble in the school district that includes Chattanooga. Last year, one pleaded guilty to aggravated statutory rape, and another was arrested on child-porn possession charges. Durham, based in Warrenville, Ill., operates about 13,700 vehicles around the U.S. and has nearly as many drivers, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. It had a satisfactory safety rating from the agency in July 2015. The company has had 346 crashes over two years, including three resulting in deaths and 142 with injuries, federal figures show. During that period, it had 53 incidents involving unsafe driving violations. Demetrius Jenkins said he had yet to tell his first-grade son, Jermaine Bradley, that the boys best friend had died in the crash. Its sad. Hes going to eventually find out, Jenkins said. I know hes going to be full of tears. On Tuesday morning, the heap of mangled metal that used to be a bus was loaded on a trailer and taken away. A small memorial of flowers and stuffed toy monkeys lay in front of an area cordoned off with crime-scene tape and guarded by police. Counselors were on hand for the students and staff as classes resumed at the school. Pastor Tavner Smith and a dozen staffers of the Venue Church went to offer support. Its devastating, Smith said. You send your kids to school and think youre going to see them that evening. Were really just praying for all the families right now, for what theyre going through. ALSO Authorities defend the use of water hoses on Dakota Access pipeline protesters Police officers in Texas and Missouri were shot in ambushes, authorities say Hard times for Kansas and its schools as economic experiment creates gaping budget hole UPDATES: 11:10 a.m.: This story was updated with information about the drivers record. Nov. 22, 5:27 a.m.: This story was updated with differing accounts of the death toll. 11 p.m.: The story was updated to say the bus driver had been arrested. 4:05 p.m.: The story was updated with the number of fatalities. 3:35 p.m.: The story was updated with news that the bus was wrapped around a tree. The story was originally published at 3:15 p.m. Nov. 21. The streets and sidewalks of La Jollas coastal business district will soon be safer, cleaner and more attractive now that property owners have voted to form a maintenance assessment district. The district will have an estimated $502,000 annually to spend on trash collection, litter pickup, power-washing sidewalks and landscape maintenance. The districts boundaries are the Pacific Ocean, La Jolla Boulevard, Pearl Street, Girard Avenue and Torrey Pines Road. Commercial properties will contribute 85 percent of the money, with condominiums and single-family homes contributing the remaining 15 percent. Advertisement In ballots tabulated last week, 56 percent of property owners who cast ballots approved creating the district, which has been talked about for more than three years. While La Jolla doesnt have a reputation as being dirty or unkempt, community leaders said the district is necessary. The village of La Jolla is a treasure enjoyed by all San Diegans and people from all over the world, and the formation of the maintenance assessment district will ensure we keep it the special place we all want it to be, said Barbara Bry, who was elected Nov. 8 to represent La Jolla and other parts of northwestern San Diego on the City Council. Council President Sherri Lightner, who Bry is replacing on the council, praised the community leaders who spent many months visiting civic organizations and walking door-to-door to win support for the new district. This has clearly been the communitys decision to make and they have made it, Lightner said. Before the vote, the group Enhance La Jolla led a petition drive to get signatures from at least 30 percent of property owners in support of the district, which was accomplished in April. A majority of the property owners 85 percent voted to have an ownership group run the district instead of by the city. Assessment rates cant be increased more than 3 percent a year. The La Jolla district includes 1,347 properties with 1,158 separate owners. The city owns six of the parcels and must contribute $37,500 annually. david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick Mexico homicide Mazatlan Sinaloa body victim murder The number of homicide victims registered in Mexico in October was down slightly from the month before, with last month's 2,090 killings coming in below September's 2,189 and ending a three-month streak of record highs. But that 4.52% decline from September to October doesn't obscure a larger and more worrying trend in Mexico's deadly violence the country has seen a significant and sustained increase in homicides since last year. Through October 2015, Mexico had 15,466 homicide victims, but through the first 10 months of this year the country has recorded 18,839, a 21.8% increase. Mexico had 18,673 homicide victims through all of 2015, but 2016 is on pace to see more than 22,600 a level of bloodshed not seen since 2011, when battles between rival drug cartels raged throughout the the country. And while the September-October period saw homicides decrease, month-to-month variations dont hide the overall tendency, Alejandro Hope, a Mexican security analyst and former security official, told Noticieros Televisa. Homicide cases and victims in Mexico October 2016s 2,090 homicide victims were a 36% increase from October 2015's 1,528. Those 2,090 homicide victims are the third-most recorded in a single month since the government began releasing that statistic in 2014. October's number is also comparable to the number of homicide cases reported in 2011 and 2012, when drug-war violence wracked the country. At the state level, the pronounced upward trend in deadly violence is even more pronounced. Hope noted that in 2015, only four states in Mexico had more than 1,000 homicide victims Chihuahua, Guerrero, Jalisco, and Mexico state. But through 10 months this year, Hope said, six states have hit that mark the four above, plus Michoacan and Veracruz. Story continues And the year was on pace for nine or 10 ultimately reach that 1,000-victim mark, with Baja California, Guanajuato, and Sinaloa states already above 900 homicide victims through October this year. The sustained increases in deadly violence in many of those states is likely driven by organized-crime activity. (Mexico state has the most people of the country's 32 states, with a population about double the next largest, so its homicide numbers are usually among the highest in the country.) In north-central Chihuahua, which borders the US, increased fighting in the border city of Ciudad Juarez is thought to be related to weakness, perceived or real, within the long-dominant Sinaloa cartel, whose leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, is currently in jail near the city facing extradition. Homicides in Ciudad Juarez 2013 Oct 2016 Reports indicate that the Sinaloa cartel in the Chihuahua area has seen some infighting and has been challenged by a resurgent Juarez cartel, from which Sinaloa wrested control of the city in a bloody war between 2008 and 2012. An a mid-level enforcer attached to the Juarez cartel told Mexican newspaper El Universal that the city was poised for another narco war. In southwest Mexico, the upward trend in killing is unmistakable, but who is doing it is less clear. In Michoacan, renewed fighting in areas like the Tierra Caliente, a hub of drug production where a state presence has long been absent, has pushed homicide levels up. Remnants of criminal groups like the Familia Michoacan and the Knights Templar cartel are believed to be present in Michoacan, fighting with each other as well as with local criminal groups, local self-defense forces, and local and state authorities. A state helicopter was shot down in Michoacan during a shootout between authorities and criminal groups in September. A similar situation has developed in Guerrero, south of Michoacan. Home to the once idyllic resort city of Acapulco, Guerrero has long been a major production area and transit zone for narcotics, and it's thought that local groups like Los Rojos and Guerreros Unidos are clashing (and sometimes cooperating) with large groups like the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels and with remnants of larger criminal groups like the Beltran Leyva Organization. "The organizations that are operating in the state are small. They have links, presumably to outside organizations, but the nature or those links, and exactly who they're linked to, is incredibly difficult to infer or to know," Chris Kyle, an anthropologist and professor at the University of Alabama-Birmingham who's done extensive research on Guerrero, told Business Insider. "I don't think anyone really confidently knows the relationships linking Guerrero's groups to outsiders," Kyle said. Acapulco Guerrero Mexico drug cartel criminal violence murder Other states have seen noticeable and worrying increases as well. In Colima, one of Mexico's smallest states, nestled between Jalisco and Michoacan on the Pacific coast, October's homicide-victim count was down from the month before, falling to 44 from 48 and bringing the year-to-date total to 485. Comparatively, however, Colima has seen a shocking rise in violence. It had only 189 homicide victims in 2015 and just 110 in 2014. Mexico's most violent states Colima's October 2015's homicide numbers pushed the state to a rate of 64.97 homicides per 100,000 people, nearly five times the national rate of 13.95. In the north-central state of San Luis Potosi, which was once the stalking ground of the ruthless Zetas cartel, October this year saw a 100% increase 48 homicide victims over September's 24. That pushed the state's year-to-date total to 270, exceeding in just 10 months the 2015 total of 257 and the 2014 total of 246. In Mexico's southeast, the state of Veracruz once governed by Javier Duarte, a member of the country's governing party who has gone into hiding since a bevy of corruption allegations began emerging earlier this year has seen a shocking increase in homicide victims. Through all of 2014, Veracruz recorded 569 homicides, jumping to 615 in 2015. But in the last half of 2016, Veracruz has seen some of the highest homicide numbers in the country, and the 1,224 homicide victims registered there so far this year are more than in 2014 and 2015 combined. Veracruz is a case that worries me a lot, Hope said. In northwest Mexico, violence also appears to have returned to the border city of Tijuana, which has long been a hotspot for cross-border smuggling tunnels running from that city's industrial area into San Diego, just a few hundred yards across the frontier. Homicides in Tijuana 2013 Oct. 2016 Its proximity to the US and the immense flow of traffic between the city has made Tijuana a prize for drug cartels, and the Sinaloa cartel muscled the Arellano Felix Organization out of control there in the late 2000s. But now, the ascendant Jalisco New Generation cartel has reportedly partnered with remnants of the AFO to wage a low-level war against members of the Sinaloa cartel in the city. The body count in the city has been steadily rising for many months, and in recent weeks, two narcomantas messages left by cartels, usually accompanied by gory decorations have appeared in the city, indicating the cartel fighting there is unlikely to recede any time soon. Homicide numbers coming out of Mexico have, for the last few months, revealed that deadly violence in many parts of the country is rising, in some places reaching or exceeding levels seen during the high points of cartel fighting a half-decade ago. But, more worryingly, there is reason to believe the numbers reported by state officials and released by the Mexican federal government do not tell the whole story. A report by think tank Mexico Evalua released in November found that state governments appeared to be manipulating crime data, inflating the number of low-level crimes in order to make it seem there had been fewer high-level crimes. "All states have entered into a practice of manipulation, that consists of 'sub-reportage'; that is to say, that a state reports 100 homicides when in reality it had 283," said Jonathan Furzsyfer, coordinator for Mexico Evalua's Security Program. Under the administration of current President Enrique Pena Nieto, "the violence is probably even worse than what it was when Felipe Calderon took on the cartels" in the late 2000s, Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, told Business Insider. Mexico Enrique Pena Nieto protest "The issue here is that the Pena Nieto administration has been covering a lot of the homicides, and they have told the governors to not report all of the homicides that are taking place in their states," said Vigil, author of of "Metal Coffins: The Blood Alliance Cartel." "And the reason for that being that it's having a negative impact on tourism, but particularly in terms of foreign investment," he added. "Every governor, every state is skewing those numbers, and the violence has just gotten worse." NOW WATCH: These are the kind of profits Mexican drug cartels are making More From Business Insider San Diego police are looking for witnesses to a beating in the Gaslamp District that left the victim paralyzed. A number of people watched and some recorded the Aug. 27 attack on their cellphones, police said. Investigators are hoping those people will come forward to describe the assailants or provide any useful information. Advertisement Police said the victim, a 29-year-old man, and a friend tried to break up a 2 a.m. fight at Fourth Avenue and Market Street. Some of the people involved in the fight turned on the victim, kicking and punching him in the head. The beating continued after he hit the ground. His severe injuries led to his paralysis. Investigators found surveillance video from nearby businesses that showed more than a dozen men and women standing around in the area, but not the actual attack. The onlookers are considered as witnesses only, not suspects, police said. Anyone with information about the assault can call investigators at (619) 744-9534. A woman who was running from police through Horton Plaza shopping mall shot herself in front of officers and scores of shoppers Tuesday and later died. Officers started CPR on her while waiting for paramedics. Medics then took her to a trauma center where she succumbed to her injuries. A motorcycle officer tried to pull over a driver near Fourth Avenue and Broadway in the Gaslamp Quarter about 11:30 a.m., San Diego police Lt. Scott Wahl said. Advertisement He said the vehicle seemed to fit the description of one reported to police in connection with a suicidal woman. The driver kept going and went into the mall parking garage, then stopped. Wahl said one of two females in the car got out and walked into the mall. Officers questioned the other female and a male who had stayed in the car. Wahl was not sure which person was driving. At some point police learned that the woman who walked into the mall likely had a handgun. Seven or eight officers converged on the location to look for her, police said. She ran through the mall for about 15 minutes, including upstairs toward Panda Inn restaurant, then went down at least one floor near The Gap. One officer was describing her location and abruptly announced over his radio that the woman had just shot herself. A clerk at Closet, a clothing store directly across from The Gap, said she had a view of the whole incident. She said she saw two plainclothes officers in suits running after a woman. The woman reached The Gap, sat down, aimed a gun toward her own head, and pulled the trigger. The clerk, who declined to give her name, said she and others were distraught over the suicide, and that crisis counselors were being called in. All that blood it was really intense, said the clerk. Im shocked and sad. I have a lot of mixed emotions. Why did she do it? The sight also rattled Jared Goodrich, who said he was browsing for Black Friday deals on his lunch break. He was walking past The Gap clothing store when some officers ran by. He said he turned to look at them, and saw one officer with a drawn gun. Then he heard a loud pop and a woman fell to the pavement. Im still shaken up, said Goodrich, 21. I never thought Id see something like that. A number of shoppers said they believed the officer had shot the woman. Police evacuated shoppers from the mall and cordoned off some areas while they investigated. The family of a dog that was shot by San Diego police filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming the killing was unwarranted and that officers callously allowed the pet to bleed to death in the aftermath. Grizzly, a 7-year-old mixed breed, was shot at least three times by San Diego police Officer Robert Meiselman on Feb. 22. The officer was investigating reports of a stolen truck and had gone into the fenced-in yard of a home on Thorn Street near 42nd Street in search of witnesses. According to the complaint, the officer was told by the neighbor who reported the stolen truck that a family dog lived on the property. There were also several Beware of Dog signs posted on the fence that surrounded the home. Advertisement Meiselman entered the property and was banging on the door when Grizzly emerged. Police said the dog lunged at the officer who feared for his life and shot the animal about 12:45 a.m. The dogs owners, Alfredo and Socorro Fuentes, said they were startled awake by the officers pounding. Alfredo Fuentes was just about to open the door when he heard the gunshots. He walked outside and spotted a blood trail that led him to his dying dog. The family said Alfredo Fuentes repeatedly asked officers to help him with his bloodied pet, but he was ignored. At one point, an officer gave Fuentes the address of a pet hospital seven miles away. Police said they called the county Department of Animal Services after the shooting, but that a dispatcher said the dog was the owners responsibility as long as he was alive. It is unclear if the dispatcher knew the dog had been wounded during an officer-involved shooting. The Fuentes familys subsequent repeated pleas for the police officers on the scene to get medical help for their beloved dog were ignored, the complaint read. Grizzly ultimately bled to death over a period of two hours. One of the lawyers representing the family, Attorney Jill Ryther, said the shooting was one of the most disturbing cases shed seen. San Diego police Lt. Scott Wahl, a spokesman for the department, said in a statement that he could not comment specifically on the case due to the pending litigation, but that officers have the authority to use their firearm if they reasonably believe an animal poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to them or another person. The Fuentes family is suing Meiselman, the San Diego Police Department and the city of San Diego for $525,000. Twitter: @LAWinkley (619) 293-1546 lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com A 21-year-old man was arrested Monday in the October killing of a woman in her townhouse in Santee, a homicide lieutenant said. Jose Luis Nunez-Torres, of San Diego, was already in jail on charges unrelated to the slaying of Leticia Arroyo, 34. He was re-booked on suspicion of murder, sheriffs homicide Lt. Kenn Nelson said. He said Nunez-Torres and Arroyo were acquaintances but was tight-lipped about a motive. Advertisement Investigators have yet to reveal how Arroyo was killed. Detectives are still looking for a second possible suspect in the case, Nelson said. No other details about the ongoing investigation were released Monday. Arroyos roommate returned home and found her wounded in their two-story home on Mission Greens Road, south of Mission Gorge Road near Cuyamaca Street, on Oct. 4 about 10:40 p.m. When medics arrived, Arroyo was dead. She had suffered trauma to her upper body, Nelson said. During a vigil for Arroyo last month, family and friends remembered her smile and laugh. Gathered outside the home where she lived, her loved ones left behind candles and released balloons into the air for the long-time softball player. Anybody who knew her loved her, said Denise Strattman, a friend since third grade. She knew so many people. Arroyos 30-year-old brother said she was the oldest of four siblings. Being the oldest child, she taught us everything, Steven Chavez said. Her impact on everyone was major, he added. Nunez-Torres was already jailed on charges including vehicle theft, robbery, burglary and others related to drugs possession, according to jail records. Breaking News Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez The county has agreed to pay $2.3 million to the family of a man who died in San Diegos central jail in 2012 from a drug overdose, the second time in less than two years that taxpayers have funded a multimillion-dollar settlement over an inmates death. The parents of Bernard Victorianne sued the sheriffs department in 2014, claiming that jail staff knew the 28-year-old swallowed a baggie of methamphetamine and then failed to act on obvious signs of medical distress for days. Both sides agreed on Aug. 2 to settle the case. Later that day, in a closed session meeting, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve the settlement. Advertisement The lawsuit, filed by attorneys Julia Yoo and Eugene Iredale, argued that Victoriannes death was the result of a systemic failure to investigate incidents of misconduct and deaths in the jail. Yoo said Victoriannes parents, Bernard and Zelda Victorianne, agreed to settle the case to avoid the trauma of a prolonged legal battle. Its very difficult and painful for them to have to relive the experience, she said. Via email, sheriffs spokeswoman Jan Caldwell extended the departments condolences to Victoriannes family. She said that since his death, the department has taken steps to improve inmate care, including adding experienced medical staff. To address drug abuse, the jails have installed body scanners and deputies are equipped with Narcan, a medication used to treat drug overdose. Mr. Victoriannes death underscores the difficulty law enforcement has in trying to protect inmates and arrestees from causing harm to themselves, Caldwell wrote. Victorianne was arrested in City Heights on Sept. 12, 2012, on suspicion of driving under the influence. During the arrest, the lawsuit said, a San Diego police officer saw him swallow a baggie of meth and ordered that he be transported to Alvarado Hospital to be checked out. Although an x-ray found nothing in his stomach, the lawsuit said, doctors at Alvarado provided jail staff with written instructions to GET PROMPT MEDICAL ATTENTION if Victorianne showed signs of overdose, including agitation, anxiety, difficulty breathing and excess drowsiness or inability to be awakened. Victorianne exhibited all of these warning signs, the lawsuit said, at one point screaming that his insides were on fire and pleading with a jail nurse to get it out of me. Instead, medical staff believed he was suffering a psychotic break. Due to his erratic behavior, he was stripped of his clothing and placed in solitary confinement. On Sept. 19, 2012, Victorianne was found face-down on the floor of his cell. According to the lawsuit, two deputies entered his cell at 4:30 a.m., found him on the ground and didnt check to see if he was conscious. Despite a jail policy requiring hourly inmate welfare checks, it wasnt until 7 a.m. when a deputy entered Victoriannes cell and found him dead. Bolstering the lawsuits claims was an independent investigation by the countys Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board, which found that the sheriffs homicide team responsible for investigating Victoriannes death intentionally didnt interview the last two deputies to see Victorianne alive, a violation of department policy. The board also reviewed surveillance video and found that a deputy whod reported checking on Victorianne had walked past the inmates cell without stopping, also a policy violation. Jail officials have maintained that Victorianne lied when he was asked during intake whether hed taken any drugs. Yoo said the intake form shows Victorianne told a nurse that hed swallowed a baggie of meth. The review board also noted in its investigation that the jail was aware Victorianne had swallowed drugs yet ignored signs of overdose. The symptoms and effects of the decedents drug overdose or toxicity were clearly evident, but went largely untreated by medical staff, the review board found. Yoo said the settlement doesnt require any policy changes because the department already has policies in place to address a possible drug overdose. The policies just need to be followed, she said. In March 2015, the county paid $3.2 million to the family of Daniel Sisson, a Vista jail inmate who died from drug-withdrawal complications in 2011. Yoo and Iredale are also representing the family of Ruben Nunez, a mentally ill inmate diagnosed with psychogenic polydipsia, a potentially fatal condition that causes sufferers to drink water uncontrollably. Despite warnings, jail staff failed to restrict Nunezs access to water and he died from water intoxication. kellydaviswrites@gmail.com The shootings of four police officers Sunday served as grim reminders of the dangers of being a law enforcement officer in America. Two of the shootings targeted 20-year police veterans sitting in cruisers a fatal attack on a 50-year-old San Antonio police detective and an attack on a 46-year-old St. Louis police sergeant and appear to be assassination attempts in the same vein as attacks earlier this year in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Police arrested a suspect in the Texas ambush late Monday, hours after the gunman suspected in the Missouri shooting was killed in a gunfight with police there. This is one of the grimmest story lines of 2016. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund reports 60 law enforcement officers have been shot to death in the U.S. so far this year, up from 41 in all of last year; 20 have been purposely targeted, up from eight last year, the group said. Many police groups attribute this to the growing public criticism of fatal police encounters especially from the Black Lives Matter movement since the 2014 incident in Ferguson, Missouri, in which Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, was shot and killed. For the record: This editorial was updated to reflect the arrest of a suspect in the Texas ambush. Some social scientists say its more complicated than that. Yet there is no doubt that this is a fraught time for police. There are no easy solutions. But there is a good starting point for this discussion: condemning unprovoked violence of any kind. Three things happened Sunday morning. I witnessed the many homeless tents popping up in places never seen before. I read in the U-T with great interest the piece by Francis Wilkinson touting California as the liberal, Democratic capital of America. Advertisement Then, reading the editorial piece Our housing crisis: Its break-glass time, I see California emerging as the nations poverty capitol. I couldnt help but shake my head. Fabrice Poigin Clairemont Letters and commentary policy The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. E-mail letters@sduniontribune.com Mail: Andrew Kleske, Reader Outreach Editor San Diego Union-Tribune P.O. Box 120191 San Diego, CA 92112-0191. You can also leave a comment below Drastic measures needed to save trees The article Tree deaths in California soar to 102 million in latest survey by Matt Stevens (Nov. 19) minimized the role of the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae). This opportunistic pest and ones like it are exploiting the ongoing drought, creating an ecologic disaster of epic proportions. Such a disaster requires an equally epic response: unprecedented pest control measures. Ask any licensed pest control operator about the application of proven pesticides to control this menace. You will not hear it from the U.S. Forest Service. If we in the West wish to preserve what is left of our magnificent forests, we must begin a massive program of aerial spraying to control beetle infestation. We owe nothing less to future generations of both trees and people. Bruce St. Gean Encinitas Happy that protesters are showing an interest Carol Ratchuks letter to your paper (Readers weigh in on post-election demonstrations, Nov. 18) begins with, Why put the picture of 15-year-olds as protesters on the front page? She says they have no right to protest and should act like mature individuals. The new president-elect whined, called people ugly names, demeaned the president, cursed, bullied people and won. Remember when we fibbed to young people that they could become president of the United States? This president-elect proved this to be true to all Americans. Ratchuck says, Stop whining, its done, get over it. It makes me cross to see Ratchuck preaching to be a mature individual when she and the president-elect cannot. I am 83 years old. My family discouraged me when I said I would rent a wheelchair and join the protesters. Last Saturday, I came across a parade of protesters. I parked my car and marched with them with a police escort. God bless America. J. Myles Callahan Linda Vista Trump listened to those ignored by others I find a lot to admire about Rebecca Schwartz Lesbergs opinions (Hillary Clinton defeat a personal loss, fresh start for assertive woman, Nov. 18) regarding Trumps election, but I find one line particularly ironic. She says, Through all the noise, we have stopped talking. The left, in all its history, has never stopped talking (actually that is mostly all that it does and never accomplishes anything) and it certainly has almost never listened. When the left loses, it talks even louder and more hysterically and listens even less. Trump won, not only because he listened to middle-class Americans, but because he actually heard and promised to do something about their problems. The left should listen and observe for a few months. Its loud, whiny reaction to the results are a prime example of why it lost. It, and its talk, are out of touch. Rick Firman La Mesa Thoughts on Pences bad theater experience Calls for apology after Pence booed (Nov. 20) is a double-edge sword. On one hand, government officials should be allowed to enjoy themselves without public criticism. However, the public also has a right to protest. My concern is that Trump also criticized other protesters who protested his policies stated during the campaign. He accused them of being professional protesters, which I assume means that they were hired by the Democratic Party. It appears that Trump does not understand that protesting is legal in the U.S. It appears that he is attempting to bully the protesters, as he bullies everyone. How far will Trump go in suppressing opposition? Will he invoke the National Guard to suppress protesting in the future? Will he form a secret police to subdue and possibly jail people who speak out against him? This is very troubling. Ronald Harris Scripps Ranch There is no reason to think that the political opinions of the cast of Hamilton should carry any more weight than a person you might pick at random from the phone book, yet they took advantage of having an audience there for an entirely different reason to issue an anti-Trump riff. To the left, everything is political, and we cant even enjoy a play without being subjected to their insufferable sermonizing. Please. Robert Harrington Vista No way to claim Trump has a voter mandate Regarding More thoughts on the Electoral College (Nov. 17): Perhaps Larry Stirling should be a judge again. So 68 million voted against Clinton, who has a million more votes than Trump. Using his logic, more than 70 million voted against Trump. Maybe things are rigged. Jim Southerland Point Loma Want to see more letters that appear only online? Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook. The cats peering through a grimy kitchen window of a Mira Mesa house, perched atop mountains of debris that covered every surface, were three of more than 20 found on the property. Thats not including half a dozen found dead, wrapped in plastic bags in boxes in a freezer. They werent the only animals to have taken up residence at the hoarder house on Belgian Street near Dewsbury Avenue. We found four opossums yesterday, said San Diego police Lt. Natalie Stone on Wednesday. There were somewhere between 50 to 100 rats. When they cut down a Bougainvillea, rats just went everywhere. This is the worst (hoarder house) Ive seen. Advertisement For more than five years, neighbors watched from their manicured homes as the cream-colored abode disappeared behind and under a growing pile of everything. There were piles of family photos, tool chests still in their boxes, stacks of yellowing newspapers, Ghillie suits, piles of ammunition and firecrackers, an oversized Zippo lighter, and so much more. All of it was mixed with trash. The homeowner was provided lodging at a hotel while cleaners went through the property. More than once, members of the San Diego bomb/arson team stopped by to pick up possibly explosive material or military gear. Animal control officers took custody After years of complaints, citations and court hearings, a team of agencies moved in last week to clean the place. The process, which will take weeks and cost tens of thousands of dollars, offers a rare glimpse into the messy life of hoarding and its impact on communities. The homeowner could not be reached for an interview. The citys Code Enforcement Division first started looking into the home in 2010, after receiving complaints from nearby residents about excessive storage violations, according to court documents. Neighbors and family members pitched in then to help the homeowner tidy up, but it didnt last. Lily Larranaga and her husband were part of that effort. She said soon after that clean-up, the hoarding began again. She said she stopped opening her windows since her daughter suffered from allergies and she was allergic to cats. She bought air purifiers for their house. It was a health issue, a safety issue, a fire hazard, she said. It was out of his control and we needed to get involved. For years, the city doled out notices and citations. City staff could not access the front door to contact Defendant due to the large piles of junk blocking the pathway leading to the door, described a visit referenced in court documents. Another visit described a City Attorney investigator entering the home armed with an inspection warrant. The investigator climbed onto a path created by large piles of junk, trash and debris that was 3-4 feet off the ground, read court documents. The rooms inside the dwelling were completely covered with storage items and all the hallways were blocked. Police suspect the homeowner entered the house through a kitchen window. Inspections continued, but the hoarding only worsened. (You can see actually see the clutter in Google Earths satellite view.) Other agencies visited the property over the years. San Diego police officers once went to the house to investigate a report that the homeowner was walking the street with a knife. Animal control officers went to the home 16 times between 2008 and 2015 to investigate complaints of animal cruelty, neglect and the strong smell of animal feces and urine. On April 5, nearly six years after that first complaint, a receiver was given legal possession and control of the property. "(The homeowner) still owns the home, but I have the right to remedy the violations, said attorney Richardson Griswold. The process is costly, he said. Initially, he estimated it would run about $22,000 to fix up the Mira Mesa house, but that was when he thought half a dozen industrial dumpster loads would get the job done. Workers surpassed that after the first week, and theres likely about two weeks of work to go. Hoarder debris pile grows The homeowner was provided lodging at a hotel while cleaners went through the property. More than once, members of the San Diego bomb/arson team stopped by to pick up possibly explosive material or military gear. Animal control officers took custody of the cats and let the wild animals go, and workers with the countys vector control program doled out free rat traps in case neighbors found themselves with new tenants. To finance the effort, Griswold will take out loans that the homeowner will be responsible for paying back. The attorney said while it takes a long time to get to a receivership, its an innovative option that often produces lasting change. He said in most of his encounters, family and friends help create lasting solutions. My hope is his mother and people who care about him are going to help him make decisions so he doesnt fall into a repeat pattern, Griswold said. ...It sometimes takes something pretty dramatic for change to happen. Neighbors said watching the work has been bittersweet. They said its wonderful that the clean up has finally begun, but they worry what the future holds for their neighbor. When they started the clean up, it was so much worse than we could see from the outside, Larranaga said. ...This wasnt just for the good of the neighborhood, it was also about his well-being. Griswold said his company will monitor the property after it has been returned to the homeowner. German reinsurance company Munich Re AG will not renew existing business or write any new business with insurance companies in Iran due to the political situation there, a spokesman said Friday. The Munich-based company says the decision will affect Munich Res premium volume of around euro10 million ($13.5 million) annually. In 2008, the group had a premium volume of near euro40 billion. Weve been looking at the situation for a long time; the political situation is worse now and we decided to stop business, Munich Re spokesman Klaus Schmidtke said. Advertisement Reinsurers sell back-up coverage to insurance companies to spread risk in the event of large losses. Munich Re also sells life, property and health primary insurance and is one of the worlds largest reinsurers. In Iran, the companys business is mainly property reinsurance, Schmidtke said, adding that Munich Re does not sell primary insurance in Iran. The company already pulled out of reinsurance for marine shipping of fuel to and from Iran in October, he said. Joerg von Fuerstenwerth, director of The German Insurance Association said his organization is following the international discussion on Iran and urged the European Union to work to develop uniform measures to limit the effects on businesses. Increasing the economic sanctions against Iran is justified and will be supported by the German insurance industry, he said in a statement. Munich Res announcement follows that of German industrial conglomerate Siemens AG, which said last month that it will also stop doing business in Iran by mid-2010. Iran has arrested hundreds and executed several opposition and anti-government protesters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who they say was fraudulently re-elected last June. Meanwhile, the countrys nuclear program is worrying countries including Germany, the U.S. and Israel. The United Nations nuclear agency said Thursday that Iran may currently be working on making a nuclear warhead. Iran denies any interest in developing nuclear arms. --- On the Net: https://www.munichre.com Southern California is one of those rare spots in America thathas warm beaches, snow-topped mountain peaks, dense forests andwildflower-filled deserts all within a few hours drive. We askednewsroom staffers to name some of their favorite scenic drivesaround Southern California and what makes them special. San Diego County: - The Palomar Mountain Loop: Advertisement Palomar Mountain offers a scenic lookout and one of the nationsbest observatories. Your trip begins on Highway 76 at Lake Henshaw.Continue on 76 to the East Grade Road, which takes you up PalomarMountain to the famed Palomar Observatory. Take a pit stop at theshops and restaurant where East Grade Road intersects the SouthGrade Road. Then head down the steep, winding west side of themountain (stop for photos at the scenic turnouts). Count on an hourfor the drive alone. -- Tom Pfingsten - North County Backcountry day trip: Start in Escondido around mid-morning and drive through Ramonaon Highway 78. Be sure to stop at Dudleys Bakery in Santa Ysabelwhere Highways 78 and 79 meet. Head north on Highway 79 for about10 miles until you reach Highway 76. Turn left on 76 and watch forthe East Grade Road turn-off to Palomar Mountain. It will takeabout an hour to go up and down the mountain. If you prefer, takeHighway 76 through Pala and Pauma for a very scenic, leisurelywinding road trip back to Interstate 15, which will take you southto Escondido again. -- Tom Pfingsten - Sunrise Scenic Byway: Especially beautiful in the spring and summer months, this24-mile road trip through East San Diego County takes visitorsthrough the Laguna Mountain Recreation Area and along the PacificCrest National Scenic Trail in the Cleveland National Forest. Startat the junction of I-8 and Country Road S-1 just east of Descansoand head northwest to Laguna Mountain. Spend a few hours exploringthis beautiful park area before hopping back in the car and headingnorth on S-1 until its junction with Highway 79. --go-california.com - Pacific Coast Highway: A favorite with surfers, sun-lovers and Southern Californiansfor more than 50 years. Highway 1 stretches the length ofCalifornias coastline (and beyond) with a few jaunts inland hereand there. Originally established to follow the trail of theCalifornia missions, it is now a favorite tourist route. Althoughthe stretch along the Big Sur coastline and through the redwoodforest are the most breathtaking, this road trip is arguably thebest in the country. Plan two days for a quick trip, but you caneasily spend a week or two following the road from San Diego toEureka (where 1 merges with 101). --go-california.com Los Angeles County: Angeles Crest Highway This is one tour in Los Angeles where the scenery has nothing todo with beautiful people. The drive starts on Angeles Crest Highway(the 2") at Foothill Boulevard in La Canada-Flintridge and headseast, winding through the high country of the Angeles NationalForest above the L.A. Basin. Once you ascend past the prettyhillside homes, towering green trees, ridges and peaks are yourleading scenic treats on a drive that climbs all the way to 7,900feet at Dawson Saddle, 46 miles east of La Canada, when that partis open. There are no quaint mountain villages anywhere on thisdrive. Highlights include a possible side trip to Mount Wilson,where tours of the observatory are available April to November.Those who forget to pack a lunch can stop at Newcombs Ranch, whichis 27 miles east of La Canada. There are numerous hiking spots,campgrounds, a few visitor centers and even a ski area, MountWaterman. The road is susceptible to winter weather closures, soyour best bet for a maximum-length, white-knuckle-free drive islate spring into November. -- Stephen Rubin Riverside County - Ortega Highway Mountain Escape: This stretch of the Ortega Highway winds for 25 miles throughthe largely pristine setting of the Cleveland National Forest inthe Santa Ana Mountains between Lake Elsinore and San JuanCapistrano. The road switches back and forth through rugged terrainincluding canyons, mountain forests and hillsides punctuated bytwo-ton boulders. During a recent winter storm, the higheraltitudes of the Santa Anas above were dusted with snow, and whenthe sun finally broke it revealed a tableau worthy of the RockyMountains. -- Tom Sheridan - Palms to Pine Scenic Byway: Desert-lovers would enjoy this drive, which starts in Banning,climbs through the San Bernardino National Forest, then drops intothe Mojave Desert. Start in Banning on Highway 243 and follow itsouth to the junction with Highway 74, then follow 74 south andthen east all the way to the Palm Desert. Stops along the wayinclude scenic, stoplight-free Idyllwild, which offers access tohiking trails in the San Jacinto Wilderness Area. Or considercamping near Joshua Tree National Park in the Palm Desert. The roadtrip is 67 miles and about 90 minutes long. --go-california.com San Bernardino County - Rim of the World Scenic Byway:This 107-mile,mountainous route travels through the wilderness high above theL.A. basin to Big Bear Lake. Plan on four hours of driving time,not including frequent photo stops. Start at the Mormon Rock Fire Station 1.5 miles west of I-15 onHighway 138 (just north of San Bernardino). Go east on 138 until itmerges with Highway 18 at Crestline. Follow 18/38 east to the westend dam of Big Bear Lake, stay on 38 all the way around the lake towhere the highway ends at the Mill Creek Ranger Station on theborder of the San Bernardino National Forest. Make sure to visitthe Big Bear Discovery Center while youre in town. --go-california.com Country United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Weekly Newsletter The best of The Saturday Evening Post in your inbox! Join Originally published March 18, 1950 The clerk of the court took a good look at the tall brown-skinned woman with the head rag on. She sat on the third bench back with a husky officer beside her. Subscribe and get unlimited access to our online magazine archive. Subscribe Today The People versus Laura Lee Kimble! The policeman nudged the woman to get to her feet and led her up to the broad rail. She stood there, looking straight ahead. The hostility in the room reached her without her seeking to find it. Unpleasant things were ahead of Laura Lee Kimble, but she was ready for this moment. It might be the electric chair or the rest of her life in some big lonesome jail house, or even torn to pieces by a mob, but she had passed three long weeks in jail. She had come to the place where she could turn her face to the wall and feel neither fear nor anguish. So this here so-called trial was nothing to her but a form and a fashion and an outside show to the world. She could stand apart and look on calmly. She stood erect and looked up at the judge. Charged with felonious and aggravated assault. Mayhem. Premeditated attempted murder on the person of one Clement Beasley. Obscene and abusive language. Laura Lee Kimble, how do you plead? Laura Lee was so fascinated by the long-named things that they were accusing her of that she stood there tasting over the words. Lawdy me! she mused inside herself. Look like I done every crime excepting habeas corpus and stealing a mule. Answer the clerk! The officer nudged Laura Lee. Tell him how you plead. Plead? Dont reckon I make out just what you all mean by that. She looked from face to face and at last up at the judge, with bewilderment in her eyes. She found him looking her over studiously. The judge understood the look in her face, but he did not interfere so promptly as he ordinarily would have. This was the man-killing bear cat of a woman that he had heard so much about. Though spare of fat, she was built strongly enough, all right. An odd Negro type. Gray-green eyes, large and striking, looking out of a chestnut-brown face. A great abundance of almost straight hair only partially hidden by the high-knotted colored kerchief about her head. Somehow this woman did not look fierce to him at all. Yet she had beaten a man within an inch of his life. Here was a riddle to solve. With the proud, erect way she held herself, she might be some savage queen. The shabby housedress she had on detracted nothing from this impression. She was a challenge to him somehow or other. Perhaps you dont understand what the clerk means, Laura, the judge found himself saying to her in a gentle voice. He wants you to say whether you are guilty of the charges or not. Oh, I didnt know. Didnt even know if he was talking to me or not. Much obliged to you, sir. Laura Lee sent His Honor a shy smile. Deed I dont know if Im guilty or not. I hit the man after he hit me, to be sure, Mister Judge, but if Im guilty I dont know for sure. All them big words and all. The clerk shook his head in exasperation and quickly wrote something down. Laura Lee turned her head and saw the man on the hospital cot swaddled all up in bandage rags. Yes, that was the very man who caused her to be here where she was. All right, Laura Lee, the judge said. You can take your seat now until you are called on. The prosecutor looked a question at the judge and said, We can proceed. The judge nodded, then halted things as he looked down at Laura Lee. The defendant seems to have no lawyer to represent her. Now he leaned forward and spoke to Laura Lee directly. If you have no money to hire yourself a lawyer to look out for your interests, the court will appoint one for you. There was a pause, during which Laura Lee covered a lot of ground. Then she smiled faintly at the judge and answered him. Naw sir, I thank you, Mister Judge. Not to turn you no short answer, but I dont reckon it would do me a bit of good. Im mighty much obliged to you just the same. The implications penetrated instantly and the judge flushed. This unlettered woman had called up something that he had not thought about for quite some time. The campus of the University of Virginia and himself as a very young man there, filled with a reverence for his profession amounting to an almost holy dedication. His fascination and awe as a professor traced the more than two thousand years of growth of the concepts of human rights and justice. That brought him to his greatest hero, John Marshall, and his inner resolve to follow in the great mans steps, and even add to interpretations of human rights if his abilities allowed. No, he had not thought about all this for quite some time. The judge flushed slowly and deeply. Below him there, the prosecutor was moving swiftly, but somehow his brisk cynicism offended the judge. He heard twelve names called, and just like that the jury box was filled and sworn in. Rapidly now, witnesses took the stand, and their testimony was all damaging to Laura Lee. The doctor who told how terribly Clement Beasley had been hurt. Left arm broken above the elbow, compound fracture of the forearm, two ribs cracked, concussion of the brain and various internal injuries. Two neighbors who had heard the commotion and arrived before the house in time to see Laura Lee fling the plaintiff over the gate into the street. The six arresting officers all got up and had their say, and it was very bad for Laura Lee. A two-legged she-devil no less. Clement Beasley was borne from his cot to the witness stand, and he made things look a hundred times blacker. His very appearance aroused a bumble of pity, and anger against the defendant. The judge had to demand quiet repeatedly. Beasleys testimony blew strongly on the hot coals. His story was that he had come in conflict with this defendant by loaning a sizable sum of money to her employer. The money was to be repaid at his office. When the date was long past due, he had gone to the house near the river, just off Riverside Drive, to inquire why Mrs. Clairborne had not paid him, nor even come to see him and explain. Imagine his shock when he wormed it out of the defendant that Mrs. Clairborne had left Jacksonville. Further, he detected evidence that the defendant was packing up the things in the house. The loan had been made, six hundred dollars, on the furnishings of the entire house. He had doubted that the furnishings were worth enough for the amount loaned, but he had wanted to be generous to a widow lady. Seeing the defendant packing away the silver, he was naturally alarmed, and the next morning went to the house with a moving van to seize the furniture and protect the loan. The defendant, surprised, attacked him as soon as he appeared at the front door, injured him as he was, and would have killed him if help had not arrived in time. Laura Lee was no longer a spectator at her own trial. Now she was in a flaming rage. She would have leaped to her feet as the man pictured Miz Celestine as a cheat and a crook, and again as he sat up there and calmly lied about the worth of the furniture. All of those wonderful antiques, this man making out that they did not equal his minching six hundred dollars! That lie was a sin and a shame! The People was a meddlesome and unfriendly passel and had no use for the truth. It brought back to her in a taunting way what her husband, Tom, had told her over and over again. This world had no use for the love and friending that she was ever trying to give. It looked now that Tom could be right. Even Miz Celestine had turnt her back on her. She was here in this place, the house of The People, all by herself. She had ever disbelieved Tom and had to get to be forty-nine before she found out the truth. Well, just as the old folks said, Its never too long for a bull frog to wear a stiff-bosom shirt. Hes bound to get it dirtied some time or other. You have testified, Laura Lee heard the judge talking, that you came in contact with the defendant through a loan to Mrs. J. Stuart Clairborne, her employer, did you not? Yes, Your Honor, Beasley answered promptly and glibly. That being true, the court cannot understand why that note was not offered in evidence. Beasley glanced quickly at the prosecutor and lowered his eyes. I I just didnt see why it was necessary, Your Honor. I have it, but It is not only pertinent, it is of the utmost importance to this case. I order it sent for immediately and placed in evidence. The tall, lean, black-haired prosecutor hurled a surprised and betrayed look at the bench, then, after a pause, said in a flat voice, The State rests. What was in the atmosphere crawled all over Laura Lee like reptiles. The silence shouted that her goose was cooked. But even if the sentence was death, she didnt mind. Celestine Beaufort Clairborne had failed her. Her husband and all her folks had gone on before. What was there to be so happy to live for any more? She had writ that letter to Miz Celestine the very first day that she had been placed in jail. Three weeks had gone by on their rusty ankles, and never one word from her Celestine. Laura Lee choked back a sob and gritted her teeth. You had to bear what was placed on your back for you to tote. Laura Lee Kimble, the judge was saying, you are charged with serious felonies, and the law must take its course according to the evidence. You refused the lawyer that the court offered to provide for you, and that was a mistake on your part. However, you have a right to be sworn and tell the jury your side of the story. Tell them anything that might help you, so long as you tell the truth. Laura Lee made no move to get to her feet and nearly a minute passed. Then the judge leaned forward. Believe it or not, Laura Lee, this is a court of law. It is needful to hear both sides of every question before the court can reach a conclusion and know what to do. Now, you dont strike me as a person that is unobliging at all. I believe if you knew you would be helping me out a great deal by telling your side of the story, you would do it. Involuntarily Laura Lee smiled. She stood up. Yes, sir, Mister Judge. If I can be of some help to you, I sure will. And I thank you for asking me. Being duly sworn, Laura Lee sat in the chair to face the jury as she had been told to do. You jury-gentlemens, they asked me if I was guilty or no, and I still dont know whether I is or not. I am a unlearnt woman and common-clad. It dont surprise me to find out Im ignorant about a whole heap of things. I aint never rubbed the hair off of my head against no college walls and schooled out nowhere at all. All Im able to do is to tell you gentlemens how it was and then you can tell me if Im guilty or no. I would not wish to set up here and lie and make out that I never hit this plaintive back. Gentlemens, I aint had no malice in my heart against the plaintive. I seen him only one time before he come there and commenced that fracas with me. That was three months ago, the day after Tom, my husband, died. Miz Celestine called up the funeral home and they come and got Tom to fix him up so we could take him back to Georgia to lay him to rest. Thats where us all come from, Chatham County Savannah, that is. Then now, Miz Celestine done something I have never knowed her to do be-fore. She put on her things and went off from home without letting me know where she was bound for. She come back afterwhile with this plaintive, which I had never seen before in all my horned days. I glimpsed him good from the kitchen where I was at, walking all over the dining room and the living room with Miz Celestine and looking at things, but they was talking sort of low like, and I couldnt make out a word what they was talking about. I figgered that Miz Celestine must of been kind of beside herself, showing somebody look like this plaintive all her fine things like that. Her things is fine and very scarce old antiques, and I know that she have been offered vast sums of money for em, but she would never agree to part with none. Things that been handed down in both the Beaufort and the Clairborne families from way back. That little old minching six hundred dollars that the plaintive mentioned wouldnt even be worth one piece of her things, not to mention her silver. After a while they went off and when Miz Celestine come back, she told me that everything had been taken care of and she had the tickets to Savannah in her purse. Bright and soon next morning we boarded the train for Savannah to bury Tom. Miz Celestine done even more than she had promised Tom. She took him back like she had promised, so that he could be buried in our family lot, and he was covered with flowers, and his church and his lodges turned out with him, and he was put away like some big mogul of a king. Miz Celestine was there sitting right along by my side all the time. Then me and Miz Celestine come on back down here to Jacksonville by ourselves. And Mrs. Clairborne didnt run off to keep from paying nobody. Shes a Clairborne, and before that, she was born a Beaufort. They dont owe nobody, and they dont run away. That aint the kind of raising they gets. Miz Clairbornes got money of her own, and lives off of the interest which she receives regular every six months. She went off down there to Miami Beach to sort of refresh herself and rest up her nerves. What with being off down here in Florida, away from all the folks she used to know, for three whole years, and cooped up there in her house, and remembering her dear husband being dead, and now Tom gone, and nobody left of the old family around excepting her and me, she was nervous and peaked like. It wasnt her, it was me that put her up to going off down there for a couple of months so maybe she would come back to herself. She never cheeped to me about borrowing no money from nobody, and I sure wasnt packing nothing up to move off when this plaintive come to the door. I was just gleaming up the silver to kill time whilst I was there by myself. And, gentlemens, I never tackled the plaintive just as soon as he mounted the porch like he said. The day before that, he had come there and asked-ed me if Miz Clairborne was at home. I told him no, and then he asked-ed me just when I expected her back. I told him she was down at Miami Beach, and got the letter that she had sent me so he could get her right address. He thanked me and went off. Then the next morning, here he was back with a great big moving wagon, rapped on the door and didnt use a bit of manners and politeness this time. Without even a Good morning he says for me to git out of his way because he come to haul off all the furniture and things in the house and he is short for time. You jury-gentlemens, I told him in the nicest way that I knowed how that he must of been crazy. Miz Celestine was off from home and she had left me there as a kind of guardeen to look after her house and things, and I sure couldnt so handy leave nobody touch a thing in Mrs. Clairbornes house unlessen she was there and said so. He just looked at me like I was something that the buzzards laid and the sun hatched out, and told me to move out of his way so he could come on in and get his property. I propped myself and braced one arm across the doorway to bar him out, reckoning he would have manners enough to go on off. But, no! He flew just as hot as Tucker when the mule kicked his mammy and begun to cuss and doublecuss me, and call me all out of my name, something nobody had never done be-fore in all my horned days. I took it to keep from tearing up peace and agreement. Then he balled up his fistes and demanded me to move cause he was coming in. Aw, naw you aint, I told him. You might think that yous going to grow horns, but Im here to tell you youll die butt-headed. His mouth slewed one-sided and he hauled off and hit me in my chest with his fist two times. Hollered that nothing in the drugstore would kill me no quicker than he would if I didnt git out of his way. I didnt, and then he upped and kicked me. I jumped as salty as the gator when the pond went dry. I stretched out my arm and he hit the floor on a prone. Then, that truck with the two men on it took off from there in a big hurry. All I did next was to grab him by his heels and frail the pillar of the porch with him a few times. I let him go, but he just laid there like a log. Dont you lay there, making out yous dead, sir! I told him. Git up from there, even if you is dead, and git on off this place! The contrary scamp laid right there, so I reached down and muscled him up on acrost my shoulder and toted him to the gate, and heaved him over the fence out into the street. None of my business what become of him and his dirty mouth after that. I figgered I done right not to leave him come in there and haul off Miz Celestines things which she had left there under my trust and care. But Tom, my husband, would have said I was wrong for taking too much on myself. Tom claimed that he ever loved me harder than the thunder could bump a stump, but I had one habit that he ever wished he could break me of. Claimed that I always placed other folkss cares in front of my own, and more expecially Miz Celestine. Said that I made out of myself a wishbone shining in the sun. Just something for folks to come along and pick up and rub and pull and get their wishes and good luck on. Never looked out for nothing for my ownself. I never took a bit of stock in what Tom said like that until I come to be in this trouble. I felt right and good, looking out for Miz Celestines interest and standing true and strong, till they took me off to jail and I writ Miz Celestine a letter to please come see bout me and help me out, and give it to the folks there at the jail to mail off for me. A sob wrestled inside Laura Lee and she struck silence for a full minute before she could go on. Maybe it reached her, and then maybe again it didnt. Anyhow, I aint had a single scratch from Miz Celestine, and here I is. But I love her so hard, and I reckon I cant help myself. Look, gentlemen, Celestine was give to me when I was going on five The prosecutor shot up like a striking trout and waved his long arm. If the court please, this is not a street corner. This is a court of law. The witness cannot be allowed to ramble The judge started as if he had been shaken out of a dream. He looked at the prosecutor and shook his head. The object of a trial, I need not remind you, is to get at the whole truth of a case. The defendant is unlearned, as she has said. She has no counsel to guide her along the lines of procedure. It is important to find out why an act was committed, as you well know. Please humor the court by allowing the witness to tell her story in her own way. The judge looked at Laura Lee and told her to go ahead. A murmur of approval followed this from all over the room. I dont mean that her mama and papa throwed her away. You know how it used to be the style when a baby was born to place it under the special care of a older brother or sister, or somebody that had worked on the place for a long time and was apt to stay. Thats what I mean by Celestine was give to me. Just going on five, I wasnt yet old enough to have no baby give to me, but that I didnt understand. All I did know that some way I loved babies. I had me a old rag doll-baby that my mama had made for me, and I loved it bettern anything I can mention. Never will forget the morning mama said she was going to take me upstairs to Miz Beauforts bedroom to lemme see the new baby. Mama was borned on the Beaufort place just like I was. She was the cook, and everything around the place was sort of under her care. Papa was the houseman and drove for the family when they went out anywhere. Well, I seen that tee-ninchy baby laying there in a pink crib all trimmed with a lot of ribbons. Gentlemens, it was the prettiest thing I had ever laid my eyes on. I thought that it was a big-size doll-baby laying there, and right away I wanted it. I carried on so till afterwhile Miz Beaufort said that I could have it for mine if I wanted it. I was so took with it that I went plumb crazy with joy. I ask-ed her again, and she still said that she was giving it to me. My mama said so too. So, for fear they might change they minds, I said right off that I better take my baby home with me so that I could feed it my ownself and make it something to put on and do for it in general. I cried and carried on something terrible when they wouldnt leave me take it on out to the little house where we lived on the place. They pacified me by telling me I better leave it with Miz Beaufort until it was weaned. That couldnt keep me from being around Celestine every chance I got. Later on I found out how they all took my carrying-on for jokes. Made out they was serious to my face, but laughing fit to kill behind my back. They wouldnt of done it if they had knowed how I felt inside. I lived just to see and touch Celestine my baby, I thought. And she took to me right away. When Celestine was two, going on three, I found out that they had been funning with me, and that Celestine was not my child at all. I was too little to have a baby, and then again, how could a colored child be the mother of a white child? Celestine belonged to her papa and mama. It was all right for me to play with her all I wanted to, but forget the notion that she was mine. Jury-gentlemen, it was mighty hard, but as I growed on and understood more things I knowed what they was talking about. But Celestine wouldnt allow me to quit loving her. She ever leaned on me, and cried after me, and run to me first for every little thing. When I was going on sixteen, papa died and Tom Kimble, a young man, got the job that papa used to have. Right off he put in to court me, even though he was twelve years older than me. But lots of fellows around Savannah was pulling after me too. One wanted to marry me that I liked extra fine, but he was settling in Birmingham, and mama was aginst me marrying and settling way off somewhere. She ruthered for me to marry Tom. When Celestine begin to hang on me and beg and beg me not to leave her, I give in and said that I would have Tom, but for the sake of my feelings, I put the marriage off for a whole year. That was my first good chance to break off from Celestine, but I couldnt. General Beaufort, the old gentleman, was so proud for me to stay and pacify Celestine, that he built us a nice house on the place and made it over to us for life. Miz Beaufort give me the finest wedding that any colored folks had ever seen around Savannah. We stood on the floor in the Beaufort parlor with all the trimmings. Celestine, the baby, was a young lady by then, and real pretty with reddish-gold hair and blue eyes. The young bloods was hanging after her in swarms. It was me that propped her up when she wanted to marry young J. Stuart Clairborne, a lawyer just out of school, with a heap of good looks, a smiling disposition, a fine family name and no money to mention. He did have some noble old family furniture and silver. So Celestine had her hearts desire, but little money. They was so happy together that it was like a play. Then things begin to change. Mama and Miz Beaufort passed on in a year of each other. The old gentleman lingered around kind of lonesome, then one night he passed away in his sleep, leaving all he had to Celestine and her husband. Things went on fine for five years like that. He was building up a fine practice and things went lovely. Then, it seemed all of a sudden, he took to coughing, and soon he was too tired all the time to go to his office and do around like he used to. Celestine spent her money like water, sending her husband and taking him to different places from one end of the nation to the other, and keeping him under every kind of a doctors care. Four years of trying and doing like that, and then even Celestine had to acknowledge that it never did a bit of good. Come a night when Clairborne laid his dark curly head in her lap like a trusting child and breathed his last. Inside our own house of nights, Tom would rear and pitch like a mule in a tin stable, trying to get me to consent to pull out with him and find us better-paying jobs elsewhere. I wouldnt hear to that kind of a talk at all. We had been there when times was extra good, and I didnt aim to tear out and leave Miz Celestine by herself at low water. This was another time I passed up my chance to cut aloose. The third chance wasnt too long a-coming. A year after her husband died, Miz Celestine come to me and told me that the big Beaufort place was too much for her to keep up with the money she had on hand now. She had been seeking around, and she had found a lovely smaller house down at Jacksonville, Florida. No big grounds to keep up and all. She choosed that instead of a smaller place around Savannah because she could not bear to sing small where she had always led off. An now she had got hold of a family who was willing to buy the Beaufort estate at a very good price. Then she told me that she wanted me to move to Florida with her. She realized that she had no right to ask me no such a thing, but she just could not bear to go off down there with none of her family with her. Would I please consent to go? If I would not go with her, she would give Tom and me the worth of our property in cash money and we could do as we pleased. She had no call to ask us to go with her at all, excepting for old-time love and affection. Right then, jury-gentlemens, I knowed that I was going. But Tom had ever been a good husband to me, and I wanted him to feel that he was considered, so I told her that I must consult my pillow. Give her my word one way or another the next day. Tom pitched a acre of fits the moment that it was mentioned in his hearing. Hollered that we ought to grab the cash and, with what we had put away, buy us a nice home of our own. What was wrong with me nohow? Did I aim to be a wishbone all my days? Didnt I see that he was getting old? He craved to end his days among his old friends, his lodges and his churches. We had a fine cemetery lot, and there was where he aimed to rest. Miz Celestine cried when he told her. Then she put in to meet all of Toms complaints. Sure, we was all getting on in years, but that was the very reason why we ought not to part now. Cling together and share and lean and depend on one another. Then when Tom still helt out, she made a oath. If Tom died before she did, she would fetch him back and put him away right at her own expense. And if she died before either of us, we was to do the same for her. Anything she left was willed to me to do with as I saw fit. So we put in to pack up all the finest pieces, enough and plenty to furnish up our new home in Florida, and moved on down here to live. We passed three peaceful years like that, then Tom died. Laura Lee paused, shifted so that she faced the jury more directly, then summed up. Maybe I is guilty sure enough. I could be wrong for staying all them years and making Miz Celestines cares my own. You gentlemens is got more book-learning than me, so you would know more than I do. So far as this fracas is concerned, yeah, I hurted this plaintive, but with him acting the way he was, it just couldnt be helped. And taint nary one of you gentlemens but what wouldnt of done the same. There was a minute of dead silence. Then the judge sent the prosecutor a cut-eye look and asked, Care to cross-examine? Thats all! the prosecutor mumbled, and waved Laura Lee to her seat. I have here, the judge began with great deliberation, the note made by Mrs. J. Stuart Clairborne with the plaintiff. It specifies that the purpose of the loan was to finance the burial of Thomas Kimble. The judge paused and looked directly at Laura Lee to call her attention to this point. The importance to this trial, however, is the due date, which is still more than three months away. The court officers silenced the gasps and mumbles that followed this announcement. It is therefore obvious why the plaintiff has suppressed this valuable piece of evidence. It is equally clear to the court that the plaintiff knew that he had no justification whatsoever for being upon the premises of Mrs. Clairborne. His Honor folded the paper and put it aside, and regarded the plaintiff with cold gray eyes. This is the most insulting instance in the memory of the court of an attempt to prostitute the very machinery of justice for an individuals own nefarious ends. The plaintiff first attempts burglary with forceful entry and violence and, when thoroughly beaten for his pains, brazenly calls upon the law to punish the faithful watch-dog who bit him while he was attempting his trespass. Further, it seems apparent that he has taken steps to prevent any word from the defendant reaching Mrs. Clairborne, who certainly would have moved heaven and earth in the defendants behalf, and rightfully so. The judge laced the fingers of his hands and rested them on the polished wood before him and went on. The protection of women and children, he said, was inherent, implicit in Anglo-Saxon civilization, and here in these United States it had become a sacred trust. He reviewed the long, slow climb of humanity from the rule of the club and the stone hatchet to the Constitution of the United States. The English-speaking people had given the world its highest concepts of the rights of the individual, and they were not going to be made a mock of, and nullified by this court. The defendant did no more than resist the plaintiffs attempted burglary. Valuable assets of her employer were trusted in her care, and she placed her very life in jeopardy in defending that trust, setting an example which no decent citizen need blush to follow. The jury is directed to find for the defendant. Laura Lee made her way diffidently to the judge and thanked him over and over again. That will do, Laura Lee. I am the one who should be thanking you. Laura Lee could see no reason why, and wandered off, bewildered. She was instantly surrounded by smiling, congratulating strangers, many of whom made her ever so welcome if ever she needed a home. She was rubbed and polished to a high glow. Back at the house, Laura Lee did not enter at once. Like a pilgrim before a shrine, she stood and bowed her head. I aint fitten to enter. For a time, I allowed myself to doubt my Celestine. But maybe nobody aint as pure in heart as they aim to be. The cock crowed on Apostle Peter. Old Maker, please take my guilt away and cast it into the sea of forgetfulness where it wont never rise to accuse me in this world, nor condemn me in the next. Laura Lee entered and opened all the windows with a ceremonial air. She was hungry, but before she would eat, she made a ritual of atonement by serving. She took a finely wrought silver platter from the massive old sideboard and gleamed it to perfection. So the platter, so she wanted her love to shine. Laguna Niguel, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/22/2016 -- Starting a business requires considerable planning, heart, and a little bit of luck. From online retail stores to brick & mortar businesses to service oriented companies with a focused purpose America is a country known for entrepreneurs looking to carve out their place in the marketplace. A new company faces numerous challenges, and often takes some time to grow into its own. One of California's recently passed the 3-year mark, none other than LavHa in Laguna Niguel. After Jessica met Nancy Lin DeGregori in the fall of 2013, the two joined forces to create LavHa. It all began when they met, and Nancy had been making stone bracelets for a local yoga shop as a hobby, while Jessica utilized essential oils in her daily life. An idea was born to do a crafts fair together. From there they decided to combine the stone bracelets and essential oils. Following some experimentation, the pair discovered the highly absorbent lava stones which diffused the oils beautifully. Since then, plenty of customers have found uses for lava in their own creations, with many taking advantage of them as both a healing stone and a diffusing stone. "It really is special to us both to have had such tremendous success over the course of the last three years, and I know that each year we have expanded and demonstrated marked growth, which is very exciting," commented co-founder Jessica Forest. She continued, saying "The future is looking very bright for us, and I cannot wait to see what lies ahead as we continue to change lives and make the best jewelry we can possibly produce." Ultimately, LavHa spearheaded a trend towards using lava stones and essential oils in jewelry and leather accessories. Their initial foray into the marketplace has inspired a cavalcade of copycat ETSY stores, all trying to emulate the unique LavHa style. The jewelry crafted by LavHa combines the holistic, healing properties of natural gemstones with the essential oils. About LavHa LavHa began in August of 2013 when Jessica Forest teamed up with Nancy Lin DeGregori to create the first ever lava stones used as a diffuser of essential oils. Their product boasts the abilities of a healing stone and a diffuser, and currently sells in retail locations across North America, including three stores in California and stores in nine other states as well as Canada. LavHa is known for their essential oils, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and diffusing leather and sells great products for women, men, and children, too. www.lavha.com 949-878-2610 Undergraduates trying to enter the climate field will have to hope for the best when it comes to their careers, as President-elect Donald Trump's choices could set the tone for their careers, specifically, when it comes to budgeting. As Scientific American pointed out, it is not about science policy choices -- Trump's proposed policies, including immigrant deportation, cancelation of certain types of visas and even the increased surveillance of Muslims -- can limit the flow of science and ideas. Every decision Trump makes today could influence climate research, not just in the short term but in the long term as well. When it comes to their early career, climate scientists are struggling, with some using the words "worried," "threatened" or "disheartened" of Trump's actions. However, the same people also used the words "emboldened," "important" and "determined" to push forward their research. It is not only the young scientist community that wants Trump to accept facts of climate change and global warming. The CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science said that he was worried about the federal funding for scientific research. Rush Holt, a physicist and former Democratic representative from New Jersey, was cited by NBC News to have said, "We hope that President Trump will be more grounded in specific facts than was candidate Trump and pay more attention to the process of careful, open vetting of hypotheses and claims." He added that climate change is not something that we cannot wish away, as could any other issue not illuminated by research. Trump has consistently denied the fact that people are responsible for climate change, even accusing China of making it a hoax in his Twitter account. With many Republicans in the congress also denying the phenomenon, scientists are worried that a Republican-led government could pull the U.S. out of deals meant to slow down the effects of climate change to our planet Earth. 2016 is just about to end with more smartphones on the line to be unveiled next year. iPhone 7 left Apple fans surprised with the absence of the 3.5 mm jack, Pixel amazed the Google audience with its amazing features and Samsung got a lot of criticism after its Galaxy Note 7 started catching fire. A lot more exciting features are expected in the best 2017 smartphones. While most of the smartphones to be rolled out next year will be next versions of the current models, Nokia with its D1C is also all set to take up on the market once again. SWR has created a list of the best 2017 smartphones to be launched the next year. Best 2017 Smartphones: iPhone 8 / 8 Plus The iPhone 8 is coming and its going to be big https://t.co/xEM54T673e Fortune (@FortuneMagazine) November 21, 2016 The 4.7" iPhone 8 and 5.5" iPhone 8 Plus will debut in the third quarter of 2017 and will have a number of new features as compared to the current models. The smartphone will replace the earlier LCD screen with a new OLED one. The display has also been previously reported to be a curved one, but no official announcement has been made about it yet. Wireless charging as well as a unique iris scanner, will definitely rank the iPhone 8 / 8 Plus amongst the best 2017 smartphones. As Apple took care of the 3.5 mm Jack in 2016, next year it may do the same with the Home Button. The smartphone will be powered by an A11 processor, and are also reported to feature an all-glass back. If recent reports are to be believed, iPhone 8 may also offer gesture control. Best 2017 Smartphones: Nokia D1C After being acquired by Microsoft, Nokia D1C will be the company's first Android Nougat powered model to hit the market. The upcoming smartphone will be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 430 processor along with an Adreno 505 GPU. The handset will be powered by a 3 GB RAM and a 32 GB internal storage. With the non-compete clause signed with Microsoft, the Nokia D1C is expected to run the latest Android Nougat 7.0. With a better 13MP rear camera as well as an 8MP front camera for selfies, the D1C may also find a place in the list of Best 2017 Smartphones. Best 2017 Smartphones: OnePlus 4 Rumored to be rolled out in the second quarter of 2017, the OnePlus 4 is one of the most awaited smartphones so far. The next-generation smartphone is expected to feature a 5.5" flexible OLED screen. The resolution of the display will certainly be much improved than the earlier models and is expected to feature 2,560 x 1,440 pixels. The OnePlus 4 will be powered by the Snapdragon 830 CPU, coupled with an 8 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage. The upcoming smartphone will feature NFC support, a 21 MP Back Camera and 12 MP camera for taking selfies. Rumors also suggest that the best 2017 smartphone may feature a dual-camera setup, including an AR/MR support. Best 2017 Smartphones: Samsung Galaxy S8 El nuevo Samsung Galaxy S8 tendra una pantalla de 15 pulgadas https://t.co/3Z3ZIda5Uf pic.twitter.com/0FkXE2EW3j MeroStation (@MeroStation) November 20, 2016 Rumors are that the Galaxy S7 successor has been codenamed Dream, however, chances are that it'll keep its Galaxy S8 name. The upcoming smartphone, unlike the S7 Model, will spec a curved screen option. The display is expected to have a 4K resolution and 806 PPI and will come in two sizes: 5.7" and 6.2". The next generation smartphone will feature the latest 10nm Exynos 8895 SoC, which may also include ARM's Mali-G71 GPU chip. Earlier reports suggest that Galaxy S8 will feature a Pressure sensitive Touch display and AI assistant named "Bixby". To be listed with the best 2017 smartphones, the Galaxy S8 will also get rid of its Home button, feature a new slicker design as well as a new camera. Stay Tuned to SWR for more news on best 2017 smartphones. The Earth is composed of different minerals and substances that create balance in the ecosystem. One of the major components that Earth has is the reserves of oil and gas trapped beneath its surface. Sometimes, these minerals cause cracks and some of these are seeped out. However, this phenomenon is inevitable. Though it happens rarely, it does not create any major devastation on the planet's surface. On the contrary, the root of the problem is due to the human activities that cause major wreckage in marine biodiversity. These activities include the liquid petroleum released into the environment by a vessel or pipeline. It occurs due to human negligence and carelessness. According to Rinkesh on his article of Conserve Energy, the sources of the oil spill are numerous. Some of these are through the release of the crude oil by tankers on land and in water bodies as it happens due to drilling rigs, offshore oil platforms and well. Moreover, Chelsea Harvey states on her article on The Washington Post that six years after there was deepwater oil spill that occurred and devastated the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, still scientists are assessing the destruction it caused. The scientists increasingly reporting the widespread shoreline erosion and loss of wetlands, which brings harm in salt marsh ecosystem and coastal areas that leads also to a vulnerable sea-level rise. Last Thursday a new study has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that reports an extensive shoreline recession in the Mississippi River Delta caused by oil spill. According to Elijah Ramsey III, a researcher oceanographer at the U.S. Geological Survey, states that "Erosion is occurring [even] without the oil spill for lots of different reasons throughout the delta." According to offshore technology.com, a widespread shoreline loss has been revealed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey maps of the Louisiana marshlands where the coastline was heavily coated with oil during BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It was precisely measured after the spill that the length of the shoreline receded in quadruple compared from 13 feet a year before the spill. The research team found out that the pattern from the first year after the spill in 2010 to 2011 has changed dramatically and caused widespread erosion to the entire bay. The erosion occurred only along the shorelines with heavy to moderate oil coating. After two years (2011 to 2012), dramatic changes happened wherein higher loss rates extended to the areas that had less oil coating that kills vegetation, leading to loss of the roots that support the soil together. In August 2012, Hurricane Isaac hit on the Barataria Bay, two months after the two-year post spill period. And in four months after the wreckage of the hurricane, erosion rates have been measured, and surprisingly, these were higher than those previous erosion measurements. "Our study uniquely shows the patterns of shoreline recession seen in Barataria Bay are directly relatable to distinctly different causes," said by Elijah Ramsey III, a USGS geophysicist and lead author of the paper Amina Rangoonwala. "There was broadly dispersed erosion due to oiling from the Deepwater Horizon spill and more severe, but localized, erosion from Hurican Isaac," Ramsey added. One and all must understand that this kind of phenomenon and its effects are yet to be fully observed. It is not only a threat to the marine ecosystem but also a major risk that the civilization is facing in the near future. Scientists could determine the population size and genetic properties of the whale sharks through the DNA floating in the oceans. By simply studying the seawater, the world's biggest fish, the whale sharks, could be saved. The findings of the study were published online in Nature Ecology & Evolution. In the study, the team of researchers used the environmental DNA (eDNA), which the fish left in the water, to gauge the genetic characteristics of an aquatic species. They studied less than 30 liters of seawater, which was collected off the coast of Qatar in the Arabian Gulf, according to Mail Online. From the eDNA collected, the team of researchers made an estimate of the size of both the local population and that across the whole Indo-Pacific. They also indicated that these whale sharks are genetically different from those whale sharks in the Atlantic. Science reports that the team used the DNA to estimate the population of the female whale sharks to about 71,000. They also discovered that the Al Shaheen's whale sharks were just the same to the Indo-Pacific group than the Atlantic group. Ryan Kelly, a marine biologist from the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, said that the results are a conceptual advance. He further said that the researchers push the boundaries of what is possible to do with environmental DNA. Kelly envisions using eDNA to know the marine biodiversity in difficult to sample habitats such as rocky ocean bottoms that cannot be searched. In the past and related study, which was printed in PLOS One, it indicated that eDNA gathered in Greenland showed which fish were most likely to be caught by deep water trawling. Peter Rask Moller, fish curator at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, said that scientists could get a quite detailed and clear picture of fish fauna using only environmental DNA. david koch A judge ruled on Monday that Koch Industries can keep $21.5 million in profits from the biggest Ponzi scheme in US history. Bloomberg's Erik Larson reported that a US bankruptcy court in New York ruled against a trustee working to retrieve money for victims of Bernie Madoff's fraudulent activities. The conglomerate owned by Charles and David Koch was an early investor with Madoff, according to court records reviewed by Bloomberg. In 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison after running the biggest Ponzi scheme in US history. The scheme typically uses money from new investors to pay off the promised returns to old ones. Many of Madoff's victims have still not regained their losses. The Kochs had argued that the money was out of US legal reach because it had been transferred outside the US before Madoff's arrest in 2008. The trustee's attorney argued that the Kochs must have known they were subject to US law at the time. According to Bloomberg, Koch Industries was just one of dozens of Madoff's former customers in litigation, and together they are poised to keep up to $2 billion. The lawyer who is liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities sued Koch to retrieve $21.5 million that the firm sent to a Koch unit in the UK. NOW WATCH: JACK DANIELS MASTER DISTILLER: This is the real difference between scotch, whiskey, and bourbon More From Business Insider China has once again proven that its space agency is not just trailing behind others in space exploration. Its longest manned space mission has been dubbed as a major success as two astronauts came home safely after a month-long stint aboard the Tiangong 2 space station. Zhang Gaoli, vice premiere and member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said that the completion of the Tiangong-2 and Shenzhou-11 mission marked a major breakthrough for China's ESA, Space Daily reports. The two astronauts, Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong, landed via the Shenzhou 11 space capsule in the northern region of Inner Mongolia on Nov. 18, ending a month-long mission on the space laboratory. Also dubbed as the Heavenly Palace 2, the space station is where the astronauts carried out experiments ahead of a longer-range plant to install a permanent manned space station by 2022. "The Tiangong 2 and Shenzhou 11 flight duties were a complete success," mission commander Zhang Youxia told Reuters. Meanwhile, Tiangong 2 will remain in its orbit and is expected to dock with Tianzhou 1, the country's first cargo spacecraft to be launched in April 2017. The mission aimed to test out the station's equipment and mechanisms. However, they conducted several experiments on the space laboratory. One of which is to bring germinated seeds of thale cress, a flowering plant used in space-based research. Farming experiments in outer space could shed light on the behavior of plants and further expand the understanding on botanical research. "We want to study the growth rhythm and the flowering of plants in micro-gravity conditions," Zheng Huiqiong, chief scientist in charge of plant research on Tiangong-2 and a researcher with the Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology of the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), told Xinhua News. A recent discovery beneath the 12-kilometer deep Kola Borehole was said to have given evidence to "The Great Flood" that happened during the biblical time of Noah. Express UK reports that Russian scientists unearthed the world's deepest hole in Murmansk Oblast, Russia, and discovered a surprising theory. While they were expecting to find solid, dry rocky layers underneath the Kola Superdeep Borehole, the geological experts were stunned to see huge amount of water, suggesting that the composition of the Earth is not just limited to crust, mantle and core. The news outlet added that the group, Plano Existential, that published a video of the unearthing claimed that this was where the floodwater described in the Book of Genesis receded. As recorded in the Bible, the floodwater covered all the earth, rising to more than 22 feet above the highest mountain peaks due to non-stop rain. The floodwater then began to recede after 150 days of what was believed to be God's punishment. "Rock shouldn't be porous but there's water there, supporting the claim that there was a great flood covering the entire earth," the video narrator commented. This claim of biblical evidence just occurred weeks after the unsealing of the tomb of Jesus Christ beneath the 18th Century Edicule in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City. According to the National Geographic, the researchers were amazed to discover that the burial bed, where the body of who Christians believe to be the Redeemer of their sins resurrected, remained intact through time since his death in A.D. 33. The group was also able to confirm that the cave wall of Christ's tomb was made up of limestone. This revelation astounded archeologists considering the deconstruction, reconstruction and damage of the surrounding of the church. "All of this is perfectly consistent with what we know about how wealthy Jews disposed of their dead in the time of Jesus," said archaeologist and National Geographic grantee Jodi Magness. "This does not, of course, prove that the event was historical. But what it does suggest is that whatever the sources were for the gospel accounts, they were familiar with this tradition and these burial customs." The election of Donald Trump as the new president of the United States had scientists and environmentalists in a scurry. After all, this is a climate change denier who pledged to do away with policies that specifically addressed global warming. Their biggest problem? Trump himself vowed to "cancel" U.S. participation in the Paris Climate Agreement that was negotiated by almost 200 countries late last year in order to push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions around the world, country by country. However, Trump may have to rethink his decision. A new survey released by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs suggests that if he withdraws from the agreement, it will not sit well with the Americans -- as a survey of 2,061 citizens in June found that 71 percent of them support the Paris deal, including 57 percent of the Republicans. Opinion researcher Dina Smeltz, who also happens to be the lead author of the report, told The Washington Post that Democrats see the deal as a high priority for foreign policy, and Republicans are not as passive about the issue as initially thought. Smeltz said, "An increasing percentage of Republicans now say that some gradual action should be taken" to address such concerns. This goes against Trump's assertion of the Paris Agreement giving "foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use right here in America." In fact, as noted by The Huffington Post, the U.S. and every other party that agreed to the terms of the Paris Agreement have complete control over their own energy use. But each of them is expected to make good faith efforts in reaching its self-determined targets. With the transparent reporting structure, the U.S. has little to lose from staying in the agreement and definitely much to gain. As most countries understood, the entire world has a great deal to lose if we lose in our battle against climate change. In an incident alert the ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre (ISC) said the 179,171 dwt capesize bulker Kumiai Shagang came under attack on Sunday in the Sulu Sea between Sabah in East Malaysia and the Southern Philippines. Philippines terrorist group Abu Sayyaf Group has been targeting shipping in kidnap for ransom attacks, but until recently restricted attacks to small vessels such as tugs and barges. According to ReCAAP there have been nine actual attacks and two attempted attacks since March this year with 44 crew abducted and 11 currently still held hostage. Since October 2016, the perpetrators have begun to target ships of larger tonnage, ReCAAP said. Nonetheless, the latest attempted incidents of Southern Falcon and Kumiai Shagang show the vigilance of the crew and effective activation of anti-piracy measures had successfully prevented boarding by the perpetrators. The 9,051 dwt chemical tanker Southern Falcon came under attack on 13 November. The ReCAAP ISC reiterates its advisory to all ships to re-route from the area, where possible, the alert added. Greek President, Prokopios Pavlopoulos, the country's Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, and three former Prime ministers, were among the some 1,800 guests who celebrated the founding of the Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS). Held in the Athens Concert Hall 8 November was attended by the great and the good of Greek shipping and politics and had the opportunity to enjoy the singing of the childrens choir "Little Musicians" of the Conservatory of Athens, enjoy recitals by the Athens State Orchestra, and the film 'Seven Seas' by internationally renowned filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsagari, which reflected the greatness of Greek seamanship and shipping in the international shipping arena. The speeches were restricted to two. Prime minister Alexis Tsipras described the establishment of the UGS 100 years ago as "a milestone for both Greek shipping and the Greek economy", going on to praise Greek shipowners, who are recognised globally for their business acumen and their ability to make the right decision at the right time, by acting against the current. He said the "state will be a supporter and fellow traveler with the maritime sector in both stormy and calm days and then invited them to invest and exploit the opportunities given to Greece thus generating a spark of confidence". Tsipras declared 2016 a year of stability for Greece saying that in 2017 "Greece will grow with high growth rates, enabling it to participate in the ECB's quantitative easing programme and stand alone in the markets". He said this is the estimate of most analysts and official institutional bodies in Europe and of the IMF ". In his welcoming address UGS president, Theodore Veniamis declared: "Greek shipping is a national asset, beyond political parties, with a decisive and multifaceted economic, political and strategic importance for our country, and it sincerely wants to maintain its presence in its homeland. Veniamis, said the union is the home of the Greek shipping family and "proof of the importance and the superiority of collective action over the years in defending the institutional interests of Greek shipping, a difficult, demanding but also honourable task". He said over 100 years the union has "lived and closely followed all the turning points in the recent history of Greece". {gallery}ugs100{/gallery} gavin schmidt Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which studies the changing atmosphere, says that it won't be simple for Trump to purge federal agencies of climate researchers during his presidency. "Chopping off science just to prevent people from talking about climate change won't work," Schmidt told Business Insider. "You need science for hazards, for weather forecasting, and climate comes along for the ride." President-elect Donald Trump's stated views on climate change have ranged from the absurd that it's a Chinese hoax to the doubtful "There is still much that needs to be investigated." His statements, including his pledge to roll back programs designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the US and his selection of someone who says he does not believe in climate change to lead the Environmental Protection Agency's transition, suggest he could reject policies designed to control pollution and curb global warming. trump "I'd be lying if I said that there wasn't some level of concern," Schmidt said. "But the federal government is a very, very large place. And the number of appointees is very small." "I don't think one should be complacent," he added. "I think people are going around going 'Oh yeah it's just the same as the last time and it will be fine, it will be fine, it will be fine.' I'm finding it hard to muster that kind of optimism." But still, the sheer scale of science at the federal level makes it hard for a new presidential administration to radically alter its course. "When I first started working for the federal government I got frustrated," Schmidt said, "like why are we stuck in this pattern? Why are decisions that are made so difficult to reverse? Why is it so hard to shift anything? And it's hard because there's a lot of people and there's a lot of moving parts and there's a huge amount of money. But now I'm thinking, 'Oh, you know what, it's a good thing that that things can't be changed on a dime.'" Story continues Schmidt added that the work he and his fellow researchers are doing has faced considerable challenges under previous administrations as well. But that didn't stop them from continuing to do the research. "During the [George W.] Bush administration we had climate skeptics rewriting reports and trying to control what's said to the media," he said. "But the planet kept warning. We kept reporting on it. We kept improving the science that underlies our understanding of why it's changing. And we will work to continue to do so." If there was a campaign to censor or publish bad climate science under Trump, Schmidt said that outside researchers would notice. "All of these things are peer reviewed up the wazoo," he said. And to the degree that there's been information about Trump's plans for NASA, Schmidt said it doesn't worry him too much. "The NASA appointee from what I can tell is going to be somebody who's going to be very focused on Mars or human spaceflight, and I don't think that's terrible," he said. In the end, the exact fate of climate research under Trump is still impossible to predict. "President Obama said that he hopes their policies will be 'thought through,'" Schmidt said. "I think that's something to hope for, though whether I would put money on it myself is a slightly different question." NOW WATCH: Scientists may have discovered what caused these mysterious giant holes in Siberia More From Business Insider putin erdogan Turkey is looking into joining a Chinese- and Russian-led alliance known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters Sundayat the end of his official tour of Pakistan and Uzbekistan. Erdogan said that he met with SCO leaders over the weekend and expressed his interest in joining the Eurasian political, economic, and military alliance as an alternative to joining the European Union, which has not been receptive to Turkey's repeated bids for membership that began in 1963. France, Germany, and Belgium home to Brussels, where the EU is headquartered have long opposed Turkey's accession into the EU. Erdogan's reluctance to sign on to certain membership requirements, and his increasingly authoritarian leadership over Turkey, has also sparked concern among European leaders that he is not committed to a Western conception of human rights and civil liberties. Thousands of Turkish civil servants as well as military personnel, police officers, academics and teachers have been purged or arrested on suspicion that they were associated with a failed coup attempt against Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in July. Turkey Dozens of journalists, primarily working for opposition newspapers, have also been arrested since the attempted coup, while several opposition outlets have been shut down altogether. Erdogan insisted in a recent interview with "60 Minutes" that "these measures are being taken by prosecutors and judges in full accordance with the rule of law." But the crackdown has led the European Commission to warn Turkey that it is backsliding in human rights and democracy an accusation at which Erdogan appeared to scoff. Story continues "From time to time, we see insults directed at myself, claims that there was no freedom of expression in Turkey," Erdogan said Sunday."Meanwhile, terrorists prance around in French, German and Belgian streets. This is what they understand of freedom." A rejection, or a bluff? Increasing disenchantment with the EU and the perception that he is being lectured to by the US which supports anti-ISIS Syrian Kurds viewed by Turkey as terrorists has apparently spurred Erdogan to look east, where his domestic policies have not been heavily scrutinized or condemned. "Erdogan feels much more comfortable and at home among the authoritarian regimes of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization rather than facing the scrutiny and criticism of the European family of nations," Aykan Erdemir, an expert on Turkey and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider on Monday. Joining or even threatening to join the Shangai bloc, moreover which is heavily influenced by Russia and China would rattle the West and, as Erdogan said on Sunday, "considerably broaden Turkey's room to maneuver." China Turkey "If Turkey were to actually join the SCO, it would of course drastically alter relations with the US and NATO," Middle East analyst Michael Koplow, policy director of the Israel Policy Forum, told Business Insider on Monday. "It would be viewed as a rejection of the Western alliance, and make it incredibly difficult to include Turkey in any type of high-level strategic dialogue, given concerns about Russian expansionism," he added, saying Turkey, unlike other NATO members, is already a partner country to SCO dialogue. Still, many analysts are skeptical that Erdogan is prepared to put his money where his mouth is. He has been flirting heavily and publicly with Russia since the summer, but it is unclear whether a closer alliance with Russia and China would benefit Turkey politically or economically. putin erdogan "Erdogan's weathervane foreign policy characterized by frequent U-turns is not based neither on values nor principles," said Erdemir, a former member of Turkish parliament. He noted that Erdogan made the same announcement about possible SCO membership during a November 2013 meeting with Putin, yet never acted on it. Michael Kofman, an expert on Russian and Eurasian affairs and fellow at the Wilson Center, said that the SCO is "not a cohesive economic or political block" and would offer little to Turkey in practice other than to "instill the perception that the West is somehow 'losing Turkey' and should chase Erdogan to get it back." 'A rogue and dysfunctional' ally Complicating the Western temptation to write off Erdogan's comments as empty threats, however, is Turkey's recent deal with the EU to help stem the flow of refugees trying to enter Europe from Syria. "Erdogan knows that the EU views Turkey as critical to staunching the flow of refugees into Europe," said Koplow of the Israel Policy Forum. "He has a long history of making these types of threats in order to pressure Europe into concessions of various sorts. It's a gambit that will probably be successful if recent history is any guide." Over the summer, the EU agreed to pay Turkey 3 billion and German Chancellor Angela Merkel promised to speed up Turkey's EU bid if Turkey pledged to harbor the vast amount of refugees and migrants seeking asylum in Europe. A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle from the 48th Fighter Wing lands at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, November 12, 2015. Six F-15Es are deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and counter-ISIL missions in Iraq and Syria. Picture taken November 12, 2015. REUTERS/USAF/Airman 1st Class Cory W. Bush/Handout via Reuters Turkey's entry into the SCO would also complicate its relationship with NATO. "In theory, SCO membership would not require Turkeys exit from NATO," geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer, president of the political risk firm Eurasia Group, told Business Insider on Tuesday. "In practice, however, it would severely strain Ankaras ties with other NATO members." Ultimately, however, Bremmer believes Erdogan is just looking for leverage. "Erdogan wants the US to rely less on the Syrian Kurds, and to extradite Gulen, rather than a signal of a historic and strategic shift away from the West," he said, noting that many existing SCO members don't necessarily even want Turkey to join. "Erdogan himself said yesterday relations with the US and NATO are on track, so I think there's lots of smoke, no fire here," he added. Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan arrives for the NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland, July 9, 2016. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel Indeed, Erdogan told CBS over the weekend that Turkey is "moving in the same direction with NATO that we have always done." But July's failed coup appears to only have made him more determined to stomp out dissent, whether it's coming from his own citizens or from the international community. The FDD's Erdemir, meanwhile, predicted that Turkey's "gradual drift from NATO" will continue. "Putin will make sure that this is a slow and painful process for Turkey and the transatlantic alliance," he said. "He knows that as a rogue and dysfunctional NATO ally, Turkey is of greater use to Moscow than as a defector to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization." NOW WATCH: JACK DANIELS MASTER DISTILLER: This is the real difference between scotch, whiskey, and bourbon More From Business Insider The president's top science advisers are warning that new gene-editing technology could be turned into a biological weapon by transforming a common virus into an unstoppable drug-resistant killer. They recommend that the nation's public health system get a bigger slice of the U.S. budget to prepare. In a letter to President Barack Obama, the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology recommended that Congress create a $2 billion emergency preparedness fund for to be able to respond to any scenario of a biological weapon by boosting the ability to do research and produce vaccines more quickly. This funding could also to gain ground against emerging natural threats like Zika or Ebola, for example. The panel also wants better coordination between existing federal agencies to quickly identify a biological attack. Gene-editing technologies, such as CRISPR/Cas-9, act like a very accurate set of scissors that snip bits of genetic material and reshuffle the gene so that it can produce a new protein. The promise of CRISPR is to one day be able to eliminate the malfunctioning genes that cause inherited diseases and conditions, such as Huntington's, Down's syndrome or Parkinson's, for example. Some U.S. biotech companies have already started clinical trials using CRISPR to treat a retinal disease, while a Chinese team reported last week that it has begun using CRISPR/Cas-9 in human patients to treat a form of lung cancer. While interest in CRISPR/Cas-9 has exploded since its discovery in 2012, the president's science advisers also looked at possible risks of a terror group or rogue state using CRISPR/Cas-9 as a weapon. In that scenario, a scientist working for this group could take a normal virus or other infectious agent, edit some genes, and turn it into a killer disease for which we have no vaccine or other treatments. "Some of those variations are also pretty straightforward modifications that could occur naturally that could be hastened along in the lab," said David Relman, professor of medicine and microbiology at Stanford University and a member of the president's science advisers group. "If you just take a naturally organisms that we are most worried about anyway and remove one of our tools for treating and preventing, rendering the organisms impervious to our current vaccine or best drug, that's the most straightforward example." RELATED: CRISPR Gene-Edited Cells Get First Human Test Relman says CRISPR/Cas-9 has made genetic manipulation cheaper, faster and easier than any existing recombinant DNA technologies. While there's never been a terrorist group or enemy nation use DNA technology as a weapon, it doesn't mean that the United States shouldn't consider it, he added. "We all felt that the absence of an overt obvious deliberate attack was no reassurance that we might not have to confront the possibility in the future," Relman said. On of the most powerful things about CRISPR/Cas-9 is how easy it is to use. Ellen Jorgensen teaches a CRISPR class for beginning biology students at GENSPACE, a community biology lab in Brooklyn, N.Y. She gets young scientists and medical students, as well as amateur DIY biologists. Part of the curriculum is talking with students about the ethical issues behind the powerful new tool. "There are plenty of black hat scenarios with CRISPR, from potential eco-terrorism to inserting it into a virus," Jorgensen said. "The devil is always in the delivery. CRISPR is no different. It has to penetrate the cell and get inside. It's always the hardest part of any gene delivery system." Jorgensen said many people can use CRISPR, but any potential misuse would require some tinkering. To work as a weapon, any new engineered infectious agents would have to get past the human immune system, which tends to adapt to new organisms over time, as well as find a way to infect other people. "It's always going to be easier to use a off-the-shelf package or make a bomb out of a pressure cooker than make a biological bomb," Jorgensen said. "CRISPR has the potential to be order of magnitude easier than the methods that we used before to deliver specific gene edits." Since the gene-editing technology is already wide use, the presidential panel didn't recommend any restrictions on who can use it. But it did say that the White House and decision-makers in Washington need to pay attention. "We have to have a good working relationship between the biologists who developed these (gene-editing) technologies and those in government who are trying to understand what is possible," said Christopher Chyba, a professor of astrophysics and international affairs at Princeton University who heads the presidential council. "I don't think this problem is soluble by some way damning technologies or restricting publications." RELATED: What is CRISPR and How Could It Edit Your DNA? For nearly two decades, Anthony Ambrose has been scaling trees to study them, but even this seasoned climber is awestruck by his view from the top of massive sequoias in the Giant Forest of western Sierra Nevada, Calif. The biggest trees on Earth are in this forest, including the planet's single largest tree, General Sherman, which is 2,100 years old, weighs 2.7 million pounds, measures 100 feet wide at its trunk and towers 275 feet. General Sherman and the surrounding trees are considered to be among the ultimate survivors, yet they are showing worrisome signs of climate change-related stress. Ambrose, a scientist from Berkeley, forest ecologist colleague Wendy Baxter and their team are on a mission to save these giants, and it sometimes means climbing to the very top of them. He summarized the experience in two words: "Absolutely amazing." "You need to get up into the crowns of these tall trees in order to appreciate how large, complex and beautiful they are," Ambrose said. "You simply can't get the same perspective from the ground. Also, you get to see the other life forms high up in the canopy that you wouldn't otherwise be able to see on the ground, such as epiphytes (non-parasitic plants that grow on other plants), birds, spiders and ants. The views are incredible, both within the tree and surrounding canopy, as well as from the treetop." They and other scientists, such as forest ecologist Nate Stephenson of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), were concerned about the trees following years of drought in California. According to a story in the California Academy of Science's magazine, bioGraphic, Stephenson one day looked at the crown of a giant sequoia in the forest a few years ago and noticed that it was almost entirely brown, a scale of dieback that he had never witnessed before. When he found another tree showing similar distress lower to the ground, he touched one if its branches. The foliage crumbled off. RELATED: Planting Trees Can Clean Air, Cool Cities Stephenson said that in his three decades of studying these trees, he had only witnessed "two die on their feet." Now dozens appear to be "standing dead" after five years of brutal drought. A program called Leaf to Landscape is studying the problem, bringing together UC Berkeley's Dawson Research Lab, where Ambrose and Baxter work, as well as the USGS, the National Park Service and the Carnegie Airborne Observatory. Ambrose and Baxter are charged with collecting foliage samples, at different heights of the trees and at various times of day and night. It's a risky undertaking both for the climber and those nearby. "Large trees are more difficult to climb, and have more hazards than small trees, such as large dead limbs, which may fall out of the tree while climbing it," Ambrose explained. When such a limb falls from above, he screams, "Headache!" to alert his colleagues below. The foliage samples are carefully brought down from the tree and are used to measure water pressure, which Ambrose likened to studying a person's blood pressure. Giant sequoias can take in about 800 gallons of water a day, according to BioGraphic. As the trees pull water from the ground, the air surrounding their leaves draws water through the trees and eventually back into the atmosphere. The process, transpiration, creates tension within a given tree's water columns. This means that the drier the atmosphere is, and the less groundwater that's available, the higher the tension will be. The water columns can even snap like a rubber band, causing gas bubbles and an embolism to form, preventing the flow of water up the tree's trunk. The world's first human head transplant is still on schedule for 2017, according to Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero who's been saying say for years that he will perform the procedure. The latest news is that Canavero's patient, 30 year-old Valery Spiridonov of Russia, will use a virtual reality system for several months before the surgery to prepare for the experience of controlling an entirely new body. Canavero's claim that he can successfully perform a human head transplant has been the subject of skepticism since 2013. He claims to have performed the procedure on several cadavers, mice and even a monkey, though none of his work has appeared in any peer-reviewed journals, a fact that hasn't shaken his confidence. "I would say we have plenty of data to go on," Canavero told New Scientist in January this year. "It's important that people stop thinking this is impossible. This is absolutely possible and we're working towards it." RELATED: Head Transplants and Other Ethical Dilemmas from 2015 His confidence has carried him to the point of obtaining VR technology to prepare Spiridonov for the procedure. The system was developed by Inventum Bioengineering Technologies out of Chicago and is designed specifically to help potential head transplant patients cope with the shock of living in someone else's body. It has tailored "experiences" where the patient will use full body movement to get familiar with voluntary motor functions. According to Digital Trends, the VR system seems to be based on the HTC Vive headset and the Virtuix Omni. The Virtuix Omni utilizes a stationary brace so users can be locked in one place while they physically move around in virtual reality, but prevents them from running into walls. The system also has a cage-like structure with a stationary vest attached that allows the user to stand in one place. Illegal salvagers have plundered at least six World War II shipwrecks near Indonesia for scrap metal, including the wreck of an American submarine that has now "completely vanished," according to investigators. The damaged wrecks include three Dutch and two British warships sunk by Japanese forces after the Battle of the Java Sea in February 1942, and the American submarine USS Perch, which sank in the Java Sea in March 1942 after being damaged in an attack on Japanese destroyers. The scale of damage to the historic shipwrecks was discovered early this month by an international team of divers and underwater survey specialists, sponsored by a Dutch naval memorial society, the Karel Doorman Fund. The fund had hoped to capture video footage of the Dutch shipwrecks in preparation for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Java Sea next year. [See Photos of the Historic WWII-Era Shipwrecks in the Java Sea] RELATED: 22 Shipwrecks Found in Single Location in Greece The Dutch wrecks were almost intact when they were rediscovered by amateur divers in 2002, but the latest expedition found only holes in the seabed where many of the wrecks once lay. "It was shocking," Jacques Brandt, president of the Karel Doorman Fund, told Live Science. "As the representative organization of the next-of-kin [of the ships' crews], it was a big blow to us, as we considered those ships as being war graves under the sea and they clearly should not be tampered with." The survey team reported that the wrecks of two of the Dutch warships the HNLMS De Ruyter and the HNLMS Java appear to be missing. A large part of a third wreck the HNLMS Kortenaer is also missing. They also reported that two British war wrecks in the area the HMS Exeter and the HMS Encounter have been almost entirely scavenged for scrap metal, and that the wreck of the USS Perch has "completely vanished." Wrecking history The Java Sea survey report has now been turned over to the Dutch defense ministry, which is in charge of protecting the nation's naval wrecks, Brandt said. "It is a very serious offence if the wrecks have been deliberately removed, but before we make that conclusion the authorities will have to make further investigations," he said. The Dutch defense minister made a statement to members of Parliament last week, noting the destruction reported by the expedition to the Java Sea wrecks. Britain's defense ministry also issued a statement in response to the expedition's report, condemning the damage and desecration done to the wrecks and suggesting that illegal metal salvagers are to blame. Under international agreements, naval vessels remain the property of their governments after they sink, and it is illegal to disturb or salvage them without official permission, said marine archaeologist Innes McCartney, a visiting research fellow at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom. [Sunken Treasures: The Curious Science of 7 Famous Shipwrecks] RELATED: Biggest Shipwreck Finds in History But a "perfect storm" of high metal prices and a lack of enforcement has resulted in many wartime shipwrecks being broken up for scrap metal by illegal salvagers, especially in the Asia and Pacific regions, he said. "There has been anecdotal evidence for an abundance for years that shipwrecks in the area of the Battle of the Java Sea have been getting hammered by salvage companies," McCartney told Live Science. "From my standpoint it's incredibly frustrating. We will now never be able to archaeologically study the Battle of the Java Sea - it's gone, it's lost to us forever." Metal pirates Suspicion surrounding the destruction of the Java Sea war wrecks has fallen on a number of salvage ships operating in Southeast Asian waters, McCartney said. They include a Mongolian-flagged salvage barge that was photographed last year taking metal from a popular scuba diving wreck near Singapore, according to Underwater Photography Guide News (UWPG News). Illegal salvagers are also thought to be responsible for recent damage to the wrecks of the British warships HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, which were sunk by Japanese aircraft near Malaysia's Tioman Island in 1941, and the illegal salvage of a Dutch submarine wreck, the HNLMS 0-16, in the Gulf of Thailand in 2012, reported the New Strait Times. The U.S. Navy reported last year that the wreck of the American cruiser USS Houston, which sank in February 1942 in the Sunda Strait, southwest of the Java Sea, with around 650 sailors and marines onboard, had also suffered "unauthorized disturbance of the grave site." RELATED: Dozens of Shipwrecks Found at the Bottom of the Black Sea McCartney said the salvage barge photographed near Singapore last year appeared to be equipped with a large crane and a 5-ton "drop chisel," which is designed to cut a shipwreck apart. "What they're doing is just dropping it down on the wreck, chopping the wreck into manageable pieces, and then using that crane to haul it on board," he said. Similar equipment was used by some Dutch salvage operators in recent years to remove especially valuable metals, like brass, from British shipwrecks that were sunk at the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea in 1916, McCartney said. Although researchers have identified and documented the salvage firms responsible for much of the damage to the Jutland wrecks, so far the Dutch authorities have taken no action, he said. Eyes in the sky Radio beacons and satellite radar technology now make it possible to track salvage ships in the same way that many fishing trawlers are now tracked to prevent illegal fishing, McCartney said. Salvage ships that are seen to linger over known shipwrecks, or that exhibit other suspicious behavior, can be flagged automatically and inspected when they reach port, he said. McCartney also noted that a growing number of countries have agreed to mutually protect shipwrecks in their waters under the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. But, several leading countries - including the U.S. and the U.K. - have not ratified the convention, out of concern that it will be too difficult or expensive to enforce, he said. McCartney said, however, that modern methods of enforcement are mostly electronic, and don't require sending warships to physically protect the shipwrecks. "The legal framework is there, and the technological framework is there - it just requires the countries of the world to get on and do it," he said. Photo: The wreck of the Dutch cruiser HMNLS De Ruyter has disappeared from the floor of the Java Sea. Investigators think it was broken up for scrap by illegal salvage operators. Credit: Koninklijke Marine Original article on Live Science. Press Release November 22, 2016 Hontiveros files "Tres Marias" bills vs. gender-based electronic violence, peer-to-peer sexual harassment and rape Coinciding with the observance of the International Week for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Children (VAWC), Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros on Tuesday filed three (3) legislative bills to fight sexual harassment and violence against women. The senator was joined by women rights advocate, Dr. Sylvia Claudio and several student women leaders. Hontiveros' three bills are the Anti-Rape Act (Senate Bill No. 1252), the Anti Sexual Harassment Bill (Senate Bill No. 1250), and the Gender-Based Electronic Violence (Senate Bill No. 1251). Dubbed as the 'Tres Marias" bills, the said measures seek to strengthen the existing Anti-Rape Law, and criminalize gender-based electronic violence and peer-to-peer sexual harassment. Hontiveros expressed alarm over the growing number of sexual harassment cases against women both offline and online. She cited the examples of Vice President Leni Robredo who was recently the subject of a nasty pregnancy rumor and students like Anne Nicole De Castro, who were sexually harassed online after participating in a protest action against the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos' burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. "There is an urgent need to institute protective measures and strategic policies to combat the prevalence of the rape culture in our society which leads to physical sexual assault and other forms of violence against our women and children," Hontiveros explained. "Gender-based online violence" Hontiveros' Gender Based Electronic Violence Act seeks to prohibit and impose penalties on people behind misogynistic and homophobic attacks on social media, which it brands as gender-based electronic violence. Many of the victims are young people, who use social media as their primary outlet of expression. These attacks have the effect of silencing this expression, and contributing to a culture of misogyny and hate. Increasing the age of statutory rape On the other hand, the Senator's Anti-Rape Act seeks to amend and modernize current legislation against rape. It seeks to emphasize the absence of consent as the essential element of the crime of rape, over evidence of physical resistance and external injuries; increase the age of statutory rape to eighteen years old from the current age of twelve years old; introduce as aggravating circumstances (1) the use of video recording or electronic device during the commission of the rape; (2) the status of the offender as a personal of public or moral authority, when such authority is used to perpetrate the act of rape; (3) the perpetration of rape as a hate crime against those belonging to marginalized categories; and the repeal of the "forgiveness clause" in the Revised Penal Code. "Peer-to-peer sexual harassment" Meanwhile, the Anti Sexual Harassment Act seeks to amend current anti sexual harassment legislation by introducing sexual harassment between peers and those committed to a superior officer by a subordinate, or to a teacher by a student, or to a trainer by a trainee. "It's time to interrupt and end the culture of rape and male sexual violence. We will bring the fight to our very homes, workplaces and the internet. We will give no quarter to misogyny and sexism. We will not allow the gross and blatant disrespect, sexual assault and objectification of our women and children to continue to take safe refuge in our communities," Hontiveros said. Devastated by his sons death from a bombing in Afghanistan, Stewart Perry said his anguish was overcome by anger when impatient first-class passengers booed his family because they were allowed to exit a plane ahead of them to catch a connecting flight to meet the soldiers remains. I was really shocked that adult men and women from elderly to mid-20s would behave that way, said Perry, a former Marine who lives in Stockton. The Perry familys painful journey to meet the body of Army Sgt. John Perry started Nov. 14 when they boarded an American Airlines flight to Arizona at Sacramento International Airport. Their plane arrived in Phoenix 45 minutes later than expected, causing some panic among the Gold Star family that they would miss a connecting flight to Philadelphia, where a military driver was to meet and escort them to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The flight captain announced over the aircraft intercom that passengers should remain seated to allow for a military family to deplane first because they have an important place to go, Perry said. He said hes not sure if the other passengers realized the captain was talking about a Gold Star family. As Perry, his wife and their 8-year-old daughter exited the plane, they overheard passengers saying, This is crap and I paid for first class, this is garbage. They were asked to remain seated for just a minute or two, Perry said. Their reaction was overwhelmingly ridiculous. They were just classless people. They have no care in the world for anybody but themselves. Perrys son a member of the Armys 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas was one of two soldiers killed Nov. 12 when a suicide bomber attacked the Bagram Airfield, in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan. John Perry who turned 30 on Nov. 2 had deployed on his second tour to Afghanistan in September. American Airlines official said they were honored to have the family aboard, but did not address the rude behavior of the passengers who booed the Perry family. We will always make every possible effort to ensure a smooth journey in such difficult circumstances, Ross Feinsten, a spokesman for the airlines, said in a statement Monday to The Chronicle. Perry said he had difficulty explaining to his young daughter why they were booed by the other passengers. I dont know, we will just ignore that, OK, Perry recalled saying to his daughter. Thats the best answer I can provide. American Airlines made sure the family caught their connecting flight to Philadelphia, holding the plane at the gate for them for 40 minutes, Perry said. Perry said the passengers on his connecting flight were considerate and kind when he boarded with his family. They were respectful. They knew what we were here for and why they were being held, Perry said of the passengers on the flight from Phoenix to Philadelphia. I think it was explained to people that (this flight) was our only option. They made it to Dover Air Force Base in time for a ceremony with Vice President Joe Biden and other dignitaries from Washington, D.C., on hand to honor Sgt. Perry and Pfc. Tyler R. Iubelt of Tamaroa, Ill., who was also killed in the explosion. He was a great kid, Perry said of his son, who was honored at a memorial service in Lodi on Thursday and is to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His son who joined the Army in January 2008 was awarded a Bronze Star, a National Defense Service Medal, three Army Commendation Medals and an Army Achievement Medal, among a number of other awards. He was awarded a Purple Heart posthumously. When I look at my sons achievements in the Army, he was head and shoulders above me, said Perry, who served in the Marines for 13 years. John Perry was quiet and respectful, Stewart Perry recalled, adding that he had a love for fishing and hosted his own fishing channel on YouTube called Fishing on Base. The fallen soldier is survived by his wife, 5-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son. Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi vowed on Monday to lead the fight to defeat any GOP effort to overhaul and cut Medicare. The veteran California lawmaker warned that President-elect Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan would be seriously overpaying their hands if they try to tamper with the nations premier health care programs for seniors. Although Trump repeatedly promised during the campaign that he wouldnt cut Social Security or Medicare as a means of controlling the long term debt, Ryan (R-WI) made no such promise. He and House Budget Committee Chair Tom Price of Georgia signaled last week that the House would take up Ryans latest proposal for transforming Medicare into a private voucher system sometime after Congress repeals the Affordable Care Act early next year. Related: GOP Cuts in Medicare May Be Next After Dismantling Obamacare Pelosi, eager to rally her dispirited Democratic troops after their party took a shellacking at the hands of the Republicans in the Nov. 8 election, said in an interview with Greg Sargent of The Washington Post that Ryan and Trump would be badly misreading their mandate from the voters if they tried to forge ahead with a measure to alter the fundamental Medicare program. She argued that if Trump decides to join forces with Ryan and congressional Republicans to ram through the proposed Medicare reforms next year, he would be repeating the mistake of former GOP president George W. Bush who waged a failed effort to partially privatize Social Security after his 2004 reelection. Pelosi said that Democratic unity was critical in thwarting Bushs highly controversial Social Security plan an ill-advised proposal that some analysts believe subsequently hurt the GOP presidents public standing. She said that the Democrats would show that same unity in fighting the latest iteration of Ryans so-called premium support plan. At that time, we committed to each other that we would be unified and disciplined, Pelosi told The Post. Bush had just been elected. He gave us an opportunity by saying he would partially privatize Social Security. Everybody stuck together. The opportunity that we have now is the equivalent of the opportunity we had in 05. Story continues Related: Congress Gives Trump a Chance to Recast the Federal Budget Price, who appears in the running to become the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters last week that Republicans would likely move within the first six to eight months of Trumps administration to begin implementing their Medicare plan. Key elements include raising the age of eligibility from 65 to 67 and gradually privatizing the system with government-issued vouchers or premium supports to defray the cost of insurance policies purchased on the open market. Seniors already in the system or fast approaching retirement would have the choice of sticking with traditional Medicare coverage or switching to the new approach designed to save the government billions of dollars in the coming years. But millennials and middle aged workers who are years away from retirement would be pressured or steered into the new voucher system. Medicare privatization has long been a central feature of Ryans highly controversial budget proposals that received substantial GOP backing in the House but never made it past the Senate. Pelosi has been a vehement opponent of Ryans Medicare plans dating back to 2011, when she told liberal bloggers that Ryans approach has to be snuffed out immediately. Now, however, Ryan and other Republican House leaders believe that the election results are a mandate to push a bold agenda including Medicare reform much to the horror of advocates of the program. Medicare, created in the mid-1960s during the Great Society era, provides health care and subsidized drugs to 57 million older Americans. Related: Meet the Guy Who Wants to Topple House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi While portions of the Medicare program are facing long term financial challenges as more and more baby boomers retire and fewer workers pay into the program, Medicare has a vast political constituency making it a high risk venture for either party to seek major cuts or changes. They would be tinkering with the holiest of holies of American politics, Ross Baker, a political scientist and congressional expert with Rutgers University, said in an interview yesterday. I think that Pelosi is right that the beneficiaries of Medicare are intensely protective of it in its present form, and would resist pretty strongly any effort to modify it. Pelosi, 76, the first woman to have ever served as speaker of the House, is feeling some pressure from rank and file Democrats because of their partys losses in the election. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), a veteran lawmaker from the Rust Belt, is challenging her for the post of Minority Leader. Galvanizing rank and file Democrats to combat the Ryan Medicare plan isnt a bad way for her to solidify her hold on her caucus. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: Paul Chinn / Paul Chinn / The Chronicle A 48-year-old woman was attacked from behind while walking from a San Leandro BART station by an unknown assailant who struck her repeatedly in the head with a blunt object, police said Monday. The assault and robbery the womans cell phone was stolen occurred shortly after 8 p.m. Friday in an unincorporated part of San Leandro near 159th Avenue and Maubert Avenue, according to the Alameda County Sheriffs Department. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Happy Thanksgiving a day in advance, and special gratitude to Hans Gallas, who forwarded a Yale News treatise about Thanksgiving recipes of artists and literati. Man Ray submitted the following poultry-related recipe to the Artist and Writers Cookbook: Gather wooden darning eggs, one per person. If the variety without handles cannot be found, remove the handles. Pierce lengthwise so that skewers can be inserted in each darning egg. Lay the skewered eggs in an oblong or oval pan and cover with transparent cellophane. Darning eggs are hard to find at Trader Joes or even Whole Foods Market, and it may prove difficult for you, dear reader, to gather the proper ingredients in time for tomorrows feast. You may simplify things by substituting Saran-Wrap-like clear plastic film for the cellophane. Heres hoping that wrestling it out of the box and over the eggs is your biggest holiday battle. P.S.: Anthony Bourdains signing for Appetites: A Cookbook, was last Wednesday, Nov. 16, at the Fairmont Hotels Tonga Room, a place he had once described as the tackiest, weirdest, most perfect spot for imbibing on the planet. KCBS Foodie Chap Liam Mayclem says most attendees got a kiss on the cheek from the author, but Roland Passot, La Folie chef-owner, got the one-two-three smooch treatment. The nonprofit SPUR focuses on urban planning, and since the election was, in many ways, a bombardment of urban Americans, it wasnt surprising that at the 2016 Silver SPUR Award luncheon on Thursday, Nov. 17, honoring Kimberly Bryant, Mark Buell, Ira Hirschfield and (posthumously) Rose Pak, the election would be mentioned. Thats an understatement. In a vast room at the Moscone Center, the emotional heart of every speech was a response to the vote. Its up to all of us to stay engaged, said Yat-Pang Au, CEO of Veritas Investments (which sponsored the luncheon; the Curran Theatre hosted the reception). The election is a protest against many of the things we stand for in the Bay Area, said Gabriel Metcalf, SPUR president and CEO. We embrace radical diversity. ... Lets make a Bay Area a haven for immigrants and the persecuted. It doesnt matter what theyre fleeing. We can make more room. Honoree Hirschfield, retiring after 28 years at the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, talked about backing the campaign for marriage equality. Now its our job to protect it, Hirschfield said. Honoree Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code, said her daughters decision to walk out of school to protest the election had shown her that the nonprofit had a bigger mission than encouraging girls in technology: to teach these girls to lead. Civic leader Buell paid homage to his parents and my progressive and passionate and very disappointed wife, Susie, their children and their 11 grandchildren. Keeping their futures in mind, he said, If anything happens that you dont agree with, keep a pitchfork by your door. Weve got to fight back. Gordon Chin, accepting the award for the late firebrand Pak, was in the same frame of mind. Theres a fear in this city, he said, magnified by events of Nov. 8. Maybe we all need to channel a little bit of our inner Rose Pak. Later that day, at the annual Voices for Justice Human Rights Watch dinner, descriptions of the international projects of the nonprofit group aimed at investigating, exposing and eliminating violations of human rights were given alongside descriptions of its work in the United States, in criminal justice, immigration and national security, said U.S. program co-director Alison Parker. Misogyny, racism and xenophobia were ugly parts of Donald Trumps campaign, said HRWs Bruno Ugarte. We have to make sure that they do not define his presidency. The work of the human rights movement is needed now more than ever. More than $500,000 was raised in a few minutes. Susie Buell wore a safety pin (the post-election sign of support for minorities and possible victims of Trumpian policies) on her jacket. She talked about running into Ann Richards, just after Richards was beaten by George W. Bush in the Texas governors race. Are you OK? she asked Richards. Hell, yes, Richards answered. Im not going to let it get me. If they get me, then they really won. Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik Public Eavesdropping You can either go one way or the other way. Disneys decades-long struggle with its princess addiction finally reaches the acceptance stage in Moana, the latest satisfying musical from the animation giant. If you wear a dress and have an animal sidekick, youre a princess, the demigod Maui, voiced by Dwayne Johnson, tells the reluctant heroine midway through the movie stopping just short of turning to the audience with an animated wink. The studio should populate their casts with whomever they want, as long as the films continue to be this solid. A slow start keeps Moana from reaching Frozen or Beauty and the Beast levels of excellence. But the comic self-awareness, engaging songs and a fulfilling finish are enough to merit a strong recommendation. Walt Disney Animation Studios, which arguably hasnt had a dud since Meet the Robinsons in 2007, continues its roll. Moana indeed begins with a royal figure Moana Waialiki (Aulii Cravalho), who is the daughter of a chief on an isolated Polynesian island. But like Anna from Frozen and Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, she is arguably the most capable and liberated person in the movie. With her island suffering from a curse and the crops barren, Waialiki goes on a mythic voyage with Maui, whose powers are matched by his ego and insecurity. They set sail on the electric blue and green postcard of the sea, meeting flashy mythical sea creatures while they engage in refreshingly romance-free banter on their canoe. (If theres a love interest in Waialikis world, we dont get to meet him or her. Arguably, Moana is too good for everyone in Moana.) Moana is guided by The Little Mermaid and Princess and the Frog directors Ron Clements and John Musker, whose Disney pedigree goes back to Petes Dragon in 1977. They get off to a shaky start; the initial island scenes feel like a checklist of Disney animated cliches, with awkward introductions and a poor sense of pacing. A sidekick pig seems thrown in just to add another toy selection for the fast food Happy Meals. The action gets much, much better when the three best characters Moana, Maui and an unintelligent-beyond-description rooster named Hai-Hai (voiced by Alan Tudyk) leave everyone else behind. The story finds its sea legs, and the voyage starts to feel like a worthy update of an old Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movie. There are big set pieces, unexpected detours and a dreamlike feel, as if our heroes have passed into another reality altogether. Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda comes along for the ride, providing musical direction. How Far Ill Go is typical Disney Radio fare, as if it was written to be piped through the speakers on the lido deck of the Disney Cruise Line. But the lively Johnson-sung Youre Welcome and Bowie-esque Shiny voiced by Flight of the Conchords co-star Jemaine Clement as a disco crab monster are top-shelf Disney soundtrack material, contributing to the story as much as to album sales. Along with the slapstick and inevitable peeing-in-the-ocean humor, theres a building sense of environmental responsibility in the Polynesian fables that come to life. Mauis animated tattoos are nature-focused movies-within-the-movie, giving Musker and Clements a throwback 2-D palette to work with. The Balrog-like lava monster at the end of the movie is less of a bad guy and more of an obstacle in the heroines journey of self-discovery. Yes, Moana is a princess of sorts, but whatever distress she runs into shell have to resolve with her own brain and brawn. The animal sidekicks, like the rest of us, are just witnesses to her voyage. Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicles pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub Moana Animated adventure. Starring the voices of Aulii Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Tudyk and Jemaine Clement. Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. (PG. 103 minutes.) To see a trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKFuXETZUsIv=LKFuXETZUsI A manhunt for a suspect in the fatal shooting of a veteran Texas police detective ended Monday night with an arrest in the slaying, which was one of several weekend attacks that authorities say targeted law enforcement in multiple states. The San Antonio detective as well as officers in Missouri and Florida were conducting routine tasks Sunday when they became the targets of violence. The detective was writing a traffic ticket when he was shot to death in his squad car outside police headquarters. I think the uniform was the target and the first person that happened along was the first person that (the suspect) targeted, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said Monday. In Missouri, a St. Louis police sergeant was shot twice in the face Sunday evening while he sat in traffic in a marked police vehicle. The sergeant was released from the hospital Monday. The shootings were the latest in what law enforcement officials say is an alarming spike in ambush-style attacks. Sixty officers were shot to death on the job this year, compared to 41 in all of 2015, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Of the 60 killed, 20 were purposely targeted by their assailant compared to eight last year, the group said. Police officers also were shot and injured during traffic stops in Sanibel, Fla., and Gladstone, Mo., on Sunday night, but authorities have not suggested these were targeted attacks. McManus identified the San Antonio detective killed Sunday as Benjamin Marconi, 50, a 20-year veteran of the force. At a news conference Monday night, McManus said a 31-year-old man, Otis Tyrone McKane, was arrested without incident after the car he was riding in was stopped Monday afternoon on an interstate. McManus said earlier that he doesnt believe the suspect has any relationship to the motorist who was pulled over initially. Video shows the suspect at police headquarters about four hours before Marconi was shot. The suspect asked a clerk a question but left before receiving an answer, said McManus, who declined to say what the man asked. The federal governments long-hidden authority to sweep up records of all phone calls made in the U.S. was repealed last year in a bipartisan vote of Congress. But President-elect Donald Trumps choice to head the CIA has called for reinstatement of the data haul and said its elimination was part of Edward Snowdens vision of America. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, revealed in 2013 that the NSA had been collecting bulk data on U.S. phone calls without a warrant for more than a decade. President George W. Bushs administration had ordered the collection unilaterally after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, then obtained approval from a secret intelligence court in 2006. The records contain so-called metadata, showing the numbers called and duration of the calls, but not the content of the messages. The law that President Obama signed in June 2015, called the USA Freedom Act, leaves the records with the phone companies but allows the National Security Agency to request data on individual customers without a court order. Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., whom Trump named Friday as his choice for CIA director, was among a minority of House Republicans who opposed the change. In a December 2015 column in the National Review magazine, he attacked Republican presidential candidates who supported the new law. Those who today suggest that the USA Freedom Act, which gutted the National Security Agencys metadata program, enables the intelligence community to better prevent and investigate threats against the U.S. are lying, Pompeo wrote. Less intelligence capacity equals less safety. To share Edward Snowdens vision of America as the problem is to come down on the side of President Obamas diminishing willingness to collect intelligence on jihadis. In a January 2016 Wall Street Journal column co-authored by conservative commentator David Rivkin, Pompeo called for Congress to reauthorize collection of U.S. phone records, which would be combined with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a government database. Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed, Pompeo and Rivkin wrote. Neither Trumps presidential transition office nor Pompeos congressional office responded Monday to inquiries about the issue. But privacy advocates predicted congressional resistance to any attempt to reinstate government authority to gather Americans phone records. This was an invasion of privacy for every single American, Americans who had never been accused of any crime, said Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. And a review by the governments Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board found that the records haul never played a substantial role in stopping an act of terrorism or stopping a terrorist suspect, she said. I think a lot of Americans would be very nervous to learn Donald Trump has access to our phone records, said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York. It would make a lot of Congress nervous as well. Although Snowden, now in Russia, has been accused of wrongdoing by both Trump and his defeated Democratic presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton, Goitein said Pompeos attempt to discredit the former NSA contractor had misfired. If Edward Snowdens vision of America is an America that doesnt spy on Americans, I guess (Pompeos) right, she said. Because the USA Freedom Act was passed by Congress, it would take an act of Congress to repeal it. But the Trump administration could act within the law to expand data collection. For example, said Singh Guliani, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had its own program since the 1990s of collecting metadata on phone calls to and from countries associated with drug trafficking, including Canada, Mexico and most of Central and South America. The Obama administration suspended that program in September 2013 after Snowdens disclosures, but a new administration might revive it. Snowden also disclosed records of surveillance programs that monitored the content of phone calls to and from certain countries without court approval, programs that the Trump administration could expand, Singh Guliani said. Goitein noted that the USA Freedom Act was compromise legislation that allowed the government to obtain not only individual records from a phone company, but also records of anyone the targeted person had called. And she said one of the laws safeguards, requiring the secret court to publish a summary of any ruling it issues on a significant issue, allows the government to decide which issues are significant and what information should be withheld for security reasons. Another privacy-rights advocate, Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, said Obama could have done more to adopt lasting protections against surveillance abuses. The Obama administrations approach was fixing internal rules for its own actions, Cohn said. That leaves it really ripe for change by the next administration. And Obama, she added, could have taken a turn away from all this secrecy that still envelops the programs. Susan Freiwald, a University of San Francisco law professor who teaches courses in privacy and cyberlaw, said Pompeo and his future colleagues will have leeway to interpret the law broadly so they may collect vast amounts of information. Pompeo is promoting the discredited view that it is always good for a government to collect more data on its people, she said. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko It was the longest college strike in U.S. history, and it enhanced campuses across the country. The Chronicles front page from Nov. 22, 1968, covers the student-led strike at what was then San Francisco State College over the lack of diversity in courses, faculty and overall academia. The fragile peace at San Francisco State College was broken yesterday afternoon with the full resumption of the campus strike after President Robert R. Smith rejected a demand to suspend all classes, the story read. Though the presence of more than 100 police on or near campus was not enough to keep classrooms open, Smith said the college would attempt to reopen on schedule today. Protests had been held for months, and the strike was nearing its third week. The Black Student Union and a collective group, the Third World Liberation Front, demanded changes to the Eurocentric prism through which their education was being processed. The actions at S.F. State prompted a second strike at UC Berkeley. The protesters would clash with police over the course of five-month strike. On this day, the SFPD tactical squad was summoned to quell the demonstrations. The police were called when hundreds of students invaded five classroom buildings chanting On strike! Shut it down! and demanded a halt to all instruction, the story read. Three students were arrested. The strikes would last until March 1969 and would bring about many changes in higher education across the nation. The first College of Ethnic Studies was established at S.F. State, and UC Berkeley saw the start of the ethnic studies department. Many more diverse faculty members were hired, and curricula soon better reflected the students who were using it to strengthen their minds. See more front pages: Go to SFChronicle.com/covers to search a database of hundreds of Chronicle Covers articles that showcase the newspaper's 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 (Click to enlarge) Sharon Brown cant sleep. She squirms on couches in unfamiliar living rooms, her body probing for comfortable divots in the cushions. On weeknights, its the sofa of a friend who lives in Hayward. On the weekends, she sleeps at her sisters apartment in San Leandro. Just more than a month ago Brown, 65, had her own home, a two-bedroom in the Creekview apartment complex on El Portal Drive straddling the Richmond-El Sobrante border. Now the retired telecommunications analyst lives out of suitcases. It could be worse. At least she can walk. In February, she spent three weeks in the hospital because of a spinal infection and resumed walking in June. At least shes not sleeping on a floor. Or on a cot in a homeless shelter if there was a spot available, of course. Or on cardboard like far too many others in the Bay Area who hunt daily for places to sleep as we do for parking spaces. I could be out there pushing a cart, said Brown with a hearty laugh. She goes to church and she prays. She believes opportunity will knock on the door of one of the places shes stayed since being punted from her home of six years. Its a story familiar to many other renters in Richmond and throughout the Bay Area who have been evicted by landlords who are upgrading to attract tenants who can pay the new market rate. Renters have sought security through rent control, which regulates rent increases for existing tenants. The handful of rent control measures on ballots two weeks ago had mixed results. It passed in Richmond, too late to help Brown keep her apartment. But its not too late for the region to wake up and realize that rent control is an imperfect and temporary salve for a mushrooming dilemma: the dearth of affordable housing in a crowded and competitive housing market. Browns housing nightmare began at the end of July when she received a 60-day notice to vacate so that Creekviews owners, PMI Properties, could perform structural repairs. Brown paid $1,340 in rent, which was affordable on her fixed income. When we met in August, Brown and some other Creekview residents were hopeful that they might be saved by rent control. Now theyre all gone. Brown stayed long enough to be served an eviction notice in early October. Itd be hard to find a place if I had an eviction on my credit, said Brown, who decided to move. She asked PMI to give her until the end of the month. I am so distraught and confused that I cant see my way through an eviction, which will make my searching for a place of my own more difficult, Brown wrote in an email to Michelle Hatch, Creekviews apartment manager. The response from Geraldine Paloma, a manager with PMI, was shamefully insensitive. Nonsense. Eviction asap. Maybe then she will not be confused, Paloma wrote in an email Brown shared with me. Paloma didnt respond to my request for comment. As if slamming the door in Browns face wasnt enough, Brown told me PMI is seeking about $2,000 for two weeks of rent, late fees and attorney expenses. Because of Raymond Fraziers humanity, Brown had a reason to smile when leaving Creekview. Frazier, a Richmond native who owns Frazier Moving & Delivery in Stockton, sent two of his guys to move Browns furniture and boxed belongings into a storage unit. He offered to move her for free after seeing a news story. I seen the opportunity to do an act of kindness for my hometown, Frazier said. Just passing on some blessings any chance I get. I try to do a couple things for Richmond. Brown still sees rent control in Richmond as a blessing. Its not just for me, she said in a voice soaked in tenderness. Its what we need to help the people. Its important for people that have struggled so long. Yet, her own struggle continues. Brown uses a friends car to travel the East Bay in search of affordable housing. She has to stop every 20 minutes so she can stand and relieve the pressure on her back. Shes excited about Valor Crossing in Dublin, a 65-unit affordable housing development that opens in the spring, offering one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments for as low as $914 a month. But shes dismayed by her chances of moving in: 25 apartments are reserved for veterans, and the rest will be allotted through a needs-based point system and a lottery. At a recent meeting Brown attended, there were 50 other applicants. Hopefuls can also apply online. Maybe shell get into Stargell Commons in Alameda, apartments that also are scheduled to open in the spring. Next month, shell start renting a room from a cousin in Vallejo. But she wont stop looking until she finds her own apartment. Im used to having my own, Brown said. I dont know if Gods testing me or what, but Im going to see a breakthrough. Otis R. Taylor Jr. is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist whose column appears Tuesday and Friday. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The head of Oaklands public schools has parlayed his sometimes rocky two years in town into a bigger and more visible job in Washington, D.C., highlighting a trend of urban superintendents hopping jobs and leaving instability in their wake. The mid-year departure of Antwan Wilson, announced Tuesday, took district staffers, city officials and parents by surprise. But it shouldnt have. Around the country, the average urban superintendent stays two to three years, and Oaklands schools have been led by eight people in the past 16 years some named by the school board and others appointed amid a crisis-driven state takeover. I think its distressing because superintendents do set the tone and kind of set the spirit of a district, said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley. This instability just upsets any given course and any clear spirit thats motivating teachers and kids. Wilson will head to the nations capital in February to serve as chancellor of schools. In a statement, he called the move bittersweet. I love Oakland and feel great about the work accomplished during my tenure here, said Wilson, who makes just over $400,000 in total compensation in Oakland. I am also excited to begin a new chapter in my career in which I will continue to dedicate myself to ensuring every student thrives. District officials in Oakland will quickly move to name an interim leader and start the search for a permanent replacement, a process that will be addressed at a special school board meeting Monday, said board President James Harris. Unfortunately, Oakland is very familiar with the churn of an urban school superintendent, he said. As a city, we dont have time to lament. Harris said the trustees will look for a candidate to continue the districts community schools effort, which includes providing a range of services for families at school sites, including health care. The next superintendent, he said, will also be expected to partner with the city, as Wilson has, to support programs like Oakland Promise, which provides students funding and support for college. And the next superintendent must have the stamina and stomach for the job. It is very difficult to sit in the fire of an urban district, Harris said. You take a lot of heat. Yet many urban leaders like Wilson are committed to the career. The complicating factor is that they often hopscotch across the country, boosting profiles and paychecks. Superintendent search firms have a stable of candidates they shop around, place in districts and then maybe a few years down the road poach again. San Francisco Unified is also looking for a superintendent after Richard Carranza left to run Houstons schools in September. The district has hired a search firm to identify candidates, and most if not all of them will probably convey a desire to put down roots and stay many years, said school board member Rachel Norton. But the odds are he or she wont stay. Its always a guess, its always a crapshoot in that sense, Norton said. I do think that folks who are building that kind of national profile are also more likely to be courted by other districts and want to be continuing on to new challenges. While San Franciscos recent superintendents have stayed longer than most Carranza for four years and Carlos Garcia before him for five Oakland has pushed the national average down with its eight leaders in 16 years, a number that includes both state appointees and interim superintendents. But Oakland has a lot of company. An EdSource survey this year of the biggest 30 school districts in California found that in 17 of them, the superintendent had been there for less than three years. Only two, Fresno and Long Beach, had a long-term superintendent who had stayed 10 years or more. I think its something school boards across the country should think about when they hire, said Rick Miller, executive director of Core Districts, which helps direct education reform efforts in eight districts, including San Francisco and Oakland. School boards do national searches to bring cachet to a district, he said. We need to all think differently about what makes a high-quality superintendent. Wilson was recruited from Denver, where he was an assistant superintendent, to take over Oakland schools. A native of Nebraska and a former middle-school principal in Kansas, he had participated in the Broad Superintendent Academy, a training program sponsored by billionaire Eli Broad, who supports a more corporate philosophy in running public education. The Broad superintendents often aim for national status and reputation, and they have strong personal career ambitions, said Tina Trujillo, an associate professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education. Almost nobody expected a Broad superintendent to stay, she said. Its a career ladder. That is completely counter to what a high-needs school district needs. Wilsons tenure in Oakland which like Washington, D.C., has about 49,000 students has been marked by criticism of his efforts to overhaul struggling schools in Oakland and to include charter schools in the districts enrollment process. Wilson drew fire within months of his arrival after he initiated a plan to redesign five high schools, an effort community members interpreted as code for conversion to charter schools. He also pledged to create a school enrollment process that allowed parents to choose from among the traditional public schools and the few dozen, nontraditional and largely independent charter schools, which many saw as a threat to the sustainability of their neighborhood schools. The teachers union and other community groups felt Wilson was an autocrat who made decisions without understanding the city and the people in it. The most recent school board election featured battles between incumbents who supported Wilson and union-endorsed challengers who didnt. The incumbents won. Not everyone was sad to see him go. His departure presents Oakland with a unique opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past, and select a new leader who is committed to making a difference in our students and who will stay in Oakland long enough to see those changes through, said Kim Davis of Parents United for Public Schools, a community group representing Oakland families, in a statement. His mid-year decision also did not sit well with Oakland teachers union President Trish Gorham. I dont begrudge anybody making a career move, she said. However, teachers who want to move on to greener pastures in the middle of the year are told their credential will be suspended. Wilsons supporters, however, applauded his work in Oakland, including efforts to increase resources and support for schools serving the most disadvantaged students. Policies and programs he supported including restorative justice and the African American Male Achievement initiative were there when he came and will be there after he leaves, said Gloria Lee, founder of Educate 78, an Oakland nonprofit working to support public education. This is very much a team effort, the proverbial village, she said. The work of creating great public schools in a city goes way beyond one person. Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker The lack of transparency around President-elect Donald Trumps business interests Trump did not release detailed tax records, and his Trump Organization is privately held means that its difficult for Americans to assess whether hes planning to use his new position to advance his financial interests. But initial reports from the past two weeks arent pretty. There have already been a number of instances, both alleged and demonstrated, when Trumps personal business interests have conflicted with his position as president-elect. These include meetings with international figures that seemed to mix personal business with the priorities of the nation, as well as potential violations involving his family. Ethics experts, noting that at least 111 Trump companies have business in 18 countries and territories across Asia, South America and the Middle East, are ringing alarm bells. Its also deeply alarming that many of these revelations are coming from the international press, as American reporters havent had traditional access to the president-elect since the election. So far, there are two categories of concern: Trumps actions since winning the election, and the inherent conflict-of-interest dangers that come with having a global business empire that he intends to maintain while in office. To begin with the actions, Trump and his children met with a group of Indian businessmen at Trump Tower during the weekend following the election. When Shinzo Abe, the prime minister of Japan, came to Trump Tower to meet with Trump, Trumps daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner were included in the conversation. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner do not have security clearances. Ivanka is supposed to be running Trumps business interests while hes in the White House. An Argentinian reporter has reported that when Argentinas president, Mauricio Macri, called Trump to congratulate him, Trump asked Macri to expedite a building hes constructing in Buenos Aires. Finally, there have been reports that foreign diplomats are being courted as clientele for Trumps new hotel in Washington, D.C. That hotel allegedly held a sales event for about 100 foreign diplomats last week. These incidents would be bad enough especially as its only been two weeks since the election but the overall picture is even more troubling. There are tremendous political and national security risks from having a president in office who owns properties all over the world. Everything from Trumps diplomatic choices to his military priorities could be affected by the impact on his personal holdings. These are the reasons why most modern presidents have committed to selling or divesting their interests into a blind trust run by an independent overseer, not family members while theyre in office. Trump has not made similar commitments. So its contingent on Congress to perform its constitutionally-given watchdog function for the executive branch. Globetrotting Trumps empire contains foreign business interests across multiple continents. Turkey: Trump Towers Istanbul is a major revenue stream for the Trump empire. India: Trump has licensed his brand to Trump Tower Mumbai and is allegedly on the lookout for more opportunities. Argentina: Trump has a project in Buenos Aires thats having permitting trouble. Every election cycle, we see new ballot measures that promote initiatives to shorten prison terms and lessen criminal offenses. Unfortunately, these initiatives do not fully address the issues that arise when offenders return to crime-plagued communities. Rather, you and I are the balancing force in rehabilitation efforts. Merely turning inmates loose into communities does not rehabilitate them or cure mental illness that afflicts many. It takes concerned citizens willing to effect change in our nations prison population. While our nation holds only 5 percent of the worlds population, we have 25 percent of the worlds known incarcerated population or approximately 2.5 million individuals. More than 1 in every 100 Americans is behind bars. California has more prisons than any other state 34. This is evidence of our nations flawed logic that constructing more prisons is the cure for crime. As my professor once said, the logic is analogous to the belief that constructing more funeral homes is a cure for cancer. So what is the priority of our criminal justice system? It is a question that has haunted our nation since its inception 240 years ago, but our notions of crime and punishment boil down to three fundamental goals: deterrence, retribution and rehabilitation. General deterrence works to protect the public from various crimes by deterring repeat criminal conduct. Retribution is the idea that the punishment should fit the crime, allowing the victims of the crime to find some comfort. Rehabilitation is the idea that beyond punishment, we should work to provide meaningful opportunities for offenders to reintegrate into society, thus embracing a life of opportunity rather than of crime. Unfortunately, our nations insatiable appetite for punishment always outweighs our desire to rehabilitate offenders. In the 1970s and 1980s, many communities began to evolve toward an entirely new concept of rehabilitation restorative justice. It is an approach to criminal justice that engages both victims and the community in rehabilitating offenders. For individuals like Sonya Wells, restorative justice programs are the only resource standing between them and a return to a life of crime upon their release. Once plagued by a broken family and a life of crime, Wells said she was inspired by restorative justice sessions, where offenders meet with community members to discuss ways back into the community and out of a life of crime. Wells now organizes small groups of inmates to share hopeful, meaningful and uplifting sentiments. Wells story shows us that compassionate community engagement has the means to fundamentally influence others lives, particularly the lives of those in prison. My family and I engage in a restorative justice program. We often share biblical, motivational and inspirational stories to remind each inmate that, no matter how great their offense or fateful their mistake, they, too, have a chance to find a meaningful life free from crime. I would encourage every reader to consider devoting a spare hour to assist in local restorative justice programs. To find out how, contact the San Francisco Sheriffs Department for a list of community groups and services they facilitate. The rewards of community participation in our nations rehabilitation efforts are endless: We can substantially reduce our nations prison population, diminish our appetite for punishment, and develop empathy that helps us see offenders as people rather than numbers. The Nov. 14 Matier & Ross column describing the San Francisco Superior Court and its adjudication of quality of life infractions leaves out more than it informs. We all want a good quality of life, and sometimes other individuals make our world less enjoyable than we want. It is a sad reality that thousands of our citizens are homeless some mentally ill, some not; some addicted, some not; some veterans, some not. Virtually all of them are impoverished. And some of them, and other individuals not homeless, not mentally ill, not addicted, sometimes violate laws and rules that are deemed infractions. Such violations, if sustained, are not punishable by jail, but by a fine or community service. Matier & Ross correctly note that San Francisco police officers, on their own or when summoned by a member of the community, write many citations for what are deemed quality of life offenses. If the offender comes to court, then he or she cannot be jailed for the offense even if guilty they can be fined, ordered to perform community service or, in some cases, instructed to seek services with a promise that the citation will be dismissed. If the person cited fails to appear, the court will find that person guilty. Yes, a warrant may be issued when a person cited fails to appear to defend himself. However, are we going to jail tens of thousands of people because they cannot pay the fines imposed? The many poor and/or homeless cited for these infractions have no money; their poverty is a major source of their struggles. Jailing them for their inability to pay a fine in effect jailing them for being poor is at odds not only with the law and the Constitution, but also with the values accepted by most individuals in our community. The city of San Francisco, and its criminal justice system, has limited resources. We may disagree about the most pressing needs in San Francisco, but jailing thousands of poor people who cannot pay for a place to live and a good meal would seem among the least pressing needs. And jailing those individuals would cost millions of dollars, displace more serious offenders who might properly be jailed and divert law enforcement and judicial resources from more pressing duties. A different solution is needed. The judges of the San Francisco Superior Court are committed to justice for all. They have concluded that jailing thousands of poor people for failing to appear in court or pay a fine, where the underlying offense was an infraction that, by itself, could not result in a jail sentence, was neither a wise use of resources nor fair. They did not want the San Francisco Sheriffs Department and its jails to become a debtors prison. That judgment is certainly supported by the facts. One last point: Judges have an extraordinarily difficult job. As attorneys committed to defending individuals who are presumed to be innocent, we often disagree with the choices and decisions those judges make. Still, we feel the wholesale attack on a bench may threaten one of our most cherished principles: the independence of the judiciary. To be sure, no judge or even an entire Superior Court bench is or should be immune from criticism. However, facile criticism neither advances public policy nor helps address the underlying problems. At this important time in history, an independent judiciary is our most important safeguard. Scott Sugarman, a San Francisco attorney, is a past president of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice. He is joined in this commentary by James J. Brosnahan, Nanci L. Clarence, Peter Keane, all former presidents of the Bar Association of San Francisco; criminal defense attorneys Stuart Hanlon and Julie Traun; and San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Frantically addressing a last-minute Thanksgiving dinner issue? Or perhaps November just has you all turkeyed out? Well, the restaurant world is here to help. Here is a brief roundup of San Francisco restaurants that will be open on Thanksgiving and most importantly, still have seating available. Not all of the locations require reservations, and most are going to have menus featuring classic Thanksgiving entrees. Bell Tower: Traditional Thanksgiving entrees will be available at the Polk Street watering hole as a $29 three-course menu, starting at 3 p.m.; regular bar menu options will also be available. 1900 Polk St.; (415) 567-9596. Open 11 a.m. to midnight. No reservations, but larger parties are encouraged to call ahead. Lefty ODouls: The Union Square hofbrau and bar will offer a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for $16.99, available throughout the day; the regular menu will be available in a limited capacity. 333 Geary St.; (415) 982-8900. 11 a.m. to midnight. No reservations. Tommys Joynt: Turkey and mashed potatoes are always on the menu at Tommys Joynt, but for Thanksgiving, roasted turkey dinners will be available throughout the day for $24.95; take-home dinners that feed eight are also available call for pricing. 1101 Geary Blvd.; (415) 775-4216. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; bar closes at 9 p.m. No reservations. Aunt Charlies: As is its tradition, the Tenderloin dive bar will again offer free Thanksgiving dinners around 3 p.m. 133 Turk St.; (415) 441-2922. Noon to 2 a.m. No reservations required. Z&Y Restaurant: Plenty of Chinatown restaurants will be open, including Z&Y, one of the citys best bets for spicy Sichuan fare. Regular menu available during business hours. 655 Jackson St.; (415) 981-8988. Open 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Reservations not required but available online. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle Stinking Rose: As reviewer Anna Roth noted in her Chronicle Eat Up column earlier this year, for better or worse, the Stinking Rose belongs wholly to San Francisco. Reservations are still available for the four-course traditional Thanksgiving dinners served all day; regular garlic-filled menu available in its entirety. 325 Columbus Ave.; (415) 781-7673. Open 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Reservations recommended. Old Clam House: Dating to 1861 and billed as San Franciscos oldest restaurant in its original location, the Old Clam House will be serving a three-course traditional Thanksgiving dinner for $34.99 all day; full menu will also be available. 299 Bayshore Blvd.; (415) 826-4880. 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Reservations recommended. Butterfly Restaurant: The Embarcadero restaurant with Asian and Hawaiian influences will be rolling out a big $58 prix fixe Thanksgiving dinner menu with dishes like ahi poke, curried pumpkin soup and turkey leg confit with sweet potato hash. Pier 33 on the Embarcadero at Bay Street; (415) 864-8999. 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., 4 to 9 p.m. Reservations required. Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle Perrys Embarcadero: Both Perrys locations in San Francisco on Union Street and on Steuart Street will be serving traditional Thanksgiving entrees. The downtown location has better reservation availability; 155 Steuart St.; (415) 495-6500; 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Reservations required. Brendas French Soul Food: The Creole- and French-inspired soul food spot announced on social media recently that it will be serving a brunch version of Thanksgiving dinner. The holiday specials include pumpkin pie pancakes, Dungeness crab and deep-fried turkey. 652 Polk St.; (415) 345-8100; 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. No reservations required. Justin Phillips is a Chronicle staff writer. Email jphillips@sfchronicle.com Shopping can make you hungry, and if you're shopping at Union Square, San Francisco's premier retail hub, you're lucky. There are literally dozens of places to fill up. Filling up is different, however, than dining. So if you want to move beyond alleviating hunger pangs to some very good dining, here are the places on or near the square that hit that mark. All the restaurants listed here are open for lunch, and all but the Rotunda in Neiman Marcus is open for dinner. Some serve breakfast and many serve continuously between lunch and dinner flexible schedules for this busy season. Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle 2015 The Rotunda There's something utterly charming about the Neiman Marcus restaurant, where the circular dining room, during the holidays, surrounds a four-story Christmas tree and views of Union Square. When the Dallas-based restaurant was founded in the 1950s, lunch started with a demitasse of chicken broth and popovers, a tradition that carries over today in San Francisco. Dining on the signature chicken salad, crab Louie, lobster club sandwich, chicken Milanese or pappardelle with red wine braised short ribs makes for a special experience. 150 Stockton St., (415) 249-2720, Ext. 2465 or http://bit.ly/2gCY4iH . Open daily until late afternoon. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle Scala's Bistro A recent remodel bastardized the classic brasserie-style decor and made it less appealing. Despite the changes, this Italian-French restaurant remains a popular stop for breakfast, lunch or dinner. The wide-ranging menu at lunch features pasta and pizza, sandwiches and salads, including a Cobb. In between lunch and dinner the restaurant offers a lighter fare menu, and there are always cocktails served in the elevated lounge. 432 Powell St., (415) 395-8555 or www.scalasbistro.com . Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. Campton Place Few Union Square restaurants offer the luxury of this hotel dining room under Chef Srijith Gopinathan. His menu offers a creative Indian cuisine with strong California influences. At lunch diners select either a two-course menu for $39 or three-course for $49, which might include curried shrimp naan and halibut with a jalapeno-basil crust with sour carrots and roasted garlic and almond crumbs. At dinner a seven-course tasting menu is featured for $155; vegetarian for $140. The bistro menu in the adjoining lounge features a western menu with a few "Spice Route Dishes." 340 Stockton St., (415) 781-5555 or www.camptonplacesf.com . Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. E&O Kitchen and Bar Celebrating its 20th year, this huge restaurant is one of the few remaining places that first heralded the fusion trend. The food touches on China, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea and other Asian outposts and is a prime stop for a midafternoon repast, as it's open continuously for lunch and dinner. The menu includes sates of steak, shrimp and chicken; dumplings; noodles; and other popular items. The big draw: there's something for everyone on this menu. 314 Sutter St., (415) 693-0303 or www.eosanfrancisco.com . Open continuously for lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday; dinner only on Sunday. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle Akiko's If seeking out this popular sushi restaurant for the first time, look for the Irish Bank sign. There's no sign on Akiko's door, so it feels like a find. It also serves some of the best sushi in the city, whether it's tuna belly that's been aged in-house for 12 days or pristine fish from Japan. Diners can order by the piece or let the chef guide you through the omakase menu. There's also some hot dishes including excellent deep-fried soft-shell crab and yellowtail collar. Diners can sit at the sushi counter or in the cave-like dining room. 431 Bush St., (415) 397-3218 or www.akikosrestaurant.com . Lunch weekdays; dinner Monday-Saturday. Cafe de la Presse It's a little bit of Paris at this newsstand/brasserie that anchors the corner of the "French Quarter" across from the ornate gates to Chinatown. This restaurant and newsstand is a perfect place for breakfast before shopping, or for a light lunch of French onion soup or a superior quiche Lorraine and butter lettuce salad. Of course, you can also fork into something more substantial like steak frites and duck confit. In the evening the restaurant features an a la carte menu or a three- or four-course menu priced for $44 or $51. 352 Grant Ave.; (415) 398-2680 or www.cafedelapresse.com . Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. Cafe Claude Classic French dishes steak tartare, French onion soup, steak Frites, coq au vin are extremely well done at this bistro tucked away on Claude Lane. The interior feels like a traditional brasserie with a nod to San Francisco (note the massive earthquake beams). However, many dishes get a gentle update under chef Miguel Millan. He makes a rich casserole with king trumpet mushrooms and farro verde; serves roast chicken with braising greens, olives and lemon confit; and bathes mussels in hard cider and saffron tomato stew. There's a protected patio in front and live music inside Thursday through Saturday nights. 7 Claude Lane (between Bush and Sutter), San Francisco; (415) 392-3505 orwww.cafeclaude.com. Lunch and dinner 11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday; dinner only Sunday. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle Gaspar The handsome two-story interior has the feel of an upscale French brasserie, enhanced by the food produced by new chef Jason Morales. You'll discover many well-prepared classics such as steak tartare, brandade croquettes, escargot, and a pristine house salad with butter lettuce and tarragon. Morales serves Petrale sole with brown butter, Meyer lemon and capers, accented with cauliflower and Brussels sprout leaves. He also prepares duck confit, steak frites and a vegetable terrine for non-meat eaters. But of course, you can also get an excellent hamburger with aioli on a brioche bun. 185 Sutter St., San Francisco; (415) 576-8800. www.gasparbrasserie.com. Lunch and dinner continuously weekdays; dinner only on Saturday. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle Aquitaine With its funky vibe that includes chandeliers made from wine glasses, the cozy restaurant honors chef-owner Laurent Manrique Gascon heritage. At lunch this Southwestern French wine bar and restaurant features pommes frites thickly dusted with pimento and fried garlic, foie gras torchon, what Manrique calls a Gascon burger (a half pound Angus beef patty with shallot marmalade and duck confit), and a duck Reuben sandwich. The menu expands at dinner, and the wine list highlights lesser known areas. 175 Sutter St., (415) 402-5290 or www.aquitainesf.com . Lunch weekdays; dinner Monday-Saturday. Mark Whitfield Hakkasan The large, elegant 170-seat Cantonese restaurant may be part of an international chain, but it serves the most refined Chinese food in the area. The dining room overlooks Market Street and is a prime stop for a dim sum lunch or a relaxed multicourse dinner. Specialties include stir-fried mushrooms in lettuce cups, pan-seared Shanghai dumplings, stir-fried black pepper rib eye with Merlot, and locally inspired dishes such as Sichuan lamb tenderloin. 1 Kearny St., (415) 829-8148 or www.hakkasan.com . Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday. Super Duper Sometimes all you want is a good hamburger, and Super Duper easily satiates that craving. This expanding local chain sources beef from humanely raised cows. They bake their own buns, use local produce and process their own dill pickles. In addition to the excellent burgers and fries, there's soft-serve ice cream made with cream from the Straus Family Creamery. 721 Market St., www.superdupersf.com . Open daily 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Also at 783 Mission (in the Metreon). Katy Raddatz/The Chronicle Amber India While the food has slipped a bit over the years, this Indian restaurant still has a lot to recommend, including the handsome upscale dining room and the bar that features creative cocktails and snacks. At lunch people line up for the buffet, well priced at $19.95 ($26.95 on weekends). It features all the expected favorites such as butter chicken and some more unusual items like curried goat. At night the menu is a la carte, and the food is more precisely prepared, including dishes like cauliflower Bezule with coconut, curry leaves and mustard seeds; duck Tinka kebab with nigella, dill and caper chutney; and braised lamb shank with vindaloo sauce. 25 Yerba Buena Lane, (415) 777-0500 or www.amber-india.com . Lunch and dinner daily. JOHN STOREY/SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE Delarosa Pizza and pasta are on the menu at this restaurant that's a perfect spot for those with children. Who doesn't like the thin-crusted, Roman-style pizza, or an order of meatballs? Salads are fresh, particularly the arugula and fennel with Parmesan. Most seating is at communal tables in front of the open kitchen. 37 Yerba Buena Lane, (415) 872-7363 or www.delarosasf.com . Lunch and dinner daily. Bluestem Brasserie Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. The modern feel of this restaurant and the contemporary cooking of new chef Trevor Ogden makes this a top stop for weekday lunches, weekend brunches and nightly dinners. The menu includes a stellar burger made with two meat pattys, bacon, cheddar cheese and chipotle aioli; a bronzed half chicken with changing seasonal accompaniments; and exceptional desserts made by Lori Baker. Between lunch and dinner, there's a compact bar menu that include mac and cheese, deviled eggs and Little Gem salad with Caesar dressing. 1 Yerba Buena Lane, (415) 547-1111 or www.bluestembrasserie.com. Open daily 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Mike Kepka/The Chronicle John's Grill In business for more than a century, John's gained national fame as a setting for Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon." The restaurant and bar are woven into local lore, and the place embraces that past with its scarred mahogany paneling and hundreds of photographs lining the walls. Top choices include the favorite salad of the late fitness guru Jack LaLanne, with crab, shrimp, avocado, mushroom, tomato, lettuce and blue cheese dressing. It's also a good place for a crab cocktail, local Petrale sole amandine and lamb chops. 63 Ellis St., (415) 986-3274 or www.johnsgrill.com . Open continuously for lunch and dinner daily. Johnny Foley's Every city needs a good Irish pub, and Johnny Foley's admirably fills that requirement. With its ornate ceiling and hexagonal tile floor it looks like something out of the early 20th century. The walls are lined with portraits of famous people of Irish ancestry such as John F. Kennedy and Oscar Wilde. As should be expected, the bar is staffed by friendly bartenders. The food, crafted by Larry Doyle, is classic but well prepared: cottage pie, corn beef and cabbage, bangers and mash and a vegetarian Irish stew. 243 O'Farrell St., San Francisco; (415) 954-0777. www.johnnyfolleys.com. Lunch and dinner 11:30 a.m.-1:30 a.m. (kitchen open until 10) nightly. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle Kin Khao It's worth veering a couple blocks off Union Square to the northwest corner of Mason and Ellis for some of the best Thai food in the city. Owner Pim Techamuanvivit makes no compromises when serving the cuisine of her homeland, and she insists on seasonal produce and sustainable seafood and meat, the reason the food is more expensive than at other Thai places. Best bets include the "pretty hot" wings, green curry rabbit and braised beef cheeks in Massaman curry. The restaurant also serves excellent cocktails. 55 Cyril Magnin St. (corner of Mason and Ellis in the Parc 55 Hotel ), or (415) 362-7456 orwww.kinkhao.com . Lunch and dinner daily. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle M.Y. China Most of the ambitious restaurants that debuted at Westfield San Francisco Centre more than a decade ago have closed. However M.Y. China has continued to excel at Chinese food since it opened five years ago. The restaurant is a partnership between celebrity chef Martin Yan and the owners of Koi Palace. Best bets are the juicy pork dumplings, wild boar lettuce cups; scissor-cut noodles and other hand-pulled noodles; and roast chicken with its crispy, bronze skin 845 Market St., (415) 580-3001 or www.tastemychina.com . Lunch and dinner daily. 54 Mint If the sun is shining, the restaurant's patio, with views of the Old Mint, beckons; if you dine indoors the cozy feel of this Roman trattoria warms the bones. Breads and pastas are made in house and include spaghetti carbonara and fettuccine with mushrooms. At lunch the menu highlights panini (sandwiches) and several main courses. The menu expands at dinner and includes a local fish main course, slow braised oxtail, and simple but satisfying grilled lamb chops with roasted lemons. 16 Mint Plaza, (415) 543-5100 or www.54mint.com . Lunch weekdays and dinner nightly. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle Cavalier A block behind the Westfield mall, backing up to Bloomingdale's, this beautifully detailed restaurant features specialties you might find in a London brasserie, reimagined though a California lens. The menu includes Scotched duck egg crusted in pork sausage and rock shrimp, roasted bone marrow, pan-seared salmon with grilled avocado and smoked creme fraiche, and some well-done classics including a admirably light fish and chips. Another reprieve for weary shoppers: in the afternoons diners can drop by the bar for a dozen oysters and a bottle of rose for $30. 360 Jesse St., San Francisco; (415) 321-6000. www.cavaliersf.com. Breakfast (or brunch), lunch and dinner daily. Michael Bauer is The San Francisco Chronicle's restaurant critic and editor-at-large. Email: mbauer@sfchronicle.com Full disclosure: My partner is involved with the IfOnly website featuring the chef/owner of Aquitaine and Cafe de la Presse. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The state has awarded a $1 million grant to the nonprofit California Historical Society to help develop a plan to revitalize San Franciscos Old Mint in partnership with the city. The city will also contribute money probably around $500,000 to work on a planning blueprint that would turn the 142-year-old granite landmark at Fifth and Mission streets into what the city hopes will be a center for culture and learning. The grant and the city contribution will allow the California Historical Society to develop plans for a complete assessment of the project, including how to finance it, how to line up public and private partners, and how to turn the old building into what is vaguely described as an important cultural, learning and historical center. The major stumbling block is finding a way to make the building safer in an earthquake. Although the Old Mint is built of solid granite, it needs major seismic work. Some estimates place the cost at $100 million. The state grant, to be announced Tuesday, was approved by the state Legislature in bills sponsored by state Sen. Mark Leno and Assemblyman Phil Ting, both San Francisco Democrats. Leno called the grant an important milestone in helping to restore the Old Mint. Anthea Hartig, executive director of the California Historical Society, said the planning grant was the first step toward a new life for the Old Mint. The grant marks the second major effort to convert the building into a museum or cultural center since the city acquired it from the federal government in 2003. Ten years ago, the city leased the building to the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, which hoped to raise more than $60 million to convert the Old Mint into a San Francisco history museum. That project was hailed as a new day for the Old Mint, but the historical societys funding drives stalled, and in 2014 the city terminated the lease, citing lack of progress in raising the money. The city then identified the separate California Historical Society as its partner in the Old Mint project. Hartig said her group has a better chance. We have 145 years of experience and a passion for history, she said. The planning we have done so far and the planning we will do puts us in a position to succeed. The grant will be administered by the California State Library through the historical society in partnership with the city. Jon Lau, project manager for the citys Office of Economic and Workforce Development, said the grant would pay for identifying a use for the building and funding sources to make it happen. It will be the whole kit and caboodle, he said. We feel confident we can have a full plan in place in two years. Lau described the effort as a partnership, as opposed to the lease arrangement that the city had with the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society. This is a different animal, he said. The Old Mint was the largest federal building in the West when it opened in 1874, at a time when San Francisco was one of the countrys financial capitals. Besides minting gold and silver coins, the Old Mint at one time stored as much as a third of the nations gold reserves. Minting operations were moved to a new mint in 1937, and since then the building has served as offices, a museum of coins and a meeting and event space. It stood empty for some months last year, and was named as one of the the nations most endangered landmarks by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. But later, the city turned management of the Old Mint over to a company called Activate SF, which cleaned up the grounds and now rents it for public and private events. A rainstorm rolling into the Bay Area is expected to hit San Francisco Tuesday afternoon and last through Wednesday morning, but forecasters say it will let up in time for the Thanksgiving Day. About a quarter of an inch of rain is expected to slicken Bay Area streets starting between 4 to 5 p.m. Tuesday, said Anne Schneider, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. The rain is expected to continue through Wednesday morning. Weather conditions will remain dry through Wednesday afternoon and most of Thanksgiving Day. But another storm was forecast to blow into the Bay Area about 5 p.m. Thursday and primarily soak the North Bay near Santa Rosa, Schneider said. Sprinkles are expected in San Francisco and elsewhere in the Bay Area by about 10 p.m. Thanksgiving night. Showers will continue Friday and last through the weekend, bringing about another inch of precipitation to the San Francisco area before clearing up again Monday morning, Schneider said. The second storm will also include wind gusts of up to 20 mph over the weekend. Temperatures will remain in the mid to lower 60s for San Francisco, and in the East Bay and South Bay throughout the week and weekend, Schneider added. Travelers headed to the Sierra for a ski-filled holiday weekend should see plenty of fresh powder on the slopes, beginning with a dusting of snow in the Lake Tahoe area Tuesday night. We have multiple systems coming in, said Tony Fuentes, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. The first one is coming through [Tuesday night] into Wednesday morning, in the Tahoe area, along the Interstate 80 corridor. The first storm will bring up to eight inches of snow, mostly in the northern Sierra mountains, Fuentes added. The second storm will make an appearance Friday and briefly let up Saturday, before a third snow-maker moves in Sunday. We havent had that much snowfall yet. Having snowfall coming in onto the mountains is good, Fuentes said. While Boreal Mountain Resort and Mount Rose Ski Tahoe opened some ski runs on Friday, the bigger ski resorts are set to open this week. Heavenly Mountain Resort and Northstar California Resort are planning to open Wednesday, while Kirkwood Mountain Resort is set to open on Saturday. Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani Internet powerhouses have for days been scrambling to come up with a way to answer those who blame them for an onslaught of fake news and false information that permeates the Web and, some believe, may have affected the course of the presidential election. Their most recent strategy, announced Friday by Facebook and Monday by Google, would stop grouping websites that peddle falsehoods alongside legitimate news outlets. But even that may not be enough, Teenagers are thought to be fluent in the ways of the Web. Yet students from middle school through college are easily duped by unreliable sources and deceptive advertisements peppered throughout news sites and social media feeds, according to a Stanford University study. The study, which measures how teenagers assess information they encounter online, is the biggest of its kind, surveying more than 7,800 students. It may, scholars said, illuminate how shallow our societys understanding is of information found on the Internet. Sam Wineburg, a professor at Stanfords Graduate School of Education and lead author of the study, said even among college students, the ability to discern truth from falsehood on the Internet is bleak. Asked to research the U.S. health care system, more than 40 percent of middle school students said they would use statistics from an online comment by Joe Smith. The statistics, which are false, did not cite a source or provide context. And yet less than half of the students rejected the information as patently unreliable. The vast majority of middle schoolers 82 percent also could not distinguish an advertisement masquerading as a news story, researchers found. When presented with a big, colorful chart sponsored by the oil company Shell versus a screenshot of an article from the Atlantic, high school students overwhelmingly argued that Shells post was the more reliable of the two because it provided more data and information than the article did. Only about 15 percent of students noticed the paid post was sponsored by Shell and said the science article was the more trustworthy source. This inability to evaluate information persists even after students are accepted to major colleges and universities including Stanford, Wineburg said. The great majority of college students tasked with evaluating information from the American College of Pediatricians, a conservative advocacy group that has been named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its vehement opposition to womens and LGBT rights, were unable to suss out the groups bias, even when given the chance to independently check the groups credentials. Some even cited the professional-looking website of the organization as reason to trust its pseudo-science. These issues are the new basic skills, Wineburg said. When we all consumed a printed newspaper that was vetted by people who produce the content, we could rely upon others for fact-checking, but thats not the age were in. Students along with many adults are largely unable to discern truth from fiction because they have never been taught how, said academics. Even when a video or written article that looks trustworthy is labeled as sponsored content, people may not know what that means. This gap in understanding has given rise to programs like the News Literacy Project, which brings journalists into classrooms to help students understand the difference between reliable and unreliable sources. There is simply no reason why this shouldnt be a part of a high school curriculum, said said Gabriel Kahn, a professor at the University of Southern Californias Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. This is Civics 101 for the 21st century. It has massive implications for our democracy. In the wake of the 2016 election, many blamed social media for falsely equivocating real news with falsehoods. Fake news typically falls into one of two categories: those that seek to manipulate people, spread misinformation and sow mistrust of traditional media, and those that use sensational and false stories to attract enough readers to make money through advertising. Last week, Google announced that it would no longer allow websites that peddle falsehoods as fact to use its online advertising services. Facebook has done the same. But social media experts have said it likely wont do much to stop fake news and false information from spreading. In the past several days, both companies have taken it a step further: Google and Facebook announced that theyll stop labeling such sites as news. Google, which on the top of its main search tab offers a list of articles under the header In the news, will change that title to Top stories, to remove the implication that they are all news items. Googles news tab offers news stories that are vetted more closely than on its main page. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, presented a seven-point plan that includes fitting fake news with a warning label once it has been confirmed false. Weve been working on this problem for a long time and we take this responsibility seriously, Zuckerberg wrote in a post on his own Facebook page Friday, just days after he claimed it was extremely unlikely that fake news and hoax posts on social media had altered the elections outcome. Historically, we have relied on our community to help us understand what is fake and what is not. That might be part of the problem, experts said. Users may not know whats real or not especially when their main source of news is Facebook itself. Marissa Lang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mlang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Marissa_Jae Novartis is reported to be weighing the sale of its Ritalin, Clozaril and Exelon drugs as the Swiss giant cuts back on treatments for the central nervous system in favor of generics and other products. The sale of the drugs, which treat attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia and Alzheimers disease, respectively, could command a price of more than $300 million and draw offers from other pharmaceutical companies, according to people familiar with the matter. They asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. The process is at an early stage, and the company may still decide against a sale, they said. A representative for Novartis declined to comment on the reported transaction. The potential sale of the treatments would follow broader changes at Novartis. The company reorganized some of its biotech divisions this year, and created separate units for cancer treatments and its other medicines to focus on oncology. It also folded its specialized cell and gene therapies unit into other parts of the company. Among other potential asset sales, Novartis is also keeping all options open regarding its Alcon eye-care unit, Chairman Joerg Reinhardt said in a recent interview in Switzerlands SonntagsZeitung newspaper. Novartis has said that it is considering acquisitions that would boost areas including its oncology or generic drugs businesses. The company said this week that it will buy the closely held Selexys Pharmaceuticals Corp. for as much as $665 million to gain an experimental drug to treat a rare, inherited blood disorder. Novartis decided to buy the Oklahoma City company after it published promising mid-stage trial data showing that a medicine called SelG1 helped patients with a painful complication of sickle cell disease. The deal includes an initial payment as well as acquisition and milestone-related payments. Novartis obtained the exclusive right to buy Selexys and its SelG1 medicine in 2012. Sickle cell disease affects up to 80,000 people a year in the U.S. Shares of Novartis fell nearly 3 percent, closing down $2.04 at $68.09. Manuel Baigorri is a Bloomberg writer. Email: mbaigorri@bloomberg.net The 4-year-old girl who police say was drowned by her father in a baptismal font inside a Catholic church in Healdsburg over the weekend, was identified Tuesday hours before her father was arraigned on murder charges and ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The Sonoma County Coroners Office identified the slain child as Maria Jose Ordaz-Chavarria, who had been living in an unincorporated area of Healdsburg with her family including her father, Gerardo Mendoza Ordaz. Ordaz, 42, was arraigned Tuesday in Sonoma County Superior Court on one count of murder and felony assault on a child. He was also charged with a misdemeanor count of cruelty to a child, stemming from having his 9-year-old son present when he allegedly killed his daughter, said Joe Langenbahn, spokesman for the Sonoma County district attorneys office. Though he was arraigned Tuesday, Ordazs ensuing criminal proceedings were suspended until Monday, while he undergoes a full medical and psychiatric evaluation. He faces life in prison if convicted. Officers said they encountered a naked Ordaz screaming for help in the back parking lot of the police station around 8:30 p.m. Sunday, clutching his daughters limp, wet body. The mans young son who was not injured was partially clothed and standing near his father and unresponsive sister, said Healdsburg Police Chief Kevin Burke. The boy was the sole witness to his sisters drowning, police said. Police began cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the scene and called for medics. Maria was pronounced dead at a local hospital about 90 minutes later, officials said. Investigators believe Ordaz, who was arrested Monday, took his son and daughter inside the unlocked St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in the 200 block of West Matheson Street, where they say he drowned the little girl inside the baptismal font that had about a foot of water in it. Maria lived with her father, her mother and siblings in a house just outside Healdsburg, police said. In a brief statement posted on the Healdsburg churchs website, the pastor, the Rev. Sean Rogers, asked for prayers for the family and the parish community. Sunday night there was tragedy in the church; a little girl lost her life. Rogers said. When police finish the investigation, we will know more. The homicide was the small and quiet towns first since late 2008. Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley Paul Chinn / The Chronicle 2016 A pair of robbers were arrested with the help of Starbucks patrons after one of them snatched a womans laptop from inside the Berkeley coffee shop and pulled a gun on another customer who tried to stop him from fleeing to a getaway car, officials said. Delamontae Stewart, 22, and Zachery Haliburton, 19, both Oakland residents, were arrested on suspicion of robbery and possession of stolen property, police said. Kanye West had harsh words for the radio in Sacramento over the weekend, and at least one Sacramento radio station is striking back by taking him off the air. Justin Marshall (aka JayMarZZ), the music director for Hot 103.5, which has been a big supporter of West, said the station won't be playing him "for a very long time." It was the latest development from a bizarre few days West stopped his Sacramento concert early after four songs on Saturday, going on a long rant captured by amateur video against commercial radio, Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Hillary Clinton. At a San Jose show on Friday, West said that while he didn't vote in the Nov. 8 election, he would have voted for Donald Trump. Get a taste of Oakland's most exciting restaurants This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate San Francisco has long been the epicenter of the Bay Area's food scene a place where restaurateurs delight and dazzle the tastebuds of diners seeking culinary adventures. But in recent years, with the cost of opening a restaurant in the city skyrocketing, chefs have looked to less expensive locations for their innovative ventures. And they're especially moving across the bay to Oakland. Here, they have access to the same locally-grown ingredients available in San Francisco and they can draw inspiration from Oakland's culturally diverse community, among the most diverse in the country, while paying less for everything from rent to employee salaries. "Economically speaking, it's easier to start up something in Oakland," says Frances Wong, a spokesperson for Visit Oakland. "That's what we attribute to Oakland's tech boom and we're also seeing it happen with the restaurant industry. The rent is a little cheaper. You can afford to make a mistake." In this East Bay city, chefs can experiment and take a gamble on a creative idea, and you see this happening at FuseBox where Sunhui Chang surprises diners with a meat-focused menu of Korean snacks like crispy, deep-fried pig ears and rich, fatty pork belly skewers. You can also get a taste of this trend at Calavera, a Mexican restaurant and mezcal bar, where a team of seasoned chefs are serving mole made with 35 ingredients and braised goat with a chili-chocolate sauce and importing chapulines (fried grasshoppers) from a chef in Oaxaca twice a month. And at the Ramen Shop where three Chez Panisse alums are turning out fresh noodles from a 600-pound noodle machine shipped from Japan. And the cuisine is also cutting-edge at Camino, where nearly everything on Russell Moore's menu comes from the kitchen's two wood-burning hearths even the Dungeness crab. These chefs are all turning Oakland into a creative incubator, and as a result its dining scene is hot and sizzling maybe even hotter than San Francisco's? Oakland is a place where chefs can afford to make their own bread Oakland's affordability also makes it a place where chefs can afford to remain true to their craft. Fred and Elizabeth Sassen, chef-owners of Oakland's buzzy Homestead, met while working together as chefs at Farallon in San Francisco, but when it came to opening their own establishment they quickly started looking outside the city after crunching numbers. High rents, minimum wage hikes, the cost of a liquor license (up to $250,000) and the city's many mandates made a San Francisco business unaffordable. "Unless you're well-established with a reputation and have the means to get a lot of funding, you can't afford to open in San Francisco," Fred said. "Having a good reputation is how you get started and then the gamble begins. You don't get a chance to gamble in SF unless you have large sums of money behind you and usually those large sums come with a reputation." The Sassens looked all around the Bay Area, from San Jose to Marin County, and finally decided on Oakland. Because the expense of running a restaurant in Oakland is less, Fred says he doesn't have to compromise his values and can afford to do what up-and-coming chefs would have been able to afford to do in San Francisco 10 or 15 years ago. "When you're in a more expensive place, you're always asking, 'Can I afford to do this? Can I afford to make my own bread?'" he said. "At a certain point, the labor becomes too expensive." The Sassens are indeed making their own bread, using a nine-year-old starter. Each loaf takes four days to make. They're also churning their own butter, grinding their own chilis to make paprika and canning tomatoes in the summertime. "If you come in for bouillabaisse in the winter, the tomatoes were canned and processed from La Serra Farms by my staff," says Sassen. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate San Francisco may be the easiest city in the world for tourist spotting. The fleeces and hoodies visitors are compelled to buy after packing for a trip in "sunny California" are unmistakable. A visit into the San Francisco Chronicle archives reveals a decades-long struggle between our visitors and the elements. In July of 1980 the Chronicle's popular "Question Man" feature asked six people what they would tell tourists planning to visit the city. Every single one of them mentioned the need for a jacket. "It's July and I'm wearing a leather jacket, suede vest and wool slacks," said cutlery salesman John Crimen. "That's why there are so many sweatshirt shops on the wharf. Tourists buy them to keep from freezing to death." Famed columnist Herb Caen frequently wrote of the poor reception we offer our guests. "Mr. and Mrs. Doubleknit and their children, polyester and Dacron are all that holds this city together, financially," wrote Caen in 1978. He noted that, before air conditioning, the cool weather was a draw for tourists looking to escape the Midwest summer heat. We even ran newspaper advertisements in other cities promoting the chill. After air-conditioning, we stopped working so hard to get the word out. "I want to apologize to visitors to for the dreary scene, but they are good sports," Caen wrote in 1978, referencing the goosebumps he saw each day a the nearby cable car stop. Many tourists still show up completely unprepared. We dug through our files of historic tourist photos in the Chronicle basement to see how the look of local tourists has changed over the years. The gallery above features some of our favorite classic photos of tourists before and after bundling up. PORTLAND, Maine The most expensive destroyer ever built for the Navy suffered an engineering problem in the Panama Canal and had to be towed to port. U.S. Third Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Ryan Perry said a vice admiral directed the Zumwalt to remain at ex-Naval Station Rodman in Panama to address the issues, which arose on Monday. The ship was built at Bath Iron Works in Maine and is on its way to San Diego. The schedule for the ship will remain flexible to enable testing and evaluation in order to ensure the ships safe transit to her new home port in San Diego, Perry said in a statement. USNI News, a publication of the U.S. Naval Institute, reported on its website that the ship was in the canal when it lost propulsion. The crew also saw water intrusion in bearings that connect electrical motors to drive shafts, the website reported. USNI News also reported that the Zumwalt suffered minor cosmetic damage. The ship had been scheduled to arrive in San Diego by the end of the year to start the activation of its weapon system, the website reported. The 610-foot-long warship has an angular shape to minimize its radar signature and is regarded as the most technologically sophisticated destroyer ever built for the Navy. One of its signature features is a new gun system that fires rocket-powered shells up to 63 nautical miles. The Zumwalt cost more than $4.4 billion and was commissioned last month in Maryland. It also suffered a leak in its propulsion system before it was commissioned. The leak required the ship to remain at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia longer than expected for repairs. The ship is part of the first new class of warship built at Bath Iron Works in more than 25 years. The second Zumwalt-class destroyer, which also cost more than $4.4 billion, was christened in a June ceremony during which Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, called it an extraordinary machine of peace and security. The third ship is expected to cost a bit less than $3.7 billion. A spokeswoman for Bath Iron Works said the shipyard was not planning to comment on the breakdown and deferred to the Navy. CANNON BALL, N.D. Authorities on Monday defended their decision to douse protesters with water during a skirmish in subfreezing weather near the Dakota Access oil pipeline, and organizers said at least 17 protesters were taken to the hospital including some who were treated for hypothermia. The clash occurred late Sunday and early Monday as protesters trying to push past a long-blocked bridge on a state highway were turned back by authorities using tear gas, rubber bullets and water hoses. One officer was injured when struck in the head with a rock. One protester was arrested. Protesters and officers massed at the bridge again later Monday, but protesters dispersed a few hours later at the request of tribal elders after police warned the crowd that they had identified firearms and that anyone with a weapon should leave. The Standing Rock Sioux and others oppose the 1,200-mile, four-state pipeline being built to carry oil from western North Dakota to a shipping point in Illinois because they say it threatens drinking water and cultural sites. Pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners has said no sites have been disturbed and that the $3.8 billion pipeline will be safe. The pipeline is largely complete except for the section under a Missouri River reservoir in southern North Dakota, and ETP Chief Executive Kelcy Warren said Friday the company is unwilling to reroute the project. Whats known as the Backwater Bridge on state Highway 1806 has been shut down for weeks because authorities say it might be unsafe due to earlier fires set by protesters. Protesters say the closed bridge near their main camp blocks emergency services, and they accuse authorities of keeping it shut down to block their access to pipeline construction sites. Authorities dispute that. Additional testing is needed to make sure the bridge is safe, and that cant be done until the area is deemed safe for inspectors, said state Transportation Department spokeswoman Jamie Olson. At least 17 protesters were injured severely enough to be taken to hospitals during the overnight skirmish at the bridge, said Dallas Goldtooth, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Hypothermia, a number of head injuries from being shot with rubber bullets, one individual had a heart attack, he said. Kirchmeier defended the use of water hoses, saying protesters were using aggressive tactics themselves. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune called the hosing an act of brutality. Greenpeace spokeswoman Mary Sweeters called it nothing short of horrific. This story originally appeared on Esquire. While on tour in San Francisco, Anthony Bourdain was interrupted by a protester claiming he eats dog meat. For the record, Bourdain has repeatedly and publicly drawn the line at eating dog or cat meat on his travels, despite its culinary standing in certain parts of the world. Bourdain calmly denied the accusation, saying, "I like dogs. But how much worse can they be than, like, kale?" Fair question. The protester continued protesting, however, and Bourdain ditched (relative) politeness to say, "One more second of this and I'm going out and shooting a puppy in the fing head." The crowd went wild, which likely makes Bourdain the only person on Earth able to get people cheering over shooting a puppy in the head. After more hecklingmostly from the crowd directed at the protesterBourdain ended with: "Thank you for your sincerely expressed opinion... Would you be kind enough now to f off?" And she did, but mostly because security made her. For his part, Bourdain continued to publicly not eat dog meatjust as he has done for years. This story originally appeared on Esquire. San Leandro Police Department / San Leandro Police Department Police released a surveillance photo Monday of a black Dodge Caravan they believe was driven from the scene of a rolling shootout on wheels that raced through San Leandro Thursday. The van, which may have been rented, was one of two vehicles in the shootout that began in the area of MacArthur Boulevard and Foothill Boulevard, according to Lt. Robert McManus, a spokesman for the San Leandro Police Department. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle School board member Sandra Lee Fewer has won the race to represent the Richmond District and nearby neighborhoods on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, beating out nine other candidates in one of the most expensive board races on the November ballot. Updated returns from the Nov. 8 election, released Monday, show that Fewer has a 1,300-vote edge over second-place candidate Marjan Philhour for the District One seat, with only 1,584 votes left to be tallied. The totals take into account ranked-choice results, under which ballots for candidates who finished at the bottom of the pack have been redistributed to their voters second and third selections. It's back on: Trump cancels meeting with New York Times ... then reschedules U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will meet on Tuesday with journalists from The New York Times, a spokeswoman said hours after his posts on Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) canceling the meeting. Trump planned to travel to the Times building, spokeswoman Hope Hicks told reporters without elaborating. The president-elect confirmed in a tweet the meeting was to take place, saying "The meeting with @nytimes is back on at 12:30 today. Look forward to it!" Earlier, Trump said on Twitter he canceled the meeting after the newspaper tried to change the terms agreed upon. The Times said it was Trump who had tried to change the terms, wanting the entire meeting off the record. Trump was slated to speak with editors, reporters, columnists and the newspaper's publisher, according to the Times . The meeting was expected to include Trump's chief of staff, Reince Priebus, Trump's daughter Ivanka, and top advisor Kellyanne Conway, the Times reported. After Trump's Twitter rant, Clifford Levy, the Times assistant masthead editor, responded with one of his own, saying, "We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to." In a statement, the Times said, "We were unaware that the meeting was cancelled until we saw the President Elect's tweet this morning. We did not change the ground rules and made no attempt to. They tried to yesterday asking for a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to. In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record session with reporters and columnists." Story continues On Monday, Trump met with representatives of the media , including Lester Holt, Charlie Rose, George Stephanopoulos and Wolf Blitzer. Reuters contributed to this report. (Disclosure: Comcast is parent of NBC and CNBC.) More From CNBC This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate SAN ANTONIO Seven hours before his arrest in the fatal slaying of a San Antonio police officer, capital murder suspect Otis Tyrone McKane was at the Bexar County Courthouse getting married as he was the subject of a massive manhunt, according to official records obtained by mySA.com. McKane, held in Sundays ambush slaying of Det. Benjamin Marconi, married Christian Chanel Fields, who owns the white Buick McKane was in at the time of his arrest, after they obtained a magistrates waiver from the customary 72-hour waiting period after a marriage license is issued. READ MORE: 13 things to know about the fatal shooting of SAPD Det. Benjamin Marconi County records indicate the license was issued at 9:27 a.m. Monday. He was arrested at 4:20 p.m. with a woman and 2-year-old child, who police have not yet identified, in the car. Fields, 27, has been arrested on at least two theft charges in Harris County, records show. She was sentenced to deferred adjudication in lieu of a conviction for a 2010 state jail felony charge, records show. Fields was sentenced in a misdemeanor theft case in May 2011, according to court records. Fields bought the white Buick in Houston, records show. According to public records, Charlynn Fields is the mother of Christian Chanel Fields. Christian Chanel lists a Charlynn Fields as her mother on her Facebook page, which also shows she has a young daughter. The presiding judge who signed the waiver in the heavily secured Bexar County Courthouse was County Court-at-Law No. 9 Judge Walden Shelton, according to the county clerks office. He is also performed the marriage ceremony, but refused to comment Tuesday. Marconi, 50, was fatally shot during a traffic stop near SAPD headquarters around 11:45 a.m. Sunday. McKane is accused of pulling up behind Marconi's cruiser while the detective was issuing a traffic citation to someone else and firing twice through the passenger window. LATEST: Donald Trump called son of slain SAPD Det. Benjamin Marconi, family says McKane, 31, was nabbed Monday afternoon in a different vehicle on Interstate 10 near Ackerman Road, about 28 hours after the officers slaying. As he was led past camera crews to be booked on a capital murder charge late Monday, McKane said he was upset about a child custody battle that prevented him from seeing his son and "I lashed out at someone who didn't deserve it." "I've been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didn't deserve it," McKane said before he was booked, according to a recording made available by KENS-TV. "I just want to see my son." Fields was born in Houston and is 27 years old, according to the marriage license. Staff writers Madalyn Mendoza and Emilie Eaton and news researcher Misty Harris contributed to this report. Text "Breaking" to 48421 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com jgonzalez@express-news.net Nov 22 (Reuters) - The World Bank expects Azeri economy to contract by 3 percent this year, the bank's official said on Tuesday. Last month, Azerbaijan revised its economic growth forecast. It now expects its gross domestic product to shrink by 2.8 percent this year versus a previous call for a 1.8 percent growth. (Reporting by Nailia Bagirova; Writing by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Andrey Ostroukh) Jubilant self-described white nationalists are basking in the glow of Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election. "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" is how alt-right ideologue Richard B. Spencer saluted more than 200 supporters Sunday at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., for the annual conference of the National Policy Institute. The National Policy Institute describes itself as "an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world." The supporters, mostly young men with shaved-on-the-sides, long-on-top haircuts, returned the salute with outstretched arms, Nazi-style. This how the New York Times described the speech that Spencer the man who coined the term "alt-right" gave Sunday: "He railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German. America, he said, belonged to white people, whom he called the 'children of the sun,' a race of conquerors and creators who had been marginalized but now, in the era of President-elect Donald J. Trump, were 'awakening to their own identity.'" For those who have never strapped on jackboots, grappling with the terms "white nationalism" and "alt-right" can be daunting. Is white nationalism the same as white supremacism or is the latter just a more radical subset of the larger group? Is the alt-right movement racist and fascist, or just populist ultra-conservatism? In the New York Times, Birkbeck University of London's Eric Kaufmann was quoted as making a distinction between white nationalism and white supremacy. "White nationalism, he said, is the belief that national identity should be built around white ethnicity, and that white people should therefore maintain both a demographic majority and dominance of the nation's culture and public life." Kauffman maintains that white nationalism is not synonymous with white supremacy, which he describes as the racist belief in the innate superiority of whites to people of other races. As for the term "alt-right," while it may encompass other idealogical tenets that go beyond white nationalism, white nationalism is a driving force in the movement, as Spencer made clear in his speech at National Policy Institute. A few months ago, Steve Bannon, Trump's newly appointed White House chief strategist, took credit for turning Breitbart into "the platform of the alt-right movement." Despite claims to the contrary by Rep. Nancy Pelosi and others, Bannon claims he is not a white nationalist. "I'm an economic nationalist," Bannon told the Hollywood Reporter's Michael Wolff. But posters on the Stormfront, the "White Pride" site founded by a former Ku Klux Klan leader in 1996, were absolutely gleeful that Bannon will have Trump's ear. "Stephen Bannon, racist, anti-homo, anti-immigrant anti-jewish, anti-establishment. Declared war on (((Paul Ryan))) Sounds perfect. Muhahahaha," wrote one. "It doesn't get any better than this," commented another. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate An internecine fight has erupted over the estate and remains of Rose Pak, the Chinatown power broker and community leader who died in September. Paks two surviving sisters, Teresa Wang and Joanna Pak Kish, have retained attorneys in their fight over control of Paks estate, which is worth at least $550,000, according to court documents. The dispute has prevented Paks body from being cremated, two months after her funeral, San Francisco Magazine reported Monday. The size of Paks estate comes as something of a surprise. Despite her influence she was instrumental in persuading Ed Lee to run for mayor in 2011 and was a confidante to former Mayor Willie Brown she was widely believed to have little wealth. Her power stemmed more from her decades-long ties to politicians and ability to get out the Chinese American vote than her job as a consultant to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. However, court documents filed by Wang, Paks older sister, estimate that Paks estate is worth $656,000 $400,000 from the market-rate value of property and another $256,000 in personal property. Court documents filed by Kish, meanwhile, estimate that Paks estate is worth $550,000 $300,000 from the market-rate value of property and another $250,000 in personal property. An Oct. 18 filing in probate court by Wangs attorney contends that Wang is entitled to succeed all or part of Paks estate. Ten days later, Kish, Paks younger sister, submitted her own appeal with the court contending that she should be appointed the estates administrator, and that she is entitled to one half of the decedents estate. Efforts to reach Wang, Kish and their attorneys were unsuccessful. Former Mayor Art Agnos said he was shocked to learn of the dispute because I had always thought (Pak) was poor. I have no idea where she got that kind of money, Agnos said. I thought I knew her pretty well. But I wasnt close to her for many years, so it could have all happened in recent years. The sisters dispute took a bizarre turn when Kish had Paks body removed from a crematorium shortly after her Sept. 24 funeral so it could be autopsied, San Francisco Magazine reported. Wang, who opposed the autopsy, is now refusing to sign papers that would allow the body to be cremated, and Paks corpse remains on ice at the Green Street Mortuary, the magazine said. According to Wang, Kish wanted the autopsy in hopes of gathering evidence for a malpractice lawsuit she intended to file against California Pacific Medical Center, where Pak was treated shortly before her death Sept. 18, the magazine said. Pak, 68, had been in declining health for some time, and spent several months in China after undergoing a kidney transplant. Six hundred people attended services for her at Old St. Marys Cathedral in Chinatown, including Lee, former Mayors Agnos and Gavin Newsom, and every member of the Board of Supervisors. Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @emilytgreen Political uncertainty has gripped most of Asia, marking new areas of global concern even as attention is fixed on measures proposed by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. The domestic events unfolding across the regionfrom the potential exit of South Korea's president to fresh protests in Indonesia and Malaysiaare now at boiling point following weeks of steady simmering. In addition to hurting long-term political stability, the unrest could also spell trouble for the region's economic outlook, which is already looking shaky amid a potential radical twist in U.S. foreign and trade policy , thanks to Trump's shock election victory. Here's a breakdown of the tumult and its implications in each country. In the latest chapter of President Park Geun-hye's corruption scandal, the nation's two major opposition parties announced on Monday that they will begin amassing signatures to remove the president from office and review procedures for the impeachment process. For nearly a month now, President Park has been under pressure for allowing a close friend, Choi Soon-Sil, to interfere in state affairs. Choi, 60, is also accused of embezzlement, forcing conglomerates to make massive donations to nonprofits, and getting preferential treatment from banks for loans. Monday's impeachment news comes a day after local prosecutors said the president acted as a criminal accomplice in Choi's extortion. Massive protests have gripped the country and despite Park's attempts at mitigating the crisis, including a cabinet reshuffle , she may have no other choice except to quit. "There's a 70 percent probability the president will resign, with Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn assuming her duties until a new president is chosen in an election held within 60 days of Park's resignation," according to Eurasia. But whether she quits or is impeached, strategists widely believe the crisis will create a political power vacuum and potentially paralyze the government for months to come. Story continues Tens of thousands took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak over his alleged involvement in a grand corruption case, resulting in a fresh clampdown on anti-government critics. Led by Bersih, a coalition of non-governmental organisations, it was the fifth mass protest since 2007. At least 15 activists and members of the political opposition were arrested, drawing criticism from human rights groups who say the arrests were a silencing measure on Najib's part and impinged on the freedom of peaceful assembly. But Najib won't resign anytime soon, Oh Ei Sun, Najib's former political secretary from 2009-2011 and current senior fellow at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, told CNBC on Monday. The country's ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), has been in power since 1963 so it will be difficult to dislodge Najib as long he retains UMNO's support, Oh explained. Southeast Asia's largest economy also witnessed a massive rally over the weekend as citizens called for national unity amid deepening religious divisions. An investigation focusing on Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama is underway after the 50-year old Christian cited a Koranic verse during a Sept. 27 speech. The verse suggests Muslims should not take Jews or Christian as their allies or leaders and in his remarks, Ahok said Indonesians should not be deceived by opponents who use the verse to influence the election. Blasphemy is a criminal offense in Indonesia and conservative Muslims demanded for Ahok's arrest during a massive riot earlier this month , in which dozens were injured and one person was killed. "Ahok assumed his current position when former governor Joko Widodo was elected president. And while the two have been political allies in the past, the blasphemy investigation may strain ties between them and project an image of Indonesia as a nation of religious intolerance," the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) said in a recent note. The country's western Rakhine state, home to 1.1 million people who identify themselves as Rohingya Muslims, has witnessed mounting brutality since coming under security lockdown in early October. Following attacks on three police border posts, which the government believes was the work of a jihadist organization, military troops armed with attack helicopters were sent into the region last month. "Over 130 people have died and 234 have been arrested in the heaviest wave of violence in the region since 2012," according to the CFR, who noted the additional issues of scarce food, rape and looting by soldiers. The United Nations (UN) has criticized the lockdown and urged the government, led by de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi , to allow aid organizations into the area and conduct investigations into military abuse. Last week, former UN chief Kofi Annan warned that the recent violence was "plunging the state into renewed instability and creating new displacement." Beijing's historic interference in a domestic Hong Kong legal case has sparked renewed trouble in the special administrative territory (SAR). Chinese President Xi Jinping urged Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to "uphold national unity and maintain social and political stability" on Monday after a Beijing court banned two elected Hong Kong lawmakers from taking office earlier this month. Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-chingwho insulted the mainland during their oath ceremoniesfiled to appeal the ruling last week, which was criticized for undermining the city's judiciary. Under the "One Country, Two Systems" formula, Hong Kong enjoys high levels of autonomy from China, but the recent ruling sparked fears of growing Chinese encroachment and pressure on pro-democracy advocates. King Bhumibol Adulyadej's death in October has resurfaced concerns about the country's return to democracy two years following a military coup. "Although the king's formal political role in Thailand is highly limited, he was nevertheless a person of great moral authority who was able to calm many conflicts. His son is widely perceived to neither have anything like the moral authority nor the depth of affection from his subjects," explained Societe Generale in a recent note, adding that it remains difficult to judge how the royal succession will complicate Thai politics. In the meantime however, the country is in official mourning period until late 2017 and the military junta is widely expected to continue to consolidating power and push back elections to 2018. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. LONDON Irish novelist and playwright William Trevor, a master of short stories that often explored lifes disappointments, has died at the age of 88 in his adopted English home, his publisher announced Monday. Mr. Trevor set his tales mainly in his native Ireland or in England, where he had lived since graduating from Trinity College Dublin in 1952. He won one of Britains top literary prizes, the Whitbread, three times; was short-listed four times for the Booker Prize, most recently in 2002 for The Story of Lucy Gault; and was a perennial object of speculation as a potential Nobel literature laureate. But Mr. Trevor studiously avoided the spotlight, even in his own works, where his voice melted away into the inner worlds of his often scarred, socially isolated protagonists. My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so, Mr. Trevor told one interviewer. I am a storyteller. Graham Greene praised Mr. Trevors 1973 collection Angels at the Ritz as the best set of short stories since Dubliners, James Joyces 1914 collection. While preferring the short story form, Mr. Trevor also was a novelist, playwright and TV dramatist. He told the Guardian newspaper in 2009 that he considered short stories the best vehicle for studying character. You can take a relationship and almost photograph it. And there it is, he said. Often that relationship can get lost in the bigger shape of the novel. I like to isolate it and really look at the characters. Born William Trevor Cox on May 24, 1928, in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Mr. Trevors themes often seemed to reflect the difficulties of his early years, growing up with parents stuck in an unhappy marriage. It wasnt so much that they quarreled; I never heard my father shouting or anything like that. They just simply didnt get on. There was no respect, nothing, he told the Guardian. Ive always thought that something actually happened, the way that quite often in a marriage or a relationship something happens, and nobody knows because its kept away from the rest of the world, because theres shame or something. Theres a big question mark. His family was Protestant in a newly independent nation dominated by the Roman Catholic Church, a minority regarded as strangers and visitors as he put it in the short story The News From Ireland. Mr. Trevors own marriage to his Trinity College sweetheart Jane Ryan in 1952 was happy and endured, but the gloominess of his childhood stuck to him. His characters tended not to triumph over their problems. If you take away the sadness from life itself, he told the Guardian, then you are taking away a big and a good thing, because to be sad is rather like to be guilty. They both have a very bad press, but in point of fact, guilt is not as terrible a position as it is made out to be. People should feel guilty sometimes. Ive written a lot about guilt. I think that it can be something that really renews people. Irelands depressed economy drove Mr. Trevor to move to England in 1952, where initially he taught art and produced sculptures. His first novel published in 1958, A Standard of Behaviour, won little attention and was later disowned by the author. Moving to London in 1960 to work in an advertising agency gave him enough free time to produce a second novel, The Old Boys, which won the Hawthornden Prize, honoring the best work of imaginative literature. He adapted the play for television and the stage, a success that inspired him to move his family to rural Devon in southwest England. Mr. Trevor flourished in the theater and television, and in 1973 he had three plays staged in London. He produced all of his stories on blue paper a habit from his ad agency days on a manual typewriter, followed by much revision. Its like cutting a film, he said in a BBC interview. Daniel Murtagh, reviewing Mr. Trevors short story collection The Hill Bachelors in Commonweal magazine, said the editing paid off. One can open this book, pick a paragraph at random, and imagine dozens of ways Trevor could have written it less effectively and did not, ways he could have added, or failed to excise, a word or phrase that would have made it easier, more explicit, but less focused in its power to disturb or to force recognition, Murtagh wrote. Mr. Trevor won many honors, including the Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature for Angels at the Ritz and Other Stories; the Allied Irish Bank Prize for literature and the Heinemann Award for fiction in 1976; and the Whitbread Prize three times: in 1978 for The Children of Dynmouth, in 1983 for Fools of Fortune and in 1994 for Felicias Journey. The latter was made into a 1999 film starring Bob Hoskins. Although he remained an Irish citizen, he won three honorary titles in Britain: Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979, Companion of Literature in 1994 and a knighthood in 2002. He is survived by his wife and two sons. Funeral arrangements were not announced. Volpara Health Technologies, the Wellington-based, ASX-listed digital health company, has raised A$7 million in a discounted placement and plans to raise a further A$3.7 million in an entitlement offer to shareholders. The company, which is focused on early detection of breast cancer, sold 11.6 million shares at 60 Australian cents apiece to institutional investors, a 28 percent discount to their last trading price. It is now undertaking a one-for-20 non-renounceable entitlement offer at the same price. The capital raising would lift Volpara's proforma cash-on-hand to A$16.6 million from a closing cash position of A$6.4 million as at Sept. 30, the company said in a statement. Proceeds will be used "to accelerate the business development and sales of the companys products by growing the global sales team and increasing focus on product development, and to supplement working capital to support the rollout of VolparaEnterprise, its software as a service (SaaS) subscription-based model," it said. The company posted its first-half results this month in its debut as a listed company. Total revenue climbed 4.8 percent to $1.2 million, while operating expenses more than doubled to $5.4 million, resulting in a wider loss of $4.7 million from $2.1 million. The company first listed on the ASX in April, having raised about A$10 million selling shares at 50 Australian cents each. The shares recently traded at 76 Australian cents, down 9 percent today but up 67 percent this year. About 75 million women each year are screened for breast cancer globally, including 40 million in the US. Volparas proprietary software has been used to analyse the mammograms of over 9 million women to date. Working in Volparas favour is the fact it's operating in a large, high growth market with the incidence of breast cancer expected to double by 2030. It also holds extensive, clinically validated, intellectual property patents on its core VolparaDensity software and there are high barriers to entry for any newcomers into the market. BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Air New Zealand issues Performance Rights Heartland announces new Director of Heartland Bank GEN - Agreements in Principle to Issue New Shares Geraldine McBride steps down from Sky Board Sky ASM 2022 South Port NZ Ltd - Results of 2022 Annual Meeting November 2nd Morning Report AIA - Auckland Airport announces executive team change South Port NZ Ltd - 2022 Annual Meeting ENS - Rights Issue Offer Document Heartland Bank has told investors that it remains interested in buying asset finance company UDC from ANZ Bank, describing it as an "ideal fit." In his speech at the company's annual general meeting in Christchurch, chief executive Jeff Greenslade said he believed the acquisition would "complement our strategy and would provide a number of synergies." UDC is one of NZ's largest and oldest finance companies, with widespread reports in April that ANZ was considering a sale. Greenslade said market sentiment suggested a decision on UDC's future is "imminent." Net profit after tax for the three months to the end of September was $14.3 million, up 21 percent on the same period a year earlier. Management remain confident of achieving the net profit after tax target of $57 to $60 million for full-year 2017. Investors were also told that a more competitive funding market was emerging, with increased competition for deposits due to demand for credit outstripping available savings. Greenslade also noted that the banking industry was moving off historically low-levels of impairments, and "it is still necessary to be cautious and watchful in terms of exposure to global markets." Over the next three months, Heartland intends to offer residential mortgages, deposits and lending on livestock online. It increasingly intends to use its website to target 'millenials', people in their late-teens to early thirties as well as people over the age of 55, who Heartland say are the fastest growing demographic in social media use. Shares in Heartland Bank fell 0.65 percent or 1 cent to $1.52. They've risen 15.9 percent since the start of the year. BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Air New Zealand issues Performance Rights Heartland announces new Director of Heartland Bank GEN - Agreements in Principle to Issue New Shares Geraldine McBride steps down from Sky Board Sky ASM 2022 South Port NZ Ltd - Results of 2022 Annual Meeting November 2nd Morning Report AIA - Auckland Airport announces executive team change South Port NZ Ltd - 2022 Annual Meeting ENS - Rights Issue Offer Document New Zealand shares fell as Metro Performance Glass, Ryman Healthcare and Auckland International Airport declined while A2 Milk gained following its annual meeting. The S&P/NZX 50 Index dropped 32.55 points, or 0.5 percent, to 6,816.4. Within the index, 27 stocks fell, 19 rose and five were unchanged. Turnover was $158.1 million. Metro Performance Glass led the index lower, down 3.9 percent to $2. The company yesterday reported a 5 percent gain in first-half profit to $11.5 million on a 23 percent lift in revenue to $116.3 million, as it benefited from a strong local construction market and booked a one-time gain from its acquisition of Australian Glass Group "It's a little weak following yesterday's result, the stock's been an extremely strong performer of late but there probably wasn't quite the operational leverage that some of the bigger bulls in the market would've been hoping for," said Matt Goodson, managing director at Salt Funds Management. "The company needs to deliver a result that they are cranking in this environment - because if not now, then when? You could not have a better environment." Ryman Healthcare fell 2.7 percent to $8.58, Auckland International Airport dropped 2.4 percent to $6.05, and Sky Network Television declined 2.2 percent to $4.43. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare lost 0.6 percent to $8.66 despite the medical device maker increasing first-half profit 26 percent to $78.2 million and widening its margins. It reiterated its forecast for a record annual profit this year. "It's a good strong result, there's a slight guidance upgrade although that relates mainly to currency, but the core business is performing as well as ever," Goodson said. "The share price has been under a bit of pressure over the past few weeks, after an initial spike today it's settled down again. There's been a general de-rating of high multiple stocks across Australasia, and there's a tit-for-tat patent dispute with Resmed and just a bit of concern about those." A2 Milk Co was the best performer on the index, up 4.8 percent to $2.17 after providing a trading update for the four months to October at its annual meeting in Sydney today. "It was a strong trading update on margins as opposed to volumes, they certainly seem to be shrugging off the weakness some of their Australian competitors, in particular, have suffered from," Goodson said. "Certainly for now, A2 is performing straight through concerns." Xero gained 2.2 percent to $18.91 and Genesis Energy rose 1.8 percent to $2. Outside the benchmark index, Turners rose 4.9 percent to $3.44. The financial services firm, formerly known as Dorchester Pacific, expects a "significant" earnings uplift after buying motor insurer Autosure from Suncorp New Zealand for $34 million. NPT fell 4.5 percent to 64 cents. The listed property investor lifted first-half profit 2.3 percent and says it's still considering a hostile bid from rival Augusta Capital. No buyers have emerged for the children's clothing retailer Pumpkin Patch, meaning the company will sell all stock and be wound down, with 63 people losing their jobs this week, the receivers said. They had received some interest in buying the Pumpkin Patch brand name and will now "run a process to optimise the value of that asset." The shares last traded at 6 cents before being placed in a trading halt. Administrators of crime-fighting software company Wynyard have sold its Cognevo division to Australian telecoms giant, Telstra. Christchurch-based Wynyard went into voluntary administration last month after failing to secure emergency funds to keep it going, with the shares last trading at 21.5 cents, having listed at $1.15 per share. The administrators warned investors that "it is already apparent that there will not be any returns for shareholders arising from the administration." "It was clearly a valuable part of their business and in many ways not a surprise to see it sold - clearly the receivers have to act quickly there given the cost and cash burn that have been loaded into the business by past management," Goodson said. BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Air New Zealand issues Performance Rights Heartland announces new Director of Heartland Bank GEN - Agreements in Principle to Issue New Shares Geraldine McBride steps down from Sky Board Sky ASM 2022 South Port NZ Ltd - Results of 2022 Annual Meeting November 2nd Morning Report AIA - Auckland Airport announces executive team change South Port NZ Ltd - 2022 Annual Meeting ENS - Rights Issue Offer Document United States President-elect Donald Trump will withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on the first day of his presidency. In a video posted to Twitter, Trump said on day one he would "issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair bi-lateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores." Twelve countries including Canada, Mexico, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Peru and Chile signed the agreement, which would reduce tariffs to try to boost trade in the region. The deal requires the United States to sign in order to come into force. The TPP excludes China, and was widely seen as an attempt by the United States to secure its leading role in the Asia-Pacific against an emerging China. The future of the TPP was the main topic at the APEC conference in Peru this weekend, with prime minister John Key saying as he left the summit that he was "a little more confident that we can get President Trump to come back to the table and have a look at TPP but New Zealand had a lot of other free-trade opportunities, including good progress on an FTA with Gulf states and the potential to sign one with the European Union next year. New Zealand and China also agreed to negotiate an update to their existing Free Trade Agreement. BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Air New Zealand issues Performance Rights Heartland announces new Director of Heartland Bank GEN - Agreements in Principle to Issue New Shares Geraldine McBride steps down from Sky Board Sky ASM 2022 South Port NZ Ltd - Results of 2022 Annual Meeting November 2nd Morning Report AIA - Auckland Airport announces executive team change South Port NZ Ltd - 2022 Annual Meeting ENS - Rights Issue Offer Document The administrators of crime-fighting software company, Wynyard, have sold its Cognevo division. In a statement to the NZX, Grant Graham and Neale Jackson of Kordamentha said the deal was expected to complete within the next ten days and is subject to a number of termination rights. The Cognevo division was focused on business customers, rather than local and national governments. Earlier today Fairfax Media reported that the buyer was Australian telecoms giant, Telstra. No detail of a buyer was given in the statement, and neither administrator was immediately available to clarify the situation. Christchurch-based Wynyard went into voluntary administration last month after failing to secure emergency funds to keep it going from UK lender Skipton Building Society. It listed on the NZX in 2013, with investors paying $1.15 a share. The stock closed as high as $3.12 in March 2014 but shares were worth just 21.5 cents when the company eventually went under. The administrators also today warned investors that "it is already apparent that there will not be any returns for shareholders arising from the administration." BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Air New Zealand issues Performance Rights Heartland announces new Director of Heartland Bank GEN - Agreements in Principle to Issue New Shares Geraldine McBride steps down from Sky Board Sky ASM 2022 South Port NZ Ltd - Results of 2022 Annual Meeting November 2nd Morning Report AIA - Auckland Airport announces executive team change South Port NZ Ltd - 2022 Annual Meeting ENS - Rights Issue Offer Document Argosy Property, the country's fifth-biggest listed property investor by market value, increased first-half earnings 22 percent as it benefited from the rising value of its portfolio and extra cash from the surrender of a lease agreement. Profit rose to $56.2 million, or 6.9 cents per share, in the six months ended Sept. 30, from $46.1 million, or 5.74 cents, in the year earlier period, the Auckland-based company said in a statement. Net property income rose 11 percent to $53.7 million, which included a $5.4 million benefit from New Zealand Post's move to surrender a lease agreement for three floors of New Zealand Post House in Wellington. The property investor also recorded a $35.8 million gain on the value of its properties in the first half, ahead of a $27.6 million gain in the year earlier period. Argosy has been rejigging its $1.4 billion property portfolio, and aims to have core long-term investments make up between 75 percent and 85 percent of the value of the portfolio, with the remaining assets designated as value add. The company has earmarked about $55 million of property for sale which it deems neither 'core' nor 'value add'. In the first half it agreed to sell a Palmerston North property for $3.3 million in December, and an Auckland property for $6 million in June next year. Since balance date, it's agreed to sell another Auckland property for $7.6 million in March next year. "The first half of the financial year has seen Argosy take further steps towards advancing the quality of the portfolio," said chief executive Peter Mence. "We are making the most of a very buoyant economy and property market." Argosy's occupancy rate by rental income slipped to 97.9 percent as at Sept. 30, from 99.4 percent at March 31, mainly due to the expiry of a lease to Fonterra in Napier, however the company said outstanding lease expiries for the period ending March 31, 2017, have reduced and enquiry levels from potential tenants are encouraging. Its weighted average lease term remained stable at 5.26 years, from 5.24 years at March 31. The company will pay a dividend of 1.525 cents per share on Dec. 21 for the second quarter, consistent with the payment for the first quarter. It reiterated that it expects its annual dividend for the 2017 year to amount to 6.10 cents per share, up from 6.025 cents in the 2016 year, and said it expects the dividend will increase "modestly" again in the 2018 year. Its shares last traded at $1.05. BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Air New Zealand issues Performance Rights Heartland announces new Director of Heartland Bank GEN - Agreements in Principle to Issue New Shares Geraldine McBride steps down from Sky Board Sky ASM 2022 South Port NZ Ltd - Results of 2022 Annual Meeting November 2nd Morning Report AIA - Auckland Airport announces executive team change South Port NZ Ltd - 2022 Annual Meeting ENS - Rights Issue Offer Document The administrators of crime-fighting software company, Wynyard, have sold its Cognevo division to Australian telecoms giant, Telstra. In a statement to the NZX, Grant Graham and Neale Jackson of Kordamentha said the deal was expected to complete within the next ten days and is subject to a number of termination rights. The Cognevo division was focused on business customers, rather than local and national governments. Telstra confirmed its purchase in a separate, e-mailed statement, saying that "Telstra is an existing Cognevo customer and we are acquiring the assets to further enhance the capabilities of our managed security services offer for customers in Australia and globally." Christchurch-based Wynyard went into voluntary administration last month after failing to secure emergency funds to keep it going from UK lender Skipton Building Society. It listed on the NZX in 2013, with investors paying $1.15 a share. The stock closed as high as $3.12 in March 2014 but shares were worth just 21.5 cents when the company eventually went under. The administrators also today warned investors that "it is already apparent that there will not be any returns for shareholders arising from the administration." BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: Air New Zealand issues Performance Rights Heartland announces new Director of Heartland Bank GEN - Agreements in Principle to Issue New Shares Geraldine McBride steps down from Sky Board Sky ASM 2022 South Port NZ Ltd - Results of 2022 Annual Meeting November 2nd Morning Report AIA - Auckland Airport announces executive team change South Port NZ Ltd - 2022 Annual Meeting ENS - Rights Issue Offer Document Internship Unveils Possibility Beyond Plans for Natavia Ray Natavia Ray came to Shaw University with a few of lifes milestones already under her belt. Now 32, Ray is a non-traditional student. She is married and the mother of two daughters, ages 11 and 8. She has also already earned an associates degree from Fayetteville Technical Community College in Fayetteville, NC, and has logged quite a bit of work experience as a dental hygienist. But dental school is her dream. Ray, a senior at Shaw, is scheduled to graduate in December 2017 with a degree in biology, ready for dental school. Thats just how she planned it: Go back to school for two years to earn a bachelors degree, finish dental school and enter the field as Dr. Natavia Ray, DDS. Ray didnt know the universitys diligent focus on steering students into internships would add a detour in her plan. I knew I wanted to come back to school; just get in and get out, and go to dental school, Ray said. I didnt want to do an internship, but Shaw really wants us to get out there. Ray was already involved in campus activities. She is Vice President of the Minority Association of Pre-health Students; a member of Shaws Honors College; and a candidate for the schools Honors Society, an organization open to students with a 3.2 GPA or higher. Ray also has won some awards: First Place monetary award from the Entomological Society of America Southern Branch, and Second Place in the Collegiate Academy of North Carolina Sciences at Methodist College in Fayetteville. Reflecting back to her internship in the ecology department at N.C. State University, Ray assures internships are an important step for any student, no matter their age, marital status, life experience or academic accomplishments. Its really good if you want to go to further your education in graduate school, and it helps you determine whether you really want to be in that field of study and work, Ray said. I already know I want to go to dental school, but I was still a little interested in being outside. I wanted to see the other side. During the internship, Ray studied the impact our daily living habits and the environment we create from littering and pollution to global warming affect insects; specifically, carpenter ants, by testing their immune response to varying habitats. While they found constraints on urban ants not endured by those in natural forest habitats, the research project has yet to be completed, Ray said. Even so, Ray said, no matter the outcome, I met a lot of people. You build connections. That was really cool. As for the outside work in her field, Im a country girl, said Ray, a native of rural Fayetteville who moved to Raleigh for her husbands job. I dont know if I want to work outside all the time, but it was peaceful and I really enjoyed it. Shaw biology professor Dr. Eric Butler is a collaborator in the NC State internship Ray landed. He helped recruit her to apply and guided her through the application process, championing the internship experience because of the world of awareness about a career path and its possibilities. And Butler taught Ray Zoology. This semester, he said, he had hoped to hire Ray to work in his lab, but her schedule doesnt allow it. Shes a very bright young woman and she works hard, said Butler, one of Shaws top researchers. Natavia also has a really clear idea why shes in college, so shes serious; mature and focused. That can be an advantage non-traditional students have when competing for internships, said Butler, adding that reality often is contrary to what older students perceive. Butler remembers encouraging Ray to highlight the fact that shes had real-life, real-adult work experience. Youve got some skills to bring to the table that allow you to be really competitive, he recalls telling her. Thats something non-traditional students have that others dont. Ray agrees. In fact, this is her message to fellow non-traditional students who think their place at Shaw is in the background: Just do it, she said. Be open-minded. Internships can teach you a lot. Even though were older and we already know a lot, theres always something more to learn; networking, new information, different experiences you can learn from. Ray continued, Its awesome. Its amazing. Dont ever put yourself in a box. Open that box and step outside the box. Brian Eskew, 82nd Civil Engineer Squadron contracting officer representative and native of Greenville, South Carolina, has been with the Air Force for 26 years and is the Support Airman of the Week at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, for the week of Nov. 22-28, 2016. Most significant accomplishments: - Being a father to three children Airmans story: Being a parent takes up a lot of my time with school and sports activities, Eskew said. What time I have left, I do landscaping and home improvements. Its been said that I am a jack of all trades and master of none. I have been in the Wichita Falls area since 1977 and have worked at Sheppard since April 1990 and have been with the amazing 82nd Civil Engineer Squadron for little over a year now. I enjoy working with my peers closely in meeting the continuing challenges this installation hands us daily. Supervisor comments: The Civil Engineering Squadron was incredibly blessed to have lured Brian away from the Force Support Squadron, said Richard Milhollon, performance management chief. He brings a whole new meaning to the phrase exceptional customer service. Brain is part of my service contract section which surveils and monitors more than $5.5 million worth of contracts. Our service contract section was under manned until Brian showed up, Milhollon continued. During this past year in CES as a contract monitor, he has used his extraordinary skills to effectively execute more than $1.6 million in work associated with the protective coating maintenance contract. This greatly impacts Sheppards training mission by not only keeping the facilities looking great but also saving energy dollars as well. I am very thankful to have Brian as a part of the CES family. NEW DELHI: Have an innovative idea for a device that could provide solution to a medical issue? Then you stand to win a grant of 15 lakh! To promote cost-effective innovations in the field of medicine and biotechnology, a government collaboration is awarding several grants worth 15 lakh rupees each to young innovators who can come with solutions to many day-to-day problems. Students from school level up to the doctoral level and grass-root innovators can apply for SRISTI-BIRAC GYTI awards by December 30, 2016. Winners will be awarded at the Festival of Innovations at Rashtrapati Bhavan in March, 2017. The competition is being organised by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a government of India enterprise, and Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI) to promote frugal innovations in the field of medicine and biotechnology. "Fifteen students will get a grant of 15 lakh rupees each for development of the idea or a prototype related to medical or biotechnology field," Professor Anil K Gupta, President Sristi, told PTI. "In addition to this, 100 grass-root innovators will get one lakh rupees each for value addition at different labs," Gupta said. Terming lab innovations and grass-root innovations equally important to create a healthy nation, Dr Renu Swarup, Managing Director, BIRAC said, "India, being a developing nation has problems, which are specific to our country." "Solutions that work pretty well in other parts of the world may not always be the best for us. Medical innovation is expected to come up with feasible solutions for such Indian problems," Swarup said. "Devices, Diagnostics, drugs and vaccines, all require medical innovation equally," she said. Read Also: EU Offers Tech Expertise To India To Combat Air Pollution Karnataka Woos Investors Under Make In India BENGALURU: Government of India in the process of curbing black money from the economy decided to demonetize 500 and 1000 currency notes. Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi told about this initiative in his address to the nation on 8th November. Since then, people are in a hurry to exchange old currency notes with the new ones. Banks are working on war footing to face the new drive. However, First Post reported that Indian banks in China will not accept the demonetized currency notes. The decision of the government to tackle illicit cash flow and cash hoarding will affect the Indians living in China also. The Indian embassy in Beijing said that scrapped currency notes will not be accepted in any branch of Indian banks in Honk Kong or China. To exchange or deposit the old notes, citizens will have to authorize any other person in India to deposit money into his bank account. Thousands of Indians living in China will be affected by this decision. Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai witness a large number of Indian Diasporas. The advisory of the Indian embassy, Beijing said that there is a time limit till 30 December to deposit or exchange the old notes from banks. However, it will not be made at any branch of the seven Indian banks, including two private sector banks present in China. Persons planning to visit the country can hold their money and deposit or exchange during the visit. If the visit is not planned, then they need to give an authority letter to a family member who can then deposit any sum of amount in the authorized bank account by producing a valid ID proof. Read Also: Karnataka Woos Investors Under Make In India EU Offers Tech Expertise To India To Combat Air Pollution NWS Firearms The 121 Precinct based in Graniteville posted on its Twitter feed this photo of three illegal guns and ammunition that were seized during the arrest of a 27-year-old Brooklyn man in Mariners Harbor. (Courtesy of NYPD) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police seized three guns from a 27-year-old Brooklyn man who was arrested at his girlfriend's home during a dispute in Mariners Harbor, authorities say. Officers found Ted Saint-Ilmar, 27, of Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn, armed with a .22-caliber gun in a bathroom of his 25-year-old girlfriend's home on Sunday night, according to a spokesman for the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information. A Springfield 9 mm pistol and Glock .45-caliber pistol and ammunition were left out in plain view in the home in the vicinity of Brabrant Street, police said. The girlfriend told police that Saint-Ilmar was high when he showed up her house and began arguing with her, cops said. The defendant ran into the bathroom and the victim then bolted outside to call 911 at around 10:50 p.m. When officers responded, the woman gave them permission to look for Saint-Ilmar in the apartment. Cops ordered the suspect to open the bathroom door and that's when they discovered Saint-Ilmar with a .22-caliber gun, police said. Saint-Ilmar was arrested and charged by police with reckless endangerment, criminal possession of a weapon and acting in a manner injurious to a child. A police spokesman was unable to confirm whether there were children in the house at the time of the incident. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Today's archive page is from April 2, 1921. The Board of Education approves $52 million worth of construction projects for 53 new schools and additions to existing buildings. Curtis High School is one of the buildings that receives much-needed construction funding. The new buildings will double the school's capacity by installing new classrooms, laboratories, lunch rooms and rest rooms. Included in the building program are plans for a vocational school on Staten Island. The proposal is met with large opposition but is eventually pushed through by Anning S. Prall, president of the Board of Education. The program also results in the construction of 48 new elementary schools throughout New York City. Brielle at Seaview.jpg The Health Department is investigating a single case of Legionnaires' disease at The Brielle at Seaview. (Advance file photo) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A single case of Legionnaires' disease, a form of pneumonia, is being investigated at The Brielle at Seaview, an assisted living facility, the city Department of Health confirmed Tuesday. Legionnaires' disease is treatable with antibiotics and cannot spread from person to person. It's acquired by breathing in bacteria, usually from a mist coming from a shower or air-conditioning unit for large buildings. The disease creates flu-like symptoms -- fever, cough and difficulty breathing. The patient has already been discharged, the Health Department said, and noted that the case is only one out of 200 to 400 that the city sees every year. "The Health Department is currently investigating a case of Legionnaires' disease that occurred at an assisted living facility on Staten Island," a spokesperson said. "While the risk of infection to other residents is very low, as part of routine protocol to assess potential sources of Legionella, the Health Department is working with the facilities management to test the building's water supply. Legionella bacteria typically are found in water systems, including indoor plumbing. Following the Department's new public notification protocol of Legionnaires' disease, facilities with a high-risk population and their residents are notified when there are one or more cases reported in a one-year period. Residents in this facility have been notified of the investigation and given relevant information about the disease and next steps." Since two outbreaks last year in the Bronx, the Health Department created a plan to reduce the risk of another outbreak in the city, including placing strict regulations on cooling towers -- the source of the outbreak -- hiring and training more inspectors, increasing lab capacity to test samples and notifying the community faster. At the Brielle, there is no cooling tower, and the Health Department will test the water. Tenants can still use the water, the department said, but should take precautions, like taking baths instead of showers, to avoid creating a mist. Tenants can wash dishes but should do so slowly to avoid creating mist and should start with cold water when heating water for cooking or drinking. A statement from The Brielle at Seaview said no other residents have been diagnosed and there's no indication that the bacteria originated at the facility. The facility has informed its residents and their families, and its staff members are meeting with and coordinating with the Health Department and will test the water on site. The facility is also installing new showerheads that filter out the Legionella organism. "We remain vigilant and will continue to keep our residents, our staff and families of residents updated on the situation," the statement said. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police have arrested a man in connection to he theft of a car that had a baby inside the vehicle when it was stolen from a parking lot in New Springville, according to a police spokesman. Kenneth Byrnes, 46, was arrested for allegedly hopping off a bicycle and stealing a running vehicle, a black 2008 Ford Edge, with a 3-month-old baby inside from the parking lot of a Dunkin' Donuts on Richmond Hill Road near Richmond Avenue shortly after 10 a.m. on Saturday, according to a spokesman for the NYPD. Byrnes has a lengthy record dating back 30 years, police said. The mother of the child was inside the Dunkin' Donuts when the car was reported stolen, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. The stolen car was spotted crossing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at about 10:30 a.m., then abandoned by the suspect near the corner of 54th street and Third Avenue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, police said. Police found the car and the crying, unharmed baby a short time later, the source said. The baby was examined at Lutheran Hospital in Brooklyn, according to hospital staff. Byrnes is charged with grand larceny, unlawful imprisonment, and acting in a manor injurious to a child younger than 17, police said. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The New Jersey man who allegedly swiped an SUV with a baby in the back seat called 911 after he ditched the vehicle, according to defense attorney Gregory Clarke. Kenneth Byrnes, 46, was arraigned Tuesday in Criminal Court on charges that include grand larceny, endangering the welfare of a child, unauthorized use of a vehicle and criminal possession of stolen property. Judge Raja Rajeswari set bail at $75,000 bond, or $50,000 cash, and issued an order of protection for the mother of the child. Clarke said after his client realized a baby was in the back seat, he parked the car and called 911 from a block away. "He made sure police came to get the child... then voluntarily surrendered," said Clarke. Byrnes was granted drug treatment for an alleged heroin addiction, at the request of his attorney. Police said Byrnes has a criminal history that dates back 30 years, which, according to assistant district attorney Tim Pezzoli includes four felony convictions and nine misdemeanor convictions. In regard to the $100,000 bail requested by the Richmond County District Attorney's office, Pezzoli argued Byrnes drove from New Springville to Sunset Park, Brooklyn before leaving the car. Byrnes was on probation in Brooklyn until 2019 for petty larceny at the time of his arrest, according to court records read aloud in court Tuesday. He's due back in court Nov. 30 in connection with the alleged car theft. NWS Fire No injuries were reported after a fire broke out in New Brighton Monday night. (Staten Island Advance/ Paul Liotta) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- No injuries were reported in a New Brighton fire Monday night. The blaze at 186 Corson Ave. began at approximately 9:50 p.m. in the walls of the first and second floors of the building, a spokesman for the FDNY said. Police were also called in to assist, because a tenant of the building was being uncooperative with firefighters, a source at the scene said. Eventually the FDNY was able to gain access to the build, and the fire was brought under control by 10:06 p.m. Page Content As of this week, Prime Minister William Marlin via the Department of Communication (DCOMM) has suspended the Live Weekly Council of Ministers Press Briefing for the period of November 23rd through the 30th. The cancellation of the Live Weekly Council of Ministers Press Briefing is for DCOMM to facilitate the move of the existing television production equipment to the New Government Administration building, on Pond Island. The timing of the move to the new Government Building is to facilitate the Charlotte Brookson Academy School who will begin to occupy the old Government Building at the Clem Labega Square as of November 30th 2016. The Department of Communication hereby makes known to the media and the general public that the Council of Ministers will be available for comments or to answer any questions as is customary. All Ministers will continue with their regular activities and this will be communicated to the public via the media. The Department of Communication regrets any inconvenience this may cause. Please continue to visit the Official Government website www.sintmaartengov.org, the Facebook page SXMGOV & the YouTube Channel for information from the Government of Sint Maarten. By clicking Agree, you consent to Slates Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners to deliver relevant advertising on our iOS app to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and how to withdraw consent. Agree Best Canadian Blog 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 About Kate Why this blog? Until this moment I have been forced to listen while media and politicians alike have told me "what Canadians think". In all that time they never once asked. This is just the voice of an ordinary Canadian yelling back at the radio - "You don't speak for me." (goes to a private mailserver in Europe) I can't answer or use every tip, but all are appreciated! Katewerk Art Support SDA I am not a registered charity. I cannot issue tax receipts. Reconnaissance Man Economics for the Disinterested ...a fast-paced polar bear attack thriller! Want lies? Hire a regular consultant. Want truth? Hire an asshole. Weather Shop Click to inquire about rates. Dow Jones What They Say About SDA "Smalldeadanimals doesn't speak for the people of Saskatchewan" Former Sask Premier Lorne Calvert "I got so much traffic after your post my web host asked me to buy a larger traffic allowance." Dr.Ross McKitrick Holy hell, woman. When you send someone traffic, you send someone TRAFFIC. My hosting provider thought I was being DDoSed. - Sean McCormick "The New York Times link to me yesterday [...] generated one-fifth of the traffic I normally get from a link from Small Dead Animals." Kathy Shaidle "Thank you for your link. A wave of your Canadian readers came to my blog! Really impressive." Juan Giner - INNOVATION International Media Consulting Group I got links from the Weekly Standard, Hot Air and Instapundit yesterday - but SDA was running at least equal to those in visitors clicking through to my blog. Jeff Dobbs "You may be a nasty right winger, but you're not nasty all the time!" Warren Kinsella "Go back to collecting your welfare livelihood."Michael E. Zilkowsky Intelliweather Seismic Map Comments Policy Read this Best Of SDA Hide The Decline The Bottle Genie (ClimateGate links) You Might Be A Liberal Uncrossing The Line Bob Fife: Knuckledragger A Modest Proposal (NP) Settled Science Series Y2Kyoto Series SDA: Reader Occupation Survey Brett Lamb Sheltered Workshop Flakes On A Plane All Your Weather Are Belong To Us Song Of The Sled The Raise A Flag Debacle (Now on Youtube!) (.mwv Video) Abuse Ruins Life Of Girl Trudeaupiate Kleptocrat Jeans Child Labour I Concede Small Dead Feminist Protein Hoser: THK Interview The Werewolf Extinction Dear Laura (VRWC) We Wait Blogging The Oscars Jackson Converts To Islam Just Shut The HELL Up Manipulating Condi Gay Equality Rights System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28: 29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:948 /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 125 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f0206978)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0390b38)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f0206978)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0390b38)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f022aa80)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0390b38)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0390b38)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612e1d73610)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f035b790)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f035b790)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:948 /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 125 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f0221b00)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0158a08)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f0221b00)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0158a08)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f023f0b8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0158a08)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0158a08)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612e1d72a00)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f01549a8)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f01549a8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate does not believe it is too soon after the Dreamworld disaster to start talking about planning another theme park in the region. Chinese operator Songcheng Performance Development has revealed plans to build a 40.4 hectare, $400 million culture-based theme park in Nerang, with the master plan expected to be completed by the end of next June. "It's never a bad time to talk about enhancing our tourism infrastructure," Cr Tate said. "The way we look at it on the Gold Coast, we like to broaden our economy and we want to broaden our tourism economy." Credit card misuse and an ongoing fraud investigation by the Australian Federal Police has overshadowed government-owned developer Defence Housing Australia's solid financial performance during 2015. Despite weak conditions in its business of selling properties to the general public and leasing them back properties to defence force members, DHA posted a 13 per cent lift in net profit after tax to $104.6 million. Defence Housing Australia former managing director Peter Howman (left), pictured in 2015 with Sarbi the explosives detection dog and Warrant Officer David Simpson. Credit:Michelle Smith "Tighter borrowing conditions for investors and weaker property market conditions generally impacted revenue generated from DHA's sale and leaseback program," DHA managing director Jan Mason told Fairfax Media. "At 30 June 2016, we managed 18,767 properties Australia-wide for ADF members and their families," Ms Mason said. The cost of renting a home in Melbourne is rapidly becoming even less affordable, according to an index of property rental prices to be released on Wednesday. While Sydney is the country's least affordable place to rent, Melbourne has seen the biggest increase in prices since 2013, the Rental Affordability Index shows. The Rental Affordability Index shows the average household that rents spends around 24 per cent of its total income on rent. The index shows that the areas in both Melbourne and Sydney with the most affordable housing are the worst connected to services and are the hardest to get to jobs from. Constantine Stephanopoulos, a veteran conservative politician who served two terms as president of Greece from 1995 to 2005, has died in hospital in Athens aged 90. A statement from the hospital said the cause was complications from pneumonia. President of Greece Constantine Stephanopoulos meets school children, waving Greek and Australian flags at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in Sydney, 2002. Credit:AP Stephanopoulos twice failed to win the leadership of the conservative New Democracy party and then formed a splinter party that remained marginal before being dissolved. He was first elected to the presidency by Parliament on the third ballot with support from the social-democratic PASOK party and a smaller conservative party, defeating the New Democracy candidate. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton's comments in the past few days on migration policy and terrorism have been the focus of much debate. Ably assisted by the back and forth baiting and banter of parliamentary question time, the issue has unhelpfully descended into whether or not to blame a particular part of the Australian community Lebanese-Muslim Australians for terrorism, and whether previous government refugee and migration policy notably the Fraser government is responsible. The starting point for this issue wasn't terrorism per se but crime in general. Dutton announced to Parliament that the joint standing committee on migration would lead an inquiry into what could be done to prevent children of new immigrants from joining criminal gangs, which would include visa screening processes and possible visa revocation. When pressed in question time to name groups, Dutton stated that 22 of 33 people charged with terrorism offences in Australia were Sunni-Muslim Lebanese-Australians. The first thing to note about this is that Dutton's numbers are correct. The second thing to note is that they don't tell us much that is helpful. Everyone has an opinion. You can stop most conversations there, and not even bother getting to the subject. Whatever the topic, most people will have some opinion, or quickly reach one, when asked. And when people are asked their opinion about "what is the most important issue facing Australia" without being offered a set of topics to select from it is fascinating to see the answers they come up with. Coalition voters, for example, most commonly suggest the economy is the country's most pressing concern. Defence or national security challenges are the second most regularly nominated topic, while a cluster of problems around what can be called "quality of government" follow closely behind. Across the political spectrum, voters are often in broad agreement when it comes to the key issues. For all the talk about polarisation in political debates, Labor voters are not so different. The economy is still the first important issue to spring to mind, although challenges relating to quality of government are typically nominated ahead of national security matters. People who vote independent or for minor parties tend to refer to the same top three important issues for Australia; only Greens voters diverge, still nominating the economy, but preferring to address environmental threats first and also improving the treatment of asylum seekers. Such attitudes emerge from the latest Mapping Social Cohesion survey by researchers at Monash University. This detailed poll, conducted most years for more than a decade, charts the contours of changing opinions over time, rather than a single snapshot at a particular moment. The findings are especially valuable as a reference point at a time when opinion polls and surveys are somewhat on the nose. Polls have failed to anticipate the outcome in the context of the US presidential election and Britain's referendum on membership of the European Union and the interpretation of poll results has become intensely contested. Any community is complex and difficult to describe. It was Malcolm Turnbull's aim, when taking over as prime minister from Tony Abbott, not to shy away from complexity, but to engage intelligently with the community rather than merely parrot simplistic slogans. Whether Mr Turnbull has succeeded is again a matter of personal opinion. But it is nonetheless useful to judge his efforts against community attitudes, and polls, though imperfect, do offer an insight. What is telling from the Monash survey is how out of step the major parties remain with prevailing community sentiment on social questions. An overwhelming majority, about 83 per cent of people, support legalising the medicinal use of marijuana to treat pain. A similar majority would agree doctors should be permitted to grant a wish for euthanasia for people suffering terminal illnesses. Yet despite such high levels of community support, the topics remain virtual political taboos. Apparently there is a new taboo in Queensland politics talking about culling crocodiles. Loading North Queensland MP Jason Costigan suggested it was time for a discussion about eliminating crocodiles in major population areas, only to be scorned as if he had suggested fricasseeing the last remaining dodo. Labor's state Environment Minister, Steven Miles, labelled him a "nut job" in Parliament for even raising the matter. However, an examination of the facts suggests the only crazy thing about culling crocs is not doing it. Our Environment Minister might want to acquaint himself with the fact that crocodiles are not, in fact, endangered. The IUCN lists the saltwater crocodile as being a "least concern" species, which means there are more than enough of them to go around. There are also more than enough places for them to live without inhabiting the rivers, beaches and even the stormwater drains of the dozen or so population centres where they pose a real threat. In Queensland, saltwater crocodiles infest the waterways of the Cape York Peninsula, and area of about 115,000 square kilometres. That is roughly half the size of Victoria. Within the Peninsula, fifteen major rivers provide over 3300 kilometres of waterways for crocodiles to breed and live. That is on top of 2000 kilometres of coastline on either side of the Peninsula. Why do we have to add the handful of rivers in major towns such as Cairns, Townsville or Mackay to this crocodile paradise? When 50 crocodiles are pulled from the creeks around Cairns in just a year, we know this is a real problem. Mr Costigan has noted there are so many crocodiles that they have been seen prowling around the northern beaches of Mackay. That puts at risk any use of those beaches by the public. He also points out that they are becoming established on the beaches and islands of the Whitsundays. Wanting to eliminate crocodiles from areas around these tourist areas isn't the opinion of a "nut job"; it is just common sense. In fact, Mr Costigan told me that all he wanted in these areas was "a culling program of some sort, but not the free-for-all that Mr Miles reckons I am after". Mr Costigan's other critic is wildlife park owner Terri Irwin, who claimed that culling crocodiles would be bad for tourism. I disagree. What would be bad for tourism in the Whitsundays would be a spate of crocodile attacks on unsuspecting foreign tourists. If that were to happen we could kiss goodbye a billion-dollar industry. It is time we embrace common sense. That begins with a proper acknowledgement of the dangers that crocodiles now pose, and a rational discussion of how best to protect humans over crocodiles in that tiny portion of Queensland around our coastal towns. And anything that affects tourism in North Queensland ultimately affects all of Queensland, because overseas visitors don't know what areas are infested by crocodiles, and what areas are not. Now, Turnbull has betrayed plenty of his previously-expressed principles marriage equality, renewable energy, climate change mitigation since getting into power, but most people have understood that these were policy matters which he was forced to retain in order to remain in the job even as he sold out the wellbeing of Australian LGBTIQ kids by gutting anti-bullying programs because the more reactionary elements of his backbench felt the Safe Schools programme wasn't sufficiently homophobic. And to be fair to the PM, there are good reasons that he should be timid about standing up to explicit racism right at the moment, since elements of his government seem to be awfully enthusiastic about wooing it for political advantage. After all, his own Attorney-General freely discussed how One Nation are looking set to make a splash in the Queensland election in his Dutton-like "how could I have possibly imagined I might be recorded by this microphone at this media event?" faux pas on Monday, while describing members of his party as "mediocre". The loss of the safe seat of Orange in the recent by-election clearly scared the hell out of the NSW Nationals, who dumped their leader and deputy before the final tally was even confirmed, and last night federal Nationals senators crossed the floor to show support for the importation of banned firearms, despite it being obviously (and correctly) doomed to fail. If the Nationals are focussed on appealing to One Nation voters while the Liberals are openly wondering how they can unravel the Coalition agreement, doing something prime ministerial like for example defending a group of Australians being unfairly maligned by a frontbencher in a position of responsibility would be terribly, terribly scary. The Baird government has been accused of raiding NSW's $1.4 billion Climate Change Fund to subsidise increased land clearing by farmers made possible after its biodiversity conservation bills won parliamentary support last week. The climate fund, set up in 2007 and paid for by electricity consumers, has lately spent the bulk of its $250 million-plus annual outlays on the Solar Bonus Scheme to help put more solar panels on rooftops. That program concludes at the end of 2016. According to the fund's Draft Strategic Plan 2017-22, at least part of the "preparing for a changing climate fund" will go towards the $240 million promised to landholders to "reduce the impacts of climate change on natural ecosystems". "It turns out that is the same $240 million [over five years] for private-land conservation the government included as part of its package of weaker land clearing laws last week," Kate Smolski, chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council, said. "This is a sneaky piece of accounting." The Turnbull government's proposed lifetime ban on resettled asylum seekers receiving visas to visit Australia is "severe and exceptional" and could disproportionately target people on the basis of race, a parliamentary committee has found. Scrutiny of the lifetime visa ban by the Liberal-majority Human Rights Committee found there was no reason why refugees and asylum seekers held in immigration detention on Nauru and Manus Island should be banned from visiting Australia for business or tourism in the future. Chaired by Liberal MP Ian Goodenough, the committee found the ban could be unnecessary because there is no suggestion that any detainee being held presents a danger to Australia or that any future visit could have any adverse affect on national security. "As such, the ban would appear to apply a penalty on those who seek asylum and are part of the regional processing cohort," the report said. Remember the poll that shocked the nation - and the world? Half of all Australians want to ban Muslim immigration. Multiculturalism shattered to pieces. Politicians were taken aback, Muslim Australians were distraught and even the pollsters were so stunned they repeated the survey twice just to be sure. The figure was keenly reported by national news outlets, including this one, and picked up by overseas organisations including Time magazine, Britain's Daily Telegraph and US alt-right website Breitbart. While the limitations of the research were noted - it was an online survey of 1000 regular panel members and, at the end of the day, it was just one survey - the 49 per cent statistic was too significant to ignore. One Nation senator Rod Culleton makes the case for a royal commission into Australia's banks. Credit:Andrew Meares One Nation's support for the motion to refer Senator Culleton's election to the High Court, acting as the Court of Disputed Returns, which was announced by Senator Hanson in a carefully worded statement to the house, still smarts, despite his insistence of no bad blood. "Pauline is a senator, she is also the party leader," he said. One Nation Senator Rod Culleton is congratulated by Pauline Hanson after giving his first speech in October. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "And this is my fight. Although I am disappointed that not only her, but the whole Senate accepted Brandis' heresy in a sense and he underhandedly, I believe, misled the Senate, whereby they just said it has to be referred to the High Court on no facts, and that really disappoints me because although they say that is the right thing to get the constitutional umpire to look at it but is the High Court a valid umpire at the moment, and it's not. "I have always sort of brushed it off and said it's my fight and it's my issue, but I've never gone to the party and asked for one cent to fight my legal battles and I don't believe I ever will. One Nation adviser James Ashby. Credit:Andrew Meares "But when the party actually throws you into expense, well one would think perhaps you should be a little bit more lenient and say 'Well, look, can I buy you a cup of coffee?' and she hasn't even offered that. "I haven't really touched base with Pauline in a week and a half to be honest, well longer than that two weeks. "That is up to her, she is the party leader and I am not going to go and force her to do anything, she is a party leader. "She has a good soldier here, I am very loyal. Now if she in a sense finds that she needs to soldier on doing her thing, then so be it, and I guess the party will come to me when it's ready. But I am not going to let that get in my way." He said his relationship with party colleagues Malcolm Roberts and Brian Burston was "as good as gold". "But that is what comes with the job of party leader," he said. "She has a team around her and I play very well in the midfield as you know. "I don't think I need to be supported by One Nation. "I paid for all my campaign myself. I have a job to do for the West Australian people. The party aren't going to make me stronger, being around me." Despite talk he might strike out on his own, the senator said he would stay with the party unless they decided otherwise. "Why would I want to go as an independent? I am not ready to be an independent and I don't need to be an independent," he said. "The West Australian people voted me in, perhaps in part because they like Rod Culleton and perhaps part because they like One Nation. I can't let those people down because that would be misleading them and I would never do that." In the meantime, Senator Culleton said he would continue fighting for the things that saw him put his name on a One Nation Senate candidacy paper in the first place. He has been leading the charge for a royal commission into the banking industry, using his own experience and those he has come across in his fight before he reached the Senate, as motivation. He's involving himself in the paid parental leave debate by "going into bat" for lower paid workers and continuing to fight against foreign ownership. But he's not saying whether he will vote with his party on the Australian Building and Construction Commission bill. "We never came with a bloc, we can't come as a bloc if my team and I sit down and we form a different view, I mean we formed a different view with Kidman station, didn't we I mean look at Pauline, she said no foreign ownership didn't she and then turns around and accepts Gina Rinehart, but Shanghai CRED is associated with Gina and they buy a lot of stations she can buy it and lease it back to Shanghai CRED, but I am against foreign ownership," he said. Labor, he said, needs to "come up with something better than ASIC", as the oversight, if they want his support, he said. "The commission is the better of two evils really, you wouldn't even start ASIC in a horse race, it wouldn't get out of the barrier", but said his negotiations with both parties were continuing. As for the colourful language he has become known for (the sayings "just come into my brain, just like that," he said, snapping his fingers) the senator said he saw no reason to change. "You can take the boy out of the country, but you'll never take the country out of the boy," he said. "I didn't come here to change. "People say, 'But what if you get removed from the Senate'? "OK, I get removed from the Senate. But you know what? Australian whistleblowers could be paid a lavish "bounty" for exposing wrongdoing in companies, government departments and charities under reforms to be introduced to Parliament next year by the Turnbull government. The government has agreed to introduce stronger whistleblower protections for both the public and private sector workers in a deal with Senate crossbenchers to secure support for one of its double dissolution trigger bills. The so-called registered organisations bill passed the Senate 33-30 on Tuesday morning after being been rejected twice by the last Parliament. Under amendments to the bill, stronger protections will apply to union whistleblowers and the government has committed to rolling them out to private sector employees within 18 months. Australia faces a "social time bomb" over the failure to process and integrate around 30,000 asylum seekers who are in the community on bridging visas after arriving by boat during the term of the former Labor government. The warning comes from the United Nations refugee agency's most senior protection official, Volker Turk, who has urged the Turnbull government to process the so-called "legacy caseload" quickly, efficiently and fairly to avoid breaking those who should be afforded the chance to rebuild their lives. "You need to make sure that people can get on with their lives," the Geneva-based Mr Turk told Fairfax Media after meeting with some of those on bridging visas during a visit to Australia. "It is very urgent to address this issue." Only a fraction of the caseload have had primary decisions and mental health experts say uncertainty about their futures, access to education and employment and whether they will be returned to detention or their home countries, is contributing to high levels of anxiety and depression among those on bridging visas. As far as celebrity friendship go, the quirky bond between Hollywood funny ladies Emma Stone and Jennifer Lawrence looms near the top of our list. And the pair began their friendship in one of the most millennial ways possible, bonding over text message after their mutual co-star Woody Harrelson (Lawrence in The Hunger Games and Stone in Zombieland) gave Stone Lawrence's number. "She texted me that she got my number from Woody," Lawrence says in Vanity Fair in her recent cover story interview. "I replied, F--- off!' And we've been really good friends ever since." Following her mock-aggression, the pair's friendship has followed what Lawrence labelled their "version of The Notebook- 365 days". But Stone revealed in the interview that the competitive pressure aimed at women in the industry did impact on their relationship at first, with the 28-year-old feeling a little bit insecure about their professional similarities. Kanye West's personal doctor made the 911 call on Monday that resulted in the rapper's hospitalisation, it has been reported. Dr Michael Farzam told police that his patient "Jim Jones" was suffering from temporary psychosis as a result of sleep deprivation and dehydration, TMZ quoted law enforcement sources as saying on Tuesday. According to the police report, Farzam said his 39-year-old patient had tried to assault a staffer at his trainer's gym. Although "Jones" wasn't violent, the doctor reportedly told police he might become violent when help arrived. West was reportedly handcuffed to a gurney for transport, which is standard procedure as part of a psychiatric hold. Ruby Hamad. This is where I had intended to give you some statistics on how Lebanese immigrants have indeed "successfully integrated" in every country they have landed in often reaching the highest echelons of government and business. I was going to devote several paragraphs to my own family tree and what my parents had to sacrifice in order to give their children a life that didn't involve snipers and bombs and the risk of being snatched off the street and never seen again. I was even going to implore you to consider the many tens of thousands of Lebanese Australians who have enriched this society we live in; a society we like to describe as a vibrant tapestry but which now appears as dirty and threadbare as an old kitchen rag. But I am through trying to convince people of my humanity. For all of my school years and throughout my 20s I was ashamed to be Lebanese. Not because Lebanese people themselves had done anything to make me feel ashamed, but because Australian society demanded that shame through its attacks on my language, my culture, my looks, and even my name. And so I went from Ruba to the much more acceptable Ruby. And so I spent hours trying to comb my uncooperative curls sleek and straight. And so I stopped reading, writing, and speaking Arabic; this poetic gift of my ancestors is now largely lost to me and I grieve it every day. It has taken me more than a decade to lose that shame, to embrace my heritage and accept myself, my family, and to wear all of it like the badge of honour it is. And there is nothing the likes of Peter Dutton or Pauline Hanson or Donald Trump can say that will induce that shame again. As you've probably guessed, we are married and have been for nearly a decade. We have one kid with another on the way. We own a house together and run a reasonably functional household where smiles and laughter are fairly common. Despite some significant differences in our world views, we seem to be able to coexist pretty well, some would even say we are still deeply in love. I'm a bit of a leftie. Not a lot, but definitely a bit. I have been known to hand out Labor how-to-vote cards on election day. My wife is not a leftie, not even a bit, and she has been seen handing out Liberal how-to-vote cards on election day. You get the picture. The relentless polarisation of political discourse and its coverage in the media might lead one to believe that conciliation and compromise are as out of fashion as a clean-shaven man. I might have agreed with you but for one thing my lived experience in my little house. Let me explain. A quick look at social media's coverage of the US election, Brexit and even our own 2016 federal election might lead you to believe that left/right, black/white, us/them, right/wrong ranting is the new normal. Now that the world's most noted democracy has just elected an alleged sex pest, fraudster and billionaire as president despite having a minority of actual votes, this probably won't change any time soon. A couple of disagreements is no bar to happiness for Dallas Baird and Lucinda Crossley Meates, pictured on their wedding day in 2010. Credit:Dean Bentick How do we manage that? How do we succeed in living together where society the political class especially is failing? Given that all politics is essentially domestic, I compiled a list of elements of our bipartisan domestic idyll that might be useful to the wider nation, and perhaps the world, or at least help ease the seemingly automatic mistrust, recrimination and conflict that seems to now be endemic. I understand her family history. My wife was born to a country doctor obsessed with financial independence and his Methodist wife in a small town south of Sydney. Her origins are a world of private schools, country fairs and breakfast table conversations centring on The Financial Review and whatever Alan Jones said that morning. Quite simply, conservatism was part of the furniture in her formative years. It represents comfort and familiarity. We often end up in the same place having arrived from different directions. My wife and I agreed the same-sex marriage plebiscite was a very bad idea eventually. I thought it would be a pointless exercise in delay and obfuscation by an increasingly marginalised right wing of the Coalition that would let god knows how many wingnuts off the leash to spread hatred and bile all so the mighty righties of the Parliament would never have to nail their archaic colours to the mast and openly oppose SSM in broad daylight, brave souls that they are. My wife thought it was an expensive and cumbersome way to obtain a mandate that certain slippery politicians would not honour anyway, so what was the point? Same destination, different paths. Ditto for Trump. A bleeding heart might say this is because, in an open and free debate, the truth will always out. Her differing views often educate mine. There's a difference between changing your opinion completely and becoming more deeply aware of the thoughts and experiences of others. After one of our semi-regular discussions of an issue de jour, I usually find myself not saying "I never thought of it like that" but more often "I wasn't aware of why this aspect is so important to you". Looking at a superficial level at stances on issues like same-sex marriage or border protection will yield only a black/white yes/no understanding, puddle deep and of little benefit to anyone. Gaining an understanding of WHY these issue are so important to others gives insight into the nuances that saturate most complex national questions. A hopeless leftie would call this "empathy". Pope Francis has extended the ability of his Priests to forgive the "grave sin" of abortion indefinitely, after trialling the concept over the course of the Holy Year. Previously, only bishops and special confessors were permitted to offer such absolution (in extenuating circumstances such as risk to the mother's life), with excommunication the otherwise sanctioned consequence for "procured abortion". On the face of it, this is a step in the right direction for women's rights. Certainly it will provide spiritual relief for some within the Catholic flock. Perhaps it will even reduce stigma over time. But to my mind, it is not women procuring abortions who should be begging forgiveness of their priests. Indeed, it is the institution of the Catholic Church who should be asking the forgiveness of women. Catholicism has consistently shamed women for making impossible choices within social paradigms that condemn us regardless of how we proceed. As a self-styled moral authority, with influence over politicians and charitable endeavours that countless people of divergent beliefs are subject to, they have an inherent responsibility to be better than this. Granting priests authority to offer forgiveness for the "sin" of abortion, while incrementally progressive, still prioritises male authority over female autonomy. Women don't have permission to procure abortions, and are still to be rapped over the knuckles by male authority figures for doing so. In this regard, the new policy is no more than a continuation of a tradition that infantilises women and demonises their choices; a tradition that grants men leave to judge from the convenient position of immunity from the physical and social consequences of unplanned pregnancy. Men of authority are also enabled to feel magnanimous in their role as arbiters of absolution. The patriarchal power dynamic is artfully maintained with a thin veneer of progressive politics. French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson once spoke of the "decisive moment" a brief point in time that captured something enduring, something that stays with you. Now in its seventh year, the annual photography exhibition Photos1440 showcases work by Fairfax Media photojournalists in the spirit of the '"decisive moment". There are 1440 minutes each day but it takes great skill to get the right frame at the right time. Dust is blown from ploughed fields near San Angelo in Texas. Credit:Nick Moir "This is a great opportunity to show some of our work based on its artistic merit," Fairfax photographer Nick Moir said. "It's more about the craft and our work rather than the strict newsgathering." Mags Kings, chief photo editor at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald, said: "Photos1440 is such an important exhibition because it celebrates the passion and dedication of Fairfax photographers - a spirit that goes back to the late 1800s. We uphold the same values for quality photojournalism as those before us." Uncertainty about the future of councils in Sydney and NSW that have not yet been merged could continue into the next decade. The creation of 11 new councils proposed by the Baird government has remained up in the air this year after some councils that would have been merged challenged their amalgamation in court. Some of those councils have been partly successful, and some have not. But unless the government moves fast to secure the mergers, elections for the new local government areas may be delayed until 2018 or even 2020. The Office of Local Government has written to councils that have not yet been merged, telling them that unless they were amalgamated by the end of this month, elections could not be held until March 2018. Lawyers for the Department of Defence and members of a class action have come face to face in court, where it was revealed Defence is considering suing third parties over contamination surrounding an RAAF base near Newcastle. The contamination, caused by toxic firefighting foam used at Williamtown RAAF base for nearly 40 years, spread in ground and surface water to surrounding properties. Residents of Williamtown at the Federal Court in Sydney on Tuesday. Credit:Carrie Fellner As a result, the value of some homes inside the contamination "red zone" plunged and residents worried about the impact on their health. The matter was heard for the first time in the Federal Court on Tuesday morning, as lawyers for the Commonwealth asked for more time to file their defence so they could examine the possibility of counter-claims against third parties. A group of Finks outlaw motorcycle gang members were issued more than 50 infringement notices when police stopped them travelling along the Hume Highway on Monday. The notices were related to a range of offences including speeding, safety hazards on the motorcycles, registration, major grounding defects, offensive language and parking. Police stop a group of Finks bikies on the Hume Highway back in 2013. Just before midday, officers from NSW's Strike Force Raptor stopped 16 motorcyclists riding south of Marulan, near Goulburn. Further inquiries and the assistance of Goulburn Traffic and Highway Patrol officers led them to stop and speak to a second group of motorcyclists at a service station in Pheasants Nest. The man accused of killing schoolgirl Quanne Diec spiralled into mental illness after witnessing the aftermath of a triple-murder a year before he allegedly snatched the schoolgirl, Fairfax Media has learnt. Quanne, 12, was plucked off a Granville street on July 27, 1998, just minutes after she left home to catch the train to Strathfield Girls High School. After almost two decades, Vinzent Tarantino, 49, attended Surry Hills police station to be interviewed by detectives on Sunday. Mr Tarantino, who has been a suspect for 18 years, was subsequently charged with enticing Quanne off Factory Street in Granville, when he was 31 and living around the corner in his family home on Second Street. Large numbers of blue blubber jellyfish have bloomed in Moreton Bay littering the waters off south-east Queensland's coast. The jellyfish, catostylus mosaicus, are endemic to the bay and the bloom is a seasonal event. Blue blubber jellyfish have bloomed in large numbers across Moreton Bay. Credit:7 News Queensland Biologist Lisa-Ann Gershwin, who has described hundreds of jellyfish species including the Moreton Bay morbakka jellyfish, said this bloom was interesting because of the timing. "We've had a fairly robust of bloom, or blubbers that's a bit early in the year," Ms Gershwin said. Queensland's Labor government has seized on Senator George Brandis's open microphone mishap, claiming it exposes the "sham marriage" of the Liberal and National parties. It came as Queensland opposition leader Tim Nicholls entered into a second day of damage control, in which he labelled predecessor Campbell Newman as a "self-appointed commentator" following the former premier's agreement with Senator Brandis's assessment. Senator Brandis was recorded in Melbourne saying Mr Nicholls and his Liberal National Party team were "very, very mediocre" and "not very good". Speaking to Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger, the Attorney-General also raised concerns about the threat from One Nation at the next state election and suggested there might be reason to reverse the party's 2008 amalgamation. North Queensland MP Bob Katter has slammed Terri Irwin's call for Queensland MPs to rule out crocodile culls, saying those living up north are being "ripped to pieces". Ms Irwin, of Australia Zoo at the Sunshine Coast, condemned two Liberal National MPs who expressed their support for a conversation about culling on Sunday and said it would be a "disaster for both human safety and crocodile ecology". "Crocodiles are an apex predator and crucial to the ecosystem, keeping waterways and wetlands healthy," she said. "Crocodiles eradicate the weak, sick and injured wildlife, leaving only the healthy to prosper. Ready to take on the world, RMIT's VicHyper team has taken the wraps off its prototype high-speed rail pod perhaps destined to nudge the sound barrier as it one day hurtles passengers from Sydney to Melbourne in under an hour. The only finalist from the southern hemisphere, VicHyper is one of 30 teams heading to Los Angeles at the end of January hoping to impress the judges from NASA, SpaceX and Tesla as they send their prototype pods tearing along a 1500-metre Hyperloop test track. An artist's impression of the Hyperloop, which could travel from Melbourne to Sydney in under an hour. Building on the advances of today's high-speed trains, Hyperloop carriages will either rest on a cushion of air or rely on magnets to levitate. Either way they will float above the track and travel through a vacuum-sealed tube, reaching speeds of 1200km/h. The technology is more than a pipe dream, with SpaceX's rival Hyperloop One already signing its first contract to build a Hyperloop link between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The SpaceX Hyperloop prototype pods heading to Los Angeles will roll on wheels rather than float. They will only travel at 300km/h and aim to impress the judges with their propulsion and braking systems rather levitation technologies. At least three of the 13 Victorian juvenile prisoners transferred to a segregated wing of a maximum-security adult prison were not involved in the riots at the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre that sparked the move. A leaked breakdown of the first batch of young alleged or convicted offenders to be sent to Barwon Prison's Grevillea unit reveal they include four Indigenous prisoners, including two who are subject to child protection orders and one who has also been classified as disabled. Police at the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre in Parkville. Credit:Pat Scala Some of the 13have been involved in serious criminal offending; they are regarded as extremely difficult to manage and are suspected to have played an active role in the riots, which caused an estimated $2 million worth of damage. Inmates destroyed computers, smashed security cameras and ripped apart the Parkville-based centre's ceiling and walls. Thebackgrounds of the first group to be moved to Barwon offers new information about the extreme disadvantage that forms a backdrop to their suspected or proven offending. Chief Justice Marilyn Warren has rebuked a judge, saying he blamed a child victim for being sexually abused when he commented that the teenager was "nubile" and that her abuser, a Children's Court security guard, was "not made of steel". County Court Judge Christopher Ryan made the remarks at a pre-sentence hearing, minutes before he sentenced Franco Abad to a two-year good behaviour bond and put him on the sex offenders' register for 15 years for one count of sexual penetration of a child under 16. Franco Abad outside the County Court in August. Credit:Eddie Jim The Court of Appeal ruled on Tuesday that Abad's sentence was "manifestly inadequate" for the seriousness of his crime. But, despite this ruling, the court dismissed the public prosecutor's appeal and decided not to impose a harsher punishment on Abad, because the prosecutor had initially conceded it was at the lower end of offending. The breakout of "thunderstorm asthma" on Monday night has been described as having put more of a strain on the ambulance service and emergency departments than a mass casualty terror attack. Omar Moujalled On Tuesday, paramedics told Fairfax Media that they feared more deaths occurred during the catastrophe which contributed to 1900 calls for ambulances in five hours six times ordinary demand. One intensive care paramedic, who did not want to be named, said ambulances had taken more than an hour to reach several urgent "code one" lights and sirens cases during Monday night, and that he'd heard of "numerous deaths". Hope Carnevali Credit:Facebook "It sounds like a lot more than two people died," he said. Most hospital emergency departments reported double the usual number of patients during the night, prompting many to enact emergency plans and to set up makeshift emergency treatment spaces. A patient at Sunshine Hospital receiving treatment for asthma during last year's crisis. Credit:Justin McManus Some ran short on oxygen and Ventolin before the Health Department sent out additional supplies on Tuesday morning. Head of the Alfred Hospital's allergy and asthma department, Mark Hew, said his hospital saw the same number of patients with respiratory distress in one night as they would expect in six months. Manaia McElhaney nearly died twice in the ambulance on the way to hospital. Credit:Justin McManus He said more deaths could occur given about 1 in 10 people have asthma, which kills about 300 people in Australia each year. Associate Professor Hew said "thunderstorm asthma" events, which are caused by strong winds stirring up pollen and other irritants in the air, tend to happen every five to 10 years. Asthma sufferer Palli Zamani with his mother Rayann Zamani. Credit:Justin McManus "It is a big wake up call for people with asthma in the community ... If they have been prescribed a 'preventer' they should be taking it ... and they should make sure their action plan is up to date so they know what to do in an emergency," he said. Health Minister Jill Hennessy described the event as a "great challenge" for authorities and said private hospitals, including the Cabrini in Malvern, had been opened to public patients to help meet demand. The shocking turn of events has devastated Omar's family and close-knit school community. "There will no doubt be a full review of what occurred last night and what the clinical outcomes were," she said. "No doubt there will be lessons to learn, there always are in these cases. But every part of our emergency management surge occurred correctly." Hope Carnevali, 20, died on her front lawn waiting for an ambulance. Credit:Facebook/hope.marsh.5 State health commander Paul Holman said in his 40 years as a paramedic he had never seen anything like it. He said the majority of the patients were so sick they needed to be taken to hospital, rather than being treated at the scene, and at one stage there were 190 people waiting for assistance. "Every ambulance and ambulance manager was recalled," he said. "It was an unprecedented night ... I have never seen the computer dispatch of Melbourne look like it. It was what we call a sea of red." Shadow Health Minister Mary Wooldridge said the government had some serious questions to address including what type of ambulance call out codes applied to people calling for urgent help. "How long were these patients waiting after calling for an ambulance, and what classification was given, were they code 1 or classified as less urgent," Ms Wooldridge said. "It is unacceptable for people to be waiting for an ambulance." By the numbers Two people died, 20-year-old Hope Carnevali and 18-year-old Omar Moujalled At least 30 people in intensive care 1900 calls to Ambulance Victoria in five hours Royal Children's Hospital: 500 children taken to emergency, normally 300 in a day Royal Melbourne Hospital's Emergency Department: a record number of 335 patients in 24 hours, more than 215 people with thunderstorm asthma. Northern Hospital: 383 patients, normally 170. Western Health: at 1am Tuesday morning, 230 patients across the two emergency departments of Footscray and Sunshine Hospital. St Vincent's: 216 in 24 hours to 2am. Normal day is 120. Monash: 512 emergency patients overnight across its three emergency departments, compared with an average of 250. Austin Health: 197 patients overnight, compared to an average of about 50. About 75 per cent had respiratory problems. The Alfred Emergency Department: 110 more patients than an average Tuesday night Sandringham Hospital Emergency Department: 90 more patients over an average Tuesday night Frankston Hospital: 260 patients in 24 hours, normally 200. Asthma sufferer Hope Carnevali drew her last laboured breath in her family's arms waiting for an ambulance on her front lawn. The 20-year-old law student was one of two people who died in Melbourne's western suburbs on Monday in what is believed to be a mass incident of "thunderstorm asthma". The ambulance arrived more than 30 minutes after it was called. "Just knowing that if they had of gotten there a little bit earlier, the situation might be different is very hard to deal with," Hope's aunt Melissa Carnevali told Seven News. A Jeep driver accused of driving away after hitting a cyclist in West Melbourne has appeared in court after he turned himself in following a public appeal by the injured man's parents. Tradesman Ben Tyrrell, 18, from Cloverlea in Gippsland, received life-threatening injuries when he collided with the front of a silver Jeep in West Melbourne, about 1am last Friday. Kaifur Rashed outside the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday. Credit:Eddie Jim In Melbourne to install floorboards for a client, Mr Tyrrell had been having drinks with his boss before he rode his bike through a red light at the intersection of Dryburgh Street and Dynon Road The teenager who was not wearing a helmet hit his head on either the Jeep or the ground, police have said. Paramedics rushed to the scene. Where did it come from? In Melbourne, this phenomenon occurs when moisture-charged winds immediately before a storm whip up rye grass pollen from the pastures north and west of town, sweeping them into the city. Rye grass is the pollen that causes most cases of hay fever in Melbourne. "Melbourne, being surrounded by parks and bushland, combined with the well-recognised Melbourne 'four seasons in one day' weather patterns is particularly set up for this scenario," said Dr Judkins. A high pollen-count day is one with 50 grass pollen grains per cubic metre of air, averaged over 24 hours. Extreme days have 100-plus grass pollen grains per cubic metre of air. On Monday, the pollen count hit 102 grass grains per m3 of air recorded. But Tuesday's forecast is back down again. Can we predict when thunderstorm asthma will strike again? Melbourne is in the middle of "peak pollen season", Ed Newbigin, the coordinator of Melbourne Pollen Count, said. Perennial rye grass, the most common cause of hay fever, is flowering at the moment. "We are in the peak of the grass pollen season and when we get a thunderstorm at this time of year, we can have thunderstorm asthma," he said. But a thunderstorm coupled with a high pollen count day does not always trigger thunderstorm asthma attacks and there is still much about the illness that is unknown. "We get a lot of thunderstorms on high pollen days and not all of them give rise to thunderstorm asthma, so we can't forecast it just based on those two things, something else has to happen and we don't understand because they are fairly infrequent." Who is vulnerable? Dr Judkins says people with asthma and other allergy syndromes will be affected - but children and the elderly are very vulnerable According to the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology around one in four people with allergic rhinitis (hay fever) also have asthma. Some people with severe allergic rhinitis (hay fever) think that their allergic rhinitis turns into asthma or will make them tight in the chest or wheeze. This is incorrect as pollen can trigger asthma as well as allergic rhinitis symptoms. So can people without asthma suffer from 'thunderstorm asthma'? Not everyone who gets thunderstorm asthma has had it before. They have normally had severe pollen allergic rhinitis (hay fever) and most have been found to be allergic to ryegrass. Presumably the massive load of small allergenic particles being inhaled straight into the lung trigger these attacks. Respiratory physician Megan Howden said those who have hay fever but no previous asthma can be struck. "Those most vulnerable are people with asthma which is not well controlled. Others at risk are those with hay fever and asthma symptoms which occur in spring," she said. "Previous episodes have seen around a 10-fold increase in asthma presentations to emergency." Dr Judkins agrees. "So many people, for example, will have hay fever, which is an allergy to pollens, but may not have had asthma symptoms. However, in these circumstances, when they are exposed to such a large allergen load which is deposited into their lungs, will have an asthma attack." What does it feel like? Inhaling the pollen fragments can cause an allergic reaction in the lungs resulting in the sudden onset of symptoms such as shortness of breath, a cough, a wheeze, and chest tightness. Thunderstorm asthma feels like your lungs have "tightened up", says Dr Judkins. "If you have seen anyone who has had an allergy and their lips or eyes swell, a similar thing happens in the lungs. The patient gets 'bronchospasm' and swelling, which makes it harder to breath in and out. "Think of how you feel when you try to breath in and out through a straw. It's very hard work, very tiring .., and distressing." The best way to treat thunderstorm asthma is to prevent it occurring, where possible. So good asthma control is essential. An Australian teenager, thought to be a school leaver in Bali, could face up to 12 years in jail after he was allegedly caught with a small packet of white powder by security guards at a Kuta nightclub. Jamie Murphy from Perth was detained some time after 1am local time on Tuesday at the nightclub Skygarden. The 18-year-old was held overnight at Kuta precinct. Kuta Police Chief Commissioner Wayan Sumara said a white crystal substance was found on the teen but it is yet to be confirmed what it is. Bangkok: A surrogacy company run by Australian nurse and fertility specialist Tammy Davis-Charles has been paying poor Cambodian women $US400 ($540) a month to carry babies for foreign biological parents, including Australians. Surrogates recruited from Cambodia's rural areas have then been promised an additional $US6000 to give up the babies at birth, they say. Melbourne nurse and fertility specialist Tammy Davis-Charles arrives at a Phnom Penh court on Tuesday. Credit:Nara Lon Police say Australian intending parents have been paying Ms Davis-Charles' company Fertility Solutions GDP up to $US50,000 for their babies. The arrest of Ms Davis-Charles has left surrogates fearful of the future of the babies and worried they will not be paid. A star of the 'alt-right' movement notorious for comparing feminism to cancer has been banned from speaking at an English school, reportedly because of his extremist views. Fast-talking 32 year-old provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos is one of the leading columnists for Breitbart, the media organisation that embraced the alt-right, ran a strident pro-Donald-Trump line during the election, and whose chairman Steve Bannon is about to become the chief strategist for Trump's presidency. Yiannopoulos was banned from Twitter earlier this year after the site decided he had incited his followers to racially harass Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones. He had been due to appear at his former school, the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury, Kent this Wednesday. President-elect Donald Trump met on Monday with television news executives and some well-known TV journalists and repeatedly told them the campaign reporting about him was "unfair" and "dishonest." Participants in the meeting at Trump Tower in New York described it as a contentious but generally respectful gathering. But if the media elite attended in hopes of improving relations with the forthcoming Trump administration, that wasn't quite in the cards. The president-elect specifically called out reporting by CNN and NBC that he deemed unfair, according to four people who attended the meeting, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was off the record. (The ground rules prevented the networks from reporting the very story they were part of.) The group included some of the top news media figures that Trump had aimed barbs at during the campaign, including "Meet the Press" anchor Chuck Todd; ABC News anchors George Stephanopoulos and David Muir; CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett; ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz; "NBC Nightly News" anchor Lester Holt; and a CBS News contingent that included Norah O'Donnell, Charlie Rose, John Dickerson and Gayle King. Beirut: At least 141 civilians, including 18 children, have been killed in a week of renewed bombardment on the rebel-held eastern half of Aleppo which has devastated its hospitals, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday. The Britain-based war monitor said it had documented hundreds of injuries as a result of Russian and Syrian air strikes and shelling by government forces and its allies on the besieged eastern half of the divided city. The assault began last Tuesday after a weeks-long pause in air strikes and shelling inside east Aleppo, although battles and air strikes did continue along the city's front lines and in the surrounding countryside. The monitor said there were another 87 deaths of rebel fighters and people of unknown identity in the eastern sector. Washington: There's the presidency and then there are the President-elect's priorities. And in the past few days they seem to revolve mainly around settling scores with media heavies - executives, anchors and reporters. After days spent hammering the cast of the Broadway cult sensation Hamilton for upbraiding Vice-President-elect Mike Pence Trump and then getting stuck into Saturday Night Live for Alec Baldwin's surreally real impersonation of him, Trump lit into The New York Times (again). But on Monday he summoned heavies from the world of TV. Dozens trooped up to a 25th level conference room in Trump Tower, thinking foolishly that the man who had not held a proper news conference since July was about to answer their questions. No sir - the 45th-president-to-be merely wanted to vent at them. London: Britain has dismissed US President-elect Donald Trump's unprecedented expression of support for Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage to be made British ambassador to the United States, saying pointedly that there is no vacancy for the job. Trump, who after his election victory met Farage ahead of any EU leaders, said on Twitter that "many people" would like to see the former metals trader turned Brexit campaigner as Britain's ambassador. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!" Trump wrote on Twitter. For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser PHILIPSBURG:--- On July 22, 2016, a group of Police officers received their decrees by the Minister of Justice Edson Kirindngo during a ceremony held at the Police Head Quarters in Philipsburg. When the officers took a look at their long-awaited promotions it was just for them to get more disappointed. The officers were taking into service since early in the year 2012. During which period they were selected to follow the Basic Police Training (BPO). However, the cadets were placed in the daily operation of police work instead on sitting on the benches as mention in their former decree that stipulated that they were police cadets in training. The cadets had never gotten the proper training to fulfill their duties as full-fledged police officers because management team (KPSM) claimed that there was no money in the budget for the basic police training (BPO). Moreover, the cadets were consistent in asking about the training (BPO) and they were always promised on a certain date that the training was going to start but never did. However, they worked as full-fledged police officers for nearly 5 years to receive a promotion with a retroactively with compensation for only 1 year. the 12 cadets that received their decrees was very disappointed with this and decided to seek assistance by their colleague Police Inspector Lyndon Lewis Jr. that chose to be their legal representative in court. Inspector Lyndon Lewis Jr. is known for his reputation as one who will defend his people once it's for a good cause. He drafted up appeal petitions they were accepted by the court. The hearing was held on the Monday 21, 2016 at 2 pm. During a 2.5 hour hearing with a 10 min recess, Lewis pleaded his client's case that they should be compensated for their service to the Country as a full fledged Police officer from February 1, 2012. The government pleaded their case that the officers never worked as full fledged Police officers. The court will hand down her decision on January 23, 2017. POINTE BLANCHE:--- After meeting with a number of cruise executives at the recently concluded Executive Partner Summit of Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) which took place from November 13 15 in Miami, Florida, Port St. Maarten Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Mingo, disclosed that his talks with MSC Cruises Pierfrancesco Vago, Executive Chairman, were very positive whereby the Swiss-based worlds largest privately-owned cruise line will become the third largest cruise company surpassing Disney and Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL). MSC Cruises is one of the cruise lines Mingo met with during the summit who have committed themselves to increasing cruise tourism passenger numbers to the destination for the 2017/2018 winter season. In 2017 MSC Cruises will surpass 100,000 cruise passengers sometime in 2017 to the destination. MSC Cargo is also the number one container transshipment company in the world operating a network of over 480 offices in 150 countries; has an established fleet of 480 container vessels with an intake capacity of circa 2.6 million TEU to over 200 routes, calling at 315 ports. MSC Cruises made 24 port calls bringing in 71,167 passengers. The forecast for 2016 is 26 port calls and 91,734 passengers, and the outlook for 2017 is 33 port calls with approximately 127,674 passengers. In 2015 NCL made 42 port calls bringing in 139,419 cruise passengers; forecast for 2016 is 29 port calls with 82,316 passengers; outlook for 2017 is 39 port calls with 101,007 passengers. In 2015 Disney Cruise Line made 25 port calls bringing 93,579 cruise passengers; forecast for 2016 is nine port calls with 22,700 passengers; and outlook for 2017 is 11 calls with 27,400 passengers. Port St. Maarten continues to be proactive by sailing into opportunities that would result in business for the destination over the long-term. MSC Cruises has a fleet of 12 ships. We are working with the cruise line and other stakeholders in developing a long-term relationship. In 2014 the cruise line launched an investment plan to support the second phase of growth and in April 2016, the cruise line ordered additional vessels for a total investment of nine billion Euros for up to 11-new next-generation ships which will come into service starting in 2017 to 2026 making the cruise line the third largest. As a port, we have to be strategic and innovative in our own thinking in order to be able to grab opportunities. MSC Cruises is the first global cruise line brand to develop an investment plan of this length and magnitude, spanning a horizon of over 10 years, from 2014 through 2026. We as a port continue to remain at the forefront of the cruise industry and will see our cruise numbers climb in the foreseeable future to over 2.2 million cruise passengers. We have not sat idly by and watched other destinations attempt to sail by. We must continue to remain proactive and thinking ahead in order to be able to adjust and reap the benefits and this has been our modus operandi for more than 10-years with the backing of the shareholder (Government) and the Board of Supervisory Directors, CEO Mark Mingo concludes. More than 200 members of the CLIA Executive Partner Summit were in attendance which offered exclusive networking opportunities, one-to-one meetings, high level discussion and debate. MSC Cruises is the brand market leader in Europe, South America and South Africa, sailing year-round in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Seasonal itineraries cover northern Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, Cuba and the French Antilles, South America, southern Africa, China and Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Oman. MSC Cruises recently released details of further enhancements to its itineraries in the Mediterranean for the 2017 summer season, and for its itineraries in the Antilles for the 2017-2018 winter season. Starting in November 2017 and in response to strong market interest and demand from travellers, MSC Fantasia will replace MSC Orchestra in the Antilles and the South Caribbean. MSC Fantasia will depart from Martinique and Guadeloupe, with two different itineraries that can be combined: one exploring the Antilles with calls in St. Maarten, Tortola, the new port of Kingstown (Saint Vincent and The Grenadines) instead of La Romana (Dominican Republic), St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, and the second one to the pearls of the South Caribbean, including Saint Lucia, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada and Dominica. In the Caribbean, in conjunction with the additional enhancements that have been planned ahead of the opening of the exclusive Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve destination now scheduled for October 2018 - the MSC Cruises ships in the region that previously were scheduled to call this new destination between December 2017 and May 2018, will now call ports in other attractive destinations in the Caribbean and continue to offer top-level quality destinations across all itineraries in the region. MSCs Seaside will be calling at Port St. Maarten on a seven-night Eastern Caribbean itinerary in December 2017. MSC Seaside will lead the way for a new generation of cruise ships with their revolutionary architecture and cutting-edge technology. This new ship will be the first ship in the MSC Cruises fleet to be christened in the United States, and thereafter will be sailing in the Caribbean year-round from Miamis port. CLIA was established in 1975, and is the worlds largest cruise industry trade association, providing a unified voice and leading authority of the global cruise community. The association has 15 offices globally with representation in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australasia. CLIA supports policies and practices that foster a safe, secure, healthy and sustainable cruise ship environment and is dedicated to promote the cruise travel experience. CLIAs membership comprises of 62 cruise lines, 275 executive partners and 20,000 global travel agency and 30,000 travel agent members. CLIA member lines serve more than 23 million passengers annually. The benefits of taking a cruise are the ease of travel to the best return on experience. According to CLIA 2016 State of the Cruise Industry report, cruise travel is outpacing land-based general leisure travel by 22 per cent in the United States. Also part of the St. Maarten delegation was, Bertrand Peters, General and Governmental Affairs Liaison, and Lela Simmonds, Project & Cruise Provisioning Coordinator at Port St. Maarten. PHILIPSBURG:--- Faced with what many consider the worldwide resurgence of virulent forms of ethnic chauvinism and xenophobia, fear and urban uprisings as Donald J Trump prepares to inhabit the White House, and, the PVV, the Dutch rightwing party, becoming the major vote getter in the upcoming elections in the Netherlands, The University of St. Martin (USM) has teamed up with the Eastern Caribbean Public Health Foundation (ECPHF) of St. Eustatius, and the National Archaeological and Anthropological Memory Management (NAAM) on Curacao, to organize a 2 day Conference entitled: Raising the Curtain on Race. To start off the discussion and offer useful input, Mr. Quinsy Gario, one of St. Martins most famous social activists, will give the keynote lecture. Gario, who was born on Curacao but grew up on St. Maarten, is a regular on Dutch TV programs and radio. He has featured in international documentaries and news channels such as CNN and BBC. A columnist and poet in his own right, Gario, has galvanized attention in the Netherlands for those who oppose the blackface tradition in the Netherlands associated with SinterKlaas and Zwarte Piet. The Dean of the University of St. Martin , Ms. Geneve Phillip commented that USM is proud to be able to contribute to a conversation that is taking place globally. The issues of race and race relations have implications not only where dichotomous relationships are prevalent between black and white but there are also implications for us in the Caribbean region, which is often perceived to be homogenous. Based on the regions history of European colonialism, this is evidently not quite the case. The intention therefore, is to reflect on past conversations in the sphere of race relations, linking it to contemporary discourses in an effort to determine the extent to which we have made any progress. The community of St. Martin is invited to come out and participate in the conference which features local personalities, such as Drs. Delano Richardson, Mr. Darren Wilson, Dr. Rhoda Arrindell and Ms. Wendie Brown. Dresner Advisory Services Announces Additional Speaker, Sponsors for Real Business Intelligence(TM) Conference NASHUA, NH (Marketwired) 11/22/16 Dresner Advisory Services today announced Cathy ONeil has joined the roster of industry experts speaking at the 2017 Real Business Intelligence conference. The Dresner Advisory Services Real Business Intelligence conference is the first industry event for business and IT leaders focused completely on strategies for success with business intelligence (BI), advanced analytics, and performance management, focusing on real world best practices and proven methods. Dr. ONeil is the author of Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. She joins renowned industry authors and professionals on the roster of conference speakers, including MIT Professor Thomas W. Malone, Mico Yuk, Chuck Hooper, and David Dadoun, as well as analysts from the Dresner Advisory team. We are very excited about variety and experience of the speakers we have lined up to date, said Howard Dresner, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services. The conference promises to be a unique event with a range of sessions and presenters that wont be found at any other industry forum. Attendees are sure to come away with informative actions and tactics to help drive successful BI, performance management, and advanced analytics strategies. The company also announced two additional Gold level sponsors: Domo and Trifacta. The Real Business Intelligence conference will be held July 11-12, 2017, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Tang Center in Cambridge, MA. The focus of the two-day event will be on what works, with pragmatic and actionable takeaways in each session. For more information, visit . was formed by Howard Dresner, an independent analyst, author, lecturer, and business adviser. Dresner Advisory Services, LLC focuses on creating and sharing thought leadership for Business Intelligence (BI) and related areas such as advanced and predictive analytics, enterprise planning and end user data preparation. Danielle Guinebertiere Dresner Advisory Services 978 254 5587 More than five months after the first-ever class of 32 cadets graduated from the Warren Firefighter Academy, Macomb Community College and Dorsey College will be paid for the training services they provided for those cadets. St. Pat's eagles rebuild nest. Plus new vistas created at other parks. You can watch St. Pat's eagles rebuild the nest via Notre Dame's camera. And the new Lydick Bog platform is good for seeing waterfowl. Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. Georgetown, SC (29440) Today Sunshine and clouds mixed. High 74F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some passing clouds. Low near 55F. Winds light and variable. Welcome to SwanseaOnline - your home for the best news, sports and what's on coverage of the city. Never miss a Swansea story with our daily newsletter Sign up to comment on our stories here Follow us on Facebook and Twitter | Swansea City news | Ospreys news | InYourArea NASA astronaut Kate Rubins performs tests and replaces parts inside the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (or BEAM), a privately built inflatable room, on the International Space Station on Sept. 5, 2016. An inflatable space habitat that could save weight and volume on future missions is showing how well it can do its job. The verdict: So far, it works, and that gives the habitat a better chance of being part of future space efforts. Called the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, the habitat is an inflatable spheroid made of fabric that starts off folded into a shape like a flattish cone with the top cut off. It was originally launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on April 8. The first tests were in May. Crewmembers aboard the ISS expanded BEAM, using low pressure, and then allowed the air tanks inside the habitat to open and pressurize it to the same level as the space station approximately one atmosphere. [The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module in Pictures] The inflatable BEAM module expands into shape at the International Space Station in this sped up time-lapse animation by NASA. (Image credit: NASA TV) Sensors inside the BEAM checked the module's temperature and how well its structure was responding to pressure. Astronauts didn't enter the BEAM until June, though, as there were extensive checks for leaks. (They found none.) NASA astronaut Jeff Williams was the first to enter the BEAM, and he added extra sensors to monitor the atmosphere inside it. So far, NASA and BEAM's builder, Las Vegas-based company Bigelow Aerospace, say that the module is performing as expected. Besides offering extra space, it also provides protection from radiation that's similar to what's offered by the other modules on the ISS, NASA officials said. Bigelow Aerospace's BEAM expandable module will enhance the living area of the International Space Station. See how the BEAM module works in our full infographic (Image credit: Karl Tate, SPACE.com contributor) This NASA graphic shows the BEAM module temperature readings at the International Space Station from June 7 to Aug. 22, 2016. (Image credit: NASA) It hasn't all been roses; an early test of the BEAM showed it inflating more slowly than expected, which was chalked up to the module being folded up inside its launch fairing for a year. In a press release, Steve Munday, BEAM manager at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, said the BEAM also was warmer than astronauts thought it would be. One thought is that the fabric layers aren't in contact with each other as much as designers thought they would be, which makes the thermal insulation more efficient. Warmer is probably better, though, Munday said, because a cooler-than-expected BEAM would suffer from condensation on the interior walls. The BEAM also hasn't had any collisions with space debris, nor has it put any additional out-of-the-ordinary loads on the ISS life support or power systems. Further analysis will focus on the effects of cosmic rays on the interior, to see what additional shielding might be needed on deep-space missions. If the BEAM works well, it could help pave the way to habitats that are folded into the fairing of future spacecraft, saving space and weight, NASA officials said. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. Previously only pictured on social media, Arklu plans to release in 2017 a spacesuit accessory for its Stargazer Lottie doll, which flew to the International Space Station in 2015. The "First Doll in Space" is getting her very own spacesuit. "Stargazer Lottie," a doll made by Irish toy company Arklu, spent more than 260 days aboard the International Space Station from December 2015 through August 2016 as part of an educational outreach project in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). The seven-inch-tall (18 cm) figure, which was inspired by a young girl's passion for astronomy and space exploration, launched to space wearing the same outfit in which she is sold at toy stores: a blue velvet bomber jacket, cerise-colored dungarees and sturdy brown boots, just how a six-year-old might dress to go look up at the night sky. But in social media updates posted by Arklu and shared by ESA, Lottie appeared to float on the space station wearing a Russian Sokol space suit, like the type British astronaut Tim Peake and his crewmates wore to fly to and from the outpost. Now, Lottie's virtual space suit is becoming a real product. [Cosmic Playtime: Toys in Space (Photos)] "A limited edition spacesuit accessory will be launched in 2017 due to popular demand following the 'Lottie in Space' campaign," Arklu announced on Monday (Nov. 21). The news came on the same day that Stargazer Lottie was nominated for the 2017 "Doll of the Year" Award by the Toy Industry Association (TIA). The public can visit TIA's Toy of the Year Awards website, now through Jan. 15, to vote for their favorite toys in 14 categories. Arklus Stargazer Lottie doll, still in its box, floats in front of a window in the Cupola aboard the International Space Station. (Image credit: ESA/Arklu) The winners will be announced at a ceremony, known as the "Oscars" of the toy industry, on Feb. 17 at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City. Arklu's Special Edition Gold Collection Stargazer Lottie is up against Mattel's Barbie, Hasbro's Elena of Avalor and JAKKS Pacific Disney "Frozen" Northern Lights Elsa doll. Also up for an award is Arklu's Fossil Hunter Lottie in the "Action Figure of the Year" category. This is the first time that Arklu's Lottie dolls have been nominated. Stargazer Lottie, which was designed with help from ESA and an astronomer at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, includes a toy telescope and tripod (sized to her scale) and solar system collector cards, as well as an information sheet about notable women in the field of astronomy. It was through the company's collaboration with ESA that Arklu was able to arrange for its Lottie doll to be launched to space. The toy was flown aboard the S.S. Deke Slayton II, an Orbital ATK commercial cargo freighter, and returned to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon capsule. During its time in orbit, the Stargazer Lottie doll, still in its box, was photographed floating before a panel of windows inside the space station's Cupola, with Earth's horizon in the background. "Space travel is all about pushing boundaries and trying to get the next generation interested in science subjects, so we thought [sending the doll to space] was the perfect fit," said Ian Harkin, Arklu's co-founder and managing director. Watch a video about Stargazer Lottie and her trip to the space station at collectSPACE. Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2016 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved. Johnthony Walker, 24, the bus driver involved in the Chattanooga, Tennessee accident has been formally charged in the deaths of 6 innocent children. Walker has been charged with reckless endangerment and reckless driving and is expected to be slapped with other charges. It has been revealed that five children died at the scene while the 6th passed away in the hospital. The parents of the deceased have been notified, but the names and ages have not been revealed to the media at this time. There were 35 children on board the school bus when it struck a tree and split in two. There were no other vehicles involved in the accident. The pupils all attended Woodmere Elementary School and ranged in age from kindergarten to fifth grade. According to Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher, they believe that Walker was speeding during the deadly crash. At this time, it is not known if Mr. Walker was drunk or under the influence of any illegal substance during his shift. He has hired a lawyer and has taken a blood test. If the results show that Walker was intoxicated or high, he might spend between 8 to 30 years in prison. Pictures of injured and traumatized children being consoled have spread on social media, prompting many to offer their condolences to the families mourning. Americans are flooding to donate blood to help those, who were injured in the accident. There were so many blood donors in line that some have been asked to come back later in the week to make their contribution. Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond said he is devastated by the tragedy, he shared: As the agency responsible for the School Resource Officer program in Hamilton County, my staff and I are deeply saddened by the loss of these young children. There are several families in our County that will not have their loved ones come home tonight and we as a community will feel the sadness and hurt from this event for a very long time to come. I am very proud of the Chattanooga firefighters, police officers, and Hamilton County EMS personnel who helped to rescue the injured. I am also very proud of the members of the HCSO who worked along side our city first responders. Fletcher said the accident is like a horrible nightmare, he added: Our hearts go out, as well as the hearts of all the people around me, to the family, the neighborhood, the school and all the people involved in this. We assure you were doing everything we can to help everybody be as safe as they can, get the care they need and get the support they need. Some commenters have used this tragedy to go after bad bus drivers. A group of protesters at Standing Rock were hit with rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons. They fought to prevent the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. For the past months, members of the Standing Rock Sioux and many others including Jill Stein have been protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. Upon completion, the $3.8 billion pipeline will be 1,200 miles long and will zig zag across four states including North Dakota and Illinois. The Native Americans, who are also known as water defenders, say that the pipeline will leak dangerous and poisonous gas in the Missouri River reservoir that serves the wells in the area. They also believe that the pipeline will destroy sacred grounds. The pipelines developer, Energy Transfer Partners, has denied those claims. In the past, the water defenders have been arrested, and police dogs even bit some. In the early hours of Monday, another clash took place between the Standing Rock water defenders, and authorities at the Dakota Access Pipeline construction site. Footage showed the police had violent exchanges with the natives and their backers, who were battling the freezing temperatures. After the clash, about 17 protesters were rushed to nearby hospitals for injuries and to be treated for hypothermia. Moreover, one police officer suffered injuries to the head after being hit with a rock. Many of the protesters spoke to local media to share their experiences. A young native man from the Ojibwe nation said he was bombarded by armed police. He explained: He shot me with a rubber bullet right in the belly button, and when I showed him that he had hurt me, he just smiled and shot both my kneecaps. Cheyenne, a young native woman from Michigan, whose face was red and swollen after being tear-gassed, stated: I was tear gassed over 15 times, which made it hard to breathe and left my face burning for hours. I got hosed down with a water cannon in freezing temperatures leaving me hypothermic, and I was slammed into a barbed wire barricade out of panic caused by the police after a flash grenade was thrown and caught fire to a field. Dallas Goldtooth, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, added: Hypothermia, a number of head injuries from being shot with rubber bullets, one individual had a heart attack. Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said that the protesters might have been confused because no water cannon was used, only fire hoses were part of their arsenal. Sheriffs spokesman Rob Keller said: Were just not going to let people or protesters in large groups come in and threaten officers. Thats not happening. Despite being doused by water cannon and fire hoses, the protesters stated that they plan to return to the site again and again. Bill Raymond says this year, his 17th, will be his last as Ebenezer Scrooge in the Hartford Stage production of A Christmas Carol. Raymond, who has appeared on Broadway and in films including Lincoln in 2012 said hell certainly miss his terrific Hartford Stage family, but its time. I love the play and the people, he said of everyone associated with the production, which runs Friday, Nov. 25, through Friday, Dec. 30. I love the show. It will never not be a part of me. The thing is, Raymond would like to have a bit more time with his family. And they feel the same. The married father of three, who is 78 and a grandfather, said family comes to see him in the show each year, but its time to step down and pursue different interests. One he mentioned is riding his new bicycle, but that doesnt mean hes retiring. Raymond, who has made more than 100 television appearances on such series as Law & Order and HBOs The Wire, has other projects in the works. Among them is his role as Dr. Carroll on the new PBS/CPTV series, The Cobblestone Corner. Its just time for me to not do it (portray Scrooge), Raymond said. Not because its not interesting or its gotten stale. Its never stale for me. I dont keep it fresh; it keeps me fresh. The ideas come gushing through. The Hartford Stage production of A Christmas Carol is based on the 1843 Charles Dickens play about a miserly curmudgeon whose life is transformed when hes visited by ghosts on Christmas Eve. This years show is led by Hartford Stage artistic associate Rachel Alderman, and Raymond will be in every public performance but two on Monday, Dec. 26. More Information Hartford Stage, 50 Church St. Friday, Nov. 25-Friday, Dec. 30. Weekday and weekend show dates, times vary. Evenings 7:30 p.m., select matinees 2 p.m. $90-$25. 860-527-5151, hartfordstage.org. See More Collapse More than a quarter of a million people have been moved to tears and laughter by Raymonds heartfelt portrayal of the London moneylender who has no use for family, and is despised for his selfish nature. Scrooge bristles at everyone, but is reduced to a shaking, quaking mess when chain-clanging spirits warn him to change or be doomed. Raymond is nothing like Scrooge in the miserly curmudgeon department, but he does have a delightful laugh, just as Scrooge displays near the close of the show when he can hardly contain his Christmas morning enthusiasm. Longtime fans of Raymonds onstage antics especially look forward to that moment when Scrooge awakens to realize he hasnt missed his chance to celebrate the goodness of life. No doubt some fans will be left wondering how Raymond could give up such a plum role. Gosh, he doesnt even have to study all those lines anymore. Looking back, Raymond said the show has always held meaningful moments and surprises for him. A Christmas Carol always has some new cast members, including student actors from the Hartt School at the University of Hartford. There are also several children in the show. And then theres the changes in technology those ghosts need help to fly. Also, the audience is different every night, so I dont know what will happen, and others dont either. Recalling one of many special evenings, Raymond said a boy in the audience who was maybe 5, and would have made a great Tiny Tim, lost himself in the show and started calling out to Scrooge. It happened during a sweet scene near the end, when Scrooge wonders aloud if his deceased partner, Jacob Marley, is still with him. (The child) said, Mr. Scrooge! Mr. Scrooge! Mr. Scrooge! He must have said it about 17 times and we all looked over at him. I said How are you? and he said, Fine. I took him on my shoulder as if he were Tiny Tim and finished the monologue, and then gave him back to his mom. Raymond said that was a great memory for me. His wife and son were there, too, making it one they can all enjoy together. lkoonz@newstimes.com; Twitter: @LindaTKoonz This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Hes a Twitter addict. His sweet spot is the blue collar voter. And his foes say his weakness is immigration. Sound familiar? No, its not Donald Trump. Its longtime Republican Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who embarked Tuesday on an exploratory bid for governor in 2018 that will require him to raise $250,000 in small contributions to qualify for public campaign financing. Twice before Boughton has run for the states highest office, most recently in 2014, when he was forced to suspend his candidacy because he couldnt raise the money. Well begin the process of chasing those $100 checks, Boughton told Hearst Connecticut Media Tuesday. It is a difficult task. You really need a year plus a couple of months (of) time to do this. Boughton, 52, who is in his eighth term as mayor, is the biggest name so far to lay the groundwork for a statewide office run. And he definitely wont be the last. The governors race is drawing strong interest on both sides of the aisle, including from Fairfields Peter Lumaj, a former secretary of the state candidate, and state Sen. Rob Kane, R-Watertown. Both Republicans have filed exploratory papers. Incumbent Democrat Dannel P. Malloy, whose job approval ratings have been stunted by the sluggish economy and deficits, hasnt made a decision yet on whether he will seek a third term. He was once thought to be a logical choice for a role in a Hillary Clinton administration. We anticipate a crowded field and we want to get started early, said Boughton, a former state legislator and former teacher. Boughton touts himself as a proven vote-getter in the states seventh-largest city and one of its most diverse, which he often boasts has weathered the states economic malaise better than the vast majority of its peers and has a lower unemployment rate. Choosing the same kind of millionaire candidates from Connecticuts Gold Coast and expecting different results, Boughton has said, has been a recipe for failure for Republicans, especially in the cities. I would tell Republicans, dont delude yourself and start thinking youre going to win those cities, but we have to pay attention to them, Boughton said. Democrats say that Boughtons flirtation with the governors race short-changes residents of Danbury, where the mayor confirmed he will seek a ninth term in 2017. They also maligned him on immigration, citing a 2006 joint raid between local police and federal agents that resulted in the arrest of a group of day laborers known as the Danbury 11 and a subsequent civil rights law suit that the city settled for $40,000 in 2011. I think Boughton understands that the hardline stance he took on immigration 10 years ago is not appealing to the majority of the electorate in the state, and if he desires to become the next governor, hell have to soften his approach to that subject, said Alfonso Robinson, a blogger and Democratic activist from Danbury. Boughton said that he wouldnt have been elected eight times if there was a culture of fear in his city and that he has respect for all residents. He said he is expecting Trump to focus on border security and on undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Danbury has never been a sanctuary city, Boughton said. Its up to the federal government to enforce the laws. I think here locally weve achieved a nice equilibrium. A la Trump, Twitter is the go-to forum for constituent engagement for Boughton, who has 28,300 followers, more than any other mayor in the state and a few members of Congress. But unlike the GOPs standard bearer, Boughton keeps it mostly light, from Walking Dead plot spoilers to his standard snow day repartee with high school students. That would be great if we could figure out a way to get them to donate, Boughton said of his followers. In 2010, Boughton captured the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor after initially vying for the states top office. In 2014, he drafted former Groton Mayor Heather Somers to be his running mate, with a goal of pooling their funds together to qualify for public campaign financing under the Citizens Election Program. She later backed out of the alliance, dealing a blow to Boughton. This month, Somers was elected to the state Senate. Obviously, were not partnering up with anybody, Boughton said. Were going to do this on our own. neil.vigdor@scni.com; 203-625-4436; http://twitter.com/gettinviggy Connecticut State Police A 33-year-old woman and a man jailed in Arizona, are facing numerous negligent cruelty charges after state inspectors found three juvenile children malnourished, dehydrated, nearly toothless and still in diapers. State Police say the children - ages three, five and six - were unable to talk, rarely left the walls of Danielson house and had never been enrolled in school. We value your privacy. Focus Taiwan (CNA) uses tracking technologies to provide better reading experiences, but it also respects readers' privacy. Click here to find out more about Focus Taiwan's privacy policy. When you close this window, it means you agree with this policy. B ack at the time of the Republican Convention, Donald Trumps latest wife Melania was roundly teased when it was discovered that her speech to the delegates included a substantial chunk of text that was not actually original. She had lifted it without attribution from a speech given a few years before by Michelle Obama, hardly her political soulmate. Step forward Prime Minister Theresa May. In her speech at the annual conference of business lobby group the CBI yesterday, she did something similar when she said: Government can also step up to help drive innovative procurement, particularly from small businesses, just as the United States does so effectively. There, strategic use of government procurement not only spurs innovation in the public sector, it gives new firms a foot in the door. In fact, many of the technologies in your smartphone, from touchscreens to voice recognition, were originally commissioned not by Apple or Microsoft but by the US government. This idea is lifted not from a speech as such but from a book, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Private Vs Public Sector Myths. It was written by Mariana Mazzucato, who holds a chair in economics and innovation at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University. Her book even has a chapter heading that reads Back to Apple: What Did the US Government Get Back for its Investments?. Now for the significance. Mazzucato could hardly be described as Mays political soulmate. I first met her in the early years of the coalition government when she was a key member of the team advising Chuka Umunna, then shadow business secretary on the Labour front bench. The ideas she espoused about the role of business in pioneering research that the private sector could pick up and exploit formed a major part of what became Labours industrial plan under Umunna. But it was not just him the then science minister David Willetts was also listening, and cited Mazzucato when devising his eight great technologies platform. They are the same ideas that form the core of the book. Mazzucato has also assisted Jeremy Corbyn on Labours economic advisory committee. Mazzucato is absolutely right in debunking the myth that the public sector has no role to play in fostering private enterprise. These comments are not intended to criticise the Prime Minister for lifting her ideas or stealing Labours clothes although the ideas were ridiculed at the time by David Cameron and George Osborne and their acolytes, including, of course, May, Philip Hammond and Sajid Javid (who really did not get it). They said Conservatives dont believe in industrial policy. My intention is rather to underline how far May has moved. Whats amusing is that the business lobby does not seem to get it either. To deflect attention, Downing Street did the usual thing of leaking an irrelevant titbit the morning before in this case rowing back from its hints about putting workers on company boards in order to orchestrate headlines about how the Prime Minister wanted to be business-friendly. The CBI and others focused on the olive branch and failed to notice that it was the covering for an elephant trap underneath. Good for the country, though, if Government can actually follow through and make it work. Stakeholder idea that could work The Prime Ministers statement that her proposals for improvements in corporate governance are not aimed at re-creating mandatory works councils, or about the direct appointment of workers or trade union members to boards, was to be expected. It was not something she had promised her spinners had merely implied it to gullible hacks and you had to be pretty naive to believe it was ever likely to happen. That wont stop the howl of outrage, but it would be better if it was refocused. If the point of the exercise is to remind boards that they have a responsibility to all stakeholders, there are better ways to achieve it. Writing in a personal capacity, Charlie Geffen a former senior partner at London law firm Ashurst and now at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, came up with one such idea in a recent submission to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee on Corporate Governance. He said the hardest task for any board is to have the confidence to recognise that the interests of the company are not the same as those of their current shareholders. Shareholders owe no duties to the companies they own and by their nature are transient owners. They have the power to change the board and sell their shares. Directors are responsible for the long-term interest of the company. This distinction matters. Geffen thinks the way forward is to create a stakeholder committee, which could include representatives of employees, customers, suppliers, pension funds, shareholders and other community interest groups so casting its net much wider than just the employees. Its members could be proposed by the board and elected by shareholders, but the key point is that the committee would have the right to be consulted on major board decisions although it would have no right of veto. It would challenge boards but it would also provide them with cover to resist pressure from shareholders who were pushing for short-term results rather than seeking to secure the companys long-term interests. And, as a committee sitting alongside the board rather than above it, it would not offend against the principle of the unitary board to which the British seem wedded. Government clearly wants to be seen to do something to reconnect business with the wider community as part of its declared agenda to make business work for everybody. In that context, Geffens stakeholder committee could be an idea whose time has come. C YBG, the bank behind the Clydesdale and Yorkshire brands, says it is still keen on a deal to acquire Williams & Glyn from RBS as it moved into profit for the first time in five years. Now freed of former parent National Australia Bank, Clydesdale has been a stock-market success. From 190p last February, the shares moved up another 4% today to 284p, leaving management in a strong position to ponder deals. Profit of 77 million for the year, up from a loss of 285 million last time, will also help. Chief executive David Duffy says CYBG is still pursuing Williams & Glyn, the 314-branch network RBS is struggling to offload. Santander walked away from a deal but returned to the table this month. CYBG made an offer, terms unknown, in October. He said: It is frustrating for me that I cant talk about the specifics. We are very clear that we will consider opportunities. Duffy says he is very happy with the latest results and the trends. He claims to be beating the market on mortgages and SME lending. CYBG is also moving into digital banking with an app called B, that will be supported by a tech-heavy branch opening in Kensington next April. The B platform has been trialled by 30,000 customers, who Duffy says enjoy alerts that range from warning about missed direct debits to advice on how much the user has spent on coffee that week. It is new-world technology with a millennial flavour, says Duffy. It is banking with artificial intelligence. The results are strong enough that CYBG has moved forward by a year, to 2019, its target of making a double-digit return on equity. Duffy claims a 350 million investment programme in digital with help it steal share from the big players. He said: As the only true full-service, challenger bank of scale, we are perfectly placed to disrupt the status quo in the UK banking market. H e may be facing an uphill battle to turn around troubled outsourcer Mitie, but incoming chief Phil Bentley has put his money where his mouth is and piled into shares in the FTSE 250 company. Former British Gas boss Bentley, who will take over from Ruby McGregor-Smith next month, snapped up almost 1.9 million Mitie shares at 194.3p, spending 3.6 million in a show of confidence in the group, despite its posting a 100 million half-year loss and pulling out of domestic healthcare yesterday. The purchase immediately paid off, driving the shares up 14.4p, or almost 8%, to 204.4p. However, the shares are still worth a quarter less than they were in September, before the company issued a shock profit warning, citing significant economic pressures. Still Bentleys splurge took the shine off the optimistic update from defence-oriented rival Babcock which revealed 6% growth in revenue to 2.5 billion and a substantial pipeline of opportunities for future growth. Investors chose instead to focus on a prediction for slightly slower organic growth and the shares sank 39p to 952p. On the blue-chip FTSE 100, resources and oil stocks were once again providing momentum, sending the index 59.49 points higher to 6837.45. Anglo American was the top riser, with a 59p gain to 1181.5p, and BHP Billiton took second place, up 52.5p to 1324p. Hikma Pharmaceuticals was also in the black, rising 30p to 1700p, after signing a development and licensing deal with Vectura for an asthma drug. At the other end of the leaderboard, B&Q-owner Kingfisher was down 9.2p to 360.5p, as its French business continued to drag on the group. Same-store sales in France, where it owns the Castorama and Brico Depot chains, fell 3.6% in the third quarter. In the UK, sales were up 5.8%. Former Financial Times owner Pearson was also under pressure after a Credit Suisse downgrade to underperform from neutral. The education groups shares tumbled 18p to 767p. On the FTSE 250, mid-cap index, manufacturer Rotork flew as it predicted full-year sales would come in at the top end of a forecast for between 527.3 million to 587 million. Rotork shot up 28.8p, or 13%, to 228.6p. Among smaller stocks, insurance-focused takeover specialist Chesnara edged up 3.75p to 308.8p after confirming it was in talks over a potential deal. It did not specify the target but a media report linked it with Legal & Generals Dutch unit. I t is pleasing to hear that infrastructure is expected to be high on the agenda at tomorrows Autumn Statement but it is crucial that housing is not overlooked. The Chancellor, Phillip Hammond, has already admitted that the housing crisis needs tackling, previously claiming that the Government will use all the tools at its disposal to increase the countrys housing stock. Furthermore, Hammond has stated his desire for infrastructure projects which can be started quickly and that he is on the lookout for shovel-ready projects to boost the British economy. Given that the construction of every new-build home creates jobs, housing is arguably one of the most shovel-ready resources available. What better way to boost house building than to tie it in with new infrastructure initiatives, unlocking pockets of previously unviable land for development while driving social and economic improvements and creating much-needed new homes and communities? Jennet Siebrits, head of residential research, CBRE UK At a time when there is a huge amount of uncertainty for businesses and the services sector, clarity from the Government is essential. The financial and professional services sector is the UKs biggest taxpayer by a considerable margin. The additional burden of sector-specific taxation makes the UK a less attractive option for firms who are already weighing up their options. Key infrastructure developments namely Heathrows third runway and HS2 will enable the UK to retain and build upon its thriving financial services sector. But the Government must now commit to more long-term strategic projects which will support economic growth and our competitiveness. Assurances on how these projects will be budgeted will give businesses and the services sector a greater degree of certainty over the coming months. Mark Boleat, policy chairman, City of London Corporation The Autumn Statement comes at a critical time in the capital, with the uncertainty in business confidence combined with rising costs of doing business highlighting a need for a renewed focus on small enterprises. With his predecessor having promised welcome reductions in business rates by April 2017, the new Chancellor should go one step further and bring London into the equation as thousands of micro and small businesses are apprehensive about the impending business rates revaluation looming large on the horizon. Fairer thresholds for inner and outer London would send the right signal that what is best for the UK also includes London. Sue Terpilowski OBE, London policy chair, Federation of Small Businesses Not all councillors ignore the public Your article regarding Muswell Hill Library moving to a dark and oppressive pub is most welcome in many respects [Council accused of ignoring poll on oppressive new home for library, November 18]. However, it suggests that all councillors are ignoring public opinion. In fact, the Liberal Democrats have been campaigning against Muswell Hill Library being moved out of its historic listed home for years. I have also been working with Haringeys Liberal Democrat councillors to keep the library in its current location and improve access for parents with pushchairs and people with limited mobility by installing a lift. However, Labour has behaved very poorly on this issue, claiming the library would not move and then a few months later consulting on doing just that. Unsurprisingly, residents are overwhelmingly against this move. George Danker, from the Friends of Muswell Hill Library campaign group, says the council is not acting consistently with democracy. Fortunately, not all councillors are ignoring the public. Dawn Barnes, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Hornsey and Wood Green The real origins of Australasian stability Matt Showerings belief that Australia and New Zealands political and economic stability is due to American independence lacks logic [Letters, November 18]. For a start, both countries were settled several years after US independence. They were also products of political and economic unrest two rebellions in Australia before federation and a protracted war in New Zealand in which the white settlers were forced to accede to Maori claims of right. That Australia and New Zealand are becoming more involved in economic relations with Brexit Britain is hardly surprising. A weak pound and strong dollar merely means that, like good businesspeople, they can join in with the Chinese and Middle East nations to whom Britain is selling itself. Michael Rolfe Teachers and nurses must be protected No one deserves to be punched, kicked or suffer life-changing injuries at work. But what we are seeing on a regular basis is most victims in these cases are nurses and teachers people who try to help others. Our recent research shows a third of public-sector workers said they had been attacked or abused by members of the public, with one in 10 being physically assaulted. This is simply unacceptable. Employers have a duty to look after their staff and ensure nobody has to endure this kind of trauma for doing their job. Tracey Benson, employers liability specialist lawyer, Slater and Gordon Designers snub is so misguided It is astonishing that a designer such as Sophie Theallet has refused to dress the next First Lady of the United States or even associate with her and has encouraged other designers to do the same [Londoners Diary, November 18]. Designers are by nature meant to make a contribution to life and society. In fact they have probably dressed dictators, criminals and plenty more. Melania Trump is an elegant woman who didnt even say much during the presidential campaign. Theallets approach is reactionary and mildly hypocritical. Taymour Abousaada D onald Trump is looking forward to doing business with Theresa May, Piers Morgan said after speaking with the US president-elect by phone. The television presenter said Mr Trump had sounded incredibly confident during the call. He told ITVs The Agenda: "His view of Theresa May is he doesn't know her, but he had a very nice conversation with her, and he looks forward to doing business. "Trump is not sitting there thinking how can I please Britain every minute of the day - forget it. "You need to view him through the prism of a deal-making businessman. Donald Trump outlines plans for first 100 days in office "There has never been for America, for Britain, for our position with Europe, a better time to have someone who is a very skilled business brain and deal-maker to be working with us. "It's in our interest to screw the best deal we can - and I think Trump would be very receptive to that." The Good Morning Britain host, who claims he used to speak to Mr Trump every three or four weeks when he worked at CNN, said he initially missed a call. "Truth be known, he called me on Wednesday and I was asleep - I woke up to a message saying: 'This is the office of Donald Trump, the president-elect, he'd like to speak with you'. "And, I was like, you know what, I'll get back to you. I then spoke to him the next day - we had a 15 minute chat. Without going onto the detail what I can say is he was incredibly confident, very pleased about his win, very excited about the challenge. "I always said to people ... he is divisive, he is challenging, he's not everyone's cup of tea. But, I don't think he's the next Hitler. I don't think he's appointing a bunch of Nazis in his cabinet. "I think he's a pragmatic business guy who played very hard-ball to get the Republication nomination. "I say to the people of Europe give the guy a chance he won the election and is the most powerful guy on earth." Asked if he would work for Mr Trump, the TV host said: "I would never discuss my career prospects, and I'll leave that rumour hanging in the air for the potentially lucrative benefit to myself." Review at a glance T he installation of this partial survey of 25 years worth of work by sculptor Gavin Turk is a joint effort by Turk and Damien Hirst, and its very good. Hirst owns 90 works by Turk, acquired since the late 1990s and in many of the cases without Turk particularly being aware of it at the time. Its a weird variety of objects. Some are absurdly humble while others are glamorous. Status and identity are one of the themes the installation causes you to notice. An artists signature is a loaded thing, it can mean the difference between a lot of money and very little, but also a feeling that something truly significant is happening even though what exactly it is might be elusive. You give mystery the benefit of the doubt if you know its a great artist. But Turk plays with this doubt, as he repeatedly shows you his own name in odd ways, often in connection with certain well-known styles of modern art that other artists invented. A set of paintings exactly resembling at least from a distance masterpieces by Jackson Pollock, turns out to be Turk philosophically gnawing at the theme of status. Pollock is a great painter but the ordinary public is never sure if this might not just be an idea of some intellectuals who are never held to account. What if Pollock was really just rubbish? Is it only the fetishised name of the artist that guarantees significance? Sure enough, every loop of thrown and dripped paint in these rather impressive Pollock forgeries is a looping fragment of an aspect of one of the letters, or several of them, in Turks signature. You can never see a whole spelled out name because its overlain with drippy repeats of itself, but you know its there. In Unoriginal Signature, 1996, the name is cast in letters of steel, greatly enlarged so its dozens of feet wide plus stretched and angled to precisely the same degree as the famous anamorphic skull in Holbeins The Ambassadors. Hes also decorated them with natural sponges soaked in blue paint. It was Bruce Nauman who created a work in the 1960s that consisted of the letters of his own name stretched out, and Yves Klein, in the previous decade, presented blue sponges as sculpture. The classical theme of momenti mori or the reminder of death, that Turk connects to these figures of avant-gardism, via Holbein, resonates everywhere in the show. He can give himself a very humble status, which can also seem elevated. In one work his name is on a piece of brown paper, done in white, in the bottom right-hand corner. Its only a small piece of paper but theres nothing on it except this signature. Then, a further twist: closer examination reveals the letters to have been cut out with the point of a scalpel. A sheet of white paper has been laid beneath the brown sheet, so the signature reads as white. You realise it is not only very small but its also a kind of ghost, a negative not a positive. The negative signature, and the signature that reminds us of a skull: everything has this play of readings where something is not only a bit different to what it at first seems, or contains a few more meanings, but also feeds meaning in to other things. When we encounter paintings that seem to be by Andy Warhol of Elvis Presley, they are in fact by Turk, based on a photo of a sculpture of himself posing as Sid Vicious posing as Elvis Presley, in a famous punk film from the 1970s. The wallpaper these mock Warhols or mocked selves are on features a pattern of shapes whose basic unit is Gavin Turks sneer. Artist Gavin Turk / Gavin Turk Studio Other concocted Warhols in the same space look like those notorious ones based on news photos of car crashes. Warhol is a glamorous figure but Turk unglamorises him, or cuts him down to his own size, or to the size of the humble Turk that Turk often plays. He stages a smash-up in a real London street between his own white transit van and another car he owns, takes photos of the result and uses them for his own simulated Warhols. He also displays that transit van in the same space, compressed into a cube, as a sculpture. Rubbish is the flipside to status. The thrown away and the overlooked take their place here in the form of empty Styrofoam boxes that used to contain fried chicken, a car wheel with a flat tyre, a homeless persons dirty sleeping bag and tied-up black bin bags. A lifesize rubbish skip, in shiny black painted steel, occupies a great deal of space, like a menacing minimal-art sculpture, while still obviously a skip. And its surrounded by those scraps of rubbish just mentioned, as if there might be someone in to sweep them up any minute. Theyre each in fact meticulous bronze casts that have been painted with tremendous care in trompe loeil style to resemble rubbish. Arts picks of the week: 21st-27th November 1 /7 Arts picks of the week: 21st-27th November New Design Museum opens The Design Museum has moved and you can now find it in a beautiful new building in Kensington. There are plenty of ace new exhibitions there to celebrate the move, including permanent display Designer Maker User and Fear and Love, an exploration of how design has become part of our culture. Opens to the public on November 24; designmuseum.org Peter Pan This isnt just for kids - visionary director Sally Cookson brings her inventive production of Peter Pan to the National Theatre. Her brilliant production of Jane Eyre ended up being broadcast as an NT Live screening in cinemas, and this is likely to be just as special. Until February 4, National Theatre; nationaltheatre.org.uk Once in a Lifetime Harry Enfield takes a role in this musical at the Young Vic, playing Hollywood impresario. The Young Vic have had a great year, taking two Evening Standard Theatre Awards (for Billie Pipers performance in Yerma, and for new playwright Charlene James and her FGM play Cuttin It) so we hope theyll round off the year with another banger. 25 Nov - 14 Jan, Young Vic; youngvic.org Hollie McNish Her poetry went viral on YouTube, now Hollie McNish has written a book and made an album. Shell be performing a one off free show of new album Poetry Versus Orchestra for ASOS Supports Talent At Cadogan Hall, alongside the renowned jazz orchestra Metropole Orkest. 23 November, Cadogan Hall; cadoganhall.com The Children Last time Lucy Kirkwood had a play on stage (the epic Chimerica), it ended up going bonkers, selling out and transferring to the West End. Her latest play will be in the Royal Courts Downstairs, and is about two very isolated nuclear scientists. Its bound to be brilliant. Until 14 Jan, Royal Court Theatre; royalcourttheatre.com The Snowman Raymond Briggs The Snowman is probably in the top five synonyms for Christmas, and you can catch the stage version at the Peacock at Sadlers Wells, now in its 19th year. Itll be great for kids, but adults are bound to get misty eyed too. 23 Nov - 1 Jan, Peacock Theatre; sadlerswells.com Last chance to see: Oil Not one to be missed by any means - this epic play by Ella Hickson tackles huge issues with heart and humour. Anne-Marie Duff stars in this incredible piece of writing that manages to think about climate change, mother/daughter relationships, and many other things besides. Ends 26 Nov, Almeida Theatre; almeida.co.uk If youre not famous are you nothing? A number of lifesize replicas of Turk show him not being himself but someone else: theres Turk as Sid Vicious (and Elvis Presley) but also as an alcoholic rough sleeper, and a Queens Guard in a sentry box. Another Turk is a bronze fountain feature holding up a length of hosepipe whenever a passing viewer activates a hidden sensor the hose sprays water and cools Turks inventive buzzing head. The meanings of these Turk doppelgangers are ambivalent or just strange, but also they seem to multiply and repeat, feeding off each other, and provide clues about objects encountered later that have something about them that you realise youre only noticing because it resonates with something you saw earlier. This could sound maddening but the display is so artfully balanced between Zen calm emptiness and splendid overkill that it conquers all resistance. Turks quirky imagination is brought out as well as the broadly humanistic themes hes always worked with: knowledge, art, identity and death. Gavin Turk: Who What When Where How & Why is at the Newport Street Gallery, SE11 from tomorrow until March 19; newportstreetgallery.com Visit standard.co.uk/arts for the latest news and reviews from Londons arts scene Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout C hef Dominique Ansel and his team are bringing a little bit of French and New York flavour across the pond, with the opening of his eponymous bakery, Dominique Ansel Bakery London. Located in Elizabeth Street in Belgravia, close to Victoria, Dominiques first European-based bakery features a menu of signature pastries from his original shop as well as a new line of London-only items. We are grateful for the chance to share a little bit of what we do with our guests in London and we aim to do nothing less than our very best for them, says French-born Dominique. Its always exciting to meet everyone and challenge ourselves with new creations. Dominique Ansel makes for Thanksgiving Although I grew up in France, so close to London, I didnt have a change to visit until I was much older. When I did, I immediately fell in love with the blend of cultures and the spirit of the city, he added. With each new place we go, our team draws a huge amount of inspiration. London not only gives us access to the ingredients across all of Europe, it will also be a chance to for us to learn quite a bit along the way. London's best bakeries and cake shops 1 /21 London's best bakeries and cake shops Ottolenghi Scandinavian Kitchen Violet Cakes Kristin Perers Kova St John Bakery Nordic Bakery Steven Joyce Maitre Choux Amy O'Boyle Crosstown Doughnuts Gail's Bakery Cutter & Squidge Jacob The Angel Bread Ahead Old Post Office Bakery Fleet River Bakery Konditor and Cook Dominique is thrilled to bring some of his most-celebrated and long-awaited creations, including: his infamous croissant-donut hybrid - The Cronut, DKA (Dominiques Kouign Amann), The Cookie Shot and Frozen Smores. And of course, one of the most exciting parts of the cafes opening is the exclusive London menu: Banoffee Paella, Eton Mess Lunchbox, After the Rain Mouse, Salted Honey Tart, Welsh Rarebit Croissant. Dominique Ansel Bakery is open seven days a week. Monday - Saturday 8am-8pm and Sunday 9am-8pm. Visit standard.co.uk/restaurants for the latest news and reviews from Londons food scene. Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout T he boss of Centrepoint today hailed the launch of our Christmas campaign as a landmark moment in the battle against youth homelessness. It was marked last night by volunteers raising 5,300 through bucket collections during rush hour across London. The Standard is helping the homeless charity raise funds for a Freephone where vulnerable people under 25 will be able to access housing advice and link to support services combatting issues with mental health, sexual abuse and drug addiction. The campaign will also raise money for the countless services the charity provides to help young people out of crisis and teach them to stand on their own two feet. Bucket shakers: Evening Standard proprietor Evgeny Lebedev with Centrepoint Chief Executive Seyi Obakin (Nigel Howard) / NIGEL HOWARD The charitys chiefs executive Seyi Obakin was joined by Evening Standard proprietor Evgeny Lebedev who were among more than 100 volunteer fundraisers at 27 stations carrying collection buckets. Mr Obakin said: This is the start of something significant, a landmark moment that can completely change the landscape of youth homelessness. Homeless Helpline: Centrepoint want a freephone number for young people facing homelessness The donations will change peoples lives on the ground forever. The helpline would give young people advice when the wrong turn could be devastating for their lives. So we are at a critical moment for preventing youth homelessness. Whatever we can do to prevent youth homelessness is much better than what is done in the future to solve it. Its a very complex issue. Rough sleeping is only a small part of youth homelessness, the problem is much of it is hidden in sofas, on park benches, in garages, the kinds of places where young people hide themselves when they are homeless. The consequences are disrupted lives, people falling out of education, their health disimproving, the spiral is very fast. "There is the potential of a lost generation of young people, of wasted talent. Its important for people to understand his could happen to anybody. Generous: Commuters gave our appeal a great start (Nigel Howard) / NIGEL HOWARD "It just takes two or three things to go wrong in ones life at the same time and you can get into youth homelessness. I would say a huge thanks to Londoners who respond to the appeal, they are saving young lives. Mr Lebedev said: It was fantastic joining Centrepoints army of committed volunteers as they braved the rain to raise money for this great cause. That so many gave up their evenings attests to the urgency of the issues at stake. A brilliant start to what promises to be a genuinely transformational campaign. Among the volunteers was Ilyasah Ricketts, 21, from south London, who got help from Centrepoint after she was made homeless aged 15 when her relationship with her grandmother broke down. The charity gave her support to continue her education and helped her find safe accommodation and move forward to live independently. She got a job eight months ago working with the charity as a digital research and engagement assistant. Centrepoint: Sade's story She said: I remember when I first became homeless I had no support and nowhere to turn. Its a scary feeling not knowing where you are going to sleep or how you can get help. The helpline is going to be vital to so many young people to help them get support and know how they can get help to get out of their situation. Its a really important cause for Londoners to support. Homeless helpline: The Evening Standard launched its Christmas appeal yesterday (NIGEL HOWARD) / NIGEL HOWARD Hana Chambers, 28, a civil servant from Stoke Newington, told how she had started to volunteer to raise money for Centrepoint after being concerned by how homelessness is on the rise in London. She said: Im inspired by how the charity helps people get back on their feet. The helpline will be vital to help solve youth homelessness. "Theres not a dedicated service like it. In the same way that Childline is so vital to vulnerable children I think it will revolutionise how young homeless people get help. It will change so many vulnerable young peoples lives for the better. The Evening Standard's Homeless Helpline appeal is raising money for the Centrepoint Helpline, a brand new support service that will save young people from ending up on the streets. To donate please visit our Just Giving page. I f you were disappointed that you didnt shed a tear at this years John Lewis advert, an unexpected contender for the battle of the Christmas ads might just be the emotional rollercoaster youve been looking for. The World Wildlife Fund has moved viewers to floods of tears with its festive offering. The animal loving charitys one-minute film features a family who wake up one day to find a huge tiger living in their home. Far from being ferocious, it soon transpires that the tiger has a nasty wound on its leg thats keeping him bed-bound. Luckily for the big cat, the family set out to nurse him back to health - by cleaning and dressing his wounded paw. While hes recovering, the little girl of the family brings the tiger a get well soon card, complete with an adorable drawing of a stripy beast playing outside. Over the next few days, they feed him and read to him until it becomes apparent that the tiger is well enough to leave. The tiger makes his way down the stairs to the back door, and the family are moved to tears as they watch him walk out of the back door, which magically leads to his natural habitat. The advert closes with the line They need our help. The moving clip comes as WWF reports that wild tiger numbers dropped by more than 95 per cent in the past century. The charity is aiming to help double the number of wild tigers to more than 6,000 by 2022 the next Chinese year of the tiger. WWF is working closely with governments and community groups across Asia but are calling on the British public to provide crucial support. Harry Skeggs Wildlife Photography 1 /17 Harry Skeggs Wildlife Photography Protective shadows Mountain gorilla in Uganda Harry Skeggs Bearing teeth Amur leopard in a UK rehabilitation centre Harry Skeggs Crocodile tears Crested Gheko in New Caledonia Harry Skeggs Between the devil and the deep Green turtle in Borneo Harry Skeggs The path less trodden Polar bear in the Svalbard archipelago, Norway Harry Skeggs Lazy forest Chimpanzee in Bundongo, Uganda Harry Skeggs Lemur look out Lemur in Madagascar Harry Skeggs Rainbow forest Ranthambhore national park in India Harry Skeggs From the shadows Jaguar in Pantanal, Brazil Harry Skeggs Bullseye Chameleon in Madagascar Harry Skeggs Transfixed Brown moth in London Veiled chameleon Veiled Chameleon in Madagascar Harry Skeggs Photographer Harry Skeggs in Jordan Impressed viewers took to Twitter to praise the emotional advert. Debbie Keys wrote on Facebook: "Dammit, WWF UK! Not a single one of this year's Christmas commercials has managed to 'get me in the feels', then yours comes along while I'm at work, then BAM! Brilliant stuff. Lee Mc Tweeted: It's official. @wwf_uk just won the Christmas advert battle, must admit, had tears in my eyes. Nicola Hindle wrote: "Gorgeous advert. Made me cry. Love all cats big or small . Currently sponsor Amur leopards , thanks for all the amazing work you do. Has WWF won the battle of the Christmas ads? Tweet us your reactions: @eslifeandstyle A cheating husband killed his wife after she discovered his affair and then tried to burn down his house to disguise it as an accident, a court heard. Former city trader Darren Byrne, 40, began an affair with his osteopath who he was receiving treatment from in London, Chelmsford Crown Court heard on Tuesday. He was caught by his 34-year-old wife Maria who found text messages on his phone, but continued the liaison with his doctor, the jury heard. Andrew Jackson, prosecuting, said: "It's the prosecution case that the catalyst for this alleged murder was Maria Byrne's discovery for the second time of his alleged infidelity." Byrne, who has thinning black hair, wore a suit and listened to proceedings through a hearing loop, denies murder and arson. In a panicked 999 call played to the jury, Byrne, who had two children with Mrs Byrne, told the operator: "My wife's dead, she's dead." An ambulance was sent to the family home in Morgan Crescent, Theydon Bois, Essex on February 13. When paramedics arrived Byrne told them his wife had been making him a bacon sandwich and when he returned home she was dead, the court heard. Mr Jackson said Byrne told police he had been out walking his dog for 40 minutes, but CCTV footage showed he was out for much longer than that. Byrne was initially treated as a "grieving husband and an important witness" and said he went out for dinner with his wife the night before, the court heard. "He never once mentioned his affair with Deborah Houlihan or his messages to her on that Saturday," said Mr Jackson. He said Byrne's "calculated charade" resulted in sympathy from family and friends. "It was not long before the police investigation began to unravel that charade," he said. "They obtained the CCTV footage. "There was no evidence of any break-in that might have suggested an intruder could have broken in and been responsible." A post-mortem examination identified white spirit on Mrs Byrne's clothing and a half-empty bottle of white spirit was found in the garage, the jury heard. Byrne was arrested on February 15. Married Deborah Houlihan told jurors she began an affair with Byrne after first meeting him as a patient in April 2015. "Obviously deep down in my heart I knew it was wrong, but it felt good and I felt excited by the spark we had between us," she said. They had sex at hotels but the mother ended the "fling" after she received a text message and a voicemail message from Mrs Byrne threatening to "ruin" her marriage. However the affair resumed after Byrne bought a pay-as-you-go mobile phone that he kept at his office, the court heard. The trial continues Additional reporting by Press Association A Polish man who threatened a fellow Tube passenger with a knife on Christmas Eve has been jailed. Daniel Rode, 36, of no fixed abode, attacked his 39-year-old victim on a Jubilee Line train from Neasden around 1.30pm on December 24 last year. Rode had been drinking and disturbing passengers on the underground when his victim inadvertently caught his eye, Blackfriars Crown Court heard. He sat down next to the man and began throwing litter at him and threatened to kill him, the court was told. The Polish national then pulled a lock knife from his pocket. The victim fled at Green Park station and was followed by Rode who dropped the knife on an escalator. British Transport Police were able to identify Rode using his DNA. He initially denied one count of possession of a knife blade or sharply pointed object in a public place but later entered a guilty plea. He was jailed for 14-months at the same court on Wednesday, November 18 and will be deported to Poland on his release from prison. DC Helen Parsfield, said: The DNA on the knife was key to linking Rode to the crime, along with a photograph that the victim had taken of him on his phone. Rode initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea halfway through his trial. Rode was also being handled by the Metropolitan Police Op Nexus team and during his time on remand for this crime, they were able to gather sufficient evidence of his previous offending to successfully apply for an IS91 which will allow the Home Office, at the conclusion of his sentence, to remove him from the country and return him to Poland." A n alleged white supremacist accused of murdering MP Jo Cox will stay silent at his trial and call no evidence to defend himself, the Old Bailey heard today. Thomas Mair, 53, shot the 41-year-old three times and stabbed her repeatedly in an ambush outside a constituency surgery in Birstall, West Yorkshire, it is said. The MP for Batley and Spen was killed on June 16, just a week before the EU Referendum following a bitterly fought campaign in which she had been a vocal Remain supporter. Mair, who denies murder, today decided not to give evidence after the prosecution closed its case against him. "We call no evidence on behalf of Mr Mair", said Simon Russell Flint QC, defending. Mr Justice Wilkie asked: "Have you advised your client this is his opportunity to give evidence, and if he declines to do so the jury may draw such inferences as they may feel to be appropriate from his silence? " Mr Russell Flint replied: "My Lord, he has been so advised." Jurors have heard Mair had a wealth of books about German military history and Nazi leaders in his house in Birstall. He has also researched online white supremacy groups, extreme far right organisations, and notorious serial killers, it is said. Mair also looked up online information on Ms Cox, as well as Ian Gow, an MP murdered by the IRA, and former foreign secretary William Hague. He is accused of attacking Ms Mair just before 1pm on June 16 as she arrived at Birstall Library. It is said he repeated "Britain First" as he attacked, fending off the efforts of Ms Cox's staff and pensioner Bernard Kenny to intervene. Jurors heard today Mair gave his name as "death to traitors, freedom for Britain" when he first appeared in court, but has since confirmed his real name. Stephen Kinnock MP, a close friend of Ms Cox, said in a statement she had landed her "dream job" when first elected last year. He described her as "incredibly well liked and popular", adding she was an internationalist who "saw the world as actually being very small". Mair, of Lowood Road, Birstall, denies murder, causing grievous bodily harm, possession of a firearm with intent and possession of an offensive weapon. The trial continues. A police officer was beaten to the ground and his colleague punched in the jaw in a terrifying attack by a mob of up to 30 schoolchildren in south London, Scotland Yard revealed today. The two officers were on routine patrol in Lewisham when they were set upon by the group of teenagers after they spotted a youth trying to hide a large knife. The attack took place at 4pm on Wednesday November 9 on Goodwood Road near the junction with New Cross Road but the Met only released details of the incident today. After trying to search the suspect seen with the knife, one of the officers was punched in the face several times by some of the other youths, causing him to fall to the ground. When the second officer stepped in to help her colleague she was punched in the jaw. Police say the group continued to assault the officer on the floor by repeatedly kicking him in the head, leaving him with serious bruising. Two officers were attacked by a mob of schoolchildren They were rescued by colleagues after calling for urgent assistance. The male officer was taken to a south London hospital as a precaution for his injuries. A 15-year-old male was arrested at the scene on suspicion of actual bodily harm and was taken to a south London police station. He has been bailed to a date in mid-December. Today police in Lewisham said passers-by filmed the attack on their mobile phones and appealed for them to come forward. Detective Sergeant Jenny White, of Lewisham Police, said: Im appealing to anyone who witnessed this shocking attack on two officers to come forward and speak with us, particularly anyone with mobile phone footage of the incident. It happened at a very busy time of the day and there wouldve been a large number of people in the area. These officers go to work every day to keep the public safe and this demonstrates the dangers the police can face while carrying out these duties. Anyone with any information is urged to contact Lewisham CID on 020 8284 8365 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. A Muslim extremist couple who sent money to their nephew as he fought with Islamic State terrorists behind his parents back have been jailed for more than four years. Hospital executive Mohammed Golamaully, 48, and his wife Nazimabee, 46, wired 219 to a Turkey-based IS courier so it could go to jihadi fighter Zafirr. Their nephew had fled to Syria in March 2014, pretending to be studying nursing in Turkey when in fact he was on the frontline battling Kurdish rebel group PKK. His parents were oblivious to his terrorist ambitions, and unaware that Mohammed and Nazimabee Golamaully were in regular contact with him as he headed for the frontline. In secret messages, Mohammed encouraged Zafirr to eradicate the PKK, praising his efforts as an Islamic obligation, and urged Zafirrs sister, Lubnaa, to join her brother in Syria in March last year. He even told Lubnaa to send pictures of dead children to her mother, to convince her to convert to their radical beliefs. Mrs Golamaully said those condemning the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris were stupid and added: When those kafirs play with fire they should expect to get burnt. At the Old Bailey on Tuesday morning Judge Anuja Dhir QC jailed Mohammed for two years and three months and Nazimabee for 22 months. She said Mr Golamaully was a dedicated extremist at the time, and his wife had acted under his instructions. Its a worrying feature of this case that an intelligent and well respected family man who was regarded as a good neighbour, compassionate work colleague, and loving parent could behave in this way and hold the views you undoubtedly have, she told him. She said it was equally worrying that Mrs Golamaully, a law-abiding former IT consultant who was born in London, made the payment. Zafirr hit the headlines in January 2015 when - tweeting under the name @PaladinofJihad - he taunted victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, saying: SnailEaters ate lead. The Golamaullys knew he was behind the Twitter account, and kept track of his military training and transfer to the frontline with IS. They deliberately kept Zafirr Golamaullys plans and travel from his parents and worked with Zafirr to misinform them of his true location and purpose for travel, said to be nursing training, even after his parents had begun to suspect where he was, said prosecutor Dan Pawson-Pounds. He said Mohammed was regularly reading Zafirrs online posts from April 2014 and conversations between them show his extremist beliefs. The court heard he referred to the PKK as dogs and said they need to be eliminated, and suggested Lubnaa should wear a hijab when she returns to the UK and press upon her parents the Islamic concept. Mohammed Golamaully recommended that Lubnaa Golamaully should send her mother photographs of dead children and have a serious chat with her about Islam, said the prosecutor. The couple arranged to send Zafirr funds in August 2014, with Nazimabee making a Western Union transfer of 219 to ISIS courier Mohamed Alhmidan on her husbands instructions. The contact was exposed when the activities of Alhmidan fell under suspicion last year, and money transfers including from the Golamaullys were probed. When questioned, the couple, of Middle Way, Streatham, insisted they believed their nephew was studying in Turkey. But they both pleaded guilty to providing money to another to be used for the purposes of terrorism before the case came to trial. Richard Thomas, defending, said Mohammed Golamaully had worked for many years in the NHS as a mental health nurse, at Camden and Islington NHS Trust and Maudsley Hospital, before joining the private sector. However he lost his job as manager at the Huntercombe Hospital in Roehampton because of his conviction. He said Golamaully had been naive and childish, and was now horrified about what he had done now he understood the true nature of IS. Hussain Nabir, for Mrs Golamaully, pleaded with the judge to suspended her prison sentence, emphasising her role as a mother. Both will serve half their sentences before being considered for release. They will both be on licence for ten years after release. T wo Qatari tourists travelling in a chauffer-driver Bentley have been robbed of more than 4 million worth of cash, jewellery and designer clothes in Paris. The spectacular heist took place last night on the busy A1 motorway as the pair of sisters, who are in their 60s, stopped off at a service station. Two hooded robbers sprayed tear gas before forcing the boot of the luxury car open and helping themselves to luggage containing the goods and money. It was a spectacular heist - the victims were terrified, said a source close to the enquiry into the crime, which is being led by the Paris criminal brigade. The source said the women were travelling from Le Bourget airport, where they had just landed in a private jet. The sisters, who have not been identified, have not filed a complaint themselves, instead leaving everything to their driver. Thieves from Pariss northern suburbs are well known for targeting cars in the area around Le Bourget and Charles de Gaulle airport. It also follows a spectacular car jacking in August 2014 when a Saudi Arabian princes convoy was attacked as it made its way from a central Paris hotel to Le Bourget airport. Reality TV star Kim Kardashian was targeted by robbers in August / pa A gang of up to eight robbers in two BMWs hijacked the first of about 10 vehicles in the convoy, driving off with the three occupants before letting them go. The Saudis Mercedes and one of the thieves BMWs were later found abandoned and burned out. In October, Reality TV star Kim Kardashian was targetted by a gang of five robbers who got away with millions of pounds worth of jewels from her Paris flat. She and a security guard had guns pointed at their heads and were tied up by the gang, who are still at large. Such attacks are a huge blow to the worldwide image of France, which is still under a state of emergency following a spate of terrorist attacks. Paris is the most popular tourist city in the world, but increasing violence has seen visitor numbers plummeting. S adiq Khan has pledged to organise urgent talks between police and a Jewish neighbourhood watch group after a report found anti-Semitic hate crimes were on the rise in east London. In a study published last month the Stamford Hill Shomrim group said they had recorded 32 anti-Semitic incidents during a month-long study among Orthodox Charedi Jewis living in the area. The group said the 32 attacks were only the "tip of the iceberg" as many incidents go unrecorded. Among those attacked were an eight-year-old boy who was beaten up on his way home and a woman who was confronted by a man giving a Nazi salute. According to the Stamford Hill Shomrim group, the child was walking home in South Tottenham at around 7.15pm on September 11 when he was grabbed by a man who lifted up his jumper, scratched his back and called him "a stupid Jew." Asked to respond to the findings by London Assembly Member Andrew Dismore, Mr Khan said: That number of reports in a single month is of concern to me. "Both I and the MPS agree that hate crime is under-reported and this is particularly true with regard to hate crime affecting London's Orthodox Jewish communities. Sadiq Khan has said police will meet 'urgently' with Shomrim / PA He added: The MPS has reached out to the Charedi community specifically to raise awareness and confidence, and the Shomrim is working with the MPS to see how they could make use of the MOPAC hate crime reporting app. "My insistence on a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime will be reflected in my Police and Crime Plan for London, which is currently being developed. There will be an extensive consultation on the plan, offering Londoners the opportunity to express their views on how the challenge of hate crime will be met, and all other policing issues. The Shomrim and the Orthodox communities will have an important contribution to make to the plan and the activities that follow. Mr Khan said the Metropolitan Police would meet "urgently" with Shomrim to ensure the incidents were dealt with "correctly and effectively." Stamford Hill Shomrim, which covers an area with a significant Orthodox Jewish community, said it recorded an average of eight anti-Semitic incidents per week, including threats to kill. President of Stamford Hill Shomrim, Rabbi Herschel Gluck OBE, welcomed the Mayor's comments: I welcome the response from the Mayor of London Mr Sadiq Khan, and look forward for Shomrim to work closely together with the Mayor and the Metropolitan Police in challenging and reducing anti-Semitic incidents targeted at the Charedi Jewish Community in London. A teenager has been convicted of murdering a high-ranking civil servant at his country home after they met via gay dating app Grindr. Ben Bamford, 18, inflicted more than 40 injuries on senior HM Revenue and Customs official Paul Jefferies, 52, including slashing his throat. Mr Jefferies, an adviser to ex-chancellor George Osbornes Treasury team, was found naked with a tea towel over his head on a blood-splattered kitchen floor at his Grade II-listed cottage in Mayfield, East Sussex. The 52-year-old moved to Sussex from London five years ago following the breakdown of a relationship. Lewes Crown Court heard Bamford intended to rob Mr Jefferies on February 23 after his drug debt spiralled to around 400 which he was under pressure to repay. "Sustained" attack: Mr Jefferies suffered more than 40 injuries including his throat being slashed / PA The teenager, of Crowborough, denied murder, and claimed he was protecting himself from Mr Jefferies after he had "come on to him". But jurors convicted him of murder after deliberating for three hours. Bamford stood emotionless in the dock as the verdict was announced by the jury foreman. He met Mr Jefferies via Grindr some two years before the killing when he was aged 15, and resumed contact in December last year following a break. Unknown to Mr Jefferies, by the time they met again Bamford was "desperate" for money to settle drugs debts and was being pressurised by a dealer called Glen. Selfie: Bamford captured a selfie of himself in hospital hours after the killing / Press Association During his defence, Bamford told the court he had met Mr Jefferies in the hope he would give him money, as he had done so in the past. Bamford claimed he stabbed Mr Jefferies to protect himself after he "got on top of me" and carried on having sex with him after telling him to stop. Victim: Paul Jefferies was found dead at his home in Mayfield in February / PA After leaving Mr Jefferies for dead on the kitchen floor at his Grade II-listed cottage, Bamford took his Audi TT car and picked up a friend en route to Eastbourne District General Hospital. Jurors were shown a selfie picture of Bamford flicking his middle finger while lying on his hospital bed after he was admitted claiming he had self-harmed to avoid police involvement. His mother Annmarie Bamford told the court how she was left "dumb-founded" after her son told her he had killed someone as he recuperated at home following an operation for his injuries. Scene: The murder took place at Mr Jefferies' Grade II listed home in East Sussex / Press Association Mrs Bamford told jurors: "I kept saying that I need to know what's happening. And then he shouted, 'I think I've killed somebody'. Shocked at his claims, Mrs Bamford went online to find anything to support what he was saying - and she found a report of a suspicious death in Mayfield. Following the verdict, Detective Chief Inspector Tanya Jones, who led the investigation for Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team, said: "This was a horrific attack by a teenage boy who preyed on his victim with the aim of exploiting him for money. "The level of violence he inflicted on Paul Jefferies was extreme and then he fled the scene in his victim's car. He showed no remorse, smirking for a selfie photo just hours later. "However, the jury did not believe his story. "Although this can never undo what he has done, I hope it will bring some justice for Paul's family, friends and colleagues." Friends described Mr Jefferies as a warm and humorous man following the outcome of the trial. His colleague, Adrian Cooper, deputy director of specialist personal tax at HMRC, said: "Paul was a highly valued colleague and friend. "While he was a private and reserved, he was also a warm and humorous man, kind, thoughtful, professional and dedicated to public service. "He will be sadly missed and fondly remembered by all who worked with him." Bamford will be sentenced at a later date. T wo men have been jailed for three years after they posed as police officers to steal from tourists visiting London. Florin Ionita, 31, and Laurentiu Ionita, 47, who have no fixed address, posed as plain clothed police officers to prey on innocent tourists." The pair pleaded guilty to ten offences of conspiracy to steal. Laurentiu also admitted two counts of assault on police. Both men were sentenced to three years imprisonment. The men approached their targets by accusing tourists of crimes before making-off with their possessions. Following a high number of thefts reported by tourists in central London in September, Westminster Crime Squad launched Operation Mastertorn to track down those responsible. On October 23 they caught the two men targeting Chinese tourists in Westminster. As Florin spoke to the tourists Laurientu approached the group and accused them of drug dealing. Laurientu produced a fake warrant card and demanded he search the pair. Westminster Crime Squad officers then intervened detaining Florin and chased Laurientu on foot. Laurentiu assaulted offices before being detained. The investigation linked the pair to similar incidents dating back to October 2015 in Westminster and Camden. Detective Sergeant Vince Abrahart from Westminster Crime Squad said: "I am pleased that following an intelligence led operation these men have been handed down custodial sentences. They deliberately preyed on innocent tourists unfamiliar with police procedures in the UK, turning what should have been an enjoyable visit for them into a nightmare. While Westminster Crime Squad will continue to target such offences in Westminster and beyond - we urge all members of the public to check the ID of all persons purporting to be in authority, be this police or people from utility companies. A breakthrough in the training of neurosurgeons was hailed today after London experts created the worlds first 3D-printed model of a toddlers skull and brain. The replica, known as babyMARTYN after its creator Martyn Cooke, was created by scanning a skull dating from the 1800s held in the Wellcome Museum using a high-definition CT machine at the Natural History Museum. Surgeons in training practise on donated human cadavers. However, child cadavers are not available, leaving them to practise on adult cadavers or models before taking part in live surgery. The polyurethane resin model, created by the Royal College of Surgeons, mimics the delicate texture and weight of an 18-month-old childs skull, while the gelatin-based brain simulates the dimensions and consistency seen in an infant. It includes a brain tumour and fluid on the brain. Trainees will also use it in the operating theatre before an operation, to become familiar with the procedure under their consultants supervision. Mr Cooke, head of conservation at the RCS, said: These models signal a breakthrough in the way we train surgeons who operate on very small children. [They] should improve the care that children in hospitals receive. The idea came after Major David Baxter, a trainee neurosurgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps, asked the RCS to create a model for surgeons to practise treating adults with head injuries. Mary Murphy, a consultant neurosurgeon, suggested it would be useful to develop an infant head model. Miss Murphy said: Trainees [must] have an opportunity to perfect an operation in a simulated environment. F abric boss Cameron Leslie today hailed a last-minute reprieve for the iconic superclub as an important step to safeguard Londons 26billion night-time economy. The venue in Farringdon was closed in September after Islington council revoked its licence citing a culture of drugs following six drug-related fatalities since 2011, including the deaths of the two 18-year-olds this summer. A deal has now been struck by the council and the clubs owners which will allow the world-famous venue - which launched the careers of a generation of British DJs and dance music acts - to re-open with strict new conditions. These include a ban on under-19s at weekends, ID scanners at the doors, covert surveillance within the club and lifetime bans for anyone found taking or dealing drugs. The decision, made in private and approved by a judge at Highbury Corner magistrates court yesterday, was today being celebrated by a host of big-name stars including BBC presenter Annie Mac, Pete Tong, Fatboy Slim and Paul Oakenfold who were among 150,000 clubbers who signed a petition demanding it was allowed to re-open. The club is to re-open with strict conditions, including a ban on 18-year-olds / Rex Goldie, who had threatened to melt down his MBE in protest at the closure, tweeted simply: Yes!! Cameron Leslie, who co-founded the 2,500-capacity venue in 1999, told the Standard: Its so important not just for Fabric but for the industry as a whole in terms of stabilising itself after this rocky period. I hope it will have a knock-on for other venues - this is a fantastic and vibrant scene. No date has yet been set for the clubs relaunch party, and managers are in the process of re-hiring some of the 250 staff who were laid off following the closure. Mr Leslie said Fabric would set a gold standard for clubs, adding: There is clearly a lot of work we have got to do to rebuild the scene. Weve got to get the team back together and the artists booked. We had to let go a lot of people. We had around 250 that were in general employment for the venue. Thats a huge amount of people and we need to get them back. We need to start from zero but the programme will be very similar to before. It would be a betrayal of people behind the campaign to save it to come out doing something different. The most important thing is to be able to get open and be able to get our operation open under the new conditions. London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who said he had been disappointed at the original closure, praised his new night czar Amy Lame for negotiating the discussions that led to yesterdays reprieve. He warned that London was in danger of losing its status as a 24-hour city with world-class nightlife after losing half of its nightclubs and 40 per cent of its live music venues in the past eight years He said: I have always said that we needed to find a common-sense solution that protects both the future of Fabric and the safety of all clubbers as this does. Annie Mac, whose started her career at the club, last night tweeted that it was amazing amazing amazing news while electronic duo Chase and Status said it was brilliant. DJ Chris Reed, also known as Plastician, said: Fabric proves that getting behind a cause you believe in can make a change. Howard Donald from Take That said the news was great, Italian DJ Joseph Capriati said: Nobody can stop our culture. Respect to Fabric, for ever. We are back on the way. Ryan Browne and Jack Crossley, both 18, died after taking drugs at the club on June 26 and August 6, prompting a covert police operation which led to the closure after uncovering a culture of drug use which staff were incapable of controlling. Superintendent Nick Davies, from Islington police, said: We had no choice but to take action to safeguard clubbers and now Fabric has agreed to considerable changes I hope the venue can continue to operate for many years to come within the boundaries of the new licensing conditions. C ouncillors have been gagged from discussing the reopening of legendary nightclub Fabric, it has been claimed. The world-famous venue was given a reprieve after weeks of talks on Monday, allowing it to reopen with strict new conditions. Green Party councillor for Highbury East Caroline Russell who openly campaigned against the venues closure was told by Islington councils lawyers not to share her opinions on the ruling. Council bosses later apologised to the London Assembly member and told her she was free to express her views. 'Effectively gagged': Islington Council have now apologised to Caroline Russell / Caroline Russell/Twitter She told the Standard: I was asked not to share my opinions on it on Facebook, Twitter or in the media. It seems absurd that I wouldnt share my views on something I had previously spoken about. People would be expecting me to say something. Cllr Russell wrote to the head of the town hall's legal department to question whether the request applied to scrutiny committees and council meetings. She added: If this applies in the council chamber and at scrutiny committees that would be ridiculous, to say that elected members of the council cannot scrutinise decisions that affect their constituents, effectively gagging. Reopened: Fabric will reopen under new strict conditions / Carl Court/Getty Images The London Assembly member tweeted to explain to more than 7,000 followers why she could not comment on the news. She wrote: In case you are wondering why I've been silent re @FabricLondon decision, (I was) phoned by Islington Council lawyer yesterday and told I'm not "allowed" to comment on @FabricLondon now or ever apparently. Not just me but all 47 Labour councillors too. Silenced on @FabricLondon. Labour councillor Paul Convery said that councillors had simply been asked to avoid saying anything publicly which could prejudice the legal agreement. Councillor Gary Doolan said he had not been asked not to share his opinions on the matter directly but added that the council had released a statement to reflect consistent, joint opinion on the decision. Superclub: The Farringdon venue was shut down in September / Rex An Islington Council spokesman said: A joint statement was issued by Islington Council and Fabric Life Limited about the Fabric appeal. Neither the council nor Fabric will be making any further statement in relation to the appeal. As Councillor Russell is an opposition councillor, she cannot speak for the council and is therefore free to speak as she wishes on the matter. We have apologised to Cllr Russell for the advice she was originally given. Under new regulations the club will now enforce a ban on under-19s at weekends. ID scanners will be introduced at the doors, alongside covert surveillance within the club and lifetime bans for anyone found taking or dealing drugs. The decision was made in private and approved by a judge at Highbury Corner magistrates court yesterday. The venue in Farringdon was closed in September after Islington council revoked its licence citing a culture of drugs following six drug-related fatalities since 2011, including the deaths of the two 18-year-olds this summer. f the council cannot crutinise decisions that affect their constituents, effectively gagging. C ommuters said they are sick of excuses as the aftermath of Storm Angus wiped out dozens of mainline services causing pandemonium on railway platforms. Photographs posted on social media last night show thousands of people crammed onto the concourse at Waterloo station as poor conditions caused by flash floods led to delays and cancellations of mainline services. Services from Paddington and Kings Cross to Bristol and Cardiff were axed as the south-west bore the brunt of the storm, with 2in (50mm) of rain in 24 hours. Workers criticised the lack of information at stations and dangerously overcrowded trains. Crowds at Waterloo Station during Monday evening's delays / Usman Ahmad Alerts remained in place around the M25 on Tuesday morning, with motorists warned of possible flooding in ten areas from Leatherhead round to Dagenham. Trains into Paddington were also cancelled or facing delays. Sophie, 21, a marketing intern from West Byfleet, boarded a packed train at Waterloo but decided to get off because it was too busy. She told the Standard: People were extremely pushy and aggressive to get on, I was actually quite scared. Floods cause havoc across the UK in wake of Storm Angus It was uncomfortably packed. I was literally being crushed into the side of the train and could not spend over an hour on an extremely slow moving train like that. People were very angry and were squished up like sardines. Luke Springthorpe, 27, who works in wealth management in the City, was caught up in the chaos at Waterloo which added two hours to his normal commute. He said: The conductor gave such a long list of excuses ranging from a passenger being taken ill, a faulty train and signal problems that Im still not sure what the problem was. The information boards were useless. Heavy rainfall just sounds like its one of their usual excuses to be honest. A walker in an autumnal Hyde Park as wet weather hit London / PA A lot of commuters have resorted to cracking jokes about the daily excuses the rail operators come out with now. Its on a par with kids wheeling out the old dog ate my homework line. When trains did finally start coming in there was a massive stampede. It was absolute bedlam as people rushed towards the barriers. Melody Buila, 30, a chef from Bromley, said: Its just getting worse and worse. Its ridiculous. They need to cope with the rain. This is not acceptable we pay the highest fares in Europe. There was nothing on the boards it just said delays and when the train comes it says this platform, then that platform. Everyone was running around like they were in a Benny Hill sketch. Cars submerged in floods as heavy rain follows storm Angus across the UK Maya Schulz gave up waiting for a train home to Weybridge and went for dinner with a friend while the crowds died down. She said: It was just utter chaos at the station. It was so crowded there was literally no standing room on the concourse. This was not the first time this happened. Last week we were subjected to severe delays because of leaves. The week before it was apparently due to the weather. The week before a signalling fault. The list goes on. Strong winds and heavy rain hit the UK / Getty Images National Rail said heavy rain caused flooding and poor rail conditions across England and Wales. Meteorologist Luke Miall of the Met Office said: Today is looking much better generally speaking. The heavy rain is pushing northwards. There are fewer showers around but nothing to the extent we have seen over the last two days or so which is good news. It may even start to be a bit brighter by the end of the day as well. Its good news to dry out the roads. Generally over the next few days its looking a bit more settled. O ne in five Londoners have been a victim of or witnessed a crime but failed to report it over fears it would devalue their property, new research has found. About 19 per cent of adults living in the capital admit they have been a victim of, or witnessed a crime, but have not reported it to the police, according to a study. They fear it would show up on an online police crime map and devalue their property or make it more difficult to rent, the research found. The study, carried out for Direct Line Home Insurance, found that 1.1 million Londoners, about 17 per cent of those living in the capital, would consider not reporting a crime, or would discourage their neighbour from reporting one because it would show up on an online crime map. About 2.6 million Londoners 36 per cent - would refuse to live in a high crime neighbourhood. Rebecca Clapham, head of household products at Direct Line, said: London is in its own property bubble and this has filtered through to how Londoners report crime with some homeowners concerned about doing anything that could devalue their home. Its frightening that people are turning a blind eye to crime in the capital with some going unreported as a result. People need to remember that the purpose of a crime map is to analyse crime to help law enforcement and to evaluate crime prevention strategies, not to devalue a property. Vehicle crime was the most commonly ignored crime, followed by possession of weapons and then burglary and shoplifting. The refusal to live in high crime neighbourhoods could rule out traditionally highly desirable areas such as Westminster, which had a total of 3,906 crimes reported in one month, the highest rate of all of the London boroughs. The research found that 32 per cent of respondents would be more accepting of renting or buying in a high crime area if the neighbourhood exhibited signs of gentrification. According to the study, areas with signs of gentrification like Brixton could be more desirable, despite Lambeth having the second highest crime rate in September 2016, with 2,932 crimes reported in one month. Over a third of respondents claimed they would insist on paying less for a property if it was in a high crime area, while a similar amount - 39 per cent - would insist on paying less rent. T he Government today said it stands ready to help return a British child to London after her British-Iranian mother was detained in Iran. Two-year-old Gabriella Zaghari-Ratcliffe, of West Hampstead, is being looked after by her Iranian grandparents after her mother Nazanin was jailed on secret charges. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested at Tehran airport in April after visiting her family with her daughter to celebrate Easter and the Iranian New Year. In September she was sentenced to five years in prison. Her husband Richard, 41, is campaigning for her release and the return of his daughter, whose passport was confiscated. The Foreign Office said: While we continue to press the Iranians for consular access and for due process to be followed, we also stand ready to help get her daughter back safely to the UK if requested. "We are deeply concerned by reports that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been sentenced without confirmation of the charges made against her. "The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have both raised her case with their counterparts in Iran and will continue to do so. S adiq Khan today urged the Government to get a move on with speeding up broadband in London because painfully slow levels were holding back business. The Mayor wants Chancellor Philip Hammond to divert a chunk of the 1 billion for investment in internet connections he is expected to announce in tomorrows Autumn Statement to create a gold standard for the capital. Mr Hammond is understood to be planning a huge drive to improve broadband speeds following criticism of the roll-out of the Governments high-speed internet programme. The capital is in 26th place on a league table of connectivity in Europes capital cities, with download speeds three times slower than in Paris, and twice as slow as Reykjavik, according to a recent study. Chancellor Philip Hammond is due to deliver his autumn statement on Wednesday / PA There are also believed to be 650,000 not spots, where speeds are 10 times slower than average. More than 300,000 residents in inner London including many who work from home suffer from old, poor quality lines leading to slow connections, with Westminster, Tower Hamlets and Southwark the worst affected. Writing in the Standard, Mr Khan said that infrastructure investment would be key to growth, particularly amid the uncertainties created by the Brexit vote. He said: Londons businesses need the Government to get a move on with tackling the painfully slow broadband speeds which are holding back large parts of the city. Without world-class connectivity to the internet, our cutting-edge businesses will move elsewhere, taking with them well-paid jobs. As part of Mr Hammonds broadband package, 400 million is expected be spent on a Digital Investment Fund to encourage emerging fibre providers to scale up. Only two per cent of homes and businesses in Britain have access to full fibre broadband connections, which can reach speeds of more than one gigabit per second, allowing users to download a TV box-set in less than a minute. Colin Stanbridge, chief executive of London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: Parts of the capital still have broadband speeds that are far from what you would expect of a global city. In order to remain competitive, and if the capital is to continue to be a leading player in the digital economy, this needs to be urgently addressed. Mr Khan has promised to appoint a chief digital officer at City Hall, but has yet to deliver. However, he welcomed Government plans to invest a further 740 million in 5G phone trials, although parts of the capital still struggle to get 3G. He said that Londons economy would be harder hit by Brexit than any other part of the country and added: Britain only succeeds when London succeeds, and if Londons economy stutters then working people across the country will pay the price. E uropean Parliament leaders have rebuffed Theresa Mays plan to take her time about negotiating Brexit, saying talks should last just 15 months. A day after Mrs May told UK business leaders that negotiations would take time, the former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt warned it would be a tough period, very intense. Mr Verhofstadt, the parliaments chief negotiator, said the process of negotiating Britains departure terms should be concluded within around 14 or 15 months after Mrs May triggers Article 50, which begins the formal procedure. The speed, he said, was necessary in order for MEPs to have time to give their consent to any deal. Mr Verhofstadt warned that MEPs would reject any deal that sought to curb EU migration while keeping access to the single market. It is impossible to find solutions where we destroy the so-called four freedoms, he said. In another sign of strained relations, a key ally of Angela Merkel attacked Britain for seeking to keep full access to the European single market while refusing to accept the four freedoms which include free movement of workers. German MEP Manfred Weber, chairman of the centre-right European Peoples Party, complained there is no idea what Brexit really means. The two senior MEPs spoke out after talks with Brexit Secretary David Davis that were arranged in an attempt to improve relations ahead of the negotiations, due to start in April. Mr Weber criticised the way the UK was handling the Brexit process: What we really expect are clear proposals. In my talk with David Davis, unfortunately I have not heard anything new, I have not heard much as to how the British Government wants to tackle Brexit and what Brexit really means. I have not received any new information, quite the opposite is true. Mr Weber also denounced British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson as arrogant over comments made about Turkey joining the bloc. Its a purely arrogant provocation from Johnson when hes telling us what we have to do, he said. Responding to Mr Webers suggestion that Mr Davis had indicated the UK wants to stay in the single market, a Downing Street spokesman said: The Governments position hasnt changed on this. We are very clear that what we want is a trading relationship that allows UK companies to trade both with and within the single market and lets European businesses do the same. Speaking at a Westminster media briefing, the Number 10 spokesman declined to respond to repeated questions over whether the relationship the Government is seeking would require single market membership. U kip is being probed by Britains elections watchdog into whether it broke party funding laws The European Parliament Bureau already ruled the group Ukip belongs to, the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE), will have to repay 172,655 euro (146,696) after finding it misused EU funding. And now the Electoral Commission has opened an investigation into whether Ukip accepted impermissible donations from the ADDE and its affiliate the Initiative for Direct Democracy in Europe (IDDE). The development comes the day after former Ukip leader Diane James announced she quit the party after she said her relationship with members had become "increasingly difficult". Quit: Diane James quit Ukip on Monday / Ben Birchall/PA Audits revealed the ADDE financed polling between February and December last year in Thanet South, where interim leader Nigel Farage unsuccessfully stood for Parliament. Money was also spent in Ukip target seats Great Grimsby, Thurrock, Rochester & Strood and Cardiff South & Penarth. Nine opinion polls ahead of the 2015 election and 2016 EU referendum were found to have breached the rules on European party financing. Expenditure linked to the services of three consultants was also considered non-eligible by an external auditor and by the Parliament's administration. In a statement the Electoral Commission said: "ADDE and its affiliate IDDE, as with other European political parties and foundations, can receive grant funding from the European Union (EU). "This funding can cover up to 85 per cent of the parties' eligible expenditure and be used for a range of activity, from administrative functions through to the campaign costs connected to European elections. "It cannot, however, be used for a range of other specified purposes, including for the direct or indirect funding of national parties, election candidates and political foundations at either the national or European level." The European Parliament advised the commission that "it has formally concluded that ADDE and IDDE used EU grant funding for the benefit of Ukip in breach of its rules and therefore, these expenses were declared as non-eligible for the financing". The statement said: "The commission has now opened its own investigation into Ukip to look at whether there has been any breach of UK election law. This includes whether any impermissible donations have been accepted by the party." The Standard has approached Ukip for a comment. N igel Farage has blasted Downing Street for being negative over Brexit, as he insisted he could be Britain's go-between for Donald Trump's government. In an article for right-wing website Breitbart - the site where Mr Trump's new chief strategist Steve Bannon came from - Mr Farage claimed 2016 would be the "year that changed everything". The interim Ukip leader wrote the "joyous" EU referendum result was "the first brick knocked out of the establishment wall", but the Government had not changed accordingly. He said: "The political revolution of 2016 now sees a new order in charge of Washington. "In the United Kingdom the people have spoken but the players at the top have, I am afraid, stayed the same. "Those who supported Remain now hold senior positions. Worst still, those who were openly abusive about Trump now pretend to be his friend. "It is career politics at its worst and it is now getting in the way of the national interest." Meeting: Nigel Farage beat Theresa May to the first meeting with Donald Trump / Nigel Farage Mr Trump came out in support of the interim Ukip leader his week, tweeting that he would do a "great job" as Britain's ambassador in Washington. Suggestions have been repeatedly dismissed by the Government. But Mr Farage argued that giving him a role would be in the national interest. He wrote: "I would do anything to help our national interest and to help cement ties with the incoming Anglophile administration. "At every stage I am greeted by negative comments coming out of Downing Street. "The dislike of me, UKIP, and the referendum result is more important to them than what could be good for our country. "I have known several of the Trump team for years and I am in a good position with the President-elects support to help. "The world has changed and its time that Downing Street did too." O utspoken Donald Trump supporter and right-wing Breitbart journalist Milo Yiannopoulos has been barred from holding a talk at his former grammar school in Kent amid security fears. The 32-year-old Brit was due to speak to sixth-form students at Simon Langton grammar school for boys, in Canterbury, on Tuesday. However, the school pulled the event after being contacted by the Department for Educations counter-terrorism unit. The school said the talk had been cancelled over threats of demonstrations from protest groups and members of the public. A spokesman said: We note that, within 24 hours of advertising the event, 220 Langton sixth-formers had, with parental consent, signed up for the event and that objection to our hosting Mr Yiannopoulos came almost entirely from people with no direct connection to the Langton. While disappointed that both the pastoral care and intellectual preparation we offer to our students has been called into question, we at the Langton remain committed to the principle of free speech and open debate and will resist, where possible, all forms of censorship. Mr Yiannopoulos, who was permanently banned from Twitter in July after facing backlash over comments about Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones, has previously described himself as the most fabulous supervillain on the internet. A post on his Facebook page on Monday read: Who even knew the DoE had a counter-extremism unit? And that it wasnt set up to combat terrorism but rather to punish gays with the wrong opinions? Perhaps if Id called my talk Muslims are awesome! the National Union of Teachers [NUT] and Department of Education would have been cool with me speaking. A DfE spokesman said: When concerns are raised by members of the public following media coverage in advance of an event, the department would contact the school as a matter of routine to check they had considered any potential issues. The decision to cancel the event was a matter for the school. A n entrepreneur known as Londons restaurant king today lost his fight for 3 million from celebrity designer Sir Terence Conran as a judge dismissed his case as wishful thinking. Des Gunewardena sued his former business partner, claiming he had been effectively fired by Sir Terences company after more than 20 years and left with a pittance for his shares. However, Sir Terence said Mr Gunewardena was generously rewarded during his time at Conran Holdings and they had worked together to build the restaurant empire he now runs under the brand D&D London. Mr Gunewardena was paid 1,254 for his shares in Conran Holdings when he left the company, but complained that they were actually worth 3 million. But at the High Court this morning, Mr Justice Mann ruled in Sir Terences favour, saying the company had properly interpreted the value of the shares. He said of Mr Gunewardena: His assertions of his case were often not particularly convincing. The quality of his evidence was often that of litigation wishful thinking. Des Gunewardena sued his former business partner Sir Terence Conran / Glenn Copus At best, he has convinced himself that things happened, or did not happen, because that is necessary for his case. In contrast, the judge said Sir Terence, 85, was a good, reliable, credible witness and his son, fashion designer Jasper, who served as chairman of Conran Holdings, was also reliable. Mr Gunewardenas D&D London group owns 35 household name bars and hotels in the capital, with around 2,000 staff and a 100 million turnover. The core of the chain was built up using the Conran brand, including the Bluebird and the Pont de la Tour. Mr Gunewardena worked alongside Sir Terence from 1989 and became finance director of Conran Holdings in 1991, but left in 2013 when he and private equity backers bought out the restaurant arm. The judge said according to the companys constitution, Mr Gunewardena was obliged to transfer his shareholding in the Conran business when he departed, and ruled that he had been given the correct value. A spokesman for Mr Gunewardena said he was now considering an appeal. A 39-year-old woman died after being winched from the sea in a dramatic rescue mission off the coast of Kent. The Coastguard, Dover lifeboat and a rescue helicopter were searching for the woman amid strong gales after reports of someone in the water as Storm Angus battered Britain. She was found early this morning off the coast of Folkestone and taken to hospital in a critical condition. Police confirmed the woman later died. According to Kent Online a woman had been reported missing from the Folkstone Harbour area. Coast rescue: A helicopter lifted the woman out of the water A police spokesman said: "Kent Police was called by the coastguard at 6.54am following a report of a woman in the sea at Folkestone. "Coastguard rescue teams, the helicopter, and the Dover lifeboat went to the sea off the harbour area. "South East Coast Ambulance Service went to the scene and a woman was taken to a local hospital." Police later said she had died. T esco has been accused of discriminating against state school children by making them queue outside a store while private school pupils can come and go as they please. Parents hit out at the supermarket giant amid claims students from Boroughmuir High School in Edinburgh were made to wait behind a barrier by staff at one branch in the Scottish capital. It was claimed the pupils could only enter in small groups while students from the nearby private school, George Watsons College, were not stopped at all. The issue was raised by one state school parent who argued the apparent policy was a form of discrimination. Tesco has denied the claims. Neil Pollock, a professor of innovation and social informatics at Edinburgh University, told the Guardian: Everybody should queue or nobody should queue. My son is at Boroughmuir. He has to stand in the queue each day. Hes not one to complain but it was getting him down - so we decided to do something. He and his friends are frustrated because they have to wait outside whilst others go ahead of them. Tesco also police the door in that they have a person there making sure they queue. Mr Pollock was contacted by a Tesco representative via Twitter who said private school pupils were easier for the store because there were less of them. The representative reportedly added I agree we cannot have different rules when Mr Pollock dismissed the explanation. However, Tesco has since denied the practice took place. A spokesman told the Standard: This is completely untrue there has never been any discrimination between state and private school children at this store. N igel Farage may have been earmarked by Donald Trump to be Britains man in Washington but that is one role the President-elect is not able to fill. Sir Kim Darroch, the current British ambassador to the US, was only appointed in February and was said by Downing Street sources to be doing an excellent job. With a career spanning three decades, Sir Kim was chosen by the Foreign Office to succeed former US ambassador Sir Peter Westmacott in what is considered one of the most prestigious roles in the diplomatic service. So who is Sir Kim Darroch and how did he become Britains representative to the US government. Background Sir Kim was born in South Stanley, County Durham in April, 1954. He studied zoology at Durham University and joined the Diplomatic Service in 1977. He married his wife, Vanessa, in 1978 and the couple have two children, Simon and Georgina. Career Earlier on in his career, he served in a range of roles including as private secretary to the Minister of State responsible for the Middle East, and head of the Adriatic Department during the Dayton Accord talks, a peace agreement signed in 1995 that ended the Bosnian war. He was also the head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office news department. From 2007 to 2011, Sir Kim served in Brussels as the UK Permanent Representative to the European Union. He represented British interests in areas including enlargement and European integration. In January 2012, Sir Kim was appointed as then Prime Minister David Camerons national security advisor acting as secretary of the National Security Council. Issues he led the security team on included the rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Russian aggression in the Ukraine, Irans nuclear threat and the collapse of the Libyan government. He left that role in September 2015 before he was appointed Britains ambassador to the US. W ikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is leading Donald Trump in a Time magazine poll to find the person of the year. Mr Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for more than four years, leads the field in the contest. He had been neck-and-neck with the US President-elect earlier this week when the pair had nine per cent of the vote. But Mr Assange has now pulled ahead, getting 12 per cent of support compared to Mr Trump's 11 per cent. Every year Time selects the person who has, for better or worse, made the greatest impact on the world in the past year. Previous winners have included Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and Ronald Reagan. Last year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel scooped the prize. The magazine's editors make the final selection but the poll, which closes on December 4, is a way for readers to voice their opinions. Mr Assange faces a sex allegation in Sweden, which he has always denied but believes that if he leaves the Ecuadorian embassy he will be extradited to the US for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks. He was interviewed inside the embassy last week in the presence of prosecutors from Sweden. The Swedish Prosecution Authority said it would take a view on the continuation of its investigation. Mr Assange's lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said he had co-operated fully with the interview and hoped the Swedish prosecutor would give "impartial and objective" consideration so the matter could be closed. Additional reporting by the Press Association. L oved-up Prince Harry averted his eyes from a troupe of scantily clad dancers today. Perhaps he didnt want his new girlfriend Meghan Markle to see photos of him checking them out out during his two week official royal tour of duty of the West Indies and Caribbean. If that was his plan it was going well until it backfired because he was then forced to get up and dance anyway. Harry spent most time dancing with Claudette Peters at a reception held by The Prime Minister of Antigua. Harry got up and danced later anyway at the reception held by The Prime Minister of Antigua He is on a mission representing the Queen on the seven-country tour but he faced some online criticism from twitter users. For a while hashtag NotOurPrince was trending on twitter locally. Earlier Harry endured an excruciating speech given in his honour when he was invited to spend his honeymoon in Antigua if he marries his girlfriend. Gaston Browne, Antiguas prime minister, told the Prince: I believe we are expecting a new princess soon, as he addressed him at a VIP reception on the island. I want you to know that you are very welcome to come on your honeymoon here. Later Mr Browne added: I believe Meghan is a very beautiful looking girl, they make a very good looking couple. Prince Harry arrives in Antigua Also at the event was Miss Antigua and Barbuda Leanda Ann Norville, who said: He was a gentleman. Of course I want to be his princess. Everyone at this party does. His girlfriend seems a nice lady, but I would be a good girlfriend for him. Later today Harry was returning to Antiguas sister island of Barbuda where he holidayed with his mother Diana, Princess of Wales just a few months before her death. The Prince and his brother the Duke of Cambridge travelled with Diana to the island in April 1997 for a holiday. Mr Browne said about Barbuda: Prince Harry said to me that he remembers going there with his mother as a little boy. It was one of her favourite spots. He said he was very much looking forward to going back there. A case against a British woman charged with having extra-marital sex after she reported she had been raped to police in Dubai has been dropped. The 25-year-old woman was locked up by police after telling them she had been gang-raped by two British men in a Dubai hotel room. She was then released on bail but had her passport confiscated and was told she could face charges of having extra-marital sex. The Dubai Public Prosecutors office said it had closed the case after careful examination of all evidence." It said investigations showed "the act happened with the consent of the three parties in question." The alleged victim reported the attack to police in late October at the Al Barsha police station, the statement from the public prosecutor said. The two male suspects were also arrested and questioned but no charges were filed against them. They also had their passports confiscated but were later told they were free to return home. Prosecutors said they decided not to process with legal action after viewing a video on one of the suspect's mobile phones. The case led a charity to advise UK nationals not to report rapes to police in Dubai. A mber Heard is being sued for $10 million by the producers of film London Fields for breaching contractual obligations. The US actress, 30, who starred in the panned adaptation of Martin Amiss 1989 novel, has been accused of having a misguided and unlawful conspiratorial campaign against the film. In a suit filed by producers Christopher Hanley and Jordan Gertner at the Los Angeles Superior Court, they allege that Heard refused to comply with clear-cut contractual obligations. Part of the 24-page document reads: As a result of Heard's refusal to comply with her contractual obligations - including her improper refusal to act in provocative scenes contained in the pre-approved script - key scenes in the script had to be removed and/or rewritten to accommodate Heard's behaviour. The suit blames Heard and director Mathew Cullen for the fact that the film is currently in limbo, having been pulled from the schedule at last years Toronto Film Festival. While the inherent tension between actors and directors (on the one hand) and producers (on the other) is nothing new in Hollywood, the unauthorised and unlawful acts of Heard, Cullen, and others - most notably, their campaign to damage plaintiff, the picture, and the picture's investors - are perhaps unprecedented, the complaint reads. Indeed, as a result of their misconduct, which continues to this day, the very promising picture remains in limbo, hijacked and placed under a cloud by Heard, Cullen, and others." The London-based noir film, co-starring Jim Sturgess, Billy Bob Thornon, Cara Delevingne and Heards ex-husband Johnny Depp is yet to have a general release after director Cullen distanced himself from the project last year. He claimed that the producers hijacked the film and the final cut was so far from his original version that he no longer wanted it to be marketed under his name. Evening Standard Online has contacted Heards reps for comment. A nna Friel unleashes her wild side as she prepares to join the Duchess of Cornwall, Lily Cole and Mario Testino at the Animal Ball tonight. The actress selected her costume after trying on some of the couture masks created by designers including Burberry, Jimmy Choo, Alice Temperley, Amanda Wakeley and Chloe. Friel, 40, an ambassador for Space for Giants, which works to save the African elephant, said: It was so much fun trying on many of the magical masks, each representing an endangered creature, stylishly brought to life by leading fashion houses. Annal Friel tries on a variety of animal masks by Burberry, Swarovski, Chloe "Im honoured to be among the few who will be attending The Animal Ball to help raise awareness and funds for the work of Space for Giants, Elephant Family, Lions Guardians and the Aspinall Foundation. About 800 guests will don animal masks to attend 40 simultaneous dinners at restaurants including the Ivy, the Four Seasons, the Langham, Chiltern Firehouse, China Tang and Sexy Fish as well as Clarence House. Organised by Elephant Family in partnership with Selfridges and social media app Vero, the charity ball is hoping to raise 2 million to support its own conservation work with Asian elephants and to benefit Space for Giants, of which this newspapers proprietor Evgeny Lebedev is a patron, Save the Rhino, Lion Guardians and the Aspinall Foundation, which works with gorillas. Contact AnimalBall@spaceforgiants.org to attend the Animal Ball. J on Voight bought six turkeys for a shopper that he met in line for the checkout at a supermarket in Kentucky. The A-list actor and father of Angelina Jolie made the spur-of -the-moment purchase on Friday when he realised that the person in front of him was buying six turkeys for charity. According to shopper Sydney Gholston, 28, Voight asked her why she was buying so many turkeys and then offered to pay for them when she said that they were for charity Home Of The Innocents. Sharing an image of the star on their Facebook page, the charity thanked the Midnight Cowboy star for his kind contribution. Our employee Sydney Gholston went to purchase Thanksgiving turkeys for our kids today, the post read. What a treat when she ran into Jon Voight who is in town filming a movie and he asked what the turkeys were for. Jon generously paid for the turkeys to feed our kids next week! We are so thankful for his generosity! Hollywood star Jon Voight urges people to give Donald Trump a chance Gholston later told ABC News: Very nice guy. He was very interested in what we did at the home. He said that was wonderful. Voight, who stars in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, has been a vocal supporter of Donald Trump throughout the US elections. Speaking about his win, he recently said: I worked very hard for him. I love Donald Trump. The media all across the world were negative about his chances so it surprised a lot of people. I'm very glad the American people stood by him and I think everybody has got to take it easy a little bit. I know they're hurting. I was hurt in the same way when Mitt Romney lost. I know it hurts you deeply but take it easy, take a deep breath. He's going to do a lot of good things and very quickly. K im Kardashian has reportedly cancelled her first red carpet appearance since the Paris robbery after Kanye West was taken to hospital. The reality star was due to make her first public appearance in months at the Angel Ball in New York on Monday night, but pulled out so that she could be by her husbands bedside. According to TMZ, Kardashain had been due to attend the event alongside her mother Kris Jenner, who ended up at the gala on her own. Speaking about her son-in-law on the red carpet, she said: Hes exhausted hes just really tired. Hes had a gruelling tour and its been a grind so he just needs some rest. Kanye West cuts concert short after rant on Beyonce and Jay Z Kardashian was seen arriving via private jet at an LA airport in the early hours of Tuesday morning, just hours after West was taken to hospital. The rapper was hospitalised on Monday and treated for stress after cancelling all of the remaining dates on his Saint Pablo tour. Tirade: Kanye West stromed off stage on Saturday night / JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images TMZ reports that the musician was handcuffed to a stretcher after his management convinced him to seek medical help while he was at trainer Harley Pasternaks home He was then treated as a medical emergency and taken to be treated for stress and exhaustion at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. West stormed off stage during his show in Sacremento on Saturday night after a lengthy political rant. He then cancelled his Sunday night show just hours before he was due to perform before pulling out of all his remaining dates. P iers Morgan has blamed Kanye Wests fame addiction for his hospitalisation. The Good Morning Britain presenter was met with a mixed reaction from viewers when he said that the rapper had been sucked into a vortex by marrying into the Kardashian family. [Kayne]'s incredibly smart, bright, different, incredibly talented guy and a brilliant musician yet he was sucked into this vortex of the Kardashian reality television and now look... he's in a hospital in Los Angeles and he's in a terrible state, he said on Tuesday morning. Its funny that a major star like this was hospitalized, taken in handcuffs and its dramatic [after he] cancels world tour it would be a legitimate big story, but I can tell you just looking on Twitter, there are a lot of people saying I dont give a damn about those two anymore, Im done with them.' WHAT THE F*** is piers Morgan going on about with Kanye ?! Blaming it on the kardashians? Are you ok??!!!, one angry viewer wrote on Twitter. Kanye West cuts concert short after rant on Beyonce and Jay Z Later in the day, Morgan discussed West again in his column for MailOnline, writing: I suspect the truth is that hes suffering from a far more dangerous health hazard: fame addiction, he wrote. Meltdown: Kanye West had a tirade on Saturday night / JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images Kanye West is a celebrity junkie. Not content with being one of the worlds most famous entertainers, he set out to seduce and marry Kim Kardashian, thus deliberately implanting himself right into the heart of a 24/7 reality television goldfish bowl. Theres no escape from such a fatuous, fickle world. West was hospitalised on Monday after cancelling the rest of his Saint Pablo tour following a series of bizarre on stage rants. According to TMZ, the 39-year-old was handcuffed to a stretcher after his management convinced him to seek medical help. E llie Goulding proved that shes got friends in high places as she partied with Princess Eugenie at this years Animal Ball dinner. The pop star, who is close friends with Prince Harry, was one of the lucky guests at the VIP dinner at The Arts Club in Mayfair on Tuesday night to raise money for charity The Elephant Family. Just one day after she performed at the Streets of London showcase, alongside Jack Garratt and Laura Mvula, the 29-year-old was helping to support another good cause. Pulling out all the stops with her outfit, Goulding wore a plunging gold lame gown and bespoke elephant-inspired headpiece. Supporters: Ellie Goulding, Susanna Warren and Princess Eugenie of York / Dave Benett Princess Eugenie also donned some impressive headwear, as did fellow guests Teresa Fitzherbert, Susanna Warren and Caroline Rupert. The dinner was just one of 40 events hosted across the capital on Tuesday night, tying in with an exhibition at the V&A for which designers including Cartier, Matthew Williamson, Alice Temperley and Christian Dior have created beautiful masks. Anna Friel attends the VIP dinner at The Arts Club / Dave Benett Hosted by conservation organisation The Elephant Family, the charity ball is hoping to raise over 2 million to support its own conservation work and charities including Lions Guardians and the Aspinall Foundation. A whole host of famous faces, including Elizabeth Hurley, Anna Friel and Evening Standard proprietor Evgeny Lebedev showed up to support the cause. Around 800 guests attended 40 simultaneous dinners at restaurants including the Ivy, the Four Seasons, the Langham, Chiltern Firehouse, China Tang and Sexy Fish as well as Clarence House. Friel, 40, an ambassador for Space for Giants, which works to save the African elephant, tried on a number of masks ahead of the ball. It was so much fun trying on many of the magical masks, each representing an endangered creature, stylishly brought to life by leading fashion houses, she said. "Im honoured to be among the few who will be attending The Animal Ball to help raise awareness and funds for the work of Space for Giants, Elephant Family, Lions Guardians and the Aspinall Foundation. This page may have been moved, deleted, or is otherwise unavailable. To help you find what you are looking for: Enter Search Term(s): Still cant find what youre looking for? Send us a message using our contact us form. To report a broken link or other problems with the website, please include the URL. Thank you for visiting state.gov. 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The proposals presented were for information only and will be voted on at a later date. Plans are in place to turn the former hotel into apartments, but the historic tax credit issued for the building limits what much of the first floor can be developed as. The three options address possible mixed uses for the space. OPTION 1: CIVIC SPACE The first option designates the first floor as a civic space while the rest would be residential. Residential entrances and mail posts would be located on the first floor within the civic space. The civic space is a good option, Angino said. The puzzle would be whether the civic center needs additional space. Angino also mentioned the civic space design might need to be adapted to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. OPTION 2: ALL RESIDENTIAL To keep the building entirely residential, the developers would create common spaces for residential uses only in the old lobby. Examples of common space use include a library, a theatre and ping pong tables, according to Angino. This is pretty close to what the (purpose of the lobby) was initially, he said. The main floor was a place for people to meet up after dinner. OPTION 3: ALL COMMERCIAL The final option, and the least favorable, Angino said, designates the floor as entirely commercial. It would put it as a different use than what is was historically, Angino said. It was not really a commercial space. It was a place to rest. The developer said this option creates a binary system where a business is either operating in the space or the space is empty. TIME FRAME Stakeholders are still working on financing the project but expect final plans to be decided in 30-45 days, which will allow for the mockup of architectural drawing. The next 90 days will be reserved for finding investors and completing financing. It should take us six months to close the transactions, Angino said. Thats a good pace. A fast pace would be four months, so six is a good target. Tenants are anticipated to move into the building in at least a year and a few months. Although the city currently owns the property, tenants will rent from the developer and not the city. PARKING DECK With the redevelopment of the Vance Hotel building comes a new parking deck to help accommodate downtown needs. Two parking options were presented to council, both of which include the rehabilitation of the existing parking deck and adding a lower deck. The first option would net 123 spaces, while the second would net 102. During the meeting, the council also: Received an update on the Citys Phase II Storm water Permit and Storm water Advisory Committee. Heard concerns from resident Mike Johnson concerning the $120 solid waste fee. Accepted a $5,000 system betterment grant for the Electric Utilities Department. Set a public hearing on Dec. 5 for the annexation for properties at the annexation of Turnersburg Highway and Cowan Lane and for property on Fanjoy Road. Allocated $11,000 in additional funds for a water and sewer rate study to increase the scope of the study. Scheduled a retreat for Feb. 16 at the Statesville Civic Center. Entered into executive session to discuss economic development, contracts and attorney-client privilege. Thirty servicemen from the Romanian Land Forces, belonging to "Captain Stefan Soverth" 495th Battalion will participate in the period 22 November - 3 December in Lithuania in the IRON SWORD-16 multinational exercise, the National Defence Ministry (MApN) informed on Tuesday. According to the quoted source, within this exercise, approximately 2,000 servicemen from Canada, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the UK, Poland, Romania and the US will carry out fire arm tactical exercises with all categories of ammunition, using NATO technics, tactics and procedures. "IRON SWORD-16 is part of the Black Sea Rotational Force - 16 multinational exercise and its objective is to increase the level of interoperability through joint training in order to participate in operations of keeping peace and counterinsurgency," the MApN mentions. agerpres. Almost 90 percent of Romanian women have never been screened for breast cancer, according to the findings of a study in oncological conditions in Romanian women. The Coalition for Women's Health, initiated by the Renasterea Foundation, says 66 percent of Romanian women have never performed breast self-examination for nodules, although doctors recommend they do it monthly. The study also shows that a low level of healthcare education, ignoring the first symptoms of the illness as well as difficult access to free medical testing are the main aspects identified by doctors and women alike as reasons for these worrying statistics. Likewise, doctors argue that insufficient funds and the absence of a solid promotion of the importance of prevention conjure to delay the women discovering the illness until it has reached advanced stages. Romania and two other European Union member states do not currently have any national breast cancer screening programme. Given the circumstances, the survival rate in the case of breast cancer in Romania is 63.9 percent, as against an almost 75-percent European average. agerpres. The World Bank has significantly improved its estimates for Romania's economy advance this year to 5.1 percent from 4 percent, as estimated in June, according to the Europe and Central Asia Economic Update released by the international financial institution on Tuesday. The World Bank however cautions that the 5.1 percent leap in the Romanian economy this year, after a 3.8 percent advance last year, will be followed in 2017 by a slow-down of the increase to 3.8 percent, which will decline even further in 2018 to 3.4 percent. "Growth is expected to remain solid in 2017 as additional fiscal relaxation measures will be implemented, including a further VAT cut to 19 percent, the elimination of the special construction tax and a reduction of the excise rate for fuel," the World Bank report shows. "However, the adoption of the debt discharge law has introduced uncertainty into the legal framework of the financial sector with potentially negative effects on financial inclusion, bank balance sheets and the construction sector, and will likely lead to legal challenges by the banks," the World Bank added. The consolidated budget deficit would widen towards 3 percent of the GDP, both in 2016 and in 2017, from 1.5 percent of the GDP in 2015, which will take public debt to 40.3 percent of the GDP in 2017, from 39.8 percent of the GDP in 2015. "The government will need to contain current spending pressures and improve tax efficiency to avoid entering the Excessive Deficit Procedure," the World Bank warns. Moreover, the WB draws the attention on the risks that could worsen outlooks. "The approaching December 2016 general elections increase the risk of further ad-hoc spending and slow-down in the implementation of structural reforms. Externally, increased uncertainty about global economic growth and financial sector volatility have increased the probability of a reversal in investor sentiment in emerging market economies, which in turn could trigger pressures on the currency and an increase in external debt," the World Bank warns. "Over the medium term, the focus of fiscal policy needs to be rebalanced from boosting consumption to supporting a sustainable growth path that would put Romania on a trajectory to becoming a high-income country. Structural reforms that will help enhance the productive capacity of the economy include measures to combat corruption, enhance the quality of spending, strengthen the public administration and SOEs, and simplify the regulatory environment. Renewed efforts are needed to improve labor participation and generate broad-based employment, as unemployment remains high among the youth and the low-skilled, and to ensure that all Romanians get access to high quality public services." The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently estimated that Romania will register this year the highest economic growth in Europe, 5 percent, followed by Ireland with 4.9 percent. In early November, the European Commission revised upwards by one percentage point, to 5.2 percent, the estimates for the Romanian economy growth this year. agerpres. Activists protesting the Dakota Access oil pipeline said a demonstrator was undergoing multiple rounds of emergency surgery Monday after an explosion severely injured her left arm during clashes with law enforcement near project's planned construction sites. Anti-pipeline activists accused authorities of firing a concussion grenade that tore open the woman's arm while she was distributing water Sunday night, while police said officers on the scene in Cannon Ball, N.D., did not deploy anything that would have caused such damage. The starkly conflicting accounts came after an hours-long confrontation between heavily armed law enforcement and roughly 400 protesters trying to move past a barricaded bridge about a mile south from where pipeline drilling is set to take place. With temperatures in the mid-20s, authorities sprayed the crowd with tear gas and water from hoses, and protesters reported being pelted with rubber bullets and concussion grenades. The Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council said in a statement that its physicians treated 300 people for injuries that were a "direct result of excessive force by police." The council said 26 people were transported from the scene by ambulance with gashes, internal bleeding and eye trauma. The Morton County Sheriff's Department has defended officers' use of force, saying hoses and gas were necessary to control a "very aggressive" crowd. One person was arrested during the confrontation. Pictures posted on social media and emailed to The Washington Post showed a woman in a green jacket sitting in the front seat of a car and clutching her left arm. Close-up images show exposed bone, muscle and blood. Activists, who call themselves "water protectors," identified the injured woman as Sophia Wilansky and said she had traveled to North Dakota from New York several weeks ago to participate in the demonstrations. Michael Basillas, who said he was friends with Wilansky, posted a video to Facebook late Monday saying after she was injured she was air lifted to County Medical Center in Minneapolis, where she underwent a round of surgery. She is scheduled for a second round, he said. Initially, rumor spread among some activists that Wilanksy was going to have her arm amputated. Basillas, who is based in New York, and protesters in North Dakota said Wilansky was handing out water to people on the "front lines" of the protest when she was hit by a concussion grenade authorities fired in her direction. Police have denied the allegation, saying protesters were responsible, but Basillas insisted otherwise. "The violence did come from the police," he said. "And we are prepared to hold them accountable for their action." A public information officer for the Morton County Sheriff's Department was not immediately available for comment Monday night. Reached by phone, a dispatcher for the department told The Washington Post that police only used nonlethal weapons against the protesters. "Nothing that was used was strong enough to injure anyone significantly," said the dispatcher, who declined to give her name. In a news conference Monday, Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said there was an "explosion" in the area where protesters were gathered, but it did not come from police, who he said used hoses and pepper spray to disperse the crowd. "We don't know where it came from, but it wasn't law enforcement," Kirchmeier said. A spokeswoman for the department, Maxine Herr, told the Los Angeles Times that police did not use any concussion grenades in Sunday night's standoff. She added that medics first encountered the injured woman at a casino near the protests. "It wasn't from our law enforcement, because we didn't deploy anything that should have caused that type of damage to her arm," Herr said. "We're not sure how her injury was sustained." According to the Times, Herr suggested that protesters may have been "rigging up" explosive propane bottles to be thrown at police. Kirchmeier said "green bottle Colemans" a brand of commercial propane cylinders were thrown at officers. A Facebook Live video posted Sunday night by activist Kevin Gilbertt showed dozens of protesters facing off against a line of armored vehicles and police in riot gear near the Backwater Bridge on Highway 1806, not far from a camp site that has been used as a staging ground for demonstrations for months. The bridge has been blocked by burned out trucks, wire and concrete barriers since late October, when activists tried to set up a second protest camp on nearby private property. At one point in Gilbertt's video, a boom is heard and sparks can be seen flying into the air. Gilbertt can be heard saying he believed that police had launched a concussion grenade. In a follow-up video discussing Wilansky's injury, he disputed claims that protesters had used any explosive devices. "I have no words for that," he said. A GoFundMe page launched to cover Wilansky's treatment had raised more than $120,000 from 4,300 donors as of Tuesday morning, far surpassing its initial goal of $20,000. Activists say they will hold a news conference outside the hospital at noon. Other vigils are planned in Minneapolis and New York in the coming days. Native American tribes and activists from across the country have gathered at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation for months to demonstrate against the Dakota Access pipeline, which is slated to carry oil nearly 1,200 miles from North Dakota to Illinois. The Standing Rock Sioux argue the pipeline's planned path under the Missouri River threatens their water supply and cultural sites. Project developer Energy Transfer Partners and North Dakota regulators contend the pipeline is environmentally sound and will not disrupt Sioux sacred lands. Sunday's clashes between authorities and protesters started in the early evening, when some protesters tried to move trucks blocking the Backwater Bridge, saying they were preventing emergency services from accessing the reservation. Authorities say they have left the bridge closed since late October because they are concerned about its structural integrity. CHICAGO The CME Group Inc. is considering adding a delivery point for its corn futures contracts in St. Louis and has delayed listing new contracts from a Dec. 14 kickoff until it makes a decision, the exchange said on Tuesday. If approved, St. Louis would be the southernmost delivery point and provide new options for farmers and traders along the lower Illinois River and the Mississippi River, said Fred Seamon, the CMEs senior director of commodity research and product development. Both soybeans and wheat are already delivered in St. Louis. The CME last made alterations to its delivery points for the corn contract in 2000. The delay covers the July 2020 and December 2020 corn contracts, and all subsequent months. CME said it did not have a deadline for making a decision and was seeking customer feedback. There are 25 delivery points for corn futures. Two are along Lake Michigan and 23 are along the Illinois River with Pekin being the current southernmost delivery point, according to the exchanges website. The more delivery points that you can have, it just makes it easier to utilize the contract, potentially, said Joe Lardy, an analyst at CHS Hedging. Spreading these points around just gives a little more flexibility. CHS Hedging is a division of CHS Inc., which owns two of the corn delivery points, at Pekin and Morris. Lardy did not know whether CHS had been asked to give feedback to the CME on the potential changes. A CHS spokeswoman declined to comment. CME Group spokesman Chris Grams declined to specify which customers requested the change. About 16 percent of U.S. grain shipped on barges bound for export markets is loaded on the section of the Mississippi River from St. Louis to Cairo, Ill., said Ken Eriksen, a transportation analyst with Informa Economics. This is a recognition that St. Louis has become more and more of a hub for grain flow, said Paul Bertels, vice president of production and sustainability at the National Corn Growers Association. The NCGA did not request the change in the contract but plans to provide a comment to the exchange. The planned next stop for a high-tech housewares company that started in Olivette, then moved to St. Charles, is Station G. Station G is an unused but historic pump house Laclede Gas built more than a century ago in St. Louis Forest Park Southeast neighborhood. Greater Goods, based now on Main Street in St. Charles, plans to buy Station G, at 4401 Chouteau Avenue, and renovate it as its new headquarters. Chris Chupp, the companys owner, said Monday he hopes Station G is ready for his approximately 20 employees by late summer 2018. Buying and renovating the structure will cost about $2 million, he said. Its a stunningly beautiful building, Chupp added. He said Greater Goods is growing quickly. The company plans to double employment within two years and hopes to have in five years as many as 100 people on the payroll. Were in a significant growth phase of our company, Chupp said. Station G can accommodate that number of workers because the buildings wide open, white glazed brick interior designed for giant pumps will be redone with two levels of offices, Chupp said. Greater Goods will buy Station G from longtime owner Jeff Hochman, who had previously considered rehabbing the building as residences. Station G, built in 1911, was part of a Laclede Gas storage and pumping facility. The Aventura apartments, opened in 2013 next to Station G, replaced a circular gas storage tank 110 feet high. The red-brick building is on the National Register of Historic Places. Greater Goods products include Wi-Fi-equipped kitchen scales, bathroom scales with Bluetooth capability and wrist-worn blood pressure monitors. Bed, Bath & Beyond, Target and Amazon are among sellers of Greater Goods items whose brands include Nourish, Balance and Weight Gurus. Greater Goods designs the products, which are made in China. The company has a strong social conscience. Each Greater Goods brand has a charity as a partner. For example, part of every sale of Balance brand products goes to Love146, an organization that combats human trafficking. As a company, we try to do business the right way, Chupp said. He said the company began 12 years ago in Olivette and later moved to St. Charles. As Greater Goods becomes more of a design and tech company, moving to the city to be near the Cortex innovation district makes sense, Chupp added. Greater Goods plans to seek 10 years of tax abatement for its Station G project. The Forest Park Southeast Development Committee, part of Park Central Development the areas nonprofit development corporation is scheduled to consider the request at its meeting Nov. 29. Brooks Goedeker, Park Centrals executive director, said reviving Station G as offices would be good for the neighborhood. A microbrewery and banquet center were among previous rehab plans. Better, he said, is Greater Goods plan, which would increase the neighborhoods daytime population. We think this is the best use, Goedeker said. TOKYO U.S. buyout firm KKR & Co. is buying Nissan Motor-backed auto parts maker Calsonic Kansei Corp. for up to 498.3 billion yen ($4.5 billion) in its biggest deal in Japan, seizing on a rare chance there to do a multi-billion dollar purchase. KKR announced on Tuesday it will pay 1,860 yen per Calsonic share, or a 28.3 percent premium over the stock's last closing price, for the 41 percent stake held by Nissan and for the rest of the shares from the market through a tender offer. It beat out rival private equity firms Bain Capital and MBK Partners, which, according to Thomson Reuters LPC, had bid to buy Nissan's stake. Japan's second-biggest automaker opened the auction to sell the stake in June. Calsonic provided private equity firms a rare opportunity to conduct a multi-billion dollar deal in a country where large companies are still reluctant to sell their units through drastic restructuring. Japan's private equity industry has been held back by decades of pitiful economic growth and a hostile corporate culture. But, encouraged by governance reforms and demographic shifts, the industry could see a flurry of activity. The KKR deal comes as Nissan is seeking to invest in areas such as development of new technologies, including in next generation electric cars and automated driving functions. Nissan also bought a controlling stake in embattled Mitsubishi Motors Corp earlier this year. Calsonic Kansei, which specializes in traditional auto parts, including interiors, electronics, air conditioning units and compressors, relies for about 80 percent of its global sales on Nissan. KKR said it would help Calsonic expand internationally amid a shrinking home market for the Japanese company. "As a partner to Calsonic Kansei's management team, we aim to assist the company in achieving its growth ambitions and make available our international network and industry expertise to continue Calsonic Kansei's success globally," Hiro Hirano, head of KKR Japan, said in a statement. The company expects the tender offer to be launched in February 2017. Excessive reliance Some private equity firms that did not bid to buy Calsonic had concerns about its excessive reliance on Nissan for revenue, and limited growth potential for the auto parts it makes, according to sources. But as more Japanese automakers dismantle their supplier groups, Calsonic has been trying to grow its client base away from Nissan. It now counts Renault SA which owns 44 percent of Nissan Isuzu Motors and other automakers as clients. In Japan, KKR has done some sizeable deals. These include the 2013 purchase of Panasonic Healthcare from Panasonic Corp. in a deal worth $1.67 billion and the acquisition of Pioneer DJ from Pioneer Corp. in 2014 for $550 million. And KKR agreed to sell Intelligence Holdings for 68 billion yen in 2013, almost double what it initially paid for the temporary staffing agency three years ago. The U.S. buyout firm had also been interested in buying Takata Corp., the Japanese parts maker at the center of the world's biggest auto recall, but the buyout firm was no longer in the bidding, sources told Reuters earlier this month. Calsonic shares were untraded earlier on Tuesday after the company said it would discuss Nissan's stake sale at its board meeting. The shares closed at 1,450 yen, up 9.7 percent. Nissan shares closed down 1.4 percent. KKR was advised by Morgan Stanley Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co. on the Calsonic deal, while Bank of America Merrill Lynch advised Nissan. ($1 = 110.7300 yen) ST. LOUIS A federal judge on Tuesday approved an order seeking the extradition of a man who had been living in Arnold to a Caribbean island to face charges of murdering a California woman. Senad Cejvan, 31, is a Bosnian native who was staying with his sister in Arnold until his arrest Aug. 17, extradition documents say. Those documents accuse Cejvan of killing Kavya Lekha Guda, 24, a medical student, on the island of Saba in the Netherlands Antilles, also known as the Dutch Caribbean. Gudas body was found April 15, 2015. Extradition documents say that she and Cejvan and others left a nightclub around midnight and went to Gudas home. Cejvan took another woman home but returned later to Gudas home where he strangled her with the sleeve of a jacket, the documents claim. Although another man was arrested in June 2015, extradition documents say DNA from Cejvans toothbrush matches DNA found on Gudas body. After he was dismissed from medical school, he left Saba on May 20, 2015, for Miami. Investigators later found images containing child pornography on his computer, documents say. Investigators also believe he sent threatening emails, the documents say. Cejvan later studied at a medical school in Poland, leaving there for St. Louis on June 24, 2016. In her order, U.S. Magistrate Judge Noelle Collins wrote that Cejvan contested the sufficiency of the evidence against him, citing the other mans arrest, and complaining that witnesses were biased against him. But Collins wrote that an extradition hearing is not the forum to resolve potential evidentiary inconsistencies. She wrote that the extradition hearing is not a trial but a means of ensuring that probable cause exists to believe the person whose surrender is sought has committed the crime for which his extradition is requested. Cejvans lawyer could not be immediately reached for comment. UPDATED at 3 p.m. with information from a status conference in court Tuesday. A U.S. District Court judge is calling for a new system of voting in the Ferguson-Florissant School District, one intended to bolster the ability of African-Americans to elect school board members of their choice. Judge Rodney Sippel who struck down the school districts voting methods in August calls for a system involving so-called cumulative voting. Under such an approach, voters cast as many votes as there are candidates, distributing those votes among candidates as they choose. Unlike the current system, a voter could use all votes on a single candidate. In the ruling, the judge argues the system allows voters to concentrate their full voting power behind their preferred candidate without requiring voters to give up any of the votes they are entitled to cast. The new system is to go into effect in time for the boards April election. The ruling requires that voters first be educated on the new system. During a brief status hearing Tuesday morning, Sippel gave lawyers until next week to come up with a proposal on how to go about educating voters. Cumulative voting is supported by the ACLU and NAACP, both of which are plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the school districts current method of voting. It has also been deemed an acceptable remedy in similar litigation, according the judges ruling. As it is, school board candidates run at-large, seeking votes across the school district. Critics have argued that the system has narrowed the possibility of electing minority candidates. Currently, three of the districts seven board members are African-American. The district has called for keeping the current electoral system, an option Sippel determined was legally unacceptable on its face because it does not resolve the violation. School district lawyer Cindy Ormsby said Monday night that the board has not yet decided whether to appeal. During the Tuesday hearing, Ormsby told Sippel that a "huge factor" in that decision may be the attorneys' fees and costs. She said that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent already, and the board may have to decide whether risking an appeal to reverse his ruling would be the most "cost effective" route. Sippel replied that the last thing that he wanted to do was "hurt the district." He also suggested to ACLU lawyer Tony Rothert that the ACLU "measure itself carefully' when seeking costs as the winners in the suit. Rothert said that he would, and promised that the ACLU would donate some of their fees back to the district. The current election system could return if demographics in the district change, Sippel said. He said that eliminating cumulative voting could be undone much easier that creating and later revising election districts, and stressed repeatedly that he aimed to minimize harm for voters and the district. ACLU communications director Daniela Velazquez applauded the ruling, saying it adds to landmark victories in cases such as Brown V. Board of Education and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. About 80 percent of the school districts 11,200 students are black, and 12 percent are white. The population in the district is nearly evenly split between black and white. JEFFERSON CITY For the first time since winning the race to become Missouris next governor, Republican Eric Greitens team publicly acknowledged he may have to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the state budget when he takes office. In an interview Monday with the Post-Dispatch, senior adviser Austin Chambers said the political newcomer could begin outlining how hell approach the financial shortfall shortly after Thanksgiving. He offered no specific areas being targeted for cuts. Were in the information gathering stage right now, Chambers said. Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat who is leaving office after two terms, has already cut about $150 million from the states $27 billion spending plan. But, less than midway through the fiscal year, estimates show more spending may have to be pared. After beating Democratic Attorney General Chris Koster by a 51-45 percent margin on Nov. 8, Greitens has been taking a crash course in running a state. The former Navy SEAL has opened a transition office to help guide the hiring of top aides and formulate policies for the upcoming legislative session. He also has opened a separate office to handle inauguration planning. On Monday, he met with Republican leaders who control the House and Senate to discuss issues they want to work on after he is sworn in on Jan. 9. House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, and Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, R-Joplin, have said they want to approve legislation that would make Missouri a so-called right-to-work state. They also want to alter the states legal system and reduce regulations on businesses. Chambers said the legislative plans match Greitens goals. They are in line with what we want to do, Chambers said. In addition to legislative initiatives and cutting the budget, Greitens also will have to begin crafting a spending plan for the fiscal year that begins in July. He is meeting with state agency officials as part of his preparation for that duty. Late on Monday afternoon, the transition office in a building near the Capitol was mostly quiet. Former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman was on hand as one of a handful of Republicans assisting Greitens transform from a first-time political candidate to the chief executive of a Midwestern state. Steelmans husband, Dave, a former GOP leader in the House, also is assisting, as is former House Speaker Catherine Hanaway and Rep. Caleb Jones of Columbia. Former state Rep. Rick Stream, who served on the school board in Kirkwood, also is on board and helping, Chambers said. On Tuesday, Greitens is scheduled to make an appearance at an event in Kansas City and then continue working in Jefferson City until he returns to his home in St. Louis for Thanksgiving. By Scott DiSavino NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil ended little changed on Tuesday in volatile trade that saw prices rise and fall by $1 a barrel depending on the latest comment from OPEC officials at a technical conference in Vienna on whether the cartel members would agree to an output cut. Officials at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting tried to hammer out the details of an agreement to cut output before a formal meeting on Nov. 30. Brent futures gained 22 cents, or 0.45 percent, to settle at $49.12 a barrel, its highest close since the end of October, while U.S. crude lost 21 cents, or 0.44 percent, to finish at $48.03. During the session, Brent gained $1 a barrel, bringing it to within four cents of $50, its highest since Oct. 28, after comments from a Nigerian official at the OPEC technical meeting that it was likely all countries would be "on board" by the end of the day. But, prices fell, with U.S. futures down $1 a barrel, following reports the 14-member cartel would defer a decision on a deal until the Nov. 30 meeting due to the opposition of Iran and Iraq. "We do not have a clear path to a decision on Nov. 30 and that is what the market was looking for so we are in for another eight days of uncertainty," said James Williams, president of energy consultant WTRG Economics in Arkansas. The premium of U.S. futures for the second month over the front-month , meanwhile, hit 95 cents, its highest since April, as OPEC rhetoric boosts later dated crude contracts. OPEC is trying to bring its members and non-OPEC producer Russia to agree on a coordinated cut to prop up the market, beset by a two-year glut in supplies, by bringing production into line with consumption. It said at the end of September it aimed to cut production to between 32.5 million and 33 million barrels per day compared with its recent record output of around 33.8 million bpd. While a ceiling for overall OPEC production may be agreed by Nov. 30, it is unclear whether clear quotas per member state would be set. Some countries, such as Nigeria, Iraq, Libya and Iran, argue they should be exempt because their output has been hit by conflict or sanctions. "Ultimately, it looks as if Saudi Arabia and its allied Gulf neighbors will reduce production on their own," analysts at Commerzbank said. "No ground-breaking agreement on production caps or cuts should be expected from the OPEC meeting. The oil market is likely to remain oversupplied for some time yet even after the OPEC meeting, especially since U.S. oil production will soon start rising again." U.S. commercial crude oil inventories were forecast to have risen for a fourth consecutive week, gaining 700,000 barrels last week, ahead of data from the American Petroleum Institute at 4:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT). [EIA/S] (Additional reporting by Sabina Zawadzki in London and Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Mark Potter) Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. (NYSE: ASM) announces it has entered into an underwriting agreement dated November 21, 2016 (the "Underwriting Agreement") with Cantor Fitzgerald Canada Corporation, as sole bookrunner, and Rodman & Renshaw, a unit of H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC, as lead manager, and certain co-managers (collectively, the "Underwriters"), to purchase, on a bought deal basis, 6,370,000 units of the Company (the "Units") at the price of US$1.57 per Unit (the "Issue Price") for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately US$10 million (the "Offering") in Canada and the United States of America. Each Unit will consist of one (1) common share of the Company (the "Common Shares") and one-half (1/2) of one common share purchase warrant (the "Warrants"). Each whole Warrant will be exercisable for a period of 36 months after the closing of the Offering and will entitle the holder to purchase one (1) additional Common Share at an exercise price of US$2.00, subject to adjustment. In addition, the Company has granted to the Underwriters an over-allotment option (the "Over-Allotment Option") exercisable, in whole or in part, in the sole discretion of the Underwriters, to purchase up to an additional 955,500 Units at the Issue Price per Unit, for a period of up to 30 days after the closing of the Offering for additional aggregate proceeds to the Company of approximately US$1.5 million. In the event the Over-Allotment Option is exercised in full, the aggregate gross proceeds to the Company will be approximately US$11.5 million. The Company has agreed to pay the Underwriters a cash commission equal to 7% of the gross proceeds of the Offering, including proceeds received from the exercise of the Over-Allotment Option. Closing of the Offering is expected to occur on November 28, 2016, subject to obtaining customary TSX.V and NYSE MKT approvals. The Company intends to allocate the net proceeds of the Offering to advance the exploration and development of the Company's Avino Mine and the exploration and development activities on the Bralorne Mine Property in British Columbia, and for general working capital. The Offering will be made by way of prospectus supplements, dated November 21, 2016, to the Company's existing Canadian short form base shelf prospectus (the "Base Shelf Prospectus") dated November 10, 2016, and U.S. registration statement on Form F-10 dated November 18, 2016 (the "Registration Statement"). The prospectus supplements relating to the Offering (together with the Base Shelf Prospectus and the Registration Statement, the "Offering Documents") will be filed with the securities commissions in all of the Provinces of Canada, except Quebec, and with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). The Offering Documents will contain important detailed information about the securities being offered. Before you invest, you should read the Offering Documents and the other documents the Company has filed for more complete information about the Company and the Offering. Copies of the Underwriting Agreement and the Offering Documents will be available for free by visiting the Company's profiles on the SEDAR website maintained by the Canadian Securities Administrators at www.sedar.com or the SEC's website at www.sec.gov, as applicable. Alternatively, copies of the prospectus supplement will be available upon request by contacting Cantor Fitzgerald Canada Corporation, attention: Equity Capital Markets, 181 University Avenue, Suite 1500, Toronto, ON, M5H 3M7, email [email protected], or by contacting H.C. Wainwright & Co., 430 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022, email: [email protected].\ Boeing (NYSE: BA) Chairman, President and CEO Dennis Muilenburg today named Kevin G. McAllister president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, succeeding company Vice Chairman Ray Conner in that role. Muilenburg also appointed Stanley A. Deal president and CEO of Boeing Global Services, a new business unit to be formed from the customer services groups within the company's existing commercial airplanes and defense, space and security business units. McAllister joins Boeing from GE Aviation. Deal is a veteran Boeing executive. Conner, 61, will continue to serve as Boeing vice chairman through 2017. He will work closely with McAllister in the months ahead on a purposeful hand-off of customer, supplier, and community and government relationships, and to ensure continuity of operations and customer support. Conner also will provide strategic oversight and guidance for the company's transition to a single integrated services business and remain involved in ongoing product development strategy at Commercial Airplanes. "With Ray Conner's retirement timeline in sight and an expanding global services market to pursue, these moves will further strengthen and grow Boeing and better serve our customers, employees, shareholders and other partners in the years ahead," said Muilenburg. "We are immensely grateful to Ray for his leadership and contributions to Boeing over nearly four decades, and we will continue to rely on his vast experience and keen insights in supporting the leadership and business transitions underway." McAllister, 53, joins Boeing after 27 years with GE Aviation, where he served since 2014 as president and CEO of GE Aviation Services. Before that, as vice president and general manager of global sales and marketing since 2008, he was credited with delivering record backlog growth for the nearly $25 billion GE business. "Kevin is one of industry's best and most highly regarded senior executives, and we are thrilled to have him join Boeing and our strong Commercial Airplanes team," Muilenburg said. "He's a passionate leader with decades of commercial aviation knowledge and experience. He knows Boeing well, shares our values and commitment to our people, and has the results-oriented operational and business experience needed to lead this vital and growing part of our company." Boeing Global Services will bring together core capabilities currently within Commercial Aviation Services and Boeing Defense, Space & Security's Global Services & Support group. While some defense and commercial customer fleet support will remain within the two existing business units, the new unit will provide a broad portfolio of advanced services and incorporate the capabilities of various Boeing subsidiaries, including Aviall and Jeppesen. Deal, 52, brings three decades of broad aerospace experience to his new leadership role. Since 2014 he has served as senior vice president of Boeing's Commercial Aviation Services business, delivering consecutive years of record performance. Previously, he was vice president and general manager of Supply Chain Management and Operations for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, responsible for Supplier Management, Fabrication, Propulsion Systems and Quality groups. Deal joined the company as an engineer on the C-17 military aircraft program and also held senior roles in sales and marketing. "Stan is an exceptionally capable and experienced leader, and he's ideally prepared to stand up an integrated Boeing services business to expand our share of a global commercial and defense services market worth an estimated $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years," Muilenburg said. "Substantial services growth is core to Boeing's strategy as we enter our second century, and this move is a key enabler to accelerate our efforts and provide increasing value to our customers." Deal will begin immediately finalizing and executing detailed and deliberate plans to structure and organize the new business while ensuring all near-term customer commitments are met and value is maximized over the long term. He will work closely with Vice Chairman Conner and Defense, Space & Security President and CEO Leanne Caret during the transition. Boeing Global Services is slated to begin fully operating as the company's third major business unit by the third quarter of 2017, with a small core headquarters group based in Dallas, where Aviall currently has a sizeable presence. While specific business details and additional leadership assignments will be forthcoming, the vast majority of the work performed by Boeing Global Services is expected to remain at existing locations for the foreseeable future. Deal and McAllister join Caret as business unit leaders reporting directly to Muilenburg. They also become members of the company's Executive Council. The appointments are effective today. Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. (NYSE: DPS) today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Bai Brands, LLC, and its complete portfolio of high-growth premium antioxidant infused beverages. The cash purchase price of $1.7 billion includes a tax benefit of approximately $400 million on a net present value basis and will be financed through new unsecured notes and short term commercial paper. We expect to maintain our strong investment grade credit profile and have no plans to change our existing shareholder dividends and share repurchase distributions. Bai provides a strong platform to incubate and grow better-for-you beverages throughout the non-carbonated and carbonated beverage sectors. It is expected to generate approximately $425 million in net sales in 2017 and add an incremental $132 million to our current net sales expectation for 2017. The transaction is expected to be approximately $0.03 dilutive to reported diluted EPS in 2017 driven by planned increases in marketing investments behind the brand and increased interest expense associated with the financing of the purchase price. The transaction is expected to be accretive to reported diluted EPS in 2018. "We're excited to welcome Bai into our family of great brands," said Larry Young, DPS President and CEO. "In a relatively short time, Bai has carved out a leadership position in the enhanced water category and has now extended that success into other fast-growing and profitable categories. We're equally impressed with their innovation pipeline, which will continue to meet the needs of consumers seeking great tasting, low-calorie beverages with natural flavors and no artificial sweeteners." Young continued, "Bai has contributed greatly to our allied brand lineup since we began distributing it broadly in 2013. Adding it to the broad range of choices and options in our company-owned portfolio is a natural next step. Moving forward, we will empower Bai's management team to continue the breakthrough and disruptive branding and innovation that have revolutionized their categories and work with them to put the brand in front of more consumers in more places." Bai is one of the fastest growing beverage brands, offering a family of premium better-for-you beverages. The Company's product portfolio spans across several high-growth beverage categories including enhanced water, carbonated flavored water, coconut water and premium ready-to-drink teas. With its Bai, Bai Bubbles, Cocofusion and other innovative brands, Bai is positioned for expanding growth in key beverage segments. These highly profitable categories are projected to continue to grow worldwide for the foreseeable future. The acquisition of Bai will further enable us to meet growing consumer demand for better-for-you beverages. Bai will operate within the Packaged Beverages segment and continue to be led by founder Ben Weiss. "Over the past seven years, Bai has proven to be an agent of change in a marketplace that is rapidly evolving," said Weiss. "We've worked tirelessly to challenge the notion that better-for-you beverages can't taste good. On our journey, we found a strong ally in DPS, an ally who embraced our mission to change the way the world drinks. Now, it only makes sense to continue our quest together. We are thrilled to join the DPS family and create a new path forward with infinite possibilities." The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017. The boards of both companies have approved the transaction. Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC is serving as exclusive financial advisor to Dr Pepper Snapple Group and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP is acting as legal counsel. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC is serving as exclusive financial advisor to Bai and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is acting as legal counsel. Conference CallAt 7:30 a.m. (CST) today, Dr Pepper Snapple Group will host a conference call with investors to discuss the Bai acquisition. The conference call and slide presentation will be accessible live through DPS's website at http://www.drpeppersnapple.com and will be archived for replay for a period of 14 days. Gran Tierra Energy Inc. (NYSE: GTE) announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell 43,335,000 shares of its common stock, on a bought deal basis, at a price of US$3.00 per share, for aggregate gross proceeds to the Company of approximately US$130.0 million (the "Offering"). The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering to repay borrowings outstanding under the Company's revolving credit facility, which amounts may be reborrowed for general corporate purposes, including to fund appraisal and development and to finance potential acquisitions. The Offering will be made to the public in the United States and Canada through a syndicate of underwriters (the "Underwriters") led by Scotia Capital Inc., RBC Capital Markets and Dundee Capital Markets. Completion of the Offering is subject to, and conditional upon, the receipt of all necessary approvals, including approval of the NYSE MKT and the Toronto Stock Exchange. The Offering is expected to close on or about November 29, 2016. The Company has also granted the Underwriters an over-allotment option to purchase up to an additional 6,500,250 shares of its common stock solely to cover over-allotments, if any, on the same terms and conditions as the Offering, including the offer price, exercisable at any time, in whole or in part, until 30 days after the date of the execution of the definitive agreement in respect of the Offering. If the over-allotment option is exercised in full, the aggregate gross proceeds from the Offering will be approximately US$149.5 million. The offering of securities to which this communication relates is being made in the United States pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement (including a prospectus) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") and, in Canada, pursuant to a supplement to the Company's MJDS base shelf prospectus filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities. You can get copies of these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov and SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Alternatively, copies of these documents may be obtained, when available, from Scotia Capital (USA) Inc., Attention: Equity Capital Markets (tel: 212-225-6853), 250 Vesey Street, 24th Floor, New York, New York, 10281 or RBC Capital Markets, LLC, 200 Vesey Street, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10281-8098; Attention: Equity Syndicate; Phone: 877-822-4089; Email: [email protected], or in Canada from Scotia Capital Inc., Attention: Equity Capital Markets (tel: 416-862-5837), Scotia Plaza, 66th Floor, 40 King Street West, M5W 2X6, Toronto, Ontario,RBC Capital Markets, Attn: Simon Yeung, Distribution Centre, RBC Wellington Square, 8th Floor, 180 Wellington St. W., Toronto, Ontario, M5J 0C2 (Phone: 416-842-5349; E-mail: [email protected]) or Dundee Capital Markets, Attn: Equity Capital Markets 416 350 6654 [email protected], 1 Adelaide Street East, Suite 2100, Toronto, ON M5C 2V9. PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP) announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire KeVita, a leading North American creator of fermented probiotic and kombucha beverages. The transaction will expand PepsiCo's health and wellness offerings in the premium chilled beverage space. "I am pleased to welcome KeVita into the PepsiCo family. Under the leadership of CEO Bill Moses, KeVita has become an innovative, highgrowth brand that is transforming the functional beverage space," said Chris Lansing, general manager and vice president, PepsiCo Premium Nutrition. "This announcement is further evidence of PepsiCo's focus on delivering Performance with Purpose by continuing to evolve our health and wellness offerings to meet consumers' changing needs." KeVita is a leader in fermented probiotic and kombucha beverages with three product lines and live probiotics in every bottle. With over two dozen flavors of Sparkling Probiotic Drink, Master Brew Kombucha and Apple Cider Vinegar Tonic, all KeVita drinks are certified organic, non-GMO, gluten-free and vegan. KeVita has a loyal and rapidly growing consumer base in the fast growing functional beverage space. "Joining the PepsiCo family will give us an opportunity to extend KeVita's trend-forward beverages to a broader audience, while staying committed to our core values," said Bill Moses, CEO and co-founder of KeVita. "We're looking forward to more consumers experiencing the KeVita brand and to leveraging PepsiCo's marketing and distribution capabilities." Upon closing, which is subject to regulatory approval, KeVita will continue to operate independently with its production and bottling facilities located in Oxnard, California. A traffic jam is seen as people evacuate after tsunami advisories were issued following an earthquake, in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo November 22, 2016. Kyodo/via REUTERS By Yuka Obayashi and Elaine Lies TOKYO (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake rocked northern Japan early on Tuesday, briefly disrupting cooling functions at a nuclear plant and generating a small tsunami that hit the same Fukushima region devastated by a 2011 quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. The magnitude 7.4 earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, sent thousands of residents fleeing for higher ground as dawn broke along the northeastern coast. There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries hours after the quake hit at 5:59 a.m. (2059 GMT Monday). It was centered off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 kilometers (6 miles), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. A wave of up to 1.4 meters (4.5 ft) high was recorded at Sendai, about 70 km (45 miles) north of Fukushima, with smaller waves hitting ports elsewhere along the coast, public broadcaster NHK said. Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from harbors as tsunami warnings wailed after alerts of waves of up to 3 meters (10 feet) were issued. "We saw high waves but nothing that went over the tidal barriers," a man in the city of Iwaki told NTV television network. Aerial footage showed tsunami waves flowing up rivers in some areas, and some fishing boats were overturned in the port of Higashi-Matsushima before the JMA lifted its warnings. The U.S. Geological Survey measured Tuesday's quake at magnitude 6.9, down from an initial 7.3. All Japan's nuclear power plants in the area have been shut down in the wake of the March 2011 disaster, which knocked out cooling systems at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing reactors to melt down and spew radiation into the air, soil and sea. The cooling system for a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at the reactor at its Fukushima Daini Plant was initially halted on Tuesday, said a spokeswoman for Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, but was restarted soon after. Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest. Nuclear plants need cooling systems operating even when in shutdown to keep spent fuel cool. Tohoku Electric Power Co said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported there were no irregularities at the Tokai Daini nuclear plant in Ibaraki prefecture. COAST EVACUATED Japanese Minister for Disaster Management Jun Matsumoto told reporters there had been no reports of significant injuries. One woman suffered cuts to her head from falling dishes, Kyodo reported, citing fire department officials. Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater. The March 11, 2011, quake was magnitude 9, the strongest quake ever recorded in Japan. The massive tsunami it generated knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier. Systems have been updated since the 2011 disaster to spread warnings more quickly, said Tsunetaka Omine, head of the Disaster Management Division in Iwaki, a city in Fukushima prefecture. Previously, there were complicated directions on where to evacuate. "But now, we basically just tell people to head away from the sea, to the highest possible ground," Omine said. Authorities now also send tsunami warnings to every mobile phone in the area and broadcast on local radio. Staying in a traditional Japanese inn on the coast in the city of Ofunato with a dozen international high school students on a study tour, teacher Kathy Krauth said the shaking began just seconds after a quake alarm on her phone went off. I felt like the lessons of 3-11 were really taken to heart," said Krauth, who teaches a class on the March 2011 disaster and its aftermath. The feeling was, we just dont know, but were going to be as cautious as we can. Nissan Motor Co said it would suspend work at its engine factory in Fukushima at least until the latest tsunami warning was lifted. A spokesman said there were no injuries or damage at the plant, which was badly damaged in the 2011 disaster. Toyota Motor Corp said all its factories in northeastern Japan were operating as usual. Japan's famous Shinkansen bullet trains were halted along one stretch of track and some other train lines were also stopped. Japanese financial markets were little affected, with the Nikkei 225 index closing up 0.3 percent and the yen steady against the U.S. dollar. (Additional reporting by Chris Gallagher, Jon Herskovitz, Osamu Tsukimori, Aaron Sheldrick and William Mallard; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing Paul Tait) President-elect Donald Trump cancelled today's meeting with the New York Times (NYSE: NYT). Trump tweeted, "I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice." I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 In a follow up tweet, Mr. Trump said, "Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!" Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 In a statement on the cancellation, the New York Times said they didn't change the ground rules. "We were unaware that the meeting was cancelled until we saw the President Elect's tweet this morning. We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to. They tried to yesterday - asking for only a private meting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to. In the end, we concluded with the team that we would go back to the original plan of a small off the record session and a larger on the record session with reporters and columnists." Denver, Colorado (PRWEB) November 22, 2016 Urban design and landscape architecture firm Civitas has won the highest honor President's Award of Excellence from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Colorado Design Awards for the second year in a row. The honor was awarded to The Haven Project Community Plan, Civitas' transformative master plan for the New York Restoration Project (NYRP) to create a network of connected open spaces to improve quality of life in New York's South Bronx. In addition, Denver, Colorado-based Civitas received the ASLA Colorado Landmark award for Denver's Larimer Square. The firm also received two Merit Awards, for its Wayzata Lake Effect Vision Plan on Minnesota's Lake Minnetonka and for its Northern Arizona University Master Plan for the Flagstaff, Arizona, campus. ASLA Colorado's President's Award is bestowed by unanimous jury vote for "an outstanding contribution in the advancement of the Landscape Architectural profession, which exemplifies the ethics upon which the profession was founded," according to the organization's announcement of 2016 award winners. In 2015, Civitas in collaboration with W Architecture and Landscape Architecture also received the President's Award for its St. Patrick's Island Park in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Taking the idea that green space promotes health to the next level, this year's Presidential winner The Haven Project has been designed specifically to measure and monitor its mission of encouraging active lifestyles and achieving health impacts. "Creating healthier cities is at the heart of our firm's mission," says Civitas founding principal Mark Johnson about the project. "With NYRP's leadership we will be able to directly impact public health in a part of New York City where health improvements are most needed." ASLA Colorado's Landmark Design award "recognizes a distinguished landscape architecture project completed between 15 and 50 years ago that retains its original design integrity and contributes significantly to the public realm of the community in which it is located." 2016 Honor Award winner Larimer Square, one of Civitas' first projects begun some 30 years ago, transformed a poorly repaired streetscape and vacant historic buildings into Denver's premier shopping and dining destination. The much-copied Larimer Square project also was recently named one of "America's 11 Most Beautiful Streets" by Curbed.com. ASLA Colorado's Professional Design Awards "recognize exceptional accomplishments by Colorado and Wyoming landscape architects and represent the work done across the country and across the globe by these individuals and studios," says the organization. Independently judged by a jury from the ASLA Washington Chapter, this year's winners were selected from more than 75 submissions. A complete list of ASLA Colorado's 2016 award winners is available here. About Civitas: Founded in 1984 with the core purpose of "creating healthier cities," Denver-based Civitas, Inc., is an idea-based practice of urban designers, architects and landscape architects engaged in strategic planning for urban change and project design for built works. A consultancy and a design studio, Civitas advises on a wide range of strategies for re-imagining urban life and places, working in U.S. cities coast to coast and around the world. For additional information visit civitasinc.com. Media contacts: Anne McGregor Parsons, Word PR + Marketing, anne(at)wordprmarketing(dot)com, 303.777.7667 Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/11/prweb13871198.htm MIAMI, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Fathom, the pioneer in social impact travel and Carnival Corporation's (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK) 10th and newest brand, today announced a Black Friday and Cyber Monday special on select sailings to the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Travelers who book this offer between November 25 and 28 can take advantage of impressive savings on balcony staterooms priced at interior rates. Through the sale, upcoming seven-day voyages are priced at $249 for the Dominican Republic and $1,999 for Cuba. Eligible sailings for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale include December 18, January 1 and January 15 sailings to the Dominican Republic and March 19, April 2 and April 16 sailings to Cuba. "The holidays are about meaningful experiences and sharing them with family and friends the root of our Fathom experiences," said Tara Russell, president of Fathom and global impact lead for Carnival Corporation. "We want to make those types of important experiences even more accessible to travelers this season by offering special deals to those who want to travel deep and create one-of-a-kind human connections across the world." From booking a trip to connect with family to gifting the voyage to a loved one, those who take advantage of this holiday deal to go on a Fathom journey to the Dominican Republic will have the opportunity to travel deeply into local communities for unforgettable human impact experiences without breaking the bank. Whether it is helping cultivate cacao plants and organic fertilizer at a nursery or participating in adult-learning programs to teach small groups of local Dominican community members conversational English, travelers can ring in the new year by enriching the life of local Dominicans as they participate alongside them to tackle community needs in the country. In Cuba, travelers can visit the historic ports of Havana, Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba and participate in unique shore excursions that provide fun and engaging ways to build new bridges to a rich and vibrant culture that, until now, most U.S. travelers have only seen in photographs. Some highlights include the island's famously friendly people, Spanish and French colonial architecture, traditional Cuban music and dance, restaurants with genuine Cuban cuisine, museums, cathedrals, coastal fortresses, the cannons on San Juan Hill, the shores of Cojimar that were Ernest Hemingway's favorite fishing village and much more. Black Friday, Cyber Monday Deal SpecificsFathom's Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer is available for balcony cabins only. For more information or to book, travelers can call 1-855-932-1795 or their travel professionals between November 25 28 and reference code "RF1." This promotion is not available for bookings on fathom.org, is non-refundable and cannot be combined with any other offers. Black Friday and Cyber Monday prices for seven-day trips to the Dominican Republic are set to $249 per person based on double occupancy and include all meals on the ship, onboard social impact immersion experiences, three on-shore social impact activities and related supplies. These prices do not include taxes, fees, port expenses and gratuities. Estimated taxes, fees and port expenses vary by sail date and range from $124.54 to $125.56 per person. Gratuities are estimated at $80.50 per person. Full payment is due at the time of booking. Black Friday and Cyber Monday prices for seven-day itineraries to Cuba are set to $1,199 per person based on double occupancy and include all meals on the ship and lunch while in the three ports, onboard experiences and select on-the-ground activities. These prices do not include taxes, fees, port expenses, visa and gratuities. Estimated taxes, fees and port expenses vary by sail date and range from $144.74 to $165.98 per person. The required travel visa is $75 per person and gratuities are estimated at $80.50 per person. To secure a spot on a future sailing, a non-refundable $600 per person deposit is required at the time of booking and final payment is due 90 days prior to departure. About Fathom Travel Fathom is the newest brand in the Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK) family, which carries nearly 11 million travelers a year to communities around the world. Fathom invites travelers to embrace the possibilities ahead and to journey into the heart of a destination. Fathom serves travelers hungry to experience the world richly and with purpose. What sets Fathom apart is the rich and playful onboard and onshore journey, its alongsided partnership approach with its partner countries paired with a unique business model that allow travelers to travel deep, build community with like-minded travelers and become immersed in another culture. Fathom offers uniquely different round-trip voyages from Miami to two of the Caribbean's most desired destinations: the Dominican Republic and Cuba. In the Dominican Republic, travelers have the opportunity to work side by side with local residents in existing programs that matter to the communities, like planting trees, making chocolate, and creating life-saving water filters. In Cuba, travelers visit the port cities of Havana, Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba and enjoy on-the-ground activities that provide the opportunity to interact directly with Cuban people and gain insight into their everyday lives, rich culture and history. The Fathom experience is brought to life aboard the 704-passenger MV Adonia. The smallest ship in the P&O fleet, the Adonia is the ideal home base to engage, mobilize, educate and equip travelers on every Dominican Republic trip allowing for personal enrichment while participating in activities that unite strangers to become part of something bigger together. For Cuban voyages, passengers enjoy premium accommodations including all the amenities of a modern hotel, plus the convenience of having to unpack only once while seeing the breadth of the island. Every night, Fathom travelers return to the comforts of the Adonia, where they can relax knowing that all the details of travel are handled. For more information about Fathom or to book a voyage, contact your Travel Professional, call Fathom toll-free at 1-855-932-8466 or visit www.Fathom.org. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fathom-cruise-deals-celebrate-the-holidays-with-black-friday-and-cyber-monday-offers-300367598.html SOURCE Fathom Year to Date Asset Sales Total Over $1.5 Billion NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Gramercy Property Trust (NYSE: GPT), a real estate investment trust, announced today that it closed on the sale of three single-tenant office buildings in San Diego, California, Lake Mary, Florida and Las Colinas, Texas for aggregate gross proceeds of $106.3 million. The weighted average remaining lease term for the three sold properties was 7.5 years at closing and the blended exit cap rate was 7.3% on next twelve months NOI as of September 30, 2016. With these dispositions, the Company has sold over $1.5 billion of single and multi-tenant assets in the United States and Europe in 2016. These property sales are a part of the Companys previously announced plan to dispose of select non-core assets following the merger with Chambers Street Properties. The weighted average exit cap rate for these dispositions is 6.9% and reflects the Companys pro rata share of joint venture assets acquired and sold. Currently, the Company has approximately $120.0 million of assets in the market for sale. About Gramercy Property Trust Gramercy Property Trust is a leading global investor and asset manager of commercial real estate. The Company specializes in acquiring and managing single-tenant, net-leased industrial and office properties. The Company focuses on income producing properties leased to high quality tenants in major markets in the United States and Europe. To review the Companys latest news releases and other corporate documents, please visit the Company's website at www.gptreit.com or contact Investor Relations at 888-686-0112. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005189/en/ Gramercy Property Trust Brittany A. Sanders, 888-686-0112 Investor Relations Source: Gramercy Property Trust LONDON, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is adding four new cloud data centers infused with cognitive intelligence in the UK, to keep pace with growing client demand. The investment in the new facilities underscores IBM's long-standing commitment to providing innovative solutions to the UK market and triples its cloud center capacity in the UK. "We are already among the most digitally connected countries in the world, with a globally successful digital economy worth more than 118billion a year and strong cyber security defences to protect consumers and business," said Matt Hancock, Minister of State for Digital and Culture. "Today's announcement by IBM is a further boost for this thriving area, and another vote of confidence which shows Britain is open for business. These new cloud data centers will help our firms work smarter and quicker to become the world-leading businesses of tomorrow." Cloud adoption rates increased to 84% in the UK over the course of the last five years, according to Cloud Industry Forum. IDC forecasts that the global market opportunity for public cloud services will exceed $195 billion by 2020.1 The expansion strengthens IBM's ability to bring clients greater flexibility, transparency and control over how they manage data, run their businesses and deploy IT operations locally in the cloud. These new facilities expand IBM's cloud data center footprint from two to six in the UK and 16 across Europe as part of IBM's network of more than 50 data centers worldwide. With these new data centers, clients have access to a complete portfolio of IBM cloud services for running their mission critical enterprise workloads and innovations through more than 150 digital services (APIs). These digital services are available via IBM's development platform, Bluemix and include Watson, IBM's cognitive intelligence technology that allows computers to think and learn like humans, building blocks for innovative Blockchain applications that increase trust in transactions, plus enabling technologies for Internet of Things (IoT) and analytics applications. Thomson, part of TUI UK & Ireland, the UK's largest tour operator, is trialling a new travel search tool, which leverages Watson cognitive services on the IBM Cloud with its customers giving them the opportunity to find travel inspiration by interacting with the virtual travel assistant. The tool is a smart chatbot that interacts with consumers to provide real-time search results on travel destinations and holiday inquiries, such as "I want to visit local markets/ go on an adventure/ have a cultured holiday/ see exotic animals". Thomson is tapping into IBM's Cloud data center in the UK and leverages Watson APIs such as conversation, natural language classifier and speech-to-text. The experimental website gains insights and learns from data via frequent requests to provide more digital intelligence that matches customer requirements. "By leveraging IBM's Cloud platform with Watson's cognitive intelligence we have raised the bar in the travel industry and delivered an interactive website to our digitally savvy customers in a fun and innovative way. We are excited to learn how customers interact and what they get out of the experience," said Jo Hickson, Head of Innovation, TUI UK&I. IBM Cloud Expands Capabilities for Highly Regulated Industries in the UK and EUIBM was first to offer cloud services to clients in the UK through an existing Cloud data center more than five years ago, which was swiftly followed by a second UK Cloud data center in 2014. IBM was recently cited as a "strong performer" in Forrester's latest Wave Report on global public cloud platforms in Europe. IBM also earned the highest possible score for its hybrid cloud strategy as well as the top ranking for IBM's infrastructure services.2 "By adding four new Cloud data centers in the UK, IBM is giving local businesses an easy route to the cloud, helping them quickly innovate and respond to market demands," said Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president of IBM Cloud. "IBM is continuing to invest in high growth areas, offering clients higher-value cloud data services such as Watson and Blockchain running on our cloud infrastructure that delivers world-class scalability, performance and security." IBM client Armakuni, a provider to financial services and fintech, commented: "Data security and residency are two key concerns when considering use of cloud services in financial services. IBM's investment and expansion of their cloud data center footprint in the UK goes a long way to address these concerns and enables us to better serve UK customers securely." IBM also signed an agreement to lease space within Ark Data Centres in the UK, which will see the second of the four new cloud data centers fully operational in mid-2017. Ark is the joint venture partner with the UK Government delivering public sector data center services under the Crown Hosting Framework. Crown Hosting, based in the same Ark facility, is already being used by a number of public sector departments and agencies. IBM Cloud: A Focus on Quality, Performance, Innovation and ChoiceClients choosing IBM Cloud services will benefit from the company's experience across public, private and hybrid cloud deployments and easy access to cloud innovations on a simple pay-as-you-go model. Clients also benefit from services like load balancing, auto scaling, object storage, bandwidth pooling and Static IPs that are resilient across the cloud data centers in the UK. From migrating existing workloads to the cloud for the first time to supporting advanced applications that draw on High Performance Computing and cognitive technologies, IBM Cloud data centers are distinct in several ways: Modern Infrastructure: The new facilities are designed to provide users with the largest portfolio and pool of bare metal servers in the market delivering up to an 8X performance increase on database applications. This design also means clients can mix infrastructure resources, including bare metal servers, virtual servers, storage, and networking, to find the right balance for their workloads. These facilities will also offer users the latest IBM POWER and x86 processors, NVIDIA GPU accelerators, OpenPOWER-based servers, SAP HANA applications and IBM Bluemix development tools. The new facilities are designed to provide users with the largest portfolio and pool of bare metal servers in the market delivering up to an 8X performance increase on database applications. This design also means clients can mix infrastructure resources, including bare metal servers, virtual servers, storage, and networking, to find the right balance for their workloads. These facilities will also offer users the latest IBM POWER and x86 processors, NVIDIA GPU accelerators, OpenPOWER-based servers, SAP HANA applications and IBM Bluemix development tools. Enhanced Network Performance: All IBM Cloud data centers connect to a global backbone network that enables seamless data transfer, lower latency, and more consistent network performance between cloud infrastructure and end users around the world. With this innovative network foundation, high-bandwidth apps and services like video streaming, database querying and HPC applications perform at their best. All IBM Cloud data centers connect to a global backbone network that enables seamless data transfer, lower latency, and more consistent network performance between cloud infrastructure and end users around the world. With this innovative network foundation, high-bandwidth apps and services like video streaming, database querying and HPC applications perform at their best. Next-Generation Data Center Capabilities: Clients using these facilities will also have access to IBM Watson, Blockchain, IoT and other leading cloud-based services through more than 150 open APIs. IBM provides a complete stack of cloud services with IaaS, PaaS and SaaS capabilities that can be accessed. The new facilities provide clients greater flexibility, transparency and control over how they manage data, run business operations and deploy IT operations locally in the cloud. The facilities also connect to IBM's public data centers around the world to help clients transfer and replicate their data in multiple locations and quickly balance or reroute workloads between multiple locations. UK Clients Already Benefitting from IBM CloudHundreds of UK clients of all sizes are already taking advantage of the benefits IBM Cloud offers including Dixons Carphone, National Express, National Grid, Shop Direct, Travis Perkins PLC and Wimbledon. Dixons Carphone, Europe's largest telecommunications retailer, migrated to IBM Cloud to integrate two distinct infrastructures following its 2014 merger, and enable easy scaling to better manage seasonal shopping trends. "One of the biggest IT challenges in the retail industry is performance, reliability and rapid scalability to manage the peaks and valleys of seasonal shopping trends. IBM's investment and expansion in the UK provides us with an even more seamless ecommerce and retail experience for our customers during these busy retail periods including holidays and new product launches," said David Hennessy, IT Director, Dixons Carphone. IBM's Global Cloud FootprintWith more than 50 global cloud data centers, IBM helps companies securely manage and gain insight into their data no matter where it resides. The news also reinforces IBM strong cloud presence across Europe, and the additional facilities announced today uniquely position IBM as the market leader with more UK data centers than any other vendor. In September, IBM announced the opening of its first cloud data center in the Nordics. The addition of the new UK data center facilities will mark 16 IBM data centers across Europe. The new UK facilities will enable companies of all sizes to digitize business and operations and drive innovation through the IBM Cloud. The first facility will open in Fareham at the end of December, with three more opening in the UK next year. About IBM Cloud: For more information, visit: http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing. Media ContactEmma BennettIBM UKI External Communications CloudE mail - [email protected]Mobile - 07976 839109 1 IDC Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Spending Guide, 10th August 20162 The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Public Cloud Platforms in Europe, Q4 2016 Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441872-INFO Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441873 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ibm-triples-cloud-data-center-capacity-in-the-uk-300367029.html SOURCE IBM DENVER and AVON, Colo., and LEWIS CENTER, Ohio (PRWEB) November 22, 2016 Two healthcare facilities developed by NexCore Group, a national healthcare real estate developer, have been honored as Finalists in Healthcare Real Estate Insights" magazine's annual, national awards program. NexCore, which is headquartered in Denver, developed the facilities in Avon and Lewis Center. The HREI Insights Awards" are the only national awards dedicated to recognizing excellence in the areas of healthcare real estate (HRE) development and executive leadership. The awards are presented by Healthcare Real Estate Insights" magazine, the first and only national magazine entirely devoted to covering HRE development, financing and investment. Todd Varney, NexCore Managing Director Development and Acquisitions, noted, "We are very pleased that HREI magazine has honored two of NexCore's projects Buck Creek Medical Plaza and MC Fitness & Health as Finalists in their prestigious annual awards program. NexCore always strives to help our clients realize their goals with high quality, cost-effective and efficient facilities that deliver excellent healthcare services in the communities they serve. These two facilities embody the realization of those goals." NexCore projects were named Finalists seven times and a Winner one time in the three previous years of the highly competitive HREI Insights Awards" program, whose results are announced each December. The NexCore-developed projects that were named 2016 Finalists are: Buck Creek Medical Plaza, Avon, Colo. A Finalist in the "Best New Medical Office Buildings (MOBs) and Other Outpatient Facilities (25,000 to 49,999 square feet)" Category, Buck Creek Medical Plaza is a $28 million, three-story, 48,300 square foot MOB and freestanding emergency department (FED)/urgent care center located in the heart of the Vail Valley. The facility, which opened in June 2016, realized the longstanding, elusive goal of a new, one-stop outpatient center in the Valley, further complicated by unique geography, topography and extremely high concentration of government-owned land. In a unique collaboration, NexCore was able to secure the perfect 2.15-acre parcel through an ingenious and exemplary land swap that involved the Eagle River Fire Protection District, the City of Avon, and New York financier and Vail resident Oscar Tang, an individual highly committed to the Vail Valley, who owned adjacent land. NexCore fast-tracked its process and broke ground on Buck Creek seven months later. With anchor tenants Centura Health and Colorado Mountain Medical, and other specialties such as physical therapy, dental and allergy, top-quality healthcare is being delivered to a Colorado mountain community that has been especially challenged by the changes in medical care during the past few years. Buck Creek Medical Plaza's centralized location with great visibility, beautiful views, access from U.S. Interstate 70 and free parking provides the kind of care the Vail Valley community demanded and deserved, while further establishing the area as a top-notch resort and residential community with quality healthcare, physicians and diversified jobs. With its vibrant mix of providers, Buck Creek Medical Plaza was 94 percent leased at opening. The service mix creates a built-in referral network for tenants and is projected to generate 88,000 annual patient visits. MC Fitness & Health, Lewis Center, Ohio A Finalist in the "Best New MOBs and Other Outpatient Facilities (100,000 square feet or more)" Category, MC Fitness & Health is a $40 million, three-story, 130,000 square foot MOB, hospital outpatient clinic, medical fitness center and FED in the fast-growing Columbus, Ohio, suburb of Lewis Center. Mount Carmel Health System (MCHS) wanted to develop an outpatient center to protect and increase its market share in the economically thriving area in Delaware County. The new facility would be part of the MCHS "hub and spoke" ambulatory network, feeding Mount Carmel St. Ann's Hospital in Westerville about eight miles away. MCHS also envisioned the facility as a community center focused on wellness that would signal the system's move toward value-based care. MCHS identified Lewis Center and the U.S. 23 corridor as the ideal area for the facility, with its great visibility/branding, ease of patient access, future growth opportunities and a strategic location in a growing suburban retail corridor. NexCore led the site acquisition process, including market demand analysis, site identification, site due diligence, site selection and land closing. NexCore helped MCHS develop its program for the outpatient/medical fitness center, refine space requirements, and right size the facility. Six months into construction, MCHS wanted to change the urgent care center to an ED to accommodate service needs in Delaware Co. NexCore's team redesigned the interior space, reengineered mechanical/electrical systems, priced construction and presented a proposal to MCHS in 37 days. MCHS accepted the proposal, and NexCore fast-tracked development of the ED, which opened just 45 days after the rest of the facility. NexCore facilitated early collaboration on program and design for the facility, resulting in efficient use of space and funds. They were able to reduce the required land area from 13 to 11 acres, thereby reducing land and site development costs by over $600,000, which translated to lower lease rates for MCHS and other tenants. NexCore helped MCHS bring a one-of-a-kind outpatient facility to Lewis Center/Delaware County, one that offers patients a complete continuum of care (prevention, diagnosis, treatment, retail services) and responds to healthcare reform. Since the facility opened, MCHS has implemented many community engagement and population health management initiatives, including a monthly lecture series, hosted events (cook-out and pool party, several 5K races, and Women's Day), partnerships with local schools and recreational teams (swim meets, mentor program and volunteer program for developmentally disabled students), participation in SAFE Coalition for Delaware County and Partnership for a Healthy Delaware County, and corporate/senior discounts. The HREI Insights Awards" will be presented live Dec. 8 at the RealShare Healthcare Real Estate Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. For more information on the awards, please see http://www.HREInsights.com. About NexCore Group LLC NexCore Group develops healthcare facilities for hospitals, health systems and physicians. We solve complex real estate challenges through innovative building solutions and creative financial structures. In a rapidly changing healthcare industry, NexCore has the superior expertise to deliver quality environments and flexible spaces that help grow your business, lower expenses and mitigate risk. Over the past 25 years, NexCore has developed and acquired a total of 6.1 million square feet of health care facilities across the country. Our company has been recognized repeatedly as one of the Top Healthcare Real Estate Developers in the U.S. by Modern Healthcare magazine. NexCore is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, and as the company continues to grow so does its geographic reach. Over the last several years, NexCore has opened regional offices in Chicago; Bethesda, Md.; Portland, Ore.; Dallas; Orlando, Fla.; and Laguna Niguel, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.nexcoregroup.com. Contact: Tracy Hindman, Marketing Director, 303-293-0673. 30 - Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/NexCore/HREIInsightsAwards/prweb13868974.htm Anorexic woman weighing 69 pounds has a right to starve, court rules By Samantha Schmidt November 22The 69-pound woman has battled anorexia for the majority of her life. In her preschool dance classes, she compared the size of her thighs to other girls limbs, and when she was 13, she started purging.Earlier this month, after spending nearly two years in a New Jersey psychiatric hospital, the 29-year-old woman with a bone density of a 92-year-old told a court that she refused to eat any food, and wished to enter palliative care instead, which focuses on the comfort of the seriously or terminally ill.A Superior Court judge ruled Monday that she cannot be fed against her will, and it is in her best interest to be transferred to a palliative care unit.In a 140-minute opinion delivered orally at the bench, and shaped by landmark court decisions on personal self-determination, Morris County Judge Paul Armstrong called the womans testimony, forthright, responsive, knowing, intelligent, voluntary, steadfast and credible, the Wall Street Journal reported. Therefore, he ruled, the woman, referred to only as A.G., has the mental capacity to choose not to accept nutrition.The state, which runs the psychiatric hospital where A.G. resides, argued the woman is mentally ill due to depression, and that by approving the withdrawal of force-feeding the court would essentially be allowing her passive suicide, the Daily Record reported. Palliative care would simply provide drugs to numb her pain and ease her own death, wrote Deputy Attorney General Gene Rosenblum.In court papers, A.G. has said she is prepared to die but also envisions living an independent life. The 5-foot-6-inch-tall woman said she believes any weight about 70 is too much for her, and force-feeding is an effort to make her fat, wrote Peggy Wright, a Daily Record reporter, in an earlier article.Good work, judge. I firmly believe in upholding the right to be fatally crazy and/or stupid. YAOUNDE (Reuters) - Suspected Boko Haram militants launched three attacks in northern Cameroon within 24 hours, including a thwarted suicide strike on a camp for people who have been displaced by the conflict, security sources said on Tuesday. The Islamist militant group is based in northeastern Nigeria but regularly carries out raids in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, prompting the four countries plus Benin to create a 10,000-strong joint task force. The frequency of the attacks has dropped in recent months, although more than 1,500 people have been killed in Cameroon by such attacks, International Crisis Group said in a report this month. Attacks were happening on an almost daily basis, but have dropped to between six and eight a month, it said. Only one of this week's strikes, at a military camp at Darak where six soldiers were killed, resulted in the deaths of people other than the attackers themselves, the sources said. "Between yesterday and today there were three attacks: in Darak, in Diguina and a thwarted kamikaze strike in the Kolofata (camp)," said a senior army source who asked not to be named, referring to three places in the Far North Region of Cameroon. On Monday, a young women armed with explosives attempted to enter a military post for soldiers adjacent to a camp for thousands of people displaced by the militant group. "We thought it was a beggar at first but then she sped up and refused to stop when we shouted at her so she was neutralized," said an intelligence source. In the third incident, militants set fire to houses in the village of Diguina, the sources said. (Reporting by Sylvain Anzongo in Yaounde and Josiane Kouagheu in Douala; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Alexander Smith) SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgarian prosecutors charged the outgoing health minister on Monday with mismanagement that led to state losses of more than $400,000 relating to an agreement over the supply of vaccines from neighboring Turkey. Prosecutors said the deal, which Petar Moskov signed, had proven unprofitable for Bulgaria and created distrust between patients and the Health Ministry. Moskov denies any wrongdoing. Under the terms of the agreement signed last year, Turkey donated 100,000 doses Pentaxim, a combination vaccine for infants, and 100,000 doses of the hepatitis vaccine Euvax to Bulgaria to enable it to fulfill its child immunization timetable. In return, Bulgaria had to supply to Turkey 5 million doses of vaccines, mainly against tuberculosis. The Euvax vaccines, however, were not used as they are not allowed in the European Union, but the Bulgarian Health Ministry still paid 323,000 levs ($175,145) in value-added tax as well as delivery costs. Moskov was also accused of overstepping his authority by asking a state pharmaceutical company that made the vaccines to donate them to Turkey, thus avoiding paying the production costs of 413,370 levs. Moskov told reporters the deal was done to keep the immunization program on schedule at a time when Bulgaria was experiencing a shortage of the necessary vaccines. He said that the prosecutors did not take into account that while the cost of vaccines donated to Turkey was 400,000 levs, the ones Bulgaria received in exchange were worth 4 million levs. Moskov's deputy, Adam Persenski, was also charged over the vaccine deal. He was not immediately available for comment. Last week, Bulgaria's parliament approved the resignation of Moskov along with the rest of Prime Minister Boiko Borisov's center-right minority government, opening the way to months of political uncertainty and a likely snap election in early 2017. Borisov decided to step down after his center-right GERB party candidate lost the presidential election to a political novice backed by the opposition Socialists. Three former Bulgarian energy ministers were charged in the past weeks with mismanagement that led to significant state losses in relation to the Belene nuclear plant. Their cases have yet to come to court. They all denied wrongdoing. (Reporting by Angel Krasimirov; Editing by Alison Williams) By Fabiola Ortiz MARRAKESH, Morocco (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, a member of Chads Mbororo pastoralists, first went to talk to the men of her community about climate change, she found herself sitting on the floor. The chiefs who take all the decisions are men. Talking to them was not easy, she remembers. I had to sit down on the floor while the chiefs were sitting on chairs. (But) I greeted them and said I needed to talk to them about a very important thing, I needed to talk about our future. Since then, Ibrahim, 32, has become a rarity in her culture: an educated woman who takes the stage at home and internationally to speak out on the need for action on climate change, and on rights for women and indigenous groups. Being an indigenous woman in Africa is a double marginalisation, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on the sidelines of the U.N. climate talks in Morocco, which finished last weekend. Ibrahim was born the third of five brothers and sisters in her family and, unusually, was allowed to go to school by her father. Such opportunities are rare for girls in the culture of the Mbororo, a group of pastoralists living in the Sahel across Chad, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and the Central African Republic, she said. Education has enabled her to become a spokeswoman in her community, working to engage women in local decisions, she said. She is now a co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change and head of an association for indigenous women in Chad. NOT TAKEN SERIOUSLY But being heard, as a woman, has not been easy, she said. Even today, when she tries to approach men in authority, she is often dismissed. It is just a woman. We cannot take what she says seriously, male officials have told her. But I take the opportunity to put my ideas on the table, she said. Men in her culture want to be the ones making decisions, but they also need to hear what women have to say. We should be respected, she said at the climate talks, where she spoke on a variety of panels. Over the last decade, she said, her pastoralist community has seen climate change emerge as a major concern. We can compare how the environment is changing just by seeing how many liters of milk we can get from the cows, she said, noting that the quantity has halved compared to a few years ago, a major concern in a culture that depends heavily on the animals for food. Now we dont have enough milk, Ibrahim said. We are trying now to eat more cereals but most of us dont know or have never eaten (them). Drying waterholes are also a problem for the Mbororo, who travel long distances across national borders in the Sahel, Ibrahim said. When we move we stop next to a waterhole. We stay around three or four months before moving to another place. I remember I used to swim in the waterholes and the cows could drink the water, she said. But now we dont find these waterholes anymore. They have disappeared forever, she said. Changing pasture plants including one that makes cattle sick and rising temperatures are also a major concern, she said. Collecting enough food and water is taking an increasing amount of time for women, she added. They have to double the work they are doing. They have to go very far and have to walk for a very long time, she said, to gather water and increasingly rare medicinal plants. MAPPING RESOURCES In response to those growing challenges, Ibrahim has worked to help the Mbororo community have a stronger voice in government decision making in Chad and to better manage their own natural resources. One of the most interesting projects shes been part of, she said, was creating a three-dimensional map of Mbororo resources that tapped into traditional knowledge. The process of creating the map gave community members particularly women new self-confidence and should give the community greater control over its land, she said. The men from the communities helped in saying at which points the mountains, the rivers and the sacred places are located. And the women said where the places are they collect water and food. We gave voices to men and women equally in this project, she said. Afterward, we presented this project to policymakers telling them that we know how to manage our land and natural resources. So when the government comes with a project, they will have to consult us and we can inform them where we agree that projects could be implemented, she said. The effort, in partnership with Chads government, the national technical agriculture center and Chads meteorological agency, should help protect indigenous rights, Ibrahim said. The human rights aspect should be at the heart of the actions that countries take to implement climate solutions, she said. When it comes to climate change, I want action on the ground, not only words in papers, she said. (Reporting by Fabiola Ortiz; editing by Laurie Goering :; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate) BOGOTA (Reuters) - The leadership of Colombia's Marxist FARC rebel group arrived in Bogota on Monday for meetings ahead of the signing of a new peace agreement with the government to end a half century of war, the insurgent group said. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been in talks in Havana, Cuba for the last four years, hammering out a deal to end a conflict that has killed more than 220,000 and displaced millions. The latest accord aims to satisfy objections made by millions of Colombians who voted down the original deal in a referendum last month. It is still not clear how the new accord will be approved, but it seems likely it will be ratified in Congress rather than via another plebiscite. President Juan Manuel Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last month for his efforts to end the war, is expected to sign the new document with FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, but the timing has not yet been announced. "National secretariat of the FARC is in the city of Bogota for meetings about the implementation of the definitive accord," Nuevo Colombia, the FARC's press unit, said in a Tweet. It is not known where the rebel commanders will stay while they are in the capital, but security will be extremely tight. Santos said on Saturday that he will allow the new accord to be debated in Congress before it is approved and passed into law. The government last week published the revised deal, which addresses some of the objections to the original text, but leaves unchanged two of the thorniest complaints. The 310-page document clarified private property rights and detailed more fully how the rebels would be confined in rural areas for crimes committed during the war. But it did not include jail terms for rebel leaders or a ban on them holding public office. (Reporting by Helen Murphy; Editing by Jonathan Oatis) The logo of Electricite de France (EDF) is seen at the entrance of the nuclear power plant as steam rises from the cooling towers in Nogent-sur-Seine, France, October 20, 2016. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau By Geert De Clercq PARIS (Reuters) - The renewable energy unit of French state-owned utility EDF (NYSE: EDF) is in talks with Chinese companies about a possible partnership to build offshore wind parks in China, the company said. EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Levy said last year the firm wants to nearly double its renewable energy capacity worldwide to more than 50 gigawatts by 2030 from about 28 GW. EDF Energies Nouvelles (EDF EN) CEO Antoine Cahuzac told reporters on Tuesday that EDF will target areas with growing power needs like Latin America, China, India and sub-Saharan Africa. It will also focus on offshore wind, a new and growing industry in which EDF is still a minor player for now. "We've started discussions with some Chinese partners to see whether we will go into offshore wind in China," Cahuzac said. He said that given high power demand and urban density in southern China, offshore wind would make sense there. Cahuzac said EDF is the only European utility with a dedicated renewables unit in China following its July 2016 acquisition of UPC Asia Wind Management, which has over 1.3 GW under development, construction or operation in China. Including that deal, EDF EN now operates more than 10 GW in installed wind capacity globally. Compared to Dong Energy of Denmark and Germany's E.ON , EDF is a newcomer in offshore. It operates the small 62 MW Teesside park in Britain, has a 9 percent stake in Belgium's 325 MW C-Power park and this summer launched construction of the 100 MW Blyth park in Britain. In 2012 it won a tender to build 1,500 MW on France's Atlantic coast, but due to red tape and legal recourse the turbines will not come online before 2021. "We have the capacity to operate in the offshore wind industry," Cahuzac said. EDF will start close to home but wants to develop internationally and China is one of its targets. Cahuzac said EDF EN is one of the world's top 10 wind developers and in the top five when excluding Chinese firms, who operate mainly domestically. He said EDF EN the top wind developer in North America in 2015. EDF typically develops its own wind parks, then sells stakes to investors, keeping about 50-60 percent ownership. He said its developments are mostly funded with project finance, unlike Italy's Enel , which uses more corporate funds to finance its developments. In recent years, EDF has spent 1.5-2 billion euros per year to develop renewables. Cahuzac said that EDF has a pipeline of about 12 gigawatt of projects in France, the United States, Latin America and other areas. (Reporting by Geert De Clercq; editing by Ed Osmond/Ruth Pitchford) By Kieran Guilbert DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Up to a million people around West Africa's Lake Chad are cut off from humanitarian aid by Boko Haram despite a regional military offensive against the Islamist militants, a United Nations official said on Tuesday. Boko Haram violence has uprooted more than 100,000 people across the swamplands of Lake Chad, where the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria meet, and disrupted the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of others, according to aid agencies. Security sources say a regional task force is wrestling back control of the lake - where Boko Haram controls part of the fishing industry in a labyrinth of waterways - with hundreds of militants having surrendered in the past month. Yet many areas are impossible to reach amid the insecurity, said Toby Lanzer, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel. "We believe that there are up to a million people in the areas and villages we haven't been able to reach," Lanzer said. Boko Haram militants have killed about 15,000 people and displaced more than 2.6 million in a seven-year insurgency and they still launch deadly attacks despite having been pushed out of the vast swathes of territory they controlled in 2014. Some of the displaced in the region have moved again due to fear of further violence or as a result of attacks by Boko Haram, two of which were recorded last month, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). "We are very concerned about the security situation ... do not think that the crisis is anywhere near over," Lanzer told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. Chad earlier this year extended the state of emergency in the region, which has disrupted fishing, farming and cattle breeding and hit cross-border trade, markets and livelihoods, according to the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP). Malnutrition rates in the lake region have dropped slightly over the past year as humanitarian access has improved, said Martha Nakakande of the International Medical Corps (IMC). "But with people spread over so many different islands and IDP (internally displaced persons) sites, we are worried that we can't reach everybody," the IMC's nutrition officer said. (Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, Editing by Katie Nguyen. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org) By Ayman al-Warfalli BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Authorities in eastern Libya say they have arrested a woman believed to be the wife of veteran Algerian jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar after she traveled from southern Libya to the city of Derna to give birth. East Libya's counter-terrorism department said the woman, named as Tunisian Asma Kadoussi, had told investigators that Belmokhtar was alive and living in southern Libya. A spokesman for the department, Sami al-Matrih, told Reuters on Monday that Kadoussi had given birth to a girl 40 days ago. Belmokhtar, leader of the al-Mourabitoun group, has long been a major militant figure in the Sahel with deep connections across the region. He has repeatedly been pronounced dead by authorities before resurfacing to plot attacks or kidnappings, including a raid on an Algerian gas plant that killed 40 workers in 2013. In June 2015, Belmokhtar was targeted by a U.S. air strike in the eastern Libyan city of Ajdabiya, but his group declared shortly afterwards that he had survived. The east Libyan counter-terrorism office said in a statement that Kadoussi had been traveling with a second Tunisian woman, Afaf Haji, and that the two had stayed with an al Qaeda militant in Derna named as Jibril al-Abd. They were detained on a road south of Derna after hospital staff in the city tipped off authorities because a foreign woman had checked in to give birth without her husband, the statement said. According to initial investigations the two women had earlier been staying in "terrorist camps" in the central Libyan desert region of Jufra with Belmokhtar, and the statement said that "it was him who sent them to Derna for the birth". Authorities posted photos of Tunisian identity cards and forged Libyan passports that they said the women were carrying. Derna has historically been a stronghold for Libyan Islamists, and Islamic State took control of the city in 2014 before being ousted by rival Islamists and other opponents. The city, about 250 km (155 miles) east of Benghazi, is now the scene of fighting between security forces loyal to Libya's eastern government and an Islamist-led alliance. Militants loyal to both al Qaeda and Islamic State have a presence in the vast expanses of Libya's southern desert, an increasingly lawless space due to the conflict that developed after Libya's 2011 revolution. Now in his 40s, Belmokhtar fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s before joining the Islamic Armed Group (GIA) during the Islamist insurgency in Algeria in the 1990s. He then helped found the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), which later transformed into al Qaeda's North African wing. As well as the 2013 gas plant attack in In Amenas, which authorities said was planned from Libya, Belmokhtar has been blamed for kidnapping foreigners and running lucrative smuggling rings in the Sahara. (Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Richard Balmforth) UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION WASHINGTON, DC 20549 FORM 11-K ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 15(D) OF THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 A NNUAL R EPORT P URSUANT TO S ECTION 15( D ) OF THE S ECURITIES E XCHANGE A CT OF 1934 For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 or T RANSITION R EPORT P URSUANT TO S ECTION 15( D ) OF THE S ECURITIES E XCHANGE A CT OF 1934 For the transition period from to . Commission File Number 333-201017 A. Full title of the plan and the address of the plan, if different from that of the issuer named below: R IVERVIEW F INANCIAL C ORPORATION 401( K ) R ETIREMENT P LAN B. Name of issuer of the securities held pursuant to the plan and the address of its principal executive office: R IVERVIEW F INANCIAL C ORPORATION 3901 North Front Street Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17110 SUMMARY ANNUAL REPORT This is a summary of the annual report for Riverview Financial Corporation 401(k) Retirement Plan EIN 38-3917371 for January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2015. The annual report has been filed with the Employee Benefits Security Administration, as required under sections 104 and 4065 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Basic Financial Statement Benefits under the plan are provided from the trust fund. Plan expenses were $200,732. These expenses included $200,582 in benefits paid to participants and beneficiaries and $150 in other expenses. A total of 108 persons were participants in or beneficiaries of the plan at the end of the plan year, although not all of these persons had yet earned the right to receive the benefits. The value of plan assets, after subtracting liabilities of the Plan, was $4,275,235 as of December 31, 2015, compared to $3,768,024 as of January 1, 2015. During the plan year, the plan experienced an increase in its net assets of $507,211. This increase included unrealized appreciation or depreciation in the value of plan assets; that is, the difference between the value of the plans assets at the end of the year and the value of the assets at the beginning of the year of the cost of assets acquired during the year. The plan had total income of $707,943, including employer contributions of $267,984, employee contributions of $301,228, earnings from investments of ($49,930), and $188,661 in other income. The plan has assets held by the following regulated financial institution: Name of Institution: Pentegra Trust Company Value of Assets as of December 31, 2015: $4,149,909 Your Rights to Additional Information You have the right to receive a copy of the full annual report, or any part thereof, on request. The items listed below are included in that report: Financial information You may request, and examine or receive without charge, copies of statements from the regulated financial institutions listed above, describing the plan assets held during the year. You may contact the Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Labors Employee Benefits Security Administration if you are unable to examine or obtain copies of such information. To obtain a copy of the full annual report or any part thereof, or the statements from the regulated financial institution, write or call the office of the plan administrator: Riverview Financial Corporation P.O. Box B Marysville, Pennsylvania 17053 (717) 957-2196 The charge to cover copying costs will be $2.00 for the full annual report or $0.25 per page for any part thereof. There will be no charge for copies of the statements from the regulated financial institution. You also have the legally protected right to examine the annual report at the main office of the plan shown above and at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, DC, or to obtain a copy from the U.S. Department of Labor upon payment of copying costs. Requests to the Department should be addressed to: Public Disclosure Room, N-1513, Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20210. Additional Explanation Other income received by the plan included rollover/transfer contribution made by participants of $188,661. The plan has met the requirements to waive the annual examination and report of an independent registered public accountant. Form 5500 Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service Annual Return/Report of Employee Benefit Plan This form is required to be filed for employee benefit plans under sections 104 and 4065 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and sections 6047(e), 6057(b), and 6058(a) of the Internal Revenue Code (the Code). Complete all entries in accordance with the instructions to the Form 5500. OMB Nos. 1210-0110 1210-0089 2015 Department of Labor Employee Benefits Security Administration Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation This Form is Open to Public Inspection Part I Annual Report Identification Information For calendar plan year 2015 or fiscal plan year beginning 01/01/2015 and ending 12/31/2015 A This return/report is for: a multiemployer plan; a multiple-employer plan (Filers checking this box must attach a list of participating employer information in accordance with the form instructions): or x a single-employer plan; a DFE (specify) B This return/report is: the first return/report; the final return/report: an amended return/report: a short plan year return/report (less than 12 months). C If the plan is a collectively-bargained plan, check here D Check box if filing under: Form 5558; automatic extension; the DFVC program; special extension (enter description) Part II Basic Plan Information-enter all requested information 1a Name of plan RIVERVIEW FINANCIAL CORPORATION 401 (K) RETIREMENT PLAN 1b Three-digit plan number (PN) 001 1c Effective date of plan 01/01/2009 2a Plan sponsors name (employer, if for a single-employer plan) Mailing address (include room, apt., suite no. and street, or P.O. Box) City or town, state or province, country, and ZIP or foreign postal code (if foreign, see instructions) 2b Employer Identification Number (EIN) 38-3917371 Riverview Financial Corporation One Centre Square 200 Front Street Marysville PA 17053-0017 2c Plan Sponsors telephone number 717-957-1606 2d Business code (see instructions) 522110 Caution: A penalty for the late or incomplete filing of this return/report will be assessed unless reasonable cause is established. Under penalties of perjury and other penalties set forth in the instructions. I declare that I have examined this return/report, including accompanying schedules, statements and attachments as well as the electronic version of this return/report, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, it is true, correct, and complete. SIGN HERE 7/14/16 Kirk Fox Signature of plan administrator Date Enter name of individual signing as plan administrator SIGN HERE 7/14/16 Kirk D. Fox Signature of employer/plan sponsor Date Enter name of Individual signing as employer or plan sponsor SIGN HERE Signature of DFE Date Enter name of individual signing as DFE Preparers name (including firm name, if applicable) and address (include room or suite number) Preparers telephone number For Paperwork Reduction Act Notice and OMB Control Numbers, see the instructions for Form 5500. Form 5500 (2015) v. 150123 Form 5500 (2015) Page 2 3a Plan administrators name and address Same as Plan Sponsor 3b Administrators EIN 38-3917371 RIVERVIEW FINANCIAL CORPORATION ONE CENTRE SQUARE 300 FRONT STREET MARYSVILLE PA 17053-0017 3c Administrators telephone number 717-957-2196 4 If the name and/or EIN of the plan sponsor has changed since the last return/report filed for this plan, enter the name. EIN and the plan number from the last return/report: 4b EIN a Sponsors name 4c PN 5 Total number of participants at the beginning of the plan year 5 105 6 Number of participants as of the end of the plan year unless otherwise stated (welfare plans complete only lines 6a(1), 6a(2), 6b, 6c, and 6d). a(1) Total number of active participants at the beginning of the plan year 6a(1) 90 a(2) Total number of active participants at the end of the plan year 6a(2) 87 b Retired or separated participants receiving benefits 6b 0 c Other retired or separated participants entitled to future benefits 6c 21 d Subtotal. Add lines 6a(2), 6b, and 6c 6d 108 e Deceased participants whose beneficiaries are receiving or are entitled to receive benefits 6e 0 f Total. Add lines 6d and 6e 6f 108 g Number of participants with account balances as of the end of the plan year (only defined contribution plans complete this item) 6g 107 h Number of participants that terminated employment during the plan year with accrued benefits that were less than 100% vested 6h 13 7 Enter the total number of employers obligated to contribute to the plan (only multiemployer plans complete this item) 7 8a If the plan provides pension benefits, enter the applicable pension feature codes from the List of Plan Characteristics Codes in the instructions: 2E 2F 2G 2J 2K 2R 2T 3D 3H b if the plan provides welfare benefits, enter the applicable welfare feature codes from the List of Plan Characteristics Codes in the instructions: 9a Plan funding arrangement (check all that apply) 9b Plan benefit arrangement (check all that apply) (1) Insurance (1) Insurance (2) Code section 412(e)(3) insurance contracts (2) Code section 412(e)(3) insurance contracts (3) X Trust (3) X Trust (4) General assets of the sponsor (4) General assets of the sponsor 10 Check all applicable boxes in 10a and 10b to indicate which schedules are attached, and, where indicated, enter the number attached (See instructions) a Pension Schedules b General Schedules (1) X R (Retirement Plan Information) (1) H (Financial information) (2) MB (Multiemployer Defined Benefit Plan and Certain Money Purchase Plan Actuarial Information) - signed by the plan actuary (2) X I (Financial Information - Small Plan) (3) A (Insurance information) (4) C (Service Provider Information) (3) SB (Single-Employer Defined Benefit Plan Actuarial Information) - signed by the plan actuary (5) D (DFE/Participating Plan Information) (6) G (Financial Transaction Schedules) Form 5500 (2015) Page 3 Part III Form M-1 Compliance Information (to be completed by welfare benefit plans) 11a if the plan provides welfare benefits, was the plan subject to the Form M-1 filing requirements during the plan year? (See instructions and 29 CFR 2520.101-2.) Yes No If Yes is checked, complete lines 11b and 11c. 11b Is the plan currently in compliance with the Form M-1 filing requirements? (See instructions and 29 CFR 2520.101-2.) Yes No 11c Enter the Receipt Confirmation Code for the 2015 Form M-1 annual report. If the plan was not required to file the 2015 Form M-1 annual report, enter the Receipt Confirmation Code for the most recent Form M-1 that was required to be filed under the Form M-1 filing requirements. (Failure to enter a valid Receipt Confirmation Code will subject the Form 5500 filing to rejection as incomplete.) Receipt Confirmation Code SIGNATURES The Plan. Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the trustees (or other persons who administer the employee benefit plan) have duly caused this annual report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized. The community of Plattsmouth offers many positive aspects to its residents and newcomers including its school system, parks and recreation, restaurants, safety level, city services and businesses. Many in the Metro area, however, are not fully aware of all Plattsmouth has in its borders. To promote the city and all it has to offer, the city of Plattsmouth, Plattsmouth Chamber of Commerce and Plattsmouth Main Street Association partnered to hire Rebel Interactive, a digital branding agency in Omaha, to develop a new brand that would capture the essence of the town and encourage people to visit or live here. When brands commit to a real and genuine bold promise, and then create an experience that brings that promise to life two things happen. First, the brand speaks to and attracts only the people who are going to value it; and secondly, the transformation is from just another brand to a premium asset, said M.J. McBride, one of the two designers working on the Plattsmouth branding. M.J. and her partner Caroline McBride unveiled the brand during a meeting Oct. 10 at Plattsmouth State Bank. The new brand, Catch Our Current, incorporates a specific graphic design for the phrase and its offshoots that businesses, the city of Plattsmouth and promotional groups may incorporate in their advertising, signage and communication methods. The creation of Catch Our Current started with a brainstorming meeting among city representatives, leaders, business owners and others who helped the Rebel Interactive designers understand the passions, culture, values and visions for Plattsmouth. People in Plattsmouth are passionate about all of the comforts of a small town, while living within just miles of a big city, M.J. said. Main Street is also one of the valuable assets of Plattsmouth, but so is Mother Nature. You have Main Street and two rivers. M.J. said Plattsmouth needed a brand that has a log of energy and serves as a big umbrella to catch the spirit of the town. Catch Our Current showcases the rivers, new ideas and exciting events and activities Plattsmouth is known for. Soon, people will start seeing the logo on billboards, highway signage, on light pole flags and more. I think its very catchy, said Richard McKinley, president of Plattsmouth Historic Preservation Board of Directors. I really like the signage and logo. For the brand to work, the community needs to incorporate it. When you have something branded, it takes on a life of its own, M.J. said. City Administrator Erv Portis said he likes the new brand because it promotes the idea of Plattsmouth planning for its future. The public doesnt care where youve been. They only care about where you are going, he said. Mary Harding, Nebraska Public Power District Board of Director, noted the word current not only applies to the rivers flows but also to being up to date. It's today. Its now, she said. Portis said banners and decals are in the production process. Well start with wayfinding signage, he said. City vehicles will also bear the new logo. The new logo may also be incorporated into events, activities, promotions, news, arts and humanities, celebrations, history lessons, city council agenda, worship services, menu selections, real estate, business openings, recreational sites, campus attractions and new developments. Murdock Lions Club has completed another successful year in holding fund-raisers and supporting many worthwhile organizations in the community. This could not have been accomplished without the support of community members in helping members raise these funds. Members are very thankful for the support. The major fund-raisers each year is the peach sale in August, Fourth of July lunch and raffle tickets sold during the July 4 parade. Murdock Lions have provided a mobile screening unit for the school the past several years. In 2016, the unit tested 259 children of which 29 were referred to see an eye doctor and 14 children were referred to hearing specialists. This year, we have donated more than $2,000 with a small balance remaining to assist when needs arrives in the community, said Lions Club member Dan Murdock. We provided $900 in scholarships, $325 to support Boys and Girls State and the DARE program, Leader Dogs, Murdock Fire Department, Murdock Pride, Aldrich House. We also paid dues to assist Lions International and Nebraska Lions Foundation. The last two elections, members provided coffee and cookies free to voters. We are very interested in increasing our clubs membership and would like anyone interested to talk to any Lions Club member. We meet the third Monday of the month at 7 p.m. for a meal provided by Bulldogs and then we have a short meeting afterward. Think about joining us! Murdock said. Elmwood-Murdock Merchants Association (EMMA) is pleased to honor Walter (Jr.) and Carolyn Oehlerking as this years Grand Marshals for the Holiday Extravaganza Starry Knight Parade. They have been an integral part of the community for many years and are outstanding supporters of many civic groups including EMMA. Carolyn grew up on a farm near Murdock and graduated from Murdock High School and Nebraska Wesleyan University. She began a career in Ashland teaching high school English before marrying Walter in 1957. This next June they will be celebrating 60 years of marriage. After marrying, she taught in Nehawka and Elmwood and then started to raise a family. She enjoyed home extension clubs, Modern Mothers Club, and St. Paul United Methodist Women. Over the years, she was co-chair of the Red Cross Bloodmobile for many years and was on the first board of the Elmwood Senior Center and served as treasurer of that board for many years. Walter has lived in the Elmwood community all of his life. He grew up on a farm southwest of town and lived there for 77 years before moving across the road so son John could become the farm operator. He went to grade school in a one-room schoolhouse in the middle of the section before going on to Elmwood High School. In 1957 he was drafted into the U.S. Army and was considered a Korean veteran but ended up in Germany. Walter married Carolyn Stock, and they have two children, Mary Mueller and John Oehlerking. He has been involved in many community activities including the Stove Creek Rustlers 4-H Club, Lions Club, Legion Post #247, the Aldrich Foundation Board, St. Paul Methodist Church, and the Farmers Coop. He served on the Co-op Board for 33 years, 15 years as President of the Board. Walter was the 2009 Harvest Festival King and was inducted into the Nebraska Coop Council Hall of Fame. Both Walter and Carolyn love to travel and have been in all 50 states, much of Canada, and other countries around the world. They value their participation in the St. Paul Church. For the last 15 years, they have traveled to Louisiana in the winter to be part of the church mission, helping to relieve suffering around the world. Carolyn and Walter are proud to call Elmwood home. The Elmwood/Murdock community has served us well. It is a great place to live! We thank the community for providing us with the goods and services we needed, and we thank them for helping us raise our family, Carolyn said. More than 117 children in the Plattsmouth area will be thankful to have food over the weekends due to Woodhouse Auto Familys Backpack Challenge program, FoodBank for the Heartland and generous donations from the community. The program provides a bag of food for the weekend to children who otherwise wouldnt have any. The backpack includes two cereal pouches, two entrees, two shelf-stable milks, one juice box, one fruit cup and a fruit snack at a cost of $4 per unit. This is Woodhouses eighth BackPack Program Challenge, said Dustin Abrahams, Woodhouse Ford South in Plattsmouth sales manager. Each year, Woodhouse fundraises for the program in November. Woodhouse partners with people in the community. To donate you may go online at the Woodhouse site or stop in at Woodhouse or FoodBank for the Heartland. Woodhouse staff members volunteer to pack the bags and, in most cases, FoodBank for the Heartland distributes them. One in five kids in the food banks service area is at risk for hunger. The BackPack program provides food for hungry children at times when other resources are not available, information on Woodhouses website states. Each Friday, the food bank distributes 8,400 packs of food in 228 participating schools across Nebraska and western Iowa. And we still have kids on the waiting list. Woodhouse Auto Familys total goal this year is to provide food for 7,250 children in 90 counties. The program altogether helps about 8,400 children and there are still thousands waiting to get on the list. As of Nov. 17, Woodhouse Auto Family raised enough to provide for 5,358 children. Last year, we provided for 6,250 children. Once we hit 2,250 we will do something special for the community, Abrahams said. Between Plattsmouth and Conestoga schools, the program provides foods for 128 students. Of the 5,358 children provided for so far, Woodhouse Ford South raised enough to fill 117 backpacks. On Nov. 17, the program received a major boost with a donation of $5,120 from Under His Wings thrift store in Plattsmouth. The $5,120 feeds 32 children over the weekend for an entire school year, said Under His Wings Ministries Director Claudia Wylie. Unfortunately, there are only enough food packs to provide one per family. The oldest gets it and shares it with brothers and sisters. Employees actually go to the school and hand out the backpacks. All of them are packed by employees, Abrahams said. Wylie said Under His Wings hopes to provide for 50 children next year. Abrahams thanked Under His Wings for their donation. This is outstanding, he said. We appreciate this. The children appreciate this. The biggest reason we continue to do this is to grow the number of kids who can be helped. No child should go hungry. Some 15,000 archeological artefacts and 2,000 Fine Arts pieces will be exhibited at the museum in the Aduana building The Junta's Culture chief Rosa Aguilar taking in the exhibition. :: ALVARO CABRERA Malagas long-awaited Museum of Fine Arts now has an opening date. On 12 December, 19 years to the day after the first protest to demand the Aduana building be used for the citys artistic heritage, the doors will open to the public. The opening will be the final piece in the puzzle of the citys museum offering. The Museum of Malaga, across its 18,000 square metres (almost triple the size of CAC Malaga, the Picasso museum and the Carmen Thyssen museum), will exhibit 15,000 archeological artefacts and more than 2,000 Fine Arts pieces, tracking the citys heritage from the Prehistoric period, all the way through to the 21st century. It will be the biggest in Andalucia and will be among the best in Spain thanks to its collection of 19th-century paintings from the likes of Joaquin Sorolla, Carlos de Haes, Federico de Madrazo, Antonio Maria Esquivel, Vicente Lopez and Ramon Casas, as well as big names from Malaga school of painting such as Jose Moreno Carbonero, Enrique Simonet, Antonio Munoz Degrain, Jose Nogales Sevilla and Bernardo Ferrandiz. Rosa Aguilar, head of Culture at the Junta de Andalucia, led a visit to the new museum on Monday at which the official launch date was announced. She said: Whoever visits here will learn much more about what Malaga really is. Youll find a part of Malagas soul, its history and present. Asked whether the king and queen would be attending the official opening, she said: Well see. The problem is that the Royal Family have only recently been in Andalucia. Run by the regional government, the Museum of Malaga will have a budget of 2.5 million euros for the first year of operation and will employ 68 workers, 37 of which will from newly-created posts. As reported by SUR in October, entrance to the museum will be free. cafarchio.jpg Nicole Cafarchio, the third SPCA worker charged with stealing from the animal shelter. (Douglass Dowty | ddowty@syracuse.com) Syracuse, NY -- A former SPCA worker -- quietly arrested last month -- pleaded guilty today to stealing roughly $62,270 from the animal shelter. Nicole Cafarchio, 29, of Syracuse, was the third worker to be charged with stealing from the non-profit. She admitted cashing 15 checks in 2011 and 2012 as part of a scheme to steal from SPCA's accounts. Her arrest by the Onondaga County District Attorney's Office had not been publicized. Cafarchio, an administrative worker, has cooperated against two others charged with stealing far more from the SPCA, according to County Court Judge Anthony Aloi. Cafarchio pleaded guilty today to a promised sentence of five years of probation. As part of her sentence, she could get up to 6 months in jail, or weekends in jail, or no jail at all, depending upon a pre-sentence investigation, Aloi said. SPCA executive director Paul Morgan and vet assistant Taylor Gilkey have been charged with stealing far more money: almost $700,000 between them. Their cases have been in the spotlight. Morgan is accused of writing $475,000 in checks to himself to drain the SPCA's accounts. Gilkey admitted today to accepting $217,000 in checks from Morgan. Gilkey was promised 2 1/3 to 7 years in prison during her plea today. YORK COUNTY, PA. -- A former Syracuse man was shot and killed by a state police officer in Pennsylvania after the man drove away from a traffic stop, dragging the trooper behind him. Rasheem Singletary Rasheem Singletary, 25, of Petersburg, Va., who was killed Nov. 15, grew up in Syracuse and graduated from Corcoran High School, according to his obituary. He recently moved to Virginia. Singletary was driving south on Interstate 83 at about 1:30 p.m. last Tuesday near the Emigsville exit in York County, when he was pulled over by state police for an undisclosed traffic violation, according to Penn Live. Emigsville is between Harrisburg, Pa. and Baltimore. When a trooper walked up to Singletary's black Ford Focus, his uniform somehow got caught on the vehicle, according to state police. Singletary drove off, dragging the trooper behind him. The trooper was pulled for about three-tenths of a mile, with Singletary trying to crush him into the concrete median, according to Penn Live and a report by the York County Coroner's Office. Police said the trooper tried to stop Singletary using non-lethal measures, but authorities did not describe what the officer did. Unable to stop Singletary, the officer shot him, according to the coroner's report. Singletary was pronounced dead at the scene. The cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds, according to the report. Singletary's vehicle hit the median and a truck that was driving in the area, according to the report. The truck driver did not suffer serious injuries. It is unclear it those incidents happened before or after Singletary was shot. The state police withheld the officer's name because the incident is being investigated as an attempted murder of a state trooper, according to Penn Live. The officer's injuries were not life-threatening, according to reports. Kanye West In this Aug. 28, 2016, file photo. Kanye West appears at the MTV Video Music Awards at Madison Square Garden in New York. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File) By Richard Winton and Matt Hamilton Los Angeles Times (TNS) LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Police Department visited Kanye West as part of a disturbance call Monday, according to law enforcement sources, a day after the rapper abruptly canceled the rest of his tour. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not provide details about the incident but confirmed that police were called about 1:20 p.m. The case turned into a "medical emergency" and was handed off from the LAPD to the Los Angeles Fire Department, the sources said. West agreed to seek medical treatment, a law enforcement source said. The incident comes at a turbulent period for West, who walked off the stage three songs into his Saturday night concert in Sacramento and canceled Sunday's at the Forum in Inglewood three hours before showtime. On Saturday, West ranted about a few longtime friends and acquaintances, including Jay Z, Beyonce and Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. "I've been sent here to give y'all my truth, even at the risk of my own life," West said on Saturday night. "At the risk of my own success. I'll give y'all the truth. Jay Z, call me, you still ain't called me. ... Jay Z, I know you got killers. Please don't send them at my head. Just call me. Talk to me like a man." On Thursday during his concert in San Jose, West editorialized about racism and the Black Lives Matter movement before praising President-elect Donald Trump. West has indicated that he may run for president in 2020. WATERLOO, N.Y. -- A portion of the Thruway is closed Monday night due to a crash with injuries in the eastbound lanes near the Waterloo exit. All lanes on I-90 East, between Exit 41 (Waterloo / Clyde) and Exit 40 (Weedsport / Auburn) closed at 8:30 p.m., the Thruway Authority announced. The crash happened at mile marker 319, just before the Waterloo exit in Seneca County. No information about the crash was immediately available. Check back for updates. Morocco UN Climate Talks Participants at the COP22 climate conference stage a public show of support for climate negotiations and Paris agreement, on the last day of the conference, in Marrakech, Morocco, Friday, Nov. 18, 2016. (David Keyton / AP) Bjorn Lomborg is president and founder of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and a visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School. By Bjorn Lomborg | Special To The Washington Post The election of Donald Trump and Republican majorities in both houses have terrified environmentalists and climate campaigners, who have declared that the next four years will be a "disaster." Fear is understandable. We have much to learn about the new administration's plans. But perhaps surprisingly, what little we know offers some cause for hope. It should not need to be restated in 2016 that climate change is real and mostly man-made. It is hard to know whether Trump will acknowledge this. He has called global warming a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese, but stated that this was a joke; he denied the existence of climate change during the campaign, but supported global warming action as recently as 2009. What really matters is not rhetoric but policy. So far, we know that President Trump will drop the Paris climate change treaty. This is far from the world-ending event that some suggest and offers an opportunity for a smarter approach. Even ardent supporters acknowledge that the Paris treaty by itself will do little to rein in global warming. The United Nations estimates that if every country were to make every single promised carbon cut between 2016 and 2030 to the fullest extent and there was no cheating, carbon dioxide emissions would still only be cut by one-hundredth of what is needed to keep temperature rises below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius). The Paris treaty's 2016-2030 pledges would reduce temperature rises around 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. If maintained throughout the rest of the century, temperature rises would be cut by 0.31 degrees Fahrenheit. At the same time, these promises will be costly. Trying to cut carbon dioxide, even with an efficient tax, makes cheap energy more expensive -- and this slows economic growth. My calculations using the best peer-reviewed economic models show the cost of the Paris promises -- through slower gross domestic product growth from higher energy costs -- would reach $1 trillion to $2 trillion every year from 2030. U.S. vows alone -- to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 -- would reduce GDP by more than $150 billion annually. So Trump's promise to dump Paris will matter very little to temperature rises, and it will stop the pursuit of an expensive dead end. However, Paris was a well-meaning -- if flawed -- attempt to address a genuine global issue. With no international climate policies at all, it is probable that we would see a temperature rise of perhaps 7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. The United States needs to find a smarter solution. Climate economists have found that green energy R&D investment would be a much more efficient approach. This is very much in line with Trump's campaign promise of "investment in research and development across the broad landscape of academia" and with its suggestion that we could develop "energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels." This investment in U.S. ingenuity could help innovate the price of green energy down below fossil fuels. Only then will we truly be able to stop climate change. Statements by Trump's campaign also indicate that the next administration will create a global development and aid policy that recognizes that climate is one problem among many. Asked about global warming, the campaign responded, "Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water. Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria. Perhaps we should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population." This would be a big change. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development analyzed almost all aid from the United States and other rich nations and found that about one-third is climate-related aid. This is immoral when 2 billion people suffer from malnutrition, 700 million live in extreme poverty and 2.4 billion are without clean drinking water and sanitation. These problems can be tackled effectively today, helping many more people more dramatically than "climate aid" could. Despite its length, and for all of its heat and bluster, the election campaign left many unanswered questions and understandable concerns about the president-elect's positions on climate change, aid and development. But, surprisingly, there is now an opportunity. To seize it, the Trump administration needs to go beyond just dumping the ineffective Paris agreement, to an innovation-based green energy approach that will harness U.S. ingenuity. Far from being a disaster, such a policy could mean a real solution to climate change and help the world's worst-off more effectively. Jacqueline LHerault Hanson Dee, 72, of Milwaukee passed away on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, after a year-long struggle with cancer. Jacqueline was born on May 11, 1944, in Minneapolis to Emil and Audre Hanson. At the time of her birth, her father was serving in World War II on the Aleutian Islands. When he returned from the war, the family moved to Fremont. Jacqueline was a gifted student, winning top prizes and graduating as class valedictorian from Archbishop Bergan High School. She went on to Manhattanville College in Westchester, N.Y., where she majored in Russian. After a year, she returned to Nebraska to finish a degree in English at Creighton University where she belonged to Gamma Pi Epsilon, a national Jesuit honor society for women. A masters degree in journalism, and a law degree from Marquette followed. While studying at Marquette, Jacqueline served as editor-in-chief of the law review. A short career as a lifestyle reporter for the Omaha World-Herald and other publications was followed by nearly 30 years of practicing law. She was a member of The St. Thomas More and Federalist Societies. After retiring, Jacqueline devoted her free time to her family and to volunteering at the House of Peace where she gave legal advice to the disadvantaged. She was also an avid reader and book collector. Jacqueline was preceded in death by her parents, Audre Kerrigan and Emil Hanson; by her stepfather, John Kerrigan; and by her brothers, Richard and Gregory. She is survived by her sister, Kristine Casey (William) of Alexandria, Va.; her sister-in-law, Paula Hanson (Dennis Hein) of Denver; her son, T. Christopher Dee (Judith) of Oak Creek, Wis.; her daughter, Rebecca Thiele (David) of Hudson, Ohio; five grandchildren, Alexander, Ryan and William Dee, Katherine and Henry Thiele; her cherished nieces; and LHerault, Messick and Orme cousins. The funeral will be 11 a.m. Monday, Nov. 28, with a visitation at 9:30 a.m., at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, in Milwaukee. Internment in Fremont will follow at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Cathedral, House of Peace, Marquette Law School, Marquette University High School, The Salvation Army, Seton Catholic School (Hudson, Ohio), and St. Patricks Catholic Church (Fremont) would be appreciated. Today U.S. Congressman Jeff Fortenberrys office open, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., 641 N. Broad St., Fremont. Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 10 a.m., Chapter 5 Club, 136 N. Main St., Fremont. American Red Cross blood drive, 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Fremont City Auditorium. To schedule an appointment at the Fremont blood drive, call Marilyn Hammang at 402-721-6354 or Caryl Grorud at 402-721-4335. Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, noon, Chapter 5 Club, Fremont. American Red Cross blood drive, 12:30-6:30 p.m., St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Cedar Bluffs. To schedule an appointment, download the American Red Cross Blood Donor App, visit www.redcrossblood.org or call 800-733-2767 After School Chess, 4 p.m., Keene Memorial Librarys large meeting room, Fremont. Kids of all ages are invited to the library to learn how to play chess. Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 5:15 p.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont. TOPS 58, 6-7 p.m., St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Fremont. Weigh-ins are from 5:30-6 p.m. For more information, contact Nancy Wit at 402-727-6745. Narcotics Anonymous open meeting, 6:30 p.m., Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 540 W. Eighth St., Wahoo. Narcotics Anonymous It Works Group, 6:30 p.m., Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Education Building, west of the church, 1440 E. Military Ave., Fremont. Enter through the rear door. Al-Anon meeting, 8 p.m., Chapter 5 Club front room, Fremont. This support group is for families and friends of alcoholics. Narcotics Anonymous open meeting, 8 p.m., United Faith Church, 218 W. Gardiner St., Valley. Wednesday Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, noon, Chapter 5 Club, Fremont. Teen Games (ages 13-18) and Get Your Tech On For Tweens (ages 9-13), 4-5 p.m., Keene Memorial Library, Fremont. White Light City Tree Lighting, 5-6 p.m., Keene Memorial Library, Fremont. Thanks to a donation from the Debby Durham Family Foundation, Digg Site Productions was able to purchase nearly 1,500 white lights to be distributed through local churches and businesses and turn the community into a reflection of Fremonts White Light City tradition. A portion of those lights will be available to residents who attend the tree lighting event. Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 5:15 p.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont. Aerie meeting, 7 p.m., Fremont Eagles Club, Fremont. Fresh Hope Support Group, 7 p.m., Trinity Lutheran School, 16th Street and Luther Road, Fremont. The support group offers faith-based help for those with mood disorders and for loved ones trying to understand. For more information, call David and Wray Lynn Trost at 402-480-1777. Narcotics Anonymous Library Group, 7 p.m., Keene Memorial Library East Building, Fremont. Alcoholics Anonymous, 8 p.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont. Thursday Alcoholics Anonymous big book study, 10 a.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont. Community Thanksgiving Day Dinner, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Midland University dining hall, Fremont. The event is free and open to the public. A freewill donation box will be available for those whod like to contribute. Funds collected will help cover some expenses. No meal deliveries will be made this year. Free Community Thanksgiving Day Dinner, noon, Valley Veterans Club, 111 E. Front St., Valley. All are welcome. Donations are appreciated. Those who are able are asked to bring a side or dessert. The dinner is organized and sponsored by Spirit of Peace. Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, noon, Chapter 5 Club, Fremont. Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 5:15 p.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont. Narcotics Anonymous It Works Group, 6:30 p.m., Good Shepherd Lutheran Church East Building, west of the church, 1440 E. Military Ave., Fremont. Enter through the rear door. Alcoholics Anonymous big book study, 8 p.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont. Narcotics Anonymous open meeting, 8 p.m., First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 201 N. Davis Ave., Oakland. This page no longer exists or may have been moved.If you believe this is a mistake please email Amidst the din of good food and amiable company at an interfaith dinner recently, I was struck by the peculiarity of the context in which I was seated. In a place as progressive as Cambridge, one does not expect to come across people for whom progress doesnt necessarily equate to the future. The experience of sitting amongst individuals who mostly look to the abrahamic past as the closest that civilisation can ever get to perfection prompts a reassessment of the relationship between time, change, and advancement. Concepts such as evolution and the technological revolution do not entirely necessitate but have encouraged a linear attitude to time and progress. However, this idea that the future is always ahead of the past seems to have been shaken by recent world events. Correspondingly, the reverse, but equally horizontal, attitude that the pious past was a superior era of human history is called into question by the very existence of toilets and next-day delivery. As is always true of our complex and intricate world, the reality is rarely black and white. An alternative view, developed throughout the centuries by the likes of Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Twain, and Toynbee, is the rather hackneyed history repeats itself paradigm. Despite its banality, this particular perspective provides presently pessimistic liberals a whiff of hope. Montesquieu would not have you fear that the resurgence of the right-wing across the globe signifies humanitys penultimate step into the pit of despair. Rather, this last gasp of white- dominance is the penultimate stage in the cycle of glory and decline that makes the world and civilisations go round. In other words, things have to get worse before they get better. Perhaps Trump will lead the first world forth into apocalyptic self- destruction, whilst Europe flips us Brits off into an economic and social downward spiral. The hope lies in the idea that after we fall, we get the chance to build it back up again, but better. What has become clear from the democratic debacles that have lately devastated the United Kingdom and the United States is that something has to change. The fatal flaw of democracy has not only been exposed but realised through this whole affair. By democratic means, the people have elected a leader that some believe may become a dictator. At the very least, a man who seems intent upon taking away the rights of many of those to whom he is supposed to be accountable. If democracy has come to an orange 70-year-old comb-over holding, arguably, the most influential position in the world, the need for a restructuring seems unavoidable, and according to the historic recurrence camp, inevitable. Worse has happened in the land of the free, from President Andrew Jacksons Indian Removal Act of 1830 to the Willy Brown incident in 1919. And yet, it is the same America which, after Roosevelt dined with Booker T. Washington, the senator of Mississippi complained that the White House was now so saturated with the odour of nigger that the rats had taken refuge in the stable, saw a Black President in the Oval Office. America has been through unimaginable horrors, but it has also survived them. There are a multitude of interpretations concerning what this election says about human progress, and what the future holds. Whatever view one chooses to take, although we seem to be regressing at present, this does not necessitate that the future holds nothing but the beginning of The End. This may just be the storm before the calm. The Prime Minister was in Cambridge yesterday, 21 November, to tour the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, which houses facilities at the forefront of Cambridges research into genome organisation. This visit followed her speech the CBI's annual conference in London, where she announced a 2bn Government investment in R&D in order to ensure that the standard of science and technology research in the UK maintains its high standards. This funding is part of a new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, which will be distributed over the next four years and aims to back priority technologies, such as robotics and biotechnology. "Our modern Industrial Strategy will be ambitious for business and ambitious for Britain, The PM commented. "It is a new way of thinking for government a new approach. It is about government stepping up, not stepping back, building on our strengths, and helping Britain overcome the long-standing challenges in our economy that have held us back for too long. It is hoped that via this new fund, the UK will position itself into leading technological research on both a global and commercial stage. Gregoire Courtine has been commuting between his lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and a lab in Beijing, China, for more than a decade in order to carry out research on monkeys with spinal-cord injuries. Now, for the first time ever, partially-paralysed primates have been able to walk again. Published in the science journal Nature, Courtines research used wireless implants that stimulate electrodes in the leg in order to bypass the injured nerves and restore locomotion. This neuroprosthetic, or brain-spine, interface enabled a resus macaque to walk only six days after it was paralysed in its hind legs. It was a big surprise for us, commented Courtine. The gait was not perfect, but it was almost like normal walking. The foot was not dragging and it was fully weight bearing. Paralysis occurs when a spinal cord lesion prevents transmission of signals from the motor cortex in the brain to neurons that control muscle movement. Since nerves do not heal spontaneously, these debilitating injuries are often for life. Courtines approach, which involves four major components, may hold the key to future treatment. The first component is a brain implant, which records the activity of 50 to 100 neurons between the monkeys legs and the brain and beams it wirelessly in real time. A computer decodes the signals and passes them onto a pulse generator. The pulses are then transmitted to a second implant at the base of the monkeys spine, which stimulates nerves and allows specific leg muscles to contract and the monkeys to walk. By re-establishing a link between the brain and the spinal cord, researchers hope that eventually, the implant could help remaining nerves to regain control of lost functions and allow recovery of movement in people. Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon at Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland, said: For the first time, I can imagine a completely paralysed patient able to move their legs through this brain-spine interface. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. Google on Thursday fired back at the European Commissions charges that it violated antitrust law by imposing coercive rules on mobile operators and developers who use or write applications for its Android operating system. The EC this spring charged that Googles requirements to use its search engine and its Chrome browser on mobile devices running Android were coercive tactics. The EC also charged that Google prevented manufacturers from offering smart devices using rival operating systems based on the Android open source code. Google has not harmed competition through the way it offers the Android operating system, argued Kent Walker, general counsel for the company. On the contrary, Google has expanded competition, he said. Folly of Fragmentation First, the commissions case is based on the idea that Android doesnt compete with Apples iOS, Walker noted. We dont see it that way. Eighty-nine percent of respondents to the ECs own market survey considered Android and Apple as competitors, he pointed out. The ECs charges ignore the dangers of fragmentation in a mobile ecosystem, Walker said, noting further that the 1.3 million developers active as of 2015 needed a stable and consistent framework to operate in. Although developers can download and modify Android as they please, the fragmentation that creates has led to problems for operating systems like Unix and Symbian, he observed. When anybody can modify your code, how do you ensure theres a common, consistent version of the operating system, so that developers dont have to go through the hassle and expense of building multiple versions of their apps? Walker asked. Apple and Microsoft offer less choice of apps on their phones, he maintained. Android usually accounts for only one-third of preloaded apps, he said. Consumers can download apps they want to use, and the average user downloads an additional 50 apps over the lifetime of a device. Consumers downloaded 65 billion apps from Google Play in 2015, an average of 175 million a day. However, there are deep divisions within the tech industry and the open source community about the impact Android has left on competition. Critics Abound Android actually is a closed system, and any claim to the contrary is disingenuous, said Thomas Vinje, counsel to digital rights group Fair Search. Google imposes severe sanctions on those who defy its insistence on conformity, he pointed out. Phone makers that offer even a few phones that fail to comply with Googles straightjacket are cut off from all Google-branded products, according to Vinje. The EU seems be taking a fairly aggressive stance toward Google on other issues as well, noted Daniel Castro, vice president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Google has the facts on its side, he acknowledged, but its questionable how much that will matter in the end. Its hard to envision a scenario in which the company emerges completely unscathed, Castro told the E-Commerce Times. One of the reasons apps have been concentrated on Google devices is that consumers want what they need in one place, argued Karol Severin, an analyst at Midia Research. No matter how many searches or OSes are out there, the best ones are bound to rise to the top and start acting like chip leaders if they can, he told the E-Commerce Times. The Google argument that Android competes with Apples iOS is almost the same argument that Microsoft gave when it argued that it competed against the Mac OS in a separate case involving Windows, recalled Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. Ironically, then Google was one of the firms pushing for the adverse Microsoft judgment, while Apple actually defended Microsoft, he told the E-Commerce Times. The EC was in receipt of Googles response, spokesperson Ricardo Cardoso confirmed to the E-Commerce Times, and in keeping with its standard practice, it would give careful consideration to the companys arguments before deciding how to move forward. Fact - it's finally possible to stream Netflix to your PC in 4K quality. Reality - your PC almost certainly isn't capable of doing so. Here's why. Up to this point, the only way to stream Netflix in 4K quality was to either use a compatible Smart TV or a 4K streaming device like one of Roku's new set-top boxes. That restriction has always been a bit of a bummer for viewers with high-end PCs technically capable of driving a 4K streaming experience. One would think that now, with that restriction lifted, PC users would be jumping for joy. Nope, not even close. As it turns out, there are some serious restrictions in place for prospective 4K PC streamers. For starters, you'll need to be using Windows 10 and naturally, you'll want a 4K-capable display. Furthermore, one can only watch Netflix in 4K using Microsoft's Edge browser. The real kicker, however, is that you must be running a seventh-generation Intel Kaby Lake processor to reap the 4K rewards. This means that even Microsoft's brand new 27-inch Surface Studio all-in-one can't view Netflix in 4K. There are only a handful of laptops and convertibles on the market using Kaby Lake processors; desktop parts won't be here until sometime early next year. Who is to blame for this atrocity? Hollywood, of course. As The Verge highlights, DRM requirements from Hollywood studios and TV networks are incredibly strict as they're dead set on preventing users from capturing 4K streams and distributing them illegally on the web. Kaby Lake, as it so happens, is the only Intel processor family that supports 10-bit HEVC (a popular 4K video codec). That said, your best bet today to watch Netflix in 4K is either through a Smart TV or dedicated streaming device. Back in July, it was reported that Facebook had completed the first test flight of Aquila, the solar-powered drone it hopes will bring the internet to remote corners of the world. At the time, the company painted the initial test as a success, but it seems that The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) disagrees. Buried in Facebook's engineering blog - posted on the day of the test - are the only two sentences relating to the incident: "We are still analyzing the results of the extended test, including a structural failure we experienced just before landing. We hope to share more details on this and other structural tests in the future," it reads, though the company never did release any new information. According to a Bloomberg report, the NTSB has classified the failure as an accident, which means Aquila was "substantially damaged." The incident took place at 7:43 a.m. near Yuma, Arizona, but no one was injured and there was no damage to the ground. As noted by Mashable, the NTSB board requires operators of unmanned aircraft to report any accidents, and almost all of these are investigated in cases where the drone weighs over 300 pounds and requires a major repair. Aquila, which lacks a "traditional takeoff and landing gear," weighs just under 1000 pounds and has a wingspan similar in size to a Boeing 737. Responding to Bloomberg's report, a Facebook spokesperson said the company was happy with the test flight, which had "no major unexpected results." This could explain why it never disclosed the accident to the NTSB, and failed to mention that Aquila was substantially damaged during the numerous press interviews following the test flight. Facebook's ultimate goal is for Aquila to fly for up to three months at a time and be able to travel with a diameter range of up to 60 miles. It will beam down data at tens of gigabits per second using its lasers, which will be received by towers on the ground and converted into a Wi-Fi or LTE network. Sure, the gaming side is cool. Battling space aliens or shooting bad guys with virtual reality products like Google's new DayDream VR, Samsung's Gear VR, Sony's Playstation VR, or PC-driven systems like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift is a blast. But despite all the focus, I don't think gaming will bring VR into mainstream acceptance. In fact, having recently had the opportunity to spend some quality time with an HTC Vive headset powered by one of the first notebooks certified to support high-quality VR --- the Alienware 15 from Dell, powered by Nvidia's GTX 1070 GPU --- I am even more convinced. The challenge is that much of the VR-based games are designed for and targeted towards hard-core gamers, which only make up a fraction of even those who play computer or smartphone-based games---let alone the general population. Instead, to reach a wider audience, VR experiences and applications like virtual travel need to take center stage. There have already been some very interesting case studies done with bringing these types of non-gaming VR experiences to the elderly. I'm certain people of all ages will quickly become attracted to VR once they get a chance to try these devices with the right kind of applications. A great recent example is the newly released Google Earth app for Vive, an awe-inspiring example of how powerful and transformational VR can be. As with other iterations of Google Earth, you can explore any location on the planet, leveraging the impressive collection of satellite imagery Google has collected, or you can view some pre-designed "tours" of famous locations around the world. With the VR version, however, instead of just looking at these locations, you start to get a sense that you're actually in them. In fact, once you've tried the VR version, you realize the whole Google Earth concept was really made for virtual reality---it just won't be the same anymore on other platforms. The newly released Google Earth app for Vive is an awe-inspiring example of how powerful and transformational VR can be. As impressive as it is, however, Google Earth VR also highlights some of the challenges of current VR devices and experiences, particularly around the display resolution of current headsets. Some of the 3D buildings in cities, for example, look a bit "cartoon-like" because none of these systems have the graphical resolution (nor the data resolution behind them) to create a life-like viewing experience. Don't get me wrong---it's still great, but you can tell that we're still in the early stages of VR technology development for some of the really demanding applications. The challenges of the hardware setup also highlight that PC-based VR is not quite ready for the mainstream yet either. Though a VR-capable notebook is certainly a lot easier to move around than the big desktop rigs that have been necessary for VR until very recently, all the wires that the HTC Vive headset and its various accessories require makes mobility an unlikely option. HTC did just announce a new wireless accessory for Vive in China, but while it removes the direct wired connections from the Vive headset to the dongle box that plugs into the PC, there are still a lot of pieces that need to be powered and connected. Despite some of these hassles, the result is worth it: the all-encompassing 360 view that the Vive provides can be quite impressive, particularly on content specifically designed for VR. A surprisingly compelling example of this comes from Jaguar's new introductory experience for their upcoming electric car. Though it's essentially a VR product brochure for the newly announced vehicle, the application does a remarkable job of utilizing current generation VR technology to let you truly get inside and experience the car. Not only do you get to see via 3D models how different elements of the car function and come together, you can also view and explore the car's interior design and layout. Jaguar used this VR experience at the car's recent launch event in LA, but it's just as compelling now for anyone who wasn't there. More importantly, it highlights how companies will be able to leverage high-quality VR for creating some very persuasive marketing materials. The educational opportunities for VR are also enormous. From explorations of human anatomy, to science lessons on how atoms work, to virtual field trips, it's easy to imagine the kinds of applications that high-quality VR devices will start to enable. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to start seeing these kinds of applications show up on Sony's PlayStation VR---despite its gaming heritage. Once more people have the opportunity to see and experience the kinds of new possibilities that non-gaming VR can bring them, I'm certain we'll start to see the market grow well beyond its currently modest size. Bob O'Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting and market research firm. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech. This article was originally published on Tech.pinions. Ending all speculations, NASA has presented its paper on the new rocket propulsion concept known as EmDrive, which has caught the imagination of all space enthusiasts despite defying the core laws of physics and workability. The long-awaited EmDrive paper of NASA has now been peer-reviewed and published with the title, "Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio-Frequency Cavity in Vacuum." Published online on Nov. 17 in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Journal of Propulsion and Power, the research was done by the NASA Eagleworks Laboratory team. In the paper, the NASA scientists detailed how they tested the EmDrive technology for producing more thrust. Rumors had been swirling that NASA was developing an Electromagnetic Drive, or EmDrive, though physicists had dismissed it as an impossibility. The new paper hints at the eventual plunge of NASA into the technology. Credit goes to Roger Shawyer, a British researcher who pioneered the concept in 1999 and said thrust can be generated by bouncing microwaves inside a cone-shaped chamber. Apparently, that was against Newton's third law of motion, which insisted every action must have an equal and opposite reaction. In an EmDrive there is no exhaust to expel as an opposite reaction. In conventional propulsion, rockets expel superheated gasses and other material through their nozzles at high speeds. As a unique propulsion system, EmDrive does not require any rocket fuel. In fact, Shawyer claimed that EmDrive could send humans to Mars in just 70 days. Greater Efficiency According to the paper, Eagleworks Laboratories created a radio frequency resonant cavity thruster with a capacity to produce 1.2 millinewtons per kilowatt of thrust in vacuum. NASA used electricity to create the microwaves and bounced off waves in the closed copper cone. The fuel-free propulsion system of EmDrive that bounces off microwaves defies the law of physics that a system cannot produce thrust without a push in the opposite direction. Although how the EmDrive propulsion works remains a mystery, the study is trying to offer a controversial interpretation of the quantum mechanics to explain that. Called the pilot-wave theory, the new interpretation departs from the Copenhagen interpretation of the same by saying subatomic particles that take a fixed location have a role in this phenomenon. Principal investigator Harold White and his colleagues also measured the thrust. In their EmDrive variant, 1.2 millinewtons of force per kilowatt of energy was recorded, which was 100 times more than a normal solar-sailing spacecraft. No Propellant Needed Unlike solar sails, the EmDrive takes no propellant, with the microwaves coming from the power of solar panels. The best part is that EmDrive can render space travel cheaper and faster. However, there is still a long way to go as EmDrive is in a proof of concept mode and requires further validation, White said. However, the vetting by NASA and the successes that the EmDrive technology accrued by proponent Shawyer and some Chinese researchers who tested a model in 2012 makes it promising. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A new report claims Samsung is preparing to introduce a new color option for the Galaxy S7 in December. The company is supposedly planning to release a Glossy Black version of the Galaxy S7 to counter Apple's Jet Black iPhone 7. Leading up to the release of the Galaxy Note 7 in August, Samsung was having a very good year in the smartphone game. The company's Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge received stellar reviews at launch, and the pair remains the best-selling Android smartphones of 2016. The Galaxy Note 7 debacle and subsequent recall has forced Samsung to put major focus on its other flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, and in an effort to drum up sales of the Galaxy S7 edge, Samsung and major U.S. carriers recently launched a new Blue Coral color option of the handset, which was previously exclusive to the Note 7. Samsung Counters Apple's Rose Gold iPhone 6s And iPhone 6s Plus We reported in August, in what appeared to be a direct response to Apple's Rose Gold iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, that Samsung added a new Pink Gold color option to its Galaxy S7 and S7 edge lineup, which are exclusively sold through Best Buy. A new report claims Samsung isn't finished taking inspiration from Apple's iPhone color palette this year and is supposedly planning to launch a Glossy Black Galaxy S7 to match Apple's wildly popular Jet Black iPhone 7. New iPhone 7-Inspired Samsung Galaxy S7 To Launch Soon? SamMobile is reporting that sources in Korea claim Samsung will launch a new Glossy Black color choice to try and reignite sales of the Galaxy S7 and counter Apple's Jet Black iPhone 7 offering. Like Apple's Jet Black and Black color choices, Samsung's Glossy Black Galaxy S7 would be the second black variant in its flagship smartphone lineup, joining Black Onyx. The company may want to consider adding a Glossy White variant and beat Apple to the punch with its rumored impending Jet White iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. It's not clear if the new Glossy Black Galaxy S7 will be offered outside of South Korea, but considering the Blue Coral Galaxy S7 edge was released in many markets, chances are it will likely make its way to more countries. The company is also hard at work in bringing Google's latest and greatest version of Android to the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge and recently launched an Android 7.0 Nougat Galaxy Beta program that allows users to take the new OS out for a test drive before its release to the public. Samsung has already confirmed it plans on providing the software update for its former flagship Galaxy S6, S6 edge, S6 edge Plus and Note 5, although it's unclear when it will actually do so. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Oracle keeps expanding and its latest acquisition is Dyn, the DNS provider that was hit by a massive distributed denial of service attack last month. While many may not be very familiar with Dyn, you might remember the massive DDoS attacks that affected a number of large websites in October, including Twitter, PayPal, Netflix Reddit and more. Dyn is a large DNS provider that services those websites so when it was hit by the wave of DDoS attacks, it crippled other services as well. Oracle Acquires Dyn Oracle now plans to incorporate the DNS solution Dyn has to offer to its larger cloud computing platform, widening its scope and improving its own services. The enterprise services company already offers a range of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) products and is a large player on the market, competing directly against Amazon's AWS and the likes, and the Dyn acquisition could help it bolster its position and gain an edge against rivals. "Dyn's immensely scalable and global DNS is a critical core component and a natural extension to our cloud computing platform," says Thomas Kurian, Oracle's president of product development. "Oracle cloud customers will have unique access to Internet performance information that will help them optimize infrastructure costs, maximize application and website-driven revenue, and manage risk," adds Kyle York, Dyn's Chief Strategy Officer. Neither Dyn nor Oracle have discussed any financial details of the deal, but reports indicate that it could be worth more than $600 million. Dyn DDoS Attack Oracle makes no mention of whether it decided to acquire Dyn before or after the massive DDoS attack from October, but it likely set its eyes on the DNS provider long before that. Kurian also sent a letter to partners and customers, notifying them of the new Dyn acquisition, but made no mention of the crippling DDoS attack that hit the DNS provider last month. The DDoS attack in question employed the dreaded Mirai botnet, which enslaved an army of IoT and other connected devices and spread through millions of IP addresses. The executive instead pointed out how Dyn monitors, manages, controls and optimizes cloud services and internet applications to enable faster access, quick-loading pages and increased customer satisfaction. Kurian further said that Oracle and Dyn will continue to operate independently until the transaction is completed. Nevertheless, Dyn's team, products and customer base will become part of Oracle. Product Roadmap Oracle is currently assessing Dyn's product roadmap and in the long run, it may alter exiting operations should it find it necessary. "Any resulting features and timing of release of such features as determined by Oracle's review of Dyn' product roadmap are at the sole discretion of Oracle," the company notes, pledging to stay true to Oracle's transparency and provide updates along the way. Dyn is just Oracle's latest acquisition, but the enterprise services company has been busy as of late. Oracle also acquired Palerra back in September in a bid to beef up its cloud security. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. People now live longer and healthier thanks to advances in medicine and public health. Findings of a new study, however, have shown that despite improvements in longevity, gender gap still exists in life expectancy with women likely to live longer than men. Humans And Primates Now Live Longer In the new research, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Nov. 21, Duke University biology professor Susan Alberts and colleagues looked at the data of more than 1 million individuals worldwide beginning the 18th century to the present. The researchers also looked at the mortality patterns of monkeys and apes. They found that the last few generations enjoyed the greatest life expectancy increase, and this was observed not just in humans but also in all other primates. Contributors To Improved Life Expectancy Advances in medicine and public health are among the contributors in gains, as these help increase the likelihood of survival and reduce death toll from illnesses. Over the past two centuries, life expectancy in Sweden increased from mid-30s to more than 80 years. In the United States, life expectancy of those who were born in 1900 was only 47 years. Now, Americans can expect to live until 79 years old. Males Still Trail Behind Females Males, however, still trail behind females when it comes to life expectancy, and the pattern is observed across members of the primate family tree, including humans. "In spite of the astonishing progress humans have made in lengthening the lifespan, a male disadvantage in lifespan measures has remained substantial a result that will resonate with enduring public interest in male-female differences in many facets of life," the researchers wrote in their study. Reasons Behind Gender Gap In Life Expectancy Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the gender gap, one of which is genetics. Male primates carry only one copy of the X chromosome while females have two copies, so males do not have a second X chromosome that can compensate for harmful gene variants in their X chromosome. "The male disadvantage has deep evolutionary roots," Alberts said. Higher level of risky behavior in men may also be responsible for the difference. Engaging in risky behaviors such as drinking and driving is known to increase odds of sustaining injuries. The researchers said that identifying the culprit behind the gender gap in life expectancy and being able to come up with interventions may help men to catch up. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Flipkart Is Planning To Bet Big On Grocery And Furniture | TechTree.com India's numero uno e-commerce player, Flipkart is planning to foray into the grocery delivery space. Additionally, the company will give a push to its furniture business. In an interview with Reuters, Flipkart's Chief Executive Binny Bansal said that, "There's definitely room to build a profitable grocery business, but it's hard. That doesn't mean it's not possible, but it's hard..." Flipkart is planning to begin grocery sales next year. The company is then expected to scale up the operations for next three years. It will be competing with the current players such as BigBasket and Grofers. This comes in time when Ola gave up on its grocery business. Flipkart's biggest competitor, Amazon is already available in select cities. Bansal added that Fashion remains the best selling category. Little wonder then that the company acquired fashion portals Myntra and Jabong. The surge in the popularity of services such Urban Ladder and Pepperfry has promoted Flipkart to get serious about its furniture segment. TAGS: Flipkart PlayStation VR Makes It To Time's List Of Best Inventions Of 2016 | TechTree.com Every year, Time magazine publishes the list of best tech inventions. The selection criteria revolves around gadgets that smart, fun, and often make the world a better place. In this year's list, Apple and Sony are the only mainstream brands to have made it to the final 25. Sony's virtual reality headset impressed the jury for delivering immerssive experience without costing a bomb. Times notes that, "In order to access the most cutting-edge virtual reality, people typically have to shell out thousands of dollarsnot just for a headset (like the $800 HTC Vive), but for a computer thats powerful enough to support it. Sonys PlayStation VR, by contrast, is designed to work with a console that millions of people already own: the PlayStation 4..." Apple's wireless Airpods have also made it to the list. The Cupertino-based company introduced these wirless earphone along with its iPhone 7. Since the iPhone 7 lacks a 3.5 mm jack, these Airpods are the most convenient way to enjoy music on the handset. You can also make or receive calls via the built-in microphone. Using it, you can also control your phone via Apple's personal assistant Siri. The list includes some interesting products such as the levitating light bulb, Goodyear tyres that spin in every direction, and the no-touch thermometer. TAGS: Sony PlayStation, Apple In late October, a systems outage at the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) lasted roughly two weeks, and stemmed from the cascading failure of three hard drives that overwhelmed the agencys network despite it being decentralized and using two independent hardware systems, a state official said.Preceded by an unrelated issue on Oct. 19, the three hard drive failures on Oct. 24 sparked an event that persisted until Nov. 7, although most offices were restored days earlier.No data was compromised or lost, but the outage affected thousands of customers and 122 of 188 DMV offices in the nations most populous state. For a time, more than half of DMV offices were unable to process driver's license, ID or vehicle registration transactions.Such an outage is "rare," said Jessica Gonzalez, the DMVs assistant deputy director of Public Affairs, adding that online services were unaffected during either incident. Still, the department is working with its state partners "to closely analyze this issue, and determine best steps moving forward to ensure an outage like this does not occur again, Gonzalez toldvia email.The DMVs system was built with disaster recovery and business continuity in mind, and utilizes two hardware systems at two separate locations. Its hard disks are industry standard and current-day technology. The department handles its own backup, and conducts two technology recovery tests per year, in coordination with the state Office of Technology Services.Each of the DMVs hardware systems has failover and redundancy built in by having primary and backup systems in the same hardware chassis. And overall, the system was built to withstand the loss of multiple hard disks in either the primary or the secondary system, Gonzalez said but not both.The failure was complicated, she said, because the systems in each of the physical locations have, in the intervening time period, transitioned to production usage for both breaking redundancy and weakening the disaster recovery process.Gonzalez called it a series of events that the department has not previously witnessed. But she and several of her counterparts nationwide said its one for which they are constantly vigilant.As part of the agencys disaster recovery process, staffers worked around the clock to bring the DMVs system back online, rebuilding and reprogramming 190 processors from scratch. And to hasten service availability, offices that run on dual processors (because they process so many transactions) were restarted on single processors first.While agencies in many other states have so far avoided a widespread outage, they continue to plan for that possibility. Take Virginia, where Department of Motor Vehicles CIO David Burhop said the department has had situations where an individual service such as license renewals have gone down, but not anything that took a spectrum of services offline for several days.The state backs up its 90-plus departments through Northrop Grumman, and maintains separate primary and backup systems for its data, Burhop said, housing the primary system south of Richmond and the backup system in the southwest part of the state.They definitely wanted a separate power grid, weather zone, and so they went pretty far out and away from the shore in terms of hurricanes, etc., Burhop said, noting that the Virginia Information Technologies Agency acts as a liaison between Northrop Grumman and executive branches of the agency.Hardware includes servers from Dell and EMC, and an IBM mainframe.Knock on wood, they are some of the most reliable pieces of hardware that I have ever worked with, Burhop said of the mainframe. The great thing is, your average hacker today whens the last time you ever heard, or have you ever heard of a mainframe getting hacked?To make sure departments are prepared for a service disruption, the commonwealth conducts an annual drill to test all system alerts and all notification trees as if a disaster had just occurred. The most recent edition was about a month ago, Burhop said, over a period of three to four days.The test began at around 3 p.m. on a workday, and the DMV which isnt a "Priority One" department was fully restored by the end of the following day. And an actual customer disruption, of course, never happened in large part because customers have made it abundantly clear they like to be able to access their DMV at all times.Testing also is commonplace at the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles; components are tested annually, and portions of the system are subject to random testing the so-called point of sale systems at county offices coming up for review next year.Recently, said CIO Eric Obermier, more rigorous testing requirements have made departments that dont meet data restoration timelines subject to retesting in 90 days.Almost a year ago, the department, which hasnt experienced a widespread outage either, upgraded its system from running Natural and Database to Linux and DB2 in part because techs who speak the former are getting hard to find.In Illinois, where the DMV's data backup and recovery is handled by the Secretary of States office, a test data recovery is conducted every year, typically in the spring, said Data Systems Administrator Gary Dameron. During this time, the office tests the DMV's enterprise mainframe and rotates testing of different distributed systems.Testing is key, Dameron said. Testing of not only your DR [disaster recovery] solution but of your backups. Even though weve been doing this for a lot of years, every year we test, we find something new.Dameron said the DMV has facility servers in the field that communicate back to its main data center, the Storage Area Network. Thats its primary storage, but its backup is a newer virtual tape system storage disks that emulate tape.Obermier also noted that maintaining multiple power sources for hard drives is a key to data preservation and recovery. That way, he said, the failure of any one of them is not linked to the other.In Oregon, DMV spokesman David House said that smaller outages happen regularly, but are almost always fixed within "a couple hours.Its usually a telecommunications issue, somebody cuts a fiber cable somewhere, he said.Oregon DMV backs up its data daily through a mirror agreement with another state, though House declined to say which one.If we had a complete loss like the system caught fire, we can just copy it back over from this state, he said, noting that he doesnt know how long that would take because its never happened before.The department has been computer reliant since the late 60s, and its core systems are COBOL-based with modern hardware. the Oregon DMV has had a disaster recovery plan in place for a decade or two, House said, and updates it every year or two. The plan covers everything from disaster recovery to staff contacts, and getting systems back up and running.Recently the department simulated a disaster recovery in conjunction with The Great Oregon ShakeOut, a local example of the multinational earthquake preparedness drill.Informed of the extent of California DMVs outage, House called it an extreme rare and unlikely event.Thats hard to plan for, he said. Theyll probably learn from that."On the whole, Texas DMV's Obermier likened information recovery and disaster recovery to buying insurance and said both are typically difficult to fund until an actual crisis hits.People dont like insurance until they need it and theyre more likely to go without it until they need it, and then theyll never question it again, he said. In the state of California, its probably not going to be very hard to go and get money to make that system more resilient. The Social Democratic Party-led "Red Bloc" is expected to win 87 of 179 seats with about 27.6 percent of the vote, remaining the largest party in the Folketing. | Read More Production show Focus 2016 has unveiled its programme schedule for its second edition on December 6th and 7th. Aimed at the international film, TV and advertising production market, Focus has more than 160 exhibitors from over 40 countries attending the show at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Day one includes sessions on virtual reality, UK tax relief, sustainability in production, location management, planning shoots and the future of TV. Day two, meanwhile, opens with a low budget masterclass, moving on to a session about what the film, TV and games sectors can learn from each other. There are also sessions on skills and training, drone technology, diversity in advertising and independent film producing. Over 70 speakers will present panels, workshops and presentations including the CEO of Film London, Adrian Wootton; Carnival Films exec producer Nigel Marchant; Blink md James Studholme; Comedy Central VP of multiplatform Claire McArdle; and Dan Films producer Julie Baines. Televisual is a media sponsor of Focus 2016, which is presented by The Location Guide. The sessions are free to attend. Full details can be found here Share this story Traveling solo in Thailand will become more of a joy for those Chinese tourists who find itdifficult and time-consuming to plan a trip, as Baidu Inc has been developing a one-stopinformation service with multiple partners in the southeast Asian country. The Chinese tech giant on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Tourism Cooperation with the Tourism Authority of Thailand, or TAT, in part to help independent visitors figure out top picks for local attractions, restaurants as well as hotels, and more importantly, how to get there. Such information will be easily accessible via Baidu Map, a mapping service technology inboth Chinese and Thai launched in Bangkok on the same day with an audio smart guide and17,000 points of interest provided by TAT. Mr. Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT Governor said, TAT aims to restructure the market by expanding to high-end tourists from various cities of China like Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing and Chengdu. This cooperation will allow TAT to reach this target group directly and rapidly. Through this effort with Baidu, Chinese tourists will have a wealth of information even before their departure and can always find more information upon their arrival in Thailand. The number of Chinese tourists is expected to hit at least 10 million by end-2016, bringingThailands total tourism earnings to 509 billion baht ($14.5 billion), a 35.4 increase from a yearearlier. Statistics from the China National Administration of Tourism show a total of 120 millionChinese traveled overseas in 2015 spending $194 billion across the world, making it the thirdyear in a row to top the list of international outbound travelers. However, according to Supasorn, more and more Chinese tourists to Thailand are choosingflexible travel methods, which makes one-stop information service such as Baidu Map evenmore important. A report jointly released on Monday by Baidu Thailand, Union Pay and Ctrip shows only 41percent are willing to join group tours when traveling in Thailand in the past six months, andthe share is expected to drop to 26 percent in the next half year. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Eight months after a judge halted their racketeering prosecution and reduced their bails due to defense funding issues, four men said to have Louisiana is looking to line up billions more in federal money to aid recovery from catastrophic floods that have hit the state this year. The White House this week made its formal pitch to Congress for a $3.15 billion disaster aid package for Louisiana and states affected by Hurricane Matthew by the end of the year. The money is expected to be added to a federal stop-gap measure needed to fund government past the end of the year, and it would be on top of the $437.8 million that Louisiana is slated to receive from a federal spending bill that was OK'd in September. "We are grateful for the administrations support of Louisianas disaster assistance request," Gov. John Bel Edwards' spokesman Richard Carbo said Tuesday. "Gov. Edwards and the entire congressional delegation have worked closely in this effort and will continue to do so until the states needs are met." In a letter sent Monday, Office of Management and Budget director Shaun Donovan urged congressional leaders to increase the amount of semi-flexible block grants for states when lawmakers pass another short-term budget next month. The updated request also includes money for states impacted by Hurricane Matthew and other disasters but doesn't break down how that money would be distributed. "Based on our conversations with the administration and congressional leaders, the data shows that Louisiana is in line to get a vast majority of these funds, and we will continue to work on this as Congress considers this proposal," Carbo said in a statement. "In addition, the administration intends to express their support of our various requests in conversations with congressional leaders as they negotiate the funding legislation." In a letter to the state's delegation this week, Edwards said he has been assured by the Obama administration that it continues to support Edwards' initial $2.6 billion aid request. "While these resources enabled the administration to help impacted communities begin their long recovery process, this funding is insufficient to adequately address the needs in Louisiana, where over 150,000 people have registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for support for temporary rental assistance, essential home repairs, and general support to restore their lives to normal as quickly as possible," Donovan wrote in the letter. Flood task force agrees to housing recovery plan The group tasked with leading the state's flood recovery has agreed to an initial round of h Edwards, who has made several trips to Washington in recent weeks to lobby for flood aid, had requested nearly $4 billion in additional funding for Louisiana alone. Edwards is scheduled to travel to Washington, D.C. again next week to meet with the entire congressional delegation and other officials to discuss the relief package. "(W)ere confident the broad support remains to get assistance down to the state as quickly as possible," Carbo said. A 21-member task force appointed by the governor has been working to craft detailed proposals for how the funds will make their way to the thousands of victims of the severe flooding across south Louisiana in August and north Louisiana floods from the spring. The group approved an initial round of plans for housing recovery programs last week. But because of federal timelines for distributing funds, it could still be several months before work begins on repairing or replacing homes damaged. Homeowners who have major or severe damage, meet federal low to moderate income requirements, live outside the flood hazard zones, didn't have flood insurance and those with a household member who is elderly or disabled will be the first priority. The plan approved by the task force would establish three programs for homeowners: a state-run construction program, a program that allows homeowners to select their own contractors that the state pays and a reimbursement program for homeowners who have already had work done. It's possible that as few as 5,000 homeowners will benefit from the first round of funding the state received, but officials say that the programs will extend to more people as additional money comes in. "We will scale this plan to support the recovery needs of many more families and Louisiana citizens impacted by the historic 2016 floods once additional federal flood relief dollars are realized," Edwards wrote in his letter this week. Additionally, the governor noted that the state also is seeking congressional authorization of a waiver of state matching requirements for workforce programs with people with disabilities, as well as funding for the Comite River Diversion Project to prevent future flood disasters and funds to help with mental health needs and transportation projects. Louisiana voters likely won't get a chance to see the two candidates left in the U.S. Senate race go head-to-head on television before the Dec. 10 runoff. The last scheduled televised debate has been canceled after Republican John Kennedy and Democrat Foster Campbell could not agree to whether there should be a live audience on Dec. 2. That means the runoff, which will decide the last U.S. Senate race in the country, will happen without the traditional debate over policy positions and differences between the two candidates. And it has both campaigns pointing fingers over who is to blame. In a news release, Campbell accused Kennedy of "ducking and dodging debates left and right." Kennedy's campaign shot back, accusing Campbell of refusing to the terms of the latest debate that was canceled, as well as another debate. Early voting begins Saturday and runs through Dec. 3. Gary Wordlaw, WVLA News Director, told The Advocate that Kennedy's campaign did not want a live audience in attendance for the WVLA/Nexstar debate scheduled Dec. 2, while Campbell's did. He said the station had no other option for moving forward "unless they could agree to it one way or the other." Campbell in a statement called Kennedy "pitiful." "Mr. Kennedy is so weak he won't even debate me," he said. But Kennedy's campaign said it wanted "an environment free of distractions in which the candidates could discuss the issues that were most important to Louisiana voters." It also said Campbell turned down a separate debate that was supposed to be hosted by WDSU in New Orleans. "Foster Campbell is perfectly comfortable talking about his liberal views on MSNBC, but he refuses to defend those same positions before Louisiana audiences who know that his politics are dangerous to Louisiana," Kennedy's campaign said in an email from spokesman Lionel Rainey. What's on the Dec. 10 ballot in the Baton Rouge region Runoffs for U.S. Senate and for East Baton Rouge Parish mayor-president are among the high-p The debate traditionally held by Louisiana Public Broadcasting and the Council for A Better Louisiana was canceled after only Campbell agreed to attend, CABL confirmed. Campbell will appear solo at a forum sponsored by the Baton Rouge Press Club on Monday after Kennedy declined that invitation, as well. Both Campbell and Kennedy took part in debates and forums prior to the Nov. 8 primary. Twenty-four candidates appeared on the primary ballot but were winnowed down to two when no candidate took more than 50 percent of the vote. State auditors couldnt tell if the state Department of Justice properly spent $24.7 million last year because of inadequate documentation. A review released Monday found that the Justice Department couldnt properly account for 26 of 28 transactions of money flowing out of the Escrow Account. The department couldnt provide documentation to support how much of the money ended up in the account and how much left the fund, said Beth Davis, the Legislative Auditors assistant director of financial audit services. We cant say the outflow was not appropriate, but we also cant say that it was. We werent provided the documentation, Davis said Monday. Attorney General Jeff Landry blamed his predecessor for the poor state of the department's records, but promised to come up with policies that would keep better track of the money. I have instructed my Director of Administration to implement a corrective action plan to ensure the compliance of this office. This plan will include and annual internal audit and also include the proper documentation of records, Landry wrote Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera on Nov. 2. Landry declined to comment Monday. Landry took office in January half way through the fiscal year. A lot of the records left by outgoing Attorney General Buddy Caldwell were non-producible, Landry wrote. Davis said "non-producible" meant that Landrys staff either couldnt find or identify the proper records or the documents they did find were incomprehensible. I cannot speak for the previous administration, but I will assure you that we take this very seriously putting into place controls and procedures to maintain adequate documentation of all transactions, Landry wrote. The audit also found spotty record keeping involving $18.7 million deposited into the account. In three cases no records were available to explain why the money was going into the escrow account, two other cases the records didnt justify the deposit and for nine transactions the documentation was incomplete. The Escrow Account was established as the place to collect proceeds from court judgments, settlements, fines, fees, forfeitures, and penalties. How that money is spent often is determined by the conditions set in the settlement or judgment. The fund was the target of much questioning by legislators during the past budget-balancing sessions. In June, members of the Senate Finance Committee grilled Landry on his use of the Escrow Account. Republican Landry wanted more control over the Justice Departments budget saying he would run the agency like a business and be more efficient with the money. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved the proposals. But Senate Finance refused to vote on the plan, which would have taken oversight away from Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. Hey, who wants to replay that presidential election we just had? Anyone? Anyone? Actually, I can think of one guy and in a way two, both of whom are running in Louisiana's Dec. 10 U.S. Senate runoff. The big showdown between Republican state treasurer John Kennedy and Foster Campbell, a Democratic public service commissioner, was always destined to hinge on party. That's just the way Louisiana Senate races have been playing out in recent years, less as contests between two distinct individuals and more as referendums on the side each represents in the nation's great partisan wars. And developments in the two weeks since Donald Trump's electoral college victory have only emphasized the dynamic. For Kennedy, running in a state in which Trump got 58 percent of the vote, adopting an "I'm with him" theme is a no-brainer. Ads promoting his candidacy, including one in which Kennedy declares that Louisiana got the presidential election right and latches on to Trump's promise to drain the swamp, are pounding the connection and brushing right past Kennedy's own credentials as a long-serving elected official. Despite some brutal in-party fighting during the 24-candidate primary, Kennedy's top two Republican opponents, U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany and John Fleming have signed on as supporters. Never mind that Boustany had previously accused Kennedy of knowingly spreading lies about his alleged involvement in a prostitution ring, which was briefly addressed in a "true crime" book that came out during the campaign, or that Fleming had portrayed Kennedy as a closet liberal and a bad steward of state finances. Either Kennedy's strategy, or perhaps simply having an "R" behind his name, appears to be working so far. One recent poll gave him a 21-point lead over Campbell, and he's employing the classic front-runner strategy of minimizing joint debate appearances. The calculation is more complicated for Campbell. He never embraced the national Democratic Party, and is not risking alienating Trump supporters by criticizing the incoming president. And he continues to highlight areas where he diverges from national Democratic norms. In one new television commercial, he fires a gun just before uttering the standard "I approve this message" disclaimer, a not-remotely-subtle reference to his stance on the Second Amendment. But Campbell has also moved to consolidate Democratic support by accepting an endorsement from primary rival Caroline Fayard, who was a much more enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter than Campbell, and who had wrongly suggested during the primary that he had some sort of affinity toward white supremacist David Duke. He's also attempting to raise money and generate some excitement by tapping into national Democratic frustration over the new landscape, and some media outlets outside Louisiana are playing right along. These stories acknowledge Louisiana's deep red leanings, but they also play up the significance of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards' surprise victory in last year's gubernatorial race, just as Campbell does. Typical was Campbell's recent interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, whose audience skews heavily Democratic. Maddow introduced Campbell as the Democrats' last hope to minimize the GOP's Senate majority and perhaps "mitigate some of Trump's damage." "He is carrying the hopes of Democrats not just in Louisiana, but honestly around the nation," she said. That's not what Campbell said in the interview. Instead, he emphasized his populist platform, criticized Kennedy for being a flip-flopper, and honed in on a potential area of Republican vulnerability by promising to protect Social Security and Medicare. Trump did the same thing on the campaign trail, but his new allies in Congress are reportedly gearing up to propose changes to the popular programs. The exchange highlights just how uphill a climb Campbell faces, as he tries to tap into Democratic fury over Trump's victory while convincing voters who supported the president-elect to switch sides. Campbell's only hope is that Louisiana voters will upend the script. All Kennedy needs is for them to follow it. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump shakes hands Sunday with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis. (AP Photo/John Locher) BERLIN (AP) Pope Francis says the church must study whether it's possible to ordain married men to minister in remote communities facing pri A drunk driver who caused a horror smash that killed his friend in Canberra's north has been jailed after he lost an appeal against his conviction. Jamie Michael Richardson, 25, was sentenced to more than three years jail for culpable driving, after a jury found him guilty in March of two charges stemming from a fatal crash in McKellar. Jamie Michael Richardson, pictured during a previous ACT Supreme Court appearance, lost an appeal against his convictions for a drunken crash that killed his friend. Credit:Rohan Thomson Richardson had been drinking heavily with a group at the Lighthouse pub in Belconnen when he decided to drive three friends home about 1.30am on February 1, 2014. Minutes later, the car veered off William Slim Drive for about 20 metres before it smashed head-on into a tree. A man accused of involvement in a 28-kilogram drug run from the ACT to Victoria has been acquitted of the sole charge of trafficking against him. It was alleged by the Crown that Andrew John Connors and Curtin man Alexander Scott Hagan agreed to transport the drug ice to Melbourne in Hagan's car, where the car and its driver would be met by Connors. The territory's biggest drug haul was found in Alexander Hagan's car in 2014. Credit:Jay Cronan After leaving Hagan's home on October 23, 2014, the car never made it past the ACT border. Hagan pleaded guilty to his role in the crime, which included packing the car and arranging a driver, and was sentenced in November to more than 13 years jail. While Australia's peak standards body mulls over the merits of introducing a safe life limit for bicycle parts, bike buyers are being warned to watch out for lemons on the second-hand market. The role of metal fatigue in the death of a Canberra cyclist has called into question the safety of older bicycles being sold in the city's second-hand bicycle industry. Cycle Surgery bicycle mechanic Simon Spoors in his workshop with broken bikes and parts. Some bikes aren't worth fixing, he says. Credit:Jamila Toderas Richard Stanton was killed last year when a fatigue crack in his front alloy steering tube caused him to fall off his nine-year-old bike. The coroner this month ruled the fracture was a result of the manufacturing process and was undetectable by mechanics. Australia's richest woman Gina Rinehart has welcomed Donald Trump's election victory as "exciting" for America's economy and called for similar policies to those of the new president-elect to be implemented in Australia, including lower business taxes. Mrs Rinehart criticised the American media for its "constant and unrelenting negative coverage of the president-elect, including at times his loyal supporters, such as his wife, in attempts to upset the focus of the president-elect," in a speech to the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) in Melbourne. Mrs Rinehart's spokeswoman, former Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella, delivered the speech to the free-market think tank on her behalf. In extracts reported by The Australian, Mrs Rinehart said the president-elect's promise to slash federal government red tape by 50 per cent and reduce company tax to 15 per cent would "kickstart the American economy." Former Wallaby Bill Young has beefed up his pub portfolio with the $28.75 million purchase of the freehold Five Dock Hotel from the Lantern Hotel Group. Mr Young, who also owns the Concord West, the Palace Hotel in Mortlake and the Wisemans Ferry Inn Hotel, all in NSW, paid a 38 per cent premium to the June 30 book value on a yield of about 8 per cent. Bill Young behind the bar at The Concord Hotel with his father Bill Young Senior during the Wallabies' end of World Cup recovery session in 2003. Credit:Dallas Kilponen "I am very pleased with the purchase," Mr Young said on Tuesday. Lantern is selling its assets as it prepares for a possible delisting. Seventeen leading Australian companies, government organisations and a university have reviewed their paid leave policies as part of a joint push to tackle domestic violence and gender inequality. The 17 include Goldman Sachs, Qantas, Deloitte, Commonwealth Bank Australia, ANZ, Deloitte, ASX, KPMG Australia, Rio Tinto, Telstra, McKinsey and Co and the Australian Army. The Male Champions of Change representing leaders of the organisations have reported on their progress in responding to domestic violence. The report, Lessons Learned from Implementing Workplace Responses to Domestic and Family Violence, to be released on Wednesday, says paid leave policies have been reviewed. Oh no, the nanny state brigade is at it again. In their certainty they know what's best for us, they're back with their social engineering, wanting to punish us for being fat and use a tax on sugary drinks to push us towards "healthier choices". On Wednesday the Grattan Institute will release a report urging the federal government to impose an excise of 40 per 100 grams of sugar on non-alcoholic beverages that contain added sugar. What part of personal freedom don't they understand? If people want to drink sugary drinks, why should anyone else try to stop them? What harm are they doing to others? Surely this is a matter of personal choice and responsibility. If being fat is bad for the health, it's up to the individual to accept responsibility for their own fate and decide to eat less and exercise more. Conservative politicians' recent coining of the phrase "elite media" to describe anything that can't be comprehensively described as right wing is clearly having an impact on the ABC. God forbid that daytime radio should stir up the masses, and just in case it does we are going to make sure they are sent back to the kitchen sink. Barbara Friday, Richmond People in glass mansions ... Is anyone else screaming mad to hear the word "elite" hijacked by those wishing to heap odium on the ABC and Fairfax press and, by implication, their lackeys? Especially infuriating is that by aping Donald Trump, our "silver-tongued", silver-spooned Prime Minister-extant is declaiming such pejorative nonsense. People in glass mansions shouldn't. Jill Mazzotta, Balaclava Network illustrates its value Last Monday I realised yet again why the ABC is so brilliant. It has the courage to show intelligent, heart-wrenching programs that resonate in the soul. First was the Australian Story about Khaled Naanaa confronting the brutal Assad regime, which, with the assistance of Vladimir Putin, is starving civilians. Then Liz Jackson on Four Corners showed the devastation of living with Parkinson's disease. Both programs illustrate what it means to be truly human; the joy and the heartbreak of being alive in today's world. Doug Stark, Fish Creek THE FORUM Were it only fiction My world order is in shambles. Donald Trump is elected despite appalling behaviour. His apologists suggest he may be more moderate in future, reminiscent of the abusive partner who excuses his behaviour by blaming drink or, in Trump's case, the media. It is unacceptable. Women in high office are personally attacked. Clinton, Janet Yelland and Gillian Triggs were all dignified in their responses to the onslaughts. Younger aspirants would need a suit of armour to pursue such career paths. Finally, program cuts at Radio National. RN has been the audio background to my life, educating and entertaining me over decades. I already switch off Tom Switzer because of his conservatism, and Michael Mackenzie for his mindless pap between reheats and leftovers. The axing of the programs of Jonathan Green and Lucky Oceans especially upset me. I do not want to switch to podcasts or continually change stations. I want a return to the intellectual and musical stimulation I love and value. Where's Howard Beale? Oh that's right, he's fiction. I wish all of the above were also. Barb Ashworth, Castlemaine Lost in translation Malcolm Turnbull quotes Mario Cuomo: "We campaign in poetry, but we govern in prose." I hardly think poetry is the word to describe Trump's campaign. Graffiti? Unfair to graffiti artists. Dog whistling? Trump wasn't that subtle. Demagoguery and hate-speak? Yes, that describes it. Ann Nicholson, Clarinda Back seat driver Amanda Vanstone writes that "democracy is the vehicle but you have to drive it" (Comment, 21/11). Who or what is the driver? The recent events in democracies around the world the UK, US, Indonesia, Australia show democracy in action. When functioning unfettered, it allows a voice for any opinion, which, as we have seen, can give rise to unexpected and potentially disruptive results. In all these recent cases the end result could be chaos and an overthrow of democracy itself. In this sense democracy is its own worst enemy, containing within itself the seeds of its destruction. The unanswered question remains who is to be the driver that can avoid this catastrophe? Bob Malseed, Hawthorn Deep misgivings In seeking to understand the political changes sweeping through many Western nations, I read a phrase that resonated. Many feel like "strangers in their own country". According to the cosmopolitan worldview, such an attitude smacks of conservative nationalism and, worse, bigotry and xenophobia. However, there seems to be more people feeling insecure than the more optimistic would like to believe. Those feeling "left behind" are not just the ageing, white, working class that can safely be ignored. Indeed, many people who exhibit all the signs of a progressive worldview may at a deeper, more private level, harbour serious misgivings about the way their lives are changing. While displaying appropriate behaviour in public, who knows what they are really thinking and how that might influence their vote when faced with a candidate who promises to restore the type of society they cherish? Rod Wise, Glen Iris Traumatic competition I do voluntary work with refugees and asylum seekers in temporary detention. The deal with the US has been heralded by many as a positive outcome yet it gives America the opportunity to cherry pick who it wants. In truth, the deal has added much unnecessary stress. One mother whom I support has responded thus: "I cannot sleep. I cannot eat. I cannot play with my family. I cannot watch TV. I cannot read. I only think. I only worry. The doctor has doubled my antidepressants. They are not working. She wants to change the medication again. Medication is not good for me, but what can I do? I don't want to live. We cannot go to America unless we go first to Nauru. But if we go to Nauru and America does not pick us, then they will give us a 20-year visa for Nauru. I cannot go back to Nauru." This chance to enter the competition to go to America is furthering the torture and trauma forcing those who are in Australia for medical treatment to return to the offshore detention camps to be "in the running" for the trip of a lifetime to the United States of Trump. Name and address withheld Feelings over facts During the US election campaign, Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich was interviewed on CNN and argued that under Obama, crime had gone up. The host pointed to statistics indicating Gingrich was wrong; that crime had gone down. Gingrich replied: "The average American, I will bet you this morning, does not think that crime is down ... people feel more threatened. As a political candidate, I'll go with what people feel." The message was simple: feelings trump fact a message clearly reinforced on November 8. On Monday, the Murdoch media and other outlets reported that Victorians "feel" crime has gone up. Yet statistics show youth crime is down, repeat offending is down and that arrests are up. But such "facts" are thrown on the trash heap when there is an agenda to scare the public into "feeling" they are in danger. Recent scenes at the juvenile detention centre in Parkville indicate change is required, but the myriad issues need to be tackled systematically, not with a "less carrot, more stick" approach. David Mitri, Belmont And Plan B? Victoria's "youth crime wave" reportedly centres around Dandenong, where youth unemployment is up to 39 per cent. Census data (2006) for youth in Casey show only 2.3 per cent attended TAFE, with similarly few at university. William Angliss Cranbourne TAFE campus developed successful re-engagement programs for at-risk youth, along with VCAL, VCE, VET and hospitality training. Yet, in 2013, under the Baillieu-Napthine government, William Angliss closed that campus and opened one in Sri Lanka as training operator for Crown Casino in Colombo. The then skills minister, Peter Hall, described the closure as "disappointing" but "a matter for the William Angliss board". This demonstrates the absurdity of educational management by unelected boards with no accountability to taxpayers. How are people, especially young men, to establish stable households without training and jobs? What is Plan B? Does it extend beyond construction of billion-dollar prisons? Barbara Chapman, Hawthorn Riding coffee wave Jessica Irvine (Comment, 21/11) discussed Bernard Salt and his smashed avocado reference. However, Salt overlooked how integral the cafe/restaurant culture is to the economy. In my area, on Moreland Road from the train station to Sydney Road, a distance of about 250 metres, there are six cafes. Three are of hipster standard, another has a niche pastry market, the fifth offers basic fare, and the sixth kebabs. They provide employment, income to suppliers, work for refrigeration mechanics and so on. If the smashed avocado set stay away, what happens then? What I see in my area is multiplied thousands of times around Melbourne. Aren't we now a society that rides on the back of a coffee cup? Des Files, Brunswick Compromised selves Louise Adler (Comment, 22/11), discarding stereotypes would mean the end of satire. Whatever the medium, satire is funny when we all of us recognise compromised elements of our human selves in the satirical image. And irrespective of our point of view, "satire" is not funny, just vicious, when the stereotype is seen as simply contemptible (the "derelict" Indigenous father in Bill Leak's cartoon). In such cases "satire" simply becomes an attack on the stereotyped group. And when that group is a race or religion, Sections 18C and D rightly applies. Peter Deerson, Mornington Uphold high standards While I am somewhat empathetic with Jerusha Mather's desire to study to be a doctor (The Age, 22/11), a request to sit exams over several days to avoid fatigue would indicate a latent incapacity inconsistent with the high standards required of a medical practitioner. Should we have a similar relaxation of visual standards for partially sighted bus, train and tram drivers? The cornerstone of professional competency is the ability to compete on a level playing field at the standards necessary to demonstrate capacity and achievement. The authorities are not underestimating her. Unfortunately they are requiring her to demonstrate competency within a prescribed time frame. Greg Angelo, Balwyn North Could all end in tears My heart sank as I read of the parental preparation put into the quest for a scholarship to a private school seven hours' preparation daily on Madi Brooks' summer holiday (The Age, 22/11). Ye gods! I wonder if her father considered the awful outcome if his efforts had not been successful? Failure is an important learning experience for all children, but baby steps, please. Flunk a piano exam not nice; miss out on a part in a school play pretty upsetting. However, dashing the hopes and dreams of a loved father who has so much invested in his daughter's success is failure indeed. Therapy would loom! Georgina Batterham, Richmond AND ANOTHER THING... Multiculturalism Peter Dutton's latest divisive comment could actually promote terrorism. A strong PM would sack him. Stephen Baldwin, Frankston When did Dutton defect to One Nation? Ruja Varon, Malvern Minister, how many generations of those from non Anglo-Saxon backgrounds must be born here before they become Australians? Patricia Watkinson, Hawthorn East The government rushes full tilt into Trumpism, blaming minorities and migrants for everything. It worked a treat in the US, didn't it? Jerry Koliha, South Melbourne Politics Malcolm, Prez Obama, a selfie ... and a doe-eyed look. Hugh McCaig, Blackburn When they (the US) go low, we go lower (apologies to Hillary Clinton). Michael McNeill, Bendigo The US Trump makes America great again? More likely Trump makes America hate again. Michael Kino, Caulfield North Of all US politicians, only Abraham Lincoln can really complain that the theatre is not a "safe space" ("Trump demands apology from Hamilton cast", 20/11). John Murphy, Aberfeldie It's said that for every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, attractive ... and wrong. America has chosen such a solution. Rod Williams, Surrey Hills Predictably, the IPA has tried to blame the Community and Public Sector Union. A cute tactic but one which ignores the fact that public sector employees are well-informed and eminently capable of deciding what is and isn't in their families' interests. Never an organisation to let reality get in the way of an argument, the IPA's attack is full of factual errors and false comparisons. For example, they trumpet the fact that public sector wages have risen by 50 per cent over the past 10 years while CPI has gone up only 31.7 per cent. But what they conveniently neglect to mention is that their public sector wages figure is inflated to include the wages of senior executive high-flyers such as APSC boss John Lloyd, who is paid $475,000 a year. Once the high-flyers' salaries are excluded, the actual figures show non-SES APS median salaries increased by just 39.8 per cent. Of course CPI doesn't reflect wage outcomes, with private sector wages increasing by 43.5 per cent over this period. And for politicians, the increase has been a staggering 79.1 per cent. IPA also claims that under the bargaining policy, workers can give up on their "generous" conditions and get a bigger than 2 per cent pay rise. This is just plain wrong and exposes the IPA to accusations of either incompetence or dishonesty. The reality is the government is using a wage freeze to try to force workers to give up existing rights just to get a nominal pay rise. Public servants do have good conditions and they value them. They were secured in previous bargaining rounds by forgoing bigger pay rises. These conditions give working parents the flexibility to juggle their work and family responsibilities, something many value more than the bigger pay packet on offer elsewhere. And as for conditions failing the "pub test", the IPA again chooses a dodgy comparison. In a system based on enterprise bargaining and awards, they pretend the minimum safety net National Employment Standard is somehow the norm. Of course that leaves out the actual conditions provided by comparable private sector employers, many of whom provide similar flexibility to attract and retain a diverse and effective workforce. As the hundreds of Senate submissions make clear, public sector workers are under growing financial pressure. Already on average wages, they are struggling because they haven't had a pay rise for more than three years. In one moving submission reflecting so many stories workers have told us, a widow explained that her only luxury these days is a cup of coffee after church. This dispute has never been about getting a big pay rise or new entitlements; it's been about workers trying to hold onto their existing rights without their pay going backwards. The only new condition CPSU members have not dropped from our original claim is securing domestic violence leave. But, of course, it's banned under the bargaining policy as an "enhancement". Another of the IPA's many bugbears is union consultation and representation. Again they overreach, putting forward inaccurate and frankly silly evidence to the Senate Inquiry. Agencies make the decisions, the only step consultation provides is an opportunity to get feedback from people doing the work about the impact on staff and the services they provide. This is a sensible and modern way to operate and something many employers value, despite the IPA's hysteria. Notwithstanding the IPA's bluster, our union is focused on fixing this mess. We've agreed sensible workplace changes at more than a hundred bargaining tables. We've revised our claim downward. We're willing to find a way through. But until the Prime Minister or Employment Minister Michaelia Cash start listening and act, a path to settlement remains unlikely. If the government wants to resolve this mess it needs to stop listening to the ideologues at the IPA and start listening to public sector workers, agency bosses and indeed our union, to find a sensible way out. Donald Trump didn't kill the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. His opposition was only the final blow which came at the end of more than six years of criticism of the TPP in the United States, Australia and other TPP countries by public health, environment, church, union and other community groups. Their criticism was based on human rights and environmental values which were the opposite of those expressed by Trump during his campaign. These critics were not against trade itself but against unfair trade deals. The TPP's death should teach us some key lessons about future trade policy. Firstly, the TPP was not mainly about traditional trade issues such as tariffs. Australia already has free trade agreements and low tariffs with all but three of the 12 TPP countries. Nor was it going to deliver on promises of jobs and growth. Economic studies showed hardly any economic benefit to Australia. Rather, most of the TPP's 30 chapters laid out rules which increased rights for global corporations and restricted future governments from regulating them in the public interest. An anti-TPP protest last year in Atlanta, Georgia, US. The TPP gave global companies the right to bypass national courts and sue governments for millions of dollars in unfair international tribunals over health and environmental regulation. It extended monopolies on biologic medicines for an additional three years, delaying cheaper version of those medicines, which would have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars per year. It also entrenched copyright monopolies. Chapters on services reduced the ability of future governments to regulate essential services. The TPP increased the numbers of temporary migrant workers who are vulnerable to exploitation, without testing if local workers were available. The Productivity Commission criticised the TPP's inclusion of corporate rights to sue governments and the entrenchment of monopolies as the opposite of free trade. In an era of global financial crises, corporate tax evasion and global warming, future trade agreements must not prevent governments from regulating banks and monopolies on medicines, or from acting to prevent climate change and tax evasion. Governments must be able to act in the public interest without facing the risk of being sued for millions of dollars in unfair international tribunals. Embattled One Nation senator Rod Culleton has been referred to Queensland police amid allegations he may have attempted to pervert the course of justice or even threatened a judicial officer. Queensland Attorney-General Yvette D'Ath said on Tuesday she had asked police to investigate a letter allegedly sent by Senator Culleton to a Cairns magistrate asking for a matter before the court to be adjourned. On November 15, Senator Culleton wrote to the Cairns Courthouse about a complaint from a person who was facing imprisonment in a Commonwealth matter. The letter foreshadowed a motion in the Senate to recall unnamed judges for "proven misbehaviour". The letter noted Senator Culleton and others were watching with interest the conduct of all Australian judges after he claimed to have discovered an error relating to the status of the High Court. For the first 13 years she says her father, a World War 2 veteran, abused her mother. "We would go to the refuges in our community, until, after so many years and so many incidents, my father knew the locations and we were not safe there anymore. We then shifted to staying in hotels, which were located above pubs where the people below were loud and sometimes their noise would spill into the streets, waking me and reminding me that I wasn't in my own bed, in my own home." "I was in a foreign place, because I was not safe." "One night, when Mum was hurrying to get my sister and I out, Dad had removed and smashed the distributor cap from the car rendering it useless and us trapped. The police fetched us this time. I still remember sitting in the police station well into the early hours of the morning and the officers in Penrith police giving us pink milk while we waited. The police did their best." "Again, after this event my Mum returned home." Chrissy Teigen has given a shout out to her laser hair removalists for the stellar job they did on getting her ready for the pelvic bone-baring dress she wore for the American Music Awards on Sunday night. The model, Lip Sync Battle host and Cravings cookbook author was responding to accusations she suffered a "wardrobe malfunction" when her black Yousef Akbar split gown, held together by safety pins (a modern take on Elizabeth Hurley's Versace dress from 1994), "floated" too far to the left as she posed on the red carpet with husband, John Legend. Chrissy Teigen is sorry for showing you her 'hooha' in pelvic bone baring dress at the AMAs on Sunday. Credit:Jordan Strauss/AP Teigen, famed for her smackdowns particularly of US president-elect Donald Trump, took to social to say sorry, not sorry for the distress her dress and the alleged "malfunction" has caused. "Apologies to anyone harmed mentally or physically by my hooha," she said, before tagging her Los Angeles-based, celebrity hair specialists, SEV Laser Aesthetics. You wouldn't effing believe it, but women now swear more than men. That's the finding of a survey tracking the swearing habits of hundreds of people whose daily conversations were recorded and analysed over the past two decades. Women now swear more than men, according to an English study. Credit: John Shakespeare The research found that in the early 1990s men said f--k 1000 times per million words, compared to just 167 times for women. But the preliminary results of the latest survey reveal men's use of the expletive has dropped to 540 times, while women now break out the f-bomb 546 times per million words. The full results of the Economic and Social Research Council survey in the UK will not be available until 2018, but Australian linguistics expert Kate Burridge said they would likely show a similar trend because swearing had become more accepted in society. There are calls for a Vancouver-style tax on empty houses to help ease the rental affordability crisis gripping Australian cities. Sydney remains the epicentre of rental pain, with rent soaking up the highest proportion of household incomes in the country, according to an index of rental affordability released on Wednesday. Paying the median Sydney rent would absorb 60 per cent of the average pre-tax income of a family in the bottom 40 per cent of households by income. As a chunk of after-tax income, the burden is higher still. Regional NSW has also emerged as the nation's most expensive non-metropolitan region in Australia for renters. Even when Connie Wilson and her husband Michael were both working, they were only just surviving financially after paying rent, bills, groceries and school expenses for their four children. So when Mrs Wilson had to give up her part-time job in a delicatessen after being diagnosed with breast cancer last year, financial disaster loomed. "I was making about $350 a week and that made a big difference," she said. "That covered a lot of the bills and we could even put some money aside for presents for the kids." Millions of families live on a financial knife-edge, according to research from the Salvation Army, which found the holiday period could throw them into turmoil. He's been on a luxurious international sojourn, but it was back to the inside of a Sydney courtroom for controversial property developer Salim Mehajer on Tuesday. And it wasn't good news for the former Auburn City Council deputy mayor, with prosecutors revealing there is a fresh investigation under way that could see him charged with more offences relating to electoral fraud. Last year Mr Mehajer was charged with more than 100 offences relating to his alleged rigging of the 2012 council ballot, including using forged documents, making false statements and giving false or misleading information. ORANGE: Philip Donato is living proof of the divide between Sydney and the bush. He grew up shooting rabbits, goats, pigs and deer. It was a family thing. His grandfather hunted in Sicily. His father and uncles took him shooting on mates' properties west of the Great Divide. And he taught his five sons, although his eldest pair, 19-year-old twins, have quit Orange and hunting to play rugby union in Sydney. Not that long ago such open support for hunting got you howled down in some NSW circles but Mr Donato's sudden and unexpected byelection victory for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party has created a new awareness of what matters in the bush. Not only has his slim 50-vote win ended the Nationals and Country Party's 68-year unbroken reign in Orange, but it has exposed Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce's federal election night boasts about the Nationals being back as the power behind the throne as hot air. The family of a man missing from a town west of Rockhampton have not given up hope, despite police calling off their land and air search. Aaron Flynn, 29, was last seen leaving an address on Keilambete Road at Rubyvale on Friday November 11 and has not been in contact with anyone since. Aaron Flynn has been missing since Friday November 11. Credit:QUEENSLAND POLICE MEDIA His black Volvo station wagon was found abandoned in bushland off Rubyvale Road last Friday with a number of his personal belongings inside. Police were exploring the possibility he had walked off from the vehicle. An 80-year-old man has been jailed for having a sexual relationship with a teenage girl when he was a serving policeman 30 years ago. It was Russell Towers' job for 33 years to enforce the law, but he abused that trust by regularly having sex with a 16-year-old girl in 1986 and 1987, and using his authority to exert control over her. County Court judge Philip Misso said Towers told the girl she would not be believed if she ever complained about him, before she finally ran away from home. Her parents did not learn of Towers' crimes for at least 15 years. "You were a serving policeman at the time when these events occurred," Judge Misso told Towers on Tuesday. A One Nation senator has accused one of Victoria's most Jewish councils of being "anti-Semitic", as the stoush between the far-right party and Glen Eira City Council grows. The Anti Defamation Commission, one of Victoria's peak Jewish groups, in turn labelled One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts "obscene" for his remarks, and said he was diminishing the memory of six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. Senator Malcolm Roberts during a press conference at Parliament House Canberra on Tuesday. Credit:Andrew Meares The stoush centres on an invitation by conservative Jewish gym owner Avi Yemini to One Nation senators Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts, to speak to members of the Jewish community in Caufield next month. The pair was invited to speak about the "dangers" of Muslim migration to Australia, repealing race hate laws, and other controversial topics. Only the top 30 per cent of year 12 students will be able to study teaching in Victoria following a dramatic shake-up of the profession. Under tough new entry standards, students wishing to enrol in an undergraduate teaching course will have to achieve a minimum ATAR of 65 in 2018. This will be hiked up to 70 the following year. It coincides with growing concerns about slipping standards the average ATAR of students starting teaching courses in Victoria was 57.35 this year, down from 63.4 in 2013. Some courses only required an ATAR of 30. That's it for Melbourne Express today. Today is Go Home on Time Day. The day is an Australia Institute idea where its estimates the value of unpaid overtime which Australian workers perform in their workplaces. Here's the calculator that shows how much unpaid overtime is given each year. Watch out for the five new baby penguins making their first foray into the public domain at the Melbourne Zoo today. The penguins have learnt how to eat from the keepers rather than being fed by their parents. Expect to see some extreme cuteness. Here is a picture to tide you over until then. Express will be back tomorrow. See you then. A magistrate said everyone was entitled to be stupid once, and Nevzat Erbasi's decision to become embroiled in his sons' alleged drug trafficking syndicate was his one time. The 48-year-old former Ford worker had an otherwise perfect record until he, as he put it to police, got "caught in the middle of their business". A small deal bag of the drug ice. Mr Erbasi was sentenced in the Shepparton Magistrates Court on Tuesday to a 12-month community corrections order, without a conviction recorded, for trafficking an ounce of the drug ice (worth about $4000) to an older Turkish friend in the community. "What saves him is his perfect record," Magistrate John O'Callaghan said. Matthew Wilkins had finished his VCE exams and was eagerly waiting for the results when he was struck by a deadly disease. On Saturday, the Marcellin College student woke up ill and was taken to the Austin hospital. The 18-year-old was admitted to hospital with a severe headache, abdominal pain and vomiting. He passed away that afternoon from meningococcal meningitis. The sudden death took place on his brother's 17th birthday. Summer weather has finally arrived in Perth, with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting a streak of six days of thirty plus degree weather from Wednesday, after a warm 28 on Tuesday, as the official start of summer in December gets ever closer. Wednesday, hot and sunny. Thursday, hot and sunny. Friday, exactly the same. There's very little chance of rain forecast, with only a few clouds expected throughout the working week and temperatures set to soar past 35 degrees on Friday and Saturday. It seems we're in for a long run of fine, hot days, and after last week's snarl of wintry weather, that's welcome news for Perth. Looking even further ahead hot weather looks set to continue next week, starting in the high twenties and then rising past the thirty degree mark for the first weekend of summer. Bureau of Meteorology's Perth forecast: Tuesday: 12-28, sunny. Paris: Two Qatari sisters were tear-gassed in their chauffeur-driven Bentley on a Paris motorway and robbed of more than 4 million ($6.7 million), in the latest major heist to shock the French capital. The thieves struck weeks after US reality television star Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in a Paris hotel. The two Qatari tourists, both in their sixties, had just left Le Bourget airport when they were flagged down by the robbers on the A1 motorway near a service station. After spraying both women and their driver with tear gas, the masked men forced open the car's boot and fled with an estimated $6.7 million worth of valuables including jewellery and clothes. Washington: When Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach met with President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday, he was carrying a copy of a plan for the Department of Homeland Security. The DHS oversees border security and immigration, issues on which Kobach advised Trump throughout the campaign. Plan in view: Kris Kobach holds his meeting papers. Credit:AP There had been speculation that Kobach might be under consideration to head the department in the lead-up to his meeting with Trump, and photographic evidence appears to confirm that. When Trump greeted Kobach at his clubhouse door in Bedminster, New Jersey, Kobach carried a document with the headings "Department of Homeland Security" and "Kobach Strategic Plan for the Next 365 Days." New infrastructure aims to increase takeaway capacity of natural gas from Utica region Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration Note: Proposed capacity shown on the graph reflects only the projects discussed in this article. Other proposed projects in the area are smaller or have not yet progressed through the approval process. U.S. Energy Information Administration pipeline database Proposed capacity shown on the graph reflects only the projects discussed in this article. Other proposed projects in the area are smaller or have not yet progressed through the approval process. A number of pipeline projects that have been approved, or are in various stages of the approval process, would increase capacity to transport natural gas from the Utica production region in Ohio to natural gas markets. Collectively, these projects could add up to 6.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of takeaway capacity out of the Utica region by the end of 2018. Over the past several years, natural gas production in the Appalachian basin from the Marcellus and Utica shales has grown significantly. Because pipeline projects often have longer lead times than production projects, transport infrastructure for accessing natural gas demand centers and export locations in the Appalachian Basin has not kept pace with production capability. This situation has resulted in a lower price for natural gas from the Appalachian region relative to many other natural gas trading hubs in the United States. Construction of a new interstate natural gas pipeline in the United States requires approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which can be a lengthy process. Construction on a pipeline can begin once a final environmental impact statement is issued, pending that project receiving Clean Water Act, Coastal Zone Management Act, Clean Air Act, and other necessary state permits. Key projects that are undergoing FERC review and may enter service in the next few years include: The Rover pipeline, which recently received a final environmental impact statement from FERC, is designed to transport 3.25 Bcf/d of natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica Shale areas to various market hubs. which recently received a final environmental impact statement from FERC, is designed to transport 3.25 Bcf/d of natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica Shale areas to various market hubs. The Leach Xpress project , which received a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) from FERC, seeks to add 1.5 Bcf/d of natural gas takeaway capacity along the Columbia Pipeline Groups network. , which received a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) from FERC, seeks to add 1.5 Bcf/d of natural gas takeaway capacity along the Columbia Pipeline Groups network. The Rayne Xpress project, which received a DEIS, will augment the Leach Xpress project. The Rayne Xpress Project seeks to add 0.6 Bcf/d in takeaway capacity from the Columbia Pipeline system to Gulf Coast markets, which will help facilitate liquefied natural gas exports, among other uses. which received a DEIS, will augment the Leach Xpress project. The Rayne Xpress Project seeks to add 0.6 Bcf/d in takeaway capacity from the Columbia Pipeline system to Gulf Coast markets, which will help facilitate liquefied natural gas exports, among other uses. The Nexus Gas Transmission project, which received a DEIS from FERC in July 2016, is designed to deliver 1.5 Bcf/d of natural gas supplies from the Utica region to markets in northern Ohio, southeastern Michigan, the Chicago Hub in Illinois, and the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. U.S. Energy Information Administration ATLANTA, Nov. 22, 2016 -- The Sunday after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest travel days of the year and one that sees a dramatic rise in the amount of accidents on our roadways. To remind Americans about the importance of driving safely, Road Safe America (RSA), a non-profit dedicated to reducing collisions between tractor-trailers and passenger vehicles, is encouraging all motorists to observe Drive Safer Sunday on November 27. U.S. Senators Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and David Perdue, R-Ga. were joined by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., in introducing a Drive Safer Sunday resolution in the Senate which passed on November 18th. The observance, now in its 12th year, is championed by Steve Owings and his wife, Susan, who founded RSA in 2003 after their son, Cullum, was killed when his car stopped in an interstate traffic jam was crushed from behind by a speeding tractor-trailer on cruise control going well above the posted speed limit. The crash occurred on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2002 as Cullum returned to college after spending the week at home in Atlanta with his family and friends. "The Sunday after Thanksgiving will always be a painful day for our family," said Steve Owings. "We hope that by raising awareness of the dangers of holiday travel, many lives will be spared and other families will not have to deal with needless, tragic loss." Each year, more than 1,000 people are killed and nearly 25,000 people are injured in accidents involving speeding tractor trailers. And while the biggest tractor-trailers only account for one percent of vehicles on American roads, they are involved in a staggering 18 percent of fatal, multi-vehicle crashes. In fact, the number of crashes involving heavy commercial trucks has increased 44 percent since 2009. RSA reminds those traveling during Thanksgiving (and the Christmas and New Year's holidays to come) to: Get plenty of rest before operating a vehicle and take frequent breaks to remain alert. Be attentive to dangers inside and outside of their car. Consider driving during off-peak travel hours to avoid congestion. Avoid unnecessary distractions behind the wheel, including loud sound systems and the use of any hand-held devices. Remember that in many states, a hand-held phone and particularly texting behind the wheel is illegal. Give large trucks plenty of room since they can't see as well, maneuver as quickly, or stop in the same distance as passenger vehicles can in an emergency. This year, citizens can also be heard on the issue of a requirement for speed limiters to be set on all big-rigs. RSA strongly urges all drivers to demand that the speed limiter rule, pending at the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT), apply to all existing tractor-trailers (not just new ones) with the capability on our nation's highways. Incredibly, the proposed rule as currently stated, would only apply to newly manufactured trucks, despite the fact that the majority of existing big-rigs already have speed-limiting technology built into their systems. The comment period is open until December 7 and the Owings family hopes that thousands will take the time to voice their displeasure about this proposed rule, while enjoying Thanksgiving break with their loved ones. "The government has an immediate opportunity to significantly reduce these horrific crashes on our highways," said Steve Owings. "The United States is shamefully the only leading country on earth without such a rule. We hope that citizens will demand that the clear safety benefits of this rule are achieved now, not over the next 20 to 30 years it would take for all trucks to turn over to new models." To voice your concern about the proposed speed limiter rule, visit Road Safe America's website and follow the easy steps to submit a comment: www.roadsafeamerica.org Road Safe America is dedicated to reducing the injuries and deaths resulting from collisions between tractor-trailer trucks and passenger vehicles by effecting change to improve safety on America's Roadways. We are supported by private donations and have no financial ties to any part of the transportation industry. We are not anti-truck or anti-trucker. We are pro-safety. Steve Owings and his wife, Susan, founded Road Safe America in 2003 after their son, Cullum, was killed when his car stopped in an interstate traffic jam was crushed from behind by a speeding tractor trailer going well above the posted speed limit on cruise control. Since that tragic event, Steve and Susan, through Road Safe America, have worked to make our highways safer for all travelers. DES MOINES Its a good time to be a turkey in Iowa. The turkey industry has recovered from the avian influenza that decimated flocks in 2015. And four Iowa turkeys will be spared places as highlights of the Thanksgiving table this year thanks to pardons from Gov. Terry Branstad and President Barack Obama. Branstad pardoned two Iowa-raised turkeys, an annual Thanksgiving-week tradition, on Monday morning at the governors mansion on Terrace Hill in Des Moines. The two turkeys chosen to be spared the carving knives are named Bryant and Rizzo, a nod to Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo of the World Series champion Chicago Cubs. The turkeys come from the farm of Noel Thompson of Ellsworth. I, Terry E. Branstad, governor of the state of Iowa, do hereby proclaim Rizzo the turkey and Bryant the turkey free from the harm of the carving knives and gravy for this Thanksgiving Day, Branstad declared Monday. Meantime, two more Iowa turkeys were chosen to be pardoned by Obama in the annual ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. Those lucky birds, who will be named by the president and his staff, are from the farm of Chris and Nicole Domino in northwest Iowa near Early. The Dominos farm was chosen for the presidential pardoning ceremony by the chairman of the National Turkey Federation. Gretta Irwin, executive director of the Iowa Turkey Federation, said it is the seventh time an Iowa turkey has been pardoned by the president. Iowa farmers produce 11 million turkeys annually, the eighth-most in the nation. In 2015, the avian flu caused the death of more than 1 million turkeys in Iowa. Irwin said Monday that the industry has rebounded. This years been a really great year for the Iowa turkey industry. Our numbers continue to increase in our turkey production, and weve added a few more farmers in Iowa, which is always great, Irwin said. Its doing quite well right now in Iowa. Monday 05 September, 2016 Reliable information reaching Biafra writers desk has it that the life of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indi... 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It may have a new approach altogether once Gov. Terry Branstad and the new GOP legislative majority set their funding priorities, Iowas education chief said Tuesday. Ryan Wise, director of the state Department of Education, presented a fiscal 2018 budget request to boost his agencys existing state funding by $13.96 million. While there was new money to fund the Iowa Reading Research Center and a literacy early warning system, the request did not address implementation of a new intensive statewide literacy law slated to take effect in mid-2018. I think that will certainly be a point of conversation in the Legislature of when is the right time to have that requirement in there and then how are schools supported in that effort, Wise told reporters after spelling out specifics of his departments strategic plans to Gov. Terry Branstad. I think we would certainly look for next year as potentially the year to ask for an additional request. Last session the Legislature agreed to push back the reading program requirement from its 2017 scheduled launch to the summer of 2018 because the roughly $14 million needed to properly support its implementation was not available in a tight budget year. Branstad, who did not include funding for the reading program in his previous budget plan, has indicated he expects another challenging budget year again during the 2017 legislative session due to sluggish farm prices that are negatively impacting revenue growth. During a fall tour of a reading program in Urbandale, Branstad said he was concerned current state revenue growth may not be strong enough to support a statewide summer reading initiative designed to make sure third-graders meet proficiency standards that are a key educational building block. The governor also said he wanted to review results from a pilot project this past summer. At Tuesdays budget hearing, Wise pointed to progress in implementing universal screening and literacy progress monitoring program that assessed more that 235,000 students in the pre-kindergarten through sixth grade range. More than 80 percent of kindergarten-through-third grade students were receiving weekly progress monitoring, he added, noting that about 68 percent of students in the K-3 group performed above literacy benchmarks compared to 64 percent earlier in the school year an increase of 6,000 more children. I would say a 4 percent growth in the course of a year is progress. Certainly, we can always improve and strive for more, said Wise, who conceded the 32 percent who did not perform above benchmark represented about 48,000 students. Clearly, we know that there is a lot of work ahead and were focused on ensuring that every single student in Iowa does read well, particularly by the end of third grade so that theyre able to access the more rigorous course work ahead of them and opportunities beyond high school, the DOE chief said. We know there is a tremendous sense of urgency, both in terms of the percentage of students who arent reading proficiently and the gaps that exist between groups of students, he added. At the same time, Wise said, it was impossible to predict if implementation of the intensive summer reading program would be pushed back again. Last month, the Iowa Department of Education released a report that showed an overall decline in scores for students in grades three through eight and high school juniors on the Iowa Assessments. On average, 23.5 percent of all students did not meet state standards in reading, while about 20.6 percent failed to meet math standards a decline of about 1 percent from the previous year. Queen Anne-Marie wears her topaz cluster brooch (Photo: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images) Anne-Marie, the former Queen of Greece, has a jewel collection that any of us would envy. Thats, in part, because she was born into one royal family and married into another. Today, were looking at an heirloom that comes from her mother, Queen Ingrid of Denmark: the topaz cluster brooch. Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty Images The brooch features a large, oval-shaped topaz with a deep yellow hue. The gemstone is surrounded by three rows of diamonds. The brooch can be worn either with or without a pear-shaped pearl drop pendant. And it can be worn either horizontally or vertically, because it has hooks to attach the pendant on both the long and short ends of the oval. Left: Grand Duchess Hilda of Baden; Right: Queen Ingrid of Denmark (Photos: Wikimedia Commons) In his book on Denmarks royal jewels, Bjarne Steen Jensen explains that the piece originally comes from Germany. In 1935, Queen Ingrid of Denmark (then Princess Ingrid of Sweden) received the jewel as a wedding present from her great-aunt, Grand Duchess Hilda of Baden. (Hildas late husband, Grand Duke Friedrich II of Baden, was the brother of Ingrids grandmother, Queen Victoria of Sweden.) Hilda didnt attend the wedding, but she apparently sent along this piece to mark her great-nieces marriage to the future Danish king. Photo: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images Jensens book notably contains some errors about major Danish pieces, and in his discussion of the topaz brooch, he makes a few clear assumptions about the piece. He suggests that the topaz in the center of the brooch was probably heat-treated, because of its vivid, dark-yellow color. He also posits that the brooch dates to the early 1800s, basing his claim on the pieces design. (It does share many commonalities with similar brooches made in the first half of the nineteenth century think about the similar brooches with Napoleonic heritage in the Swedish royal vaults.) Photo: KELD NAVNTOFT/AFP/Getty Images Jensen also assumes that the brooch must be a Baden family piece. He bases this belief on the fact that Grand Duchess Hilda didnt have any children therefore, she must have given a piece of family jewelry to Ingrid. (This is possible, but its not necessarily true.) He speculates further that the brooch could have belonged to Grand Duchess Louise of Baden (Hildas mother-in-law and Ingrids great-grandmother) or even Grand Duchess Sophie of Baden (Ingrids great-great-grandmother, who was born a Swedish princess). Ultimately, I dont think we know for sure. Photo: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images What we do know, however, is that Queen Anne-Marie inherited the brooch from her mother. She wears it quite frequently at major occasions now, including the 60th birthday of her cousin, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, and the wedding of her niece, Nathalie of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg. Anne-Marie generally wears it horizontally, both with and without the pearl pendant. Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been a rising star in progressive circles, which makes her meeting Monday with President-elect Donald Trump highly unusual, at least at first glance. But the Hawaii congresswoman has also been a defender of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russias Vladimir Putinstances that align with the incoming administrations foreign policy. Gabbard, a favorite of incoming White House senior counselor Steve Bannon, is the first congressional Democrat approached to have a face-to-face meeting with Trumpand the first Bernie Sanders supporter to do so as well. Sensing criticism from the left for taking a meeting with Trump, she put out a statement in which she justified her foreign policy meeting as necessary so that the left and right could find common ground. But she also included pro-Assad apologia in the mix, arguing that the United States should not confront Russia because it could lead to conflict and indicating that the Assad regime should remain in place, calling any attempts to remove him as illegal. I shared with him my grave concerns that escalating the war in Syria by implementing a so-called no fly/safe zone would be disastrous for the Syrian people, our country, and the world, Gabbard said. It would lead to more death and suffering, exacerbate the refugee crisis, strengthen ISIS and al Qaeda, and bring us into a direct conflict with Russia which could result in a nuclear war. That might sound like standard issue progressive anti-war rhetoric, but coupled with her past statements and actions, its more of a plea to let Assad be. In March, for instance, Gabbard was the only Democrat and one of just three members of Congress to vote against a resolution condemning violence by the Assad regime against civilian populations. And she has long been a defender of the Putin regime, writing for example in September 2015, on the first day of the Russian intervention in Syria, [I]ts mind-boggling that we protest Russias bombing of these terrorists. Russia is responsible for attacking U.S.-backed opposition forces in Syria, an aid convoy delivering relief to civilians, and medical facilities. By taking the meeting with Trump and making such a statement afterward, critics argue, Gabbard is giving the Trump administration the guise of bipartisan support for ignoring Assads war crimes, which include bombing civilian populations and the use of chemical weapons. Gabbard and Trump also see eye to eye on closing the door on refugees. For years, both individuals have advocated a free pass for murderous dictators, while intensifying scrutiny on mothers and children sitting in refugee camps who would like to come to the United States, said Evan Barrett, a political adviser to the Coalition for a Democratic Syria, a Syrian-American opposition umbrella group. Tulsi is very much a part of the inward-facing mind-set that gave us President-elect Trump, and no one should be surprised when they join hands to appease despots and shut the door to the worlds most desperate people. An estimated 470,000 people have died in the Syrian civil war as of February. The Assad regime is responsible for far more deaths in Syria than ISIS is. Some of the great acts of genocide in history are taking place while we are discussing issues of far less importance, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain said over the weekend at the Halifax International Security Conference, chiding journalists and policymakers alike for focusing on Cabinet appointment rumors and not policy issues. Ultimately, the meeting between Trump and Gabbard signals a Trump administration tilt toward appeasement of autocrats and those who until this new administration would be viewed almost universally as pariahs. I felt it important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect now before the drumbeats of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government, Gabbard said Monday in her statement, an odd remark considering that President-elect Trump is anything but a neocon. And her statement was telling: She expressed concern that the Syrian government not be overthrown but left absent any concern for the hundreds of thousands who have died in that country at its hands. So Chuck Schumer started saying over the weekend that he would oppose Donald Trumps infrastructure bill, assuming it looks roughly the same as Trumps campaign proposal. Good. Its a sham. Or, as Ron Klain called it in an absolute must-read Washington Post column over the weekend, a trap. Its a tax break plan for developers that wouldnt create that many jobs or finance existing, crumbling infrastructure, and it would add to the deficit. So its a good sign, what Schumer said, as was his interview with E.J. Dionne Monday, in which he said that when Trump goes divisive, the Democrats will oppose him with everything we have. Unfortunately, they dont have muchno committee chairs, no subpoena power, no oversight power, no control of the legislative calendar. And theres no prospect of getting any of those things in 2018, either. To make matters worse, as I noted last week, there are four Democratic senators from deep-red states who are up for reelection in 2018. The pressure on those fourClaire McCaskill, Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp, Jon Testerto support Trump initiatives will be enormous. Another five represent states that Trump won, albeit more narrowly; they too will face such pressures, so Schumer is going to have a tough time holding that caucus together. So what do the Democrats have? Mainly right now, what they have are a lot of pissed off and freaked out people who want to do something. And Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and the other leaders of the official, Washington Democratic Party have to energize and engage these people in ways theyve always been reluctant to do in the past. Which means they have to behave very differently from the way theyve behaved as an opposition party in the past. Some background. In recent history, the Democrats were most notably in the oppositional spotlight twice: in the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was president, and then in 2001-2002 when it was George W. Bush. Both times, the Democrats were overly accommodating. The 1980s are ancient history now in terms of polarization, but just for the record, Ill note for you that 63 Democratic House members and 30 senators backed Ronald Reagans first budget. That represented nearly a third of all Democrats then in Congress. When Dubya became president, things were more polarized, but even so, three Democratic senators and 13 House members backed Bushs first tax cut. Those numbers are small, but theyre a lot more than the zero votes Republicans routinely gave Barack Obama (he did get three GOP senators on the stimulus package, but no House members). And many more Democrats backed the No Child Left Behind act, another early Bush signature bill. The Democrats who cast these yea votes did so in part for their own local reasons, but there has also long been a fear on the Democratic side of opposing these Republican presidents big initiatives because the Democrats feared theyd work, and then they (the Democrats) would be seen as anti-growth. The same logic was at work on the Iraq War vote for many of them, especially the ones with an eye on the White Houseif the war was a success and they voted against it, theyd look weak. They were wrong every time. Voting for Republican economic schemes just ended up muddying their own message and lending bipartisan cover to a massive wealth transfer to those at the top. And voting for Bushs war, well In casting these votes, Democrats went against the passion of their grassroots. This has been a key difference between the two parties for a good 20 years now: The Republicans relentlessly pander to their base, while the Democrats keep theirs at arms length (think of the way Pelosi immediately slammed the door shut on impeachment talk when she became Speaker in 2007). That has to be different now. They shouldnt pander to the base as abjectly as the Republicans do, because thats what got us to Trump. But they do need to listen more and be less afraid of Republican attacks. The Democratic Party, as an actually existing thing, has four main parts to it: one, the elected officials; two, the money people; three, the people (a few thousand) who work in the trenches for the various progressive causes; four, the energized base (as opposed to people who just vote once every four years). The four parts dont really talk to each other. That must change. Elected officials have to see that they need to take the idea of energizing the base seriously. Again, here, Schumer made a positive and, to me, surprising move when he came out so quickly for Keith Ellison as the new DNC chair. Ellison is well to Schumers left, but Senate sources tell me that Schumer recognized that the official party, the ones and the twos, have to do a better job of making the fours feel theyre being heard. That leaves the threes, and this too is an absolutely crucial point. These organizations on the broad left are constantly underfundedeverybody scrounging to the same few foundations, which take months to decide things and then fund something for three years and withdraw instead of the 10 years that people need to make their organizations have impact. Let me give you one telling example. As I wrote more than once during the campaign, Judicial Watch did a lot, in this campaign and over many years, to darken Hillary Clintons image in the minds of average Americans. They did this through FOIA request after FOIA request, getting their teams of lawyers to comb through every document, and turning up stuff that could be peddled as dirt and that informed the way the mainstream media wrote about Clintonthe assumptions made, the adjectives used, and so on. Judicial Watch has a $30 million annual budget. Now: Dont you think liberalism could use a Judicial Watch of its own to file FOIA after FOIA after FOIA on the Trump administration? It sure could. The group would have a field day with this guy. The revelations that would come out would make for a constant media barrage hitting Trump on ethics. Hed be on the defensive all the time. Wellthere is no such group. No one has funded it. Actually, there is one group in Washington that may be capable of doing this work, the Committee for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). Its a good outfit. But CREWs budget is just $2 million. You hear a lot about George Soros and rich Hollywood liberals, and you probably just assume that liberals spend more money on this kind of activity than conservatives. Not so. There are far more rich conservatives than liberals for the obvious reason that having pots of money tends to make people conservativeand tends to make them want to invest in the politicians wholl protect their money. And so its the right that spends more. Rob Stein, the founder of the Democracy Alliance, the group of wealthy liberal donors that tries to coordinate investment in a progressive infrastructure, has studied this question for years. He told me: The right has been building its infrastructure for more than 40 years. Whereas 10 years ago the rights independent political apparatus was outspending progressives in electorally relevant state-based political mobilization by over two to one, in this cycle that margin appears to have been in excess of four to one. Lots of work to do. The Democrats have the votes in the Senate to block most things from passing, unless Mitch McConnell gets rid of the filibuster, which well see about soon enough. But theyre not going to stop whats coming with forty-odd votes. That will take millionsof dollars, and people. Theyre out there. They need to be directed and led, without fear of Trump or Fox or whatever. If those days arent over, the legacy of the Democratic Party may soon be. When the Los Angeles Timess social media team tweeted a link to a story about last Saturdays celebratory post-election gathering in Washington of racists, anti-Semites, and white nationalists, the reactionat least by somewas collective outrage. Worthless @latimes covers resurgent neo-Nazi movement as if it was a new boy band, one of dozens of aggrieved readers tweeted after the paper touted the story on the benignly yet deceptively named National Policy Institute with the cheeky tweet, Meet the new think tank in town: The alt-right comes to Washington. This tweet by the @latimes is beyond offensive, liberal radio host Roland Martin posted on Twitter. Calling these white nationalists a think tank is atrocious. Another critic, actor Adam Shapiro, who was in the cast of Aaron Sorkins Steve Jobs biopic, objected to the respectful attention the Timess coverage of the conference accorded National Policy Institute president Richard Spencer, who is credited with coining the term alt-right for his fellow twenty- and thirty-something clean-cut millennials who would rather not be tagged as xenophobic thugs. WTF?! Why are you glamorizing this guy, @latimes? This is not a think tank. Its a hate group, Shapiro tweeted in response not only to Lisa Mascaros storywhich quoted Spencer as hailing the alt-right as an intellectual vanguardbut also to an accompanying video in which the telegenic and articulate white nationalist was given four unchallenged minutes to reasonably explain his dream to influence politics and influence culture to restore white people of European descent to unquestioned power and social dominance, adding, I think we have an amazing opportunity to do that with Donald Trump. Another tweeter, technology reporter Jack Smith IV, posted: What normalization ACTUALLY looks like: the @latimes running straight uploads of Richard Spencer sermons without qualification. In fairness, Mascaros storywhich eventually carried an altered headline, dropping the think tank idea in favor of White nationalists dress up and come to Washington in hopes of influencing Trumpdid point out that the formally dressed men more resembled Washington lobbyists than the robed Ku Klux Klansmen or skinhead toughs that often represent white supremacists, though they share many familiar views. But unlike more unsympathetic accounts of the gathering in The New York Times and The Daily Beast, it made no mention of partygoers, including former MTV host Tila Tequila, jubilantly giving the Nazi salute and engaging in other less than democracy-friendly behavior. Still, the LA Times story also quoted Heidi Beirich, of the anti-hate group nonprofit, the Southern Poverty Law Center, as warning against the mainstreaming of pernicious ideologies that the National Policy Institute represents. On Monday, Beirich, while calling the LA Timess Mascaro thoughtful, cautioned news outlets not to legitimize such groups with apparently balanced, if not credulous, coverage. I dont want anything to normalize the National Policy Institute, she told The Daily Beast. I think there has been a tendency in the press to not understand what the alt-right iswhich is white supremacy. And I think were letting haters basically rebrand themselves to sounds less threateningand that is very disappointing. I worry about that. The LA Timess spokesperson didnt respond to an email requesting comment. Two weeks after the election, in a sign that we may well have entered a post-humor age, supermodel Gigi Hadid was shamed on Twitter for her brief, mocking impersonation of first lady-elect Melania Trump, which she delivered as co-host of the American Music Awards with actor and comedian Jay Pharaoh on Sunday night. Sporting an exaggerated duckface and Eastern European accent, Hadid nodded to Melanias plagiarism scandal: I love my husband President Barack Obama and our children, Sasha and Malia. While some cheered the model on Twitter, others were appalled by her impressions apparent offensiveness. One user wrote that shes not a Trump supporter in any way but publicly humiliating [Melania] for having an accent? #NOTOK. Another asked how Hadid would feel if someone made fun of your dads Muslim accent? But making fun of Melanias accent and face is ok? There were, of course, plenty of Trump supporters and other conservatives among the faux-outraged who called out liberal hypocrisy. Greg Gutfeld, former host of Fox News Red Eye, snarked: u made fun of a womans eastern european accent! hysterical! soAfricans and Mexicans tomorrow? Now more than ever, it seems as if people are viewing any attempts at comedy as excuses to voice their outrage or rant about the injustice of everythingand its not just lefty college students who are easily offended. Take, for example, the conservative hand-wringing over Mike Pence being booed by some audience members at Hamilton on Friday this past weekend, and the casts well-phrased admonishment at the end of the show. It was yet another indication that the next four years could see an endless stream of moral signaling and outrage from both sides of the political spectrum over any real or perceived insult. Trumps response to the reception of his VP-elect at Hamiltona tweet that The Theater must always be a safe and special place and demand that the cast apologize!was a parody of itself that underscored a disturbing reality: Along with his narcissistic thin skin, the president-elect has a penchant for the authoritarian when confronted with freedom of expression. The same man who, some have argued, won the election by appealing to a portion of the electorate that is tired of identity politics and political correctness is just as easily offended as the leftists he mocked ceaselessly during his campaign. After watching Alec Baldwin reprise his role as Trump on Saturday Night Live this weekend, Trump tweeted that it was a totally one-sided, biased shownothing funny at all, prompting a series of rather serious responses from Baldwin on Twitter, who laid out what hed be doing with his time had he just been elected president. Some have argued that Baldwins opening skit on SNL failed as satire because it was too real (this joke isnt funny anymore, wrote my colleague Marlow Stern). Its understandable that the idea of a Trump administration is still too soon and too real for many of us to make light of. In the immediate aftermath of Trumps election, not even Judd Apatow could stomach the idea of humor in such tumultuous times. There was nothing funny about the fact that Trump, who had consistently been fodder for satire over the past year, was now president-electsomeone were meant to take very seriously. But as the reality of President-elect Trump sets in, replacing political humor with more SNL openers like last weekends solemn tribute to both the loss of Leonard Cohen and Hillary Clintons loss wont do us any good. Its one thing to seek comfort and solace in art and cultural commentary, but most of us dont watch SNL because we want to see a teary-eyed Kate McKinnon performing Cohens Hallelujah in character as Hillary Clintonthen telling the audience, without irony, that she isnt giving upand neither should you. Lena Dunham, who had broken out in hives the night that Trump was elected, may have thought McKinnons performance was the most beautiful thing ever to happen ever, but were going to need some levity to get through the next four years. As for the Twitter storm over Gigi Hadids Melania Trump impersonation, maybe people are tired of the way that everything has being politicized to death, from their Facebook feeds to their forthcoming Thanksgiving dinners. But the next four years will be much worse for everyone if theyre as bereft of humor and comedy as theyve turned out to be since the election. If Gigi Hadids 10-second, harmless impression of Melania Trump is a pretext for outrage from both the left and the right, then we can expect the next four years to be very tedious indeed. KIEVThree years ago Ukrainians decided they would not tolerate a bunch of crooks and liars in power and an uprising in the streets, centered on Maidan Nezalezhnosti Square in Kiev, toppled the countrys leader. President Victor Yanukovych fled to Russia in disgrace, leaving Ukraine inflamed by what came to be called the Revolution of Dignity. The more people learned after he left, the angrier they became. They discovered the truth about their presidents failed promises, his outrageous corruption, the absurd luxury that he enjoyed in his wooden palace outside of Kiev, where the staircases alone cost $200,000unimaginable money for an average Ukrainian family. Today, new liars and crooks are making Ukrainians furious, as more despicable crimes traumatize this vast European country that borders Poland, Belarus, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova and, yes, Russiaa frontier that Moscow is determined to re-draw. To mark the anniversary of the revolution, several thousand people flooded Kievs center on Monday. Police alarms screamed all over the city. Hundreds of military and police units blocked the streets around Maidan Nezalezhnosti and checked every bag and purse that pedestrians brought with them to the square. The opposition promised to burn more tires, the revolution goes on, one of the policemen, smiling, explained to The Daily Beast. At about 2:00 p.m. over 500 far-right activists from the Azov Battalion marched first to the presidential administration headquarters, then to the Prosecutor Generals office, chanting, Power of the nation! The protesters set up pieces of marble to build symbolic graves in front of the prosecutors headquarters with the names of People Buried In Maidans Cause carved on the stone. As night fell, protesters did indeed begin to burn tires. Artem Skoropadsky, press secretary for the radical Right Sector, told The Daily Beast that the plan was to go and smash the oligarch Viktor Medvechuks office (which they did shortly thereafter). He is one of Ukraines traitors, he lives in Moscow, works for Putin, so at least we should punish him, Skoropadsky said. *** Some of the crucial truths that inspired the Revolution of Dignity on November 21, 2013, were first revealed by a team of independent reporters from Ukrainska Pravda, the most trusted publication in the country, read by up to one million people a day. Then, two of the best investigative reporters, Mustafa Nayem and Serhiy Leshchenko, joined the post-revolutionary parliament to push for reforms. To fill in the gap the in the staff and start bringing up a new generation of investigative reporters, Ukrainska Pravdas publisher Pavel Sheremet, and its founder, Alyona Pritula (the love of his life), organized training courses for dozens of talented reporters. Today Ukraine needs an army of investigative journalists, Sheremet told his friends last year. But somebody in post-Maidan Ukraine did not want that. In July, an assassin used a car bomb to murder Sheremet right by Kievs Opera House. For the last few months, Sheremets students, young reporters, and his close friends have been trying to find out who committed the murder, and who ordered it. We do not trust police investigators, says Dmytro Gnap, a senior investigative journalist at Hromadske TV. We can count only on our own efforts and here is what we think: Russia has nothing to do with our friends murder. (Moscow has been behind many crimes, to be sure, but it is also the default villain in just about every Ukraine conspiracy theory.) Our investigation gives us clues to at least five people involved in setting up the explosives and killing Sheremet, Gnap tells The Daily Beast. We believe that the assassins and organizers were local. Hromadske TV journalists investigated the murder in cooperation with Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project investigators, who had previously researched the scandalous Panama Papers. Time works against us, but even if it takes years, we are going to find out who ordered Sheremets murder. This is a matter of our personal professional dignity, said Gnap. *** Protesters hungry for quick revolutionary gratification did indeed set Medvechuks office on fire. The oligarch was famous for saying it was his honor to be close to Putin. Last year, in a grotesque affront to public sentiment, Medvechuk reportedly bought a luxury yacht, Royal Romance, for $214 million. Ukrainians have no tolerance left for rich hypocrites. This is a country where, according to the latest social polls conducted by The Institute of Public Politics, 74.5 percent of the population fears poverty more than anything else. While firefighters and police units were busy putting out the blaze and providing security for pedestrians outside of Medvechuks office, more news arrived: Somebody was smashing windows at the Russian Saving Bank in Kievs downtown. It seemed Freedom and Dignity Day sounded to some disillusioned Ukrainians like a good time for revenge. They were tired of waiting for better times, they said. The reforms were too slow, the government too corrupt. People want to see success stories, the new laws being implemented, criminals punished but the progress has frozen, it is just a nice facadewe can hardly push through any of our ideas,said Olena Salata, an expert in one of the most hopeful post-Maidan groups called Reanimation Package of Reforms. Wounded by the Russian annexation of Crimea, by the war in the eastern Donbas region, by the economic crises, by millions of people living under separatist rule, Ukraine lives with constant post-traumatic stress disorder. Three years ago many lost their friends to bullets here on Maidan square. Today the horrible memories stood up before their eyes, once again. Was Ukraine worried about Putin-Trump bromance on this day? Nobody here thinks of Putin or Trump today, we have our own crooks to deal with, we look for our own truth, we care about our own dignity and courage, that we hope will be more pure than in Russia and America, said Mykola Usaty, a veteran of the Donbas war, as we stood in Maidan. The activist said that the demonstrations goal was to remind the current government about the rules during the Revolution of Dignity, when to get a green light for every step, for every action, politicians had to seek permission from the crowd in the revolutionary square. Today many progressive thinkers in Ukraine hope that even if it takes time, their country will succeed with reform and develop its democratic institutions. One of the strongest optimists is Nataliya Gumenyuk, editor-in-chief of Hromadske International. In a recent interview, Gumenyuk told The Daily Beast that she saw bright possibilities in Ukraines future. Gumenyuk had just returned to Kiev after covering the U.S. elections. Traveling around the southern states, she met with Donald Trumps supporters, who often reminded Gumenyuk of Donbas separatists. If not for the success of our democrat revolution, I would have been in prison today, there would have been no journalist investigations, no anti-corruption organizations, and Trumps [former campaign manager and] adviser Paul Manafort would have been friends with President Yanukovych, said Gumenyuk over dinner. So I suggest we celebrate and feel happy today. Three years ago we managed to catch the very last train of the democrat revolution. President-elect Donald Trump signaled he would break one of his most authoritarian campaign-promises: His vow to do everything he could to jail his political rival Hillary Clinton. Its just not something that I feel very strongly about, Trump told reporters and columnists at The New York Times Tuesday afternoon. I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways. Trump told the Times, regarding his supporters, I dont think theyll be disappointed. He thought wrong. Many of Trumps more high-profile fans, surrogates, and allies are angry about this about-face and insist Crooked Hillaryas Trump dubbed her throughout the campaignbe locked up. Im hearing from people who are livid at Hillary, theyre still mad, Rush Limbaugh, the famous conservative talk show host, said on Tuesday afternoon. There are a lot of people who really thought that when Trump said You oughta be in jail, that they agreed with that and thought that she should be! Whoa! I thought we elected [Donald Trump] president, Ann Coulter, conservative pundit and one of Trumps most loyal media boosters, tweeted in response to the news. Did we make him the FBI, & DOJ? His job is to pick those guys, not do their jobs. As happy as I am that our long national nightmares over, NO president [should] be blocking investigators from doing their jobs. #EqualUnderLaw, she continued. Coulter wasnt alone in her frustration. Calls to imprison Clinton, wasnt a passing idea in the Trump campaignit was a central tenet. After all, this reversal comes after a long campaign during which Trump and his allies and his surrogates had made LOCK HER UP! chants and Hillary for Prison swag staples of Trump rallies. BROKEN PROMISE, declared Breitbarta far-right website previously run by Stephen Bannon, Trumps incoming White House chief strategist. Former tea-party congressman Joe Walsh, who tweeted in July that Hillary Clinton should be in prison, didnt seem too pleased, either. When he said Lock her up what he really meant was Help her heal, Walsh tweeted sarcastically on Tuesday. Others tried to look for loopholes in Trumps statements, and tried to find hope in the slight ambiguity of his statement. That doesnt mean that [the Department of] Justice wouldnt do it, Al Baldasaro, a Trump supporter and New Hampshire lawmaker who called for the execution of Hillary Clinton during the campaign, told The Daily Beast. Its not that hes not going to do it. Hes going to let Congress do their job Its going to continue its investigations. The media, Baldasaro said, was trying to find something thats not there. Bill Mitchell, a small-time talk-show host and a fervent Trump supporter, suggested the president-elect was pulling a Machiavellian maneuver. You may be upset Trump has signaled he will not persecute Hillary, but you will see in short the this was brilliant strategic positioning, he wrote on Twitter. When Trump looks at an apple, he doesnt just see the apple, he sees the soil and the tree and the farmer and the rain. Trust him. Others are making peace with Trumps decision by hiding behind their supposed cynicism of politics. Limbaugh, who has rallied Trump supporters through the latter end of the campaign with anti-Clinton rantings, claims now that he never really believed Trump would have gone through with his promise. I never expected Trump to actually prosecute her, he said on his show. And the reason is Im falling back on what some of the standard protocols for politics are after victory and this just, we in America do not prosecute defeated political enemies... If he did it, it was going to be icing on the cake for me. But I never expected him to do it. The president doesnt have the authority to put individuals in jail, but has influence over the process: Trump told Clinton during a presidential debate in October, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation were gonna have a special prosecutor. He then added that if he were in charge, shed be in jail. But now that hes entering office, Trump is not so sureand it raises questions about how serious he was about any of his promises, to the chagrin of his most ardent backers. with additional reporting by Andrew Kirell Donald Trumps inauguration may be 58 days away, but for the Muslim officials once welcomed into the U.S. governments war on terrorism, the change already has begun. Four U.S. officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said fear is pervasive among Muslims inside the halls of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the Department of Homeland Security in anticipation of a Trump administration. Already, the officials said, they are seeing colleagues who are less willing to share their thoughts about national security. They fear they will no longer be seen as an asset to confronting terrorism but rather suspect members of the government they serve. It is, one U.S. official explained, a climate of anticipatory freakout. Muslim employees at the Pentagon, both civilian and military, were reticent to talk about their fears, even in a building where there are Muslim services every Friday. I am scared to speak, one civilian told The Daily Beast. We dont know what it is going to mean for us. Will Muslim CIA agents be asked to register? Will the next commander in chief ban the family of Muslim troops from visiting this country? Will Muslim members of the Department of Homeland Security face increased scrutiny based on their faith? Its one thing to attack your argument. Its another to attack your person. And that is what people fear: that if they speak up too much, they will be attacked, the U.S. official continued. You are less likely to speak up if you are against the prevailing view. Before, that was not a consideration. Managers throughout the departments already are trying to calm staffers, reassuring them they will not be treated differently by those around them. It is not just Muslims who are worried. Gays and lesbians, African Americans, Hispanics, and women all have expressed some level of concern. After all, the national-security community has historically lagged behind other government agencies when it comes to embracing diversity. It was not until a 1995 executive order that gays and lesbians could serve openly in national-security jobs and get clearances. At the same time, women climbed the ranks of the agencies, most notably in 1997, when Madeleine Albright became the first female secretary of State, the highest national-security position ever held by a woman. Post-9/11, two presidents publicly spoke on behalf of Muslims and said they are a part of the American fabric, not a segment of the population that should be equated with extremists. According to the White House, minorities now make up 20 percent of senior diplomats and 15 percent of senior military officers and intelligence officials. Despite that, the fear these days among Muslims especially is born out of both the rhetoric of the election and, more recently, Trumps picks so far for his national-security team. Ret. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, has called fear of Muslims rational. On Sunday, Reince Priebus said on Meet the Press that while there was no plan for a Muslim registry, Im not going to rule out anything. Also Sunday, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach met with Trump and was photographed carrying a document spelling out a 100-day plan for the Department of Homeland Security that included a proposal to question high-risk immigrants over support for Sharia law and belief in the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps the most searing interaction between Muslims and Trump, for Muslims who serve in national security, was Trumps treatment of a Muslim Gold Star family during the presidential campaign. After Khizr Khanwhose son, Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq in 2004spoke at the Democratic National Convention, Trump attacked him and his wife, and insisted that he too had made a lot of sacrifices. The result is a president-elect not welcome in the nations mosques. For some, there already is a litmus test for incoming members of the Trump administration: Will agency heads and Cabinet secretaries let the mistreatment of Muslims or any other minority be tolerated? Some said they hope Congress poses such questions to Flynn during the confirmation hearings. Either way, the new administration is a marked change. For the Obama administration, diversity within the administration was not just about politics but a means to better secure the country. And officials advocated it aggressively. Departments now are filled with younger staffers, many of whom never anticipated anything other than a government that embraced diversity. Where minority staffers once were in lower-level jobs, now it is no longer uncommon to see a Muslim in hijab at the table of a high-level meeting. I truly believe that the business case for diversity is stronger for CIA than it is for any organization in the U.S. government, CIA Director John Brennan told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in June. Diversity not only gives us the cultural understanding we need to operate in any corner of the globe, it also helps us avoid groupthink, ensuring we bring to bear a range of perspectives on the complex challenges that are inherent to intelligence work. Just last month, President Obama issued a memorandum about Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the National-Security Workforce that called for better data about the makeup of national-security employees and to help expand diversity within the national-security community. There is nothing that binds the incoming president from adhering to any part of the memorandum. AMARILLO, TexasA Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill to force teachers and other school faculty to out LGBT students to their families, even if a student asks that their sexual orientation or gender identity remain secret. Senate Bill 242, introduced this month by Tea Party legislator Konni Burton, would penalize teachers with suspension without pay or even termination if they refuse to tell parents about students requests regarding issues dealing with their gender or sexual identities. It appears Burton was inspired to introduce S.B. 242 after the school district in her native Fort Worth adopted guidelines that many see as positive for the transgender community. Students dealing with gender identity issues are to have their requests for things such as restroom or locker-room use dealt with on a case-by-case basis that would not require teachers to divulge their gender identities without considering students wishes. The senator wrote an op-ed in May condemning the rules. Now, S.B. 242 wants to take out the case-by-case foundation and make disclosure mandatory, even though Burton claimed in a response on her website that the bill only adds to existing Texas laws. Sondra Howe, a co-president of the Dallas chapter of the LGBT rights advocacy group PFLAG, expressed concerns about S.B. 242 and its possible effect on at-risk children. We feel it to be very harmful to students. If they have not come out at home, there is a reason for that, Howe told The Daily Beast. PFLAG, formerly known as Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, is the nations largest organization representing the LGBT communitys parents, families, and friends. Founded in 1972 with with the simple act of a mother publicly supporting her gay son, the group has decades of experience navigating the complex relationship between LGBT youth and their loved ones. It may be unjustified, but even in their minds, theyre not comfortable yet with their parents, Howe said. The PFLAG co-president further highlighted the issue of LGBT homelessness, which can result from abusive home life. According to the True Colors Fund, which was founded to deal with the issue, 40 percent of youth experiencing homelessness identify as LGBT, while they account for only 7 percent of the nations under-18 population. PFLAG and other Texas-based organizations arent taking the threat of S.B. 242 lightly. Howe said they would be joining other LGBT rights groups in speaking to legislators against the bill, which wont be voted on until next years legislative session, on March 20, Austins Advocacy Day. Im trying to understand where theyre coming from for this, saying its the parents right to know whats inside the childs heart Im not sure thats the right of the school to do something like that, Howe said. Im sorry, [Burton] is wrong, Sandra Dunn, 58, who became the first transgender woman to run for the office of mayor in Amarillo, said of the Tea Partier's bill. Its a terrible idea. For Dunn, who still works with the LGBT community in the deeply conservative Panhandle region, the specter of S.B. 242 is horrendous. She started transitioning about six years ago, at age 52, right before her candidacy for mayor. (She came in third.) If I could have done it sooner, I would have, Dunn told The Daily Beast in an interview. When she was growing up in Texas, gender identity issues were not to be discussed with her parents or anyone else. Anytime I approached that subject in any form or fashion, I got the boys dont do that speech, she said. It was finger-pointing, eyes bugging out. Because of that, you learn to suppress it. While Texas has made strides in accepting and protecting its LGBT communityDunn pointed to the nations first openly transgender judge, Phyllis Frye of Houstonthere is still danger, especially from religious-fundamentalist families: Mommy or daddy is going to say, You cant be that way. Then theyll jump in and say you need to do reparative therapy, which is now done in the name of religion. Reparative therapy, the attempt to change a persons (usually a minors) sexual orientation, is often performed by religious organizations. The American Psychiatric Association opposes any psychiatric treatment such as reparative or conversion therapy, according to the National Center for Lesbian Rights, as does the American Psychological Association. There are no studies proving its efficacy. The scientific communitys general consensus is that its harmful pseudoscience. Even though multiple groups expressed concern that S.B. 242 could put students at risk of being forced into reparative therapy, Burtons chief of staff, Elliott Griffin, told the Houston Chronicle last week that such fears constitute an unfortunate interpretation I have no idea why they would draw that conclusion. Kathryn Gonzales, operations and programs director of OutYouth, an Austin-based organization that aims to provide an open and accepting environment for LGBT youth, told The Daily Beast the bill could endanger children: I think Senator Burton needs to rethink this because shes going to have a lot of blood on her hands. Coming out to teachers and other trusted adults can be a test-run for LGBT students to gauge how adults would take the news, Gonzales said. Think of how awful it would be to come out to non-supportive parents, be kicked out of the home, and then go to school the next day being forced to come out to teachers. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study on suicide risks for LGBT youth, the suicide rate is four times higher for this demographic and twice as high for children who are questioning their sexual orientation and gender identity. Eric Yarbrough, a psychiatrist at New Yorks Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, one of the largest LGBT clinics in the U.S., and president of the Association of LGBTQ Psychiatrists, said that S.B. 242 sounds very dangerous. While Yarbrough typically views communication between parents, teachers, and students as a good thing, the bills use of suspension and possible termination to force teachers to out their students is worrisome, he said. We dont know their attitudes towards LGBT youth, he said. A lot of them might not have good information or attitudes towards these issues. Children who have questions about their sexual or gender identities are developing, and these processes are fluid, the psychiatrist explained. Their sexual or gender identities might not be set in stone, it seems a bit premature the last thing we want to do is put someone in a box. The repercussions could be disastrous, he continued. Families might offer not only poor emotional support, but also actual abuse, Yarbrough said. Both emotional and physical abuse. Family support is one of the major factors that contributes to LGBT kids developing safely. They can develop serious mental health issues including depression and suicidal thoughts. It can be life or death, he said. What drinks are you going to make for Thanksgiving? Its a question that I dread every year. To be honest, Ive never known what to serve with turkey and the traditional fixings. While wine is certainly a safe bet (and bubbly works surprisingly well with the meal and gives the holiday a festive air), it can be hard to come up with other beverage options that satisfy my friends and family. And, between navigating relatives and election fallout, we could all probably use a stiff drink this year. No need to despair. Ive asked our Daily Beast contributorstruly some of the brightest cocktail and spirits minds around todayfor their T-Day drinks suggestions. Here are their recipes. Cheers! WAYNE CURTIS Concerned that families reuniting for the holiday this week will have nothing to talk about, I recommend the American President cocktail. This recipe, which Ive tweaked, dates to 1932, when it appeared in the bar guide for Sloppy Joes, the legendary prohibition-era Havana bar. Its essentially a classic El Presidente, with the addition of lime juice. It takes a solid cocktail and renders it a little sour and somewhat controversial. American President Ingredients:1 oz Light rum1 oz Dry vermouth.5 oz Lime juice.5 oz Curacao1 teaspoon Grenadine Garnish: Orange peel Glass: Cocktail Directions: Add all the ingredients to a shaker and fill with ice. Shake and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange peel. PHILIP GREENE I always get a kick out of this seasonal recipe facetiously offered by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1936: Turkey Cocktail: To one large turkey add one gallon of vermouth and a demijohn of Angostura bitters. Shake. Drawing inspiration from this gem, I recommend my Thanksgiving Sangria (ThanksGria? Thangria?) Thanksgiving Sangria Ingredients: 2 oz Beaujolais Nouveau (I always associate it with Thanksgiving)1 oz Sweet vermouth1 oz Peychauds Aperitivo (If you cant find it, use Aperol)1 Orange slice2 dashes Angostura Bitters Glass: Large wine goblet Directions: Add all the ingredients to a shaker and fill with ice. Shake and pour unstrained into a large wine goblet. This recipe can also work nicely if you make a big batch in a pitcher. MAX WATMAN Its a long day. Youve got to crack the ice without sending people face first into the pumpkin pie. Im going to cheer people up with the Vermouth Cocktail made with Cocchi Vermouth di Torino. Its complicated enough to be interesting and very autumnal. While its strong enough to get people talking, it wont put anyone under the table before the turkey is on it. Vermouth Cocktail Ingredients:2 oz Cocchi Vermouth di Torino (Other sweet vermouths are great for this, too, but Id steer clear of that 2-year-old bottle of Stock in the back of your great-aunts liquor cabinet)2 dashes Maraschino liqueur2 dashes Angostura Bitters (Some folks like a dash or two of simple syrup, but I dont think it needs it) Garnish: Orange or lemon twist Glass: Cocktail Directions: Add all the ingredients to a mixing glass and fill with ice. Stir and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange or a lemon twist. ERIC FELTEN As far back as the 1890s, Americans were drinking Champagne Cocktails with their Thanksgiving feasts. Champagne drinks are a fine Thanksgiving pre-prandial, as the magnitude of the meal makes getting started with anything too boozy a bad idea. Also, its best to avoid drinks that require a lot of individual preparation given all the kitchen chores already on tapin other words, no Old Fashioneds, please. And so, may I recommend to you a tasty, vintage Champagne Cup that one prepares by the bottle rather than by the glass. Champagne Cup Ingredients:1.5 oz Cognac1 oz Grand Marnier.5 oz Maraschino liqueur (Not, it should be noted, the syrup from a cherry jar)1 oz Simple syrup, or a bit less, to tasteChampagne, well chilled Garnish: Pineapple or orange slices or cherries Glass: Champagne flute or coupe Directions: Add all the ingredients, except the Champagne, to a shaker and fill with ice. Shake and strain into a clear glass pitcher. Add the Champagne and give a minimal, gentle stir to combine without dissipating the fizz. Decorate, if you like, with fruit (e.g., slices of pineapple and orange, cherries). Serve in Champagne glasses (coupe or flute). DAVID WONDRICH I like the Royal Hibernian Punch because its smooth and pleasant and richbut not too richand just a little bit surprising. This should be enough for about 30 3-ounce servings, or just enough to get you through the politics part of the evening. Royal Hibernian Punch Ingredients:Peel of 4 lemons, in long spirals.75 cup Sugar.75 cup Strained lemon juice1 750-ml bottle John Powers Irish Whiskey1.5 cups Rainwater Madeira2 oz Pierre Ferrand Dry Orange Curacao3 cups Cold water Garnish: 1 nutmeg Glass: Punch Directions: Put the lemon peels and sugar in a quart Mason jar. Seal, shake, and let sit overnight. This will extract the lemon oil from the peels. The next day, add the lemon juice to the jar. Seal, shake well to dissolve and refrigerate. This is your shrub. To serve, pour the shrub into a gallon punch bowl half filled with ice. Add the whiskey, Madeira, curacao, and water. Stir. Grate about a third of the nutmeg over the top. Ladle forth in 3-oz portions. Rates of carbon monoxide poisoning in some North Iowa counties are more than twice as high as the average rate statewide. The rate of ER visits for carbon monoxide poisoning per 100,000 population from 2011 to 2015 was 21.5 in Franklin County, 20.39 in Floyd County and 19.11 in Cerro Gordo County, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health. The statewide rate during the same time was 8.55. Winnebago Countys rate was 11.04, while Wright Countys was 10.14. The rate for Kossuth County was 9.01. Rates for Hancock, Mitchell and Worth counties were not included in the state public health departments report because they were among the counties with five or fewer ER visits for carbon monoxide poisoning from 2011-15. Carbon monoxide poisoning causes hundreds of unintentional deaths every year in the United States. There have been several such deaths in North Iowa over the past six years. Jenna Willems, Healthy Homes coordinator for the Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health, said it is difficult to pinpoint why counties have a high rate of carbon monoxide poisoning because there are so many different causes. Maybe more community education needs to be done around our area, she said. People are at greater risk for carbon monoxide poisoning during cold weather, Willems noted. Christa Wiarda, administrator for the Franklin County Department of Public Health, said having a high rate of low-income households might be a factor in CO poisoning rates. She noted one cause if carbon monoxide poisoning is the use of alternative heating sources such as wood-burning stoves. Maintenance is another factor, according to Wiarda. Common sources of carbon monoxide poisoning include gas and oil furnaces, boilers, water heaters, wood-burning fireplaces and stoves, gas ovens, and gas/kerosene space heaters, according to the Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health. Other causes are clogged chimneys or leaking chimney pipes or flues, improperly installed kitchen ranges or cooktop vents, corroded or disconnected water heater vent pipes, operating barbecue grills in an enclosed area such as a garage, and auto exhaust fumes from an attached garage. Having carbon monoxide alarms in the home is important because carbon monoxide is odorless, colorless and cant be detected by the senses, according to public health officials. Warning signs of exposure are headaches, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, chest pain and confusion. The Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health offers the following tips for preventing carbon monoxide poisoning: Place carbon monoxide alarms near each sleeping area and on each floor of your home. These can be bought at local hardware stores for approximately $20. Never use charcoal grills or engines inside your home, garage, or basement, even for a short period of time. Never warm up your vehicle in the garage on a cold day, and start lawn equipment and snow blowers outside. Check your furnaces, chimneys, vents, and appliances each fall to ensure they are working properly, or hire a heating contractor to do so. Do not use the kitchen stove/oven to heat your home. Follow the directions closely with all other heaters. Public health officials say if your carbon monoxide alarm goes off or you think you are experiencing symptoms from carbon monoxide poisoning, get fresh air immediately and call 911 or a qualified technician. Mason City Fire Capt. Jared Ogbourne said carbon monoxide alarms are not required by city code, but the Fire Department recommends everyone have at least one in their home close to the sleeping area. Earlier this year the Iowa Legislature passed a law requiring carbon monoxide alarms to be installed in some dwellings and multiple-unit residential buildings. However, the law does not go into effect until July 1, 2018. If construction of multiple-unit residential buildings and single-family dwellings with a fuel-fired heater or appliance, a fireplace or an attached garage begins on or after that date, carbon monoxide alarms must be included. The new law also states existing single-family dwellings, single-family rental units and multiple-unit residential buildings that have a fuel-fired heater or appliance, a fireplace or an attached garage must have carbon monoxide alarms installed by July 1, 2018. ROMEThere are apparently no limits to the level of cruelty people choose to inflict on others. Even in the lawless world of human smuggling, where exploitation and misery have long been part of the business, new revelations that traffickers are forcing migrants to drink diesel fuel and injecting them with parasites truly do raise the bar on the boundaries of human suffering. According to a Nov. 12, 2016 report in the British medical journal The Lancet, a number of male migrants from Africa who sought treatment at Munichs University Hospital Klinikum rechts der Isar were suffering from severe hydrocarbon pneumonia after being forced to drink diesel for their furtive voyage to Italy from Libya. Using comparative analyses from other doctors who treat migrants, and interviewing and studying the cases of men from three different countries who traveled on separate vessels, Lancet researchers were able to confirm what migrants have been reporting to aid agencies for months: that traffickers make them drink fuel and give them injections to keep them calm and quiet during long and dangerous sea crossings. Meticulous medical history from the 16-year-old Somalian and his relatives led to evidence of forced fuel ingestion mediated by smugglers in order to calm down the refugees while crossing the Mediterranean Sea, the authors write. Aid agencies in Sicily that receive the migrants when they arrive have corroborated the reports, laying out a horrific scenario that often begins long before migrants board the dangerous vessels. In one story relayed to The Daily Beast by a migrant from Nigeria who arrived last year, pregnant women are forced to insert makeshift catheters with plastic tubing on the voyage because it is (wrongly) believed that their urine will poison men. As there are no bathroom facilities, or even room to move on most vessels, bathroom needs have to happen on the spot. Another woman said that it is common practice for traffickers to starve migrants and refugees of water and food for days before the boats cast off in order to stop the digestive process and keep people weak so they wont panic and tip the ships and dinghies. I had not eaten for three full days before they brought us from the safe house to the coast to board the ship, a Nigerian woman named Mary told The Daily Beast after she arrived on Sicily. People dont know how to swim and keeping everyone weak is a way to stop people from panicking. In an award-winning documentary Fire at Sea, a scene vividly portrays officials commenting on the smell of fuel when they process the migrants. Dont light a match, one officer says. Or well all go up in flames. There have long been reports by migrants who survive the journey that they are given injections or made to take substances that subject them to parasites, often as an attempt to slow down their digestive tracts or render them lethargic for the trip. In the Lancet study, an 18-year-old Eritrean man who was also poisoned by the diesel fuel had a severe infestation of roundworm. Unfortunately, he died of multiple organ failure during the study and was not able to personally corroborate how he was infected. Migrants reportedly have also been subject to illicit organ-harvesting. Last year, the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking reported that organs often go to wealthy people who dont want to sit out the long waiting time on many transplant lists. Organs that are commonly traded are kidneys, liver, and the like, the organization stated. Any organ that can be removed and used could be the subject of such illegal trade. In April, the bodies of nine Somalis washed up on the shores of Alexandria, Egypt, with various organs surgically removed from their mutilated bodies. The Lancet report indeed confirms the shocking lawlessness of the human-smuggling trade, though it was primarily meant to help aid medical professionals who treat migrantsfor them to consider the poisonous ingestion of diesel fuel when making a diagnosis for symptoms that may present as something else. In conclusion, the authors write. In boat refugees, hydrocarbon pneumonitis should be considered as differential diagnosis after exclusion of any other cause of pneumonitis, even weeks after their arrival. More than 168,000 migrants and refugees have reached Italy since the beginning of 2016. An additional 4,600 people are known to have perished along the way. Nazi salutes are even too much for one white supremacist. William Johnson, an early white nationalist supporter of Donald Trump, sent a letter to dozens of media outlets on Tuesday telling another Trump-loving member of the alt-right to quit embarrassing their movement. Johnson took aim at Richard Spencer after a video, shot by The Atlantic, emerged from a Washington, D.C. conference over the weekend where Spencer was seen leading a room in chants of Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory! while some made the Nazi salute. White nationalists had already exulted in Trump's hiring of Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon as the mastermind of Trumps campaign in the final months of the election, seeing him as a kindred spirit who will now serve as White House Senior Strategist. Bannon has come under fire for stories of alleged anti-Semitism and his own popularization of the alt-right on his website, which he called a "platform for the alt-right." Dear Richard, Knock it off! the letter begins. Any of your positive discussions on the decline of Western Civilization is obscured by the offensive imagery displayed at the DC Ronald Reagan Building and at Maggianos Little Italy restaurant afterwards. You may refer to the stiff-armed greetings as the Roman Salute but only about 10 professors of history will catch that comparison. Or you may claim that your 'Hail Trump' is nothing more than 'Hail fellow well met,' but only about 10 professors of English follow that line of reasoning. All the American public sees is imagery from a hated regime of 75 years ago. Nazi chic may currently be all the rage in Bangkok, but this isnt Thailand. The disturbing visuals, Johnson acknowledged, are a bad look for a movement trying to make mainstream gains under a Trump administration while manipulating the media to cover them as just another faction of the Republican Party. Last Sunday, I was asked to appear on i24news (a well-respected Israeli news show) to opine on Trumps cabinet picks, Johnson continues. I was not appearing as a circus-clown sideshow act as has been the case for the last 35 years, but instead, as a (quasi) legitimate talking head. So, I telephoned Steve Bannons personal friend and Breitbart Newss in-house legal counsel, Joel Pollak. Joel is a card-carrying, yarmulke-wearing orthodox Jew. I wanted him to give me the skinny on what Trump nominees would be good for Israel. Joel excoriated me on the phone and by a subsequent email saying that he wanted nothing to do with me. This is so even though many of our views dovetail. The reason he was so mean is because of the imagery you are promoting. A source familiar with the exchange said that Pollak was unaware of Johnsons ideas when he was contacted. Pollak allegedly then Googled Johnson and subsequently made it clear that he and Breitbart did not share his views and did not wish to associate with him. Pollak was not even sure as to how Johnson got his number. In his letter, Johnson goes on to say that he intended on using Pollak to help influence decisions made by Bannon. I also wanted Joel to put the very important bug in Steve Bannons ear that, as a way to counter judicial activism, President Trump should consider invoking what is called the Departmental Theory of Constitutional Interpretation which provides that all three departments of the national government have an equal power to interpret the constitution, Johnson says. I couldnt do that! Why? Because of the imagery you are promoting. Johnson was behind a pro-Trump, homophobic attack robocall directed at independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin in Utah. This came months after he resigned from his position as a California delegate for the RNC over the summer, after Mother Jones exposed his involvement. The Trump campaign attributed his appearance on the list to a database error. Johnson claimed in the letter that Spencer had criticized his previous robocalls on behalf of Trump. When reached by email, Spencer told The Daily Beast that he hasnt seen the letter and did not respond to a follow up question about his thoughts on the accusations when sent the content of the letter. The last two times we met, you criticized me for all the robocalls that I did and told me to stop lest I hurt Donald Trumps campaign. While I admit the anti-McMullin robocall to Utah was (for me) uncharacteristically mean, it is said to be the single most effective ad in delivering a battleground state to Donald Trump, and by an overwhelming margin at that. There is no proof that the robocall made any difference in Utah. Johnson finishes by acknowledging that the term alt-right has, in fact, allowed white nationalists to begin to normalize their ideasso long as they do not give Nazi salutes. The term alt right has given us a start-over moniker on which we can build a solid, positive reputation, but if you dont rein in the negative National Socialist, leftist imagery, we will be viewed as that oblivious person driving a Ford Galaxy with his right turn signal on while turning left. The future of the movement, as Johnson sees it, is an inherent ability to take supremacist ideas and inject them into a mainstream dialoguesomething that's much easier with Trump as president and Spencer not sounding like Joseph Goebbels. GALT | The Wright County Sheriffs Office identified the 2-year-old girl found in Galt Tuesday. The child is in custody of the Iowa Department of Human Services. Deputies were called Tuesday afternoon to a report of an unattended child in Galt. The girl was found wearing pink pajamas and no shoes. The child was transported to Iowa Specialty Hospital in Clarion. The investigation is ongoing, Captain Jim Lester said. GALT | The Wright County Sheriffs Office is asking for information regarding a toddler found in Galt Tuesday. Deputies were called around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday to a report of an unattended child in Galt, a city of 32 residents. The girl, approximately 2 years old, was found wearing pink pajamas and no shoes. The Sheriff's Office describes the girl as having black, shoulder-length hair in a pony tail and brown eyes. She is approximately 36 inches tall and weighs 30 pounds. The child was transported by ambulance to Iowa Specialty Hospital in Clarion. Authorities are looking for a blue Honda minivan with a black rubber strip on the side. This vehicle was seen in the Galt area shortly before the child was found, according to the Sheriff's Office. The van was reported to have been occupied by two people. Wright County Sheriff's Capt. Jim Lester would not release additional details Tuesday night. Anyone with information on the child or the van should contact the Wright County Sheriffs Office at 515-532-3722. New packaging and digital campaign for Metaxa Remy Cointreau brand House of Metaxa is relaunching its Greek brandy-based liqueur, Metaxa 12 stars, following the appointment of a new ambassador, modern-day explorer Mike Horn. The relaunch features a new packaging for the liquid and a digital campaign. After being unveiled as the new ambassador, Mike Horn says: After an achievement to be shared in a moment of authentic friendship, I enjoy a fine drink, naturally a Metaxa 12 Stars. The new packaging for the 12 Stars features the signature of brand's founder Spyros Metaxa engraved on both sides of the bottle and also bears the emblem of Metaxa: a golden Salamina warrior standing proud as a symbol of courage, carrying the roots of the House. The bottom of the bottle aims to bring to mind a fine drinking glass and is sealed with a deep blue cap. The Paris-based design agency Futurebrand has worked on the redesign, keeping the original bottle shape and seeking to introduce a new identity. Arnaud Collas, international marketing director, House of Metaxa, says: 'The new design is an invitation to begin the exploration of Metaxa 12 Stars, it is the very first step into the Metaxa experience, that awaits explorers of authentic journeys. The revamped packaging aims at emphasising the elements that made Metaxa the iconic spirit that it is today and pays tribute to our roots and history, while bringing an actual and very elegant new perspective to the packaging style of the House. By exploring Metaxa 12 Stars, one truly becomes part of our history and of our future.' The digital campaign focuses on sensory experiences, guided by Horn. Metaxa intends for the digital campaign to educate users on the brand's philosophy by providing a journey. Currently concluding the digital journey is an offer for users to join Horn on a real life exploration, accompanied by a videographer who will document the experience. The newly packaged Metaxa 12 Stars, 40% ABV, has an RRP of 30. 19 November 2016 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, editorial assistant MINNEAPOLIS (AP) A Minnesota man who abducted, sexually assaulted and killed 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling 27 years ago apologized in court Monday for his evil acts as he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a child pornography count. The sentencing let authorities close the books on a mystery that had haunted Minnesota and Iowa for nearly three decades. Danny Heinrich, 53, led authorities this summer to the field where he buried Jacobs remains. As part of his plea bargain, prosecutors agreed not to charge Heinrich with murder. I am truly sorry for my evil acts, Heinrich said as he stood before U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, Jacobs parents, Patty and Jerry Wetterling, and the boys siblings. Jerry Wetterling is a 1967 graduate of Mason City High School. His parents, Erwin Erv and Lillian Wetterling, were longtime Mason City residents until their deaths in 1997 and 2008. Heinrich told the Wetterling family in court that his actions were heinous and unforgivable, and apologized for what he took away from them. He said he kept silent for nearly three decades because of his fear. But he offered no explanation for why he killed Jacob. When he confessed in court in September, Heinrich quoted a handcuffed Jacob as saying, What did I do wrong? Jacobs mother, Patty Wetterling said Heinrich deliberately set out to hurt a child the night he abducted Jacob on Oct. 22, 1989, while her boy was biking with his brother and a friend near their home in the central Minnesota community of St. Joseph. She pointed out that by Heinrichs own admission, he put two bullets into his gun and shot Jacob with them. You didnt need to hurt him. He did nothing wrong. He just wanted to go home, Patty Wetterling said. Patty Wetterling also told her sons killer she wont waste a minute of time thinking about him from this day forward. The sentence was the maximum the law allowed, and Heinrich technically could complete it in 17 years with good behavior, but the plea deal allows state authorities to seek his civil commitment as a sexual predator at the end of his federal prison term, which could prevent him from ever going free. Tunheim said he wont pretend that the sentence is only about child pornography. What youve done is so heinous, so brutal and so awful that I dont believe society will let you go free, Tunheim said. While some of Jacobs siblings said they want Heinrich to spend the rest of his life in prison, the family agreed with prosecutors and investigators that the plea deal was their best hope of learning Jacobs fate. Early during the investigation, authorities questioned Heinrich, who maintained his innocence. But he came under renewed scrutiny when authorities decided to take a fresh look at the case around the 25th anniversary of the kidnapping. As part of that effort, investigators used new technology to go back to a sex assault cause of a 12-year-old Cold Spring boy that happened nine months before Jacobs disappearance. They found Heinrichs DNA on that boys sweatshirt, and used that evidence to get a search warrant for Heinrichs home in Annandale, where they found his child pornography collection last year. After months of denials, Heinrich agreed in late August to confess to killing Jacob and the Cold Spring sex assault. Heinrich detailed his crimes in chilling detail in court in September, recounting how he drove the boy to a gravel pit near Paynesville and molested him. After a patrol car with siren and lights passed nearby, he fired two shots at Jacobs head, killing him. Patty Wetterling became a national advocate for missing children after Jacobs disappearance. A 1994 federal law named for Jacob requires states to establish sex offender registries. From North to South America and around the world, the ascendency of authoritarian leaders portends dangerous days ahead. Such trends manifest starkly through Donald Trump's election in the US and the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. Yet at the same time, remarkable stories continue to emerge of determined resistance to these brutal regressions, led by the continent's indigenous peoples from the Amazon to Standing Rock. Such imbalanced struggles are most striking because they inspire hope in times of crisis. Against the odds, the collective action of Brazil's indigenous movement - like the resilient, water and land protectors at Standing Rock - is blazing new pathways toward justice and leading a vital, global movement from the grassroots. Hard-fought victories from within Brazil's embattled democracy help tell this story. Following the contentious and dubious impeachment of President Rousseff, the unelected regime of Michel Temer has gone about dismantling Brazil's social and environmental order. When the State turns against the People Seeking to slash critical social spending and undermine fundamental ecological protections, his government wasted no time in implementing a wish list of budget-cutting and de-regulation 'reforms' long sought by a conservative political elite unable to win the last four presidential elections. Under the dubious rationale that such draconian measures are needed to streamline 'cumbersome' environmental licensing and boost global investor confidence in order to pull the country from its dire economic doldrums, the Temer government is sponsoring Constitutional Amendment (PEC) 241, which would constitutionally enshrine drastic cuts to government spending for 20 years. Among the losers in this reallocation of funds from social services like health and education toward the servicing of the country's growing debt, the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI) would see its budget cut to the bone. Today's snowballing threats to the wellbeing of Brazil's indigenous peoples, embodied by an belligerent agribusiness sector, dam-driven energy policies, and reckless industrial mining interests, demand a strong federal indigenous agency to act as a counterbalance and watchdog. The gutting of FUNAI can therefore be seen as a deliberate effort to eviscerate indigenous resistance when it's needed most to defend rights and territories. Similarly, Brazil's Health Ministry recently attempted to undermine its indigenous healthcare system by issuing two sweeping ordinances. Back in the 1970s, when Berger was writing, most radical thinkers, including most Greens, were clear about the damage being wrought by the undemocratic, bureaucratic and centralised European Economic Community. E.F. Schumacher, Leopold Kohr, Edward Goldsmith, Tony Benn and many others could be heard making a clear case against the culture of progress it represented. Unelected, created by stealth, operating in the interests of big business, the EEC had a clear aim: to diminish, if not abolish, the democratic sovereignty of European nations, and to pool that sovereignty in the interests of creating a giant, borderless free-trade zone. Though it was dressed up with talk of peace, equality and brotherhood, it was, as its name implied, primarily an economic edifice. Its culture of progress was a culture of homogenisation, centralisation, control and profit. A giant superstate with no accountability begins to stagger Fast forward four decades, and what is now the European Union has been highly successful in achieving this aim. From a six-nation free-trade zone, it has morphed into a 28-nation superstate with its own currency, its own government and its own laws, which apply equally to all member states regardless of their specific cultures and traditions. It has removed barriers to trade within its border, including local ways of living, national laws and, most controversially, the right of nation-states to control inflows of people from elsewhere. Accountability, distinctiveness and localism have been crushed beneath its weight. Whenever something is wrong, wrote Leopold Kohr in his classic book The Breakdown of Nations, something is too big. Virtually everything in the EU is too big these days, and it shows. The impossibility of maintaining one financial model for 28 nations has required the EU to cast the people of its poorer periphery nations, from Ireland to Greece to Spain to Portugal, into debt peonage or mass unemployment in order to keep its superstate dream alive: something it has done with extreme ruthlessness. The economic crisis this has caused, combined with the cultural and social impact of its open borders policy, has led to the rise of far-right parties in many EU nations: the very thing defenders of the Union say it exists to counter. Economically, culturally and politically, the giant is staggering: giants always do. Small, after all, is beautiful, right? Where are the radical greens? So you would think that when a major nation like Britain chose to leave the EU and forge its own path, there would be some celebration amongst Greens. Its true, of course, that the EU has been the progenitor of a number of beneficial environmental regulations (imposed upon nation-states, rather than created and passed into law by their own parliaments, of course). But do they make up for the damage it has done to agriculture, to cultural distinctiveness, to the wildlife and the soil, to democracy? Its an impossible calculation to make, but whatever side you come down on there should, at the very least, surely be a good degree of healthy scepticism amongst Greens about the nature and future of the European Union. And yet, most Greens most people who consider themselves in any way radical, in fact seem to be crying into their muesli about Brexit. Or, worse, instead of simply complaining, many who voted Remain have been launching vicious attacks on those who chose to leave the Union. Idiots! Racists! Selfish old fools! If only they had known what they were talking about, if only they had been properly educated, if only they hadnt believed the nasty right-wing newspapers, they would have seen that their future lay with a sclerotic, unaccountable bureaucracy and its friends in big business. Its been astonishing to watch. With a few notable exceptions Green Party peer Jenny Jones, for example green and supposedly alternative politicians, thinkers and public figures have thrown in their lot with the EUs domineering culture of progress: and not just tentatively, but with huge enthusiasm. The decision to leave has been treated by some of them not as an opportunity, a throwing off of shackles or even simply a change that must be accommodated, but as a national disaster. No rational debate on Brexit What is going on here? The EU violates just about every green principle going. It is the opposite of local; it is destructive to the natural world; it wipes out cultural distinctiveness; it is anti-democratic; it puts the interests of banks and corporations before the interests of its working people. Why when how did the Green Movement abandon its commitment to localism and democracy, and jump into bed with a beast like this? One answer, I would suggest, is that the European Union has become a symbol rather than a reality. I would guess that very few people who voted to either leave the EU or remain in it know much at all about how it actually works. Rather, they voted for or against what it symbolised to them. To those in favour, the EU is a symbol of continental cooperation, cosmopolitanism, free movement of people (and money, of course), and other such wholesome things. To oppose the EU, by contrast, represents nationalism, racism, small-mindedness and a lack of a university degree: all things against which most self-described progressives instinctively react. In other words, this is not a rational debate about the benefits or otherwise of a political union. It is a whose-side-are-you-on? battle: and increasingly, it is split along class lines. A modern day peasants revolt Class has always been the fault line running down the middle of the Green Movement, and with the Brexit vote it has been exposed. Those who voted to leave wanted to regain democratic control of their nation. They wanted a voice, because many of them felt perpetually ignored. The working classes and the lower middle classes not the cultural or political elites pulled off a kind of modern-day Peasants Revolt, against the advice of every section of the establishment. The greens could have been on their side, making the case for relocalising power, reclaiming national democracy, and creating environmental and social regulations that apply specifically to this island and its bioregions. Thats what localism looks like, after all. But the case was never made. Why? Perhaps because few greens come from the social classes that have been affected negatively by the EU and its part in the globalisation project. The greens have always been a movement primarily of educated, middle-class intellectuals. Unlike either the socialist left or the conservative right, they have never had a popular movement behind them, and at times like this it shows. Have many green voters had their wages undercut by mass migration? Have many eco-intellectuals felt unheard and unloved as the global liberal project rolls onward? Or have they been in the vanguard? At a moment when all is up for grabs when an optimistic, genuinely radical case could be made for relocalising Britain the greens, and the left generally, look like marooned members of an elite, clinging to each other for support, and wondering what just happened. They suddenly look very well, conservative. Green politics has lost its way This, I would also suggest, is related to another problem that the green movement suffers from. A distinctive green politics has been subsumed over the last few decades into the broader politics of the progressive, globalist left. Once, the greens challenged that culture of progress on both left and right, and ploughed their own, ecocentric furrow, seeking to reconnect people with Nature, the planet and their local communities, trying to forge a new political narrative and language. But all this has long gone. Today, green politics is a subset of the fringe left: promoting top-down solutions and regulations; campaigning against austerity in a way that suggests that growth is a solution rather than a problem; pushing for open borders regardless of the social impact on the poorest third of society, and regardless of the population growth and consequent environmental destruction it causes. Once a radical political movement, the greens now look like social democrats with solar panels. Opportunity to seize the moment and take the lead The final answer to the puzzle comes from the change in the green relationship to the state. Once, greens were suspicious of the size and power of both states and corporations. Today, though, much of the green left, true to the tradition of British state socialism, seems to see the state as a defender of the people against the market. If this is how you see things, then a superstate is a superdefender. This explains how we have got to the position where much of the green left appears to view the European Union as a benevolent sugar daddy, defending Britain against both corporations and its own elected government. What can be done about this? As Britain prepares to leave the EU, it seems an urgent question. An exciting, radical case for a rejuvenated British democracy, free from EU bureaucracy, is there for the taking. If we are no longer subject to the dictates of the Common Agriculture Policy or the Common Fisheries Policy, for example, surely it is possible to at least propose a much more sustainable ways of managing the land and seas. The greens should be right in at the heart of this debate. But they are not. And until they start to understand why people voted to reject the EU, their message is likely to go unheard. Something genuinely radical has just happened in Britain. A potential crack has opened in the culture of progress, and it has been opened not by intellectuals, ideologues or political philosophers, but by 17.4 million ordinary people. Progressives like to claim to speak on behalf of the grass roots: now they have seen what the grass roots looks like. If ever there were a moment that was ripe for the seizing, this is it. It could go in any direction now. What will the greens do? Paul Kingsnorth is a writer, former deputy editor of the Ecologist, and a co-founder of The Dark Mountain Project. His new novel, Beast, was published in July 2016. He lives in Ireland. Her story made an incredible impression. The married mother of three had just shared, in heartbreaking detail, the challenges she and her husband were facing raising their 12-year-old son who had significant behavioral issues. She recalled evenings where their boy smashed walls, ran out of their home intentionally into busy traffic and threatened his younger siblings. After these episodes, she and her husband did not know what to do, so they would spend nights sleeping in the hallway to make sure their son stayed in his room. Both parents held full-time jobs, and the exhaustion and strain on the family was showing. It became their daily life right here in North Iowa. Thankfully, help and support for this family arrived from a local agency dedicated to protecting, serving and healing children. With time and plenty of caring expertise, the situation improved to the point where the boy could safely return home and he is now on a path to success both at home and at school. The helpful agency and others like it receive funding from the United Way of North Central Iowa. And right now every one of us has a chance to make a difference and help situations like this family faced. The United Way fundraising campaign is underway and your donation goes a long way toward helping others. Please consider a tax-deductible contribution to United Way. Your dollars will support agencies across the region that provide invaluable service to others. To take action and support these efforts, please contact the United Way office at 641-423-1774 or visit with representatives of your employer. Thank you very much for supporting the United Way. Doug Morse, Mason City Instead, we need to offer an alternative to globalisation itself. How globalisation drives racial tension Globalisation and market-driven centralisation actually drive the increase in xenophobia and racism that we have seen, by forcing people from every part of the world to compete against each other in a vicious economic race that only a handful can win. One of the authors (Helena Norberg-Hodge) was a first-hand witness to this process in Ladakh, a region of India in the western Himalayas known as 'Little Tibet'. For more than 600 years, Ladakhi Buddhists and Muslims lived side by side with no recorded instance of group conflict. They helped one another at harvest time, attended one another's religious festivals, and sometimes intermarried. But over a period of about 15 years starting in 1975, when the region was first opened to the global economy, tensions between Buddhists and Muslims escalated rapidly: by 1989 they were bombing each other's homes. One mild-mannered Buddhist grandmother, who a decade earlier had been drinking tea and laughing with her Muslim neighbor, told me, "We have to kill all the Muslims or they will finish us off." How did relations between these two ethnic groups change so quickly and completely? The transformation is unfathomable, unless one understands the complex interrelated effects of globalisation on individuals and communities worldwide. These included the undermining of Ladakh's local economy through the import of 'cheap' but heavily subsidized products; the centripetal pull of urban areas where jobs and political power became centralised; the consequent breakdown of village-scale cultural and governance structures; and the creation of unemployment and real poverty (problems that were preciously unknown in Ladakh). In combination, these factors led to rising hostility against 'the other'. (Norberg-Hodge has described these connections more fully in her book Ancient Futures, and in the documentary film The Economics of Happiness.) Ladakh's experience is not unique: all over the Global South, cultures have been impacted in a similar manner beginning with the era of conquest and colonialism; so have the UK and Europe starting with the Enclosures. But in recent decades, during the modern era of globalisation, the process has accelerated dramatically. Destroying jobs, reducing wages, undermining conditions of work By allowing corporations to move unfettered around the globe, 'free trade' treaties put workers throughout the industrialised world in competition with those who will accept a fraction of a dollar per hour. For example, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) resulted in a net loss of 680,000 American jobs, and the Permanent Normal Trade Relations deal with China led to a net loss of another 2.7 million jobs. And it's not only the disappearance of jobs that leads to impoverishment, but the threat that jobs can be easily taken elsewhere if workers don't accept lower wages or fewer benefits. At the same time, the infiltration of big business throughout the global South - most often with the support of national governments and backed by international financial institutions - has eliminated many of the livelihoods that local economies in those countries once provided. With locally-adapted ways of life systematically undermined by economic policies geared towards the big and the global, millions of desperate people in the South find themselves with just two options: to accept minimal wages and appalling working conditions in industrial metropolises, or to migrate. It is estimated that, as a direct result of heavily subsidized corn flooding the Mexican market under NAFTA, 2.4 million small farmers were displaced, and subsequently funneled into crowded urban centers or across the border to the US. So the loss of jobs in the North and the migrant crisis in the South are two sides of the same coin. But people have been steered away from looking at the flawed rules of the global economy that are behind both problems. Although philosophically opposed to government regulation, the Right is now exploiting a situation - the cultural, economic, and psychological insecurity of vast swaths of the population - that is a product of the systematic deregulation of big business. Rather than allowing them to pull this sleight of hand, Left and Green voices must present a cogent critique of globalisation, and a coherent alternative. We must show that it is not real progress to force every culture to commodify their commons, to subject every policy decision to the 'discipline' of monopolistic markets, to transform citizens into mindless consumers, and to lengthen supply-lines endlessly. The world has become dominated by a neoliberal ideology that makes all of this seem natural, desirable, unavoidable. It is none of those things. In fact, voters are telling us that the age of David Cameron, Hillary Clinton and Francois Hollande is already over. The question now is: will it be succeeded by the age of Farage, Trump and le Pen. Or will we instead offer a viable green set of alternatives to globalization. If it is to be the latter, then our best option is localisation. The solution: going local Essentially, localisation means reducing the scale of economic activity - it's about bringing the economy home. That doesn't mean pulling up the drawbridges and retreating into isolationism. Nor does it mean an end to trade, even international trade. But it does mean a fundamental change of emphasis: away from monoculture for export towards diversification for local needs. In a time of human-induced climate chaos and dwindling energy supplies, we need to reject out of hand the absurdities of the global marketplace, in which countries across the world routinely import and export identical products in almost identical quantities. The subsidies and other supports that currently make such practices 'efficient' and 'profitable' need to be reversed. By reducing the scale of the economy, the environmental impacts of economic activity shrink as well. But the argument for localisation goes beyond the environment. Among other things, localisation allows us to live more ethically as citizens and consumers. In the global economy, it's as though our arms have grown so long that we can no longer see what our hands are doing. By contrast, when the economy operates on a smaller scale, everything is necessarily more transparent. We can see if the apples we are buying from the neighbouring farm are being sprayed with pesticides; we can see if workers' rights are being abused. We can already catch glimpses of localisation in action. Across the world, literally millions of initiatives are springing up-often in isolation one from another, but sharing the same underlying principles. The most important of these initiatives relate to food - which is important since food is the only thing humans produce that we all require every day. From farmers' markets to community supported agriculture, from 'edible schoolyards' to permaculture, a local food movement is sweeping the planet. But there are also projects underway to localise business, energy sources, banking and finance, and other needs. Seeing the big picture The UK decision to leave the EU is a risk, in that it might lead this country to seek to race even faster to the bottom, in particular by abandoning hard-won environmental protections. But it is also a great opportunity. We could choose, now, to disentangle ourselves from a fragile, resource-intensive and utterly-destructive global economy, in favour of re-embedding ourselves back into the Earth and our localities. Similarly, President Trump is likely to serve up an incoherent melange of protectionism on the one hand and deregulatory, pro-corporate policies on the other. Localisation, by contrast, represents a coherent and comprehensive shift in direction - it protects not only our countries and workforces but also the Earth, future generations, and the poor. Relocalising would radically reign in the invisible Right of corporate domination, and would reverse the rising tide of the more visible Far-Right. But this can only happen if we see the bigger picture. It isn't enough to defend immigrants against bad treatment if we fail to act against the system that drives the breakdown of community and of civility, that pulls people out of their own cultures and economies. If we do not relocalise - if we continue to throw people into ruthless competition with each other while making local communities unviable - then we are watering the seeds of further anti-immigrant sentiment, and worse. But if we embrace localisation, then we sow new seeds of cooperation and international understanding. Relocalising won't be easy. The forces that promote globalisation control most of the avenues of information to which people have access, and their propaganda saturates the media, including the Internet. It is going to take a linking of hands internationally - among labour and environmental groups, small businesses and family farmers, educators and students, religious groups and peace activists - to put new political leaders in place who do not ratify treaties that devastate our present and our future. Instead, they need to collaborate to create treaties that protect the local, everywhere. And it will take determined effort in localities everywhere to restore local food and energy systems, and to rebuild local knowledge and local democracy. Perhaps you are already part of that determined effort. If you are not, we hope you decide to join us in this vital work. Helena Norberg-Hodge is author of 'Ancient Futures' and a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award. Rupert Read is co-author of 'The post-growth project'. Millennial Moms Review: 2022 Acura MDX is pretty close to the perfect family car I dont know if perfect is attainable, especially considering weve got the world of options when it comes to modern vehicles. Were spoiled and, as such, we have very specific needs and wants. Driving-wise, the 2022 Acura MDX is one of my favourite ... Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy Podcast: Who comes out ahead in the Charlie Jones vs. Iowa football reunion? Iowa Football NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 800Fund.com wants to remind small business owners that holiday promotions are not just for major corporations. Falling just in between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the focus turns to buying local with Small Business Saturday on November 26th. While SBS is just right around the corner, there is still time for small businesses to participate by advertising their brands, gaining new customers and getting involved with their communities. 800Fund.com is committed to seeing its small business clientele flourish. This commitment goes far beyond simply providing same day, alternative funding solutions. 800Fund.com encourages independent retailers and restaurant owners to participate in Small Business Saturday on November 26th and will be providing tips on simple promotional strategies, free resources, social media marketing and more on their website. American Express launched Small Business Saturday in 2010 as a way to support U.S. Small Businesses, particularly during the holiday shopping season. According to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business, Small Business Saturday drew in over 95 million customers who spent a combined $16.2 billion at independent retailers and restaurants in 2015. This is an estimated increase of 8% from 2014. For business owners interested in more Small Business Saturday tips or information about online business lending and various alternative funding services, please visit 800Fund.com. About 800fund.com: 800fund is a leading merchant cash advance and short-term alternative lender to small- and medium-sized businesses. It is headquartered at 30 Broad Street, New York, NY, and has a number of affiliate offices throughout the US and abroad. Contact Information: 800fund.com, LLC 30 Broad Street, 28th FL. New York, NY 10004 T: (212) 865-3863 Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Instagram Pinterest Cash Advance vs. Loan This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate NORWALK In a tradition that now spans eight years, the Norwalk Community Health Center provided 250 Thanksgiving dinners to Norwalkers in need Tuesday. Maria Escalera, chief operating officer for NCHC, said the baskets contain a turkey and ingredients for side dishes, which were provided by donations from several community partners and individual donors. She said the recipients of the baskets are selected by the staff at NCHC based on need and other factors. Each recipient was notified individually of their selection. We identify 250 patients who wouldnt be able to purchase or enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving dinner because of their economic status or other factors in their life, Escalera said. Our goal is to provide a turkey dinner to as many families as possible. Everyone has been very grateful. The center typically gives out 200 meals every year thats almost 2,000 meals in the eight-year history of the program but this year was able to increase the number of baskets thanks to additional donations. A few last minute donations even allowed the center to surpass the 250 preselected recipients and provide additional meals to families. Our goal is to expand the opportunity because we would love to give meals to all of our patients, Escalera said. Donations to the Thanksgiving basket drive came from Jesse and Betsy Fink and the Fink Family Foundation, who have been involved with the turkey giveaways since its inception, the United Way of Coastal Fairfield County, Church of Good Shepherd, Davinci Pizza, state Sen. Bob Duff, Craig Glover, La Bamba, Saraswati Yoga Joint and Stop & Shop. Escalera said nearly every staff member at the center helped in some way with the basket drive. NCHC staff members assisted in selecting basket recipients, putting together baskets during their lunch breaks and donating items. NCHC opened April 1999 in a 10,000 square foot building on Water Street, in South Norwalk. Today the health center is located in a new, 25,000 square foot facility at 120 Connecticut Ave. NCHC takes care of 12,000 Norwalk residents, and provides more than 48,000 medical office visits every year. Yamile Hernandez, practice manager of NCHCs mobile clinic, said the center provides comprehensive services ranging from pediatric and adult health care to language assistance classes. Our goal is to provide the best quality care to each and every one of our patients and to never turn anyone away, Hernandez said. KKrasselt@scni.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate NORWALK U.S. Senator Chris Murphy vowed Monday to work with President-elect Donald Trump with some caveats on fixing the nations aging infrastructure such as the parking space-starved East Norwalk Train Station. He has talked a lot about funding major infrastructure projects. Certainly, many of us expect that it will be one of the first things that he puts on the agenda for the beginning of next session, said Murphy, D-Conn. I want to make sure were ready if he does indeed want to help rebuild Americas roads, rails, bridges. Obviously, weve got a long list of repairs that we need funding for here in Connecticut and so Im spending some time this year doing some first-hand surveys of some of the projects that would be at the top of my list and the top of the delegations list and the top of the administrations list. Murphys survey took him early Monday afternoon to the East Norwalk Train Station, which is slated to get a longer platform on its New York-bound side as part of the broader Walk Bridge replacement project. The project has been in the works for years. State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, state Reps. Fred Wilms, R-Norwalk, and Gail Lavielle, R-Wilton, Norwalk Mayor Harry W. Rilling and Norwalk Director of Planning and Zoning Steve Kleppin were among the other local officials present for the discussion and tour of the East Norwalk Train Station. While meeting beforehand with the officials at Station House Bar & Grille, Murphy learned that a lack of parking spaces is another problem at the train station. Parking has become increasing difficult over the years. About a year and a half ago, the station lost its lease with nearby St. Thomas School for parking spaces there. A lease that provides additional parking on the New Haven-bound side of the station will expire Dec. 31, Rilling said. At present, fewer than 200 spaces remain available to motorists parking at the train station, and many turn to nearby residential streets while placing their names on a three-year waiting list to get a spot at the station, according to officials. We want commuters to take the train. We want them not to be in their cars and commute, said Kathryn Hebert, staff person to the Norwalk Parking Authority. But we have run out of parking capacity so theyre parking all over the streets, all over residential streets, so it creates a lot of congestion. Rilling noted East Avenue will be widened and improved with better sidewalks, lighting and other streetscape improvements when the Connecticut Department of Transportation replaces its railroad bridge over the busy roadway. He pointed to the vacant building and affiliated parking lot on the New Haven-bound side of the train station as offering the potential for a future transit-oriented development. This would be a perfect TOD project, Rilling said. Weve got some opportunities right here that would benefit East Norwalk. Were looking to take advantage of all of them that we can and we certainly do hope that the federal funds will be coming into Norwalk to help with our transportation infrastructure. Murphy, while expressing support for infrastructure improvements, said Connecticut must pay close attention to the funding structure that the Trump administration puts forward. He said Trump, while campaigning for president, called for privately financing infrastructure improvements through tax credits. It would presuppose that every project that is funded has a stream of return for the investors, which we dont have right now, Murphy said. We dont have tolled roads and even if we did toll our roads, we likely wouldnt toll them so that theyd pay back the entirety of the money necessary to fix them. Connecticuts rail lines, he said, require subsidies and do not provide a rate of return necessary to draw private investment. So right now, it doesnt look like the proposal works for Connecticut, but if (Trump) is willing to work on infrastructure, lets meet him where he is and try to find some proposal that is workable, Murphy said. But we have to be ready with projects that make sense as well. Murphy said Connecticut must be creative about finding revenue sources to pay for infrastructure repairs. He said tax-increment financing has proven to be a controversial idea among state lawmakers, but he added, I dont have a lot of other ideas as to how to create a rate of return. Murphys visit comes less than two weeks after Trump, a New York-based real estate developer, won the 2016 presidential election to the dismay of many Democrats. I think we should work together when President-elect Trump proposes things that are good for Connecticut, Murphy said. We should fight him like hell when he proposes things that are bad for Connecticut. rkoch@hearstmediact.com Connecticut Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher recently issued a powerful decision about education equity issues facing our state. In bold language, he pointed to the fact that Connecticut lacks a rational education funding formula that can deliver on our states constitutional promise to provide a quality public education to all of our students. Of course, we dont need a court decision to know that reality firsthand here in Norwalk. Too many of our citys public schools are literally crumbling from old age and neglect, and our teachers dont have the resources they need to meet the complex challenges poverty creates for many of our kids. The result is persistent achievement gaps where our low-income and minority students are falling behind their peers in Connecticuts better-funded suburban neighborhoods. Donald Trumps presidency will be a besieged presidency, and he would do well to enlist, politically speaking, a war cabinet and White House staff that relishes a fight and does not run After a week managing the transition, vice president-elect Mike Pence took his family out to the Broadway musical Hamilton. As Pence entered the theater, a wave of boos swept over the audience. And at the plays end, the Aaron Burr character, speaking for the cast and the producers, read a statement directed at Pence: We are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values. In March, the casting call that went out for actors for roles in this musical celebration of American values read: Seeking NON-WHITE men and women. The arrogance, the assumed posture of moral superiority, the conceit of our cultural elite, on exhibit on that stage Friday night, is what Americans regurgitated when they voted for Donald Trump. Yet the conduct of the Hamilton cast puts us on notice. The left neither accepts its defeat nor the legitimacy of Trumps triumph. His presidency promises to be embattled from Day One. Already, two anti-Trump demonstrations are being ginned up in D.C., the first on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, by ANSWER, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. A second, scheduled for Jan. 21, is a pro-Hillary Clinton Million Woman March. While the pope this weekend deplored a virus of polarization, even inside the church, on issues of nationality, race and religious beliefs, that, unfortunately, is Americas reality. In a new Gallup poll, 77 percent of Americans perceived their country as Greatly Divided on the Most Important Values, with seven in eight Democrats concurring. On the campuses, anti-Trump protests have not ceased and the crying rooms remain open. Since Nov. 8, mobs have blocked streets and highways across America in a way that, had the Tea Party people done it, would have brought calls for the 82nd Airborne. In liberal Portland, rioters trashed downtown and battled cops. Mayors Rahm Emanuel of Chicago and Bill de Blasio of New York have declared their cities to be sanctuary cities, pledging noncooperation with U.S. authorities seeking to deport those who broke into our country and remain here illegally. Says D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, I have asserted firmly that we are a sanctuary city. According to The Washington Post, after the meeting where this declaration had been extracted from Bowser, an activist blurted, Were facing a fascist maniac. Such declarations of defiance of law have a venerable history in America. In 1956, 19 Democratic Senators from the 11 states of the Old Confederacy, in a Southern Manifesto, rejected the Supreme Courts Brown decision ordering desegregation of the public schools. Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett and Alabama Gov. George Wallace all resisted court orders to integrate. U.S. marshals and troops, ordered in by Ike and JFK, insured the court orders were carried out. To see Rahm and de Blasio in effect invoking John C. Calhouns doctrine of interposition and nullification is a beautiful thing to behold. Among the reasons the hysteria over the Trump election has not abated is that the media continue to stoke it, to seek out and quote the reactions they produce, and then to demand the president-elect give assurances to pacify what the Post says are the millions of blacks and Latinos, gays and Lesbians, Muslims and Jewsfearful of what might become of their country. Sunday, The New York Times ran a long op-ed by Daniel Duane who said of his fellow Californians, Nearly everyone I know would vote yes tomorrow if we could secede from the United States. The major op-ed in Mondays Post, by editorial editor Fred Hiatt, was titled, The Fight to Defend Democracy, implying American democracy is imperiled by a Trump presidency. The Posts lead editorial, An un-American Registry, compares a suggestion of Trump aides to build a registry of Muslim immigrants to Nazi Germanys singling out Jews and FDRs wartime internment of 110,000 Japanese, most of them U.S. citizens. The Post did not mention that the Japanese internment was a project of the beatified FDR, pushed by that California fascist, Gov. Earl Warren, and upheld in the Supreme Courts Korematsu decision, written by Roosevelt appointee and loyal Klansman, Justice Hugo Black. A time for truth. Despite the post-election, bring-us-together talk of unity, this country is hopelessly divided on cultural, moral and political issues, and increasingly along racial and ethnic lines. Many Trump voters believe Hillary Clinton belongs in a minimum-security facility, while Hillary Clinton told her LGBT supporters half of Trumps voters were racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes and bigots. Donald Trumps presidency will be a besieged presidency, and he would do well to enlist, politically speaking, a war cabinet and White House staff that relishes a fight and does not run. The battle of 2016 is over. The long war of the Trump presidency has only just begun. Republished with the gracious permission of Mr. Buchanan. Books by Pat Buchanan may be found in The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore. WILMINGTON, Del., Nov. 21, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Andrews & Springer LLC, a boutique securities class action law firm focused on representing shareholders nationwide, is investigating potential breach of fiduciary duty claims against the Board of Directors of Mentor Graphics Corporation (Mentor Graphics or the Company) relating to the sale of the Company to Siemens. On November 14, 2016, the two parties announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement pursuant to which Siemens will acquire Mentor Graphics in a merger worth $4.5 billion. As a result of the merger, Mentor Graphics shareholders are only anticipated to receive $37.25 per share in cash in exchange for each share of Mentor Graphics. Our Firm's investigation so far has also discovered that the process leading up to the announcement of the merger appears to have significant conflicts of interest, thus making the process and consideration unfair. Andrews & Springer is investigating whether Mentor Graphics directors are breaching their fiduciary duties by failing to adequately shop the company and maximize shareholder value. Our firm is also investigating the Company's financial advisor, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and whether Bank of America Merrill Lynch conducted a fair sales process. If you own shares of Mentor Graphics and want to receive additional information and protect your investments free of charge, please visit us at http://www.andrewsspringer.com/cases-investigations/mentor-graphics-class-action-investigation/ or contact Craig J. Springer, Esq. at cspringer@andrewsspringer.com, or call toll free at 1-800-423-6013. You may also follow us on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/andrews-&-springer-llc, Twitter www.twitter.com/AndrewsSpringer or Facebook - www.facebook.com/AndrewsSpringer for future updates. Andrews & Springer is a boutique securities class action law firm representing shareholders nationwide who are victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty or corporate misconduct. Having formerly defended some of the largest financial institutions in the world, our founding members use their valuable knowledge, experience, and superior skill for the sole purpose of achieving positive results for investors. These traits are the hallmarks of our innovative approach to each case our Firm decides to prosecute. For more information please visit our website at www.andrewsspringer.com. This notice may constitute Attorney Advertising. Phillies make history: Five homers off Astros starter in Game 3 win McCullers, pitching in his first World Series game since 2017, became the first pitcher in postseason history to give up five home runs in a game. For almost half a century, it has been suspended in the atrium of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Morris University Centers Goshen Lounge, subtly moving with the flow of air and watching over gathering students, events and celebrations. Plumb-Bob, created by renowned artist Yasuhide Kobashi, is an iconic sculpture that has beautifully graced the living room of campus since its installment in 1967, when construction of the Goshen Lounge was complete. The space was designed specifically to complement the grand-scale work of art. Beginning Monday, Nov. 28, work will begin to carefully remove the sculpture, piece by piece. It will be transported to a professional conservation firm for cleaning, repair and restringing. With a commitment for renovation of the Morris University Center in the works, the University Museum has embarked on a project to restore the sculpture, said Erin Vigneau-Dimick, collections manager of The University Museum and lecturer in the Department of Art & Design. The detailed professional treatment will insure that Plumb-Bob can once again hang as an iconic aspect of the SIUE campus. Arnold Maremont, who was appointed a trustee of Southern Illinois University in 1961, had a passion for art. He was instrumental in the planning of SIUEs campus and championed the idea of the role of the plastic arts in the design of a campus. Campus architects Gyo Obata and Jack Randall were also in favor of art having an important presence as part of the campus. The two traveled to Pittsburgh at the request of Maremont to view Plumb-Bob where it was installed at the Carnegie Museum of Art. The Maremont Foundation purchased the legendary piece in 1962 and donated it to the University. It was stored at Southern Illinois University Carbondale until the Goshen Lounge was complete. Randall sent a letter to the artist Yasuhide Kobashi inviting him to campus to install his work, in which he wrote in part: Your piece will be a central influence and will have a major effect on a very heavily trafficked student facility. Kobashi did indeed travel from New York to visit campus. He and a team of SIUE facilities staff worked with two sets of scaffolding, one on each side, and installed Plumb-Bob. The mobile hangs from a height of 28 feet and descends approximately 18 feet from top to bottom. It is comprised of 480 wooden dowels ranging in diameter and length, and according to Vigneau-Dimick, is strung with original nylon monofilament, such that each strand has a pair of dowels attached, one at each end so that they are in balance with each other. In a 1968 original statement about his work, Kobashi wrote: I have created sculpture which has lightness as its essential quality: it is created from mysterious matter suspended in air. This matter is ordered within space which I have taken out from a given area. The stretched elements act like magnetic forces, pulling against each other to form surface tensions like those created by the pouring of oil on water. They flow and create their own rhythm. He continued: With this system, the rigidly ordered shapes of art are a thing of the past, and creation becomes an activity of infinite possibilities. The basic concept is not solid but plastic, a creation which has as a major characteristic the possibility of movement. Obatas global architectural firm, HOK, is still based in St. Louis. In an interview with Vigneau-Dimick on Wednesday, Nov. 16, he described the design of the Goshen Lounge as a central meeting space in which students can come together and then move outwards into other activities. He emphasized that light and space are the center of any architectural design. Therefore, Obata stated, his role is to provide spaces which are not only functional, but also enhance the quality of life for those who work and live in them. That premise is borne out in the inspiring, airy vertical space of the Goshen Lounge and reflected in the composition of Kobashis Plumb-Bob, Vigneau-Dimick said. Depending upon the time of day and angle of view, the sculpture shifts in tonal and structural ways. Soft natural light strikes the hundreds of lines which hang from the platform, at times creating the appearance of falling rain. The University Museum is responsible for the care and display of SIUEs extensive collection of cultural objects. University Museum staff worked carefully to dust, wax and repair the unique mobile in 1988 and 2003, and will now be highly involved in the removal and restoration processes. To follow the story of Plumb-Bob, visit @SIUEMuseum on Twitter, The University Museum at SIUE on Facebook and siue_museum on Instagram. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Devina Heriyanto (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 Maritime governance and dialogue are the keys to a peaceful settlement of the South China Sea dispute, experts have agreed during the sixth seminar on Indonesian-Chinese bilateral relations hosted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Chinese Peoples Institute of Foreign Affairs (CPIFA). If China and Indonesia can have more dialogue, we can handle the South China Sea [dispute], said one of the speakers. The seminar was conducted under Chatham House Rule, meaning The Jakarta Post cannot attribute arguments or opinions to its sources. The Rule aims to foster a free discussion between participants. Bilateral dialogue would be easier [than multilateral negotiations], since Indonesia was not a claimant, as opposed to other ASEAN countries, one speaker said. A framework for maritime cooperation between the affected countries has been established both globally and regionally through the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Declaration of Conduct on the South China Sea dispute. The framework is there, the problem is how we implement the existing arrangements, said one speaker. Dialogue must proceed and maritime governance must be established as soon as possible. Many international relations researchers have highlighted a military build-up in the Asia Pacific, by both claimant countries in the South China Sea and external parties with interests in the region. China has been one of the most aggressive, drawing harsh criticism for building military bases on reclaimed islands in the area. The experts predicted that potential escalation in the South China Sea would happen between 2030 and 2040, after countries including China have completed their own military modernization. The balance of power in the region will change, leading to regional destabilization and even conflict. (dmr) Danish English Aarhus, Denmark, 2016-11-22 09:15 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On 18 August 2016, Vestas initiated a share buy-back programme, ref. Company announcement No. 26/2016. The programme is implemented in accordance with Article 5 of Regulation No 596/2014 of the European Parliament and Council of 16 April 2014 (MAR) (the "Safe Harbour rules). The purpose of the programme is to adjust Vestas capital structure and to meet the obligations arising from share based incentive programmes to employees of Vestas. Under the programme Vestas will buy back shares for an amount up to DKK 2,984 million (approximately EUR 400 million) in the period from 18 August 2016 to 30 December 2016. The following transactions have been made under the programme during the period 15-21 November 2016: Number of shares Weighted average purchase price, DKK Transaction value, DKK 15 November 2016 75,000 438.92 32,918,970 16 November 2016 80,000 439.10 35,128,176 17 November 2016 50,000 442.84 22,141,950 18 November 2016 105,250 442.19 46,540,476 21 November 2016 88,156 441.22 38,896,375 Accumulated under the programme 4,049,590 521.98 2,113,797,438 Details of all the transactions relating to the share buy-back programme during the period are presented in the attached appendix. Contact details Vestas Wind Systems A/S, Denmark Hans Martin Smith, Senior Vice President, Group Treasury and Investor Relations Tel: +45 9730 8209 Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Devina Heriyanto (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 Speakers at an Indonesia-China bilateral relations seminar being conducted on Tuesday in Jakarta by Center for Strategic and International Studies and Chinese Peoples Institute of Foreign Affairs (CPIFA), agreed that the countries relations are not only influenced by strategic realities in East Asia but also the global dynamics and interestingly, Indonesian domestic politics. The seminar was conducted under Chatham House Rule, meaning The Jakarta Post cannot attribute arguments or opinions to its sources. The Rule was enforced to ensure free discussions between participants. Trump is a game-changer, said one speaker. The rise of Donald Trump in the US along with Brexit has shown a world trend toward unilateralism and de-globalization. The world is now standing at a crossroad, one said. The new US President-elect is considered to be an inward looking leader with a strong anti-trade sentiment during his campaign. Trump sees world politics as a zero sum game, in which the US has been cheated by the world, concluded one speaker. This isolationist trend can also be seen in the case of Brexit. The trend is rooted in the poor people that have been left out of economic growth and development theory. Meanwhile in Asia, both China and Indonesia are pursuing a greater degree of free trade for economic growth. The idea of Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) was proposed through Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 2014 to nurture trade in high potential regions, which accounts for 60 percent of the worlds population. The challenges in the region are not isolationism like in the US or in Britain but more to the lack of regional order in the region, more significantly how other countries in the region have perceived Chinas rise. Despite its claim of a peaceful rise, China has been considered hegemonic due to its aggressive military build-up in the South China Sea. Once again, Trumps victory plays a key role in regional economic growth. Trumps isolationism is not only about trade. During his campaign, Trump repeatedly stated his readiness to pull US troops from allied countries a lesser US presence is expected in the region. USs pivot to Asia has been famously known as a balancing act to China, preventing the feared full-blown conflict over the contested South China Sea. Experts attribute the regions potential economic growth and development to peace and stability in the region. A strong regional order is highly needed for the economy. The seminar dismissed the popular perception of China as a hegemonic power. Both China and Indonesia can take co-leadership in dealing with regional challenges, agreed the experts. China-Indonesia co-leadership is not only needed to defuse the tension over South China Sea through ASEAN, in which Indonesia is considered as a primus inter pares, but also in the economy. Both countries should cooperate to secure the success of a new economic regime, citing Chinas owned Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as an example. A look at bilateral economic relations Experts also called for stronger industrial relations between Indonesia and China. Both Indonesia and China have not fully benefited from international trade, despite contributing greatly in raw materials and manufacturing. A more concerning issue is shrinking trade, as Chinese Custom data shows 6% decrease in the bilateral trade during January to October 2016. A strong economic regional order such as FTAAP is much needed to increase the trade. Among other challenges in the economic relations is the perception that opening up Indonesian markets to Chinas products will result in severe damages. Strengthening bilateral economic relations would benefit the two, particularly considering the massive potential of Chinese investment in Indonesia. Chinas investment to Indonesia has grown a staggering 532 percent year-on-year, but this is still small compared to Chinas investment to the rest of the world. Indonesian domestic politics play a role too in the bilateral economic relations, particularly the sentiment toward Indonesians of Chinese decent. The ethnic tension following the alleged defamation case involving Jakartas non-active governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama could harm economic bilateral relations. The seminar mentioned that many Chinese investors decided to hold their investment due to the conflict. (dmr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Straits Times/Asia News Network) Singapore Tue, November 22, 2016 Bill Gates has seemingly found the answer to the developing world's hygiene problems - a perfume that smells like poop. The Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist, in a post titled "Smells of Success" on his Gate Notes blog last Wednesday, revealed he recently traveled to Switzerland to "take a giant whiff of pit latrine odor". Mr Gates, 61, described the smell of the perfume as a strong kick to the nostrils which consisted of a potent combination of sewage stink, barnyard sweat and bitter ammonia. But it is not some weird fetish of Mr Gates'. His eponymous Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has partnered with Swiss company Firmenich - which received a US$6.3 million (S$9 million) grant in 2013 - to work on global sanitation issues. One solution is the "poop perfume", which as Mr Gates went on to explain in his blog, can block certain receptors in people's noses, making them unable to register certain malodours. By blocking the receptors, their brains do not perceive the bad smells. He likened the approach to noise-cancelling headphones, which are used to block out jet engine noise on flights by creating a soundwave that is out of phase with the ambient noise that needs to be blocked. (Read also: Bill Gates to donate to Indonesian health care) But creating it was no easy feat - Fermenich researchers had to contend with over 200 different chemical compounds arising from feces and urine. They managed to isolate four chemical culprits, which they then asked scientists to recreate the odor with synthetic compounds. According to Mr Gates, the question is now whether the perfume can make a difference in communities with poor sanitation. Pilot projects are being launched across India and Africa to learn how to better distribute it - as a spray, powder or in other forms. In his blog post, Mr Gates also described the staggering scale of the world's sanitation challenge. It is estimated that one billion people have no access to toilets and thus defecate out in the open, while 800,000 young children die every year from conditions arising from unsafe water and sanitation. 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 Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 Local reseller of authentic branded fashion items Banananina has launched an e-commerce website to reach customers outside the capital city. The company, which started its business in 2009 through Multiply, offers various items, from bags and shoes to accessories and beauty products. The new website will also provide male products for the first time. Founder Fitri Maya Safira said the new sales channel was expected to increase daily transactions from 30 items to 70 items. "Offline sales are not sufficient due to limited options for buyers. Hopefully, the simplicity of purchasing online will attract more people," she was recently quoted as saying by dailysocial.id. (Read also: Indonesia home to Asia's largest online luxury goods sales: Report) Banananina claims its luxury goods all have original guarantee, since they were obtained from licensed-suppliers. Particularly for shoes, buyers will be given a return guarantee. "[The original guarantee] is important to ensure the products are original, since nowadays they can look identical [to fake ones]. Sometimes I even lend a hand to check the items' originality," said Fitri, adding that the company's customers live in places as far apart as Bandung, Surabaya, Aceh, Makassar, Jayapura, Timika and Biak. In terms of business model, Banananina will go head to head with Singapore-based online marketplace Reebonz, which has entered the Indonesian market. "We're not worried about competition; it is not unusual in any kind of business." (fmn/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 21 2016 Diversified business group Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) founded by conglomerate Sukanto Tanoto is on track to build the first integrated viscose fiber factory in Indonesia, which it claims will help meet domestic demand of viscose and drive exports. The factory is expected to be completed in 2018 and will be operated by Sateri Viscose International (SVI), part of the RGE Group. The raw materials will come from RGEs other business unit, Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL), which plants acacia and eucalyptus and processes the plants into pulp. [SVI] will be the first viscose fiber producer in Indonesia with an integrated production chain. There are a few other producers today, but their raw materials are imported, SVI director Thomas Handoko said on Friday. Ground breaking of the Rp 14.9 trillion (US$1.11 billion) factory took place earlier this year, next to APRILs pulp and paper mills in Pangkalan Kerinci, Riau province. Also located there are APRILs and its suppliers combined one million hectares of concession land, 480,000 ha of which is home to pulp producing trees. APRIL produces 2.8 million tons of pulp per year. Thomas claimed SVI would strengthen Indonesias position as the second largest viscose fiber producing country in the world and add to Indonesias foreign currency reserves by exporting 60 percent of its 350,000 tons of targeted annual production. Its export value is estimated to reach $468 million per year. RGEs entrance into the viscose fiber business is expected to help the group maintain profit margins on the back of weak paper sales growth. The fiber is largely used to produce rayon, raw materials for textile and other products, such as baby wipes, face masks, surgical gowns and medical pads. The national demand for paper, meanwhile, is estimated to decelerate this year with 2 to 3 percent growth rate only, causing paper prices to drop to less than $700 per ton on average, according to the Indonesian Association of Pulp and Paper (APKI). Indonesian Association of Synthetic Fiber Producers (APSFYI) secretary general Redma Gita said SVIs presence would fill the viscose fiber shortage in the country. At present, only two producers operate in Indonesia, Indo Bharat Rayon and South Pacific Viscose, with combined production at 500,000 tons per year, 150,000 tons of which are exported. The national demand itself stands at 500,000 tons. Viscose fiber is a capital intensive industry, and it needs strict waste control; thats why there are only a few producers here, Redma said. I think SVI benefits from its Chinese partner Sateri [also part of the group], which has been a long-time player in China. [Sateri] already has experience in high technology production and waste control systems, he added. There is only a small number of viscose fiber producing countries at the moment and Indonesia currently sits in the third position after China and India, Redma said. The US, Europe and Japan reportedly cut their viscose fiber industries recently due to a series of factors, including costs and environmental issues. This has opened an opportunity for several Asian countries to tap into the market. Various statistics put global viscose fiber output at more than 4.9 million tons in 2013 and China contributed to over 65 percent of the figure. ----------------- To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 The Central Jakarta District Court on Tuesday acquitted 26 activists from charges of misdemeanor for disobeying the police's orders during a rally protesting the governments minimum wage formula. The 26 people included 23 worker activists, two public lawyers from the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) and a university student. The workers and the student were all participants of the rally in October, last year, while the two lawyers were at the scene to accompany the workers. (Read also: Workers, legal aid lawyers fight disobedience charges) Police dispersed the peaceful rally in front of the Presidential Palace, which was joined by hundreds of workers from the Greater Jakarta area, at around 6 p.m., the maximum allowed time for a demonstration. The 26 people were then named suspects for allegedly disobeying the polices order to disperse the rally after the allowed time. The panel of judges adjudicating the case argued that the rally participants had followed the law and demanded justice for their work peacefully. The rally participants were actually moving to leave the rally scene, but they moved slowly because they were blocked by other participants who were panicked by the polices tear gas, LBH Jakarta director Al Ghiffari Aqsa said in a statement on Tuesday, citing some of the judges opinions of the case. (jun) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 Incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama was calm while answering questions asked by the police in a blasphemy investigation at the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta on Tuesday, his lawyer has said. Ahok's lawyer, Sirra Prayuna, said the questioning ran smoothly and the governor did not appear nervous despite the pressure he was under. "Pak Ahok was calm and relaxed. He answered the questions clearly," Sirra said. The questions asked during Tuesday's session were similar to those the police asked before Ahok was named a suspect on Wednesday, Sirra said. (Read also: Ahok named suspect in blasphemy case) Ahok, who was accompanied by a number of lawyers, declined to comment before entering the police office at about 9 a.m. On Nov. 4, hundreds of thousands of people, led by conservative Muslim groups, staged a rally in front of the palace in Jakarta, demanding the government investigate Ahok for alleged blasphemy. The rally ended in violence, with several police officers and protesters injured and two police vehicles set on fire. (jun) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama fulfilled the National Police's summons for his first round of questioning as a blasphemy suspect on Tuesday morning. Wearing a yellow batik shirt, the non-active governor arrived at the National Polices Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) office in South Jakarta at 9 a.m. Entering the office with his lawyer, Sirra Prayuna, Ahok was without a comment for the journalists positioned outside the office. Ahoks campaign team spokesman, Ruhut Sitompul, said the governor fulfilled the police's summons to show his adherence to the law. Indonesia is a country based on the supremacy of law. We came here to comply with the law. We will follow the legal process, Pak Ahok will be cooperative in this case," Ruhut said at the National Police headquarters on Tuesday. Ruhut thanked all parties, including the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Golkar, Nasdem and the Hanura Party, as well as the United Development Party (PPP) faction led by Djan Faridz, which provided lawyers for Ahok. He also credited those parties' loyalty, in which they had kept supporting Ahok despite his suspect status. Meanwhile, National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said the police had questioned 24 witnesses after they named Ahok a suspect on Nov.16. He said the police would make maximum efforts to complete the governors case dossier and submit it to prosecutors as soon as possible, as previously vowed by National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 Incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama was tight-lipped after being questioned for almost eight hours as a suspect of a blasphemy case at the National Police headquarters on Tuesday. Ahok's lawyer Sirra Prayuna said that his client answered 27 questions during the questioning. "This questioning is repetitive of the previous interrogation. Police added the crucial information [needed] to round out this case," Sirra said. (Read also:Ahok answers police questions calmly: Lawyer) He added that the team provided seven defense witnesses and 14 experts to testify for Ahok. Sirra said the witnesses, including the residents of Thousand Islands who witnessed firsthand Ahok's allegedly defamatory speech in late September, would be further questioned. The experts were comprised of religious, language and criminal law experts, he added. Police named Ahok a suspect on Wednesday after conducting a case screening the previous day. Ahoks speech triggered an outcry among Muslim conservatives. Hundreds of thousands of people, led by conservative Islamic groups, staged a rally in front of the Presidential Palace on Nov. 4 demanding that the government investigate Ahok, a Christian of Chinese descent, for his alleged blasphemy. The rally ended in violence when two police cars were set on fire and several people, both police officers and protesters, suffered severe injuries. Ahok has repeatedly asked for forgiveness for his statement, saying he never intended to insult Islam or the Quran.(jun) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama is scheduled to undergo his first interrogation as a suspect in a case involving alleged blasphemy on Tuesday. National Police spokesperson Boy Rafli Amar said the questioning would be conducted at the main building of the police headquarters in Jakarta. He [Ahok] will be questioned at around 9 or 10 a.m. here, Boy said as quoted by kompas.com on Tuesday. The questioning of a suspect was usually conducted at the National Polices Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) office. For Ahok's case, investigators decided to question the governor at the main building of the National Police headquarters, the same location where he was questioned before the police decided to lay charges against him. Police cited security concerns as the main reason for not questioning him at Bareskrim. The police have continued to investigate Ahoks case after they named the governor a suspect on Nov.16. The police have questioned a number of witnesses in their effort of compile the governors case dossier. Boy said investigators wanted to complete Ahoks case dossier within a week. Its in our goal that the case dossier can be fully handed over to prosecutors in the next one or two weeks, he said. Responding to questions from journalists about the possible arrest of Ahok, Boy said it was under the authority of the investigators to decide whether they needed to arrest a suspect. On the investigators points of view, there are subjective and objective considerations they will first look into before deciding to detain a suspect, he said. For the time being, he added, investigators said Ahok was still being cooperative. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Niki Luhur (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22 2016 Indonesia is strengthening its reputation as a global economic powerhouse. World Bank data (2015) suggest that Indonesias gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate will be twice that of the world until 2020. Home to more than 250 million people and enjoying potential opportunities from a demographic bonus, Indonesia is expected to contribute significantly to the global economy. Unfortunately, this huge potential cannot yet be fully tapped, due to a lack of financial inclusion. A World Bank survey (2014) shows that only 36 percent of Indonesias adult population have accounts at formal financial institutions. The Global Findex database (2014), quoted by McKinsey and Company, meanwhile, suggests that only 50 percent of the adult population use banks to transfer money, 27 percent to save money and 7 percent to receive wages. The same data set also reveals that that 44 percent prefer to borrow money from family members, friends or informal institutions and only 9 percent use debit cards to make payments. It turns out that many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) an estimated 49 million to be more precise are also still unbanked. Considered by the government as the backbone of Indonesias economy, SMEs employ more than 107 million people and contribute at least 60 percent to the countrys GDP. With such huge potential, SMEs can support equitable economic development that allows more people to participate in economic activities. There are many reasons why millions of Indonesian citizens still have no access to financial services, including the geographical factor, the limited number of bank branches and a low level of financial literacy. Indonesias financial literacy rate, for example, currently stands at 21.8 percent, much lower than that of regional peers, including Singapore (96 percent), Malaysia (81 percent) and Thailand (78 percent). Despite issues regarding financial literacy and access to financial services, Indonesia actually tops the list of countries with the fastest growth in internet connectivity. Social Baker (2016) reported that Indonesia was home to around 88 million active internet users, with 74 million active social media users. There are 325 million mobile connections and 64 million active cellular phone users. The rapid development of digital technology is also indicated by mushrooming technology startups in Indonesia, including those operating in the financial technology (fintech) industry, which offers a broad range of financial services using information technology platforms. A recent survey from the Indonesian FinTech Association maps out at least 120 fintech companies currently operating in Indonesia. The rapid increase in the number of fintech startups is in line with the number of mobile phone owners, which is much bigger than that of bank account holders. This suggests that the future of Indonesias financial inclusion relies heavily on digital transaction facilitated by mobile gadgets. While traditional financial institutions are intensifying efforts to expand services to unbanked segments of the population, the fintech industry has emerged to offer alternative services with many added benefits. With its mobile, flexible and costumer-oriented character, fintech has contributed to marketing financial service products and pushing for economic development by boosting digital transactions. The rapid growth of fintech startups will also prompt traditional financial institutions to evaluate their core business model and start utilizing digital innovations. Fintech has emerged as a response to market demands for more practical, secure and modern payment, transfer, trading and financing processing. Financial transactions can now be carried out electronically using smartphones, tablets or other mobile devices. Thus, fintech has actually completed the financial transaction chain. It is strengthening the existing financial ecosystem instead of taking over the roles of traditional financial institutions. Fintech supports the roles of banks and other financial institutions to provide financial services to customers while helping customers make financial decisions. The technology also helps cut operating costs, minimize risks (including those from bad loans), and expand markets through online marketing, which is increasingly popular among the public. Apart from facilitating online transactions, fintech serves many other purposes. A study by the Indonesian FinTech Association shows that 44 percent of Indonesian fintech companies operate in the payment service business, 15 percent in aggregator, 15 percent in financing, 10 percent in personal and individual financial planning, 8 percent in crowdfunding and the rest in miscellaneous businesses. The rapid growth of fintech has also touched many sectors in the financial industry, including retail, wealth management, SMEs, corporate, investment banking and insurance, thus offering golden opportunities to reach out to Indonesias unbanked society. There are three pillars to make sure that Indonesia achieves financial inclusion through the development of fintech, namely infrastructure development, the introduction of clearer regulations and the creation of a stronger ecosystem for the fintech industry. All can only be achieved through collaboration among stakeholders. To assist in the development of the financial industry, members of the Indonesian FinTech Association and regulators meet regularly to discuss and exchange information regarding the development of government policies and priority programs as well as other industry matters. The Financial Services Authority (OJK), for example, recently invited the associations executives and business players to discuss a draft regulation on fintech lending. This reflects the regulators support for the industry through regulatory reviews to provide greater certainty for business players and strengthen the fintech industry ecosystem in Indonesia. Another visible act of support from regulators is the opening of Bank Indonesias (BI) Fintech Office on Nov. 14, which will serve as a center for study, risk mitigation, evaluating fintech business models, products and services and initiating research on technology-based financial services. Meanwhile, support from traditional financial institutions can be seen through the increasing frequency of strategic collaboration between them and fintech startups. Collaboration and synergy among all stakeholders (government, regulators and business players) are key to strengthening the financial ecosystem and the most appropriate formula to achieve financial inclusion within Indonesian society. We all want to see all segments of society be able to access more financial services and products to improve welfare, eradicate poverty and help boost national economic growth. _______________ The writer is chairman of the Indonesian Fintech Association. ------------------ to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Charlotte N.C., Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Akoustis Technologies, Inc. (OTCQB: AKTS) (Akoustis or the Company), a manufacturer of innovative BulkONE bulk acoustic wave (BAW) high-band RF filters for mobile wireless, announced today that the Companys CEO, Jeff Shealy, will present at the Drexel Hamilton 2016 Emerging Growth Conference held on December 1st in New York City. Mr. Shealy will present on Thursday, December 1st at 10:30 a.m. ET. He will also meet one-on-one with institutional investors during the conference. Investors are invited to request a one-on-one meeting with Akoustis management by contacting their Drexel Hamilton representative. About Akoustis Akoustis (http://www.akoustis.com) is a high-tech RF filter solutions company that manufactures its unique, patent-pending BulkONE technology to produce single crystal bulk acoustic wave (BAW) RF filters for the mobile-wireless industry, which facilitate signal acquisition and accelerate band performance between the antenna and the back end of mobile devices. Its BulkONE technology will service the fast growing multi-billion dollar market of device OEMs, network providers, and consumers to diminish front end phone heat, battery drain and signal loss -- all considered to be directly related to current RF polycrystalline filter technologies limitations. Akoustis asset-lite business model is capital efficient, leveraging existing manufacturing infrastructure in the semiconductor industry. Akoustis is located in the Piedmont technology corridor between Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina. Forward-Looking Statements Statements in this press release that are not descriptions of historical facts are forward-looking statements that are based on managements current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology including anticipates, believes, can, continue, could, estimates, expects, intends, may, plans, potential, predicts, should, will, would or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated include, without limitation, risks relating to the results of our research and development activities, including uncertainties relating to semiconductor process manufacturing; the early stage of our BulkONE technology presently under development; technology presently under development; our need for substantial additional funds in order to continue our operations and the uncertainty of whether we will be able to obtain the funding we need; our ability to retain or hire key scientific, engineering or management personnel; our ability to protect our intellectual property rights that are valuable to our business, including patent and other intellectual property rights; our dependence on third-party manufacturers, suppliers, research organizations, testing laboratories and other potential collaborators; our ability to successfully market and sell our technologies; the size and growth of the potential markets for any of our technologies, and the rate and degree of market acceptance of any of our technologies; competition in our industry; and regulatory developments in the U.S. and foreign countries. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the future events and circumstances discussed in the forward-looking statements in this press release may not occur, and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. The forward-looking statements included in this presentation speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly or privately any forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this presentation to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in our expectations. The materials do not constitute an offer to sell, or the solicitation of any offer to buy, any securities of Akoustis, or any other entity whatsoever. Any representation to the contrary by any party should be ignored. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 In the face of a booming tourism industry in its area, the Banyuwangi regional administration in East Java has pledged to ensure that management of the sector would stay in line with Islamic values to respect the majority Muslim population in the region. Regent Abdullah Azwar Anas said that strong Islamic culture in East Java made him decide not to allow the establishment of bars and discotheques like those on the neighboring resort island of Bali in an effort to minimize alcohol consumption in the region. Anwar also said his administration had prohibited the establishment of hotels rated with fewer than three stars. The 'cheap hotels', he added, would potentially become venues for sex transactions. "For cheaper accommodations, we encourage tourists to stay in homestay facilities. It will be much easier to supervise such venues, Azwar said Monday during a meeting of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) in Jakarta. Islamic teachings prohibit the consumption of alcohol and sexual relations out of wedlock. To attract more tourists to Banyuwangi, Anwar said, the administration was intensifying efforts to promote an eco-tourism concept, by which visitors can explore the regions natural beauty, food and festivals. "We see a good example on Langkawi, Malaysia. The island attracts a lot of tourists without offering indecent stuff," he said. Many years ago, most outsiders would probably only have known Banyuwangi as the place of origin of santet (a traditional black magic). The easternmost city on Java Island, however, has now transformed itself into a regional powerhouse, with tourism and agriculture among its leading sectors. In 2010 the regency attracted 400,000 tourists, but 2 million tourists visited the region during the first 10 months of this year, 50,000 of them foreigners. (hwa) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Panca Nugraha (The Jakarta Post) West Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara Tue, November 22, 2016 The Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) provided training for business players from 100 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the creative economy sector in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) on how to access capital from Islamic banks during a recent two-day Islamic finance training program. In the program, we gave sharia-based financial management training to the 100 SMEs, including on ways they could use to access capital in Islamic banks, said Bekrafs banking access director Restog K. Kusuma of the program, which was held in West Lombok and ended on Tuesday. He said based on the results of assessments conducted by Bekraf of local SMEs in the creative economy sector, many business players did not yet understand how to manage the finances of their businesses. Lower optimal profits, business failures and financial losses occurred because most SME business players still confused their business finances with their private and household finances, he went on. Many SME players do not have a capacity to maintain proper bookkeeping for their businesses while in fact, complete and orderly bookkeeping is one of requirements they need to fulfil to be able to access capital from the banking sector, said Restog. It was the eighth Islamic finance training program held by Bekraf after previously holding similar programs in Bandung, West Java; Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan; Jakarta; Pekalongan, Central Java; South Tangerang, Banten; Surabaya, East Java; and Yogyakarta. Based on the provinces Industry and Trade Agency data, NTB has more than 644,000 micro, small and medium enterprise business players, of which 89 percent are micro businesses. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 As the worlds seventh-biggest tea producer, Indonesia has vast plantations to grow the commodity, but its rising imports show it cannot manage the huge potential at home. Tea imports have skyrocketed to 25,000 tons in 2015 from only 500 tons in 1999, according to data from the Indonesia Tea Board (DTI). The emerging middle class significantly drives the expansion of the premium tea-drinking culture. Mushrooming premium stores, such as TWG and high-end supermarkets, as well as hotels serving Twinings, Dilmah or imported Chinese tea leaves have boosted imports. Its ironic that the rising trend of premium tea consumption is not supported by the tea-processing industry here. Alas, most of our raw tea is still exported [only] to be processed abroad and imported back here again, said DTI chairman Rachmat Badruddin on the sidelines of Export Forum 2016 on Monday at Hotel Borobudur. Only 40 percent of the total 130,000 tons of tea produced last year was processed at home, but mostly for the mass market, while 60 percent was shipped overseas. Apart from the recent trend of premium tea drinks, the absence of non-trade barriers has weakened the local market. The exemption of import duties for neighboring Southeast Asian countries under the ASEAN free trade agreement has contributed to easier imports, Rachmat said. Previously, Indonesia applied a 5 percent import duty for tea. Imposing non-trade barriers, such as certifications from DTI prior to importation, may be necessary to curb this import boom, according to Rachmat. [Therefore] we shouldnt import tea types that we already produce here, he said. At 20 percent, tariffs imposed on tea imports from non-ASEAN countries into Indonesia are much lower than the rest of the world, which can go as high as 140 percent. The biggest bulk of imported tea derives from Argentina, Kenya, India, Iran and Vietnam. With the lack of a domestic processing industry and the ease of exporting raw tea, especially for major exporters, it is no wonder that state-owned plantation firm PTPN VIII, Indonesias largest tea planter, sold 90 percent of its 45,000 tons of premium tea last year overseas. The West Java-based planter mostly ships to Australia, China, Germany, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, Taiwan, the UK and the US. We export it through big exporters like Yoosuf Akbani and Van Rees as well as to renowned brands, such as Twinings, Dilmah and consumer goods firms like Unilever and Lipton, said PTPN VIII operational director Tatang Supriatna. Only 10 percent of PTPN VIIIs production is made into popular premium tea-bags like Walini, mainly for domestic consumption. The firm set a target of 2025 to process 40 percent of its total output to value-added tea products. Although most firms sell their output abroad, tea export volume and value have dropped in the past decade due to shrinking areas for tea plantations, rising temperatures and dropping prices driven by global oversupply. Tea exports from Indonesia, once the worlds fifth-largest producer, dropped to 62,700 tons last year from 92,000 in 2009, with the value dropping to US$128 million from $171 million all in the same period. Only 6 percent of the 62,700 tons in export volume last year comprised value-added processed tea. Areas growing the plant have dropped from 150,000 hectares to 120,000 ha at present as farmers prefer planting other cash crops with simpler maintenance like vegetables. While big firms say it is easy to export, smaller firms like West Java-based CV Arafa Asia see more difficulty today in increasing exports. The documents required to export now are more complicated. I need to change my house building permit [IMB] into one for a business unit, said Ipah Syarifah, who produces tea-based products, including tea crackers and green tea chocolates. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22 2016 As the worlds seventh-biggest tea producer, Indonesia has vast plantations to grow the commodity, but its rising imports show it cannot manage the huge potential at home. Tea imports have skyrocketed to 25,000 tons in 2015 from only 500 tons in 1999, according to data from the Indonesia Tea Board (DTI). The emerging middle class significantly drives the expansion of the premium tea-drinking culture. Mushrooming premium stores, such as TWG and high-end supermarkets, as well as hotels serving Twinings, Dilmah or imported Chinese tea leaves have boosted imports. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie, Agnes Anya and Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 The authorities have insisted that they will not permit next months planned large-scale rally in Jakarta because the demonstration, which was originally aimed at demanding the prosecution of Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama for blasphemy, has been taken over by political elements aimed at destabilizing President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration. National Police Chief Gen. Tito Karnavian and Indonesian Military (TNI) commander Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo held a meeting on Monday to discuss the planned Dec. 2 rally. Tito said the police would not allow the demonstration, which was expected to consist of mass Friday prayers performed on Jl. Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman, as well as the Hotel Indonesia Traffic Circle, all in Central Jakarta, because freedom of speech is never absolute. Wider concern for the well-being of the public should be the priority, he said. Based on the 1998 Freedom of Speech Law, [demonstrating] is the peoples constitutional right but it must not contravene other peoples rights or public order and must not close major streets, said the former Jakarta police chief. If the protesters insist on staying in the area, or fighting with the police, the police will take stern measures against them, he added. He also threatened to charge the protesters with treason should they become violent or visibly attempt to undermine the government. Gatot, meanwhile, said the two forces had worked together to uncover the mastermind behind the planned rally. Intelligence agencies from the police and the TNI have gathered information as to who has encouraged them to take part in the rally, said Gatot, adding that the TNI were ready to take part in a jihad in defense of national unity. The two made the statement following a plan by Muslim organizations, grouped under the National Movement to Save Indonesian Ulema Councils Edict (GNPF-MUI), to hold a massive rally on Dec. 2. They claim the protest is aimed at demanding the police detain incumbent gubernatorial candidate and blasphemy suspect Ahok. The organizations held a similar rally on Nov. 4, in which more than 100,000 people took part, to demand the police charge Ahok with blasphemy, which has since been done. They initially announced they would hold the next protest on Nov. 25. Tito said the police had received information that there could still be demonstrations on Nov. 25, especially at the House of Representatives. Firebrand Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Shihab has claimed that the demonstration would be very peaceful since it would only comprise Friday prayers, Quran readings, mass prayers, dzikir (chants), as well as shalawat (prayers to the Prophet Muhammad), even though they would occupy the highway from the Semanggi intersection to the State Palace. Regardless, Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. M. Iriawan said full-scale security measures were in place to ensure security in the capital. Separately, Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin also questioned the plan to hold another rally, especially since the police had named Ahok a suspect. But if [another rally] is deemed necessary, it should be held in accordance with the law, Lukman said. In response, Islamic Peoples Forum (FUI) secretary-general Muhammad Al-Khaththath accused the authorities of committing a crime if they prohibited the rally. [Demonstrating] is guaranteed by the law, he said. FPI spokesman Munarman, meanwhile, denied any political motivation behind the planned rally. Through this [demonstration] we actually want to deliver prayers so that Indonesia will be saved from actors who want to divide the nation, he said. Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) civil and political rights division head Putri Kanesia said the authorities should protect peoples freedom of expression. Authorities can carry out actions against [the protesters] if they violate the law, however, the enforcement should still be conducted in a persuasive way, Putri said. Ina Parlina contributed to this story. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Mario Rustan (The Jakarta Post) Bandung Tue, November 22 2016 Chinese-American journalist Wilfred Chan was in harms way in the East and the West in the same week. On Sunday, he covered a demonstration and took a picture of the Hong Kong Police riot squad coming his way. On Wednesday, he showed an election map that showed what would have happened if only people of color (non-white) Americans had voted. Democrats would have won in all states. His message was: White folks, sincerely, you have work to do. Two days later Chan revealed the hate messages hes received and they are raw. Hes been called Mr. Chinaman and his personal favorite is Wonton. Someone wrote that he and other people of color would be deported from the US, or be killed. Why? Because the US was a white country. There are two competing views on the unexpected defeat of the Democratic Party. Both views agree that the majority of white voters chose Donald Trump and fewer non-white Americans voted for Hillary Clinton compared to how they voted for Obama in 2012. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22 2016 The Netherlands has reiterated its commitment to participate in infrastructure projects in Indonesia, especially in port development and the strategic project National Capital Integrated Coastal Development (NCICD) in Jakarta. Dutch Infrastructure and Environment Minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen said during her visit on Monday that the country would offer technical assistance and advice for the ongoing NCICD project. The next step will be to see how we can prevent Jakarta from subsiding by halting illegal ground [water] extraction and to as soon as possible repair the wall, the dikes along Pluit, North Jakarta, she said after meeting top officials of the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry, including Minister Basuki Hadimuljono. The Dutch minister referred to the ongoing phase A of the NCICD project, also known as the Giant Seawall, which focuses on building dikes to span 26.2 kilometers through a Rp 10 trillion (US$745.9 million) development to protect the capital city from flooding. The Public Works and Public Housing Ministry is currently constructing two dikes in Jakarta that will reach a total length of 4.5 km. The development of these dikes, which are located in Pluit and Kali Baru, North Jakarta, is estimated to take up Rp 785.1 billion. The Dutch assistance will cover primary data collection, technical design and feasibility studies on the polder systems and land subsidence and other aspects, such as environmental, social and economic impacts of the project to coastal communities, according to the ministry. The massive NCICD project, intended to prevent North Jakarta from sea water inundation, was initially envisioned to run in three phases. The first phase included the construction of the 600-kilometer inner wall with completion scheduled by 2017. The second and the third phase covered development of two outer walls in the western and eastern parts of the Jakarta Bay to be finished in 2025. The Rp 400 trillion project was to be financed by the state and city funds. The creation of 17 man-made islets between the inner and western outer walls, meanwhile, was to engage participation from the private sector. However, with the then-emerged corruption case embroiling the developers of the islets, the central government ordered the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) to carry out a study in a bid to determine the urgency of constructing the seawall, which resulted in an agreement to build the 26.2 km dikes until 2018. The Dutch government had earlier handed out an 8 million ($8.52 million) grant for the project, particularly for the feasibility study for the later phases. It has been mulling over whether to provide another grant to finance the feasibility study for the construction of Jakarta Port, set to be Southeast Asias largest port. The Public Works and Public Housing Ministry, meanwhile, said the Indonesian and Dutch governments had also talked about future cooperation in the design of an immersed tunnel in an Indonesian river. Maybe we want to place it in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, Basuki said. ------------------ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Niki Luhur (Chairman of the Indonesian FinTech Association) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 Indonesia is strengthening its reputation as a global economic powerhouse. World Bank data (2015) suggest that Indonesias gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate will be twice that of the world until 2020. Home to more than 250 million people and enjoying potential opportunities from a demographic bonus, Indonesia is expected to contribute significantly to the global economy. Unfortunately, this huge potential cannot yet be fully tapped, due to a lack of financial inclusion. A World Bank survey (2014) shows that only 36 percent of Indonesias adult population have accounts at formal financial institutions. The Global Findex database (2014), quoted by McKinsey and Company, meanwhile, suggests that only 50 percent of the adult population use banks to transfer money, 27 percent to save money and 7 percent to receive wages. The same data set also reveals that that 44 percent prefer to borrow money from family members, friends or informal institutions and only 9 percent use debit cards to make payments. It turns out that many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) an estimated 49 million to be more precise - are also still unbanked. Considered by the government as the backbone of Indonesias economy, SMEs employ more than 107 million people and contribute at least 60 percent to the countrys GDP. With such huge potential, SMEs can support equitable economic development that allows more people to participate in economic activities. There are many reasons why millions of Indonesian citizens still have no access to financial services, including the geographical factor, the limited number of bank branches and a low level of financial literacy. Indonesias financial literacy rate, for example, currently stands at 21.8 percent, much lower than that of regional peers, including Singapore (96 percent), Malaysia (81 percent) and Thailand (78 percent). The digital transformation Despite issues regarding financial literacy and access to financial services, Indonesia actually tops the list of countries with the fastest growth in internet connectivity. Social Baker (2016) reported that Indonesia was home to around 88 million active internet users, with 74 million active social media users. There are 325 million mobile connections and 64 million active cellular phone users. The rapid development of digital technology is also indicated by mushrooming technology startups in Indonesia, including those operating in the financial technology (fintech) industry, which offers a broad range of financial services using information technology platforms. A recent survey from the Indonesian FinTech Association maps out at least 120 fintech companies currently operating in Indonesia. The rapid increase in the number of fintech startups is in line with the number of mobile phone owners, which is much bigger than that of bank account holders. This suggests that the future of Indonesias financial inclusion relies heavily on digital transaction facilitated by mobile gadgets. While traditional financial institutions are intensifying efforts to expand services to unbanked segments of the population, the fintech industry has emerged to offer alternative services with many added benefits. With its mobile, flexible and costumer-oriented character, fintech has contributed to marketing financial service products and pushing for economic development by boosting digital transactions. The rapid growth of fintech startups will also prompt traditional financial institutions to evaluate their core business model and start utilizing digital innovations. Financial system chain Fintech has emerged as a response to market demands for more practical, secure and modern payment, transfer, trading and financing processing. Financial transactions can now be carried out electronically using smartphones, tablets or other mobile devices. Thus, fintech has actually completed the financial transaction chain. It is strengthening the existing financial ecosystem instead of taking over the roles of traditional financial institutions. Fintech supports the roles of banks and other financial institutions to provide financial services to customers while helping customers make financial decisions. The technology also helps cut operating costs, minimize risks (including those from bad loans), and expand markets through online marketing, which is increasingly popular among the public. Apart from facilitating online transactions, fintech serves many other purposes. A study by the Indonesian FinTech Association shows that 44 percent of Indonesian fintech companies operate in the payment service business, 15 percent in aggregator, 15 percent in financing, 10 percent in personal and individual financial planning, 8 percent in crowdfunding and the rest in miscellaneous businesses. The rapid growth of fintech has also touched many sectors in the financial industry, including retail, wealth management, SMEs, corporate, investment banking and insurance, thus offering golden opportunities to reach out to Indonesias unbanked society. Collaboration There are three pillars to make sure that Indonesia achieves financial inclusion through the development of fintech, namely infrastructure development, the introduction of clearer regulations and the creation of a stronger ecosystem for the fintech industry. All can only be achieved through collaboration among stakeholders. To assist in the development of the financial industry, members of the Indonesian FinTech Association and regulators meet regularly to discuss and exchange information regarding the development of government policies and priority programs as well as other industry matters. The Financial Services Authority (OJK), for example, recently invited the associations executives and business players to discuss a draft regulation on fintech lending. This reflects the regulators support for the industry through regulatory reviews to provide greater certainty for business players and strengthen the fintech industry ecosystem in Indonesia. Another visible act of support from regulators is the opening of Bank Indonesias (BI) Fintech Office on Nov. 14, which will serve as a center for study, risk mitigation, evaluating fintech business models, products and services, and initiating research on technology-based financial services. Meanwhile, support from traditional financial institutions can be seen through the increasing frequency of strategic collaboration between them and fintech startups. Collaboration and synergy among all stakeholders (government, regulators and business players) are key to strengthening the financial ecosystem and the most appropriate formula to achieve financial inclusion within Indonesian society. We all want to see all segments of society be able to access more financial services and products to improve welfare, eradicate poverty and help boost national economic growth. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Thousand Islands Tue, November 22 2016 Jakarta gubernatorial candidate Anies Baswedan has promised to improve public facilities in underdeveloped Thousand Islands regency off the northern coast of Jakarta. We wont let Thousand Islands be left behind. All citizens here deserve the same rights as people on Jakartas mainland, Anies said during a campaign visit to Kelapa Island in the regency on Monday. The former education minister vowed that, if he became governor, he would prioritize development of transportation, health and education facilities in the regency. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 An international NGO has urged President Joko Jokowi Widodo to take seriously his pledge to promote religious pluralism in Indonesia by removing laws that can be used to persecute religious minorities and have become a basis for religious discrimination. Human Rights Watch (HRW) Asia deputy director Phelim Kine said President Jokowi should work to have Indonesias Blasphemy Law, Article 156a of the Criminal Code (KUHP) and similar laws taken off the books. The Blasphemy Law makes deviations from the central tenets of the six officially recognized religions punishable by up to five years in prison. He said the Blasphemy Law had been used to prosecute and imprison members of religious minorities and of traditional religions. He cited recent targets of the law, including three former leaders of the Gafatar community following the eviction of more than 7,000 members of the group from their homes in Kalimantan earlier this year. The Blasphemy Law also had been used as the legal basis for a number of government regulations that facilitated official discrimination on the basis of religion, he went on. These include a June 2008 government decree that ordered members of the Ahmadiyah community to cease all public religious activities on the grounds that they deviated from the principal teachings of Islam and threatened violators with up to five years in prison, Kine said in a statement on Tuesday. Blasphemy charges against Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama have sparked renewed calls for the repeal of the law. Ahok fulfilled the National Police's summons for his first questioning as a suspect on Tuesday morning. (ebf) FALLS CHURCH, Va., Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) will participate in the Credit Suisse 4th Annual Industrials Conference Thursday, Dec. 1. Ken Bedingfield, corporate vice president and chief financial officer and Steve Movius, corporate vice president and treasurer, will present beginning at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time. The presentation will be webcast live at www.northropgrumman.com. Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in autonomous systems, cyber, C4ISR, strike, and logistics and modernization to customers worldwide. Please visit www.northropgrumman.com for more information. Note: Statements to be made at the conference, including in the presentation and in any accompanying materials, other than statements of historical fact, may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as anticipate, expect, intend, plan, believe, estimate, guidance, and similar expressions generally identify these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date when made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements after the date of the subject presentation, except as required by applicable law. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and inherently involve a wide range of risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. A discussion of these risks and uncertainties is contained in the Companys filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 President Joko Jokowi Widodo is sending out the message that his administration still has strong support from the majority of the public, through meetings with leading political figures, an analyst has said. President Jokowi is sending a signal to the public that support [for his administration] remains stable, Arya Fernandes, an analyst with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said on Tuesday. Last week Jokowi met with Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto, the second meeting in less than a month in an apparent demonstration that the two camps, which were rivals in the 2014 presidential election, might come to new terms. On Monday, Jokowi met with former president and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri and later United Development Party chairman Romahurmuziy, on Tuesday, to discuss various political issues. The President reportedly plans to see former president and Democratic Party chairman Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono later. The schedule for this meeting, however, remains unknown. President Jokowi recently met with senior political leaders following the Nov. 4 mass rally demanding the prosecution of Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama for blasphemy. Although the rally was ostensibly against Ahok, many analysts suspect the rally had the hidden agenda of toppling Jokowi's administration. Jokowi previously said the rally, which turned violent after it officially ended, had been stirred up by political elements. Meeting with these leaders will surely help ease political tension, Arya said. (dmr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has apprehended an official from the Finance Ministry's Directorate General of Taxation in a sting operation. Yes, [we have made an arrest]. Wait for the press conference this morning, KPK chairman Agus Rahardjo said in a text message as reported by kompas.com on Tuesday. The KPK will hold the press conference after the antigraft body questions the suspect and conducts a case screening. According to unsubstantiated information, the tax official allegedly received a bribe from a businessman who wanted to get a tax deduction. So far, the number of people who have been arrested related to the sting operation and where the suspect or suspects were apprehended has not yet been made public.(jun) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) says it has caught red-handed an officer with the Directorate General of Taxation, identified only as HS, accepting a bribe from a Surabaya-based businessman. "[The suspect is an] echelon III (mid-ranking) official at the Directorate General of Taxation," KPK chairman Agus Rahardjo said at the Defense Ministrys offices in Jakarta on Tuesday, adding that his commission had long monitored the alleged illicit practice. Agus refused to disclose further details on the arrest that took place on Monday evening. "We'll hold a press briefing at 4 p.m. at the KPK headquarters later today," he said. (fac/dmr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina and Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 President Joko Jokowi Widodo met with Megawati Soekarnoputri, the chairwoman of his Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), at the State Palace on Monday, amid ongoing pressure on the ruling party to expel some members of the government coalition. The two had lunch hosted by the President after which they had a short discussion on the Palace veranda. It was only four days after Jokowi hosted Gerindra chairman Prabowo Subianto at the Palace, during which they also had lunch and discussions on the veranda. Jokowi has recently strengthened his power base, with the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Golkar Party as the latest additions to his coalition. But cracks in the coalition have appeared especially after three of its members, namely PAN, the United Development Party (PPP) and the National Awakening Party (PKB), decided to take different paths when it came to the Jakarta gubernatorial election. The national political landscape has become tense in the past weeks after Islamic groups mobilized a large-scale rally on Nov. 4 to demand the government prosecute Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, who is supported by the PDI-P, for blasphemy. The three parties, which have joined forces to support gubernatorial candidate Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, backed the rally, prompting politicians, especially in Golkar, to question the parties loyalty to Jokowi. I have actually said that it would be better if [those] already committed to supporting the government could also work together in the regional elections, Megawati said at the palace. But, it is the right of the political parties to decide, the former president added. Megawati later said that, in her recent meeting with Golkar chairman Setya Novanto, she spoke to him about the matter but Megawati stopped short of saying the composition of the coalition should therefore be changed. Agus is the son of Democratic Party chairman and former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has long had a fractious relationship with Megawati since the latters presidency ended in 2004. However, Jokowis relationship with his predecessor Yudhoyono has also deteriorated after the latter accused the government of producing a false intelligence report about him masterminding the Nov. 4 rally. When asked if he would also meet with Yudhoyono, Jokowi said, well, maybe later, we might arrange something. The increased polarization during regional elections, Jokowi added, was normal as long as there are no free riders, out of self-interest, posing threats to national stability and undermining pluralism. There were certain groups that took advantage of it [the rally]; there were political actors looking to benefit from the situation, the former Jakarta governor added. Megawati echoed Jokowi, saying the Nov. 4 rally involved people who were used by certain interests. Megawati also revealed that, in her meeting with the President, she asked Jokowi to call a meeting of party leaders. PAN politicians, however, insisted that those who suggested a coalition split and power struggles within the government coalition were just making the situation worse. Just because government parties are outside the Ahok coalition, it doesnt mean they are outside the government coalition, PAN deputy chairman Hanafi Rais, who took part in the rally along with his father, party patron Amien Rais, said. Despite being pro-government, the PAN faction at the House of Representatives has held contradictory positions with the PDI-P, particularly regarding the election bill. The PAN wants to keep the countrys open-list proportional poll system as opposed to the PDI-P and Golkar, which want to change it to a semi-closed list system. Similarly, PPP deputy secretary-general Achmad Baidowi claimed that the Ahok case was minor compared with the national interest. In the rally, the PPP in fact helped the government to control the situation by bridging a dialog between the palace and the demonstrators, he said. Following Jokowis meetings with Prabowo, speculation was rife that the opposition Gerindra Party could soon join the government coalition, I am ready to help the government at anytime, Prabowo said after his meeting with Jokowi at the palace. Gerindra deputy chairman Sufmi Dasco Ahmad dismissed the speculation. Its not true that Gerindra will join the ruling coalition. When we say were ready to help the government, it doesnt mean we want to trade with it for certain positions in the government, he said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu expressed on Tuesday his optimism that ongoing cooperation between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines could secure the Sulu Sea from rampant piracy. The Sulu Sea, located in the southwestern Philippines, has long been a source of trouble for the three countries, as the Abu Sayyaf militant group has repeatedly kidnapped sailors, including those from Indonesia, in exchange for ransom. "Many hostages have been rescued and more than 300 Abu Sayyaf militants have died. Coal transportation is now safe in the Sulu Sea," Ryamizard told reporters at his office. (Read also: Nations unite against Abu Sayyaf group) Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have committed to strengthening cooperation in securing the Sulu Sea, including by conducting joint patrols to secure the tri-border area. Coal shipments from resource-rich Kalimantan sail through these waters. (fac/hwa) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22 2016 The National Police announced on Monday that five terror suspects arrested in Bekasi, West Java, on Friday had deployed Indonesians to join the Islamic State (IS) movement in Syria. The five suspected terrorists allegedly belong to the Daulah Nusantara group, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar said. The group had no ties to the seven people arrested in connection to a recent attack on the Oikumene Church in Sengkotek subdistrict, Samarinda, East Kalimantan, which claimed the life of a toddler, he added. The Samarinda group was allegedly part of the Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a domestic terrorist faction that supports IS. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Rizal Harahap (The Jakarta Post) Pekanbaru Tue, November 22, 2016 Three years after the beginning of construction, the Tenayan coal-fired power plant (PLTU) in Pekanbaru, Riau, is set to commence operations next month, with President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo scheduled to attend the firing-up ceremony. Speaking to reporters on Monday evening during a visit to the facility, state electricity company PLN's business director for Sumatra, Amir Rosidi, said the power plant, which is designed to generate up to 2 x 110 megawatts (MW) of electricity, was scheduled to start on Dec. 9. "The construction of the power plant's Unit 1 was completed in April and Unit 2 four months later," he told reporters, adding that the facility was currently undergoing a series of commissioning tests. To boost the country's electrification ratio, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration wants to build enough new power stations to produce an additional 35,000 MW of electricity by 2019. Of the figure, 18,000 MW are actually new projects offered to private investors, while the remaining 7,000 MW are a carryover from president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's term and 10,000 MW are PLN's share. (hwa) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22 2016 Despite the governments good intentions, the one-price fuel policy is unlikely to be effective unless the government starts taking development in remote regions seriously. The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry recently issued a ministerial regulation that will allow people in Papua and West Papua to buy Premium gasoline for Rp 6,450 per liter, diesel for Rp 5,150 per liter and kerosene for Rp 2,500 per liter starting in January next year. The regulation is a follow-up to President Joko Jokowi Widodos commitment to make the price of fuel the same in all regions across the country, slashing prices from Rp 50,000 to Rp 100,000 per liter in Papua and West Papua. The regulation also stipulates that the Downstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Agency (BPH Migas) will be tasked with ordering state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina to supply fuel to new locations, chosen by the ministry. Furthermore, the agency can implement sanctions if the company violates the regulation. The policy will force Pertamina to allocate Rp 800 billion in subsidies every year. However, Pertamina remains upbeat about its new challenge. Spokesperson Wianda Pusponegoro said the company was planning to add 22 fuel distribution agents in Maluku, North Maluku and Papua. Pertamina plans to allocate Rp 54 billion for the projects. The funds can come from investors in the fuel distribution agents, she told The Jakarta Post on Monday. As of May, Pertamina had 481 gas stations and 397 distribution agents across the country, including 19 distribution agents in Papua and 13 in West Papua. Within the first nine months of this year, the company saw a 17 percent annual decrease in revenues to US$26.62 billion. However, renegotiation of existing contracts and operational cost-cutting measures made the companys net profits soar 210 percent to $2.83 billion. ReforMiner Institute researcher Pri Agung Rakhmanto said the new policy was unnecessary as the government already decided on the prices of non-subsidized fuel every three months. The problem, he said, was mostly related to the lack of gas stations in the region, leading to large numbers of illegal gasoline sellers who often doubled or tripled the selling price. Although there might be a small decrease in price, Pri Agung doubted that the selling prices would reach the prices in Java and Bali unless the government established policies that would lead to serious infrastructure development, especially in the construction of gas stations. President Jokowi must order the construction of more gas stations in those regions. If he leaves it up to Pertamina, they will probably be more business-minded, he said. Pertamina previously complained that since distribution agents only stocked a small amount of fuel with small profit margins, investors were often reluctant to place their money in the distribution agents. In order to counter this, the new ministerial regulation stipulates that different profit margins be prepared depending on the region. The regulation also dictates that Pertamina must give a higher margin fee for distributors in those regions. Currently, the profit margin on the sale of premium gasoline in Pertaminas gas stations stands at only Rp 270 per liter. Although Pertamina is the only company that currently distributes subsidized fuels, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan said the same regulation would apply to other companies that may want to start distributing premium gasoline, diesel and kerosene in remote regions. Those who receive appointments to distribute the subsidized fuels must distribute them with the same price. However, this does not apply to other types of fuels, he said. ------------------ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login TheJakartaPost Please Update your browser Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below. Just click on the icons to get to the download page. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Fahri Hamzah has said President Joko Jokowi Widodo and his supporters should not be worried about a widespread speculation released by National Police officials on potential attacks against his presidency, saying that it was just the latters exaggeration. He said a planned rally scheduled for Nov. 25, during which protesters aim to occupy the House complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta, was just a form of peoples rights to enjoy their freedom to assembly and had nothing to do with a revolt against Jokowis leadership as indicated by the National Police. President Jokowi can keep calm. [] He is safe, Fahri told journalists at the House complex on Tuesday. The lawmaker further said ousting a President required a more complicated mechanism than just occupying the legislative institution compound. It is unnecessary to suspect there are people who want to oust [Jokowi]. A President can only be dismissed if he is found guilty of violating laws, committing corruption or involvement in other serious crimes, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician added. Fahri called on the National Police to play its role to make sure the Nov. 25 rally runs peacefully. Speculations over attempts to demand Jokowis resignation are rife following an announcement by National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian on Monday, who said that his institution had gathered information about a plan by a group of protestors to impeach Jokowi by occupying the legislative complex on Nov. 25. Another rally, which reportedly aims to pave the way for Jokowis ousters, is set to take place on Dec. 2. (ebf) Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, NuState Energy Holdings, Inc. (NSEH OTC US) announced that its distribution partner, MK Technologies, Inc., is in China to complete the Hydrogen Fuel Enhancement System pilot for Jinzhou Sealcoat Automotive Parts and to begin shipping our Intellectual Property, GPSTrax. MK Technologies has a binding agreement with Jinzhou to complete the final 2 weeks of live testing and to receive the 1.3 million-dollar payment for exclusivity in China. Jinzhou has a commitment to purchase 500 units per month for the first 12 months; which includes GPSTrax and our GPS devices. Under the terms of our agreement, NuState will be paid the distribution license fee of $100,000 and an expected monthly order of 500 units. This will produce revenue of $150,000 per month for the first year. This is just the beginning of a long term and even more profitable business for NuState and its technology division. The company entered into a binding letter of intent, earlier this year, with MK Technologies, Inc., to acquire the Hydrogen Fuel Enhancement System (HFES), which includes the following: Intellectual property: Trade secrets, Certifications Manufacturing: Inventory, raw materials, ISO 9000 standard operations Contracts: Distribution agreements in China, Mexico In 2014, a software development agreement was signed which enabled us to design and develop additional functionality to our Intellectual Property, GPSTrax. GPSTrax has the ability to communicate with emission reduction products like the Hydrogen Fuel Enhancement System (HFES) from MKT. We completed multiple pilot installations of GPSTrax, with the hydrogen fuel enhancement system, in 2015. These pilots have brought forth new agreements for MKT in several countries across the globe. Chairman Kevin Yates asserted, The partnership with MKT, and eventual acquisition of the HFES, enables NuState to offer a complete solution to lower carbon emissions on a global scale. This is the beginning of the launch of GPSTrax into the marketplace. We all have waited a long time for this day. Several countries around the globe are offering incentives to companies that provide solutions for reducing carbon emissions and we are on top of it. About NuState Energy Holdings, Inc.: NuState is a global provider of Energy Efficient solutions for the consumer and commercial client. The companys telematics solutions collect vehicle and container based data, integrate it with information gathered from various separate systems across the supply chain, synthesize it, reformat it into valuable, actionable information, and deliver it to end-users across the logistics value chain through secure web-based applications. Specific offerings include vehicle tracking, inventory/asset visibility, secure trucking, matching available freight with available trucks, and many others. GPSTrax has proven to enhance worldwide emission reduction solutions for the automobile and trucking industry through their partners emission reduction products. For more information about NuState, call (954) 712-7487 or sign up for newsletter at www.nsehinc.com NuState is located at 410 East Las Olas Blvd Suite 1400 Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301 Safe-Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act), including all statements that are not statements of historical fact regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the company, its directors or its officers with respect to, among other things: (i) the companys financing plans; (ii) trends affecting the companys financial condition or results of operations; (iii) the companys growth strategy and operating strategy; and (iv) the declaration and payment of dividends. The words may, would, will, expect, estimate, anticipate, believe, intend and similar expressions and variations thereof are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the companys ability to control, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, due to various factors including the risk disclosed in the companys Forms 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 The National Police asserted they have enough information to explain to the public about the potential of President Joko Jokowi Widodos expulsion during mass rallies planned for Nov. 25 and Dec. 2. National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said the police first learned about the possible expulsion of Jokowi during the two planned rallies before they shared their concerns to the public. The National Police chief [Gen.Tito Karnavian] conveyed the expulsion issue based on information we had reviewed. Its not raw information," he said at the polices Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) on Tuesday. Rikwanto was speaking to respond to House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Fadli Zon, who criticized Titos statement on the possible expulsion of Jokowi, during which protesters would reportedly occupy the House compound in Senayan, Central Jakarta, during their Nov. 25 rally. Speaking to journalists on Monday evening, Fadli said the information still needed further clarification because it might trigger public confusion and increase security tensions. The police must filter raw information received before they release it to the public, he explained. Rikwanto refused to reveal the basis of the polices conviction on Jokowis expulsion potential, however. We cant reveal when and how we received information about it. This information is for internal purposes, he said. Rikwanto said the police kept collecting information about the Presidents expulsion potential. Should attacks against the government occur during the rallies, the police were ready to act firmly according to the law. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 The National Police held their second meeting on Tuesday with prosecutors to speed up the legal process of Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnamas alleged blasphemy case. Brig. Gen. Agus Andrianto, the general crimes director at the National Polices Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim), said with coordination between the police and prosecutors, it was hopeful that the handover of Ahoks case dossier would run smoothly. We hope that with a good understanding about the case, the [prosecutors] will accelerate the process, said Agus at police headquarters on Tuesday. He cited National Police chief Tito Karnavians commitment to complete Ahoks case dossier within two weeks. Agus said the police did not have any authority with which to direct prosecutors in making charges against the suspect. However, he believed the prosecutors had followed the polices investigation process, including the governors case screening last week. The police have questioned 24 witnesses since Ahok was named a blasphemy suspect on Nov.16. Agus said the police were also set to question Habib Rizieq, the chairman of Islam Defenders Front (FPI), as a religious expert to complete Ahoks case dossier. The police would let the governor bring more witnesses for his interrogations, he explained. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 Jakarta Police have issued a circular, reminding people that an act of treason could face the death penalty amid a plan by some Islamic conservative organizations to carry out another large-scale demonstration on Dec. 2. In expressing ones thought in public, it is illegal to carry out [an act that will jeopardize] the nations security such as treason against the president or the vice president, the circular stated, which was signed by Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Mochammad Iriawan. [The person responsible for] the act could be sentenced to death or with a life sentence, the circular added. A group called the National Movement to Save the Indonesia Ulema Councils Fatwa (GNPF-MUI), the same group that organized the rally on Nov. 4, previously said they would carry out another mass rally on Dec. 2 because their demand of having the inactive Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama arrested had not been fulfilled by the police. (Read also: Security measures prepared to prevent expulsion of Jokowi) Ahok, a Christian of Chinese descent, has been accused of blasphemy when he mentioned a Quranic verse in a public event that was recorded and eventually went viral on social media last month. The allegations triggered uproar among Muslim conservatives, where over a 100,000 protesters conducted a mass rally on Nov. 4 to demand the immediate arrest of Ahok. Police named Ahok a suspect in the case last Wednesday but was not arrested. (jun) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 The legal process of Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama's alleged blasphemy has been running on track; therefore, there is no need for any party to intervene with the ongoing process by forcing the police to arrest the governor, a police official has said. National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said after the police named Ahok a suspect on Nov.16, several parties, including the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), expressed appreciation over the decision. The appreciation showed that the case had been running on track. We hope there won't be any interference in this case from any party," Rikwanto said at the National Police headquarters on Tuesday. He also suggested for all people to honor the ongoing legal process. "Please respect and trust the police until this case goes to the court. We hope people will stop saying that 'the police must do this or must do that'. Please just observe the cases legal process," Rikwanto said. On Monday, National Police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said according to the Criminal Code Procedures (KUHAP), the arrest of a suspect was not compulsory. For the time being, he added, the police had not yet seen any urgency to arrest Ahok. As reported earlier, the National Movement to Save the Indonesian Ulema Councils Edicts (GNPF-MUI) stated it would carry out a mass rally on Dec. 2, in which rally participants would hold Friday prayers in the capital's two main roads, namely Jl. MH Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman. In the rally, GNPF-MUI said it would demand the police to immediately arrest Ahok. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 The government should give more attention to Indonesias tea industry by intensifying promotional efforts and strengthening collaboration among ministries to reverse the trend of declining exports that started a few years ago, a public policy expert suggests. The Trade Ministry, for example, can collaborate with Pak Arief Yahya [the tourism minister]. So while traveling overseas, they could promote [Indonesian teas], University of Indonesias public policy lecturer Riant Nugroho said on Monday. The declining tea exports, which was partly caused by there being limited land for tea plantations, could also be solved through better coordination with the Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) Ministry, he added. Talk to them and find out ways so they wont use all the available area to build [the planned] Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, for example, he said, referring to the megaproject designed to better connect Jakarta and the capital of West Java, Indonesias largest tea-producing region. Ranked as the seventh largest tea producer in the world, Indonesias tea exports dropped to 62,700 tons last year from 92,000 in 2009, with the value going down to US$128 million from $171 million in the same period. Only 6 percent of the 62,700 tons exported last year comprised value-added processed tea. Tea production in the country still faces a lot of challenges, such as the limited area for plantations, outdated machinery and low tea prices at the farm level, said the Trade Ministry's director general for foreign trade, Dody Edward. Among the largest of Indonesias tea export destinations are Russia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Australia and Germany. (win/hwa) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Paul Santos (The Jakarta Post) Singapore Tue, November 22 2016 Much has been said in recent years of Indonesias rise as a more prominent regional economic power. In large part, this optimism is hinged on the Southeast Asian (SEA) nation having the regions largest population (and market) base, and a forward-moving economy, which averaged a robust gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 5.5 percent from 2011-2015. Moreover, SEA now benefits from a fast-growing internet user base and growing internet economy. The recent study by Google and Temasek estimates that the current SEA internet user base of 260 million will rise to 480 million by 2020. In line with this, the regions internet economy is expected to grow to US$200 billion by 2025. It projects that Indonesia will be home to about 215 million of the regions internet users and control about 40 percent ($80 billion) of the internet economy. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina and Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22 2016 Indonesia is prepared to cooperate with the Myanmar government amid reports of continued violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority in troubled Rakhine state. The government has conveyed that it is ready and willing to help Naypidyaw through inclusive dialogue, officials have said. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22 2016 Indonesia has once again berated Malaysia for its questionable ability to secure its waters after two more Indonesian sailors were kidnapped near Sabah over the weekend. The Foreign Ministry has urged Malaysian fishing firms and agents in Sabah to refrain from sending out their vessels with Indonesian sailors and has asked the local authorities to do their best to increase security, in what amounts to a diplomatic slap in the face. Late on Saturday, a fishing vessel manned by 13 Indonesian sailors was plying the waters near Lahad Datu in Sabah when an armed group of five men approached them on a speedboat, coming away with two hostages from West Sulawesi. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina, Tama Salim and Novan Iman Santosa (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22 2016 Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands began his second tour of Indonesia in three years on Tuesday by visiting Semarang. The Dutch see the provincial capital of Central Java as a focal point for a number of priority issues in Dutch-Indonesian ties such as cultural heritage, water management and coastal defense and counterterrorism cooperation. Rutte, who arrived in Jakarta on Monday evening, has begun his trip by visiting a Dutch cemetery in a private session, a source at the Dutch Embassy told The Jakarta Post on Monday. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Associated Press) Washington Tue, November 22, 2016 The State Department is advising US citizens traveling in Europe to be aware of a "heightened risk of terrorist attacks" during the holiday season. The advisory issued Monday says "credible information" indicates that Islamic State and al-Qaida militants continue to plan attacks in Europe around the holiday season. It also warns that "extremist sympathizers or self-radicalized extremists" may try to execute attacks. The department is encouraging travelers to be cautious at holiday festivals and outdoor markets. It is urging Americans to avoid large crowds and be vigilant when visiting tourist sites, riding public transportation and meeting in places of worship, hotels, restaurants and other gathering spots. The advisory praises European efforts to disrupt plots, but says the US remains concerned about the potential for attacks. LAKE FOREST, Calif., Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via PRWEB - Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution (Clearinghouse CDFI) announced today the conversion of a $100,000 deposit by First Bank into a new Class A equity investment. An exceptional community partner and investor since 1999, First Bank has made a total of four equity investments in excess of $800,000 in support of Clearinghouse CDFI's mission. First Bank's latest $100,000 equity investment will benefit distressed communities throughout California. "First Bank's longstanding partnership and support extends the reach of our mission to more underserved neighborhoods and individuals in need," said Douglas Bystry, President and CEO of Clearinghouse CDFI. "We are grateful for First Bank's dedicated partnership since our early days, including hundreds of hours serving on our Board of Directors and committees. We look forward to continuing to work together to build strong, healthy California communities." Clearinghouse CDFI will leverage First Bank's $100,000 investment to provide financing for community facilities, affordable housing, commercial real estate, and other projects in California's low-income neighborhoods. Similar projects previously financed by Clearinghouse CDFI include: Clifford Beers Housing A $784,000 loan to this nonprofit organization for the acquisition and rehabilitation of a new headquarters to enable this nonprofit to expand the scope of its mission to develop affordable, supportive housing for those experiencing mental illness and homelessness. Landmark Over $2.1 million in financing for the rehabilitation of a historic building in downtown San Francisco that has stood vacant since the Loma Prieta earthquake into a vibrant community space. The renovated space will feature a large scale office building, cafe, and a community meeting hall. American Legion Post 266 A $715,000 loan for the acquisition of a facility supporting blind and disabled Veterans where members serve the community, share camaraderie and honor fallen Veterans. "First Bank is committed to making a positive difference in every community in which we do business. The same vision holds true for Clearinghouse CDFI. Reinvestment in our neighborhoods benefits all of us, and Clearinghouse CDFI has supported this strong belief since their inception. First Bank has been an investor for over 15 years, and we are proud to support Clearinghouse CDFI with this additional investment," said Susan Montoya, Senior Vice President and Corporate CRA Officer for First Bank." About Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution (Clearinghouse CDFI): Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution (Clearinghouse CDFI) addresses unmet credit needs in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Sovereign Nations in the Western U.S. Rated 'AA' Stable by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, Clearinghouse CDFI is an industry leader helping to bridge the gap between conventional lending standards and the needs of low-income and distressed communities. Over the course of 19 years, Clearinghouse CDFI has funded $1.2 billion in total loans for over 1,650 projects which have created or retained more than 13,800 jobs and benefit over 1 million individuals. Clearinghouse CDFI is also a B Corp -- a certification received from the nonprofit B Lab. B Corps are companies who meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability and use business as a force for good. As of September 30, 2016, Clearinghouse CDFI has total assets of $339 million. More information is available at: http://www.clearinghousecdfi.com. About First Bank: First Bank (firstbanks.com) is one of the largest privately owned banks in the country with $6.1 billion in assets and over 100 locations in Illinois, Missouri, and California. This article was originally distributed on PRWeb. For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/11/prweb13845248.htm Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Jim Salter and David Warren (Associated Press) St. Lous/Dallas/Chicago Tue, November 22, 2016 A manhunt for a suspect in the fatal shooting of a veteran Texas police detective ended Monday with an arrest in the killing that was one of several weekend attacks against law enforcement in multiple states, authorities said. The San Antonio detective and officers shot in Missouri and Florida were conducting routine tasks Sunday when they became the targets of violence. The detective was writing a traffic ticket when he was shot to death in his squad car Sunday morning outside police headquarters. "I think the uniform was the target and the first person that happened along was the first person that [the suspect] targeted," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said Monday. The 31-year-old man charged in the ambush shooting of Detective Benjamin Marconi said later Monday that he was angry with the court system for not letting him see his son and took it out on the officer. "I've been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didn't deserve it," Otis Tyrone McKane told reporters as he was being led by police to the Bexar County Jail. He said he wished to apologize to the family of the slain officer. In Missouri, a St. Louis police sergeant was shot twice in the face Sunday evening while he sat in traffic in a marked police vehicle. He was released from a hospital Monday. Law enforcement officials say there's been an alarming spike in ambush-style attacks. Sixty officers, including the San Antonio detective, were shot to death on the job this year, compared to 41 in all of 2015, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Of the 60 killed, 20 were purposely targeted by their assailant compared to eight last year, the group said. Police officers also were shot and injured during traffic stops in Sanibel, Florida, and Gladstone, Missouri, on Sunday night, but authorities have not suggested these were targeted attacks. All the shootings come less than five months after a black military veteran killed five white officers at a protest in Dallas the deadliest day for American law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001. Race was a factor in the Dallas attack, but police have not said if race played a part in any of the attacks on Sunday. In San Antonio, police say the suspect is black and the officer was white. In St. Louis, the suspect was black, but police have not released the officer's race. Most killings of police officers are carried out by white men, and most people shot and killed by police are white, said Craig W. Floyd, president of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Chief McManus said McKane was arrested on a capital murder warrant without incident after the car he was riding in was stopped Monday afternoon on an interstate. McManus said earlier that he doesn't believe the suspect has any relationship to the motorist who was pulled over initially. Surveillance video shows the suspect at San Antonio police headquarters about four hours before the 50-year-old Marconi, A 20-year veteran of the force, was shot. The suspect asked a desk clerk a question but left before receiving an answer, said McManus, who declined to say what the man asked. "I don't know why he was in headquarters. We have some ideas," he said. St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson declined to name the 46-year-old officer who was shot and wounded there. He said the officer is a married father of three and has been with the department for about 20 years. "This officer was driving down the road and was ambushed by an individual who pointed a gun at him from inside of his car and shot out the police officer's window," Dotson said. The suspect, 19-year-old George P. Bush III, was wanted for questioning in recent violent crimes that included several robberies, a carjacking and perhaps a killing, Dotson said without elaborating. "We believe he knew he was good for those crimes and that we were looking for him," Dotson said. "That's why he aggressively attacked a police officer." Police said Bush was later killed in a shootout with officers. At least two other police officers were wounded in shootings in other cities Sunday, but it wasn't clear whether they were targeted attacks. An officer with the Gladstone, Missouri, police department near Kansas City was shot, and the suspect was shot and killed. The officer, whose name has not been released, is expected to recover. Sanibel, Florida, officer Jarred Ciccone was shot in the shoulder during a traffic stop and released after being treated for his injuries. Authorities said they arrested Jon Webster Hay, 49, about 90 minutes after the shooting. They said he was booked into jail on an attempted murder charge Monday once he was released from a hospital, where he was treated after being wounded during a standoff and shootout with officers. On July 7, Micah Johnson shot and killed five law enforcement officers who had been working to keep the peace at a protest in downtown Dallas over the fatal police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana. Ten days after that attack, a man wearing a ski mask and armed with two rifles and a pistol killed three officers near a gas station and convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And earlier this month, two Des Moines, Iowa-area police officers were fatally shot in separate ambush-style attacks while sitting in their patrol cars. "It's always difficult, especially in this day and age, where police are being targeted across the country," McManus said. ___ Salter reported from St. Louis and Warren from Dallas. Jamie Stengle and Terry Wallace in Dallas and Tammy Webber in Chicago also contributed. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Associated Press) Ankara Tue, November 22, 2016 Turkey's government has dismissed a further 15,000 people from the military, police and the civil service as part of an ongoing investigation into the failed military coup in July. Also within the two government decrees issued Tuesday, the government shut-down 500 associations, 19 health establishments and nine media outlets. Turkey has accused US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen of masterminding the failed July 15 attempt to topple the government and has launched a large-scale crackdown on his followers and institutions run by his movement. Authorities have arrested close to 38,000 people and purged 100,000 others from government jobs. Gulen denies involvement in the coup The government is also accused of using powers from a state of emergency declared after the coup to clamp down on other government critics. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Tue, November 22, 2016 The government will pin its hopes on boosting the number of foreign visitors by empowering villages to develop ecotourism and their respective unique cultural heritage. Teaming up with the Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry, the Tourism Ministry is expected to make use of the Rp 89 trillion (US$6.8 billion) of so-called village funds next year to be directed toward the improvement of tourism infrastructure. The villages ministrys director general for development and empowerment of villages, Ahmad Erani Yustika, believes that the so-called Tourism Village program is intended to boost the potential for tourism that is unique to certain areas. Erani said that many villages were unaware of their tourism potential, be it natural or cultural. For example, villages with abundant water resources can develop ecotourism destinations, he said. The village funds can be used for community entrepreneurship, standardization of tourism services and infrastructure development. The funds can also be used to boost the number of amenities, such as hotels and souvenir-production centers in each village. Under the program, every village is entitled to received Rp 1 billion annually next year for infrastructure development. Village leaders, with the approval of their residents, will have the authority to decide on the type of infrastructure to be built in their areas. In relation to tourism infrastructure, the village ministry has recorded around 150 villages that have focused their village funds on developing tourism, while most of the villages spent the funding to improve road networks, information and technology infrastructure, Ahmad said. The villages ministry will focus on expanding tourism infrastructure particularly in 10 emerging destinations that include Morotai in Maluku, Mandalika in West Nusa Tenggara and Borobudur Temple in Central Java next year. President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration aims to expand tourism to account for at least 15 percent of GDP by 2019, up from 9.3 percent at present. Tourism, now the fourth-biggest contributor by sector to GDP, is also expected to bring in $20 billion in foreign exchange income by 2019, from the current $10 billion annually. The governments efforts were acknowledged by the World Bank in its Indonesian economic quarterly report, which said the country had the potential to develop world-class tourism, benefiting from its abundant endowment of tourist destinations and building on the success of Bali. Tourism is also expected to generate significant employment and income multipliers for Indonesia, which could contribute to eliminating poverty and increasing shared prosperity in the country. Tourism Ministry deputy for organizational development Ahman Sya said that efforts to boost tourism at the village level would strengthen the priority destinations. We have chosen the villages around Borobudur, Tanjung Lesung [in Banten], to cite a few, as pilot projects, he said. Tourism analyst at the University of Indonesia Jajang Gunawijaya said the government should prioritize the development of IT infrastructure to expand internet capacities in villages as one the easiest ways to boost tourism in the short term. Tourist resorts and attractions are usually in villages rather than cities. Thats why infrastructure in these areas should now be a priority, he said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Associated Press) Phnom Penh Tue, November 22, 2016 Cambodia's opposition party has ended a six-month boycott of the parliament, saying it wants to ensure the national budget for 2017 is debated properly in the house. The Cambodia National Rescue Party had stopped attending parliamentary sessions after its members were stripped of their parliamentary immunity and confronted with lawsuits by Prime Minister Hun Sen's government. The opposition and human rights groups say the cases against the opposition are politically motivated, mounted to harass them. Eng Chhai Eang, a senior opposition lawmaker, said ahead of the National Assembly session on Tuesday that the party's position remains unchanged but it wants a political truce with the ruling party. Hun Sen attended the session but opposition leader Sam Rainsy didn't -- he is in self-imposed exile to escape a defamation conviction. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Associated Press) Beijing Tue, November 22, 2016 China says it is caring for about 3,000 refugees who have entered its territory to escape fighting in Myanmar between the government and ethnic rebels. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China has offered "proper settlement" to those seeking shelter and hospital beds for the injured. On Sunday, a coalition of ethnic rebel forces launched attacks on government outposts in Myanmar's northern Shan State. Myanmar's state-owned Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported that eight people, including three civilians, were killed in attacks on military outposts, police stations and a trade center in Muse and Kutkai townships. It blamed the Kachin Independence Army, the Ta'ang National Liberation Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army for the attacks. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Viet Nam News) Hanoi Tue, November 22, 2016 The ASEAN Traffic Police Forum launched on Monday in Hanoi is essential for ensuring traffic order and safety and creating favorable conditions for cross-border freight transportation among members states of the Association of Southeast Asian countries, said Senior Lieutenant General To Lam, Vietnamese Minister of Public Security. Speaking at the opening session, Lam said sharing information and helping each other in ensuring traffic safety would positively contribute to the cause of nation building and protection as well as peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region. ASEAN countries share similarities in traffic safety challenges, with a high rate of traffic accident deaths, injuries and congestion, Lam said. Member countries of the Greater Mekong Sub-region have signed memoranda of understanding on cooperation in transport, he said, but these focused on facilitating cross-border transportation and controlling the transfer of goods and vehicles. None of the documents deals in cooperation to ensure traffic safety and order. Although much progress has been made on traffic safety over the past few years, Vietnam remains one of countries with the largest number of traffic accidents and congestion, he said. The Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security hopes to learn from other countries in implementing measures to guarantee traffic safety and order and improving State management on the field. Major General Tran Son Ha, head of the Traffic Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security, said traffic safety and order issues in the ASEAN region play an important role in building a complete and sustainable ASEAN community. Transportation helps promote socio-economic development among countries in the region, he added. At the forum, held at Vietnams initiative, regional police forces introduced organizational models, traffic laws and situations in their countries. The first ASEAN Traffic Police Forum brought together 150 delegates from ASEAN members and representatives from embassies of regional countries and ASEAN Police Chiefs (ASEANPOL). During the three-day forum, which will last until Wednesday, participants will hold discussions on statistics of traffic accidents, investigations of traffic accidents, and on enforcement of traffic law. They will also discuss the training, testing and licensing of drivers, as well as an information sharing mechanism to support each other in ensuring regional traffic order and safety. Participants are scheduled to make a fact-finding trip on the Ha Noi-Hai Phong Expressway. This article appeared on the Viet Nam News newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Lima, Peru Tue, November 22, 2016 Indonesia pledged that it would keep its market open for trade and investment and fight against protectionism as part of its commitment to the 2016 Leaders Declaration of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) signed by 21 APEC leaders in Lima, Peru on Sunday. The leaders declaration reaffirmed the groups commitment to the Bogor Goals, an APEC commitment made in Indonesia in 1994 to embrace open and free trade and investment by 2020, amid the growing trend of protectionism among APEC members. The biggest blow to the Bogor commitment was the pledge made by US president-elect Donald Trump to scrap various free-trade deals initiated by his predecessors including the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The Lima commitment has been made amid warnings from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that trade growth has been too low for too long and is expected to remain below 3 percent in the next couple of years. Vice President Jusuf Kalla said in spite of the IMFs projection, Indonesia would continue pushing for economic reform to boost trade with its APEC partners. To lure investment and trade, President Joko Jokowi Widodo has issued a total of 14 economic packages, since taking office in 2014, with more investor-friendly policies in the pipeline. All APEC members must be ready to reform their economies as the slow trade is projected not only for this year but also in the following years, Kalla said after the closing ceremony of the APEC Summit in Lima late Sunday local time. Kalla said the government would also improve peoples purchasing power in the country to protect domestic interests without disrupting the countrys free trade agenda with APEC members. I spoke with [Japanese] Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the meeting, asking him what efforts Japan would make to improve peoples purchasing power and he said his government would increase the salary of civil servants by up to 2 percent. We can have a 8.5 percent increase in Indonesia, said Kalla. During the closing ceremony, Kalla also had an encounter with US President Barrack Obama during which he asked the outgoing leader if Trump would make good on his promise to kill the TPP. Kalla said Obama calmed him and told him that Indonesia and APEC members should have no reason to worry because it was not possible for Trump to realize all his campaign promises. Meanwhile Perus President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said on Sunday that it was too early to write off the TPP following Trumps surprise win in the US presidential election, after campaigning on promises to scrap it. Kuczynski said economic hardship had fueled support for Trump in the US and the Brexit decision in the UK. [Its] more than protectionism, its a reflection of difficult economic conditions, Kuczynski said as quoted by Reuters on Sunday. Separately on the submits sidelines, Kalla also held a meeting with Prime Minister Abe, who reaffirmed Japanese commitment to support economic, industrial and infrastructure development in Indonesia. Japan is very open about private sector investment especially in the sector of car manufacturing. We hope that our export capacity can grow faster than Thailands, Kalla said. On the summits final day, 21 APEC leaders including Kalla had an informal meeting with IMF managing director Christine Lagarde. The IMF recommends that APEC members conduct economic reform because global trade is predicted to be under 3 percent this year and next year, Kalla said. In addition to preventing protectionism, the Lima agreement also secured commitments from 21 APEC leaders to strengthen cooperation in three thematic priorities: regional economic integration and quality growth; enhancing the regional food market; the modernization of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the Asia-Pacific; and developing human capital. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Associated Press) Manila Tue, November 22, 2016 The chiefs of the Philippine armed forces and the United States Pacific Command say the two countries' military ties remain robust, with both sides committed to their alliance and cooperation on maritime security, counterterrorism and humanitarian aid. The upbeat statement issued Tuesday at the end of a Mutual Defense Board and Security Engagement Board meeting came after threats by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to reduce military cooperation with Washington and expand security ties with China and Russia. Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., head of the US Pacific Command, said last week there could be a "re-scoping" of some joint exercises in 2017. Tuesday's statement, however, did not mention any scaling down of military drills. The Philippines and the US are longstanding allies and signed a mutual defense treaty in 1951. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Wasamon Audjarint (The Nation) Tue, November 22, 2016 Some 4,000 people pledged allegiance to the Chakri dynasty at an event held at Government House Tuesday. I shall be faithfully loyal to all Chakri Kings until my death, pledged Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who presided over the event. I shall also participate in national reforms and support governments that rule the country lawfully and with good governance under a constitutional monarchy for the benefit of the Thai people, the PM continued. Taking the oath in front of a portrait of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the participants also promised to follow the law and manage national resources wisely for sustainable development in line with Bhumibols Sufficiency Economy Philosophy. The event, called United Power of Reverence, was held simultaneously at government offices across the nation as well as at Thai missions overseas. Prayut along with other members of the Cabinet, high-ranking officials as well as bureaucrats under the PMs Office attended the Government House event. The occasion was held to demonstrate reverence toward the dynasty that has been ruling the country for over 230 years as well as in remembrance of the late monarch. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 22, 2016 Manchester is the most popular city for Indonesian postgraduate students seeking to study in the UK, said an official of the Indonesian Embassy in London. The most popular university among Indonesian postgraduate students is University of Manchester, said the embassy's education and cultural attache Aminudin Aziz as quoted by tempo.co last week. Other popular higher education institutions among Indonesian students are University College London and Imperial College London. According to the embassy, 2,972 Indonesian students had enrolled for master and doctoral programs in the country this year. Up to 2,303 of them are scholarship students funded by the Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) and 166 students received scholarships from the Directorate General of Higher Education. Meanwhile, the rest obtained scholarships from various institutions, including the Scholarship Program for Strengthening the Reforming Institution (SPIRIT), Innovative Productive Research Guidelines (Rispro Dikti) and UK's Chevening program. (Read also: EU provides over 1,600 scholarships each year) Aminudin said that technology, science and political science were the top three most popular majors among the students. There are currently 539 students majoring in technology, followed by 167 science students in 2015 and 152 science students this year. However, compared to other Southeast Asian countries, the number of Indonesian citizen studying in the UK is quite low. UKs universities head of external relations Miranda Thomas said the total number of Malaysian and Singaporean students studying in the country was much higher, particularly for law majors. This demographic represents 10,000 students, she said. Similar legal systems between Malaysia and the UK is one of the reasons. Thomas said that 24 percent of teachers and 17 percent of students in the UK came from different countries. As for Brexit, the country's new regulation has not shown a significant impact on the academic life. Perhaps, [Brexit actually makes] education in the UK cheaper than other European countries, she said. (jes/kes) WALTHAM, Mass., Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Carbon Black, the leader in next-generation endpoint security, today announced it has been recognized as an Excellence Award finalist in the Best Enterprise Security Solution category for the 2017 SC Awards. Finalists are recognized for outstanding leadership and providing superior security products to the cybersecurity industry. Winners will be announced at the 2017 SC Awards ceremony to be held February 14, 2017 in San Francisco. "Ransomware, nation-state cyber attacks, IoT vulnerabilities, data privacy issues and more are dominating the headlines right now and it's critical that we amplify the importance of these problems and highlight the actions organizations can take to safeguard their organizations and their critical data assets," said Illena Armstrong, VP, editorial, SC Media. "As bad actors are constantly changing strategy, so too are the men, women and companies endeavoring to stop them in their tracks. These finalists have shown that they are the best at what they do." The SC Awards program, now in its 20th year, is recognized throughout the industry as the gold standard of excellence in cybersecurity. Winners in the Excellence category are determined by an expert panel of judges, hand-picked by SC Media's editorial team for their breadth of knowledge and experience in cybersecurity industry. The Excellence Award honors the professionals, products and services that have proven to be the best in the industry for protecting today's corporate world from an array of risks and threats. "We are honored to be recognized as a finalist by SC Media for Best Enterprise Security Solution," said Patrick Morley, Carbon Black's CEO. "The emerging next-generation endpoint-security market must go beyond prevention to incorporate detection and remediation capabilities, empowering businesses to get to the root of their security issues. Carbon Black is dedicated to protecting enterprises of all sizes with simple, yet powerful, security solutions." Carbon Black solutions are designed to replace ineffective antivirus, lock down critical systems, and arm incident-response teams with the most advanced tools to proactively hunt down threats. With Carbon Black customers can: Prevent advanced attacks. Using analytics from more than 7 million endpoints, Carbon Black blocks both malware and malware-less attacks and prevents more attacks than both traditional AV and competing NGAV products. See Every Threat. Carbon Black continuously records all endpoint activity, giving organizations full visibility into how cyber attacks happen. By capturing and analyzing behaviors, Carbon Black pinpoints potential exploits and provides complete visibility into each threat. Benefit from a Lightweight & Easy-to-Use Platform. Customers can deploy Carbon Black's cloud-based solutions within minutes and then easily monitor the health of their organization's security. "As a finalist, Carbon Black demonstrated unique innovation in its approach to protecting companies from the onslaught of malicious attacks and other threats," added Armstrong of SC Media. "Carbon Black's solution represents some of the most effective security technology on the market today." The SC Awards gala honoring the winners and the best in the industry attracts top professionals in the cybersecurity community and provides an invaluable opportunity for networking. To register for the 2017 SC Awards Gala, please visit http://www.scmagazine.com/awards/. About SC Media SC Media is cybersecurity. We've lived it for more than 25 years, sharing industry expert guidance and insight, in-depth features and timely news, and independent product reviews in various content forms in partnership with and for top-level information security executives and their technical teams. SC Media arms information security professionals with the in-depth, unbiased business and technical information they need to tackle the countless security challenges they face and establish risk management and compliance postures that underpin overall business strategies. We deliver breaking news, comprehensive analysis, cutting-edge features, contributions from thought leaders, and the best, most extensive collection of product reviews in the business. Whether through our comprehensive website, magazine, in-depth eBooks, newsletters, or regularly scheduled digital and live events - such as our SC Awards program, SC Media Roundtables or SC Congress Toronto, New York, Boston, Chicago, and London - our readers gain all the relevant information they need to safeguard their organizations and, ultimately, contribute to their longevity and success. Friend us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SCMag Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/scmagazine Nominations and event information: Anna Naumoski, senior events coordinator anna.naumoski@haymarketmedia.com 646.638.6015 About Carbon Black Carbon Black is the leading provider of a next-generation endpoint-security platform designed to enable organizations to stop the most attacks, see every threat, close security gaps, and evolve their defenses. The Cb Endpoint Security Platform helps organizations of all sizes replace legacy antivirus technology, lock down systems, and arm incident response teams with advanced tools to proactively hunt down threats. Today, Carbon Black has approximately 2,000 worldwide customers, including 25 of the Fortune 100 and more than 650 employees. Carbon Black was voted Best Endpoint Protection by security professionals in the SANS Institute's Best of 2015 Awards. Heres something unexpected. A record/book store and arts space has opened in the East Broadway Mall, under the Manhattan Bridge. Amongst the Chinese clothing shops and herbal vendors youll now find 2 Bridges Music Arts, the first in an expected wave of creative ventures in the quirky Chinatown shopping space. The shop is run by Simon Gabriel, a longtime East Village resident who was part of Good Records (East 5th Street) when it was opened 11 years ago. After the demise of the beloved Other Music record store earlier this year, Gabriel finally decided, somebody needed to step in to keep music alive downtown. 2 Bridges Music Arts sells new and used records, tapes and books. There are also exhibitions (currently showing: Henri Chopin: Works on Paper 1969-2001). As the stores website notes, the space is meant to host overlapping tendencies in experimental music, art and knowledge production internationally. Gabriel said the other-worldly Chinatown mall appealed to him because he wants visitors to the store to feel as though theyre crossing over the threshold. The space, he noted, has the power to wash over you, heightening your senses. The shop is a place to hang out and listen to international music but also to engage with other art forms. 2 Bridges Music Arts is located at 75 East Broadway, in suite 205. Every week, you can see five featured albums (posted on the stores website). Hours are Monday-Friday 2-9 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday noon-8 p.m. DES MOINES, Iowa, Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gooi Global, Inc. (OTC:GOOI) (www.gooiglobal.com), an investment holding company, announced Chairman of the Board, Mike Kemery, will continue to be acting CEO. Kemery has been acting CEO since March of 2016. This is an exciting time at Gooi Global, as we strategically position ourselves to be a dynamic, financial services holding company, while broadening our focus with diverse platform based products, Kemery said. In particular over these past several months, we have seen significant revenue growth throughout the U.S. in our subsidiary, Gooi Mortgage. Gooi Mortgage Inc., (www.gooimortgage.com) is a comprehensive mortgage fulfillment partner, working closely with a wide variety of lenders covering the expanse of the domestic map. Specializing in providing end-to-end, back office mortgage solutions, for small to mid-sized regional organizations, Gooi Mortgage has grown from its inception in 2014, to be licensed in 24 states including most recently District of Columbia, Montana and Georgia. Headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, the company has additional staffing throughout the United States. This remarkable expansion speaks to the products we offer, strengthened with the long-standing expertise of our team, Gooi Mortgage President and CEO, Jeff Jensen said. As a valued partner with our clients, our mortgage solutions have filled a void in the marketplace. Looking ahead, we will continue to leverage our networks through development of new products. About Gooi Global, Inc. Gooi Global, Inc. (OTC:GOOI) is a holding company that invests in companies providing products to mid-sized financial institutions, enabling them to remain competitive in a rapidly changing marketplace. Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. A more extensive listing of risks and factors that may affect the company's business prospects and cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in the reports and other documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. http://whosafraidofvirginiawoolf.co.uk/ http://www.nicefishtheplay.co.uk/ http://www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk/Tickets/DonJuanInSoho/DonJuanInSoho.asp Conleth HillWhos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?Previews 22nd February 2017Harold Pinter TheatreConleth Hill is returning to the theatre playing George in Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The story follows Martha and George as they invite two friends round to ensure an evening of alcohol and toxic games, which results in a whole heap of truth-telling. A double Olivier award-winner and Game of Thrones star, Conleth is performing with Imelda Staunton for whats set to be a stage drama not to be missed. Over 100 tickets for every performance are priced at 10 during previews (22nd February 8th March) and 15 during main run (from 9th March).Mark RylanceNice FishNow until 11th February 2017Harold Pinter TheatreFollowing a sold out season in New York, Oscar-winner Mark Rylance has brought his new comic play to the West End for a limited time. Described as deliriously funny, the play gives a London audience an opportunity to see a highly acclaimed performer and writer.Over 100 tickets will be priced at 15 or less for every performance. You can even see the show for free. If you come dressed as a fish or fisherman (with your fishing rod), you may be able to grab yourself a complimentary ticket in a private box.Griff Rhys JonesThe Miser1st March 2017The Garrick TheatreThe revival of French comedy The Miser will return to London next year starring Griff Rhys Jones. Known for his work in both television and theare, this will be Jones first West End performance in five years. An Olivier award winning actor, he will play Harpagon a paranoid and wealthy man who is fanatical about protecting his money. You can already buy tickets for the show and they start from 15. Find out more here:David TennantDon Juan in Soho17th March 2017Whydhams TheatreDavid Tennant is a multiple award winning actor working extensively in film, television and theatre. Don Juan in Soho premieres in London next year. Tennant plays the title role a seducer who lives purely for pleasure. This modern update of Moliere's tragicomedy Don Juan will run until 10th June 2017 at the Whydhams theatre. Tickets can range from 10 to 150 and can be booked in advance now. A festival that sees migrants from all over the capital share their stories is taking place at the Battersea Arts Centre in London throughout November. In London Stories: Made by Migrants the audience moves from room to room to hear people tell their heartwarming and heartbreaking stories. These people arent actors, they are migrants and refugees from all over the world. Their stories are inspiring and yet so easy to relate to as they discuss the ups and downs of living in a big city. Its just what many of us need to hear, faced with President-elect Donald Trumps talk of building walls to keep immigrants out of the US. Audience members are led by their guide throughout the building, to rooms where the storytellers sit (Joyce Nicholls) As Eiad, one storyteller who came to the UK from Syria after arranging for smugglers to transport him by boat, puts it: London is great, a big city with diversity. You feel like you are living with the world. Thirty people share their real stories of moving to the capital to work, to study, because of love as part of this beautifully simple work of art in the hope of encouraging the public to talk about migration. Heres how the moving museum works the audience is split into five groups and each group is given a different coloured wristband with a London borough written on it, such as yellow for Brent. An honour to interview and film Lily - one of the only remaining Auschwitz survivors. Relive her story @battersea_arts #LondonStories pic.twitter.com/p8ByXw8eHT Joyce Nicholls (@NichollsJoyce) November 11, 2016 The groups follow a guide through the building to hear stories as varied as the rooms in which they are told. One minute you will be sat in a bright blue, newly decorated basement bedroom, the next walking outside along a rooftop terrace, through a room full of computers, on to a grand, old-fashioned room, then maybe huddled into a dark hallway buried on the other side of the building. The route takes you to previously unseen parts of the Battersea Arts Centre, where refurbishment work was finished only recently. Lily, a holocaust survivor, is the only migrant whose story is recorded rather then retold in the flesh (Joyce Nicholls) Adding to the atmosphere are examples of newspaper headlines stuck on the walls you pass as you follow your guide. They are a stark reminder of the way in which, over the centuries, words in the media have been so powerful in forging attitudes towards migrants. The guide gives you no context or background to each story, instead simply handing out cards with figures on immigration and history. The cards are meant to be handed to friends or left on public transport in an attempt to inform the national conversation. Wow #LondonStories @battersea_arts packs an emotional punch. Makes you see and appreciate our town through fresh eyes and value our freedom. Ian Barclay (@barcles2) November 9, 2016 Upon walking into each room, you feel slightly awkward as though you are invading someones personal and private space, their life. There are seven wooden chairs in each intimate setting one for each person in the group, the guide and the storyteller. Sometimes, the migrant sits on a bed, or a step, and may invite you to do the same. The most incredible thing about this intimate evening of performance is the simplicity of it with each room you enter, you feel more and more excited to hear the story. Its as though you are part of a secret club. Being able to just sit and listen is an experience youll feel you could enjoy again and again. Hear true stories told by the people who lived them #LondonStories Made By Migrants 4-26 Nov > https://t.co/hnNNhOTGYl pic.twitter.com/keV1SbhYL8 BatterseaArtsCentre (@battersea_arts) October 27, 2016 Storytellers taking part in the festival include Jade, who fled to London from Uganda to escape the rule of Idi Amin. She talks of the simple pleasures of her life in Clapham where she feels safe and can eat a Big Mac. Marcelo moved to London 12 years ago after 9/11 and George W Bush being voted in as president for a second term. Eiad is a dentist who grew up in Damascus, Syria. Eiad was one of 400 people in a small boat travelling to Italy from Egypt, after he left Syria (Alex Brenner) My journey was very long and very scary, says Eiad. It started in Egypt where I went by boat from Alexandria to Italy. We spent seven days on a small wooden boat. There were 400 people from different countries and then we spent two days on a ship that saw us, before leaving for Italy. I stayed two days there, then continued my journey to France, then Brussels. I tried to travel to England by lorries and my fifth attempt was successful. I couldnt believe it when I discovered I was in England. Thank you @battersea_arts @hikayetna for giving Syrian refugees the opportunity to tell their stories. #LondonStories Sulaiman Osman (@OsSulaiman) November 5, 2016 Speaking to Eiad after the event, his reasons for taking part in London Stories: Made by Migrants seem pretty clear. He says: So that people understand more why we are taking these journeys and why we come to Europe in this way. I think that will make them understand more about immigration and refugees. They will understand we are not happy to take these unsafe routes. They will understand that we are struggling and suffering to get to this country its not easy. Its just we try to find a safe place to continue our life. The 30-year-old also visits schools to educate young people on life as a migrant. Explore our building and hear true stories highlighting London's history of migration #LondonStories 4 - 26 Nov > https://t.co/llWpYKOgBt pic.twitter.com/VIF8KL4gYA BatterseaArtsCentre (@battersea_arts) October 18, 2016 Young people, they are a new generation, he explains. They will be important for everything in this country in the future and at least they will be educated about other countries in the world and they will understand more about immigrants. I think if we educate them, they will work more to help those people. Otherwise they will think all countries are living without any problems like them. Some students say things like Syrians eat cats and dogs. Most of them they think of Syria as just ISIS, nothing else. They dont know that Damascus is the oldest city in the world, that most of us are very educated, it was a good country and it wasnt a poor country before the war. For that reason, I would love to talk more about Syria, to educate more people and tell them about my country. London Stories is the reminder we all need that we live in a city where we are all just trying to thrive. Next time you sit on the bus or tube, just take a moment to think that everyone has their own story. There may well be an Eiad among them someone who has fought hard to be here, safe in this city. On Monday night, President-elect Trump released a video in which he outlined his policy plans for his first 100 days in office. My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America first. Whether its producing steel, building cars or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here on our great homeland, America, creating wealth and jobs for American workers, Trump said. Regarding economic policy and trade, Trump vows to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) referring to the trade deal as a potential disaster for [America]. Instead, he assures the American people that his administration will negotiate new and fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores. Proponents of TPP, including Japanese and Australian officials, suggest that an Asia-Pacific trade deal has little chance of working without United States co-operation. According to Reuters , Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister, said TPP would be meaningless without the United States. The breakdown of TPP also creates opportunities for China to push its own trade deal, called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which notably excludes the United States. Beijing has always viewed TPP as an attempt to curb Chinese economic supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region. Sky News reported that Xinhua, the state news agency, said last week that the TPP is not about boosting free trade. It is the economic arm of the Obama administrations geopolitical strategy to make sure that Washington rules supreme in the region. News of the United States withdrawal will probably be well received then by Xi Jinping and his advisors. There is still uncertainty, however, about the Trump administrations general economic plan. This includes his policy initiatives regarding Japan and China. FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla., Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Netsurion, a leading provider of remotely-managed IT security services for multi-location businesses, today announced that Netsurions remote-managed security has been recognized as an Excellence Award finalist in the Best SME Security Solution category for the 2017 SC Awards. Finalists are recognized for outstanding leadership and providing superior security products to the cybersecurity industry. Ransomware, nation-state cyberattacks, IoT vulnerabilities, data privacy issues and more are dominating the headlines right now, and its critical that we amplify the importance of these problems and highlight the actions organizations can take to safeguard their organizations and critical data assets, said Illena Armstrong, VP, editorial, SC Media. As bad actors are constantly changing strategy, so too are the men, women and companies endeavoring to stop them in their tracks. These finalists have shown that they are the best at what they do. The SC Awards program, now in its 20th year, is recognized throughout the industry as the gold standard of excellence in cybersecurity. Winners in the Excellence category are determined by an expert panel of judges, hand-picked by SC Medias editorial team for their breadth of knowledge and experience in the cybersecurity industry. The Excellence Award honors the professionals, products, and services that have proven to be the best in the industry for protecting todays corporate world from an array of risks and threats. Businesses of all sizes, especially those that lack their own IT resources, should have access to, and benefit from, enterprise-level network security. That is Netsurions No. 1 priority, and with our recent EventTracker merger, we are in a better position than ever to help keep small and multi-location businesses out of the breach headlines, said Kevin Watson, CEO, Netsurion. We provide our customers with robust managed network security, security information and event management (SIEM) via EventTracker, and enhanced compliance services at a fraction of the costs associated with a self-managed solution. Through these services, we help to ensure that franchisors and business owners networks are not exposed to devastating breaches through a single, poorly secured location, or through a third party with poor security policies. We are honored that SC Media recognizes our innovation in the space and dedication to providing the highest possible level of security for SMEs investments. Cybercriminals have stepped up their game when it comes to wreaking havoc on the technologies and systems that are the lifeblood of our economy, added Armstrong of SC Media. We recognize Netsurion and the other finalists, for their outstanding achievements and contributions to our industry in helping to combat their attacks. Winners will be announced at the SC Awards 2017 ceremony to be held Feb. 14, 2017 in San Francisco. The SC Awards gala, which honors the winners and the best in the industry, attracts top professionals in the cybersecurity community and provides an invaluable opportunity for networking. To register for the 2017 SC Awards Gala, please visit http://www.scmagazine.com/awards/. About SC Media SC Media is cybersecurity. It has lived it for more than 25 years, sharing industry expert guidance and insight, in-depth features and timely news, and independent product reviews in various content forms in partnership with and for top-level information security executives and their technical teams. SC Media arms information security professionals with the in-depth, unbiased business and technical information they need to tackle the countless security challenges they face and establish risk management and compliance postures that underpin overall business strategies. It delivers breaking news, comprehensive analysis, cutting-edge features, contributions from thought leaders, and the best, most extensive collection of product reviews in the business. Whether through its comprehensive website, magazine, in-depth eBooks, newsletters, or regularly scheduled digital and live events - such as its SC Awards program, SC Media Roundtables or SC Congress Toronto, New York, Boston, Chicago, and London - its readers gain all the relevant information they need to safeguard their organizations and, ultimately, contribute to their longevity and success. Friend SC Media on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SCMag Follow SC Media on Twitter: http://twitter.com/scmagazine Nominations and event information: Anna Naumoski, senior events coordinator anna.naumoski@haymarketmedia.com 646.638.6015 About Netsurion Netsurion is a leading provider of remotely-managed IT security services that protects multi-location businesses information, payment systems, and on-premise public and private Wi-Fi networks from data breaches and other risks posed by hackers. Our SIEM service offering is powered by our subsidiary, EventTracker, which helps deliver comprehensive security benefits to edge locations that normally would not have the means to leverage such a solution. Netsurions patented remote installation process and PCI compliance solutions help simplify the implementation process and ongoing support. Any sized branch or remote office, franchise or sole proprietor operation can use Netsurion without the costs of onsite support. The company serves the retail, hospitality, healthcare, legal, and insurance sectors. www.netsurion.com Donald Trump, the President-elect of the United States, has suggested in a recent Twitter post that Nigel Farage would make a great UK Ambassador to the US. Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 The government has made it clear, however, that there is no vacancy for this position. The ambassadorship to the US is seen as one of the most prestigious posts in the diplomatic service. told the BBC David Davis, the Brexit secretary,that the current ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch, is very good and is going to be there for some years. Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats, dismissed Trumps suggestion as a frankly stupid idea. According to The Financial Times , the chairman of the public administration select committee, Bernard Jenkins, said the idea of Farage occupying any official civil service role was ridiculous and should not be taken at all seriously. The FT also reported that Trumps explicit support for Farage is very embarrassing for the Theresa May administration and risks the widening of a diplomatic rift between Washington and Westminster. responses Farageson both Twitter and the right-wing blog, Breitbart, have hinted at the very close relationship between him and the President-elect. I have known several of the Trump team for years and I am in a good position with the President-elects support to help. Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) November 22, 2016 He explains that this closeness is built upon a mutual trust that is absent from the todays mainstream politics. He states, therefore, that he is in a good position to help relations between the Trump administration and Number 10. However, the government says it has well established channels of communication with the Trump team, rejecting any help from the national figurehead of the Brexit campaign. Facebook https://www.change.org/p/sir-iain-diamond-aberdeen-cut-the-rent This move from AUSA follows building pressure from the student body, many of whom are struggling to cope with the increasing costs of first year life in Aberdeen. Lewis Macleod, Communities Officer at AUSA, cited previous student-led campaigns as inspiration, saying the success of rent strikers at UCL certainly demonstrates that, through direct action, we can win. Over the last five years the cheapest halls have increased from 69 per week to 99 per week [] The awful reality is that students are living in poverty as a result of expensive halls, and it is essential the University listen to the demands of its students by cutting and capping the rent. The University of Aberdeen recommends students should work no more than 16 hours a week, yet with such expensive halls of residence, many have no other option. In a statement from their press office, Aberdeen University replied to the campaign by saying that some of their most affordable accommodation has decreased in price or stayed the same in the last five years, with some minor increases in weekly rate. The cost of our self-catered accommodation has remained in line with our competitors and our prices are similar to other major Scottish unis, including Strathclyde, RGU and Edinburgh University. While this statement is undoubtedly true in relation to price range alone, what sets Aberdeen apart from most of its competitors is its average cost of halls (102% of the standard student loan). For instance the cheapest and most expensive halls in Aberdeen are similarly priced to their Edinburgh counterparts, but Edinburgh offers many rooms at less than 100 a week, whereas at 99 a week Hillhead is the only accommodation offered by Aberdeen at this level. The only competitor mentioned in the university's press release with a similar average rent is Robert Gordon University as the only other university in Aberdeen it could easily be argued that these prices are representative of the citys housing crisis. But with doubt being cast on the future of the oil industry the property market seems to be on the decline, with a 20% decrease in house prices being recorded between 2015 and 2016.Aberdeen University says that given the facilities offered at their halls, the current rent charged represents excellent value for money in the city, but the quality of their accommodation, or lack thereof, is also at the centre of the campaign. Many students, particularly in Adam Smith (one of the universitys cheapest halls), have encountered problems in their living quarters. Daniel Holligan, who stayed in Adam Smith in the 2014-15 academic year, was one of many in the building to have mould in his room. It wasn't there when I moved in - it got bad during winter; it was pretty extensive and right next to my pillow so I was sleeping with it right in my face. Daniel repeatedly complained to the university, but university staff only ever wiped the mould off, and never applied mould killer or damp seal to the walls. They blamed me which was ridiculous. They wanted me to open my window for two hours a day during winter, but it wasn't condensation - it was damp coming through dodgy walls. Aberdeen: Cut the Rent demand that the university cap their accommodation fees at 50% of the maximum student loan of 6,750 provided by SAAS, and set a limit on rent at the cheapest halls of 50% of the 4,750 standard student loan. According to the group, Under these demands, all halls would cost no more than 86.50 per week based on a 39-week contract, and the cheapest three halls would cost no more than 60 per week based on the same length of contract. Its unclear how Aberdeen University will respond to these particular demands, especially given that this would make their top end accommodation cheaper than those offered by nearly every other British university. Whats clear is that AUSA are taking the campaign very seriously, and have indicated that they are planning for further action moving forward, whatever that may mean. Christmas ads are as old as television itself, and the Christmas advert has now become a British tradition as common as the Queen's speech and rain on Christmas Eve.But it seems that much has changed over the years, with retailers choosing to move away from the hard sell of stocking fillers to cinematic masterpieces which could be films themselves. The annual premiering of the John Lewis Christmas advert has become the pinnacle of British Christmas traditions, as the latest heartwarming tale now marks the start of the Christmas season, and gives festive fanatics the excuse to start wrapping presents in November. Companies now battle it out to become the most talked-about ad, measuring success in tears, laughter and the fall of silence as another competitor pops up in the ad break of I'm a Celeb. You could even argue that the focus has shifted a little towards a more thoughtful message, with companies often attaching a charity appeal to their latest creation, and reminding viewers to think about those who deserve some Christmas cheer, such as war heroes, endangered animals and the elderly. Stories about real people, that real people will remember. So this seems like the perfect excuse to travel back in time with the ghost of Christmas adverts past, and realise how far we've come.Who can forget the magical Coca-Cola truck,But back in 1958, things were very different for the Coca-Cola corporation, who spread the festive cheer with just a few black and white cartoons.Heinekin's 1980 contribution certainly had a very different feel, with that snowman looking more at home in The Nightmare Before Christmas than a festive scene.Woolworths didn't disappoint with their all-singing, all-dancing, pantomime spectacular adverts, complete with TV stars and Quality Street in a jar. So very British. We miss you, Woolworths.Mince pies and biscuits are so last season. In the 90s, Christmas ads claimed that what Father Christmas really enjoys after a long night of delivering presents is a bowl of Kellogg's Cornflakes.The 90s saw the likes of Dawn French bring a little more honesty to the coveted Christmas ad, with the famous strapline: "It's not Terry's, it's mine!"As we entered the 21st century, ad campaigns switched their focus to spreading Christmas joy, rather than selling a product. This American airline's contribution is a cracker.And thus began the mighty reign of John Lewis - a company who arguably set the bar for British cinematic pieces that each year compete for the biggest sprinkling of magic.John Lewis' adverts have become so highly anticipated in today's lead up to Christmas that A-Level students endeavour to recreate the magic, like this one which, for a second, fooled us.Sainsbury's is a new competitor in the race, with a debut that turned heads, to look back towards Britain's fallen heroes of the Great War. Last year's effort,, further established the orange supermarket as a contender to watch.And this year Burberry took Sainsbury's efforts one step further, creating a 'Festive Film' which could even be a movie trailer, featuring stars such as Sienna Miller, Domhnall Gleeson, Lily James and Dominic West. The repeated message "he can imagine the whole world in his head" seems to be the hook for Burberry's clothes, however slightly lost in all of the drama. 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About Oxford Oxford Industries, Inc., a leader in the apparel industry, owns and markets the distinctive Tommy Bahama, Lilly Pulitzer and Southern Tide lifestyle brands. Oxford also produces certain licensed and private label apparel products. Oxford's stock has traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 1964 under the symbol OXM. For more information, please visit Oxford's website at www.oxfordinc.com. EBENSBURG, Pa., Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- viLogics, a trusted IT solutions provider with more than 20 years experience in information technology and data center services, has completed rigorous examinations of its data security processes to achieve compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Service Organization Controls 2 Type 1 (SOC 2) standards. The demanding third-party examinations were administered by the professional IT assurance and compliance staff at 360 Advanced, a respected national Qualified Security Assessor, HITRUST CSF Assessor and Certified Public Accountant firm based in St. Petersburg, FL. The SOC 2 report attests to the effectiveness of the data management controls a company has in place that relate to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. The HIPAA audit reflects viLogics demonstration of adherence to federally-required standards for the privacy of protected health information, the security of electronic protected health information, and breach notification to consumers. We had actually been operating in accordance with the SOC 2 compliance standards for more than two years, and formalizing that compliance by achieving these third-party audits clearly demonstrates our dedication to data security on all levels of our operations, commented Shawn Long, CEO. Our hospital clients are now demanding the HIPAA assessment so they can outsource their data management processes and focus on their core services. It is no longer an option, and having that designation is essential as we execute our strategy to grow in that business sector in the future. ABOUT VILOGICS viLogics delivers highly effective IT solutions that provide exceptional value, innovation, assurance, and integrity. The firms technology solutions promise forward thinking and innovation that leverages the strengths of its clients people, processes and technologies to meet and exceed their objectives. ABOUT 360 ADVANCED 360 Advanceds services are provided, but not limited to, the following industries: Title Services, Hosted and Managed IT, Data Center and Colocation, Software as a Service (SaaS), Healthcare, Financial Services, Insurance, HR | Payroll | PEO, Legal and Collections, Bulk Mail Printing and Distribution, Background Screening, Business Process Outsourcing and Marketing. Services provided by 360 Advanced include HITRUST CSF, SOC 1 (SSAE 16), SOC 2, SOC 3, PCI DSS, HIPAA Security/HITECH, Microsoft Vendor Policy and other security and compliance services. Phuket migrant worker foreman arrested for conspiracy to murder PHUKET: One man has been arrested and a second is being hunted following the murder of a 36-year-old Myanmar national on Sunday night (Nov 20) police have confirmed. crimedeathhomicidepoliceviolencetransportimmigration By Eakkapop Thongtub Tuesday 22 November 2016, 02:30PM Mr Kyaw Sein Win, 47, told police that he tried to stop the attack. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub Kamala Police led by Deputy Chief Lt Col Sophon Borrirak yesterday (Nov 21) escorted Mr Kyaw Sein Win, or Bun, 47, from Myanmar for further questioning after he was been arrested in connection with the murder of a fellow migrant worker named by police as Mr Tazae, 36, at 11pm on Sunday. Lt Col Somnuek Damkaew received a call from local residents at 1:30am yesterday where it was reported that a large numbers of migrant workers were engaged in a mass brawl at a workers camp at Baan Kwan located behind Phuket FantaSea in Kamala. Police were told that one man had died and another had been injured during the melee. (See story here.) Lt Col Somnuek said one migrant worker named as Mr Moe Oo, or Mo, 36, told police that prior to Sunday nights incident, the workers foreman, Bun, arrived at their shelter, he was inside his room while Mr Tazae was outside lying in a hammock listening to music. Mr Moe said, Bun arrived with another man, Mr Owan, also a Myanmar national, and ordered Owan to attack Tazae. Owan smashed Tazaes head three times with a one metre long crowbar. Mr Mo told police that he was so scared that he ran out out the room and sought refuge at his neighbours home. When he returned to his shelter he found out that Mr Tazae was already dead. Lt Col Somnuek continued, Officers were able to apprehend Bun shortly after the incident and learned that both he and the victim had altercations and disputes over wages. Bun told us that after the incident he took Owan to the motorbike taxi queue and came back to camp, he said. Bun also told police that he was there when Owan attacked Tazae, but that he had actually tried to stop the attack taking place. When Mr Tazae collapsed Bun said that he was frightened so he took off on a motorbike with Owan. Soon after he dropped Owan at the entrance of the soi. Bun said Owan dumped the murder weapon into a canal next to the camp, Lt Col Somnuek added. Bun has been charged with conspiracy to murder and have seized a Honda Wave as evidenc ARLINGTON, Va., Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Executives from Community Management Corporation (CMC) and Select Community Services (SCS), Associa branch offices, were honored guests at a recent ceremony recognizing their long-time support of the Washington Metropolitan Chapter Community Associations Institute (WMCCAI). CMC/SCS President Nick Mazzarella, SCS Vice President John Tsitos and CMC Vice President Mac Staples attended the exclusive event at Top of the Town in Arlington, Virginia on Tuesday, November 15. The celebration attendees included hall-of-fame members, board members, and partners who turned out for the 10th anniversary of the local chapter that supports CAI's national efforts to foster competent, responsive community associations through research, training, and education. "We are proud to represent this organization and to be recognized for our longevity of support is an honor and testament to strides we have made in last decade," says Mazzarella. "I want to thank the Associa staff at our Washington Metropolitan branch offices for their support of CAI and dedication to providing unsurpassed services to the communities we manage." 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. Stay Connected: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/associa Twitter: https://twitter.com/associa LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/associa Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/associa/ YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/associamarketing Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Associaonline/ A photo accompanying this release is available at: http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=41912 Victim who died in Thursday crash was from Sisseton 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. 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. A woman leaves ties balloons at a make-shift memorial for slain San Antonio police officer Benjamin Marconi, 50, a 20-year veteran of the force, Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, in San Antonio. Marconi was fatally shot during a traffic stop near police headquarters Sunday. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) A Chinese woman checks a handbag at an American fashion boutique at an up-scale shopping mall in Beijing, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's announcement that he plans to quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership is drawing vows from other Pacific Rim countries to push ahead with the trade pact while they also pursue free trade deals with China. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Trump not only has been tough on the U.S. European allies. He also singled out Japan as a U.S. ally that needs to play a bigger role in defending its own interests rather than relying on the U.S. Trump made headlines for suggesting that Japan should acquire nuclear weapons, but this obscured the more important point: the underlying consistency between Obamas and Trumps insistence that countries provide for their own security needs. In the long term, we do not believe China will achieve regional dominance, but in the short term, China is becoming increasingly aggressive, and North Korea is testing nuclear devices and rockets at an accelerated rated . Japan doesnt want to militarize, but these developments already are pushing the country to spend more money on its military regardless of Trumps comments. Constitutional reforms were passed this year that removed some legal constraints imposed on the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and allow Japan to defend not just itself, but its allies and interests. Although these reforms were passed over the objections of significant parts of the Japanese population, Japan appears to be preparing to take on a greater leadership role in the region. Therefore, our forecast appears to be on track. Chinas economy is struggling, and Xi is becoming a dictator. The U.S. is pushing Japan to take a more active role in managing the security of the region. Now a new U.S. president comes along who has been publicly insistent that Japan play an even bigger role. The basic building blocks of our forecast of a reluctant Japan slowly assuming the mantle of regional power in part because the U.S. wants a strong Japan to help balance forces in the region are beginning to manifest, and Trump happens to be one indicator. As for the potential for a trade war with China, the U.S. and China already have accused each other of various violations in the World Trade Organization, and both have raised penalty tariffs on goods from the other in recent months. Trump has talked a big game on trade with China, but the U.S. Congress ultimately holds the constitutional power to erect taxes and tariffs although it has passed laws that give the president the power to levy tariffs in some situations. Limiting these powers for Trump may require new legislation, but plenty of Republicans in Congress will not support raising punitive trade barriers. Here, domestic politics will shape heavily Trumps ability to act. Conclusion Obama said he would end Americas wars, shut down Guantanamo Bay, rebuild the U.S. alliance structure and reach out to the Muslim world. Reflecting back on his success rate should be sobering for those thinking about what Trump will be able to achieve. When reflecting on what a Trump presidency will look like and comparing it to our 2040 forecast, we are beginning to see our forecast take shape. We could have never predicted that Trump would be the one to rise, but the forces that led to his election and the constraints that will shape his administrations behavior are all in our 2040 forecast and remain on track. Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are in an overdrive to justify demonetisation, the party faced an embarrassment in Modi's home state of Gujarat when brother of a saffron party's corporator in Vadodara was arrested with old notes worth Rs 31 lakh. The notes are in the denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. According to highly placed sources, Vaikunth Pawar, younger brother of BJP corporator Vijay Pawar, was arrested by the Detection of Crime Branch on Tuesday. Vijay has been with the BJP for a long time and is a first time corporator in the Vadodara Municipal Corporation. Sources claimed that Vaikunth was also a BJP worker and was into building construction and also ran a weekly. Sources said that in the past he had been arrested on several charges like posing as a policeman on the highway and demanding money from people. The DCB arrested him following a tip off. He is being interrogated to find out as to where he got the money from. Both the brothers are believed to be close to a first time MLA from Vadodara. BJP's Vadodara unit president and Vadodara MP Ranjanben Bhatt told THE WEEK that she was in New Delhi and that Vaikunth was not a party worker. The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day on Tuesday as the opposition noisily protested against demonetisation, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of behaving like a dictator and pushing ordinary people into hardship. The House witnessed uproarious scene as a united opposition reiterated its demand to discuss the demonetisation issue under the rule which entails voting. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge reiterated the demand to suspend question hour and start the discussion but Speaker Sumitra Mahajan did not permit it. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi leaving the Parliament on Tuesday | ANI She urged them not to disturb the question hour but the opposition parties continued their protest. A miffed Mahajan said it was not fair to disrupt the House and urged the slogan-shouting opposition leaders to take their seats and let the question hour continue. As minister of state for home affairs Kiren Rijiju rose to reply on questions related to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, opposition members led by the Congress and Trinamool Congress rushed towards the Speaker's podium demanding an adjournment motion. "Don't disturb the minister. You cannot disturb the minister. It is not the proper way to raise the issue concerning the common people," Mahajan said. But the opposition did not relent and continued shouting slogans: "Modi sarkar hosh me aao" and "Modi teri tanashahi nahi chalegi, nahi chalegi". Mahajan then adjourned the house till 12 and said: "It pains when elected representatives behave like this." When the House resumed at 12 noon, opposition members including from the Congress, TMC, Samajwadi party and Nationalist Congress Party trooped towards the Speaker shouting slogans. Parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar said the people of the country were with the November 8 demonetisation decision. "Go and see the sense outside. People are with the government over demonetisation. We are ready to discuss the matter. As and when the chair orders, we are ready to discuss the matter," Kumar said. Kharge countered and said the opposition too was ready for a debate. He sought Modi's presence in the House. "We want a discussion because the poor, farmers, labourers are dying. Marriages are breaking up. Lives are being spoiled," Kharge said. TMC leader Sudip Bandopadhyay urged the chair to rise on the occasion and allow the discussion under the rule which entails voting. "What is the harm in discussing under voting provisions? Why is the government shying away? If House is not running, the ruling party is also responsible for it," he said. Kumar rose to respond and reiterated that the government was always ready to discuss the issue -- in Parliament and outside. "We have won the Shahdol and Lakhimpur Lok Sabha constituency seats. What is the signal? People's voice is clear. They are against black money and corruption," he said. As the opposition parties didn't relent and continued their protests, the Speaker adjourned the House for the day. Two militants were killed in an encounter on Tuesday with security forces in north Kashmir's Bandipora district. "Two militants have been killed in an encounter in Bandipora," a police official said. He said that acting on specific intelligence input about presence of militants in Hajin village of Bandipora, security forces launched a search operation in the area. The official said as the forces were conducting the search operation, militants fired upon them , leading to an encounter in which two militants were killed. Further details of the operation were awaited, the official said. Two weapons have been recovered from the encounter site. "Two weapons have been recovered along with other war-like stores," the official said. He said the identity and group affiliation of the militants was being ascertained. A powerful earthquake rocked northern Japan on Tuesday, briefly disrupting cooling functions at a nuclear plant and generating a tsunami that hit the same region devastated by a massive quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011. The earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, had a magnitude of 7.4, the Japan Meteorological Service said, and was centred off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 km.There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries several hours after the quake hit at 5:59 a.m.A tsunami of up to 1.4 metres had been observed around Sendai, about 70 km north of Fukushima, with smaller waves hitting ports elsewhere along the coast, public broadcaster NHK said. Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from harbours as tsunami warning signals wailed, and after warnings of waves up to 3 metres were issued."We saw high waves but nothing that went over the tidal barriers," a man in the city of Iwaki told NTV television network.The Pacific tsunami warning centre in Hawaii said the tsunami threat had now largely passed."Sea level fluctuations may continue along some coasts of Japan over the next few hours," it said. The U.S. geological survey measured Tuesday's quake at magnitude 6.9, down from an initial 7.3. All Japan's nuclear power plants on the coast, threatened by the tsunami, are shut down in the wake of the March 2011 disaster, which knocked out Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, spilling radiation into the air and sea. A spokeswoman for Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, said the cooling system for a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at the reactor at its Fukushima Daini Plant had been halted. A spokesman said the cooling system had restarted soon after.No other damage from the quake has been confirmed at any of its power plants, although there have been blackouts in some areas, the spokeswoman said. Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest. Even when in shutdown, nuclear plants need cooling systems operating to keep spent fuel cool.Tohoku Electric Power Co said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported there were no irregularities at the Tokai Daini nuclear plant in Ibaraki prefecture. Japanese minister for disaster management Jun Matsumoto told reporters about three hours after the quake that there had been no reports of significant injuries so far.NHK showed footage of residents of Ishinomaki, a city badly hit in 2011, standing on a hill dressed in hats and heavy coats, staring down at the ocean. Several thousand people along the coast evacuated or were told to evacuate.Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.The March 11 2011 quake had magnitude of 9, the strongest quake in Japan on record. According to data compiled by The Jewish Agency for Israel, some 700 immigrants from Brazil will arrive in Israel by the end of 2016, more than three times the annual average of approximately 200. This marks a 45-year record in Brazilian Aliyah, which last reached similar levels in the 1970s. The Brazilian Jewish community is a warm, Zionist community with strong ties to Israel, said Chairman of the Executive of The Jewish Agency for Israel, Natan Sharansky, who is currently visiting Brazil in order to survey Jewish Agency activities in the country and meet with the local Jewish community. Since Israels establishment, more than 15,000 Brazilian Jews have immigrated to Israel, contributing to the Jewish states national character and strength. Sharansky noted that recent years have seen an increase in the number of Jewish young people from Brazil who have arrived in Israel to participate in Jewish Agency Israel experience programs through Masa Israel Journey. The Jewish Agency chairman participated in a festive event organized by Confederacao Israelita do Brasil (CONIB, the umbrella organization of Brazilian Jewry) on motzei Shabbos Vayera in Sao Paulo. During the course of his visit, he will also meet with Brazilian Jews who are about to immigrate to Israel, as well as with member of Jewish youth movements. The head of the Jewish Agency delegation in Brazil, Revital Poleg, notes that Aliyah from the country has been steadily increasing over the past three years, along with interest in life in Israel. The increase in Aliyah is taking place in the midst of an economic crisis in that country, but is rooted in the Brazilian Jewish communitys strong ties to Israel. Many of the immigrants note that they view Israel as a place where they can lead Jewish lives in an environment that feels like home, says Poleg, noting that the immigrants come from relatively strong backgrounds. Some seventy percent of the immigrants are young families who want to provide their children with high-quality education, or young people looking to start university studies in Israel and build their careers there. Jewish Agency data shows that some 650 immigrants from Brazil have arrived in Israel since the beginning of 2016 and the total number is expected to reach 700 by years end. This marks a significant increase compared to the 496 Brazilian immigrants who arrived in 2015 and the 280 who arrived in 2014. The annual average was approximately 200 until three years ago. Similar Aliyah figures from Brazil were last seen in 1971, when some 594 Brazilian immigrants arrived in Israel. According to CONIB, the Jewish community of Brazil numbers approximately 120,000 and is the second largest in Latin America, after Argentina. The largest communities are located in Sao Paulo (55,000), Rio de Janeiro (30,000), and Porto Alegre (10,000). Approximately one hundred smaller communities are scattered throughout the country, the fifth-largest in the world. The Jewish Agencys activities in Brazil take place in partnership with CONIB and centers on strengthening Brazilian Jews connections to Israel, developing young leadership, training counselors for Jewish youth movements, building Israel experience programs for the communitys youth, preparing candidates for Aliyah, and developing specialized Aliyah tracks for different groups. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) [PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE] Magen David Adom paramedic Yisrael Papa was sent on a special shlichus, out to the waters of the Mediterranean Ocean to meet with personnel from MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) treating refugees along with Italian Red Cross workers. Papa boarded the MOAS vessel manned by Italian Red Cross personnel too as part of the life-saving efforts of thousands of refugees at sea. Papa and the other members of the medical teams treated hundreds of refugees. Papa, 22, is a resident of Ramat Gan did not spend Rosh Hashanah or Sukkos with his family for he was out at sea as part of this life-saving team treating over 3,000 refugees and migrants. According to the United Nations, during 2016, over 7,000 refugees died at sea. They board large rafts and hope to reach Europe but inclement weather and the realities of the ocean are what they are. In March 2016 the MOAS NGO decided to get involved together with the Italian Red Cross and they began rescuing them at sea. They operated off the coasts of Libya and Tunisia. When they spot the vessels and those on board in distress they head to them and begin treating them. They are brought to the shores of Italy where the government has decided to take them in. The medical professionals include one physician, two nurses and now a MDA paramedic which is the Israeli Red Cross. On the average, they rescue 130 people from each craft. They begin with three medical personnel boarding and beginning to assess the situation and triage those on board. At a recent assembly held in Israel, organized by MDA and addressing treatment of mass casualty incidents, Panu Saaristo, who is responsible for medical care in a mass casualty incidents for the International Red Cross decided to tap another resource, the MDA paramedics who by and large have a wealth of experience dealing with mass causality scenes. This led to the decision to assign Papa to the team. MDA officials and Papa expressed pride in the mission as a humanitarian organization, and he has been working to save lives during the six-week mission. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photo Credit: MDA Spokesman) Will Trump Bring Down the West? . LONDON I have spent my whole political life somewhere called the West. It was not literally west: while its heartland was Western Europe and the United States, it also included faraway countries like Australia and Japan. Rather, it was a community that embraced shared hopes and values. Reflecting Americas global leadership after World War II, the West was protected by US hard power and shaped by US soft power. And it was the most peaceful and prosperous place in the world. The West has long provided the foundation for the global order probably the most successful such foundation ever created. Led by the US, the West built, shaped, and championed international institutions, cooperative arrangements, and common approaches to common problems. As it helped to sustain peace and boost prosperity in much of the world, its approaches and principles attracted millions of followers. The election of Donald Trump as US President, however, threatens this entire system. If Trump does in office what he promised to do during his crude and mendacious campaign, he could wreck a highly sophisticated creation, one that took several decades to develop and has benefited billions of people. Those of us who, like Americans, have gained from it must fight for it while it still breathes. One promise on which Trump must not follow through is to advance trade protectionism. The case for tearing up free-trade agreements and aborting negotiations for new ones is premised on the belief that globalization is the reason for rising income inequality, which has left the American working class economically marooned. But the real sources of American workers economic pain are technological innovation and tax-and-spend policies that favor the rich. If Trump, say, walks away from the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada, turns his back on ratifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and challenges the World Trade Organization, he will hurt the very people who voted for him. And he will lose friends and influence abroad. Another dangerous policy that Trump could pursue would be to back away from Americas security arrangements with countries like Japan and South Korea, as well as with NATO. In Trumps distorted view, the US should not be offering free security to its allies, and instead should leave them to fend for themselves. In practice, such a stance would be highly destabilizing. Eastern Europe and the Baltic states would be at the mercy of Russia. And Asia and the Middle East would be at risk of nuclear proliferation, as countries lacking the US security backstop would seek to develop their own nuclear arsenals an approach that Trump has said would be acceptable. Trumps pledge to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran is a case in point. Does anyone think Saudi Arabia would sit still if Iran restarted its weapons program? Criticizing the agreement a major achievement of US President Barack Obama might have served Trump during the campaign, but actually abrogating the deal would make the world a far more dangerous place. Trumps stated approach to climate change is just as problematic. He has declared his intention to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and staving off catastrophic climate change. He has already appointed Myron Ebell, an outspoken climate change denier, to oversee the transition at the US Environmental Protection Agency. Trump bases this approach on the nonsensical belief that human-driven climate change is a hoax, invented by the Chinese to make US industry less competitive. And that is far from the only accusation Trump has hurled at China. His generally hostile attitude toward the country, particularly with regard to trade, threatens further damage to an already-tense bilateral relationship and thus poses a risk for US multinationals and US allies alike. A Trump presidency also poses something of an existential threat. His derogatory comments about marginalized groups including Muslims, Mexicans, women, and people with disabilities imperil the values that are fundamental to Americas identity and place in the world, and that bind the countries of the West together. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is one leader who seems to recognize how quickly the collapse of US leadership could bring about the end of the post-1945 global order. Her response to Trumps victory was eloquent and powerful: Germany and America are connected by values of democracy, freedom, and respect for the law and the dignity of man, independent of origin, skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or political views. On the basis of those values, she declared, she would work with Trump. That is precisely how all of Americas allies and friends should be responding. Like Merkel, we should all speak up for all that the West has stood for, and all that it has achieved. We must condemn any move by Trump to shirk the rule of law and the norms of a free society. We must argue the case for free trade, which has brought far-reaching benefits to humanity. And we must fight to uphold the nuclear deal with Iran and nuclear non-proliferation around the world. There is also an imperative to reiterate our commitment to stand firm against Russian adventurism in Eastern and Central Europe. In particular, we must make clear that Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty applies to Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland all members of the military alliance that the US still leads. (It would also help if, after years of backsliding, NATOs European members upped their contributions to our collective defense.) Finally, we should assert that, while we in the West do not agree with Chinas mercantilist policies and repressive measures at home, we want to work with it, not seek to marginalize and humiliate it. The idea of the West is one of Americas finest achievements (though many other countries have also contributed). It would be a true disaster for the world if America, in an act of self-destructive decadence, tossed this noble, practical, and inspiring creation into the dustbin of history. The families of those onboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 said Monday they will mount a debris-hunting trip to Madagascar to search for clues to what happened to the missing plane. Investigators have identified six pieces of wreckage to have either definitely or almost certainly come from the jet, which vanished with 239 people while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014. Voice 370, a family association, said the debris collected so far has all been found off Africas east coast. Despite these hugely important finds, there has been no systematic, organized search by any responsible party. This leaves the (next-of-kin) no other choice except to take it upon ourselves to do something to find answers and closure, it said in a statement. An ongoing search in the southern Indian Ocean, where the plane is believed to have crashed, has been fruitless and could be suspended soon. Grace Subathirai Nathan, whose mother Anne Daisy was on the flight, said she will be going to Madagascar with three other Malaysians, two Chinese and a French next-of-kin. She said the group is financing the Dec. 3 to Dec. 11 trip from their own pockets. We hope to mobilize the fishing villagers and coastal population to be on the constant lookout for new debris that could become new credible evidence, she told The Associated Press. The Voice 370 statement said the seven-member team will focus their search along high potential sites based on drift modeling, largely focusing in areas on and around Ile Saint Marie, a tropical island off Madagascars east coast. The group said they may set up an incentive system using their own funds to encourage the search for debris, and will aim to set up a notification system and local collection point for potential aircraft debris. So far, none of the six pieces of debris has helped narrow down the precise location of the main underwater wreckage. Investigators need to find that in order to locate the flight data recorders that could help explain why the plane veered so far off course. Search crews are expected to finish their sweep of the 120,000-square kilometer (46,000-square mile) search zone in the Indian Ocean next month. Oceanographers have been analyzing wing flaps found in Tanzania and on the French island of La Reunion to see if they might be able to identify a potential new search area through drift modeling. But any new search would require more funding. Malaysia, Australia and China said in July that the $160 million hunt will be suspended once the current stretch of ocean is exhausted unless new evidence emerges that would pinpoint a specific location of the aircraft. (AP) A handwritten letter has been found in a German archive in which President-elect Donald Trumps grandfather unsuccessfully fought his expulsion from the country for failing to perform mandatory military service. Bild newspaper on Monday printed the 1905 letter located by an historian, in which Friedrich Trump wrote Bavarian Prince Luitpold begging the well-loved, noble, wise and just leader not to deport him. Luitpold rejected the most subservient request. Trumps grandfather was born in Kallstadt, then part of Bavaria, and immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager without performing his military service. It was after hed made his fortune there and tried to resettle in Germany that he was ordered expelled, and returned to the U.S. Rhineland-Palatinate state archive spokeswoman Isabell Weisbrod says Friedrich Trumps birth certificates also in the archive. (AP) November 20, 2016 marked the thirtieth anniversary of Egyptian President Anwar Sadats historic visit to Jerusalem. 39 years ago, Israels repeated calls for peace were finally answered: This weekend marks 39 years since the historic visit by then Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, to Jerusalem on 20 November 1977. President Sadat responded to Prime Ministers Menachem Begin invitation, because he understood that the key to peace is found in mutual recognition and direct dialogue with Israel. He came to speak to the Israeli people, and to negotiate with their leaders without preconditions. The result was an end to 30 years of wars, and the beginning of nearly 40 years of peace between Israel and Egypt ever since. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) The weekend shootings of police officers in Texas and Missouri follow a string of attacks on officers around the country, many of them deadly. In San Antonio, a detective was shot and killed while writing a traffic ticket in his squad car Sunday morning outside police headquarters, authorities said. In St. Louis, a police sergeant was hospitalized in critical condition Sunday evening after he was shot twice while sitting in traffic in a marked police vehicle. In other cases: Nov. 2: Two Des Moines, Iowa area police officers were fatally shot in separate ambush-style attacks while they were sitting in their patrol cars. Scott Michael Greene, an unemployed 46-year-old father, is charged with killing first-year Urbandale police officer Justin Martin, 24, and Des Moines Police Sgt. Anthony Beminio, 38, within minutes of each other. July 17: A Missouri man armed with two rifles and a pistol and wearing a ski mask ambushed and killed three officers near a gas station and convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The gunman, Gavin Long, was killed by police. His mother said the Iraq war veteran suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. July 7: A gunman in Dallas opened fire on police officers working at a protest about recent killings by police of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana. The attacker, Micah Johnson, killed five officers and wounded nine others and two civilians before police killed him with a robot-delivered bomb when negotiations failed. Authorities say Johnson, who was black, told negotiators he wanted to kill as many white police officers as he could. It was the deadliest day for American law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001. Dec 28, 2015: Officer Guarionex Candelario Rivera showed up unannounced at his police station in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and fatally shot three fellow officers. Candelario, a 19-year police veteran, killed Lt. Luz Soto Segarra, Cmdr. Frank Roman Rodriguez and policewoman Rosario Hernandez De Hoyos. Candelario was shot twice but survived. July 13, 2014: Jersey City, New Jersey Officer Melvin Santiago was shot in the head by a man who had grabbed a security officers gun, waited for police to arrive and then opened fire outside a drug store. The shooter was killed by other officers. Investigators later said the suspect had alcohol and PCP in his system and cocaine in his possession. May 9, 2015: Two Hattiesburg, Mississippi, police officers, Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate, were shot to death during a traffic stop. Three suspects were later arrested. Dec 20, 2014: Two New York City police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were ambushed and fatally shot while in their vehicle without warning by a man who approached the passenger window of their marked police car. The suspect, 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, then fatally shot himself. Brinsley was black; the officers were Asian and Hispanic, police said. The shooting came amid heightened tensions between law enforcement and minority communities. September 12, 2014: A survivalist ambushed two Pennsylvania state troopers outside of a police barracks late at night, killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson and wounding Trooper Alex Douglass. Suspect Eric Frein led authorities on a 48-day manhunt through the heavily wooded Pocono Mountains before U.S. marshals captured him at an abandoned airplane hangar. He has pleaded not guilty. June 8, 2014: A man and a woman ambushed two police officers eating lunch at a Las Vegas pizza restaurant, fatally shooting them before fleeing to a nearby Wal-Mart where they killed a third person and then themselves in an apparent suicide pact. Officers Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo died. May 25, 2013: Bardstown, Kentucky Police Officer Jason Ellis was fatally shot in an ambush as he cleared debris from a parkway exit ramp. Investigators believe tree limbs were put on the exit ramp to force Ellis to stop. Aug. 28, 2010: Two police officers were ambushed in a tiny Alaskan village of Hoonah before a SWAT team and dozens of other law officers surrounded a house where the gunman took refuge. Officers Tony Wallace and Matt Tokuoka died after the shooting. Hoonah resident John Marvin Jr. was captured and charged in the deaths. May 20, 2010: Two West Memphis, Arkansas, police officers doing anti-drug work were shot to death by two men wielding AK-47s along a busy Arkansas interstate. Sgt. Brandon Paudert and Officer Bill Evans died at a nearby hospital. The suspects were later killed in a shootout that injured the local sheriff and a deputy at a crowded Wal-Mart parking lot. (AP) [PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE] A delegation of 55 Magen David Adom volunteers and employees participated in a five-day visit to the death camps in Poland. The members of the groups heard the stories of horror from survivors. MDA has been sending a group annually towards perpetuating the memory of the Holocaust. The most recent group visited the extermination camp of Krakow, Auschwitz Birkenau, Katowice, Plaszow, Kielce, Majdanek and Warsaw. In addition, the delegation conducted visits to other historic places in Poland, including the Rappaport monument, Broken Heart monument, , Tykocin Great Synagogue and the Nozik Great Synagogue and more. Participants in the group feel it is particularly powerful to visit the death camps in MDA uniforms, representing Israels humanitarian EMS service. A special ceremony was held adjacent to bloc 10 in Auschwitz where the infamous experiments were conducted. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) While organizations seeking to advance the cause of womens equality, retired IDF Major-General Yiftach Ron-Tal is warning the placement of women combatants in the IDF is seriously compromising the militarys abilities. Ron-Tals comments come as the Tank Corps is heading towards opening its doors to female soldiers, a move that has hesder yeshivot and rabbonim concerned and angry, some announcing the IDF will have to decide between the bnei torah or the women serving, but it will never be both side-by-side. Ron-Tal released statements of warning on Sunday, 19 Cheshvan, that integrating the Tank and Artillery Corps would be a mistake and the IDF will pay a price as its operational abilities would undoubtedly be compromised. Have we totally lost our minds questioned the senior commander, adding whoever is pushing this is truly crazy, warning if this moves to the paratroops, Givati or Golani, the nation will be in trouble. Ron-Tal, who is the CEO of Israel Electric Company today, warns the continued integration of the IDF will lead to disaster, calling for a halt of the process which the equal rights activists continue to applaud. It is not surprising that Ron-Tal has already been labeled chauvinistic for his remarks, which he says are based entirely on operational military reality and not in any way related to being for or against womens rights. As the attacks increased on Facebook and other social media platforms, Ron-Tal responded and explained based on his vast experience in combat he cannot support a move that will compromise Israels security. He added the Trauma of battle will have a profound change on women, who he believes should be wives and mothers. He warns being a combat commander will undermine ones maternal instincts and the changes that will occur will be irreversible. Obviously, his remarks are not received warmly by those liberals who feel women can serve in any and all positions men can. Former IDF Chief Rabbi Yisrael Weiss also spoke out and raised the matter of other things that might occur if men and women are inside tanks, calling such an arrangement unacceptable. Meanwhile, the Artillery Corps on Sunday named its first female battalion commander. Despite the statements of those mentioned above, and others, the Artillery Corps on Sunday 19 Cheshvan proudly announced its first female commander, Major Reut, who becomes the second female in the IDF to command a combat unit. Lt.-Colonel Oshrat Bachar was the IDFs first female combat unit commander and recently concluded her command of a combat intelligence-gathering battalion in southern Israel. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) The El Al pilots sanctions continue and passengers continue to find their flight may be off schedule or even canceled as result. Management continue to insist that collective bargaining agreements have addressed the labor issues while pilots continue insisting they are overworked and underpaid and unwilling to continue at the current pace under current conditions. The refusal of pilots to fly, usually announcing this decision shortly before a scheduled takeoff has resulted in the cancelation of many flights. Some travelers are unwilling to take a chance on missing a flight, especially those heading abroad for specific meetings or events for a short period, and they do have the luxury of gambling if their flight will takeoff on time, late or at all. As a result, some passengers are opting to fly with another airline and two of these passengers include the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Rabbi Dovid Lau Shlita and Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef Shlita. The most recent cancelations and delays announced on Monday 20 Cheshvan include the cancelation of flight 081 during the evening, which was to depart from Tel Aviv for Bangkok along with prolonged delays as flight 027 to New York has to be moved to another airline operating it for El Al. Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef last week had to leave for a very brief visit to the USA and the decision was made to book with another airline to avoid delays. It is reported the rav will be returning on a different airline as well. Rabbi Dovid Lau followed suit and was in Baltimore in the USA this past Shabbos was scheduled to return to Israel on Sunday on an El Al flight from New York but the flight was canceled. Hence Rabbi Lau was compelled to find connecting flights on other airlines to return home. Also impacted was the Admor of Kapishnitz () Shlita, who arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport and learned his flight was canceled. The rebbe arrived at the airport on Sunday morning 19 Cheshvan with five chassidim, expecting to head to New York. The flight was scheduled to depart at 9:40AM and shortly before that time it was canceled, only after passengers went through security and check-in. The rebbe realized there would be no flight in the coming hours, returning home to Ezras Torah, Yerushalayim. It is reported that after much effort and Siyata Dishmaya the rebbe was able to depart at 1:00AM on another airline which includes a five-hour stop-over in Europe. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) A well-known German neo-Nazi has been convicted again of Holocaust denial and sentenced to prison, but is showing no signs of changing her views. Ursula Haverbeck in her closing statement in Verden district court Monday talked of the Auschwitz lie and said the infamous death camp was actually a labor camp where nobody was killed by gas, the dpa news agency reported. Shed been charged with Holocaust denial, a crime in Germany, for the content of several articles she wrote for a magazine called the Voice of the Reich. Haverbeck, 88, said shed appeal her conviction and 2? year sentence. Shes currently free as she appeals other convictions from courts in Detmold and Lueneburg. (AP) A union representing pilots at Germany airline Lufthansa says its going on strike in a long-running dispute over pay. The Cockpit union said Monday that pilots of all short- and long-haul flights out of Germany will go on strike all of Wednesday. The union says Lufthansa has been posting very good numbers for years but that its pilots havent seen any consequent pay increases. It says an offer of 2.5 percent is no offer, and that its been asking for a 3.66 percent yearly raise for 5 ? years. It is also rejecting Lufthansas offer to call in an arbitrator. The dispute comes as Lufthansa restructures to meet increasing competition from Gulf airlines. Lufthansa called the unions position absolutely incomprehensible. (AP) [By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times] The second volume of Vdibarta Bam with the psakim of Moreinu haRav Dovid Feinstein Shlita has just been released. It is authored by Rav Boruch Moskowitz Shlita, who learns with the Rosh HaYeshiva every morning. There is no question that this Sefer is a Must Have and the first printing will certainly be sold out in a matter of a few weeks of its arrival in the Seforim stores. For the first time, Rav Dovid Feinstein Shlitas halachic views on hundreds of halachic topics are heard in an in-depth treatment. The Sefer has 221 topics in close to 600 tightly packed pages. Each siman deals with a topic with great depth and then provides Rav Dovid Feinsteins view on the subject matter. Much of the material deals with understanding Rav Moshe Feinsteins opinion in his Igros Moshe. DAYAN ROTHS REMARRIAGE There was an article a short while back about Dayan Yechezkel Roth who was attached to a heart-lung machine and for a while, he was not technically living. Subsequently, it was reported that he had remarried his wife, just in case his temporary death severed the legality of his marriage. Reb Dovid Shlita (Siman 306) opines that when one does undergo such a temporary death there is no need to remarry. He also states that one is not technically obligated to perform heroic life-saving measures to one who is technically dead. Rav Dovids opinion in this particular Siman seems to be a rather controversial one. MAISIS AND LIFNEI IVER In Siman 155, the Igros Moshe (OC Vol. I #99) regarding Maisis on other Mitzvos is discussed. According to many other authorities, there is another prohibition aside from Lifnei Iver, that is violated when one specifically requests another individual to perform a sin. This prohibition is called Maisis. The verse in Dvarim (13:7) states: if your brother shall entice you saying let us go serve other gods The Torah then continues to explain the punishment of such an individual. The traditional understanding of this prohibition is that it is limited to one who entices another to worship idols. Rav Moshe writes that this prohibition of enticing another person applies to all sins, not only to idol worship. He maintains that the capital punishment is strictly reserved for the idol-worship form of enticement, but the prohibition of enticement applies to all sins. Rabbi Feinstein thus censures a synagogue for encouraging people to attend their programming or their religious services on the Shabbos if they would arrive by car. He writes that the Rabbi who invited them would be in violation of both Lifnei Iver as well as Maisis. [It seems from Rabbi Feinsteins language and tone that the violation of Maisis is actually more serious than that of Lifnei Iver.] Rabbi Moskowitz explains why the issue of Kiruv Rechokim is not relevant in Rav Feinsteins analysis and why one cannot allow for violating halacha for this purpose. In the end of the SIman Rabbi Moskowitz cites Rav Dovid Feinsteins view that, in fact, there is no leniency to invite someone on Shabbos. As a parenthetic note, Rav Feinstein ztl was not the first to mention the prohibition of Maisis. It is also found in both the Chavas Yair 166 and the Shvus Yaakov Vol III 178. DO YOU MAKE A SHEHECHEYANU WHEN PURCHASING A NEW SEFER? Generally speaking Mitzvos are not given lehanos so we do not recite blessings on a new sefer. But when it genuinely brings us joy, perhaps one should. In Siman 44, he cites Rav Dovid Feinstein that if the purchase of the Sefer brings much joy a shehecheyanu may be said. SHEHECHEYANU ON FRUITS A few years ago, a ruling from Rav Elyashiv zatzal spread around that no shehecheyanu is recited on new fruits since, nowadays, on account of imports from various other countries, most fruits are available 12 months out of the year. Reb Dovid, lbcl is cited in Siman 45 as agreeing with this ruling however, he states that if there is a 30 day break where the fruit is not available, the blessing can be recited if one is excited about it. PSIK REISHA THROUGH A GENTILE In Siman 90, the author points to somewhat of a contradiction within the Mishna Brurah (276:30 versus 253:99) regarding a Psik Raisha of a biblical prohibition, a secondary result of a primary action, when done through a gentile Amirah lAkum. He cites Rav Dovid Feinstein as ruling that it is permitted when done through a gentile and that the fact that the Mishna Brurah was stringent in 276 is because of a separate issue of having Muktzah moved. An issue not raised by the author is that 253:99 is actually an amalgamation of two different acharonim in the words of the Ramah (the Vilna Gaon and the Mogain Avrohom) neither of whom would have come to the same conclusion that the Mishna Brurah came to regarding biblical prohibitions on account of their own readings. It would have been interesting to hear Rav Dovids view on this. OPERATIONS TO EXTEND LIFE TEMPORARILY Rav Moshe ztl deals with the issue of whether a severely ill person must undergo an operation that will only extend his life somewhat (IM CM II #74). He writes that if the sick person does not have the energy or strength to do so, he has the right to not undergo the operation. Rav Dovid Shlita added (Siman 304) that if it is impossible to ascertain the ill persons thinking on the subject the relatives must try to figure out what the ill person would want. All in all the sefer is a remarkable contribution to our understanding of halacha and specifically to Reb Dovid Shlitas halachic views. There are so many wonderful nuggets of Psak halacha in this sefer. It is a must purchase for those who wish to hear the view of one of Klal Yisroels greatest Gedolim. The sefer is available at Biegeleisen in Boro Park and at other fine seforim stores. The reviewer can be reached at [email protected] The city has reached a $160 million deal with multi-millionaire entrepreneur Norm Brodsky, who for over a decade stood between North Brooklyn residents and their dream of a 28-acre park at Bushwick Inlet. Former-Mayor Michael Bloomberg promised the park during a 2005 Brooklyn waterfront rezoning that paved the way for luxury condominium development. But the cost of acquiring the land ballooned, and Bloomberg admitted in 2011 that he couldn't afford Brodsky's CitiStorage parcel. The charred, 11-acre property on North 10th Street cuts through the middle of the long-stalled park. The de Blasio administration has bought up bits and pieces since, but CitiStorage has remained elusive. Community members bit their nails earlier this year when Brodsky rejectedand apparently mockedthe city's $100 million offer for the property, launching his own appeal for buyers and indicating that he'd happily sell the site to a developer of office space, for the right price. "Today is the day we begin turning the full vision of Bushwick Inlet Park into a reality. After an extensive negotiation, we have struck a fair agreement to acquire the CitiStorage site," said Mayor de Blasio in a statement. "This is an investment in the future of Brooklyn, and in the children, longtime residents and newcomers in this community." "Our administration keeps its promises," he added. "When we commit to build a new park or a new school in a growing community, we deliver. We look forward to working with local officials, activists and residents as we design and build a Bushwick Inlet Park we can all be proud of." This week's agreement lands well below Brodsky's $325 million ask. For context, the NY Times reports that the city spent $225 million buying up nine acres of the proposed 28. In March, it dropped $53 million for another seven acres. Over a year ago Bushwick Inlet had already exceeded the Highline in taxpayer costs. Reached on Tuesday, Brodsky praised Brooklyn Councilmember Stephen Levin for keeping the negotiations rolling. "I'm thrilled that the city has finally lived up to their promise for the community," he said. "This certainly never would have happened without Steve Levin's tenacity." Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park co-chair Steve Chesler got the good news this morning, while disembarking an airplane in Florida. "We're kind of in awe and in shock," he said. "We kind of knew that things were working gradually towards a deal but we heard things were still precarious and fragile." "It's a lot of money but the alternative would have been horrific," Chesler added. "Not just more development, but more development on promised open space." This upcoming March, he said, will be the 12 year anniversary of Bloomberg's promise. "We look forward to working with our community partners to realize a vision for Bushwick Inlet Park that truly serves Williamsburg-Greenpoint," said Parks Department Commissioner Mitchell Silver. The city will need to conduct extensive environmental remediation on the CitiStorage site before it can put forward a timeline for park development, according to the Parks Department. Simply stated, many are questioning the silence of IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-General Gadi Eizenkott, who has given his approval for the appointment of Rabbi Eyal Karim as incoming Chief Military Rabbi. Eizenkott did not rubber stamp the appointment, but met with him in person to discuss some of the ravs halachic interpretations which unlearned individuals misinterpret either by choice or due to plain ignorance of Torah. Before meeting with Eizenkott, Rabbi Karim met with and was also cleared by Chief of IDF Personnel Branch Major-General Chaggai Tupolinsky, and finally, the appointment was approved by the Defense Minister. As reported, the court has frozen the appointment in response to a petition filed by Meretz party MKs, instructing Rabbi Karim to submit a document to the court explaining his halachic responses to the courts favor. Many are calling on Rabbi Karim to stand firm and not belittle himself or worse, create a chilul Hashem by trying to justify halacha to the states High Court of Justice. However, now the question remains why the IDF commanders are not challenging the court for second-guessing their decision and stamp of approval, which the Meretz MKs find unsatisfactory. In a brief interview with Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) on Tuesday, 21 Cheshvan, HaGaon HaRav Shlomo HaKohen Aviner Shlita spoke with host Razi Barkai, telling him you and your colleagues have a true talent for distorting statements and taking them out of proportion. Rav Aviner went on to explain that it is clear to all that Rabbi Karims piskei halacha are not viewed by anyone as practical responses as how to act today since Rabbi Karim was addressing the matter of Eishes Yifas Toar which Meretz and others prefer to interpret as Rabbi Karim giving the go-ahead for abusing women taken captive in wartime today. Rabbi Aviner stated it is clear to all that anyone with intelligence knows Rabbi Karim was not speaking about how one acts today, but the media prefers to distort as is the industry norm. The ceremony to replace the militarys Chief Rabbi was going to take place later this week as planned but in light of recent events and the courts ruling, it was announced on Tuesday 21 Cheshvan the ceremony was canceled for the time being. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) A policeman and a civilian were killed in a Sunday, October 9, 2016 terrorist shooting attack that occurred near National Police Headquarters in Yerushalayim; Yassam policeman Yosef Kirma HYD, 29 and 60-year-old Levana Malichi HYD. The terrorist, who was driving a vehicle, opened fire in a number of locations, leaving a number of people wounded until police finally neutralized him. During the probe into the fatal attack it was learned and IDF officer who was there turned around and fled instead of responding to assist or try to neutralize the terrorist. He is seen fleeing the scene in area surveillance video. While he was not ousted from the military, he was thrown out of his command position for acting contrary to that which is expected from an officer, the IDF Spokesmans Office message read. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) Tzfat Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu Shlita is counted among the growing number of rabbonim speaking out against plans to permit women to serve in the Tank Corps. In an interview with Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) on Tuesday 21 Cheshvan, the rabbi warned against the IDF acting complacently as it did prior to the Yom Kippur War and the result was costly. Rabbi Eliyahu highlighted the militarys need to emerge victoriously in battle, and this is what it should worry about rather than being concerned with more female combatants. IDF spokesman Brigadier-General Moti Almoz responded saying These protests never helped and they wont in this case either. Rabbi Eliyahus words were echoed by many, including retired Major-General Yiftach Ron-Tal and rabbonim representing hesder yeshivot. Joining the opposition is retired Yom Kippur War hero Brigadier-General Avigdor Kahalani, who stated a womans job is to be a mother. He warned the traumas of being a combat commander and seeing warfare would change these women forever and we will not be pleased with the outcome. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) A petition was filed with the High Court of Justice by the family of Mohammed Abu-Khadir, the Beit Haninah neighborhood youth from the capital was who abducted, beaten and burned alive by Jews in 2014. The court this week discussed if the policy of razing homes, a policy used against families of Arab terrorists, would extended to Jewish terrorists. One of the murderers convicted of the attack was sentenced to life imprisonment and associates received lesser sentences. Attorneys for the Abu-Khadir family explained to the court there must be one law for all and the state cannot maintain a double standard. Justice Neil Hendel responded It doesnt matter to me if it is a Jew or an Arab, citing the policy of home destructions is used in the hope of preventing future attacks and loss of life. they argued that even if there are a few, a handful of Jews planning murderous attacks, the destruction of a home would serve as a deterrent to others as it does in the Arab sector. While the others justices, Zilbertal and Rubinstein were inclined to agree, the state maintains the policy should not be used against Jews for it has not in the past and is not necessary today. The state added that if chas vsholom there was a wave of Jewish acts of terror, then such a policy would have to be considered. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) Jerusalem Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi HaGaon HaRav Aryeh Stern Shlita has sent a letter of support to Rabbi Eyal Karim, who is expected to become the next IDF Chief Rabbi but whose path is frozen by a recent High Court of Justice ruling. In his letter, Rabbi Stern expresses chizuk for Rabbi Karim and expresses confidence in his abilities to serve the IDF proudly as its next Chief Rabbi. Rabbi Stern adds As a rav I have always tried not to deal with maters I am not expert in and I hope that others will not attempt to involve themselves in matters other than their professions, clearly referring to the High Courts and politicians involving themselves in halachic papers and piskei halacha written by Rabbi Karim. There is also criticism against Rabbi Karim for allegedly saying during the 2005 expulsion from Gush Katif that if he was serving as Chief IDF Rabbi at the time, he would not have told soldiers to obey orders as the then-IDF Chief Rabbi did. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) MK (Yesh Atid) Elazar Stern told Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) on Tuesday 21 Cheshvan that he stands firmly behind the appointment of Rabbi Eyal Karim as the next IDF Chief Rabbi. Stern was quick to add that he always respects and must abide by High Court of Justice decisions, but in this case, he knows Rabbi Karim for decades as they were both in the military for many years. Stern is a retired major-general. Stern stated Rabbi Karim is suited as a soldier, officer and rav, and he has seen him function in many capacities in the military and feels he is a most suited candidate for the post. He also feels that the petition to the High Court of Justice by Meretz party MKs challenging the appointment was out of place after the appointment was approved by the IDFs Chief of Personnel Branch, IDF Chief of Staff and Minister of Defense. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has informed members of his cabinet they may not contact US President-Elect Donald Trump without coordinating with him in advance or alternatively, with the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Mr. Netanyahu sent his directive to his ministers on Monday, 20 Cheshvan. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has already violated an earlier directive from the Prime Minister when speaking about Israeli relations with the incoming US administration as Mr. Netanyahu instructed ministers to avoid public statements on the matter. In his public statements, Lieberman told the press he was hopeful Israel and the new US administration would reach an understanding regarding Yehuda and Shomron. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) President-elect Donald Trump doesnt wish to pursue further investigations into Hillary Clintons email practices, a top adviser said Tuesday, a turnaround from all the campaign rallies when Trump roused supporters to chants of lock her up. I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans dont find her to be honest or trustworthy, but if Donald Trump can help her heal then perhaps thats a good thing, Kellyanne Conway said on MSNBCs Morning Joe. That comes after months of Trump nicknaming his Democratic rival Crooked Hillary, questioning whether the Clinton Foundation is a pay-for-play scheme and raging against the Justice Department for refusing to prosecute her for blending private and official business on her homebrew email server. He told her face-to-face at a presidential debate that if he won the presidency, shed be in jail. Conways comments were striking because Justice Department investigations are historically conducted without the influence or input of the White House. Presidents do not dictate decisions on which criminal investigations are pursued or their outcome. The disparity between Trumps taunts on the campaign trail and his approach now, Conway suggested, is part of a purposeful shift away from at least the tone, if not the substance, of his past rhetoric. I think hes thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States and things that sound like the campaign arent among them, she said. Trump himself has appeared to waver on whether he would want to seek further probes into possible wrongdoing by the Clintons. Im going to think about it, he said in a 60 Minutes interview, his first sit-down interview after the Nov. 8 election. I feel that I want to focus on jobs, I want to focus on health care, I want to focus on the border and immigration and doing a really great immigration bill. We want to have a great immigration bill. And I want to focus on all of these other things that weve been talking about. Trump said in that interview that Clinton did some bad things, but ultimately the Clintons are good people and I dont want to hurt them. Conways comments came as Trump abruptly canceled a meeting with The New York Times on Tuesday, accusing the organization of changing the conditions for the session at the last moment. The newspaper denied this and said Trumps aides tried to change the rules. But Hope Hicks, speaking for Trump, said later the meeting was back on and hed be going to The New York Times later Tuesday. Trump met privately Monday with representatives of the television networks. The president-elect heralded more great meetings in his Manhattan tower as he continues shaping his administration before heading to Florida for Thanksgiving on Tuesday. (AP) [COMMUNICATED CONTENT] Amazing from beginning to end, ecstatic, fantabulous- no exaggerations! It was the first time that I made such an event, and the organizational aspects came out better than I ever thought they would. The Ribbono Shel Olam was in charge, so it was gevaldig! This was how Rabbi Moshe Yakov Gruskin, founder of Sparks of Life, the Jewish organization for those suffering from Parkinsons Disease, described the organizations representation the Fourth World Parkinsons Congress, which took place in Portland, Oregon from September 20 through September 23. Parkinsons is an extremely complex progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects movement. Early symptoms may typically include a barely noticeable tremor in one hand, but the disease progresses to include stiffness, slowing of movement, slurred speech, and more. Symptoms may gradually progress over decades, with no two progressions being exactly the same. There is no known cure for Parkinsons, although medications may slow the progression of the disease. Rabbi Gruskin, who works as a tireless fundraiser for a Lakewood yeshivah, was himself diagnosed with Parkinsons in 2009. However, instead of allowing the diagnosis to slow him down, Rabbi Gruskin was spurred on to do whatever he could to help his fellow Yidden who are also suffering from the disease. Last year, while in a doctors office, he noticed an advertisement for the third World Parkinsons Congress (WPC), to be held in Montreal, and decided to attend together with his son. I went to the conference, and was blown away by the information, support, and camaraderie that was offered there. They exude a very positive attitude; their main motto is Learn to live life to the fullest. The only problem was, there were only three frum people there out of 3700- myself, my son, and one other frum lady from Teaneck. About six months ago, Rabbi Gruskin founded Sparks of Life, an organization dedicated to bettering the lives of Jewish Parkinsons patients by providing an array of emotional, medical, and educational resources. The goal of these services is to enable those suffering from the disease to live fuller and healthier lives, to enhance their care, and to empower them to make positive choices. I saw that no one was doing anything like this so bmakom she-ein ish, recalls Rabbi Gruskin. I am the first such organization in the world, to my knowledge. Rabbi Gruskin hopes to create a full service organization with complete support, education, advocacy, financial assistance, a library, a gym with on site therapists, and more. Many of his ideas were culled from seminars at the convention. Sparks of Life held their first support meeting in Lakewood at the end of June 2016. We had no idea how many people would come; some told us it was a pipe dream. Parkinsons is very complex, and the cure is only in the hands of the Aibershter. Many of those who suffer are afraid of the stigma and shame. However, 100 people showed up and we were astounded. There is obviously a great need for this. When the time for this years WPC came around, Rabbi Gruskin decided to try to organize a frum contingency to attend. He knew how much he had gained from attending last year, and wanted to give others the chance to attend as well. With the support of the organizers of the WPC, Rabbi Gruskin was able to arrange for a separate area dedicated for the use of the frum attendees, kosher food, and minyanim. The set up allowed the frum attendees to benefit from all the conference has to offer, while having their unique needs accommodated. Perhaps most of all, the set up provided the frum attendees a chance to interact with each other, realize that they are not alone, and ultimately forge relationships with each other and emerge feeling as one, big, happy family. Mrs. D., whose father suffers from Parkinsons, attended the convention together with her parents and her sister. When we first heard about the convention, we thought it would be depressing, but it was just the opposite. The atmosphere was very positive, and the convention was extremely informative. It was very good for my mother, who is the primary caregiver for my father. What Sparks of Life has done for the the frum people is amazing, Mrs. D. continued. There were three kosher meals a day, minyanim, and a dedicated room for us which was open all day, which served as an oasis for us in the midst of thousands of people. We made connections, shmuzed with each other, and shared information; there was something so special about it. The Gruskins acted with such heart and ravchus- it was just amazing. Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a 27-year-old man has been named in a 20-count indictment in which he is charged with second-degree robbery as a hate crime and other charges for allegedly robbing three Russian women in their 60s, who were allegedly targeted because of their age. Acting District Attorney Gonzalez said, This defendant allegedly targeted older women to rob because he believed they were easy marks. Cowardly attacks such as these will not be tolerated in Brooklyn. We will work vigorously to prosecute all crimes based on age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and ethnicity. The Acting District Attorney identified the defendant as Akmaljon Abakulov, 27, of Midwood. He was arraigned today before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun on a 20-count indictment in which he is variously charged with second-degree robbery as a hate crime, second-degree robbery, third-degree robbery as a hate crime, third-degree robbery, fourth-degree grand larceny as a hate crime, fourth-degree grand larceny, third-degree assault as a hate crime, third-degree assault, petit larceny as a hate crime and petit larceny. He was ordered held on $125,000 bail and to return to court on January 25, 2017. The Acting District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, on October 12, 2016, at approximately 4 p.m., a 64 year-old woman withdrew $700 from a bank ATM on Kings Highway, put the money in a white envelope and put it in her purse. Shortly thereafter, the defendant allegedly approached the woman from behind, pushed her against a parked van and began rummaging through her purse. He allegedly took the envelope, pushed the woman and fled. The Acting District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, on October 24, 2016, at about 4:45 p.m., a 61-year-old woman noticed the defendant in the vicinity of East 16th Street and Avenue P. She then walked to East 14th Street, between Avenues O and P, at which point she felt someone tugging on her purse from behind. She turned around and saw the defendants face, then struggled with the defendant. He allegedly pushed her to the ground and fled with the purse, causing physical injury. Finally, on November 1, 2016, a 61-year-old woman who was shopping at T.J. Maxx, on East 15th Street, placed her handbag in a shopping cart, and put her coat over the handbag. She stepped away momentarily. When she returned to the cart, she noticed her wallet was missing and called 911. The arresting officer recovered video from the store that captured the theft. The defendant was arrested the next day when the store manager called police to alert them that the defendant was in the store. The investigation revealed that the defendant selected older women because he perceived them to be vulnerable to attack. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) We rely on your support to make local news available to all Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022. Donate today While Governor Andrew Cuomo takes steps to renew the controversial 421-a developer tax abatement on terms satisfactory to construction unions and the real estate industry, city and state regulators are continuing to grapple with New York City building owners who benefit from the tax break while flouting the law. Today, the Mayor's Office announced that it has threatened 178 building owners with tax benefit revocation unless they register their apartments as rent regulated, as the law requires. Without said registration, landlords technically on the hook to preserve about 20% of their apartments below market rate aren't being held accountable. "The 421-a tax program is a two-way street: landlords who receive these lucrative tax benefits must afford their tenants rent-stabilized leases and protections," said Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who's been working with city and state regulators to enforce 421-a compliance since 2014. The '70s-era tax incentive expired in January. And while real estate interests have argued that monetary incentive is essential if Mayor de Blasio hopes to achieve his goal of 80,000 new units of affordable housing over the next ten years, housing advocates have countered that the program lines the pockets of its current recipients while failing to ensure adequate affordable housing for New Yorkers. The program cost the city $1.2 billion in 2016, and a new report from the Alliance For Tenant Power estimates $2.4 billion a year in lost tax revenue under Cuomo's tweaked renewal plan. A recent ProPublica report found that nearly two thirds of the 6,400 rental buildings currently benefiting from 421-a don't have required rent stabilization paperwork on file with the state. In one infamous example, Two Trees Management saved more than $10 million in 421-a tax benefits on a luxury property on Court Street in Brooklyn Heights, while overcharging tenants an estimated $368,000. "If the city can't enforce 421-a as it is, why are we going to allow developers more years of subsidies?" wondered Cea Weaver, research and policy director for New York Communities For Change, a coalition of housing advocates for low-income New Yorkers. "When the city is facing a potential devastating loss of federal money, all this is doing is allowing people like Donald Trump who are real estate tycoons to get richer and richer." "It's great that the city finally wants to enforce the laws, but this is just more proof that they're not working," she added. The buildings targeted in this week's sweepwith 1,400 apartments between themallegedly committed a specific flavor of rule-evasion. Though their buildings operate as rentals, they are registered as condos or coops, skirting rent-regulation enforcement from city and state agencies. This week marks the latest in a string of similar crackdowns. Last year, compliance letters went to landlords of 285 buildings, 35 of which had their benefits revoked this fall. According to City Hall, the rest "either proved they are in compliance, or are curing the violations that have been uncovered." A separate deal with 17 landlords had them put 408 apartments to rent stabilization and pay $5 million into a fund to build low-income housing. Tenants march over the Brooklyn Bridge in May 2015 opposing the renewal of 421-a and calling for stronger rent laws (Emma Whitford / Gothamist). Legal Aid Attorney Ellen Davidson said Tuesday that while these crackdowns are encouraging, they're "a drop in the bucket." Also on Tuesday, the City Council's Finance and Housing and Buildings committees hosted a joint hearing on legislation that would require the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to audit 20 percent of buildings currently receiving 421-a benefitsanother effort to scare bad actors into compliance. "I think the auditing is a great step to require each agency to enforce its own laws," Davidson said. "It's hard to not support a bill that says the city has an obligation to follow up when it's giving away billions of dollars a year." Both Davidson and Weaver said that the tax revenue lost to 421-a would be better spent on rental subsidies for nonprofit developers committed to building deeply affordable housing. "Even if that means less units overall it will be units that actually matter," Weaver said. Appearing on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show last week, Mayor de Blasio criticized 421-a. "We can never allow the old 421-a to come back," he said. "It was a giveaway to real estate developers. It funded luxury condos with taxpayer money and didn't do enough to create affordable housing." But the mayor stopped short of calling for its revocation. "Our priority is ensuring that the ultimate legislation passed demands real affordable housing for our people and protects taxpayers from giveaways," said Mayoral Spokeswoman Melissa Grace. Britain's VW car owners should be compensated in full and so should its capital That's the brunt of a new letter written by the Mayor of London to Volkswagen, who wants the German carmaker to reimburse the city for lost Congestion Charge revenue from vehicles, which were unknowingly contributing to higher levels of pollution than tests suggested. As the call arrived, the under-fire manufacturer released details today of its 'TRANSFORM 2025+' strategy, which includes becoming the world market leader in electric mobility in a decade's time. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has written to Volkswagen over the dieselgate scandal and asked for the carmaker to reimburse TfL for 2.5 million in lost Congestion Charge payments Of the half-a-million VW vehicles registered to addresses in London, it is estimated 80,000 are models built between 2009 and 2015 - many of which are likely to be diesel cars equipped with the defeat devices and software used to mask the levels of emissions produced in real-world driving. Not only did it mean cars were able to fraudulently pass type approval testing, but in many cases some vehicles can still access London's Congestion Charge zones free of charge, despite emitting excessive amounts of dangerous pollutants. Sadiq Khan tallied the Congestion Charge bill at 2.5 million, saying the money paid to Transport for London would be used to educate children in areas most at risk to 'London's killer air'. In his letter, Mr Khan said: 'There is no excuse for the utter lack of action VW has taken in London since the 'dieselgate' scandal came to light. 'I want to see a proper commitment from them to fully compensate the thousands of Londoners who bought VW cars in good faith, but whose diesel engines are now contributing to London's killer air. 'I also urge them to reimburse TfL the 2.5 million lost in Congestion Charge revenue, which I will use to fund a new schools air quality programme that will reduce the exposure and raise the awareness of schoolchildren in London attending schools in the most polluted areas.' Research has claimed that 448 London school are currently situated in areas that exceed legal air quality levels. It is also estimated that 9,400 deaths occur in the nation's capital each year due to illnesses caused by long-term exposure to air pollution. The under-fire carmaker has revealed details of its TRANSFORM 2025+ strategy to 'create a new Volkswagen' by the end of 2030, which includes developing up to 30 new electric cars An official statement released today by the brand Board of Management CEO, Dr Herbert Diess, promised to 'create a new Volkswagen' - one that focuses heavily on the development of electric vehicles in an attempt to repair the damages dieselgate has done. It also comes with a new slogan that will be used worldwide: ' Volkswagen: Moving People Forward', which is expected to replace 'Das Auto' - translating to 'The Car' - that's currently used. Speaking from the brand's headquarters in Wolfsburg, Mr Diess said: 'Our goals are high and our strategy is very ambitious. We want to benefit from change and to take Volkswagen into the lead in the new automobile industry with determination. 'Over the next few years, Volkswagen will change radically. Very few things will stay as they are. 'In the final resort, the new strategy is a major transformation program.' Dr Herbert Diess, the brand Board of Management CEO at Volkswagen Mr Diess' announcement followed a statement made just days previous confirming that a restructure would see 23,000 employees in Germany face redundancies, with a further 7,000 jobs also under threat globally by 2020. However, 9,000 new jobs would be created through the carmaker's new objectives in the electric-vehicle domain. The manufacturer hopes the new measures will save VW 3.7 billion a year to help it cope with the mounting costs of the diesel emissions scandal. Just last month, the vehicle maker agreed a $14.7 billion (11.8 billion) class action settlement in the US and faces a barrage of individual law suits from around the world, including affected owners in the UK. Oarsome: Former private equity shark Sir Damon Buffini On top of his sinecure as chairman of the National Theatre, former private equity shark Sir Damon Buffini has now agreed to be an investment adviser to the Treasury. Sir Damon, 54, who enjoys a 200million fortune, has always been an energetic sort. He was once a regular in the gym at central London's swanky One Aldwych hotel, where a fellow member reports: 'He held the record for completing the fastest 500m on the rowing machine. Mind you, I used to see Stelios Haji-Ioannou panting away in there too, so perhaps there wasn't much competition.' Well-padded Mike Sherwood's shock departure as boss of Goldman Sachs' European tentacle prompts questions as to who'll succeed the bank's top dog, Dr Evil look-a-like Lloyd Blankfein, 62. Prior to his entwinement in the BHS saga, brash, 185m 'Woody', 51, was a much-fancied contender. Front runners are now thought to be finance officer Harvey Schwartz, 51, and Blankfein's restless deputy Gary Cohn, 56, who makes no secret of his yearning for the job. Vodafone's German-born ex-European chief executive Philipp Humm is hosting an exhibition of his oil paintings this week at London's Riflemaker gallery. Forced out of Vodafone during a management shake-up last year, Humm's critically lauded works command five-figure sums. To paraphrase Scott Fitzgerald, there are no second acts in business lives, but suave-looking Herr Humm, 57, is proving him wrong. Hosting a Q&A in New York last week, wavy gravy Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson, 66, produced a pair of scissors from his breast pocket and cut off an audience member's neck tie. He explains: 'My idea is that everyone would be far more comfortable, and therefore productive, without their ties. So cutting off every one I come across is turning my idea into reality.' Isn't Beardie just inviting violent behaviour? Listed among Financial Times's 'must-haves' for men: A silver Minas shaving set (8,500); an Hermes chess set (4,180); a man bag by Bottega Veneta (2,255). Vodafone has cancelled my direct debit three times and won't tell me why Ive been a Vodafone customer for six years and in April this year my direct debit was cancelled, which I did not request. After upgrading two of my iPads in May with Vodafone, I still had no message to tell me about the cancelled direct debit. In July I returned from my summer holiday to find several letters telling me I owed Vodafone 400 in unpaid bills. I called up and set up a new direct debit but in August no money was taken from my bank account and I received a text message saying the direct debit had been cancelled for a second time, so I called up and set it up again. In September once again I realised the money hadn't gone out so I had to call up again and pay and try and get it set up, for the third time. Ive just bought my first house and I dont have much free cash to pay these random lump sums, hence why I wanted to pay via direct debit in the first place. Ive also noticed the late payments have shown up on my credit rating so Ive been refused credit for new furniture I needed to buy. This is not the best start when buying my new home and the whole thing has been a complete nightmare, is there any way I can get this sorted? Kayleigh Gibson, via email. Rebecca Rutt, of This is Money, replies: Paying by direct debit for a monthly phone contract should be an easy, straightforward way to make sure you dont ever miss a payment or fall into arrears. However in your case youve spent the past six months trying to set your direct debit up properly, after Vodafone cancelled it and gave you no reason for doing so. Youve had to call it several times to try and get the problem sorted but youve still not been able to get your direct debit working and Vodafone has given no explanation to you as to why it cancelled it in the first place. Vodafone has cancelled my direct debit three times and put a black mark on my credit score On top of this youve just bought your first home and the saga with Vodafone has left a black mark on your credit score, which you claim has prevented you from accessing credit to buy new furniture for your home. We got in contact with Vodafone to find out what had happened. After an investigation, a spokesperson confirmed there had been a process failure with your account which it is looking into. They told us in a statement: Weve been in touch with Ms Gibson to apologise for her recent experience and to confirm that we have reset her direct debit and will monitor the next billing period to make sure everything works as it should. Any failed payments have been credited so there is nothing owing on the account and we have corrected her credit file. Weve also made a goodwill payment in recognition of the problems she has faced recently. ARE YOU HAVING A PROBLEM WITH VODAFONE? Are you having problems with a Vodafone contract? This is Money would like to hear your story. E-mail: rebecca.rutt@thisismoney.co.uk You have confirmed a goodwill payment of 75 has been paid and that the direct debit is now working. However, while things are sorted now, theres no excuse for it taking so long, or for it only happening once we got involved. Another route you could have taken is complaining officially to Vodafone, and then after eight weeks taking your complaint to the ombudsman if you werent happy with the response from Vodafone. Complaints about Vodafone are dealt with by the Ombudsman Services: Communications which can look into issues such as yours independently and could ask Vodafone to pay you compensation for the time youve spent trying to resolve the problem. Con artists enjoyed lavish lifestyles after duping pensioners out of more than 7.5million. A total of 193 pensioners were fleeced as they were led to believe they would make huge returns from investments that never came to pass. Instead the fraudsters spent the money on luxury cars, exotic holidays, cosmetic surgery and shopping sprees in Harrods. Migle Sasyte, who is in a relationship with Vladimir Rusaliychev (pictured with Sasyte) who was also convicted for his role in the scam, will be sentenced in January A court heard how the nine-man operation ran a Wolf Of Wall Street-style boiler room to cold-call savers. Michael Foran, 27, Kallan Henry, 26 and Migle Sasyte, 31 were yesterday convicted of offences relating to the swindle after a five-week trial at Southwark Crown Court. Foran was jailed for four-and-a-half years while Henry was imprisoned for 18 months. Sasyte, who is in a relationship with Vladimir Rusaliychev who was also convicted for his role in the scam, will be sentenced in January. The fraudsters spent the money on luxury cars, exotic holidays, cosmetic surgery and shopping sprees in Harrods Their firms London Carbon Credit Company (LCCC) and Henderson International roped in customers by telling them they could profit in an 'ethically sound fashion' by buying carbon credits which polluting companies have to buy. However, they did not disclose there was no real market for selling carbon credits making them worthless. LCCC disappeared overnight in 2012 and was replaced with Henderson International, and customers were persuaded to transfer their pension funds. James Francis Byrne, owner of LCCC and mastermind of the operation, was also convicted alongside his father James Patrick Byrne, manager Young Erumuse, training manager Samuel Henriot and salesman Max Jefferys. Theresa May insisted last night that Britain must 'live within our means once again' as she dampened hopes of any major budget giveaways. Speaking ahead of tomorrow's Autumn Statement, the Prime Minister declared: 'We will continue to cut the deficit, reduce our debt, and return to a fiscal surplus in the years ahead.' The comments, at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference in London, came just a day after Philip Hammond warned the national debt was at 'eye-watering' levels. Balancing act: Chancellor Philip Hammond warned the national debt was at 'eye-watering' levels It set the scene for a sober statement from the Chancellor tomorrow. 'He will commit to providing a strong and stable foundation for our economy: continuing the task of bringing the deficit down and getting our debt falling so that we can live within our means once again,' said May. Figures published today by the Office for National Statistics are set to reveal the Government is still spending far more than it receives in tax despite years of austerity. One of the City's most powerful bankers last night bemoaned his friendship with Sir Philip Green as he announced his departure from Goldman Sachs. Michael Sherwood, often tipped as a successor to Goldman chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, is quitting the investment banking giant after a three-decade career. The 51-year-old, who earned 17million last year and owns Goldman shares worth 62million, oversaw the bank's growth in Europe as vice-chairman and co-chief executive of Goldman Sachs International, its London-based arm. Departure: Michael Sherwood, pictured with Sir Philip Green, left, and CNBC broadcaster Tania Bryer, was often tipped as a successor to Goldman chief executive Lloyd Blankfein But he became embroiled in the scandal surrounding BHS after it emerged he advised Green during the sale of the High Street chain to former bankrupt Dominic Chappell a year before it collapsed. Sherwood denied his departure was related to the BHS controversy and branded his relationship with Green dubbed Sir Shifty by his critics a 'blip'. He told the FT: 'I've been talking to Lloyd since well before that about what I want to do next. He has spent most of his time trying to persuade me to stay. 'On Philip Green, I wish we hadn't been involved and I certainly don't think we did much wrong. It is one blip in a 30-year career and it really played no part in my decision.' Sherwood (pictured with Green, left, and CNBC broadcaster Tania Bryer) plans to focus on his personal investments and charitable work. 'I'm absolutely going to take some break before I decide to do anything,' he said. 'I've been a Goldman Sachs addict and it's very hard to come off an addiction.' 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 New Yorker who is heading into Thanksgiving in search of things to be thankful for during this dark time of political upheaval. Dear Jake, I read your last two essays about the current situation and they helped cheer me up a little bit, but I'm still feeling really low about the future of the country. Yesterday my kid's homework assignment was to make a list of things to be thankful for, and I actually had to excuse myself to the bathroom to cry for a few minutes. Is there anything else you can say to cheer me up? What are you thankful for right now? Yours, Way Down in Downtown Brooklyn A native New Yorker responds: Dear Way Down, I'm right there with you, emotionally. The last two weeks has felt like a rollercoasterexcept one that only goes down, with each day bringing more bad news. Trump's announced cabinet appointments and staff are hard-right maniacs and extremist anti-Semites, he has continued to use Twitter to distract and attack the press, and all signs point to a completely kleptocratic approach to governance, with his business and political interests inextricably entwined. The only bulwark against a complete slide into Russian-style oligarchy seems to be the Republican Senate, which has thus far professed no interest in restraining any of Trump's moves. So what keeps me going? I've been cheered up by seeing the great demonstrations that have come togethersuch a diverse group of people, old and young, from all races and backgrounds. When you look at the signs, you see some are Black Lives Matter protestors, others are more concerned about women's issues, many are out protesting against Trump's immigration policy, and plenty are standing up for LGBTQ rights. We haven't witnessed this degree of solidarity on the left since Occupy Wall Street, and even then, I don't think there was as much consensus that, in Ben Franklin's words, "We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." My parenting and work responsibilities have kept me from hitting the streets (although Gothamist photographers and reporters have been going out as often as we can), but I did get out to a great meeting organized by Brad Lander in Park Slope last week. More than a thousand of my neighbors showed up, and there was a real sense of togetherness and purpose. Lander gave an invocation based on the experiences of Frederick Douglass resisting slavery, along with Douglass's famous advice to all young people: "Agitate, agitate, agitate!" Then the staff of some great local not-for-profits spoke: Planned Parenthood NYC, NY Immigration Coalition, 350Brooklyn, Take on Wall Street, and the Brooklyn Movement Center. Each group appealed not just for donations, but also direct action: coming to their marches, volunteering at their events, and providing material or services. Hearing from so many organizations and people committed to resisting the coming regime was a boost for me, but what really lifted my spirit was the end of the event, when Faiza Ali, a community liaison for the City Council Speaker's office, gave a moving speech about getting harassed for wearing a headscarf when she was a teenager in the days after 9/11, and how no one stepped in to help. She then introduced Virginia Goggin from the Anti-Violence Project, who taught the entire assembled group how to be an "upstander"how to intervene if you see anyone getting harassed or attacked in our city. Seeing a whole crowd of people commit to stepping up like that just made me feel that somehow, with enough good people doing their best, we'll make it through this time. I've also continued to be cheered by the unified reactions of our local elected officials, at every level, from the Governor, to the Mayor, to our Comptroller, Public Advocate, and City Council. They've given speeches, done interviews, and made it clear to anyone who will listen that attempts to change our way of life in New York will not be tolerated, and if necessary, actively repelled. It's terrible that so many millions of Americans live in states with governments less committed to defending their citizens, but I feel fortunate and grateful that we live in such a place. Yes, I know that if the worst comes that may not be enoughbut it sure beats the alternatives. What else am I thankful for? Really it's been the simple things, like spending time with my kids, who are too young to understand the news (although my 6 year old son has started spontaneously saying "they should dump Trump in a garbage can!"). I've also been doing a lot of exercise: biking in Prospect Park and to and from work as much as I can, taking walks at night with my wife, where we just enjoy talking about anything other than the news, and smelling that New York autumn smell... I think it's decaying leaves mixed with fireplaces burning wood. I'm also looking forward to seeing my friends and family for the holiday. Some people may not have that optiontry to think if there's anyone you know in that situation and see if you can invite them to your meal. That's a real mitzvah, especially in these times when we need fellowship the most. If you want to do even more, consider these great volunteer options Gothamist put togethernot just for Thanksgiving day, but for the rest of the year and beyond. Local volunteerism is how we keep our community spirit going, and our poor and vulnerable protected, during what will surely be a time of cuts in federal support. I can't pretend that I'm not feeling depressed. Trump's victory was a terrible blow to the progress we've made as a country, and the values I was taught growing up here in New York. But I know defeat is only inevitable if good people don't stand up and fight in whatever way they can, so I'm going to just continue writing essays, going to meetings, covering protests, and doing whatever else I can think of to turn the arc of history back towards justice. It's not going to be an easy time, but when you think about it, most humans haven't had an easy time: the last generation had Vietnam, the one before that World War II, etc. Sure, we might have thought that surviving 9/11, the Bush years, and the Great Recession was enough challenge for one life, but it turns out there's more to do. Let's all enjoy the holiday, and then put our shoulders to the wheel. In Solidarity, Jake N.B.: If, like many of us, you are struggling with anxiety in the aftermath of the election, here's some further reading on ways to cope with it. And remember, you are not alone! Most people who voted in this election cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton, and it's likely that the majority of them are at least as outraged and upset as you are. Let's rally together! Ask a Native New Yorker anything via email. Anonymity is assured. I am offering the solution to a problem most Republicans don't know they have -- that they can be outmaneuvered and thrown on the defensive endlessly, on nearly any issue, because they accept as true Democrat lies about the Republican Party. To correct that misperception and to help the Republican Party get 'back to basics' is why I'm a man on a mission. A few years ago, after one of my speeches, a man told me "Do you know what your problem is? You're too far ahead of your time!" My efforts to show Republicans how they would benefit from celebrating the heritage of our Grand Old Party have been arduous, but if this were easy someone else would have already done it. Among my speech topics are Reconciling the Tea Party and the GOP; Barack Obama, the Worst President Ever; Socialism, the new Slavery; Appreciating the Heritage of our Grand Old Party; Returning to the Founding Principles of the United States; The Womens Rights Achievements of our Grand Old Party; Abraham Lincoln, Republican; Frederick Douglass, Republican; Martin Luther King and the Republican Civil Rights Legacy. MBABANE Swazis joined thousands of their Southern African counterparts in expressing their bewilderment at Prophet Lethebo Rabalongo of the Mount Zion General Assembly (MZGA) church who used insect spray, Doom, to heal his congregants. Social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, were abuzz after the news was reported by eNCA that the prophet from Limpompo literally sprayed his church members with the green canister while claiming that the product could not only destroy demons, but also heal diseases such as ulcers, cancer and HIV. Church has become too poisonus for my liking, wrote Fundizwi, who is a Swazi, on his Facebook account. The social media users commented that just after they were getting over pastors who made their congregants drink petrol and eat grass, they were now subjected to this. Images on the internet show the prophet spraying the insecticide on the faces and legs of the individuals. I find this very disturbing. A pastor from the MZGA congregation is spraying people with Doom insect repelant to heal them, wrote another. Others found the hilarious side to this as they had already created memes such as one titled Babes WeDoom while others said he should be arrested as his act was criminal. Pastor: Whats wrong? Person: Something keeps bugging m... Pastor: Say no more... #Doom, were some of the many trending statements. MBABANE Enraged Mangwaneni residents forced their way into the Mbabane Municipal Council chambers as they demanded answers from Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gideon Mhlongo following an incident of a burnt resident on Friday. The residents were yesterday found seated outside the council offices and highlighted that they had made a request to see Mhlongo. They were heard saying they refused to tolerate the kind of abuse meted out on their severely injured fellow resident, Mfanzile Hlophe who was burnt in front of his 12-year-old child; allegedly by city rangers. They said they had come to the municipality to get answers from the CEO on why hlophe would be harmed in such a way. Residents alleged that Hlophe had informed them (residents) that he followed all proper procedure in building his house, which council had come to demolish. They agreed to force their way into the municipal council offices. Mayor Mayor Benito Jones, who is also CounciLlor of Mangwaneni, came out of the council building and talked to the residents. He urged them to deal with the matter in a polite and respectful manner and indicated that he understood that they were emotional following what transpired on Friday. If we want to deal with this issue and yield the desired results, let us be calm and address the matter with respect, said Jones. For a while, they listened but eventually lost their patience and decided to force their way into the building. When council staff realised that the residents were inside and had no intention of leaving before they were addressed by Mhlongo, they eventually let them inside and directed them to the chambers. MBABANE A female traditional healer who gave robbers muti to avoid being arrested has been found guilty for her contribution to the commission of the crimes. Masinda Dlamini, Mfana Yende, Mpendulo Ndzinisa, Sandile Gamedze, Nhlakanipho Dlamini consulted the traditional healer, Jabulile Dvuba, before breaking into the residence of Asians at Madonsa. Gamedze and Dlamini (Nhlakanipho) were turned into Crown witnesses. The robbers had been informed by a maid, one Mihla, who worked for the Asians that her employers kept a lot of money in a suitcase in the house, which was estimated to be about E550 000. During the robbery, one of the Asians, Abbas Ashraf, was shot dead. All the suspects, who are still to be sentenced, were arrested and charged with the counts of murder and robbery. Masinda was also charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition. In total, the indictment contained eight charges. After the crime was committed in April 2012 in Madonsa, the suspects shared the spoils equally among themselves and the traditional healer. Before they set out to rob the Asians, the robbers consulted Dvuba in order to get muti to successfully carry out the attack and she did not turn them down. Accomplice witnesses, Gamedze and Dlamini said Dvuba was informed that they were soliciting her services in order to successfully commit the crime. In her reading of the bones, Dvuba told her clients that the money they wanted to steal was being looked after by something. She went on to advise them to be cautious and gave them some muti and it was agreed that they would share the loot equally among themselves. For her services, she charged them E2 000. They had to smear or rub some of the muti on the soles of their feet and also swallow or ingest some of it before putting on their balaclavas. On their first attempt, they failed to carry out the robbery since there were too many people moving about and they returned the muti to the traditional healer since she had instructed that it should not be kept with them overnight. MBABANE Suspended teacher turned pastor accused of killing his wife Funekile Mdluli has given his version of how she died. For the first time ever, Themba Masimula broke his silence and vehemently denied having killed his wife in cold blood. Instead, he painted a picture that he was an adoring husband and loving father and claims to be still shocked about what happened. He made the revelations in his affidavit annexed to his application for bail filed by his attorney Noncedo Ndlangamandla. He alleged that on the day of the incident, which he described as unfortunate, they travelled together with his wife (deceased) to Manzini where they were going to his fathers place who had just passed away. According to Masimula, they had gone there to meet the rest of their family members. He pointed out that when they arrived there, his wife joined other women to prepare food for the mourners who had come to pay their last respects. We then left Manzini for church where I was to preach. We were in church until the early hours of the morning when were travelled to Nkhaba, alleged the man of the cloth. The clergyman mentioned that he suggested that they spend a the at Nkhaba since he was tired but his wife insisted that they return to her company house in Piggs Peak because they had left their children with a maid. He alleged that since he was the one driving the car at that time when they arrived at Nkhaba, he alighted to open the gate and went inside the house. Masimula said his wife remained in the car and took the drivers seat in preparation to reverse the car. I changed clothing since I was wearing a suit and it was wet with perspiration and took same with me to the car so it could be dry-cleaned in Piggs Peak, alleged the pastor. He alleged that they left Nkhaba and at that point his wife was driving and he dozed off on the passengers seat. Masimula claimed he was woken up by some noise as the car was heading towards a ditch and his wife fell asleep while behind the steering wheel. Comment Its bad enough that a majority of our population is poor while the working class has very little to boast about where salaries are concerned, but having businesspeople-cum-fraudsters cash in on our vulnerability to all things affordable is a big No-No! We cant afford to stand by and watch while thousands of people are being conned of their hard-earned money by schemers who make them believe that they are getting value for money when purchasing import cars commonly known as Dubais. These cars are being sold with fraudulent mileage readings and priced way above their actual worth. It turns out, this practice cuts across ALL cars; local or imported! Those with the sophisticated gadgets proudly claim to be making a killing for their services because the gullible public is only too happy to own a vehicle it can afford. This is fraud! The car dealers are obligated to give full documentation of the car history but some of these certificates are being doctored and several dealers refuse to avail them to potential clients. We also appeal to those responsible for regulating the motor industry in this country to make it explicitly illegal to tamper with the mileage. If it is illegal to fiddle with the chassis number of a vehicle, why isnt it illegal to change the mileage because this forms part of the vehicles DNA? Like the age of a person on a birth certificate - you cant change it. Its pretty obvious that the only motivation for a dealer to cook the mileage is to bulge his belly with hefty profit while the customer starves to death by having to spend more than what he/she had bargained for! The Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry needs to step in here and licences must be revoked where this malpractice is discovered. Police have invited owners of these cars who may have been scammed to come forward with all the documentation for purposes of investigating criminal activity that may lead to possible charges. We would like to urge the public owners of these vehicles to do just that and include names of all those dealers refusing to provide legitimate documentation! Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Gina Martinez Howard Kwait, the principal at John Bowne High School in Flushing, is being accused for the fourth time of sexual assault, according to a new lawsuit filed in Brooklyn federal court. Lauren Prettitore, a former guidance counselor who worked at the school from 2002 until this year, claims that Kwait endlessly sexually harassed her with both heinous and lascivious comments as well as physical assaults on her person. Prettitore, who is openly gay, lists multiple occasions of verbal sexual assault in the suit, which also names the city Department of Education. She says during a Christmas break the schools entire staff received an e-mail which referred to five women, including Prettitore, as part of a five star lesbian club. In the suit Prettitore says that Kwait, described as the pervy principal, was excited by the fact that she was a lesbian and saw her sexual orientation as a personal challenge he needed to conquer Prettitore claims that during a meeting with several colleagues present, Kwait leaned over and asked her: Do you use that silk belt you are wearing during sex? On another occasion during preparation for the new year, Kwait allegedly told Prettitore if she achieved a high graduation rate, he would perform oral sex on her. Prettitore says the harassment was not just verbal. On an outing with co-workers Kwait forcibly pulled her towards him in an attempt to seat her on his lap and whispered in what he thought was a seductive voice, according to the complaint. He allegedly also caressed her earlobes and rubbed them between his fingers. The suit also accuses the principal of asking staff members to fix students failing grades even if they did not deserve them. When they objected, he threatened the staffers by asking them to look for employment elsewhere, it says. Prettitore claims that she suffered extreme mental anguish, outrage, severe anxiety about her future and her ability to support herself and her family. She is seeking $2.5 million in damages. This is the fourth suit filed against Kwait. The complaint includes exhibits giving the details of three earlier suits against Prettitore that were settled. In 2015 the city settled for $275,000 with teachers Maria Catenacci and Sally Maya. In 2012 the city settled for an undisclosed amount with an assistant principal who accused Kwait of discriminating against her because she was pregnant, according to the New York Post. The city also paid $225,000 in a settlement over a student who was falsely accused of sending threatening e-mails. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Gina Martinez President-elect Donald Trump has made immigrants in Queens nervous with his campaign rhetoric to build a wall to keep out Mexicans and to deport illegal residents. Several Queens lawmakers have said they have gotten calls from constituents asking what can be done. I represent the most diverse district in the entire country with over 200 nationalities, state Assemblyman Francisco Moya (D-Jackson Heights) said. A lot of immigrants have concerns with this new administration coming in. Moya held a press conference at City Hall Wednesday morning in defense of DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, asking that President Obama pardon all DACA students in the country. DACA is an executive action from Obama that allows undocumented immigrants who entered the country at a young age to work temporarily for a fee and avoid deportation. DACA is under threat because it can be immediately overturned by Trumps administration. Its an important step, he said. In New York we have a sanctuary state where you dont have to fear being stopped for your immigration status. The importance of it is calming the fear, to push for different thing we can do before Obama leaves, especially a pardon to be able to go to school and get an education. Moya said that in the upcoming months there are several rallies being planned. On Election Day Latina women in particular came out in large numbers at PS 69 in Jackson Heights to vote against Trump because of his anti- immigrant stance. Im a Republican, but Im voting for Hillary. What Trump has said about Latinos is inexcusable, said Angelina Ramirez, a longtime resident of Jackson Heights. Theres no way I could vote for him. Maria Vera, another Jackson Heights resident, also voted against Trump. Latinos have a voice. Voting is an opportunity to have a place in this country, Vera said. Donald Trump was my motivation to vote. He said too many terrible things for me not to act on it. On Sunday 15,000 people gathered in protest against Trumps immigration policy. Make the Road New York, based in Jackson Heights, was part of the team that organized the march outside of Trump International Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The organization works to empower minorities and the working class, especially immigrants, through legal services, education and job training in Queens. The march was led by a 20 foot banner that read Aqui estamos, y no nos vamos! which translated from the Spanish says we are here, and we are not going anywhere. The march was meant to show the determination and resilience of the Latino community that strongly opposes Trumps anti-immigrant policies. Syrian government forces advanced quickly inside rebel-held east Aleppo on Monday, as the UN raised the alarm for nearly one million people living under siege in the war-wracked country. UN aid chief Stephen O\Brien told the Security Council that 974,080 people were now living under siege in Syria, a steep increase from 486,700 six months ago. The assessment follows mounting international concern over the fate of Aleppo, where 250,000 people are trapped in the east of the city under a government siege. President Bashar al-Assad\s regime lost control of the eastern part of Syria\s second city to insurgents in 2012, and its recapture would be its biggest victory in the country\s brutal five-year conflict. Rebel forces have steadily lost ground since regime ally Russia intervened to bolster Assad\s government last year. They faced a new blow Sunday when government forces backed by Iranian and Russian troops and fighters from Lebanon\s Shiite movement Hezbollah entered Aleppo\s Masaken Hanano district the first neighbourhood the rebels controlled in 2012. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said control of the northeastern Aleppo district could give regime forces an edge and isolate rebels from other areas held by insurgents. The monitoring group\s chief Rami Abdel Rahman said it was the biggest advance regime forces have made so far inside eastern Aleppo. "If they take control of Masaken Hanano, the regime will have line of fire control over several rebel-held neighbourhoods and will be able to cut off the northern parts of rebel-held Aleppo from the rest of the opposition-held districts," he said. Al-Watan newspaper, close to Syria\s government, described the neighbourhood as the "most important stronghold of the gunmen" in Aleppo. Once Syria\s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the conflict that began with anti-government protests in March 2011. A European diplomat said the government\s capture of east Aleppo appeared to be a matter of time. "Now, it\s just a question of how long they (rebel forces) can hold on," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is nothing to eat, no more hospitals and the bombardment is non-stop. They are under very strong pressure." Government forces have pounded east Aleppo with air strikes, barrel bombs and artillery fire since last Tuesday, in the latest phase of an operation the army announced in late September. The Observatory says more than 100 civilians have since been killed in east Aleppo, including at 15 who died Monday in regime air strikes, barrel bomb attacks and artillery fire. Rebels have also fired rockets onto government-held west Aleppo, killing 10 people including eight children on Sunday. But the new assault could spark a fresh humanitarian catastrophe, the UN\s Syria envoy has warned, and prompt a mass exodus of those trapped under regime siege. No aid has entered the east since government forces surrounded it in July, prompting food and fuel shortages in opposition-held neighbourhoods. In New York, UN aid chief O\Brien drew a bleak picture of life under siege for nearly one million Syrians, in his briefing to the Security Council. "Nearly one million Syrians are living tonight under siege," he said, including in the rural Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus. "Civilians are being isolated, starved, bombed, denied medical attention and humanitarian assistance in order to force them to submit or flee." O\Brien condemned this "deliberate tactic of cruelty" and said the sieges were mostly perpetrated by government forces against civilians. "The situation is horrific, catastrophic," said French ambassador Francois Delattre who accused the government of waging a "total-war strategy to take back Aleppo, no matter the price". On Sunday, US President Barack Obama said he was "not optimistic about the short-term prospects in Syria". UN envoy Staffan de Mistura on Monday wrapped up a visit to Damascus after the government rebuffed his plan for a truce in Aleppo that included opposition administration of eastern areas. "We told him that we reject that completely," said Foreign Minister Walid Muallem. De Mistura warned time was "running out" for east Aleppo, adding that there was concern about "an acceleration of military activities" in the city and other parts of Syria. Meanwhile the US on Monday named a dozen Syrian generals and officers accused of leading attacks on civilian targets, with its UN ambassador Samantha Power warning they would face justice one day. "The United States will not let those who have commanded units involved in these actions hide anonymously behind the facade of the Assad regime," Power told the Security Council. SOURCE: AFP Times' Game of the Week Preview: No. 7 Beaver Area vs. No. 10 Deer Lakes Beaver enters the WPIAL Class 3A playoffs riding high after closing the regular season strong. Up next: Deer Lakes for had coach Cort Rowse's Bobcats. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Saratoga Springs Moore Hall is no more. And construction of the condominium project that will replace it is under way. Demolition of the former Skidmore College dorm, also known as the "Pink Palace" because of its pink stucco exterior, started in September to make way for the five-building development, 46 Union Avenue Condominiums, on the 1.3-acre site. The new complex will have 26 one, two- and three-bedroom condos ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 square feet in size, said Brett Balzer of Balzer + Tuck Architects, which designed the Victorian-style buildings. The main building will face Union Avenue next to Empire State College and contain 18 units. The other four buildings will have eight units accessible by North Lane or White Street. Sonny Bonacio, president of the developing company Bonacio Construction, told the Times Union last week that prices had not been set because he has not filed his plans with the state attorney general's office. He said he planned to file the paperwork in February for approval by the state. Construction will take between a year and 15 months, Bonacio, who owns residential units in Saratoga, Troy and Glens Falls, said in September. Opened in 1957, the old dorm was the last major building built ahead of Skidmore College's move from Union Avenue to North Broadway. It was used for student housing until 2006, when Norstar Development bought the property from the college for $1.1 million. After years of sitting empty, Norstar eventually sold it in 2015 to Bonacio, who wanted to turn the property into 53 apartments, far exceeding zoning regulations for density at the site. Neighbors, citing parking scarcity and pedestrian and traffic safety issues, circulated an online petition that garnered more than 240 signatures opposing the construction. The new designs were later approved by the local zoning board. Leigh Hornbeck contributed. rdownen@timesunion.com 518-454-5018 @Robert_Downen This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Albany Robert Geer, the No. 2 executive at Albany's SUNY Polytechnic Institute, is stepping down at the end of the month to return to teaching. It appears to be the highest-profile departure since the school's former president, Alain Kaloyeros, resigned following his arrest on state and federal corruption charges. Geer, a physics professor at the University at Albany who rose to become Kaloyeros' top academic official, has led SUNY Poly's Utica campus since 2013 when he was tapped by Kaloyeros as interim president before the school's merger with UAlbany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. That merger created SUNY Poly. Geer, senior vice president and chief operating officer at SUNY Poly, held the No. 2 spot in the SUNY Poly hierarchy under Kaloyeros, according to organizational charts. As a professor, Geer's salary was $165,000, but as an administrator, his salary surpassed $200,000, rising to $279,000 this year, according to SUNY payroll data compiled by the Empire Center. Some observers thought Geer might be a candidate to lead SUNY Poly in the wake of the Kaloyeros scandal, but ultimately the State University of New York's board of trustees went with a relative outsider when it appointed Bahgat Sammakia, the vice president for research at Binghamton University, as interim president. It was not immediately clear whether Geer chose to resign or was forced out. SUNY spokeswoman Holly Liapis would not address specific questions about Geer's decision. There has never been any indication Geer had any connection to or knowledge of the allegations against Kaloyeros, who has been accused of awarding construction bids for hundreds of millions of dollars of SUNY Poly projects to favored developers. Geer will step down Dec. 1, at which time he will resume his SUNY Poly faculty post, according to a memo sent to the SUNY Poly community on Thursday the same day that Sammakia visited SUNY Poly's Utica campus. "I am writing to announce that Dr. Geer has made the decision to return to the faculty effective Dec. 1," wrote SUNY Vice Chancellor Alexander Cartwright, who has been overseeing SUNY Poly since the Kaloyeros arrest. "I want to express my thanks to his long-standing commitment to SUNY Poly and the positive impact he has made in his numerous leadership roles." For now, there does not appear to be any move to replace Geer. Sammakia officially begins as interim president on Dec. 1, and William Durgin, SUNY Poly's provost and chief academic officer at the Utica campus, remains in his post. Durgin has been at the Utica campus since 2012, back when it was still SUNY IT and led by Bjong Wolf Yeigh, who left in 2013 to become chancellor of the University of Washington Bothell. Geer is an expert in nanoscale measurement and computer chip manufacturing who has a long research publication history. He got his bachelor's degree in physics from Miami University in 1986 and his Ph.D. in experimental condensed matter physics from the University of Minnesota in 1991. News of Geer's departure from SUNY Poly's executive ranks comes after two other SUNY executives, Carl "C.J." Kempf III, a top lawyer at SUNY Poly, and Christine Waller, a grant administrator, left their jobs at the school earlier this month. lrulison@timesunion.com 518-454-5504 @larryrulison Albany The Capital Region's unemployment rate fell to 4 percent in October, tied with the Dutchess-Putnam metro for second lowest in the state, the state Labor Department reported Tuesday. The figure is down from 4.1 percent a year earlier. Five of the eight counties in the local economic development region were among those with the lowest unemployment rates statewide, state labor markets analyst James Ross said. They include Columbia (3.5 percent unemployment); Saratoga (3.7 percent); Albany (4 percent); Rensselaer and Washington (both 4.1 percent). The labor force was the smallest for October since 2001, falling to 442,700 people from 447,300 in October 2015 and a peak of 461,900 in October 2008. Gary Keith, regional economist for M&T Bank, says the labor pool shrinkage is occurring across much of upstate New York, and attributes it mainly to retirements. "There are fewer discouraged workers than there were," he said. "I don't see that as a big downward driver. I think it's the aging of the workforce." Statewide, unemployment rose to 5.2 percent from 5 percent in September. The statewide figures are adjusted to account for seasonal variations, while the local rates are not. eanderson@timesunion.com 518-454-5323 Albany Three Capital Region schools with a history of poor academic outcomes are on track to avoid a state-mandated takeover, according to data released Tuesday by the state Education Department. Albany High School, Philip J. Schuyler Achievement Academy in Albany and School 2 in Troy all made significant progress on test scores, graduation rates and other metrics in the 2015-16 school year enough to reassure school officials that if they keep up their efforts they can avoid losing local control to an outside administrator next year under the state's receivership program. "Not only did we meet those targets, we blew them out of the water," said Schuyler Achievement Academy Principal John Murphy in a spirited presentation to the city school board Thursday. Indeed, the elementary school had one of the state's highest "demonstrable improvement" scores in the first year of the program. On average, the state's 62 receivership schools met about 68 percent of the targets needed to show progress last school year. Schuyler Achievement Academy, meanwhile, met 92 percent of its targets, which included things like boosting proficiency on state reading and math tests, particularly among black and economically disadvantaged students. Albany High School met 75 percent of its targets and School 2 met 70 percent of its targets. Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed for a receivership program last year as a way to pressure so-called struggling schools into getting their act together. In July 2015, the state Education Department identified 145 schools for the program, and gave them one to two years (depending on how long they had been underperforming) to show progress or else face the possibility of an outside "receiver" taking over. Seven Capital Region schools originally made the list. Three were removed in February Hackett Middle School in Albany, Hamilton Elementary School in Schenectady and William B. Tecler Arts in Education Magnet School in Amsterdam after fresh data showed they shouldn't have been in the program in the first place. (Cuomo's office disagreed with this assessment, which came from the Education Department, and pulled receivership funding for schools that were removed). Lincoln Elementary School in Schenectady was removed this summer, after Superintendent Larry Spring successfully argued a district-wide rezoning had changed the student makeup and staff too much to accurately measure annual progress. That leaves three area schools in receivership for the 2016-17 school year, and again they will have to meet a majority of program targets or face a takeover as early as next summer. It will ultimately be up to state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia to decide whether a takeover is appropriate. "Virtually every school on the struggling schools list demonstrated progress on the indicators for which they committed to improve performance," Elia said. "But we can't let up now. The Regents, the Education Department and I will continue our efforts to help get all of these schools and all of their students on a path toward success." To view a complete report of how area schools performed, visit the Times Union Capitol Confidential blog bbump@timesunion.com 518-454-5387 @bethanybump This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Kiah the pit bull isn't just a loyal pet. She's also a dedicated public servant. The pooch became a narcotics detection and missing persons tracking dog after being rescued from homelessness and abuse. And, in July 2015, Kiah joined the Poughkeepsie Police Department as the state's first pit bull police dog. "She has become a national sensation, and is blazing a new path for other police departments and 'pit bull' dogs around the country," the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said in a news release. The animal rights organization honored Kiah last week as its 2016 Public Service Award recipient. Kiah was an injured stray, found abandoned in a parking lot, when she was rescued by Kirby Animal Care Services in San Antonio, Texas. The Kirby staff "quickly recognized her friendly demeanor and tireless energy," the ASPCA said. Staff members called Brad Croft, the trainer and founder of Universal K9, a program funded by the Animal Farm Foundation to train rescued pit bull dogs for law enforcement work. "After just a month of training, Kiah earned recognition as one of the most willing and dedicated law enforcement dogs Universal K9 has ever seen," the ASPCA said. Kiah was placed with Poughkeepsie police Officer Justin Bruzgul at no cost to the city. "In no time, she became his partner, his best friend and a beloved member of his family," the ASPCA said. Besides their tracking and detection duties. Kiah and Bruzgal visit schools and conferences to teach the public about animal rescue. The ASPCA honored Kiah for acting as an ambassador for rescued pit bulls. Kiah "demonstrates that rescued pit bull dogs can perform the same law enforcement work traditionally reserved for other breeds, and that any dog can have amazing underlying potential," the ASPCA said. Watch the ASPCA's video about K9 Kiah at http://bit.ly/2fmet52. emasters@timesunion.com 518-454-5467 @emilysmasters Albany A judge sentenced a four-time felon to almost four years in federal prison Tuesday for possessing a single bullet at a Niskayuna traffic stop last year. Tyson S. Jackson, 28, has convictions including robbery in 2006 and gun possession for shooting into a crowd in Schenectady last year. In June, he pleaded guilty to unlawfully possessing a single bullet. Under federal law, felons are barred from possessing bullets and weapons. Niskayuna police stopped him on Albany Street in possession of the 9mm Luger bullet in September, 2015, U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian's office said. "The defendant was prosecuted for possessing only a single bullet, but that bullet and other conduct demonstrate that he refuses to lead a law-abiding life despite spending nearly his entire adult life in custody," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Barnett told Senior Judge Gary Sharpe in a pre-sentencing memo. During a short stint of freedom in 2014, Jackson was shot. Barnett said Jackson believed in the phrase, "live by the gun, die by the gun." On Tuesday, Sharpe imposed a sentence of three years and 10 months in prison and three years' supervised release. He was sentenced to 10 years in state prison for the 2006 robbery a case in which police alleged that Jackson, then 18, shot two people, Barnett said. Jackson was released in February 2014 only to violate his parole a few months later and return to prison until June 2015. On Sept. 18, 2015, one week before his arrest for the bullet, Jackson fired into the crowd in Schenectady. Police reported no injuries. That same day, police discovered 13.5 grams of cocaine in his Rensselaer apartment. He pleaded guilty to drug possession and awaits sentencing. The bullet case involved the New York field office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Niskayuna police. Barnett called Jackson a "particularly bad recidivist who deserves the maximum imprisonment term" under federal sentencing guidelines, which was what the judge imposed. rgavin@timesunion.com 518-434-2403 @RobertGavinTU This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Michael P. Farrell Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Michael P. Farrell Show More Show Less 3 of 3 TROY - City police say Brunswick Road is now open to all traffic. National Grid remains on the scene of the one-car crash on Tuesday afternoon that brought down a power pole and closed the road, but it is not disrupting traffic. Although Honeywell Aerospace workers in Green Island voted to approve a new contract earlier this month, they remain locked out by the company since workers at a sister plant in Indiana voted the proposal down. Honeywell's unionized workers at its Green Island plant voted 30 to 6 to approve the company's contract offer after the company made concessions on health care costs and other issues. Broaden your expertise, enhance patient care, and never worry about another license requirement again with Elite Passport Membership. Available across ten healthcare professions in a variety of options to suit your career goals, Passport Membership propels your career advancement and offers exceptional value to healthcare providers. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The brazen escape of two killers from an upstate prison will soon hit the small screen. And it will focus on the role of their accomplice. Lifetime has announced production of "Prison Break: The Joyce Mitchell Story" the network's latest ripped-from-the-headlines drama with upstate ties. According to Deadline.com, Penelope Ann Miller will star as Joyce Mitchell, the former civilian prison worker who enabled the shocking 2015 escape from Clinton Correctional Facility by two murderers. Miller was sentenced to up to seven years in prison for her role in the plot that captivated the nation for three weeks. Myk Watford is slated to play Richard Matt, Joe Anderson will play David Sweat. Lifetime previously aired "Romeo Killer: The Chris Porco Story" based on the University of Rochester student who took an ax to his parents while they slept in their Bethlehem home in November 2004. Those who covered that case felt Lifetime took liberties with the facts and played up Porco's romantic exploits. Previously: Way too much Romeo in Porco film It was some time in the overnight hours between June 5 and 6, 2015, that Matt and Sweat slipped through holes cut in the rear of their adjoining steel-plated cells and navigated a labyrinth of catwalks and tunnels, slipped through a steam pipe and emerged through a manhole on a street a block from the Dannemora prison. They had stuffed sweatshirts to make it look like they remained in their beds, and it wasn't until 5:30 the next morning that that their disappearance was discovered. The pair eluded more than 1,000 searchers who combed the thick woods and bogs of northern New York for much of the next three weeks. Matt was killed by a border agent June 26. Sweat was wounded and captured by a state trooper two days later. Mitchell admitted to becoming close with the pair and agreed to be their getaway driver before backing out at the last moment. The two escapees were forced to scrap plans to head to Mexico and instead fled on foot after emerging from a manhole. Previously: A year after Dannemora escape, answers still elusive Mitchell, 51, who claimed she was in "way over my head" when she aided the escape that triggered a massive manhunt, is serving a sentence of 2 1/3 to seven years, according to her plea deal in the case. Mitchell told the court she feared one of the inmates, Richard Matt, would kill her husband if she did not go along with the plan. "I was scared for my husband and family's lives," Mitchell said. Plug Power, the Latham hydrogen fuel cell manufacturer, is planning to sell up to $200 million in stock or debt to raise capital for its global expansion. The company filed what is known as a shelf registration statement that allows it to raise money through the sale of stock or debt from time to time. The registration still needs to be approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. William Trevor, whose mournful, sometimes darkly funny short stories and novels about the small struggles of unremarkable people placed him in the company of masters like V.S. Pritchett, W. Somerset Maugham and Chekhov, died Sunday in Somerset, England. He was 88. His death was confirmed by his son Patrick Cox. Trevor, who was Irish by birth and upbringing but a longtime resident of Britain, placed his fiction squarely in the middle of ordinary life. His plots often unfolded in Irish or English villages whose inhabitants, most of them hanging on to the bottom rung of the lower middle class, waged unequal battle with capricious fate. In "The Ballroom of Romance," one of his most famous stories, a young woman caring for her disabled father looks for love in a dance hall but settles, week after week, for a few drunken kisses from a local bachelor. The hero of "The Day We Got Drunk on Cake" repeatedly phones a young woman he admires in between drinking sessions at a series of pubs. The relationship deepens and, during a final call in the wee hours, takes a sudden, unexpected turn. The emotional weather in Trevor's world is generally overcast, with a threat of rain. "I am a 58-year-old provincial," the narrator of the novel "Nights at the Alexandra" (1987) begins. "I have no children. I have never married." From this bleak premise, a mesmerizing tale unfolds. "I'm very interested in the sadness of fate, the things that just happen to people," Trevor told Publishers Weekly in 1983. William Trevor Cox was born in Ireland on May 24, 1928, in Mitchelstown, County Cork, to Protestant parents. His father, James, was a bank manager who took his wife, the former Gertie Davison, and children from one town to another, as promotions and transfers arose. An outsider by family circumstance and religion in a predominantly Roman Catholic country, Trevor learned at an early age to observe quietly from the sidelines, a skill that served him well as an Irish writer describing the British, and as an expatriate looking across the Irish Sea to the towns and villages of his youth. "I was fortunate that my accident of birth placed me on the edge of things," he wrote in The Guardian of London in 1992. After graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1950, he taught at a preparatory school in Northern Ireland. In 1952, he married Jane Ryan, whom he had met at Trinity. She and their son Patrick survive him, as do another son, Dominic Cox, and a granddaughter. In secondary school, Trevor had begun sculpting in wood, and his growing proficiency led to a job in England teaching art at schools in Rugby and Taunton as he developed a sideline carving statues for churches. He began showing in exhibitions and, working in wood, terra cotta and metal, he embraced abstraction. In 1958, he published a wispy comedy of manners, "A Standard of Behavior" (1958), which he later disowned. He also dropped his last name, to avoid confusion with his identity as a sculptor, although that chapter in his life was already drawing to a close. His abstract work, he later said, dissatisfied him because of its remoteness from humans. "I sometimes think all the people who were missing in my sculpture gushed out into the stories," he told The Times in 1990. To bring in income, he began working as a copywriter at Notley's, a leading advertising agency in London, where, he once said, he failed to produce a single usable line of copy. The job left him plenty of spare time, which he used to write fiction. He grabbed the attention of critics in 1964 with "The Old Boys," a blackly humorous account of former schoolmates who resume their old rivalries when they gather for a reunion. For the next half-century, most spent in the Devon countryside he most recently lived near Shobrooke Trevor turned out stories, novels and plays at a steady rate, developing an expanding world that readers came to recognize as Trevor territory. The brazen escape of two killers from an upstate prison will soon hit the small screen. And it will focus on the role of their accomplice. Lifetime has announced production of "Prison Break: The Joyce Mitchell Story" the network's latest ripped-from-the-headlines drama with upstate ties. According to Deadline.com, Penelope Ann Miller will star as Joyce Mitchell, the former civilian prison worker who enabled the shocking 2015 escape from Clinton Correctional Facility by two murderers. Miller was sentenced to up to seven years in prison for her role in the plot that captivated the nation for three weeks. Myk Watford is slated to play Richard Matt, Joe Anderson will play David Sweat. Lifetime previously aired "Romeo Killer: The Chris Porco Story" based on the University of Rochester student who took an ax to his parents while they slept in their Bethlehem home in November 2004. Those who covered that case felt Lifetime took liberties with the facts and played up Porco's romantic exploits. Previously: Way too much Romeo in Porco film It was some time in the overnight hours between June 5 and 6, 2015, that Matt and Sweat slipped through holes cut in the rear of their adjoining steel-plated cells and navigated a labyrinth of catwalks and tunnels, slipped through a steam pipe and emerged through a manhole on a street a block from the Dannemora prison. They had stuffed sweatshirts to make it look like they remained in their beds, and it wasn't until 5:30 the next morning that that their disappearance was discovered. The pair eluded more than 1,000 searchers who combed the thick woods and bogs of northern New York for much of the next three weeks. Matt was killed by a border agent June 26. Sweat was wounded and captured by a state trooper two days later. Mitchell admitted to becoming close with the pair and agreed to be their getaway driver before backing out at the last moment. The two escapees were forced to scrap plans to head to Mexico and instead fled on foot after emerging from a manhole. Previously: A year after Dannemora escape, answers still elusive Mitchell, 51, who claimed she was in "way over my head" when she aided the escape that triggered a massive manhunt, is serving a sentence of 2 1/3 to seven years, according to her plea deal in the case. Mitchell told the court she feared one of the inmates, Richard Matt, would kill her husband if she did not go along with the plan. "I was scared for my husband and family's" lives, Mitchell said, but the judge that argument rang hollow and that she could have stopped the escape plot at any point. Nobody's saying Maui, that most rascally of Polynesian demigods, isn't strong. He once beat the sun into submission with a jawbone and yanked the Hawaiian Islands out from the bottom of the ocean. Maui's strong. But big? Not so much. When the first trailers for "Moana" were released earlier this year, many fans of Maui were taken aback. In this Disney animated film, which opens Tuesday, Moana, a feisty, adventure-seeking teenager, sets off to locate the long-lost demigod. When she finds him, he looks nothing like the Maui of countless children's books. He's really big somewhere between Dwayne Johnson (who voices the character) and an Airstream trailer. He also has a head of thick, wild hair and biceps bigger around than his co-star's waist. So how did Disney's Maui get that size (and hair)? Slowly. "In early versions of the film, he was smaller," said David Pimentel, the film's head of story. "He was shorter and bald." But then he grew. For five years, Disney consulted scores of people throughout the South Pacific, specialists in fishing techniques and tattoos, ancient navigation and traditional dance. These experts formed the film's Oceanic Story Trust, and it was this group who pushed filmmakers for a bigger Maui. "They were telling us that he needs to be a hero, almost like Superman," Pimentel said. By the time the film's creators were done, Maui was so large that online critics thought Disney's version looked more obese than Olympian. Disney did upsize Moana as well. But while Moana has been celebrated for her extra heft and more realistic body shape, Maui has taken flak for his weight gain. "I totally get it," said David Derrick, a "Moana" story artist who is of Samoan descent. "But I think a lot of those things come from people being very nervous and scared that a big company is portraying this beloved cultural character. I believe that when they see the whole thing, they'll be won over by how we treated him." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate We're on to the final round of the Naughty or Nice Cookie Challenge presented by the Honest Weight Food Co-op and the Times Union. Last week we announced the six finalists in the contest, selected from among 60 entries. Three are "naughty" cookies, treats that are a little, or maybe more than a little, on the indulgent side. Three are "nice" cookies, recipes that take a health-conscious approach to holiday baking: vegan, gluten-free, raw cookies or cookies that are free of refined sugars. Photographs of the six cookies in the finals (baked by the staff at Honest Weight) and a description of the recipes were posted in a photo album on the Times Union's Facebook page. People voted for their favorites in both the Naughty and the Nice divisions by "liking" their favorite photos. Those votes have now been tallied, and so far, Johanne Friedman of Niskayuna is ahead in the Nice division with her Orange Cranberry Pecan Shortbread, and Stephanie Espinal of Albany leads the Naughty division with her Szechuan Peppercorn Gingersnap. Online votes will be added to the People's Choice votes. So now, the people are asking, when do we get to taste and vote? Mark your calendars for 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 3, when we hold the People's Choice tasting and voting portion of the competition at the Honest Weight Food Co-op, 100 Watervliet Ave., Albany. There, you'll be able to sample and cast a ballot for your favorite cookie in each division. The cookie in each division with the most online and People's Choice votes will win. The winners receive a prize package from Honest Weight, and the co-op will bake and feature those cookies for sale at the store during the holiday season. We'll announce the winner in the Food section and at timesunion.com on Dec. 8, as well as publish all of the finalists' recipes. And just to refresh your memory: NICE DIVISION Amazon Cookies Submitted by: Lauren Magin, Albany Recipe origin: Self-developed Description: Vegan and gluten-free, these cookies feature Brazil nuts, which have a high content of selenium, potassium and healthy fats. Peanut butter, unsweetened coconut and vegan chocolate chunks are also in the mix. Orange Cranberry Pecan Shortbread Submitted by: Johanne Friedman, Niskayuna Recipe origin: Self-developed Description: Vegan, gluten-free and free of refined sugar, these cookies are sweetened with maple syrup and include oats, almond flour and tapioca starch. Orange peel, dried cranberries and pecans provide the flavor. Jamtastic Wedding Sandwich Cookies Submitted by: Theresa Houghton, Rensselaer Recipe origin: Self-developed using traditional Mexican wedding cookie Russian tea cake recipes as the base Description: These cookies are vegan, but the baker says they're not quite health food. The recipe employs almond milk and whole-wheat flour for the cookie and raspberry maple jam from Jamtastic, a Vermont company. NAUGHTY DIVISION Szechuan Peppercorn Gingersnap Submitted by: Stephanie Espinal, Albany Recipe origin: Adapted from a recipe on Epicurious.com Gourmet magazine (She added fresh ginger, molasses and additional spices.) Description: A cookie that leaves your mouth tingling, it brings some heat with Chinese five-spice powder, Szechuan peppercorns and fresh ginger. The molasses cools everything down. Chocolate Jalapeno Cookies Submitted by: Marion Field, Ballston Lake Recipe origin: Adapted from a traditional Mexican chocolate cookie recipe Description: Bittersweet and dark chocolate combine with crystallized jalapeno peppers for a crackle cookie with a spicy twist. There's another surprise ingredient inside white pepper. Nanny's Red Raspberry Coconut Bars Submitted by: Catharine McHugh, Newtonville Recipe origin: Developed by Catharine McHugh's mother Description: There's a lot of texture in these bars, which involve a crust that uses lemon peel, a filling that has walnuts in the raspberry jam and a crusty meringue top layer that includes coconut. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The sharply worded letter released Sunday by Frank Commisso Jr. and his allies was more than a critique of Mayor Kathy Sheehan's proposed budget. It was the opening shot of Albany's mayor's race. Now, I realize we're only two weeks removed from a presidential campaign that has left us all fatigued. Many of you would rather read about the passage of a gallstone than another election. But the mayor's race is revving up whether we like it or not. And this one promises to be a doozy. Let's begin with a review of the landscape and the likely candidates. First, there's Commisso. He's a longtime Sheehan critic whose dad, Frank Commisso Sr., is the longtime majority leader of the Albany County Legislature. That connection plays a role in today's story, as I'll explain in a bit. Next there's Sheehan, of course, who would seem to be in a strong position for re-election, given that Albany tends to keep its mayors around for awhile. She is also allied with County Executive Dan McCoy. Some may find that alliance odd, but it isn't surprising when you consider a.) McCoy and Sheehan have worked well together during the mayor's single term in office and b.) McCoy would probably prefer that the Commisso family not control the County Legislature and City Hall. Makes sense to me. Lastly, there's Carolyn McLaughlin, president of the Common Council and another vocal Sheehan critic. She would be the city's first black mayor. Could there be additional candidates? Of course. But those are the names on the lips of insiders, the three who are almost certainly running. And for those of you who might be reading this online in, say, Nome, Alaska, I'm obliged to note that all the candidates I've mentioned are Democrats. There is no other viable party here in Stalingrad ... er, Albany. The party primary is the only election that matters. As you may have heard, the city is strapped. So it's not surprising there's tension around the budget. Interestingly, much of the budgetary back-and-forth in recent months has been between Sheehan administration and the County Legislature, including the recent squabble over whether the county would absorb the cost of two clerks who handle archived records. To many of us watching from the sidelines, it surely looks as though a Legislature run by Frank Sr. is thwarting Sheehan's efforts at every turn so that Frank Jr. has an easier path to victory. But let's get back to the letter released Sunday, in which Commisso Jr. and three other council members blistered the mayor's proposed budget. Sounding very much like a campaign missive, it said, "Albany's homeowners, renters, businesses and workers deserve nothing less than a City Hall committed to fiscal competency and equity." The letter might be overly harsh, since Sheehan's proposed budget, while hardly daring or likely to change the city's long-term fiscal direction, still reduces spending slightly without reducing services or raising taxes. Oddly, McLaughlin's signature wasn't on the letter, even though she has also criticized the mayor's budget. On Monday, I asked her why. "I wasn't asked to sign onto it," McLaughlin said. Why not? "Political reasons." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. You can't have two mayoral challengers signing the same letter, I guess. I also talked to Commisso on Monday, and he certainly sounded like a candidate. He said the letter was intended to show voters there is a "competent" leadership alternative in the city. "The city needs courage," he added. When I asked about the notion that his father was trying to aide his candidacy, including the recent suggestion by Sheehan that "the majority leader has issues with the city of Albany," Commisso Jr. said it was a forced and false narrative and added this about the mayor: "She hitched her ride to Hillary Clinton and thought she was leaving town. Now, she has to quickly put together a campaign and she's going negative." Yes, the campaign is definitely on. In the months ahead, there will be talk about who benefits most from a three-way primary battle. The thinking here is that it could very well be Commisso, on the assumption that McLaughlin and Sheehan would split the more liberal progressive vote. In any event, my last phone conversation Monday was with Sheehan, who brushed aside Commisso's claim about Clinton. Then, it was the mayor's turn to sound like a candidate. "I love being mayor of this city," Sheehan said. "It's a job I would love to fill for a second term." cchurchill@timesunion.com 518-454-5442 @chris_churchill This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Albany The governing board for the second-largest state worker union has all but thrown its former president and secretary-treasurer out of the organization. The Public Employees Federation's executive board earlier this month voted to bar former President Susan Kent and Secretary-Treasurer Carlos Garcia from engaging in any union activity including running for office or voting in union elections for four and five years, respectively. The board's action were confirmed Monday by PEF spokeswoman Jane Briggs. Both former officials, who were ousted in a contentious 2015 election, were found guilty of internal charges of dereliction of duty and violating the union's ethics rules when they allegedly stymied efforts to uncover thousands of dollars of improper purchases by Deborah J. Lee, who had been the leader of a PEF council in Rockland County. Testimony about the former leaders' actions offered in internal hearings rocked the 53,000-member white-collar state employees union. According to a PEF ethics hearing panel, Kent and Garcia tried to stall and block a full accounting of Lee's alleged misuse of a union debit card to make undocumented payments at stores such as Bed Bath & Beyond and Dunkin Donuts, plus a liquor store, pharmacy and local supermarket. The improper purchase were made when Lee was the leader of Division 235, the PEF unit representing employees of the Rockland Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg, Rockland County, where she was a social worker. Neither Kent nor Garcia returned calls on Monday. The problems with Lee became public in a 2014 Times Union report that detailed how Kent and Garcia allegedly sought to have the spending questions investigated internally rather than turning it over to the Rockland County District Attorney. While local authorities appeared to have not looked at the matter, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's office issued a subpoena to the PEF local formerly run by Lee. His office on Monday wouldn't comment on any investigations. In the recent decision, the full PEF executive board upheld charges against Kent and Garcia brought by Kevin Jones, a PEF official. The charges were heard before a specially appointed ethics panel. When Kent and Garcia were in office in 2014, the union's ethics panel determined that Lee's actions "did not meet the legal definition of misappropriation of funds." But executive board members at the time were critical of Kent's appointments to that panel. Among the most recent ethics panel report, the first indication that there may have been a problem with Lee's purchases started as early as 2012 when a new treasurer for the division, Teresa Mayer-Gamboli, noted a lack of documentation. Kent and Garcia at a union convention later "badgered" one of the earlier whistleblowers in an apparent attempt to delay the investigation. Others expressed suspicions that they may have been trying to run out the clock on the statute of limitations for embezzlement charges. PEF officials later went to court seeking more than $3,500. The most recent report said a court ordered Lee to pay back more than $64,000 plus interest. It wasn't clear if that money has been paid back. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. After serving one term apiece, Kent and Garcia were ousted by PEF's rank and file in 2015 and replaced by the union's current President Wayne Spence and Secretary-Treasurer Kevin Hintz. rkarlin@timesunion.com 518-454-5758 @RickKarlinTU Here's the PEF decision on Kent and Garcia: Pef Kent Garcia Decision by rkarlin on Scribd rkarlin@timesunion.com 518-454-5758 @RickKarlinTU Albany It was his very first Thanksgiving in America, but the Monday meal Rukundo Nsanzurwanda shared with students in a school cafeteria in Albany reminded the teen of home. For starters, he ate turkey practically every day in the Congo. "We do this in my country," he said. "All people come together and then we eat food, we drink juice and it's good, because my parents and the other parents who sit together, we talk about school, about home, about life just like this." After seven months in America, the 19-year-old Albany High School student got a fresh lesson in the nation's history, customs and cuisine. Some of it he got from his teachers, but much of it he got from his fellow students as they made crafts and prepared mashed potatoes, stuffing, apples pies and other food together for Delaware Community School's annual Thanksgiving feast. More than 100 students spanning generations, backgrounds and abilities gathered at the elementary school on Monday to partake in the feast. In addition to first-graders and special education students from the elementary school, there were also upperclassmen from other schools in the district who are still learning English as they navigate life in a new country. "This is actually making history come alive because this is what the Pilgrims did with the Indians," said Interim Superintendent Kimberly Wilkins, who dropped by Monday to watch the feast. "So they actually see what breaking bread is all about. It can be nice to read about it, but here they can actually experience it with their classmates." The annual event was originally hosted for students from the elementary school. But about five years ago, when the district started to see a steady uptick in the number of immigrants and refugee children enrolling at its schools, several teachers had the idea to loop newcomers into the celebration. Today, roughly one out of every eight students in the district is new to the English language. The event felt especially significant this year, staff said, as the nation grapples with political divides along racial, religious and other lines made more stark by the recent presidential election. "For many of them, it's their first Thanksgiving," said organizer and teacher Lisa LaFountain. "Watching the different age groups interact has been really neat. Big kids teach the little kids how to peel the apples to make the pie. And the little kids are much more accepting. They're not going to be as judgmental about language and those sorts of things. They have things to teach each other. We all do." Donning a turkey hat made from paper and crayons, Hasan Alkabas chatted with school friends in between bites of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy. His friends from Thailand talked about the rice and noodles they ate back home. He talked about his mom's "delicious" apple pie. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. The 11-year-old hasn't missed a Thanksgiving once in the four years since his family moved from Iraq to upstate New York. He first learned about the holiday in school, and now looks forward to celebrating at home each year with his extended family, who come all the way from Kentucky to celebrate. "We talk about what we're thankful for," Alkabas said. What is he thankful for? "For being, like, lucky," he said. "Because it brings me luck every time I go to school and I just like having fun. And every time I walk I feel free in the air. I just feel lucky." bbump@timesunion.com 518-454-5387 @bethanybump Cory Bryson, 32, has known about the Dakota Access Pipeline since 2013. He attended public hearings in 2014, when he spoke with landowners, residents, legal staff and representatives of Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company building the pipeline. He recalls there would be a minimum of 50 people at each meeting none of whom represented the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He said they didnt show up to the hearings in Mandan, Killdeer, Williston and Bismarck or the open house. Bryson has worked on projects of this size before. Hes been through the process. To Bryson, this was just another ordinary project. Three years later, Bryson told a different story. Although hes seen opposition to certain projects, he said he's never seen it taken to this level. Bryson knows the pipeline industry; he's worked in it since he was 23, and his father was a pipeliner for 32 years. Born and raised in Mandan, N.D., Bryson continues to live there with his wife and three kids. He works as a business representative for the Laborers International Union Local 563 in Bismarck. He represents workers across all industries and labor unions. He enforces contracts and looks out for the safety of workers. So does Rob Dekrey, a labor steward for the pipeline company and Bryson's co-worker. Dekrey describes his job as being a voice for the laborers. He makes sure they are treated fairly and that work is carried out properly. Together both men represent 750 laborers from Minnesota and North Dakota working on the pipeline. Bryson said he remembers the first protest. It was in early July. About 200 people gathered on Highway 1806. Local police showed up, not in riot gear. There was no aggression, he said, but police mingled with protesters. Some even shook hands. But it almost seems overnight it turned into a war, Bryson said. And workers were thrown into the middle of it. It turned into a war against the workers themselves instead of a fight between tribal council and the courts with the company (Energy Transfer Partners), Bryson said. The amount of money lost for workers due to halting parts of pipeline construction is well into six digits, he said. For some, work weeks went from 85 hours to as few as 24. It was a big paycheck cut on some of these guys, Dekrey said. People started to grow more frustrated and more angry at what was going on because obviously this is how they support their families and this is their way of life. Some people have left the project, and part of Dekrey's job has been trying to get people to stay. He doesn't blame those who wanted to leave, but said he still has a job to do. Workers' safety has become a top priority for the two men as some have been threatened by protesters. Dekrey spends a lot of his time monitoring construction sites, making sure his laborers can work and he doesnt see dust flying down the road toward them. While Bryson respects protesting "unions do it all the time," he said he strongly disagrees with the tactics some protesters have used to get their message across. Ive had a laborer get beat up at a gas station in the morning when he was on his way to work, he said. Hes also received threats himself. Hes been followed in his car by vehicles with out-of-state license plates. People have taken pictures of Bryson and Dekrey in public. Once, protesters threatened to burn Bryson and his family in their home. A lot of the violence is coming from people who are from out of state bringing their own agendas, Bryson said. Hes seen protests go from protecting the water to anti-oil, anti-pipeline, anti-fracking and anti-police. Too many groups are involved, he said. When this is all over, they are going to go back home or find another job to protest, Bryson said. However, the people who live in Standing Rock have to stay, and the two communities will have to fix their relationship. That will take a while based on everything thats happened, he said. Were neighbors. Lets talk about how we can move on and fix the relationships we have locally with the tribe, Bryson said. We dont want enemies out of this. Bryson said he has reached out twice to Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II for a meeting on how to work better with tribes in the future and fight for more regulation. The men have yet to meet. Scholastic representative Pat Cucci, from left, Titusville Literacy Council Executive Director Kelli Davis, ECLC Principal Diane Robbins, and regional Scholastic representative Katy Kimmel recently got together for Titusville Literacy 1 Night. [November 21, 2016] Business Agility Movement Launches Inaugural Conference in February NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The world's first ever Business Agility conference will equip forward-thinking organizations with the tools, structure and mindset to face hurdles without losing momentum. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441794LOGO Held at the New York Marriott Marquis on February 23 and 24, Business Agility 2017 has already attracted a panel of the biggest names in the global business agility community. Business agility endorses entrepreneurial thinking among large corporations. It recognizes that traditional management and corporate governance models are failing to keep up with the modern economy. Proponents of business agility know that in an age of rapid change, only companies that can respond quickly to challenges without losing momentum or vision will survive. The movement embraces change through all levels of an organization from software developers to CEOs and teaches how to think, work and interact through change. Organizer Evan Leybourn, a business transformation leader and author, says Business Agility 2017 is a big step for the lean and agile movement. The concept was originally adopted by the IT sector but is now gaining rapid momentum among the leaders of medium and large organizations. "Attending this conference is a great way for companies to kick off 2017 by installing the structure, thinking and processes that will ensure they can navigate any challenge without losing momentum. We say a business is only as agile as its least agile part, so we have created an event that will benefit everyone." Business Agility 2017 has already attracted the support of 25+ thought leaders, including Steve Denning, Pat Reed Scott Ambler and Bjarte Bogsnes, with more to be added to the lineup. On February 23 and 24, speakers will cover the full spectrum of lean and agile transformation, from embracing change to developing leadership strategies, structuring a company for agility, compliance, budgeting and accounting strategies, HR policies and innovation. Each day, business agility leaders will address four different topics. Each topic will be examined through three 20-minute TED-style talks followed by a deep-dive interactive session. Attendees can also attend accelerator labs and hands-on workshops on February 21 and 22, as well as a day of open discussion following the conference on February 25. ICAgile, a global Agile accreditation body, is partnering with Leybourn to launch the conference, in what is intended to be an annual event. Ahmed Sidky, President of ICAgile says, "We aim to empower leaders to champion business agility strategies in their own organizations. Attendees will learn how to align thousands of employees to their vision of transformation, how to structure their team or organization to be lean and nimble, and how to adapt and innovate in today's unpredictable market." Delegate registrations are currently open, and passes can be purchased at businessagility2017.com. About Evan: Evan Leybourn pioneered the field of Agile Business Management, applying the successful concepts and practices from the lean and agile movements to corporate management. He keeps busy as a business leader, consultant, conference speaker, and an internationally published author. As well as creating the Business Agility conference, Evan currently works for IBM in Singapore to help them become a leading agile organization. About Ahmed: Ahmed Sidky, Ph.D. is the Head of Development Management at Riot Games, where he leads a team of 70 agile delivery leaders. Throughout his career, Ahmed has led a number of Fortune 100 companies through large-scale agile transformations. As a well-known thought-leader in the agile community, he is also currently serving as the President of ICAgile an independent accreditation and certification body focused on advancing the state of agile learning. Media enquiries: Jacqui Nash [email protected] + 1 929 301 8502 All conference speakers and the conference organizers, Evan Leybourn and Ahmed Sidky, are available for interviews. Related Files Evan Leybourn headshot.jpg Ahmed Sidky headshot.jpg This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/business-agility-movement-launches-inaugural-conference-in-february-300366842.html SOURCE Business Agility 2017 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 21, 2016] Meed Goes Live With Innovative Mobile Banking Program Alongside Maritime Bank of Vietnam Meed announced today the launch of its innovative mobile banking program together with Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Maritime Bank) of Vietnam. With its new platform now live, Meed is able to offer its target segment of underserved but digitally savvy individuals access to banking and payment services through a subscription model that is consistent with how they consume other digital services today. "Financial health plays a critical part in ensuring one's physical, mental and social wellbeing. At Meed our goal is to help our subscribers achieve a higher state of financial wellbeing through a suite of services with our member banks and corporate partners," said Sunil Sachdev, Meed's CEO and Chief Business Development Officer. "I am delighted that Maritime Bank will be our first partner to go live in this extraordinary venture, and I look forward to us together bringing affordable banking and payment services to those who really need it." Mr. Huynh Buu Quang, CEO of Maritime Bank shared, "The partnership with Meed to launch this smart financial application will provide Maritime Bank's customers with the opportunity to experience the most user-friendly and convenient banking services. This is not only a breakthrough in technology but also a meaningful and practical application that helps everybody, especially young people, to easily access basic banking services, earn, save and gain financial mobility." The Meed Package Created to give individuals of all countries and economic status equal access to innovative banking tools, Meed allows them to take more control of their financial futures. The new and innovative banking program includes a demand deposit account, a security savings account, a secured line of credit, P2P transfers between Med users as well as access to the unique income-building SocialBoost rewards program, which gives users the opportunity to earn a new income stream in return for growing the Meed community. For every $1 earned by Meed users through SocialBoost's personal community plan, another $1 is returned by Maritime Bank and other Member Banks to the worldwide Meed community, helping those who need it the most. Meed has spent the past 2 years building up its worldwide infrastructure of Member Banks and Corporate Members prior to this launch in Vietnam, where only 52% of urban adults are banked1. With rising smartphone penetration, Vietnam appears primed to adopt Meed's compelling, technology-based financial services solution. Meed has ambitious roll-out plans immediately following this Vietnam launch, expecting to launch into Canada, Mexico and the U.S. before the end of Q1 2017. Its goal is to establish a global network of Member Banks in 30 countries by 2021. About Meed Headquartered in Santa Monica, CA (News - Alert), Meed provides a new global platform for a community of networked Member Banks, Corporate Members and individual Meed users. The network provides access for users to the Member Banks for their financial services needs, and also provides a solution for financial exclusion and immobility. For more information, visit meed.net. About Maritime Bank Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Maritime Bank) was established in 1991, with registered headquarters in Hanoi, Vietnam. Maritime Bank is currently one of the five leading commercial banks in Vietnam. As of 2015, it has nearly 300 branches nationwide, serving more than 1.4 million individual customers and approximately 30,000 corporate customers, of which 600 are large financial institutions. With a clear business strategy, the strong leadership of a talented and experienced management team, and a dedicated and creative workforce of more than 5,000 employees, Maritime Bank is confident of reaching its target of becoming the best commercial bank in Vietnam. 1 Source (News - Alert): "Vietnam Consumer Landscape 2015." July 24, 2015 http://www.slideshare.net/XunLanNguyn/vietnam-consumer-landscape-2015-50879993 View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161121006266/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 22, 2016] New KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) Data in Blood Cancers to be Presented at 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology Merck (NYSE:MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today announced that new data regarding the investigational use of KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab), the company's anti-PD-1 therapy, in patients with a range of blood cancers including classical Hodgkin lymphoma and primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma, will be presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in San Diego, Dec. 3-6. "There is an urgent need for new treatment approaches in blood cancers, especially for those patients who have relapsed or not responded to current therapies," said Dr. Roger M. Perlmutter, president, Merck Research Laboratories. "We hope to learn that PD-1-directed immunotherapy may be used to help patients suffering from these difficult to treat malignancies." The KEYTRUDA clinical development program includes more than 30 tumor types in more than 360 clinical trials, including over 200 trials that combine KEYTRUDA with other cancer treatments. For hematologic malignancies specifically, Merck is conducting broad immuno-oncology research assessing the role of monotherapy and combination regimens with KEYTRUDA. The program includes nearly 40 ongoing studies - several of which are registration-enabling trials - across more than 20 hematologic disease subtypes, including leukemia, lymphomas, and myeloma. Below is a select list of KEYTRUDA data to be featured in oral presentations (all at the San Diego Convention Center): (Abstract #1107) Pembrolizumab in Relapsed/Refractory Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma: Primary End Point Analysis of the Phase 2 Keynote-087 Study. C. Moskowitz. Monday, Dec. 5, 5 p.m. PST (session: 4:30-6 p.m. PST). Location: Room 6B. C. Moskowitz. Monday, Dec. 5, 5 p.m. PST (session: 4:30-6 p.m. PST). Location: Room 6B. (Abstract #1108) Pembrolizumab in Patients with Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma after Brentuximab Vedotin Failure: Long-Term Efficacy from the Phase 1b Keynote-013 Study. P. Armand. Monday, Dec. 5, 5:15 p.m. PST (session: 4:30-6 p.m. PST). Location: Room 6B. P. Armand. Monday, Dec. 5, 5:15 p.m. PST (session: 4:30-6 p.m. PST). Location: Room 6B. (Abstract #619) Phase 1b Study of Pembrolizumab in Patients with Relapsed/Refractory Primary Mediastinal Large B-Cell Lymphoma: Results from the Ongoing Keynote-013 Trial. P. Zinzani. Monday, Dec. 5, 7 a.m. PST (session: 7-8:30 a.m. PST). Location: Room 6B. Additional meeting information and full abstracts are available on the ASH meeting website. About KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) KEYTRUDA is a humanized monoclonal antibody that works by increasing the ability of the body's immune system to help detect and fight tumor cells. KEYTRUDA blocks the interaction between PD-1 and its ligands, PD-L1 and PD-L2, thereby activating T lymphocytes which may affect both tumor cells and healthy cells. KEYTRUDA is administered as an intravenous infusion over 30 minutes every three weeks for the approved indications. KEYTRUDA for injection is supplied in a 100 mg single use vial. KEYTRUDA Indications and Dosing Melanoma KEYTRUDA is indicated for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma at a dose of 2 mg/kg every three weeks until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Lung Cancer KEYTRUDA is indicated for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have high PD-L1 expression [tumor proportion score (TPS) =50%] as determined by an FDA-approved test, with no EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberrations. KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) is also indicated for the treatment of patients with metastatic NSCLC whose tumors express PD-L1 (TPS =1%) as determined by an FDA-approved test, with disease progression on or after platinum-containing chemotherapy. Patients with EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberrations should have disease progression on FDA-approved therapy for these aberrations prior to receiving KEYTRUDA. In metastatic NSCLC, KEYTRUDA is administered at a fixed dose of 200 mg every three weeks until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, or up to 24 months in patients without disease progression. Head and Neck Cancer KEYTRUDA is indicated for the treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) with disease progression on or after platinum-containing chemotherapy. This indication is approved under accelerated approval based on tumor response rate and durability of response. Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in the confirmatory trials. In HNSCC, KEYTRUDA is administered at a fixed dose of 200 mg every three weeks until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, or up to 24 months in patients without disease progression. Selected Important Safety Information for KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) KEYTRUDA can cause immune-mediated pneumonitis, including fatal cases. Pneumonitis occurred in 94 (3.4%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 1 (0.8%), 2 (1.3%), 3 (0.9%), 4 (0.3%), and 5 (0.1%) pneumonitis, and occurred more frequently in patients with a history of prior thoracic radiation (6.9%) compared to those without (2.9%). Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of pneumonitis. Evaluate suspected pneumonitis with radiographic imaging. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater pneumonitis. Withhold KEYTRUDA for Grade 2; permanently discontinue KEYTRUDA for Grade 3 or 4 or recurrent Grade 2 pneumonitis. KEYTRUDA can cause immune-mediated colitis. Colitis occurred in 48 (1.7%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.4%), 3 (1.1%), and 4 (<0.1%) colitis. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of colitis. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater colitis. Withhold KEYTRUDA for Grade 2 or 3; permanently discontinue KEYTRUDA for Grade 4 colitis. KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) can cause immune-mediated hepatitis. Hepatitis occurred in 19 (0.7%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.1%), 3 (0.4%), and 4 (<0.1%) hepatitis. Monitor patients for changes in liver function. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater hepatitis and, based on severity of liver enzyme elevations, withhold or discontinue KEYTRUDA. KEYTRUDA can cause hypophysitis. Hypophysitis occurred in 17 (0.6%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.2%), 3 (0.3%), and 4 (<0.1%) hypophysitis. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of hypophysitis (including hypopituitarism and adrenal insufficiency). Administer corticosteroids and hormone replacement as clinically indicated. Withhold KEYTRUDA for Grade 2; withhold or discontinue for Grade 3 or 4 hypophysitis. KEYTRUDA can cause thyroid disorders,including hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, and thyroiditis. Hyperthyroidism occurred in 96 (3.4%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.8%) and 3 (0.1%) hyperthyroidism. Hypothyroidism occurred in 237 (8.5%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (6.2%) and 3 (0.1%) hypothyroidism. The incidence of new or worsening hypothyroidism was higher in patients with HNSCC occurring in 28 (15%) of 192 patients with HNSCC, including Grade 3 (0.5%) hypothyroidism. Thyroiditis occurred in 16 (0.6%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.3%) thyroiditis. Monitor patients for changes in thyroid function (at the start of treatment, periodically during treatment, and as indicated based on clinical evaluation) and for clinical signs and symptoms of thyroid disorders. Administer replacement hormones for hypothyroidism and manage hyperthyroidism with thionamides and beta-blockers as appropriate. Withhold or discontinue KEYTRUDA for Grade 3 or 4 hyperthyroidism. KEYTRUDA can cause type 1 diabetes mellitus, including diabetic ketoacidosis, which have been reported in 6 (0.2%) of 2799 patients. Monitor patients for hyperglycemia or other signs and symptoms of diabetes. Administer insulin for type 1 diabetes, and withhold KEYTRUDA and administer antihyperglycemics in patients with severe hyperglycemia. KEYTRUDA can cause immune-mediated nephritis. Nephritis occurred in 9 (0.3%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.1%), 3 (0.1%), and 4 (<0.1%) nephritis. Monitor patients for changes in renal function. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater nephritis. Withhold KEYTRUDA for Grade 2; permanently discontinue KEYTRUDA for Grade 3 or 4 nephritis. KEYTRUDA can cause other clinically important immune-mediated adverse reactions. For suspected immune-mediated adverse reactions, ensure adequate evaluation to confirm etiology or exclude other causes. Based on the severity of the adverse reaction, withhold KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) and administer corticosteroids. Upon improvement to Grade 1 or less, initiate corticosteroid taper and continue to taper over at least 1 month. Based on limited data from clinical studies in patients whose immune-related adverse reactions could not be controlled with corticosteroid use, administration of other systemic immunosuppressants can be considered. Resume KEYTRUDA when the adverse reaction remains at Grade 1 or less following corticosteroid taper. Permanently discontinue KEYTRUDA for any Grade 3 immune-mediated adverse reaction that recurs and for any life-threatening immune-mediated adverse reaction. The following clinically significant immune-mediated adverse reactions occurred in less than 1% (unless otherwise indicated) of 2799 patients: arthritis (1.5%), exfoliative dermatitis, bullous pemphigoid, rash (1.4%), uveitis, myositis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, myasthenia gravis, vasculitis, pancreatitis, hemolytic anemia, and partial seizures arising in a patient with inflammatory foci in brain parenchyma. KEYTRUDA can cause severe or life-threatening infusion-related reactions, which have been reported in 6 (0.2%) of 2799 patients. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of infusion-related reactions, including rigors, chills, wheezing, pruritus, flushing, rash, hypotension, hypoxemia, and fever. For Grade 3 or 4 reactions, stop infusion and permanently discontinue KEYTRUDA. Based on its mechanism of action, KEYTRUDA can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. If used during pregnancy, or if the patient becomes pregnant during treatment, apprise the patient of the potential hazard to a fetus. Advise females of reproductive potential to use highly effective contraception during treatment and for 4 months after the last dose of KEYTRUDA. In KEYNOTE-006, KEYTRUDA was discontinued due to adverse reactions in 9% of 555 patients with advanced melanoma; adverse reactions leading to discontinuation in more than one patient were colitis (1.4%), autoimmune hepatitis (0.7%), allergic reaction (0.4%), polyneuropathy (0.4%), and cardiac failure (0.4%). Adverse reactions leading to interruption of KEYTRUDA occurred in 21% of patients; the most common (=1%) was diarrhea (2.5%). The most common adverse reactions with KEYTRUDA vs ipilimumab were fatigue (28% vs 28%), diarrhea (26% with KEYTRUDA), rash (24% vs 23%), and nausea (21% with KEYTRUDA). Corresponding incidence rates are listed for ipilimumab only for those adverse reactions that occurred at the same or lower rate than with KEYTRUDA. In KEYNOTE-002, KEYTRUDA was discontinued due to adverse reactions in 12% of 357 patients with advanced melanoma; the most common (=1%) were general physical health deterioration (1%), asthenia (1%), dyspnea (1%), pneumonitis (1%), and generalized edema (1%). Adverse reactions leading to interruption of KEYTRUDA occurred in 14% of patients; the most common (=1%) were dyspnea (1%), diarrhea (1%), and maculopapular rash (1%). The most common adverse reactions with KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) vs chemotherapy were fatigue (43% with KEYTRUDA), pruritus (28% vs 8%), rash (24% vs 8%), constipation (22% vs 20%), nausea (22% with KEYTRUDA), diarrhea (20% vs 20%), and decreased appetite (20% with KEYTRUDA). Corresponding incidence rates are listed for chemotherapy only for those adverse reactions that occurred at the same or lower rate than with KEYTRUDA. KEYTRUDA was discontinued due to adverse reactions in 8% of 682 patients with metastatic NSCLC. The most common adverse event resulting in permanent discontinuation of KEYTRUDA was pneumonitis (1.8%). Adverse reactions leading to interruption of KEYTRUDA occurred in 23% of patients; the most common (=1%) were diarrhea (1%), fatigue (1.3%), pneumonia (1%), liver enzyme elevation (1.2%), decreased appetite (1.3%), and pneumonitis (1%). The most common adverse reactions (occurring in at least 20% of patients and at a higher incidence than with docetaxel) were decreased appetite (25% vs 23%), dyspnea (23% vs 20%), and nausea (20% vs 18%). KEYTRUDA was discontinued due to adverse reactions in 17% of 192 patients with HNSCC. Serious adverse reactions occurred in 45% of patients. The most frequent serious adverse reactions reported in at least 2% of patients were pneumonia, dyspnea, confusional state, vomiting, pleural effusion, and respiratory failure. The most common adverse reactions (reported in at least 20% of patients) were fatigue, decreased appetite, and dyspnea. Adverse reactions occurring in patients with HNSCC were generally similar to those occurring in patients with melanoma or NSCLC, with the exception of increased incidences of facial edema (10% all Grades; 2.1% Grades 3 or 4) and new or worsening hypothyroidism. It is not known whether KEYTRUDA is excreted in human milk. Because many drugs are excreted in human milk, instruct women to discontinue nursing during treatment with KEYTRUDA and for 4 months after the final dose. Safety and effectiveness of KEYTRUDA have not been established in pediatric patients. Our Focus on Cancer Our goal is to translate breakthrough science into innovative oncology medicines to help people with cancer worldwide. At Merck, helping people fight cancer is our passion and supporting accessibility to our cancer medicines is our commitment. Our focus is on pursuing research in immuno-oncology and we are accelerating every step in the journey - from lab to clinic - to potentially bring new hope to people with cancer. As part of our focus on cancer, Merck is committed to exploring the potential of immuno-oncology with one of the fastest-growing development programs in the industry. We are currently executing an expansive research program that includes more than 360 clinical trials evaluating our anti-PD-1 therapy across more than 30 tumor types. We also continue to strengthen our immuno-oncology portfolio through strategic acquisitions and are prioritizing the development of several promising immunotherapeutic candidates with the potential to improve the treatment of advanced cancers. For more information about our oncology clinical trials, visit www.merck.com/clinicaltrials. About Merck For 125 years, Merck has been a global health care leader working to help the world be well. Merck is known as MSD outside the United States and Canada. Through our prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies, and animal health products, we work with customers and operate in more than 140 countries to deliver innovative health solutions. We also demonstrate our commitment to increasing access to health care through far-reaching policies, programs and partnerships. For more information, visit www.merck.com and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. Forward-Looking Statement of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, N.J., USA This news release of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, N.J., USA (the "company") includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of the company's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. There can be no guarantees with respect to pipeline products that the products will receive the necessary regulatory approvals or that they will prove to be commercially successful. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results may differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to, general industry conditions and competition; general economic factors, including interest rate and currency exchange rate fluctuations; the impact of pharmaceutical industry regulation and health care legislation in the United States and internationally; global trends toward health care cost containment; technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges inherent in new product development, including obtaining regulatory approval; the company's ability to accurately predict future market conditions; manufacturing difficulties or delays; financial instability of international economies and sovereign risk; dependence on the effectiveness of the company's patents and other protections for innovative products; and the exposure to litigation, including patent litigation, and/or regulatory actions. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additional factors that could cause results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in the company's 2015 Annual Report on Form 10-K and the company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC (News - Alert)) available at the SEC's Internet site (www.sec.gov). Please see Prescribing Information for KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) at http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/k/keytruda/keytruda_pi.pdf and Patient Information/Medication Guide for KEYTRUDA at http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/k/keytruda/keytruda_mg.pdf. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005351/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] A Helena woman who was found in her vehicle on the Downtown Walking Mall faces a felony charge for allegedly driving while high with a toddler in the vehicle. Police arrested Danielle Marie Bowen on a felony charge of criminal child endangerment. She also faces misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence (second offense), possession of dangerous drugs and possession of drug paraphernalia. Authorities received a report Friday afternoon of an intoxicated woman in a stopped vehicle in the middle of the intersection at Sixth Avenue and Last Chance Gulch. An officer found Bowen sitting in her vehicle on the Walking Mall, court documents state. Her 2-year-old child was in the vehicle. Bowen admitted to smoking marijuana and said she was "high," the documents state. The arresting officer noted Bowen had a difficult time maintaining her balance and performed poorly on sobriety testing. After her arrest, officials found a pot pipe and marijuana in her property, court documents allege. [November 22, 2016] Osceola Consulting Wins National Supplier of the Year Award TIBURON, Calif., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Osceola Consulting announced today that it was awarded with Supplier of the Year (SOTY) honors from the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) during the NMSDC's 2016 Annual Conference in Chicago on October 26. Osceola received this award for business acumen and outstanding performance, as well as its commitment to minority business development and community service. In July, Osceola was named 2016 SOTY (Class 3, $10 $50 Million) by the Southern California Minority Supplier Development Council. The NMSDC subsequently selected Osceola as the regional SOTY winner establishing the Company's eligibility for the national award. "This award recognizes Osceola's accomplishments as a business. Osceola delivers exceptional service to its many customers, is a dedicated participant in community service, and has a demonstrated commitment to minority business development," said NMSDC President Joset Wright-Lacy. "NMSDC is proud of Osceola's contribution to the NMSDC network." "Southern California Gas Company (SoCal Gas) started working with Osceola Consulting in 2008 as a subcontractor and we are pleased to see the firm's growth and strategic contributions leading to them becoming a prime contractor and trusted partner," stated Joe Chow, SoCal Gas' Supplier Diversity Manager. He also noted, "Osceolas outstanding contributions to our core business efforts and partnership enables SoCal Gas the opportunity to remain at the forefront of community and economic development, as well as technological innovation." "Osceola Consulting winning NMSDC's national SOTY Class 3 Award demonstrates they're the best of the best congratulations on this well-deserved recognition," said SCMSDC President Virginia Gomez. Commissioner Sherina Maye Edwards of the Illinois Commerce Commission stated, "Osceola is very deserving of this award in recognition of their support for the annual Women's Energy Summit along with their other clearly demonstrable leadership commitment toward fostering diversity in the workplace and the Utilities industry." "We are humbled and grateful for this award, especially considering the many outstanding businesses also nominated," said Kevin Narcomey, Osceola founder and CEO, adding, "Our recent efforts expanding our services into the mid-West and East Coast, along with opening the Technology Delivery Center (TDC) on the Morongo Indian Reservation will enable us to continue broadening our business and diversity objectives nationwide." About Osceola Consulting Osceola Consulting (www.OsceolaC.com) provides management consulting and information technology services focused on the energy and utilities industry. Osceola is a Minority-Owned Business Enterprise founded in 2006 committed to the sponsorship and promotion of diversity. Osceola's founder is a former partner of a major global consulting firm and is a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. The SOTY award is one of the most recognized programs of the NMSDC. The award is given annually to certified minority suppliers nominated by NMSDC member corporations in recognition of outstanding supplier performance and community service (www.scmsdc.org and www.nmsdc.org). Contact: Peter Wiersma Osceola Consulting +1 (626) 627-2944 [email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/osceola-consulting-wins-national-supplier-of-the-year-award-300367239.html SOURCE Osceola Consulting [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 21, 2016] A Regulatory Solution to Canada's Market Data Problem Aequitas Innovations Inc. and its subsidiary Aequitas NEO Exchange Inc. ("NEO" or "NEO Exchange") are disappointed that the Competition Bureau of Canada has decided not to continue its investigation into the TMX Group at this stage. The Competition Bureau opened up an investigation after NEO filed a formal complaint requesting a federal investigation into certain anti-competitive practices of the TMX Group in December 2015. NEO believed, and continues to believe, that the TMX Group is using its dominant market position to maintain control over the pricing of market data in the Canadian capital markets. The main victims of the lack of consolidated market data outside of trading desks and proprietary trading firms in Canada are the retail investors, their investment advisors and public listed companies. "We have no doubt the Bureau did a thorough assessment of the issue and we thank them for their effort," stated Jos Schmitt, President & CEO, NEO Exchange. "This decision was reached because not enough investment dealers demonstrated support for a competitive solution that would give retail investors and investment advisors access to consolidated market data at a reasonable price. We will not speculate why dealers would not seek a lower cost solution, as we understand they face numerous other priorities. It is, however a sad day for Canadian capital markets - and the country as a whole - when no one is ready to put the best interests of the little guy first." With a competitive commercial solution no longer a current option, NEO must call on the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), the provincial securities regulators, to mandate access to consolidated market data for all investors, including retail investors and their investment advisors. Over the course of the past 12 onths, market fragmentation in Canada has increased and the market share of the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) has further declined due to increased competition in trading. Yet today, retail investors and investment advisors only have access to TSX and TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) data, which is simply not enough. On any given day this market data represents less than 35% of ETF trading and less than 60% of trading activity in TSX and TSXV-listed securities. This lack of access to information is a detriment to investors and to our markets overall: With only a partial view of trading activity in TSX and TSXV-listed securities, retail investors and the majority of investment advisors are missing valuable data to help make more informed investment decisions. Unaware that they only have a partial view, retail investors and investment advisors may be led to have negative perceptions about the liquidity and transparency of Canadian-listed securities - a potentially negative impact on overall investor confidence and willingness to invest. Investment opportunities in Canada's publicly listed securities are often rejected due to the perceived lack of trading activity - a potentially negative impact on Canada's economy and the ability of Canadian companies to raise capital. "I have said it before and I will say it again: it's time to put the best interests of our investors and our public companies, first," continued Schmitt. "Mandating consolidated market data gives retail investors and investment advisors the tools they need to fairly participate. I will keep saying this until I see the necessary and required movements to protect investors." NEO recognizes that the CSA and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) have taken positive steps recently to begin to address the issue of access to market data. NEO is encouraged by these signals and encourages them to continue their efforts. The US securities regulator took a clear and strong stance on the issue by mandating access to consolidated market data for everyone many years ago. They re-affirmed this commitment again last December 2015. It's time for Canada to follow their lead. About Aequitas Innovations Inc. Aequitas Innovations, founded by a diverse group of prominent investors representative of all Canadian capital market stakeholders, is the parent company of the NEO Exchange and NEO Connect. The NEO Exchange is a new Canadian stock exchange using a bold new blueprint that puts investors, businesses looking to raise capital and dealers first. Launched in March 2015, it offers an innovative trading venue and a value added listing venue for capital raising companies and investment products. NEO Connect is Canada's new fund distribution platform. For more information, please visit: www.aequitasNEOexchange.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161121006246/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 21, 2016] By Light to Provide Communication Support to Hurricane Relief Efforts in Haiti By Light Professional IT Services, Inc. has been awarded a three-month contract with the US Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), focused on bringing satellite communications to first-responders in Haiti's hurricane relief efforts. DLA provides the U.S. military and other federal agencies with a full spectrum of logistics, acquisition, and technical services. By Light will be coupling their full-range engineering expertise with Intelsat (News - Alert) General's Ku-band capacity on the Galaxy 18 satellite. Intelsat General provides secure and seamless broadband connectivity, video communications, and mobility services for mission-critical operations around the globe. "As the world struggles to recover fom the devastation left in hurricane Matthew's wake, we are determined to help in any way we can," said Mike Bowser, Senior Vice President of By Light. "With the support of Intelsat General, By Light's work with the Defense Logistics Agency is critical to providing first-responders with vital satellite communications while Haiti rebuilds its infrastructure." About By Light Founded in 2002, By Light Professional IT Services, Inc. is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Business providing comprehensive systems engineering and management expertise for the design and implementation of both classified and unclassified Government Networks. To learn more about By Light, please visit www.bylight.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161121006156/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 21, 2016] USANA Two-for-One Stock Split Effective Date On October 25, 2016, the Board of Directors of USANA Health Sciences, Inc. (the "Company") (NYSE:USNA) announced a two-for-one split of the Company's common shares. Shareholders of record as of the close of business on November 14, 2016, will receive one additional common share of USNA for each common share held as of that date. It is anticipated that the stock split will become effective, and reflected in the market price of the Company's stock, on or about November 22, 2016. It is important to note that the split will not alter a shareholder's percentage of ownership of the Company nor the total value of all shares of the ompany. About USANA USANA develops and manufactures high-quality nutritional supplements, healthy foods and personal care products that are sold directly to Associates and Preferred Customers throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Mexico, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Thailand, France, Belgium, Colombia and Indonesia. More information on USANA can be found at http://www.usanahealthsciences.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161121006264/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 21, 2016] Trianz is a Proud Sponsor of InformaticaWorldTour 2016, Mumbai MUMBAI, BANGALORE and DELHI, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Trianz, a global consulting and turnkey execution services firm, is proud to sponsor InformaticaWorldTour 2016, being held in Mumbai on 25th November, 2016. The InformaticaWorldTour 2016 is a flagship event of Informatica, congregating thought leaders, CIO's, luminaries and peers from various businesses. The event is positioned under the theme, 'Data Powers Business' highlighting the importance of data in the ever changing new technology paradigm. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160615/809578 ) Commenting on the event participation, Vidya Sagar, Director-Client Partnerships, India & SAARC at Trianz said, "Data-driven decisions are the future of the businesses. At Trianz, we have fostered new solutions for data analytics and big data for organizations that want to address complex data challenges to make right decisions. This event will enable us to connect with leaders who are exploring to adopt data innovation and the right technology partners." Trianz has years of experience in data analytics and is early to adopt new age paradigms like SMAC(Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) and IoT. At the event, the team of experts from Trianz will showcase demos on Intelligent Data Lake, Customer 360, Self Service, CXO Insights, Faster Data Delivery & Cloud Analytics and will help business leaders understand how to turn data into actionable insights with real-world client success stories. Sanjay Chhugani, Director - Global Alliances at Trianz expressed, "We are envisioning to scale up on our global partnerships. This event is a rich platform for partners like Trianz to further strengthen our partnership and be informed on the latest from Informatica. We are happy to sponsor and be part of this community." About Trianz Trianz is a dynamic and fast growing firm that helps leaders in client organizations formulate and execute operational strategies to achieve business results from a senior management perspective. Leveraging the Cloud, Analytics, Digital, and Security paradigms, Trianz brings the best of consulting and technology experiences, execution models and IP to deliver consistent success to clients. With offices in Silicon Valley, Washington DC Metro, New York, Dubai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Chennai and Hyderabad, Trianz serves a wide range of clients from Fortune 1000 to emerging companies in high tech, insurance, financial services, retail, manufacturing, life sciences, public sector and logistics industries. Over the past decade, Trianz has developed a reputation for excellence in execution, enabling global organizations to achieve results envisioned by their senior management. Trianz measures success completely in client terms - the impact created through business execution. Media Contact: Prashant Bhavaraju Director, Marketing Trianz +91-40-4664-0000 [email protected] http://www.trianz.com [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 22, 2016] DHL eCommerce to Help Boost Japan's Booming Cross-border E-commerce Landscape with New Distribution Center TOKYO, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- DHL eCommerce, a division of Deutsche Post DHL Group (DPDHL Group), has announced its plans to build an Outbound Cross-Border eCommerce Distribution Center by April 2017. Located in Narita, Japan, the facility will broaden the range of e-commerce logistics services available to e-tailers and marketplaces operating in the country. New shipping products specifically designed for e-tailers will offer greater choices to reach consumers in Europe, the United States (U.S.) and the United Kingdom (UK). Focused on reliability and value-for-money, the services are tailored according to the unique needs of e-tailers and marketplaces in the Japanese market. This latest development by DHL eCommerce will help drive Japan's booming cross-border e-commerce market, which is growing at a CAGR of 16 percent and estimated to hit over EUR1.1 billion in 2018[1]. DHL Parcel International Direct, a cross-border shipping product, will offer affordable deliveries from Japan to the U.S. and the UK. This product promises transit times of 4 to 6 business days, a game changer in the current Japanese logistics landscape. Another cross-border shipping product, DHL GlobalMail Packet Plus will offer the best rates for Japan-Europe deliveries, with transit times of 5 to 10 business days and a high degree of visibility into the status of packages. These products will help Japanese e-tailers handle the increasing pressure when it comes to servicing more overseas customers, making timely deliveries, and keeping operating costs low. Major marketplaces will also be better equipped to handle rising volumes of e-commerce deliveries and offer Japanese e-tailers a global reach and value-added services. With an estimated cross-border e-commerce value of USD40.8 billion (EUR38.5 billion), the U.S. is one the top export destinations for Japan's e-commerce products[2]. Roughly 25 percent of digital shoppers in the country have made a cross-border purchase in the past 12 months[3]. Europe also presents a tremendous opportunity for Japanese e-tailers. There are currently 303.1 million digital buyers in the region and total e-commerce sales volume has hit USD370.3 billion (EUR349.4 billion)[4]. "We are seeing incredible growth in the Japanese cross-border e-commerce market and look forward to helping local players surmount their challenges. Our solutions offer easy one-stop gateway services for e-tailers, enabling them to deliver greater customer experiences while remaining in control of their costs. In addition, we will help them connect with overseas markets by partnering with popular marketplaces to deliver reliable services with a global reach," said Yoshihiko Sasaki, Managing Director, DHL eCommerce Japan. The distribution center will be co-located with the Japan Global Distribution Center in Narita established by one of DHL's divisions. Leveraging a cross-divisional approach, this will help bring Japanese e-tailers to more customers overseas, and enable them to also tap into comprehensive supply chain solutions. This means that customers who utilize the new DHL eCommerce offerings will get access to more in-depth supply chain expertise and an extensive logistics network that serves over 220 countries and territories globally. "The power of e-commerce lies in its ability to break physical barriers. E-commerce companies are not limited by geographical borders and have the flexibility to offer services and products to customers in other countries. By combining the deep understanding of the Japanese market which DHL eCommerce has, with the warehousing and transport management capabilities of our sister division, we will be able to explore operations such as fulfillment as part of a global partnership for our customers," added Sasaki. Expanding its regional e-commerce footprint The expansion plans in Japan are part of a larger Asia Pacific strategy by DHL eCommerce. The company also recently revealed its EUR70 million investment in India to boost the capabilities of the Delhi and Mumbai air hubs to enhance B2C e-commerce delivery in India. In June 2016, DHL eCommerce announced that it will grow its overall presence in China by 50 percent, with the expansion of the distribution centers in Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Along with the huge growth of e-commerce in China, the distribution centers will enable maximum volumes of over 130 million shipments a year combined. Earlier in January 2016, DHL eCommerce launched domestic delivery operations in Thailand and announced plans to double its fleet and number of depots by 2017. Thailand, with its tremendous growth potential, fast e-commerce adoption, and high smartphone penetration rates, was identified as the first Southeast Asian country to launch the DHL eCommerce domestic delivery service -- in line with the Group's Strategy 2020. - End - Media Contact: DHL eCommerce Marketing and Communications Cheryl Han / Monica Ng E-mail: [email protected] / [email protected] On the Internet: www.dpdhl.de/press Follow us at: www.twitter.com/dhlecommerce DHL - The logistics company for the world DHL is the leading global brand in the logistics industry. Our DHL family of divisions offer an unrivalled portfolio of logistics services ranging from national and international parcel delivery, e-commerce shipping and fulfillment solutions, international express, road, air and ocean transport to industrial supply chain management. With about 340,000 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide, DHL connects people and businesses securely and reliably, enabling global trade flows. With specialized solutions for growth markets and industries including technology, life sciences and healthcare, energy, automotive and retail, a proven commitment to corporate responsibility and an unrivalled presence in developing markets, DHL is decisively positioned as "The logistics company for the world". DHL is part of Deutsche Post DHL Group. The Group generated revenues of more than 59 billion euros in 2015. [1] Ministry of Economics Trade and Industry Japan and DHL eCommerce internal analyses [2] KEY BUSINESS DRIVERS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN CROSS-BORDER ECOMMERCE, Payvision, 2016. [3] Ibid. [4] Ibid. Logo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20150811/8521505246LOGO [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Indonesian Mayors Lead Delegation to Taiwan to Learn Creative Policy Making A sixteen-member Indonesian delegation of mayors, government representatives, and political sciences scholars will arrive in Taiwan Wednesday on a four-day workshop to explore the possibility of regional developments to improve local competitiveness within ASEAN economic community. The workshop organized by a Tainan-based National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) interdisciplinary working group, is the first design thinking training for regional development initiated in Taiwan. The workshop titled UGM-NCKU Training Program for Regional Leaders will be held at C-Hub, NCKU, starting from November 23 to 26. During the four-day workshop, the delegation will learn aout strategies on upgrading small and medium enterprises, urban development and local competitiveness, and policies for promoting creative industry. In addition, the workshop will serve as a policy-making platform for regional development based upon both design thinking and business insight. Working with the professors and design thinking facilitators in NCKU, the delegation from three major cities in Indonesia including Palangka Raya, Singkawang, and Yogyakarta will be invited to explore the possibilities in developing city branding for their cities. NCKU has been working with the Tainan City Government and local industries to boost regional innovation and develop creative industries in the region. Many applied strategies and feasible cases will be highlighted in the workshop and the delegation will also visit Tainan City government and meet up with people from local government and industry sectors. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005454/en/ [November 22, 2016] Internet Infrastructure Service Provider SinoBBD Reshapes the Big Data Industry with the Power of "Integration" HANGZHOU, China, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On the fourth day of the 3rd World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, the organizers brought together a large gathering of industry experts to showcase cutting-edge products and heated moderated discussions. The locale of the event, in China's historical town of Wuzhen, was especially interesting, as it showed how modern technology can complement the traditional, and how the imaginary can supplement reality. During the event, Internet Infrastructure Provider Beijing Big Data Group ("SinoBBD") held a press conference to announce their strategy to build an "integrated" national data center cluster. At the press conference, SinoBBD CTO Dr. Shuaiyu Wang formally announced the firm's latest strategy and its product portfolio. Dr. Wang talked about "Moore's Law for Big Data" and pointed out that it could be a qualitative change rather than a quantitative one, and that it could profoundly influence the future of the industry. Dr. Wang also presented "Maslow's Hierarchy of Need for Big Data" as the methodology for research in terms of the processes deployed by big data firms. He said that the data switching of today and artificial intelligence of tomorrow have explicit requirements in terms of an integrated national big data center, where "integration" will be the dominant trend that reshapes the industry over the next five years. To serve this purpose, SinoBBD plans to focus on the internet data center (IDC), Content Delivery Network (CDN) and Cloud Computing segments. In terms of the IDC segment, SinoBBD plans to develop a global portfolio, which includes a network comprised of distributed clusters of data centers covering the entire globe and all facets of the internet. SinoBBD plans to build a series of high-performance data center cluster in the upcoming five years, totaling 1,350,000 m2 space capable of housing 270,000 server cabinets. As for CDN, the Company plans to deploy more than 1,000 acceleration nodes globally, upgrade the bandwidth to 2TB and provide interconnection between internet operators all over China. SinoBBD will also develop its Cloud Computing business, with the goal of converting current Cloud technology into business profits for its customers. SinoBBD's investments in data centers, CDNs, cloud computing and big data show how separate parts of internet service can be brought together to form a complete digital information industry chain, achieving "integration" in terms of operations and R&D. Execution on this plan is expected to create a leadership role for SinoBBD in the Internet Infrastructure Service Provider space. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/internet-infrastructure-service-provider-sinobbd-reshapes-the-big-data-industry-with-the-power-of-integration-300367261.html SOURCE Beijing Supply-Sale Big Data Group Share Co.,Ltd. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 22, 2016] Smartphones and Wearables Market Poised for Growth with Next-Generation Sensors Key Enabler of Innovation LONDON, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Next-generation sensors are poised to influence the smartphone and wearables market. Though increased intelligence, ease of integration, real-time integration, and miniaturization features may drive opportunities, data privacy and security remain key factors hindering widespread adoption. Advancements in sensors are creating opportunities for sensor manufactures to explore a wide range of applications enabling the research and development boom in a dynamic and fast-paced environment. "Sensors have become sophisticated critical systems, which are not just components; they can provide mobility, connectivity, and context awareness by gathering and sharing information." said TechVision Senior Research Analyst Jabez Mendelson. "Advanced sensors will empower the Internet-of-Things and Internet-of-Everything. Next-generation sensor platforms will emerge as the key enabler of product development, innovation, and commercialization of wearable and smart devices." Next Generation Sensors for Wearables and Smart Phones, recent analysis from Frost & Sullivan's TechVision subscription, brings out the emerging technology trends in Sensors and Instrumentation on a global scale. The insight includes a detailed strategic assessment of industry challenges and needs. Click here for complimentary access to more information on this analysis and to register for a Growth Strategy Dialogue, a free interactive workshop with Frost & Sullivan's thought leaders. With the integration of advanced sensors, smartphons and wearables will propel various applications across industries including: Military and defense: Integration of chemical sensors in wearables will aid the detection of chemical weapons, explosives, and toxic gas aiding and protecting troops; Industrial sector: Integration of bio chemical sensors to assist personnel subject to toxic gases; Environment: Monitoring and analyzing the environment in an inexpensive manner; Personal: Biosensors can play a vital role in providing the psychological responses and body condition of personnel in the field. "Sensor companies are already leading the way, including: StretchSense with soft sensors that can be utilized in next generation wearables, Empatica's wearable smart watch capacity to sense physiological signals in real time, FLIR Systems's thermal imaging and other sensor technologies empowered by a smartphone and, Blocks Wearables's modular open platform architecture smart watch. These companies are addressing unmet needs and gaining a disruptive advantage by leveraging diverse opportunities in the market," stated Mendelson. About TechVision Frost & Sullivan's global TechVision practice is focused on innovation, disruption and convergence, and provides a variety of technology-based alerts, newsletters and research services as well as growth consulting services. Its premier offering, the TechVision programme, identifies and evaluates the most valuable emerging and disruptive technologies enabling products with near-term potential. A unique feature of the TechVision programme is an annual selection of 50 technologies that can generate convergence scenarios, possibly disrupt the innovation landscape, and drive transformational growth. View a summary of our TechVision program by clicking on the following link: http://ifrost.frost.com/TechVision_Demo. About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion. Emerging Technologies Energizing the Future of the Pharmaceutical Sector D76F-TV Contact: Evgenia Oleynikova Corporate Communications Europe P: +48 22 481 62 10 E: [email protected] Twitter: @TechVision_FS Linkedin: www.frost.com/techvisionlinkedin Facebook: FrostandSullivan http://www.frost.com http://www.frost.com/techvision Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442003 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/smartphones-and-wearables-market-poised-for-growth-with-next-generation-sensors-key-enabler-of-innovation-300367263.html SOURCE Frost & Sullivan [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 22, 2016] Amazfit Launches GPS Smartwatch PACE Amazfit, the second largest wearables manufacturer globally, today announced its third wearable device, the Amazfit PACE, a GPS-enabled running watch with up to 11 days of battery life. With 2.4 gigabytes of onboard media storage, heart rate monitoring and notifications, the Amazfit PACE allows for phone-free running and is now available for presale at an introductory price of $129 (now through Cyber Monday (News - Alert), November 28, 2016). This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005332/en/ Amazfit PACE features fitness and sleep tracking, heart rate monitoring, 11-day battery life, Wi-Fi, GPS, elevation tracking and onboard music storage for phone-free running. (Photo: Business Wire) The launch of Amazfit PACE marks the company's third wearable product release within three months making it the most affordable line of wearables that cater to a range of styles and needs, from the competitive athlete to the casual, fashion-conscious wearer. PACE joins Amazfit ARC, a heart rate, activity and sleep tracker with a 20-day battery life ($49.99 promotional price), and ceramic-based Moonbeam and Equator, which are the slimmest and most lightweight activity trackers on the market today ($79.99), all available now on Amazfit.com. Amazfit PACE Key Features: Outdoor Run and Trail / Cross-Country Run Tracking : Track runs and capture distance, time, pace, heart rate, calories, speed, cadence, maximum/average moving pace, maximum/average moving speed, maximum/average cadence, altitude, elevation gain, elevation loss and minimum/maximum altitude. All data is synced and available in the Strava Run app. : Track runs and capture distance, time, pace, heart rate, calories, speed, cadence, maximum/average moving pace, maximum/average moving speed, maximum/average cadence, altitude, elevation gain, elevation loss and minimum/maximum altitude. All data is synced and available in the Strava Run app. GPS : Built-in GPS and GLONASS tracks your route and distance. : Built-in GPS and GLONASS tracks your route and distance. Water resistant : IP67 certified. Resistant to dust, rain, splashing, and accidental submersion. : IP67 certified. Resistant to dust, rain, splashing, and accidental submersion. Notifications : Receive notifications for incoming calls, messages, emails and other apps. : Receive notifications for incoming calls, messages, emails and other apps. Ceramic Bezel : Durable and resistant to scratching with a beautiful sheen. : Durable and resistant to scratching with a beautiful sheen. Heart Rate Tracking : Automatic heart rate monitoring and continuous heart rate tracking during workouts and runs. : Automatic heart rate monitoring and continuous heart rate tracking during workouts and runs. Music : Connect wirelessly to Bluetooth earbuds and enjoy music and media with the internal 2.4GB storage for phone-free running. : Connect wirelessly to Bluetooth earbuds and enjoy music and media with the internal 2.4GB storage for phone-free running. Long Lasting Battery : Up to 11 days of battery life on a single charge. Thirty-six hours with continuous GPS and heart rate tracking. : Up to 11 days of battery life on a single charge. Thirty-six hours with continuous GPS and heart rate tracking. Always-On Display : Designed for outdoor activity, the display is always on and easily readable under bright sunlight. Amazfit is also partnering with Monster Cable Products to provide recommended audio bundles with its ultra-lightweight, wireless, in-ear, sport headphones series. The Monster Cable wireless earphones are sweat-proof, stay put, and feature unrivaled Pure Monster Sound to power people through their most intense workouts and runs. Pricing and Availability Amazfit PACE is available today for presale at the introductory price of $129 now through Cyber Monday via www.amazfit.com/shop/pace. After November 28, 2016 the price will change to the regular MSRP of $159. PACE will be available at retailers including Amazon and on Amazfit.com on December 15, just in time for the holiday season. At launch, The Amazfit PACE smartwatch will be available in black and red band options. The Amazfit PACE companion app is available for iOS and Android (News - Alert). About Amazfit Launched in 2016, Amazfit is a US-based wearable technology company with a mission to seamlessly connect people's biomechanical signals and daily activities with smart data services to promote healthy living. Its line of fashionable activity trackers, including the PACE, ARC, Moonbeam and Equator, effortlessly track activity without sacrificing style. Amazfit is owned by Huami, and is the exclusive provider of wearable technology for Xiaomi. Since establishing its partnership with Xiaomi in 2014, the company has sold over 25 million Mi Bands making it the second largest wearables manufacturer globally. Huami has raised $35 million from Sequoia Capital (News - Alert), Shunwei Capital Partners, Banyan Capital, Morningside Ventures and Xiaomi. Huami is privately-held and headquartered in Beijing and Mountain View, CA (News - Alert). For more information please visit http://www.amazfit.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005332/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] A Lincoln man on probation for felony driving under the influence is jailed on his fifth DUI charge. Albert Dwight Maughan, 40, is accused of driving drunk after assaulting a woman. After receiving a report of Maughan shoving the victim and then leaving her Lincoln home, a sheriff's deputy pulled Maughan over on the side of state Highway 200, according to court documents filed Monday. Maughan denied attacking the woman and then failed field sobriety tests, the documents note. Authorities arrested Maughan on a felony charge of DUI. He also faces a probation violation and a misdemeanor charge of partner or family member assault (second offense). [November 22, 2016] Trumplash? Muslim Searches for USA Flights Plummet Following U.S. Election, Reports CheapFlightsFinder.com LONDON, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Muslims are staying away from the U.S. in droves following the election of Donald Trump. In fact, in the fourteen days since the U.S. presidential election, searches for U.S.-bound flights from Arab countries are down by a staggering 70% compared to October's numbers, reports CheapFlightsFinder, home of the world's first Meta-Meta Flight Search. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442045LOGO Where would Muslim travelers now prefer to spend their vacation time? The U.K., Turkey, and Malaysia, all of which are seeing spikes in CheapFlightsFinder.com searches originating from primarily Islamic countries. "We obviously can't speak to each traveler's reasoning for searching flights to a particular country, but we can say for certain what the data is showing, which is that in the last two weeks, the vast majority of Muslim travelers appear to have decided against flying to the United States," said CheapFlightsFinder CEO Shahab Siddiqui. "Is there a correlation to Donald Trump being elected president? The numbers seem to suggest that." "The U.S. travel industry could be in for a bit of a depression in the weeks and months to come, particularly until the world has a better sense of what America will look like under a Trump administration and whether that might affect travelers visiting from other countries," Siddiqui speculated. "We plan to keep a close watch on the data here at CheapFlightsFinder and will continue to report on trends as we see them developing." About CheapFlightsFinder Founded in 2008 and recommended by Arthur Frommer, the Daily Mail, and the Times Online, CheapFlightsFinder is a leader in travel savings. The company's Meta-Meta Flight Search was the first search engine to compare every leading airfare comparison search engine to give travelers as much as a 20% discount over the lowest fares found elsewhere. Along with helping consumers save money on airfare, CheapFlightsFinder collects and reports on travel-related data to highlight the influence of global political and economic events on world travel trends. Learn more at http://www.cheapflightsfinder.com. CONTACT: Shahab Siddiqui CheapFlightsFinder 07957 191 342 [email protected] http://www.cheapflightsfinder.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/trumplash-muslim-searches-for-usa-flights-plummet-following-us-election-reports-cheapflightsfindercom-300367324.html SOURCE CheapFlightsFinder.com [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 22, 2016] The Boston Globe Names Integration Partners a Top Place to Work for 2016 BOSTON, Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Integration Partners (www.integrationpartners.com) has been named one of the Top Places to Work in Massachusetts in the ninth annual employee-based survey project from The Boston Globe. Top Places to Work recognizes the most admired workplaces in the state voted on by the people who know them the besttheir employees. The survey measures employee opinions about their companys direction, execution, connection, management, work, pay and benefits, and engagement. The employers are placed into one of four groups: small, with 50 to 99 employees; medium, with 100 to 249 workers; large, with 250 to 999; and largest, with 1,000 or more. Integration Partners was raked #5 in the Medium Company category. Integration Partners is a national network and communication engineering services company. They design, implement and support secure, fully converged networks using the best solutions the industry offers. Integration Partners is a privately held company headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts. "We're extremely honored to have been recognized for this achievement. Our company culture is something we take very seriously since we have seen how it can influence the customer experience in a positive way," said Bart Graf, Co-Founder and Principal. "We never stop improving. We are always evolving to meet the mutual needs of both our customers and our employees. The rankings in the Top Places to Work are based on confidential survey information collected by WorkplaceDynamics, an independent company specializing in employee engagement and retention, from nearly 70,500 individuals at 366 Massachusetts organizations. The winners share a few key traits, including offering progressive benefits, giving their employees a voice, and encouraging them to have some fun while theyre at it. Top Places to Work online extras include sortable rankings and photo galleries. All can be found at www.bostonglobe.com/topplaces. Bill Xydias Marketing / PR Integration Partners 781.357.8151 [email protected] www.integrationpartners.com [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 22, 2016] Diebold Nixdorf CEO Andy Mattes Participating In Upcoming Credit Suisse Technology, Media & Telecom Conference NORTH CANTON, Ohio, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Diebold Nixdorf, a global leader in driving and enabling connected commerce across the financial and retail industries, announced today that it will participate in the 20th Annual Credit Suisse Technology, Media & Telecom Conference Thursday, Dec. 1, at the Phoenician in Scottsdale, Arizona. During the conference, Andy W. Mattes, Diebold Nixdorf chief executive officer, will discuss company strategy and industry trends at 10:30 a.m. MT. He will also be available to meet with institutional investors. A listen-only audio webcast of the chat will be available here. The webcast will also be available for replay. About Diebold Nixdorf Diebold Nixdorf is a world leader in enabling connected commerce for millions of consumers each day across the financial and retail industries. Its software-defined solutions bridge the physical and digital worlds of cash and consumer transactions conveniently, securely and efficiently. As an innovation partner for nearly all of the world's top 100 financial institutions and a majority of the top 25 global retailers, Diebold Nixdorf delivers unparalleled services and technology that are essential to evolve in an 'always on' and changing consumer landscape. Diebold Nixdorf has a presence in more than 130 countries with approximately 25,000 employees worldwide. The organization maintains corporate offices in North Canton, Ohio, USA and Paderborn, Germany. Shares are traded on the New York and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges under the symbol 'DBD'. Visit www.DieboldNixdorf.com for more information. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20080725/DIEBOLDLOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/diebold-nixdorf-ceo-andy-mattes-participating-in-upcoming-credit-suisse-technology-media--telecom-conference-300367334.html SOURCE Diebold Nixdorf [November 22, 2016] SPYR's Pocket Starships Achieves Number One Ranking in Adventure Category in France's Apple App Store DENVER, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SPYR, INC. (OTCQB: SPYR), a holding company with wholly owned subsidiaries in both the mobile game & app development and publishing industry, today announced that its flagship MMO game Pocket Starships, has concluded its three-market strategic European push with a tremendous showing in France. This is the third and final market in the Company's strategic outreach and targeted growth program following success in the German and Russian markets. Notable highest download rankings achieved for Pocket Starships in France's Apple App Store during the last week (Nov. 14 Nov. 18) include: - Game (adventure) category: #1 - Game (action) category: #8 - Game (overall) category: #16 "Our European strategy absolutely needed to include France," said Mike Turner, SPYR's VP of Strategic Partnerships. "The French market has long been a stalwart in the global video game market. Games like Assassin's Creed, Just Dance and Game of Thrones were all created by French companies. In fact, France is second only to the United States when it comes to video game production, so it was only natural that we conclude our marketing push in a gaming-friendly country like France." Newzoo, a leading global market intelligence firm specializing in games, eSports and mobile, pegs the French video game market as number seven in the world (and third in Europe) when it comes to projected gaming revenue for 2016. The country is projected to generate $2.7 billion in in-game and other related revenue this year and is expected to grow by 1.5 percent until 2018. Further, 49 percent of the nearly 31 million French gamers will spend an average of $164 per year on games; significantly more than the average U.S. gamer, who spends approximately $70 per year according to Gamasutra. The French video gaming industry is unique in its national passion and support for the video game business. It is home to a strong national union (the SNJV) and a supportive industry body called SELL, both of which help to foster innovation and to help propel international growth of the gaming industry. Pocket Starships, with its recently launched Hivespawn expansion, is a true cross-platform game that allows players to use PC and Mobile devices to play against other gamers simultaneously regardless of the device they are using. In the coming months, the Company plans to add eSports competition opportunities for its players. 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, 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] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/spyrs-pocket-starships-achieves-number-one-ranking-in-adventure-category-in-frances-apple-app-store-300367111.html SOURCE SPYR, INC. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 22, 2016] Plutos Sama, LLC Closes Peterman Acquisition and Expands Throughout the Midwest Plutos Sama, LLC announced today that it has completed the acquisition of J Peterman Legal Group, LLC ("JPLG"), a law firm in Wisconsin with offices in Illinois and Indiana, increasing the Firms Midwest presence after entering into its final agreements on September 16, 2016. "This acquisition enhances our legal service offerings by adding tremendous talent to our pool of attorneys at BP Law," stated Matthew C. Browndorf, CEO of Plutos Sama, LLC. "One of the exceptional additions we have begun to utilize is Benjamin J. Pliskie, who we named Chief Operations Officer of Default Operations company-wide, who has extensive experience in matters related to real estate law and speaks the language of the default industry." BP Law Group, LLP was the first default law firm that settled under the Plutos Sama umbrella in 2013. In 2015, Plutos Sama acquired The Fisher Law Group, a default law firm in Maryland and District of Columbia, expanding BP's coverage in the Mid-Atlantic. The JPLG acquisition will amplify BP's presence in the Midwest. JPLG will rebrand itself as "BP Peterman Law Group, LLC." Alongside BP Fisher Law Group, LLP, the firms will become part of the BP Law Group family. "We are excited about joining Plutos Sama," stated James M. Peterman, Member of JPLG, "This acquisition will provide us with the support needed to further develop and increase our caseloads. Equally important, under BP Law, we can expand our Illinois and Indiana portfolios and strengthen our presence in the Midwest." With an active pursuit for another acquisition in the Eastern region, BP Law is aiming to service all judicial states. Plutos Sama, LLC Plutos Sama, LLC was founded by lawyers from top U.S. law firms with a deep history in global transactions, mergers and acquisitions, distressed assets and civil litigation. Plutos Sama delivers value by providing more than fractional legal advice, it provides comprehensive solutions in multiple sectors and markets. BP Fisher Law Group, LLP BP Fisher Law Group, LLP is an "AV" rated law firm providing representation to servicers, financial institutions and private investors in connection with their commercial and residential mortgage portfolios. The firm handles foreclosure, bankruptcy, eviction, seller representation for REO sales, loss mitigation, and litigation. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122006041/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 22, 2016] Retired Major General Lawrence W. Brock III, U.S. Army, Joins Klas Telecom Government Board of Directors Retired Major General Lawrence "Wayne" Brock III, U.S. Army, most recently Commanding General of the 311th Signal Command (Theatre) and United States Army Pacific (USARPAC) Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6, joined the Klas Telecom (News - Alert) Government Board of Directors this month after 36 years of military service. Throughout his distinguished career, Maj. Gen. Brock specialized in U.S. Army Signal communications where he became an expert in his field through a variety of technical and leadership positions. His posts included platoon leader, company commander, systems engineer officer, telecommunications signal officer, director of communications, and commander of three different theater signal commands where he was responsible for providing and defending critical communication, network and information services throughout an entire region and its joint coalitions. Maj. Gen. Brock's experience makes him well suited to serve on the Board of Directors for Klas Telecom Government Inc., a company responsible for the U.S. federal and defense sales of the corporation's ground breaking, low size, weight and power (SWaP), deployable communications systems. Maj. Gen. Brock joins a notable group of directors including retired Major General Mark "Droopy" Clark, USMC, who last served in the capacity of commander for the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC). "We are very honored and excited to have Maj. Gen. Brock serve on our bard," Klas Telecom Government President and CEO Dave Huisenga said. "I am confident that he will add great value in helping us deliver timely, relevant solutions to aid the U.S. Army in their goal of providing the best communications equipment possible to soldiers and operators on the ground." Before becoming Commanding General of the 311th Signal Command (Theatre) and USARPAC Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6, Maj. Gen. Brock served in a number of diverse Signal assignments from company, battalion and brigade command to Commanding General of the 359th Theater Tactical Signal Brigade, 335th Signal Command (Theatre) Forward (Kuwait), and 335th Signal Command (Theatre) (East Point, Georgia). In addition, Maj. Gen. Brock served overseas as the Director of Communications, CJ6, Headquarters, Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan; Director of Signal Integration, ACSE-A, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom; and ARCENT Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6. About Klas Telecom Government Klas Telecom Government Inc. is a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of Klas Telecom Ltd. created for the purpose of managing and effectively addressing U.S. government requirements at all classification levels. Operating in accordance with U.S. Department of Defense Foreign Ownership, Control or Influence (FOCI (News - Alert)) guidance and under a Special Security Agreement (SSA), Klas Telecom Government offers its customers a full range of capabilities including product design and configuration, network management, solutions development, fielding, training, and end-to-end sales. Klas Telecom Government is able to handle U.S. government contracts at all classification levels and has dedicated personnel who are able to provide engineering and post-sales support 24/7/365. About Klas Telecom Founded in 1991, Klas Telecom is an engineering and design company with over 25 years of experience developing highly capable, lightweight communications solutions for use in austere environments where low size, weight, power and ruggedization are required. With over 80% of the company dedicated to engineering and design, Klas Telecom is able to stay on the forefront of the remote communications market. Klas Telecom operates in the U.S. and international defense, first responder, disaster relief, law enforcement and transportation markets. The company employs staff across four offices located in Washington, DC; Herndon, VA; Tampa, FL; and Dublin, Ireland. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122006051/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 22, 2016] Radian CFO to Present at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Leveraged Finance Conference Today, Radian (News - Alert) Group Inc. (NYSE: RDN) announced that Frank Hall, chief financial officer, will present at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Leveraged Finance Conference, being held at the Boca Raton Resort & Club in Boca Raton, Florida on Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. The presentation, which will be webcast live with an accompanying slide presentation, can be accessed by visiting http://www.veracast.com/webcasts/baml/levfin2016/id63105259565.cfm or Radian's website at http://www.radian.biz/page?name=Webcasts. The slide presentation will also be available on Radian's website one hour prior tothe event and can be accessed by visiting http://www.radian.biz/page?name=Presentations. A replay of the presentation will be available for approximately 90 days. The complete press release is available at www.radian.biz. ABOUT RADIAN Radian Group Inc. (NYSE: RDN), headquartered in Philadelphia, provides private mortgage insurance, risk management products and real estate services to financial institutions. Radian offers products and services through two business segments: Mortgage Insurance, through its principal mortgage insurance subsidiary Radian Guaranty Inc. This private mortgage insurance protects lenders from default-related losses, facilitates the sale of low-downpayment mortgages in the secondary market and enables homebuyers to purchase homes more quickly with downpayments less than 20%. Mortgage and Real Estate Services, through its principal services subsidiary Clayton, as well as Green River Capital, Red Bell Real Estate and ValuAmerica. These solutions include information and services that financial institutions, investors and government entities use to evaluate, acquire, securitize, service and monitor loans and asset-backed securities. Additional information may be found at www.radian.biz. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005889/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Three seek NLCS Board District 1 seat in upcoming election Three candidates are seeking election to the district one seat on the NLCS board: Incumbent Kirsten Collier, Craig Godsey and Jason Johnson. Something changed for Jerry Thex when he saw a Sept. 3 video of Dakota Access Pipeline security using dogs to drive protesters off private land. He got frustrated. Another video on Nov. 2 showed police in riot gear firing rubber bullets and pepper spray at protesters, who were approaching the shoreline during a water demonstration in Cantapeta Creek north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. I couldnt even finish the videos the other day, said Thex, a Northern Cheyenne tribal member. He left for Standing Rock in September and again in October, each time bringing a flatbed trailer stacked with logs. He pays for the trips himself, putting a little money away when he can. Thex works as an administrator at the Heritage Living Center in Ashland. Hes also on the board of commissioners for the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Housing Authority and volunteers for the Ashland Fire Department. The more I watched (the videos), the more I felt like something reached out, grabbed me and pulled me over to North Dakota, Thex said. Thex, who was in the U.S. Army Reserve for eight years, wondered if any of the officers at Standing Rock had been in the military. He said he felt ashamed of how police were treating civilians while people in the military like him put their lives on the line for those same civilians. After his military service, Thex got a job as an ironworker, then a roustabout for the Tongue River Lumber Co., and finally a utility worker at the Colstrip power plant. He understands the police and pipeline laborers have a job to do to support themselves and their families. You don't have to stay and work there, either, if you have that kind of skill, Thex said. You could work somewhere else. On Nov. 4, Thex made the trip to Standing Rock again, bringing winter jackets, cases of water, canned goods, drawstring bags full of toiletries and more logs for the camps round-the-clock kitchens. Wood use has become a top priority for protesters planning to camp into next year. Frosty mornings at Oceti Sakowin Camp, the largest of the five camps, prove North Dakotas winter is just around the corner. Tribal elders have begun to tell campers to share fire space and save more wood for when snow covers the ground. The last two times Thex brought logs to camp, they were immediately unloaded, chopped and distributed to different areas of camp. Each trip takes more than six hours of driving on a two-lane stretch of highway into rural North Dakota. Thex spends a lot of that time thinking. I get kind of emotional when I think about it, Thex said. The situation in Standing Rock mirrors the same old story dating back to the 1800s when tribes were still fighting for their land, he said. However, in his lifetime he has never seen a gathering of tribes like this before. In September, Thex took his 11-year-old son, Jerry, to Standing Rock. I said, Son, you may never ever see something like this again where all these tribes come together like this, Thex said. Hundreds of flags representing different tribes trace the borders of the camp and go down the main road. Thex has met people from Alaska to New York and even one woman from Kenya. I think Native Americans are fed up now, Thex said. They are tired of being pushed around, tired of not being heard, and this is going to be their story. Thex said he is a part of that story by being behind the scenes and helping. Although Thex wants to go to the front line to protest, he said he has too much at stake back home. He's a father of six. His way of standing with Standing Rock is to bring the logs and let people know he is there for them. Every time he pulls his truck out of camp and returns to Montana he feels guilty. His desire to help is more intense after every visit. In August the Oceti Sakowin Camp had around 40 people in it, said Spud MedicineHorse. You could meet people and probably remember everyones name, he said. Now, the camp is home to about 1,500 people from all over the country. Some describe it as a heart, pumping people in and out on a daily basis. MedicineHorse, a member of the Crow tribe, has never seen anything like it. To see what it has grown into now is absolutely amazing." Although MedicineHorse visits Crow Agency several times a year, he has lived in Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation most of his life. He recalls hearing about the Dakota Access Pipeline in April. But everything started to escalate in August, he said. Thats when MedicineHorse decided he would stay at the camp, and hes been there ever since. When hes not at camp, he works as a ranch hand to support himself. MedicineHorse rides, breaks and trains horses. Hes also one of many protesters who ride on horseback during the demonstrations. Talon Voice, 19, a ranch hand from Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota, also rides in the demonstrations. He was one of four horsemen who were involved in a Sept. 3 clash with police, DAPL security and their dogs. A dog bit Voices horse in the back of the leg. It was an experience I will never forget, Voice said. Both men said there are agitators who incite violence during the peaceful protests. The people who bring violence, guns and all that stuff dont think about the long haul, MedicineHorse said. (Standing Rock residents) are the ones that have to live here, and we are the ones that have to put up with the outcome. Seven generations ago, his ancestors fought the same fight. He said he believes its the younger generation's turn to do the same by getting involved in peaceful prayer and spreading the word. I love my people with all my heart, MedicineHorse said. But we dont need that (violence) here right now. We are supposed to be in peaceful prayer. With their families living downstream from where the pipeline is scheduled to be constructed, MedicineHorse and Voice have no intention of leaving. Recently, a respected, fiscally conservative Montana legislator and some friends urged skepticism about the growing chorus in support of improved and increased infrastructure investment in Montana. Skepticism is often a useful approach to all sorts of proposals, and this is no different. But, as the executive director of the Montana Association of Oil, Gas, and Coal Counties (MAOGCC) which joins over 70 other public and private entities making up the Montana Infrastructure Coalition I would like to address some of their points in hopes of keeping healthy skepticism from drifting into unthinking opposition. First, the authors noted that in the previous Legislature infrastructure proposals included what might be viewed as mere political pork. Thats true. But my Association is not proposing to satisfy that appetite. We are, however, proposing to begin dealing with a very large yes, billions of dollars deficit for critical infrastructure through a systematic process of improving the revenue tools and making the distribution of the benefits fair. We propose to address undeniable needs in the most basic levels of infrastructure, such as water, wastewater, roads, and bridges. We will not be promoting pork. Second, the authors noted that infrastructure can be defined in a variety of ways. We agree, and have gone to great length to put structure to our deliberations on what qualifies as critical infrastructure, where our legislative priorities will begin. We are determined to start with the fundamental infrastructure noted above, without which all the other things arent even possible. Third, the authors noted that local control over decision-making is far superior and less susceptible to politics than divvying out piles of money in Helena. We agree here as well. MAOGCC has been a leading voice in proposing legislative approaches that push the funding and decision-making down to the local level as much as possible. Finally, the authors argued that funding ought to come exclusively or primarily from the local level. Here we differ. Taken a step further, one could easily argue that Montana must be less reliant on the federal government to fund our vast Interstate and Primary highways and bridges. The simple fact is that we do not have the population base and thus the revenue potential to maintain even a small portion of that roadway network on our own. We rely on the revenue generated in more densely populated states far from Montana to help fund the collective infrastructure of the nation. We do this to ensure that every corner of our country has access to markets and the ability to grow local, regional and national economies. The same is true at the state level, where rural Montana cannot, and should not be expected to fund its basic infrastructure without assistance from the rest of the state. We do this because the whole of Montana benefits from the recreational and natural resource assets contained in rural Montana, as much as we all benefit from healthy communities and economies across the state. The divide between rural and urban Montana is real and visible in numerous ways, and that divide appears to be growing. There is an apparent disconnect between how urban Montana views the abundant taxes and royalties derived from decades of oil, gas, and coal production (not to mention the agricultural, timber and mining production) in rural Montana. This appears to adversely affect how some in urban Montanaview the investments necessary to maintain the communities in which those farmers, ranchers, loggers, miners, engineers, roughnecks and pipefitters live and work. This only further divides Montana, and will lead inevitably to deterioration of its life, both in urban and rural areas. Yet, everywhere one goes in Montana, whether for recreation or work, you benefit from the decades of taxes and royalties paid by those natural resource industries. It is only fiscally sound to ensure that the people who live and work in rural Montana, and develop those resources, and provide stewardship over those lands, are provided with the tools and investments necessary to keep them viable and connected to the state as a whole. MAOGCC is cognizant of the complexities of providing infrastructure for a diverse, far flung society such as Montana, and this includes distribution of the benefits of public investment in a manner that addresses both urban and rural needs. With a focus on solutions that tend to unite rather than divide us, I will continue to carry these concerns through the deliberations within the Montana Infrastructure Coalition and am confident that the legislative package currently under development within our group will ultimately be both fiscally sound and broadly beneficial for all of Montana. Jon Metropoulos is executive director of the Montana Association of Oil, Gas and Coal Counties. He is also a board member of the Montana Infrastructure Coalition. Security researchers, vendors and everyday users usually work together in order to keep their computers safe and thwart cybercriminals. But according to two damning reports, the retail chains Office Depot and OfficeMax may have breached that trust. (Image credit: Office Depot in Palo Alto | Credit: Coolcaesar at the English Language Wikipedia, Creative Commons 3.0) Two undercover investigations appear to have caught store employees red-handed at charging exorbitant prices to get rid of malware on machines that were, in fact, totally clean tech-support scams no different from those conducted by shady call centers in India. These revelations come from KIRO-TV 7 News in Seattle and its sister Fox affiliate, WFXT-TV Fox25 in Boston. Shane Barnett, a whistle-blower who worked at Office Depot in the Seattle area, let KIRO-TV in on the retail chain's secret: Technicians would scan users' computers, find "malware" and other issues, and then charge up to $200 to "fix" the problems. MORE: How to Protect Yourself from Tech-Support Scams This isn't the first time Office Depot has been caught scamming customers. In 2009, our sister site Laptop Magazine revealed that customers who refused to buy extended support plans from the chain were told that the specific machines they wanted weren't in stock even when those models were sitting in that store's stockroom. In this year's cases, the Office Depot and OfficeMax technicians would often report malware and other problems even when the computers were perfectly clean. Barnett told KIRO-TV that this was standard policy at Office Depot, and that technicians were given a quota of "PPs" protection plans to sell every month. To test Barnetts assertion, the news organizations sent undercover investigators into Office Depot stores in Washington state and Oregon, and OfficeMax stores in the Boston area. (Office Depot purchased OfficeMax three years ago.) The investigators went to the "Free PC Tune-Up" counters in the stores, told the technicians that their laptops were running slowly, and asked for evaluations. What the store techs didn't know was that they were inspecting brand-new computers, fresh out of the box. Most of the technicians nevertheless told the investigators that their laptops were infected with malware, and that the fixes would cost up to $180 apiece. One technician even appeared to note the presence of malware on a record sheet before his scan registered anything. (To be fair, one store technician noticed that the laptop he was examining was brand-new, and told the customer he was helping to ignore the results of the "health check" software software that a third-party security expert said almost always returned a result of malware infection, whether any existed or not.) The KIRO-TV investigators then brought their six test computers, a mixture of Dell and HP machines, to Will Longman, vice president of IT and security at IOActive, a Seattle-based security firm. Longman found no evidence of malware on any of KIRO-TV's machines. One is inclined to trust his opinion, since his company would long be out of business were he unable to detect malware accurately. While it's not impossible for a single new machine to come pre-loaded with malware (or something that an antivirus scan would mistake as such), it's highly unlikely to find the same phenomenon across a variety of different models and manufacturers. Furthermore, removing most malware does not cost $180 in any reasonable universe. A scan from a free program like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware will do it just fine; even a yearlong subscription to a basic security suite for the average user should cost less than $50 per year. Office Depot issued a statement that it "in no way condones any of the conduct that is alleged in this report," and "intend[s] to fully review the assertions and take appropriate action." In the meantime, the company has temporarily stopped offering its PC Health Check service. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, last week wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission asking the agency to investigate the allegations. Whether the fraud was intentional or accidental (or whether there was any fraud at all, although the evidence is compelling), the days of Office Depot and OfficeMax bilking customers through malware scans may be coming to a close. Still, its a good lesson: Never trust a big-box store to monitor the health of your PC when you can do it by yourself much more cheaply and reliably. Loving live music isnt just about attending music festivals and seeing an international artists massive arena show. Even the biggest of big-name headliners started in the trenches, on the sticky carpets and bandrooms of your local bars and pubs which is exactly where you should be if you want to discover your new favourite band or venue. Here are our picks for this weeks best local gigs from Aussie talent from Perth to the East Coast and all for the price of a good meal. Birdhouse Where: Yah Yahs, Melbourne VIC When: 8pm 11pm, Friday Nov 25 Why: Having teamed up with Graham Ashton who has worked with the likes of The Living End and Powderfinger on their latest single Sweet, alt-punk rockers Birdhouse are heading to Yah Yahs to launch it into the world. Should be a ripper night. Tickets & Info: more info here. Arbes Where: The Gasometer Hotel, Melbourne VIC When: 8pm 11.30pm, Wednesday Nov 23 Why: After disappearing from the live stage for the better part of seven months, Arbes are back armed with a new EP and an extra member to enrich that live sound. Get down and celebrate the end of spring and the birth of another summer with Jimmy Chang Hot Tuna and Cyanide Thornton in support. Tickets & Info: $8, more info here. The Iron Eye Where: Crowbar, Brisbane QLD When: 8pm-11pm, Thursday Nov 24 Why: From picking up supports with the likes of DZ Deathrays and Dallas to spending their time with Tom Larkin of Shihad putting together their latest offering, The Iron Eye have been honing their sound as well as their live show. Their upcoming show at Crowbar will be one you wont soon forget. Tickets & Info: $15, more info here. Lossless & Corin Where: Civic Underground, Sydney NSW When: 8pm-3am, Friday Nov 25 Why: Co-headline shows mean you get twice the bang for your buck, and fortunately this Friday Wondercore Island labelmates Lossless and Corin are coming together to launch an album and EP respectively. With both acts bringing their A-game this will no doubt be a night to (try to) remember. Tickets & Info: $ more info here. Totally Mild Where: Golden Age Bar, Sydney NSW When: 9pm-11.30pm, Thursday Nov 24 Why: Just incase you have been living under a rock over the last year, Totally Mild are one of Melbournes finest exports at the moment, and the four-piece are taking their unique mellow rock to the Golden Age Bar. Entry is free, so whats your excuse? Tickets & Info: Free, more info here. Venus II Where: The Oxford Circus, Sydney NSW When: Friday Nov 25 Why: Venus II are celebrating their new EP I Want U 4 Myself and they are bringing Sydneys darkwave king Buzz Kill along for the ride. These two have been quietly buzzing this year, so get along and see Venus II before they blow up. Oh, and it is free, too Tickets & Info: Free, The Oxford Circus, Sydney NSWFriday Nov 25Venus II are celebrating their new EP I Want U 4 Myself and they are bringing Sydneys darkwave king Buzz Kill along for the ride. These two have been quietly buzzing this year, so get along and see Venus II before they blow up. Oh, and it is free, too: Free, more info here The Sugarcanes Where: Cherry Bar, Melbourne VIC When: 8pm 5am, Thursday Nov 24 Why: Soul in the Basement brings The Sugarcanes to Cherry Bar for a night of soul to honour the passing of Sharon Jones, and her work with the legendary Dap-Kings. Itll be an all-night celebration with soul DJs Vince Peach & Pierre Baroni there to keep the music flowing until the early morning. Tickets & Info: $10 on the door, more info here. Allan Smithy Where: Waywards, Sydney NSW When: 8pm-11pm, Friday Nov 25 Why: Allan Smithy dropped his debut EP earlier this month, drawing from all kinds of real world experiences Smithy spent time recording with Tom Iansek and Wayne Connolly amongst others, and he is finally ready to show the fruits of his labour. Fortunately for fans entry for this one is free. So, really you have no excuse. Tickets & Info: Free, more info here. Bree Tranter Where: The Foundry, Brisbane QLD When: 8pm-12am, Sunday Nov 27 Why: After working with the likes of Matt Corby, The Middle East and Thelma Plum, Bree Tranter is stepping out from the back line and into the spotlight. Anyone that has seen Bree Tranter live before will know this is guaranteed to be something special. Tickets & Info: $12.75, more info here. Lepers & Crooks Where: UOW UniBar, Wollongong NSW When: 8pm-12am, Thursday Nov 24 Why: Join the Lepers & Crooks crew as they celebrate the release of their latest and most intoxicating EP The Heathen Circus, packed with the kind of psychadelic swirls which are best heard live. Along for the ride are Blues rockers El Grande and trippy-art trio Dos Enos. This is a must see gig. Tickets & Info: more info here. Dumb Punts Where: Karova Lounge, Ballarat Vic When: 9pm-4am, Saturday Nov 26 Why: Everyones favourite Punts are hitting the road and this weekend they hit Ballarats famous Karova Lounge. Opening the night are local legends Tsugnarly and joining Dumb Punts for the entire tour are old mates, Department. Bringing nothing but good vibes and great tunes. As the Dumb Punts crew put it themselves youve earnt yourself a f***** beer Tickets & Info: more info here. Prisoners is the latest release from Melbourne hard rock/progressive band Maker Resonate, packing punishing drums, heavy guitars and the kind of growling vocals that will no doubt terrify your parents. This song lyrically speaks about being a prisoner in a metaphorical sense, says the bands vocalist Ben Jevanath. The first half of the song touches on inner turmoil of an individual as they struggle to overcome immoral practises. The second half portrays and individual who is held captive by their past Maker Resonate are one of the diverse range of eight participants selected for the recent GRID (Grass Roots Indie Development) artist development program, which provided emerging artists from Melbournes South East suburbs and Mornington Peninsula with the space and skills to build a sustainable career in the music industry. If you like what you hear, you can catch Maker Resonate live this Friday November 25 at the Reverence Hotel alongside Arkive. Sunshine Coast rockers Hobo Magic are gearing up to release their newest single the six-minute sprawling epic, The World Today, a culmination of everything the three piece has put together so far. Huge riffs, pounding drums and an underlying message of positive change as well as frustration with todays society. This November and December will see the band hitting the road in support of the track, hitting up Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, dates below. The shows we are playing around the release of the single are going to be epic, Says Hobo Magic vocalist, Connor Mitchell. Loads of amazing bands, joining us and heaps of cool places we are travelling to. We are going to give the shows all that weve got to send off 2016 with a bang! Hobo Magic Tour Dates Sat 26 Nov | Groovestock, Sunshine Coast Brewery, QLD Sat 03 Dec | Bendigo Hotel, Melbourne, VIC Sun 04 Dec | The Sharock Hotel, Echucca, VIC Sat 10 Dec | The Northern, Byron Bay, NSW Sun 18 Dec | Miami Shark Bar, Gold Coast, QLD Fri 23 Dec | The Bearded Lady, Brisbane, QLD Whether youre an artist, writer, creator or just a lover of the live music scene in general, its so important to ensure that you surround yourself with other like minded and passionate people. This years Face The Music Conference in Melbourne, provided the perfect platform serving as both an educational experience and most importantly, a chance for industry professionals and alike to rekindle their motivation for their craft. The two day conference held on Thursday and Friday of Melbourne music week, boasted a packed out schedule with a mixture of key note speakers, panel discussions and of course, live music. Each morning kicked off with what became known as the morning ritual and what better way to start the day than with a live performance from the likes of Jess Ribeiro and Hiatus Kaiyotes Nai Palm, with both taking advantage of some rare Melbourne sunshine on the steps of the state library. Spread throughout both the Melbourne State Library and RMIT, conference attendees found their niche attending hour long sessions throughout the day. The Meet Your Future Boss panel was a chance for the voice of the younger generation within the music industry to ring out loud and clear and prove that passion, drive and a willingness to learn are often just as important if not more than experience. With the likes of Gam Strum, Greer Clemens, Shelley Liu and Nic Kelly the panel was informative, interactive and of course bursting with youth. Several speed meeting sessions took place, giving attendees the chance to meet with industry professionals in almost a speed dating sense. These specifically targeted sessions offered a space for some real talk with topics including Music Industry Career Advice, Domestic Music Business, Pitch Your Music and Showcasing Artists Export, these proved to be an invaluable resource for artists, emerging or otherwise and industry professionals. For the academically minded, the Music On the Mind session provided some psychological background into the way we enjoy music, really reiterating the importance and impact of music on our minds and overall wellbeing. Many sessions were inclusively business focused, targeting up and coming artists, managers and writers to dive in and not only learn more about their chosen field, but also examine what the next step on their career path really looks like. A real standout discussion however, was the Creating Safe and Inclusive Spaces panel with representatives from the Victorian Governments safe spaces taskforce, leading discussions about how venue staff can ensure they are not only promoting safer spaces, but making sure their venue is consciously caring for all members of the community. High Tensions Karina Utomo, someone who is well versed on the subject, commented on the importance of taking action as well as creating an open and well informed discussion platform, particularly highlighting an artists responsibility to call out and highlight inappropriate behaviour at gigs. The importance of both community radio and the associated independent voices behind its impact (particularly with prominent community station 3RRR celebrating 40 years on air), was brought to light during the panel, Radio: The Format That Just Wont Quit. Moderated enthusiastically by Bridget Hustwaite, this really hammered home why well continue to be glued to the wireless for many years to come. With panelists such as Gemma Pike from Triple J and Gloria Brancatisano from SYN, this incredibly informative discussion focused specifically on the responsibility of radio to really champion Australian music something that is often overlooked by commercial radio. There were several keynote speakers scatted throughout the conference, however Andrew Jervis from Bandcamp and Zan Rowe from Triple J were two incredible standouts. As the chief curator for Bandcamp hearing Andrew chat about his passion for unsigned artists, and discovering exactly how Bandcamp as an entity came into being, was truly fascinating. Above all, Andrew made a conscious effort to actively listen to numerous Australian artists prior to his arrival in Australia and noted how truly impressed he was at the calibre of talent particularly amongst the Melbourne music scene. Zan Rowes chat with Myf Warhurst had the packed out RMIT theatre on the edge of their seats. An incredibly intimate look at the two decade long career of the Triple J mornings presenter, coming up through the ranks of community radio, mid dawn sessions and finally to the triple J studio where she remains today. Zan revealed many personal anecdotes along the way and at one point even backtracked by stating, now someone from Tone Deaf is going to write about this and that we did Zan. Purely because every single person who presented at Zans keynote, particularly inspiring young journalists, walked away with many motivational notes in their back pocket. A true inspiration within the world of music journalism. Overall, the Face the Music Conference was undeniably a hit. The State Library was an incredible venue, flooded with helpful volunteers pointing attendees in the right direction. The program was diverse, catering for everyones taste and expertise, with many taking away hints, tips and vital information as they dive head first into the music industry another impressive step forward for music conferences in Melbourne, and Australia. The timber industry and its advocates continue to promote a number of myths designed to garner public support for increased logging. New legislation is proposed that would weaken environmental protections, reduce public review of U.S. Forest Service timber sales (called variously vegetation management, forest health restoration, fuels reduction, hazard tree reduction, salvage timber sale) and significantly increase money-losing logging on public lands. Myth: Restoration of our forests is needed to re-create historic conditions. Truth: There is growing debate about whether most forest ecosystems need any restoration. Nearly all higher-elevation mixed conifer and subalpine forests grew in dense stands that tended to burn at medium to long intervals (often at intervals of hundreds of years), with large patches of mixed to high mortality, so they are well within historic conditions. Low-elevation ponderosa pine forests were considered different from the moister, higher-elevation forests and characterized as open and park-like, and burned by frequent low severity surface fires. However, new research concludes that many pine stands historically experienced occasional high severity stand replacement blazes and may not be significantly outside of their historic condition. For instance, one recent review paper concluded: current attempts to 'restore' forests to open, low-severity fire conditions may not align with historical reference conditions in most ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests of western North America. Myth: Logging reduces large wildfires. Truth: Large wildfires burn under extreme weather conditions. Under extreme weather, wildfires burn through, over and around clearcuts, thinned forests and areas that have been prescribed burned. Such fires are controlled when the weather changes to more moderate conditions. Logging may even increase fire spread and fire severity. The conclusion of the Sierra Nevada report to Congress had this to say: "Timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate, and fuels accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity." Another study done by fire ecologists at the Missoula Fire Lab concluded: "Even extensive fuel treatments may not reduce the amount of area burned over the long-term and furthermore, reduction of area burned may actually be an undesirable outcome. A new study soon to be published found that reviewed 1,500 wildfires between 1984 and 2014 found that actively managed forests had the highest level of fire severity. While those forests in protected areas burned, on average, had the lowest level of fire severity. In other words, the best way to reduce severe fires is to protect the land as wilderness, not manage it. Myth: Thinning national forest lands will protect homes. Truth: One only needs to reduce the flammability within 100 feet of homes to protect them. Reducing fuels more than 100 feet beyond the home confers no additional protection. As one study concluded: It may not be necessary or effective to treat fuels in adjacent areas in order to suppress fires before they reach homes; rather, it is the treatment of the fuels immediately proximate to the residences, and the degree to which the residential structures themselves can ignite that determine if the residences are vulnerable. Myth: Beetle outbreaks increase the chances of wildfire. Truth: Any number of research studies has documented that beetle outbreaks have little effect or even reduces the chance of large wildfire for a period of years. Dead trees do not burn as well as live trees with flammable resins. For example, one study concluded: we found no detectable increase in the occurrence of high-severity fires following MPB outbreaks. Dry conditions, rather than changes in fuels associated with outbreak, appear to be most limiting to the occurrence of severe fires in these forests. Myth: Dead trees are a sign of a forest health problem. Truth: Dead trees are critical to healthy forest ecosystems. Some 250 scientists recently sent a letter to Congress affirming snag forest habitat are ecological treasures comparable to old growth forests." Unfortunately, as a result of logging and other forest management, we have a deficit of dead trees in our forest ecosystems. Episodic input of dead woods results from wildfire, beetles and disease. These natural processes help maintain forest ecosystem health. George Wuerthner is an ecologist who has published 38 books, including "Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy." Kanye West has reportedly been rushed to hospital. Billboard cites an anonymous source in reporting that the controversial hip-hop star has been hospitalised suffering from exhaustion and sleep deprivation, one day after he announced the cancellation of the remainder of his Saint Pablo tour. According to Billboard, West was hospitalised on Monday, 21st November (US time) and put under observation in an LA hospital. Meanwhile, NBC News reports, LA police responded to a medical welfare call at around 1.20pm LA time. There was no criminal activity reported. Meanwhile, Pitchfork reports, via TMZ, that West was taken to UCLA Medical Center for psychiatric evaluation in an ambulance and was reportedly transported in handcuffs. According to the Billboard source, West has not been institutionalised in any respect. He went to the hospital of his own will and under the consultation of his doctor. The news follows weeks of what many have called bizarre and erratic behaviour from the rapper. Wests Saint Pablo tour has become notorious for the rappers lengthy rants, which often came at the expense of performing music. During the rants, West often made outlandish claims, endorsing US President-elect Donald Trump, calling out former friends Beyonce and Jay-Z, and even cutting concerts midway through. As Billboard notes, West recently halted a performance in Sacramento, California after just 30 minutes, before cancelling a make-up show in Los Angeles and finally cancelling the rest of the tour, affecting some 21 dates which would have kept the rapper on tour through the end of the year. You can watch one of Wests infamous Saint Pablo Tour rants in the footage below, in which he goes at length about his respect for the equally controversial Donald Trump, claiming he would have voted for Trump, discussing his plans to run for the presidency himself in 2020, and sharing his thoughts about the US political climate in 2016. Its been a massive 48 hours for triple j. Yesterday, beloved triple j Breakfast hosts Matt Okine and Alex Dyson announced that they would not be returning to host the popular morning slot in 2017, with Okine leaving to focus on music and television and Dyson looking to travel and concentrate on writing. The dust had barely settled on the news when the national youth broadcaster announced Okine and Dysons replacements. Earlier today, triple j announced that starting Monday, 9th January 2017, the Breakfast show will be taken over by Adelaide radio presenters Ben & Liam. Theyll be joined by journalist Brooke Boney, wholl be delivering regular news broadcasts in place of Ruby Jones, whos moving to the afternoon time slot. Therell also be regular appearances from Australian Paralympian of the Year Dylan Alcott and comedian Gen Fricker. And speaking of Fricker, according to an official statement from triple j, the comedian and current Weekend Arvos host will be taking over Lewis McKirdys Lunch spot. Yes, not only are we losing Matt and Alex from the morning, Lewi McKirdys dulcet tones will no longer be taking us through lunch. According to the network, McKirdy, whos something of a cult figure amongst triple j fanatics, is heading over to the UK after six years as the host of triple j Lunch. As triple j listeners will know, hes also the host and producer of Mix Up and a new Mix Up producer is set to be announced soon. Were sorry to see you go, Lewi. Update . . .is an American writer, partner in the global investment company Cranemere LLC, and a senior fellow at the. During a brief career stint in Kansas City, he challenged Congressman Cleaver in a Democratic Primary that still evokes hard feelings to this day. However, the latest comments from the international power broker today suggest an effort to build bridges.Developing . . . "According to police, a woman gave a bank teller a note indicating she was being held against her will. A man was arrested at the bank after bank personnel called police. "The victim at the bank then indicated to detectives that her boyfriend was being held hostage in the 200 block of North 1st Street in KCK. Officers arrived at the house to discover multiple suspects had barricaded themselves inside the residence." Here's a scary report of desperate times as the holidays approach:Read more: "The wearing of a safety pin as a political statement is the latest example of such political speech. Although wearing the safety pin as political speech is not the problem, any disruption the political statement causes in the classroom or school is a distraction in the education process. We ask staff members to refrain from wearing safety pins or other symbols of divisive and partisan political speech while on duty--unless such activity is specifically in conjunction with District curriculum." "It's common sense that teachers should be low key on political and religious campaigning and proselytizing. They're grownups in a power position and they shouldn't abuse their authority over children." "It doesn't get any more low-key than a safety pin. It is literally silent." "What's the big deal? Let those "safetypinners" have their way. Then the USA flag, MAGA, and NRA pins, hats, shirts, etc., would soon appear." We talked about this one last night and the story is getting ready to make a local school district a mockery among the national media elite . . .Predictably, the story is blowing up on social media locally and national media outlets are soon to make the JoCo district look like a bunch of hayseeds from flyover country . . .KC media summary:Like it or not, the fashion crackdown is laughable and treats poorly paid educators like. The safety pin movement might have its detractors as a sign of rebuke against Prez-Elect Trump and his supporters but its roots are that of aHere's some of what our reader community noted on the topic . . .We think more conversation on this silly topic is warranted along with a clarification from the District what the penalty is for refusing to follow the draconian dress code ad hoc declarations as public schools are the latest local political minefield.Developing . . . KICK-ASS TKC TIPSTERS TELL US TO BEWARE OF KANSAS CITY POLITICAL CONSULTANT COORDINATED SOCIAL MEDIA MEAN TWEET ATTACKS AGAINST MCI IN ORDER TO CONVINCE THE PUBLIC OF THE NEED FOR AN UNNECESSARY SINGLE-TERMINAL!!! Once again ourhas uncovered a clandestine Kansas City political effort aimed at creating hope and change that nobody wants.To wit . . .We've already highlighted thisthat features the most dedicated liberals mimicking the twitter winning of more successful politicos like the Prez-Elect.Example . . . 4th District At-large council lady jokes the future Prez before the election but she's probably not laughing now given the realization that she's in the heart of Trump Country.But I digress . . .The point here is that typically long lines across the nation and even in newer airports are going to beby the single-terminal crowd in order to jump to false conclusions about the convenience of KCI.The playbook is already out there and has its roots in the architects of the outgoing Presidential Administration:And so, the holiday travel misery of Kansas City travelers will soon be used as a rhetorical ploy in an ongoing quest to garner billions of dollars forDeveloping . . . Concert Aegean is coordinated under the music label of Meet Culture, which focuses events on culture exchange between China and Greece On November 11, on what has been dubbed as Singles Day in China, where people seek out their Mr/Ms Right, a concert took place at the Jinsha Theatre in Chengdu setting the mood for romantic encounters. The ancient Chinese city in the western region of the country hosts the Jinsha Theatre, which is located inside of one of the most important museums in Chengdu. The historical location of the museum is where the earliest settlements of the locals were, and represents to the Chinese much of the same importance as the Acropolis to Greeks and the city of Athens. The concert titled Aegean is coordinated under the music label of Meet Culture, which focuses events on culture exchange between China and Greece. Aegean showcased Chinese and Greek musicians, while Chinese audiences were dazzled by the Oson Zeis, the earliest recorded song in the world and found in Greece. The concert series has traveled to China from Greece and Meet Cultures Music has produced an album by the same title, Aegean, which has seen much success. Meet Culture focuses their efforts of promoting cultural exchanges between China and Greece not only through music, but also via publishing, concerts, projects and providing tailor-made tourism services catering specifically to Chinese tourists visiting Greece. Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report The green cedar tree at the center of Lebanons flag is a symbol connecting the Eastern Mediterranean state with its ancient past The green cedar tree at the center of Lebanons flag is a symbol connecting the Eastern Mediterranean state with its ancient past, ekathimerini.com reports. Lebanons cedars (Cedrus libani) are seen as sacred, not only because they are mentioned 77 times in the Bible, but also because they have greatly contributed to the countrys economic growth. The cedar forests, with trees growing up to 40 meters in height and trunks of up to 2.5 m in diameter, are known to have provided timber for ancient Egypt, Israel and the Babylonians. It is said that the highly resilient wood was used for the construction of Solomons famed temple. Archaeologists believe that timber exports were shipped from the ancient coastal town of Byblos. Byblos, believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Speaking to Kathimerini, Lebanese archaeologist Dr Martine Francis-Allouche said that experts had until recently failed to discover signs of a Bronze Age port in the ancient town of Byblos. After 17 years of field investigation in Byblos, which began in the 1960s by Honor Frost, a pioneer in the field of marine archaeology in Lebanon, the basin of the ancient port was finally located at the southern foot of the hill that hosted the ancient city, Francis-Allouche said. Francis-Allouche and Nicolas Grimal, a French Egyptologist at the College de France, the two scientific supervisors of the Byblos and the Sea project, extended their survey to the sea in their effort to trace the ancient port. In doing so, they asked for help from a Greek university. From dawn to dusk we are in the sea. We plan the boat routes so as to form a dense canvas of courses to collect as much data as possible, said George Papatheodorou, professor of environmental and geological oceanography at the University of Patras Department of Geology. Latest mission Papatheodorou recently returned from the latest mission in Lebanon. Over the winter, scientists will process the data they collected during the survey in order to draw up maps of the ancient port. The university lab has 30 years of experience in the area of maritime geology and oceanography. It gained international recognition after its research in the sea area of Alexandria in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. The Lebanon mission aims to document the coastal paleogeography of ancient Byblos during its heyday. We are very close to locating the ancient Byblos port. We are still not certain about its exact size and location, said Papatheodorou. Using the labs instruments, the small and flexible team headed by Papatheodorou and alternate professor Maria Geraga (with help from researchers Nikos Georgiou, Dimitris Christodoulou, Xenophon Dimas, Margarita Iatrou and Despina Zoura) will be able to record the seabed as if there was no water and delve beneath the surface to trace submerged formations now covered by sand due to geological or human intervention. By combining traditional archaeology with sciences, the maritime archaeologists will be able to see, as it were, the port of Byblos that reached its peak 6,000 years ago. It is a port that has been filled with debris. Part of it is under the land and another part lies under the sea. After its location has been established, archaeologists will launch test digs to unearth the port. We believe that it is buried a few meters beneath the sea floor, said Papatheodorou. The next mission of the project, which is subsidized by the Honor Frost Foundation, is scheduled for spring 2017. Then we may get the scientific evidence to determine the position of the ancient harbor from where the cedars of God began their journey to Egypt and elsewhere. Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report The European Union should discuss debt relief for Greece and potentially move ahead even without the International Monetary Fund, underlined Portugals Minister of Finance Mario Centeno in an interview published Tuesday by German newspaper Bild. We have to start this discussion Centeno was quoted in the German newspaper. Euro zone finance ministers are due to discuss wide-ranging debt relief for Greece when they meet next month, however Germanys Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble has opposed such measures, claiming they will weaken efforts to enact further reforms. Centeno said the EU could proceed with debt relief for Greece, even the IMF does not participate. The European currency union has very strong institutions in the meantime. We can deal with most problems on our own he noted. Centeno also said that Europe's Stability and Growth Pact should be reworked and replaced. The current debt rules have a lot of room for improvement. Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Greek Labor Minister Efi Achtsioglou met the Institutions representatives on Sunday to discuss labor issues; their meeting lasted four hours. The Greek government mainly aims at reinstating collective bargaining and achieving expandability of sectoral collective agreements. Collective redundancies are also one of the most crucial issues of the negotiations. According to Labor Ministry sources, the IMF insists on increasing the limit of collective redundancies, while the Greek government rejects any such possibility. As regards minimum wage, the two sides disagree on the way of its determination. The Greek government argues that it should be reinstated, while the Institutions have expressed their disagreement thereon. Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report BILLINGS -- In a quiet ceremony on Saturday night in Billings, more than 50 people gathered in a West End church to mourn the violence and death in the world's transgender community, and to hope that a more receptive and understanding future awaits those they honored. At 73-years-old, Tricia Decker just may represent a part of that future. The Red Lodge resident said the Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremony at Grace United Methodist Church in some ways marked a full-circle journey of education and understanding she has undertaken in the last year, after living for decades with what she described as misinformed stereotypes about transgender people. "I just thought it was an attention-getting thing," Decker said, adding that she had some vague notions that being transgender was related to drugs and sex. An advocate and board member for Red Lodge's Domestic and Sexual Violence Services, Decker said that an informational session on the transgender community DSVS hosted last October was eye-opening. After finding out that rates of attempted suicide in the transgender community far surpass national averages, Decker said she felt like she needed to know more, despite how daunting the task seemed. "It was totally foreign to me," Decker said. "I had all these stereotypes." Organized by Not In Our Town Billings and the Montana Gender Alliance, the event on Saturday night included an educational element that attempted to broach some basic concepts about the transgender community in an effort to prevent future violence and harm. Rhiannon Schiller, a member of the Montana Gender Alliance, gave an informational talk with a slideshow. At the beginning, Schiller asked the audience to imagine she was holding a folded blue piece of paper. The audience would agree that the paper is blue, Schiller said, before asking them to imagine if when unfolded, the paper was pink inside. Schiller used this as a metaphor for personal identity and how with some transgender individuals, physical appearance may not match interior identity. Schiller suggested that first asking for a name and then asking for a person's preferred gender pronoun, was a good way to clear the air with a transgender person instead of stumbling through questions about appearance, sexual preference and gender that can be emotionally harmful to some. Overall though, Schiller emphasized that intention is of great importance in such interactions. "It's always important to approach with love and an open mind," she said. After prayer, brief speeches and Schiller's talk, the event reached its emotional peak, with a memorial for those killed in the last year as a result of their transgender identity. Dozens of candles were lit onstage, as a video played on a TV above. On screen was an image of a candle, framed on either side by changing slides featuring faces, names and causes of death that in a representation of lives lost and violence committed described stabbings, beatings, shootings and more. It was the fifth year that Marty Elizabeth Ortiz organized the event and she said the list of the dead which she took from www.tdor.info, seems to be growing longer. Whether or not that's a result of increased violence or increased reporting and acknowledgment of violence motivated by someone's transgender identity, Ortiz couldn't say. Still, Ortiz noticed something else about this year's event that seemed heartening to her: Attendance was up. "It's always a powerful event," she said. A participation plan in the Greek program is being prepared by the International Monetary Fund, according to information of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation A participation plan in the Greek program is being prepared by the International Monetary Fund, according to information of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. The IMF itself set the condition of the characterization of the Greek debt as sustainable in order to participate in the program. The IMF plan is expected to be revealed in the coming weeks, possibly shortly after the Eurogroup of December 5. If confirmed, it would constitute a parallel three-year program from 2017 until the end of 2019. Time for Greece to exit to the markets, better conditions compared to the previous agreement, and cash for primary investments are referred to as design features and IMF sources remind that, in the last four months, the convergence points are consolidated. Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and the Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci have not been able to achieve the necessary further convergences on criteria for territorial adjustment, a UN statement read Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and the Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci have not been able to achieve the necessary further convergences on criteria for territorial adjustment, a UN statement read following their talks in Mont Pelerin on Monday evening. If the leaders had been able to reach an agreement on territory it, would have paved the way for the last phase of the talks, added the UN statement. The two sides have decided to return to Cyprus and reflect on the way forward, it continued, with Anastasiades scheduled to return to the island at 2pm (local time) on Tuesday. UN Special Adviser on Cyprus, Espen Barth Eide, will bring these developments to the attention of the Secretary-General [Ban Ki-moon], concluded the statement. BLAME GAME Cyprus Government Spokesperson Nikos Christodoulides announced on Twitter that there was no conclusion reached following the Mont Pelerin talks. "Unfortunately there was no conclusion on the territorial criteria, he tweeted in Greek. In a press conference after the talks on Monday, Christodoulides stated that the Republic, does not want to enter into a blame game, after the leaders failed to come to an agreement. Christodoulides noted that Anastasiades was not happy with the way the talks concluded, noting that upon his return to Cyprus, Anastasiades will inform the Cypriot people about the developments and what happened during the negotiations. MAXIMALIST POSITIONS Christodoulides rejected and denounced criticism aimed by Akincis Spokesperson Baris Burcu on the Republics position, stating that it does not in any case reflect to what happened on the negotiating table. Furthermore, the Spokesperson commented that the Turkish Cypriot sides references to maximalist positions by the Republic do not in any case respond to reality. Christodoulides confirmed that there was no conclusion on the criteria related to Greek Cypriots returning to their ancestral homes within the territorial adjustment talks. NOT THE END OF THE ROAD When commenting on if the Cyprus talks could now be in danger, Christodoulides remarked, its too early to make such assessments, while he underlined that the Greek Cypriot side is constantly committed to its goal to creating conditions that will pave the way for a positive outcome. Christodoulides added: We have one goal, which is to terminate the occupation and reunite our country. We will do everything possible towards this direction. Referring to a multi-party conference involving the Republic, Turkish Cypriot leadership, and the islands three guarantor powers Greece, Turkey and the UK Christodoulides confirmed that the government was ready to give a date for the conference on the security and guarantees issues if there was an agreement on territory and if a map was drafted based on that. NOT HAPPY AT ALL Christodoulides stated that the Republic was not happy at all as due to the Turkish Cypriot sides stance it was not possible to have an outcome to this very promising process. In his closing statements to the press, Christodoulides affirmed: The governments side is clearly willing and determined to continue the effort to lift the occupation and reunite the country. This is crystal clear and someone who has been following the developments at the negotiating table during the last 18 months cannot question it. BACKGROUND Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and illegally occupied its northern third Anastasiades and Akinci have been engaged in UN-led talks since May 2015, with a view to reunite the island under a federal roof. If a final agreement is reached it will be put to both communities in a referendum. A 2004 peace deal, the Annan Plan, was approved by Turkish Cypriots but overwhelmingly rejected by Greek Cypriots. Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke on the telephone with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama on Tuesday Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke on the telephone with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama on Tuesday, at the latter's request. A press release from the Greek prime minister's press office said that the two leaders emphasised the importance of bilateral relations for the benefit of both the Greek and Albanian peoples, as well as the surrounding region. The Greek prime minister expressed his continued dedication to this goal but added that recent actions and increasingly nationalist rhetoric on the Albanian side undermined a climate of confidence that was necessary for the progress of bilateral relations. Tsipras highlighted the need for substantive steps and tangible results in the two countries' cooperation, for which Greece has set a series of initiatives in motion. In addition, he noted that the protection of the rights of the ethnic Greek minority was a foremost issue in relations between the two countries and a fundamental condition for Albania's European progress. Tsipras to inaugurate Prime Minister's Office in Thessaloniki on Saturday Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will tour the region of Thrace on Friday 25 November. On Saturday, Tsipras will visit Thessaloniki where he will inaugurate the Prime Minister's office in Thessaloniki. Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Mustafa Akincis refusal to return Turkish occupied town Morphou to the Greek Cypriot administered area in an eventual agreed solution led to the collapse of the UN-led peace talks on Monday Mustafa Akincis refusal to return Turkish occupied town Morphou to the Greek Cypriot administered area in an eventual agreed solution led to the collapse of the UN-led peace talks on Monday, according to CNA English sources. The Turkish Cypriot side would not agree on the number of refugees to return to their homes under Greek Cypriot administration, as proposed by the Greek Cypriot side, said the unnamed source. The Greek Cypriot proposal would have meant the inclusion of Morphou in the Greek Cypriot constituent state, when drawing a map on the territorial adjustments. According to the sources, Akincis goal was to link the discussion on territory with the issue of security and guarantees Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and Akinci reportedly came close to agreeing the overall percentage of territory for the Turkish Cypriot state. According to CNA English, Anastasiades suggested 27.2 per cent while Akinci proposed 28.2 per cent. NO COMPROMISE Akinci did not appear willing to compromise, nor did he seem to have secured the green light from Ankara to reach a satisfactory compromise on the number of refugees that would return under Greek Cypriot administration, reported CNA English. Such a move would have meant Morphous return to the Greek Cypriot constituent state, which has around 7,500 refugees. Akinci appeared to advocate a discussion on territory at a multi-party conference, something which Anastasiades had said was not possible because it would have linked discussions on territory with security concerns, commented the sources. Such a conference would have to deal with security and guarantees of a future federal Cyprus and could take place once the two sides are within range of an agreement, having already addressed territorial concerns. The Greek Cypriot side has repeatedly said that it wants to abolish the 1960 system of guarantees which stipulated that Greece, the UK and Turkey would guarantee the Republic`s independence and territorial integrity. BACKGROUND Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and illegally occupied its northern third. Anastasiades and Akinci have been engaged in UN-led talks since May 2015, with a view to reuniting the island under a federal roof. If a final agreement is reached it will be put to both communities in a referendum. A 2004 peace deal, the Annan Plan, was approved by Turkish Cypriots but overwhelmingly rejected by Greek Cypriots. Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report European Parliament President Martin Schulz has said that both sides need to continue Cyprus reunification talks, after talks in Mont Pelerin on territorial adjustment reached an impasse European Parliament President Martin Schulz has said that both sides need to continue Cyprus reunification talks, after talks in Mont Pelerin on territorial adjustment reached an impasse on Monday evening. In a tweet, Schulz said: A solution for all Cypriots is within reach. I call on both sides to continue Cyprus reunification talks with more good resolve than ever. Talks on the territory issue had failed to produce an agreement. The UN said in a statement that if the leaders had been able to reach an agreement on territory it, would have paved the way for the last phase of the talks, the statement added. The two sides have decided to return to Cyprus and reflect on the way forward, it continued, with Anastasiades scheduled to return to the island at 2pm (local time) on Tuesday. UN Special Adviser on Cyprus, Espen Barth Eide, will bring these developments to the attention of the Secretary-General [Ban Ki-moon], concluded the statement. Refusal to return Morphou The Turkish Cypriot leaders spokesperson Baris Burcu said in statements after the meeting on Monday night that The Turkish Cypriot side did not see good intention from the Greek side. CNA sources have also said on Tuesday that Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akincis refusal to return Morphou had led to the collapse in negotiations on the territory issue. On his part though, government spokesperson Nikos Christodoulides said - commenting on whether the Cyprus talks could now be in danger - its too early to make such assessments, while underlining that the Greek Cypriot side is constantly committed to its goal to creating conditions that will pave the way for a positive outcome. Akinci is expected to make statements after his return to Cyprus this afternoon. Before his return, Akinci is expected to stop over in Istanbul. Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Transport Minister promised that a highway from Corinth to Kalamata via Tripoli will be completed by mid December Visiting the coastal town of Kalamata in the southern Peloponnese on Sunday, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Christos Spirtzis promised that a highway from Corinth to Kalamata via Tripoli, as well as a branch connecting Lefktro and Sparti, will be completed by mid December. Spirtzis was in the area to inspect the projects currently underway, accompanied by Minister of State Christoforos Vernardakis and Alternate Economy and Development Minister Alexis Charitsis. Spirtzis said the main priorities were to promptly complete the Morea highway but also works to protect Kalamata from flooding, stressing that the era of long delays was over. "The works are programmed and implemented," he said. The minister said the government had negotiated hard to review the concession contract for the Morea highway and that its completion was a "vindication for us all". He accused previous governments of signing concession contracts that did not protect the interests of the state and of citizens. Spirtzis promised that the government will not stop there but also proceed to introduce tolls proportional to distance travelled on all highways and to complete infrastructure in the country. The ministers later met Kalamata Mayor Panagiotis Nikas and announced that the ministry will provide funding for another three anti-flooding projects. In statements on Saturday, again in Kalamata, Spirtzis said that the funding for the Patras-Pyrgos highway had been secured while action was underway for a road between Pyrgos, Kalo Nero and Tsakona but "this had absolutely no maturity". "The previous governments had made not made any provision, not even one euro, for completing this and it was removed from the concession contract for the Olympia Highway because there were environmental problems with the road network passing through Kaiafa and Ileia," he said. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Source: ANA-MPA Kostas Zouraris, the unconventional, self-proclaimed leftist, communist and Orthodox Christian, who was recently appointed Deputy Minister of Education Affairs expressed his support for the erection of multiple Islamic mosques across Greece Kostas Zouraris, the unconventional, self-proclaimed leftist, communist and Orthodox Christian, who was recently appointed Deputy Minister of Education Affairs expressed his support for the erection of multiple Islamic mosques across Greece for the countrys Muslim refugees to expresss their religious faith. Greece has 1,700% more refugees than the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, Zouraris told radio station North 98 in Thessaloniki. In the interview Zouraris said he was currently involved in examining the renewal of the school books used in the primary and secondary levels of education. On the question of whether it would be possible to include the teaching of ancient Greek as a lesson from primary school, he admitted that such a move was difficult at the moment, but added that he was considering as plan that would allow students to participate on voluntary basis in the 1st and 2nd year of junior high school and senior high school. Zouraris stressed that the relations between the Church and state would be smoother after the rocky relations between his predecessor, Nikos Filis with the head of the Greek Orthodox Church, Ieronymos. Commenting in the ongoing negotiations between Greece and her creditors, he claimed their aim was to force Greece to bow down. They are demanding pounds of blood, he said. Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report For a sixth consecutive year, Greece has been unable to stem the flow of doctors leaving the country For a sixth consecutive year, Greece has been unable to stem the flow of doctors leaving the country, ekathimerini.com reports. The numbers emigrating during 2016 have been high again, with most opting for work in other European countries. The only difference this year is that there has been a slight dip in those leaving for the UK, which may be due to Brexit. Overall, the Athens Medical Association (ISA) issued a total of 1,018 certificates between January 1 and October 24 allowing Greek doctors to practice abroad. During the whole of 2015, ISA issued 1,521 such documents, which was slightly higher than the 1,380 it produced in 2014 and 1,488 in 2013. The year which saw the highest level of emigration among Greek doctors was in 2013, when ISA issued 1,808 certificates. In total, between 2010 and this year, ISA has readied paperwork for more than 9,300 medical professionals looking to leave Greece. The majority of certificates prepared this year (719) concerned doctors who had completed their residencies but were not able to find work in Greece. The UK was the most popular destination (487), followed by Germany (102), Cyprus (77), France (75), Switzerland (58) and Sweden (44). Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also had a steady presence on the list over the last few years. UK decline The 487 certificates ISA has issued for the UK represent a significant reduction compared to last year. The figure is around 300 lower than last year and 2014. In 2013, a total of 863 such documents were prepared by the association. However, classified ads for positions at hospitals in the UK continue to appear on Greek websites. A number of specialities are being sought and salaries start from about 28,000 pounds per year. The ads suggest that hospitals in France, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland offer more attractive salaries. Pay for doctors at Swiss hospitals start from around 6,000 euros per month. Companies in Saudi Arabia offer even better terms. One hospital group claims it can provide doctors with 11,000 euros a month tax free, 40 days vacation and free luxury accommodation. Shortages at home While Greek doctors pursue their futures abroad, the Greek National Health System (ESY) is buckling due to the shortage of medical staff. According to the Federation of Greek Hospital Doctors' Unions (OENGE), Greece lacks some 6,000 specialized doctors. The vast majority of doctors hired over the last few years were on fixed-term contracts, which is not a very attractive proposition for those in the medical field. According to the Health Ministry, ESY employs 1,464 auxiliary doctors at the moment. The medical world has been seriously affected by the crisis over the last few years, ISA president Giorgos Patoulis told Kathimerini. The proliferation of mostly young doctors and the low rate at which they are absorbed into the public or private sector creates serious challenges for them in finding work and drives wages down. In combination with the government's failure to set out a sustainable and effective health policy, this has caused an unprecedented migratory wave. This leaves us facing a paradox: Even though there is a plethora of young doctors who are unemployed, the health system is getting old and collapsing due to a lack of personnel. Read more here. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Police forces across Europe and the United States arrested 178 people as part of a crackdown on money laundering last week Police forces across Europe and the United States arrested 178 people as part of a crackdown on money laundering last week and identified some 23 million euros (19.65 million pounds) in stolen funds, the European Union judicial agency Eurojust said. The arrests were the result of an operation targeting the practice of money muling, where illicit funds are disguised by wiring them through the accounts of intermediaries, or mules, who are paid with a cut of the proceeds. Some 580 money mules were identified and police interviewed 380 suspects during the operation, which was intended to tackle the growing volume of online payment and card fraud across the continent. The growing scale of card fraud was highlighted at the weekend, when cyber security analysts said criminals had used malicious software to jackpot cash machines in more than a dozen European countries rigging them so they spit out cash. Criminal networks Money mules are essential to the money laundering strategies of many criminal networks. Since the practice is often disguised as legitimate employment, many are unaware they are involved in a scam for which they can end up facing criminal charges. Money muling may on the surface seem to be a small crime, but (it) is orchestrated by organized crime groups, said Michele Consinsx, president of Eurojust, which helped coordinate the operation alongside European policing agency Europol. Authorities from Britain, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Ukraine and the United States were involved in last weeks operation. Source: Reuters RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report The initial public offering (IPO) of the Eskan Bank Realty Income Trust (REIT) opened today. Subscription for the IPO will close on December 6. The BD14.4 million ($38.21million) offering represents 72.9 per cent of the trusts total size of BD19.8 million, and has a target of 6.5 per cent in net distributable income payable semi-annually. This sharia-compliant offering is reserved for Bahraini and GCC nationals, and is open to individual and institutional applicants. Securities & Investment Company (SICO) is the mandated lead manager, and also the sub-investment manager and dedicated market maker, while Bahrain Islamic Bank (BisB) has been appointed as the receiving bank. Dr Khalid Abdulla, general manager of Eskan Bank, provided details of the initial two Bahraini properties comprising the REIT, which are wholly owned by the trust. The Eskan Bank REIT enables investors to share in a diversified portfolio of properties, namely Segaya Plaza and Danaat Al Madina, offering diversification within the real estate sector with primary exposure to retail, office and residential segments, thereby spreading the risk of owning individual properties. The properties currently have an occupancy rate of over 85 per cent, and the trust intends to increase its sharia-compliant property portfolio as and when attractive opportunities arise, he said. While the occupancy rate continues to gain momentum, we have structured a performance supplement into the trust, enhancing its attractiveness to investors, and providing an intention by the investment manager to supplement the actual return of the trust should it be below 6 per cent as the occupancy increases, he added. Najla Al Shirawi, chief executive officer of SICO, said: The minimum subscription is BD500, and allotment priority will be given to individual Bahraini applicants and thereafter all other investor categories on a pro-rata basis. The trust intends to provide unit holders with steady, recurring distributions equating to a minimum of 90 per cent of net distributable income of the Trust; and increased unit holder value through the potential appreciation in the price of units derived from improved property upkeep stemming from a reserve fund dedicated to the trust. Investors will have the flexibility to trade their units upon listing on the Bahrain Bourse, with a dedicated market maker providing additional liquidity on an ongoing basis, she added. Copies of the offering prospectus and application form can be collected from BisBs financial malls at Budaiya, Arad and Riffa, or the head office branch in the Diplomatic Area; as well as from the Bahrain Bourse at Bahrain Financial Harbour. The participating BisB outlets will receive completed application forms. Full details can be obtained at www.eskanREIT.com TradeArabia News Service Investcorp, a global provider and manager of alternative investment products, has announced that an entity managed by it has invested in a stake in the leading private medical laboratory chain in the GCC, Al Borg Medical Laboratories. Established in 1999 in Jeddah, Al Borg has 53 laboratories across eight countries in the GCC and Africa, with a clear leadership position in Saudi Arabia. Employing over 900 personnel, Al Borg offers a wide range of routine and specialty medical laboratory testing services to hospitals, clinics, corporates and individuals. The company has a leading market position, possesses the highest levels of industry accreditations and is a trusted brand name. Mohammed Al-Shroogi, co-chief executive officer of Investcorp, said: The investment in Al Borg reaffirms our commitment to supporting regional businesses that are committed to growth and expansion. We are extremely excited to partner with existing shareholders of Al Borg, and believe that our combined efforts will result in even more success for the Company. The healthcare sector in Saudi Arabia is highly defensive and underpinned by favourable demographics, supportive regulations and greater medical awareness. Dr Mohammed Fawaz Al Bishry, chairman of the board of Al Borg Medical Laboratories, added: We are delighted to be entering into this partnership, as we believe this will provide our business with the additional resources and expertise to continue to strengthen our brand, consolidate our position in our domestic market and facilitate our growth plans across the Middle East. Yasser Bajsair, managing director at Investcorp in Saudi Arabia, said: Al Borg benefits from the positive healthcare dynamics in the region. A key focus for our team will be to help generate additional growth opportunities for the business, leveraging experience gained from our large number of portfolio companies. Dr Mohamed Amin Attiya, managing director of Al Borg Medical Laboratories, added: Al Borg has ambitious plans to expand its network of laboratories in Saudi Arabia and the region, and we believe this partnership will enable us to strengthen our foundations, resources and infrastructure to support and ensure sustainable growth. Al Borg joins a growing portfolio of investments managed by Investcorp and its affiliates in Saudi Arabia, the most recent one being Bindawood Holding in January 2016, one of the leading supermarket and hypermarket chains in Saudi Arabia. Other investments in Saudi Arabia managed by Investcorp and its affiliates include Leejam, the owner and operator of the leading fitness chain Fitness Time; Theeb, the leading car rental business; Al Yusr Industrial Contracting Company (AYTB), a leading provider of industrial services outsourcing solutions; L'azurde, a leading designer, manufacturer and distributor of gold jewellery which was successfully listed on Tadawul Stock Exchange in June 2016; and NDT Corrosion Control Services, Saudi Arabias largest industrial testing services company. - TradeArabia News Service The International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), a member of the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDB), has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with The National Transport and Logistics Company (SNTL) in Morocco, said a report. The MoU comes as a milestone under the umbrella of Arab-Africa Trade Bridge Program that aims to promote the trade between the two regions, added the Saudi Gazette report. ITFC will seek through this agreement to mobilise funds for mounting a study for the development of logistics platforms in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries to facilitate trade and investment between these countries, Morocco, and other Arab states, it said. The signing ceremony took place during the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP22) in Marrakech, Morocco. The event was held under the auspices of Dr Bandar Hajjar, president of the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDBG). The agreement was signed by Eng Hani Salem Sonbol, chief executive officer of ITFC, and Mohamed Ben Ouda, chief executive officer of SNTL, in the presence of senior representatives from both entities, added the report. Qatar Primary Material Company (QPMC) and Belgium-based Rent-A-Port have signed an agreement for the operation of the Bulk Material Handling System (BMHS) in Qatar, said a report. The contract was signed by Eisa Al Hammadi, CEO of QPMC, and Marcel Van Bouwel, general manager at Rent-A-Port, for awarding the operation of the bulk material handling facility developed at a huge investment of QR1.6 billion ($439.3 million), added the Peninsula Qatar report. The BMHS is a mega-scale project realised as part of Qatars national vision. Rent-A-Port is an engineering and investment company, specialising in the development of marine infrastructures and industrial zones worldwide. Ahmed Abdulla Al Suwaidi, acting operations director at QPMC, said that the port facility located in Mesaieed has deployed cutting-edge technologies which has improved the efficiency of the port, including the unloading and discharging capacity of primary material (gabbro) by 80 per cent. He further added that there are eight key advantages of the system, which include capacity enhancement, reducing waiting time of the vessels, providing free-storage facilities to clients for up to 21 days, minimising malfunctioning and possible losses of materials, added the report. Top local and international scientists and professionals are attending a major chemical industry conference in Bahrain. The 10th International Conference and Exhibition on Chemistry in Industry (ChemIndix 2016), which opened yesterday (November 21) will conclude tomorrow (November 23), at the Gulf Hotel's Gulf Convention Centre in Manama. The event is being held under the patronage of HRH Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, and the conference was inaugurated by Deputy Premier Shaikh Khalid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, said a Bahrain News Agency report. The event is being organised by the Saudi Arabian International Chemical Sciences Chapter of the American Chemical Society (SAICSC-ACS) in coordination with the National Oil and Gas Authority (Noga). Shaikh Khalid thanked HRH the Prime Minister and hailed the organising committee's choice of Bahrain as a host of this series of specialised conferences and exhibitions which testifies to the good reputation of Bahrain as a major host of regional and international functions. He stressed that the event represents a platform to exchange innovations in chemistry and specialised engineering related to the oil and petrochemical industry. The conference will highlight the connection between oil refineries and the petrochemical industry as well as the increasing demand in the petrochemical industry and encouraging companies to take advantage of modern technologies to improve production and preserve the environment. The event is being held under the theme "Sustainable Energy Industry through Innovative Chemistry". The conference is a recognised technical event encapsulating the latest state-of-the-art technologies, products and solutions used in the energy industry. Participation in the event offers organisations exposure to high-ranking officials and top-tier leaders from academia and industry. Leading Arab ministers in charge of mineral resources, senior officials, experts and leaders of organisations operating in the mining sector today (November 22) attended the opening of the 14th International Arab Mineral Resources Conference in Saudi Arabia. The event will run until November 24, and is being organised by the Saudi Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources in cooperation with the Arab Industrial Development and Mining Organization (Aidmo). The event is being held under the auspice of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and under the slogan The Arab Mineral Wealth. Strategic resources and promising investment opportunities in Jeddah. The three-day conference aims at exchanging knowledge and experience between Arab and foreign experts and Arab and international institutions working in the mining sector and activating the Arab-international cooperation in this field, said a statement from the organisers. It also aims at discussing the impact of the mineral sector on the economies of Arab countries, the promotion of mining projects, the development of mining legislation and the elimination of obstacles hindering Arab and foreign investments in this sector. Additionally, on the sidelines of the conference, an exhibition is also organised to showcase latest bodies and Arab and foreign companies operating in the mining industry, investment opportunities in the mining sector and other related opportunities, as well as sustainable development and social responsibility in this sector, innovative solutions, successful Arab experiences and investment prospects, it stated. TradeArabia News Service Jewellery Arabia 2016, the Middle Easts premier jewellery and watch exhibition, opened today in Bahrain. The 25th edition of the event brings together over 600 exhibitors from 30 countries for a dazzling five-day gala of glitz and glamour. Held under the patronage of His Royal Highness the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the exhibition runs till November 26 at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre. Spanning 21,000 sq m of exhibition space, a huge range of finished jewellery, luxury timepieces, precious stones, clocks, fine writing instruments, accessories and more from around the globe will go on sale. World famous watch and jewellery houses are making a return appearance at Jewellery Arabia 2016, including major brand names. Many of these high profile international exhibitors will use the event as a platform to introduce exclusive collections and limited edition pieces to the Middle East collectors market. Complementing these iconic brands are eight national groups from leading jewellery export countries. They include returning delegations of the finest retailers, designers and manufacturers from Hong Kong, India, Italy, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, UK and the US. Collectively, these groups reflect the very best manufacturing capabilities, design expertise and gemological resources that their respective countries have to offer. Joining international brands and national groups are a host of designers, retailers and manufacturers from all over the world, including a selection of Bahrains leading jewellers. Show Highlights Island Wedding Fashion Show & Exhibition: The Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA) is taking part at Jewellery Arabia 2016 with a curated pavilion of wedding sector service providers and a high-end bridal fashion show. BTEAs participation is in line with its 2016-2018 strategy aimed at promoting Bahrain as a wedding destination, specifically targeting Saudi Arabia and India. The Island Wedding Exhibition pavilion will feature 14 participants representing various five-star hotels and wedding planners. The latest bridal trends and luxury accessory collections will come life on the catwalk from November 23 to 25, from 7 pm to 9 pm. The Island Wedding Fashion Show will showcase exclusive collections of the finest wedding dresses produced by some of the biggest names in the fashion industry at a local, regional and international level. Participants include Tagreed Al Arryed and Zahraa Al Mousawi from Bahrain, Amina Al Jassim and Sherwin Darrel from Saudi Arabia, Nashmia Al Shoryaan from Kuwait, Fashion Dalinda from France, Vyacheslav Zaitsev from Russia, Saiid Kobeisy and Naja Saade from Lebanon and Cristina Edu from Romania. Jewellery Education Seminars: To assist visitors with making informed buying choices at Jewellery Arabia 2016, the worlds foremost authority on gemology, the Gemmological Institute of America (GIA), will be offering complimentary seminars daily from November 22 to 26. Experienced GIA instructors will provide visitors with information on different facets of gems and jewellery. Topics include diamonds, coloured stones, pearls, how to read GIA grading reports and important tips when purchasing jewellery. GIA are joined by one of the worlds most advanced laboratories accredited by The World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO), The Gem and Jewelry Institute of Thailand (GIT), who are participating for the first time at Jewellery Arabia. GIT experts will offer onsite laboratory services, jewellery and gemstone consultancy, and an academic seminar on two of the most important gemstones on the market rubies and sapphires. Entitled Ruby and Sapphire from Mine to the Market, the seminar takes place on 24 November in collaboration with the GCC Gold & Jewellery Association and the Royal Thai Embassy in Manama. Jewellery Arabia 2016 is open free of charge to the public. The exhibition will open from 4 pm to 10 pm from November 22 to 25 and from 12 pm to 10 pm on November 26. - TradeArabia News Service Royal Jordanian (RJ) recently honoured its best-selling Jordanian travel agents for 2016 at a ceremony held under the sponsorship of Vienna Airport. Present at the event were RJ president/CEO Captain Suleiman Obeidat; deputy head of Mission at the Austrian Embassy in Amman Christoph Sternat; chairman of Jordan Society of Tourism and Travel Agents Shaher Hamdan; RJs chief commercial officer Server Aydin; regional director/Area Jordan, West Bank and Gaza Osama Quntar and a number of RJ sales personnel. Captain Obeidat expressed RJs appreciation for travel agents efforts and their support to the national carrier of Jordan. He said: " We are very grateful to our travel partners who work very hard to increase sales aboard RJ. RJ is always ready to develop business ties with its partners, in the interest of all parties, and to give a boost to the local tourism and travel industry." He added that RJ constantly improves its air and ground services while modernizing its fleet of aircraft and expands its route network for a better competitive edge. The airline recently introduced a sixth new Boeing 787 to the fleet, according to the plan of renewing the long- and medium-haul aircraft, to meet the needs of passengers eager to fly on board this state-of-the-art airplane. Obeidat also expressed gratitude for the cooperation extended to RJ by Vienna Airport in sponsoring this event, highlighting the distinguished business relations between the two companies, which make the travel experience of passengers more convenient. At the end of the ceremony, Captain Obeidat delivered certificates of appreciation to the sales agents in recognition of their marketing efforts exerted during 2016. In order to boost tourism from Austria and attract more groups to the country, RJs office in Vienna organised a familiarization trip for Austrian travel agents that included tours of the most notable sites in Jordan. - TradeArabia News Service Thousands of demonstrators gather around the streets of the cities across the United States of America, as they cry out their protest against President-elect Donald Trump. Protesters chanted "Dump Trump", "Not my president", "build bridges, not walls" and "love trumps hate" for according to them, the President-elect threatens their civil and human rights. According to the Huffington Post, the largest rallies were found in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. The organizers of the rallies said that they wanted to push on with the momentum after numerous nights of protests, which was caused by the surprising results of the Presidential elections where the real-estate tycoon won. According to PJ Media, one of the Presidential-elect's focal points of his campaign is the issue about immigration and the deportation of undocumented immigrants which triggered a lot of protesters. "I'm out here for my undocumented friends," said 19-year old Spencer Smith to CNN during a protest rally in Atlanta. "I've seen people oppressed. And this is like a heartbreak of the American dream for me," says Evelyne Werzola, a 46 years old immigrant from South Africa. "So I'm fighting to keep what America has stood for alive." Even people from the LGBT community joined in the protests, waving rainbow flags, and holding "Keep Love Legal" signs. Alex Seedman, a 25 year old member of the LGBT community in Los Angeles, called Trump a fascist and suspected he would repeal marriage equality. One thing though despite of all the protests, the demonstrations have been mostly peaceful thus far. Although, there's a case in Portland, where some protesters broke store windows, sprayed graffiti and damaged vehicles as they clashed with the police, who used tear gas and rubber bullets to stop the riots, which resulted to dozens of protesters arrested and only a handful of police injured. A protester also in Portland was shot and sustained non-life threatening injuries during a march of demonstrators across the Morrison Bridge. Police stated after that the gunmen who were responsible were believed to be associates of a criminal gang. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Thanksgiving this year will be way busier than last year. Statistics have recently revealed that travelers on this weekend will increase to up to one million. With this trend, many passengers will surely exprience long lines, busy counters, and possible delays. Based on the report of American Automobile Association, out of the 49 million projected travellers, 3.69 million will be travelling by plane. Top destinations (in no particular order) include Denver, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, New York, Phoenix, Orlando, and San Francisco. This means airports of these cities will also be extremely hectic. For two years in a row, the Los Angeles International Airport topped the list of the busiest airports during Thanksgiving. The analysis record was reported by Fortune in 2015 and Yahoo News in 2014. On the same data gathered by Orbitz, Los Angeles International ranked 3rd among the potential Busiest Airports for Thanksgiving this year. Next on the list is the Chicago O'Hare International. In addition to its reputation of being busy at any holiday, Chicago Tribune reported a possibility of a workers' strike happening during Thanksgiving week. Travellers may want to watch out and take another route. Because it's one of the best airports in the country, Denver International becomes also one of the busiest during this time. In fact, The Denver Post has published that the airport is gearing up to bring in more workers to meet the Thanksgiving dash. The estimate shows a rush of 1.1 million passengers. Another busy hub is the John F. Kennedy International which ranked 10th in the list of Smarttravel.com. San Francisco International has been in the roll for poor ratings during Thanksgiving. With a 75.4 percent rate for delayed and cancelled flights. This rating was reported by Reward Expert with its analysis based on the data of Department of Transportation from 2011-2015. Is your city on this list? Busy airports means long lines and stress. The public is advised to ensure enough preparation and careful planning. Good luck, and travel safe! See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 People who are off or are looking forward to their Thanksgiving vacations should expect some hurdles in their holiday travel this year. The weather conditions in Central and Northwestern US are predicted to be gloomy and wet. Mother Nature threatens to dampen certain holiday plans this Thanksgiving, especially in central and northwestern US. Starting the Thanksgiving weekend 2016, the weather has been quite a rollercoaster. This is expected to cause some travel delays for people traveling on days leading to Thanksgiving. According to American Automobile Association (AAA), Thanksgiving 2016 is expected to be the busiest travel period of the year. An estimated 48.7 million people will travel 50 miles or more from Nov. 23 to Nov. 27. Furthermore, AAA has added that there are expected 43.5 million people who will travel via road, while 3.69 million will travel via air. This alone is foreseen to cause some travel congestion on both air and road this year. Delays are expected to further escalate with the current and expected weather conditions in the incoming days. A storm is expected to arrive across the central US on Tuesday and Wednesday. Though it will not be as strong as the previous blizzard, it can still bring enough wind and water to cause slow travel on roads and airports. Travelers are advised to travel on Monday since this is the best day for pre-Thanksgiving travel. AccuWeather Meteorologist Steve Travis stated: "Rain will fall from Nebraska and Iowa to northeastern Texas, while periods of snow will fall across western Nebraska into the Dakotas and western Minnesota." Northern Wisconsin is advised to prepare for snow since as the snow will eventually leave Wyoming and Colorado Rockies during the day, it will develop all across their area. Leading portions of Interstate 29, 35, 80, 90 and 94 will likely experience a few increase of snow. People traveling across these Interstates are advised to prepare for slippery or slushy roads. Upper Midwest is expected to experience cold air, which will bring in a mix of wintry and ice areas. Central High Plains should expect flight delays because of strong winds that may persist into Wednesday Afternoon. Northeast's interior may expect snow showers from this weekend to persist on to Monday. This may cause both air and road delays throughout the entire area. Western and Central New York could have a travel headache along I-90 on Monday because of the lake-effect snow. However, conditions will improve for travelers as the snow showers and gusty winds will decrease from west to east on Tuesday into Wednesday. Dry weather will reach across most of Southeast in the days leading to Thanksgiving Day. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued warnings of possible terrorist threats surrounding the holiday season. Although there has been no report of a specific target or direct terrorism intents, the FBI has urged citizens to maintain awareness. US local law enforcement agencies will be working on overdrive during Thanksgiving and the Inauguration due to the various terrorist risks around the country. Potential targets such as crowded shopping centers, large public events and crowded venues will be put under additional security over the holidays. According to CBS News, specific areas in Washington and Northern Virginia have been identified as "target-rich". This warning is the product of government research and activity found in the al Qaeda's "Inspire Magazine". In addition, research into a similar ISIS publication has moved the New York Police Department to identify the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade as a potential target. The NYPD is expected to raise visibility and security during the upcoming holiday event. In a report by Fox 25 Boston, it was noted that no specific threats have been placed onto the Boston area. However, official state that law enforcement will remain vigilant despite the lack of posed danger. This will be done to avoid any public casualties due to unannounced threats and possible attacks. Warnings have been issued towards attacks similar to the terrorist activity that occurred in places such as Paris and Florida. As such, the FBI has issued warnings that include tactics such as Guns, IEDs, and IED-equipped drones. The unlicensed carrying of such items is strictly forbidden, especially in highly populated areas. The FBI has also urged the public to immediately report any observed suspicious behavior. The bureau has stated that suspicious indicators include: isolation, lifestyle changes, lone-wolf activity and increased use of encrypted communication. Due to the rise in tourism and civilian exposure during crowded events, raised awareness for terrorist threats is common, particularly around holiday events. However, officials have insisted that there is no need for panic or emergency. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Search News Archive : Fast Travel News Promotion Via Search, Social Media + Email Follow Us On : CARIBBEAN TOURISM MONTH MESSAGE FROM BILL CLEGG, REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT, CHOICE HOTELS INTERNATIONAL Industry: Hotels "Sustainable tourism also promotes the offering of authentic Caribbean experiences for our guests, starting with comfortable accommodations staffed by highly professional, welcoming staff." (TRAVPR.COM) UNITED STATES - November 22nd, 2016 For Immediate Release Source: Choice Hotels International, Inc. Contact: Greta Andzenge, Marketplace Excellence + 1 201 861-2056 - Greta Andzenge, Marketplace Excellence + 1 201 861-2056 - greta@marketplaceexcellence.com Bill Clegg of Choice Hotels CARIBBEAN TOURISM MONTH MESSAGE FROM BILL CLEGG, REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT, CHOICE HOTELS INTERNATIONAL ROCKVILLE, Maryland (November 21, 2016) - Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH ) is honored to be the hotel of choice for many travelers to the Caribbean and we are proud to support the region as it celebrates its product, its people and endless attractions during Caribbean Tourism Month. Our commitment to the region is founded on the principles of sustainable tourism, one of which is significant local ownership of hotels. With almost a dozen hotels in the Caribbean, across our Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites and Ascend Hotel Collection brands, we continue to foster tourism in the region by encouraging and supporting indigenous entrepreneurship. We recognize tourism's potential for job creation in the region, and our hotels throughout the Caribbean commit to employing and training the local workforce. Sustainable tourism also promotes the offering of authentic Caribbean experiences for our guests, starting with comfortable accommodations staffed by highly professional, welcoming staff. In partnership with local organizations and businesses we encourage our guests to immerse themselves fully in the Caribbean experience by visiting local restaurants, attractions, beaches and shops. Choice Hotels, which powers hotels in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Guyana, Puerto Rico and St. Maarten, celebrates tourism as a powerful connector, bringing together travelers with the people in a destination, allowing for cultural enrichment for all. Choice Hotels is pleased to join our friends and colleagues in highlighting the very special attractions of this exceptional region where there is always something new to discover. Happy Caribbean Tourism Month! Bill Clegg Regional Vice President, Franchise Services and Programs Choice Hotels International About Choice Hotels Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: 2016 Choice Hotels International, Inc. All rights reserved. Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH ) is one of the world's largest lodging companies. With more than 6,400 hotels franchised in more than 40 countries and territories, Choice Hotels International represents more than 500,000 rooms around the globe. As of September 30, 2016, 745 hotels were in our development pipeline. Our company's Ascend Hotel Collection, Cambria hotels & suites, Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Sleep Inn, Quality, Clarion, MainStay Suites, Suburban Extended Stay Hotel, Econo Lodge, Rodeway Inn, and Vacation Rentals by Choice Hotels brands provide a spectrum of lodging choices to meet guests' needs. With more than 28 million members and counting, our Choice Privileges rewards program enhances every trip a guest takes, with benefits ranging from instant, every day rewards to exceptional experiences, starting right when they join. All hotels and vacation rentals are independently owned and operated. Visit us at www.choicehotels.com for more information. 2016 Choice Hotels International, Inc. All rights reserved. ### Please contact the person or company listed above for information regarding the content of this press release. TravPR.com are not the issuers of this press release and are not responsible for the accuracy of the content. Share Release : CONTACT INFORMATION Name: Greta Andzenge Company: Marketplace Excellence Corporation Phone: + 1 201 861-2056 Email: greta@marketplaceexcellence.com Web: www.choicecaribbean.com PRESS RELEASE TAGS MEDIA GALLERY Search News Archive : Fast Travel News Promotion Via Search, Social Media + Email Follow Us On : AFFORDABLE CARIBBEAN AND EUROPEAN SPA HOLIDAY PACKAGES BY SANCTUARY SPA HOLIDAYS Industry: Health/Spa Sanctuary Spa Holidays is now offering the most affordable and economical luxury Spa Holidays across the Europe & Caribbean. (TRAVPR.COM) UNITED KINGDOM - November 22nd, 2016 -: Sanctuary Spa Holidays is now offering the most affordable and economical luxury Spa Holidays across the Europe & Caribbean. The Sanctuary Spa is now the most reliable and trustworthy names when it comes to the luxury Spa holidays. They are having a wide range of luxury spa holiday packages for Europe and Caribbean islands covering the splendid locations like Madrid, Milan, Ibiza, Florence, Niece, Crete Islands, St Lucia, Kingston, The Bahamas and many more. Experiencing the ravishing Spa Holiday in Europe & Caribbean There is been no doubt that Europe is among one of the best destinations in the world when it comes to the holidays. It is been known for its wonderful landscapes and some fantastic ancient architecture. All the major cities of Europe were flooded with the tourists throughout the year for the vacations. But, Europe is no just known for the travel dairies; rather you can also visit the Europe for having the greatest spa experience ever. This is the great place to spend the summer vacations with pleasant weather and panoramic views. Like Europe Is the Caribbean, people often visit the Caribbean islands not just to have a great time partying around, but to enjoy the splendid spa experience. The other thing that makes Caribbean Spas so popular among the visitors is the traditional Caribbean Cuisine and culinary. Caribbean has some of the best spa resorts in the world and it is ideal location for spending the fantastic St. Lucia spa holidays with sheer pleasure and fun. Some of the basic amenities in European spa packages by Sanctuary Spa Holidays include: Free pick up and transfers to/from the airport Personaliased services Spa with additional massage and rejuvenation therapies Luxury Jacuzzi and hot water spas Enjoy local cuisine and a special dining with popular local drinks For more information on Sanctuary spa Holidays visit their website www.sanctuaryspaholidays.co.uk About Sanctuary Spa Holidays: Sanctuary Spa Holidays specialize in providing the most relaxing and rewarding spa breaks. Choose from a wide selection of Spa Hotels and Resorts throughout the world at incredible and affordable prices. Contact Information: Sanctuary Spa Holidays Tropical House, Garland Road, East Grinstead, West Sussex RH19 1NJ United Kingdom Phone No. : 01293 229 895 Email : info@sanctuaryspaholidays.co.uk Website: http://www.sanctuaryspaholidays.co.uk ### Please contact the person or company listed above for information regarding the content of this press release. TravPR.com are not the issuers of this press release and are not responsible for the accuracy of the content. Share Release : CONTACT INFORMATION Name: Sanctuary Spa Holidays Team Company: Sanctuary Spa Holidays Phone: 01293 229 895 Email: info@sanctuaryspaholidays.co.uk Web: PRESS RELEASE TAGS Nico De Pasquale Photography / Getty Images From low-tech to high-tech, concepts and solutions for providing clean drinking water are everywhere. Some are simple and portable while others are large and scalable, and we're going to need all of these varieties of ideas in order to make sure that access to safe clean water is a right, not a privilege. Using "Super Sand" to clean water: PavelRodimov / Getty Images "Billions of people lack access to clean drinking water and researchers are constantly searching for cost-effective ways to purify water for rural villages and developing areas. A team of researchers has come up with just such a possible solution using "super sand," or sand coated in an oxide of graphite. Using sand to purify water is already an old strategy, but researchers from Rice University in Texas think that by coating it with graphite, the "super sand" will purify water more quickly and effectively than ever before." Seeds of the "Miracle Tree": Massimiliano Finzi / Getty Images "Researchers from Pennsylvania State University knew that earlier studies showed that a substance from the seeds of the miracle tree, or Moringa oleifera, was able to clean water, but that the processes used in those studies were either too expensive or not feasible for producing water which could be stored. The team set out to develop a less expensive and simpler way of using the miracle tree's seeds to purify and clean drinking water that would also be more sustainable." Bicycle Water Purifier: Cycloclean Nippon Basic "Japanese company Nippon Basic created a durable bicycle equipped with a water purifier. The bicycle allows users to filter water through pedaling, enabling access to clean water for those in remote villages and disaster zones. Equipped with non-puncture tires, a pump and hoses, riders can commute to water sources, lower the hose into the source (the hose can siphon water as deep as five meters), raise the bicycle up on its stand thus lifting the rear wheel off the ground, and start pedaling. As the user rides, water is pumped into the system and passes through a series of micro-filtration membranes before its stored in a container." Atmospheric Water Generators: "EcoloBlue Atmospheric Water Generators (AWGs) draw water from the air, with the home/office model providing up to 7 gallons (28 liters) of clean water each day." Personal Solar Stills: The Watercone is a simple and elegant solar still. Simply pour salty or brackish water into the pan. Then float the Watercone on top. The black pan absorbs the sunlight and heats up the water to support evaporation, and each device provides up to 1.5 liters of clean water per day. Large Scale Solar Stills: Suns River "The Suns River Still (SRS) is said to be able to increase the productivity of the standard solar still by a factor of 5, to run on 95 to 100% renewable energy, and to use feed streams from a variety of sources, including saline wells, wastewater, rivers and seas. The output is pure water, which can be used for both drinking and agriculture, and a possible future use for the technology is the solar greenhouse, which could help jumpstart a new aspect of agriculture by turning "coastal deserts into suitable sites for greenhouses" Pump while Playing: "Spinning on the merri-go-round, clean water is pumped from an underground well into a 2,500-liter tank which is built seven meters above the ground. "A simple tap makes it easy for adults and children to draw water," boasts PlayPump's website, while "excess water is diverted from the storage tank back down into the borehole." Well Repair and Rehabilitation: Guido Dingemans, De Eindredactie / Getty Images "The non-profit organization WaterAid has developed a thoughtful solution to the broken well problem by training micro-entrepreneurs to establish well maintenance businesses. These trained mechanics are showing results, having already fixed 300 hand pumps in 2 years, bringing water to 30,000 people. WaterAid hopes to increase well repairs by 50 percent, bringing clean water to 700 more people every month." Water-Producing Wind Turbines: franckreporter / Getty Images "A 30-kW wind turbine houses and powers the whole system. A prototype of the technology has been installed in Abu Dhabi since October and has been capable of producing 500 to 800 liters of clean water a day from the dry desert air. Eole Water says that volume can increase to 1,000 liters a day with a tower-top system." Table Salt Helps Clean Water: Brett Davies - Photosightfaces / Getty Images "Salt, a cheap and widely available material, acts as a "flocculant" -- a material which pulls together loose particles in solution until they form an aggregate heavy enough to sink to the bottom, making the murky water clear. Pearce reports: "The water has a lower sodium concentration than Gatorade. Ive drunk this water myself. If I were somewhere with no clean water and had kids with diarrhea, and this could save their lives, Id use this, no question."" Sewage to Drinking Water: BNBB Studio / Getty Images "The purification system uses a three step process: 1) Filter the water, capturing parasites such as giardia, cryptosporidium, amoebas, and anything larger than 1 micron in size; 2) remove hazardous chemicals (VOCs, chlorine, arsenic, mercury, lead, chromium) and bacteria; 3) use UV light to kill microbes." Portable Rainwater Harvesting Units: P A Thompson / Getty Images "The Noro Rainwater Catchment and Filtration System began as a design for a rainwater filtration system for residences in downtown Vancouver that could be built from salvaged local material, but rapidly morphed into a design meant to be highly portable and easily deployed. The prototype was built using off-the-shelf components from Home Depot, and takes the form of a backpack-mounted system which can be used as either a standalone unit or in conjunction with existing rainwater catchment systems." Solar Powered Rain Catchment and Purifier: "Created by Mostafa Bonakdar, a design student from Tehran, Iran, the structure is both a shelter during rain as well as a drinking fountain. It features both solar power and rainwater collection, with the solar power running a purification system inside. The structure can act as a bus shelter, a cover for benches in the park, or a number of other locations where both an awning and a bit of fresh water are welcome." Personal UV Purifiers: SteriPen "The process for purifying water with it is almost dummy-proof (if you can tell the difference between a solid green light and flashing red lights), and is an 'instant on' design. Simply remove the outer case and immerse in up to 16 oz of water until the device's sensors are covered, and the UV light comes on automatically. The internal timer lets you know when the process is complete, which is 48 seconds, according to SteriPen." Water Filtration Straws: CasarsaGuru / Getty Images "Vouched for by the National Association of Testing Authorities, AquaSafeStraw reports that it removes "99.9999% [of] coliforms/faecal coliforms, e-coli, staphylococcus, Cryptosporidium, Giardia, standard plate count bacteria, pseudomonas aeruginosa (bacteria causing respiratory tract infections), pseudomonas diminuta, and serratia marcescents (another form of bacteria)." From a filter that fits in your pocket to a combination electricity and water generator, innovations in clean drinking water technology come in all shapes. And in a world where millions go without clean water on a regular basis, these types of solutions are very welcome indeed. This post has been revised, separating the product originally viewed from the issue and question of moon wood. Touring the exhibits at the Wood Solutions Fair, I noticed a product made of what was called "moon wood." The company website described it: Moon timber refers to wood harvested during the waning moon when the sap in the trees are at its lowest. The wood is then left to dry vertically, upside-down with, its bark and a few branches left intact. Gravity will pull what remains of the sap into the branches, which are then cut off. This process produces a superior quality wood that has no cracking, splitting, or warping, as well as no infestation of insects and longer durability. This process involves no use of toxins or kiln drying, thereby creating a lower carbon footprint. This is an ancient technique that has provided the same wood that created the 1,000 years old temples that still stands to this day in countries such as Japan. Popular with Guitar and Violin Makers I was skeptical of this, but in fact, a quick search showed that moon wood is a thing among guitar and violin makers, who are convinced it makes a better wood. One guitar maker site notes that it is all about gravity, the moon pulling on the sap. Some furniture builders insist on cutting wood during the growing moon to ensure that the moisture content is high since the sap is being drawn up into the trunk of the tree, which makes wood easier to steam and bend. Wood for making instruments, however, must be dry. If trees are felled during the waning phases of the lunar cycle, when the pull from the moon is not so strong, then the fluids will remain closer to the base of the plant, making the wood drier and less susceptible to decay and infestation. Science or Sham? Granite State The trouble with this theory is that the phase of the moon has nothing to do with how strong its gravity is; that is a function of its elliptical path, and a full moon can occur when it is at perigee (close to the earth) and its apogee (far away). If gravity had anything to do with it, then guitar makers would cut wood during the apogee, not the waning phase. However, according to one Swiss supplier, the question of moon wood has been studied and proven: The goal of this study, encompassing various regions throughout Switzerland, was to determine scientifically whether variations in wood characteristics could be determined in connection with lunar cycles. Criteria such as moisture loss, shrinkage, and relative weight (the ratio of oven dry weight to green volume) were specifically analyzed by using individual samples. It was determined that the division waxing (from new moon to full moon) and waning (from full moon to new moon) points to significant, across-the-board differences in shrinkage, but final results are still outstanding. The data analysis permits two precise, systematic, lunar orientated divisions that apply much more precisely to all three criteria. Again, I say really? The skeptic in me wants to call hogwash (stronger word removed at editor's insistance) on the whole idea of moon wood. But then I recall Melissas posts on how Trees in the forest are social beings and how Trees can form bonds like an old couple and look after each other. Who knows, perhaps they stay up late and party during the full moon (keeping the sap levels high, like our blood pressure) and nap during the waning moon. Its an explanation that makes a whole lot more sense than the ones from the guitar makers and moon wood suppliers. Knitted woollens should never get tossed until you've tried to repair them. Thanks to online tutorials, it's not as hard as it seems. The day my favorite cashmere sweater got a hole in the arm, I was devastated. The sweater had been a hand-me-down from a friend years earlier and I wore it through many winters. It was the softest, warmest, most comfortable sweater I owned. How does one go about repairing a hole in a knitted garment? I asked an expert knitter to help me. She was able to close the hole and extend the garments life by several more years. It was an epiphanic moment for me, realizing how little Western culture knows about repairing the goods we buy. Because they are so cheap and easy to replace, its hardly worth the bother, unless it is a gorgeous cashmere sweater that I could not afford to replace. Learning how to repair knitted sweaters is one way to fight back against disposable clothing culture. It takes skill and practice, but it could potentially save many garments from meeting an early demise. Its also deeply satisfying to repair your own things, or, as sustainable fashion blogger Tortoise & Lady Grey wrote in an inspiring post on this topic, to use visible mending techniques to that add an interesting and individual touch to your garment. Ive gathered some helpful online tutorials, but if in doubt, a knowledgeable knitter friend is always a great resource. See if your community has a knitting group that could demonstrate some of these techniques in person. How to Fix a Sweater The Guardian has an article on how to mend moth holes. While moths may not be your problem, this are helpful diagrams that explain darning (filling in and reinforcing a hole) and needle felting (meshing a piece of wool with a sweater, which creates a kaleidoscope of colors that can be attractive). How to Fix Socks You can learn how to darn socks by watching YouTube tutorials. One easy way to fix small holes is to felt them, which basically shreds and works the fibers of another piece of wool into an original piece to fill a space. You can get an idea for it here, where the technique is used to repair a sock hole, but it can also be used to reinforce weak points in a garment that have not yet broken through, i.e. heels. Here is a more detailed photo tutorial for felting sweater holes. How to Repair with Thread This can work well if the hole is along a seam, otherwise it may stand out. Online sewing instructor Professor Pincushion has an excellent video on this. Here is another article describing a thread repair along a cuff. How to Fix Cashmere For cashmere, one option is to use Fuse-It powder, combined with chopped up fibers from another part of the garment. This quick tutorial shows how its done and the result is astonishing. Other Ideas Make a cute heart-shaped patch to go over a hole. These are a great idea for kids sweaters. If You Cannot Fix It See if you can unravel it and keep the yarn. This is an excellent 10-minute tutorial that explains how its done. This is where I learned that the official term for unravelling yarn is "frogging." Instructor Ashley Martineau says it's because you're pulling, or ripping, the yarn, so "rip it, rip it, ribbit, ribbit..." On Nov. 6, Joyce McLellan made more than $2,000 in cash sales after a march by roughly 400 Dakota Access Pipeline protesters down Main Street in Mandan, N.D. It was the most shes ever sold during a shift at Barneys Tesoro gas station. McLellan, a Mandan resident for 30 years, supports the peaceful protests and said it's been good for business. What I saw was absolutely beautiful and brought tears to my eyes, McLellan said, describing the march. I wanted to participate in it. The march was led by a group of people holding a banner that read Love, Prayer, Forgiveness. Eventually they formed a human chain around members of the Morton County Sheriffs Department. March leaders spoke to those gathered and prayed. As protesters made their way back to camp, many stopped to buy snacks, fill up on gas and use the bathrooms. McLellan greeted each one with the same smile and friendliness. Later that night, McLellan learned there was a clash between protesters and police during the forgiveness march. Despite a 30-day agreement made by governments and tribal leaders to halt construction and protests, hundreds of protesters had crossed the Cannonball River in an attempt to climb Turtle Island where tribal elders say several burial sites are located. Police gathered at the hill's ridge line. Tribal elders demanded protesters head back to camp in respect of the agreement. How can you work on a peaceful protest while the other half of it is being violent? McLellan said, shaking her head. The elders have a say in this, and we need to respect what theyre saying. The violent outbursts of some have left a lasting impression on McLellan and the community. She said police cars now escort school buses to surrounding schools. One experience made McLellan afraid to come to work. One day several people wearing masks and handkerchiefs over their faces came into her store. When McLellan asked the people to remove them, they refused. It scared and intimidated me because it was just me in the store, McLellan said. This is a gas station. Im not on the protest line. McLellan said she wants the protests to be done. She wants people to leave. Honestly, we had a choice to have it rerouted, McLellan said. We had a chance to say something, but people kept their mouths shut, and now its too late. McLellan said she wasnt aware of the pipeline until the protests started. According to an NPR interview with Public Service Chairwoman Julie Fedorchak, the North Dakota Public Service Commission held 30 hours of public hearings before the pipeline was approved. Vijay C Roy Tribune News Service Chandigarh, November 21 Having calibrated over 1,580 ATMs across the Northern region for dispensing Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 currency notes, countrys largest lender SBI today said the calibration process was going on war footing and the entire ATM network of the bank will be calibrated within 3-4 days. The bank said strengthening the POS machines network for dispensing cash and ATM calibration will give relief to the common man. We have already calibrated 1,580 ATMs for dispensing Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes in the Chandigarh Circle comprising Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. We hope to calibrate the remaining ATM network in the next 3-4 days, said Anil Kishora, Chief General Manager, State Bank of India, Chandigarh Circle. In the region, the bank has 2,861 ATMs and 392 recycler machines meant for withdrawal and depositing cash, taking the total to 3,253 machines. The bank has 1,165 branches in the Chandigarh circle. On the status of POS (Point of Sales) machines meant for dispensing currency notes, he said, We have installed 463 machines across the region. Out of this, 256 machines have been installed at various petrol pumps across the region. He said the bank plans to further strengthen its POS machines network at petrol stations. He said an amount up to Rs 2,000 per day per person can be dispensed against swiping of debit card from select petrol pumps where POS machines of SBI are available. POS machines are the machines which are generally used for debit or credit card transactions. It has been decided to start this facility at around 2,500 petrol pumps across the country, including the rural areas. He said queues outside banks and ATMs were getting shorter day by day. In the first week post-demonetisation, we were receiving deposits of Rs 1,100 crore per day which has been reduced to Rs 700 crore-Rs 800 crore. To avoid chaos, people should use mobile banking and internet banking etc. We also have SBI Bank Anywhere app which can monitor the usage of debit card. Tribune News Service Chandigarh, November 21 Almost five days after three unemployed ETT teachers climbed a mobile tower installed at a house in Sector 3, they came down late this evening after being assured of a meeting with Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. The teachers Harpreet Kaur and Jatinder Kaur, both natives of Bathinda, and Tarlok Aulakh of Mansa scaled the boundary wall of the house and climbed the tower on November 17. They had sought a meeting with Badal and had refused to budge until their demands were met. An associate of the teachers claimed that Badal had agreed to meet them on November 26. Besides, the teachers had also been assured that they would not be arrested in cases of trespass and attempt to suicide registered against them at the Sector 3 police station. The remaining two Two other unemployed ETT teachers Rakesh and Deepak who had climbed a mobile tower installed on the Punjab Bhawan campus on November 3, said they would come down only if Badal fulfilled their demand for a meeting with him. Tribune News Service Chandigarh, November 21 Targeting BJP president Amit Shah, former Union Minister and Congress leader Pawan Kumar Bansal today said Shah was suffering from selective amnesia. He was referring to Shahs speech in the city yesterday. Addressing a press conference at Congress Bhawan in Sector 35 today, Bansal said either Shah did not know the truth or he deliberately avoided speaking the truth while referring to his name in the speech and levelling charges of corruption. Bansal said the CBI found nothing against him and the court had taken cognisance of the report. Later, the court also rejected a plea filed by an NGO for reopening the case. He was only a prosecution witness in the case. Bansal said everybody knew Shahs past and the charges he faced. He was acquitted only on the grounds of the benefit of the doubt. Bansal criticised the demonetisation decision and said it had affected the economy badly and every section of society was facing hardships due to it. Terming Shahs visit a flop show, Bansal said the BJP had already accepted its defeat before the MC poll. Bansal said the beginning of the defeat of the BJP started from Gujarat where it lost all seats in the recent elections. Bansal said the gamble of seeking votes in Prime Minister Narendra Modis name in the MC election would not pay off as Modi had done nothing for the city. He said the budget of Chandigarh was cut by over Rs 200 crore in the past two and a half years. Modi brought only harassment for the public during his visits. He said the Congress would fight the poll on the plank of development done in the past and its plans for the future. City Congress president Pardeep Chhabra said Shah should know the kind of leaders who welcomed him before targeting the Congress. Chhabra said Tandon was facing charges of illegal construction outside lal dora while another leader was facing a charge of capturing plots. Former Mayor Subhash Chawla said the one-year tenure of the BJP Mayor was full of decisions which raised many an eyebrow. Ramkrishan Upadhyay Tribune News Service Chandigarh, November 21 The proposed cloverleaf flyover at Tribune Chowk will cost around Rs 372 crore. The UT Administration has prepared a tentative estimate for the project. Sources said while conveying the estimated cost of the project, the Administration had also sought approval from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to hire a consultant. The Administration started work on the project after approval was given by Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari. An officer said the Administration was waiting for approval from the ministry to appoint a consultant. The consultant would prepare a comprehensive plan on the type of the flyover to ease traffic from Tribune Chowk to Zirakpur. Permission has been sought as the expenditure on preparing the report will be borne by the ministry. On a demand of Chandigarh MP Kirron Kher, Gadkari had given approval for the flyover. He had stated that the ministry would appoint a consultant to study the problem and suggest a solution to the traffic problem. The Engineering Department is in favour of construction of a cloverleaf flyover at Tribune Chowk. Tribune Chowk is an important junction as a large number of vehicles pass through the roundabout daily. Mukesh Anand, Chief Engineer, Administration, said they were expecting approval from the ministry soon. The entire cost of construction of the flyover will be borne by the Centre. Our Correspondent Lalru, November 22 In a freak incident, a 57-year-old woman died after her stole got entangled in the fan of a generator at Handesera village here today. The deceased has been identified as Roshni Devi, a resident of Bartana village, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Handesera police chowki. According to police sources, the incident occurred when Roshni Devi, along with her son, had gone to the State Bank of Patiala branch at Handesera to withdraw money. The sources said as she was about to enter the bank, her stole got entangled in the fan of the generator kept outside the bank, strangling her. She was rushed to the Civil Hospital, Ambala, but died on the way. The body was handed to her family members after a postmortem. The victims son has lodged a complaint regarding negligence by the bank authorities. A case has been registered under Section 304-A of the IPC at the Handesera police chowki. S.S Sangwan Haryana was carved out of the erstwhile Punjab on November 1, 1966. Golden jubilee celebrations of the state began on that day. Haryana, being a small state, was the first state to achieve cent per cent electrification and road-connectivity in the early 1970s, under the strictly growth-oriented administration of Chief Minister Bansi Lal. During the 1980s and 1990s, the different governments of the state kept the status quo in development but indulged more in partition politics. They did not usher in major development plans in either agriculture, electricity generation or industry. It is a matter of pride that since 2004-5, the state has had the highest per capita income (PCI) among the states/union territories excluding Goa, Delhi, Sikkim, Chandigarh, and Pondicherry. The per capita income of Haryana in 2014-15 is expected to be Rs 1.5 lakh as compared to Rs 1.15 lakh of Punjab and Rs 2.8 lakh of Delhi. However, the growth is plagued by wide variations across the region/districts. Districts of Gurgaon( now Gurugram), Panipat, Faridabad, Panchkula, Rewari and Ambala have a per capita income much above the state average. Mewat, Mahendergarh, Bhiwani, Kaithal and Jind are at the bottom. The ratio of PCI between the richest (Gurgaon) and the poorest (Mahendergarh) district was 3.7 in 2004-05 which has jumped to 9.7 in 2011-12, with respect to Mewat. Inclusive growth, across regions, was the main poll plank of the BJP and its government also brought out a white paper in February 2015 to document the disparities between the districts. During the last two years, the state government has made an effort towards transparency in online registration, e-payment, e-returns, e-stamp system, 100 per cent disbursements of old age and other pensions through bank account (DBT). There have also been efforts to bring transparency by reducing interview marks to 12 per cent from about 25 per cent earlier in class III and II posts. The recent declaration of the results of the Haryana Civil Services within hours of the interview may be considered a testimony of its intention. The public at large is of the view that government-propelled corruption is on the decline; though the corruption embodied in the system through administration is yet to be attacked. Recent visit to the facilities of computerised Nakal facility, where Haryana was ahead of most other states, revealed that farmers after taking computerised Nakal have to approach the concerned patwari for his signature and he invariably charges a sum for gratificationfor it. In neighbouring Punjab, a duty patwari is seated besides the computer operator who immediately signs and hands the nakal over to the farmer. Some strict SDMs in Haryana too are forcing patwaris to be seated but it is more of an exception. The inertia of the employees against the use of technology gets reflected while dealing in offices, especially in matters related to property/taxes. The poll promise of annually raising old age and other pension by Rs 200 and awarding more compensation to ex-servicemen has also been adhered to. The recent announcement of allowance and compensation for the educated unemployed is a welcome step but it is not a substitute for creating employment opportunities through higher investment. As far as the health sector is concerned, a medical college in each district, a medical university in Kutail village of Karnal, an Ayush University in Kurukshetra and the ongoing struggle of the Health Minister to discipline the employees are all drawing a favourable response. Prompt disbursement and enhanced compensation for wheat damage in 2015 was largely taken as positive but it has been undone by the implementation of Prime Minister Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) as the neighbouring Punjab has not forced it on the farmers. The Haryana government is boasting that PMFBY has been availed of by about 7 lakh farmers. According to the feedback received by this writer from six districts of the state in September, strong protests were reported from farmers in almost all bank branches. The government should clarify the difference between compensation to be given to the insured and the uninsured farmers. Panchayats and municipal committees have definitely got more young and educated youth and women after the education qualification condition. They are being trained and the educational qualification in local bodies' polls has been taken as a welcome step by the public though outcomes are yet to be seen. Financial inclusion through Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) is another flagship programme of the BJP government at the national level and in Haryana. In terms of linkage of adults with scheduled commercial banks through deposit accounts, the entire state has a higher linkage at 107 per cent, as against average 86 per cent for all states as on June 2012. However, there are wide disparities across districts. It may have further improved due to the opening of 31 lakh rural and 23 lakh urban accounts in Haryana, under PMJDY till September 2016, but regional disparities remain. As per RBI data: Faridabad and Panchkula districts accounts for 54 per cent of the deposits and 42 per cent of the credit of the entire state. If the deposits of Haryana in Chandigarh and Delhi taken, the share may reach up to 60 per cent. Qualitative improvement can happen in financial disparities if sub-offices of credit-monitoring institutions like the RBI, NABARD and SIDBI are opened at central places in Haryana. Similarly, location of Director-level offices of development departments is an essential condition for attracting investment in southern and central Haryana. It is the law-and-order situation that enables investment and attracts high-value residents to the state. The Haryana government claims that its ranking in the ease of doing business has improved from fourth place to 14th. However, hardly any worthwhile units have come up away from Gurgaon (Gurugram), and NH-I, in spite of the state reducing electricity chares by Rs 2 in category IV blocks for industry. The law and order situation may also be judged from the fact that there are hardly any residents above the rank of colonel or equivalent civilian rank in cities like Rohtak, which is connected by six National Highways and railway lines (including expected Hansi) and situated just 70 km from the international airport of Delhi. The author has inferred this from the list of HUDA's Gymkhana Club members in Rohtak in 2012. The absence of quality and influential residents may be one of the reasons for the arson in February, 2016. As regards the security of women and general law and order, status quo prevails and improvement is still to be seen. It requires bold steps by the state to post all its higher police officials at police ranges and districts. The BJP's poll promise to establish a special High Court bench for southern Haryana must be taken to its logical end, instead of bowing to vested interests. The government, with a long-term vision, may envisage a new Smart City to shift more administration to the centre of the state. The writer is Professor, SBI Chair, Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh. S. Subramanian VERY soon after the announcement of the demonetisation scheme, the latter was described in this column as drama as farce. Subsequent events have supplied no reason for revising this view. Indeed, they have only gone to suggest that the drama is worse than farce: it has proved to be a full-blown tragedy, one informed by wholesale insensitivity to the travails of the ordinary citizen; a ruthless obtuseness to public opinion and informed commentary; and a low, ranting rhetoric stitched together with unbelievable protestations of virtue and honesty, taunts, warnings, and overall vulgarity. What follows is a stock-taking of the demonetisation stunt some 11 days after its announcement. Much of it will be based on reports and opinion as these have appeared in the popular press and social media, and so will serve the purpose not so much of original analysis as of a possibly useful interim assessment of an unfolding disaster. As many commentators have explained, the components of unaccounted income and wealth in this country are a mix of investments in real estate, hawala transactions, numbered bank accounts in overseas tax havens, the proceeds of over- and under-invoicing of imports and exports respectively, undeclared returns from investment in the mining and education sectors, and holdings of gold and foreign exchange. In all this, hoarded currency notes account for a very small proportion of the unaccounted economy. Of course, "every little bit helps", but intentionality necessarily becomes suspect when what is on view is a matter of going after the small, ignoring the large, and advertising the former as some significant and principled attack on the parallel economy. What is also provoked is the question of whether the benefits (if any) from this small intervention are anywhere commensurate with its costs. The atmosphere of suspicion is inevitable, given that, after all, people must not be expected to have already forgotten that the Union Budget 2016-17 has provided for retrospective amendment of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FRCA) 2010, whereby contributions to political parties by foreign companies will not be deemed as emanating from a foreign source an amendment which must certainly help with purifying the donations received by two of the largest national political parties from companies such as Vedanta. But to return to the "benefits" of the scheme. One must certainly expect that some fraction of the demonetised currency notes will attract tax and penalties which will accrue to the government as revenue. But against this must be set a gross creation of further unaccounted money triggered by the scheme. First, we are told that on the night of the announcement of the scheme, there was unprecedented activity in the bullion markets of Mumbai and other cities. Many jewellers were reportedly busy selling gold at a premium in exchange for the demonetised currency notes, well into the early hours of the following morning. Receipts were pre-dated and sales made out in the names of multiple customers serving as proxies for the real owners of the currency notes. A report from The Hindu of November 15 cites the suspicions of financial investigation agencies that several jewellery houses would show receipts in part payments below Rs 2 lakh per buyer to ensure that they do not have to produce their PAN numbers to the authorities. The agencies, we are told, will get after these jewellery houses. The same The Hindu report assures us that there are estimated to be only some 2.5 million jewellers and 0.5 million goldsmiths in the country! Foreign exchange operators have also been making huge illicit premiums on the exchange of foreign exchange for high-denomination currencies. They also, we are assured, will be investigated by our national agencies. To discourage repeated daily exchanges of demonetised notes in batches of Rs 4,000 each, the note-changers are now having their fingers marked with indelible ink. Many stable doors, that is, are being locked after the horses have fled. Apart from which, one must not be surprised at the emergence of a flourishing little black market for low-denomination notes. Meanwhile, what of the costs of this scheme? The winding, snaking queues at ATMs and banks are evidence enough of the painful and punitive strain to which poor people and other honest customers are being put. Some people have even died from the tension and fatigue of standing in these inhuman queues. In an economy where low-denomination notes are the principal medium of transaction, people are being cut off with 2,000-rupee notes. How are they supposed to get their daily requirements of food and other low-value essentials with these monster notes? The sudden embargo on 500- and 1000-rupee notes has meant that workmen are often not in a position to be paid by their employers. How are daily wage-earners expected to support themselves and their families in these circumstances? How are people supposed to pay for emergency hospital treatment? Many of the poorest people of this country have their savings in 500- and 1000-rupee notes. Many of them, in urban areas, have no bank accounts. Very many live in rural areas where there are no banks. Are these the people the Prime Minister had in mind when, in his address to the nation on the evening of November 8, he said: This Government is dedicated to the poor. It will remain dedicated to them. In our fight against poverty, our main thrust has been to empower the poor, and make them active participants in the benefits of economic progress. This is all of a piece with the profoundly helpful and sensitive suggestion of some of our leaders that we must seize on occasions such as these in order to effect the transition from paper to plastic. This is an item of wisdom not a whit less sensitive or helpful than the advice given by the last Queen of France in 1789: when she was told her subjects did not have bread to eat, she suggested: Let them eat cake. At the end of the process, some fraction of unaccounted currency will be recovered; some fraction will have been converted into other assets at the cost of generating additional black money; and the remaining fraction will simply have been annulled. Will this have been worth the massive cost of pain, loss and foregone output suffered by the common citizenry which the implementation of this monetary brainwave has entailed? The demonetisation scheme has been advertised as some sort of grandly orchestrated effort at freeing the citizens from the villains who have been holding them hostage to the evils of the parallel economy. Truth to tell, in both conception and execution, it has borne an extraordinary resemblance to a hostage-rescue drama one in which a few small felons are caught, all the hostages are shot, and the principal villains of the piece are let off the hook. It's called collateral damage. The writer is an economist Saurabh Malik Tribune News Service Chandigarh, November 21 Failure to accelerate the completion of 291-km six-laning Panipat-Jalandhar highway project has cost the concessionaire dear. Taking up the issue, a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today imposed costs of Rs 5 lakh on the concessionaire. The direction came after the Bench of Justice Mahesh Grover and Justice Shekher Dhawan took note of the fact that six-laning of the National Highway was yet to be completed, even though the Supreme Court had set March 31, 2015, as the deadline. The case is being pursued by the Sarin Memorial Legal Aid Foundation through its secretary-general-cum-senior advocate ML Sarin. Former Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court Justice SS Sodhi is the president of the Foundation. As the case came up for resumed hearing today, the Bench was told that arbitration proceedings were pending regarding a 22.1-km stretch. As a result, the projects completion had been delayed. The contention, however, failed to find favour with the Bench. Fixing January 18, 2017, as the next date of hearing in the case, the Bench also called for a comprehensive progress report. Detailed orders in the case were not yet available. The agreement for widening the road was signed way back in May 2008. The project was to be executed on the design-build-finance-operate (DBFO) basis with a concession period of 15 years. It was initially slated for completion by November 2011. The Supreme Court had, subsequently, set the deadline after hearing an appeal filed by the concessionaire. The apex court had also set aside an order passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in May 2013, directing the concessionaire to pay a penalty of Rs 60 crore for the delay. The developments took place during the hearing of a bunch of petitions by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) against the Union of India and other respondents; and another petition filed in public interest by Harish Kumar Puri for streamlining the flow of traffic for avoiding accidents. In his petition, Puri had earlier asked for the construction of rumble strips along with the traffic signals at the crossings. He had stated that his 27-year-old son Ashok Puri had died on May 14, 1996, due to a complete failure of the signal system. Sarin told the court that the petitioner was fighting a legal battle in larger public interest for more than 18 years. His son had passed away and he was suffering from cancer. As such, the costs should be handed over to the petitioner. Melbourne Men who have more than seven sexual partners in their lifetime are twice as likely to have prostate cancer than those with fewer than three partners, scientists including one of Indian origin have found. A study of 10,000 men that examined a wide range of potential determinants of prostate cancer has identified a strong link between prostate cancer and sexual activity. The study found also found that men who had their first sexual experience before they were 17 and those who had more than five orgasms in the month prior to diagnosis also had higher odds of developing the disease, along with those who reached puberty earlier than their peers. Visalini Nair-Shalliker research fellow at Cancer Council New South Wales said that sexual activity and metabolism were associated with a male sex hormone that is also strongly linked to the initiation of prostate cancer. "The more partners you had, the more orgasms you had, the younger you were when you first had sex, all pointed to an increased prostate cancer risk," Nair-Shalliker told the 'Sydney Morning Herald'. The findings on sexual activity are consistent with three other studies that found the risk of prostate cancer increased with sexual activity, but contrary to a 2014 Canadian study that found men who had more than 20 sexual partners in their lifetime had a 22 per cent lower risk of prostate cancer. The study was published in the International Journal of Cancer. PTI Tribune News Service Shimla, November 21 Customers of HP State Cooperative banks in rural Himachal have been hit hard as they are struggling to get cash. The RBI has directed banks to allow farmers to withdraw Rs 50,000 to enable them to meet their demand for buying seeds, fertilizers and other domestic goods, but the cooperative bank branches are doling out paltry Rs 1,000 per day, resented farmers in Chopal, Nerwa, Rohru, Rampur and Jubbal, the towns which are still reeling under cash crunch. As many as 14 lakh customers, most of them in rural Himachal, have their bank accounts in cooperative branches in these towns. But the State Bank of India (SBI), which has bank chest facility, is giving limited cash to the rural areas, the Cooperative branch managers complained. The customers are impatient as we can give Rs 1,000 per customer as cash is limited and the RBI has banned cooperative banks from exchanging old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, they added. In the capital city, long queues of customers, including tourists, both foreign and domestic, which were seen till last weekend, looked shorter today. The SBI, State Bank of Patiala, Indian Bank and the HDFC Bank operated their ATMs throughout the day, catering to the needs of the customers, said the bankers. SBI assistant manager R Tanwar said the bank had distributed about Rs 24 crore cash to different bank chests in Shimla, Solan and Sirmaur today. Most of the ATMs have been recalibrated to dispense new currency and the problem will be sorted once we get Rs 500 new currency notes, he said. Pratibha Chauhan Tribune News Service Shimla, November 21 With residents of Jangi in Kinnaur being vehemently opposed to the relocation of Powari Army ammunition depot in the vicinity of their village, the state government has decided to scout for a new site which is mutually acceptable to the army and civil administration. This is one of the important issues which is expected to come up for discussion at the Civil Military Liaison Conference to be held in Chandigarh on November 23. The issue of relocation of the ammunition depot from Powari in the tribal district of Kinnaur has been hanging fire for the last over five years with there being no immediate solution in sight. The state government has already taken inputs from the concerned Deputy Commissioners where any pending issues between the army and civil authorities exist. It is a routine meeting where inter-departmental issues like land exchange or permission from either side is required, said Chief Secretary VC Pharka. He confirmed that with residents of Jangi village not willing to allow the relocation of the ammunition depot, the government is left with no option but to search for a new site. Sources said that efforts by the Kinnaur district administration to look for other site has also not fructified as the Army has rejected another new location found by the civil authorities. The Kinnaur district administration is now on the job to look for another suitable site which is acceptable to the Army and the process of shifting can be undertaken. The need for shifting the ammunition depot of the army has arisen so as to enable the taking up of tunneling work on the 450 MW Song Tong Karcham project. The Army had objected to the coming up of the project following which it was decided to shift the depot to an uninhabited place. The army presently has about 67 bighas under its possession at Powari and has sought more land for relocating the depot. Following the decision of the state government to relocate the depot near Jangi village, residents from here met the Chief Minister to convey their resistance. Considering their opposition, the move has been abandoned. Some other issues like permission from the Army for construction of road near Chandpur near Palampur and minor issues between the Army and civilian in the Nahan Cantonment area are also likley to be discussed at the meeting. Others who will attend the meeting include Pharka, Additional Chief Secretaries- Narinder Chauhan (Public Works) and Tarun Shridhar (Revenue and Power). Our Correspondent Una, November 21 War of words between the Congress and the BJP flared up today on the issue of foundation stone of a rural road in Haroli segment, which was laid by Lok Sabha MP Anurag Thakur. The MP had laid the foundation stone of the Rs 15.22-crore proposed road from Panjawar to Bathari villages in the Haroli segment yesterday. The road has been funded under the centrally assisted Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. In a press release, local MLA and Industries Minister Mukesh Agnihotri today claimed that it was he who had done the spade work for sanctioning the project from the Centre and his year-long efforts had recently materialised. He said the foundation stone for the proposed road was to be laid by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh during his November 22 visit of the Haroli segment. He further said the BJP leader was trying to take credit of the efforts made by the Congress leaders and the state government, claiming that the BJP leaders had no role in the development of the Haroli segment. He said the BJP leaders decision to lay the foundation stone of the road just two days ahead of Chief Ministers visit clearly shows the cheap political stunts being adopted by the BJP leaders in the face of successive defeats of their candidates in the last three Assembly elections in Haroli. Meanwhile, BJP contestant from the Haroli segment Ram Kumar today clarified that Anurag Thakur had informed the PWD authorities regarding the proposed foundation stone laying programme on November 11. Countering Agnihotris allegations, he said the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana was a Central scheme and the MP had the right to lay the foundation stone. Ram Kumar charged that central assistance worth crores of rupees had been doled out to Haroli during the Narendra Modi-led NDA rule, but said that instead of thanking the BJP, the local Congress MLA was always criticising its leaders. Naming the centrally sponsored schemes in Haroli, Ram Kumar pointed out that the Swan River Tributaries embankment project, strengthening of the Bathari to Tahliwal road through the Central Road Fund, 120-km Santoshgarh to Jaijon and Jaijon to Gagret-Talwara roads, construction of two bridges in the segment and construction of Model Rural Health Research Center at Haroli were all funded by the Centre. Rachna Khaira Tribune News Service Jalandhar, November 22 Despite strict directions issued by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal, the district administration has failed to close down two shops selling cigarettes and other tobacco products adjoining the gates of Mandi Fentonganj Government Girls Senior Secondary School in the past two years. Even though a team of the Health Department, headed by Dr Rakesh Gupta, state programme officer, Tobacco Control Cell, Punjab, District Health Officer Dr Harjot and Surinder Saini an NGO member conducted a raid on June 23 last year and even seized their products, the shop owners were allowed to open their shops after imposing a fine of Rs 200 each, as the report filed by the Health Department did not mention its location to be near the school. While accusing the department officials of alleged connivance, Saini said that even though the shops were located next to the school, the department officials did not included Section 6 (B) of the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA, 2003) which was imposed in case a tobacco selling outlet was located in the vicinity of an educational institute. Since the report did not highlight the fact that the outlets were situated next to the school gate, no stringent action could be taken against them and they continue to run their shops near the school premises even today, said Saini. Also, he said that as an NGO representative, even he had imposed a fine of Rs 1,000 around four times on the two stall owners, but they quietly paid the fine every time and continued to run their stalls. How are they managing to earn a huge amount of money every day also needs to be investigated by the district authorities, said Saini. Saini even claimed that though he highlighted the matter to Jalandhar Deputy Commissioner KK Yadav who immediately directed Jalandhar Civil Surgeon to take necessary steps, nothing concrete had been done so far. Even though the Civil Surgeon confirmed in the District Tobacco Control Society meeting that Section 6 (B) was added to the report filed by the health department, it has not been done so till date. Also, the administration failed to take action against the health official who, in his report, has failed to mention that the stalls are situated just next to the school, said Saini. Making a mockery of the tobacco free status of Jalandhar, these tobacco-selling stalls continue to run 24x7 adjoining the school building openly. Deepkamal Kaur Tribune News Service Jalandhar, November 21 A day after the visit of BJP national president Amit Shah in Jalandhar, opposition leaders have hit out against him for misconstruing facts before the Dalit community and giving undue credit to ex-prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for conferring Bharat Ratna on Dr BR Ambedkar. Dalit leader and Punjab Pradesh Congress Commitee general secretary Ram Lal Jassi today said he was surprised to read the statement of Amit Shah in newspapers. How can a national president of a party make such a blunder? It was not Vajpayee, but ex-prime minister VP Singh who announced the award for Dr Ambedkar ahead of his birth centenary in 1991. I am amazed that the leader with such a huge stature did not check his facts before making any such statement in the Dalit heartland, the Congress leader said. Dr Jassi further said, We all know that Vajpayee was a great admirer of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, but saying that it was he who conferred the Bharat Ratna on Baba Saheb is a travesty of facts, that too just ahead of elections. Former Bahujan Samaj Party president Avtar Singh Karimpuri said, Amit Shahs statement further proves that the BJP is ruling on the basis of lies and falsehood. In fact, the BJP had opposed the move of VP Singh on the matter and had even withdrawn the support later on. The state president of the party, perhaps, realised the mistake today and tried to clarify. Our national president just meant that Vajpayee ji was at the back of ex-prime minister VP Singh when he made the announcement. He just meant that Vajpayee ji had a major role to play. We all know that it was VP Singh who conferred the Bharat Ratna on Dr Ambedkar, said Punjab BJP chief Vijay Sampla. When countered with proofs of Amit Shah taking a direct credit by means of video recording and newspaper reports today, Sampla said, I am in Delhi. I do not know what has appeared in the papers. Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, November 22 Two militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in north Kashmirs Bandipora district today. The brief gunfight erupted early this morning when the police, CRPF and the Army cordoned off Bonikhan Mohalla in Hajin, around 30 km from Srinagar, following an input about militant presence in the area. Two heavily armed terrorists were neutralised during the operation. We have recovered two AK rifles, one Under Barrel Grenade Launcher (UBGL) and a large quantity of war-likes stores, Commanding Officer, 13 Rashtriya Rifles, Col Vikramjeet Singh told mediapersons after the operation. The operation was conducted in a built-up area and we ensured that there was no collateral damage to the houses and civilians population in the area, he added. A police officer said both slain militants were residents of Pakistan and associated with the Lashkar-e-Toiba. The militants were killed a day after suspected militants fled with nearly Rs 13 lakh, including Rs 11 lakh old currency, from a bank in central Kashmirs Budgam district. Rs 2,000 notes recovered from slain ultras At a time when people are struggling to get new currency, fresh notes of Rs 2,000 were recovered from the two militants killed in the encounter. We have begun investigations as to how the militants got the new currency, said Senior Superintendent of Police, Bandipora, Zulfikar Azad. The police also recovered Rs 11,600 in Rs 100 denomination from the two slain militants. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes and the move was mainly intended to curb the flow of funds to militant organisations and counterfeit money. However, the recovery of new currency notes from the possession of slain Pakistani militants indicates that the insurgents transact mostly in genuine currency. Several J&K police officers opine that the demonetisation is not going to have much impact on militancy in Kashmir. Tribune News Service Jammu, November 21 A Border Security Force (BSF) head constable was killed and four people, including three BSF jawans, received injuries as Pakistan again violated ceasefire on the Line of Control (LoC) in various sectors of Rajouri and Poonch districts. The Pakistan army resorted to unprovoked shelling and firing on Indian posts and civilian areas using 120 mm mortars and small arms in the Rajouri sector since last night. They started heavy shelling in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch, and the Nowshera sector of Rajouri at 9.30 am and 10.20 am, respectively. The Indian Army responded befittingly with similar calibre weapons. During last nights firing in the Manjakote sub-sector of Rajouri, BSF Head Constable Rai Singh (50) along with other three jawans suffered splinter injuries. Singh succumbed to his injuries while the condition of another jawan was critical. Singh, a resident of Kheri Sampla village of Rohtak district in Haryana, is survived by his wife, three sons and his mother. Constables Govind Rai and Suman Das were airlifted to Udhampur, while Constable Sumit Rana is under treatment at Rajouri. Rai Singhs mortal remains were airlifted to New Delhi from Jammu and later taken to his native village by road. His cremation will take place tomorrow. Meanwhile, Pakistan troops pounded dozens of Indian forward posts and hamlets in Balakote, Mendhar, Balnoi and Krishna Ghati sectors of Poonch today. In the firing, Abdul Aziz (52) of Basooni Dharana village in Mendhar received a splinter injury and was shifted to a sub-district hospital. Pakistan summons Indian envoy Islamabad: Pakistan on Monday summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner JP Singh to protest alleged ceasefire violations by India that left four civilians dead, and also over New Delhis refusal of diplomatic flight clearance to Pakistan aircraft. pti Tribune News Service Srinagar, November 21 The students of undergraduate courses of the University of Kashmir (KU) are demanding more time for preparation as the authorities have scheduled the exams in the November-December. University officials said as the students had not been able to attend classes for the past four months, the university had uploaded e-tutorials on its website for all courses from where the students could study for exams. There will be no relaxation given in the syllabus as the students have been provided with study material. They have time till the last week of December to prepare, said a university official. For the winter zones of Kashmir, like Ladakh and Kargil, the university had already come up with the date sheet as the exams were scheduled to commence at the end of November, he said. The students in the Valley whose classwork have been affected for the past four months said it was difficult for them to prepare the full syllabus in such a short time. Earlier the university notified that exams will be conducted in February and March but now the sudden decision to hold exams in December with full syllabus will be difficult for us. The university should give us some more time, said a final-year student from Amar Singh College, Srinagar. The university Vice Chancellor, Khursheed Andrabi, held a meeting with all the heads of colleges on Saturday to decide about the holding of exams. The official said the decision to conduct exams in December instead of earlier notified dates in March was taken in the interest of the students so that their next academic year was not affected. We have taken into consideration the larger interest of the students. The exams of postgraduate courses have also been notified, said the Dean, Academic Affairs, University of Kashmir. The official from the varsity said the opening of classes regularly in the university would entirely depend on the situation and the relaxation provided by separatists. The university has also notified the date sheet for some postgraduate courses. Vikram Sharma Tribune News Service Jammu, November 22 The surgical strikes on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) terror camps on September 29 followed by the Prime Ministers announcement of demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes on November 8 have impacted the Jammu region adversely. While the nation celebrated the surgical strikes, but the cross-border firing on the International Border as well the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu region gained momentum. Thereafter, it accounted for killing of many innocents and leaving others displaced and running for shelter and government aid, which seldom came their way. The contemporary situation on border still puts up the status quo with both the nations engaging in cross-border shelling and security personnel and locals being killed and displaced frequently. The attacks have increased here after September 29. We do not know what the government did through surgical strikes on Pak terror camps, but the latter has turned more ferocious of late and we are left as fodder on border, said Mohammad Hussain, a resident of Rajouri. The recent unabated shelling on the International Border and the LoC in Jammu province followed by the Pakistans military forces build-up on border is a concern for India, but J&K, for its unsettled status, is in frontier position in case of any major eventuality taking place, says Hari Om, a political analyst and convener, Jammu for India. Pakistan army is deliberately targeting the border areas and the LoC in Jammu province to cut it from the rest of the country and causing displacement of the population across the border like it happened at the time of partition in 1947. It is time for the government to see through the Pakistani evil game plan before it is too late. J&K is Indias neck and the nation will not allow Pakistan to cut it, he said. Similarly, the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes subsequently gave the region another setback as the state being devoid of any corporate sector establishment here due to Article 370 is not in position to rotate the new currency fast for public expenditure. The limit of withdrawal from the ATM is Rs 2,000 only and the machine drops a single note when swiped for it. People belonging to middle and lower class are unable to purchase items of lesser price as change in lower denomination notes are not given in exchange by the shopkeepers, said Ram Prakash, a retired government official at Janipur. The people lamented that they had no option, but to seek credit for smaller purchases. Meanwhile, BJP spokesperson Virendra Gupta said Pakistan turning volatile on the International Border and the LoC has a twofold reason, which gives it a motive to attack Jammu province only. They cannot act on the LoC in Kashmir as they dont want to lose Kashmirs obsession for Pakistan. Besides, their focus of attack on this part had been Jammu province only since partition as Indias occupation of Sialkot in 1971 war was Pakistans greatest defeat that lies adjacent to the International Border and the LoC in Jammu province only, Gupta added. This is Pakistans short-lived strategy which will die soon, said Virendra Gupta, who also dismissed demonetisation affecting Jammu particularly due to Article 370. What residents say... The attacks from across border have increased here after September 29. We do not know what the government did through surgical strikes on Pak terror camps, but the latter has turned more ferocious of late and we are left as fodder on border. Mohammad Hussain, a resident of rajouri The limit of withdrawal from the ATM is Rs 2,000 only and the machine drops a single note when swiped for it. People belonging to middle and lower class are unable to purchase items of lesser price as change in lower denomination notes are not given in exchange by the shopkeepers. Ram Prakash, a retired government official at Janipur Tribune News Service Jammu, November 21 The government is going to project the states heritage schools as centres of excellence in education. The idea is to revive the time-tested excellence of these institutions and attract maximum enrollment of students by offering best educational facilities in the form of highly-proficient faculty and modern teaching infrastructure. The revival plan envisages a slew of structural and administrative reforms directed towards the best usage of infrastructure and tools of modern education available in the form of smart classrooms, computer labs, well-established laboratories for different streams, libraries having collection of rare books and above all, experienced and expert faculty on all subjects. Rolling out the innovative plan here at a meeting convened to review the performance of Ranbir Higher Secondary School, Minister for Education, Naeem Akhter, underlined the need for using electronics, print and social media to give wide publicity to the idea. Ranbir Higher Secondary School, Jammu, which has a website and a Facebook page, was asked to use social media to project its achievements and facilities to enhance enrollment. Publicity is a must to compete with private schools. Once done, people will come to know that this school has far better facilities than any other school in the city, the minister said. Stressing on revival of its popularity, the minister said the school had produced towering personalities and people who had achieved outstanding feats in different fields. Asserting that the huge building and educational infrastructure of the school shall be put to best use, the minister asked the authorities to start community learning by offering IT courses at its highly-advanced computer lab after routine school timing. Tribune News Service Srinagar, November 21 The Chairman of J&K Bank today said the bank would extend system-driven flexibility in restructuring of loans in the state. Stating that people of the state along with their trade and economy remain our fundamental strength, J&K Bank Chairman and CEO Parvez Ahmed today said the bank remained committed to supporting them and their development in every possible way within the prescribed framework of regulations. Parvez made this statement during a meeting with the delegation of the Kashmir Traders and Manufacturers Federation (KTMF) here. The statement about restructuring of the loans comes even as the Reserve Bank of India has already rejected the proposal for restructuring of stressed loans, sent by the state-level bankers committee recently. We are quite aware of our role and responsibilities as the leader bank of this region and are trying our best to meet not only peoples needs, but also expectations. And the best example to support our claim is the way we have smoothly dealt with the Central governments massive-ever demonetisation process across the state when the entire country is still reeling under its effects, an official statement quoted the bank chairman as having told the traders delegation. Since we are more focused this time on the issue of restructuring, recruitment list will be finalised soon. We shall rationalise the staff according to the needs on the ground and a review of charges would also be taken soon. Steps will soon be taken for commissioning of ATMs but only after proper survey of the places mentioned for such installations, Parvez said. Regarding the hike in insurance premiums, he said, Although premiums are related to the risks involved, which have grown considerably after floods and current unrest, but we will certainly take up the issue with our insurance partners and press for fairness and better rationalisation. If needed, we can bring in an element of competition in this business for servicing the businesses in the best possible way, he promised. The traders delegation had pleaded for restructuring of loan accounts as the last five months have brought all the businesses in the Valley to a grinding halt. Although we have already taken up the case of loan restructuring with the state government and are engaged with other stakeholders on the issue, we have requested for the interest waiver tothe relevant authorities also, a trade leader told the JK Bank chairman. ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia (AP) The Dalai Lama preached to thousands of Buddhists in Mongolia despite demands from China that the visit by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader be scrapped, at a time Mongolia seeks a critical aid package from its powerful neighbor. The Dalai Lama addressed followers at the Gandantegchenlin monastery on Saturday and spoke about materialism at the start of a four-day visit that Mongolia says is purely religious in nature and won't include meetings with officials. The trip could have repercussions for land-locked Mongolia's relationship with China, which protested previous visits by the Dalai Lama by briefly closing its border in 2002 and temporarily canceling flights from Beijing in 2006. The Dalai Lama has been based in India since fleeing Tibet during an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. His visit comes as Mongolian leaders are seeking a $4.2 billion loan from Beijing to pull the country out of a deep recession. With commodity prices slumping, Mongolia is running out of hard currency to repay foreign debts and is seeking help from a neighbor that accounts for roughly 90 percent of its exports. Mongolian Buddhism is closely tied to Tibet's strain and many in the heavily Buddhist country revere the Dalai Lama, who made his first visit in 1979. Mongolian religious figures say the visit could be the last for the 81-year-old spiritual leader, and some of his followers traveled hundreds of miles to see him while braving the coldest November temperatures in a decade. Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, November 21 Suspected militants fled with nearly Rs 13 lakh, including Rs 11 lakh in old currency, from a bank in central Kashmirs Budgam district on Monday afternoon. The militants believed to be four in number and armed with assault rifles barged into the J&K Bank branch at Malpora in Chrar-e-Sharief, some 30 km from Srinagar, and took away the money from the cashier. Police sources said the gunmen came in a Wagon-R without a number plate and barged into the bank around 2.30 pm. One gunman slapped the cashier and directed him to drop the entire cash in a bag which he was carrying. The other gunmen thrashed some customers and bank employees inside the bank. They left after nearly 10 minutes with Rs 12,45,240, a police source said. Out of the cash looted, nearly Rs 11 lakh consisted of the banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and over Rs 1 lakh were in new notes, the sources said. Soon after the incident, the police and the Army cordoned off the area to trace the gunmen involved in the heist. Special Director General (Coordination and Law and Order) Shesh Paul Vaid blamed militants for the robbery. There was one guard deployed at the bank and he too was without a weapon. The militants were armed and fled after the robbery, Vaid said, adding that a massive manhunt had been launched to arrest the culprits. Vaid said it would be speculation at this point to talk of the robbery having anything to do with demonetisation. Last month on October 25, two gunmen had looted Rs 1 lakh at Kader village in Kulgam. Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, November 22 Two suspected Pakistani militants were killed in gunfight in north Kashmirs Bandipora district on Tuesday. Two weapons and ammunition were recovered from the slain militants. The security forces also recovered two new currency notes of Rs 2,000 from the slain militants. The gunfight erupted early in the morning, when police and army cordoned Bonikhan Mohalla in Hajin, around 30 km from here, after an input about militants presence in the area. As the searches were being carried out, militants opened fire and it was retaliated triggering an encounter. In the gunfight two militants were killed, a police officer said. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) He said both the slain militants were Pakistanis and were associated with Lashkar-e-Toiba. Security forces have stepped up anti-militancy operations across Kashmir which had remained halted during the unrest triggered by the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani. Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, November 22 Three soldiers were killed in Pakistani action in Machil sector of the frontier Kupwara district this afternoon. The body of one of the soldiers was found headless. This is the second such incident on the Line of Control (LoC) in the sector since October 29. It has led to fresh border tension with the Army vowing revenge. Retribution will be heavy, warned defence spokesman Col Rajesh Kalia. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) The deceased have been identified as Sepoys Prabhu from Rajasthan, and Sushant and Manoj Kumar from Uttar Pradesh. The Army said the soldiers were killed by the BAT (Border Action Team) of the Pakistan army that ambushed a counter-infiltration patrol of 57 Rashtriya Rifles battalion at Kumkari near Shalabatu between the LoC and the fence, also known as Anti-Insurgency Obstacle System (AIOS). It is a BAT action with support of the Pakistan army, defence sources said. The attack was carried out by Pakistani army commandos and irregulars who crossed the LoC and ambushed the patrol party, they said. The Army is tightlipped on the number of jawans on patrol at the time. Sources reported heavy cross-LoC shelling at Dana Machhil, Ashni, Ringsar and Ringsar Payeen in the Machil sector. On October 29, the mutilated body of Sepoy Mandeep Singh, 27, was found in this sector. The attackers were provided cover fire by Pakistani troops. In 2008, a soldier of 2/8 Gorkha Rifles was captured by BAT in Kel sector. His beheaded body was found later. Simran Sodhi Tribune News Service New Delhi, November 20 The upcoming Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar will be a perfect opportunity for the Union Government to showcase the city, even as the crescendo for the Punjab Assembly elections grows in the background. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will welcome Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to the holy city on December 4. Preparations are under way to give more than 40 foreign dignitaries and organisations from various countries a flavour of the cultural aspect of the city. The city might also play a host to the next India-Pakistan narrative. While Pakistan last week extended an olive branch to India with Sartaj Aziz, Pakistans de facto Foreign Minister, suggesting that he would be willing to travel to Amritsar for the conference, India was quick with a curt reply saying that Pakistan has yet to confirm participation at the official level. People privy to the developments suggest that India is playing it cautiously when it comes to resuming dialogue with Pakistan or taking the cue from Aziz. With elections due in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, the foreign policy decisions are likely to play a role into the domestic politics too. Pakistan is taking the high moral ground when it comes to the Heart of Asia conference, saying that while India sabotaged the SAARC summit, Pakistan will instead participate in the conference in Amritsar. The catch here is that skipping the conference could prove costly for Pakistan. The aim of the conference is to discuss the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan is reluctant to be left out of any such process. Pakistan is already uneasy with the role India is playing in the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan and would feel the need to be present in Amritsar. Shiv Kumar Tribune News Service Mumbai, November 22 Much to the discomfiture of the BJP, the Narendra Modi governments decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 has seen Mumbais traders rushing to the Shiv Sena for help. Last weekend, a delegation of traders met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and sought his help in obtaining relief following the sudden demonetisation which has hurt businesses in Mumbai. Under the banner of the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association (FRTWA), traders told Thackeray that the shortage of small denomination currency notes had forced several small businesses to down shutters, while restaurants and grocery stores were seeing fewer customers. Shortly after the meeting, Thackeray hit out at Modi for the demonetisation exercise and demanded relief for the trading community. The new-found bonhomie between the traders and the Shiv Sena has rattled the BJP, which sees Mumbais mercantile communities as its core constituency, especially since it comes on the eve of the elections to the BMC. Ashish Shelar, who heads the Mumbai unit of the BJP, today got a delegation of traders to meet with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and seek his help. Traders have suffered huge losses on account of the demonetisation exercise. We would like the Maharashtra Government to come out with some tax incentives for traders, Viren Shah, president, FRTWA told reporters after meeting Fadnavis. Shah said the traders wanted waiver of VAT and cheaper power tariffs apart from lower taxes on petrol and diesel for the next three months. He added that Fadnavis promised to look into the matter. The Maharashtra CM also promised to intervene with the RBI and at local bank branches to set up counters for providing adequate change for Rs 2,000 notes, the traders representative said. New Delhi, November 22 The BJP and Trinamool Congress shared the honours by winning two Lok Sabha seats each, claiming it was a vindication of their stand on demonetisation, as ruling parties in six states and Puducherry held sway in byelections, retaining most of the 10 Assembly seats up for grabs. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) In the Assembly bypolls held on November 19, results of which were declared today, BJP and AIADMK won three seats each, CPI(M) got two while Congress and Trinamool bagged one each. BJP won the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat in Assam, vacated by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, by a margin of 1,90,219 votes and Shahdol Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh, both ruled by the party. Trinamool Congress swept Tamluk and Coochbehar Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal by a whopping margin of over 4.9 lakh votes, almost doubling the gap from 2014 polls. Lok Sabha, Assembly bypoll results Lok Sabha seat Winner Lakhimpur (Assam) BJP Shahdol (Madhya Pradesh) BJP Coochbehar (West Bengal) TMC Tamluk (West Bengal) TMC Assembly seat Winner Boithalangso (Assam) BJP Hayuliang (Arunachal Pradesh) BJP Nepanagar (Madhya Pradesh) BJP Monteswar (West Bengal) TMC Thanjavur (Tamil Nadu) AIADMK Aravakurichi (Tamil Nadu) AIADMK Tiruparakundram (Tamil Nadu) AIADMK Barjala (Tripura) CPM Khowai (Tripura) CPM Nellithope (Puducherry) Congress (CM Narayanasamy) Trinamool also won the Monteswar assembly seat with candidates of CPI(M), Congress and BJP losing their deposits. In Tamil Nadu, AIADMK, whose supremo Jayalalithaa is hospitalised for two months, retained Thanjavur and Thirupparankundram Assembly seats and wrested Aravakkurichi seat from DMK by margins ranging from 20,000 votes to 42,000. The ruling CPI(M) in Tripura wrested Barjala (SC) seat from the Congress and retained Khowai. Senior Congress leader and Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy won the bypoll to Nellithope Assembly seat defeating AIADMK's Om Sakthi Segar by a margin of 11,144 votes. North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) candidate Dasanglu Pul of BJP won Hayuliang assembly bypoll in Arunachal Pradesh. Pul is the youngest of the three wives of former chief minister Kalikho Pul. The bypoll was necessitated by his suicide. Union Minister Ananth Kumar and Sonowal said the BJP's win in the bypolls showed that people have endorsed the government's decision against black money and corruption. "BJP's victory in by-polls is a clear indication that people are fully supporting the decision to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes. It is people's mandate for the Prime Minister's decision of demonetisation," Sonowal told reporters. West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, however, termed the byelection result as a mandate against the Centre's decision of demonetisation. "The byelection result is a befitting reply against the anti-people demonetisation by the Centre. Its a people's revolt, rather a mass revolt against the Centre. BJP should take lessons from this mandate," she told newsmen in Kolkata before leaving for New Delhi to join the protest by the Opposition. PTI Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, November 21 Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag today led a military delegation to China as part of an effort by both countries to enhance high-level military exchanges aimed at building trust and ensuring peace along the 3,488 km disputed boundary on the Himalayan ridgeline. The Gen Suhag-led delegations four-day visit (November 21-24) is the second high-level military engagement this month. The 8th Annual Defence Dialogue (ADD) was conducted in New Delhi on November 8 between Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar and Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of the Joint Staff Department of Chinas Central Military Commission (CMC). Yet another interaction is coming up in December when Gen Zhao Zongqi, Commander, Western Theatre Command of People's Liberation Army (PLA), visits Delhi. The visit is aimed at engaging with China on subjects of mutual concern and shared interest, which include terrorism, humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping training, an Army spokesperson said today. The visit coincides with a joint military exercise Exercise Hand-in-Handthat is underway in Pune since November 16. Its theme is to understand and practice methods to tackle transnational terror. This is the sixth edition of the exercise and first since December last when Beijing passed a law authorising its military to venture overseas on counter-terror operations and even sent some 5,000 troops to tackle the Islamic State in Syria. Both countries separately face transnational terror in their respective regionsIndia in Kashmir and China in Xinjiang (north of J&K in India). Besides, both have collective threat of their own youth joining the IS. On October 19, the two armies held their first-ever joint drill in Ladakh, J&K, the same place where the two fought in 1962. Will meet top guns Gen Suhag and his team will be visiting key military installations, including Infantry Division and Army Air Defence Brigades. The Army Chief is also scheduled to meet a number of dignitaries of PLA and CMC. Tribune News Service New Delhi, November 21 The intensity of battle between the ruling coalition and the Opposition over the effect of demonetisation on people continued unabated with neither side willing to blink in Parliament, resulting in another day of stalled proceedings. The Opposition began closing ranks in an attempt to put the government on the mat by insisting on the presence of the Prime Minister and taking up the issue in the Lok Sabha for a discussion under a rule that entails voting. On a day the government announced fresh measures to ameliorate the hardships being faced by farmers by relaxing the use of old Rs 500 notes during the sowing season, the Opposition decided to hold a protest in Parliament on Wednesday, demonstrating solidarity. As members of the Opposition trooped into the well of the Houses, both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha failed to transact any business barring laying of papers, introduction of Bills and a statement on the Kanpur rail tragedy. In the Rajya Sabha, the government was clear that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will reply to the debate on demonetisation that began last Wednesday and did not move forward since then. The demand of the Opposition is the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Leader of the Opposition in the House Ghulam Nabi Azad today said the House must adopt a resolution mourning the death of 70 people who lost life while waiting in the bank queues to exchange currency just as it passed obituary reference to those killed in the train accident. In the Lok Sabha, where the ruling coalition has a comfortable majority, the Opposition members led by the Congress kept pressing for a debate under Rule 56, an adjournment motion that when admitted sets aside all scheduled business till the House takes a view on it through a vote. Ahead of the commencement of the second week of Parliament, Opposition parties met here this morning, deciding to press for an adjournment motion. Like last week, the Speaker today again rejected the notices submitted by leaders of Opposition parties on the issue. "The meeting at the outset noted with concern the insensitivity of the government regarding the train accident. On an earlier occasion, the PM had rushed to an accident site in Kerala. But yesterday he was in Agra and did not go to the site," CPM leader Mohd Salim said after the meeting, adding: "The PM can speak on Coldplay but cant address the Opposition on demonetisation. Vibha Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, November 22 In an emotional speech before BJP MPs, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday vehemently defended the demonetisation, saying it was done for the benefit of the people. Addressing the BJP Parliamentary Party, Modi urged the MPs to counter what he called was misinformation being spread by the opposition parties on the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. We came to power for the poor, not for our own sake, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar quoted the Prime Minister as saying in his speech. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) The poor, the lower middle class and middle class have been suffering for the last 70 years due to corruption and black money. This decision is in favour of the people and against black money, corruption and counterfeit currency. Our target is to fight a long battle against all these, he said. The Parliamentary Party also passed a resolution backing the governments decision to spike the high-value currencies. The resolution was moved by Home Minister Rajnath Singh. Ananth Kumar told the media: The Parliamentary Party unanimously passed a resolution on the historical demonetisation decision of November 8. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the currency squeeze might affect the economy for a short while but eventually it would make it healthier and robust. The economy will become cleaner and stable. The transformation will see some difficulties, but later the economy will function normally, he said. Jaitley explained the nitty-gritty of the move. The BJP has been facing criticism not just from the opposition but also from its ally Shiv Sena. Sena MPs have sought time with the Prime Minister to discuss the issues, including allowing transactions by cooperative banks. Jaitley said the step would reduce Indias dependence on World Bank loans and bring a whole lot of tangible benefits to the poor and labour class. We expect the Left parties to understand and support the Prime Ministers measures to clean up the system, he said. Condemning the malicious campaign mounted by the opposition, he said that to implement operation of this magnitude while maintaining secrecy was a tough job. The country had welcomed the move and the government would concentrate on rural areas in the next few days, he added. Lakhs of crores which was being rotated outside the banking network had now returned to banks. With the help of this low cost money it is quite natural that its benefit would be distributed in various ways among the people, he said. The meeting lauded the efforts of the RBI and its employees. It is a massive operation after which the entire scenario would change. Whenever the step is reviewed, it will be called a historic step by the PM. It is a step that many may have contemplated but did not have the courage to undertake. The next target will be rural areas, the FM said. Jaitley called demonetisation a historic move. The FM also made light of the opposition argument that he was also not kept in the loop by the PM while launching the move. Any party condemning the move is favouring black money hoarders, Venkaiah Naidu said. The parliamentary party unanimously applauded the PMs historic step against black money, fake money and terrorism. The party gave a standing ovation to the PM for his step. With IANS DECATUR Yusef Shabkeh looked at the large, brown Clydesdale horse to the right, then back to the smaller one on the left. Yusef, a 7-year-old second-grader at Johns Hill Magnet School, then pointed to the smaller Clydesdale, a 4-year-old named Chaquita, and asked, "It that one a girl?" "Yes," said veterinarian and horse breeder Linda Harmon. "Chaquita is a girl, and the bigger one is her brother." Yusef nodded, and a couple minutes later was wearing a big smile as he petted the larger male Clydesdale that Harmon had brought, named Cennick also 4 years old. "He feels kind of crusty, but still soft," Yusef said. He was one of the hundreds of Johns Hill students who got the chance to touch one of the two Clydesdales that Harmon raises at Iron Horse Farm in Lovington. A few of the younger students backed away in fear, but most were eager to pet the gentle giants. "Which do you think weighs more all of you or Cennick?" Harmon asked each of the classes, usually made up of between 20 and 25 children. "The answer is Cennick. He weighs 2,300 pounds." Kids from each class gasped. Yusef said despite the horses' size, he wasn't scared of them. Harmon said there's no reason for kids to fear them. "They're just animals with quiet demeanors," Harmon said. "Kids flock to them, and they don't care if 20 kids come tumbling down the hill at them." Harmon's farm has produced more than 35 foals since 1999 and has sold horses to buyers in in South Africa, Quebec, Ontario, Scotland and across the United States, including to Budweiser for its Clydesdale breeding program. Iron Horse Farm has won the prestigious August A. Busch Best American Bred Clydesdale at the National Clydesdale Show in 2004, 2006 and 2016. Even with Harmon's horse breeding pedigree, her friend Jane Dobrinsky a custodian at Johns Hill said Harmon doesn't like attention. It was Dobrinsky's idea to bring the Clydesdales to the school. "I had to ramrod this," Dobrinsky said, laughing. "Dr. Harmon is pretty shy you never hear her talk about herself or her horses. But she has some of the best in the world. "One day I was out at the barn, and I said, 'We need to take some of these into the school and let the kids see them.' A lot of people see them on commercials, but never get to see them up close, let alone get to pet them." Johns Hill Principal Rob Prange said he loved the idea as soon as he heard it. "Not everyone has seen a horse up close, especially one that size," Prange said. "Just listening to their reactions ... it's been great." For every class, Harmon would ask, 'Do you want to pet one?' and the response was always a resounding, in unison, "Yes." Then came the questions. "Why are they so soft?" The answer: "They're getting their winter hair," Harmon said. "Do they cry?" Answer: "No." "Do they get mad?" Answer: "Sometimes. They stomp their feet when they get mad." Harmon also showed the students what Clydesdales eat hay and barley. At the end, students were all given Cennick's "autograph" Cennick's horseshoe print with the message, "Thanks for coming to see me." Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, November 22 Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday said India must rethink its submarine building plan and look for greater numbers than the existing plan of making 24 submarines. Referring to the existing 30-year submarine building plan that envisages construction of 24 submarines--both nuclear and conventional--Parrikar said India needed a longer plan till 2050. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) The existing plan ends in 2030 and the first submarine under it--the Kalvari-- will be commissioned in January 2017. To maintain and sustain the knowledge in submarine making India needed a longer plan, Parrikar told the media after having spoken at a seminar here on Tuesday. He spoke at the seminar Current and Future Challenges in Design and Construction of Underwater Vehicles organised by Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI ). Parrikar said other countries had built hundreds of submarines. He named the UK, Russia and the US for having made them. On the forthcoming next line of submarines--termed Project 75-India--the Defence Minister said it would start soon once the strategic partnership model is approved. Navy chief Sunil Lanba said the submarine design is an area that posed considerable challenge for indigenous development. Indian yards will need technology transfer to ensure that the Navy gets its submarine development plan. Mukesh Ranjan Tribune News Service New Delhi, November 22 The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the fourth consecutive day on Tuesday as a united Opposition demanded a discussion on demonetisation on a rule which entails voting. Opposition leaders of the Congress, the TMC, the AIADMK, the RJD and the NCP were seen in the Well of the House shouting slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. One among the slogans was opposition ek hai, sarkar hosh mein aao (Opposition is united, government take notice). Before adjourning the House, the Speaker made several attempts to calm the agitating members but whenever she addressed the members standing in the Well to go back to their seats, they increased the pitch of their sloganeering. As soon as the House re-assembled at 12 noon, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan allowed members to speak briefly on what they wanted to say. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the government was ready to discuss the demonetisation issue. The government is ready to take up the matter immediately as we are aware that even opposition members are against black money, he said. Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge demanded acceptance of adjournment motion and presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the House took up the discussion on the subject. Kharge alluded to the Speaker as mother and said he expected a motherly treatment from her. On this the Speaker said, "Yes she is the mother who wants to keep all her children happy". Countering Kharge's demands the Parliamentary Affairs Minister said people were with the government and Modi on the demonetisation decision. They have given their stamp of approval as in the by-elections in Madhya Pradesh and Assam they voted in favour of the BJP candidates. It seems the Opposition also sees the people's support in favour of the government's decision and so they are shying away from discussion on the issue, he added. Deepender Deswal Tribune News Service Hisar, November 22 The Dimapur police in Nagaland have seized Rs 3.5 crore in demonetised currency from a man aboard a private aircraft that took off from Hisar early morning. Amarjeet Kumar Singh from Bihar said the money belonged to a Nagaland resident, son of a late Rajya Sabha member, who had booked the flight for him through an aeronautics firm headed by a Hisar-based man in Delhi. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Sources said the Nagaland resident, who claimed to have earned the money from agricultural sources, had sent Rs 3.5 crore to Hisar in the past to purchase some land but when the deal did not materialise, he asked Amarjeet to bring it back to Nagaland. The aircraft had reached Hisar on Monday evening and took off at 7.30 am today. Amarjeet was apprehended with the cash as soon as he landed at Dimapur. Probe agencies suspect it to be a case of hawala exchange in the wake of demonetisation. Sources said the Delhi firm that booked the flight had booked an aircraft for the same Nagaland man on November 13 as well when two passengers with four-five bags had travelled to Dimapur. Asked if passengers were frisked before boarding, Hisar flying club incharge Shailender Hooda said he was busy. Sources said theclub could be served notice. Vishav Bharti Tribune News Service Chandigarh, November 21 The challenging political scenario in the state seems to have forced the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which till now was firm on its no-alliance policy, to take to the politics of electoral tie-ups. The party today announced an alliance with the Lok Insaaf Party, led by Independent MLAs Simarjit Singh Bains and Balwinder Singh Bains. Under the agreement, the Lok Insaaf Party will contest contest four seats in Ludhiana, besides Amargarh seat in Sangrur district. Sources said after the removal of Sucha Singh Chhotepur as state convener, AAPs popularity witnessed a decline and the changed political situation forced the AAP leadership to rethink its strategy, they said. Talking to the media, state convener Gurpreet Singh Wariach accepted that they had been pursuing the policy of no alliances. We have found a partner, which is close to our principals and ideology, he said, adding that AAPs constitution did not prevent them to form an alliance with like-minded forces. AAP Punjab affairs incharge Sanjay Singh said considering the Bains brothers demand, the party, if voted to power, would give a special package to revive the Ludhiana industry. He said AAP stood by Punjab on SYL as the state had no spare water to give any state. Simarjit Bains said their alliance was not for short-term gains. He said there was no difference between Capt Amarinder Singh and the Badals. On Navjot Sidhu, he said he had respect for him and would try to convince him to join the alliance. Both desperate to gain power: SAD Chandigarh: The SAD on Monday described the Bains brothers' alliance with AAP as "a marriage between two rank opportunists who are getting desperate to remain politically relevant". In a statement here, SAD spokesman Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said AAP Punjab incharge Sanjay Singh and state convener Gurpreet Singh Waraich ran away from facing the media when questioned why AAP had reneged on its stand to never have any electoral truck with any party in Punjab. TNS Tie-up insignificant, says PPCC chief Chandigarh: Denying that the Bains brothers' alliance with AAP would affect the Congress in any way, PPCC chief Capt Amarinder Singh said the tie-up was insignificant. "Those claiming to win 100 seats are already taking refuge in alliance. An expected rattled Kejriwal has already accepted his defeat," he said. He also denied that the Punjab Congress was in talks with Awaaz-e-Punjab leaders.TNS Balwant Garg Tribune News Service Faridkot, November 22 Maheshinder Singh, sitting Akali MLA from Baghapurana, today resigned from the primary membership of the party. Mahesh, who was holding the post of SAD vice-president, alleged he quit the party after some Akali leaders used police force to intimidate him and his family. He alleged: A police party, led by SHOs of Nihal Singh Wala and Rampura Phul, reached my residence at Nihal Singh Wala and threatened me with dire consequences for inciting party workers to resign. Though I have nothing to do with any resignation by any member, the partys top leadership is threatening me, which is insulting and intolerable. The party had conveyed to me about the denial of ticket a month ago. Following this, some of my supporters quit the party. Believing that I was inciting them, the leadership was resorting to pressure tactics to intimidate me and my supporters, alleged Maheshinder Singh while talking to The Tribune. The police threatened to arrest my son for his alleged connections with a gangster of Bathinda district. The use of police force was to intimidate me and my supporters, but I refused to succumb to these pressure tactics by the party leadership, he alleged. While Moga SSP Snehdeep Sharma could not be contacted, Nihal Singh Wala DSP Surinder Kumar claimed no police team visited the MLAs house today. Even the Bathinda police feigned ignorance about any such raid. On not resigning as MLA, Maheshinder said: I was elected by the people and any decision regarding this will be taken after meeting my supporters in the constituency. The Akali Dal has been facing a tough time in Moga district following the denial of ticket to Rajwinder Kaur Bhagike, sitting Akali MLA from Nihal Singh Wala, and Maheshinder Singh. Even in Moga, sitting MLA Joginder Pal Jain has decided not to contest the elections for his intense political rivalry with Agriculture Minister Tota Singh. While in Baghapurana, the SAD has decided to field Tirth Singh Mahla, Moga district president, the name of Tota Singhs son Barjinder Singh is among the frontrunners for the Moga ticket. He has already resigned as the Chairman of the Punjab State Health System Corporation. Not in ticket race, says Qadian MLA Chandigarh: Sitting MLA from Qadian Charanjit Kaur Bajwa on Tuesday supported the candidature of Fatehjung Bajwa, the younger brother of her husband and Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa. In a statement, the MLA said since she had not even applied for the ticket, there was no question of her contesting the forthcoming elections. "There is no doubt over the candidature of Fatehjung, who is ticket seeker from Qadian. Apart from my support, he has the support of his elder brother," she said. Earlier, Partap Bajwa had also stated that his wife Charanjit Kaur Bajwa would not be contesting the elections. TNS AAP allying with criminals: Majithia Chandigarh: Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia today accused AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal of being indecisive and taking frequent U-turns on all matters related to the state and even his party's policies. Majithia, in a press conference here this evening, said: "Against the principles on which AAP had laid its constitution, Kejriwal has inducted corrupt, criminal-minded and characterless persons in his party to gain power." "At least 23 MLAs of the party in Delhi are facing criminal charges. Kejriwal had termed AAP as a reformist party. But it is strange that the latest entrant, Simarjit Singh Bains, is facing criminal charges. The party has gone back on its earlier stand of not allying with any political party," he said. TNS Aman Sood As we enter Patiala from Rajpura, two dilapidated statues of royals mounted on horses greet us. An arm of one of them is broken, while the polo stick of the other is missing. A few kilometres down the road is the crumbling office of the District Congress Committee the hub of political discussions when the party was in power (2002-07). Back-to-back defeats in the Assembly elections have taken the sheen off the Congress office. A youth puts up a tangential argument: the plight of the two structures in the Patiala Urban segment sums up the state of the Congress battered. And that rubbed off on to the city, the home turf of Punjab Congress president and former CM Capt Amarinder Singh. The party has here registered 10 victories in the past five decades. Legal executive Amanpreet Singh, who returned from Australia after working there for five years, says, What happened when the people voted for the Congress last time (2012) and elected Amarinder? And what change did his wife Preneet Kaur effect when she was elected MLA after Amarinder became the Amritsar MP? he asks, raising the pitch of his voice as he speaks. The two leaders were unapproachable during their tenure, Amanpreet claims, blaming them for the citys neglect. The Congress, which won the seat thrice on the trot starting from the 2002 elections, takes the plea that it could not ensure development in the past 10 years because it was in the opposition. Amritpal Singh, an electrician, points out another reason for the poor condition of the city: corrupt Municipal Corporation. The city lacks basic amenities because the MC (dominated by the SAD) has become a den of corruption. The failure to take action against encroachments and illegal buildings points to the rot in the civic body. Before every MC elections, some projects are launched only to be left incomplete once the poll is over, he says, standing in a queue to withdraw money from a bank on the Bhupindra road. Even a senior Akali leader admits to the poor functioning of the MC. Ever since the Akalis are in power (in the MC), development in the city has come to a standstill. Fund crunch is a major reason, he says. Fed up with the working of the MC, Amritpal bats for the Congress this time. Voting for the Congress would mean we might get the Chief Minister from Patiala. He can bring development in the segment, he says. Puja Sidhu, a housewife, echoes his views. Every time I pick up a newspaper, I read about paucity of funds affecting the shifting of dairies, recarpeting of roads and Rajindra Lake beautification. Amarinders government will at least make sure that the city gets the funds. Even if AAP comes to power, we expect some projects to be completed, she says. The past election results show the inclination of voters towards the Congress. Since 1977, the Congress has won the seat six times, while the SAD won it twice. In 1977, SADs Sardara Singh Kohli defeated Shambhu Prasad, an Independent candidate. In subsequent elections of 1980, 1985 and 1992, Brahm Mohindra of the Congress bagged the seat. In 1997, Kohlis son Surjit Singh Kohli wrested the segment from Brahm Mohindra. The Congress made a comeback in 2002. Then, Brahm Mohindra was shifted to Samana, paving the way for Amarinder to contest from Patiala Urban. He defeated SADs Sarup Singh Sehgal by a thumping margin of 33,583 votes on his way to becoming the Chief Minister. He held on to the seat in 2007 and 2012. This time, the announcement of Amarinders candidature is a mere formality, with the party sticking to its stance of one family, one ticket. Preneet will not be left behind. Known to be a chord that binds the royalty with Patiala residents, she will be campaigning for her husband who will be busy in other segments across the state. The Congress will resume development works, particularly pertaining to civic amenities that the SAD-BJP government stopped during my tenure as an MLA, she says. From the SAD, local councillor Harpal Juneja and former minister Surjit Singh Kohli are among the front runners. Juneja, who has the silent support of the administration, has been making effort to ensure a win in case he is fielded. He admits the fight will be tough. The SAD wants to field a candidate who is roaming in a cavalcade of SUVs with gun-toting securitymen, says Australia-returned Amanpreet without disclosing whom he is referring to. No matter who wins, for him the elections are meaningless because the sufferer is the common man. A SAD leader hints that the party will play the communal card while allotting the ticket. Jat Sikhs comprise 18 per cent of 1.53 lakh voters in the segment; other Sikhs, 25 per cent; OBCs, 20 per cent; and Dalits, 11 per cent. But can the caste factor alone bag the seat for the Akalis? The party needs to do more, the SAD leader says in a matter-of-fact way. A few residents point to the roads being recarpeted. Surely an exercise aimed at the upcoming elections, they say cynically. Will these pave the way for the Akalis victory? Or will the Congress continue its journey unhindered? Or will AAP spring a surprise? Only time will tell. Manish Sirhindi Well begun is half done, say optimists. Rajpura surely made a good start, attracting large-scale industries in the 1980s and 1990s. It could have become another Ludhiana, a throbbing industrial city, but successive governments have failed to tap its potential. An important railway junction, Rajpura is situated at the intersection of two national highways NH1 and NH64. Despite its strategic location, its economic growth has been stunted. Local residents blame it on the flawed policies of the powers that be. Taking a turn towards Nalash village from NH1, one gets a glimpse of the 1,400-MW Rajpura thermal power plant, which stands tall as a symbol of Progressive Punjab. However, on reaching the villages where land was acquired in 2007-08 to set up the plant, one hears tales of misery. Jeet Pal Singh of Sural Kalan village feels cheated. We were forced to sell our land on the promise that a member of each family (whose land was acquired) would get jobs in the plant. Initially, around 100 people were hired on daily wages. Now all have been shown the door, he laments. Fly ash and waste water are polluting the lake beside the plant. The pollutants eventually seep into the underground water, making it unfit for human consumption. We tell our kids to avoid using the roads near the plant so as to shield them from air pollution, says Kartar Kaur of Mirzapur village. Rajpura, which was a stopover for the Suri dynasty in the 16th century, remained a rural settlement till Independence, after which thousands of migrants from Bahawalpur (Pakistan) came here and settled, converting the area into a bustling township. A cluster of three villages (Banwardi, Neelpur and Rajpura), this entry point of Punjab was promoted as an important industrial hub. The town saw the arrival of top industries such as Hindustan Unilever (HUL, formerly known as HLL), Bunge India Pvt Ltd, Siel Chemicals Limited, Alliance Metaliks Integrated Ltd, Amber Enterprises Limited and Alcon Cables. Small-scale industries converted this subdivision into a focal point of door closer manufacturers, rice shellers, biomass briquette machinery, soap factories and steel works. But during the past decade and a half, all big units have moved out or decided not to expand operations due to crippled industrial growth, leaving thousands of employees jobless. Quark acquired 1,500 acres at Chamaru village to set up its office, but never started operations as things went from bad to worse. The depleting water table is another major concern. Balwinder Singh of Mehtabhgarh village says tubewells have been sunk so deep that the water drawn is contaminated, which hits crop production. Only some areas get water from the Narwana branch, while fields that grow paddy and wheat are bereft of irrigation facilities, he adds. Asked what he has done for his constituency, sitting MLA Hardyal Singh Kamboj says, I got approved a Nabard-funded Rs 66-crore project to construct a dam on the Ghaggar near Banur, which is providing water to irrigate 40,000 acres in 50-60 villages. I also secured approval for a Rs 1,000-crore Footwear Design and Development Institute, which is set to admit trainees from next year with the promise of 100 per cent job placement. Kamboj, who is expected to get the Congress ticket again, had defeated BJP stalwart Raj Khurana in the 2012 poll. The latters candidature is virtually ruled out due to ill health. Moreover, the SAD is keen to take the Rajpura seat from its alliance partner (in exchange for Barnala). The battlelines are not yet drawn, but there are a host of issues that voters want their elected representative to resolve. Amarinder Singh, a local youth, says there are many obsolete water pipelines that fail to supply potable water. The area frequently witnesses an outbreak of vector-borne diseases, he informs us. Citizens also draw our attention to the prevalence of satta (gambling), closely linked to the drug menace. "While people have been raising these issues with the authorities, no action has been taken against the miscreants, says Partap Singh, a resident. The roads are in bad shape and the old town usually bears the brunt of traffic bottlenecks. On the education front, Rajpura has four engineering colleges, yet the local youth are facing unemployment. Apathy is the order of the day. And a fresh beginning is just a pipe dream. Sarbjit Dhaliwal Tribune News Service Chandigarh, November 21 The Centre has sent senior IAS officers to almost all states to gather feedback and check the ground realities in view of the effects of demonetisation on the rural economy. Accompanied by senior officials of the Punjab Cooperative Department, two senior IAS officers today visited several cooperative banks and agricultural marketing societies in Mohali and Fatehgarh Sahib districts to interact with farmers and officials. Earlier, they met Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and top officials of the Cooperative Department. As cooperative banks are not accepting money, the recovery of short-term crop loans has come to a standstill. Almost all farmers have cash credit limits, but banks are accepting money from farmers against the loan they took from the limit. There is no recovery of last loan. The advancing of fresh loan for rabi crops has come to a halt. At the time of wheat sowing, the cooperative banks give a loan of Rs7,000 per acre, making advancement of about Rs6,000 crore during the rabi season. We have allowed farmers to take fertilisers in kind as per requirement from the cooperative agricultural societies, said an official of a cooperative bank. There is a shortage of new currency notes because of inadequate supply. Balbir Singh Rajewal, a BKU leader, said: The rural economy is on the verge of collapse because of restrictions by the Centre on cooperative banks. Officials are misleading people by saying the situation is under control. Farmers from all over the state will stage a dharna in Patiala tomorrow in protest against the non-advancement of short-term crop loans by cooperative banks and restrictions imposed by the Centre. They will also protest against fines imposed on farmers for burning paddy residue, he said. The BKU would urge the government to register cases against officials responsible for the pollution of riverwaters and breaking out of Hepatitis-C, Rajewal added. DECATUR Two honorees entered into the Decatur Hall of Fame as the community gathered Tuesday to give thanks. The two inductees, former Macon County Sheriff Roger Walker Jr. and longtime Archer Daniels Midland Co. Chairman Dwayne Andreas, helped to shape the community into what it is today. Plaques will be placed in their memory on a wall with 24 other inductees in the lobby of the Decatur Civic Center. The Greater Decatur Chamber of Commerce led the selection process this year, gathering applications before the two individuals were chosen. The last selections were made in 2014. Andreas, who served as ADM's CEO from 1970 to 1997 and its chairman from 1972 to 1999, was proud to call Decatur home as he strived to meet a goal to feed the world, said Ben Andreas, one of his grandsons. Dwayne Andreas died Nov. 16 at the age of 98. His legacy has been described as global in nature, a man who influenced the world's rich, famous and powerful. All he wanted to do was feed the world, Ben Andreas said. He was a one-of-a-kind man. Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe worked with both of the inductees and is grateful their leadership made a difference in the lives of so many in Decatur. With Dwayne Andreas leading the way, ADM evolved from a regional grain processor with sales of $425 million to an agribusiness giant with revenues in 1997 of $13.9 billion. Andreas, and his late wife, Inez, who died in 2012, contributed generously to charities, colleges, the American Red Cross and countless other causes. Dwayne Andreas absolutely changed the face of our community, Moore Wolfe said. He was an amazing man. If anything, he was larger than life. Walker was the first black sheriff elected in Illinois history and director of the Illinois Department of Corrections from 2003 to 2009. When he died in 2012 at the age of 63, Walker was widely remembered as someone who worked hard to make his community safer and touched many lives along the way. With things we didn't think could get done, he got done, Moore Wolfe said. Roger said it and we did it. He was truly a Decatur treasure. Members of Walker's family were appreciative of the recognition. He was blessed to be part of this city and community, said the Rev. Thomas Walker, one of Roger's brothers. This is a great city, so this honor makes us feel wonderful. Roger Walker loved his family and friends, which spread into what he did for the community, said his sister, Hilda Walker. He was a visionary whose sacrifice has paid off, said his brother, Arthur Lee Walker. He became a great leader for the city of Decatur. The induction announcement was made prior to the Community Thanksgiving Luncheon during which Ben Andreas and Thomas Walker were seated at the head table along with about 30 others who Chamber President Mirinda Rothrock said give generously to make the community better. The luncheon was the most well-attended in the event's 64 year history with more than 800 people in attendance, including community leaders, business representatives, organization members and volunteers. All of them are united in their commitment to making Decatur great, said Joel Fletcher, the Herald & Review general manager who delivered the traditional For This We Give Thanks message. The event included Marah Kittleson of Millikin University singing the national anthem, a Millikin Choir performance and food items for decorations from the Garden Club of Decatur that will be donated to the Northeast Community Fund and Good Samaritan Inn. It's easy to be thankful when things are going our way, Fletcher said. Sometimes life throws us a curveball. That's why we need this gathering. Fletcher said one of his favorite things to do is be able to give tours of Decatur and surrounding communities. More is being done to improve the quality of life in Decatur including plans for an amphitheater and aquatics center in Nelson Park in addition to the potential economic benefits from the Midwest Inland Port and rejuvenated downtown, Fletcher said. It only gets better, Fletcher said. Decatur is on the move. It's awesome. Fletcher said the Hall of Fame inductees are prime examples of the types of people that make Decatur so strong. It would be impossible to measure the positive impact Dwayne Andreas had on the world and this city, Fletcher said. His contribution is unsurpassed. Roger Walker was a special man who made Macon County a better place, Fletcher said. Previous Hall of Fame inductees include Paul Osborne, Bill Eichenauer, Eva Kirkland, James B. Millikin, A. E. Staley, Hieronymus Mueller, Robert L. Shade, Dr. William Barnes, Thomas W. Samuels, Sister Jane Like, Charles M. Borchers, Frank M. Lindsay, Robert Faries, Sue Hagaman, Purvis F. Tabor, Warren E. Myers, Anna Waters, Richard J. Oglesby, Howard C. Schaub, Guy N. Scovill, Rose Warnecke Scovill, F. Merrill Lindsay, Gary K. Anderson and Norman Russell. Ruchika M Khanna Tribune News Service Khanna, November 21 Tension writ all over their faces, Pritam Singh of Mallowal village, Sukhwant Singh of Baghour village and Manpreet Singh of Dudhal village are in an animated discussion in the largest grain market of Asia here. The three are farmers and discussing, what else, demonitisation. All other classes have chosen their political sides on the effects of demonitisation, and can afford to crack jokes on the matter. But farmers in the granary of India are the worst hit, as the money they earn by selling their produce in the third week of October has turned into waste. Ihne marre din assi kaddi nahin dekhe (We have never seen such bad days), is the common refrain. Je ajj sarkar ne 500 de note naal khaad khariddan di ijjazat vi de ditti, ihde naal saddi maali haalat nahin sudhrugi. Khaad vale taan waise bhi udhaar dinde si, (Though the government has given us relaxation to buy fertilisers with old Rs500 notes, it will not improve our financial condition. By the way, sellers of fertilisers gave us credit), they say. In this town, where the food procurement season is almost on the wane the non-basmati procurement is already over and farmers are bringing last batches of basmati the rural economic distress is in your face. With farmers getting part payment in cash and part in cheques from commission agents, its been a double whammy. Payments through cheques from state procurement agencies have not been made in full, while cash payments, wherever made, have been done in invalid notes. Since several farmers do not have bank accounts, they cannot deposit money in banks. And those who have accounts are finding the going tough, with cap on withdrawal. The money they have in hand (invalid notes of Rs500 and Rs1,000) is being refused by landowners to whom they have to pay the lease amount. Since cash withdrawals are restricted rural bank branches have been running dry for three days farmers are a worried lot. Sukhwant Singh says that other than his land in Baghour village, he had taken land on lease (at Rs45,000 per acre). The payment of Rs1.55 lakh is due to the landowner. He is troubling me every day, asking for the lease amount. He fears he will lose money because of demonitisation. I sold paddy for Rs6 lakh, but have got just Rs1.5 lakh. I cannot withdraw money from my account because of the cap. Do I have any other option, but to take another loan from an arhtiya? he says. The sadder part is the commission agent, who has been his mai baap all these years, is in no position to give him loan in Rs100 notes. Harbans Singh Rosha, a leading commission agent and former president of the Market Committee, says, Sukhwant has been associated with me for several years. I have managed to raise Rs8,000 from him, but all in Rs20 notes. The Centre went ahead with demonetisation without giving it a thought as to how it would affect the ailing agrarian economy, he says. He added the two bank branches in the grain market had not been receiving cash since Friday. Till a month ago, when they had brought their grains of labour to the mandi, farmers were happy at the bumper harvest. They were hopeful of getting Rs6 lakh to Rs7 lakh. Its been a month now, but their dues have not been settled as the procurement agencies have not released the payments. With new currency unavailable and cheques taking a minimum seven days to be encashed in rural areas, the crisis is looming large. Jodhan village resident Hamir Singh, who got his basmati to the Khanna mandi hoping he would get cash in valid currency notes, is disappointed. My daughter is getting married on December 7. The basmati I got is worth Rs5 lakh. I need the money urgently, but no one has the cash to buy it, he says. As farmers and commission agents are suffering, a small group of labourers working in the mandis are the only happy faces one comes across. Demonitisation has meant that they get their dues in time, for agents are paying them in old notes. We are not complaining. I have received Rs17,000 and deposited it in my bank account. We are getting dues almost daily, says Narendra Sharma of Saharsa in Bihar. Got Rs 8,000 in Rs 20 notes "I have managed to raise Rs 8,000 from Sukhwant Singh, a farmer who has been associated with me for several years. The money is in Rs 20 notes. The two bank branches in the Khanna grain market has not been receiving cash since Friday. The Centre went ahead with demonetisation without giving it a thought as to how it will affect the ailing agrarian economy" Harbans Singh Rosha, Commission agent Gagandeep Singh The factory hooter is heard loud and clear as one reaches Jalandhar North constituency. The workers quickly enter the industrial units premises, all set to slog long and hard throughout the day. Everything seems to be happening with clockwork precision. However, once you scratch the surface, the problems surface. The area, which includes the Industrial Focal Point, Focal Point Extension and Transport Nagar, badly needs an effluent treatment plant. The issue has been taken up with the state government and the Punjab Pollution Control Board several times, but to no avail, says Charanjit Maingi, an industrialist. We have been paying heavily for the transportation of effluents to Ludhiana, where these are treated. Jalandhar is also an industrial city. Why cant a treatment plant be set up here? he wonders. Maingi also expresses concern over the rising crime rate. In the first week of the month, when the workers get their salary, several incidents of snatching are reported. Nothing has come out of a series of meetings with the police, he says. Narinder Saggu, a pump manufacturer, complains that the sewerage system has not been developed to handle the factory outflow. He also flags the knotty issue of compensation for land acquisition. In the early 1990s, the Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation provided land to the industrialists after acquiring it from farmers at the rate of Rs 150 per sq yard. Later, the farmers moved the Supreme Court, demanding enhanced compensation. They went on to win the case. The government wants us (industrialists) to pay the money, while we feel the former should do the needful, he says. According to Saggu, the industrialists have repeatedly taken up the issue with the local MLA, BJPs KD Bhandari, who is serving his second consecutive term. Despite his efforts, the matter has not been resolved. It will have a bearing on the elections. The AAP candidate, Gulshan Sharma, himself an iron and steel trader, has assured us of a positive outcome if he is elected, he adds. In the 2007 Assembly election, Bhandari defeated former Congress minister Avtar Henry by about 4,900 votes. In 2012, the margin fell to 1,700-odd votes. He is busy trying to retain his vote bank and minimise the impact of anti-incumbency. I have been listening to the voters grievances and attempting to redress them. Of course, I cant make everyone happy, the BJP leader says, adding that development will be his poll plank. Bhandari calls the construction of the railway underbridge in Chandan Nagar his biggest achievement during the current term. Des Raj Jassal, a councillor, claims that most of the development works in his ward (No. 1) and others in the constituency have been funded by the Centre. Not even a single paisa has been spent from the BJP-ruled MCs budget or the MLAs fund, he says, pointing out that there is no plan in place to tackle waterlogging, a major problem faced by the residents. The potholed roads in the Focal Point area continue to be in a state of disrepair. The elections are nearing, but even then no effort is being made to initiate last-ditch damage control. Its tough to commute on these roads, especially during the rainy season. The sewers usually remain clogged. Most of the localities become prone to an epidemic outbreak during the monsoon, says Ashwani Kumar, a local resident. There are more than 500 units in the Industrial Focal Point and Focal Point Extension. Heavy vehicles laden with material ply daily, yet the road infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired. Gurmeet, a resident of Ward No. 7, spews venom: We live in filthy conditions. The threat of water-borne diseases looms large. We have been suffering for the past couple of decades, but nobody is bothered about us, be it politicians or officials. Jassal says the drug menace has adversely affected the constituency. As many as 28 youths aged less than 30 years have died due to drug addiction in my ward in the past five years. Several youngsters have been booked in drug cases, but the big fish are yet to be caught, for reasons best known to the police, he says, anger writ large on his face. Los Angeles Melting sea ice may shift migration routes of Arctic whale, which in turn may lead to increased predation of the species, a new study has warned. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in the US, evaluated the relationship between changing sea ice and the migration of the Arctic whale also known as white whale and beluga whales. They also evaluated the summer residency patterns of a number of populations over two decades of dramatic sea ice changes in the Pacific Arctic. Beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) exhibited a tremendous ability to deal with widely varying sea ice conditions from one year to the next over a 20-year time frame in their return to traditional summering grounds each year. "It was not clear how sea ice influences beluga whale migration patterns and their summer habitat use, and climate change has added urgency to determining how environmental factors might shape the behaviour and ecology of this species," said Greg O'Corry-Crowe, research professor at FAU. Researchers used a combination of genetic profiling, sighting data and satellite microwave imagery of sea ice in the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas for the study. They found some dramatic shifts in migration behaviour in years with unusually low spring sea ice concentration and in one case with an increase in killer whale (Orcinus orca) sightings and reported predation on beluga whales. For the study, researchers used genetic "fingerprinting" to investigate the population of origin of whales returning to four traditional coastal sites in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic between 1988 and 2007. They compiled detailed beluga sightings and harvest data for the same period to assess inter-annual variation on timing of return. Researchers analysed sea ice data in the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas to determine seasonal and regional patterns of sea ice from 1979 to 2014. They used data from tissue samples from 978 beluga whales, which were collected over a 30-year period. "Continued reductions in sea ice may result in increased predation at key aggregation areas and shifts in beluga whale behaviour with implications for population viability, ecosystem structure and the subsistence cultures that rely on them," said O'Corry-Crowe. The study appears in the journal Royal Society Biology Letters. PTI AT a Provincial Durbar held at Allahabad on Monday, Sir James Meston pointed out what the U.P. had done to help the war with men, money and materials. They had supplied nearly 25,000 men who have enlisted and from public services no less than 270 men have left for military employment. More than Rs. 16 lakhs were contributed to the Imperial Indian Relief Fund Rs. 31 lakhs were collected for the Special War Fund besides 160 motor ambulances and 10 launches being purchased and endowed. Referring to manufactures of war materials Sir James stated that for military reasons details could not be disclosed, but he said that the amount of cotton cloth manufactured at Cawnpore into tents, bedding, etc., would form a web 8,000 miles long, while a web of the woollen cloth would be 7,000 miles long. BD Kasniyal Pithoragarh, November 22 BJP national president Amit Shah has called upon the people of Uttarakhand to remove the corrupt Congress government of Harish Rawat in the upcoming Assembly elections in the state. He was addressing the parivartan yatra of his party at Almora here today. He said Uttarkhand was created by former Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to give a chance to the hill people to prosper. But sadly, the present Congress government, led by Chief Minister Harish Rawat, had ruined the state by indulging in corruption at all levels. Shah said the Congress government did nothing for the development of the state in the past five year. The BJP has been related with the state emotionally since it was formed by the initiative of the party and we feel bad when the state is being ruined by corrupt coterie of present Congress government under Harish Rawat, Shah charged. Pleased with the high turnout of people at SSJ campus of Kumaon University at Khatyari, Shah said if the BJP came to power in the next elections, it would make the state corruption free and self sufficient. We are committed to turning the state into an international hub of tourism as the possibilities of tourism are beyond expectation in Uttarakhand, the BJP president added. Besides Shah, BJP general secretary in charge of Uttarakhand Shyam Jaju, Union Minister of State for Textiles Ajay Tamta, state party president Ajay Bhatt, four former chief ministers, namely Vijay Bahuguna, Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri, Bhagat Singh Koshiyari and Ramesh Pokariyal Nishank, and former minister Prakash Pant also addressed the rally. Tribune News Service Dehradun, November 21 Members of the Prantiya Rakshak Dal (PRD) Welfare Association started a hunger strike at the Youth Welfare and PRD Directorate here today. They have accused the department of throwing norms to the wind in making 80 appointments. The protesters threatened to intensify the agitation if the Congress-led state government didnt quash the appointments. They gathered at the directorate and locked the office while raising slogans against the state government. As many as 80 unqualified candidates have been appointed as PRD jawans in the Secretariat recently, they said. The members who sat on a hunger strike are Beer Singh Rawat and Mehar Singh Lodhi. Pramod Mandrawal, state president of the PRD Welfare Association, said memorandums were given to the officials concerned and public representatives, but to no avail. Unqualified candidates have been appointed as PRD jawans in the Secretariat by violating rules and regulations. Such appointments should be quashed. PRD jawans should be covered under an insurance scheme and Rs 10 lakh monetary compensation should be given to families of jawans who die during duty hours, he added. Sunil Chauhan, Veenat Chettri, VS Saini, Sunil Juyal and Avnish Saini were among the protesters. Tribune News Service Dehradun, November 22 Dr Mechtild Rossler, Director, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Paris Division, has expressed concern over rising number of nominations from various countries across the globe for getting UNESCO World Heritage status for several sites, many of which at times do not even have outstanding universal value. Dr Rossler presided over the fifth annual coordination meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage category 2 centres and institutes at the Wildlife Institute of India here today. There has been a tendency among countries to get more and more sites for nominations in order to get them under the ambit of UNESCO World Heritage status. Sometimes it is a political push. It should not be more than one site for every country per year, she said. According to Dr Rossler, fund raising is also a big challenge before the UNESCO. She disclosed that even UNESCO staff in Paris had to be retrenched due to shortage of funds. Wildlife Institute of Indias Director Vinod Mathur said the UNESCO Category 2 Centre (C2C) for World Natural Heritage Management and Training for Asia and the Pacific Region, which had been established at the WII, was working to strengthen the implementation of the World Heritage Convention in Asia and the pacific region by building the capacity of professionals and institutions involved with world natural heritage site protection, conservation and management, through training, research, dissemination of information and network building. Elisa De Cabo, Director General of Heritage Protection, Spain; Kamal Bittar, cultural heritage expert, Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage, Bahrain; and Dr Lokesh Ohri, co-convenor INTACH Uttarkhand, also participated at the meeting. Our Correspondent Pithoragarh, November 21 The effects of demonetisation have now started showing on small industries, businesses and daily wage earners in the Tanakpur area of Champawat district. Due to lack of currency, small farmers and workers have now resorted to barter system to arrange for their daily meals or purchasing food items on loan hoping that the situation would ease soon. I grow vegetables which are purchased by daily wage earners or small shopkeepers of the village but as they are not getting work, my business has been adversely affected. I am forced to take food items for my home for daily use by exchanging vegetables with the shopkeeper, said Om Prakash, a vegetable grower in Phagpur village of Banbasa town in Champawat district. Daily wage workers and small industries owners said the effects of demonetisation were being seen as neither clients were coming to them nor were the wages being disbursed by the contractors due to shortage of currency. My small industry of candles has got affected due to lack of small currency notes. The traders have refused to take candles from me, said Dilip Singh Rawat, a resident of Phagpur village. Sources said housemaids, small shopkeepers, cottage industry owners, rickshaw pullers and daily wage earners had started suffering due to the shortage of small currency notes. Till recently I used to work with a mess owner in Haryana. After the demonetisation, the owner closed the mess, resulting into unemployment of several people like me. When I reached here to find a job, I could not get any due to cash crunch, said Ramesh, who returned from Haryana to find a job in his home town. Describing his worries, Ramesh said when his only son fell ill, he took an old Rs 1,000 note as loan from one of his friends but the note was not accepted by the local doctor. Small shop owners said after demonetisation the business had been hit badly as clients were mostly daily wage earners and they had no money. Due to a fall in sales, I am facing shortage of small currency notes and was unable to pay the traders who have denied me goods for my shop. If the situation continues to remain the same, I will have to shut the shop, said Narayan Ram, a shop owner in Phagpur. Tribune News Service Dehradun, November 21 The Uttarakhand High Court has taken a strict view of the inability of the state government in calculating the rent of the government houses occupied by the former Chief Ministers of the state, which the court had asked to vacate. The High Court, hearing a petition filed by the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK), a voluntary organisation, had ordered the vacation of the government houses and facilities enjoyed by the former Chief Ministers at the expense of the public exchequer. The RLEK had said the palatial houses should be vacated and facilities given to the politicians be withdrawn and they should be asked to pay the rent of the government buildings occupied by them. The court had asked the state government to come up with the calculation of the rent to be paid by the former Chief Ministers. The court has fixed December 5 as the next date of hearing in the case. Chief Justice KM Joseph and Justice Alok Singh, hearing the petition today, were unhappy when the state government failed to come up with the rent details. The state government counsel was asked to inform the court within 15 minutes after consulting the department concerned. However, the counsel pleaded that the state government should be given a few days to come up with the required information. Kartikey Hari Gupta, counsel for the RLEK, argued before the Bench that not only the rent should be calculated but the state government should also come up with the details of expenditure incurred on other facilities like vehicles, gunmen, steno, petrol and staff which was also paid from public exchequer and needed to be realised from the former Chief Ministers. Meanwhile, former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, who is Nainital Lok Sabha MP, has vacated the official bungalow allotted to him in Dehradun following court orders. CHARLESTON -- A century-old house with antique heirlooms and holiday decor will be a fine place to help a worthy cause, Michelle Wheeler believes. The home of Wheeler and her husband Kraig will be a featured stop of the Sunday, Dec. 4, house walk to benefit CASA of East Central Illinois, the area's child court advocacy organizer. Wheeler said she thinks her family's rural Lerna farmhouse will be interesting to "people who like old houses." "I really believe in CASA," she said. "I really believe that children should be represented." Tickets for the walk are $20 each and will allow participants to tour the Wheelers' home and six other locations. Tickets can be purchased in advance or on the day of the walk. They're available at the CASA office at the Coles County Courthouse, at Charleston City Hall and at Ambero Antiques, 514 Sixth St., Charleston. Also, Pensees Bookshop at 502 Sixth St., Charleston, will have tickets for sale during the annual Christmas in the Heart of Charleston event on the evening of Dec. 2. And during the walk, tickets will be sold at Ambero Antiques. The Wheelers' home is the only tour site outside of Charleston and is located on Coles County Road 150N, which can be reached from Lincoln Highway Road south of either Charleston or Mattoon. They bought the house when they moved from Delaware 10 years ago. Kraig Wheeler is a chemistry professor at Eastern Illinois University, and Michelle teaches preschool at Broadway Christian Church in Mattoon. While the family has made improvements, many original features remain, including woodwork that's never been painted. Wheeler said the "prairie style" home is exemplified by numerous windows, each with multiple glass panes above with a single pane below. The house's features also include two sets of staircases that lead to the same second-floor landing and a pair of greenhouses. Among the furnishings are a wooden, multi-drawered chest that an ancestor of Wheeler's built, and a loom her family built after they arrived in the U.S. from Sweden, probably both built around 1887. The other locations on the walk, all in Charleston will be: David Bell residence, 1002 Seventh St. Tim and Gail Mason residence, 860 Seventh St. Blair Lord residence, 838 Seventh St. Coles County Historical Society's Dudley House, 895 Seventh St. Tyler and Tracy Weaver residence, 325 W. Harrison Ave. Geisler, Weaver & Righter law office, 821 Monroe Ave. Canberra, November 22 The Australian governments controversial plan to impose lifetime bans on all illegal asylum seekers may fail, as crossbench senators on Tuesday denied their support to the bill in its current form. Despite being approved by the House of Representatives in November, the bill is set to fail unless Immigration Minister Peter Dutton makes a number of key amendments to please the crossbench, Xinhua news reported. Having crossbench support is a key for the government to pass the bill as it does not have a Senate majority. However, the plan has come under fire from a number of independents. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) While Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) leader Nick Xenophon has described it as vexed morally, independent Derryn Hinch has labelled the lifetime ban as ridiculous. You cant say to some poor guy who has gone to live in Spain or Belgium (after being denied entry to Australia) that he cant even come back on a tourist visa, Hinch said. The bill is expected to be debated in the Senate next week before the Parliament goes on break until the New Year. IANS Manila, November 21 Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has decided to issue a formal order declaring a sprawling lagoon in a disputed South China Sea shoal a maritime sanctuary where Filipinos and Chinese will be prohibited from fishing, officials said in a statement today. National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr said Duterte relayed his plan to Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the just-concluded Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru. Esperon and other Philippine Cabinet officials present at the meeting said Xi did not say whether he agreed to Dutertes plan in the Scarborough Shoal. China seized Scarborough in 2012 after a tense maritime standoff with the Philippines. Dutertes plan is delicate because it may imply Philippine territorial control in a strategic shoal, which Chinese coast guard ships have closely guarded. Both governments have also mutually suspected each other of harboring plans to erect concrete structures in the Scarboroughs shallow lagoon to cement their territorial claims. If Dutertes plan proceeds, Filipino, Chinese and other fishermen would only be allowed to fish in the deeper waters just outside Scarborough, which has a vast triangular-shaped lagoon naturally fenced by coral outcrops with an entryway watched by Chinese coast guard personnel. You can go in but ... dont fish because its a maritime sanctuary, Dutertes Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said. After taking control of Scarborough, which lies off the northwestern Philippines, Chinese coast guards shooed away Filipino fishermen, at times with the use of water cannons or by deploying armed personnel on speed boats to chase them off. AP Cairo, November 22 An Egyptian appeals court today quashed one of the two life sentences handed down to ex-president Mohamed Morsi and ordered a retrial in connection with an espionage case. The court also quashed life sentence of 15 other Muslim Brotherhood leaders. The defendants were accused of spying with foriegn organisations, including the Palestinian military movement Hamas, funding terrorism and disclosing national security. The court also cancelled death sentences against 16 defendants, including leaders Khyrat el-Shater, Mohamed el-Beltagy Ahmed Abdel Aty. Thirteen of the 16 were sentenced in absentia. Last week, Egyptian court quashed the death sentences given to 65-year-old Morsi and Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie and 25 other Brotherhood leaders. The court also cancelled life sentences for 21 others in the same case. Last month, an Egyptian Court confirmed a 20-year prison sentence against ex-president Mohamed Morsi for taking part inciting violence near Ittihadeya presidential palace in 2012, juridical sources said. Morsi was sentenced to life in prison in two other trials. He was convicted of spying for Iran, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. Morsi is still in prison in other cases, including spying and handing documents of national security importance to Qatari intelligence through a news channel. Morsi came to power after Egypt's long-time President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011. He was toppled by the current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi following mass street protests. PTI Paris, November 21 Frances first Republican presidential primary has ended in a surprising runoff between two former Prime Ministers and halted a political comeback by former President Nicolas Sarkozy. After coming third (with 20 per cent of votes), Sarkozy, 61, admitted defeat and endorsed former Prime Minister Francois Fillon, 62, a moderate who finished first in Sundays first round, according to near-complete results, the BBC reported. Fillon served as Sarkozys Prime Minister during the latters presidency between 2007 and 2012. Fillon, who has said he will cut public sector jobs and rein in government spending, won 44 per cent of votes in Sundays first-round of voting for the centre-rights nomination. He faces a second-round vote against another former Prime Minister, Alain Juppe, who trailed him by 15 percentage points. The winner will compete in the 2017 presidential election. The outcome adds to uncertainty about the result of next years presidential election, likely to be decided in a runoff in May. It could increase a still remote risk that the anti-immigration, eurosceptic National Front leader Le Pen can win it, although there is no clear evidence Fillon would fare worse against her than Juppe. The surprisingly big lead hands Fillon a strong advantage in next Sundays runoff. The surprisingly big lead hands Fillon, 62, a strong advantage in next Sundays runoff. An admirer of late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he is probably the closest thing France has to an economic liberal and social conservative. Although Fillons triumph on Sunday was a surprise, opinion pollsters had said he made a late surge in campaigning, and several stalwarts from the conservative Les Republicains party threw their weight behind him after his first-round success. I will vote for Francois Fillon because it is he who will best defend the values of the right, said party president Laurent Wauquiez, a close Sarkozy ally. A snap poll by Opinionway after Sundays results showed Fillon winning the head-to-head contest against Juppe with 56 per cent of support. Agencies Kabul, November 21 Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a crowded Shi'ite mosque in Kabul on Monday that killed more than 32 persons and wounded dozens in its third major attack on minority Shi'ites in the Afghan capital since July. Officials said the attacker entered the Baqir-ul-Olum mosque shortly after midday as worshippers gathered for Arbaeen, a Shi'ite ritual marking the end of a 40-day mourning period for the 7th century death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad. A statement in Arabic from Islamic State's Amaq news agency said one of its fighters had targeted the mosque. Bloody sectarian rivalry between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims has been relatively rare in Afghanistan, a majority Sunni country, but the attack underlines the deadly new dimension that growing ethnic tension could bring to its decades-long conflict. Fraidoon Obaidi, chief of the Kabul police Criminal Investigation Department, said at least 27 persons were killed and 35 wounded, while the United Nations said at least 32 had been killed and more than 50 wounded, including many children. It described the attack as an atrocity. I saw people screaming and covered in blood, one survivor told Afghanistan's Ariana Television, adding that around 40 dead and 80 wounded had been taken from the building before rescue services arrived at the scene. Another witness said he had helped carry 30-35 bodies from the mosque. Islamic State, based mainly in the eastern state of Nangarhar on the border with Pakistan, has gradually expanded its reach since emerging in Afghanistan last year with a reputation for hardline fundamentalism and brutality. Officials said the attack was a deliberate attempt to stoke sectarian tensions. Any resurgence of sectarian or ethnic violence could threaten the fragile stability of the government headed by President Ashraf Ghani, who described the mosque blast as an attempt to sow seeds of discord. Government Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said Afghanistan should not fall victim to enemy plots that divide us by titles. Reuters Donald Trump got one big decision wrong on Sunday, even as he got a smaller one right. The one he got wrong? Choosing Stephen Bannon, head of the far-right, ethno-nationalist Breitbart News website, to be his chief strategist. Bannon, who helped lead Trumps campaign, presided over Breitbarts inflammatory coverage, which critics have called anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, misogynist and anti-black. One Breitbart headline called a GOP commentator a renegade Jew, while another story advised women who suffered online harassment to just log off so men can enjoy the internet. White nationalists of the so-called alt-right love it. Trump also chose Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee, as his chief of staff. But Bannons appointment took top billing in the press release, and he is said to be closer to Trump. Bannon will be Priebus equal, filling a powerful role that Karl Rove occupied under George W. Bush and David Axelrod served for President Barack Obama. If you cant see why this is so appalling, consider the fact that former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke called the Bannon appointment excellent news. Trump needs to steer away from his darker, more divisive impulses. Protesters would not be filling the streets against a President-Elect Cruz or Rubio. Minorities and women are rightfully afraid of Trumps rise, given his talk of Mexican rapists, Muslim terrorists and stop-and-frisk police tactics in the inner cities. His choice of Bannon suggests that Trump doesnt fully appreciate (or doesnt care about ) those fears. Those anxieties represent far more than just bizarre hysteria, as a Breitbart article put it Monday. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports a spike of more than 200 complaints of hate crimes and harassment since the election worse than what happened after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Social media is swirling with videos such as the one of white middle school kids taunting Latino classmates with chants of build the wall! Racist graffiti has appeared on cars belonging to minorities and churches that serve them. And that brings us to the smaller, yet noteworthy, thing that Trump did right Sunday. When CBS Lesley Stahl asked him what he would say to the perpetrators of hate crimes and harassment, he replied Stop it. I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: Stop it. Thats good. Political leaders at every level should speak out, as well. Still, its just lip service if Trump doesnt back it up with an emphatic denunciation of bigotry and hate in his inaugural address, followed by outreach in policy and in person to marginalized and dispossessed citizens who fear his rise. He should also reconsider Bannons appointment. Surely the man who boasted that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody without losing voters can discard a toxic aide without fear of recrimination. Trump says he wants to unite the nation. His decision on Bannon tells us thats just another empty sales pitch. The Charlotte Observer OKLAHOMA CITY Some Oklahoma angel investors are getting their wings. Those angels, a term for individual investors in early-stage companies, will get payoffs ranging from about five times to about 20 times what they risked in the development of Oklahoma City-based Selexys Pharmaceuticals Corp. Selexys has closed a deal to sell the company for up to $665 million to global drug giant Novartis. Former Selexys CEO Scott Rollins said all the early investments in the company came from Oklahomans and state-based entities. Its been a great story, Rollins said Monday. Theyre all going to make a lot of money. Four years ago, Swiss-based Novartis obtained the exclusive right to acquire Selexys and the drug it was developing, SelG1, which treats pain in people with sickle cell disease. Novartis opted to close the deal after seeing results from a major trial of the drug with 200 patients. The details of that trial will be disclosed next month at the annual meeting of American Society of Hematology, but that venue and the size of the deal make it clear that it was a success. Rollins said its possible that the trials success, combined with the rare condition that the drug treats, could allow Novartis to skip a third major trial to get the drug to market within a year. Sickle cell disease affects more than 100,000 people in the United States who are predominantly of African American descent. Those with sickle cell disease have abnormal red blood cells that can stick to veins and arteries, blocking the flow of blood and oxygen, which leads to painful crisis episodes. Most of those who have sickle cell disease die early. The drug developed by Selexys blocks the protein that makes blood cells stick to vessel walls. Rollins said there hasnt been a significant advance in the treatment of sickle cell disease for more than two decades. In addition to the local individuals who backed Selexys, the firm secured investments from the University of Oklahoma, the Presbyterian Health Foundation and i2E Inc., a nonprofit organization that manages two investment funds that include state money. Scott Meacham, CEO of i2E Inc., said the Selexys deal will benefit other Oklahoma research firms. Through its investment funds, i2E backed Selexys, starting about a decade ago and invested about $800,000 in the firm, Meacham said. Those investments will produce significant returns for i2E, allowing the company to back other local startup firms, he said. Meacham declined to speculate on the size of i2Es return, which could grow as Selexys meets benchmarks of success. The $665 million deal, is a validation of all the work weve been doing for so long, Meacham said. I think its going to be a really good shot in the arm for Oklahoma research, Meacham said. Success begets success. Rollins, who graduated from Moore High School and the University of Oklahoma before doing post-graduate work at Yale University, is the superstar of Oklahoma in getting these deals done, Meacham said. Rollins co-founded Alexion Pharmaceuticals in Connecticut, which discovered and developed a drug for a rare blood disorder called PNH, also an outgrowth of Oklahoma technology. Alexion now is a public company with annual sales of more than $3 billion and a market capitalization of $26 billion. So whats next for Rollins? He and his team of six employees have formed a new company called Tetherex, which is seeking to develop a treatment for Crohns disease and cancer based on the same Selectin technology from the University of Oklahoma that led to Selexys success. Selexys and Tetherex are great examples of how Oklahoma-based technology is being advanced for the benefits of Oklahomans as well as for people in need across the globe, Rollins said. Residents in Valsayn South are said to be marooned in their homes. Councillor for the area S 17 year old NSW teen Aleyna FitzGerald (pictured left) has won the title of Australias Next Top Model 2016. She defeated fellow 17 year old Sabine Jamieson in a final challenge with an Elle cover shoot. But it was a tight final. Aleynas photo scored a 29.5 points whilst scored 29 points. She wins a one-year contract with Priscillas Model Management, a trip to New York Fashion Week, a new car and the Elle editorial spread. Im on top of the world. Its incredible. Thank you guys so much for everything youve done for me, she said. The finale at Carriageworks included the biggest catwalk the show had ever featured including season contestants and past participants. Hosted by Jennifer Hawkins with Megan Gale and Alex Perry, this years finale was pre-recorded, instead of Live to air. The 10th season hasnt attracted the same level of media coverage or ratings as previous cycles, but as Foxtels longest-running reality show it remains a heritage brand for the Pay TV provider. On social media the show was still trending last night, with viewers divided over who was the more deserving winner. More new and returning dramas come to SBS On Demand this Sunday, including French crime thriller The Disappearance (pictured), Brazilian drama Magnifica 70, and US crime drama Gangland Undercover. The Disappearance Sunday, 27 November (season 1 all 8 episodes available) When a 17-year-old girl, Lea Morel (Camille Razat), fails to return home from a night out on the town, the Morel family begins to fall apart. As the hours pass and there is still no sign of her, Leas father, Julien (Pierre-Francois Martin-Laval), is unable to wait for the time-consuming police investigation and embarks on a personal mission to find his daughter. Her mother, Florence (Alix Poisson), tries to maintain a semblance of normality, especially for her younger daughter, Zoe (Stella Trotonda). Meanwhile, Leas elder brother, Thomas (Maxime Taffanel), is filled with guilt he had promised to accompany her home that night. The police investigation, led by Inspector Molina (Francois-Xavier Demaison), builds a portrait of a complex young girl. Episode by episode, everyones secrets are revealed and the family members realise they didnt know Lea as well as they had thought. Magnifica 70 Sunday, 27 November (season 1 all 22 episodes available) Coming to Australia exclusively on SBS On Demand is the popular Brazilian series Magnifica 70, which investigates censorship in the filmmaking scene during the 1970s and 80s during the height of the conservative Brazilian military dictatorship. Magnifica 70 follows Vicinte (Marcos Winter), a 35-year-old middle-class man who works in the film censorship department of the Sao Paulo government. He lives a mundane life and is in a lukewarm marriage to Isabel (Maria Luiza Mendonca), the daughter of the revered General Souto (Paulo Cesar Pereio). However, when Vicinte first lays eyes on Dora Dumar (Simone Spoladore) in a film hes meant to censor for work, he is instantly captivated. His fascination with Dora takes him to the red light district of Sao Paulo, where he leaves behind conservative ideals and begins to work with Dora and Manolo (Adriano Garib), the chief producer of the Magnifica film company, to create films that challenge the boundaries of censorship. Magnifica 70 portrays a universal and timeless situation the clash between desire for the forbidden, longing and repression, freedom and prejudice. Gangland Undercover S2 Sunday 27 November (season 1 available now, season 2 joining all 14 episodes available) Season two of Gangland Undercover continues to follow the true story of Charles Falco (played by Damon Runyan), one of only three men ever to infiltrate three different outlaw biker gangs. Its been two years since Falco has infiltrated the Vagos bike gang, and hes been forced to disappear into a witness protection system. However, fuelled by unease and the inability to settle into his new life, he takes on a more dangerous undercover operation that puts him on the front line of a feud between several biker gangs. Working in conjunction with law enforcement and drawing on the wealth of material from Falcos book, along with broader documented historical research of inter-gang rivalry, Gangland Undercover shows a combination of interviews and high-end recreations to capture the reality of outlaw biker counter-culture: a world where freedom is equated with the right to carry guns and trade drugs with impunity, and respect can be earned through fear. In a somewhat surprising move UK reality series Sex Box is to screen on ABC2 next week, with couples having sex inside a TV studio box and having a post-coital interview with the shows hosts. The 2013 series first debuted in Australia on SBS 2, followed by a US adaptation. Now season 2 will air on ABC2 as part of a themed Dating & Mating week, next week. Sex Box 2 aired in the UK in April. Steve Jones and the Belgian sexologist Goedele Liekens present the show full of frank and funny information on how to improve your sex life. This new series of Sex Box is packed with insight, laughter, and practical advice. With a specially commissioned survey of sexual attitudes and how-to visual guides to sexual techniques, the series tells you all you ever wanted to know about sex, but were afraid to ask. Sex Box is a unique television experience that gets us all talking more openly about sex, and shows us how to have more fun in the bedroom! Season 1 originally screened as part of Channel 4s Campaign for Real Sex season which looked at how pornography is affecting our lives and our sex lives. Across a week of programming, ABC2 and iview gives modern day dating and mating the prime time treatment. At the heart of the week, and opening-up the heart of the nation, Tom Tilley hosts a live debate which asks: Is modern dating a disaster or a dream come true? Hack Live: Swipe Right hears directly from young Australians on the dating frontline. Tom will also be talking relationships all week on triple Js Hack program, 5.30pm weekdays. Premiering every night on ABC2, and stacked on iview, is the new Australian series No Strings Attached. From the team behind Tales From Tinder, this series uses puppets to re-enact actual dating app dates told by the people whove survived them. Guaranteed to make you laugh, and possibly think twice about swiping right. With a wide selection of comedy and documentary programming, theres an abundance of experiences on offer; from ancient rituals in The Gypsy Matchmaker, perils of the online world in The Girl Who Became Three Boys, Sexters, Revenge Porn, a new free-to-air season of Catfish, series 4, the Japanese Love Hotel, Louis Therouxs Swingers, The Agony Of Flirting the awkward First Dates UK and covert Sexy Beasts. Amy Schumer will talk Mostly Sex Stuff, and if that isnt awkward (and hilarious) enough, theres the enlightening double act that is an encore of Australias Luke McGregors Luke Warm Sex teamed with a brand new season of Sex Box. Season two of this controversial series is hosted by Steve Jones and Belgian sexologist Goedele Liekens, and once more aims to get people talking openly and honestly with their partners about their sex lives. Its not for the faint hearted. Its either never been easier or never been harder, to find your mate. What do you think? Its time to get real about the state of our dating and mating nation. What does an honest conversation about hooking up today look like? Its time to find out. Everyone deserves a happy ending Sex Box airs Friday 2 December, 9.40pm on ABC2. The European Union has earmarked another 54 million euros to support reforms in Ukraine in the sphere of decentralization, transport and technical standardization. This is stated in a press release provided to Ukrinform by the EU Delegation to Ukraine. "The European Union has announced about the transfer of three tranches totaling 54 million euros to support reforms in the sphere of decentralization, transport and technical standardization in Ukraine, reads the press release. In particular, the EU transferred the first tranche of 23 million euros for the implementation of the Support Programme for Regional Policy of Ukraine, which is aimed at raising a general level of wellbeing of citizens throughout the country. The total cost of its implementation is 55 million euros. In line with the program on the Support to the implementation of the Transport Strategy of Ukraine, the EU transferred the second tranche totaling 25.9 million euros. The EU Delegation to Ukraine also stated that the third tranche was provided to Ukraine for the development of trade sector: the EU transferred 5.14 million euros to the state budget of Ukraine to facilitate the trade between the two partners. iy The European Commission notes that the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement has brought positive results to Ukraine. We would like to confirm that we do have significant results. In September 2015 August 2016, we recorded a 5.2% growth in Ukrainian exports to the EU compared with the same period last year, a source in the relevant department of the European Commission told own Ukrinform correspondent in Brussels. It is a great achievement taking into account the current difficult situation in Ukraine, a source said. iy Ukrainian companies which participated in a trade mission to China have received the first orders from Chinese importers for sugar, pork and sunflower oil deliveries. The press service of the Ukrainian Food Export Board (UFEB) reports this citing UFEB Chairman Bohdan Shapoval. We have received the first orders for pork, sugar and sunflower oil. Sunflower oil used to be delivered to China directly, while sugar and pork - via Hong Kong only. The volume of these orders is large and promising, Shapoval said. In his words, Ukrainian dairy products are in lower demand, but still they have a chance to enter the Chinese market. According to information available to the UFEB, the Chinese market will also open for Ukrainian beef by the end of the year. A reminder that the trade mission to China was organized with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development within the framework of ANUFOOD China 2016, one of the largest food exhibitions in the Asian region, on November 16-18, 2016. mk Comments regarding the negotiations on a possible exchange of Ukrinform journalist Roman Sushchenko, who was arrested in Russia, only hinder the process. Such opinion has been expressed by Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko on TV channel "112 Ukraine". According to the minister, the relevant negotiations are taking place at the diplomatic level. "And I am convinced that they will be successful. We are doing everything possible for our citizens to return from Russian captivity," he added. 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. ish Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Kistion discussed with Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Hugues Mingarelli the issue of visa-free regime and the reform of the Ukrainian energy sector. This is reported by the Government portal. "The parties discussed a number of topical issues, in particular, granting visa-free regime, reforms in the Ukrainian energy sector, and others," the statement reads. Kistion noted that Ukraine had fulfilled all the obligations for cancellation of the visa regime and expected the EU to make a positive decision in the near future. Mingarelli agreed that it was now turn of the European side to comply with its obligations and assured that he would make every effort to speed up the process. In addition, the European official confirmed that cooperation in the energy sector remained one of the main directions in cooperation between Ukraine and the EU for the past 25 years. European partners will continue to make the necessary steps to ensure that Ukraine remains an important partner in the transportation of natural gas to Europe, Mingarelli noted. ol There may be yet another reason to try and get a good night's sleep: New research ties poor sleep to a higher odds for a dangerous irregular heartbeat. The condition in question is called atrial fibrillation, a common heart arrhythmia that is strongly tied to an increased risk for clotting and strokes. Now, two studies suggest that trouble getting your Zzzs may raise the risk for atrial fibrillation. One cardiologist who reviewed the studies said the theory may have merit. While neither study could prove cause-and-effect, changes in a person's physiology by a "disturbed sleep cycle may be the mechanism for development and recurrence of atrial fibrillation," said Dr. Jianqing Li. She's a cardiologist at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. In one study, a team led by Dr. Gregory Marcus of the University of California, San Francisco, tracked data from millions of patients to assess the link between poor sleep and atrial fibrillation. The researchers found that disrupted sleep, including insomnia, was independently associated with the arrhythmia. They also found that people who woke frequently at night had about a 26 percent higher risk of atrial fibrillation than those who didn't wake up a lot. And, people diagnosed with insomnia had a 29 percent higher risk of developing the condition than those who slept well. In a separate analysis, the same team of researchers found that people who have less of the sleep phase knows as the rapid-eye movement (REM) phase, compared to other sleep phases, are also at increased risk for atrial fibrillation. The studies were to be presented Monday at the American Heart Association's annual meeting, in New Orleans. The reasons why poor sleep may increase the risk of atrial fibrillation are unknown, Marcus said. Still, "even without a clear understanding of the responsible mechanisms, we believe these findings suggest that strategies to enhance sleep quality, such as incorporating known techniques to improve sleep hygiene, may help prevent this important arrhythmia," Marcus said in a heart association news release. It's known that poor sleep is connected with heart disease risk factors such as high blood pressure, obesity and stroke, he noted. Dr. Paul Maccaro is an electrophysiologist at Huntington Hospital in Huntington, N.Y. He stressed that the studies couldn't prove that poor sleep caused atrial fibrillation, but the findings are intriguing. "All of us have experienced a bad night's sleep, and suffered consequences the next day. We feel tired, sluggish and less productive," Maccaro said. "Both of these presentations increase our understanding of the triggers of atrial fibrillation and provide new insight into potential strategies to reduce this arrhythmia," he said. "They also suggest new avenues of research that may shed light on the causality of atrial fibrillation." In the meantime, Maccaro said, "I believe no one would argue with the advice to get a good night sleep." Experts note that findings presented at medical meetings are typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has held a meeting with Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda in The Hague. In his post on Facebook Yuriy Lutsenko wrote that Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda noted a significant progress in cooperation with Ukraines Prosecutor Generals Office (PGO). Our delegation discussed prospects of joint investigation into crimes against participants in peaceful protest events on Maidan [in 2014], war crimes and crimes against humanity in Donbas and Crimea as an unbroken chain of crimes committed by the mafia structure of [ex-President Viktor] Yanukovych and his Kremlin sponsors. Ms Fatou Bensouda stressed the value of information provided by the PGO and stated about a significant progress in our cooperation, Lutsenko said. According to Lutsenko, during the meeting with the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, he thanked for the clear position regarding the recognition of Russian aggression in Crimea and Donbas. iy Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko held a meeting with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, who was on his first visit to Ukraine, the presidents press service reported on Monday evening. We are pleased with the level of cooperation between Ukraine and UNHCR Office and are grateful for a strong support of our state in this difficult time, the president said. President Poroshenko also noted that during this visit the UN High Commissioner to Ukraine will be able to assess the difficult humanitarian situation in Donbas, which Russia is fully responsible for. President Poroshenko also called on UN High Commissioner to pay special attention to serious problems of Crimean Tatars in Crimea that is temporarily occupied by Russia. Filippo Grandi, in turn, said: We attach significant importance to the situation in your country and the role we can play in resolving respective problems. This visit is also important because we can bring information about challenges of Ukraine to the world. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees also noted the efforts of the Ukrainian authorities aimed at ensuring the rights and meeting the needs of IDPs. The last visit of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to Ukraine took place 22 years ago. iy At the 9th International Defence Exhibition and Seminar IDEAS-2016 Minister of Defence of Ukraine General of the Army of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak held a working meeting with Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. This has been reported by the press service of the Defense Ministry. PM Sharif stressed that Ukraine was an important partner of Pakistan especially in terms of defence industry cooperation. General Poltorak also stressed the Ukrainian party was interested in further development of partnership relations between Ukraine and Islamic Republic of Pakistan in defence industry. This visit will promote bilateral Pakistani-Ukrainian relations. ish About a hundred people took part in the events dedicated to marking the third anniversary of the start of the Revolution of Dignity near the Ukrainian Embassy in Warsaw. Ukrainians and Poles shared their memories and hopes for the future, prayed for the souls of the victims and hold a moment of silence to honor their memory, an Ukrinform correspondent reports from Poland. Subsequently, Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland Andriy Deshchytsia reminded that nobody had been describing the events on the Independence Square in Kyiv as the revolution three years ago, but three months later the situation had changed: the revolution had changed Ukraine, Ukrainian people, and the worlds attitude toward the country. Member of the Polish Sejm Marcin Swiecicki noted that the victims of the Heavenly Hundred had not died in vain. "There is the Association Agreement, the whole world knows about the aspirations of Ukraine, and it seems that the entire Ukrainian people have rallied around the European values," he said. In turn, Sejm member Michal Kaminski assured that many Poles think about the better future for Ukraine every day." ol The members of the Parliament of Canada will commemorate the 83d anniversary of the Holodomor in Ukraine. MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, the event organizer, said this in a commentary to an Ukrinform correspondent. The ceremony, which is organized in cooperation with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, will be held at the Federal Parliament building in Ottawa on November 29. The Canadian ministers, members of the Parliament and senators, foreign diplomats, heads of the Ukrainian community, clergy of different denominations, and other well-known people are invited to participate in this event. As a reminder, Canada was the first Western state to recognize Holodomor as the genocide of Ukrainians in 2008. ol | By Karen Robinson The University of Marylands Agriculture Law Education Initiative (ALEI) showcased a dynamic panel of presenters discussing the complex intersection of environmental regulation and agriculture in Maryland at the sold-out 2016 Agriculture and Environmental Law Conference in Annapolis on Nov. 18. Experts shared their knowledge on issues such as alternative energy on the farm, hot topics in agricultural and environmental law, and agritourism and zoning compliance. The presentations included a keynote panel on water quality regulations and agriculture, featuring Maryland Secretary of the Environment Ben Grumbles, Maryland Secretary of Agriculture Joseph Bartenfelder, and Delaware Secretary of Agriculture Ed Kee. (l-r) Ben Grumbles, Md. Secy. of the Environment; Joe Bartenfelder, Md. Secy. of Agriculture; and Ed Kee, Delaware Secy. of Agriculture ALEI is a collaboration of the Francis King Carey School of Law at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB); the College of Agriculture & Natural Resources at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP); and the School of Agricultural and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. ALEI is an initiative of the University of Maryland: MPowering the State, a strategic partnership between UMB and UMCP created in 2012 to significantly expand research, business development, and student opportunities at both universities. School of Law Dean Donald Tobin, JD, provided a morning welcome for the conference, which brought together lawyers, farmers, policymakers, environmental experts, and government officials. The goal of ALEI is to provide Maryland farmers with the information they need to prosper while complying with the complex network of laws and policies that protect the integrity of the state's food system and environment, Tobin said. This conference is just one of ALEIs many efforts to give the agricultural community information. We hope that all these different stakeholders will learn from one another; that everyone will leave the conference with a greater understanding of the law, of the regulations and of their impact on Maryland agriculture. Much of the conference focused on regulations intended to preserve the environment, how they are changing, and how they affect agriculture, including the keynote panel that focused largely on regulations intended to conserve the Chesapeake Bay. Whether youre dealing with water quantity or water quality, theres all sorts of issues surrounding water, and those issues are front and center with what we do to sustain agriculture and make it economically viable, said Craig Beyrouty, PhD, MS, dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at UMCP, as he introduced the panel. Keynote moderator Michael Pappas, JD, MA, associate professor at the School of Law and a member of ALEI, said, Its largely been one of the themes of ALEI to try to take away this feeling of agriculture versus environment. There continues to be a lot of feeling in the agriculture community that there tends to be an outsize burden on agriculture. He asked the panelists for their thoughts. Delaware is not Maryland and Maryland is not Delaware, Kee said. But when I interact with different sectors in Delaware, I really dont hear anymore the [complaint] that we have to do this and housing gets a free pass or construction gets a free pass or some other sector gets a free pass. Ten years ago, that was on the table. Every sector is dealing with regulations, and with all the discussion over the years they recognize that one sector is not being picked on. Now, I dont want to give impression that everybody is happy with every regulation on the books. The situation in Maryland has improved as well, said Bartenfelder. When Gov. Hogan took office, he was committed to making sure we had regulations in place that were based in science and fact, and also the economic viability of our agriculture industry all across Maryland, Bartenfelder explained. We got them done. Maryland is pointed to and held up as an example nationwide about what can be done about the waters of the U.S. Grumbles said a deep understanding of the different needs of different industries is necessary for fair regulations. One of the things I know from having worked on the Clean Water Act is how every sector needs a customized approach, he said. We need to understand that agriculture should be regulated differently and managed differently from other types of sectors. The key for us in Maryland is customizing the best approaches. During an earlier panel on alternative energy on the farm, Sean Jones, a dairy farmer with Jones Family Farm in Kent County, discussed his installation of a five-acre solar field on his familys 1,650-acre farm in 2013. The field generates almost the entire 1.6 megawatt hours of annual electricity consumption on the farm, much of that power used to cool milk and to keep the cows cool in the hot summer months, Jones said. Federal tax credits covered 30 percent of the projects cost in the first two years. The solar field also generates about 1,700 solar renewable energy credits in Maryland per year. And a USA Renewable Energy for America Program (REAP) grant provided $500,000 toward building the solar array. The initial investment is almost 100 percent recouped at this point, Jones said. The financial benefits have proven critical as milk prices fall, he added. The picture was not all sunny, Jones said - he described several challenges, including dealing with his utility company regarding energy rates and billing issues. Jones was joined by Rebecca Rush of Community Renewable Energy, who described a dichotomy between farming and solar energy. A solar farm is not a farm, she said. Theres not necessarily anything related with agriculture associated with the solar farms. Solar developers proactively contact farmers asking to use their land for solar energy, Rush said. Then the question is, do you want to stay being a farmer or not? What were trying to do is help educate people who are landowners to make as good a decision as possible on integrating the right renewable energy at the right time. Other topics and speakers included: Food Safety Modernization Act & Water Usage:Justine Beaulieu, faculty research assistant/good agricultural practices educator, Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture, UMCP; Sarah Everhart, Legal Specialist & Research Associate, ALEI. Water Quality & the Bay: Jason Keppler, manager of the Watershed Implementation Program, Office of Resource Conservation, Maryland Department of Agriculture; Dave Newburn, professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UMCP; Sam Owings, president of High Impact Environmental. Agritourism & Zoning Compliance: Kevin Atticks of Grow and Fortify; Randy Marriner of Manor Hill Brewing. Recent Developments with Nutrient Management Regulations: Dwight Dotterer, nutrient management program administrator, Maryland Department of Agriculture. Hot Legal Issues in Agriculture & Environment: Jon Mueller, vice president for litigation, Chesapeake Bay Foundation. | By Mary T. Phelan Ignoring gusty winds and frigid cold weather, about 35 University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) students participated in a March for Civility, organized by the University Student Government Association (USGA), as they walked in solidarity from the School of Nursing to the Inner Harbor. View this video for excerpts from the UMB March for Civility: The Universitywide march on Nov. 21 was billed as a way to reaffirm the campus commitment to civility on campus and in the community at large following the recent escalation of hate speech and acts of xenophobia and racism in the United States. A lot of students reached out to me after the election, there were a lot of hate speech and terrible actions that they heard about, USGA president Amber Mueller said. I wanted to do something that was very positive and also sent a message that the University of Maryland, Baltimore is committed to having a safe, diverse, and inclusive environment and we will not tolerate discrimination of any type. Students Leslie Guthrie, left, and Chelsea Van Orden, participate in the "UMB March for Civility." Mueller carried a sign that read We Love Our International Students. Theres been a lot of concern, not only on our campus, but also at UMBC [University of Maryland, Baltimore County] and [University of Maryland] College Park about international students being deported especially as soon as they graduate if they dont have a job lined up, said Mueller, a PhD student in UMB's molecular medicine program. Theyve been reaching out and they are kind of worried. I just wanted to say were here to support you and youre not going anywhere.' Jerrica Stanley, a student of the University of Maryland School of Social Work, said she was glad to be a part of an organized gathering on campus. I just wanted to get involved with any of the protests happening in the University community, said Stanley, who was also representing the Baltimore Council of Minority Professional Graduate Students. Now is the best time for us to unite together in solidarity for social justice for all people, not just for the elite. Leslie Guthrie, a student at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, said after a week or so of healing, it was time for her to take action. Being in law school and so focused on academics, I didnt have time to really think about what I could do in reaction to the election, she said, holding a sign that read Liberty and Justice for All. I was ready to do something and participate in a march like this. In situations like this, it seems you want to take action and you also want to stand in solidarity with others. Karen Campion, another social work student, stood next to Laura Nieman, a nursing student. Prior to the march, neither had met each other before. Its very important to be clear about what the threats to civility are, said Campion, noting civility is one of UMBs core values. I am very concerned about the rights of Muslims and about them feeling discriminated against. I think it's important for us as professional students to be really clear about who we are standing with in solidarity. Added Nieman: We want to try to fight a lot of the negativity a lot of Muslim groups are feeling right now. Its a way for us to say, We hear you. We know youre scared. We stand with you. UMB thanks the Baltimore Police Department for providing traffic safety support for this event. New Braunfels, TX (78130) Today Areas of patchy fog early. Overcast. High 77F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Overcast with rain showers at times. Low 67F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi talks to Vlada, a 15-year-old displaced Ukrainian, about her wish to study again. UNHCR/John Wendle MAYORSK, Ukraine The queues at the crossing point are long and the weather is freezing. One hour Ive been standing here, one man told United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. It will take me five hours in all just to cross over. Grandi was making his first trip to Ukraine as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, a post he assumed last January. Two and a half years of conflict have left more than two million Ukrainians displaced from their homes in other parts of the country or refugees in Russia. It divided the country into non-government controlled areas in the east, the Donbass region, and the majority of the territory under government control. It is the civilians who are very much trapped. Mayorsk is one of a handful of crossing points where people can now go back and forth. It is a slow and tortuous process but each day several thousand cross over here. It is the civilians who are very much trapped in the logic of this conflict, Grandi said. Many of the people lined up to cross into the non-governmental sector are displaced. They go back to see relatives or to check their houses, often damaged in the fighting and shelling. Most of the people going the other way, according to the man who talked to Grandi, are pensioners. They must cross into the government area to receive their small pensions. To do so they must produce an electronic pass allowing movement across the line. Ukraine: High Commissioner visits border and people with disabilities Earlier Grandi visited an accommodation facility in Sviatohirsk for almost 200 people with disabilities and their carers who are displaced, many of them having been displaced more than once. Officially there are 66,434 registered displaced people with disabilities in Ukraine, more than four per cent of the total number of displaced. In Sviatohirsk they are housed in a disused soviet-era sanatorium. The residents crowded around Grandi, some in wheelchairs, others blind. They cover their immediate needs with money from their disability benefits and have heating but no hot water, because of large, unpaid water and electricity bills. We really need to work with the state in developing systems. The staff of 35 have not been paid in two years and work as volunteers. Sanatoriums are not subsidized by either the local or national governments as was the case in the soviet era. UNHCR, along with partner NGOs, provides these displaced people with coal and wood, blankets, and legal and basic needs support. Grandi, who met the Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko on Monday, promised to press for more support for people affected by the conflict. We really need to work with the state in developing systems, he said. That can provide safety nets for those really in need the elderly, the disabled and the poorest. Displaced people from conflict in Ukraine queue to return home. UNHCR/John Wendle The High Commissioner also met Vlada, a 15-year-old girl from a town outside Luhansk. Vlada is confined to a wheelchair and she insisted on talking to Grandi in English, a language she had taught herself. She also taught herself piano. She said she had learned English to see the world, but, told the High Commissioner, now I want to go to school. Before the conflict she did go to a school which had been equipped with ramps for wheelchairs. But the local school in Sviatohirsk has no ramps and the classes are on the second floor. Now she must study in her room with teachers visiting her to provide some education. Grandi said his organization will try identifying a solution to allow Vlada to go back to school. I think you are doing great, he told Vlada, but organizations like UNHCR will have to remain engaged to ensure that people like you have access to basic services and rights such as education and a dignified life. 1,800 students and preschoolers with flu-like symptoms in Armenia have been sent home to prevent others from getting infected, this according to the Ministry of Health. The ministry says that their personal data has been forwarded to local polyclinics so that the children can receive medical treatment. The ministry says that an outbreak of Type A influenza has hit Armenia and neighboring Georgia. Photo: bellyblog.ca Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan met with Ian Liddell-Grainger. Head of the PACE European Conservatives Group, in Yerevan on November 21. The European Conservatives Group (EC) is a conservative group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE. Sargsyan highlighted the importance of dialogue with PACE, as well as with the political groups and fractions represented in the organization, particularly with the European Conservatives political family. Underscoring that the European Conservatives Group along with the European Peoples Party, which Armenias ruling Party the Republican Party of Armenia is a member are rather influential forces at PACE, Ian Liddell-Grainger stressed the importance of continuous and active cooperation with Armenia within the contours of PACE. The Google Nexus 7 is unlikely to come out due to Google's reluctance to announce anything about it, and there are even no leaks about the upcoming smartphone. There are also reports that Huawei pass up the job of making the Nexus 7. Huawei Declines Nexus 7 Job Google earlier contracted Huawei to construct the Google Nexus 7 smartphone in order to make it available this coming Christmas holidays. Huawei, however, decided to say no when Google insisted that the Chinese phone manufacturer is not allowed to include its own logo, according to winfuture. Huawei did make the Nexus 6P for Google on 2015 but the Chinese company wants to get more from its partnership with Google. Huawei's Consumer Business VP Colin Giles said that his company wants to be recognized for the work it's been doing. It's no longer contended to stay in background as a nameless contractor for Google's smartphones. Giles justified Huawei's stance by revealing that the company invested substantially in the development of the Nexus 6P. Huawei was also willing to continue work with the Nexus 7 until Google decided not to include the manufacturer's logo on the upcoming device. This is also the reason why the contract for the Pixel Smartphone did not go to Huawei. HTC Gets Pixel Smartphone Contract Google awarded the Pixel smartphone manufacturing works to Taiwan-based tech company HTC, according to PC Advisor. The upcoming Google phone will reportedly run a new and upcoming OS known only as "Andromeda" and not the latest Android Nougat OS. The Andromeda OS is reportedly the combination of Android and Chrome. The upcoming Pixel smartphone may have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 as its processor and the Adreno 530 as its graphic card. Pixel will also get 4GB of RAM and a 64 GB hard drive. Battery included is rumored to be a 5100 mAh and the USB is a Type-C port. Google has yet to set an official release date for the Nexus 7. In the first ten months of 2016, Armenia posted US$2.6 billion in imports and $1.4 billion in exports. While exports rose from $89.7 million in January to $160.6 million in October, imports rose as well, from $156.7 million in January to $318.3 million in October. While Armenia continues to import nearly twice as much as it exports, the countrys foreign trade deficit lessened somewhat when compared to the same period in 2015. While exports increased by 19.8%, imports decreased by 0.3% overall. These numbers are according to the National Statistical Service. Security software firm Symantec announced yesterday, Nov. 21, that it is acquiring LifeLock, an identity protection specialist company, in a deal valued at $2.3 billion, a big boost to the IT industry from this multi-billion dollar deal, according to Wall Street Journal. The Symantce and LifeLock deal is expected to close in the first calendar quarter next year. Under the agreement, Symantec will pay LifeLock shareholders $24 per share, which is 16 percent above the share's closing price on Friday. According to Symantec, the deal will help to grow its consumer business, while providing new sources of intelligent security technology for its enterprise business. The LifeLock acquisition is the second major deal that Symantec announced this year, following its acquisition of security vendor Blue Coat Systems last June. Based in Tempe, Arizona, LifeLock offers identity theft protection services that help customers and businesses detect fraudulent applications for various credit and non-credit related services. The company offers its main product, the LifeLock Identity Alert system, which sends users a potential fraud alert by phone, text, or email. When a Symantec customer confirm that the suspicious transaction is fraudulent, then the LifeLock team are dispatch to assist them with the identity recovery and protection. In addition to consumer services, the company also provides identity theft protection services to businesses. The Arizona-based company claims to have 4.4 million users at the end of the third quarter of this year, an 8 percent increase from a year ago. Unfortunately, the company needs to pay $100 million to settle a recent Federal Trade Commission charges related to deceptive advertising. According to ZDNet, Symantec will finance the deal with cash on the balance sheet and $750 million of new debt. Symantec is not the only company that chasing LIfeLock, an earlier report from Bloomberg said that private equity firms TPG, Permira, TPG, and Evergreen Coast Capital are also on the hunt for LifeLock, which has been in buyout talks for several months. The news about LifeLock getting acquired is no longer new. The identity theft protection vendor has been shopping itself through Goldman Sachs & Co. for the last few months. LifeLock has been reportedly in talks with a number of potential buyers. Symantec has been busy beefing up its cybersecurity portfolio for this year. The company is on a shopping spree recently, adding technology and talents to its cybersecurity portfolio. Earlier in the year, it acquired security firm Blue Coat Systems from Bain Capital for $4.65 billion deal. The Mountain View-based company offers software for security, storage, backup and availability. While celebrities and other notable industries showed their support for Hillary Clinton when it comes to education, Trump also has someone behind him in full support. Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. is a President elect Donald Trump supporter. And he is described to have a strong and unwavering support of Trump in his campaign. Last year, on December 9, Falwell met with Donald Trump and sat down with him regarding his role he could play when it comes to education. In January 2016, he pledges his full support for Trump, cites Nola. He has received criticism for his support to Donald Trump and his campaign. Many express that Falwell has been blinded by Trump and that he does not see Trump's true character and values. Still, Falwell stands firm on his decision. Through Trump's campaign, Falwell stood by regardless of the scandal and negative PR Trump has received. Which is why after the news broke that he won the United States Presidential Elections, Trump went ahead and scheduled a meeting with Falwell on Thursday, November 17. The two met again at the Trump Tower in New York to discuss the future of education in his upcoming administration. Before Trump takes his seat in the Oval Office, Falwell said he already knows what role he will play in the nation's education system. Although he did not mention anything specific and particular, he did indicate that it was a good discussion. However, he did express that he has always been concerned about the Education Department's management of colleges and universities when it comes to financial aid and student loans. Student debt has been an issue for several Americans and this is something Falwell wants to address and look into. Aside from the general brief of their discussion, Falwell insists on waiting for further announcements. Much more could be revealed when Trump takes his seat as the United States President. After Donald Trump's win this month, he is going to become the President of the United States next year. But before he takes his seat in the Oval Office, he did have a few scores to settle. One such score includes the fraud cases against him regarding Trump University. Donald Trump is known to never back down from an argument or even a legal law suit. However, according to reports, Trump decided to pen an abrupt settlement agreement right after his presidential win. While Trump is busy meeting with leaders and other authorities to comprise his cabinet and administration, he did not neglect the fraud cases against him. According to the New Yorker, it looked like an attempt to prevent embarrassment on his part. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump continued to express that the fraud cases that he faced are baseless and that he is going to win it. He also promised that he would never settle. But now, he is singing a different tune. The fraud cases held against Trump's name were due to the complaints coming from thousands of people who accused Trump University of stealing their money after luring them to a real-estate course that did not meet expectations. They described the school as a "bait and switch" operation. The school forced customers into enrolling by using sales tactics. Many felt cheated by this. According to reports, Trump's approval of advertisements saying that he is ready to share his real estate secrets did not materialize. Trump never attended any of the seminars or conferences that had his name on it. Eric Schneiderman, one of Donald Trump's lawyers, announced that Trump has agreed to a settlement involving three civil cases regarding Trump University. One law suit is in New York, while two are in California. According to the settlement, Trump had agreed to settle $25 million for violating state education laws. Australian school Deakin University has been accused of perpetuating a "culture of silence" over its former employee's harassment case. Apparently, the gag order was a result of a settlement between the institution and the employee. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that a whistleblower, Dr. Melanie Thomson, has spoken out against Deakin University and how it handled a harassment case for its former employee. Apparently, the school imposed a gag order on its staff to stop them from talking about complaints on a scientist. The scientist has since transferred to another university with a more senior position. Dr. Thomson is a former lecturer in the school of medicine at the institution. She admitted that the scientist revealed to her that, at his previous workplace, he also had similar complaints about his actions. At one point, a female colleague had to resort to placing a line of tape on the floor around her desk and told the scientist to stay behind it. This came even after the employee complained about the scientist's inappropriate behavior. According to Thomson, the gag order imposed by Deakin University forced her into a "morally bankrupt" position. "It put me in an awkward position of basically having to lie, or omit the truth," she said. She has decided to go public about the issue since she is concerned about the "mental health of all the staff" at the scientist's new workplace. She also describes this type of gag order as "unethical" because it prevents future employers from being warned about inappropriate behavior of potential employees. The order was part of an agreement reached by Deakin University and the employee last year. The scientist was asked to leave after complaints about bullying and harassment were investigated. There have been a lot of reports on sexual misconduct and assault in the campus. It is important to give these victims a voice. Be an active bystander and get involved when you hear or see something problematic happening. Moreover, you would also need to proactively prevent these things from happening in the first place through sending messages of violence prevention. On behalf of the Standing Faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee endorses the Statement from Penn President Amy Gutmann About the Presidential Election and the Statement from the University of Pennsylvania Regarding Racist Messages Sent to Students . As a faculty, we stand in solidarity with our Black students, faculty and staff, and all who are feeling targeted, unsafe, and vulnerable. We condemn racism and bigotry on and off our campus, and we are firmly committed to the advancement of equity, inclusiveness, and constructive dialogue on our campus and to ensuring that all persons are treated with dignity and respect. We commit to addressing the bigotry that has been on display in the election cycle and making our campus a safe environment for everyone. Update from the Office of the Provost. Provost Vincent Price began by reinforcing the commitment of his office to supporting Penn students in challenges they are experiencing following the recent national election. He then reported on a number of ongoing activities. The Campaign for Community is continuing to accept applications and he encouraged faculty to submit proposals for programming aimed at fostering an inclusive community at Penn. The final report on the Action Plan for Faculty Diversity and Excellence will be released in spring 2017. A recent gift from Keith and Kathy Sachs will launch an arts innovation program that provides support to integrate arts programming at Penn in a variety of manners. A Task Force was recently launched that aims to promote a healthy and respectful campus environment. A new space in Van Pelt Library will open in January that will house the Weingarten Learning Resource Center, the Center for Learning Analytics and the Center for Teaching and Learning, among others. He described ongoing work by the Perry World House, Penn Center for Innovation, Pennovation Works and the Pennovation Center. He then responded to questions from SEC members. New business: Consideration of a statement responding to racist statements sent to Black Penn students. A draft statement was circulated by email to SEC members prior to the meeting. Following a discussion, a modified statement was called to question and approved (25 in favor, none against, and four abstentions). Professor Perna invited SEC members to participate in the Walk of Solidarity for the Penn community, organized in opposition to racist messages targeted at Black Penn students, immediately following the meetings conclusion. The following is published in accordance with the Faculty Senate Rules. Among other purposes, the publication of SEC actions is intended to stimulate discussion among the constituencies and their representatives. Please communicate your comments to Patrick Walsh, executive assistant to the Senate Office, either by telephone at (215) 898-6943 or by email at s enate@pobox.upenn.edu 2. Pursuant to the Bylaws, additional nominations may be submitted by petition containing at least 25 signed names and the signed approval of the candidate. All such petitions must be received by December 6, 2016. If no additional nominations are received, the slate nominated by the Executive Committee will be declared elected. If additional nominations are received, a mail ballot will be distributed to the Faculty Senate membership. Please forward any nominations by petition via intramural mail to the Faculty Senate, Box 9 College Hall/6303. Please forward any questions to Patrick Walsh by email at senate@pobox.upenn.edu or by telephone at (215) 898-6943. 1. In accordance with the requirements of the Faculty Senate Bylaws, notice is given to the Senate Membership of the Senate Executive Committees nine-member slate of nominees for the Nominating Committee for 2017. The Nominating Committee nominates candidates for election to the Offices of the Faculty Senate, to the At-Large and Assistant Professor positions on the Senate Executive Committee, to the Senate Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty and to the Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility. The nine nominees, all of whom have agreed to serve, are: COUNCIL State of the University This presentation is an edited transcript from the State of the University at the November 9 University Council meeting. Eric J. Furda, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions The first part of this presentation is to introduce members of my senior team. I hope today to share a little bit more about how we approach our work, how we think about our work and how we reach out to achieve the type of educational community that we all strive for at Penn. Kathryn Bezella has joined the office for the second time. Kathryn heads up our marketing and communications outreach; she has been at Penn for a number of years from undergraduate admissions as well as at the Wharton School in MBA Admissions and in the Vice Deans Office. Kathryn has a graduate degree from Penn and an undergraduate degree from Barnard College. Lou Metzger is our head of information and management systems. When you think about the kind of work we do, you need to have that infrastructure backbone the hardware, the software, the data capabilities in order to do the type of work that you need to do. He has an undergraduate and a graduate degree from Penn Engineering. Yvonne Romero Da Silva came into the Penn Admissions office about four years ago and is our Director of Admissions. Much of the work that you are going to see today was really the work of Yvonne and the team that supported her in that work when we thought about how to bring this office to best serve the needs of the institution. She is an educator who had admissions experience at MIT as well as at the College Board in strategic planning, and an undergraduate degree from MIT, and a graduate degree from Harvard, and an MBA from Stanford, and she is currently getting her doctoral degree from GSE. Yvonne is a leader and an educator. I couldnt be more proud of my three senior leaders and the rest of the individuals who are in the Office of Admissions. It was 2012 when Yvonne was hired. I said, Okay, you have eight months to come up with a strategic plan. And she said Yes. And we worked together, we carved out time, about 20% of the time. You might think, Well how can you have a strategic planning process with all the heavy work that you have in front of you? And for students and faculty, we know that we need to carve out that time. We assembled the team that 20% of their time would be devoted to this strategy project. From that, and any of you who have done strategy projects before like Yvonne, you will see that we were taking a look at four different areas. 1) The Current State Analysis: where was Penn admissions in 2012? How were we configured? What are the challenges that we have? How do we organize our resources and support from the Provosts office? 2) The Market Analysis, which was very interesting because it was really about looking at the worlds high school students and graduates of secondary schools, what is the potential to become a Penn applicant and to succeed at Penn. That is very different than looking at who gets in and what that admitted student profile looks like. We had to look more broadly because, as you will see later, the world was shifting and we wanted to make sure that if there was a young person of promise in the country and around the world, we would be able to consider them and know who they are and share information about Penn. 3) Competitive Landscape: Our peer groups. Our most immediate peer groups perhaps in the Ivy League and the Ivy Plus Schools, as we refer to them, or the Consortium of Financing Higher Education. Particularly, since this was happening four years after the economic collapse, the competitive landscape was changing. Institutions that are two-year colleges will become part of the competitive landscape. Great land-grant universities are part of the competitive landscape. 4) Constituent Needs Analysis: Whats critical about this is that Penn is a complex place. And as we were thinking about the needs of the four undergraduate schools that we serve, the coordinated dual degrees, thinking about our campus partners, both academic and non-academic. We wanted to make sure that we were looking out to have an understanding of how our work would impact those individuals and those programs. This is what came from that project. I am not usually into wordy mission statements but there are a few pieces here that I think are critical to resonate with. We are really talking about students as inspiring, promising candidates. This isnt just recruitment and sending letters out. Some of the work we are doing with Penn First is thinking about students to reach out to so that they can see a Penn education as being possible. So inspiring students is very different from recruitment and maybe some of our other outreach. Through identifying the next generation of Penn Alumni. You have four short years here as an undergraduate and then you enter this larger body of Penn Alumni. There are a lot of steps in between. Making sure that we are retaining students from freshmen to sophomore year and making sure that they are graduating at high rates four, five, six years out. There is this continuum and I think that is important for an office of admissions to recognize that it is not just our responsibility to admit a class, hand it off and then go on. Our work doesnt end at Convocation. We feel very much a part of the campus community. This is about the individuals for whom we want to make sure that this is an educational experience, and then for the staff, we have a professional culture of support, which we felt more strongly today than we ever needed to feel in quite some time coming together in a staff meeting this morning. Connecting the statement into the areas of work that we have. You see the six bullets and I will touch on a few of them. We wanted to make sure that we had time to be able to balance all of these pieces. Recruitment might be what you expect an undergraduate admissions office to do. We are responsible for promoting the type of educational opportunity that the University of Pennsylvania can offer. That happens in a lot of different ways. For the students here, you know what a lot of them are because your inbox got filled or maybe you saw us at an Experience Penn event travelling around the globe. Maybe you came to visit campus. Brand and perception is the work that Kathryn Bezella is responsible for, really recognizing where Penn is. How people think about Penn, maybe some of the statements that the students made today as well and how that resonates with students. How competitive is the Penn campus? How inclusive is the Penn campus? What does this look like? What are peoples perceptions of who we are? Evaluation and selection is the work that we are doing right now. We just selected the QuestBridge class, and we sent those over to the financial aid office to start the QuestBridge match process. And so that is the beginning of this class. It starts even before early decision. You might have seen in the Daily Pennsylvanian that we have just over 6,000 applications for early decision. But how we configure our office to fairly and equitably review each application is critical for us. Through the strategy project we have shown that there is a different way of doing admissions. We have shared that expertise with some other schools. How we can review applications in what we call committee-based evaluation. Data and Systems: In the eight years that I have been here I have already seen three iterations of a computer system to support the work that we do. That is how fast the technology is moving and how important it is in Lou Metzgers role that we are able to support that critical infrastructure for our work. Partnerships: Our undergraduate schools, the coordinated dual degrees, those individuals that help us not only recruit the class and yield the class but also evaluate and select the class. And so we meet with this group on a monthly basis. Beth Downing in my office heads up this effort. Cultures and Values: That goes back to what we believe in as an office. That goes to the mission statement. But that goes to the professionalism in our office. How we want to comport ourselves and how we want to support the individuals that are doing this hard work on behalf of the University. I came back to Penn for Penn admissions in 2008, when Dr. Gutmann called and hired me to come back. Now in some ways I think if I looked at that chart then, I am not sure what my answer would have been because what we have here are projections of high school graduates in 2008 through the strategy project 2012, 2013. So youre seeing a decline. Thats what we see here through 2027. These are projections of high school graduates from The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. But this was the work that the analysis that the strategy project really took a look at: whats going to happen as theres kind of a slow and steady growth, but then also you are going to see that there are some dips as well. But even more so than this, its what the country was really looking like. Here you have Caucasians or white students in the blue, you have Hispanic students going up to 2027-2028, you see as this adds up to 100%, just the proportion of what the nation looks like through high school projections. I brought this up to the trustees back in 2008. As the composition of US public high schools, graduating is increasingly diverse. Our core markets declining, the population growth is going into the south and the southwest and partly to the west. So thats very different outreach and recruitment in the type of work that you need to do if you are thinking that your home base isnt going to have as many high school students and those individuals who are making decisions about going further away from home and having those conversations, those are the types of shifts that are taking place. Youre also seeing a decrease by about 30% from non-public high schools. So part of the market research that took place was among guidance counselors. We really needed to find out, we couldnt just assume that everyone knew who we are as an institution. Now we do have a very strong brand position, we do have a strong market position. As I showed you before that in those areas that are going to have more students, that perception isnt as strong. By percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch, with the Compact and then the Compact 2020, how are we going to continue to make sure that we are reaching out and being as inclusive as possible? Here is a lot of your QuestBridge population, and a lot of your first-generation/low-income students. Then by the percentage of students attending a four-year college and then taking a look at what their perceptions are. More students going to a four-year college, the more people know about Penn. Fewer people going to a four-year college within a high school, with 73% or less than 50% is still pretty high, theres a big gap there, whether youre taking 30% of even less than 10%. So heres the challenge that we really saw. How did we approach this? We are really thinking about how we could be a recruitment-driven admissions office. Most admissions offices are built around the concept that you create regions because its going to add up to about 1,200 applications and that is the assignment [of] each admissions officer. You would hear people say that you have bits of New York and Iowa and parts of some other smaller state, lets say. Versus organizing ourselves around these larger macro regions and having a team of about six admissions officers, both domestically and globally be responsible for a larger geographic area. And this was great work that came from the strategy project to really think about what do we need to know about students where these shifts are taking place. What are their needs? What is on their mind as they are thinking about college choices? So how we would plan our recruitment. How we would measure our effectiveness. Thinking about how we are selecting students from different educational systems. Schools that may not have AP and IB as an example. And then benchmarking to national trends, whether its from IPEDS or from The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. To meet the needs of students, there are multiple facets to all of us and we really want to make sure that students are having their interests met and at different times during the recruitment continuum you are going to try and meet those interests and needs that they have. Academic achievement. The faculty want to have students in the classroom who are going to challenge them just as much as they are going to challenge the students. Academic interests. Four undergraduate schools and five coordinated dual degrees. Just the number of major-minor combinations that you can have here. Socioeconomic diversity. I know something that President Gutmann is most proud about is talking about First Gen outreach and really thinking about that socioeconomic diversity. Now something great happened that I should have pointed to back in 2008. And that was the beginning of our grant-based financial aid policies for all of our undergraduate students who qualify for financial aid. That came as a great opportunity for us to be able to talk about not only in our recruitment but also what families were facing, because of the financial crisis. Race and ethnicity. What are the needs of students? What are the needs of families as they are taking a look at going to a four-year college that may be an airplane ride away? What are the barriers that we need to consider? How can we reach out to the students? How can we make sure that they are succeeding and thriving here? And how can we really make sure that they understand what Penn is like? Geographic. Again there are going to be nuances there but these pieces may come together very strongly for some students. Maybe one or two are going to be the dominant considerations as they are considering where they are going to apply to college. So engagements on campus and beyond. What we have really found and through the support that we have, we want to bring students to our campus as early as we can. The Penn Early Exploration Programwe have been bringing students to campus in the fall over the past couple of years to stay overnight in our college houses to visit classes and you should see the shift in perceptions. These are high school seniors nationally and some international students as well who are coming to Penn. We are somewhat on their radar. But by the time that they go through this multi-day and -night event on our campus, they are more inclined to not only apply to Penn but maybe even apply to us early decision. A group of these students were thinking about applying early decision to another institution and after this they are applying to us early decision and when we have panels with our cultural resource centers and with the student support resources, we are making this place much more attainable, not only for the application process but I think even more important for the transition. Ivy in Your Backyard is reaching out to our Philadelphia community. For so many students, even if they are only a few blocks away from our campus, we may seem thousands of miles away. To let students know that they have this type of institution in their backyard and that this should be an option to consider. I am really proud because I spoke before about the perception of guidance counselors and Penn, our community-based outreach and counselor connection outreach. Counselor connections are for individuals that work within schools that we bring to campus. Your guidance counselors bring them to campus usually from within regional groups that they can come and visit us and have a couple days on our campus. Visit with some of their students who are currently students here and get a better sense of the type of atmosphere that we have on our campus. The community-based organizations, when we started this a couple years ago the date of the third week of August was proposed. I said, Okay, Im all for it. Are people really going to come in the third week of August? They are so busy, maybe just transferring back into the school year. Over the past couple years we have had close to 50 in each year, directors of community-based organizations, some national ones like KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program), which we have a partnership with, some smaller ones like College Track, which has a couple of sites across the US and Chicago Scholars. We are actively reaching out, not just to school-based educators but to educators who are providing the after-school programming for students, the weekend tutoring for students, SAT and ACT prep, these are the individuals who are trusted individuals for many students to say. How do I apply? How will I feel at this institution? We have a great opportunity at Penn given that we have Coursera as well as Sirius XM radio, which is right on Locust Walk in Huntsman Hall. We have been using Sirius XM as a platform to reach out. I have a show called The Process which talks about the college admission and selection process. Thats a quarterly show. Whats great about it too is that you get the content and then we can repurpose it and use it elsewhere. Provost Price asked whether we could put together a How to Apply to College course on Coursera. We are almost finished with it. We are going to be launching it late January/early February. Penn is partnered with Steppingstone Scholars, which is a national organization in Boston and here in Philadelphia that reaches out and works with students as early as the fourth grade. Penn students talk about their transitions of applying to college and transitioning into college. Our cultural resource directors and some of our other hub directors were interviewed. So students can really get a sense of what this campus environment is like. We bring them through the application process, we bring them through the financial aid process with Elaine Papas Varas and Student Financial Services. This is going to be a toolkit that students can access. But really what we hope for here is that school districts will access these assets. You can download it right away. Its on-demand once its released. And so there will be a lot of functional pieces wherever a student is in the admissions process. So I am very excited about How to Apply to College. Penn offers counseling guidance. This is about Ivy in Your Backyard. When the cuts were happening in the Philadelphia School District, we made sure that we reached out as a partner in the local community. We had the Alumni Interview Program talk about how to interview for college. We had Kelly Writers House talk about how to write college essays. Quaker Days are our yield events. We received the Models of Excellence Award, so I am really happy about being recognized for that work. Now I know that this a public meeting and that this is being shared. I usually dont like sharing information like this, but it is all public information and we aggregated it together. Believe me, you have to stand on your own, but in a market you need to also show where you are relatively positioned. Now applications from 2008-2011 were 22,000, 26,000, then up to 31,000. You hit the strategy project and this is where our work has gone and we are close to 40,000 applications from about 31,000 applications prior to that. This is because of our outreach. This isnt trying to get more applicants but to be more selective. We have also seen about 50% growth in our underrepresented minority applications as well from that time period. You can see from 2013 and up. And the Penn Alumni Interview Program. We have reached about 93-94% of our applicants in 2016. This is an investment by the Penn Alumni Office and Penn Admissions that every student gets interviewed. This is a critical outreach. If we want to think about how students can tell their story. Finally, our key priorities for 2016-2017. Some of these are ongoing. When we really think about the types of messages that are important to the groups that we are reaching out to. Whats the Penn story? Our visitors center experience: we have about 70,000 each year through College Hall. How can we make sure they are having the best experience possible? Our international recruitment. How do we set priorities abroad, particularly for financial aid that is not need-blind on the international front but still is all grant-based financial aid once a student qualifies? Counselor engagement, we touched on that already. And our ongoing equity and access initiatives which look back right into the Compact 2020. An Austrian court approved the extradition of a suspected Russian mob boss whose gang is allegedly responsible for scores of murders, Russian media reported Tuesday. The Vienna Regional Court decided to send Aslan Gagiev, known by the moniker "Dzhako," back to Russia to face trial for alleged crimes as head of a notorious Russian crime group said to be responsible for more than 60 murders in the Moscow and North Caucasus regions. The third attempt at extradition was approved after assurances that Gagiev would receive a fair trial in Russia with oversight from Austrian officials, according to Russian state news agency Interfax. In addition to heading the criminal group, the alleged mob boss is suspected of committing six murders himself and seriously injuring three people, according to Austrias federal police. He fled Russia in 2013. Vienna police arrested Gagiev in January 2015 after Interpol informed Austrian authorities that he was suspected of hiding in the country. At the time of his arrest, he was found to be in possession of a forged Bulgarian passport. Gagiev was released on 100,000 (US$ 106,375) bail in March under orders not to leave Vienna. Gagievs crime group is suspected of murdering senior police officers and high-profile government officials, including the deputy vice president of Russias North Ossetia region. occrp.org November 22 2016 The Cairngorms National Park Authority have moved to recognise the best design within the park area, designating a private home at Newe, Strathdon, with their top honour. Strathdon House by Brown + Brown Architects was praised for its compelling, simple design which saw it recognized as best residential new build, just edging out Tigh an Uillt in Nethybridge, an extension to an existing property.Other winners on the night were HRIs Russwood offices at Newtonmore which claimed top honours in the commercial category and Corndavon Bridge in Deeside which picked up the infrastructure prize.Rounding off the winners was Am Fasgadh at the Highland Folk Museum, also in Newtonmore, which was recognized for its place-making qualities.Judge Andrew Wright said: Arriving at decisions as to which of the projects merited awards was challenging, and at the end of the exercise we were left with the firm impression that design standards were rising within the boundaries of the National Park and that the awards scheme had been successful in promoting the value of good design not only to those who benefited from it directly, but to the wider community.The award has previously been held by Neil Sutherland Architects Cairngorm Brewery, Aviemore; 7N Architects New House at Easter Tombain and the Lazy Duck Woodman's Hut, built by Rob Clarke and Dave Robson November 22 2016 Ayr Renaissance, a body formed by South Ayrshire Council to lead the regeneration of Ayr town centre has submitted an ambitious waterfront masterplan.The Riverside Block has been devised by Niall McLaughlin Architects to sit between the medieval Auld Brig and Victorian New Bridge, removing a number of large retail sheds which block access to the river with a new area of public realm and a festival building.The masterplan makes provision for a range of uses including office space, retail, cafes, restaurants and open space using quality materials, which marry with historic buildings including new vistas of the town hall from new vennels.Chairman of Ayr Renaissance, James Knox, said, The balance of the development depends on the added value created by the quality of the architecture, the welcome to the public afforded by the originality and openness of the plan and the content of the public realm. Getting these right is the key to unlocking long-term regeneration of the town centre for generations to come.Over the longer term it is hoped to extend the River Ayr walk to the sea with the intention of creating a new events space flanked by the towns two main bridges.A planning application is expected early next year which, if approved, will enable demolition works to commence alongside an archaeological dig. Oct. 26, 2022 U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. Cadets got the unique experience of interacting with and learning from the 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2022 at the U.S. Air Force Academy Sept. 27-29. The National Character and Leadership Symposium sponsored the visit and three days of activities.The 12 Public Event for New UW President Nov. 28 in Douglas UW President Laurie Nichols Converse County residents will have an opportunity to meet new University of Wyoming President Laurie Nichols during a public reception Monday, Nov. 28, in Douglas. The event is scheduled from 7-8 a.m. in Room 122 of the Eastern Wyoming College Douglas campus, 800 S. Wind River Drive. Coffee, juice and donuts will be served. During her first months in office, Nichols is spending a day or two of each month traveling around the state to meet with citizens, community college and public school leaders, legislators, alumni, media and others. Im having a wonderful time getting around the state to meet with people and hear their thoughts and expectations for Wyomings university, says Nichols, who began her duties as president May 16. This is a crucial time for the state and UW, and input from the public is important to make sure the university fulfills its land-grant mission of education, research and service to the entire state. Nichols came to UW from South Dakota State University, where she has served as provost and executive vice president since 2009. Before that, she was dean of the SDSU College of Education and Human Sciences from 1994 to 2008. She began her career in higher education as a member of the faculty of the University of Idaho from 1988 to 1994. Nichols was born and raised in South Dakota. A first-generation college graduate, she received a bachelors degree in education from South Dakota State in 1978. She then earned a masters degree in vocational and adult education from Colorado State University in 1984 and a Ph.D. in family and consumer sciences education from Ohio State University in 1988. Vayk Metal LLC, a company founded in the summer of 2015, wants to operate the Gladzor mine in Armenias Vayots Dzor province. Three years ago, Armenias Ministry of Nature Protection refused to grant an operators license to another company, Vayk Resources, also interested in Gladzor. Whether Vayk Resources or Vayk Metal, those interested to see the Gladzor mine in operation remain the same Armenias former prime minister Hovik Abrahamyan and friends. On November 17, EcoLur wrote that over 700 residents in the communities of Vernashen and Gladzor took to the streets to stop Vayk Metals from bringing heavy equipment to the mining site without their prior consent. The mine is on community land. Yesterday, the equipment was removed. In September, Armenias Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MENR) granted the company an exploratory permit valid until June 30,2017. But Vayk Metal still hasnt received word from the ministry to start operating the mine. The Gladzor poly-metallic mine is in the Yeghegnadzor district of Vayots Dzor. Vernashen, Hermon and Shatin are villages adjacent to the mine. According to figures published by the MENR, the Gladzor mine has the following reserves: The companys 2016 preliminary environmental assessment, presented to the ministry, stated that operation of the mine would impact the atmosphere, surface water, surface soil, flora and fauna, as well as the entire natural relief of the land. Mine operation would also lead to a dust cover and dangerous gas emissions. The assessment claims that water resources wouldnt be polluted since dirty water resulting from the manufacturing process would be removed via mountainous drill holes. The water would then be cleaned and used again for technical usage. In December 2013, the Ministry of Nature Protection issued a negative conclusion regarding the preliminary environmental assessment. The conclusion was signed by then Minister Aram Harutyunyan. The preliminary assessment was submitted by a company called Vayk Resources LLC. The company was 75% owned by GeoPromMining Gold. The remaining 25% was owned by Aram Osikyan, a partner of former Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan. Aram Osikyan is well connected to Armenias mining sector. In a October 2014 Hetq article (All In the Family: Armenian Prime Ministers Booming Business Empire - Part 2), we pointed out that Osikyan serves as director of a company called Argamik Ltd. (owned by Hovik Abrahamyans son Argam) that operates the Masis gold reprocessing plant, and is the 100% owner of Assat Ltd., another mining company. In 2013, Assat Ltd. was issued a mining license for gold in the Karaberd area of Lori Province. In 2004, it received a license to extract gold at the Kakavasar mine in Vayots Dzor. In the article, we wrote: The friendship between Armenian Prime minister Hovik Abrahamyan and Aram Osikyan stretches back many years, and it cannot be ruled out that the prime minister or his relatives are linked to Assat Ltd. In 2005 Assat Ltd. performed another feasibility study of the Gladzor mine and found that it had manufacturing potential. Between 2007 and 2009, Vayk Metal performed additional geological surveys and found that there was sufficient quality ore reserves to justify operating the mine. But the Ministry of Nature Protection issued a negative conclusion, arguing that operating the mine on a partial opencast manner, according to the opinion of the BioResources Management Service, could irrevocably impact the nearby Yeghegis State Preserve. Also taken into account was the negative feedback voiced during public hearings. Vayk Metal founder and sole shareholder is Artur Ter-Simonyan. He is the son of Simon Ter-Simonyan, who heads the Armenian governments Department for Loans and Humanitarian Assistance Programs. Vayk Resources may have changed its name to Vayk Metal, but the individuals in the background remain the same. At one public hearing, the Vayk Metal representative was the very same Aram Osikyan confidante and business colleague of Hovik Abrahamyan and family. Photo (from left): Simon Ter-Simonyan, Hovik Abrahamyan Wyoming Business Tips for Dec. 4-10 A weekly look at Wyoming business questions from the Wyoming Small Business Development Center (WSBDC), part of WyomingEntrepreneur.Biz, a collection of business assistance programs at the University of Wyoming. By Mike Lambert, WSBDC Network Market Research Center manager Do you have any tips about how I can think about strategy for my business? Sarah, Lusk I was just reading an article by Chris Bradley of McKinsey and Company and, in it, he talks about riding his motorcycle across Australia, and how this epic trip helped him think about how to do his job as a strategic consultant better. As a longtime bike rider (1983 Yamaha Venture right now), and a lover of the 1974 book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, I really found these insights easy to grasp and usable in planning. His seven principles: -- Slow down and make sure you are solving the right problem. Dont lock onto the first imaginable solution to your problem. Going fast is for sure the slowest way to fix a motorcycle -- or a company. -- Work back from the source of the problem. Dont jump to the end of the problem. On a bike, you may have a low tire. Dont assume that you need to change the tire when all you need to do is make sure that your pump is working and at hand. In business, dont assume you need help marketing when, in reality, you need to focus on cash flow or you wont be open next week. -- Be empirical. If your bikes engine wont start, there can be lots of issues. The best way to getr done is not to waste time theorizing, but to jump in and gather data on the problem. The same goes for business. -- Keep doubt alive. Dont get tunnel vision on the fix. There may be better solutions available. If someone tells you I know what that is, its the oil pump, dont discount that you might just be low on oil. Examine multiple opinions and options. -- Gain some distance from the problem. Dont panic and dont rush into a solution when youre stuck in a rut. Keep calm and think it through -- in bikes and in business. -- Be organized. Anyone whos seen my home office would wonder how I could possibly understand this. A good mechanic keeps his shop clean. Otherwise, he spends as much time looking for tools as working the problem. In business, this means dont cut corners on a process that should be disciplined. -- Plan for the best, but be prepared for the worst. You never plan to break down, but it is a lot better to be prepared with tools, common spare or even duct tape, if you do. Too many business plans try to appear confident but, in doing so, dont leave room for a spare tire. Motorcycles and business strategy really do fit together. Keep these principles in mind. Strategic planning will be easier to execute. A blog version of this article and an opportunity to post comments are available at www.wyomingsbdc.org/blog1/. The WSBDC is a partnership of the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Wyoming Business Council and the University of Wyoming. To ask a question, call 1-800-348-5194, email wsbdc@uwyo.edu, or write 1000 E. University Ave., Dept. 3922, Laramie, WY, 82071-3922. Wyoming SBDC Network Receives Technology Accreditation The Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network recently received technology accreditation through the Association of SBDCs accreditation committee. The committee works in conjunction with the Small Business Administration (SBA) to provide accreditation for all SBDC programs across the country. Only 15 of the 63 SBDCs in the U.S. have obtained the technology designation. The technology designation is given to SBDCs that demonstrate an integration of technology commercialization assistance for small businesses throughout the organization. The technology assistance includes supporting businesses in all aspects of product development; intellectual property; commercialization processes; those applying for small business innovative research (SBIR) awards; helping with technology transfer from the university; and providing training, education and assistance to help advance technology commercialization throughout the state. A technology accreditation team recently met with SBDC staff, members of the Business Resource Network (which includes Research Products Center, Manufacturing-Works and the Wyoming Technology Business Center) and key stakeholders to verify and assess the technology initiatives in place by the SBDC, says Jill Kline, Wyoming SBDC director. The Wyoming SBDC was given a commendation by the accreditation team for integration of technology within the network and the close collaboration and support with the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming Business Council and the Business Resource Network. The accreditation process is thorough and includes nearly every facet of our operations, Kline says. It is extremely helpful to have an outside perspective to make sure our program is the best that it can be not only for the purpose of accreditation, but to assure that we are doing everything in our power to assist our clients the best way possible. Having the technology accreditation allows Wyoming SBDC Network access to additional funds from the SBA that are set aside for technology designated centers, she adds. It also demonstrates the level of commitment that the organization has in assisting small businesses in their technology-related endeavors. This accreditation is an acknowledgement of all the hard work the Wyoming SBDC Network does to help technology firms to start, grow and thrive in Wyoming, says Bill Gern, UW vice president for research and economic development. The fact that, at present, there are only 15 other SBDCs nationwide with a technology designation speaks very highly about what has been built in the Wyoming SBDC. Couple this with other business resource partners who fill the gap of areas of expertise, and Wyoming has a winning team, he adds. I urge businesses across the state, whether theyre technology-based or not, to take advantage of the multitude of resources available to them from the university and state, Gern says. Wyoming SBDC Network assists small businesses across the state with business needs, Kline says. The technology accreditation recognizes the efforts the SBDC has made over many years in developing all aspects of technology commercialization assistance, and integrating that assistance thoroughly into the organization and the Business Resource Network, she adds. To learn more about the Wyoming SBDC Network, visit www.wyomingsbdc.org/. For more information, call Kline at (307) 766-3405 or email jkline@uwyo.edu. Golden Nugget Las Vegas now has a new slot machine themed after the hit CNBC show, Billion Dollar Buyer starring Tilman Fertitta, the Companys Chairman and CEO. The slot machine debuted in time for the premiere of the second season of the hit show on Tuesday, Nov. 22 at 7 p.m. PT/6 p.m. CT. Exclusively at Golden Nugget Casinos in Las Vegas, Laughlin, Atlantic City, Biloxi, and Lake Charles, the new slot machines offer players the chance to strike a deal with the Billion Dollar Buyer. Players can relive the excitement of the show as they play for a chance to win up to 10,000 credits with this thrilling three-reel, five-line Billion Dollar Buyer-themed Double Jackpot Triple Blazing 7s slot machine. Billion Dollar Buyer introduces promising small businesses across the country to one of Americas most successful businessmen. Fertitta personally scouts the country for the most innovative new products Americas entrepreneurs have to offer everything from food and drink for his restaurants and casinos, to furniture and lighting for his hotels. In each hour-long episode, Fertitta will spend time with two small businesses, sample their goods, get to know their owners, and assess their compatibility with Landrys, Inc. Hell point out flaws in their product and operations, share his expertise, and push for improvements. In the end, hell decide whether to place a transformative purchase order with one of the companies, both, or neither. Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum in June. (Photo: AFP/Justin Tallis) May made the announcement at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) annual conference, shortly after industry leaders warned her about the impact of an abrupt departure from the EU and its customs union. "Businesses are inevitably considering the cliff-edge scenario - a sudden and overnight transformation in trading conditions," Paul Drechsler, CBI president, said on Monday. "If this happens, firms could find themselves stranded in a regulatory no man's land." In comments widely interpreted as referring to a possible transitional arrangement with Brussels, May said: "We don't want a cliff-edge". Businesses "want to know with some certainty how things are going to go forward. That will be part of the work we do in terms of the negotiation," she said. But companies at the gathering voiced their concerns. "I'm not too optimistic about Brexit," a representative from German engineering firm Bosch told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I don't see things moving in the right direction". Some business leaders have called for a temporary deal to set the terms of trade between Britain and the EU if a full deal cannot be reached in the two-year window available to arrange Britain's divorce from the bloc. "It's really about making sure that we have a transition in term of regulatory regime," Rain Newton-Smith, CBI chief economist, told AFP. RESEARCH BOOST 'IMPORTANT' The prime minister has so far refused to outline what she will demand from EU leaders, but promised to update business on plans. "If we approach the difficult negotiations to come in the right way, with the right spirit, we can strike a deal that's right for Britain and right for the rest of Europe too." One of her government's top priorities would be to secure an "early agreement" on the status of British nationals in Europe and EU nationals in Britain. The continued availability of a European workforce is a key concern for British businesses. May also announced her government would invest an extra 2 billion a year (US$2.5 billion, 2.3 billion) in science research and development by 2020 and committed to the plans of the previous government to introduce the lowest corporate tax rates in the G20. "Today, Britain has firms and researchers leading in some of the most exciting fields of human discovery," she said. "We need to back them and turn research strengths into commercial success." Mark Lloyd Davies, senior director of Johnson & Johnson, called the announcement "very positive". "We can always want more but it's not trivial," he said. "It's not a gesture, it's actually important". May spooked some industry leaders last month when she slammed "dysfunctional" markets and warned tax-avoiding multinationals she was "coming after" them during her first keynote speech as leader. However, she struck a softer tone on Monday, saying her government "will always believe" in free markets, capitalism and business but insisted they needed to serve the interests of everyone. Other speakers at the one-day conference included Paul Kahn, president of Airbus Group UK, and Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook's vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The social networking site on Monday became the latest US tech giant to announce new investment in Britain with 500 extra jobs. The British economy has remained resilient in the face of post-referendum uncertainty, but finance minister Philip Hammond is expected to announce a downgrade in future growth prospects when he presents the government's first major post-Brexit financial statement on Wednesday. The US Geological Survey initially put the quake at a magnitude of 7.3 but downgraded it to 6.9. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) put the earthquake at 7.4-magnitude. The earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, was centred off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10km and struck at 5.59am (4.59am Singapore time), the agency said. A 60cm tsunami had been observed at Fukushima's Onahama Port and a 90cm tsunami at Soma soon after, public broadcaster NHK said. The region is the same that was devastated by a tsunami following a massive earthquake in 2011. A tsunami measuring 1.4m was also reported at Sendai Port in Miyagi. A tsunami warning of up to 3m was issued. An announcer on NHK urged residents along the coast to move to high ground. "Please flee immediately," the male voice said with urgency. The vast majority of deaths in the 2011 disaster resulted from the tsunami, and NHK told viewers to heed the lessons of that day. At around 10am, JMA downgraded their tsunami warnings for Miyagi and Fukushima prefecture. Japan's Meteorological Agency official Koji Nakamura gives a briefing following a 6.9-magnitude earthquake that hit the country's northeast, in Tokyo on November 22, 2016. (Photo: JIJI PRESS/AFP) East Japan Railway Company suspended its Shinkansen bullet train services on the Tohoku, Joetsu and Hokuriku lines, said NHK. One woman suffered cuts to her head from falling dishes, Kyodo news agency reported, citing fire department officials. All nuclear plants on the coast threatened by the tsunami are shutdown in the wake of the March 2011 disaster, which knocked out Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, spilling radiation into the air and sea. A spokeswoman for Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, said the cooling system for a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at reactor at its Fukushima Daini Plant had been halted, but a spokesman said the cooling system had restarted soon after. The temporary stoppage was an automatic response, according to Tepco. No other damage from the quake has been confirmed at any of its power plants, although there have been blackouts in some areas, the spokeswoman added. Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest of the country. Even when in shutdown nuclear plants need cooling systems operating to keep spent fuel cool. Tohoku Electric Power Co said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported there was no irregularities at the Tokai Daini nuclear plant in Ibaraki Prefecture. Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from Fukushima harbours as tsunami warning signals wailed. 'FAIRLY STRONG EARTHQUAKE' Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 per cent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater. The Mar 11, 2011 quake was magnitude 9, the strongest quake in Japan on record. The massive tsunami it triggered left more than 18,000 people dead or missing, and caused the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier. In April, two strong earthquakes hit southern Japan's Kumamoto prefecture followed by more than 1,700 aftershocks, leaving at least 50 dead and causing widespread damage. An Iwaki city fire dept official said there was smoke or fire at Kureha's research centre in a petrochemical complex in Iwaki city at 6.17am, but it was extinguished at 6.40am. "It was a fairly strong earthquake, but we have not received any reports of injuries," said Nobuyuki Midorikawa, an official in Iwaki city, south of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. One hotel in Ofunato, badly hit by the 2011 quake, told guests to stay in the facility, which is on high ground. Speaking during a visit to Argentina, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe directed the central government to work with authorities in the affected areas. He said he ordered his cabinet ministers to "assess damage and do their utmost to cope with the disaster." Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference in Tokyo that no significant harm had been detected at the nuclear plants in the region. "There has been no major damage to the Fukushima Daiichi or Onagawa plant (in Miyagi prefecture," he said. A toll station on the Ha NoiHai Phong expressway. The Transport Ministry plans to replace toll booth operators with electronic collection systems to reduce delays at toll gates and cut costs. - VNA/VNS Photo Huy Hung In a document sent to the ministry, the DRVN said that there were more than 100 fee collection stations in the country. Of which, 86 were under the ministrys management and 15 were under local authorities management. Currently, the ministry has applied electronic fee collections for 37 tolls along the National Highway No1A and Ho Chi Minh Highway. Anelectronic toll collection station determined whether vehicles are enrolled in the programme, alerted toll collectors about those that were not, and electronically debits the accounts of registered car owners without requiring them to stop. Vehicles would be equipped with a tag on the windshield with information to be read by the stations sensor. Those without the tag would have to stop and pay manually. The ministry plans to replace toll booth operators with electronic collection systems. The move aims to reduce traffic jams and delays at toll gates and cut costs. According to the ministry, in many countries, electronic fee tolls and manual fee tolls are used on the same highway. It said vehicles would pay via prepaid Card of State-owned VietinBank. VietinBank would be assigned to install the pre-paid card system as a trial on one-stop toll highways. The model will be implemented from now on until the end of this year. National Highway No1A connects Lang Son and Ca Mau, running more than 2,300km through 32 cities and provinces, while the Ho Chi Minh Highway runs along the west of the country, connecting Cao Bang and Ca Mau via the Central Highlands with a total length of 3,167km. The third phase of the park will also be included in the national industrial park development plan to 2020. The PM assigned the provincial Peoples Committee to direct relevant agencies and investors to outline a detailed plan for the project. It is also responsible for guiding investors to build and submit environmental assessment reports for approval, and to implement procedures related to the use of water resources and cultivation land, and wastewater treatment in accordance with laws on environmental protection. Relevant units will coordinate with investors to work on issues related to employees in the park, including arranging a land fund for building houses for workers. The industrial park, located in Gio Quang commune, Gio Linh district, is 15 km from Cua Viet Port, 45 km from My Thuy Port of Quang Tri, and 182 km from Da Nang Port in central Da Nang city. There are 14 projects registered for investment in the park with total invested capital of over 3 trillion VND (132 million USD). Eight of the projects are operational, with the remainder are in the process of construction. The expansion of the park is expected to promote industrial development, boosting the localitys growth and improving income for employees. On trade, I am going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the TPP, a potential disaster for our country. Instead we will negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industries back on American shores, he said in a video message posted this morning (Vietnam time), outlining his first goals when he takes office in January. The TPP was signed by 12 countries in February this year. The countries included the US and 11 other countriesAustralia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Together, they account for 40 per cent of the world economy. In order for the TPP to take effect in a country, it has to be ratified by the legislative branch of that country. No member country has made any moves to ratify the TPP, except for Japan. On November 10, right after Donald Trump had won the election to become the next US President, Japan's House of Representatives passed the trade deal. However, on Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the TPP would be meaningless without the involvement of the US. On November 11, the Obama administration said they will not bring the trade deal forward during the lame-duck session. As a result, Vietnam is not putting the TPP forward for approval by the National Assembly yet, either, said Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on November 17, in his answer to the National Assemblys question regarding the future of the TPP after the US election. But we remain firm in our wish to join, he said. Still, according to the Vietnamese prime minister, We have other free trade agreements. Regardless of whether we join the TPP, we will continue on the path of global economic integration. In opinions sent to VIR after the US election, experts are also of the opinion that Vietnam has plenty of growth potential left outside of the TPP, because of the stable macroeconomic condition of the country, the continuing reforms, and the boost coming from other trade deals. Vietnam Airlines will finalise the list of shareholders by the end of this month to prepare for trading registration on the UPCoM. - PHOTO www.vegantravel.com The airline will finalise the list of shareholders on November 30, and it will cease to receive dossiers for transfer of securities ownership a day earlier, Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD) announced. The state-owned airline will list nearly 1.23 billion shares with the face value of VND10,000 per share, equivalent to charter capital of VND12.3 trillion (US$549 million), on the UPCoM under the stock code of HVN. The specific date of debut has been unclear but the company expects it in December, it said in a recent filing to VSD. Vietnam Airlines made its public offering (IPO) in late November 2014 which raised $51 million via a sale of 3.47 per cent of its capital. In July this year, the State sold nearly 8.8-per-cent equity to Japans ANA Holdings for $109 million, equivalent to nearly VND22,600 per share. Under its restructuring plan, the aviation company is looking to cut the State stake from the current 86.16 per cent to 75 per cent and eventually 65 per cent. It reported consolidated revenues of over VND36 trillion ($1.6 billion) and pre-tax profit of VND1.6 trillion in the first half of this year, completing nearly 70 per cent of the target set for the whole year. Vietnam Airlines is now among the worlds leading four- to five-star carriers and been recognized as one of the worlds top three most improved airlines last year by UK-based airline review organisation Skytrax. Shares of Vietnam Airlines are being traded on the Over The Counter (OTC) market for around VND28,000 per share in recent days. At this rate, the airlines market value reaches VND34.37 trillion ($1.53 billion). A number of big corporations have recently buoyed the market by listing shares on the UPCoM, including Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) with over 2 billion shares debuted on the UPCoM yesterday, being the biggest listed stock here for market value of VND76.2 trillion ($3.4 billion) at Mondays price of VND35,000 per share. 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 over 360 stocks with a total market capitalisation of around VND170 trillion ($7.6 billion). remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. It's a Russian Facebook clone where some people upload and store videos (mostly porn TBH)It appeared a few weeks ago and wasn't in any changelog which is worrying in itself as they should be accurate. MSPs that want to be successful in the long run must look at cybersecurity as a foundational service, one they Laos, the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia, plans to build more than a hundred hydropower dams on major tributaries and the mainstream of the Mekong River, aiming to become the Battery of Southeast Asia. Controversies surrounding two of the mega dams, the Xayaburi and Don Sahong, have not been resolved, yet Laos is preparing to launch its next big dam, the Pak Beng on the Mekong, which is expected to bring further negative impacts on food security and environment across the region, according to Courtney Weatherby, research associate at the Stimson Center. And the first of which is still an ongoing issue, and it is the 2015-2016 drought that occurred throughout the Mekong region. It is the most severe drought in 90 years of recording. Weatherby added that the hydropower dams in Laos would also affect other downstream countries, such as Cambodia and Vietnam. Its not all that dissimilar to what we saw from Laos, so what we really see here is that the water scarcity emerging during drought is going to become a source of attention for the region that weve seen concerns in Cambodia and Vietnam in particular over the diversion. Laos has not put forward a comprehensive plan to balance enery needs against downstream impacts, says Brian Eyler, the Stimson Centers Southeast Asia director. We discovered that because of the way that the system is set up for damming the river, Laos has no strategic plan to build these dams in terms of consideration of optimization of power resources, in terms of coordinating between projects, and very importantly in terms of being able to strike a balance between the energy thats generated from these dams and the impacts. Ana Maria Quintero, policy associate at Nature Conservancy, suggested that in order to mitigate the impacts, Laos should not only just look at hydropower but also other forms of renewable energy such as solar and wind. We have the preliminary assessment of our reporting initiative. Looking not just at hydropower but the potential of other renewable energies for a country. So its not just at hydropower but how does hydropower fit within the renewable energy mix. Eyler said foreign governments and the international community also must play a role in tackling the negative impacts of hydropower development. It is not too late to shift course and the external community, the U.S government, the donor banks, can provide guidance and support to help Laos move in this direction. Governmental, government-to-government assistance probably isnt enough. We need organizations like the Nature Conservancy and other methodologies to be plugged into this system to help that transition happen more quickly. The Mekong region is the worlds largest inland fishery and the most biologically diverse after the Amazon. However, rapid development is reshaping the landscape. On November 9, the American people elected Donald Trump to be their 45th president in a surprise result that pollsters and most media thought nearly impossible. Liang Sidney, a community activist in Lowell, MA, said he was shocked by the result, adding that schoolchildren in the area were afraid for their parents following heightened anti-immigrant sentiment. Protests since the election have seen thousands of anti-Trump demonstrators take toe the streets in major cities. In Chicago, Leoung Sophorn says, It shouldnt have happened. Im so frustrated that Mr Trump, who speaks divisive language, got elected. I didnt vote for him. After learning of the result, Sophorn, president of Cambodian Association of Illinois, said many in the community had expressed concerns over the future of the country. Some people in my community are worried about their safety, because Mr. Trump promised to his supporters during the campaign that he would take bold actions against the immigrants, he said. He added that he sees Trump as holding a disdain for democracy and human rights and posing a danger to world order. But not all Cambodian Americans were frustrated with Trumps victory. Sek Kosol, a Cambodian-American community activist based in St Paul, MN, told VOA that Trump embodied the change the American people desire. It [the election result] sent a strong message to the current administration that people need change, and they chose to change, said Kosol. He voted for a third-party candidate, and said that Trump would be held to the same checks and balances as every president before him. Though some community members are facing deportation, we are not worried, because they were here legally, and that the rule of law will be applied to their cases. Cambodias acting leader of the opposition has said that if the party is voted into power in 2018 he would institute a transmigration policy that would offer incentives to Cambodians who move to live near the border with Vietnam. He made the comments at a meeting of Cambodia National Rescue Party youth activists on Sunday at the partys headquarters. Immigration and border security would be priorities for a CNRP administration, he added, because of what he described as invasions of Cambodian territory by illegal immigrants and foreign interests. For example, the people who live along the border nowadays, even if we cry and scream or beg them not to lease their land to Vietnamese or Thai people, it is still ineffective, he said. He said that the CNRPs plans would not go as far as erecting a border wall as U.S. president-elect Donald Trump campaigned for, because it would be too expensive. But, he said, We have to develop the border so that many of our citizens will live along the border, and the border has to be well-developed. Firstly, there has to be a border belt. Secondly, we have to prepare markets, monasteries, jobs, factories or agriculture for them, he added. The border issue is a sensitive subject for the government, which must balance its historically close ties to Hanoi against rising nationalist sentiment at home over fears territory is being ceded through land grabs and long-term leases. Two CNRP officials, Sam Rainsy Party Senator Hong Sok Hour and Um Sam An, a lawmaker, have been convicted on charges related to their campaigns against alleged Vietnamese encroachment. Sok Eysan, ruling Cambodian Peoples Party spokesman, said the political strategy of the CPP is to strive to demarcate the border, as well as develop the border regions. Over the past five years Cambodia has issued a series of diplomatic protests directed at Vietnam over construction along the border. Koy Pisey, an official on the Cambodian Border Committee, said talks with Hanoi were ongoing. Heng Srean, a political researcher, said he thought the plans were too optimistic given the sorry state of resources and development across the country. However, he added that such a policy if successful could help to stem the annual outflow of young migrant workers to neighboring countries. Voters in California have approved two propositions that Cambodian community activists in Long Beach had hoped would help solve educational and legal challenges faced by Cambodian-American youths. Propositions 55 and 57 received a large number of votes on the same day as president-elect Donald Trump won the general election. Proposition 55 allows for an extension of income tax on those earning over $250,000 per year, with the funding planned for education and healthcare programs. Proposition 57 will increase sentencing credits for inmates who complete rehabilitation programs, allowing non-violent offenders to seek parole after completing their base sentences. Sophya Chhiv, program director at Khmer Girls in Action (KGA), which campaigned for the propositions, said the result would impact many in the community. And our community know those who have been incarcerated or who have dropped out of school or got kicked out of schools or who havent been able to go to higher education because of the education system. Chhiv blamed the public school system for not providing support to students who need it. The zero tolerance policy in Long Beach is actually pushing students out versus thinking about their future, she said. The drop out rate among Cambodian-Americans is high, while truancy rates are above 70 percent in some areas and more than half grow up in poverty, according to KGA. The state has the largest Cambodian-American population. Recent figures show that less than two-thirds of Cambodian-Americans have higher than a 9th grade education, with 41 percent failing to leave high school with a diploma, compared with 16 percent nationally, according to KGA. Fewer than one in ten have a degree. Proposition 57 also requires judges to decide whether juveniles should be tried in an adult court a decision previously left to prosecutors. Deportation is also common, with more than 30 percent of Cambodian youths in the United States reporting that they have a family member or know someone who was ejected from the country. The proposition could conceivably benefit about 25,000 non-violent felons, who could seek early release, activists say. Other propositions, such as proposition 63, which places more restrictions on gun sales, were also supported by Cambodian-Americans in Long Beach. We have a problem with guns and fear that they might fall into the hands of ISIS sympathizers thats why they want a background check on that, said Navan Cheth, a local activist. I voted for it and it won, too. Congressman Alan Lowenthal, a vocal opponent of Prime Minister Hun Sen, was re-elected to District 47. The Cambodian parliament on Friday agreed to hold a debate on a draft budget of more than $5 billion for 2017 that was drawn up in October. Leng Peng Long, National assembly spokesman, said the budget proposals would go to the floor of the assembly on Tuesday. National defense and security spending will increase by more than a fifth, to $822 million, while the Ministry of Economy and Finance will also receive a large hike of 13 percent, to $322 million. Preap Kol, executive director of Transparency International Cambodia, said the presence of opposition lawmakers, who have for months boycotted proceedings amid a tense political standoff, at the plenary session on Tuesday was crucial for transparency. Its good if the opposition party takes part in the debate. To make the debate meaningful, the ruling party should open their hearts and listen to opinions, he said. There should be adjustments or explanations if its necessary to reflect that the draft budget for 2017 would be used in prioritized sectors or meet the need of what the Cambodian people want, he added. The government declined to comment on whether the new money would come from further increasing the countrys debt. Yem Ponharith, CNRP spokesman, said: The national budget law for each country is very important because it involves the people, so the Cambodia National Rescue Party understands that this is an important law and the minority group would take part, discussing and providing ideas. A senior opposition official has made a plea for voters to register ahead of local elections planned for next year. The deadline for voter registration falls at the end of November. Speaking on Friday, Yim Sovann, Cambodia National Rescue Party spokesman, said more than 2 million people had yet to register. So our party would like to call on all of officials at the management level to immediately go [to communities]. From today on, we, especially members of commune councils, have to put in effort to ensure that everyone has registered. We cannot delay anymore, he said. He added that the party had asked the election committee to extend the registration period, but did not think the request would be granted. Sok Eysan, ruling Cambodian Peoples Party spokesman, said the CPP had banned some campaigning by the CNRP during the voter registration period because it was cheating people by spreading propaganda. We observe that they are pushing workers who have problems to register, telling them to go and register to make change, he said. That is opportunism. Hang Puthea, National Election Committee (NEC) spokesman, said there had been a lack of cooperation between the authorities and campaigners. If both parties could work together, no such problems would occur, he said. Since it was reformed following the last general election in 2013, the NEC has been busy drafting a new voter list. About 9.6 million people are eligible to vote. As of late last week, fewer than 7.5 million people had registered. Afghanistans new electoral commissioners were sworn in Tuesday, paving the way for long-delayed parliamentary and district council elections. President Ashraf Ghani and his governing partner in the so-called National Unity Government (NUG), Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, witnessed and addressed the swearing-in ceremony at Kabuls presidential palace. The appointments to Afghanistans Independent Election Commission (IEC) and Independent Election Complaints Commission (IECC) come after more than two years of political wrangling between the two leaders. A U.S.-brokered political deal between Ghani and Abdullah led to the formation of NUG in September 2014, ending months of political chaos stemming from the fraud-marred presidential elections that could not produce a clear mandate for the Afghan election rivals. Leadership positions The agreement allowed Ghani to take charge as president, while Abdullah was given the newly created office of chief executive. The political deal required the two leaders to reform the electoral system as soon as possible to ensure future parliamentary and regional elections in the war-hit country were free of controversy. President Ghani also removed IEC and IECC members responsible for organizing the controversial 2014 presidential polls. Abdullah blamed the two panels for favoring Ghani in the electoral process. Until now, persistent differences between Ghani and Abdullah over new appointments to the electoral commissions had blocked any progress toward much-needed electoral reforms. The stalemate forced the Afghan president to extend indefinitely the terms of national parliament and regional assemblies. On Tuesday, both leaders asserted the new commissioners were chosen after a long and transparent process of mutual consultations, saying it has now taken their political deal forward. To convene The newly elected national and provincial parliaments will be required to convene a mandatory joint session known as the Constitutional Jirga (assembly) for amending the constitution to decide whether to give legal cover to Abdullahs office and make him prime minister. The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) welcomed Tuesdays appointments to the electoral commissions, saying they signal a new phase in the rebuilding of trust in the electoral institutions and process. UNAMA encourages the commissions to work with all stakeholders in an inclusive, transparent and impartial manner, the missions office in Kabul said in a statement. The commissions have an important responsibility to establish a realistic electoral timeline in order to uphold the Afghan peoples constitutional right to participate in elections, it added and promised more technical support to the electoral process. Ghani and Abdullah have been under fire for taking a long time to introduce electoral reforms to end the country's political uncertainty. Political opponents have long blamed differences between the two Afghan leaders for recent battlefield advances by Taliban insurgents and for the rise in deadly militant violence across Afghanistan. Turkeys decades-long bid to join the European Union hangs increasingly in the balance as criticism grows over an ongoing crackdown following Julys failed coup; but, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is warning Brussels that Ankara is now ready to go its own way. The EU parliament is set to deal another blow to Ankaras membership aspirations, with the group Tuesday discussing a motion on whether to suspend talks. Opposition against President Erdogan seems reason enough for people to be arrested, prosecuted or sacked from their jobs, said Rebecca Harms, co-president of the parliament's Greens/EFA group in a statement ahead of the debate. The EU needs to send a strong message that he cannot continue in this vein and should freeze the accession negotiations. Observers say the EU parliament will likely vote in favor of suspension on Thursday. The vote is only advisory, but analysts say Turkeys EU bid is alive in name only. As Austria is openly against the continuation of the negotiations, they will veto any more progress on Turkeys bid, said Cengiz Aktar, a senior scholar at the Istanbul Policy Center. All in all, de facto Turkeys negotiations are over, but Turkeys rulers don't care. Erdogan's view Earlier this month, Erdogan called on the EU to make up its mind as to whether to continue with Turkey's membership bid, suggesting he was not bothered one way or another. Turkey must feel at ease," Erdogan told reporters on Sunday while flying back from a visit to Uzbekistan. "I must say for me it's not the European Union at all costs. That's my view." Turkey's future, he suggested, may lie in the East: I think if Turkey were to join the Shanghai Five, it will enable it to act with much greater ease. The Shanghai Five, now formally known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is primarily a security bloc made up of Russia, China, and the central Asian nations that include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang welcomed the idea of Turkish membership; but, analysts warn that Ankaras bid would almost inevitably be incompatible with Turkeys NATO membership aspirations. Turkeys pro-government media have been awash in positive discussions of possible SCO membership. However, analysts are questioning the viability of such a membership bid, given the Islamist roots of Turkey's ruling AK Party and the country's president. The top priority of the SCO is to prevent Islam from taking hold of any of its members," said Aktar. Domestic politics may be the driving force behind Erdogans statements. For him, the utmost priority is to design a campaign that would allow a large enough majority in Turkey to back the presidential system, said Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels. Erdogan for months has been courting Turkeys largest nationalist voting constituency ahead of an expected referendum on a presidential system early next year. Turkish warnings With Erdogan warning of a showdown with the EU by year's end, there is growing unease. Even Islamist commentators are expressing doubts," said Semih Idiz, a political columnist for the Al-Monitor website and Hurriyet daily newspaper. "They say it's good to show the EU we have alternatives, but they are aware that Turkey's future does not lie with an organization, one of whose essential objectives is keeping Islamic fundamentalism at bay. Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek also voiced concern earlier this month, warning Turkey would become a Third World country if its EU bid ended. In my last visit to Japan, many questioned whether Turkey would become severed from the EU," Simsek told an Istanbul business gathering. "If so, we will not be in Turkey. Forty-four percent of foreign direct investment in Turkey originate from EU countries, which also purchase 66 percent of Turkish exports. There is nothing to be gained from ending the negotiations over Turkey's EU bid, said Ulgen. An end to those negotiations would mean an end to Brussels' scrutiny of Turkish affairs. Erdogan has warned that the crackdown which began after Julys failed coup could last more than a year. On Tuesday, another 15,000 state workers were fired by decree, bringing to 110,000 the total number of people removed from their jobs since the introduction of emergency rule. Erdogan is also pressing to reinstate the death penalty, which Brussels has warned would automatically lead to a suspension of talks. Columnist Idiz warns a break with the EU would have far-reaching consequences for Turkey, threatening to end its nearly two-century-long orientation toward Europe. If Turkey did move in that direction, it would represent (a) deterioration economically, politically (and) socially, because the landmark benchmarks would no longer exist," he said. "We would not know what the direction of this country would be. We would not have the anchor (that) the EU and the relationship with Europe have provided for quite a long time." Ignoring international appeals, Bangladesh is holding to its decision to bar Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing Myanmar by boat after new sectarian violence broke out in the Buddhist-majority country. As a military lockdown in northwestern Myanmar's Rakhine state stretches into a second month, hundreds of Rohingya people have sought to illegally cross over to neighboring Bangladesh. The United Nations last week said 30,000 people, mostly Muslim Rohingya, have been displaced and rights groups estaimate more than 80 have been killed during the crackdown. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) urged Myanmar to take all measures to protect civilians in Rakhine. We are also appealing to the government of Bangladesh to keep its border with Myanmar open and allow safe passage to any civilians from Myanmar fleeing violence, UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said in Geneva last week. However, Bangladesh border guards said they have been ordered bar any Rohingya from entering Bangladesh. In the past six weeks we have pushed back dozens of Rohingya-laden boats before they could reach Bangladeshi territory. We have been intercepting two or three such boats every day. They all are being sent back toward Myanmar, Lt Col Abuzar Al Zahid, commanding officer of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) in southeastern Bangladesh, told VOA. Still, local people in the Bangladesh border town of Teknaf told VOA that a few hundred Rohingya have managed to sneak across the border. The latest round of tension broke out in Rakhine, where most Rohingya live in Myanmar, after armed men attacked border guard posts and killed nine policemen on October 9. Army accused of abuses Blaming the attack on Rohingya militants, the Myanmar army locked down Rohingya villages. Since then, the army has been accused of human rights abuses against the Rohingya, including extrajudicial killings, rapes and arson. During the crackdown the army used helicopter gunships, reportedly leaving dozens of Rohingya killed. Different independent groups have put the death toll at 150 to 300, but there are no means to verify these claims. The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch group said Monday that by using satellite imagery it had identified 1,250 houses or buildings that had been destroyed in Rakhine. Teknaf tourist guide Foizullah, who like many Rohingya uses only one name, said that from his town he saw flames and smoke in Rohingya areas in Maungdaw, on the other side of the Naf River. We spoke to some Rohingya people who came from that side and they said that the houses of the community were being torched by the security forces almost every day, Foizullah told VOA. I know, at least 400 Rohingya men, women and children entered Bangladesh Sunday. This is also a fact that Bangladeshi border guards are pushing back Rohingya boats every day. Bangladeshs home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that the ongoing violence in Myanmar is a cause of discomfort for his country. However, we have kept our BGB, Coast Guard and police prepared to thwart any infiltration attempt by the Rohingya people from Myanmar, Kamal said Sunday. Rights groups have criticized Bangladeshs ban on the Rohingya boatpeople. 'Sluggish' international response C. R. Abrar, president of the human rights group Odhikar in Dhaka, said if Bangladesh follows its constitution, it cannot deny refuge to the Rohingya. Bangladesh should open its border for the fleeing Rohingya people on humanitarian ground, Abrar said. He heads the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) at the University of Dhaka. The international communities have been sluggish in initiating action to act on the issue involved of the Rohingya. In the absence of such global pressure on Myanmar the situation for the Rohingya in the country is worsening, he said. Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director of Human Rights Watch, said the displaced Rohingya are facing serious deprivation with international food aid and other assistance being blocked by authorities in Myanmar. The Bangladesh government should recognize this critical humanitarian urgency of this situation and permit Rohingya fleeing to cross the border to safety. These poor people literally have nowhere to go, they are between the devil and the deep blue sea and Bangladesh is their only way out, Robertson told VOA. The Bangladesh government also needs to demand that Burma cease its policies of discrimination and persecution of the Rohingya, so this crisis of people fleeing Rakhine state can finally stop. Burma Campaign UK director Mark Farmaner said that Bangladesh is effectively sentencing Rohingya to death by refusing them entry. They are fleeing violations of international law and Bangladesh has a responsibility to help. The international community should be pressuring Bangladesh to open its borders and accept international aid being offered to help Rohingya refugees, Farmaner told VOA. Cameroon has cautiously reopened its border with Nigeria, launching business activity three years after the border was closed due to Boko Haram atrocities. The central African state says although business with Nigeria has been relaunched because Boko Haram attacks have fallen off during the past two years, all business persons traveling to Nigeria and back must be screened and escorted. Hundreds of merchants have returned to the Limani border market in the Far North region in Cameroon. They are once again selling and buying with their Nigerian peers. The secretary-general of Nigeria's Gambari Ngara market, Alhadji Bakari Balje, says they made the decision to reopen because Boko Haram attacks and atrocities have come to an end and they must restart business activity between the two countries. "We thank God that things will be okay now because this place is a revenue generating place for both Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad," said Bakari Balje. "And we can't allow room for manipulation just because of that small remnant of Boko Haram to exercise their power over us. Boko Haram has already been defeated. What remains is only remnants of it." Good news for population Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of the Far North region of Cameroon, says endemic poverty and misery in the region, whose population is mainly merchants and farmers, will be reduced. But, he says, movement of people and goods will be controlled. He says merchants and transporters can now leave Maiduguri, the largest city of Nigeria's Borno state. He says he has instructed that systematic controls be carried out on every vehicle because he is aware that Boko Haram fighters may want to traffic arms and dangerous weapons. He says the opening of the border does not mean there is going to be the free movement of goods and people because there will be permanent controls. General Jacob Kodji, one of the commanders of Cameroon troops fighting the Boko Haram insurgency, says although the militants have not staged a full scale attack with heavy weapons for about a year now, the military is ready to protect the population. Border surveillance He says the border is stable under their care and they are very vigilant following reports of many Boko Haram fighters escaping from the group and hiding in villages. He says one week ago, the insurgents attacked many villages and a few military positions but no one was hurt or kidnapped and that they did not even succeed in stealing. It is expected that with the opening of the border, business and other economic activity will be revived in the region even though concerns about the lives and safety of the people still remain. Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less. Thousands of people died during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, but as memories fade and concerns about future outbreaks of that magnitude subside, health care specialists say the danger is not completely over. While the worst affected countries - Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone - have been declared free of the deadly virus, there have been some minor flare-ups. The virus can hang around in the bodies of people whove survived Ebola and can then be spread to other people and start new outbreaks... In fact there have been seven clusters of Ebola since the epidemic was controlled: three in Liberia, three in Sierra Leone and one that started in Guinea, said Dr. Barb Marston of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, director of the CDC's office for Ebola -affected countries. Dr. Marston told VOA, Our biggest focus in those three countries is on activities related to surveillance, laboratories and building human capacity. ... Right now we have a team of between 50 and 60; thats counting Americans who are permanently stationed in the three countries plus some locally employed staff and also some staff [from] CDC traveling there temporarily to assist." Cooperation across borders This kind of cooperation has proven to be helpful in dealing with the latest minor outbreaks, says the CDC's Liberia country director, Dr. Desmond Williams. "In March we had a case again in a remote part in Guinea. One of the contacts from that family moved down to the capital city of Liberia, Monrovia," Dr. Williams said. "But because the two governments were ready this time, we were able to limit that outbreak to 13 infected people and nine people dead." Dr. Williams told VOA the agencys field epidemiology program has trained significant number of surveillance officers in Liberia, at the national, county and district levels, but the most important work has been developing laboratory capacity, so health care workers are able to diagnose Ebola infections rapidly. The number of health care workers in Liberia was already low before the epidemic, but the situation is worse now, since scores of medical staff died after contracting Ebola. Dr. Marston said health workers must feel safe at their workplaces, so they have to be able to protect themselves from the virus. One of the important things we are really focused on is helping health care workers understand how to take care of [Ebola] patients," she said. "That involves identifying people who might have infections early, triaging them appropriately, managing them carefully." Warnings about bushmeat Dr. Williams said another important lesson learned from the outbreak was the need to have community participation and support. He warns against the risks posed by bushmeat, meat from wild animals and birds, which was banned during the epidemic but is now back in the market place. Bushmeat is an issue," he said. "Its actually a bigger issue for the person whos preparing the meat, because that person is going to be in contact with the body fluids of that animal." Ebola is not spread by food, according to the CDC, but some human infections have been associated with hunting. Infections also come from processing meat from infected animals, both domesticated and wild. As the world focuses on other threats, hospitals in the U.S. are not sitting on their hands. Dr. Colleen Kraft is with Emory University hospital, which treated four U.S. patients infected with the Ebola virus. She recalled some of those moments. "The day varied depending on the severity of the illness. On a day where the patient was recovering and doing well, it was a lot less anxiety and tension," Dr. Kraft said. "At the height of the critical illness of our third patient, Dr. Ian Crozier, those days were very intense." Dr. Crozier, a physician from Emory who contracted a severe case of Ebola in West Africa, has recovered after months of treatment. US hospitals' preparedness Dr. Kraft says all her current work is associated with Ebola, something she would not have expected earlier in her career. Nebraska, Emory and Bellevue (hospitals) are all in one group called NETEC, which is the national Ebola and training education center," she told VOA. "Essentially we are tasked with training, educating, exercising and visiting every hospital in the U.S. that is preparing to take care of a patient with the Ebola virus. "So we are now spending a lot of our time working on preparedness. Just like our hospital spent 10 years preparing, we are now doing it for others." Not everyone who contracted Ebola died, but the survivors have suffered, too. Like Sekou Kondiano, from Guinea, and his spouse, whose lives were shattered financially. Since I got out of the hospital," Kondiano said, "it has taken me a year to get my strength back, and the little savings we had are gone. Another lesson learned from the outbreak, Dr. Williams said, is that that without health there is no development. "It was scary driving around the capital cities of Freetown (Sierra Leone) and Monrovia and seeing very little going on. All business and commercial activities ceased. But I think all the countries are looking into ways in which they can improve their GDP output again." Affected countries and organizations around the world dedicated unprecedented resources to combat the deadliest outbreak in history. But continuing watchfulness for new infections, efficient and rapid tracing of all of an infected patients contacts, and good laboratory science are some of the main factors that are key to successfully controlling future outbreaks. Three Indian soldiers were killed on the de-facto border between India and Pakistan in the heavily disputed region of Kashmir Tuesday, according to army officials. The Indian army called the attack "cowardly" and threatened "retribution" in a tweet. Multiple army sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the attackers crossed the border from the Pakistani side to launch the attack. Heavy cross-border firing and shelling followed the attack at several posts in Machil sector. There was no immediate comment from Pakistan, which reported that four of its soldiers were killed in a cross-border attack the day before. Clashes between the rival nuclear-armed nations in the divided Kashmir region have become routine in recent weeks, causing civilian and army casualties on both sides. Islamabad and New Delhi blame each other for firing the first shot in violation of a 2003 cease-fire deal in the Himalayan region. Military tensions have raised fears of a wider conflict between them as a bilateral peace dialogue remains suspended. Republicans and other long-time opponents of an international nuclear agreement with Iran have walked back calls to scrap the deal and are now urging the incoming Trump administration to stiffen it rather than unravel what President-elect Trump once termed as "the worst deal ever negotiated. With Iran and European allies imploring the new administration to honor the accord that restricted Irans nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, fear is growing that a unilateral withdrawal from the deal would leave the U.S. internationally isolated and might even push Tehran to reinstate its suspected nuclear weapons program. That fear is shared by the deals critics. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank in Washington, was an early supporter of the stop the Iran nuclear deal campaign and pressed members of Congress last year to block it. While it remains critical of what it sees as a dangerous and flawed agreement, it now opposes rescinding it. There are risks of the U.S. withdrawing, said Orde Kittrie, a senior fellow at the foundation and a professor of law at Arizona State University. If the U.S. withdraws from the deal, Iran would feel free to cast off the restrictions on its nuclear program. It would be very hard to reinstate the sanctions. U.S. allies would be very upset. No legal reason... Legally, the new president will have the authority to simply walk away from the pact, legal scholars say. The deal was deliberately structured not as a treaty but as a non-binding international agreement, and the U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed it does not require its members to abide by it. There would not be any direct international legal consequences if the U.S. were to change its view, said Edward Swaine, a law professor at George Washington University and a former counselor on international law at the U.S. State Department. Another early critic of the deal was Eliot Cohen, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University and a former State Department official known for his hawkish foreign policy views. Cohen said he was not in favor of the Iran deal, but he now opposes its abandonment. If the president wanted to (rescind the agreement), yes, the president can do that but a normal president would not do that just because of all the expectations of our allies... he said on Wednesday at a conference sponsored by the Middle East Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. Congressional opponents have walked back from calls to kill the deal altogether. After failing to block the agreement last year, Republican members of Congress are now pushing for tighter restrictions on Iran on top of renewing non-nuclear related sanctions dating back to the 1990s. I dont think there is going to be a push to throw this deal out the window, Kittrie said. My sense is youre going to have a push from Congress to implement the deal vigorously and to basically push back against Iranian mischief in the region. 'Worst of backroom deals' The agreement, signed by Iran and six major world powers, imposed severe curbs on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting crippling international sanctions releasing billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets. The Obama administration and other proponents of the deal argue it will restrict Irans ability to build a nuclear bomb for the next 10 to 15 years. President-elect Trump and other critics say the U.S. made too many concessions and received no guarantee that Iran will not pursue its nuclear ambitions or run roughshod in the Middle East. The concern that Trump intends to "rip up" the deal dates back to comments he made last year on NBC's "Meet the Press." Though he called the deal "horrible" and said it could lead to a "nuclear holocaust," he equivocated when asked whether it would survive a Trump administration. Its very hard to say. Were ripping it up," he said. Like other deals he's inherited, he said he'd "police that contract so tough that they don't have a chance." Trumps national security appointees are among Irans harshest critics in foreign policy circles and have taken a similar stance. Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo, named on Friday to head the Central Intelligence Agency, has called the agreement the worst of backroom deals, and claimed that it raises the risk of allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. Michael Flynn, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency who was appointed as Trumps National Security Advisor, has strongly come out against it. Rather than abandoning an agreement that U.S. allies support and Iran is widely believed to be complying with, Orde Kittrie of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said, the Trump Administration will likely toughen its stance against Iran, demanding more intrusive inspections of the country's nuclear program and take steps to rein in "Iranian mischief outside the nuclear program." Iran's quandary Iran has rejected calls to renegotiate the deal and its foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, last week urged Trump to honor it saying, it's not a bilateral agreement "for one side to be able to scrap." Ali Akbar Velayati, the top foreign policy advisor to Irans supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, echoed Khameneis tough stance: If the administration pulls out of the agreement, Iran will set it afire, he said in comments Wednesday by Irans official news agency. A U.S. withdrawal from the agreement will present Iran with a conundrum. On the one hand, Iran can resume its nuclear enrichment program, arguing that the deal does not have the force of law with one of its signatories out. On the other hand, Iran has reaped vast economic benefits from the lifting of international sanctions and may decide to stick with the agreement in order to expand its ties with Europe, Russia and China. The Iranians will have to decide whether the European markets are worth it or one could imagine Iran simply saying, The deal is off, and well unwind all the way back to where we were five, six years ago, said Duncan Hollis, an international law professor at Temple University. Monday's suicide bombing of a Shiite mosque in Kabul is yet another indicator of Islamic State's expanding terror activities in parts of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, government officials and analysts say. IS, which claimed responsibility for the bombing, is expanding its presence in several districts of Afghanistan, including eastern Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan, officials say. And in Pakistan, authorities say recent arrests of IS members in several parts of Pakistan show the group is establishing a foothold in that country. With IS under siege from a coalition of forces in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist group is looking for safer havens elsewhere, experts say. As IS has found itself increasingly on the defensive in the Middle East, it seems to be looking for new areas to carve out a presence," said Michael Kugleman, an analyst at the Wilson Center, a global policy research group. The Afghanistan-Pakistan region, where it already has a light footprint, appears to be one of the targets. By targeting Shiite minority members in Afghanistan, IS is trying to create divisions between Shiites and the Sunni majority in Afghanistan, analysts say. Mosques now military training centers Last month, IS gunmen stormed Kabul's Kart-e Sakhi shrine and opened fire on Shiite mourners, killing 19 of them. IS has killed dozens of religious scholars it deems as the enemy or repugnant to its extremist brand of Islam, local Afghan officials told VOA. IS has been reported using mosques as military centers. IS has turned at least 60 mosques in five districts of Nangarhar into military training centers, Abdul Zahir Haqqani, director of religious affairs in Nangarhar, told VOA's Afghan service. The imams have fled to Jalalabad, Nangarhar's capital city, Haqqani added. IS also has launched multiple attacks on Afghan police checkposts and villages in recent months, it has imposed taxes on agriculture activities in areas it controls, and it has been cutting down trees in some parts of the province in a timber-smuggling operation to neighboring Pakistan. The governor of southern Zabul province said IS is getting stronger and, in some areas, has taken over rival Taliban positions. In some areas white flags [Talibans] have been replaced by black flags [ISs] this is a major threat and we have shared our concerns with the central government," Zabul governor Bismillah Afghanmal told Radio Liberty. According to the head of the provincial council in Zabul, IS has established military bases in at least four districts of the province. Islamic State expands recruiting Officials in central Ghazni province, which borders Zabul, told VOA that IS has been recruiting in three districts. The situation in these areas is worrisome fighters from Uzbekistan have settled along with their families in some remote mountainous areas and have been trying to recruit locals into their ranks," Khaleqdad Akbari, head of the provincial council in Ghazni, told VOA. IS launched its operation in the AF-Pak region in early 2015 after establishing bases in remote eastern border areas of Afghanistan. The group calls Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of Iran its so-called Islamic State of Khorasan Province, and allegedly takes orders from leaders in Syria. Pakistani officials say that they have arrested hundreds of IS operatives from different cities within the past two years, but they insist the Middle Eastern group has no organized presence in Pakistan. Eight militants captured Authorities in Pakistan last week said they captured a group of eight militants in Lahore, operating at the behest of IS. An IS militant was killed last week during a police raid in Murree city, near Islamabad. And IS claimed responsibility for an attack on a shrine in Baluchistan province this month that killed more than 50 people. According to a Pakistani newspaper, The News, at least 14 Pakistanis traveled last month to Syria to join IS. Former interior minister, Senator Rahman Malik, told VOA that IS has been present in Pakistan since 2014 and has been increasing as a terrorist force. They have gained the "ability" to strike targets, he said. The U.S. is taking aim at an Islamic State terror group operative thought to have played a key role in launching the terror attacks on both Paris and Brussels. On Tuesday, the State Department sanctioned Abdelilah Himich, a Moroccan-born Frenchman thought to be based out of Syria. Himich, also known as Abu Sulayman al-Firansi, founded the Tariq Ibn Ziyad Battalion, a cell of up to 300 European foreign fighters that had been active in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. The State Department also identified Himich as a key figure in the November 2015 Paris terror attack that left 130 dead, as well as the March 2016 bombing in Brussels that killed 32. This past October, a U.S. counterterrorism official told ProPublica an independent, nonprofit news organization that produces investigative public interest journalism that Himich played a key role in the attacks. "We believe he is one of the top guys involved in spearheading the Paris attack and the Brussels attacks," the official said. "He was involved in creating that infrastructure." Several IS defectors have also identified Himich as the leader of IS operations in Europe. According to the Counter Extremism Project, Himich joined the French Foreign Legion in 2008 and served in Afghanistan before deserting two years later. Others sanctioned The State Department also sanctioned two other IS officials Tuesday Abdullah Ahmed al-Meshedani and Basil Hassan. Meshedani is a senior adviser to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He is also responsible for managing foreign fighters who have made their way to Syria and Iraq, and for transporting suicide bombers. Hassan, an IS operations planner, had been in Turkish custody but was released as part of a deal to free 49 hostages. He had also been accused in the shooting of Danish author and journalist Lars Hedegaard. U.S. officials have touted sanctions as a key tool in combating IS, as they deny IS members access to the U.S. financial system. Some 18,000 former refugees have poured into the Somali city of Kismayo this year, with most struggling to find adequate shelter, food, health care and jobs. Abdullahi Mohamed, a former refugee in his 20s, is hoping he can buck the trend. Unlike most other youths, he's received training with a local mechanic at a Kismayo garage. "At least here I have got something to learn and do," he says. "Back in Dadaab camp [in Kenya], I was not able to get an opportunity like this one I have here today." His training, originally scheduled to end in a month, has been extended through February. A U.S.-based non-governmental organization, the American Refugee Council, is sponsoring job training for returnees like Mohamed so they can get the skills they need to support themselves and help Somali society. Just as important, the ARC and local authorities want to keep youngsters away from Islamist militant groups that continue to operate in the still unstable country. Some of the youths who are returning are high school graduates, with the science knowledge they have, al-Shabab may take advantage of them and use them and teach them how to make explosives," says Abdi Ibrahim Abdi Barre, the deputy mayor of Kismayo. "Young people are vulnerable. If they are not provided with the skills, education and materials they need to pursue their goals, then people will take advantage of them." The influx of former refugees began when Kenyan authorities signaled they were serious about closing down the Dadaab refugee camp, which, at the time, was home to more than 300,000 people, most of them Somalis. According to the United Nations refugee agency, at least 34,000 Somalis have returned home since the repatriation process began. Most came back to nothing, complaining of a lack of essential services. ARC works with business owners in Kismayo to provide returnees with job skills needed in the market. Shafii Ali, 20, is one of the beneficiaries. He is learning how to make window frames. In the training center, I learn how to make window frames and install the glasses. In the beginning, I was thinking its not possible to learn the skill. I am happy now, and I know how to make one,." he says. Three months into the training, Ali is looking into the future.When I complete my training at this center I would like to have my own workshop. And also to help by teaching the skills to the young people who are returning to the country from Dadaab, he says. Mohamed says its time for him and other youths to forget the lives in the camp and build a better life in their country. Those youths who are coming back, it's time for them to work and depend on themselves. Its time for them and me to leave the life of refugee where they depended on others to help them. It's time to start working and building something for ourselves." Abdi Barre noted the society should be involved in shaping the future of its youth. Our opportunities are limited but want, we all do agree is that these youths need to show the right direction. They cannot be left alone. We can provide education and create jobs. For this to succeed everyone should be involved. We should not leave this to the aid agencies alone. Lebanese soldiers marched in formation and helicopters flew overheard in a military parade in central Beirut Tuesday headed by the newly elected president, the first such celebration in two years, to mark the country's Independence Day. Armored vehicles and tanks rolled down a major thoroughfare in downtown Beirut, soldiers on horseback marched to military tunes, and a choir performed national songs while organizers released balloons in the colors of the Lebanese flag. President Michel Aoun watched from a grandstand, sitting between his new prime minister designate, parliament speaker and head of the caretaker government. The Lebanese parliament elected 83-year-old Aoun, a former general, as president last month, ending a two-and-half-year deadlock that left Lebanon without a president. The breakthrough, which ended months of a government paralysis, enabled the Tuesday celebrations and raised hopes that a new Cabinet can also be assembled by Tuesday. But Premier-designate Saad Hariri said he is still facing obstacles bringing together a line-up that balances Lebanon's delicate sectarian-based political system. The one obstructing is known. Ask him, Hariri told reporters as he left the presidential palace Monday. Hariri didn't name names, but local media has reported the struggle between Hariri and Aoun on one side and powerful Shiite parliament speaker Nabih Berri over the government line-up. At stake is the distribution of so-called sovereign ministries, including the Defense Ministry. The political parties are also bickering over amending the current election law which divides seats among the different religious sects. The current parliament has failed to amend the law, and has extended its mandate twice amid criticism. New elections are scheduled for May 2017. According to the agreement that brought an end to the 15-year civil war in 1990, Lebanon's president must be a Maronite Christian, the premier a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shiite. The government must reflect each sects' respective power, an often daunting task that is worked out mostly in backdoor bargaining among the country's traditionally fragmented politicians. Meanwhile, the civil war raging in neighboring Syria for nearly six years has highlighted the fault lines in Lebanon, as different groups have allied with rival sides in the conflict. Many fear the spillover from Syria would undo years of relative stability in this country of 4.5 million. A Christian leader and strong ally of the Shiite Hezbollah group, Aoun was elected by parliament as president on October 31, after Hariri endorsed him, ending the longstanding deadlock between the old-time foes. Hariri is a longtime critic of Syria and of Hezbollah's support, with hundreds of fighters, for the Syrian government in that country's ongoing war. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Hariri and opponent of Syria's government, recently halted a $3 billion arms deal with Lebanon, a decision linked to the kingdom's tensions with Iran. Iran and Hezbollah support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In an Independence Day speech Monday evening, Aoun urged Lebanese to protect their unity against the region's instability. The tension in the region caused fissures in national unity, and the Lebanese started to feel that their stability is endangered, particularly given the limitation of the armed forces capabilities in the face of imminent dangers, Aoun said. In this situation, reinforcing national unity becomes of extreme necessity and a priority. President Peter Mutharika, in his national address Monday to Malawians, said his country has now acquired enough food to feed nearly half of the country's population in need of food assistance. This is his second address to the nation since May. Many Malawians had asked the president mostly through social media to address the challenges facing the country. Malawi is facing many challenges, including drug shortages in public hospitals, corruption and food insecurity. Its economy declined 6.2 percent in 2014, to 3.2 percent in 2015. Recent statistics show it will decline another 2.8 percent in 2016. Weather has not helped Speaking on state-run media, Mutharika said Malawians should not panic because all the measures are in place to address the challenges. I know the pain most of us have been feeling. I also understand there is impatience to get out of the challenges because the nation has suffered in poverty for many years, Mutharkia said. Ladies and gentleman, the challenges we are facing are not insurmountable; with unity and purpose, we can overcome them." Malawi is experiencing its worst food insecurity problem in a decade. Experts say this is largely because of the El Nino weather phenomenon, which caused drought and floods that affected crops over the past two years. A recent report from the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee shows that 6.7 million Malawians are in dire need of food assistance. This is nearly half of Malawi's population. Mutharika said no Malawian will die of hunger. "We have bought enough maize and other food stuffs to be given for free to the poorest and most vulnerable people who cannot afford to buy food," he said. Solution has two parts The president said the government and its development partners have developed a nearly $400 million food insecurity plan to guide the response program from 2016 to 2017. The response has two modalities, Mutharika said. In-kind food transfer, targeting 4,751,862 people, and cash transfers, targeting 1,734,806 people." Mutharika said his government is working with development partners to address the drug shortage problems and end corruption in the country. Police in the southern U.S. city of Chattanooga, Tennessee arrested a school bus driver after a crash Monday that killed at least six children. Authorities said the bus was carrying 35 students from an elementary school when it turned on its side and wrapped around a tree. The driver has been charged with vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher said there were no other vehicles involved in the crash, and that investigators were looking at speed "very, very strongly" as a factor. "Our hearts go out, as well as the hearts of all these people behind me, to the families, the neighborhood, the school, for all the people involved in this, we assure you we are doing everything we can,'' Fletcher said at a news conference. Twenty-three children were brought to hospitals, officials said. Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston told media outlets that five children died at the scene and one died at a hospital. A Yemeni man living in New York City was arrested and charged Monday for trying to support Islamic State, including voicing support for a terrorist attack in Times Square. Authorities say Mohamed Naji, a 37-year-old permanent U.S. resident, traveled to Turkey and Yemen in the last year in an attempt to fight for Islamic State. In a statement Monday, the U.S. Justice Department said Naji claimed his allegiance to Islamic State while in Yemen in March 2015, stating "I belong to Islamic State only." The Justice Department said Naji continued to express his support for Islamic State and violent jihad after returning to the United States months later. Officials say a law enforcement informant made contact with Naji on Facebook and met with him on several occasions, in which he recorded their conversations. In one conversation in July, Naji allegedly expressed support for the truck attack which had just taken place in Nice, France, and voiced support for staging a similar attack in Times Square, New York. Ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has had his life sentence overturned by Egypts top appeals court Tuesday, in the second of three convictions. Egypts top appeals court threw out the second of two life sentences against former President Morsi Tuesday, in a conviction on espionage charges involving the Palestinian Hamas group. A death sentence against Morsi was overturned by the same court last week. Sentences against several associates were also quashed. The former president and his associates will be retried in the two cases that were overturned. He must still serve a 20 year sentence on a conviction for responsibility in the illegal torture and detention of protesters outside the presidential palace in 2012. The sentence in that case was confirmed earlier this year. 2013 arrest President Morsi was arrested after being ousted by the Egyptian military on June 30, 2013. He was detained after refusing an ultimatum to hold a popular referendum over his rule in the wake of large protests. The most serious charges against the former president involve transmitting secret government documents to the Gulf state of Qatar. Qatar was a close ally and supporter of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood group. Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksoud, a lawyer for the now outlawed group, told the French press agency (AFP) that he believes the appeals courts decision Tuesday to quash the life sentence against Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders was fair, since the (initial) verdict was full of legal flaws. Egyptian political sociologist Said Sadek tells VOA that he thinks the softening of the punishment meted out to top Muslim Brotherhood leaders may be tied to the new international climate following the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president: (The court ruling) comes at a time when the (Egyptian) government feels emboldened by the election of President Trump, so they feel now that they are strong enough to do whatever they want, as long as it doesnt lead to any provocations, he said. Sadek does not believe, however, that the series of retrials of top Muslim Brotherhood leaders will lead to an outright acquittal, any time soon: The legitimacy of (President Abdel Fattah al Sissis) regime depends on fighting terrorism, so acquitting Muslim Brotherhood leaders would be counter-productive to this strategy, for the time being, he said. President Sissi has the right to pardon those convicted by the Egyptian judiciary, and some analysts have told VOA recently that they think the Muslim Brotherhood may be seeking some form of de-escalation with the government, now that it feels that international developments are going against it. U.S. President-elect Trump has vowed to step up the fight against Islamic terrorism and several of his close advisors have called the Muslim Brotherhood the mother of all terrorist organizations. Human Rights Watch wants the Afghan government to do more to protect minority Shiites after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a mosque in Kabul Monday, killing dozens of people gathered for a religious ceremony. The attack, carried out by Islamic State militants, on the Arbaein ceremony is the latest in a string of attacks that has left more than 500 Shi'ite Muslims dead in Afghanistan since July. ISIS has stepped up its horrific and unlawful attacks on Shia public gatherings, making no place safe, Human Rights Watch senior Afghanistan researcher Patricia Gossman said in a statement. She called on the Afghan government and community leaders to step up their efforts to ensure safety for Shiite Muslims, who make up between 10 to 15 percent of the Afghan population. Insurgents who are responsible for atrocities targeting a specific ethnic or religious community as part of an attack on a civilian population are committing crimes against humanity, she said. Another rights group, Amnesty International, also released a statement condemning the bombing Monday, calling it a horrific and deliberate attack on civilians. [The Afghan authorities] have a duty to take effective measures to protect Shi'a Muslims from attacks and end impunity for previous abuses against the Shi'a community, it said. The attack Monday, which killed at least 32 and left 64 others injured, took place as people gathered to celebrate Arbaein, the end of a 40-day mourning period after Ashura. The Pentagon says a U.S. drone strike in northwestern Syria last week killed a senior al-Qaida leader with ties to terrorist groups operating across wide swaths of southwest Asia. A Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday the strike targeted Egyptian national Abu Afghan al-Masri on November 18, near the town of Sarmada, 50 kilometers west of Aleppo. "He has been on our radar for some time," said spokesman Peter Cook, who also said al-Masri had direct links to extremists responsible for attacking U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan. He further described al-Masri as later joining a Syrian affiliate and said he also plotted attacks on the West. Meanwhile, monitors in and near the embattled city of Aleppo reported Russia-backed Syrian forces and their Shi'ite Hezbollah allies pushing deeper into opposition-occupied neighborhoods, as they press an offensive to recapture the rebel-held city. Continuous bombardment The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said warplanes and helicopters bombed two key neighborhoods for an eighth straight day. A spokesman placed the death toll at 27 civilians in the past two days from airstrikes and artillery, and warned that casualty figures were near certain to rise. The observatory has tallied 143 civilian deaths, including 19 children, since the latest government assault began last week. At the United Nations Monday, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said monitors have confirmed nearly 300 people killed in eastern Aleppo in recent days, and said one Syrian volunteer had reported 180 airstrikes on Saturday alone. "The reality is that the regime [of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] and Russia are continuing their 'starve, get bombed or surrender' strategy in eastern Aleppo," she said. Power also scoffed at a two-week Russian bombing lull touted by Moscow earlier this month, calling it a "unilateral" exercise in which the Kremlin failed to coordinate with U.N. relief workers or other organizations trying to get emergency aid to Aleppo's war-ravaged civilians. 'Takes your breath away' In a separate critique, U.N. special envoy Stephen O'Brien told the U.N. Security Council that Syrian-Russian airstrikes on civilian infrastructure, "most notably hospitals and schools, have become so commonplace it takes your breath away." Moscow and Damascus have routinely described the fight against rebels in eastern Aleppo as a battle against terrorists, despite the sector's vast civilian population trapped in the city and described by witnesses as largely too fearful to flee. Both governments have used that characterization to justify the deadly and apparently indiscriminate bombings in eastern Aleppo that began in September. Western governments and the United Nations have framed the Aleppo onslaught as a vast humanitarian crisis, with diplomats and human rights organizations arguing that both Damascus and Moscow could face future war crimes inquiries for their roles in the destruction of eastern Aleppo. Fighting between Turkish-backed rebels in northern Syria and the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), earmarked by the United States to retake Raqqa from Islamic State (IS) militants, is escalating dramatically. The intensifying clashes are complicating Washingtons bid to use Kurdish-led forces to launch a full-scale assault on the jihadists self-proclaimed Syrian capital, and are maneuvering the U.S. and Turkey into ever greater cross-purposes in Syria, fear Western diplomats and analysts. Battlefield success More than 40 villages controlled by IS have fallen to the Kurdish-led forces since the launch on November 6 of Euphrates Wrath, a Washington-conceived operation involving the SDF pressing IS in the countryside north of Raqqa ahead of an assault on the city. Some analysts question whether the SDF has the capability to overrun Raqqa but Pentagon spokesmen insist the SDF has been effective whenever it encounters IS and that it is capable of taking the city. A former commander of Western-backed Arab rebel militias, Gen. Salim Idris, told VOA he thinks the SDF could take the city. That is if they get enough U.S. air power, he said. The U.S. has been supporting the SDF with weapons and airstrikes and has deployed hundreds of special forces and military advisers to assist the Kurdish-led forces that also include Turkmen and Arab militias considered renegades by many mainstream Arab rebel militias, many of which have also received U.S. support in the past. US strategy U.S. war planners hope that by pressing IS in Raqqa simultaneously as Iraqi forces are attacking Mosul, the terror groups last remaining major urban stronghold in neighboring Iraq, the jihadists resources and manpower will be stretched thin, weakening their ability to defend either city and hastening their fall. But clashes between Arab Syrian rebels who have been battling to oust the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the SDF, which is dominated by the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of a separatist Syrian Kurdish party, have intensified dramatically the past few days, aggravating already strained relations between Washington and Ankara and undermining the push on Raqqa as well as complicating a multi-player battlefield thats threatening to get even messier. Turkey opposes the use of the SDF in an assault on Raqqa, an Arab majority city. SDF forces are now poised 28 kilometers from Raqqas city center. Erdogan opposes use of Kurdish fighters Speaking at a NATO forum in Istanbul Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan upped his criticism of the U.S. for its use of the YPG, which Turkey insists is inseparable from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), with which Ankara is locked in a vicious counter-insurgency fight in south-east Turkey that has seen widespread rights abuses, according to monitors. U.S. officials prefer to view Syrias Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its YPG military wing as separate from the PKK. Erdogan argued it was wrong to treat one terrorist as good for fighting other terrorist organizations. And using an Arab acronym for IS, he added: We expect your support for the struggle we are giving against all terrorist organizations, first and foremost Daesh and the PKK that act jointly against humanitys common values. Turkish officials say Erdogan raised his objections to U.S. backing of the Kurdish-dominated SDF in a phone conversation last week with president-elect Donald Trump. Trump has said he wants to improve relations with Ankara but he has also indicated frequently he sees the defeat of IS as the top priority when it comes to Syria and Iraq. Turks continue to target Kurd forces Turkish military officials confirmed Monday that their own military operations in support of anti-Assad rebels will continue to target both IS and the U.S.s Kurdish ally. Turkey fears that Syrian Kurds are determined to carve out an independent state in northern Syria, and its Euphrates Shield operation, which began in late August, is aimed as much against preventing the emergence of a Kurdish state in Syria as combating IS. Euphrates Shield already appears to have gone a long way to undermine the hopes of the Kurds to link all four of their cantons along that run along the Turkey-Syria border - an offensive move, the Kurds say, aimed at denying their legitimate aspirations for self-determination. In a statement Turkish military officials said their warplanes overnight Monday hit 17 IS targets and 11 Kurdish ones, including command-and-control centers and vehicles. About another 60 IS positions were targeted by Turkish artillery, they claim. Clashes between Syrian Arab rebels and the YPG have spread across much of northern Syria but are intensifying around three key towns - al-Bab, a town north-east of Aleppo that is still in IS hands, Manbij, which despite a YPG promise to withdraw is controlled by a Kurdish-manipulated military council, and the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, northwest of Aleppo. Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Islamic militias are mounting strong land-based attacks east and west of al-Bab, a highly strategic town they are determined to capture from IS, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group with a network of activists on the ground in the war-wracked country. Competition between Turkish, Kurd forces The SDF is also keen to overrun al-Bab and has vowed to capture the town before the Turkish-based militias do. A major confrontation between the two sides over the town has been in the offing for months, and the Turkish airstrikes against the YPG have mainly focused on disrupting Kurdish forces moving from Manbij south-west to al-Bab. As Turkey's Operation Euphrates Shield progresses toward al-Bab, the spate of fighting between Turkish-backed rebels and the YPG is increasing, according to analysts at Stratfor, a U.S.-based global intelligence firm. To the United States' displeasure, the fighting has distracted the YPG and could threaten to undermine the Raqqa effort altogether, the analysts said. On Monday, a Pentagon spokesman told a Turkish newspaper that the U.S. does not endorse the YPGs offensive to capture al-Bab. "We do not support nor condone any maneuvers in this area which only help Daesh who is now on the run across Iraq and Syria, said Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman. But he also indicated disapproval of Turkey-backed targeting of the town. Turkey's operations are being conducted unilaterally and not as part of the Coalition effort. Last week, the Pentagon announced it was withdrawing special forces personnel detailed to the Turks Euphrates Shield operation - a withdrawal that highlighted the increasingly conflicting priorities between the United States and Turkey. Fierce fighting erupted Monday between FSA brigades and the YPG in the village of Sheikh Nasser on the outskirts of al-Bab, say activists. For the FSA and Islamic militias control of al-Bab could help them smuggle in weapons and aid to districts they control in eastern Aleppo, which are besieged and under scorched-earth airstrikes by Syrian government and Russian warplanes. As events unfold around al-Bab fears are growing that a Turkish-backed assault on the town could also spark a clash between Russia, Assads patron, and Turkey. There have already been reports that Assads Russian-supplied air defense radars have locked in on Turkish warplanes as a warning that Damascus wont tolerate a rebel assault on the town. Thousands of mourners turned out for the funeral Saturday for slain Honduran indigenous leader Berta Caceres, who fought to stop a potentially destructive dam. Her supporters chanted "Berta lives!" and called for justice as her coffin was carried from her mother's home to the church in the town of La Esperanza, northwest of Tegucigalpa. Caceres, a Lenca Indian activist who won the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize, was killed by gunmen in her home Thursday in what appeared to be a targeted killing. At least one person was reported to have been arrested, but no other information about the attack was released. The Honduran government had assigned her special protection because she had received numerous death threats, but Caceres had complained that security surrounding her home was lax. Caceres fought against construction of the Agua Zarca Dam on the Gualcarque River, a waterway the Lenca considered to be sacred. Dam opponents argued that it would destroy the lives of hundreds of Lenca by cutting off the access to the river. The project has been put on hold. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez has ordered security forces to find those behind the killing. The U.S. State Department condemned the shooting, calling on Honduras to carry out a transparent investigation. It offered to help bring the killers to justice. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump appears to be backing away from some of his firmly held campaign themes, including putting Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton in jail. Trump met Tuesday with reporters and editors from The New York Times, the venerable newspaper he condemned during the campaign as dishonest and a "failing" publication, but now says he respects and reads. Trump strongly said that he has no intention to call for a further investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state and into questions surrounding the charitable Clinton Foundation. "I don't want to hurt the Clintons. I really don't. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways... the campaign was vicious," he said. Trump said investigating Clinton is not something he feels "very strongly about." 'Very divisive' "I think it would be very, very divisive for the country," Trump told reporters and editors at The New York Times. "My inclination would be for whatever power I have on the matter is to say let's go forward. This has been looked at for so long, ad nauseam." WATCH: Trump on Clinton email debacle during campaign speech Trump constantly referred to Clinton as "Crooked Hillary" during the campaign. He stood by contentedly at rallies and listened to crowds shout "lock her up." He had promised to have a special prosecutor to look into her case and even directly threatened her with jail during one of the presidential debates. The FBI has completed its investigation into the Clinton email case but its inquiry into the Clinton Foundation remains open. According to the 2015 book "Clinton Cash," written by Peter Schweizer, foreign entities donated money to the foundation in exchange of favors from the State Department, which was under Clinton's watch. The Clintons have maintained they did nothing wrong. If Trump ordered the FBI to close the foundation inquiry when he becomes president, the agency's director, James Comey, could refuse. FBI directors are given ten year terms to shield themselves from political coercion. Trump's decision not to push for investigations into Clinton's email use or the Clinton Foundation may not deter some Republican Party members on Capitol Hill. Republican Congressman James Chaffetz, who chairs the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has promised to continue to investigate Clinton's use of emails. By backing off his promises to investigate Clinton, Trump's has outraged some of his most passionate supporters. Breitbart News, a conservative news organization that has strongly supported Trump, published the headline Tuesday "Broken Promise." Climate Change Trump, who once called global warming a Chinese-created hoax, also appears to be backing down from his threat to withdraw from the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Trump told the Times that "clean air is vitally important" and believes "there is some connectivity between" climate change and human activity. "I'm looking at it very closely. I have an open mind" about the accord, he said. The billionaire real estate mogul also appeared to have changed his mind about torturing terrorism suspects. Trump suggested he changed his mind after meeting with retired Marine Corps General James Mattis, a leading candidate for secretary of defense. Trump said General Mattis never thought harsh interrogation techniques "to be useful," and added that the general preferred developing trust with "a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers." When asked for his reaction to a group of white nationalists caught on camera, throwing Nazi salutes and shouting "Hail Trump" during a conference on Saturday in Washington, D.C, the president-elect said, "I disavow and condemn them." "It's not a group I want to energize," he said. But he defended his appointment of alt-right leader Steve Bannon as his chief counselor. Bannon has been accused of racism, sexism and anti-Semitism chiefly through his time as head of the ultra-right website Brietbart News. "If I thought he was a racist... I wouldn't think about hiring him," Trump said. Conflicts of interest The incoming president has been facing questions of whether he can run his multibillion-dollar real estate and corporate empire and be president at the same time. He told the newspaper that in theory, "I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly." He said even though the law is on his side, a president cannot have any conflicts of interest and that he is in the process of turning over his businesses to his children. Backing down from some of his most vigorous campaign promises may disappoint many Trump supporters who want to see Clinton in prison and the U.S. shred its obligations to cut carbon emissions. But Trump has promised to be a unifying leader and president for all. President Barack Obama has said his successor will find there is a big difference between campaign rhetoric and the reality of the Oval Office. Trump assumes power January 20 as Obama leaves office. In an editorial meeting Tuesday with The New York Times, Donald Trump repudiated the white supremacist alt-right movement, a fervent segment of the electorate that supports the president-elect. "I don't want to energize the group, and I disavow the group," according to a tweet from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who attended the meeting. Trump sought to distance himself from the alt-right three days after white nationalists shouted Nazi slogans at an event just blocks from the White House. Trump finally met with editorial staff members of The New York Times, who Trump has frequently criticized, after announcing on Twitter he canceled the meeting due what he said were changes to the editorial ground rules. Trump reversed his decision a short time later. Tuesday was the second day Trump spent meeting with news organizations that he frequently sparred with during his 18-month presidential campaign. "I can't recall an incoming president gathering everybody up in a cattle call and doing it all at once," Allan Louden, chairman of the Wake Forest University Communications Department, said in an interview with VOA. When Trump met Monday with well-known television news figures, he criticized their coverage of the presidential campaign and accused them of not seeing the signs of his surprising win over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. University of Southern California journalism professor Geoffrey Cowan told VOA that Trump is the first president-elect to use social media as effectively as he has. "Donald Trump is unquestionably an unconventional president and one of the ways in which he's unconventional is his relationship with the media and with the press," Cowan said. WATCH: Crowd reacts as Trump leaves NY Times With nearly 16 million followers on Twitter, more than many news organizations have, Cowan said Trump can afford to spar with the media. "It may play well for him," Cowan said. With Trump's upset presidential victory and a plethora of social media communications channels at his disposal, Louden agreed that Trump has leverage in his relationships with news organizations. "He's dressing them down and he's saying, you guys better behave, and what's the media has to do. They're going to have to come back," Louden said. "This pleases his constituency. He looks like the tough guy and they have little choice but to try to get the news as best they can. So I think he's got the upper hand on this one." Cowan said the American press failed to see the groundswell of support Trump received and should reevaluate how it covers political campaigns. "I think the press has to do its own self-examination and ask why did we miss it," Cowan said. Call to ensure press freedom Trump's latest encounters with the press come after a group of news media advocacy organizations called on him last week to "preserve longstanding traditions" to ensure the press is free to inform the public of his presidential activities. In an open letter, 18 news groups asked him to maintain a pool of reporters who cover all of the president's activities and movements and to have regular briefings with the media. "The role of the press pool is critically important to our country, whose citizens depend on and deserve to know what the president is doing," the letter said. Concerns about news media access to Trump during his presidency were raised November 15 when he departed his Trump Tower residence in New York City without his press pool, for a dinner. During his campaign, it was not uncommon for Trump to hurl angry remarks at journalists or to ban news outlets from his appearances. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, abandons a massive trade deal that was a key plank of President Barack Obama's re-engagement with Asian nations. Trump says instead of one agreement that accounts for 40 percent of world trade, he plans to negotiate one-on-one trade deals that will be more favorable for American workers. For countries in Asia, analysts say abandoning the deal opens new trade opportunities for China, which was not a part of the TPP. Negotiators worked for seven years on the TPP, which supporters say would encourage more trade among the 12 nations, raise worker incomes, place important protections on intellectual property, protect labor rights and incorporate environmental safeguards. Critics accused the deal, which was negotiated in secret, of being overly favorable to global corporations, and enshrining tough intellectual property restrictions. More than a trade agreement The Council on Foreign Relations in a report this month, backed the TPP, saying the pact would benefit manufacturers with a more level playing field in Asia, boosting U.S. exports, especially agricultural goods. While some American jobs could be lost to overseas workers, TPP supporters argued that the deal was better overall for Americans, because it would result in lower prices on imported consumer goods. The report, citing research by the Petersen Institute for International Economics, said the TPP offered potential annual gains of $78 billion for the U.S. economy. Gareth Leather, senior Asia economist at London-based Capital Economics, called the demise of the TPP a blow to economic prospects in emerging Asia [economies], with any benefits from a China-led regional trade deal likely to be much smaller. Carl Thayer, a political scientist at Australias University of New South Wales, said Trumps move could potentially harm U.S. relations, especially among key allies, Japan and Australia as well as Vietnam. Thayer said the TPP is effectively on life support, if not dead with Trump ignoring calls by Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other leaders to press ahead with the pact. It means that the entreaties by [Australian] Prime Minister [Malcolm] Turnbull and Abe have just been ignored. [Although] Turnbull thinks it may be renegotiated, said Thayer. Reports said Abe had invested considerable political capital in pushing for the agreement, signed in October 2015, that faced strong opposition from Japans influential farming lobby. Thayer said the TPP was more than a trade agreement. What it means is that 11 countries are theoretically up high and dry. This is not just a trade agreement; it's one that included services and intellectual property, environmental issues, climate change it was a very high standard and China was not [not] excluded, China just couldnt meet these standards, he told VOA. Pavida Pananond, a professor of international business at Thailands Thammasat University, said the decision to withdraw by the U.S. raised fears of potential trade conflicts, especially between the U.S. and China. On Tuesday, the Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper said in an editorial that China-U.S. relations were "too big to fail." Pavida said a major impact lay on the United States' perceived place in the global trade debate. Without the TPP, what would really happen would be that the U.S.s leading role in the liberal idea of globalization and then regional and multilateral [trade] would see the U.S. role undermined from being a leader and having common rules and regulations for trade and development, she told VOA. As US looks inward, China expands Capital Economics Leather said Vietnam and Malaysia would be hardest hit from the TPP failing to go into force. While already enjoying low tariff access to the U.S., the main benefits lay in the elimination of non-trade barriers, including rules on government procurement, investment restrictions and hidden subsidies. Thayer said Vietnam will be especially concerned, with a need to access the U.S. market, where it runs a trade surplus of $30 billion against a deficit of $32 billion with China. For Vietnams case, it will be a bitter disappointment. [But] the national assembly has saved itself the humiliation by repeatedly putting off the TPP ratification, whereas Malaysia was the first county that rushed right in and ratified the TPP so they are going to lose out, he said. Malaysian officials from the Ministry of International Trade recently warned as many as 1 million jobs would have been created with the TPP in place. Officials say Malaysia would seek out other trade opportunities, through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and free trade agreements with Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. Triphon Phumiwasana, a partner with Bangkok-based Hatton Capital, said China is already expanding trade in the Asia-Pacific. China its in their interests to expand the trade. They will continue to foster relationships with Southeast Asia. Its to their advantage since the U.S. is focusing on domestic [issues]. China is looking outward, said Triphon. Capital Economics said the U.S. retreat has opened the way for China to expand its influence. Closer ties with China have the potential to provide a bigger boost to the rest of Asia, said Leather. China is expected to press ahead with its regional free trade deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that covers ASEAN nations, as well as Japan, India and Korea but excludes the United States. While the Philippines, Thailand and Korea would gain from improved prospects from the RCEP agreement, any losses from the TPP were unlikely to be fully compensated for by gains from the RCEP, said Leather. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, meeting again with longtime allies and other officials, said Tuesday he is considering naming Ben Carson, who ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, as the housing and urban development chief in his Cabinet. In a comment on Twitter, Trump called Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, "a greatly talented person who loves people." Carson told Fox News on Tuesday that the HUD position "was one of the offers that's on the table," according to the French news agency, AFP. "Our inner cities are in terrible shape and they definitely need some real attention," he told Fox News. Carson ended his campaign in March after several poor performances in early primaries. He endorsed Trump shortly after. Withdrawal from TPP Trump also said he will withdraw from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal on his first day in office, part of a series of moves aimed at "putting America first." In a video message posted to YouTube Monday, Trump called the TPP a "potential disaster" for the U.S. "Instead, we will negotiate, fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores," he said. WATCH: Trump on his first 100 days Trump continued to meet Tuesday in New York with more candidates to fill key jobs in his new government and people with expertise on policy issues facing Washington. In addition, Trump headed to a lunch with editors and reporters at The New York Times, whose articles he has often attacked as wrong or unfair. Throughout his campaign for president Trump opposed the TPP, which involves 12 Asia-Pacific nations, as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. He touted his negotiating ability and said he would get new agreements that benefit the U.S. Ministers from TPP countries signed the agreement in February 2016, saying their goal was to "enhance shared prosperity, create jobs, and promote sustainable economic development for all of our nations." Foreign leaders react Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday the TPP is "meaningless without the United States." "This would disturb the fundamental balance of benefits, which is also why renegotiation is impossible," he said. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said Trump's position is disappointing, but that there are alternatives available, including the other 11 countries reaching their own trade agreement. "He campaigned against TPP, but the United States isn't an island," Key said of Trump. "It can't just sit there and say it's not going to trade with the rest of the world." No Congressional approval President Barack Obama supported the pact, but Congress never gave the necessary approval for the U.S. to formally join. Without the U.S., the TPP cannot go into effect. A provision in the agreement says it either needs to be approved by all 12 signatories, or by at least six of them if they together account for 85 percent of the combined gross domestic product of the entire group. The United States represents 60 percent of the combined GDP, so there is no way to meet that 85 percent threshold without U.S participation. The Obama administration touted the TPP as a benefit for workers in the U.S. and the other 11 countries because of new standards for wages, hours, working conditions and prohibitions against child labor. Officials also said U.S. companies, particularly small businesses, would be able to vastly expand their exports through the elimination of tariffs, and that the deal would bring stronger standards for transparency, anti-corruption, and environmental protection. WATCH: Obama administration explainer on TPP Immigration, cyber attacks The promises Trump spelled out Monday for when he takes office in two months did not include anything about construction of his much-touted wall at the U.S.-Mexico border to thwart the stream of illegal migrants into the United States. The president-elect said that on his first day in office, he would tell the Department of Labor to investigate "abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker" and ask the Defense Department to come up with a plan to keep the country's vital infrastructure safe from "cyber attacks and all other form of attacks." Trump wants to do away with regulations targeting the energy industry, including those involving shale and clean coal, which he says will create "many millions of high paying jobs. That's what we want. That's what we've been waiting for." As part of his plan to reform government, Trump said that for every new regulation, he wants to eliminate two existing ones. He said his transition team is working "very smoothly, efficiently and effectively," and continued meeting with a parade of people being considered for jobs in the incoming administration. Energy Trump wants to do away with regulations targeting the energy industry, including those involving shale and clean coal, which he says will create "many millions of high paying jobs." And as part of his plan to reform government, Trump wants any new regulation to come in only with the elimination of two existing ones. He said his transition team is working "very smoothly, efficiently and effectively," and continued meeting with a parade of people being considered for jobs in the incoming administration. Among those Trump met with Monday in New York were former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who briefly ran for the Republican nomination last year and at a debate accused Trump of relying on celebrity instead of conservatism to appeal to voters. Perry is reportedly being considered for one of several jobs, including defense or agriculture secretary. Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii also met with Trump. She endorsed Bernie Sanders during his bid for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton, but agrees with Trump's opposition to increased U.S. military involvement in Syria. Cabinet positions Campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said not all of those who have met with Trump will get jobs. But she said, "They are all incredibly important in offering their points of view, their experience and certainly their vision for the country." Trump planned to leave New York on Tuesday or Wednesday to spend the Thanksgiving holiday at his Florida resort. The Turkish government eliminated about 15,000 employees from the military, police and the civil service on Tuesday as part of an investigation into the failed coup attempt. The government also closed more than 500 institutions, nine news outlet, and 19 health establishments. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to bring to justice and punish those involved in the coup attempt. He has accused U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen of masterminding the failed attempt to overturn the government. Gulen, a former Erdogan ally in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999, has repeatedly denied involvement. Since the coup, Erdogan launched a large-scale crackdown on Gulens followers and institutions that pursue his movement. Authorities have arrested at least 36,000 people and removed more than 100,000 others from government jobs. We know that the state is not fully cleared of this treacherous gang. They are still within the armed forces. They are still within the police. They are still within the judiciary and they are still within the various sections of the state,'' Erdogan said. We won't allow them to destroy this country nor to crush the people. We will do whatever is necessary, he added. The government is also accused of abusing powers from a state of emergency declaration after the coup to repressing anyone who criticizes the government. Erdogan defended the actions, saying Gulens followers have been active in Turkey for more than 40 years and have infiltrated the Turkish armed forces, the police, the judiciary and all ministries. He added that around 250 people were killed on the night of the July 15 failed coup. Erdogan reiterated that he wants to dismantle what he called the FETO terrorist organization. The United Nations is making contingency plans to respond to a sudden increase in humanitarian needs should the Democratic Republic of the Congos political situation turn violent. The U.N. has been warning for several months that without a serious national political dialogue, tensions in the DRC could deteriorate into a severe and possibly violent crisis. The U.N. has 20,000 peacekeepers in the countrys volatile east and has been conducting military contingency planning to protect civilians if the situation escalates. On Tuesday, the missions humanitarian and resident coordinator, Mamadou Diallo, told a small group of member states that his team was also preparing should there be election-related violence or mass displacement. If these things happen, we have a contingency plan, which is built around what we have called the hot spots places where we anticipate that political strife will happen because they are opposition strongholds or there is a history of political conflict in these places, said Diallo. The DRC has been a focus of humanitarian efforts for the past two decades, because of internal conflicts and natural disasters and as recipient of refugees from its neighbors. Currently, Diallo said, the country is coping with yellow fever and cholera epidemics and is close to eradicating a measles outbreak. The U.N. appealed for nearly $700 million for humanitarian needs in the DRC this year, but has just received over half the amount, enabling it to assist almost 6 million people. Diallo said nearly 8 million Congolese were expected to need aid next year. A Yemeni man living in New York City was charged Monday with trying to provide support to Islamic State. A criminal complaint unsealed in federal court details the allegations against 37-year-old Mohamed Rafik Naji, including expressing support for an attack in New York's Times Square similar to one claimed by the Islamic State group in Nice, France. "I was saying if there is a truck, I mean a garbage truck and one drives it there to Times Square and crushes them," Naji is quoted as telling an informant in one of several recorded conversations. "They want an operation in Times Square, reconnaissance group already put out a scene, the Islamic State already put up scenes of Times Square" Prosecutors say the case against Naji included posts on Facebook showing support for Islamic State, one of which featured a YouTube video of the militant group's spokesman calling for attacks on civilian and military targets in Western nations. The complaint says Naji traveled to Turkey and Yemen in an attempt to reach areas controlled by Islamic State, and that his girlfriend sent money to him in Yemen on multiple occasions. The document states that the informant initiated their contact on Facebook beginning in August 2015, and that the two first met in person in December of that year and again in July 2016. Naji's attorney, Susan Kellman, told WCBS-TV there was an explanation for his travel to Yemen. "Of course, the fact that he has family over there and three children didnt seem to affect the government one way or the other, but he certainly had legitimate reasons to be over there," she said. U.S. Attorney Robert Capers noted a family link in another document filed Monday arguing there is a risk Naji could flee the country and thus should not be released from custody before trial. "He is a legal permanent resident of the United States but was born in Yemen, where he has close ties, including a child. The defendant also faces the possibility of a significant term of imprisonment and is thus highly motivated to flee the jurisdiction," Capers wrote. The United Nations is calling for an end to the violence and relentless air attacks against eastern Aleppo, warning that the ancient Syrian city is being bombed into oblivion. After a short pause, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, backed by its Russian ally, unleashed its fire power one week ago against eastern Aleppo. It since has been mercilessly pounding the citys hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure. Spokesman for the U.N. Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Jens Laerke says the consequences for eastern Aleppos 275,000 civilians are devastating. "It is absolutely heartbreaking and unacceptable that we all are witnessing what is happening almost on direct television, direct transmitted what may amount to war crimes in eastern Aleppo," said Laerke. "We need the political actors and the actors on the ground to create a situation whereby we can implement the U.N. plan." That plan calls for a humanitarian pause to the fighting to allow U.N. aid convoys to deliver desperately needed food, medicine and other essential relief supplies to the trapped inhabitants of eastern Aleppo. The plan also calls for the warring parties to allow the United Nations to evacuate wounded and sick people along with their family members so they can receive critical medical treatment. U.N. Human Rights Spokesman Rupert Colville calls the situation in eastern Aleppo ghastly. He says there is no doubt that war crimes are being committed by all sides in Syria. "I have been doing this kind of work for 23, 24 years. With the possible exception of the Rwanda genocide, I cannot think of anything worse than Syria You get people dying horrible deaths every day," said Colville. "You have got widespread torture. You have got massive detention. Thousands and thousands of people who have disappeared. Huge casualties. So huge, no one even knows how many there are anymore." While the people of rebel-held eastern Aleppo are most victimized by this war, the United Nations says people in government-controlled western Aleppo also are suffering from indiscriminate shelling by opposition forces. It says dozens of civilians in western Aleppo are dying every week and they, as well as the citizens in the eastern part of the city, are in need of protection. The United States "is working very hard" to have the cessation of hostilities remain in place after a fragile cease-fire in Yemen expired Monday. I think it's definitely something the Secretary [of State John Kerry] is still pursuing. And I would tell you that he had a conversation this morning with the deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia as well as Foreign Minister [Adel] al-Jubeir about this issue," said State Department spokesman John Kirby on Monday. A 48-hour cease-fire after nearly two years of war in Yemen expired at midday Monday and would not be renewed, according to a spokesman for a Saudi-led military coalition. Kerry also spoke to United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed on Monday. The top U.S. diplomat is committed to a sustained cessation of hostilities in Yemen so that humanitarian aid can get to people and the political talks can resume, said the State Department. The peace deal was announced unilaterally by the Saudi coalition but failed to halt fighting across the country between the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi-led forces, which intervened on the side of the exiled government in March 2015. "The Houthi's have gained a commanding position on the ground, and they are not likely to negotiate away their gains. Given the sectarian issues at play, neither the Saudi-led coalition nor Iran is prepared to see its proxies defeated," American University's international peace and conflict resolution program director Hrach Gregorian told VOA. The 20-month conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced more than three million civilians. Photo: Marvel, Paramount Pictures, Focus Features, A24 Thanksgiving week isnt just a time for eating lots of stuffing and binge-watching lots of television. Once the cabin fever of Friday and Saturday rolls around, its also time for families across the nation to warily scan Fandango, looking for a film that could possibly get everyone out of the house. Is there a film out there that can satisfy every generations particular taste? Well, it depends on your family. Below, weve got a few suggestions, based on what kind of household youll be spending Thanksgiving in. If You Want to Talk About Trump Without Talking About Trump: See Arrival Is humanity doomed to a never-ending cycle of tribalism? Can world politics ever be anything but a zero-sum game? Must we deal from strength or be crushed every time? In its own quiet way, Arrival makes the case for traditional liberal values, so you dont have to. And if the political metaphors hit a little too close to home, you can always talk about the ending. Nate Jones (@kn8) If Your Family Is Addicted to Turner Classic Movies: See Allied Robert Zemeckiss new WWII spy thriller has so many homages to classic Hollywood specifically Casablanca and Notorious youd swear it came to theaters with a Robert Osbourne intro. Allied might not be on the same level of classic Thanksgiving throwbacks Lincoln and Brooklyn, but itll still get the job done. Dad can dream of outsmarting the Nazis, while mom can nurse her not-so-secret crush on Brad Pitt. N.J. If You Come From a Family of Cryers: See Moonlight By the time your fathers done giving thanks, has he sobbed all over the yams, moved by the beauty of his wonderful family and the thought of all those less-fortunate souls out there who will never get to taste your grandmothers peach cobbler? Well, take that big heart to Moonlight, where he can lose himself in the sensual richness and emotional heft of Barry Jenkinss coming-of-age story about a young, gay black man growing up in Miami. Just remember to bring a spare box of tissues for the car ride home: The films pitch-perfect wallop of an ending may have you all crying for hours after. Kevin Lincoln (@KTLincoln) If Your Parents Were Huge Hippies: See Doctor Strange You dont have to have been a graduate of the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test to enjoy Doctor Strange, but it certainly helps. As Benedict Cumberbatch explores the mind-bending wonders of the multi-verse, blockbuster CGI has rarely been put to better use: The rules of physics cease to exist, skyscrapers turn into perpendicular playgrounds, and peoples fingers grow tiny little fingers. Your folks may feel like theyre in college all over again. N.J. If the Whole Family Is in Town: See Moana Your sisters kids love Disney. Your brother loves the Rock. You love Lin-Manuel Miranda. Theres only one movie in theaters this weekend that can square this particular circle, and its an animated movie about a Polynesian princess. N.J. If Your Dad Loves the History Channel: See Sully Sully has all the things dads love: modes of transportation, a metropolis in peril, acts of heroism, and Tom Hanks. (Fathers of a certain stripe may also enjoy the films critique of Big Government taking aim at an American Hero.) Think of it as an investment in his happiness: Your dad will get very excited when Oscars season rolls around and he can identify at least one of the films. The film might be a few months old, but as of last weekend, Sully was still playing in around 200 theaters nationwide. Look for a reasonably priced matinee, and take your pop. Tara Abell (@Tara_Abell) If Your Parents Showed You Taxi Driver When You Were 8 Years Old: See Nocturnal Animals Do you have vague, half-formed memories of a blood-splattered Robert De Niro in a Mohawk mixed in among your cartoon characters and Disney singalongs? Did your parents get strange looks from the guys who worked at Blockbuster when they rented Straw Dogs? Then take them to Nocturnal Animals, Tom Fords lurid, razor-sharp noir, which features top-notch performances from Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Michael Shannon as well as plenty of ultra-grimy, 1970s-style violence. Sure, most people wouldnt bring their parents to this movie, but most people didnt see Full Metal Jacket in fifth grade. K.L. If Youre Bringing a Significant Other Home for the First Time and You Think Your Parents Might Hate Them: See Loving Things could be worse! N.J. Photo: NBC/ Getty Images Donald Trump demanded the cast of Hamilton apologize for their speech directed at Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, tweeting, The Theater must always be a safe and special place. Trumps Twitter outburst sparked controversy, even though Pence told Fox News that he didnt have a problem with the speech. But if you ask Broadway legend Nathan Lane, the respectful tone of the statement by Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr in the show, proved just how vital the theater can be in expressing the diverse viewpoints that, to borrow from Trump, make America great, but also represents how divided we are as a country right now. A safe and special place? Trump was probably thinking more Guantanamo Bay than Neverland. But you know [the theater] should be a place to explore everything thats going on in the world. People are expressing themselves. The audience was expressing itself, Lane told Vulture at the Manhattan Theatre Clubs Fall Benefit, which feted him on Tuesday night for his brilliant career. And there were people who cheered and people who booed. And I think that about sums up where we are in this country. Added the 60-year-old actor: Obviously the writers and the actors wanted to express something about what was happening. And I thought it was eloquently put together by [Hamilton creator] Lin-Manuel [Miranda] and the others. And I thought it was respectful and fair. I guess you could make an argument: You know, really, is it fair to [Pence]? He put himself out there by going to see it. Look, Im not a fan. But you know I dont know. I get it, but I think its healthy. I think its good. They expressed their opinion so thats what its all about. Lane was not shy about expressing his own opinion on Trumps incoming administration and whether itll be good for entertainers such as himself. Well, its good for comedy, but I dont know if its worth it, he joked. I have no idea. One wants to give him a chance, although its not looking good so far. But well see what happens. Later, upon accepting an award from the Manhattan Theatre Club for his decades in show business, Lane couldnt resist a bit of gallows humor about the former Celebrity Apprentice boss turned leader of the free world. Lets all try to enjoy ourselves right now because once President Trump takes control, we could all wind up in internment camps for the highly theatrical, living on nothing but cosmopolitans and cast albums, he quipped to wild applause. All joking aside, Lane did take a moment to share with his audience how special the theater has been to him through countless productions and one thing its not is safe: Marion Cotillard and Brad Pitt in Allied. Photo: Daniel Smith/Paramount Pictures With Allied, Robert Zemeckis has fashioned a good old-fashioned World War II romantic espionage movie, but that wouldnt matter a damn if the leads werent beautiful and didnt look great in period clothes. They are and they do. In the opening, Brad Pitt (Max) parachutes into the Moroccan desert; a car comes from behind yonder dunes to pick him up while he warily fingers his gun; and his contact sends him to a party in a fancy Casablanca club where he has to pretend to be the husband of a woman he hasnt yet met, played by Marion Cotillard (Marianne). After impressing the Nazi-sympathizing crowd with his tender affections for his bogus wife, he finds himself alone with her. Not bad, she says, giving him the once-over. Youre not so bad yourself, he says. Their mission is to assassinate a Nazi ambassador but the real suspense is over how soon theyll fuck. When she raises the issue, he says, [Spies] fucked each other and fucked up and now theyre fucking dead. The line lacks tone but it does manage to combine three definitions of fuck in one sentence. For that and much else, the screenwriter, Steven Knight, must be commended. Here I must leave the plot because just about everything else is a dreaded spoiler. But I can say that everything else is a lot. Knight is a British TV vet and wrote and directed the one-man tour de force (all of it set behind the wheel of a car) Locke, with Tom Hardy. He has a knack for non-outlandish twists. His characters here, Max and Marianne, might be just what they seem or might not. But they will fall in love, which you know, because if they didnt thered be no movie. If they survive their potentially suicidal mission, will they be able to make a life? Spies keep you guessing. Few leading actors began as blank and vague and dull as Pitt, but apart from his unshakable tendency to channel Robert Redford, he has worked hard to be taken seriously and is overall quite likable. It helps that his face is more lived-in, possibly lived-hard-in. He doesnt exactly bare his soul when he falls for Marion, but hes credibly obsessed and credibly stricken. Cotillard makes Marianne a fascinating enigma. Early on, she tells him she has survived as a spy because she lives the characters she plays which raises the question of whether her emotions are for real or shes just really, really good at making them seem that way. Shes certainly a chatterbox. Hardcore auteurists whove taken up Zemeckiss cause will be disappointed that this doesnt really seem like un film de Bob Z. But as a soft-core auteurist I think its nice that Zemeckis who has become more of a stunt-oriented director over the years has made a movie that doesnt rest on state-of-the-art CGI. There are no supporting characters to speak of, although Lizzy Caplan is around as Maxs sister and Jared Harris as his friend. You just get two ridiculously attractive movie stars struggling to survive amid Nazis and sundry other jackals. After paparazzi, bitter spouses, and high-priced divorce lawyers, Allied must have seemed like a cakewalk. Bryan Sabella: We overlooked Trump's bluster because he's just like us Seth Meyers continued his Late Show crusade against President-elect Donald Trump on Monday night by examining the all-encompassing Trump v. Hamilton Twitter feud. On top of arguing that Vice-President-elect Mike Pence gets booed at nearly every major public event he goes to (Meyers offered video footage of a minor-league game in Pences home state of Indiana as evidence), Meyers declared that the tweet firestorm, which Pence, the hurt party in this case, wasnt at all interested in, was more of a distraction. While Vulture has our own counterpoint to the distraction argument, Meyers makes his case using news stories from recent headlines that might not appear quite as mesmerizing in the spotlight as Hamilton. The only president who can complain about the theater is Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Colbert declares, before launching into Donald Trump, the titular number in the imagined Hamilton-esque musical Trump. Maybe a show about himself will resolve the president-elects ongoing feud with the Great White Way? And with lines like Back to make America great / Hannity? Truckasaurus? Who wants Secretary of State?, maybe Trump will get some new cabinet suggestions. After all, Truckasaurus has a ton of relevant experience, plus with any luck, hell just crush everyone with his giant tires and metal jaws. Its a win-win. On Mondays The Kelly File, Tim Allen joined host Megyn Kelly on the Fox News program to talk about being a conservative, or conservative-leaning person, in Hollywood. What I find odd in Hollywood is that they didnt like Trump because he was a bully, Tim Allen told Kelly. But if you had any kind of inkling that you were for Trump, you got bullied for doing that. And it gets a little bit hypocritical to me. Allen also revealed, Im really an anarchist, because, As a comedian, I dont want anyone to tell me what to do. Though he did admit to a few mainstream, not-all-that-anarchist political beliefs, he never fully embraced Donald Trump as his ideal candidate. You get bullied into a position, but I dont want to defend the guy, Allen said of questions regarding his vote. To me, he acts like a new talent comedian. These are guys that have great material that have very bad comedy timing. And hes got terrible timing. Allen also got in a shot at former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz He looked like he had a milk allergy the way he talked before flailing his arms about and imitating a choking-burp noise. I have a somewhat serious question: Who the hell are all of those other people in the Vanderpump Rules cast photo that we see before and after the commercials? There are roughly 55 people in uniforms flanking Lisa Vanderpump, her husband, Ken Todd, and their ever-present dog, Giggy. I count about ten cast members on the show, so who are the rest of this chaff taking up valuable onscreen real estate? Do they all work at the restaurant? Are these the people who really work at the restaurant when the fake staff is out in that shabby alley making ridiculous apologies to one another? One person whom I didnt recognize in that cast photo is Peter the SUR manager who appeared on previous seasons. I didnt recognize him at Tom and Katies homewarming party (why did everyone call it that?), but I remembered that I saw him on episodes that played in the background at the gym and he was the one with the bad hair and tacky goatee. I remember thinking, Damn, if that guy got a haircut and a shave, he would look amazing. Well, he did both and now he does. He might actually be the hottest guy in the whole restaurant now. Since he is in that cast photo, I will now look forward to it every week without judging those random girls named Madison (they are all named Madison) who are also in there. I guess we should talk about the actual show, huh? Well, it starts with Katie taking all of her bridesmaids out for brunch and presenting them with those awful, blinged-out Pinterest tins that she hot-glued some flowers on top of. Sort of like a bridesmaid dress, she was like, You can take it home and use it again, and I guarantee you that those things are still in the backseat of every girls Kia Sephia, collecting dust and giving off the tangy scent of metal heated in a car interior. Inside each tin is a balloon, which they are supposed to pop to find a piece of paper inside that says, Will you be my bridesmaid? This was so incredibly stupid. Once one person read the paper out loud, I would have been like, All right, screw this fussy bullshit. Wheres a mimosa? I mean, cant you just go around and ask everyone? Do we need to make this into some lame shower game? My other favorite thing about the congregation is Katies three random friends (including her leopard twin with the same Cheetara tattoo on her wrist) who were seated at the end of the table. We see them once and then the cameras just focus on the SUR staff who are closest to Katie. Scheanna is like, This is the best group of people, and you could almost hear her think really loud, Oh, and you three other girls are all right too. It wouldnt have been so awful if you couldnt hear the Bravo producers saying to Katie, You have to make sure those other friends of yours who are not on the show sit far away from you because we dont want them messing up our shots with their muggle faces and pedestrian dresses. Speaking of awful things, can we talk about James? I dont care about this whole thing about James maybe getting fired because Scheannas wedding photographer put him in a headlock at Pump. That is a stupid non-story that only exists to pad out the hour. What I want to focus on, instead, is Jamess rationale for why people are mad at him and trying to cause him trouble. During their sit-down, he tells Lisa, People see me winning and they dont like it. All right, let me clear up one common misconception: The motivation for your haters, no matter who you are and who they are, is never jealousy. People are treating James like crap because he treats them like crap. He gets wasted and says something crass and then they react. Even if they start the altercation, he accelerates it with his loathsome attitude. None of that has to do with him winning. I bet most people dont give a shit about James and his top 100 single in iTunes; they care that he just talked shit about them, spilled cranberry juice all over their shoes, or made some remark about how their girlfriend looks like a tarp full of garbage floating on a sea of farts. That is not jealousy. That is karma. There is a big difference. James also tells Lisa, Im in a position that everyone wishes they were in. Um, does anyone want to be the reality-television villain that everyone hates and a DJ at a second-rate gay resto-lounge in West Hollywood? I dont know one single person who wants to be in that position except for my gay cousin Tyler and he is 17 and doesnt know any better because he is from Upstate New York and still thinks that colored highlights are cool. Tyler is probably at home right now, wondering how long itll take to grow out his hair before he can put it into that stupid French-braid Mohawk that Tom Sandoval is sporting. Thats how dumb Tyler is. So if that is what James means, then he is right. Otherwise he is dead wrong and just a loser with a drinking problem who thinks hes the second coming of Charlie Sheen. The only person worse at apologizing and dealing with people than James is Lala. The scene with her and Katie in the SUR Golden Alley of Dreamz was one of the best things I have ever witnessed on reality television and I watched every season of The Mole, celebrity and otherwise. Lala apologizes to Scheanna and says, Basically Ive been a bully. Um, wasnt she just talking last episode about how the rest of the girls were bullying her? Can she see bad behavior through a lens other than something thats the impetus for an It Gets Better video? Anyway, she tells Katie that she wants to apologize but doesnt say what for and just wants Katie to be like, Okay, thats fine, lets be friends. Katie, however, does not say that. She basically says, Well, youre a slut who is letting a married man buy you things and youre a whore who sucks dick for money. That, in and of itself, deserves a PhD in the reality-television arts. But even better is Lalas response, which boils down to, Well, a whore is someone who sucks a bunch of dicks for money and I only suck one dick for money, so I cant be a whore. And, basically, my mom bought me all of that stuff because I have never paid a bill in my life, so there. Guys, do you realize how amazing that is? Lala actually thinks it is rad that a grown adult woman has her mom buy her Loubs and Chanel purses and Katie is just mad because shes jealous. First of all, Lala needs to read everything I just said to James about jealousy. Secondly, this is how Lala treats a person whom she is trying to make like her. That is just absolutely insane and wait, holy shit. Did you guys feel that? I think I just fell in love with Vanderpump Rules. I told you I didnt want this to happen, but here we are. It only took a doe-eyed extension factory and a woman who dresses up like Ferdinand the Bull fighting in an alley about sucking dick for money and now I never want to stop watching this show. Im so jealous of myself right now I could die of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Speaking of things that I am in love with, Tom Schwartz invites Jax and Tom Sandoval over to ask him to be his groomsmen. This wedding is going to be as lopsided as Aviva Drescher hobbling out of Le Cirque without her prosthetic. To get back on all the horrible pranks that these two played on Tom when they were roommates, he makes them steak and shrimp that he wiped in his sweaty butt crack. And he didnt just serve the meal and then tell them about it he also provided photographic proof. I think this is the sort of exciting surprise that Katie was going for with her dumb balloon proposal, but it actually works. Also, we got to see a fat hunk of meat in Tom Schwartzs butt. When I normally imagine meat near my Schwartzies butt, it isnt exactly like this. Its more like him wearing boxer briefs that are covered in brisket, but this was still a thing of beauty. I just want my Schwartzie to know that not everyone would be so disgusted by that meal. Some of us would just love to eat those butt steaks. To just cut off slices of that juicy slab, slowly serrating the knife through layer upon layer of smooth flesh, and then inserting it into our mouths, savoring it, swirling it around with our saliva, enjoying the explosion of juice and flavor as it works its way around and around our mouths. Then we swallow, letting our guts fill with the warmth of knowing that our food, our very sustenance, was so close to the nether regions of man. Schwartzie, you can serve me any day, and I will ask for seconds before I even finish the firsts. Photo: Ollie Millington/Redferns via Getty Images Yasiin Bey (f.k.a. Mos Def) has been granted permission to leave South Africa after a nearly yearlong legal battle. The Guardian reports that Bey has unreservedly apologized for attempting to exit the country with a world passport not legally recognized by the South African government, which has now dropped the charges that first arose back in January. Since then, Bey had been out on bail and living in South Africa in legal purgatory. Following his arrest, Bey released a plea, via voicemail, on Kanye Wests website begging the South African government for his freedom; he also announced his retirement from music and final album. As per the conditions of his release, Bey will be declared an undesirable person and not allowed to reenter South Africa. Bey had been living in Cape Town since 2013. MOUNT PLEASANT Multiple complaints have been filed against Village President Jerry Garski for alleged ordinance violations related to his properties accusations Garski says are politically driven. The village received three complaints earlier this month alleging Garski has zoning and parking violations at his two Mount Pleasant properties, according to documents The Journal Times obtained through an open records request. Those violations, according to the complaints, include a higher number of outbuildings than allowed by ordinance and commercial vehicles and equipment parked in violation of village rules. Garski called the complaints an orchestrated attempt to make him look bad before next springs elections, when he is up for re-election. The complaints were referred to Interim Village Administrator and Police Chief Tim Zarzecki. They may ultimately be handled by an outside agency to avoid a conflict of interest, as Zarzecki reports to Garski and the Village Board. Were trying to handle it as appropriately as possible, Zarzecki said. Alleged violations One of Garskis properties has four sheds, which allegedly violates village ordinances limiting the number of outbuildings to two. The sheds were there when he bought the property about 18 months ago, Garski said. A blue tarp has been over the roof of the home, which complainants said makes it look blighted. Garski said he is rehabbing the home to eventually rent out, and he put a tarp on the roof to prevent water from getting inside. If somebodys got angst that I dont have a million dollars to do it in a week, I dont know what to tell you, he said. He also keeps three horses on his property another subject broached in complaints which Garski said is allowable under the propertys agricultural zoning. At his home, where Garski operates his Garski Trucking Equipment business, is a semitrailer cab, a few trailers, two wheel-loaders and various equipment in his yard. The complaints allege it violates Mount Pleasants parking rules. At most, I might be guilty of parking a wheel loader for a couple weeks, Garski said. Oh boy. Shoot me. Playing politics? Former village Trustee Anna Marie Clausen, former Community Development Authority Chairwoman Pat Barlament and resident Todd Kennedy filed complaints Nov. 9 and 10, according to the documents. Clausen, who was lost her re-election bid earlier this year, acknowledged part of what prompted her to lodge a formal complaint were concerns beyond Garskis property issues. Clausen said she is nervous about Garskis overall leadership of the village and noted Garskis attacks against then-President Mark Gleason in the election two years ago. I dont have to make him look bad, she said. Hes doing that to himself. Clausen also admitted there has been communication among people upset with Garski, but denied collusion in filing complaints. She wants to hold Garski accountable for possible infractions at his properties, she said. As president of Mount Pleasant, he should be following all of the laws and ordinances, Clausen said. Garski removed Barlament as CDA chairwoman last year and said I knew there was going to be fallout from that. Barlament denied her complaint was related to that move, saying she heard concerns from residents about the properties and decided to bite the bullet and file a complaint. Its because of his position and the properties he has are very neglected, she said. Garski agreed hes not above the law but insisted there would be no conversations about the properties if anyone else owned them. For Pat Barlament and their friends to say something and say it all at one time ... its an orchestrated complaint to make me look bad at election, Garski said. I dont care. I aint doing anything wrong. A former gang member who was sentenced as a teen to life without parole in the 1999 kidnapping and slaying of an Iowa couple near Fort Hood likely will win a resentencing hearing, his attorney said. Tony Sparks, who was 16 when Todd and Stacie Bagley were killed, will benefit from recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions that ruled juvenile offenders cannot be subjected to life in federal prison without the possibility of parole and that the ruling will be applied retroactively to those serving time. Sparks and five others were convicted of various crimes for their roles in the carjacking, kidnapping and shooting deaths of the couple, who were in Killeen to visit relatives and to attend a church revival. The Bagleys burned bodies were found in the trunk of their car at the edge of Fort Hood near the Belton Lake Recreational Area of Bell County. Brandon Am Bernard and Christopher Andre Vialva, both 19 at the time, were sentenced to death after a 2000 trial in Wacos federal court and remain among 62 inmates on federal death row. Sparks, known at the time among his fellow gang members as Little Gotti, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting carjacking resulting in death. Terry Terrell Brown and Christopher Michael Lewis, who were 17 at the time of the offense, were sentenced to 20 years in prison, while Gregory Hardin Lynch, who was 15, was sentenced to five years in prison after he and Sparks were certified to stand trial as adults. In an order last week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans gave Sparks permission to file a motion to vacate his sentence based on the recent higher court rulings. The Justice Department has indicated it will not oppose the motion, meaning Sparks likely will be sentenced again when the 5th Circuit orders the case remanded to Wacos federal court, said Sparks appellate attorney, David K. Sergi. U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. presided over the cases in 2000 and 2001 but retired in September. Sparks case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, of Austin, Sergi said. Sergi, of San Marcos, said Sparks is a German citizen and he will ask, if his sentence is vacated and he is resentenced, if he can serve his remaining time in a German prison and give up his U.S. citizenship. I have gotten to know this kid over the years and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people, Sergi said. It just seems to me that the people who ought to be paying the price are paying the price. Trial testimony showed Vialva shot the couple in the trunk of their car before setting it on fire. The Bagleys asked their captors to read from the Bible as they pleaded for their lives. An FBI agent testified at Sparks sentencing hearing in 2001 that he was involved in an escape attempt from the Bell County Juvenile Detention Center that left a guard unconscious and that he caused other disturbances while in custody. The agent said Sparks also scribbled gang-related graffiti in a U.S. Marshals Service holding cell in the federal courthouse in Waco. Video The four candidates for UW-Madison police chief will be on campus next week to meet the public as well as student, faculty and staff groups and university leaders. The university announced on Tuesday that each candidate will give a presentation and answer questions in separate forums. The candidates are Kristen Roman, a captain in the city of Madison Police Department; Gregory Habeck, assistant police chief at the UW-Milwaukee Police Department; Thomas Phillips, police chief at Northern Illinois University; and John Vinson, police chief at the University of Washington Police Department. Roman will speak at 10 a.m. Tuesday and Habeck at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Marquee Cinema in Union South, while Phillips will speak at 10 a.m. Thursday and Vinson at 9 a.m. Friday at VandeBerg Auditorium in the Pyle Center. The successful candidate will take over for retired police chief Susan Riseling, who stepped down in August after 25 years in the job. Election 2016 I was accurately quoted in the Trib regarding my attitude about Donald Trumps election; my full comments were not included. I include my additional thoughts here. Mr. Trumps statements throughout his campaign have been deeply troubling and his election is alarming to many people. I am unconvinced that Mr. Trump respects women, people of color or all religions. I believe he has emboldened hate groups. I am concerned that Mr. Trump has normalized vulgarity, predatory behavior and religious and racial intolerance. I worry about children being bullied because of their ethnicity, legal status, religious affiliation, disabilities or physical looks. I have students who are now worried about experiencing the trauma of seeing their parents deported. There are people whom I helped to sign up for health care who are terrified that they will lose their health insurance coverage and will be locked out by insurance companies if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. Yet, despite my alarm at Mr. Trumps election, I intend to accept his promise that he intends to be the president of all the people unless he shows me otherwise. At that point, the NAACP will do what it always does fight for the equal treatment of all people no matter their race, creed, religion, legal status or economic situation. Peaches Henry, NAACP Waco chapter president, Waco * * * For years, I have noticed that your newspaper decidedly leans to the left. The other morning you exceeded my tolerance level with the column by Garrison Keillor of the Washington Post. The ravings by this self-styled liberal elitist go too far. I am a retired senior citizen who happens to hold a college degree that I paid for myself while holding a full-time job, and I voted for Trump. I am not illiterate; I do not wear profane or vulgar T-shirts, nor do I approve of anyone wearing them. I saw far more of them during riots and during Bernie and Hillary rallies. I do not grab crotches, nor go out in RVs to chug beer and shoot spotted owls. None of the people I associate with do these things, and it is my belief that the majority of persons supporting Trump dont either. It is wrong to mischaracterize us in that fashion. This snarky, better-than-thou elitist attitude displayed by Mr. Keillor highlights one of the engines that drive the Trump train. Were fed up with effete liberals making baseless accusations and painting with a broad brush an insulting portrait of conservatives. We deplorables struck back. Any person with any common sense at all should be able to see through the veil of political correctness and speak honestly regarding the issues that we face as a nation. On Nov. 8, we did that. Lester H. Beaird, Waco * * * To the Electoral College: Please save our nation, our democracy and our world. Judy Levy, West Windsor, New Jersey A Madison man who was charged with first-degree intentional homicide for shooting another man to death outside a town of Madison gas station the last of three related fatal shootings last spring pleaded guilty Tuesday to a lesser homicide charge. Kortney D. Moore, 28, pleaded guilty to first-degree reckless homicide for a May 11 shooting that killed Elijah Washington III outside the Capitol Petro Mart, 2570 Rimrock Road. Under a plea agreement, Assistant District Attorney Andrea Raymond will ask for no more than 20 years in prison for Moore. He will be sentenced by Dane County Circuit Judge Ellen Berz on Feb. 23. First-degree reckless homicide carries up to 40 years in prison and 20 years of extended supervision. Moore was the brother of Martez Moore, 30, who was shot to death outside OGradys Irish Pub, 7436 Mineral Point Road, on April 19, and was a friend of Darius Haynes, 38, who was shot and killed on May 10 at a Verona Road gas station. After the plea hearing, Moores lawyer, Robert Hurley, said that Moore has a minimal criminal history with no violent crimes, and had a full-time job. His only conviction was on a 2007 federal drug distribution charge, and he served a four-year prison sentence, plus another 11 months after his federal supervised release was revoked in 2011. His brother and his best friend were killed, and he found himself caught up in this situation, Hurley said. Its a very tragic situation for all involved. A criminal complaint states that Moore was in the Capitol Petro Mart when Washington entered, appeared to notice Moore and turned to leave. Moore pulled out what appeared on surveillance video to be a gun and followed Washington out the door, the complaint states. Washington, who also appeared on video to have a gun, turned to face Moore, and Moore raised his gun and appeared to shoot Washington, the complaint states. A witness at a nearby apartment building told police that after he saw a man fall to the ground, a second man fired gunshots at the man on the ground and then ran away. Washingtons sister heard the shots and ran to Washington and took his gun from him, she told police later. Police found it later hidden under a car seat, the complaint states. Search warrants unsealed in August named William Flowers as a person of interest in Martez Moores death, but he has not been charged. Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said Tuesday that Flowers is not considered a suspect at this point, but the investigation continues. Flowers was arrested on an unrelated outstanding warrant, pleaded guilty in September to misdemeanor battery and was given a jail sentence that was deemed served. Washington was Flowers cousin, police said in a search warrant affidavit. The warrants state the shootings of Martez Moore and Haynes happened over beefs between rival gangs. The man killed early Monday morning when struck by a vehicle while standing in a Beltline lane of traffic has been identified as Dustin Dilks, 26, of Madison. Dilks was killed at about 2:15 a.m. Monday while standing in the far right eastbound lane of the Beltline, east of the Gammon Road interchange. The Dane County Medical Examiner's Office said preliminary results of an autopsy confirmed his death was the result of injuries sustained in the crash. Additional testing is being performed by the Medical Examiner's Office. The eastbound Beltline was closed for over four hours Monday morning while crews worked at the scene. Following the initial crash, other vehicles struck Dilks. The driver of the first vehicle pulled over, and showed no indication of alcohol. You lose a polar bear, you gain a polar bear. Thats life in the endangered species world at zoos around the country. The Vilas Zoo in Madison is welcoming Berit, a female polar bear, from the Cincinnati Zoo, after sending Sakari, a male, to the Buffalo Zoo, in a multi-zoo deal that hopefully will result in bear cubs, after the planned pairing of bears didnt work out. Berit joins Suka, also a female bear, in the Arctic Passage exhibit at the Vilas Zoo, with Berit expected to make her debut to the public soon. The bear shuffle had Sakari taking the place of Anana at the Buffalo Zoo, with Anana going to the Cincinnati Zoo. Berit was at Cincinnati for 16 years and never got enamored with her selected mate Little One, so the hope is that Anana will be a better breeding match with Little One. Sakari is joining Ananas female cub Luna in Buffalo, so maybe something will start up there. And at the Vilas Zoo, with two females and no males in the polar bear compound, breeding is expected to be done the artificial way. We look forward to working with Cincinnatis Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife to learn about advanced artificial insemination techniques for polar bears, in hopes of producing cubs in the future, said Vilas Zoo Director Ronda Schwetz. Zoos in the Species Survival Plan regularly recommend movement of endangered species among zoos for the best chance of saving such species. Earlier this fall, Bornean orangutan Chelsea came to the Vilas Zoo to serve as a mentor to Datu and Kawan if they have another baby, another example of zoos working together to help endangered species. Two Liberal MPs have clashed over Peter Dutton's comments about Lebanese Muslim migrants to Australia, days after the Immigration Minister criticised the refugee policies of former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser. And while Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull praised his minister's performance, he dodged questions about debate in Tuesday's partyroom and stopped short of endorsing Mr Dutton's suggestion last week that Mr Fraser's policies were partly to blame for Australia's struggle with foreign fighters travelling to international conflict zones. On Monday, Mr Dutton doubled down on those comments during question time when pressed by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten on "which group of people, from which country, does the Minister believe should not have been allowed into Australia"? Mr Dutton replied: "The advice I have is that out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 of those people are from second and third-generation Lebanese-Muslim background." Time for me to call it a day. What happened? Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has backed Immigration Minister Peter Dutton over comments he made on Monday; has backed over comments he made on Monday; Mr Turnbull also defended his ministers who failed to back the government's line on the Adler shotgun in the Senate last night; also defended his ministers who failed to back the government's line on the in the last night; the Senate has passed the government's registered organisations legislation ; has passed the government's ; it will now consider its proposal for a building industry watchdog ; and ; and Pauline Hanson and Rod Culleton are not speaking to one another. My thanks to Andrew Meares and Alex Ellinghausen for their work and to you for reading and commenting. You can follow me on Facebook. Alex, Andrew and I will be back soon. Enjoy your evening. On the same day he cancelled his Saint Pablo concert tour, Kanye West has reportedly been hospitalised and put under observation. Quoting "police sources," TMZ report that West, 39, was admitted to UCLA Medical Centre for a psychiatric evaluation at 1.20pm Monday local time. They add that he did not want to be admitted to hospital, however, a representative for the father-of-two, who asked not to be named, told The New York Times the call had come from the his doctor and he was taken willingly. NBC News add that "no criminal activity was involved" and the decision to hospitalise West was "for his own health and safety". The weather might not be as reliable - but Melbourne and Victoria look to be leading the way in gender equality. Credit:Darrian Traynor "There will no doubt be a full review of what occurred last night and what the clinical outcomes were," she said. "No doubt there will be lessons to learn, there always are in these cases. But every part of our emergency management surge occurred correctly." Did you experience a long wait for an ambulance? Contact the reporter. On Tuesday morning, pharmacists reported a rush on Ventolin and some hospitals were still overflowing with patients. The Royal Children's Hospital used its Facebook page to warn parents about long waits for care. "During this busy period, for less urgent care, please consider visiting your local hospital ED or GP to avoid longer than usual wait times. If required, they will refer you to the RCH," the post said. Royal Children's general medicine director Tom Connell said there had been almost 500 presentations within 24 hours, placing "huge demand" on the hospital's resources. Dr Connell said the hospital normally received about 220 presentations children needing treatment each day, rising to 300 on an exceptional day. "It's a very rare event for this to occur. The last one in Melbourne was about 2011 and before that was in 1989 always in November," he said. There were about 50 admissions to the hospital compared with a normal admission rate of 20 or 30 a day. Some children were treated for up to 12 hours and then discharged. Dr Connell said the waiting rooms were still busy as a result of the storm. Some children who had not had asthma before did suffer attacks because of the weather. "Most of the parents recognised that their child's symptoms weren't that severe but they were new to them, they had never had them before. "Therefore it's always a scary time coming into the hospital with your child with an acute respiratory tightening in the chest, which for some would feel like breathing through a straw." Most parents took their children to the hospital rather than calling an ambulance. Dr Connell said the hospital's supply of Ventolin did "come close" to a shortage but there were now adequate supplies. Most children have responded well to treatment and were taken home. Dr Connell said children were still coming through the emergency department, with 65 there at 8.30am on Tuesday. A Melbourne doctor who didn't want to be named told Fairfax Media two patients died during the event. "All of a sudden about 6pm there was a sudden rush of critically ill asthmatics that continued until about 1am," he said. The doctor, who worked through the night at a Melbourne hospital, said while many staff were called back in to work up to 16 hour shifts, they struggled to keep up. "The hospitals are all at breaking point," he said. "A number of hospitals came very close to running out of Ventolin altogether." The doctor said he heard five or six crews asking for MICA (mobile intensive care ambulances) with no luck, and that was only in one part of Melbourne. He also heard that two patients in the western suburbs had died, including a 20-year-old. It is believe MICA units, which are prioritised for people people suffering cardiac arrest, were unable to meet demand. "There were many critically unwell patients who were not able to access MICA support as they were just unavailable," the doctor said. Mr Stephenson confirmed two people, including a 20 year old, died while waiting for an ambulance. He said police had been checking on the welfare of about 12 patients who could not be reached when the ambulance service called them back. State health commander Paul Holman said in his 40 years as a paramedic he had never seen anything like it. Mr Holman said it is thought the storm brought with it an increase in irritants, leading to the huge wave of patients suffering from breathing issues. He said the majority of the patients were so sick they needed to be taken to hospital (rather than being treated at the scene), and at one stage there were 190 people waiting for assistance. "Every ambulance and ambulance manager was recalled," he said. "It was an unprecedented night. "I have never seen the computer dispatch of Melbourne look like it. It was what we call a sea of red." While Melbourne's air quality has since improved, there are concerns about the ability of hospitals to cope with the surge in demand. Mr Holman said most hospitals in Melbourne and Geelong had been forced to recall staff. "Every hospital is basically full," he said. It is understood a Code Brown was issued at University Hospital Geelong, which means the hospital discharges patients who are ready to go home so the emergency departments can send patients to wards, and make space for incoming people. Barwon Health, which runs University Hospital Geelong, posted a statement on its Facebook page urging people to seek medical treatment from a GP if their condition was not life-threatening, due to high demand in the emergency department. Tim Lewis, owner and pharmacist at Southern Cross Amcal Pharmacy, said the pharmacy ran out of Ventolin on Tuesday morning, selling up to 60 inhalers in a few hours. A usual morning might see up to 10 sold. "I had to go to our other pharmacy to bring up another box of 20 or 30 inhalers," Mr Lewis said. The last major case of thunderstorm asthma in Melbourne was in 2011, but was not nearly as bad as Monday's event. Patrick Norman Pat Chapman is a 34-year-old, Caucasian male who was last known to be in Piedmont which is near the area of Greenville, Missouri on May 10, 2020. Pat had stayed the night with a friend and his wife at their home. In the early morning when the friend woke to go to work. Pat was gone in his own Burgundy color 1995 Ford Escort. That is the last anyone was known to have seen him. The vehicle was later recovered on May 29, 2020 in Mill Spring, Missouri. More than a dozen companies are racing to produce a vaccine against Zika virus, including one doing its research in Madison for now. Takeda, a Japanese drug company with U.S. operations in Deerfield, Illinois, is developing a Zika vaccine at its lab on Madisons West Side. The lab will move to Boston next year as part of a companywide consolidation. A year after a Zika outbreak in Brazil gained worldwide attention because many affected babies were born with small heads, or microcephaly, Zika has spread through most of the Western Hemisphere, including to Puerto Rico and the Miami area. The World Health Organization last week declared Zika an ongoing threat instead of an emergency, bolstering the need to combat the entrenched virus with measures such as vaccines, especially for women likely to become pregnant. Takeda is developing a Zika vaccine that uses an inactivated, or killed virus, said Hansi Dean, who heads up Takedas lab in Madison. The company selected the vaccines components in Madison and is working here on tests to determine if the vaccine is safe and effective in clinical trials, which are expected to start next year, Dean said. Other companies are using a weakened form of live virus or pieces of viral DNA in their vaccines, she said. Its not clear which type of vaccine might work best, but Dean said Takeda chose a killed virus largely because of safety. Its the safest approach for vaccinating women of childbearing age, she said. The federal governments Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority gave Takeda $19.8 million to develop the Zika vaccine. Takedas Madison lab, which has 23 people, also works on vaccines against influenza and dengue, a virus similar to Zika. Meanwhile, UW-Madison researchers continue to study Zika in rhesus macaque monkeys. Four monkey babies born to mothers infected with Zika during pregnancy had Zika virus in many types of tissue, and their heads may have been slightly smaller than normal, said David OConnor, a UW-Madison pathology professor. Finding the virus in tissues such as optic nerves, lungs, bone marrow and lymph nodes suggests Zika may cause a variety of health effects, OConnor said. In people too, microcephaly is just one of many consequences associated with Zika infection in pregnancy, he said. Zika, primarily caused by mosquito bites and spread from pregnant women to fetuses, can also be transmitted through sex. A mysterious case this summer in Utah in which a man who hadnt traveled to a Zika-infected area contracted the infection from his dying father led UW-Madison researchers to study the likelihood that the virus can spread through saliva. The scientists placed a large amount of the virus directly on monkeys tonsils, and the monkeys became infected. But when the researchers put saliva from infected monkeys in other monkeys eyes, nose or tonsils, those monkeys werent infected. By and large, most people would not have sufficient virus in their saliva to initiate infection, said Dawn Dudley, an associate scientist working with OConnor. Utah researchers said in September the Utah man likely contracted Zika from the tears or sweat of his father, who had an unusually high level of the virus in his blood. I am Kerry Burgess. This is what I think. Your Ultimate Investing Toolkit Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools: Portfolio Monitoring Top Stock Lists Premium Reports Stock Screeners Live News Feed Premium Support Free for your first month. 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. 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Read More Murray police warn of prowlers in several neighborhoods Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 21, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 21, 2016 | 04:51 PM | PADUCAH, KY Two people have been charged in connection with break-ins last week at two Paducah vape stores, and police say more charges are expected. The Paducah Police Department says two suspects threw a cinder block through a glass door at Chuckin Clouds, 1001 Old Mayfield Road, in the early morning hours of Nov. 14, and stole various vaping devices and damaged property and inventory. Less than an hour later, the same two people allegedly broke the front door at Kickin Ash, 2847 Lone Oak Road, and took vaping devices. Display cases and products were damaged at that store, as well. Detectives said they questioned several people and learned that some of the stolen merchandise was at an apartment in the 1100 block of Old North Friendship Road. As detectives arrived at the home to serve a search warrant, they reportedly saw 21-year-old Alexis N. Jones taking some of the stolen merchandise from her home and throwing it into a dumpster. She was arrested on a charge of tampering with physical evidence and booked into McCracken County Regional Jail. Upon further investigation, detectives learned that two juveniles had committed the burglaries, and that some of the stolen merchandise was buried in a field in Melber. Detectives went to Melber and dug up a bag containing vaping devices and other items. Police say one of the 16-year-old juveniles been charged with breaking into the stores and tampering with physical evidence. Police say their investigation is continuing, and more charges are expected. Advertisement By Tim Brockwell Nov. 22, 2016 | METROPOLIS, IL By Tim Brockwell Nov. 22, 2016 | 04:41 PM | METROPOLIS, IL The absentee ballots have been counted, and a measure to enact a 1 percent sales tax increase in Massac County to pay for renovations to the county's aging courthouse building has failed to pass. Voters were split by a razor-thin margin of one vote on election day, with 3,318 votes for the increase, and 3,319 against. However, 17 mail-in absentee ballots had still not been received by the county clerk's office. The remaining ballots were tallied Tuesday afternoon at the Massac County Courthouse. In all, seven ballots were received that were postmarked by the Nov. 8 deadline. Of those, three voted for the tax increase and four voted against it. This means the measure failed by a margin of just two votes. The failed ballot measure would have raised the county sales tax rate from 6.25 percent to 7.25 percent. The estimated $840,000 yearly revenue the tax increase would have generated over a period of up to 15 years would have been used to fix various problems with the courthouse including plumbing, windows, HVAC, mold and asbestos issues. Statute still requires that the courthouse be repaired, so it is unclear exactly where officials will get the funding needed to perform the work. Massac County Commissioner Jayson Farmer, who supported the tax increase, says money for repairs will likely have to come from existing departmental budgets. "We'll have to work with a reduction of budgets to try to get some renovations started on the courthouse," Farmer said. "Unfortunately it's going to have to come from the budgets of the office holders. It's not an option that we really wanted to explore, but unfortunately our only option at this time is to reduce their budgets maybe 10 or 15 percent in the offices to try to raise enough money each year to start working on the courthouse." Farmer says it's unclear at this point which departments will be forced to cut their budgets, or exactly what those reductions might be. Massac County Republican Party Chairman Samuel Stratemeyer says he agrees with those who voted no on the measure, saying money for courthouse renovations should come from other sources. "My response is the same as the response from the people of Massac County. They have voted no twice to increase taxes. They want the courthouse fixed with no tax increase." Stratemeyer said. Voters rejected a similar measure in March by a margin of 200 votes. By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 21, 2016 | 05:57 PM | GRAVES COUNTY, KY A non-injury crash Monday morning in Graves County led to one man's arrest on multiple drug charges. Graves County Sheriff Dewayne Redmon said the two-vehicle collision happened at around 5:15 am on KY 940. Deputies said one of the subjects involved in the crash, Wesley Sheridan, attempted to leave the scene. Mayfield Police arrived and kept Sheridan at the scene. Police said a search of Sheridan's vehicle yielded methamphetamine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Also reportedly found inside Sheridan's vehicle was a schedule IV prescription drug that was not in the proper container. Sheridan was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana, possession of meth, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of controlled substance, prescription not in the proper container and open container of alcohol in a motor vehicle. He was booked into the Graves County Jail. By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 21, 2016 | 06:11 PM | GRAVES COUNTY, KY One person was injured in a two-vehicle crash Monday morning in Graves County. According to the Graves County Sheriff's Office, the wreck happened on US 45 North at Sawyer Road at around 7:40 am. Deputies said 88-year-old Milton Keeling of Hickory was traveling north on US 45 North in the passing lane. Another vehicle, driven by 27-year-old Terra King of South Fulton, TN, was also traveling north on US 45 North. According to police, Keeling was attempting to merge from the left lane into the right lane, when the right rear of his vehicle struck the front left of King's vehicle. Deputies said the contact caused King's vehicle to overturn several times. King was transported to Baptist Health Paducah for treatment of her injuries. Keeling was not injured in the crash. By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 22, 2016 | 10:09 AM | MAYFIELD, KY A man wanted in connection with a September shooting in Mayfield has been arrested. According to Mayfield Police Chief Nathan Kent, officers saw William Robinson of Mayfield sitting in a vehicle at a local convenience store over the weekend. Kent said Robinson was wanted for 1st degree assault for allegedly shooting Eric Caldwell on Sept. 16 of this year. Police said Caldwell and Robinson had been in a fight earlier in the day, and as Caldwell was driving away, Robinson fired a shot from a handgun through the back windshield, striking Caldwell in the cheek. Caldwell was treated at Jackson Purchase Medical Center for a gunshot wound to the face. Robinson was taken into custody Friday without incident. While Robinson was exiting the vehicle, police said the odor of burnt marijuana was detected. Officers reportedly found a loaded handgun and a small amount of suspected marijuana during a search of the vehicle. Robinson was charged with possession of a handgun by a convicted felon, possession of marijuana and possession of an open alcohol beverage in a motor vehicle. Warrants were also served for a parole violation, failure to appear in court, 1st degree assault and wanton endangerment. He was lodged in the Graves County Jail. By The Associated Press Nov. 21, 2016 | 05:47 PM | FRANKFORT, KY Gov. Matt Bevin says he spoke by phone with Donald Trump and came away even more convinced that Kentucky has an ally in the president-elect. The Republican governor said Monday he chatted with Trump last week after the incoming president reached out. Bevin says topics included the manufacturing and coal sectors. Bevin says the Bluegrass state is "in a good place to have the ear" of Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Trump easily carried Kentucky in this month's election. Bevin says he and Trump didn't talk about specifics in efforts to try to revive the coal industry but said the president-elect is committed to its comeback. Bevin says the chat also touched on Medicaid. Federal officials are reviewing a plan by Bevin's administration to overhaul the state's Medicaid program. By The Associated Press By The Associated Press Nov. 21, 2016 | 09:37 PM | CHATTANOOGA, TN The driver of an elementary school bus that crashed in Chattanooga, killing at least five children, has been arrested and faces charges including vehicular homicide. Calling the Monday afternoon crash "every public safety professional's worst nightmare," Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher told an overnight news conference that 24-year-old bus driver Johnthony Walker was charged with five counts of vehicular homicide. Walker was also charged with reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Fletcher said earlier that investigators were looking at speed "very, very strongly" as a factor in the crash. Kirk Kelly, the interim superintendent of Hamilton County Schools, says there are six students in intensive care Tuesday morning and six others still hospitalized. Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke says the city is in mourning. Thirty-five students from kindergarten through fifth grade were on board Monday afternoon when the bus flipped onto its side and wrapped around a tree. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A recent expansion has one of the citys leading music labels and artist-management firms looking forward to a banner 2017. Pipe & Hat, now Pipe & Hat Music Group, decided to add two new divisions and to clarify the roles of their two existing ones. The group, which supports up-and-coming local artists such as Attica Riots and the Noble Thiefs, is composed of Pipe & Hat Artist Management, Sugar Gator Records, Flint/Fire Development and Jellyfish Jam Creative Services. Pipe & Hat was growing in the four areas you now see as divisions. The expansion was a way to make this growth more concrete and ensure our fans, our artists, our team and potential collaborators had a clear picture of who we are, why were here and the services we provide, says Pipe & Hat president Tim Jones. This was the catalyst behind the launch of Pipe & Hat Music Group. TRAVIS ROSS PHOTO Sc Mira performs at the Festival du Voyageur in 2015. The addition of Flint/Fire was one of necessity, as Pipe & Hat was finding they didnt have a place for acts who were in their infancy as artists. Jones said many musicians would approach him for advice and help, but didnt meet the criteria to be managed by Pipe & Hat. The acts falling under that umbrella will now be placed in the Flint/Fire division, which will also tackle community development, including producing Pride Winnipegs 30th anniversary event in June 2017. The expansion gives Pipe & Hat the distinction of being the only company in the city to offer all those services under one roof, so to speak (the company ditched its literal roof in the Exchange District; the three full-time staff members plus one part-timer and one intern work remotely). Jones admits that doing so much at the same time may not always work out for the best, but hes optimistic that the future of the group is a bright one, for both his staff and the artists they work with. For better or for worse, commercial viability is pretty top of the list for us now, which might seem odd when you see some of our acts, but keeping in mind weve been working with them for years and were not just going to drop them or anything. When you look at Bright Righteous or Attica Riots or Faouzia, we dont hope that theyll be playing in arenas; that is the expectation. Its kinda that or nothing, that or bust to a certain extent, says Jones, 31. We want the plateau for the acts on Pipe & Hat management to be at that level. From a vision standpoint, a lot of people tell you its about the art and its about all that kind of stuff, and dont get me wrong, I like the music of all the artists I work with, I wouldnt work with them if I didnt like their music, but we have to see some level of commercial viability. Pipe & Hat began officially in 2009 as a management firm that was more or less artist-instigated. Jones explains that he unintentionally wound up managing local hip-hop group the Lytics in the early stages of their career, which snowballed into other artists approaching him to do the same for them. Lane Dorsey photo Attica Riots He and his former partner, Kenny Huynh, then decided to launch the company under the name Pipe & Hat. In 2011, they added the record label after it became apparent that a distribution deal with Fontana North, a Toronto company, was a distinct possibility. In that first year, the Pipe & Hat label released an EP and full-length record for indie-roots darling Ingrid Gatin, the first record for rock and soul outfit the Noble Thiefs and rock duo Mise en Scenes first record. Thats how things started, and that was all within sort of a year, so the label took off very quickly, we had a lot of releases right away, says Jones, who is now the sole owner, having bought out his partners this past summer. At the time, it was a way to benefit our management artists, but now in the last couple years, its mostly been non-management artists that weve put out, so the label is starting to live on its own, hence why we rebranded and did everything else. Currently, Sugar Gator Record is home to a handful of artists who are actively creating and releasing new music, which includes Mise en Scene and the Noble Thiefs, as well as the Moulettes out of the U.K., who performed on the mainstage at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in July, and local group SC Mira. Pipe & Hat is a locally based and internationally focused brand, says Jane Puchniak, marketing director for Pipe & Hat. Its taking these exceptionally talented creatives from Winnipeg and connecting them to their fans and audience locally, which is always that very intimate and special experience, but also connecting them with fans in the American market, the biggest music market in the world and connecting them with fans overseas so that we can establish a career for them that is sustainable for them and longterm, so that they can continue to create music and create art that they love and that can inspire others. Puchniak recently represented Pipe & Hat, and Canada, at a trade mission in New York hosted by the Canadian Independent Music Association. She was one of only 10 delegates chosen from Canada, the majority of whom were from larger music hubs, such as Toronto and Montreal. TRAVIS ROSS PHOTO Bright Righteous singer Kevin Hogg At one point, Jones considered moving the operations head office to Toronto from Winnipeg after many people in the industry told him of the moves benefits, but, in addition to the cheaper cost of living in Winnipeg, one big thing stopped him. The whole reason why our model worked was with Winnipeg being often forgotten by the industry, artists that we probably wouldnt have had a shot working with if they lived in Toronto in New York or L.A., we ended up getting to work with them because nobody found out about them Thats how we made our name, he says. So if I moved, I wouldnt be here to find the next Bright Righteous or SC Mira or whoever. Now, at this point, I feel very proud of the fact that were here, he continues. I think its arrogant to say we want to put Winnipeg on the map, because Winnipeg is already on the map, but I want to contribute to the story. erin.lebar@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @NireRabel If you value coverage of Manitobas arts scene, help us do more. Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism. BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project. TRAVIS ROSS PHOTO The Noble Thiefs TRAVIS ROSS PHOTO Faouzia performs at Canadas Walk of Fame Festival in Toronto. PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Pipe & Hat president Tim Jones Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Its been called the silent killer, and it can attack people in their homes. It is radon, a radioactive gas produced by the breakdown of uranium found in soil, rocks and water. When its released into the atmosphere, it gets diluted and poses little risk to human health. But if it accumulates inside a home, over the long term it can pose a serious health risk. So, as part of Realtor Week in Manitoba and National Radon Action Month in Canada, the Manitoba Real Estate Association (MREA) launched a campaign Monday to increase awareness of radon and to encourage Manitobans to test their homes for the gas. JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Trudy Turner found radon levels in her basement were high. Shell soon have a heat recovery ventilator installed as it provides peace of mind. Lorne Weiss, chairman of the MREAs Political Action Committee, told reporters at a morning news conference its estimated about 14 per cent of Manitoba homes have unacceptably high levels of radon, which is one of the highest rates in the country. In fact, radon gas is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the province. Weiss said winter is a good time to check for radon gas because the air conditioning isnt on and homeowners arent opening doors and windows as often, so more accurate readings can be obtained. He said most homeowners who get their homes tested will likely find there isnt a problem. That was the case with his home when he tested it last winter. But radon levels also could be unacceptably high, he added, so why take a chance, he added. Thats also the advice of Dr. Lisa Richards, medical officer for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. She and her husband are taking steps after discovering four times the safe level of radon in the basement of their home and slightly elevated levels on the main floor. We know that radon gas is the second leading cause of lung cancer in Manitoba, Richards said. So we are encouraging everyone to test their homes and take measures to remediate if necessary. Weiss said most hardware stores sell radon test kits for about $50. The kits include a small, puck-shaped tester with test strips, as well as instructions on where to send the test strips for analysis. Its recommended the tester be placed somewhere that isnt close to a door or window, and that it be left there for about three months. The homeowners should get a report back in a few weeks stating what the level of radon gas is in their home. It will also recommend what, if any, remedial action should be taken, and how soon it should be taken. The Health Canada guideline for what is considered an acceptable level of radon in a home is 200 Bq/m3. If the level is between 200 and 600 Bq/m3, Health Canada recommends remedial action be taken within two years. If its above 600 Bq/m3, it recommends action be taken within a year. Mondays news conference was held in the home of Winnipeg real estate agent Trudy Turner, who tested her 1980s-era bungalow last winter and found radon levels in the basement were above the acceptable guideline, at 488 Bq/m3. She and her husband are having a heat recovery ventilator (HRV) unit installed in the basement this fall. The unit regularly replaces inside air with fresh outside air to reduce radon levels to an acceptable level. Its costing them about $2,500, and Manitoba Hydro offers lower-cost loans to cover the cost. The monthly payments are added on to the homeowners hydro bill. For most families, it should be financially obtainable using Manitoba Hydros financing option, Weiss said. It (testing your home) is so easy to do and its so cost-friendly, so if you and your family are living there, why wouldnt you do it? (Testing your home) is so easy to do and its so cost-friendly, so if you and your family are living there, why wouldnt you do it? Lorne Weiss While its not a requirement at the moment, he and Turner believe its also a matter of time before one of the standard questions on a homesellers disclosure form will be whether the home has been tested for radon gas, what the results were, and what, if any, remedial action was taken. If you have a home that had high radon levels and it has been remediated, it doesnt stigmatize the home at all, Weiss said. Its a selling feature, Turner added. It provides peace of mind. Turner said she and her husband didnt think twice about having an HRV unit installed in their home. Its a safety issue. You know what you should do and you just need to do it. Weiss said installing an HRV system is one of several possible remedial solutions. So its worthwhile to consult with a radon mitigation professional who has been certified by the Canadian National Radon Proficiency Program (C-NRPP) to learn which solution is best for your situation. murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA More than half the residents who were flooded out of their homes in Lake St. Martin First Nation more than five years ago should be able to move to a new home in a new community within a year. Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada issued a tender earlier this month to build 150 new homes on the reserves new land, located adjacent to the community destroyed by flooding in May 2011. The tender was to have closed Tuesday but was extended by a week-and-a-half after a meeting with more than 20 interested companies. The winning bid should be determined before the end of December and construction will be timed for completion next fall. It is anticipated that housing and essential infrastructure will be in place and Lake St. Martin residents can begin returning to the community by the fall of 2017, INAC Manitoba region spokeswoman Ellen Funk said in an email. ALEXANDRA PAUL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Ruined homes will be replaced and Lake St. Martin First Nation residents are expected to start moving into new residences in the fall of 2017. The process of rebuilding the community has been fraught with problems, including mismanagement of the program by the Manitoba Association of Native Firefighters, which gave up control of the evacuee program in June 2013. The Canadian Red Cross took over. An audit of the INAC program overseeing the evacuations and rebuilding, dubbed Operation Return Home, found the whole program was poorly resourced, plagued with delays and very disorganized. A spokesman for the program, who requested anononymity, said Tuesday everyone involved is anxious to get things moving. There is just no good answer as to why this is taking so long, he said. The tender, issued Nov. 1, was for 100 1,140 square-foot three-bedroom homes, 40 1,560-sq.-ft. four-bedroom homes and 10 1,740-sq.-ft. five-bedroom homes. It is expected they will able to house more than 660 people, or slightly more than half the 1,232 Lake St. Martin evacuees who remain on federal assistance. All of the evacuees previously expressed a desire to move back to the First Nation. Theyll be offered space when the homes are ready, and will be able to move in. Anyone who declines will be removed from the evacuee lists. A second subdivision of up to 150 houses is planned for the new reserve, which is located on higher land adjacent to the flooded property. The tender for that construction is expected soon. The 2011 flooding forced more than 4,000 residents to leave several First Nations in the Interlake. As of the end of October, there were still 1,987 evacuees from six reserves receiving assistance from Ottawa. Lake St. Martin accounts for almost two-thirds of the evacuees. Dauphin River (236 evacuees) and Little Saskatchewan (420) account for the bulk of the rest, followed by Peguis (95), Pinaymootang (three) and Ebb and Flow (one). INAC has spent almost $150 million for housing and other costs for the evacuees, and that bill rises by $1.6 million every month. Many evacuated residents lived in hotel rooms for months, some even years, although all but 45 are now in private accommodation. A spokesman for the program overseeing the plans said Tuesday most of the Little Saskatchewan evacuees should be able to move home before the spring because 77 homes are almost finished. There are 41 modular homes already in Dauphin River and evacuees can start moving into those likely before the end of the year. mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Progressive Conservatives second throne speech in six months offered a lot more substance than the first, which was largely a repeat of party campaign promises. Here are five takeaways: The Progressive Conservative government is keen on controlling public-sector spending. The Tories promise to table legislation this session to keep a lid on wage increases. Balancing the provinces books remains a long-term goal. The government has said it could take up to two terms in government eight years to achieve it. At the same time, Premier Brian Pallister has promised no major tax increases; in fact the throne speech promises to introduce legislation requiring a referendum before increases can be made to the PST, income tax or the payroll tax. The Tories continue to promise a one-point reduction in the PST by the end of their first term. The obsession with controlling costs is probably why some of the Tories expensive campaign promises barely got a mention. There was no mention, for instance, of a plan to fast-track the construction of 1,200 personal care home beds, as promised. As well, the government did not say even in a general way how it would keep its promise to spend $1 billion on infrastructure annually. While it announced $500 million in road spending last week, there were scant details in the throne speech on where the other half billion would be spent. One project definitely on the governments radar is the completion of flood outlet channels for Lake Manitoba and Lake St. Martin, which the PCs call the largest construction project since the expansion of the floodway. Its difficult to tell from the throne speech how much progress the government expects in the coming year. The government appears to be spending considerable time thinking about ways to improve the lot of vulnerable children. In the aftermath of all too many tragedies within the provinces child welfare system, the government has promised to develop a comprehensive plan that will result in fewer kids in care, better co-ordination of services and better information sharing between agencies. Legislation will be introduced to reduce bureaucratic red tape that delays support services to children in care. A bill will be tabled to enhance the independence of the childrens advocate and to increase accountability within the provinces child welfare services. As well, the government plans to reform the provinces Employment and Income Assistance program to improve the circumstances of our youngest citizens. We should know soon how the province will protect Manitobans from adverse effects of Ottawas plans to legalize marijuana. Legislation and regulations are promised that will protect children and youth from exposure to marijuana and its use, minimize harm to users and address the dangers of drug-impaired driving. The initiatives will follow months of work on the issue. The Tories will spend more time studying such thorny health issues as long wait times and rising costs before much action takes place. The long-promised wait-time task force is yet to be established. A comprehensive assessment of Manitobas health system has just begun. Meanwhile, work is underway through a consultation process to identify the best path forward for the self-regulation of Manitobas paramedics something the Tories used to blast the NDP for not carrying out. compiled by Larry Kusch and Nick Martin Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. At least six faith-based health-care facilities in Manitoba including two Winnipeg hospitals will not be providing medically assisted deaths to their patients or long-term care residences. Officials from St. Boniface Hospital told the Free Press Monday patients seeking medical assistance in dying will have to go to another facility to have the service offered. Other medical care facilities under the Catholic Health Corp. of Manitoba umbrella, including St. Josephs residence in northwest Winnipeg, Ste. Rose General Hospital near Dauphin, and Winnipegosis and District Health Centre will also follow suit, explained the corporations CEO, Daniel Lussier. Our position, of course, is a longstanding moral tradition that (medically) assisted death or medical aid in dying is the act of hastening death and that is just something that for us, as Catholic health-care providers, is not a service we want to be offering, Lussier said. Meanwhile, Mennonite-affiliated Concordia Hospital and Archdiocese of Winnipeg-affiliated Misericordia Health Centre have also taken a firm stance that their facilities will provide palliative care options and pain management for patients or residents, rather than medically assisted death. Concordia Hospital took out an ad in Wednesdays Herald outlining its stance on the federal legislation. The federal Liberal governments assisted dying bill became law in June, allowing medically assisted death for terminally ill people. Concordia believes that providing health care is a ministry assigned to us by Christ and is expressive of our Anabaptist faith, values and ethics. As such, our opposition to the practice of MAID based on our ethical and moral beliefs needs has been recognized and honoured by the WRHA, and Concordia Hospital and Concordia Place will not offer the service of (medically assisted deaths), it said, with a space for readers to donate to the hospital. Nothing in the federal legislation compels a doctor to provide medically assisted deaths. Standards of practice by the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Manitoba state a member must not promote his or her own values or beliefs about medically assisted death when interacting with a patient. However, they can refuse to refer the patient to a doctor who will provide it, as long as they state it is on grounds of a conscience-based objection and they refer the patient to accurate resources. The chief executives of Concordia and St. Boniface both said any patient who requests a medically assisted death will be referred to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authoritys medically assisted death team, who will assess the patients eligibility. If they qualify for a medically assisted death, the patient will either be transported to another hospital or if possible, can receive a medically assisted death at their home. If they request medical assistance in dying we first try to do everything we can to minimize pain, said Concordia CEO Valerie Wiebe. If that suffering has created them with a need to request medical assistance in dying, we can certainly connect. We have great relationships with the WRHA departments and programs. St. Boniface CEO Dr. Bruce Roe said there will be no directive given to doctors about whether they can or cannot offer a medically assisted death as an option for dying patients. We will not be providing (medically assisted death), we will not be intentionally ending a life, but we are committed to responding when patients or families ask about it, Roe said. Our doctors may say that (a medically assisted death) is an option, we are not telling them not to say that. Ottawa is working with the provinces to come up with a standard to reconcile objections from faith-based hospitals that reject patients requests for assisted dying, federal Health Minister Jane Philpott said Monday. My department is working with officials across the country to make sure, like all other areas of medically necessary care, that all Canadians will have the same access to care, Philpott said. Various provinces, including Ontario, British Columbia and now Manitoba, have faced the problem of faith-based hospitals opting out of requests from patients who qualify for the care under Ottawas legislation this summer. Philpott said that work will take time. Were seeing that certain provinces have moved along to varying extents, some further than others. Some have fairly rigorous mechanisms by which people can get in touch with a provider who will provide medical assistance or at least a consultation. Its taking a little time in other parts of the country to get those mechanisms in place. Provincial Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen said there needs to be a balance between protecting those in the medical industry and the rights of patients. Every procedure in the health care system isnt available in every hospital, whether it is Winnipeg or rural Manitoba. It is about balance and we will respect that balance, Goertzen said. We will protect the right of facilities not to participate in (medically assisted death). However, those facilities must have a policy in place for the hand-off of care in instances where a patient requests a medically assisted death, Goertzen said. Goertzen said he wants to see these facilities have these policies in place soon. with files from Alexandra Paul kristin.annable@freepress.mb.ca H28-1116 Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. An off-duty Winnipeg police officer who tried to intervene in an altercation between two people is under investigation by the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba (IIU). The incident occurred Nov. 18 at about 5 pm. The off-duty officer was driving near St. Marys Road and Marion Street when he saw two males fighting, with the fight moving into oncoming traffic. The officer intervened which resulted in one of the males suffering a fractured jaw. The Independent Investigation Unit is investigating a Winnipeg police officer after he tried to break up an altercation between two men on Nov. 18. The officer was off duty at the time. The male was treated and released from hospital, then detained at the Winnipeg Remand Centre. As this incident involved a serious injury, the IIU is required to investigate. The IIU is asking witnesses and other individuals who have information or video footage that may assist this investigation to contact them toll-free at 1-844-667-6060. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. While she was supposed to be leading the Liberal party during the Manitoba election in the spring, Rana Bokhari quietly assumed another position: Woman on the Internet. In an interview with CBC News published online Monday, Bokhari detailed the online harassment she experienced during the campaign. She says she received death threats and gross messages, including one calling her the sexyest woman in politics and offering her a full-body massage. PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESSProvincial Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari speaks to media outside of question period. She says she was the target of racist comments, including an insinuation she was a terrorist. She says she also received that mainstay of Internet harassment: the unsolicited dick pic. What Bokhari experienced is infuriating but commonplace. Women, and especially women who do public jobs, deal with this kind of garbage every day, on platforms that refuse to do anything meaningful about it (hello, Facebook). Compared to other women in public roles, Ive had it easy. No one has sent me disgusting photos of their junk (yet!) or called me the c-word (yet!), although whenever I write anything containing even a whiff of feminist analysis, I inevitably get an email from someone saying they feel sorry for my husband. My husband is fine. Bokharis interview comes on the heels of Calgary MLA Sandra Jansen withdrawing her name from the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party leadership race due to the alarming volume of abuse that was unleashed on her at a PC Party convention. Her team had to tear down posters with the c-word written on them. And what happened to Jansen comes on the heels of a long, exhausting U.S. election in which misogyny was worn like a sticker on Americas bumper: Trump That Bitch. Were told, as women, to speak up about the harassment we experience. Were told we need to name the problem, to expose those who harass us. We are told not to let bullies intimidate us, not to allow the trolls to silence us. Were told to carefully document the abuse with screenshots. Were told to call it out. Because, you know, we dont have actual stuff to do. Dealing with Internet trolls is just about the worst make-work project ever. Bokhari told the CBC she regrets not speaking out at the time, but she did a cost/benefit analysis. I felt like many other women feel like in those situations, she said. What are you willing to take? Are you willing to take the backlash of going public with this or do you just suck it up and keep moving? The backlash of going public is a real concern. For as much as were told to speak out, were often punished for it when we do. Were told were playing the victim card, or that what were experiencing is just locker-room talk. So its understandable why many women would want to put their heads down and do their best to either pretend it doesnt bother them or that its not happening at all, which is what people often really mean when they talk about thick skin. Grow thicker skin is usually just a way to say shut up and take it. Its not just women working in politics who are subject to hate and abuse, of course. Globe & Mail columnist Denise Balkissoon wrote last week about some of the racist mail shes received in the last month, writing that shes been called a darkie and a diversity hire. Someone suggested she be dismembered. The burden of hate is exhausting and heavy, she wrote. It makes me cry. It makes me want to quit. Lots of women do quit, because it just gets too painful. And when that happens, we all lose. It sucks a lot of energy out of vibrant, capable women to be constantly calling out harassers, and those who enable them by saying things like, Well, you have to be tough to work in politics. Women just want to do their jobs. They want to get things done, and then go home and maybe have a damn minute to themselves. They dont want to waste huge amounts of precious time dealing with Internet bullies. Imagine what could get accomplished if they didnt have to. jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @JenZoratti Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Unionized workers at the Nisichawayasihk Personal Care Home in Nelson House have set a Nov. 28 strike date. The Manitoba Government and General Employees Union said Local 367s bargaining committee set the deadline this morning following six years of fighting for wage parity with counterparts in other areas of the province. These members care deeply for their clients, who are elders in their community, but they continue to be so desperately underpaid, MGEU President Michelle Gawronsky said in a news release. These workers are paid 27 per cent less than others in the province. About 30 employees are set to strike. The MGEU said it estimates it will cost the employer approximately $200,000 for the workers to achieve parity with their counterparts in other provincial personal care homes. Were caught in a funding dispute between the local band and the federal government. Ive had conversations with the local chief and the federal labour minister. They both know the issues and the path we need to move forward on. They need to work together, show leadership and get this resolved before the strike begins, Gawronsky said. Nurses working at the same facility took job action in the spring of 2015 and were successful in achieving wage parity. It was not immediately clear if the strike could be a test for the provinces announcement in Mondays throne speech that it will pass legislation controlling public-sector wages. Premier Brian Pallister declined to go into detail while the University of Manitoba faculty was on strike, but professors are back to work today. Their collective agreement calls for a one-year wage freeze. Pallister so far has not used the words zero or freeze when discussing controlling public wages. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. This week, Canada had the distinction of putting another notch into its rape-culture bedpost. Earlier this summer, news broke that 12 indigenous women in the remote mining city of Val-dOr, Que., had made no fewer than 32 complaints of sexual assault and misconduct against the provincial police, the Surete du Quebec. As the investigation proceeded, more women began to share how, for decades, there had been whispered accounts of officers raping and otherwise assaulting members of their community, in some cases driving them out of town, only to demand sexual favours, the outcome of which was coldly predetermined. Despite their overwhelming numbers, complainants were told this week there would be no investigation, citing lack of evidence. One must suspend disbelief to accept that no evidence could be procured from such a vast number of alleged assaults. Equally incredible, Crown prosecutors acknowledged that the lack of charges did not mean that crimes had not taken place and that the decision should not affect future victims decisions to come forward. JACQUES BOISSINOT / THE CANADIAN PRESS Demonstrators at a vigil for survivors of sexual assault held at Laval University in Quebec City in October. The story is a horribly familiar one to indigenous people. The allegations are reminiscent of the infamous starlight tours that took place in connection with complaints against the Saskatoon City Police. In 2000, an investigation was launched after an indigenous man, Darrell Night, claimed he had been driven out of town in -20 C temperatures, kicked out of the cruiser and left to walk back into the city. Miraculously, he was able to flag down help and survived. All that remained of three other men, Darren Stonechild, Rodney Naistus and Lawrence Wegner, were their frozen bodies. Wegner was naked from the waist down. Two officers were eventually charged with unlawful confinement. They served eight months. An investigation into the misconduct was launched only by chance, after Night was pulled over for a seat belt infraction the day after his ordeal. Rodney Naistuss body had just been discovered and had made local news. When Night told the officer the same thing had happened to him, the officer asked if Night had reported the incident. Nights reply: Whos going to believe me? For the indigenous women of Val-d Or, that question has been answered by the cold indifference of the Canadian justice system. The reality of systemic racism, which many Canadians are all too happy to claim does not exist, is that many indigenous women and men interact in society with a perpetual feeling of physical insecurity. It manifests itself in the form of substandard housing on reserves, lack of potable water and various other travesties. On top of this, many navigate the world with an implied threat to their physical bodies. Racial profiling yields many real world examples of this. Ask an indigenous person what its like to be followed around a store while shopping, just because they are indigenous. If youve had the luxury of never having to think about the colour of your skin before stepping out the door in the morning, its hard to wrap your mind around what the implications of race truly are. For indigenous women, the stakes are even higher. They are raped, assaulted and murdered in vastly higher numbers than any other group in Canada. Many people are quick to suggest that its indigenous men who are largely responsible for these acts. While this is the wrong lens for so many reasons, the Val-dOr case makes it glaringly obvious that indigenous women are easy pickings for anyone with the slightest modicum of power. Canadian statistics suggest that, overall, one in four women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Statistics Canada also tells us that a disproportionate number of those women will be indigenous. The simmering terror under which Canadian women live is officially no longer only because we are inherently vulnerable to sexual abuse. If theres anything the past six months has shown us, its that the criminal justice system law enforcement and the courts cannot or choose not to help us. Evidently, there is a fundamental malfunction of the systems ostensibly in place to protect all citizens, such that justice and the law frequently become mutually exclusive concepts. The term rape culture came into the fore of public consciousness after the exoneration of Jian Ghomeshi. Been raped, never reported became a rallying cry many of us embraced to empower each other and ourselves. It gave women licence to finally speak the truth after keeping our secrets to ourselves, for fear that what had happened was just in our imaginations, or that no one would believe us. The indigenous women of Val-dOr, despite their fear, did not keep quiet. They stepped up to the plate, only to have their faces slapped by the Canadian justice system. For them, the phrase is Been raped, been reported no one cares anyway. Desiree Wengrowich is a former broadcaster who has returned to university to study sociology and women and gender studies. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. When soldier David MacDonald woke up he found himself in a German hospital with no idea how he got there, he asked the nurse if his arms were OK. She said yes. Then he asked about his legs. The nurse confirmed that his legs were still intact. His third question was not about his broken ribs or traumatic brain injuries. It was about his platoon. He wanted to know where they were and if they were OK. The fact he wasnt with them was a worse feeling than any injury he could ever have suffered. David did suffer a head injury that still affects him to this day. So when he spoke at the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerces South Chapter Meeting on Nov. 2, he was quick to playfully blame his brain injury any time he stumbled over his words. MacDonald spoke on behalf of Wounded Warriors Canada, an organization that supports Canadas ill and injured Canadian Armed Forces members, veterans, first responders and their families. As national partnerships director with Wounded Warriors Canada, David has shared his story with many. The Chamber along with chapter program sponsor Telpay was honoured to have him speak to members at Canad Inns Fort Garry. David enlisted in the Canadian Army in 2005 with hopes of one day serving overseas. Perhaps its the camaraderie that attracted David to the army. They were pretty much family, he said of his platoon. When I ended up in the hospital, away from them, it was like being separated from my family. I was upset I wasnt there with them. In 2008, David had the chance to serve overseas in Afghanistan. He was a member of the force protection platoon, which provided security for supply convoys. As a result, he was often clearing the way for convoys to make their way through. In March 2009, Davids vehicle was involved in a rollover, leading to the injuries that brought him to that hospital in Germany. That day marked a turning point in Davids life. He now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition that impacts his life every single day. Sadly, he explains that soldiers suffering from PTSD is not a unique story. Its representative of a lot of peoples story, he explains. And its important to create that dialogue about mental health so more people feel comfortable coming forward to tell their stories. I know many young men who had full lives ahead of them but couldnt fight the demons in their head. MacDonald continues to tell his story, encouraging people to live by the motto set by Wounded Warriors Canada honour the fallen, help the living. For more information on Wounded Warriors Canada and how to donate, visit www.woundedwarriors.ca Sean Angus is program and communications manager at the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce. SEMMCHRA, which develops affordable housing across southeast Minnesota, received funding through Minnesota Housings Rental Rehab Deferred Loan Program to make improvements to Parkview Court in Lewiston. The funding was used to complete roof replacement, window replacement, door replacement, concrete patios, kitchen improvements, water heater replacement, garage doors, and gutter and downspout replacement. Tenants have commented to the property manager on how they are enjoying their improvements, especially the improvements to the kitchen. The Rental Rehabilitation Deferred Loan Program assists owners of smaller rental properties located outside the seven-county metropolitan area, to finance moderate rehabilitation of structurally sound residential rental units. If anyone is interested in residing at Parkview Court in Lewiston, visit the website at semmchra.org and go to Apply Now. For artists who enjoy performing and bright stage lights, a shot at performing at Carnegie Hall is a dream come true. One Winona student will get that opportunity. Alexis (Lexi) DeLano, WSHS junior and choir student of Ms. Alexandra Johnson, has been selected as a finalist for the High School Honors Performance Series at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The series challenges elite students to perform at their very best. She was accepted after submitting a solo recording, as well as an application detailing her involvement in other honor choirs and vocal music camps, and a nomination from her teacher. DeLano, the daughter of Marcus and Sarah DeLano, has attended summer vocal music camp, was selected for the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota 10th Grade Honor Choir, and has received both a Save Our Fine Arts (SOFA) and a Jake Edstrom Scholarship to use to pursue her vocal music interests. Delano will be singing first soprano under the direction of renowned conductor Edith Copley. Lexi has received her music and will be practicing in the months leading up to the Feb. 2-6, 2017 opportunity. The Winona City Council voted Monday to take advantage of the approaching winter weather and bring a new recreation opportunity to Winona. The council voted unanimously to establish an ice climbing hill along with the Minnesota Climbers Association on a section of bluff west from Sugar Loaf, hoping to open the attraction this winter. The idea was brought to the city in September by local climbers, including Eric Barnard, director of the Winona State Outdoor Education and Recreation Center, and a board member of the Minnesota Climbers Association. The center has hosted safe climbing on the Sugar Loaf since 2012, with sessions open to students and the general public. Barnard said the ice climbing area has been under discussions in recent years, and last year they conducted tests to make sure ice formation and melting wouldnt cause issues around and at the bottom of the hill. With the city set to improve the parking, trails and signage to Sugar Loaf, there was an opportunity to add another aspect to the attractive climbing spot. About $2,800 in equipment to form the wall was donated to the Parks and Recreation department by the Minnesota Climbing Association. Were hoping it can happen, Barnard said. It could be a cool addition for the community. Chad Ubl, the city of Winonas community services director, said the city is verifying where the access trail is and where property lines are. We are getting close to establishing the ice climbing area, Ubl said. Support for Standing Rock The council also put approved a resolution of support for the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, which had previously been approved by the Winona Dakota Unity Alliance and the citys Human Rights Commission. The resolution supports protesters demonstrating against the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as pollution of water and soil and damage to sacred sites including indigenous graves. The council voted 4-2 in support of the resolution, with council members Paul Double and Michelle Alexander dissenting. Council member Gerry Krage was not present. Double said he was not in support of it because he thought pipelines were safer than other methods of transport, like trains. Pipelines are safer than rail train cars, Double said. Winona itself has had a pipeline for natural gas for many years. Others believed the resolution was in accordance with the Covenant of Friendship Winona had made with the Dakota people and their tribal governments, which are also in support of the protesters. Mayor Mark Peterson said the council would be sending a negative message if they were to not support the resolution. I signed these covenants four years ago and I think we do have a special relationship with these people, Peterson said. Council member Al Thurley said that while the city has not taken up more political resolutions in the past because it was not in their powers to affect change in other parts of the state or country, the resolution represented a broad support for agreements the city has already embraced. It behooves us, really, to do this, Thurley said. If we dont, were just like all the treaties that have been written and broken over the years. The following editorial appeared Friday in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: Take a bow, Minnesota voters. The North Star State once again led the nation in voter turnout on Nov. 8, returning to the civic participation pinnacle to which it has grown accustomed in the four decades since the state instituted Election Day registration. Thats a heartening showing, particularly in light of this states slippage to sixth place among the 50 states in the 2014 midterm election. Better still for bragging rights: Minnesotas 74.7 percent turnout this year bested the second-ranked state, New Hampshire, where turnout was 72.3 percent. And its much better than the national average, a ho-hum 58.1 percent. More than parochial pride is behind our enthusiasm for these results. High voter turnout lends legitimacy to representative democracy. It allows elected officials to credibly claim a mandate for action, and mitigates the influence of small but noisy special interests. It also serves as a marker of Minnesotans civic engagement more generally. A state whose people vote in high numbers is also a state whose people care about their shared quality of life and take personal responsibility for its betterment. Election Day registration, adopted in 1974, has immeasurably helped Minnesota keep participation high. A recent change made a big difference too, Secretary of State Steve Simon says. The 2013 Legislatures move to no-excuses absentee voting and Simons work promoting that option contributed to a surge in the number of people who cast ballots before Election Day, either in person or by mail. More than 674,000 Minnesotans voted early, compared with 235,808 in 2012. Those two features of Minnesota election law have run into resistance from some in the Republican Party, who claim that they widen the possibility of election fraud. No solid evidence backs that critique. We hope this years proof that Republicans can win legislative majorities in high-turnout elections stifles unfounded objections to state policies that make voting more convenient. One stat should register with this states democracy boosters: Despite a good showing, Minnesotas turnout rate this year was the lowest in a presidential election since 2000. Thats true despite an estimated 18,000 more ballots cast this year than in 2012. (Vote totals wont be deemed final until county and state canvassing boards complete their work later this month.) Our look at vote totals by congressional district showed slight increases in the 2nd and 7th, a bigger gain in the 6th, and little change elsewhere from 2012. The turnout rate declined because the growth in the number of Minnesota voters is not keeping pace with the growth in the states population. Awareness of that fact should spur efforts by both lawmakers and election administrators to make the habit of voting an easy one to both acquire and maintain. The annual effort to provide a toy to area children during the holiday season is underway. Winona Area Toys for Kids is a local volunteer charity organization that operates under the auspices of the Winona Community Foundation. It currently serves the Winona area, Lewiston, and the Wisconsin communities of Cochrane, Fountain City and Buffalo City. Monetary donations are used to buy toys from Winona-area businesses. These toys and toys collected from these areas are brought together at the Toy Store located in Tandeski Center on the Southeast Technical College. The Toy Store will be open from 9 a.m. until noon on Saturday, Dec. 10. Parents who feel they need some help in providing a toy to their child during the holiday season need to come to the Toy Store with their ID and some documentation identifying their child in order to receive a toy. There is no need to show any financial need or anything else. Toys for Kids have 140 donation barrels out in the community this year. Last year, we provided toys to 900 children from 350 families. We hope to exceed those numbers this year. In order to do so we need your help. Help to fill the barrels, Help in making financial donations to Toys for Kids at Winona Community Foundation 51 E. Fourth St. Suite 314, Winona, MN 55987, and help in making those who might benefit from the receipt of a toy aware of the service. The donation barrels will be picked up on Monday Dec. 5; please help make this holiday season a bit happier for area children who could use a little more to be thankful for, and get rewarded by your knowledge that your actions contributed to their happiness. For more information or questions contact me, Don Anderson, at 507-452-1390. Don Anderson, Winona Toys for Kids MADISON Wisconsin hunters killed about 7,500 fewer deer on opening day of this years nine-day gun deer season than they did last year, according to data from state wildlife officials. Hunters killed 68,756 deer on Saturday, according to preliminary estimates the Department of Natural Resources released Sunday evening. That would be 7,467 fewer deer than the 76,223 that were killed on opening day last year. Hunters killed more deer 38,273 of them in the central farmland zone than in any of the states three other hunting zones. Last year, hunters killed 45,607 deer on opening day in the central farmland zone, which includes 36 counties across the states mid-section. They killed the fewest deer 3,215 animals in the central forest zone, a seven-county, L-shaped chunk of territory in the middle of the state. That was about 500 fewer than last years opening day. Hunters in the northern forest zone killed 12,330 deer on Saturday, which was more than the 10,071 killed there last year. It was the only zone where the number of deer killed was higher and is an encouraging sign for DNR game managers, who have been trying to regrow the herd in that region after harsh winters in 2012-13 and 2013-14 devastated the population. Gun deer license sales suggest far fewer hunters took to the woods on opening day this year. According to DNR tallies, the agency had sold 533,502 licenses as of 4 p.m. Friday, which was about 17,250 fewer than it had sold by the same point last year. Weather conditions were raw on Saturday, too, with gusty winds and temperatures in the middle to lower 30s. Many hunters may have decided to stay indoors or gave up early. Kevin Wallenfang, a DNR big game ecologist, declined to comment on Monday morning, saying the agency was still compiling reports from the field. The DNR was expected to release preliminary harvest data for Sunday on Monday evening. JUNEAU A 70-year-old Fox Lake man pleaded guilty to negligent homicide Tuesday. The charges stem from a 2014 traffic crash that led to the death of an 9-year-old Lindenhurst, Ill., boy and severely injured of two adults. Lee Henricksen entered a guilty plea to one count of felony homicide by negligent operation of a vehicle and one count of felony reckless driving, causing great bodily harm. An additional count of reckless driving was dismissed but was read into the court record. Judge Brian Pfitzinger accepted Henricksens plea and found him guilty of the charges. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 18. On Aug. 15, 2014, a semi truck, a Honda Insight and a Dodge Intrepid were involved in a crash at the intersection of Highway A and Burns Road in the town of Beaver Dam. According to the criminal complaint, the Dodge County Sheriffs Department crash reconstructionist determined that the driver of the semi truck, identified as Henricksen, failed to stop or brake for the Honda which was stopped at the intersection of Highway A and Indian Hills Trail waiting for a northbound vehicle to pass so it could make a left turn. Henricksens semi truck struck the Honda and pushed it into oncoming traffic where it was struck by the Dodge Intrepid. According to the criminal complaint, the sheriffs crash team determined that Henricksen was not paying attention to the roadway and was exceeding the posted speed limit at the time of the crash. Officers estimated his speed between 58 and 70 mph when the posted speed limit is 45 mph. The driver of the Honda, identified as Judith Haddad, 45, Lindenhurst, Ill., told officers that her son, Ilan Hurtado, was trapped in the backseat and was unresponsive. Officers located a pulse but noticed it was very weak. Both Haddad and her son were extricated from the vehicle and were taken by Flight For Life to UW Hospital in Madison. The driver of the Dodge, identified as Jennifer Polenska, 31, Waupun, told officers that she was driving north on Highway A and saw the black Honda stopped at the intersection of Highway A and Indian Hills Trail. She allegedly said that a semi truck struck the back end of the black Honda which was pushed into her lane of traffic. Polenska said she then struck the black Honda, although she tried to avoid it. Polenska identified the operator of the semi truck as Henricksen. Officers interviewed Henricksen who said that he did not see the vehicle in front of him and rear ended the black Honda. He said the Honda then swung into oncoming traffic, striking the Dodge Intrepid head-on. While being interviewed, Henricksen allegedly said, I have been driving for 35 years. I never did anything or hurt anybody. Henricksen was uninjured in the crash and voluntarily submitted to a blood draw following the accident at Beaver Dam Community Hospital. No alcohol or drugs were detected in Henrickens blood. On Aug. 19, the boy who was trapped in the Honda during the accident was pronounced dead at UW Hospital in Madison. Haddad suffered multiple fractures including a pelvis fracture, broken ribs, and broken lower vertebrae. According to the criminal complaint, she currently remains in a rehabilitation facility in Chicago. Polenska suffered a broken right ankle, a broken left arm, damaged tendons in the right knee, and contusions and abrasions. The mission stays the same this year and thats to make sure every child in Dodge County gets a toy this holiday season, according to Patricia Frankenstein. Seeing how grateful the parents are, she said. Its the most gratifying part. The Dodge County Toy Bank is back for its 51st year to distribute toys for low-income families. Toy donations range of $30 to $35 a toy so every child receives a toy of equal value. Last year, the toy bank served more than 1,200 children and more than 450 families in Dodge County. She said they are on track to hit those same marks. Nothing would be possible without the help of at least 75 volunteers, Frankenstein said. The volunteers help transport the bags of toys from American National Bank, 115 Front St., to Beaver Dam Middle School, 108 Fourth St. Weve become very efficient in order to serve the clients, Frankenstein said. American National Bank has been hosting the toy bank since 2003 after it took over the responsibility from Chase Bank formerly Farmers State Bank which started the charity in 1965. The program began with a two bankers, D. H. Everman and Harvey Vorpahl. It started out serving fewer than 100 children. Years later Evermans family took over the operation and kept it running until 1996. From then on a committee of individuals representing local agencies that were served by the toy bank kept it going. American National Bank took the reins in 2003. Collection boxes are placed at multiple locations in Beaver Dam where people can drop off toys. The toy bank also gratefully accepts monetary donations. The toys will be distributed at Beaver Dam Middle School on Dec. 10 from 8 to 10 a.m. Anyone interested in volunteering may contact Frankenstein at pfrankenstein@anbnet.com. At least 399 provisional ballots cast by people lacking a valid photo ID were not counted in this months election because the voter didnt return to a local clerk and provide the ID by the deadline. The number, which is preliminary and will likely increase as the Wisconsin Elections Commission compiles official results, could play into the ongoing court battle over Wisconsins voter ID law, which was passed in 2011 but was on hold because of court challenges until this year. It is outrageous that the voter ID law disenfranchised at least 400 people, especially when weighed against close to zero instances of proven voter impersonation fraud in Wisconsin or anywhere in the country, said Bruce Spiva, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in the most recent challenge to the states voter ID law. If history is any guide, almost every single one of those 400 people was a qualified Wisconsin resident with a constitutional right to vote, and the state of Wisconsin denied them that right. Gov. Scott Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said the state has implemented a system that makes it easy for people to ensure their vote counts. Provisional ballots were created as a safeguard for voters who show up on Election Day without proper ID, Evenson said. The DMV instituted overnight mailing to ensure those voters get temporary receipts to provide in time for their vote to count. Legal experts said the numbers will be more relevant when they can be compared with states such as Texas, which gave voters without an ID the opportunity to sign an affidavit saying they were unable to obtain one. Edward Foley, an election law professor at Ohio State University, said the federal courts might not be sympathetic to a voter who didnt make an effort to get a voter ID, but if theres evidence that they tried and were unsuccessful, that might signal there are a group of Wisconsin voters who would have been protected by the more generous Texas system. The federal judicial system is searching for an appropriate safety net, that means no proper voter will be disenfranchised by a genuine voter ID law, Foley said. This is important evidence to what extent is it being a barrier. The Wisconsin Election Commission reported there were at least 750 provisional ballots cast on Election Day, and that 618 of them were cast because a voter lacked a valid ID. The provisional ballot process was put in place to address concerns that some voters would be disenfranchised by the ID requirement. Those who cast a provisional ballot had until the Friday after the election to provide their ID to a local clerk. Of the 618 ID-related provisional ballots, 116 were counted because the voter later provided an ID. Another 399 were marked as deadline expired, indicating they were not counted, according to the elections commission. There was no information on the other ballots as to whether they had been accepted or rejected. Also, a record 830,763 absentee ballots were recorded this year, shattering the previous record set in 2012. The number of in-person absentee ballots alone (666,846) topped the 2012 record for all absentee ballots. In-person absentee voting soared this year after a federal judge struck down the states restrictions on early voting hours. Absentee ballots constituted 27.9 percent of all ballots cast, also shattering the previous record of 21.6 percent set in 2008. The elections commission is required to certify all election results by Dec. 1. Official final voting totals for all state races will not be released until after results are certified. There were more than 2.94 million votes cast in the election, making the number of provisional ballots a tiny fraction of the overall total. The statewide presidential election was decided by about 27,000 votes, so the provisional ballots alone wouldnt have changed the outcome. Tip of the iceberg Jenni Dye, research director for the liberal One Wisconsin Institute, which is challenging the states voter ID requirement in federal court, said the number of voters who had to cast provisional ballots because they lacked an ID is really just the tip of the iceberg because the law may have kept eligible voters who were unable or unwilling to obtain an ID before Election Day away from the polls. Dye also acknowledged that some of the 399 discounted ballots could have resulted from provisional voters not bothering to return with their ID later because by then the election results were known. I think anything is possible once a voter leaves their polling place, Dye said. Which is why its so important for people to (vote) on Election Day and not have to jump through extra hoops. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indianas voter ID law in 2008, saying opponents didnt demonstrate that the law prevented legal voters from casting a ballot. However, the ruling left the door open to future challenges that presented more evidence. A Reedsburg school is keeping kids occupied after class. Westside Elementary School hosts the Community Learning Center where any elementary school-age children can attend for homework help, crafts, special activities and presentations. The program is capped at 90 students and its full at the moment, said coordinator Allyson Cummings. She said the center could accept more students if it had more money but it doesnt want to risk having too few staff for too many children. Due to hours limits with school district employees many center workers are substitute teachers, student teachers and students, Cummings said. All are paid with grant money from the federal government. The program also relies on volunteers for special events, crafts or hobby instruction. Like teachers, all volunteers must pass a thorough background check, Cummings said. Diversity The center is not meant to be an extension of the school day. Students get tired of school after a while so educators need to try new techniques to help kids master skills like reading, math and science. The center provides board games, hands-on exercises, books, writing activities and technology to keep kids interested. Its not a repeat of the school day, Cummings said. We try to make it fun for the kids. A little more than 50 percent of the students come from Westside Elementary School. The rest are from other elementary schools in the district. Cummings noted that the program could accept home schooled students but doesnt have any at the moment. The center operates Monday through Thursday. Students may attend as many days as they choose, she said. Staff tries to offer a mixed variety of attractions every day to keep kids interested. The goal is to have them enjoy learning for the sake of learning, she said. Support The Westside Community Learning Center costs about $75,000 every school year. Cummings said a federal grant covers $50,000, the rest comes from the Reedsburg School District. The program has existed for 8 years in Reedsburg and the district must re-apply for the grant every year. She said at the 10-year mark, Reedsburg will need to compete to keep its funding. Funding is awarded based on community support, Cummings said. Its not just about having solid enrollment numbers. Parents and the broader community need to show their commitment. That support can be shown by attendance at family nights, like the annual Halloween Party, by completing surveys or by donating money, time or materials. So far the program is in excellent standing with Reedsburg, she said. Numerous businesses and organizations offer their services and products and parents always turn out for social events. The Westside Community Learning Center has come up during discussions about bringing a Boys & Girls Club to Reedsburg but club proponents say they do not want to compete with the existing program. The goal is for the two entities to work together to reach all ages in Reedsburg. In a recent interview with the Times-Press Karen DeSanto, executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of West-Central Wisconsin, explained that clubs cater to students who arent part of an after-school program. Clubs especially try to focus on teenagers who wouldnt qualify for locations like the Community Learning Center. Anyone whos interested in volunteering, supporting the program or enrolling at the Community Learning Center may contact Cummings at acummings@rsd.k12.wi.us. Three researchers win Friedel Sellschop awards The Friedel Sellschop Award is handed out every year to recognise and encourage young researchers. Three Wits researchers have been awarded the Friedel Sellschop Award for 2017. This years winners are Dr Nicky Falkof, Head of Department for Media Studies, Dr Alan Cornell, Chief Researcher at the High Energy Physics Group (HEP), and Professor Hlonipha Mokoena from the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research (WISER). The Friedel Sellschop Award is handed out every year to recognise and encourage young researchers and is underwritten by a research grant that has been made available by the University Research Committee to qualifying researchers. Falkof completed her Masters and PhD in the UK, and joined Wits in April 2013 as a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies. She became HOD in September 2015. Her research is primarily on the way in which popular media and culture intersect with identity and ideology. I am interested in issues to do with race, particularly whiteness, and gender, particularly masculinity, as well as with fear, effect and cultural urban mythologies, she says. Her work is multidisciplinary in nature, drawing on cultural studies, media studies, psychoanalysis, anthropology and sociology. Cornell, a Reader in the School of Physics and a member of the Mandelstam Institute for Theoretical Physics, is interested in the phenomenological implications of Beyond the Standard Model physics, which can be divided into two parts: The first is concerned with the flavour structure of quarks and leptons, which is one of the main puzzles in particle physics, while the second is concerned with the ways in which collider-produced black holes may arise and decay in various extra-dimensional scenarios. Mokoena is currently an Associate Professor at WISER. Before June 2015, she worked in the Anthropology Department at Columbia University. She is the author of Magema Fuze: The Making of a Kholwa Intellectual and has a strong research interest in South African intellectual history. Her new research is on the figure of the Zulu policeman, which she explores across the visual historical archive. Mokoena is a multitalented public intellectual, well known for her work in many different parts of the world. She speaks and comments widely on the complex entanglements as well as the striking differences between South African and US cultures. Winners of the Friedel Sellschop award receives grants of up to R145,000 per year for 2017. The award is open to members of staff in all Faculties who either hold a permanent University-funded position or a joint appointment of with the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) or Gauteng Province. The researchers should not be older than 40 years of age at the time of first application. Morgan Stanley is the 6th largest financial institution in the US. The company is ranked 61st on the Forbes Fortune 500 list and is the 39th largest bank in the world. A financial holding company, Morgan Stanley provides a full range of financial services to clients around the world. Morgan Stanley was formed in 1935 as a result of the Glass-Steagall Act. Glass-Steagall separated commercial and investment banking in a way that forced the then-largest bank J.P. Morgan & Co to split into two groups. J.P. Morgan & Co. chose to retain the commercial side of the business while partners Henry S. Morga, grandson of J.P., and Harold Stanley took the investment end. In its first year, Morgan Stanley did 24% of the IPO business and maintains a lions share of the market to this day. The original company existed and grew through acquisitions until 1987 when it merged with Dean Witter Discover & Co. The new Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Discover & Co existed for 14 years until 2001 when the name was shortened back to Morgan Stanley. The bank is credited in part with both beginning and ending the financial crisis of 2007/2008. The Process Driven Trading unit lost $300 million in one day due to a short-squeeze that popped the bubble in the housing market. After teetering on the brink of failure Morgan Stanley agreed to become a bank holding company regulated by the Federal Reserve, a key factor in the original decision to split from parent J.P. Morgan & Co. Ironically when given the chance, present-day J.P. Morgan refused to buy Morgan Stanley but that was for the better. Today, Morgan Stanley operates through three segments via offices in 41 countries and employs more than 75,000 people. Revenue in 2021 topped $49 billion and total assets topped $1.15 trillion. The operating segments are Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management segments. The Institutional Securities segment is by far the largest and most profitable. It offers a range of services and products for businesses, institutions, and entities that include capital raising, strategic advisory, underwriting, advice on M&A, restructuring, and real estate. The Wealth Management segment provides brokerage and investment advisory services for individuals and employers. The services include brokerage, financial planning, company stock-plan administration, insurance, mortgage loans, lines of credit, and retirement planning. The Investment Management segment provides investment products to a range of institutions, organizations, corporations, and governments. Tyler Technologies, Inc. provides integrated information management solutions and services for the public sector. The company operates in three segments: Enterprise Software; Appraisal and Tax; and NIC. It offers financial management solutions, including modular fund accounting systems for government agencies or not-for-profit entities; utility billing systems for the billing and collection of metered and non-metered services; products to automate city and county functions, such as municipal courts, parking tickets, equipment and project costing, animal and business licenses, permits and inspections, code enforcement, citizen complaint tracking, ambulance billing, fleet maintenance, and cemetery records management; and student information and transportation solutions for K-12 schools. The company also provides a suite of judicial solutions comprising court case management, court and law enforcement, prosecutor, and supervision systems to handle multi-jurisdictional county or statewide implementations, and single county systems; public safety software solutions; systems and software to automate the appraisal and assessment of real and personal property, as well as tax applications for agencies that bill and collect taxes; planning, regulatory, and maintenance software solutions for public sector agencies; software applications to enhance and automate operations involving records and document management; and data and insights solutions. In addition, it offers software as a service arrangements and electronic document filing solutions for courts and law offices; software and hardware installation, data conversion, training, product modification, and maintenance and support services; and property appraisal outsourcing services for taxing jurisdictions. The company has a strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services for cloud hosting services. Tyler Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Plano, Texas. AstraZeneca PLC, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery, development, manufacturing, and commercialization of prescription medicines. Its marketed products include Calquence, Enhertu, Faslodex, Imfinzi, Iressa, Koselugo, Lumoxiti, Lynparza, Orpathys, Tagrisso, and Zoladex for oncology; Brilinta/Brilique, Bydureon/Byetta, BCise, Byetta, Crestor, Evrenzo, Farxiga/Forxiga, Komboglyze/Kombiglyze XR, Lokelma, Onglyza, Qtern, and Xigduo/Xigduo XR for cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism diseases; Bevespi Aerosphere, Breztri Aerosphere, Daliresp/Daxas, Duaklir Genuair, Fasenra, Pulmicort, Saphnelo, Symbicort, and Tudorza/Eklira/Bretaris for respiratory and immunology; and Andexxa/Ondexxya, Kanuma, Soliris, Strensiq, and Ultomiris for rare diseases. The company's marketed products also comprise Synagis for respiratory syncytial virus; Fluenz Tetra/FluMist Quadrivalent for Influenza; Seroquel IR/Seroquel XR for schizophrenia bipolar disease; Nexium, and Losec/Prilosec for gastroenterology; and Vaxzevria and Evusheld for covid-19. The company serves primary care and specialty care physicians through distributors and local representative offices in the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australasia. It has a collaboration agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to research, develop, and commercialize small molecule medicines for obesity; Neurimmune AG to develop and commercialize NI006; Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to develop eplontersen, a liver-targeted antisense therapy in Phase III development for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis; Proteros Biostructures GmbH to jointly discover novel small molecules for the treatment of hematological cancers; Sierra Oncology, Inc. to develop and commercialize AZD5153. The company was formerly known as Zeneca Group PLC and changed its name to AstraZeneca PLC in April 1999. AstraZeneca PLC was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Cambridge, the United Kingdom. The following companies are subsidiares of Accenture: 2nd Road, ?What If!, ?What If! China Holdings Limited, ?What If! Holdings Limited, ?What If! 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Ltd., Cimation, Cirrus Connect Australia Pty Ltd, Cirrus Connect Limited, Cirruseo, Clarity Insights, ClearEdge Partners, Clearhead, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas Japan G.K., Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Limited, Cloudeasier SAS, Cloudpoint Limited, Cloudsherpas Inc, Cloudworks, Cloudworks Consulting Services Inc, Cloudworks Technology LLC, Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda, Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda, Context Information Security, Context Information Security LLC, Context Information Security Limited, CoreCompete LLC, CoreCompete Limited, CoreCompete Private Limited, Corliant Inc., Creative Drive LLC, Creative Drive US LLC, CreativeDrive, CreativeDrive Digital Content Services (Shenzhen) Co Ltd., CreativeDrive EMEA Limited, CreativeDrive Singapore Pte Ltd, CreativeDrive UK Group Limited, Cutting Edge Solutions Limited, Cygni AB, Cygni Norrsken AB, Cygni Stockholm AB, Cygni Syd AB, Cygni Vast AB, Cygni Ost AB, Cygni Ostersund AB, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Limited, DI Futures Corporation, Data Essential SARL, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings LLC, Decora Marketplace LLC, Decorado Marketplace Ltda-EPP, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digital Results Group LLC, Double Digit Limitada, Double Digit Pty SA, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Limited, Duck Creek Technologies, ESR Labs, ESR Labs AG, EdenOne Solutions Limited, Edenhouse ERP Holdings Limited, Edenhouse Solutions Limited, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting LP, End to End Analytics LLC, End-to-End Analytics, Endorphin Medici (M) Sdn Bhd, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Limited, EnergyQuote JHA, Enimbos, Enimbos Global Services S.L., Enkitec, Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions LLC, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V., Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enthusian Pty Ltd, Entropia, Entropia (M) Sdn Bhd, Entropia Holdings Pte Ltd, Entropia Intercraft Sdn Bhd, Epylon, Ergo, Espedia S.r.l., Ethica Consulting Group, Ethica Consulting S.p.A., Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Experity, Exton Consulting, Exton Consulting Spain Strategy&Management S.L., Exton Germany GmbH, Exton International SAS, Exton Italia S.r.l., Exton SAS, FGM LLC, Fairway Technologies Inc, Farah BidCo Limited, Farah MidCo Limited, Farah Topco Limited, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Formicary, Founders Intelligence, Fruendo S.r.l., FusionX, Future State Consulting LLC, FutureMove (Beijing) Automotive Technology Co. 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Ltd., Nashco Consulting, NaviSys Inc., Nell'Armonia Israel Ltd, Nell'Armonia SAS, Nell'Participation SAS, NellArmonia, Neo Metrics Analytics S.L., Neo Metrics Chile S.A., New Content, New Content Editora e Produtora Ltda, New Energy Group, News Imaging LLC, NewsPage, NewsPage (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, NewsPage Pte Ltd, Northstream, Novetta Holdings LLC, Novetta LLC, Novetta Solutions LLC, Novetta Topco LLC, OCTO Technology, OPS Rules Management Consultants, Octagon Research Solutions Inc., Octo Technology Pty Ltd, Octo Technology SA, Odgaard ApS, Olikka, Olikka Pty Ltd, Olympus Systems Corporation, Openmind, Openmind S.r..l., Openminded, Openminded SAS, Operaciones Accenture S.A. de C.V., OpusLine, Orbium, Orbium AG, Orbium Consulting Limited, Orbium Inc., Orbium Ltd, Orbium Pte Ltd, Orbium Pty Ltd, Origin Digital, PCO Innovation, PLM Systems S.r.l, PRION GmbH, PT Accenture, PT Asta Catur Indra, PT Kogentix Teknologi Indonesia, PacificLink Group, Paja Finanssipalvelut Oy, Parker Fitzgerald Inc, Parker Fitzgerald International Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Limited, Parker Fitzgerald PTY Ltd, Parker Fitzgerald Services Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Solutions Limited, Pecaso Ltd., Pegasus Production A/S, Pegasus Production K/S, Phase One Consulting Group, Pillar Technology, Pollux, Pollux Automation Mexico S.A. de C.V., Pollux Canada Inc, Pollux S.A.S., Pollux USA LLC, Pragsis Bidoop, Pragsis Bidoop UK Limited, Pramati Technologies Europe Limited, Pramati Technologies Private Limited, Presence of IT Workforce Management North America LLC, PrimeQ, PrimeQ Australia Pty Ltd, PrimeQ Ltd, PrimeQ NZ Pty Limited, Procurian Inc., Prof. Homburg GmbH, Proquire LLC, PureApps Ltd., Qi Jie Beijing Information Technologies Co. 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Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, solid-serVision.com GmbH, and umlaut. Read More South Jersey Industries, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides energy-related products and services. The company engages in the purchase, transmission, and sale of natural gas. It also sells natural gas and pipeline transportation capacity on a wholesale basis to residential, commercial, and industrial customers on the interstate pipeline system, as well as transports natural gas purchased directly from producers or suppliers to customers. As of December 31, 2021, the company had approximately 147 miles of mains in the transmission system and 6,815 miles of mains in the distribution system; and served 384,062 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in southern New Jersey. In addition, it markets natural gas storage, commodity, and transportation assets on a wholesale basis for energy marketers, electric and gas utilities, power plants, and natural gas producers in the mid-Atlantic, Appalachian, and southern regions of the United States. Further, the company owns and operates rooftop solar-generation sites. Additionally, it owns oil, gas, and mineral rights in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania; acquires and markets natural gas and electricity to retail end users, as well as provides total energy management, fuel management, and energy procurement and cost reduction services. The company was founded in 1910 and is headquartered in Folsom, New Jersey. 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. Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. The company's personal banking products and services include checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages, and financial and investment advice services; and commercial banking products and services comprise business deposit accounts, commercial credit cards, business loans and commercial mortgages, cash management solutions, foreign exchange, specialized banking programs, treasury and payment solutions, and risk management products for small business and commercial banking customers. It also offers investment and wealth advisory services; digital investing services; financial services and solutions; and investment management, and trust and custody services. In addition, the company provides life insurance, accident and sickness insurance, and annuity products; creditor and travel insurance to bank customers; and reinsurance solutions. Further, it offers client's debt and equity capital-raising services, as well as loan origination and syndication, and treasury management; strategic advice on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, and recapitalizations, as well as valuation and fairness opinions; and trade finance, risk mitigation, and other operating services. Additionally, the company provides research and access to markets for institutional, corporate, and retail clients; trading solutions that include debt, foreign exchange, interest rate, credit, equity, securitization and commodities; new product development and origination services, as well as risk management advice and services to hedge against fluctuations; and funding and liquidity management services to its clients. It operates through approximately 900 bank branches and 3,300 automated banking machines in Canada and the United States. Bank of Montreal was founded in 1817 and is headquartered in Montreal, 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. From polling to policies: W&M government professors discuss 2016 election Election discussion: (Left to right) John Gilmour, Jaime Settle, Christine Nemacheck, Lenneal Henderson, Ron Rapoport, Chris Howard and John McGlennon were among the nine government faculty members to participate in the panel discussion. Photo by Erin Zagursky Photo - of - Hide Caption The election of Donald Trump Nov. 8 raised myriad questions among social scientists and others about the factors that led to his win and the future implications of his presidency. On Nov. 17, faculty from the William & Mary Department of Government addressed some of those questions as part of a panel discussion in Washington Hall attended by students, faculty and community members. The wide-ranging conversation touched on topics from the Electoral College and voter behavior to potential policy changes and the role of race in the election. It was one of several events over the past two weeks organized by W&M departments, programs and other organizations to explore the election and its current and potential effects. The panel discussion was co-hosted by the government department along with the College Republicans and W&M Young Democrats and moderated by Paul Manna, department chair and Isabelle and Jerome E. Hyman Distinguished University Professor of Government. In the wake of the recent election, it is particularly important for our community to draw together in open and inclusive dialogue, said Dean of Arts & Sciences Kate Conley. This is exactly what I found at the Department of Government discussion Thursday night on the 2016 Elections: Perspectives of American Politics Faculty. I was particularly impressed by the fact that the discussion had bipartisan co-sponsorship by the W&M Young Democrats and College Republicans, a co-sponsorship that was reflected in the collaborative spirit in the room and by the lively questions and answers provided. The discussion was a true conversation between students, faculty and visitors. This generous, open and dynamic conversation made me proud to be at William & Mary. Polling Several of the panelists discussed the inaccuracy of national polls, although Ron Rapoport, John Marshall Professor of Government, noted that the level of error was not much higher than in 2012 it was the consistency of error that was greater, he said. Still, one theory as to why the polls were off centers on the idea of shy Trump voters people who allegedly didnt want to tell pollsters that they were voting for Trump, said Rapoport. However, if that were true, one would have expected to see Trump out-perform the polls something he did, but overwhelmingly in red states. And we wouldnt expect people to be shy if they live around a bunch of other Trump supporters, said Jaime Settle, assistant professor of government. Instead, what might help explain the inaccuracy of the polls, Rapoport asserted, is a possible connection between people who distrust the government and those unwilling to take surveys. People who distrust institutions to this degree are far less likely to do surveys, he said, so if it is the case that people who are less trusting are both more likely to support Trump and also less likely to do surveys, by virtue of that, you are ending up with people in your sample who are more trusting than the population and therefore more supportive of Clinton. Voters Though theres a popular notion that voter turnout was low, Settle said that when all of the numbers are in, she expects the data to show that the level was about the same as the last election. And while people who always vote may have still turned up at the polls, a lack of enthusiasm for the candidates may have diminished their efforts to recruit others, said Government Professor John McGlennon. You still were going to vote, but you might have been less likely to go knock on doors or take four friends with you to the polls or to make sure you call all of your family members, he said. Although voter turnout may have remained about the same, the political parties saw a reshuffling of their voter bases, said McGlennon, citing significant changes especially in Rust Belt states where people who once consistently voted for Democrats both at the national and state levels opted for Republicans. Its important for the two parties to understand and to try to delve more fully into the question of whether they can expect those blue-collar voters to continue to support Republicans in future elections or whether they will return to their Democratic roots, McGlennon said. Social scientists who have looked as causal factors for how people voted have determined that economic anxiety and racial animus were top issues for Trump supporters, especially among late-breaking voters, said Larry Evans, Newton Family Professor of Government. But when analyzing those issues together to control for each other and other factors, race tends to wash out the effects of economic anxiety, he said. This is a situation where you have a bunch of people who look like me, who I probably went to high school with who looked out at the country thats been led over the past eight years by an African-American that is in transition to a majority-minority country, and theyre uncomfortable with that, Evans said. This, at its heart, drove a lot of that shift, and I think we just need to say that up front. Policies Proposed changes to certain policies and regulations that Trump discussed during his campaign will likely occur, but they may not happen as quickly or to the extent that he discussed previously, according to several of the panelists. For instance, the fact that American healthcare is a public/private hybrid means that changes to Affordable Care Act may have unintended consequences that Trump will have to consider, said Chris Howard, Harriman Professor of Government and Public Policy. Parts of the Affordable Care Act are highly related, so if you, as is being discussed, want to revoke the individual mandate but to keep the provisions there that prevent the insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing coverage, a lot of insurance companies are going to get really uncomfortable, Howard said, because if that combination goes forward, then the people who are sickest and need help are going to come forward looking for insurance. The healthy folks without compulsion will hang back. Insurance will get priced higher, and well have even more expensive policies than we do today. Lowering the tax rates for higher-income individuals and businesses may also have ripple effects. Im old enough that my basic reaction is: Ive seen this movie before. Ive seen it twice, said Howard, referring to similar efforts in 1981 and 2001-03. We tried this approach to the economy; it doesnt have any durable, positive effect on economic growth or wages. It makes some people more wealthy. It makes the deficit much, much bigger. In addressing immigration, Trump may use an executive order to do away with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. However, the people who are covered by this are not the people Trump has said he really wants to get out of the country, said John Gilmour, Paul R. Verkuil Distinguished Professor of Government and Public Policy, referencing a 60 Minutes interview in which Trump said he wanted to deport convicted felons. Thats not the Dreamers. So it will take a lot of money and time to deport the people he says he wants to support, so he may remove the deferred action but not the people. Other elections and federal appointments Although the presidential election has taken center stage in the country, the recent state and local elections are worth paying attention to, as well, said Lenneal Henderson, visiting instructor of government. Its noteworthy to point out that, yes, we have 31 Republican governors and a majority of state legislatures will be Republican, but the majority of the local officials elected this time around were Democrats, which is very interesting, Henderson noted. In addition, 127 new officials are people of color, he added. Thats important as well because what were really talking about is what the crop is going to look like going forward to the midterm elections in the next four years, keeping mind that Barack Obama ran for the presidency in his first term as a U.S. senator, said Henderson. A different crop of people will now be unlikely to advance with Trump in charge of making about 100 appointments in the federal judiciary, according to Christine Nemacheck, Wilson & Martha Claiborne Stephens Associate Professor. A lot of the folks that Trump would consider for appointment would come from the lower federal courts, and of course, those have been staffed by the Obama administration for the last eight years, so its not as clear who these folks would be, said Nemacheck. Also, it presents an opportunity for the folks in the Trump camp and particularly the alt-right camp to endorse candidates and get candidates considered who are quite nontraditional simply by the fact that there arent going to be as many traditional Republican candidates available. That could have huge repercussions. As for the open seat on the Supreme Court, Obama could make a recess appointment for Merrick Garland, whom he nominated in March for the position. However, Nemacheck thinks thats unlikely because of Obamas expressed desire to create a smooth transition for Trump as well as Garlands efforts to remain apolitical. While Trump is expected to make other appointments in the federal government, people tend to overestimate the importance of some those positions and underestimate the influence of civil servants, who are not political appointees and have a great deal of autonomy, said Manna. One thing that will be interesting going forward will be to see will be to the degree which the bureaucracy itself reacts in ways that might be counter to the preferences of President Trump, Manna said. Hes going to learn in a hurry that the U.S. government is not a corporation with a boss at the top that can dictate everything. Guiding students how to achieve more by doing less Explaining how less is more John P. Dugan, associate professor and chair for higher education programs at Loyola University in Chicago, spoke at a recent W&M-sponsored Elevating Change conference. He has spent the past 15 years orchestrating a national study on developing leadership capacity in college students. Photo by Michael Rogers Representijng W&M well W&M administrators were heavily involved in the recent conference entitled "Elevating change." From left: Joe Wheeless, assistant director of Student Leadership Development (SLD), Trici Fredrick and Jennifer Leung, associate directors of SLD and Jaymi Thomas, graduate assistant for Leadership Programs. Photo by Michael Rogers The message Conference speaker John Dugan told students that if they work in a very focused way and see all of the complexity of a singular issue they're less likely to oversimplify it and can have a greater impact. Courtesy SLD Photo - of - Hide Caption Kate Scott remembers being bewildered at how her carefully orchestrated sophomore year at William & Mary had suddenly become unmanageable. She was supposed to work her internship with a local civil rights organization on Thursdays. But there was a change of plans, and she was being asked to come in on Tuesdays. That meant that Scott, who will graduate in December 2017, would be in labs all morning then fulfill her obligations as a presidential aide to Taylor Reveley, work as a teaching assistant in the French department, serve as a creative writing teacher at a local elementary school and, finally, handle an increasing load with her campus ministry organization at night. The first Tuesday I tried to do everything, I ate breakfast and nothing else, she said. I literally had five minutes during the day to go to the restroom, once. It was not a way to live. People who knew my schedule would meet me at certain places and times with food so that I would eat. Thats not a sustainable life model. Once I got through it, I said, Never again. She re-evaluated her life that summer. Now, she has class, sorority, tutoring, campus ministry and her teaching assistantship, which ends soon. It still sounds complicated, but she said it isnt. It is both fulfilling, and freeing. This semester is so different after simplifying, she said, sounding relieved. If they knew her story and how its changed, Anne Arseneau and Jennifer Leung would applaud her for being reflective and proactive in the changes she made. Arseneau and Leung, director and associate director of William & Marys Student Leadership Development office, have put in place programs aimed at helping students do two things: give up valuing their involvement in activities based on whether they hold a titled position, and choosing to do fewer things and becoming more immersed in them. They call the initiatives No Title Needed and Depth Over Breadth. The former started two years ago; the latter is a natural progression. With No Title Needed, were seeing that students have made it part of their language around involvement and leadership, Leung said. Thats what were hoping to do with Depth Over Breadth. The office of Student Leadership Development (SLD) presented all incoming students with a meaningful engagement handout during the New Student Orientation program as a potential guide they could use at the Student Organizations and Activities Fair. The issue was discussed with students and their parents during Family Weekend. During September and October, SLD celebrated the concept of Depth Over Breadth by asking students to nominate colleagues who have adopted this mindset. Several of them have already been featured in student spotlights on Facebook and the SLD blog. Less equals better leaders Arseneau '89, M.Ed '92 attended a panel discussion with prospective college students not long ago. She was asked if she could change one thing about W&M, what it would be. I said, Youre coming here out of high school; people have been rewarding you for this, that and everything, and I want you to come and do a few things really, really well rather than spreading yourself too thin, she recalled. That will create a better experience for you. Arseneau and Leung understand that the public might think they are bucking a stereotypical philosophy that maintains that to gain admission to a university the caliber of William & Mary, high school students not only need exceptional grades but a resume crammed with leadership roles in extracurricular activities. Like Scott, many college students think they can successfully maintain that same pace, something Arseneau described as the hamster wheel they get on. I remember an organization that had 11 women, all super involved on campus, and finding a 60-minute period once a week between the hours of 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. where they could all be in the room together to plan, discuss and lead their organization was virtually impossible, Leung said. It was, Ive got this and this and this, and I can maybe squeeze you in for 45 minutes. On a practical level, it is problematic. College is a wonderful vehicle to kind of interrupt some of that. W&M part of a national trend John P. Dugan, associate professor and chair for higher education programs at Loyola University in Chicago, told his audience at a recent W&M-sponsored Elevating Change conference that he agreed with Leung. Dugan has spent the past 15 years orchestrating a national study on developing leadership capacity in college students. No Title Needed drives home the point that leadership learning happens in all sorts of different spaces, Dugan said. We have to move beyond just positions and functional roles as the vehicle for learning, because there simply arent enough to go around. In terms of Depth Over Breadth, I think of the whole idea of building efficacy when we go deep. If I can work in a very focused way and see all of the complexity of a singular issue, Im less likely to reduce or oversimplify it. Im more likely to see how to get in and to actually make a difference. Arseneau said that studies show that academics are the top issue stressing W&M students. But high up higher than at most schools is extracurricular involvement. So the things they should be doing for recreation or leisure and involvement are also the very things that are causing stress, she said. One students story of going deep Like most students, Tom Kalnas 17 came to W&M unsure of his career path. Was it acting, directing, producing, writing? Something else entirely? He joined a fraternity and a couple of social groups, but by the end of his sophomore year, he said he knew exactly what he wanted and I wasnt doing it yet. One reason? Too many friends. Some relationships were legitimate, but a lot were shallow, relationships that would not last three years after college, he said. I realized I was putting my time into dead investments, and I needed to cut out a lot of things. So I restructured my social life; now I hang out with 10 people, max, and that has helped tremendously with my ability to focus and apply my time well. A dual major in marketing and a self-designed, performance-based acting/music/writing/psychology curriculum, Kalnas has written a play symbolic of his early college experience and the sometimes difficult process of finding whats really important. Fly 102 involves a disc jockey who works the night shift, where she can actually talk to her audience in a way her prime-time counterparts cant because they must play certain songs, give the weather and traffic at specific times and endure a far more scripted job. Then a producer pressures her to move to prime time. Basically what she has to understand is that what shes giving and doing [in prime-time] isnt what she wants to give and do, said Kalnas. She can talk about the weather and the traffic, but she wants to leave behind a legacy, for people to remember what she says. Kalnas play will be performed at Phi Beta Kappa Hall March 20-22. We all live in this constant stream of information, social media and news platforms, he said. When they leave my play, I hope theyll have a better stream experience. Theyll be better able to pick and choose what actually is important in their lives. China News on Women Sorry, the page you requested was not found. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Womenofchina.cn, try visiting the Womenofchina Home page by Philippe Girard (Guest Contributor) Early in 1758, Francois Makandal stood before the church of Cap-Francais, the main French town in what is today Haiti. Bearing a sign that read Seducer, Blasphemer, Poisoner, he was ordered to publicly confess his crimes. They included a poisoning conspiracy that had allegedly cost the lives of thousands of planters and slaves. This was a serious charge in a colony that was the most prosperous in the New World, and where hundreds of plantations produced the bulk of Europes sugar and coffee. Makandals sentence: to be burnt alive. Executions were meant as teaching moments for the general public, so many people, both free and enslaved, gathered on the plaza in front of the church. Makandal, whose name roughly translates as sorcerer, claimed magical powers such as the ability to transform himself into a mosquito. As he was tied to a stake, everyone present wondered who would prevail on that dayFrench justice or the occult powers of Vodou. As the flames engulfed him, Makandal fought and struggled until he freed himself. All the slaves gasped Makandal sauve! Makandal is free! Fearing a riot, authorities evacuated the plaza. They then tied Makandal and threw him back onto the pyre, but the public did not witness his death and a rumor soon spread among the slaves of the colony that Makandal had become a mosquito and flown away from the execution site unscathed. One day, they thought, Makandal would return to exact his revenge and free the slaves of Haiti. It is easy to dismiss such belief as artefacts from a pre-scientific age governed by superstition. But two decades later, in 1791, the slaves of Haiti did revolt against their masters. The uprising involved 500,000 slaves, one thousand times more than the largest slave revolt in US history. Amazingly, they prevailed. Many factors contributed to the success of the Haitian slave revolt, the only successful slave revolt in the history of the world. The rebels courage and dedication evidently played a role. So did the extraordinary skills of their leader Toussaint Louverture, the black Napoleon. It was under his leadership that the slaves of Haiti repelled invasions by Spain and Britain, then a massive expedition led by Napoleons own brother-in-law, and eventually secured the independence of Haiti in 1804. But equally important were successive outbreaks of yellow fever that decimated the armies sent to quell the Haitian slave revolt. One by one, European expeditionary forces were dispatched to Haiti, only to melt away as yellow fever took its toll. This was a dramatic example of the phenomenon described by William McNeill in Plagues and Peoples: history is shaped by great individuals like Toussaint Louverture, but also by natural forces like disease. Yellow fever, we now kno w, is a virus transmitted by a mosquito, the Aedes aegypti. Maybe Makandal survived his execution after all. Philippe Girard is a Professor of Caribbean History at McNeese State University and the author of Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life (Basic Books, November 2016) Philippe Girard 2016. India joins CERN 22 November 2016 Share India is set to become an associate member of European particle physics research organisation CERN, subject to final approval by the Indian government. The move followed the signature of an agreement by CERN's director general and the chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The agreement is signed by Fabiola Gianotti, director general of CERN, and Sekhar Basu, AEC chairman and secretary of India's Department of Atomic Energy. (Image: CERN) India signed a cooperation agreement with CERN in 1991, although Indian physicists have been actively participating in experiments at CERN since the 1960s. In 1996 the AEC agreed to take part in the construction of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and India has participated in numerous experiments and initiatives, including establishing LHC Computing Grid centres in Mumbai and Kolkata. India was granted Observer status to the CERN Council in 2002. Associate Membership status will allow India to take part in meetings of the CERN Council and its committees, and will make Indian scientists eligible for staff appointments. Indian industry will be entitled to bid for CERN contracts, opening opportunities for industrial collaboration in areas of advanced technology, once the agreement enters into force. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is headquartered in Geneva. Researched and written by World Nuclear News Related topics Hungarys Paks II project clears procurement hurdle 22 November 2016 Share The European Commission has cleared Hungary's award of a contract to Russia's Rosatom to build two new units at the Paks nuclear power plant. The European Commission has been examining until recently two matters related to the Paks II - procurement and whether funding of the project amounts to state aid. On 17 November it closed the infringement procedure it had launched against Hungary over public procurement rules in connection with the capacity maintenance of the Paks nuclear power plant. It is still investigating whether there is state aid in the project. Paks currently comprises four Russian-supplied VVER-440 pressurized water reactors, which started up between 1982 and 1987. An inter-governmental agreement signed in early 2014 would see Russian enterprises and their international sub-contractors supply two VVER-1200 reactors at Paks, as well as a Russian state loan of up to 10.0 billion ($11.2 billion) to finance 80% of the project. Attila Aszodi, the government commissioner responsible for Paks II, told World Nuclear News that the DG GROW infringement procedure on procurement had now been closed. "We are still waiting for the DG COMP decision on possible state aid, but we know this will be released within the next two weeks, he said. DG GROW is the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, while DG COMP is the Directorate-General for Competition. In ending its investigation into procurement, DG GROW has concluded the project does not infringe EU rules that allow public procurement without competition if the contract can only reasonably be given to one company. "Hungary has sufficiently justified that the use of the so-called technical exclusivity exemption, which means that when the technical and safety requirements of the project can only be met by one company, it can be compatible with EU laws to award the contract directly," European Commission spokeswoman Lucia Caudet told reporters on 18 November. Aszodi confirmed comments made by Janos Lazar, minister of the Hungarian prime ministers office, at his weekly press briefing in Budapest that it was realistic to expect construction of the two new VVER-1200 units at the Paks site to start in 2017-2018. Lazar added that Hungary had undertaken to apply EU procurement norms on up to 55% of the investment value of the project. Aszodi told WNN: "This is an extremely important step in the realization of the project. While waiting for the EC's decision, the licensing of the project is going on and experts are currently concentrating on the site licensing of the new units." Project company MVM Paks II received an environmental licence in late September and last month submitted a site licence application for the two new units. The first unit is to completed in 2025 and the second in 2026. Researched and written by World Nuclear News Related topics The tiger (Panthera tigris) is one of the most magnificent and awe-inspiring wild animals living today. A tiger is regarded as a charismatic megafauna as an apex predator and is classified in the genus Panthera. Tigers are territorial and generally solitary in nature. Tigers once roamed across Asia from Turkey to Eastern Siberia as well as across large parts of South and Southeast Asia. The global tiger population has plummeted drastically to between 3,062 and 3,948 individuals from a possible 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century. Habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, reduced food sources, poaching for skin, bones, and other body parts are some of the factors that are responsible for such a decline in tiger numbers. There are ten recognized subspecies of tigers. One among these ten subspecies, the Trinil became extinct in prehistoric times. Three subspecies of tiger, the Bali tiger, the Caspian tiger, and the Javan tiger, which survived to the mid-20th century, are considered to be extinct now. The other six tiger subspecies struggling to survive in the wild today include the Bengal tiger, the Indochinese tiger, the Siberian tiger, the South China tiger, the Malayan tiger, and the Sumatran tiger. 7. Extinct Subpecies Of Tigers The Bali tiger (P. t. balica), the Caspian tiger (P. t. virgata), and the Javan tiger (P. t. sondaica) are the three subspecies of tigers that are now extinct. The Bali tiger was found on the island of Bali and the last tiger of this subspecies is believed to have been killed on September 27, 1937. The Caspian tiger was found through Central Asia into Xinjiangs Takla-Makan desert. It has been recorded to exist in the wild till the early 1970s. The Javan tiger was found on the island of Java till the mid-1970s and was larger than the Bali tigers. Since the 1990s, no wild sightings of this tiger has been recorded. 6. Sumatran Tiger A Sumatran tiger on the hunt. Image credit: tom177/Shutterstock The Sumatran tiger (P. t. sumatrae) is a tiger subspecies that is endemic to the Sumatran island of Indonesia. The tiger is classified as critically endangered and as of 2014, only about 400 to 500 individuals of this subspecies exist in the wild. The Sumatran tiger is the smallest one among all the types of tigers mentioned in the list. Their size is an adaptation to the dense forests inhabited by them as well as the small size of their prey. The Sumatran tigers also possess the darkest coats among all tigers, stripes are narrowly spaced, and they possess longer beards and manes. 5. South China Tiger Also known as the Xiamen tiger (P. t. amoyensis), it is the most threatened among all the subspecies or types of tigers. For over 25 years, there has been no confirmed wild sighting of these tigers. Some evidence of footprints and unconfirmed reports indicate that there is some chance that these tigers still exist in the wild. Hope is low, and most experts consider the South China tiger to be functionally extinct. About 65 individuals of this subspecies remain in captivity. Male Xiamen tigers have a length ranging between 230 and 260 cm. Females attain a length of 220 to 240 cm. This subspecies of tiger is regarded as one of the earliest evolved tiger subspecies and the second smallest one among all the types of tigers. It has a vivid orange color, a long muzzle nose, narrow skull, and rhombus-like stripes. 4. Siberian Tiger Also known as the Amur tiger (P. t. altaica), this tiger subspecies lives in far eastern Siberia in the Amur-Ussuri region of Khabarovsk Krai and Primorsky Krai. A small population also exists in northeastern Chinas Hunchun National Siberian Tiger Nature Reserve. The population of these tigers has recovered slightly from 331 to 393 in 2005 to about 480 to 540 as of 2015. The Amur tiger is the largest among all types of tigers. Males have a body length ranging between 190 and 230 cm. Females have an average length between 160 and 180 cm. These tigers possess thicker coats with paler hues. The coat also has fewer stripes which are dark brown in color. The Siberian tiger is classified as endangered and is extinct in North Korea, South Korea, and Mongolia where it once existed. 3. Malayan Tiger A Malayan tiger. Image credit: Sharon Morris/Shutterstock Though once thought to belong to the Indochinese tiger subspecies, the Malayan tiger (P. t. jacksoni) was classified as such after a 2004 genetic analysis exhibited distinct differences between the two types of tigers. The Malayan tiger occurs exclusively in the Malay Peninsulas southern part. Once found in Singapore, the last wild tiger there was shot dead in 1930. Today, only about 250 to 340 individuals of this subspecies remain. Male Malayan tigers have a length ranging between 190 and 280 cm while females have a length from 180 to 260 cm. These tigers are classified as critically endangered and are now extinct in Singapore and Thailand where once these tigers were found in large numbers. 2. IndoChinese Tiger - Also called the Corbett's tiger (P. t. corbetti), the tiger is found in the forests in hilly or mountainous regions of the Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Burma. Only 350 individuals of this subspecies of tiger existed in 2010, making it one of the rarest types of tigers in the world. Male Indochinese tigers have an average length of about 270 cm and weigh between 150 and195 kg. Females have an average length of about 240 cm and weigh between 100 and 130 kg. The tiger was once found in China but is now extinct in the country. 1. Bengal Tiger A Bengal tiger, Ranthambore National Park, India. Image credit: D Currin/Shutterstock Also called the Indian tiger or the Royal Bengal tiger (P. t. tigris), this subspecies of tiger lives in the Indian sub-continent where it is found in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan. Here, it inhabits the subtropical and tropical rainforests, wet and dry deciduous forests, alluvial grasslands, scrub forests, and mangrove habitats. The tiger subspecies is the most abundant one in the world even though its numbers are still low enough for the subspecies to be classified as endangered. In 2014, the population of the Indian tiger in India was about 2,226. In 2015, the population of this tiger in Nepal was estimated to be about 163253, and in Bhutan, it was about 103. Male Bengal tigers attain a length of 270 to 310 cm from nose to tail while females are smaller with length ranging between 240 and 265 cm. The color of the coat of these tigers vary from light yellow to reddish yellow and is accompanied with black stripes. The tiger, though once found in China and Pakistan, is currently extinct in both these countries. Simon Pattison By: Wayne Morin A man was arrested on a charge of possession of child porn after being accused of keeping a stash of 2 million child porn images on electronic devices, according to police in the United Kingdom. Now, 32-year-old Simon Pattison of Stockton, has been given a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to three counts of making indecent photographs of children, one count of possessing prohibited images of children and one count of possessing extreme pornographic images. Pattison was given a 12-month prison sentence, which was suspended for two years. He was banned from having contact with children. Police will also monitor his Internet use. Pattison received a lenient sentence after his attorney told a judge that his client did not share the child porn images with anyone. Pattison had a girlfriend when he was 27 years old. After a few months, that relationship ended and he kept to himself ever since. Pattison then started downloading child porn images on his computers. He amassed 2 million child porn images. Investigators just looked over a small amount of files as they did not have the time to review so many images. The images showed girls as young as 5 years old having sex with adult men. Michael and Stephanie Theobald at their wedding By: Mahesh Sarin A newlywed couple of the United Kingdom, was left devastated after an ultrasound revealed that the wifeas baby did not grow and she had cancer instead. 35-year-old Stephanie Theobald from Manchester, was overjoyed when she became pregnant soon after marrying her husband Michael, 38. The two who have been together for five years, were ready to settle down and start a family. Stephanie said that she is one of six children and the only girl. All of her siblings already have children so her mother was very happy with the news that she was expecting her first child. However, the couple was left heartbroken after the wifeas 12-week scan when the nurse revealed that she couldnt find the babys heartbeat. The newlywed couple soon learned that the wife had a molar pregnancy, which means that abnormal cells were growing in her body instead of a baby. Stephanie underwent surgery and chemotherapy. The couple was served another blow when doctors informed them that Stephanie might never be able to have a healthy pregnancy. The victim By: Tanya Malhotra A mother was hospitalized with horrific injuries after she was gang raped. The 44-year-old woman of Colombia, who was not named, is in critical condition after being gang raped. Her family of Buga, spoke about the horrible incident as they are asking people to help them find the suspects. aAs part of the abuse, she was impaled, burned and disgraced,a the victimas sister said. The victim, who worked as a maid, was painting a new home as a way of earning extra cash when she was attacked by the gang. The woman had been raped, burned, beaten and impaled, and ad feces on her face, according to her family. The family did not reveal how she was impaled, but doctors said that they found severe injuries around her genitals. Due to the extent of her injuries, the mother was placed in a medically induced coma. Police have launched an investigation into the incident, but so far, no arrests have been made. Dilian Francisca Toro, who is the governor of the Valle del Cauca Department where the incident took place, is offering a $6,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of the suspects. Wrexham Nurse Scoops Top Award For Work With Mental Health Patients This article is old - Published: Tuesday, Nov 22nd, 2016 A nurse from Wrexham has scooped a top award for his work with mental health patients. Simon Meadowcroft was named as the winner of the Advancing Equality Award category at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) staff achievement awards evening. Its the second award for the mental health liaison nurse, who is based at Greenacres in Rhosddu Road, Wrexham. He works across North Wales and is the only one in Wales working specifically with patients with learning disabilities. Simon has produced bi-lingual easy-to-read leaflets explaining the different sections of the 1983 Mental Health Act and patients rights, which will soon be featured on the Welsh Governments website. Simon was presented with his award by Celtic Pride representative Jenny Anne Bishop at a glittering gala evening attended by 350 health board staff and VIP guests at Venue Cymru, Llandudno. Speaking after receiving his award, Simon said: Winning this award is an amazing accolade for the work we do not just me individually day in and day out with people with learning difficulties and mental health problems, to ensure they get equitable access to general health services. I work with people to ensure they can access the mainstream mental health care they need, without stigma or stereotyping. He added: I was so shocked to win and it comes on top of the British Medical Association highly commending my leaflet. Simon, who has worked for BCUHB for eight years, was nominated for the award by Kim Scandariato, Health Liaison Team Manager. Kim said: Simon is the only learning disability and mental health liaison nurse in Wales at the present time. He has developed leaflets which provide accessible information for people with learning difficulties and mental health issues. Research carried out by the Foundation of Learning Disability Studies found that 100% of service users questioned regarding their contact with mental health services said they had no written easy to read information. The Health Liaison team identified this was a deficit that required addressing as part of making reasonable adjustments to people with learning disabilities. Simon worked with service users to develop the leaflets and went to a wide range of stakeholders. The Welsh Government will also be putting Simons leaflets on their website and they are going on BCUHBs website too. The plan is to obtain service user feedback once the leaflets have been in circulation for a 12 month period through interviewing service users who have used the leaflets. The event saw Alarm front man Mike Peters take to the stage in medical super group The Betsi Blues, with BCUHB Chief Executive Gary Doherty on drums and hospital consultants Chris Subbe, Chris Thorpe and Damian McKeon. The Welsh rocker, who co-founded the global rock n roll cancer charity Love Hope Strength Foundation, thanked health board staff for the treatment he received during his three battles with cancer, and for the care now being given to his wife Jules, who has breast cancer. Mike said: Its a privilege and an honour to be surrounded by so many people who have achieved so much. You are important people to so many of us and its right you all have the opportunity to celebrate the great work you do. Jules and I remain positive and focussed because we have you, truly inspirational and dedicated NHS staff, by our side. The health board received more than 100 nominations across 14 categories for the annual achievement awards. Entries were judged by a selection board comprising Chairman Dr Peter Higson, Chief Executive Gary Doherty, Director of Workforce and Organisational Development Martin Jones, Independent Board Member and former midwife Jenie Dean and Director of Finance Russ Favager. Speaking about the awards, Gary Doherty said: I want to congratulate Simon and all the other category winners, as well as everyone who was nominated for an award. Every member of our hard-working and dedicated staff, plus all our volunteers, are winners in my eyes. It was a pleasure and an absolute privilege to read through all the nominations, which came from colleagues, patients and their families. Mr Doherty added: We had an incredibly difficult job in selecting a winner on each category and we could easily have made a case for every nominee picking up an award. We live in difficult times and the demands on the health service have never been greater. However, all our nominees and their colleagues continue delivering an excellent service to all North Wales patients. Frances Socialist Party government will send 53 extra police to New Caledonia in February amid high-level concerns over growing lawlessness in the small French Pacific territory, which has a population of less than 300,000. A special policing unit will combat youth delinquency. This means intensifying police repression against marginalised youth, particularly indigenous Kanaks, who suffer high levels of unemployment and impoverishment. The deployment was announced earlier this month at hastily convened talks in Paris, involving Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas and Overseas Minister Ericka Bareigts, following several days of unrest in the territory. The main road south of Noumea, the capital, was blocked by dozens of burned stolen cars during clashes between young Kanaks and the security forces. The closure left more than 10,000 people without normal deliveries of food, medicines and fuel for three days. The clashes, near the township of St Louis, were triggered by the fatal shooting of a 23-year-old prison escapee late last month. Prosecutors claimed a police officer fired at the driver of a van travelling at speed toward one of his colleagues, supposedly trying to hit him. The following day, five police were injured after being shot at, allegedly by armed youth, when they tried to clear roadblocks that had been set up in retaliation. The main road north from Noumea was also blocked by burning cars. The family of the slain man have challenged police claims about the circumstances of his death. Roch Wamytan, the Kanak Grand Chief of the area, said there were witnesses and an official complaint would be laid in an effort to uncover the truth. Seeking to outdo President Francois Hollandes administration, right-wing former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a candidate in next years presidential election, immediately demanded compulsory military service in New Caledonia to curb crime. Sarkozy told Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes that military training should be mandatory for youth over 18 who are not in education or employment. He also proposed lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 18 years to 16 in order to end the [ruling] Socialists culture of impunity. Radio New Zealand reported that New Caledonian politicians welcomed the promised crackdown. The Republican Party proposed increased public surveillance, restrictions on alcohol sales and harsher penalties for young offenders. Former territorial president Harold Martin said Paris was no longer playing down the seriousness of the problem but predicted it would not stop young Kanaks raiding the Noumea area. Wamytan did not oppose the crackdown, but said customary authoritiesthe indigenous Kanak leadershipneeded to be tied in to any new measures. He criticised some proposals as like using a hammer to kill a fly. The incidents point to explosive social tensions as the economic crisis impacts on Kanak youth. Clashes in impoverished areas have occurred with increasing violence over the past two years. In March, 40 police were deployed against youth deemed responsible for break-ins in the St Louis area. Shots were fired at a police armoured vehicle when it sought to recover a stolen car. The law and order measures are being instituted as the working class is being thrust into struggles over jobs and living standards. Following a 40 percent drop in the global price of nickel, major job cuts are underway in the mining and processing sector. Last November, New Caledonia President Philippe Germain warned that the closure of a nickel refinery in the Australian state of Queensland could lead to widespread civil unrest. New Caledonias mines were the main suppliers of the smelter before it was shut down in March. Hundreds of workers at the Societe Le Nickel processing plant in Noumea struck and set up pickets last November to oppose the loss of 60 jobs and a decision to delay building a new power plant for the smelter. The unions shut down the strike, while steering workers behind the demands of the Republicans to lift export restrictions. The previous August, truck drivers from the mining contractor union ContraKmine, who feared for their jobs, blockaded Noumea for three weeks demanding an increase in approvals for exports of ore to China. Currently, the Koniambo (KNS) nickel plant, owned by the transnational Glencore-Xstrata and Northern Provinces Societe Mininere du Sud Pacifique, is axing 140 positions from its workforce of 950. A court temporarily halted the first tranche of 47 sackings, saying the company failed to follow proper procedures. Political tensions are also building amid preparations for a referendum on the territorys independence. On November 7, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls chaired a meeting in Paris attended by New Caledonias leading pro- and anti-independence politicians, to discuss the plebiscite. Under the terms of the 1998 Noumea Accord, the vote must be held by November 2018. According to Radio NZ, Valls expressed concern that the unrest exhibited near Noumea in recent weeks could be unleashed again. Last month, 5,000 people rallied in Noumea to demand that Kanaks be automatically enrolled for the vote. The roll is restricted to long-term residents who are also on the general electoral list. The Kanaks have a customary status but an estimated 25,000 are not on the general roll and are at risk of missing out. There are claims of fraud by the French authorities in the vetting process. The demand for independence has a long history. In 1984 the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) launched the most recent struggle for independence by proclaiming a provisional government. French settlers, or caldoches, retaliated by killing 10 Kanaks in an ambush at Hienghene. All the accused were acquitted by a Noumea court. The massacre was followed by the murder of a prominent FLNKS leader, Eloi Machoro, by paramilitary marksmen. His death sparked riots and barricades throughout the territory. Tensions climaxed in April 1988 when a group of Kanaks captured the gendarmerie on the island of Ouvea, killing 4 policemen and taking 27 hostages. Some 300 elite troops were flown in and stormed a cave where the Kanaks were holed up, killing 21. Two police died. The troops reportedly tortured and beat civilians during the operation. Deep divisions over independence continue. The 2014 elections saw a victory to three anti-independence partiesCaledonia Together, Front for Unity and Union for Caledonia in France. Together they won 29 of the 54 seats in the Congress, but just 49 percent of the popular vote. With a permanent military garrison of 1,500 troops, New Caledonia remains vital to Frances imperialist geo-strategic positioning in the Pacific. After years of lobbying by France, New Caledonia and French Polynesia were recently admitted to membership of the regional Pacific Islands Forum in order to boost moves, led by American allies Australia and New Zealand, to counter Chinas growing influence. The author also recommends: Papua New Guinea budget further undermines living standards [9 November 2016] Samoan car component plant to shut, eliminating 740 jobs [29 October 2016] Colonial oppression in a South Pacific idyllimpressions of New Caledonia [20 August 2005] Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn addressed the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) within hours of each other on Monday. Corbyn was as keen as May to secure the backing of big business. To this end, he shamelessly advanced Labour as the partner of business that could secure the interests of post-Brexit Britain, as against a rudderless and divided Tory government. May took to the podium first, already facing serious criticisms from business for her lack of a plan to secure what is euphemistically termed a smooth Brexitthat is one that maintains UK access to the European Union (EU) Single Market, business ability to operate and recruit across Europe and to avoid excessive European customs duties. CBI President Paul Drechsler insisted that the UK must retain privileged access to the Single Market, keep its borders open to European managerial and technical talent and agree transitional arrangements with the EU. He warned that there would otherwise be massive damage. The Centre for Economic Policy Research, acting for the government, calculated that the cost of complying with new rules for trade after Britain leaves the EU would range from 4 to 15 percent of the cost of goods sold. Drechsler said of the government, Were not asking for a running commentarybut we are looking for clarity and, above all, a plan ... Business needs to know we wont close our borders to Europes talent, or lose our privileged access to Europes markets ... Today, businesses are inevitably considering the cliff-edge scenarioa sudden and overnight transformation in trading conditions. Mays problems have been made worse by the hardline anti-EU faction within her own party, with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson last week making a series of deliberately incendiary statements. He described the free movement of EU citizens as a myth, nonsense and bollocks, while claiming that the UK would succeed in winning unrestricted or at least preferential trade access to the Single Market without agreeing to it. He went on say of Donald Trumps victory in the US Presidential elections, There is every reason to be positive. Donald Trump is a dealmaker, he is a guy who believes firmly in values that I believe in toofreedom and democracy. Since November 8, Mays government has been wielding its supposed friendly relationship with Trumpand his endorsement of Brexitas a weapon against the EU in its negotiations. But prior to May addressing the CBI, various EU leaders let it be known that there would be no soft Brexit unless the Tories accept free movement and other conditions. Making clear that this was a common stand by all 27 member states, Norbert Rottgen, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the German Bundestag, told the Observer, I am really ready to come to a result but if [the British position is] no, no, no, then even I would have to say that there is no common ground. May sought to placate the CBIs concerns with a mixture of reassurances, eulogies to the free market and a pledge to slash corporation tax. The Tories believe in free markets, she said. We believe in capitalism and we believe in business... Stressing that there were not enough people feeling that they share in the wealth created by capitalism, she appealed for a new partnership with government to show that the forces of capitalism, globalisation and free trade offer the best hope to the problems facing so many people in our country. Brexit was a true national moment and an opportunity to build a stronger, fairer country, she intoned. But she then made clear that this new reality would be based on backing British business, bringing the deficit down and making the UK the most attractive place for businesses to grow and invest and the true global champion of free trade. May pledged to deliver the lowest corporation rate in the G20cutting it from the present low level of 20 percent to the 15 percent suggested by none other than Donald Trump. Corporation tax is already due to fall to 17 percent by 2020. She would avoid a post-Brexit cliff edge for businessessentially a pledge of subventions to offset any raised tariffs or to negotiated continued access to the Single Market in return for paying into the EUlasting possibly up to 2025. To Mays agenda of collusion between business and government to implement Brexit and impose austerityall wrapped up in talk of a fairer BritainCorbyn counterposed collusion between business and government to implement Brexit, while somehow ending austerity in an even fairer Britain! I believe when it comes to government theres bad intervention and good intervention, he said, citing a shambolic Brexit that limits our ability to trade with the worlds largest trading bloc on our doorstep. Corbyn would make access to the Single Market its key aim and would invest in infrastructureproof that we have plenty of common ground with the CBI. There would be a new settlement with business, with a National Investment Bank to fund infrastructure, investing in people and skills, R&D [Research and Development] and housebuilding... So as not to frighten his desired allies, he politely suggested that this will mean some increase in corporation tax while maintaining one of the lowest rates in the world. Mays proposed further cuts were, he said, reckless short-term grandstanding. This pathetic mixture Corbyn saw fit to describe as meeting the challenge of the fourth industrial revolution. ... It will challenge yesterdays received wisdom of private good, public bad. It will need common-good intervention. Just to make sure everyone knew who would be calling the tune, he added: We certainly wont be telling you how to run your organisations ... Labour is open. Were open to change. Open to new ideas. And open to working with you ... Together, I am confident we can rebuild and transform Britain for the common good. All that was missing from his hymn of praise to class collaboration was for Corbyn to promise, The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat ... and a little child shall lead them. Instead, in his answer to questions from the audience, Corbyn pledged trade war measures to prevent steel dumping by China: Fair trade is fine. But this was dumping to destroy our steel industry. He left the stage to applause that was, if not exactly warm, at least given in grudging recognition that Corbyn represents no threat to corporate interestsand might even prove to be a necessary political alternative in the event of a Tory meltdown amid the disaster threatened by Brexit. As an addendum, it should be noted that at the weekend Corbyns Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell made his own overtures to business by restating his commitment to continued austerity. He told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show that there is nothing progressive about running up big deficits. Labour would, he added, back Tory plans to raise the threshold for paying the top 40 percent income tax rate from 43,000 to 50,000a move only benefitting the top 15 percent of earners. Tulsi Gabbard, congresswoman from Hawaii and an early Democratic Party backer of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, met with Trump on Monday to discuss a possible position in the new administration. The meeting underscores the connection between Sanders economic nationalism, the defense of US imperialism and Trumps political agenda. Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, combines opposition to the US war for regime change in Syria with protectionism, support for anti-immigrant measures, defense of the gun lobby and full-throated support for the war on terror. She resigned from the Democratic National Committee to campaign for Sanders in the Democratic primary elections. A favorite of pro-Sanders pseudo-left organizations, she was a featured speaker at the Peoples Summit held last June in Chicago. According to a report in The Hill, the meeting was set up by Trumps chief strategist Stephen Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, champion of economic nationalist measures and favorite of the so-called alt-right. He reached out to her, not vice versa, a source close to Bannon told The Hill. Another individual quoted by The Hill said that Bannon loves her. She would fit perfectly too [inside the Trump administration]. She gets the foreign policy stuff, the Islamic terrorism stuff. Last week, 169 House Democrats signed a letter denouncing Trumps appointment of Bannon. Gabbard was not among the signers. In a statement following her meeting with Trump, Gabbard said they discussed our fight against terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face. She defended her visit with the Trump transition team as an opportunity to argue against US escalation in Syria. A commentary by Democratic Party operative Brent Budowsky, also published Monday by The Hill, enthusiastically argues for an alliance between progressives and Trump on the basis of Trumps talk of a $1 trillion plan to repair the countrys infrastructure and create jobs. Titled Trump, Bannon, Sanders and Schumer could make deal of the century, the article states: One of the most fascinating and powerful opportunities for a cross-cutting alliance between Democrats and Trump is the rebuilding of America and our decaying infrastructure And within Trump circles, one of the most fierce advocates of a massive jobs program is Steve Bannon! Despite the populist rhetoric, this entire project is based on a lie. Trumps infrastructure plan is a huge boondoggle for investors and corporations. None of the funding will come from the government. Instead, the government will grant massive tax incentives for private investors to provide seed money for various projects, which they will own once they are completed. The scheme is geared to the further hiving off of public assets to private interests, which will reap revenues from user fees and other regressive charges. Whatever jobs are created will be low-wage, and the resulting explosion of government debt will be paid for through cuts in social spending and attacks on federal workers, including mass layoffs, an end to automatic wage increases, and pension cuts. The US-directed offensive to recapture the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and surrounding towns and villages from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has entered its fifth week. The assault involves an increasingly antagonistic collection of armed forces, including some 30,000 Iraqi Army troops, 15,000 peshmerga soldiers of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), thousands of anti-ISIS Sunni Arab and Christian fighters, Turkish Army-backed Turkomen militias, and as many as 20,000 to 30,000 Shiite militia members loyal to the fundamentalist political parties that dominate the US-backed government in Baghdad. The Shiite militias, known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), are seeking to capture the predominantly ethnic Turkomen city of Tal Afar, 60 kilometres to the west of Mosul, near the border with Syria, and cut off escape routes for ISIS forces to its Syrian capital of Raqqa. The PMF captured Tal Afar airport on November 16. In the past 24 hours, it has claimed that its fighters are on the verge of fully surrounding the city. The Turkish government, which proclaims itself the defender of Turkomen Iraqis, has repeated its threats to invade Iraq and attack the largely Arab Shiite militias if they cause terror in Tal Afar. In operations against ISIS in the western Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, the PMF were accused of sectarian killings and abuses against Sunni civilians. To try to placate Turkey, Iraqi Army units have been dispatched to ostensibly lead any assault on Tal Afar. In Mosul, Iraqi government special forces claim they are slowly clearing ISIS fighters from the eastern suburbs, in the face of fierce resistance, and are eight kilometres from the city centre. Northern Mosul is sealed off by Kurdish pershmerga. To the south, the Iraqi Army has advanced to within 20 kilometres. The vast bulk of the city, however, is still firmly under ISIS control. The US military has admitted that hundreds of American personnel are on the ground and involved in the combat. British and Australian troops are also reported to be fighting alongside Iraqi units. US Army spokesperson Colonel John Dorrian told journalists last week that US Green Berets and other special forces personnel were in the thick of a very tough battle. Dorrian stated: Theres no question that US advisors are in harms way... Its not our role to take terrain or close with the enemy, but as the Iraqis move, if they need us, well go where they need us. ISIS, which seized Mosul in June 2014, is relying on a range of defensive measures to slow the assault and inflict casualties. It has constructed a network of tunnels under the city, rigged buildings and vehicles with explosives and laid mine fields. ISIS claimed in a propaganda bulletin that it had carried out 124 suicide bomb attacks on Army tanks, armoured vehicles and positions. The same bulletin claimed that ISIS fighters had killed some 2,700 Army and Kurdish troops. US, British, French, Australian, Canadian and Iraqi aircraft are conducting continuous air strikes on alleged ISIS fighting positions, command and control sites and supply depots. With anywhere between one million and 1.5 million civilians trapped in Mosul, including up to 600,000 children, large-scale casualties are inevitable. The US military and the Iraqi government continue to accuse ISIS of using civilians as human shields and murdering hundreds of its own fighters and numbers of civilians for opposing its orders. The various factions of the anti-ISIS coalition have not released any casualty estimates, either for their own forces or for civilians. The only estimate has been given by ISIS, which made the unverified claim that at least 340 non-combatants have been killed by air strikes and another 1,190 wounded. The latest UN estimate is that barely 60,000 civilians have escaped from the combat zones so far, mainly from communities on the outskirts of the city. Adrian Edwards, a UNHCR refugee relief agency representative, told a press briefing on November 18: There has been a marked increase over the past week in the number of people fleeing after fighting intensified in the more densely-populated urban areas of Mosul. Commenting on the conditions inside the city, Edwards stated: In some areas, civilian infrastructure like water, power, schools and hospitals is damaged and medical services are often unavailable. Many people are going hungry due to lost livelihoods, curtailed food production and increased prices. Supplies of water for drinking and agriculture have been disrupted. With temperatures plummeting as winter sets in, relief agencies are continuing to appeal for greater resources to cope with the expected flood of displaced persons if and when the offensive pushes deep into Mosul. According to the UNHCR briefing, if all available capacity was utilised, 700,000 people could be provided with short-term emergency shelter and assistance. A humanitarian disaster will result if far more than those numbers are forced to leave the city. Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, in Berlin for talks with the German government, told journalists yesterday that Iraq expected a US administration headed by Donald Trump to continue the same level of support for the offensive once it takes office. Jaafari stated: These strategies dont change with the presidents. Agreements are signed and then they are binding for all involved. Once Mosul was recaptured, he declared, Iraq would expect a Trump presidency to provide substantial financial assistance for reconstruction. Most of the city is likely to be reduced to rubble. Among its first foreign policy issues, the Trump administration will also confront the rising tensions between the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdish autonomous region, over the fate of northern Iraq. Last week, KRG president Massoud Barzani asserted that his Kurdish administration had US support not to give back a swathe of territory that its military forces have occupied during the fighting against ISIS. Among the most significant areas that the KRG controls, and claims should be brought under its permanent rule, are dozens of villages to the west and north of Mosul and the entire oil-rich province and city of Kirkuk. A Human Rights Watch report this month alleges that over the past two years, Kurdish peshmerga fighters have destroyed hundreds of homes and even entire villages in order to force the ethnic Arab population to leave. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi flatly rejected Barzanis assertion of jurisdiction over territory outside the official borders of the KRG. Abadi declared that the agreement on military cooperation against ISIS stipulated the withdrawal of the peshmerga from the liberated areas after the liberation of Mosul. Baqir Jabir Solaq, a leader of the Iranian-backed Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, one of the largest Shiite political parties, responded to Barzani yesterday. Underscoring the potential for open conflict and armed clashes, Solaq made social media threats that the Shiite militias would drive the Kurdish forces out of the territory they were occupying. Over the past week, warships from several countries including the United States, Britain, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Chile and China, have been visiting New Zealand for the 75th anniversary of the New Zealand Navy. The November 15 earthquake that affected large parts of the country was seized upon by the government to send military convoys and navy vessels, including the guided missile destroyer USS Samson, originally destined for Auckland for the celebrations, to evacuate the stricken coastal township of Kaikoura. Billed as a humanitarian mission, it has all the hallmarks of an international military exercise. The purpose of the naval anniversary is to glorify the military and further New Zealands integration into the Obama administrations preparations for war against China. The visit by a US destroyer for the first time in 33 years sets a precedent for a much stronger military alliance between the US and New Zealand. Workers and youth are overwhelmingly hostile to war and there is deep suspicion about the US navy visit. There is also widespread concern and shock over the election of Donald Trump, who will lead an extreme right-wing, militarist and authoritarian administration. During his campaign Trump repeatedly blamed China for America's economic decline and threatened to wage trade war against it, heightening the danger of conflict between nuclear-armed powers. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and opposition Labour Party leader Andrew Little, who previously said Trump was unfit for public office, both congratulated Trump on his victory and declared they are willing to work with him. In Auckland, a number of organisations led by Auckland Peace Action (APA) and the New Zealand Peace Foundation (NZPF) have organised protests and public meetings ostensibly to oppose the naval visit and a weapons manufacturers conference coinciding with it. The political purpose of the so-called Week of Peace, which has received considerable media attention, is to subordinate the growing anti-war and anti-capitalist sentiment among workers and youth to the political establishment via the Labour Party and the Green Party. The ex-Maoists, liberals, anarchists and pseudo-lefts involved with APA and NZPF represent a layer of the middle class who are hostile to the development of a socialist and internationalist movement against war. (See: The US warship visit and the fraud of Peace Action) The main political force promoted by the Week of Peace organisers was the Green Party, a pro-imperialist party, which hopes to become part of a Labour-led government after next years elections. On November 15, Greens co-leader Metiria Turei introduced a public lecture by Australian nuclear disarmament campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott, hosted by APA and the NZPF. Turei claimed the Greens were a party that honours non-violence as a central pillar of our charter. The next day several Green Party members attended APA's blockade of the weapons conference. On November 19, Greens MP Barry Coates addressed a rally of around 200 people in central Auckland, saying: we need to make sure that instead of military security we have human security that is based on justice. The Socialist Equality Group, which is campaigning in Auckland for a public meeting on the implications of Trumps election and the danger of war, distributed articles at the Week of Peace events and spoke with some in attendance, explaining the fraud of the Greens' claim to oppose war. At the blockade a member of the Young Greens, Stacy Rose, admitted to SEG members that the Greens leadership had endorsed the US warship visit, a fact neither Coates nor Turei mentioned in their speeches. Rose justified the Greens' position by saying the party was focusing on what we can do to get rid of the [National Party] government next year. Under the coalition we've got, Labour would probably endorse this and so would the Greens. Greens co-leader James Shaw told Newstalk ZB on July 22 that he approved of the visit because the warship would supposedly comply with New Zealand's anti-nuclear legislation. In fact, the US has refused to confirm or deny whether the destroyer is nuclear-armed. Shaw has also endorsed the government's decision to spend $NZ20 billion on new navy ships and other military hardware, which will be integrated into America's war plans. The Green Party has a long record of support for US and New Zealand imperialism. It backed the 1999-2008 Labour Party government, which sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. While nominally opposing these brutal wars, by 2010 the Greens had changed their position on Afghanistan, fraudulently describing New Zealand's deployment there as a peacekeeping operation. The party also supported the NZ and Australian military-police interventions in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. The Week of Peace promoted illusions in the Labour Party by glorifying and falsifying its record. In her lecture, Dr Caldicott summarised the international crisis caused by the US-backed coup in Ukraine, the wars in Iraq and Syria, and the military build-up against Russia and China. She warned that the world is closer to nuclear war now than we were at the height of the Cold War. Yet she offered no solution other than futile appeals to pro-imperialist politicians. She praised former Labour Prime Minister David Lange, whose 1980s government banned nuclear-armed ships from docking in New Zealand. She said current Prime Minister John Key would cause Lange to turn in his grave. In a revealing statement, Caldicott called for the US military to get out of the Pacific because the Pacific is ours, not theirs. This nationalist sentiment was applauded by the middle class audience of Peace Foundation, Peace Action and Green Party members. The record of Australian and New Zealand imperialism in the Pacific is, however, one of brutal exploitation of the region for resources and cheap labour for more than a century. The New Zealand ruling elite has relied, since World War II, on an alliance with the US to advance its predatory interests in the Pacific region and beyond. Peace Foundation member Laurie Ross gave a similarly nationalistic speech at the blockade of the weapons conference, where she said Lange had the guts to stay strong although he was under pressure from our friends and allies, the United States. In reality, Labours ban on nuclear warships did not end the alliance. Lange strengthened intelligence ties with Washington by building the Waihopai spy base in the South Island and expanding the Government Communications Security Bureau, which is part of the US-led Five Eyes spy alliance. It has played a major role in spying on China and other countries on behalf of the US. The Lange Labour government used the cosmetic anti-nuclear ban to rope in the support of numerous middle class activists, in Greenpeace and similar organisations, even as it intensified a sweeping assault on the working class. It privatised a swathe of the public sector, slashed taxes for the wealthy and introduced the regressive Goods and Services Tax, ushering in a far-reaching social reversal. The Labour Party supports the National governments participation in the present war in Iraq. The Helen Clark-led Labour government (1999-2008), abetted by the Greens and the now-defunct Alliance, was responsible for restoring military ties with Washington. Labour, the Greens and the right-wing populist New Zealand First have all sought to scapegoat immigration, particularly from China, for the social crisis, as part of preparing the country to join the US war drive against Beijing. The working class must be warned: If the Labour-Greens coalition, which Auckland Peace Action is supporting, wins the next election it will maintain and expand New Zealand's military ties with the US and drag the country into future wars. The only way to fight against war, as well as the danger of fascism and dictatorship, is through a socialist movement that unites workers internationally against the source of war, capitalism, and all its political defenders. Attend the Socialist Equality Groups public meeting in Auckland on Sunday, November 27, 2:30pm: The political causes and international implications of Trump's election: A Marxist assessment Grey Lynn Library Hall, 474 Great North Road Tickets: $5, $3 concession Last week the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) released its 2016 annual report, which showed that its multiemployer program deficit had risen by $6.5 billion to a record-high debt of $58.8 billion. The agencys combined debt for its single and multiemployer program totals $79.4 billion. In a conference call, last week, PBGC Director Tom Reeder said the agency is set to run out of funds by 2025 unless action is taken. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is an independent government agency created in 1974 to ensure the payment of pensions. The PBGC pays out pensions up to a federally defined maximum (about $60,000 a year in 2016) when pension plans under its protection break down. The growth of the combined PBGC debt to nearly $80 billion testifies to the deep crisis of the US pension system. Amid the deepening global economic crisis, employers, both public and private, have launched an attack on workers pensions. Employers have sought to end defined pension plans and replace them with cheaper and weaker 401(k) plans. When employers are unsuccessful at reducing pensions and retirement health benefits they use bankruptcy, as well as merger and acquisition, to tear up old contracts. The PBGCs debt is an estimation that it makes based on the balance between expected defaults of pension plans that it covers and its incoming funds, primarily based on premiums paid by suppliers of these pension plans. The large increase this year of the PBGC debt is based on their estimation that more plans they cover are expected to default in the coming decade. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez wrote in the introduction of the report: Insolvency of PBGCs multiemployer insurance program would devastate not only the retirement benefits of the 1 million to 1.5 million participants and their families in these at-risk plans, but all the participants in multiemployer plans that are currently receiving financial assistance from PBGC as well. In the PBGCs multiemployer fund, a fund that allows companies to pool together into one larger pension fund, there are about 10 million workers. Of these 10 million workers, 1.5 million are in plans that are likely to run out of money in the next 20 years. The PBGCs solution to the crisis is to ask Congress to dramatically raise the premium rates paid by companies for the PBGCs insurance service. The PBGC said in June that the minimum rate increase needed to prevent the insolvency of the agency was a 360 percent hike. Currently the rate is $27 per person per year. For companies paying pensions to large groups of employees, a 360 percent hike is a significant increase in the insurance premium. Furthermore, this increase is coming at a time when pension plans are already under attack and the cost of retirement is being pushed back onto the workers. The result of this dramatic hike would be to intensify the attack on workers pensions. Employers would offload the cost of the rate hike onto workers pension plans, further threatening the right of all workers to a good retirement. If the hike is not permitteda move that would amount to an effective congressional sabotage of the PBGCthe entire insurance system could collapse, leaving millions of workers with no pensions at all. Last week, DuPont announced that it would no longer contribute to current employees pension plans, effectively stopping payments to 13,000 current employees effective November 2018. In addition to this, the company is eliminating all retirement health benefits, including dental and life insurance for all employees under the age of 50. The announcement follows the merger of DuPont with Dow. The $130 billion merger will create the largest chemical company in the world in an effort to stave off the deepening global economic crisis. New DuPont employees were already cut off from the pension in 2007. These workers are on 401(k) plans, which are subject to the likely prospect of a new financial crisis in the coming years. The company estimates that this recent cut to pensions will save the company $550 million. Earlier this year the company also eliminated 2,500 jobs, about 4 percent of DuPonts global workforce. The Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB) has been passed by Britains Parliament and is due to become law early next year, requiring only Royal Assent from the queen. On November 16, the House of Lords approved the final version of the Investigatory Powers Billwidely known as the Snoopers Charter. The Bill was already passed in the House of Commons by 444 to 69 last June on a third reading, with no opposition from the Labour Party. The Lords proposed some minor amendments, most of which were rejected. Liberal Democrat and Scottish National Party (SNP) MPs opposed the bill, safe in the knowledge that this would make no difference to the outcome. So thorough was Labours support for the bill, under its nominally left leader Jeremy Corbyn, that the Guardians Ewen MacAskill felt obliged to note that it gives the UK intelligence agencies and police the most sweeping surveillance powers in the western world has passed into law with barely a whimper, meeting only token resistance over the past 12 months. The IPB was the flagship policy of Prime Minister Theresa May, who put it forward when she was Home Secretary under the previous prime minister, David Cameron. With the expiry, due to a sunset clause, of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) in December of this year, the even-more-authoritarian IPB was advanced as its necessary replacement. With the IPB, May brought together the current diverse rules governing state surveillance into a single piece of legislation. The new laws are an unprecedented attack on the rights and privacy of every UK citizen. It gives the security services the power to gather information on millions, and to process, profile and store the results. This will be achieved by compelling Internet Service Providers to keep Internet connection records for a period of 12 months for access by the police and state security services. The state is now legally able to monitor every Web site a person has visited, every comment made and every search term used. Companies will be forced by the spying agencies to hack into their customers devices and override their security. The electronic devices of millions of people will be hacked in bulk, with the agreement of the home secretary as the only prerequisite. The vast state spying operation that was carried out illegally for yearsbefore being revealed by US whistleblower Edward Snowdenis now being legalised. After the IPB was passed, Snowden tweeted, The UK has just legalised the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes further than many autocracies. Describing the chilling implications of the IPB, Independent columnist Mike Harris wrote, The bill will allow the Government to hand UK tech firms top-secret notices to hack their customers; the police will be able to look at your internet browsing history, and your personal data will be tied together so the state can find out if youve attended a protest, who your friends are, and where you live. The most authoritarian piece of spying legislation any democratic government has ever proposed has sped through Parliament with only a whimper of opposition. Newsweek headlined its article on the new laws, IP Bill Is Most Extreme Surveillance Law Ever Passed in a Democracy. The article, written by Jim Killockthe director of civil liberties organisation, the Open Rights Groupdescribed the IPB as an extraordinary document, which grants the state the ability to harvest information in bulk and to process and profile it without suspicion. What was under way was the sheer revocation of democracy, warns Killock. In the Guardian, Killock said, The UK now has a surveillance law that is more suited to a dictatorship than a democracy. From the outset, Labours then-Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham solidarised with the Conservatives demand that new powers were needed, saying they must give them [the police and security services] the tools to do their job. Burnham made clear that Labour would put forward a few meaningless amendments, but not oppose the substance of the governments proposals. Labour acted not as an opposition but as advisors on how best to bring in the new law. The government made a few concessions and amended the IPB as a result of criticism from parliaments Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs and backbench critics within the Conservative Party itself. None of this made a jot of difference to the overall aim of the bill. The amendments included protections for MPs and journalists, and the addition of a privacy clause that advises the use of new mass surveillance powers should not be authorised in situations where less intrusive means could be used. Most Labour MPs voted in favour of the law in the House of Commons. In the House of Lords, the 64 Labour Lords who voted to support the government line included frontbench spokesmen Lady Hayter and Lord Rosser and the partys chief whip, Lord Bassam. The former director of Liberty, now Lady Chakrabarti and a Labour peer, was conveniently absent at the time of the vote. The vote in the Lords was taken only hours after a ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal that the GCHQ spy centre and MI5 illegally collected vast amounts of personal and confidential information between 1998 and 2015. The tribunal said that during this period, the security services had collected personal data without adequate safeguards or supervision. This included records of individual phone and Web use and other confidential information. When the IPB returned to the House of Commons for consideration of amendments proposed in the House of Lords, Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, a senior left ally of Corbyn, spoke in favour of a Lords amendment calling for sections of the Leveson Inquiry proposals on curtailing press freedom to be tacked onto the IPB. Abbott did not make a single point of substance in opposition to the most repressive bill ever presented to Parliament, with dire consequences for the democratic rights of 60 million people. Abbotts pathetic amendment was opposed by Conservative MPs, determined to force the bill through without any further delay. The government moved a motion opposing the amendment that was carried by 298 votes to 261. On November 15, the Lords amendments were debated and voted on a second time in the House of Commons. Labour again only focused on adding part of the Leveson proposals. SNP Justice spokeswoman Joanna Cherry also supported the amendments. MPs again voted to reject the Lords amendments by 295 votes to 245, with Labour and the SNP voting for them. Labours ensuring the passage of the IPB must serve as a salutary warning to workers and young people as to its fundamental character as a tried and tested party of the bourgeois state. The election of Corbyn as leader more than a year ago has changed nothing. Despite his left pretensions, he has backed the demands of the ruling elite on every critical issue. On Labours role, Killock wrote, Labour did not table any serious amendments to this draconian legislation in the House of Lords. Labour is simply failing to hold the government to account. The reason Labour didnt oppose the bill is because the party fully supports it. Labour agrees with the Conservatives that under conditions of mounting social and political crisis, the state must be strengthened in order to defend capitalist rule. On Monday, President-elect Donald Trump took time out from interviewing a stream of political reactionaries and military war hawks at his Trump Tower penthouse to post a two-and-half-minute video outlining executive actions he plans to take during his first 100 days in the White House. The video underscored the ferocious nationalism and militarism, combined with anti-immigrant racism and pro-corporate deregulation, that will define his administration as a government of extreme reaction. In keeping with his election campaign, Trump demagogically cast his actions as a boon to US workers. He began by declaring that his administration would be based on the principle of putting America first and creating wealth and jobs for American workers. His first action, he said, would be to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the US-sponsored trade pact aimed at ensuring American dominance of East Asia and further isolating China, which is not a party to the agreement. Trumps opposition in no way reflects a softer line toward China, which he has repeatedly denounced and threatened with trade war measures, but rather a policy of economic nationalism and protectionism, which he falsely claims will benefit US workers. Next, he would cancel all job-killing regulations restricting the production of shale oil and coal, a boon to the energy industry presented as a job-creation measure. He added that he would institute a rule requiring the elimination of two regulations for every new one imposed. Indicative of his plans to expand the military and extend its influence over civilian life, Trump declared that he would ask the Department of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a comprehensive plan to protect the countrys infrastructure from cyber attacks and all other forms of attacks. On immigration, Trump said he would direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker. This would be the first step in an escalated attack on immigrants, including the two-to-three million whom Trump said, in his post-election 60 Minutes interview, would be slated for deportation in the short term. As part of his plan to drain the swamp in Washington, Trump announced a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave office and a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. This supposed commitment to government ethics is particularly farcical given Trumps refusal to place his vast business empire in a blind trust and his failure even to release his tax returns. The video highlighted the America first nationalism and economic protectionism that go hand in hand with Trumps promotion of the military and his authoritarian contempt for democratic rights. This is already clearly established by his appointment of Stephen Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, the favored media platform of the white supremacist alt-right movement, as his chief political strategist. Of a similar character are the other national security appointments he has announced to dateformer military intelligence officer and anti-Muslim fanatic Michael Flynn as national security adviser; anti-immigrant Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, denounced by civil liberties and civil rights groups for his ties to white supremacist outfits, as attorney general; and pro-torture Congressman Mike Pompeo to head the CIA. Besides touting retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, notorious for overseeing the mass killing of civilians and physical destruction of Fallujah, as well as other war crimes, as the leading contender for the post of defense secretary, Trump has interviewed retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, who has defended the abuse of military detainees, for the post of Homeland Security Department secretary. Another prospective Homeland Security chief to meet with Trump is Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state who has drawn up plans for a registry of all Muslim visitors to the US and all Muslim immigrants already residing in the country. On the weekend, alt-right supporters held a rally in Washington DC to celebrate Trumps victory. The main speaker, Richard Spencer, attacked Jews, cited Nazi propaganda and declared that America belonged to white people, who were awakening to their own identity. The meeting ended with someone on the platform shouting Heil Victory and the audience shouting it back. In the face of this, the leadership of the Democratic Party is working to cover up the unprecedented and ominous character of the incoming government, while seeking to collaborate with it on the basis of agreement with its economic nationalist and trade war policies. At a press conference in Peru, at the conclusion of last weekends Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, President Barack Obama repeated the line he has preached to foreign leaders and the American public since the November 8 election: That there is nothing to fear from a Trump administration. I cant guarantee that the president-elect wont pursue some of the positions that hes taken, Obama said. But what I can guarantee is that reality will force him to adjust how he approaches many of these issues. Thats just the way this office works. New York Senator Charles Schumer, elevated last week to the post of Democratic Senate minority leader in the incoming Congress, is spearheading a policy of collaboration with Trump on his economic nationalist program, in the name of addressing the needs of US workers. Schumer, known as the senator from Wall Street because of his close ties to the banks and hedge funds, has long been a promoter of trade war policies, particularly against China. He has brought Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, nominally an independent, into the Senate Democratic leadership and further elevated Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. These supposed lefts have aligned themselves with Schumers efforts to work with Trump on the bogus grounds that Trumps schemes for infrastructure development and his trade war policies will promote the interests of American workers. Latin America Mexican hospital workers strike for overdue pay Some 20,000 public health sector workersdoctors, nurses and support staffin the Mexican state of Veracruz went on strike November 16 after the state government announced that it would not issue paychecks for the first quincena (15-day period) of November. The SNTSS state health workers union also denounced the Health Secretariats failure to deliver on a promised retroactive 5.1 percent hike, the lack of uniforms and chronic shortages of supplies, medicine and equipment. The health workers resolved to provide emergency services to victims of accidents and gun violence, women about to give birth and other people in a grave state, a source at the Veracruz Regional Hospital told reporters. Some 59 hospitals and 234 health centers have been affected, and workers at orphanages, childcare facilities and the Social Reinsertion prisoner and ex-convict service agency joined the stoppage. In the midst of the nationwide crisis afflicting all of Mexico, Veracruz has suffered additional fiscal hits from the scandal- and violence-ridden administration of PRI Governor Javier Duarte de Ochoa, who flew the coop following his resignation in October, leaving the government with debts of 87 billion pesos (US$4.27 billion). He is still at large. Brazilian police, demonstrators clash at anti-austerity protest Hundreds of military police were sent by Brazils federal government to the state of Rio de Janeiro November 16 to back up local and state cops at demonstrations protesting a number of austerity bills being considered by the state legislature. The proposed measureswhich include the slashing of public workers salaries, cuts in social services and subsidies for the poor, increasing deductions from pensions, and hikes in transportation and utility billsare aimed at making the Brazilian working class bear the brunt of the economic crisis that has engulfed the nation. Already, thousands of public workers have not been paid or have been paid months late. The economic crisis has hit Rio de Janeiro particularly hard because of its squandering of public funds on sports-related construction projects, which were characterized by evictions of poor people, cost overruns, corruption, labor conflicts and the deaths of some workers. The federal government, fearing an avalanche of requests for help from other states, has refused to continue to bail out Rio de Janeiros state economy. At least 2,000 protesters marched in the eponymous capital city to the legislative building, where they carried signs, blew whistles, chanted and marched to a session of the state legislature. Once they had broken down two metal barricades at the entrance, heavily armed and armored police attempted to drive them back with stun grenades and teargas, to little avail. Later, armored vehicles with water cannons and riot police on horseback were sent in as reinforcements to the screams of Cowards! by angry protesters, who included teachers, firefighters and other public service workers. At least three people were injured, and two riot cops reportedly switched sides and joined the protesters. National strike by Peruvian health workers for increased budget, wages, supplies Workers in Perus National Health Sector Workers Unified Federation (FENUTSSA) began an indefinite national strike on November 16. FENUTSSA claims that adherence to the strike has been overwhelming. The main demand is for a larger budget for the public health sector, which has suffered from chronic shortages of medicines and supplies, making it difficult to serve patients needs. In addition, many workers are not classified as full-time and permanent, leaving them with no job security and benefits and earnings that are often below the minimum wage. Moreover, workers complain of rampant corruption in the sector, siphoning already inadequate funds. On November 17, about 300 protesters held a sit-in protest in front of the Superior Court of Justice in Arequipa for about a half-hour, then marched to the Plaza de Armas, blocking downtown traffic. Workers said that after 25 years of being relegated, they are not going to return to their jobs until they have been heard. Chilean public workers union ends nearly month-long strike After over three weeks on strike, the negotiating team for Chiles National Association of Public Employees called off a strike begun in late October to press their salary demands. The walkout involved 15 different labor organizations embracing workers in the public health, civil registry, public sanitation and other sectors. The negotiating committee had originally countered the governments proposal of a 2.9 percent raise to begin in December with their demand for 7 percent. The government raised the offer to a trifling 3.2 percent, which one union official declared, In real terms, thats a 0.2 percent (increase), which is the weakest in years. He added, Its not fair, its not appropriate. However, the union bargainers eventually whittled their proposal down to 4 percent. The government of center-left President Michelle Bachelet refused to budge in the face of the strike and protest actions, against which police used water cannons and other repressive means. Doctors, who were not involved in the strike, held a march and demonstration November 16 in support of the striking workers, while at the same time calling for dialogue. On November 18, the negotiating committee called off the strike following approval by Congress of the 3.2 percent raise. An EFE report concluded, To mark the end of the mobilization, hundreds of government workers gathered outside the presidential palace for a raucous protest. Chilean home center workers strike over pay demand Around 8,700 workers for Homecenter Sodimac, the Chile-based home improvement warehouse chain, walked off the job indefinitely November 9 to press their salary demands. The home center workers union is demanding a 7 percent raise and a bonus of 500,000 pesos (US$734), while the company offers 3.5 percent and 150,000 (US$220). The union stated that the enterprise is making a definitive proposal; this signifies that it will not continue negotiating and that it expects that the 15-day strike deadline will pass so that the workers will start to be disunited. There is some public support for the striking workers, typified by a November 16 solidarity march by about 300 public sector workers, themselves on strike at the time (see above). The slogan of the march was The system affects everybody, public and private. Sodimac has since offered a 5 percent increase to the base salary, but that is far from what workers are seeking, which includes a salary increase of a fixed amount added to the base remuneration of each worker, independent of their position or seniority, reported La Prensa Austral. The United States Massachusetts contract over outsourcing dispute ends with ratification Some 60 workers at the Aubuchon Hardware distribution center in Westminster, Massachusetts ratified a new three-year agreement November 18 after a two-week labor dispute over contract language that threatened outsourcing. The new agreement, according to the company, allows the flexibility to make the best decisions for our business. Shannon George, head of Teamsters Local 170, would only go so far as to say that jobs are protected to some extent and that some outsourcing language remains in the contract. But, George conceded, It depends on how far the company is willing to go, indicating the compromise is entirely in the companys favor. The contract expired November 6 with management and the Teamsters arguing about whether the stoppage was a strike by the union or a lockout by the company. The dispute centered on contract language that determines how Aubuchon distributes goods to over 110 of its stores throughout New England and upstate New York. The company contemplated closing the Westminster distribution center back in 2014 before implementing cost-saving measures. The company is the largest employer in Westminster and many of its stores operate in rural areas or away from major metropolitan areas. Canada Toronto area garbage collectors strike Around 140 workers employed by private contractor Emterra Environmental in the Peel region adjacent to Toronto were on strike for two days last week before a tentative deal was struck with their union, the Laborers International Union of North America, (LiUNA). Emterra had given the union until midnight last Wednesday to accept their final offer, but that was soundly rejected by the membership. Union negotiators then extended an invitation to the company to resume talks and received no reply. That precipitated a strike on Thursday and on Friday afternoon Peel Region announced that an agreement had been reached and that garbage collection would resume immediately. The strike affected 150,000 homes in the largely suburban region, during which residents were told to put their garbage out as usual during the strike even if it was not collected. The main issues that gave rise to the strike centered on wages, pensions and benefits, although no details were released about the tentative settlement. CAPE CORAL, Fla. (AP) - A southwest Florida man has been sentenced to life in prison for killing his father and then dismembering the body. The News-Press (https://goo.gl/Dv7QX8 ) reports that 34-year-old Matthew Marshall was sentenced Monday. He was convicted last month of second-degree murder, abuse of a body and tampering with evidence. James Marshall went missing in February, and his torso was discovered in woods near his Cape Coral home several days later. Several weeks later, a suitcase containing his limbs was discovered in a nearby canal. Matthew Marshall was arrested in May. Police found Marshall had tried to use his father's credit card to pay for a bar tab after he had been reported missing. ___ Information from: The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press, http://www.news-press.com (Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) TAYLOR COUNTY, Fla. (WTXL) - The parents of a Taylor County man sentenced to life for the murder of his aunt are hoping for a new trial for their son. In April, Garrett Arrowood was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Shelly Strickland. Garrett's parents went to court last week to ask the judge to consider what they say is new evidence that will prove their son is innocent. They said this information is critical in reopening the case and filing for a new trial. Last week, the family reported that they recently came across a surveillance photo via email. It showed Garrett at a Tallahassee pawn shop on the day investigators believed that Shelly Strickland was killed. They've asked the judge to subpoena records from a Jacksonville pawn shop they said Garrett was at earlier in the day. The Arrowoods said that once they get these records approved, it will strengthen their case before filing for a new trial. Lisa Arrowood, Garrett's mother said, "Things that should be simple -- they're just made very difficult, and we just wonder why. I mean, is the bottom line -- are we not all after the truth here? We all want justice. We want to know who killed my sister, and it just seems like we run into a wall every time we try to do that." The family also asked the judge to disclose transcripts from Garrett's grand jury deliberations. The judge said he'll take both requests under advisement. He gave both sides five days to submit orders and after that, he'll let both sides know of his decision. The state attorney's office said that as of right now, the defense has filed nothing regarding a motion for a new trial and so the case cannot move forward. The Arrowood family said that, regardless of what the judge decides, they will file that motion and get the case reopened. ATLANTA, Ga. (WTXL) - Fire officials have warned residents to be careful while preparing feasts this holiday season. Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner Ralph Hudgens, urged people living in Georgia to use caution while cooking and have reminded them to keep an eye on reheating leftovers. Weve had 11 fire deaths in Georgia this year in which the cause was cooking-related, Hudgens said. Over the years we have seen many fires caused by a range top that was left unattended. He suggested the following tips for cooking safety: * Always set a timer when cooking, so you wont forget to turn off the range top or oven. * If a pan catches fire, cover it with a lid immediately and turn off the burner. * Dont fight a grease fire with water, as it may make the fire worse. Consider purchasing a fire extinguisher to keep in your kitchen. * Wear tight-fitting sleeves when cooking. Loose clothing can contact a burner and ignite. If this happens, remember stop, drop and roll. Stop where you are, cover your face with your hands, and roll over to smother the flames. * Never use a cooking stove to heat your home. * Install an adequate number of smoke alarms. Most fatal fires start between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., while the family is asleep. The advance warning of a smoke alarm may mean the difference between life and death. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (The News Service of Florida) - Looking to improve the quality of Florida's universities while keeping costs low, Gov. Rick Scott held a three-hour meeting and luncheon Monday with chairmen of the boards of trustees from each of Florida's 12 universities. While pointing out increases in state funding over the past half-dozen years, Scott called on the trustees to improve performance on issues like graduation rates and job placement, while emphasizing universities can do a better job of controlling costs. "Here's my attitude, I don't understand why we're not No. 1," Scott told the trustees during the meeting at the governor's mansion. "I was never in a business where I said I'm fine with being No. 10, No. 15. Why wouldn't we be No 1?" Echoing comments he made to university trustees at a Florida Board of Governors' meeting in Boca Raton this month, Scott said he will evaluate how the schools meet some of the initiatives he has outlined, including graduating more students in four years, placing students in higher-paying jobs and keeping tuition low. Scott, a former health-care company executive, also reemphasized the need to reduce costs at the 12 universities. "I really believe the cost is ridiculous," Scott said. "The money these schools have been getting is skyrocketing. It's not a little bit. It's a lot of money." Among other issues, Scott said he will scrutinize how Florida State University and the University of Florida, which received $25 million each in "pre-eminence" money in the new academic year, are using that funding to rise in the ranking of national public universities. All of the universities have a large portion of their new funding tied to a performance-measurement system, which ranks the schools on metrics like job placement, wages of graduates, retention rates and whether students are taking "excess" classes. In the current academic year, the state distributed $500 million in performance funding to the 12 schools, with three schools, the University of North Florida, the University of West Florida and New College of Florida missing out on some of the funding because they finished at the bottom of the rankings. During Monday's meeting, the chairs of each school's board of trustees outlined areas where the universities were excelling but also highlighted areas where improvements could be made. Tom Kuntz, chairman of the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the entire system, said the meeting was a unique opportunity for the trustees to "sit down and do some work" with the governor on the higher education improvements. Many of the chairs said they are using and incorporating the performance standards in various areas of their schools, including evaluations of the university presidents. Ed Burr, chairman of Florida State University's board, said over time the performance standards have "created a culture" at the schools based on metrics and other performance standards. "That is becoming pervasive throughout our schools," Burr said, saying it has been embraced by administrators and "more slowly by faculty." Kuntz said he expects the metrics to constantly evolve, noting the Board of Governors has just revised a metric designed to evaluate the "cost" of obtaining a degree at each school. He said some schools like the revision and others have concerns. "If these (measurements) ever just stop and never change, I think we will have a failed system," Kuntz said. Kuntz said the measurements should not be changed radically on a year-to-year basis but that ongoing revisions are expected. "What should we change? What's a better way to do it? And then adopt those over time," he said. "Twenty years from now I would suggest it will look nothing like it does today." But Kuntz also said there is still some resistance among the universities to using the measurementA system to punish schools based on their performances. "I would say at this point one of the biggest obstacles to overcome still is I hear a lot of conversation of, 'Yeah, but why is there going to be somebody at the bottom who gets less than somebody else?' " Kuntz said. Kuntz said some critics argue the schools should be measured against the performance standards but not be financially penalized. But Kuntz, a former banking executive, said "that's just the way the world works." "Somebody who has performed the best should get more, whether you are measuring against each other or measuring against a different group," Kuntz said. Burr said the universities are adjusting to the system. "Hold us accountable and reward us if we do well," he said. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - When Wil Merrick took over the Flipper Chapel AME Church in 2012, he felt something was missing...a program to help feed the bread and butter of his congregation...the seniors. "Every year churches and agencies give out Thanksgiving baskets and Christmas baskets and we were doing the distribution, and the conversation went toward, 'well, what about the rest of the year'?" said Pastor Wil Merrick. So he reached out to Second Harvest. Four years later, the senior grocery program now provides goods to about 20 seniors the last Thursday of every month...seniors like Gertrude Washington. "I eat. I've gotten so heavy, all of them talk about, 'hey, we can't pick you up, you's too heavy'," jokingly says Washington. Her daughter Patricia Williams says the additional grocery items, from canned goods, fresh bread, and produce, help to supplement their pantry. "It mean a lot because my mother is on a fixed income and I'm retired," explains Williams, "and the donation the church gives us is very appreciated, and they're always looking out for my mother." Pastor Merrick says his church wouldn't be able to do this without the help of Second Harvest, and the community. "Amazingly, this is the capitol of the state of Florida, but there are people who are not sure where their next meal is coming from," says Pastor Merrick, "and we can't do it all, we're just one congregation, but what we can do, we're trying to make an impact where we are." Providing food, fellowship and the flexibility of living at home, to seniors like Gertrude. "I wish everyone that's able to give, will give," says Williams, "and I challenge my former employees of Florida A&M where I retired from, to donate to Second Harvest." Holiday drivers beware: Weekend weather likely to be wet, windy and snowy in the mountains Rural Yakima Valley residents still have time to sign up for leadership program The Morton County (N.D.) Sheriffs Office estimated 400 protesters were trying to cross the bridge on State Highway 1806 in what they called an ongoing riot during a protest of the Dakota Access pipeline in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. (Photo by Richard Tsong-Taatarii via The Seattle Times) Firefighters and rescue teams were called to battle multiple fires which erupted throughout Tuesday, wreaking havoc across a number of different towns in Israel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Zikhron Ya'akov fell prey to a raging fire in the afternoon in the Givat Eden neighborhood which threatened to thrust its ways toward residential buildings. One school was evacuated after a giant pall of smoke blackened the area while a number of buildings were also reported to have caught fire. Eight people suffered smoke inhalation from the fire in Zikhron, among them a 10-day-old boy, seven-year-old girl, a four-year-old boy and a one-year-old girl, who were evacuated to the Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, and four othersa 42-year-old woman, a 32-year old man, a seven-year-old boy and a 2.5-year-old girlwho received treatment at the scene. They were all in light condition. Several other were taken to the hospital throughout the course of the day. Fires break out in Zikhron Ya'akov (: ) X Another fire simultaneously broke out in the coastal town of Atlit near Haifa prompting rescue teams to evacuated 200 children from a school dangerously close to the looming flames. Hundreds of residents of Neve Shalom, near Latrun, were evacuated earlier from their homes following a forest fire raging in the area. The fire broke out overnight Monday and rapidly spread due to strong winds in the area. There are no reported injuries thus far. Throughout Tuesday morning 60 teams of 140 firefighters, accompanied by aircraft, were still working to put out the blaze. While not all the fires had been extinguished by the morning, firefighters did manage to contain the flames in several areas. Firefighters battle with raging fires ( : ) X Photo: Gil Yohanan Beit Shemesh Station Commander, Reuven Yitzhak, told Ynet that the cause of the fire is not yet known, but the difficult weather conditions and terrain have caused it to spread. Officials worry that dry conditions, unseasonably warm temperatures and strong winds will cause additional fires to break out. As a result, Shimon Ben-Ner, Commissioner for Fire and Rescue, issued an order prohibiting the lighting of fires in open areas throughout the country, except for the areas south of the geographic line of Highway 25. Fire retardant poured on the blaze (Photo: Gil Yohanan) Photo: Israel Firefighter Service A spokesman for the Jerusalem District Police said that firefighters have succeeded in preventing the flames from reaching another nearby community where 270 people live. Firefighting efforts are currently concentrated in two main areas, Eshtaol Forest and the area near Taoz. Photo: Fire Service Raging fires (Photo: Gil Yohanan) Jerusalem District Fire and Rescue Chief Nissim Twito said, "Jerusalem-area firefighters, with the assistance of other forces throughout the country, are currently fighting to put out a large fire that is endangering the outskirts of Neve Shalom. Our main objective at the moment is to control the fire and protect the homes of the community. We are working as fast to possible to minimize all damage to the forest and nature." CAIRO -- Egypt's Court of Cassation overturned on Tuesday a life sentence against deposed President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood and ordered a retrial in the case that revolves around accusations of espionage with Palestinian group Hamas. The court last week overturned a death sentence against Mursi in a separate case, meaning he no longer faces execution. He remains in jail on a separate espionage conviction. US President-elect Donald Trump released a video on Monday laying out actions he will take on his first day in office on January 20, including withdrawing the United States from a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a move which may spell the end of the dozen-nation trade pactat least in its original form. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter But other Pacific Rim leaders are vowing to pursue market-opening efforts they view as vital for their own countries' future growth. Meanwhile, China also is moving ahead with rival free-trade initiatives. Trump's message, in a short video on his future administration's plans, was issued just after leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group ended their annual summit Sunday with a unified call to fight the backlash against free trade highlighted by Trump's victory and Britain's vote to leave the European Union. Donald Trump message ( : ) X In an annex to their summit statement, the APEC leaders gathered in Lima, Peru, voiced support for the TPP, which has been envisioned as a step toward building a wider, pan-Pacific free trade zone. Speaking after his return home, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key told reporters Tuesday there were alternatives. "The United States isn't an island. It can't just sit there and say it's not going to trade with the rest of the world," Key said. "At some point they're going to have to give some consideration to that. But naturally, we're a bit disappointed." Trump described the 12-nation trade pact as a "potential disaster for our country." He has also said he wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. President Barack Obama recently announced that his administration was giving up seeking congressional approval for the Pacific Rim trade pact, which he had championed as a strategy for ensuring US could lead the process of devising a "gold standard" set of rules for 21st century trade. "I think not moving forward would undermine our position across the region and our ability to shape the rules of global trade in a way that reflects our interests and our values," Obama told reporters in Lima. President-elect Donald Trump (Photo: AFP) Under terms of the TPP agreement signed this year in New Zealand, the vast free trade agreement can be only implemented, in its current form, if it is ratified by at least six countries that account for 85 percent of the combined gross domestic production of the 12 TPP nations. Since the US accounts for 60 percent of the combined GDP of the group, and Japan less than 20 percent, those conditions cannot be met without US participation. During their weekend meeting in Peru, some Asia-Pacific leaders said they might try to modify the trade pact to make it more appealing to Trump, or try to push ahead without the US. Key said he wasn't surprised at the comments Trump made after he campaigned strongly against the agreement. But the US will need to think about what role it wants to play in Asia and how it will access fast-growing markets there, he said. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that while Trump and other members of his administration would have to decide for themselves, the other 11 members of the TPP were unanimous in wanting to ratify it and see it come into force. From "Australia's point of view, getting access, greater access for Australian exports, whether it is goods or services to those big markets is manifestly in our interest," Turnbull said. Photo: MCT "It is manifestly delivering more jobs, better jobs and stronger economic growth in Australia." But after Trump's announcement Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who last week became the first foreign leader to meet the president-elect since his Nov. 8 election victory, was less optimistic. "TPP is meaningless without the United States," Abe told reporters while on an official visit to Argentina. He said renegotiating the agreement would "disturb the fundamental balance of benefits." As Japan's most powerful leader in a decade, Abe invested political capital in overcoming strong domestic opposition to the TPP, especially from farmers and the medical lobby. His ruling Liberal Democratic Party pushed TPP ratification through the lower house of parliament and had been set to seek final approval in the upper house. The TPP member countries also include Chile, Mexico, Canada, Peru, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Australia. With the TPP likely stalled, other trade initiatives may gain traction. That includes the less well-known Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP. It includes many Asian-Pacific countries, including China, India, Indonesia and South Korea, which are not part of the TPP. So far, no countries from the Americas have joined. MANILA -- The chiefs of the Philippine armed forces and the United States Pacific Command say the two countries' military ties remain robust, with both sides committed to their alliance and cooperation on maritime security, counterterrorism and humanitarian aid. The upbeat statement issued Tuesday at the end of a Mutual Defense Board and Security Engagement Board meeting came after threats by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to reduce military cooperation with Washington and expand security ties with China and Russia. Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., head of the US Pacific Command, said last week there could be a "re-scoping" of some joint exercises in 2017. Tuesday's statement, however, did not mention any scaling down of military drills. The Philippines and the US are longstanding allies and signed a mutual defense treaty in 1951. WARSAW -- Polish officials say that several vehicles in a convoy that included Poland's prime minister collided during a state visit to Israel. The car carrying Prime Minister Beata Szydlo was not one of those that collided. She was unharmed. The accident occurred late Monday as Szydlo was being transported from Tel Aviv airport to Jerusalem at the start of Polish-Israeli discussions. Polish government spokesman Rafal Bochenek said that two Polish officials required medical attention but were not badly hurt. One was a government security guard and the other a staff member of the prime minister's office. A Palestinian armed with a knife was shot on Tuesday morning after he tried to stab a police officer at Qalandiya Checkpoint. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter According to a statement by the police, the terrorist approached his target in a pass intended for vehicles only while brandishing a knife before being shot. No other injuries were reported. Scene of attempted attack Qalandiya Checkpoint The incident is the first to have taken place in two-and-a-half weeks when a terrorist attempted to stab an IDF soldier attempted to carry out a stabbing attack at the Ofra Interchange on Thursday before being shot and killed by security personnel stationed nearby. Just days before, a terrorist attempted to run over and stab soldiers near a checkpoint in Ofra near. No IDF forces were injured in the attack. The terrorist was shot and seriously wounded. President Reuven Rivlin landed in Israel on Tuesday morning returning from his week-long trip in India. On his final day of his state visit, Rivlin laid a wreath at the memorial ceremony for the victims murdered in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The ceremony was attended by the Governor of Maharashtra, Chennamanei Vidyasager Rao, as well as local government officials, representatives of India's Jewish Community and members of the business delegation accompanying Rivlin on his visit. The ceremony was conducted by the Consul General in India, David Akov. President Reuven Rivlin and his wife Nehama (Photo: Mark Neiman) In response to the attacks that killed 166 people, including six people at Mumbai's Chabad House, President Rivlin said, "Eight years ago this wonderful city suffered one of the most serious, cruel and murderous attacks we know of. Unfortunately, Indians, like Israelis, know all too well the modern realities of global terrorism. Terror is terror wherever it strikes in the world. Hatred, fundamentalism, extremism and incitement are all reflective of one thingterrorism. "As we stand here, we are saying that terrorism will never win," added Rivlin. "The values of democracy and our freedom will be defended with all our might. However, we should not rely solely on values and words, we must work together to share knowledge and practices to guard our citizens, our borders and our cities. India and Israel are side by side in this battle. It is our duty to the victims and the coming generations." Moishe Holzberg Following the ceremony and meetings with the governor of Maharashtra, President Rivlin continued on to the Chabad House in Mumbai to lay a wreath in honor of the six victims: Rabbi Gabriel Holzberg and his wife, Rivka Holzberg, Benzion Kroman, Aryeh Teitelbaum, Yocheved Orpaz and Norma Rabinowitz. The President and his wife Nehama met with Moishe Holzberg, the son of Rabbi Gabriel and Rivka Holzberg, who were murdered in the attack. During the attack, Moishe fled the shooting and made it to his nanny on the third floor, who protected him until it was over. During Moishe's visit with his grandfather to India, Rivlin commented, "When I saw Moishe, I couldn't help but think 'Am Yisrael Chai.' Now, here, at this Chabad House, which serves as a warm place for Jews on a daily basis, I think the same thing. Am Yisrael Chai, we will defeat terror." Rabbi Eliezer Berland, a leader of the Breslov Hasidic community, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for a number of sexual assaults on Tuesday afternoon following a plea bargain reached between the courts and his defense team. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Moments before the Jerusalem Magistrates Court approved the plea bargain, Berland expressed his regret for his actions and requested forgiveness from his victims. Rabbi Eliezer Berland sentenced (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky) In doing so, he quoted from the weeks Torah portion Vayesehv from the book of Genesis in reference to the Yehudahs sexual transgressions against Tamar: What I have admitted I have admitted and I have no further business with women, He said. I ask for forgiveness from the entire people of Israel. He went on to say that nothing could detract from the severity of his actions. I sincerely regret, from the bottom of my heart, all that I have done to harm a man or a woman, I regret every harmful act that was caused by me, whether directly or indirectly. My regret is sincere, Berland said. The women who filed complaints against Berland opposed the plea bargain reached by the courts and his lawyers and called on the justice system to disregard the plea and to impose a stricter sentence. 79-year-old Berland had founded the Shuvu Banim Yeshiva in Jerusalem and is considered a leading figure among the Breslov Hasidic community. In 2012, one of his followers claimed to have seen him in a compromising position with a girl from the local community. The man was beaten by his other followers, which brought the incident to the police's attention. The ensuing investigation gathered testimonies from several women, accusing him of sexual misconduct. Berland arriving at Ben Gurion Airport Berland had fled from Israel to Morocco in 2013, after being requested to make himself available for police questioning on suspicion of sexual misconduct. King Mohammed VI expelled Berland from Morocco, and from there he travelled to Zimbabwe, the Netherlands, and South Africa. He landed in Israel in July after being extradited by the South African authorities. Upon exiting the plane, he was arrested by Israel Police officers who were awaiting his arrival and who took him for investigation. ANKARA -- Turkish authorities issued an arrest warrant for the leader of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) on Tuesday in relation to a bomb attack in February that targeted a military bus in the capital Ankara, Anadolu Agency said. Authorities issued the warrant for Salih Muslim, the co-chairman of the PYD, as well as 47 other people in relation to the attack, the state-run agency said. The PYD is affiliated with the YPG militia, which the United States is backing in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. NATO member Turkey has been angered by that support. It sees the Syrian Kurdish militia as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has carried out a three-decade insurgency in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq's foreign minister says progress in liberating the northern city of Mosul has been slowed by ISIS's use of civilians as human shields. Ibrahim al-Jaafari said during a visit to Hungary on Tuesday that 1,700 IS fighters have been killed and 120 captured in the battle for Mosul so far. He says one third of the Ninevah province, where Mosul is the capital, has been freed from IS. Al-Jaafari says 62,000 refugees have left the city -- much fewer than was expected by authorities -- and that Iraq is "prepared to receive many more." Al-Jaafari, who signed a double taxation agreement with his Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijjarto, also said Iraq needed to increase its crude oil output, which he said provided 90 percent of state budget revenues, and be exempt from OPEC output quotas because of its "extraordinary situation." MISRATA -- Libyan forces said they pushed forward on Tuesday into the last sliver of territory held by ISIS in its former North African stronghold of Sirte, seizing a number of barricaded houses. Hours before the push, the forces published video online showing one of their fighters shouting out messages through a loud hailer urging women and children to leave the area and promising them safe passage. Backed by US air strikes, brigades dominated by fighters from the city of Misrata have been edging forward against militants trapped in an area a few hundred metres wide next to Sirte's Mediterranean coast. "The Islamic State gangs are trying desperately to resist up until their last breath," said Rida Issa, a spokesman for the forces. A Palestinian boat disguised as a fishing vessel was caught on camera by the IDF while attempting to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip before eventually being destroyed. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The boat was observed departing from the southern Gaza Strip and heading towards the Sinai. Several days later, the ship suspiciously reappeared with the rear of the vessel weighed down by cargo. Image of the smugglers (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit) Intelligence information that found its way to the 916th squadron based in Ashdod allowed IDF forces to intercept the vessel off the coast of the Gaza Strip and attempt to detain those on board. IDF footage of smuggling attempt (Video: IDF) (: ") X During the course of the interception, naval forces fired warning shots at the boat in an attempt to force it to a stop. However, the two Palestinians on board jumped into the water and managed to make it ashore, which prompted forces to fire on this ship's motor. The motor subsequently caught fire, which spread to the cargo causing the weapons on board to explode. "We observed the boat approaching from afar and using special sensors which we use to mark and catalogue Palestinian ships entering the southern Gaza Strip, identified it as a suspicious vessel," Maj. Maor told Ynet. "Secondary explosions completely destroyed the ship." Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit The destruction of the ship is the third of its kind conducted by the Navy and the Shin Bet in the last year and a half, which also includes the arrest of several Palestinians who were attempting to smuggle in weapons on Palestinian fishing boats. The Shin Bet has also identified a pattern in which Hamas attempts to smuggle goods from the Sinai into the Gaza Strip to sell and finance the organization. "The Egyptians have destroyed most of the smuggling tunnels between Rafah and Egypt and as a result, Hamas is being forced to use maritime smuggling routes more," said Maj. Maor, who added, "It is more complicated to operate in the southern Gaza Strip than it is in the north, but the relationship with Egyptian forces is very good and cordial. We maintain dialogue and coordination with them through battalion-level meetings on the beach." Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit Hamas efforts to smuggle weapons and equipment into the Gaza Strip have occurred both above and below ground. However, since the end of Operation Protective Edge, many smuggling attempts have been foiled due to increased monitoring efforts undertaken by the Ministry of Defense. Raw materials for weapons and tunnels have been discovered in shipments of humanitarian goods. Additionally, a Ynet report in December revealed a large weapons shipment from ISIS in Sinai to Hamas had been foiled. Most of Hamas' smuggling attempts now mainly involve raw materials for the construction of tunnels and other domestically-produced weapons such as rockets. What do you want to be when you grow up? I ask Gideon Drucker. As soon as this young man completed his studies in international relations and economics at Lehigh University, he went on to serve as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as part of the IDFs Mahal overseas volunteers program. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter He answers without hesitation: I want to work in my family business and inherit it in the future. I want to make a lot of money. I want to be able to make an impact on Israels situation, to help it. To be the next Michael Oren. He shoots out the whole list almost without taking a breath, building it up like a rising graph suitable for our times, and I have no doubt that he has plans, and that he will fulfill his hearts wishes. Journalist and anti-Islamic extremism activist Brigitte Gabriel with IDF Staff Sgt. (Res.) Elle at the Jan. 24 FIDF Palm Beach/Broward Region Solidarity Gala Dinner in Boca Raton, Fla. (Photo: Studio Palm Beach) Drucker grew up in a conservative home in the northern New Jersey town of Woodcliff Lake. It is a Zionist home, but the family has no blood relations in Israel. The Drucker family did not visit Israel when Gideon and his sister were young. But in recent years, they found themselves participating in tours of Israel including visiting IDF bases organized by the New York-based nonprofit Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF). The country suddenly becomes real when you meet its soldiers, Drucker explains. He had also gone on a journey to Israel with Taglit, upon which he discovered Israel from another perspective. His encounters with Israelis along the way made a profound impression on him, and their actions caused him to make the decision, immediately upon completing his studies at 20 years old, to board a plane to Israel and enlist in its military. That was the summer of 2014 and Operation Protective Edge was already underway. There is no need elaborate on how his parents felt. I did not think of the possibility that I would be killed in the army. I thought I must do my best, exactly as if I had grown up in Israel, he shares, with all the warmth of a young man who came to Israel to serve after college. Eventually, Ari and Orna Eizman, and their children, Gadi, Shani and Maor, of Haifa, whom he met almost by chance, would become his adoptive family in Israel, he would become another son for them, and the families would unite as if they had always been one large family. He does not forget to mention Ika Schwitzer, the first tour guide he met in Israel, who would eventually become his adoptive "uncle, and who was the first to open a window for him to Israel. The closeness, the openness of Israelis is something special for me. I don't think that exists anywhere else in the world. Drucker was one of the honored guests at the 12th Annual Tribute Dinner of the FIDFs New Jersey Chapter also know as the Lone Soldiers Chapter. There are currently some 6,400 lone soldiers those who enlist in Israels military without any immediate family in the country serving in the IDF. This number includes native Israeli soldiers who were orphaned, lived in foster care until the age of 18, or who have no contact with their parents. There is another category of lone soldiers who have chosen to immigrate to Israel alone, while their parents live abroad. This includes those whose parents have emigrated or been sent abroad by the government or the Jewish Agency for a period of six months or more. These soldiers all choose to serve the State of Israel by enlisting in its armed forces, like any other soldier. FIDFs NJ chapter has decided to make a special effort to support the lone soldiers who, at a young age, choose to leave behind their friends and families to volunteer in the IDF. Lone soldiers hail from 80 countries around the world, and some 880 of them are Americans. Some of them have no family in Israel. They come to Israel with various support programs, and, while not altogether unknown, they can only imagine what the future holds for them. Male lone soldiers are much more likely to enlist as combat soldiers a much more challenging route. Some of them do not speak Hebrew when they decide to enlist. For them, boot camp includes the regular stress of training that other soldiers experience, with an added emotional component. Not all can take this extra pressure, and many need help and support to make it through. Friends of the IDF regularly holds fundraising events across the US, attracting those who hold Israels soldiers close to their hearts. In NJ, among the audience of more than 400 were parents of lone soldiers, entire tables sponsored by local synagogues and Jewish schools, and, of course, the large audience attracted the chapters co-founders: FIDF National Board Member Sammy Bar-Or, who moved to Israel from Iran when he was 13 and served as a lone soldier in the IDFs Paratroopers Brigade; fellow former IDF Paratrooper Mike Gross, who also served as a lone soldier, and Avi Oren. Last nights gala evening featured keynote speaker Brigitte Gabriel. A Maronite Christian born in Marj Ayyun, north of Metulah in Lebanon, Gabriel was very excited to be taking part in this important evening. Gabriel, anti-Islamic extremism activist and journalist who isnt afraid to stir things up, opens the conversation (how else?) with a frighteningly topical statement: what is happening in Europe with the Muslim extremism is only a preview of what will soon occur in the US. She calls upon America to stand strong against the rising tide of extremist Islam, and asks terrorist leaders to understand that they have no chance of winning a fight against Israel; she recommends, for their own sakes, that they take the path of peace. Islam is controlled by radical Muslims, she told me. Having read the Quran in its original Arabic, she is particularly able to interpret Mideast events, especially considering her extensive experience as a reporter based out of Jerusalems International Convention Center. Over 400 members of the N.J. community will take part in FIDFs upcoming annual gala event (Photo: Aron Michael) It is true that the majority of Muslims are not extremists, but they still tend to follow the Islamic fundamentalists. They receive instructions and carry them out just like the Nazis who burned Jews alive. Today, extremist Muslims do not hesitate to cut off heads and to teach their evil ways to young children. They are barbarians. The Muslims learned from Muhammad, just before he died, that the Jews are the enemies of Allah and must be killed before the arrival of Judgment Day. Since then they have been brainwashed, Gabriel explained. Needless to say, as a result of her public outspokenness on the topic, her life is in constant danger. "Hezbollah wants me dead. Muslim extremist organizations are after me, she said, speaking from her home the location of which I cant disclose. I go out only with bodyguards; otherwise, they will kill me. Just before the recent elections she declared her support for Trump: "He does not depend on outside money, and is not supported by organizations who support Islamic extremists. He is good for Israel. She hoped he would be elected and she got her wish. Her love of Israel is built on ruins. Gabriels story begins in a country that once was Christian, enlightened, with a stable economy, open borders and some of the best academic institutions in the Middle East. Three waves of immigration of Palestinians from Jordan altered the map in the 1970s, she said sadly. They joined the local Muslim population, and started fighting the Christians. Yasser Arafat set up his base in Lebanon in order to go out and fight Israel from there. He wanted to see (the Jews pushed) into the sea. He exploited the Lebanese democracy in order to execute his scheme. Gabriel describes the background for the beginning of the fall: "My personal 9/11 was in 1975, when the Palestinians blew up my home and buried us under the rubble all while shouting, Allahu Akbar. I was in the hospital for two and a half months. My father told me, Because we are Christians, the Muslims treat us like infidels. They want to kill us. As a 10-year-old child that is what I internalized: being Christian equals death. After years of sitting in bomb shelters, with surrounded by enemies, Gabriel and her family realized that the only people in the world sharing similar values were the Jews, and a number of men escaped from Marj Ayyun to Metulah to ask for help from a military patrol. They met with Israeli leaders and that same night Israeli soldiers came with equipment, food, medicine and blankets. In 1978, they learned from their radio that that night they would be killed. The little girl put on her Sunday clothes her burial clothes, and prepared for death. I wanted to die beautiful. I knew there would be nobody to bury me after they slaughtered me, and I was only 13. Her father directed the family, should the worst come to pass, to run towards Israel and not look back. That very night the Israel Defense Forces entered South Lebanon, in Operation Litani, a few days after the terrorist attack known as the "Coastal Road massacre," with the aim of destroying the terrorist infrastructure in South Lebanon. Thanks to the IDF, the Gabriels survived another five years. In the first Lebanon War, my mother was wounded and treated at the Ziv Medical Center in Safed for 22 days." Those days changed Gabriel's life. She learned about life in Israel, received support, saw true warmth and love, and found Israeli friends. Mothers of wounded soldiers gave her a helping hand. In our head, Israel was the enemy. Under fire, we learned who our real friends were. When she left Israel at age 17, Gabriel swore to return and live there. And so she did. In 1984 she began working as a broadcaster for Middle East TV at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem. She lived in Mevaseret Zion until 1989. I did not leave Israel until I buried both of my parents. They lie on Mount Zion, alongside the grave of Oscar Schindler, the righteous gentile who saved more than 1,200 Jews during World War II. I hoped in my heart that one day, when I had children, they would always want to come to Israel. Brigitte Gabriels spokesmanship activity started with the commencement of the second intifada in Israel, when suicide bombers began attacking civilians in the streets. Gabriel felt it was her duty to speak directly and to present the facts from her point of view, even though she was not Jewish. I tried to convert to Judaism twice, but I could not come regularly to the lessons and I dropped out, she said, laughing. I think it was better that I remained a Christian my words come from a much stronger place. This is said by the woman who stood on stage at the United Nations to give a 13-minute speech (that later went viral on social media) in favor of Israel and railing against radical Islam. Gabriel does not spare America, arguing that it does not understand extreme Islam at all, and explaining why people here should support Israel tirelessly. It is important for her to clarify to Americans and the whole world that Israel has been fighting radical Islam for almost 70 years. The woman who bore her first son at the Misgav Ladach hospital in Jerusalem tells, with tears in her eyes, of her longing for her homeland, and the knowledge that neither she nor her children will ever be able to return there again. Gabriel believes in actions. Alongside her first act burying her parents in Jerusalem as a clear statement of faith in the State of Israel she supports many Jewish organizations. She is a member of the Hadassah Women and donates money to support academic scholarships for lone soldiers. I believe that actions speak louder than words, she declares and acts. She heads the organization Act for America, which has more than 300,000 members from all walks of life. Gabriel says: If not I, then who? If not now, when? ANKARA -- Followers of the cleric Turkey blames for orchestrating a failed coup this year are still active in the armed forces, judiciary and police, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday, as he vowed to continue to root them out. Turkey blames Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, for masterminding the abortive putsch in July, where a group of rogue soldiers attempted to overthrow the government. "There is no place in this academy and land drenched with the blood of martyrs for those who sold their souls to Pennslyvania, the separatist terrorist organisation, or any other illegal organisation," Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara. Erdogan frequently refers to Pennsylvania as a shorthand for Gulen's followers and the "separatist organisation" as a reference to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Thousands of people have been sacked or suspended from the police, judiciary and civil service following the coup. The leaders of the European Parliament's two largest groups called on Tuesday for the European Union to halt membership talks with Turkey because of its post-coup purges, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter "Our message to Turkey is very clear: accession negotiations should be frozen immediately," said Manfred Weber, the head of the largest faction in the European Parliament, the centre-right European People's Party. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: AFP) He was echoed by Gianni Pitella, the leader of the socialist group, the parliament's second biggest: "We want to freeze the accession talks." More than 110,000 people in Turkeyincluding soldiers, academics, judges, journalists and Kurdish leadershave been suspended from their positions or dismissed over their alleged backing for the plotters of a failed military coup in July. Some 36,000 have been arrested and media outlets have been shut. "Turkey under Mr. Erdogan is more and more drifting towards an authoritarian regime," Pitella said. "Our political message towards Turkey is that human rights, civil rights, democracy are non-negotiable if you want to be part of the EU." Erdogan, exasperated with the EU's intensified criticism of his rights record, has said the bloc would have to "live with the consequences" should it stop the talks, and that Ankara could instead join a security alliance run by Russia and China. The post-coup crackdown has taken the EU aback, annulling a period of warmer tone between Turkey and the bloc, which had promised as recently as last March to speed up Ankara's accession talks in exchange for its help in keeping migrants away from European shores. This cooperation, critical for the EU, is still going on but some in the EU worry it could eventually fall victim to the spiralling recriminations. Erdogan, who blames the EU for not showing enough understanding for the gravity of the situation in Turkey, said he could put the EU talks to a national referendum next year. Turkey still hopes to win visa-free travel to the EU but earlier promises of granting the privilege to Ankara by the end of the year now seem distant. Among EU countries, Austria and Luxembourg have led calls to stop Turkey's membership talks, which have only made very limited progress over 11 years in any case. But Germany, France and most of the other EU states for now back continued engagement and fear putting at risk Turkey's collaboration on migration. All stress, however, that the talks would come to an end should Turkey reinstate the death penalty. Thirty persons, Jewish and Arab, were arrested on Tuesday by the Israel Police across the country on suspicion of trafficking weapons and dangerous drugs. The arrests were the result of a covert operation by a police agent, and the police claim that the weapons seized from the transactions were documented by their agent being used by terrorists to carry out attacks in the capital. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Against the background of the terrorist attacks, in which the illegal weapons were used by the terrorists, and following intelligence that the police gathered about the selling of drugs and weapons in Jerusalem, the police decided to send an undercover agent amongst the vendors. Some of the seized weapons (Photo: Israel Police) (Photo: Israel Police) The agent went undercover half a year ago. During that time, dozens of illegal weapons of different kinds were bought and sold, including M-16s, Carl Gustav m/45s, guns and stun grenades. Tens of thousands of shekels were exchanged for these sails. Furthermore, the agent purchased, inter alia, 15 kg of marijuana, 200 g of cocaine and hundreds of ecstasy tablets. The drugs' value is estimated at hundreds of thousands of shekels. Ecstasy tablets seized (Photo: Israel Police) Some of the seized marijuana (Photo: Israel Police) The criminals employed slang in which weapons are termed "cars" and stun grenades are called "apples." Pallets of hashish are called "tables." (Photo: Israel Police) Tuesday morning, hundreds of police officers, including Border Police, set out on the arrest mission in the capital, Beitar Illit, Ma'ale Adumim and Tel Aviv. Of the 30 arrested, 11 were from east Jerusalem, and the police stressed that further arrests are expected. During the operation, law enforcement also seized cash and drugs of various types. Before heading out on the mission in the morning, a ceremony took place in which Jerusalem District Police Commander Yoram Halevy awarded certificates of appreciate to the agent's supervisors in the Central Unit. Halevy commented, "Our policy is to operate as many undercover agents as possible to achieve deterrence. The criminals' feel that at any moment and in any place, somebody could catch (them) at any point in time." Israel has accused Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of using commercial airline flights to ship weapons to Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter In a letter to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon accused Iran of using airlines such as Mahan Air for this purpose. The United States has sanctioned the Iranian carrier for providing services to the Quds Force, a special forces unit of the IRGC, as well as Hezbollah. Danny Danon Iran's mission to the United Nations and Mahar Air were not immediately available to comment on the accusations. Danon wrote that Quds Force officers pack arms and materiel into suitcases that are transferred to Hezbollah either by commercial flights to Beirut or commercial flights to Damascus in Syria, and then transferred by land to Lebanon. "It is clear that Iran is still the primary supplier of arms and related material to Hezbollah, in blatant violation of numerous Security Council resolutions," Danon wrote. "The Security Council must condemn Iran and Hezbollah for the violation of its resolutions." Danon's letter to the 15-member Security Council did not offer any evidence to support his accusations. The charge may add fuel to the debate about the agreement among Iran, the United States and five other nations to remove some of the economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for restraints on the country's alleged nuclear weapons program. UN Security Council missile restrictions and an arms embargo on Iran are not technically part of the nuclear agreement. US President-elect Donald Trump and several of his national security appointees have criticized the nuclear deal and charged that it does not do enough to halt the Islamic Republic's support for terrorism. "Stop all engines on this nuclear deal. Take a step back. Really take a deep-dive look at everything going on in the Middle East," former Defense Intelligence Agency head Michael Flynn, Trump's choice for national security adviser, said in a Fox News interview in March. This has been a long time in the making, but in our continuing pursuit to bring only the best of firearms, 2nd Amendment and defence related news to our readers, we are very excited to announce the next step in our evolution as a company. As of 2020, Minuteman Review is now the proud owner and operator of Your Defence News, a website with a long history of breaking huge news stories and investigative journalism. We hope you are equally as excited as us. This means that now the teams of Minuteman can combine with the firepower of Your Defence News to stay at the absolute forefront for our readers. Keep an eye. Big things are coming soon. We couldn't be more excited. In the meanwhile, here are some of our most popular posts and categories to keep you busy. Happy shootin' my friends! Buying Guides: Firearms Firearm Accessories Ammunition Gun Safes Scopes & Optics Hunting Air Rifles Best AR-15 Best AR 15 Scope Best Hunting Rifle Best Gun Safe Best AK 47 Best AR 10 Best Glock Triggers Best Glock Best Home Defense Shotgun As a homeowner, you probably already know that you should be working to maintain your home. But, chances are, you Read More Lagos: Nigeria on Monday released a banner containing photographs and names of 55 Boko Haram wanted for various attacks and terror activities in the northeast where the military currently prosecute war against the insurgents. Nigerian Chief of Defense Staff, Gen Abayomi Gabriel Olonishakin, who disclosed this while releasing the banner at a brief event, urged the public to facilitate in tracking them down, Xinhua news agency reported. "With this launching of additional list of wanted terrorists, it is hoped that the public will collaborate to identify the wanted Boko Haram wherever they are," he said. The defense chief urged Boko Haram who wish to surrender their arms and embrace peace to do so in time so as to benefit from the military Operation Save Corridors programme for repentant Boko Haram insurgents. Ahmedabad: Police today raided a call centre here and arrested 19 people, including six women, for allegedly posing as officials of US' Internal Revenue Service and extorting money from American nationals by threatening them of legal action over 'tax evasion'. Similar raids were conducted last month in Thane, Maharashtra by local police on at least seven call centres in connection with the multi-crore scam wherein US citizens were duped adopting similar modus operandi. Based on a specific tip off that one Hitendra Davda (29) and Sandip Rajwani (21) are running an illegal call centre at a rented office in Bodakdev area, a crime branch team raided the premises and arrested both the masterminds and 17 employees, including 6 women, who have been hired as "call agents" by the duo. During the raid, police recovered 34 CPUs, 21 mobile phones, 3 laptops, 2 Internet routers and scripts for call agents, stated a release issued by the crime branch. Investigations have revealed that Davda and Rajwani started the call centre in Maurya Atria building in Bodakdev around one year back. The duo used to earn Rs 7 lakh (USD 11,000) per month by compelling US nationals to pay after threatening them of arrest and cancellation of driving license and social security number, stated the release. The action was taken in the wake of similar raids carried out by Thane police on call centres. Following those raids in Thane, city police commissioner has ordered the crime branch to identify and raid such call centre running in the city, stated the release. The officials have learnt that the callers used to make calls using sophisticated calling applications such as Magic Jack and X-lite to dupe US citizens. Explaining the modus operandi of Davda and Rajwani, the release stated the duo acquired a database of the US-based 'defaulters' who can be targeted. The callers used to threaten these citizens to pay them a specified amount online to save themselves from facing stern legal actions, including imprisonment for three months, stated the release. Blowing the lid off the Thane call centre scam, police had raided seven call centres in Mira Road area last month and arrested about 70 directors and key persons of these call centres. The mastermind behind running Thane call centres, identified as Sagar alias Shaggy Thakkar, is absconding. Washington: The Pentagon has softened rules on US troops carrying firearms while at government facilities, an action prompted by a series of deadly attacks on uniformed personnel. Troops already carry weapons as part of certain job functions, but the new rules will allow commanders to authorize the carrying of privately owned handguns, according to a November 18 directive. Commanders may grant permission to Department of Defense "personnel requesting to carry a privately owned firearm (concealed or open carry) on DoD property for a personal protection purpose not related to performance of an official duty or status," the directive states. In July last year, an attack on a Chattanooga, Tennessee recruitment center and a Navy and Marine Corps reserve center left four marines and one sailor dead at the hands of a lone gunman, who according to the FBI was inspired by radical Islamist propaganda. The rampage prompted Congress to ask President Barack Obama`s administration to loosen current regulations on US troops carrying arms. On November 5, 2009, Major Nidal Hasan, 39, a US Army psychiatrist of Palestinian origin opened fire with a pistol at the Fort Hood base in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding more than 40 before he was arrested. The new policy has no bearing on firearms regulations for US troops in war zones. District of Columbia: Several children were killed Monday in the US state of Tennessee when a school bus carrying up to 35 students plowed into a tree, officials said. Images broadcast on local media showed the bus flipped on its side in the eastern city of Chattanooga with a tree splicing its center. There were conflicting reports about the number of children killed, with multiple US media stating that six students had died, citing the Hamilton County Office of the District Attorney General. When contacted by AFP, the office said it had not released that figure. "There were we believe 35 children on that school bus ranging from kindergarten through fifth grade. It was a single-vehicle crash," Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher told reporters. Of those, 23 students were taken to area hospitals, NBC News reported, citing Fletcher. The city`s police department posted on Twitter that "multiple fatalities" had occurred, adding that the exact number was not confirmed. "Certainly speed is being investigated very, very strongly as a factor in this crash," Fletcher said. "It was clear and dry... there did not appear to be any roadway conditions. But it is a complicated ... scene, it covers a significant area," he added. The National Transportation Safety Board said on Twitter it would deploy a team Tuesday morning to investigate the crash. Colombia: Donald Trump has tweeted that Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage "would do a great job" as British ambassador to the US, in the latest unorthodox intervention by the president-elect. The decision on who is appointed to represent the United Kingdom in Washington is a matter for the British government, but that did not stop the controversial property mogul turned world leader from weighing in on social media. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States," Trump said on his Twitter account. "He would do a great job!" Farage, interim leader of the nationalist UK Independence Party which campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union, met recently with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. The British politician said he was flattered by Trump`s tweet. "I`m very flattered by the comments," Farage told Britain`s Press Association. "I have said since I met the president-elect that I would like to do anything I can to act in a positive way to help relationships between our two countries." But according to a Downing Street spokesman, "there is no vacancy. We already have an excellent ambassador." Kim Darroch, the UK`s former national security adviser, took over the diplomatic post in January. During the divisive US presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly compared his presidential bid to the Brexit referendum in which a majority of Britons voted to split from the EU. Trump`s call on Twitter is unusual -- ambassadors are appointed by the governments they represent, not by the administration of the country in which they serve. Britain is keen to build bridges with Trump after many of its leading government figures criticized the president-elect during his successful election campaign. London is also interested in sounding out a US trade deal as it plots its departure from the European Union. Queen Elizabeth II could host Trump within months of him becoming president, with the British government confirming Monday that it was considering a state visit next year. Royal officials said the government was responsible for organizing state visits, and a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said the proposal was "under consideration". Trump told May that he was a "big fan of the Queen" when the pair spoke by telephone following his victory, and is also reported to have told Farage that his late mother Mary would be "chuffed to bits when I meet the Queen." Britain will not issue an invitation to a president-elect, but is expected to make its move shortly after Trump`s inauguration on January 20. Washington: A travel alert has been issued by the US State Department urging its nationals to exercise caution at holiday festivals, events and outdoor markets in Europe in the coming weeks. This comes in wake of an ISIS-linked plot being thwarted by the French security services day ago. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Monday that seven people were arrested by the authorities after carrying out anti-terror raids in Strasbourg and Marseilles on Sunday. The eight-month-long investigation foiled a "new terrorist attack that had been planned for a long time on our soil," CNN quoted Cazeneuve, as saying in a news conference in Paris. The alert stated, "Credible information indicates the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or Da`esh), Al Qaeda, and their affiliates continue to plan terrorist attacks in Europe, with a focus on the upcoming holiday season and associated events. US citizens should also be alert to the possibility that extremist sympathizers or self-radicalized extremists may conduct attacks during this period with little or no warning. Terrorists may employ a wide variety of tactics, using both conventional and nonconventional weapons and targeting both official and private interests." This travel alert expires on February 20, 2017. A source close to the investigation said that investigators believed that a terrorist operative inside Syria linked to ISIS was directing the people behind the plot thwarted over the weekend in France and added that authorities are investigating whether any of the individuals arrested traveled to Syria. The suspects arrested are of French, Moroccan and Afghan origin and are between 29 and 37 years old.Investigators only knew about the Moroccan suspect as they had received intelligence from a neighboring country. Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh police have arrested a gang of 17 people including a woman and seized Rs 6,80,000 from them for allegedly exchanging banned currency on commission basis for new currency. A sting operation was conducted along with a TV Channel which lead to the busting of the gang. Vijayawada Police Commissioner said last evening, the accused belong to different places in Guntur, West Godavari and Krishna districts who persuaded some merchants from Eluru. He said the accused were trying to exchange the currency for 18 to 20 percent commission. He also said that seven merchants gave Rs 6.8 lakh to the gang for exchange. He added that the police are trying to find out the role of bankers, if any. Dhaka: Hundreds of Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in neighbouring Myanmar, community leaders said Tuesday, many with horrific tales of troops killing and burning villages. Bangladesh says it has prevented hundreds more from crossing into the country, despite pleas from the United Nations to open its border after up to 30,000 Rohingya were displaced by violence in Myanmar`s Rakhine state. Bangladeshi troops have intensified patrols along the 237-kilometre (147-mile) border, but Rohingya community leaders estimate that 1,000 people have still managed to get in over the last week. Most are hiding out in camps for the 32,000 legally registered already living in southeast Bangladesh, fearing repatriation if they are found by authorities. Mohammad Amin, 17, said he and 15 others fled their homes in Rakhine five days ago and reached Bangladesh by swimming across the Naf river that divides the two countries. "The (Myanmar) army killed my father and elder brother. I hid on a hill and then walked and swam across the river, and took refuge at a mosque (in Bangladesh)," he told AFP by phone from Cox`s Bazar near the border. "Where I looked I saw only burnt houses. I don`t know what happened to my mother and sister." Zohra Khatun, 25, arrived late Monday with her seven children after their village was burned to the ground, and has been helped by a relative already living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. "I waited two days before I had the chance to cross the river to come here," Khatun told AFP by phone. The relative, who asked not to be named, said that at least 100 families had arrived at the camp from Myanmar in the last two days. Another community leader said 500 people had taken shelter near two other Rohingya refugee camps in the area. Commanders of the Border Guard Bangladesh said their troops had blocked nearly 300 Rohingya from crossing the border overnight, the highest number since the crisis began last month. "We`re preventing them on the zero line, especially those who were trying to cross the barbed-wire fences erected by Myanmar," said Imran Ullah Sarker.Myanmar troops have poured into a strip of land that is home to the stateless Muslim Rohingya minority since a series of attacks on police border posts last month. State media reports in Myanmar say security forces have killed almost 70 people and arrested some 400 since the lockdown began six weeks ago, but activists say the number could be far higher. Witnesses and activists have reported troops killing Rohingya, raping women and looting and burning their houses. "We`re hearing horrific stories from them," said one international rights worker visiting the area, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity. "We`ve heard that they have to bribe some people to enter Bangladeshi territory. The government must open the border and allow access of aid workers," he said. Bangladesh places restrictions on the work of international aid groups in the area, home to thousands of unregistered migrants as well as the 32,000 registered refugees. The arrival of more has caused tensions with the local community in Teknaf town, which border Myanmar`s western Rakhine state and is one of the country`s poorest. "If they (the government) don`t act now, soon there will be a flood of Rohingya entering Bangladesh," said Teknaf councillor Anwar Hossain. Sarker said many Rohingya were sent back after they managed to sneak across unmanned parts of the border. Security guards are also patrolling the Naf river, the commanders said, adding that more than a dozen boats packed with Rohingya tried to land at the ghats (stations) in the Bangladeshi parts of the river. "They told us that their houses were torched and they came here seeking safe shelter," said one border guard official. Mosul: Iraqi security forces on Monday recaptured six villages in southeast and north of the city of Mosul, while special forces continued heavy clashes with the Islamic State (IS) terrorists to clear the districts freed earlier from the terrorists in the eastern part of the city, a security source said. The army's 9th armoured Division continued their advance toward Mosul and managed to free the three villages of al-Salamiyah, al-Hmeirah and Twajnah al-Jadida, which are located some 20km southeast of Mosul, after sporadic clashes with IS terrorists, Xinhua quoted a statement from the Joint Operations Command (JOC) as saying. In north of Mosul, the army's 16th Division and allied Sunni paramilitary units freed the villages of al-Abbasiyah, Ortta-Kharab and al-Salam after heavy clashes, bringing the troops closer to the northern edge of Mosul, the JOC statement said. The security forces have been fighting to push deeper into the eastern side of the city, locally known as left bank of the Tigris River, but met resistance of the militants, who are fighting in small groups who frequently infiltrated behind the advanced CTS forces using tunnels or sneaking through dozens of houses and buildings. The troops and explosive experts also defuse dozens of booby-traps planted earlier by the terrorists in the freed districts. After more than a month of military operations against IS terrorists inside Mosul, almost 65,000 civilians have fled their homes and the number went up every day, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displaced. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on October 17 announced a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city. Karachi: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, addressing the inauguration of an International Defence Exhibition and Seminar here on Tuesday, reiterated Pakistan`s commitment to discourage an arms race in the region. "We pursue the motive of `Arms for peace`, which is the tagline of IDEAS," Nawaz Sharif said at the Karachi Expo Centre. The International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) is being participated by 418 firms from 34 countries. It is a biennially held defence exhibition which brings together the defence industry`s players across the globe to showcase latest technological innovations. The defence industries of Turkey, China, Russia, North America, South America, Europe and Asia will have a significant presence at the exhibition, which has 157 Pakistani firms participating. "This time 9 more countries are visiting and participating in IDEAS. These include Luxembourg, Denmark, Belarus, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belgium, Romania and Nigeria," a statement said. Nawaz Sharif jointly inaugurated the exhibition, which is set to run from Nov 22-25, alongside outgoing Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif. "Pakistan`s ever growing defence industry is in quest for seeking international alliances to meet the requirements of its armed forces and growing needs of the regional defence forces," a statement posted on the IDEAS website explains why it was held in Pakistan. "Pakistan`s own defence products present a perfect mix of indigenous and foreign technologies thus offering an ideal platform for defence collaboration." Besides showcasing of products, there will be several high-level meetings among foreign delegates, key government officials and participants on the sidelines of the four-day IDEAS for forging alliances in defence production. An important international defence seminar will be held at a hotel on Nov 22. Although Chinese and Turkish defence industries will have a significant presence, Russia is participating in the event this time in a big way. Damascus: At least 10 civilians were killed on Monday by a US-led airstrike on the country's northern province of al-Raqqah, the de facto capital of the Islamic State (IS) group. The airstrike targeted a cotton mill in the village of Salhiyeh in the northern countryside of al-Raqqah, killing three workers and a displaced family of six as well as another person from the village, Xinhua cited state news agency SANA as saying. Children were among those killed, SANA said, noting that the killing is another massacre by the US-led anti-terror coalition. SANA said huge property losses were caused by the airstrike. Last month, SANA said the US coalition carried out two "massacres" in the countryside of the northern province of Aleppo, killing tens of people. In July, the coalition airstrikes on the countryside of Aleppo killed 165 civilians and wounded tens of others. The US coalition has been striking the IS positions in al-Raqqah, the main bastion of the group, and other IS-held areas in Aleppo since late 2014. Sukma: One 74 battalion Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Sub-Inspector lost his life in an IED blast in Chhattisgarh`s Sukma on Tuesday. This comes after two CRPF jawans were injured in an IED blast in Sukma yesterday. The two jawans were working on the safety of road construction when the incident took place. At least one person was killed following an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) explosion at Imphal`s Singjamei area earlier on Sunday. The incident took place at around 8:40 am soon after a convoy of the Assam Rifles passed through the area. The IED is suspected to be planted in the central median of the NH-102 road, which comes under the jurisdiction of Singjamei Police Station, Imphal West. At the time of the blast, the deceased was sitting on the footpath in front of a cement shop. The blast also caused some damages to a scooter parked. Top police officials headed by Superintendent of Police Herojit Singh and officials of the sixth battalion of Assam Rifles rushed to the blast site to take stock of the situation. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear an appeal filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, seeking a stay on trial court proceedings in a criminal defamation case filed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Kejriwal had contended before the apex court that the proceedings before a trial court should be stayed since a civil suit was already pending before the Delhi High Court and both could not proceed simultaneously. Jaitley had filed a suit seeking Rs 10 crore in damages against the backdrop of attacks on him by Kejriwal and other AAP leaders over alleged irregularities and financial bungling in DDCA of which he was the president for about 13 years till 2013. The Union Minister then filed a criminal defamation complaint on the same issue. Jaitley filed a criminal defamation case against Kejriwal and five AAP leaders in the Patiala House Court, while the civil defamation case was filed in the Delhi High Court. New Delhi: The Delhi High Court will hear the Public Information Litigation (PIL) against the new Rs. 2,000 currency note on Tuesday. The petitioner had alleged that the notification in this regard is unconstitutional. Meanwhile, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had filed a transfer petition before the Supreme Court seeking a stay on all pending pleas against demonetisation. The matter is now likely to be heard on November 23. The Supreme Court had earlier last week refused to stay the governments notification demonetising high-value currency notes but asked it to spell out the steps taken to minimise public inconvenience. Senior advocate and Congress leader Kapil Sibal, who appeared for one of the petitioners, said that he was not asking for a stay on the notification but seeking the governments answers with regard to the steps taken to address public inconvenience. The bench then asked the Attorney General to file an affidavit about the measures undertaken by the Centre and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to minimise public inconvenience and the steps likely to be undertaken in future. Kolkata: The UK government is offering scholarships of one million pounds (Rs 85.1 crore) in 2017 to attract Indian students. Debanjan Chakrabarti, director of British Council East India, said the new 198 scholarships under the 'Great' campaign are in subject areas ranging from art and design to engineering, law and management. A total of 40 UK universities are participating in this programme. "Studying in the UK offers Indian students three things - a world-class education, being part of an international student body and the chance to work post study," he said, adding selected students will join over 400,000 international students from 200 countries. "We believe that the problems and challenges Indian students will be addressing over the next 50 years will need global solutions and that unique experiences, knowledge, networks and confidence gained from a world-class UK higher education course. "It will give students the best platform to transform their lives, communities and country," Chakrabarti said. London: Announcing in an apostolic letter released on Monday, Pope Francis has extended indefinitely the power of Catholic priests to forgive abortions. It continues a special dispensation granted last year for the duration of the Year of Mercy -- which finished on Sunday -- which gave all priests, rather than just bishops and specially designated confessors, the power to absolve the sin of abortion, CNN reported. While the practical effect of Francis' announcement remains unclear, it draws attention to the prevailing theme of his papacy: That the doors of the Church must remain open, just as God's forgiveness and mercy extend to all those who repent from sin. That said, the Catholic Church's stance on abortion has not changed -- it is still viewed as a "grave sin." But it makes it easier for women who have had abortions to be absolved for their actions and rejoin the church. "I wish to restate as firmly as I can that abortion is a grave sin, since it puts an end to an innocent life," the Pope's letter stated. "In the same way, however, I can and must state that there is no sin that God's mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with the Father." The letter noted: "May every priest, therefore, be a guide, support and comfort to penitents on this journey of special reconciliation. "I henceforth grant to all priests, in virtue of their ministry, the faculty to absolve those who have committed the sin of procured abortion," the letter read. IANS New Delhi: In a setback to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed his petition seeking the quashing of criminal defamation proceedings against him initiated by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Kejriwal in his plea contended that Jaitley has also filed a civil suit in the Delhi High Court. Dismissing the plea, the bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit asked senior counsel Ram Jethmalani to show a law under which criminal and civil proceedings cannot go together. As it was contended that the outcome of civil proceedings before the High Court would have a bearing on the criminal defamation proceedings before the subordinate court, the bench asked if there is a provision in the Evidence Act that says the High Court judgment in a civil case will be binding on the criminal defamation case. The criminal and civil defamation proceedings were initiated by Jaitley against Kejriwal following allegations of wrongdoing in the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) when the Finance Minister was at the helm of the state cricketing body. New Delhi: In a major boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been facing scathing attack from the Opposition for his sudden decision to scrap high-value currency notes, his party - BJP - won five out of the 14 seats in the bypolls held in six states and one Union Territory, the results of which were announced on Tuesday. The bypolls were a litmus test for the BJP government that were held shortly after its demonetisation move, which the party successfully passed in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. While the BJP views the bypoll victories as a vindication of its stand on demonetisation, its bitter rival and worst critic in today's time Trinamool Congress too won big in its own state West Bengal. BJP and Trinamool Congress shared the honours by winning two Lok Sabha seats each in as ruling parties in six states and Puducherry held sway in bypolls, retaining most of the 10 Assembly seats up for grabs. In the Assembly bypolls held on November 19, results of which were declared on Tuesday, BJP and AIADMK won three seats each, CPI(M) got two while Congress and Trinamool bagged one each. The AIADMK swept all three assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu and the ruling CPI-M-led Left Front in Tripura wrested one seat from the Congress and retained another. The Congress' lone success came in Puducherry. Bypolls for the 10 assembly and four Lok Sabha constituencies in the states and Puducherry were held on Saturday. In Madhya Pradesh, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the Shahdol Lok Sabha and Nepanagar assembly seats defeating Congress candidates by huge margins. The BJP's Gyan Singh won from Shahdol and Manju Dadu from Nepanagar. The Congress came second in both places. BJP candidate Pradan Baruah won the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat in Assam that was vacated by Sarbananda Sonowal after he became the Chief Minister. The ruling party's Mansing Rongpi won the Baithalangso assembly seat, where the Congress candidate, who had won in May, joined the BJP. In Arunachal Pradesh, Desingu Pul, the wife of former Chief Minister Kalikho Pul, who committed suicide in August, won from Hayuliang assembly constituency as a BJP candidate. In West Bengal, Trinamool's Partha Pratim Roy won Cooch Behar while his party colleague Dibyendu Adhikari triumphed in Tamluk. Saikat Panja of the Trinamool won the Monteshwar seat. The ruling AIADMK, which has also denounced the demonetisation, swept the by-polls in Tamil Nadu where elections were held for Thanjavur, Aravakurichi and Thirupparankundram assembly seats, whihc went to M. Rengasamy, Senthil Balaji and A.K. Bose respectively. In Tripura, the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), which has disparaged the government for spiking the currency, wrested the Barjala and retained the Khowai assembly seats. CPI-M candidate Jhumu Sarkar defeated BJP's Shista Mohan Das, a former bureaucrat in Barjala, while Biswajit Datta trounced Trinamool's Manoj Das in Khowai. Congress candidates in both the seats came distant four. In Puducherry, Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy won the Nellithope seat in a consolatory victory for the Congress. Narayanasamy, who had to get elected to the house within six months of taking office, trounced his nearest AIADMK rival. Reacting to the encouraging bypoll results, the outcome of the by-elections signalled people's enormous support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to scrap large currency notes in a move to curb black money and corruption. "The people of India are with Modi," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said in the Lok Sabha. However, firebrand West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, a fierce critic of the government's demonetisation move that has led to a massive cash crunch, said her party's Trinamool Congress - landslide victory signified "people's revolt" against New Delhi. "People have revolted. This is symbolic. It is a vote against demonetisation. In a democracy, people vent their anger through votes," Banerjee said after the Trinamool won the Monteshwar assembly seat and Lok Sabha constituencies of Coochbehar and Tamluk. All this comes at a time when a popular survey claimed that nearly 80-86 percent of the country's population back PM Modi's demonetisation move and the inconvenience caused is worth it. The nationwide survey conducted by C-Voter has suggested that 80-86 percent of those surveyed said that the inconvenience caused by demonetisation was worth the effort of combating black money. The agency conducted its survey in close to half the total Parliamentary constituencies on Monday. The report said that the numbers remained consistently high when broken down on the basis of area of residence, income levels or by age groups. 86 percent of the respondents living in urban and rural areas said that the inconvenience was worth it. While the BJP government has already ruled out a demonetisation rollback, the bypoll win and the encouraging findings of the recent survey is only likely to strengthen PM Modi's fight against corruption and black money. New Delhi: More than 50 AAP leaders including Delhi`s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, were detained on Tuesday, here by police, after a protest march against demonetisation. Sisodia was later released. Aam Aadmi Party leader Dilip Pandey said "52 to 53" party leaders including ministers and MLAs were detained at the Parliament Street police station, in the heart of the city. The detention took place after some 400 to 500 AAP leaders and activists marched from near the Jantar Mantar monument towards Parliament, shouting slogans including "Note nahin, PM badlo" (Not currency, change the PM). As they reached the police barricades outside the police station, about a kilometre ahead of Parliament, Sisodia gave a speech hurling corruption allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said, the November 8 demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes had caused misery to the common people while, he alleged, pleasing the friends of the Prime Minister. Among those detained, were ministers Gopal Rai and Satyendar Jain as well as many AAP members of the Delhi assembly. "Sisodia has been detained along with some AAP leaders and supporters," Deputy Commissioner of Police Jatin Narwal, told IANS. The AAP has come out strongly against demonetisation, saying the currency spike was a scam aimed at bailing out corporate houses that had borrowed heavily from banks. Kashmir: The demonetisation drive announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 to counter black money and fake currency has been criticised by the Opposition. However, Modi has vehemently defended the demonetisation, saying it was done for the benefit of the people. A Kashmiri Muslim has written a letter to the PM, expressing his support to the move. Afzal Rehmans letter has gone viral and a must read for those who are bad-mouthing Modi's decision. Also Read: Do you support demonetisation? PM Narendra Modi wants to know directly from you Read the letter, which was initially published in theindianvoice.com, here: Dear PM Narendra Modi The life of a Kashmiri is unimaginable for the rest part of India. How a Normal Kashmiri, who works hard everyday to feed his family, lives his life amidst the constant tussle between separatists and Security forces, though it is really a sorry state but we have to live with it. I am a Normal Kashmiri Afzal Rahman- and I am not from the 2% separatists in Kashmir. I am a husband, a father of 4 and a son of aged parents- And yes I am a proud Indian and a Kashmiri who runs a Garments Shop in Srinagar. Only thing that I think over and over again is to give a good future to my children. Thus, even after so many threats, I asked my elder son to go for the Police admission Exams this year. One of my daughter is studying in class 12th, and I am aware how big this year means in her life, Career and Growth. But last 4 months have been very unsettling. With almost No Business for 4 months and Curfew almost every day. How can a lower middle class man survive without work? Somehow, I managed to feed my family with past savings- but that was not the only problem. My daughter lost so many days of her schooling, in such an important time of her life. My son was very demoralized with the situation he saw. The youngsters of his age, who were unemployed, were throwing stones on the security forces. They were given money by separatists. But then what an unemployed man can do?- He will do anything to get some money which could feed the aged parents and crying children. My own so, who was an aspiring police man, joined the gang of stone pelters, without my knowledge. I got to know about it when he was shot on his arm, by pallet gun. When the tussle slowed down a bit, they started burning the schools in the valley. My daughters school was also there in the list of those 29 torched schools. Our life was totally down and out, neither we could sleep, nor we could eat, and we were not even allowed to die. But then on 8th November we heard a news on Radio-Kashmir. You took a decision on banning currency notes of 500/1000. The decision scared us further. We had a little money left with us and that too was in the currency notes of 500. And the option of exchange was never with the Kashmiris, due to unrest. The whole India thinks about Black Money but Kashmiris think about survival. We never thought this decision of yours would give us our lives back, but it certainly did. There wasnt any stone pelting on streets, though the forces were there but pelters were not. With in one or two days traffic started moving in the valley. We opened our shops, there were people in the market. We could certainly see some happy faces. At other part of India, they must be feeling pain standing in lines, but we Kashmiris are enjoying standing in the bank queues, and socialize. We were worried about my daughters exam, but now she went there to take her board exams. And it was not my daughter who took the exam. There were so many other happy faces came to take the exams. It was the highest attendance of students in examination hall this year- almost 95%. With all this positive happened- We all sat together and started talking about what went well? We came to the conclusion that -These separatists have had only 500/1000 rupee notes which no one is taking now. I dont know what rest of India thinks but we in the valley are very happy with the decision. Yours Afzal Rahman New Delhi: A delegation of the Shiv Sena, which has been vocally opposing the Centre`s demonetisation scheme, will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the national capital on Tuesday to discuss the issue. The meeting will take place at 12 noon in the Parliament Office of the Prime Minister. The delegation will put forth their demand that district co-operative banks should also be allowed to exchange Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 old currency notes. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Modi today chaired a crucial Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) meeting ahead of the Parliamentary Session, where one of the agenda was likely to woo its ally Shiv Sena over the demonetisation scheme. The Shiv Sena has been firm on its stand that demonetisation could have been implemented in a better way and that the Centre needs to do a rethink on the issue. Taking the war over demonetisation to the next level, the Opposition parties have decided to protest against the Centre in front of the Gandhi statue outside Parliament on Wednesday. Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump seems to have a friendly perspective towards India, a senior BJP leader has said and expressed hope that he would bring "fresh ideas" to combat terrorism and establish the rule of law. Summarising the current state of Indo-US relationship, Ram Madhav, the general-secretary of the ruling party, said the ties reached a new peak under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama. The relationship is likely to march ahead under the Trump administration, he said. "Going by his pre-election statements towards India, the president-elect seems to have a friendly perspective towards India. He does not seems to be a run-of-the-mill politician, hence we expect him to bring fresh ideas to counter-terrorism, and establish the rule of law," he said. Madhav is the first senior leader of the ruling party to have addressed on India-US relationship after the election of Trump as the 45th president of the United States. Trump during his election campaign had released a video in which he spoke in Hindi in an attempt to appeal to Indian- American voters. "We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism," he had said in the video which showed a picture of the November 2008 terror attack in Mumbai. "The Indian and Hindu community will have a true friend in the White House," Trump had said. The ad finished with Trump saying "We love the Hindus, we love India." Madhav said India has earned a tremendous trust from its neighbours in the significantly important Indo-Asia Pacific region. At an event organised by the Federation of India and Indian Diaspora Studies, Madhav said India assumes the responsibilities - along with its neighbours - to establish peace and "law and order" in the region. But, he said, India expects the US to continue its pivotal role in the region instead of slowing trade and military engagement in the region. "The regional powers will have to take a leading role with America playing a supportive role. That is perhaps the way forward," he said at the event on Friday in the suburbs of Washington DC. Islamabad: General Raheel Sharif is set to step down as the chief of Pakistan Army on November 29. According to sources, Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif has already made up his mind over who will succeed General Sharif, but has so far kept his cards close to his chest. Reportedly, Lt. Gen Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmed will be named the next Pakistan army chief. Lt. Gen Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmed is currently serving as Multan corps commander. Others in contention for the top military post include Bahawalpur Corps Commander Lt Gen Javed Iqbal Ramday and Inspector General Training and Evaluation Lt Gen Qamar Bajwa. Nawaz Sharif's choice Nawaz Sharif's choice will be important in the context that the new army chief would have to oversee the transition of the army from counter-terrorism assignments to its conventional role of defending the borders. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has said that completion of ongoing counter-terrorism operations would be the responsibility of the new army chief. Moreover, Lt Gen Zubair Mehmood is likely to be appointed chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee, claim media reports. Formal process for nomination The formal process for nomination starts with the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi sending a list of the senior-most generals to the Prime Minister via the defence ministry, but without making any formal recommendations. The Prime Minister then will hold informal consultations with the outgoing Army Chief before announcing his decision. Gen Sharif initiates his farewell meetings Gen Sharif initiated his farewell meetings at the Lahore Garrison on Monday, where he told a gathering of officers and men from the army and Rangers that he was leaving the country "more secure and stable", with a "sense of greater hope and direction" and ready to thwart all challenges. Kheri: The Manohar Lal Khattar government on Tuesday announced Rs 20 lakh and a job for the next of the kin of head constable Rai Singh Indora, 39, who died after being hit by a mortar shell from across the border in Kashmir`s Rajouri sector. The announcement was made by Transport Minister Krishan Lal Pawar after Rai Singh was cremated with full state honors in village here. "The Haryana government has decided to give Rs. 20 lakh and a job to the next of kin of Rai Singh ji," Panwar told ANI."One park in Kheri-Sampla will also be named after martyr Rai Singh and a statue of him would be installed at the place of his cremation," he added. When asked as to whom the government would award the job, Panwar said "The eldest son of Rai Singh is 16-year-old and he can get it once he attains 18". Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda also attended the cremation and paid tributes to the martyr. "Not only Rohtak or Haryana but entire nation is proud of the martyrdom of Rai Singh. On behalf of the entire Congress party I pay respect to the martyr," he said. Rai Singh is survived by his wife, Sunita, and three sons - Hitesh, Paras and Karamvir. "Through his busy schedule, my father would find time to talk to us. He called daily, to enquire about our well being" Hitesh, 16, the oldest of the three said.Rai Singh`s elder brother, Ramesh, who retired from the BSF in April, said the government should take care of the family of his brother. "The government should look at the plight of his kids. They have lost their father and their future must be resurrected by the government," he said. New Delhi: BJP workers on Tuesday staged a protest against, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, for demanding roll back of the demonetisation move and asked whether he supports "terrorism and the use of black money in elections". Hundreds of Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers wore masks of Kejriwal and walked from the Civil Lines metro station to his residence and raised slogans against him. "Does Kejriwal want to use the black money in the Punjab elections, which has become of no use after demonetisation?" BJP workers protesting outside the Chief Minister`s residence, told reporters. "Does he want to fund terrorists in the country?" another protestor asked. Some BJP workers also wore the masks of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who too has criticised the demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal on November 17, had asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to roll back the demonetisation decision, while addressing a rally at Azadpur Mandi with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The union government has spiked 500 and 1,000 rupee notes from November 8 midnight to tackle black money and corruption, leading to massive queues before banks and ATMs across the country to withdraw cash, or deposit and exchange the spiked notes. Riyadh: Saudi police arrested an Indian immigrant who allegedly disrespected Islams holy Kaaba site on Facebook, covering it with an image of Buddha, a local report said Monday. "The region's investigative department were able to capture and arrest a suspect, in his forties and who works in agriculture, who insulted our holy site," said a Riyadh police spokesman cited by the Al-Arabiya TV network. "He superimposed a picture of the Buddha on the Kaaba and posted on social media," Al-Arabiya quoted the spokesman as adding. Police were able to identify and arrest the unnamed Indian at a farm in Al Majmaah city in the province of Riyadh, he said. The Kaaba, an ancient monument at the centre of the Al-Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca, is Islam's most sacred place. Chennai: AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister Jayalalitha on Tuesday, thanked the voters for electing her party candidates in three assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu and asserted that it was a victory for her regime's "achievements, welfare measures and visionary schemes." Expressing her "heartfelt thanks" to voters for "giving me consecutive electoral victories," she said the poll win "proved yet again that people are on my side" in a veiled attack on arch rival DMK. She said, people voted for AIADMK candidates by a huge margin after considering her regime's "achievements, welfare measures and visionary schemes." In a party release here, she said, "I would like to happily inform you that my work will continue according to your expectations." She said, "the electoral victory has given me, boundless joy and enthusiasm," adding she was now recuperating. Stating that she would never forget people's "great love," for her, she thanked them for it. She said, she was aware that people, and her party workers were offering prayers continuously for her recovery and scores of them were also visiting the hospital to enquire about her health. Also, she thanked her party functionaries, cadres and leaders of alliance parties for their election work in the three constituencies. Delhi: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday condemned the cowardly and brutal killing of Indian soldiers by Pakistan at LoC. He tweeted, "Condemn the cowardly and brutal killing of our soldiers and mutilation of one of them. Salute these brave martyrs for their supreme sacrifice." Three soldiers were killed in Jammu and Kashmir, and one of them was beheaded, in the second incident of mutilation of a soldier's body in a month, the Army said, vowing "heavy retribution for the cowardly act". The incident took place in Machhil sector of the Line of Control, which divides the state between India and Pakistan, in Kupwara district. Parrikar was briefed about the situation by Army Vice Chief Lt Gen. Bipin Rawat, officials said. "The cowardly act of mutilating the body of one of the Indian soldiers had all the signatures of a BAT (Border Action Team) operation by Pakistan Army using terrorists and its soldiers," said officials, as per IANS. "3 soldiers killed in action on LC in Machhil. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act," the Army's Northern Command said in a tweet. #JKOps 3 soldiers killed in action on LC in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act @adgpi NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) November 22, 2016 On October 28, the body of an Indian soldier was mutilated by terrorists, who fled back to the Pakistan-occupied part of Kashmir under supportive fire cover by Pakistani troops. In response, the Indian Army carried out a heavy assault in Keran sector of Jammu and Kashmir, destroying four Pakistani posts. According to figures given by Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre in the Lok Sabha last week, till November 14 this year, eight Army personnel have been killed and 59 injured. In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Bhamre also said that there has been an increase in infiltration attempts since the killing of militant leader Burhan Wani on July 8. (With Agency inputs) Islamabad: Pakistan on Tuesday rejected as "false" and "baseless" the charges that the body of an Indian soldier, who was among the three killed by suspected Pakistani terrorists, was mutilated in a cross LoC-attack. Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Nafees Zakaria in a series of tweets said the reports about the mutilation were aimed at maligning Palistan. "Pakistan strongly rejects the false & baseless Indian media reports regarding the alleged mutilation of an Indian solider on the LoC. These reports are a fabrication and a blatant attempt to malign Pakistan," he said. Zakaria said as a professional force, Pakistan Army isn't involved in any such "unethical & non-professional" activity. He said the Pakistan Army never supported any such action. However, he said, Pakistan is fully prepared and ready to respond to any misadventure across the LoC, Working Boundary or the International Border. Earlier today, the Indian Army said three soldiers were killed in an ambush on army patrol in Machhil sector of Kashmir. "Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act," it said through a tweet. Delhi: A day after Congress president Sonia Gandhi said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and late Indira Gandhi could not be compared, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu pointed out on Tuesday that there indeed could not be any comparison between the two leaders. Reacting Sonia's assertions, he told India Today TV, "There can't be any comparison between PM Modi and Indira Gandhi. Modi is MODI, Maker Of Developed India (MODI)." He added, "People can't forget what happened during the Emergency. People tried to stick to power as long as they could, but there is law of the land." The Congress president had also made it clear that she was not "troubled" by comparisons between PM Modi and Gandhi and that her party was taking on the BJP-led NDA government. "It does not trouble me because I do not believe in it. I have my own clear views about it. There is no comparison. Absolutely not. Every era in politics or history has its own problems, its own leaders and its own opposition. I think the Congress party is taking on the present dispensation," Sonia had told India Today TV. She was replying to a question whether her party needed to be competitive unlike the 60s and 70s when it was dominant and that it did not have a leader to take on PM Modi. To another question that her party did not have a tough and competitive leader like PM Modi, she had said, "I do not agree with that." At the same time, she had recalled that Indira Gandhi was ridiculed, insulted and made fun of from within even more than outside when she entered politics, became a Congress president and later PM. There was nothing that she did was right. She was able to "overcome" that, Gandhi had said. (With PTI inputs) New Delhi: There has been a steady rise in attempts by terrorists from Pakistan to sneak into Jammu and Kashmir, since a militant commander was killed in July, Parliament was told on Tuesday. Minster of State for Defence, Subhash Bhamre told the Rajya Sabha: "As per assessment, there has been an increase in infiltration attempts after the killing of Burhan Wani (on July 8 this year)." The minister said, the Indian Army had adopted a "robust" counter-infiltration strategy along the Line of Control (LoC), with an appropriate mix of technology and human resources to check infiltration. "Innovative troop deployment, pro-active use of surveillance, monitoring devices and the Anti-Infiltration Obstacle System have enhanced the ability to detect and intercept terrorists attempting to infiltrate/ exfiltrate," the minister said. In a written reply to the Lok Sabha last week, Bhamre had said that in 2016, there were 167 ceasefire violations along sections of the International Border and LoC with the army until November 14. In parts of the International Border with the Border Security Force (BSF), the total number of ceasefire violations was 210 until November 1. Last year, there were 152 ceasefire violations along the LoC and International Border with the army and 253 along the International Border with the BSF. Allahabad: Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday addressed a gathering in UP's Allahabad at the inauguration ceremony of Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhis birth centenary exhibition. While delivering her speech at the event, Sonia Gandhi paused and covered her head as soon as the 'azaan' (Islamic call for prayer) was heard in the background. Reportedly, Sonia Gandhi did this (paused speech, covered her head) to show respect to 'azaan'. She only continued after the azaan ended. The photo of Sonia Gandhi showing her with covered head has gone viral on social media. New Delhi: The Supreme Court collegium on November 18 has rejected the Centre`s plea for "reconsideration" of 43 names recommended for appointment as judges in various high courts and sent the files back to the government. on Tuesday agreed to hear the Gujarat Bar Association`s plea in January 2017 against Centre`s refusal to transfer Justice MR Shah despite the Supreme Court collegium clearing it. A bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of India Tirath Singh Thakur and two other judges decided to hear the Gujarat bar`s plea in January 2017. The Supreme Court collegium on November 18 has rejected the Centre`s plea for "reconsideration" of 43 names recommended for appointment as judges in various high courts and sent the files back to the government. The three-judge Supreme Court collegium of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices AR Dave and JS Khehar today took the unanimous view that it would stick to its recommendations, including the 43 candidates, after discussing the matter over the past two days. By convention, the Centre will now have to appoint the 43 as judges. On November 11, the Centre had sent back for reconsideration 43 of the 77 names the collegium had recommended for posting as judges in high courts. Ranchi: Jharkhand Governor Draupadi Murmu on Tuesday said the government should think 1,000 times before tabling any bill in the assembly. "The opposition should play a constructive role and the ruling party should think 1,000 times before tabling any bill in the assembly," said Murmu while speaking on the 16th foundation day of Jharkhand assembly. Her observations come amid the stand-off between the ruling and opposition parties over bringing amendments in the two land acts -- the Chotanagpur Tenancy CNT and Santhal Pargana Tenancy (SPT). The government should think whether the bill is in favour of the people and the state, the governor added. "Time should not matter but the government should solve the issue. People are aware and understand what is happening inside and outside the assembly. The assembly should formulate the policy considering people's interest," Murmu said. After the proposed amendments, the agricultural land could be used for non-agricultural purposes. Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das is adamant about bringing the amendments to the land acts while the opposition is against it. Delhi: In a cowardly act, three Indian soldiers were killed at the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistan, the Army said on Tuesday, vowing 'heavy retribution' for the act. The incident took place in Machhal sector in Kupwara district. The body of one of the soldiers was found tortured and mutilated. Northern Command said in a tweet, "JKOps 3 soldiers killed in action on LC in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act." #JKOps 3 soldiers killed in action on LC in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act @adgpi NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) November 22, 2016 On the other hand, officials said, "The cowardly act of mutilating the body of one of the Indian soldiers had all the signatures of a BAT (Border Action Team) operation by Pakistan Aarmy using terrorists and its soldiers," as per IANS. The three slain soldiers are - 25-year-old Prabhu Singh of Khir Jamkhas village in Shergarh tehsil of Rajasthan, 31- year-old K Kushwah of Daddupur, Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh and 25-year-old Shashank K Singh of Nasirudinpur in Mohamadabad tehsil of Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh. Body of Prabhu Singh was mutilated, Army sources said, as per PTI. Meanwhile, as per media reports, Army Vice Chief Lt Gen Bipin Rawat briefed Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on the death of soldiers. Reacting to the incident, Parrikar tweeted, "Condemn the cowardly and brutal killing of our soldiers and mutilation of one of them. Salute these brave martyrs for their supreme sacrifice." Condemn the cowardly & brutal killing of our soldiers & mutilation of one of them. Salute these brave martyrs for their supreme sacrifice. Manohar Parrikar (@manoharparrikar) November 22, 2016 Earlier too, on October 28, the body of another Indian Army jawan was mutilated after being killed by terrorists, aided by the cover fire by Pakistani Army. Terrorists had crossed the LoC at night and killed sepoy Mandeep Singh and mutilated his body in Kupwara district. Also Read - Manohar Parrikar condemns cowardly killing of Indian soldiers by Pakistan In response, the Indian Army had carried out a heavy assault in Keran sector of Jammu and Kashmir, destroying four Pakistani posts. According to figures given by Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre in the Lok Sabha last week, till November 14 this year, eight Army personnel have been killed and 59 injured. In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Bhamre also said that there has been an increase in infiltration attempts since the killing of militant leader Burhan Wani on July 8. (With Agency inputs) New Delhi: The Supreme Court today assured the victims' association of 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy that it would soon set up a bench to hear the pleas seeking review of its 2015 verdict, under which real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal were required to serve two years jail term, if they failed to pay Rs 30 crore each as fine in the matter. The matter was mentioned before a bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur who said a new bench would be constituted to hear the review petitions filed by the CBI and Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT). Senior advocate KTS Tulsi, who appeared for AVUT, told the bench also comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao that the matter was pending since January this year. AVUT requested the court to list the matter for hearing before the bench, which would be constituted, before the winter vacation of the apex court starting mid-December. Earlier this year, a bench headed by Justice A R Dave had decided to hear in open court the petitions filed by the CBI and AVUT seeking review of the 2015 verdict. Following the judgement, the Ansals had deposited the amount. However, Justice Dave, who headed the three-judge bench which had heard the matters in the Uphaar case, retired on November 18. 59 people had died of asphyxia when a fire broke out during the screening of Bollywood movie 'Border' in Uphaar theatre in Green Park area of South Delhi on June 13, 1997. Over 100 were also injured in the subsequent stampede. In its review plea AVUT had said the apex court judgements "bestow an unwarranted leniency on convicts whose conviction in the most heinous of offences has been upheld by all courts including this court and sentences imposed on them have been substituted with fine without assigning any reason or basis." "The sentences of the convicts have been reduced to the period undergone without taking into account the gravity of their offence," it had said. The CBI, in its review plea, had said the apex court did not give it time to put its views forth which has resulted in "miscarriage of justice". Chennai: Adding more firepower to the country's maritime defence, surveillance and combat capabilities, INS Chennai the largest-ever warship built in India was on Monday commissioned to the Indian Navy at a glittering ceremony. It is beyond doubt that the commissioning of indigenously designed and constructed Kolkata-class guided missile destroyer - the India Naval Ship (INS) `Chennai` - has given a big boot to the Indian Naval Forces. The addition of INS Chennai to the Indian Navys operations and defence capabilities at the sea has also given a major boost to the country's ship-building prowess. The commissioning of INS Chennai is significant as it comes at a time when tensions with Pakistan and China run high. By adding INS Chennai to Indian's defence arsenals, the Navy has also send a strong message to its hostile neighbours. INS Chennai, which was inducted into the naval fleet by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar at a glittering function held in Mumbai. Manufactured by Mazagaon Dock Shipbuilders Limited, Mumbai, INS Chennai is among the largest destroyers constructed in India having a length of 164 meter and displacement of over 7,500 tonne. The ship is a potent platform capable of undertaking a variety of tasks and missions, spanning the full spectrum of maritime warfare. Armed with supersonic surface to surface `BrahMos` missiles and `Barak-8` long range surface to air missiles, the ship possesses formidable prowess of missile technology. The undersea warfare capable boasts of indigenously developed anti-submarine weapons and sensors, prominently the Hull Mounted Sonar `HUMSA-NG`, Heavyweight Torpedo Tube Launchers, Rocket Launchers and Towed Arrau sonar capability. For defence against enemy missiles, the ship is fitted with `Kavach` chaff decoy system and for defence against enemy torpedoes, it is fitted with `Mareech` torpedo decoy system, both developed indigenously in India.The ship is designed to carry and operate up to two multi-role helicopters. The ship is propelled by a powerful Combined Gas and Gas (COGAG) propulsion plant, consisting of four reversible gas turbines, which enables it to achieve a top speed of over 30 knots (approximately 55 km per hour). The ship boasts of a very high level of automation with sophisticated digital networks such as ATM-based integrated Ship Data Network (AISDN), Combat Management System (CMS), Automatic Power Management System (APMS) and Auxilliary Control System (ACS). The ship`s crest depicts the outline of the iconic Fort Saint George at Chennai in the background, a part of the adjacent beach in front, and a sloop on blue and white waves in the background.The crew of the ship abides by the Sanskrit motto `Shatro Sanharaka` meaning `Vanquisher of Enemies`. The motto epitomises the warrior spirit and strong resolve of the ship and her crew to prevail and succeed in combat. INS Kolkata, the first ship of the class was commissioned on August 16, 2014, and INS Kochi, the second ship of the class was commissioned on September 30, 2015. The INS Chennai has an overall length of 164 meters and displacement of over 7,500 tons. The INS Chennai, and all Kolkata-class destroyers, are actually an improved version of the Delhi-class of warships. The INS Chennai and other guided missile destroyers under Project 15A help the Indian Navy and the country achieve multiple goals, says Abhijit Singh, Head of Maritime Policy initiative at Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Ankur Gupta, Vice President-Aerospace and Defence at Ernst Young India agrees that the learnings from the ship-building programme, especially given the Modi governments Make in India focus, will go a long way in helping indigenous defence manufacturing. This (INS Chennai) is the last of the P-15A guided missile destroyers designed by the Indian Navy and built by MDL. Even though the vessels have been delayed by quite some period of time, the learnings and capability buildup due to the program is valuable, Ankur Gupta was quoted as saying. This experience will now propel the vessels under P-15B whose construction has begun and with higher expectations, he adds. Srinagar: Flight operations to and from Srinagar international airport were adversely affected for the third consecutive day on Tuesday due to foggy weather. "Two morning flights and six afternoon flights have been cancelled today (Tuesday), a few Srinagar-bound flights those have already landed at Jammu airport have, however, been asked to wait for clearance to take off for Srinagar depending on improvement in visibility," an airport official told IANS. Morning visibility was said to be only 600 metres at the airport. Flight operations at the Srinagar airport were first impacted on last Thursday. Air traffic has since remained more or less suspended, with the exception of two flights landing and then taking off on Saturday. The airport has instrument landing system (ILS), but sources said the same needs up gradation to ensure flight operations during poor visibility. Srinagar: In a shocking development, two freshly minted notes of Rs 2,000 were recovered from the bodies of the two terrorists, who were gunned down on Tuesday in an encounter with security forces in Bandipora, Jammu and Kashmir. The Army and the police in a joint operation had cordoned off the area to smoke out the two terrorists who were holed up and had opened fire, thus engaging in a heavy gunbattle early in the morning. Yesterday, four masked men with arms along with them entered into a bank at a state-run Jammu and Kashmir branch in Malpora and left with Rs 13 lakh largely comprising of the scrapped 500 and 1,000 note currencies. Earlier, three masked men had looted a bank of Rs 2.25 lakh in Kulgam district on October 25. Also Read: Do you support demonetisation? PM Narendra Modi wants to know directly from you While announcing the radical step of demonetisation on November 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured that this move was targeting tax evasion, corruption, and forgery, and also stressed that terror attacks including those facilitated by Pakistan often include counterfeit 500-rupee notes. Srinagar: Security forces neutralised two terrorists in an encounter on Tuesday in Bandipora, Jammu and Kashmir. The Army and the police in a joint operation had cordoned off the area to smoke out the two terrorists who were holed up and had opened fire, thus engaging in a heavy gunbattle early in the morning. A combing operation is underway to ensure no untoward elements are still present in the area. Earlier, a BSF head constable was killed and three other army men were injured in the early hours of Monday after Pakistani Army resorted to heavy cross-border firing in Rajouri sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Since the surgical strike on terrorist launch pads in PoK on September 29, there have been a staggering 286 incidents of firing and shelling along the LoC and the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistani troops, which have resulted in the death of 26 people, including 14 security personnel. Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Assembly on Tuesday witnessed a special session to discuss the turbulent situation in the state`s co-operative sector in the wake of Centre`s demonetisation scheme. Briefing the media after an all-party meeting in Thiruvananthapuram yesterday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said, an all-party delegation will visit the Prime Minister and Finance Minister to impress upon the difficulties faced by the co-operative sector following demonetization. Vijayan has made his stand on demonetisation quite clear, as on several occasions he has voiced out against the Centre saying that the radical scheme has "inconvenienced" people across the country as no "adequate" backup arrangements were made. Asserting that people were suffering across the nation because of lack of planning by the government, the Chief Minister has emphasised that his government is not against curbing black money but was against the steps which cause hardship to common people. Last week, Vijayan and his cabinet colleague Finance Minister Thomas Issac called on Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi and conveyed to him the difficult situation on account of spiking of high value currencies. Bhubaneswar: A youth was arrested in Odisha on charges of circulating counterfeits of newly-released Rs 2,000 notes, said police on Tuesday. Madhusudan Meher of Jharsuguda was arrested while he was trying to use the fake bills at a petrol pump in Sunarimunda. The employee of a Maruti filling station at Sunarimunda suspected the bills and reported the matter to the owner who then alerted the police. "The currency is a colour photocopy of an original Rs 2,000 note. A case was registered and an investigation is on," said Sub-divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of Jharsuguda, Bijay Nanda. Meher works as an engineer in a steel company. Earlier, the police had arrested another youth in Khurdha district while depositing counterfeit currencies worth Rs 42,000 at a bank. Moscow: Russia on Tuesday accused the United Nations of sabotaging peace negotiations between the Syrian regime and rebels. Addressing a press conference in Minsk, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura had been sabotaging Resolution 2254, which stipulates the organisation of peace talks, Efe news agency reported. He said this left the Syrian government no choice but to accept the patriotic opposition's initiative and organise Syrian dialogue itself. According to Lavrov, Moscow would support the celebration of such talks in Damascus and opposition groups both in Syria and in exile were seriously studying the possibility. He said even the groups closest to Saudi Arabia were aware that refusing to negotiate until the beleaguered Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stepped down, was a dead end. At the end of April, the High Negotiation Committee -- the main Syrian opposition representative in Geneva -- abandoned the peace talks until Moscow and Damascus ceased all military operations in Aleppo. Russian aviation suspended its aerial attacks against Aleppo over a month ago, but last week launched a mass attack against Islamist positions in Syria. Beirut: At least 244 people were killed in the past one week in attacks in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, a British war monitor said on Tuesday. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 25 people have died in the past 24 hours, EFE news reported. At least 228 people were killed in airstrikes carried out by military planes and helicopters in the eastern districts of Aleppo, as regime forces closed in on opposition rebel fighters. Among those killed in the city's east, at least 141 were civilians, 87 were fighters and another 16 remain to be identified. Meanwhile, at least 16 people died in west Aleppo, including 10 school children, in attacks on areas controlled by government forces. The monitor said the number of victims could increase taking into account the many injured. The NGO pointed out the lack of medical supplies and staff in east Aleppo, where four hospitals were out of operation between Friday and Saturday due to damages. There were some health centres open in east Aleppo, according to the observatory, after the World Health Organisation and Aleppo health directorate declared the closure of all hospitals in the area over the weekend. The WHO said over 250,000 civilians lacked access to healthcare, though some small clinics were attending patients. After a three-week cease-fire, attacks resumed on November 15 in the eastern part of the city. Islamabad: With the addition of two more militant outfits in the ban list in Pakistan, the total number has reached 63. The federal government has proscribed the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi Al-Alami after both claimed responsibility for recent attacks on sectarian grounds in different parts of the country. The updated list on National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) website now shows a total of 63 outfits that have been proscribed by the federal government. The final decision was taken after feedback from different security, intelligence, investigation and law enforcement agencies and the same was forwarded by the Sindh police and its Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) mainly after the October 29 killing of five persons, including three brothers, outside a Nazimabad house where a Muharram majlis for women was in progress. Jamaatul Ahrar (JuA), a breakaway faction of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTO) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Almi (LeJA), a franchise of the sectarian terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have claimed responsibility for 10 major terrorist attacks, including the August 8 deadly suicide bombing at Quetta`s Civil Hospital. Two other organisations - Ghulaman-e-Sahaba (GeS) and Maymar Trust (MT) - have been under observation (11th Schedule) for six months. The GeS was put on the `observation list` on June 30, 2016, while the MT was listed two months later on August 31, 2016, by the Interior Ministry. Similarly, Jamaat-ud-Dawa has been on the same list since January 17, 2007, though no timeframe has been given by the ministry for the observation of the charity which, India alleges, is a front for the Lashkar-e-Toiba militant group. Beijing: China is giving shelter to more than 3,000 people who have fled Myanmar after fighting between the government and rebels, and stray shells have fallen inside Chinese territory causing minor damage but no deaths, state media said on Tuesday. Four ethnic armed groups have attacked security forces in the north of Myanmar, dealing a major blow to leader Aung San Suu Kyi`s top goal of reaching peace with ethnic minorities. China, which has been alarmed by previous fighting along the porous border, has put its armed forces on high alert and called for all sides to exercise restraint. The official China Daily said injured people among the 3,000 Myanmar citizens have been taken to hospital in the southwestern province of Yunnan, which shares a long border with Myanmar. "The Chinese authority has responded swiftly and handled the situation appropriately," Pan Xuesong, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Myanmar, told the newspaper. Stray shells have fallen in Wanding, an important border crossing, causing some minor damage, state television added. The Global Times newspaper also said a Chinese government building in Wanding had been lightly damaged. China`s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that at least one Chinese resident had also been injured. The sudden escalation of fighting comes as the Myanmar government grapples with a conflict in northwestern Rakhine that has sent hundreds of Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh, posing a new challenge to Nobel peace prize winner Suu Kyi, who swept to power last year on promises of national reconciliation. Previous fighting along the border pushed thousands of people into China. China was infuriated last year when five Chinese people were killed when the fighting spilled over into Chinese territory. Aleppo: Syrian pro-government forces pushed forward inside rebel-held Aleppo on Tuesday, prompting civilians to flee, as the regime pressed an assault to recapture the entire city. A week into the latest round of fighting for the city, Syrian troops had taken control of a third of the key eastern neighbourhood of Masaken Hanano, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Government troops, backed by Russian and Iranian forces and Lebanon`s Shi'ite Hezbollah group, were battling rebels on several fronts inside opposition-held districts, said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Observatory. The renewed fighting has killed more than 140 civilians in east Aleppo and comes amid international concern for the fate of over 250,000 civilians trapped in besieged rebel-held areas. But despite condemnation from Washington and the UN, there was little sign that the government advance would be halted. Recapturing east Aleppo, which rebels seized in 2012, would be the government`s biggest victory yet in the conflict and deal a potentially decisive blow to the opposition. The city was once the country`s economic powerhouse, but it has been ravaged by the war that has killed 300,000 people since began with anti-government protests in March 2011. For the past four years, it has been divided between the government-controlled west and rebel-held east. Masaken Hanano has been heavily shelled during the war, so many of its residents have long abandoned their homes, but the latest fighting has prompted even the last holdouts to flee. Milad Shahabi, a member of the local council, told AFP overnight that "civilians started to flee the neighbourhood", heading to southern parts of the rebel-held east. "We are looking for empty houses to accommodate them," he said.The neighbourhood is symbolically important, as it was the first district in the city to fall to rebels in 2012, but is also strategically key. "If they take control of Masaken Hanano, the regime will have line-of-fire control over several rebel-held neighbourhoods and will be able to cut off the northern parts of rebel-held Aleppo from the rest of the opposition-held districts," Abdel Rahman said. The government advances added to a growing sense of despair in the east of the city, which has been sealed off from the outside world since the army surrounded it in mid-July. No food aid has entered since then, prompting food and fuel shortages, and electricity and water supplies are erratic. Rebels have tried several times to break the siege on the east, without success, and one European diplomat said it seemed only a matter of time before the city fell to government forces. "Now, it`s just a question of how long they (rebel forces) can hold on," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is nothing to eat, no more hospitals and the bombardment is non-stop. They are under very strong pressure." The Observatory says 141 civilians, including 18 children, have been killed in east Aleppo since the latest assault began on November 15. Another 16 civilians, including 10 children, have been killed in rebel fire on western Aleppo, the monitor says.The regime assault has prompted international criticism, with France`s UN ambassador Francois Delattre accusing Damascus of a "total-war strategy". "The situation is horrific, catastrophic," he said Monday. The UN`s aid chief Stephen O`Brien slammed the use of sieges in Aleppo and elsewhere in remarks to the Security Council on Monday, saying nearly one million Syrians were living under blockades. "Civilians are being isolated, starved, bombed, denied medical attention and humanitarian assistance in order to force them to submit or flee," he said. O`Brien condemned this "deliberate tactic of cruelty" and said the sieges were mostly perpetrated by government forces against civilians. The UN`s Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura was in Damascus over the weekend to discuss a humanitarian plan and a truce proposal for Aleppo, but both were rejected by the government. The humanitarian plan seeks to evacuate the sick and wounded from the east, as well as deliver aid and allow doctors to enter. The truce plans calls for the departure of jihadist fighters from the east, but would allow the opposition administration there to remain, at least temporarily. Syria`s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said Sunday the truce plan would "reward terrorists", and insisted that the government would recapture the east. District of Columbia: President-elect Donald Trump will not push for further investigation of Hillary Clinton related to her private email use and the Clinton Foundation, a close adviser said Tuesday, breaking with a key campaign theme. Trump triggered consternation -- and widespread condemnation -- when he made an unprecedented campaign threat to jail his Democratic rival should he win the White House. The Republican made Clinton`s email scandal and allegations of pay-to-play at her family foundation a core theme of his campaign, railing against her "crimes" and leading fired-up supporters in chants of "Lock her Up!" But since his election he has deflected questioning on the subject, saying in an interview he would think about it, but had other priorities as incoming head of state. "I think when the president-elect... tells you before he`s even inaugurated that he doesn`t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone, and content" to fellow Republicans, Trump aide Kellyanne Conway said in an interview on MSNBC`s "Morning Joe." During their second presidential debate in October, Trump told Clinton he would instruct his attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into her email practices when secretary of state. Clinton responded: "it`s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country." Trump then quipped: "Because you`d be in jail." Conway told MSNBC that Clinton "still has to face the fact a majority of Americans don`t find her to be honest or trustworthy." "If Donald Trump can help her heal, perhaps that`s a good thing," she added. "He`s thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign aren`t among them." Clinton has attributed her loss to the bombshell decision by FBI director James Comey to re-open the probe into her use of a private email server, less than two weeks before the vote. In a call with donors, she claimed that two letters Comey sent to Congress -- re-opening the probe and closing it again after finding no new evidence of wrongdoing -- had tilted crucial states towards her Republican rival. Comey`s second letter, sent three days before the election, stated that the FBI had not changed its July recommendation not to charge Clinton. Ankara: Followers of the cleric Turkey blames for orchestrating a failed coup this year are still active in the armed forces, judiciary and police, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday, as he vowed to continue to root them out. Turkey blames Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the US state of Pennsylvania, for masterminding the abortive putsch in July, where a group of rogue soldiers attempted to overthrow the government. "There is no place in this academy and land drenched with the blood of martyrs for those who sold their souls to Pennslyvania, the separatist terrorist organisation, or any other illegal organisation," Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara. Erdogan frequently refers to Pennsylvania as a shorthand for Gulen`s followers and the "separatist organisation" as a reference to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Thousands of people have been sacked or suspended from the police, judiciary and civil service following the coup. Ankara: Turkey on Tuesday dismissed 15,000 more officials, from soldiers and police officers to tax inspectors and midwives, and shut 375 institutions and news outlets, deepening purges condemned by Western allies and rights groups after a failed coup. The latest dismissals, announced in two decrees, bring to more than 125,000 the number of people sacked or suspended in the military, civil service, judiciary and elsewhere since July`s failed coup. Some 36,000 have been jailed pending trial. European allies have criticised the breadth of the purges under President Tayyip Erdogan, with some calling for a freezing of Turkey`s EU membership talks. A senior U.N. official has called the measures "draconian" and "unjustified". Erdogan has rejected such criticism, saying Turkey is determined to root out its enemies at home and abroad, and could reintroduce the death penalty. He has accused Western nations of siding with plotters behind the coup attempt in July and of harbouring terrorists. Nearly 2,000 members of the armed forces, 7,600 police officers, 400 members of the gendarmerie, and more than 5,000 people from public institutions, including nurses, doctors and engineers, were dismissed in Tuesday`s decrees for suspected links to terrorist organisations. Their names were listed in the Official Gazette, which made clear they would not be able to claim any severance or seek any other job in public service. The decrees were issued under emergency rule imposed in the wake of the failed coup, which allows Erdogan and the government to bypass parliament. Ankara blames U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen and his network of followers, which it refers to as the "Gulenist Terror Organisation" (FETO), for orchestrating the coup bid, in which more than 240 people were killed. The cleric denies involvement. Erdogan`s opponents say the purges go well beyond a crackdown on suspected Gulenists and are being used to crush dissent. Those accused are often left unable to find other work and ostracised in their community, with Turkish media reports saying some have committed suicide before being put on trial. PILOTS, PRISON WARDENS AND TELECOM EXECS Separately from the latest decrees, authorities issued arrest warrants for 60 people including air force pilots in the central city of Konya over suspected Gulenist links. More than 300 pilots have already been detained or dismissed since the coup, in which the plotters commandeered fighter jets, tanks and military helicopters, bombing parliament and other government buildings in their bid to seize power. In another operation around Istanbul, 19 prison staff including the warden of Turkey`s largest jail Silivri were held on suspicion of using smart-phone messaging app ByLock, which authorities say is used by Gulen`s network. Arrest warrants were also issued for 22 executives from telecoms firm Turk Telekom, the Hurriyet newspaper said. It said 12 of them had been detained in an operation spanning four provinces. Turk Telekom shares fell 0.35 percent, underperforming a 0.4 percent rise on the Istanbul stock index. Tuesday`s decrees also announced the closure of 375 institutions, 18 charities, and nine media outlets. Turkey has closed more than 130 media outlets since July. The decrees also said that institutions previously closed over alleged links to terrorist organisations should be handed over to the state`s Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF), which has already taken control of a bank, several media firms and other businesses suspected of links to Gulen. Islamabad: The countdown has begun in Pakistan to appoint the next Army Chief with Gen Raheel Sharif set to step down on November 29. The ball is now in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif`s court to choose his successor among the top four generals. If sources are to be believed Prime Minister Sharif has already made up his mind over who will succeed Gen Sharif, but has so far kept his cards close to his chest. The word in political circles is that Lt. Gen Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmed, who is currently serving as Multan corps commander, will be named the next army chief. Lt Gen Zubair Mehmood is likely to be appointed chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee, according to reports. Others in contention for the top military post include Bahawalpur Corps Commander Lt Gen Javed Iqbal Ramday and Inspector General Training and Evaluation Lt Gen Qamar Bajwa. All four generals are from the Pakistan Military Academy`s 62nd Long Course, but have had different career trajectories. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has said that completion of ongoing counter-terrorism operations would be the responsibility of the new army chief. The war against terrorism, the situation along the border with India, and alleged "Indian aggression in Pakistan through Afghanistan" will be among the major responsibilities the new army chief will have to focus on, Asif said. Nawaz Sharif`s choice will be important in the context that the new army chief would have to oversee the transition of the army from counter-terrorism assignments to its conventional role of defending the borders. The formal process for nomination starts with the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi sending a list of the senior-most generals to the Prime Minister via the defence ministry, but without making any formal recommendations. The Prime Minister then will hold informal consultations with the outgoing Army Chief before announcing his decision. Gen Sharif initiated his farewell meetings at the Lahore Garrison on Monday, where he told a gathering of officers and men from the army and Rangers that he was leaving the country "more secure and stable", with a "sense of greater hope and direction" and ready to thwart all challenges. Aden: Renewed clashes between Yemeni government forces and rebels killed more than 40 people today, military officials said, a day after a fragile 48-hour ceasefire expired without halting the violence. Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi repelled an attack by Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies on the western outskirts of Taez city, the officials said. The attack that began late Monday, targeted the Al-Dhabab area, which provides pro-Hadi forces with their only access to the flashpoint city of 300,000 people that is surrounded by insurgents. Warplanes from the Saudi-led Arab coalition took part in operations to repel the attack, officials said. Military officials also reported, heavy artillery fire in an eastern suburb of Taez as pro-Hadi forces pressed a campaign to wrest back control of a presidential palace, police headquarters and an air defence base from the Huthis. Eleven rebel fighters and five pro-government soldiers were killed in the clashes around the southwestern city, they said. In northwest Yemen, fighting around the coastal town of Midi cost the lives of 18 rebels and four soldiers, a loyalist commander on the ground, Abdel Ghani Chebli, told AFP. Rebel sniper fire on Monday night, that killed three soldiers as the Huthis tried to advance on Midi's harbour, which is controlled by pro-Hadi forces. The coalition and the rebels have traded blame over violations of the ceasefire, which came into effect on Saturday, after US Secretary of State John Kerry intervened. It was the latest international attempt to end Yemen's 20-month conflict, which the United Nations says has killed more than 7,000 people and wounded nearly 37,000. The Huthis overran the capital Sanaa and other parts of the impoverished country in September 2014, prompting the coalition to intervene six months later in support of Hadi. In the southern city of Aden, an airport security officer, Colonel Abdel Rahim Samahi, was gunned down outside his home in an attack, a security official said on Tuesday. The Islamic State (IS) group said it killed Samahi, the Site Intelligence Group reported. Islamabad: The Pakistan Supreme Court has been asked to order conferring the title of field marshal on Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif for rendering services to protect national security and safeguarding the frontiers of Pakistan. The petition was an appeal moved by Sardar Adnan Saleem Khan Mazari - an executive member of the District Bar Association Rawalpindi - against the October 18 judgement of the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench which had rejected the same plea, Dawn reported. According to the appeal, the high court`s judgement was "unlawful and unconstitutional as it was rendered without taking into consideration the merit of the post which was globally recognised and Pakistan was no exception among the comity of nations". In the appeal, Sardar Mazari cited the history of field marshals and stated that the late President Muhammad Ayub Khan had also served at the same post, which showed that such posts existed in Pakistan. The federal government through the cabinet division, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the Ddefence Ministry were named as respondents in the petition. Sardar Mazari pleaded that Gen Raheel had "demonstrated visionary leadership to the people of Pakistan as well as the security forces by setting an example as a trailblazer and role model for others by giving new direction and hope for the nation in consonance with the constitutional frontiers of Pakistan". He contended that Operation Zarb-i-Azb had countered extremist designs of terrorist organisations with a proactive and prudent approach but was still going on and had yet to be completed. He also highlighted the "Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2016" report which stated that Pakistan recorded a substantial decrease in terrorist activities last year, with 45 percent fewer attacks and 38 percent fewer deaths reported. This was the second consecutive year in which Pakistan has seen a reduction in terrorist activities. Terrorism in the country is now at its lowest level since 2006, stated the report which was released by the US-based Institute for Economics and Peace, an independent think-tank. Jerusalem: A Palestinian was shot dead at a West Bank checkpoint on Tuesday after walking towards guards with a knife in his hand, Israeli police said. "A Palestinian attempted to cross the checkpoint using the vehicle lane and approached security guards brandishing a knife," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement. "The terrorist was neutralised," she added, later confirming he had been killed. There were no Israeli casualties. Palestinian security sources identified the dead man as Jihad Khalil, 48, from near Nablus in the northern West Bank. The incident happened at the Qalandia checkpoint between the northern West Bank and Jerusalem, which is used by thousands of Palestinians every day. The heavily fortified checkpoint is a hated symbol of Israeli occupation for Palestinians and has seen a number of attacks during an upsurge of violence over the past year. Since October 2015, 240 Palestinians, 36 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed, according to an AFP count. Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out attacks, according to Israeli authorities. Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some died in Israeli air strikes on Gaza. The violence has calmed significantly in recent months. Manila: Philippine and United States military officials agreed to scale back joint exercises and reduce U.S. troop deployments, a Philippine general involved in the talks said on Tuesday, though a statement issued by the allies spoke of "close cooperation". The joint statement omitted mention of any reduced level of engagement between the two militaries, though President Rodrigo Duterte has expressed his opposition to having foreign troops on Philippines` soil and has threatened to scrap exercises and abrogate pacts. U.S. officials present at the talks in Manila took no questions, and the joint statement was issued via the hosts. Reading the statement, spokesman Brigadier-General Restituto Padilla said there would be continued "close cooperation in areas central to both our national and security interests". That would include humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, counter-terrorism and maritime security, he said. But one Philippine general involved in the talks said the two sides also agreed to reduce the size and frequency of joint exercises and the number of U.S. troops taking part. "The two allies will focus more on humanitarian assistance and disaster response operations and other non-traditional military training and exercises," said the general, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. The number of U.S. troops would be "small", he added. Some 5,000 American soldiers have taken part in exercises in the Philippines in the past two years. The Philippines has for decades been one of the United States` most important Asian allies but the relationship has been shaken by Duterte voicing disdain and mistrust of Washington. Speaking to business leaders in Beijing last month, Duterte spoke of his "separation" from the United States. A few days later he backtracked on those comments. In Peru on Saturday Duterte met Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time and bemoaned what he called hypocrisy and "bullying" by the United States and allies. The Philippine general said the defense ministry had instructed the military to scale back joint exercises, which should be "refocused on disaster" relief, and end naval and amphibious landing drills. Planned U.S. deployments under a 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) - which Duterte has also said he would try to stop - would go on as scheduled. "But, that too, we will see a scaling down on the number of aircraft and troops rotated in our bases," the general added. Tokyo: An earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter Scale hit Fukushima in Japan on Tuesday, the weather agency said, leaving at least 12 people injured. But the Japan Meteorological Agency downgraded the tsunami warning for northeastern prefectures of Miyagi and Fukushima to advisory, Xinhua news agency reported. The epicentre of the quake was at a latitude of 37.3 degrees north and a longitude of 141.6 degrees east and occurred at a depth of 30 km. The temblor was centred in the waters offshore of Fukushima, which borders the Pacific Ocean and is to the northeast of Tokyo. Over 3,000 people fled to evacuation centres in Fukushima, the Japan Times reported. "The sound of sirens brought back memories of the huge earthquake (of 2011)," said Tomomi Nagakubo, 48, who drove in her car to an evacuation centre in Ibaraki with her 13-year-old son. At 8.03 a.m, 1.4-metre tsunami were observed at Sendai port in northeastern Miyagi prefecture, following the first wave of tsunami at coastline 20 km east of Iwaki city in Fukushima. The weather agency warned of further tidal waves of up to three metres for Fukushima and one metre for other parts of the coastline facing the Pacific. The jolt was felt in central Tokyo and also shook other northeastern Japanese prefectures including Tochigi and Ibaraki. Train and flights services were partially suspended or delayed in northeastern Japan while power outage affected at least 1,100 households in Fukushima and Niigata. Water supply was cut off at some parts in Fukushima and Sentai. A nuclear fuel cooling facility of the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant`s No.3 reactor building stopped operating temporarily, while no abnormalities were observed at other nuclear plants in the country, according to power companies. There have been no reports of significant damage from the quake or tsunami. Moscow: Russia has accused Ukraine of abducting two Russian servicemen on the annexed Crimea peninsula, but Kiev said it had merely detained two Ukrainian army deserters. In a statement carried late Monday by local news agencies, the Russian defence ministry said servicemen Maxim Odintsov and Alexander Baranov were "illegally detained and removed from Crimea by Ukrainian security forces" on Sunday. "We consider that these actions of the Ukrainian special forces toward Russian citizens are yet another gross provocation and demand their immediate return to Russian territory," the statement said. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) meanwhile said the two men were "former Ukrainian servicemen who betrayed their oath and went to serve in the Russian military after the illegal annexation of Crimea," the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported. The SBU added that the men stood accused of "desertion and treason" and had been detained "after crossing the border" between Ukraine and Russian-annexed Crimea. Russia seized Crimea in 2014 by sending in thousands of special forces to take control of Ukrainian bases and holding a hastily organised referendum that was rejected by the international community. The move shattered ties between the two ex-Soviet neighbours and sent relations between Moscow and the West plummeting to their lowest point since the Cold War. In August, President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of attempting armed incursions into the disputed region. Russia`s security agency said at the time it had thwarted "terrorist attacks" in Crimea by Ukrainian military intelligence and beaten back armed assaults, but Kiev furiously denied the incidents. The allegations ratcheted up tensions in the feud between Russia and Ukraine sparked by Moscow`s seizure of the Black Sea peninsula and sparked fears of a wider conflict. Buenos Aires: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said that although there was potential for a peace treaty between Japan and Russia in the future, but given their World War II rift, the path forward would not be easy. Abe said this to the press in Buenos Aires late on Monday during an official visit to Argentina, Efe reported on Tuesday. He was discussing his recent meetings with other heads of state at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders` Meeting in Lima. According to Abe, the two leaders -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and himself -- had reiterated their willingness earlier to talk to advance the signing of a peace treaty. "For 70 years, we have been unable to have a peace treaty. A way to concluding a peace treaty is coming into sight. But we must make one step at a time. It is not easy to take a big step ahead," said Abe. He said he looked forward to the Russian premier`s next visit to Yamaguchi province in Japan, as well as creating a specific eight-section roadmap for economic cooperation. Japan hopes that a bilateral accord would resolve the dispute over the Northern Territories, four islands in the Kuril archipelago annexed by Moscow at the end of World War II in 1945 but claimed by Tokyo. "There has been no change to our existing position on the Northern Territories. The peace treaty issue cannot be solved with just one leaders` summit," he said. Abe insisted that developing trust would be key to any reconciliation with Russia. "I will be directly communicating with President Putin and make progress one solid step at a time," he said. On his meeting with US President Barack Obama, Abe said he valued the American leader`s visit to Hiroshima, as it expressed powerful support for a global future free of nuclear weapons. The Japanese Prime Minister had also met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at APEC, a meeting that he said was brief but nevertheless improved bilateral relations. Abe, however, did not elaborate on the November 16 meeting in New York with US President-elect Donald Trump. He although had appealed for a "free and open" economy among countries and the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a US-driven initiative Trump vowed to scrap. "I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country," Trump said. Buenos Aires: A Pacific-wide trade deal would be "meaningless" without the United States, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday, as Donald Trump vowed to abandon the agreement on his first day in office. The future of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been thrown into serious doubt after the US president-elect repeated a pledge to make withdrawing from the pact a top priority. The Republican billionaire, who made the comments in a short video message, has previously said the TPP would be bad for the country and cost jobs. Abe, who attended an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru at the weekend, said there had been no discussion there among other TPP members about pressing on with a deal that did not include the US. "TPP without the United States would be meaningless," Abe said, responding to questions from reporters during a stop in Buenos Aires. "It is impossible to renegotiate it, and it would destabilise the basic balance of interests." The US and Japan are the biggest members of the massive trade deal, which would encompass some 40 percent of the global economy if it goes into force. It also includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. The deal, which has been years in the making, cannot be implemented in its current form without the US. The 70-year-old Trump outlined a list of priorities for his first 100 days and executive actions to be taken "on day one" -- on half a dozen issues from trade to immigration, national security and ethics. "On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country," said the property tycoon, who takes office January 20. "Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores," he added. Both the TPP and the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement linking the US, Mexico and Canada featured heavily in the brutal White House race. Trump`s remarks came just days after Abe met him in New York, the first world leader to sit down with the president-elect. "The fact that Trump has made it is his first priority (out of six) to withdraw from TPP demonstrates his strong determination to kill (it)," said Matthias Helble, a research economist at the Asian Development Bank Institute in Tokyo. "Abe`s charm offensive to be the first foreign head of state to visit Trump has failed." Trump appeared focused on bilateral agreements that would let the US use its size to "basically dictate trade deals with smaller developing countries", Helble added. Ankara: Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Tuesday the government was withdrawing a controversial bill that could overturn men`s convictions for child-sex assault, after an angry public backlash. Critics had said the bill -- which would allow the release from jail of sex assault convicts if they marry their victims -- would legitimise rape. Thousands took to the streets in protest at the weekend. "We are taking this bill in the parliament back to the commission in order to allow for the broad consensus the president requested, and to give time for the opposition parties to develop their proposals," Yildirim said at a news conference in Istanbul. "This commission will evaluate and take into account all sides and surely a solution will be found," the prime minister added. In comments overnight, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called for a compromise to be found on the bill. The bill`s withdrawal marks a rare concession to popular opposition by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Co-founded by Erdogan, the AKP has dominated Turkish politics since coming to power in 2002. If the bill had passed, it would have permitted the release from prison of men guilty of assaulting a minor if the act was committed without "force, threat, or any other restriction on consent" and if the aggressor "marries the victim". Opposition parties from across the political spectrum had heavily criticised the bill, which was approved in an initial parliamentary reading on Thursday. It was expected to be put forward again in parliament on Tuesday but since last week, there have been protests in country in which thousands of people urged the government to withdraw the bill as well.The main opposition Republican People`s Party (CHP) had called for the bill to be withdrawn and vowed to go as far as the constitutional court to block it. But the Turkish government has insisted it was trying to help families in which the men involved were not rapists or sexual aggressors, and who were unaware of the law. The legal age of consent in Turkey is 18 but child marriage is widespread, especially in the southeast. Even as he said the bill would be withdrawn, Yildirim insisted that the proposals sought to rectify the situation for 3,800 families who "are forced to grow up without the love of their father" -- likely imprisoned -- and "paying for the mistakes of their mothers and fathers". But as well as opposition activists, the bill had also met with criticism from the pro-government Women`s and Democracy Association (KADEM), whose deputy chairman is Erdogan`s younger daughter Sumeyye Erdogan Bayraktar. It said in a statement on Friday that one of the bill`s biggest problems would be proving legally what constituted force or consent. Campaigners have long accused the government of failing to do enough to stamp out child marriage and of paying more attention to pushing up the birth rate. Erdogan in June this year urged women to have at least three children and once described birth control as treason. Ankara: The Turkish government on Tuesday withdrew a controversial bill that could overturn men`s convictions for child-sex assault, after an angry public backlash that saw thousands take to the streets. Critics had said the bill -- which would allow the release from jail of sex assault convicts if they marry their victims -- would legitimise rape of minors. Its withdrawal marked a rare concession to popular opposition by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has dominated politics since 2002. "We are taking this bill in parliament back to the commission in order to allow for the broad consensus the president requested, and to give time for the opposition parties to develop their proposals," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told a news conference in Istanbul. "This commission will evaluate and take into account all sides and surely a solution will be found." With the issue becoming a rallying cause for Turkey`s embattled opposition, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called for a compromise. But Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said later on Tuesday the issue was "now closed" and would only return to the agenda "in the future if political parties can secure a broad consensus". If the bill had passed, it would have permitted the release from prison of men guilty of assaulting a minor if the act was committed without "force, threat, or any other restriction on consent" and if the aggressor "marries the victim". Opposition parties from across the political spectrum heavily criticised the bill, which was approved in an initial parliamentary reading on Thursday. It had been expected to be debated again on Tuesday but thousands from all social backgrounds staged protests in Istanbul and other cities at the weekend.With tensions still high, riot police used tear gas to stop a group of two dozen protesters from marching to parliament in Ankara on Tuesday, an AFP photographer said. The government emphasised the bill was not being entirely dropped and would be reviewed and amended by parliament`s justice committee. Officials have insisted the legislation sought to ease a considerable social problem in a country where child marriage is widespread, especially in the southeast. Defenders of the bill said it aimed to help families where a girl fell pregnant while she was below the age of consent. The legal age of consent in Turkey is 18. Yildirim said the proposals sought to help children in 3,800 families who "are forced to grow up without the love of their father" -- likely imprisoned -- and "paying for the mistakes of their mothers and fathers". The Turkish statistics office said in April that 5.2 percent of the over 600,000 official marriages in Turkey last year included child brides aged 16 to 17, down from 5.8 percent in 2014. Family and Social Affairs Minister Fatma Betul Sayan said the bill was to be "reconsidered" taking people`s concerns into account, insisting that the government "was absolutely against marriages at an early age".Main opposition Republican People`s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu hailed Tuesday`s move as a "victory for women". "Today if the AKP has taken a step back, it was thanks to this country`s brave women... For the first time, they (the government) realised women`s strength," he said. Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International`s deputy Europe director, told AFP the proposals should be rejected "once and for all". "The government should help these families with concrete measures rather than disturbingly linking suspending sentences to marriage in any way." The bill also faced criticism from the pro-government Women`s and Democracy Association (KADEM), whose deputy chair is Erdogan`s younger daughter Sumeyye Erdogan Bayraktar. Campaigners have long accused the government of failing to do enough to stamp out child marriage and of paying more attention to pushing up the birth rate. Erdogan in June urged women to have at least three children and once described birth control as treason. Bangui: The UN peacekeeping force in Central African Republic (CAR) said Tuesday one of its bases had come under fire during clashes between rival groups, prompting its troops to respond. The violence erupted on Monday between rival factions of the so-called former Seleka Muslim rebel group in the town of Bria, 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Bangui, MINUSCA said in a statement. "The MINUSCA base was targeted by some elements of the FPRC before they were driven out of the area by retaliatory fire," it said. The FPRC -- the Popular Front for the Renaissance of the Central African Republic -- is a splinter group led by Noureddine Adam, who faces international sanctions for his alleged role in intercommunal killings in 2013 and 2014. The other ex-Seleka faction involved in Monday`s fighting was the Union for Peace in Central Africa (UPC), MINUSCA said. The group is led by Ali Ndarass. The statement said the two groups would be "held responsible for the violence, particularly on civilians." It gave no details about any casualties. One of the world`s poorest countries, CAR has been struggling to emerge from the aftermath of a civil war which erupted in 2013 following the overthrow of former president Francois Bozize, a Christian, by Muslim rebels from the Seleka coalition. Militias are flourishing, given the weakness of the state. The main groups are factions from the former Seleka and Christian "anti-Balaka" (anti-machete) militias, a reference to the rebels who use machetes. France, the former colonial power, last month withdrew a military mission it deployed in December 2013 to stabilise the country, leaving the UN`s 12,500-strong MINUSCA peacekeeping mission to protect civilians from armed groups. Kingdom Holding Co, which owns a 34 percent stake in Saudi low-cost airline flynas, said it had finalised the "deal with Airbus for the purchase of new aircraft" The United States has approved a second export licence for Airbus to sell jetliners worth billions of dollars to Iran's flag carrier, the European aviation giant said Tuesday. "We confirm that we have received our second licence from the US Office of Foreign Control Assets following the agreement (with Iran Air) signed in January 2016 in Paris," Airbus told AFP. "This will allow us to pursue negotiations with Iran Air on finalising the deal," Airbus said. Airbus clinched a preliminary agreement at the start of year to sell Iran 118 aircraft, but it also required US approval because some of the planes' components are made in the United States. The deal includes the single-aisle A320 and the long-range A330 and is worth between 10 and 11 billion dollars. The first licence was granted in September for Airbus to sell 17 A320 and A330 jetliners to the national airline and the second licence will cover the rest of the order, an informed source said. Iran Air has been saddled with an ageing fleet due to years of sanctions on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear programme. Iran's current commercial aviation fleet, which has a poor air safety record, numbers around 140 planes with an average age of around 20 years, with many in desperate need of replacement. Iran projects a demand for between 400 and 500 commercial airliners over the next decade. The US has also given domestic planemaker Boeing the go-ahead to fulfil a June memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Iran Air that covered the sale of 80 planes, consisting of single-aisle 737 and the long-range 777 aircraft. A nuclear deal between Iran and world powers came into effect in January under which Iran has curbed its atomic programme in return for a lifting of international sanctions. American Indian artist Peggy Fontenot is in the Patawomeck tribe, which is recognized by the state of Virginia, but not by the federal government. As a result, an Oklahoma state law forbids her from telling the truth about her heritage. From Reason: A state law, passed earlier this year, forbids artists from marketing their products in Oklahoma as being "American Indian-made" unless the artist is a member of a tribe recognized by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Patawomeck tribe is recognized by the state of Virginia, but not by the federal government. Fontenot says she can trace her Native American heritage back to the 16th Century, when the tribe was one of the first to welcome settlers from Europe who landed on the east coast of Virginia. She's been working as an artist since 1983, doing photography, beading, and making jewelry. "I was born an American Indian. I've always been an American Indian," says Fontenot. A lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City argues that Oklahoma's law violates the First Amendment by restricting the speech of artists like Fontenot. By Guy Faulconbridge LONDON (Reuters) - Britain on Tuesday dismissed U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's unprecedented expression of support for Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage to be made British ambassador to Washington, saying pointedly that there is no vacancy for the job. Trump, who after his election victory met Farage before any EU leaders, said on Twitter that "many people" would like to see the former metals trader turned politician as Britain's ambassador. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!" Trump said. Prime Minister Theresa May, who congratulated Trump on his victory, was swift to reject such an undiplomatic proposal, with a spokesman saying Britain already had an excellent ambassador to Washington and that London would appoint its own envoys. "We have first rate ambassador in Washington," Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who campaigned for Brexit, told the British parliament. "There is no vacancy for that position." It is highly unusual in the modern era for leaders to publicly suggest to foreign nations whom they would like to see as ambassador, though during strained relations they sometimes reject or expel envoys. Trump's suggestion provoked anger, support and even hilarity in Britain, with one lawmaker, Conservative Simon Burns, joking that perhaps Britain should suggest Hillary Clinton as its preferred choice as ambassador to London. But the apparent public suggestion about who to appoint as ambassador by the man who will lead Britain's most powerful ally puts Prime Minister May in a difficult position just as she tries to build ties with Washington ahead of leaving the EU. London is trying to gauge whether Trump would support a special trade deal with Britain as it negotiates a divorce from the EU. Britain also places great store on what it calls its "special relationship" with the United States. "MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS" Farage, who spent decades campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union and helped force former Prime Minister David Cameron to call the June referendum that brought the Brexit vote, spoke at a Trump rally during the U.S. campaign and visited the president-elect after his victory. As leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and one of the key figures of the successful Brexit campaign, Farage has repeatedly angered EU leaders by predicting the collapse of the EU, which he says is run by an out-of-touch elite of "idiots". Farage said Trump's suggestion that he serve as ambassador had come "like a bolt from the blue" but Trump understood loyalty in a way that those in the "cesspit" of career politics did not. "I am in a good position with the President-elects support to help. The world has changed and it's time that Downing Street did too," Farage said in an article written for the Breitbart news website. "I would do anything to help our national interest and to help cement ties with the incoming Anglophile administration," Farage said. A photograph of Trump greeting Farage in front of a gilded elevator shortly after the U.S. election caused consternation in EU capitals, many of whom view Trump with a mixture of fear and puzzlement. His suggestion of Farage also provoked anger among some British lawmakers. "Many people think you should mind your own business and talk about pussy-grabbing less, but hey, life is a constant disappointment," Jess Phillips, a lawmaker for the opposition Labour Party, said on Twitter in a reference to Trump's previous vulgar comments about groping women. "NO VACANCY" Accused by his critics of being a racist and a bigot, Farage peppers his speeches with jokes and the odd expletive while railing against what he calls the doomed European superstate and immigration into Britain. He is a member of the European parliament but has failed in his efforts to win election to the British parliament. Farage said Trump would be a great president after "the political revolution" that brought Brexit in Britain and Trump to power in the United States. "In the United Kingdom the people have spoken but the players at the top have, I am afraid, stayed the same," Farage, 52, said. "Those who supported Remain now hold senior positions. Worst still, those who were openly abusive about Trump now pretend to be his friend," said Farage. Farage has urged May to build ties with Trump, who provoked criticism in Britain with his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Queen Elizabeth might invite Trump for a state visit to Britain next year. Farage made light of allegations of sexual assault against Trump during the U.S. campaign by encouraging him to "come and schmooze" May but adding "don't touch her for goodness sake". When U.S. President Barack Obama said before the referendum that Britain would be at the back of the queue for a trade deal, Farage said it was disgraceful to intervene in the sovereign affairs of Britain. In a radio interview after the U.S. election, Farage described the U.S. president as: "That Obama creature a loathsome individual who couldn't stand our country." The way ambassadors are chosen in the United States and Europe differ significantly. It is common practice for the United States to appoint celebrities or campaign donors as envoys, for example when Richard Nixon appointed Shirley Temple as his envoy to Ghana in 1974. European states mostly appoint career diplomats or officials with long experience as ambassadors. Kim Darroch, the current British ambassador in Washington, did not reply to emails from Reuters requesting comment on Trump's remarks. His email bounced back with an out of office reply saying that the ambassador was traveling. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Michael Holden and Angus MacSwan) Saudi Arabia is attempting to optimize their water and energy consumption with a new national program. On Monday, their cabinet released a statement announcing the program, where the government is moving closer to eliminating large subsidies. Policy incentives that are currently in place for water and energy sectors will be reviewed by the new program, while taking into account the needs and inequality of economic productivity. The statement that did not go into detail about where the new program will be located within the government. Neither did they share the effects the program may have on cuts to the extensive power and water subsidies for the kingdom. This announcement has been released, while there is a lot of restructuring being made to the kingdoms water and energy sectors to intentionally support economic reform plans to eliminate their dependence on oil from the worlds largest crude exporter. By 2020, Saudi Arabia plans to use the reform drive to reduce the water and electricity subsidies by approximately 200 billion riyals ($53 billion), while also reducing the non-oil subsidies by nearly 20%. In December, the first subsidy cuts for water and power were introduced. The minister that was responsible was sacked, after there was an outcry in the public about the way water tariffs were being applied to the average Saudis. The Deputy Crown Prince that is responsible for their economic reforms, Mohammed bin Salman was quoted for saying the implementation of water price increases didnt go as planned. In May, the ministries that were responsible for handling the energy and water policies were restructured by King Salman. Through royal decrees, Salman separated the old Water and Electricity Ministry. He then turned over the electricity responsibility to a new ministry for Energy, Industry, and Natural Resources that is controlled by the chairman of Aramco, Khaled al-Falih. Giving preventive antimalarial drugs to children up to age 10 during active malaria season reduced the cases of malaria in that age group and lowered the malaria incidence in adults, according to a randomized trial carried out in Senegal and published in PLOS Medicine by researchers from the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK, and other collaborators. In 2012, the World Health Organization recommended that children under 5 years of age living in central Africa receive Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and amodiaquine for up to 4 months of the year to prevent malaria. However, in many areas there is a substantial burden of disease in older children. The investigators designed a study in which 54 health posts in central Senegal were randomized to provide SMC to children up to age 10, or act as controls. For the years of the study, between 2008 and 2011, malaria cases and deaths in each community were monitored at outpatient clinics and hospitals. Over three years, 780,000 SMC treatments were given to children. Mortality, the primary study endpoint, was similar between the test and control areas (4.6 and 4.5 per 1000 respectively in children under 5 years and 1.3 and 1.2 per 1000 in children 5-9 years of age, with a mortality rate ratio 0.90; 95 percent confidence interval 0.68-1.2, p=0.496). However, SMC was found to reduce the incidence of malaria in those under age 10 by 60% (95 percent confidence interval 54-64%, p<0.001) and reduce the incidence of severe malaria by 45%. Moreover, even though SMC was only given to children, the overall malaria incidence in older age groups was reduced by 26% (95 percent confidence interval 18-33%, p<0.001). More work is needed to better understand the effect of SMC on antimalarial drug resistance and to define the areas where expanding the age range for SMC would have the greatest benefit. "Apart from in Senegal, SMC is currently being provided only for children up to 5 years of age, but in many areas the burden in older children may justify extending this range," says author Paul Milligan of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. "Our study shows that in some areas expanding the age range for SMC could have a substantial impact on the malaria burden and could contribute to reducing malaria transmission." In an accompanying Perspective, Robert Snow of the Kenya Medical Research Institute/Wellcome Trust Research Programme discusses the history of SMC in Africa and compares the costs and benefits of expanding the targeted age range. "[Seasonal malaria chemoprevention] is notable for incorporating the idea that different approaches may be appropriate in different settings," he notes. "Even if a fraction of the costs of delivering SMC were dedicated to intensive surveillance and a sustained research agenda, national malaria programmes could adapt to a changing epidemiology, parasite resistance and community acceptability." ### Research Article Funding: This study was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, grant number 40099. MC received support through a Population Health Scientist Fellowship jointly funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). JLN is supported by a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Fellowship in Public Health and Tropical Medicine. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Citation: Cisse B, Ba EH, Sokhna C, NDiaye JL, Gomis JF, Dial Y, et al. (2016) Effectiveness of Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention in Children under Ten Years of Age in Senegal: A Stepped-Wedge Cluster-Randomised Trial. PLoS Med 13(11): e1002175. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002175 Author Affiliations: Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement, Dakar, Senegal Ministere de la Sante et de la Prevention, Dakar, Senegal IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002175 Perspective Article Funding: RWS is funded as a Principal Research Fellow by the Wellcome Trust wellcome.ac.uk (# 103602). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist. Citation: Snow RW (2016) Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention: An Evolving Research Paradigm. PLoS Med 13(11): e1002176. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002176 Author Affiliations: KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Collaborative Programme, Nairobi, Kenya Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002176 The accused, identified as Faizan Shir Ahmad, could not explain why he was carrying foreign currency worth Rs 28 lakh. He was later handed over to customs. By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: An Afghan national was on Tuesday arrested at the IGI airport in Delhi as he was about to fly to Kabul. Alert CISF guards noticed some suspicious behaviour by the national identified as Faizan Shir Ahmad. He was interrogated and after being searched, a sum of 41,500 dollars was recovered from him. Ahmad is a businessman, who on being questioned, could not explain why he was carrying foreign currency worth Rs 28 lakh. He was later handed over to customs. advertisement "Since demonetisation of currency, CISF personnel have been on high alert", a senior officer said. --- ENDS --- American cable behemoth Comcast Corp. CMCSA announced plans to boost its broadband speeds in nine states where its DOCCSIS 3.1 technology is yet to be deployed. The states include Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona (Tucson), Minnesota, Texas (Houston) and Missouri (Kansas City). The speed upgrade will increase the bandwidth to up to 200 Mbps and will be free for its customers. Comcast will then gradually introduce its DICSIS 3.1 system in these regions. DOCSIS 3.1 Deployment The cable behemoth started rolling out the DOCSIS 3.1 service in Atlanta this March. Upgrading to the new DOCSIS 3.1 will allow Comcast to compete effectively against AT&T Inc.s T ongoing Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) program. DOCSIS 3.1 versus DOCSIS 3.0 DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) is a communications protocol that allows cable multi service operators (MSOs) to provide high-speed broadband connections. This technology was specifically designed for the cable TV industry, which has been for long struggling to enter the high-speed wireless and fiber-based wireline space. The current DOCSIS 3.0 technology has helped cable TV operators gain an edge in the high-speed Internet market. Additionally, DOCSIS 3.1 comes with several operational benefits. The technology is also backward compatible, allowing the present hybrid fiber-coaxial cable lines to allow such high Internet speed by simply switching to a DOCSIS 3.1 compatible modem. Although FTTH has the advantage of providing unlimited bandwidth, backward compatibility is a major advantage for DOCSIS 3.1, which allows cable MSOs like Comcast to provide high-speed Gigabit broadband to customers, without having to incur additional digging or other cable laying costs unlike FTTH providers. This is sure to boost margins for companies like Comcast. The Bottom Line Recently, increased cord cutting has put pressure on the pay TV industry, compelling them to look for revenue generation alternatives. Broadband Internet has now become a key focus area for cable MSOs like Comcast. It is a no-brainer that a high speed and stable broadband offering will help the company retain customers. Also, Comcasts host of other Internet-based services such as Internet TV is vital for growth. However, the company is likely to face competition from peers like CenturyLink Inc. CTL and wireless service providers like Verizon Communications Inc. VZ who have already begun 5G network trials. Story continues Comcast presently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. COMCAST CORP A Price COMCAST CORP A Price | COMCAST CORP A Quote Now See Our Private Investment Ideas While the above ideas are being shared with the public, other trades are hidden from everyone but selected members. Would you like to peek behind the curtain and view them? Starting today, for the next month, you can follow all Zacks' private buys and sells in real time from value to momentum . . . from stocks under $10 to ETF and option moves . . . from insider trades to companies that are about to report positive earnings surprises (we've called them with 80%+ accuracy). You can even look inside portfolios so exclusive that they are normally closed to new investors. Click here for Zacks' secret trades >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report AT&T INC (T): Free Stock Analysis Report VERIZON COMM (VZ): Free Stock Analysis Report COMCAST CORP A (CMCSA): Free Stock Analysis Report CENTURYLINK INC (CTL): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research ISTANBUL (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted on Sunday as saying that Turkey did not need to join the European Union "at all costs" and could instead become part of a security bloc dominated by China, Russia and Central Asian nations. NATO member Turkey's prospects of joining the EU look more remote than ever after 11 years of negotiations. European leaders have been critical of its record on democratic freedoms, while Ankara has grown increasingly exasperated by what it sees as Western condescension. "Turkey must feel at ease. It mustn't say 'for me it's the European Union at all costs'. That's my view," Erdogan was quoted by the Hurriyet newspaper as telling reporters on his plane on the way back from a visit to Pakistan and Uzbekistan. "Why shouldn't Turkey be in the Shanghai Five? I said this to (Russian President) Mr Putin, to (Kazakh President) Nazarbayev, to those who are in the Shanghai Five now," he said. "I hope that if there is a positive development there, I think if Turkey were to join the Shanghai Five, it will enable it to act with much greater ease." China, Russia and four Central Asian nations -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2001 as a regional security bloc to fight threats posed by radical Islam and drug trafficking from neighboring Afghanistan. Turkish membership of the SCO, which had initially not included Uzbekistan and been known as the Shanghai Five, would be likely to alarm Western allies and fellow NATO members. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan speak Turkic languages, and Ankara signed up in 2013 as a "dialogue partner" saying it shared "the same destiny" as members of the bloc. Mongolia, India, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are SCO observers, while Belarus, like Turkey, is a dialogue partner. Dialogue partners are entitled to take part in ministerial-level and some other meetings of the SCO, but do not have voting rights. Erdogan last week urged Turks to be patient until the end of the year over relations with Europe and said a referendum could be held on EU membership in 2017. The EU is treading a fine line in relations with Turkey: it needs Ankara's continued help in curbing a huge flow of migrants, especially from Syria, but is alarmed by Turkey's crackdown on opponents since a failed coup attempt in July. More than 110,000 people have been sacked or suspended since the abortive putsch, and some 36,000 arrested. Media outlets have also been shut down. The government says the crackdown is justified by the gravity of the threat to the state from the events of July 15, in which more than 240 people were killed. (Reporting by Daren Butler; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Keith Weir) SMITHFIELD, Va., Nov. 21, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Smithfield Foods, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has begun the process to acquire Clougherty Packing LLC from Hormel Foods Corporation. Through this agreement, which is expected to be complete within a month pending closing conditions and regulatory approvals, Smithfield will add the Farmer John and Saags Specialty Meats brands to its lineup as well as two processing facilities and three farms to its operations. By folding Farmer John into our operations, we are better positioned to take advantage of our long-term strategic growth goals, which includes an increasingly diversified customer and consumer base and greater supply chain efficiency, said Kenneth M. Sullivan, president and CEO of Smithfield Foods. As we continue this transition and expand our operations, we are proud to welcome these new West Coast employees into our growing Smithfield family. Clougherty Packing LLC is based in Southern California and is a leading integrated producer and processor of a full line of branded pork products. Founded in 1931, Farmer John is the No. 1 bacon and sausage brand in Southern California. Saags Specialty Meats is a premium brand of deli meat and specialty sausage made without any artificial flavors, colors, fillers, extenders or MSG. Along with two California-based processing facilities, Smithfield will acquire three PFFJ LLC farms located in Arizona, California and Wyoming. Altogether, the operations will add 2,000 employees, growing Smithfields total workforce to 52,000. The purchase price for Clougherty Packing LLC is $145 million, pending capital adjustments at closing. The transaction is expected to take place within the next 30 days pending customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. This news release may contain "forward-looking" information within the meaning of the federal securities laws. The forward-looking information may include statements concerning the company's outlook for the future, as well as other statements of beliefs, future plans and strategies or anticipated events, and similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. The forward-looking information and statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, the statements. These risks and uncertainties include availability and prices of livestock, raw materials and supplies, livestock costs, livestock disease, food safety, product pricing, the competitive environment and related market conditions, ability to make and successfully integrate acquisitions, operating efficiencies, access to capital, the cost of compliance with environmental and health standards, adverse results from ongoing litigation and actions of domestic and foreign governments. About Smithfield Foods Smithfield Foods is a $14 billion global food company and the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. In the United States, the company is also the leader in numerous packaged meats categories with popular brands including Smithfield, Eckrich, Nathan's Famous, Farmland, Armour, John Morrell, Cook's, Kretschmar, Gwaltney, Curly's, Margherita, Carando, Healthy Ones, Krakus, Morliny and Berlinki. Smithfield Foods is committed to providing good food in a responsible way and maintains robust animal care, community involvement, employee safety, environmental and food safety and quality programs. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com. TORONTO, Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Xtra-Gold Resources Corp. (Xtra-Gold or the Company) (TSX:XTG) (OTCBB:XTGRF), is pleased to announce that it has signed a settlement agreement with Buccaneer Gold Corporation (Buccaneer) and the amicable severing of all relations between the companies without cost to Xtra-Gold. Under the settlement agreement the parties agree: The action initiated by Buccaneer in the Ontario Court of Justice on July 21 st 2015 will be dismissed without any cost to Xtra-Gold. 2015 will be dismissed without any cost to Xtra-Gold. All agreements between Buccaneer and Xtra-Gold are confirmed to have been terminated and of no further force or effect. In this connection, Xtra has agreed to return 1,000,000 common shares of Buccaneer issued in connection with the 2011 Letter of Intent between the companies for nil consideration, and the parties confirm there never was an agreement under which Buccaneer acquired any interest in the alluvial rights of Xtras Banso or Muoso concessions. Xtra-Gold has agreed to forgive amounts owing by Buccaneer to it. Buccaneer has agreed to pay CND$20,000 towards Xtra-Golds legal costs. James Longshore, CEO of Xtra-Gold remarked: Xtra-Gold and Buccaneer have severed all ties. This litigation was initiated at the initiative of a disgruntled former officer of Xtra-Gold and Buccaneer while he was still with Buccaneer, and was always viewed by Xtra-Gold as baseless. We appreciate the co-operation of new management of Buccaneer in working with us to end the dispute reasonably, and wish them well in their endeavors. About Xtra-Gold Resources Corp. Xtra-Gold is a gold exploration company with a substantial land position in the Kibi Gold Belt. The Kibi Gold Belt, which exhibits many similar geological features to Ghanas main gold belt, the Ashanti Belt, has been the subject of very limited modern exploration activity targeting lode gold deposits as virtually all past gold mining activity and exploration efforts focused on the extensive alluvial gold occurrences in many river valleys throughout the Kibi area. Xtra-Gold holds 5 Mining Leases totaling approximately 226 sq km (22,600 ha) at the northern extremity of the Kibi Gold Belt. The Companys exploration efforts to date have focused on the Kibi Gold Project located on the Apapam Concession (33.65 sq km), along the eastern flank of the Kibi Gold Belt. The Kibi Gold Project (Zone 2 Zone 3) maiden mineral resource estimate produced by Xtra-Gold in October 2012 represents first ever NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate generated on a lode gold project within the Kibi Gold Belt. The NI 43-101 Technical Report entitled Independent Technical Report, Apapam Concession, Kibi Project, Eastern Region, Ghana, prepared by SEMS Explorations and dated October 31, 2012, is filed under the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. CARMIEL, Israel, Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Protalix BioTherapeutics, Inc. (NYSE MKT:PLX) (TASE:PLX) announced today that the Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA, Agencia Nacional de Vigilancia Sanitaria) has granted regulatory approval for alfataliglicerase as a long-term enzyme replacement therapy for children four years old and above with a confirmed diagnosis of Type I Gaucher disease. Gaucher disease is a rare lysosomal storage disorder, with approximately 700 patients treated in Brazil. Brazil has the third largest number of identified Gaucher patients worldwide, after the United States and Israel. Alfataliglicerase was approved by ANVISA in March 2013 for long-term enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) for adults with a confirmed diagnosis of Type I Gaucher disease. ANVISAs approval of a pediatric indication for alfataliglicerase is an important milestone for Protalix in our commitment to the Gaucher community, commented Moshe Manor, Protalixs President and Chief Executive Officer. It is also an important element in our ongoing advanced negotiations with the Brazilian Ministry of Health, as alfataliglicerase is now approved for the majority of Gaucher patients in Brazil. It is estimated that pediatric patients represent approximately 30% of the total Gaucher patient population in Brazil. Pursuant to the Companys amended and restated exclusive license and supply agreement with Pfizer Inc. of October 2015, the Company owns all rights to alfataliglicerase in Brazil. About Protalix BioTherapeutics, Inc. Protalix is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of recombinant therapeutic proteins expressed through its proprietary plant cell-based expression system, ProCellEx(R). Protalixs unique expression system presents a proprietary method for developing recombinant proteins in a cost-effective, industrial-scale manner. Protalixs first product manufactured by ProCellEx, taliglucerase alfa, was approved for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May 2012 and, subsequently, by the regulatory authorities of other countries. Protalix has licensed to Pfizer Inc. the worldwide development and commercialization rights for taliglucerase alfa, excluding Brazil, where Protalix retains full rights. Protalixs development pipeline includes the following product candidates: PRX-102, a modified version of the recombinant human alpha-GAL-A protein for the treatment of Fabry disease; OPRX-106, an orally-delivered anti-inflammatory treatment; PRX-110 for the treatment of Cystic Fibrosis; and others. Forward-Looking Statements To the extent that statements in this press release are not strictly historical, all such statements are forward-looking, and are made pursuant to the safe-harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The terms anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, plan and intend and other words or phrases of similar import are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual future experience and results to differ materially from the statements made. These statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations as to such future outcomes. Drug discovery and development involve a high degree of risk. Factors that might cause material differences include, among others: failure or delay in the commencement or completion of our preclinical and clinical trials which may be caused by several factors, including: slower than expected rates of patient recruitment; unforeseen safety issues; determination of dosing issues; lack of effectiveness during clinical trials; inability to monitor patients adequately during or after treatment; inability or unwillingness of medical investigators and institutional review boards to follow our clinical protocols; and lack of sufficient funding to finance clinical trials; the risk that the results of the clinical trials of our product candidates will not support our claims of safety or efficacy, that our product candidates will not have the desired effects or will be associated with undesirable side effects or other unexpected characteristics; risks related to the amount and sufficiency of our cash and cash equivalents; risks related to the successful conclusion of our negotiations with the Brazilian Ministry of Health regarding the purchase of alfataliglicerase, and our commercialization efforts for alfataliglicerase in Brazil generally; risks relating to our ability to make scheduled payments of the principal of, to pay interest on or to refinance our 2018 convertible notes or any other indebtedness; risks relating to the compliance by Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz with its purchase obligations and related milestones under our supply and technology transfer agreement; our dependence on performance by third party providers of services and supplies, including without limitation, clinical trial services; delays in our preparation and filing of applications for regulatory approval; delays in the approval or potential rejection of any applications we file with the FDA or other health regulatory authorities, and other risks relating to the review process; the inherent risks and uncertainties in developing drug platforms and products of the type we are developing; the impact of development of competing therapies and/or technologies by other companies and institutions; potential product liability risks, and risks of securing adequate levels of product liability and other necessary insurance coverage; and other factors described in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The statements in this release are valid only as of the date hereof and we disclaim any obligation to update this information. NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AUSTRALIA, HONG KONG OR JAPAN, OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH THE RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION WOULD BE UNLAWFUL OR WOULD REQUIRE REGISTRATION OR OTHER MEASURES. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER OF ANY OF THE SECURITIES DESCRIBED HEREIN. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For additional information, please contact: Bard Stenberg VP IR & Corporate Communications +47 67 51 43 16 Petroleum Geo-Services ASA Announces Offer to Exchange ANY AND ALL OF its 7.375% Senior Notes due 2018 FOR A COMBINATION OF NeW 7.375% Senior Notes due 2020 AND CASH Oslo, Norway, November 22, 2016 - Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (Oslo Stock Exchange: PGS) ("PGS" or the "Company") today announced that it has commenced an offer to exchange (the "Exchange Offer") any and all of its outstanding 7.375% Senior Notes due 2018 (the "Old Notes") for total exchange consideration per $1,000 principal amount of Old Notes comprising (i) $500 aggregate principal amount of new 7.375% Senior Notes due 2020 to be issued by the Company (the "New Notes") plus (ii) $475 in cash, as set forth in the table below. Old Notes to be Exchanged Outstanding Principal Amount CUSIP Numbers and ISINs Exchange Consideration(1) Consent Payment(1) Total Exchange Consideration(1)(2) 7.375% Senior Notes due 2018 $450,000,000 144A : 716599AC9 / US716599AC95 Reg S : R69628AA4 / USR69628AA46 $500 principal amount of New Notes and $445 in cash $30 in cash $500 principal amount of New Notes and $475 in cash ____________________ (1) For each $1,000 principal amount of Old Notes. (2) Includes the Consent Payment payable to eligible holders whose Old Notes are validly tendered and not validly withdrawn and as to which Consents to the Proposed Amendments are delivered on or prior to the Early Tender Date (as each such term is defined below). The Exchange Offer is being made pursuant to the Exchange Offer and Consent Solicitation Memorandum dated November 22, 2016 (the "Exchange Offer Memorandum"). The Exchange Offer is scheduled to expire at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on December 20, 2016, unless extended by the Company (such time and date, as the same may be extended, the "Expiration Date"). Eligible holders (as defined in the Exchange Offer Memorandum) who validly tender and do not validly withdraw their Old Notes by 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on December 6, 2016, unless extended by the Company (such date and time, as the same may be extended, the "Early Tender Date"), will be eligible to receive the total exchange consideration set forth in the table above. Eligible holders who validly tender and do not validly withdraw their Old Notes after the Early Tender Date but on or prior to the Expiration Date will be eligible to receive the Exchange Consideration set forth in the table above. Eligible holders may only withdraw their tendered Old Notes prior to 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on December 6, 2016, unless extended or earlier terminated (the "Withdrawal Deadline"). Eligible holders whose Old Notes are accepted for exchange in the Exchange Offer will also receive accrued and unpaid interest in cash in respect of such exchanged Old Notes from the last interest payment date to, but not including, the date of settlement pursuant to the terms described in the Exchange Offer Memorandum. Concurrently with the Exchange Offer, the Company is soliciting consents (the "Consents") to certain proposed amendments (the "Proposed Amendments") to the indenture governing the Old Notes (the "Old Notes Indenture") on the terms and conditions set forth in the Exchange Offer Memorandum (the "Consent Solicitation"). The Proposed Amendments will eliminate substantially all of the restrictive covenants, all of the reporting covenants and certain of the events of default in the Old Notes Indenture, if adopted. In order to effect the Proposed Amendments, Consents must be received from holders representing not less than a majority in aggregate principal amount of the outstanding Old Notes (as determined in accordance with the Old Notes Indenture). Eligible holders who validly tender their Old Notes will be deemed to have consented to the Proposed Amendments. Eligible holders may not tender their Old Notes in the Exchange Offer without delivering Consents to the Proposed Amendments and may not deliver Consents to the Proposed Amendments without tendering their Old Notes in the Exchange Offer. The consummation of the Exchange Offer is subject to satisfaction or waiver of certain conditions, including, among others, (a) the closing of the concurrent private placement of new shares on terms and conditions satisfactory to the Company in its sole discretion, (b) the effectiveness of certain proposed amendments to the Company's existing revolving credit facility as described in the Exchange Offer Memorandum and (c) the receipt of valid tenders of Old Notes, not withdrawn, and Consents, not revoked, of not less than 90% of the aggregate principal amount of outstanding Old Notes in the Exchange Offer. The private placement of new shares is subject to customary conditions, including approval thereof by an extraordinary general meeting of the Company, which is currently expected to be held in approximately three weeks and the receipt of valid tender of Old Notes of not less than 90% of the aggregate principal amount of outstanding Old Notes in the Exchange Offer. Prior to launching the Exchange Offer, the Company received commitments from eligible holders representing $251,660,000, or approximately 55.9%, of the aggregate principal amount of outstanding Old Notes to tender their Old Notes in the Exchange Offer. The Company reserves the right, subject to applicable law and the terms set forth in the Exchange Offer Memorandum, to (i) extend the Early Tender Date, the Expiration Date or the Withdrawal Deadline, (ii) modify, extend or terminate the Exchange Offer and/or the Consent Solicitation or (iii) otherwise amend the Exchange Offer and/or the Consent Solicitation in any respect. In addition, the Company may, in its sole discretion, waive certain conditions to the Exchange Offer. Background and Rationale To maintain a robust financial position through the ongoing uncertainty, PGS has established a financial plan which seeks to strengthen its liquidity position even further by proactively addressing the December 2018 maturity of the Old Notes, de-leveraging the balance sheet and reducing interest costs. In November 2016, PGS successfully completed the first step of its financial plan through the extension of maturity of the existing revolving credit facility to September 18, 2020 and reduced the commitments thereunder to $400 million upon the effectiveness of the RCF Amendments and to $350 million from September 18, 2018 through the execution of an amendment agreement and extension request, each to be entered into in connection with the Exchange Offer. As a second step, PGS is seeking to address the 2018 maturity of the Old Notes through the Exchange Offer, the cash consideration for which will be financed from a portion of the proceeds raised in the concurrent private placement of new shares in the Company. The Exchange Offer is conditional upon the closing of the private placement. Indicative Timetable Date Calendar Date Commencement Date November 22, 2016 Early Tender Date 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on December 6, 2016, unless extended. Withdrawal Deadline 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on December 6, 2016, unless extended or earlier terminated. Expiration Date 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on December 20, 2016, unless extended. Settlement Date Three business days after the Expiration Date, unless extended, assuming all conditions to the Exchange Offer have been satisfied or waived, currently expected to be December 23, 2016. The complete terms and conditions of the Exchange Offer and the Consent Solicitation are described in the Exchange Offer Memorandum, copies of which may be obtained by eligible holders by contacting Lucid Issuer Services Limited, the information agent for the Exchange Offer, at Tankerton Works, 12 Argyle Walk, London WC1H 8HA, United Kingdom or +44 (0)20 7704 0880 or pgs@lucid-is.com. The Company has retained Arctic Securities AS, Barclays Bank PLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC as Lead Dealer Managers and ABN AMRO Securities (USA) LLC, DNB Markets, a part of DNB Bank ASA, Nordea Bank Danmark A/S and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc as Co-Managers for the Exchange Offer. Any questions concerning the terms and conditions of the Exchange Offer should be directed to the Lead Dealer Managers: Arctic Securities AS (Europe: +47 21 01 31 00; US: +1 (212) 597 5555; arctic.credit.sales@arctic.com), Barclays Bank PLC (Europe: +44 (0) 20 3134 8515; US: +1 (212) 528-7581; US Toll Free: +1 (800) 438-3242; liability.management@barclays.com) and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (Europe: +44 (0) 20 7134 2468; US Toll Free: + 1 (866) 834-4666; emea_lm@jpmorgan.com). The New Notes have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or the securities laws of any other jurisdiction and may not be offered or sold, directly or indirectly, in the United States, absent registration under or an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of, the U.S. Securities Act. No public offering of the New Notes is being made in the United States or in any other jurisdiction. Accordingly, the Exchange Offer is only being made to, and Consents are only being solicited from, registered holders of Old Notes who are (i) "qualified institutional buyers" within the meaning of Rule 144A under the U.S. Securities Act and (ii) persons other than "U.S. persons" who are located outside the United States, as those terms are defined in Rule 902 of Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act, and, if such holders are located in the European Economic Area, Qualified Investors (as such term is defined under Directive 2003/71/EC (as amended)) (collectively, the "eligible holders"). Only eligible holders of Old Notes who certify to the foregoing will be authorized to receive and review the Exchange Offer Memorandum and to participate in the Exchange Offer and the Consent Solicitation. Arctic Securities AS, Barclays Bank PLC, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, ABN AMRO Securities (USA) LLC, DNB Markets, a part of DNB Bank ASA, Nordea Bank Danmark A/S and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (together, the "Dealer Managers") are each acting exclusively for the Company and for no-one else in connection with any transaction mentioned in this announcement and will not regard any other person (whether or not a recipient of this announcement) as a client in relation to any such transaction and will not be responsible to any other person for providing the protections afforded to their respective clients, or for advising any such person on the contents of this announcement or in connection with any transaction referred to in this announcement. The contents of this announcement have not been verified by the Dealer Managers. This announcement is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the New Notes nor an offer to purchase Old Notes or a solicitation of Consents in the United States or any jurisdiction. The Exchange Offer is being made solely by, and pursuant to, the terms set forth in the Exchange Offer Memorandum. The Exchange Offer is not being made to persons in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities, blue sky or other laws of such jurisdiction. Forward-Looking Statements This release contains certain forward-looking statements regarding the future events or the future financial performance of PGS. These statements reflect management's current views with respect to future events or financial performance, and are based on management's current assumptions and information currently available and are not guarantees of the Company's future performance. The timing of certain events and actual results could differ materially from those projected or contemplated by the forward-looking statements due to a number of factors including, but not limited to those inherent to operating in a highly regulated industry, strong competition, commercial and financial execution, economic conditions, among others. About PGS PGS is a leading marine seismic survey and data processing company operating in all of the major oil and natural gas offshore basins worldwide. PGS' ordinary shares trade on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the symbol 'PGS'. By Siraj Qureshi: The Agra-Lucknow Expressway may have been inaugurated by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, but those eager to take a ride on this newest and longest expressway of the country will have to wait till December as there are several stretches of the expressway that still need to be finished before it could be certified as completed. The six-lane, 302 km expressway has been designed in such a way that it could be extended to eight-lanes in the future and is designed to allow travel between Agra and Lucknow in just 210 minutes. advertisement However, at present, most of the expressway is not really safe for commuters as was seen in a recent incident, when UP Tourism principal secretary Navneet Sehgal's car was rammed by another car near Unnao, while he was returning to Lucknow on the expressway. Sehgal is still admitted in a private hospital in Gurgaon, in critical condition. NEARLY 3,500 HECTARES OF LAND USED The expressway's construction resulted in 232 villages losing nearly 3,500 hectares of land, although the villagers are not too displeased as they got adequate compensation for their land at above market prices and their remaining land has become very valuable after the construction of this speedway. Also read: India's longest Agra-Lucknow Expressway opens with landing of IAF jets Although the expressway has now been inaugurated, the Agra-Lucknow stretch is far from complete. The interchange linking Yamuna Expressway to the Agra-Lucknow expressway has been completed on one side, but the side returning from Lucknow is yet to be completed. The road is complete between Agra and Firozabad, but the roadsides have not been paved yet. On the Agra section, four lanes out of the eight lanes of the bridge over Yamuna are yet to be constructed, creating a bottleneck which will have to be removed before the expressway is declared operational. AGRA SECTION TO BE COMPLETED BY DECEMBER UPEDA senior officer K C Jain told India Today that the Agra section will be fully completed by December and traffic will be allowed on it. Social activist Vijay Upadhyay said that the Agra-Lucknow Expressway passes through some of the most crime-prone regions of UP and there is an urgent need for ensuring the security of commuters on this road. He said that there should be a way to prevent stray animals from entering the expressway as it could cause major accidents at the speed the vehicles will be moving at. Citing an example, he said that a dog caused an aborted landing of Mirage-2000 plane on the runway during the inauguration event of the expressway. When the road is opened for public, these stray animals, including herds of blue bulls could become a serious menace for commuters, especially at night. Upadhyay said that lighting, barriers and proper marking of the road needs to be done before the road could be declared operational and till these deterring factors are cleared, the road should not be opened for public as it could cause serious loss of life, taking into account the fact that December and January are the foggiest months of the year and Yamuna expressway already sees dozens of pileups every year due to fog. advertisement EASY ACCESS FOR TOURISTS Praising the initiative taken by the UP government to link Delhi to Lucknow through Agra, Agra Tourist Welfare Chamber Secretary Vishal Sharma said that the Yamuna Expressway already brings thousands of tourists to Agra daily and now tourists from eastern UP also had an easy and quick access to the city of Taj through the new expressway, placing Agra within a few hours of travel from Lucknow. Also read: Akhilesh Yadav hits Agra-Lucknow expressway to check quality; video goes viral He said that the Inner Ring Road connecting both these expressways to the tourist-centric zone of Agra on Fatehabad road was almost complete and is awaiting its inauguration by UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on November 27. This inner ring road will take away all the traffic woes of the tourists who will have a direct access to the Taj Mahal instead of having to travel through the sometimes hopelessly jammed city roads. He said that the road is already completed and linked to the interchange, and merely the toll plaza remains to be constructed. --- ENDS --- advertisement 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 According to sources, both Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar will get top-billing in all promotional material of Shankar's multilingual film 2.0. By India Today Web Desk: The first look of director Shankar's multilingual science fiction film 2.0 has created massive anticipation and interest among fans. On one side, there is India's biggest star at the moment, Rajinikanth, reprising his 2011 Enthiran roles Chitti and Dr Vaseegaran. On the other side, is the evil ornithologist Dr Richard played by Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar who has an exceptionally interesting slate of films lined up in 2017. Starting from Jolly LLB 2 to Toilet: Ek Prem Katha to Crack to Baby's prequel Naam Shabana, Kumar is starring in a variety of films. The major negative role in 2.0 will only add an unique edge to his film career so far. advertisement ALSO READ: From being Khiladi to playing Rajini's 2.0 villain, how Akshay Kumar revamped his career SEE PICS: Salman 'Sultan' Khan meets Thalaivar 'Kabali' Rajinikanth at first look launch of 2.0 SEE PICS: Akshay, Rajini, Salman, Rahman, Karan Johar come together for 2.0 first look launch Well now, according to sources, for the first time ever in a Rajinikanth film, another star i.e Akshay Kumar in this case will get top billing alongside Thalaivar. Kumar's name will feature alongside Rajini's name all over India in the film's teasers, posters, trailers and other promotional material. Now, this is unusual for a Rajinikanth film where only Rajini gets top billing. Speaking to DNA, a source said, "The thing is, the producers of 2.0 hope to sell the film to the Hindi belt on the basis of AK's presence there. For all his iconic status, Rajini's films don't work in North India. With Akshay Kumar playing the villain against Rajnikanth, the makers of 2.0 hope to make a killing in both the Hindi and non-Hindi markets. Hence the film will be marketed as a two-hero film all across the country." 2.0 budgeted at Rs 350 crore is the most expensive Asian film till date. Composer AR Rahman has scored 2.0's music. 2.0 is the 11 collaboration between the director-composer duo of Shankar and AR Rahman. --- ENDS --- Incensed by Akshay Kumar's Toilet - Ek Prem Katha's content, Mathura saints held a meeting on Monday where they expressed their anger for the film and its makers. By India Today Web Desk: Alright, Akshay Kumar's Toilet - Ek Prem Katha has already begun brewing trouble. A religious leader, reportedly offended by the storyline of the Akshay Kumar film which is presently under-production, has declared a reward worth Rs 1 crore for anyone who can bring to him the tongue of the film's director! Akshay Kumar's Toilet - Ek Prem Katha allegedly violates the age-old tradition of two villages, Nandgaon and Barsana. According to a report in Hindustan Times, a saint Phooldol Behari Dass Maharaj addressed a presidential meeting at a mahapanchayat of Hindu saints held at Mathura's Barsana village on Monday. During the meeting, Behari Dass Maharaj asked Toilet - Ek Prem Katha's producer to change the film's title or else further shooting would be stalled in the Braj region. Many saints from Vrindavan came to Barsana village to attend the mahapanchayat. advertisement ALSO READ: With Akshay's Toilet - Ek Prem Katha, socially relevant films go a notch higher ALSO READ: Rajini and Akshay to get equal status in Robot/Enthiran sequel 2.0 SEE PIC: Akshay takes a chopper to reach the sets of Toilet - Ek Prem Katha The Akshay Kumar film is presently being shot in several rural areas of Mathura district. The film's title and storyline has angered the saints in the area. According to tradition, men and women of Nandgaon and Barsana villages do not marry each other out of respect to Lord Krishna and Radha. While, on the one hand, Lord Krishna hailed from the village of Nandgaon, Radha came from Barsana. Another saint, Mahamandleshwar Nawal Giri Maharaj suggested at the meeting that the film's title 'Toilet - Ek Prem Katha' should be changed to 'Toilet - A Swachhta Abhiyan' so as to send a message to the society. Yet another religious leader Mahant Haribol Maharaj criticised the film's makers for using the land where Radha and Lord Krishna dwelt for a movie having such a title. "We would not allow shooting if the title is not changed," the mahant warned. "Even the Muslim community cooperates with Hindus in safeguarding the custom and tradition of Braj," a mahant Swami Adityanath Maharaj said. Later in the day, Toilet - Ek Prem Katha's director Shree Narayan Singh addressed the press and rubbished allegations that his film would hurt religious feelings. "We are shooting scenes in Nandgaon and Barsana but every doubt would be cleared with release of movie as nowhere the name of Nandgaon has been used in it. The movie is on women's empowerment and 'Swachhta' and Barsana is chosen for communicating this message through 'lath-maar' Holi since Mughal period," Singh was quoted as saying. On that note, last week, a lawyer named Goklesh Katara threatened that he would serve a legal notice to Shree Narayan Singh if the film's storyline went against the age-old tradition of the Braj region, according to which Nandgaon's people do not marry those from Barsana. Toilet - Ek Prem Katha is a romantic satire based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet project 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan'. Besides Akshay Kumar, the film also stars Dum Laga Ke Haisha actor Bhumi Pednekar. advertisement WATCH: TWINKLE'S CANDID CONFESSIONS ABOUT AKSHAY ON KOFFEE WITH KARAN SIMPLY CANNOT BE MISSED --- ENDS --- Allu Arjun and his wife Sneha Reddy have been blessed with a baby girl. By India Today Web Desk: Allu Arjun and Sneha Reddy have become parents for the second time. The Telugu actor and his wife have been blessed with a baby girl. The 33-year-old actor, who had informed about a few months ago about the couple expecting their second child, took to Twitter to share the news. ALSO READ: Allu Arjun's wife Sneha pregnant, couple expecting second child advertisement ALSO READ: Allu Arjun's Sarrainodu has made Allu Aravind a proud dad He wrote, "Blessed with a Baby Girl ! Soooo Happppyyyyyy right now ! One boy and one girl. Couldn't ask for more. Thank you for all the wishes. Lucky me." Blessed with a Baby Girl ! Soooo Happppyyyyyy right now ! One boy & one girl. Could'nt ask for more. Thank you for all the wishes. Lucky me Allu Arjun (@alluarjun) November 21, 2016 As soon as the actor broke the news on Twitter, many friends from the industry congratulated him on the social-blogging site. @alluarjun congratulations on the cute little bundle of joy!!! Lots of love to the baby and Sneha ????can't wait to see the little princess?? Kajal Aggarwal (@MsKajalAggarwal) November 22, 2016 @alluarjun congrats !! So happy for you .. Can't wait to see the lil one Huma Qureshi (@humasqureshi) November 21, 2016 The couple, who tied the knot in 2011, already has a two-year-old son, Allu Ayaan. --- ENDS --- AAP workers stormed the venue where Kejriwal was to address a rally, and protested against the party's decision to allot a ticket to an outsider. By Manjeet Sehgal: Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party's National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal today faced opposition from his own party workers who protested against the party's decision to allot ticket to an outsider. The disgruntled party workers from Bagha Purana Assembly constituency chose Kejriwal's rally venue in Nihal Singhwala to stage the protest. Keeping in view the protest threat, Kejriwal delayed his address by nearly two hours. But in vain. The protesters continues at the venue and started protesting when Kejriwal reached the venue. advertisement Holding banners containing photos of HS Phoolka and party nominee Gurvinder Singh Kang, the party workers created a ruckus and demanded the cancellation of ticket. ALSO READ | Kejriwal calls demonetisation biggest scam ever, alleges government conspired with industrialists KEJRIWAL ASKED PARTY NOMINEE TO LEAVE THE STAGE When the protesters did not stop, Kejriwal asked the party nominee to leave the stage. Interestingly, a faction of the party has opposed Punjab election tickets of about two dozen nominees who were either dogged by controversies or were outsiders. The party has been accused of ignoring grass-root workers and selling tickets to those who have money. Also Read: Blow to Arvind Kejriwal as Supreme Court refuses to stay trial in defamation case filed by Arun Jaitley --- ENDS --- By Maneesh Pandey: Was terrorism a "farce and over-rated issue" all these years for Assam? At least, yes, for the fivemonth-old Sarbananda Sonowal-led BJP government in the state. "Both trans-border and internal terrorism are big challenges, but not something which could not have been tackled all these years by the previous Congress government," Sonowal told Mail Today in an exclusive interview in Guwahati. advertisement ANTI-TERROR OPERATION "We too took up the challenge in the last five months and busted nearly 25 terror modules operating within and on the borders of Assam. We arrested 50 or more extremists and killed many. The Centre's support in form of constant input by the Intelligence Bureau is coming handy," the Assam CM added. Sonowal linked his "assertive stand" to the recent Independence Day celebrations in Assam. "In nearly 15 years, this was the first time I saw such a crowd of youth and old on the streets. Earlier, we used to hear a terror attack news the previous night to keep us inside our homes," he said. "August 15 was a ceremonial affair for government offices and not local citizens. But this year, locals braved terror threats and were on the streets for three days? It was a different Assam. Such is the nationalist fervour that we are now planning big Republic Day celebrations in January," he added. Sonowal took a straight aim at his predecessor Tarun Gogoi. "The previous government used terrorism as a ploy to derail development. Any question against governance and state of development projects were covered under the threat of terrorism," he said. CORRUPTION A BIGGER WORRY "Today, I am facing terrorism as one of the challenges, and not the only challenge," he said, adding that "an even bigger challenge now is deep corruption in governance, which the previous government left behind". The usually smiling Sonowal's tone became stern when asked about the Assam Public Service Commission scam. He said: "There are many more involved in this scam, and many more officers and political leaders will soon be behind bars. We won't spare anybody as we believe in zero tolerance against corruption," he said. "Imagine you have been withdrawing money daily in the name of nine lakh ghost children," Sonowal said, pointing to the latest social welfare scam in the state. "There are many coming out of the closet," he said. Corruption over the years only left an additional financial liability, which is now to the tune of Rs 20,000 crores, he said. "The biggest challenge is paying salaries to government employees, which itself is about Rs 2,400 crore annually. Money has been constantly siphoned from revenue, transport and taxation departments of Assam," he added. But he is positive about investments pouring in and the Centre's assistance coming in from all ministries to the state. "Both Hindustan Lever and Baba Ramdev's Patanjali group are investing thousands of crores, promising jobs and economic opportunities," Sonowal said. "The food processing sector has a huge potential. The Centre under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not only making Northeast central to his government's policy and development agenda, but in a way, Assam, being the gateway to the region, is a mutual beneficiary. The Union road transport ministry and railways have come in full support to augment connectivity and Assam was sanctioned pending royalty worth `1,480 crore in only five months ," he said. advertisement ALSO READ: Assam minister Chandra Mohan Patowary hails PM Modi's commitment towards development of Northeast --- ENDS --- Baahubali 2 is in news again, with a war sequence from the film, possibly the climax, being leaked on the internet. By India Today Web Desk: Baahubali 2 is making news for all kinds of reasons these days, several months before the film hits the screens. The latest is that a six-minute-long war sequence from Baahubali 2 was leaked on the internet. After director SS Rajamouli filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Department of the Crime Control Centre, Hyderabad, a graphic designer was arrested in connection with 'stealing' footage from the in-process Baahubali 2. advertisement ALSO READ: Baahubali 2 first look out ALSO READ: Baahubali producers' house raided by Income Tax department Sources say Krishna Dyanand Chowdhary, who works as an assistant graphic designer at the Annapoorna Studio in Hyderabad, where the editing of Baahubali 2 is underway, stole the six-minute-long clip from the server and later shared it with his Vijayawada-based friends. The clip was uploaded on YouTube too. Raw footage from what is being thought of as the film's climax, the war sequence, has found its way to the internet. The film team sprung into action pretty quickly after the leak was discovered and did their best to report and remove the scenes from the internet, but the damage seems to have been done already. The graphic designer who is allegedly responsible for the leak was arrested by the Jubilee Hills police today. Speaking to India Today, ACP KCS Raghuveer (Cyber Crime Cell, Hyderabad Police), said "One of the producers approached us and filed a complaint regarding the leak. We have registered a case under Section 66 RW 43 of the IT Act and Section 63 of the Copyright Act and are investigating the case. The police have arrested Krishna Dyanand Chowdhary for his alleged role in the leak." Baahubali 2 has been falling prey to unauthorised leaks ever since SS Rajamouli green-flagged the shoot. From photos from the sets to the an entire war sequence now, the Baahubali 2 team has been fighting hard to keep these leaks in check. Rajamouli had banned mobile phones on the sets too, but wasn't able to prevent the damage. Baahubali 2, which is called The Conclusion, is a sequel to 2015's Baahubali The Beginning, is among the most anticipated films of 2017. The Conclusion is set to hit the screens on April 28, 2017. The film, which stars Prabhas as the eponymous character, will see Baahubali fans getting the answer to the most-asked question of 2015: Why did Katappa kill Baahubali? That was where Baahubali The Beginning had ended, leaving people waiting with bated breath for the sequel to arrive. advertisement Apart from Prabhas in the lead role, Baahubali 2 stars Tamannaah Bhatia, Anushka Shetty and Sathyaraj in pivotal roles. The story is based in the fictional, mythical kingdom of Mahishmathi and deals with the rule and murder of Baahubali, the king. A few days ago, the Income Tax department raided the office and residence of Baahubali producers Shobhu Yarlagadda and Prasad Devineni. ALSO WATCH: Baahubali 2 is here, even bigger and better. Are you ready? --- ENDS --- Om Swami will be the first housemate to hug and greet Sunny Leone. But later, he will be questioned by the housemates for the same. By India Today Web Desk: The presence of Sunny Leone in the Bigg Boss house will bring a fresh energy to the show. Sunny will be particularly excited about meeting Bigg Boss after a gap of five years. "It's our five year anniversary, Bigg Boss," she will say. Apart from her Sholay act, Sunny will enjoy watching all the viral videos created by the housemates, and also judging the nomination task of the week. advertisement Here's all that's going to happen in the Sunny Leone-special nomination episode. Also read: Bigg Boss 10: Bani Judge gets intimate with Gaurav Chopra; Lopa, Mona in bathtub with Om Swami Om Swami does it again, says he's the biggest tantric ever Lopa and Swami seem to be bonding again after the viral video task, where they were seen in the bathtub together. He will boast about his tantra vidya skills, saying he's the biggest tantric in the world. When Lopa will ask him if he has ever attracted a girl towards him using tantra vidya, He will reply saying, "bilkul", in his trademark style. Lopa makes fun of Bani Lopamudra will get an opportunity to mimic Bani, and she will make full use of it. From pulling her leg over eating eggs all the time for her protein intake to showing off her muscles, Lopa will surely entertain with her Bani act. Om Swami questioned over 'touching' Sunny Om Swami will be the first to hug and greet Sunny Leone. Housemates will later take his case and ask him why he touched Sunny when a handshake would have been enough. "Main kisi galat bhawna se to nahi choo raha tha," Swami will respond. Bani will say, "hum sab koi use nahi choo raha tha, aap kaise choo sakte ho. Also read: Bigg Boss 10: After Karan Mehra, Lokesh Kumari Sharma is the second elimination of the week! It's our five year anniversary, Bigg Boss: Sunny Leone will get emotional Bigg Boss will welcome Sunny Leone in the Bigg Boss house, saying "Bigg Boss aapka haardik swaagat karte hain." Sunny will respond saying, "Maine aapko bahot miss kiya, Bigg Boss. It's our five year anniversary, aur main bahot khush hoon." Sunny Leone plays Basanti; Om Swami is the Gabbar A scene from Sholay will be recreated inside the Bigg Boss house; and guess what? Sunny Leone will also be part of the act. In fact, she will play the main leading lady--Basanti. Manu will play Veeru, while Swami Omji baba will portray Gabbar. Don't miss Manu asking Sunny not to dance in front of a "particular kutta". --- ENDS --- advertisement Charges have been framed against Rocky Yadav, who had shot 16-year-old Aditya whose car had allegedly overtaken Yadav's SUV. By India Today Web Desk: Charges have been framed against Rocky Yadav, accused of murdering Gaya school student Aditya Sachdev in a case of road rage. The hearing is on November 30. Rocky, the son of suspended JDU MLC Manorama Devi and dreaded gangster Bindi Yadav, had shot 16-year-old Aditya whose car had allegedly overtaken Rocky's SUV. Aditya was coming back home from a birthday party in Bodh Gaya. advertisement When Aditya and his friends had overtaken Rocky's SUV, angry Rocky chased them and then gunned down Aditya, a student of Class 12. After the incident, Rocky had fled. The police arrested his father Bindi and his mother's body guard who was accompanying him when the incident had taken place. Few days after the gruesome killing, Rocky was arrested by the Gaya police from a factory owned by Bindi. Manorama Devi was also arrested for storing liquor bottles in her house. However, she was released later and so was Bindi. Last month, the Patna High Court granted bail to Rocky. However, on the Bihar government's appeal, the Supreme Court stayed his bail and sent him back to jail. Also Read: Bihar road rage: Rocky Yadav surrenders in court NDA releases report card ahead of Nitish Kumar's one year in office, calls it a failure --- ENDS --- On hiring freeze: No one has mentioned RIFs, which are not common in the federal government. More likely is attrition. And I think the hiring freeze/attrition strategy would be selective, depending on the agency. Trump said that in his first 100 days he would freeze hiring across govt , exempting the military, public health and safety. But he also wants more spending in some areas. Interesting on the Merit Systems Protection Board, which is sort of the last court of appeal for feds. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), head of the House Oversight Committee, said in an interview last week that Congress may seek to change the MSPB's power. We'll see. Hope to write about this. Morocco and Madagascar signed twenty-two cooperation agreements, marking a milestone in their bilateral relations and translating into concrete action their south-south cooperation endeavor. The signing ceremony was chaired by King Mohammed VI and Malagasy President Hery Rajaonarimampianina in Antananarivo, the second leg of a second phase of an African tour that previously took the King to Ethiopia. The agreements aim at strengthening the legislative framework governing bilateral cooperation in terms of river preservation, agriculture, finance, culture, employment, renewable energies and vocational training. In this respect, the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding aiming at the environmental preservation of the Canal des Pangalanes, which consists in a series of natural rivers, waterways and man-made lakes that extend for about 700 kilometres. Under this MoU, Moroccos Marchica agency will develop projects aiming at safeguarding Canal des Pangalanes biodiversity and developing integrated projects in the sectors of agriculture, industry, mines, ports, urban planning and tourism. This project involves technical and operational support from a grouping of Moroccan-Ivorian enterprises as part of a public private partnership. Funding for the Canal des Pangalanes upgrading project was made possible thanks to the role played by King Mohammed VI and the Ivorian government to convince Arab funds to bring financial assistance which was channeled through Moroccos bank, Attijariwafa Bank. Earlier in the day, the Moroccan and Malagasy Heads of State held tete-a-tete talks and exchanged the highest distinctions of their respective countries. The Moroccan Sovereign arrived on Saturday in Antananarivo for an official visit to Madagascar, 2nd leg of a new African tour that led the Sovereign to Ethiopia and will take him to other African countries. Madagascars Foreign minister Attalah Beatrice said the Malagasy people are honored by the royal visit, recalling the special historic ties existing between Morocco and Madagascar which welcomed late King Mohammed V during his forced exile by the French colonizer in 1954. During his stay in Madagascar, King Mohammed VI will visit the city of Antsirabe where his late grandfather and the Royal family settled after their forced exile. The Moroccan Sovereign will also lay the foundations of a hospital as well as a vocational training centre that can accommodate a thousand beneficiaries, the Malagasy presidency said in a statement. The King will attend the 16th summit of the Francophonie due Nov. 22-27 in Antananarivo. Over 34 Heads of state are expected at the summit. Poland to build wall on border with Kaliningrad Garo Paylan proposes opening Armenian-Turkish border IRNA: Azerbaijani State Security Service reacted nervously to Pashinyan's visit to Tehran FLYONE ARMENIA to start operating flights on the route Yerevan - Beirut Yerevan Moscow to host meeting of Secretaries of CIS Security Councils Armenian MFA considers it inappropriate to comment on Lukashenko's rambling statements Dollar rises, euro falls in Armenia Biden's threat to impose profit tax on oil companies is more of boast than threat Russia analyst describes Karabakh Armenians fate if Western version of peace treaty is signed Armenia MFA: Lukashenko statement is disconnected from reality Russia MFA spox comments on Zangezur corridor prospects Voytolovsky: Both sides will have weighty reasons to extend Russia peacekeepers mission in Karabakh Armenia finance minister: Expenditure for PM's office will be reduced next year Finance minister: Expenses for needs of parliament staff, Armenia President will increase considerably in 2023 Zakharova on meeting of Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs in Sochi Armenian President congratulates Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Azerbaijani special forces conduct exercises on border with Iran Armenia defense minister meets with head of EU monitoring mission Nikol Pashinyan: It is necessary to continue the work to reduce cash turnover Russia resumes its participation in grain deal UK shortage of F-35 fighter pilots Premier: Ministry of Internal Affairs, Foreign Intelligence Service will be established in Armenia in 2023 Shoigu: The NATO grouping near Russia's borders has grown 2.5 times since February New Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad hopes to continue talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran Security Council chief receives head of EU monitoring capacity mission to Armenia Pashinyan: Armenia-Azerbaijan borders existence was recorded both in Sochi and Prague Second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan to take part in rally on November 5 Canada to welcome 500,000 immigrants a year by 2025 Armenia PM: Communication difficulties, challenges in relations with Turkey have been overcome Pashinyan: Armenian side suggests extending mandate of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh MFA: Armenia has no misunderstandings with Iran Russia position on Karabakh status corresponds to Armenia government approach, PM says Pashinyan: Armenia attaches great importance to further development, deepening of relations with Brazil Premier: Armenia defense spending will increase by 113% in 2023 compared to 2018 Deputy PM Grigoryan to attend Armenia-Azerbaijan border delimitation, security commissions 3rd meeting Pashinyan: Armenia has set new record for registered jobs Israir Airlines launches flights between Tel Aviv, Yerevan Armenia envoy briefs UK House of Commons defense committee chair on impact of recent Azerbaijan attack PM: Armenia's economy is booming today Seoul, Pyongyang launch missiles Newspaper: Armenia ruling political team is in favor of western version of peace treaty with Azerbaijan State Department: US will contribute to Armenia-Azerbaijan talks Turkey parliament approves extending mandate of countrys military in occupied Aghdam of Karabakh 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 Counter the "misinformation" being spread by the Opposition parties on demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, Modi asks party MPs. By Praveen Shekhar: In an emotional speech before BJP MPs in New Delhi, PM Modi on Tuesday strongly defended government's demonetisation decision, saying it was done for the benefit of the people. Addressing the BJP Parliamentary Party, Modi urged party MPs to counter what he called was "misinformation" being spread by the Opposition parties on demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. advertisement Also read | If bypolls were a referendum on demonetisation, has PM Modi won it? "We came to power for the poor, not for our own sake," Modi is reported to have told his MPs. CORRUPTION RAMPANT FOR 70 YEARS "The poor, the lower middle-class and the middle class have been suffering for the last 70 years due to corruption and black money. "This decision is in the favour of people and against black money, corruption and counterfeit currency. Our target is to fight a long battle against all these," he said. Modi's emotional pitch on demonetisation before BJP MPs comes only nine days after his combative and equally emotional speech in Goa, where he broke down at one point, while defending the move. Also read | Demonetisation: 10 questions PM Modi is asking through his app The following is a list of occasions when PM Modi has broken down on various issues: PM MODI'S EMOTIONAL SPEECHES ON VARIOUS ISSUES ON DEMONETISATION New Delhi (November 22, 2016): "We came to power for the poor, not for our own sake." "The poor, the lower middle-class and the middle-class have been suffering for the last 70 years due to corruption and black money. "This decision is in favour of the people and against black money, corruption and counterfeit currency. Our target is to fight a long battle against all these ills." "I've left my home and family to serve this country" "I was not born to sit on a chair of high office. Whatever I had, my family and my home, I left for the nation." (Desh ke liye ghar parivar chhoda hai, sab kuch desh ke naam kara hai) "I am doing this for the poor, for the toiling and honest people who are working hard to survive so that they can get their own home, their children get good education and their parents get care." "Co-operate with me on this for 50 days. If I commit any mistake, I am ready to face any punishment the country will give me. But I promise to deliver a corruption-free India." "I know some forces are up against me, they may not let me live. They may ruin me because their loot of 70 years is in trouble, but I am prepared for that." advertisement ON ROHITH VEMULA'S SUICIDE Lucknow (January 22, 2016): "A young son of my country, Rohith, was compelled to commit suicide. What his family must have gone through, I can feel that pain." "A mother has lost his son, there cannot be a bigger grief." "Reasons (behind the suicide) and politics (on the issue) may have their own place, but the fact remains that a mother has lost her son" "It is sad when there is news that a young son of my country, Rohith, was compelled to commit suicide" ON ATTACKS ON DALITS Hyderabad (August 7, 2016): "I would like to tell these people that if you have any problem, if you have to attack, attack me. Stop attacking my dalit brethren. If you have to shoot, shoot me, but not my dalit brothers. This game should stop." "Country's unity is the main source of country's development." "I know this problem is social. It is a result of sins which have crept into the society. But we need to take extra care and save society from such danger (of social strife)" "Those who want to solve this social problem must give up the politics that divides society. Divisive politics will not do any good to the country" advertisement ON COW VIGILANTES Gajwel, Telangana(August 7, 2016): "I want to tell everybody, beware of these fake cow protectors. These handful of vigilantes have nothing to do with cow protection, but want to create 'tanaav' (tension) and 'takrav' (conflict) in the society." "Fake (cow protectors) destroy society and country. We need to beware of these people. There is a need to punish them. Then alone can we take the nation to great heights," ON KASHMIR VIOLENCE Alirajpur, M.P (August 9, 2016): "Peeda hai ki jin baalakon kay haath mei laptop, kitaab, bat hona chahiye, mann mein sapne hone chahiye unke haath mei pathar hote hai" (It pains me to see youths who should be holding books, laptops and bats in hands, holding stones and indulging in violence." --- ENDS --- The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) published a report as a result the 4th periodic visit to Armenia. The visit provided an opportunity to assess the measures taken by the Armenian authorities in response to the recommendations made by the Committee after previous visits. In this connection, particular attention was paid to the safeguards against ill-treatment of persons in police custody and the material conditions, regime and health care service in prisons. The delegation also visited psychiatric establishments in order to examine the treatment and legal safeguards offered to patients hospitalised on an involuntary basis. The Committee called upon the Armenian authorities to significantly reinforce the Special Investigation Service (SIS) in terms of operational staff, thereby removing its need to rely on local police officers, and to ensure that all formal complaints about police ill-treatment as well as all cases in which other information indicative of ill-treatment by the police has emerged, are promptly forwarded to and processed by the SIS. The delegation visited for the first time Armavir and Vanadzor prisons and paid follow-up visits to Nubarashen Prison, Yerevan-Kentron Prison and the Central Prison Hospital. The report said there was no longer any overcrowding at the national level, but the fact remained that some establishments (especially Nubarashen Prison) were overcrowded. In this context, the CPT noted the various legislative and organisational measures (both already taken and planned) to combat prison overcrowding, and strongly encouraged the Armenian authorities to pursue them. It was also clear that corruption remained a problem in the Armenian prison system, and the Committee called upon the Armenian authorities to step up their efforts to combat this phenomenon. In a response to the report the Armenian government expressed its commitment and readiness for providing the fullest cooperation to the CPT both in terms of steps taken to facilitate the task of visiting delegation and of measures undertaken in response to the CPTs recommendations. The Armenian authorities said they value the constructive dialogue established with the committee and assure that particular attention is paid to all the recommendations and comments submitted. YEREVAN. Russia and Armenia are going to sign an agreement on Counteraction to Illicit Trafficking of Industrial Products. Minister of Industry and Trade of Russia, Denis Manturov, on Tuesday stated the aforesaid at the Fourth International Anticounterfeiting Forum 2016 being held in Armenias capital city of Yerevan. In his words, a single system needs to be created to counteract the chains of illegal trafficking of goods. The fight against illegal products will be more effective if its procedures are unified within the territory of the Eurasian Economic Union [(EAEU), which comprises Armenia Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan], noted the Russian official. The EAEU Customs Code, which envisions a single format for customs regulation, will contribute to this. The product labeling procedure is also introduced [to counteract the illicit trafficking of industrial products]. YEREVAN. Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) of Armenia, Arman Tatoyan, on Monday met with Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) Chief of Operations, Barbara Bernath, in Geneva, Switzerland. In particular, they discussed the main domains of cooperation in the fight against torture, Office of the Human Rights Defender informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. Tatoyan also met with Secretary General of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Gerald Staberock. The interlocutors focused especially on the practical implementation of joint projects and cooperation. In addition, the Armenian ombudsman drew the OMCT chiefs attention on Azerbaijans atrocities during the four-day war it had unleashed against Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), in early April. If they were a referendum on Modi government over the demonetisation initiative, the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre did win it. By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: Results for bye-elections to four Lok Sabha and eight Assembly constituencies in six states and one Union Territory were announced today. If they were a referendum on Narendra Modi government over the demonetisation initiative, the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre did win it. The bye-elections for the 12 seats were held on November 19 - 11 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation move at 8 pm on November 8. Since then, a few opposition leaders like Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, and Delhi and West Bengal Chief Ministers Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee respectively, are up in arms against PM Modi's decision. advertisement While Rahul twice visited ATMs and banks to get a pulse of the people standing in serpentine queues, Kejriwal and Mamata have been vehemently protesting the Narendra Modi government's demonetisation measure. The two chief ministers have gone to the extent of demanding its rollback. ALSO READ | Bypoll results: BJP wins Madhya Pradesh's Nepanagar, AIADMK sweeps 3 Tamil Nadu seats Kejriwal went to the extreme step of demanding "Change PM, not notes". The Delhi CM's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) even quipped that if those standing in queues were allowed to also exercise their franchise, they will vote against the BJP governments at the Centre and in the states. During a joint protest, held in a surcharged atmosphere in the national capital on November 17, both Kejriwal and Mamata had served an ultimatum to the Narendra Modi government to roll back the demonetisation initiative or face a revolt. The threat had come just two days before the bye-elections. It has been more than five days that the threat was issued. But there are no signs of any revolt from any part of the country. ALSO READ | PM Modi to BJP MPs: Don't call demonetisation surgical strike, only soldiers do that Besides, if Kejriwal, Mamata and Rahul Gandhi hoped to draw a political mileage out of their protests, the results of the bye-elections must have been disheartening for them. PM Narendra Modi's demonetisation drive would have been squarely blamed if BJP's performance would have worsened. However, the Narendra Modi government has reasons to cheer. The BJP has not only succeeded in retaining all its seats it held before the bye-elections but it has won by larger margins. Congress managed to win just one Assembly seat Nellithope, vacated for Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy. In BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, party leader Manju Dadu won Nepanagar Assembly seat by 40,600 votes. The party is leading by 10,800 votes on Shahdol Lok Sabha seat. In Assam, BJP is leading with 24,312 votes on Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat. In West Bengal, Mamata's Trinamool Congress (TMC) is leading by 34,842 votes on Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat. In Tamil Nadu, AIADMK is leading on Thiruparankundram and Aravakurichi Assembly seats. In Tripura, CPM has retained both Barjala and Khowai Assembly seats. --- ENDS --- A single trademark protection register will be created in the Eurasian Economic Union for all of its five member-states. Minister in charge of Economy and Financial Policy of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), Timur Suleimanov, told the aforementioned to journalists in the framework of the 4th international conference Anticounterfeit 2016held in Yerevan Tuesday. In his words, the current edition of the EAEU Customs Code has been supplemented with a point, according to which member-states must keep a single customs register of intellectual property objects. The member-states have already come to terms on this at an agreement level, which has been incorporated in the Customs Code. Accordingly, the national customs trademark registers will be combined. Then trademark holders of one country will get the protection of not only their own country, but also other EAEU states. No contentious goods will make its way to the EAEU without the agreement of the trademark holders, Suleimanov stressed. Former Maharashtra Minister Chhagan Bhujbal has been accused of misusing Article 226 of the Constitution for seeking ad-interim relief from Bombay High Court, says ED. By Vidya : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday told a trial court in Mumbai that the petition filed by former Maharashtra Home Minister Chhagan Bhujbal was not maintainable and further went on to say that Bhujbal was misusing Article 226 of the Constitution for seeking ad-interim relief from Bombay High Court. Bhujbal had filed a petition for being let out of jail as his medical condition was deteriorating. advertisement The eight-page affidavit filed by ED Assistant Director Umesh Kumar states, "The trial court is very much available and functioning to try and decide the issue of medical condition of the petitioner. The trial court, being a fact-finding court, is empowered to decide on the application of the petitioner for bail on many grounds, including medical bail. Adhering to the jurisdiction of this court under Article 226 of the Constitution, a similar application can be made to the learned trial court, which is clearly violating and asking this court to exercise its jurisdiction in excess." Also read | Chhagan Bhujbal seeks bail on medical grounds, moves Bombay High Court KUMAR REJECTS BHUJBAL'S CONTENTION Kumar has rejected Bhujbal's contention that the ED Assistant Director does not possess the necessary powers or authority to arrest him. Bhujbal's lawyer on Tuesday claimed before the court that his arrest by ED was illegal as procedures were not followed by the investigating agency. A Habeas Corpus petition filed through his lawyer by Bhujbal, who was arrested on March 14, pleaded that he was wrongly kept in custody and urged the high court to release him on bail. Habeas Corpus is a recourse in law whereby a person can report an unlawful detention or arrest. In its affidavit, the agency has, however, contended that the custody of Bhujbal was "duly authorised and granted by the competent court specifically established by the PMLA, 2002 for trying the offences punishable under the said Act." Also read | This is how Chhagan Bhujbal looks now, picture goes viral PROCEDURE UNDER CrPC NOT FOLLOWED Bhujbal had contended that the reason why the case against him should be set aside was that the procedure laid down under the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) was not followed. He had alleged illegal detention by the investigating agency. The law states that a First information report (FIR) has to be registered, which has to be presented before the magistrate within 24 hours, and after investigation a chargesheet needs to be filed. However, Kumar countered that "the headnote of this section of CrPC itself revealed that the said chapter was applicable to a police officer, who was in-charge of a police station." advertisement Also read | Maharashtra Sadan scam: Arrested NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal sent to two days ED custody ED officers are appointed only as authorities under Section 48 of the PMLA. "Nowhere in the body of the entire Act these authorities are termed or called police officers. Thus, if ED authorities are not police officers, then the question of applicability of Chapter XII does not arise at all," Kumar stated in his affidavit. --- ENDS --- Ramabhadran, a local Congress leader in Eroor was hacked to death in front of his wife and daughters in 2010. By Revathi Rajeevan: The CBI on Tuesday arrested three CPM members in connection with the murder of a local Congress leader in Kerala's Eroor in 2010. According to reports, one of the arrested is a staff member of Kerala Fisheries minister Mercykuttyamma. The minister's staff member Maxon, CPM Kollam district committee member Babu Panicker and another party worker Riyas were arrested late evening today after thorough questioning in Kottarakara of Kollam district. WHAT HAPPENED advertisement Ramabhadran, a local Congress leader in Eroor was hacked to death in front of his wife and daughters in 2010. The case which was investigated by the local police and then by the crime branch was transferred to the CBI in 2015 after a high court order. This was following the petition of Ramabhadran's wife Bindu requesting for the case to be transferred to the CBI. "We knew then who were behind the murder. We knew it was these leaders. That is why we fought continuously for justice, appealed repeatedly for a CBI enquiry. We are grateful that they have been arrested," said Bindu. The three have been brought to Thiruvananthapuram for further interrogation. --- ENDS --- To coincide with the launch of their new programme The Grand Tour, former Top Gear hosts are starting up an online platform called DriveTribe. Photographer Marcus Hoffmann has already been touring round Italy in a 718 Boxster S for the site. A digital home for all automotive enthusiasts this is how the founders of the new DriveTribe platform describe their new creation in their own words. The founders are: Jeremy Clarkson, James May, Richard Hammond, Andy Wilman and Ernesto Schmitt. Four of these five feature in The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime the unofficial successor to Top Gear. With drivetribe.com, the intention is to cover all conceivable aspects of automobiles under a wide range of topics, and in doing so, to provide information and a place for like-minded car enthusiasts to exchange information. No matter whether the topic is American muscle cars, technical details of the four-cylinder flat engine or even the link between cars and fashion there is a vast range of content. The topics are bundled into tribes. A message from Jeremy Clarkson: DRIVETRIBE German photographer Marcus Hoffmann will lead the fashion tribe. Just before the site went live, Hoffmann staged a fashion shoot at Lago d'Iseo in Italy. In addition to clothing and accessories from brands such as Escada, Michael Kors and Stella McCartney, he also included the new 718 Boxster S in the shoot. Both elements the fashion and the Porsche stand for perfection in their respective areas. This is the basis of the link between the two, explains Hoffmann. Combining these two elements with the Mediterranean surroundings of Lombardy creates an image with that is aesthetically pleasing on multiple levels. The beauty of fashion, the beauty of the car and also the beauty of travelling is reflected in the images. This encapsulates the vision that Marcus Hoffmann has for his fashion tribe. We want to appeal to fashionistas just as much as car enthusiasts. The websites content should excite both groups equally. The first photos, which Porsche Newsroom is showing as an exclusive preview, perfectly illustrate what this meeting of fashion and cars looks like. Soon they will then be available in full on drivetribe.com. The 718 Boxster S for DriveTribe in Italy / Yesterday, Congress and CPM cadres took out a procession in Kolkata slamming Trinamool Congress government for the Saradha chit fund scam instead of shouting slogans against PM Modi's demonetisation drive. By Romita Datta: Even though West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is trying to consolidate the strength of the Opposition against the demonetisation issue in the national capital, it's ekla cholo re (go alone) for her party Trinamool Congress, Congress and CPM back home in Kolkata. Yesterday, cadres of Congress and CPM took out a procession slamming the Trinamool Congress government for the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam instead of shouting slogans against PM Modi's demonetisation drive. advertisement MAMATA SHEDDING CROCODILE TEARS: CONGRESS Congress leader Abdul Mannan said that Mamata was shedding crocodile tears for the poor while her government had allowed fraudulent company Saradha to expand its business and deceive several lakhs of small depositors. Also read | Common man worst affected by demonetisation, says Mamata Banerjee West Bengal CPM leaders also criticised Mamata for her double standards in sympathising with sufferers of the demonetisation drive while keeping mum when chitfund companies were cheating people. According to CPM leader Sujan Chakraborty, Mamata had lost her credibility and no political party was willing to join hands with her. He was referring to the loss of face Mamata Banerjee faced when no political party, other than AAP and Omar Abdullah's National Conference, accompanied her to the Rashtrapti Bhawan in her protest against PM Modi's demonetisation decision. MAMATA TO TAKE OUT PROCESSION IN DELHI Mamata has flown to Delhi today to drum up support against the demonetisation drive. She will be taking out a procession in Delhi. Also read | Demonetisation: PM slams Mamata; says people's sacrifice won't go in vain However, this time around, she is join the group led by the Congress or any other party, instead of leading from the front herself. From Delhi, she will travel to Lucknow and Bihar. Back in Bengal, she has asked her party leaders to keep the issue alive by taking to the streets, and organising rallies and processions. --- ENDS --- The Belgian authorities have freed on bail a Frenchman suspected of helping in the May 2014 attack at the Brussels Jewish Museum, which left four people dead, prosecutors said on Tuesday. Nacer Bendrer was released against a 50,000-euro bond, ordered to stay at his home in France and make himself available to investigators, the Belga news agency reported. A spokesman for Belgian federal prosecutors declined to comment when contacted by AFP. Bendrer, arrested in December 2014 near the southern French city of Marseille, was sent to Belgium to face charges of "complicity in a terrorist attack". When he was detained, Bendrer was in possession of various weapons including an AK-47 style assault rifle similar to the one that Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche is suspected of using to carry out the attack. Bendrer denies any involvement. On May 24, 2014 a gunman opened fire in the entrance hall of the museum in the centre of the Belgian capital, killing two Israeli tourists, a French volunteer and a Belgian museum receptionist. Nemmouche, 31, had returned from Syria where he had been fighting with Islamist extremists, and now faces trial some time next year over the Jewish museum attack. In September 2015 France extradited another suspect in the Jewish Museum attack -- Mounir Atallah -- to Belgium. For a while, I was wondering why so many Singaporeans on my Facebook feed were heading on holiday to Croatia. It was a surprising choice, considering there arent any direct flights from Singapore. Then I realised that Croatia is a major filming location of Game of Thrones, and it all became clear. Whether youre dying to see Kings Landing for yourself or are just looking for an affordable European destination everyone else and their mum doesnt already affectionately call their second home, here are some tips for visiting Dubrovnik, Croatias capital without going bankrupt. Airfare Well drop the bomb right here: airfare to Croatia is usually expensive, like over 1,400 SGD kind of expensive. Now, that isnt to say that youll definitely have to pay such prices. If you are flexible and can time waiting for sales, you should be able to fly to Dubrovnik for about 1,100 SGD, or perhaps even less if you catch an airlines sales. More so than for other popular European destinations, it is absolutely essential to book in advance and watch prices using Kayak. Click on the flexible date option and youll find there are usually a few date combinations that are much cheaper than others. Play around with datesjust changing your flights from one month to another can knock more than 100 SGD off the ticket price. Another option is to nip off to Dubrovnik while on a trip to another European destination such as Vienna or Rome. There are flight, train and bus connections from many cities in the region. Cost: 1,200 SGD Accommodation While Croatia is on the whole quite inexpensive, Dubrovnik tends to be a little pricer thanks to the presence of tourists. Still, youll be pleasantly surprised to find that its still reasonably cheap. Booking accommodation on Airbnb is a value-for-money option, as double or twin-sharing rooms tend to be very affordable. Most options are either close to the sea or in the city centre. This room for two is going for just 29 SGD a night, while this room with two beds and a view of the sea and islands is only 31 SGD a night. Story continues If you prefer to be closer to the city entre, this room which accommodates two is 51 SGD a night and has a balcony offering an amazing view of Dubrovniks signature red roofs, while this one offers a similar view for 44 SGD. Hotels are affordable too. Run a search on Booking or Agoda, sort according to price and you should be able to find decent double rooms, some with great views, for under 30 SGD. Finally, theres the option of hostel dorms, which cost about 20 SGD to 40 SGD per person. Considering the great value you can enjoy by renting Airbnb rooms or hotel rooms, this should be a last resort for solo travellers. Cost: 20 SGD per person per day / 120 SGD for a week Transport You might have spent quite a bit of cash getting from Singapore to Dubrovnik, but once youre there, rest assured that you wont be spending too much on transportation. Dubrovnik is small enough to explore on foot, and should you need to leave town or travel to the outskirts, 1-hour bus tickets are relatively affordable at 12 kuna (2.45 SGD) if you buy them at kiosks. Avoid buying tickets directly on the bus, since they cost more at 15 kuna (3.07 SGD). Cost: 60 kuna (12 SGD) Sights Heres a selection of the key sights and how much they cost to visit. Isle of Lokrum 35 kuna (7.15 SGD) City Walls 120 kuna (24.52 SGD) Fort Livrijenac included in ticket price of City Walls Dubrovnik Cathedral Free, entrance to Treasury 15 kuna (3.07 SGD) St Blaises Church Free Square of the Loggia Free Cost: 170 kuna (40 SGD) Food While Croatia isnt exactly what one would call a foodies destination, the good news is that eating out doesnt cost that much. The average meal in an inexpensive restaurant should cost about 70 kuna (14.30 SGD), though you can have a sit-down meal for as little as 35 kuna (7.15 SGD) if you avoid touristy places. So what are you going to end up eating if youre on a budget? Cheap options include pizza, burgers and sandwiches at small cafes or takeaway stands. You can enjoy a meal for about 45 kuna (9.20 SGD) if you stick to these options. If you really want to save a money, sandwiches from the supermarket are the cheapest option. Cost: 150 kuna per day / 1,050 kuna (212 SGD) for a week Total cost of a week-long trip to Dubrovnik: 1,584 SGD Have you ever been to Dubrovnik? Share your tips and experiences in the comments! Image Credits: Twang_Dunga The post How to Enjoy a Week-Long Holiday in Game of Thrones Hotspot Dubrovnik, Croatia for Under $1,600 appeared first on the MoneySmart blog. MoneySmart.sg helps you maximize your money. Like us on Facebook to keep up to date with our latest news and articles. Compare and shop for the best deals on Loans, Insurance and Credit Cards on our site now! More From MoneySmart Sometimes, its a good idea to take your childs advice. Thats what Stana Steen, founder and president of High Standards Technology, Inc., an information technology company based in Houston, Texas, realized when she considered making the move from providing traditional IT solutions to becoming a cloud-ready managed services provider. We need to get on this cloud thing, is what her daughter (who also happens to be the companys operations director) stated emphatically during a discussion of the topic. I had my reservations, Steen told Small Business Trends in a telephone interview. I had seen a lot of hype about technologies that didnt come to fruition. I told my daughter to hold off and lets see what happens first. I just kept putting her off despite her insistence. Steen said the tipping point came when clients began to approach her about the cloud. I began to receive push back from clients asking about the cloud, and was seeing companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google offering cloud-based products, she said. I remember thinking, I guess there is something to this cloud thing. At that point, we went to Microsoft, got certified and started onboarding clients. Now, every time we bring a client on to cloud platform, my daughter never fails to remind me that it was her idea! How High Standards Got Its Start Steen started the company in 2002 based on a desire to provide, in her words, honest services. I wanted to start an IT company that was honest and told the truth to the client, she said. I found that not that many IT companies in our area put the needs of clients first. We wanted to differentiate ourselves in that respect, which is largely the reason we included High Standards in the company name. Services High Standards Provides High Standards is a Microsoft Silver midmarket cloud-ready managed services partner that serves businesses in the greater Houston area. The company also has a particular focus on providing HIPAA and PCI compliant security services. However, to quote Steen, We do just about anything that has to do with IT. The company currently employs seven staff members (including Steens insistent daughter). Handling Client Resistance to Transition Steen said that resistance from clients usually arises from two quarters, for two different reasons: employees who resist change to their work habits and executives concerned about costs. Employees fear that moving to the cloud will make their jobs harder and that they will have to new learn new ways of doing things, she said. Our task is to educate them on the benefits of the cloud, convincing them that the transition will actually make doing their jobs easier and faster. For company executives, its all about the money. CFOs and CEOs express concerns over how moving to the cloud will affect financial data, particularly who will have access to it and be able to see it, she said. There are also concerns over implementation costs. CEOs and business owners think they own the cloud-based software and have trouble realizing thats not the case, she said. We have to explain that the fee they pay each month for managed services is better from an ROI perspective. They dont incur large expenditures from buying and maintaining a fixed server or from data migration. We try to get them to see it as an investment long-term. Steen says she relies on education to get clients over their fear of moving to the cloud. We explain how the data centers operate, how redundancies and encryption protect data and cite statistics that support our case, she said. We also enlighten clients on how moving to the cloud eliminates downtime, fosters group collaboration and provides anytime access. When business owners see how a group of employees can work on one document in the SharePoint environment, thats usually all it takes to push them over to a yes. Steen added that because the cloud has been around for a while, people are more comfortable with the idea of moving to it. Convincing a client usually takes anywhere from 30 to 60 days, she said. But depending where the clients head is at, it could be as little as two weeks. That process is often expedited when clients experience some type of disaster, such a server crash resulting in the loss of data or even when the client realizes he cant access information when out of the office. We had a law firm that absolutely refused to move to the cloud, Steen said. The company became the victim of ransomware through a phishing scheme. Files got encrypted, and the firm had to pay the ransom to retrieve them. Thats when we received a call. She was quick to point out that had the firm been a managed services client, it would never have gotten that email in the first place. Steen said that she often uses incentives in the form of free training to convince clients to convert. We provide free training through the local Microsoft retail store, she said. It doesnt cost us anything, and we work closely with the store to provide training. I also speak there, on occasion. Cloud Transition Timetable, Costs Steen indicated that implementation could take as little as one to two hours per user, and that includes training. Costs average around $350 per user, which covers all aspects: Microsoft licensing for one year, data migration and training. Midmarket companies with many employees could see expenditures rise into the five-figure range, but, according to Steen, costs for a company with 20 users, for example, could be as little as $2,000. Where the Transition Process Starts Typically, Steen starts by migrating email, whether that involves a POP environment or in-house Exchange server. The reason we start with email is that it has a low impact on the client, she said. It includes new features the client didnt have before and does not require them to change the way they work. If the company has been using Outlook, for instance, it continues to do so. Its not an imposition on their time, which makes them think, This cloud thing is really easy. Thats when we take them to the next step. Challenges Cloud-ready Managed Services Providers Face The primary challenge when moving a client to the cloud is trying to make too many changes at one time, Steen said. We dont want to overwhelm the client with all this new technology, she said. Our challenge is to move them through the process slowly, step-by-step. We get them onto email, and then progress to other products over time. Conclusion Becoming a cloud-ready managed services provider has enabled Steen to realize her vision of providing a high standard of service that places the needs of the client ahead of her own. Its something for which she is grateful, even if she has to give her daughter the credit. Theres no doubt that YouTube is a powerful platform for businesses of all sizes. But, what are the best ways to make use of it? Well be discussing 20 creative ideas you can start on YouTube that are great Small Business Ideas for Beginners. YouTube as an Industry in 2022 YouTube video content is growing in popularity as a source of entertainment and a way to make money. According to recent estimates, YouTube channels can make on average about $18 per 1,000 ad views. This means a YouTuber can make about $3 to $5 per 1,000 video views, which is based on the rate of ads that were actually viewed. Why You Should Consider Starting a YouTube Business Starting a YouTube business can be a great way for small business owners to promote their businesses and grow their customer base. It can also be a great way to connect with customers and share personal life moments. Here are 5 reasons to start a YouTube business in 2022. Connect with customers. Sharing video content from your YouTube account allows you to post videos showing customers who you are and what your business is all about. Sharing video content from your YouTube account allows you to post videos showing customers who you are and what your business is all about. Share your story. Customers want to know the story behind a small business, and YouTube can be a great way to tell that story. Customers want to know the story behind a small business, and YouTube can be a great way to tell that story. Build customer loyalty. A YouTube business can help build customer loyalty by providing customers with an inside look at the business and its owner. A YouTube business can help build customer loyalty by providing customers with an inside look at the business and its owner. Promote your products and services. YouTube is a great platform to promote your products and services. You can create a product demonstration video, unboxing video, and more. YouTube is a great platform to promote your products and services. You can create a product demonstration video, unboxing video, and more. Grow your customer base. A YouTube business can help you reach a wider audience and grow your customer base. Read More: How Much Money Do YouTubers Make? Top YouTube Business Ideas There are lots of great ideas you can do on YouTube that have the potential to bring in a lot of YouTube viewers when you upload videos. Here are some of the top ideas you can start a business around on YouTube: 1. Video Content Creator You would be responsible for creating engaging and entertaining videos that capture the attention of your audience. This could involve anything from vlogs, how-to videos, comedy sketches, or other videos like animation or short films. 2. Vlogger Vlogging is simply creating full video blogs about your life or interests. You could discuss anything from current affairs to makeup tips on your YouTube channel. 3. Video Editor If youre good with editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro, then you could start offering services for editing videos. Business owners would be willing to pay someone to edit their video footage for them. For example, you can add their business name and business email to their video. 4. Social Media Influencer Here you would use your social media accounts on social media platforms like YouTube to promote products or brands that you love. Featured channels can be very profitable, but you have to stay active. 5. Gamer This is a popular idea as there are many YouTube users and gamers out there who would love to watch others play. As a gamer, make sure you have an awesome channel banner. 6. Reviewer If youre passionate about a particular topic, then you could start a review channel reviewing products, a business website, movies, TV shows, video games, or anything else you can think of. 7. Cooking Show If you enjoy cooking and have some great recipes, then you could start your own cooking show and record yourself cooking the food. 8. Travel Show You could film your travels and then upload the video footage onto YouTube. This would be a great way to share your experiences with others and inspire them to travel as well. 9. Show Off Your Dancing You can film yourself dancing to popular songs. This would be a great way to show off your dancing skills, get people moving and sharing trending content. 10. Be a Prankster If youre good at pranking people, then you could start a channel where you upload prank videos to entertain your viewers and make them laugh. Read More: How to Start a YouTube Channel More Business Opportunities Making YouTube Videos If youre looking to start making money through YouTube, its important to create a business account so you can monetize your video footage and start earning revenue. Here are more ideas to earn money. 11. eCommerce Marketer You can start a channel to promote your eCommerce business. This is a great way to reach new customers, make your business stand out, and increase sales. 12. Infoproduct Marketer You can share your expertise on YouTube and create and sell info products, such as eBooks, online courses, and webinars. This is a great way to generate email marketing leads and build your brand. 13. Affiliate Marketer You can promote products and services as an affiliate and earn commissions on sales. This is a great way to generate revenue from your YouTube channel. See Also: Best Business Idea Articles for Entrepreneurs 14. How-To Tutorial Video Creator You can create how-to video tutorials that teach people how to do something while promoting the product or service youre creating the video on and earning income. 15. Testing Products You can start a business and get paid to test products and give an honest review on your YouTube channel. 16. YouTube Keyword Research This business doesnt involve creating videos. Instead, you would offer keyword research services to YouTubers in order to help their videos rank. 17. Musician You can use YouTube to market your musical talents to your existing audience and new viewers and make money from your performances. 18. Magician You can use YouTube to showcase your magical talents and earn income from your videos or sell tickets to live shows. 19. Makeup Artist With a makeup artist business, you can make videos giving makeup tips and selling the products you use in the videos. You can also offer makeup services to other YouTubers. 20. Motivational Speaker You can use YouTube to share your motivational message and earn income from this business from speaking engagements or selling products. Read More: Top YouTube Influencers How Do You Start a YouTube Business? To start a YouTube business, youll need to visit YouTubes homepage and create a YouTube account. Click Sign In at the top right corner of your screen. On the next page, click Create account and follow the on-screen instructions. Make sure to have a high-quality profile picture and channel icon. And make sure to have a channel trailer and channel description with relevant keywords so your viewers get to know what your channel is about. What Are the Most Popular YouTube Topics? The Youtube Creators Academy lists the following as the most popular video topics on YouTube: Gaming Entertainment Sports Beauty and Fashion Music Science and Technology Travel Food What is the Best YouTube Business? The best YouTube business is being a social media influencer because you can make a living by doing what you love making videos. You can also be your own boss, set your own hours, and work from anywhere in the world. When you become popular, youll have brands clamoring to work with you, which can lead to some pretty sweet sponsorship deals. If youre hosting or attending a Thanksgiving dinner this year, theres a good chance youve used Google to help with the planning. And for businesses, all of those searches can lead to some really helpful insights. The search engine giant just released a search trends report that shows some of the most popular search terms around Thanksgiving. Not surprisingly, the most popular searches revolve around how to cook turkey. And people also searched for other alternative recipes, like prime rib, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. But there are also other trends that could be particularly useful to specific types of local businesses. For instance, people tend to search for nearby liquor stores at the last minute. And in certain states, people will also wait until a few days before Thanksgiving to search for nearby meat counters. Why You Should Know Whats Trending on Google For businesses, its important to stay in top of whats trending on Google and understand what they mean for customers. Search engines like Google are prominent with customers looking for specific items or pieces of information. So if youre able to anticipate what your customers want and cater your website and other online content to it, you can potentially increase your chances of more customers finding your business. The human gut is a complex and amazing system, and the more we learn about it, the more amazed we are. It turns out The police in Vijaywada arrested 17 people, including a woman, and seized Rs 6.8 lakh in old and new currency notes from their possession. By Ashish Pandey: Acting tough on those running currency exchange racket in the wake of the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, the Andhra Pradesh police busted a gang that allegedly exchanged banned currency with the new Rs 2,000 notes. The police in Vijaywada arrested 17 people, including a woman, and seized Rs 6.8 lakh in old and new currency notes from their possession on Monday. advertisement Vijayawada Police Commissioner Gautam Swang said, "The accused belong to Guntur, West Godavari and Krishna districts. The gang persuaded some traders from Eluru to exchange their old currency notes with new ones at 18-20 per cent commission." The police have registered a case against the gang, and are investigating if a bank employee was also involved in the racket. ALSO READ: Demonetisation: Cash worth Rs 49,96,000 seized in Delhi ALSO READ: Demonetisation to benefit PM Modi's coterie, alleges Rahul Gandhi ALSO READ: After demonetisation, MCD earning crores from old currency ALSO WATCH --- ENDS --- The marriage season in India is in full bloom but with most of the old cash wiped off from people's hands and limited options for withdrawals, couples are finding it tedious to be united in wedlock. By India Today Web Desk: The government is expected to review its cash withdrawal facility in the name of weddings after it started getting serious complaints regarding the conditions laid out to take out money from banks in the wake of the demonetisation drive. Whether a fair drive to eradicate black money or not, the Centre's decision to ban the higher-denomination currency notes had put a lot of marriage hopefuls in the same boat. advertisement The marriage season in India is in full bloom but with most of the old cash wiped off from people's hands and limited options for withdrawals, couples are finding it tedious to be united in wedlock. To balance out the cash crisis, the government had given some relief for farmers and families celebrating weddings by allowing the withdrawal of up to Rs 2.5 lakh from the bank account by the KYC-complaint customers. Also read:Demonetisation: 10 questions PM is asking India through his Narendra Modi app REVISED RULES OF LITTLE HELP But for couples whose marriage is knocking at the door, the new relaxation was of little help. Complaints had poured in from many areas that the banks have refused to let the couples or their family members withdraw a lumpsum amount citing either shortage of funds or non-receipt of any order from the Reserve Bank of India. The Rs 2.5 lakh withdrawal for weddings itself came with several tough caveats. The amount, allowed to be withdrawn till December 30, was to be out of the balances at credit "as of close of business on November 8, 2016". Also read:With note ban, PM creating new normal by stopping 70-year norm: Arun Jaitley Moreover, the withdrawal could be made by either of the parents or the person getting married - only one of them. On Monday, the government had relaxed its rules for farmers ahead of Rabi crops, allowing them to buy seeds and fertilisers from government stores using the old Rs 500 notes. Also read: Rijiju to India Today: Demonetisation has broken financial backbones of terror groups Opposition plans strategies to corner NDA government over demonetisation --- ENDS --- Tanzanian superstar Diamond Platinumz ex-girlfriend Wema Sepetu is a woman who has had many men warming her bed. Wema Sepetu and Diamond READ ALSO: Does a man's ejaculation and sexual enjoyment change after cutting his sperm pipe (vasectomy)? Sepetu first became famous in 2006 after clinching the Miss Tanzania title and has since been making headlines through controversy. However, it was not until she dated the most decorated Tanzanian artist, Diamond who later dumped her for the hot mamacita from Uganda, Zari Hassan that Sepetu became even more famous. READ ALSO: Diamond's ex-girlfriend Wema Sepetu's HOT video leaks Wema Sepetu and the late actor Steven Kanumba Tanzanian media report that Miss Sepetu has had affairs with several celebrities including musician Mr. Blue and the late famous actor Steven Kanumba. After dumping her last boyfriend, Idriss Sultan, the controversial socialite hooked up with a young man identified as Calisah, who reportedly released an intimate video of them after Sepetu ditched him. READ ALSO: Gentlemen, this is how ladies want you to use your fingers during S*X Wema Sepetu and Idris Sultan Here are the other men, Sepetu has reportedly let in between her legs: Wema Sepetu kissing Chalz Baba Wema Sepetu and Luis Munana Wema Sepetu and Jumbe Wema Sepetu and Ommy Dimpoz Sepetu is also said to have had flings with a man called I.D and another one known as Clement. Do you have anything you want to add to this story? Please send your feedback to news@tuko.co.ke. Source: TUKO.co.ke PHOENIX A storm system descended on Arizona on Monday and brought rainy conditions in Phoenix, downpours that contributed to a rockslide near Sedona and snow in higher elevations as the ski season got underway. Giant pieces of rock broke away from a cliff and tumbled onto a main thoroughfare near Sedona, causing a traffic backup. The road, SR89A, was reopened about an hour later after crews used a loader to remove the rocks. The National Weather Service said a one-two punch of storms hit the state, starting with a dose of tropical moisture from Mexico that was followed by a cold front. Drivers experienced foggy conditions around Phoenix. Pea-sized hail fell in Scottsdale. Wickenburg received more than an inch of rain at one weather-reporting station, while only 0.11 inches fell at the Phoenix airport. Forecasters were bracing for more rain. It produced about half as much as we thought, said National Weather Service meteorologist Hector Vasquez. The same systems that brought rain to Phoenix led to snowfall in higher elevations, including 2 inches in Prescott and 1.5 inches in Flagstaff, Vasquez said. The Arizona Snowbowl opened Saturday, but skiers who lined up to get on the slopes Monday were proud to see fresh snow. As the storms passed, the sun came out and the occasional rainbow was seen around Phoenix. The high temperature hit 71 in the city, only slightly cooler than the normal high of 73. PHOENIX Gov. Doug Ducey is offering to remove restrictions on a southern Arizona tribes casino in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale as part of deal with 10 other tribes that gives them more gambling opportunities. The governors office announced the agreement with the tribes on Monday, but said the Tohono Oodham (toh-HO-noh AH-tuhm) Nation that owns the Glendale casino still has not agreed to the deal. The agreement amends tribal gambling deals to formally block new casinos in metro Phoenix and will allow more Keno games and poker tables at existing casinos. The Tohono Oodham Nation and the state have been in a dispute for several years over the tribes Desert Diamond Casino in Glendale, which opened last year without a full state permit allowing card games and normal slot machines. Instead, the tribes casino has bingo-style slots and no card tables, and no state license to serve alcohol. The tribe and the state have been locked in an ongoing battle in federal court over the casino. Ducey Chief of Staff Kirk Adams said the state has been negotiating with the Tohono Oodham on terms of the deal since early in the year. Were hopeful that the Tohono Oodham will agree to sign the amendment, as it is what they have been asking for, which is a Class 3 facility designation for their casino in Glendale, Adams told reporters. This provides them that. It allows the Tohono Oodham, the state and the other tribal nations to move on to more productive conversations around modernizing the gaming compact. The Tohono Oodham Nation said in a statement that it is ready to consider the proposed changes that would resolve the issue at its Glendale casino and block new casinos in metro Phoenix. But the tribe also said it just learned of the proposed changes to tribal agreements last week and criticized the state for excluding tribal officials from the discussions. Weve reached out to them throughout the process, Ducey responded. Theyre invited to be a part of this as well and were hopeful that they will be. The president of the Navajo Nation, Russell Begaye, said the update to gambling agreements that originally took effect in 2003 will help tax dollars flowing from tribal gambling operations. For Navajo Nation, modernizing Arizona Indian gaming is about keeping Arizona monies in Arizona, Begaye said. Increasing and expanding the specific type of gaming that are available in places like Laughlin and Las Vegas will keep those gaming customers here in Arizona, thereby increasing and keeping gaming dollars here in the state. The agreements signed with the tribes Monday is considered a first step to a more extensive overhaul of tribal gambling agreements that limit what kind of gambling is allowed in casinos. Begaye said modernizing the agreements allowed under a 2002 voter-approved law will help add gambling options to keep customers in the state. That law was believed to limit the number of casinos in metro Phoenix. But the Tohono Oodham bought land near University of Phoenix stadium and applied for it to be taken into trust by the federal government in 2009. They then announced plans to build a large casino there, setting off years of lawsuits. Congress has become involved, with a law proposed by Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, a Republican, to explicitly block the casino from operating. Franks attended the event announcing the new agreements, and said that his proposal will not be needed if the governors plan is followed. If everyone does whats right, which is to follow the governors leadership here, any legislation that we made would be congruent with the governors plan, Franks said. The sprawling manhunt for the suspect in the fatal shooting of a San Antonio police officer ended Monday afternoon with the arrest of a man, police announced. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said a SWAT team arrested the suspect, Otis Tyrone McKane, without incident in connection with the killing of Detective Benjamin Marconi, who was slain while writing a traffic ticket in front of police headquarters on Sunday morning. McKane is the person we believe is responsible for the cold and calculated murder of Detective Marconi, McManus said during a briefing late Monday afternoon. We are relieved to have taken him into custody without a further loss of life, McManus said. Police said they do not know a motive for Marconis death, and McManus declined to say what led authorities to the 31-year-old McKane. During a briefing earlier in the day, McManus said police did not believe the officers death was tied to another attack in St. Louis that occurred hours later on Sunday. I will say that it is certainly a coincidence, but were not going to venture to say that its connected, McManus said. Police also said Monday that the suspected attacker had briefly visited the departments headquarters not long before the shooting. I dont know why he was at headquarters, McManus said. We have some ideas why we believe he may have been in headquarters, but were not quite sure. Officials had released video footage they said showed McKane entering the departments headquarters in downtown San Antonio. McManus said he thought the attacker was going after a member of law enforcement rather than specifically targeting Marconi. I think the uniform was the target, and anyone, the first person who happened along, was the person that he targeted, McManus said. Police had McKane under surveillance for a few hours before they took him into custody, McManus said. At the time of his arrest, McKane was driving a car with an unidentified woman and a 2-year-old. McManus said he did not know about the relationship between any of them. Marconi was one of three officers shot Sunday in attacks that police described as ambushes, a spate of shootings that also wounded police officials in Missouri and Florida. The other two officers who, like Marconi, were sitting inside their patrol cars when they were shot are expected to survive. These shootings occurred four months after eight police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge were gunned down in separate ambushes just days apart, attacks that added to fears among law enforcement and have helped fuel an increase in the number of officers killed by gunfire this year. Marconi, 50, had been with the San Antonio police for two decades. In a statement released by police, Marconis family asked for privacy so they could mourn the loss of a wonderful father, brother, grandfather, friend, and last but not least, a peace officer. police-3rdld-writethru Virginias health commissioner on Monday declared opioid addiction to be a public health emergency and issued a standing prescription for any resident to get the drug Naloxone, which is used to treat overdoses. Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe said the actions are in response to not only the rising problem of painkiller overdoses, but also to evidence that a synthetic large-animal sedative called Carfentamil is being abused in Virginia. Massachusetts declared opioids to be a public health emergency in 2014, and a bipartisan group in the Ohio legislature is urging Republican Gov. John Kasich to take the same step. Last week, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a report urging the nation to treat addiction as a chronic illness and calling the crisis a moral test for America. Nationally, 78 people die every day from opioid overdoses, according to Murthy. In Virginia, three people die every day from an overdose and more than two dozen are treated in emergency rooms, according to the state health commissioner. Emergency room visits for heroin overdoses were up 89 percent through September in Virginia compared with the same period last year. Too many families across Virginia and the nation are dealing with heartbreak and loss as a result of prescription opioid and heroin abuse epidemic, McAuliffe said in a news release. The emergency declaration does not carry the force of law, but McAuliffe said that it is designed to heighten awareness of this issue, provide a framework for further actions to fight it, and to save Virginians lives. McAuliffe signed bills last year that made Naloxone more readily available to emergency first-responders and allowed pharmacists more leeway in dispensing it. But those steps still required users to have a prescription, and caused pharmacists to work with physicians to determine who could qualify for a standing prescription. Created in the early 1960s, Naloxone is a type of drug that blocks opioid receptors in the body and can quickly counteract the effects of an overdose. It has no addictive properties of its own, and studies have found no evidence of adverse side effects. Emergency responders generally have described it as a near-miracle drug for preventing overdose deaths. On Monday, Virginia Health Commissioner Marissa J. Levine issued a standing order permitting all Virginians to have access to the drug in effect, a blanket prescription for all residents. The states roughly 2,000 pharmacies should have an adequate supply, she said. We realized there were still gaps in terms of where in the commonwealth people could have access to Naloxone, Levine said. Many smaller pharmacies, she said, didnt have the resources to work with doctors to issue standing orders for patients in need. Her order, which she said was drawn in consultation with other states and localities that have done the same thing, does not carry funding to pay for expanded access to the drug. She said preparations for the order have been going on for some time, but that the matter was made more urgent just last month when the departments forensics sciences unit determined that the drug Carfentanil had turned up in Virginia. That synthetic opioid is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl a synthetic pain killer, according to the health commissioner. The shift toward such powerful synthetic drugs puts added pressure on health officials already straining to keep up with the epidemic of addiction, state Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel said in a news release. The overdose rates in Virginia have led me to agree with Dr. Levine that we are indeed experiencing a public health emergency, Hazel said. This declaration helps us respond in a nimble way to a rapidly changing threat, while the Naloxone standing order from Dr. Levine broadens our ability to get life-saving medication into Virginians hands. The state has established a new web site www.VaAware.com that provides resources for dealing with addiction. virginia-opioid Believe it or not but corruption in municipal corporations in Delhi has shown a huge decline in corruption-related complaints after demonetisation. By Ravish Pal Singh: Believe it or not, but corruption in municipal corporations in Delhi have witnessed a huge decline in corruption-related complaints after demonetisation. Mayor of South Delhi Muncipal Corporation (SDMC) Shyam Sharma on Tuesday applauded PM Modi for his bold step of demonetisation and revealed that since the implementation of the move, there had been a fall of 90 per cent in corruption-related complaints in south MCD. advertisement SDMC HAILS PM MODI'S MOVE Mayor Sharma also said that this bold initiative of the Prime Minister would definitely strike deep into the so-called empire of black money. Doing so will help in cleaning the economy. Also read | If bypolls were a referendum on demonetisation, has PM Modi won it? The mayor also said that south MCD had witnessed a substantial decline in corruption since November 8 when PM Modi has announced the decision. "There has been a 90 per cent decline in various corruption complaints in the SDMC", the mayor said. "The corporation received just four corruption-related complaints in 13 days, from 9th November to 21st November", he added. It is also be noted that 40 such complaints were received during a period of 13 days prior to demonetisation. The mayor was quite satisfied that not even one oral complaint had come to him from visitors since November 8. CORPORATIONS ACCEPTING OLD CURRENCY In what is a big relief for locals, all three municipal corporations are accepting old currency notes of Rs.500 and Rs.1000 for collecting property tax, conversion charges and parking licence fees. This is also helping corporations generate good revenue in a few days. Property owners can pay their outstanding tax in old demonetised notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000. Also read | Demonetisation: 10 questions PM is asking India through his Narendra Modi app --- ENDS --- Among college presidents, one stood out this year for his early and unwavering support of Donald Trump in the presidential campaign: Jerry Falwell Jr. of Liberty University. Falwell endorsed Trump in January when the Republican primary outcome was still very much in doubt, enabling the New York businessman to tout the backing of a prominent voice in the evangelical Christian community. Falwell also stood by the GOP nominee in October after the release of damaging video footage that showed Trump in 2005 making lewd remarks about groping women. So it was not surprising that Trump would seek to thank Falwell after his upset victory in the Nov. 8 election. But the president-elect went a step further, meeting with Falwell on Thursday afternoon in New York at Trump Tower to discuss education and the coming administration. I met with the president-elect and several of his top advisers to discuss what role I might be able to play with regard to education, Falwell said Monday. It was a very good discussion. Falwell said he could not elaborate. But in general, Falwell added, he takes a skeptical view of regulators at the Education Department. Its troubling to see how much theyre micromanaging colleges and universities, using their power, through financial aid and student loan programs, Falwell said. Thats been a concern of mine for a long time. During the campaign, Falwell took some criticism from within the Liberty community for his backing of Trump. Some students said they could not support the Republican nominee because they had doubts about his character and values. Falwells is one of several names that have become associated with Trumps education transition. The president-elect also has met in recent days with former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and with school voucher advocate Betsy DeVos. When Trump will announce a nominee for education secretary is unknown. Falwell, son of the late televangelist the Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., is closely identified with the Christian school his father founded in 1971 in Lynchburg, Va. Liberty in recent years has grown to become the largest private, nonprofit university in the country, with more than 80,000 students. Most of its enrollment is online. The university also has become a prominent venue for Republican politicians to give speeches targeting the evangelical Christian community. Last year, Falwell drew headlines when he urged his students to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons after the deadly mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. By arming themselves, the university president said, members of the campus community would deter terrorist threats. Lets teach them a lesson if they ever show up here, he told students in December during a fiery speech on campus, with a reference to a pistol in his back pocket. Falwell said at the time that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, we could end those Muslims before they walked in. He said afterward that those Muslims was a reference to Islamic terrorists. transition-falwell Police identified the man shot and killed in a southeast Albuquerque home last week as 63-year-old Haskell Lewis. Officers were called to the home on the 500 block of Valencia SE on Thursday after someone reported hearing gunshots, according to police. When officers entered the house, they found a dead man and homicide detectives took over the investigation. The detectives have not named any suspects and are still investigating to determine if the house was broken into, said officer Fred Duran, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department. SANTA FE Four housekeepers are planning to file complaints with the city of Santa Fe, saying the Courtyard by Marriott on Cerrillos Road violated the citys living wage ordinance by requiring them to work off the clock, falsifying time sheets, and paying them less than the mandated $10.91 per hour. The workers are taking the action after forming a committee to address various cases of alleged wage theft with hotel management, according to a news release from Somos Un Pueblo Unido, a statewide civil rights organization. However, a city spokesman late Monday could not confirm the complaint was actually filed. Messages left for management at Courtyard by Marriott by the Journal were not returned Monday. Somos Un Pueblo Unido says claims against the hotel by the four housekeepers add up to $3,000 in unpaid wages. Forcing employees to work off the clock, manipulating their time sheets, or paying them in cash are the most common ways unscrupulous employers steal wages, said Rayos Burciaga, a founding member of United Worker Center of New Mexico, which was formed by Somos Un Pueblo Unido. We need the city to conduct thorough investigations into these cases so that these violations dont go unchecked. The workers also claim they were retaliated against when they complained to the hotels owners. When we complained to management about the stolen wages and excessive workload, we immediately saw a severe reduction in hours, Laura Valle, one of the housekeepers, claims in the news release. We help sustain Santa Fes hotel industry, and at a time of so much economic uncertainty we need our city to protect low-wage workers. At $10.91 per hour, Santa Fe has one of the highest living wages in the country. City Manager Brian Snyder said the city has processes and procedures in place to ensure workers voices are heard. Wage theft is something we take very seriously, so once we have reviewed these complaints we will, where warranted, take action, up to and including an investigation that has serious consequences if wage theft has been committed, he said. Last year, the group organized a protest at the Horsemans Haven Cafe on behalf of five workers who complained they were due wages from the restaurant. In the end, the National Labor Relations Board ordered Horsemans Haven to pay one cook roughly $2,000 in back wages. Officials investigating the slayings of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan this month say they now know precisely how the Americans were killed but still lack a clear explanation for why a Jordanian guard opened fire on the men as they returned to their base from a training mission. Surveillance video and witness accounts confirm that the soldiers from the 5th Special Forces Group were shot without provocation as they prepared to enter Prince Faisal Air Base in southern Jordan on Nov. 4. Yet, more than two weeks later, no information has emerged linking the guard to extremist groups or causes, according to U.S. and Middle Eastern officials familiar with the ongoing probe. The shooter, who was critically wounded in an exchange of fire with the Americans, has remained in an induced coma in a Jordanian hospital since the incident. A team of investigators led by the FBI has conducted an extensive search for possible connections to terrorist groups, interviewing relatives and associates and scouring the mans computer and cellphone, so far without finding links to jihadists or even evidence of strong religious views, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The absence of such evidence has hampered efforts to determine whether the shooting was an act of jihadist-inspired terrorism or was triggered by a grudge, mental illness or some other cause, said a senior Middle Eastern security official briefed on the preliminary findings. What appears certain, however, is that the guard fired deliberately and repeatedly at the Americans, shooting one of them as the victim tried to take cover, the official said. What we dont know at this point is what exactly set him off, said the official. The Defense Department and the CIA both declined to comment on the investigation. The soldiers Staff Sgt. Matthew Lewellen, Staff Sgt. Kevin McEnroe and Staff Sgt. James Moriarty, all based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky were detailed to a CIA-led training program for Syrian opposition fighters at the time of the incident. All were killed as their convoy was preparing to enter the Jordanian facility near the village of al-Jafr, in what is believed to be the deadliest single incident involving a CIA team since December 2009, when seven officers and contractors were killed in a suicide bombing in Khost, Afghanistan. Jordanian officials earlier suggested that the shooting might have been triggered by an accidental gun discharge or a failure by the Americans to follow established security protocols for entering the military base, about 150 miles south of Amman, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials said. But evidence from the surveillance video and surviving witnesses has all but ruled out the possibility that a misunderstanding caused the event, the officials said. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Jordan said in a statement last week that there was absolutely no credible evidence that the Americans had violated security procedures at the gate. He added that all possible motives, including terrorism, were still being explored. In Islamic State videos, suicide bombers become precision weapons One official familiar with the surveillance video said it shows the convoys lead vehicle being cleared through the gate. But as the second vehicle approaches the barrier, bullets are seen to rip through the windshield, hitting the two occupants inside. Two U.S. soldiers then leap from other vehicles in the convoy to take cover behind a concrete blast wall. But the Jordanian guard, wearing body armor and carrying his assault rifle, is seen in the video to charge toward the Americans, firing several bursts into one of them. The fourth U.S. soldier then fires back at the guard with his pistol, hitting him several times, the official said. The wounded Jordanian was described by investigators as a seasoned noncommissioned officer and father of three children, with a clean record and extensive experience on the base. Jim Moriarty, father of slain Staff Sgt. James Moriarty, said he has been briefed on some details of the attack but is still waiting to learn how his son could have been killed at a secure military facility while transiting a gate he and his comrades used regularly. They lived on this base, they went through that gate all the time, Moriarty said in an interview. I got no rational explanation for what happened other than that this guy killed these Americans on purpose. Moriarty said he had been skeptical of the earlier stories about an accidental discharge by one of the Americans weapons, noting that the soldiers were highly skilled experts who were in Jordan to train Syrians on the use of firearms. But he added, I want the truth to come out, whatever the truth is. jordan-us William Trevor, a novelist and short-story writer whose forlorn, darkly humorous tales of ordinary lives in small-town Ireland his home country drew comparisons to Chekhov and brought him global literary esteem, died Oct. 20. He was 88. His publisher, Penguin Random House Ireland, announced his death but did not provide additional details. Trevor had lived in England since the mid-1950s, settling eventually in a secluded mill in the countryside of Devon, but considered himself Irish in every vein. Although his work occasionally touched on Irish politics, Trevor wrote mainly of pain and suffering experienced in the towns and countrysides of Ireland and England of backward villages, as the critic Stephen Schiff once characterized this Trevor Territory in the New Yorker, with narrow streets full of dogs and bicycles and small boys and nuns, and, here and there, the odd dwarf or sex-crazed town simpleton. Trevor wrote 15 novels, a handful of plays and scores of stories enough to fill two volumes and 1,800 pages in a 2009 edition of his collected tales. His novels among them the Man Booker Prize finalists Mrs. Eckdorf in ONeills Hotel (1969), The Children of Dynmouth (1976), Reading Turgenev (1991) and The Story of Lucy Gault (2002) often featured multiple protagonists and unreliable narrators, and were set against a backdrop of Irish religious conflict between working-class Catholics and Protestant gentry. Born into a Protestant family that frequently moved, Trevor said that as a child he often found himself as an outsider in the Irish towns where he grew up. He worked for more than a decade as a sculptor and teacher before turning fully to writing in his mid-30s. He was driven to write, he told The New York Times, because his sculptures had become increasingly abstract. Some part of me missed people. Stories, which Trevor often described as literary glimpses, were in his hands a way to burrow into the lives of individuals and their relationships with one another, if only for a few pages. More often than not, his subjects were lowlifes: criminals and tricksters and poor lonely-hearts at insane asylums, public schools and churches whose relationships had failed or were failing. He told their stories with a scrupulous aversion to cant and cliche, and with an eye for detail not unlike that of fellow Irishman James Joyce. Trevors early story collection Angels at the Ritz (1975), the novelist Graham Greene once wrote, was one of the best collections, if not the best since James Joyces Dubliners was published in 1914. In An Evening Out, a story from Trevors collection A Bit on the Side (2004), a lonely woman employs a group called the Bryanston Square Introduction Bureau to meet someone for conversation. Her date, a photographer, turns out to be uninterested in her life. And why would he, she thinks, recalling one of several disappointments in her life: Why should anyone be interested in her rejection more than twenty years ago of someone she had loved? Why should anyone be interested in knowing that she had done so, it seemed now, for no good reason beyond the shadow of doubt thered been? A stranger would not see the face that she still saw, or hear the voice she heard; or understand why, afterwards, she had wanted no one else; or hear what, afterwards, had seemed to be a truth that doubt played tricks in loves confusion. William Trevor Cox was born in Mitchelstown, a dairy town in southern Ireland, on May 24, 1928. He recalled that his mother and father, a bank official whose job led the family to move frequently, did not get along and eventually separated. Trevor finished secondary school in Dublin, where he also studied history at Trinity College, graduating with a bachelors degree in 1950. He taught history in Northern Ireland before an economic downturn in the region led him to move to England. It was while working as a copywriter at a London advertising agency that Trevor began writing again, working on his first novel the comedy A Standard of Behavior (1958) amid downtime at work. He later disowned the book, telling the Paris Review that it was really a fragment which was written for profit when I was very poor. His second novel, written at the encouragement of an editor who had seen some of his stories in the London Magazine and the Transatlantic Review, was The Old Boys (1964), about a group of petty men in a school alumni organization. The work was a critical and commercial success Trevor subsequently adapted it into a BBC TV special that enabled him to quit his job and leave London for the country, where he said he sought the distance from society that would enable him to do his best work. The great challenge in writing is always to find the universal in the local, the parochial, he told the Times. And to do that, one needs distance. Trevors later books included the novels Other Peoples Worlds (1980) and Fools of Fortune (1983), later adapted into a film, about an Irish family during that countrys war of independence. His story collections included Lovers of Their Time (1978), Beyond the Pale (1981) and After Rain (1997). Many of his books were dedicated to his wife, the former Jane Ryan, whom he married in 1952. Besides his wife, survivors include two sons. Trevor, an Irish citizen, earned an honorary title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1977 and received an honorary knighthood in 2002. He insisted for many years that short stories, despite their brevity, were as significant as novels perhaps more so. If the novel is like an intricate Renaissance painting, he told the Paris Review, the short story is an impressionist painting. It should be an explosion of truth. Its strength lies in what it leaves out just as much as what it puts in, if not more. It is concerned with the total exclusion of meaninglessness. Life, on the other hand, is meaningless most of the time. The novel imitates life, where the short story is bony, and cannot wander. It is essential art. trevor-obit SANTA FE A father who faces up to 18 years in prison for allegedly beating his son so bad that the boy had internal lacerations will be allowed to await his trial outside jail on electronic monitoring after he pled not guilty to felony child abuse in Santa Fe District Court Monday. Darryl Blakey, 41, was indicted by a grand jury on one charge of child abuse resulting in great bodily harm in late October. He had been arrested Sept. 20 by Santa Fe County sheriffs deputies after his 8-year-old son, after arriving at his Pojoaque-area school on the bus, was taken to the Santa Fe hospital, then to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, with lacerations to his spleen and liver and internal bleeding that was potentially life threatening. Blakey spent 15 days in jail after his arrest before he was released on a $5,000 appearance bond, meaning he could bond out with just his signature. He also was placed on electronic monitoring by a magistrate judge. On Monday, District Court Judge T. Glenn Ellington kept the same conditions of release for Blakey and ordered that Blakeys contacts with his two children, whose mother is deceased, must be arranged by the state Children, Youth and Families Department Ellington said in court that he is also presiding over another child abuse and neglect case involving Blakey apparently a non-criminal civil matter and may be excused from overseeing Blakeys felony charge. Prosecutor Natalie Perry said Blakey has several misdemeanors in another state and may have two prior felony convictions that could increase his prison sentence if hes found guilty. According to the sheriffs office, Blakeys son complained of stomach pain and having trouble breathing while on the bus to Pablo Roybal Elementary School near Pojoaque and had to be carried off the bus by school officials. Blakey told deputies that he was upset with his son for getting in trouble at school and hit him between 10 and 15 times with an open hand in the chest, back and buttocks area. Blakey said he may have blacked out during the beating and acknowledged that he went too far and lost control of the situation. The trial against former luxury homebuilder William Kalinowski will continue Nov. 29 after the proceedings went past the allotted nine days. Kalinowski, 71, faces nine counts of fraud and embezzlement for allegedly bilking investors and homebuyers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by not completing homes in the Las Campanas subdivision near Santa Fe as his business crashed during the recession. Several contractors claim they were never paid for work they did on Kalinowskis projects. Santa Fe District Court Judge T. Glenn Ellington allotted nine days for the trial, which began Nov. 7, with equal time going to the prosecution and defense to present witnesses. There nine days of the trial through Friday (Nov. 18), and the trial was recessed for the holiday week. Kalinowski has been working as an Albuquerque Public Schools teacher over the last two years, but he was still deemed eligible to have taxpayer-supported representation from the Public Defenders Office. The Public Defenders Office is not disclosing to the how much its spending to defend Kalinowski after the Journal made an Inspection of Public Records Act request, saying releasing those records violates Kalinowskis attorney-client privilege. Its one of the most enduring rituals of the presidential transition: On Inauguration Day, one first family returns to its home town, while the next moves into the White House. But come January, this tradition will be dramatically upended, as Donald Trumps wife, Melania, plans to continue living in Manhattan with their young son Barron, at least until he completes the school year. It could create a striking disconnect in Washington, D.C., where, in another break with tradition, the Obamas are setting up their new home only a few miles away, similarly delaying an out-of-town move to allow their daughter Sasha to finish high school here. Michelle Obama has signaled a desire to stay engaged in advocacy work, and her presence in the capital could overshadow Melania Trump, who for at least the first six months of her husbands presidency will be something of a first lady in absentia. Yet theres no reason to think the White House will operate much differently without a resident first lady. The East Wings bureaucracy will keep churning along. State dinners will still be scheduled. Tour groups will be accommodated, and the White House residence will be cared for by a team of butlers, housekeepers and florists. The White House adjusts to its occupants, and the occupants adjust to the White House, said Anita McBride, an adviser in the George W. Bush administration who served as chief of staff to Laura Bush. Its different, but, like everything in this election, the playbook is being rewritten every single day. The role of first lady is really defined by each occupant. There may be fewer initiatives from the first ladys office in the first few months of the administration, but McBride predicts the Trump team will nonetheless hire a staff for his wife and roll out programs eventually. For the ceremonial functions, she said, what Im hearing is that when and if needed, Mrs. Trump can get here to be able to participate in events, but he also has other members of his family who can support her in those duties. Its been decades since daughters, sisters or nieces have stepped into the role of first lady, but that has happened. Jacqueline Kennedy, the glamorous first lady who cherished her private life, traveled extensively during her time in the White House, and President Kennedys relatives filled in when she was away. Bess Truman likewise spent most of her summers in Missouri with her daughter, Margaret. Mrs. Truman felt that Margaret was exposed to a lot of East Coast power and a lot of celebrity, and she felt that her daughter should have a good Midwestern upbringing and get her head on straight, said Myra Gutin, a scholar at Rider University who studies first ladies. Other first families have come to the White House with young children, and most of them President Barack Obama, as well as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton enrolled them in local schools midway through the year. Yet an opposite trend has also taken hold in Washington, as more and more members of Congress have left their families back in their home districts. For many, its been a way to maintain closer ties with voters and signal their independence from Beltway culture. Yet some critics believe the practice has heightened partisanship because lawmakers now bolt from Washington every weekend and spend very little time interacting with one another on a casual basis. Many first ladies have fantasized about escaping the national spotlight, said Gil Troy, a historian at McGill University and author of The Age of Clinton. Its the unspoken expectation that the presidency is a family, and certainly a couples responsibility, he said. Without his wife and youngest son in the White House, Trump might end up missing all those little touches and all those sources of happy news that actually can boost a president. The presidency is one of the loneliest jobs in the world, he added. Having your spouse around can be very normalizing. The first lady can give a little bit of wind to the political sails of a president, so they should be conscious not to lose that opportunity. The job of first lady comes without a salary; its duties are not written into the Constitution. Yet the structural apparatus of the White House has grown to support the unofficial position. The presidents spouse traditionally hires a social secretary and four or five staff members to oversee the planning of hundreds of events that take place each year in the White House. There is also a correspondence office and floral shop that, along with the chefs and team of staffers who maintain the familys private residence, typically work more closely with the first ladys staff than the presidents. Whenever Bush traveled, her staff was capable of working with her from afar to arrange big events, said Bob Scanlan, who was a florist in the White House for 13 years and worked for the Clintons, the Bushes and the Obamas. There were incidences where there were dinners coming up and we would take photographs and the social secretary would email them to the first lady if she wasnt in the house to see the mock-ups, Scanlan said. With technology, its a lot different. One of the first formal events at the White House is scheduled for shortly after the inauguration the Governors Ball, officially hosted by the president and first lady but the permanent staff is well accustomed to helping a new first family learn the ropes. There is a certain continuity, said longtime White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier. We had administrations where a first lady was not too involved with the run of the place because she was interested in other things notably, Rosalynn Carter and Hillary Clinton, he said. It worked fine. Frankly, the social secretary knew very well how to run the place. Melania Trump made clear throughout her husbands campaign that her 10-year-old sons adjustment is her first priority. He will finish out the year at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in Manhattan, his father has said. Eight years ago, Michelle Obama seriously contemplated staying in Chicago with her young daughters because she did not want to interrupt their school year, said McBride, who helped Obamas staff transition into the East Wing and now directs programming and national conferences for American Universitys Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. Michelle Obama ultimately decided to make the move to coincide with the start of her husbands term. Some of the president-elects critics saw a dismaying symbol in the familys decision to remain in the New York penthouse. This gesture disdains DC as capital & hence further delegitimizes govt., tweeted author Daniel Mendelsohn. But Kate Andersen Brower, the author of two books about White House life, saw the decision as less political than practical. It strikes me that Melania is a creature of habit, and the upheaval of moving to Washington was too much at this time, but the enormous privilege of living in the White House would be hard to overlook for too long, she said. The protocol is you just do it. You just make it work. The Washington Posts Helena Andrews-Dyer contributed to this report. firstlady Copyright 2016 Albuquerque Journal It was one of the three men accused in the crime who led detectives to the shallow graves in rural Sandoval County that held the bullet-riddled bodies of three people and a small dog. Thats according to a previously sealed affidavit for an arrest warrant that offers gruesome details on the triple homicide. The document was unsealed after the first of three defendants was arraigned. Sandoval County Sheriffs Office detectives launched an investigation in late February after a ranch manager discovered a stolen truck on the Diamond Tail Ranch, its interior spattered with blood and brain matter. Geraldine Sena, 48, Samuel Sena, 25, and John Santistevan, 32, were found dead about six miles away. In mid-March, deputies received a report that the Senas and Santistevan were missing. Family members confirmed that blood-saturated clothing found in the bed of the truck belonged to Geraldine and Samuel Sena. With the bloody clothing, deputies said they found keys to the Albuquerque apartment where the three lived. According to the complaint, fingerprints found on the truck and on a beer can inside it linked Omar Flores-Castillo, Samuel Jimenez-Perez and Alberto Rodriguez to the vehicle. All three have since been charged with 14 felonies, including three counts of first-degree murder. In an interview with detectives, Jimenez-Perez allegedly admitted that he and the other two were involved in a stolen-car ring, which transported cars to Mexico for sale. He said that the Senas and Santistevan also were involved, according to the complaint. Jimenez-Perez said that Flores-Castillo and Rodriguez indicated that the Senas and Santistevan were purposely snitching, according to the complaint. He said they may have stolen drugs from Flores-Castillo or spoken inappropriately about his Mexican connections. On Feb. 28, they went to the apartment where the Senas and Santistevan lived, and using false pretences lured them into the truck and drove to the home in Bernalillo where Rodriguez was staying, deputies said. Jimenez-Perez said that, after they parked in the garage and closed the door, Flores-Castillo fired an AK-47 at the three as they sat in the back seat, according to the complaint. He also indicated Rodriguez was carrying a .22 caliber handgun. Detectives wrote in the complaint that fragments of .22 caliber and 7.62 mm rounds were found during autopsy of the victims. Detectives said that the victims clothing was removed and some type of chemical was used in attempt to speed up body decomposition. The bodies were taken to a rural portion of Sandoval County, where they were buried close to the spot where the truck was abandoned. Jimenez-Perez said the group planned to burn the truck, but someone had messed up, deputies said. Jimenez-Perez reportedly led detectives to the gravesite, where they found Santistevan and the Senas, along with the body of their small dog. The criminal case for former Albuquerque Public Schools teacher Kenneth Jehle will likely be split into two trials, one for each of his alleged victims. Jehle is accused of touching an APS students genitals and of abusing a female relative, beginning when she was 12, according to police. The first of those trials is set for July 31, 2017. Jehles defense attorney Stephen Lane said he and a prosecutor have tentatively determined that the first trial will deal with the allegations involving the Taft Middle School student, who was 13 at the time. Both trials are expected to take four days. A prosecutor said in court that witnesses include the two victims, two experts and 19 others. Jehle was not in court for Mondays scheduling conference. He lives in Michigan, where he is caring for a sick relative, and Judge Alisa Hadfield said he will be required only to attend evidentiary hearings. He is prohibited from having unsupervised contact with minors. Jehles charges include three counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor by a person in a position of authority, one count of child abuse, five counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and one count of sexual exploitation of children. APS paid a $750,000 settlement last year to the students family. Recent survey reveals that 86 percent of firms have given the nod to PM Modi's demonetisation drive, attesting to the positive impact in the long run. Terming such companies as the new growth engines of India, PM Modi has announced several measures to boost their funding. But, funding has been negatively impacted by demonetisation. (Photo: Reuters) By Prabhash K Dutta: While the opposition parties continue to create ruckus in Parliament over demonetisation and rural India continues to reel under cash crisis, the government move has received a big thumbs up from startups. In a survey conducted by social engagement platform, LocalCircles, a vast majority of startup firms have termed the demonetisation decision by the Modi government a positive step in long-term. advertisement Of 4,514 startup firms, 86 per cent hailed the demonetisation decision saying that it would have positive impact on start up business in particular and Indian economy in general. 44 per cent of the respondents said that the Modi government's decision would yield positive results in both short and long-term. HERE'S WHAT THE SURVEY REFLECTS But, 42 per cent others believe that demonetisation has brought short-term negative impact but long-term impact will be positive. READ | Demonetisation: 10 questions PM is asking India through his Narendra Modi app 13 per cent of the participants in the survey didn't find any merit in demonetisation move, which, they said, would have negative impact in both short and long-term. Interestingly, only 14 per cent startups reported that their business has improved since demonetisation; 28 per cent said that their business has taken a beating after the sudden decision of the government. A maximum of 33 per cent of 4,579 respondents, however, reported no recognisable impact of demonetisation. ALSO READ | PM Modi to BJP MPs: Don't call demonetisation surgical strike, only soldiers do that Less availability of cash in the market has adversely affected the customer transactions for the startups. The LocalCircles survey showed 34 per cent startups had negative customer transactions since demonetisation. 21 per cent startups reported no impact, while only 13 per cent said that their business improved after November 8 announcement of demonetisation of high currency notes. "STARTUPS ARE INDIA'S NEW GROWTH ENGINES" Prime Minister Narendra Modi has high hopes from mushrooming startup firms. Terming such companies as the new growth engines of India, PM Modi has announced several measures to boost their funding. But, funding has been negatively impacted by demonetisation. 31 per cent of the participants in the survey expect slowdown in fund raising for startups. While 20 per cent said that fund raising and demonetisation were linked in their cases, 21 per cent expected an increase funding for startups. 28 percent see no impact on funding of startups. READ | If bypolls were a referendum on demonetisation, has PM Modi won it? --- ENDS --- advertisement It was one of those deaths you remember because they came so unexpectedly, like a crack of thunder, like a fall off a cliff. The shock takes hours to sink in. Maybe years. Maybe never. Six years ago last Friday, I heard the vague details crackle over the police scanner in the newsroom. And then my phone blew up. Mary Han, the indomitable civil rights attorney of small stature and salty language, the woman who had struck fear in those she faced on the other side of the courtroom which sometimes included high-ranking officials and members of the Albuquerque Police Department the woman who only close friends and fortunate journalists knew was generous to a fault, was dead. It was Nov. 18, 2010. She was 53. She was found in her car in her garage at her North Valley townhome. Suicide, they said. Carbon monoxide, they said. Bull pucky, we said. Dozens of APD top brass and city officials descended on the scene, traipsing in and out as if it were some macabre party. Despite their presence there, reports in the case show that little was done to prove or disprove the cause and manner of her death. Inexplicably, the APD foreclosed any investigation and turned Ms. Hans death into a three-ring circus, it would later be described in a lawsuit filed against the city by Hans family. Ive been writing about the suspicious details surrounding Hans death, the way APD and the state Office of the Medical Investigator handled the case and the Han familys quest for answers since August 2011 a dozen columns in all, and you can find them on our website. The columns discuss the many ways the family, through attorney Rosario Vega Lynn, have sought answers, sought to hold the investigators accountable and sought an apology for the way her death was treated. Claims have been filed in courts from the 2nd Judicial District in Albuquerque to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. A scathing attorney generals report condemned the APD investigation into her death as terribly mishandled. So far, those efforts have not produced the desired result, with cases in both state and federal court being dismissed. The state case is under appeal. Having worked on this case for so long, I can unequivocally say that society places a huge burden on any family who is demanding answers from public servants, whether it be law enforcement or the medical examiner, Vega Lynn said. The family should be given the benefit of any doubt, because they knew Mary and her dreams. Suicide is a selfish act, and Marys family knows she was not a selfish person. Both APD and the OMI rushed to judgment: They saw a womans body in a car and high carbon monoxide levels. What they didnt see were any hoses from the exhaust to the interior of the car. They didnt see closed car windows, and they didnt see a suicide note. A womans body and an unattended death do not allow any professional unbiased public official to conclude suicide within hours with no investigation into the victims background. The city and OMI continue to maintain they conducted an appropriate investigation. Emails to City Attorney Jessica Hernandez, who was not in her position at the time the Han case began, went unanswered. Still, the family fights on. This week, Vega Lynn asked the state Court of Appeals to certify her appeal for expedited review by the state Supreme Court. The appeal involves a portion of the familys lawsuit filed against the city, alleging APD botched the investigation into Hans death and spoiled evidence that would have revealed answers as to how she died. That lawsuit was dismissed by state District Judge Carl Butkus in October. Next month, the familys case involving the OMI filed in October 2015 finally gets an evidentiary hearing before state District Judge David Thomson in Santa Fe. In that case, the family is asking the judge to issue an order called a writ of mandamus compelling the OMI to change the manner of Hans death from suicide to undetermined. The case is scheduled to be heard Dec. 6-7, though it still faces another hurdle today when attorneys for the OMI attempt again to have the case dismissed. Those answers may be lost forever. Still, it is right to pursue a legacy for a civil rights attorney like Han, who fought to hold authorities, including law enforcement, accountable. UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor. Representatives of the states construction industry are criticizing standards being imposed on subcontractors for the Facebook data center project in Los Lunas, with one leading organization saying it is shocked and dismayed by requirements it says will disqualify most New Mexico companies. At a meeting last week for potential subcontractors and vendors, Fortis Construction, the data centers Portland, Ore.-based general contractor, said it would hold businesses that subcontract with it directly to a high standard. In addition to an excellent safety record and experience working on large projects, primary subcontractors will need to have no more than 20 percent of their annual revenue committed to the data center project. The first phase of the project is expected to take two years to complete and cost $250 million. Over seven years and multiple phases, the data center is expected to generate up to 500 construction jobs. Roxanne Rivera-Wiest, president of the industry group Associated Builders and Contractors of New Mexico, said in a letter to the Journal that she was shocked and dismayed by the conditions, and during an interview estimated that only 10 to 15 percent of New Mexico contractors would be eligible to bid on primary subcontractor packages under Fortis guidelines. New Mexico contractors, quite frankly, have been struggling, Rivera-Wiest said. To me, it seems unfair that their ability to work on the project would be compromised because they dont have enough of a backlog (to allow them to meet the 20 percent revenue requirement). The post-recession recovery of the states construction industry has lagged behind much of the country. In October, New Mexicos construction unemployment rate was 8.6 percent, the second-worst in the nation, after Alaskas 10.1 percent. Fortis spokesman Shane Kucera referred the Journal to the companys website, which says that subcontractors who dont meet Fortis requirements might still have the opportunity to participate by partnering with organizations that do and becoming sub-tier subcontractors. And on Tuesday, Fortis issued a statement saying it is flexible on the 20 percent requirement and that it is committed to hiring locally. Rivera-Wiest said Monday that she was concerned Fortis will simply turn to out-of-state businesses if they cant find the necessary contractors in New Mexico. Downey & Co.s Chris Downey, who specializes in contract bonds and insurance for commercial contractors, called the 20 percent requirement preposterous. Surety bonds are a complicated process, but we only talk about (annual revenue) when a project would comprise 100 percent or more, because then the question is, can the contractor really handle this? Downey said. We have so many bondable, qualified, and highly technical contractors here. Imposing a 20 percent requirement is simply elitist. Rivera-Wiest said that even if the data center project does employ a significant number of sub-tier subcontractors, the issue goes far beyond the Facebook data center. To incentivize the social media giant to choose New Mexico for its new data center, Facebook was offered $10 million in Local Economic Development Act funding in addition to a gross-receipts tax reimbursement of up to $1.6 million annually and $30 billion in industrial revenue bonds that act as a property tax break. Rivera-Wiest said she would like to see legislation that creates guidelines for construction projects that receive LEDA money including guarantees that only New Mexico contractors will be used. Currently, LEDA legislation does not contain such a provision. Im sure our taxpayers would like to see that, as well, she said. Many of them are contractors themselves. Bernalillo County Sheriffs deputies stopped three different people over the weekend who were driving erratically possibly drunk with children along for the ride. Capt. Joshua Kingsbury of the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office said its unusual to see three arrests involving children, given that most drunken-driving cases dont include children because, in many cases, they are home and in bed at times people tend to drive drunk. About 11:40 p.m. Friday, deputies arrested Cody Terry, 24, of Albuquerque, on charges of conspiracy and a count of child abuse without great bodily harm. According to a Metro Court criminal complaint, Terry was driving a vehicle and swerving on Interstate 40, reaching speeds of 110 mph with Mariyah Lopez and their daughter in the vehicle. Deputies who pulled Terry over wrote in their complaints that they suspected both adults were drunk and Terrys breath test registered above the .08 legal limit. Terry was not charged with DWI, but instead the greater charge of child abuse. Lopez also was charged with child abuse and conspiracy, though she refused a breath test. A deputy wrote that her breath smelled of alcohol and that her speech was slurred and she staggered as she walked. Less than an hour later, at 12:30 a.m. Saturday, deputies arrested Shanadine Victorino, 32, of Casa Blanca, on a count of child abuse without great bodily harm, a more serious charge than DWI. Deputies say she was driving and swerving at 80 mph in a 65 mph zone on westbound I-40 between the Carlisle and Rio Grande exits, according to court documents. A deputy found a 10-year-old girl in the car. The deputy said a test found Victorino had a breath alcohol content of .16 percent, twice the legal limit. According to court documents, she admitted to drinking quite a bit. At roughly 4:30 p.m. Saturday, deputies stopped James Forney, 32, of Bernalillo, at the Sadies of New Mexico restaurant on Fourth Street NW after a waitress reported Forney appeared to be drunk with his three children, ranging in age from 2 to 7. Deputies say they found Forney driving a truck with a trailer in the Sadies parking lot with his children in the vehicle. None of the people arrested initially was booked on charges of drunken driving, Kingsbury said, because deputies cant charge someone with a misdemeanor crime and a felony on the same criminal complaint. Instead, deputies listed the felony charge, child abuse, and the District Attorneys Office can later add the drunken-driving charges, which are misdemeanors up to the fourth repeat offense. NEW YORK The Latest on Donald Trumps transition to the presidency (all times local): 6:10 p.m. President-elect Donald Trump has formally offered retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson the position of secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Thats according to a person familiar with the offer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the deliberations publicly. Carson had previously said he was not interested in serving in Trumps administration. But his business manager Armstrong Williams says Carson has always maintained hed be open to considering a senior role in the administration if Trump convinced him there was no one else for the job. Williams says Carson was especially intrigued by the HUD position after being floated as a potential secretary of education or health and human services. Carson will consider the offer over Thanksgiving. Trump tweeted about Carson Tuesday, saying he was seriously considering him for the post and praising him as a greatly talented person who loves people! __ 4:15 p.m. Former Washington, D.C., schools chief Michelle Rhee says shes not seeking a job in President-elect Donald Trumps administration. Rhee met with Trump on Saturday amid speculation that she was being considered for education secretary. Rhee tweeted a statement Tuesday saying shes not pursuing a position with the administration. She says she appreciated the chance to discuss education with Trump. She says those who urged her not to meet with him were wrong and that its important to find common ground on education policy. Rhee is a Democrat who served as District of Columbia schools chancellor from 2007 to 2010, where she was viewed as a national leader in urban education reform. She later founded a nonprofit called StudentsFirst. ___ 2:50 p.m. President-elect Donald Trump says theres some connectivity between humans and climate change. He tells The New York Times on Tuesday that clean air is vitally important and hes keeping an open mind about whether to pull the United States out of a multinational agreement on climate change. He appeared to break dramatically with his own previous remarks that climate change was a hoax. The Times reported that he said Tuesday, I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much. ___ 2:40 p.m. President-elect Donald Trump is disavowing white nationalist sympathizers who celebrated his election during a conference in Washington over the weekend. He tells The New York Times that I disavow and condemn them. He was responding to a question during Tuesdays interview about a weekend event during which attendees cheered Trumps election and gave Nazi salutes. The Times is publishing excerpts via Twitter of its interview Tuesday with Trump. The newspaper didnt immediately release a transcript. ___ 2:30 p.m. President-elect Donald Trump says that in theory he could run his business and the country with no conflict of interest. He tells The New York Times on Tuesday that the president cant have a conflict of interest, but hes in the process of handing over his business to his children, anyway. Trump is facing questions about whether he and his children face a conflict of interest by having roles in the presidential transition and the Trump Organization. He said of his critics, If it were up to some people, I would never, ever see my daughter Ivanka again to avoid any business-presidential conflict. ___ 2:00 p.m. President-elect Donald Trump says he wants to move on from years of investigations of Bill and Hillary Clinton. He tells The New York Times that prosecuting the Clintons would be very, very divisive for the country. He says he doesnt want to hurt the Clintons, adding that he doesnt think his supporters will be disappointed once he explains that we, in many ways, will save our country. The Times is publishing excerpts via Twitter of its interview Tuesday with Trump. The newspaper didnt immediately release a transcript. Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway earlier in the day told MSNBC that Trump was sending a signal to congressional Republicans to abandon years of investigations into Hillary Clintons private email server and the deadly raid on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. ___ 12:45 p.m. President-elect Donald Trump says he is seriously considering retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Trumps announcement on Twitter comes a week after Carson let it be known that he is not interested in being considered for any position in the Trump administration. In Tuesdays tweet, Trump says: I am seriously considering Dr. Ben Carson as the head of HUD. Ive gotten to know him well hes a greatly talented person who loves people! Last week, Carson business manager Armstrong Williams said Carson had opted out of being considered for any position, including as head of the Department of Health and Human Services or the Education Department. Williams also said Trump had made clear he wanted his rival-turned-adviser in some role. ___ 12:42 p.m. White House spokesman Josh Earnest is confirming that President Barack Obama has spoken with his successor on at least one occasion since their Oval Office meeting. However, Earnest says he wouldnt discuss any details of their talks. He says the White House has traditionally not unveiled details of calls that Obama has had when consulting former presidents, and thats a precedent it wants to protect with President-elect Donald Trump. Earnest says Trump indicated during their Oval Office meeting that he wanted the opportunity to consult with Obama during the course of the transition. Meanwhile, Obama has committed to a smooth transition, and as a result, they have spoken at least once since that meeting. Earnest says Trump is free to discuss whatever he chooses about his consultations with the president. ___ 10:15 a.m. President-elect Donald Trumps visit to The New York Times is to consist of a private meeting with the publisher followed by an on-the-record session with Times journalists. Trump at first abruptly canceled the meeting, accusing the organization of changing the ground rules. The Times said Trumps team actually tried to change the conditions by asking that the entire session be off the record. But before long, both sides said the meeting was back on Tuesday. ___ 9:31 a.m. President-elect Donald Trump may be visiting with The New York Times after all. Spokesman Hope Hicks told reporters gathered in Trump Tower on Tuesday morning that Trump was going to The New York Times later in the day. The statement comes only hours after Trump tweeted that he would not be meeting with the newspaper. He wrote on Twitter that he canceled the meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not Nice. __ 8:45 a.m. A top adviser to Donald Trump is suggesting that the president-elect is going to help Hillary Clinton heal and not pursue a probe of her private email server. Kellyanne Conway said on MSNBC on Tuesday that Trump is setting a tone for congressional Republicans by refraining from calling for more investigations. She says that he doesnt wish to pursue these charges. Days earlier, Trump told CBSs 60 Minutes that he wants to think about whether to look more into Clintons homebrew email server and the Justice Departments decision to not recommend charges against her. Now Conway says that, if Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps thats a good thing. Trump during the campaign vowed to put his Democratic presidential rival in jail over the matter. ___ 8:30 a.m. President-elect Donald Trump has abruptly canceled a meeting with The New York Times. He accused the organization of changing the conditions for the session at the last moment. The newspaper denied the charge and said Trumps aides tried to change the rules. Hed been scheduled to meet Times reporters, editors and columnists and did not give details of his complaint, saying in a morning tweet only that the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice. Eileen M. Murphy, the newspapers senior vice president for communications, said the paper did not change the ground rules at all. She said Trumps aides asked for a private meeting only, with nothing on the record, after having agreed to a meeting that would consist of a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record one with reporters and columnists. The election of Donald Trump and Republican majorities in both houses have terrified environmentalists and climate campaigners, who have declared that the next four years will be a disaster. Fear is understandable. We have much to learn about the new administrations plans. But perhaps surprisingly, what little we know offers some cause for hope. It should not need to be restated in 2016 that climate change is real and mostly man-made. It is hard to know whether Trump will acknowledge this. He has called global warming a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, but stated that this was a joke; he denied the existence of climate change during the campaign, but supported global warming action as recently as 2009. What really matters is not rhetoric but policy. So far, we know that President Trump will drop the Paris climate change treaty. This is far from the world-ending event that some suggest and offers an opportunity for a smarter approach. Even ardent supporters acknowledge that the Paris treaty by itself will do little to rein in global warming. The United Nations estimates that if every country were to make every single promised carbon cut between 2016 and 2030 to the fullest extent and there was no cheating, carbon dioxide emissions would still only be cut by one-hundredth of what is needed to keep temperature rises below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius). The Paris treatys 2016-2030 pledges would reduce temperature rises around 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. If maintained throughout the rest of the century, temperature rises would be cut by 0.31 degrees Fahrenheit. At the same time, these promises will be costly. Trying to cut carbon dioxide, even with an efficient tax, makes cheap energy more expensive and this slows economic growth. My calculations using the best peer-reviewed economic models show the cost of the Paris promises through slower gross domestic product growth from higher energy costs would reach $1 trillion to $2 trillion every year from 2030. U.S. vows alone to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 would reduce GDP by more than $150 billion annually. So Trumps promise to dump Paris will matter very little to temperature rises, and it will stop the pursuit of an expensive dead end. However, Paris was a well-meaning if flawed attempt to address a genuine global issue. With no international climate policies at all, it is probable that we would see a temperature rise of perhaps 7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. The United States needs to find a smarter solution. Climate economists have found that green energy R&D investment would be a much more efficient approach. This is very much in line with Trumpscampaign promise of investment in research and development across the broad landscape of academia and with its suggestion that we could develop energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels. This investment in U.S. ingenuity could help innovate the price of green energy down below fossil fuels. Only then will we truly be able to stop climate change. Statements by Trumps campaign also indicate that the next administration will create a global development and aid policy that recognizes that climate is one problem among many. Asked about global warming, the campaign responded, Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water. Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria. Perhaps we should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population. This would be a big change. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development analyzed almost all aid from the United States and other rich nations and found that about one-third is climate-related aid. This is immoral when 2 billion people suffer from malnutrition, 700 million live in extreme poverty and 2.4 billion are without clean drinking water and sanitation. These problems can be tackled effectively today, helping many more people more dramatically than climate aid could. Despite its length, and for all of its heat and bluster, the election campaign left many unanswered questions and understandable concerns about the president-elects positions on climate change, aid and development. But, surprisingly, there is now an opportunity. To seize it, the Trump administration needs to go beyond just dumping the ineffective Paris agreement, to an innovation-based green energy approach that will harness U.S. ingenuity. Far from being a disaster, such a policy could mean a real solution to climate change and help the worlds worst-off more effectively. Lomborg is president and founder of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and a visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School. climate-comment WASHINGTON In the days since Donald Trump has been president-elect, there has been ever-growing concern that his sprawling global business empire could present a series of conflicts of interest once he takes office so much so that congressional phone lines have been jammed this week with calls for an investigation. Trump brushed off that concern in a tweet on Monday evening, writing: Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world. Only the crooked media makes this a big deal! For months, media outlets have reported on the unprecedented complications that would come with electing a businessman who had active deals in a number of countries, including many where the United States maintains sensitive diplomatic ties. At least 111 Trump companies have done business in 18 countries and territories across South America, Asia and the Middle East, a Washington Post analysis of Trump financial filings shows. Some of these deals were launched while Trump was campaigning, including a potential hotel project in oil-rich Saudi Arabia. On the campaign trail, Trump said that he would hand over control of the Trump Organization to his children, although he and his aides never detailed what steps would be taken to fully separate Trump from the business dealings. Now that he is the president-elect, Trump has put his three oldest children on his presidential transition team and has seemed to ignore calls that he sell his company or give his business interests over to an independent manager or blind trust. If he doesnt do so, Trumps international properties could become targets for attack or a back-channel for foreign dealmakers trying to please the Trump administration. Trump also runs the risk of violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which states that elected leaders cannot accept of any present, emolument, office or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince or foreign state without permission from Congress. Eight minutes after sending the tweet about his foreign business, Trump sent another that waded into British politics and urged Prime Minister Theresa May to appoint Nigel Farage, the UK Independence Party leader and one of the architects of the successful Brexit campaign, as Great Britains ambassador to the United States. Mays spokesman said there is no vacancy. Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Trump tweeted. It was a striking move for the U.S. president-elect to interfere in the domestic politics of another country. Trumps advocacy is sure to cause waves in Britain, considering the complicated relationship between May and Farage. Trump has grown close to Farage over the past year and saw his own victory as an extension of the global populist movement that propelled the Brexit campaign across the Atlantic. Farage campaigned with Trump earlier this year in Mississippi, appeared at the second presidential debate as a Trump surrogate and, a few days after the election, paid Trump a visit in New York. We already have an excellent ambassador to the U.S., Mays spokesman said in response to Trumps tweet. The Washington Posts Drew Harwell and Anu Narayanswamy contributed to this report. trump-conflicts The word cheeky, meaning insolent or impertinent, is a favorite in Britain, as in, to quote the OED, some even had the cheek to push their cameras through the front gate or If he gives me any of his cheek Ill knock him down. In the world of diplomacy, a foreign leader suggesting publicly to another government whom it should send as ambassador is most definitely cheeky, even in the view of Britains cheekiest newspaper, the Sun, which called it a highly unusual intervention that breaks with diplomatic protocol. When the man proposed as ambassador is a leader not of the party in power but rather a thorn in the side of the party in power, it transcends cheek and becomes a corker. That was the word the Guardians Andrew Sparrow deployed to describe President-elect Donald Trumps tweet Monday that Many people would like to see Nigel Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Farage is the outgoing leader of the anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) and of the successful populist movement called Brexit to take Britain out of the European Union. He also campaigned for Trump during the election and was among the first visitors to Trump Tower in New York after Trumps victory. Farage said he was very flattered by Trumps suggestion. British Prime Minister Theresa May was less than thrilled. There is no vacancy, said a spokesman for Number 10 Downing Street. We already have an excellent ambassador to the U.S., Sir Kim Darroch. Trumps tweet could be treated as comic but for what Sparrow called its serious implications. Among them: Trump has at a stroke undermined the authority of Britains current ambassador to Washington . . . Effectively he has issued a public statement of no confidence in him. This would be relatively unusual if he were dealing with the ambassador from a hostile country, but it is an extraordinary thing to do to the ambassador of an ally. He has given a huge boost in status to a leading figure in a UK opposition party-again, an unfriendly move to May. He has confirmed that any hopes of him operating as a normal president seem misguided. Perhaps it was a joke. But, if so, that probably makes it all worse. The British press, like the American press, has become accustomed to Trumps idiosyncrasies. Still, this one surprised. Jon Sopel at the BBC called Trumps action an extraordinary intervention. The future head of one nation telling another country who they should appoint as their ambassador is unusual enough; when it is two nations that are meant to share a special relationship, it is a breach of nearly every rule of diplomatic protocol. At a stroke it puts tension into the Trump/Theresa May relationship before they have even met. . . In Downing Street and diplomatic circles there is consternation, Sopel added. But causing consternation is a specialty for both Trump and Farage. Its a bit of a shock to me, said Farage. No one had mentioned the idea to me but I have good relations with his team and if I could help the UK in any way I would. britain-envoy For months, Yesenia Sesmas had pretended to be pregnant, police said. The 34-year-old woman lived in Dallas with her family. But on Thursday afternoon, she was more than 350 miles away in Wichita, Kansas, where police said she fatally shot a mother then kidnapped the womans newborn daughter. When the infants father returned home from work, he discovered his girlfriend, Laura Abarca-Nogueda, dead. Their daughter, Sofia Gonzales a baby girl born six days before with round cheeks and a full head of black hair was nowhere to be found, according to a statement from police. Sesmas, police said, had fled with the infant, heading south to Texas. After a days-long search involving federal agents and local authorities in two states, Sofia was found early Saturday at a home in Dallas. Sesmas was arrested on an outstanding felony warrant and booked on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping. On Monday, authorities presented the case to the Sedgwick County District Attorneys Office in Kansas. Sesmas is in custody in Dallas; Wichita police are pursuing charges and trying to have her extradited to Kansas. Wichita police spokesman Charley Davidson told The Washington Post that Sesmas knew her 27-year-old victim, although he did not say how. He said that although Sesmas lives in Dallas, she had spent time in Wichita before relocating to Texas several months ago. Davidson did not speculate why Sesmas returned to Wichita and allegedly ended a womans life before taking her newborn. After being found in Dallas, the infant was taken to a hospital for evaluation, police said, and was taken home Saturday evening. The investigation is ongoing, authorities said. We cant forget that this is the best possible outcome to a very sad case, Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay told ABC affiliate KAKE. The death of Laura Abarca will be on all of our hearts in the next coming days. We want to do everything we can to bring this to justice. On Monday, Sesmas told CBS affiliate KWCH from jail that she shot Abarca-Nogueda but never meant to kill her. She just wanted the womans child, she said. I only wanted to threaten her in case she wouldnt give [Sofia] to me, Sesmas told the station, but the gun went off. Wichita police responded to a call at about 3:30 p.m. Thursday to Abarca-Noguedas home, where they found the mothers body. She was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Authorities began searching for her newborn, whose name has been spelled by police both as Sophia and Sofia, fanning out across nearby neighborhoods. Our main concern right now is to locate and safely return 7-day-old Sofia Gonzales to her family, Wichita police said Friday. Sofia is missing and believed to be endangered and as with any newborn, an infant needs medical care and attention. The FBI is assisting with the investigation and a response team specializing in child abductions has been brought in to assist the Wichita Police Department in the investigation. By Friday evening, authorities had identified Sesmas as a suspect, according to police. Authorities obtained a search warrant, and in the early hours Saturday morning, Dallas SWAT officers swarmed a residence. Inside, police said, they found Sesmas, who was living with her boyfriend, her son and her niece. They also found baby Sofia. Authorities said they do not believe the others in the home knew about Sesmass plan or played any part in it. After the arrest, investigators from Wichita flew down to Dallas to conduct the interviews. Detectives learned that Yesenia had faked a pregnancy over the past several months and then had traveled to Wichita, Kan., where she committed the murder and the kidnapping of Sofia and then returned to Dallas, Tex., with Sofia, Wichita Police Lt. Todd Ojile, head of the homicide unit, said at a news conference. Sesmas has been accused of somewhat similar crimes in the past. Davidson, the Wichita police spokesman, said Sesmas was arrested in July on suspicion of aggravated battery and aggravated kidnapping. A 37-year-old woman told police that Sesmas had battered her and her daughter, then kidnapped the woman, her daughter and another child. The children were ages 10 and 2, Davidson said. Sesmas was released from police custody, and a warrant was later issued for her arrest, Davidson said. She was arrested Saturday in Dallas on that outstanding warrant. After baby Sofia was reunited with her family, her uncle said, relatives were relieved but grieving a young mothers death. Laura was a loving mother, she was an amazing person, Jose Abarca told KWCH. I know she was only a mother for six days, but pretty sure those were the best moments for her. A GoFundMe page set up to help the family with funeral expenses has raised more than $13,000. Laura Orquidea Abarca Nogueda was a vibrant, beautiful woman, [whose] life got taken from us far to soon, the message on the page reads. Laura meant so much to us and we are devastated by the events surrounded by her death and the disappearance of her [daughter] Sophia. We appreciate all the prayers and will be grateful for any amount you are able to donate. Thank you and remember to keep praying for a safe return for baby Sophia while we set her mother to rest. kansas-death WASHINGTON Casey Shea is a moderate who voted for Hillary Clinton. All of her ex-boyfriends, she says, have been Republicans. Before this years presidential election, those political differences didnt matter much. It was as though her boyfriends merely had different tastes in alcohol, as though they liked whiskey and I liked vodka. Now, however, she cant stomach the idea of dating someone who voted for President-elect Donald Trump. It would be like someone is trying to make me drink whiskey all the time, Shea says. I think well get past it, she says. But right now, everyones trying to feed you vodka or whiskey, rather than respecting your different tastes. She wouldnt rule out dating a Trump supporter in the future, but right now is way too soon. Im still really sad, she says, noting that she spent all of Nov. 9 crying. Shea made this analogy at the D.C. launch party for the League, a dating app that vets its applicants heavily before allowing them to swipe. Dont know about the League? Heres another analogy: If Tinder is your safety school, the place where body-shaming and sexual innuendo fly as fast as you can swipe, the League is your reach school, where resumes are fact-checked and egalitarian relationships are encouraged. You might even say the Leagues system is rigged against you: The more people who apply to join the League in your city, founder Amanda Bradford says, the harder it is to get in. The app has more than 10,000 D.C. area singles vying for admission, about 250 of whom packed a Washington bar on Thursday night. If Tinder is Trumps America, the League strongly implies that it is Hillarys America, which is still alive and in need of a stiff drink. As Chad Crowley, a 22-year-old Democrat from North Carolina, described the post-election singles scene: You dont have to ask someone: Do you want to grab a drink? Because you know they need one. Crowleys strategy is sound: Sixty-two percent of unmarried women voted for Clinton, and 33 percent went for Trump. The split among unmarried men was closer: Forty-six percent voted for Clinton, 45 percent for Trump. And yet, much like were seeing Trump and Clinton voters around the country trying to understand one another, even these selective singles expressed a willingness to date across the political divide once the tears have dried. And as long as the dude in question has a job. Preferably, a good one. For example, Ashley Krawiecs dealbreakers are economic, not political. Im not trying to date someone whos a bartender or someone who works at McDonalds, the 29-year-old said of her interest in the League. I want something equal. When asked whether politics play a role in whom shell admit to her inner circle, she said no. Most likely I wouldnt ask, on a first date, who you voted for. I wouldnt even ask my friends, she said. There are just so many more interesting things to talk about that are more telling about your personality than politics. Krawiec voted for Clinton but wouldnt rule out dating a Trump supporter. At first blush, Krawiec thought the League sounded pretentious and wondered if she was good enough for the app. Well, the answer is yes: She has been vetted and admitted, but hasnt met anybody yet. One floor down from Krawiec, theres a bulletin board where partygoers have filled in the blanks on cards describing what theyd swipe left (no) and right (yes) to. What gets a left swipe in this crowd? Bad conversations, sexism, guns, hate. And on the right? Great smiles, puppies, feminists, unity. Are these singles are just being polite? Have they listened to Clintons concession speech so many times that theyve forgotten the rancor of this campaign? Michelle Jacoby, who has been a professional matchmaker in the Washington area for the past nine years, does see less potential now for bipartisan relationships than in the past. It is possible to fall in love with someone who has different views, she says. But I think people are more divided now than they have been in the House, the Senate and on dates, too. Still, shes setting up a date between a Clinton-voting Democrat and a Trump-supporting Republican. I think theyll like each other, she says. They share a lot of values. Theyre both so thoughtful; theyre both so genuine. dating-politics Monday nights edition of NBC Nightly News featured a report on President-elect Donald Trumps transition. President-elect Donald Trump met today with more prospective members of his administration as his team released a video of Trump talking about his legislative priorities. At the same time, questions remained about how Trump will separate the work of his businesses from his work on the nations business. Hallie Jackson followed up with a detailed account of Trumps overseas holdings and their implications for a Trump presidency. All well and good. But: What anchor Lester Holt didnt detail was a meeting that he himself had attended at Trump Tower earlier in the day. He wasnt alone, as a number of other network dignitaries from five outlets CNN, ABC News, NBC News, Fox News and CBS News huddled with the president-elect. Attendees included Chuck Todd (NBC News), Phil Griffin (MSNBC), Norah ODonnell (CBS News), Gayle King (CBS News), Charlie Rose (CBS News) and Jeff Zucker (CNN). So what did Trump tell all these icons of mainstream media? Well, pretty much what he has been saying for about 18 months. It was like a fing firing squad, a source told the New York Post. As per custom, Trump allegedly teed off on CNN, a network that he allegedly mentioned in close proximity to the word liars. That, at least, was one perspective on the proceedings. Another came from Politico, which cited a source describing the meeting as less intense, and said the discussion included Trump expressing the possibility of a reset of the tumultuous relationship between the president-elect and the media and that all he wants is fairness.' And various reports concur that Trump expressed particular dismay that NBC News had used a photo of him that accentuates his double chin. So there are two competing versions of what happened in that Trump Tower conference room: One that portrayed Trump as a conquering hero, dissing the masters of the mainstream media; and another that portrayed things as somewhat conciliatory. Guess which version came from Trump aides eager to please the folks that vaulted them into the White House and which came from TV types wishing to save a bit of face. Whichever you believe, sit back and appreciate that the most exalted executives in the U.S. news business Monday got into what amounts to a leaking war with the president-elect of the United States and his staffers. How did this happen? It happened because the media folks participated in an off-the-record discussion with Trump, meaning that they couldnt turn around and publish or broadcast the words and sentiments bandied about in the meeting. Three dozen news luminaries, silenced. As any media historian will tell you, theres ample precedent for such off-the-record sessions. Theres a tradition of news anchors hanging with the president in a pre-State of the Union luncheon, for example. And President Barack Obama, like his predecessors, has regularly engaged reporters and columnists in off-the-record chats so that theyre familiar with his thinking on contemporary issues which is a euphemism for spinning them. Of all people, though, the folks in attendance Monday at Trump Tower should have known better than to meet with Trump under such circumstances. This is the guy, after all, who put their camera operators in peril by shouting them down at rallies; the guy who screamed Katy to single out NBC New reporter Katy Tur at a late campaign rally; the guy whose former campaign manager manhandled reporters; the guy whose campaign replaced policy pronouncements with media denunciations; the guy who vowed to erode the First Amendment protections for news organizations. The guy, too, who harassed Fox News host Megyn Kelly for months and months, ostensibly over the historic question that she posed at the first presidential debate on Aug. 6, 2015, regarding his mistreatment of women. Over Twitter, Trump called Kelly a lightweight, among several other insults that were repeated over and over. Throughout this roughly eight-month period, Fox News chief Roger Ailes held countless off-the-record meetings with Trump, as did others at Fox News. It all accomplished nothing, as Kelly writes in her memoir, Settle For More: Roger had tried. (Sean) Hannity had tried. Bill Shine had tried. Time had passed. Trump wasnt stopping. So Kelly traveled to Trump Tower for an off-the-record session with Trump. Though he finally stopped the harassment and appeared on a soft-focus interview show with Kelly on the Fox Broadcasting Co., he never came on The Kelly File, the hosts highly ranked Fox News program. The lesson? Dont negotiate with Donald Trump. Cover Donald Trump. trump-media-comment Over 200 MPs belonging to the opposition parties are going to hold a protest on Wednesday against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetisation drive. By Mausami Singh: In a rare show of unity, more than 200 MPs belonging to opposition parties from across the political spectrum will join protest Narendra Modi government's demonetisation move at the landmark Gandhi Statue in Parliament at 10 am on Wednesday. The MPs are of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. They are also from rival parties, such as SP and BSP, and the Left and TMC. These rival parties will be seen joining hands against the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre. advertisement Last week, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's TMC had marched till the Rashtrapati Bhavan but had failed to get other political parties, like the Congress and the Left, on board. To keep the focus on demonetisation, all parties will carry the national flag. There will not be individual party banners. Moreover, neutral slogans that are not party oriented have been also prepared. Few Hindi slogans Like "Modi ji ki Mann ki baat, gareebon ke pet par laat", written by TMC MPs Kakoli Ghosh and Dipa Sen, have been readied to sound in one chorus. Derek O Brien, also of TMC, is writing the few English slogans. The opposition party MPs will arrive at 10 am to protest before Parliament starts business. The protestors will comprise only MPs. No other leaders will participate in the event. In a rare show of unity over 200 MPS to protest against demonetisation on Wednesday. In a rare show of unity over 200 MPS to protest against demonetisation on Wednesday. Also read: Demonetisation: 10 questions PM is asking India through his Narendra Modi app Considering contempt notice against Modi for not attending Parliament: Sitaram Yechury ups the ante --- ENDS --- Police responding to the parking lot of the Wells Park Community Center Tuesday afternoon found a man dead from an apparent gunshot wound, according to a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department. Officer Fred Duran said that, around 2 p.m., people working near the center on Fifth and Mountain NW heard multiple shots fired. They called police and responding officers found the victim lying on his back on the sidewalk leading to the entrance of the community center. Homicide detectives took over the investigation. Duran said the center was secured and several children who had been inside at the time of the shooting were picked up by their parents. At this point in time, it is believed to be an isolated incident, Duran said. No others were injured that police have been made aware of. A woman who answered the phone at the community center said no one from the building was involved in the incident, but she wasnt able to comment further. The victim had not been positively identified as of Tuesday evening and no one was in custody, Duran said. Call in your tips Anyone with information about this incident should contact APD at 505-242-2677. SALT LAKE CITY The Latest on the sentencing of a Colorado man in the stabbing death of a Utah woman four decades ago (all times local): 2:50 p.m. A 76-year-old Colorado man who was charged four decades after police say he stabbed a 23-year-old Utah woman to death will serve 10 years to life in prison for the killing. A judge in the Utah city of Price sentenced Thomas Edward Egley on Tuesday. Egley, of Rocky Ford, Colorado, pleaded guilty in October to killing Loretta Jones in 1970. Egley was an original suspect in the 1970 death of 23-year-old Jones, but a judge dismissed the case decades ago after finding there wasnt enough evidence against him. The investigation was reopened seven years ago at the urging of Jones now-grown daughter, who was determined not to let her mothers death be forgotten. This time, police said Egley acknowledged his role in the slaying. ___ 12:30 p.m. A 76-year-old Colorado man who was charged four decades after police say he stabbed a 23-year-old Utah woman to death is set to be sentenced Tuesday in the central Utah city of Price. Thomas Edward Egley, of Rocky Ford, pleaded guilty in October to killing Loretta Jones in 1970. Egley was an original suspect in the 1970 death of 23-year-old Jones, but a judge found there wasnt enough evidence against him and dismissed the case decades ago. The investigation was reopened seven years ago at the urging of Jones now-grown daughter, who was determined not to let her mothers death be forgotten. This time, police said Egley acknowledged his role in the slaying. Egley faces at least 10 years and up to life in prison at a sentencing set to begin at 1:30 p.m. LOS ANGELES Kanye West has been hospitalized in Los Angeles after abruptly canceling the last 21 dates of his national tour. E! News, which is part of the E! network that airs the Kardashian family reality show and its spinoffs, reported that West was hospitalized Monday afternoon after his personal doctor called 911. A rep for the E! network said Tuesday that E! cameras were not filming when the 911 call was made and that they are not filming at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where West is being treated. A spokeswoman for Wests wife, Kim Kardashian, had no comment Tuesday. Los Angeles police told The Associated Press on Monday that they responded to a home in West Hollywood, California, and a person there was taken by ambulance to the hospital and placed on a psychiatric hold. Police did not identify the patient as West. Kardashian had been expected to make her first public appearance Monday night since she was tied up and robbed at gunpoint last month in Paris. It was to come at the Angel Ball, a charity event in New York honoring her late father, Robert Kardashian. But amid the reports about West, she did not show up. Her mother, Kris Jenner, and sisters Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian were on hand. When asked how the couple was doing, Jenner simply smiled and said, Theyre good. West had just pulled the plug on his Saint Pablo Tour after days of erratic and angry behavior that made an even hotter topic than usual on social media. On Friday, during a concert in San Jose, California, West said he didnt vote in the presidential election but would have cast a ballot for Donald Trump, praising the president-elects method of communication as very futuristic. On Saturday in Sacramento, California, he ended his show after just four songs but not before a 10-minute tirade about Beyonce, Jay Z, Hillary Clinton, Mark Zuckerberg, the radio and MTV. Over the weekend, West also flooded his Instagram account with nearly 100 fashion photos, many snaps of photos that were out of focus and poorly cropped. Sundays show in the Los Angeles area was canceled then West decided to scrap the entire tour. Concert promoter Live Nation said tickets would be fully refunded. The tour was to have made stops through Dec. 31 in Dallas, Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C., among others. ___ This story has been corrected to remove reference to E! Network confirming the details of the E! News report; the network now says they have no direct knowledge of his hospitalization. ___ Associated Press writers Sandy Cohen, Nekesa Mumbi Moody and Mark Kennedy contributed to this report from New York. DALLAS Texas is objecting to policy revisions recommended by experts chosen by a federal judge to overhaul its troubled foster care system, including a proposed ban on children sleeping in state offices. The state detailed its objections in a court filing Monday. Among the states arguments were that the courts findings of unconstitutional violations regarding those in long-term foster case were unsupported by reliable expert testimony or other competent, admissible evidence. U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack issued her opinion in December and ordered the independent overhaul. The trial included testimony from young adults talking about suffering abuse while in foster care. New York-based advocacy group Childrens Rights filed the lawsuit and had no objections to the recommendations issued earlier this month. The recommendations are being reviewed by the judge. Border Patrol agents on Tuesday seized a load of marijuana valued at more than $194,000 in New Mexicos rugged Bootheel region, the agency said in a statement. In the pre-dawn darkness, agents working the mountainous terrain south of Lordsburg used night-vision technology to spot a group of six people hiding beneath a tree. Agents responded and caught two subjects carrying large burlap backpacks that later tested positive for marijuana. Agents found three more backpacks hidden in the desert brush and were still pursuing four additional subjects late Tuesday, the agency said. New Mexicos Bootheel the wide-open rural area of Hidalgo County has become a corridor for drug mules carrying heavy sacks of marijuana. They trek for up to seven days, law enforcement officials say, aiming to drop their loads near Interstate 10. Border Patrol said it has turned over the two apprehended subjects, ages 44 and 19, to the Drug Enforcement Administration for prosecution. Border Patrol seized more than 60,000 pounds of marijuana in fiscal 2015 in the El Paso sector that includes all of New Mexico, about 36 percent more than the roughly 44,000 pounds seized the prior year. The rampant inflation currently tearing through world economies has had little to no effect on venture capital investing according to a new survey from PitchBook. The Shiv Sena MPs had sought time with PM Narendra Modi to Impress upon him to accede to their request. Today the Shiv sena MPs will be meeting the PM at 12 noon. The Shiv Sena MPs had sought time with PM Narendra Modi to press upon him to accede to their request. By Brijesh Pandey: In further hardening of stance against the Modi government on the issue of it not allowing cooperative banks and district banks to keep and change the money, Shiv Sena MPs met last night to strategise on this issue. The Shiv Sena MPs had sought time with PM Narendra Modi to press upon him to accede to their request. Today the Shiv sena MPs will be meeting the PM at 12 noon. advertisement After the meeting, Shiv Sena MPs spoke to Uddhav Thackrey who asked them to adopt a hardline stance against the government on this issue. It was also discussed that if the government doesn't agree to their demand then Shiv Sena will oppose government in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. It was also decided that if the intransigent attitude of the government continues, then in case of voting the Shiv Sena might even go to the extent of voting against the government. The government thinking on not allowing the cooperative banks to exchange old denomination stems from the belief that these cooperative banks are under the influence of politicians and if they are allowed it will defeat the purpose of the scheme. The Shiv Sena had expressed its displeasure and had even participated in the march against demonetisation led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee. --- ENDS --- Initially it was reported that the crooks had drilled holes through the wall in order to enter the bank premises. But on closer inspection of the site, it was found out that poor maintenance was the major reason that encouraged the thieves to attempt the heist Poor maintenance was found to be the major reason that enabled the thieves to break in. By Pramod Madhav: As demonetisation has caused a crunch in people's pockets, the effect seems to have pushed petty thieves to try the impossible. FORCED ENTRY ATTEMPTED A surprise was waiting for the Manager of Bank of Mysore, Anna Salai branch when the bank was opened for the day. He found evidence of a forced entry attempt. It was also clear that someone had broke into the bank and had tried to crack open the safe. advertisement Police were informed immediate about the problem. After going through the CTTV footage, they found that three crooks tried to forcefully enter the bank on Saturday evening. Initially it was reported that the crooks had drilled holes through the wall in order to enter the bank premises. But on closer inspection of the site, it was found out that poor maintenance was the major reason that encouraged the thieves to attempt the heist. HOW IT UNFOLDED The bank is situated on a corner on the ground floor and is surrounded by trees blurring any night time activity. There is a small gap is located between the Bank's backside which is not covered by any door or wall. The Bank's back end had four windows which were covered with old rusty grills. Two men kept watch while another man entered the bank and tried to open the safe. Luckily, the Bank's safe was of good enough quality to make the task impossible and damage the thief's instruments while attempting to opening it. After trying for sometime, he accepted defeat and went out the way he entered. The bank officials had learned from their mistake and decided to completely close the windows. Police are not ruling an inside job as the thieves seemed to know the weakness of the Bank's exteriors and interiors. This was the second time a Bank of Mysore branch has been in the news over the last two days, as officials of the bank's branch in Anna Nagar were arrested on Sunday for trying to change demonetised currency notes for a commission. ALSO READ: Demonetization: Double trouble for northeast, petrol pumps in Manipur without fuel 68-year-old Kerala man dies while waiting in bank queue --- ENDS --- The decision was taken during the Opposition parties' meeting, where it was decided that the fight against NDA government has to be taken to the next level on demonetisation issue. By Supriya Bhardwaj: After stalling both the Houses, Opposition parties now formally put stamp on the decision to start series of protests near Mahatma Gandhi statue inside Parliament premises from Wednesday. The United Opposition front will also seek time from the President to him hand a memorandum aimed at drawing his attention towards hardships being faced by people due demonetisation scheme's implementation. advertisement OPPOSITION WILL MARCH TO PRESIDENT'S HOUSE After getting time from the President, the Opposition parties will march from Parliament to President House to hand him the memorandum. These decisions were taken during the Opposition parties' meeting, where it was decided that the fight against NDA government has to be taken to the next level on demonetisation issue. The massive showdown between NDA government and Opposition parties led by Congress on demonetisation issue led to stalling of both Houses - Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha - in last three working days. The united Opposition parties' front zeroed in on two major plans to put pressure on the central government. Also read: Demonetisation: Shiv Sena MPs to meet PM Modi today, ups ante against BJP OPPOSITION UPS ANTE AGAINST GOVERNMENT Interestingly, on the issue of demonetisation, Opposition is planning the strategy on a day to day basis wherein Opposition leaders from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha gather together and brainstorm about the next step to corner government on this issue which has now become the latest bone of contention between ruling establishment and the Opposition parties. With TMC supremo and Chief Minister of Bengal Mamata Banerjee in national capital on Tuesday and AAP giving a call to protest near Parliament, the stage is set for Opposition to up the ante against the NDA government. Also read: Demonetisation to benefit PM Modi's coterie, alleges Rahul Gandhi The Opposition led by Congress is demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence in the Houses when the discussion on demonetisation issue is on. The Opposition is also demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe in the alleged leakage of information to certain section of people about demonetisation scheme before its announcement was made. Also read: AAP to gherao Parliament on Tuesday to protest demonetisation --- ENDS --- International drinks group, Quintessential Brands have this week announced the establishment of The Dublin Liberties Distillery and the appointment of a senior executive team to lead its 10 million investment in developing a new whiskey distillery and visitor centre for its established portfolio of Irish whiskey brands. The team, who will be based in Quintessential Brands Dublin office, will oversee the construction and operation of a new distillery at Old Mill Street in the heart of the Liberties which was traditionally the centre of whiskey distillation in Dublin. The site has full planning permission and a unique natural spring water source to be used in the distilling process. The distillery will also feature a unique visitor experience and enable the development and growth of The Dublin Liberties Distillerys collection of Irish whiskey brands including The Dublin Liberties Whiskey and The Dubliner. Renowned Irish whiskey distiller Darryl McNally has been appointed General Manager and Master Distiller, while experienced industry figures Sinead OFrighil and Colin ONeill have been appointed Marketing Director and Chief Financial Officer of The Dublin Liberties Distillery respectively. Commenting on the appointments, Quintessential Brands CEO Warren Scott said, "The new leadership team at The Dublin Liberties Distillery represents the best of the best in the whiskey business with proven track records for delivering results." He added, "The team brings extensive industry knowledge and expertise which will help us create a dynamic, brand-led business with a working distillery at its heart. The appointments reflect the clear vision we have for The Dublin Liberties Distillery and paves the way for us to become one of the leading whiskey producers in the country." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us Modified On Nov 25, 2016 02:08 PM By Nabeel Hyundai has been quite successful with its cars in the country. Right from the time of its launch in the Indian market with the Santro in 1998, Hyundai has had a strong understanding of the market and has produced game-changing cars like the Elite i20 and Creta. Now, adding another feather to its cap, Hyundai has rolled out the seven-millionth car from its production facility in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. Now, Hyundai India's next target is to achieve the production milestone of manufacturing 10 million cars by the first half of 2021. With this achievement, Hyundai India has reached the second spot in terms of worldwide production, with Hyundai China still at the top spot. But Hyundai is the first auto manufacturer in India to achieve this feat in a record time of 18 years of beginning commercial operation. The first million was achieved for Hyundai by Santro, back in 2006, eight years after commencement of commercial production. The next million milestones were achieved in a short duration of just 18 to 19 months. The five-millionth car was flagged off in October 2013 by Hyundai's brand ambassador Shahrukh Khan. At this event, congratulating employees on this very significant achievement, Y.K Koo, managing director and CEO, Hyundai Motor India Limited, said, HMIL has always set new benchmarks in terms of quality and customer delight by introducing new products with new technology and design to the Indian market, demonstrating superior manufacturing prowess. Our Made in India products have impressed global and Indian customers alike. We now have to move to realise our vision as announced during our 20th year of foundation on May 6, 2016, of being the market leader, great place to work, most loved and trusted the brand with modern premium brand essence to touch 10 million units within the first half of 2021. I thank each one for his commitment towards making Hyundai the most loved and trusted brand in India. Also Read: Hyundai Santro To Make Comeback; Will Replace i10 Modified On Nov 24, 2016 12:37 PM By Raunak The 1,360PS NIO EP9 hits nought to 100kmph in 2.7 seconds and comes with a top speed of 313kmph. It can be juiced up in 45 minutes and offers a range of 427 km on a single charge. Chinese electric automaker NextEV unveiled its new brand NIO yesterday in London. The start-up has also taken the wraps off its first-ever all-electric supercar, christened the NIO EP9. NIO claims that the EP9 is the worlds fastest electric car, clocking the lap at Nordschliefe aka the Green Hell in 7m 05.12s, beating the previous record of 7m 22.329s accomplished by the Toyota TMG EV P002. The Nurburgring Nordschleife's (North Loops) lap time is a widely accepted benchmark by which the speed of a vehicle is judged. For the uninitiated, the North Loop is nestled in the Eifel mountains in Germany. It is often called the Green Hell since it spans around 20km in lush green surroundings and is considered the most challenging and difficult purpose-built circuit in the world. The NIO EP9 produces a blistering 1-MegaWatt of power, which equals 1,360PS. The power comes from four electric motors featuring four gearboxes as well. Talking about the figures, the supercar hits 0-100kmph in a mere 2.7 seconds, while achieving 0-200kmph in 7.1 seconds. It has a top whack of 313kmph. The company claims that the vehicle features an interchangeable battery system that can be charged in 45 minutes and has a range of 427km. The EP9 uses the customary carbon fibre extensively and NIO says that the EP9 is capable of achieving 24,000 Newtons of downforce at 240kmph. It has the required hardware (e-control structure and sensor system) for the incorporation of the latest autonomous driving tech. William Li, NextEV founder and chairman, said in an official release, Today we launched our electric supercar that broke the record at the Nordschleife. The NIO EP9 was born to push limits and is the first stage of automotive production for NIO. It is a statement of our vision and technical and manufacturing capabilities. It is a best-in-class product that showcases what is possible with electric vehicles. We believe that when the car ownership experience exceeds expectations, electric vehicles will become the natural choice for everyone, leading to a more sustainable tomorrow. And with that, our vision of a blue sky will come true. Watch the EP9 shattering the Green Hell The fundraising sector should carry out criminal record background checks on all prospective and existing staff to root out the inappropriate element currently being hired by fundraising agencies. Speaking at the Institute of Fundraisings Individual Giving Conference in London yesterday, James Davis, managing director of face-to-face agency Real Fundraising, said that charities and agencies alike should conduct mandatory DBS background checks on prospective and current staff members, as there is currently an inappropriate element joining our providers. Davis said that Real Fundraising began conducting criminal record background checks on its existing staff 5 or 6 months ago. Davis said it was one of the most powerful and important decisions weve ever made as an organisation and said that the agency found a number of cases where staff already working at the organisation had lied about having a criminal conviction during their application. The surprising thing that weve learnt in that time is that people do lie in their applications unfortunately, and this is something that we all need to be aware of. Even though we DBS check all new staff, we have had a number of cases where people arent disclosing criminal records when they join. At least were now in a position to catch that and rectify that by dismissing the member of staff. James said that, based on the evidence from his own organisation, agencies and even charities inadvertently hiring people with criminal convictions was clearly a sector-wide problem. "What we can conclude from that is this is an issue that is industry wide and unless we all jointly do DBS checks we have to conclude that theres an inappropriate element joining our providers. I think this is something we should collaborate as a sector on and have mandatory DBS background checks on all face-to-face fundraisers." He predicted that background checks would become mandatory for all providers by law at some point in the next 2 years, and called on the sector to get there first to send a message to the public about best practice. One of the key issues in the Suns expose into the now defunct face-to-face fundraising agency Neet Feet centred on a number of fundraisers at the agency boasting about their criminal records and breaking the law while at work. Liam McEntegart, co-managing director at Real Fundraising, said that the organisation was unable to provide figures around how many staff have been dismissed as a result of a DBS check at this time. Government minister David Davis lobbied then Chancellor George Osborne for Libor funds for a military charity which later came under scrutiny from the Charity Commission. According to documents provided to Civil Society News by the Treasury following a Freedom on Information request, Brexit Minister David Davis MP wrote to then Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in July 2015 to say that he thought the charity Care After Combat, which is currently being assessed by the Charity Commission, deserved support from the Libor fund. In the Autumn Statement four months later, it was revealed that the charity was to receive 1m from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund. Media scrutiny Care After Combat became the subject of media attention in recent months when a Sunday Times article claimed that potential improper payments had been made to its founder, comedian Jim Davidson OBE. The article claimed that Davidson had said he was paid 54,000 a year by the charity, which was set up in 2014 to help prisoners who have previously been in the armed forces. It reported that Davidson took a salary of 43,000 a year from Care After Combat, plus expenses of about 11,000 if fundraising targets were met. These arrangements had also been criticised by Derek Cole, who resigned as Care After Combats chief executive in December 2015. Cole told The Sunday Times that he stood down rather than sanction them. The Charity Commission revealed it had received a complaint about the charity and had subsequently visited its trustees. It said it was assessing information provided by the charity to see if there are any regulatory concerns about the payment of one of the charitys trustees. The Commission has today said that its case is ongoing. Jim Davidson is not currently listed as a trustee of the charity. Davis: 'Not the easiest of projects to raise money for' In the letter to Osborne, Davis wrote: Care After Combat is the only charity providing mentoring for veterans both inside and outside prisons. This is not the easiest of projects to raise money for. The public is concerned for their veterans and looks to the HMG to fulfil Armed Forces Covenant Fund. This is why it would be right to allocate funds from the Libor fines to Care After Combat. The Sunday Times said that the payments to Davidson began soon after the charity received the 1m from the Libor fund. A Charity Commission spokesman today said: The Commission is currently in contact with the charity who are engaging with the Commission. There have been no further complaints received about the charity. Care After Combat was founded by Davidson, as well as Simon Weston OBE and Goose Cryer MC, in 2014. In response to the letter, Caleigh Meadows, head of marketing and communications at the charity said: "Care after Combat regularly speak to MPs about the valuable programmes we run to prevent Veterans reoffending. David Davis is himself a Veteran and we believe he is one of many MPs who have taken an interest in our work." David Davis had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. Digital and technology leaders gathered in London last week for Civil Society Medias annual Charity Technology Conference. Kirsty Weakley presents some highlights from the day. There was plenty of challenge to the charity sector at this year's Charity Technology Conference. Not the least of it was one question: why is digital transformation taking so long in the sector? To start the day Mary McKenna challenged the sector to think about how it recruits those with digital skills. During the second plenary, in which telecommunications provider KCOM and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission presented a case study, charities heard that digital technology was something absolutely essential. James Warner from KCOM said that having a digital strategy will soon be as ridiculous as having an electricity strategy. After lunch Chris Michaels from the British Museum explained how video and social were the next challenges for online content. And to close there was a lively panel debate about whether the sector is ripe for disruption. During the day there were a number of workshops covering topics such as cyber security, digital transformation and building digital communities. In many cases the challenge to the sector was the same: adoption must come faster. Here are some key themes. The rise of the prototype Being able to quickly and easily demonstrate how a project is working is key to getting support form senior management, the conference heard. In recent years there has a been a lot of emphasis on the need to adopt a flexible approach. Tamsin Burwell, head of digital at English Heritage, shared what this means for her charity as it launched its website and a mobile app. David Ivell, chief information officer at Princes Trust, cautioned against using the technology buzzword agile, saying it can mean so many different things to different people. He uses a rapid prototype methodology instead. Elsewhere, Julie Dodd, head of digital at Parkinson's UK, said that she had found prototyping to be a useful tool to show trustees what is possible by demonstrating what change can look like. Keep it simple James Kliffen, head of fundraising, and Lee Butler, digital marketing manager at Medecins Sans Frontieres, shared how the rise of mobile technology had impacted on the charitys ability to raise money. They revealed that the charity had found that its sign-ups for regular giving were under threat because it had not invested in digital, and has sought to change that. They said that having good content was key during the Ebola crisis last year MSF was appearing higher than other news sources because it had informative content ready ahead of the crisis. MSF recently relaunched its new website in ten weeks and said it did so by keeping it simple. Subscribers to Fundraising magazine can read more about why being on the front line shaped digital transformation at MSF here. CRM tips Representatives from three charities, which have recently carried out customer-relationship management software projects, offered some top tips and advice to others. Ciara Bosworth, head of OneCRM at British Heart Foundation, said her main advice was not to focus on the new to the exclusion of the old. Its a really exciting thing to build a new CRM, but you mustnt forget to keep the lights on, she said. She also recommended people build in flexibility for strategic or environmental change. Rohan Putter, deputy director of fundraising at Barnardos, suggested that staff need to feel like they own the project so its not something that is being done to them. When things get tough you dont want everyone arguing about whose fault it is. Simon Capper, head of performance and insight at WaterAid, added that you dont need to do everything in CRM and suggested adding links in the system to other tools that can do it better. He also said you need to make sure that you put your best people on the project and use temporary staff to cover routine tasks if needed. How the conference voted This year we had the added excitement of an app to accompany the conference. If you attended you can still use this to catch up on the presentations from the day. We also used it to carry out a number of polls throughout the day. Between 75 and 100 people voted in each one. Dont worry, nobody voted for Trump, although that may be because we didnt give them the option to. Heres what people said: As a charity team leader, do you have a clear plan for the ongoing digital transformation of your organisation? Yes 44 per cent No 56 per cent Are you confident that you have the right team in place to manage all things digital? Yes - 31 per cent No 69 per cent Do you feel comfortable in your own understanding of the digital landscape? Yes 56 per cent No 44 per cent Is your network fit for purpose and are you making the most of it? Yes 39 per cent No 61 per cent Does your charity have an innovation department? Yes 21 per cent No 79 per cent Can you innovate without technology? Yes 69 per cent No 31 per cent Digital governance and leadership So if everyone agrees that technology offers charities a fantastic opportunity, why does it still feel like were having a lot of the same conversations as we were a few years ago? The simple answer is to blame the trustees and this is largely correct. They hold the purse strings but meet only a few times a year. Often they dont really know that much about technology and social media, and in some cases arent particularly interested. This is where quick and simple prototyping can help to show them, where telling them has failed. But what this leads to is a much bigger question, and one that we cannot expect our technology conference to answer - is the charity structure fit for the modern world? If not, what is to be done about it? Will the sector be able to rise to the challenges and take advantages of the opportunities if it does not modernise its internal processes and structures? Bold digital leadership is needed from all levels at the sector so that we can stop talking about how most charities lagging behind and start talking about how more of them are leading the way. A special bonus edition of Society Diary to mark the departure of NCVO chair Martyn Lewis. Don't say we're not good to you. The great and good of the voluntary sector turned out in force last night at NCVOs HQ in Kings Cross to bid farewell to the umbrella bodys departing chair of six years Sir Martyn Lewis, and welcome his successor Peter Kellner. NCVO president Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson set the scene. The first time I met Martin, she told the room, I tried really hard not to be all giggly at meeting that guy off the telly. It just goes to show that it doesnt matter if youre one of the countrys most decorated Paralympians, and a baroness. You can still get excited at meeting someone off the telly. Imagine if it had been someone really famous, like that bloke off Pointless. Lewis took to the stage to pay tribute to the good folk about NCVO, and decided it was best to first get stuck into a joke about a parrot. It wasnt Diarys favourite joke about parrots, which is Whats orange and sounds like a parrot? (A: a carrot) but it was quite a good one, albeit too long for this space. Diary, in the spirit of Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, has repeated it below in a footnote. With that out of the way, Lewis got stuck into paying tribute to Sir Stuart Etherington, the chief executive of NCVO. Im just the latest chairman to be seen off by Stuart, he told the room, quite accurately. This is fair comment. Etherington was appointed to his current job sometime around the reign of Ethelred the Unready. Unsubstantiated rumours suggest it was so long ago that he still had hair. While he is not naturally the retiring type in any sense of the word he has promised faithfully that Kellner will be the man to see him go. Then Lewis got really serious, paying tribute to NCVOs chief executive, trustee board and staff, who between them, he said, had cemented NCVOs reputation for coming up with proper, sensible, considered judgements on issues. It was hard to know who he was comparing them with. Or at least it would have been, had he not taken the opportunity of his last public appearance, less than a fortnight ago, to lay into chief executives body Acevo for refusing to merge with NCVO. The ill-feeling between the two bodies is hardly a secret, and Lewis has implied NCVO should just set up its own rival in an attempt to put Acevo out of business. So it wasnt exactly surprising that literally no one from Acevo was there to hear his speech, even though it was taking place in the office building where they work. Had they not been invited, or were they all washing their hair? Diary has no idea. Finally Lewis confessed that his wife Patsy has challenged him on why he does so much work for charity when he could be out there earning real money. In response, he fired into a heartfelt, almost evangelical, tribute to the sector, saying that he did it because its so deeply satisfying. He ventured that the national media, who are losing readers hand over fist, and politicians, who score even lower than charities on the public trust scale, are missing a trick by failing to engage with the 15 million citizens who volunteer each month. He finished by exhorting the assembled guests to continue to dare greatly, because it is your achievements that make our country great, and you could argue that they are the only thing that actually does. Diary, itself so well-versed in making a positive difference every day, was left with a tear in its eye. Etherington, for his part, paid tribute to Lewis enthusiasm. One gets the impression he could have managed with a slightly less enthusiastic chair. One gets that impression because he said so. Lewis, he said, had the habit of ringing up with ideas he had encountered and thought that NCVO should do. "One a month would have been nice," he said. Nonetheless it it was Lewis successor, the journalist and political commentator Peter Kellner, who stole the show. Kellner ambled to the stage with the air of a chemistry professor about him, and proceeded to lay out his own scientific hypothesis about public trust in charity: that the sector was either like a sausage, or a space rocket. Bear with us on this. Kellners central point was that the public have no idea how charity really works. (And perhaps, by extension, that no one working in a charity has had much interest in letting them know, so long as they keep ponying up the cash.) This state of affairs could politely be described as sub-optimal, and Kellner has demanded we build a better understanding of our sector. But this brings with it its own risks, he said. If people really understand what goes on, are we a sausage or a space rocket? People who understand how space rockets work are usually enthused by space travel. But those who understand how sausages are made are often put off ever eating one again. So we need to make sure that when we enhance public understanding of the sector, the public think of us as a space rocket and not a sausage. A parrot joke, as told by Martyn Lewis A bloke walks into a pet shop. He wants to buy a parrot and there are three parrots for sale in the shop. He asks the shop owner how much the first parrot costs. Shop owner: Thats ten thousand pounds. Bloke: Ten thousand pounds? How could a parrot possibly be worth ten thousand pounds? Shop owner: Its got a first-class degree from Oxford, that parrot. Bloke: So how much is this second parrot? Shop owner: This ones twenty thousand. Bloke: Twenty thousand pounds? Why on earth is it worth twenty thousand pounds? Shop owner: Its got a first-class degree from Cambridge and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Thats a really smart parrot. Bloke: Well how much is the third parrot? Shop owner: This ones thirty thousand pounds. Bloke: THIRTY THOUSAND POUNDS!? What qualities and qualifications could it possibly possess to be worth thirty thousand pounds? Shop owner: Oh, this ones got no qualifications at all, sir. But the other two call it chairman. In a surprising turn of events, it now seems that US President-elect Donald Trump will not pursue investigations against Secretary Hillary Clinton's email controversy. By India Today Web Desk: While President-elect Donald Trump's entire campaign was based on maligning secretary Hillary Clinton over her use of private emails server, in a surprising turn of events, it now seems that Trump has reportedly stated that he will not pursue investigation against her. Donald Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC that instead of a criminal inquiry, the president-elect will help her heal. She said that Trump, who during his extensive campaigns had pledged to "lock up" his Democrat rival Hillary, would not pursue a criminal inquiry against her. advertisement "I think when the president-elect, who's also the head of your party, tells you before he's even inaugurated he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content to the members," Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC. Also read: Donald Trump invites journalists for 'meeting of minds', ends up calling them dishonest, deceitful liars Conway, who is presently on Trump's transition team, said that he was looking at it in many different things as part of his preparations to take over as the president of the United States. Conway stated that several issues that were raised by him during his campaign were not on his agenda now. She added that Hillary Clinton still had to face the fact that a majority of the Americans didn't find her honest and trustworthy. According to her, if Donald Trump could help her heal, it was a good thing. Also read: H-1B visa: Indian techies face uncertain future under Donald Trump Criticism of Hillary surged soon after the second presidential debate in October where Trump was scathing in his allegations against her. Trump went on to state that if he won, he would get a special prosecutor to look into the accusations against Hillary as according to him, there were several lies in Hillary's claims. Also read: Putin calls up Trump, agrees to work together to mend Russia-US ties --- ENDS --- While retail banking is the backbone of community financial institutions, developing a thriving book of commercial business can make all the difference to the bottom line. As you take on planning for 2017, here are some tips to help increase your commercial accounts in the New Year: Boost your mobile banking According to a survey by Raddon Financial Group, 52% of businesses with up to $10 million in annual revenue rely heavily on mobile banking. 1 Its even more prevalent among millennial business owners, with 68%. With the ease of mobile banking, business owners can conveniently handle multiple banking transactions throughout their busy day, without disrupting their schedule. Its clearits time to build up your mobile capabilities if your institution wants to attract more retail business. Help improve their marketing efforts Many small businesses owners dont have the time or means to actively market their business online. Set your institution up as a resource for local businesses by hosting a marketing seminar. Youll get face-to-face time with business owners, while they learn how to grow their marketing reach through social media and digital advertising. If your institution has the resources, your Business Development team could even create a marketing agency to provide support for local merchants in your area. Encourage your cardholders to shop local Take it a step further by offering what your competitors arenta rewards program that rewards local spending. By providing incentives for your cardholders to shop at locally owned businesses, youll set a precedent as a local-first institution, further opening the door for new retail business. Buzz Points is an innovative rewards program that rewards consumers for choosing local businesses over national chains, and for banking with a local community bank or credit union. The localized rewards program is a win-win-win for cardholders, community financial institutions and locally owned businesses. Want to learn more about how Buzz Points can help you achieve your 2017 commercial account growth initiatives while boosting your local footprint? Download our latest case study Filling the Gap: Buzz Points, Richwood Marketing Boost Richwood Commercial Account Growth. Sources: 1 https://thefinancialbrand.com/59746/small-business-mobile-banking-potential/ A handful of credit unions are working with behavioral researchers to better serve their members. These credit unions are designing and testing solutions to improve the financial well-being of their low- to moderate-income communities by working with the Common Cents Lab, which is part of the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University. Common Cents Lab starts with the premise that, in the real world of decision-making, people are less like the logical Star Trek character Spock and more like the more impulsive cartoon character Homer Simpson, says Mariel Beasley, the labs co-director. We act on things more immediately, Beasley told attendees at the 2016 CUNA Community Credit Union Conference and The Federation 2016 Annual Meeting in Dallas. Knowledge alone does not lead to behavior change, she says. A persons environment has a profound effect on decision-making, including timing, the way the choice is presented, and societal norms. Sunday night, more than 100,000 people watched live coverage on social media of a showdown between Dakota Access Pipeline protesters and police. The audience posted thousands of comments, many of which urged Americans to close their big bank accounts, because the institutions provide loans and other financial services to the oil companies building the pipeline. Coverage of DAPL has focused on the demonstrations themselves, but the underlying issue for protestors is the pipelines potential to damage the environment especially local water supplies and continued development of the oil industry instead of alternative power sources. I was among those watching on Facebook. The confrontation was riveting, but what struck me was the fact that among all those comments disparaging big banks, not one person among the online audience urged others to move their bank accounts to credit unions. Likewise, the protester broadcasting the event mentioned the need to abandon big banks several times, but never once mentioned credit unions as an alternative. This missed opportunity has been ongoing. Overshadowed by the Trump protests, some major bank branches in cities across the country were forced to close last Wednesday due to consumers marching in opposition to the banks support of the pipeline. Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, Citibank and HSBC were targets. On social media, a few posts that include the hashtag #bankexit have shown consumers closing their bank accounts and opening accounts at credit unions. However, social media searches of #bankexit posts didnt turn up one single post by a credit union or credit union trade associations. Like Bank Transfer Day five years ago, which produced hundreds of thousands of new members for credit unions, consumers are leading a noble movement against big banks. I dont think #bankexit will be as successful as Bank Transfer Day, due to the pipelines partisan support. However, the point is that once again, the entire credit union community will benefit from an effort they did not initiate. Meanwhile, after decades of squabbling, credit unions still havent worked together to successfully execute a national branding campaign. Thats not just too bad, its embarrassing. Yes, the Dakota Access Pipeline is a controversial subject, and using the issue to promote membership might not sit well with your field of membership. Yet, there are plenty of community chartered credit unions that desperately need to attract young members, but they repeatedly turn a deaf ear to the issues millennials care about. In this case, the issue is responsible stewardship of local lands and natural resources, which isnt a far cry from the concept of a locally owned, financial cooperative. Furthermore, it baffles me that credit unions and their trade associations refuse to directly target big banks as bad players in the financial services marketplace. While its noble to take the high road, oftentimes the only way to deal with bullies is to stand your ground and fight back. When it comes to the aggressive offensive efforts by banks to eliminate the credit union tax exemption and block regulatory relief for member business lending and field of membership, credit unions can no longer afford to play nicely. Always taking the high road will eventually lead to the failure of a financial services resource consumers desperately need. Credit unions must seize upon bank controversies and use them as an opportunity to promote the credit union difference. A good place to start would be to publish an educational opinion piece in a local or regional media outlet. The Dakota Access Pipeline could be mentioned to provide relevance, but the piece should focus on credit union investment in local communities. This is a message that can be repurposed and reinforced with each new bank controversy. Make no mistake, there will be more. Credit unions should be ready. Talking Points Asian currencies have been hit by the stronger US Dollar , as have others But is the Trump trade solely to blame here? Political uncertainties are not the province of the West Many Asian currencies have been battered by the rising US Dollar in the wake of Donald Trumps unexpected win in the US presidential election. The Yen has endured two weeks of falls, for example. USD/JPYs Monday peak of 111.36 was its loftiest point since the end of May. Malaysias Ringgit has had things even worse. The US Dollar has risen 6% against it in November so far. The rationale behind the Trump trade is that the new US President will pursue reflationary fiscal policies. These will increase the attraction of USD-denominated assets. A stronger greenback will also make life tougher for those countries with plentiful US Dollar debt. This has hit most traded currencies of course, not just those in Asia. The trade-weighted US Dollar index, which tracks the greenbacks performance against a basket of widely traded units, hit a 13.5 year high on Friday. But the foreign-exchange world is largely trying to assess a new Western political landscape. This of course involves not just parsing Trump but following the rise of populism in a Europe still reeling from Junes Brexit vote. However, while Western political tectonics are undoubtedly shifting, there is also an unusually broad range of political unrest across Asia at the moment. Here's a rundown: In South Korea, President Park Geun-hye has been under pressure for a month for allowing a close friend of hers, one Choi Soon-Sil to become involved in political affairs. There have been widespread public protests against Park, and the tension ratcheted up a little on Monday when opposition parties in Seoul called for a review of the countrys impeachment procedures. They also said that they would begin taking signatures from those who support Parks removal from office. Meanwhile Malaysias capital saw protests on Saturday demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razaj. His administration has been buffeted by allegations of graft involving the indebted 1 Malaysia Development Berhad state fund, which he founded. Across the South China Sea,Indonesia has also seen a rally calling for unity amid clearly-deepening religious divisions in Southeast Asias largest economy. There has also been communal violence in Myanmar, notably in the countrys western state of Rakhine. The state hasbeen under a security lockdown since early October. Hong Kong has seen protests against Beijing after a court there banned two elected lawmakers from taking their seats in the territory last month. Finally, we come to Thailand. There, King Bhumbibol Aduvaleis death in October is still being mourned. However the country is only two years past a military coup. The late Kings vast moral authority helped sooths many past internal wounds and investors do not yet have the same confidence in his son. Obviously these are issues of differing magnitudes and concern to investors. That said, many of the countries involved are either established investment destinations, such as South Korea and Hong Kong, or nations often touted as the next Asian tiger, such as Myanmar. Its unusual to see such widespread political issues right across the region at the same time.And while the Trump trade is undoubtedly behind a lot of the US Dollars strength, it doesnt look as though it is the whole story in Asia. Sign of the times? The US Dollar has surged against Malaysias Ringgit since Trumps win. Chart compiled using TradingView. --- Written by David Cottle, DailyFX Research Talking Points - Brent crude eases to $48.58 per barrel before rallying; WTI to $47.76. - Iran and Iraq reported to be having doubts over whether to sign up to a deal to limit output. - Further choppy price action likely ahead of a meeting on November 30 between OPEC and Russia. Crude Oil prices eased back Tuesday before recovering some of the lost ground as headlines suggested that Iran, Iraq and Indonesia are having doubts about a proposed deal to limit output. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, along with Russia, are meeting in Vienna, Austria, on November 30 in an attempt to bring supply closer to demand. Energy prices surged around +4% to a three-week high Monday as the conviction grew that an agreement was close. Talk has centered on an output cut of between -4.0% and -4.5% for all OPEC members except Libya and Nigeria. However, Iran, Iraq and Indonesia are all now reported to have reservations, which sent prices back down Tuesday. Chart 1: Crude Oil 15-minute Chart (November 21 to 22, 2016) In the immediate wake of the headlines, the January 2017 Brent Crude Oil futures contract the global benchmark dropped from a high only just under $50/brl early in the European day to just $48.58/brl by mid-afternoon. The January West Texas Intermediate future the US benchmark fell from just over $49/brl to a low of $47.74/brl. Both contracts have traded choppily the past hour despite settling down near recent lows, a microcosm of the conditions set to persist until the November 30 meeting. However, the quick drops in price emphasized how difficult it could be for the move higher to continue without a steady stream of supportive comments. It has also been suggested that the markets strength has been due, at least in part, just to a short-covering rally as hedge funds close out some of the large short positions they established over the previous three weeks. Moreover, even if a deal is reached, the oil market is set to remain oversupplied, especially if there is a renewed rise in oil production in the US, where drilling activity has been rising sharply. According to a new paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, oil prices have fallen by 10% since the start of Q3 mainly as a result of weakening, albeit volatile, global demand expectations. Read more: Profit Taking Driving USD, FX Ahead of Holiday Liquidity Drain --- Written by Martin Essex, MSTA, Analyst and Editor To contact Martin, email him at martin.essex@ig.com BEER-SHEVA, Israel, Nov. 22, 2016 - Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have demonstrated malware that can turn computers into perpetual eavesdropping devices, even without a microphone. In the new paper, "SPEAKE(a)R: Turn Speakers to Microphones for Fun and Profit," the researchers explain and demonstrate how most PCs and laptops today are susceptible to this type of attack. Using SPEAKE(a)R, malware that can covertly transform headphones into a pair of microphones, they show how commonly used technology can be exploited. "The fact that headphones, earphones and speakers are physically built like microphones and that an audio port's role in the PC can be reprogrammed from output to input creates a vulnerability that can be abused by hackers," says Prof. Yuval Elovici, director of the BGU Cyber Security Research Center (CSRC) and member of BGU's Department of Information Systems Engineering. "This is the reason people like Facebook Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg tape up their mic and webcam," says Mordechai Guri, lead researcher and head of Research and Development at the CSRC. "You might tape the mic, but would be unlikely to tape the headphones or speakers." A typical computer chassis contains a number of audio jacks, either in the front panel, rear panel or both. Each jack is used either for input (line-in), or for output (line-out). The audio chipsets in modern motherboards and sound cards include an option for changing the function of an audio port with software -a type of audio port programming referred to as jack retasking or jack remapping. Malware can stealthily reconfigure the headphone jack from a line-out jack to a microphone jack, making the connected headphones function as a pair of recording microphones and turning the computer into an eavesdropping device. This works even when the computer doesn't have a connected microphone, as demonstrated in the SPEAKE(a)R video. The BGU researchers studied several attack scenarios to evaluate the signal quality of simple off-the-shelf headphones. "We demonstrated is possible to acquire intelligible audio through earphones up to several meters away," said Dr. Yosef Solewicz, an acoustic researcher at the BGU CSRC. Potential software countermeasures include completely disabling audio hardware, using an HD audio driver to alert users when microphones are being accessed, and developing and enforcing a strict rejacking policy within the industry. Anti-malware and intrusion detection systems could also be developed to monitor and detect unauthorized speaker-to-mic retasking operations and block them. ### About American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (AABGU) plays a vital role in sustaining David Ben-Gurion's vision: creating a world-class institution of education and research in the Israeli desert, nurturing the Negev community and sharing the University's expertise locally and around the globe. As Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) looks ahead to turning 50 in 2020, AABGU imagines a future that goes beyond the walls of academia. It is a future where BGU invents a new world and inspires a vision for a stronger Israel and its next generation of leaders. Together with supporters, AABGU will help the University foster excellence in teaching, research and outreach to the communities of the Negev for the next 50 years and beyond. Visit vision.aabgu.org to learn more. AABGU, which is headquartered in Manhattan, has nine regional offices throughout the United States. For more information, visit http://www.aabgu.org Laura DeMarco of Northwestern University will receive the 2017 AMS Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics. DeMarco is honored "for her fundamental contributions to complex dynamics, potential theory, and the emerging field of arithmetic dynamics." The work of Laura DeMarco centers on dynamical systems, a branch of mathematics that studies systems that change and evolve, such as models of weather patterns that change over time. The systems can be built from very simple procedures, such as: start with a number, square it and add another number; use the result as the starting point for the next iteration; continue the procedure. Even such simple dynamical systems can exhibit complex and beautiful patterns; an example is the well-known Mandelbrot set. Because these systems are based on arithmetical rules, connections with number theory arise. These connections have led to the emerging area of arithmetic dynamics, to which DeMarco has become one of the leading contributors. DeMarco has brought groundbreaking new ideas into dynamical systems by using tools and ideas from other areas of mathematics. The prize citation notes in particular her joint work with M. Baker, which developed new methods through a remarkable confluence of ideas from dynamical systems theory and other areas such as logic, number theory, and analysis. Other work by DeMarco and K. Pilgrim led to striking new results, including a generalization of the well-known theorem that the Mandelbrot set is connected. In her most recent work, DeMarco pinpoints relations between dynamical systems and the arithmetic geometry of objects called elliptic curves. Laura DeMarco earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia and her master's degree from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2002, she received her PhD from Harvard University. At the University of Chicago, she was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, a Dickson Instructor, and an assistant professor before she joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago. While there, she received the NSF Career Award and a Sloan Fellowship. During the academic year 2013-14, DeMarco was the Kreeger-Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in the mathematics department at Northwestern University. In 2014 she assumed her present position as professor of mathematics at Northwestern. DeMarco was awarded a Simons Fellowship in 2015 and was named a Fellow of the AMS in 2012. Presented every two years, the AMS Satter Prize recognizes an outstanding contribution to mathematics research by a woman in the previous six years. The prize will be awarded Thursday, January 5, 2017, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta. ### Find out more about AMS prizes and awards at http://www.ams.org/profession/prizes-awards/prizes. Founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship, today the American Mathematical Society fulfills its mission through programs and services that promote mathematical research and its uses, strengthen mathematical education, and foster awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and to everyday life. RTI activist and builder Ravindra Barhate claims he has secured a government document that proves violations in transfer of land on which the prestigious Trump Towers had been built. By Pankaj P. Khelkar: RTI activist Ravindra Barhate has leveled new allegations of fraud against US President Elect Donald Trump's Indian partner Atul Chordia in another land transfer in pune. HOW IT EVOLVED Earlier, in the first week of September 2016, the same RTI activist had leveled allegations about discrepancies in the documents of land on which the prestigious Trump Towers had been built by Atul Chordia's Panchshil Group in association with US President-elect Donald Trump. The Towers have been built in Pune's Kalyani Nagar. advertisement Now RTI activist and builder Ravindra Barhate claims to have got a government document from city survey officer Sanjay Kumbhar and Supretiendent of land records M B Patil that point out that violation of terms and conditions have been committed by Panchshil Tech Park and Mukund Bhavan Trust during the transfer of survey no 191A yerwada that measures 26000 sq meters and whose market value is projected to be Rs 830 crore. As per RTI activist Ravindra Barhate he had filed a complaint in the month of March 2016 alleging fraud by Atul Chordia and his parterners in the above case. Pune city survey officer Sanjay Kumbhar and Supretiendent of land records M B Patil give due opportunity to the Panchshil group to come forward witht their version of the story and prove that they had obtained sale permission from the state government but they could not produce the necessary documents. So the inquiry was closed and the final report was handed over to Pune District Magistrate Sourab Rao on November 16 , 2016. ATUL CHORDIA REFUTES ALL ALLEGATIONS Speaking to India Today Atul Chordia refuted all of the allegation leveled by RTI Activist Ravindra Barhate and clarified that there was an inquiry done by then Divisional Commissioner in the the same matter and Divisional Commissioner had given a full report that explained that the transfer of the said land had been done as per the Supreme Court Order. RTI activist Ravindra Barhate claims that the letter (ref no 6596/16) says that there has been a violation of rules and regulations of ULC act by Atul Chordia and his then partners of Panchshil Tech Park. So, he said the collector of Pune District who is also the head of ULC department should give instructtions for the cancellation of property card recorded in the name of Panchshil Tech Park. As per RTI activist Ravindra Barhate there is no provision in the law to regularize the said violation of land transfer other than transfer of said land in the name of Maharashtra Government and a criminal offence being registered against the fraudulent person. RTI activist Ravindra Barhate says that he has made up his mind to take this issue to the Highest Legal Authorities. ALSO READ: advertisement H-1B visa: Indian techies face uncertain future under Donald Trump --- ENDS --- A new color-coding tool is enabling scientists to better track live blood stem cells over time, a key part of understanding how blood disorders and cancers like leukemia arise, report researchers in Boston Children's Hospital's Stem Cell Research Program. In Nature Cell Biology they describe the use of their tool in zebrafish to track blood stem cells the fish are born with, the clones (copies) these cells make of themselves and the types of specialized blood cells they give rise to (red cells, white cells and platelets). Leonard Zon, MD, director of the Stem Cell Research Program and a senior author on the paper, believes the tool has many implications for hematology and cancer medicine since zebrafish are surprisingly similar to humans genetically. People are born with a certain number of blood stem cells and rely on them for life. Various blood disorders and cancers are thought to arise when a mutant clone of an original blood stem cell starts to dominate. But what actually happens with blood stem cells over time has been hard to pin down. "There's significant interest in determining how a stem cell clone expands, what makes one clone dominant, and why that predisposes you to cancer and blood disorders," says Zon. All the colors of the rainbow Zon, with David Traver, PhD, of the University of California at San Diego, first author Jonathan Henninger of Boston Children's and other colleagues, used a specially bred zebrafish called Zebrabow that has multiple copies of genes for red-blue-gene fluorescent protein scattered through its genome. By activating certain enzymes, the team cut the red-blue-green assembly in different ways and in different amounts. This technique yields, in theory, about 80 different colors based on the cell's overall proportions of each fluorescent protein -- each color representing a different clone or variety of blood stem cell. "It's like an RGB television set, where red, blue and green give you the whole spectrum of colors," explains Zon. "In our system, the enzyme cuts out different parts --blue, for example, or green and blue -- so the stem cell will end up a different shade of color. In this way, we were able to mark each stem cell being born with a different color, and then follow the colors through development and see how many stem cells of each color were present in the adult fish." Other scientists have developed tracking systems based on genetic "barcodes." But these require dissecting the cells, so cannot analyze living, circulating cell populations. "Because our system is based on color, we don't have to destroy the cells to analyze their clonality," adds Henninger, a PhD candidate in the Zon Lab. "Rather, we can isolate the cells by color, with the help of computational tools, and then look at what genetic factors are involved in their expansion." Understanding blood disease, cancer and bone marrow transplant A normal blood system tends to have a diversity of clonal stem cell types -- all cells being genetically identical but with different epigenetic changes that affect gene expression. Being able to track how different clonal populations develop has many implications for medicine. For example, leukemia and myelodysplastic disorders (in which certain kinds of blood cells aren't made or don't mature properly) are thought to arise from a clone of an original stem cell that went amok and began replicating in great numbers. But until now, this has been hard to analyze, since no one knew how many blood stem cells we start out with. Based on the zebrafish data, Henninger and Zon estimate that blood stem cells make up about 20 percent of all blood cell progenitors at the time they are formed. That provides a starting point for exploring, for example, why and how a particular blood stem cell clone may begin to expand as people age, posing a risk for leukemia, or how cancer chemotherapy can sometimes transform tumor cells. "Within a tumor, you can get clones of cells that become resistant to chemotherapy, and that's what kills the person," Zon explains. "The questions are, 'what makes a clone take off and start to behave differently than the rest? How is clonal diversity regulated?'" Similarly, the knowledge could also help improve bone marrow transplant for a variety of childhood and adult disorders. "When you do a bone marrow transplant, only certain clones of stem cells take," Zon explains. "This is important because these clones are driving development of an entire blood system, based on a finite number of cells." To test this out, the team irradiated the Zebrabow fish, damaging their blood cells, then watched as their blood systems recovered, using their color coding system. "We saw that a smaller number of clones were dominant," Zon says. "This suggests there are some 'good' cells that are help people regenerate a healthy blood system." Zon and his team are now rushing to put genes that are mutated in humans with clonal expansion, and that predispose to leukemia, into the Zebrabow fish. Zon hopes the experiments will reveal how the dominant clones expand, and ultimately become cancerous. ### Zon and Henninger are also affiliated with the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The study was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Institutes of Health (F31HL126338, R01-DK074482, F32DK752433, R01-HL04880, P01-HL032262, 5P30-DK49216, 5R01-DK53298, 5U01-HL10001, R24-DK09276), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB655), the TU Dresden and the European Union (Zf Health), and an MPN Research Foundation Grant. Zon is a founder and stockholder of Fate, Inc. and Scholar Rock. Boston Children's Hospital is home to the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, where its discoveries have benefited both children and adults since 1869. More than 1,100 scientists, including seven members of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 members of the Institute of Medicine and 10 members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute comprise Boston Children's research community. Founded as a 20-bed hospital for children, Boston Children's today is a 404-bed comprehensive center for pediatric and adolescent health care. Boston Children's is also the primary pediatric teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. For more, visit our Vector and Thriving blogs and follow us on our social media channels: @BostonChildrens, @BCH_Innovation, Facebook and YouTube. Cruise ships, nursing homes, and daycare centers are common breeding grounds for norovirus, a contagious stomach bug that infects 685 million people around the world each year. Despite its prevalence, norovirus--which has no specific treatment and is particularly dangerous in infants and the elderly--has received surprisingly little attention from researchers. In a review article published November 22 in Trends in Molecular Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine scientists and colleagues at the University of Michigan Medical School discuss what we know about the virus. 1. People can shed norovirus for months. Norovirus has a high tolerance for disinfectants and with an average 1.2-day incubation period, it can spread quickly. Although symptoms such as abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea typically resolve within 1-4 days, it is also possible for a person to shed the virus before symptoms appear and after their resolution. Viral shedding can occur for up to a few months in healthy individuals and for years in immunocompromised patients. The severity of symptoms does not correlate with Norovirus shedding, which makes protection against the virus rather difficult. 2. In a norovirus hot zone? Wash your hands. Norovirus thrives in crowded public areas. Outbreaks spread when people eat or drink contaminated food, touch infected surfaces, or come into contact with someone shedding the virus. "Norovirus is extremely contagious and so washing your hands frequently is important," says review co-author Megan Baldridge, a physician studying pathogens and the microbiome at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "If you start to feel symptoms, avoid preparing food for other people and be careful to clean any surfaces that might be contaminated with bleach." 3. Some people are more susceptible to norovirus than others. There are many different types of norovirus and people can be infected multiple times during their lifetimes. The infection is different for each species that is infected by the virus and how humans react to the virus is dependent on their genes. "Healthier people may get the virus and have uncomfortable, unpleasant symptoms for a few days, but those symptoms will resolve quickly," Baldridge says. "What can happen with people who are immunocompromised is that they can have a chronic debilitating infection that can be highly detrimental." 4. Norovirus can trigger other gut problems. Norovirus has been suggested as a possible trigger for other gut diseases, including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Under certain conditions, norovirus infection may also alter normal resident intestinal bacteria and allow other infections to occur. Although there is much research to be done regarding the causes of different gut diseases, we know that various pathogens can affect how the virus reacts and these reactions may trigger other intestinal problems. "We're just starting to understand how there's a very complex interplay between norovirus infection and all the other different pathogens and commensal bacteria that could be present," Baldridge says. "These factors likely have very complex interactions with the gut." 5. There is no vaccine, but new strategies are on the horizon. Vaccine and treatment research has been limited because of a lack of understanding of norovirus within humans, but recent discoveries in mice have identified that certain biological factors can slow down or kill the virus. "Up until now vaccines have exclusively been using virus-like particles, but some new developments may make it possible to generate a live attenuated vaccine, which is pretty exciting," "Baldridge says. "Having animal models and cell culture models to grow the virus and study how it acts a little more closely will help us better understand the virus and also think more about vaccination strategies." ### The authors were supported by the National Institutes of Health and the University of Michigan. Trends in Molecular Medicine, Baldridge et al.: "Norovirus Regulation by Host and Microbe" http://www.cell.com/trends/molecular-medicine/fulltext/S1471-4914(16)30145-9 Trends in Molecular Medicine (@TrendsMolecMed), published by Cell Press, is a monthly review journal that facilitates communication between groups of highly trained professionals who share the common goal of understanding and explaining the molecular basis of disease as it relates to new clinical practice. Visit http://www.cell.com/trends/molecular-medicine. To receive Cell Press media alerts, please contact press@cell.com. Three years ago the White House launched the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative to accelerate the development and application of novel technologies that will give us a better understanding about how brains work. Since then, dozens of technology firms, academic institutions, scientists and other have been developing new tools to give researchers unprecedented opportunities to explore how the brain processes, utilizes, stores and retrieves information. But without a coherent strategy to analyze, manage and understand the data generated by these new technologies, advancements in the field will be limited. This is precisely why Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) Computational Neuroscientist Kristofer Bouchard assembled an international team of interdisciplinary researchers--including mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists and experimental and computational neuroscientists--to develop a plan for managing, analyzing and sharing neuroscience data. Their recommendations were published in a recent issue of Neuron. "The U.S. BRAIN Initiative is just one of many national and private neuroscience initiatives globally that are working toward accelerating our understanding of brains," says Bouchard. "Many of these efforts have given a lot of attention to the technological challenges of measuring and manipulating neural activity, while significantly less attention has been paid to the computing challenges associated with the vast amounts of data that these technologies are generating." To maximize the return on investments in global neuroscience initiatives, Bouchard and his colleagues argue that the international neuroscience community should have an integrated strategy for data management and analysis. This coordination would facilitate the reproducibility of workflows, which then allows researchers to build on each other's work. For a first step, the authors recommend that researchers from all facets of neuroscience agree on standard descriptions and file formats for products derived from data analysis and simulations. After that, the researchers should work with computer scientists to develop hardware and software ecosystems for archiving and sharing data. The authors suggest an ecosystem similar to the one used by the physics community to share data collected by experiments like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In this case, each research group has their own local repository of physiological or simulation data that they've collected or generated. But eventually, all of this information should also be included in "meta-repositories" that are accessible to the greater neuroscience community. Files in the "meta-repositories" should be in a common format, and the repositories would ideally be hosted by an open-science supercomputing facility like the Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), located at Berkeley Lab. Because novel technologies are producing unprecedented amounts of data, Bouchard and his colleagues also propose that neuroscientists collaborate with mathematicians to develop new approaches for data analysis and modify existing analysis tools to run on supercomputers. To maximize these collaborations, the analysis tools should be open-source and should integrate with brain-scale simulations, they emphasize. "These are the early days for neuroscience and big data, but we can see the challenges coming. This is not the first research community to face big data challenges; climate and high energy physics have been there and overcome many of the same issues," says Prabhat, who leads NERSC's Data & Analytics Services Group. Berkeley Lab is well positioned to help neuroscientists address these challenges because of its long tradition of interdisciplinary science, Prabhat adds. DOE facilities like NERSC and the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) have worked closely with Lab computer scientists to help a range of science communities--from astronomy to battery research--collaborate and manage and archive their data. Berkeley Lab mathematicians have also helped researchers in various scientific disciplines develop new tools and methods for data analysis on supercomputers. "Harnessing the power of HPC resources will require neuroscientists to work closely with computer scientists and will take time, so we recommend rapid and sustained investment in this endeavor now," says Bouchard. "The insights generated from this effort will have high-payoff outcomes. They will support neuroscience efforts to reveal both the universal design features of a species' brain and help us understand what makes each individual unique." ### In addition to Bouchard and Prabhat, other authors on the paper include: James Aimone (Sandia National Laboratories); Miyoung Chun (Kavli Insitute for Fundamental Neuroscience); Thomas Dean (Google Research); Michael Denker (Julich Research Center); Markus Diesmann (Julich Research Center/ Aachen University); Loren Frank (Kavli Insitute for Fundamental Neuroscience/ Howard Hughs Medical Institute/ UC San Francisco); Narayanan Kasthuri (University of Chicago/Argonne National Laboratory); Christof Koch (Allen Institute for Brain Science); Friedrich Sommer (UC Berkeley); Horst Simon, David Donofrio and Oliver Rubel (Berkeley Lab). Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit http://www.lbl.gov. DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov. BOSTON -- In a new study, a group of Boston scientists, including researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, offer a genetic explanation for the age-old conundrum of why cancer is more common in males than females. Females, it turns out, carry an extra copy of certain protective genes in their cells - an additional line of defense against the cells growing out of control - the investigators report in a paper published online today by Nature Genetics. Though not solely responsible for cancer's "bias" toward males, the duplicate copies likely account for some of the imbalance, including up to 80 percent of the excess male cases in some tumor types, report the study authors, based at Dana-Farber, the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and Massachusetts General Hospital. "Across virtually every type of cancer, occurrence rates are higher in males than in females. In some cases, the difference might be very small - just a few percent - but in certain cancers, incidence is two or three times higher in males," said Andrew Lane, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber, the co-senior author of the study with Gad Getz, PhD, of the Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital. "Data from the National Cancer Institute show that males carry about a 20 percent higher risk than females of developing cancer. That translates into 150,000 additional new cases of cancer in men every year." Despite the size of the gap, the reasons for this divergence have been difficult to discern. The historic explanation - that men were more likely to smoke cigarettes and be exposed to hazardous chemicals in the work environment - has proven inadequate, because even as smoking rates have dropped and occupational patterns changed, men still outpace women in developing many cancers, including some associated with tobacco use such as kidney, renal, bladder, and oral cancers, Lane said. The disparity is present among boys and girls, as well as men and women. Previous research found that in one form of leukemia, the cancer cells often carried a mutation in a gene called KDM6A, located on the X chromosome - one of the sex chromosomes that determine whether an individual is male or female. (Females cells carry two X chromosomes; males carry an X chromosome and a shorter, smaller Y chromosome.) If KDM6A is a tumor-suppressor gene - responsible for preventing cell division from spinning out of control - the mutation could lead to cancer by crippling that restraint system. One might expect female cells to be just as vulnerable to the mutation. During embryo formation, one of the X chromosomes in female cells shuts down and remains off-line for life. A mutation in KDM6A on the active X chromosome, therefore, should lead to the same cell-division havoc as it does in males. Unexpectedly, KDM6A mutations were detected more often in male cancers. It turns out that some genes on the inactivated X chromosome in female cells "escape" that dormant state and function normally. One of those awakened genes happens to be a working copy of KDM6A. The "good" copy of the gene is sufficient to prevent the cell from turning cancerous. The new study explored whether this phenomenon - fully functional tumor-suppressor genes on an otherwise idle X chromosome - underlies the broader phenomenon of cancer's partiality toward male cells. The researchers dubbed such genes "EXITS," for Escape from X-Inactivation Tumor Suppressors. "Under this theory, one of the reasons cancer is more common in males is that male cells would need a harmful mutation in only one copy of an EXITS gene to turn cancerous," Lane said. "Female cells, by contrast, would need mutations in both copies." To test this hypothesis, researchers at the Broad Institute scanned the genomes of more than 4,000 tumor samples, representing 21 different types of cancer, looking for various types of abnormalities, including mutations. They then examined whether any of the irregularities they found were more common in male cells or female cells. The results were striking. Of nearly 800 genes found solely on the X chromosome, six were more frequently mutated - and incapacitated - in males than females. Of more than 18,000 other genes, none showed a gender imbalance in mutation rates. Of the six genes more likely to be mutated in males, five were known to escape X chromosome inactivation, making them strong candidates to be EXITS genes. "The fact that the very genes which are more often mutated in males are found exclusively on the X chromosome - and that several of them are known to be tumor-suppressors and escape X-inactivation - is compelling evidence of our theory," Lane remarked. "The protection afforded by the working copies of these genes in female cells may help explain the lower incidence of many cancers in women and girls." One of the implications of the finding is that many cancers may arise through different molecular pathways in men and women. To circumvent the added genetic safeguards against cancer in female cells, tumors in women may employ alternate genetic circuits than in men. To explore this possibility, the study authors recommend that future clinical studies of cancer treatments be "statistically powered" - that is, involve enough patients and tumor tissue samples - to understand whether men and women respond differently to treatment because of genetic differences in their tumors. ### The lead authors of the study are Andrew Dunford, of the Broad Institute and David M. Weinstock, MD, of Dana-Farber and the Broad Institute. Co-authors are Virginia Savova, PhD, John P. Cleary, Akinori Yoda, PhD, and Alexander A. Gimelbrant, PhD, of Dana-Farber; Steven E. Schumacher, MS, and Rameen Beroukhim, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber and the Broad Institute; Timothy J. Sullivan, Julian M. Hess of the Broad Institute; and Michael S. Lawrence, PhD, of Massachusetts General. Financial support for the research was provided by the National Cancer Institute (grant K08CA181340); an American Society of Hematology Scholar Award; a V Foundation Scholar Award and a Stand Up to Cancer Innovative Research Grant. About Dana-Farber Cancer Institute From achieving the first remissions in childhood cancer with chemotherapy in 1948, to developing the very latest new therapies, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is one of the world's leading centers of cancer research and treatment. It is the only center ranked in the top 4 of U.S. News and World Report's Best Hospitals for both adult and pediatric cancer care. Dana-Farber sits at the center of a wide range of collaborative efforts to reduce the burden of cancer through scientific inquiry, clinical care, education, community engagement, and advocacy. Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center provides the latest in cancer care for adults; Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center for children. The Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center unites the cancer research efforts of five Harvard academic medical centers and two graduate schools, while Dana-Farber Community Cancer Care provides high quality cancer treatment in communities outside Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Dana-Farber is dedicated to a unique, 50/50 balance between cancer research and care, and much of the Institute's work is dedicated to translating the results of its discovery into new treatments for patients locally and around the world. A Polish-British team of physicists has constructed and tested a compact, efficient converter capable of modifying the quantum properties of individual photons. The new device should facilitate the construction of complex quantum computers, and in the future may become an important element in global quantum networks, the successors of today's Internet. Quantum internet and hybrid quantum computers, built out of subsystems that operate by means of various physical phenomena, are now becoming more than just the stuff of imagination. In an article just published in the prestigious journal Nature Photonics, physicists from the University of Warsaw's Faculty of Physics (FUW) and the University of Oxford have unveiled a key element of such systems: an electro-optical device that enables the properties of individual photons to be modified. Unlike existing laboratory constructions, this new device works with previously unattainable efficiency and is at the same time stable, reliable, and compact. Building an efficient device for modifying the quantum state of individual photons was an exceptionally challenging task, given the fundamental differences between classical and quantum computing. Contemporary computing systems are based on the processing of groups of bits, each of which is in a specific, well-known state: either 0 or 1. Groups of such bits are continually being transferred both between different subcomponents within a single computer, and between different computers on the network. We can illustrate this figuratively by imagining a situation in which trays of coins are being moved from place to place, with each coin laying either with the heads side or the tails side facing upwards. Things are more complicated in quantum computing, which relies on the phenomenon of superposition of states. A quantum bit, known as a qubit, can be both in the 1 state and the 0 state at the same time. To continue the analogy described above, this would be like a situation in which each coin is spinning on its edge. Information processing can be described as "quantum" processing as long as this superposition of states can be retained during all operations - in other words, as long as none of the coins gets tipped out of the spinning state while the tray is being moved. "In recent years, physicists have figured out how to generate light pulses with a specific wavelength or polarization, consisting of a single quantum -- or excitation -- of the electromagnetic field. And so today we know how to generate precisely whatever kind of quantum 'spinning coins' we want," says Dr. Michal Karpinski from the Institute of Experimental Physics (FUW), one of the authors of the publication. "But achieving one thing always leaves you wanting more! If we now have individual light quanta with specific properties, it would be useful to modify those properties. The task is therefore more or less this: take a spinning silver coin and move it from one place to another, but along the way quickly and precisely turn it into a gold coin, naturally without tipping it over. You can easily see that the problem is nontrivial." Existing methods of modifying individual photons have utilized nonlinear optical techniques, in practice attempting to force an individual photon to interact with a very strong optical pump beam. Whether the photon so subjected actually gets modified is a matter of pure chance. Moreover, the scattering of the pump beam may contaminate the stream of individual photons. In constructing the new device, the group from the University of Warsaw and the University of Oxford decided to make use of a different physical phenomenon: the electro-optic effect occurring in certain crystals. It provides a way to alter the index of refraction for light in the crystal - by varying the intensity of an external magnetic force that is applied to it (in other words, without introducing any additional photons!). "It is quite astounding that in order to modify the quantum properties of individual photons, we can successfully apply techniques very similar to those used in standard fiber-optic telecommunications," Dr. Karpinski says. Using the new device, the researchers managed - without disrupting the quantum superposition! -- to achieve a six-fold lengthening of the duration of a single-photon pulse, which automatically means a narrowing of its spectrum. What is particularly important is that the whole operation was carried out while preserving very high conversion efficiency. Existing converters have operated only under laboratory conditions and were only able to modify one in several tens of photons. The new device works with efficiency in excess of 30%, up to even 200 times better than certain existing solutions, while retaining a low level of noise. "In essence we process every photon entering the crystal. The efficiency is less than 100% not because of the physics of the phenomenon, but on account of hard-to-avoid losses of a purely technical nature, appearing for instance when light enters of exits optical fibers," explains PhD student Michal Jachura (FUW). The new converter is not only efficient and low-noise, but also stable and compact: the device can be contained in a box with dimension not much larger than 10 cm (4 in.), easy to install in an optical fiber system channeling individual photons. Such a device enables us to think realistically about building, for instance, a hybrid quantum computer, the individual subcomponents of which would process information a quantum way using different physical platforms and phenomena. At present, attempts are being made to build quantum computers using, among others, trapped ions, electron spins in diamond, quantum dots, superconducting electric circuits, and atomic clouds. Each such system interacts with light of different properties, which in practice rules out optical transmission of quantum information between different systems. The new converter, on the other hand, can efficiently transform single-photon pulses of light compatible with one system into pulses compatible with another. Scientists are therefore gaining at a real pathway to building quantum networks, both small ones within a single quantum computer (or subcomponent thereof), and global ones providing a way to send data completely securely between quantum computers situated in different parts of the world. ### The experimental part of this work was carried out at the University of Oxford's Department of Physics, in the Optical Quantum Technologies Group led by Dr. Brian J. Smith, where Dr. Karpi?ski had held a postdoctoral fellowship under the prestigious Marie Sklodowska-Curie grants. On the Polish side, the work was funded by grants from Poland's National Science Centre and the 7th EU Framework Programme. Physics and Astronomy first appeared at the University of Warsaw in 1816, under the then Faculty of Philosophy. In 1825 the Astronomical Observatory was established. Currently, the Faculty of Physics' Institutes include Experimental Physics, Theoretical Physics, Geophysics, Department of Mathematical Methods and an Astronomical Observatory. Research covers almost all areas of modern physics, on scales from the quantum to the cosmological. The Faculty's research and teaching staff includes ca. 200 university teachers, of which 88 are employees with the title of professor. The Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, is attended by ca. 1000 students and more than 170 doctoral students. SCIENTIFIC PAPERS: "Bandwidth manipulation of quantum light by an electro-optic time lens"; M. Karpinski, M. Jachura, L. J. Wright, B. J. Smith; Nature Photonics 2016; DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2016.228 CONTACTS: Dr. Michal Karpinski Institute of Experimental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw tel. 48-22-5532740, 48-22-5548872 email: mkarp@fuw.edu.pl M.Sc. Michal Jachura Institute of Theoretical Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw tel. 48-22-5532969 email: michal.jachura@fuw.edu.pl RELATED LINKS: http://www.fuw.edu.pl/ Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw. http://optics.fuw.edu.pl/ Division of Optics, Institute of Experimental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw. http://www.fuw.edu.pl/informacje-prasowe.html Press office of the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw. IMAGES: FUW161121b_fot01s.jpg HR: http://www.fuw.edu.pl/press/images/2016/FUW161121b_fot01.jpg A single photon -- a carrier of quantum information -- travels like a spinning coin, in a superposition of states. Modyfing its properties is extremely hard and should be done carefully, without destroying the superposition. (Source: FUW, Grzegorz Krzyzewski) FUW161121b_fot02s.jpg HR: http://www.fuw.edu.pl/press/images/2016/FUW161121b_fot02.jpg A single photon converter (a yellow-orange box) installed on an optical fiber of the laboratory setup. (Source: FUW, Grzegorz Krzyzewski) FUW161121b_fot03s.jpg HR: http://www.fuw.edu.pl/press/images/2016/FUW161121b_fot03.jpg Usually, due to the properties mismatch, the majority of single photons cannot be effectively stored e.g. in the quantum memory (represented as a white box). The new converter enables to modify the properties of photons so that virtually all of them can be stored inside the memory. (Source: FUW, Grzegorz Krzyzewski) Amsterdam, NL, Nov. 22, 2016 - The current issue of the Journal of X-Ray Science and Technology now features 3D imaging embedded within its articles for the first time. Use of this digital and multimedia technique enhances the value of five papers, which focus on kidney injuries, tumor diagnoses, and dental medicine. Videos of these rotating 3D images can be accessed directly, allowing readers to examine them in detail and gain deeper understanding of the diagnoses, prognoses, and treatments described. Guest Editor Yuanyuan Zhang, MD, PhD, of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA, notes that "State-of-the-art cross-sectional imaging approaches make it possible to visualize diseases-affected tissues or defected organs with greater assurance by minimizing the interrupter of overlying tissues to focus on individual organs, which aids in the detection and characterization of targeted tissues. The rotated multimedia 3D videos provide animations, which could better help medical students, residents, practitioners, and inquisitive minds better understand the diseases." Five papers in this issue demonstrate how imaging techniques contributed to positive patient outcomes. The 3D imaging incorporated directly into the articles provides greater insights and learning opportunities. Trauma to the kidney is common. While ultrasound and MRI can be used to evaluate these injuries, computed tomography (CT) is more effective, and 3D reconstructed CT is even more helpful. Physicians from the New District Central Hospital, Shenzhen, China, and the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA, examined 126 patients with kidney injuries, using multi-slice spiral CT (MSCT) between January 2012 and February 2016. MSCT achieved a 100% diagnostic accuracy rate, confirmed by surgical findings. The authors concluded that the enhanced MSCT scan permits reliable detection of renal trauma and the associated organ or tissue injuries, providing important clinical value for the diagnosis and classification of renal trauma or internal organ injures. Wilm's tumor or nephroblastoma, a rare kidney cancer commonly affecting children under age 5, can grow significantly without causing pain or other symptoms. Conservative renal surgery is the most commonly selected treatment, requiring accurate mapping of the tumor. This article describes how creation of a 3D image helped physicians remove a large tumor in a 3-year old girl, who is now in good health eight months after surgery. A rare congenital disorder that results in an "extra" ureter in the genitourinary tract can be visualized more effectively using MSCT. In the next contribution, researchers describe the case of a 27-year-old male patient with an almost complete duplication of the ureter from his left kidney. Finding this structure and correcting it surgically was facilitated by a 3D reconstruction of the patient's anatomy before surgery. Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is an extremely rare disease caused by a cancerous growth in the adrenal cortex. ACC is malignant and necessitates surgical removal. In the next article, physicians describe how they achieved a better surgical outcome by integrating 3D-reconstructed CT images into a dynamic video for preoperative planning and intraoperative guidance. They were able to resect the diseased adrenal gland completely without neighbor organ injury and surgical complications. The final article concerns a not-so-rare condition, malocclusion or "poor bite." Because many cases of malocclusion are found in young children, for whom the higher radiation dose and extended scanning time of standard CT scanning are not desirable, the authors describe a lower dose and faster technique, cone beam computed tomography (CBCT). With the advent of CBCT, it is now possible for clinicians to evaluate the hard and soft tissues of the maxillofacial region in 3D and high spatial detail. According to Advisory Editor-in-Chief Hong Liu, PhD, Center for Bioengineering and School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Oklahoma, "Digital and multimedia techniques are used more and more to facilitate scientific presentations. As an interdisciplinary journal publishing numerous papers spanning the field of medical imaging, the Journal of X-Ray Science and Technology should lead the way to serve our authors and readers with advanced presentation methods." ### The large randomised study of 200,000 children was led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal. It found Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) also reduced cases in those above 10 years of age by a quarter, demonstrating that the intervention had contributed to reducing transmission of the disease. SMC provides a high degree of personal protection but until now it was assumed that it would not contribute to community-wide reduction in the transmission of malaria. There were approximately 214 million malaria cases and an estimated 438,000 malaria deaths in 2015 -- 89% of cases and 91% of deaths occurred in Sub Saharan Africa. SMC is a relatively new tool in the fight against malaria. It involves treating children with antimalarial drugs sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and amodiaquine once a month during the rainy season, to prevent malaria where the disease is highly seasonal. Following a series of successful studies by the School and its partners in West Africa, the World Health Organization recommended that children under five years of age living in the African Sahel and sub-Sahel should receive SMC. National malaria control programmes have been quick to respond and SMC has now been rolled out to 11 countries, reaching about 15 million children in 2016. However, with the relative number of malaria cases in the region's older children increasing, this new study was undertaken to examine the effectiveness of SMC extended to include children up to age 10. Between 2008 and 2011, 54 local health centres in central Senegal were randomised to provide SMC to children up to age 10, or act as controls. Over three years 780,000 SMC treatments were given to children. Malaria cases in each community were then monitored at outpatient clinics and hospitals, and deaths were recorded through surveys. Dr Paul Milligan, lead investigator from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: "Although progress is being made to tackle malaria, it remains one of the biggest killers of children in sub Saharan Africa. Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention is designed specifically for situations where the malaria is intense but confined to a short period each year. We wanted to know if it was practical to include older children in SMC programmes, and discover what the subsequent effect on their health and malaria transmission would be. "We found that SMC delivered by district health teams using community health workers reduced the incidence of malaria in the under 10s by 60% and the incidence of severe malaria by 45%. The intervention also led to a 26% decrease in cases of malaria in those above 10 years of age, showing that SMC could contribute to reducing malaria transmission. Although this effect was modest it is essential to winning the long-term fight against the disease. It is important now to strengthen national surveillance systems so we can define the regions where expanding the age range for SMC would have the greatest benefit." Importantly, the team found that including older children did not greatly increase the time needed to deliver the intervention each month. The treatments also provided a high degree of protection for an average cost of $0.50 per child each month and no severe side effects were recorded. Dr Badara Cisse, lead investigator from the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, said: "The SMC intervention in Senegal is an example of a locally-adapted approach to malaria control that could be a blueprint for an effective strategy to tackle malaria in this part of Africa. The development of the SMC intervention illustrates the value of partnerships between researchers in endemic countries, malaria control programmes, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine." The authors acknowledge limitations of the study, including the need to better understand the effect of SMC on antimalarial drug resistance and the fact that they weren't able to demonstrate an effect on mortality. However, since the study was completed, Senegal has started to introduce SMC for children up to 10 years of age as part of its national malaria control strategy. The monitoring and evaluation of this new programme includes assessments of drug safety and efficacy, and measuring the impact on malaria and child survival. The study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Embargoed press preview PDF: http://plos.io/2fku09r (this link is for journalists only) The article will be accessible via the following URL upon publication: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002175 For more information or to request interviews please contact the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine press office on 44-0-20-7927-2802 or email press@lshtm.ac.uk >Notes to editors: Badara Cisse, El Hadj Ba, Cheikh Sokhna, Jean Louis NDiaye, Jules F. Gomis, Yankhoba Dial, Catherine Pitt, Mouhamed NDiaye, Matthew Cairns, Ernest Faye Magatte NDiaye, Aminata Lo, Roger Tine, Sylvain Faye, Babacar Faye, Ousmane Sy, Lansana Konate, Ekoue Kouevijdin, Clare Flach, Ousmane Faye, Jean-Francois Trape, Colin Sutherland, Fatou Ba Fall, Pape M. Thior, Oumar K. Faye, Brian Greenwood, Oumar Gaye, Paul Milligan. Effectiveness of Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention in Children under Ten Years of Age in Senegal: A Stepped-Wedge Cluster-Randomised Trial. PLOS Medicine. DOI:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002175 Matthew Cairns received support through a Population Health Scientist Fellowship jointly funded by the UK Medical Research Council and the UK Department for International Development. Jean Louis NDiaye is supported by a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Fellowship in Public Health and Tropical Medicine. World Health Organization's World Malaria Report 2015 Cisse, B, Sokhna, C, Boulanger, D, Milet, J, Ba, elH, Richardson, K, Hallett, R, Sutherland, C, Simondon, K, Simondon, F, Alexander, N, Gaye, O, Targett, G, Lines, J, Greenwood, B and Trape, JF. Seasonal intermittent preventive treatment with artesunate and sulfadoxine- pyrimethamine for prevention of malaria in Senegalese children: a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial. Lancet.DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68264-0 Dicko, A, Diallo, AI, Tembine, I, Dicko, Y, Dara, N, Sidibe, Y, Santara, G, Diawara, H, Conare, T, Djimde, A, Chandramohan, D, Cousens, S, Milligan, PJ, Diallo, DA, Doumbo, OK and Greenwood, B. Intermittent preventive treatment of malaria provides substantial protection against malaria in children already protected by an insecticide-treated bednet in Mali: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. PLoS Medicine. DOI:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000407. Konate, AT, Yaro, JB, Ouedraogo, AZ, Diarra, A, Gansane, A, Soulama, I, Kangoye, DT, Kabore, Y, Ouedraogo, E, Ouedraogo, A, Tiono, AB, Ouedraogo, IN, Chandramohan, D, Cousens, S, Milligan, PJ, Sirima, SB, Greenwood, B and Diallo, DA. Intermittent preventive treatment of malaria provides substantial protection against malaria in children already protected by an insecticide-treated bednet in Burkina Faso: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. PLoS Medicine.DOI:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000408. Cairns, M, Roca-Feltrer, A, Garske, T, Wilson, AL, Diallo, D, Milligan, PJ, Ghani, AC and Greenwood, BM.Estimating the potential public health impact of seasonal malaria chemoprevention in African children. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1879 About the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is a world-leading centre for research and postgraduate education in public and global health, with more than 4,000 students and 1,000 staff working in over 100 countries. The School is one of the highest-rated research institutions in the UK, and among the world's leading schools in public and global health. Our mission is to improve health and health equity in the UK and worldwide; working in partnership to achieve excellence in public and global health research, education and translation of knowledge into policy and practice. http://www.lshtm.ac.uk ### New research from North Carolina State University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Linyi University has found evidence of original keratin and melanosome preservation in a 130-million-year-old Eoconfuciusornis specimen. The work extends the timeframe in which original molecules may preserve, and demonstrates the ability to distinguish between ancient microstructures in fossils. Eoconfuciusornis, crow-sized primitive birds that lived in what is now China around 130 million years ago, are the earliest birds to have a keratinous beak and no teeth, like modern birds. Previous studies argued that the feathers of these and other ancient birds and dinosaurs preserved small, round structures interpreted to be melanosomes - pigment-containing organelles that, along with other pigments, give feathers their color. However, without additional evidence, it was not possible to prove that these structures weren't just microbes that had coated the feather during decomposition and fossilization. Yanhong Pan, associate research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and corresponding author of a paper describing the research and co-author Mary Schweitzer, NC State professor of biology with a joint appointment at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, examined feathers from an Eoconfuciusornis specimen taken from the Jehol Biota site in northern China, which is renowned for excellent fossil preservation. "If these small bodies are melanosomes, they should be embedded in a keratinous matrix, since feathers contain beta-keratin," Schweitzer says. "If we couldn't find the keratin, then those structures could as easily be microbes, or a mix of microbes and melanosomes - in either case, predictions of dinosaur shading would not be accurate." Pan, Schweitzer and their team used both scanning and transmission electron microscopy to get microscopic details of the feather's surface and its internal structure. They also utilized immunogold labeling - in which gold particles are attached to antibodies that bind to particular proteins in order to make them visible in electron microscopy - to show that filaments within the feathers were keratin. Finally, they mapped copper and sulfur to these feathers at high resolution. Sulfur was broadly distributed, reflecting its presence in both keratin and melanin molecules in modern feathers. However copper, which is only found in modern melanosomes, and not part of keratin, was only observed in the fossil melanosomes. These findings both support the identity of the melanosomes and indicate that there was no mixing or leaching during decomposition and fossilization. "This study is the first to demonstrate evidence for both keratin and melanosomes, using structural, chemical and molecular methods," says Pan. "These methods have the potential to help us understand - on the molecular level - how and why feathers evolved in these lineages." ### The work appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (EAR-1344198), the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. NC State's Wenxia Zheng and Elena Schroeter, and Alison Moyer (now at Drexel University), the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Zhonghe Zhou, Jingmai K. O'Connor and Min Wang, and Linyi University's Xiaoting Zheng and Xiaoli Wang contributed to the work. Note to editors: An abstract of the paper follows "Molecular evidence of keratin and melanosomes in feathers of the Early Cretaceous bird Eoconfuciusornis" DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1617168113 Authors: Yanhong Pan, Zhonghe Zhou, Jingmai K. O'Connor and Min Wang, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Mary Schweitzer, Wenxia Zheng and Elena Schroeter, NC State University; Alison Moyer, NC State and Drexel University; Xiaoting Zheng and Xiaoli Wang, Linyi University Published: in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Abstract: Microbodies associated with feathers of both non-avian dinosaurs and early birds were first identified as bacteria, but have been reinterpreted as melanosomes. While melanosomes in modern feathers are always surrounded by and embedded in keratin, the preservation of melanosomes embedded in keratin in fossils has not been previously demonstrated. Here, we provide multiple independent molecular analyses of both microbodies and the associated matrix recovered from feathers of a new specimen of the basal bird Eoconfuciusornis from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota of China. Our work represents the oldest ultrastructural and immunological recognition of avian beta-keratin from an Early Cretaceous (~130 Ma) bird. Furthermore, for the first time, we apply immunogold to identify protein epitopes at high resolution, by localizing antibody-antigen complexes to specific fossil ultrastructures. Retention of original keratinous proteins in the matrix surrounding electron-opaque microbodies supports their assignment as melanosomes and adds to the criteria employable to distinguish melanosomes from microbial bodies. Our work sheds new light on molecular preservation within normally labile tissues preserved in ancient fossils. Scientists have sequenced the genome of the parasitic worm responsible for causing onchocerciasis--an eye and skin infection more commonly known as river blindness. Through their work, researchers have gained insight into the workings of the parasite and identified proteins that potentially could be targeted with existing drugs or provide areas for developing new treatments and a preventive vaccine. The research, which is described in a pair of papers published this week in Nature Microbiology, was conducted in part by scientists employed or supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that river blindness currently affects an estimated 18 million people worldwide, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa. The disease occurs among humans through the bite of blackflies that live and breed on the banks of fast-flowing rivers and streams. These flies transmit Onchocerca volvulus, the tiny parasitic worm responsible for river blindness. Once inside the human body, the worms reproduce. Their offspring migrate to the skin, where they cause intense itching and rashes, and to the eye where they cause ocular symptoms and, ultimately, blindness. The infection is commonly treated using the anti-parasitic medication ivermectin. However, a complete cure can require decades of treatment, and some researchers are concerned that widespread use of ivermectin may cause the worms to develop resistance to the drug. Additionally, ivermectin can cause severe side effects in patients who also have Loa loa, another parasitic worm infection. In the newly published research, the scientists describe sequencing the complete genomes of O. volvulus worms gathered from Ecuador, Uganda and West Africa. Additionally, they reconstructed the genetic makeup of Wolbachia, the symbiotic bacteria that lives within the worms. By examining the genomes of the worms and their symbiotic bacteria, the researchers were able to identify genes that coded for common proteins and molecular reactions essential to infection. 16 of the newly discovered proteins look promising as targets for existing drugs not currently used as treatments for river blindness, adding to the potential new medications for the disease. Further, the authors note, the protein data will accelerate development of new treatments for river blindness as well as other diseases associated with parasitic worm infections. ### Additional funding for one of the studies was provided in part by NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute. ARTICLES: J Cotton et al. The genome of Onchocerca volvulus, agent of river blindness. Nature Microbiology DOI: 10.1038/NMICROBIOL.2016.216 (2016). YJ Choi et al. Genomic Diversity in Onchocerca volvulus and its Wolbachia endosymbiont. Nature Microbiology DOI: 10.1038/NMICROBIOL.2016.207 (2016). WHO: Thomas B. Nutman, M.D., head of the Helminth Immunology and Clinical Parasitology Sections in NIAID's Division of Intramural Research and a co-author of both papers, is available for comment. CONTACT: To schedule interviews, please contact Elizabeth Deatrick, (301) 402-1663, elizabeth.deatrick@nih.gov. NIAID conducts and supports research--at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide--to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website. About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov. NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health An on-street assessment by a specialist team has been shown to more than half the number of police detentions under the Mental Health Act and potentially save large health trusts 1 million a year. Street Triage is a service that comprises of a mental health nurse working alongside a dedicated police officer in mobile community units. The initiative enables the police and the NHS to work collaboratively to make sure an individual gets the best care possible when concerns about their mental state are reported to officers. Experts at Newcastle University, UK, publishing in BMJ Open, found the annual rate of detentions under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act reduced by 56% in the first year Street Triage was introduced. They found the initiative resulted in 50 fewer detentions per month, which equated to 600 per year. In the paper, researchers estimate that this could lead to a saving of 1,632 across NHS, Local Authority, ambulance and police services for a detention of three to four hours. Nationally this could save large mental health trusts 1 million a year. Dr Iain McKinnon and Dr Patrick Keown, both honorary senior clinical lecturers at Newcastle University and consultant psychiatrists at Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, jointly led the two-year study. Dr McKinnon said: "Street Triage brings the ability to respond quickly, with the skills of police officers working with mental health professionals to provide the best care possible. "The initiative had an immediate and noticeable effect with the number of detentions falling as soon as it was introduced. "For every four Street Triage interventions there was one fewer detention. This suggests it reaches a wider group than would previously have come into contact with mental health services via the police. "Our findings suggest Street Triage has the potential to transform the delivery of adult mental health services." The team used data from Northumbria Police, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, the Accident and Emergency Department at Sunderland Royal Hospital, and the social work department of Sunderland City Council. This is the most comprehensive study of its kind, carried out in detail and across a large population of an NHS Mental Health Trust with a catchment area in the North East. Data was collected from September 2013 to September 2015. Section 136 detentions can result in involuntary admission to a psychiatric hospital under the Mental Health Act; voluntary admission to hospital; or discharge to community follow up. Prior to the initiative, the rate of detentions was 59.8 per 100,000 population in the Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust catchment area. This fell to just 26.4 per 100,000 within the initial 12 months. The study also found that the mean monthly number of Section 136 assessments recorded by Sunderland Local Authority fell from 15.4 before to 3.3 following - a drop of 78%. Dr Keown said: "There has been a large increase in the rate of detention under the Mental Health Act in England in the last 20 years. This has included a rise in the number of detentions by the police. "The findings of this study indicate that Street Triage has the potential to reverse this trend. We found that for every four Street Triage interventions there was one fewer section 136 detention. "Very few interventions have been shown to reduce rates of detentions under the Mental Health Act. If these findings can be replicated in other parts of England, then Street Triage, and possibly other forms of multiagency working, have the potential to transform the delivery of mental health services." The authors of the paper state that further research is required as during the period of the study three acute hospital wards closed and one Section 136 suite. ### This research was made possible by Newcastle Academic Health Partners, a collaboration involving Newcastle University, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. This partnership harnesses world-class expertise to ensure patients benefit sooner from new treatments, diagnostics and prevention strategies. Reference Too much detention? Street Triage and detentions under Section 136 Mental Health Act in the North-East of England: a descriptive study of the effects of a Street Triage intervention Patrick Keown, Jo French, Graham Gibson, Eddy Newton, Steve Cull, Paul Brown, Jo Parry, Diana Lyons, Iain McKinnon. BMJ Open: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011837 Scientists, after conducting detailed studies, are of the opinion that homeopathic treatments are based more on the patient's belief and positive feelings than on actual therapeutic properties of the homeopathic tablets. Is homeopathy a sham? By India Today Web Desk: Earlier this month, the US government ordered producers of homeopathic concoctions to tell consumers that there are no scientific evidences to prove the effectiveness of the treatment. In a notice issued, a US Federal Trade Commission wrote, "the Commission believes that a simple statement that a product's efficacy is not supported by scientific evidence does not convey the truly limited basis for the efficacy claim and that, to avoid deceiving consumers, it is likely necessary to explain that it is not accepted by modern medicine." advertisement Also read: ORIGIN OF HOMEOPATHY Homeopathy is a system of alternative medicine deviced by German physician Dr Samuel Hahnemann in late 1790s. A competent chemist, Hahnemann was of the view that disease symptoms can be treated by minute doses of substances that produce similar symptoms when provided in larger doses to healthy people. In simpler terms, he believed that patients with certain diseases could be cured with substances that produce similar toxic effects. He used highly diluted doses of medicines since he wanted to minimise the harmful effects of the allopathic medicines doctors prescribe to patients. Also read: US government might not, but these 10 celebrities believe in homeopathy Also read: Tell consumers homeopathy doesn't work: US government orders producers IS THERE SCIENTIFIC PROOF? No. The New Zealand Herald, in an article that was published last year, said that the National Health and Medical Research Council scientists concluded that there is no reliable evidence to back the effectiveness of homeopathic treatments. They reviewed 1,800 studies on the health effects of homeopathy to reach this conclusion. Homeopathy is considered a pseudoscience. The report also said large-scale studies have found homeopathy to be no more effective than a placebo. It suggests that homeopathy is based more on the positive feelings and beliefs of the patient during the course of the treatment than on actual therapeutic effects of the medicine. A report in the National Public Radio said that a major selling point of homeopathic medicines is that these have no side-effects, but adds that it is not often noticed that there are no side-effects because there have no effects in the first place. POPULARITY Despite various reports over the years suggesting the ineffectiveness of homeopathic treatments, homeopathy is a billion dollar industry. The World Health Organisation estimated in 2009 that Australians spend over 7.3 billion USD every year on homeopathic medicines. Americans, on the other hand, spent an average or more than 3 billion dollars on homeopathy in 2007 alone. advertisement --- ENDS --- Needless to say, it is through sharing new ideas and hypotheses that critical issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss can be addressed. However, few scientists are currently in a position to do so, because publishing bold ideas in peer-reviewed journals is very difficult, especially for those who are not world-renowned scientists in their field. At the same time, scientists sharing novel ideas that have not been published yet, carry the risk of being 'scooped'. This is probably a scientist's worst nightmare: seeing someone else publish the idea they have been working on. In this context, many innovative ideas are kept secret and it can take years before they are made available to the scientific community. This is the niche that the novel open access peer-reviewed journal Rethinking Ecology aims to fill by providing a platform for forward thinking and publication of novel ideas in all aspects of ecology, evolution and environmental science. Adding to its innovative nature, Rethinking Ecology joins the modern technologically advanced Pensoft journals published on next-generation platform ARPHA (abbreviation standing for Authoring, Reviewing, Publishing, Hosting and Archiving). Not only is the platform to provide fast-track and convenient publishing for the authors, reviewers and editors in Rethinking Ecology, as it takes care of a manuscript through all stages from authoring and reviewing to dissemination and archiving, but it is user-friendly to the readers as well, who enjoy publications in three formats (PDF, XML, HTML) and full of semantic enhancements. The innovative journal aims to encourage all scientists, regardless of their seniority, publication track record, gender, or country of origin, to publish perspective papers, so that they are put in the open for peers to discuss and build on, while credit is given where credit is due. Publishing these ideas early also draws attention from the scientific community, potential collaborators and potential funders. To further avoid potential bias, Rethinking Ecology implements double-blind peer review, with the journal supporting the notion that it is the content of a manuscript that matters. Moreover, reviewers will not be asked for a formal recommendation. Instead, they will comment and evaluate the work against a set of specific questions. Thus, each paper ends up with a score on Novelty, Feasibility, Scholarship and Literacy, so that only perspective papers with an emphasis on novel hypotheses and bold ideas are accepted for publication. Another innovative feature applied in the new journal is an Author Contribution Index (ACI), meaning that each publication will include a pie chart pointing to the contribution of each of the authors, estimated in percentage. This is the editors' answer to the so-called 'guest authorship' (i.e. inclusion of authors who did not significantly contribute to the work). It is no coincidence that Rethinking Ecology has a spiral-shaped unfurling fern leaf as a logo. Called Koru in the language of the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand - Maori, it symbolises novelty, new life and new beginning, as well as perpetual movement. "Each publication in Rethinking Ecology can be seen as the beginning of life for a new idea and its metaphorical unfurling as it reaches out to the scientific community," explain the journal editors in their very first Editorial at Rethinking Ecology. "We see Rethinking Ecology as an incubator for novel ideas, and a catalyst for new thinking," says the journal's Editor-in-Chief Dr Stephane Boyer, Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand. "In a world where scientific publications are increasingly open source and immediately available, it makes no sense to keep our most innovative ideas hidden from the world for years while we secretly test them," he elaborates. "Bold ideas and new hypotheses need to be shared, they may or may not turn into world-changing paradigm shifts, but they all have the potential to contribute to new thinking." "I am pleased to welcome a groundbreaking journal such as Rethinking Ecology to the Pensoft family, which has already built a nice and extensive portfolio of innovations in scholarly publishing," says Pensoft's founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev. "Seeing genuine ideas and hypotheses yet to be tested, and possibly, yet to revolutionise the ecological science is certainly a thing worthy of eager anticipation." ### About ARPHA: ARPHA is the first end-to-end journal publishing solution that supports the full life cycle of a manuscript, from authoring through submission, peer review, publication and dissemination. With ARPHA, journals and publishers enjoy a complete set of services, which enable tailored, technologically advanced publishing solutions. The platform enables a variety of publishing models through a number of options for branding, production and revenue models to choose from. Contacts: Dr Stephane Boyer, Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand Email: sboyer@unitec.ac.nz Prof Lyubomir Penev, Pensoft Email: penev@pensoft.net Measles, one of the world's most contagious diseases, can spread more quickly in schools than previously thought, according to Princeton University-led research. The researchers report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the only sure method of controlling measles among schoolchildren is to maintain very high vaccination rates. The researchers conducted one of the first direct examinations of how measles spreads at the school level by reviewing data from a 1904 measles outbreak in London that affected 18 schools. While schools are known hotspots for infections such as measles, scientists actually have little information about the specific rate at which the measles spreads among children in school, explained senior author Bryan Grenfell, Princeton's Kathryn Briger and Sarah Fenton Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Public Affairs. The data came from the Wellcome Library's Collection of digitized historical medical documents maintained by the London-based Wellcome Trust. "This study addresses that gap with historical data," Grenfell said. "We need to be cautious in comparing historical data from the early 1900s to transmission today; however, our study does illustrate the potentially high transmission rates of infection in schools where vaccination is low." First author Alexander Becker, a Princeton graduate student of ecology and evolutionary biology, said, "our direct estimates of measles infection in schools indicate potentially swift transmission rates and a consequent need to maintain vaccination levels." A pathogen's infection rate is indicated by the figure R0 -- pronounced "R nought" -- which indicates how many people catch a disease from the initial carrier in a fully susceptible population, Becker said. In the general population, measles has a notably high transmission rate of R0 = 12-18. In the schools at the center of the 1904 outbreak, the researchers found that at the school level each sick child transmitted measles to an average 27 people with the transmission rate at individual schools falling within a range of 12 to 42. Zooming in to the classroom level, each sick child infected 40 others on average with a transmission-rate range as low as 8 in one school to a whopping 93 in another. Using these historic estimates, the researchers investigated how measles might spread in today's schools. There are presumably notable differences in the living conditions, hygiene and crowding children experienced in London in 1900 versus what children experience in the 21st-century United States, Becker said. Nonetheless, transmission estimates from more recent periods in the pre-vaccination era indicate that measles infection has been quite strongly focused in schools. The researchers developed a mathematical model based on current vaccination estimates in California and found that high vaccination levels were required to prevent transmission. "This work adds more evidence to the benefit of having a fully vaccinated school-age population," Becker said. "Even if a school has high coverage, it should push to go higher because there could be a risk of a significant outbreak." At the same time, Grenfell said, the study emphasizes that the pervasiveness of measles once it infects a school population calls out for a better understanding of how it spreads than scientists currently have. "Probably the most recently studied infection at the school level is influenza," he said. "Our results underline that we also need contemporary studies of measles transmission in schools when it occurs. More generally, our paper emphasizes the importance of digitizing the rich trove of historical data on transmission of infectious disease, as the Wellcome Library did with these data." "These results highlight the importance of sustaining high measles vaccination coverage among school children," said William Moss, a Johns Hopkins University professor of epidemiology, who is familiar with the research but had no role in it. "Because of the high transmissibility of measles virus within schools, outbreaks will occur among the unvaccinated school children should an infectious individual enter the school," he said. The researchers show that at small spatial scales such as schools, highly contagious pathogens can behave with a complexity that becomes obscured in large-scale transmission data from a city or national level, Moss said. A "notable aspect of this research relates to understanding how the more complex dynamics of measles-virus transmission at fine spatial scales such as schools relates to more regular and predictable dynamic patterns at larger spatial scales," Moss said. "The findings are specific to measles but these methods could be applied to other infectious diseases with different and complex dynamics at different spatial scales." In addition, the researchers' application of 1904 data to a current public health scenario illustrates the value of historical information in understanding how diseases spread, Moss said. After all, he said, while society has changed since then, measles has not. "Measles has a characteristic clinical appearance and during outbreaks does not need laboratory confirmation, which didn't exist in 1904," he said. "This shows the value of searching for such data sets and of the stories they can tell that are still of relevance more than 100 years later." Becker and Grenfell worked with Ruthie Birger, a former graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology now at Columbia University; Aude Teillant, a former research assistant in the Princeton Environmental Institute now at the University of Caen Normandy in France; and Paul Gastanaduy and Gregory Wallace of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ### The paper, "Estimating enhanced prevaccination measles transmission hotspots in the context of cross-scale dynamics," was published Nov. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work was supported by the Center for Health and Wellbeing in Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; the RAPIDD (Research and Policy for Infectious Disease Dynamics) program funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and managed by the National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A wide range of microorganisms, including fungi and phytopathogenic bacteria, are capable of emitting volatile compounds which boost plant growth and flowering, and in accumulating up reserves as demonstrated in a study led by scientific researchers at Navarra's Institute of Agro biotechnology, in northern Spain, which is a mixed centre shared between Spain's National Research Council (CSIC), the Public University of Navarra, and the Regional Government of Navarra. The discovery could have applications in sustainably improving crop yields as an alternative to conventional agrochemicals and in encouraging the interaction between plants. In addition, it will help in reducing the number of strains of beneficial micro-organisms. The results appear in two articles in the magazines Plant Cell and Environment, and Plant Physiology. "This study puts forward for the first time the 'bad little critters, beneficial workers' concept, according to which non-beneficial microorganisms constitute an untapped and favourable pool of bio-stimulants with a high biotechnological potential", explains Javier Pozueta, CSIC investigator at the Institute of Agro-biotechnology. Furthermore, the articles gather the results from projects carried out into biochemical and molecular mechanisms involved in the 'positive' response in plants to volatile compounds emitted by microorganisms which, from an anthropocentric standpoint, are considered to be 'negative' or 'non-beneficial'. Such studies demonstrate that microbial compounds have a positive effect on the capacity of a plant to convert CO2 from the air into biomass. The work is consistent with the idea that organisms are related to, or communicate with, themselves using 'info-chemicals', or messenger substances. The findings constitute a valuable source of study given the growing demand for food which has arisen as a consequence of the increase in the world population as well as the progressive reduction in arable farmland. ### The work has been a collaboration between researchers from the Hana Regional Centre for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research at the University of Palacky, in the Czech Republic. It falls under the i-LINK+ programme's international I-LINK 0939 project programme collaboration framework, and is funded by CSIC, to promote international scientific collaboration. Among patients with hematologic malignancies undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, the use of inpatient palliative care compared with standard transplant care resulted in a smaller decrease in quality of life two weeks after transplantation, according to a study appearing in the November 22/29 issue of JAMA. Patients with hematologic malignancies hospitalized for hematopoietic stem cell ("bone marrow") transplantation (HCT) experience physical symptoms due to chemotherapy-induced toxic effects and early post-transplantation complications. These symptoms, along with the physical isolation patients experience during the 3- to 4-week hospitalization, can contribute to a decline in their quality of life (QOL) throughout their hospital stay. Despite the physical and psychological burden experienced by patients undergoing HCT, studies of interventions to improve their QOL and reduce their distress during HCT are limited. Although palliative care clinicians are increasingly asked to care for patients with solid tumors, they are infrequently consulted for patients with hematologic malignancies. Areej El-Jawahri, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston and colleagues randomly assigned 160 adults with hematologic malignancies undergoing HCT and their caregivers to the intervention (n=81; patients were seen by palliative care clinicians at least twice a week during HCT hospitalization; the intervention was focused on management of physical and psychological symptoms), or standard transplant care (n=79). Patients receiving standard care could be seen by palliative care clinicians on request. Among the patients (average age, 60 years; 57 percent women), 98 percent completed 2-week follow-up; 93 percent completed 3-month follow-up. The researchers found that intervention patients reported a smaller decrease on measures of QOL from study entry to week 2 vs controls. Also, intervention patients had less increase in depression, lower anxiety, no difference in fatigue, and less increase in symptom burden. At 3 months, intervention patients had higher QOL, lower depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms but no significant differences in anxiety, fatigue, or symptom burden. From baseline to week 2 after HCT, caregivers of intervention patients vs controls reported no significant differences in QOL or anxiety but had a smaller increase in depression. "Palliative care may help to lessen the decline in QOL experienced by patients during hospitalization for HCT, which has long been perceived as a natural aspect of the transplantation process," the authors write. "Further research is needed for replication and to assess longer-term outcomes and cost implications." ### (doi:10.1001/jama.2016. 16786; the study is available pre-embargo at the For the Media website) Editor's Note: This work was supported by funds from the National Palliative Care Research Foundation and a grant from the National Cancer Institute. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, etc. Related material: Available at the For the Media website, the editorial, "The Promise of Palliative Care," by Preeti N. Malani, M.D., M.S.J., of the University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, and Associate Editor, JAMA, and Eric Widera, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco. To place an electronic embedded link to this study in your story This link will be live at the embargo time: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/10.1001/jama.2016.16786 The prevalence of emergency department visits for adverse drug events in the United States was estimated to be 4 per 1,000 individuals in 2013 and 2014, and the most common drug classes involved were anticoagulants, antibiotics, diabetes agents, and opioid analgesics, according to a study appearing in the November 22/29 issue of JAMA. Adverse drug events have recently received attention in national patient safety initiatives. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 incentivized new programs that target adverse drug event prevention within hospitals and during care transitions between inpatient and outpatient settings. Updated, detailed, nationally representative data describing adverse drug events can help focus these efforts. Nadine Shehab, Pharm.D., M.P.H., of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, and colleagues examined characteristics of emergency department (ED) visits for adverse drug events in the United States in 2013-2014 and changes in ED visits for adverse drug events since 2005-2006. The researchers analyzed nationally representative data from 58 EDs located in the United States and participating in the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-Cooperative Adverse Drug Event Surveillance project. Based on data from 42,585 cases, an estimated four ED visits for adverse drug events occurred per 1,000 individuals annually in 2013 and 2014, and 27 percent of ED visits for adverse drug events resulted in hospitalization. An estimated 35 percent of ED visits for adverse drug events occurred among adults ages 65 years or older in 2013-2014 compared with an estimated 26 percent in 2005-2006; older adults experienced the highest hospitalization rates (44 percent). Anticoagulants, antibiotics, and diabetes agents were implicated in an estimated 47 percent of ED visits for adverse drug events, which included clinically significant adverse events, such as hemorrhage (anticoagulants), moderate to severe allergic reactions (antibiotics), and hypoglycemia with moderate to severe neurological effects (diabetes agents). Since 2005-2006, the proportions of ED visits for adverse drug events from anticoagulants and diabetes agents have increased, whereas the proportion from antibiotics has decreased. Among children ages 5 years or younger, antibiotics were the most common drug class implicated (56 percent). Among children and adolescents ages 6 to19 years, antibiotics also were the most common drug class implicated (32 percent) in ED visits for adverse drug events, followed by antipsychotics (4.5 percent). Among older adults (65 years and older), three drug classes (anticoagulants, diabetes agents, and opioid analgesics) were implicated in an estimated 60 percent of ED visits for adverse drug events; four anticoagulants (warfarin, rivaroxaban, dabigatran, and enoxaparin) and five diabetes agents (insulin and 4 oral agents) were among the 15 most common drugs implicated. Medications to always avoid in older adults according to certain criteria ("Beers criteria") were implicated in 1.8 percent of ED visits for adverse drug events. "Targeting adverse drug events common among specific patient populations, such as among the youngest (age 19 years or less) and oldest (age 65 years and older), may help further focus outpatient medication safety efforts," the authors write. (doi:10.1001/jama.2016.16201; the study is available pre-embargo at the For the Media website) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc. Editorial: Reducing Adverse Drug Events "The question remains how to best leverage the existing system to improve the safety of the process of starting, monitoring, and discontinuing medications," writes Chad Kessler, M.D., M.H.P.E., of the Durham VA Medical Center, Durham, N.C., and colleagues in an accompanying editorial. "Collaboration is needed among physicians and other health professionals in primary care, specialty care, pharmacy, and emergency medicine to answer these questions in the quest for safer models of patient care. Furthermore, this collaboration across health care locations and the continuum of care will affect how much benefit or harm patients receive from prescribed medications. Integrated health care systems can help lead the way through improved care coordination and transition of care models. The work by Shehab et al shines a spotlight on the problem of adverse drug events and highlights the need to address this important clinical issue in a more systematic and organized fashion." (doi:10.1001/jama.2016.16392; the editorial is available pre-embargo at the For the Media website) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc. ### To place an electronic embedded link to these articles in your story These links will be live at the embargo time: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/10.1001/jama.2016.16201 http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/10.1001/jama.2016.16392 Computer algorithms can automatically interpret echocardiographic images and distinguish between pathological hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and physiological changes in athletes' hearts, according to research from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS), published online yesterday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. HCM is a disease in which a portion of the myocardium enlarges, creating functional impairment of the heart. It is the leading cause of sudden death in young athletes. Diagnosing HCM is challenging since athletes can present with physiological hypertrophy, in which their hearts appear large, but do not feature the pathological abnormality of HCM. The current standard of care requires precise phenotyping of the two similar conditions by a highly trained cardiologist. "Our research has demonstrated for the first time that machine-learning algorithms can assist in the discrimination of physiological versus pathological hypertrophic remodeling, thus enabling easier and more accurate diagnoses of HCM," said senior study author Partho P. Sengupta, MD, Director of Cardiac Ultrasound Research and Professor of Medicine in Cardiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "This is a major milestone for echocardiography, and represents a critical step toward the development of a real-time, machine-learning-based system for automated interpretation of echocardiographic images. This could help novice echo readers with limited experience, making the diagnosis rapid and more widely available." Using data from an existing cohort of 139 male subjects who underwent echocardiographic imaging at ISMMS (77 verified athlete cases and 62 verified HCM cases), the researchers analyzed the images with tissue tracking software and identified variable sets to incorporate in the machine-learning models. They then developed a collective machine-learning model with three different algorithms to differentiate the two conditions. The model demonstrated superior diagnostic ability comparable to conventional 2D echocardiographic and Doppler-derived parameters used in clinical practice. "Our approach shows a promising trend in using automated algorithms as precision medicine techniques to augment physician-guided diagnosis," said study author Joel Dudley, PhD, Director of the Institute for Next Generation Healthcare and Director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics at ISMMS. "This demonstrates how machine-learning models and other smart interpretation systems could help to efficiently analyze and process large volumes of cardiac ultrasound data, and with the growth of telemedicine, it could enable cardiac diagnoses even in the most resource-burdened areas." ### The team included researchers from both Dr. Sengupta's and Dr. Dudley's labs, including medical student Sukrit Narula, Khader Shameer, PhD, and Alaa Mabrouk Salem Omar, MD, PhD. The team is now in the process of developing other artificial intelligence-powered cardiovascular phenotyping algorithms to deploy to help clinicians, echocardiography technicians, and medical students to make diagnoses. About the Mount Sinai Health System The Mount Sinai Health System is an integrated health system committed to providing distinguished care, conducting transformative research, and advancing biomedical education. Structured around seven hospital campuses and a single medical school, the Health System has an extensive ambulatory network and a range of inpatient and outpatient services--from community-based facilities to tertiary and quaternary care. The System includes approximately 7,100 primary and specialty care physicians; 12 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 140 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and 31 affiliated community health centers. Physicians are affiliated with the renowned Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which is ranked among the highest in the nation in National Institutes of Health funding per investigator. The Mount Sinai Hospital is in the "Honor Roll" of best hospitals in America, ranked No. 15 nationally in the 2016-2017 "Best Hospitals" issue of U.S. News & World Report. The Mount Sinai Hospital is also ranked as one of the nation's top 20 hospitals in Geriatrics, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Nephrology, Neurology/Neurosurgery, and Ear, Nose & Throat, and is in the top 50 in four other specialties. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 10 nationally for Ophthalmology, while Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai St. Luke's, and Mount Sinai West are ranked regionally. Mount Sinai's Kravis Children's Hospital is ranked in seven out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report in "Best Children's Hospitals." For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org/, or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Health-care professionals are hesitant to administer the flu vaccine to pregnant women, despite the potential life-saving benefits, according to a UBC study. The study also shows that pregnant women who were eager to get vaccinated had difficulties because health professionals turned them away. "The World Health Organization and Health Canada have classified pregnant women as one of the highest at-risk groups of having serious complications following influenza infection," says Marie Tarrant, director of nursing at UBC's Okanagan campus. "Given this, the health-care community should work together to protect these moms and their infants. Flu vaccination is one of the best ways." "This was a surprising finding." Tarrant and her team, including co-author Valerie Wong of the University of Hong Kong, embarked on a research campaign to assess the effect of a brief flu vaccination education program targeted to pregnant women. The study was conducted in Hong Kong where vaccination rates are particularly low and there are two flu seasons. The researcher found that one-to-one education interventions significantly increased vaccination rates yet the uptake was still low. Upon follow-up with the women, they discovered that some doctors refused to vaccinate or that the vaccines were unavailable. "Even with the knowledge of benefits of vaccination, there still is this long-held belief that pregnant women should minimize exposing the fetus to any unknown substance, especially those injected into the body," says Tarrant. "I believe this reluctance is common worldwide." "Targeted interventions to health-care professionals and enhanced maternal education may help to address concerns and fears about flu vaccination, and lead to optimal and improved vaccination coverage." The flu is a respiratory infection caused by influenza viruses. Canadians typically contract the flu during the late fall and winter. Symptoms may include high fever, chills, sore throat, cough and tiredness. Most people recover within a week but some, including pregnant women, the very young and those over 65 years old, are at increased risk for severe complications. Globally, annual epidemics result in an about one billion cases of influenza, three to five million cases of severe illness, and 250,000 to 500,000 deaths. Almost 30 per cent of Canadians were vaccinated against the flu last year. This is substantially below Health Canada's target of 80 per cent. ### The study, recently published in Vaccine, was funded by the Health and Medical Research Fund, Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. A rare microbe that was once thought to be insignificant has turned out to be one of the most abundant single-celled hunters in the ocean, and a team of researchers led by UBC have captured the first glimpse of these elusive predators. Diplonemids are tiny cells that have more or less been ignored by researchers until recently when surveys of marine diversity showed they are the most abundant protozoa, a diverse group of single-celled organisms that excludes bacteria and viruses, in the ocean. Despite their abundance, they had never been captured or observed directly in the ocean. Scientists from UBC and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) went to sea and managed to observe them for the first time. "When a microbe is so abundant, it probably plays a very important role in the ecosystem," said Patrick Keeling, a professor of botany at UBC and director of the Integrated Microbial Biodiversity program at CIFAR. "The microbial world is one of the last frontiers of exploration on our planet, and we're using microscopes together with genomics to learn as much as possible about this invisible life." The team sailed from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California to a well-studied part of the ocean known as Line 67, where the water is deep yet poor in nutrients. Here they photographed organisms from deep-water samples and used technology to sequence the genomes of these single-celled organisms. The research showed that diplonemids are a diverse group of species of many different shapes and sizes, and that they hunt both bacteria and larger algae. "It's like discovering lions after having only seen gazelles, antelopes and zebras for so many years," said Keeling. Diplonemids also proved to have interesting genomes that are large and full of "junk" DNA called introns that interrupt genes. Introns are found in genes of all complex cells, but the diplonemid introns are unique and appear to spread similar to how a virus copies its genetic material into other cells when it attacks. To learn more about the ecology of these organisms and the role they play in maintaining the marine ecosystmes, the next step will be to figure out how to keep diplonemids alive in the lab, "which will now be a lot easier since we know what they look like," said Keeling. ### This research was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, CIFAR, and the Tula Foundation. It was published today in Current Biology: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)31062-4. The paper was authored by Keeling along with UBC researchers Ryan Gawryluk, Javier del Campo, Noriko Okamoto, Jurgen Strassert and CIFAR researchers Julius Lukes, Thomas Richards, Alexandra Worden and Alyson E. Santoro. Heads-up display technology -- think Google Glass -- offers lots of information to users in seconds, literally in front of their eyes. Access to information is critical in today's fast-paced world, but new research at the University of Central Florida indicates that the multitasking needed to process that readily available information may slow down the brain's response time. That could pose issues for people driving, when a delay of a few seconds could mean the difference between life and death. "The idea here is to explore to what extent displayed secondary information might interfere with the primary task at hand, such as driving," said Mark Neider, a UCF psychology associate professor. "What our data suggests is secondary information presented on a heads-up display is likely to interfere, and if that happens while driving, it may be distracting and dangerous." Neider is doctoral student Joanna Lewis' faculty advisor. She led the three-year research conducted at UCF's Applied Cognition and Aging Laboratory. Her findings were published Nov. 5 in the Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications journal. "I am deeply interested in multitasking and what's happening with our cognitive processing when this is happening," Lewis said. "We're trying to understand that at a theoretical level." Lewis had 363 UCF psychology student participants complete a primary task similar to "Where's Waldo?" on a computer, while some wore Google Glass and others did not. Participants were told to complete the primary task and were given secondary instructions based on which experiment they were in. Some students were told to ignore the information that pops up on Google Glass, while others were told to try to remember the information. In all the experiments, students wearing the Google Glass technology, which is worn like eyeglasses and displays a small screen over the user's right eye, took longer to complete the primary task than those who were not. Potential reasons behind these findings are that humans have a natural inclination to process language, and in this case two visual stimuli - the primary task and the secondary information from Google Glass - were competing for the visual-processing capabilities in the students' brains, resulting in the slower pace to complete the primary task, Lewis said. Although Google Glass currently is not a widespread product, the heads-up technology it uses is gaining popularity. Some automobile manufacturers have introduced this technology into its vehicles by displaying speed on the windshield, among other scenarios. Although the vehicle's speed is related to the primary task of driving, the technology opens doors to the possibility of information not related to driving being displayed. "The goal here is to make the case that we should be careful, and just because we can [integrate heads-up display technology into everyday activities] doesn't mean we should," Lewis said. Lewis used this research as the groundwork for her dissertation, which will explore eye movements when someone is being distracted. Ultimately, the opportunity to conduct research with real-world impacts is what drew Lewis to UCF in 2012. Since then, she's conducted over a dozen research projects as a doctoral student and also was awarded just one of 11 National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowships in Cognitive Psychology in 2014. "This is a demonstration of the high-quality research being conducted at UCF," Neider said. See here for more on Lewis' research. ### The University of Central Florida, one of the largest universities in the nation with more than 64,000 students, uses the power of scale and the pursuit of excellence to make a better future for our students and society. Described by The Washington Post as demolishing "the popular belief that exclusivity is a virtue in higher education" and credited by Politico with creating a "seamless pipeline of social mobility," UCF is recognized as one of the best values in higher education. UCF aligns its teaching, research and service with the needs of the community and beyond, offering more than 200 degree programs at more than a dozen locations, including its main campus in Orlando. Faculty and students are creating innovations in areas as diverse as simulation and training, optics and lasers, hospitality management, video game design, business, education and health care to solve local and global problems. For more information, visit http://www.ucf.edu. North Atlantic coral populations - key to supporting a variety of sea life - are under threat from climate change, a study suggests. Changes to winter weather conditions could threaten the long-term survival of coral in the region, upsetting fragile ecosystems that support an array of marine species, researchers say. Corals allow diverse forms of marine life to thrive by building reef structures that provide protection from predators and safe spaces to reproduce. The team focused on a species of cold-water coral - known as Lophelia pertusa - which grows in deep waters, creating elaborate reefs that are hotspots of biodiversity. These populations are maintained by tiny, fragile coral larvae that drift and swim on ocean currents, travelling hundreds of miles between reefs where they attach and begin to grow. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh used computer models to simulate the migration of larvae across vast stretches of ocean. They did so to predict the effect weather changes could have on the long-term survival of Lophelia pertusa populations in the North Atlantic. They found that a shift in average winter conditions in western Europe - one of the predicted impacts of climate change - could threaten coral populations. Ocean currents - affected by changing wind patterns - could drive larvae away from key sites in a new network of marine areas established to help safeguard coral populations, researchers say. The team found Scotland's network of Marine Protected Areas - or MPAs - appears to be weakly connected, making it vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A coral population on Rosemary Bank seamount, an undersea mountain off Scotland's west coast, is key to maintaining the network. Corals also thrive on oil and gas platforms in the North Sea and west of Shetland, which may help to bridge a gap in the MPA network between populations in the Atlantic and along the coast of Norway, the team says. The study is published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. It was carried out in collaboration with Heriot-Watt University through a Daphne Jackson fellowship and as part of the ATLAS project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Dr Alan Fox, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who conducted the analysis, said: "We can't track larvae in the ocean, but what we know about their behaviour allows us to simulate their epic journeys, predicting which populations are connected and which are isolated. In less well connected coral networks, populations become isolated and cannot support each other, making survival and recovery from damage more difficult." Professor Murray Roberts, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences and co-ordinator of the ATLAS project, said: "Scotland's seabed plays a unique role as a stepping stone for deep-sea Atlantic species. By teaming up with researchers in Canada and the US, we will expand this work right across the Atlantic Ocean." ### For further information, please contact: Corin Campbell, Press & PR Office, tel 0131 650 6382, email Corin.Campbell@ed.ac.uk Additional information: Alan D. Fox, Lea-Anne Henry, David W. Corne, and J. Murray Roberts. 2016. Sensitivity of marine protected area network connectivity to atmospheric variability. R. Soc. open sci. 3: 160494. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160494 The Daphne Jackson Trust enables men and women to return to the scientific and research world of work following a career break of two years or more by providing flexible and part time retraining fellowship schemes, held in conjunction with host organisations around the UK i.e. academic and research institutes. See http://www.daphnejackson.org. The ATLAS project is the largest integrated study of deep Atlantic ecosystems ever undertaken. Led by the University of Edinburgh, ATLAS brings together 25 partners across 12 countries. This four-year project launched in May 2016. Please see http://www.eu-atlas.org. Investigation of the importance of North Sea oil and gas platforms to the wider North Sea ecosystem, the biological communities that inhabit these massive hard man-made structures, and the effects of decommissioning is continuing through the ANChor project led by the University of Edinburgh. ANChor is funded by the INSITE programme, http://www.insitenorthsea.org. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 678760 (ATLAS). This output reflects only the author's view and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. By Manjeet Sehgal, Shuja-ul-Haq : Three Indian soldiers were killed "in action" on the LoC, while the body of a soldier was mutilated, the Indian Army said on Tuesday. The Northern Command also vowed "heavy retribution for the cowardly act". "3 soldiers killed in action on LC in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act," the Northern Command said. advertisement The incident comes amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan following the Indian Army's surgical strikes across the Line of Control in September this year. AMBUSHED TEAM BELONGED TO 57 RASHTRIYA RIFLES The ambushed team belonged to 57 Rashtriya Rifles. The three martyred soldiers have been identified as 31-year-old gunner Manoj K Kushwah, a resident of Daddupur from Gazipur in Uttar Pradesh, 25-year-old rifleman Prabhu Singh, a native of Khir Jamkhas village from Teh Shergarh in Rajasthan and another 25-year-old rifleman Shashank K Singh, hailing from Teh Mohamadabad in UP's Gazipur. The team was an on-the-move counter-infiltration patrolling party. Terrorists spotted the patrolling party before the latter could spot them. Also read | One BSF head constable dead after Pak violates ceasefire in Rajouri Bodies of three soldiers have been recovered by the Army. There was visible coordination between terrorists and the Pakistani Army along the LoC. Firing and shelling was carried out to help terrorists infiltrate and also to pin down our troops. SECOND MUTILATION IN A MONTH Last month, Mandeep Singh, a soldier of the 17th Sikh Regiment, was killed in an encounter and his body mutilated by terrorists in the same Machhil sector of Kupwara area of Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Army, in an official statement, said the soldier's body was "mutilated" and added that it would retaliate with an "appropriate response". During the Kargil war in 1999, Captain Saurabh Kalia, soldiers Arjunram Baswana, Mula Ram Bidiasar, Naresh Singh Sinsinwar, Bhanwar Lal Bagaria and Bhika Ram Mudh of the 4 Jat Regiment were captured by Pakistani troops and brutally tortured. Also read | Pakistan summons Indian official to protest 'ceasefire violations' The soldiers had their ear drums pierced with hot iron rods, eyes punctured and genitals cut off. The autopsy of the bodies also revealed that they were burnt with cigarettes butts. Their limbs were also chopped off, teeth broken and skull fractured during the torture. Even their nose and lips were sliced off. In another incident, on January 8, 2013, Pakistani soldiers entered Indian territory in Krishna Ghati sector of the border and killed two Indian soldiers -- Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Indian officials said both the bodies were mutilated, and Hemraj's body was decapitated. --- ENDS --- advertisement COLUMBIA, Mo. (Nov. 22, 2016) -- One out of every six American women has experienced a sexual assault or an attempted sexual assault or rape in her lifetime, according to the National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While more than half of female survivors of rape report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), previous research has found that not all survivors respond to traditional treatments for PTSD, causing their symptoms to resurface over time. Abigail Rolbiecki, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, says that photovoice interventions, where participants express their thoughts and feelings through photos, combined with traditional PTSD treatments, could result in a more complete recovery for survivors of sexual assault. "Photovoice gives vulnerable populations an alternative way to express themselves, allowing survivors to use photographs to help convey their thoughts and feelings," Rolbiecki said. "Participants took photos that represented their strengths, weaknesses, triggers and their processes of obtaining justice. The intervention allowed participants to gently expose themselves to their triggers and discuss their thoughts and feelings about their experience in a safe and supportive environment." Rolbiecki said that current PTSD treatments are designed to help survivors manage their anxiety when confronting triggers, but offer little support at addressing the powerlessness survivors may feel as a result of their experience. "The typical approaches to treating PTSD are not specifically designed to foster post traumatic growth and empowerment for survivors," Rolbiecki said. "These approaches rarely provide an opportunity for survivors to rewrite their story and make meaning of their experiences, which is important and necessary for growth." In the study, Rolbiecki recruited nine women who had experienced a sexual assault at any time in their lives. Each woman was given a camera and instructed to take photos that captured her experience with sexual assault and recovery. The women met weekly as group to discuss their pictures. After group discussions were complete, the participants worked together to plan an invitation-only photography exhibit to educate others about sexual assault and sexual assault policies. Rolbiecki interviewed each participant after the exhibits to further discuss their experience with photovoice as a therapeutic intervention. Rolbiecki said that after the intervention was complete, the participants reported decreases in PTSD symptoms and self-blame, and increases in their post traumatic growth, particularly with their personal strength. "Survivors of sexual assaults are often identified by society as victims," Rolbiecki said. "Photovoice allows participants to redefine themselves despite their victimization. Through this tool, survivors can share their story with complete control of how it is told; allowing them to re-enter the world with a story solely authored by themselves." Rolbiecki said that results from her study show that photovoice has therapeutic implications, especially in terms of treating trauma through creating and critically discussing photo narratives. Rolbiecki is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. She previously worked at the University of Missouri's Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center. Rolbiecki's study, "Waiting for the Cold to End:' Using Photovoice as a Narrative Intervention for Survivors of Sexual Assault," recently was published in Traumatology, an international journal for health professionals who study and treat people exposed to highly stressful and traumatic events. ### Frequently stationed behind the scenes, radiologists could benefit from more exposure, a recent survey shows When it comes to visibility, radiologists, in many cases, are out of sight. They often receive and interpret images from afar, leaving a patient's referring physician or specialist to disclose the findings -- and, using the information supplied, answer questions about the diagnosis. Such distance, bolstered by the ease and ability of technology, can have consequences, according to a team of University of Michigan Medical School researchers. Whether one's scan results come secondhand or through an online portal, patients "have very little opportunity to actually meet a radiologist," says Ella Kazerooni, M.D., a professor of radiology at U-M. "We're in the background ... sometimes right next door when they have their test or get their results, and sometimes in a building miles away." That was the impetus for a new report Kazerooni co-authored, which sought to examine how the public perceives the role, responsibility and training of radiologists. Published in October in the American Journal of Roentgenology, it surveyed 1,976 adult radiology outpatients at the U-M Health System and St. Joseph Mercy hospital in Ann Arbor. The results underscore a desire for more face time and greater clarity. Among the results: Overall, 84 percent of respondents expressed interest in meeting with a radiologist; 20 percent said they'd pay $40 or more to do so. Patient comfort level was three times higher with the prospect of a radiologist interpreting an image versus a nonradiologist physician; comfort, then, was even lower when a nurse or a physician's assistant did so. Smaller groups incorrectly said ultrasound and MRI examinations involve radiation (10 and 45 percent, respectively), while larger percentages correctly identified radiography (87 percent), CT (63 percent) and nuclear medicine imaging (62 percent) as using radiation. Most patients understood that radiologists were doctors, but few knew the extent of their education: It's typically 14 years of postsecondary training. The survey showed aptitudes did improve after participants received educational literature. And professionals should do more to address shortcomings in public perception, researchers say. "I think radiology increasingly recognizes it needs to be a patient- and family-centered discipline to provide value to all of our customers," Kazerooni says. "A game of telephone" Some radiologists, Kazerooni says, are already much closer to their clients. Those who specialize in breast imaging, for example, have a lot of patient contact, as do interventional radiologists who perform procedures akin to minimally invasive surgery. In most other cases, however, radiologists don't come into the picture until after a radiology technologist has taken the images under their supervision and sent them to the radiologist to review and interpret. And, pending clinician or patient request, a radiologist usually does not directly converse with the person imaged. This disconnect, beyond being impersonal, can be problematic. "When you have information passed from one individual to another, it's like a game of telephone," Kazerooni says. "The more people in the chain, the less likely the information could reflect what was actually said by the end of that chain." It also could leave many patients without a true grasp of what radiologists do and how they impact decisions going forward. Making connections Some hospitals and health systems are working to bridge the gap to improve both care and communication. The U-M survey cites Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston -- where a radiology consultation clinic was established to connect all involved parties -- as a model to replicate. As a means to help reduce anxiety and error, "it's the right thing to do," says Kazerooni, noting that there are financial obstacles to widespread adoption because most payers don't cover direct radiological consultations. In most places, patients must ask if they wish to speak to a radiologist, who may not be on-site or available to respond. "Radiologists are part of the care team -- and, in many cases, a very pivotal part of deciding whether someone's cancer has gotten better or worse," Kazerooni says. Still, some radiologists have concerns that referring physicians could be offended when a radiologist interrupts the usual pattern of communicating results. Which is why opting for an electronic medical record system known as a "patient portal" to share the information with all involved parties is increasingly popular. Radiologists nonetheless ought to work to make themselves available within reason to further the doctor-patient dialogue when necessary, Kazerooni says. Just as patients might need education about the medical specialty, it's important for practitioners to understand the needs of the people they serve. "I think it's a matter of priorities," she says. "To deliver great service, you really need to know what your patients want and need -- not only about the imaging tests performed, but also beforehand to make sure the tests they are undergoing are appropriate and necessary." ### PITTSBURGH, Nov. 22, 2016 - People living with serious illness who receive palliative care have better quality of life and fewer symptoms than those who don't receive palliative care, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the study is the first meta-analysis of the effect of palliative care as it relates to patients' quality of life, symptom burden and survival. Palliative care is health care for people living with serious illness and focuses on providing patients with relief from their symptoms, pain and stress of a serious illness, whatever the diagnosis. Palliative care can either refer to a specific service that is provided by physicians and nurses who have received specialized training in this type of care, or an overall approach to care for patients with serious illness, which would include palliative care when provided by a specialist or by a non-palliative care specialist (like an oncologist or a primary care physician). This study took a broad approach and looked at the philosophy of palliative care. The researchers conducted a systematic review of 43 trials of palliative care interventions, including 12,731 adults with serious illness and 2,479 of their family caregivers. Researchers also performed a meta-analysis to investigate the overall association between palliative care and three outcomes often linked with palliative care--patients' quality of life, symptom burden and survival. A meta-analysis is the statistical process of combining the results of multiple trials, which gives researchers an overall effect for interventions. "Taken all together, this is a very compelling message," said Dio Kavalieratos, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine in the Section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics in Pitt's Division of General Internal Medicine and lead author of the study. "People's quality of life and symptoms improved; their satisfaction with their health care improved--all during what is likely one of the most difficult periods of their lives." Researchers also determined that palliative care was associated with improvements in advance care planning, patient and caregiver satisfaction with care, and lower health care utilization. There was mixed evidence of improvement with site of death, patient mood, health care expenditures, and caregiver quality of life, mood or burden. "Historically, palliative care has overwhelmingly focused on individuals with cancer, but anyone with a serious illness, be it cancer, heart failure, multiple sclerosis or cystic fibrosis, deserves high-quality, individualized care that focuses on reducing their suffering and improving their quality of life," Kavalieratos said. "We need to find ways of integrating palliative care concepts in patients' usual care experiences so it isn't a luxury, but a standard part of health care for those living with serious illness." Over the past five years, much attention has been paid to the idea that palliative care improves patients' survival, Kavalieratos added. Although some individual studies had shown that, the association didn't play out when multiple studies were pooled together in the meta-analysis. "As a field, we need to develop new methods of studying how palliative care impacts people with serious illness and their caregivers," Kavalieratos added. "These methods should not burden patients and caregivers who participate in this research, but also need to be rigorous enough to capture what's going on at this critical point in people's lives." ### The researchers received funding support from several agencies, including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (K12HS022989); National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (K01HL13346); National Institutes of Health (KL2TR000146); and National Institute of Nursing Research (K99NR015903). Those involved in the study included 10 staff members from Pitt, as well as others from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Toronto and Virginia Tech. About the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine As one of the nation's leading academic centers for biomedical research, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine integrates advanced technology with basic science across a broad range of disciplines in a continuous quest to harness the power of new knowledge and improve the human condition. Driven mainly by the School of Medicine and its affiliates, Pitt has ranked among the top 10 recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health since 1998. In rankings recently released by the National Science Foundation, Pitt ranked fifth among all American universities in total federal science and engineering research and development support. Likewise, the School of Medicine is equally committed to advancing the quality and strength of its medical and graduate education programs, for which it is recognized as an innovative leader, and to training highly skilled, compassionate clinicians and creative scientists well-equipped to engage in world-class research. The School of Medicine is the academic partner of UPMC, which has collaborated with the University to raise the standard of medical excellence in Pittsburgh and to position health care as a driving force behind the region's economy. For more information about the School of Medicine, see http://www.medschool.pitt.edu. http://www.upmc.com/media Contact: Lawerence Synett Phone: 412-647-9818 E-mail: SynettL@upmc.edu Contact: Cynthia Patton Phone: 412-586-9773 E-mail: PattonC4@upmc.edu Frozen beneath a region of cracked and pitted plains on Mars lies about as much water as what's in Lake Superior, largest of the Great Lakes, a team of scientists led by The University of Texas at Austin has determined using data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Scientists examined part of Mars' Utopia Planitia region, in the mid-northern latitudes, with the orbiter's ground-penetrating Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument. Analyses of data from more than 600 overhead passes revealed a deposit more extensive in area than the state of New Mexico. The deposit ranges in thickness from about 260 feet to about 560 feet, with a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, mixed with dust or larger rocky particles. At the latitude of this deposit -- about halfway from the equator to the pole -- water ice cannot persist on the surface of Mars today. It turns into water vapor in the planet's thin, dry atmosphere. The Utopia deposit is shielded from the atmosphere by a soil covering estimated to be about 3 to 33 feet thick. "This deposit probably formed as snowfall accumulating into an ice sheet mixed with dust during a period in Mars history when the planet's axis was more tilted than it is today," said Cassie Stuurman of the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, a unit of the Jackson School of Geosciences. She is the lead author of a report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The name Utopia Planitia translates loosely as the "plains of paradise." The newly surveyed ice deposit spans latitudes from 39 to 49 degrees within the plains. It represents less than 1 percent of all known water ice on Mars, but it more than doubles the volume of thick, buried ice sheets known in the northern plains. Ice deposits close to the surface are being considered as a resource for astronauts. "This deposit is probably more accessible than most water ice on Mars, because it is at a relatively low latitude and it lies in a flat, smooth area where landing a spacecraft would be easier than at some of the other areas with buried ice," said Jack Holt, a research professor at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, and a co-author of the Utopia paper who is a SHARAD co-investigator and has previously used radar to study Martian ice in buried glaciers and the polar caps. The Utopian water is all frozen now. If there were a melted layer -- which would be significant for the possibility of life on Mars -- it would have been evident in the radar scans. However, some melting can't be ruled out during different climate conditions when the planet's axis was more tilted. "Where water ice has been around for a long time, we just don't know whether there could have been enough liquid water at some point for supporting microbial life," Holt said. Utopia Planitia is a basin with a diameter of about 2,050 miles, resulting from a major impact early in Mars' history and subsequently filled. NASA sent the Viking 2 Lander to a site near the center of Utopia in 1976. The portion examined by Stuurman and colleagues lies southwest of that long-silent lander. Use of the Italian-built SHARAD instrument for examining part of Utopia Planitia was prompted by Gordon Osinski at Western University in Ontario, Canada, a co-author of the study. For many years, he and other researchers have been intrigued by ground-surface patterns there such as polygonal cracking and rimless pits called scalloped depressions -- "like someone took an ice cream scoop to the ground," said Stuurman, who started this project while a student at Western. In the Canadian Arctic, similar landforms are indicative of ground ice, Osinski noted, "but there was an outstanding question as to whether any ice was still present at the Martian Utopia or whether it had been lost over the millions of years since the formation of these polygons and depressions." The large volume of ice detected with SHARAD advances understanding about Mars' history and identifies a possible resource for future use. "It's important to expand what we know about the distribution and quantity of Martian water," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Deputy Project Scientist Leslie Tamppari of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We know early Mars had enough liquid water on the surface for rivers and lakes. Where did it go? Much of it left the planet from the top of the atmosphere. Other missions have been examining that process. But there's also a large quantity that is now underground ice, and we want to keep learning more about that." Joe Levy of the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, a co-author of the new study, agreed. "The ice deposits in Utopia Planitia aren't just an exploration resource. They're also one of the most accessible climate change records on Mars," he said. "We don't understand fully why ice has built up in some areas of the Martian surface and not in others. Sampling and using this ice with a future mission could help keep astronauts alive, while also helping them unlock the secrets of Martian ice ages." The original version of this release was posted on the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory home page. ### A cellular component known as the Golgi apparatus may play a role in how lung cancer metastasizes, according to researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center whose findings were reported in the Nov. 21 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The Golgi apparatus, often referred to as a cellular "post office" for its ability to package proteins into vesicles for transportation to other sites within or outside the cell, may offer a new therapeutic approach for preventing metastasis. Think of vesicles as miniature mail trucks composed of a fatty shell filled with secretory liquids that travel from the Golgi to destinations within the cell where their contents are put to use. The Golgi can appear as a compacted membranous "stack" near the cell's nucleus or as a dispersed system of interconnected membranes. Vesicles can "bud" from the Golgi in either form. "Our findings show that certain proteins in the Golgi that control Golgi compaction may actually promote vesicle budding and transport and enhance the tumor cell's ability to metastasize" said Jonathan Kurie, M.D., professor of Thoracic Head and Neck Medical Oncology. "These findings highlight the potential utility of targeting certain cellular processes in the Golgi." According to Kurie, tumor cells gain their metastatic ability through a Golgi-related process driving the budding and transport of secretory vesicles. Unknown before this study was whether Golgi compaction was responsible for vesicular trafficking leading to metastasis. This study shows that Golgi compaction is associated with EMT or epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, a process that allows a cell to detach and move away from its neighbors during wound healing and other normal processes and is thought to play a role in cancer cell migration. Using lung adenocarcinoma cell lines isolated from mice and patients, Kurie's team found that EMT depends on a Golgi protein called PAQR11 for successful tumor cell migration and metastasis in lung cancers. "We concluded that, through PAQR11, tumor cells can hijack a normal Golgi compaction process in order to gain metastatic ability," said Kurie. ### MD Anderson study team participants included Xiaochao Tan, Ph.D.; Priyam Banerjee; Ph.D., Hou-Fu Guo, Ph.D.; Daniela Pankova, Ph.D.; Xin Liu, Ph.D.;Yongming Xue, Jonathon Roybal and Don Gibbons, M.D., all of Thoracic Head and Neck Medical Oncology; Tomasz Zal, Ph.D., Immunology; and Chad Creighton, Ph.D., Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. Other participating institutions include the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Ewha Woman's University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea; University of York, York, U.K.; Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital, Harbin, China; University of Houston and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (R01CA181184, R01CA125123, GM087364, GM105920, GM112786P30, EY007551, K08CA151661, NRF-2010-0027945, CA015672, 1S10OD012304-01, and 1S10RR09552-01), the American Cancer Society (RGS-09-278-01-CSM), the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (RP120713), and MCubed and the Fastforward Protein Folding Disease Initiative at the University of Michigan. On military live fire training ranges, troops practice firing artillery shells, drop bombs on old tanks or derelict buildings and test the capacity of new weapons. But those explosives and munitions leave behind toxic compounds that have contaminated millions of acres of U.S. military bases -- with an estimated cleanup bill ranging between $16 billion and $165 billion. In a paper published online Nov. 16 in Plant Biotechnology Journal, University of Washington and University of York researchers describe new transgenic grass species that can neutralize and eradicate RDX -- a toxic compound that has been widely used in explosives since World War II. UW engineers introduced two genes from bacteria that learned to eat RDX and break it down into harmless components in two perennial grass species: switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) and creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera). The best-performing strains removed all the RDX from a simulated soil in which they were grown within less than two weeks, and they retained none of the toxic chemical in their leaves or stems. It is the first reported demonstration of genetically transforming grasses to supercharge their ability to remove contamination from the environment. Grasses are hearty, fast-growing, low-maintenance plants that offer practical advantages over other species in real-world cleanup situations. "This is a sustainable and affordable way to remove and destroy pollutants on these training ranges," said senior author and UW professor of civil and environmental engineering Stuart Strand, whose lab focuses on taking genes from microorganisms and animals that are able to degrade toxic compounds and engineering them into useful plants. "The grasses could be planted on the training ranges, grow on their own and require little to no maintenance. When a toxic particle from the munitions lands in a target area, their roots would take up the RDX and degrade it before it can reach groundwater," Strand said. RDX is an organic compound that forms the base for many common military explosives, which can linger in the environment in unexploded or partially exploded munitions. In large enough doses, it has been shown to cause seizures and organ damage, and it's currently listed by the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry as a potential human carcinogen. Unlike other toxic explosives constituents such as TNT -- which binds to soils and tends to stay put -- RDX dissolves easily in water and is more prone to spread contamination beyond the limits of a military range, manufacturing facility or battleground. "Particles get scattered around and then it rains," Strand said. "Then RDX dissolves in the rainwater as it moves down through the soil and winds up in groundwater. And, in some cases, it flows off base and winds up in drinking water wells." Wild grass species do remove RDX contamination from the soil when they suck water up through their roots, but they don't significantly degrade it. So when the grasses die, the toxic chemical is re-introduced into the landscape. Co-authors Neil Bruce and Liz Rylott, biotechnology professor and research scientist, respectively, at the University of York and colleagues had previously isolated enzymes found in bacteria that evolved to use the nitrogen found in RDX as a food source. That digestion process has the added benefit of degrading the toxic RDX compound into harmless constituents. The bacteria themselves aren't an ideal cleanup tool because they require other food sources that aren't always present on military training ranges. So Bruce and Rylott tried inserting the bacterial genes into plant species commonly used in laboratory settings. Those experiments proved that the new plant strains were able to remove RDX contamination much more successfully than their wild counterparts. "Considering the worldwide scale of explosives contamination, plants are the only low cost, sustainable solution to cleaning up these polluted sites," said Bruce. The UW team of civil and environmental engineers spent eight years working to express the same genes in plant species that could stand up to real-world use. They needed a hearty perennial species that grows back year after year and that has strong root systems that can bounce back after fires. Grasses fit that bill, but they are more difficult to manipulate genetically. In particular, the UW engineers had to build into their gene constructs robust monocot "promoters" -- or regions of DNA that cause a particular gene to be expressed -- for the process to work in grass species. "For cleaning up contaminated soils, grasses work best, but they're definitely not as easy to transform, especially since flexible systems to express multiple genes in grasses have not been used before," said first author and acting UW instructor Long Zhang. The research team also found another unexpected side benefit: because the genetically modified grasses use RDX as a nitrogen source, they actually grow faster than wild grass species. Next steps for the UW research team include limited field trials on a military training range to test how the strains perform under different conditions. Wider use would require USDA approval to ensure that the genetic modifications pose no threat to wild grass species. "I think it would be ecologically acceptable because the genes we've introduced degrade real pollutants in the environment and cause no harm," Strand said. "From my perspective, this is a useful technology that's beneficial to the environment and has the potential to remove dangerous legacy contamination from decades of military activity." ### The research was funded by U.S. Department of Defense. Co-authors include UW civil and environmental engineering research techs Ryan Routsong and Quyen Nguyen. For more information, contact Strand at sstrand@uw.edu or 206-543-5350. Grant numbers: SERDP ER-1498, ESTCP ER-201436 Photo gallery available for download here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/uwnews/albums/72157676947106075 Inspired by the way people move at heavy metal concerts, an international team of researchers from Uppsala University and Harvard University have learned how to spot danger zones in mass gatherings before disaster strikes. Publishing online in the journal Physical Review Letters Nov. 23rd, Uppsala University's graduate student Arianna Bottinelli, and professor in applied mathematics David Sumpter, have developed computational tools to predict large-scale collective motion in simulated mass gatherings. The team started with simulated crowds so they could reliably keep track of everyone's position. "From this data, we're able to predict the most risky collective motions that naturally arise in a dense shoulder-to-shoulder crowd," says first author Bottinelli, who will defend her PhD thesis in applied mathematics on the 25th of November. Sumpter adds, "The next step is to apply these techniques to real-time video data. If we can use computer vision to track people, then our analytical tools can warn event planners of potential hazards before they arise." Overwhelmingly, mass gatherings are held without incident. But sometimes things go wrong. People can be trampled or asphyxiated by crushing pressures generated by the crowd itself. These types of collective motion have been previously studied, but the new physics-based insights in this work provide an explanation for how these disasters occur in the first place. Bottinelli, who lead the research, describes it like this: "It all comes down to way people gather into a randomly packed group. Physical body-to-body contacts are the foundation for potentially dangerous collective motion. Our work shows how to identify the emergent risks based on which people are touching each other." The project started as a study in the way people "dance" at heavy metal concerts. These "mosh pits" forcefully separate the crowd, creating areas near the stage where the crowd is densely packed. "We were staring at the concert data when we realized there were direct similarities with rallies, protests, and Black Friday sales events," said Dr. Silverberg, postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, who has been collaborating on this work. "The more we dug, the richer the physics became. Pretty soon we found ideas from material science and field theory could be applied directly to human crowds in extreme situations," he adds. The researchers noted that awareness is the key to safety. With the upcoming Black Friday shopping holiday in America and the general increase in protest events across the globe, there are increasingly hidden dangers in crowds. The team's conclusions and suggestion to the public is to "keep an eye on your surroundings - if you're packed densely, then there's an inherent risk, and the best way to protect yourself and others is to spread out and move to an area with more physical space" the team concluded. ### The research, "Emergent structural mechanisms for high-density collective motion inspired by human crowds" was supported by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Mathematics in Uppsala University, Sweden. Related video: https://youtu.be/nAiGUZQPJJw Afterpay Holdings Ltdis an Australian company which offers a buy now, take now, pay later service in the retail industry which doesnt require end-customers to pay upfront fees or interest.In the lead-up to the Christmas shopping season, the company has announced a partnership with the Country Road Group whose fashion brands include Country Road, Trenery, Witchery and Mimco.Afterpay says the Country Road Group will be using its payment platform by the end of this week.The company says it has over 1,400 retailers currently live on its platform including MJ Bale, Seafolly, Carla Zampatti.Afterpay posted a net loss of $3.6 million at 30 June 2016. There aren't many Americans who enjoy thinking about their taxes, but the truth of the matter is that tax planning throughout the year can make your life a whole lot easier come tax time. Tax planning is especially important considering that about 80% of all Americans receive a refund from the federal government in a given year. A simple adjustment of your federal tax withholding, for example, could result in your getting a raise with each paycheck, as opposed to waiting until next year to get a lump-sum refund from the IRS that earned no interest. However, tax planning in America is probably a few months away from a big shift, and consumers should be aware of it. Electing Donald Trump as president came as a surprise to many Americans, and his policies could throw a curveball into what most taxpayers have been used to for close to a decade. Understandably, a lot could change between what Trump has said on the campaign trail and what actually happens once he gets into office. It's no secret that he and some of his Republican colleagues have clashed over certain ideas, which could slow the legislation process. However, having Congress and the presidency unified under a single party could very well mean that big tax changes are around the corner. These taxes could go away under President Trump Based on Trump's various tax proposals, six taxes could wind up being eliminated, four of which would go away as a result of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. Medical device excise tax : The medical device excise tax is a highly controversial 2.3% tax on the revenue of medical device companies. It's particularly disliked since it taxes top-line sales as opposed to end-result profits, and it indiscriminately taxes devices that range from highly specialized heart valves to everyday products like bandages and gloves sold in bulk to hospital chains. It was only expected to cover between 2% and 3% of the total cost of the ACA over a 10-year period, so if Obamacare, as the ACA is more commonly known, is indeed repealed, the medical device excise tax would be gone as well. The medical device excise tax is currently suspended for two years but would presumably be reinstated in 2018 if Obamacare is left in place. : The medical device excise tax is a highly controversial 2.3% tax on the revenue of medical device companies. It's particularly disliked since it taxes top-line sales as opposed to end-result profits, and it indiscriminately taxes devices that range from highly specialized heart valves to everyday products like bandages and gloves sold in bulk to hospital chains. It was only expected to cover between 2% and 3% of the total cost of the ACA over a 10-year period, so if Obamacare, as the ACA is more commonly known, is indeed repealed, the medical device excise tax would be gone as well. The medical device excise tax is currently suspended for two years but would presumably be reinstated in 2018 if Obamacare is left in place. Net investment income tax : The Net Investment Income Tax, or NIIT, is a component of Obamacare that would disappear if the law were repealed. The NIIT is a 3.8% tax on investment income for individuals with modified adjusted gross incomes in excess of $200,000, and joint filers over $250,000. According to the IRS, gains from the sale of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, gains from the sale of investment real estate, and gains from the sale of interests in partnerships and S corporations are all included in the NIIT. : The Net Investment Income Tax, or NIIT, is a component of Obamacare that would disappear if the law were repealed. The NIIT is a 3.8% tax on investment income for individuals with modified adjusted gross incomes in excess of $200,000, and joint filers over $250,000. According to the IRS, gains from the sale of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, gains from the sale of investment real estate, and gains from the sale of interests in partnerships and S corporations are all included in the NIIT. Medicare surtax : A 0.9% Medicare surtax was also added when Obamacare was passed as a tax on wages for upper-income earners. Typically, the Medicare payroll tax is 2.9%, which is split down the middle between you and your employer (unless you happen to be self-employed, in which case you pay it all). This works out to you each paying 1.45%. However, once an individual hits $200,000 in wages, the 0.9% surtax kicks in for a total payroll tax of 2.35%. This tax would go away if the ACA is repealed. : A 0.9% Medicare surtax was also added when Obamacare was passed as a tax on wages for upper-income earners. Typically, the Medicare payroll tax is 2.9%, which is split down the middle between you and your employer (unless you happen to be self-employed, in which case you pay it all). This works out to you each paying 1.45%. However, once an individual hits $200,000 in wages, the 0.9% surtax kicks in for a total payroll tax of 2.35%. This tax would go away if the ACA is repealed. Cadillac tax: Lastly, the Cadillac tax would be bid adieu if Obamacare were repealed. The Cadillac tax is the ACA's high-cost tax plan that implements a 40% excise tax on employer plans exceeding $10,200 in premiums per year for individuals and $27,500 for families. Though this tax isn't set to take effect until 2020, if Trump has his way it'll never see the light of day. Beyond Obamacare, two additional taxes are on the chopping block with Trump as president. Estate tax : The estate tax (also known as the death tax) could also go the way of the dodo. The estate tax is a relatively small contributor to annual federal revenue, since it only applies to estates in excess of $5.45 million per individual or $10.9 million for a couple. Estates below these levels are exempt. Trump has gone on the record multiple times as stating that the 40% estate tax rate is double taxation, and he firmly believes that eliminating it would help preserve family wealth. : The estate tax (also known as the death tax) could also go the way of the dodo. The estate tax is a relatively small contributor to annual federal revenue, since it only applies to estates in excess of $5.45 million per individual or $10.9 million for a couple. Estates below these levels are exempt. Trump has gone on the record multiple times as stating that the 40% estate tax rate is double taxation, and he firmly believes that eliminating it would help preserve family wealth. Alternative Minimum Tax: The Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT, could also disappear. The AMT is a supplemental income tax imposed by the IRS on well-to-do individuals who've used a variety of tax loopholes to lower their effective tax rate to an artificially low level. Trump's tax plan is all about simplicity, and the AMT simply gets in the way of that simplicity. Once again, it's important to emphasize that what Trump proposed during his campaign and what actually gets passed into law could be very different. Nonetheless, taxpayers should be prepared for what could be our first major tax reform in quite some time. Britain will welcome in more food imports from developing countries after the UK leaves the European Union, a former government minister has said. The suggestion was made by cross-bench peer Lord Digby Jones, who has served as director general of the CBI and was also a government minister for trade and investment. Lord Jones said the UK would open up imports of food and and other agricultural produce in exchange for selling its financial services and goods to places such as India and Africa. See also: Government warned over Brexit consequences for farming His comments will concern farm leaders who have warned that British agriculture must not be used as a pawn in negotiations as the UK seeks to secure international trade deals post-Brexit. As the fifth largest economy in the world, the UK had much to offer, Lord Jones told BBC Radio 5s Wake Up to Money programme on Tuesday (22 November). No favours But it was no good expecting that this would mean there would be any favours from the rest of the world once the UK left the EU, he added. We have got to make sure that what we can provide them in goods and services is what they need at a price they can afford, said Lord Jones. To do that, we are already set up to welcome in the things that the protectionists in America and the protectionists in France and Italy will never allow. We will have Indian agricultural produce we will have African produce so that we can help them grow their developing economies because we are built that way. In return, we will get our banks, our accountants and our insurers into India and we will get our goods back down into Africa, because we are built that way. Lord Jones, who served as minister for trade and investment from 2007-2008, described himself as a reluctant leaver when it came to UKs relationship with the EU. Hard Brexit He said he believed a hard Brexit which would see the UK leave the EU single market and the customs union was the only way for the country to regain its sovereignty. Former NFU chief economist Sean Rickard has warned that the least damaging result for farmers would be a soft Brexit option that see the UK remain within the single market. Leaving the single market and introducing more controls over immigration would most likely be disastrous for farming, Mr Rickard told a farmers meeting in Nottinghamshire. Now an independent economic analyst, Mr Rickard was speaking to more than 100 farmers and landowners at the annual meeting of the Nottinghamshire Rural Support charity. EU leaders dont want other countries to follow Britain out of the EU so it is not necessarily in their interests to give us a good deal, he told listeners. Tariffs We might well end up relying on World Trade Organisation rules when trading with Europe and that would mean the imposition of tariffs. Now, its true that average tariffs across all goods are no longer particularly high but that is because many goods have no tariffs at all. The tariffs on some agricultural products, on the other hand, are very high so export sectors would be hit very badly and sheep farmers, in particular, would face enormous difficulties. Mr Rickard said controls on immigration would also badly affect labour-intensive sectors of farming and food production, with East European labour vital to horticulture, in particular. In the medium to long term, the combination of reducing subsidies and falling exports would force many businesses to the wall and lead to a large-scale restructuring of farming. Falling profits The good news is that we will still have a farming industry and land will continue to be farmed. Without subsidies and with falling profits, land prices will fall so costs will reduce. The land will be farmed by a smaller number of bigger businesses and farmers will look to use latest technology and science to improve efficiency and stay competitive. Nottinghamshire Rural Support chairman Peter Geldart described Mr Rickards comments about the possible consequences of Brexit as extremely sobering even if he is ultimately optimistic. Mr Geldart said: If he is right, then the shape of farming in this country will change and many ordinary family farmers will face extreme difficulties. Much will depend upon the attitude of both government and the public towards food production, as well as the ability of farmers to innovate. A small village in Karnataka, which organises cattle mela annually, is tackling the problems due to demonetisation in a unique way. Some traders continue to sell their cattle without any money being transferred - just based on trust. Those cattle which has been sold are smeared with pink color. By Rohini Swamy: While the farmers across the country are bearing the brunt of Modi's demonetisation scheme, a small village in Karnataka is tackling the problem, and how. The village in Hirenbaghewadi in Belagavi town holds a cattle fair annually, where trade worth lakhs take place. But the picture was one of gloom this year when India Today visited the fair after the demonetisation scheme was announced. advertisement Modi government's demonetisation scheme had a major impact on this cattle fair as many traders were unable to buy or sell their cattle. The traders possess only old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000, making it extremely difficult to trade. But the village dealt with this problem in their own unique manner- something that is only possible in rural areas. People have only old currency notes. HOW THE TRANSACTIONS TAKE PLACE? Some traders continue to sell and buy cattle, but without any real transfer of money taking place. As people do not have new currency notes, instead of taking old notes, the cattle is being bought and sold based on pure trust. The buyer of a cow/bull gives his word to the seller that he would hand over the entire amount when he gets the new currency. Let's say a farmer buys a cow for Rs 60,000. The cow is handed over the buyer without taking any money- just on their word and they will give the money as soon as they manage to get new notes. WATCH THE VIDEO HERE: DEMONETISATION HITS THE TRADE BADLY However, the trade has still been hit severely due to demonetisation. advertisement Many of the farmers who came to buy cattle were turned as they had only old currency notes. "They said they will only accept new notes. Where do I bring so much money from," asked a helpless Shivaji, who had come all the way from Khanapur Taluka. "I have to buy a pair of bullock and they have quoted Rs 66,000. But with just two Rs 2000 new notes, I am completely helpless," Shivaji said. The cattle fair is a popular event annually where hundreds of cattle are brought into a yard. If a cow or a bull has a pink colour smeared on it, it means the sale has taken place. Normally, nearly 50-100 cattle got sold in a day. But the number has now come down to 20 after demonetisation. WATCH THE VIDEO HERE: 'I BROUGHT DOWN THE PRICE BY HALF- EVEN THEN THERE ARE NO TAKERS' Suresh Handibagh is quite upset when his cattle was not sold despite him reducing the price by nearly half. advertisement "Even if we bring down the price by half- I was trying to sell my cattle for Rs 80,000 but brought it down to Rs 40,000- yet there are no takers, all because there is no new currency. How do we survive," Handibagh said. A buyer, Irfan, had come to buy a pair of bullocks and he was quoted Rs 1 lakh for the pair. He was standing near India Today team asking people if they had change for the old Rs 1000 and 500 notes. Noone was ready to part with their priced small change and Irfan had to return home with a heavy heart. MODI'S HEART IS NOT WITH THE FARMERS: ANIMAL HUSBANDRY MINISTER The statistics regarding the sales given by Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) reveal the impact that demonetisation has had. On November 1, which was a holiday, the APMC collected Rs 11 lakh. The next week, which was on November 8th, the total money revived after the sale of cattle was Rs 45 lakh. But the next week the effect of demonetisation was seen with just Rs 25 lakh worth transactions being done. Animal husbandry minister A Manju said, "I don't why the Modi government is behaving like this. It is the farmers who are the sufferers. The government could have relaxed some rules for the farmers, but definitely Modi's heart is not with them". advertisement SOME FARMERS STILL WELCOME DEMONETISATION Meanwhile, BJP MLA from Shiggaon constituency in North Karnataka, Basavaraj Bommai, has been meeting farmers and convincing them that the demonetisation ban is in their larger interest. "The cash shortage is what should be addressed, but this move will help all. The farmers will face problems only for a short period, and after that they will be at an advantage." The farmers too seem to welcome demonetisation move. While they are distressed, they welcome the move too. "It is a good move as all those who have been hoarding black money will be trapped. I have no new money with me, but in the long run, it is for our benefit," said Saif who also was part of the cattle mela. Also Read: Demonetisation: Farmers now allowed to buy seeds with old Rs 500 notes Demonetisation to benefit PM Modi's coterie, alleges Rahul Gandhi --- ENDS --- Several groups of United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) cadres travelled to Pakistan during the 1990s to receive training with the help of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), according to a new book on the spy agency. Links between Pakistan and militant groups in Indias northeastern states date back to the 1960s, when the neighbouring country had supplied weapons to Naga militants, author Hein G Kiessling writes in his book Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan. Kiessling, a historian who forged contacts with Pakistani military and intelligence officials while living in the country between 1989 and 2002, writes there was a temporary halt to weapons supplies after the 1971 war that led to the birth of Bangladesh. However, ties between Pakistan and militant groups in the northeastern states were never completely broken off and they were revitalised in the 1980s. In 1990, via the Pakistan embassy in Dhaka, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) and United Liberated Front of Asom (ULFA) developed contacts with the ISI In January 1991, with the help of the ISI, several high-ranking ULFA leaders travelled to Pakistan to sign a training agreement for ULFA cadres, he writes. In 1991, two six-member ULFA groups arrived in Islamabad for training and a third 10-member group followed in 1993. The ISIs auxiliary support for operations of this kind covered more than just the training courses in Pakistan. Well in advance, new identities and fake passports had to be procured, travel routes determined and the financing of the whole operation had to be secured, the book says. In this way, the Pakistan embassy in Dhaka became an important ISI station, the hub of its operations in northeast India. In the ISI directorate in Islamabad, they must have been content with the results of the first training courses for ULFA fighters, since they continued through the 1990s and were extended to include other underground groups. The ISI procured weapons for the northeastern militant groups from countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, from where they were shipped to Bangladesh before being smuggled into India. In Thailand, after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia from the 1980s onwards, light weapons and light machine guns awaited prospective buyers, so new supply opportunities opened up. Thus in 1991 the ISI provided weapons from Thailand to a group of 240 NSCN members, the book says. Small boats brought the weapons to the Bangladeshi port of Coxs Bazaar, which became the hub for weapon supplies in the region. NSCN and ULFA fighters fetched the weapons from Bangladesh and took them back to their bases. The book quotes an unnamed prominent Naga militant, imprisoned by Indian authorities, as saying that he received $1.7 million in three instalments from the ISI in the 1990s for weapon purchases. The ISI also received support in arms procurement from their Chinese colleagues, the book adds. As far back as 1993, ULFA had contacts with the Chinese military. The first weapons supply came from a Chinese ship in 1995, another in 1997 by a land route through Bhutan, the book says. Kiessling writes there are indications that the ISI is still present and active in northeast India. In August 1999, Assam Police announced the arrest of two ISI officers and two local agents. The officers came from Karachi and Lahore, he writes. The ISI uses such agents for special missions, constructs sleeper cells, infiltrates local organisations, brings counterfeit money into the region and is responsible for acts of terror. Nor could they pass up the chance to expand their influence over madrasas in northeast India through their network of contacts and confidants, the book adds. Source : MSN A self-serving ruling class and a hypocritical liberal class have ensured the countrys minorities are no longer safe. Racial, religious and ethnic minorities are under threat. While the far-right and its willing, indifferent and ignorant sympathisers are perpetrating the rhetoric and policies that are creating such situations around the world, in Bangladesh a toothless, self-serving ruling class and a hypocritical, self-aggrandising liberal class are ensuring that intolerance is institutionalised. Starting with the destruction of at least 10 Hindu temples and several homes in the Brahmanbaria district on October 30, and progressing to the sustained attacks on the indigenous Santals in Gaibandha district from November 7, minorities have been subjected to a fortnight of communal violence. Referring to them as isolated incidents, as many at home and abroad are too ready to do, only serves as an apologia for the growing epidemic of bigotry in the country. Dhaka, where the ruling and liberal classes reside, has failed to respond with anything resembling an honest recognition of the problem and its root causes. On the contrary, evidence suggests that the government was not only complicit in the situation arising but that its members were directly involved in the attacks. The ruling Awami League has hidden behind a facade of secularism, equality and progressive values. Its claims of being the last frontier against intolerance and extremism, the preserve of its political opponents, have been accepted without scrutiny, and espoused, making them unquestionable truths. As political opposition has dwindled, either by being decimated or co-opted, factions within the party have started jostling for power. This took the shape of local leaders executing planned attacks on the Hindu minority in Brahmanbaria, placing the blame on Islamic fundamentalists sympathetic to the Awami Leagues opponents. Political attacks That Hindus are being used as pawns in a political game of party infighting is alarming, and not in doubt. However, there was a second wave of attacks in Brahmanbaria on November 4, which spawned similar sectarian violence against Hindus in Sirajganj and Jhalakathi districts on November 6. Bangladesh has been mythologised as a moderate and secular Muslim-majority country, when the reality is that even perceived and imaginary slights to Islam produce rabid mobs drawn from an increasingly conservative population of hardliners baying for blood. This surrender to dogma has been taking root in the country while it sells the lie of secularism, and predates the recent attacks on and death threats issued to free thinkers, LGBTQ+ activists and foreigners among others. Santals, one of the oldest and largest groups of indigenous people of North-West Bangladesh, were victims of a different arm of the government. A land dispute that, like the hatred towards Hindus cultivated over decades, has been going on in the blind spot of the country escalated on November 7. Instigated by members of the ruling party, the police and its elite force, the Rapid Action Battalion, attacked the Santals with firearms, forcing over a thousand families to flee their homes. There have been fatalities. The state has labelled the injured Santals criminals, and they are being treated at hospitals in handcuffs. Survivors say the police were supplemented with political thugs. Echoing the thoughts of the Hindus, they added that the protections afforded citizens under the law of the land do not extend to Santals. Their abandoned homes have been looted and set on fire. This news has largely been greeted with apathy. Indigenous people are subjected to systemic discrimination in Bangladesh, as evidenced by the decades-long military-led oppression in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. There have been token arrests, including of a few Awami League members, in relation to the attacks on Hindus, while a Hindu man whose alleged Facebook post hurt religious sentiments and sparked the violence is also in custody. Sporadic attacks against the community continued last week. The attacks on the Santals is a developing situation, but, the government belatedly reaching out to the affected population notwithstanding,the authorities seem to have already made up their minds about who the culprits are. In both cases, the governments response was to trivialise and dismiss what happened, while refusing to be forthcoming about, or take responsibility for the actions of its own people. Furthermore, despite there being a history of sectarian incidents and rising intolerance at present, an incompetent and impotent ruling class that continues to be in denial did not prevent the latest attacks. Dhakas indifference It is worth noting that all the districts where such violence has taken place are in the north-west of the country, a region that has been a hotbed of Islamism since the turn of the century. Equally, if not more, significant is the fact that communal violence has been contained to rural areas. In a country that is exceptionally centralised to the capital, neither Dhakas way of life nor its collective conscious has been affected. Pogroms during the 2001-06 tenure of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami were more widely discussed and denounced by a partisan liberal class that has decided to exercise silence at present. Since the politics of the right has always been against the communities under threat, thus alienating them, it is beneficial for the right not to take a stand at present. While the vast majority of the liberals and intelligentsia are sycophants of the Awami League, and will, therefore, not speak up for the values they purport to have, many are also afraid to say anything in a country that suppresses dissent. The capital felt threatened in light of the terror attack on a popular cafe in July, which saw extraordinary law enforcement efforts to eliminate the terrorists in the aftermath. This reassured the comfortable elite, who neither show concern for nor inclination to assert the rights of every single citizen in the country, or insist on equality, justice and due process, thereby solidifying the governments regime. Moreover, the decline of minority populations and the rapid increase in Islamic conservatism and fundamentalism make for simple electoral and political arithmetic, conclusively favouring the latter. The sufferings of marginalised peoples, including Hindus and Santals, simply do not matter. The Awami League has such a special relationship with India that it would not be an exaggeration to say that its regime and existence are dependent on Delhi. However, with Hindu nationalism alive, well and thriving in India, the Bangladesh governments unwillingness and inability to protect religious and ethnic minorities especially, in this instance, the former only adds fervour to the vocal calls of a Hindu homeland. The regional effects of this will pour foreign discomforts on the national miseries of Bangladesh. The lack of a comprehensive strategy to combat and root out intolerance, allied with coherent efforts to stymie tolerance, mean that the country is hostage to the politics of fear and hatred. By doing so, Bangladesh is making sure that there is no safe haven for minorities in the subcontinent, expediting their systemic and systematic eradication. Source : Scroll.com November 21, 2016 - As Trumps campaign promises become reality, the University of California (UC) Regents so-called Intolerance Principles put vulnerable students at risk for increased attacks, warned Palestine Legal and other civil rights organizations in a letter, sent today, to UC President Napolitano and the Board of Regents. We take Trump and his surrogates at their word when they pledge to create a Muslim registry and persecute political speech on campuses. Its time for the UC to step up to its responsibility to protect all students including Muslims, Arabs, and activists for Palestinian rights, explained Liz Jackson, Palestine Legal attorney.The coalition letter is signed by statewide student organizations Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) West, and Muslim Students Association (MSA) West, along with American Muslims for Palestine, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Council on American Islamic Relations Los Angeles, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area.It is a shock to hear the Regents extended silence regarding anti-Muslim harassment, especially in the same year that the Regents adopted the Intolerance Statement with so much national attention, the coalition letter notes.The Regents Intolerance Statement condemns anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism. It was adopted in March 2016, after years of pressure from Israel advocacy groups to restrict campus speech critical of Israel. The Regents adopted it despite an outcry from students, faculty, First Amendment advocates, and media outlets for its failure to distinguish between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and for its clear intent to suppress anti-Zionist speech. The Intolerance Statement gave scant attention to systemic problems like anti-black racism, sexual assault, and risks to undocumented students. Despite its singular focus on anti-Zionism, the UC has relied on the Intolerance Statement to reassure the campus that administrators are committed to confronting hate.The coalition letter warns, [t]he Intolerance Statement has already resulted in suppression of speech and academic freedom across the University of California, and threatens more, citing violations of the First Amendment at UC Berkeley and UCLA, and threats to speech at UC Irvine.The coalition letter also details numerous instances of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian harassment that the Regents and the UC President have not addressed, for example: vandalism at UC Riverside targeting graduate student offices, graffiti at UC Irvine with violent threats against SJP and MSA, and posters plastered on numerous UC campuses deploying racist stereotypes and false accusations against individual students and faculty.The coalition requests that the university immediately take measures to protect against efforts by the Trump administration, and others, to punish political speech.Palestine Legal CANNON BALL, ND, November 21, 2016 The Water Protector Legal Collective (WPLC; formerly Red Owl), an initiative of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), strongly condemns the flagrant civil and human rights violations committed by Morton County law enforcement last night against unarmed Standing Rock Water Protectors. The standoff lasted more than five hours in freezing temperatures (26-degrees Fahrenheit), during which police deployed water cannons, rubber bullets, Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs), teargas, and flash-bang grenades against Water Protectors and members of the press. The attack resulted in 167 injuriesincluding at least one cardiac arrest, one seizure, and mass hypothermia. One 13-year-old girl was shot in the face with a rubber bullet, and at least 20 people were sent to the emergency room with serious injuries. WPLC/NLG Legal Observers on the scene reported many people temporarily lost consciousness from being shot with such less lethal munitions. The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes provided Emergency Medical Services, which Water Protector Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network called ridiculous, noting that such EMS should be the responsibility of Morton County. Last night, WPLC attorney Angela Bibens described the horrifying scene: [Law enforcement] deployed 20 mace canisters in a small area in less than five minutes, to the point where people have lost bowel function. At least one seizure has been witnessed at the front lines by our legal observation team. There have been people vomiting from the exposure to the mace. The water cannon has been mixed with the mace, and so even our legal observers have been exposed and are trying to deal with that while theyre doing up their notes. And canisters were shot at the medic area at the front line. There is at least one woman who has a broken kneecap. At least one elder went into cardiac arrest and was revived through CPR at the front line by medics.The attack began around 6 PM yesterday, while Water Protectors attempted to peacefully remove two military vehicles that had been blocking Highway 1806 since October 27, ironically, in an effort to clear the path providing the most direct route from the Oceti Sakowin camp to Bismarck, ND, for emergency services vehicles. The Morton County Sheriffs Department made unfounded claims of very aggressive behavior and an ongoing riot by Water Protectors, and falsely claimed that the water cannons were deployed in response to fires set by Water Protectors on Highway 1806.The police attack comes shortly after a local judge dismissed trumped-up felony charges against 15 Water Protectors last Thursday, citing failure by the District Attorneys office to provide sufficient evidence of Conspiracy to Endanger by Fire. Additional hearings are set for December 5. The WPLC continues its months-long work on the ground in North Dakota, providing Water Protectors with legal representation, jail support, legal observers, and other direct legal assistance.Concerned members of the public are strongly encouraged to call local and federal agencies to demand (1) immediate end to the construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline, (2) a full investigation into abuses by law enforcement, and (3) dropping the felony charges against Water Protectors arising from the October 27 police raid on the camp.White House: 202-456-1414White House Situation Room, 202-456-9431North Dakota Governors Office: 701-328-2200Morton County Sheriffs Office: 701-667-3330Morton County States Attorneys Office: 701-667-3350Army Corps of Engineers Bismarck Office 701-255-0015Donations to support the Water Protector Legal Collective may be made at fundrazr.com/campaigns/11B5z8 or nlg.org/donate/waterprotectorlegal for tax-deductible contributions. For updates, visit their website at waterprotectorlegal.org, and follow them at Facebook.com/WaterProtectorLegal, Twitter @WaterProtectUs.PHOTO: Police teargas Water Protectors on Highway 1806, November 20, 2016. (Photo: Elizabeth Hoover via Instagram @lizhoover.)National Lawyers Guild Guest lecturer Grant F. Smith discusses key points developed in his new book, Big Israel: How Israel's Lobby Moves America, while providing insight into likely Israel lobby demands on the next administration. Smith is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc. Items covered include:1. Where did the Israel lobby come from? Before they evolved into a lobby for Israel, what social welfare needs did key organizations address and how?2. What function does each major category of the Israel lobby serve? Which organizations lobby congress for foreign aid, and how do they work with hundreds of state-level lobbies to secure U.S. economic, diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel?3. What Israel lobby organizations influence the media and what are their tactics? What core messaging and issue framing campaigns have they launched, and how have these changed over time?4. Which Israel lobbying organizations work to sanction and punish domestic opposition to pro-Israel policies? What are their tactics?5. Why has the United States provided more foreign aid to Israel than any other foreign country? How has American public opinion about aid changed over time?6. How representative of the American Jewish community is the Israel lobby?7. What key objectives will the Israel lobby try to achieve during the next administration?8. What opposition has been mounted against Israel lobby programs, and how has this opposition changed over time? The possibility of ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden being brought to Berlin to give evidence before a parliamentary committee has risen after a top appeals court ruled the German government cannot block him. The committee investigating US National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance in Germany has wanted to call Snowden as a witness to detail what he knows but the government has said it cannot guarantee his safety. Citis Irish unit, Citibank Holdings Ireland, was added to a list of large banks directly supervised by the ECB yesterday, after it expanded its balance sheet through last years merger with UK-based Citibank International. The merger predates the June 23 Brexit referendum, but Citis move will still be closely watched by competitors weighing a move to the eurozone. Banks are looking for ways to ensure they can easily sell their services into the EU, a market of 450 million people, after Britain leaves. One option is to shift enough assets to a eurozone country to qualify for ECB supervision. Goldman Sachs is considering shifting some of its assets and operations from London to Frankfurt and ECB board member Sabine Lautenschlaeger said last week several banks are talking to the central bank about similar moves. Citi itself has said it might have to re-allocate certain businesses to the EU, but it would not hotfoot it out of Britain. The Irish subsidiary houses Citis retail banking operation in Europe and has around 46bn in assets. However, it could not accommodate Citis brokerage or trading businesses. Under US regulation, those must be housed in entities separate from deposit-taking operations. Consequently, Citis brokerage and trading are a separate operation, based in London. This is an important milestone for Citi in Europe and we look forward to a strong engagement with the (ECB), Citi said in a statement after passing an ECB health check earlier this month. Eurozone banks with assets of less than 30bn are generally supervised by national authorities, unless they meet other criteria, such as being one of the three largest lenders in their country. The total number of significant banks directly supervised by the ECB fell to 127 from 129 after a merger and two restructurings. Italys Banca Mediolanum, which had also passed the ECB health check along with Slovenias Abanka, was not added to the list because its assets have since fallen. The ECB, which has the power to reject the acquisition of holdings in any bank in the eurozone, has opposed former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlsuconis owning a significant stake in Mediolanum through his Fininvest holding company. British planning directives are reportedly being used as guidance for solar energy farms where cells stretch across the landscape. However, a Kerry County Council meeting yesterday rejected putting a stay on future planning applications for solar farms. Six solar energy applications came before the council in the past 12 months, councillors were told. They range from a 5MW solar farm on 30 acres at Astee in north Kerry to a 20-acre farm at Madams Hill, near Killarney. Some of the farms have been granted conditional permission but a proposal by Terra Solar Ltd at Ballygrennan, near Listowel, on an elevated site has been refused permission as it would be unduly obtrusive. Fine Gael councillor Mike Kennelly welcomed the refusal and asked the council to put a hold on all new and current planning applications that relate to solar farm applications until there were national guidelines. These developments have a huge impact on the environment, particularly in rural areas. These can be put up anywhere in Kerry, at present, he said. Fine Gael councillor Aoife Thornton said applications for solar farms were coming in fast in north Kerry but Independent councillor Johnny Healy-Rae said there should not be a stay on applications as solar farms presented an income for farm families with marginal land. Michael Scannell, director of planning, said each application was being analysed thoroughly on its merits. As well as British guidelines, planning decisions by An Bord Pleanala on solar wind farms were being studied by council planners. While there are no specific Irish planning guidance regarding solar energy and there is no indication that such guidance is imminent, British guidelines are available, Mr Scannell said. Were the council to decide to refuse planning permission for a solar-farm development solely on the basis that the application is premature, pending the issue of guidelines, the council could leave itself open to a claim for compensation, the planning official said. Even though the identity of the militants are yet to be ascertained, they are believed to be from Lashkar. By Shuja-ul-Haq , Ashraf Wani: An encounter broke out between the security forces and militants in a residential area of Hanjan village in Bandipora district of north Kashmir today morning. According to reports, two terrorists, who were holed up inside a residential area, have been killed. Two AK-47 rifles, with arms and ammunition have been recovered from the killed militants. Even though the identity of the militants are yet to be ascertained, they are believed to be from Lashkar. advertisement The security forces have cordoned off the village after a tip-off. As they were laying cordon around specific area some gun shots were fired by militants. NEW CURRENCY NOTES FOUND FROM MILITANTS New currency notes of Rs 2,000 have been recovered from the Lashkar militants killed in Bandipora. "The recoveries have been handed over to the police and they will conduct the inquiry on where these notes came from", said colonel Vikramjeet singh, Commanding Officer, 13 RR. The notes could have been sourced locally, said police. Investigations are underway. While the police will be investigating how the militants got these new notes, opposition parties didn't refrain from taking a jibe at the government. Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah taunted the Modi government over demonetisation in a tweet. He said, "I haven't gotten my hands on a new Rs 2000 note but these guys didn't take long to get theirs". --- ENDS --- Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe has refused to ask the newly formed commission to speed up its work. The commission, which has been charged with looking into how the unwinding of the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act (FEMPI) should proceed, is due to report back by the middle of next year. The mid-year deadline had given Government time to consider suggestions by the group before going into a new round of public sector talks in the third quarter of 2017. However, with mounting pressure on the Government to start renegotiations of the Lansdowne Road Agreement in early 2017, it had been suggested the commission should bring forward this deadline. An introductory meeting took place yesterday between Mr Donohoe and the members of the commission, which is chaired by former chairman of the Labour Court, Kevin Duffy. The minister stressed the need for sustainable public pay policy into the future. A spokeswoman for Mr Donohoe said there was a broad discussion at the meeting during which the minister told members the commission is an important element in future public pay policy, as it will provide advice in relation to a roadmap to unwinding FEMPI. Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said it was an awful pity that the commission had not been established five months ago, but stopped short of calling for a speeding up of its work. It was part of the confidence and supply agreement, we had urged the Government to set it up quickly, it could have had a lot of its work done by now, said Mr Martin. It should be allowed do its work to inform the discussions. However, he said he didnt know if it is practical at this point in time to stall new public sector pay talks until the commission has completed its work. No discussion on public sector pay and demands for a renegotiation of the Lansdowne Road Agreement is scheduled for todays Cabinet meeting. However, it is expected there will be some discussion on the matter, even if that involves an informal briefing from Mr Donohoe. Government now has less than two weeks to respond to the demands of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which says its members no longer believe the Lansdowne Road Agreement is acceptable. A two-week deadline for Government to commit to a renegotiation of the agreement was put forward at a meeting of public sector unions last week. If Mr Donohoe does not make it clear that the talks will begin early next year, public sector workers would be balloted for widespread industrial action, unions have warned. Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said: Pay levels, of course, need to be kept under scrutiny. There is no pot of gold available for unlimited pay demands, and I believe the impending withdrawal of the UK from the EU ensures that we need to manage our economic recovery in a way that reflects its fragility. Rockcliff Copper Corporation (TSX.V: RCU) ("Rockcliff "or the "Company") has agreed to purchase the Morgan Lake, Woosey Lake and Cook Lake properties (collectively called the Morgan property) in the Snow Lake mining camp from Copper Reef Mining Corporation ("Copper Reef")(CSE:CZC)(CSE:CZC.CN).The Morgan property hosts stratigraphic horizons similar to the prolific Chisel Lake Basin which contain a number of former zinc mines and is located within 3 kilometres from the now operating Lalor Mine owned by Hudbay Minerals. The Morgan property includes a high grade historic zinc-rich Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide deposit and a high grade gold-rich quartz vein system including a high grade historic zinc-rich Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) deposit. The Morgan property forms part of Rockcliff's Snow Lake Project which hosts several high grade VMS deposits and a former historical gold mine. The Project is strategically located near Hudbay's mining operations in the Snow Lake mining camp within the prolific Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt in central Manitoba. Rockcliff's President and CEO Ken Lapierre commented, "The Morgan property hosts high grade zinc and gold zones within trucking distance to operating milling operations centered in the Snow Lake mining camp. The Morgan property acquisition is in line with our strategy of acquiring the highest grade un-mined copper, zinc and gold properties available in the camp that have excellent growth potential. The Morgan property hosts favourable VMS and gold-bearing stratigraphy striking for many kilometres. We look forward to advancing our understanding of the Morgan property's potential through compilation of existing historical data followed by exploration programs in 2017." The Morgan property hosts the historical gold rich Morgan zinc deposit documenting as having between a total of 272,000 tonnes grading 15.0% zinc and 3.42 g/t gold and 200,000 tonnes grading 8% zinc. Historical estimates of grade and tonnage given in this Press Release are viewed as reliable and relevant based on the information and methods used at the time. Historical estimates were identified in published Manitoba Government reports and in independent reports from resource companies. Caution must be taken when viewing historical resources as they were not prepared in compliance with resource definitions under NI 43-101 and must be considered only as historic resources. Neither Rockcliff nor its Qualified Persons have done sufficient work to classify the historic estimate as a current mineral resource under current mineral resource or mineral reserve terminology and are not treating the historic estimate as a current mineral resource. The historic resource of the Morgan deposit should not be relied upon. Additional work including surface geophysics, drilling and bore hole geophysics will need to be completed to determine if the historical resource can be upgraded to a current compliant resource. Rockcliff will acquire a 100% interest in the Morgan property (Morgan Lake, Woosey Lake and Cook Lake properties), subject to a net smelter returns royalty (NSR), by paying Copper Reef $100,000 cash and 200,000 common shares on closing, a further $50,000 cash and 400,000 common shares within 6 months and a final 1.0 million common shares within 12 months. Copper Reef will retain a 2% NSR on the Morgan Lake property, which is subject to a 10% net profits interest royalty in favour of the original owner, a 2% NSR on the Woosey Lake property and a 1% NSR on the Cook Lake property, which is also subject to a 2% NSR in favour of a former joint venture party. A third party holds certain rights in respect of the Morgan Lake property and Cook Lake property including a back-in right to acquire a 60% interest in these properties if a mineral resource is identified with 225,000 tonnes of contained copper equivalent or a 20% back-in right if Rockcliff transfers these properties to a major company. If Rockcliff commences commercial production on the Morgan property, it will pay an advance royalty payment to Copper Reef of $1.0 million. Rockcliff at any time will have the right to purchase one-half of the Copper Reef NSRs for $1.0 million and will retain a Right of First Refusal on Copper Reef's remaining NSRs. The acquisition is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval. Ken Lapierre P.Geo., President and CEO of Rockcliff., a Qualified Person in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements as set out in NI 43-101, has read and approved the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for the disclosure contained in this press release. Please visit our website at www.rockcliffcoppercorp.com for additional information. About Rockcliff Copper Corporation Rockcliff is a Canadian resource exploration company focused on the discovery, advancement and consolidation of the highest grade unmined metal deposits in the prolific Flin Flon - Snow Lake (FF-SL) greenstone belt specifically centered on Snow Lake, MB. The Snow Lake Project, totalling in excess of 45,000 collective hectares is located in and around the Snow Lake mining camp and hosts the highest grade unmined copper deposits, the highest grade unmined zinc deposits and the highest grade former gold producer. The properties include two high grade VMS NI 43-101 Resources (the gold-rich Talbot copper deposit and the Rail copper deposit), three historic high grade zinc-rich VMS deposits (the Lon zinc deposit, the Bur zinc deposit and the Morgan deposit),and a Net Smelter Return Royalty (NSR) on the Tower property which includes the T-1 copper deposit. The Snow Lake Project also includes the highest grade former lode gold producer (Laguna) in the FF-SL greenstone belt. Rockcliff also owns a zinc-silver rich NI 43-101 Resource (the Shihan deposit) in Ontario and a royalty on two gold properties in Colombia, South America. Rockcliff is well funded with approximately $3.0 million in its treasury and no debt. Source: Rockcliff Copper Eurasian Minerals Inc. (TSX: EMX) ("Eurasian" or the "Company" is pleased to announce the execution of a definitive agreement with Boreal Metals Corp. ("BMC"), a British Columbia corporation, pursuant to which BMC will acquire two wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Company that control the Gumsberg and Adak exploration assets in Sweden and the Tynset and Burfjord assets in Norway (the "Properties"). Closing is expected to occur on or before December 31, 2016. The sale of the Scandinavian portfolio is another example of Eurasian's execution of its royalty generation business model, resulting in additional organic royalty property growth for Eurasian, as well as establishing a substantial equity position in a new Scandinavian-focused resource company. Commercial Terms Overview: (Note all dollar amounts in USD, unless otherwise noted): At closing, Eurasian will transfer to BMC its entire interest in its wholly-owned subsidiary Iekelvare AB, which owns or will own that portion of the Properties located in Sweden, and its entire interest in its wholly-owned subsidiary EMX Exploration Scandinavia AB, which owns that portion of the Properties located in Norway. At closing, BMC will issue to Eurasian that number of common shares of BMC that represents a 19.9% equity ownership in BMC; BMC will have the continuing obligation to issue additional shares of BMC to Eurasian to maintain its 19.9% interest in BMC, at no additional cost to Eurasian, until BMC has raised CDN $5,000,000 in equity; thereafter Eurasian will have the right to participate pro-rata in future financings at its own cost to maintain its 19.9% interest in BMC. Eurasian will receive an uncapped 3% net smelter return ("NSR") royalty on each of the Properties. Within five years of the closing date, BMC has the right to buy down up to 1% of the royalty owed to Eurasian on any given project (leaving Eurasian with a 2% NSR) by paying Eurasian $2,500,000 in cash and shares of BMC. Such buy down is project specific. Eurasian will receive annual advance royalty ("AAR") payments of $20,000 for each of the Properties commencing on the second anniversary of the closing, with each AAR payment increasing by $5,000 per year until reaching $60,000 per year, except that BMC may forgo AAR payments on two of the four Properties in years two and three. Once reaching $60,000, AAR payments will be adjusted each year according to the Consumer Price Index (as published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics). Eurasian will receive a 0.5% NSR royalty on any new mineral exploration projects generated by BMC in Sweden or Norway, excluding projects acquired from a third party containing a mineral resource or reserve or an existing mining operation. These royalties are not capped and not subject to a buy down. Eurasian will have the right to nominate one seat on the Board of Directors of BMC. Discussion of the Properties. Eurasian acquired the Properties between 2012 and 2015, with each having been the site of historic mining production, but with only limited or no modern exploration. All of the Properties have polymetallic styles of mineralization, and each shows enrichments in multiple metals including copper, zinc, lead, silver and gold. Three of the Properties (Gumsberg and Adak in Sweden and Tynset in Norway) are characterized by Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide ("VMS") styles of mineralization. Burfjord, in Norway, is characterized by Iron-Oxide-Copper-Gold ("IOCG") styles of mineralization. Eurasian's recent exploration programs on the Properties were summarized in the Eurasian news release dated September 8, 2016. Below is a more detailed description of the Properties. Gumsberg VMS Project (Bergslagen district). The Gumsberg project consists of five exploration licenses in the Bergslagen Mining District of southern Sweden totaling over 7,100 hectares, where multiple zones of VMS style mineralization occur. The VMS mineralization at Gumsberg was mined from the 13th century through the early 1900's, with over 30 historic mines present on the property. Despite its long lived production history, relatively little modern exploration has taken place on the project. New geologic interpretations, geophysical surveys and reconnaissance drilling by Eurasian have led to the identification of multiple exploration targets, many situated near the historic workings. Adak VMS Project (Skelleftea District). Eurasian's Adak exploration license in the Skelleftea Mining District in Sweden (8,647 hectares) is the site of the historic Adak mine, which operated through the late 1970's, when the mining complex was destroyed by a fire. The mine was never rebuilt or re-opened, but through compilations of historic data and drill information, Eurasian has identified numerous new exploration targets in the vicinity of the historic mines. Eurasian believes that the nearby Storliden VMS deposit, discovered in 1998 and mined from 2002 through 2007, provides an exploration analog for further discoveries at Adak. Tynset VMS project (Rros District). The Tynset project is comprised of 17 exploration licenses totaling 17,000 hectares in the Rros Mining District of central Norway, which hosts a ~30 kilometer trend of VMS style mineral occurrences and historic mines, including the Vingelen Mine, which was operated in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although mining took place elsewhere in the region until the 1970's, little exploration work has been conducted within the licenses of the Tynset project over the past 30-40 years. However, sampling by the Norwegian Geological Survey in the 1990's and Eurasian in the past three years has shown evidence for gold and silver enrichments in several of the historic mines and prospects, and the Company believes that good potential exists for discovery of precious-metal enriched VMS deposits. Burfjord IOCG project (Alta Region, Norway). The Burfjord project is comprised of six exploration licenses totaling 5,500 hectares near Kafjord and Alta, Norway. Copper mineralization was mined in the Burfjord area during the 19th century, with over 30 historic mines and prospects developed along the flanks of a prominent 4 x 6 kilometer anticlinal structure comprised of interbedded sediments and volcanic rocks. Many of the rocks in the anticline have been subjected to intense hydrothermal alteration. Mineralization occurs as both high grade Cu-Au lodes that were historically mined at high cutoff grades (>3% Cu), but Eurasian has recognized significant volumes of lower grade Cu-Au mineralization developed in stockwork vein arrays through the property position. Veins in the area are dominated by carbonate and iron-oxide minerals (magnetite and hematite), but also contain chalcopyrite, bornite and chalcocite in addition to cobalt-rich pyrite. Only limited exploration has taken place in the modern era. About Eurasian Minerals: Eurasian Minerals leverages asset ownership and exploration insight into partnerships that advance our mineral properties, with Eurasian retaining royalty interests. Eurasian complements its generative business with strategic investment and third party royalty acquisition. Nexus Gold Corp. (TSX.V: NXS) ("Nexus" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered a letter of intent with Precision Resources SARL (the "Optionor"), pursuant to which Nexus will acquire the right to earn up to a 100% interest in the Niangouela gold concession located in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Nexus will have an option to acquire up to a 90% interest in the Niangouela concession, in consideration for cash payments totalling US$370,000 and the issuance of 600,000 common shares, over a period of three years. Following acquisition of a 90% percent interest in the concession, Nexus will have a further option to acquire the remaining interest through a cash payment of US$1,000,000, subject to a 1.0% net smelter returns royalty to remain with the Optionor. The 178 square kilometre concession is located on the Boromo Greenstone Belt, same as the Company's Bouboulou Gold Concession and is proximal to the Kalsaka deposit. The property is road accessible and has one major orpaillage (artisanal workings). To date 556 pits and 11 trenches have been excavated, and rock and soil samples have been taken. A total of 1137 samples have been collected. Previous programs have identified a zone which runs ENE and WSW occurring in the south central part of the concession. This zone has returned gold in soil samples up to 34 g/t Au, rock samples have returned values up to 18 g/t Au, and trenching has returned values of 4.85 g/t Au over 10 meters. "Niangouela combined with our Bouboulou project, further solidifies our plans to build a portfolio of highly prospective exploration projects," commented Nexus President and CEO, Peter Berdusco. "The property has returned excellent gold values to date, and is located approximately an hour away from our Bouboulou concession. As we are already deploying resources in the area, a concurrent work program at Niangouela makes good sense and adds additional upside to the months ahead." Bouboulou Update Nexus geologist Warren Robb is on site in Burkina Faso and is organizing crews, equipment and preparing drill pad locations. With the completion of the rainy season and local crops harvested the Company will provide further work updates in the coming weeks. About Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked nation, located in West Africa. It covers an area of roughly 274,000 square kilometres and has an estimated population of more than 16 million people. The country has a stable political setting with a pro-mining and foreign investment stance. Burkina Faso is the fastest growing gold producer in Africa, and was the 4th largest gold producer in Africa in 2012. Eight new mines have been commissioned there over the past six years. The country has excellent geological potential. The Greenstone Belts that host all of the major deposits in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire continue northward into Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso has undergone less than 15 years of modern mineral exploration, remaining under explored in comparison to neighbouring Ghana and Mali; both of which host world class gold mines in the same belts of Birimian rocks. About the Company Nexus Gold Corp. is a Vancouver-based mineral resource company that develops precious metal mineral assets in the world's premier mining districts. The Company is currently concentrating its efforts on the Bouboulou Gold Concession, an advanced exploration project located in Burkina Faso, West Africa and the Walker Ridge Gold Project, a drill-ready, multiple-target, Carlin-type gold project located in the Independence/Jerritt Canyon Gold Trend, Nevada, USA. For more information on these projects, please visit the company website at www.nexusgoldcorp.com. VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Nov. 22, 2016) - Lithium Americas Corp. (the "Company" or "LAC")(TSX:LAC)(OTCQX:LACDF) is pleased to announce the re-branding of its Hectatone Inc. clay minerals business as RheoMinerals Inc. ("RMI"). RMI operates a "state-of-the-art" manufacturing facility in Fernley, Nevada from which it supplies a full line of organophilic clay mineral products. The company forecasts revenues in 2017 to be derived primarily from the environmental, industrial coatings, animal feed, and drilling fluid markets. Frank B Wright Jr, President & CEO of RMI, comments "The RMI team has proven to be remarkably creative and nimble in adapting to changing market conditions to successfully pursue growth opportunities through product innovation and industry collaboration. The new branding completes a successful business transition to a broader range of markets in the aftermath of challenging market conditions in the energy sector". Delmon Group Announcement RMI is also pleased to announce that it has entered into a Technical Assistance and Royalty Agreement (the "Agreement") with Delmon Co Ltd., part of The Delmon Group of Companies ("Delmon") in Saudi Arabia. Delmon has business interests spanning wide market segments of products and services, and is a leading local supplier of oilfield minerals and chemicals to Aramco. Under this agreement, RMI will collaborate with Delmon in the design and construction of a manufacturing facility (the "Delmon Plant") for specialty additives used in oil based drilling fluids. The initial product offering will include organophilic bentonite and organophilic lignite products. As consideration for technical assistance, RMI will receive US$1.2 million in progress payments upon Delmon achieving certain construction and operational milestones in addition to the reimbursements of expenses and costs of technical personnel. Under the Agreement, RMI will also receive royalties from the future Delmon Plant production. Delmon and RMI expect to commission the new facility in January, 2018. Jerry McNamara, Vice-President of Operations of RMI, will act as the co-project manager for the project. Mr. McNamara commented "We are pleased to join The Delmon Group in this endeavor. We look forward to introducing our organophilic bentonite and lignite manufacturing technology to Delmon as we combine efforts to become the leading supplier of these products to the region." Mr. Wright further commented that "this opportunity is a milestone development for RMI. We are proud to partner with Delmon in contributing to the National Transformation Program 2020's initiatives'. Ahmed Alghunaim, Managing Director for Delmon, said "We are excited about this project, as the products to be produced complement our existing product portfolio." Mr. Alghunaim also commented that "the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility will be located in the 2nd Dhahran Industrial Park and will have sufficient capacity and flexibility to support a broad range of product offerings to the oilfield as well to other markets. RheoMinerals Inc.'s market experience is diverse and we expect additional opportunities to emerge for The Delmon Group and RMI. The RMI team have built their reputation on their uncompromising approach to quality, and we hope that this project can contribute to the goals set by the In-Kingdom Total Value Add Program (IKTVA), and National Transformation Programs". TOLSA Progress Update Earlier in 2016, RMI entered into a strategic partnership with TOLSA S.A. ("TOLSA"), a world leader in clay technologies with decades of development and operating experience, a distribution network in ninety countries and a strong team in research and development. TOLSA is launching high purity hectorite products manufactured in Spain using Lithium Americas Corp.'s hectorite from their deposit in Humboldt County, Nevada. RMI has completed successful manufacturing trials of several low-shear rheology modifiers using high purity clays from TOLSA. These products provide innovative and cost effective solutions that improve rheology management in demanding drilling environments. Wright commented "the alliance with TOLSA continues to unfold new opportunities by combining resources from each company and through joint collaboration with other industry leaders. We are extremely pleased with this progress and we anticipate product revenues beginning in Q1, 2017." About Delmon Group The Delmon Group of Companies is one of the major manufacturing, engineering, trading and marketing groups in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is a leading local supplier of oilfield minerals and chemicals to Saudi Arabian Oil Company ("Aramco"). Montreal, Quebec / TheNewswire / November 22, 2016 - St-Georges Platinum and Base Metals Ltd. (CSE: SX) (OTC: SXOOF) (FSE: 85G1) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding agreement with Iceland Resources ehf to acquire all its outstanding shares. Iceland Resources owns multiple polymetallic exploration & development projects in Iceland and has direct or indirect access to all active mineral tenure, claims and mineral leases in Iceland. The Opportunity Iceland Resources ehf is a privately-owned Icelandic corporation with gold/silver/copper/cobalt/zinc projects in Iceland. Iceland is an important producer and developer of geothermal energy. St-Georges management has been active over the last few years in Iceland with the goal of securing access to geothermal operations to test the development of technologies allowing the extraction of lithium and light minerals from the brines being pumped from the geothermal wells and for the extraction of a large variety of precious and base metals found in the mud rejected from the same operations. Enrico Di Cesare, Director of St-Georges commented: "(...) With St-Georges focused on innovative extraction technologies and working on strategic alliances with several providers, this opportunity is exciting; it is an excellent platform to apply new technologies, monetize tailings and demonstrate our solutions which also address environmental issues. The focus is to economically recover precious and base metals and to provide an avenue for positive environmental remediation of the by-products. St-Georges is also looking at niche and value added products that this opportunity lends itself to." Terms of Acquisition St-Georges will create a subsidiary that will become the owner of Iceland Resources. 40% of this subsidiary will be owned by the Iceland Resources shareholders and the remaining 60% will be owned by St-Georges. Additionally, St-Georges makes the following commitments: Issuing 6,000,000 common shares of St-Georges to Iceland shareholders with a 12-month escrow release schedule; Issuing a $350,000 debenture, bearing a 6% annual interest (cash or shares), maturing in November 2026 to be distributed to Iceland shareholders and some creditors; and $1,000,000 of expenditure on the Iceland assets over the next 24 months, including mineral exploration expenses and metallurgical process research & development. Iceland Resources Projects Iceland Resources currently has 9 defined mineral exploration and development projects in Iceland (8 licenses or license applications held directly and one within a Joint-Venture). Other opportunities are being sought after with the collaboration of St-Georges (with the possibility to deploy St-Georges technologies result from its R&D initiatives). St-Georges intends to direct most of its efforts in the next 24 months to 3 priority projects: Reykjanes Project (EL 01) (Au-Ag-Cu-Zn) The 897.5 km2 Reykjanes licence area is in close proximity to the capital Reykjavik and the international airport in the town of Keflavik and is supported by good transport infrastructure with main highways running through it. The project is prospective for gold, silver, copper, zinc and cobalt. The Company also plans to apply for licenses to evaluate the lithium potential of the geothermal brines present on the property. Figure 1. The Reykjanes Project The Thormodsdalur Project (EL-14) (Au-Ag-Cu) Thormodsdalur is located about 20km east of the city centre of Reykjavik and south-east of the lake Hafravatn. The project was discovered in 1908. The property produced mineral concentrate from 1911 to 1925 when over 300 meters of tunnels where dug alongside surface excavations. The ore recovered was transported to Germany and historic sources reported values ranging between 11g/t and 315g/t Au. Note: All information pertaining to mineral resources, grades or operational results herewith presented are historical in nature and while relevant, the information was obtained from sources that cannot be independently verified and that are not compliant with National Instrument 43-101 reporting standards. More recently, visible gold was seen in cores from geothermal wells located on the project. This new discovery compelled the Icelandic government to create a mining entity for gold exploration in Iceland called Malmis. Studies between 2005 and 2013 identified the project mineralization as a low sulphidation system containing banded chalcedony and ginguro. Petrographic analysis of the vein material identified gold occurring in its free form and as part of an assemblage with pyrite and chalcopyrite. Petrographic and XRD studies show an evolution of the vein system from the zeolite assemblage to quartz adularia and lastly to minor calcite. In the area, 32 holes have been drilled for a total of 2439 meters. Gold values vary from less than 0.5 ppm to the maximum of 415 ppm. (These values were obtained from selected random intervals and cannot be construed to be representative of the any particular thickness or overall length). Iceland Resources entered in to a Joint Venture agreement with Melmi ehf, Malmis hf (majority government owned) and Gold Island Limited. Melmi is the owner of the Thormodsdalur license that was first granted in October 2004. Melmi is owned by Malmis (51%) and Gold Island (49%). Figure 2. The Thormodsdalur Project The Vopnafjordur Project (EL-05) (Au-Ag-Te) (Bi-Co-Sb-Se-Zn) The Vopnafjordur licence covers 598.5 km2 (Maps, fig. 3 & 4) and is valid until July 2021. Exploration in Vopnafjordur was carried out by Malmis between 1991 and 1993 in the form of BLEG surveys and vein sampling. Follow-up work was carried out by Melmi in 1997, which carried out stream sediment and helicopter-assisted rock chip sampling in the Vopnafjordur area. The rock chip sampling programme focused on areas of strong alteration, known quartz-carbonate-pyrite veining and in selected structural settings. The sampling programme indicated anomalous antimony, selenium and tellurium values in the northern rhyolitic centre and further identified anomalous gold, antimony, bismuth and zinc in an acid intrusion in the central southern part of the licence. Recently, a comprehensive review of the BLEG and rock chip sampling programme was undertaken alongside satellite interpretation of the whole of the Vopnafjordur licence and a short exploration program in August 2016. In addition to the two volcanic centres identified in the 1990s, a number of regional fault zones associated with elevated levels of key pathfinder elements and occasionally gold was identified. The geological team is expecting assay results shortly. These areas will be investigated further by the Company's geological team in 2017, which will carry out close-spaced traverse mapping and grab sampling of key fault structures identified by previous exploration. Click Image To View Full Size Figure 3. Vopnafjordur licence EL-05 is situated in the Nord Austurland region of NE Iceland Click Image To View Full Size Figure 4. Extent of Vopnafjordur licence boundaries. Map scale 1:200,000 Click Image To View Full Size Figure 5. World map showing Iceland Click Image To View Full Size Figure 6. Map of Iceland with location of the projects Icelandic Geology is unique and considered relatively young in geology term. Iceland lies in the divergent boundaries of the Mid Atlantic Ridge. The buoyancy of the Iceland plume leads to dynamic uplift of the Iceland plateau, and high volcanic productivity over the plume has developed an anomalous volume of volcanic material and magma chambers at depth. Iceland has not been thoroughly mapped and geological exploration has been limited when compared to other jurisdictions. St-Georges now have the unencumbered opportunity to explore Iceland's potential starting with its most known prospective target sites with data generated from existing geological work and geothermal operations around the country. Furthermore, St-Georges technologies should enable the team of Iceland Resources to unlock the potential for prospective lithium brines and mud tailings that were not considered in the past. Vilhjalmur Thor Vilhjalmsson, director of Iceland Resources, commented: "The opportunity to combine the resources of both companies, our extensive knowledge of Iceland and its geology and the addition of St-Georges team's expertise in metallurgical processing and eco-mining environmental friendly solutions, provides a unique offering to the market and stakeholders of both companies (...) St-Georges brings a portfolio of R&D initiatives aimed at reducing the environmental impact of mining activities and improving producers' financial bottom line. Iceland like the Scandinavian countries is a place of certainty in regulations and mining law with reliable and accessible data available from government bodies thus opening possibilities to get additional licenses with historical data available similar to work previously done in Iceland as well as in Greenland (...) we believe that we found a good home for our shareholders in St-Georges and we are excited at the prospect of the proposed 2017 exploration and development campaigns." General Disclaimer: The current press release contains references to mineral sampling results that are provided by Iceland Resources or were sourced in the geological literature published by the Icelandic government or its departments. St-Georges has not sampled and analysed these samples. Readers should exercise caution as real width, depth or length of the mineralisation encounter is not defined. No resource estimate that is compliant with the standard of the National Instrument 43-101 is currently available. The technical information in this release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Herb Duerr, P. Geo. a 'qualified person' as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. About St-Georges St-Georges is developing new technologies to solve the biggest environmental problems in the mining industry. If these new technologies are successful, they should improve the financial bottom line of current mining producers. The potential success of these technologies would also involve upgrading certain current known metal resources to economic status while addressing the environmental and social acceptability issues. The Company also explores for Nickel on the Julie Nickel Project & for industrial minerals on the Quebec's North Shore and for Lithium and rare metals in Northern Quebec and in the Abitibi area. Headquartered in Montreal, St-Georges' stock is listed on the CSE under the symbol SX, on the US OTC under the Symbol SXOOF and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol 85G1. For additional information, please visit our website at www.stgeorgesplatinum.com About Iceland Resources EHF Iceland Resources ehf is a junior mineral exploration company with a focus on the Scandinavian region. The company has one licence in the Vopnafjordur area in Iceland and further seven areas pending issue totalling over 4,000km2. The company also has an earn-in agreement with Melmi ehf and Gold Island Ltd to earn into the well-known Thormodsdalur licence where gold grades up to 415 g/t have been identified and the partners are working towards a NI 43-101 compliant resource. http://www.icelandresources.is X-Terra Resources Inc. (TSX.V: XTT) announced today that it has signed a Letter of Intent with a group of four private prospectors to acquire an interest of up to 60% in the newly discovered Veronneau gold property located in the Eeyou Istchee/Baie-James Territory, 135 kilometres north of the town of Matagami in the Province of Quebec. The Veronneau property is comprised of 234 mining claims covering an area of approximately 12,261 hectares (122 km2). A new gold showing was discovered on the Veronneau Property in 2015 by geologists of the Ministere de l'Energie et des Ressources naturelles (Quebec), while completing regional mapping of the area. An initial sample was taken from an outcrop of rusty amphibolitized basalt, within a metric deformation corridor (Assay results: 6.89 g/t Au: Source MRNFP, unique sample 2015061382). Additional channel sampling work was completed by the current owners of the Veronneau Property in the summer of 2016 and returned additional encouraging results of 2.39 g/t Au over a width of 4.65 metres. Only the northern portion of the claims comprising the Veronneau property (15 kilometres further north east), received more systematic exploration work. As very limited gold exploration has been conducted in this area, X-Terra Resources was encouraged by these results and visited the Veronneau Property during its due diligence process for data verification and to investigate its further potential. Additional grab and channel sampling was completed and returned additional positive results (See tables below). Grab Sample Results Sample # Au g/t (ppm) AU Grav (ppm) 66068 1.629 66069 1.252 66070 0.593 66071 3.426 66072 4.066 66073 7.629 66074 >10.00 13.66 66075 1.377 66076 >10.00 15.66 66077 >10.00 14.85 66078 0.475 66079 0.072 66080 3.129 66081 3.782 Channel Sample Results: 5.02 g/t Au over a width of 5 metres Sample # Au g/t (ppm) 0.005 DL AU Grav (ppm) 1.000 DL Length 66551 0.869 50 cm 66552 1.913 50 cm 66553 3.089 50 cm 66554 3.243 50 cm 66555 2.125 50 cm 66556 >10.00 10.92 50 cm 66557 4.578 50 cm 66558 >10.00 10.77 50 cm 66558 7.546 50 cm 66560 5.125 50 cm It is believed that the mineralization on the Veronneau Property appears stratiform (N-060) and locally described as percolation of sulphide along pillow margins. Arsenopyrite has been observed and is believed to have a direct correlation with the auriferous values obtained. The Veronneau Property covers 45.5 kilometres of the volcanic belt situated on the contact of the Sub province of Opinaca and Opatica. It should be noted that the margins of the Opinaca sub province recently produced significant discoveries, namely the Goldcorp's Eleonore Gold project, the Nemaska Lithium's Wabouchi deposit and Quebec's only diamond mine, the Renard project by Stornoway Diamond Corporation. The margin of the Opinaca sub province appears quite fertile for mineralization of economic interest judging by the number of mineralized occurrences documented within the Ministere de l'Energie et des Ressources naturelles (Quebec) files. President and Chief Executive Officer of X-Terra Resources, Michael Ferreira commented, "We are delighted to be able to announce the signature of a letter of intent for the acquisition of an interest of up to 60% in the Veronneau Property. The favourable geological setting of the property is really exciting and we look forward to taking advantage of the potential of the Eeyou Istchee/Baie-James Territory in conjunction with the Plan Nord. This will offer our shareholders access to a highly prospective exploratory project in the heart of James Bay region". The following is a summary of the proposed terms of acquisition, as set out in the Letter of Intent: Over a period of four years, X-Terra will have the exclusive right to acquire a 60% interest in the Veronneau Property for a proposed aggregate purchase price of $250,000 payable by X-Terra to the current owners in cash and an aggregate of 5,000,000 common shares of X-Terra Resources. In addition, X-Terra Resources will be required to incur aggregate exploration expenditures totalling $3,500,000 over a period of four years. X-Terra Resources will then form a 60%-40% joint venture with the current owners. The Letter of Intent contemplates a due diligence period ending on December 5, 2016 during which X-Terra will verify and re-analyzed certain samples. The terms of the Letter of Intent provide for the entering into a definitive agreement, subject to regulatory approval, by December 31, 2016. The transactions contemplated in this news release are conditional upon the entering into of a formal agreement with terms and conditions acceptable to both parties and conditional upon regulatory approval, including that of the TSX Venture Exchange. Qualified Person Mr. Jeannot Theberge, PGeo,, a consultant to X-Terra Resources, is the qualified person for the Veronneau under National Instrument 43101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects responsible for the technical contents of this news release, and has approved the disclosure of the technical information contained herein. About X-Terra Resources Inc. X-Terra Resources is a resource company focused on acquiring and exploring precious metals and energy properties in Canada. Source: X-Terra Resources VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Nov. 22, 2016) - Viscount Mining Corp. (TSX VENTURE:VML)(OTCQB:VLMGF) ("Viscount" or "the Company"), is pleased to provide an update on its flagship Cherry Creek Nevada Property (the "Property"). The Phase 1 drilling commenced at Flint Canyon in early September; and is being managed and funded by Summit Mining Exploration Inc. ("Summit"), a wholly-owned US subsidiary of Sumitomo Corporation, under the Exploration-Earn In Agreement. The 2016 Phase 4 soil sampling program was completed in late July. A total of 1,250 samples were collected, including those at closer spacing than the 75m by 75m reported in the news release of (August 10, 2016). All were submitted to ALS Global for gold assay and multielement geochemical analysis. In the central Flint Canyon area, the results reported by Summit show a positive correlation of gold and arsenic to the locations of the jasperoid occurrences and with major faults and regional structures. The soil sample results and geological map data were used for guidance in the drill planning. A reverse circulation (RC) drill plan was made based on soil anomalies, geologic mapping, and targeting of the jasperoid outcrops. The initial drill program that was reported in the news release of (September 7, 2016) was for 18 holes from 12 drill sites for total of 14,366 feet (4,380 m). The revised drill plan is for 34 holes from 11 sites for 24,000 feet (7,317 m). Drilling has progressed well and is continuing due to good weather, ground conditions, and short drill rig moves. Currently the program is expected to continue to the end of November. Mark Abrams, Viscount Technical Advisory Board, stated: "Summit has conducted a very well planned and executed exploration program to date at Flint Canyon. My initial examination of Flint Canyon drill samples shows features typically associated with a Carlin-type gold deposit, including silicification and disseminated fine grained pyrite which are present. We look forward to the continued testing of targets on the property and the analysis of the lab results that will follow." About Flint Canyon The 2015 and 2016 mapping at Flint Canyon found the faulting to be more complex than previously indicated on the Adair 1961 geologic base map. Summit's mapping program found that east-west orientated faults and fractures, which are important ore controlling structures at the Ticup and Star Mines, also occur in the area. The Flint Canyon area contains highly dissected fault blocks of the Dunderberg Shale with the underlying Marjum Limestone and overlying Notch Peak Limestone. The Pogonip Formation overlies the Notch Peak and both units are important host rocks for Carlin-type gold mineralization in east-central Nevada. Jasperoid occurrences in Nevada are extremely significant in context to Carlin-type gold deposits and mineralized jasperoid outcrops are common throughout the Flint Canyon area. They occur principally along the base of the Dunderberg Shale, but other outcrops are found along the Pogonip-Notch Peak contact. Many major gold discoveries have been made based on the presence of outcropping, weakly mineralized jasperoid hosted in and along bedding contacts of carbonate rocks. At Flint Canyon, jasperoid is found in the same carbonate rocks that are prolific host rocks at nearby large gold deposits (Newmont Mining-Long Canyon and Kinross Gold Corporation-Bald Mountain deposits). The jasperoid beds, interpreted as west dipping tabular features, occur along the base of the Dunderberg Shale and within the Pogonip group limestone. Summit's geological team indicates that the Dunderberg Shale is generally recessive and is exposed mainly along the outcropping contacts with more competent rocks. The Dunderberg appears to be moderately altered throughout its distribution, and, at Flint Canyon, it experienced widespread and significant alteration by hydrothermal fluids. The underlying Marjum Limestone is usually competent and unaltered, while the overlying Pogonip exhibits variable alteration. Mineralization identified by this work is hosted within and extending out from silica bodies known as jasperoids formed at the Pogonip Limestone/Notch Peak Limestone contact, within the Dunderberg Shale, and within and extending out from jasperoids formed at the Dunderberg Shale/Marjum Limestone contact. Jasperoids form from silica and iron replacement of the limey component of rocks when warm springs carrying silica, iron and potentially metals such as gold circulate through the rock column. As the silica and iron rich waters percolate through the rock, the limey component of the rock dissolves, migrates away and redeposits as calcite veins (calcium carbonate) in areas outboard of the warm spring waters. The host rock, depending on its content of limey material, may form caves or even collapse as the limey component is flushed out. Collapse features have been noted in outcrop and in new road cuts in the anomaly areas of Flint Canyon. This event makes the rock more permeable and allows even more silica rich waters to flow in. As the waters flush in they begin to deposit silica and iron as jasperoids. Gold deposition can occur as part of this process and, in fact, has at Flint Canyon. The Cherry Creek district, including Flint Canyon, is cut by very deep seated fault structures. These faults would have provided a very good plumbing system that allowed mineralizing waters to circulate through the rock column over a large area. In looking at the gold mineralized rock at Flint Canyon, one can see more than one event of silica, iron and likely gold introduction into the rock. Multiple events like this have been known to drive up the gold grade at other projects and may also have done so at Flint Canyon. Qualified Persons The scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Dallas W. Davis, P.Eng, FEC, an independent consulting geologist who is a "Qualified Person" as such term is defined under National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). The exploration and drill programs are being managed by David Tretbar, Summit Exploration's Executive Vice President, Exploration and Mineral Resources, a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Tretbar is a registered Professional Geologist in Arizona (#48036) and a Certified Professional Geologist (CPG #11086) with the American Institute of Professional Geologists. Mr. Tretbar holds a Master's Degree in Geochemistry from the Mackay School of Mines, University of Nevada Reno. About Viscount Mining (TSX VENTURE:VML) (OTCQB:VLMGF) Viscount Mining is an exploration company with a portfolio of gold and silver properties in the Western United States, including Cherry Creek in Nevada and Silver Cliff in Colorado. Cherry Creek is comprised of more than 9,000 acres, all 100% owned, and includes more than 20 past producing mines. Viscount has entered into an exploration earn-in agreement with Sumitomo Corporation covering the Cherry Creek property. Sumitomo can earn in up to a 75% interest in the property by producing a feasibility study and by spending in addition a minimum of US$10,000,000 in exploration and development expenses by the eighth anniversary of the earn-in agreement. Silver Cliff in Colorado is comprised of 96 lode claims, covering much of the historical past-producing mineral districts of Silver Cliff and Rosita Hills. For additional information regarding the above noted property and other corporate information, please visit the Company's website at www.viscountmining.com About Sumitomo Corporation Sumitomo Corporation is one of the largest integrated trading and investment companies in Japan. Sumitomo Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, conducts commodity transactions in all industries utilizing worldwide networks, provides related customers with various financing, serves as an organizer and a coordinator for various projects, and invests in businesses from the information industry to the retailing industry. Summit Mining Exploration, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Corporation and is headquartered in Colorado, USA. For more information about Sumitomo Corporation, visit www.sumitomocorp.co.jp Vancouver, BC / TheNewswire / November 22, 2016 - Dajin Resources Corp. ("Dajin") (TSX-V: DJI) (OTC: DJIFF) (Germany: C2U1) is pleased to report that it has staked 690 placer claims at Gabbs Valley located north of the Don Campbell geothermal power plant, in Mineral County, Nevada. These placer claims cover 13,800 acres (5,600 hectares) in the lower-elevation western portion of Gabbs Valley, where a playa (salar) with surface salt and mud flats occurs. The Gabbs Valley playa is considered to be a viable prospect for sub-surface lithium brines for the following reasons: 1) it is a deep, closed basin in a dry, desert environment, 2) geothermal activity is known to occur on all sides of the playa, including the south end where the operating Don Campbell geothermal power plant is located, and 3) potential lithium source rocks are found throughout much of the catchment basin. The catchment area of Gabbs Valley is sizeable at 3,295 km2, twice the size of Clayton Valley which is located approximately 130 km to the south. Clayton Valley hosts North America's only producing Lithium brine operation. Values of up to 720 ppm Lithium in sediments have been publicly reported but this data has not been confirmed by Dajin and Dajin has not yet conducted its own sampling program. Auger and/or Geoprobe sampling is planned by Dajin in the coming months to explore for subsurface lithium brines. At the Teels Marsh Lithium brine project, the conclusion of environmental studies and receipt of permits is expected in early 2017, which will allow road construction and drilling to begin shortly thereafter. The technical information in this press release has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements of National Instrument 43-101 and has been reviewed and approved on behalf of Dajin Resources Corp by Dajin Directors, Dr. Catherine Hickson, P. Geo and Dr. Mark Coolbaugh, CPG, the Qualified Persons. About Dajin: (www.dajin.ca) Dajin is an early stage energy metals exploration company holding a 100% interest in 294 placer claims known to contain Lithium and Boron values in the Teels Marsh region of Mineral County, Nevada. These claims cover 5,853 acres (2,369 hectares) and are adjacent to the birth place of US Borax Corp's first borax mine. Dajin also holds a 100% interest in 191 placer claims covering 3,851 acres (1,558 hectares) in the Alkali Lake region of Esmeralda County, Nevada, located 7 miles (12 kilometers) northeast of Albemarle's Clayton Valley Lithium brine operation. Dajin, through Dajin Resources S.A. (Argentina), holds concessions or concession applications in Jujuy Province, Argentina that were acquired in regions known to contain brines with Potassium, Lithium and Boron values. These concessions exceed 93,000 hectares (230,000 acres) and are primarily located in the Salinas Grandes/Guayatayoc salt lakes basin. Dajin Resources S.A. is now partnered with Lithium S Corporation who will be spending $2,000,000 on Dajin's concessions to earn a 51% interest while building a significant presence in Argentina. (http://www.dajin.ca/en/lithium-s-corp) DAJIN RESOURCES CORP. Brian Findlay, President & CEO The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Copyright (c) 2016 TheNewswire - All rights reserved. Balmoral Resources Ltd. ("Balmoral" or the "Company") (TSX: BAR / OTCQX: BALMF) announced that the first of three deep holes drilled this summer on its wholly owned Martiniere Property in Quebec has successfully extended the Bug North gold deposit to a vertical depth of approximately 550 vertical metres. This intercept, the deepest to date along the Bug Lake Gold Trend, increases the known vertical extent of the Bug North deposit by 140 metres (or 36%) and confirms that the deposit remains open down-plunge for further expansion. Hole BLD-16-01 intersected the Bug North Footwall Zone over a down-hole width of 48.55 metres, returning an average grade of 1.07 g/t gold. Two higher grade sections are present within this interval which returned 1.57 metres grading 6.66 g/t gold and a deeper intercept of 6.43 metres grading 4.36 g/t gold, including 1.50 metres grading 10.75 g/t gold. Several other gold mineralized intervals were intersected at shallower depths (see Table below; Figure 1 and Figure 2). The Company also reported results from hole MDE-16-232 which returned 13.55 metres grading 1.66 g/t gold from the Bug North Footwall Zone including two higher grade intervals of 1.71 metres grading 5.27 g/t gold and 1.15 metres grading 9.63 g/t gold. MDE-16-232 intersected the Bug North Footwall Zone approximately 300 metres shallower than BLD-16-01 indicating that the zone may be increasing in width to depth. MDE-16-232 also intersected a shallow zone of gold mineralization to the east of the Bug North deposit in the Martiniere East area. This shallow intercept returned 32.39 metres grading 0.60 g/t gold, including a high grade core of 1.85 metres grading 7.05 g/t gold. This interval may correlate with the nearby ME-23 Zone (6.30 metres grading 6.40 g/t gold; see NR12-12, April 25, 2012) expanding the high-grade gold mineralization at shallow depths in the Martiniere East area. "The first of the deep holes targeting the down-plunge extension of the Bug North deposit demonstrate the continuation of the gold mineralized system and high-grade gold mineralization to depths of at least 550 vertical metres, representing a significant expansion of the deposit and confirmation of our working model," said Darin Wagner, President and CEO of Balmoral Resources. "With the successful expansion of the Bug North deposit to depth, the extension of the Trend to the southeast (see below) and the recent rapid growth of the Bug South deposit we have made significant strides forward in our evaluation and testing of this important new gold environment in the Detour region, and plan to continue with our expansion and delineation drill programs in early 2017." Hole Northing Easting Dip From To Interval* Gold Zone Number (Degrees) (Metres) (Metres) (Metres) (g/t) BLD-16-01 2+20N 2+50E -50 198.03 203.48 5.45 1.32 467.00 467.96 0.96 5.89 505.93 519.16 13.23 1.07 Hang. Wall including 511.25 512.20 0.95 3.24 " 566.49 605.42 38.93 0.54 Upper Bug including 589.76 603.12 13.36 1.25 " which includes 592.42 594.52 2.10 3.39 " 689.64 700.56 10.92 0.90 Porphyry including 692.90 693.93 1.03 6.11 " 707.30 755.85 48.55 1.07 Footwall including 716.28 717.85 1.57 6.66 " and 744.00 750.43 6.43 4.36 " which includes 744.00 745.50 1.50 10.75 " MDE-16-229 2+15S 0+55W -45 203.51 217.45 13.94 0.27 MDE-16-230 8+70S 0+50E -47 262.14 275.63 13.49 1.27 SE Zone including 270.84 271.70 0.86 16.60 " 359.00 364.00 5.00 0.54 MDE-16-231 5+55N 5+55W -50 85.37 85.95 0.58 1.59 302.70 303.08 0.38 2.96 MDE-16-232 0+10S 0+00 -48 76.00 77.00 1.00 1.72 96.27 128.56 32.29 0.60 ME-23? including 113.95 115.80 1.85 7.05 360.11 365.80 5.69 0.57 Lower Bug including 360.52 361.37 0.85 2.87 " 382.33 395.68 13.35 1.66 Footwall including 382.33 384.04 1.71 5.27 " which includes 383.34 384.04 0.70 11.40 " and 390.64 391.79 1.15 9.63 " which includes 391.28 391.79 0.51 19.25 " * Reported drill intercepts are not true widths. At this time there is insufficient data with respect to the shape of the mineralization to calculate true orientations in space although the reported intercepts are estimated to range between approximately 60 and 80% of true thickness. All values presented uncapped. SOUTHEAST ZONE EXPANSION Drill hole MDE-16-230, the southeastern-most hole reported to date from the Southeast Zone of the Bug Lake Trend (see Figure 1), intersected a broad zone of gold mineralization (13.49 metres grading 1.27 g/t gold) with a high grade core (0.86 metres grading 16.60 g/t gold). Gold mineralization has now been intersected for approximately 700 metres along the southeast segment of the Trend and remains open along strike and to depth on all sections. Holes MDE-16-229 and MDE-16-230 were stratigraphic holes which did not specifically target the Bug Lake Trend gold system. MDE-16-229 was drilled to examine the geology in the vicinity of the mid-swamp fault system. It intersected a broad zone of low grade gold mineralization which had not previously been detected. MDE-16-230 tested the stratigraphy south of the Lac du Doigt (Finger Lake) Fault in order to better constrain this structural corridor. Results from an additional 42 drill holes completed on the Martiniere Property during the summer/fall program, and six holes completed on the Detour East Property, remain pending. These including numerous follow-up holes to the intercept of 115.45 metres grading 1.40 g/t gold (see NR16-19; Sept 7, 2016) from the Bug South deposit. Drilling has now been suspended until after freeze-up. Logging and sampling of holes from the summer/fall program is expected to be completed within the next two weeks. Quality Control Mr. Darin Wagner (P.Geo.), President and CEO of the Company, is the non-independent qualified person for the technical disclosure contained in this news release. Mr. Wagner has supervised the work programs on the Martiniere Property since inception, visited the property on multiple occasions, examined the drill core from the holes summarized in this release, discussed, reviewed the results with senior on-site geological staff and reviewed the available analytical and quality control results. Balmoral has implemented a quality control program for all of its drill programs, to ensure best practice in the sampling and analysis of the drill core, which includes the insertion of blind blanks, duplicates and certified standards into sample stream. NQ sized drill core is saw cut with half of the drill core sampled at intervals based on geological criteria including lithology, visual mineralization and alteration. The remaining half of the core is stored on-site at the Company's Martiniere field camp in Central Quebec. Drill core samples are transported in sealed bags to ALS Minerals' Val d'Or, Quebec analytical facilities. Gold analyses are obtained via industry standard fire assay with atomic absorption finish using 30 g aliquots. For samples returning greater than 5.00 g/t gold follow-up fire assay analysis with a gravimetric finish is completed. The Company has also requested that any samples returning greater than 10.00 g/t gold undergo screen metallic fire assay. Following receipt of assays, visual analysis of mineralized intercepts is conducted and additional analysis may be requested. ALS Minerals is ISO 9001:2008 certified and the Val d'Or facilities are ISO 17025 certified for gold analysis. The chefs who served these celebrities are cooking up a feast this week in Kolkata. So say buon apetito, and tuck in. Bite into some roasted pork belly, the Italian way, in Kolkata this week. Photo: Worldwide Italian Cuisine Week By Malini Banerjee: What could be common to Princess Di, George Clooney, Bruce Willis, Sachin Tendulkar and you? Well if you're willing to dig deep in to your pockets the same chefs who served the luminaries mentioned above will be serving up a fine spread in Kolkata this week. The Week of Italian Cuisine in the World is coming to Kolkata for the first time and features internationally acclaimed Italian chefs who will bring a specially curated Italian menu for the star hotels they represent. advertisement Chefs and hotels participating include Mauro Ferrari for Hyatt Regency, Francesco Francavilla for The Oberoi Grand, Vittorio Greco for ITC Sonar, Alessio Lorenzo for Taj Bengal, and Michelangelo Sparapano for The Park. This dish highlights burrata, which is a fresh Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream. Photo: Worldwide Italian Cuisine Week The Consulate General of Italy also announced the 'Amatrice in India' initiative conceived by the Embassy of Italy in New Delhi, dedicated to the earthquake victims of Amatrice. Through this initiative, Pasta All Amatriciana--a tomato, bucatini and pecorino cheese based recipe that is local to the region--will be included in the festival menu. For each plate ordered, an equivalent of Rs.150 or 2 Euros will be donated to the municipality of Amatrice for their redevelopment. Also read: This Chinese super-woman's success story in Kolkata will inspire you "Though Kolkata loves its Italian food there aren't any Italian chefs in the city and this gives the city to taste real authentic Italian food as it is made in our country," said Damiano Francovigh consul general of India. These lamb and citrus tortellinis are delicate and delicious. Photo: Worldwide Italian Cuisine Week Chef Lorenzo Alessio, who has worked for Michelin star Ristorante Paolo Teverini in Bagno di Romagana in the past, and is serving up his food for The Hub, at Taj Bengal in Kolkata, had another interesting observation to make: "Unlike Chinese and Italian food whose recipes go back several years perhaps all of Italian food started only after Christopher Columbus made his historic trip. Only after that through trade did Italy discover tomatoes and potatoes." But young or old, it cannot be denied it all looks delicious! Dishes to look out for: Baan Thai, The Oberoi: Herb Encrusted lamb Loin with roman artichoke and Cacio Pepe sauce La Cucina, Hyatt Regency: Pan-Fried scallops on green peas puree The Bridge, The Park: Pasta Al Amatriciana West View bar & Grill, ITC Sonar: Ravioli Di Ossobucco Con Agrumi e Spezie The Hub, Taj Bengal: Tiramisu Classic The First Week Of Italian Cuisine In The World will be on from today to November 27, 2016. --- ENDS --- advertisement Finding a common ground on demonetisation leaders of Congress, Trinamool Congress, JD(U), BSP, CPI(M), CPI, NCP, RJD, JMM and DMK are holding meetings to forge a common plan of action with an aim of mounting attack on the government By India Today Web Desk: In a rare show of unity, ten major opposition parties today came together and resolved to corner the government on demonetisation within and outside Parliament even as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged banks were giving cash to a few "through the back door" while the poor were made to stand in queues. Finding a common ground on demonetisation which has caused hardship to people, leaders of Congress, Trinamool Congress, JD(U), BSP, CPI(M), CPI, NCP, RJD, JMM and DMK held a meeting in the national capital this morning to forge a common plan of action with an aim of mounting attack on the government. advertisement Leaders of these parties will hold such strategy sessions every morning before Parliament assembles during the ongoing Winter session, sources said. Here are the latest developments Rajya Sabha adjourned till tomorrow. Rajya Sabha adjourned till 2 PM. PM can speak on TV, pop concert, but why not in the Parliament?: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. If PM Modi is saying that 86 per cent currency in this country is black then it is a very shameful statement: Anand Sharma. What is happening in India is continuing illegality; white money is accounted. Nobody can impose limitations on it: Anand Sharma Lok Sabha adjourned till tomorrow as uproar continues over demonetisation issue, opposition demand PM Modi's presence in the Parliament. Want to tell everyone that we are ready for a debate in both the houses: Ananth Kumar demonetisation. Congress demand in Lok Sabha PM's presence in the Parliament for demonetisation debate. Rajya Sabha adjourned till 12:32 PM after continued uproar demonetisation. 90 per cent people in the country are standing in queues, PM Narendra Modi should apologise for making this hasty decision: Mayawati Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha adjourned till 12 pm after protests over demonetisation. Kehte hain desh hith mein faisla hai toh phir roz faisle badal kyun rahe hain?: Renuka Chaudhary,Congress on FM Jaitley #DeMonetisation pic.twitter.com/No4aVg0szq ANI (@ANI_news) November 22, 2016 Digital economy will also get a boost by this decision: Jaitley By stopping the 'normal' of last 70 years, PM Modi has created a new 'normal': FM Arun Jaitley at parliamentary meet: We are ready for discussion on demonetisation, have said it many times. We passed a resolution in favour of demonetisation, was moved by HM Rajnath Singh. It is a very big decision. Centre needed a lot of courage to do this. Poora desh iska swagat kar raha hai, ye ek etihasaik kadam hai: FM Jaitley #DeMonetisation pic.twitter.com/v9p23dJhKB ANI (@ANI_news) November 22, 2016 Opposition leaders to meet President Pranab Mukherjee on demonetisation. BJP's parliamentary party meet is underway to decide further strategy. 10 opposition parties led by the Congress are meeting too to firm up their strategy against the government. It was decided that MPs of these 10 parties will stage a sit-in near Mahatma Gandhi's statue in the Parliament complex on Wednesday. This will be followed by a march to Rashtrapati Bhawan, date for which is being worked out, the sources said. On Monday Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who visited several ATMs this morning and interacted with people, claimed he was told that cash was being taken out surreptitiously from the back door in the banks for a few "selected people" while there were long queues of common people waiting outside for hours. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged the Prime Minister was threatening parties raising voice against demonetisation and said she will hit the Delhi streets tomorrow to protest against the government action. Even after Opposition's continious demands, the governmnet has made clear that PM Modi will not speak on the issue of demonetisation. --- ENDS --- Lucy Quist 22.11.2016 LISTEN Not many brilliant female employees are given the opportunity to head multinational firms especially in an industry that is very male dominated but obviously Lucy Quist, the MD of Airtel Ghana is cut from a different cloth. Voted the CIMG Marketing Woman of the Year 2015, Lucy inspires many young executives across the continent. Quist began her working life as an Electrical and Electronic Engineer at Ford Motor Company, progressing to Chartered Engineer (IET), UK. She later joined the Royal Bank of Scotland as a change manager before moving into telecommunications in 2008. Here are 3 key guidelines Lucy outlines as very essential for every upcoming young executive; Take a Step Lucy Quist, who is well noted for her knack in churning out new concepts and ideas through the dynamic projects her company undertakes advised young executives around the world in a recent interview, whatever you do, whatever the situation, continue trying something new, new ideas, location, opportunities; but whatever it is, please try. If it works out, you learn from it. Life is full of taking risks, learning and making progress. Lucy further cautioned against inactivity and insisted that aspiring executives around the continent should be prepared to try and grab opportunities as they come. To try new concepts as Lucy suggests, endeavor to understand that failure is part of a learning experience and must in no way be an excuse for inaction. Persist to achieve Lucy in an attempt to explain the need for young executives to persist in any given situation recounted an experience which was very vital to her own life. She explained that she decided to undertake an MBA when she realised that she needed a change in her professional trajectory at a time when she was also pregnant. This experience she described as one of the most challenging in her life because she had to balance being a mother, pregnant and a student at the same time but as she put it, she managed to "sail through." According to Lucy, ones circumstances should not be a limitation to how far one can dream or what one can achieve in life. People should rise above their circumstances and challenge themselves to be better in all ventures; she challenged all aspiring executives. In sum, if Lucy could persist despite all the challenges, then there is no reason as to why you also cant. Remain resolute in your bid to become successful as an entrepreneur. Integrity, Generosity and Excellence When Lucy was finally asked to give her three key values, she listed the following; integrity, generosity and excellence. To her, integrity means being consistent and true to oneself in all circumstances; a virtue that others can vouch for because they know what you stand for. She also indicated that, generosity is at the heart of everything she does mainly because she is a recipient of other peoples generosity. My leaders saw my potential and were willing to invest in me by giving me the necessary support, she disclosed. Finally, she encouraged all emerging executives to try and remain different and outperform themselves in relation to their previous achievements. According to Lucy, this is what excellence is all about. In climbing the success ladder, take a step of faith no matter the circumstance, persist and never give up on your dreams and finally as Lucy puts it, integrity, excellence and generosity should be at the core of your life. Writer: G. K. Sarpong | Twitter: @gideonsarpong | Email: [email protected] Popular Ghanaian actor Prince David Osei has condemned President John Mahama over an alleged 'tribal' statement the president made about 'northerners' who are calling for change in government. According to a Saturday Starrfmonline report, President John Mahama has said he feels sad for northerners who are calling for a change of government in the forthcoming Ghana December polls. This is because he said the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has no regard for northerners. Sometimes I feel sad when I see some of our northern brothers running around and also doing this (the change sign), they will use you and dump you, President Mahama said at a rally in Lawra in the Upper West Region where he was campaigning ahead of the December 7 polls. He continued that the partys disregard for northerners was exposed when the late Vice President Aliu Mahama had to contest 16 other people in an effort to succeed his boss former President John Kufuor in the 2007 presidential primaries of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition. The president further stressed that the NPP will never allow its running mate Dr Mahamudu Bawumia to lead them as a flagbearer because he is from the north. I want to live to see the day; you let anything happen today and let our brother Bawumia say he is standing for president in NPP. They will never give it to him, I can assure you, John Mahama stated. But the Ghanaian actor who has featured in international movies was not happy with the president's statement and took to social media to condemn the statement. What kind of desperate tribalistic power drunk president is this??? If the people want change let them use their *THUMB* to decide. Why divide and bring unnecessary feud among Ghanaians??? The will of God will prevailMan is just dust hope you remember that there was someone there before you came to power so you will also go 1day no matter how hard you try ONE GHANA ONE NATION elections shouldnt divide us I totally condemn what the president said, he said in an Instagram post. David has so far not shown which of the political divides he represents and maintained the body language of someone who does not want to align to any political party. He is one of the A-list Ghanaian actors are not following friends like John Dumelo, James Gardiner, Agya Koo, among others, who are openly campaigning for political parties ahead of the general elections o December 7. By Francis Addo (Twitter: @fdee50 Email: [email protected] ) The leader of the Bhim Nation, Stonebwoy, has done an awesome cover of Tekno's Pana. The cover, which is titled Kokonsa, is a love song that Stonebwoy uses to express his love for his lover. He tells her this by telling her not to pay any attention to all those who are saying the wrong things about her because he knows that she has nothing to hide. By: citifmonline.com/Ghana Cairo (AFP) - An Egyptian appeals court on Tuesday quashed one of two life sentences handed down to Mohamed Morsi since his 2013 overthrow, in the Islamist ex-president's second appeals victory in a week. Morsi's lawyer and a judicial source confirmed the verdict from the Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest judicial authority. The court ordered a retrial in the case, Morsi's lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsoud told AFP, adding: "The verdict was full of legal flaws." The ruling also quashed the sentences against several Muslim Brotherhood officials who stood trial alongside Morsi on charges of spying for Iran and Palestinian militant group Hamas, Abdel Maqsoud said. The decision was the latest legal victory for the 65-year-old, who has been convicted and sentenced in all cases against him since being removed from office in 2013. Morsi was Egypt's first freely elected leader, taking power after the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak. But his year in power proved deeply divisive and he was overthrown by then-army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi following mass street protests. A crackdown on Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood followed, with the movement blacklisted, hundreds of its supporters killed and thousands jailed or sentenced to death. The courts' handling of the cases against Morsi and his supporters, many of whom have been convicted after mass trials lasting just days, has drawn criticism from Western governments, human rights groups and the United Nations, which described the trials as "unprecedented" in recent history. Last week, the Court of Cassation also overturned a death sentence handed down against Morsi on charges of taking part in prison breaks and violence against policemen during the 2011 uprising against Mubarak. The decision enabled Morsi to stop wearing the red uniform reserved for death row prisoners. Five co-defendants, including Brotherhood supreme guide Mohamed Badie, who also received death sentences, are to be retried too in that case. New appeal next week From next Monday, the court is to start reviewing a second life sentence handed down against Morsi in a separate trial on charges of stealing documents relating to national security and handing them over to Qatar, a longstanding supporter of the Brotherhood. Last month, it upheld a 20-year jail sentence handed down against Morsi on charges of ordering the use of deadly force against protesters during his year in power. Morsi is being held at the Borg el-Arab prison near the northern city of Alexandria. A veteran activist and engineering professor, Morsi emerged as a compromise candidate for the Brotherhood to field in Egypt's first democratic presidential election in 2012. He narrowly won the vote but was soon accused of failing to represent all Egyptians and of trampling the ideals of the anti-Mubarak uprising. His rule was marked by deep divisions in Egyptian society, a crippling economic crisis and often-deadly opposition protests. Morsi was removed by Sisi on July 3, 2013 after millions took to the streets demanding his resignation. Sisi became president a year later. Morsi denounced a "coup" and his supporters insisted he was still the legitimate president. Hundreds were killed in clashes that erupted when security forces dispersed two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo in August 2013. The years following Morsi's overthrow saw a surge in bombings and shootings targeting security forces, particularly in the northern Sinai Peninsula, a stronghold of the Islamic State group. The jihadists say the attacks are in retaliation for the crackdown on Islamists. 72-year-old Mani, a school drop out and a plantation worker will be given the Electricity portfolio. By Jeemon Jacob: When CPI(M) decided to induct Mundakkal Madhavan Mani, the most powerful party leader from hilly Idukki district in Pinarayi Vijayan's Cabinet, it surprised many. 72-year-old Mani, a school drop out and a plantation worker will be given the Electricity portfolio. The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled to be held today at around 4.30 pm at Raj Bhavan. "I'm happy about the decision, the party has entrusted me with new responsibility. I will do my level best to serve the people and the party with honesty and integrity," Mani told India Today. advertisement Despite his seniority in the party ranks, the veteran leader had to wait for six months to join the Cabinet as he was sidelined due to his explosive nature and controversial statements. MINISTER TRIGGERS CONTROVERSY In 2012 following the murder of CPI(M) rebel TP Chandrasekharan, Mani triggered a controversy while addressing a party meeting in Manakad, near Thodupuzha by making a public confession that CPI(M) had engineered political killings in the past with precision. "At Shanthanpara village in Idukki in 1982, the party had prepared a list of 13 persons to be killed after a CPM worker was killed," he said then. His open confessions landed him in jail for 46 days. But he doesn't regret his remarks and treated it as matter of past. MM Mani remains as a rare breed in Kerala politics. He is bold, witty and loves his party to his core. For him, party is everything and he would not tolerate the critics of his party. His hard life taught him to be precise and meticulous. Born in a poor toddy tapper's family in Kottayam district, his family migrated to high ranges of Idukki and settled in Rajakad. "It was a time when famine was hitting Kerala. I started working as farm hand in cardamom estate and headload worker. I joined CPI(M) in 1966 at the age of 21. Since then I'm with the party. Without party, I can't live," Mani narrated his long association with the party and its cadres. MANI'S POLITICAL LIFE He was elected as CPI(M) Idukki district secretary in 1985. He headed the party in Idukki for almost 25 years, the longest stint any party leader can claim in Kerala. In Idukki, 'Mani Asan' as he is often called by all is the unchallenged leader. He was close to VS Achuthanandan for long. But Mani opposed him when Achuthanandan started demolition drive against encroachers in Munnar in 2009. He challenged Achuthanandan's game plan and paraded the party against him. Since then, he turned as Paianrayi loyalist. "Mani Asan is a phenomenon who can weather through any storm. He would be a minister with common sense and understand pulse of the people," Suresh Kurup, CPI(M) legislator and former Member of Parliament told India Today. advertisement Mani becomes Minister for Power, when Kerala is facing power shortage and drought. --- ENDS --- Sorry, we can't find the content you're looking for at this URL. The Department of Health, Republic of South Africa and the UK Department of Health hosted a regional conference on Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) on the 17th and 18th November, at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), Johannesburg, South Africa. During the conference the UK government made a 265 million commitment to the Fleming Fund, which will support capacity and capability development for AMR surveillance across health sectors. The conference brought together Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries to discuss the challenges of AMR surveillance as well as the resources and regional collaborations available to support improvements in laboratory and surveillance capacity. In attendance was the Director- General of Health, South Africa, Ms Precious Malebona Matsoso and the British High Commissioner, Dame Judith Macgregor. Professor Same Sally Davies, UK Chief Medical officer and Professor Nigel Gibbens, UK Chief Veterinary Officer joined the conference via video conferencing. I her opening speech Dame Judith Macgregor said: I am delighted to be here at the start of this important workshop on Antimicrobial resistance surveillance. We have worked very closely with South Africa internationally on this global threat, and this jointly hosted event is just the latest in an important collaboration. I would also like to acknowledge the participants from Kenya, for their Minister also made a telling contribution to the debate as a co-host with the UK, South Africa and others of an AMR side-event at the United Nations General Assembly. The two day conference was packed with presentations from across multi sectors (in both human and animal sectors), case studies from throughout the region and interactive panel sessions to share best practice and investigate what regional support could look like. Dame Judith Macgregors full speech can be found here . The Committee against Torture completed this afternoon its consideration of the second periodic report of Namibia on the implementation of the provisions of the Convention against Torture. Albert Kawana, Minister of Justice of Namibia, introducing the report, said that the Constitution expressly prohibited torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and provided that no court should admit in evidence testimony or confession obtained through torture. A separate law defining torture in line with Article 1 of the Convention had been drafted and would soon be tabled in Parliament, which was also expected to pass a bill ratifying the Optional Protocol. The budget for the Office of the Ombudsmen had been increased to enable it to investigate cases of human rights abuses and carry out awareness raising programmes, including the recently launched campaign to encourage all to report cases of torture. The prohibition of corporal punishment in schools had been codified in the Education Act of 2001, while the Child Care and Protection Act of 2015 expressly prohibited corporal punishment in the home. The physical conditions of correctional facilities and police holding cells had improved drastically due to major renovations which were still ongoing, and two new correctional facilities were being built, one in the north and another in the south of the country. In the dialogue that followed, Committee Experts noted reports on the systematic use of torture, including by State agents. How many such complaints had been received and how many had been investigated and sanctioned, and what was being done to put an end to the practice of torture? A concern was raised about impunity for crimes committed during the liberation struggle and the state of emergency, and for pre-independence cases of enforced disappearances, torture or summary executions. Experts inquired about the effectiveness of the Police Internal Investigation Directorate, and the number of complaints received and sanctions meted out, especially since the adoption of the code of conduct for correctional officers. Experts discussed measures to improve conditions of detention, the system of monitoring detention facilities, and the budget allocated to the Office of the Ombudsmen to enable it to fully discharge its new mandate of visits to places of detention. Other issues of concern included the very low rate of prosecution of cases of rape, including rape of children; the high ratio of HIV/AIDS in prisons and lack of a mechanism to prevent further spread of the disease; and discrimination and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons. The delegation of Namibia included representatives of the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Safety and Security, and the Permanent Mission of Namibia to the United Nations Office at Geneva. The next public meeting of the Committee will be on Tuesday, 22 November, at 3 p.m., when it will conclude its consideration of the second periodic report of Turkmenistan ( CAT/C/TKM/2 ) which started today, 21 November at 10 a.m. Report The second periodic report of Namibia can be read here: CAT/C/NAM/2 . Presentation of the Report ALBERT KAWANA, Minister of Justice of Namibia , explained that the report had been prepared in consultation with the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, a technical committee representing line ministries and agencies of the State, and that civil society organizations and the Office of the Ombudsmen had had an opportunity to comment on its final draft. The Government of Namibia did not accept torture as it was incompatible with human rights and justice. The Constitution expressly prohibited torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and provided that no court should admit in evidence testimony or confession obtained through torture this was also prohibited by the Criminal Procedure Act of 1977. Acting on the Committees recommendation to enact separate legislation to clearly define and criminalize torture in the criminal justice system, the Namibian Law Reform and Development Commission had completed draft legislation which would soon be tabled in Parliament and which would define the crime of torture as explicitly stated under the Convention. Namibia intended to ratify the Optional Protocol which would be done as soon as the Bill was passed by Parliament. The budget for the Office of the Ombudsmen had been increased to enable it to investigate cases of human rights abuses and carry out awareness raising programmes, including the recently launched campaign to encourage all to report cases of torture. The Office of the Ombudsmen had developed a manual which aimed to increase compliance with the Convention by the police, and was involved in human rights training of all law enforcement officers in the country. The prohibition of corporal punishment in schools had been codified in the Education Act of 2001, while the Child Care and Protection Act of 2015 expressly prohibited corporal punishment in the home. The physical conditions of the correctional facilities and police holding cells had improved drastically due to major renovations which were still ongoing, and two new correctional facilities were being built, one in the north and another in the south of the country. Questions by the Country Co-Rapporteurs ABDELWAHAB HANI, Committee Expert and Co-Rapporteur for Namibia , took positive note of the acceptance of recommendations to ratify the Optional Protocol and to set up a national preventive mechanism, and asked about the intentions of Namibia concerning recognizing the jurisdiction of the Committee to receive individual complaints . Commending Namibia for acting on the Committees recommendation from 1997 to enact a separate law defining torture in line with Article 1 of the Convention, Mr. Hani asked about the content and the scope of the draft law. Some civil society organizations had reported the systematic use of torture in Namibia. What measures were being taken to end the practice of torture and how were the cases of torture investigated? Taking positive note of the support provided to the Office of the Ombudsmen , in particular the Torture Prevention Project 2015 and the valuable training manual on the prevention of torture for police officers, it was noted that the budget was not yet sufficient to enable the Office to fully implement its mandate, especially new competences, in particular visits to places of detention. Namibia should amend the law 799 on the Office of the Ombudsmen to give it greater independence, including financial independence and independence in hiring its staff. The Office of the Ombudsmen currently carried out two visits to places of detention every year, and this should be increased. What mechanism was in place to address the recommendations issued by the Ombudsmen following those visits? What was being done to improve conditions of detention ? How many cases of torture and mistreatment had been identified by the domestic investigation mechanism , and what prosecutorial and disciplinary measures had been undertaken against offenders? The provisions relating to the fundamental legal safeguards and the right to fair trial were not implemented in practice. What was being done to correct this? What progress had been made on the ambitious plan of opening up three psychiatric hospitals ? Did the Office of the Ombudsmen have the right to visit those facilities and what mechanism was in place to address the recommendations? What guarantees were there in law and practice to protect persons from illegal and abusive interment , and to ensure that no one was subjected to the illegal and inhuman practice of chaining up ? Namibia had a very rich jurisprudence on the rights of persons in conflict with the law . Had it given rise to new legislation and how was it being implemented in practice? Was the Anti-Terrorist Law in accordance with the provisions of the Convention against Torture? Was the absolute prohibition of torture respected in all circumstances, including in peace, war and state of emergency? How did Namibia cooperate with the United Nations Refugee Agency on the principle of non-refoulement ? There were reports of the precarious situation of asylum seekers during the period of examination of their requests what efforts were being undertaken to improve conditions in those camps? What was the intention of Namibia concerning the ratification of the African Union 1969 Convention governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa? Was the crime of torture covered by the Extradition Law ? African countries were the leaders in the setting up of the International Criminal Court , said Mr. Hani, who expressed concern about negative statements in Namibia and calls for its withdrawal from the Court. What was the official position of Namibia concerning the cooperation with and support of the International Criminal Court? SAPANA PRADHAN-MALLA, Committee Expert and Co-Rapporteur for Namibia , congratulated Namibia on the progress made since independence and recognized the difficulties inherent to any transition process. What was being done to educate and train the members of the police, army, prison service and other law enforcement offices as well as medical officers on the prevention and identification of torture, and fundamental legal safeguards available to the detainees? Were they also trained in the Istanbul Protocol on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture, and on Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners or the Mandela Rules? Namibia should invest more efforts in training prosecutors and judges as that was critical in ensuring justice. What system was in place to monitor detention facilities and what was being done to create an inspection mechanism? Was the Internal Investigation Directorate of the police functional, and if so how many complaints of torture by police officers had been received and what action had been undertaken, especially after the preparation of a handbook for inmates and a code of conduct to the correctional officers? The Country Rapporteur was very concerned about the high ratio of HIV/AIDS in prisons . How many people living with HIV/AIDS were in prison, and how many had access to antiretroviral therapy in prisons? What mechanism was in place to prevent the further spread of HIV in prisons? Were people living with HIV/AIDS segregated and if so how were their human rights and dignity respected? How was mental torture criminalized in the existing legal framework? Concern was raised about impunity for crimes committed during the liberation struggle and the state of emergency, as well as for pre-independence cases of enforced disappearances, torture or summary executions. How many cases of complaints of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment had been received against State agents, including superior officers and public authorities; what was the number of criminal and disciplinary proceedings instituted; and what sanctions had been imposed? Noting that gender-based violence was recognized by the Committee as a form of torture, Ms. Pradhan-Malla welcomed the adoption of the law which criminalized rape and strengthened sanctions. There were 24 boys among the 1,117 victims of rape reported in one year and the delegation was asked if paedophilia was criminalized and whether the definition of rape was beyond vaginal penetration. Around 70 per cent of victims were girls: were there specific sanctions for the rape of the girl child, was compensation provided, and what was being done to encourage the use of the formal justice system? What programmes were available for the rehabilitation of the child victim? Other concerns in relation to gender-based violence included increased incidence of intimate partner killings, harmful traditional practices, early marriages and the low rate of prosecution of cases of domestic violence. The Committee was concerned about discrimination and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons. How did Namibia ensure the protection from refoulement of persons who faced prosecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity ? Questions by the Experts Had the Convention ever been invoked in courts and if so, in which cases? What were the regulations governing the access to medical services in places of detention? Asylum seekers who had committed minor offences were given 48 hours to leave the country. Which authority made the decision and what recourse mechanism was in place? Under the Refugee Recognition and Control Act of 1999, it was possible to expel a recognized refugee or protected person if the Government was of the opinion that the expulsion was in the interest of the countrys national security, public order, or morality. This was in contravention with article 3 of the Convention and the absolute principle of non-refoulement . Was trafficking a crime? What was the dimension of the phenomenon in Namibia? A Committee Expert commended Namibia for adopting the Domestic Violence Act in 2003 and asked what was being done to implement the recommendation made by the Office of the Ombudsmen which called for training and awareness raising in the society on the phenomenon of domestic violence. This was particularly important given the very low rate of prosecution of cases of rape. What was the status of the Bill which would enable the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture? Would it give rise to the setting up of the national preventive mechanism? JENS MODVIG, Committee Chairperson , commended Namibia for the progress made in improving conditions in detention , keeping the number of pre-trial detainees low, keeping the number of prisoners commensurate to the capacity of the facilities, and for almost halving the imprisoned population. Concern, however, remained about the lack of availability of medical services in prisons. Were there cases of corruption in the criminal justice system and what was being done to ensure they did not happen? Further on medical services in prisons , the delegation was asked to explain the reasons for the many vacancies for medical officers, and how Namibia trained the medical staff in identifying torture, including on the Istanbul Protocol. Responses by the Delegation Taking the floor to start responding to Experts questions, a delegate stressed that Namibia was a product of international solidarity; it was aware of the history of colonialism and apartheid and would be the last country in Africa to deliberately abuse human rights and tolerate torture. Namibia had vowed that the experience of apartheid would never happen again and repeat itself. Namibia was today one of the top five countries in Africa in terms of good governance and observance and protection of human rights, a number one in press freedom and was rated very highly in matters of judicial independence. Turning to the disappearances by the South West Africa People's Organization, a delegate said that it had happened as part and parcel of the 25 years of struggle for national liberation. Many people had disappeared and not been accounted for in Namibia since World War I, and the national liberation struggle was not an exception. It was very dangerous to open the old wounds as that struggle had pitted brother against brother and sister against sister. Seven political parties which had drafted the Namibian Constitution had agreed on the policy of national reconciliation and on amnesty for all combatants, under the supervision of the United Nations. This included combatants from the South West Africa People's Organization, South African Army, South West Africa Territory Force, and other armed groups set up by the people of Namibia The focus must be on Namibia of the future, of peace and stability, so that it could move forward as a nation. Notwithstanding the amnesty, the leaders of the South West Africa People's Organization, the ruling party in the country today, had apologised for what had happened. It was the nature of war. Torture was considered in a very serious light and it was in this spirit that Namibia had ratified the Convention. The Constitution was one of the most comprehensive in the world in the matter of the protection of rights and freedoms. The protection contained in Chapter 3 could never be removed, even with a two-thirds majority of parliament. The Bill on the Prevention and Combatting of Torture had been approved by the Cabinet and was now on its way to Parliament, which had a prerogative to amend whatever was presented to it; regardless, the principle of non-acceptability of torture would be maintained. The Bill contained the definition of torture using the language of the Convention; it described acts or omissions which constituted torture; criminalized torture, provided sanctions and ensured no immunity, in a language close to the Convention; and proposed to completely overhaul the investigation and interrogation rules. The Cabinet had also approved the legislation on witness protection and whistle-blower protection, which would promote the reporting of crimes, including torture, said a delegate. Continuing with the responses to questions and issues raised by the Experts, a delegate said that Namibia was aware of the allegations of mass graves at the border with Angola, raised by a non-governmental organization in the 1990s. The Government had stated then that it was ready to pay all the expenses for foreign journalists to come and verify the existence of the grave, upon which the said non-governmental organization had withdrawn. It had been later established that the mass grave contained victims of an incursion of the South African Army into some of the villages in the area in 1972. A number of other massacres had been committed by South African troops and their mercenaries during the occupation and the liberation struggle, including in Kasinga, Angola where more than 600 civilians had been killed in 1987. With regard to the Caprivi high treason case and the allegations of torture, the delegation explained that the case was in relation to the 1999 attempt to secede a part of the country in the Caprivi region, today known as Zambezi. Several police officers had been killed and injured, and their colleagues had committed acts of torture in retaliation. To date, 77 victims had settled out of court in a civil case and had received compensation. Namibia had indeed been one of the very first countries which had signed the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court ; unfortunately, the Court was discriminatory in targeting perpetrators of atrocities and genocide as all those appearing before the Court were Africans. While millions of persons were dying in other conflicts, not one of those perpetrators was before the Court, and this was a source of great disappointment for the African Union. Namibia would welcome an independent African institution to deal with human rights violations. There were no indications of withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, but Namibia reserved its right to do so. There were currently 4,505 refugees in Namibia; while refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo were arriving at the rate of about 15 per week, the number was now increasing to more than 20 per week, and the total number of Congolese refugees currently stood at 2,525 persons. As for Angolan refugees, there were those who feared returning to their country, and the Government had decided to resettle them in Namibia. The Cabinet had decided, on a political level, to ratify the Optional Protocol , and it was now up to Parliament as the legislative body to pass the required legislation. Namibia was not at the moment able to issue the declaration under Article 22 to recognize the competence of the Committee to receive individual communications, but it would continue to give the issue due consideration. Namibia was a low-resource developing country which had been suffering from the worst drought in living memory for the past three years, as a result of which it was forced to cut almost US$ 6 billion from the Government and State institutions, in order to provide funding for drought relief. This was one of the obstacles that Namibia faced in meeting its international obligations, such as funding of the Office of the Ombudsmen . Visiting justices magistrates or Ombudsmen could conduct unannounced visits to places of detention and make recommendations to the Government. In order to improve conditions in detention centres, the Government was contracting two additional correctional facilities. he Correctional Services Act provided for medical care in correctional facilities, with bigger centres having in-service nurses. Everyone in Namibia had the constitutional right to a fair trial and legal representation and they were informed of those guarantees at the time of arrest and again at the time of the first court appearance. The High Court could refer any case back to the Magistrates Court if due process had not been followed. A new psychiatric hospital would be built in Nankundu, Kwango West Region, and another would be constructed in the south of the country. The Mental Health Act of 1973 stated that no person who suffered or was alleged to suffer from mental illness would be detained at any place unless such detention was in accordance with the Act. Trafficking in persons was currently being dealt with under the Prevention of Organized Crime Act of 2004, and Namibia was busy drafting a separate law on the Prevention of Human Trafficking. The bill had already been approved by the Cabinet, while the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Warfare was tasked with tabling it in Parliament. Namibia intended to soon assess the effectiveness of the Police Internal Complaints Department in order to ensure that justice was done, and not only seen as done. All inmates in all correctional facilities in Namibia had access to medical care and were taken to hospitals when needed. All inmates and all persons in the country in general had free access to antiretroviral treatment, and Namibia was one of the most successful countries in Africa in this regard. The distribution of condoms in prisons was a culturally and religiously sensitive issue which would require extensive consultations with all stakeholders before a final decision was taken. The Constitution had been amended in 2014 to further enhance the independence of the judiciary : the Chief Justice had been made the Head of the Judiciary and currently, the judiciary was a self-accounting entity with its own budget and staff. Namibia was not yet a party to the African Convention on Refugees , but the Cabinet had agreed to its ratification. In addition, the Constitution prohibited statelessness of children born to illegal immigrants. Namibia was looking into ways to amend the Combatting Domestic Violence Act 2003 in order to strengthen the protection of victims and provide support to vulnerable witnesses. A coordination mechanism for the implementation of the National Gender Policy had been established with the aim of providing advice to the Government and all stakeholders on best strategies to root out the scourge of gender-based violence in the society. In 2012, the High Court had delivered a judgement in the case in which 16 HIV-positive women sued the Government for being sterilized without their consent at State health facilities. The Court had ruled in favour of three of those women. he Ministry of Health and Social Services had issued a directive called Guidelines on the Provision of Family Planning Methods and Sterilization, in order to provide guidance on the provision of family planning services to HIV-positive women. Under the Criminal Procedure Act of 1977, judicial officers had the power to award compensation to a victim of crime, which included rape , during the criminal trial. The Constitution recognized customary law and therefore what was termed settlement out of court was done through this process: customary law placed emphasis on the compensation of victims of crime as opposed to statutory law which put more emphasis on custodial sentences. It was up to the victim of rape to choose which system to use. The Ministry of Justice was finalizing the Child Justice Bill, which would include issues such as diversion programmes and the custody of juveniles as the last resort. It was expected that the law would be passed by Parliament next year. Namibia took corruption very seriously, it monitored its public and private institutions for corruption, including in the correctional facilities, as it aimed to becoming the least corrupted country in Africa, up from the current second least corrupted. Follow-up Questions by the Experts ABDELWAHAB HANI, Committee Expert and Co-Rapporteur for Namibia , said that it was not possible to build a lasting peace without justice and asked whether a new investigation had been conducted into the Caprivi case in connection with new revelations and the public recognition by a high-level official that victims had been tortured. Mr. Hani thanked Namibia for remaining with the International Criminal Court and not siding with those who were hiding behind double standards to defend the undefendable: crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. With regard to refoulement of refugees and asylum seekers , did Namibia have in place a mechanism to assess on a case-by-case basis the risk of torture if they were sent back? Did having a protection certificate by the United Nations Refugee Agency protect refugees from being sent back? Was there a system in place to coordinate and monitor the implementation of the Ombudsmens recommendations ? What standards were imposed to ensure that customary law was within the laws of the country? The draft law on the prevention of torture 2016 was a very good proposal, but the lack of reference to ill-treatment weakened it, especially as fighting ill-treatment was the first step. This also applied to matters of universal jurisdiction which the bill proposed. SAPANA PRADHAN-MALLA, Committee Expert and Co-Rapporteur for Namibia , referred to explanations for the lack of systematic distribution of condoms in prisons and while recognizing that it was a sensitive issue, noted that the lives of people were at stake. What compensation was provided in cases of rape ? It was disappointing that the Constitution allowed settling out of court for acts of rape. Other Experts raised a number of issues, including the possibility for the Ministry of Interior to oppose an expulsion decision made by the judiciary which was supposed to be independent; the age of criminal responsibility that was at 16, which was counter to the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; whether Namibia had an open and standing invitation to the United Nations Special Procedures; and the denial of property rights of indigenous people over their land. Sexual initiation of girls might be a traditional practice , but it could not be accepted as it ran counter to human dignity and needed to be stopped. Responses by the Delegation The delegate reiterated that 77 individuals had received compensation in the Caprivi case , which was a case of high treason, and said that some of those were now suing the Government for malicious prosecution. It was stressed that the Government was still paying for their lawyers. No refugees had been sent to their country of origin. An Immigration Selection Committee was in charge of hearing stories of persons seeking asylum in Namibia, and it decided on who would be accepted as a refugee. Rape was a very serious offence in Namibia, and all those suspected of committing rape were immediately arrested. This was however difficult in a traditional society, in which victims and their families did not want to disclose it to the society, and preferred instead the discreet compensation mechanism of the customary law. Chapter 3 of the Constitution addressed fundamental rights and freedoms and was very strict; it included the prohibition of torture, and defined the right to recourse and redress to victims. That was why training of judges and prosecutors addressed first of all Chapter 3 and its rights that could never be diminished. Concluding Remarks The Chair of the European Parliaments Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI), Elena Valenciano (S&D, ES), has made the following statement on behalf of the DROI committee: The ICC was established to ensure that perpetrators of crimes such as war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity are brought to justice. The ICC thus offers solace to victims of such heinous crimes around the world and at the same time makes the perpetrators of those crimes know that they cannot count on impunity. These objectives, which inspired the creation of the ICC, are still valid today, maybe even more than ever before. I am therefore extremely alarmed that very recently no fewer than four states have announced their intention of withdrawing or disengaging from the ICC, no matter for what reason. In October Burundi, South Africa and Gambia - all of these States parties of the Rome Statute - announced their withdrawal from the Court. More recently, Russia - which has never ratified the instrument nor engaged with the ICC - has decided to withdraw its signature from the founding Statute, which is highly regrettable. These unprecedented decisions set a very worrying trend as more states have announced they may now follow suit. If prolonged, this could put at serious risk the viability and continuation of the ICC. The international community owes it to all the victims of serious international crimes to see that the perpetrators stand trial in front of the ICC, through fair and transparent proceedings. I therefore call on all States that have not yet done so to ratify the Rome Statute of the ICC, and I appeal to all States that have announced their intention to withdraw to reconsider their decision. The EU and its Member States should redouble their efforts in the protection, adequate support and further promotion of the ICC, particularly with key regional actors and in multilateral fora, but also in the framework of their bilateral relations. This matter of great concern will continue to be closely followed by the Subcommittee on Human Rights in its work during the upcoming months". By Adu Gyemfi, GNA Akyem Wenchi (E/R), Nov 21, GNA - The Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo, has promised to govern for everybody, if elected. He said his government would efficiently manage the nation's resources to create opportunities for the people to live dignified lives. Nana Akufo-Addo, addressing supporters of his party at Akyem-Wenchi, during an election campaign tour to woo voters, said he was not going to betray their trust. He could not deceive them - would not let them down and that he was sincere in his election promises. He told the enthusiastic crowd that his 'one district one factory' policy would bring jobs and wealth to the people. Nana Akufo-Addo called on his supporters to remain focused and to reach out to every voter, to help them to understand why they should give their votes to the NPP on December 07. They should knock from door-to-door to get the people out to vote massively to bring the party back to power. He introduced the NPP's parliamentary candidate for the area, Ms. Ama Sey, and appealed to the people to support her to wrest the Akwatia seat from the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC). GNA 21.11.2016 LISTEN By Benjamin Akoto, GNA Tromeleveme (E/R), Nov 21, GNA - Ms. Sherry Ayitey, the Fisheries and Aquaculture Minister, has assured fishermen of increased government' support to grow their business. She said it would continue to take steps to assist safeguard their safety, that of their canoes, outboard motors, nets and other fishing inputs. She was speaking during a visit to some fishing communities in the Fanteakwa District in the Eastern Region. Ms. Ayitey made reference to the launch of the nationwide Fishermen Life Insurance Scheme (FLIS) and said they were targeting to freely register one million of them onto the scheme. The FLIS is a partnership between the Ministry and Star Micro Insurance Service. She indicated that it was part of the deliberate effort to strengthen the fisheries sector of the economy for optimal performance. The Minister was in the area to interact and learn at first hand the challenges faced by the fish farmers and processors. Ms. Ayitey announced plans to build a 'Chokor smoker' for the fish smokers along the Volta Lake. The farmers should also look for an appropriate landing beach site to enable them receive subsidized premix fuel to promote their business. The Minister distributed fish smoking materials including pans, wire mesh and baskets to fish smokers in 15 communities. GNA 22.11.2016 LISTEN At the end of the Biafran War many experts came to the conclusion that genocide had been committed against the Igbo by the Nigerian government. In an effort to suppress the scandal, the Nigerian government with some help from Great Britain worked frantically to cover up the news about the atrocities. For almost fifty years that effort paid off. The crime of Biafran Genocide was carefully hidden away from the public. However, today 2016 the agitation for the restoration of the defunct Biafran state is in the news again. This is coming nearly half a century after the countrys demise in 1970. After suffering a pogrom in which more than 100,000 of their people were killed by Nigerian civilians and various security forces of the Nigerian government, Igbo people with other southeasterners who also were affected in the killings declared an independent Biafran state in mid-1967. Immediately following the secession the Nigerian state levied a genocidal war of aggression that lasted two and half years against Biafra. With the help of Great Britain, USSR (Russia) and Islamic Arab states; all those countries supplied arms to Nigeria and the war resulted in the genocide of Igbo people. The war was prosecuted with the declared intention of wiping out the Igbo from the face of the Earth. By the time the war was over a quarter of Igbo population, that is 3 million of them were further exterminated. About 2 million of the casualties died from starvation resulting from the Nigerian government official policy of hunger as a legitimate weapon of war. Almost fifty years after that horrific genocide which tends to have been largely forgotten by much of the world community, a new generation of Igbo people who are majorly Animists and Christians are reviving the call to free themselves and territory from the largely Islamic state of Nigeria. A close look at most of the people who are championing the new struggle to separate Biafra from Nigeria reveals that they either did not witness the Biafran War or they were mere children during the war. For this reason some people have asked the question; why are people in this age bracket bent on defiantly reviving such a horrific episode and experience in their history half a century on. Some people have argued that it has something to do with the fact that the Nigerian government barned the teaching of history in Nigerian schools soon after the Biafran War. People were prohibited from mentioning the name, Biafra for many decades afterwards. The government wanted to hide the genocide permanently from public consciousness. As a result, subsequent generations which did not witness the war are unable to appreciate fully the devastating impacts of the war on their parents generation. But since the years following the war even the generations of Igbo people who did not witness it are being punished and marginalized by the Nigerian state. And this is part of what is fueling the independence protests. Remembering how horrible the war was, people like the current Muslim President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari who incidentally fought on the Nigerian side to defeat Biafra have asked the new agitators for a revived independent state of Biafra to forget it. Of course he did not find it necessary to express any remorse about the Igbo Genocide which he helped to orchestrate. He instead believes that the people will just forget just because he asked them to forget the heinous crime that was committed against them. Insensitively, the president went on to argue that the agitators are doing this because they did not experience or witness the war. This has made many observers to interpret Buharis highhanded response by killing the peaceful nonviolent agitators as his way of trying to teach the inexperienced agitators a lesson. In the past one and half years Buhari has rolled out, on many occasions, the full strength of his countrys military force to violently suppress the peaceful nonviolent Biafran independence movement. The human rights organization; Amnesty International reports that since the advent of Buhari administration in 2015 till now the tail end of 2016, Nigerian government has killed more than 300 Biafrans and wounded many more while they held peaceful protests for Biafras independence. Amnesty International says that many of those pro-Biafra protesters were shot and killed in their sleep and others while they gathered in churches to pray. Many of the protesters were shot and killed from behind while they tried to escape. The fact is that the peaceful protests for the separation of Igbo territory (Biafra) from Nigeria has been going on since the year 2000. The group known as Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) had spearheaded these protests. Various Nigerian administrations before the advent of the present one in 2015 had used mostly the incarceration of the leaders of the movement in trying to deal with and suppress it. MASSOBs former leader Ralph Uwazurike suffered many jail times in Nigerian prisons. Sometimes the MASSOB leader was detained for many years at a time. Apart from many of the agitators who are being killed extra-judicially by government forces there are some notable individuals who are being held in various Nigerian prisons just because they are agitating for Biafras independence. Some were snatched off the streets into prisons for merely wearing vests with Biafran insignia or just being in possession of Biafran flags. There are such people like Benjamin Onwuka the leader of Biafra Zionist Movement (BZM,) Chidiebere Onwudiwe whose home was invaded by Nigerian security agents in the middle of the night. He was taken away from his house at 2 AM and has not been heard from again since the last one year. Then there is Nnamudi Kanu who runs an online radio called Radio Biafra London (RBL.) These individuals except for Onwudiwe whose fate is yet to be known, can be described as almost lucky because Buharis government has not yet executed them and their cases have been celebrated because of the relatively wide media publicity they have attracted. But there are many unsung pro-Biafra agitator-victims who are not as lucky. They are currently suffering various kinds of persecutions in many detention centers around the world. Some of these less known victims are being prosecuted in different courts of law in many places around the world simply because they demonstrated publicly for the independence of Biafra. These people are being deprived of their freedom or are being subjected to other forms of hardships and inhumane treatments because of their involvement in Biafran freedom activism. Over the years many critics have complained that the Nigerian government has used some unorthodox diplomatic manipulations to influence how some foreign government agencies carry out their duties in its effort to suppress Biafras independence and hide the Biafran Genocide. Since the time of Biafra War till now, Nigeria has deployed its diplomatic tentacles across the world to make sure that those who agitate for Biafra anywhere are suppressed. We will cite two little known examples of those who are going through persecutions in so-called civilized societies like European countries of Norway and England. Lotachukwu Okorie used to serve as MASSOBs District Officer in southeast Nigeria before he emigrated to Norway, fleeing from persecution by Nigerian government authorities. On getting to Norway, a civilized society, he believed that his problems were over and his human rights would be protected. Unfortunately, he discovered that they had only just begun. In what looked like a remotely influenced operation the Norwegian government detained Okorie and charged him with illegal immigration crime. He was then detained for one year and six months without any conclusive decision on his case. According to Norwegian laws he overstayed in jail the period he was legally supposed to. Just before he was arrested, Okorie was so frustrated by the various dehumanizing treatments he was receiving from Norwegian security agents that he was driven to attempt suicide with a kitchen knife. Another case which is fast becoming a source of embarrassment to the British government is that of Yahgozie Immanu-el victim of political persecution by British authorities that apparently are trying hard to please Nigerian government which it is believed are tele-guiding and influencing the current ordeals of Yahgozie. It appears that the British government is willing to compromise their countrys very reputable centuries-old national respect for the fundamental human and civil rights of all people simply to please the Nigerian government. Yahgozie is an independent journalist as well as a pro-Biafra activist who is based in London. He got arrested by the British police while he covered the recent official visit to Britain by the Nigerian President Buhari. He was subsequently taken to court on frivolous and trumped up charges that he was trying to attack President Buharis motorcade. Some eyewitnesses of the incident are still unable to understand how the actions of someone who only had a microphone and was trying to cover the unfolding events could have been interpreted as an intention to attack President Buhari. Yahgozies case comes up again in the City of London Magistrates Court later in this month of November. Many people think that the case is actually turning into an embarrassment to the human rights image of the British government. London (AFP) - King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi holds up a plastic bottle containing contaminated water from his community in Nigeria, proof of oil pollution that he blames on Royal Dutch Shell -- and on which he hopes a London court will deliver justice. "My people are drinking this water," said the tribal king of the Ogale community in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Okpabi has flown to London for a High Court hearing on Tuesday in which lawyers for more than 40,000 Nigerians are demanding action from Shell to clean up oil spills that have devastated their communities for decades. "There are strange diseases in my community -- skin diseases, people are dying sudden deaths, some people are impotent, low sperm count," he told AFP. "I can afford to buy water. But can I afford to buy for everybody? No." The Anglo-Dutch oil giant argues that the case should be heard in Nigeria, pointing out that it involves its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the government, and Nigerian plaintiffs. But Okpabi, wearing a traditional robe with a red necklace and black top hat, said the English justice system was his only hope to end the blight on his people's lives. "Shell is Nigeria and Nigeria is Shell. You can never, never defeat Shell in a Nigerian court. The truth is that the Nigerian legal system is corrupt," he said. He wants the High Court to compel Shell to implement a 2011 landmark report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which warned of dangerously high levels of hydrocarbons in the water, bitumen-coated mangroves and poor air quality. King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi sits next to plastic bottles containing contaminated water from his community in Nigeria, proof, he says, of oil pollution by Royal Dutch Shell It should order the company to "go and clean-up Ogale, go and provide water for them; go and do medical history for them, and where medical attention is needed provide for them," he said. The king said no money would be enough to address the damage, which UNEP warned could take 25 to 30 years to resolve, but wants compensation, adding: "We are dying." Sabotage Shell will challenge the jurisdiction of the English courts in the case during three days of hearings this week, while it also disputes the claims made by lawyers Leigh Day, who represent Ogale and the smaller Bille community. "Both Bille and Ogale are areas heavily impacted by crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining which remain the main sources of pollution across the Niger Delta," a company spokeswoman said. She noted SPDC has not produced any oil or gas in Ogoniland, the region surrounding Ogale, since 1993. But Okpabi and his lawyers say the company's ageing, leaky pipelines still run through the region and it must take responsibility. A man in Nigeria's Ogoniland region looks at a mix of oil and water in a boat on the Bodo waterways, heavily polluted by oil spills attributed to Shell in 2011 SPDC says it has delivered water and healthcare to the community and is supporting the implementation of the UNEP process by the government, which in June launched a $1 billion (800 million, 940 million euros) oil pollution clean-up programme in the Niger Delta. Okpabi said he believed President Muhammadu Buhari is "sincere" in wanting to address the issue, but warned: "If we wait for the system to roll on its own, I hate to say this, but it may be too late for the people of Ogale." Attacks on Nigerian pipelines have increased this year, cutting output and helping tip the country into recession, but Okpabi insists "there is no vandalising" in Ogale. The king condemned the saboteurs, warning that "you cannot bomb your house to get attention". However, he added: "I'm also appealing to Shell and the Nigerian government to listen to those communities that are non-violent and do something." In January 2015, Shell agreed to pay more than $80 million to the Nigerian fishing community of Bodo for two oil spills in 2008, following a case brought by Leigh Day in London. In December, a Dutch court permitted four Nigerian farmers and fishermen to sue the company for environmental pollution, potentially opening the door to other cases to be brought in the Netherlands. President John Mahama has expressed satisfaction at the rate of progress of work on the Bolgatanga Hospital project in the Upper East region. President Mahama said, the project, which is currently 95 per cent complete will be a first-class health facility in the country. The President made the comment when he toured the facility on Monday, November 21 as part of his campaign tour of the Upper East Region. The Saudi government has approved another tranche of financing, which will cover equipment and the Phase Two of the hospital. And, so, that hospital will be completed. When it's completed, it will become the major referral hospital in the whole of the Upper East Region. It means that in all the other districts, if there are any cases they cannot manage, they will refer them here to Bolgatanga because the hospital is the state-of-the-art one. It's the same we are building in Wa in the Upper West Region. Everything you can find in Tamale and Komfo Anokye and Korle Bu [teaching hospitals] you will find here in your own hospital and, so, we will continue and finish it, The President said. He added that the facility, when completed will serve the healthcare needs of the entire region and be the major referral facility for the Upper East region. The President said the facility will greatly help address the health concerns of residents in the region by improving their access to quality health care. He noted that with the situation of the hospital in the region, patients would not have to travel to Tamale in the Norther Region to access special healthcare. The hospital will have facilities such as dental, imaging, pharmacy, accident and emergency, intensive care, ENT, eye, mental health, public health, and herbal medicine units. A mortuary, laundry, laboratory and a blood bank unit would also be constructed. The Saudi Fund for Development is providing 85 per cent of the total cost of the project while the government is taking care of the remaining 15 per cent. By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana Follow @jnyabor Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - The UN peacekeeping force in Central African Republic (CAR) said Tuesday one of its bases had come under fire during clashes between rival groups, prompting its troops to respond. The violence erupted on Monday between rival factions of the so-called former Seleka Muslim rebel group in the town of Bria, 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Bangui, MINUSCA said in a statement. "The MINUSCA base was targeted by some elements of the FPRC before they were driven out of the area by retaliatory fire," it said. The FPRC -- the Popular Front for the Renaissance of the Central African Republic -- is a splinter group led by Noureddine Adam, who faces international sanctions for his alleged role in intercommunal killings in 2013 and 2014. The other ex-Seleka faction involved in Monday's fighting was the Union for Peace in Central Africa (UPC), MINUSCA said. The group is led by Ali Ndarass. The statement said the two groups would be "held responsible for the violence, particularly on civilians." It gave no details about any casualties. One of the world's poorest countries, CAR has been struggling to emerge from the aftermath of a civil war which erupted in 2013 following the overthrow of former president Francois Bozize, a Christian, by Muslim rebels from the Seleka coalition. Militias are flourishing, given the weakness of the state. The main groups are factions from the former Seleka and Christian "anti-Balaka" (anti-machete) militias, a reference to the rebels who use machetes. France, the former colonial power, last month withdrew a military mission it deployed in December 2013 to stabilise the country, leaving the UN's 12,500-strong MINUSCA peacekeeping mission to protect civilians from armed groups. A handicapped man and his wife were murdered in broad daylight in Bijwasan area over a financial dispute. Delhi Police arrested one person in connection with the incident. By Anuj Mishra: With the arrest of a person identified as Sahil Rana and apprehension of two juveniles, a shootout incident that resulted in the death of one physically handicapped person Sanjay Rana and his wife Lalita at Bijwasan has been solved. On November 14, the police received information that Sanjay Rana and his wife had been shot in their house by unidentified persons. The local police rushed to the spot and found blood on the ground and empty cartridges scattered over the area. Both the injured were rushed to the hospitals by PCR and CAT ambulance. But both were declared brought dead to the hospital with the alleged history of gunshot injuries. According to Kiran, sister of the deceased who is the eyewitness of the incident two boys knocked at the door of their house. When she opened the door they told the couple that they needed rooms on rent and would pay the advance rent to Rana. She informed her brother-in-law and who later asked her to ask them to go outside the house and wait on the motorcycle shop where he would meet them in a short while. advertisement The boys insisted again to call Rana as they had to leave early. After that her brother-in-law Sanjay Rana assisted by Lalita came out of the room. Both the boys who were waiting in courtyard turned back and fired indiscriminately at both the deceased persons with the firearms holding in their hands. Her brother-in-law and sister got serious bullet injuries in their heads and other parts of their bodies. ACCUSED FLED FROM THE SPOT They both fell on the ground. Both the assailants ran outside the house and rode along with two of their other associates waiting outside the house on scooters. Her brother-in-law and sister Lalita were taken to Hospital where they succumbed to bullet injures. The case has been registered in Kapas Hera police station. Seeing the gravity of the incident, various teams of the district were called at the spot and asked to put in their best efforts to identify the assailants and the motive behind the murder. A combing operation was also launched in the area to look for the vehicles used by the assailants. A few teams were asked to scan the area and look for any CCTV footage which captured any movement of the criminals. The team picked up some CCTV clipping from the area and established the exact movements of criminals in the area and probable time of their departure and exit after the incident. Primary investigation suggested that the deceased had some dispute with a few people and even with his own family members over a property on which he was putting up with his wife and where the incident occurred. Also read: Visakhapatnam: Year-long investigation reveals suicide case was well-planned murder The deceased was also running an NGO with the name of Help, Care and Welfare for Handicapped Society and had filed several complaints against many persons of the locality who could be a potential threat to his life. The investigation had further revealed that he had some financial dispute with Rakesh of the same village and owed him to pay Rs 20 lakh. A civil litigation was also pending in the court between Rakesh and the deceased. Rakesh, the resident of Bijwasan is a history-sheeter had been involved in two murder cases in past and killed the persons when they failed to pay back his dues. The police investigation concentrated on all property disputes the deceased held with various persons of the area including his own family members. Some specific intelligence and it came to know that Rakesh presently lodged in jail had hatched a criminal conspiracy with his sons and his friends, all residents of Bajghera, and executed this murder in order to take revenge for not receiving back Rs. 20 lakhs from Sanjay Rana despite threat extended by him and cases filed in the court. advertisement SECURITY FORCES RAIDED THREE PLACES The joint team of AATS, Special Staff, Anti Snatching Cell and Kapashera police raided three specific hideouts of criminals on the basis of inputs and arrested Sahil and two other juveniles from Bhuru Ka Plot, Surukhpur road, Najafgarh, Delhi and recovered three weapons used in commission of crime from their possession. He wanted to settle score with Sanjay Rana, the deceased who neither handed over the property agreed nor paid token money i.e. Rs. 20 lacs. He roped in four persons through the help of his juvenile son from the village Bajghera/Najafgarh. He specifically roped in juveniles to execute the crime so that they may escape the severity of law and promised them for hefty amount after the murder of Sanjay Rana and his wife. advertisement He specifically directed his son that both Sanjay Rana and his wife Lalita, should be eliminated so that no one remains to claim the property and pursue the case in the court thereafter. Lalita, the wife of Sanjay Rana, always accompanied him as he was unable to walk properly being physically handicapped and she was also playing important role in all property litigations. In past, he had killed two persons including his cousin when they failed to pay him back the money they owed to him. Also read: Accidental death case turns out to be murder one year on The arrested/apprehended persons have further disclosed that they had arranged weapons from Merut from one of the sources of Rakesh by paying Rs two lakh. With the help of these weapons he had also sent his juvenile son and his other friends to village Dhighal in Haryana to eliminate Narender who is material witness in the case of murder case pending trial against him and likely to depose soon in court but the attempt did not succeed. --- ENDS --- advertisement The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, will travel to Antananarivo, Madagascar, to take part in the 32nd session of the Ministerial Conference of La Francophonie, which will be held on November 23 and 24, 2016. In addition to participating in the conferences proceedings, she will meet with partners of projects funded by Canada and will hold discussions with representatives of various organizations. Minister Bibeau will then join Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take part in the 16th Francophonie Summit on November 26 and 27. This summit will give Canada the opportunity to promote priority themes, such as the empowerment of women and girls, green and inclusive economic growth, and peace and security. Quotes The countries of La Francophonie are facing some significant challenges, such as the population boom in Africa, climate change that is threatening food security and access to water, and security issues related to armed conflicts and radicalization. In light of these challenges, which transcend borders, Canada is committed to promoting sustainable economic growth that will enable youth and women to reach their full potential. - Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie Quick facts So many writers have done so many stories about the civil war that broke out in Nigeria between 1967 and 1970. In the war, sadly, at least 3 million people lost their lives. Properties worth trillions of naira were destroyed. It is more than 45 years since. 45 years and still, strong echoes of the war persist, represented by the continued agitation for the actualisation of the Republic of Biafra by citizens of the old Eastern Nigeria. The echoes refuse to go away. In the Northern parts of the country, Islamist Boko Haram jihadists who are said to be agitating for an Islamist Nation where Sharia Law would hold sway have kept on killing, maiming and destroying every imaginable obstacle on their way, including the Nigerian military. But that will be the story for another day, the second part of our story. Today, at least we should recognise that among some of the more important issues that currently face the Nigerian authorities is the fact that when the Republic of Biafra was declared in 1967, the nation was recognised by some foreign countries who felt sympathetic towards the cause of Biafrans. They included France, Tanzania, Central African Republic and Gabon among others. Biafra had its own currency and its own Central Bank. Biafra set up its own Embassies in the countries that recognised it. Biafra had its own schools and hospitals. Biafra had its own maternity homes. Biafra had its own social order even in the midst of the fratricidal war. Many children were born on the Biafra side of Nigeria at the time. Their birth certificates showed they were Biafrans. The war ended. Nigerian authorities made no attempt to change those birth certificates from Biafra back to Nigeria. That meant that those children who were issued with the birth certificates of Biafra when they were born between 1967 and 1970 are still being identified with the Biafra Stamp as men and women of nearly 50 years by now. If we take a cursory look at the people who are mainly agitating for the breakup of Nigeria today, we observe that most of them fall within the age bracket of under-50s. They may have seen or their parents must have told them in their childhood days how unjust the Nigerians had become in their dealings with the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria, if the things that happened in those days which eventually led to the war were any facts to go by. Today, their leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is in detention. He has been in detention for over a year now. The bails granted him by the courts have been flagrantly flouted by government agencies which also depicts Nigerias level of democracy under the watch of an ex-military general. The fact we should be considering is that because these Nigerians (by virtue of their Biafran birth certificates) are not really Nigerians, they cannot vie for the highest public office in the land. Their Biafran birth certificates disqualify them from doing so. It is intricate but that is the legal truth. They were born Biafrans. Nigeria, for whatever reason, could not change their Biafran birth certificates to Nigerian birth certificates after the civil war. For that reason they will not be able to exercise their full rights as other Nigerians and vie for the highest political office in the country if they want to do so. They suffer this injustice because of the mistakes of the Nigerian leadership at the end of the civil war. And the current leadership sees no point in calling for a dialogue with these men to find a way forward. To put it mildly, this is awful. Those of us who live in European countries or in America exactly know the importance of birth certificates in any of these countries. What this means is that legitimately, as long as those Biafran birth certificates were not changed back to Nigerian birth certificates, these people remain Biafrans. And nothing can change that now. Nothing can change that now because birth certificates can be very important and because you cannot change someones birth certificate 45 years into his life. I will cite just two examples to bring my story home. In its November 13, 2015 edition, Sahara Reporters carried the story of a revelation that was about to be made then as a court in France allowed a family member of the Gabonese President, Ali Bongo Ondimba, to view the birth certificate of the President after accusations flew in his face that he lied about where he was born. As the August 2016 Presidential elections in Gabon were fast approaching then, rumours and controversies stirred up over Ali Bongos birthplace. His political opponents said he falsified his birth certificate to hide the fact that he was adopted from Biafra during the Nigerian civil war. That accusation was based on the fact that he was said to have been born 18 months before his father, the late President Bongo, married. But the court ruled in his favour. And only two months ago, he was re-elected for a second tenure as President of Gabon. Almost the same thing happened in America. President Obama faced the same issue of where he was born at the height of his campaign for a second tenure. President-elect Donald Trump kept hammering the point that Obama was not born in America, that he falsified his birth certificate and that he should be prosecuted for that. Not until the President made public his birth certificate did the matter come to closure. That is as important as birth certificates can be. In recent times, some prominent Igbo politicians are said to have discussed the possibility of releasing Mr Kanu from detention with President Buhari. But Kanu remains still locked up as his case comes up in a few days. There is an Igbo adage which says it is agility that belongs to the youth and wisdom is the prerogative of old age. In applying this adage, we will take the internationally recognised standard that all those Nigerians who are under 65 years of age, that is, those who are not yet senior citizens of Nigeria can be categorised as the youth of the country while all those who come above the age of 65 are regarded as the elderly people and senior citizens of the country. So, we see from the way the agitation for Biafra is taking shape, it is obvious that the youths of former Eastern Nigeria are keen on playing their part in this struggle for self actualisation. They are vociferous. They are articulate. They are united in their quest. They are determined. This means that the senior Nigerian citizens of Igbo extract need to get things going on in the right direction in Nigeria. They must be more committed in their involvement in shaping the future of a united Nigeria. For instance, why is the Nigerian government afraid of holding a plebiscite so that Nigerians generally can say their mind about Biafra and the Igbo, as was done in the UK which led to Brexit or as was done in the Sudan which resulted in the sovereignty of Southern Sudan? What is the essence of democracy if people of different shades of opinion or culture cannot sit down and dialogue on the future of their people? Why must odd bed-fellows be forced to sleep together if, in the opinion of one of them, they are incompatible? Why, for instance, would President Buhari say the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable? He could have said that as a military general. Many of us know that in a true democracy the unity of any organisation should be negotiable if any of the parties concerned is unhappy. Although, I would not like to mention names here, it is obvious that the Igbo have elderly men and women of calibre who can simply work into the United Nations Assembly (as the late Ken Saro-Wiwa did during his time) and make a strong case for the creation or re-creation of Biafra. But they have not done so. They have not done so, because in a very important sense, the Igbo have continued to be the ones who have had to make all the sacrifice to keep Nigeria together as the giant of Africa. Studying the Nigerian situation closely, I have come to notice that Nigerians are actually living in two different worlds of true and fake democracy. I partly mentioned that in my last article titled Dont Let Nigerias Democracy Collapse when I spoke about elected dictatorships. In one world, the one I belong to, someone does you a favour. You are grateful. You say something like, O my God! You saved me, really. Ah. What could I have done without you? And the one who favoured you says, Never mind. Thats little. I mean, what are relationships for? In this scenario, the giver is happy to give and the receiver is happy to receive. And it tallies with what my father taught me in his days that no man is encouraged to do better if the good he does is not appreciated. In the other world, which I am still trying to grapple with at my age, someone does you a favour. You try to find a way to hide the truth that he did you a favour. You even take it upon yourself to hurt him so he doesnt realise he did you a favour. You are afraid he will take the shine from you. You want the glory of what is achieved to come to you alone. You literally steal the show. In this scenario, the man who gives is not happy to give again, and the man who receives is not very comfortable as he is permanently on the defensive and as he consistently looks over his shoulders, unsure of what next. I think this is what is obtaining in the Nigerian political landscape. If those who benefit from the oil, gas and solid mineral deposits which their land does not produce can be more charitable with those whose land produces these things, I am sure there wont be any issues of odd bed-fellows to talk about. The Nigerian government will not be afraid of holding a nation-wide plebiscite to determine the wish of the vast majority of the Nigerian people about Biafra or about the Caliphate for that matter. And what I think is that President Buhari and Igbo and Northern leaders should summon up courage to resolve these issues, combining the agility of the youths with the wisdom of old age. The Writer 22.11.2016 LISTEN As I promised, today, we will go directly to the three immutable principles of spiritual battle - praise, promise and prayer. Look, when you master these principles, no power, no situation in this life can conquer you. As we said earlier, we are promising you that you will not go through harrowing experiences in life (even from unexpected quarters), but we can guarantee that if you properly and consistently apply the above divine laws to your situations, you will always come out victorious, stronger and more dedicated to God. Praise When Jehoshaphat came to the temple of the LORD to seek His favor and deliverance, he started his intercession with praise and worship, "O LORD God of our ancestors, you alone are the God who is in heaven. You are ruler of all the kingdoms of the earth. You are powerful and mighty; no one can stand against you!" He began to extol the virtues, power and the mightiness of God. Yes, Judah was in great danger. The enemy's threat was very real and imminent. Defeat, destruction and annihilation were hanging over them like the sword of Damocles, yet Jehoshaphat had the courage to praise God. He remembered that God was the same God of their ancestors - the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! Besides having personally experienced the deliverance, power of God, Jehoshaphat also must have heard the stories of how God delivered their ancestors from their enemies at various perilous times. You know Israel has a strong tradition of transferring the account of their historical and cultural events to their next generations. Jehoshaphat must have heard what God did with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Samson, David, etc. He must have heard how God suddenly brought deliverance to His people at different extreme and impending dangers. That was why he started by calling Him, "The God of our ancestors." That was why he started by calling Him, "The God of our ancestors." Jehoshaphat must have heard the story of the dramatic, commando - type -deliverance God gave to the Israelites at the bank of the Red Sea; when they were coming out of Egypt. Then, the king continued by telling God that He is the only God in heaven and rules all the kingdoms of the whole earth. That He is powerful and mighty; that no one can stand against Him. What better way can we describe God's majesty? The God that we serve - Jehovah, the God of Israel, is the only God in heaven and on earth. He created and rules in the whole universe. The kingdoms, dominions authorities, powers, rulers, thrones in heavens, on earth, in the waters, under the earth, in the air, in the forests, on the mountains, in hell and in graves bow to Him. He is the almighty and all powerful and no one can stand in battle against Him. Yes, King Jehoshaphat got it right! When you fully appreciate these attributes of God, you will fear your enemies less. Like the Psalmist said in 56: 1-4, "O God, have mercy on me. The enemy troops press in on me. My foes attack me all day long. My slanderers hound me constantly and many are boldly attacking me. But when I am afraid, I put my trust in you. O God, I praise your word. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me?" I thought you'd say amen to that? Your ability to appreciate, extol and declare the majesty of God in the face of battle, will certainly set the stage for your deliverance. What you need at this time of great difficulty is God's presence and favor. And nothing can draw these down than praises and worship. When we praise God, we set the divine mechanism of heaven to work in our favor. When we praise God, we draw down heaven to earth, this is because what go on in heaven are praise and worship by the twenty-four elders, angles, etc. And I tell you, when God comes down, woe to that enemy that will risk standing on our way; for there would be a cataclysmic collision; which we can always predict the result. Nobody, no enemy, can stand in the way of a praising Christian. In fact, if you master the act of praise and worship, you will sure be on your way to indestructibility. A praising Christian is always an enigma to the enemy. Praise will open doors for you. This is the golden key into the presence of God. It is the key to divine favor, protection, deliverance, etc. The Psalmist understood this very well when he said, "make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name" (Psalm 100: 1-4). Praise will open the gates and courts of heaven for you. It will also pull down the gates of hell that stand against you. Now, Go to that battle praising and worshiping God, and you will be sure of victory. Gabriel is the author of the book Power of Midnight Prayer. Website http://www.authorsden.com/pastorgabrielnagbo E-mail: [email protected] Tel: 08037113283 TEIN-LEGON today paid a visit to the Taxi drivers on legon campus to interact with them and canvas for support for the NDC going into the 2016 election. The team took time to explain some of governments interventions and achievements and how it goes to benefit the ordinary Ghanaian. The team also distributed JM branded air freshness, stickers and T.shirts and DKB branded stickers and T. Shirts. The taxi drivers on their part, were full of praise for the Presidents tremendous achievements, especially in the road network. According to them, they spend less on maintenance now due to the good state of the roads now. JM is truly changing lives and transforming Ghana JM toaso No ababase It's still; #ChangingLives #TransformingGhana #DKB-here to serve ANANPANSAH SOLOMON TEIN-LEGON PRESIDENT (0207262608 ) TEIN-LEGON New Patriotic Party (NPP) flag bearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has received the prestigious Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice. He used the occasion to stress the need for all governments to step up efforts towards defeating terrorism through education and peace. He said the threat of terror is perhaps the greatest danger the world faces at the moment. Coveted Award Nana Akufo-Addo was not in Mumbai, India, for the awards ceremony due to his hectic campaign engagements and was represented by former minister Hackman Owusu-Agyeman and his team. He was the main speaker and delivered a keynote address through Mr. Owusu-Agyeman on the theme, Combating Terror Through Education and Peace. The award is given to people all over the world who distinguish themselves in the areas of democracy, human rights and social justice; and it is coming at a time the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and its leadership have made it their agenda to paint Nana Addo black with spurious allegation of violence. Combating Terrorism Nana Akufo-Addo said that misinformation and indoctrination had led to religious conflicts and terrorism and called for special attention to what he called particular curriculum that identifies indoctrination. Nana said the time has come for all governments to take an abiding interest in educating the young people, adding, This way people with terrorist inclinations will not infiltrate the education system to unleash unto the world an army of youth who are happy to die for the selfish interests of the so-called warlords. He said, We have to pay attention to what the youth imbibe in their various educational institutions, both religious and secular, otherwise we will continue to become pawns for terrorist organizations. Emphasis On Education Nana Akufo-Addo said he has always maintained that education is the ultimate leveler, asserting, I've constantly argued that for any society to make progress, it must educate its entire population without exception. I propose and still maintain that an Akufo-Addo government in Ghana will make education accessible and free up to the senior high school level for everybody. I want them to be educated so that they would not be used to cause mayhem. Democratic Institutions He said governments, particularly those in Africa, should ensure that democratic institutions can deliver opportunities and prosperity to Africa's longsuffering peoples, noting that Africa's opportunities and challenge are virtually the same. We have societies that present limited opportunities for the masses. What Africa needs above all is value addition, especially in the educational system that will provide the necessary skills for every child. I've made education the foundation for my vision, to build a knowledge-based industrialized economy in Ghana, he pointed out. Nana Akufo-Addo said, Our human potential and capital has not been developed fully on our continent's rich resources. Until we bridge the gap, we are squandering opportunities that could move us forever from a culture of handouts towards the creation of dignified and confident society. He posited, Participants in dignified societies would hardly be available to be used in senseless wars for people who do not have their countries and the world at heart, and urged leaderships to always prioritize issues concerning injustice to guarantee peace. African Elites Nana Addo said in Africa, a few elite in the ruling class control all the resources saying, Rising economic inequality is threatening not only economic stability, but our democratic political systems. In far too many countries, the benefit of wealth is not being equitably distributed. This is not recipe for stability and sustainability; and until the inequalities are reserved, it may be difficult to eliminate terrorism. Glowing Tribute He paid a glowing posthumous tribute to the iconic Mother Theresa, The story of Mother Theresa's influence on the world will continue to be told perhaps till the end of time. He also commended highly the organizers, particularly Dr. Abraham Mathai, President of the Foundation, noting, For the world to recognize the effort of a small man from a small West African country towards attainment of peace and security in our world is most heartwarming. He said India, although a nuclear country, inspires most of us in Africa because it is always at the forefront of efforts to promote peace, understanding and multiculturalism. Nana's Role Dr. Mathai, explaining the decision to choose Nana Akufo-Addo for the award said, The manner in which you (Nana Akufo-Addo) sacrificed your presidential ambition by accepting to preserve peace in the West African nation of Ghana, at a time of high tension, thereby preventing civil war, is truly remarkable. He further said that Nana Akufo-Addo's statesman-like qualities have truly distinguished you as the defender of democracy which should be emulated far and beyond. By William Yaw Owusu The aforementioned headline sums up the dangerous trend of tribal politics being championed unfortunately by the President in the run-up to the December 7 polls. It is ironic and preposterous that the President who should know better about the minefield which the subject poses, is the man leading the charge. His most preferred method of getting people from his home region to vote for him has now assumed the status of a mantra, drawing public ridicule as it makes the rounds. No President worth his salt in a multi-ethnic society should be seen to be festering the mantra Vote For Me I'm One Of You. He applied the dangerous module in the 2012 campaign when he told the people of the Northern Regions to consider him as their kinsman and vote for him accordingly. Those whose voices should have been heard condemning the divisive campaign tactics preferred the silent mode leaving only politicians on the other side of the divide and a few others to state their opprobrium to the President's offensive political ploy. It was not as if the anomalous remarks highlighted by its ethnocentric undertones were not being heard loud and clear: those whose voices should be heard when such dangerous path is being treaded upon would be letting society down when they persist in their silent mode. The President has not stopped the divisive campaign. He has made more headlines as he walks on the obnoxious path because such rhetorics are not commensurate with the status of a President more so in modern times. Last week, the Most Rev Gabriel Charles Palmer Buckle, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra obviously following the opprobrious trend and its possible fallouts has spoken against voting on tribal lines during his recent visit to the country's defence headquarters. There is no doubt that the President's call for the tribal vote which the clergyman has opposed has resonated among Ghanaians, especially, those who appreciate its negative implications and would not fall for it. It was as timely as it was auspicious coming on the heels of the recent increased tribal rhetoric of the President, a trend which appears to be fueled by frustration and desperation. We expect the clergy and other upright persons in the country to speak against such unbecoming rhetoric which can never help the cohesion of Ghana. We pray that others would emulate the example of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra and speak up against uncouth remarks which threaten the unity of the country. We have lived with each other before and after independence without such ethnocentric tendencies threatening our national cohesion. That President John Mahama has continued to apply tribal sentiments as a means of winning the hearts of people from the Northern Regions suggests his uncaring stance for the interest of the country. We wonder how political campaigns would look like when other flag bearers turn to their home regions and demand that they vote for them because they hail from those areas. No nation can be built on this trajectory and the President, a history scholar, understands this fact more than others who have not had the privilege of accessing education, especially at the higher level. It was for the sake of national cohesion that Dr Kwame Nkrumah proscribed political parties with tribal and religious underpinnings. Ghanaians should resist such desperation which can only generate national disharmony by undoing what we have achieved all these years in the area of national cohesion. The vice presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has taken a swipe at President John Dramani for saying that he (Mahama) is not a magician to solve the unemployment problem in the country. Dr Bawumia said the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government over the last eight years had had more money than all the past governments put together yet is unable to solve the challenges facing the country. Rather, President Mahama and his government have made living more difficult for the people, urging Ghanaians to reject a 'dead goat' president who cannot meet their demands. According to Dr. Bawumia, with Ghanaians desperately yearning for their problems to be solved, He (President Mahama) tells us he's not a magician. He says he's not a magician to solve the problems of unemployment. But, he's a very good magician when it comes to the disappearance of Ghana's money under 'create, loot and share' schemes like SADA, Woyome's judgement debt payment, Ameri, Karpower, GYEEDA, Waterville, ISOFOTON, etc. He continued, President Mahama is a very good magician at making our money disappear. We want change. We want to elect a new president. We don't want a 'dead goat' as a president. A dead goat is a dead goat, whether in Ashanti, Volta, Greater Accra, Brong-Ahafo, Eastern, Upper West, Upper East, Western, Central or Northern. We don't want to vote for a 'dead goat,' he stated to thunderous applause from thousands of NPP supporters at a Volta Regional rally at Aflao. With more revenue in the form of loans and taxes than all governments in Ghana's history put together, Dr Bawumia, an astute economist, said the government of President Mahama has been unable to pay nursing and teacher training allowances, as well as several months of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) claims by hospitals. They cannot pay for School Feeding; they cannot pay for Mass Cocoa Spraying. The National Youth Employment Programme has collapsed under their watch and they cannot pay contractors. That is why we are saying they are an incompetent government, Dr Bawumia stressed. He was confident that the people of Ghana don't want to vote for a president who cannot think far. Of what use is a president who cannot think far be to this country? We want a farsighted president. We don't want to vote for a president whose government is corrupt, and we definitely don't want to vote for an incompetent president. He assured the people of the Volta Region that In 18 days' time a new Ghana will be born, and we will begin to see the restoration of a leadership of vision, integrity and incorruptibility under Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. In 18 days' time, we will have a new president-elect of the Republic of Ghana. We will replace this corrupt and incompetent government of President Mahama. Dr. Bawumia added that in 18 days' time, you will begin to see the process of the restoration of the teacher training and nursing trainee allowances. We will begin the process of transformation of the economy which brings down unemployment and brings jobs to our people. He therefore, urged residents of Aflao and the residents of the Volta Region to unite and ignore the tribal and ethnocentric politics being waged by President Mahama and his team. Let us all come together as one country, and let us not allow President Mahama to divide us. He has no message; he has lost the argument. You cannot govern with propaganda and tribalism. Away with tribalism and let's get together with unity under Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, he appealed. Magician President Mahama, speaking at the GBC Presidential Forum last week, stated that he is not a magician who can just flip a hand to put money into unemployed graduates' pockets. He said such graduates are not taking advantage of the opportunities in the system. Job creation has taken a centre stage in this year's electioneering campaigns as the number of unemployed youth in the country continue to grow at an alarming rate, with the United Nations pegging Ghana's unemployed youth at 48 percent. Instead of taking responsibility for the situation, the president has rather resorted to blaming the unemployed youth for not being proactive enough, Bawumia observed. Economy Collapsed Under NDC He blamed the NDC government for collapsing the economy which has led to mass unemployment; and entreated the government to take full responsibility for its failures. This is a government that has brought so much unemployment to the youth because under their watch the economy has collapsed. And when we ask the president to solve the problem, he tells us he is not a magician, he added. Tribal Card The NPP presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, condemned President Mahama for what he described as tribal and ethnocentric politics that could only move the country backwards. President Mahama is reported to be engaging in ethnic politics in the northern parts of the country, telling them to vote for him because he is a Northerner. He therefore, urged Northerners not to vote for Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP, because they hate people from the North, adding that they will use you and dump you. But Nana Addo described the president's comment as unfortunate. Our president who should be a figure to unite us, is now campaigning on tribal incitement and inflammation. He is telling the people of the Northern Region to vote for him because he is a Northerner and that we the NPP do not like Northerners so they shouldnt listen to us. Is that the Ghana we want? North against South and South against North, tribe against tribe, he queried. He continued that the NPP wants a Ghana that is peaceful and united, a Ghana with opportunity for all devoid of tribe or background, a Ghana where all of us are coming together to redevelop the country. He said instead of convincing the people with policies and issues, the president has resorted to tribal politics because he has his back to the wall and can feel the stool shifting under him as defeat stares him in the face; so he will do and say anything to put himself in the seat. According to Nana Addo, Ghanaians are looking forward and want a united Ghana to build a prosperous nation so such tribal incitements should be condemned with all seriousness. We are turning our backs on tribalism, petty politics and the politics of propaganda and deceit. That will not be the politics in the future of our country. We are going to build a new Ghana which is founded on commitment, truth and principle, where policies are worked out for the progress of our people, that will bring jobs and employment to our young people, he added. Nana Addo expressed the conviction that recent development shows that the people of the Volta Region are prepared for the new adventure of rebuilding the country to save it from the massive corruption and suffering it has been plunged into under the Mahama administration. From Fred Duodu & Gibril Abdul Razak, Afla It is turning out that many soldiers serving on peacekeeping missions abroad are reluctant to exercise their franchise in the impending general election. A few of them are said to have reluctantly given their voter ID particulars to the military hierarchy for onward transmission to the Electoral Commission (EC) to prepare the special voting register. According to information, they have been reluctant because during the 2012 general election, the military hierarchy reportedly changed their proxies and made other people to vote for them instead. DAILY GUIDE understands that about 80% of the soldiers did not respond to signals sent to the various units on peacekeeping to submit details of their voter identity cards because of the way they were denied the right to select their preferred candidates in 2012. The authorities selected the proxies and rejected the people they asked to represent them on voting day. What is the guarantee that those picked will vote for the preferred candidates of the soldiers? a source queried, adding, All these are happening because of one person's unbridled quest for power. Election Ambulances There are also reports that about 60 ambulances have been assembled at the Air Force Base, Burma Camp, Accra, and they are reportedly going to be used for special operation on election day. Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central, Kennedy Ohene Agyepong, made the revelation recently when he alleged that the ambulances were going to be used to smuggle stuffed ballot boxes and other election-related materials by the NDC in collaboration with the military on voting day, adding that it forms part of the ruling party's agenda to re-elect President Mahama by any means. Strange Request At a time when some soldiers are said to have refused to submit their voter particulars for the special voting exercise on December 1, the police administration is reportedly in a behind-the-scenes move with the EC to introduce more names into the already-compiled special voter list, raising questions about the commission's neutrality. The move has already raised eyebrows and further put in doubt the EC's neutrality ahead of the December 7 crucial elections since the political parties are said not to have been consulted about the intended action. With only 10 days to the special voting and with the EC already releasing 65,000 people as eligible special voters to all the parties, the police administration has written to the commission to key in more names of recruits in training to enable them to exercise their franchise in the special exercise. The recruits are said to be close to 2,000 and are coming from police training institutions in Pwalugu (Upper East), Ho (Volta), Koforidua (Eastern), Kumasi (Ashanti) and Accra (Greater Accra). The IGP, in a wire message sent to police formations a copy of which is available to DAILY GUIDE asked commanders to liaise with EC district officers to virtually compile a new list of special voters when the exercise had long been closed and the request when granted, would be a clear breach of C.I. 94, the instrument being used to regulate the December 7 general election. Parties Stranded Clearly, it is being done at the blind side of the political parties because the EC released a list of 65,000 possible voters for the special voting. Head of Communication at the EC, Eric Kofi Dzakpasu, recently gave the breakdown as 871 for media personnel, 23,567 for security services and 40,563 election officials, and as far as C.I. 94 is concerned, the application to be entered on the list of special voters has been determined and concluded as far back as October 28, 2016 42 days to polls day. By William Yaw Owusu The National Peace Council (NPC) is worried about the level of polarization in the country ahead of the December 7 general elections. At a press conference in Accra yesterday, Chairman of the council, Rev Professor Emmanuel Kwaku Asante, expressed fear that the current level and spate of violent clashes between the NDC and NPP have the potential to foul the political atmosphere during and even after the elections. The NPC is, therefore, concerned about the continuing violent confrontations between supporters of especially the two leading political parties the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). There is the widespread feeling that the growing political polarization and ethno-regional feelings have been exacerbated by the cycles of recurrence of the pre/post election turbulence in the country, chairman of the Council noted, insisting, The recent skirmishes between supporters of the NDC and the NPP cast a slur on Ghana's hard earned democratic credentials and image. The NPP and the NDC have been slugging it out in turf war ahead of the December polls, with recent clashes occurring in Koforidua, the Eastern Regional capital, where some supporters from both sides were brutally injured. Victims of the Koforidua clashes Ahead of that, some NDC fanatics had also invaded the Nima residence of the NPP presidential candidate, leading to some skirmishes amidst gunshots. In all these, the silence of the Peace Council has been deafening, raising concerns among Ghanaians about the relevance of the body, especially in the face of naked display of hooliganism said to be perpetrated by supporters of the NDC who appear to be above the law. Rev Asante commented: This fact should awaken all Ghanaians to the reality that electoral violence is possible in our country. The NPC chairman condemned such acts of violence, provocation and impunity, but fell short of scolding incumbent President Mahama for his recent tribal comments which had been criticized by many concerned Ghanaians. Speaking at a rally at Jirapa in the Upper West Region, President Mahama said the NPP vice presidential candidate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, can never be president or lead his (Bawumia's) party because he is of Northern extraction. President Mahama claims NPP does not recognize Northerners. But when the issue came up at the press conference and Rev Professor Emmanuel Asante was specifically asked what he made of the president's comments, all he said was, I don't think that tribal factors must influence our elections in this country. He added, We must vote for Ghanaians who have the competence, the capacity, the ability to rule a nation; and once we do that, it will help us a lot. He called on supporters of the NDC and the NPP to exercise caution and circumspection as they embark on their political activities. It's pertinent to note that Ghana is bigger than any political party and that political hooliganism and violence have never been a legitimate mechanism for ascension to political power in any part of the world, he emphasized. The National Peace Council, together with the National House of Chiefs and the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), would hold a high level meeting on Wednesday, November 23, to promote peace in the country before, during and after the elections by assembling political leaders to sign a peace pact ahead of the polls. By Charles Takyi-Boadu Judges and magistrates nationwide have suspended the strike they intended to embark on regarding the non-implementation of the 10 percent salary increment. Sources close to the judges claim that negotiations with the government and key stakeholders are currently at an advanced stage. He noted that it was necessary the judges called off the strike as negotiations had progressed, adding, Our series of engagements with the government were open and positive. The source stated that the judges had suspended the strike for the time being, given that the Judicial Council had taken over the matter and as such, would not be prudent to embark on the strike while negotiation was underway. He further told DAILY GUIDE that the gesture was to allow the processes initiated towards the final resolution of the impasse to continue unimpeded. Although yesterday was the deadline for the strike, all the judges and the magistrates were at post performing their duties. Two weeks ago, the aggrieved party issued a final warning to the government to pay their approved salary increment or face their wrath. According to the judges, the government's feet dragging and indifference through the Finance Minister had created frustration and anxiety among them as several letters to the minister had yielded no results. The circuit court judges and the magistrates were emphatic that they would abandon the courts on November 21, 2016, if Mahama's National Democratic Congress (NDC) government failed to pay their cash. Ultimatum The judges and the magistrates have over the months been battling with the government over the non-implementation of the 10 percent salary increment which they insist was approved by the late President John Atta Mills in 2012. It may be recalled that the judges in September handed the government a 10-day ultimatum to pay the money or they would embark on strike by September 30, this year. Again in June, this year, the judges called for the immediate withdrawal of a letter from Julius Debrah, the Chief of Staff, that sought to vary the conditions of service for circuit court judges and magistrates. Earlier in a statement issued in Accra and addressed to the Chief Justice a copy of which is in the custody of DAILY GUIDE the judges and the magistrates said, Respectfully, Honorable Chief Justice, we humbly wish to inform you that the letter addressed to the Minister for Finance has not received any attention. The statement, signed by Aboagye Tandoh, a circuit court judge and representative of the judges of the lower bench, said the attention of the CJ was being drawn to the matter because of the undue delay. He explained, This is particularly so because the implementation of the conditions of service of the lower bench has been characterized with frequent interruptions and disruptions since 2013. Mr. Tandoh further argued, We have observed that these disruptions and interferences with our conditions of service have occurred as a result of the erroneous manner in which the concerns of other institutions have been addressed, even though these matters are not related to the judges and the magistrates of the lower bench. The statement, copied of which were sent to the Chief of Staff, Finance Minister and the Judicial Secretary, stated, We wish to reiterate that our conditions of service as approved by the late President Mills, have never been a mistake but the mistake being alleged is a creation of people whose sole interest is to interfere with the conditions of service of judges and magistrates No End in Sight Later in an interaction with journalists, Mr. Tandoh said there seemed to be no end in sight to the controversy. The judge continued, Our issues have nothing to do with staff, if staffs have problems that they are legitimately entitled they must be given and not to create problems for the judges of the lower bench. Mr. Tandoh added, We have seen that under the circumstance, that has been created; our members are not in the mood to go with these acts of interference if the issue of the 10 per cent is not addressed. By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson [email protected] Senior Left leader Sitaram Yechury said his party was examining the possibility of moving a contempt notice against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for refusing to be answerable to Parliament. Left leader Sitaram Yechury today said his party might move a contempt notice against PM Modi; Photo: Twitter @RitabrataBanerj By India Today Web Desk: Upping the ante against the government over the demonetisation drive, senior Left leader Sitaram Yechury today said his party is examining the possibility of moving a contempt notice against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for evading a debate in the House. "We are examining the possibility of moving a contempt notice against the PM for refusing to be answerable to Parliament. We are consulting all the Opposition parties about it," Yechury told reporters in New Delhi. advertisement "When Parliament is in session, the PM speaks outside Parliament every day but does not come inside the House. This amounts to contempt," he said. Yechury said Modi must participate in the discussions since the demonetisation announcement was made by the PM himself through a television address on November 8. ALSO READ | Parliament: BJP passes resolution to back note ban, Opposition to meet President 'IF PARLIAMENT NOT FUNCTIONING, BLAME RESTS WITH MODI' Yechury said the blame for disruption in Parliament rests with Modi's arrogance. "Today, if Parliament is not functioning, the blame rests entirely with the PM who is not ready to address Parliament due to his arrogance," the senior CPM leader said. On its part, the ruling BJP has vehemently rejected all calls for Modi's presence in Parliament over note ban, saying the decision on who answers parliamentary debates lies with the government. ALSO READ | Arun Jaitley defends demonetisation in Rajya Sabha, but Opposition wants PM Modi MODI CAN SPEAK IN CONCERTS, NOT PARLIAMENT: RAHUL Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi also questioned today why Modi wasn't speaking in Parliament on the demonetisation move despite opposition demands, though he has addressed a pop concert. "Why is not the Prime Minister coming to Parliament? Why isn't he coming to Parliament and speaking," asked Gandhi. "The Prime Minister can speak on TV, can speak at a pop concert, but why not in the Parliament," asked Gandhi referring to Modi's Saturday address at a Coldplay concert. WATCH THE VIDEO HERE: Both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have been witnessing continuous disruptions following sustained protests by the Opposition over the demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1,000 bank notes announced by the government. Also Read: If bypolls were a referendum on demonetisation, has PM Modi won it? PM Modi to BJP MPs: Don't call demonetisation surgical strike, only soldiers do that --- ENDS --- advertisement Enough to say that President John Mahama has had his hands sullied after stooping so low to play ethnocentrism card while campaigning in the north. Not only that but also Mr. Mahama descended into the gutters, thereby charting the uncharted path. His target was the vice presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia whos been a thorn in the flesh of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC). And of course hed something unpalatable saved at Mr. Bagbins Bag for the astute economist---the president hunched too low as father of the nation and punched Dr. Bawumia below the belt. No doubt his frantic moves to seek re-election had possibly caused him to make the comment below: Sometimes I feel sad when I see some of our northern brothers running and also doing this .They will use you and dump you. Let anything happen today and let our brother Bawumia say he is standing for president in NPP. They will never give it to him I can assure you, Mr. Mahama said. According to the president the NPP will not allow Dr. Bawumia to be their flagbearer because the party is largely not in support of northerners taking up such positions. The presidents misguided statement has drawn criticisms from the public and institutions far and near Notable among them is the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA). The Foundation has asked President Mahama to apologise for making the comment deemed ethnocentric against the running mate of the opposition NPP Dr. Bawumia. In a statement the MFWA condemned the comment and described it as divisive and unfortunate. The MFWA considers the comments of president Mahama as highly divisive and unfortunate and condemns it. President Mahama is expected to act in ways that will unite rather than divide the people of this country, the statement said. The foundation further urged political figures to avoid the use of hate speech, ethnocentric and divisive comments in the political campaigns. Indeed, this writer thinks the comment was calculated to appeal to those fearful of charging ethnocentrism and gender mores. Unfortunately for him (Mr. Mahama) what happened at Lawra in the Upper West Region didnt stay there. Thankfully, it got onboard an Accra-bound lorry. And the wild comment had since gone wild and wide This is the second time the NPP running mate had been attacked by northerners who call him brother yet theyd spoken ill or badmouthed him many times. In early October this year, at Nandom also in the Upper West Region the Majority Leader of Parliament Mr. Alban Bagbin condescendingly described him (Dr. Bawumia) as drivers mate who lacked the developmental acumen and capacity to bring development to the north. What is Ethnocentrism? It is the tendency to believe that ones ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to ones own. Or ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of ones own cultureEthnocentric individuals judge other groups relative to their own ethnic group or culture especially with concern for language , behaviour, customs and religion. Ghana is not that divided as some politicians are trying hard to shape it that way. Since independence its peoples have lived in oneness, in harmony and in peace. Together weve stubbornly demonstrated our commitment to safeguard our values, customs, traditions, etc. our forebears handed to us as far back as in the 13th century. So, where from this dirty card? The NPP isnt an Akan party. Its members are from different backgrounds, different ethnicity, different religion and are of different faith. Unfortunately, politics being politics opponents often demonise parties that seem to do better than them. They often use their spin doctors to do the dirty job---spreading hate messages and causing fear and panic. In this regard I believe we as a people must vehemently resist any party, individual or group of persons whose agenda is to stoke the ethnocentric fire to destabilise this peaceful nation of ours. It must neither have any place here today nor any place there tomorrow. As matter of fact two of the eight elected presidents of the republic are northerners. Dr. Hilla Limann whose original last name was Babini, born at Gwolu in the Sissala West District of the Upper West Region was the only president of the third republic of Ghana. And Im humbled to state that I interviewed him on March 5, 1997 a day before Ghanas 40th independence anniversary. How could he have been elected if the country is/was indeed drawn on tribal or ethnic lines? He stood for elections following the disqualification of Alhaji Imoru Egala by then Supreme Military Council and won 62% of the popular vote in the second round of voting---a country predominantly Akan. And I have always maintained that Ghana is bigger than Akan and any ethnic group. The remaining six were elected from the Western, Eastern, the Brong Ahafo, Volta, Ashanti and the Central Regions. The sitting president John Mahama happens to be the fourth president of the Fourth Republic (which began in 1992) is from the Northern Region. So out of the many were one. We are a united country, albeit with different ethnic groupings but our strength lies in the diversity. Its a society known for its hospitability and close-knit. Meanwhile the NPP presidential candidate Nana Akufo Addo has condemned the comments by the Mr. Mahama, whereas Dr. Bawumia has replied president Mahama, saying he (Mr. Mahama) is not the kind of President Northerners are looking for. The NNP vice presidential candidate also said northerners had lost their dignity due to incompetence of Mahama-led administration. Dr. Bawumias comment also drew reaction from the spokesperson for the NDC campaign Joyce Bawa Mogtari. Madam Mogtari said the party (NDC) would not react to Dr. Bawumias comment that northerners must vote out the NDC to regain their lost dignity. But she quickly described Dr. Bawumias comment as baseless and needless. According to her Dr. Bawumia is desecrating the same brand his father supported. I think I will totally disregard what Dr. Bawumia said. Indeed his late father Alhaji Bawumia was the chairman of the council of elders of the party he wants to desecrate. His father was a stalwart of the party he wants to desecrate for power, she said. Huawei, diamond sponsor of AfricaCom, a three-day continental ICT exhibition in Cape Town, South Africa, has revealed its key focus areas to accelerate the proliferation of digital services on the African continent. Huawei's Southern Africa Region President, Li Peng said, This year, Huawei has demonstrated that it is best positioned to play a pivotal role in supporting digital transformation and development of ICT in Africa. Today, we see that behind a globally competitive connectivity is a strong, collaborative industry chain with high levels of technological convergence and industry integration Huawei looks forward to working closely with industries and academia in the continent to create a Better Connected Africa. Huawei consolidated its leadership position in the ICT industry, with its innovative solutions in the main pavilion, as well as in its demo and experience pavilion, exhibiting a wide range of solutions such as Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IOT), Smart Home, Cloud, Video, SDN/NFV, Safe City, etc. These are designed to help African telecom carriers and enterprises transform their network into an agile and flexible one, and to realise Operational Efficiency, Smart CAPEX and Business Transformation in the digital era. Huaweis IoT solutions, which are currently being launched by many carriers in Africa, will drive the digital transformation of carrier's broadband services by making the world of connected things a reality. Huaweis LTE-based Narrow Broadband IoT (NB-IoT) technology will enable telecom operators in the region to deliver ubiquitous, cellular IoT. This technology will spark new business opportunities in smart metering, smart parking, logistics tracking, and smart cities in Africa. A growing number of countries are now focusing on capitalizing on ICT technologies that better serve people, allow for more accurate and efficient decisions, and building a Digital Economy. Many countries have formulated their national ICT strategies and Huaweis focus is centered on building an open digital ecosystem with all industry partners in a wide range of activities such as ICT investment planning, top-level consulting, and ICT infrastructure prioritization in order to accelerate digital transformation within different African countries and industries, and promote thriving digital economies. The 68th Annual New Year School and Conference will open next year with a focus on e-agriculture. The School of Continuing and Distance Education (SCDE) of the College of Education, University of Ghana, which organizes the annual event, announced in Accra on Thursday that the theme for the conference will be Promoting National Development through Agricultural Modernization: The Role of ICT. At the launch of the 68th Annual New Year School and Conference in Accra, a Deputy Minister of Agriculture Dr. Ahmed Yahubu Alhassan, said Ghana cannot be left out of the agriculture revolution where the application of ICT to boost production and supply has become a major motivation. We can't use 19th Century tools in the 21st Century to deliver 21st Century lifestyles. We have to invest heavily in agriculture which is the future of sustainable development, he said. He said the government is working hard on ICT in agriculture where there is going to be what he called 'massive technology transfer' and added that as at the end of 2015, agriculture accounted for 20 percent of Ghana's GDP. Prof. Michael Tagoe, Dean, SCDE at the University of Ghana, said it was regrettable that all recent data available showed clearly that the agriculture sector was not performing. He said everybody is talking about a steady decline in the sector although the need to revolutionalize agriculture through the application of ICT was indentified in 2004. He said 12 years after the adoption of the strategy to deploy ICT in agriculture very few of the strategies have been realized, adding there is global attention on the modernization of agriculture and Ghana has to be part of the movement. According to Prof Tagoe, the School in 2014 decided to focus on Ghana's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) Policy and how ICT could be deployed and utilized to transform Ghana into an information-rich knowledge-based society. Although the policy has been in existence since 2004, the organizers of the Annual New Year School and Conference believe that the ICT4AD policy, has been relegated to the background and its mission and objectives appear have been neglected in national development approaches. He said in order to raise awareness about this policy, the Annual New Year School's themes have in the last three years focused on ICT and Education (2014), ICT and Governance (2015) and ICT and Health (2016). As we launch the 68th Annual New Year School and Conference, the organizers have identified agriculture as one of the critical sectors that can spur Ghana's accelerated development because of its links with industry. The agricultural sector is one of the important sectors in which ICTs could be deployed and utilized to support activities, including production, processing, marketing and distribution of agricultural products and services, he added. There is no doubt that the challenges facing agriculture could be addressed significantly by using ICTs, as ICT has been recognized as a key development enabler, he added. Recently, much attention has been paid to the ICT in agriculture under the rubric, e-agriculture by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and other international organizations. ICT in agriculture is about design, development and deployment of innovative ways of using ICT tools with the primary focus on agriculture in the rural development domain. By William Yaw Owusu Local manufacturers of cement have raised concerns about the recent docking of a Chinese vessel (MV GUO TOU 106) carrying a huge cement consignment at the Tema Port. According to Dr George Dawson-Ahmoah, Strategy & Corporate Affairs Manager of GHACEM, who is also chairman of the Cement Manufacturers Association of Ghana (CMAG), the country's authorities condone such activities at the Tema Port in order to bring players in the local cement industry on their knees. He said local manufacturers have on numerous occasions raised alarm about the cheap and often fake Chinese cement imports, which have gravely affected production at six production sites belonging to GHACEM, Diamond Cement, Savanna Diamond Cement and Western Diamond. It would be recalled that a Chinese cargo vessel, MV GUO TOU 106, carrying about 38,798 metric tonnes of goods, had been stopped from discharging cement at the Tema Port by the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) because the importer was unlicensed. The cargo on board the vessel was scrutinized by the security authorities at the port when declarations of the goods on official documents at Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority berthing meetings were reportedly detected to be inconsistent. Investigations by this paper revealed that documents used at the berthing meetings showed the vessel MV GUO TOU 106 arrived at the anchorage of the Tema Port on November 7, 2016 and declared steel products. However, on November 14, at the berthing meeting, the Chinese vessel said it was carrying cement and equipment, although the consignee was not licensed to engage in the business of cement importation. Commenting further, Dr Dawson-Ahmoah, who also doubles as the chairman of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Tema, said the rise in unauthorized cement importation showed the ascendancy of cement smuggling into the country, adding it was an attempt to destablise the operations of manufacturers. In spite of the huge taxes, we have been paying to government and the operational costs we incur, if such treatment is meted to us by the powers that be, then this is rather unfortunate. The incidents have taken a huge toll on the operations of manufacturers to the extent that some of them, notably Diamond Cement, have announced plans to lay off 500 workers by the end of this month. The association has therefore charged authorities at the country's ports to guard against the unbridled importation of cement in order to protect the industry. By Samuel Boadi [email protected] Irate workers of ARB Apex Bank Ghana Limited have indicated that the bank might collapse if care is not taken. Under the current MD, the bank appears to have been plagued by corruption, frivolous expenditure, fallen standards, nepotism, cronyism, fraud, vilification of staff and total disregard for bank's policies, the workers said in a petition to the Board Chairman of the bank. In the petition dated July 25th 2016, which was sighted by BUSINESS GUIDE, the workers explained that it's the concern of most staff that the bank might crumple under the second term of the MD. According to the petition, a number of issues have affected the bank within the last four years. There is lack of transparency in procurement procedures leading to high prices of goods and services to Apex and the RCBs; there is lack of transparency in human resource management practice, particularly in recruitment and internal filling of vacancies. In acquiring ATM switch procurement procedures were not followed. Purchase of the switch did not pass through the Procurement Committee. The MD single-handedly transacted the business, according to the petition. Protest Workers wore red arm bands at the headquarters of ARB Apex Bank located at Ridge in Accra yesterday to express their anger. Other workers of the bank across the country have reportedly been directed to wear red arm bands. Some of the workers, who spoke to BUSINESS GUIDE under condition of anonymity, explained that the red arm bands have become necessary to let stakeholders understand that the union workers of the bank are not happy about the events at the bank. They added that our red is sending a note of caution to all stakeholders that we will not to sit down for the worse thing to happen to our bank and the rural banks. In a statement issued to BUSINESS GUIDE, the ARB Apex Bank Workers Union, indicated that the fortunes of the bank have dwindled significantly due to what they termed disregard for the bank's L.I. in the extension of its Managing Director's tenure, as well as disrespect for the union and labour relationships. In addition, the union accused the board of bias and unprofessional handling issues highlighted in the union's petition. The first term of the MD, BUSINESS GUIDE gathered, is expected to come to an end in December 2016. The statement noted that the autocratic nature of the board chairman and his personal relationship with the MD which is affecting the governance of the bank and a split board that appointed the MD will affect the progress of the bank. We therefore demand a speedy process that will see to it that the board corrects the constitutional flaw in the second term appointment, the workers said in the statement. The union also demanded fair and independent investigation into the allegations leveled against the MD. By Melvin Tarlue As human beings, we have been blessed with an incredible nervous system that enables each individual to live a superior life than all biological life forms. Unlike analgesics, we experience pain, and we do everything within our power to terminate it. It is not human to do otherwise. I am aware that the above caption will engender vituperative attacks and name calling. The milder bunch will harmonize the following: there goes the Nkrumah hater again. However, I believe my open-minded readers will concur that disagreeing with somebody does not constitute hatred. Among these self-appointed ultra Nkrumahists, there is one particular attack dog whose position I think is even untenable, because he has all the time in the world to go through my archive on ghanaweb, yet chooses to be selective and completely miss the boat on what my central position espouses. To set the record once more, I need to stress here again that I dont hate Nkrumah. The fact is I used to worship at his shrine, and drink copiously from the fountain of Nkrumahism. For a person who grew up in Tema, where we have the highest concentration of the Nkrumah industries, you cannot help, but stand in awe of this man. This is where we had the erstwhile Black Star Line, Tema Food Complex Corporation, Tema Harbour, Tema Steel Works, Tema Shipyard & Drydock Corporation, Ghacem etc. Let me stop here before I run out of space. Of course, this goes beyond impressive, and veers into the realms of awe inspiring. As a child, it captured my imagination. I remember very well during the 1979 election, though I was very young you hardly forget a well-made jingle, and that of the PNP was one of the best it catalogued all the remarkable achievements of Nkrumah and tailed it off in a very sonorous voice with some of his iconic accomplishments Akosombo Dam and the Super Motorway a brain child of a dynamic party. You cannot help it, as a youngster, but to be enthralled by all these. And I must say I was lethal and aggressive in the defence of his success, but that is when you rationalise only through your visual cortex. On the other hand, I am a human being; I can feel and see pain light years away and, therefore, shy away from it in the interest of my physical health and psychological well-being. That is why I am no longer Nkrumahist, and it will be selfish not to spread the word. When Nkrumah came to power, the blue print of the evil and unworkable nature of communism, euphemistically referred to as socialism, had been laid adequately by the Russians. All the empirical evidence pointed to the fact that communism or socialism is a basket case of failure. The latest country to join that ignominious club is Venezuela. 70 years of Soviets communism proved the childishness and bankruptcy of that ideology beyond all reasonable doubt. Yet, the lily-livered progressives want to foist it on the rest of the world through lies, deception and underhand tactics. Russia, before the October Revolution, used to export grains from their abundantly rich grassland. However, when the Bolsheviks took over they could not even feed themselves and they died like flies. Unfortunately, the evil monster of socialism kills you slowly in a very drawn out painful death. As a result, and sadly, the Soviets lingered on for almost four decades before collapsing with a mighty clap of thunder that made the big bang sound like a Sunday picnic. Obviously, Nkrumah thought himself smarter and perhaps could do what Napoleon couldnt make good. He, therefore, embarked on his so called scientific socialism a hodgepodge of half-baked ideas, which was sustained by our voracious appetite to rid ourselves of the vestiges of colonialism. It was a complete catastrophe, but for those who judge success based on the use of their visual senses devoid of objectivity and subjectivity, Nkrumah was the best thing that happened to Ghana, which I beg to differ. Nkrumah after winning power in 1951 wanted to industrialise at a breakneck speed, and, of course, that requires lots of money. Then again, the countrys workforce was basically agrarian subsistence. The concept of taxation was very rudimentary. Majority of the population did not pay any tax at all. So, where was Nkrumah going to get his resources to finance his ambitious industrialisation projects? He could not hike up taxes on the multinational companies, because they could fold up and move their capital in a heartbeat. However, the cocoa farmers did not have that luxury; they were virtually sitting ducks. He, consequently, used them as his piggy bank for his industrialisation. To be fair, Nkrumah was not the originator of the single idea that will decimate the industry. On the other hand, if he was that smart, as his ridiculous PhD holders in Nkrumahism would like us to believe, he would have known that the self-immolation policy conceived by the post WWII bleeding heart socialist Atlee Labour government when they established the cocobod in 1947 was the death knell of the industry. But he was ordinary and shallow as any average thinker who could not evaluate or fathom the consequences of his actions few years down the political, sociological and economic maelstrom. All that he was interested in was building white elephants across the length and breadth of the country. As a result of his ravenous craving for cheap money for his now albatross projects, he continued with that regressive policy of the socialist Labour government. Perhaps, it is possible that he knew the consequences of that silly policy, but he rationalised that industrialisation will be the new engine that will power the Ghanaian economy. Therefore, he was willing to sacrifice the cocoa industry to build his showy projects that were not self-sustaining. Obviously, it did not turnout quite well. After years of heavy export tax on cocoa yielding hefty revenue for the government, Nkrumah just on the heels of 1954 election upped the ante. He announced that the government was going to pay half of the prevailing world market price to the farmers, which is literally 50% tax on their sweat. Let me make it very simple. Can you imagine if you are a farmer who produces just about ten bags of cocoa for the whole year, and the government out of its infinite wisdom decides to appropriate five bags out of your sweat, because it wants to industrialise. In effect, it became a disincentive to be a cocoa farmer the main export earner and profitable industry of the economy. Mind you, this is what happened in the Soviet Union that led to the death of 20 million and likewise 30 million in China based on the same flawed mentality. It was a regressive tax that hit mainly the poor farmers who scratch on two or three-acre land for their living. It is apparent that the farmers will rebel. There are two certainties in the world death and taxes. If we do not like the former it is most likely that we do not romanticise about the latter. Nobody likes paying taxes. Does the American revolution ring a bell? This is the basis of the rebellion in the Ashanti region, which has shaped our politics for the past 62 years. Yet, this preposterous group of people called Nkrumahist do not see the evil shadow that their god has caste over the landscape of Ghanaian politics for the past half century. All that they think about is the righteous rebellion of the people their god was grinding under wheels, and not his stupid policy that engendered it. The nationalisation of the marketing of the cocoa industry is what has destroyed Ghana. Those who cant see beyond their noses will spout spurious alibis as the reasons that pulled the rug from under the industry and the dwindling fortunes of the countrys economy. When Tetteh Quarshie brought the cocoa plant to Ghana in1876, because it was profitable to cultivate, nobody told hard working Ghanaian farmers to grow the plant. However, the farmers pursuing their own interest made Ghana the largest producer of the crop in the world before wrong government policies and mismanagement made us cede the position to the Ivorians. During the 1983 cocoa season, production plummeted to less than 200,000 metric tonnes from 557,000 at its peak in 1965 with a population of around 6 million. By 1983, our population was about 14 million. Think about it. The PhD academics in Nkrumahism will bulldoze their way to find every word available to counter in a desperate attempt to salvage a hopelessly leaking vessel. They will muddy the waters with the argument that it was the drought, bushfires and aging trees that destroyed the 1983 cocoa season, which marked the lowest ebb in cocoa production in the country. The question that these people will have to answer is this: why did the industry not recover after the rains came back and the bushfires were brought under control? In the 80s, the nation had roughly about 800,000 hectares under cocoa cultivation. Out of this, 60,000 were destroyed by bushfires, which is less than 8%. Besides, those who attribute the debacle to aging trees will have to remember that all the 800,000 hectares under cultivation were not planted the same year. In reality the industry should have bounced back the following year, but the underlying problem was very deep and sinister. When I was a child, at the height of cocoa smuggling in Ghana, I used to agonise bitterly why Ghanaian farmers will do that. Of course, I was a child and my brain power could not explain the reasons why. But I think answering such a modest question will put us in the right frame of mind. Why will a farmer after a whole years work of toil and sweat take his cocoa to a produce buying clerk who will cheat him through weighing and the little crumbs he gets he has to travel back and forth for his money. It was due to the shenanigans of the clerks that the Akuafo cheque was introduced, and that did not even stop the blatant arrogance of those nation wreckers. Some of them went to the extent of issuing bad cheques, which was the last straw for most of the farmers. The obvious biggest jigsaw that the Nkrumahists are refusing to acknowledge is that due to the continuation of Nkrumahs socialist policies farmers were discouraged to reseed their aging trees as a result of the activities of the produce buying clerks. Those who were badly burnt cut down their trees and planted something worthwhile. The courageous ones smuggle their produce to the neighbouring countries. In addition, the young, who were supposed to take over from their aging parents, abandoned the farms and joined the exodus to the cities, Europe and other industrialised nations. In my humble opinion the downfall of Ghana, which opened the door for monsters like Rawlings, is incontrovertible. The collapse of the cocoa industry in the 80s was the inevitable culmination of the evil socialist policies intensified under Nkrumah. The hallmark of dictatorship is enacting laws that are difficult to obey like taxing poor farmers 50% of their sweat. The rebellion of the Ashantis for separation fizzled out and the farmers adjusted to the high taxes. But how do you adjust to the criminal activities of the produce buying clerks? This is socialism for you; and we are paying the bitter price, which is not worth paying with the sort of resources and brain power we have. The road to hell is paved thick with good intentions. We have been practicing an economic ideology called socialism since independence, which is so beautiful and magical on paper. It has brought us nothing but pain, shame and humiliation. As human beings, we hate pain, shame and humiliation so why do we continue on this path and label those who have got brains to stop the pain as unpatriotic. And we put border patrols on them and hound them like dogs. Do we ever stop to ask the question why the farmer did not do that before but now? Has anybody ever ask the question whether they are lesser human beings than the Europeans or the Americans? What makes people think that we shouldnt be on par with the South Koreans, Malaysians and all the post WWII economic successes around the globe? How did we become the worlds leading producer of the crop? We couldnt be lazy other than that there is no way that achievement would have been possible. We are a hardworking people, but when the incentives change it changes peoples attitude. Socialism has mutated the attitude of Ghanaians, and for the bureaucrats the least said about them the better. That ideology has turned a promising country, at independence, into a beggary status. Most people, including very intelligent people, have erroneous impression that the government can make the people rich by building plants and factories without the requisite expertise and incentives. Even when the Russians wanted a modern car plant they did not do it themselves; they brought in a foreign expert. It was Henry Ford who went there to build them Russian owned 100,000 unit per-year automotive plant. When the Japanese were shocked by Commander Matthew Perry, they solicited the help of American and British finance and expertise, initially, to build their railway. The Akans have a very profound saying that advice does not change people, but tragedy. Most of the time as human beings we think ourselves of being smarter and we get our hands severely mutilated repeating the mistakes of those who came before. The Russians cannot be considered as fools; neither will Nkrumah be labelled as one. However, future generations will not forgive us and will ascribe the word fool to us if we dont stop this nonsense called socialism. The fact is first fool is not a fool. For those who even strangle themselves to uphold the name of Nkrumah think of him as one of the greatest thinkers of his era, but he was just an ordinary human being who could not learn from the mistake of others. Our current suffering is his legacy. Pure and simple. The earlier we abandon his policies the better it will be for us. And dont be scared about those Nkrumahist with childish and romantic vision about society. Philip Kobina Baidoo Jnr London [email protected] . The Mahama government is accused of effectively stealing $300 million from state coffers as they face their electoral fate in two weeks time at the December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections. Evidence seen by the Daily Statesman shows that already $120 million has been inappropriately taken out of state coffers for this questionable project, which insiders see as a mere cover for cash to fund the ruling partys electoral efforts. It is officially a contract for the improvement of Ghanas Security Infrastructure Request. That contract is valued at a huge US$297,475,628.00, which would be yet another big debt for a future government to struggle with after 2016. The contract is ostensibly for, as stated, various security equipment, surveillance systems, software and technical training The shipment date for the said goods is stated as November 30, 2016, with China, Dubai, South Africa, USA, UK and Hungary stated as countries of origin. A very concerned source at the Ministry of Interior disclosed, There is no basis for this contract, and we know that it would definitely be a prime case for criminal investigations if there is a change of government this year. It is reckless, heartless and totally irresponsible. The company behind this deal is Santa Baron Ventures Ltd, which was set up in the UK just seven months ago, on April 19, 2016 in West Molesey, Surrey, UK. The men behind it are a Ghanaian, Kwabena Boateng-Aidoo, and two Britons, Martin Wightman and Daniel Wealthyland. Sources at the Ministry of Finance suspect that the $120 million that has already been paid out for the project is actually to feed the electoral efforts of the incumbent president. In a frantic effort to fill the fiscal gap left by the drawn down, the Controller and Accountant General Department on November 10, 2016 authorized the Bank of Ghana to establish deferred payment letters of credit. The letter signed by Samuel Aryee, acting Deputy Controller & Accountant-General, and addressed to the Director of the Banking Department of BoG, reads: you are hereby authorized to establish deferred Letters of Credit to the tune of US$297,475,628.00 in favour of Messrs Santa Baron Ventures Limited On behalf of the Ministry of Interior in respect of contract agreement entered into with the above company for the improvement of Ghanas security infrastructure. A deferred payment letter of credit is one that is paid a fixed number of days after shipment or presentation of prescribed documents. It is used where a buyer and a seller have a close working relationship because, in effect, the seller is financing the purchase by allowing the buyer a grace period for payment. As to how a company set up just seven months ago, with characters of no known record in security matters, managed to win a contract valued at some GH1.2 billion equivalent and be considered as worthy of deferred letters of credit is puzzling to civil servants at the Ministry of Finance. The main faces fronting this deal are Prosper Bani, the Minister of Interior, and Seth Terkper, the Minister of Finance. But, there are said to be three main higher characters actually pushing the levers behind these two ministerial persons. Another letter dated November 3, 2016 and signed this time by Seth Terkper, authorizing the same deferred letters of credit, puts the maturity for the letters of credit at 2019, with six scheduled payments of some $50 million each from 2017. The amount should be charged to the 2017 budget of the Ministry of Interior, the Finance Minister instructs. A separate letter signed by James Agalga, Deputy Minister of Interior, dated September 23, 2016, gives some details: The major condition to be fulfilled on the part of the Principal to enable the General Contractor to deliver as expected, is for the Ministry of Finance to issue an irrevocable deferred letters of credit to cover the entire contract sum of Two Hundred and Ninety Seven Million Four Hundred and Seventy-Five Thousand Six Hundred and Twenty Eight Dollars (USD 297,475,628.00) which is to be spread over three years in six equal instalments, payable between the year 2017 to 2019 as part of the Ministry of Interiors Medium Term Expenditure Framework. In recognition of its distinguished services and significant contributions towards improving the lives of children with learning difficulties in Ghana, Special Attention Project (SAP) was named as one of the award winners at the 2016 Child 10 Award Ceremony and Summit. The Child 10 Award was founded by Sophie Stenbeck Family Foundation and Reach for Change to recognise visionary leaders of grassroots organisations working with innovative solutions to address urgent and pressing issues for vulnerable children globally. Margaretha Ubels, Project Coordinator of SAP, attended the Child 10 Award Summit from November 6-8 in Stockholm, Sweden and received the award on behalf of SAP. In all, 10 childrens rights organisations were recognised: Special Attention Project (SAP), Ghana; CAITH, Peru; Empire des Enfants, Senegal; Defence for Children, Sierra Leone; and Kaami Arts, Rwanda. Others were: Refunite, Denmark; Makini, Tanzania; ECPAT UK Youth Programme, UK; MLop Tapang, Cambodia; and Missing Children Europe, Belgium. The event offered the awardees an exceptional opportunity to share their best practices and to build on collective knowledge and experience to continue and scale their work for children. For more information on SAP, visit www.sapghana.com. Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville: We are concerned that two weeks after their detention, two Gambian journalists continue to be held incommunicado, with no access to family members or lawyers. Momodou Sabally, the head of the Gambia Radio and Television Services and Bakary Fatty, a reporter for the same organisation, have been arbitrarily detained by the National Intelligence Agency in Banjul since 8 November with no charges laid against them. Another journalist who was arrested on 10 November was freed after six days without any charges. A number of other people, including a magistrate, an opposition supporter and a former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, also remain in incommunicado detention. The latest detentions come as 30 members of the Gambias main opposition party are serving out three-year prison sentences following their participation in peaceful protests in mid-April. Incommunicado detention without charge is a clear violation of the Gambian constitution, which requires detainees to be brought before court within 72 hours, and of the countrys international human rights obligations. In the run up to the presidential elections of 1 December, it is particularly crucial that the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association are fully respected. The detention of journalists is likely to intimidate the media in general which is particularly damaging in an electoral context. We call on the Government to release all those who are being detained for their exercise of these rights. We are also deeply concerned about the continued failure of the authorities to investigate the deaths in custody of two members of the opposition, Ebrima Solo Krummah and opposition leader Solo Sandeng earlier this year. Most Rev. Palmer Buckle interacting with Air Marshall Samson Oje at his office The Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, Most Reverend Charles Gabriel Palmer Buckle has called on Ghanaians to desist from voting on tribal lines. He admonished Ghanaians to rather cast their ballot based on their conscience. Voting is a civic duty, and we must exercise it in a peaceful manner. The Archbishop of Accra made this remark when he paid a courtesy call on the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) last Friday at the Burma Camp in Accra. The two main political parties, the National Democratic Congress and the opposition New Patriotic Party, have been accused of engaging tribal politics. President John Mahama, a few days ago, told supporters in the Upper East Region that their best bet for president is a candidate from the north and he represents their interest better than the NPP who cannot and will not give a Northerner any opportunity to lead their party, let alone to become a president. President Mahama stated that the NDC is a party that gives opportunities to all and that he, from Bole, a small town in the Northern Region, has been given the opportunity to lead the NDC and the country, something that can never happen in the NPP. He chided the NPP, accusing the leadership of hounding the suspended chairman Paul Afoko because of his Northern descent. The man of God stressed the need for Ghanaian voters to vote according to their conscience to properly develop the country. Touching on the numerous prophesies by some men of God concerning the elections, Most Reverend Palmer Buckle, said prophesy is only true when it comes to past and that the only prophet Ghanaians must listen to is Jesus Christ. What we as men of God can do is to constantly pray for the country, and we Catholics constantly advise our members to always pray for politicians in this country. He noted that some Ghanaians always criticize GCBC for not wading into politics, adding that they sometimes call the politicians behind closed doors to reprimand them for their misconduct. We do this because when you reprimand one person or group in public, the other takes it as an added advantage to misbehave, so there is the need to do that individually and we shall continue to pray, educate, prevent and reprimand politicians behind closed doors. The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Marshall Samson Oje, on his part, urged Most Reverend Charles Gabriel Palmer Buckle and the other men of God to continue to pray for the country since some politicians have increased the political milieu in the country. He said the military would not tolerate any violent acts that would disturb the peace of the country. We would advise voters to go home immediately after casting their ballot and wait until the final results are out. He averred that the military would work hand in hand with the police to ensure peace, stressing that they also have a backup plan to boost security. By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey ([email protected]) A foreign woman was stranded at the Goa airport with the demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, with no ATM card or new currency notes to pay for her extra baggage. A Good Samaritan came forward to help the hapless woman, crying and begging for help. By India Today Web Desk: When prime minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 on November 8, people who were travelling that night got hit the most. After reaching their destinations, many people found it difficult to move about because the currency they had were declared unusable. In such an incident, a foreign woman was stranded at the Goa airport on November 10, with demonetised currency notes and not credit/debit cards with her to pay for extra baggage. Sanjay Yadav, political advisor to Deputy CM of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav as per his Facebook bio, was at the scene and offered to help the woman by paying for the extra baggage, a sum of Rs 1,600, using his card. Also read: In touching Facebook post, Kerala bank employee thanks villagers for cooperation on demonetisation advertisement As per a Facebook post he made the next day, the woman did not have the new Rs 2,000 notes or Rs 100 notes but just Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. In the post, he said, Indigo airlines ground staff denied to accept the old notes and the woman was reduced to tears. Yadav wrote that an unidentified "gentleman" came forward to help the woman and exchanged the demonetised currency notes she had with a new Rs 2,000 note. He also said that the Indigo staff were baffled again, this time wondering whether to accept the new note or not. They were surprised to see someone with the new currency note on November 10, the day banks opened to start exchanging old currency notes. Also read: India's chaiwalas and paanwalas go cashless, rock demonetisation with e-banking Yadav then wrote, "The reason for posting is that you can buy the tickets with 500/1000? denominations but u can't pay airlines for extra baggage. At least foreigners should have been spared from this [sic]," and ended his post saying, "Objective of demonetization is good and should be respected but not at the cost of discomfort to people. Before rolling it off govt could have checked the necessities & problems faced by common men & needy people [sic]." Here is Yadav's full post: --- ENDS --- The Vice Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has over the weekend donated 100 bags of cement to the Muslims at Odoben Zongo in the Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa (AOB) District of the Central Region. Dr Bawumia's donation was in fulfillment of a promise he made to them when he took his campaign tour into the region about a month ago. Making the donation on behalf of Dr Bawumia, the Parliamentary Candidate for AOB, Mr Anthony Effah stated that NPP was the only party that was ready to fulfill any promise they have made to Ghanaians and therefore appealed to them to vote massively for them in the upcoming election. Mr Effah hinted that plans were underway for the next NPP government to institute the Zongo Development Fund to help bridge the gap of poverty at the various Zongo communities. The Imam at Odoben Zongo, Abdul Mutalib thanked Dr Bawumia for the kind gesture and pray to Allah to grant him his heart desire of becoming the next vice president of Ghana. Abdul Mutalib underscored the need for Muslim youth not to allow themselves to be used by politicians to create tension and mayhem in the country in the upcoming election. He took the opportunity to pray for peace before, during and after the election. From Sarah Afful, Cape Coast Email:[email protected] Universal Merchant Bank (UMB) has received the Brand Leadership Award at the 6th Brand Excellence Awards organized by Premier Brands Ghana. The award is in recognition of the banks strategic rebranding, which has elevated it into a nationally recognized and competitive universal bank. UMB is a full-service financial institution specializing in customized banking products and services and recognized for its entrepreneurial approach, innovative use of technology, and distinctive banking solutions. Receiving the award on behalf of the bank, UMB Banks Director of Marketing and Communications, Ms. Yvonne Botchey, dedicated the award to the banks cherished customers and expressed her appreciation to the Board and Management of UMB for recognizing the strategic importance of the banks brand. The strength of the UMB Bank brand is largely due to the fact that we put our customers interests at the Centre of everything that we do. Ms. Botchey also noted that the execution of innovative brand communication campaigns and the banks investment in technology to modernize its operations and to enhance customer experience have also contributed to the success of the UMB Bank brand. In a related development, UMB Bank has been adjudged the Student Friendly Bank of the Year at the annual Ghana Tertiary Awards organized by Youth Web Ghana. This award recognizes UMB Banks tireless effort in building a strong relationship with the youth in Ghana, especially tertiary students. The award was presented by Mr. Richmond Amiga-Sarpong, Chief Executive Officer of Youth Web Ghana. The Chief Executive Officer of UMB Bank, Mr. John Awuah, who received the award on behalf of the bank, said that, We are humbled by this recognition and we are happy to see that our belief in the value of providing stellar financial services to the youth has been validated with this award. Mr. Awuah also stated that earlier this year, the bank inaugurated two new branches on the campuses of the University of Ghana and the University of Professionals Studies, Accra to bring the services of the bank closer to students. He noted that the University of Cape Coast and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology will also soon experience UMB Banks suit of products and services. We intend to reinforce our superiority in student banking by investing in technology that will provide cutting edge online and mobile banking services for our customers and especially for our student customers. Mr. Awuah concluded. The Francophonie Summit is the highest-level gathering of the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF) taking place on 26 and 27 November in the Madagascan capital, Antananarivo. The theme of the summit is Shared growth and responsible development: conditions for stability in the world and in the French-speaking area. President Johann N. Schneider-Ammann will be representing Switzerland at the summit, which takes place every two years. The president will then travel to Kuwait, where he has been invited to pay a state visit. The Francophonie Summit provides an opportunity for the Swiss delegation, led by President Schneider-Ammann, to meet with representatives of 80 states a third of UN member states to discuss Switzerlands foreign policy priorities. Among the items on the agenda at the Antananarivo summit is a resolution submitted jointly by Switzerland and Senegal on peace water and security. The Swiss Pavilion in the Village de la Francophonie is also dedicated to these themes. A further resolution submitted by Switzerland and a number of other partners concerns efforts to tackle radicalisation and violent extremism. The aim is to direct attention in the French-speaking world, which in the recent past has been subjected to numerous terrorist attacks, more towards prevention as well as counter measures. As part of the OIFs youth strategy, 20 young people including a young Swiss woman will be attending this years summit. Switzerland will contribute towards the implementation of the economic strategy adopted in Dakar in 2014 a strategy which aims to combine economic growth, the fight against poverty and inequality, environmental protection and the preservation of cultural heritage by participating in a number of vocational education and training projects. Switzerland has been a member of the OIF since 1996. On the fringes of the summit in Antananarivo, Mr Schneider-Ammann will hold bilateral talks with heads of state and government, particularly from African countries. Anniversary of diplomatic relations with Kuwait The president will then travel from Antananarivo to Kuwait. The invitation to pay a state visit forms part of an intensified series of diplomatic visits to commemorate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Kuwait which began in 1966. On Monday, 28 November, the president will hold talks with Kuwaits head of state, Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the prime minister, Sheikh Jaber AI-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah and foreign minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah. In addition to bilateral relations, discussions will also cover cooperation at international level, regional issues and the good offices of Switzerland and Kuwait. Furthermore, cooperation in the field of development cooperation should be expanded. A corresponding agreement between the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) and the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) was signed in August. Kuwait is also an interesting partner for Switzerland due to its efforts on behalf of regional stability. International issues such as the situation in Syria, Iraq and Yemen will be addressed. In terms of economic policy, an appraisal will be made of the free trade agreement between EFTA and the Gulf Cooperation Council covering Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which entered into force in 2014. Tourism will also be on the agenda as Switzerland is a popular destination for Kuwaitis with 94,000 overnight stays recorded in 2015. At the instance of MasterCard Foundation and the Association of African Universities (AAU), the Secretary General of the All Africa Students Union (AASU), H.E Awaah Fred, is in Dakar, Senegal to attend a Consultation on High Education in Africa scheduled from the 21st to 22nd November 2016. The meeting is being attended by key players including the World Bank Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Government of Senegal. The rest are the Universities of Pretoria and Cambridge amongst others. The participants are expected to discuss and map out the best way to work together in support of high education in Africa. H.E Minister Mary Teuw Niane, the Minister of High Education and Research, Senegal, will, officially, open the Consultation. The two main objectives of the meeting are to: Develop a common understanding of the priorities and approaches that should be adopted to improve the relevance and quality of high education in Africa; Develop a common understanding of how development partners can complement ongoing efforts, with a view to improving the relevance and quality of high education in Africa. While in Senegal, the AASU Secretary General could conduct consultation with the Senegalese students movement on the upcoming AASUs congress that will come off in Sudan later in the year. Richmond O. Neufville (Deputy Secretary General) Nsanje (Malawi) (AFP) - An HIV-positive Malawian man who said he slept with at least 100 girls and women in traditional cleansing rituals was to be sentenced Tuesday after being convicted of "engaging in harmful practices". Eric Aniva was prosecuted on the orders of President Peter Mutharika after publicly speaking about his role as a "hyena" in a BBC documentary. Custom in some parts of southern Malawi demands that a man, known as a "hyena", is paid to have sex with bereaved widows to exorcise evil spirits and to prevent other deaths occurring. At the request of a girl's parents, the "hyena" is also paid to have sex with adolescent girls to mark their passage to womanhood after their first menstruation. The ritual, which many Malawians say is rarely practised today, is believed to train girls to become good wives and protect them from disease or misfortune that could fall on their families. After an international outcry over the documentary, President Mutharika ordered Aniva's arrest in July. On Friday, in the first case of its kind, Aniva was found guilty on two counts by magistrate Innocent Nebi after a one-day trial in the district of Nsanje. The charges, under the gender equality act, involved the ritual of sex with widows as none of the younger girls would testify, according to reports. At the trial, in front of a packed courtroom, the state produced six witnesses against Aniva, 45, who pleaded not guilty. High HIV rates The magistrate said the court had concluded that "sexual cleansing violates the dignity of widows". State prosecutor Chiyembekezo Banda demanded a long prison sentence for Aniva, saying he was probably responsible for the spread of HIV. Malawi is one of the worst affected countries in the world, with 27,000 deaths from AIDS-related illnesses and nine percent of the adult population infected with HIV. Aniva faces a possible five-year jail term, according to the BBC. Michael Goba Chipeta, Aniva's defence lawyer, told the court his client should not be jailed. Chipeta appealed for Aniva to not be used as "a sacrificial lamb", saying "the publicity he has attracted is punishment enough". Before being led by police to his cell, Aniva told AFP: "I am not worried about being convicted. I think I will be given a suspended sentence." His second wife Sophia, who was in court on Friday, was in tears and declined to speak to the press. Aniva said he had slept with at least 104 women and girls, some as young as 12, in a ritual that lasts three days. He said each family paid him a fee of between $4 and $7. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Running Mate to Nana Akufo-Addo, has criticised President John Mahama for being insensitive to the plight of Ghanaians and Northerners who as a result of the hardships imposed on them by the government, are desperately calling for change. Dr. Bawumia made these comments on Monday at the NPP Upper East Regional Rally in Bolgatanga and are in response to comments made by President John Mahama a few days ago that he pities Northerners calling for change. Explaining that Northerners and Ghanaians are calling for change because they are suffering, Dr. Bawumia said with so much resources you have mismanaged the economy, the economy has exposed you and after that exposure, its time for election and then you come and say I am a Northerner, vote for me and I pity Northerners calling for change You should pity people who dont have a job, you should pity people who cannot afford healthcare because the National Health Insurance Scheme has collapsed, you should pity children who are going hungry because the School Feeding Programme is collapsing, you should feel pity for Senior High School children who are going hungry because they are not receiving feeding grants, he noted. Continuing, Dr. Bawumia outlined more segments of the Ghanaian population whose livelihoods have been adversely affected by the incompetence and mismanagement of the current John Mahama government and wondered how the President could be oblivious of all the hardships Ghanaians are going through and only choose to focus on his parochial interest. You should feel pity for people who cannot go to Teacher and Nursing Training Colleges because you have cancelled the Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances, you should feel pity for graduates who cannot find a job 6 years after graduation, feel pity for the cocoa farmers whose trees are dying, feel pity for fishermen who cannot afford fishing inputs because of their escalating prices, feel pity for those who cannot afford their electricity bills or school fees These are the people who want change and it shows the insensitivity of the President to have the audacity to say he pities Northerners who want Change. Northerners want change because they are suffering and it is not only Northerners, people in all the Regions all want change, he added. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia noted that Ghanaians have had enough of incompetent leadership and corruption and are now calling for visionary leadership leadership that can think far, a reference to another recent comment of the President that he (John Mahama) cant think far We dont want incompetent leaders, we dont want corrupt leaders, we dont want leaders who cannot think far, we want visionary leaders and there is no better leader at this point than Nana Akufo-Addo, he is the leader for the future, the leader of integrity, the leader of vision and the leader who is incorruptible, a leader we can all be proud of whether you are a Northerner or a Southerner, he stated. President John Mahama says he has directed the Youth and Employment Agency (YEA) to recruit 400,000 young people between 2017 and 2021. He said the recruits will help manage the Farmers Service Centres which are set to start operation next year. He made this statement when he addressed a rally at Pusiga as part of his campaign in the Upper East Region ahead of the elections in December. The Natioanal Democratic Congress (NDC) indicated in their 2016 manifesto that through the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), Farmers Service Centres would be established all over the country. According to the manifesto, the first 50 of these centres are ready to take off. The centres are set to provide farmers with mechanization support, agriculture extension advice, subsidized fertilizers, micro credit, and operate a buy-back scheme for the farmers produce. If in the course of the farming season you need a little money to support you, you go to your centre and say I want GH200, I have a funeral and I need it for itthey will give it to you, President John Mahama explained. The NDCs 2016 Presidential Candidate also urged farmers among the supporters he addressed to register and benefit from the initiative. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com Fellow countrymen, it is imperative we ignore the harsh tone of the honorable Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central, Mr. Kennedy Agyapong and concentrate on the merits of the issues he raised. After a careful evaluation of the MPs statements against the IGP, Mr. John Kudalor, every sentient creature who loathes crime will conclude that Mr. Agyapong did diddly wrong to warrant condemnation. The president of the Republic of Ghana, Mr. John Dramani Mahama and his cabinet members such as the minister of interior are enjoying their positions without fear because Ghana is stable and peaceful. I dont think Mr. Mahama and his cabinet members could sleep well if they were rulers of Somalia. Certainly, they are enjoying their powers because of Albert Venn (A. V) Diceys (1835-1922) minted theory known as rule of law. A. V Dicey provided three main explanations to the concept of rule of law. These were liberty, supremacy/certainty of the law and equality before the law. By liberty, Dicey meant the law must be the result but not the source of individuals behavior. Apparently, the law must guarantee certain freedoms such as association, religion and press as well as protecting basic fundamental human rights such as right to life and right to own a property. The supremacy of the law is necessary to safeguard the citizens from arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, panyarring (torture), intimidations, death threat and killings. By equality before the law, Dicey asserted that all individuals must be treated equally in accordance with the law. The framers of the 1992 constitution of Ghana adopted rule of law. Rule of law remained integral part of Ghanas constitutional discourse. In spite of the most touted rule of law, the brother of Al-Hajj Collins Dauda, the Minister of local government and rural development under Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, Naaba Abdulai reportedly said: we kill people every day (Source: peacefmonline.com, November 11, 2016). The IGP, BNI, and the national security see nothing wrong with the aforesaid ignoble statement by Naaba Abdulai. Rev. Isaac Owusu Bempah was recently invited by Ghana police for publicly claiming that he received some prophesies about evil people plotting to kill the main opposition leader, Nana Addo Danquah Akufu Addo. Why has the police refused to invite Naaba Abdulai? Are we saying Mr. Agyapong must commend IGP for selective justice? Apologizing to IGP for what? For heaven sake! Mr. Kudalor is IGP because of the law and the law must be enforced to the letter. The tone and modus operandi of the Assin central legislator were harsh, even so, the American moral psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg asserted that reasons to dilemma make moral maturity but not the response. This means that the reasons Mr Agyapong was harsh on the police chief must be raised above the public response to his modus operandi. Murder must not be entertained in Ghana. During the Montie 3 brouhaha, the security agencies, the BNI, the police and the national security saw nothing wrong with the guys sordid journalistic faux pas. The BNI even came to white-wash them. When the impartial Supreme Court found the montie 3 culpable of the law, Mr. Mahama was pressurized by members of his party to release them, which he eventually succumbed to by reducing the sentences of the three contemnors. Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be saved (Fredrick Douglass). Ghanaians must work hard to eschew the rising selective justice, political Jacobinism, chicanery, brinkmanship and panjandrum in our dear country. Why must the national peace council, religious leaders, traditional leaders and other well-meaning Ghanaians keep quiet while the security agencies pursue selective justice? Is that the meaning of rule of law? Serial murder is becoming a pattern in Ghana now. For instance, in December, 2013, a staff of Stanbic Bank, a strikingly beautiful Rosemond Nyampong was murdered in a cold blood. In March 2014, Fennec Okyere was murdered by unknown assailants. On May 23, 2015, Mr. Adams Mahama, the Upper East regional chairman of NPP was murdered. On February 9, 2016, the member of parliament of Abuakwa North constituency, Mr J.B Danquah Adu was murdered. On June 28, 2007, Mr. Rokko Frimpong, the deputy managing director of the Ghana Commercial Bank was murdered by unknown assailants. Any serious country will drag our security chiefs (IGP, BNI,) to parliament to furnish the national assembly on the stages of the above murder cases. We must dismantle the main scaffolding of Ghanaian society: hypocrisy and assist patriotic citizens like Mr. Agyapong to uphold the sacrosanctity of our laws. Ghana is on the verge of national suicide now and we must wake from our slumber before it is too late. People are dousing their fellow human beings with the deadly acid, parliament is not bothered, people issue death threat with impunity every now and then, an individual confessed of murdering people every day (Naaba Abdulai), albeit many serial murder pending cases and yet such person is not invited by the police for interrogation. Honorable Kennedy Agyapong must rather be commended. The IGP must resign for police officers who can do the job without fear or favor. IGP, deserves no apology. When President Rawlings government persecuted the ritual murderer and the chief of Abesim near Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana, in the early 1990s, ritual murder, which was hitherto rising at the then time, fizzled into a thin air. Let us catch just two murderers be it arm robbers or serial killers or acid douser and present them to the soldiers for their shooting training, this evil in our country would be nipped in the bud. IGP deserves no apology as he has failed to arrest Mr. Collins Daudas brother. Individuals who kill, sponsor people to kill, threaten to kill, or drenched their fellow human beings with acid must be given a dose of their own pills. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr asserted that Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere The police must avoid discriminatory tactics in the enforcement of the law. God bless our homeland Ghana and help us to resist oppressors rule. I know that I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing. (Socrates) Feedbacks must be directed to [email protected] Nana Yaw Osei (Padigo), USA The Graeter Accra Regional Organizer of the ruling National Democratic Congress Anthony Nukpenu has described as rubbish and trash the call by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) on President John Mahama to immediately apologize for making some comments deemed ethnocentric against the running mate of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. Were they (MFWA) in another world or just came to this country when NPP stalwarts like former finance and education minister Yaw Osafo-Marfo making tribal comments, what did they say, how about Dr Bawumia when he called the President Incompetent and corrupt Northern brother, where were they and now they have the guts to call on the president to apologize, he wont A statement released by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) described president Mahamas Comments as Ethnocentric, Divisive and Condemnable. The statement further stated that the MFWA considers the comments of President Mahama highly divisive and unfortunate adding that ss a leader of the country, President Mahama is expected to act in ways that will unite rather than condemns same in no uncertain divide the people of this country. However the Greater Accra NDC chief considered the statement released by the MFWA selective and one sided. He noted that the institution only comes up alive when they (MFWA) feel the ruling party has done something wrong. He recalled a statements that he said was made by the flag bearer of the NPP when he was on the campaign trail in Akropon, calling on the electorates in the Easttern Region to as it were vote for one of their own. Questioning if that statement did not qualify as tribal and ethnocentric? I am saying it here in Onua Fm studio that Prof Kofi Karikari and his cohorts are NPP folks, I challenge them to come out and deny, we know them, even Prof Karikari demonstrates his love for the NPP when he is teaching at Legon, can he deny, it is no more a secrete so they can go on to release such nonsense Anthony told Bright Kwesi Asempa. He maintained that President John Dramani Mahama will not render any apology and he will not be forced to do so. MTN Ghana CEO, Ebenezer Twum Asante has been named overall CEO of the Year in Africa's telecom industry at the recently held AfricaCom Awards. AfricaCom is the continents most prominent annual industry awards for the telecommunications and information technology sector, and Ghana dominated this year's awards. This top award to Eben Asante adds another feather to his cap, coming weeks after he was named CEO of the Year within the MTN Group. When he won the MTN Group top award, the accolades recognized his competence and strong leadership qualities, emotional intelligence, focus on the bigger picture, providing vision and strategy, demonstrates problem solving capability and delivers value. Asante was also lauded as person who drives culture and change, builds stakeholder relationships and achieves both financial and non-financial results. He is also an exceptional leader who understands self, is emotionally matured, shows humility and compassion, exemplifies ethics and integrity and communicates effectively," a statement from MTN said. The AfricaCom award was in recognition of consistent growth of MTN Ghana under his visionary leadership. Eben Asante is the first Ghanaian-born CEO of MTN Ghana, after serving two years as CEO for MTN Rwanda. He has overseen the healthy performance of MTN Ghana, including growing market share consistently even in the face of a market largely described as saturated. Recently, MTN Ghana subscriber base saw a 3 percent growth to over 18 million, shooting it total market share to almost 50 per cent, and mobile data market share to over 60 per cent. Eben Asante led MTN Ghana to acquire 4G LTE spectrum late last year at a whopping US$67.5million and invested an additional US$18million for initial deployment within just six months, making it the first telco to start 4G LTE services in Ghana. Under him, MTN is in the process of offloading shares to local investors to give Ghanaians a greater stake in a company that has enjoyed tremendous success in this country. Eben Asante told Adom News he is humbled by the laurels and he gives all the credit to his strong leadership team & the gallant staff of MTN Ghana, who make a difference each day. "I'm only there to serve, provide direction, vision and create great execution environment for the team to perform," he said. He said the awards "tells about our vision and digital strategy to focus on customers, people in the organisation - it also shows innovation is on course." The MTN Ghana Boss said he will continue to provide serviced-based leadership that should convince our customers the future can only be great. His staff say they love him for his famous principle called "the stretch", where he insists that good is not enough because excellence is within human reach. Meanwhile, Ghana's dominance at the AfricaCom awards was also marked by five other awards, including Tigo Ghana's two awards, notably the widely coveted Changing Lives Award for their Mobile Birth Registration project. Other wieners were Huawei, which scooped the prize for Delivering Excellence in Customer Experience and Most Significant LTE Development, the latter alongside Namibias MTC. Liquid Telecom picked Best Marketing Campaign for AfriCan and Mauritius Telecom had Best App for Africa with its Traffic Watch Mauritius. The judges most notable entry came from BRCK with their Kio Kit Digital Classroom in a Box which won Best Pan-African Initiative. There were over 100 entries with 13 overall winners. Adam Thompson from KNect365 TMT, the organisers, said this years awards saw an exceptional shortlist of entries. The judging panel were thoroughly impressed with the quality of entries and the range of industry projects carried out. These five accused ISIS members formed a group to unleash terror across the country. This ISIS module learnt to make bombs using matchstick heads. By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: The NIA special court in Delhi framed charges against five accused ISIS members on Monday. The ISIS terror module in question learnt to make bombs out of matchstick heads. This was discovered by NIA sleuths from one of the accused Akhlakur Rehman alias Akhlaq from whose mobile, the officials recovered an e-book on bomb making, titled "Bomb banane ka asan tariqa". advertisement The conspiracy took place in 2014-15 when the five accused formed a group to unleash terror in various parts of country. Mohammed Azeemushan, Mohammed Osama alias Adil (Peer), Mohammed Mehraj alias Monu and Akhlaq, are from Roorkie in Uttarakhand while the fifth accused, Mohsin Ibrahim Sayyed, is a resident of Malad West, Mumbai. ALSO READ | ISIS plans to attack India through its bases in Bangladesh and Pakistan ALSO READ | Confessions of ISIS' Indian lone wolf Mohammad Masiuddin THE CASE All five were charged by the NIA for forming a terror module, with the accused owing allegiance to ISIS. With instructions from Syria-based Indian handler Shafi Armar, the module conspired and planned to carry out a terrorist act by assembling and planting IEDs to strike terror across the country. Reading the e-book thoroughly, the module learnt how to assemble IED using the explosive material extracted from match sticks. Following instructions from the terror literature, the module purchased match boxes in bulk and extracted the matchstick heads. These explosives were later recovered from the possession of accused Azeemushan. According to NIA chargesheet, the accused also held several meetings at Lucknow and Deoband to conspire with other radicalised youth, who are also under investigation. The case has been listed for prosecution evidence on December 16 and 16. The case was registered by Delhi Police Special Cell in January, this year. The NIA took over the investigation in March, after an order from the Ministry of Home Affairs. Also Read: Terror alert: US embassy warns Americans in India of possible ISIS attacks --- ENDS --- The International Cooperation, Trade and Security cluster chaired by Minister Edna Molewa will brief media on the progress made in the implementation of the clusters Programme of Action (PoA) towards achieving the goals of the NDP: Vision 2030. The briefing follows the pronouncement that Cabinet has since been updated on the progress reports for the second quarter (July to September 2016), on the implementation of the Outcomes, which defines governments PoA in the current phase of the Medium Term Strategic Framework 2014 2019. The briefing will outline progress that has been made and future plans to achieve Vision 2030. MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA ARE INVITED AS FOLLOWS: Date: 24 November 2016 Venue: Imbizo Media Centre, Ground Floor, 120 Plein Street, Parliament Time: 08h30 NB: There will be a video link to GCIS Media Centre, Tshedimosetso House, 1035 Francis Baard Street, Pretoria Kindly confirm attendance by e-mail to: Andile Duka (Cape Town) E-mail: [email protected] Cell: 071 154 5619 Themba Thobela (Pretoria) E-mail: [email protected] Cell: 076 0956 555 Dear Fellow Ahantas, I write to you to you with much love from the Volta Region, precisely Peki, along the eastern corridor stretch. I must admit and say that the best thing that has ever happened to me as a human being is the fact that I am an Ahanta. Ever since I found my value and worth as an Ahanta, I have carried the pride of Ahanta along in everything I do as a Ghanaian . As a young police officer who has been stationed here for the past 7 years, I understand the value of peace hence this my long love letter to you. This is not the first time Ghana will be going to polls. It's rather the seventh time but we still have risen political tensions in the country any time Ghanaians are about to vote and this year seems worst. What we should know is that life is not all about politics but a blend of many other things that make life meaningful one. Throughout the world, politics has not been able to solve all human problems. In some cases, it has even aggravated the situation and made the life of the people more miserable. In 2009, I was nearly killed during one of peace operations and again in 2008 too I remember how I was nearly killed at a polling station during the elections just because somebody wanted power at all cost. These near deaths experiences have increased my love for my motherland Ghana in general and that of Ahantaman in particular as well as the value of peace and stability. The peace and stability of Ghana and Ahantaman should be a concern for all Ahantas irrespective of political colours and designs. The last time I was in Takoradi, I must say that I was really impressed with what I saw as an Ahanta. I saw a lot of youths deeply involved in the various political campaign electioneering processes. Agona Nkwanta and its environs were stuck with parliamentary candidates debates and that should be commended. From Esikadu to Akwidae and Cape Three Points, the political atmosphere was very charged and I was glad that my people are rising in their numbers to fill political spaces in the Western Region particular and Ghana in general. Kudos to all young ones who are routing for the victory of their respective presidential and parliamentary candidates. Come December 7, 2016, the whole nation will go to the polls to elect president and parliamentarians and for that matter we the Ahantas cannot afford to miss out in this crucial democratic process. There is however, a little caution here and that is the protection of peace and stability of the Ghana and Ahantaland. Like I said already, life is not all about politics so we should exercise much caution in this electioneering processes and campaigns. Life must go on after the elections over and our daily activities should return to normal. We must come from this election more united as one people more than ever without a hitch. The overall interest of Ghana in general and that of Ahantaman in particular should supersede any political interest. In my candid opinion, partisan politics has failed the Ahanta people and for that matter we should seek news ways of bettering our lives with little concentration on divisive party politics which is disintegrating the Ahanta people further. We should look around us as country and people and not to forget that not quite long in Cote D'Ivoire electoral violence erupted in the country displacing many of them. Many of them crossed the border to Ghana despite the language barrier and tried to make a living. The last time I spoke to one of them, he expressed his interest not to return to his home country amid tears because he lost everything. When a country is plunged into chaos due to personal political interests of certain individuals, it's children and women who suffer most. Even after the war is over, some of them are not ready to go back because they have lost everything with exception of their breath. I can't imagine same happening to our dear motherland Ghana and for that matter my beloved Ahantaman. It is in line with this that I call for moderacy in our political activities in the build up to December 7. Even if we have not seen, we have heard what power struggles did to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and very recently Cote D'Ivoire. In the case of most of these countries, the very political leaders who plunged their countries into political conflicts flee their home countries to other countries as they watched their countries burn from there. The majority of youths who wake up at dawn for health walk and are involved deeply in political activities should make sure that they are not used against their fellow Ahantas and other tribes settling on our land. Very recently in Accra and Koforidua, some political parties going on just a health walk suddenly turned into violence. Guns were fired, stones were hurled at one another and bottles were broken in attempt to kill one another. This should tell us that coming events cast their shadows so this is the time Ahantas must exercise a lot of restrains to intolerance behaviours of others. Ahantas are generally peace loving and very tolerant people and that is what is expected to be maintained during this time that a lot of intemperate languages are making waves on our airwaves. Close all your ears to political nonsense and increase the barometer of your patience levels. This is the time to choose our words carefully just as Kofi Annan once said "words soothe and words inflame". I am very confident that Ghana will sail through without a hitch but that will only happen if we demonstrate our commitment to the peace and stability of Ghana and Ahantaman. The elections are just a forward match for all Ahanta people and we should all peacefully get along. Yours truly, Ahanta Apemenyimheneba Kwofie III [email protected] #Ahantadiaries_2016_11_22 WITH LESS than fifteen days to the crucial Parliamentary and Presidential elections, members of the opposition New Patriotic Party across the world are leaving no stone unturned, in their quest to wrestle political power from the ruling National Democratic Congress. And, knowing very well the importance of their polling agents in realizing their victory, the Bouake Fun Club of the NPP, in La Cote D'Iviore, have donated 150 bags of rice and 20 gallons of cooking oil at a cost of GH5000, to the Ashanti regional party office, to aid in the party's preparations in the various polling stations. Lead by Abraham Amoako, chairman of the group, they believe such donations are vital in 'protecting' victory and verdict of the good people of Ghana, because "it is when we fail to adequately cater for out agents that the NDC can think of bribing them...this happened during the 2012 elections but not this time." According to Mr Amoako, the gesture forms part of efforts to ensure that the party is ready and adequately resourced for victory because the party stands a greater chance of winning this year's elections than ever, considering the historic hardships created by President Mahama and his incompetent NDC government. "Let me assure all of us here that this time we are poised. We have learnt our lessons in a bitter way and we will resist any move by them to even think of using the state security to intimidate our people or rig this election," the group chairman assured. According to the NPP group, they were moved by the belief that this year's elections were theirs for the taken and the only way they could do this in their own small way is the little donation to facilitate movement. According to the NPP group, with the demand of Ghanaians for the return of NPP to power, it places a duty on the party to re-group and strengthen its outreach programmes, to enable the NPP wrestle political power from the NDC in 2016. We have a battle to fight and Ghanaians are waiting for us to rescue them in 2016. We are sitting on a time bomb, and as we want to win power, we need to combine all our resources in order to win the elections, they said. Coordinator for the NPP Cote D'Ivoire, Mama China, believed Ghana stands at the brink of collapse, should there is a mistake by voters to vote to retain the government, charging the youth of the country to rise up and defend the nation from the hands of this corrupt NDC administration. Receiving the donation on behalf of the party at the regional office, Stephen Amoah 'Sticker', was grateful for the gesture, and assure that whatever donations made to the party will be put to use to benefit the entire members of the party. He also urged them to spread the party's message of change and hope to the Ghanaian community over there, so they would all come and vote for the return of the NPP to the corridors of power, to put in place the best programmes and policies for the forward march of Ghana. Scores of angry youth domiciled at Labadi in the Greater Accra Region, poured out onto the streets on Tuesday morning to demonstrate against the Military. The youth, who call themselves the Coalition of La Youth Association, are accusing the military of forcefully taking over some of their lands. Clad in red, the youth, some of whom held placards with messages to express their grievances, marched through some streets in the area amidst chanting. Jeffery Tetteh, Secretary of the Association, told Citi News the military had gone beyond the boundaries of the lands given to them, and is now attempting to take over more lands in the area. The military is trying to take over our properties in La. They've gone beyond the lands we gave to them, he said. He said previous meetings with the military to express their frustration at the development, have not yielded positive results. He further called on government to intervene and help them save their lands from further encroachment. The group last month at a press conference, accused government of failing to take measures to address their concerns. They accused the military of arbitrarily destroying their farmlands without providing compensation. Gov't hasn't done enough to protect lands The Chairman of the Association, Augustine Nii Amoanai, earlier said President Mahama could have intervened and addressed their grievances. A word from our President and Commander in Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, would have brought some order and sanity to bear in this unruly behavior of the military, he said. He warned that the action by the military threatens their very existence as a people. This is exactly what the government is perpetuating on our lands, adding that we are more than convinced that at this moment, the government and its apparatchiks are bent on destroying the culture of our land. By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana, Photos: Marian Ansah Follow @jnyabor The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) is demanding the Ghana Police Service provides concrete measures to forestall violence in the upcoming elections, with exactly two weeks to go to the polls. The party has written a letter to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), cataloguing a list of incidences of violence and intimidation they say were unlawfully perpetuated against their officials and members all over the country by NDC activists. Also in the letter is the alleged assault of NPP members in Asunafo South and North in the Brong Ahafo region, allegedly by the brother of the Local Government Minister, Alhaji Collins Dauda. Further, the Party spoke highlighted the recent violence in front of the NPP presidential candidates residence at Nima claiming the police has failed to act on these complaints to them. "The use of unqualified recruits and the rapid scaling up of the recruitment process raises concerns for us about transparency in how these individuals were recruited, and their capacity to provide full and equal protection to all Ghanaians on Election Day. "Finally, we remain concerned about the threats made by your office to restrict the use of SOCIAL MEDIA and SMS communications on Election Day," the statement said. The NPP believes along with other stakeholders that the free use of social media, which the IGP has said time and again to block and other forms of communication are "critical to providing transparency and credibility to the election process." "By allowing for independent reporting of incidents of violence and intimidation, as well as independent verification of results as tabulated and certified at individual polling stations," the party said. Below is the statement Dear Sir, IN THE MATTER OF PEACEFUL ELECTION ACTIVITIES BEFORE DURING AND AFTER THE ELECTION AND IN THE MATTER OF PROMPT AND OBJECTIVE ENFORCEMENT OF PEACE AND SECURITY BY THE GHANA POLICE SERVICE We write this formal letter as a follow up of the NPP delegations meeting with your good self as the IGP in the company of Senior Officers on Tuesday, October 18, 2016, on the above subject matter. Sir, you would recall that we referred to and emphasized several complaints of incidents of violence and intimidation unlawfully perpetuated against officials and members of the New Patriotic Party all over the country by NDC activists. As we discussed at length and in details with your good self, the party officers and our members in the various regions have made several complaints and appeals over the intimidation and the violence but regrettably we are yet to see concrete measures put in place to deal with, address or forestall further occurrences of such incidents of intimidation or violence. We are therefore formally appealing to you and your good office, once more, to renew your efforts to enforce the peace, to ensure that all Ghanaians feel free of harassment and intimidation in these final weeks before Election Day on December 7, 2016. All Ghanaians must feel assured of the protection of the Police as they go about their peaceful election activities, whether it is registration to vote, advocating for their candidate on a house-to-house campaign, or going to the polls on December 7th. Acts of violence or intimidation are a threat to the credibility of the Electoral process. Listed below in no particular order is evidential antecedence of the aforementioned complaints: On July 6, 2015, during the Talensi by-election, thugs in the employ of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), known as the Azorka Boys, attacked then- National Vice Chairman of the NPP, Freddie Blay, National Treasurer, Kwabena Abankwa-Yeboah, former Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Rashid Bawa and other NPP officials without provocation. A complaint was lodged at the time at the Bolgatanga Police Station, but there has still not been any response from the Ghana Police Service except that the Upper East Police Command accused the NPP leadership of exaggerating these attacks. All the affected NPP officials received medical treatment for their injuries. Mr Abankwa-Yeboah and Mr. Bawa were the biggest casualties of the NDC attacks. Incidents such as this one erode the partys confidence in the ability and will of the Ghana Police Service to provide us with EQUAL PROTECTION from intimidation and violence. On May 8 th , 2016 during the limited registration exercise in the Volta Region, the NPP Regional Chairman, John Peter Amewu was assaulted by men in Police uniform at Metsrikasa. The men in uniform were preparing to carry registration equipment on a vehicle toward a town on the Togo boarder which had not been designated in the original registration movement plan. Mr. Amewu was assaulted for using his android phone to capture pictorial evidence of the scenario. We lodged a complaint at the Regional Police Headquarters in Ho but up till now, the Regional Police Command has not informed us of any results of their investigations. , 2016 during the limited registration exercise in the Volta Region, the NPP Regional Chairman, John Peter Amewu was assaulted by men in Police uniform at Metsrikasa. The men in uniform were preparing to carry registration equipment on a vehicle toward a town on the Togo boarder which had not been designated in the original registration movement plan. Mr. Amewu was assaulted for using his android phone to capture pictorial evidence of the scenario. We lodged a complaint at the Regional Police Headquarters in Ho but up till now, the Regional Police Command has not informed us of any results of their investigations. On October 11, 2016, 35 NPP women supporters, known as Loyal Ladies, were brutally assaulted by identified NDC thugs while conducting a house-to-house campaign in Suhum, Eastern Region. The women sought refuge at the Suhum chiefs palace but the thugs chased them there and attacked them along with some chiefs involved in preparations for the towns Odwira Festival. Although the women reported the incident to local police, no arrests were made. On October 12, 2016, two Deputy NPP National Youth Organizers, Salam Mustapha and Dominic Eduah, were this time assaulted by uniformed police personnel at the CID Headquarters while the NPP Officers had tried to secure bail for the president-elect of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), Luqman Abubakar, who himself had sustained beatings by NDC youth supporters prior to his arrest and detention the previous day. Driver of Dr Hannah Bissiw, a Deputy Minister, allegedly caused the abduction of a team of NPP medical personnel in the Brong Ahafo Region who were on a medical outreach programme and took them to Dr Bissiws house where they were manhandled before been released. A complaint was launched and so far there has been no action taken against the people involved in the abduction. In the Asunafo North and South constituencies of the Brong Ahafo Region, Abduallai Mohammed, popularly known as Naabu, a brother of the Local Government Minister, Alhaji Collins Dauda, led macho men to beat up NPP agents who were protesting the registration of minors and foreigners, in the full glare of the police, however, no police action has been taken. According to eyewitness reports in Banda, during the limited registration period, a car full of NDC activists and their hired macho men went from one registration centre to another visiting mayhem on NPP agents and at times disrupting the registration process. No police action was taken. On the 19 th of September 2016, an NPP activist had his finger chopped off in Asunafo South by NDC thugs on the rampage; Police Personnel fled the scene and have not conducted any police investigations over the matter since. of September 2016, an NPP activist had his finger chopped off in Asunafo South by NDC thugs on the rampage; Police Personnel fled the scene and have not conducted any police investigations over the matter since. On the 2 nd of October 2016, NDC macho men attacked NPP supporters who were campaigning peacefully in Enyan Main in the Ajumako Enyan Essiam Constituency of the Central Region. Three people received severe knife wounds. The matter has not been investigated. of October 2016, NDC macho men attacked NPP supporters who were campaigning peacefully in Enyan Main in the Ajumako Enyan Essiam Constituency of the Central Region. Three people received severe knife wounds. The matter has not been investigated. On 16 th September 2016, machete-wielding NDC members inflicted wounds on an NPP activist in Kukuom in the Asunafo South District of the Brong Ahafo Region and nothing has been done about it although a complaint was lodged with the Police. September 2016, machete-wielding NDC members inflicted wounds on an NPP activist in Kukuom in the Asunafo South District of the Brong Ahafo Region and nothing has been done about it although a complaint was lodged with the Police. Sir, On Sunday, the 13th of November 2016, NDC activists numbering over 3,000 who claimed they were going on a health walk at the Nima Police Station junction attempted, without any provocation, to force their way into the residence of the NPPs Flag bearer. We have reliably gathered that a number of them threw stones, bottles, and other forms of missiles into the house, across the wall. Paintings, pictures, banners, etc on the wall were vandalized and in some cases removed by these marauding activists. Although the few personal security personnel at Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addos gate resisted their attempt to enter the premises of our Presidential Candidate, this development is alarming and a great cause for concern to us in the NPP. We have reasons to believe that this is not an isolated incident. We believe it is an orchestrated and carefully planned attack either to harm, intimidate or provoke unnecessary tension in the country going into the December elections. The implication of this development is most alarming. The Police, we are informed, took over one hour or two, to even make a belated presence although the Nima Police Station is a two-minute walk from our Flag bearers residence. In the above-cited instances, we are asking for your investigations and the necessary and prompt actions taken, according to the law. In addition to the above-mentioned incidents of violence, we would like to express concern about the Ghana Police Services announcement of plans to use new police recruits, who are not yet fully qualified, to monitor polling stations and otherwise maintain law and order during the December 7 elections. The use of unqualified recruits and the rapid scaling up of the recruitment process raises concerns for us about transparency in how these individuals were recruited, and their capacity to provide full and equal protection to all Ghanaians on Election Day. Finally, we remain concerned about the threats made by your office to restrict the use of SOCIAL MEDIA and SMS communications on Election Day. Along with other stakeholders, the NPP believes that the free use of SOCIAL MEDIA and other forms of communication are critical to providing transparency and credibility to the election process, by allowing for independent reporting of incidents of violence and intimidation, as well as independent verification of results as tabulated and certified at individual polling stations. We call on you to demonstrate that you and your men can protect, even-handedly, all Ghanaians without prejudice or favouritism. We are convinced the police to have a critical role to play in ensuring that intimidation and threats of violence will not mar public confidence in the electoral process. In this critical period, with less than 22 days left until Election Day, the impartial and untainted professionalism of the Ghana Police Service is needed and is more important than ever. We wish to assure you that, as a party, we want and would like to continue to restrain our people and encourage them to resort to the proper channels in seeking protection but this must be met with the appropriate responses from the Ghana Police Service and such responses must be in good time to avert any overspill of emotions. We believe that justice, is a necessary precursor to peace and that in the interest of peace, the Ghana Police Service must pursue all the reported cases with the aim of bringing justice to our numerous party members who have been brutalized, assaulted and intimidated. We need not to overemphasise that it is your DUTY to the country to ensure that all the perpetrators are brought to book. We consider it, our responsibility, to put it on record that we have, once more, drawn your attention to the content of this document. We are, by copies of this document, drawing the attention of the relevant international organizations as well as our development partners to the issues raised. Thank you. Best regards, FREDDIE BLAY NATIONAL CHAIRMAN (AG.) Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com A renowned Moslem Scholar, Professor Emeritus Lukeman Mohammed, has described as very insulting and denigrating of Muslims and others who live in Zongos, the promise to develop a Zongo Development Fund to raise the image of such communities. Professor Mohammed, a senior Lecturer at the City University of New York, said politicians should cease looking down on the intelligence of people of the Northern origin who live in such deprived communities with vague promises. He was contributing to a forum during the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah's encounter with Professionals. I find this statement very discriminatory. I find this statement as being called special. Let us treat Zongo people just as we do to all Ghanaians. That Zongo Development Fund in our sense is not doable. I heard some lies over there but please let us not treat Zongo people that way, the scholar said. Ghanas largest opposition party has been parading a series of promises to the Zongo community, particularly, referring to the choice of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia as running mate as a key example of its commitment. But Prof. Mohammed believes Dr Bawumia, a Muslim, has failed to protect the dignity of Muslims by speaking against the import of Nana Addos campaign team. The NPP and the NDC have been debating each other over policies and previous actions by their governments to promote the interest of Muslims and Zongo communities by extension. The NDC said its governments have demonstrated real commitment in helping Muslims. President Mahamas government has built the only Islamic College of Education in West Africa at Wenchi which will help Train Islamic teachers in Arabic. The NDC saw the creation of the Islamic Education Unit. The NDC government under Jerry Rawlings passed a law creating two holidays to commemorate holy days on the Islamic calendar. The NDC has promised to pass a policy that will make Arabic examinable in schools. Prof. Mohammeds strong objection amplifies the position of the silent majority who have read in between the lines. Zongos are areas populated predominantly by settlers from Northern Sahel areas. Many of the settlers there are a few who remained and grouped in those deprived areas to resettle after their parents properties were seized under the Aliens Compliance Order. The Presidential Candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, has said he want Ghanaians to reject incumbent President John Mahama on December 7th not because he hails from the north, but because he is a poor leader. My quarrel with President Mahama is not because he is a northerner. I don't care where anybody comes from. My quarrel with him is that he is a poor leader of a country that has great opportunity and potential. We have a poor leader in John Dramani Mahama, and that is why I am agitating for change, he said. Nana Addo made the comment while speaking at the NPP's Upper East Regional rally in Bolgatanga on Monday. The NPP Flagbearer made the comment in response to claims by President Mahama that the NPP won't allow Akufo-Addo's running mate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia the opportunity to be president because he hails from Northern Ghana. Instead of being a figure to bring all of us together, he wants to set North against South, he wants to set tribe against tribe. That should not be the task of a Ghanaian leader. A Ghanaian leader should try and bring all the people of Ghana together as one, whether they are Mamprusis, Dagombas, Gonjas, Frafras, Kusasis, Grushis, Walas, Dagartis, Ashantis, Akuapems, Akyems, Kwahus, Fantes, Ahantas, Nzemas, Ewes or Gas. We are all one people, and our leaders should ensure that the coherence amongst us is maintained, he added. The NPP flagbearer, thus urged all Ghanaians, to turn our backs on tribal language, and turn our backs on the politics of reaction and the politics of yesterday. Let us look forward, look forward to that bright future, which is our lot as Ghanaians, and fulfill our destiny as the Black Star of Africa. Apologize for tribal comments Meanwhile President John Mahama has been asked by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) to apologize for making the comments which has been deemed ethnocentric. The MFWA therefore calls on the President to publicly apologize for his comments, a statement from the Foundation stated. -Citifmonline Following the clashes between supporters of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), on Sunday morning at Koforidua Effiduase, both parties have issued separate statements, condemning the act. The Member of Parliament for the New Juaben North Constituency, Nana Adjei Boateng, in an interview with Citi News, said, the New Juaben North Constituency has never experienced anything of this nature before in the history of politics in the constituency, we have held several floats and health walks in the constituency and we have never recorded any violence. Mr. Boateng was also shocked at the behavior of the police during the clash. The police personnel who were with us fled from the scene in seconds when the clash ensued, we were kept hostage for more than one and half hours, several calls I personally made to the Regional commander proved futile so I had to call the military command in Accra for them to inform their guys in the region to come to our aid before the police came. He called on the police not to be biased and begin a thorough investigation into the incident The police should not cover up or shield anybody, we believe in them and want them to arrest the perpetrators and let the law take its course. Haruna Appau Wiredu, the NDC parliamentary candidate, who also condemned the incident, said it is reckless and uncalled for, such things should not be encouraged in our community. The victims who were sent to the St. Joseph and SDA Hospitals, have been treated and discharged, however residents in the constituency still harbour fears should both parties be allowed to organize such walks again. The Regional police command met with the leadership of both parties and has come to a consensus on specific days each party can hold a health walk. ASP Yaw Nketiah Yeboah, the Eastern Regional Police Public Relations Officer, explained that the decision was reached after the meeting with the political parties saying, we have agreed with the parties to have a rotational health walk, the NPP will have their walk coming Saturday and the NDC will embark on their walk on Sunday. The following week the NDC will go for the walk on Saturday and the NPP will follow on Sunday Although the police is yet to arrest anyone as has happened in many of such political violence, ASP Nketiah called for calm to prevail, and called on residents to trust the police to bring the culprits to book. He said, investigations are ongoing and we will make sure those who were involved are put behind bars. We want the leaders of the walk to help in our investigations by pointing the culprits out because they were with them and they know them ASP Yaw Nketiah Yeboah also cautioned the residents to be of good behaviour and put a stop to the clashes or the police will either cancel the health walks or impose a curfew on them if the clashes continue. By: Neil Nii Amatey Kanarku/citifmonline.com/Ghana 22.11.2016 LISTEN You may call me an alarmist and a pessimist but that would not prevent me from echoing out God's decree to me to warn the children of Ghana of the impending danger soon to engulf our country. The people are singing peace, laughing peace, eating peace, praying peace, playing peace matches and multiplying peace before, during and after the December 7 elections but the Bible says otherwise. I Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 3 warns: "While people are saying "THERE IS PEACE AND SECURITY, THEN SUDDEN DESTRUCTION WILL COME UPON THEM AS LABOUR PAINS COME UPON A PREGNANT WOMAN - AND THEY WILL NOT ESCAPE" So how could one person stand out boldly to castigate peace when the rest of the people are so much involved in calling for peace before, during and after the December, 7th election? Isn't the voice of the people the voice of God? Where does God stand in our quest for peace in Ghana? Is God really concerned with Ghana's electoral process? Where are the big and the influential prophets, pastors, reverends when God has chosen an ordinary man like me to oppose the status quo? The Bible is replete with examples of God picking the weak and base things to confound the mighty in the flesh. Jeremiah, often called the "weeping prophet" stood out to prophesy of the doom the kingdom of Judah faced in 627 BC when King Josiah reigned. At the time that all the known big prophets "preached peace" that King Nebuchadnezzar and his army will not come against Judah, God put his truth in Jeremiah to inform King Josiah that the Babylonian army will conquer Judah and Jerusalem and carry the inhabitants into captivity. It did happen in 586 BC when Jerusalem was destroyed totally. All the "good prophets" prophesied favourable news to King Josiah and they were rewarded. Jeremiah was even slapped by one of the prophets and later imprisoned by King Josiah. But it came to pass that God's word became the truth. God won though Jeremiah. Having finished with Jeremiah, I again come to "peace in our time". The world was deceived by the war-monger Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany when he signed a so-called "PEACE AGREEMENT" with the then leaders of the free world in 1938 in Munich. Lord Chamberlain, the then British Prime Minister upon exiting from the plane at London Airport in September, 1938 waved the agreement paper to the enthusiastic British people saying "PEACE IN OUR TIME". The only voice that cried in the wilderness to warn the world of Hitler's insincerity was Mr. Winston Churchill the then First Lord of the Admiralty. A year after the Munich peace agreement, Hitler on 3rd September, 1939 invaded Poland which at that time had a military pact with both Britain and France. That was the beginning of the World War II. Mr. Churchill was vindicated. He was in no time called to take the Premiership from Lord Chamberlin and it was he who steered British Empire through the war for victory to be won by the Allies. Has the world seen peace since the end of World War II? No! The world is still going through various forms of war despite the United Nations drawing inspirations from Isaiah chapter 2 verse 4. Peace in our time? No! What did Jesus say about peace? Matthew chapter 10 verse 34: "DON'T THINK THAT I HAVE COME TO BRING PEACE TO THE EARTH. I HAVE NOT COME TO BRING PEACE, BUT A SWORD". Here the SWORD represents the gun or bullets in our modern times. Since Ghana went through the dreaded revolution of JJ. Rawlings in December, 31st 1981 Ghana is awashed with illegal weapons that has become a worry to all and sundry. And reports making rounds say that some weapons have been brought into the country clandestinely by some faceless people to "fortify" themselves against any possibility of the December 7 elections going haywire. Ghanaians are witnessing elections gone haywire in various countries around us and what the weapons are being used for in these conflicts gives much food for thought. Verse 35 of Matthew chapter 10 spells out who are at the receiving end of this conflicts. "For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter in-law against her mother-in-law". What can be so perfect a situation than in political upheaval where people in a household belong to all political parties to cast suspicions on each other. The augment proffered is that Ghana is a Christian country and therefore NEVER will God allow a calamity to hit her. But can one be holier than the Pope? Can Ghana be holier than Israel which God saw it fit to cause King Nebuchadnezzar to invade and conquer it for their sins? The fact that God has not allowed a calamity of a civil war to ravage Ghana does not mean God will countenance the evil that we do in the land. Israel and Judah were sent into captivity by God because of the evil the people did in corruption, injustices, homosexuality, ritual killings and all manner of wickedness which God used the prophets to preach against. Is Ghana not in the very category of sin as it happened with God's own nation Israel? Yes, Ghana is a sinful nation and like Israel, God has weighed us in the spiritual pan and it is now the handwriting on the wall: MENE, MENE, TEKEL and PARSIN. God has washed his hands off the "Christian Ghana" and has removed the shelter that has protected a people since independence. Why should there be a cry for peace in these elections to choose a leader? Who does God want to be a president of Ghana and by what party? Does God get Himself involved in politics and elections in Africa? God indeed is concerned with all nations on this earth ever since he scattered men from buildings the Tower of Babel to reach his heavenly abode. It was God who led a remnant of the Egyptians when that empire broke to a place right at the centre of the earth Ghana is right at the center of the earth. The Greenwich Meridian or longitude O degree passes through Ghana whiles the Equator or Latitude O degree lies 350 nautical miles under us. It was God's guiding hand that brought us to a part of the earth that abounds in every mineral and resources. Before the continents broke up and began drifting from Africa, Ghana which rather was "Kana" was exactly at the centre of the earth. Kana or Ghana descended from Mizzrim or Egypt who was one of the four children of Ham, the black son of Noah alongside with Cush, Put and Canaan. It was in Egypt that the Patriarch Abraham of the Shem tribe visited and had Hagar as a slave when Sarah was taken for a wife by Pharoah. Again it was in Egypt that Joseph served as a slave to Portiphar when his brothers sold him. Joseph rose to become the second in command to the Pharaoh and was given Asenath, the daughter of the priest of On as wife. It was by design of God that Joseph's first two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim they were black) were joined to the eleven sons of Jacob to become the 12 children of Israel minus Joseph. Again Jesus at the tender age was taken to Egypt for safety when Herod wanted to kill him. So having become a nation Ghana in the modern times, Ghana the former Egypt had played host to three presidents of the United States of America, namely President Clinton, President Bush and President Obama. But as much as God had loved Ghana- the first black nation south of the Sahara to gain independence from Britain, we are still involved in idolatry, witchcraft, gayism, false religion, ritual murders, and a host of sins against God. So now is the time for God to deal with us without showing any mercy to our cry. He is going to use this December 7, elections to put us in judgment as part of his worldwide condemnations of all nations. What is about to happen is recorded in the book of Isaiah chapter 19. From verse one it says: "An oracle concerning Egypt- Kana. Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift clouds and comes to Egypt (Ghana) and the idols of Egypt (Ghana) will tremble at his presence and the heart of the Egyptians (Ghanaians) will melt within them" Now to those who think it is going to be a peaceful elections must read on to verse 2. "And I will stir up Egyptians (Ghanaians) against Egyptians (Ghanaians) AND THEY WILL FIGHT EACH AGAINST ANOTHER, AND EACH AGAINST HIS NEIGHBOUR, CITY AGAINST CITY, KINGDOM AGAINST KINGDOM". Verse 3: "And the spirit of the Egyptians (Ghanaians) within them will be emptied out. Now we will ask how can ancient Egypt become a modern Ghana or Kana? The truth is that what most historians will not ignore is that the Black Star in our national flag featured prominently in ancient Egypt as one of the symbols of satanic worships. Ancient Egypt was the cradle of civilization and Satanism. Most of these cults and devil worships could be found in the way we hold royal funerals for the dead. The Egyptian Book of the Dead attest to this phenomenon. The world and its present civilization has come to an end and Jesus Christ, the Creator will soon descend to destroy all nations. Ghana our beloved country is not an exception. The December 7 elections is our last election to contest for a president. Will there be a winner? Will President John Mahama relinquish the presidential seat should he lose? And what will Nana Akuffo-Addo and the NPP do should they be denied the victory? Will the Electoral Commission play it fair? Will there be peace as being prayed for by the people or will there be a civil war as prophesied in Isaiah chapter 19? Ghana is in crises of the highest degree. A CHANGE INDEED IS COMING NOT ONLY TO GHANA BUT THE WORLD AT LARGE. THIS CHANGE WILL NOT COME BY A MORTAL MAN BUT THE SON OF GOD, JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH AT HIS SECOND COMING. Revelation chapter 22 verses 12 says: "behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. The EVERYONE represents, the ballot snatcher, election riggers, the policeman or soldier used to intimidate the unarmed civilian, the spiritualist who performs rituals for politicians, the returning officer who falsifies results, the voter who casts double votes, the bias peace council member, the abusive party communicator, the media practitioner who publishes false information, the bribing politician, the false prophets and all those who are and continue to drive mother Ghana into a socio-politico and economic crises. Where will you be when the Master comes? Verse 14 of Revelation chapter 22 says: "Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Verse 15: "Outside are the dogs and sorcerers, and the idolaters, the ballot box snatcher, the vote rigger, the multiple voter, the bias peace council member, the abusive party communicator, the government official who stole money, the bias media practitioner, the police or soldier who acted unwisely and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. Know that Jesus Christ is not going to be voted into power and the result declared by an Electoral Commissioner. He is the Alpha and Omega- the owner of this earth and the universe. The book of Romans chapter 9 verse 28 seals His authority. "For the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay". It is only in God's kingdom on this earth here that there will be real and unadulterated PEACE. It is going to be the darkest hour before the dawn. The darkest hour Ghana is going through with corrupted people is soon to change into an everlasting peace. But for now I SEE MOTHER GHANA WITH HER BODY SMEARED WITH THE BLOOD OF HER CHILDREN. The Government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) under President John Evans Atta-Mills, fraudulently paid a financier of the party GHc 51.2 million cedis between 2010 and 2011. A Supreme Court Judge, Justice Jones Dotse said it appeared those who facilitated the paymententered into an alliance to create, loot and share the resources of this country as if a brigade had been set up for such an enterprise. According to the law, a judgement debt cannot be paid unless a warrant known as a Certificate of Judgement is issued authorising government to pay the money. A private legal practitioner, Samson Lardy Anyenini, who caused a search to be done found out that without a certificate severed on the government, at least three state institutions including the Ministry of Finance and the Accountant-Generals Department, went ahead to coordinate the payment of the illegal monies in an astonishing disregard for a basic requirement. Martin Amidu was then the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General. He had taken over from Betty Mould Iddrisu, who is now a Vice -chairperson of the NDC. Betty Mould Iddrisu was the Attorney-General when the Money was paid. Martin Amidu was determined to retrieve the money fraudulently paid to Woyome, but he was dismissed from his ministerial position without any reason. Some media organisations reported that he disrespected the President, but he said he was sacked in order to cover up the thievery of government. Alfred Agbesi Woyome will face Martin Amidu in court on November 24, 2016 When he was thrown out of the government, Martin Amidu still pursued the matter at the Supreme Court and won the case in July 2014. The Supreme Court ordered Woyome to pay the money back to the state, but the businessman did not do that. The state pursued the criminal aspect of the case but lost. It appealed and lost again. But that was not strange. Government officials such as Betty Mould-Iddrisu, who would have supported the Attorney-General as prosecution witnesses argued that Woyome received the money legitimately. Recently, the Attorney-General filed an application at the Supreme Court to examine Woyome. The examination, we are told, would have compelled Woyome to disclose how he had spent the money and also name his assets so that, if possible, they could be confiscated and sold to repay the money he owed the state. Just as when the general public and pressure groups such as Occupy Ghana were praising the Attorney-General for the taking the right step to retrieve the money, the Attorney-General filed to discontinue the case, meaning she was no longer interested in examining Woyome in court. What could have been the reason for the sudden U-turn? It was alleged that the Attorney-General had been pressured from the governing NDC to stop the action because it might have compelled the businessman to spill the beans, to possibly name whoever took part in the creation, looting and sharing of the GH51.2 million cedis. Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Mrs. Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong The citizen vigilante, Martin ABK Amidu, would not allow sleeping lions to lie. He filed an application praying the Supreme Court to allow him to orally examine Woyome. But the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice would not want that done so she opposed the motion. News leaked that Woyome had paid GHc4 million out of the GHc51.2 million cedis and had spelt out repayment terms. A similar agreement to repay all the money last year failed. The critical question is: Why would the attorney-General and the Government, which are supposed to be fighting for our interest (the retrieval of the money) be fighting against Martin Amidu, who is also fighting for our interest? Today, the Supreme Court ruled that Martin Amidu has the right to examine Woyome. The Today, the Supreme Court ruled that Martin Amidu has the right to examine Woyome. The court, therefore, ordered Woyome to appear before it on November 24, 2016, to be orally examined by Martin Amidu. Joy FMs court correspondent, Joseph Ackah Blay, said Woyome, who came to court clad in white, left with a grim, unhappy look on his face. But our elders say the frown on the face of a goat does not stop its owner from dragging it to the Bolga market. Lets wait and see what happens in the Bolga market next week as Ghanas apostle of integrity takes on the nations most pursued debtor. Written by Manasseh Azure Awuni The Centre is considering a proposal to grant powers to the National Investigation Agency to conduct probe on attacks on Indians and properties abroad. By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: The Union Home Ministry today told Lok Sabha that it was considering a proposal to empower the National Investigation Agency (NIA) with a provision to register a case and investigate, if an Indian is killed or injured in a terror act overseas. This information was shared by Minister of State for Home, Hansraj Ahir, while replying to written questions in the Lower House today. advertisement "A proposal to enable the NIA to take up investigation of scheduled offences committed beyond India is being put out for public consultations," he said in a reply to a question asked by BJP member Anurag Thakur. The MP had asked whether the government was considering to grant powers to the NIA to conduct probe on attacks on Indians and properties abroad. FBI HAS SIMILAR POWERS A proposal of a similar kind is available with probe agencies like FBI and even the Scotland Yard. FBI had registered separate cases in the 1995 kidnapping of foreign tourists in Kashmir, the IC-814 hijacking case, Mumbai terror attack, as its citizen were injured or killed in these incidents. The proposal to give NIA more teeth has been in offing for some time. This is particularly being done since the terror cases with Indian citizens go beyond the territory of India. Experts, however, believe that the success of such a proposal will depend on India's relations to the particular country where an act of terror has taken place. Also Read: NIA's crackdown on Zakir Naik's IRF: All you need to know NIA court frames charges against 5 ISIS accused who used matchsticks to make bombs --- ENDS --- The statement stung me like a scorpion, and the only possible reply would have included a description of it as stupid. But I managed to tame my anger for four weeks before I approached the young man from whose mouth came those unfortunate words. That afternoon, I was busily working on a documentary at the production unit of my station, but they stood close enough to let in whatever they said. There were three of them, speaking about the deplorable leadership with which our nation has been cursed. As the lamentation went on, one of them thought he knew the cause of all the woes of the country in recent times. Dont mind Mahama, he said. He has packed the Flagstaff House with confused Mpepefo [Northerners] who dont know anything and we are suffering. I have no patience or respect for people who judge others based on their ethnicity. I often lose my temper when dealing with such people. But on this occasion, I managed to restrain myself until my anger subsided before I confronted him. I wanted to remind him that the Chief of Staff, Mr. Posper Bani, who was supervising the fine mess at the Presidency, was a member of his ethnic group. I also wanted to ask him whether it was fair to attribute the Chief of Staffs performance to his ethnicity. But the young man was humble enough to admit that his remark was unfortunate and duly apologized even before I made my point. I could, however, not control myself when I recently logged on to Facebook and found a similar post by one Yoofi Stagger. He listed 18 ministers and deputy ministers from northern Ghana and added: So how can Mahama justify this northern dominance of his government, and yet they are not performing? A day earlier, I was with a PhD student from the Upper East Region and he shared his harrowing experience on a flight from the United States recently. The discussion had moved from bad governance to the incompetence of northerners. The insults were just too much, he said. At a point, I thought of replying but looking at the number on the other side, it would have been useless arguing with them. I kept my head bowed throughout that discussion. He conceded that he wasnt happy about the way the country was being managed and added that President Mahamas poor performance could prove detrimental to politicians from Northern Ghana, such as Dr Mahamudu Bawumiah, who may have presidential ambitions in the future. At this stage, I disagreed with him. Though I didnt tell him, I thought he was as guilty as those who had attacked northerners in the plane. In fact, he is not alone. Many prominent northerners I speak to express the same concern when they complain about how President Mahamas government is faring. Why should Dr. Bawumiah atone for the sins of President Mahama? President Kufuor had his own flaws but they were not projected beyond him and his political party. Nobody equated President Kufuors failures to the Asante people or Southerners. No one ever equated President Atta Mills failures to Fantes or Southerners. When Eric Amoateng, a sitting member of parliament, was jailed for dealing in drugs, nobody talked about his ethnicity. And I am yet to hear anybody mention the ethnicity of Woyome when they criticize the manner in which he got the state to pay him GH51 million questionable judgment debt. So why must every northerner pay for the actions or inactions of President Mahama? In order for easy identification, and to be able to assign responsibilities for their actions, every human being has a name. Why must others be held responsible for the actions of President Mahama just because they come from the northern part of the country when the same cannot be said of those from the south? I have heard a lot about the misguided notion of northern dominance in the current administration such as the list presented by Yoofi Stagger. One reason I described his post on Facebook as stupid was the ignorance displayed by that post. The constitution of our republic calls for regional and ethnic balance when one is making such appointments. What is often referred to as the north or northern Ghana is made up of three separate regions. So if you name 18 people from the north, you are talking about an average of 6 ministers from each region of the north. And you cannot talk about northern dominance when we have close to 100 ministers and deputy ministers. Many Ghanaians will not be proud of the way the country is being managed. One does not have to be a northerner or southerner to be concerned about the poor performance of the Mahama led administration. But to suggest that Mahamas incompetence has to do with the part of the country he comes from amounts to intellectual deficiency. It makes people, who would have collectively fought for the better Ghana President Mahama and his party promised Ghanaians, sit on the fence and become ambivalent. If there is one thing that has damaged the credibility and integrity of Mahamas government more than any other, then that is certainly corruption. Who are the outstanding crusaders against corruption in Mahamas government? You cannot present a list that excludes, Martin Amidu, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, Manasseh Azure Awuni, Alban Bagbin and Vitus Azeem among others as the foremost crusaders against corruption in this government. All these persons come from the North. We dont have anything against President Mahama or the NDC. We know the President is one of our own. We are aware of the prejudice and the tag of dishonour one has to wear for being a northerner. But we cannot keep quiet and allow someone to mismanage the country just because he is one of our own. Personally, I feel very hurt when these things are said because it appears my little effort to make this nation better turns out to be an insult to me and the people of the north. When I was carrying out my GYEEDA investigations last year, I had the opportunity to come face-to-face with the CEO of Zoomlion and Chairman of the Jospong Group of Companies, Jospeh Siaw Agyapong. We spoke English. When I met the CEO of RLG and Chairman of the AGAMS Group of Companies, Roland Agambire, we spoke Gurune (Frafra). Throughout our conversation, he referred to me as his brother, and in a way, he was right. I see him as an elder brother, but should that ethnic consideration be above the national interest? No! So I went ahead and did the story as if I didnt meet him. His reputation and business have been badly hit. The GYEEDA scandal has brought a lot of embarrassment to the Mahama administration and the dishonest way the government has handled the scandal is even more worrying. It is part of the reasons corruption tops the list of Mahamas sins. If you risk your life and spearhead a crusade for the good of your country and end up being insulted or tagged as incompetent because the person who was president at the time was from your part of the country, it hurts. After all, business people and government officials would still have been using GYEEDA and SADA to siphon state resources. To be fair to Mahama, the rot didnt start when Mahama was President. GYEEDAs rot started from President Kufuors era. They were unraveled in Mahamas time and he was expected to act on them. Tribalism has been the bane of our development and a threat to our democracy. When politicians misbehave, knowing that they can rely on a section of the electorate as World Bank, it doesnt promote good governance. Apart from the devastating effects of mishandling ethnic differences, looking down on people because of where they come from is the greatest form of injustice. To be fair, the people of Northern Ghana are not the only ones who are subjected to these kinds of ethnic prejudices. The first article I wrote on this subject was in 2009 when a student of the Ghana Institute of Journalism died and we were going to the Volta Region to bury him. Some students vowed never to step foot on the Volta Region, describing the people as demonic and using all the offensive words one could find. Some of them would go but they wouldnt drink water or eat anything in that region. So serious was the fear that before the bus moved, the President of the Campus Christian Family who was also from the Volta Region, Mr Noble Johnson Kukubor, had to make a speech to the effect that the Volta Region was not as deadly as they feared. And these were journalism students. Even the dominant ethnic groups such as the Akans face their own forms of ethnic prejudices. For people from Northern Ghana, it is worse because of their peculiar twin problems of poverty and conflicts, which are often accentuated by the excessively negative media reportage of the area. Last year, I had to interrupt a presentation by the International Communications Officer of DW in Germany, Xiaoying Zhang, and tell her how that media house was almost insulting Africans. We were journalists and civil society activists from 24 countries who had visited the headquarters of DW in Bonn, Germany, as part of the Friedrich Nauman Foundation fellowship on Freedom of the Press. Madam Xiaoying Zhang was exploring DWs website with us, explaining to us how enormous their influence was as Germanys international broadcasting service. When she got to Africas page, all the pictures were horrible images of war and poverty. There was nothing positive about Africa. When I complained about the content on a particular page, she explained that was a page dedicated to issues of poverty and its related issues, but when she clicked on other links, she was embarrassed to learn that they were even worse. I pointed out to her how unprofessional and unfair that kind of journalism was. I told her my piece of mind and she promised to convey my concerns to the editorial team. Back in Ghana, I have realised that the media treat northern Ghana the same way the Western media treat Africa. If its not conflict or poverty, it is not news. When the youth of Nima riot, Nimas twin brother, Mamobi, is not mentioned in the report. But when the youth of one suburb of Tamale riot, it is reported as Northern Region being in flames. If you are in a trotro, you are likely to hear an ignorant commentator say, These northerners too, what at all is wrong with them? There is nothing wrong with them. Europe, America and the rest of the developed world are more peaceful than Africa not because Africans are less intelligent or violent by nature. In 2007, when the American Nobel Prize laureate scientist, Dr. James Watson, made a remark to the effect that the whites are more intelligent than blacks, he attracted a barrage of criticisms and condemnation worldwide. Describing it as baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive comment, the scientific community said those remarks were Dr Watsons personal prejudices. Later Dr Watsons DNA revealed that he had black genes in his system. The question one needs to ask therefore is: why are there so many conflicts on the continent when Africans are not less intelligent than Europeans? Our wise elders say if a man with healthy teeth is chewing his food awkwardly, one must be sure there is sand in it. The sand in the context of what is happening in Africa, and for that matter northern Ghana, include poverty, illiteracy, ignorance and mass unemployment. At the heart of them all stands subtle but dangerously powerful political manipulation that serves as a recipe for impunity in Tamale, Bawku and the other trouble spots in the north. Experience has taught us that where these factors exist, peace and order become the casualties. I will never take up arms to fight no matter the circumstances. I believe education has given me something to live for. I could not have resisted the temptation if I were in the same environment and situation as my unfortunate brothers up there, who are exploited by the Northern elite in much the same way the political elite in Africa exploit us and make us appear stupid and inferior among other races. Equating President Mahamas failure to the failure of Northerners is as a result of the prejudice against northern Ghana. It is part of what the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, calls the danger of the single story. The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story, she said. Northern Ghana is not a land of only doom and gloom. It is a land of abundant human and natural resources, which have been neglected since the colonial era. Despite this neglect, that part of the country has produced men and women who are helping shape this country. The Upper West Region, for instance, is the region with the lowest population in Ghana but it is one of the regions with the highest number of medical doctors and specialists. It is true that President Mahama, whose management of the country leaves much to be desired, is from the north. But he is not the single story of the north. In Ghana today, Martin Amidu, the hero whose picture is currently the most popular profile picture on social media, is also from the north. All people of the north cannot be judged by Martin Amidus virtues. In the same way, they cannot be responsible for Mahamas failures. Mahama is not the single story of the north. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reminds us it is dangerous to use one story as the one and only definitive story of a people: Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity Ive always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar. Editors note: This article was first published in August 2014. It has been republished following comments made by Martin Amidu over the weekend. In his ongoing issues with Anas Aremeyaw Anas collaboration with government in his works, Martin Amidu said on Newsfile programme that it would take 20 to 30 years for someone from the North to be elected President because President Mahama had failed northerners. I dont have anything against him [President Mahama] except that I have told him that, look as a young Northerner to ascend to this position, discharge your duties with utmost integrity to uphold the image of we northerners weve been known from time immemorial to be honest people. The government you are running corruptly is damaging us, he said. The president, he stressed, is disgracing me as a Northerner. I dont like it. A member of the ruling NDC Communications Team, Peter Boamah Otokunor, was arrested and detained by the Amasaman Police for six hours. The NDC communication member, Today learnt, was arrested for allegedly leading soldiers from the Castle to attack sand winners on a land legally given to them by the Paramount Chief of Pampasu Traditional Area, Nana Aponoahene Akapeh. The incident occurred on Saturday, November 19, 2016 after Peter Otokunor led macho men and soldiers to a land at Pampasu near Teacher Mantey to beat up sand winners, food vendors and others who were struggling for their daily bread without any provocation. According to an eye witness, Samuel Atsu Forson, who is also a sand winner, Peter Otokunor on that day led four Toyota V8 vehicles branded in NDC colours carrying soldiers and macho men to the site where they were working. He said he got the hint that some NDC officials were coming to the area, but he ignored the information since he thought they were in the town on their usual campaign tour. According to the 28-yearold san winner (Samuel Atsu Forson), being an NDC supporter himself, he did not suspect any danger. but they were taken by surprise when the soldiers pounced on them and beat them mercilessly and sacked them from the site, with the explanation that the land belonged to Otokunor and so none of them had the right to encroach on it, the eye witness narrated. According to him, the soldiers fired warning shots to scare them, seized the keys to eight of their tipper trucks and also deflated tyres of some of the machines at the site. He disclosed this in an interview with the press at Sapeiman near Amasaman in Accra. He pointed out that the soldiers who were wielding guns severely assaulted a number of people including women who were later rushed to the Nsawam General Hospital for treatment after they were given police medical forms. Moments after the incident had happened, the victims reported to their Chief Togbui Agah Semaglo I, Sapeiman Ewe Community Chief, who caused the immediate arrest of Otokunor, but was bailed after spending six hours in detention. According him, Otokunor was arrested when he went to Nana Akape's palace with the intention of calling for an amicable settlement of the matter. Samuel Atsu Forson also hinted that Otokunor when arrested told the police that he acquired the said land from a certain man when in actual fact the land belonged to the Chief of Pampasu and his elders. According to Sapeiman Ewe Community Chief, Togbui Agah Semaglo I, who caused the arrest of Otokunor, he was disappointed in Otokunor's action because the NDC that he (Otokunor) speaks for is a democratic party which does not supports violent actions. The chief said despite the fact that Otokunor managed to reach out to top NDC officials, some of whom rushed to the police station to bail him, he was made to stay behind bars for six hours to prove to him that nobody is above the law, not even the NDC gurus. He said it was unfair to treat persons who support and vote for the NDC since the party came into being in 1992 till date with such wicked and atrocious acts. He therefore called on the NDC leadership to call Otokunor to order and condemn such wicked acts on its own supporters, saying The NDC I know and support is not a violent party. We respect our people and expect that the same courtesy is reciprocated to those at the grassroots. Togbui Agah Semaglo I said it was not right for Otokunor to use his position as a member of the NDC Communication team to harass individuals no matter their political affiliations, and that, that will not auger well for the country's democracy. The chief said he will not base on the incident and condemn the NDC but it is my wish that these kinds of things do not continue to tarnish the image of the area. When Peter Otokunor was contacted on phone by Today he denied the incident saying nothing happened and that he was not arrested. However, police sources say he was lying and that he was put behind bars and was released on bail at the intervention of some top NDC gurus who came to his rescue. -Ghanaweb Over Six hundred (600) old-ages and adults in the Sunyani Municipality who get chance to screened their eyes on Monday 21st November has described Sunyani East Independent Parliamentary Candidate as the right man for Sunyani East constituency seat. According to them, George Kumi who doesnt receive any Government support or any statutory funds paid to MPs for development and social interventions and yet doing all the good things for them, provided free eye care services to Six hundred (600) people shows that if we vote for him to be member of parliament (MP) for Sunyani East constituency he will surely bring massive developments. This is our first time seeing individual providing free eye care services for massive people like this and also taking surgery expenses in Sunyani they added. Sunyani East Independent Parliamentary Candidate, Fmr. Ambassador George Kumi has been complementing efforts in providing free eye care services to Zongo community and nearby towns in Sunyani East Constituency The objective is to provide free health in care for people in the area who are unable to afford quality health delivery. Fmr. Ambassador George Kumi together with his partners, Charity Eye Centre and Unit for Sight an American based NGO reached out to over Six hundred (600) people through the provision of free screening; eye care education and distribution of eye glasses take place at Pentecost Church in Sunyani Zongo. Beneficiary communities include Sunyani Zongo, Penkwasi and among other areas. However, 90% of the surgery expenses will be bear by Ambassador George Kumi and the patient will take care of only 10%. In Related development, About 100 people were screen at Kotokrom of which 10 of them have been referred to kumasi for surgery. Another 200 people were screen and Medicated at Nsagobesa near Yawsae, 10 of them have also been referred to Kumasi for surgery. At Nkrankrom over 200 rural folks were screen and medicated to bring the first phase to a successful end. In all over one thousand (1,000) people were screen and medicated while 60 of them have been referred for surgery. In the first phase of the project, Beneficiary communities include, Atronie, Atuahenkrom, Adedaase, kuffour camp among other communities. Fmr.Ambassador George Kumi, briefing the media said the health needs of people remain a number priority on his agenda. Am doing this for my people to enable them stay healthy and contribute their quota to the development of the area and the country at large. I will continue to initiate people centered programs that will enhance the welfare of the people he added. Former Ambassador to Libya, Mr George Kumi, is contesting as an Independent Parliamentary candidate in the Sunyani East Constituency and last on the parliamentary ballot paper. Recent calls from the Christian Council of Ghana, MFWA and other known political media cronies of the NPP to President John Dramani Mahama to apologise for making a statement of fact misconstrued as tribal about his kinsman and younger brother, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the current running mate of the opposition NPP flagbearer at an NDC campaign rally at Lawra can only be described as bias and hypocritical. History of happening in the NPP of how they treat NPP members of northern origin confirms Presidents John Mahamas comments of how the NPP uses and damps people of northern origin. Yes, Dr. Bawumia is incontestably a fine economist and surely the entire country, Ghana, is very proud of such a fine technocrat but it must be conspicuously stated that Dr. Bawumia is being desperately used by the NPP merely for electoral gain and he shall certainly be damped after the 2016 elections. Dr. Bawumia is only relevant to the NPP as long as Nana Addo is around as leader of the largely known Akan party. Many NPP bigwigs are only paying lip service to how they believe in Dr. Bawumia's alliance with Nana Addo for the fear of suffering the wrath of the extensively vindictive and intolerant opposition leader and leader of the NPP. The NPP will not treat Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia any better and different than they did to the Late Chief S.D. Dombo, Late Alhaji Aliu Mahama, Late Hawa Yakubu, late Adams Mahama; May their blessed souls rest in the bosom of Allah. I weep for my brother, Dr. Bawumia and our other kinsmen in the NPP. Indeed, many NPP authorities have to date never accepted and considered Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as a true party member and do not believe that Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia stands any chance of being consideration as a presidential material after Nana Addo exits the political terrain Gaafara Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia but that Danquah Busia MINUS Dombo fraternity only sees you as an instrument for their political fulfillment and nothing more. Sorry Afa Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. Leave President John Dramani Mahama alone, he only made a statement of fact and yes, the NPP would dump Dr. Bawumia after the 2016 elections. Per their orientation, the NPP is not a party that is ready to have a northerner as their flagbearer/leader yet and that would not change today or anytime soon. Nuhu Ndebilla [email protected] The Ghana Police Service, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), have been sued to compel them to arrest a brother to the Local Government Minister, Alhaji Collins Dauda. Alhaji Dauda's brother, Abdulai Naaba, is alleged to have confessed to murder on Accra-based Atinka FM The four applicants; Mohammed Bashiru, Zac Rahman, Sulemana Aliu and Joseph Manu, want the police to take action. One of the applicants, Mohammed Bashiru, who spoke to Citi News lamented that, the polices handling of the matter, has allowed the minister's brother to walk free because of his relation to the Minister. The way Naaba is portraying himself, if you are related to a Minister, you can kill, you can maim, you can attack, you can do whatever you want and get away with it. Who knows who Naaba and his group will kill next? Local Government Minister, Alhaji Collins Dauda We want the police to take action. Somebody cannot just come on radio and say that I have killed, and the police will just leave the person to get away with it. In a democratic dispensation, in a country like Ghana governed by laws, I don't think this should happen. Outlining the applicants' demands, Mr. Bashiru said, We want the court to instruct either of them or all of them to take action and arrest and prosecute Naaba Abdulai, the brother of Honorable Collins Dauda. By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana Rome (AFP) - At least eight people died and an unknown number were missing as a new series of Mediterranean boat dramas left Italy on the verge of a record number of migrant arrivals. Confirming the latest fatalities in what is already a record year for migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Italy's coastguard told AFP that 1,400 people had been saved in 12 separate operations between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon. The rescues will take the number of migrants to have arrived in Italy by sea this year to almost 170,000, a whisker short of the previous record set in 2014. A coastguard boat recovered seven bodies and oversaw the rescue of 182 people from a stricken rubber dinghy in waters off Libya. The other confirmed victim, a man, died on the Topaz Responder, a boat operated by Malta-based charity MOAS with a Red Cross medical team onboard. MOAS said survivors' accounts suggested that "many" people were unaccounted for, including the mother of two children who survived. The organisation said it had help rescue some 600 people in four difficult operations, including 117 from one sinking dinghy. The vessel of choice for people traffickers operating out of Libya, such dinghies typically have between 120 and 150 migrants crammed onto them. "The doctors managed to revive several people with hypothermia but it was too late for one of them," MOAS spokeswoman Maria Teresa Sette told AFP. Among the survivors were two in a critical state awaiting evacuation to the outlying Italian island of Lampedusa. The coastguard said the 12 stricken boats assisted in the latest rescues included one larger wooden vessel that was was carrying 450-500 people, six smaller wooden boats with a few dozen people on board and five dinghies. Migrant killed by train Unusually, the survivors included "many families" from Syria, according to MOAS, as well as people from the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Sudan. Of late, migrants leaving Libya have been overwhelmingly from sub-Saharan or East Africa with a much-anticipated surge in the numbers of refugees from Syria's war having failed to materialise following the de facto closure of the Turkey-Greece migrant route earlier this year. The latest victims will add to a total of 4,655 migrants confirmed to have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean so far this year, according to counts by the International Organisation for Migration and the UN refugee agency. The rescued survivors will add to a total of 168,544 migrants who have been registered at Italian ports in 2016. The highest previous annual total was 170,100, in 2014. The vast majority of the migrants landing in Italy come from Africa and begin their sea crossings from Libya, typically paying traffickers several hundred dollars for the crossing. With Italy's neighbours having tightened their borders, the numbers being housed in reception facilities spread across the country have risen to an unprecedented total of over 176,000, prompting howls of protest from some local authorities. Many migrants arrive in Italy with the intention of travelling north, often to try and rejoin relatives, with Germany and Sweden among the popular destinations. One such man, thought to be from Eritrea, died overnight while trying to board a freight train travelling from Italy to Austria via the Brenner tunnel through the Alps. The man was hit by a train moving in the opposite direction near the main station in Bolzano, close to the border. Police said the incident was the first of its kind for Bolzano. Recent weeks have seen several migrants killed by cars while trying to cross from Italy into France at their coastal border. 22.11.2016 LISTEN Ashaiman: One of the victims reported to have survived a fire attack on Friday has been pronounced dead. He died last night while on admission at the Korle-bu teaching hospital receiving treatment for severe burns from an arson attack. Lawrence Nkem Oyem aged 45, and his younger brother Benjamin Oyem 42, sustained serious degrees of burns when Lawrences wife allegedly torched the room in which they were sleeping. Benjamin died on the way to hospital on Friday whereas Lawrence kicked the bucket just last night as confirmed to the suspects father, Mr. Agbolosu. Comfort Dzigbordi Agbolosu her late Nigerian were married for 12 years and lived happily in their Ashaiman home together with their 3 children until recently. The couple recently was faced with quite some challenges marked by persistent squabbles. The visiting In-law As learnt by Clifford Yaw Frimpong of the West Afrikan Source News, Benjamin Oyem was visiting Ghana only two months after his wedding in Nigeria. According to sources, Benjamin was in Ghana purposefully to try and help settle issues between his elder brother and his spouse the widowed Comfort Agbolosu. His mission however was yet to yield any results before his untimely death on Friday November 18. Meanwhile the body of Mr Lawrence Nkem Oyem and that of his brother's have been deposited at the morgues of the Tema Genaral and Korle-bu teaching hospitals respectively. Lawrence Oyem left behind 3 children, all females; aged 9, 7 and 4. He also left behind a widow, Comfort Dzigbordi Agbolosu who is currently in the grips of the law for allegedly committing the attack, which might have resulted in the death of the two brothers. The suspect, Comfort Dzigbordi Agbolosu is to be processed for court today Tuesday November 22. By Yussif Ibrahim, GNA Fumesua (Ash), Nov 22, GNA - The Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr. John Alexander Ackon, has urged Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to scale-up the disaster risk reduction effort, particularly, in the urban areas. He said the steady drift of people to these centres, required that they moved to properly plan and manage things to minimize disasters. He was speaking at the opening of a two-day urban resilience conference for local authorities held at Femesua near Kumasi. The goal was to discuss mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction through inclusive planning and effective coordination at the local level. It was held under the theme, 'Opportunities and challenges for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction through inclusive planning and effective coordination'. The programme was organized by the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) in partnership with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and supported by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. On hand to participate were representatives from the MMDAs, NADMO, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Water Resources Commission (WRC), Town and Country Planning Department, the Local Government and Rural Development Ministry and academia. Mr. Ackon indicated that about 52 per cent of the nation's population as of 2010 lived in the urban areas and the projection was that the figure could hit 72 per cent by 2035. He said 'epidemics, fires, floods, food insecurity, traffic accidents among others are constant incidents that need to be addressed relative to our urban resilience and disaster risk reduction frameworks'. He identified the lack of enforcement of land use plans, absence of local level disaster contingency plans and limited involvement of communities in development planning as some of the challenges that must be tackled. Dr. Dominic Sam, Country Director of the UNDP, said the threat of natural and human-induced disasters could potentially undermine development gains, citing the June 03, last year, disaster as how disasters' could wreak havoc on society. He pointed to the effects of climate change, the deficiencies in the planning processes and infrastructure development standards and said these were factors that needed to be dealt with. He pledged the UNDP's determination to continue to partner government in its effort to reduce disasters in urban communities, adding that, it had been providing technical support in disaster risk reduction since 2005. GNA By Kofi Mensah, GNA Akrokerri (Ash), Nov 22, GNA - The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) is urging everybody to go out to vote in next month's presidential and parliamentary elections. Mr. Emmanuel Duah Attobrah, the Obuasi Municipal Director of the Commission, said every single vote was important and could make a difference. He was speaking at the launch of a 268-page book titled 'Political and Economic Development of Ghana' at Akrokerri in the Adansi North District. Authored by Mr. William Yaw Oduro, a tutor at the Akrokerri College of Education, it chronicles the nation's economic and political events between 1957 and 2014 and recommends solutions to the financial governance challenges. Mr. Attobrah said it was important that the people accepted to actively participate in the democratic governance of the society. He also highlighted the need for political tolerance to remove tension and confusion as they headed to the polls on December 07. He asked all to put the unity, peace and harmony of the country, at all times, ahead of any other consideration. The NCCE Municipal Director used the occasion to encourage Ghanaians to demand accountability from their elected leaders - hold them to their election promises. Mr. Oduro said the book provided useful insights into the contributions of past and present governments' to the political and economic development of the nation. He reminded the people that Ghana was 'far bigger than any political party and that we should think of the nation first". GNA By Sampson Adu-Poku, GNA Kumasi, Nov 22, GNA - Nestle Ghana has launched its special four-month promo in support of the education of children in Kumasi. The 'NIDO back to school promo' comes with cash prizes ranging from GH100.00 to GH10,000.00 and could be won daily. Mr. Samuel Adjei-Yeboah, the Ashanti Regional Sales Manager, said it was also meant to assist the healthy growth of children through the consumption of Nestle NIDO, which has great nutritional benefits. The people would only have to buy a sachet of the product, text the number found in the sachet to win a cash prize. He said an average of five people had been winning various cash prizes every day in region. The launch of promo was heavily patronized - brought together traders, market women, sales agents and school children. Ms. Patience Kuewu, a receptionist at the Royal Park Hotel in Kumasi, won for herself GH10,000.00 and she was presented with a cheque for the amount. GNA This will reduce the difficulty of common man, tweeted Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha. By Indo-Asian News Service: Aiming to help common people cope with cash crunch following demonetisation, telecom operators have decided to waive off charges for mobile banking services till December 31, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said today. "To facilitate use of electronic banking facility and reduce difficulty of the common man, telecom operators have decided to waive off charges for mobile banking services till December 31, 2016," the minister tweeted. 3/ telecom operators have decided to waive off charges for mobile banking services till 31st December 2016.@DoT_India Manoj Sinha (@manojsinhabjp) November 22, 2016 At present, a charge is being levied by telecom operators for the mobile banking, which is commonly known as USSD charge./1 Manoj Sinha (@manojsinhabjp) November 22, 2016 advertisement "At present, a charge is being levied by telecom operators for mobile banking, which is commonly known as USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) charge," the minister said. ALSO READ: Demonetisation boon for banks: Rs 5.44 lakh crore deposited, Rs 1.03 lakh crore disbursed Following the government's demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, people are increasingly opting for mobile banking and net banking for transactions. Among other announcements made to help people, the Reserve Bank of India had asked banks to waive ATM charges on all transactions made by savings account holders till December 30. The waiver will be applicable on transactions done by a customer through any bank ATM. ALSO READ: Not just a token: This farmer market in Telangana believes in cashless transactions ALSO READ: Rijiju to India Today: Demonetisation has broken financial backbones of terror groups ALSO WATCH --- ENDS --- By Federica Kyeremateng, GNA Tamale, Nov. 22, GNA - The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), has organised a Parliamentary debate for Parliamentary aspirants at Sagnarigu in the Northern Region. The debate was to allow the parliamentary aspirants namely Mr Ahmed Jamal Deen of the Progressive People's Party (PPP), Mr Habib Iddrisu of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Alhaji A.B.A Fuseini of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to outline their development plans for the constituency. Issues raised and questions asked by the moderator ranged from health, agriculture, security, roads and infrastructure as well as the welfare of women and children. All the Parliamentary candidates took turns to outline the plan they had for the constituency and the reason why the electorate should vote for them and their parties to win the December 7 polls. Alhaji Abdul Razak Saani, the Regional Director of the NCCE expressed satisfaction about the way the parliamentary aspirants comported themselves and expressed the hope that the gesture would be translated into peaceful conduct of the elections. He advised the electorate not to be swayed by politicians who might want to use them as tools for violence. GNA By Paa Nii Stevenson, GNA Sunyani, Nov 22, GNA - Youth activists of the various political parties have been asked to be patriotic and say no to any election-related violence. Mr. Emmanuel Kwashie Fugah, Chairman of the Brong-Ahafo Network of NGOs (BANGO), said the unity and peace of the nation should take precedence over any other interest or consideration. His call, made through the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sunyani, comes amid the reported nasty political clashes in parts of the country. He spoke of the need for political accommodation and tolerance, saying, violence should have no place in the election process. Mr. Fugah counseled for responsible conduct by especially, the young people, in areas identified as election flash points in the region. They should be measured in everything they said and mindful of their actions and inactions, he said, telling them that in the event of conflict, they would pay the price. He chastised political leaders, who were capitalizing on the innocence of the youth to incite them to violence and said that was shameful. He applauded the religious bodies in the region for the tremendous effort they had been making to help everybody to live in peace and harmony. GNA By Gideon Ahenkorah, GNA Accra, Nov. 22, GNA - Mr Emmanuel Beluzebr, the President of the Ghana Network of Persons Living with HIV and AIDS (NAP+), says the pandemic (HIV and AIDS) is no more a scare in Ghana. Mr Beluzebr said HIV and AIDS test had seen massive turnout as many Ghanaians were now willing to know their status knowing that 'the disease is no more a death sentence'. 'People are confidently trooping to all the various heath centres across the nation for the test.' He said the development was the result of government's continuous efforts in championing robust initiatives to safeguard the lives of people diagnosed with HIV. He also said the NAP+ had seen membership increment as those who tested positive had joined, which he explained, had provided more hands for the organisation's sensitisation projects on the pandemic. 'Even though, the number of people who test positive + nowadays for the pandemic is reducing, we still get very dedicated persons to join our network,' he observed. The NAP+ President was interacting with the Ghana News Agency on the signing of an Aide Memoire geared to accelerate the implementation of an HIV and AIDS preventive initiative dubbed: 'National Strategic Plan 90-90-90,' in Accra. The five-year strategic plan championed by the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) seeks to ensure that, by 2020, 90 per cent of HIV infected persons would know their status and receive sustained antiretroviral therapy to help achieve viral suppression. Antiretroviral therapy refers to the use of pharmacologic agents that have specific inhibitory effects on HIV replication or multiplication. Mr Beluzebr lauded government for its efforts in intensifying HIV and AIDS educational and awareness creation projects. He said it had aided the public in understanding the causes, prevention and treatment of the pandemic. He said the projects had helped reduce the spread of the disease as people were desisting from engaging in all behaviours that could expose them to contracting the virus. 'People are now mindful about the disease and they are doing everything to protect themselves and others in order not to risk their lives,' Mr Beluzebr noted. He expressed confidence in the GAC's strategic plan, saying it would drastically reduce death cases emanating from HIV and AIDs. The NAP+ said the organisation had also intensified its community campaigns to contribute to governments concerted efforts to bring the spread of the disease to halt. GNA Accra, Nov. 22, GNA - Mr Alfred Agbesi Woyome, a Ghanaian businessman and a former Honourary Vice Consul to Austria, has denied ever saying he would not pay back the judgement debt, as ordered by the Supreme Court. 'Although I disagreed with the judgement with all due respect to the Supreme Court, I have and will submit myself to the law, and abide by the Supreme Court's order.' Speaking at a press conference in Accra, Mr Woyome said it was unfortunate that some people had decided for their own selfish interests, to soil his reputation before the public and the rest of the world. 'The court of appeal is saying that upon looking into the matter there is no fraud. So when you talk of fraud, you are on your own,' said Mr Woyome. He said the only trouble with the judgement debt that was paid him, was that the decision was not debated in Parliament before being carried out. Mr Woyome said once he was not attached to government, he saw no reason why he had to suffer for a lapse, which had nothing to do with him. 'The Supreme Court is asking a citizen of this country to give back money, which is rightfully his under duress, and I am saying that they erred.' He said as a citizen who had rights like anyone else, he had been harassed and humiliated wrongfully, 'and out of ignorance, people are saying give us back our money etc, and I am asking whose money?' Mr Woyome said once the courts had thoroughly examined the facts of his case and legally binding decisions had been taken, anyone who had a case against him had to go to court and not indulge in wild rumour spreading. He advised journalists to thoroughly investigate issues and bring out the truth, adding that unless proven guilty, everybody had to be protected through truthfully laying facts, and the success of this, heavily relied on journalists. Mr Woyome, was paid GHa51 million, because he contributed to the raising of funds to construct stadia for purposes of hosting a pending CAF Nations Cup at that time. The Attorneys General report in 2010, described the amount paid to Mr Woyome as illegal, and the Supreme Court in 2014, ordered Mr Woyome to pay back the amount, After Mr Martin Amidu, a Former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, and also a onetime Minister of the Interior, challenged its legality. GNA The Police in the Eastern Region have cautioned the two major political parties in the country to act in accordance with the public order act or face a possible curfew in areas the two parties clashed. This follows a clash between some supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the New Juaben North Constituency, resulting in some injuries and destruction of properties. The incident happened over the weekend during a separate health walk organized by the parties on the same day in the area. Speaking to Citi News, the Eastern Regional Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Yaw Nketiah Yeboah, urged Ghanaians to be tolerant and desist from any acts that could threaten the peace in Ghana. We advise each and every one to be law abiding because you don't know what will happen and curfew can be placed on your community and it will be very sad that because of some bad nuts the whole community will sleep at times 4:00pm and wake up 8:00am or 6:00pm to 6:00am. We all should be law abiding and help make Ghana as peaceful as we need, he said. NDC, NPP to hold health walk on separate days He further in a separate interview on Eyewitness News hinted that, the Police have agreed with the parties that health walks by the NPP and NDC should be held on different days. This coming Saturday, the NDC will go for the health walk; then the following day which is Sunday, the NPP will also go for their health walk. The last weekend before the general elections the NPP will swap with NDC on the days, he added. Police hunt for culprits Meanwhile the Police in the region say they are currently on a manhunt for the perpetrators of the clashes in the New Juaben North constituency. Surge in NPP, NDC clashes There has been a surge in violent clashes between members of the two political parties in recent times. In one of the cases, the two parties had the altercation in front of the residence of the NPP flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo. Similar cases have also been recorded in Wulensi , Odododiodoo , Ajumako among other places. But in all such instances, the Police were unable to bring the perpetrators to book. By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana Follow @AlloteyGodwin Government is battling a Supreme Court order freezing its critical accounts over a debt owed non-bank financial institution, NDK Financial Services. Government is appealing a judgment debt granted NDK after the state failed to honour the terms of an agreement with the company. Explaining the trajectory of events, Joy Business editor George Wiafe said government entered into a contract with a private businessman to roll out a rural electrification project between 2005 and 2006. The businessman had obtained funding for the project from NDK and government was to pay the contract sum into a joint account held by the financial institution and the private businessman. Government failed to do this paying the money into another account, forcing the hand of NDK to seek justice in court. George Wiafe says at every state right up to the Supreme Court, the non-bank financial institution has obtained a favourable judgment. It has obtained a Court judgment freezing accounts such as the Consolidated and Treasure Accounts. The development is said to be hampering governments running of its business. A senior government official said the freeze is affecting his ability to fuel his official vehicle to conduct government business. Government is appealing these decisions, hoping that a favourable verdict would allow it to access public funds to run the state. -Ghanaweb A student from Accra, Ghana has officially started his medical degree after receiving a scholarship to St Georges University (SGU) in the Caribbean island of Grenada. Daniel Kwesi Appeah recently attended SGUs 20th biannual White Coat Ceremony at Northumbria University in the UK, where he will complete the first year of his MD studies as part of the Keith B Taylor Global Scholars (KBTGS) Program. He joined over 90 other international students on the program, which teaches first year sciences at Northumbria University before completion of preclinical training in Grenada. In recognition of his outstanding academic achievements and to support him during his medical education, Daniel was awarded $81,000 by St. Georges University. The Global Scholars Program encourages students to return to their home countries as physicians to practice medicine in local healthcare systems. Speaking about his enrolment, Daniel said: The White Coat ceremony was very touching and I am honoured to be part of this university. I believe one of the necessary qualities of a doctor is to be open and understanding of different cultures and experiences, and this program is offering me the perfect opportunity to enhance my own cultural understandings. My plan is to move back to Ghana after I graduate to help improve my countrys healthcare system. The symbolic ceremony was embraced by SGU in 1996. Students at the event take an oath of commitment to the medical profession, recognising that it is a privilege to have been given the opportunity to become a physician. Calum Macpherson, Vice Provost of the International Development Program and Dean of the School of Graduates at St, Georges University, said: Its always great to see enthusiastic and inspiring students like Daniel who really want to go the extra mile in their academic and medical careers. For more information about St Georges University, visit www.sgu.edu/ The Progressive Peoples Partys Parliamentary candidate for Cape Coast North Constituency, Mrs Sarah Bucknor has called on the electorates to vote for her in the December 7 election to eradicate poverty, teenage pregnancy and youth unemployment in the constituency. Mrs. Sarah Bucknor , who has 27 years experience in education under her belt said it is about time the youth voted for an experienced person who can work towards developing the constituency through quality and accessible education. She said this at the final sitting of the 13th students house of parliament organized by University of cape coast ahead of the December elections. Our education system will be free, compulsory and continuous starting from kindergarten and we are moving up straight to the SHS level, all been free, then universal everywhere, with that our basic educational level will no longer be JHS rather it would be SHS. Enforcing this will help prepare the students as well as eradicate the teenage pregnancy, unemployment and school droop out which usually occurs Mrs. Bucknor said the NDC government has woefully failed the constituency and added that there was no need to vote for the party again to continue the hardship it had brought onto Ghanaians. She assured the youth that the PPP government will use the state purchasing power to create more jobs for the teaming unemployed youth. I know with PPP, free education, jobs creation and improved Agriculture will transform Ghana. Vote for us, Sara Bucknor on number one on the parliamentary ballot and Papa Kwasi Nduom on number four on the presidential ballot that the electoral commission wanted to remove from the presidential race she added. According to Mrs. Bucknor, over one thousand people in the Cape Coast North constituency have so far benefited from her Fawo nsa ye adwuma program. which she introduced as part of her initiative to empower the constituents with employable skills. According to a report by a Freelance Journalist, Maxwell Attah, the Progressive Peoples Party intends to create a disciplined government that will be free from corruption as well as build strong and credible institutions if voted into power. In the 2012 elections, Mary Sara Bucknor secured only 5.5% votes after she contested against the incumbent MP Hon. Ebo Barton Oduro. Notwithstanding her previous defeat, she is poised to win in her second attempt come December 7. Housing Policy development can be traced as far back as the 1920s when the Dispossessed Persons Housing Scheme was operationalized to provide some compensation to people whose houses were compulsorily acquired in the so-called public interest. After over 3 decades of policy vacuum, characterised by piece-meal attempts to recognise housing in some policy documents by succeeding Governments, a new National Housing Policy was promulgated in 2015. This brief article raises two main issues - policy reversionism and policy contradictions - for further consideration; shows their interconnectedness and how they combine to contradict the spirit of the current housing policy. Housing Policy Reversionism First, the issue of policy reversionism becomes clear after a review of housing policy change in Ghana from 1920 to 2015 (see Kugbega, 2015; Arku, 2009). Reversionism is the principle of reverting to the conditions, customs, ideals of an earlier era. This process is similar to reversionism and recidivism in theology and criminal justice theories respectively (Sarfoh, 2010). In theology, reversionism is viewed as the process of a Christian backsliding after having been reformed. In criminal justice, recidivism entails the process of reversion of an individual to criminal behaviour after he or she has been convicted of a prior offense, sentenced, and (presumably) corrected (Malt, 2001:1). So, what is the evidence of reversionism in housing policy development in Ghana? Between 1920 and 1984, housing delivery was largely state-led. However, the period was also characterised by reversionism. The Military Government led by the National Liberation Council (NLC) and the first civilian Government (Progress Party) after the overthrow of Nkrumah, liberalized housing policy through privatization, deregulation and non-budgetary allocations to subvented state enterprises. The idea was to encourage a private sector-led delivery of housing due to inadequate state resources. Privatization of state assets was however alien and unfavoured by the populace. Thus, coupled with economic hardship, ripe conditions returned the Military to power, led by the National Redemption Council (NRC) and subsequently the Supreme Military Council (SMC) I & II. It is believed that for populist reasons as a way of legitimizing their actions, these military governments reverted to state-led housing delivery in a grand style, despite inadequate state resources. Secondly, during the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) regime (another military government in 1979), price, rent and exchange rate controls were stringently reinforced without recourse to legal systems (Jeffries, 1982). These draconian approaches and populism were meted out as punished to so-called economic saboteurs essentially targeted at the rich, landlords and traders who were not necessarily rich (Sarfoh, 2010) - in the name of probity and accountability. Further, the Rent Act, 1963 (Act 220) forbade rent advance payments exceeding 6 months. Fast forward 2015, history is repeating itself. The Rent Act is currently under review. The Draft Rent Bill seeks to reform the existing rent regulations, remove inherent constraints on housing supply, while maintaining the protection it offers low-income and vulnerable tenants from abuse and arbitrary actions by landlords. One of its propositions according to the Deputy Minister for Housing, Mr Sampson Ahi, is to control rent advance period by reducing the rent advance period from 6 months to 1 month. This is a clear instance of housing policy reversionism to an ideal rent control - established as debilitating to housing market development (cf Malpezzi et al, 1990; Willis & Tipple, 1991). Housing Policy Contradictions? Objective 1 and 2 of the new National Housing Policy are: 1. To promote greater private sector participation in housing delivery; 2. To create an environment conducive to investment in housing for rental purposes. Policy initiatives to achieve the objectives include: 1. Provide fiscal and monetary incentives for increased private sector investment in housing infrastructure for those benefitting lower-income households. The details of these incentives are contained in the country's investment code; 2. Review the Rent Act, Act 220 (1963) to streamline rent regulations and empower the Rent Department to encourage investments in the construction of rental housing as well as the protection of vulnerable households from abuse by house owners. However, Government fiscal policy appear to stand in contradiction to the ideals espoused by the new housing policy. Two of such government actions are identified below: Rent Tax In the same year - 2015 - when the new Housing Policy with a beautiful vision was promulgated, the Income Tax Act, 2015 (ACT 896) was also passed to introduce a Rent Tax - 8% in the case of residential premises and 15% in respect of commercial premises of the gross rent paid to Landlords/landladies - to be withheld by tenants and remitted to the Ghana Revenue Authority. Rent tax reduces investors cashflow and increases the risk of profitability, which could make housing investment relatively unattractive and thus render the vision of the policy elusive. Rent Advance Payment Reduction As indicated earlier, there is a proposal to reduce the rent advance payment period from 6 months to 1 month. Already, most landlords require on average 2 years rent advance in the major cities because the 6 month rent advance may not be worth their investment. From an investment perspective, rent advance is a mechanism to reduce investors' risk and increase their initial yield, to help them recoup upfront some portion of the substantial investment they have made in housing. A reduction in the rent advance period increases investors' risk and reduces their initial yield, which make housing investment relatively unattractive. Empirical evidence shows that as rent control laws became restrictive, availability of rental accommodation declined with house owners unwilling to be subjected to excessive control over rent pricing (Sarfoh, 2010; Malpezzi et al, 1990; Willis & Tipple, 1991). Rent controls were historically adopted as political instruments whenever governments (the Socialist and Marxist political administrations- PNDC) wanted to garner support of the masses to legitimise their stay (Sarfoh, 2010). It appears the socialists and Marxists are back with a policy reversionism tactic in rent control, perhaps for the sheer populism to garner electoral votes since the polls are about two weeks away. A few important questions arise. Pertinent Questions 1. Now, in spite of the need to rake in more revenue for Government, how and in what ways does a rent tax and a reduction in the rent advance period help to achieve the policy objectives of the new National Housing Policy? 2. Is the reversion to rent control an exercise of populism against the economic saboteurs landlords and investors - or an act of exercise justice for poor tenants in a corrupt housing market? 3. Was the new National Housing Policy dead on arrival? Kenneth A. Donkor-Hyiaman, MPhil (Cantab) Research Fellow, Property & Planning Institute of Technology (PPIT) 22.11.2016 LISTEN By John Bediako.. The cry of cement manufacturers over the importation of cheap cement products from China and some of the Asian countries has caught the attention of the government. Apart from Dangote, who appears to be selling quality cement on the local market, the rest are cheap imports that are being dumped in the country. Furtherance to this decision to fight cheap imports, The Chronicle can report on authority that the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) over the weekend blocked a Chinese vessel, MV GUO TOU 106 from discharging tons of bagged cement at the Tema Port. The vessel was, however, permitted to discharge steel plates and equipment on board. A National Security source at the Tema Port, who wants to remain anonymous, told The Chronicle that there were inconsistencies in the manifest of the vessel, which was presented during the berthing meetings at the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA). According to the source, when MV GUO TOU 106 berthed at the Tema Port on November 7th, 2016, the crew told the port authorities that they only have on board steel products. But during the berthing meeting held on November 14, 2016, the crew changed their position and told the Ghanaian officials that they were carrying cement and other equipment. The inconsistency in the declaration raised an eyebrow among the national security operatives, especially with a few days to the national polls. Further security enquiries revealed that the consignee is not even a licensed importer of cement. The Director of Port, Tema, Jacob Adorkor, when contacted said that the GPHA depends on directives from Customs as to whether to discharge a cargo or not. In a related development, the Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Peter Kofi Faidoo has re-echoed the preparedness of the Ghana Navy to demolish any attempt by elements who would intend to carry their nefarious activities using the sea. According to him, the Ghana Navy has re-enforced its patrols of the country's territorial waters and will spare no unfriendly movement aimed at destabilizing the nation. He told The Chronicle that the navy, together with the rest of the sister security agencies, were to crash anyone who try to ferment trouble in the country. He appealed to sea-farers to co-operate anytime they are contacted by the navy so that together, we can all secure this beautiful country of ours. "Tell people this is against fake currency, against terror... Don't call it surgical strike. Only a soldier can do surgical strikes. We aren't capable of it. The Opposition can say it, but you don't say it," Modi is reported to have told his MPs. By Brijesh Pandey: At a meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Party ahead of another stormy day in Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked his party men to stop calling his demonetisation policy "a surgical strike" on black money, saying only soldiers do that. "Tell people this is against fake currency, against terror... Don't call it surgical strike. Only a soldier can do surgical strikes. We aren't capable of it. The Opposition can say it, but you don't say it," Modi is reported to have told his MPs. advertisement Surgical strike came into the nation's parlance in September this year after the Indian Army crossed the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir to destroy the terror camps in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and kill terrorists, an operation conducted to avenge the Uri terror attack in which 19 Indian soldiers were killed. The Opposition, led by the Congress, has repeatedly called the November 8 demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes "a surgical strike" on India's poor by the government. In his address today, Modi sought to turn the tables on the Opposition by stressing that the note ban will help the poor. "We are here not for personal gains. We are here to work for the poor who have been neglected for 70 years. The poor have been suffering for 70 years due to the menace of corruption, black money and terrorism. And this is just the beginning. More decisions will be taken for the poor and the common man of the country," an emotional Modi said. The Prime Minister has also invited feedback from people on demonetisation. "I want your first-hand view on the decision taken regarding currency notes. Take part in the survey on the Narendra Modi App http://nm4.in/dnldapp," he tweeted from his personal account. Meanwhile, demonetisation continued to rock Parliament for the fifth day today, with the Opposition demanding a statement in the House by PM Modi. Also read: Rijiju to India Today: Demonetisation has broken financial backbones of terror groups With note ban, PM creating new normal by stopping 70-year norm: Arun Jaitley --- ENDS --- The Canadian Armed Forces conducted their first flight under Operation FREQUENCE, providing airlift support to Frances operations in West Africa and the Sahel region. On November 20, 2016, a Royal Canadian Air Force CC-177 Globemaster strategic airlifter transported personnel and equipment from France to West Africa and the Sahel region. Canada has provided airlift support to France, an important Ally, in the past. Op FREQUENCE is the most recent Canadian contribution to stability and security in this region. The CAF airlift contribution to operations in West Africa and the Sahel region demonstrates our readiness in bringing valuable capabilities in support to regional and international security and stability, said Lieutenant-General Stephen Bowes, Commander Canadian Joint Operations Command. London (AFP) - Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell on Tuesday urged a High Court judge in Britain to block pollution claims brought against it by more than 40,000 Nigerians, demanding the case be heard in Nigeria instead. Lawyers for the claimants are demanding action from Shell to clean up oil spills that have devastated their Niger Delta communities for decades. But Royal Dutch Shell lawyer Peter Goldsmith told High Court of England and Wales judge Peter Fraser that the cases concerned "fundamentally Nigerian issues", and shouldn't be heard in London. "The claims raise issues of Nigerian common law, customary law and legislation," he said during the first day of the three-day hearing. "The events are said to have occurred in Nigeria and the alleged physical damage is all said to be found in Nigeria." Shell pointed out that the case involves its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the government. Goldsmith said the case was aimed at "procuring an 'anchor defendant'" to establish the High Court's jurisdiction over SPDC, opening the door for further claims. Daniel Leader from legal firm Leigh Day, which is representing the claimants, said oil spills from Shell's pipelines had "blighted the lives of the thousands of Nigerians who live in Ogale and Bille" communities. "It is clear to the claimants that Royal Dutch Shell is ultimately responsible for failing to ensure that its Nigerian subsidiary operates without causing environmental devastation," he said in a statement. King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi of the Ogale community told AFP his community had no option but to seek a ruling in London. "At the moment these communities have no choice -- they have to take them to court to get them to act." King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi of the Ogale community told AFP his community had no option but to seek a ruling in London. "Shell is Nigeria and Nigeria is Shell," he said. "You can never, never defeat Shell in a Nigerian court. The truth is that the Nigerian legal system is corrupt." SPDC claims that the main sources of pollution in Ogale and Bille are "crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining." 22.11.2016 LISTEN There are strong indications of deepened crisis emerging from the involvement of the Nigeria High Commission in All Nigeria Community activities. This crisis is believed to have generated as a result of special alliance with an individual who is being regarded as the arc enemy of the community, Mr. Emmanuel Okeson. This plaguing tale of All Nigerian Community Ghana (ANC- GH) requires a forceful gut to contain the revelations of Nigeria High Commission's (NHC) undue interference that has deepened crisis within the Nigeria community. Agitating Crisis It was hard to believe that there was crisis in the ANC-GH at every stage of preparation toward smooth and peaceful election, but the high commission portrays the ANC-GH to the world to appear that there was ongoing heavy war in the community. Observing the genesis of the perceived crisis, it was gathered that the crisis emanated from the NHC- Emmanuel Okeson led faction, which was created by them to implement all plan in order to get the ANC-GH former President Mr. Owharo out of the office, and also ensure he did not win the election. According to first paragraph of the press release provided by NHC, In the interest of the unity of (within) the Nigeria community, which is paramount, implementation of that particular phrase reflected in NHC's appointment of the Interim Caretaker Committee whose individuals are neither qualified as members of ANC GH nor credible enough to manage the affairs of the association. This development has heightened the scale of mistrust against NHC, which has been established within new twisted version of obligation that only favours Mr. Emmanuel Okeson group, against the interests of the majority of the members within the community. This dissolution can only be pointed to serve self-interest of Mr. Okeson whose history of causing confusion and division in Igbo community, TASOF, TAN and ANC Ghana is well recognised in the Nigeria community. Chief Vincent, President of Igbo Community Ghana indicated that the Nigeria High Commission has a purpose of destabilizing the community. According to him, the high commission resolution is rather compromised and he believes there is someone influencing the embassy for his advantage. He believes that instead of proffering solution, using the approach of serving one faction interest would rather cause more In the process of resolving crisis in the community, and by instituting those that have controversial history as the heads of Igbo Community, the High Commission rather created more confusion, crises and deprives ANC-GH of its smooth transition. Nze Dennis Nwachukwu, with his alliances, has history of forging documents and forming parallel Igbo Community. He initially contested against me as the President of Igbo Community, Chief Vincent, and lost. Due to the unsatisfactory outcome of the election result, he rebelled against the Igbo community and formed a parallel Igbo Community. This same individual was singlehandedly selected by the Nigeria High Commission. I am yet to know the purpose behind their decision of being being one sided, but I know it has a negative outcome. Nze Dennis Nwachukwu, Emmanuel Ndubuisi, and Chief Mokwugwo deceived the Ghana government to perpetrate illegality. Having relationship with such rogues rather places the High Commission at very black spot Chief Vincent concluded. Partisan Attitude of the Nigerian high commission The motivating force behind NHC's pronouncement of ANC-GH executives' dissolution was believed to be rooted in the gut of creating more division and crisis, an act that has rather attracted lots of opprobrium in the community and in Nigeria. It is believed in many quarters that the illegal dissolution was a well-planned action by the High Commission and Mr. Okeson to destabilize the smooth elections of the ANC-GH. Petition provided by Mr. Moses Owharo highlighted the acts of illegality by the Nigerian High Commission. This illegality has been in pursuance for over three (3) years since the arrival of Mr Abraham poko to the Nigerian High Commission, and has led to a continuous alliance with Mr Emmanuel Okeson to create illegal parallel Associations among Nigerian Communities (Igbo Community and the All Nigerian Community) for their parochial objectives of causing chaos and creating a semblance of crisis among the communities, in order to achieve their unknown personal interests. This joint team has also refused that the associations account should be handed over to the executives since sworn into office in October 1st 2013, they have continued to disrupt the operations of the sitting executive through their continuous media propaganda and accusations which is unfounded, and the deliberate saboteur of project of the ANC-GH initiated by Owharo, but however had acknowledged an illegitimate faction headed by Mr. Emmanuel Okeson. Her Excellency continuous support for Mr. Okeson group revealed during the induced dissolution of ANC-GH executives and handling over of the activities of the ANC-GH to a group that does not belong to the ANC-GH nor participate in the association's activities at National Delegates Congress, Regional or District Congress where major decision are made. This act has made some quarters in the community to conclude that NHC thrives in the disunity and crisis within the All Nigeria Community Ghana. Nigeria High Commission Working Beyond their Jurisdiction From understanding, and consultations from both lawyers, and Nigeria's Foreign Affairs Ministry, it was made to understand that the NHC committed Ultravires in the purported dissolution of executives and bypassing the ANC GH 2014 constitution, which is in used. According to one of the executives, as a registered association in accordance to the law of Ghana, ANC-GH operates within the regulation of Association act of the Republic of Ghana, and therefore is free from any encumbrances and interference from any institution or third party. ANC-GH, as a sovereign, has it level of authority and modus of operation as enshrined in its constitution and as such the High Commission and or any member (s) of its staff do not have the legal right and authority to take such action on behalf of the ANC-GH National Delegate Congress which is the highest decision making organ of the Community in matters relating to dissolution of the executives as stipulated in article 110 of the 2014 ANC-GH constitution. Scraping 2014 ANC- GH Constitution to Review 2013 Constitution Current ANC-GH Constitution was adopted in 2014 in the conference room of the NHC in May 30th, 2014, with National Delegates from 7 ANC-GH regions, National Association of Nigerian students (NANS-GH), National Association of Nigerian Traders (NUTAG), National Association of Nigerian Women and Members of the BOTs and Patrons. Having adopted the 2014 Constitution at the Nigeria High Commission premises, NHC ill-advised (by Abraham Poko) order to revert to an old constitution is rather a recipe for crisis and disunity. Financial Loss and Reputation Damages ANC-GH started processes leading to the election of new Executives to the Community. Filing of nominations was made opened for contestants, aspirants had paid the fees and filed in their completed nomination forms, and they had been vetted and given approval to contest their various positions. To legitimize the process, the electoral commission of Ghana had printed ballots for the election; a date for election had been set by the Congress. However, the undue interference of the Nigeria High Commission only causes more reputation damages on notable individuals who have put in their best to ensure that the process was followed. In addition, the financial losses from the individuals who spend their monies on forms and campaign activities rather place them on defeating phase of reality. Mr. Moses Owharo, Former ANC-GH President lamented, ever since 2013 that I was inaugurated alongside other executives as the president, we have work to complement the Nigerian high commission and promoted the good image of Nigeria with little or no support from the Nigerian High Commission. We have been helping Nigerians in Ghana in various ways. What the ANC-GH had asked from the High Commission was the use of their premises for the conduct of election, which they originally approved but later withdrew after their crony of Mr. Emmanuel Okeson and Abraham Poko had written a baseless premeditated petition. The NHC deliberately denied the community the use of their premises for the commission to have alibi to justify their preconceived plans to disrupt the peace and unity of our dear community, even though the Ghana police report which says the community should go ahead to conduct their election as scheduled was submitted to the High commission. I believe the Nigeria High Commission understands the responsibilities of standing for the majority, not the minority, Mr. Moses Owharo, ANC-GH Former President concluded. In conclusion, the task of an ambassador was summed up by Alain Plantey, the prominent French jurist, The ambassador must act with patience and firmness, with prudence and perseverance, not to be fooled by maneuvers of distraction or intimidation. It is right to conclude that if Nigeria High Commission refuses to play neutral roles in this controversy, it may end up haunting the staffs behind the crisis. It may have negative feedback on their reputations. The Hague (AFP) - Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court will probe the trafficking of migrants out of Libya to see if there is evidence of war crimes, the chief prosecutor told AFP Tuesday. With the situation in Libya "deteriorating," Fatou Bensouda said "my office is planning to make Libya a priority in investigations" in the coming year. "One of the areas I intend to look into is the issue of the migrants, and the fact that we see hundreds of thousands of migrants being trafficked across from Libya, coming into Europe," she said. She was speaking in an interview with AFP in the ICC's new permanent home on the outskirts of The Hague, just as Italy was on the verge of a record number of migrant arrivals for the year. Asked if such trafficking could be considered "a crime against humanity," Bensouda replied: "It could be, depending on what evidence we find." "We are still continuing with our investigations in Libya. We are receiving a lot of information with regards to the crimes that are being committed." 'Women, children bear brunt of crimes' Italian officials said on Tuesday at least eight people had died and an unknown number were missing in a new series of boat disasters in the Mediterranean. Some 1,400 people had been saved in a dozen separate operations between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon, the Italian coastguard said. The rescues will take the number of migrants to have arrived in Italy by sea this year to almost 170,000, just short of the previous record set in 2014. "The crimes are just many. And unfortunately it is the civilians... the women and children who are bearing the brunt of those crimes," Bensouda said. Although Libya is not a party to the Rome Statute which underpins the ICC, the UN Security Council unanimously mandated the tribunal to investigate abuses in the country in February 2011. It was then still under the rule of longtime leader Moamer Kadhafi, who was killed months later by rebels in a NATO-backed uprising. An arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity is still outstanding for his son, Seif al-Islam, said to be behind bars in Zintan, a town southwest of Tripoli that opposes the unity government based in the capital. The new unity government in Tripoli still faces dogged resistance from jihadist holdouts, who seized on the chaos unleashed since 2011. Bensouda's attempt to have the ICC warrant served on the battalion commander in charge in Zintan, to compel him to turn over Islam to the court, was Monday turned down by the trial chamber in The Hague. But she vowed her office would keep up its investigations, and said new arrest warrants could perhaps follow next year. "So far the judges have decided that we should continue to have contact with the authorities in Libya... we will follow that up and see what we can do. The efforts have to continue." Ghanaian journalist, Kwame Sefa-Kayi, has described the Electoral Commission's decision to charge journalists willing to cover this year's election as shameful and unfair. According to him, the decision by the country's electoral body makes no sense and may force some journalists to focus on negatives on the day of the elections. I think it is shameful, that you will charge the media to cover the elections I don't think it is a very good thing you have done. You are denying journalists the right to report the truth, the situations as they happen to people. I don't think that is a smart thing to do, I don't know why a journalist or part of the media, you have to pay money to cover the elections. If we are not careful, we will end up reporting disaster. Little things like what the Electoral Commission has done to us as journalists is what starts these small things, he said. Speaking at a stakeholders meeting organized by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) on Monday, November 21, Kwame Sefa-Kayi said journalists must not be made to pay before they cover national events such as the elections. The Electoral Commission recently announced it will charge journalists 10 cedis and 20 cedis for Ghana Journalists Association members and non-members respectively. The amount is to enable the Commission provide accreditation cards, although it has huge government of Ghana and donor funding for organizing the elections. The decision generated a lot of controversy with a group of journalists dragging the Commission before court over the mater. But according to Mr. Sefa-Kayi, Host of the Kokrokoo Morning Show on Accra-based Peace FM, it is improper to introduce the charges for this year's elections, when that has never been the case since the country started conducting democratic elections. NCCE must stop the pretense He further accused the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) of pretending to be working actively ahead of this year's election, when it lacked the needed resources to carry out its mandate. According to him, although the Commission has in various interactions complained about their inadequacies, it has failed to channel its grievances to the appropriate quarters in government to have them addressed tenable them work effectively. Below is the video of Mr. Sefa Kayis address at the forum. By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana Follow @jnyabor Presidential candidate of the Convention People's Party (CPP), Ivor Kobina Greenstreet has charged the chief and people of Bunkpurugu to reject the two main parties for non-performance. He said both the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) have had the chance to control the nation but have failed to develop the three Northern Region including Bunkpurugu. The visit to the Bunkpurugu traditional area forms part of his Green campaign tour across the country to garner votes to win the race to the Flagstaff House. The chief, Naa Alhaji Abuba Nasingmong, Paramount Chief of Bunkpurugu Traditional area complained to the flagbearer the three major problems facing the area. He pointed out that their road networks are poor; they lack health facilities and educational infrastructures are inadequate. Mr Greenstreet asked for peace in the area and called on the chief to bless the CPP to win come December stressing the CPP has more plans for the area and Ghana as a whole. He said he found it strange that with a return to democracy 24 years ago and the resources Ghana is endowed with, both the NPP and NDC could not develop the area and other areas in the Northern Region. After the NPP and NDC had the chance to govern, they keep coming here asking for your votes without developing your area, that is something I dont understand. You know what the CPP and Kwame Nkrumah did for the three Northern Regions. It has been failure after failure by the two parties yet you keep giving them your vote, he noted. Mr Greenstreet said he is surprised by the lack of interest the two parties have exhibited by not opening the area for development. This is a place where you have so many opportunities in agricultural produce which is not being taken advantage off to put monies in the pockets of the people, he said. He pleaded with the Chief to hear the pleas of the CPP and give them the change to one more time bring development and freedom in opportunity and punish the two main parties. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim The IEA presidential town hall debate is underway at the Kempiski Hotel in Accra. Seven presidential candidates are contesting this year's election but only three are on hand this evening to face the jury and the electorate. The two leading candidates in the 2016 elections, president John Mahama of the National Democratic Congress and the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party Nana Akufo-Addo are missing. So too are Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings of the National Democratic Party and the Convention People's Party Ivor Greenstreet. However, three candidates- Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom of the Progressive People's Party, Dr Edward Mahama of the People's National Convention, Joseph Osei Yeboah, an Independent Candidate are poised to take advantage of the absence of the two leading candidates to answer questions and explain their policies to the electorate in the hope that the electorate will vote them into power in December. The theme for this year's debate is: "Reinforcing the pillars of Ghana's democracy." The moderator is Samson Lardy Anyenini. The debate focuses on three prong areas- Economy private sector and industrialization. The candidates will have two minutes within which to introduce themselves after which the questions will be fired at them. Introduction Dr Edward Mahama begins with the round of introduction. He wants to reduce tax rate and cut down wastage in the system. Dr Kwesi Nduom I am Local boy from Elmina desperate to change this country. It is unfortunate that the man who has mismanaged the country for eight years is not around to account for his stewardship. I will change that with not more than 40 Ministers of state. I will bring national discipline and improve industrialization with a proper petro chemical industry in the oil sector in the Western Region. Joseph Osei Yeboah The no party president, he describes himself. You can govern a nation democratically without a political party. To industrialise every natural resource the country is endowed with. Has the skill to work with all human resources. The best from all parties to work together. Stand for an all inclusive government. Question 1 How will you achieve fiscal discipline, reduce national debt and increasing revenue. Mahama Spread the tax net. We spend more than we bring in. We will balance budget by matching income with expenditure. If anything there will only be budget deficit of 3% and not more than that. Will concentrate on agriculture and cottage industry which have the potential of rescuing the economy of this country. Nduom We are dangerous times. It is time to be lean. Will not use state funds to fund campaigns in power. Mahama will leave me with a huge problem if elected because much of the resources have been spent on campaign. We will stop the showcase projects, no fancy flyovers. Who is going to pay for that. Will channel roads into farming areas. Corruption is one area siphoning our monies. Our money is being dashed left right and centre with no accountability. You cannot run effective administration without technology. An important element is the use of technology in government. Jacob Yeboah We are running an expensive democracy. The billboards all around must be paid for. Single Spine Salary is part of the problem. Increasing salaries without reducing employment is part of the problem. We must create wealth as a nation by industrializing. We will inculcate a pre-auditing system of public finances. There also has to be the visibility of the public finances. We must expand tax net to include informal sectors. Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com The People's National Convention (PNC) Presidential Candidate says they would dedicate the first two years of their term if given the mandate in the December polls to address the teeming youth unemployment in the country. Responding to questions at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA)'s Town Hall Presidential Debate, the Dr Edward Mahama said his party would reduce unemployment in two years of assuming power. He said he would bring about structural changes in the country especially with the way things are conducted in the country. He said he would prioritize agriculture as it could employ up to 50 percent of the unemployed youth, citing a graduate of the University of Ghana, 25, who is doing well for with pig farming. Dr Mahama spoke fondly of his days as a farmer as a 27-years-old, which helped him to travel abroad to develop himself. He believes the sector has the potential to employ many people with the creation of subsidiary companies. If we are growing rice, it will help the farmers as well others who would be polishing and bagging the rice. These value-added jobs will get people employed, he said adding his administration would help maize farmers in the Afram Plains in the Eastern Region where the land is fertile for maize farming. The three-time flagbearer said poultry would also receive a massive boost, as his government would put in place measures to enhance local poultry production. According to him, the poultry industry would do so well that it would fit into the PNC's 'A drumstick for every school child at lunch' programme. Dr Mahama also plans to add value to raw materials produced by farmers. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim 22.11.2016 LISTEN By Iddi Yire, GNA Accra, Nov. 22, GNA - Mr Robert P. Jackson, United States, has lauded Ghana's vibrant and dynamic Information and Communications Technology community, for driving innovations in information technology software, hardware development and the implementation of mobile services. He said, these innovations were improving Ghana's ability to compete in world markets in the diverse areas of textiles, energy, and commodities. 'Ghana's internet penetration rate is growing by nearly 40 per cent every year. That upward trajectory is expected to continue for the next several years,' Mr Jackson stated in his address at the opening of the 2016 National Cyber Security Conference in Accra. He said the internet and information technology were playing an increasingly significant role in the lives of Ghanaians. 'There is so much good that can result from embracing this new technology. However, we must not ignore that in this increasingly networked world, there are bad guys out there seeking to take advantage of users like you and me, create havoc, and cause harm for their own commercial, political and social gain,' he said. Citing the Global Risks 2015 report, published last January by the World Economic Forum, Mr Jackson said the report gave a rather stark warning: '90 per cent of companies worldwide recognise they are insufficiently prepared to protect themselves against (cyber attacks).' He said cyber criminals could even sabotage the government or companies in the form of 'denial of service attacks,' which flood web services with bogus messages and sometimes disable systems and infrastructure. The Ambassador said following reports of high-profile breaches, more governments were focused on raising awareness of cyber-related risks; and they were building resilience against attacks, intrusions, and security failures. 'The US government is committed to working alongside our Ghanaian counterparts to tackle these issues. 'We are providing technical expertise and targeted training that supports the efforts that the Government of Ghana is already making to improve its cyber security. However, I will be the first to admit that we do not have all the answers. We are still learning ourselves,' he said. 'And there is no 'one size fits all,' approach. Ghana's agenda to strengthen cyber security and combat cybercrimes should be tailored to match Ghana's own realities and aspirations. 'It is ultimately up to the Government... with input from the private sector and civil society, to articulate its objectives, define its priorities, and allocate resources to address the nation's cyber concerns,' he said. Mr Jackson commended Ghana for initiating a dialogue with the US on cyber issues; and that Ghana already had a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) that stands ready to respond to cyber-attacks. He said Ghana was drafting documents to join the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, an international treaty designed to address cybercrime by harmonising national laws and increasing cooperation among nations. This, according to the Ambassador is a significant step in bringing Ghana's already strong legal cyber Security framework into greater alignment with the international community. He applauded the approval of the Ghana's National Cyber Security Policy and Strategy; which according to him would be a living document that Ghana could continue to build upon and improve as technology and conditions change. 'Attacking the threat of cyber-criminal activity requires a whole-of-government and multi-stakeholder approach. No single government, and no single organisation, has all of the resources and expertise to combat the advanced and persistent cyber-attacks that are being launched today,' Mr Jackson said. He said a vibrant partnership between government and the public and private sectors was essential to an effective cyber Security policy. 'Throughout this process, as we seek collaborative solutions to improve cyber security, we must also recognise the importance of maintaining and protecting freedom of speech, including Internet freedoms and the right of free speech,' he said. He said the US and Ghana were both members of the Freedom Online Coalition, and they value their mutual support for freedom of expression online. Mr Felix Ofosu Kwakye, a Deputy Minister of Communication, announced that Cabinet had approved Ghana's accession to the Budapest Convention on cyber-crime. The Convention pursues as a matter of priority a common criminal policy aimed at protecting countries against cyber-crime by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international cooperation. Mr Ofosu Kwakye said to tackle the cyber menace; the Ministry in collaboration with the International Telecommunications Union established the National Computer Emergency response team to coordinate handling and sharing of cyber intelligence with all network operators in the country. GNA Accra, Nov. 22, GNA - Universal Merchant Bank (UMB) has received the 'Brand Leadership Award' at the sixth Brand Excellence Awards organised by Premier Brands Ghana. A statement issued by UMB Bank and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday said the award was in recognition of the bank's strategic rebranding, which had elevated it into a nationally recognised and competitive universal bank. Receiving the award on behalf of the bank, UMB Bank's Director of Marketing and Communications, Ms Yvonne Botchey, dedicated the award to the Bank's cherished customers and expressed her appreciation to the Board and Management of UMB for recognising the strategic importance of the Bank's brand. 'The strength of the UMB Bank brand is largely due to the fact that we put our customers' interests at the centre of everything that we do,' the statement said. Ms Botchey also noted that the execution of innovative brand communication campaigns and the Bank's investment in technology to modernise its operations and to enhance customer experience have also contributed to the success of the UMB Bank brand. In a related development, UMB Bank has been adjudged the 'Student Friendly Bank of the Year' at the annual Ghana Tertiary Awards organised by Youth Web Ghana. This award recognises UMB Bank's tireless effort in building a strong relationship with the youth in Ghana, especially tertiary students. The award was presented by Mr Richmond Amiga-Sarpong, Chief Executive Officer of Youth Web Ghana. The Chief Executive Officer of UMB Bank, Mr. John Awuah, who received the award on behalf of the Bank, said: 'We are humbled by this recognition and we are happy to see that our belief in the value of providing stellar financial services to the youth has been validated with this award.' Mr Awuah also stated that earlier this year, the bank inaugurated two new branches on the campuses of the University of Ghana and the University of Professionals Studies, Accra to bring the services of the bank closer to students. He noted that the University of Cape Coast and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology would also soon experience UMB Bank's suite of products and services. 'We intend to reinforce our superiority in student banking by investing in technology that will provide cutting edge online and mobile banking services for our customers and especially for our student customers,' Mr Awuah concluded. UMB is a full-service financial institution specialising in customised banking products and services. It opened on March 15, 1972 and is a leading Ghanaian indigenous bank with considerable financial expertise. UMB is recognised for its entrepreneurial approach, innovative use of technology, and distinctive banking solutions. It currently has 31 branches, one UMB Centre for Businesses and a vast network of ATMs. GNA Amateur radio operators of Mumbai have been catching in the past five months. They have written to the PMO, the Mumbai police commissioner, the Gujarat Director General of Police about it. By Vidya : The hams or amateur radio operators of Mumbai have written to the Sanchar Bhawan in Delhi including the PMO, the Mumbai police commissioner, the Gujarat Director General of Police and many others, warning them about the undecipherable signals that their sets have been catching in the past five months. Ankur Puranik, a trader dealing in manufacturing of electronic products, is a ham radio operator in the city. Although there are over 200 amateur radio operators in Mumbai, not all use the set daily. Puranik says, "We hams meet during the night owls net, which is basically a roll call at 9.30 pm. There are about 70-80 of us, who have heard these voices using unrecognisable languages and what's suspicious is that they don't have a call name." advertisement 25,000 HAM OPERATORS The radio does not seem to make much noise. During any given day, the radio starts playing as other sources of communication collapse. All over India, there are 25,000 ham operators. Puranik says, "With online sale of ham radios, there are many people using these illegally. One can decipher when such transmissions happen from unregistered sets. But the reason why these are suspicious is also because they keep changing their frequency and when some of us checked with our direction finding equipment (DFE), it was found that the signal was not coming from the coast of India, but from deep sea." Also read | President Pranab Mukherjee launches first cross-border radio service The irregular signals are encroaching on the 144-146 MHz bandwidth allotted to the two-way radio transmission to the amateurs. The ham radio operators discussed among themselves and finally decided to tip-off the authorities about these calls. The letters were shot off by them on November 16. ANTI-SOCIAL ELEMENTS USE HIGH-FREQUENCY COMMUNICATION SYSTEM Puranik explains that the reasons why anti-social elements also choose very high frequency system of communication is because, "You cannot be tracked in these communications. It is easily available these days and there is a possibility that they may not be registered." The operators met Mumbai police officials who have asked them to record these conversations that could help in finding out the source of these activities. --- ENDS --- Accra, Nov. 22, GNA - WaterAid Ghana, has called on government to keep its promise to deliver universal access to sanitation. This followed new analysis in 'WaterAid's Overflowing Cities', which ranked Ghana among the top 50 countries globally for having the greatest percentage of urban dwellers living without safe, private toilets. A statement issued by WaterAid Ghana and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday to mark World Toilet Day, which fell on November 19, said, the report highlighted the challenges facing 700 million urban dwellers around the world living without sanitation. 'The State of the World's Toilets report looks at the problem of urban sanitation and the health threats to our world, as the UN predicts by 2050 two-thirds of the global population will live in towns and cities.' Despite progress, about 80 per cent of Ghana's urban population had no access to a toilet, meaning many have no choice but to defecate in the open using roadsides, railway tracks and even plastic bags dubbed: 'flying toilets.' It said the high population density of urban areas means that diseases spread fast in the absence of good sanitation. 'One child dies every two minutes from diarrhoeal diseases caused by dirty water, poor sanitation and hygiene. 'Globally 159 million children under five have their physical and cognitive development stunted; many of such cases are caused from repeated bouts of diarrhoea attributed to dirty water, poor sanitation and lack of hygiene,' it added. Among the other findings India, the world's fastest growing economy, ranks top for having the greatest number of urbanites living without a safe, private toilet 157 million. It is also a world leader in having the most urban dwellers practising open defecation 41 million. It said War-ravaged South Sudan, the world's newest nation, is the worst country in the world for urban sanitation by percentage. 84 per cent of urbanites have no access to a toilet and every other urban-dweller there practises open defecation. It indicated that Africa's biggest economy, Nigeria, is falling furthest behind in reaching its urban population with a toilet. For every urban-dweller reached with sanitation since 2000, two were added to the number living without, an increase of 31 million people in the past 15 years. According to the report fast-growing China is making the most progress in reaching its urban population with sanitation. It said China managed to build toilets faster than the pace of new arrivals, reaching 329 million people since 2000, and outpacing population growth by 9 million. The Country Director of WaterAid Ghana Abdul-Nashiru Mohammed: 'For the first time in history, more than half of the world's population lives in towns and cities. By 2050, that's expected to rise to two-thirds.' 'But for many, particularly the poor, they're arriving or being born in overcrowded and rapidly expanding slums which lack safe, private toilets and clean water sources. 'Diseases like cholera or Ebola can spread further and faster without sanitation and hygiene practices to block their path and an outbreak found in a slum can quickly become a citywide, national or international epidemic. 'This World Toilet Day, we are calling on national leaders to deliver on their promises to meet the UN's Global Goal 6 to bring water and sanitation to all, because everyone - no matter where they live - deserves affordable access to these life essentials.' WaterAid's latest 'State of World's Toilets' report has exposed a number of countries for failing to make progress in providing urban sanitation, despite their rapid economic growth. It noted that often politicians prefer to invest in roads and other visible infrastructure and neglect the dirty issue of sanitation; but good sanitation is the bedrock of public health. It said every town and city in the world needs to prioritise providing safe sanitation services to all the population in order to create a healthier, more sustainable future. On this year's World Toilet Day, WaterAid is calling for everyone living in urban areas, including slums, to be reached with a toilet to ensure public health is protected. It called for more money, better spent from governments and donors on sanitation, clean water and hygiene for the urban poor. WaterAid's vision is of a world where everyone has access to safe water and sanitation. The international organisation works in 37 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific Region to transform lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in some of the world's poorest communities. Since 1981, WaterAid has reached 23 million people with safe water and, since 2004, 21 million people with sanitation. GNA By Francis Ameyibor, GNA Arusha, Tanzania Arusha (Tanzania), Nov. 22, GNA - The Fifth Annual African Union (AU) Dialogue on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance in Africa opens in Arusha, the United Republic of Tanzania from November 23 to November 26. Mrs Samia Suluhu Hassan, Vice President of Tanzania is expected to open the Dialogue, which also forms part the commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. The Dialogue will also assess the 13 years of the Maputo Protocol on the Rights of Women; 15 years of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child; 29 years of African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights; and 35 years of the adoption of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. The AU has declared 2016 the African Year of Human Rights with particular focus on the Rights of Women. Working document obtained by the Ghana News Agency at Arusha, indicates that the overall objective of the Dialogue is to provide a forum to Member States, inter-governmental, semi-governmental and non-state actors, to brainstorm and reflect on the human rights situation on the continent. It will also serve as an opportunity for frank discussions and constructive dialogue involving all the relevant human rights stakeholders, with a view to carving a long term action plan to promote and protect human and peoples rights, and instil a culture of human rights on the continent. Participants will brainstorm and reflect on the human rights situation on the continent; share lessons and experiences on how to enhance the promotion and protection of human rights on the continent; and assess the challenges facing the effective implementation of human rights instruments, decisions, declaration and action plans. The dialogue will also seek to enhance coordination, partnerships and networks among human rights actors on the continent; and develop a concrete and realistic Action Plan for the promotion and protection of human rights. In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Justice Sylvain OrA President of the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights underscored that the Dialogue would provide an opportunity to consolidate the gains already made over the years and ensure better coordination of human rights bodies on the continent, based on the ideals encapsulated in AU's Agenda 2063. He said: 'It is hoped that the celebrations will initiate an advocacy and coordinating campaigns that will effectively reach out to African stakeholders and partners at all levels'. He said the AU has dedicated 2016 as African Year of Human Rights with particular focus on the rights of women. It therefore provides an opportunity for the peoples of Africa, to mark, commemorate and celebrate the significant milestones in Africa's continental human rights progression. 'It also gives Africans the chance to tell their story - not only to raise awareness about the great work they have been doing to uplift their communities, but also to inspire future generations to emulate innovative and exciting approaches to making a difference through human rights based approaches. 'This will provide further opportunity to consolidate the gains already made over the years, ensure better coordination of human rights bodies on the continent, and move towards the establishment of a true human rights culture on the continent, based on the ideals encapsulated in Africa Agenda 2063,' he said. The Dialogue is expected to be attended by about 300 delegates, including the representatives of AU Member States; Members of the African Governance Platform; Academia, Researchers, Distinguished African statesmen/women; Civil Society Organisations, Media, International Partners and Youth Organisations, among others. GNA 22.11.2016 LISTEN Mrs. Rebecca Naa Okaikor Akufo-Addo, the wife Of the Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party has asked residents of the Kpone Katamanso constituency, to vote for Nana Addo and the NPP, to implement policies like the one District one factory and the one constituency one million dollars, to ensure jobs and a better life for all Ghanaians. At the Valley View University, where she attended a church service, she asked the congregation to pray for Nana Addo and the NPP. Mrs Akufo-Addo also told the electorate at Oyibi and Apollonia that she would do everything within her power as first lady to improve their standard of living, under a Nana Addo -led NPP government. At the Atadeka Lorry station and Taxi station, Mrs.Akufo-Addo told drivers that Nana Addo and the NPP will put in place measures to reduce the cost of operations in the transport business, to make transportation cheaper for passengers and more profitable for drivers and operators. Mrs.Akufo-Addo later visited the Zenu Memorial market ,where she told market women that Nana Akufo-Addo would make sure Masloc loans are not given to just a select few but to all deserving Ghanaians. Mrs Akufo-Addo commissioned a foot bridge at Zenu, to facilitate the movement of people and ended her tour with a rally at the Zenu Lorry station, where she told the electorate that my husband is he is a man of integrity and ready to work with everyone. You know this is the third time for him and I believe you will give him the mandate to implement free maternal healthcare, free education and make the NHIS work again. Vote for Nana Addo and the NPP for a better life for you and your children and grandchildren. She was accompanied by Regional Executives, former Ministers, the parliamentary candidate Solomon Appiah, his executives and other party supporters. The Presidential Candidate of the Progressive People's Party (PPP) says Ghana's is practicing a lazy approach to taxation where only a few people pay tax. Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom says if Ghana gets away from that approach, a lot would be achieved including implementing the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) which comes with a unique numbering scheme. Speaking at the maiden Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Town Hall Debate for Presidential Candidate at the Kempinski Hotel In Accra Tuesday, he said the PPP can reduce the level of taxation by 50 percent in the country by the end of their first term. More soon... Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim By Rahul Noronha: Former Madhya Pradesh Governor and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ram Naresh Yadav (89) passed away at a private medical facility in Lucknow on Tuesday. Ram Naresh Yadav courted controversy after his name cropped up in the Vyapam recruitment scam during investigations. Yadav had recently completed his term in the Raj Bhawan in Bhopal in September 2016. He had complained of breathlessness after which he was taken to hospital in Lucknow. advertisement He had not been keeping well and in fact on the last day in office he had to be taken to Lucknow by air ambulance. His last day in office was also marked by drama when a man, claiming to be an RTI activist set himself ablaze outside the Raj Bhawan in Bhopal demanding that the CBI take action against Yadav in the Vyapam scam. YADAV SERVED AS CM OF UTTAR PRADESH Yadav had been CM of UP between 1977 to 1979 and was appointed Governor of Madhya Pradesh in August 2011 by the UPA government. During the course of investigation of the Vyapam scam, the MP police's Special Task Force (STF) had registered an FIR against Ram Naresh Yadav which was later quashed by the High Court. Also read: Ram Naresh Yadav - Why he is in the news The HC had maintained that the STF was free to proceed against Yadav once he relinquishes office. The Vyapam inquiry is now being conducted by the CBI which had not questioned him. Ram Naresh Yadav's OSD Dhanraj Yadav had been arrested by the STF in connection with the Vyapam scam. The MP cabinet chaired by CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan that met on Tuesday condoled the death of the Governor. Also read: Gujarat Governor Om Prakash Kohli to take charge as Madhya Pradesh's Governor --- ENDS --- Condemnation has trailed media reports suggesting that President Muhammadu Buhari would seek a second term in office. Nigerians have kicked against the idea of President Muhammadu Buhari seeking a second term in office. The criticism followed a statement released by the presidency dismissing suggestions that the masses will desert President Buhari in 2019. READ ALSO: PDP condemns bloody attack on Jegede's campaign office The presidency had released a statement on Monday, November 21, in reply to a former member of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, Alhaji Buba Galadimas comments that the people of Nigeria would abandon Buhari should he choose to seek re-election. Buharis aide, Malam Garba Shehu dismissed the comments that it would be a lonely walk for the president. The presidential spokesman said the masses are solidly behind Buhari because he is not stealing their money and their future. READ ALSO: Why Akeredolu shunned Ondo election debate However, some Nigerians have kicked against any idea of President Muhammadu Buhari seeking a second term in office. Some citizens took to social media and warned that president might be stoned if he contests in the 2019 presidential election. They described the suggestion that Buhari would run for second term as a shame when he has not offered solution to the myriads of problems facing the country. See reactions below: Do you think President Muhammadu Buhari still has anything to offer in 2019? Source: Legit.ng By Sahil Joshi: The Tata Sons' statement of November 10 insinuated that Mr. Cyrus Mistry had made no "material contributions" to the success of TCS and JLR, implying that the achievements were a manifestation of Mr. Ratan Tata's personal vision and efforts. Mr. Mistry would like to place on record that while TCS and JLR justifiably receive a lot of media attention, the group's portfolio has an extraordinary range. Companies like Tata Chemicals, Tata Elxsi, TGBL, Titan, and Voltas, to name just a few, are all leaders in their respective fields. It has always been Mr. Mistry's belief that the primary credit for the financial and market-share success of the group companies rests with the leadership teams, and more importantly, the commitment of the thousands of employees who work tirelessly to drive these results. advertisement FC KOHLI WAS TCS' VISIONARY FOUNDING CEO The TCS had in Mr. F.C. Kohli a visionary founding CEO. Today, Mr. N Chandrasekaran continues to provide a strong and able leadership. Chandra, his leadership team, and the nearly 350,000 TCS employees have made us proud. Over the last 4 years, the TCS leadership team has engaged well and complemented the Board. In his role as non-executive Chairman, Mr. Mistry's primary involvement with TCS has been focused on future-proofing the TCS' strategy and helping fortify their relationships at the C Suite level by leveraging the strength of the Tata Group. Also read | Cyrus Mistry's conduct caused enormous harm to company, stakeholders: TCS The high-dependence on TCS in the Tata Sons portfolio is a well-known fact. This was repeatedly flagged in strategy presentations to the Tata Sons Board by Mr. Mistry. Apart from strengthening other group companies, Mr. Mistry maintained that keeping TCS strong and relevant was critical. For TCS to flourish, it was vital that TCS transformed from an IT solutions provider to a strategic partner because the digital imperative had become a strategic differentiator for many organisations. Consequently, the client relationship needed to move from engaging with the CIO (with whom traditionally Indian IT company CEOs maintained their relationship) to the CEO. As Chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Consultancy Services, Mr. Mistry's access to senior stakeholders across the world was an enabling platform. Over the last 3 years, Mr. Mistry met at least 60 global CEOs, some along with TCS leadership, to reinforce the capabilities of TCS for organisations to co-innovate in the digital world. Also read | Tata Sons' board meeting on Cyrus Mistry: A truce in the offing? The results of TCS over the past 3 years, when examined with respect to the profile of clients, demonstrates the power of this strategy. TCS TRAINED 1,35,000 PEOPLE LAST YEAR Just last year, TCS had undertaken one of the largest skill upgradation programmes in corporate history. Over 135,000 people have been trained to be ready for the new digital world. TCS' joint venture in Japan and industry-leading growth in Europe are all part of a longer-term strategy to ensure resilience. A more globally balanced portfolio of business makes TCS robust by hedging against the ongoing geo-political risks. advertisement Several opportunities lie ahead. The board and the management explored issues such as cyber security, health, bio informatics and deep learning. Acquisition of companies with capabilities in these spaces and others required TCS to have available a reservoir of cash. Hence, one of the first items for Mr. Mistry on his joining the TCS Board was to focus the management on reducing the gap between profits and cash. Mr. Chandrasekaran and his team responded splendidly, improving the cash conversion cycle from 49 per cent in 2012 to 92 per cent in 2015. The improved performance enabled TCS to declare a special dividend without compromising firepower for acquisitions. Cash and cash equivalents doubled over the same period to Rs. 20,500 crores. Also read | Mistry hits back at Tata Sons, claims nearly Rs 100 crore a year spent on PR and corporate jets Over the past 3 years, Mr. Mistry attended TCS customer summits in USA and Europe. In addition, he engaged with employees at TCS centers located in Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and the USA. In the past three months, he engaged with the TCS's Innovation and Design Centre at Santa Clara, USA, reviewed the TCS healthcare partnership with the University of California, Berkeley, and worked with the TCS Canada leadership team in Toronto. Mr. Mistry was supposed to spend two days in late November with the TCS Japan team to attend their customer summit in Japan and help emphasise the Tata Group's long-term commitment to Japan. advertisement Based on his many touch points with the company's stakeholders, the TCS leadership team, and his interactions with the young associates, Mr. Mistry is confident that the best is yet to come for TCS and JLR. --- ENDS --- RBI has issued detailed operating guidelines for banks for dealing with requests of withdrawal of money to meet wedding expenses. By Press Trust of India: Wedding cards and copies of advance payments made for booking marriage halls and caterers will be required for withdrawing Rs 2.5 lakh from one's own accounts, as per stringent conditions imposed by RBI on either of one's parents to meet wedding expenses. Four days after the government announced special dispensation for meeting wedding expenses, RBI has issued detailed operating guidelines for banks for dealing with such requests. advertisement Also read | RBI announces 60-day relief for repayment of home, car loans upto Rs 1 crore Withdrawals will be allowed only from the balance available before the November 8 decision of the government to demonetise 500 and 1,000 currency notes and the same can be done only for marriages solemnised on or before December 30. BANKS ASKED TO KEEP RECORDS OF DISBURSALS Banks have also been asked to keep records of all disbursals and drawers will have to submit a list of people to whom payments will be made out of the funds. The special dispensation was given to ease the cash crunch faced during the ongoing wedding season due to imposition of cash-withdrawal restrictions on all bank accounts in the aftermath of the demonetisation decision. Restrictions were placed as banks are grappling with cash shortage. "Withdrawals can be made by either of the parents or by the person getting married. (Only one of them will be permitted to withdraw)," the notification said. Further, there should be "a detailed list of persons to whom the cash withdrawn is proposed to be paid, together with a declaration from such persons that they do not have a bank account. The list should indicate the purpose for which the proposed payments are being made". Also read | Sharia banking: RBI proposes 'Islamic window' in banks, Centre exploring possibilities INCUR WEDDING EXPENSES THROUGH NON-CASH MEANS RBI also said banks should encourage families to incur wedding expenses through non-cash means through cheques or drafts, credit or debit cards, pre-paid cards, mobile transfers, Internet banking channels, NEFT/RTGS and the like. "Therefore, members of the public should be advised, while granting cash withdrawals, to use cash to meet expenses which have to be met only through cash mode," RBI told banks.Banks have been asked to keep a proper record of the evidence and produce them for verification by the authorities in case of need. The scheme will be reviewed based on the authenticity or bona fide use thereof, RBI added. --- ENDS --- advertisement Self-proclaimed prophet Lethebo Rabalago shared pictures of him spraying a pesticide called Doom on people. He claims that this chemical will cure cancer and HIV. By India Today Web Desk: So, there's this godman in South Africa who sprays insecticide on people. Why? Well, his claim is that this poisonous spray is some miraculous elixir that can heal deadly diseases and impairs. Oh yes, he is real. Self-proclaimed prophet Lethebo Rabalago is quite active on Facebook, where he shares pictures of himself giving sermons, blessing people, and spraying them with a pesticide called Doom. advertisement Rabalago also claims that insecticide Doom can heal cancer and HIV. Source: Lethebo Rabalago/ Facebook HOW EFFECTIVE IS DOOM IN SPRAYING AWAY ILLNESS? Tiger Brands, the company that produces the insecticide, is quite convinced that Doom does not have any disease-healing, divine composition. In fact, the makers said this practice of spraying people with the insecticide is "alarming". "[We] want to make very clear that it is unsafe to spray Doom or any aerosol onto people's faces," the company said in a statement. "Doom has been formulated to kill specific insects which are detailed on the cans, and the packaging has very clear warnings which must be adhered to." Tiger Brands clarified that they were trying to contact Rabalago to ask him to stop the practice. Meanwhile, a government commission urged people to come forward and lodge complaints if they have been affected. Source: Lethebo Rabalago/ Facebook WHAT DOES THE PROPHET SAY? Rabalago, who runs the Mount Zion General Assembly in the Limpopo province, doesn't think is he doing anything wrong. In an interview to the BBC, he said he is only using "unconventional methods to heal people". Speaking about the time he had sprayed a woman in the face, he said he had to put the insecticide there as she had an eye infection. He also claimed the woman was "just fine because she believed in the power of god". In an interview posted on the eNCA website, Rabalago is heard saying: "The truth is, Doom can heal people in the right way." "Doom is just a name, but when you speak to it to become a healing product, it does. People get healed and delivered through doom," reads a post on the church's Facebook account. People have also given testimonies claiming that they have indeed been healed by Rabalago spraying Doom on them. Source: Lethebo Rabalago/ Facebook --- ENDS --- Three New York University students representing two countries, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, have been selected as Rhodes Scholars: Dubai Abulhoul (UAE) and Guillaume Sylvain (Canada), seniors at NYU Abu Dhabi, and Melissa Godin (Canada), a senior in NYUs Global Liberal Studies Program. Abulhoul, from the UAE, is majoring in political science and is currently researching the effect of gender roles and culture on political participation in her home country as part of her senior capstone project. She is a member of the Emirates Youth Council, a government initiative aiming to develop government strategies to keep up with youth trends, identify challenges facing todays youth, and to ensure participation of youth in UAE public affairs. In 2012, she authored Galagolia: The Hidden Divination, a best-selling Emirati fantasy novel that made her the UAEs youngest published author. Abulhoul, who has interned at the UAE Embassy in Washington D.C., later received the 2014 Arab Woman Award for Young Talent of the Year in recognition of her book. Godin, who was born in Montreal and was raised in Vancouver, has created a concentration in politics, human rights, and sustainable development. Her thesis examines the value of volunteer tourism, arguing that it needs to be restructured if it is to truly support development. As part of her project, she has researched orphanage tourism in Cambodia. Godin has also interned at the Canadian embassy in Paris and served as head editor for a report on sex trafficking that was used at the 60th United Nations session of the Commission on the Status of Women. It was during high school at the Mulgrave School in West Vancouver that she first began organizing to raise awareness about human trafficking, creating an educational program and helping organize a benefit concert that brought in $16,000 for the non-profit, Not for Sale. Sylvain, from Quebec, has become immersed in the Arabic language and the Middle East, majoring in NYU Abu Dhabis interdisciplinary Arab Crossroads program and minoring in Arabic language and political science. His capstone research looks at how secondary school textbooks work to instill a set of shared values and a sense of Emirati historical national consciousness in a young nation where its citizens (UAE nationals) are a distinct minority. He also serves as the chairperson for the NYU Abu Dhabi student organization AD-vocacy and as an Arabic translator and crewmember with Refugee Rescue UK in its international rescue efforts in Lesbos Island, Greece. Sylvain, who has interned at the Embassy of Canada in the UAE and at Hedayah, an International Center for Countering Violent Extremism based in the UAE, plans to pursue a MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford. Flight take offs and landings at Srinagar Airport remained affected for the sixth consecutive day today as no flight could operate due to poor visibility. By Anindya Banerjee: If you are flying to Srinagar, you have reasons to worry. Flight take offs and landings at Srinagar Airport remained affected for the sixth consecutive day today as no flight could operate due to poor visibility. And if forecasts are right, then the inconvenience is going to continue. Sharad Kumar, Director of the Airports Authority of India (AII), Srinagar Airport, told PTI "No flight operations took place today as well, because of the poor visibility." advertisement ALSO READ | Srinagar: Flights cancelled due to dense fog ALL FLIGHTS CANCELLED TODAY The runway visibility was as low as 600 metres, forcing the cancellation of all flights for the day. Many airlines kept updating the status of their flights through their official Twitter handle. Indigo posted a chat link to make it easier for passengers to communicate. General requirement for any flight operation is 1.3 kilometre while the visibility today was only about 800 metres. This led to all flights for the day being cancelled. On Saturday, only two flights landed at the airport which then took off. No flight operations took place on Sunday and Monday. Also Read: Dense fog hits flight operations at Srinagar airport --- ENDS --- First ladies are often looked at for their style, and Michelle Obama was certainly no exception. The first lady has worn clothes by many different designers throughout her eight years in the role, including Sophia Theallet, who is now encouraging the fashion world to treat our next first lady differently. In an open letter Theallet posted to Twitter, Theallet explained that she wont be designing any clothes for Melania Trump, and she encouraged other fashion designers to follow suit in an act of protest against president-elect Donald Trump. The Sophie Theallet brand stands against all discrimination and prejudice. Our runway shows, ad campaigns, and celebrity dressing have always been a celebration of diversity and a reflection of the world we live in, the letter explains. I am well aware it is not wise to get involved in politics. That said, as a family-owned company, our bottom line is not just about money. We value our artistic freedom and always humbly seek to contribute to a more humane, conscious, and ethical way to create in this world. Theallet, herself an immigrant born in France, rejects the racism, sexism, and xenophobia that was rampant in the Trump campaign. Theallet is one of several designers who have taken action following Trumps victory. Kaelen has put their clothes on sale and promised to donate the proceeds to one of 15 charities that may be under assault during a Trump administration, including Planned Parenthood and Black Lives Matter, and The Outrage has also given its proceeds to Planned Parenthood. Read Theallets open letter below. To some progressives, the news Monday that Tulsi Gabbard was meeting with President-Elect Donald Trump for consideration of a position in his administration must have been confusing. Gabbards February 2016 endorsement of Bernie Sanders quixotic run for the Democratic nomination for president involved publicly resigning her seat as DNC Vice Chair. Her name has been floated as a possible candidate for 2020. And at a glance, her positions seem in line with the liberal wing of her party. But a deeper look at Gabbards political career shows that she is devoted to attaining power and to the perpetuation of extremist, fringe ideology. She adopts and sheds extremist positions at will, but one thing remains constant: her consistent embrace of hard-right politics. The 35-year-old Congresswoman from Hawaii was raised in a politically powerful household. Her father, Mike Gabbard, is a well-known firebrand in Hawaiian politics his most beloved issue is a virulent rejection of homosexuality and gay rights. The younger Gabbard protested against a bill advocating civil unions during her tenure in the Hawaii Congress, holding up signs decrying the proposition. The bill eventually stalled. Gabbard replied to a request for comment on her fathers connections with cult leader Chris Butler (more below) in 2004 with an oddly worded email accusing Honolulu Magazine of a homosexual conspiratorial attempt to discredit her father. I smell a skunk, [Gabbard] wrote. Its clear to me that youre acting as a conduit for The Honolulu Weekly and other homosexual extremist supporters of Ed Case. This political position held until 2012, when she made an about face and declared she supported gay rights just in time for the election for Hawaiis 2nd District. And that wasnt the first time she had shed a piece of her past in order to make herself more palatable to voters. Gabbards first marriage, to a man named Eduardo Tamayo, lasted from 2002 to 2006. Tamayo and Gabbard were both involved with a man named Chris Butler, the leader of a Hare Krishna spinoff called the Science of Identity Foundation that is located in Honolulu County. The Hawaii Free Press notes that a number of Butler-connected Hawaiians have contributed to Gabbard and that her involvement with the cult is still an open question. Gabbard has scrubbed all mention of her past with Butlers cult, and with Tamayo, from the internet. The only evidence that is publicly available that Tamayo and Gabbard even know each other excepting her Wikipedia page is from anti-cult site Flashlight on Roaches. Its grainy, but it does show the two together. Its also the only known photo of Tamayo that is publicly available. Today, Gabbard would prefer not to be known for her Butler-cult related past. The only way to find it is to dig deep into Hawaiian-centric newsletters and publications. But for those in Hawaii, its an omnipresent part of her political and social history. As the Honolulu Civil Beat reported on March 16, 2015: The Gabbard familys ties to Butler still hound her in the hallways of the Hawaii State Capitol, on blogs of political observers, on pages of online discussion forums, and in commentary sections of various news sites, including Civil Beats. Now, the mysterious world thats been swirling around Gabbard all her life is coming under closer scrutiny as the 33-year-old congresswomans stature on the national stage steadily rises, and her views on national and international issues whether shes standing up for veterans or challenging President Barack Obama over his stance on the Islamic State continue to draw the media spotlight. By now, Gabbard has left any ambiguity about her religious beliefs behind. She identifies as a member of the Gaudiya Vaishnavism Sect of the Hindu faith. Its a faith she shares with Indias leader, Narendra Modi. But they share more than that they share a hard-right political philosophy that is at odds with Gabbards perceived role as a liberal touchstone in the Democratic Party. Modi, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, is well known in India for his hardline right wing politics. He was the governor of the state of Gujarat during riots in 2002 that killed over 2,000 Muslims. Modi has always skirted around his level of responsibility for the violence; on the one hand he can appeal to moderates by claiming ignorance, on the other his claims of ignorance are delivered with winks to the countrys more extremist right-wing elements. Modi relies on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, for political backing. The BJP and RSSs actions have been repressive and violent and involve a complete distortion of historical and material reality in order to maintain their control of the state. The RSS-BJP alliance also uses the fears and prejudices of the majority Hindu Indian population against Muslims to ensure its hold on power. And those views are views that Gabbard shares with them despite her framing of herself as a peaceful warrior. A major part of Gabbards political story is her military service. Gabbard joined the Hawaiian National Guard in 2002 and served in Iraq in 2004. Since returning to the US, she has advocated for a less muscular and antagonistic US role in the world. As far as it goes, this is fine she opposes US intervention in the Middle East, generally, and argues against the use of drone strikes and the NSAs surveillance programs. Gabbards relationship with Modi is well documented in Indian publications. Her admiration of the authoritarian leader is the subject of multiple interviews, where she consistently affirms her support of the Prime Minister and his hardline party. In a three-week visit to India on the invitation of Modi himself, she was treated as a state guest and held private meetings with the Prime Minister and members of his party. And Gabbard has protected Modis interests in the US. She fought against a November, 2015, Congressional bill mentioning his role in the Gujarat massacres, decried the USs refusal to issue a visa for the controversial leader before 2014, and supported efforts to rewrite Indian history from a Hindu-supremacist viewpoint in US textbooks. She has worked to relax restrictions on Indian immigration to the US even as she joins with Trumps rhetoric in attempts to refuse allowing Syrian refugees into the country. And her views on Islam mirror those of Modis both insist that identifying the faith of Islamists is of paramount importance in fighting extremism (not of Hindu extremism, of course). Gabbard quickly flipped on Donald Trump. When Trump appointed white nationalist Stephen Bannon as his Senior Strategist two weeks ago and 169 Congressional Democrats opposed the move, Gabbards name was notably missing. Perhaps its because Gabbard is, once again, jettisoning political beliefs that are no longer useful in her quest for power. It could be that Sanders and the Democrats are no longer helpful to her career, like her fathers homophobia and her public cult-connected marriage. So they must go so Gabbard can continue her rise. Thats a likely scenario. But it only works if you remember that the other constant in Gabbards career is an attraction to hard-right political positions. Even those positions she eventually leaves behind are replaced with more extreme positionsher anti-gay activism replaced with Islamophobia, her ties to a Hawai?i-based cult replaced with ties to Hindu extremism. News media have reported that Gabbard is under consideration for a position with the Trump administration, that her meeting with the president-elect was more than a bipartisan discussionit was a job interview. Given what we know about Gabbards attraction to the extreme right and her thirst for power, a place in the Trump administration wont come as a surprise. Its par for the course. Update: Read Gabbards rationale for her meeting with Trump here. Kreiss Realty Group - The Best Choice for Central Mass Real Estate Contact John Kreiss ***@kreissrealtygroup.com John Kreiss End --Kreiss Realty Group () - The Best Choice for Central Mass Real EstateMarlborough, MA - John P. Kreiss, Team Leader for Kreiss Realty Group recently joined Allison James Estates & Homes. Kreiss is a REALTOR, who specializes in helping people sell and buy homes in Central Massachusetts.For more information about Allison James Estates & Homes, go toSome of the communities served by Kreiss Realty Group include: Northborough, Southborough, Shrewsbury, Marlborough, Boylston, West Boylston, Berlin, Grafton, Westborough, and Worcester. Kreiss's background includes more than 20 years of experience in marketing and new business development.Kreiss has published numerous articles on the home buying process.real estate sales strategies,real estate marketing, home buying, and selling. He is a Certified Buyer Representative (CBR), Seniors Real Estate Specialist (SRES), and an e-Pro.Some of Kreiss's articles have been published in Developer, Construction Executive, Fordyce Letter, Boston Business Journal, and the Worcester Business Journal. He is also a two-time Worcester Business Journal top growth award winner. An accomplished speaker, he has delivered talks to numerous groups across the United States..Kreiss has an MBA with a concentration in Management from the Elkin B. McCallum graduate school of business at Bentley University in Waltham, MA, and a B.A. in Psychology from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJFor more information, visit the Kreiss Realty Group web site at By: SOLitude Lake Management End -- SOLitude Lake Management, an industry leader in lake and pond management, fisheries management and related environmental services for the United States, donated over $5,000 in turkeys and grocery store gift cards to 228 under resourced families to enhance their Thanksgiving celebration.Donations made through SOLitude'sprogram this year increased 46 percent over 2015. Twenty-one elementary, middle and high schools identified a need for Thanksgiving meal donations within their schools and received donations.The schools are located in Virginia Beach, VA; Norfolk, VA; Newport News, VA; Fredericksburg, VA; Charlottesville, VA; Whitinsville, MA; Fort Plain, NY; Oxford, NJ; West Grove, PA; Lincoln, DE; Charleston, SC; Murfreesboro, TN; Jackson, MS and Hearne, TX.The schools and families were extremely grateful for SOLitude's assistance at this time of the year."We GREATLY appreciate the continued support that our community provides for our students. Through the generosity of SOLitude Lake Management and theirprogram, we are able to provide ten families with a Thanksgiving meal," said John Zywien, Principal, Northbridge Middle School in Whitinsville, Massachusetts. He noted that one of the school's goals this year is to develop more collaborative relationships with businesses in the community, and thanked Regional Administrators Becky Snyder and Ann Marie Meringolo from SOLitude for their time and effort.is a great program that makes the holidays brighter for the families here at Morris Early Childhood Center that have fallen on hard times," said Maud Forsberg-Davis M.Ed., School Counselor, Morris Early Childhood Center, Lincoln, Delaware. "The smile you see on the faces of the families when they realize that they can actually put a holiday meal on the table is priceless."is one of several initiatives of The SOLution, a company-wide program that encourages the company and all employees to strive to "create a better world" through volunteerism, community outreach, sustainability and environmental consciousness. SOLitude's company leadership feels it is important to not only be good stewards of the environment, but also to fulfill company core values to "take action and be accountable"and to "protect and respect nature." To learn more, visit www.solitudelakemanagement.com/ solution SOLitude Lake Management is committed to providing full service lake and pond management services that improve water quality, preserve natural resources, and reduce our environmental footprint. Our services include lake, pond and fisheries management programs, algae and aquatic weed control, mechanical harvesting, installation and maintenance of fountains and aeration systems, water quality testing and restoration, bathymetry, lake vegetation studies, biological assessments, habitat assessments, invasive species management and nuisance wildlife management. Lake, pond and fisheries management services, consulting, and aquatic products are available nationwide. Learn more about SOLitude Lake Management and purchase products at www.solitudelakemanagement.com Travis Turner Earns Commercial Rookie of the Year Contact Cyndi Cook ***@rmdfw.com Cyndi Cook End -- A strong first year with RE/MAX DFW Associates Frisco's office culminated with Travis Turner recently being named "Rookie of the Year for Commercial Real Estate" for 2016 at the annual company-wide meeting held at the Omni West Hotel of Dallas. Joining the firm in September 2015, Mr. Turner is a dedicated real estate professional who specializes in commercial, farm and ranch properties in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex."Mr. Turner has had a phenomenal year and certainly deserves this prestigious award," said Mark Wolfe, President of RE/MAX DFW Associates. "He excels in providing exceptional service to his clients and that, along with his willingness to serve his community, will bring him a high level of success in this industry. Mr. Turner has been a tremendous asset to our Frisco office and I look forward to another great year for him in 2017."Travis resides in Frisco, TX, with his wife and received his Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Tarleton State University. He is a member of the University Baptist Church and takes pleasure in rodeo and exercising.RE/MAX DFW Associates is in its 33year of operation and today is the largest RE/MAX franchise in Texas. The firm has seven offices: Coppell, Dallas, Flower Mound, Frisco, Las Colinas, Plano and Willow Bend. The firm's over 330 agents are projected to close $1.75 billion in 2016. RE/MAX DFW Associates is part of the world-wide RE/MAX network in 105 countries and 110,000 agents. For more information, visit the firm's website, www.YourHomeTownPro.com , its Facebook page, facebook.com/RMDFW or on YouTube, youtube.com/rmdfw.Travis Turner may be contacted at the Frisco office of RE/MAX DFW Associates at 469.582.0212 or via email at travis.turner@rmdfw.com. He can assist with any home listed in the North Texas Regional MLSSystem, as well as the firm's over 1,400 active listings, which can be viewed at www.rmdfw.com. The charity organization Casa Esperanza Of Angels (CEA) Foundation has scheduled a community outreach event in January 2017 to distribute goods to poor children and their families in Tanjay City, Philippines. Contact Ronald Brown Executive Director ***@agapeasia.org Ronald BrownExecutive Director End -- Casa Esperanza of Angels (CEA) Foundation, Inc. , the nonprofit organization currently building an orphan care facility in this city, has scheduled a community outreach program in January 2017 to benefit needy children and their families."This is a community outreach for children and families who are in need of assistance for daily needs," shared Ronald Brown, Executive Director of Casa Esperanza of Angels."Since there are other groups who will be doing similar donations during the holidays we chose to have ours in January to kick off the new year with sharing and giving," added Mr. Brown.The City of Tanjay (population:80,532) is a city in the province of Negros Oriental, in central Philippines. The nonprofit foundation is currently building an orphanage facility here to shelter orphans and children in distress.Tanjay has a sizable professional work force mainly due to the presence of quality educational institutions in the city. However, many families remain below the national poverty threshold resulting in a high incidence of hunger and malnutrition among poor children in the hinterland barangays. CEA plans to conduct similar activities to assist impoverished children and their families in the future."This and similar activities of reaching out to those in need will be a regular event when we are able to fund and organize such events," explained Mr. Brown.For the first time, the CEA foundation is inviting volunteers from the city to participate in this charitable initiative. The organizers hope to attract volunteers from among the city's millennials and young professionals to help facilitate the activity."We will be inviting volunteers from the community to assist in the organization and execution of the event," remarked Mr. Brown. "There's a sense of joy and pride to be part of a charity activity such as this, to reach out as caring neighbors to those less fortunate than themselves."Casa Esperanza of Angels (please go to: https://www.casaesperanzaofangels.com/ for more details) is a charity mission organization relying exclusively on assistance from private donors in the United States. As such, every project the foundation undertakes is supported by donations from friends and family of the Browns."We need donations to purchase the items that will be given to these poor children and families," appealed Mr. Brown. "Your donations will help us bring happiness to these children!": Casa Esperanza of Angels Foundation, Inc. ( https://www.casaesperanzaofangels.com/ about/ ) is a nonprofit organization founded by Ronald Brown with his wife Georgia Olis Brown to help protect and care for the growing number of orphans, abused or abandoned children, and those in dire circumstances in the province of Negros Oriental, Philippines. Apostle of Grace visits Mesquite, Texas with Healing and Redemption Evangelism for Soul-winning providing Opportunities for the Oppressed and the Challenged To Enjoy The Grace of Jesus Christ in #Rawpower. By: Omega Fire Ministries International, Inc Media Contact Pastor A. Collins 777 S. Central Expressway, Richardson, TX 75080 ***@adtoolsconcepts.com 432.599.1751, 469.657.0717 Pastor A. Collins777 S. Central Expressway, Richardson, TX 75080432.599.1751, 469.657.0717 End -- Apostle Johnson Suleman founded the Omega Fire Ministries International, Inc (OFM) to operate under God's Omega anointing of fire, and of grace as they obey the command of Jesus Christ to make disciples of all nations through redemption from sin, deliverance from all sorts of oppression and bondage, and healing of all manners of diseases. In less than 20 years, the church with headquarters in Nigeria has manifested its growth to every continent in the world. Throne of Grace, the Dallas, Texas branch of the church hosts the current revival of Holy Ghost ministration tagged #RawPowerDallas in Mesquite, Texas on Tuesday, November 29 and Wednesday, November 30, 2016.The ministry committed to the leadership of Apostle Johnson Suleiman believes that all power belongs to God and that the enemy has no scriptural or spiritual right to manipulate the destinies of believers. Therefore, every believer is entitled to live a fulfilled life. Hence, OFM is saddled with the divine mandate to restore the divine rights of believers through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. The God of grace continues to back this commission through the operation of the Holy Spirit that refines, purifies and equally destroys.Our ministry believes in judgment for the wicked. We know that oppression and demonic manipulations are real, and we equally know that the authority of God is power, able to deliver and to restore. We believe in the all-pervading power of His Word for those who believe in Jesus Christ. This call takes Apostle Suleiman all over the world, and Dallas will be hosting his final visit to America for the year 2016, which has taken him to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;Brooklyn Center, Minnesota; Atlanta, Georgia; and Tulsa, Oklahoma. His tour continues to witness the submission of many souls and spirits to the saving grace in the blood of Jesus Christ.Participants continue to be blessed with miracles and healing, with testimonies from people delivered from diverse difficulties and afflictions including autism, alcohol and other forms of drug dependence, deafness, HIV/AIDS, divorce, infertility, court cases, poverty, immigration documentation and blindness. During these events, Apostle Suleman always taught about certain characteristics he learned from Jesus Christ, and other prophets including; mercy, salvation, gratitude, and love. He insists that these attitudes make it easy for Christians to enjoy the bounties of God.Omega Fire Ministries believes that God anointed and sent His choice servant Apostle Johnson Suleman intervene in the oppression of men. Therefore, the Dallas, Texas branch of the church is responsible for transforming our society and re-focusing our community towards appreciating the Almightiness of God, His mercy, and the atoning blood of His Son, Jesus Christ through the ministry of the Holy Ghost under the guidance of our father, Apostle Johnson Suleman. We are collaborating with MyCelebrationTV to bring this life-changing event to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and blast it live worldwide.To learn more about #RawPowerDallas, please contact:Pastor A. CollinsOmega Fire Ministries International, Inc777 South Central Expressway, Suite 2A, Richardson, Texas 75080.: 432.599.1751: ofmdallastx@gmail.comWebsite: mycelebrationtv.com Award Spotlights Most Admired Workplaces in State of Massachusetts Media Contact Derek Gould dgould@wearegenuine.com 617.451.9700 Derek Gould617.451.9700 End -- Genuine is proud to announce that it has been named one of thein Massachusetts in the ninth annual employee-based survey project from The Boston Globe. Theissue was published online November 17and featured in The Boston Globe Magazine on November 20.recognizes the most admired workplaces in the state voted on by the people who know them the bestthe employees. The anonymous survey measures employee opinions about their company's direction, execution, connection, management, work, pay, benefits and engagement. Winners are declared in four categories: small, with 50 to 99 employees; medium, with 100 to 249 workers; large, with 250 to 999; and largest, with 1,000 or more. Genuine was ranked 17 in the "medium" category."Receiving this incredible acknowledgment from The Boston Globe for the first time is an incredible honor and a true testament to the amazing culture our employees foster through their individual contributions,"said Chris Pape, Founder and Executive Creative Director of Genuine. "Preserving a close-knit, employee-focused culture can often prove to be challenging for an organization, but, as we've continued to grow in size, it has only become stronger."Genuine connects experts from all disciplinesstrategy, UX, design, experiential, copywriting, video, web and mobile development, analytics, and media buying/placementto create valuable experiences for brands focused on customer engagement. The Genuine team is grounded in the belief that they create richer experiences when they invent together, so they work closely with clients to put their brands where their customers are - with the right messages, at the right times. Their client work features innovative elements and the capability to optimize in real-time, shattering expectations in marketing.The rankings in theare based on confidential survey information collected by WorkplaceDynamics, an independent company specializing in employee engagement and retention, from nearly 77,000 individuals at 357 Massachusetts organizations. The winners share a few key traits, including offering progressive benefits, giving their employees a voice, and encouraging them to have some fun while they're at it.Since Genuine's founding in 2005, the company has invented and launched digital experiences for the world's most innovative brands. A member of the IPG group of companies, Genuine's reach extends to serving brands around the world, including Johnson & Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim, Akamai, Red Hat and Welch's. Their mantra, "Invent Together," keeps the agency true to its core values, and fosters a collective determination to create the best user-driven, digital-first experiences that challenge and lead industry categories. Genuine's offices are located in Boston, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Visit them at www.wearegenuine.com/ https://www.wearegenuine.com/? utm_source=BPTW&utm_med... ). Sergios Hotel has recently been acquired by the Group of Hotels "Giannoulakis G & A S.A., a well known hospitality company and is currently materializing an extensive upgrade to the hotel's facilities and services Contact Sergios Hotel ***@sergioshotel.gr 00302897022583 Sergios Hotel00302897022583 End -- Sergios Hotel is a modern, well-tended all inclusive hotel that first operated in 1982 and was fully renovated in 2009. Sergios consists of 97 rooms, an outdoor pool, a sun terrace, a buffet restaurant, a bar. Its location is ideal, right on Eleftheriou Venizelou street 180, very close to the beach and next to Hersonissos center.Giannoulakis G&A S.A., the owner company of Asterias Village Resort in Koutouloufari, Central Hersonissos and Iro Hotel in Hersonissos center, having a great experience in hospitality has already begun to realize the following upgrades and changes:1. - Sergios Hotel which was until recently a hotel only for Adults, is from now on an all inclusive hotel suitable for guests of all ages who wish to stay in Hersonissos, near the beach and also near the shops' district. Families with children will be welcome.2. - Free Wi Fi will be provided in all the hotel areas and in hotel rooms, free of charge.3. - The All Inclusive concept will be upgraded in terms of variety as well as food quality. Theme nights will be also included in the main restaurant.4. - All accommodation units will be equipped with new flat screen TVs.5. - All the mattresses will be replaced with new, as one of the core values of the new Administration is to offer a very good night sleep.6. - A variety of operational procedures will be implemented in order to ensure a smooth and efficient hotel operation.7. - The digital and online presence of the hotel will be enhanced, aiming to monitor and increase guests' booking & staying experience."We firmly believe that continuous efforts are required in order to maintain and increase guest satisfaction."stated Dimitris Giannoulakis, CEO. "Our objective is to have a professional, trained and motivated team, in order to ensure high levels of services. At the same time, we have started an investment plan, aiming to improve our facilities while increasing the comfort of our guests and offering them a relaxing holiday experience in Crete. We invite Hersonissos' discerning travelers who wish to stay right next to the city's heartbeat, and just a few meters away from the beach, to select Sergios hotel. We assure them of our best attention". Zayed University inaugurates the Alumni Academic Achievement Forum Contact Sara Hassan Media Relations Specialist ***@zu.ac.ae Sara HassanMedia Relations Specialist End --Under the patronage of Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi, Minister of State for Tolerance and President of Zayed University, Professor Reyadh AlMehaideb, Vice President of Zayed University, inaugurated the Alumni Academic Achievement Forum yesterday (Monday) at Zayed University in Dubai campus.As part of the 2016 Innovation Week activities, which aims to promote progressive ideas and encourage a culture of excellence for greater progress of the country, the event came to honor Zayed University graduates of bachelor's and master's degree holders, who completed their studies in the UAE and abroad.Organized by the Alumni Affairs Office, the one-day forum recognized Zayed University graduates, who are now prominent decision makers with great leadership and communication skills, for the strategic role they played in their esteemed areas of expertise and for their valuable accomplishments made to achieve the aspirations of the UAE wise leadership.At the outset of the forum, Professor AlMehaideb said in his keynote speech: "Zayed University graduates are sons and daughters of the late founding father Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan and they are true ambassadors to their country in the UAE, region, and world."Professor AlMehaideb also conveyed regards and best wishes on behalf of Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna, who always encourages student support and advisory services that can help students to make the most of their academic and social life at Zayed University and calls to strengthen and reinforce the close bond between members of Zayed University community, its students, and graduates to achieve a culture of excellence.He also added: "Zayed University stands proud towards achievements and accomplishments attained by various batches of university students, who frequently visit Zayed University to give back to their community in many different ways.Zayed University's main goals are to ensure world-class services and facilities, high-quality innovative academic services, and growing program of event to fulfil the university's mission, prepare a qualified cadre of highly skilled students, and bring alumni together to celebrate and collaborate."The forum witnessed various panel discussions led by successful Zayed University graduates. Her Excellency Hessa Essa Buhumaid, Assistant Director General for Government Services at the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and The Future, gave a keynote speech that focused on the UAE's vision 2021. Buhumaid holds an honor BSc in Business Sciences from Zayed University, she also holds an honor Master's degree in Business Administration from the American University of Sharjah.The alumni panel discussion also saw the participation of many Zayed University graduates including: Hanan Ahly, Asmaa Al Nusairi, Shereen Al Nowais, and Omar Qasem, who narrated their stories of success and addressed how they achieved excellence in their chosen fields.Zayed University is today the premier national university in the United Arab Emirates and a regional leader in educational innovation and change. It has created and implemented a skills-rich, outcome-based general education program that systemically develops student skills, knowledge, and values associated with liberal learning and provided a solid foundation for pursuit of disciplinary majors and future careers. Zayed University welcomes national and international students, and provides them with a high quality education, offered by seasoned teaching scholars to prepare them to shape the future of the United Arab Emirates.Zayed University offers Undergraduate and Graduate degrees in the following Colleges: College of Arts & Creative Enterprises (recognized as substantially equivalent by NASAD), College of Business (Accredited by AACSB), College of Communication & Media Sciences (Accredited by ACEJMC), College of Education (Accredited by NCATE), College of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Natural and Health Sciences, and College of Technological Innovation (Accredited by ABET). For more information, visit www.zu.ac.aeMedia contacts: Sara Sabry, Media Relations Specialist at the Office of the Vice President at Zayed UniversityDir-Tel: 025993630Mobile: 0566561059E-mail: Sara.Hassan@zu.ac.aeWeb: www.zu.ac.ae A passenger had earlier said that he had heard some unusual noises coming from the wheels of the train. By Atir Khan: Two days after the Indore-Patna Express derailed, killing at least 149 people, the Commission of Railway Safety has summoned the entire railway staff working on the Indore-Kanpur stretch to its office. The summons have come in the wake of a revelation made by the gateman near Pukhrayan village, which was the accident spot. According to the gateman, a train went over the same track before the Indore-Patna Express reached the site. advertisement Earlier reports had suspected that cracks in the tracks could have led to the accident. Later, a passenger, who had got off at Ujjain, had said that he had heard some unusual noises coming from the wheels of the train. On Sunday, the gateman had first let Sabarmati Express pass and then gave the green signal to the Indore-Patna Express. Since the train passed Pukhrayan at late night, the gateman said he would have heard any noise coming from the wheels, and informed the station master accordingly. ALSO READ: Moral tracks: In history of train disasters, only 2 railway ministers have resigned taking responsibility ALSO READ: Make train journey safe: PM Modi tells railway officials after Kanpur tragedy ALSO READ: Eyewitness account of train tragedy: It was a big jerk, people were falling everywhere ALSO WATCH --- ENDS --- By: Hannah Solar Government Services LLC Contact Hannah Solar Government Services LLC Emily Johnson: Sales and Marketing Administrator ***@hsgs.solar Hannah Solar Government Services LLCEmily Johnson: Sales and Marketing Administrator End -- Earlier this year, twenty large companies and twenty small companies were named to a statewide list presented by SC Biz News; recognizing the state's best- performing companies based on revenue growth from 2013-2015. Hannah Solar Government Services LLC (HSGS) a Charleston, SC based, Disabled Veteran Owned (SDVOSB), solar energy company, was named #1 fastest growing small company in South Carolina for 2016 by SC Biz News.In order to be qualified for the Roaring Twenties designation, companies must have a physical presence in South Carolina and be a for-profit entity or a nonprofit organization, except for government entities and charitable, 501(3)3 organizations.Company size was determined by gross revenue: A small company was considered as having $10 million and under in revenue. Large companies were classified as having over $10 million in revenue. Small companies must have had revenues of at least $500,000 each year for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015.On October 12th, SC Biz News held an event in Columbia, SC, for all forty finalists of the 2016 "Roaring Twenties" lists to attend and be recognized and ranked based on pre-established criteria set by SC Biz News. HSGS was recognized and honored as the winner of the Small Company category.Over the past few months, HSGS has hired additional employees and moved into a bigger office building to accommodate their growth within the company. CEO and Owner of HSGS, Colonel (RET) Dave McNeil says: "We are very humbled to have earned this title and award from SC Biz News. HSGS has an astounding team, and we plan to continue growing".For more information about Hannah Solar Government Services LLC visit our website at www.hsgs.solar Gecko Hospitality's Madeline Wilk (L) and Matilde DeJesus (R) deliver turkeys. End -- Gecko Hospitality, the largest hospitality recruiter in the United States, donates 275 turkeys to local charities for the Thanksgiving holiday. The turkeys totaled an average of 3,160 pounds of food for Gecko Hospitality's month-long "Turkeys for Tots" campaign.The second annual Turkeys for Tots campaign raised $1,671 on GoFundMe, which Gecko Hospitality President Robert Krzak matched dollar for dollar to total more than $3,200 to provide children and their families with meals. From Nov. 17 through Nov. 19, turkeys were donated to the Harry Chapin Food Bank, Community Cooperative, St. Josephs Food Pantry, Next Level Church with Boys and Girls Club and Hoops on a Mission, and City Gate Ministries' Rock the Block Turkey Drive.For more information, contact Gecko Hospitality by calling (239) 690-7006 or visiting GeckoHospitality.com.Based in Fort Myers, Fla., Gecko Hospitality is the largest hospitality recruiter in the United States. The firm partners with top restaurants, hotels and casinos to help them identify the best salaried management personnel for their properties. Gecko has 37 regional offices, an international office and a team of more than 80 hospitality recruiters covering all 50 states and Canada. For more information, please visit http://www.GeckoHospitality.com or call (239) 690-7006. Contact Coronado Brewing Company ***@coronadobrewing.com Coronado Brewing Company End -- Coronado Brewing Company is proudly expanding its distribution into the Lone Star State. The brewery has signed an agreement with Brown Distributing Company, to supply Coronado's award-winning lineup of beers throughout the Austin market. The initial launch kicks off late November and will feature the company's core offerings on draft, including fan-favorites Orange Ave. Wit, Mermaid's Red, Islander IPA, and newcomer Stingray IPA.This partnership marks Coronado's first steps into the Texas market. "We've seen the Texas craft beer scene grow exponentially over the past few years and we're excited to share our beer with a savvy, new audience. San Diego and Austin share a lot of similarities when it comes to appreciating the best life has to offerand doing it your own wayand we think our brand will resonate with Texans," says Bandon Richards, COO, Coronado Brewing.After the initial draft-only rollout, Coronado will expand its Austin presence with 12oz can six packs, as well as specialty 22oz bottles. "Brown Distributing has deeps roots in the Austin beer market and we know they will be an excellent steward of our brand as we launch in this highly competitive landscape," says Richards.This marks the nineteenth state for Coronado's growing distribution footprint. Despite growing at a double-digit pace for twenty years, the company takes a measured and steady approach to its distribution in new markets. "We don't need to be everywhere,"says Richards. "We want to be strategic about our growth, and who we partner with. We're optimistic about the demand for our beer in the Austin market, and we're excited to have Brown Distributing debut our brand in Texas."For more information about Coronado Brewing, visit www.coronadobrewing.com and www.browndistributing.com. Stay coastal. Cheers.Launch Events:Monday 11/28 Happy Hour at Waller Creek Pub HouseTuesday 11/29 Happy Hour at the Brass Tap Craft Beer Bar - Domain (only keg of Idiot IPA in town!)Wednesday 11/30 Happy Hour at Southpark Little Woodrow's###About Coronado Brewing CompanyIn 1996, when craft beer was still a foreign term and San Diego County was home to only a handful of breweries, the Chapman brothers Ron and Rick opened a brewpub in their hometown of Coronado. Today CBC stays true to their San Diego roots, brewing abundantly hoppy West Coast-style ales, which are available today in 19 US states and twelve countries. In addition to the long-established pub in Coronado, the company opened a tasting room inside their newly built San Diego production facility in early 2013, and a tasting room and restaurant in Imperial Beach, California in 2014. Coronado Brewing Company was honored in 2014 with one of the brewing industry's most prestigious awardsWorld Beer Cup Champion Brewery and Brewmaster for a Mid-size Brewing Company.Links:Website: http://coronadobrewing.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ coronadobrewingcompany Instagram: @CoronadoBrewingTwitter: @CoronadoBrewing#MermaidSighting#StayCoastal Media Contact Sight+Sound Gallery Charles Berry ***@sightandsoundgallery.com 8884193113 Sight+Sound GalleryCharles Berry8884193113 End -- Sight+Sound Gallery, a HiFi audio boutique located in Atlanta, GA, is proud to announce it has joined forces with Finland-based Amphion as a retailer of their home audio line of loudspeakers.Since 1998, Amphion has been designing and manufacturing equipment for both home and professional sound studios, with the aim of "Making pure natural sound part of your daily life." Their loudspeakers are characterized by a high-resolution, unstrained low-level reproduction and a pure driver integration. Their affordable solutions use highly advanced acoustical engineering and U/D/D technology (Uniformly Directive Diffusion) so the speakers are insensitive to room acoustics and fill any space with a wide and even dispersion. A timeless yet flexible approach with regard to aesthetics and application make Amphion products easy to match with individual styles and preferences.Amphion Loudspeakers are now available for purchase at: http://shop.sightandsoundgallery.com/ Amphion-s/1978.htm Sight+Sound Gallery carries brands who never compromise on sound quality. Offering the purest sound possible, is what we strive for. Amphion believes that pure sound should be a part of everyday life. And at the Audiophile's Paradise, we couldn't agree more.Originating in 1998 in Finland, Amphion started as a means to produce the purest sound. Amphion, manufactures loudspeakers to become a part of your home's interior. They desire to be unique and evolutionary, never compromising on quality to bring you live-like sound. Amphion believes music is like nature - it belongs to all of us. We all have a right to exquisite sound. All of their products are handmade in Finland for enduring listening quality.Sight+Sound Gallery was founded in 2011 and carries the finest high-end speakers & audio lines suitable and customizable for any home. The concept for Sight+Sound Gallery started as a means to connect the aspects that make a house into a home. Today, it is a HiFi audio boutique and custom install company, focused on creating multi-sensory experiences for clients.For more information, visit: www.sightandsoundgallery.com By: Washington State Soil Health Committee Contact Lynn Bahrych & Gary Farrell Committee Co-Chairs ***@soilhealthwa.org Lynn Bahrych & Gary FarrellCommittee Co-Chairs End -- In 2015, the Washington State Soil Health Committee awarded a series of grants to individuals and organizations conducting soil health-related projects in Washington state. The 2016 Grant projects have come to a close, and the final reports are in.This year's projects ranged from assessments of the benefits of biochar in the San Juan Islands Conservation District to the Washington Environmental Council's development of Forest Management Plans in the Nisqually River watershed. These projects included Underwood Conservation District's study of compost in an orchard, a vineyard, and a degraded pasture and Foster Creek Conservation District's creation of a long-term soil monitoring program.The results of the grant projects will be formally presented by WA State Soil Health Committee representatives at this year's WA Association of Conservation District's Annual Meeting at Semiahmoo Resort in Bellingham on November 30, 2016. For more information on this event, visit the WACD website. http://www.wadistricts.org/ 2016/10/2016- annual-meeting- re... Synopses and full grant project reports are available on the Soil Health Committee's website. A formal Request for Proposals for the next round of grant projects will be issued by the Soil Health Committee at the beginning of December, and will also be available on their website. http://www.soilhealthwa.org/ blog/ The Soil Health Committee advocates for soil health and conservation in Washington by educating landowners and citizens about best soil practices. McArthurGlen and Sonae Sierra announced that construction works will begin on McArthurGlen Designer Outlet Malaga in Q1 2017 with opening scheduled for the second half of 2018. McArthurGlen Designer Outlet Malaga will be located adjacent to the Plaza Mayor Shopping Centre, the citys most visited shopping centre, which receives over [] Javascript Error Javascript is deactivated in your browser. To use all functions on this portal, for example the login, Javascript must be activated. Please activate Javascript in your browser settings. As far as sales for the first 7 months this fiscal are concerned, Hyundai India has managed to replace Toyota India as the third largest UV maker in the country. Hyundai managed to do this thanks to their Creta crossover which was launched last year in India. Thanks to Creta, Hyundai Indias UV sales jumped from 31,049 units in April-October 2015 to 56,971 units in April-October 2016. This is a staggering 83% increase in UV sales for Hyundai India. Toyota India on the other hand, posted sales of 56,971 units in the same period this year, which is a growth of 15.7% against last years numbers. Below are the numbers- Hyundai Indias CEO YK Koo has revealed that the Creta compact crossover has helped increase the brands average price tag per unit from INR 3-4 lakhs to INR 7 lakhs thereby improving the profit margin per unit. Though the Indian subsidiary is not as profitable as Hyundais other leading subsidiaries, over the course of time, the automaker has managed to establish itself as a premium brand in the sub-continent. Also See Hyundai Creta facelift debuts in Brazil The biggest segment in India is the price-sensitive small car space where the profit margins are pretty thin. So, the Hyundai Cretas stellar sales performance in the premium segment comes as a huge boost to the automakers financial wellness. The Creta also played a major role in Hyundai Indias growth of 16% last year when the industry grew only by 8%. The market share also increased by 1% to 17.3% last year. Moving forward, the CEO is confident of the SUV segments potential. Last year, 13% of Hyundai Indias sales came from SUVs, this year they are estimating the figure to reach 20% by the end of this year. The newly launched Tucson SUV will help the brand even further. Grape growers and winemakers around the world will be able to easily assess powdery mildew in the field with the help of a mobile application just released globally. PMapp, which supports decisions about grape quality, has been developed by the University of Adelaide in close collaboration with the Australian grape and wine sector, and supported by Wine Australia. "Powdery mildew is a serious disease that affects grapevines worldwide and can cause off flavours and aromas in wine if it is not controlled," says project leader Eileen Scott, Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Adelaide's School of Agriculture, Food and Wine. "It's a costly disease for wine sectors across the world through loss of yield and cost of control and, because of the serious quality issues for wine, there is little tolerance of powdery mildew in the winery. But it's hard to assess -- the symptoms can be hard to distinguish from dust or spray residue. "PMapp is a simple tool that facilitates efficient assessment and recording of the severity and incidence of powdery mildew." A local version of PMapp was released in Australia in December 2015 and proved its worth for the grape and wine community during the 2016 Australian vintage. It has now been made available to download outside Australia. advertisement Powdery mildew is assessed in the vineyard as the percentage surface area of grape bunches affected, which gives a measure of disease severity. PMapp allows the user to visually assess the severity by matching it with computer-generated images. The app allows assessors to enter disease data quickly in the vineyard, email the results and then analyse the resulting spreadsheet, which records GPS coordinates and other details of the assessment. There is also a suite of online resources to support PMapp. This can be used to train or up-skill wine sector personnel and students to recognise powdery mildew symptoms and estimate disease severity. Wine Australia's General Manager Research, Development and Extension Dr Liz Waters says that PMapp is a valuable tool for the grape and wine community. "The PMapp and training website developers have taken the findings of this comprehensive research project funded by Wine Australia and produced two useable tools for the wine sector," Dr Waters says. Comments from Australian users over the 2015/2016 season include: Ian Macrae, CCW Cooperative Ltd: "Although PMapp was developed for assessing the severity of powdery mildew, we used the app for bunch rot assessment as well. Accurate assessment of severity is required when the patch is facing possible rejection. PMapp was a great tool in making decisions acceptable to both grower and winery." Andrew Weeks, Executive Director, Australian Vignerons: "PMapp offers potential for a uniform and reliable assessment procedure for powdery mildew, which in turn provides a consistent market signal for winegrowers. This may lead to better understanding of disease control, and ultimately benefits in wine." Alex Sas, Chief Viticulturist of Accolade Wines: "PMapp will quickly become part of the standard operating procedures of large wine companies in Australia and worldwide." The PMapp is now available on Apple's App Store or Google Play. The online resources can be found at pmassessment.com.au. Before Samantha Zent's parents brought home their newborn daughter from the hospital 22 years ago, Zent left behind a blood sample. "I was born in Nappanee, Ind., and my blood sample is currently in the Indiana State Department of Health possibly being used for research because state policy says it will be held there until I turn 23," Zent said. The Indiana State University senior biology major is one of the thousands of babies born each day who leave the hospital having been tested for a variety of inheritable and fatal health conditions through a practice known as newborn screening. While newborn screening is one of the national public health services that has transformed preventive healthcare, there are certain ethical and legal concerns about what happens to the babies' genetic information beyond the tests. As a part of the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience program, Zent explored each state's policy and procedure as it pertains to newborn screening practices. "I found that up until 2014 when President Obama passed the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act, there was no federal mandate that required hospitals and research entities get parental consent to use the child's sample in research," Zent said. In recent years, there have been newborn screening lawsuits filed against many states, including one against the Indiana State Department of Health, for the improper storage and use of blood samples obtained from newborn screening. "I think this really became a national conversation after the book 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks' by Rebecca Skloot came out," said Nathan Myers, a faculty sponsor for the SURE program. advertisement In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a poor African-American woman, was diagnosed with cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Her cells were taken without her knowledge and used to advance scientific research. Now known as HeLa cells, they helped to develop medical innovations such as the polio vaccine and countless others. "There is a certain amount of controversy surrounding this issue of who actually owns your genetic information and to what extent does the individual actually have ownership," Myers said. "Samantha looked at her research from high-risk to low-risk states in terms of a parent's perspective. Is there a lot of information provided on newborn screening and a low level of storage time for the samples? The states that store samples forever and do not provide any information about newborn screening or research are the ones that might have a higher probability of using that genetic information in a negative way." Zent concluded there is a general lack of knowledge about newborn screening and research for parents and healthcare providers. In her research, which is ongoing, she suggests that genetic counselors may be able to bridge the gap between researchers, physicians and families. "The personal side of me wishes genetic counselors could meet with all of those women to help them understand what their babies are even being tested for, because I don't think there is very much education," said Megan Tucker, director of the master's of genetic counseling program. "At the same time, when there are less than 50 of us in the entire state, I don't think there is the physical man power to truly touch the thousands of women that have babies every year." Genetic counseling began as a profession in the 1970s to interpret and explain genetic information and disorders in order to educate individuals, especially parents and families. "It is very much a growing field that leads into all kinds of different specialties, not just prenatal but into adult disorders and neurology and cardiology," Tucker said. "So it's growing in a lot of directions, which that in itself makes it hard for us to keep up with all of those things with the few of us that exist." Indiana State's master's of genetic counseling is the 33rd accredited program in the U.S. and Canada and aims to help fill the profession's needs while providing students with an interdisciplinary education. "In theory, a graduate student from our program, or any genetic counselling program, should be able to walk out and know all of the areas that genetic counselors work in, such as prenatal, oncology clinics, pediatrics and others," Tucker said. The two-year program, which accepted its first class in August, offers a unique opportunity for students to gain experiential learning in the new Genetic Counseling Clinic in Wabash Valley. "Indiana State and Union Hospital have partnered to open the first genetic counseling clinic in which we are now serving patients with diagnoses of cancer or psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder," Tucker said. "Through the Center for Genomic Advocacy, the genetic counseling program and the clinic, we begin to truly reach out to individuals outside of the university to the Terre Haute community." By PTI: From Lalit K Jha Washington, Nov 22 (PTI) In an unprecedented move, President-elect Donald Trump today indicated that he would like to have Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit movement, as the next British Ambassador to the US. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!" Trump said in a tweet today. advertisement It is one of the rarest occasion that a foreign leader has indicated his favourite picture of a diplomatic envoy from other country. Trump and Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, have very good relationship. Farage was one of the few world leaders to have met and endorsed Trump during the US presidential elections. He had also helped Trump prepare for debate. He had said that he is not for an ambassadorial posting. The British leader is likely to attend the January 20 inauguration of Trump as the 45th President of the US. PTI LKJ KJ NSA KJ --- ENDS --- Icebergs contribute more meltwater to Greenland's fjords than previously thought, losing up to half of their volume as they move through the narrow inlets, according to new research. Greenland, the world's largest island, is almost entirely covered by a permanent ice sheet that has been shrinking and melting as global warming increases temperatures. In fjords, narrow inlets where glaciers meet the sea, ice breaks off from glaciers to form dense packs of icebergs. The new study finds 10 to 50 percent of iceberg melting happens in the fjords, not in the open ocean as assumed by previous research. As a result, more than half of all meltwater entering Greenland's glacial fjords can come from these dense packs of icebergs, outweighing the amount of freshwater coming from the island's glaciers, according to the new study. "We should now be able to better measure the freshwater fluxes that are coming off of Greenland," said Ellyn Enderlin, a glaciologist at the University of Maine in Orono, and lead author of the new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. "That could be really important when we're thinking about how Greenland melts, how that influences ocean circulation and climate." The new study could help scientists better understand what happens at the ice-ocean interface where glaciers meet the water, according to Jason Amundson, a geophysicist at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, who was not involved in the new study. "The reason that's interesting is that there's been quite a few studies in the past 20 years that have shown that the stability of ... glaciers depends on what happens at the ice-ocean interface," he said. advertisement Melting point The Greenland Ice Sheet releases more than 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles) of meltwater per year, according to the authors. Previous research found half of this meltwater comes from icebergs and half comes from glaciers, but the amount icebergs melted in fjords before they reached the ocean remained a mystery. In the new study, Enderlin and her colleagues used satellite images of two Greenland fjords to calculate the total volume of icebergs within them. Tracking the icebergs over the course of days, weeks and months allowed the researchers to calculate how much volume the icebergs lost through melting before they reached the ocean. The researchers determined that from October to April, melting icebergs dominate the freshwater flux into the fjords losing up to half of their volume -- glaciers barely melt during the cold winter months. At their peak, these dense packs of icebergs melted at a rate of around 1,000 cubic meters per second (260,000 gallons per second), the equivalent of filling an Olympic-sized swimming pool every two and a half seconds. Even during the warm summer months, underwater glacier melting only occurs at a maximum rate of 400 cubic meters per second (about 100,000 gallons per second). Icebergs are tiny in size compared to glaciers, but they contribute such a large fraction of meltwater to fjords because their large surface area allows them to melt more quickly, according to Enderlin. advertisement "If you took an ice cube and put it in your drink, one solid ice cube would melt pretty slowly, but if you took it out, hit it with a hammer and put it back in, it would melt a lot faster," she said. Enderlin and her team also used satellite images to estimate the iceberg distribution in the two fjords, which they used to calculate the icebergs' total underwater surface area. Multiplying the melting rate by the total underwater surface area, Enderlin and her colleagues found more meltwater in the fjords was coming from icebergs than from glaciers throughout most of the year. "What I see now is that iceberg melting is huge, and so if you don't take that into account you're going to come up with some crazy high estimates for glacier melting that might not be representative," Enderlin said. Melting icebergs in the fjords create a layer of cold freshwater near glaciers. This freshwater can affect water circulation in the fjords, which can affect how glaciers melt and recede, Enderlin said. Ocean circulation patterns could also be disrupted depending on where the icebergs melt and release their freshwater, according to Enderlin. Ocean circulation is a major driver of heat movement from the tropics to the poles, and disruptions to it could cause chaotic and unpredictable changes to weather and climate, she said. Enderlin hopes to expand her studies on iceberg meltwater flux to other areas, like Antarctica. She said she will continue the work she started with Gordon Hamilton, who was a glaciologist at the University of Maine in Orono, and a co-author of new study. Hamilton died in October while doing research in Antarctica. "I would say that really this was sort of our joint brainchild," Enderlin said. "I bounced lots of ideas off of him ... He was really instrumental to [the research] and it was sad that he couldn't see it come to be finally." Up until now, atmospheric models and hydrodynamic models have remained separate to a large extent in the Great Lakes region, with only a few attempts to loosely couple them. In a new study, published online this week in the Journal of Climate, an integrated model brings together climate and water models. The collaborative work is the product of researchers from Michigan Technological University, Loyola Marymount University, LimnoTech and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. Pengfei Xue, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan Tech, led the study through his work at the Great Lakes Research Center on campus. "One of the important concepts in climate change, in addition to knowing the warming trend, is understanding that extreme events become more severe," Xue says. "That is both a challenge and an important focus in regional climate modeling." To make those connections, the model specifically uses two-way coupling and 3-dimensional modeling to connect atmospheric and lake body interactions. Two-way coupling is like a two-way street and enables feedback between variables; other models use preset inputs that act more like one-way streets. Current models also rely on 1-D lake models that cannot account for the dynamic nature of hydrologic processes in bodies of water as large as the Great Lakes. For comparison, most widely used global climate models use only tens of grid points (roughly 0.5 degree resolution) to cover all of the Great Lakes, if they account for the lakes at all. To create a more nuanced view, like what has been accomplished already in ocean coastline modeling, the new model simulates the hydrodynamics of the Great Lakes region with 3-D hydrodynamic model constructed of 40 vertical layers and 2-kilometer horizontal grid resolution. That's roughly 50,000 grids for each layer, which enables feedback between air and water data. The datasets used are so large that they can only run on a supercomputer. Xue uses the Superior supercomputer at the Great Lakes Research Center. Xue and his team vetted the model's accuracy by comparing its simulations to historical records and satellite data. "This kind of approach has been recognized as a critical step in the Great Lakes region that has been building over the past decade," Xue says. The next stage of the research will expand the model to include surface water runoff. Refining the model is a community effort, and the team plans to work with current collaborators to apply and test the limits of the model. In its current version, the new model provides better footing to further Great Lakes research. By doing so, scientists will glean more information about everything from regional climate change and shipping to oil spill mitigation and invasive species. An international team led by researchers from Tohoku University has found an extremely faint dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The team's discovery is part of the ongoing Subaru Strategic Survey using Hyper Suprime-Cam. The satellite, named Virgo I, lies in the direction of the constellation Virgo. At the absolute magnitude of -0.8 in the optical waveband, it may well be the faintest satellite galaxy yet found. Its discovery suggests the presence of a large number of yet-undetected dwarf satellites in the halo of the Milky Way and provides important insights into galaxy formation through hierarchical assembly of dark matter. Currently, some 50 satellite galaxies to the Milky Way have been identified. About 40 of them are faint and diffuse and belong to the category of so-called "dwarf spheroidal galaxies." Many recently discovered dwarf galaxies, especially those seen in systematic photometric surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Dark Energy Survey (DES) are very faint with absolute luminosity in the optical waveband below -8 magnitude. These are so-called "ultra-faint dwarf galaxies." However, previous searches made use of telescopes with a diameter of 2.5 to 4 meters, so only satellites relatively close to the Sun or those with higher magnitudes were identified. Those that are more distant or faint ones in the halo of the Milky Way are yet to be detected. The combination of the large aperture of 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope and the large field-of-view Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) instrument is very powerful in this study. It enables an efficient search for very faint dwarf satellites over large areas of the sky. The first step in searching out a new dwarf galaxy is to identify an over density of stars in the sky, using photometric data. Next is to assess that the over dense appearance is not due to line-of-sight or accidental juxtapositions of unrelated dense fields, but is really a stellar system. The standard method for doing this is to look for a characteristic distribution of stars in the color-magnitude diagram (comparable to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Stars in a general field shows no particular patterns in this diagram. Finding Virgo I Daisuke Homma, a graduate student at Tohoku University, found Virgo I under the guidance of his advisor, Masashi Chiba, and their international collaborators. "We have carefully examined the early data of the Subaru Strategic Survey with HSC and found an apparent over density of stars in Virgo with very high statistical significance, showing a characteristic pattern of an ancient stellar system in the color-magnitude diagram," he said. "Surprisingly, this is one of the faintest satellites, with absolute magnitude of -0.8 in the optical waveband. This is indeed a galaxy, because it is spatially extended with a radius of 124 light years -- systematically larger than a globular cluster with comparable luminosity." The faintest dwarf satellites identified so far was Segue I, discovered by SDSS (-1.5 mag) and Cetus II in DES (0.0 mag). Cetus II is yet to be confirmed, as it is too compact as a galaxy. Virgo I may ultimately turn out to be the faintest one ever discovered. It lies at a distance of 280,000 light years from the Sun, and such a remote galaxy with faint brightness has not been identified in previous surveys. It is beyond the reach of SDSS, which has previously surveyed the same area in the direction of the constellation Virgo. According to Chiba, the leader of this search project, the discovery has profound implications. "This discovery implies hundreds of faint dwarf satellites waiting to be discovered in the halo of the Milky Way," he said. "How many satellites are indeed there and what properties they have, will give us an important clue of understanding how the Milky Way formed and how dark matter contributed to it." Using HSC to Trace Galaxy Formation Formation of galaxies like the Milky Way is thought to proceed through the hierarchical assembly of dark matter, forming dark halos, and through the subsequent infall of gas and star formation affected by gravity. Standard models of galaxy formation in the context of the so-called cold dark matter (CDM) theory predict the presence of hundreds of small dark halos orbiting in a Milky Way-sized dark halo and a comparable number of luminous satellite companions. However, only tens of satellites have ever been identified. This falls well short of a theoretical predicted number, which is part of the so-called "missing satellite problem." Astronomers may need to consider other types of dark matter than CDM or to invoke baryonic physics suppressing galaxy formation to explain the shortfall in the number of satellites. Another possibility is that they have seen only a fraction of all the satellites associated with the Milky Way due to various observational biases. The issue remains unsolved. One of the motivations for the Subaru Strategic Survey using HSC is to do increase observations in the search for Milky Way satellites. The early data from this survey is what led to the discovery of Virgo I. This program will continue to explore much wider areas of the sky and is expected to find more satellites like Virgo I. These tiny companions to be discovered in the near future may tell us much more about history of the Milky Way's formation. On average, as lives get longer, the difference in the age at which people die becomes smaller. By analyzing data from 44 countries, researchers have now proven that life expectancy and the variation of individual lifespans are tightly bound together by a mathematical relationship. If life expectancy decreases in times of crisis, then, according to the same mathematical logic, the distribution of the lengths of lives widens. "Since life expectancy very probably continues to rise, we can expect that fewer people have to die earlier than the average," says Alexander Scheuerlein, scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany. Scheuerlein has now published these results on lifespans together with MPIDR director James Vaupel and an international team of researchers in the science journal PNAS. Fewer people have to die prematurely Among women in the US, the effect accounts for a compression of mortality by ten years between 1933 and 2014 (see graph). In 1933, American women had a life expectancy of 62.8 years, while half of all deaths occurred within a time span of 26.3 years around the average age of death. In contrast, by 2014, life expectancy had risen by almost 19 years to up to 81.3 years, while the time span that half of all deaths occurred in had shrunk to only 16.3 years. According to Scheuerlein, the continuing convergence of the ages at death not only means that less people are dying clearly prematurely, but also that less people are living far beyond the average age of death. "The extent to which people benefit from gains in lifespan is becoming increasingly similar," says Scheuerlein. One rule for vastly different societies This relationship between life expectancy and the converging of the ages at death can be observed not only over time within a single country, but across very different countries, historical epochs, and societies -- and between men and women. No matter which types of populations the researchers compared, they always found a fixed relationship between the difference in life expectancy levels and the difference in the variance in the distributions of deaths over age. The same mathematical conditions apply even to extreme cases. For example, this is true for modern Japanese women, who hold the world record with a life expectancy well beyond 80 years. It also applies to traditional hunter-gatherer societies (with a life expectancy around 40 years), and the historic population of freed US slaves in Liberia, who temporarily had an average lifespan of only a few years. Given the diversity of the human populations who appear to be governed by this newly discovered rule, it is not yet possible to determine its causes, Scheuerlein says. "The universality of the relationship is striking. The only thing that is obvious to us right now is that it must have to do with the sociocultural way humans organize their societies." Increasing length of life despite low infant mortality The PNAS study confirms recent research which suggests that gains in life expectancy are to be expected at higher ages, Scheuerlein points out. In the past, individual lifespans have been more diverse mainly due to high infant mortality. Deaths had accumulated in two distinct age groups, that of early childhood and, for those who survived, that of adulthood. As the centers of these groups had been quite distant, it was no surprise that when infant mortality decreased to almost zero, the variation of lifespans shrunk and life expectancy rose at the same time. Meanwhile infant mortality has been at sustained low levels for many years, and the vast majority of deaths is centered around higher ages. Nevertheless, recent developments also follow the newly discovered rule. The age range within which most deaths occur is still becoming narrower, even though the time span for this process has already become considerably smaller than in the past and now takes place later on in the second half of life. Simultaneously, life expectancy continues to reach ever-higher values. "Our newly discovered rule adds to a growing body of research that does not give any evidence that humans are approaching a looming limit to life expectancy," says Scheuerlein. Doctors performing medical check-ups want a full picture of the patient's health without using the scalpel. Engineers who want to investigate the stability of a bridge without cutting into it are in the same position. Non-destructive testing methods play a major role in guaranteeing quality and safety, driving substantial interest in refined methodologies. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a method that gives a precise picture of the inner world of objects combining a computerized model and experiment. Ultrasound measurements are among the most frequently applied technologies in non-destructive testing. The principle is similar to the echolocation that bats use to gather information on their surroundings, possible obstacles and prey using ultrasonic sounds. The bat localizes the direction to an object by sensing which ear registers the echo of a sound first. The smaller the time difference between the arrival of the signals at the respective ear, the smaller the angle between the direction of the sound emitted and the object. If the echo arrives at both ears at the same time and with the same volume, the object is located exactly in the direction the sound was emitted. Conventional non-destructive testing methods also use this principle to localize structural defects by means of ultrasound. Measurements detect the speed, wavelength and time difference with which the ultrasound waves or their reflections arrive at sensors mounted on the surface of the test object. These measurements are then compared with data from a non-defective reference object to expose variances. "This standard procedure can basically be used to identify and localize defects," says Prof. Ernst Rank, head of the TUM Chair for Computation in Engineering. "But it only returns a limited amount of information on their exact position, extent and orientation." When the whole wave counts In order to solve this problem, the scientists first mathematically modeled the material properties of the aluminum plates used in the experimental part of their project. They then used this model to calculate the propagation of the ultrasound waves and their reflection. The virtually determined measured values were compared with the results from real experiments in which the ultrasound waves were sent through real aluminum plates. They discovered that the measured values of the virtual and real sensors differed from one another, since special factors within the structure can lead to a specific scattering or refraction of the ultrasound waves. The researchers used a trick to get around this error source: The difference between measured real and virtual waves at the sensors is reintroduced as a signal and used to calculate an improved model. This method, referred to as waveform inversion, thus utilizes the entire information content of the wave field measured. The effort is worth it This method, developed in the 1980s by the Spanish geophysicist Albert Tarantola, was long considered practically unfeasible due to the very large amount of data required. It was not until the development of innovative algorithms and advances in computer technology in recent years that the highly computation-intensive application of wave form inversion could be realized. "We can surely ask ourselves whether the additional computational effort is worth it," says information scientist and mathematician Robert Seidl. "But when we look at the benefits of our method, the answer has to be yes, the effort is more than worth it." One of the most important tasks of the near future will be applying and validating wave form inversion with real structures in construction and mechanical engineering. This is planned for a research project in which Prof. Rank's team will partner with Prof. Christian Grosse's team at the Chair of Non-destructive Testing (NDT). Human astroviruses infect nearly everyone during childhood, causing diarrhea, vomiting, and fever. For most people, it's not a serious disease, but structural biologist Rebecca DuBois saw how devastating it can be when she worked at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. "There were all these young cancer patients who were successfully fighting their cancer, but they were getting severe chronic astrovirus infections because the chemotherapy suppressed their immune systems, and there was no treatment for it," said DuBois, now an assistant professor of biomolecular engineering at UC Santa Cruz. By studying the astrovirus capsid, the protein shell of the viral particles, the DuBois lab is laying the foundation for new antiviral therapies and vaccines for human astroviruses. In a new study accepted for publication in the Journal of Virology, she used x-ray crystallography to show how a specific protein structure on the surface of the virus is blocked by a neutralizing antibody, thus preventing the virus from infecting human cells. "We've identified a site of vulnerability on the surface of the virus that we can now target for development of a vaccine or antiviral therapy," DuBois said. "These are the first results showing how a neutralizing antibody blocks this virus." The study shows how the antibody binds to a structure known as the astrovirus capsid spike domain, which projects from the surface of the virus. By binding to the spike domain, the antibody blocks the virus's ability to attach to and infect human cells. The new findings provide a roadmap for researchers to design a vaccine based on the spike domain that can induce neutralizing antibodies and prevent infection in children. The study also highlights the potential to develop therapeutic antibodies to treat severe astrovirus infections. "Antibody therapeutics is a rapidly growing field. Many immunotherapies are being developed to target cancer cells, and we expect to see a growing number of antibody therapies for infectious diseases over the next ten years," DuBois said. Graduate student Walter Bogdanoff is first author of the paper. DuBois noted that the first three authors of the paper -- Bogdanoff and undergraduates Jocelyn Campos and Edmundo Perez -- have all been supported by the STEM Diversity Programs at UC Santa Cruz. "It's a great program that funds undergraduates and graduate students from diverse backgrounds to do laboratory research, and they really do become accomplished scientists and well prepared for graduate school and careers in science," she said. Think of all the things your mom taught you -- sit up straight, close your mouth when you chew your food, remember to say please and thank you...the list goes on. When it comes to learning how to behave, though, humans aren't alone in looking to our Moms. Led by Richard Wrangham, Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology, a group of researchers has shown, for the first time, that chimpanzees learn certain grooming styles from their mothers. Once learned, chimps continued to perform the behavior the same way, long after the death of their mothers. The study is described in a November 21 paper in Current Biology. "I think what it really shows is how strong the maternal influence is," Wrangham said. "It's very charming, really -- our oldest known son was almost 40 years old, still doing what his long-dead mother did." Known as "high-arm grooming," the behavior occurs during the regular grooming sessions chimps engage in throughout the day. As two chimps groom each other, each raise one arm and either clasp hands or cross their arms as they continue to groom. Though brief -- sessions average only about 45 seconds -- chimps have been observed in the behavior as many as ten times a day. But while grooming behavior is universal among chimps, high-arm grooming is not. advertisement The behavior has been observed in eight chimp populations across Africa, Wrangham said, each of which show differing rates of clasping and non-clasping, but is notably absent in three other well-studied populations. It's not clear, however, whether any significance should be attached to those differences -- at present, researchers have no clear answer as to why chimps engage in high-arm grooming, or what benefits they get from it. "So what we wanted to understand was what's responsible for the variation in palm-to-palm clasping," Wrangham said. "When a young female joins a new group does she look at what everyone else is doing...and then do what the rest of the group does for the rest of her life?" To find out, Wrangham and colleagues collected the most detailed data ever on how -- and how often -- chimps in a particular population engaged in high-arm grooming, and they quickly realized that nearly all previous theories about the behavior were wrong. "This type of behavior, which seems so trivial in many ways -- whether you clasp hands or cross arms -- has been suggested as signaling membership in a group," Wrangham said. "People often see these types of strange behaviors we see in chimps and wonder if it is some sort of group identification sign.'' advertisement "Alternatively, people have suggested that maybe it signals a special type of social relationship if two individuals do it more often with one another. But what we're showing with this paper is that none of the obvious possibilities figure out," Wrangham said. "The pattern varies widely within the group, it's not closely associated with friendship, it doesn't vary by age or sex, and it does not depend on how long an individual has been in the community." In fact, he said, the only connection researchers were able to identify was the maternal one. The chimpanzees are copying their mothers, not identifying with the larger community. Like human children, young chimps learn many behaviors from their mothers, from which foods to eat to how to use tools, and -- among mothers who engage in it -- how to perform high-arm grooming. And since young chimps may groom almost exclusively with their mothers until about age 12, Wrangham said it's hardly any wonder that the grooming style stays with them into adulthood. "Even when they're adults, even after their mothers are long dead, they still do it the same way their mother did it." Wrangham said. "This is the first time anyone has realized this, and the pattern is delightfully clear." While it's tempting to assign some larger significance to the behavior, Wrangham said studies this far haven't been able to show whether high-arm grooming carries any social meaning. "People may say it's important because they stick to it," he said. "But the alternative view is that no one in the group cares. There's never rejection (when a clasper meets a non-clasper) -- everyone has tended to think that this is something that would be seen more among individuals that have a strong alliance relationship, but it turns out to not be true." That finding, Wrangham said, leaves several questions still to be answered, and the hope is that further study may yet yield some insights into the behavior. "Now that we know some families clasp hands as much as 90 percent of the time, and others do it only 10 percent, what happens when you get two individuals high-arm grooming together when one is a clasper and the other is not?" Wrangham said. "What is it that decides which pattern they will use? Is it dominance? Is it the higher ranking individual? The older one? Or maybe it is the one that initiates? "Our current evidence suggests that neither dominance nor age carries sway. Eventually I hope we can work out the social significance of this quirky behavior. If we can find a pattern for which individual "wins" when a clasper grooms with a non-clasper, maybe we will get a clue to why individuals do high-arm grooming at all." Researchers have discovered a way to remove specific fears from the brain, using a combination of artificial intelligence and brain scanning technology. Their technique, published in the inaugural edition of Nature Human Behaviour, could lead to a new way of treating patients with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and phobias. Fear related disorders affect around one in 14 people and place considerable pressure on mental health services. Currently, a common approach is for patients to undergo some form of aversion therapy, in which they confront their fear by being exposed to it in the hope they will learn that the thing they fear isn't harmful after all. However, this therapy is inherently unpleasant, and many choose not to pursue it. Now a team of neuroscientists from the University of Cambridge, Japan and the USA, has found a way of unconsciously removing a fear memory from the brain. The team developed a method to read and identify a fear memory using a new technique called 'Decoded Neurofeedback'. The technique used brain scanning to monitor activity in the brain, and identify complex patterns of activity that resembled a specific fear memory. In the experiment, a fear memory was created in 17 healthy volunteers by administering a brief electric shock when they saw a certain computer image. When the pattern was detected, the researchers over-wrote the fear memory by giving their experimental subjects a reward. Dr. Ben Seymour, of the University of Cambridge's Engineering Department, was one of the authors on the study. He explained the process: "The way information is represented in the brain is very complicated, but the use of artificial intelligence (AI) image recognition methods now allow us to identify aspects of the content of that information. When we induced a mild fear memory in the brain, we were able to develop a fast and accurate method of reading it by using AI algorithms. The challenge then was to find a way to reduce or remove the fear memory, without ever consciously evoking it." "We realised that even when the volunteers were simply resting, we could see brief moments when the pattern of fluctuating brain activity had partial features of the specific fear memory, even though the volunteers weren't consciously aware of it. Because we could decode these brain patterns quickly, we decided to give subjects a reward -- a small amount of money -- every time we picked up these features of the memory." The team repeated the procedure over three days. Volunteers were told that the monetary reward they earned depended on their brain activity, but they didn't know how. By continuously connecting subtle patterns of brain activity linked to the electric shock with a small reward, the scientists hoped to gradually and unconsciously override the fear memory. advertisement Dr Ai Koizumi, of the Advanced Telecommunicatons Research Institute International, Kyoto and Centre of Information and Neural Networks, Osaka, led the research: "In effect, the features of the memory that were previously tuned to predict the painful shock, were now being re-programmed to predict something positive instead." The team then tested what happened when they showed the volunteers the pictures previously associated with the shocks. "Remarkably, we could no longer see the typical fear skin-sweating response. Nor could we identify enhanced activity in the amygdala -- the brain's fear centre," she continued. "This meant that we'd been able to reduce the fear memory without the volunteers ever consciously experiencing the fear memory in the process." Although the sample size in this initial study was relatively small, the team hopes the technique can be developed into a clinical treatment for patients with PTSD or phobias. "To apply this to patients, we need to build a library of the brain information codes for the various things that people might have a pathological fear of, say, spiders" adds Dr Seymour."Then, in principle, patients could have regular sessions of Decoded Neurofeedback to gradually remove the fear response these memories trigger." Such a treatment could have major benefits over traditional drug based approaches. Patients could also avoid the stress associated with exposure therapies, and any side-effects resulting from those drugs. A splitnose rockfish's thousands of tiny offspring can stick together in sibling groups from the time they are released into the open ocean until they move to shallower water, research from Oregon State University shows. The study conducted in the OSU College of Science sheds new light on how rockfish, a group of multiple species that contribute to important commercial and recreational fisheries in the Northwest, disperse through the ocean and "recruit," or take up residence in nearshore habitats. Previously it was believed rockfish larvae dispersed chaotically to wherever currents carried them. "When you manage populations, it's really important to understand where the young are going to and where the young are coming from -- how populations are connected and replenished," said Su Sponaugle, a professor of integrative biology based at OSU's Hatfield Marine Science Center. "This research helps us better understand what's possible about offspring movement. We don't know fully by what mechanisms the larvae are staying together, but these data are suggestive that behavior is playing a role." The findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery of "spatial cohesion" among the larvae came via the collection of newly settled rockfish in a shallow nearshore habitat off the central Oregon coast. Nearly 500 juvenile fish that had started out up to six months earlier as transparent larvae at depths of a few hundred meters were collected and genetically analyzed, with the results showing that 11.6 percent had at least one sibling in the group. "That's much higher than we would have expected if they were randomly dispersing," Sponaugle said. advertisement Bearing live young -- a female can release thousands of able-to-swim larvae at a time -- and dwelling close to the sea floor in the benthic zone, rockfishes make up a diverse genus with many species. Adult splitnose rockfish live in deep water -- usually 100 to 350 meters -- but juveniles often settle in nearshore habitats less than 20 meters deep after spending up to a year in the open sea. Taking into account dynamic influences such as the California Current, siblings recruiting to the same area suggest they remained close together as larvae rather than diffusing randomly and then reconnecting as recruits. "This totally changes the way we understand dispersal," said lead author Daniel Ottmann, a graduate student in integrative biology at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. "We'd thought larvae were just released and then largely diffused by currents, but now we know behavior can substantially modify that." Splitnose rockfish range from Alaska to Baja California and can live for more than 100 years. Pelagic juveniles -- juveniles in the open sea -- often aggregate to drifting mats of kelp, and the large amount of time larvae and juveniles spend at open sea is thought to enable them to disperse great distances from their parental source. "This research gives us a window into a stage of the fishes' life we know so little about," added Kirsten Grorud-Colvert, an assistant professor of integrative biology at OSU's Corvallis campus. "We can't track the larvae out there in the ocean; we can't look at their behavior early and see where they go. But this genetic technique allows us to look at how they disperse, and it changes the conversation. Now that we know that siblings are ending up in the same places, we can consider how to more effectively manage and protect these species." Because larval aggregation shapes the dispersal process more than previously thought, Ottmann said, it highlights the need to better understand what happens in the pelagic ocean to affect the growth, survival and dispersal of the larvae. advertisement "Successful recruitment is critical for the population dynamics of most marine species," he said. "Our findings have far-reaching implications for our understanding of how populations are connected by dispersing larvae." In addition, Grorud-Colvert adds, there's the simple and substantial "gee whiz" factor of the findings. "These tiny little fish, a few days old, out there in the humongous ocean, instead of just going wherever are able to swim and stay close together on their epic journey," she said. "These tiny, tiny things, sticking together in the open ocean -- it's cool." Primary funding came from the Hatfield Marine Science Center's Mamie L. Markham Research Award. Heart disease, the leading cause of death in America, can be combatted by implementing a simple walking regimen. Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York found that moderately intensive walking improves cardiovascular risk factors in the short term. "We know walking is an excellent form of exercise, but research has been mixed on how successful a walking program can be in changing biological markers such as cholesterol, weight, blood pressure," said Pamela Stewart Fahs, associate dean, professor, and Dr. G. Clifford and Florence B. Decker chair in rural nursing at the Binghamton University Decker School of Nursing. Fahs guided Elisabeth Marigliano, PhD student, as they conducted a study on a group of 70 women. The subjects were tested as part of their volunteer participation in a community walking program. Participants were given a programmable pedometer to wear for waking hours over a 10-week period and asked to walk briskly for at least 150 minutes per week. Two days later, they returned to record pre-test data. Next, a web-based risk assessment tool was used to determine the participant's risk of a heart attack within the next 10 years. After five weeks, participants were invited to attend a talk about heart health and to have their pedometer data downloaded. Researchers reviewed the activity data with the participants and discussed increasing their aerobic steps. Participants were also offered a challenge in an effort to increase aerobic activity as well as to improve retention to study completion. This challenge included an increase their total daily average of aerobic steps by at least 10 percent for the remainder of the study. Finally, on completion of the program, participants' weight, BMI, blood pressure, and cholesterol were measured. They were also asked to complete a survey about their physical activity, food choices, personal characteristics and behaviors from the 10-week period. The results of their post-test confirmed the team's initial hypothesis that walking would improve cardiovascular risk factors in the short term. "I believe there is a need to test for effects of a built-in challenge within a program to see if that helps motivate participants to participate longer and/or produces more successful outcomes," said Fahs. "In addition, work needs to be done to see how best to keep rural women engaged in meaningful exercise for longer periods of time." Studies such as these are usually conducted and tested in urban or suburban areas. According to the researchers, this study can be replicated in other rural communities both within and outside the United States. The team suggested future research to have randomized sampling with a more diverse population. In addition to Fahs, the research team included Elisabeth Marigliano, an adjunct clinical faculty member in the School of Nursing at SUNY at Delhi, and doctor of philosophy student at Decker School of Nursing, Binghamton; and Cristina Ludden, an advisement coordinator in the School of Nursing at SUNY at Delhi. The study, titled "Walking for Heart Health: A Study of Adult Women in Rural New York," was published in Creative Nursing. US President-elect Donald Trump invited media executives and journalists for a meeting on Monday only to lash out at them for failing to provide viewers with a fair coverage on presidential elections. By PTI: US President-elect Donald Trump lashed out at top electronic media executives and journalists, calling them "dishonest" and "deceitful liars" after he invited them for a private meeting of minds. "Instead of striking a harmonious tone to build rapport following the election, Trump was combative," The Washington Post quoted participants as saying. "In a calm and deliberate voice, he told the group sitting around a conference table that they had failed to provide their viewers with fair and accurate coverage, and told them they failed to understand him or his appeal to millions of Americans," The Washington Post reported. advertisement A FIRING SQUAD According to the daily, 70-year-old Trump repeatedly used the words "unfair" and "dishonest" to describe the election coverage at the meeting in New York with television journalists and executives on Monday. ALSO READ: Putin calls up Trump, agrees to work together to mend Russia-US ties Participants included ABC News anchors George Stephanopoulos and David Muir; CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett; and ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz. ALSO WATCH Among the network news executives were CNN Worldwide Chairman Jeff Zucker, NBC News President Deborah Turness, MSNBC President Phil Griffin, ABC News President James Goldston, and four top executives from Fox News -- Bill Shine, Jack Abernethy, Jay Wallace and Suzanne Scott. Trump is scheduled to meet The New York Times reporters and executives today. "It was like a f---ing firing squad," The New York Post reported based on information obtained from those inside the meeting. ALSO READ: Donald Trump vows to immediately deport up to 3 million immigrants A TOTAL DISASTER "Trump started with [CNN chief] Jeff Zucker and said I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed, " the report said quoting a source. "The meeting was a total disaster. The TV executives and anchors went in there thinking they would be discussing the access they would get to the Trump administration, but instead they got a Trump-style dressing down," the source added. Trump kept saying "We're in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong". ALSO READ: Democratic attorney generals of US states vow to fight Trump's policies that infringe on civil liberties "He addressed everyone in the room, calling the media dishonest, deceitful liars. He called out Zucker by name and said everyone at CNN was a liar, and CNN was [a] network of liars," the report said. TRUMP AIDE REFUTES ALLEGATIONS Kellyanne Conway, Chairman of the Trump Campaign, however, disputed such reports. advertisement "No, that's not true at all. I sat right to his left. He did not explode in anger. By the way, its an off-the-record meeting so whoever said that and mis-characterised it should think twice," she said on Bloomberg Poetics. Conway along with the incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus were present at the meeting along with Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon. "There was no need to mend fences. It was very cordial, very genial. But it was very candid and very honest. From my own perspective, it's great to hit the reset button," Conway said. ALSO READ: Explained: Why Trumponomics will triumph ALSO READ: NATO says 'absolutely confident' of Trump leadership in alliance ALSO WATCH --- ENDS --- Scientists have warned that high hopes for the success of the Paris Agreement could be dashed if lessons aren't learnt from the challenges and experiences of climate monitoring in Europe.The long term success of the Agreement depends on the availability of well-designed and functioning monitoring and review mechanisms, according to a study published in the journal Climate Policy. As the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22) in Marrakech draws to a close, researchers from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) stress that, without strong, credible monitoring and transparency procedures, national pledges to address climate change in the spirit of the 2015 Paris Agreement will not build sufficient global trust. The study looks closely at the EU's experience with monitoring national climate policies in order to understand what challenges may arise in ensuring transparency. The EU has one of the most advanced monitoring systems in the world -- but it still encounters persistent challenges that, crucially, could jeopardize the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The international community should therefore draw on the EU's valuable experiences and also difficulties in monitoring climate policies in order to develop the practice further. The research identified that the EU's current approach to monitoring climate policies -- largely borrowed from monitoring greenhouse gases, which is a vastly different task -- has not supported in depth learning and debate on the performance of individual policies. Other important obstacles include political concerns over the costs of reporting, control, and the perceived usefulness of the information produced. Jonas Schoenefeld, the lead author, said: "An important part of the implementation of the Paris Agreement will hinge on whether political actors can muster the leadership in order to successfully navigate monitoring challenges at the international level. The EU's experience shows that incorporating policies into NDCs should be seen as one step in a long journey to better knowledge of climate policies." The 2015 Paris Agreement marked a shift towards countries making emission reduction pledges known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and a new Transparency Framework (Article 13) requiring regular progress reports on pledges to address climate change. While the quick ratification of the Paris Agreement is a sign that the international community is eager to make progress, setting up a strong and effective transparency framework requires hard work for years to come. Mr Schoenefeld stressed that the willingness of countries to remain engaged is vital: "A key strength of the Paris Agreement is that so many countries are part of it and are willing to engage. Disengagement or even withdrawal could therefore imperil the whole Agreement and have grave ramifications for the set-up of a strong monitoring system." Professor Mikael Hilden from the Finnish Environment Institute, who co-authored the study, said: "Monitoring is probably the most underestimated challenge in implementing the Paris Agreement. In the past, it has been seen as a technical, data gathering task. We show that it is anything but a mere reporting exercise." Professor Andrew Jordan from the Tyndall Centre, co-author, said: "Implementing more advanced monitoring at the international level will require substantial political efforts, resources, and leadership. In order to justify such investments to the public, care needs to be taken to ensure that monitoring information is used effectively to improve policy, rather than as a weapon to lay blame when things slip." A rare microbe that was once thought to be insignificant has turned out to be one of the most abundant single-celled hunters in the ocean, and a team of researchers led by UBC have captured the first glimpse of these elusive predators. Diplonemids are tiny cells that have more or less been ignored by researchers until recently when surveys of marine diversity showed they are the most abundant protozoa, a diverse group of single-celled organisms that excludes bacteria and viruses, in the ocean. Despite their abundance, they had never been captured or observed directly in the ocean. Scientists from UBC and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) went to sea and managed to observe them for the first time. "When a microbe is so abundant, it probably plays a very important role in the ecosystem," said Patrick Keeling, a professor of botany at UBC and director of the Integrated Microbial Biodiversity program at CIFAR. "The microbial world is one of the last frontiers of exploration on our planet, and we're using microscopes together with genomics to learn as much as possible about this invisible life." The team sailed from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California to a well-studied part of the ocean known as Line 67, where the water is deep yet poor in nutrients. Here they photographed organisms from deep-water samples and used technology to sequence the genomes of these single-celled organisms. The research showed that diplonemids are a diverse group of species of many different shapes and sizes, and that they hunt both bacteria and larger algae. "It's like discovering lions after having only seen gazelles, antelopes and zebras for so many years," said Keeling. Diplonemids also proved to have interesting genomes that are large and full of "junk" DNA called introns that interrupt genes. Introns are found in genes of all complex cells, but the diplonemid introns are unique and appear to spread similar to how a virus copies its genetic material into other cells when it attacks. To learn more about the ecology of these organisms and the role they play in maintaining the marine ecosystmes, the next step will be to figure out how to keep diplonemids alive in the lab, "which will now be a lot easier since we know what they look like," said Keeling. Dramatic, widespread shoreline loss is revealed in new NASA/U.S. Geological Survey annual maps of the Louisiana marshlands where the coastline was most heavily coated with oil during the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Following the spill, the length of shoreline that receded more than 13 feet (4 meters) a year quadrupled compared to the year before the spill. The land losses occurred mainly in areas where oil had washed ashore during the spill. A research team led by Amina Rangoonwala of USGS used airborne remote sensing imagery to analyze shoreline loss across nearly the entire upper Barataria Bay, located on the western side of the Mississippi River Delta, beginning a year before the spill and extending for 2.5 years after it. To determine whether the erosion was likely to be caused by the oil, they also compared shoreline loss linked to the deposited oil with shoreline erosion caused by high waves from Hurricane Isaac in 2012. The team found that although erosion occurred at isolated sections of the shoreline before the spill, the pre-spill shoreline (as analyzed from 2009 to 2010) was largely stable. In the first year after the spill (2010 to 2011), the erosion pattern changed dramatically from isolated to widespread. Erosion occurred mainly along shorelines with documented heavy to moderate oil coating. In the second year after the spill (2011 to 2012), the higher loss rates extended to areas that had less oil coating. Oil is known to weaken or kill vegetation, leading to loss of the roots that help hold soil together. In August 2012, two months after the two-year post-spill period, Hurricane Isaac made a direct hit on Barataria Bay. Erosion rates measured in the four months after the hurricane were higher than those measured after the spill. But this erosion occurred primarily on just a few shorelines that before the spill showed evidence of heightened susceptibility to wave-generated erosion. "Our study uniquely shows that the patterns of shoreline recession seen in this region can be directly related to distinctly different causes: broadly dispersed erosion due to oiling from the Deepwater Horizon spill, and enhanced, but spatially limited, erosion due to intense storm impacts," said Rangoonwala. advertisement The wetland impacts of the spill documented by the team included both the loss of wetlands due to shoreline erosion, and island fragmentation, where small islands are broken into even smaller islands, creating more shoreline. Land lost from fragmentation is unlikely to be reestablished, particularly in this part of the Mississippi River delta where levees prevent an influx of new sediments from the river. This will alter natural coastal defenses against flooding. The images collected in the annual surveys and following Hurricane Isaac were obtained from NASA's Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR), developed and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. UAVSAR flies on a C-20A research aircraft based at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center facility in Palmdale, California. UAVSAR's polarized radar produced detailed representations of the marsh, which USGS scientists then used to develop a process to analyze the shoreline recession by mapping the change in shore location. "Through this process, USGS and NASA scientists developed a repeatable, quantitative mapping method that will allow us to monitor shoreline erosion after oil spills in the future," said study co-author Cathleen Jones of JPL. "Being able to compare shoreline losses in a year without any major storm to losses both after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and after the hurricane was essential to correlating the erosion of the marsh to its underlying causes." The study, "Wetland shoreline recession in the Mississippi River Delta from petroleum oiling and cyclonic storms," is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. NASA collects data from space, air, land and sea to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing. Developed to test new technologies and study Earth surface dynamics, UAVSAR is informing the design and planning for a future spaceborne radar mission, the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), which is planned to image almost the entire Earth's surface at least once every 12 days. For more information on UAVSAR, visit: http://uavsar.jpl.nasa.gov/ For more information on NISAR, visit: http://nisar.jpl.nasa.gov/ For more information about NASA's Earth science activities, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/earth Frozen beneath a region of cracked and pitted plains on Mars lies about as much water as what's in Lake Superior, largest of the Great Lakes, researchers using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have determined. Scientists examined part of Mars' Utopia Planitia region, in the mid-northern latitudes, with the orbiter's ground-penetrating Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument. Analyses of data from more than 600 overhead passes with the onboard radar instrument reveal a deposit more extensive in area than the state of New Mexico. The deposit ranges in thickness from about 260 feet (80 meters) to about 560 feet (170 meters), with a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, mixed with dust or larger rocky particles. At the latitude of this deposit -- about halfway from the equator to the pole -- water ice cannot persist on the surface of Mars today. It sublimes into water vapor in the planet's thin, dry atmosphere. The Utopia deposit is shielded from the atmosphere by a soil covering estimated to be about 3 to 33 feet (1 to 10 meters) thick. "This deposit probably formed as snowfall accumulating into an ice sheet mixed with dust during a period in Mars history when the planet's axis was more tilted than it is today," said Cassie Stuurman of the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas, Austin. She is the lead author of a report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Mars today, with an axial tilt of 25 degrees, accumulates large amounts of water ice at the poles. In cycles lasting about 120,000 years, the tilt varies to nearly twice that much, heating the poles and driving ice to middle latitudes. Climate modeling and previous findings of buried, mid-latitude ice indicate that frozen water accumulates away from the poles during high-tilt periods. Martian Water as a Future Resource The name Utopia Planitia translates loosely as the "plains of paradise." The newly surveyed ice deposit spans latitudes from 39 to 49 degrees within the plains. It represents less than one percent of all known water ice on Mars, but it more than doubles the volume of thick, buried ice sheets known in the northern plains. Ice deposits close to the surface are being considered as a resource for astronauts. advertisement "This deposit is probably more accessible than most water ice on Mars, because it is at a relatively low latitude and it lies in a flat, smooth area where landing a spacecraft would be easier than at some of the other areas with buried ice," said Jack Holt of the University of Texas, a co-author of the Utopia paper who is a SHARAD co-investigator and has previously used radar to study Martian ice in buried glaciers and the polar caps. The Utopian water is all frozen now. If there were a melted layer -- which would be significant for the possibility of life on Mars -- it would have been evident in the radar scans. However, some melting can't be ruled out during different climate conditions when the planet's axis was more tilted. "Where water ice has been around for a long time, we just don't know whether there could have been enough liquid water at some point for supporting microbial life," Holt said. Utopia Planitia is a basin with a diameter of about 2,050 miles (3,300 kilometers), resulting from a major impact early in Mars' history and subsequently filled. NASA sent the Viking 2 Lander to a site near the center of Utopia in 1976. The portion examined by Stuurman and colleagues lies southwest of that long-silent lander. Use of the Italian-built SHARAD instrument for examining part of Utopia Planitia was prompted by Gordon Osinski at Western University in Ontario, Canada, a co-author of the study. For many years, he and other researchers have been intrigued by ground-surface patterns there such as polygonal cracking and rimless pits called scalloped depressions -- "like someone took an ice-cream scoop to the ground," said Stuurman, who started this project while a student at Western. Clue from Canada In the Canadian Arctic, similar landforms are indicative of ground ice, Osinski noted, "but there was an outstanding question as to whether any ice was still present at the Martian Utopia or whether it had been lost over the millions of years since the formation of these polygons and depressions." advertisement The large volume of ice detected with SHARAD advances understanding about Mars' history and identifies a possible resource for future use. "It's important to expand what we know about the distribution and quantity of Martian water," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Deputy Project Scientist Leslie Tamppari, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "We know early Mars had enough liquid water on the surface for rivers and lakes. Where did it go? Much of it left the planet from the top of the atmosphere. Other missions have been examining that process. But there's also a large quantity that is now underground ice, and we want to keep learning more about that." Joe Levy of the University of Texas, a co-author of the new study, said, "The ice deposits in Utopia Planitia aren't just an exploration resource, they're also one of the most accessible climate change records on Mars. We don't understand fully why ice has built up in some areas of the Martian surface and not in others. Sampling and using this ice with a future mission could help keep astronauts alive, while also helping them unlock the secrets of Martian ice ages." SHARAD is one of six science instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which began its prime science phase 10 years ago this month. The mission's longevity is enabling studies of features and active processes all around Mars, from subsurface to upper atmosphere. The Italian Space Agency provided the SHARAD instrument and Sapienza University of Rome leads its operations. The Planetary Science Institute, based in Tucson, Arizona, leads U.S. involvement in SHARAD. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the orbiter mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver built the spacecraft and supports its operations. Barnes Group Inc. provides engineered products, industrial technologies, and solutions in the United States and internationally. It operates in two segments: Industrial and Aerospace. The Industrial segment offers precision components, products, and systems used by various customers in end-markets, such as mobility, industrial equipment, automation, personal care, packaging, electronics, and medical devices. This segment also designs and manufactures hot runner systems, mold cavity sensors and process control systems, and precision high cavitation mold assemblies for injection molding applications; provides force and motion control solutions for various metal forming and other industrial markets; and designs and develops robotic grippers, end-of-arm tooling systems, sensors, and other automation components for intelligent robotic handling solutions and industrial automation applications. In addition, it manufactures and supplies precision mechanical products, including mechanical springs, and high-precision punched and fine-blanked components used in transportation and industrial applications. This segment sells its products primarily through its direct sales force and distribution channels. The Aerospace segment produces fabricated and precision machined components and assemblies for turbine engines; and nacelles and structures for commercial and defense-related aircraft. It also provides aircraft engine component maintenance, repair, and overhaul services for turbine engine manufacturers, commercial airlines, and defense market; and manufactures and delivers aerospace aftermarket spare parts. This segment serves original equipment manufacturing industry. Barnes Group Inc. was founded in 1857 and is headquartered in Bristol, Connecticut. National Bank of Canada provides various financial products and services to retail, commercial, corporate, and institutional clients in Canada and internationally. It operates through four segments: Personal and Commercial, Wealth Management, Financial Markets, and U.S. Specialty Finance and International. The Personal and Commercial segment offers personal banking services, including transaction solutions, mortgage loans and home equity lines of credit, consumer loans, payment solutions, and savings and investment solutions; various insurance products; and commercial banking services comprise credit, and deposit and investment solutions, as well as international trade, foreign exchange transactions, payroll, cash management, insurance, electronic transactions, and complimentary services. The Wealth Management segment comprises investment solutions, trust services, banking services, lending services, and other wealth management solutions. The Financial Markets segment offers corporate banking, advisory, and capital markets services; and project financing, debt, and equity underwriting; advisory services in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, and financing. The U.S. Specialty Finance and International segment provides specialty finance products; financial products and services to individuals and businesses in Cambodia; and investment solutions, guaranteed investment certificates, mutual funds, notes, structured products, and monetization. It provides its services through a network of 384 branches and 927 banking machines. National Bank of Canada was founded in 1859 and is based in Montreal, Canada. Natural Gas Services Group, Inc. provides natural gas compression services and equipment to the energy industry in the United States. It fabricates, manufactures, rents, and sells natural gas compressors and related equipment. The company primarily engages in the rental of compression units that provide small, medium, and large horsepower applications for unconventional oil and natural gas production. As of December 31, 2021, the company had 2,023 natural gas compression units in its rental fleet with 418,041 horsepower. The company also engages in the design, fabrication, and assembly of compressor components into compressor units for rental or sale; engineers and fabricates natural gas compressors; and designs and manufactures a line of reciprocating compressor frames, cylinders, and parts. In addition, it is involved in the design, fabrication, sale, installation, and service of flare stacks and related ignition and control devices for the onshore and offshore incineration of gas compounds, such as hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, natural gas, and liquefied petroleum gases. Further, the company offers customer support services for its compressor and flare sales business; and exchange and rebuild program for small horsepower screw compressors. Its primary customers are exploration and production(E&P) companies that utilize compressor units for artificial lift applications; E&P companies that focuses on natural gas-weighted production; and midstream companies. Natural Gas Services Group, Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Midland, Texas. By Indo-Asian News Service: Twinkle Khanna is known to be a woman of words. Though she won many hearts as an actress in the 1990s, she has maintained that she was not a great actor to begin with, and that writing was her true calling. Her latest book, a collection of short stories, The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad, is about female emancipation. advertisement The actor-turned-author has now gone on to say that she borrowed the characters for the book from the first manuscript she wrote when she was barely 18 years old. Excerpts from a conversation: Tell us about your growth as a writer. You were always fond of reading. When and how did you discover and nurture the writer within yourself? I wrote half a book when I was 18, and in fact the characters--Noni Appa and Binni--from my new book The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad were originally part of that manuscript. This is my third attempt that has finally appeared in print, where the story revolved around the two old ladies and another character, Anandji. I also carried around a black felt file as a teenager that contained all the poems that I had jotted down, primarily about maggots and death. I have always been immersed in a world filled with words, earlier as a reader and now finally as both a reader and a writer. Meet a weary Pothen Thomas in #thelegendoflakshmiprasad http://www.amazon.in/Legend-Lakshmi-Prasad-Twinkle-Khanna/dp/938622805X/ A photo posted by Twinkle Khanna (@twinklerkhanna) on Nov 8, 2016 at 5:27am PST How did The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad come about? Do you feel it says the stories in exactly the way you wanted them told? I was doing some research on menstruation for a column. I read about Arunachalam Muruganantham's life and work and his story gripped me, and that is when I sat down, wrote the first few pages and sent them off to my editor to have a look. I then began chasing Muruga and after numerous lengthy interviews, he agreed to let me fictionalise his story and that is how this book started. The other stories then followed. They were all topics I had briefly touched upon through my columns and now I could weave a substantial tale around them. Tell us about your next book... I haven't begun. I have some ideas for a book about dystopian India, but we shall see. --- ENDS --- When Pocket the goat was born without legs, his owners didn't know what to do. They wrote a post in a Facebook group for vets, asking for help. "Is there any hope for [him], or should we let [him] go?" they asked. Goats of Anarchy Someone forwarded the post to Leanne Lauricella, founder of Goats of Anarchy, a New Jersey rescue group that helps goats with special needs. Lauricella got in touch with the owners. "They agreed to give him to me," Lauricella told The Dodo. "So I drove to Virginia to pick him up." Goats of Anarchy Pocket was only 5 days old. He weighed about 2 pounds, and he could quite literally fit inside your pocket, which is how he earned his name. Dodo Shows Adoption Day Hairless German Shepherd Puppies Find The Perfect Families Goats of Anarchy While Pocket was healthy in most respects, he did have some serious issues with his legs. "He's really deformed," Lauricella said. "His [back] legs are basically cut off from the knee down, but he has - on each [back] foot - a teeny, tiny, miniature hoof. It's really weird." Goats of Anarchy Pocket's front legs have some issues, too. While they're normal-sized, they're quite bent, and Lauricella has needed to splint them. "They straightened out pretty quickly because he's so young," she said. Goats of Anarchy Lauricella will eventually fit Pocket's back legs with prosthetics, but for the moment, he's too young and too small for them. In the meantime, Lauricella supports Pocket's back legs with foam pipe insulators, which she tapes on with medical tape. "He has to have something," she said. "He's a baby, so he wants to be running around and playing. So he has to have everything covered and padded, just to protect those stumps, basically." Goats of Anarchy Pocket might want to run around and play, but he's really just learning to walk. "He kind of balances on his back legs," Lauricella "He hasn't learned to move them back and forth yet, but he's just starting to get that motion. He walks like a crab." Goats of Anarchy Since Pocket requires special care, he's currently living inside Lauricella's house. When he's not walking like a crab across her hardwood floors, Pocket loves chewing on things, eating bits of hay between his bottle feeds, and cuddling with Lauricella. "He loves to snuggle," she said. "He sleeps curled up by my neck. I even made a little scarf thing, and I carry him around like in a BabyBjorn. I can't leave [him]. If I walk out of the room, he starts crying." Goats of Anarchy Pocket also adores Polly, another baby goat currently living in Lauricella's house. "[Polly's] blind, and she's got some pretty major neurological issues, and a lot of nervousness," Lauricella said. "As soon as I put Polly and Pocket together, she instantly calmed down. [Pocket] just took to her - they're in love. When they move outside in the spring, I'm hoping that Pocket will be Polly's seeing-eye goat." Pocket and Polly spending quality time together | Goats of Anarchy Pocket has only been in Lauricella's care for a little over a week, and he's already doubled in weight. When he's about 3 months old, he'll get his first pair of prosthetics and join the other goats outside. "Most rescues don't take in these [special needs] babies because they're so expensive," Lauricella said. "Pocket will probably be a $10,000 goat. He'll need several pairs of prosthetics and they're $1,500 apiece. Goats of Anarchy But to Lauricella, Pocket's worth every penny. Goats of Anarchy Abigail was too gentle for the life she was forced to live. The 3-year-old pit bull mix was seized during a raid on a suspected fighting operation earlier this month. But she wasn't born to be a fighter. So her owner allegedly decided to use her as a bait dog, essentially a chew toy to work the other dogs into a frenzy. The dog arrived at Miami-Dade Animal Services in Florida broken in more ways than one. "She was anemic," Victoria Frazier, of Love is Fur Ever Dog Rescue, tells The Dodo. "She was infested with ticks. She smelled so bad." But most hauntingly, she was barely recognizable. "Her whole entire side of her face was missing," Frazier says. "Her skin tissue was hanging. Most of her ear was gone." Indeed, it had been ripped right down to the ear drum. When Frazier saw that face posted on Facebook earlier this month, she didn't hesitate. Abigail had only spent a day at the shelter before Frazier and her husband brought the dog to Pets First Wellness Center in Estero, Florida. The shelter's staff had given Abigail as much care as they could muster with limited resources. But it wasn't enough. "They do what they can," Frazier says. "But the pain meds and antibiotics she was on for the injuries that she had were going to do nothing for her." "Maybe another day or two and she probably would have passed from being septic," she says. "because her injuries were at least a week or two old." Abigail is only on her eighth day of treatment. The clinic has been posting daily updates on her condition to Facebook, as has Frazier on her own page. So far, her care has mostly involved bandage change after bandage change, costing around $200 to $300 per day. And Frazier's rescue organization has managed to raise enough funds to cover them for the next month. But Abigail has also gotten another kind of treatment. Dodo Shows Faith = Restored Woman Tries Every Day For A Month To Rescue This Dog "We started it on day one with her little headbands," Frazier says. Eventually, she bought Abigail a collection of hats to wear. While they cover the dog's gaping wound, the hats also seem to bring out her sweet smile. And the idea of bonnet therapy seems to have caught on with people who are cheering for this dog. "We actually have a couple of supporters who are hand-making some for her that are on their way," Frazier says. "She's going to wear those probably for the rest of her life," she adds. "We kind of made a little thing out of it." For now, Abigail is living at the clinic. Her first surgery is scheduled for Tuesday. But from there, she will go home with Frazier, who will be her foster mom until Abigail is strong enough for a long-term home. In the meantime, every day, little by little, her caregivers are catching glimpses of the dog she was always supposed to be. "She is a very happy girl," Frazier says. Subscribe to The Daily Dodo Start your day with heartwarming and hilarious animal stories that will make you fall in love. Subscribe

Friends to the Forlorn Pitbull Rescue

Sometimes, a dog needs to make her own case for being rescued. Up until this week, Jason Flatt only knew Cascade's story through what staff at Fulton County Animal Services in Georgia had told him. "They were looking for a rescue [organization] for her," Flatt, founder of Friends to the Forlorn Pitbull Rescue, tells The Dodo. "They sent me pictures of her X-rays and I'm like, 'Yeah, that dog is ... there's nothing you can really do for her." "Her back was broken," Flatt explains. "She's completely paralyzed in the back end. She has no control over her bowels. And she can't pee on her own." Cascade had been at the shelter for around three months. Staff had fallen in love with the dog, pushing back her euthanasia date as long as they could, while dialing rescue after rescue to see if anyone could help her. "This was the shelter favorite," Flatt says. "They were having a really hard time having to put the dog down. They reached out to every group they deal with. Nobody would touch her." Dodo Shows Cat Crazy Fluffy Cat Wants To Sit On His Dad At All Times This browser does not support the video tag. Friends to the Forlorn Pitbull Rescue And Flatt's rescue - a group that specializes in difficult cases - had no space for the dog. In fact, Flatt had nearly forgotten about Cascade when he stopped in at the shelter for a visit this week. Flatt had been called in to look at another dog. But shelter staff leapt at the chance to introduce him to Cascade. "They let her out of her little room and she came flying over to me, dragging her legs," he says. "She was kissing my face and wanting to play. And I was like, 'This dog has a zest for life.'" Cascade had made her case to live. And it was overwhelmingly convincing. Flatt immediately thought of the one person in his foster network who might be able to take Cascade home: a woman named Sunshine Coats. After all, she had already taken in a special-needs dog a few years ago. So Flatt sent her a video of Cascade. Her reply? "I want her now." And so Cascade, the dog no other rescue wanted to touch, took things into her own hands. Now, she has a foster mom who knows just how to take care of her. And a new best friend in a dog who's a lot like her. Cascade's journey is just beginning. Soon, she will be undergoing surgery that promises to give her more mobility and an even better handle on her all-new life. Many animals - including endangered and threatened species like the northern river otter, the gray wolf, the black-footed ferret and the swift fox, among others - live in the wild expanses of North and South Dakota. This is the same region where an oil company is trying to build a massive pipeline. Northern river otters | Shutterstock The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is a proposed 30-inch diameter underground pipe that would stretch 1,172 miles, from oil production sites in North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois, bringing in up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil each day. Dodo Shows Dodo Heroes Woman Devotes Her Life To The Stray Dogs Of Bali A gray wolf drinking from a stream | Shutterstock The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and others have been protesting the DAPL for months because of concerns that it would destroy sacred Sioux worship sites and could ruin the tribe's access to clean water, sourced from Lake Oahe, which is in the pipeline's path. A black-footed ferret | Shutterstock An oil spill contaminating the environment could devastate the ecosystem. "There's a wide array of concerns there about water contamination for the Sioux tribe," Sarah Hanneken, litigation fellow at the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), told The Dodo. Animals would also suffer from contamination, she added. Concerns about the pipeline's impacts on people, animals and the environment are serious. "The main threat to wildlife from pipelines is from spills, and all pipelines spill eventually because nothing lasts forever," Brett Hartl, endangered species policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Dodo. "The companies building this pipeline have terrible track records and it is only a matter of when, not if, that these pipelines spill into the aquifers and rivers." An animal covered in oil after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 | YouTube/The Rubin Report Sunoco Logistics, the company that would operate the pipeline, leaked oil from onshore pipelines at least 203 times over the last six years, a recent Reuters investigation found, making it the company with the highest number of crude leak incidents compared to other major operators. "Sunoco's spill rate shows protesters may have reason to be concerned about potential leaks," Reuters said. Aside from impacts on the immediate area, new projects to extract fossil fuels from the earth are dangerous for everyone. "Continued reliance on fossil fuels, and the associated climate impacts, pose an enormous threat to wildlife and to people," Bethany Cotton, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians, told The Dodo. "We have to keep fossil fuels in the ground for humans, for wildlife, for the planet." President-elect Donald Trump has made clear his preference for using coal and oil over developing sustainable energy (on the campaign trail, Trump vowed to resuscitate the controversial XL Keystone Pipeline that President Obama halted). People fear that Trump, who owns shares in Energy Transfer Partners, will push the pipeline's construction through despite anyone's concerns. LONDONEmere Godwin Bebe Okpabi, leader of Nigerias Ogale people, unpacked four bottles of water from his homeland and lined them up on a table to show why his subjects are suing Royal Dutch Shell in a London court. The Nigerian water is contaminated with oil and cancer-causing compounds such as benzene. Its what his people drink every day. Britains High Court began hearing lawsuits on Tuesday filed by the Ogale and Bille people alleging that decades of oil spills have fouled the water and destroyed the lives of thousands of fishermen and farmers in the Niger River Delta, where a Shell subsidiary has operated since the 1950s. They brought their fight to Shells home base because they say the Nigerian courts are too corrupt. Let the shareholders of Shell who are residents of the advanced world, like Britain, let them see a representative of a kingdom that is being destroyed for them to have money, he told The Associated Press on the eve the hearing. Thats blood money. London law firm Leigh Day is handling the cases after it won a landmark agreement from Shell to pay $83.5 million in compensation to the Bodo community for damage caused by oil spills in 2008 and 2009. Shell originally offered $50,000 before the Bodo took their case to the same U.K. court. The new lawsuits were brought by two communities located in Ogoniland, part of the oil-rich southern Niger River Delta. They want to hold Shell, incorporated in the U.K., responsible for the actions of its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd., or SPDC. The subsidiary said it has produced no oil or gas in the region since 1993. The area is heavily affected by crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining. It is arguing in court that the legal challenge is speculative and full of legal and evidential weaknesses. SPDC, the operator of a joint venture between the Nigerian government, Shell and two other oil companies, said it will challenge the jurisdiction of the U.K. courts in this case arguing that it concerned Nigerian plaintiffs, in dispute with a Nigerian company over issues in Nigeria. If the Claimants lawyers are correct as to the existence of this novel duty of care, (Shell) and many other parents of multinational groups will be liable to the many hundreds of millions of people around the world with whom their subsidiaries come into contact in the ordinary course of their various operations, the company said in its court argument. That would constitute a radical if not historic expansion of the law and open the floodgates to litigation on an unprecedented scale. The Ogale and Bille communities account for only a small portion of the millions of Nigerians that human rights activists say have been injured by contamination they say would never have been allowed in the home countries of the multinational oil companies that operate in partnership with the Nigerian government. Shell was the first oil company to operate in Nigeria, starting production in 1958. In the 1990s, the military government sent armed troops to put down protests by the Ogoni people, turning the oil-producing south into a war zone. One of the leaders of those protests was Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer and environmental activist whose opposition helped stop Shells production in Ogoniland. He and eight others were hanged by the government of military dictator Sani Abacha in November 1995 in a case the U.S. condemned. President Muhammadu Buhari has promised a cleanup of Ogoniland, which was supposed to start in June but has been delayed. The new lawsuits come at a time when Shell is pivoting toward other areas, like Brazil. It recently bought BG Group Plc for $52.4 billion, increasing its proven reserves of oil and gas by 25 per cent. And like other oil companies, it is also slashing jobs and postponing investments to adjust to lower oil prices. But Shell is still seen as having deep pockets, said David Elmes, course director of the Warwick Business Schools Global Energy Research Network. While Shell would argue that its settlement with the Bodo community shows its willingness to provide compensation for problems it caused, the new cases involve damage arising from what Shell says is sabotage and theft, Elmes said. And as Shell looks to move to other countries, people who feel they have a case against the company are looking to take action now, he said. In a 2011 report, the U.N. said that in at least 10 communities in Ogoniland, public health was seriously threatened by drinking water contaminated with hydrocarbons. In one area, the water contained the carcinogen benzene at levels 900 times higher than what the World Health Organization says is safe. While the report recognized that oil production in the region had ceased, it criticized Shells oversight of the remaining facilities. The report recommended emergency measures to provide adequate drinking water. But so far nothing has been done, said Okpabi who describes himself as the paramount ruler of the Ogale people. He brought the bottles of water to his lawyers office in London just to make the point. Removing his hat and leaning forward, he argues his people have been made poorer by the destruction of an ecosystem. He is angry at Shell, arguing that it called the shots for its Nigerian subsidiary and so should be held accountable in Britain. My system cannot give me justice, Okpabi said. There is only one place that can give me justice. That is why I am here. Read more about: SHARE: Serpentine queues spilling from banks. Parents worried that they cant provide for their families. Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealing to Indians to bear the pain for just a little while longer. These pictures continue to dominate media coverage in Asias third-largest economy, even two weeks after the governments shock clampdown on cash. While supporters of the move say it will help root out tax evasion and graft in the years ahead, critics question the administrations planning and execution. What many outside the country cant comprehend, though, is the reason for the chaos. Surely global governments in the past have suddenly banned certain currency denominations, too, havent they? Why Indias Cash Clampdown is Different As most Indians gathered around for dinner Nov. 8, Modi blindsided citizens by announcing on national television that their 500 rupee and 1,000 rupee ($15 U.S.) notes would be worthless come midnight. The step was essential to clamp down on black money, he said, the local term for cash stashed away to avoid tax. In terms of the share of currency in circulation, Modis move was akin to sucking out from the system all U.S. dollar bills except about half of the $1 notes. The decision rattled the worlds second-most populous nation, where cash dominates day-to-day life. Strange tales were whispered around neighbourhoods that night, of the wealthy rushing to purchase gold and luxury watches to extinguish unaccounted cash, while housewives stocked up on groceries. Morning dawned to even more confusion, and when banks reopened the next day people lined up to exchange their now worthless currency. Newspapers reported that sacks of torn notes turned up across the country as people destroyed and abandoned them to avoid prosecution. Economic activity will slow for 30-35 days, a government official told reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday. Modis administration expects growth in October-December to slow to 5.5 per cent, the Business Line newspaper reported on Wednesday, without saying where it got the information. That compares with 7.2 per cent a year earlier. Its not as if the notes would turn into paper at the stroke of midnight. Theyd still retain their value, the government ruled, but only if they were deposited into bank accounts by Dec. 30. Strict caps were imposed on the exchange of physical bills into new notes, and those depositing the old notes had to submit signed declarations and come armed with identification. That doesnt sound so tough, you may say. Try this: as many as 600 million Indians probably dont have bank accounts, central bank data show. A disproportionate number of these live in more than 600,000 villages, earning daily wages in cash. To meet demand, banks stayed open for longer hours, offering water and coffee to hassled clients. Reports began trickling in several disputed of Indians collapsing as they waited to exchange their bills under the biting sun, as well as bank staff dying under the strain of the job. Tourists were left stranded without money and touts fleeced visitors who had been until then enjoying the beaches of Goa or the shrines of Rajasthan. Part of the reason for the trouble is that India is woefully under-banked. Cash machines are few and far between, even though demand for services has been surging over the years. Amid rising public anger, Modi appealed for understanding. Give me 50 more days, he requested Indians in a teary-eyed address on Nov. 12. After that, if any fault is found in my intentions or my actions, I am willing to suffer any punishment given by the country. Modis motive was clear: he sought to take account of each of the big bills in circulation. Of the 15 trillion rupees that needed to be turned in at banks, about a third wouldnt be deposited, the governments lawyer told the Supreme Court. However, as the days rolled on, it became increasingly clear that the logistics werent completely thought through. To pump out the new notes, cash machines needed to be refitted, which banks scrambled to do after being caught unaware. Printing the required number of new notes could itself take as long as six more months, according to some estimates. Alternative payment providers saw their window of opportunity. Mobile wallet companies such as Paytm and Freecharge.in reported a jump in transactions. Again, most of this came from cities and towns. Most of India, data show, is unfamiliar with the available options. One reason for the lack of technological options is that the availability of third-generation mobile spectrum and broadband is limited. Of Indias 1.3 billion population, less than 300 million use the Internet. Of the total number of Indians who own a mobile phone, only about 26 per cent have smartphones, which are essential to run payment apps. The relatively low penetration of smartphones in India is because the cost of a smartphone is prohibitively high in the nation with the lowest living standards among major emerging markets. That leaves Indians back where they started relying on cash for their daily survival, but not getting quite enough of it. Read more about: SHARE: HAMILTONChristina Noudga pled guilty on Tuesday to obstructing justice by willfully destroying evidence in the murder of Tim Bosma. The former girlfriend of one of two men convicted in the murder had been in talks for a plea deal. The trial had been set to begin Tuesday for Noudga, 24, who was charged with being an accessory after the fact. Noudga was sentenced to one day in jail, with credit for time served before trial. Noudga had been in jail for four months after being charged, then served roughly two years of house arrest after being granted bail. You learn in life, that when you keep company with bad people, and these people were beyond that, they were evil, bad things happen, Justice Toni Skarica told Noudga. Asked before sentencing if there was anything she would like to say, Noudga replied simply, No thank you, your honour. A member of the Bosma family confirmed that they had been consulted by the Crown about a potential resolution. Bosma, 32, was killed in 2013 after he took Dellen Millard and Mark Smich out for a test drive of a pickup truck he was trying to sell. Millard, 31, and Smich, 28, were convicted of first-degree murder in June and sentenced to life in prison. Both are appealing the verdict. Noudga testified at Millards trial this spring, but none of what she said there can be used against her in her own trial due to protections under the Canada Evidence Act. Noudga, a university graduate and medical school hopeful, moved to Canada from Ukraine with her family when she was a toddler. The family lives in a bungalow in Etobicoke. She spent four months in jail following her April 2014 arrest, before being granted bail. Noudga had been dating Millard for about three years when he picked her up late on May 9, 2013. Hed texted her earlier that day, looking for her help on a tiny mission. Sure, shed texted back. She told him to come at 8:30 p.m. but it was closer to 10 p.m. by the time he arrived. He pulled up in front of her parents Etobicoke bungalow in his red pickup truck, towing a massive black car trailer behind him. When she hopped into the truck next to him, he handed her a DVR (digital video recorder) and asked her to hang onto it. She testified at his trial that she thought it was some sort of speaker, and ran back inside to put it in the back of her closet. Back in the truck, they headed to his mother Madeleine Burnss house in Kleinburg, where they dropped the trailer off in her driveway. From there, they made three more stops: First, at Millards air hangar at the Region of Waterloo airport, where they swapped the red pickup truck for his dark blue GMC Yukon. Then, at Millards North Dumfries-area farm, where in the pitch dark, wearing black nitrile gloves the pair hauled a massive 10-foot tall animal cremator out of an abandoned barn and into the woods. And finally, at Millards friend Matt Hagermans house, where Millard handed off a locked black and yellow tool box to his friend in the driveway around 4 a.m. Noudga insisted on the stand at Millards trial that she didnt ask a single question of Millard as they drove that night. She wasnt curious about what they were up to or the seemingly strange mission they were on she said. She was too busy smoking weed and performing sexual favours on her boyfriend to chat, she testified with a smile to a visibly shocked courtroom. She testified that when Millard was arrested the next day, she went back to Burnss house, where the trailer was still sitting in the driveway. The two women went to a hotel, where they drank copious amounts of wine and fretted over Millards arrest. It was there in the early hours of May 11, now that they theorized that Bosmas truck could possibly be inside the trailer back in Burnss driveway. Concerned that they had touched it during the previous nights drop-off, she explained, they drove back and wiped off their fingerprints. They werent tampering with evidence, she insisted they just wanted to remove (their) involvement. Five days later, Millards charges were upgraded to first-degree murder. On May 22, Smich was also charged in Bosmas death. It was close to a year before Noudga was arrested. When police searched her house following her arrest in April 2014, they found the DVR still sitting in her messy bedroom closet. In her bedside table, they discovered a series of secret jailhouse letters sent to her by Millard. In them, he pleaded with her to be his secret agent and reach out to friends to get them to change their stories to police. Millard repeatedly ordered his princess to destroy the letters. But she hung onto them because she said they were sentimental. She contemplated helping him, she admitted, but said she weighed the pros and cons and decided against it. In another note, she references immunity and making a statement to police. She never did that either. Read more about: SHARE: Love means never having to say youre sorry. Thats the storyline in the movies. But its a different kind of Love Story in politics: Lack of love means always having to apologize, as Kathleen Wynne has discovered. Plunging in the polls, the premier offered a weekend mea culpa for messing up since taking power. And choked up onstage at her partys convention. Will Wynnes dramatic apologia provide the political reset she needs to recover? Are there second chances in politics? Its not the first time Wynne has appealed for forgiveness. She apologized before (and during) the 2014 election campaign for the costly cancellation of gas-fired power plants by her predecessor. And its not the first time she has cried in front of Liberal loyalists. In a heart-to-heart confessional behind closed doors at a caucus retreat earlier this fall, Wynne teared up for letting down MPPs. Then, as now, the premier appealed for help in reversing her record-low popularity in public opinion surveys a data point thats now a talking point. I want to acknowledge the polling numbers and the pundits, she told the annual meeting of Liberals in Ottawa. Many people in Ontario are not happy with me right now. I get that. Its hard to get away from that. Wynne wins the contest for most unpopular premier in Canada, bottoming out at 14 per cent in the last Forum Research poll published in the Toronto Star. Languishing far behind the opposition Progressive Conservatives, her governing Liberals were effectively tied for second place with the NDP. Wynnes apology may be heartfelt, but its a hardheaded calculation by Liberal strategists. They see an undeniable disconnect as resentment rises against a premier who seems far removed from peoples problems. And its getting personal. Internal party polling shows people believe Wynne cant feel their pain, that shes too competitive, too calculating, too political. They didnt always feel that way. Its easy to forget that Wynne once seemed to voters like a different kind of politician when she took over from a discredited Dalton McGuinty in early 2013: Collaborative and unafraid to show empathy, vulnerability, humility. Thats not what the partys research shows today, and it found an echo in Wynnes prepared speech this weekend: Ive spent some time reflecting on why people feel the way they do about me, she mused. People think, Shes not who we thought she was; shes become a typical politician, shell do anything to win. Going forward, I have some work to do, to prove that I am who I have always been. Recapturing her honeymoon days with Ontario voters wont be easy. As the face of change in 2013, Wynne could cast herself as an agent of change and her popularity soared, leading her to win a triumphal majority government in the last election. Today, leadership means admitting when a mistake has been made when Ive made a mistake. She promised to do better, without saying how. Ontarios economic statistics are strong. But Wynnes personal numbers remain weak. The conventional wisdom possibly even at the Liberal convention is that the Progressive Conservatives are destined to win the next Ontario election by default, benefiting from the same appetite for change that helped Donald Trump defeat another woman politician in the U.S. this month. In a hint of her future strategy, Wynne exhorted Liberals to embrace change, while opposing a change in government of the kind that Americans have just seen. There is no more important time, my friends, to be a Liberal than right now, in North America. If voters want change, the challenge for Wynne is to recast herself as an agent of change after so many years in power: By the 2018 election, she will have been premier for five years, and the Liberals will have held power for 15 years. As a self-styled progressive, Wynne embraces climate change and stresses transit spending. As a practical politician, she aims for a balanced budget and promises to curb hydro increases. Its an ambitious agenda. But its hard to be both transformational and transactional at a time when voters lean toward lower taxes and lesser government. Thats how Trump won the presidency, and how the Mike Harris Tories won the province in 1995. They made no apologies. Youre just going to let me cry for a minute, Wynne said this weekend, alternately crying, laughing and apologizing as more than 800 Liberal delegates cheered her on. Its a tough balancing act leading and apologizing, being transformational and transactional. Whats the tipping point? At some point in time, no matter how much Wynne loves to apologize, voters may simply want to say: Sorry, times up isnt there a better alternative? Martin Regg Cohns political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn Read more about: SHARE: OTTAWAThe Liberal governments cash-for-access woes deepened Tuesday as the Opposition hammered Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over a news report he mingled with Chinese billionaires at an exclusive Liberal Party fundraiser. During question period in the Commons, Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose said: Rubbing elbows with millionaires at these cash-for-access events does not pass the smell test, and the prime minister knows it. So why does he keep doing it? The Globe and Mail reported Tuesday on a fundraiser last May at the Toronto home of a wealthy Chinese-Canadian business executive where one of the 32 guests was a well-heeled donor who was seeking Ottawas final approval to begin operating a new bank aimed at Canadas Chinese community. The newspaper said Trudeau was the top draw at the $1,500-a-ticket Liberal Party event, attended by insurance tycoon Shenglin Xian, the founder of Wealth One Bank of Canada and president of Toronto-based Shenglin Financial Group Inc., who was seeking final approval from federal bank regulators to operate a domestic bank here. It had received tentative approval the year before under the Conservative government. And in July, it received final approval. Also among the donors, according to the Globe, was Zhang Bin, a wealthy Chinese businessman and political advisor to the Chinese government in Beijing. The newspaper said Zhang, along with a partner, donated $1 million to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and the University of Montreal Faculty of Law weeks after the fundraiser. Trudeau did not deny the report, and was unapologetic. He defended the political fundraising practice, repeating a stance the government has taken from the start. He said no political financing rules under the Canada Elections Act which allows individual donations of up to $1,500 were broken. Ambrose suggested the contact with the prime minister was a clear conflict. Its not a coincidence that these billionaires that the prime minister meets with actually want something from him. So you pay $1,500 for exclusive access to the prime minister and you get your final approval for your bank two months later. Not only does this event break the prime ministers own ethics rules, it doesnt pass the smell test, she persisted. Trudeau turned aside the references to his own ethical guidelines for his cabinet and again referred to the broader political financing law under the Elections Act. Then he tried to turn tables on the Conservatives. We also find it peculiar the Opposition is trying to politicize that particular issue since it was their finance minister who approved that bank before they were booted out of office. Class act, retorted Ambrose. The Conservatives and the NDP slammed the Liberals for ignoring their own rules for avoiding conflict of interest. But there is no independent arbiter of those rules. Neither the federal ethics commissioner nor the federal lobbying commissioner whose offices are independent of the government and responsible only for reporting to Parliament have a role in interpreting or enforcing the ethical guidelines that Trudeau said last year he expanded or strengthened. The NDPs Alexandre Boulerice was scathing about the preferential direct access to the prime minister and the ensuing donation to the Trudeau Foundation. Boulerice recalled the old ad that said There are some things money cant buy, and for everything else theres MasterCard. Well, get out your checkbooks ladies and gentlemen, because it seems like the entire liberal cabinet can be bought including the prime minister. Id like to ask the prime minister whats his definition of a conflict of interest? Boulerice demanded. Bloc Quebecois Leader Rheal Fortin said the government should bring back public per-vote subsidies for political parties, and roll back the individual donation limits. The New Democrats now want to haul Liberal party officials before the House of Commons ethics committee. NDP MP Daniel Blaikie told the Star he will ask to summon Jon Dugal, the Liberal Partys coordinator of development and events, to testify about his role in the organization of private fundraising events involving cabinet ministers. RELATED: More National news stories on Thestar.com SHARE: By PTI: From Lalit K Jha Washington, Nov 22 (PTI) The US today issued a travel warning to its citizens alerting them to the heightened risk of terrorist attacks throughout Europe, particularly during the holiday season, a day after France thwarted an ISIS terror plot. "US citizens should exercise caution at holiday festivals, events, and outdoor markets," the State Department said in the travel warning. advertisement Credible information indicates the ISIS, Al-Qaeda and their affiliates continue to plan terrorist attacks in Europe, with a focus on the upcoming holiday season and associated events, the travel warning said. "US citizens should also be alert to the possibility that extremist sympathisers or self-radicalised extremists may conduct attacks during this period with little or no warning," the alert said, adding that terrorists may employ a wide variety of tactics, using both conventional and non- conventional weapons and targeting both official and private interests. While extremists have carried out attacks in Belgium, France, Germany, and Turkey in the past year, the Department remains concerned about the potential for attacks throughout Europe, it said. US citizens should exercise vigilance when attending large holiday events, visiting tourist sites, using public transportation and frequenting places of worship, restaurants, hotels, etc. Be aware of immediate surroundings and avoid large crowds, when possible. Review security information from local officials, who are responsible for the safety and security of all visitors to their host country, it added. Yesterday, France police broke up a terror ring plotting an attack in the country after arresting seven suspects in Strasbourg and Marseille over the weekend. The arrests of the alleged plotters from France, Morocco and Afghanistan "enabled us to prevent a long-planned terror attack on our soil," the police had said. PTI LKJ AMS --- ENDS --- Update - March 20, 2018: James Regan was found not guilty of assault on September 19, 2017. James Regan, the 62-year-old Toronto man whose rent disputes have been the subject of several media reports, is now also wanted by police for an assault that occurred in September, blocks east of Casa Loma. Toronto police say that at 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 24, they got a call for an assault that occurred on Avenue Rd. and McMaster Ave. According to police, a 56-year-old woman confronted Regan about a civil matter. Regan is alleged to have became enraged and to have started punching and kicking the woman. She was then taken to hospital. Toronto police have issued a statement Monday that Regan is wanted for assault. Several CBC reports in recent months have dealt with a James Regan who, the reports stated, failed to pay rent at three high-end Toronto apartments in the last two years. It was reported that he has been ordered to leave the Yorkville home he has occupied since July. The CBC added last month that the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board ordered Regan to pay $10,000 to his landlord or face eviction. Toronto police confirmed that the Regan who is wanted is the same man the professional tenant, as the CBC called him. SHARE: The third man charged in the beating death of American Julian Jones outside a Little Italy bar Nov. 5 made a brief court appearance at Old City Hall Tuesday morning. Wearing a blue sweater with a black hood, 28-year-old Andrew Christopher OBrien leaned against the front panel of glass in a bail courts prisoners box, his hands holding his head and face flushed as he listened to the proceedings for his second-degree murder charge. OBrien had surrendered to Toronto polices 14 Division the night before, three days after homicide investigators named him as the third suspect in Jones death and urged him to turn himself in. Jones, a tourist from Baltimore in Toronto for a friends bachelor party, was punched, kicked and stomped to death outside the Blnd Tger, on College St. near Bathurst St., in the early hours of Nov. 5 after leaving the bar and getting separated from his friends. Police had arrested two other Toronto men, Kenneth Omorogbe, 25, and Kamari Folkes, 24, on Nov. 9. Both were also charged with second-degree murder. OBrien said little during the appearance besides his name at the beginning, and was led away by a Toronto police officer when it concluded a few minutes later. His lawyer, Christophe Preobrazenski, requested a publication ban on evidence presented during the session. It was automatically granted. Preobrazenski spoke to members of the media following the appearance and maintained his clients innocence. Defence? Hes not guilty. He didnt do it, Preobrazenski told a handful of journalists gathered on the courts front steps. Its interesting that initially, if you may recall, when (police) were looking for a third suspect, that the description was a lot different than what my client looks like, Preobrazenski said, noting that police had mentioned a suspect with black hair. OBriens hair is blonde. However, in describing the third suspect, police had just said he was slim, white and in his late twenties. OBrien has had some problems with the law before, Preobrazenski added, but said the situation was very distressing for his client. Hes a hard-working young man with construction, has a young family, its tragic all around, it really is, Preobrazenski said. Its a case that will have many twists and its a case that is actually very interesting. OBriens next court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 23 via video link. SHARE: Andray Domise, a regular Macleans magazine columnist, vocal community activist and one-time electoral opponent of Rob Ford, has been charged with assault. The 36-year-old is accused of assaulting Toronto photographer Chantal Denne three times between March and September 2015, court documents show. Domise is also charged with mischief for damaging Dennes cell phone. None of the allegations has been proven in court. Mitchell Worsoff, Domises lawyer, said the social commentator vigorously contests the charges and maintains his innocence. Mr. Domise is an outstanding individual, and hes an intelligent and responsible member of our community, said Worsoff. Similarly to many others who find themselves accused of this type of offence, (he is) the subject of falsities and exaggerations. Domise did not respond to requests for comment from the Star on Monday. Domise received ample media attention during the 2014 municipal election, when he ran in Ward 2 against Rob Ford, who was vying for his old council seat after he was diagnosed with cancer and had dropped out of the mayoral race. Domise had worked in Torontos financial industry for almost a decade and attended the University of Windsor to study political science from 2010 to 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile. He lost the election to Ford by more than 10,000 votes, reaping 8.2 per cent of ballots cast in the north Etobicoke ward. Domise went on to co-host a politics podcast for the media watchdog site Canadaland a position he held until earlier this year and has written for various publications, including the Globe and Mail, Vice Canada, Toronto Life, TVO and Macleans. Last year, he co-founded a mentorship and development program, called Techsdale, to teach young people in the Rexdale neighbourhood to make apps, websites and videogames. According to the organizations website, the goal is to create an innovation hub with after-school programs to teach programming skills, while providing space for tech and gaming startups in the community. Canadalands editor, Jesse Brown, declined to discuss why Domise is no longer hosting one of their podcasts, citing employer-employee privacy. As for the charges, he wrote in an email, I think we need to take it very seriously when a woman comes forward. The legal system can be very hard on accusers, and I hope that the process is fair for both accuser and accused. The charges against Domise were laid in February. He is scheduled to appear in a north Toronto court Friday. SHARE: A Toronto developer has backed away from plans to use part of the schoolyard at John Fisher Public School while it builds a highrise apartment next door, steps away from 500 young children. KG Group had been quietly negotiating a deal with the Toronto District School Board to use a parcel of John Fisher property as a construction staging area during the three to four years of its project on a small lot adjacent to the school, set to begin in 2017. But parents, worried about the health and safety of their kids and upset that terms of any deal would not be made public, had been up in arms. After discovering earlier this month that the board was to vote on a proposed agreement this Wednesday, they opposed the plan at a recent trustee meeting, launched an online petition and spoke out to the media. We heard the community, Nathan Katz of KG Group told the Star Monday, regarding the companys decision to withdraw its proposal for the staging area. It seemed to be what they wanted and we were happy to oblige. However the 35-storey project, near Yonge St. and Eglinton Ave., will still proceed. Katz said the developer will be reaching out to parents directly, and intends to have open dialogue about its plans. Parents learned in a Friday letter from TDSB trustee Gerri Gershon that KG would not conduct staging in the schoolyard. We have heard you and so has the developer, she wrote. Gershon indicated KG would select an alternate location for staging, but Katz did not elaborate on those plans on Monday. Parents expressed relief but said they will continue to push the city and the developer for more information and consultation. My theory is its going to be a long process, said Stavros Rougas, whose son Aristotelis is in Grade 2 at the French immersion school. Traffic on the street is already a huge problem in the high-density neighbourhood, and the prospect of heavy equipment and cranes overhead would add to the congestion, he said. Parent Ian Cooper called the cancelled agreement potentially good news. I think the developer saw there was a lot of concern from parents, said Cooper, who has a daughter in Grade 1 and another in preschool at John Fisher. They seemed to be willing to tap the brakes a little. He is among many worried that the project is going ahead without adequately addressing concerns about safety, noise, air quality and vibrations on the century-old school and the children trying to learn in its classrooms and playground. As parents, were going to have to continue to make a lot of noise, he said. If we stop kicking and screaming I think well get rolled over on. While builders had proposed demolishing the existing structures during March break when the kids arent in school, Cooper favours putting off demolition and initial foundation work at least until the summer. Gershon stated in her letter that the TDSB will conduct an independent assessment of health and safety issues through a third party, which will be shared with the school community, and stay in close contact with the city to ensure safety remains a top priority. The playground will be moved to the opposite side of school property to get students as far away as possible from construction. But Rougas and Cooper said they want to hear timelines, details about who will do the study, a budget and possible contingency plans for students. They also want to ensure that parents have plenty of warning in case they want to make alternate arrangements for their kids. SHARE: The last time Mayank Bhatt was in this Forest Hill condo building he wore a navy blue uniform and worked as a security guard. It was one of the new immigrants first jobs in Canada, a position the Mumbai native landed just weeks after arriving at Pearson International Airport with his wife, Mahrukh, and son, Che. Seven years after he left that job, Bhatt, 54, recently returned to the warm embrace of the tenants he used to serve at 260 Heath St. W., but this time as a published author invited for a reading of his debut novel, Belief the story of a new immigrant familys struggles in Canada. The book will be officially launched at the Gladstone Hotel on Tuesday evening. I wanted to read at this condo building. I came to Canada not knowing anyone. I was a complete stranger and they welcomed me. My new life started here. The residents in this building were the first set of people who made life possible for me and my family, said Bhatt, his voice choked with emotion. My idea was not to come to Canada to become a security guard. I wanted to come back to show what I have become today, that Ive lived up to that expectation. This is a bit of a homecoming for me. The Heath St. condo was also an apt venue for the occasion because this is where Bhatt first conceived of the idea for his book and started crafting the story while working the graveyard shift guarding the building and protecting its residents. I had nothing else to do. You read but you need to do something else to keep yourself occupied and engaged, said Bhatt, 54, a former journalist who had also previously worked as a media adviser and trade officer for the U.S. Consulate in Mumbai. It wasnt a straight path for him from doing survival jobs to getting his work published; he still works full time to support his family, now as a marketing and administration co-ordinator at Simmons da Silva LLP, a Toronto law firm. Upon his arrival in Canada, Bhatt took a one-year journalism program at Sheridan College, while working as a security guard, with the hopes of getting back into his profession. But it was a tough task, with every door closed to him despite delivering more than 500 resumes to prospective employers. Finally, in 2009, he met someone from Mumbai who tipped him off to an opening at the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, where he eventually landed an office job. At that point, Bhatt had already completed a short story which would become the first chapter of his future book and showed it to some of the residents at 260 Heath. One of them urged him to submit it to the Diaspora Dialogue, a mentoring program that matches up immigrant writers with established Canadian authors. Tenant Myrna Freedman said she was impressed by Bhatts intelligence, command of English, gentlemanly demeanour and how well-read he was when she first met him on the job. To see him become a published writer in such a short span of time is just wonderful, said the retired high school English teacher. Im so proud of him and so impressed that his book is carried by Indigo and Amazon. They just dont take any book. Bhatt worked under the wing of award-winning writer M.G. Vassanji for three months. The experience inspired him to enroll in a creative writing course at Humber College in 2010. For years now, Bhatt gets up at 4:30 a.m. and writes for two hours before he leaves for work. On weekends, he spends eight hours in front of his computer, writing. He wrote and revised his novel countless times before taking it to publishers. Getting ones writing published is hard, but its even harder for newcomers who lack the professional and social networks to get a foot in the door. For two years, Bhatt tried in vain to find a publisher. No one even bothered to respond until he took his manuscript to Mawenzi House. Belief which covers the nuanced journey of an immigrant family in Canada and the issue of radicalization came out in September and has already garnered a favourable review in Quill & Quirefavourable review in Quill & Quire, the reputable literary magazine. Bhatts illuminating, plain-spoken novel could be instrumental in generating substantive discussion about the immigrant experience in a country that is still a long way from understanding what that really entails, the review says. David Raymont, a tenant of 260 Heath, said the subject of Bhatts book is timely in the current global context. This is a very important topic that needs to be discussed. I hope his book can help encourage discussion and create more understanding between communities, noted Raymont, Bhatt made it clear the novel is by no means a reflection of his personal life but it does capture the observations he has made of other newcomers hes come across. On one level, Canada welcomes everyone here with the opportunity to grow and prosper, but on another level, there is a lack of cultural acceptance, Bhatt said. People do not accept you for who you are and you have to constantly prove yourself. That was always what motivated Bhatt to get his book published. I had to prove to others that I can do this. When you take up something you want to do in Canada, its not going to be easy, but you just cant give up. SHARE: You could call it Budgety McBudgetface. Finance Minister Charles Sousa has launched an online budget contest with a $3-million prize. But the winners dont get to keep the money. As part of his annual budget consultation, Sousa announced Monday he is seeking suggestions from the public on up to eight new proposals that would be included in his spending plan, which is expected next spring. As much as $3 million of a budget that will eclipse the $136-billion mark will be earmarked for the new projects in one-time funding. The most any single initiative would receive is $1 million. Sousa insisted there is little risk of a reprise of the online fiasco in Britain where 124,000 people voted to call a new polar research ship, Boaty McBoatface. Embarrassed officials overruled the survey to rename the vessel after naturalist David Attenborough. There are those that are going to want to put something practical, something substantive, before government that can be reflected in the (budget) document, something that speaks to them, said the treasurer. If someone tries to hack it or ruin it for everybody else, I think the system will keep them in check for sure, he said. To guide the suggestions, they will be limited to: improving health care, education, child care, and access to government services; helping small businesses; boosting community infrastructure projects; enhancing relations with indigenous peoples, and curbing climate change. Submissions can be made at the Budget Talks website, talks.ontario.ca, by midnight Dec. 11. Proposals can be for events, pilot projects, a study or a digital service and must be completed by spring 2018. But they must be within the scope of the Ontario government to deliver. A short list will be created and the public will vote online for the best ideas. This is the third year Sousa has gone to the public for such online input, but the first time that he has promised to fund the best ones. Last year, Ontarians came up with 1,732 ideas, delivered 4,540 feedback comments, and cast 53,402 votes for them. Thanks to those, the government launched an energy-saving LED light pilot project along a 1.1-km stretch of Hwy. 401 west of Renforth Dr. But, in past years, the process has been dominated by submissions urging the end of public funding for Catholic schools, which Sousa stressed is not on the table. At this point, were not moving forward with any changes to the system. SHARE: In one rural Ontario community, an ice cream company has offered to scoop up a school to stop it from being shut down. Worried about the impact of the loss of the only elementary in Markdale, Chapmans Ice Cream has a sweet deal: it will spend about $1 million to buy the building, and lease it back to the local board. Simply put, for the first time in literally decades, we have people wanting to invest in this area, this community and this town, said vice-president Ashley Chapman, who himself attended Beavercrest Community School. Chapmans has started the first phase of a major expansion and expects to employ about 1,000 in total in five years time, he said. As well, there are several proposals for subdivisions, and plans are in place to break ground on others, and when we are finally at the point where the town is going to explode and be attractive to new employees and their families, its only school may close. Developers are going to walk away, he added. Beavercrest is one of an estimated 600 schools under threat across the province, and parents protested at Queens Park on Monday, saying rural areas are being particularly hard hit. They are asking the government for a moratorium until changes are made to a process they argue doesnt include enough true consultation. Shuttering a school in smaller communities often forces long commutes on kids an estimated four-plus hours a day on a bus for Sudbury students if plans there go ahead and doesnt allow them to take part in extracurricular activities or get after-school jobs, said Susan MacKenzie of the Ontario Alliance Against School Closures. Education Minister Mitzie Hunter, who along with Premier Kathleen Wynne was grilled on the issue during Mondays question period, told reporters afterwards that the revamped closing process ensures parent voices are heard but that decisions are ultimately up to local boards, after consulting with the community. Hunter said the government has invested $199 million more in rural schools since 2012. We want to make sure when we make those investments that they are being invested in student learning, student programming and student outcomes. We dont want those very valuable education dollars for education to be funding inefficient use of space or empty classrooms. We want those funds to be used in the classroom where students are learning. But NDP education critic Lisa Gretzky said funds from the geographic circumstances grant have been cut by $10 million over the past two years, and other sources of funding are being phased out. To people living throughout the province, community schools are more than just bricks and mortar, she said. They are often the centrepieces of both urban and rural communities. Chapman said hes not sure if his offer is feasible given the rules, but is meeting with the school board on Tuesday. His plan would see the company buy the property, then lease it to the board, and the ice cream company would further invest in repairs and upgrades to modernize the building. The local government, as well as Chapman, has also proposed giving the board around $50,000, the annual funding shortfall to keep the school open. During question period, Wynne, a former school board trustee, said: I know that decisions around school closures and school consolidations are some of the most difficult that school boards have to make. They require consultation with the community, including parents. In the 2015-16 school year, the government spent $3.7 billion on funding for rural schools, she said. Progressive Conservative MPP Vic Fedeli told the Legislature that rural schools often have just 80 students, and when you put these schools under a review, they can never match up with the made-in-south rules and regulations. Our northern schools are small because of the very nature of where theyre located. Many towns of 4,000 or 5,000 have 100 kilometres between them and the nearest community. These schools will simply not fit into the governments mould. SHARE: Ontario has made gains on greenhouse gas reductions but its carbon footprint is dangerously large, warns environmental commissioner Dianne Saxe in her annual report. Saxe also said that while Ontario has passed an ambitious climate change mitigation act which introduces a cap-and-trade program next year, as well as a plan for how to spend funds from emission permits she has concerns. The government proposes to link our cap-and-trade program with California and Quebec starting in 2018, she told reporters at Queens Park Tuesday morning. There are many good reasons for such a link, however, in the first few years of a linked system, it could often be cheaper for Ontario emitters to purchase California allowances, permits to pollute, than to reduce emissions in Ontario. While any reductions are beneficial, she warns that polluters opting for California permits could slow Ontarios transition to the low-carbon economy that is essential for our future prosperity, and would make it harder for Ontario to meet future (greenhouse gas) targets. Saxe also said proceeds from cap-and-trade should not be used to subsidize electricity rates because theres no evidence that this subsidy will reduce (greenhouse gas) emissions. Changing the funding source for existing conservation programs wont increase conservation, and most of the time conserving clean Ontario electricity does not reduce emissions at all. Environment Minister Glen Murray told reporters the report is an affirmation of a lot of the hard work thats been done by the ministry, by industry, by Ontarians in building this together. He said the cap-and-trade revenues in the action plan for energy have to deliver greenhouse gas reductions, thats the commitment and that details are being worked out. The point that she makes, that you cant just use the money to subsidize rates, that you actually have to achieve some reduction is an important one, he also said. Saxe noted Ontario met its 2014 target to reduce emissions by 6 per cent despite substantial population and economic growth. Now Ontario has a much-needed climate act to help us meet the even more challenging targets ahead. Read more about: SHARE: CANNON BALL, N.D.Authorities on Monday defended their decision to douse protesters with water during a skirmish in subfreezing weather near the Dakota Access oil pipeline, and organizers said at least 17 protesters were taken to the hospital including some who were treated for hypothermia. The clash occurred late Sunday and early Monday as protesters trying to push past a long-blocked bridge on a state highway were turned back by authorities using tear gas, rubber bullets and water hoses. One officer was injured when struck in the head with a rock. One protester was arrested. Protesters and officers massed at the bridge again late Monday morning, but protesters dispersed a few hours later at the request of tribal elders after police warned the crowd that theyd identified firearms and that anyone with a weapon should leave. The Standing Rock Sioux and others oppose the 1,900-kilometre, four-state pipeline being built to carry oil from western North Dakota to a shipping point in Illinois because they say it threatens drinking water on their nearby reservation and cultural sites. Pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners has said no sites have been disturbed and that the $3.8-billion (U.S.) pipeline will be safe. The pipeline is largely complete except for the section under a Missouri River reservoir in southern North Dakota, and ETP Chief Executive Kelcy Warren said Friday the company is unwilling to reroute the project. Whats known as the Backwater Bridge on state Highway 1806 has been shut down for weeks because authorities say it might be unsafe due to earlier fires set by protesters. Protesters say the closed bridge near their main camp blocks emergency services, and they accuse authorities of keeping it shut down to block their access to pipeline construction sites. Authorities dispute that. Additional testing is needed to make sure the bridge is safe, and that cant be done until the area is deemed safe for inspectors, said state Transportation Department spokesperson Jamie Olson. At least 17 protesters were injured severely enough to be taken to hospitals during the overnight skirmish at the bridge, said Dallas Goldtooth, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Hypothermia, a number of head injuries from being shot with rubber bullets, one individual had a heart attack, he said. Daniel Kanahele, 64, a native Hawaiian, said he was hit with tear gas, water spray and a rubber bullet in a leg, and it took me off my feet. He was treated at the scene. Although Goldtooth said a water cannon was used to douse the protesters, Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said only fire hoses were used. Sheriffs spokesperson Rob Keller said a tactical vehicle spraying tear gas has been mistaken by some people as a water cannon. Kirchmeier defended the use of water hoses, saying protesters were using aggressive tactics themselves. Were just not going to let people or protesters in large groups come in and threaten officers. Thats not happening, the sheriff said. Mandan police Chief Jason Ziegler said authorities wont rule out using water again if its deemed necessary to maintain control and order. Margaret Huang, executive director of the human rights organization Amnesty International, sent a letter to Kirchmeier on Monday saying the water tactic risks potential injury and hypothermia. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune issued a statement calling the use of water an act of brutality and inhumane. Greenpeace spokesperson Mary Sweeters called it nothing short of horrific. Protesters also were active Monday in Bismarck, about 80 kilometres to the north. A group briefly blocked streets in the downtown area, and protesters later locked arms outside the police station and refused to leave. There was one arrest in the first incident and 16 arrests in the second. Doors at the state capitol, where protesters have previously demonstrated, were locked due to the protest activity in the city. Access to the building was granted only to workers with security key cards and members of the public with legitimate business, according to Highway Patrol Lt. Tom Iverson. The patrol provides security at the Capitol. SHARE: NEW YORKThe response to a false alarm that caused a panicked evacuation of Kennedy Airport during the summer was plagued by poor co-ordination and communication among police, private security and other personnel, according to a review by a team of top security officials. A letter from the officials to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Homeland Security Secretary Jeb Johnson, made public on Monday, blamed both airport employees and law enforcement for fuelling the hysteria by overreacting to several mistaken reports of gunshots, instead of seeking to calm travellers. Among the more glaring missteps: At the height of the chaos, the flight crew of a Korean Air jetliner deployed evacuation chutes, producing a popping sound that may have been mistaken for gunfire. The officials also said that in the end, the airport had no efficient way to let travellers know the threat wasnt real. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the spectre of terrorism has embedded itself in the national psyche and created a persistent, abiding tension that cannot be ignored, the letter concluded. Coordination and training ... is absolutely fundamental to properly address this new paradigm. Cuomo ordered the review after the Aug. 14 incident raised questions about the ability of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, to respond to an actual terror attack. The events at JFK were a wake-up call to rethink and re-evaluate our security procedures to reflect the new, changing reality of 21st century threats and to better ensure the safety of all New Yorkers, the governor said in a statement Monday. A review of security video and 911 calls found that the chain-reaction scare began with a call about a disturbance at a cafe, where travellers watching TVs showing Usain Bolt sprint to a gold medal victory in the Olympics. Several calls that followed reported shots fired in the same terminal, the letter said. After spotting Port Authority police officers pull their weapons and move toward the commotion, Transportation Security Administration agents began heading for the emergency exits, it said. Passengers followed their lead, with some even fleeing onto the tarmac. Seeing TSA agents running away and PAPD with guns drawn created obvious fear and panic, it said. As the result of the self-evacuation, secure areas were compromised, which left the terminals, tarmac and airplanes vulnerable to a possible terrorist attack or other illegal conduct, it added. Over the next 90 minutes, a total of 275 officers 88 from the Port Authority and 187 from the New York Police Department responded to the calls before authorities determined there was no evidence of a shooter, it said. Among the recommendations by the security officials is setting up a central command centre at JFK manned by the representatives from each security entity. The centre should have access to closed-circuit television feeds and the ability to make announcements to a terminal or the entire airport from a central location, the letter said. Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye said the agency was committed to providing co-ordinated training and drills recognizing the needs and strengths of all agencies, and to make internal and external communications seamless. SHARE: "There can't be any comparison between PM Modi and Indira Gandhi. Modi is Modi, Maker Of Developed India," Naidu told India Today TV, repeating the acronym he invented for the PM's last name. By India Today Web Desk: Reacting to an exclusive interview Sonia Gandhi gave to India Today TV on Monday in which the Congress president refused to compare former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with her predecessor Narendra Modi, senior Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today said there indeed can't be any comparison between the two leaders. "There can't be any comparison between PM Modi and Indira Gandhi. Modi is MODI, Maker Of Developed India (MODI)," Naidu told India Today TV, expanding the acronym he once invented for the PM's last name. advertisement For being a strong and towering politician whose writ runs large over his party and the government, PM Modi is often compared with Indira Gandhi by political commentators. When India Today TV's Consulting Editor Rajdeep Sardesai asked Sonia if she finds Narendra Modi similar to Indira Gandhi, she said her views are clear on that. "It does not trouble me, I have very clear views, there is no comparison," she said. But Naidu today went on to explain why Modi can't be compared with Indira. "People can't forget what happened during the Emergency. People tried to stick to power as long as they could, but there is law of the land," he said. In one of the most controversial decisions ever taken in independent India, Indira Gandhi, as the then Prime Minister, had imposed Emergency in 1975, which effectively suspended the Constitution and curbed individual rights for 21 months between 1975-1977. In her interview, Sonia said Indira felt a deep sense of discomfiture with the Emergency. "I cannot say how she would see Emergency today, but if she had not felt extremely uncomfortable she would not have called for elections," the Congress president said. There is no comparision between Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi: Sonia Gandhi PM Modi to BJP MPs: Don't call demonetisation surgical strike, only soldiers do that --- ENDS --- The presidential election is over. Or is it? Two weeks after Election Day, Donald Trump is assembling his Cabinet while votes in many states are still being counted. Hillary Clintons lead in the popular vote continues to grow. Michigans 16 electoral votes remain up for grabs. And so the question: How confident can Americans be in the results announced in the wee hours of Nov. 9, given the problems that continue to beset our election system? Here are some answers: Who won the electoral vote? As of today, Trump has 290 votes to Clintons 232, with Michigan outstanding. Even if Clinton wins there a possibility despite Trumps lead since election night she still would trail, 290-248. Among other states where the vote was close, only Florida could flip the election. But she trails there and in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by too many votes to trigger an automatic recount. Who won the popular vote? Clintons lead of about 1.7 million votes continues to increase, largely due to an influx of absentee and provisional ballots still being counted in California. She has about 63.7 million votes to Trumps 62 million; her margin in California alone is about 3.5 million. Where are votes still being counted? Most states have yet to report officials results, meaning they are still counting absentee or mail ballots or, more likely, deciding whether to count provisional ballots. Those often are cast by voters whose names did not appear on registration lists, or who may have voted in the wrong place or lacked proper identification. Why does it take so long? Millions of ballots come in at the last second or, in states that allow it, several days after the election with the proper postmarks. It takes money, manpower and accurate voting machines to get every vote counted correctly. We vastly underfund the way in which we run our elections, says Michael McDonald, a University of Florida associate professor who maintains a website on the electoral system. The bottom line is that you want to get the count right. How close are the two candidates in key battleground states? Three thousand votes are all that separate Clinton and Trump in New Hampshire. The margin is about 12,000 in Michigan, 27,000 in Wisconsin, 68,000 in Pennsylvania and 113,000 in Florida close, but nothing compared to the 537 votes that separated George W. Bush and Al Gore in Florida 16 years ago. Can the votes be recounted? Several states, including Pennsylvania and Florida, require the vote difference between the two candidates to be less than one-half of 1 percentage point. In Michigan, a recount is triggered automatically if the margin is less than 2,000 votes. None of those states are close enough at the moment. Is it possible that provisional and absentee voting results vary significantly from Election Day? Yes, but its unlikely. Despite changes in voting laws in some states that civil rights groups claim unfairly restrict minorities, the poor and elderly, provisional votes that are accepted usually dont alter the results. The chances of changing tens of thousands of votes? Thats just not going to happen, says Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission member now at the conservative Heritage Foundation. Whats the deal in California? Its the largest state, with some of the most permissive voting procedures. More than half the states votes are cast by absentee ballot, since no excuses are necessary to avoid going to a polling place on Election Day. Provisional ballots are treated more leniently than in many other states, requiring time to correct mistakes that otherwise would cause votes to be rejected. So when will the results be official? Eight states have certified their results; another four are due to do so Tuesday. Nearly all will complete their counts by Dec. 13, in time for the Dec. 19 meeting of the Electoral College the 538 individuals who, usually without exception, vote according to the results in each state. In some states, the final count may come even later. Read more about: SHARE: TOKYOPresident-elect Donald Trump says he wants to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership but other Pacific Rim leaders are vowing to push market-opening efforts they say are vital for growth. The possible decline of the 12-nation TPP could give a boost to alternative initiatives including one promoted by China in which the United States is not taking part. Trumps message, in a brief video, was issued after President Barack Obama and other leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group, meeting in Peru, called Sunday for fighting the backlash against trade highlighted by Trumps victory and Britains vote to leave the European Union. Promoters of the TPP say it is a step toward building a wider, pan-Pacific free trade zone, though critics object it would shift too much control over regulation to companies from governments and the public. There is very strong support among the other 11 parties to the TPP to ratify it and to seek to bring it into force, said Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Trump described the 12-nation pact as a potential disaster for our country. He has also said he wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. Obama has said he would give up seeking congressional approval for the TPP. He had championed it as a way for the United States to lead the creation of gold standard rules for 21st century trade. I think not moving forward would undermine our position across the region, Obama told reporters in Lima. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said Washington will need to think about what role it wants to play in Asia and its fast-growing markets. The United States isnt an island. It cant just sit there and say its not going to trade with the rest of the world, said Key after returning home. At some point theyre going to have to give some consideration to that. But naturally, were a bit disappointed. The TPP, signed this year in New Zealand, would take effect after it is ratified by six countries that account for 85 per cent of the combined gross domestic product of its member nations. The United States is 60 per cent of the combined GDP of that group and Japan less than 20 per cent, so those conditions cannot be met without U.S. participation. TPP is meaningless without the United States, said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Last week, he became the first foreign leader to meet Trump since his Nov. 8 election victory. As Japans most powerful leader in a decade, Abe invested political capital in overcoming opposition to the TPP from farmers and the medical lobby. His ruling Liberal Democratic Party pushed TPP ratification through the lower house of parliament and had been set to seek final approval in the upper house. Renegotiating the agreement would disturb the fundamental balance of benefits, said Abe, who was in Argentina following APEC. Other TPP members include Chile, Mexico, Canada, Peru, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Australia. China hopes for progress on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, it is promoting with the 10 governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said. The RCEP would require fewer market-opening concessions than TPP. Critics say that would let China shield its huge but inefficient state-owned companies from competition. The agreement would include China, India, Indonesia and South Korea but no countries from the Americas have joined. We would like to push the negotiation process to make headway at an early date, said the spokesman, Geng Shuang, at a regular briefing. China also called at APEC for progress on a separate arrangement, the Free Trade Agreement of the Asia Pacific. We hope these free trade agreements can reinforce rather than thwart each other, said Geng. We should prevent fragmentation of economic and trade arrangements or politicizing such agreements. Read more about: SHARE: Days before the presidential election, James Alefantis, owner of a local pizza restaurant called Comet Ping Pong, noticed an unusual spike in the number of his Instagram followers. Within hours, menacing messages like were on to you began appearing in his Instagram feed. In the ensuing days, hundreds of death threats one read I will kill you personally started arriving via texts, Facebook and Twitter. All of them alleged something that made Alefantis jaw drop: that Comet Ping Pong was the home base of a child abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief, John D. Podesta. When Alefantis discovered that his employees were getting similar abusive messages, he looked online to unravel the accusations. He found dozens of made-up articles about Clinton kidnapping, molesting and trafficking children in the restaurants back rooms. The articles appeared on Facebook and on websites such as The New Nationalist and The Vigilant Citizen, with one headline blaring: Pizzagate: How 4Chan Uncovered the Sick World of Washingtons Occult Elite. None of it was true. While Alefantis has some prominent Democratic friends in Washington and was a supporter of Clinton, he has never met her, does not sell or abuse children, and is not being investigated by law enforcement for any of these claims. He and his 40 employees had unwittingly become real people caught in the middle of a storm of fake news. From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, weve come under constant assault, said Alefantis, 42, who was once in a relationship with David Brock, a provocative former right-wing journalist who became an outspoken advocate for Clinton. Alefantis suspects those relationships may have helped to make him a target. Ive done nothing for days but try to clean this up and protect my staff and friends from being terrorized, he said. Fake news online has been at the centre of a furious debate for the past few weeks over how it may have influenced voters in the presidential election. President Barack Obama warned last week that we are in an age where theres so much active misinformation and its packaged very well on social media sites. The criticism has buffeted web companies such as Google and Facebook, whose chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has promised to work on technology tools to slow the gusher of false digital information. But Alefantis experience shows it is not just politicians and internet companies that are grappling with the fake news fallout. He, his staff and friends have become a new kind of private citizen bulls-eye for the purveyors of false articles and their believers. For more than two weeks, they have struggled to deal with the abusive social media comments and to protect photos of their own children, which were used in the false articles as evidence that the pizza restaurant was running a pedophilia ring. One person even visited Comet Ping Pong to investigate the allegations for himself. To combat the fake news tide, Alefantis has contacted the FBI and the local police, and he has asked Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Reddit to remove the articles. Yet the misinformation has continued to spread, growing into a theory known as #pizzagate that has travelled to Ireland. At one point, Comets staff counted five #pizzagate Twitter posts a minute. As recently as Sunday night, the Twitter message Dont let up. #PizzaGate EVERYWHERE was reposted and liked hundreds of times. Its like trying to shoot a swarm of bees with one gun, said Bryce Reh, Comets general manager, whose wife asked him to leave his job because of the threats and vulgar messages they both have received on their social media accounts. Alefantis, an artist born and raised in Washington, co-founded Comet Ping Pong 10 years ago as a casual spot for clay oven pizza. The restaurant has kid-friendly features like Ping-Pong tables and a craft room. Famous natives like members of the band Fugazi have held small shows there. The eatery, which seats 120, is a mash-up of red and white checkered tablecloths and modernist murals and paintings from friends of Alefantis. Alefantis mingles with other Washington chefs and his establishment helped him to be named No. 49 in GQ magazines 50 most powerful people in Washington in 2012. His customers include some high-powered locals, such as Tony Podesta, the brother of John Podesta, whom Alefantis knows casually. Alefantis and Brock, who is the founder of Media Matters for America, a website that tracks press coverage critical of the Clintons and works to debunk misinformation in the conservative press, broke up five years ago. The misinformation campaign began when John Podestas email account was hacked and his emails were published by WikiLeaks during the presidential campaign. Days before the election, users on the online message board 4Chan noticed that one of Podestas leaked emails contained communications with Alefantis discussing a fundraiser for Clinton. The 4Chan users immediately speculated about the links between Comet Ping Pong and the Democratic Party. Some posited the restaurant was part of a larger Democratic child trafficking ring, which was a theory long held by some conservative blogs. That idea jumped to other social media services such as Twitter and Reddit, where it gained momentum on the page The_Donald. A new Reddit discussion thread called Pizzagate quickly attracted 20,000 subscribers. Glen Caplin, a former campaign official for Clinton, did not comment directly about Comet Ping Pong but said, WikiLeaks has spawned several conspiracy theories that have been independently debunked. Podesta did not respond to requests for comment. Soon, dozens of fake news articles on sites such as Facebook, Planet Free Will and Living Resistance emerged. Readers shared the stories in Saudi Arabia and on Turkish and other foreign language sites. Last week, one supporter of the Pizzagate theory shot a live video from within the restaurant during a busy dinner shift. Local police, who had parked across the street after Alefantis filed a report about the fake news stories and threats, told the man to leave. In a statement, the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department said it was monitoring the situation and is aware of general threats being made against this establishment. The FBI said it does not confirm or deny the existence of investigations. Most troubling for Alefantis and staff has been the use of childrens images, pilfered from the restaurants social media pages and the personal accounts of friends who had liked Comet Ping Pong online. Those photos have been used across dozens of websites. Parents, who declined to talk publicly for fear of retribution, have hired lawyers to get the photos removed. Musicians who have performed at Comet Ping Pong have been pulled in, too. Amanda Kleinman, whose band, Heavy Breathing, has performed there several times, deleted her Twitter account after the abusive comments became overwhelming. Similar comments have flooded her YouTube music clips. We are at a dangerous place in American culture where a good percentage of people arent distinguishing what is a real news source based on real reporting and fact-checking and only reinforcing pre-existing ideas they have, Kleinman said. The frustration has been compounded by the lack of recourse for Alefantis, his friends and employees. Yelp blocked the comments sections of Comet Ping Pongs review page after reports of abusive comments and fake news in reviews. YouTube said it prohibits threats, harassment and hate speech and has tools for flagging violations and filing complaints for the site to take further action, but has largely not blocked comments on these videos. Twitter declined to comment, and Facebook did not have any further comment. After employees and Alefantis complained to Reddit about how Comet Ping Pong was being targeted on the site, the #pizzagate discussion thread posted a warning that revealing personal information about individuals was prohibited. We know that we have more work to do and we take our responsibility to address online abuse seriously, Reddit said in a statement. Little relief appears in sight. Over the weekend, Comet Ping Pong received dozens of calls from people screaming obscenities and threats. Alefantis got 50 nasty Instagram direct messages, including one that warned, This place should be burned to the ground! On Monday morning, when Alefantis picked up his phone, he saw a text from a staff member warning that an individual might protest in front of the restaurant. Its endless, he said. Read more about: SHARE: Howard Brookins Jr., the alderman for Chicagos 21st ward, had publicly spoken out about a toothy menace plaguing the citys garbage carts: urban squirrels, which in Brookinss view were aggressive, and aggressively damaging the trash cart lids. He now has another reason to dislike the rodents. One recently sent him to the hospital with a skull fracture in a freak bicycle accident, as the alderman wrote on Facebook. Brookins was biking along Cal-Sag Trail on Nov. 13, when a squirrel darted into his path. The squirrel cut Brookinss bike trip short by wrapping itself in the spokes of the aldermans bicycle. The alderman flipped over the handlebars and landed with such a severe impact that he fractured his skull, broke his nose and knocked out a handful of teeth, the Chicago Tribune reported. A woman who passed by called 911. Brookins was only able to leave the hospital Thursday. I can think of no other reason for this squirrels actions than that it was like a suicide bomber, getting revenge, the alderman said to the Tribune on Monday. He told the newspaper a full recovery was expected to take months. Brookins had denounced the eastern grey squirrel just a few weeks before the accident. In mid-October, Brookins complained that aggressive squirrels were undermining the effort to overhaul the citys trash carts, reported the Chicago Sun Times. The squirrels were gnawing through the garbage cart lids at a cost of $300,000 to the city. Its a pet peeve. It does invoke some giggles. But we are spending too much money on replacing garbage carts because the squirrels continue to eat through em, Brookins said at a city council meeting on Oct. 21, according to the Sun Times. The alderman said that residents were repeatedly asking for replacement garbage cans, as the squirrels could chew through the lid within as little as two days. After the accident, Brookins wrote on Facebook that he was OK, but he added he will undergo several surgeries to recover from damage to my face and upper body. His chief of staff, James Ramos, told Chicagoist that Brookins was in very good spirits despite his heavy damage. The squirrel, however, was destined for the great Chicago garbage cart in the sky. SHARE: Donald Trumps decision to effectively kill the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade and investment pact is, on balance, good news for Canada. The U.S. president-elect did the deed Tuesday when he confirmed, via YouTube video, that one of his first actions on taking office in January will be to begin the process of withdrawing from the deal. The 12-country TPP is structured in such a way that an American withdrawal, unless reversed by 2018, automatically voids it. Theoretically, the other parties to the arrangement Canada, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam, Malaysia, Chile, Peru, Brunei, New Zealand, Singapore and Australia could override that provision and go ahead minus the U.S. But Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe scotched that idea Tuesday, noting that the pact, as written, would be meaningless without American participation. Trumps announcement that he will honour his campaign pledge and axe the TPP is bound to be described as another victory for the dark forces of isolation. In fact, the TPP was never a very good deal for Canada. A study done for the federal Global Affairs department estimates that, at best, the TPP would have boosted the Canadian economy by slightly more than a tenth of a percentage point thanks in large part to increased exports to Japan. But there would have been serious casualties along the way. The government study estimates auto exports to the U.S. would have declined by $3.6 billion. The deal would have also whittled away at the supply-management system that protects dairy, poultry and egg farmers. It would have increased the cost of leading-edge drugs and, according to tech entrepreneur Jim Balsillie, crippled Canadian innovation. Balsillie, whose iconic BlackBerry once dominated the world smartphone industry, called the TPP the worst thing in policy Canadas ever done. The Canadian government itself was never that keen on the TPP. Given that Canada already has free trade deals with four TPP countries, former prime minister Stephen Harper was not anxious to join the talks. In 2008, a spokesperson explained that Harper thought they werent worth the trouble. It was only when Ottawa realized that the TPP might supplant the North American Free Trade Agreement that Canada became alarmed. In 2012, both Canada and Mexico signed onto the negotiations. Upon assuming government in 2015, Justin Trudeaus Liberals signalled that they favoured free trade in principle. But officially at least, they remained steadfastly noncommittal about the TPP. In part, thats because of the difficult domestic politics surrounding the deal. In part, Ottawa was waiting for the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. While both Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said they opposed the TPP, past experience suggested she would change her mind if she won. She didnt win. He did. Now the TPP is to all intents and purposes dead. May it rest in peace. The Trudeau government is already pursuing new grails. It is entering talks with China. It wants to resuscitate talks with Japan. Who knows? It may even apply to join the Chinese-dominated Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership talks taking place among 16 Asian and Pacific countries. Perhaps, if the federal government exercises humility and concentrates on trade rather than economic integration, something useful will come from all of this although it is hard to imagine Canada being more open to Chinese and Japanese imports than it is. Meanwhile, Ottawa might want to offer Trump a secret word of thanks. By killing a flawed trade and investment deal, he has relieved the Trudeau government of having to make that decision itself. And he has reminded us again that while economists and experts may worship at the altar of free trade, many voters, including those who elected this crafty demagogue, do not. Thomas Walkom appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Read more about: SHARE: In 2012, Stephen Harpers government introduced far-reaching changes to Canadian refugee law and policies. Some of these changes were unconstitutional and were in fact struck down by the Federal Court. Now is the time to make sure all vestiges of those punitive and unfair reforms are swept away. The courts did overturn the cruel and unusual restrictions to refugee health care and discriminatory restrictions to appeal rights based on nationality. Many other changes were criticized by Amnesty International, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, UN human rights bodies and many other groups as violating basic human right standards. One of those 2012 changes stands out. The Designated Foreign Nationals (DFN) regime gives the minister the power to designate groups of individuals arriving in Canada, certainly including refugee claimants, based simply on their mode of getting here. It is a vast and arbitrary power, and can be used against any group of two or more persons. To be clear, DFNs are not people who have been charged with any crimes. They are individuals, including refugees, who the former government simply wished to deter from seeking Canadas protection. The consequences are severe. First and foremost is mandatory detention for potentially lengthy periods for every DFN who is over 16 years of age, with minimal review. Mandatory imprisonment simply on the basis of how someone has arrived in Canada, without any individual assessment to determine whether there are legitimate grounds for taking away their freedom, constitutes arbitrary detention and clearly violates international law. There is more. There is no right of appeal to the Refugee Appeal Division for those whose refugee claims are denied. Even if a claimant is ultimately recognized by Canada to be a refugee, he or she cannot begin the process of bringing loved ones to Canada for at least five years. That amounts to a 5-year violation of the fundamental and very precious right of refugees to speedy family reunification. And lets not forget that many of those spouses, children and parents left in limbo are struggling to survive in war zones or refugee camps. This provision is mind-bogglingly mean-spirited, as well as a violation of the UN Refugee Convention, international human rights treaties and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The DFN regime is such a clear violation of human rights standards that experts testifying at the parliamentary committee when it was being adopted questioned how Department of Justice lawyers could possibly have signed off on the laws constitutional compliance. In a different context, the Supreme Court has already ruled that a six-month detention without review, as proposed under the DFN regime, is unconstitutional. Canadian law already provides for the detention of foreign nationals with a meaningful right of review for identity, public safety, or flight risk concerns. There was no need to expand those powers. The Trudeau government has rightly signalled its intention to ensure the detention of refugees and migrants will be an exceptional last resort, particularly given the impact on mental health and the terrible consequences for affected children. Doing away with the DFN regime is central to that laudable goal. We welcome the fact the current government has not used the DFN regime. And we are aware the former government generally shied away from it as well. That should not, however, in any way lull us into assuming it needs no attention. The bottom line is that legal provisions granting authorities vast and arbitrary powers have no place in Canadas statute books. True, the courts would likely eventually strike down such flagrant Charter violations. But that would take years and come at considerable public expense. In the meantime, vulnerable people in need of protection would suffer, needlessly and cruelly. The Trudeau government has set a strong example to the world that refugee rights must be protected. That example will carry all the more force if we get rid of Canadian laws that violate those rights. Repealing the Designated Foreign Nationals regime is a very good place to start. Mitchell Goldberg is the president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and Alex Neve is the secretary general of Amnesty International Canada. SHARE: Drip, drip, drip. Thats the sound of the Trudeau governments reputation for integrity being eroded by a steady trickle of revelations about cash-for-access fundraisers. The latest one involves the prime minister himself, who was the featured attraction at a $1,500-a-ticket Liberal party fundraising event last May attended by wealthy Chinese-Canadian and Chinese business people. The event reportedly included a Chinese businessman who is also an adviser to the Chinese government and who made a big donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation a few weeks later. Challenged on all this, the prime minister repeated what has become his standard line when these highly questionable fundraisers come to light. The federal government, he told the House of Commons on Tuesday, has some of the toughest rules around fundraising in the country and he followed the rules. Ergo: no issue. Unfortunately for the government, it wont wash. These events, in which rich business people pay for face-time with influential ministers, dont pass the smell test, as interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose told the Commons. There may not be a quid pro quo, but theres certainly the appearance of a preference when donors put their money down to spend time with key decision-makers. In the latest case, one of the attendees was in the process of obtaining final approval from federal regulators to open a new bank aimed at Canadas Chinese community. In fact, approval went through in mid-July and theres no evidence that the fundraiser made any difference. Inevitably, though, eyebrows are being raised. Thats especially the case when donors post photos of themselves all over the Internet, grinning heartily in the company of the prime minister. The unwritten message that they are close to power and can get things done is unmistakable. Does the prime minister really want to make it so easy for them to trade on his image in this way? Cash-for-access events also underline the yawning gap between the governments professed ideals on ethics and what it does in practice. When his government took office a year ago, the prime minister gave his ministers mandate letters that made it clear they must observe the highest ethical standards in everything you do. He told them not to let anyone buy influence, and specifically to abide by the principle that there should be no preferential access to government, or appearance of preferential access, accorded to individuals or organizations because they have made financial contributions to politicians and political parties. Finally, he told them, following these principles is an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law. In other words, I was just following the rules (the excuse Trudeau offered on Tuesday) isnt good enough. The government is on the wrong side of this issue. Both the federal ethics and lobbying commissioners find the practice problematic, and in Ontario the Wynne government has just brought in rules that will ban cash-for-access as of Jan. 1. The longer the federal Liberals and the Trudeau government continue defending it, the more damage will be done to their credibility on the ethics front. They should put their professed ideals into practice, end cash-for-access, and stop letting the opposition beat on their reputation like a cheap drum. SHARE: Re: Tijuana baby, Travel Nov. 12 Tijuana baby, Travel Nov. 12 How could your travel editor allow, let alone write, a piece in your pages on the pleasures of visiting Tijuana, Mexico, with just a dismissive reference a rash of drug trade-fuelled murders in the late 2000s to the current horrifying level of violence in that city? Just this month, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported, With 636 killings in Tijuana through the end of September, 2016 is shaping up to be the most violent year since 2010, and last months 89 homicides made it the deadliest so far this year. Parse those numbers: 636 killings in nine months. Thats more than two a day on average. In October, Tijuana had 89 murders almost three a day on average. How can any responsible journalist encourage tourists to visit a city with statistics like that without mentioning public safety or, at least, perception of public safety? Mexico will not start to get its act together until a tourism boycott forces the national and state governments to take serious measures to halt the violence there. Rob Howard, Hamilton SHARE: The Republicans won the presidency, but marijuana may have been an even bigger winner on election day. Voters in Massachusetts, California, Maine and Nevada approved ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use. Twenty-eight states have approved medical marijuana. These states account for more than half the nation's population. To be sure, the drug remains banned at the federal level, and advocates of marijuana normalization are wary of President-elect Donald Trump's choice for U.S. attorney general, the extremely conservative U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.). If confirmed, Sessions may prove a roadblock for the marijuana industry. A vocal opponent of marijuana legalization, Sessions once said he thought the Ku Klux Klan "was OK until I found out they smoked pot." (Sessions' views on civil rights have also come under scrutiny.) Nonetheless, as marijuana gets legalized in an increasing number of states, the profitable tailwinds for so-called "canna-business" should hold sway -- even with Sessions in office. The time is ripe to invest in marijuana stocks, before the pot industry matures and the stocks of its major players get too expensive. One marijuana stock stands out from the pack: GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH) . This company is a major beneficiary of today's "green rush" and enjoys the wherewithal to prosper over the long haul. The company's shares rose more than 2% in Monday trading. As marijuana evolves from a countercultural act of rebellion to mainstream capitalism, a wide variety of entrepreneurs are seizing the opportunity, not only by growing and selling pot but by creating branded edibles, tourist junkets, vaping parlors, paraphernalia, shops, seeds, fertilizers, cook books and trade shows. However, most of these companies are small, thinly capitalized and highly risky. They're starting with great fanfare but will soon fail amid the inevitable shake out and consolidation of a young industry. GW Pharmaceuticals is a different type of marijuana business, however, and should outlast the industry's ups and downs. Based in the U.K., GW Pharmaceuticals discovers, develops, and markets cannabinoid prescription medicines. That means that it might continue to sell its products even if there is a pushback against recreational marijuana use. The company's chief product is Sativex, an oromucosal spray for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, cancer pain and neuropathic pain. The company is scheduled to report earnings on Dec. 6. The average analyst estimate is for GW Pharmaceuticals to report an adjusted loss of $1.68 per share, compared with a loss of 85 cents per share in the same period a year ago. But as the company plows considerable research and development into future growth, it should overcome this speed bump and reward patient investors. With a market cap of $2.88 billion, GW Pharmaceuticals is one of the very cannabis companies that isn't a penny stock. It's poised to be a growth stock winner in 2017 and beyond. The company also has successfully launched several stock offerings to strengthen its balance sheet and finance its broadening portfolio of marijuana-based medicines. As a result of its robust R&D, the company has other promising cannabinoid products in various early- and mid-stage clinical trials for the treatment of several diseases and mental disorders, including diabetes and schizophrenia. The company expects to release results from those trials within the coming year. Any successes would trigger a breakout for the stock. At the same time, major tech companies are developing the infrastructure necessary for canna-businesses to expand. Microsoft is marketing software that tracks plants from seed to dispensary and helps state governments monitor all aspects of the plant's growth to ensure compliance with regulations and tax laws. Oraclealso has developed a tracking system for marijuana that's already in use among state governments. Shares of GW Pharmaceuticals now trade at about $121.57. The average 12-month price target from analysts is $146, which suggests the stock can gain about 20% over the next year. --- Trump's shocking election as president has turned the investment world upside down. If you're looking for new (and safe) growth opportunities in these uncertain times, we've found a genius trader who turned $50,000 into $5 million by using his proprietary trading method. For a limited time, he's guaranteeing you $67,548 per year in profitable trades if you follow his simple step-by-step process. Click here now for details. John Persinos is an investment analyst at Investing Daily. At the time of publication, he owned stock in Oracle. Persinos appears as a regular commentator on the financial television show "Small Cap Nation." Follow him on Twitter. A top United (UAL) executive last week reviewed the carrier's route system -- invariably said to be the best in the world -- and publicly defined the problem that has hobbled its performance for more than a decade. "We built everything around focusing on international, which we do really well," said United President Scott Kirby. "But we let the domestic slide. {Today} United uniquely has less exposure to {domestic} markets than our competitors." Kirby, who took over as president just six weeks ago, spoke at United's investor day on Nov. 15. It may have signified the turning point United has awaited ever since Stephen Wolf, its last great CEO, departed in 1994, as the carrier laid out a new path that includes boosting domestic flying, delaying aircraft orders and unveiling a plan for low-end seats that could lure passengers from ultra-low-cost airlines. United is the only airline with hubs in the top five domestic markets of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington. Newark is the country's best trans-Atlantic hub, San Francisco is the best trans-Pacific hub, and Houston is the second best Latin America hub. But domestically, United lags American (AAL) and Delta (DAL) , at a time when domestic profitability lags international profitability. The clearest sign of the gap is a consistently lower profit margin. What happened? After domestic deregulation took effect in 1980, international markets remained largely regulated and profitable, Kirby said, while "domestic profitability plummeted," due to fragmented networks and a profusion of low-fare carriers. As a result, he said, "United's mindset {became}, 'we just want to fly enough domestic to feed our international flying.'" In general, United's focus on international has led to cutbacks in domestic service. Kirby's principal illustration involved Newark, "the only true connecting hub in New York {and} the best Atlantic gateway of any hub in the country." United has about 400 daily Newark departures. Before a 2010 merger, Continental and United jointly had about a 30% market share in New York. But now, the combined carriers have just a 26% share. "Our natural position is more like 30%," Kirby said. "There's no reason we shouldn't get back to that." Not only does United lack New York market share, it also fails to take advantage of the potential to connect passengers. American's Philadelphia hub, just 95 miles away, offers about 430 daily departures and does the same thing as Newark, connecting East Coast passengers to various destinations including the trans-Atlantic. Yet the Philadelphia hub connects 45% of its traffic, Kirby said, while the Newark hub connects just 35%. Philadelphia's advantage, he said, is better connecting banks, where American's departures and arrivals are closely aligned. By contrast, in Newark, United more widely separates departures and arrivals. In airline speak, "rolling departures and arrivals create less connectivity." While the industry commonly assumes that connecting passengers are lower yield passengers, Kirby contends the opposite it is true. "The most profitable hubs in the country have the highest percentage of connecting revenue," he said. Kirby has said that Charlotte, where about 75% of passengers connect, is American's most profitable hub, in terms of profit margin. He said Denver, where about 40% of passengers connect, is United's most profitable hub. In both cases, low airport costs enable airline profitability despite locations that do not provide large numbers of originating passengers. (Delta's most profitable hub is Atlanta.) Rebanking Newark to boost connectivity between smaller markets would challenge rivals, who could not reasonably match the service, Kirby said. For instance, "Albany to Charleston is such a small market, there is nothing for our competitors to do," he said. "We can win back our fair share in those markets. There is no reason we can't make Newark look like Philadelphia, just by timing flights correctly." Kirby acknowledged that Newark presents unique operational problems, but said the intent is to alter the timing of flights, not to boost the number of flights. Another example of United's pullback at Newark is that in 2004, Continental had eight mainline flights a day between Newark and Atlanta, while Delta had 11. By 2013, United had cut back to six daily flights, all on regional jets. The short-term impact was beneficial: Operational costs declined and profits rose. But over time, Kirby said, "Passengers say 'I'd rather not fly on regional jets, I will switch to Delta.' Then you down-gauge more flights. And you spiral down {and} you cede the market to your competitor." United recently reversed course: It now has six daily mainline flights between Newark and Atlanta. This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned. The NIA probe has revealed that Abu Anas, an accused in ISIS case by the agency, received Rs 80,000 from Zakir Naik's IRF as scholarship in October 2015. By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: In what could possibly lead to further legal trouble for the controversial televangelist Zakir Naik, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe has revealed that Abu Anas, an accused in ISIS case by the agency, received Rs 80,000 from the proscribed IRF as scholarship in October 2015. Abu Anas, a software engineer and a resident of Tonk, Rajasthan wanted to flee India and go to Syria to fight together with ISIS in the same period. advertisement He was arrested by the NIA in January 2016. After owing affiliation to Janoodul-Khalifa-e-Hind, an ISIS outfit, Abu Anas told NIA sleuths that he had "applied for a personal loan with Axis bank," and said he wanted to defraud the bank. NIA will now probe whether money given by Naik's NGO IRF for scholarship was intended be used for fleeing or any other terror activities. ALSO READ | NIA's crackdown on Zakir Naik's IRF: All you need to know ALSO READ | Centre blocks Zakir Naik's websites spreading objectionable content ISIS ACCUSED INFLUENCED BY NAIK Many ISIS accused have allegedly told NIA about being influenced by Zakir Naik. Naik has been in controversy since the revelation that one of the terrorists killed in Bangladesh's worst terror attack in July this year, was influenced by the controversial Islamic preacher. NIA conducted further search in one more premise today. So far, 20 premises have been searched. These premises raided, included trustees connected to the proscribed IRF. ALSO READ | Zakir Naik's organisation IRF banned for 5 years During the search operations, documents pertaining to inflow and outflow of foreign and domestic funding, were seized and are now being examined by the NIA sleuths. Besides incriminating documents, video tapes and DVDs of Zakir Naik's public speeches, documents related to property and investment, financial transactions, foreign and domestic funding of the proscribed IRF as well as its associated companies, and electronic storage devices have been recovered. The investigation has revealed that the proscribed IRF has close connections with Harmony Media Private Limited, Longlast Constructions Private Limited, Right Property Solutions Private Limited, Majestic Perfumes Private Limited and Alpha Lubricants Private Limited. The agency will now investigate their role in the funding of IRF activities. Also Read: Mumbai: No change in management, assures Zakir Naik's school Home Ministry to choke foreign funding to Zakir Naik's NGO --- ENDS --- Lloyds Banking Group (LYG) shares rose Tuesday after the U.K. government cut a further portion of its stake in the rescued lender ahead of its key autumn budget statement. The sale, which takes the government's stake below the 8% threshold as part of a trading plan that is being managed by Morgan Stanley (MS) , places the government on track to achieve a full exit from the bank by October 2017, although it remains to be seen whether it will recoup all of the taxpayer's investment. "Selling our shares in Lloyds Banking Group and making sure that we get back all the cash taxpayers injected into it during the financial crisis is one of my top priorities," Chancellor Philip Hammond said in a statement. "So I am pleased that we have continued to reduce our stake in Lloyds, and have now recovered over 17 billion for the taxpayer." Lloyds stock rose 1.5% by 09:30 GMT to change hands at 60 pence each in London trading, extending a post-U.S. election gain to just under 7%. The U.K. government has invested a total of 20.3 billion ($25 billion) in the bank, with the total amount split between a direct bail out, a rights issue and debt forgiveness. It said in October that it would give Morgan Stanley bankers full discretion over how and when to manage the exit from the bailed-out lender. U.K. Financial Investments, which oversees the government shareholding, reported in its latest set of accounts that the government has raised more than 16 billion from Lloyds share sales during recent years. Its remaining stake in the bank could be worth as much as 3.4 billion at current market prices, which means that the bulk of public money in the bank would have been recouped if the remaining stake is sold tomorrow. The Lloyds Bank shareholding is just one of two major bank rescues carried out by the government in the wake of the financial crisis. The other is Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) , once the world's largest bank by assets, which is still 73% owned by the public purse. RBS received a much larger 45 billion bailout after a disastrous takeover of ABN Amro weakened its capital buffers right at the time that the U.S. mortgage market was beginning to take a southward turn. But today the entire bank is worth just more than half what the government paid for its stake, with a market capitalization of 24 billion, and an implied valuation for the public stake of around 17.5 billion. The bank is widely expected to incur the largest of all fines from the U.S. Department of Justice - after it gets through with Deutsche Bank (DB) and the remaining pool of alleged offenders. RBS stock was up more than 3.8% in London trading to 211.9 pence each, although it is still down some 30% for the year-to-date and sits well below the 502 pence average cost to the British taxpayer. Boeing (BA) has tapped an outsider to run its sprawling commercial airplane division, part of a broader revamp of the business that could have repercussions throughout the aerospace supply chain. Chicago-based Boeing named General Electric (GE) aviation executive Kevin G. McAllister as CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, replacing 61 year-old Ray Conner. Conner will stay on at Boeing as a vice chairman through 2017, working with McAllister to ensure a smooth transition. McAllister, 53, joins Boeing after 27 years with GE Aviation including serving as CEO of the unit since 2014. The company is also forming a third division, Boeing Global Services, to sit beside commercial and defense and coordinate maintenance, service, spare parts and other services for both commercial and defense customers. The move continues Boeing's push to expand its aftermarket business, a portion of the market that should hold up well even when the now eight-year-old surge in commercial plane orders subsides. The new unit, which will be based in Dallas and be run by Boeing veteran Stanley A. Deal, will have an estimated 25,000 worldwide employees providing 24/7 flight support, parts, training and software for commercial customers and logistics and supplies for the Pentagon. Boeing dove headfirst into the aftermarket with a $2 billion cash and debt purchase of Aviall in 2006, but in recent years has been more focused on expanding new jet production to manage a swelling order book. But it has shown signs that it is refocusing on the aftermarket, this summer deciding against renewing a deal with one-time subsidiary Spirit AeroSystems (SPR) which allowed Boeing to take control of some of its spare parts manufacturing. "Substantial services growth is core to Boeing's strategy as we enter our second century, and this move is a key enabler to accelerate our efforts and provide increasing value to our customers," Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a statement. Aftermarket sales currently represent about 12% of Boeing Commercial revenue. Jefferies analyst Howard A. Rubel, in a note, called McAllister "a tough, analytic, and driven competitor" who thanks to his years at GE both has relationships with airline managements and has overseen massive product launches. General Electric is held in Jim Cramer's charitable trust Action Alerts PLUS. See all of Cramer's holdings witha free trial. But as Spirit has already found, Boeing's encroachment into the aftermarket could have ramifications to suppliers. Cowen & Co. analyst Gautam Khanna said the moves "underscore Boeing's initiative to penetrate the commercial aftermarket," which could be "an eventual" negative to pricing power at companies like TransDigm Group (TDG) . TransDigm -- a maker of a broad range of systems and parts that go on airplanes -- has some advantages, including proprietary products supported by intellectual property as well as the high-cost of establishing a new production line to compete with an existing one. But Khanna notet that "historically Boeing has had success in transforming procurement despite long odds." Cleveland-based TransDigm earlier this month provided an outlook for fiscal 2017 that was softer than what analysts had expected, putting its shares under pressure. The company also counts noted activist Third Point LLC as an investor with a 2% stake. The Clorox Company manufactures and markets consumer and professional products worldwide. It operates through four segments: Health and Wellness, Household, Lifestyle, and International. The Health and Wellness segment offers cleaning products, such as laundry additives and home care products primarily under the Clorox, Clorox2, Scentiva, Pine-Sol, Liquid-Plumr, Tilex, and Formula 409 brands; professional cleaning and disinfecting products under the CloroxPro and Clorox Healthcare brands; professional food service products under the Hidden Valley brand; and vitamins, minerals and supplement products under the RenewLife, Natural Vitality, NeoCell, and Rainbow Light brands in the United States. The Household segment provides cat litter products under the Fresh Step and Scoop Away brands; bags and wraps under the Glad brand; and grilling products under the Kingsford brand in the United States. The Lifestyle segment offers dressings, dips, seasonings, and sauces primarily under the Hidden Valley brand; natural personal care products under the Burt's Bees brand; and water-filtration products under the Brita brand in the United States. The International segment provides laundry additives; home care products; water-filtration systems; digestive health products; grilling products; cat litter products; food products; bags and wraps; natural personal care products; and professional cleaning and disinfecting products internationally primarily under the Clorox, Ayudin, Clorinda, Poett, Pine-Sol, Glad, Brita, RenewLife, Ever Clean and Burt's Bees brands. The Clorox Company sells its products primarily through mass retailers; grocery outlets; warehouse clubs; dollar stores; home hardware centers; drug, pet and military stores; third-party and owned e-commerce channels; and distributors, as well as a direct sales force The company was founded in 1913 and is headquartered in Oakland, California. The following companies are subsidiares of Becton, Dickinson and: Accuri Cytometers, Accuri Cytometers Inc., Alverix Inc, Alverix Inc., Atto Bioscience Inc, BD Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., BD Infection Prevention BV, BD Kiestra BV, BD Kiestra Total Lab Automation, BD Rapid Diagnostic (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., BD San Luis Potosi S.A. de C.V., BD Switzerland Sarl, BD Ventures LLC, BD West Africa Limited, BDX INO LLC, Bard (Thailand) Limited, Bard ASDI Inc., Bard Access Systems Inc., Bard Acquisition Sub Inc., Bard Australia Pty. Limited, Bard Benelux N.V., Bard Brachytherapy Inc., Bard Brasil Industria e Comercio de Produtos Para a Saude Ltda., Bard Canada Inc., Bard Chile S.p.A., Bard Czech Republic s.r.o., Bard Devices Inc., Bard Dublin ITC Limited, Bard EMEA Finance Center Sp.z o.o., Bard European Distribution Center N.V., Bard Finance B.V. & Co. KG., Bard Financial Services Ltd., Bard Finland OY, Bard France S.A.S., Bard Global Holdings I LLC, Bard Global Holdings II LLC, Bard Global Holdings III LLC, Bard Healthcare Inc., Bard Healthcare Science (Shanghai) Limited, Bard Hellas S.A., Bard Holding SAS, Bard Holdings Limited, Bard Holdings Netherlands B.V., Bard Hong Kong Limited, Bard IP Holdings Inc., Bard India Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., Bard International Holdings B.V., Bard International Inc., Bard Istanbul Healthcare Limited Company, Bard Korea Ltd., Bard Limited, Bard MRL Acquisition Corp., Bard Malaysia Healthcare Sdn. Bhd., Bard Medica SA, Bard Medical Devices (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Bard Medical R&D (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Bard Medical SA (Proprietary) Limited, Bard Mexico Realty S. de R.L. de C.V., Bard Norden AB, Bard Norway AS, Bard Pacific Health Care Company Ltd., Bard Peripheral Vascular Inc., Bard Poland Sp. z.o.o., Bard Productos Plasticos e Medicos Ltda., Bard Reynosa S.A. de C.V., Bard S.r.l., Bard Sdn. Bhd., Bard Shannon Limited, Bard Singapore Private Limited, Bard Sourcing Office Singapore Pte. Ltd., Bard Sweden AB, Bard UK Newco Limited, Bard de Espana S.A., Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Holdings Ltd., Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Limited, Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Management Limited, Becton Dickinson (Mauritius) Limited, Becton Dickinson (Pty) Ltd., Becton Dickinson (Thailand) Limited, Becton Dickinson A.G., Becton Dickinson A/S, Becton Dickinson Argentina S.R.L., Becton Dickinson Asia Holdings Ltd., Becton Dickinson Asia Limited, Becton Dickinson Austria GmbH, Becton Dickinson Austria Holdings GmbH, Becton Dickinson B.V., Becton Dickinson B.V. Saudi Limited Company, Becton Dickinson Benelux N.V., Becton Dickinson Biosciences Systems and Reagents Inc., Becton Dickinson Canada Inc., Becton Dickinson Caribe Ltd., Becton Dickinson Croatia d.o.o., Becton Dickinson Czechia s.r.o., Becton Dickinson Dispensing Belgium BVBA, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Denmark A/S, Becton Dickinson Dispensing France SAS, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Ireland Limited, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Norway, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Spain S.L.U., Becton Dickinson Dispensing UK Ltd., Becton Dickinson Distribution Center N.V., Becton Dickinson East Africa Ltd., Becton Dickinson Euro Finance Sarl, Becton Dickinson Europe Holdings S.A.S., Becton Dickinson France S.A.S., Becton Dickinson GSA Beteilgungs GmbH, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings I Inc., Becton Dickinson Global Holdings II LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings IV LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings V LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings VII LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings VIII LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Services Centre Sdn. Bhd, Becton Dickinson GmbH, Becton Dickinson Guatemala S.A., Becton Dickinson Hellas S.A., Becton Dickinson Holdings Limited, Becton Dickinson Holdings Ltd., Becton Dickinson Holdings Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Hungary Kft., Becton Dickinson India Private Limited, Becton Dickinson Industrias Cirurgicas Ltda., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy AB, Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Holdings UK Limited, Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Systems Inc., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Systems Inc. S.A. de C.V., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy UK, Becton Dickinson Insulin Syringe Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings II Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings III Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Israel Ltd., Becton Dickinson Italia S.p.A., Becton Dickinson Ithalat Ihracat Limited Sirketi, Becton Dickinson Korea Holding Inc., Becton Dickinson Korea Ltd., Becton Dickinson Ltd., Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Finance S.a.r.L., Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Global Holdings Sarl, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings II S.a.r.L, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings III S.a.r.L, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings V S.a.r.L., Becton Dickinson Malaysia Inc., Becton Dickinson Management GmbH & Co. KG, Becton Dickinson Matrex Holdings Inc., Becton Dickinson Medical (S) Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Devices (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Devices (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Products Pte. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Technology (Jiangsu) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Global Holdings II C.V., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Holdings B.V., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Holdings II B.V., Becton Dickinson Norway AS, Becton Dickinson O.Y., Becton Dickinson Overseas Services Ltd., Becton Dickinson Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd., Becton Dickinson Penel Limited, Becton Dickinson Philippines Inc., Becton Dickinson Polska Sp.z.o.o., Becton Dickinson Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Becton Dickinson Pty. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Research Centre Ireland Limited, Becton Dickinson Rowa Germany GmbH, Becton Dickinson Rowa Italy Srl, Becton Dickinson S.A., Becton Dickinson Sample Collection GmbH, Becton Dickinson Scot Financing L.L.P., Becton Dickinson Scot Financing L.P., Becton Dickinson Sdn. Bhd., Becton Dickinson Slovakia s.r.o., Becton Dickinson Sweden AB, Becton Dickinson Sweden Holdings AB, Becton Dickinson Switzerland Global Holdings SarL, Becton Dickinson Technology Campus India, Becton Dickinson U.K. Limited, Becton Dickinson UK Financing I Limited, Becton Dickinson UK Financing II Limited, Becton Dickinson Venezuela C.A., Becton Dickinson Venture LLC, Becton Dickinson Verwaltungs GmbH, Becton Dickinson Vostok LLC, Becton Dickinson Worldwide Investments Sa.r.L., Becton Dickinson Zambia Limited, Becton Dickinson and Company Ltd., Becton Dickinson de Colombia Ltda., Becton Dickinson de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Becton Dickinson del Uruguay S.A., Bee IT Solutions, Benex Ltd., Biometric Imaging, Bridger Biomed Inc., C. R. Bard (Portugal) - Produtos e Artigos Medicos e Farmaceuticos, C. R. Bard Do Brasil Productos Medicos Ltda., C. R. Bard GmbH, C. R. Bard Inc., C. R. Bard Netherlands Sales B.V., C.R. Bard Inc, CME America LLC, CME Ltd., CME Medical (UK) Limited, CME UK (Holdings) Limited, CRISI Medical Systems, CRISI Medical Systems Inc., Caesarea Medical Electronics, Cardal II LLC, Care Fusion Development Private Limited, CareFusion (Barbados) SrL, CareFusion (Shanghai) Commercial and Trading Co. Limited, CareFusion 213 LLC, CareFusion 2200 Inc., CareFusion 2201 Inc., CareFusion 302 LLC, CareFusion 303 Inc., CareFusion Asia (HK) Limited, CareFusion Corporation, CareFusion Corporation., CareFusion D.R. 203 Ltd., CareFusion France 309 S.A.S., CareFusion Israel 330 Ltd., CareFusion Italy 312 S.p.A., CareFusion Manufacturing LLC, CareFusion Mexico 215 S.A. de C.V., CareFusion Netherlands 328 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands 503 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands 504 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands Financing 283 C.V., CareFusion Resources LLC, CareFusion S.A. 319 (Proprietary) Limited, CareFusion Solutions LLC, CareFusion U.K. 244 Limited, CareFusion U.K. 305 Limited, CareFusion U.K. 306 Limited, Carmel Pharma AB, Carmel Pharma Inc, Cato Software Solutions, Cell Analysis Systems Inc, Cellular Research, Cellular Research Inc., Clearstream Technologies Group Limited, Clearstream Technologies Limited, Clontech Laboratories Inc, Corporativo BD de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Critical Device Corporation, Cubex, Cytognos, Cytopeia Inc, DLD (Bermuda) Ltd., DVL Acquisition Sub Inc., Davol Inc., Davol International Limited, Davol Surgical Innovations S.A. de C.V., Difco Laboratories Incorporated, Distribuidora BD Mexico S.A. de C.V., Dutch American Manufacturers (D.A.M.) B.V., Dymax Corporation, Embo Medical Limited, Enturia de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Enturican Inc., FJ International Inc., FlowCardia Inc., FlowCardia LLC, FlowJo LLC, Franklin Lakes Enterprises L.L.C., GSL Solutions, Gamer Lasertechnik GmbH, GenCell Biosystems, GenCell Biosystems Ltd., GeneOhm Sciences Canada ULC, GeneOhm Sciences Inc, Gentest Corporation, Gesco International Inc., Gesco International LLC, Glentech Inc, HandyLab Inc, HandyLab Inc., IBD Holdings LLC, Iontophoretics Corporation, JoHome LLC, Kabushiki Kaisha Medicon (Medicon Inc.), Liberator Health and Education Services Inc., Liberator Health and Wellness Inc., Liberator Medical Holdings Inc., Liberator Medical Supply Inc., Limited Liability Company Bard Rus, Loma Vista Medical Inc., Loma Vista Medical LLC, Luther Medical Products Inc, Lutonix Inc., Med-Design Corporation, Med-Design Investment Holdings Inc., Med-Safe Systems Inc, Med-Safe Systems Inc., MedChem Products Inc., Medafor Inc., Medegen LLC, Medinservice.com Inc., Medivance Inc., NAT Diagnostics Inc., NAT Diagnostics Inc., NOW Medical Distribution Inc., NOW Medical Distribution LLC, Navarre Biomedical LLC, Navarre Biomedical Ltd., Neomend Inc., Nippon Becton Dickinson Company Ltd., Omega Biosystems Incorporated, P.R.C. (Isialys) Societe a responsabilitie limitee, PT Becton Dickinson Indonesia, PharMingen, PharMingen., Plasso Technology Ltd, PreAnalytiX GmbH, Pristine Access Technologies Inc., ProSeed Inc., Procesos para Esterilizacion S.A. de C.V., Productos Bard de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Productos Para el Cuidado de la Salud S.A. de C.V., Puls Medical Devices AS LC, PureWick Corporation, Roberts Laboratories Inc., Rochester Medical Corporation, Rochester Medical Ltd., Saf-T-Med Inc, Safety Syringes Inc., Scanwell Health Inc., Sendal S.L.U., SenoRx Inc., SenoRx LLC, Shield Healthcare Centers Inc., Sirigen Group Limited, Sirigen II Limited, Sirigen Inc., Sistemas Medicos ALARIS S.A. de C.V., Specialized Cooperative Corporation, Specialized Health Products Inc., Specialized Health Products International Inc., Specialized Health Products International LLC, Staged Diabetes Management LLC, Straub Medical AG, Straub Medical AG, Surgical Site Solutions Inc., TVA Medical Inc, TVA Medical Inc., Tepha Inc, Tepha Inc., Tissuemed Ltd., Tri-County Medical & Ostomy Supplies Inc., TriPath Imaging Inc., Tru-Fit Marketing Corporation, Vas-Cath Incorporated, Vascular Pathways Inc., Velano Vascular, Velano Vascular Inc., Venclose Inc., Venetec International Inc., Venetec International LLC, Visitec, Y-Med Inc., Y-Med LLC, and ZebraSci Inc.. Read More Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Frost Bank that offers commercial and consumer banking services in Texas. It operates in two segments, Banking and Frost Wealth Advisors. The company offers commercial banking services to corporations and other business clients, including financing for industrial and commercial properties, interim construction related to industrial and commercial properties, equipment, inventories and accounts receivables, and acquisitions; commercial leasing; and treasury management services. It also provides consumer banking services, such as checking accounts, savings programs, automated-teller machines (ATMs), overdraft facilities, installment and real estate loans, home equity loans and lines of credit, drive-in and night deposit services, safe deposit facilities, and brokerage services. In addition, the company offers international banking services comprising deposits, loans, letters of credit, foreign collections, funds, and foreign exchange services. Further, it acts as a correspondent for approximately 171 financial institutions; offers trust, investment, agency, and custodial services for individual and corporate clients; provides capital market services that include sales and trading, new issue underwriting, money market trading, advisory, and securities safekeeping and clearance; and supports international business activities. Additionally, the company offers insurance and securities brokerage services; and holds securities for investment purposes, as well as investment management services to Frost-managed mutual funds, institutions, and individuals. It operates approximately 157 financial centers and 1,650 ATMs. The company serves energy, manufacturing, services, construction, retail, telecommunications, healthcare, military, and transportation industries. Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. was founded in 1868 and is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Now, more than ever, young women and men in Burundi need the support of UNICEF and partners to become agents of change for future generations. MUBANGA, Burundi, 22 November 2016 My life has been so hard. I have been living in fear all the time. Since the beginning of the previous war in 1993, me and my family had to move from one house to another. We just want peace. This is the testimony of Papille Harineza, a 23-year-old who despite her young age, knows first-hand the scourge of violence and upheaval. When she was just a baby, Burundi went through an ethnically motivated armed conflict which left more than 300,000 dead. The conflict forced her, her family and thousands of people to seek shelter in displacement camps or to flee to neighbouring countries. We have had to change our home at least four times because Tutsi people were persecuted by Hutus and vice versa. First, we had to leave our house in Kwitaba colline when the war started, then we moved to the first camp in Musenyi. There we didnt last more than one year and we fled again, says Papille. Because she was constantly moving homes, Papille never had the chance to go to school and opportunities for her are now much more limited. Papille describes the courage she needed to survive during the long days starving and waiting for the arrival of food from the NGOs, doing nothing but taking care of goats at home. Now she lives in an internal displacement camp in Mubanga with her husband, whom she met in the camp, and their child. Asked about the possibility of returning to her homeland, her answer is clear but blameless: Things have changed a lot since we left. In our homeland, the houses are far from each other and isolated. Here in the camp, we are used to living close to our neighbours and the other displaced families. Our children are all friends and I prefer to stay here. Now my house is here, but it is my husband who decides, she affirms. PORT LOKO, Sierra Leone, 21 November 2016 Nurse Kabiru Kargbo knows what to do. As soon as his health facility receives a delivery of supplies he pulls out his mobile phone and gets ready to report. He responds to some basic questions by SMS and sends the information back to the national level. Almost immediately the Ministry of Health and Sanitation knows its supplies have reached their destination. The supplies procured by UNICEF with funding from the European Union, the UK Department for International Development (DfID) and USAID are part of the governments Free Health Care initiative and will be given out free of charge to children under five and to pregnant and breast-feeding mothers. Everyone involved wants to make sure the life-saving supplies make it to the 1,200 government-run health facilities across the country. Thanks to USAID support, UNICEFs open source RapidPro system is being used to track the supplies by mobile phone. Ahead of the latest distribution, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation together with UNICEF trained health workers from around the country on how to use the platform, which allows reporting on basic mobile phones. Harry Weller, a prolific technology investor known for shepherding some of the East Coasts most successful technology companies to fruition, died Nov. 19 at his home in Washington. He was 46. A spokeswoman for the D.C. medical examiners office said determination of the cause is pending further tests. As a partner at New Enterprise Associates, a multibillion-dollar technology investment firm with an office in Chevy Chase, Md., Mr. Weller scouted for promising technology companies in emerging hubs outside Silicon Valley and made strong investments in the Washington region, among other places. Mr. Weller was an early investor in daily deals giant Groupon and online telephone provider Vonage as well as niche cybersecurity companies such as Columbia, Md.-based Sourcefire, which was sold to Cisco in 2013 for $2.7 billion. He was an early backer in Northern Virginias Cvent, which grew to hire thousands of employees and trade publicly on Wall Street, despite a rocky start that at one point necessitated mass layoffs. He played a pivotal role in putting D.C. tech on the map, and was active in supporting people and organizations throughout the community, Steve Case, co-founder of the Internet company AOL, said in an email. Harry Richard Weller was born in Manhattan on Dec. 23, 1969, and he grew up in Marietta, Ga. He was a 1992 physics graduate of Duke University, which he attended on an ROTC scholarship, and served in the Navy before receiving a masters degree in business administration from Harvard Business School in 1998. He worked in management consulting before going into venture capital and joining New Enterprise in 2001. His first marriage, to Kristin Rudolph, ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 13 years, Rachel Moore Weller of Washington; two sons from his second marriage, Luke Weller and Cash Weller, both of Washington; his mother, Regina Weller of Atlanta; his father, Harry D. Weller III of Cleveland; and two sisters. Often jeans-clad in business meetings, Mr. Weller excelled at asking seemingly commonplace questions of a new companys technology and extracting a strong sense of its potential. He would get it beyond just understanding what was explained to him, said John Czupak, an early executive at Sourcefire whom Mr. Weller mentored and helped finance. He could form opinions and a vision around not what something is, but what it could be. For the past nine years, Mr. Weller made the Forbes Midas List an annual ranking of technology investors that is typically dominated by Silicon Valley luminaries. According to a 2012 Forbes profile, Mr. Weller had a passion for remixing electronic music and attended the annual Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. I think the hole that hes going to leave is much bigger and deeper than people have thought through yet, said Wayne Jackson a technology executive who led three companies that Mr. Weller helped fund. I worry that he was kind of the beacon of light for the region. William Trevor, a novelist and short-story writer whose forlorn, darkly humorous tales of ordinary lives in small-town Ireland his home country drew comparisons to Chekhov and brought him global literary esteem, died Oct. 20. He was 88. His publisher, Penguin Random House Ireland, announced his death but did not provide additional details. Mr. Trevor had lived in England since the mid-1950s, settling eventually in a secluded mill in the countryside of Devon, but considered himself Irish in every vein. Although his work occasionally touched on Irish politics, Mr. Trevor wrote mainly of pain and suffering experienced in the towns and countrysides of Ireland and England of backward villages, as the critic Stephen Schiff once characterized this Trevor Territory in the New Yorker, with narrow streets full of dogs and bicycles and small boys and nuns, and, here and there, the odd dwarf or sex-crazed town simpleton. Mr. Trevor wrote 15 novels, a handful of plays and scores of stories enough to fill two volumes and 1,800 pages in a 2009 edition of his collected tales. His novels among them the Man Booker Prize finalists Mrs. Eckdorf in ONeills Hotel (1969), The Children of Dynmouth (1976), Reading Turgenev (1991) and The Story of Lucy Gault (2002) often featured multiple protagonists and unreliable narrators, and were set against a backdrop of Irish religious conflict between working-class Catholics and Protestant gentry. Born into a Protestant family that frequently moved, Mr. Trevor said that as a child he often found himself as an outsider in the Irish towns where he grew up. He worked for more than a decade as a sculptor and teacher before turning fully to writing in his mid-30s. He was driven to write, he told the New York Times, because his sculptures had become increasingly abstract. Some part of me missed people. Stories, which Mr. Trevor often described as literary glimpses, were in his hands a way to burrow into the lives of individuals and their relationships with one another, if only for a few pages. More often than not, his subjects were lowlifes: criminals and tricksters and poor lonely-hearts at insane asylums, public schools and churches whose relationships had failed or were failing. He told their stories with a scrupulous aversion to cant and cliche, and with an eye for detail not unlike that of fellow Irishman James Joyce. Mr. Trevors early story collection Angels at the Ritz (1975), the novelist Graham Greene once wrote, was one of the best collections, if not the best since James Joyces Dubliners was published in 1914. In An Evening Out, a story from Mr. Trevors collection A Bit on the Side (2004), a lonely woman employs a group called the Bryanston Square Introduction Bureau to meet someone for conversation. Her date, a photographer, turns out to be uninterested in her life. And why would he, she thinks, recalling one of several disappointments in her life: Why should anyone be interested in her rejection more than twenty years ago of someone she had loved? Why should anyone be interested in knowing that she had done so, it seemed now, for no good reason beyond the shadow of doubt thered been? A stranger would not see the face that she still saw, or hear the voice she heard; or understand why, afterwards, she had wanted no one else; or hear what, afterwards, had seemed to be a truth that doubt played tricks in loves confusion. William Trevor Cox was born in Mitchelstown, a dairy town in southern Ireland, on May 24, 1928. He recalled that his mother and father, a bank official whose job led the family to move frequently, did not get along and eventually separated. Mr. Trevor finished secondary school in Dublin, where he also studied history at Trinity College, graduating with a bachelors degree in 1950. He taught history in Northern Ireland before an economic downturn in the region led him to move to England. It was while working as a copywriter at a London advertising agency that Mr. Trevor began writing again, working on his first novel the comedy A Standard of Behavior (1958) amid downtime at work. He later disowned the book, telling the Paris Review that it was really a fragment which was written for profit when I was very poor. His second novel, written at the encouragement of an editor who had seen some of his stories in the London Magazine and the Transatlantic Review, was The Old Boys (1964), about a group of petty men in a school alumni organization. The work was a critical and commercial success Mr. Trevor subsequently adapted it into a BBC TV special that enabled him to quit his job and leave London for the country, where he said he sought the distance from society that would enable him to do his best work. The great challenge in writing is always to find the universal in the local, the parochial, he told the Times. And to do that, one needs distance. Mr. Trevors later books included the novels Other Peoples Worlds (1980) and Fools of Fortune (1983), later adapted into a film, about an Irish family during that countrys war of independence. His story collections included Lovers of Their Time (1978), Beyond the Pale (1981) and After Rain (1997). Many of his books were dedicated to his wife, the former Jane Ryan, whom he married in 1952. Besides his wife, survivors include two sons. Mr. Trevor, an Irish citizen, earned an honorary title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1977 and received an honorary knighthood in 2002. He insisted for many years that short stories, despite their brevity, were as significant as novels perhaps more so. If the novel is like an intricate Renaissance painting, he told the Paris Review, the short story is an impressionist painting. It should be an explosion of truth. Its strength lies in what it leaves out just as much as what it puts in, if not more. It is concerned with the total exclusion of meaninglessness. Life, on the other hand, is meaningless most of the time. The novel imitates life, where the short story is bony, and cannot wander. It is essential art. A storms a-brewing, a big one. You can feel it in the supercharged air of the Eisenhower Theater, hear it in the ominous hum that suffuses the stage, see it in the guarded, anxious grimaces of the actors. What form the ultimate deluge takes in director Ivo van Hoves radically reimagined version of Arthur Millers A View From the Bridge at the Kennedy Center will remain in these pages a secret. But let me tell you, when the clouds of obsession and betrayal finally break, the disturbance is a humdinger. All is orchestrated here, in the barren environment of Jan Versweyvelds monolithic sandbox of a set, for maximum dramatic impact and the catharsis does indeed have the kind of wallop you get from Greek tragedy. That was an effect Miller himself was after in this 1955 play set in the world of Brooklyn longshoremen. Van Hove, who won a Tony Award in June for the Broadway incarnation of this utterly enthralling production, aids the playwrights cause ingeniously by stripping the piece of its naturalistic trappings. The barefoot actors, confined to their unfurnished pen, are like zoo animals corralled in a pit. Theyre trapped there with the most dangerous among them, Eddie Carbone, played superbly here by Frederick Weller as a man whose pitiable obtuseness with regard to his own passions makes him a lethal threat, most of all to himself. A View From the Bridge lives in the shadow of Millers towering Death of a Salesman and conscience-pricking The Crucible, but, as van Hove reveals, its every bit as great. As an elucidation of the mysteries of human behavior, in fact, it may be his most riveting. Van Hoves approach, with its suggestion of the audience as scientific examiners, peering down at troubled specimens, and with some of us even sitting up on the stage, certainly encourages the idea. In its timeless thematic richness the illegal immigration status of two characters is pivotal to the proceedings the play also exudes an enduring topicality. Other themes were close to Millers heart and intellect in the 1950s; namely, the crisis in national morality brought on by McCarthyism, its insidious gift for stirring paranoia and turning friend against friend, family member against family member. Set in a working-class Italian neighborhood where blood loyalty is a veritable religion, A View From the Bridge bottles this atmosphere of intense suspicion in its portrayal of the emotional fire raging in the Carbone household. Its ignited after two red-blooded male relatives from Italy (the virile Alex Esola and Dave Register) of Eddies wife, Beatrice (a sublime Andrus Nichols), arrive illegally to work on the docks and are given shelter in the Carbones home. The rub is that Eddie is in love with his orphaned teenage niece, Catherine (Catherine Combs), whos been raised in the house, and the primitive (but by no means dull) Eddie refuses to acknowledge what even is clear about this to long-suffering Beatrice. As in the Broadway version that started at Londons Young Vic Theatre, van Hove in this touring production ensures we see the unhealthy potential in the bond between niece and uncle: Its detectable in the way 17-year-old Catherine leaps, childlike, into Eddies arms every time she comes into a room, and the disconcerting manner in which Eddie is so quick to caress her hair or cheek. That neither of them grasps this truth is a linchpin for the productions most shocking moment, one in which Eddie attempts to destroy Catherines budding relationship with Registers Rodolpho via a stunning physical act. Hell try other means to destroy it, with more tragic consequences. Its handled dynamically by this cast, which proves to be every bit as good as the one that led this View to a second Tony, for best revival of a play. The wiry Weller is a more compact Eddie than we normally see; a hulking Mark Strong played him on Broadway as a far more physically imposing man. Wellers Eddie doesnt have the kind of frame that would intimidate Rodolpho and Esolas potent Marco. Weller instead looks to dominate with his eyes. If Strong was ursine, Weller is vulpine, and the physicality proves almost as effective. Nichols invests Beatrice with a sense of acute antennae and also, a weary steadiness: She wont let Eddie off the hook, but shes too tied to him to unhook herself, either. The rest of the cast plays at this level, especially Thomas Jay Ryan, as the levelheaded lawyer, Alfieri, to whom a desperate Eddie turns and who narrates parts of the story for us; Ryan communicates the attorneys anguish with a stoicism that conveys urgency. And Combs, embodying a character with both a girls and a womans needs, does a first-rate job keeping us guessing as to whether Catherine is aware of the feelings she provokes in Eddie. Is it guilt? Is it love? In the dark recesses of ambiguity, this View gets captivatingly, devastatingly blurry. A View From the Bridge by Arthur Miller. Directed by Ivo van Hove. Set and lighting, Jan Versweyveld; costumes, An DHuys; sound, Tom Gibbons; with Howard W. Overshown, Danny Binstock. About 2 hours. Tickets, $45-$149. Through Dec. 3 at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Visit kennedy-center.org or call 202-467-4600. President-elect Donald Trump held what senior adviser Kellyanne Conway called a reset meeting for members of the media at Trump Tower on Monday. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) President-elect Donald Trump held what senior adviser Kellyanne Conway called a reset meeting for members of the media at Trump Tower on Monday. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) President-elect Donald Trump met Monday with television news executives and some well-known TV journalists and repeatedly told them that the campaign reporting about him was unfair and dishonest. Participants in the meeting at Trump Tower in New York described it as a contentious but generally respectful gathering. But if the media elite attended in hopes of improving relations with the forthcoming Trump administration, that wasnt quite in the cards. The president-elect specifically called out reporting by CNN and NBC that he deemed unfair, according to four people who attended the meeting, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was off the record. (The ground rules prevented the networks from reporting the very story they were part of.) On Tuesday, Trump reopened another front in his media criticism with a series of tweets that said he called off a planned meeting with the New York Times, claiming that the newspaper changed the ground rules. The newspaper said no such last-minute shift was made. I cancelled todays meeting with the failing nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice, Trump tweeted. President-elect Donald Trump has had an up-and-down relationship with the media for a long time, but spent much of the campaign calling the press "crooked" and "rigged." The Fix's Peter Stevenson explains what his relationship with the press might look like going forward. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) But a statement from Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the New York Times, said the newspaper did not change the rules for the meeting. Murphy said the session had been planned in two parts: a small off-the-record portion and then a larger on-the-record section with reporters and columnists. We were unaware that the meeting was canceled until we saw the president-elects tweet this morning, Murphy said. We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to. They tried to yesterday asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to. Trump later tweeted that perhaps another meeting could be scheduled with the New York Times, but he once again pitted himself against the newspaper. In the meantime, they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone! Trump wrote. The Trump team has not made attempts for a similar meeting with The Washington Post, which has been placed temporarily on a Trump campaign blacklist in apparent punishment for aggressive coverage of the race. The group Monday included some of the top news media figures targeted by Trump during the campaign, including Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd; ABC News anchors George Stephanopoulos and David Muir; CNNs Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett; ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz; NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt; and a CBS News contingent that included Norah ODonnell, Charlie Rose, John Dickerson and Gayle King. Among the network news executives present were CNN Worldwide Chairman Jeff Zucker, NBC News President Deborah Turness, MSNBC President Phil Griffin, ABC News President James Goldston, and the four top executives from Fox News, Bill Shine, Jack Abernethy, Jay Wallace and Suzanne Scott. CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer leaves Trump Tower in Manhattan after meeting between TV news executives and journalists and President-elect Donald Trump on Nov. 21. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) Trump was joined by his newly appointed chief White House strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a top adviser. Instead of striking a harmonious tone to build a rapport after the election, Trump was combative, participants said. In a calm and deliberate voice, he told the group sitting around a conference table that they had failed to provide their viewers with fair and accurate coverage, and he told them that they failed to understand him or his appeal to millions of Americans. Trump showed no love for the media during the long campaign, calling reporters the lowest form of humanity. And on Monday he repeatedly used the words unfair and dishonest to describe the coverage, participants said. But he made no mention of the enormous amount of airtime that the networks, especially on cable, devoted to his campaign. A number of analyses have noted that Trumps presidential effort was boosted by the news medias fascination with him. Trump directed particular ire at CNN and several reporters at other cable networks whom he sees as unreasonably antagonistic toward him, though he did not mention them by name. He also referenced both NBC News reporter Katy Tur and ABCs Raddatz without using their names. The thrust of his critique of Raddatz involved her alleged emotional reaction on election night while she discussed the implications of a Trump presidency on the U.S. military (ABC has strongly disputed reports that Raddatz choked up on air, calling such stories ridiculous and untrue). One participant asked Trump for his definition of fair, noting that part of the news medias job is to critically examine a candidates words and background. Trump replied that his definition was truth. The participants variously described Trump as combative, proud, and dismissive toward the news organizations present. Trump shrugged off the need for a constant pool covering him, the people said, though he did not delve into specifics. He has repeatedly shirked his pool, upending a long-standing tradition of the president and president-elect. Robert Costa and Brian Murphy contributed to this report. Adapted from an online discussion Hello, Carolyn: I am a 31-year-old American woman in a long-distance relationship with a 40-year-old Canadian man, a friendship that blossomed into more. We agree on wanting children in the next few years as well as closing the gap next year with me moving to Canada. However, we disagree on marriage. He was married once, years ago to a different long-distance girlfriend, only to have the relationship dissolve barely a year later. I very much desire to get married. However, he thinks marriage is just a piece of paper and commitment is more important. He wants to live together first to make sure we can tolerate each other, which I can understand. He would be willing to marry me eventually to make me happy, but I want someone who chooses to marry me because he loves me, not just because I want it. Ive made this very clear to him. Would it be foolish to give up my awesome life in America in hopes that he would eventually marry me? (Nick Galifianakis/The Washington Post) Long-Distance Long-Distance: Heres my resoundingly useless answer: I dont know. It could be that you and he have the exact same ideas and ideals about commitment, and differ only on vows. Why is this possible here? Because he has had vows where the commitment wasnt solid, and he sees now that vows themselves are flimsy, and its the stability of the commitment that matters. If thats the case, then it could be reasonable to move first, and decide on marriage later. It could also be that hes living an unhealthy pattern and youre just the latest enabler. Long-distance relationship, hopeful woman who relocates for him, sudden onset of doubts sounds familiar, no? If thats the case, then saying no thanks to an international relocation is the reasonable choice. It could also be neither of the above, and you two just dont know each other well enough yet and distance stands in the way. Which would make patience reasonable. If you dont know which is true, either, then you have more thinking to do WITHOUT relocating to do so. Figure out whether you can trust him and can trust your own judgment. Thats your priority now. If you cant, or if no amount of time seems to be enough to say whether you do, then you have your answer. Re: Canada man: I relocated to marry the Man of My Dreams. Once the moving van doors were closed, he turned into a completely different guy. I struggled at a much lower income than before, and five years later he still hadnt married me. So, before you turn your world upside down, think very, very carefully and have a bailout plan in place. Anonymous Re: Distance: Marriage is not just a piece of paper, particularly in this case. Most societies confer real, tangible benefits on married couples that arent conferred on single individuals. Which is not to say she should use this as a tool to get boyfriend to agree to an ill-advised marriage, just that boyfriends logic isnt very sound. Anonymous 2 Anonymous 2: Right as another reader pointed out, if he really believed it was just a piece of paper, then hed have no problem with agreeing to marry her. Thanks. President-elect Donald Trump held what senior adviser Kellyanne Conway called a reset meeting for members of the media at Trump Tower on Monday. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) President-elect Donald Trump held what senior adviser Kellyanne Conway called a reset meeting for members of the media at Trump Tower on Monday. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) On Monday, some of the biggest names in TV news trooped into Trump Tower for an off-the-record meeting with the president-elect. It was an all-star cast. Not just on-air stars like Lester Holt, Wolf Blitzer and George Stephanopoulos, but their bosses were also summoned before the Potentate of Fifth Avenue. The meeting was a huge success for Donald Trump. Soon after it broke up, a leak to the New York Post brought on a story about how thoroughly the president-elect had taken the attendees to task. With attribution to anonymous tipsters, the Post wrote: The meeting was a total disaster. The TV execs and anchors went in there thinking they would be discussing the access they would get to the Trump administration, but instead they got a Trump-style dressing-down. . . . Trump kept saying, Were in a room of liars, the deceitful, dishonest media who got it all wrong. In light of President-elect Trump's meetings with media executives on Nov. 21 and the New York Times on Nov. 22, Washington Post media columnists Erik Wemple and Margaret Sullivan talk about the merit of off-the-record meetings and the role of the media in Trump's administration with Facebook Live host Libby Casey. (The Washington Post) Call it Woodshed Theater, with all the applause lines for the president-elect. Brandon Friedman, a Virginia-based public relations executive, offered his theory on Twitter: They walked into an ambush, agreed not to talk about it, then Trump went straight to the Post with his version. Then it was just a hop, skip and jump to a big headline on the Drudge Report, with its huge worldwide traffic: Trump Slams Media Elite, Face to Face. As Business Insider politics editor Oliver Darcy aptly put it, that is how a lot of America will see this. The result for the president-elect: He once again was able to use the media as his favorite foil. Having a whipping boy is more important than ever now that the election is over and there is no Democratic opponent to malign at every turn. Yes, theres no proof that the Trump camp tipped the New York Post, but dont forget, this is someone who used to pose as his own spokesman to spread word of his romantic conquests. And the newspeople were largely unable to provide their own version of events because they had agreed to its being off the record. Thats supposed to mean that nobody talks about it a rule that was immediately broken (which also doesnt speak particularly well for them). Through anonymous leaks, participants agreed with some aspects of the total disaster and disagreed with others, but Trump benefited in the end. He got a lot of attention, he got to continue bashing the establishment elite, and he evidently put the TV people on notice that if they want access to him as president, theyll need to bow and scrape. Notably, Trump hasnt held a news conference since July. On Tuesday, shockingly, a new melodrama arose: Trumps planned meeting at the New York Times was canceled, then restored. 1 of 74 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Heres what President-elect Donald Trump has been doing after the election View Photos Trump has been holding interviews and meetings as he prepares to transition into the White House. Caption He has been holding interviews and meetings as he prepares to enter the White House. Jan. 19, 2017 President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, visit the Lincoln Memorial before the Make America Great Again concert. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. The Times played it right. Despite a tweet attack from the president-elect, editors refused to go the off-the-record route with Trump, which was his preference, for obvious reasons because he wanted again to control the story. With the exception of a brief off-the-record conversation between Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger and the president-elect, the meeting was fair game for news stories as it should be. Off-the-record was a mistake for the TV people, and it would have been a mistake for the Times. The paper successfully called Trumps bluff. As much as he professes to despise the Times, he remains in some ways the Queens boy who lusted after Manhattan success and acceptance. In many ways, Trump can bypass the traditional press using YouTube or Twitter to take his message to the world without pesky journalistic fact-checking or filtering. He has masterfully manipulated the media for the past 18 months bullying reporters, garnering billions in free publicity and portraying journalists as part of the corporate structure that must be brought down so that the people can triumph. Thats a deeply misleading and dangerous picture. In fact, U.S. citizens need an independent press more than ever. Journalists, and their corporate bosses, shouldnt allow themselves to be used as props in Trumps never-ending theater. For more by Margaret Sullivan visit wapo.st/sullivan Melanie Trump, right, with her son Barron, who will stay in Manhattan rather than move to the White House, at least until he finishes the school year. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Its one of the most enduring rituals of the presidential transition: On Inauguration Day, one first family returns to its home town, while the next moves into the White House. But come January, this tradition will be dramatically upended, as Donald Trumps wife, Melania, plans to continue living in Manhattan with their young son Barron, at least until he completes the school year. It could create a striking disconnect in Washington, where, in another break with tradition, the Obamas are setting up their new home only a few miles away, similarly delaying an out-of-town move to allow their daughter Sasha to finish high school here. Michelle Obama has signaled a desire to stay engaged in advocacy work, and her presence in the capital could overshadow Mrs. Trump, who for at least the first six months of her husbands presidency will be something of a first lady in absentia. Yet theres no reason to think the White House will operate much differently without a resident first lady. The East Wings bureaucracy will keep churning along. State dinners will still be scheduled. Tour groups will be accommodated, and the White House residence will be cared for by a team of butlers, housekeepers and florists. The White House adjusts to its occupants, and the occupants adjust to the White House, said Anita McBride, an adviser in the George W. Bush administration who served as chief of staff to Laura Bush. Its different, but, like everything in this election, the playbook is being rewritten every single day. The role of first lady is really defined by each occupant. [Melania Trump and Michelle Obama carry on an awkward tradition, too] Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's wife, Melania, gave a speech in Berwyn, Pa., Nov. 3, in which she said as first lady, she would fight online bullying and press for the advancement of U.S. women. (The Washington Post) There may be fewer initiatives from the first ladys office in the first few months of the administration, but McBride predicts the Trump team will nonetheless hire a staff for his wife and roll out programs eventually. For the ceremonial functions, she said, what Im hearing is that when and if needed, Mrs. Trump can get here to be able to participate in events, but he also has other members of his family who can support her in those duties. Its been decades since daughters, sisters or nieces have stepped into the role of first lady, but that has happened. Jacqueline Kennedy, the glamorous first lady who cherished her private life, traveled extensively during her time in the White House, and President Kennedys relatives filled in when she was away. Bess Truman likewise spent most of her summers in Missouri with her daughter, Margaret. Mrs. Truman felt that Margaret was exposed to a lot of East Coast power and a lot of celebrity, and she felt that her daughter should have a good Midwestern upbringing and get her head on straight, said Myra Gutin, a scholar at Rider University who studies first ladies. Other first families have come to the White House with young children, and most of them President Obama, as well as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton enrolled them in local schools midway through the year. Yet an opposite trend has also taken hold in Washington, as more and more members of Congress have left their families back in their home districts. For many, its been a way to maintain closer ties with voters and signal their independence from Beltway culture. Yet some critics believe the practice has heightened partisanship because lawmakers now bolt from Washington every weekend and spend very little time interacting with one another on a casual basis. [Meet Melania Trump, a new model for first lady] Many first ladies have fantasized about escaping the national spotlight, said Gil Troy, a historian at McGill University and author of The Age of Clinton. Its the unspoken expectation that the presidency is a family, and certainly a couples responsibility, he said. Without his wife and youngest son in the White House, Trump might end up missing all those little touches and all those sources of happy news that actually can boost a president. The presidency is one of the loneliest jobs in the world, he added. Having your spouse around can be very normalizing. . . . The first lady can give a little bit of wind to the political sails of a president, so they should be conscious not to lose that opportunity. The job of first lady comes without a salary; its duties are not written into the Constitution. Yet the structural apparatus of the White House has grown to support the unofficial position. The presidents spouse traditionally hires a social secretary and four or five staff members to oversee the planning of hundreds of events that take place each year in the White House. There is also a correspondence office and floral shop that, along with the chefs and team of staffers who maintain the familys private residence, typically work more closely with the first ladys staff than the presidents. Whenever Bush traveled, her staff was capable of working with her from afar to arrange big events, said Bob Scanlan, who was a florist in the White House for 13 years and worked for the Clintons, the Bushes and the Obamas. There were incidences where there were dinners coming up and we would take photographs and the social secretary would email them to the first lady if she wasnt in the house to see the mock-ups, Scanlan said. With technology, its a lot different. [What does Michelle Obama need? Ask Kristen Jarvis, her former chief of stuff.] One of the first formal events at the White House is scheduled for shortly after the inauguration the Governors Ball, officially hosted by the president and first lady but the permanent staff is well accustomed to helping a new first family learn the ropes. There is a certain continuity, said longtime White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier. We had administrations where a first lady was not too involved with the run of the place because she was interested in other things notably, Rosalynn Carter and Hillary Clinton, he said. It worked fine. Frankly, the social secretary knew very well how to run the place. Melania Trump made clear throughout her husbands campaign that her 10-year-old sons adjustment is her first priority. He will finish out the year at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in Manhattan, his father has said. Eight years ago, Michelle Obama seriously contemplated staying in Chicago with her young daughters because she did not want to interrupt their school year, said McBride, who helped Obamas staff transition into the East Wing and now directs programming and national conferences for American Universitys Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. Mrs. Obama ultimately decided to make the move to coincide with the start of her husbands term. Some of the president-elects critics saw a dismaying symbol in the familys decision to remain in their New York penthouse. This gesture disdains DC as capital & hence further delegitimizes govt., tweeted the author Daniel Mendelsohn. But Kate Andersen Brower, the author of two books about White House life, saw the decision as less political than practical. It strikes me that Melania is a creature of habit, and the upheaval of moving to Washington was too much at this time, but the enormous privilege of living in the White House would be hard to overlook for too long, she said. The protocol is you just do it. You just make it work. Helena Andrews-Dyer contributed to this report. Alexandria This case was reported recently by the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria, which provides animal control services to the city. For information or to report emergencies involving animals 24 hours a day, call 703-746-4774 or go to alexandriaanimals.org . Dangerous run: Interstate 495 and Eisenhower Connector, Nov. 13. An officer and several other people captured a loose dog before it ran into traffic. The dog was taken to the shelter, where it was reunited with its owner. Arlington These cases were reported recently by the Animal Welfare League of Arlington, which operates the county animal shelter and provides animal control services to the county. For information or to report emergencies involving animals 24 hours a day, call 703-931-9241 or go to awla.org. Confined and freed: N. Fourth St., 3000 block, 8 a.m. Nov. 10. An officer captured a sharp-shinned hawk that was trapped inside a screened porch and released it outdoors. Mistaken identity: N. Military Rd., 3000 block, 5:20 p.m. Nov. 10. Responding to a call about an injured owl on the side of the road, an officer found a large mushroom. Bad fall: N. 21st St., 1000 block, 8 p.m. Nov. 8. An officer picked up an injured squirrel that had fallen from a tree. The squirrel was taken to the shelter and was later transferred to a wildlife rehabilitator. Compiled by Ria Manglapus AARP Foundation Tax-Aide offers volunteer opportunities. Training is in December and January to help taxpayers from Feb. 1 to April 18. For information, go to aarp.org; to apply, visit secure.aarp.org. American Cancer Societys Road to Recovery program seeks volunteer drivers to provide transportation to cancer patients. Schedules are flexible. 804-527-3719, leah.seldinsommer@cancer.org or cancer.org. Arlington County Invasive Plant program needs volunteers to remove invasive plants. 9-11 a.m. first Saturdays, Haley Park; 2-4 p.m. second Saturdays, Gulf Branch Nature Center; 10 a.m.-noon third Saturdays, Tuckahoe Park; 2-4 p.m. third Saturdays-Sundays, Madison Manor Park; 2-4:30 p.m. third Sundays, Long Branch Nature Center; 10 a.m.-noon fourth Saturdays, Benjamin Banneker Park; 10 a.m.-noon fourth Sundays, Fort Bennett Park. Information: environment.arlingtonva.us. To register, call 703-228-1862. Arlington County Police Department will be collecting new unwrapped toys for the Fill the Cruiser Holiday Toy Drive from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday at: Lee Harrison Shopping Center, 2425 N. Harrison St.; Pentagon Row, 1201 S. Joyce St.; and Shirlington Village, 2700 S. Quincy St.; and 6-8 p.m. Dec. 7 at Our Lady of Lourdes, 830 S. 23rd St. Donations can be dropped off through Dec. 16 at Police Headquarters, 1425 N. Courthouse Rd., Arlington. 703-228-5050. acpdmedia@arlingtonva.us. Arlington Neighborhood Village has volunteer opportunities to help the elderly. arlnvil.org. First Night Alexandria seeks volunteers to work as individuals, pairs or small groups on Dec. 31. For more information, go to firstnightalexandria.org. Jane Franklin Dance seeks individuals to serve on the Board of Directors. To apply, go to janefranklin.com. A grant research and proposal writer is also needed. Email janefranklindance@gmail.com. 703-933-1111. OARs Project Christmas Angel will be held Dec. 14. Donations of toys and gift cards may be dropped off from 8:30 a.m.- noon; 1-5 p.m. weekdays, at 1400 N. Uhle St., Suite 704, Arlington. Volunteers are needed at the wrapping party on Dec. 14, and drivers are needed to deliver gifts between Dec. 15-21. oaronline.org. PRS CrisisLink seeks crisis worker volunteers. Must be at least 21. Training provided. lpadgett@prsinc.org or prsinc.org. Rosslyns Holiday Clothing Drive Donate gently used winter coats, sweaters, sweatshirts, hats, gloves and jeans for clients of A-SPAN through Dec. 12. For drop off locations, go to rosslynva.org. Shepherds Center of McLean-Arlington-Falls Church needs drivers to provide seniors with rides to and from medical and therapy appointments, the pharmacy, and the grocery store. 703-506-2199 or info@scmafc.org. scmafc.org. Travelers Aid needs volunteers to help travelers at Reagan National Airport. Must be able to work evenings and weekends, and commit to six months. Parking provided. 703-417-3975, travelersaiddca@mwaa.com or travelersaiddca.com. Virginia Hospital Center Auxiliary in Arlington County offers opportunities to help on information desks, the surgical center and in gift shops. 703-558-6401. Wildlife Rescue League needs hotline volunteers, transporters and wildlife rehabilitators. Training provided. 703-391-8625 or volcoord@wildliferescueleague.org. Volunteer Alexandria: Call the numbers below or contact Volunteer Alexandria at 703-836-2176, mail@volunteeralexandria.org or volunteeralexandria.org for information on the following opportunities: Alexandria Sexual Assault Center needs volunteers to answer the 24-hour hotline. handsonconnect.volunteeralexandria.org. Alexandria volunteer opportunities around the holidays. For more information, go to volunteeralexandria.org. Alexandrians Involved Ecumenically needs a van driver. handsonconnect.volunteeralexandria.org. City of Alexandria Department of Recreation, Parks & Cultural Activities needs an OSTP/front desk volunteer. handsonconnect.volunteeralexandria.org. Volunteer Arlington: Call the numbers listed below or contact Volunteer Arlington at 703-528-2522 or volunteer.leadercenter.org for information about the following: Arlington County Department of Human Services Aging and Disability Services Division needs volunteers who serve as court-appointed guardians and conservators. Training and support are available. 703-228-1700. Arlington library system needs a volunteer for miscellaneous jobs at its central library: a talking books volunteer, teen volunteers for the Scratch Program and a Mandarin Chinese conversation group leader. volunteer.truist.com. An English conversation group co-leader at Westover Library and a film program assistant at Columbia Pike Library are also needed. 703-228-5990. Bikes For the World needs an office volunteer. 703-740-7856. Compiled by Ria Manglapus TO SUBMIT AN ITEM Email: axliving@washpost.com Fax: 703-518-3001 Mail: Volunteer Opportunities, The Washington Post, Alexandria-Arlington Local Living, 526 King St., Suite 515, Alexandria, Va. 22314. Details: Announcements are accepted on a space-available basis from public and nonprofit organizations only and must be received at least 14 days before the Thursday publication date. Include event name, dates, times, exact address, prices and a publishable contact phone number. Oakland Superintendent Antwan Wilson, right, discusses barriers that local students face and solutions to them as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf listen in May 2016. (Leah Millis/AP) UPDATE: Bowser names pick for next D.C. schools chancellor Oakland schools chief Antwan Wilson D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser is expected to name Antwan Wilson the superintendent of schools in Oakland, Calif. as her nominee to lead the Districts school system on Tuesday, according to city officials, betting that an outsider with fresh eyes will bring new ideas for addressing wide achievement gaps between the citys needy and affluent children. Bowsers pick for schools chancellor is one of her most politically consequential decisions and signals a willingness to take a chance: The citys school system has gained a reputation as one of the nations fastest improving over the past nine years, a period of sweeping and often controversial change ushered in first by chancellor Michelle Rhee and then continued by Rhees friend and onetime deputy, Kaya Henderson. But Henderson stepped down earlier this year, and Bowser has decided against the continuity of an internal candidate, choosing instead to go with Wilson, who has built a reputation as an up-and-comer within the same education reform circles that are home to Rhee and Henderson. The news of Wilsons hire was first reported Monday night by NBC4. The D.C. Council must confirm his nomination to make it official. An African American man, Wilson arrives at a time when Bowser and the school system are particularly focused on improving outcomes for young black men, whose test scores and graduation rates lag city averages. Wilson, 44, has said he knows that schools can change the trajectory for poor children because he was one himself. He grew up with a single mother and a lot of instability, living in 15 homes and going to 10 schools between kindergarten and high school graduation. He made it, he has said, with excellent teachers helping him navigate the path to and through college. Schools can save lives, he said earlier this year in his state of the schools address for Oakland Unified School District. They saved mine. Wilson began his career as a teacher in North Carolina and Kansas before landing in Denver for nearly a decade, first as principal and then as an assistant superintendent. He was credited with helping to turn around struggling schools, increase enrollment in Advanced Placement courses and boost high school graduation rates. Wilson underwent leadership training at the Broad Academy, an initiative to train urban school superintendents funded by billionaire philanthropist and charter school supporter Eli Broad. The Oakland school board hired Wilson in 2014 as the financially troubled district was emerging from a long period of state receivership. During his two and a half years there, graduation rates have risen and suspension rates have fallen. But Wilson ran into a buzz saw of opposition as he pushed to create a more cooperative environment for Oaklands traditional schools and its charter schools, which enroll about 25 percent of the citys 48,000 public school students. His proposal for a common enrollment system which he argued would simplify a chaotic enrollment process that was too onerous for families became a flash point. Another point of contention was Wilsons push to bring special education students into mainstream classrooms. Critics, including many in the teachers union, accused him of trying to aid charter schools at the expense of the citys traditional public schools. Protests erupted at school board meetings, where teachers and activists many of them white, according to the Bay Area News Group accused Wilson of being the face of new Jim Crow. Im not going to stand by while someone who doesnt look like me accuses me of carrying out some form of Jim Crow, Wilson told the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this year. I teach my own kids that no one can take your dignity and only you can control your temper. I tell them that I know who I am. I know my history. He has said that he isnt in the business of battling charter schools, but in doing what he can to help ensure that children have good schools to attend: The best schools, district and charter, have a lot to teach all of us about what great classes and schools can look like, he said in his state of the schools address. The District already has a common enrollment system for its traditional and charter schools. Charter schools have a much larger market share here close to half of public school students and have become an accepted fact of life for city officials. Bowsers administration has made a priority of improving collaborating between the two sectors. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and Antwan Wilson, the nominee for D.C. Public Schools chancellor, are seen during an interview on Nov. 21 in Washington. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser could have chosen an insider to be the next chief of D.C. Public Schools, someone steeped in the personalities and policies of the past nine years that ushered in sweeping changes and turned the nations capital into a closely watched experiment in urban education reform. Instead, she chose to nominate an outsider Antwan Wilson, the superintendent of schools in Oakland, Calif. signaling her desire for a new approach to some of the citys most intransigent problems, including the persistent achievement gap between children living in the citys poorest neighborhoods and those in the most affluent. In selecting Wilson, Bowser (D) is not seeking a dramatic change in direction. Wilson comes from the same education reform circles as the two previous chancellors, Kaya Henderson and Michelle Rhee. Wilson said that he has admired and at times emulated their approach, and that in coming to the District he wants to build on the work that has been done not blow it up and start over. [ D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson to step down ] The Districts 48,000-student school system has in recent years shed its long-standing reputation for dysfunction, becoming one of the fastest-improving districts in the nation, according to math and reading test results. This is an opportunity to double down on all the things that have been proven to work here, Wilson said during a news conference on Tuesday at Eastern High School, where he was formally introduced to the community. The fact is that there has been an excellent team here led by tremendous educators. Bowser called Wilson a proven manager and education leader who can step in as chancellor without missing a beat. She said he meets the expectations that parents and community members have expressed: They wanted someone who was bold and strategic and open and transparent, and always out into the community and focused on closing the achievement gap, Bowser said in an interview with The Washington Post. We think Antwan really embodies all of those things. The mayors pick for schools chancellor is one of her most politically consequential decisions, and it shows a willingness to take a chance: No elected official or business leader wants to endanger the school systems recent successes, which have proved to be an increasing draw for the citys middle-class families. D.C. Council Member David Grosso (I-At Large), chairman of the education committee, said that he pressed the mayor to find a candidate who could attack the citys wide achievement gaps with new intensity, but without causing disruption that could set the system back. You need to both keep the trains running on time and have a certain amount of shake-up, Grosso said. I dont think there is a big pool of people out there who can do that. But I think this guy has demonstrated a real passion to do that, and has shown he can do that. Wilson, 44, is a career educator who taught in North Carolina and Kansas before spending most of a decade in Denver, where he specialized in turning around struggling schools. [ Read Wilsons resume ] He received leadership training at the Broad Academy, an initiative to support urban school superintendents funded by billionaire philanthropist and charter school backer Eli Broad. Wilson also is a member of Chiefs for Change, a group of school leaders that generally embraces charter schools and test-based accountability for schools and teachers. He has said he knows that needy children can beat the odds, pointing to himself as an example. He grew up with a single mother, attending 10 schools and living in 15 homes during his academic career. And yet, after all that, I am here, he said, crediting teachers with changing his life. I know that it is possible for young people to be successful. U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. said he was encouraged by Wilsons nomination. Antwan has a reputation for using a comprehensive equity agenda to help increase student achievement and elevate social emotional learning, a focus I am hopeful he will bring to DCPS as the district works to close achievement gaps, King said in a statement. Wilson was hired in Oakland in 2014 as the district was wrestling with debt after it fell into state receivership from 2003 to 2009. During his 2 years there, graduation rates rose, suspension rates fell and the districts fiscal outlook improved. Antwan was able to take something and make it really meaningful in terms of outcomes for young people, said Jumoke Hinton Hodge, a member of the Oakland school board. Hes a bold leader, not afraid to lead at all. But Wilsons overhaul of special education services, which he framed as an effort to bring children with disabilities into mainstream classrooms, drew resistance from parents. His friendly stance toward charter schools stoked fierce objections from parents and teachers who accused him of trying to privatize public schools. Kim Davis of Parents United for Public Schools, who is an activist and frequent critic of Wilson, pointed to an enrollment decline in the systems traditional schools as evidence that his leadership was lacking. It seems to me that one of the basic responsibilities of a superintendent is to support a district in a way that it can grow, and that has not happened since Superintendent Wilson has been here, she said. [Read Wilsons 2016 Oakland Unified state of the schools address] Oakland and the District are both grappling with the effects of rapid gentrification, and their school systems face similar challenges, including low math and reading performance and graduation rates considerably below the national average. About three-quarters of students in both districts qualify for free- or reduced-price lunch. But charter schools have a much larger market share in Washington close to half of public school students and have become an accepted fact of life for city officials. Bowsers administration has made a priority of improving collaboration between the two sectors. Wilson said he welcomes the emphasis on working with charters rather than going to battle. Regardless of whether a student is in a charter school or a district-run school, we need to make sure that the student is getting a great education, he told The Post. The D.C. Council plans to hold three hearings on Wilsons nomination on Nov. 30, Dec. 5 and Dec. 8 before voting on his confirmation. He is expected to start on Feb. 1, with an annual salary of $280,000, a $14,000 signing bonus and the potential for a performance bonus of 10 percent or $28,000 the following school year. Wilson, who is African American, arrives at a time when Bowser is focused on improving outcomes for young black men, whose test scores and graduation rates lag city averages. Wilson said he wants to bring a new emphasis on social-emotional learning, summer programs and in-school tutoring to help lift achievement. [First-time principal will lead D.C.s first all-male public high school] He also will face the task of negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the Washington Teachers Union; the unions previous contract expired in 2012 and has yet to be replaced. Wilson has experience in this realm, as he reached the districts first multiyear agreement with the Oakland union in nearly a decade, giving teachers a 14 percent raise over 18 months in 2015. He might start at a disadvantage with the Washington Teachers Union, whose president, Elizabeth Davis, accused Bowser of violating a city law that requires her to solicit input on the hiring of a chancellor from a panel of community members. Davis, who serves on that panel, said she didnt know Wilson was under consideration and had not seen his resume until she and other panelists were informed of his selection on Tuesday. Bowser spokesman Kevin Harris disputed Daviss allegation. We received and solicited the committees full input in compliance with the law and used it to inform this critical selection for our childrens future, he said. Grosso, the D.C. Councils education committee chairman, credited Bowser with running a hiring process that was more open to community input than the hiring of either Henderson or Rhee. But he said Wilson will improve upon his predecessors efforts to sincerely engage community members in decisions affecting the schools. Critics in Oakland, including teachers and parents, have accused Wilson of acting quickly and unilaterally in an effort to push through big changes. Decisions are made and there are engagements afterward to sell the decisions to the public, said Kim Davis, the parent activist, who added that Wilson had set in motion disruptive changes that he now wont see through. Wilson said he has tried to forge a connection with his community, making himself available to teachers and parents weekly. He said he plans to continue that openness in the District, where mayoral control means there are no school board meetings to give the public regular access to school system leaders. Wilson is married with three children, who he said would attend public schools in the District. He said that when deciding whether to take the job he talked with his 14-year-old daughter because she had moved to Oakland for his job there and he wanted to make sure that it was something she could support. Her response, Wilson said: Dad, absolutely, you should go for it. A woman carries a sign in solidarity with a Stanford University rape victim during graduation at Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif., in June. Stanford students were protesting the universitys handling of rape cases, alleging that campus officials do not disclose the names of students found to be responsible for sexual assault and misconduct. (Gabrielle Lurie/AFP/Getty Images) President Obama has wielded civil rights enforcement powers aggressively in the education arena for the past eight years, pushing colleges to toughen policies on sexual assault and schools to eliminate racial bias in student discipline. His administration also declared that transgender students must be allowed to use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity a question now before the Supreme Court. President-elect Donald Trump could reverse much of that, if he chooses, after he takes office in January. With the stroke of a pen, Trump or his senior officials could revise or rescind Obama administration statements on transgender rights and sexual assault. The Trump administration and a Republican Congress also could starve civil rights enforcement funding, slowing hundreds of open investigations and narrowing their scope. Republican lawmakers have repeatedly criticized the U.S. Education Departments Office for Civil Rights, accusing it of overstepping its legal authority. They say they want OCR to give more deference to colleges and local schools. With political control in Washington, they might be able to rein it in. Whoever is selected to lead OCR must restore its daily operations to their original construct and stop the unchecked regulatory overreach, said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). The office should be a valuable asset to our nation rather than a dreaded regulatory bully. [Civil rights complaints to Education Department reach a record high] Trump said relatively little about education during the campaign and even less about the intersection of civil rights and schools. At one point he asserted that the Education Department is massive and it can be largely eliminated. Whether that was just campaign hyperbole remains to be seen. The GOP platform was more specific, attacking bureaucrats in the Obama administration for interpreting a federal law barring sex discrimination, Title IX, as including protections related to sexual orientation or other categories. Their agenda has nothing to do with individual rights; it has everything to do with power, the platform stated. They are determined to reshape our schools and our entire society to fit the mold of an ideology alien to Americas history and traditions. The Trump transition team did not respond to requests for comment. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. has strongly defended OCR. In February, he told Congress that the office has been actively protecting the rights of all students through comprehensive strategies, including efforts to stop bullying, harassment and sexual assault. Last week, King told reporters that it was crucial for any future secretary to have a strong commitment to the historical goal of the department in protecting students civil rights. Trump on Wednesday named billionaire conservative Betsy DeVos as his nominee for Education Secretary. DeVos is known as a staunch advocate for vouchers and charter schools, but it is not clear what tack she will take with civil rights enforcement. The Office for Civil rights, one of the departments largest units, had about 540 employees in 2015 at its headquarters and 12 regional offices. Its mission is to enforce laws barring discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, disability and age. The staffing level has shrunk 24 percent since 2000, even as complaints have risen. In fiscal 2015, OCR fielded more than 10,000 complaints and opened more than 3,000 investigations. College sexual assault Some of OCRs highest-profile investigations have scrutinized how colleges and universities respond to sexual violence. The Obama administration in 2011 advised colleges in a guidance letter that sexual violence is a form of sexual harassment prohibited under Title IX. The letter also said that schools must respond promptly and equitably to reports of sexual violence and use a standard common in civil law, known as preponderance of the evidence, when deciding whether a student broke rules against sexual misconduct. That is a lower standard of proof than the clear and convincing evidence benchmark some schools had used. [College sexual assault: One in 5 college women say they were violated] Together with student activism and growing public awareness, the letter helped fuel a surge in complaints alleging that colleges had mishandled sexual violence reports. The Obama administration in May 2014 made public the names of 55 colleges and universities under investigation in connection with sexual violence. Since then the list has nearly quadrupled, to 216. In that time, two dozen investigations affecting 21 schools have been resolved. Protesters stand in solidarity with rape victims on the campus of Utahs Brigham Young University during a sexual assault awareness demonstration in April. The university announced Oct. 26 that students who report sexual assault will no longer be investigated for possible violations of the Mormon-owned school's strict honor code that bans such actions as alcohol use. (Rick Bowmer/AP) Cynthia Garrett, co-president of Families Advocating for Campus Equality, which supports due-process rights for accused students, said colleges too often trample those rights. Garrett said she hopes the Trump administration will set a new tone. Obamas OCR basically created an atmosphere of fear among colleges rather than cooperation, Garrett said. We think theyve gone too far. [Men punished in sexual misconduct cases are fighting back] Mahroh Jahangiri, executive director of Know Your IX, a group pushing to end sexual violence in schools, said she fears funding for OCR could dwindle. Our biggest worry is that a Trump Department of Education just simply doesnt do enforcement work, she said. If pending sexual violence investigations are dropped, she said, it would be an immense setback for student activists and survivors. Whatever the new administration decides, many colleges are unlikely to scrap initiatives developed in response to pressure from student activists and Washington to prevent sexual assault and punish misconduct. [These colleges have the most reports of rape] Colleges and universities will not be backing off their efforts to combat sexual abuse on campus, said Terry Hartle, a senior vice president for the American Council on Education. It is simply unacceptable in the 21st century. Erin Cavalier in May 2014, after she had finished her sophomore year at Catholic Universityj. In December 2012, when Cavalier was a freshman at the school, she was raped on campus and immediately reported the incident. Believing that the university's response was slow and inadequate, Cavalier filed a complaint with the federal government about the university's handling of her sexual assault report. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) Transgender rights In May, the Office for Civil Rights teamed with the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division on a letter of administration policy. It stated that Title IXs protections extend to transgender students, allowing them the right to use school bathrooms and locker rooms in line with their gender identity. Conservatives say that position distorts the law and violates student privacy and traditional values. [Obama administration directs schools to accommodate transgender students] The Supreme Court last month agreed to take up the issue through a case originating in Virginia. Gavin Grimm, a transgender teenager from Gloucester, sued his school board after it barred him from using the boys bathroom. Gavin Grimm, 17, at his home in Gloucester, Va., in August. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post) Joshua Block, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Grimm, said that Trump officials should think twice about overturning the Obama administrations guidance on transgender rights. I think the guidance was very important in giving sort of a clear road map to schools about what best practices are, and I think the guidance provided a sense of certainty, Block said. The more certainty and clarity there is for students, the better their lives are going to be, and the more theyre going to be protected. Even if Trump withdraws the guidance, Block said, transgender students would be able to sue for access to bathrooms and locker rooms. But they would do so without the Education Department as an ally. Block said he hopes Grimms case will move forward and settle constitutional questions about transgender rights. Other observers think that without the Obama administrations guidance in place, the high court probably will send the case back to a lower court. [Supreme Court takes up bathroom rules for transgender students ] Trump has appeared to side with transgender rights, voicing skepticism in April about North Carolinas controversial bathroom bill, which mandates that people use public restrooms aligned with the sex on their birth certificate. That bill led businesses, performers and organizations, including the NCAA, to boycott the state. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate, Trump said at the time. There has been so little trouble. And the problem with North Carolina has been the strife and the economic punishment that theyre taking. But Vice President-elect Mike Pence told a prominent social conservative leader in October that he and Trump oppose the Obama administrations position. Pence told James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, that the federal government has no business telling schools how they should accommodate transgender students. Donald Trump and I believe that all of these issues are best resolved at the state level, by the people, the community, Pence said. A gender-neutral sign is posted outside a bathroom at the Oval Park Grille in Durham, N.C. (Sara D. Davis/Getty Images) Discipline Long before Obama took office, civil rights advocates had complained that harsh school discipline policies were sending too many students into the criminal justice system. Those students were disproportionately minorities. Obamas Justice and Education departments urged schools to adopt less-punitive measures and in 2014 released a joint guidance warning that schools could face legal action if their policies led to disproportionate suspension or expulsion of students of color, students with disabilities, or any other subgroup. [Holder, Duncan announce national guidelines on school discipline] The federal intervention helped push many schools to seek alternative discipline strategies. Suspensions fell 20 percent from the 2011-2012 school year to 2013-2014, according to federal data, although stark racial disparities persisted. Black students were still four times as likely as white students to be suspended, and nearly twice as likely to be expelled. Marsha Mayo holds a photograph of her daughter Elsie at her home in Washington in 2012. Elsie underwent expulsion proceedings at the Thurgood Marshall Academy charter school in Southeast D.C. (Brad Horn/The Washington Post) Some say the administration overreached. Joshua Dunn, a political science professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, has called Obamas approach profoundly misguided. The administrations guidance encourages schools to tolerate disruptive and dangerous behavior lest they have too many students of one race being punished, Dunn wrote last year in the journal Education Next. Perversely, the students most harmed by these guidelines will be minority students in urban districts. Minority students who want to learn will see their education hijacked by troublemakers, and the troublemakers will learn that they can misbehave, with limited consequences. Supporters of Obamas initiative fear the new administration will change course, either revising the guidance or cutting OCRs staff and funding. They also are concerned that OCR could scale back efforts to collect vital data on suspension and expulsion rates, access to advanced coursework and chronic absenteeism. [Five eye-opening figures from the Education Departments civil rights data] Over the past eight years, weve seen an OCR in the Department of Education that has been very proactive, and were certainly expecting that same level of proactiveness will not be the case under Trump, said Kaitlin Banner, an attorney for the Advancement Project, which seeks discipline policy revisions. Based on the rhetoric of the campaign, we can guess that it will not be a priority for them to vigorously enforce civil rights in schools. D.C. police are searching for a man with a knife who threatened employees at Chevy Chase Pavilion, an upscale shopping center near the Friendship Heights Metro station in Northwest Washington. A shopping center employee told police that he has known the man with the knife for a long time and has repeatedly evicted him from the mall. On Monday, the employee said he found the man sleeping in a reclining chair outside a Starbucks, police said. Dont get in my face I will hurt you next time, the man reportedly said, according to police. The man with the knife appeared to walk away but then returned to confront the employee, police said. I can kill you, he reportedly said, according to police. I am going to cut your throat. A surveillance video shows what happened next. The man spins around in a circle as two security guards and a man in a blue shirt and tie dodge along the perimeter. At one point, the man in the suit grabs the metal lid off a trash can. The man with the knife does not lunge or appear to attack, and after a few moments, puts his knife away and walks out of what appears to be a shopping center atrium. No injuries were reported in the incident which occurred about 7:50 a.m. in the 5300 block of Wisconsin Avenue NW. A man who suffered a self-inflicted stab wound Tuesday morning in Thomas Circle Park in Northwest Washington has died, according to police. A D.C. police spokesman said detectives are investigating the case as an apparent suicide. Police said the man, identified as Paul Edward Wegerson, 35, of Northwest, died at an area hospital. Police said he wounded himself in the abdomen with a pair of scissors. The incident occurred about 9:20 a.m. Tuesday adjacent to a statue of a Union Army general and near several hotels, churches and businesses. Several major streets meet at the park, including Massachusetts Avenue and M and 14th streets. Authorities in Canada said they have arrested and charged a third suspect in the fatal beating of a Maryland man. Julian Jones, 26, who was a University of Baltimore student, was killed Nov. 5 in Toronto after a bachelor party for a friend. He was attacked by a group of people and killed outside a bar, police said. [Family and friends mourn Maryland man killed in Toronto] Police in Toronto said Monday that they charged Andrew C. OBrien, 28, with second-degree murder in Joness death. They had previously arrested and charged two other men Kamari Folkes, 24, and Kenneth Omorogbe, 25 in connection with the murder. All of the suspects are from Toronto. Officials said surveillance footage and cellphone video taken by one of Joness friends, plus interviews with witnesses, helped them identify and arrest some of the suspects. Jones was from Glen Burnie, Md., and had graduated from Arundel High School. He was engaged to be married next year. Jones was studying human ecology and environmental sustainability at the University of Baltimore. Jones was punched and kicked in the head during the melee. A Toronto police detective, Robert North, had said that Jones and his group of friends were minding their own business before the attack. Joness family and friends have described him as a peacemaker. His father said he could get people to settle down if they were in an argument. Hes just a straight-path, regular, good guy, said his father, Tobias Jones. He was kind, caring, considerate, and he had faith in mankind. He had this thing where he thought things would get better. A Virginia appeals court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of a man who was arrested after he hung a life-size black doll by a noose in his front yard the day of the Charleston, S.C., church shootings last year. The Virginia Court of Appeals, the states second-highest court, found that a state law that bans displaying a noose with the intent to intimidate is constitutional. On June 17, 2015 the same day authorities say Dylann Roof killed nine people during a prayer meeting at a historic African American church in Charleston a woman driving in Franklin County, Va., saw the all-black, life-size dummy hanging by a noose from a tree in the front yard of Jack Eugene Turner, the Virginia attorney generals office said in a statement. [Church shooting suspect Dylann Roof captured amid hate crime investigation] Turner, who lives next to a black family, was convicted in Franklin County Circuit Court of violating Virginias ban on displaying a noose, the statement said, but he appealed the conviction, challenging the constitutionality of the law and whether the display occurred in a public place. On Tuesday, the appeals court rejected Turners argument that he had a First Amendment right to display the noose, concluding that the noose constitutes a true threat, and, like cross burning, it is undeserving of First Amendment protection. The court also said that under the law, Turners yard qualified as a public place. The use of an intimidating and threatening display on ones own premises constituted a violation of the law because Turner displayed a noose and dummy in a place and manner to communicate threats to others with the intent to place members of the public in fear of violence and bodily harm, s aid the opinion, written by Judge Robert J. Humphreys. The court noted that more than 2,400 black people died by lynching between 1880 and 1930, and that Turner placed a handmade cardboard sign against his house that read, Black n----- lives dont matter, got rope while awaiting sentencing. Virginias attorney general praised the decision. The Commonwealth will not tolerate expressions of hate, intolerance, or bigotry intended to intimidate people because of their race, Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) said in a statement. The display of a noose as a threat has rightly been banned in Virginia because it is an unmistakable signal that evokes the horrific and shameful specter of lynching. Turner was sentenced to five years, with four years and six months suspended. His attorney said he has served his sentence and plans to appeal to the state Supreme Court. Were looking forward to appealing this, and we believe it is a First Amendment case, C. Holland Perdue III said. BALTIMORE, MD- MAY 22: "Rose," who can neither read nor write, was supposed to be set up for life after she won a lead lawsuit against her former landlord and was awarded a large settlement. But then she sold off $573,000 of that payment for $62,000 to Access Funding. And now she has little to show for it. (Photo by Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post) (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post) A controversial Chevy Chase company that reaped immense profits from deals with victims of lead paint poisoning in Baltimore has been accused of deceptive practices and breaking federal law, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court Monday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The suit alleges that Access Funding violated the Consumer Protection Act by aggressively pursuing victims of lead paint poisoning, many of whom were mentally impaired, and persuading them to sell large payouts for a fraction of their value under false pretenses. The agency has asked the U.S. District Court in Baltimore to stop what it calls an illegal scheme, ban the company from participating in an industry that deals with some of the nations most vulnerable residents, and order it to pay damages to former customers. Many of these struggling consumers were victimized first by toxic lead, and second by a company that saw them as little more than income streams to be courted and harvested, CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in a statement. The Consumer Bureau is fighting to help vulnerable consumers who were swindled out of their settlements, and to prevent future abuses. Access Funding executives did not respond to requests for comment Monday. [How companies make millions off poor, lead-poisoned blacks] The lawsuit marks the second time this year that a government agency has sued Access Funding, its executives and a lawyer that frequently worked with the company. In May, the Maryland Attorney Generals Office accused the firm of committing fraud and deceiving court officials. Marylands lawsuit, filed in state court, is still pending. The company, which has changed its name to Reliance Funding, did the bulk of its business in Maryland, where between 2013 and 2015 it struck at least 158 deals, predominantly with people who had been poisoned by lead paint as children, the federal suit states. Those deals, approved in Maryland courts, allowed the company to purchase for $7.5 million settlements that would have paid out $32.6 million, according to the Maryland attorney general. If there ever was a case that cried out for this kind of attention, it was this one, said Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.), who urged the federal agency last year to investigate the industry after reading news reports in The Washington Post. Here are people who are egregiously treated in the first place and then along comes these sharkies, and it happens again. They basically prey on those who are most vulnerable, said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), who also called for inquiries last year. These are folks who are going out there searching for victims. The lawsuit involves a little-known industry that purchases payouts called structured settlements, which lawyers often recommend for clients who either have mental disabilities or are inexperienced at managing money. Unlike traditional lawsuit settlements, which are paid out immediately in a lump sum, structured settlements are dispensed in smaller, incremental payments stretching across decades. Baltimore, with its history of lead paint poisoning, has many recipients of structured settlements. Most are African American. To keep people from recklessly selling these payments for an immediate lump sum, Maryland, along with almost every other state, passed legislation establishing protective measures. It first said the deals had to be approved by a state judge who decides whether the arrangement is in the sellers best interests. It also requires those wishing to sell their payments to receive the counsel of an independent, professional adviser a vital fail-safe ensuring that people know exactly how much theyre giving up. The latter measure is what got Access Funding in trouble with federal authorities. On almost every case Access filed, it was the same lawyer, Charles E. Smith, who advised recipients. Court filings allege that Smith had various business and personal ties with Access Funding executives. The federal agency says Smith was paid directly by Access Funding for his purported . . . services and deceived recipients into thinking they were getting independent advice when they were not. Smith did not respond to a request for comment Monday. But in an email sent to The Post last year, Smith said: I have no business partnerships with any company in the structured settlement purchasing industry . . . My independence is in no way compromised or at risk. Access Fundings president, Michael Borkowski, in a statement last year, said: Access Funding does not have any contractual, financial or business relationships with Mr. Charles Smith. Federal authorities, however, say that wasnt the case. The lawsuit states that Access Funding associates sent customers prepaid cellphones so that Smith could have a number to call, and those discussions typically only lasted a few minutes. Sometimes, the companys salespeople were on the same calls, listening as Smith imparted advice. Other times, recipients were asked to sign statements saying theyd been advised before they had even talked to Smith, authorities say. Access Funding also provided advances to customers, who are allowed to back out of preliminary agreements, the lawsuit states. But these advances came with contracts that, according to the lawsuit, stated that consumers were required to cooperate fully with the company in obtaining court approval for the contemplated transfer and that consumers would be liable for the advance if the transaction was not completed. Slaughter, when she heard about the lawsuit Monday, said she was delighted but unsatisfied. She said she wants the federal agency to investigate more companies that did deals with victims of lead paint poisoning in Baltimore. I dont want to stop until we get them all, she said. Laila Siddique, 25, sits under her father's photo with his military uniforms around her in the Bel Air, Md., home where her mother was murdered. Laila refuses to believe her father, Nasir Siddique, killed her mom, her brother and then himself. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) Laila Siddique was on her way to examine a patient at Pennsylvania State Universitys Hershey Medical Center when her phone began to tremble. The 25-year-old medical student glanced at the screen. It was a text from her father. Nasir Siddique kept in close touch with his two children. He had come to the United States from Pakistan as a young man, enlisted in the Army and slowly risen through the ranks, working at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill before retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 2010. He had traded the cigars and whiskey of his youth for a tightknit family, a large house in Bel Air, Md., and Friday prayers at a Baltimore mosque. And hed recently landed a job as deputy environmental chief at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a century-old military base where he once served as a military officer. At 57, with a military pension, the new job, a loving wife, and a son and daughter both studying to become doctors, Nasir Siddique had many reasons to be happy. Instead, he was deeply disturbed. Two reasons for my stress, began his text to his daughter on Sept. 28 at 10:48 a.m. 1. Very stressful job at APG. 2. APG Commander and Director of Public Works took us to tour the inside of a very old historical house (by the main golf course) last month being prepared for demolition. They should not have taken us inside this very old and unsafe house at all, he wrote. I have been feeling different since this tour. Hed told her about the house once before, but now he seemed more agitated. How have you felt different since the tour? Laila texted back. Love you, he answered. Her phone, normally buzzing with messages from her father, her mother, Zarqa, and her 19-year-old brother, Farhad, went quiet. When Laila left the hospital that evening, she called her dad, but he didnt answer. Neither did her mom, an aide to children with disabilities at an elementary school, or Farhad, a junior at the University of Maryland. When her brothers roommates told her he hadnt been seen all day, Laila called the police. It was well after midnight when there was a knock at Lailas apartment door in Hershey, Pa. When she opened it, four strangers handed her a number to call, then sat with her as she dialed. Your mom was found dead in her bathroom, and then your brother and father were found dead at the University of Maryland, she recalled a detective saying. It seems like your dad killed your mom and brother and then he killed himself. Nearly two months later, Laila Siddique is still struggling to understand what happened. Prince Georges County Police and the Harford County Sheriffs Office think that Nasir carried out the violence. They point to physical evidence, including a gun registered to Nasir that was found in his hand and an apparent suicide note. But Laila refuses to believe that her father could be what criminologists call a family annihilator someone who kills their partners and children before turning their weapon on themselves. Instead, she wonders whether he could have been framed or somehow forced to commit the killings. Her family and much of her community also reject the official explanation. How, they demand, could the doting family man they knew for decades kill his wife, his son and then himself? For Laila, the doubt and grief are compounded by the fact that she is suddenly, irrevocably alone. Why am I the one who was left? she asked. We were all together, all the time. It should have been all of us. I dont get why I am still here. The Siddique family on the day of Nasir's retirement from the Army in 2010 from left, Nasir, Laila, Zarqa and Farhad. (Family photo) Quite disturbed In a photo from his retirement ceremony in 2010, Nasir Siddique stands ramrod straight in his dark blue Army dress uniform, his lieutenant colonels silver oak clusters shining. Next to him smiles Laila, at 19 taller than her father. Next to her is her mother, Zarqa, and then a baby-faced Farhad in a baggy white shirt and crimson tie. Nasirs military career was an unlikely one. There are fewer than 6,000 Muslims serving in the armed forces. When Nasir enlisted in 1981, following in the footsteps of his older brother Aasi, the number was even smaller. Nasir was not a brawny soldier. He was barely 5-foot-4 and never saw combat, instead specializing in budgeting and monitoring air quality on bases. He became a U.S. citizen in 1984 while on active duty at Fort Riley in Kansas. Three years later, he earned a degree in engineering from Kansas State University and a promotion to second lieutenant. He wanted to make one-star general, Aasi Siddique said. It wasnt long before Nasir added another title: husband. He met Zarqa at a family wedding in Pakistan. She was nine years younger with striking, wide-set eyes. They exchanged love letters in Urdu before marrying in his home town of Sahiwal in 1989. Laila was born two years later; Farhad in 1996. They were a Muslim military family trying to fit in with those around them. Lailas earliest memory is of her parents stringing up Christmas lights at their house in Davenport, Iowa. She was in fifth grade when the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Her father, assigned to Aberdeen Proving Ground, explained to her that people might see or treat them differently now. At work, Nasir stressed the values Islam shared with Christianity and Judaism. When Pakistani friends sent him articles criticizing the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, Nasir politely ignored them. And when Aasi suggested that 9/11 was an inside job, Nasir teased his older brother over the idea. Nasir, an immigrant from Pakistan, was among a small number of Muslims serving in the U.S. military. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) One of Nasirs old Army uniforms. He enlisted in 1981 and eventually became a lieutenant colonel. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) He didnt pray five times a day, but he regularly attended Friday prayer at the Islamic Society of Baltimore as well as events at Bel Airs Islamic community center. He and Zarqa hosted frequent dinners, for which she would spend hours baking guests favorite desserts. Uncle Nasir, as he was called, took pride in dispensing career advice or loans to family members and friends. He was quick to laugh, his friends said. And he was fiercely protective of his children. During the more than five years he worked at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, where he was a congressional fellow, he woke up at 3:30 a.m. and commuted 150 miles each day rather than uproot his family again. He and my mother talked [on the phone] the entire train ride back, Laila said. He was always home in time for dinner. Nasir was bored by retirement, his brother said. He sold the familys 3,000-square-foot house in Bel Air and bought one nearly twice as big as an investment. He took an honorary position on Marylands commission on military monuments but hardly ever attended the quarterly meetings. Then, in April 2015, Nasir landed the environmental job at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Built in 1917, the base had served as the Armys main chemical-weapons testing site for mustard gas, napalm, sarin, hydrogen cyanide and other deadly substances a mission that left it one of the most polluted places in the country and the object of a massive cleanup effort. Since then, a complete transformation has taken place, Vance Hobbs, APGs environmental division chief, told an Army publication in 2013. As Hobbss new deputy, however, Nasir inherited a difficult job. There was still plenty of hazardous material to dispose of at APG, and Nasir, despite his masters degree in environmental health science, struggled to shoulder his new responsibilities. He said his job was very stressful, and he was thinking of a change, recalled Mian Saleem, one of Nasirs closest friends. Base officials declined to comment on Nasirs performance or his state of mind. Kelly Luster, director of communication at APG, said the base is assisting investigators and therefore it would be inappropriate to answer your questions at this time. Work wasnt the only source of anxiety. Nasirs mother died in March, and Nasir took it very hard, his brother said: He could not hold his emotions. There were other hints something was amiss. He complained to Aasi that family members werent liking or commenting on his Facebook posts. And when Hobbs was sick, Nasir seemed overwhelmed by the task of substituting for his boss even for a day. Thinking back, that was the first red flag, Laila said. When her father told her he was going to fill in for Hobbs for a week in August, Nasir was filled with dread. When Laila saw her father at a wedding a few weeks later, he said his fears had been realized. During his week as acting chief, his superiors had taken him on a tour of the abandoned house near the 16th hole of the bases Ruggles Golf Course. The visit to the century-old house with its peeling paint, wraparound porch covered in creepers, and black turret rising above the greens had shaken him. The tour guide said that the family that owned the house had mysteriously disappeared nearly a century ago and that the house had been haunted ever since, Nasir recounted. The guide also pointed out the rotting carcasses of a pair of vultures that had been trapped inside the house. A century-old abandoned house on the edge of Aberdeen Proving Ground. Nasir told his daughter he didnt feel the same after entering it. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) The abandoned house, which was referenced in Nasirs suicide note and texts to his daughter and brother, is slated to be demolished. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) He was disturbed when he went to the mansion, said Aasi, who talked to him afterward. Quite disturbed. A few weeks later, on Sept. 17, Zarqas birthday, he seemed fine. He woke his wife up with flowers, then took her and their children out for a day of her favorite things, from cupcakes in Georgetown to shopping to crab cakes in Baltimore. It was perfect, Laila said. On Sunday, Sept. 25, Nasir showed up late to a social gathering. Normally impeccable, Nasir was unshaven, his shirt untucked. When one friend made a joke, Nasir bristled, saying he wasnt in the mood that day. Everybody was asking him whats up, Saleem said. He was not regular. Three days later, Lailas phone buzzed as she strolled through the hospital. Two reasons for my stress, she read, never guessing that within hours, her whole family would be gone. It has killed my family This is where they found Zarqas body, Aasi said. It was a bright Sunday afternoon in early October, a week after the funerals, and the Siddique house was still full of mourners. Outside, on a patio overlooking four acres of perfectly mowed grass, cousins dressed in black smoked cigarettes. In the kitchen, family members made tea. And in the master bathroom, Laila and Aasi stared down at the beige marble tile that 10 days earlier had been covered in blood. This is where they found my mom, Laila echoed quietly. According to police, Nasir Siddique shot his wife in the head as she was getting ready for school. He then climbed into his red Jeep Wrangler Sport, with its U.S. Army stickers, and drove to Farhads apartment in College Park. [Man fatally shoots wife, son and then himself in Maryland] The last person to see the 19-year-old pre-med major alive was his roommate, Ahmed Hamayun, who stuck his head into Farhads room before going to class at 10 a.m. He was still sleeping, Hamayun said. Nasir arrived at the apartment building sometime before noon. A surveillance camera captured footage of the Jeep pulling up and then parking in the lot. The Jeep stayed there for nearly 12 hours until, after a frantic search, Hamayun and another roommate found it around 10 p.m. The passenger-side window was broken, and the dashboard lights were on. I saw Farhads dads head on the steering wheel, Hamayun said. I was too nervous to see if he was okay. Inside the car, police found Farhad slumped in the passengers seat. A bullet had gone through his head from left to right, shattering the window. Nasir had an entrance wound under his chin and an exit wound near the top of his skull. His .38 revolver, registered in his name years before, lay in his hand, police said. When officers called the Harford sheriffs office, deputies sent to the house earlier by Laila were already standing over Zarqas body. A bullet found at the scene matched Nasirs revolver. The Siddiques from left, Farhad, Laila, Zarqa and Nasir at a wedding in 2016. When Laila posted the photo on Facebook, she labeled it, My perfect family. (Family photo) Inside the Bel Air house, deputies also found two notes. The sheriffs office has refused to release them, but Laila and Aasi described their contents to The Washington Post. Last comment, begins one, scrawled in black ink. There is too much stress in my job at APG. Wish it could be corrected by the leadership. It has killed my family & everything. At the end of the note, Nasirs name is printed and signed above the date: Sept. 28, 2016. Another note, titled Last will and similarly signed and dated, left the familys assets to Laila and Farhad. There is no evidence that anyone other than Nasir Siddique was involved, said Lt. Dave Coleman of the Prince Georges police force, adding that the notes are evidence that he planned these events. Instead of evidence of Nasirs guilt, however, Laila and her uncle see the notes as signs of his innocence. Why would he mention my brother in his will if he was going to go kill him? Laila asked. Its odd. The signature does not look like his signature, Aasi said. Somebody made him write something. Aasi has many conspiracy theories about what could have happened that morning, most of them involving the base. Maybe he was given mind-control drugs, Aasi said, citing decades-old Cold War experiments at APG in which soldiers were given mind-altering substances, including LSD. Maybe the visit to the abandoned house was a threat, he said. Maybe he was framed. Maybe Nasir knew too much. But there is no evidence that APG played any role in the shooting rampage, investigators said. And the ghost stories involving the abandoned house are easily debunked, said Jacob Bensen of the Historical Society of Harford County. Known as the Malcolm Mitchell house, it was named after its owner, who made a fortune canning corn and other foods. Bensen said there is no record of any calamity at the house and that its history is unexciting: It was used as office space by the base but is now slated for demolition. In a brief interview, Jan Michael Green, one of Nasirs co-workers at APG, said his breakdown had nothing to do with the building he toured. Asked whether Nasir was exhibiting signs of stress at work, he replied, No doubt. Family annihilators are rare, but stress can trigger them. The number of familicides more than doubled after the recession to 42 in 2009 before declining to just 15 in 2013, according to professor Neil Websdale, director of the Family Violence Institute at Northern Arizona University. The attackers are usually men with histories of domestic abuse, he said, but occasionally one will be a pillar of the community . . . the reputable man whose world basically falls apart and he takes the family down with him. Sometimes, the forces that drive these offenses, he added, are inexplicable. Laila resents expressions of sympathy from those who believe her father was capable of murder. He wasnt, she says. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) My family is gone Nasir had always wanted to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. But when Laila called, she was told that Arlington wouldnt accept someone suspected of a serious crime a policy confirmed by the cemetery officials. Even when she found her family a plot at King Memorial Park in Baltimore, the Army refused to provide an honor guard. Of the 200 people who attended the triple funeral, none were in uniform. My dad had so many Army friends, she said. Not one of them has reached out. Instead, Laila faces a flood of sympathy from strangers who think that her father is a murderer. He must have had an undiagnosed mental problem, they say. Was he on medications for depression, anxiety or some other condition? Had he shown signs of stress? But Laila, a woman of science, has no interest in posthumously diagnosing her dad. She said her father was not on medication and was no more stressed than usual. People are like: Oh, shes in denial. Shes in denial. Yeah, Im in denial, she said, in the sense that I cant believe my family is gone, but I can see clearly that this just isnt who my dad was. There are moments when she thinks about quitting medical school. The three most influential people in my life are gone, she said, so whats the point of continuing, of trying to achieve? She said she knows her parents were excited for me to get married and have grandkids. But now, its hard for me to see the point of doing things like that. She is tempted to use her inheritance to leave Maryland for good and the memories of the life she lost on Sept. 28. Instead, she is trying to carry on as her parents would have wanted her to. She returned to Penn State earlier this month and is preparing to sell the large house her father bought just two years ago. Laila Siddique shows off the purple-and-orange den where her father and brother watched Baltimore Ravens and Orioles games together. The house is now up for sale. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) As she walked around the house in October, she paused at the entrance to the purple-and-orange den where her father and brother watched Baltimore Ravens and Orioles games together. Jerseys still hung on the walls. Video-game controllers lay on the carpet where they had last been flung. For a moment, she imagined herself in her brothers shoes. If I could go back in time to that day, if my dad called me to get in the car, I would still get in, she said. I would run down and get into the car without a second thought. A sign inside the Coastal Flats restaurant in Fairfax Station urges customers to vote against a proposed meals tax in Fairfax County that officials say could have helped fund schools and other services. (Antonio Olivo/TWP) Fairfax County is facing a dire budget year in 2017 in the face of a weak local economy that is not generating tax revenue fast enough to keep up with growing demands for schools, parks and other services. During a joint meeting Tuesday between Fairfax County school officials and the Board of Supervisors, County Executive Edward L. Long Jr. projected a budget shortfall of as much as $83 million in the next fiscal year, a gap some officials blamed on the failed referendum earlier this month for a new county meals tax. This is probably going to be one of the most somber budgets that Ive had to deal with in my 40-plus years with the county, Long said before launching into a presentation that showed how the regions lukewarm real estate market and lower-than-expected state funds from Richmond will make it harder to raise teacher salaries, implement police overhauls and accomplish other objectives without raising property taxes for the countys 1.1 million residents. There are so many unknowns with this budget that we are going to have to deal with, Long said, referring to the potential impact of a scheduled round of federal sequestration cuts and pledges by President-elect Donald Trump to reduce the size of the federal workforce and repeal large portions of the Affordable Care Act. [This model of wealthy suburban living is starting to fray] Fairfax County, Virginias largest jurisdiction, has in recent years struggled to keep up with the needs of a changing population that includes more immigrant families and seniors living on fixed incomes or below the federal poverty level. A slowing rate of growth in county tax revenue has led to reduced library hours and deferred maintenance at park facilities. School officials say teachers have been leaving for higher-paying districts after going several years without significant salary increases. Almost sheepishly, Long admitted that the $39.17 million in new school funding that he is proposing for the next fiscal year is simply not adequate. There are many promises weve made that are going to have to slow down in our spending as we go forward, Long said. He suggested putting off about $7.5 million in planned police overhauls and about $3 million in funding for students with special needs. Additionally, the scheduled opening of a new police station in the southern portion of the county may have to be put off for a year, Long said. Outgoing schools Superintendent Karen Garza said the countys pledge to give teachers raises is also in jeopardy, because Longs spending projections will not even cover the increasing student enrollment and rising retirement and health insurance costs, Garza said. And thats without any compensation increases for our employees at all, she said. County and school leaders had hoped that a 4 percent tax on restaurant meals and other prepared foods would help generate new revenue for the 187,000-student system. Of the $96 million that was projected by that meals tax, 70 percent was to be set aside for schools. But voters rejected the meals tax. With that option gone, county officials discussed seeking more state funding, a strategy that could be challenging given Gov. Terry McAuliffes recent projection of a $1.5 billion shortfall next year. Some Fairfax officials reluctantly mentioned again raising property taxes for homeowners, a path that would probably generate political controversy after the county increased taxes by an average of $304 per household last year. This budget just makes everybody sad, school board member Pat Hynes said, prompting somber nods around the room. Republicans in Congress are pushing to pass long-stalled legislation by December that gives the Food and Drug Administration new powers to more rapidly approve drugs and medical devices. Over five years, the complex legislation would include $550 million in additional funding for the agency, plus upward of $1 billion annually in added spending for the National Institutes of Health. The bills have had bipartisan support in Congress during the past two years. Theyre backed by the pharmaceutical and device industries as well as hundreds of patient-support groups, academic institutions and medical schools. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the way we view and treat disease, said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who has been a key advocate on Capitol Hill. Patients cant wait any longer. Its time to deliver. While legislative wrangling and consumer and public health groups concerns over safety standards could thwart the effort, congressional staffers report steady progress over the past week. The House is further along, having passed its 350-page 21st Century Cures Act in July 2015. The Senates version is 19 separate bills that were approved in committee this past spring but never voted on by the full Senate. Congressional staffers said Tuesday that a House-Senate compromise bill could emerge from ongoing negotiations and be voted on soon by both chambers. [FDA grants accelerated approval to controversial muscular dystrophy drug] Backers say the measures would speed the FDAs approval process by allowing it more flexibility in evaluating the effectiveness and safety of drugs and devices. The increased funding would enable the agency to hire additional staff at salaries competitive with the private sector and academia an issue that has vexed the FDA for years. The agency has more than 700 vacancies in the division that approves new drugs, for example. The bills also would give the agency more power to provide newer drugs to terminally ill patients. And they would allow the FDA to create a new approval pathway for antibiotics and economic incentives for developing new antibiotics. Lets do it now, said Marc Boutin, chief executive of the National Health Council, a nonprofit group that represents about 50 patient-support and disease organizations and gets funding from drug and device companies. This legislation will enhance research, speed cures to market and benefit public health. But the cautionary voices worry about safeguards. This legislation would lower safety and approval standards for drugs and medical devices and should not be rushed into law in the final brief weeks of this Congress, one coalition of opponents, which includes Breast Cancer Action and the National Womens Health Network, said in a Nov. 8 letter to senators. The Obama administration had been supportive of lawmakers work, as long as the final package contained funding for its cancer moonshot and Precision Medicine Initiative. The White House yesterday declined to comment on the legislations current progress. Some congressional leaders say the legislation is an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to show that they can work together after a divisive election. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said earlier this month that the measures are a priority during the lame-duck session. Congress should not squander this rare opportunity to get a result on behalf of millions of patients who are waiting for us to deliver on the promise of 21st Century Cures, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said in a statement. Alexander chairs the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee and has led the Senates supporters. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the committees ranking member, and other Democrats are pushing for even broader legislation, however. They would include more funding for opioid-addiction treatment under a law passed in July and mental-health reform approved in the House and by the HELP committee but not taken up by the full Senate. [The drug industrys answer to opioid addiction: More pills ] Both could complicate agreement on FDA changes and NIH funding, essentially making the bill into an omnibus health-care measure. Paying for the legislation remains an issue; the House would fund it partly by selling oil from the nations Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Republicans were insisting that the final packages cost be fully offset and subject to annual appropriations. Democrats balked at that and argued for a firmer long-term funding commitment. Meanwhile, some Senate Democrats have also reportedly asked for a larger increase in FDA resources than the House bill proposes, arguing that $550 million over five years is not enough to cover the agencys greater responsibilities. The intricacies of drug and device development and regulation make the legislation necessary, its proponents say. Drugs can take years to come to market in large part because pharmaceutical companies must conduct detailed studies of their effectiveness and safety in patients. While that system would be preserved, the bills would clear the FDA for considering less burdensome criteria to approve drugs that show special promise. The path also would be made easier for new indications of previously approved drugs. The agency would be able to use evidence from doctors clinical experience, for instance, along with less detailed studies. But opponents contend that the legislation could result in drugs and devices reaching the market without thorough evaluations. And they are concerned that the House bill gives some brand-name drugs longer periods of market exclusivity, thus slowing the availability of less expensive generic drugs and, as one consumer coalition asserted, denying patients access to affordable, lifesaving medicines. Sarah Sorscher, a researcher at Public Citizens Health Research Group, said that although the watchdog organization supports additional NIH funding, the Cures Act raises the risk that bad products will come to market and patients will be harmed. Opponents also want Congress to hold off on the legislation until next year so that lawmakers can simultaneously debate and address ways to fight rising drug prices. [Trump just dropped a big hint to the pharmaceutical industry] It is critical that any legislation making changes to drug policies take steps to rein in the cost of prescription drugs, the AFL-CIO, Alliance for Retired Americans and Consumers Union wrote in an Oct. 26 letter to the Senate and House Democratic leaders. In a strange-bedfellows scenario, the groups may have a possible ally in President-elect Donald Trump. Trumps website lists FDA reform as a priority, and according to statements he made on the campaign trail, he supports curtailing drug prices, possibly through government negotiation with the pharmaceutical industry. Kaiser Health News is a national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. CRISIS HAS again descended upon one of the most persecuted peoples in the world. The Rohingya Muslims of Burma, long repressed by the authorities, are at the epicenter of a new spasm of violence in Burmas northwestern Rakhine state, sparked by an attack on Burmese police and security forces last month and followed by a scorched-earth crackdown by the military. Burmas champion of democracy and de facto leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, must step in to make sure alleged human rights abuses are fully investigated and the military response does not turn into a fresh wave of mass brutality. On Oct. 9, Rohingya militants struck in the northern part of Rakhine state at three posts near the border with Bangladesh, killing nine police officers. Eight insurgents were also killed. Since the attack, soldiers have poured into the area and closed it off so that independent journalists and human rights monitors cannot verify what occurred. But there have been reports of killings of unarmed Rohingya men and rapes of Rohingya women as well as beatings of Rohingya held in detention. Satellite photographs show widespread destruction in villages near the town of Maungdaw. Human Rights Watch identified 1,250 burned buildings in five villages, but the government denies carrying out a campaign of systematic annihilation. More than 100,000 Rohingya have been stuck in camps in southern Rakhine state since a deadly wave of communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims in 2012. In recent years, many desperate Rohingya risked their lives on rickety ships, fleeing to seek work elsewhere. Overall, the population has been deliberately and often cruelly marginalized in Buddhist-majority Burma, also known as Myanmar. The previous government sought to discriminate against them, excluding Rohingya from a census and invalidating their identification cards, among other measures. The motivation of the armed attackers on Oct. 9 is unknown. By some reports, they may have belonged to the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, a militant group active in the 1980s and 1990s that was thought to be defunct. Another explanation is that the attackers were reacting to harsh plans by the state to raze a large number of structures including schools and homes saying they were built illegally. Either way, Rohingya are right to fear events that could quickly spiral into much wider repression at the hands of the military, which retains considerable clout in Burmas power structure. The plight of the Rohingya has long been a blind spot for Aung San Suu Kyi. In the latest crisis, she has suggested that complaints be taken to an advisory commission on Rakhine state created this year and led by former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan. This is not enough. She should instruct that a full investigation be conducted by the national government, that the conflict zone be opened to independent journalists and human rights monitors, and that the military avoid indiscriminate killing and punishment. Burmas road to freeing itself from the past means facing directly the suffering of the Rohingya. IN THE glow of his election victory Nov. 8, after months of a foul and bitter campaign, Donald Trump invoked a familiar and reassuring message. Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division, 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. It was important for the nation, too. Over the weekend, Mr. Trump grew infuriated when the cast of the Broadway hit Hamilton delivered a message aloud to Vice President-elect Mike Pence after curtain call, appealing to the new administration to be inclusive. Actor Brandon Victor Dixon implored Mr. Pence to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us. This was similar to the message of Mr. Trumps own victory speech, but the president-elect took umbrage. On Twitter, he erupted, saying that the vice president-elect had been harassed, the cast had been very rude, that they should Apologize! and immediately apologize for their terrible behavior. Then, on Sunday morning, Mr. Trump tweeted angrily about a satire of him on NBCs Saturday Night Live. It is a totally one-sided, biased show nothing funny at all. Equal time for us? He also has used Twitter to attack the New York Times. These kind of outbursts helped fuel Mr. Trumps political rise; he has always been thin-skinned and prone to rapid-fire insults. But there is something new and deeply worrisome about the weekends tweet storm: Mr. Trump is soon to be president of the United States. His words matter. What is so disturbing here is not just Mr. Trumps hotheaded Twitter habits, but rather his casual disregard for freedom of expression and visceral intolerance of criticism. In his campaign, he regularly insulted journalists and sometimes leveled threats of retaliation. Now that he is president-elect, his complaints can no longer be dismissed as cranky late-night ramblings. And it is doubly disturbing that Mr. Trump can find more time to rebuke legitimate satire but not the hateful speech being wielded, often in his name, at white-nationalist forums and other venues across the country. Mr. Trumps weekend tweets carried a tone of intimidation unfit for the presidency. The actors message and the television satire were examples of free expression. Whether Mr. Trump thinks they were rude or not funny is not relevant. He must embrace what it means to be president of all Americans: showing tolerance toward those who criticize him, now and for years to come. From angrily tweeting about Alec Baldwin's portrayal of him to appearing on the show himself, here is Donald Trump's history with SNL. (Nicki DeMarco/The Washington Post) Mr. Pence, who was greeted by a smattering of boos as he entered the theater, got it right when he said later, I nudged my kids and reminded them thats what freedom sounds like. Donald Trump has a lot of potential conflicts of interest as president but there's no law that specifically requires a commander in chief to remove themselves from all of their business interests. The Fix's Peter W. Stevenson explains why presidents usually put their assets in a "blind trust" to avoid problems. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) Donald Trump has a lot of potential conflicts of interest as president but there's no law that specifically requires a commander in chief to remove themselves from all of their business interests. The Fix's Peter W. Stevenson explains why presidents usually put their assets in a "blind trust" to avoid problems. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, who practice appellate and constitutional law in the District, served in the Justice Department under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Rivkin also served in the White House counsels office in the George H.W. Bush administration. Suggestions that President-elect Donald Trump put his business holdings in a blind trust to avoid potential conflicts of interest are unrealistic and unfair. Such a trust would not eliminate the virtual certainty that actions Trump takes as president will affect his personal wealth, for good or ill. The step is not required by law. And presidents who have chosen to use this device held very different assets than Trumps. He can keep his holdings and adopt a reasonable system to avoid conflicts and reassure the American people that the Trump administration is acting ethically. To establish a blind trust of the sort used by his predecessors, Trump would not merely have to liquidate a securities portfolio and permit an independent trustee to manage those assets. He would have to sell off business holdings that he has built and managed most of his life, and with which he is personally identified in a way that few other business magnates are. These businesses also provide employment for many thousands of people, including his children. All of it would have to go. This liquidation would by definition take place in the context of a buyers market, and so Trump would also be required to accept a vast personal loss in financial worth. Those suggesting the blind trust model must understand that their proposal is a poison pill Trump will not swallow. Moreover, requiring Trump to liquidate his holdings would discourage other entrepreneurs from seeking the presidency, leaving the field clear for professional politicians and investors. Given that the American people have made clear their disgust with Washingtons elite, creating a disincentive for businesspeople to seek the presidency is not in the public interest. [The emoluments clause is Donald Trump violating its letter or spirit?] Trump has suggested that he will let his adult children run the family businesses during his presidency, and there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents this arrangement. The emoluments clause, often invoked as the reason Trump must sell his businesses, is no bar. This constitutional provision prevents the president (and any other federal officer) from accepting gifts or compensation from foreign states. It does not limit Trumps ability to benefit from dealings with non-state foreign entities. Whether a state-controlled entity falls within the emoluments clause prohibitions has traditionally been addressed on a case-by-case basis, depending principally on how independently such an entity operates from an actual government. Likewise, neither federal law nor regulations limit the president in this area. Presidential candidates and presidents must disclose their finances, but the president is not covered by the principal financial conflict-of-interest law, and the relevant regulations specifically exclude the president. Indeed, it is doubtful that Congress could constitutionally limit the presidents personal investments or business activities consistent with separation-of-powers principles. Of course, Trumps wide holdings will likely raise real or perceived conflicts of interest during his presidency. Establishing a blind trust would have helped him address those concerns. There are, however, other measures that the president-elect can take to avoid conflicts. He can establish a firewall between himself and his adult children with respect to family business affairs. They would agree to give him no information about their business dealings, and he would pledge not to discuss those dealings with them. In addition, his children could promise to refer any potential transactions involving foreign corporations or other entities to the White House counsels office or the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel to analyze whether it would raise concerns under the emoluments clause. If the answer is yes, then they would avoid that transaction. The president himself would not be informed of the request or determination. Finally, to the extent he wishes to seek advice about public policy from his children which he appears to have done frequently before his election the president can consult the White House counsels office about whether discussing a particular issue with them would create potential conflicts of interest. Most government issues do not have a direct impact on the hospitality industry, and simply taking action that is good for the economy as a whole would not give rise to a conflict. It is clear that Trump cannot satisfy all of his critics, but these measures are both reasonable and workable. They would or should reassure most Americans that his administration is acting with probity. The Nov. 18 news article President-elects embrace of Bannon splits Jewish groups , about Donald Trumps standing in the American Jewish community, pointed out one-and-a-half reasons that some Jewish people apparently voted for Mr. Trump: that he denounced the Obama administrations nuclear deal with Iran and that he has suggested he might be more flexible on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Given Mr. Trumps lack of public policy experience and his frequent rhetorical flip-flops, the second reason deserves only partial credit. Policy aside, there were many reasons not to vote for Mr. Trump. He has a track record of boorish, racist, sexist, threatening, bullying and anti-Semitic behavior and speech. If some Jewish groups are reluctant to speak out against his intolerable remarks, then its a tragedy. Reasonable people may disagree about the Iran nuclear deal. However, given Mr. Trumps lack of experience and disinclination to learn (e.g., he didnt bother to prepare for the debates), there is no evidence to believe that he would be a strong supporter of Israel. Until such evidence is presented, an ethical debate about the ends justifying the means is premature and Mr. Trumps unseemly behavior and speech should be roundly denounced. Stephen Garber, Silver Spring As an immigrant from Nazi Austria and a World War II veteran, I strongly support the Anti-Defamation Leagues criticism of the appointment of Stephen K. Bannon as senior adviser to President-elect Donald Trump. Mr. Bannon is well known for his anti-Semitic activities. The fact that this criticism splits Jewish groups is unfortunate indeed. I know too well from personal experience that anti-Semitic leaders are a great threat to civil rights. I do not see why some Jewish organizations do not support the ADL in its courageous stand. Other considerations, such as the security of Israel, are not relevant in the case of Mr. Bannon. Gideon Kantor, Garrett Park Following the Oct. 4 vice- presidential debate, Donald Trumps son Eric was asked how Mike Pence had done. He answered as a Corleone maybe not the storied Michael because he was the youngest, and not Fredo since he was weak and destined to be fired in the manner of those times, but possibly Sonny since Eric looked CNNs Wolf Blitzer hard in the eye and said of Pence, I really think he represented the family, and I think he represented the party incredibly, incredibly well tonight. So spoke the Godfathers son. I dont want to overdo this family analogy but I dont want to ignore it, either. After all, the kids are now all over the place, taking the occasional seat in the occasional meeting with a head of state and almost always accompanying their father as, in the wonderful movie containing all of lifes truths (and its best quotes), various Republican pooh-bahs venture out to Jersey to ask a favor (What about Commerce?) and honor the newest Godfather, the one with the nuclear codes, who would permit torture and yet wants the theater to be a safe place. Just as in the movie, we are not sure what business the Godfather is in. He is about to be president of the United States, yet we have never seen his taxes all his taxes and now, during the traditional expressions of loyalties from Republicans who actually went to the mattresses to fight Trump but who now vow loyalty and just plain awe the meetings were interrupted for some deal relating to apartments in Pune, India. They will be called Trump Towers Pune. Are there other business interests elsewhere in the world? Are any in Russia? Are any Russians Trump investors? Are any of them linked to Vladimir Putin? Never mind, how could they not be? When at the close of the second presidential debate, the candidates were asked if there was something they could praise about the other, Hillary Clinton said she respected the way Trump had raised his children. Indeed, in a Manhattan world in which Trump is generally loathed, his kids are considered swans produced by an ugly duckling. Yet, they participated in Trumps business, getting the steady promotions and praise duly accorded the progeny of the boss. How could they not have picked up Trumps business ethics, which in his case is an oxymoron? Donald Trump has a lot of potential conflicts of interest as president but there's no law that specifically requires a commander in chief to remove themselves from all of their business interests. The Fix's Peter W. Stevenson explains why presidents usually put their assets in a "blind trust" to avoid problems. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) Jared Kushner, our Tom Hagen, who married Trumps daughter Ivanka, has lately lost some of this Boy Scout aura. It turns out Kushners admission to Harvard was preceded by his fathers $2.5 million pledge. After Kushner bought the New York Observer in 2006 (for $10 million), he demanded that its longtime editor, Peter Kaplan, do pieces critical of certain political or real estate figures, notably Chris Christie. As New Jerseys U.S. attorney, Christie had sent Kushners father to jail for campaign law violations, among other things. (Those other things included setting up his brother-in-law with a prostitute so as to blackmail him.) Kushner apparently wanted revenge. Kaplan, a storied figure in New York journalism, refused. Eventually his relationship with Kushner got so contentious that Kaplan abruptly quit. Even so, when Kaplans mother died and Kushner and his father went to the Kaplan family home in South Orange, N.J., to pay a condolence call, Kaplan intercepted them outside of the house and would not let them in. Frankly, I think the nepotism law that may bar Kushner from working with Trump in the White House is ridiculous. If Trump wants him, he should get him. (Robert Kennedy was invaluable to John Kennedy.) Maybe Kushner can occasionally muster the gumption to stand up to his bullying father-in-law and he could not possibly be a worse appointment than the volcanic anti-Muslim zealot Michael Flynn as national security adviser. But it would be unrealistic to expect Kushner to be anything other than a malleable Trump son-in-law. If Donald Trump were a candid man, if the lie were not his usual first response, if he had shown us his taxes and if he had not compiled a record and reputation as a deadbeat, then his admixture of businesses and family and their convergence in the White House would be troubling enough. But in his head, Trump did not win the White House as the leader of the Republican Party. He won as the head of a family. Read more from Richard Cohens archive. After the 2012 election, while some Republicans were conducting an autopsy of their defeat at the national level, others were celebrating the partys unheralded success down the ballot. For instance, the Republican State Leadership Committee boasted, One needs to look no farther than four states that voted Democratic on a statewide level in 2012, yet elected a strong Republican delegation to represent them in Congress: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In hindsight, the Democratic Party should have taken those words as a dire warning. Today they serve as a much-needed reminder of the path out of the wilderness. As the party seeks to recover from a devastating loss, its not enough to focus on the top of the ticket. The rebuilding needs to happen from the bottom up, at the state and local level, not in Washington. For years, many progressives including me have called for taking our movement to the states. Yet Democrats have prioritized maintaining control of the presidency while giving short shrift to state-level infrastructure. Meanwhile, Republicans have invested heavily in winning state legislative and gubernatorial races, which has allowed them to advance conservative policies across the country and seize control of congressional redistricting. Heading into 2017, there are 68 legislative chambers under Republican control, 34 Republican governors and a record 29 Republican state attorneys general. Its painfully clear which partys strategy has been more effective. Democrats no longer have a choice. With Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) wreaking havoc in Washington, it will be up to individual states to protect their residents against harmful right-wing policies. In the same way that red states refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (with disastrous results), Democratic state legislatures may be able to put up roadblocks to the Trump-Ryan agenda. Indeed, as Linda Hirshman recently wrote in The Post, the potential for states and cities to become bastions of resistance is significant. A state-based strategy also represents the best and perhaps only opportunity to advance progressive policy goals in the near term. Over the past eight years, conservative lawmakers in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Kansas and elsewhere have demonstrated that state policies can have an outsized impact for better or worse regardless of what the federal government does. At the same time, despite gridlock in Congress, states with Democratic legislative majorities have made significant strides on progressive issues including the minimum wage, equal pay and paid sick leave. Moving forward, states such as Nevada, where Democrats successfully flipped both chambers of the legislature on Election Day, have a real chance to keep putting progressive ideas into action. The states will be the place where we can provide a proactive, positive vision of what progressive governance can look like, says Nick Rathod, executive director of the State Innovation Exchange, or SiX, which pushes progressive policies at the state level. If you get out of D.C. and actually listen to people, establish policies that respond to local needs, and build narratives around what that means and why it matters, people will understand that government can actually be a force for good, and that progressive policies are more aligned with the needs of working and middle-class families of all races, religions, and cultures. If theres a reason for hope, its that leading Democrats seem to recognize the need to build a more dynamic state and local infrastructure. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a top candidate to take over the Democratic National Committee, has urged support for SiX, which is working on a state-based organizing agenda for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. One of Ellisons potential challengers, former chairman Howard Dean, has likewise called for a revival of the 50-state strategy he was the architect of during the George W. Bush era. As the race for party chair unfolds, it will be vital, as the Nation recently argued, that all of the candidates debate these and other ideas in public. And in 2017, the momentum for a progressive state strategy may get an additional boost from President Obama, who is expected to join forces with former attorney general Eric Holder for an initiative focused on state legislative races and redistricting reform. Looking ahead, the need for a smart, state-based strategy is clear. State and local government is where the next generation of progressive voices will emerge and, in fact, new leaders such as state Sens. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), both just elected to the House of Representatives, are already gaining prominence. Progressive groups such as Peoples Action, the Working Families Party, Democracy for America and Our Revolution, the organization that emerged from the Sanders campaign, will focus on recruiting and supporting populist candidates up and down the ticket, while driving emblematic reforms Fight for $15 , paid sick and family leave, and more at the state and local levels that can help drive a national message. At the state level, progressives can listen to disaffected voters, speak to their worries and act. Most of all, in a Trump administration, the states are where we can establish a foundation of progressive policies to drive our message and create a better, forward-looking model for the nation. Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvels archive or follow her on Twitter. Who won #Hamiltongate? Not the cast, who offered a dignified and respectful speech after their performance on Friday. Not the audience, who that same night booed and jeered fellow attendee VicePresident-elect Mike Pence. And not the shows far-flung liberal fans, who cheered reports of Pences apparent comeuppance and mocked Donald Trumps thin-skinned tweets demanding an apology. No. Trump, and only Trump, won this round in the culture wars. And with many more rounds to come, liberals need to find some way not to take his bait. The cast of "Hamilton" delivered a message to Vice President-elect Mike Pence from stage after he watched the show at Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York on Nov. 18. Pence was booed by some audience members when he first walked in. (Twitter/Hamilton via Storyful) Maybe Pence decided to see the hottest show on Broadway because its the hottest show on Broadway. Or because its a Pulitzer-Prize-winning work by a bona-fide genius. Or because, with its story of a destitute autodidact pulling himself up by his own bootstraps, it has had documented appeal to Democrats and Republicans alike. But I also wouldnt be surprised if Pence attended Fridays performance specifically hoping, or at least expecting, to stoke boos and a brouhaha that would ultimately rouse the Republican base and distract from much more embarrassing Trump-related news. Think about it. Trump could not have chosen a more perfect cultural foil than Hamilton if hed designed the show himself. The show has somewhat paradoxically become an unwitting symbol of out-of-touch, cosmopolitan liberal elites. Tickets to the smash hit can fetch thousands of dollars, making them inaccessible to all but the reasonably wealthy. The show is fawned upon by effete elites such as myself. Some joked that there was a quota for Hamilton coverage at the New York Times (my former employer, where, among other things, I wrote theater reviews). Most important, at least to Trumps base, Hamilton has Hispanics literally taking the jobs of old white men. That is, the show chooses to cast people of color to play nearly every Founding Father (and Mother). It also employs the musical idiom of some these marginalized groups hip-hop in its storytelling. The production was intended to represent America then, as told by America now, as the shows creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, has repeatedly explained. These choices emblematic of the shows obsession with who tells your story were revelatory and revolutionary, from both an employment perspective and a storytelling one. Actors of color find precious few opportunities to play such textured, multidimensional roles; and reimagining these historical figures as nonwhite visually transfers their achievements, rights and legacies to demographics often denied them. To liberals, these creative choices enhanced the shows virtuosity. To many conservatives, though, those same choices and the liberal echo-chamber that celebrated them were evidence of their deepest, darkest fears. This critical darling was a form of cultural appropriation, a revisionist attempt to brown-wash American history, in the same way that unpatriotic Advanced Placement textbooks are now supposedly doing. And to the extent that Trumps voters had previously heard anything at all about this Broadway phenomenon, theyd likely heard about the reverse racism pseudoscandal of last spring. As Fox News and others sanctimoniously reported, the show had posted casting notices seeking NON-WHITE men and women, ages 20s to 30s, for Broadway and upcoming Tours! (Casting notices were later rephrased.) No wonder, then, that #Hamiltongate presented such a potent political crucible. My own Twitter feed has been full of triumphant liberals celebrating the theaters revived ability to effect political change and unmask Trump as a tetchy crybully; and triumphant conservatives celebrating how smug, moralizing and clueless this whole incident revealed liberals to be. Both sides had so much fun patting themselves on the back that they sometimes failed to notice how much attention they drew away from the Trump University fraud settlement, the legalized bribery happening as foreign diplomats book stays at Trump-owned hotels, and rabidly bad administration picks. Art should be political (as this brilliant show already is, in spades). Artists should be political, too. I applaud the casts instinct not to throw away their shot, to paraphrase one of the shows anthems. Particularly since many of them may justifiably feel personally threatened by the policies espoused by the incoming administration. But no matter how unfailingly polite and pointed the production crafted its statement to be, when those words came on the heels of audience jeers, they still unwittingly played directly into Trumps hands. This, I fear, will be the central challenge of mounting an effective opposition to Trump in the years ahead. Like Silvio Berlusconi, Trump has an uncanny instinct for setting off a Pavlovian reaction among his leftist opponents, as economist Luigi Zingales recently put it, which only strengthens him. Calling out injustice always feels like the righteous thing to do. The uncomfortable question for Trumps opponents in the years ahead now must be: How do we call out injustice, without unintentionally reinforcing it? It is our duty to demand ethical integrity from our presidents, and Donald Trump cannot be allowed to make himself an exception. He is already trying hard to do so. Amid the hustle and bustle of his transition, according to the New York Times, President-elect Trump found time last week for a visit from the Indian partners with whom he is developing a pair of residential towers in Pune, a sprawling city not far from Mumbai. And Trump received a congratulatory phone call from Argentine President Mauricio Macri, with whose father Trump had business dealings. Trump and Macri denied published reports that Trump lobbied for an office building project he and a group of partners want to build in Buenos Aires. Also, when Trump met last week with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trumps daughter Ivanka was present. That raised eyebrows because Ivanka Trump, along with her brothers Donald Jr. and Eric, apparently will manage Trumps business empire while he is in office. Trumps lawyer called this arrangement a blind trust, but it is no such thing. Rather, its a way to use the presidency for the Trump familys further enrichment. [On conflicts of interest, Trump may be worse than Clinton] Donald Trump has a lot of potential conflicts of interest as president but there's no law that specifically requires a commander in chief to remove themselves from all of their business interests. The Fix's Peter W. Stevenson explains why presidents usually put their assets in a "blind trust" to avoid problems. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) The real and potential conflicts of interest are legion. The Post reported that at least 111 Trump companies have done business in 18 countries and territories across South America, Asia and the Middle East and also places such as Canada, Scotland and Ireland. We know that much but very little more from the financial disclosure documents Trump filed in May. We would know more had he not broken his promise to release his tax returns. Some of Trumps overseas developments are brick-and-mortar projects financed by big loans, often from foreign banks. One of Trumps biggest lenders, Germanys Deutsche Bank, is negotiating a multibillion-dollar settlement with the Justice Department over abuses that contributed to the 2008 financial crash. Trump will soon headthe Justice Department. Some other foreign business dealings are basically licensing agreements for the use of the Trump brand. According to The Post, Trumps company has been paid up to $10 million since 2014 for the right to put the Trump name atop a luxury apartment complex in Istanbul. The owner is an oil and media conglomerate closely allied with the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is conducting a brutal campaign of repression against his critics, including the independent Turkish media. So when dealing with countries where he does business, will Trump put his own financial interests aside and do what is best for the United States? We shall see is a far too generous answer. Based on what we have seen in the two weeks since the election, the answer is a simple no. I might feel differently if Trump put his many businesses into a genuine blind trust which would mean liquidating as many assets as possible and having the cash managed by an independent trustee. This is probably not practical; his many partners in real estate deals would surely object, since the buildings would lose value once the Trump name was removed. But at the very least, Trump should have his empire managed by some eminent outsider who does not happen to be one of his children. What does the law require? Almost nothing. [Our next president, the Godfather] As president, Trump is exempt from conflict-of-interest statutes. He must file an annual disclosure document listing assets and income but is not compelled to release his tax returns, though recent presidents have done so. There is no law that would keep Trump from continuing to run the Trump Organization while in office. (Arguably, it might be better for him to spend time doing that than trying to deport 11 million undocumented migrants, take away health insurance from 20 million people, ban Muslims from entering the country and reinstitute torture for terrorism suspects.) He does have to reckon with the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which bars public officials from receiving gifts from foreign governments without the consent of Congress. If stalled overseas projects suddenly get moving again after Trump is sworn in, that could be a problem. Primarily, though, it is going to take public pressure to hold Trump accountable. Trumps supporters should recall how he claimed the system was rigged and promised to drain the swamp. So far, he seems to intend to deepen the muck and make his fabulously wealthy family even wealthier. How Trump handles his business interests must be seen as a simple test of his sincerity. So far he is failing miserably. Read more from Eugene Robinsons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A. President-elect Donald Trump held what senior adviser Kellyanne Conway called a reset meeting for members of the media at Trump Tower on Monday. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) President-elect Donald Trump held what senior adviser Kellyanne Conway called a reset meeting for members of the media at Trump Tower on Monday. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) President-elect Donald Trump canceled a meeting at the New York Times on Tuesday and blasted the publication on Twitter hours before reversing himself and agreeing to an extensive interview during a lunchtime meeting. At the newspapers midtown Manhattan headquarters, Trump spoke frankly about a number of topics with the papers editors, reporters and business executives. Trump said he didnt intend to prosecute Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, countering his campaign rhetoric. Its just not something that I feel very strongly about, he said, according to Times journalists who live-tweeted the hour-long session. I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways. [Trump wont pursue case against Clinton, adviser says] Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump responded to Hillary Clinton saying that he shouldn't be in charge of the law in the U.S. by saying, "You'd be in jail." The comment was met with rousing applause from the audience. (The Washington Post) He also acknowledged that there is some connectivity between climate change and human activity, a softening of his campaign stance. But he said he is also thinking about how much it will cost our companies and how it will affect American competitiveness. Asked about a Nazi conference in Washington over the weekend, Trump said that of course . . . I disavow and condemn them. Trump left the meeting about 2 p.m. amid jeers and a few boos from a crowd of passersby assembled in the newspapers lobby. Trump had scheduled two meetings with the publisher and journalists from the Times on Tuesday, including one on-the-record session. But the president-elect, who frequently attacked the paper during his campaign, suddenly canceled the events in a series of tweets. I cancelled todays meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice, Trump wrote to his nearly 16 million followers on the microblogging site. Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes, he continued. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone! Times editors and reporters also took to Twitter to deny Trumps account. Clifford J. Levy, the papers assistant masthead editor, tweeted out an official response saying that it was the president-elect who had tried to change the ground rules by seeking only a private meeting. We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to, Levy wrote. We were unaware that the meeting was cancelled until we saw the President Elects tweet this morning. 1 of 74 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Heres what President-elect Donald Trump has been doing after the election View Photos He has been holding interviews and meeting with Congress and the president as he prepares to transition into the White House. Caption He has been holding interviews and meetings as he prepares to enter the White House. Jan. 19, 2017 President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, visit the Lincoln Memorial before the Make America Great Again concert. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. Times columnist Nicholas Kristof went further, tweeting: Mr. President-Elect, no reason to be scared of Times journalists! But by midmorning, word came down from Trump Tower that the meeting was back on. The Times also released a statement saying: Mr. Trumps staff has told us that the President Elects meeting with The Times is on again. He will meet with our publisher off-the-record and that session will be followed by an on-the-record meeting with our journalists and editorial columnists. [Donald Trumps transition team hits a reset button with the media but changes nothing] The extraordinary spectacle of a man about to become president and one of the countrys leading newspapers engaging in a Twitter war underscores how Trumps always-contentious relations with the media have deteriorated even further since his election. The relationship between presidents and those who cover them is often an adversarial one, but media experts say Trumps blasts against reporters he called them the lowest form of humanity during the campaign have broken new ground. His Twitter spat with the Times came one day after Trump sat down with television news executives and some well-known TV journalists and repeatedly told them that the campaign reporting about him was unfair and dishonest. Participants in the meeting at Trump Tower in New York described it as a contentious but generally respectful gathering. But if the media elite attended in hopes of improving relations with the forthcoming Trump administration, that wasnt quite in the cards. The president-elect specifically called out reporting by CNN and NBC that he deemed unfair, according to four people who attended the meeting, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was off the record. Instead of striking a harmonious tone to build rapport after the election, Trump was combative, participants said. In a calm and deliberate voice, he told those sitting around a conference table that they had failed to provide their viewers with fair and accurate coverage and told them that they failed to understand him or his appeal to millions of Americans. But he made no mention of the enormous amount of airtime that the networks, especially on cable, devoted to his campaign. A number of analyses have noted that Trumps presidential effort was boosted by the news medias fascination with him. In a sign of another battle with the media to come, Trump also shrugged off the need for a constant press pool covering him, the people said, although he did not delve into specifics. Trump has repeatedly shirked his pool, upending a long-standing tradition of the president and president-elect. A protective pool, as it is known, is considered necessary for disclosure of what the president is doing and transparency when big news breaks. Clinton, for example, drew criticism when she left a Sept. 11 memorial ceremony after falling ill without alerting pool reporters. Federal judges struck down Wisconsins legislative map on Monday as illegally partisan, an unusual ruling that will require the Supreme Court to once again consider whether political gerrymandering violates the Constitution. It is a question the court has addressed in the past without resolution. In its last attempt, Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February, wrote that it was impossible for courts to come up with a test to decide when partisan line-drawing goes so far as to violate the rights of those who dont belong to the party in power. But the justices are divided, and they have not shut the door to the possibility that such violations could exist. [Supreme Court divided on question of partisan gerrymandering] The three-judge panel in Wisconsin ruled 2 to 1 that such a violation occurred when the Republican assembly and Gov. Scott Walker (R) went to work drawing the states legislative districts in 2011. Judges in the majority said the Republicans drew lines to make it impossible for Democrats to receive their share of power. The evidence presented in a four-day trial established that one of the purposes of Act 43 was to secure Republican control of the Assembly under any likely future electoral scenario for the remainder of the decade, in other words to entrench the Republican Party in power, wrote Judge Kenneth Ripple, who was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit by President Ronald Reagan. He was joined by U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb, who was nominated by President Jimmy Carter. District Judge William Griesbach, chosen by President George W. Bush, dissented. Such rulings on state redistricting plans go directly to the Supreme Court for review, without the usual stop at an appeals court. The Supreme Court must either affirm the judgment or schedule it for full briefing and decision. Although justices are often called to decide whether legislative and congressional apportionment plans are unconstitutional because of racial gerrymandering, it has never struck down a plan because it was too partisan. Some justices take a to-the-victor-goes-the-spoils view of redistricting; others think it an unconstitutional problem. In the courts last look at the subject, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy ruled against the challengers at hand, but he noted that there could come a case where the burdens and restrictions on groups or persons by reason of their views would be so severe as to violate their First Amendment rights. Those who believe partisan gerrymandering has contributed to a more divisive political climate have been working to get such a case to the Supreme Court. Similar lawsuits have been filed in Maryland and North Carolina. [Law student takes case against Maryland gerrymandering to Supreme Court] Campaign Legal Center Executive Director J. Gerald Hebert, one of the lawyers in the case, said the self-interested, unfair practice of partisan gerrymandering hurts our democracy. With this decision, partisan gerrymandering should come to an end in Wisconsin and is now on its way to extinction across the nation. The judicial panel said the map-drawing was biased against Democrats. It noted that in 2012, Democrats received 51.4 percent of the statewide vote and won 39 seats in the legislative assembly. Republicans won 52 percent in 2014, and that translated into 63 seats. President-elect Donald Trump's supporters often chanted "lock her up" when he discussed his opponent, Hillary Clinton, at campaign rallies. But despite repeatedly promising to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her, it looks like Trump might not pursue Clinton after all. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) President-elect Donald Trump's supporters often chanted "lock her up" when he discussed his opponent, Hillary Clinton, at campaign rallies. But despite repeatedly promising to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her, it looks like Trump might not pursue Clinton after all. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday appeared to back away from his campaign trail vow to pursue criminal charges against former rival Hillary Clinton over her email server and family foundation, with a senior Trump adviser saying his White House will not seek a criminal investigation. Hours later, Trump himself said that he was no longer committed to prosecuting Clinton, telling editors and reporters at the New York Times that he doesnt want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways. But Trumps comments were less definitive about his intentions than those made by his former campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, earlier in the day. Asked whether he had ruled out a prosecution of the former first lady, Trump said its just not something that I feel very strongly about, according to a tweet from Mike Grynbaum, a media writer for the Times. Conway had sounded more certain that the incoming president would allow his Democratic rival to live in peace. I think when the president-elect, whos also the head of your party, tells you before hes even inaugurated that he doesnt wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content to fellow Republicans, she said in interview on MSNBCs Morning Joe. Look, I think hes thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign are not among them, she added. The uncertainty, while typical of Trumps often mercurial moods and statements, represents a change from his campaign rhetoric, in which he issued incendiary calls for a special prosecutor to reopen the FBIs closed investigation of Clintons use of a private server while serving as secretary of state. He had also urged investigations of allegations of corruption at the Clinton Foundation, nicknaming the Democratic nominee Crooked Hillary, and encouraged chants of Lock her up! at his rallies. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump responded Hillary Clinton saying that he shouldn't be in charge of the law in the U.S. saying, You'd be in jail. The comment was met with rousing applause from the audience. (The Washington Post) If Trump decided to pursue or not pursue a criminal investigation from the Oval Office, it would be an extraordinary break with political and legal protocol, which holds that the attorney general and FBI make decisions on whether to conduct investigations and file charges, free of pressure from the president. An attorney for Clinton, David Kendall, declined to comment. While Trump had repeatedly blasted Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, during the campaign, it is a tradition in American politics that after an election, the victor puts some of the campaign rhetoric behind them. Trumps decision would be consistent with that sort of historical pattern. The president-elects apparent new position, however, stands in contrast with leading members of his party. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who is finishing his first term leading the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has vowed to continue to investigate Clintons email server. It would be totally remiss of us to dismiss [the email investigation] because shes not going to be president, Chaffetz said after the election, referring to the defeated Democratic nominee. [Top House Republican says hell continue Clinton probe] While FBI Director James B. Comey has repeatedly said the bureau did not find enough evidence to recommend prosecuting Clinton over the email issue, he questioned her judgment in using a private server, calling it extremely careless. 1 of 74 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Heres what President-elect Donald Trump has been doing after the election View Photos He has been holding interviews and meeting with Congress and the president as he prepares to transition into the White House. Caption He has been holding interviews and meetings as he prepares to enter the White House. Jan. 19, 2017 President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, visit the Lincoln Memorial before the Make America Great Again concert. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. Legal experts say any attempt by Trump to influence whether an investigation would be pursued threatens the integrity of the justice system. The president-elect has demonstrated his complete lack of understanding of how the government makes these kinds of decisions, said Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The attorney general answers to the president, but the department is supposed to be independent, especially when it comes to prosecutorial decisions. Any president, especially our next president, needs to both understand and respect that or else they risk politicizing criminal prosecutions in ways that can be damaging. Trumps new thinking also drew fire from political supporters and opponents alike. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.) criticized Conways remarks even though Trumps decision would benefit the former Democratic presidential nominee. Thats not how this works, Murphy wrote on Twitter. In our democracy, the President doesnt decide who gets prosecuted and who doesnt. On the other side of the spectrum, Breitbart News the conservative site that was one of Trumps biggest cheerleaders during the campaign posted a sharply worded headline: Broken Promise: Trump Doesnt Wish to Pursue Clinton Email Charges. [Trouble in paradise: Breitbart calls Trump out] Breitbarts former chairman, Stephen K. Bannon, joined the Trump campaign in August, and Trump has appointed Bannon as his chief White House strategist. Comey announced in July that he was recommending Clinton not be charged over her email server, thrusting the FBI into the center of a campaign firestorm. He then ignited even more criticism by telling Congress in late October less than two weeks before the election that the bureaus work had resumed. But after agents sifted through additional emails found on a computer seized during an investigation of disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, Comey announced two days before the election that his original conclusion would stand. During the campaign, Trump said that he would call for a special prosecutor to be appointed to reopen that inquiry. Normally, a special prosecutor is appointed by the attorney general to investigate a government official for possible misconduct in office. One of the most well-known special prosecutors in recent history was Kenneth Starr, whose investigation led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton as president in 1998. He was originally appointed independent counsel by a special three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington to investigate the failed Arkansas real estate deal involving both Clintons known as Whitewater. His mandate eventually expanded to include possible obstruction of justice by the Clinton administration in dealing with the presidents relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Another famous case involving a special prosecutor occurred in 1973 when President Richard Nixon asked his attorney general, Elliot Richardson, to investigate the Watergate scandal. Richardson appointed Archibald Cox special prosecutor, but when Cox subpoenaed Nixons tape recordings of conversations secretly recorded in the Oval Office, Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused to fire Cox and then resigned in protest in what was dubbed the Saturday Night Massacre. In addition to further probing Hillary Clintons use of a private email server, Trump has also called for expanding the FBIs investigation into allegations of corruption surrounding the Clinton Foundation, a large nonprofit group that drew criticism for vacuuming up donations from foreign governments and others with an interest in influencing Clinton while she was secretary of state. Prosecutors at the Justice Departments public integrity section advised FBI agents in February that they did not have enough evidence to proceed, people familiar with the investigation have said. But agents in the FBIs New York office have sought to keep their efforts alive, the people said. There is also at least one other case that tangentially touches the Clinton Foundation matter: The FBIs investigation into Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), a close ally of both Clintons. McAuliffe, until he was elected governor, served on the board of the Clinton Foundation, and the investigation encompasses his time in that role. Agents are looking into McAuliffes 2013 campaign and his personal finances, people familiar with the probe have said. If Trump were to attempt to order the McAuliffe or the Clinton Foundation inquiries shut down, it would be a breach of Justice Department protocol and the type of political interference that many conservatives have suggested occurred in the email case. Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report. Though President-elect Donald Trumps first five picks for top jobs in his administration have all been white men, transition officials insisted Monday that the team he ultimately puts together will represent a cross-section of America. Trump spokesman Jason Miller told reporters on a conference call that the president-elect met with a high-caliber and broad and diverse group of job seekers and advisers in recent days and predicted that the top rungs of the executive branch that Trump assembles in the coming weeks will be very broad and diverse, both with the Cabinet and the administration. That point was echoed by Trumps campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who said that assuring diversity both in backgrounds and political philosophy is a priority for Trump. And diversity means meeting with people across the aisle who are traditionally more Democratic, who are coming together and wanting to offer him advice, perhaps vie for a spot in his Cabinet, Conway said. But willing to give him counsel and willing to share experiences and have candid conversations about their views and their backgrounds. The Trump aides were seeking to dismiss speculation that the parade of people summoned by the president-elect which has included women, nonwhites and erstwhile political foes has been merely for show. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a Democrat critical of the Obama administrations approach in Syria, says she had a frank and positive conversation Monday with President-elect Donald Trump on a variety of foreign policy issues. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) That skepticism comes in the aftermath of a brutal presidential campaign that was punctuated by frequent incidents in which Trump said and did things that offended women, Latinos and Muslims, while drawing support from white nationalist groups. Exit polls suggest that Trump owes his victory to white voters, of whom 58 percent supported him. By comparison, he won only 8 percent of African American voters, and 29 percent each of Hispanics and Asian Americans, the exit polls showed. It is time for us to come together as one united people. Its time, Trump said in his election-night victory speech. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me. [Trump and Pence vs. Hamilton cast: A collision of two Americas] At the same time, Trump has made clear he is not ready to let bygones be bygones, feuding in recent days on Twitter with the cast of the hit musical Hamilton and with Saturday Night Live. On Monday afternoon, he had a contentious Trump Tower meeting with another one of his chief adversaries: members of the news media. In the session with more than a dozen television executives and on-air journalists, Trump was highly critical of coverage of him, according to several people familiar with the gathering. Keeping his voice calm and his tone flippant, he told the group sitting around a conference table that they failed to provide their viewers with fair and accurate coverage and told them they failed to understand him or his appeal to millions of Americans. Trump expressed particular ire at CNN and at several reporters at other cable networks whom he sees as unreasonably antagonistic toward him, though he did not mention them by name. The people variously described Trump as combative, proud and dismissive toward the news organizations present. He also shrugged off the need for a constant pool covering him, they said, although he did not delve into specifics. On Tuesday, he was scheduled to meet with publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., as well as editors and reporters of the journalistic institution that Trump frequently refers to as the failing New York Times. But he abruptly cancelled that meeting via Twitter on Tuesday morning, claiming that the Times had changed the ground rules. The Times denied any change. Trumps meetings on Monday included Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who was the first Hindu member of Congress and who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), a socialist, in the Democratic primaries. On foreign policy, Gabbard, a combat veteran who served in Iraq, has been critical of the Obama administrations handling of the war in Syria. After the meeting with Trump, she issued a statement saying that her frank and positive conversation with the president-elect had centered on our current policies regarding Syria, our fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face. [One nation, deeply divided, worried about going home for Thanksgiving] I felt it important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect now before the drumbeats of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government, she added. Gabbard spokeswoman Emily Latimer said the congresswoman did not meet with President-elect Trump seeking a job, nor did he offer her one. Another woman who met with Trump on Monday was Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R), who said she had discussed a wide range of issues with him but was not offered a position. It was just an initial meeting to discuss a wide range of topics, Fallin said. Also on the list of those meeting with Trump on Monday were former Texas governor Rick Perry, who was a harsh critic when he opposed Trump in the runup to the GOP primaries; former House speaker Newt Gingrich; former senator Scott Brown (Mass.), who indicated that he is interested in being tapped as secretary of veterans affairs; and Elaine Chao, a former labor secretary who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). On Monday evening, Trump released a video in which he said: Our transition team is working very smoothly, efficiently and effectively. Truly great and talented men and women, patriots indeed, are being brought in, and many will soon be a part of our government. He also outlined a series of executive actions in the video that he said he intends to take on his first day in office: issuing notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement; canceling restrictions on energy production; putting in place a rule that two regulations must be eliminated for every new one enacted; ordering a plan to protect U.S. infrastructure from cyberattacks and other forms of attack; directing the Labor Department to investigate abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker; and imposing a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists. [Trump has a plan for government workers. Theyre not going to like it.] No personnel announcements are imminent, officials said Monday, adding that Trump is planning to spend Thanksgiving with his family at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Fla. Two new names have emerged as possible candidates for secretary of homeland security, including a retired Marine general who clashed with the Obama administration over women in combat and over plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, people familiar with the selection process said Monday. Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, who retired this year as chief of U.S. Southern Command, is under consideration for the homeland security post, the people familiar with the process said. Another candidate is Frances Townsend, a top homeland security and counterterrorism official in the George W. Bush administration, they said. Additionally, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach appeared to be carrying a written plan for the Department of Homeland Security into a meeting with Trump on Sunday. According to one page of the plan photographed by the Associated Press, it focused in part on questioning high-risk immigrants over support they may allegedly have for Islamic sharia law. Kobach entered the national spotlight several years ago when he advised Mitt Romney on the idea of self-deportation for undocumented immigrants during the 2012 presidential campaign. A former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, Kobach also wrote Arizonas strict immigration law and has helped lead the fight against President Obamas executive actions on immigration. It is unclear how seriously Kobach is under consideration for DHS, but he is a strong Trump supporter who helped influence the president-elects hard-line views on immigration. Trump has pledged a crackdown on illegal immigration that would require an exorbitantly expensive and logistically difficult operation to remove millions of people from the country. Overseeing it all would be DHS, which was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks primarily to coordinate the battle against terrorism but is now perhaps known as well for its immigration role. A beefed-up U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a DHS component, would be instrumental if Trump follows through on rounding up far more undocumented immigrants. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, also part of DHS, would come under increased pressure to add more layers of security to the Southwest border. [A scramble to assess the danger of Trumps global business empire] Meanwhile, Miller, the Trump spokesman, pointedly declined to back embattled FBI Director James B. Comey on Monday, saying Trump would meet with the nations top law enforcement officer at some point. There hasnt been any official statement with regard to Director Comey, Miller said during the transition teams daily briefing. Asked whether Trump would seek the resignation of Comey, who played a controversial role in the presidential campaigns final days, Miller said only, I would imagine that at some point, the two will meet. Comey drew biting criticism at various points from Republicans and Democrats over the FBIs handling of Democratic nominee Hillary Clintons use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Clinton has told donors she blamed her surprising loss on the FBI chief, who told Congress 11 days before the election that the bureau was reviewing further Clinton emails, then said two days before Election Day that the review had not changed his decision not to recommend charges against Clinton. The transition operation continued to confront questions Monday over how Trump will handle potential conflicts of interest between his sprawling business empire and his new role as the chief executive of the federal government. Last week, Trump held a meeting at Trump Tower with three business partners building a Trump property south of Mumbai. His daughter Ivanka Trump a vice president at the Trump Organization and one of the family members who will be in charge of Donald Trumps businesses after he takes office attended his meeting last week with the Japanese prime minister. A new Washington Post analysis of financial filings shows that at least 111 Trump companies have done business in 18 countries and territories, including eight launched during the campaign that appear tied to a potential hotel project in Saudi Arabia. Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world, Trump tweeted Monday evening. Only the crooked media makes this a big deal! Sari Horwitz and Elise Viebeck in Washington and Robert Costa and Philip Rucker in New York contributed to this report. A Syrian army modified T-72 tank during an assault to capture the rebel-held village of Hawsh Nasri, on the eastern outskirts of Damascus on Nov. 22. (Stringer/AFP/Getty Images) Syrias army said Tuesday that it had formed a new volunteer corps to join its five-year war effort, an announcement that underscored the extent to which its once-sprawling armed forces have crumbled. In a statement, the army encouraged men 18 and older to register for the newly minted Fifth Legion at recruitment centers across the country. It said the volunteers would work alongside forces allied with the Syrian government, eliminating terrorism and returning security and stability to the country. As Syrias war grinds on, President Bashar al-Assads army is increasingly reliant on conscripts and even prisoners. It also receives heavy support from Russian and Iranian forces and Iran-backed Shiite militias, as well as powerful Syrian paramilitary groups. In a rare speech last year, Assad described the problem as a shortfall in human capacity but insisted that his military remained ready and able to fight. Defeat does not exist in the dictionary of the Syrian Arab Army, he said. [In Aleppo, Shiite militias highlight Irans influence] Although the numerical strength of Syrias remaining military force is unknown, experts say it is less than half of its 300,000-strong prewar high. That sharp reduction has hurt its ability to hold land without the help of its allies. We know the Syrian Arab Army is facing a serious manpower shortage due to defections, desertions, draft evasion and casualties, said Faysal Itani, a resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Councils Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, a Washington-based think tank. Syria already conscripts men 18 and older into the army. Before the war, that service would last for two years. Now, many conscripts say they have served much longer, with no sign of discharge on the horizon. Men of fighting age are routinely picked up from checkpoints if their names are on a list of wanted conscripts. But others are unable to avoid the draft. Men fleeing military service are dotted throughout the Syrian diaspora. Many have been able to defer military service with a payment of $300, but not all have been as lucky. George, 35, a laborer from the western province of Homs, said he was arrested as he tried to leave Syria. In an interview in Turkey earlier this year, he described how he had been flown first to the northeastern city of Qamishli and later to the eastern province of Deir al-Zour. There, he manned a checkpoint facing an Islamic State position. It was terror every day, he said. They knew I was a Christian, and I feared for my life. [10 new wars that could be unleashed as a result of the one against ISIS] Fighters have even been recruited from the prison population. Three inmates freed from the Adra Central Prison near Damascus told The Washington Post that prison officials had offered cellmates their freedom in return for a commitment to fight. More than 100 men had accepted, they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. With the Syrian economy in free fall, the Damascus war effort has been bolstered by two powerful militia forces known as the Tiger Forces and the Desert Hawks that pay higher salaries and allow recruits more freedom to reap the spoils of war, taking bribes at checkpoints and looting areas newly retaken from the armed opposition. In an apparent attempt to circumvent that, the militarys statement Tuesday said state employees would retain the right to benefits they were already receiving through their jobs. Itani said the provision appeared aimed at sweetening the deal, adding that the announcement may also be a concession to one of the governments key military allies, Russia. Russia has preferred to deal with state institutions over militia, but that hasnt always been practical due to the composition of forces fighting the insurgency, he said. Russian and Iranian forces are playing a central role in the battle to retake the eastern districts of Aleppo from rebel forces. The extent of their own losses became clearer Tuesday when Mohammad Ali Shahidi Mahallati, head of Irans Foundation of Martyrs, told the Tasnim News Agency that more than 1,000 Iranian soldiers have been killed in Syria. Read more: In Syrias Aleppo, Shiite militias point to Irans unparalleled influence Syrias embattled leader acknowledges battlefield setbacks Desperate for soldiers, Assads government imposes harsh recruitment measures Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news An Army carry team moves the flag-draped transfer case holding the remains of Staff Sgt. James Moriarty at Dover Air Force Base on Nov. 7. Moriarty and two other soldiers were killed when their convoy came under fire as it entered a Jordanian military base. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Officials investigating the slayings of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan this month say they now know precisely how the Americans were killed but still lack a clear explanation for why a Jordanian guard opened fire on the men as they returned to their base from a training mission. Surveillance video and witness accounts confirm that the soldiers from the 5th Special Forces Group were shot without provocation as they prepared to enter Prince Faisal Air Base in southern Jordan on Nov. 4. Yet, more than two weeks later, no information has emerged linking the guard to extremist groups or causes, according to U.S. and Middle Eastern officials familiar with the ongoing probe. The shooter, who was critically wounded in an exchange of fire with the Americans, has remained in an induced coma in a Jordanian hospital since the incident. A team of investigators led by the FBI has conducted an extensive search for possible connections to terrorist groups, interviewing relatives and associates and scouring the mans computer and cellphone, so far without finding links to jihadists or even evidence of strong religious views, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The absence of such evidence has hampered efforts to determine whether the shooting was an act of jihadist-inspired terrorism or was triggered by a grudge, mental illness or some other cause, said a senior Middle Eastern security official briefed on the preliminary findings. What appears certain, however, is that the guard fired deliberately and repeatedly at the Americans, shooting one of them as the victim tried to take cover, the official said. What we dont know at this point is what exactly set him off, said the official. [Slain U.S. soldiers were working for CIA training Syrian soldiers] The Defense Department and the CIA both declined to comment on the investigation. The soldiers Staff Sgt. Matthew Lewellen, Staff Sgt. Kevin McEnroe and Staff Sgt. James Moriarty, all based at Fort Campbell, Ky. were detailed to a CIA-led training program for Syrian opposition fighters at the time of the incident. All were killed as their convoy was preparing to enter the Jordanian facility near the village of al-Jafr, in what is believed to be the deadliest single incident involving a CIA team since December 2009, when seven officers and contractors were killed in a suicide bombing in Khost, Afghanistan. Jordanian officials earlier suggested that the shooting might have been triggered by an accidental gun discharge or a failure by the Americans to follow established security protocols for entering the military base, about 150 miles south of Amman, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials said. But evidence from the surveillance video and surviving witnesses has all but ruled out the possibility that a misunderstanding caused the event, the officials said. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Jordan said in a statement last week that there was absolutely no credible evidence that the Americans had violated security procedures at the gate. He added that all possible motives, including terrorism, were still being explored. In Islamic State videos, suicide bombers become precision weapons One official familiar with the surveillance video said it shows the convoys lead vehicle being cleared through the gate. But as the second vehicle approaches the barrier, bullets are seen to rip through the windshield, hitting the two occupants inside. Two U.S. soldiers then leap from other vehicles in the convoy to take cover behind a concrete blast wall. But the Jordanian guard, wearing body armor and carrying his assault rifle, is seen in the video to charge toward the Americans, firing several bursts into one of them. The fourth U.S. soldier then fires back at the guard with his pistol, hitting him several times, the official said. The wounded Jordanian was described by investigators as a seasoned noncommissioned officer and father of three children, with a clean record and extensive experience on the base. Jim Moriarty, father of slain Staff Sgt. James Moriarty, said he has been briefed on some details of the attack but is still waiting to learn how his son could have been killed at a secure military facility while transiting a gate he and his comrades used regularly. They lived on this base, they went through that gate all the time, Moriarty said in an interview. I got no rational explanation for what happened other than that this guy killed these Americans on purpose. Moriarty said he had been skeptical of the earlier stories about an accidental discharge by one of the Americans weapons, noting that the soldiers were highly skilled experts who were in Jordan to train Syrians on the use of firearms. But he added, I want the truth to come out, whatever the truth is. Read more: Trumps security picks deepen worries for Muslims Photos show scorched-earth campaign by Mosuls Islamic State defenders Jihadists cheer Trumps election victory Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) appears at a campaign event with Donald Trump in Alabama in February. As president-elect, Trump has nominated Sessions to be attorney general. (John Bazemore/AP) The Justice Department has long enjoyed a measure of independence in the executive branch, even though its boss is appointed by, and answers to, the president. The president sets a broad policy agenda, which the Justice Department plays a role in implementing, but when it comes to a particular criminal investigation, the White House generally steers clear. On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump and a senior adviser made comments that call into question that order of things. The adviser, Kellyanne Conway, suggested that Trump had indicated that he doesnt wish to pursue charges against Hillary Clinton. Although Trump later said he would not take investigations off the table, he asserted that his preference would be to move on. My inclination would be for whatever power I have on the matter is to say, lets go forward, Trump told the New York Times, seeming to suggest that he did not favor prosecution of Clinton-related cases. This has been looked at for so long, ad nauseam. [Jeff Sessions as attorney general could mean trouble for Hillary Clinton and her familys foundation] President-elect Donald Trump's supporters often chanted "lock her up" when he discussed his opponent, Hillary Clinton, at campaign rallies. But despite repeatedly promising to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her, it looks like Trump might not pursue Clinton after all. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) Trump had vowed during the campaign to appoint a special prosecutor to look at Clintons use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, and he remarked that, were he president, Clinton would be in jail. He seemed to back down, at least somewhat, from that controversial promise on Tuesday, and legal analysts said he did so in a way that demonstrates a misunderstanding of what role he should play in Justice Department investigations. Trumps implicit assumption that he can direct the Department of Justice to prosecute Clinton or not demonstrates a dangerous assumption the president can dictate the departments prosecutorial decisions, said Jennifer Daskal, an associate professor of law at American University and former senior Justice Department official. But the Department of Justice depends on its independence as the source of its authority and power. Even Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the president-elects pick for attorney general, has long advocated for the Justice Departments independence. You understand that your role is such that, on occasion, you have to say no to the person that actually appointed you to the job and who you support? Sessions asked current Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch during her confirmation hearing last year. People have agendas, and attorneys general sometimes do, and they have to guard against that and be objective, Sessions added later. Spokesmen for Trump and Sessions did not immediately return messages seeking comment for this article. David Kendall, an attorney for Clinton, declined to comment. Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R), who is considered a contender for a Cabinet post, said Tuesday that there is a tradition in American politics that after you win an election, you sort of put things behind you, and if thats the decision he reached, thats perfectly consistent with the historical pattern. Trump could theoretically order Sessions to take particular actions, even in criminal cases. Presidents often shape the broad agenda of the Justice Department for example, telling the attorney general to devote more resources to immigration cases. Trump also has said he had not made up his mind on whether he would ask for the resignation of FBI Director James B. Comey, who is in the middle of a 10-year term. FBI Director James B. Comey is in the third year of his 10-year tenure, but President-elect Donald Trump wont say if he will keep him. The Posts Sari Horwitz explains why. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post) Doing that might come with significant political costs, as would making specific demands in a criminal investigation. The attorney general does not have legal independence from the president, said George J. Terwilliger III, who served as deputy attorney general under President George H.W. Bush. Politically, in almost all circumstances, its a lot smarter for a president to afford an attorney general independence, particularly in criminal matters, but most acutely as to specific cases. Trump could move to pardon Clinton, though she would have to accept to make it legally valid. That would possibly be the most direct way to ensure that this issue goes away, said Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor. MSNBC first reported that Trump would not pursue investigations of Clinton both for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and for the financial dealings of her familys charitable foundation, and Conway later appeared on the network and seemed to confirm the reporting. I think when the president-elect, whos also the head of your party now, Joe, tells you before hes even inaugurated he doesnt wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content to the members, Conway said, addressing host Joe Scarborough. Trump himself, pressed on the issue in a meeting with New York Times reporters on Tuesday, said no when asked whether he would take investigations off the table for the Clintons. He also made comments suggesting that he wanted to move beyond the matter and said that a prosecution would be very, very divisive for the country. Even talking about investigations can be viewed as improper meddling. Conservatives criticized President Obama for commenting while the Clinton email investigation was ongoing that Clinton had not jeopardized the United States national security which some saw as subtly influencing the investigation even though the FBI and the Justice Department maintained that it was done independently. Trumps prior remarks about appointing a special prosecutor drew widespread criticism. But after the election, Trump did not back down. Asked on CBSs 60 Minutes whether he would appoint a special prosecutor, he said, Im going to think about it. He later said, She did some bad things. [One of Clintons biggest critics in email case says hed tell Trump not to jail her] Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said Trumps call for a special prosecutor reflected his lack of knowledge about the Justice Department, and Conways remark Tuesday reinforced it. The attorney general answers to the president, but the department is supposed to be independent, especially when it comes to prosecutorial decisions, Vladeck said. Any president, especially our next president, needs to both understand and respect that or else they risk politicizing criminal prosecutions in ways that can be damaging. If Trump is now standing down from that call, that would in some ways reflect a return to normalcy. The FBI director said in July that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Clinton or her aides in that investigation, and the Justice Department closed the matter without filing charges. The Clinton Foundation investigation, though, is separate, and Trumps involvement there would be a violation of procedure. In February, agents from the FBIs New York field office made a pitch to career public integrity prosecutors to pursue the matter, but they were told they did not have enough evidence, people familiar with the case have said. The agents, though, kept their efforts alive, the people said. Sessions has said it seems like the FBI had not fully investigated the dealings of the Clinton Foundation while Clinton was secretary of state. There has been at least one famous instance of presidential meddling in Justice Department affairs. Richard M. Nixon ordered his attorney general and deputy attorney general to fire a special prosecutor looking into the Watergate break-in, and both men resigned in protest. Read more: Donald Trump could actually take steps to try to jail Hillary Clinton Trump wont pursue case against Clinton, Conway says The election of Donald Trump as US president is exposing the toxic degeneration of broad layers of what passes for the left in France. Their decades-long evolution from social democracy into the orbit of the neo-fascist National Front (FN) has led them to hail the election of a far-right regime in the United States as a victory. This takes a particularly repulsive form in the evolution of Jean-Pierre Chevenement, a co-founder of Frances ruling Socialist Party (PS) in 1971. He later broke with the PS, founded the Republican and Citizen Movement (MRC) in 2003, then resigning from the MRC in June 2015. While FN leader Marine Le Pen declared that Trumps election was a political revolution, Chevenement enthused: The victory of Donald Trump is certainly a defeat for the establishment. Coming after Brexit, it is another blow struck against free-market globalization. The election of a demagogic billionaire, who is placing white-supremacist advisers in key White House posts, is a horrific collapse of American democracy. It is the product of mass anger and disillusionment with deep social inequality, the policies of war and austerity of the Democratic Party, and the bankruptcy of its racial and gender identity politics, which are totally indifferent to the concerns of the working class. A similar process is well underway in France, as the FN emerges as the main beneficiary of rising anger in the working class with the PS. The only way to oppose the rise of far right in America and in Europe is to mobilize the working class in struggle, independently of and against the Democratic Party, the European social democrats, and their allies. Large sections of these forces are quite prepared to embrace alliances with far-right forces. Chevenement now publicly announces that he is trying to assemble a broad political coalition including the FN to pursue nationalist policies. In a March television interview, Chevenement was asked about the large numbers of former MRC members now active in the FN. I know many people claim to descend from me, he replied. I cannot control everything that is said. There are very diverse people, from the far right to the far left passing through the center. He added, The people who claim to descend from me, we will see what they can do. He held up as an example the French ruling elites rallying around General Charles de Gaulle in 1958, amid an army coup against Frances social-democratic regime during the Algerian war. He said, At some point, the National Fronts rise will provoke a number of changes in the behavior of many of our political leaders. I think of something that could look like 1958, with the return of General de Gaulle. But there is no equivalent of General de Gaulle today, except me ... Chevenements embrace of the far right is not an accident or a miscalculation. It is the outcome of his long career in bourgeois politics, which he launched by peddling a reactionary lie: that socialism can be established apart from the revolutionary mobilization of the working class, and in opposition to Trotskyism, by capitalist politicians. Chevenement played a key role in the founding of the PS, in response to revolutionary workers struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. In France, the May-June 1968 general strike, mobilizing over ten million workers, had brought de Gaulles government to its knees. Although the Stalinist French Communist Party (PCF) managed to end the strike and save the de Gaulle government, this betrayal discredited the PCF, the largest party in the working class. The French bourgeoisie was desperate to set up a new party to block a political movement to the left. Having already founded the Center for Socialist Studies, Research, and Education (CERES) as a student at the elite National Administration School (ENA), Chevenement took the CERES into the PS to support its main founder, Francois Mitterrand. He backed Mitterrand, a former top official of the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime, inside the PS, which was from the beginning a party of finance capital. Chevenement helped draft the PSs Common Program with the PCF, the basis for the PCFs Union of the Left alliance with the PS in the 1970s. The CERES advocated self-management, a conception popular in middle-class left circles. It is a theory hostile to the seizure of power by the working class, claiming that social oppression could be overcome if workers and bosses all managed their own affairs. On this basis, Chevenement worked inside the PS with anti-Trotskyist forces like Lionel Jospin of the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste, which had broken with the International Committee of the Fourth International in 1971 to function inside the PS. Based on fraudulent electoral promises first made in the Common Program, Mitterrand took power in 1981 and, just over a year later, moved against the workers, imposing spending cuts and mass layoffs in steel and auto. While taking ministerial posts in Mitterrands 1981-1995 presidency, Chevenement also repeatedly resigned, making nationalist criticisms of PS policies. During Mitterrands initial austerity turn, Chevenement resigned to criticize Mitterrands claims that austerity was necessary to keep France in line with Germany inside the European Monetary System. Chevenement then served as Mitterrands defense minister, resigning in 1991 as Mitterrand supported the Gulf War against Iraq. After the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the USSR and restored capitalism, and the PCF went into terminal collapse, Chevenements criticisms of the PS gradually acquired a different character. They originally served primarily to promote illusions that the PS was divided over its right-wing policies and might somehow pursue a different course. By peddling these lies, Chevenement aimed to keep workers and youth from breaking with the PS. In the 2000s, his criticisms took on an ever more explicitly right-wing coloration. Chevenement joined Jospins 1997-2002 Plural Left government, serving as interior minister, but resigned in 2000 to criticize Jospins support for increased autonomy for Corsica. In the 2002 presidential elections, Chevenement ran not as a PS candidate, but with the so-called Republican Polean alliance including members of the New Royalist Action (NAR) group. These forces played a major role in the ruling elites subsequent evolution far to the right, after 2002 and in particular after the 2008 global economic crisis. They tried to give a democratic face to far-right policies targeting immigrants and Muslims and directing rising social anger along nationalist, anti-European lines. This allowed the FN to rise, posturing as an antiestablishment party. Renaming the Republican Pole the MRC in 2003, Chevenement worked with several politicians who now function in the FNs top leadership. These included Florian Philippot, the FNs number two and chief strategist, as well as individuals that now play leading roles in the FNs work in the universities and trade unions: Valerie Laupies, Alain Avello, Yannick Jaffre and Gilles Lebreton. Chevenementwith his impeccable connections to FN, army, and police circlesnow works closely with far-right nationalists like France Arise of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. At its conference last year, Chevenement insisted on the importance of bringing all patriots together. He floated the idea of an alliance of the sovereignists including the FN, to the Public Senate channel: Marine Le Pen, like everyone, should join me when Im right I call upon the socialists and republicans on the other side. I think the solution is to bring people together. The National Front electorate is very fluid and will know to come where the national interest is to be found. Marine Le Pen, for her part, had called for creating a great patriotic alliance in 2014: There is Jean Pierre Chevenements party, the party of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, the party of Philippe de Villiers, there are patriotic parties in France, it is possible that tomorrow all these parties could unite to defend the sovereignty of the nation and ensure its security and prosperity. These forces have played a sinister role, promoting anti-Muslim sentiment, working to normalize neo-fascism and encouraging law-and-order sentiment to limit opposition to the indefinitely extendable state of emergency imposed by the PS after last years Paris terror attacks. Conditions are being created for the FN to take power. Their appeals to Trump are unanswerable proof that this will be part of an attempt to impose dictatorship and war on the working class internationally to silence its growing anger at the bankrupt capitalist order. The bipartisan anti-refugee policy of successive Australian governments led to another tragedy last Friday. A young Rohingya man, who fled Burma as an unaccompanied teenager nearly four years ago, reportedly doused himself with petrol and set himself alight in a suburban branch of the Commonwealth Bank. Nur Islam, 21, had been living in acute poverty at Springvale, a working class Melbourne suburb. He was on a temporary bridging visa, which not only denied him refugee status but blocked basic social and political rights, including to work. The petrol spread over the floor and exploded in a fireball, injuring 26 other customers, who mostly suffered from smoke inhalation. Six people received serious burns and two remain in a critical condition in hospital, including Nur Islam. Exactly four years ago yesterday, the then Labor Party government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard imposed a new restrictive category of bridging visas on about 30,000 asylum seekers. They were then released from overcrowded immigration detention centreswhere many had been held for yearssupposedly to live in the community. This new visa classification was even more inhumane than the temporary protection visas (TPVs) introduced by the previous Liberal-National Coalition government, which barred permanent residency and family reunion rights to refugeeseven if they were officially recognised as needing protection from persecution. TPV holders live in limbo, and endless fear of deportation, compelled to reapply for visas every three years. Bridging visa holders are in an even more precarious situation, with the government able to revoke their visas at any time, and expel them. Denied the right to work, they have to subsist on welfare payments set at 89 percent of poverty-level unemployment benefits. For Nur Islam, this meant living on about $30 a day. The motivations behind Nur Islams alleged actions are not yet clear, but a worsening mental illness no doubt contributed. His visit to the bank failed to provide him with desperately needed money, following a recent cut to his meagre fortnightly welfare payments. The circumstances of the horrific incident suggest that it was an attempted suicide and not an attack on innocent bystanders. Over the past few years, numbers of refugees have been driven to suicide by the brutal government-imposed regime that is designed to force them to return to the countries they fled. Adding to Nur Islams anxiety would have been reports that the current Liberal-National government is preparing to deport many refugees. The 30,000 bridging visa holders were expecting letters before the end of the year advising them that they face expulsion. Many refugees have also had bridging visas expire and then suffered lengthy delays in securing visa renewals. In the meantime, they literally live in the shadows of society, depending on charities to survive. Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project worker, Sister Brigid Arthur, told the media that bridging visa holders are denied any kind of certainty or security about their future, and [it] has them living in poverty and isolation. If they work illegally for cash-in-hand they are prone to super-exploitation by unscrupulous employers, who can threaten to report them to the immigration authorities. Any breach of the code of conduct attached to bridging visas can result in refugees being thrown back into detention. The code bans disruptive activities that are inconsiderate [or] disrespectfula definition that is both arbitrary and bars them from legally protesting against their plight. Some details of the traumatic conditions of Nur Islams life have begun to emerge. He fled Burma as a 17-year-oldone of the 1.5 million Rohingya now living precariously in other countries. They are Muslims, persecuted and still denied citizenship rights by the Burmese government led by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. The Australian governments plans for deportations take place amid renewed repression by the Burmese military against the Rohingya with reports of rapes, the levelling of villages and a rising death toll. Australian Burmese Rohingya Organisation spokesperson Habib Habib told reporters that more than 90 percent of Rohingya refugees are still on bridging visas, some for as long as four years. Even to apply for temporary protection visas, they face years of delay. The government has cut legal aid funding, forcing refugees to pay huge lawyers fees or await pro bono legal assistance. Nur Islam arrived by boat in 2013 and was immediately detained by the Labor government on Christmas Island, an Australian outpost in the Indian Ocean. He was later transferred to a detention centre near the remote town of Weipa in far northern Queensland. Eventually he was granted a bridging visa. The young man lived in a dilapidated house with other Burmese refugees in Springvale, where 70 percent of residents were born overseas. He slept in the living room with people he met while in detention. His housemate told the media that Nur Islams mental health deteriorated as he claimed to have seen ghosts, talked to himself and spent nights wandering in the houses backyard. His mother had asked him to send money to assist his older sister, who had been hospitalised in Burma, and Nur Islam was distraught at having nothing to send. In mid-2013, the last Labor government, then headed by Kevin Rudd, escalated the attack on refugees by reopening Australias primitive offshore detention camps on Nauru and Papua New Guineas Manus Island, and consigning all asylum seekers who arrived after that date to be incarcerated in these facilities indefinitely. Victorian state Labor Premier Daniel Andrews tried to cover up this record when he told the media that the Springvale bank fire ought not to be used as a political weapon by anybody who finds fault with any of the policy settings we have at the moment. Ostensibly, Andrews was referring to right-wing groups calling for a Donald Trump-style ban on Muslim immigration in the wake of the incident. But his comments sought to obscure the reality that the tragedy was the outcome of the policies of successive federal governments, including the previous Greens-backed Labor government. By repelling, detaining or imposing dehumanising conditions on refugees, Australian governments are not only flouting international lawthe 1951 Refugees Convention recognises a right to seek asylum without being punished or discriminated against. Governments, federal and state, are also demonising refugeessome of the most vulnerable members of societyand effectively blaming asylum seekers for the worsening destruction of jobs, living standards and basic social services being produced by the capitalist profit system itself. This offensive is deepening. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbulls government is now preparing legislation to impose a lifetime ban on refugees who try to reach Australia, barring them from ever entering the country, even to visit their families. It is also planning a cruel refugee swap with the United States, blocking many of the victims on both sides of the Pacific from rejoining their families. One can only imagine the distressing impact of these announcements on a mentally fragile young Rohingya refugee living in dire poverty, and with his fate resting with the Australian government. ROME (Reuters) - Some 1,400 boat migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe have been rescued so far on Tuesday, Italy's coastguard said, after at least 11 overcrowded boats set out from Libya amid calm seas. Rescuers have also recovered eight dead bodies. The coast guard ship Diciotti took seven corpses from a rubber boat, while one body was recovered from another rubber vessel by the Topaz, a ship run by humanitarian group Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS). Italy's coastguard coordinated the rescues off the Libya coast, including helicopter airlifts of three migrants in need of immediate hospital care, a spokeswoman said. One was being evacuated because of a heart attack, while two others were suffering from severe hypothermia, she said. The rescue ship Vos Hestia, run by the international charity Save the Children, was among those involved in the rescues. It picked up more than 400 people from a wooden boat during the night, according to the organization's Twitter account. The death toll in the Mediterranean - the most dangerous border crossing on the planet for migrants - is estimated to be 4,655 this year, 1,000 more than in all of 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration. More than 168,000 migrants have reached Italy by boat this year, exceeding 154,000 for the whole of 2015 and quickly approaching 2014's 170,000 record. Italy has borne the brunt of new arrivals since the implementation in March of an agreement between the European Union and Turkey to curb the flow of migrants sailing for Greece. (Reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Tom Heneghan) A tsunami measuring one metre (3.3 feet) hit Japan's coast at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant on Tuesday following an earthquake, operator Tokyo Electric Power said. The tsunami struck at 6:38 am (2138 GMT), a TEPCO official told a televised news conference after a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit the region earlier. A TEPCO spokesman told AFP that there were no reports of any problems as a result of the wave. By Kieran Guilbert DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Up to a million people around West Africa's Lake Chad are cut off from humanitarian aid by Boko Haram despite a regional military offensive against the Islamist militants, a United Nations official said on Tuesday. Boko Haram violence has uprooted more than 100,000 people across the swamplands of Lake Chad, where the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria meet, and disrupted the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of others, according to aid agencies. Security sources say a regional task force is wrestling back control of the lake - where Boko Haram controls part of the fishing industry in a labyrinth of waterways - with hundreds of militants having surrendered in the past month. Yet many areas are impossible to reach amid the insecurity, said Toby Lanzer, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel. "We believe that there are up to a million people in the areas and villages we haven't been able to reach," Lanzer said. Boko Haram militants have killed about 15,000 people and displaced more than 2.6 million in a seven-year insurgency and they still launch deadly attacks despite having been pushed out of the vast swathes of territory they controlled in 2014. Some of the displaced in the region have moved again due to fear of further violence or as a result of attacks by Boko Haram, two of which were recorded last month, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). "We are very concerned about the security situation ... do not think that the crisis is anywhere near over," Lanzer told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. Chad earlier this year extended the state of emergency in the region, which has disrupted fishing, farming and cattle breeding and hit cross-border trade, markets and livelihoods, according to the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP). Malnutrition rates in the lake region have dropped slightly over the past year as humanitarian access has improved, said Martha Nakakande of the International Medical Corps (IMC). "But with people spread over so many different islands and IDP (internally displaced persons) sites, we are worried that we can't reach everybody," the IMC's nutrition officer said. (Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, Editing by Katie Nguyen. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org) The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or graduate school search. With the growing cost of college, students and families may look at state schools as an option for paying less tuition. Attending a public school as an out-of-state student is often a middle ground in terms of cost, usually priced less than a private school. For the 2016-2017 school year, the average tuition and fees for a student to attend a private college is $33,635; for an out-of-state student attending a public school, the average tuition and fees is $21,303, according to U.S. News data. [Read three facts about aid and tuition for out-of-state students.] But -- in some cases -- the price of attending a public school as an out-of-state student is much more than private school tuition. At the University of Virginia, nonresidents are charged $45,066 in tuition and fees for the 2016-2017 school year compared with $15,722 for in state -- a 187 percent cost difference. The school tops the list for the highest tuition for out-of-state students among the 335 ranked public institutions that submitted data to U.S. News in an annual survey. Among the 10 schools that charged out-of-state students the most, the average cost for tuition and fees is $41,246. More than half of these schools are part of the University of California system, and three schools are in Virginia. [Learn how out-of-state enrollment is rising at state flagship universities.] New to the list this year is the University of Vermont, where out-of-state students fork over $40,364 in tuition and fees. Vermont wasn't included in the list of most expensive public schools for out-of-state students last year because it didn't provide these cost figures to U.S. News. Story continues The University of Michigan--Ann Arbor, which appeared on the list last year, chose not to provide its tuition and fees for the 2016-2017 academic year. Michigan charged out-of-state students $43,476 for tuition and fees in 2015-2016. The following 10 colleges and universities had the highest tuition and fees for out-of-state students during the 2016-2017 school year. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report. Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News College Compass to find tuition data, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights. U.S. News surveyed more than 1,800 colleges and universities for our 2016 survey of undergraduate programs. Schools self-reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News' data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Colleges rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News' rankings of Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools or Best Online Programs. The tuition and fees data above are correct as of Nov. 22, 2016. Farran Powell is an education reporter at U.S. News, covering paying for college and graduate school. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at fpowell@usnews.com. 14 movies streaming on Netflix you need to watch with your S.O. during Thanksgiving break Its Thanksgiving weekend, and whether it is long, or short, unremarkable, or even a true vacation for you, we can always count on one thing: Netflix. Because after all the turkey, the mashed potatoes, the candied yams, and even the pumpkin pie, youre gonna want a different kind of comfort: MOVIES IN BED (or on the couch) WITH A BLANKET. And if you have a loved one to cozy up and watch movies with, you have at least one thing to be very thankful for this year. And and and! Good news: We have compiled a list of the best movies to watch snuggled up on the couch this season. You are welcome. 1. Serendipity If you have never seen this enchanted film, dont hesitate to throw it on. Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack fall in love through a series of missed opportunities and, well, serendipity. Romantic, seasonal, and streaming on Netflix right now. Get to it. 2. Hollidaysburg Though relatively unknown, Hollidaysburg is a great story of love, friendship, and Thanksgiving! A group of friends come together after their first stint at college and have to learn to deal with everyones new lives. (Relatable, good looking people, Thanksgiving its perfect.) 3. Love Actually Look, I am never going to write a list about movies, or the holidays, or significant others, or friendship, or British people, or Hugh Grant, without including Love Actually. This movie has everything and everyone should watch it all of the time. 4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Its sad, sure, but it is poignant, beautiful, and a great conversation piece for after the movie ends. Maybe not the best to watch with your S.O., but at least you will be reminded of how lucky you are to have one another. 5. 2 Days in New York Chris Rock and Julie Delpy play a couple who enjoys a very peaceful life until her family comes to town. I feel like all couples can relate to this movie on some level plus, its hilarious. (Chris Rock, obviously.) Story continues 6. Moonrise Kingdom I am suggesting this because Life Aquatic isnt on Netflix (for some frustrating reason and I will always be mad about) but Moonrise Kingdom is also excellent. Everyone deserves a quirky Wes Anderson break over the holidays, and this tale of romance is a very unique one. 7. Titanic \_()_/ Come on. Its three and a half hours of cuddling up, quoting the movie, and crying a little bit. What else would you want to watch? 8. Scrooged Because you didnt get enough Bill Murray with Moonrise Kingdom and everyone knows their relationship and holiday vacation deserves more Bill. 9. Coming to America Coming to America is hilarious, nostalgic (for those of us who obsessively watched Eddie Murphys movie collection as children), and for some reason, really perfect for this time of year. 10. Dutch What a random movie suggestion, amirite? Dutch takes place at Thanksgiving and will tickle your nostalgic funny bone. Plus, its a John Hughes so you can count on it to entertain you both. 11. Forrest Gump There is never a bad time to watch Forrest Gump, but snuggling up with the cold outside and a plate of leftover Thanksgiving food just makes it all the better. 12. Son in Law For absolutely no explicable reason, I really loved Son in Law as a kid. Pauly Shore is obnoxious but funny, Carla Gugino is beautiful and hilarious, and what better movie to watch with your S.O. than a movie about lying to your family on Thanksgiving? 13. 50 First Dates Because Adam and Drew make a great couple, and I am assuming you and your partner do as well. (And this movie is adorable.) 14. Step Up At best, Step Up is just okay, but there is a reason its worth watching: DANCING. That and it is pretty romantic to watch Jenna and Channing Tatum fall in love. (Theyre so cute, you guys.) The post 14 movies streaming on Netflix you need to watch with your S.O. during Thanksgiving break appeared first on HelloGiggles. Photo credit: Getty From Cosmopolitan Were you shocked when Donald Trump won the presidential election? If you had read this book, you wouldnt have been. According to the New York Times, a philosophy book written in 1998 eerily predicted a Trump-like figure taking power. Philosopher Richard Rorty wrote Achieving Our Country in 1998 and died in 2007, not living long enough to see his prediction come true. Slate notes that the book is really about American liberals and how they reacted to the Vietnam War, but this one prediction has given the book a new life. It got so much attention that the book is being reprinted by the Harvard University Press. According to the New Yorker, passages from the book started to get traction on social media both before and after Trumps win. And its clear why, because this is so accurate its downright creepy: [M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers - themselves desperately afraid of being downsized - are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else. At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for - someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet. Rorty also predicted that the world economy would be controlled by a cosmopolitan upper class that had no connection with the common working man, and a group of intellectuals shielded by a bubble from the economys adverse effects. That meant that nobody with money or power decided to study the lower classes, which would end up to be a disaster. Story continues Another line in the book? After my imagined strongman takes charge, he will quickly make his peace with the international superrich. Recently, Trump met with Indian real estate developers who built the first Trump-branded buildings in the country. Did Rorty have a time machine or what? Follow Megan on Twitter. You Might Also Like President-elect Donald Trump just offered a preview of his first 100 days in office. Trump appeared in a YouTube video on Monday outlining a number of policies he says his administration will seek to enact after he is inaugurated in January. The message closely resembled the pitch from his days on the campaign trail, highlighting his goal to preserve American jobs and bolster US military defenses. Here's a list of the initiatives Trump says he wants to pursue starting on day one: US trade issue a notice of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. US energy cancel what Trump described as "job-killing" restrictions on American energy production. Regulations the incoming president says he will seek to formulate a simple rule: for every one new regulation, two old regulations would be eliminated. National security Trump says he will ask the Department of Defense to develop policies that protect US infrastructure from cyber attacks and "all other forms of attacks." Immigration ask the Department of Labor to investigate abuses of visa programs that "undercut the American worker." Ethics reform a 5- year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the administration and a lifetime ban on the same officials lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. Two things were missing from Trump's message a mention of a border wall that he vowed to build between the US and Mexico, and details on his proposed alternative to the Affordable Care Act. The border wall was one of Trump's signature campaign promises and an extension of an immigration platform that sought to deport millions of people who are in the US illegally. On the Affordable Care Act better-known as Obamacare then-candidate Trump promised to "repeal and replace" the law as soon as he took office. Donald Trump It is unclear when those initiatives might be taken up. After Trump's first meeting with President Barack Obama days after the election, Trump signaled that he may keep some Obamacare provisions in place. Story continues Additionally, Trump's promise on Monday to push for ethics reform comes on the same day that his labyrinthine foreign business connections were called into question. Last week, amid a flurry of meetings with domestic and international dignitaries, the billionaire mogul also sat down with three Indian business partners who are building a Trump-branded apartment complex near Mumbai. According to The New York Times, a Trump Organization spokeswoman described the meeting as a "courtesy call." Trump, who has grown increasingly hostile toward news organizations since he was elected, appeared to address that issue in a tweet late Monday night. The message claimed that it was "well known" that he has business dealings around the world. "Only the crooked media makes this a big deal," the tweet read. The president-elect's private business interests are widely thought to pose an unprecedented conflict of interest. Watch Trump's full message below: NOW WATCH: 'I don't give a damn what the president of the United States wants to do': John McCain says waterboarding won't be reinstated More From Business Insider If, like this author, most of your time in the Midwest is spent in Michigan, you might come to think that the Buckeyes are a beastly, cultureless people, their native Ohio a fetid hellscape. After all, they managed to set a river on fire a few times, and that takes a measure of doing. Michiganders, basically, are a sound people. But as my only memorable experience with Ohio had been the actual fetid hellscape of the states turnpike, I thought it best to explore the place for myself. The order of the day was a museum-to-museum run from the edge of Lake Erie down to the flats of Dayton. The museums in question? The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. The Hall of Fame opens at 10 a.m., the Air Force museum closes at 5 p.m. Just over 200 miles separate them. If I were to see bothand do so in proper styleId need a steed to fit the mission. Something fast, glamorous, and a little preposterouspreferably with some semblance of aviation history. The Mercedes-AMG S65 cabriolet fit the bill nicely, a four-place convertible with a V-12 and a quarter-million-dollar price tag. Rock n Roll Never Forgets The Rock Hall, mostly, is a monument to its own desperate desire for importance. Sure, Clevelands Alan Freed was the first big DJ to spin rock n roll records, but Ohios best rock n roll came from the margins. Akrons Chrissie Hynde, living as an expat in London, founded the Pretenders. One of Americas earliest hardcore bands, Maumees Necros, spawned the vital independent Touch and Go Records and contributed Andrew Wendler to the C/D staff. Rocket From the Tombs, from Cleveland, split up, resulting in both Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys. The latters Sonic Reducer was sampled by the Beastie Boys. If there was a monument to the late Stiv Bators in the Rock Hall, I missed it, but the Beasties at least got a little kiosk up in the rafters. Honestly, the best thing about the place was that Billy Gibbonss Eliminator coupe was parked in the basement. A perfect execution of the early-1980s full-fender style before things got too pastel and smooth, the red 33 Ford still commands respect. I snapped a photo of the coupe and headed for the door. I hadnt seen everything, but Id seen enough. The second-coolest thing in the Rock Hall was the custom Hamer Special guitar that Cheap Tricks Rick Nielsen gave to John Lennon not long before the Beatles death. Nielsen surreptitiously cribbed some measurements from Lennons Rickenbacker, sent them to Hamers Jol Dantzig, and had him gin up an instrument built to have a similar feel. According to Dantzig, The whole thing happened pretty fastit was always that way with Nielsen. Oh, and I need it in 10 days, was usually the instruction. The guitar featured DiMarzio pickups wound specially for Hamer, and a thinner neck than a production Hamer Special, so that it might play more like Lennons Rick. Nielsen came up with the Rick N truss-rod cover, making the headstock read Rick N Hamer if one squinted hard enough. Apologetically, car-enthusiast Dantzig noted, Sorry I dont have more interesting details and specific skidpad figures and 0-to-60 times, but I can tell you that the Special trail-braked well and fit into a Les Paul parking space. Livin Large The S65, however, does not fit into a Les Paulsized parking space. The dreadnought-class convertible is a sizable 198.6 inches long, about eight inches longer than a Bentley Continental GT convertible. Size, however, does not always correlate with perceived masculinity. Leaving the garage at the Rock Hall, the attendant commented, Nice car! Thanks! Its not mine. Oh. The wifes? She had a point. While the S65 coupe is a pure shot of highly refined testosterone, the convertible roof adds a gender-bending quality. If Ziggy Stardust flew in today, theyd send one of these for him. If Lady Gaga doesnt already own one, wed be shocked if an S Cab isnt on order. Slades Dave Hill could drive this car, and nobody would bat an eye. Conversely, a half-dressed mook with a decent haircut could also look right at home, if hes comfortable enduring derision for perpetrating a measure of affect. Plutocrats for a classless society, weve found your chariot. Its got 621 horsepower, churns out 738 lb-ft of torque, bolts to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds, and clears the quarter-mile in 12.3 at 120 mph. Putting the serenity and guts to use, I headed for Columbus, which Id heard from friends is a pretty swell town. Notably, this praise comes from New Yorkers, not Michiganders. In my Californian ignorance, the only thing I know about Columbus is that Family Ties was set in its suburbs, and Alex P. Keaton really seems more like an E-class sedan sort of guy. I stayed just long enough to fill the tank (which the V-12 sucks dry to the tune of 16 miles per gallon) and put my foot down for Dayton. Birthplace of Aviation The National Museum of the U.S. Air Forcewhich we covered extensively in this photo featuresits on the Wright Field portion of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Its runway services the final flights of aircraft inbound for display. JFKs Air Force One made its last landing here, as did the C-141A Hanoi Taxi, the plane that brought American POWs home from Vietnam, then went on to serve through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. There were planes in the place Id waited practically my whole life to see: aircraft like the Bristol Beaufighter and Focke-Wulf Fw 190. The place is stocked with aircraft that blew my mind as an aviation-obsessed elementary-school kid, like the YF-12A, the interim step between the CIAs A-12 Oxcart and the aviation worlds equivalent of the Lamborghini Countach, the SR-71 Blackbird. The A-12 is basically an SR-71 armed with missiles. At the age of eight, you just knew that the only thing better than a Blackbird was an armed Blackbird. While the Enola Gay resides in the Smithsonian, Bockscar, the Silverplate B-29 that bombed Nagasaki, is in some ways more significant. Uranium 238 is tough to extract. Plutonium 239 is an easier isotope to produce in quantity, but it requires a more convoluted, precisely engineered design to go boom. The Manhattan Projects chiefs decided to drop the uranium-gun Little Boy because they knew the bombs design would work. The plutonium-implosion Fat Man was already en route by ship to the 509th Composite Bomb Groups base on Tinian Island when Oppenheimers gang blew up the similarly constructed Gadget outside Alamogordo, New Mexico. If Hiroshima ushered in the Atomic Age, Nagasaki ensured rapid growth of the nuclear arsenal of any country that could figure out the implosion process required to reach critical mass. Throw in the fact that an implosion bomb serves as the triggering device for a hydrogen-fusion device, and fundamentally, Bockscar delivered the weapon that set the stage for two decades worth of nuclear-deterrent policy, until ICBMs rewrote the atomic-warfare rulebook. I wandered on to the recently opened fourth hangar, a building containing hot-rod specials like the sole remaining XB-70 Valkyrie, the fastest of all the hypersonic X-15 rocket planes, and the utterly bizarre Avrocar, a flying saucer developed by Canadians with the support of the U.S. military. I wandered through SAM-26000, the first plane to wear Raymond Loewys classic Air Force One livery. The Boeing VC-137C was the craft on which Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as its crew prepared to fly Jack Kennedys body back to Washington, D.C., and even now, with its seats glassed off from the aisles, forever enclosed in an Ohio hangar, the 707 derivative oozes portent. Truer to its fundamental mission as VIP transport than to its hot-rod badge, the S65 cabriolet handles like an S-class. Which is to say that the AMG treatment does not imbue it with the violent, rip-roaring, and tetchy personality of the C63. Removing the roof from the coupe does, however, engender a bit more flexibility than one might expect from Stuttgarts most famous manufacturer of bank vaults. We pulled 0.91 g on the skidpad, better than the 0.88 we saw with an S550 cabriolet, though it doesnt match the 0.94 g we got from the Dodge Charger Hellcat. Which, as you may remember, is related to a Mercedes from way back when somewhere under all the posturing. After leaving the museum, I found myself trundling down a narrow road under a canopy of trees, following the signs to Huffman Prairie Flying Field. Id read about the place in David McCulloughs The Wright Brothers. After Orville and Wilbur made history at Kitty Hawk, they returned to Dayton to refine their flying machines further, testing them in a large pasture owned by Torrence Huffman. The field was open and serene, impossibly lush in a way that California only really sees in March. Away from the somber aura that pervades the Air Force Museum, Huffman Prairie holds the same sort of reverent hush that you find at the empty Bonneville Salt Flats, a fundamental quiet baked into its being despite having been shot through by mechanized history. Its where two brothers clambered into the sky and made flight a viable thing. The Wrights work at Kill Devil Hills proved a hypothesis. Huffman Prairie was the spot where flying became something that people actually did. Car Enough? As I hopped on I-75 and headed north for Detroit, the smooth hum of the 12-hole ingot under the S65s hood thrust us ever forward, the sun dipping low off the port side. I dropped the top and the radio spun up the Psychedelic Furs Pretty in Pinkthe superior original album version, not the overproduced, sax-laden rendition from the John Hughes movie soundtrack. Even with the wind whipping through the cabinMercedes Aircap anti-buffeting system doesnt work as well here as it did on the E-class droptopthe hefty Burmester sound system reliably swirled the music up, around, and through me. A great song and an open road in an absolute highway star is a finer experience than all of the Rock Hall, to be sure. Special and yet somehow unpretentious, the big Benz goes about its business without fuss; the S65 cabriolet remains more automobile than bourgeois bauble. Some say the V-8powered S63 is car enough. To be sure, its a fine automobile, but you want the full V-12 effect. Theres no rational reason to spend the extra $77,195, but the additional four cylinders somehow complete the machine. At this spending level, the cash is academic; pointing out that one could purchase both an S63 cabriolet and a Porsche 718 Boxster S for less than the price of an S65 misses the point. After all, the big AMG still undercuts both the Rolls-Royce Dawn and the Bentley Continental GT Speed convertible. The V12 Biturbo badge sends parking valets into ecstatic apoplectic fits. Dont make the mistake of taking the S65 cabriolet as a variant of a lesser car; its its own machine, one that stands on its own peculiar merits. And as for Ohio? Its best not to believe the Buckeyes neighbors to the north. A place that gave us Art Arfons, Stiv Bators, LeBron James, and Longaberger baskets can hardly be hailed as a one-note void, and indeed, the states worth a visit. Just give the Rock Hall a miss. Specifications > VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 4-passenger, 2-door convertible PRICE AS TESTED: $255,520 (base price: $249,200) ENGINE TYPE: twin-turbocharged and intercooled SOHC 36-valve V-12, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection Displacement: 365 cu in, 5980 cc Power: 621 hp @ 5400 rpm Torque: 738 lb-ft @ 2300 rpm TRANSMISSION: 7-speed automatic with manual shifting mode DIMENSIONS: Wheelbase: 115.9 in Length: 198.6 in Width: 83.0 in Height: 56.2 in Cargo volume (top up/down): 12/9 cu ft Curb weight: 4904 lb C/D TEST RESULTS: Zero to 60 mph: 4.1 sec Zero to 100 mph: 8.9 sec Zero to 130 mph: 14.4 sec Zero to 150 mph: 20.3 sec Rolling start, 560 mph: 4.6 sec Top gear, 3050 mph: 2.6 sec Top gear, 5070 mph: 3.0 sec Standing -mile: 12.3 sec @ 120 mph Top speed (mfr's claim): 186 mph Braking, 700 mph: 155 ft Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.91 g FUEL ECONOMY: EPA city/highway driving: 14/21 mpg C/D observed: 16 mpg Not only is this 27-year-old from Connecticut going to be the youngest person to travel to every country in the world shes also going to be the first woman to conquer the feat. Read: Travel Enthusiast Takes Her 1-Year-Old on Amazing Backpacking Adventures As a young woman myself, I like to think that I can set the standard for young women worldwide to pursue a quest or dream that is out of the norm, or that everyone tells them they shouldnt do, said Cassandra DePecol, of Washington. DePecol is well on her way to breaking the Guinness World Record for the youngest person to travel to every country in the world. With just Sudan and a handful of other countries in Africa and the Middle East to go, she told InsideEdition.com she hopes to achieve the dream she had at a young age by early next year. Since high school, I had this feeling that Id like to do something major in life, Cassandra DePecol told InsideEdition.com When she was 18, DePecol said she took an opportunity to study abroad and eventually ventured off to 24 different countries on $2,000 she saved up from a summer job as a lifeguard. Years later, she found herself itching to see more of the world and take on a new project between babysitting and her job in web development and marketing. I wasnt happy with where my life was headed, working odd jobs and not following my passion, she said. A month before her 26th birthday, she decided to make the leap of faith, and set off on Expedition 196 a journey that would take her to 193 sovereign countries, plus Taiwan, Kosovo and Palestine. One of my first moments that was a real eye-opener was when I was in Vanuatu, she said, recalling a villager taking her into his home with his family just a year after a devastating cyclone hit their area. He didnt expect anything in return other than to just show me his home, and how they made Kava, a popular drink made naturally throughout the Oceanic region. I felt safe and trusting [of] these people, and from this moment on, I realized the power of good in humanity. Story continues Although DePecol said she has never felt unsafe as a woman travelling on her own, she does advise other women to take proper measures in keeping themselves safe. Among them are acting confident, carrying a small tracking device and learning self-defense, just in case. Read: Danish Travel Company Releases Video Encouraging Couples to Take Baby-Making Vacations To put the project in motion, DePecol said saved about $10,000 to get her through her first leg of the trip in Europe. She then reached out to sponsors and investors to fund the rest of the flights and hotels for her trip. But, her travels are not limited to just tourism. Part of DePecols role abroad is speaking with university students about sustainable tourism, as a Peace Ambassador for the International Institute of Peace Through Tourism and Skal International. With the help of her sponsors, she is also putting together an educational documentary recounting her travels. Watch: How Airline Programs Designed to Protect Unaccompanied Children Can Sometimes Go Awry Related Articles: On the list of surprising visitors calling on president-elect Donald Trump last week, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas ranks right up there with alleged Secretary of State candidate Mitt Romney. While Romney who called Trump a phony and talked openly about derailing his candidacy during the campaign had an actual job attached to the meeting with his former nemesis on Saturday, Cruzs visit was billed as more of a drop-by. Related: Trump and Rubio Gang Up on Ted Cruz Its true that after the name-calling between Cruz and Trump (who tagged him Lyin Ted) during the primary campaign; after Trumps derogatory comments about Cruzs wife; after Trumps suggestion that Cruzs father had a role in the JFK assassination; and after Cruz neglected to endorse Trump at the Republican National convention, they did in the end come together. In September, Cruz finally endorsed Trump and campaigned for him. And a year earlier, before the primary season got ugly, Trump and Cruz held a joint rally in Washington to oppose a nuclear deal with Iran. There is a little romance between us, Trump told reporters as Cruz was speaking. However, after all that went down, no one can accuse them of being anything more than politically expedient allies which means there was a reason for Cruz to pop into transition central at Trump Tower. That reason, a betting person might wager, was the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. While the Texas senators name does not appear on the list of 21 potential Supreme Court candidates that Trump released at the end of September and that he has called definitive, there are at least three factors that argue for a Cruz nomination. Related: Ted Cruz: Its Hard Out There When Youre Universally Loathed Cruz can be a loose cannon in the Senate, and Trump doesnt need a conservative firebrand questioning his policy choices. Nominating Cruz to the Supreme Court might please Republican senators who chafe at Cruzs grandstanding while reassuring conservatives and eliminating a potential rival in 2020. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has clashed with Cruz in the past and said last February, If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you. But at a Veterans Day event, Graham said that his fellow member of the Senate Judiciary Committee should be on Trumps SCOTUS list, adding, there is no stronger constitutional conservative than Ted Cruz. During the Republican primaries, one of Cruzs two most generous backers was the Mercer Family, which poured some $13.5 million into efforts to help him win the GOP nomination. When Cruz was ultimately vanquished, the Mercers threw their support to Trump. Now Rebekah Mercer, the activist daughter of hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, sits on the executive committee overseeing the Trump transition team along with Steve Bannon, to whom the Mercers have close ties. It is not unreasonable to imagine that the support of the Mercers, who also urged the hiring of Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, would carry considerable weight. The reason that Trump could cite for diverging from his definitive list to pick Cruz is simple: He is highly qualified. Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz has called Cruz one of the most brilliant students he has ever taught, and as the solicitor general of Texas, Cruz argued cases before the Supreme Court nine times. Story continues Ted Cruz Is Kinda Sorta Right About Something The Republican majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which includes staunch conservatives such as Cruzs fellow Texan John Cornyn, Jeff Sessions of Alabama (Trumps pick for Attorney General) and Mike Lee of Utah, who is on Trumps Supreme Court list, could be expected to rally behind Cruz. But he would be in for a fierce grilling from the Democratic minority, which includes liberals such as Al Franken of Minnesota and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. And if Cruz made it past the Judiciary Committee and got to the Senate at large for confirmation, he could face a Democratic filibuster. To shut down the filibuster would require 60 votes. In short, any battle to install Cruz as a justice of the Supreme Court would be bruising and bloody. But all those on the Right who questioned Trumps conservative credentials would finally be silenced. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: After earning her bachelor's degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, Carmen Ronnie set her sights on graduate school in the U.S. But when preparing to apply to four different U.S. schools, Ronnie, a South African national, learned she first had to get her foreign undergraduate degree evaluated. A credential evaluation is a report that provides a comparison of a student's academic credentials earned in another country to the U.S. educational system. Admissions counselors require it to determine if a degree or other credentials earned overseas meet their standards for enrollment. Here are some things prospective international students with foreign credentials should keep in mind as they plan for grad school in the U.S. [Discover more about studying at a U.S. graduate school.] Differing university criteria: U.S. universities set their own standards for admission. As such, students should check with school admissions offices for their specific requirements regarding foreign credentials, says Gareth Fowles, vice president for enrollment management for the admissions office at Lynn University in Florida. Some schools like the Satish & Yasmin Gupta College of Business at the University of Dallas, for example, allow three-year undergraduate foreign degree holders to take extra coursework on campus to meet the school's graduate admissions standards. Other institutions like Northwestern University and the University of North Carolina--Charlotte accept candidates with a three-year foreign degree but may have graduate programs that require credential evaluations. "Some U.S. institutions perform the evaluation themselves with an in-house credential evaluator, but most will refer you to a third-party credential evaluation agency," says Fowles. Schools like Southern Oregon University and the University of Arkansas do in-house evaluations. Other institutions refer students to approved credential evaluation companies, such as those that are members of the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services and similar organizations. NACES members commit to an enforced code of ethics and undergo an in-depth prescreening and yearly recertification. Story continues [Read about three critical graduate school considerations for international students.] Credential evaluators: While several companies perform credential evaluation, universities often have specific organizations' reports that they accept. For example, the University of Central Florida only accepts evaluations from Josef Silny & Associates Inc., a private organization based in Miami, or World Education Services, a nonprofit based in New York and Toronto. Experts say students should choose an evaluator affiliated with an association like NACES, which can ensure the quality and reliability of a credential evaluation service. NAFSA: Association of International Educators suggests students ask all potential evaluators about the types of evaluation services they provide, their training and experience and their documentation policies, among other questions. Sam Ahn, founder and CEO of Ahn Academy, an educational consulting company based in New York, suggests students make a list of all evaluators required by schools they are applying to, choose the evaluator noted by most schools "and start the process as soon as possible." "I did ask an admissions counselor what were some of the most used companies and WES came up as one of them," says University of Witwatersrand graduate Ronnie. She selected WES, in part because all four grad schools she applied to accepted its evaluations. But not all schools accept the same evaluators. Ahn says students should ask whether schools will accept another company's evaluation report. For those that don't, Ahn suggests students use the school's chosen evaluator. [Discover which U.S. business school have the most full-time international students.] Credential evaluation process and fees: The process and length of time required to complete the evaluation can vary among evaluators, as can the cost. Matthias Bretschneider, international credential evaluation specialist and CEO of A2Z Evaluations LLC, an independent service in Davis, California, says students using his services must provide an original official transcript and degree certificate by mail, in person or through their institution. He says students must complete an online application and choose either a general evaluation for $175, which measures degree equivalency, or a course-by-course evaluation for $315. Once all documents have been received, applicants will get an email confirmation with the estimated time of completion, which is typically two weeks but can be rushed for an additional fee. Bretschneider says for students with foreign credentials, "the course-by-course evaluation, including the general evaluation, is usually required" since it identifies the equivalent U.S. grade; U.S. semester credits; U.S. level, such as lower division or upper division and graduate level, of each course; and U.S. grade point average. A2Z Evaluations charges $25 for each additional official copy of the evaluation. Other evaluators may charge less for course-by-course evaluations but more for other services. Milwaukee-based nonprofit Educational Credential Evaluators, for example, charges $160 for course-by-course reports and has differing fees for additional copies, depending on quantity and when they are ordered. Ronnie, the student who used WES' services, says, "I paid $160 for a course-by-course evaluation and then I had to pay an additional $30 for each of the extra three schools I requested it get sent to." She chose to attend Lynn University, where she earned a Master of Education and is now pursuing a Doctor of Education. Having been through the credential evaluation process, Ronnie recommends students plan ahead to avoid any unforeseen problems. During her process, Hurricane Sandy hit the U.S., which caused delays in mail service. "Once my transcripts did, however, arrive at WES, the process was very smooth," says Ronnie. "Better to have it done sooner as opposed to later." Searching for a graduate school? Get our complete rankings of Best Graduate Schools. Anayat Durrani is a Los Angeles-based freelance education reporter for U.S. News, covering global universities, including those in the Arab region. Oil prices surged to a three-week high after expectations heightened that OPEC is close to reaching an output cut deal. Speculation is rife that members of the producer bloc are close to an agreement after Nigerian delegate Ibrahim Waya said everyone is on board. Waya was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of OPEC members being held in Vienna. Market watchers and experts believe that oil prices will start to trend even higher once such an agreement is concluded. This is why picking oil stocks looks like a smart option at this point. OPEC Members Discuss Outstanding Hurdles OPEC members have assembled in Vienna for a two-day meeting to discuss output quotas. These discussions are in preparation for the OPEC ministerial meeting to be held on Nov 30 between member nations as well as the non OPEC oil major Russia. Among the issues which remain unresolved at the moment is Iraqs demand to be excluded from an output cap agreement. Other members which have made similar demands include Nigeria, Libya and Iran. All of these countries are, in fact, eager to raise output after bearing the brunt of sanctions or internal conflict. Additionally, Iran and Saudi Arabia have long-standing geopolitical differences that must be set aside in order to come to an agreement. However, recent comments from top officials of Iran and Iraq have been encouraging in nature. Representatives of member countries have said that progress has been made on outstanding issues. Additionally, members seem to be ready to provide Iran with sufficient latitude on its production volumes. Goldman, Putin Add to Optimism On Sunday, Russias president Vladimir Putin said that there was a high probability that a deal on controlling crude output would be reached at the meeting to be held on Nov 30. Putin said that Russia would act in consonance with the expectations of OPEC members. Freezing crude output is not an issue for Russia, he said. Putins comments gave an added boost to crude prices on Monday. Story continues Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs (GS) raised its outlook for oil prices for the first two quarters of 2017. The financial major now expects WTI to climb to the $55 mark by this point, higher than the earlier estimates of $45 and $50. Goldman Sachs said that the increasing likelihood of an output control deal between OPEC members had resulted in its new forecast. It now believes that OPEC will announce a short-term reduction to 33 million barrels in a day. Meanwhile, Russia will possibly freeze production levels. Our Choices OPEC members seem to be inching close to an agreement on production levels in Vienna. Meanwhile, Russias president has made encouraging comments in this regard. Also, Goldman Sachs believes there is an increasing likelihood that a deal will finally be reached. This will put to an end to months of speculation and missed chances and provide the much needed lifeline to oil prices. Against this backdrop, adding stocks from this sector to your portfolio makes good sense. However, picking winning stocks may prove to be difficult. This is where our VGM score comes in. Here V stands for Value, G for Growth and M for Momentum and the score is a weighted combination of these three scores. Such a score allows you to eliminate the negative aspects of stocks and select winners. However, it is important to keep in mind that each Style Score will carry a different weight while arriving at a VGM score. McDermott International, Inc. MDR is an engineering and construction company, solely focused on the offshore oil and gas business. McDermott International has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and a VGM Score of A. The company has expected earnings growth of 34.8% for the current year. Its earnings estimate for the current year has improved by more than 100% over the last 30 days. Ultra Petroleum Corp. UPLMQ is an independent, exploration and production company focused on developing its long life natural gas reserves. Ultra Petroleum has a Zacks Rank #1 and a VGM Score of A. The company has expected earnings growth of more than 100% for the current year. Its earnings estimate for the current year has improved by more than 100% over the last 30 days. Ocean Rig UDW LLC ORIG is engaged in providing offshore drilling services to the oil and gas exploration, development and production drilling industry. Ocean Rig UDW has VGM Score of A. The company has expected earnings growth of 96.4% for the current year. The stock has a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Transmontaigne Partners L.P. TLP is a refined petroleum products terminaling and pipeline company. Transmontaigne Partners has a Zacks Rank #1 and a VGM Score of B. The forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio for the current financial year (F1) is 20.89, lower than the industry average of 20.99. Its earnings estimate for the current year has improved 5.1% over the last 30 days. Cypress Energy Partners, L.P. CELP offers saltwater disposal and other water and environmental services to U.S. onshore oil and natural gas producers and trucking companies. Cypress Energy Partners has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and a VGM Score of A. It has a P/E (F1) of 9.67 compared with the industry average of 46.18. Its earnings estimate for the current year has improved 24.4% over the last 30 days. Now See Our Private Investment Ideas While the above ideas are being shared with the public, other trades are hidden from everyone but selected members. Would you like to peek behind the curtain and view them? Starting today, for the next month, you can follow all Zacks' private buys and sells in real time from value to momentum . . . from stocks under $10 to ETF and option moves . . . from insider trades to companies that are about to report positive earnings surprises (we've called them with 80%+ accuracy). You can even look inside portfolios so exclusive that they are normally closed to new investors. Click here for Zacks' secret trades >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report CYPRESS EGY PTR (CELP): Free Stock Analysis Report MCDERMOTT INTL (MDR): Free Stock Analysis Report TRANSMONTN PTNR (TLP): Free Stock Analysis Report OCEAN RIG UDW (ORIG): Free Stock Analysis Report ULTRA PETRO CP (UPLMQ): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research The best way to up your chances of snagging your dream home in a market as competitive as Chicago's is to make an offer that a seller can't refuse. To do that, you need to make sure you're well-informed about the process and have your finances in order. To help Windy City buyers seal the deal, U.S. News asked some of Chicago's top real estate agents, as identified by OpenHouse Realty, a real estate technology company (and a U.S. News partner), for some advice. Here's what they say you need. A great team Completing the sale of a home can be a complex process. In the interest of selling their property as quickly as possible, Chicago sellers want to work with buyers who have their ducks in a row. [Read: A First-Time Buyer's Guide to Chicago.] That's where hiring experts in the field can be key, says Amanda McMillan, CEO and real estate adviser with Chicago Home Partner and @properties. "Working with people [who] are known to be successful can set buyers on the right path before they even find the property that they're looking for," she explains. A great team can help you understand the market, focus your search and negotiate a deal. McMillan also encourages buyers to work with recognizable lenders that have a high success rate, as well as home inspectors and attorneys who have a track record of working effectively and efficiently. A preapproval letter Having a preapproval letter in place of a prequalification letter is one way to prove to home sellers that you're the real deal, as a preapproval often involves a deeper background check. Homebuyers whose preapproval amount is well above the asking price are likely to be taken more seriously by sellers. "If it's tight and they're barely qualifying for it, then I think it's risky," says Jennifer Ames, president of Jennifer Ames Chicago Inc. and real estate agent with Coldwell Banker. [Read: How to Avoid Getting Burned (and Burned Out) When House Hunting in Chicago.] Another way to increase the probability of a seller accepting your offer is to increase the percentage of your down payment, says Emily Sachs Wong, a real estate broker with @properties. "Once [sellers] get into a contract with a buyer, they want to make sure that that offer gets to the closing table," she explains. "So you're better off getting into a deal with a loan that has a more substantial down payment." Story continues More earnest money Most Chicago homebuyers will put up a certain amount of refundable earnest money before the seller takes his or her property off the market to prove they are serious about purchasing the home. Because she knows her clients can always get the money back, Ames tells them to go above and beyond with the amount they allot. "If I want to make my buyer look more qualified, I will do $5,000 or $10,000 as our first check," she says. "It doesn't actually cost you more, it's just putting your money where your mouth is." A personal letter Buyers who come up short of an asking price, or who find themselves in a multiple-bid situation, may need to find other ways to make their offer stand out. In these cases, tugging at the seller's heartstrings could do the trick. Sachs Wong and Ames have both seen success with this technique, particularly when the letters are not focused on the home itself, but instead on the homebuyer and his or her family. "It's a personal thing. I can tell you that when a buyer takes the time to create that emotional relationship with the seller, it can be very effective," Ames says. "If your price is in the ballpark of where it should be, these will help you win the deal." [Read: 4 Questions Every Chicago Homebuyer Should Ask Their Potential Real Estate Agent.] A better understanding of the seller Learning as much as possible about the home seller can help you create a more flexible offer to meet the seller's needs. For example, if you know the seller needs time to find a new home, you can include that extra time between closing the deal and taking ownership in your offer. The more you can tailor an offer to all aspects of what's important to the seller, the better, McMillan says. Ames has even gone one step further by identifying aspects of a home that a seller might not want to leave behind, such as an appliance or a decorative accent, and proposing that those items not be part of the deal. She adds, "If there are personal property items, an offer might be considered more attractive if they [allow sellers to] take it to their next home." Looking for a real estate agent in Chicago? U.S. News' Find an Agent tool can match you with the person who's most qualified for the job. Alex Mayster is a freelance writer based in Chicago. Follow him on Twitter. College students, this one's for you. If you're concerned about getting a job in time for graduation, you're probably not alone. But right now the focus should be twofold. Yes, simply securing employment is top of mind, but you should also be thinking about how to get paid what you're worth. Just looking at the average salary of 2016 grads, those with bachelor's degrees earned $52,569, up 3.8 percent from the previous year, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Computer and information sciences majors in particular reported the highest starting salary. [See: 8 Ways Millennials Can Build Leadership Skills.] Oftentimes college students are concerned that they have a limited network, and therefore won't be able to find a job. Au contraire! Especially during the holidays, it's your time to make the most out of social situations by creating opportunities for networking. And if you really don't have the right connections for your field, there are plenty of other ways to start putting in the necessary work now to boost your salary after you've sported that cap and gown. Here are just a few. Negotiate your pay during winter break. If you're like many students looking to ramp up income during the weeks you have off between the holidays and the spring semester, leverage your current unemployment status as an opportunity to flex your negotiation muscle. You have nothing to lose when reaching out to former supervisors or new ones for part-time gigs or even a temp agency. Simply ask, "Can you go any higher?" The more accustomed you get to feeling entitled to ask about your pay, the easier negotiating should be when you get that first job offer in the real world. [See: 10 Things New Grads Can Do Right Now to Get a Job.] Talk about salaries with people slightly or even significantly more experienced than you (in other words, graduates). As you're having conversations about your career with your roommate's older sibling, big sister or brother in your fraternity or basically anyone with at least one year of experience out of college, you're getting more comfortable talking about money. Not necessarily your money, but rather, salaries in general. This experience becomes beneficial when you do have to speak up for yourself to negotiate a job offer and talking about it doesn't feel so foreign. In fact, it may feel downright natural. Story continues Ask about going rates within the industry and geographic region you're interested in pursuing. Another reason for talking about money during those holiday conversations is to become knowledgeable about what you're worth. This is a critical exercise throughout your career, so you should absolutely start from day one. Speak to people who are on the ground working in industries and geographic regions you're interested in. This could be as simple as attending an alumni holiday party and telling revelers that you're a student and would love to schedule time on their calendar afterwards to pick their brain. Then, when you have a follow-up conversation, you can state, "I'm interested in pursuing a career in marketing in Philadelphia, and I don't want to start off my career getting underpaid. Do you know what the going rate is for an entry-level position for someone like me who is graduating cum laude and majoring in marketing with three internships on my resume?" This will give you a starting point. [See: 8 Things That Are More Productive Than Staring at a Job Board.] Pursue a class, activity or endeavor outside your comfort zone in the spring semester. That's right, out of your comfort zone. Choose an elective that would normally be unfamiliar to you. Learn how HTML coding works. Pursue something within STEM or if you're a STEM student, pick a class in the arts. Or you could volunteer to manage the books for a fundraising effort within your social living group or coordinate with campus officials about events for Earth Day. You'll not only become well-rounded, it will also boost your knowledge, and most likely your confidence, in areas normally outside your realm. You never know when those skills you're developing can be leveraged as talking points during a networking conversation or interview, and ultimately help you land a job over someone else who isn't as well-rounded. Make new friends. This is your last hurrah, the final semester before you head into the land of alumni. Make it your priority to attend events you normally wouldn't, like carving out time to hear a speaker, watch a performing arts show and more. While you're there, make the effort to truly get to know at least two new people and follow up on a social level. The connections you're forging now can potentially last a lifetime, and you never know down the road who these people will know and vice versa. Connections are paramount to upward mobility in your career and, consequently, your salary. One of the best ways to boost your salary is to leave one employer for another, so think in the long term about how you'll make those changes. While you may not know exactly how these connections will help you now, chances are when you keep in touch and make an effort to build that relationship, someday down the road you will end up helping each other -- including by boosting your salary. More From US News & World Report Categories Relationships Before tying the knot, I viewed commitment from a wary distance, as something heavy to be avoided at all costs due to the potential loss of independence involved. I know Im not alone in that sentiment: Many men and women fear marriage as a whole, and some dont want to get married at all. Even if you do get hitched, there seems to be no escaping the constant stream of sarcastic quips about the ways putting a ring on it steals your freedom. But when my wedding day arrived, I surprisingly felt limitless. Turns out a healthy marriage rooted in trust gave me a permission slip to be myself entirely, to ask for what I needed, to use my voice, and to set upon paths to big dreams. As my now-husband puts it, the ol ball and chain can actually make you stronger than ever before. Heres how. 1. Carve out your own space. To relax after work, my husband likes plopping down on the couch with a sour beer and watching YouTube videos about the process of forging handmade swords while scrolling through Twitter on his phone. Me? I prefer to hit up a yoga class, take a hot bath, and then eat cheese and crackers for dinner with a book in hand. We bond over a lot of things, but we are also different people with different interests, preferences and needswhich means that we frequently take the time to do our own thing. Pursuing your own hobbies and interests solo means you get to introduce your partner to the cool shit youve been up to, said Kayla Hughes, senior project manager at Bolin Marketing. Or try this unique approach: I know of a couple who has been married 25 years, and theyve learned to plan independent time when they go on vacations. If one likes museums and the other doesnt, they spend one daytime alone and then meet up for dinner to share all the amazing things they experienced, said Lindsey Dressen, marketing communication specialist at UnityPoint Health. Now, theres nothing wrong with wanting to text your partner all day long or spend every free second at their side. But its okay to miss each other once in awhile by regularly nurturing friendships, passions and side gigs. Carving out space to develop your own individuality helps you practice self-care, and reminds you to be the interesting, dynamic person you are regardless of your relationship status. Story continues 2. Support inspires confidence. I recently met a photographer friend for happy hour, and we soon got onto the topic of freelance workshe is building her artistic career as I expand my skills as a writer. I asked how she got started, and she said that her husband originally encouraged her talent. She desired to get behind a camera for a long time, but the ongoing support at home gave her the extra nudge she needed to move forward. I knew what she meant. I once dated a man who read something I wrote and immediately said, Nobody will care about that. Years later, the criticism still stung and got in my way every time I sat down to create. Fast forward years later to my partner, who urged me to listen to the small voice inside me that really, really wanted to pursue my ambitions related to writing. And so I did. One of my yoga students described it this way: Partnership enables independence. If the foundation of your relationship is secure, healthy, and safe, it can be easier to put yourself out there and take risks. If you trust that you have a solid home base of support, dealing with criticism or setbacks can feel less overwhelming. 3. Know what you bring to the table. Sometimes I look at my husband across the room and think, Damn, hes such a good catch. The thing is, I feel that way about myself some days, toowhich is not a mark of conceit, but a measure of confidence. Knowing that you are a valuable person worthy of love and commitment has a huge impact on your ability to choose, and re-choose, your partner repeatedly. In the best relationships, each person feels as though they got the better end of the deal. They know that they are bringing their best self to the table in addition to their ability to stand on their own two feet, however that takes shape in any given season, in order to maintain individual health, sanity, and happiness. 4. Be flexible and communicate what you need. Independence is a double-edged sword in the sense that you have to communicate what you need from another person, but you also need to be flexible in your expectations. It doesnt mean saying, This is what I want, this is how you fit into my life; if you dont like it, GTFO. It means understanding that your partner is his or her own person with an intricate past, a multi-dimensional present, and a open-ended futurejust like you. Pre-marriage, I used to only date guys who either shared all my love of literature or held a penchant for poetic writing. I thought thats what I needed: Someone who got me in very specific, narrow ways. Then I met my significant other, an engineer with minimal taste for flowery language or stacks of novels, and thought: We are totally doomed. However, I was wrong. I learned that all I really wanted was someone who could respect and uplift my cherished passions as well as listen to me drone on excitedly about them. I actually didnt need to date someone just like me, because that ended up being completely boring. But we didnt build that balance overnight. It took us a couple years of trial and error to figure out ways to uplift our differences into a positive light so that we both felt seen and heard as individuals. 5. Two complete halves make a whole. I often hear couples describe themselves as best friends. Thats beautifulexcept I dont consider my husband my best friend. (Blasphemous, right?) My partner is my everything, but hes not my be-all, end-all. Over the years, I frequently made the mistake that my significant other should, you know, meet every single need I would ever have, which is completely unrealistic and self-sabotaging. I realized that I had to find fulfillment in myself first (one of those sayings that is true for a reason). My friend Rachael, one of the most free-spirited people Ive ever met, explained her marriage like this: In a committed partnership, we trust that the other person will always act in the best interest of the team. Which sometimes means prioritizing the things that make us happy individually so we can carry that positivity to our home. There cannot be a whole without two complete halves. We are each responsible for nurturing our half. Stop focusing on the perfect relationship; instead, seek out a healthy, high-functioning relationship with someone who will meet your core needs in several key areas. Expect your partner to complement you, not complete you. For more relationship advice head to TheEverygirl. Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f293316%2fscreen_shot_2016-11-22_at_12.35.02 LONDON If you've ever watched an episode of University Challenge, you might have noticed that the number of male contestants far outweighs the number of females. SEE ALSO: 'University Challenge' contestant proves quiz shows and a fear of buzzers don't mix well During Monday night's show, however, viewers were stunned to see a whopping 5 females participating in the quiz show which sees two university teams answer impossibly difficult questions. Monday night's broadcast saw teams from the University of Warwick and the University of East London battle it out. East London's team featured a three women and one man, while Warwick's team comprised two female contestants and two male contestants. According to the Guardian, in the quiz show's 54-year history, there has been a total of 16 female winners and 164 male winners a figure which equates to 10 men for every woman. In 2015, a mere 25 of the 112 students participating in the show were female. And 13 of the 28 competing teams were all male, and only one team comprised three women and one man. Viewers took to social media to express their delight at the sight of five female contestants something they deemed a rarity. Actually more women in front of the camera than men this week! #universitychallenge Alithea (@AlitheaP) November 21, 2016 Goodness, THREE women on a team. See, it's totally possible other universities #universitychallenge Dudley Cruse (@dudleycruse) November 21, 2016 Wow, loads of women on University Challenge tonight! Nice change :) jesz yuol (@JYoolz) November 21, 2016 Lovely to see so many women on #Universitychallenge. Backing Warwick; no one stands a chance next to Rudd and her giant brain Amy Lavelle (@LavelleActually) November 21, 2016 #UniversityChallenge Blimey - women on the programme, what's happened here? Seaside Girl (@sensiblegirl999) November 21, 2016 Never seen so many women on #UniversityChallenge James Robertshaw (@JammyBantam) November 21, 2016 The women outnumber the men on #UniversityChallenge tonight. This is very exciting. kt (@smileykt) November 21, 2016 However, some expressed sadness at the mass shock at the rare sight of more female contestants. Story continues Sad that in 2016 it still comes as surprise that there are more women on #UniversityChallenge than men. Oh well,at least something positive RubinaTihanyi (@RubiTihanyi) November 21, 2016 If 5 women on #universitychallenge is a record then that's sad Caz (@CazKooke) November 21, 2016 In the past, the BBC has attributed this lack of gender equality on the show to the university selection process rather than part of the show's selection process. The BBC told the Telegraph in 2015 it would ask universities for greater support to ensure more diversity in the show's contestants. The BBC did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment. BONUS: Emma Watson takes her fight for gender equality to universities LONDON (Reuters) - The man accused of murdering Member of Parliament Jo Cox a week before Britain's EU referendum has opted not to speak in his own defence at his trial, a London court heard on Tuesday. Thomas Mair, 53, is accused of shooting and stabbing opposition Labour MP Cox, 41, on the street in the town of Birstall, part of her electoral district in northern England. Prosecutors have told his trial that Cox's attacker had shouted something like "Keep Britain independent" and "Britain first" during the frenzied assault and that a swathe of material about Nazis and the far right were found at Mair's home in Birstall as well as information about Cox herself. "We call no evidence for Mr Mair," his lawyer Simon Russell Flint told jurors at London's Old Bailey court. Mair had declined to enter a plea at a pre-trial hearing in October, so a judge had recorded a plea of not guilty on his behalf. However the court was told that when Mair appeared at London's Westminster Magistrates Court after being charged he had given his name as "death to traitors, freedom for Britain". Judge Alan Wilkie said the jury could draw their own conclusions if he declined to offer evidence. Russell Flint said his client was aware of that. "The sheer brutality of her murder and the utter cowardice of her murderer bring the two extremities of humanity face to face," lawyer Richard Whittam said as he summed up the prosecution case. He said Mair's alleged "racist interest" was in stark contrast to that of Cox who advanced a fair and diverse society. On Monday, the court heard police searching Mair's house had found Nazi materials including books and an eagle ornament bearing a swastika. Witnesses have said Cox suffered a ferocious attack when she arrived at the Birstall library to give an advice session to local residents, and that when apprehended by police Mair had said "It's me" and described himself as a political activist. Summing up for Mair, Russell Flint said the attack on Cox was appalling and she had been "brutally and callously murdered". He said it was up to jurors whether to return Mair to his "quiet and solitary existence or whether he will be forever remembered as the man who assassinated Jo Cox". The trial continues. (Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Stephen Addison) By Wladimir Pantaleone PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - An alleged people smuggling kingpin arrested earlier this year appeared in an Italian court for the first time on Tuesday as his lawyer raised doubts about whether his identity was mistaken. The man, identified as Medhane Yehdego Mered, was arrested in Sudan in May and extradited to Italy two weeks later. Prosecutors accuse him of being a people smuggler who calls himself "the General" after the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. But the accused man's lawyer said it was a case of mistaken identity, and that his client was an Eritrean refugee called Medhanie Tesfamariam Behre who wanted to emigrate to Europe. Guards escorted Behre to a cell surrounded by bullet-proof glass for the hearing. The official start of the trial was immediately postponed at least until Nov. 28 after prosecutors challenged the presence of one of the three presiding judges, saying he had been involved in the investigative phase of the case. The defense lawyer, Michele Calantropo, said the identity of the accused should be settled before the trial begins, but discussion of the case was pushed back until the composition of the three-judge panel is finalised. "We have found witnesses and documents that show the person who is on trial is not Mr. Medhane Yehdego Mered, but a poor boy, Medhanie Tesfamariam Behre, who is a refugee like many others," Calantropo said after the hearing. Calantropo showed Reuters a picture of Behre graduating from a plumbing school in Eritrea in 2010, when prosecutors allege "the General" was in Libya. The defense has also scheduled a Dec. 2 voice comparison to determine if the prosecution's recordings of the people smuggler's telephone conversations match Behre's voice. Calogero Ferrara and Claudio Cammilleri, prosecutors in the Sicilian capital of Palermo, say they captured the right man although they accept that they may have got his name wrong. They also say that the original picture of their suspect, which bears little resemblance to the arrested man, was discovered to be of someone else not related to the case. The case underscores the pitfalls of tackling people smuggling to Europe from Africa. Italy coordinated the arrest with Britain's National Crime Agency and Sudanese authorities, the first time a suspected trafficking kingpin was tracked down in Africa and brought to face justice in Europe since the migration crisis started three years ago. If it turns out the wrong man was seized, it would be a huge blow in their battle against traffickers who have shipped some 500,000 migrants across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe since 2014. (Reporting by Wladimir Pantaleone and Reuters TV; Writing by Steve Scherer; Editing by Helen Reid) Adam McKay is hoping to do for White House politics what The Big Short did for Wall Street greed. The director is reteaming with Paramount and Plan B for an untitled film about former vice president Dick Cheney, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. The project, penned quietly by McKay, will chart Cheney's jump from his CEO position at Halliburton to his vp role under George W. Bush. While at the White House, Cheney pushed for the post-9/11 war on global terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq (based on unsubstantiated notions that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was conferring with al-Qaida), and instituted an "enhanced interrogation program" that included waterboarding. Before Halliburton, he served in the administrations of Nixon, Ford and George H.W. Bush. Often likened to Darth Vader, Cheney is one of the most enigmatic figures in recent political memory. Plan B producers Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner will again produce with McKay and his Gary Sanchez partners, Will Ferrell and Kevin Messick. The script will go out to actors shortly, as production is eyed to begin in spring for a late 2017 release. Read more: Jeffrey Katzenberg Pens Open Letter to Hollywood After Trump Victory The Big Short, McKay's first foray into drama features, earned five Academy Award nominations, including for best picture and best director, and won the Oscar for best screenplay. The 2015 film was adapted by McKay and Charles Randolph from Michael Lewis' book and grossed $133 million worldwide. The project comes at a time when Hollywood is reeling in the wake of the 2016 presidential election that saw Republicans Donald Trump and Mike Pence pull off the upset win over the Democratic ticket of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine. McKay has never been shy about weighing in on politics, and offered his take on Washington during his Oscars acceptance speech earlier this year: "If you don't want big money to control government, don't vote for candidates that take money from big banks, oil or weirdo billionaires: Stop!" Story continues McKay adds the project to his slate of socially relevant projects, including penning and directing the drama feature Bad Blood, starring Jennifer Lawrence as the founder of controversial blood testing company Theranos, and co-writing and directing the pilot of the HBO series Succession, the saga of a fictional, American global-media family that is not only rich and powerful, but also powerfully dysfunctional. McKay is repped by WME and Mosaic. Read more: Oscars: Why President Trump Likely Won't Be Invited to Next Year's Ceremony By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - African states failed on Monday to halt the work of the first U.N. independent investigator appointed to help protect gay and transgender people worldwide from violence and discrimination. The 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, created the position in June and in September appointed Vitit Muntarbhorn of Thailand, who has a three-year mandate to investigate abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. In an unusual move, African states put forward a draft resolution in the 193-member U.N. General Assembly third committee, which deals with human rights, calling for consultations on the legality of the creation of the mandate. They said the work of the investigator should be suspended. However, Latin American countries, supported by Western nations, successfully proposed an amendment that gutted the African group draft resolution. The amendment was adopted in the third committee on Monday with 84 votes in favor, 77 against and 17 abstentions. The amended draft resolution, which makes no change to the work of the gay rights investigator, was then adopted by the third committee with 94 votes in favor, three against and 80 abstentions. Russia and Egypt, speaking on behalf of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, said they would not recognize the mandate of the gay rights investigator and would not cooperate with Muntarbhorn. Britain urged all countries to cooperate with the investigator. Being gay is a crime in at least 73 countries, the U.N. has said. The issue of gay rights consistently sparks heated debate at the United Nations. In 2014, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said the U.N. would recognize all same-sex marriages of its staff, allowing them to receive U.N. benefits. Russia unsuccessfully tried to overturn it last year, with Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, India, Egypt, Pakistan, and Syria among 43 states that supported Moscow. In February the African Group, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the 25-member "Group of Friends of the Family," led by Egypt, Belarus and Qatar, protested the launch of six U.N. stamps promoting LGBT equality. Then a group of 51 Muslim states blocked 11 gay and transgender organizations from officially attending a high-level U.N. meeting in June on ending AIDS, sparking a protest by the United States, Canada and the European Union. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Grant McCool) (Adds detail on AIG's move from Paris to London) By Huw Jones and Carolyn Cohn LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - U.S. insurer AIG may move its European headquarters from London to another European Union country because of Britain's vote to leave the EU, the head of the AIG's European and UK operations said at an industry conference on Tuesday. AIG joins a growing list of finance industry companies that have said they may have to shift some operations to continental Europe to maintain links to customers after Brexit. Speaking at the same conference, trade minister Mark Garnier said the government was listening to the financial industry's concerns over Brexit. "We will aim to limit uncertainty surrounding business," Garnier said. "The government fully understands the implications of Brexit for the financial services industry," Garnier told insurance trade body ABI's annual conference. Banks, insurers and asset managers in Britain fear losing access to the EU's single market, and a damaging "cliff edge" effect of leaving the bloc if there are no transitional arrangements ahead of any new trading terms agreed with the EU. Anthony Baldwin, chief executive of AIG's European and UK arms, said the group might decide in the coming year to move its European head office from London to an EU country after Brexit, though it would still maintain a big London hub. AIG has around 2,500 staff in Britain. Baldwin told reporters on the sidelines of the conference he was looking at half a dozen locations, including Dublin, though the impact on staffing would not be material if the headquarters moved out of London. "At a certain point in time you have to pull the trigger in the absence of any clarity on where negotiations are going with the transition period," Baldwin told the conference. "We will always continue to have a big London hub but we might have a European headquarters elsewhere," he said. Baldwin said AIG has experience of moving operations after shifting its European head office from Paris to London five years ago. About a couple of hundred jobs were moved. Story continues "We know what it takes," Baldwin said, adding the process had taken around 18 months. The Lloyd's of London insurance market, underwriters Hiscox and Beazley, and motor insurer Admiral have also said they might shift operations from London to centres like Dublin. Huw Evans, director general of the ABI, said the insurance industry should not moan about the Brexit vote, but instead engage with politicians to find a way forward and minimise risks to the sector. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will start formal divorce talks with the EU by the end of March. "That timetable has not changed," Garnier said. (Reporting by Huw Jones, editing by Carolyn Cohn and Jane Merriman) By Huw Jones and Carolyn Cohn LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. insurer AIG (AIG.N) may move its European headquarters from London to another European Union country because of Britain's vote to leave the EU, the head of the AIG's European and UK operations said at an industry conference on Tuesday. AIG joins a growing list of finance industry companies that have said they may have to shift some operations to continental Europe to maintain links to customers after Brexit. Speaking at the same conference, trade minister Mark Garnier said the government was listening to the financial industry's concerns over Brexit. "We will aim to limit uncertainty surrounding business," Garnier said. "The government fully understands the implications of Brexit for the financial services industry," Garnier told insurance trade body ABI's annual conference. Banks, insurers and asset managers in Britain fear losing access to the EU's single market, and a damaging "cliff edge" effect of leaving the bloc if there are no transitional arrangements ahead of any new trading terms agreed with the EU. Anthony Baldwin, chief executive of AIG's European and UK arms, said the group might decide in the coming year to move its European head office from London to an EU country after Brexit, though it would still maintain a big London hub. AIG has around 2,500 staff in Britain. Baldwin told reporters on the sidelines of the conference he was looking at half a dozen locations, including Dublin, though the impact on staffing would not be material if the headquarters moved out of London. "At a certain point in time you have to pull the trigger in the absence of any clarity on where negotiations are going with the transition period," Baldwin told the conference. "We will always continue to have a big London hub but we might have a European headquarters elsewhere," he said. Baldwin said AIG has experience of moving operations after shifting its European head office from Paris to London five years ago. About a couple of hundred jobs were moved. Story continues "We know what it takes," Baldwin said, adding the process had taken around 18 months. The Lloyd's of London insurance market, underwriters Hiscox (HSX.L) and Beazley (BEZG.L), and motor insurer Admiral (ADML.L) have also said they might shift operations from London to centres like Dublin. Huw Evans, director general of the ABI, said the insurance industry should not moan about the Brexit vote, but instead engage with politicians to find a way forward and minimise risks to the sector. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will start formal divorce talks with the EU by the end of March. "That timetable has not changed," Garnier said. (Reporting by Huw Jones, editing by Carolyn Cohn and Jane Merriman) LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 22, 2016 / Airborne Wireless Network (ABWN) announced today that it will be presenting at the 9th Annual LD Micro Main Event on Tuesday, December 6 at 10:30 AM PST / 1:30 PM EST at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. Jason de Mos, Vice President Business Development and Compliance of Airborne Wireless Network will deliver the Company's corporate presentation and discuss recent business highlights. In addition to the presentations, management will also be available for one-on-one meetings. To arrange a one-on-one meeting with management, please contact Robert Haag at abwn@irthcommunications.com or 1-866-976-4784. The LD Micro Main Event is the largest independent conference for small/microcap companies and will feature 240 presenting names. To access webcast, participants may visit: http://wsw.com/webcast/ldmicro11/abwn View Airborne Wireless Network's profile here: http://www.ldmicro.com/profile/ABWN News Compliments of Accesswire About Airborne Wireless Network: www.airbornewirelessnetwork.com info@airbornewirelessnetwork.com 805-583-4302 About LD Micro: LD Micro was founded in 2006 with the sole purpose of being an independent resource in the microcap space. What started out as a newsletter highlighting unique companies has transformed into an event platform hosting several influential conferences annually (Invitational, Summit, and Main Event). In 2015, LDM launched the first pure microcap index (the LDMi) to exclusively provide intraday information on the entire sector. LD will continue to provide valuable tools for the benefit of everyone in the small and microcap universe. For those interested in attending, please contact David Scher at david@ldmicro.com or visit www.ldmicro.com/events for more information. Contact: Robert Haag IRTH Communications Phone: +1-866-976-4784 ABWN@irthcommunications.com SOURCE: Airborne Wireless Network via LD Micro Paris (AFP) - The United States has approved a second export licence for Airbus to sell jetliners worth billions of dollars to Iran's flag carrier, the European aviation giant said Tuesday. "We confirm that we have received our second licence from the US Office of Foreign Control Assets following the agreement (with Iran Air) signed in January 2016 in Paris," Airbus told AFP. "This will allow us to pursue negotiations with Iran Air on finalising the deal," Airbus said. Airbus clinched a preliminary agreement at the start of year to sell Iran 118 aircraft, but it also required US approval because some of the planes' components are made in the United States. The deal includes the single-aisle A320 and the long-range A330 and is worth between 10 and 11 billion dollars. The first licence was granted in September for Airbus to sell 17 A320 and A330 jetliners to the national airline and the second licence will cover the rest of the order, an informed source said. Iran Air has been saddled with an ageing fleet due to years of sanctions on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear programme. Iran's current commercial aviation fleet, which has a poor air safety record, numbers around 140 planes with an average age of around 20 years, with many in desperate need of replacement. Iran projects a demand for between 400 and 500 commercial airliners over the next decade. The US has also given domestic planemaker Boeing the go-ahead to fulfil a June memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Iran Air that covered the sale of 80 planes, consisting of single-aisle 737 and the long-range 777 aircraft. A nuclear deal between Iran and world powers came into effect in January under which Iran has curbed its atomic programme in return for a lifting of international sanctions. By Ethan Lou Nov 22 (Reuters) - The number of ownerless oil and gas wells awaiting cleanup in Canada's energy heartland of Alberta rose by a quarter within a three-month period following a May court ruling that prioritized creditors over cleanup costs in company bankruptcies, official data showed. By the end of the fiscal second quarter on Sept. 30, Alberta had 1,423 "orphan" wells without legal owners that needed cleanup. That was an increase of more than 300 from the previous quarter, according to data from Alberta's Orphan Well Association (OWA). Just 4-1/2 years ago, there were only 26, and the explosion in orphan wells has put added pressure on the OWA. The government-backed nonprofit, which takes responsibility for orphan wells, compiles numbers four times every fiscal year ending March 31. Alberta has more than 79,000 inactive wells. Such wells become orphans when their operators go out of business; they can potentially leak contaminants if not properly decommissioned. In May, toward the end of the first quarter, an Alberta judge ruled proceeds from asset sales of insolvent junior producer Redwater Energy Corp should go first to secured creditors, rather than cleanup. The company had 19 producing wells and 70 nonproducing wells as of May. Uncertainty over distribution of funds after bankruptcy proceedings has hampered energy asset sales in Alberta. But the court decision, while providing clarity, also increased the chance that more wells from insolvent companies will be left for the OWA to clean up. OWA Chairman Brad Herald, also the vice president of Western Canada operations of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the rising number of orphans caused by operators going out of business has stretched the nonprofit's resources. "Certainly, there is pressure on the system right now from those failures," he said on Monday. But the association is still able to cope and has adapted by shifting resources away from the reclamation part of the cleanup process, a 10-year second step that returns the ground to its previous state, Herald said. The association can still meet that reclamation target if it devotes more resources years later, when it is in a position to do so. Story continues OWA's parent agency, the Alberta Energy Regulator, which instituted stricter rules for asset sales after the May court decision, said it has appealed and is awaiting a decision. "AER continues to assert that companies must not be allowed to walk away from their financial responsibilities," spokesman Ryan Bartlett said in an email. (Reporting by Ethan Lou in Toronto; Editing by Matthew Lewis) Beirut (AFP) - The Syrian army's advances against rebels in east Aleppo have sparked international concern, but the world appears powerless to prevent the symbolic city from being recaptured by the government. - Is east Aleppo's fall inevitable? - Many experts and observers now think so. "At this point, operationally, there's very little you can do to avert the fall of Aleppo," said Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "You can't send weaponry in any more, all the supply roads are cut, and you won't intervene from the air because of the costs and the risks," he told AFP. Syrian soldiers, backed by Iranian and Russian forces and Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah militia, renewed an operation to retake east Aleppo last week. The city has been divided since mid-2012, when rebels seized the eastern neighbourhoods a year into the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. After seven days of ferocious bombardment, the army has advanced quickly, seeking to slice up the rebel-held neighbourhoods where 250,000 people live. US Pentagon officials decline to be drawn on how soon the rebels might collapse, having suggested months earlier that the city's east was on the verge of being recaptured. The "resilience" of the rebels and the population, despite a four-month government siege, appears to have surprised them. And they see the government's targeting of hospitals and civilian infrastructure as a reflection of its military weakness on the ground. Even if the army effectively seizes east Aleppo, "that doesn't mean the pacification of east Aleppo", Hokayem said. There would continue to be "lots of pockets of resistance", he added. - Why no Western intervention? - Despite expressions of outrage, there has been little sign of intervention from the international community, which has behaved as "a powerless bystander", said Karim Bitar, a researcher at the Institute for International and Strategic Affairs. Story continues Despite opposing Assad's government, the West now appears impotent in the face of its advances. "There was a time to do something about Aleppo... but now it's too late," added Hokayem. "The key actors and key governments keep delaying the difficult decisions until there are no options left," he said. Hokayem said backers of the opposition had misjudged how important Russia's decision to intervene militarily last year would prove in bolstering the regime. Washington is now paralysed by the transition to president-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration. "In the absence of a leading American role, the French or the Brits can't do much and won't do much," said Hokayem. - Does the US care about Aleppo? - For US military officials, the fall of east Aleppo is regarded as a non-event, with little operational consequence for them. They say their sole focus in Syria is the fight against the Islamic State group, the only military task to which President Barack Obama has committed troops. With just weeks before he leaves the White House, there is little sign that Obama will change his policy on Syria now. And a Trump administration is likely to pursue a policy significantly less hostile to Assad's government and its backer Moscow. "Indeed, discussions on Syria policy between Moscow and Trump have already begun," according to Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank. Meanwhile, Syrian regime forces "have been emboldened by Donald Trump's victory and the prospect of a US-Russian rapprochement which would focus solely on fighting IS", said Bitar. - What can be done for civilians? - The UN's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has warned that the ongoing military operation in east Aleppo could lead to a humanitarian "catastrophe". But the world body has made no headway in securing a truce in the fighting, or even delivering aid to east Aleppo where residents face food and fuel shortages. The latest assault has hit hospitals and rescue worker facilities, worsening the misery in the east and contributing to the sense that the east will fall sooner rather than later. "There is nothing to eat, no more hospitals and the bombardment is non-stop," one European diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "They are under very strong pressure and we could see a repeat of the scenario in Daraya, where after five years they were finally forced to accept evacuation." A manhunt was in progress for his capture after he allegedly fatally shot a San Antonio police officer. But hours before his arrest, Otis Tyrone McKane made a trip to the Bexar County Courthouse to get married. According to a marriage certificate obtained by PEOPLE, McKane, 31, and Christian Chanel Fields were issued a marriage license at 9:27 a.m. on Monday seven hours before he was captured and charged with the capital murder of Det. Benjamin Marconi. San Antonio police said Marconi, 50, was writing out a ticket in his patrol vehicle at around 11:45 a.m. on Sunday when the gunman they believe to be McKane allegedly drove up beside him in a black car and fired two shots into the vehicle striking Marconi in the head. McKane allegedly fled the scene and Marconi was pronounced dead later at a hospital. McKane was arrested on Monday afternoon driving a vehicle on Interstate 10 at around 4:20 p.m., the San Antonio Police Department confirmed to PEOPLE. Video of McKane following his arrest was posted to their official Facebook account. Fields and an unidentified 2-year-old child were in the car at the time of the arrest, Mysanantonio.com reported, though police did not confirm that to PEOPLE. According to the marriage license, Fields was born in Houston and is 27 years old. As he walked past camera crews for booking on Monday, McKane told reporters he was upset over a child custody battle. Ive been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didnt deserve it, he said, KENS-TV reported. I just want to see my son. 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. Our hearts go out to Detective Marconis family, Chief William McManus said at a Sunday press conference. Most families will be celebrating the holidays, SAPD will be burying one of its own because of an ultimate act of cowardice by a suspect who will be caught and brought to justice. Story continues McManus described Marconi as a 20-year veteran of the department and Roy Naylor, a former colleague of Marconis, told NBC News that Marconi was a sex crimes detective who excelled at his work. He was a great father, he was a great officer, Naylor told NBC, adding that Marconi had two children from past marriages as well as grandchildren. Four Officers Shot in 24-Hour Span Marconi was one of four officers shot over a 24-hour period last weekend, reports say. A St. Louis, Missouri, police sergeant was shot twice in the face Sunday night, but is expected to survive, CBS News reports. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay told KMOV the sergeant was just doing his job, but he was targeted because he was a police officer. A Gladstone, Missouri, police officer was shot Sunday night but is expected to survive, according to Fox. Meanwhile, a cop in Sanibel, Florida, was shot in the shoulder during a traffic stop but was treated and released, CBS reports. Of the shootings, McManus said, I feel they were targeted. As it turns out, humans and reptiles arent as different as we think. Read: A 7-Foot Alligator Gets Stuck Behind the Wheel of Gator Wrangler's SUV Casper, a 13-foot-long Leucistic alligator living at Jungle Island in Miami, was given a CT scan last Friday. The alligator has a history of melanoma, and veterinarians are worried the cancer has returned. Hes undergoing this CAT scan, Jungle Islands Jason Chatfield said in an interview with WSVN. We really wanted to find out whats going on, and this was the least invasive, least dangerous way to do it. Chatfield said they removed a metastatic mass off Caspers back about 18 months ago, but for the last six months, theyve noticed their 19-year-old alligator suffering from a lack of appetite, loss in weight, and fatigue. According to veterinarians, his unique light skin tone and long days spent basking in the sun could have something to do with the cancer. Read: Rescue Pitbull Dying of Cancer Lives Life to the Fullest With New Owners To conduct the test, Caspers handlers loaded him into a van, operated by Mobile Pet Imaging, a veterinary service that transports CT equipment to animals in need. Results were then sent to veterinarians at the University of Florida, who are experienced in examining alligators. The results are forthcoming. Watch: Crocodile Flashes Toothy Grin as Handler Proposes in Reptile's Den During Feeding Time Related Articles: With an aim to move past the legacy legal matters, Ally Financial Inc. ALLY has agreed to resolve all the outstanding claims and probes by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) pertaining to sale of residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS). The company will be paying $52 million to settle allegations of misrepresentation of underlying securities by its former mortgage subsidiary Residential Capital, LLC and its subsidiaries (ResCap RMBS). This resolves allegations of violations of the Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA) of 1989 and the False Claims Act. Notably, Ally Financials fully cooperated with the DOJ in settling the issue. Misrepresentation on the Quality of Underlying Loans Ally Financial was accused of acting improperly with regard to 10 sub-prime RMBS during 2006 and 2007. Notably, Ally Securities, LLC, (earlier known as Residential Funding Securities LLC), was the lead underwriter on these RMBS issued in the RASC-EMX series. Despite recognizing continued deterioration in the quality of the mortgages underlying the RASC-EMX securities, Ally Securities continued to market these as safe investments. Therefore, investors lost millions of dollars as value of these securities plunged. U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker said, These securities were marketed to investors with the knowledge that a significant percentage of the pooled subprime mortgages were toxic, meaning that they were underwritten to risky guidelines likely to result in the loans falling delinquent. Nevertheless, Ally Securities continued to market the RMBS, and investors lost millions of dollars as the value of the securities plummeted. No Material Impact on the Financials The settlement will have no financial impact on the companys results as it has fully reserved the amount in the third quarter. As part of the settlement deal, Ally Financial will be withdrawing the broker-dealer registration of Ally Securities. This will also have no material effect on the companys operations as the unit was not strategically important. Notably, the settlement deal reserves the governments ability to bring criminal charges against Ally Financial. Leslie P. DeMarco Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Housing Finance Agency-Office of Inspector Generals Western Region said, The sale of toxic mortgage backed securities crushed the housing market and the economy, leading to years of uncertainty and hardship for many. Today Ally Securities is being held accountable for the role it played. As we move forward, FHFA-OIG will continue to hold entities responsible and work toward building a healthier housing market. Many big banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, Bank of America Corporation BAC and Citigroup Inc. C have faced similar allegations. These banks were involved in almost similar settlements to resolve lawsuits and investigations, thereby hurting their financials substantially. Currently, Ally Financial carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here. The Best Place to Start Your Stock Search 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 >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report JPMORGAN CHASE (JPM): Free Stock Analysis Report CITIGROUP INC (C): Free Stock Analysis Report BANK OF AMER CP (BAC): Free Stock Analysis Report ALLY FINANCIAL (ALLY): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Amazon is testing its delivery drone system in Britain. (Amazon Photo) Regulators have to work out lots of issues before they let drones start delivering packages routinely, but in Britain at least, theres a timetable. Weve got a soft target of 2020, Michael Clark, deputy director at Britains Department for Transport, told GeekWire. And although the Federal Aviation Administration hasnt announced its own timetable, 2020 could well be a soft target for U.S. operations as well. Clark and other British transport officials discussed the U.K. perspective on unmanned aircraft systems last week while visiting the States for the Drone World Expo in San Jose, Calif. Britains Civil Aviation Authority is playing a key role in Amazons plans to develop delivery drones, highlighted by the Seattle-based retailers flight test program near Cambridge. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spoke warmly about the companys relationship with British regulators last month at Seattles Museum of Flight. Were getting really good cooperation from the British equivalent of the FAA, the CAA, he said. Its incredible. Its really cool. For what its worth, the feeling is mutual: Amazon is a pathfinder, Clark said. That means Amazon, like a number of other companies, is working with the CAA to pioneer technologies and practices for safe commercial drone operations. Clark and his colleagues said they couldnt discuss the specifics of Amazons program, due to confidentiality requirements. But they said theyre committed to making Britain as drone-friendly as possible. We really want to make the most of the drone economy, Clark said. Weve got a very open testing environment. The number of permissions granted for commercial drone operations has been rising steeply, from 760 in 2014, to 1,653 last year, to 2,113 from the start of this year through October. More than 2,000 commercial drone operators are in business. Story continues Theres a lot of interest in drone regulation and the drone economy, Clark said. He likes to think that Britains relatively small size means were slightly more agile when it comes to working out the requirements for drone operations. At the same time, British authorities have to be sensitive to the reactions from the residents of a small country. Some community leaders already have voiced concerns about Amazons flight testing program near Cambridge. People walk here to find peace, Julia Napier, secretary of Friends of the Roman Road and Fleam Dyke, told the BBC this summer. The idea that drones can be whizzing over their heads, delivering parcels to people who cannot wait more than two days, who must have the new thing means more noise in the countryside. Public outreach is a key part of Britains drone strategy. Last month, the CAA and Visit England launched a 400ft Britain photo/video contest, open to drone operators who take pictures from below the 400-foot altitude limit specified in the CAAs Dronecode. We use that as a vehicle for getting out the message about responsible drone use, said Tim Johnson, the CAAs head of policy. Amazon is getting in on the outreach action as well: Last month, the company sponsored its first Design a Drone competition for schools in the Cambridge area. Researchers even treated schoolchildren as well as journalists to a tour of Amazons hush-hush drone lab in Cambridge. In addition to making deliveries and taking pictures, Britains pathfinder programs are testing drones as tools for inspecting power lines, rail lines and other infrastructure, responding to emergencies and conducting search-and-rescue operations. Theres even a professional drone racing competition thats scheduled to take place at Londons Alexandra Palace next year. Between now and 2020, British regulators will have to address the same challenges that the FAA is facing for example, how to ensure safe flight beyond an operators visual line of sight, how to assess which collision avoidance systems will be sufficient, and how to move safely toward more autonomous flight. We havent got a magic bullet on this, Clark said. But I think weve been able to keep ahead of the curve. More from GeekWire: Presentation Scheduled for Wednesday, December 7 DENVER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / November 22, 2016 / AmeriCann, Inc. (ACAN), a company that is developing sustainable, state-of-the-art medical cannabis cultivation properties, announced today that it will be presenting at the 9th annual LD Micro Main Event on Wednesday, December 7 at 5:00 PM PST / 8:00 PM EST. The LD Micro Main Event is the largest independent conference for small/microcap companies and will be held December 6-8, 2016 at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel, 11461 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. AmeriCann's President and CEO, Tim Keogh, will be presenting, as well as meeting one-on-one with investors throughout the event discussing the Company and the Massachusetts Medical Cannabis Center. The regulated cannabis industry is expected is to be one of the fastest growing industries in the country. The respected Wall Street firm of Cowen & Co recently released a research report projecting dramatic growth for the industry from the current $7 billion nationally to over $50 billion in ten years. Massachusetts, California, Maine, and Nevada voted to legalize recreational marijuana while Arkansas and North Dakota approved medical cannabis initiatives. Florida voters approved medical marijuana in a landslide with over 71% of the vote. With these election results, over 60% of the US Population now live in states where medical cannabis is now legal. LD Micro Main Event Location: Luxe Sunset Bel Air Date: Wednesday, December 7 Time: 5:00 PM PST / 8:00 PM EST http://www.ldmicro.com/events The LD Micro Main Event is the largest independent conference for small / microcap companies and will feature 240 presenting corporations. About AmeriCann AmeriCann is a publicly traded company that is developing sustainable, state-of-the-art medical cannabis cultivation properties. The Company has over 1,000,000 square feet of facilities in the planning and design stages of development. The Company has designed a proprietary line of cannabis infused products which will be branded and licensed to companies in regulated markets. Story continues AmeriCann, Inc. is a Certified B Corp, an acknowledgment of the company's commitment to social and environmental ethics, transparency and accountability. AmeriCann became the first public cannabis company to earn this respected accreditation. More information about the Company is available at: www.americann.co. About Massachusetts Medical Cannabis Center The Massachusetts Medical Cannabis Center is approved for nearly 1,000,000 square feet of medical cannabis cultivation and processing in Freetown, Massachusetts. The state-of-the-art, sustainable, greenhouse project will consist of multiple planned phases for tenants in the Massachusetts medical marijuana market. AmeriCann's Cannopy System uniquely combines expertise from traditional horticulture, lean manufacturing, regulatory compliance and cannabis cultivation to create superior facilities and procedures. The first phase of the project consists of 130,000 sq. ft. of cultivation and processing infrastructure. AmeriCann can expand the first phase to approximately 600,000 sq. ft., based on patient demand. About LD Micro LD Micro was founded in 2006 with the sole purpose of being an independent resource in the microcap space. What started out as a newsletter highlighting unique companies has transformed into an event platform hosting several influential conferences annually (Invitational, Summit, and Main Event). In 2015, LDM launched the first pure microcap index (the LDMi) to exclusively provide intraday information on the entire sector. LD will continue to provide valuable tools for the benefit of everyone in the small and microcap universe. For those interested in attending, please contact David Scher at david@ldmicro.com or visit www.ldmicro.com/events for more information. Forward-Looking Statements This press 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 (the "Exchange Act") (which Sections were adopted as part of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). Statements preceded by, followed by or that otherwise include the words "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "plan," "project," "prospects," "outlook," and similar words or expressions, or future or conditional verbs such as "will," "should," "would," "may," and "could" are generally forward-looking in nature and not historical facts. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any anticipated results, performance or achievements. The Company disclaims any intention to, and undertakes no obligation to, revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, a future event, or otherwise. For additional uncertainties that could impact the Company's forward-looking statements, please see the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2015, which the Company has filed with the SEC and which may be viewed at http://www.sec.gov. Contact Information: Corporate: AmeriCann, Inc. 3200 Brighton Blvd. Unit 114 Denver, CO 80216 (303) 862-9000 info@americann.co www.americann.co Investors: Hayden IR hart@haydenir.com (917) 658-7878 SOURCE: AmeriCann, Inc. Washington (AFP) - Americans are mostly optimistic about the country under the incoming presidency of Donald Trump, though they want him to stop tweeting, national poll results showed Tuesday. Nearly double the number of voters -- 59 percent versus 37 percent pessimistic -- said they are "optimistic about the next four years with Donald Trump as president," the independent Quinnipiac University Poll found. Only 17 percent said that Trump would be a "great" president, while 32 percent said he would be a "good" president. A slightly smaller group viewed him negatively, with 26 percent saying he will be "bad" and 17 percent saying he will be "not so good." A separate CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday found that most Americans -- 53 percent -- think that Trump will do a "very good" or "fairly good" job as president. The results of the polls come two weeks after the Republican billionaire's unexpected win over Democrat Hillary Clinton. His November 8 election, after an extraordinarily nasty campaign, exposed a deeply divided country on values and governance. The beginning of Trump's transition to the White House on January 20 appeared to inspire some confidence in his presidency. The CNN/ORC poll found 48 percent were more confident, while 43 percent were less so. Trump's behavior post-election has made 36 percent of voters say they feel better and 14 percent feel worse, the Quinnipiac poll showed. But Trump's high use of Twitter to communicate to the public drew ire. According to the Quinnipiac poll, 59 percent of American voters say he should shut down his personal Twitter account, and 35 percent disagreed. "Voters tell President-elect Donald Trump, 'You've got the job. Now be a leader not a tweeter,'" said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll, in a statement. "And we're watching to make sure you put the country, not the Trump brand, first." Both polls were conducted November 17-20 by interviews on phone land lines and cellphones, and had margins of error of plus or minus three percentage points. The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 1,071 voters nationwide; the CNN/ORC poll 1,003 adults. By Jim Forsyth SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A 31-year-old man was arrested on Monday in the fatal ambush shooting of a San Antonio police officer, one of four officers shot in the line of duty in Texas, Missouri and Florida a day earlier. The attacks on Sunday, which injured three other officers and led to the shooting death of a suspect, revived memories of deadly ambushes targeting police in July in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Otis McKane was arrested without incident in a car with woman and a 2-year-old, San Antonio police said, adding they did not know the motive for the killing of 50-year-old Benjamin Marconi, a 20-year veteran of the San Antonio force. He was fatally shot as he sat in his squad car during a routine traffic stop outside the city's police headquarters. "Everyone is relieved," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus told a news conference, adding the suspect has a criminal history. "The fact that he has been taken into custody, that does not negate the fact that there are people out there who are still targeting police officers," he added. The assailant stopped his car behind the police cruiser, walked up and shot the officer in the head through the window as he was writing a ticket, McManus told a news conference earlier on Monday. The gunman then reached through the window, fired a second shot into the officer, returned to his vehicle and sped away. A total of 57 U.S. law enforcement officers have been killed by gunfire so far this year, a 68 percent increase from the same period in 2015. Also on Sunday, a 46-year-old St. Louis police sergeant was shot in the face by a person in a car who pulled up beside the officer's cruiser at an intersection. St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said the wounded officer was conscious and able to speak after the attack. The suspect was later killed in a shootout after officers spotted his car, police said on Monday. Meanwhile, a third police officer was shot on Sunday during a traffic stop on Sanibel Island on Florida's Gulf Coast but was not seriously hurt, local media reported. Story continues The officer was treated for a shoulder wound, according to the reports, while the suspect was apprehended at his home on an island off Fort Myers. 'WORST NIGHTMARE' In a fourth incident, a police officer in Kansas City, Missouri, was shot and, wounded during a struggle with an armed suspect who tried to flee after a traffic stop, police said. The suspect was killed and a Kansas City police spokeswoman said investigators were determining whether the officer was shot accidentally by one his colleagues. The Texas case is a capital murder, which can result in the death penalty, prosecutors said. About four hours before the shooting in San Antonio, surveillance video showed the suspect had briefly entered police headquarters and asked a question of a desk clerk before leaving. McManus said it was not immediately known why the suspect entered the building, and he declined to say what the clerk was asked. "This is everyone's worst nightmare," McManus said. Referring to the recent ambush killings of police officers in Texas and Louisiana, he said, "Unfortunately, like Dallas, like Baton Rouge, it's happened here now." The latest shootings come amid an intense national debate over the role of law enforcement and especially the use of force by officers against minorities. (Additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Chris Michaud and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Cynthia Osterman) Jerusalem (AFP) - Amnesty International on Tuesday condemned "baseless charges" against a prominent Palestinian human rights campaigner, a day ahead of his trial. Issa Amro, founder of Youth Against Settlements, a campaign group in the West Bank city of Hebron, is due to appear in an Israeli military court Wednesday facing 18 charges. Among them are previously closed cases and a charge over an assault that took place when Amro was absent as he had already been arrested, Amnesty said. "The deluge of charges against Issa Amro does not stand up to any scrutiny," Amnesty's Magdalena Mughrabi said in a statement. "If he is convicted, we will consider Issa Amro a prisoner of conscience." A military spokesman, in a later statement, said evidence would be presented at the hearing that the accused had "taken part in riots, attacks on soldiers, calls to violence, and prevented security forces from doing their work". Hebron, where hundreds of Israelis live in heavily guarded settlements in the heart of a city of 200,000 Palestinians, is a key site of tension in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. Amro denies ever using violence to oppose the occupation of the West Bank. "On the contrary, I am a person who advocates non-violence," he told AFP Tuesday. The trial "is a political decision from the Israeli right-wing government to target my human rights work," he said. Since October 2015, 240 Palestinians, 36 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in a wave of violence, according to an AFP tally. Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out attacks, according to Israeli authorities. Many were from Hebron. By Ronnie Cohen (Reuters Health) - - A consortium of animal-welfare groups has funded research to develop a product it says could lead to more effective treatment of infectious diphtheria in humans while sparing thousands of horses now being bled to produce antitoxins. The PETA International Science Consortium conceived the deal, signed last week, to try to get horses out of the antitoxin business. Many live on farms in India, where veterinarians last year found them neglected, mistreated and in pain, some blind, lame, anemic, standing in their own waste and so malnourished that their ribs poked through their coats, according to a report from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, India. The worldwide consortium of PETA groups awarded 134,000 euros (about $142,000) to Technical University Braunschweig in Germany to pioneer a new treatment for diphtheria, a bacterial infection. The human antitoxin would be grown with human cells in a test tube, instead of being drawn from the blood of horses. Its better for the people and also for the horses, Professor Michael Hust of Technical University said in a telephone interview. He will lead the research to replace equine serum with human serum. Stocks of the equine antitoxin have become increasingly difficult to locate, and those who receive it sometimes experience reactions similar to anaphylactic shock, Hust said. He expects a serum made from recombinant human antibodies will provide a higher quality, more uniform product with fewer side effects and a longer shelf life. Dr. Stephen Hadler, deputy director of the division of bacterial diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, welcomed news of the PETA deal. He is not involved in it. A product thats made with human antibody, as opposed to horse antibody, would be a good idea, assuming its been appropriately tested and its as effective, he said by phone. Its good to hear this group is willing to support it. Human antitoxin is less likely to produce allergic reactions than horse antitoxin, Hadler said. This is an area where the human health interest is completely interwoven with horse welfare, Jeffrey Brown, a biologist and advisor to the PETA consortium, said in a telephone interview. Antitoxins made from horses arent the best for humans, Brown said. We have a shortage of a bad product. We need a better product that we can produce more reliably. Antitoxins are lifesavings drugs, but the way theyre manufactured hasnt kept pace with science, Brown said. Treatment for diphtheria has remained the same for more than 100 years, since the late 1890s, when Dr. Emil von Behring conceived the approach of using immunized animal blood to treat the disease work for which he won the first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901. To make the equine antitoxin, horses are repeatedly injected with diphtheria toxins, their immune systems develop antibodies against the bacteria, and the antibodies are extracted from their blood. Diphtheria once was one of the most common killers of children. In 1921, the U.S. recorded 206,000 cases and 15,520 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since then, mass vaccination has largely eradicated diphtheria, though outbreaks persist, including a recent one in Venezuela. The World Health Organization reported 4,778 cases last year. Public health authorities have been calling for a better supply of antitoxin for years, Brown said. But pharmaceutical companies have not been investing in diphtheria antitoxin research because affected regions generally can ill afford to pay for the cost of developing drugs. The PETA consortiums grant to Hust will last for three years. Hust believes it will take at least another 10 years of clinical trials before a human antitoxin is available for people with diphtheria. This InternKat has been looking around to bring you a round-up of recent posts from other IP blogs. Enjoy. reminds readers of the publication of the Final European Trade Mark Reports ( (3) Is + a plus or a cross? See the post written by Mark Schweizer on the CONCEPT+ case in Switzerland. The decision can be found issued by the General Court of the European Union, in (1) The recent Finnish Supreme Administrative Courts ruling on the likelihood of confusion between two figurative trade marks both entailing indication of half-price (in Finnish " hintaan"). The decision (in Finnish) can be read here (4) Does Caffe Nero directly and obviously refer to the nature of the goods and of the services relating to the goods? Well, Google Translate seems to agree (this InternKat Googled the phrase and got a direct translation of black coffee), and so does the General Court The judgements (one applicant, two cases) can be read and . * Former Guest Kat Mike Mireles wrote a on about the EU tax reform announced by EU Commission and the Venture Capital fund, together with his expectations for Donald the President-elect. In the same blog, Anne Fairpo crossed her fingers on the extracted from the UK Prime Ministers speech to the Confederation of British Industry (Nov. 21st) about reviewing the IP incentive tax system. * Another former Guest Kat, Stefano Barazza wrote a discussing the future of IP in higher education. WIth regard to what has been missing in IP higher education and what needs to be done in the future, his in-depth analysis hits the spot. * What has happened in Latin America? On , Patricia Covarrubia firstly writes about the caused by TPP (the Trans-Pacific Partnership) and TISA (the Trade in Services Agreement). Later, she welcomes the initiated by Ecuador's Intellectual Property Institute. This ever-productive writer also brings the between the Asociacion Interamericana de Propiedad Intelectual (Inter-American Association of Intellectual Property) (ASIPI) and oriGIn (Organisation for an International Geographical Indications Network) to increase cooperation on Geographical Indications (GIs). Photo courtesy of Ms. Ana Barbara Ribeiro Ramalho. BERLIN (Reuters) - German archivists have found a letter written by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's grandfather, asking to be allowed to return to his German homeland after his wife failed to settle in to life in the United States. The letter, signed by Friedrich Trump, who left Germany at the age of 16 in 1885, was unearthed at the state archives in the western German region of Rhineland-Palatinate. After the turn of the century, Friedrich Trump returned from the United States to Germany, where he met and married his wife, Elisabeth, with whom he returned to New York. "She lasted for around two years before making it known that she wanted to return to Germany," Franz Maier of the Rhineland-Palatinate state archives in Speyer told Reuters Television. Friedrich had, however, failed to deregister properly before he left Germany and was not therefore allowed to be renaturalized in Bavaria, which was then its own kingdom. An accompanying document in the archived dossier read: "the settlement in Bavaria cannot be permitted". That fateful rejection set off the series of events that ended up with Donald Trump being elected U.S. president. (Reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Louise Ireland) Buenos Aires (AFP) - Businesswoman Ivanka Trump, daughter of President-elect Donald Trump, spoke with Argentina's President Mauricio Macri when he phoned her father to congratulate him on winning the White House, officials said Tuesday. Both Trump and Macri are heirs to real estate holdings, and they worked together in the 1980s, Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra told a press conference. When Macri placed the call November 14, he asked to speak to Ivanka, whom he has known since she was a child. In addition to running a jewelry line, Ivanka Trump is a Trump organization vice president for development. News of the conversation came as a report surfaced that Donald Trump had asked Macri to approve a building project by one of his companies in Buenos Aires, a claim that Macri's government has sharply denied. Malcorra said there was no discussion between Macri and Trump on real estate development. "No. Not at all. They just talked about maintaining the (bilateral) relationship and recalled the personal relationship they had years ago," she said. The news also arrived in the wake of a torrent of criticism caused by official snapshots of the president-elect's first meeting with a foreign leader on Thursday showing Ivanka Trump sitting in on the talks with Japan's Shinzo Abe. She and her businessman husband Jared Kushner could be seen chatting and laughing with the prime minister's delegation at Trump Tower. Argentina's top diplomat said Macri had merely exchanged pleasantries with Ivanka, whom he has known for years. "She's right here next to me. I'll pass over the phone," Malcorra quoted Donald Trump as telling Macri. "Macri and Ivanka exchanged pleasantries," Malcorra said. The unclear role of Trump's family in his administration has raised concerns, largely due to potential conflicts of interest. Macri will travel to New York on December 10 to meet with the Trump team, Malcorra added. Istanbul (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said it would be "inappropriate" to ask who was the more barbarous out of Israel and Hitler, in comments likely to put renewed strain on ties with the Jewish state. The comments come less than a week after Turkey appointed a foreign policy advisor to the prime minister as ambassador to Israel, sealing the normalisation of diplomatic relations after a six-year partial rupture. "I don't approve of what Hitler did, and neither do I approve of what Israel has done. When it's a question of so many people dying, it's inappropriate to ask who was the more barbarous," Erdogan said in an interview with Israeli television on Monday night. The relationship between the two countries plunged to an all time low after an Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound ship in 2010 that killed 10 Turks, prompting Ankara to expel the Israeli ambassador and freeze all defence ties. But the two sides have been working to bring cooperation back to former levels and are holding talks on building an ambitious pipeline project to pump Israeli gas to Turkey and Europe. Nevertheless, considerable tensions remain with Erdogan presenting himself as a champion of the Palestinians and regularly meeting with Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal. Israel, the United States and the European Union all view Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, as a terrorist organisation. It is not the first time that Erdogan has referred to the World War II Nazi leader when dealing with Israel. After the 2010 raid, he accused Israel of "keeping Hitler's spirit alive". And during the 2014 Gaza War, in which 2,251 Palestinians were killed, according to the UN, he said Israelis "have no conscience, no honour, no pride. They curse Hitler day and night, but they have surpassed Hitler in barbarism". He has accused the Jewish state of carrying out "genocide" on the Palestinians. In Monday's comments to Israel's Channel 2 television, Erdogan said he was "well aware" of the sensitivities associated with Hitler, blamed for the deaths of some six million Jews. But he said he found it "impossible to forget the hundreds, the thousands of people who died when (the Israeli military) struck Gaza". Bravo From her $10,000 hairstyle to her mermaid-style gown, every detail of Teresa Giudices wedding look was unforgettable. (In fact, her dress and tiara even earned a spot in the Bravoland immersive museum at BravoCon 2022.) Although her wedding was only three months ago, Teresas head-to-toe bridal ensemble is already considered one of the more iconic looks in Bravo history, as recently evidenced by many people replicating it on Halloween including Kelly Ripa. For a segment that aired during Live As Thanksgiving approaches, time-honored, turkey-centric celebrations will assuredly take place wherever Americans happen to be come Thursdayeven if that location happens to be somewhere in outer space. Celebrating American Thanksgiving on the Final Frontier has been a tradition of the United States space program for decades. The first American astronauts to be in space on Turkey Day were Commander Gerald P. Carr, scientist Edward G. Gibson and pilot William R. Pogue. They comprised the three-man team sent on the third manned mission to Americas first space station, Skylab, in 1973. The crew marked Thanksgiving by undertaking the then-longest space walk, spending six and a half hours bouncing around like their own Macys parade balloons while replacing the film in solar study cameras and repairing an earth-sensing instrument. Afterwards, as William Pogue recalled, there was still visible twilight several hours later and while we had our turkey that evening, we were able to look out the window to the Earth glittering below. Unsurprisingly, the Skylab turkey was decidedly different from the golden-roasted Norman Rockwell cliches that mark Thanksgiving dinners back in the USA. Food scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had been struggling with how to make meals that kept astronauts both healthy and happy since the space program began in 1958. These scientists quickly learned that crumbs in zero gravity caused major problems, meat in tubes and freeze-dried powders were completely unappetizing, and gelatinous, bite-size cubes of food were never the right way to go. This first Skylab Thanksgiving came after the Apollo missions, which not only took giant leaps for mankind, but also substantially improved the quality of space fare. Where previously most astronaut foods were freeze-dried to avoid the need for refrigeration, the Apollo mission team introduced wet-packs to the space program, which were regular, undehydrated food wrapped in aluminum foil. Although such entrees were a step up from other rehydrated foods, they unfortunately still had to be eaten cold because space shuttles at the time didnt yet have ovens. Story continues Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter Amongst these important culinary improvements was the quality of space turkey. The bird, when packed in gravy, became an essential part of the menu for Apollo missions 11-16 and was one of just a handful of main entrees available to the crew while they were in space. (The other dishes included ham and potatoes, chicken and rice, beef stew, and tuna salad.) The astronauts of Apollo 8, the first manned space craft to orbit the moon, enjoyed a specially packed dish of turkey on Christmas day, while the crew of the later Apollo 12 mission, the second group to land on the moon, enjoyed this turkey with gravy as part of a Thanksgiving dinner spent in quarantine after landing back on Earth a few days earlier in 1969. By the time Skylab 3 was launched, space shuttles had grown more spaciousso, in addition to relatively more sumptuous turkey dinners, the crew was also one of the first to enjoy a full dining room and table on board. Thanksgiving in 1973 was thus spent with their feet in footholds around a table, cutting open food packets with their assigned scissors, and giving thanks while enjoying the spectacular view. Every year since, when an American has been in space, the Thanksgiving festivities have followed accordingly. In 1985, astronauts aboard a shuttle mission enjoyed some irradiated turkey while the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis in 1991 gobbled up turkey, gravy, noodles, cranberry sauce and a dish called pumpkin delight after successfully maneuvering their craft around some nearby space junk. In the past decade, Space Thanksgivings have become an almost annual affair thanks to a more or less permanent American presence on board the International Space Station. Since 2007, these feasts have been brought to the final frontier thanks to the fine folks at the Space Food Research Facility at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. The research facilitys recent holiday menus have included dishes like irradiated smoked turkey slices, freeze-dried cornbread, thermostabilized candied yams, mashed potatoes (no gravy anymore, unfortunately), cranberry pie and apricot cobbler. The verdict of these space feasts from the food scientists: Its just like Thanksgiving dinner. According to the astronauts themselveslets just say theyre mainly thankful for this opportunity to be in outer space. Emelyn Rude is a food historian and the author of Tastes Like Chicken, available now. vela constealltion stars NGC 2547 eso Through the thick fog of our own galaxy, astronomers have spotted an ultimate prize: one of the largest known structures in the universe. Called the Vela supercluster, the newly discovered object is a massive group of several galaxy clusters, each one containing hundreds or thousands of galaxies. "I could not believe such a major structure would pop up so prominently" after an observation of that region of space, said Renee Kraan-Korteweg, an astrophysicist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, in a press release. Kraan-Korteweg and her team published their discovery of the supercluster named after the constellation Vela, where it was found in the Monthly Notices Letters of the Royal Astronomical Society. A giant hiding behind the Milky Way vela supercluster galaxies university cape town jarrett labeled It may be hard to believe that such a huge object could go unnoticed, but it makes more sense when you consider where we all live. The Milky Way is our expansive galactic home. It hosts more than 100 billion stars, trillions of planets, and colorful clouds of gas and dust. This makes for a brilliant playground to study individual objects like black holes, the formation of alien solar systems, or potentially habitable extrasolar planets. But if you're an astronomer trying to peer beyond the Milky Way and into the deeper universe, all of this stuff is in your way: milky way galaxy sun solar system earth location nasa labeled 1200 This is especially true of objects behind the galactic plane, which is us looking through the 100,000 light-year-wide disk of the Milky Way from the inside out. That cross-section of the Milky Way's disk of stars, gas, and dust is actually what we see when we look up in the sky in a very dark place: milky way To peer through it, Kraan-Korteweg and her colleagues combined the observations of several telescopes: the newly refurbished South African Large Telescope near Cape Town, the Anglo-Australian Telescope near Sydney, and X-ray surveys of the galactic plane. Story continues Using that data, they calculated how fast each galaxy they saw above and below the galactic plane was moving away from Earth. Their number-crunching soon revealed that they all seemed to be moving together indicating a lot of galaxies couldn't be seen. "It became obvious we were uncovering a massive network of galaxies, extending much further than we had ever expected," Michelle Cluver, an astrophysicist at the University of the Western Cape, said in a release. The researchers estimate that Vela supercluster is about the same mass of the Shapley supercluster of roughly 8,600 galaxies, which is located about 650 million light-years away. Given that the typical galaxy has about 100 billion stars, researchers estimate that Vela could contain somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 trillion stars. Their calculations also show Vela is about 800 million light-years distant and zooming farther and farther away from us at a speed of about 40 million mph (18,000 kilometers per second). Despite that extra and rapidly increasing distance, however, Vela's influence can't be denied. The researchers estimate that Vela's gravitational tug on the Local Group of galaxies, which includes the Milky Way, has sped them up by about 110,000 mph (50 kilometers per second). That's quite a pull, and could help tell the incredible story of how our Milky Way galaxy and we got here. NOW WATCH: This 3-minute animation will change the way you see the universe More From Business Insider TOKYO, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Takata Corp has shortlisted Sweden's Autoliv Inc and U.S. parts supplier Key Safety Systems as potential bidders for the Japanese airbag maker at the centre of the world's biggest auto recall, Bloomberg reported. Those two bidders were preferred because of their expertise in making airbag systems and safety equipment, as carmakers look for ways to improve efficiencies in Takata's production, the report said, citing people familiar with the deal. Takata is seeking an investor to help it restructure as global automakers face liabilities of $10 billion or more from recalls involving defective airbags which have been linked to at least 15 deaths worldwide. At a meeting in New York last month between Takata and the automakers, the carmakers preferred Autoliv, sources told Reuters. The second-most preferred bidder was Key Safety Systems, owned by China's Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp and backed by private equity firm Carlyle Group, according to the sources. Daicel Corp, which teamed up with a U.S. buyout firm Bain Capital came in third. U.S. parts maker Flex-N-Gate Corp is another bidder. (Reporting by Junko Fujita; Editing by Stephen Coates) JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The South African government has hired Bain & Co to advise on a strategy for loss-making South African Airways, a spokeswoman for the National Treasury said. The national carrier has been surviving with the help of 20 billion rand ($1.4 billion) in state guarantees. It reported a 1.5 billion rand loss for the 2015/16 financial year, after losing 5.6 billion rand the year before. Moody's, Fitch and S&P are all currently reviewing their ratings of South Africa and have raised concerns about the burden that state-run firms put on stretched public finances. Bain & Co will also advise the National Treasury on South Africa's two other state-owned airlines: South African Express and low-cost carrier Mango, as the National Treasury is reviewing its airline strategy. It has been exploring a merger of SAA and SA Express and has said it is seeking an equity partner for SAA. "(The contract with Bain) was awarded around the end of October. It is for a period of three months," National Treasury spokeswoman Yolisa Tyantsi said in an emailed response to questions. ($1 = 14.1200 rand) (Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Susan Fenton) This InternKat, as a Chinese blogger, had particular pleasure in attending the 2nd EU-China IP Forum in London (Nov. 8th) organized by IP Key and the Centre for Commercial Law Studies ( CCLS ), Queen Mary University of London ( QMUL ), with support from Renmin University of China ( RUC ). With a cast of stellar speakers from academic, judicial, government and private practice backgrounds, a full house was in attendance with over 150 people in the audience. *** Opening Speeches *** After a warm welcome to all the participants, Prof. Duncan Matthews (CCLS, QMUL) who was also one of the key organizers of this forum, opened the agenda. Prof. Bill Spence (Vice Principal for Research, QMUL) then noted CCLSs all-along characteristic of reach out all around the world, in which collaboration with China was a very important part. Several IP related activities that CCLS had recently taken in China were highlighted, including the 1st EU-China Forum at the Suzhou campus of RUC (see report here ), the joint research project with the IP Academy of RUC, and the training programs cooperated with SIPO. The Right Honourable Lord Justice Kitchin (Royal Courts of Justice) welcomed the delegation and reiterated the aim of this Forum: to address how similar legal problems were dealt with in different jurisdictions; and to build mutual understanding of how IP systems operated in the EU and China. Mr. Chen Fuli (Deputy Director General, Treaty and Law Department, MOFCOM) highly praised the successfully bilateral cooperation since 1996. In particular, he marked this forum as different, because it is designed and organized mainly by scholars from both sides -- it was a big step forward from government-leading to government-supporting dialogues. He believed that with more that 10 professors from each side to touch on the very challengeable, front-edged issues, this west-trip could definitely deepen our cooperation, enhance mutual understandings, and promote our bilateral trade and investment relations. Benoit Lory (Minister Counsellor, IP Attache at the EU Delegation to China and Mongolia) commented on the necessity of having this crucial Forum under current economy tensions and online revolutions -- these challenges require effective and timely solutions. And the contribution from the academic world will be very beneficial. *** Panel 1: Unfair competition and trade secrets *** Prof. Alexander von Muhlendahl (Visiting Professor, QMUL; Bardehle Pagenberg, Munich) gave a speech on Trade mark and unfair competition: A German perspective of the current situation in the EU. He covered both the conflicts and overlaps of trade mark law and unfair competition law, and sent the message that the EU as such did not have a complete concept of what unfair competition law is about --- the EUs approach was quite limited, the rest was left to Member States to work out in their own traditions and legal systems. He concluded that IPRs were essential instruments of innovation. The protection of competition against anticompetitive practices as well as against unfair competitive practices were necessary complements to the protection of IPRs. The German experience showed that a proper balance between these various instruments was a requirement for a well-functioning economy. Mr. John Hull (Visiting Professional Fellow of QMUL) spoke on The EU trade secrets directive -- form over substance. In order to answer why do we need a new trade secret law in the EU?, he referred to convincing studies conducted by leading law firms that revealed problematic issues that EU failed to address, including (but not limited to) undefined key terms, and a patchwork of enforceability and national legal systems differentiations. In particular, he pointed out employees as the main area of trade secret misappropriation, specifically the undefined differences between an employers trade secret and an employees know how, and the difficulties of national systems of employment laws to apply to the new laws. Prof. Li Yang from Sun Yat-Sen University shared his research findings of FRAND Holdup and Its Solutions in the collaborative project with Japan Patent Office last year. The research subject was very difficult -- He explained why FRAND holdup happened and then designed a set of rules to mitigate patent holdup. Meanwhile, he underlined that Only the royalty negotiated by SEP holders and SEP implementer is truly FRAND. *** Panel 2: IP in commercial perspective *** Tax lawyer Anne Fairpo (Temple Tax Chambers, London) brought her insights on Taxation of IP and intangibles. Her speech covered 4 parts: IP in the context of BEPS (Base erosion and profit shifting); transactions & the rise of withholding taxes; IP tax incentives: disliked but expanding; and IP issues in VAT and indirect taxes. Prof. Jiang Wanlai (Ningbo University, China) reminded IP enthusiasts to pay attention to The limitation of IP incentives in economic growth and its solutions by putting it into the overall consideration of the whole society. The IPR system did have the function of encouraging innovation, yet it protected private interest in the first place -- such a protection would not necessarily contribute to the economic growth of society -- at least this was insufficient per se. With comprehensive analyses of the Chinese situations, he concluded that a set of complete and well-functioning legal systems other than IPR protection shall be built together. Mr. Emmanuel Gouge (Partner, Pinsent Masons, Paris) addressed a review of Recent trends in IP licensing agreements. Two groups of new players of IP business created entities were highlighted, namely the state funded entities and the non-practicing entities. Also, IP business-created practices and behaviors were covered, mainly on open innovations and licensing for exploitation purposes. In the end, he asked the audience: Is TESLA a true open innovation (as TESLA announced in 2014)? The answer would be very interesting if you recalled the Phillips CD format stories from 3 or 4 decades ago. Prof. Xiang Bo (Nankai University, China) addressed The Moral Risks in Service Inventions. Started from the characteristics of service inventions, he pointed out the impossibility of supervision which was caused by the substantial information asymmetry between the employer and the employee inventor. Different rules on ownership of service inventions and on remunerations and rewards were reviewed, followed by comments on the Chinese Draft Regulations of Service Inventions -- it may have certain influence on the employers moral risks, but the mentioned information asymmetry was not really eliminated; moreover, the marginal costs would be high in obtaining more information, and consequently, the motivating effects of the supervision of the regulatory authorities would be limited. The Q&A session, How the Regulations of Service Inventions and relevant policies should be designed by official authorities to better regulate service inventions? aroused heated discussions. Prof. Liu Chuntian (Dean of the IP Academy, RUC)s statement was firm and clear: The answer is very simple. He declared that the Draft was a product of the planned-economy way of thinking, in which enterprises were considered totally controlled by government. China has now been changed, government is neither the owner of enterprises nor the manager of them. In other words, the Regulation of Service Inventions was an interference in enterprises internal management and distribution of property. Moreover, the meaningless regulations added unnecessary burdens to enterprises, increased numbers of governmental employments, and wasted social resources. He concluded, It is not a matter of how to design the Regulations of Service Inventions -- there should not be such Regulations at all. Nice (France) (AFP) - Nice go into their crunch Europa League clash with Schalke 04 without star striker Mario Balotelli after the Italian pulled a calf muscle in training, the French club said on Tuesday. Nice are bottom of Group I on three points while Schalke have already qualified for the next round on 12 points. The Ligue 1 leaders can still finish second but will likely need two wins to do so. Their chances will be somewhat diminished given that Liverpool misfit Balotelli has scored seven goals in nine games this season. Sydney (AFP) - Australian detectives have been left with a cheeky clue after discovering that a large print on a glass door at a crime scene came from someone's bare buttocks. Police in Victoria state believe the robber was with two others when they did the "full moon" during a break-in at a community centre in the city of Wodonga over the weekend. "I've never seen anyone's bum print turn up at a crime scene," Detective Sergeant Graeme Simpfendorfer told AFP on Tuesday. "The crime scene officer who was dusting for prints... with every stroke, he was thinking, 'what have we got here?'. "He came and told us and just said, 'I've got a butt print. It's certainly not just from a pair of jeans or tracksuit pants. This guy's pants down.' "It was quite obvious to him and when we looked at it, it's obviously quite clear that he's actually gone the full moon." Simpfendorfer said the trio, believed to be aged in their late teens or early 20s, stole a television and sprayed a fire extinguisher around the centre. He added that while the bum print would not help investigators crack the case, there were other clues to help get to the bottom of what went on. "We don't obviously take bum prints," he said. "But we've certainly got other forensic evidence there that will be on our system and we'll be able to identify who they are and hopefully... get to the bottom of why this person decided to (go) pants down and leave an impression." London (AFP) - Malakai Fekitoa will miss New Zealand's match against France in Paris on Saturday after being given a one-week ban on Tuesday for a dangerous tackle. Fekitoa was cited after being sin-binned for a high tackle on Simon Zebo during the world champions' 21-9 win over Ireland in Dublin last Saturday. Although shown a yellow card by South African referee Jaco Peyper, the centre was still able to score two of New Zealand's three tries as they gained revenge for a 40-29 defeat by Ireland -- the Irish's first win over the All Blacks -- in Chicago a fortnight earlier. There were those who thought Fekitoa should have been sent off but at a disciplinary hearing before a three-man panel in London chaired by Antony Davies (England), alongside Derek Bevan (Wales) and John Doubleday (England), Fekitoa accepted he had committed an act of foul play but argued that it would not have warranted a red card. But the three-man committee, after viewing video evidence and listening to representations, issued a statement saying: "Mr Fekitoa's actions would have warranted a red card, albeit that he had acted recklessly rather than intentionally." Having concluded the offence fell within the low-end entry point of World Rugby's scale of sanctions, which normally carries a two-week ban, the committee decided to impose a one-week ban on account of Fekitoa's "immediate acknowledgement of wrongdoing, his previous clean disciplinary record and his good conduct at the hearing". Fekitoa, who is free to resume playing on Monday, November 28, two days after the France match, does have the right of appeal. - 'Accidental' - New Zealand flanker Sam Cane was also cited, for a head-high tackle on Robbie Henshaw that saw the centre carried off on a stretcher in the 11th minute and led to him being ruled out of Ireland's match at home to Australia this Saturday with concussion. Unlike Fekitoa, Cane received no card at all from Peyper. Story continues But the same panel that banned Fekitoa ruled that Cane's actions had been "accidental" and that "he had not therefore committed an act of foul play". Cane is free to continue playing but is unlikely to face France because of an ankle injury. A bruising encounter revived concerns about the ferocity of modern Test rugby and re-opened the debate about whether New Zealand 'get away' with acts for which players from any other side are punished. Peyper's decision to let Cane play on came just weeks after World Rugby, the sport's global governing body, urged referees to be "especially vigilant" when dealing with head-high tackles. "It is disappointing, to be honest," said Ireland team manager Mick Kearney. "There were a number of tackles and bangs around the head. "World Rugby had said if these incidents occur then you are liable to a red card, possibly. So that obviously didn't happen at the weekend." Meanwhile former England centre Jeremy Guscott urged officials to be "better" at punishing the All Blacks. "Referees need to look harder at New Zealand," Guscott wrote in his BBC column. "There is ferocity in everything they do and they take everything to the limit, but it is up to the referee to be better at seeing and penalising them." This past summers Southside With You recounted, in fictional fashion, the first date of future President Barack Obama and future First Lady Michelle Robinson. If that well-received work didnt quite satisfy your appetite for early-years portraits of Americas current commander-in-chief, Netflix has just what youre craving with Barry, which just released its debut trailer. (Watch it above.) Related: Toronto Report: Barry Is the Second Great Movie About Barack Obama Directed by Vikram Gandhi, Barry shines a light on Obama as a 20-year-old attending college at Columbia University in New York. And as evidenced by its first full-length promo, it will use that time period to investigate the various formative experiences that helped shape him into the politician, and then world leader, hed eventually become. Theres nothing particularly groundbreaking about the footage promised by this first look which depicts Obama trying to define his own identity as a biracial man with ancestral ties to both Kansas and Kenya but it apparently features a standout lead performance from Australian newcomer Devon Terrell, whom Varietys Owen Gleiberman says, nails the clipped vibe of awareness, and a youthful version of the stare, to an uncanny degree. With Obama set to leave office in January, nows an ideal time to wax nostalgic about a time before Trump with Barry, which after a successful debut at this years Toronto International Film Festival will be exclusively available on Netflix beginning Dec. 16. Related: Southside With You: Tika Sumpter Talks Bipartisan Appeal of Watching Obamas First Date, Playing Michelle HONG KONG (Reuters) - Beijing Soft Rock Investment Group said on Monday it had scrapped an asset-swap deal with Dalian Wanda Group, which is seeking a backdoor listing for its commercial property business in Shanghai. But Wanda, owned by China's richest man, Wang Jianlin, said on its website on Tuesday that it had not had any formal negotiations with Beijing Soft Rock regarding restructuring of Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties. Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties was delisted from Hong Kong on Sept. 20 via a $4.4 billion buyout and the company aimed to relist in China where it hoped it would get a higher valuation. "Both parties were in preliminary contact, and had not been in any negotiation regarding restructuring of Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties," Wanda said, adding Beijing Soft Rock had sent the statement without Wandas knowledge and was exaggerating. Soft Rock said in the statement on Monday that it had been in discussions with Dalian Wanda Group to issue company shares in exchange for all the shares in Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties [DWNDF.PK]. "After repeated discussion, all the parties were not able to reach consensus on the timetable of the asset restructure," the company, whose shares were suspended from Sept. 26 till Nov. 22, said. Soft Rock shares soared 9.99 percent on Tuesday upon resumption of trading. (Reporting by Clare Jim and Twinnie Siu; Editing by David Clarke and Muralikumar Anantharaman) Brussels (AFP) - The Belgian authorities have freed on bail a Frenchman suspected of helping in the May 2014 attack at the Brussels Jewish Museum, which left four people dead, prosecutors said on Tuesday. Nacer Bendrer was released against a 50,000-euro bond, ordered to stay at his home in France and make himself available to investigators, the Belga news agency reported. A spokesman for Belgian federal prosecutors declined to comment when contacted by AFP. Bendrer, arrested in December 2014 near the southern French city of Marseille, was sent to Belgium to face charges of "complicity in a terrorist attack". When he was detained, Bendrer was in possession of various weapons including an AK-47 style assault rifle similar to the one that Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche is suspected of using to carry out the attack. Bendrer denies any involvement. On May 24, 2014 a gunman opened fire in the entrance hall of the museum in the centre of the Belgian capital, killing two Israeli tourists, a French volunteer and a Belgian museum receptionist. Nemmouche, 31, had returned from Syria where he had been fighting with Islamist extremists, and now faces trial some time next year over the Jewish museum attack. In September 2015 France extradited another suspect in the Jewish Museum attack -- Mounir Atallah -- to Belgium. After nearly a year of constant filming, Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell were more than ready for a change of pace. The Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After? stars traveled to Honduras this month as part of Higgins work with the non-profit organization, Humanity and Hope. The overall vision of Humanity and Hope is to end poverty, Higgins tells PEOPLE of the charity, which provides aid and assistance to Honduran villages in order to help them grow their economy, education and infrastructure so that they can ultimately become profitable on their own. Its a huge vision, but with every village and every person who is influenced, we get closer to our goal, says Higgins, who recently joined the board of directors. Ive been to Honduras eight times and every time I go down I feel more hopeful. The former Bachelor says one touching moment took place at a local 6th grade graduation. We were able to celebrate with nine students, the first students who have ever moved onto secondary school in their village, thanks to Humanity and Hope, says Higgins. One of the girls said that a year ago, she thought her life was going to be making tortillas and that now she hopes to become a lawyer to help people who dont have a voice. Says Bushnell: Being down there really changed my perspective. It changed my outlook on life and made me want to get more involved. Now that theyre back stateside, the couple of one year, who recently revealed on their show that their wedding is off, are focused on moving forward. Were still engaged and were still together, explains Higgins. We are building a foundation and were taking every day one step at a time. Thats what Im excited about. Adds Bushnell: This trip brought us closer together. We werent ready to jump into a wedding. And we both needed to take a step back from life in the limelight. Me understanding a little bit more of where Bens heart is was so important and exactly what we needed. Story continues And for the record, I still want to marry Lauren, very much so, says Higgins. Our relationship is better now than it has ever been. Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After? airs on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Freeform. You can also catch up on the show via the Freeform app or on Hulu. In his first television interview since revealing he survived prostate cancer, Ben Stiller opened up about his diagnosis and treatment and the early-detection test that saved his life. Speaking with Matt Lauer on Tuesdays Today show, Stiller said hes doing great now. The 50-year-old actor was diagnosed with the cancer two years ago and opted to have his prostate removed, despite other treatment options. He said he is now cancer-free. I was really fortunate, he said. My course of treatment was basically an operation and that was it. Anyone who has had cancer, you know you have to keep on checking on it, but Im really fortune. He said learning he had cancer was a surreal moment especially because he had no family history of prostate cancer, and no symptoms. His primary care physician had been administering a prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, for a few months. The early detection blood test measures the level of protein produced by cells of the prostate gland and allowed Stiller to learn of the cancer early on. He brought up the test to me and said, I want to give you this test, and explained what it was, Stiller said. And when the first one came in, it was a little high. And he said, I just want to keep giving you this test every, four, five, six months to see what happens. According to the American Cancer Society, one in seven men will get prostate cancer. Stillers surgeon, Dr. Edward Schaeffer of Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine, explained: Prostate cancer is a common cancer, but not everybody will die from it. So we have to really better identify those who have a lethal or aggressive cancer from those who do not. The PSA test doesnt come without its controversy. According to Schaeffer, Some would argue that if the test is elevated, it may lead to unnecessary biopsies or additional tests which may cause anxieties for the patient. RELATED VIDEO: Ben Stiller Reveals He Was Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer 2 Years Ago Stiller said he chose the surgical removal of his prostate despite other treatment options because thats what my doctors recommended. Story continues I am not a doctor, Stiller said. And for me, it was learning what the options were. There can be side effects with every treatment, Schaeffer said. Men can have trouble with their urination and with their sexual function after treatment with prostate cancer its not just isolated to surgery, he explained. Stiller said he had to deal with some of the side effects, but suggested his sexual functions are working well. Yeah, Im doing good all good, he said with a laugh. He added he wasnt nervous about the side effects when considering treatments. When youre confronted with the question of, Hey do you want to live or do you want to make sure your sex life is the best it can be?, I opted for wanting to get rid of the cancer and then seeing what happens, Stiller said. And luckily, everythings cool. By coming forward with his story, Stiller said he hopes more men talk to their doctors and get tested. The test itself is not horrible, its what could happen after, he said. If I hadnt taken this test, I wouldnt have known until it probably would have become something that was not going to have the outcome in terms of the treatment that it did have. COTONOU (Reuters) - Benin security forces seized 54 kilograms of cocaine from a container that had arrived at its main port of Cotonou from Brazil, the public prosecutor said on Tuesday. "There was a sack containing 48 pellets of a suspect product," which was seized on Monday, Lawani Badirou told a news conference. "Tests revealed that this was cocaine." West Africa has for over a decade been a transit point for Latin American cocaine en route to Europe, although improved maritime policing in recent years has helped reduce the volume passing through the region. It was the second drug bust in Benin in under a month. Maritime police discovered a haul of 18 kg of cocaine, also at Cotonou, at the end of October. That shipment was found in a container belonging to one of the companies of wealthy businessman and prominent politician Sebastien Ajavon. A court, however, this month dropped all drug trafficking charges against Ajavon for lack of proof. (Reporting by Allegresse Sasse and Samuel Elijah; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Dan Grebler) Jerusalem (AFP) - It is 4:30 am and Mufeed Shawana is rushing to Al-Aqsa Mosque, as the first Muslim call to prayer of the day rings out across the Old City of east Jerusalem. But he stops short when asked how he feels about the prospect that the sound echoing from the minarets could soon be dampened. "It upsets me. The calls to prayer have happened for 1,400 years." A bill backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ban mosques around Israel and annexed east Jerusalem from using loudspeakers to amplify late night and early morning azans, or calls to prayers, has been approved by a ministerial committee ahead of a parliamentary debate and voting. It has been temporarily blocked but the government is still confident of pushing it through. Shawana argues that nobody would deny Jews their own religious rituals, which are "their right". "This is our right," he adds, before disappearing inside the mosque. The dispute around high-decibel minarets is not unique to Israel, which argues that other states, including in Europe and North Africa, have similar restrictions to those it is looking to implement. But it has touched a raw nerve in Israel, where many in its minority Arab population -- around 17.5 percent of the whole and overwhelmingly Muslim -- believe Netanyahu's rightwing government is systematically persecuting them. They also worry that their connection to Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam, is under threat. Large numbers of Israeli Jews view the azans as noise pollution, with the bill's sponsor Motti Yogev, of the far-right Jewish Home party, arguing they disturb the peace of hundreds of thousands of people. He has also claimed that in some cases they are used by religious leaders to incite against Israel. In its current draft, the law would prevent the summons to worshippers between 11:00 pm until 6:00 am from being relayed on loudspeakers. Palestinians and Arab Israelis have organised protests against the ban, with an Arab Israeli MP performing the azan in Israel's parliament to the fury of some of his Jewish colleagues. Story continues The Arab League called the bill "a very dangerous provocation". Arab Israelis, who largely identify as Palestinians, are the descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. On Tuesday Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported a mosque in the Arab Israeli city of Lod was fined 750 shekels ($193) for playing the call to prayer too loud. - 'Terrible noise' - Beit Safafa in southern Jerusalem is a Palestinian village in east Jerusalem flanked by Israeli neighbourhoods, including the area of Pat, a few hundred metres (yards) away. In a passionate sermon at Beit Safafa's mosque, Najih Bkeirat, a religious leader from Al-Aqsa visiting for the weekly Friday prayers, railed against the Israeli plans. "It is very clear the Israeli occupation with this law, or the attempt at this law, wants to Judaise the city. They don't want to hear Arabic prayers in the city, they don't want to see churches in the city," he later told AFP. "The prayers represent a racket but the Israeli Jewish celebrations, celebrations at night you hear until dawn, they don't represent a racket?" he asked. For Israelis in Pat, turning the volume down is only fair and they accuse the Palestinians of being unreasonable. "We are a Jewish neighbourhood next to an Arab village -- the noise is terrible. I have a little kid who cannot sleep," said Ayelet Sadeh, 42. Just like Bkeirat and Shawana, she sees calculated malice rather than cultural misunderstanding behind the actions of the other side. She points to the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, when life in Israel grinds to a standstill for a day, as an example -- pointing out Muslim prayers continue that day. "Sometimes," she said, "it feels like they are doing (it out of) spite." - 'Forbidden fruit is sweet' - Health Minister Yaakov Litzman of the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism blocked the bill as he was worried it would silence the weekly siren alerting Jews to the start of the Sabbath, or holy day. An Israeli official told AFP the authorities were confident they'd find a way to pass the bill "while protecting religious freedom for all and the right of all to be free from excessive noise". There are more than 400 mosques in the country, including east Jerusalem, according to Israeli government figures, and implementing any law could be tough. "Forbidden fruit is sweet," Bkeirat said, suggesting Muslims would organise loud prayer calls from homes. "If they ban the prayers, every house will become a prayer house -- every house will pray, every person," he said. "Day and night, until the occupation understands they cannot interfere in religious issues." By Elaine Lies TOKYO (Reuters) - Massive tsunami waves slammed into Japan's northeastern coast more than five years ago, killing about 18,000 people and prompting authorities to revise warning systems and evacuation plans to try to save more lives. On Tuesday, when a magnitude 7.4 quake hit the same area, the country swung into action, using lessons learned in the March 11, 2011, disaster to ensure coastal residents evacuated well before the much smaller waves hit. In 2011, warning broadcasts were mostly limited to television, radio, and city officials on loudspeakers, with volunteer firemen in trucks roaming the roads, telling residents to flee to higher ground. But on the day now known as "3/11," some of these failed due to power outages after the magnitude 9.0 quake, while many firefighters were killed when the waves - 30 meters (100 feet) high in places - rushed ashore. "A lot of people told us they weren't able to hear any of the broadcasts, the waves were bigger than expected, and many went back after the first one to check things out," said Tsunetaka Omine, a disaster official in Iwaki, a city where around 460 residents died in 2011. Iwaki now blasts warnings to every mobile phone in the area, sends email messages and broadcasts on local radio in addition to the older methods. Previous elaborate systems designating specific evacuation centers have also been abandoned along the coast in many cases as too complicated. Some designated areas were too low and became death traps where scores seeking safety drowned. "Now, we basically just tell people to stay away from the sea, to head to the highest possible ground," Omine said. As a result, as sirens wailed shortly after dawn on Tuesday, ships headed out of harbors to deeper water and lines of cars snaked up nearby hills. Public broadcaster NHK, a key player in disaster prevention, revamped its broadcasts after 2011 in response to criticism that it had been too calm in its reporting, leading some to take warnings less seriously. So on Tuesday, announcers abandoned their usual careful modulation for an unsettling note of urgency, repeatedly telling listeners, "Do not go near the water, a tsunami is coming!" as messages flashed on the screen in red saying "Tsunami! Run!" And in a nod to a growing number of foreign residents, a dubbed version of the NHK channel broadcast warnings in English, Chinese and Korean. Several young foreign English teachers died in 2011, prompting speculation they had not known of the danger. Kathy Krauth, a teacher with a Tokyo international school leading a dozen students on a study tour, was staying at a traditional Japanese inn in the coastal town of Ofunato and was evacuated to higher ground soon after the quake struck. Four hours later, the group was finally allowed back to their inn - and were promptly relocated to a hotel at a higher, safer elevation. "I felt like the lessons of 3/11 were really taken to heart," Krauth said. "The feeling was, we just don't know, but we're going to be as cautious as we can." (Additional reporting by Malcolm Foster; Editing by Lincoln Feast) Pat McCrory A rarely-invoked piece of North Carolina law could allow Republican lawmakers to declare Pat McCrory the winner of the race for governor even though he'll probably end up with fewer votes than his opponent. But such a decision would likely be challenged in federal courts, prolonging a stalemate in the Tar Heel State that has already lasted two weeks. McCrory, a Republican, finds himself trailing Democratic challenger Roy Cooper by about 6,600 votes out of 4.7 million cast, according to unofficial results. He's already filed for a recount, and lodged challenges of voter fraud in 50 of the state's 100 counties. Several of the complaints have been thrown out because of a lack of evidence, but if McCrory sows enough doubt about the legitimacy of the election results, he could theoretically urge lawmakers to take matters into their own hands. According to state law, the General Assembly can settle a "contested election" by ordering a re-vote, or by simply choosing the winner themselves, "if it can determine which candidate received the highest number of votes." Their decision would not be reviewable by state courts, but if the majority-Republican legislature actually flipped the election McCrory's way, federal courts could challenge the decision. "If it is absolutely clear that this is a power grab by the N.C. legislature because there is no question who received more votes, then I could see a federal court saying that the legislature is violating due process by, in essence, overruling the majoritys will," University of Kentucky law professor Josh Douglas told The Charlotte Observer. The statute has been invoked only once, in 2005, to settle a dispute in the race for state superintendent of public instruction. In that contest, according to the Raleigh News & Observer, lawmakers argued over "whether 11,000 provisional ballots should be counted even though they were cast in precincts outside of where the voters lived." Story continues Having lawmakers settle the election is an "absolute last resort," North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore said on a podcast last week. "It would really be a blow to the system for the legislature to decide this one," Ferrel Guillory, an expert on North Carolina politics, told Business Insider. "The chances are relatively slim, as they ought to be." NOW WATCH: 'HOLD UP!': Watch Obama defend a Trump protester and scold the crowd at a Clinton rally More From Business Insider Mike Bloomberg It may not be up to President-elect Donald Trump to decide whether or not the US will pull out of the Paris climate agreement, says former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. "I am confident that no matter what happens in Washington, no matter what regulations the next administration adopts or rescinds, no matter what laws the next Congress may pass, we will meet the pledges that the US made in Paris," Bloomberg said in remarks delivered to the China General Chamber of Commerce. Cities along with businesses and private citizens will lead on climate change, because they have "concluded that doing so is in their own self-interest," Bloomberg said. The US climate-change fight "has never been primarily dependent on Washington," Bloomberg said. Rather, the US has led the world in reducing emissions, despite Congress not passing a "single bill" that takes "direct aim" at climate change, according to Bloomberg. If Trump does withdraw from the Paris agreement, Bloomberg called for the 128 US mayors that are part of the Global Covenant of Mayors an initiative chaired by Bloomberg to join the agreement in place of the federal government. West Virginia flooding For his part, Trump walked back claims he made on the campaign trail that climate change is a "hoax" invented by the Chinese to undermine US manufacturing. Trump said that he believes there is "some connectivity," between human actions and climate change, in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times on Tuesday. The president-elect also said he's looking at the Paris agreement "very closely" and has an "open mind" to it.> Bloomberg, however, isn't waiting for Trump to make up his mind. "Washington will not have the last word on the fate of the Paris agreement in the US," Bloomberg said. "Mayors will, together with business leaders and citizens." Story continues NOW WATCH: Trump goes on a tweetstorm less than 48 hours after promising to be more 'restrained' on Twitter More From Business Insider By Alwyn Scott NEW YORK (Reuters) - Boeing Co (BA.N) on Monday named a senior General Electric Co (GE.N) executive to head its commercial aeroplanes division and announced a new services unit, in moves to capture more of the profitable market for parts and repairs after a jet is sold. The changes are "a big and important step" toward Boeing's goal of increasing annual services revenue to about $50 billion (39.97 billion pounds) in 10 years from about $15 billion currently, Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said on a call with journalists. The changes do not alter plans for developing aircraft, but put a new "emphasis on generating life-cycle value," Muilenburg said, referring to building an aircraft with an eye to gaining revenue from servicing the plane during its decades-long life. "We've always said growing services is a core part of our strategy, and now you see us emphasizing and investing accordingly," Muilenburg said. Boeing tapped Kevin McAllister, 53, to lead its $66 billion commercial aeroplane business, succeeding Ray Conner, 61, effective immediately. Conner, who started as a Boeing mechanic nearly 40 years ago, will serve as vice chairman through 2017 to help with the transition, the world's biggest planemaker said. McAllister has been with GE's aviation unit for nearly 30 years and knows Boeing and its customers well, Muilenburg said. Boeing named Stanley Deal, 52, to head the new services unit, to be known as Global Services. Deal had been senior vice president of Boeing's Commercial Aviation Services business. The Global Services business is due to begin operating in the third quarter of 2017. McAllister has been chief executive of GE's $8 billion aviation services business, a unit that earns much of its revenue from contracts servicing GE aircraft engines. Airlines generally pay a fee for every hour they run the engines, which covers service and maintenance. "Muilenburg is shaking up BCA with a surprise outside appointment which is likely a healthy move given that fresh leadership eyes can create positive movement," said analyst Peter Arment from Baird Equity Research. Story continues Last year, Muilenburg named Leanne Caret head of the defence business. She had run Boeing's defence services business. Now, Muilenburg said, "the leaders of all three of our business... all have depth of understanding of services. Muilenburg said the new division headed by Deal would combine about 20,000 employees from the customer services groups within the company's existing commercial airplanes and defence, space and security businesses. It will have a small headquarters near Dallas, but most of the work will remain where it is, he added. Since Muilenburg took over as CEO in July 2015, Boeing has been steadily building up its services business, moves that have irked some of its partners. Earlier this year it ended an agreement with one of its largest suppliers, Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc (SPR.N), effectively taking away manufacturing of profitable spare parts used in aircraft repairs. It also began bringing some parts production in-house to gain control over repairs, and sifting its databases to help airlines predict when planes will need service. Engine repairs make up nearly half of the service market, but those are largely beyond the reach of Boeing or Airbus. Engine makers such as GE and Pratt & Whitney (UTX.N) locked up their aftermarket more than a decade ago. Still Boeing's aftermarket sales growth is outpacing the 4.5 percent growth of the broad aftermarket, Dennis Floyd, vice president of services strategy and business development at Boeing, told Reuters recently. "That means we're taking market share," he said. (Additional reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Hay and Lisa Shumaker) Bon Jovi is releasing a live version of This House Is Not For Sale just in time for the holidays, Billboard can exclusively reveal. Recorded at the London Palladium last October, the album is set for global release on Dec. 16. This House Is Not For Sale -- Live from The London Palladium will be available for pre-order as a Walmart physical CD on Wednesday (Nov. 23) and an iTunes pre-order will be available from Friday (Nov. 25). Led by the hit title track, "This House Is Not For Sale," the band's 14th studio album became their sixth career release to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in the United States. The set hit the top in Australia and Japan and reached the Top 5 in 54 other countries. Meanwhile, the band is preparing to embark on its This House Is Not For Sale tour, kicking off Feb. 8 in Greenville, South Carolina. It will be Bon Jovi's first outing since 2013's Because We Can World Tour, which was their third tour in six years to be ranked as the No. 1 grossing tour in the world (accomplished by only The Rolling Stones previously). The rockers will add new tour dates soon, with on sale information available at www.bonjovi.com. Bon Jovi was recently honored as Billboard's Legend of Live. This House Is Not For Sale - Live from The London Palladium tracklist: 1. This House is Not For Sale 2. Living With the Ghost 3. Knockout 4. Labor of Love 5. Born Again Tomorrow 6. Rollercoaster 7. New Years Day 8. Devil's in the Temple 9. Scars on this Guitar 10. God Bless This Mess 11. Reunion 12. Real Love 13. All Hail the King 14. We Don't Run 15. Come On Up to Our House By Jessica Jaganathan SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd will export a 35,000-tonne light diesel oil cargo from Kochi in southern India in a rare move, industry sources said on Tuesday. The state-owned refiner sold the cargo, which has a sulphur content of 1.5 percent, to Vitol, the sources added. Shipping data on Thomson Reuters Eikon shows the 'Teatrainy Bridge' is currently anchored at Cochin port and is expected to load a diesel cargo this week and head to Fujairah. This is likely the first time BPCL has exported such a cargo and it was sold through a tender, one of the sources close to the matter said. It can ship a couple of more cargoes but these exports will stop once a diesel-producing secondary unit at the Kochi refinery starts in January or February, the source added. The unit is part of the second phase of the Kochi refinery expansion. BPCL is expanding the refinery's capacity to about 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 190,000 bpd. The expansion was expected to be completed by October, but has been delayed to early 2017, the source added. Light diesel oil is a blend of gasoil and residual fuel and is often used as marine fuel or in industrial equipment. (Reporting by Jessica Jaganathan; Editing by Himani Sarkar) Brad Pitt is firing up some serious star power. The actor was in high spirits while attending the London premiere of his World War II spy drama Allied on Monday night. Stepping onto the red carpet on a typically damp British night, the actor spent 45 minutes laughing, joking and waving to the crowd, before breaking into a broad smile during a red carpet interview about the movie which harks back to the golden age of Hollywood movies such as Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. They shot most of it on a soundstage, but using all the new technology we have today, Pitt, 52, told the audience at Londons Leicester Square. So you dont know if we are on location or not. A lot of times we were just sitting in cars, you know, with the film screen rolling behind us. The hours were shorter. The travel was shorter. But it was really good fun to try something like that, he added. Pitt then broke into a broad smirk as he was told that costar Marion Cotillard whom he described as a gem and one of Frances national treasures had praised his French accent in the film, he asked with a laugh, Did she? She usually crushes me. She kills me! Adopting a slightly more serious tone, Cotillard, 41, added that to her, the movie was like diving, in a way, into my childhood dreams because it reflected so many American movies from the 40s and 50s she had grown up watching as a child. She also revealed that she and Pitt had become friends during filming simply because of the way it was put together. We had the chance to work for almost three weeks together before we started shooting, said Cotillard. It is something that is really amazing and is not that common, to have this period of time where we get to know each other and we get to talk about the script a lot and share our thoughts and to get to know each other. That was very special. Monday was the second night in a row that Cotillard and Pitt hit a European red carpet together. On Sunday, the pair made a stop in Paris, where Pitt was in an equally playful mood. Story continues Telling reporters he was intrigued by the films plot which details a couples intensely stressful marriage Pitt said, I got really intrigued by this idea of a couple and trust and trusting your instinct, trusting each other, trusting the mission and here we are. The actors good spirits come after months of keeping a low profile following his divorce from Angelina Jolie. Pitt and Cotillard now move onto Madrid for the Spanish premiere of the movie, which hits theaters Nov. 23. This Human Rights Report on Iran will show the atrocious record of arbitrary arrests, torture, and executions that routinely occur under this regime. Additionally, many UN member states are demanding a full, independent inquiry into the massacre of some 30,000 political prisoners in Iran during the summer of 1988, one of the most horrific crimes against humanity of the late 20th century. The mass execution targeted activists of the opposition Peoples Mojahedin of Iran PMOI (MEK), who were held in jails across Iran. They were carried out on the basis of a fatwa by the regimes then supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. A death committee approved all of the sentences. Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, leader of that committee, is today President Rouhanis Justice Minister. Other members of the committee still hold prominent positions in the Iranian regime. When questioned about those who had already served their sentences and been released from prison, or those who had been sentenced to terms of imprisonment, Khomeini ordered them all to be put to death. His decree allowed no mercy for anyone, including teenagers, and pregnant women, who would not even be spared to give birth to their babies. In Tehran and in cities across Iran courts were set up, and PMOI/MEK political prisoners were hauled in front of a Sharia judge who demanded to know if they supported the Mojahedin. Those who said yes were sentenced to immediate execution. These trials took, on average, two minutes. It has been estimated 30,000 political prisoners were hanged from cranes in batches of 10 every 15 minutes, from dawn to dusk between August and December that year. On August 9 of this year the truth was revealed. The son of grand ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, former deputy supreme leader and nominated successor to Ayatollah Khomeini, published a previously unknown audio tape in which Montazeri acknowledged the massacre had taken place, and that it had been ordered at the highest levels. Montazeri can be heard telling a meeting of the death committee that it is responsible for a crime against humanity. He says, The greatest crime committed during the reign of the Islamic Republic, for which history will condemn us, has been committed by you. Your names will in the future be etched in the annals of history as criminals. For speaking his conscience, the Grand Ayatollah was dismissed as the heir to the Supreme Leader, and placed under house arrest until his death in 2009. Meanwhile, Montazeris son has been charged with bringing the Islamic Republic into disrepute and could face the death penalty. (Removes extra word in headline) By Alonso Soto BRASILIA, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Brazil's federal and state governments have reached a deal to alleviate the fiscal woes of cash-strapped states, the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Luiz Fernando Pezao, said on Tuesday after a meeting with President Michel Temer. Pezao said in exchange for federal help the states are considering budget reforms including a spending ceiling to shore up their finances. He did not detail the measures. Violent protests against an austerity package have rocked Rio's state assembly house this week, highlighting the woes of Brazil's third most populated state less than three months after hosting the Olympics. "We are starting a great federal pact to help state governments," Pezao told reporters at the presidential palace as the meeting continued between Temer and other governors. He said details of the deal will be announced later by Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles. The growing financial woes of Brazilian states have added to worries about the strength of a recovery after two years of recession in Latin America's largest economy. The state of Rio Grande do Sul earlier on Tuesday declared state of financial calamity after submitting an austerity package to its local assembly to slash payrolls and sell state-run companies to cover its fiscal deficit. Temer is considering sharing about 5 billion reais ($1.5 billion) in fines from an asset amnesty program with the states to help them pay mandatory year-end bonuses to civil servants and other expenditures. Soaring payrolls after years of fast economic growth added pressure to the finances of Brazilian states that are barred to issue debt without the green light from the federal government. The Temer administration fears that anti-austerity demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro could spread to other states and hit the popularity of a president that was officially sworn into office less than three months ago. Temer took over the presidency after the Senate toppled his predecessor and former running mate Dilma Rousseff on charges of doctoring public accounts to cover a fiscal crisis that has cost the country its coveted investment-grade rating. ($1= 3.3545) (Reporting by Alonso Soto; Editing by Bill Rigby and Lisa Shumaker) Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - The European Parliament's Brexit negotiator warned his British counterpart on Tuesday there is an "intense" window of just 15 months to complete talks for the country's exit from the EU. Guy Verhofstadt said he had also told Brexit minister David Davis that European lawmakers would not accept Britain trying to keep access to the single market while limiting freedom of movement for EU citizens. "We agreed on some things, on the need for this process to start as early as possible and need to be finished in any case before the next European elections" in May 2019, Verhofstadt said after the talks in Strasbourg, France. "So the window for the negotiations is more or less 14, 15 months," he added. "It's going to be a period that is very intense." He said if Britain triggers the two-year divorce process in March 2017 as Prime Minister Theresa May has promised following Britain's June vote to leave, then formal negotiations are unlikely to start until May 2017. MEPs must then formally give their consent for any deal and that would take several months from late 2018, he said. Former Belgian prime minister and leading European federalist Verhofstadt had tweeted that it would be a "hell of a meeting" after Davis jokingly compared him to Satan earlier this year. - 'Races classic cars' - Davis said the meeting with Verhofstadt was "great fun" and "very useful". "Heas a very nice man. He races British classic cars and we got on very well," he told the BBC. aMy view is that we can get an outcome here which will be in the interest of the European Union and in the interest of Britain and will meet the requirements of the referendum." May has said she wants to cut EU migrant numbers and retain access for British businesses to Europe's single market, but EU leaders insist the two are incompatible. The head of the European Parliament's largest group, Manfred Weber, said he learned nothing new when he also met Davis at the parliament in Strasbourg. Story continues "Unfortunately I havenat heard anything new from David Davis today. For us it's clear: the four fundamental freedoms are not negotiable," said Weber, head of the centre-right European People's Party. "Brexit means Brexit so we're going to have to cut back on our relationships, it's not a cherry-picking situation at all," he warned. The talks came a day after Davis met the European Commission's top negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels for a "courtesy coffee". The pair both insisted the meeting did not mark a formal start to negotiations, saying that would have to wait until Britain formally triggers the exit process. European Union leaders have ruled out any formal Brexit negotiations before Britain invokes Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, the official exit procedure, following its June vote to leave the 28-nation bloc. With the timing looking increasingly tight, May said on Monday: "We don't want a cliff-edge". These comments are widely interpreted as referring to a possible transitional arrangement by the 2019 deadline, with a full Brexit coming later. Another potential complication in the timetable stems from a British court ruling that parliament must approve the process to trigger Brexit. The British government has appealed to ruling to the Supreme Court, which is due to consider the case in early December, although it is not expected to give its verdict until early in the new year. London (AFP) - Britain on Wednesday delivers its first budget since the Brexit referendum, with economists expecting a slight shift away from years of austerity as the nation readies its EU exit strategy. The Conservative government's finance minister Philip Hammond will deliver his so-called Autumn Statement before parliament around 1230 GMT Wednesday -- exactly five months after the Brexit vote. "We need to be match fit for the opportunities and challenges" arising from Brexit, Hammond declared on Sunday, while warning that Britain still faced an "eye-watering" deficit. Prime Minister Theresa May has vowed to trigger Britain's exit from the European Union by the end of March, after disaffected British voters sent shockwaves across the world in the June 23 referendum by choosing to leave the bloc. Some economists argue that Donald Trump's shock election as US president could similarly persuade May's administration to do more to help workers who have felt shunned by government policies. "May has made it clear that she wants to prioritise helping those households who are struggling to get by and who feel left behind by the economyas recovery since the 2008/9 slump," said IHS Markit economist Howard Archer. "June's Brexit vote and Donald Trump's win in the US presidential election has highlighted the need for governments to tackle income inequality." The British economy has proven surprisingly resilient since the referendum but experts believe that Britain's planned departure from the EU could still spark economic chaos. That in turn could limit the amount of planned austerity reduction in Hammond's budget speech. "Given the number of unknowns surrounding Brexit, Hammond will have a tough job," noted City Index analyst Fiona Cincotta. "We can expect the Autumn Statement to be a glimpse of what we can expect once the divorce proceedings with the European Union begin next year." Story continues She added: "We are expecting to see an end to the years of austerity with the focus shifting back to spending." Societe Generale analyst Kit Juckes cautioned however that "public finances are not in good shape and Mr Hammond has no appetite for a major increase in borrowing". - Robotics and roads - Over the weekend, May announced fresh investment in research and development, revealing that Hammond would hike its spending by A2 billion ($2.5 billion, 2.3 billion euros) annually until 2020. Investments will be rolled out through a new fund which will prioritise technologies including robotics, industrial biotechnology and medical technology. The Treasury hinted also at a loosening of Britain's fiscal straightjacket, introduced by former finance minister George Osborne who resigned following the referendum result. Under previous prime minister David Cameron, Osborne oversaw an austerity programme of spending cuts and tax rises. Hammond will promise to place "investment in infrastructure... at the heart" of the budget, according to a Treasury statement. "He will set out how the government will fire up the nation's economic infrastructure -- all part of plans which form the backbone of ongoing work to close the UK's productivity gap," it added. Osborne's austerity policies were aimed at eliminating the budget deficit following the global financial crisis. But Hammond has scrapped this objective of producing a budget surplus by 2020. "Hammond will set out a new fiscal framework, outlining the need for flexibility to allow government to respond to changing economic conditions," the Treasury statement said. The plans will also include A1.3 billion of new investment in Britain's roads to tackle congestion. As well as tax-and-spend plans, the budget will include the Conservative government's latest forecasts for economic growth. The Autumn Statement is seen as a mini-budget before the main tax-and-spend announcements given usually in March. LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will provide 400 million pounds of funding to spur the building of more fibre-to-the-home broadband connections, the "gold standard" of speed in excess of 1 gigabyte per second only available now to 2 percent of premises. The government said the finance would be targeted at emerging network providers to encourage a ramp-up in the delivery of full-fibre broadband. "The UK is already a world leader in superfast broadband coverage, but the country is falling behind on the roll out of full-fibre," it said on Tuesday. The Digital Infrastructure Investment fund will be announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond in his autumn statement on Wednesday, the government said, along with more money for fibre broadband networks in partnership with local areas in Britain. The country's biggest provider, BT , has focussed on building fibre connections to cabinets in streets and then relying on slower copper for the final link into homes. It is deploying a new technology called G.fast to squeeze higher speeds out of copper lines and it has said 2 million homes and businesses would have full fibre-to-the-home connections by 2020. Critics, including Sky and TalkTalk which rely on its network, say the pace and the scale of BT's ambition is too slow and too small, and they want to see it broken up. Liberty Global's Virgin Media is the other main network provider in Britain. It said last year it would spend 3 billion pounds to connect about 4 million more homes and businesses to its network, which provides speeds of 200 Mbps. Smaller providers that have emerged in recent years include CityFibre , Gigaclear and Hyperoptic. (Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by David Clarke) LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has cut its stake in Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) to just below 8 percent in a renewed attempt to return the lender to full private ownership over the next year.Lloyds said in a statement on Tuesday the government had reduced its stake in the bank by about 1 percentage point to 7.99 percent. UK Financial Investments Limited (UKFI), which manages the government's stake in the bailed-out bank, last month resumed share sales that were shelved almost a year ago because of market turbulence."Today's announcement shows the further progress made in returning Lloyds Banking Group to full private ownership and enabling the taxpayer to get their money back," the bank said in a statement. Lloyds was rescued with a 20.5 billion pound ($25.6 billion) taxpayer-funded bailout during the 2007-09 financial crisis, leaving the state holding 43 percent. British finance minister Philip Hammond is under pressure to recoup cash from the government's stake in Lloyds and fellow bailed-out bank Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) to relieve a likely shortfall in the nation's finances. The UK has recouped over 17 billion pounds of taxpayer cash after it began selling off its stake in 2013. (Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Rachel Armstrong and Mark Potter) Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f293293%2fblack_friday_uk LONDON If there's one thing us Brits enjoy, it's a good moan. The weather? Awful. Commuting to work? Unbearably awful. The exquisite pain of making 20 minutes of small talk with an overly talkative hairdresser? So nightmarishly awful it's almost worth not going back to get your hair cut again, ever. SEE ALSO: Sorry, Black Friday social media hates you And Black Friday, despite its sweet promise of discounts, appears to have joined the ranks of the "awful." Across Twitter, as brands advertise various deals, many people have began voicing their frustrations with the whole thing. American's have #BlackFriday because of Thanksgiving, the UK does not so why do we have Black Friday? Authentic Indie (@IndieQueenMaz) November 21, 2016 Some people don't like the sound of the crowds. I won't go #shopping on #BlackFriday. I experience enough overcrowding on my daily commute, thank you very much. Antonia Oprita (@AntoniaOprita) November 21, 2016 Others are annoyed that Black Friday seems to have started way before Friday. Has anyone else noticed that #blackfriday seemed to start on Saturday and has morphed into black Sunday, Monday and the rest of the week? Catriona Hammett (@CatrionaHammett) November 21, 2016 Why do the uk have to ruin Black Friday. It's a one day sale not a week, stuff was cheaper weeks ago #blackfriday Lauren Gray (@MrsStevieGx) November 21, 2016 Had about 45 'Black Friday Starts Now!' emails this morning... piss off, it's Monday, we're not American and it's about 2 weeks til payday Anna (@annabanana481) November 21, 2016 And many, meanwhile, are annoyed that it's in the UK at all. Can people fuck off with this #blackfriday bollocks we are not #American Siobhans dad (@Brendanforan77) November 22, 2016 Why do we have #blackfriday in the UK if we don't celebrate Thanksgiving Day? and why does it last two weeks? #blackfortnight, anyone? Lex Guerrilla (@zafarrancho) November 21, 2016 Not only have we fully adopted the concept of the American #blackfriday it now apparently lasts a week. Stephen Norbury (@stenorbs) November 21, 2016 "Have any offers on Black Friday?" No babe we're not American charlotte (@happywilmore) November 21, 2016 Still, maybe it's not just a British thing judging by recent social media research, we're not the only ones who like to vent. H/T Twitter Moments. BONUS: How Do We Stop Black Friday? Donald Trump President-elect Donald Trump's most friendly media ally, as well as others supportive of his presidential bid, on Tuesday criticized his apparent reversal on pursuing an investigation against his former opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Breitbart News, the outlet run by his recently appointed White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon, blared in a headline on the developments: "BROKEN PROMISE." The story, however, did not provide a slant against Trump for the evident reversal, which was conveyed by one of his senior advisers on Tuesday. Breitbart gained a reputation throughout the campaign as being the most pro-Trump source of information. During a Tuesday meeting with reporters and editors at The New York Times, Trump said the investigation is "just not something that I feel very strongly about" and "I don't want to hurt the Clintons, I really don't. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways," per tweets from Times reporters. He also said he doesn't think his supporters will be disappointed by the decision to not prosecute, although he did not give a definiteive answer when asked if it was completely off the table. "I think I will explain it that we in many ways will save our country," he said. On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway suggested the president-elect would back off his campaign stance. It hit a boiling point when, during the second presidential debate, Trump promised to appoint a special prosecutor to look into Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state an issue on which the FBI cleared her of any criminal wrongdoing as well as the activities of the Clinton Foundation. Trump said during that debate that Clinton would be "in jail" if he were president. Throughout the final months of the campaign, chants of "lock her up" roared at Trump's raucous rallies. Breitbart's homepage Tuesday morning Story continues "I think when the president-elect, who's also the head of your party, tells you before he's even inaugurated that he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone, and content," Conway said on Tuesday. In an interview with CBS earlier this month, Trump said he was still "thinking about" appointing a special prosecutor to pursue charges against Clinton because "she did some bad things," but he said he didn't want to "hurt" the Clintons because "they're good people." Before Conway's interview on "Morning Joe," cohosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough reported that a source close to Trump's transition team said Trump felt Clinton had "been through enough." Clinton "still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don't find her to be honest or trustworthy," Conway said adding, however, that "if Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that's a good thing to do." The conservative legal group Judicial Watch, which led a charge on Clinton over her use of the private server, also chastised Trump on Tuesday for his apparent reversal, saying in a statement that the president-elect "must commit his administration to a serious, independent investigation of the very serious Clinton national security, email, and pay-to-play scandals." "If Mr. Trump's appointees continue the Obama administration's politicized spiking of a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton, it would be a betrayal of his promise to the American people to 'drain the swamp' of out-of-control corruption in Washington, DC," the group wrote. "President-elect Trump should focus on healing the broken justice system, affirm the rule of law, and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton scandals." Judicial Watch promised to "vigorously pursue" independent litigation and investigation of Clinton. Conservative best-selling author Ann Coulter, one of Trump's top supporters on the campaign trail, also criticized the move, suggesting it was not his job to tell the Department of Justice and FBI how to proceed. Other top Trump allies, however, signaled tepid support of the move. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who on the campaign trail encouraged the appointment of a special prosecutor, said on Tuesday that "there's a tradition in American politics that after you win an election, you sort of put things behind you." "And if that's the decision he reached, that's perfectly consistent with sort of a historical pattern of things come up, you say a lot of things, even some bad things might happen, and then you can sort of put it behind you in order to unite the nation," Giuliani told reporters in Trump Tower, noting that he had just seen a clip of the report. "So if he made that decision, I would be supportive of it. I'd also be supportive of continuing the investigation." "I think the president-elect had a tough choice there. You could go either way," he continued. "If he made the choice to unite the nation, I think all those people who didn't vote against him maybe could take another look at him." NOW WATCH: Trump will not pursue an investigation into Clintons private email server More From Business Insider Just in time for Christmas, Bruce Springsteen is hitting the road for another round of book signings for his memoir, Born to Run. Springsteen will kick off a one-week tour beginning Nov. 28 at Books-A-Million in Chicago for a book tour that will stretch through Ohio and wind down at 2nd & Charles in Kennesaw, Georgia, on Dec. 2. All books will be pre-signed, and fans will be able to snap a photo with the 67-year-old rocker. Tickets for all shows are going on sale Tuesday on Springsteen's Facebook Events page. Springsteen took thousands of pictures and shook just as many hands earlier this fall with a nine-date run that kicked off at the Barnes & Noble in his hometown of Freehold, New Jersey, on Sept. 27. An appearance at The Grove in Los Angeles drew a line of 1,100 fans who slept out in the street the night before his appearance. Additionally, the audio book of Born to Run will be available Dec. 6. For more information, visit brucespringsteen.net The list of dates include: Nov. 28 - Chicago, IL @ Books-A-Million Nov. 29 -Cincinatti, OH @ Joseph-Beth Booksellers Nov. 30 - Denver, CO @ Tattered Cover Bookstore Dec. 1 - Austin, TX @ Book People Dec. 2 - Kennesaw, GA @ 2nd & Charles (CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.) Police say the driver of a school bus that crashed in Chattanooga, Tennessee, killing six people, has been arrested. Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher says 24-year-old Johnthony Walker has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. Fletcher says additional charges may be added as the case proceeds to a grand jury. Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston told media outlets that five people died at the scene and one died at the hospital. Melydia Clewell, spokeswoman for the district attorney, confirmed the number. Police have said the bus crash sent 23 people to area hospitals and 35 schoolchildren were on the bus Monday afternoon. The school bus was mangled around a tree at the scene. Police say the students on the bus ranged from kindergarten through fifth grade. The bus was carrying students from Woodmore Elementary. Our hearts go out, as well as the hearts of all these people behind me, to the families, the neighborhood, the school, for all the people involved in this, we assure you we are doing everything we can, Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher said. Fletcher said at a news conference that the bus was the only vehicle involved in the crash. At the state Capitol in Nashville, Gov. Bill Haslam called the crash a tragic event and offered assistance. For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS. The school bus driver charged in Mondays fatal bus crash in Tennessee which killed five elementary school students and injured two dozen more was allegedly speeding and driving in a reckless manner before he lost control of the vehicle, according to an arrest report obtained by PEOPLE. The report alleges Johnthony Walker, 24, was driving the school bus at a high rate of speed, well above the posted speed limit of 30 mph. Additional records show Walker has a checkered history on the road, including a previous traffic collision while driving a school bus. According to his arrest report, Walker allegedly lost control of the school bus on Monday and swerved off the right side of the road into an elevated driveway and mailbox before swerving back to the left, causing the school bus to overturn and strike a tree and a utility pole. Three fourth graders, a first grader and a kindergartner were killed in the crash, Hamilton County Superintendent Kirk Kelly said Tuesday, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press and The Tennessean. Their names have not been released. Walker was arrested on five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. The arrest report says officers charged Walker because of the reckless nature of Mr. Walkers driving, combined with his very high speed and weaving within his lane. Walker is being held on bond of $107,500 and his first court appearance is Nov. 29 at 8:30 a.m., a Hamilton County Courts official tells PEOPLE, adding that he has not yet entered a plea or retained an attorney. A Checkered Driving History According to records obtained by PEOPLE, this weeks crash was actually Walkers second traffic collision in as many months. In both incidents, Walker was operating a school bus, the records show. On Sept. 20, Walker was driving a bus down Sylvan Drive in Chattanooga when he sideswiped a Kia Soul that was traveling in the opposite traffic lane, according to state records. Story continues The collision occurred when Walker allegedly failed to yield at a blind curve, resulting in $400 in body damage. No one was injured in the crash, and it is unclear if there were any students on the bus at the time. The results of chemical testing showed Walker had no alcohol or drugs in his system. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is conducting toxicology tests on Walker following Mondays crash, spokeswoman Susan Niland tells PEOPLE. Walker had no criminal history in Tennessee prior to his Monday arrest, according to the TBI. His license was previously suspended for more than a year for failure to show proof of insurance, beginning in March 2014, and it was reinstated on March 28, 2015, a Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security spokeswoman confirms to PEOPLE. Safety History of School Bus Company Durham School Services, the company that owns the school bus the students were riding in, has an overall satisfactory safety rating from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration but its vehicles have nonetheless been involved in 142 injury crashes in the last 24 months, according to FMCSA records. Three of the crashes had fatalities, according to FMCSA records. 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. Durham operates more than 13,000 vehicles, so the crashes comprise only a tiny fraction of its operations. Still, according to the FMCSAs records, 93 of motor carriers in the same safety event group have better on-road performance than this motor carrier. Durham School Services CEO David A. Duke posted a statement Tuesday to Twitter describing the crash as an accident and said, in part, Our entire team at Durham School Services is devastated by the accident yesterday that tragically claimed the lives of Chattanooga students. We are working with the Chattanooga Police Department and Hamilton County School District to investigate. Citing that ongoing investigation, Durham has previously declined to answer further questions. The Kids Are Dead The National Transportation Safety Board announced it was also investigating the crash, with a news conference planned for Tuesday afternoon. Walkers mother, Gwenevere Cook, told CNN he called her moments after the crash. Mama, I love you. I have been in a drastic accident, Cook recalled Walker saying. He texted me minutes later saying the kids are dead. With ADAM CARLSON and CHRIS HARRIS Mr. Trump said that the deal is the worst hed seen in entire life. Ive been making lots of wonderful deals, great deals. Thats what I do. Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran. And I mean never, he said, addressing the crowd who had gathered for his rally in Washington, D.C., at the bottom of the Capitol last September. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran-US Nuclear Deal has been under much scrutiny since it came into effect in July last year. The deal was signed under Barack Obamas presidency and aims to limit Tehrans nuclear ability in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions, as explained by The New York Times. One of the key issues with the agreement is that its difficult to ensure that Iran plays by the rules of the deal, given its dubious history of human rights abuse and its neglect towards other internationally recognised regulations. Considering the deals sweeping terms as well as Irans history of evasions, stonewalling and illicit procurements, it is especially important for countries to remain extra-vigilant when inspecting whether the deal is being carried out. The deal was accompanied by secret negotiations between Iran and the US who paid out more than $2 billion to Iran, to ensure that the notorious regime releases American citizens who were being held, hostage. This gives even more cause for concern that Iran may be getting away with breaching the terms of the deal. Mr. Trumps hostility towards the Nuclear Deal has been met with significant support. Jeff Sessions, who has been nominated for the post of attorney general, has publicly referred to the deal as a mistake and expressed his strong opinions that the deal meal was a bad decision for the US politics. The ex-mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, is also known as a firm supporter of the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) that form the main opposition movement to Iran, closely affiliated with the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) that is led by president-elect Mrs Maryam Rajavi. MEK and NCRI have been fighting against the mullahs regime in Iran for decades, upholding the values of freedom of speech, gender equality and a democratic and secular government. Earlier this year, a Paris rally, organised by the NCRI and led by Mrs. Rajavi attracted more than 100,000 followers, showing the growing support for the movement. Providing the claims that Mr. Trump has made regarding the Iran-US Nuclear Deal and the backing of several notable US political leaders, it is likely that the new government will hold Iran accountable for breaching the terms of the deal and watch very closely to ensure that the terms are being upheld. Mr. Trump told the NBCs Meet the Press host Chuck Todd that the deal in its current form could lead to a nuclear holocaust. For millions of people, a big part of the holidays is unwrapping presents. But as you loosen the ribbon and peel back the colorful paper, know that others may also get a gift the ability to hack into your life. Computers are common in products of all kinds. Processors regulate cars. Chips make toys talk and react. Miniature speakers and music players turn paper greeting cards into audio devices. The newest angle is putting all manners of products online in the so-called Internet of Things. Companies and consumers can monitor devices and even control them with the promise of great convenience. Related: 16 Gifts for the Techies in Your Life in 2016 Unfortunately, many of these products, including some you might get or give as a present, open doors for someone to wreak havoc. Hacked digital video recorders and home security cameras helped power a massive Internet outage in October through a so-called distributed denial of service attack, according to security journalist Brian Krebs. A similar attack, early in November, shut down the central heating in at least two blocks of apartments in the city of Lappeenranta, in the southeast of Finland, where it's currently a cold winter. "[T]oasters and DVRs are behind the [heating outage] and this is going to get worse before it gets better," David Cox, CEO of virtual private network provider LiquidVPN, told The Fiscal Times. Consumers can also become individual targets. The Internet connection for many products has less security that computers, tablets and smartphones typically do. "All it takes is one [design] screw-up for an attacker to find a [common security] flaw on an IoT device," said Jeff Williams, co-founder and CTO of security software vendor Contrast Security. "You can direct them to do things they werent intended to do, like heat the house to 120 degrees, or burn the toast, or drive the car through the back of the garage." An attacker might also ride the connection back to the smartphone app that controls the device and see what personal information is available on the phone. Story continues Related: 8 Tips for Shopping Local This Holiday Season "What makes IoT devices problematic is that they are almost never patched [with security updates] and are run by users who probably have little to no security savvy," said Tom Byrnes, CEO of security vendor ThreatSTOP. "The manufacturers of these devices have a low-cost, high-volume model, and so keeping them up to date is not part of their business plan." Some devices also employ dangerous practices, like using the same password for access without the ability for a consumer to change it. Attackers who learn the password for one device get it for all. Here are five connected gift categories that could cause a problem. Connected Toys Some toys are connected to a cloud, enabling the ability to simulate conversation with kids. Last year, BlueBox Security and independent researcher Andrew Hay found it was possible to intercept communications between a child and a Hello Barbie. Mattel was reportedly responsive and worked with researchers to fix security flaws, but that doesn't mean the next popular toy will be secure. And if you can track the location of your child's teddy bear, and your child, someone else might be able to. Related: Holiday Gift Guide 27 Smart Toys Under $50 Baby Monitors Baby monitors are audio and video communication devices. Many have security weaknesses that allow outsiders to listen in. The issue has been known for years. To demonstrate the danger, hackers have been known to redirect video feeds to websites and to broadcast music and audio messages to the parents over the monitors. In one case, someone played the Police song Every Breath You Take followed by sexual sounds over the monitor. Kitchen Appliances Last year, security experts proved a refrigerator that could display your Gmail calendar could inadvertently give someone access to your password. A slow cooker or coffee maker that can be controlled from a smartphone have made it possible for thieves to steal photos from the phone or even grab location-tracking information. Thats your location. Cars That's one great gift, with a great big potential issue. Put self-driving vehicles aside for a moment. Not only have hackers remotely disabled a Jeep on the highway (the driver in that case was part of an experiment), but they have also demonstrated that they could pull off other actions, like cause acceleration, slam on the brakes or turn the steering wheel. The new attacks can't work on Jeeps over the Internet Chrysler listened and fixed those problems but that doesn't mean they couldn't on some other model. Related: Uber Says We'll Have Flying Cars by 2026 Drones More and more people are flying drones, whether for the fun of remotely controlling them, using them for photographic projects or applying them to commercial applications. But there is little in the way of security standards for the devices. An IBM security researcher showed that with less than $40 in hardware, he could take over a police drone from almost 1.5 miles away. He was able to start the engines, have the drone take off, take control of the camera and potentially crash the device. And that was with a sophisticated drone that cost $21,000. Cheap consumer devices are unlikely to be better protected. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: Traders are looking for MetLife to rally in the first half of next year. OptionMonster's market scanner shows that 2,500 June 60 calls were purchased for $2.10 to $2.15 today. This represents fresh buying, as volume was well above the strike's open interest of 673 contracts. Long calls lock in the price where investors can buy stock, allowing them to profit from a rally with limited capital at risk. Their cheap cost can also generate significant leverage on a percentage basis if shares move in the right direction. (See our Education section) MET is up 0.15 percent to $54.86 in morning trading and is up 35 percent in the last three months. The life insurer reported bullish results on Nov. 2 and is expected to announce its next quarterly numbers after the close on Feb. 1. Calls outnumber puts in the name by a bullish 12-to-1 ratio so far today. More From optionMONSTER London (AFP) - An online petition calling for the British monarchy to pay for A369 million in repairs to Buckingham Palace has gathered momentum and by Tuesday had garnered over 132,000 signatures. Last week, royal officials outlined a plan for Queen Elizabeth II's official home to undergo "essential works" to replace electrical wiring, water pipes and boilers in the biggest overhaul since the 1950s. To fund the A369 million (431-million euro, $458 million) repairs, the government is asking parliament to approve an increase in the sovereign grant -- the annual allowance provided by the government to support the Queen in her official duties. Many members of the public are not so keen. "There is a national housing crisis, the NHS (National Health Service) is in crisis, austerity is forcing cuts in many front line services," Mark Johnson, who launched the online petition, wrote. "Now the Royals expect us to dig deeper to refurbish Buckingham Palace. The Crown's wealth is inestimable. This is, in a word, outrageous," Johnson said. The queen's wealth is estimated to stand at A340 million according to Sunday Times Rich List 2015, making her the 302nd richest person in Britain. Many of the comments left by those who have signed the petition echoed Johnson's sentiment. "It's obscene that we should be expected to pay for this during such time of austerity when it could be paid for by simply selling some of the BILLIONS of pounds worth of art and antiquities held by the crown," wrote Chris B. Another signatory, named Claire M., said: "The Royal Family have sponged off the British taxpayer for long enough." Labour, the main opposition party has called on the royals to help, but has steered clear of asking the monarchy to foot the entire bill. Labour's chief finance spokesman John McDonnell, a republican, said on BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "It's a public building, it's a public monument, it's a heritage building so we have to invest in it to preserve it. Story continues "If the Queen and the Royal Family want to consider a contribution, I certainly wouldnat send the cheque back," he said. In 1992, public opinion turned against the royal family amid fears taxpayers would be called upon to foot the bill after Windsor Castle, a royal residence outside London, was hit by a devastating fire. The queen then agreed to pay 70 percent of the A36.5 million costs by opening Buckingham Palace to the public for the first time to generate extra income. Ottawa (AFP) - Canada lowered Tuesday a reimbursement limit for veterans' use of medical marijuana after prescriptions shot up more than tenfold in the last two years. The government capped covered daily consumption to three grams (0.11 ounces) at a price of Can$8.50 (US$6.32) per gram. "We consulted with veterans, their advocates, stakeholders, medical experts and reviewed existing research on using marijuana for medical purposes and developed a balanced policy," Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr said in a statement. The government's auditor general earlier this year had questioned a previous cap of 10 grams per veteran per day, saying the military could not explain its rationale for the dosage limit. Meanwhile, Health Canada warned that more than five grams per day could pose increased risks to health, including lung and heart disease, and dependency on the psychoactive drug. Health Canada data shows average Canadian consumption of medical marijuana is 2.6 grams per day. By David Ljunggren and Leah Schnurr OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada on Thursday unveiled plans to buy 18 Boeing Corp Super Hornets as a stop-gap measure while it prepared an open five-year competition to replace its aging fleet of fighter jets. Procurement Minister Judy Foote told a news conference the government would launch immediate talks with Boeing for the Super Hornets, in a victory for the U.S. plane maker if the order goes ahead. One defense contractor said the choice could be interpreted as giving Boeing a long-term advantage but Foote, speaking in a phone interview, later said Ottawa would run "a real, open, transparent competition" where any firm could compete. The language of Canada's announcement prompted speculation about whether it was buying the Boeing jets outright, leasing them or purchasing with a buyback provision. An outright purchase of the Super Hornets would make it harder for Canada to later justify acquiring other jets as it would be more costly to operate both programs, said U.S. aerospace industry analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group. Spokespeople for Foote and Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Boeing Defense spokesman declined to comment. The decision on how to replace Canada's CF-18 jets - some of which have been flying for 35 years - is politically sensitive and has been repeatedly put off. Sajjan said the CF-18s could no longer meet Canada's international military commitments. "Because they were not replaced, we now have a capability gap ... we need additional planes as soon as possible for an interim period," he told the news conference. The former Conservative administration said in 2010 it would buy 65 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 jets for C$9 billion ($6.7 billion). During last year's successful election campaign, the Liberals vowed not to buy the planes on the grounds they were too costly. Sajjan said Canada would remain a member of the nine-nation consortium that helped fund development of the F-35. Lockheed Martin said that while it was disappointed with the choice of an interim fighter it was "confident the F-35 is the best solution", according to a statement. Ottawa insists the winner of the open competition must provide industrial benefits to Canadian firms. It also wants the companies to have a chance of getting work from the interim order with Boeing, Foote said. Boeing is committed to giving Canadian companies contracts that would equal the total amount Ottawa pays for the 18 Super Hornets, said Scott Day, spokesman at Boeing Defense. Foote said talks would start immediately with Boeing though a final decision would only be made once the discussions were over. Sajjan, though, said he was confident the Boeing plane met Canada's requirements. The government declined to answer any questions on cost, in particular whether the money set aside for the interim order would come out of the initial budget for the planes. Boeing's stock rose after the announcement and closed up 1.7 percent at $149.52, while Lockheed Martin shares pared gains to end the day at $264.66, up 0.5 percent. (Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by Bernard Orr and Alan Crosby) * Canadian dollar at C$1.3394, or 74.66 U.S. cents * Loonie touches its strongest since Nov. 9 at C$1.3378 * Bond prices higher across the yield curve TORONTO, Nov 22 (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar strengthened to a nearly two-week high against its U.S. counterpart on Tuesday as investors weighed prospects of an output cut by major oil producers and domestic retail sales rose for the first time in three months. Canadian retail sales rose 0.6 percent in September, in line with economists' expectations, but would have been flat without the increased purchases of cars and parts, data from Statistics Canada showed. After removing the effects of price changes, retail sales climbed 0.6 percent. Oil prices reached their highest this month before turning lower. A growing consensus has emerged in the market that OPEC will overcome internal disputes and scepticism to strike a deal that materially reduces crude output. U.S. crude prices were down 0.17 percent at $48.16 a barrel. Oil is one of Canada's major exports. At 9:23 a.m. EDT (1423 GMT), the Canadian dollar was trading at C$1.3394 to the greenback, or 74.66 U.S. cents, stronger than Monday's close of C$1.3413, or 74.55 U.S. cents. The currency's weakest level of the session was C$1.3433, while it touched its strongest since Nov. 9 at C$1.3378. An Asia-Pacific trade deal stands almost no chance of working now that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to pull the plug on it, proponents of the pact said. The TPP, which aims to cut trade barriers in some of Asia's fastest-growing economies and stretch from Canada to Vietnam, cannot take effect without the United States. The TPP countries as a group would be Canada's largest trading partner, with more than 70 percent of Canada's trade and investment flowing through the region, according to Global Affairs Canada. Canadian government bond prices were higher across a flatter yield curve, with the two-year up 1 Canadian cent to yield 0.669 percent and the benchmark 10-year rising 20 Canadian cents to yield 1.548 percent. The 2-year yield fell 0.5 of a basis point further below its U.S. equivalent to leave the spread at -42.8 basis points, its largest gap since January, as Treasuries underperformed at the front of the curve. (Reporting by Fergal Smith; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli) By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government can show China how to treat a region seeking autonomy and should use its experience in dealing with Quebec to press for improved human rights in Tibet, the Himalayan region's political leader said on Tuesday. Prime Minister in exile Lobsang Sangay, like Tibetan spiritualist leader Dalai Lama, backs the so-called middle way that seeks autonomy within China. Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of being a "splittist" seeking independence. Talks between the two sides broke down in 2010. Sangay's visit, guaranteed to upset Chinese authorities, coincides with Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's attempts to improve economic ties with China. "The Canadian government is on very high and moral ground and they can say with confidence and share the Canadian experience, and say 'This is how we treat our people, how we solve the issue,'" Sangay said in an interview. English-speaking Canada has spent years negotiating with separatists in the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec, a quest for autonomy that began in the 1960s. Although Canadian voters turned down constitutional changes to give Quebec special recognition in a 1992, the province enjoys broad powers of self-governance, including the right to insist that French be the official language. Asked what would happen if China did not listen to such a message, Sangay replied: "Then you have to press a little bit more, as a friend, and say 'This is the right approach, we have done it at home.'" In a statement, the Chinese embassy said "Tibet-related affairs fall entirely within the domestic affairs of China which allow no foreign interference." The Dalai Lama has met both Canada's last two prime ministers - Liberal Paul Martin and Conservative Stephen Harper - and hopes to sit down with Trudeau on his next visit, which might be next year, said Sangay. Trudeau's father, former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, was in power when Canada accepted refugees from Tibet in the early 1970s. "His father has a good track record on the issue of Tibet and I hope the son will continue the same legacy," said Sangay. Foreign Minister Stephane Dion has raised Tibet with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi twice this year and will continue to have frank discussions with Beijing on human rights, said spokeswoman Chantal Gagnon. Sangay, who is due to meet legislators, declined to say whether he would be talking to government officials. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Grant McCool and Alan Crosby) (Adds aviation analyst comments) By David Ljunggren and Leah Schnurr OTTAWA, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Canada on Thursday unveiled plans to buy 18 Boeing Corp Super Hornets as a stop-gap measure while it prepared an open five-year competition to replace its aging fleet of fighter jets. Procurement Minister Judy Foote told a news conference the government would launch immediate talks with Boeing for the Super Hornets, in a victory for the U.S. plane maker if the order goes ahead. One defense contractor said the choice could be interpreted as giving Boeing a long-term advantage but Foote, speaking in a phone interview, later said Ottawa would run "a real, open, transparent competition" where any firm could compete. The language of Canada's announcement prompted speculation about whether it was buying the Boeing jets outright, leasing them or purchasing with a buyback provision. An outright purchase of the Super Hornets would make it harder for Canada to later justify acquiring other jets as it would be more costly to operate both programs, said U.S. aerospace industry analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group. Spokespeople for Foote and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Boeing Defense spokesman declined to comment. The decision on how to replace Canada's CF-18 jets - some of which have been flying for 35 years - is politically sensitive and has been repeatedly put off. Sajjan said the CF-18s could no longer meet Canada's international military commitments. "Because they were not replaced, we now have a capability gap ... we need additional planes as soon as possible for an interim period," he told the news conference. The former Conservative administration said in 2010 it would buy 65 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 jets for C$9 billion ($6.7 billion). During last year's successful election campaign, the Liberals vowed not to buy the planes on the grounds they were too costly. Sajjan said Canada would remain a member of the nine-nation consortium that helped fund development of the F-35. Story continues Lockheed Martin said that while it was disappointed with the choice of an interim fighter it was "confident the F-35 is the best solution", according to a statement. Ottawa insists the winner of the open competition must provide industrial benefits to Canadian firms. It also wants the companies to have a chance of getting work from the interim order with Boeing, Foote said. Boeing is committed to giving Canadian companies contracts that would equal the total amount Ottawa pays for the 18 Super Hornets, said Scott Day, spokesman at Boeing Defense. Foote said talks would start immediately with Boeing though a final decision would only be made once the discussions were over. Sajjan, though, said he was confident the Boeing plane met Canada's requirements. The government declined to answer any questions on cost, in particular whether the money set aside for the interim order would come out of the initial budget for the planes. Boeing's stock rose after the announcement and closed up 1.7 percent at $149.52, while Lockheed Martin shares pared gains to end the day at $264.66, up 0.5 percent. ($1=$1.34 Canadian) (Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by Bernard Orr and Alan Crosby) By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will this week decide the fate of two Enbridge Inc pipelines, but is keeping quiet about its verdict on Kinder Morgan Inc's plans to more than double the capacity of its Trans Mountain line, a move strongly opposed by environmentalists. The Liberal government is expected to veto Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta's oil sands to the province of British Columbia on the Pacific Coast. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau opposes the project, citing the proposed routing through a rain forest. But Ottawa does appear set to allow Enbridge to replace the Canadian segments of its Line 3, which takes crude from Alberta to Wisconsin. Canada's energy regulator approved the project in April. Trudeau is under pressure both from environmentalists and the energy industry, which says it needs more pipelines to ease transport bottlenecks in Alberta. "Our government is on track for a decision on the proposed Enbridge Line 3 and Northern Gateway projects by Nov 25. An announcement ... will be made soon thereafter," said Alexandre Deslongchamps, spokesman for Natural Energy Minister Jim Carr. Trudeau is scheduled to leave on Wednesday for a week-long trip to Africa. Northern Gateway foundered amid protests from green and aboriginal groups that are now targeting Trans Mountain. But the plan to update Line 3, which sources say will switch from carrying light oil to synthetic crude, attracted little attention. "Most people are expecting it goes forward," said AltaCorp Capital energy infrastructure analyst Dirk Lever. The upgrade would allow Enbridge to run Line 3 at its maximum capacity of 760,000 barrels per day (bpd). It is currently shipping 390,000 bpd because of voluntary pressure restrictions. "It's not adding to capacity," said Friends of the Earth policy adviser John Bennett. "I haven't seen any chatter about it at all." There is, however, much debate about Kinder Morgan's plans to build a second pipeline next to its Trans Mountain line from Alberta to British Columbia. Greens say the risk of a spill is too great and opponents promise massive protests, which some Liberals fear could hurt the party in federal elections set for 2019. Earlier this month, a Liberal legislator from British Columbia urged Trudeau to veto the line. Environmental groups say they expect Carr to approve Trans Mountain by the Dec. 19 deadline. He said last week that Canada needed to sell oil to Asia to diversify exports away from the United States. Deslongchamps said Carr was committed to a verdict by Dec. 19. (Reporting by David Ljunggren, editing by G Crosse) He expanded upon his point, stating that Assads regime no longer has any army or military force in Syria. This regime, he said, referring to Assads rule, doesnt have any military force or regular army capable of operating within the military rules and frameworks while those who fight on the ground are the Iranian regimes, Hezbollah and Iraqi militias. Furthermore, in a press conference in Istanbul Anas Al-Abdah, the Secretary General of The Syrian National Coalition, condemned the neglect of the international community with regards to the human cost in Syria. All the besieged areas in Aleppo are bombarded without any international condemnation, he said. Despite the UN ceasefire, the Al-Vaar district in Aleppo is still subjected to Russian bombings. He demanded that the Arab Union and the United Nations to condemn these acts, especially the Hezbollahs intervention in Alghasir. He did praise some notable achievements on the backdrop of the tragedy. 25 villages have been liberated from ISIS following the operation Euphrates Shield, he said. Dr. Alhariri echoed this with his statements on Al-Arabiya TV, saying that Euphrates Shield is making constant progress. He suggested the benefits of US intervention. Any kind of direct war or a US proxy war against ISIS will definitely benefit the Syrian revolution and by no means will Bashar Assad benefit from that. Mr. Al-Abdah commented on the current state of frozen negotiations. Russia, the Iranian regime, and the Assads regime have destroyed the negotiations and seek a military solution. A political solution has been suspended until further notice. We as the Syrian opposition and revolutionaries, however, are seeking a political solution. Dr. Alhariri and Mr. Al-Abdah suggested that help from the US is needed in Syria and that the US government should come to terms that Assad winning the war in Syria would equal a victory for countries like Iran and Russia. Even Russia has acknowledged in private meetings that Assads regime doesnt exist anymore and has no power to regain control over the Syrian territory, Dr. Alhariri said. Russia has stated that its military operation is not aimed at winning the war but its seeking to impose its conditions on the negotiating table. Bashar Assad does not have any army, military force or government institutions with which to regain control of Syria once again. Dr. Alhariri expressed his disappointment at the Obamas presidency when the support from the US military was at a very low level. We were faced with the worst scenarios which I dont think are ever going to happen now. He expressed his disbelief that things could be different, had Hillary Clinton won the election. Nothing would have ever changed, since she had nothing new in hand, either. They wouldnt set up a safe zone, nor would they arm the opposition with modern weapons. And even they wouldnt provide the opposition with a typical military support more than what theyve already done. Mr Al-Abdah stated their four demands from the US new government to declare the Bashar Assads regime illegal, to take a stance in line with the stances of Friends of Syria Group, to prevent the Syrian regimes fighter jets from flying over the liberated lands and to put on the terrorist list the militia groups coming to Syria from Iran and Afghanistan. CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Scott Pelley addressed the ongoing issue of fake news being spread on social media, saying quality journalism is not a given and it must be fought for and refreshed by every generation of Americans. There are threats, now, to the quality of our information, to the quality of our journalism. Threats that must be reckoned with, Pelley said in a powerful speech during his Walter Cronkite Award acceptance speech at Arizona State University on Monday afternoon. Consider this: Never in human history has more information been available to more people. Thats a wonderful thing. But it is also true that never in human history has more bad information been available, Pelley said before explaining that the new dividing line is the difference between journalism and junk. Also Read: Mark Zuckerberg Outlines 7-Point Plan to Fight Fake News on Facebook He continued: The quickest, most direct way to ruin a democracy is to poison the information. Pelley said there are three threats to journalism: Aggregators, which report other outlets reporting without verification, purveyors of bias that lull viewers into a partisan coma, and outlets that post outright lies without regard for the values of journalism. The CBS Evening News anchor pointed to a bogus story about the Pope endorsing Donald Trump as an example of how fake news can impact the real word. Also Read: Joe Scarborough Says Trump's Meeting With Media Heavyweights Wasn't as Harsh as Reported (Video) A lot of people were clicking on that story, Pelley said before ripping Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for saying that determining the truth is complicated. Its called journalism, Pelley said. The stakes are enormously high. Pelley, who missed Donald Trumps media summit to attend the event, told assembled journalism students that Cronkites legacy remains preserved at his network. Walter is alive and well at CBS News. And we live his values and his principles every day, Pelley said. Story continues Check out the video above. Related stories from TheWrap: Joe Scarborough Says Trump's Meeting With Media Heavyweights Wasn't as Harsh as Reported (Video) Donald Trump Slams 'Crooked Media' After Meeting With TV News Executives CNN's Jeff Zucker, TV News Anchors Face 'Firing Squad' in 'Unprecedented' Meeting With Donald Trump - Increased Profitability Despite the 6.6% Decline in Revenues in CLP Resulting from Currency Depreciation - Higher Traffic in Supermarkets in Chile, and Department Stores Chile and Peru - Better SSS Performance in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil Compared to 2Q16 - Continued Progress in the Sale of Non-Core Assets - Net Profit Reached CLP 34,950 Million, Reflecting a CLP 64,851 Million Increase Year Over Year SANTIAGO, CHILE / ACCESSWIRE / November 22, 2016 / Cencosud S.A. (BCS:CENCOSUD) (CNCO), a leading South American retailer with operations in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Colombia, today announced its consolidated financial results for the third quarter of 2016. All figures are in Chilean pesos (CLP), except where indicated otherwise, and in accordance with IFRS. Variations refer to the comparison between 3Q16 and 3Q15. Consolidated revenues reached CLP 2,496,037 million in the quarter, with growth in local currency in all countries, except Brazil, achieving higher Same Store Sales in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, and posting sequentially improving sales. Revenues in Chilean Pesos, however, decreased 6.6% due to the devaluation of the Argentine Peso (38.3%), Peruvian Sol (5.9%), and Colombian Peso (4.3%) against CLP. Excluding the FX effect (assuming the same exchange rate as of September 30, 2015), consolidated revenues would have increased by 7.9%. Adjusted EBITDA increased 11.5% YoY to CLP 153,418 million in the quarter, while the Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 100 bps to 6.1%. Excluding the FX effect (assuming the same exchange rate as of September 30, 2015), Adjusted EBITDA would have increased by 33.4%, driven by higher efficiency in expenses and non-recurrent charges in 3Q 2015. Net Income for the quarter reached to CLP 34,949 million, compared to the CLP 29,901 million loss recorded in the year-ago quarter. This improvement was mainly driven by the increase in Adjusted EBITDA and a greater foreign exchange gain. Story continues Please visit investors.cencosud.com to obtain the full third quarter earnings release, including financial results and tables. Management Comment We delivered a strong operational and financial performance this quarter as we continue to make headway in the execution of our strategy. Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA was up 11.5% while Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 100 basis points, reflecting our ongoing focus on cost management and efficiency. More importantly, higher profitability was achieved despite the 6.6% decline in consolidated revenues in Chilean pesos resulting from currency depreciation in Argentina, Peru, and Colombia. Note that at constant exchange rates, consolidated Sales and Adjusted EBITDA would have increased 7.9% and 33.4%, respectively. Our efforts to build a team focused on client satisfaction and accountability have enabled us to move up in the Great Place to Work rankings, and advance in customer loyalty and satisfaction initiatives. We have made significant progress in the execution of our E-Commerce and Omnichannel initiatives to become the region's leading online retailer. More importantly, we have also advanced on the sale of non-core assets, with the renegotiation of the Colpatria JV agreement in Colombia, the sale of Teleticket in Peru, and further agreements to sell properties in Chile. Our focus on profitability allowed us to deliver Net income of CLP $35 billion, a CLP $65 billion improvement from the loss reported in the year-ago quarter. Results also benefited from a positive foreign exchange rate impact on our dollar denominated debt and non-recurring events registered in 3Q15. Looking ahead, we remain committed to driving sustainable profitable growth. To achieve this, we are further enhancing the customer experience, reinforcing a lean and efficient operational base, and will maintain our commitment to disciplined financial management. Furthermore, we will continue divestiture of non-core assets and the review of our store portfolio. While mixed economic conditions persist, these initiatives combined with our expertise in retail, will ensure we have a diversified portfolio that is uniquely positioned to benefit from an improvement across the macroeconomic backdrop. Conference Call The Company will host a conference call to discuss these results on Wednesday, November 23, 2016 at 11:00AM Chilean time / 09:00AM EST. To participate on the day of the call, dial +1(888) 349-0108, +1(412) 902-4201, or +1230-020-0479 approximately ten minutes before the call and tell the operator you wish to join the Cencosud Conference Call. A webcast of the conference call will be available online at http://investors.cencosud.com/English/investor-overview/financials/quarterly-reports/default.aspx. The archived version of the webcast and a telephone replay of the conference call will be available at approximately 1:00PM Santiago / 11:00AM EST until November 30, 2016. Callers can access the telephonic replay by dialing +1 (877) 344-7529 or +1 (412) 317-0088 and utilizing the passcode 10096595 when prompted. Forward-Looking Statements: In addition to historical information, this release contains "forward-looking statements" that reflect management's expectations for the future. The forward-looking statements included herein represent Cencosud's views as of the date of this release. A variety of important factors could cause results to differ materially from such statements. These factors are laid out in Cencosud's filings with the SVS in Chile and the SEC in the United States. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement for any reason unless required by law. Corporate Communications Renato Fernandez Phone +5622959 0905 renato.fernandez@cencosud.cl Investor Relations Marisol Fernandez Phone +5622959 0545 mariasoledad.fernandez@cencosud.cl Natalia Nacif Phone +5622959 0368 natalia.nacif@cencosud.cl Valentina Klein Phone +5622200 4395 valentina.klein@cencosud.cl SOURCE: Cencosud S.A. Santiago (AFP) - Chilean authorities are suing the giant breakfast cereal-makers Nestle and Kelloggs for putting children's cartoon characters on packets of fattening food in breach of an anti-obesity law, officials said Tuesday. The government's National Consumer Service said in a statement it had filed a suit against the two companies plus Masterfoods, distributor of M&M chocolates, under June's "Food Labelling Law." It accuses the companies of breaching the law by "using children's characters on packets of various products classed as 'high in'" certain unhealthy ingredients. It said the companies had argued they had a commercial right to use the illustrated children's characters as a brand symbol. Chile passed the law on June 27 aiming to curb high levels of obesity. Chilean authorities estimate that one in three children under six in the South American country suffers from excessive weight. The law obliges manufacturers to add warnings to packets of food high in sugar, saturated fats and other fattening nutrients. It banned manufacturers from putting children's cartoon characters on products such as boxes of sugary breakfast cereals. It also outlawed the selling of snacks that include toys, such as "Kinder Surprise" chocolate eggs and McDonalds "Happy Meals." SERNAC director Enrnesto Munoz said the body was demanding a $110,000 fine for each company. Chile vowed Tuesday to strengthen trade with China in the face of protectionist threats from US President-elect Donald Trump, as it prepared to host the Asian giant's president Xi Jinping. Foreign Minister Heraldo Munoz said Xi would sign an agreement to "deepen" their countries' 2006 free trade agreement when he visits Chile later Tuesday. He told a news conference that Xi would meet with Chile's President Michelle Bachelet to sign a "memorandum of understanding" on trade ties. Boosting ties with China is "an enormous opportunity to have more products coming in" to the South American country. Latin American countries are concerned about the impact on their economies of US President-elect Donald Trump's surprise election victory this month. Trump has threatened to put up barriers to international trade to protect US jobs. Chile supports the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major trade agreement that has been thrown into doubt due to Trump's opposition. Chile is the world's biggest copper producer and the second-biggest producer of salmon. China is its biggest trade partner -- it received a quarter of all Chilean exports last year. Xi cast his country as a leader of free trade cooperation during last weekend's APEC Asia Pacific summit. The Chile visit is the last stop on a Latin American tour that has also taken Xi to Ecuador and Peru. By Antonio De la Jara SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact will continue working to bring a deal to fruition despite a pledge by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to withdraw from the accord, Chile's foreign minister said on Tuesday. "Whether it be with the United States or without the United States, there's a willingness among the countries that make up the TPP to move forward," Heraldo Munoz told a news conference ahead of a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the South American nation. "Whether it's to be the same framework as the current TPP, that remains to be seen." On Monday, Trump released a video pledging to withdraw from the TPP on his first day in office, calling it "a potential disaster" for the United States. World leaders have had varying reactions to Trump's comments, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saying during a visit to Buenos Aires that U.S. abandonment of the deal would render it "meaningless." The future of the 12-nation deal, which does not include China, was one of the key themes of summit talks between leaders of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies in Lima in recent days. There is debate over to what extent a U.S.-free TPP might advance without a complete renegotiation. China has been pushing its own alternative trade pact, which excludes the Americas, although it has said other countries including Chile are interested in joining. The Chinese premier was due to arrive in Santiago on Tuesday, where he will meet with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and speak at the United Nations' Latin American arm, ECLAC. Munoz said China and Chile plan to sign an agreement to deepen bilateral trade ties during Xi's visit. In a column in national newspaper El Mercurio published on Tuesday, Xi wrote that Chile and China should work together to facilitate free trade and business ties in areas such as mining, agriculture, infrastructure, telecommunications, clean energy and IT. (Additional reporting by Felipe Iturrieta and Anthony Esposito; Writing by Gram Slattery; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Matthew Lewis) SYDNEY (Reuters) - Three Australian employees of casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd detained in China since mid-October have been formally arrested on suspicion of gambling offences, Australia's foreign minister said on Tuesday. The detention of the Australian nationals, who include Crown's head of international VIP gambling, Jason O'Connor, held along with 14 other Crown employees, has sparked concern of a wider crackdown on gambling in China. Foreign minister Julie Bishop said in a brief statement emailed to Reuters that the Australian government had been notified of the arrests. A spokeswoman for the minister could not say when the government was told. "The three remain in detention in Shanghai and will be visited by Australian consular officials today," Bishop said in the statement. Crown did not immediately respond to a request for comment and it is not clear whether the employees have been charged. Eighteen Crown employees were initially detained, but one has since been released, Crown said last week. Analysts have linked the detentions - which set Crown's share price tumbling - to Chinese laws banning casinos from advertising or promoting gambling in the Chinese mainland, such as offering credit to high-spending clients. In October, Crown said "less than half" its international VIP revenue, or about 12 percent of total revenue, came from Chinese high-rollers. (Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Mark Potter) Key indicators show lighter intervention by the PBoC during the month. Standard Chartered (SC) estimate that Chinas non-FDI capital outflows moderated to about USD 59bn in October. The research house also finds that the FX reserves reduction (excluding valuation changes) narrowed and banks net FX sales shrank during the month, indicating lighter intervention by the PBoC. Moving forward it believes that capital outflows may continue amid a broader USD advance and that the authorities may use the CNY basket to anchor market expectations and manage the capital account to prevent large capital outflows. Here's more from SC: Our China capital flows tracker shows that monthly non-FDI capital outflows moderated to a still-sizeable c.USD 59bn in October from c.USD 62bn in September. The trade surplus widened to USD 49bn from USD 42bn prior. This was partially offset by the services trade deficit (estimated at USD 27bn) and net foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows of USD 3bn. Despite a surplus of USD 19bn under the current and FDI accounts, the Peoples Bank of Chinas (PBoCs) FX assets declined further by an amount equivalent to USD 40bn in October from a decline of USD 51bn in September, indicating continued net FX selling by the central bank. This implies non-FDI capital outflows of USD 59bn in October. Other indicators also show a slower pace of capital outflows in October. FX reserves dropped USD 46bn in October. However, we estimate that, excluding valuation changes in the reserve currencies and market-value changes in the reserve asset holdings, the FX reserves reduction for transaction purposes was less than USD 20bn, indicating relatively light intervention by the PBoC during the month. Matching this, net FX sales by banks shrank to USD 15bn from USD 28bn prior, according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). The PBoCs FX assets fell by a larger amount, equivalent to about USD 40bn, in October. More From Singapore Business Review Reorganisation of Daqing Oil Co., could add up to the hassle. While planned re-organisation of the Daqing Oil Company opens up the possibility of greater Chinese investment moving into the oilfield services space in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, the resultant spending pullback in output maintenance activities domestically will ensure China's crude oil production continues to decline through to 2025, said BMI. Amid numerous structural and external headwinds squeezing growth opportunities in the Chinese upstream segment, state-owned giant China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) announced plans to re-organise its subsidiary Daqing Oil Company (DOC), operator of the giant Daqing oilfield, into a service-focused international player. Specifically, CNPC Chairman Wang Yilin urged the firm to aggressively expand its contracting business, which provides services including engineering, procurement and design of surface facilities and onshore drilling. The announcement is aligned with CNPC's broader strategy to streamline its upstream operations, as low oil prices, spending cuts and natural declines continue to drag on the production performance of its largest crude assets, including the four-decade old Daqing. BMI believes CNPC's decision will have the following implications: Although primarily domestically focused, due to a dearth of new oil plays at home and an energy policy increasingly shifting in favour of natural gas and cleaner energy sources, we believe contracting opportunities for DOC will mostly lie in international markets. For instance, DOC will be able to capitalise on parent firm CNPC's involvement in key production and development plays in Iran and Iraq. It is our view continued E&P spending by national and international oil companies alike will keep projects moving and support demand for oilfield services in the Middle East. Additionally, having operated China's largest oilfield for more than four-decades, such experience could prove vastly useful for Asian countries seeking greater exploitation of their onshore assets, namely India, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Pakistan. Story continues According to our Upstream Projects Database, there are over 35 onshore projects in these countries that are either in development, being appraised or expanded. Mongolia and Bangladesh represent more frontier options, and while Australia's underexplored onshore potential remains enticing, stigma towards onshore drilling poses a significant hurdle. The decision to re-organise DOC also suggests that CNPC will gradually curb spending at its oldest oilfield (Daqing), hitting China's overall crude production. Despite provisions of costly production maintenance works, both output volumes as well as revenues have been shrinking at Daqing for some time. From producing about 1.0mn b/d of crude oil at peak, current output at the field has declined to about 763,000b/d (still nearly 20.0% of China's total oil output). Fresh industry reports of more than a third of DOC's drilling facilities at Daqing being prepared to be mothballed suggests that the fall as further to go. Output declines at Daqing supports our negative outlook on China's long-term crude oil production, which we forecast to fall at an average rate of 1.0-2.0% per annum over the next 10 years. Instructively, output hit a seven-year low (in b/d terms) in October 2016, marking the eighth consecutive month that production has declined in y-o-y terms in the year to date. More From Singapore Business Review BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday declined to say if it supported an executive order by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declaring part of the disputed Scarborough Shoal a marine sanctuary off-limits to fishermen. The dispute over the Scarborough Shoal is one of several involving South East Asian countries seeking to counter China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. Since 2012, China has deployed its coastguard to block the shoal from Filipinos, despite its location within the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. Duterte plans to make a unilateral declaration barring fishermen from exploiting marine life at a tranquil lagoon that was central to years of bitter squabbling, and the basis of an arbitration case brought, and won, by the Philippines. The move, announced on Monday, was backed by Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Duterte's office has said. Asked about the announcement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China had made "appropriate arrangements" in the spirit of friendship to allow Philippine fishermen to operate around the shoal. "China's sovereignty and jurisdiction of Huangyan Island has not and will not change," Geng told a daily news briefing, using the Chinese name for the shoal. Xi and Duterte met on Saturday on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima, the Peruvian capital, and pledged to maintain the momentum of improving relations, Geng added. "We hope China and the Philippines can continue to strengthen dialogue and cooperation, and make the South China Sea issue a positive factor in promoting bilateral friendship and cooperation," Geng said. He made no mention of Duterte's marine sanctuary move. The establishment of a protected marine zone, if successful, could give both countries a face-saving way to break the diplomatic deadlock without making a political agreement or formal concessions. According to the plan announced by the Philippine president's office, fishermen of both countries can cast nets on the fringes of the lagoon, but not inside it, allowing fish stocks to be replenished. It is the latest gesture towards China in what has been an astonishing reversal of Philippine foreign policy under Duterte, who opted to befriend Beijing while admonishing longtime ally the United States for what he calls hypocrisy and bullying. China has softened its stance since Duterte returned from a high-profile trip to Beijing in October. Filipino fishermen who went near the shoal said China's coastguard was no longer driving them away, as it had done over the past four years. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) SHANGHAI, Nov 22 (Reuters) - China may name the first of its state-owned enterprises (SOE) to be restructured under a mixed-ownership system by the year-end, the business paper China Securities Journal reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources. Beijing has made reform of its huge, uncompetitive SOEs a priority as weak global demand weighs on economic growth and excess capacity and idle workers bleed what precious resources companies have at their disposal. The paper said that the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) plans to hold a meeting with SOEs to advise on restructuring plans and the next steps. SOE reform is widely expected to include the introduction of private capital and employee stock ownership among other things. The seven industries from which the first batch of SOEs will be drawn to take part in the pilot include power, oil, natural gas, railway, civil aviation, telecommunications and the military, said Pi Pumin, spokesman at the National Development and Reform Commission, the paper said. The commission had previously made clear that China Eastern Airlines Group, Unicom Group, China Southern Power Grid, Harbin Electric Corporation, China Nuclear E&C Group and China State Shipbuilding Corporation would be involved in the mixed-ownership reforms. In September, China launched a 350 billion yuan ($50.8 billion) state enterprise restructuring fund to advance its supply-side reforms. China will reduce the number of SOEs this year to no more than 100 from 106, state media reported in July, citing SASAC Deputy Secretary-General Peng Huagang, who added that 10 central SOEs were in talks to create five groups. ($1 = 6.8881 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Engen Tham and Wang Jing; Editing by Jacqueline Wong) BEIJING (Reuters) - China is giving shelter to more than 3,000 people who have fled Myanmar after fighting between the government and rebels, and stray shells have fallen inside China causing minor damage but no deaths, the government and state media said on Tuesday. Four ethnic armed groups have attacked security forces in the north of Myanmar, dealing a major blow to leader Aung San Suu Kyi's top goal of reaching peace with ethnic minorities. China, which has been alarmed by previous fighting along the porous border, has put its armed forces on high alert and called for all sides to exercise restraint. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said injured people among the 3,000 Myanmar citizens have been taken to hospital. The refugees are in the southwestern province of Yunnan, which shares a long border with Myanmar. "We strongly hope that both sides involved in the clash exercise restraint," Geng told a daily briefing. He urged both sides to immediately halt military action, avoid escalating the situation and take effective steps so that the border region returns to peace as soon as possible. "China is willing to keep playing a constructive role in Myanmar's internal peace process, in according with Myanmar's wishes," he added. China hopes those who have fled can return to Myanmar as soon as the fighting ends, Geng said. Stray shells have fallen in Wanding, an important border crossing, causing some minor damage, state television said. The Global Times newspaper also said a Chinese government building in Wanding had been lightly damaged. Only one Chinese resident had been injured, and fighting on the Myanmar side had subsided, Geng added. The sudden escalation of fighting comes as the Myanmar government grapples with a conflict in northwestern Rakhine that has sent hundreds of Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh, posing a new challenge to Nobel peace prize winner Suu Kyi, who swept to power last year on promises of national reconciliation. Previous fighting along the border pushed thousands of people into China. China was infuriated last year when five Chinese people were killed after fighting spilled into its territory. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) China hopes for "early results" in negotiations for a giant Asian trade pact, its foreign ministry said Tuesday after US President-elect Donald Trump vowed to ditch a rival deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump pledged in a short video message to signal the US's withdrawal from the TPP -- a vast, arduously negotiated agreement between 12 countries that does not include China -- on his first day in the White House. The TPP is the economic plank of outgoing US President Barack Obama's strategic rebalance to Asia, and the US's departure from the pact would render it toothless. Analysts say the move could give Beijing -- which backs the alternative Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) -- an opportunity to forge ahead with its own trade deals and fill a vacuum left by any American withdrawal. RCEP talks were pressing ahead, said foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, adding: "Now, we hope that such negotiations can achieve early results." RCEP brings together the 10 members of the Southeast Asian grouping ASEAN plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, but notably excludes the US. China hoped that trade agreements would "reinforce each other rather than undercut each other", Geng said. Shanghai University of International Business and Economics professor Bin Jiancheng told AFP that an American withdrawal from the TPP would "give China some opportunities and time to promote economic integration in Asia, including RCEP" and to expand its influence. He noted that the Asian giant's major role in global commerce -- it is the world's biggest trader in goods -- would protect it from being isolated or threatened by the TPP, whether or not the US took part. But it would still be hard to overtake the US's prominent global position. "Even if the US really does not go through with TPP it will still use other methods to maintain its leading role, and its ability to set rules in the Asia-Pacific region," Bin said. Story continues In a Chinese-language editorial Tuesday, Communist party mouthpiece the People's Daily said China-US relations were "too big to fail". It stressed the "special responsibilities" the pair had as the world's two largest economies. "It's not difficult to foresee that China-US cooperation can bring huge benefits to both countries and the world, but if there is constantly friction between them or even confrontations, it will bring disaster" to all, it added. (Photo: CNN's 'The Lead With Jake Tapper') CNN saw swift backlash from the media and viewers over an onscreen message that aired on Monday's The Lead With Jake Tapper. During a segment on President-elect Donald Trump's transition, CNN's Jim Sciutto spoke with two media correspondents about alt-right leader Richard Spencer and whether Trump needs to formally denounce and disavow alt-right groups. Sciutto quoted Spencer, the president of The National Policy Institute who coined the term alt-right, and described his words as hate-filled garbage against Jews. Spencers quote read, One wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem. The issue Twitter users had, however, was with the chyron at the bottom of the screen throughout the segment, which read: Alt-right founder questions if Jews are people. Politicos Hadas Gold *pinches self* im real! im a person!" and The Hills Jordan Fabian shared a screen grab with the words, Come on. Another user posted: Just b/c some idiot says it doesnt mean you put it on the chyron. *pinches self* im real! im a person! Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) November 21, 2016 Here is the segment. That chryon. These times. pic.twitter.com/5vXn5GM7ll Colin Jones (@colinjones) November 21, 2016 During the segment, Sciutto referred to Spencers supporters as unabashed racists and anti-Semites and the correspondents, Real Clear Politics Rebecca Berg and The Boston Globes Matt Viser, discussed how Trumps controversial appointment of Steve Bannon as chief strategist has only inflamed the alt-right conversation. Story continues Read more: Ringside With Steve Bannon at Trump Tower as the President-Elect's Strategist Plots "An Entirely New Political Movement" (Exclusive) I think the challenge for Trump and his team moving forward, said Berg, is going to be to assure people that people on the alt-right, white nationalists, do not have a voice in the Trump administration and do not have a place in the policies that they will be crafting when he is president. And I havent really seen those signals from them yet. She continued, Part of this is also political calculation. Theyve found that they need these people in their coalition to succeed, so can they disown them and cleanse their coalition of these people? See more of the reactions on social media below. This just happened on @CNN: Are Jews People? pic.twitter.com/SZD4mr1Vqc Maia Efrem (@maiaefrem) November 21, 2016 Hey @CNN. 1. You gotta call alt-right what it is - white supremacist. 2. Just b/c some idiot says it doesn't mean you put it on the chyron. https://t.co/HyvPMmjnWe Kai Ryssdal (@kairyssdal) November 21, 2016 Hey @CNN, please bring back those fact-checking chyrons from the campaign... https://t.co/2p462bcapW Kyle Orland (@KyleOrl) November 21, 2016 lots of self-reflection after the election for cable news, i see pic.twitter.com/eonH8ypOmq alyssa bereznak (@alyssabereznak) November 21, 2016 Hey @brianstelter, can you help us understand how this came about? Because as a Jew, it feels like CNN is aiding/abetting a new Nazi party. https://t.co/RJc2DG8mmo Mike Futter (@Futterish) November 21, 2016 I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say "yes" https://t.co/1ZwbFJO7po Ryan Teague Beckwith (@ryanbeckwith) November 21, 2016 I can confirm I am a person https://t.co/IbASZhoifO Ethan Hammerman (@Ethanhamm) November 21, 2016 we're real. and we're gonna be a HUGE pain in your ass, Nazis. pic.twitter.com/osshbJDdPI ADAM ROSE (@RealAdamRose) November 21, 2016 Read more: Anti-Defamation League Chief Talks Trump, Steve Bannon, the Next Four Years (Q&A) Big coal says President-elect Trump is on the right path for bringing the industry back . During an interview with the FOX Business Networks Charles Payne, Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray discussed how Trump can fire up coal country. Murray said if Trump eliminates regulation, ends the Paris Agreement and eliminate subsidies for windmills and solar panels to a level playing field, coal will come back. Murray, who has been outspoken about President Obamas energy policies, said Trump will be able to keep the coal mining industry on a steadier path. Studies show by universities that up to 11 jobs are created for each one of those 63,000 jobs. So, you can see that it is a million jobs that Mr. Obama eliminated with his policies in the most depressed areas of the United States of America. Now, Mr. Trump cant bring the coal industry back to what it was, Mr. Obama closed 411 coal mine units, but he [Trump] can stabilize where it is, he said. Murray said coal country can also capitalize overseas. There are 7.4 billion people on the planet, 1.3 billion of them do not have access to electricity so the world markets are demanding our coal. Indeed, last week China announced even though it supported the international climate tree that it is increasing its coal consumption by 20%, that was announced last week. So the world needs our coal, he said Murray also said the EIAs outlook for world electricity consumption is a great opportunity for American coal. Related Articles BOGOTA (Reuters) - A new peace accord between Colombia's government and Marxist FARC rebels will be signed on Thursday and sent to Congress for approval, the two sides said on Tuesday, bringing an end to the five-decade-long civil war ever closer. The revised document will be signed in Bogota between FARC leader Rodrigo Londono and President Juan Manuel Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last month for his efforts to end the conflict with the insurgent group. "Consolidation of peace requires that we advance with a firm step toward implementation of the accord that permits us to overcome so many years of conflict in Colombia," the government and FARC negotiating teams said in a joint statement. The government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been in talks in Havana, Cuba for the last four years, hammering out a deal to end a conflict that has killed more than 220,000 and displaced millions within the Andean country. The government published the revised peace deal last week in a bid to build support after the original draft was rejected in an Oct. 2 referendum amid objections it was too favorable to the rebels. Santos and Londono signed the original deal two months ago in an emotional ceremony before world leaders and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The decision to ratify the revised accord in Congress instead of holding another referendum will anger members of the opposition, particularly former President Alvaro Uribe who spearheaded the push to reject the original accord and wants deeper changes to the new version. The expanded and highly technical 310-page document appears to make only small modifications to the original text, such as clarifying private property rights and detailing more fully how the rebels would be confined in rural areas for crimes committed during the war. The FARC, which began as a rebellion fighting rural poverty has battled a dozen governments as well as right-wing paramilitary groups. An end to the war with the FARC is unlikely to end violence in Colombia as the lucrative cocaine business has given rise to dangerous criminal gangs and traffickers. Uribe has criticized it as just a tweaked version of the original and wants rebel leaders to be banned from holding public office and for them to be jailed for crimes. The government has said it will make no more changes to the deal. (Reporting by Helen Murphy, editing by G Crosse) medical marijuana patient dabbing oil concentrate A voter-approved initiative that would allow Denver residents to use marijuana in certain bars and restaurants is going up in smoke. Election Day, the nation's most pot-friendly city passed Initiative 300, a ballot measure which gives businesses the ability to create marijuana "consumption areas" onsite with special permitting. On November 18, state officials announced new regulations that would bar any establishment that holds a liquor license from taking advantage of Initiative 300. The BYO-bud law intends to make it easier for marijuana users to find social settings where they feel comfortable. It could also increase tax revenue from tourists and locals, who were previously prohibited from lighting up in public, and curb citations for breaking such law. Denver voters passed Initiative 300 with roughly 53% support, according to The Denver Post. The Colorado Department of Revenue's Liquor Enforcement Division overruled them on Friday, when it said that liquor licensees need not apply. The new rules found support from the Colorado Restaurant Association and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Statements from the two cited concerns about the dual-use of marijuana and alcohol in public and the failure of servers to identify customers who have had too much of either substance and may try to drive. President Obama has said marijuana is "no more dangerous than alcohol," but science tells us the two combined create dangers for the user. Getting drunk and getting high at the same time may cause more THC, the psychoactive ingredient in weed, to reach the brain via the bloodstream, according to a 2001 study out of Harvard Medical School. Dual-consumption may worsen marijuana's side effects, from impaired judgment to increased heart rate. More research is required on how pot and booze affect the brain and body. Story continues Denver's 9News points out that the new rule doesn't completely chokehold Intiative 300. While bars, restaurants, music venues, and event centers will likely be disqualified from the four-year pilot permitting program, there's still hope for cafes, yoga studios, and art galleries. Initiative 300's backers remain hopeful. "I would not be surprised if we see challenges," Mason Tavert, an organizer for Initiative 300, told 9News. "The rule was created to override what Denver voters approved." NOW WATCH: We went inside the grow facility that makes Colorado's number one marijuana strain More From Business Insider Moroni (Comoros) (AFP) - Though victory is yet to be officially declared, Comoros health authorities believe the three islands of the Indian Ocean archipelago are on the cusp of being malaria-free. "With eight cases in 2015 in Anjouan and three in Moheli, we can say we have reached the phase of total elimination of the epidemic, although sporadic cases are still recorded on the Grande Comore," said Mbae Toyb, a doctor with the Comorian Association for Family Welfare. After a 10-year anti-malaria campaign, health workers in the capital Moroni say the parasite is no more than a bad memory. "We can go for one or two months now without a single case," said a caregiver at El-Maarouf hospital. This has changed life for businessman Hassane Assoumane, who suffered recurrent attacks of the mosquito-borne disease that can be fatal if not diagnosed and treated early. "I was (like) a malaria subscriber," said Assoumane. "For me it was (like) my monthly period." "But for the last four years, nothing." The eradication of malaria from the impoverished islands off the coast of Mozambique is a huge accomplishment for their 800,000 inhabitants. It means fewer maternal and infant deaths, less absenteeism from work and school, and substantial financial savings. "Treatment for a child with malaria costs 15,000 francs ($33)," Assoumane says, and "if you add a brother, father, mother ..." Some 214 million cases of malaria were reported worldwide last year, killing 438,000 people, mainly in Africa, according to the World Health Organization. There is currently no vaccine against malaria, which is caused by parasites transmitted to people bitten by infected female mosquitoes. "Until 2004, the Comoros was ranked among countries with intense and perennial malaria transmission," affecting 40 percent of the population, especially children, said Toyb. - Awaiting certification - But in less than five years the number of deaths from malaria has fallen drastically to almost zero, he said. Story continues The Comoros launched its first five-year anti-malaria drive in 2005 with initial funding of $2.4 million from the Global Fund against malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. The targets of the drive were early treatment, prevention among pregnant women and the wide use of treated mosquito nets. But the key to its success was probably more attributable to a treatment blitz of Artequick, a combination drug therapy derived from a Chinese plant, artemisinin, and an antimalarial called piperaquine. Artemisinin, a derivative of a plant called sweet wormwood, has in recent years become the frontline anti-malarial drug, after chloroquine and sulphadoxine-pyrimethanine lost their parasite-killing powers. Its use has reduced the numbers of death to one in 10 in severe cases, according to experts. The therapy was first rolled out in Moheli, the smallest of the three islands which has a population of 40,000 people. In 2012, government extended the treatment to Anjouan island before taking it to the Grand Comore in 2013. The second five-year campaign valued at $11 million started in 2010. "The number of cases went from 54,078 in 2004 to 1,052 in 2015, a drop of more than 98 percent," said Toyb. Since 2014, the numbers of deaths from malaria have dropped to nearly zero at hospitals, said Toyb. What remains now is to ensure the gains achieved are sustained and to await WHO certification. "This is the most delicate phase," warns Toyb, adding that while some people still suffer from the disease, there have been no new infections. A new anti-malaria campaign to run until 2018 has already been launched with the backing of a team of Chinese practitioners. Cornrows and topknots made a huge splash on Diors Spring 2017 runway. This intricate hairstyle made for a stunning contrast with designer Maria Grazia Chiuris first collection for the fashion house, which was filled with whimsical whites, quilted cropped jackets, and tulle skirts. Redken global creative director Guido Palau (the mastermind behind this look) told Vogue, Though the references are tomboyish in a way, it still has a very feminine side thats quite pulled together in its simplicity. Inspired by this feminine-meets-masculine do, we tapped Kerastase consulting hairstylist Matt Fugate to show us how to recreate it in our own way. No judgment here if you need a little help. Tap a friend to lend a hand with this textured topknot, and be sure to return the favor! Step-by-step instructions 1. Section off hair into three parts and clip aside the front. 2. Mist back with Kerastase Elixier Ultime hair oil mist. This spray will add shine and enhance strength before braiding. 3. Tilt head forward and part hair to create cornrow. 4. Braid from the nape of the neck towards the middle of head and secure with a clear snag-free elastic. Repeat until you have four cornrows at the back. 5. Gather all four braids into one high ponytail and fold into a vertical loop. Wrap ends of hair around elastic holder and secure with bobby pins. 6. Spritz the topknot with hair oil. 7. Unclip front sections and brush and smooth towards the topknot. 8. Wrap each side around the loop and pin down, leaving a few ends out for contrast. 9. Set the hairstyle with a few spritzes of hair oil. Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Its been 10 years since Corbin Bleu sang and danced his way into fans hearts in High School Musical and hes still using his musical talents, this time on Broadway. The 27-year-old actor sat down with PEOPLE Now to discuss what advice hed give his younger self about the industry, and he had some wise words about integrity. Its mainly about continuing to do things that remain true to your heart, he said. Dont make any decisions or take any jobs either that are for a reason other than to stay true to you. Whether he knew it or not, it seems Bleu has taken the advice. Hes currently starring in the Broadway musical Holiday Inn, featuring the classic music of Irving Berlin, in New York City. Some familiar faces Zac Efron and Lucas Grabeel even came by recently to support him. @mrgrabeel and I saw @corbinbleu DANCE on AIR ala Fred Astaire last night, 28-year-old Efron, who played Bleus best bud in HSM, captioned an Instagram pic of the trio. President-elect Donald Trump hadn't yet decided on a secretary of education Tuesday. But it did seem clear that Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., a staunchly religious leader who backs creationism, would at least be involved in the Trump administration's education decisions. Falwell supported Trump throughout his campaign and met with the New York City real estate mogul last week after he won the presidency. Falwell would neither confirm nor deny that the top education job was brought up in the meeting, but did say he planned to assist Trump. "I let them know one of my passions is reforming higher education and education in general," Falwell told the Richmond Times-Dispatch last week. "I told them Id be willing I have a lot of responsibilities here but Id be willing to serve in some capacity that sort of brings education back to some form of sanity." Falwell told the Associated Press Friday he will "definitely play a role" in the administration. Liberty is located in Lynchburg, Virginia, and is the largest Christian college in the country. The school was founded in 1971 by Falwell's father, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr., a controversial televangelist. The family is well-known and influential among evangelical Christians, who largely supported Trump on Election Day, despite his penchant for brash language and his many controversies, including a tape in which he seemingly bragged about sexual assault. The younger Falwell is also no stranger to controversy. After a deadly mass shooting last year in San Bernardino, California, he urged Liberty University students to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons, claiming that if "more good people" had guns "we could end those Muslims before they walked in." Liberty, unlike some other universities with religious roots, weaves evangelical Christianity into just about everything on campus. There are rules against everything from alcohol use, to wearing shorts to class, or having sex outside of a so-called traditionally biblical marriage. And while the school has advanced science equipment and classes, faculty members also "take pride in teaching evolution alongside biblical creationism," despite the vast majority of the scientific community accepting evolution, the Washington Post reported. Story continues A number of Liberty students came out against Trump in October after a 2005 tape leaked that showed Trump bragging about grabbing women by genitalia. Falwell stood by the then-GOP nominee, and now the evangelical leader seems poised to help shape the president-elect's administration. Falwell might not be the secretary of education, however. Buzzfeed News reported Monday the two finalists were school reformer Michelle Rhee and Republican donor Betsy DeVos. Related Articles Paris (AFP) - She made her name in hit TV drama "Borgen," but only a few years later Danish actress Sidse Babett Knudsen is juggling coveted small- and big-screen roles on both sides of the Atlantic. It is all a long way from her Copenhagen roots -- especially for an actress who spent a long time struggling, before finally making the big time. The award-winning 47-year-old, who played Denmark's first female prime minister in the political drama, is currently starring alongside Hollywood veteran Tom Hanks in "Inferno" by Oscar-winning director Ron Howard. At the same time on the small screen she is in hit US sci-fi western thriller "Westworld" with Anthony Hopkins. Back in Europe she won a Cesar, France's version of the Oscars, this year for "L'hermine," while her latest Gallic outing is in "La Fille de Brest" after French film icon Catherine Deneuve suggested her for the role. When director Emmanuelle Bercot offered her the part, the elegant blue-eyed actress didn't believe him at first. "I was like 'What are they thinking?' because I don't speak French very well. I thought maybe somebody told them I was half French because I studied in France," she told AFP, sitting in a plush Paris hotel. "Maybe they thought that was it," she added. Much like in "Borgen," for which she shared a BAFTA award, she loves playing strong and intelligent women. "I love being in the skin of courageous people. That inspires me," she said. "When I read a part, either I think it makes the world smaller or the world bigger. I want to go towards those where I see the world getting bigger." In "Inferno," she plays the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), while in HBO megaseries "Westworld" she is the operations manager of a futuristic amusement park. "It's been wonderful to work in such different places and in such different settings. I really liked that," she said. Story continues - Childhood ambition - Born in Copenhagen to a photographer father and teacher mother, she spent part of her childhood in Tanzania -- but she decided at the tender age of eight that she wanted to be an actress. But it was only 10 years later, when she arrived in France with a bicycle to be an au pair, that she started doing something about her ambition to be on the big screen. Between odd jobs she took acting lessons, indulged her love for cinema and spent lots of time in the Pompidou Centre, where she learned French by reading a translation of Kafka's Metamorphosis. But after six years she decided to return to Copenhagen, tired of struggling to make ends meet. "I came back because it was not easy being (in Paris) I had no place to live and it was just going around with your hat, asking for jobs all the time. It became a bit too hard," she said. Back in her home town, "a friend of mine did (Ibsen's) 'Peer Gynt', and she asked me to come to Dan, and I thought 'Yeah, do that'." Further parts with the same theatre group followed. Her cinema breakthrough came in the 1997 improvisational comedy "Let's Get Lost," which won her a best actress Bodil, Denmark's version of Hollywood's famous golden statuettes. She followed that in 1999 with romantic comedy "The One and Only" by Susanne Bier, and seven years later "After The Wedding" with Mads Mikkelsen. But she really made the big time with "Borgen," which hit TV screens in 2010. The Danish TV series, in which she plays premier Birgitte Nyborg, has been a hit around the world, with one US critic comparing it to Emmy and Golden Globe-winning political drama "The West Wing". As she entered her 40s, it changed her life. "Absolutely," she said. "The consequences of 'Borgen' did, because I'm here now, finally. It has opened a lot of doors." [November 21, 2016] Palo Alto Networks Reports Fiscal First Quarter 2017 Financial Results SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW), the next-generation security company, today announced financial results for its fiscal first quarter 2017 ended October 31, 2016. Total revenue for the fiscal first quarter 2017 grew 34 percent year over year to $398.1 million, compared with total revenue of $297.2 million for the fiscal first quarter 2016. GAAP net loss for the fiscal first quarter 2017 was $61.8 million, or $0.69 per diluted share, compared with GAAP net loss of $39.9 million, or $0.47 per diluted share, for the fiscal first quarter 2016. Non-GAAP net income for the fiscal first quarter 2017 was $51.2 million, or $0.55 per diluted share, compared with non-GAAP net income of $30.8 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, for the fiscal first quarter 2016. A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP information is contained in the tables below. "Our first quarter 2017 results underscore that our Next-Generation Security Platform uniquely solves customers' most complex security challenges," said Mark McLaughlin, chief executive officer of Palo Alto Networks. "Our platform's ability to provide high degrees of prevention, automation, leverage and consistent security, regardless of wherever data may be, is becoming increasingly important in the face of today's important macro technology changes. As a result, customers and prospects globally are adopting our platform at high rates." "In the first quarter fiscal 2017, we added well over 1,500 new customers and saw broad adoption of our Next-Generation Security Platform by our existing customer base. We are now privileged to serve more than 35,500 customers worldwide," commented Steffan Tomlinson, chief financial officer of Palo Alto Networks. "The power of our hybrid-SaaS model was also evident as we continued to grow multiples of our total addressable market at scale, resulting in record quarterly deferred revenue, cash flow from operations of $203.3 million, and free cash flow of $182.4 million." Recent Highlights Teamed with leading Service Providers in APAC We recently signed agreements with leading service providers in APAC, helping partners reach new revenue sources. Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (Singtel) is offering its new Managed Advanced Threat Prevention Service, a unique managed security service that harnesses the expertise of Singtel Managed Security Service and the technology of Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform, including AutoFocus contextual threat intelligence, to protect large enterprise organizations against sophisticated cyberthreats. Meanwhile M1 Limited (M1) is offering Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall as part of its Cyber Security Solution to enterprise customers, delivering an industry-leading, carrier-grade, cloud-based "internet clean pipe" solution to protect the enterprise's network and architecture without sacrificing effectiveness or performance. We recently signed agreements with leading service providers in APAC, helping partners reach new revenue sources. Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (Singtel) is offering its new Managed Advanced Threat Prevention Service, a unique managed security service that harnesses the expertise of Singtel Managed Security Service and the technology of Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform, including AutoFocus contextual threat intelligence, to protect large enterprise organizations against sophisticated cyberthreats. Meanwhile M1 Limited (M1) is offering Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall as part of its Cyber Security Solution to enterprise customers, delivering an industry-leading, carrier-grade, cloud-based "internet clean pipe" solution to protect the enterprise's network and architecture without sacrificing effectiveness or performance. Verified that Traps helps customers meet HIPAA and PCI cybersecurity compliance requirements Our Traps advanced endpoint protection offering received independent verification from Coalfire Systems, a respected leader in cyber risk management and compliance services and a Qualified Security Assessor, that it meets specific cybersecurity requirements outlined by both Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, concluding that organizations in the healthcare and financial sectors can replace legacy antivirus endpoint products with Traps while remaining compliant with federal law and industry standards. Our Traps advanced endpoint protection offering received independent verification from Coalfire Systems, a respected leader in cyber risk management and compliance services and a Qualified Security Assessor, that it meets specific cybersecurity requirements outlined by both Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, concluding that organizations in the healthcare and financial sectors can replace legacy antivirus endpoint products with Traps while remaining compliant with federal law and industry standards. Continued cyber education efforts with new cybersecurity guides for C-suites and boards In conjunction with industry experts, we published regionally tailored guides in both France and Australia designed to provide executives and directors practical advice on a range of cybersecurity issues, including compliance and breach avoidance, prevention and response. In conjunction with industry experts, we published regionally tailored guides in both and designed to provide executives and directors practical advice on a range of cybersecurity issues, including compliance and breach avoidance, prevention and response. Appointed Mary Pat McCarthy to the board of directors Ms. McCarthy joined our board and audit committee and brings more than 34 years of experience in financial and accounting matters. Ms. McCarthy has served in numerous senior leadership positions at KPMG LLP, most recently as vice chair, and on various other boards and audit committees. Financial Outlook Palo Alto Networks provides guidance based on current market conditions and expectations. For the fiscal second quarter 2017, we expect: Total revenue in the range of $426 to $432 million , representing year-over-year growth between 27 percent and 29 percent. , representing year-over-year growth between 27 percent and 29 percent. Diluted non-GAAP net income per share in the range of $0.61 to $0.63 using 93.5 to 95.5 million shares. Guidance for non-GAAP financial measures excludes share-based compensation related charges, including share-based payroll tax expense, acquisition related costs, amortization expense of acquired intangible assets, litigation related charges including legal settlements, non-cash interest expense related to our convertible senior notes, foreign currency gains (losses) and income and other tax effects associated with these items, and certain non-recurring expenses. We have not reconciled diluted non-GAAP net income per share guidance to GAAP net income (loss) per diluted share because we do not provide guidance on GAAP net income (loss) and would not be able to present the various reconciling cash and non-cash items between GAAP net income (loss) and non-GAAP net income (loss), including share-based compensation expense, without unreasonable efforts. Share-based compensation expense is impacted by the company's future hiring and retention needs and, to a lesser extent, the future fair market value of the company's common stock, all of which is difficult to predict and subject to constant change. While the actual amounts of such reconciling items will have a significant impact on the company's GAAP net income (loss) per diluted share, a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measure guidance to the corresponding GAAP measure is not available without unreasonable effort. Conference Call Information Palo Alto Networks will host a conference call for analysts and investors to discuss its fiscal first quarter 2017 results and outlook for its fiscal second quarter 2017 today at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time/1:30 p.m. Pacific time. Open to the public, investors may access the call by dialing 1-877-856-1958 or 1-719-325-4825 and using conference ID 3370101. A live audio webcast of the conference call, along with supplemental financial information, will also be accessible from the "Investors" section of our website at investors.paloaltonetworks.com. Following the webcast, an archived version will be available on our website for one year. A telephonic replay of the call will be available three hours after the call, will run for ten days, and may be accessed by dialing 1-888-203-1112 or 1-719-457-0820 and entering the passcode 3370101. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding our future financial and operating performance, including our financial outlook for the fiscal second quarter 2017, and the increasing importance of our platform's ability to provide high degrees of prevention, automation, leverage and security consistently. There are a significant number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from statements made in this press release, including: our limited operating history, which makes it difficult to predict future results; risks associated with managing our rapid growth; our limited experience with new product and subscription and support introductions and the risks associated with new products and subscription and support offerings, including software bugs; the failure to timely develop and achieve market acceptance of new products and subscriptions as well as existing products and subscription and support; rapidly evolving technological developments in the market for network security products and subscription and support offerings; length of sales cycles; and general market, political, economic and business conditions. Additional risks and uncertainties that could affect our financial results are included under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on September 8, 2016, which is available on our website at investors.paloaltonetworks.com and on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Additional information will also be set forth in other filings that we make with the SEC from time to time. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we do 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. Non-GAAP Financial Measures and Other Key Metrics Palo Alto Networks has provided in this press release financial information that has not been prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (GAAP). The company uses these non-GAAP financial measures and key metrics internally in analyzing its financial results and believes that the use of these non-GAAP financial measures and key metrics is useful to investors as an additional tool to evaluate ongoing operating results and trends and in comparing the company's financial results with other companies in its industry, many of which present similar non-GAAP financial measures or key metrics. The presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures and key metrics are not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for comparable GAAP financial measures, and should be read only in conjunction with the company's consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of the company's historical non-GAAP financial measures and key metrics to their most directly comparable GAAP measures has been provided in the financial statement tables included in this press release, and investors are encouraged to review these reconciliations. Non-GAAP net income and net income per share, diluted. Palo Alto Networks defines non-GAAP net income as net income (loss) plus share-based compensation related charges including share-based payroll tax expense, acquisition related costs, amortization expense of acquired intangible assets, litigation related charges including legal settlements, non-cash interest expense related to the company's convertible senior notes, and intellectual property restructuring related charges. The company also excludes from non-GAAP net income the foreign currency gains (losses) and tax effects associated with these items in order to provide a complete picture of the company's recurring core business operating results. The company defines non-GAAP net income per share, diluted, as non-GAAP net income divided by the weighted average diluted shares outstanding after giving effect to the anti-dilutive impact of the company's note hedge agreements, which reduces the potential economic dilution that otherwise would occur upon conversion of the company's convertible senior notes. Under GAAP, the anti-dilutive impact of the note hedge is not reflected in diluted shares outstanding. Palo Alto Networks believes that excluding these items from non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP net income per share, diluted, provides management and investors with greater visibility into the underlying performance of the company's core business operating results, meaning its operating performance excluding these items and, from time to time, other discrete charges that are infrequent in nature, over multiple periods. Billings. Palo Alto Networks defines billings as total revenue plus the change in total deferred revenue during the period. The company considers billings to be a key metric used by management to manage the company's business given the company's hybrid-SaaS revenue model, and believes billings provides investors with an important indicator of the health and visibility of the company's business because it includes subscription and support revenue, which is recognized ratably over the contractual service period, and product revenue, which is recognized at the time of shipment, provided that all other revenue recognition criteria have been met. The company considers billings to be a useful metric for management and investors, particularly if sales of subscriptions continue to increase and the company experiences strong renewal rates for subscription and support offerings. Free cash flow. Palo Alto Networks defines free cash flow as cash provided by operating activities less purchases of property, equipment, and other assets. The company considers free cash flow to be a profitability and liquidity measure that provides useful information to management and investors about the amount of cash generated by the business after necessary capital expenditures. Investors are cautioned that there are a number of limitations associated with the use of non-GAAP financial measures and key metrics as analytical tools. In particular, the billings metric reported by the company includes amounts that have not yet been recognized as revenue and free cash flow does not represent the total increase or decrease in our cash balance for the period. In addition, many of the adjustments to the company's GAAP financial measures reflect the exclusion of items that are recurring and will be reflected in the company's financial results for the foreseeable future, such as share-based compensation, which is an important part of Palo Alto Networks employees' compensation and impacts their performance. Furthermore, these non-GAAP financial measures are not based on any standardized methodology prescribed by GAAP, and the components that Palo Alto Networks excludes in its calculation of non-GAAP financial measures may differ from the components that its peer companies exclude when they report their non-GAAP results of operations. Palo Alto Networks compensates for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from these non-GAAP financial measures. In the future, the company may also exclude non-recurring expenses and other expenses that do not reflect the company's core business operating results. About Palo Alto Networks Palo Alto Networks is the next-generation security company, leading a new era in cybersecurity by safely enabling applications and preventing cyber breaches for tens of thousands of organizations worldwide. Built with an innovative approach and highly differentiated cyberthreat prevention capabilities, our game-changing security platform delivers security far superior to legacy or point products, safely enables daily business operations, and protects an organization's most valuable assets. Find out more at www.paloaltonetworks.com. Palo Alto Networks and the Palo Alto Networks logo are trademarks of Palo Alto Networks, Inc. in the United States and in jurisdictions throughout the world. All other trademarks, trade names or service marks used or mentioned herein belong to their respective owners. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. Preliminary Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations (In millions, except per share data) (Unaudited) Three Months Ended October 31, 2016 2015 (As Adjusted)(1) Revenue: Product $ 163.8 $ 147.7 Subscription and support 234.3 149.5 Total revenue 398.1 297.2 Cost of revenue: Product 42.2 38.8 Subscription and support 59.1 40.4 Total cost of revenue 101.3 79.2 Total gross profit 296.8 218.0 Operating expenses: Research and development 84.6 59.7 Sales and marketing 220.3 159.5 General and administrative 41.8 30.8 Total operating expenses 346.7 250.0 Operating loss (49.9) (32.0) Interest expense (6.0) (5.8) Other income, net 2.5 2.2 Loss before income taxes (53.4) (35.6) Provision for income taxes 8.4 4.3 Net loss $ (61.8) $ (39.9) Net loss per share, basic and diluted $ (0.69) $ (0.47) Weighted-average shares used to compute net loss per share, basic and diluted 89.8 85.1 (1) Certain amounts have been adjusted as a result of the Company's change in accounting policy for sales commissions. Refer to Appendix A for more information. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures (In millions, except per share amounts) (Unaudited) Three Months Ended October 31, 2016 2015 (As Adjusted)(1) GAAP net loss $ (61.8) $ (39.9) Share-based compensation related charges 116.5 75.2 Amortization expense of acquired intangible assets 2.1 2.1 Litigation related charges 3.1 3.1 Non-cash interest expense related to convertible notes 6.0 5.8 Foreign currency gains associated with non-GAAP adjustments (0.2) (0.8) Income tax and other tax adjustments related to the above (14.5) (14.7) Non-GAAP net income $ 51.2 $ 30.8 GAAP net loss per share, diluted $ (0.69) $ (0.47) Share-based compensation related charges 1.28 0.86 Amortization expense of acquired intangible assets 0.02 0.02 Litigation related charges 0.03 0.04 Non-cash interest expense related to convertible notes 0.07 0.07 Foreign currency gains associated with non-GAAP adjustments 0.00 (0.01) Income tax and other tax adjustments related to the above (0.16) (0.17) Non-GAAP net income per share, diluted $ 0.55 $ 0.34 GAAP weighted-average shares used to compute net loss per share, diluted 89.8 85.1 Weighted-average effect of potentially dilutive securities(2) 3.4 5.6 Non-GAAP weighted-average shares used to compute net income per share, diluted 93.2 90.7 Net cash provided by operating activities $ 203.3 $ 146.7 Less: purchases of property, equipment, and other assets 20.9 19.5 Free cash flow $ 182.4 $ 127.2 Net cash used in investing activities $ (71.2) $ (263.5) Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities $ (27.1) $ 16.8 (1) Certain amounts have been adjusted as a result of the Company's change in accounting policy for sales commissions. Refer to Appendix A for more information. (2) Non-GAAP net income per share, diluted, includes the potentially dilutive effect of employee equity incentive plan awards and convertible senior notes outstanding. In addition, non-GAAP net income per share, diluted, includes the anti-dilutive impact of the Company's note hedge agreements, which reduced the potentially dilutive effect of the convertible notes for the three months ended October 31, 2016 and October 31, 2015 by 1.5 million shares and 1.8 million shares, respectively. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. Calculation of Billings (In millions) (Unaudited) Three Months Ended October 31, 2016 2015 Total revenue $ 398.1 $ 297.2 Add: change in total deferred revenue 118.8 90.8 Billings $ 516.9 $ 388.0 Palo Alto Networks, Inc. Preliminary Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (In millions) (Unaudited) October 31, 2016 July 31, 2016 (As Adjusted)(1) Assets Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 839.4 $ 734.4 Short-term investments 550.6 551.2 Accounts receivable, net 346.5 348.7 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 129.4 139.7 Total current assets 1,865.9 1,774.0 Property and equipment, net 125.0 117.2 Long-term investments 708.4 652.8 Goodwill 163.5 163.5 Intangible assets, net 41.7 44.0 Other assets 102.0 106.7 Total assets $ 3,006.5 $ 2,858.2 Liabilities, temporary equity, and stockholders' equity Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 29.2 $ 30.2 Accrued compensation 59.0 73.5 Accrued and other liabilities 48.4 39.2 Deferred revenue 758.1 703.9 Convertible senior notes, net 506.2 Total current liabilities 1,400.9 846.8 Convertible senior notes, net 500.2 Long-term deferred revenue 601.5 536.9 Other long-term liabilities 85.8 79.4 Temporary equity 61.4 Stockholders' equity: Preferred stock Common stock and additional paid-in capital 1,542.2 1,515.5 Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) (1.9) 1.0 Accumulated deficit (683.4) (621.6) Total stockholders' equity 856.9 894.9 Total liabilities, temporary equity, and stockholders' equity $ 3,006.5 $ 2,858.2 (1) Certain amounts have been adjusted as a result of the Company's change in accounting policy for sales commissions. Refer to Appendix A for more information. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. Preliminary Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (In millions) (Unaudited) Three Months Ended October 31, 2016 2015 (As Adjusted)(1) Cash flows from operating activities Net loss $ (61.8) $ (39.9) Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash provided by operating activities: Share-based compensation for equity based awards 114.2 72.9 Depreciation and amortization 13.6 9.2 Amortization of investment premiums, net of accretion of purchase discounts 0.7 0.8 Amortization of debt discount and debt issuance costs 6.0 5.7 Excess tax benefit from share-based compensation arrangements (0.2) (0.2) Changes in operating assets and liabilities: Accounts receivable, net 2.2 16.0 Prepaid expenses and other assets 10.1 7.3 Accounts payable 1.8 5.2 Accrued compensation (14.5) (27.0) Accrued and other liabilities 12.4 5.9 Deferred revenue 118.8 90.8 Net cash provided by operating activities 203.3 146.7 Cash flows from investing activities Purchases of investments (285.7) (512.5) Proceeds from sales of investments 124.4 Proceeds from maturities of investments 235.4 144.1 Purchases of property, equipment, and other assets (20.9) (19.5) Net cash used in investing activities (71.2) (263.5) Cash flows from financing activities Repurchases of common stock (50.0) Proceeds from sales of shares through employee equity incentive plans 22.7 16.6 Excess tax benefit from share-based compensation arrangements 0.2 0.2 Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities (27.1) 16.8 Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents 105.0 (100.0) Cash and cash equivalents - beginning of period 734.4 375.8 Cash and cash equivalents - end of period $ 839.4 $ 275.8 (1) Certain amounts have been adjusted as a result of the Company's change in accounting policy for sales commissions. Refer to Appendix A for more information. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. Appendix A Change in Accounting Policy (Unaudited) Effective August 1, 2016, the Company voluntarily changed its accounting policy for sales commissions that are incremental and directly related to non-cancelable customer sales contracts from recording an expense when incurred to deferral and amortization of the sales commissions over the term of the related contract in proportion to the recognized revenue. The adoption of this accounting policy change has been applied retrospectively to all prior periods presented in this document, in which the cumulative effect of the change has been reflected as of the beginning of the earliest period presented. The following tables present the changes to financial statement line items as a result of the accounting change for the periods presented in the Company's preliminary condensed consolidated financial statements (in millions, except per share data): October 31, 2016 July 31, 2016 Computed under Prior Method Impact of Commission Adjustment As Reported As Previously Reported Impact of Commission Adjustment As Adjusted Preliminary Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets Prepaid expenses and other current assets $ 75.4 $ 54.0 $ 129.4 $ 84.8 $ 54.9 $ 139.7 Other assets 53.6 48.4 102.0 64.6 50.1 114.7 Other long-term liabilities 85.0 0.8 85.8 79.4 79.4 Accumulated deficit $ (785.0) $ 101.6 $ (683.4) $ (726.6) $ 105.0 $ (621.6) Three Months Ended October 31, 2016 Three Months Ended October 31, 2015 Computed under Prior Method Impact of Commission Adjustment As Reported As Previously Reported Impact of Commission Adjustment As Adjusted Preliminary Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations Sales and marketing $ 217.7 $ 2.6 $ 220.3 $ 158.3 $ 1.2 $ 159.5 Operating loss (47.3) (2.6) $ (49.9) (30.8) (1.2) (32.0) Provision for income taxes 7.6 0.8 8.4 4.3 4.3 Net loss $ (58.4) $ (3.4) $ (61.8) $ (38.7) $ (1.2) $ (39.9) Net loss per share, basic and diluted $ (0.65) $ (0.04) $ (0.69) $ (0.45) $ (0.02) $ (0.47) Weighted-average shares used to compute net loss per share, basic and diluted 89.8 89.8 85.1 85.1 This change in accounting policy does not affect the Company's balance of cash and cash equivalents and, as a result, did not change net cash flows from operating, investing, or financing activities or materially impact any individual line items in the Company's preliminary condensed consolidated statement of cash flows for the three months ended October 31, 2015. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160712/388902LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/palo-alto-networks-reports-fiscal-first-quarter-2017-financial-results-300366786.html SOURCE Palo Alto Networks, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Incumbent has had 30-year diplomatic career; former Ukip leader has worked hard to align himself with Donald Trump Sir Kim Darroch (left) began his posting to the US this year; Nigel Farage met the president-elect at Trump Tower NYC. Composite: Getty/PA Kim Darroch Most people outside international politics had not heard of Sir Kim Darroch until January this year, when he started in his post as British ambassador to the US. The diplomat was widely ridiculed and likened to a robot for posing awkwardly with Barack Obama during his first photo opportunity in the White House. While Obama grinned and placed his hand on Darrochs back, the Briton stared blank-faced at the camera, arms hanging rigidly by his side. Honoured to present my credentials to @POTUS today as British Ambassador to the US. Excited to get to work! pic.twitter.com/1kk5tVjoiq Kim Darroch (@KimDarroch) January 28, 2016 Thanks for the feedback everyone! All publicity welcome. And I promise I'm more excited about the new job than I look in that photo. Kim Darroch (@KimDarroch) February 1, 2016 But Darroch is a veteran on the diplomatic stage, with a career that spans three decades. He served as David Camerons national security adviser from 2012 to 2015, acting as secretary of the National Security Council and leading on issues such as the rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Russian aggression in Ukraine, the nuclear threat from Iran and the collapse of government authority in Libya. Prior to this, Darroch focused on European Union policy: he joined the Foreign Office in 1976 after graduation and was appointed to the Diplomatic Service in 1980. He served as EU adviser to the PM and head of the cabinet office European secretariat from 2004 to 2007, and in Brussels as the UK permanent representative to the EU from 2007 to 2011. This experience positioned him as a remainer during the EU referendum campaign, when he argued that the UK would be stronger, safer, and better off in a reformed Europe. Story continues Darroch was born in the village of South Stanly in County Durham and attended the independent Abingdon school before studying zoology at Durham University. Most recently, he was accused by rightwingers of attempting to exploit Trumps inexperience after a diplomatic memo he sent to No 10 following Trumps victory was leaked. The president-elect is above all an outsider and unknown quantity, whose campaign pronouncements may reveal his instincts, but will surely evolve and, particularly, be open to outside influence if pitched right, the memo read. Nigel Farage Nigel Farage has no diplomatic experience but worked hard to align himself with Trump during the US election campaign and even joined the president-elect at a rally in Jacksonville. Trump often compared his campaign to that behind the successful call for the UK to leave the EU, mentioning Farage in his speeches and referring to himself as Mr Brexit. Following Trumps election, the two met again at Trump Tower in Manhattan, which is where this photo was taken: It was a great honour to spend time with @realDonaldTrump. He was relaxed and full of good ideas. I'm confident he will be a good President. pic.twitter.com/kx8cGRHYPQ Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) November 12, 2016 Many have deemed it somewhat peculiar for Farage to be thrust into the international spotlight as a model of success, having tried and failed seven times to become an MP, the last attempt taking place in South Thanet in the 2015 general election. But while he has never sat in Westminster, Farage was elected MEP for South East England in 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014. In the 2009 European parliamentary elections, under his leadership, Ukip won the second largest share of the vote, defeating Labour and the Liberal Democrats with more than 2 million votes. The partys subsequent victory in 2014 marked the first time in modern history that neither Labour nor the Conservatives won an election held across the UK. Farage left the Conservative party in 1992 after the signing of the Maastricht treaty and became a founding member of Ukip. He has served as leader of the party three times: from September 2006 to November 2009, then from November 2010 to September 2016, and, most recently, from October 2016. Each time he resigned something drew him back, whether it was because his party refused to accept his resignation or because the new leader stepped down. Farage was born in Downe, just outside London, and attended the independent Dulwich College, from where he went to work in the City at companies including Drexel Burnham Lambert, Credit Lyonnais Rouse, Refco and Natexis Metals. He was ranked second in the Daily Telegraphs top 100 most influential rightwingers list in 2013, behind then prime minister David Cameron, and was named Briton of the year by the Times in 2014. This year, he was the receiver of the Spectators lifetime achievement award for his work in ensuring that a referendum on membership of the EU was finally held in Britain. Photo credit: undefined From Esquire Dave Chappelle helped lead Saturday Night Live to its best ratings in three years, and his hosting duties helped everyone heal after a shocking election result. And he's not stopping there. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he's signed a deal with Netflix to air his first comedy specials in 12 years. Two of the specials will be from his own personal vault; one was filmed in Austin in April 2015 and the other was filmed in Los Angeles in March of this year. The third will be a new original special, created just for Netflix. And all three will be released at the exact same time, sometime in 2017. Haven't binge-watched stand-up comedy on Netflix before? Now you will. "Dave Chappelle is a legendary voice in comedy-searing, vital, and now more than ever, essential," Lisa Nishimura, VP of original documentary and comedy, said in a statement. "Dave's three new specials promise to be some of the most anticipated events in comedy, and we are honored he will mark his global return on Netflix." This isn't the only major stand-up deal from Netflix lately. Chris Rock, who showed up in a sketch with Chappelle on SNL, recently signed a whopping $40 million deal for two new stand-up specials. So even though 2017 looks to be a gloomy year, at least we'll be able to laugh about it. You Might Also Like gg David Sutcliffe is well aware that Gilmore Girls junkies have decidedly mixed feelings about his place in the Stars Hollow canon. In fact, he knows that theres a certain sect of Gilmore fandom that pretty much despises his character, Christopher, for the role he played in impeding the romance of Lorelai and Luke. And get this: Hes totally cool with it. RELATEDGilmore Girls Lauren Graham on Reuniting With Melissa McCarthy in Revival: I Was a Complete Mess Its the best to be hated, Sutcliffe gamely mused to me Friday at the world premiere of Netflixs Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life (out Friday). Being loved is overrated. Being hated is where its at. I feel so happy that so many of the fans hate me because it stirs of [their] emotions. Still, the actor was willing to extend an olive branch to his haters by confirming that the revival does not replay one of the darkest days in Gilmore history Christopher and Lorelais sudden, polarizing Season 7 elopement. They dont go off to Paris and get married again, he maintains. They definitely do not. Watch my complete Sutcliffe Q&A above and then check back in the coming hours and days for more from Stars Hollows elite as TVLines 18 Days of Gilmore scoop countdown continues. Launch Gallery: 'Gilmore Girls': Guest Stars Who Became Famous Related stories Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life: The 'Summer' of Their Discontent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life Recap: 'Spring' Is For (Troubled) Lovers Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life Recap: 'Winter' Is a Fan's Wonderland President-elect Donald Trumps soldierly experience consists of attending a private military academy for high school and getting a medical deferment from the Vietnam Era draft. But his incoming administration could include more brass than the spent ammo after a firefight. Related: Trump Has Another Job to Fill as Top US Intelligence Chief Resigns Three-star General Mike Flynn, who was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency by President Obama, is Trumps choice for National Security Adviser. Flynn claims that he was let go after a relatively short stint because Obama would not listen to his warning that ISIS was, as he has said often, an existential threat. However, a column on Monday in the conservative National Review makes a strong case that Flynn was given his walking papers because of his management style though no one disputes that he was correct in his predictions about the Islamic State. But the reason for his ouster is at this point irrelevant. He will be at Trumps elbow advising on a range of sensitive issues. At the other elbow will be another adviser with military experience and less obvious national security chops, the much maligned campaign mastermind and now White House strategist-to-be Steve Bannon. Before he was executive chairman of Breitbart News, before he was a renegade filmmaker, before he was a Harvard MBA at Goldman Sachs, Bannon was a Naval officer. According to a prescient profile in Bloomberg Businessweek in October, 2015, after four years at sea on a destroyer, Bannon became a special assistant to the chief of Naval operations at the Pentagon, earning a masters degree in national security studies at Georgetown University at night. Related: Who Is Steve Bannon? 13 Things to Know About Trumps New Political Guru Nobody would ever accuse the hang-loose Bannon of being a strack trooper, but if Trump is looking for a more ramrod military appointment, he has former Marine General James Mad Dog Mattis waiting in the wings to be Secretary of Defense. Story continues Like Flynn, Mattis clashed with the Obama Administration when he was commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010-2013 and by all accounts was forced out in January 2013. He is now said to be on the short-short list to run Defense. On Sunday, Trump tweeted: General James 'Mad Dog' Mattis, who is being considered for Secretary of Defense, was very impressive yesterday. A true General's General! But Mattis has a problem called The Code of Laws of the United States of America. The relevant law reads: There is a Secretary of Defense, who is the head of the Department of Defense, appointed from civilian life by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. A person may not be appointed as Secretary of Defense within seven years after relief from active duty as a commissioned officer of a regular component of an armed force. The seven-year rule can be waived by Congress, and there is historical precedent: In 1950, President Harry Truman requested and got a waiver for General George Marshall to serve as Defense Secretary, but there hasnt been an exception asked for or granted since then. In addition, Mattis has support among senators such as John McCain of Arizona, a former Naval combat pilot, POW and, importantly, chair of the Armed Services Committee. Related: Why Americas Generals Should Stand Up, Not Shut Up Another ousted general mentioned by Trump on the campaign trail but not during the transition process is Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan summarily fired by Obama in June 2010. A cerebral and much decorated proponent of special ops warfare, McChrystal was discharged after Rolling Stone ran a story in which he ridiculed Vice President Joe Biden and criticized the administration. While Obama denied that he fired the general out of any sense of personal insult, few people bought that line. McChrystal, whose intelligence chief in Afghanistan was Flynn, would need a waiver to be Defense Secretary, too, but he would be almost at the seven-year mark when the new administration takes office. And he could be a candidate for a role other than at DOD. A spokesperson for McChrystal, who now runs an eponymous consulting firm, said today that the ex-general was not granting interviews. Even Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic representative from Hawaii and Bernie Sanders supporter who met with Trump on Monday and has been mentioned as a candidate for a Cabinet post, has military experience. She is not an ex-general, but she is an Iraq War veteran. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: Deadly school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tenn. Flowers, signs and stuffed animals make up a makeshift memorial outside Woodmore Elementary School Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016, in Chattanooga, Tenn. A school bus driven by Johnthony Walker, 24, crashed while transporting children home from the school Monday, killing at least five students. Walker has been arrested on charges including vehicular homicide, reckless driving and reckless endangerment. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) A school bus driver has been arrested in connection to a crash that killed five young children in Tennessee. Of the five deaths, interim superintendent Kirk Kelly of the Hamilton County Department of Education told reporters on Nov. 22, three of the children were in fourth-grade, one was in first-grade and the other was a kindergartner, officials said. Four of the five were girls. Six students also remain in intensive care, but details had not been released The bus was carrying 37 children from Woodmore Elementary School in Chattanooga, ranging from kindergarten to fifth-grade, when it crashed into a tree at around 3:30 in the afternoon Monday, officials said. The 32 survivors have been accounted for, according to Kelly, who added that students at the district will be excused if they decide not to come in today, but that counselors will be on hand for those who do. (GMA) See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Tumblr. By James Oliphant MONTPELIER, Vt. (Reuters) - Still sifting through the wreckage of the Nov. 8 election, Democratic leaders nationwide are struggling to find a new message to claw back support and avoid years in the political wilderness. Not only do Republicans control the White House and both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, they now hold 33 governors offices. New England, long considered reliably Democratic, is a prime example of the party's demise. Republican Phil Scott won in Vermont over Democrat Sue Minter who was criticized, like presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, for failing to develop an economic message that resonated with voters worried about good-paying jobs. Considered a liberal bastion, Vermont has a tradition of sometimes choosing a Republican governor to keep one party from having too much control. Elsewhere, Republican Chris Sununu will replace a Democratic governor in New Hampshire while Maine and Massachusetts already have Republican governors. We lost the governorship of freaking Vermont, lamented Washington-based Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis. We didnt just lose an election. This was a national rebuke. This was biblical. Republicans also command 32 state legislatures and have full control -- meaning they hold the governors office and both legislative chambers -- in 24 states, including swing states such as Florida, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. When President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, they controlled just nine. There are more Republicans at the state legislative level than there have ever been, said Tim Storey, an analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures. Republicans scored a major coup when they seized the Senate in traditionally liberal Minnesota, giving it full control of the legislature, and they gained full control of next-door Iowa. The partys message, structure and apparatus are broken, said Kofinis, who was chief of staff to moderate Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. We havent acknowledged it for years because we had the White House. Obamas two terms masked a crumbling party infrastructure. During Obama's tenure, Democrats lost over 800 state legislative seats, at least 13 governorships and both houses of Congress. Party insiders are reluctant to blame the popular Obama but cite plenty of reasons for the decline. These include a muddled economic message; an overemphasis on emerging demographic groups such as minorities and millennial at the expense of white voters; a perception the party is elitist and aligned with Wall Street; a reluctance to embrace the progressive populism of Senator Bernie Sanders, the former presidential hopeful; and failure to field strong candidates in key states. There is an emerging consensus, they add, that the party has been too focused on winning national races and has not invested enough in local campaigns, along with a grudging admission that Republicans have done a better job of competing on the ground. As a result, a poor performance by the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections gave Republicans control of statehouses across the country, allowing them to redraw legislative maps to fashion districts that would help ensure their long-term electoral success. I think the foundation was built back in 2010, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker told Reuters. There was a big wave and then for many of us that were elected in 10, we got reelected in 14 in battleground states - Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, Michigan. You look at the states that were key to the presidential win, were states where Republicans did well in 10 and then sustained it. UNDER-RESOURCED Democrats are working to recover and looking ahead to governors races in New Jersey and Virginia next year to make up lost ground. Governors offices have become crucial for another reason: Republican governors signed voter suppression measures in states such as North Carolina that Democrats believe damaged turnout. Sununu has said that as one of his first acts as governor in New Hampshire, he would like to end the states practice of allowing same-day voter registration. As with redistricting, it is another lever of power that Republicans can wield to make sure they remain in the majority for a long time. Obama has said he will actively support a new party initiative, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, that seeks to restore state-level Democratic power. Mark Schauer, a former Michigan congressman who is a senior adviser to the effort, said the goal is to have a central organization direct resources into critical local races. Schauer, who lost his congressional seat after Republican legislators excised his home county from his district, said deep-pocketed Democratic donors have not always appreciated the need to support state races. A state senate race isnt as sexy as a presidential or big U.S. Senate race, Schauer said. Jessica Post, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the party arm charged with overseeing state races, agreed. We have felt under-resourced." When Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and presidential candidate, ran the Democratic National Committee, he adopted a 50-state strategy, investing funds in every state, even ones perceived to be hostile to Democrats, in an effort to identify viable candidates for local office. While Deans plan was not the sole reason, Democrats had election successes in 2006 and 2008. When Dean left the DNC, his strategy faded and the partys fortunes at the state level began to decline. Dean is a candidate to run the DNC again and has said he will revive the strategy if elected to the post. What is happening is a result of decades of smart organizing by conservatives who have very simply poured resources, talent and energy into creating an infrastructure at the state, local, and now national level, said Bill Lofy, a long-time Democratic strategist in Vermont. He said Governor-elect Scott was very effective at making this, in a generic sense, about kitchen-table economic issues in a way that paralleled with the presidential race. And like Trump, he said, Scott spent very little time talking about how is going to implement the policies he was proposing. It was more about Scott telling voters: Trust me. Im on your side. (Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Orlando. Editing by Jason Szep and Alistair Bell) BERLIN (Reuters) - Deutsche Boerse expects to hear what objections the European Commission has to its planned merger with London Stock Exchange in the second week of December, the German firm's chief executive told Reuters on Tuesday. "They (the European Commission) will come in the second week of December with the so-called statement of objections. That will be the next data point really," Carsten Kengeter said on the sidelines of a digital conference in Berlin. The European Commission opened a full investigation into the 27 billion euro ($28 billion) planned merger with London Stock Exchange in September, citing preliminary worries. LSE has already said it is prepared to sell LCH SA, the French clearing subsidiary of the LSE's LCH.Clearnet group, but has not made a formal offer to the Commission. The statement of objections usually lays out the case for the EU enforcer to block anti-competitive mergers unless companies can convince them otherwise with concessions. The Commission is scheduled to decide by Feb. 13 on the deal, which can be extended once the exchanges offer any remedies. (Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Alexander Smith) Newegg Unveils Plans for Black Friday and Cyber Monday Newegg, the leading tech-focused e-retailer in North America, today kicked off a 10-day celebration of great deals on the best tech this Thanksgiving. This morning Newegg unlocked thousands of deep discounts, many of which are highlighted in Newegg's Black Friday eFlyer. All told, Newegg will offer amazing deals on more than 4,000 products November 21 - 30. "Newegg is stretching out the Black Friday savings this year with some of the best deals in tech from now until well after Cyber Monday (News - Alert)," said Merle McIntosh, Newegg SVP of Sales & Marketing. "This lets people shop on their own terms and ensures everyone has enough time to get some great deals." Black Friday (News - Alert) Sale - November 21 - 26 In addition to the early Black Friday deals unveiled this morning, hundreds of additional deals will be unlocked this Wednesday and again on Black Friday. Cyber Monday Sale - November 27 - 30 This year Newegg stretches Cyber Monday into a four-day event, with thousands of deals unlocked November 27 & 28, plus an extended sale featuring fresh discounts and other promotions November 29 & 30. Following is a small sampling of Newegg's Black Friday Deals: Acer 15.6" E5-575G-5341 Intel Core i5 6200U (2.30 GHz) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M 8 GB Memory 128 GB SSD 1 TB HDD Windows 10 Home 64-Bit Gaming Laptop- "ONLY @ NEWEGG" - $529.99 (11/21-26) Klipsch Reference Series RF-10 Dual 4.5-inch Two-Way Floorstanding Speaker (Single) - $99.99 (11/21-26) TOSHIBA P300 HDWD130XZSTA 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Desktop Internal Hard Drive Retail - $69.99 (11/21-30) SAPPHIRE NITRO Radeon R9 Fury 100379NTOC+SR 4GB 4096-Bit HBM TRI-X OC+ (UEFI) Video Card - $239.99 (11/21-30) Google Pixel 32GB (Factory Unlocked) 5-inch 12.3MP Android Smartphone - Quite Black - $649.99 + $25 Newegg Gift Card (11/23-27) ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 3GB Dual-fan OC Edition VR Ready Dual HDMI DP 1.4 Gaming Graphics Card (DUAL-GTX106-O3G) - $169.99 (11/23-29) ZTE AXON 7 64GB 4G LTE Quartz Gray Dual SIM Unlocked Smartphone 5.5" 4GB RAM (North America Warranty) - $349.98 + Free Gifts (11/23-24) Samsung UN50KU6300FXZA 50-Inch 2160p 4K UHD Smart LED TV - Black (2016) - $399.99 (11/24-26) SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 500GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-75E500B/AM - $129.99 (11/24-28) Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Portable External Hard Drive with 200GB of Cloud Storage & Mobile Device Backup USB 3.0 - STDR2000100 (Black) - $69.99 (11/24-28) Seagate Expansion 8TB USB 3.0 3.5" Desktop External Hard Drive STEB8000100 Black - $169.99 (11/24-28) Huawei - Honor 8 Dual Camera Unlocked Smartphone 32GB Pearl White - US Warranty - $299.99 + Free Gifts (11/24-27) Samsung Galaxy TabPro S SM-W703NZKAXAR 12.0-Inch Intel Core M3 6Y30 (0.90 GHz) / 4GB RAM 128GB SSD/ Windows 10 Pro Tablet (Black) - $549.99 (11/25 only) Acer Laptop Aspire E 15 E5-575G-52RJ Intel Core i5 6200U (2.30 GHz) 8 GB Memory 1 TB HDD NVIDIA GeForce 940MX 15.6" Windows 10 Home - $399.99 (11/25 only) HP Laptop 250 G5 (X9U07UT#ABA) Intel Core i5 6200U (2.30 GHz) 8 GB Memory 256 GB SSD Intel HD Graphics 520 15.6" Windows 10 Home 64-Bit - $399.99 (11/25 only) WD Black 5TB Performance Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 128MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD5001FZWX - $179.99 (11/25-30) Newegg has long been the shopping destination of choice for tech enthusiasts, and this year the company is offering amazing deals for video game enthusiasts, DIY makers and anyone else seeking great prices on the best tech products. Whether shopping from home or on the go, Newegg's desktop, mobile and app-based shopping experience is second to none. For more information and to stay up-to-date on the latest holiday deals from Newegg, visit http://www.newegg.com/HolidayDeals. About Newegg Inc. Newegg Inc. is the leading electronics-focused e-retailer in the United States. It owns and operates Newegg.com (http://www.newegg.com) which was founded in 2001 and regularly earns industry-leading customer service ratings. The award-winning website has more than 28 million registered users and offers customers a comprehensive selection of the latest consumer electronics products, detailed product descriptions and images, as well as how-to information and customer reviews. Using the site's online tech community, customers have the opportunity to interact with other computer, gaming and consumer electronics enthusiasts. Newegg Inc. is headquartered in City of Industry, California. Newegg operates Hybrid Centers in City of Industry, CA (News - Alert) and Richmond Hill, Ontario. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161121006130/en/ 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." Quite the promise! After visiting a school in Guatemala built with money from charity Pencils of Promise, DJ Justin 3LAU Blau was inspired to raise $200,000 through his record label, BLUME, to build more schools around the world. See Who Made Us' List of Stars Who Care Pencils of Promise is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building schools, training teachers and funding scholarships to underserved communities. The charity has attracted attention from celebrities including Justin Bieber and Sophia Bush in the past, who have gone to Guatemala to build schools. The way BLUME works is every song thats streamed so far there have only been two, which have both been my songs Is It Love and Fire raises about a half of a cent, he explains to Us Weekly. Which it doesnt seem like that much, but when you multiply it by millions, and these songs are getting millions of plays, every million plays on Spotify raises about $4,000. Since hitting his goal, Blau is now committed to raising more money for Pencils of Promise before he starts expanding his fundraising to other charities. His next single, You Want More with YouTube star MAX, premieres on Friday, November 25, and plays on Spotify will continue to benefit PoP. PHOTOS: Hot Pics Max is super stoked about the charity component as well, the 25-year-old explains. When he heard the idea, he was like, I want to do this right now. While the money has yet to be put to action, Blau is excited to figure that out. In the beginning of 2017, we can start releasing information on where the schools are going to be built, and potentially where well do a trip with all the fans, he says. The DJ, who has shows on November 25 at Terminal 5 in NYC and November 26 at Hakkasan in Las Vegas that are part of his 3LAU Haus tour, has also been busy remixing songs by Krewella and Ariana Grande when hes not busy working on his original pieces. PHOTOS: Back-to-School Buzzzz-o-meter: Gift Guide Story continues Blaus inspiration for a recent remix of Grandes Into You came quickly. In the case of Ariana, it was an idea that I was sitting on, and I was like, Wait, these go together, and I love the Ariana vocal. So I literally put it together in a day, showed it to SIRIUS XM BPM, and they actually called the record label saying, You have to approve this now, because we want to start playing it tomorrow, he explains. Its doing really well, its really exciting. Related Content: Photo credit: undefined From Redbook SIDS - which is short for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome - is arguably one of the most terrifying things that could happen to a baby and its parents. But doctors at The Children's Hospital in Westmead, Australia might have found a potential solution to help identify and prevent SIDS following a recent study, the Australian Associated Press reports. In the study, the doctors discovered that babies who died of SIDS actually had a common symptom: lower levels of a particular protein called orexin. Orexin has a vital function in babies: It causes them to roll over when they don't have enough oxygen (which can happen if they're sleeping on their stomachs). It's also a symptom that can cause sleep apnea. In the study, the doctors looked at 46 babies, 27 of which had died of SIDS. They found the babies who died of SIDS had around 20 percent less orexin than the others. Dr. Rita Machaalani, who led the study, told The Daily Telegraph that she and her team would be working on a way to find out what's the ideal level of orexin, noting that, "if we can determine what's the normal level in babies when born than we can use those abnormalities to predict kids that might be at risk in the future of SIDS or sleep apnea." Alexandra Martiniuk of The George Institute for Global Health at the University of Sydney pointed out that there could be other causes of SIDS aside from the decreased orexin supply. But, she said, this research is still a "huge breakthrough, because in my knowledge of SIDS there hasn't been anything biological like that before, it has always been environmental risk," meaning that people blamed SIDS on external factors, not something physical within the baby. Until Machaalani's team is able to develop some kind of screening test to identify a baby's risk of SIDS, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents sleep in the same room as their infant until their baby is at least six months old, but ideally until the baby is a year old. Story continues (h/t PopSugar) Follow Redbook on Facebook. You Might Also Like Lyle Denniston, Constitution Dailys Supreme Court correspondent, explains why the American people must rely upon Congress no matter which party controls the House and Senate to monitor the relationship between a president and a family business. trumptwitter456 Even Americans who have only a passing acquaintance with their Constitution tend to understand that it provides a system of checks and balances and those supposedly answer almost every problem that crops up in the functioning of their government. But the reality is that, even where a check does exist, there has to be some way to put that into motion, to make it work. As a basic example, a president cannot conduct a war unless Congress puts up the money to pay for it, so a refusal to approve a Pentagon budget could actually stop a war (however politically risky that might be). The Constitution, in other words, is generally not self-executing; it creates a series of government mechanisms, but someone must put them in operation. That fact is now central to the widening public discussion in Washington, and elsewhere in America, about an obscure provision in the founding document the so-called Emoluments Clause. There is a lot of talk about employing that Clause as a check upon President-elect Donald Trump as he apparently plans, while in the White House, to keep within his family the management of their global holdings in a private business enterprise, rather than disposing of the enterprise or putting it into a blind trust over which the family would have no control. Such an unprecedented, ongoing linkage of a president with a commercial operation is regarded as potentially unethical and may even be illegal. Some of those potential woes led President Jimmy Carter, for example, to put his Georgia peanut business into a trust arrangement, although his brother continued to have a job in it. Problems arising from having presidents as business operators could arise both domestically, and internationally. Story continues On the home front, any number of official government policies could contribute to the success, or hamper the operations, of stateside Trump companies. For example, a major new public works project an infrastrure rebuilding program could provide facilities that serve Trump properties. For another example, a government edict on overtime pay could have a direct impact on those properties business costs. The Constitution has nothing to say about those domestic situations. A more-or-less independent arm of Congress the General Accountability Office has the power to investigate any such links involving the use of government funds, but only Congress would have the authority to take specific action to correct any conflicts of interest over money. It would take an extreme situation, however, for Congress to be willing to directly confront a president especially, a president of the same party. There is also the possibility that a citizen could find a way to sue, under an old Civil War-era law, the False Claims Act, if government money was paid out improperly to a Trump business entity. The Act specifically allows for citizen enforcement. The Constitution, though, may have something to say if problems arose abroad for the Trump enterprise. That is the Emoluments Clause, a part of Article I and the powers of Congress. It says specifically that no person holding any office of profit or trustshall, without the consent of Congress, acceptany present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state. That was written into the Constitution by unanimous vote at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, and it was explained by James Madison, for example as a necessary provision to exclude corruption and foreign influence. At that time in America, there was deep concern that the king of France might try to use his riches to illicitly influence the new young America. It at least can be argued that this provision could come into play as a result of interaction between the Trump companies and foreign business interests if those interests are a part of foreign governments, and if their operations affect the value of the Trumps overseas properties or make payments that directly benefit the family business. The exact scope of the overseas activity of the Trump business is not known publicly (but might be revealed if the President-elects tax returns were to be made public). The Emoluments Clause, though, has only one enforcement mechanism: Congress has the authority to pass specific legislation to authorize or to prohibit financial dealings between a foreign government and any federal official, including the president, according to rulings over many decades by Justice Department lawyers in advisory opinions. Most of those advisory opinions have dealt either with the receipt of medals or awards by federal officials including, for example, President Obamas Nobel Peace Prize (he was allowed to take the medal and the prize money of about $1.4 million because the prize was awarded by a non-government entity), or actual employment by a federal official by a foreign government operation (in most instances, not allowed). Justice Department lawyers, in their rulings, have concluded that the Clause works not only in the context of actions by foreign government agencies as such, but also in relation to enterprises that a foreign government actually runs, such as a public business corporation. No citizen can try to put the Emolument Clause to work; basically, it has been interpreted within the government only when a legal opinion is sought for a particular factual situation. The Library of Congresss authoritative volume, the Annotated Constitution, records no court rulings interpreting the Emoluments Clause, so the primary source of how tight, or loose, the Clause may be construed depends upon Justice Department advisory opinions (which do not have binding legal force). Overall, then, it appears that, so far as the Constitution is concerned, the American people must rely upon Congress no matter which party controls the House and Senate to monitor the relationship between a president and a family business. Of course, the ultimate constitutional check would be an impeachment proceeding. But that is such a seldom-used check upon the president (twice in history) that it probably would only be attempted in the most scandalous kind of business misconduct linked to the White House. The Constitution does not define what impeachment charges can be brought (other than high crimes and misdemeanors), so it is up to the House of Representatives to decide what it believes would be appropriate. The Senate actually tries the charges, but cannot decide what to charge. 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. Recent Stories on Constitution Daily Presidential nepotism debate goes back to the Founders time Dont expect Electoral College drama on December 19 Explaining President Obamas outgoing pardon powers While much about a Trump presidency remains relatively unclear, one thing is for certain: The way health care is handled in the U.S. today will most certainly undergo a major transformation. From medical research to the delivery of care to patients, much may change under the new administration. It is very likely that the Trump administration will have to address these issues soon after inauguration. How the president-elect and Congress deal with health care may define the next four years. The Affordable Care Act is in jeopardy and needs Congressional action in order to save it -- premiums are rising, insurers are leaving the exchanges and patients are left with higher costs and less choice. In addition, academic researchers from all around the country also are becoming concerned about the future of research funding from the prestigious National Institutes of Health. The NIH has funded research for over 100 years with the goal of advancement in treatments for a multiplicity of diseases -- NIH grants are some of the most sought after funding sources in academic medicine, and many talented scientists depend on this funding in order to conduct experiments that have the potential to substantially advance our understanding of disease. One of Mr. Trump's biggest issues on the campaign trail was his promise to "repeal and replace" Obamacare. Millions of Americans are in the process of re-enrolling in the ACA exchanges. However, the law faces numerous challenges, including rising costs and diminishing choice -- many areas of the country have only one choice for insurance provider in the exchange since large insurers such Humana, United and Aetna have pulled out due to staggering financial losses. Fewer physicians are accepting exchange insurance due to very low reimbursement rates. Patients -- like us -- are caught in the middle with little choice. Many are "functionally uninsured," as they have limited access and high copays. Will President-Elect Trump Keep Anything From Obamacare? Based on his most recent comments to the media, it appears Mr. Trump will keep at least two things from the ACA in place. One very important provision I expect to remain in any new legislation is the mandate that ensures those with pre-existing conditions will remain insured. If we do not keep this provision, we'll revert to the days when insurers could discriminate against individuals with chronic medical problems by either denying coverage or making coverage far too expensive. It's essential this stay in place to make sure all Americans are covered (in an affordable way) -- regardless of what chronic medical problems they may have. Mr. Trump has also indicated he'll keep the provision that allows young adults to stay on their parents' plans through age 26. I think this, too, is vital. Young adults are building careers and often scraping by financially while they complete higher education and low-paying internship training programs. Allowing these individuals to stay on their parents' plans only makes sense. It alleviates a significant financial burden while they're developing careers and working toward education goals in order to make significant contributions to society. Beyond these two items, I don't expect Mr. Trump to keep anything else from the ACA. The Republicans -- under Speaker Paul Ryan's leadership -- have drafted a plan and made it available online. Many of the ideas in this plan appear quite consistent with what Mr. Trump outlined. However, no matter what plan is actually finalized, we must have cooperation between parties as well as between the different branches of our federal government to be successful. [See: 5 Common Preventable Medical Errors.] So, What's Likely to Change in Health Care? This is where the water gets murky. Trump has said numerous times that he'll "repeal and replace" Obamacare, but that may be difficult from a legislative standpoint given the simple majority in the Senate. Currently, it will take 61 votes in the Senate to repeal the legislation. Based on the partisan politics we're likely to see in Congress under the new administration, this is unlikely to happen. We're more likely to see changes to the current law without a full repeal. Alternatively, a President Trump could choose to "starve the ACA" by signing a bill similar to the one that was sent to Obama a few years ago that essentially de-funded the ACA. (Obama vetoed that bill, and there was no attempt at an override due to the balance of power in the Senate). There are also other ways that the law can be dismantled. Over the last year, President Obama has been using Treasury monies that were meant for tax refunds to pay back insurers in the exchanges that have high-cost patients. While the ACA legislation has provided for these payments in the past, Congress did not fund this provision in the current budget -- so Obama has been re-appropriating money from other sources to entice insurers to remain in the exchanges. There is a court case pending that is likely to stop this action. However, Trump can stop it immediately on January 20th by no longer authorizing these payments. If this happens, I worry more insurers are likely to pull out of the exchanges, and the ACA will continue to slowly implode. Ultimately, patients will suffer. [See: Top Reasons Children End Up in the Hospital.] Are There Any Specifics From Trump's Plan for Health Care That We Can Expect? While it's likely any plan will involve the Republican/Ryan proposal that has been crafted for more than a year, Mr. Trump has discussed a few specifics during the course of the campaign. It's unclear at this point just how much of this will be implemented. Here are a few of his proposals and their potential implications: Allow insurers to sell insurance across state lines. By allowing free market competition, Trump argues competition for patients by insurance companies will lead to better service, lower prices and more patient satisfaction. Allow individuals to deduct health care premiums from taxes. By putting more money in individual pockets through tax savings, patients will be better able to afford health care. Allow individuals to set up health care savings accounts, tax-free money. This refers to "super-charged" tax-free accumulation for health care spending. The individual mandate will be eliminated, as well as the employer mandate. Individuals will no longer be penalized for choosing not to purchase insurance. This may lead to funding difficulties, as the ACA was built around the concept of the "well" paying for those who require more expensive health care resources. Price transparency for doctors and hospitals. Prices for common surgeries and services vary widely by geography and hospital. By requiring transparency, patients can shop around, using both quality and price data to determine the best place for them. This will prevent gouging by certain hospital systems. Begin a "block grant" to states to deal with Medicaid. The federal government would send money to the states. It would then be up to the states how to use the money to cover the citizens. This may not be good; in some states, it's likely to lead to decreased payments to doctors and hospitals and may leave more low-income Americans without adequate care. Streamline the Food and Drug Administration, and allow Americans to purchase prescription drugs from other countries. The U.S. pays far too much for drugs that can be obtained in Canada and elsewhere for much less. Why should the U.S. pay all the research and development costs for the world? Privatize Medicare, along with other Medicare changes. For example, provide citizens with a choice. Use Medicare dollars to see a Medicare doctor, or use that money to pay for a private doctor who does not take Medicare. However, this may result in more out-of-pocket expenses for seniors. Allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. This will lead to lower costs to federally-sponsored health care plans. [See: How to Help Aging Parents Manage Medications.] What's the Bottom Line for the Everyday American? Time will tell -- this is a very unusual point in American history, and what happens in the next four years could potentially fundamentally change health care in the U.S. for decades to come. Ultimately, we must put a health care plan in place that will cover all Americans, and we must make sure the plan allows for low costs and easy access. However, this won't be a quick fix. Our leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, must work carefully to put a sensible, financially sound, effective health care system in place, and they must do so in a way that ensures a smooth transition of insurance and care. If there is no good replacement plan, I'm concerned there may be 25 million newly uninsured Americans. (Though while listed as insured, many of these people are functionally uninsured due to limited access, high copays and premiums and deductibles.) It's my hope that Congress will work quickly to craft a fiscally responsible health care plan that works for all Americans and allows doctors to be healers once again. TREVOR COLLENS/AFP/Getty Images At its (dark) heart, the most infamous shopping day of the year is really about home. Black Friday is an elbow-throwing, shoulder-shoving, foot-stomping, soul-crushing battle with your fellow Americans to see who can haul back the biggest possible load of slashed-price home goods to our houses and apartments. But winning Black Friday doesnt mean shopping harder, better, faster, and stronger than anyone elseit means going in with a strategy. Make a wrong step, and that 2:30 a.m. groggy wake-up will be all for naught. Here, our shopping experts reveal the top mistakes people tend to make on Black Fridayand how you can avoid them. Youve been warned! 1. Waiting in line all night for door busters The early bird gets the worm mentality has become synonymous with Black Friday largely because of door busters, those highly promoted low-priced items available in limited quantities (e.g., 60-inch TVs for $75! Oculus Rift headsets for $29.99!). But shopping experts agree that door busters are just a marketing tool. Often retailers only carry a few of these heavily discounted items to draw in the crowds, says Jeanette Pavini, a savings expert for Coupons.com and a Black Friday veteran. In fact, standing in line overnight and missing family time after Thanksgiving dinner just isnt worth it, she says. Instead, get a good nights sleep and hit the mall first thing Friday morning. You might not snag that NES Classic, but there will be plenty of other deals that dont involve sleeping on the sidewalk. 2. Buying without doing your research If you havent already begun your Black Friday prep, get er done. Now. In the past couple of years, retailers have started releasing their Black Friday prices around the second week of November, giving shoppers a preview and plenty of time to plan. Savvy shoppers know to go online and plan their shopping lists far in advance of the infamous retail extravaganza. Story continues For instance, Wal-Mart has already released its catalog of Black Friday deals and will be putting nearly 50% more of this years Black Friday merchandise online than last year. The retail giants prices drop on Thanksgiving Day at 6 p.m. Some of the hot-ticket household items you can count on seeing include a Shark vacuum for $98about $75 cheaper than its currently listed; Goodyear tires starting at $44; and Magic Bullet blenders for $19, a whopping 75% off the original price. Black Friday? Its on: Shoppers rush to grab the bargains at Best Buy. Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images 3. Forgetting about kitchen needs Black Friday isnt just about getting deals on fabulous flat-screen TVs or other home appliances. With the increased number of parties and family dinners that fill the holiday season, make sure you regularly research grocery ads and stock up on items youll need for cooking and entertaining, such as spices, mixed nuts, and garbage bags. They might not be sexy, but you can find them, possibly at a big markdown. 4. Assuming the best prices exist on Black Friday Still, the myth that youll never get better deals than on Black Friday simply isnt true. So dont let that line of thinking dictate your attitude during the holiday shopping season, Pavini says. Be aware of the other times of the year when prices are low. White sales, also known as household linens sales, typically occur in January, so its best to hold off on your sheet and towel shopping until then. You could save 30% to 60% on furniture if you buy in December or January, experts say. Thats when designers and manufacturers have to move their inventory to make space for new collections in February. May is the slow season for carpeting, so try to hold off until then to get the best deal. Promos on paint are most common during the summer holidaysMemorial Day and Fourth of July weekendwhen homeowners are in the mood to tackle home improvement projects. 5. Going to the wrong store Just as you wouldnt go to Best Buy to score a 24-piece dinner set, there are certain stores not worth stepping foot in for household items. It might seem obvious, but stick to Home Depot, Sears, and Lowes for home appliances. Theyre all competing to sell you your next refrigerator, so you can bring in an ad and usually get them to price-match and add in extras like an extended warranty, Pavini says. Crafts stores such as Michaels and Hobby Lobby are a great place to get heavily discounted home decor items, because they have to quickly move inventory out so they can get on to the next season. Insiders know their prices can be cheaper than Targets, Pavini says. Dont waste your time wandering through the aisles of Bed Bath & Beyond for new towels or serving bowls. Home Goods and Ross are great places to buy kitchen and bathroom items. While their inventory is constantly changing, you will get the same items that youd see from Bed Bath & Beyond or a department store, but often at a fraction of the price, Pavini says. And nine times out of 10, electronics will be cheaper online, she says. A report from Consumer Reports confirms that shoppers who bought electronics online were more satisfied with the price and selection than those who went to a retail store. 6. Not shopping with cash Overspending on Black Friday is easy if you cant physically see the money coming out of your pocket. It might feel inconvenient, but make sure to hit the ATM before you head out to storesitll save you money in the long run. Cash will keep you on budget when youre tempted to buy every great deal you find, Pavini says. The same goes for shopping online. But if you think those tempting deals will be too much for your willpower, buy gift cards ahead of time and vow to use them as your sole form of payment during the holiday shopping season. Your bank account will thank you. The post Avoid the Biggest Black Friday Blunders With These 6 Key Tips appeared first on Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com. One day after he summoned the TV media to Trump Tower for a "scolding," Donald Trump canceled and then rescheduled a planned meeting with The New York Times, a sitdown he requested. "The meeting with the @nytimes is back on at 12:30 today. Look forward to it!" the presiden-elect tweeted at 10:40 a.m. ET after a morning of back-and-forth negotiations with the newspaper. The meeting with the @nytimes is back on at 12:30 today. Look forward to it! - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 After first tweeting that he canceled the planned Tuesday sit-down with executives and journalists at the "failing" Times when "terms and conditions were changed at the last moment," the newspaper's spokeswoman Eileen Murphy confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the meeting was on again. "Mr. Trump's staff has told us that the President Elect's meeting with The Times is on again," Murphy told THR at 10 a.m. ET. "He will meet with our publisher off-the-record and that session will be followed by an on-the-record meeting with our journalists and editorial columnists." After requesting the meeting on Monday, Trump took to Twitter early Tuesday morning, around 6 a.m. ET, to announce the cancelation, saying the Times "continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!" He said the changing of the conditions were "not nice." I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone! - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 The Times only learned of the initial cancelation from Trump's tweets. In response, Murphy told THR in a statement that the paper did not change any of the ground rules and that Trump requested a private meeting only, which the Times refused. Story continues "We were unaware that the meeting was cancelled until we saw the President Elect's tweet this morning," she said in a statement to THR. "We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to. They tried to yesterday - asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to. In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off the record session and a larger on the record session with reporters and columnists." Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks then confirmed to the Times that the president-elect would attend the rescheduled meeting. (The campaign has not responded to THR's request for comment.) Unlike Monday's meeting with the TV press, which was entirely off the record, the Times meeting is set to include an on-the-record question and answer session with reporters and columnists. There will also be an off-the-record session with the newspaper's publisher. Read more: Donald Trump Posts Video Outlining First 100 Days, Promises Cabinet of "Patriots" Tuesday's chaos is the latest example of Trump's contentious relationship with the Times. The president-elect has consistently railed against the "failing" newspaper, taking particular issue with its reporting on sexual assault allegations made against him and tax returns that showed a nearly $1 billion loss that likely allowed him to circumvent paying taxes for nearly two decades. In subsequent tweets early Tuesday morning - before the meeting was rescheduled - Trump said the Times "announced" that complaints are at a "15 year high" - in reference to a Nov. 19 column titled, "One Thing Voters Agree on: Better Campaign Coverage Was Needed." He then said other "great meetings" will take place today at Trump Tower. The failing @nytimes just announced that complaints about them are at a 15 year high. I can fully understand that - but why announce? - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 Great meetings will take place today at Trump Tower concerning the formation of the people who will run our government for the next 8 years. - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 In Monday's meeting with TV press, Trump, true to form, criticized the copious coverage the media gave him on the way to the White House, calling the TV media "dishonest" and claiming he just wants them to report "the truth." The meeting was yet another example of the erstwhile reality TV star's instincts for media manipulation; he got to bash the mainstream media at a time when Americans' trust in the press is at a nadir and also appeal to his most fervent alt-right supporters, who universally revile the press (which they have taken to calling Lugenpresse, a Nazi-era term that translates to "lying press"). One TV news source in attendance said the meeting was not as combative as it was initially described in the New York Post. ("It was like a f - ing firing squad," one source told the paper.) But Trump did complain about the "dishonest" media even as he claimed to want a "cordial " and "productive" relationship. CNN and NBC news were particular targets: He called out CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker, who was in attendance, by name and seemed to complain about NBC News correspondent Katy Tur, a frequent target during the campaign, though he did not name her. Meanwhile Reince Priebus, Trump's newly appointed chief of staff, was playing "good cop" and promised to work with the press pool. In attendance at the meeting were Fox News' Bill Shine and Jack Abernethy; CNN's Zucker and Wolf Blitzer; CBS' Charlie Rose, Gayle King, Norah O'Donnell and John Dickerson; NBC's Lester Holt, Chuck Todd and NBC News president Deborah Turness; and ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Martha Raddatz and David Muir as well as ABC News president James Goldston. Read more: Top TV Execs Meet With President-Elect Trump in Tower Summit Also on Tuesday morning, Trump's senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said the Trump administration will not pursue further investigations into Hillary Clinton's email practices. "I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don't find her to be honest or trustworthy, but if Donald Trump can help her heal then perhaps that's a good thing," Conway said on MSNBC's Morning Joe. The decision comes after months of Trump vowing to investigate his Democratic opponent, whom he nicknamed "Crooked Hillary," while on the campaign trail. Inciting his rallies to chant "lock her up," Trump even told Clinton during a presidential debate that if he won the presidency she would "be in jail." Ahead of Election Day, the FBI cleared Clinton, saying there were no criminal charges to pursue. "I think when the president-elect, who's also the head of your party now, Joe," Conway said to the host, "tells you before he's even inaugurated he doesn't wish to pursue these charges it sends a very strong message, tone." One day after he summoned the TV media to Trump Tower for a "scolding," Donald Trump canceled and then rescheduled a planned meeting with The New York Times, a sitdown he requested. After tweeting that he canceled the planned Tuesday sit-down with executives and journalists at the "failing" Times when "terms and conditions were changed at the last moment," the newspaper's spokeswoman Eileen Murphy confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the meeting was on again. "Mr. Trump's staff has told us that the President Elect's meeting with The Times is on again," Murphy told THR at 10 a.m. ET. "He will meet with our publisher off-the-record and that session will be followed by an on-the-record meeting with our journalists and editorial columnists." The president-elect took to Twitter around 6 a.m. ET to announce the cancelation, saying the Times "continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!" He said the changing of the conditions were "not nice." I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone! - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 The Times only learned of the initial cancelation from Trump's tweets. In response, Murphy told THR in a statement that the paper did not change any of the ground rules and that Trump requested a private meeting only, which the Times refused. "We were unaware that the meeting was cancelled until we saw the President Elect's tweet this morning," she said in a statement to THR. "We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to. They tried to yesterday - asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to. In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off the record session and a larger on the record session with reporters and columnists." Story continues Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed to the Times that the president-elect would attend the meeting. (The campaign has not responded to THR's request for comment.) Unlike Monday's meeting with the TV press, which was entirely off the record, the Times meeting is set to include an on-the-record question and answer session with reporters and columnists. There will also be an off-the-record session with the newspaper's publisher. Read more: Donald Trump Posts Video Outlining First 100 Days, Promises Cabinet of "Patriots" Tuesday's back-and-forth is the latest example of Trump's contentious relationship with the Times. The president-elect has consistently railed against the "failing" newspaper, taking particular issue with its reporting on sexual assault allegations made against him and tax returns that showed a nearly $1 billion loss that likely allowed him to circumvent paying taxes for nearly two decades. In subsequent tweets early Tuesday morning - before the meeting was rescheduled - Trump said the Times "announced" that complaints are at a "15 year high" - in reference to a Nov. 19 column titled, "One Thing Voters Agree on: Better Campaign Coverage Was Needed." He then said other "great meetings" will take place today at Trump Tower. The failing @nytimes just announced that complaints about them are at a 15 year high. I can fully understand that - but why announce? - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 Great meetings will take place today at Trump Tower concerning the formation of the people who will run our government for the next 8 years. - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 In Monday's meeting with TV press, Trump, true to form, criticized the copious coverage the media gave him on the way to the White House, calling the TV media "dishonest" and claiming he just wants them to report "the truth." The meeting was yet another example of the erstwhile reality TV star's instincts for media manipulation; he got to bash the mainstream media at a time when Americans' trust in the press is at a nadir and also appeal to his most fervent alt-right supporters, who universally revile the press (which they have taken to calling Lugenpresse, a Nazi-era term that translates to "lying press"). One TV news source in attendance said the meeting was not as combative as it was initially described in the New York Post. ("It was like a f - ing firing squad," one source told the paper.) But Trump did complain about the "dishonest" media even as he claimed to want a "cordial " and "productive" relationship. CNN and NBC news were particular targets: He called out CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker, who was in attendance, by name and seemed to complain about NBC News correspondent Katy Tur, a frequent target during the campaign, though he did not name her. Meanwhile Reince Priebus, Trump's newly appointed chief of staff, was playing "good cop" and promised to work with the press pool. In attendance at the meeting were Fox News' Bill Shine and Jack Abernethy; CNN's Zucker and Wolf Blitzer; CBS' Charlie Rose, Gayle King, Norah O'Donnell and John Dickerson; NBC's Lester Holt, Chuck Todd and NBC News president Deborah Turness; and ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Martha Raddatz and David Muir as well as ABC News president James Goldston. Read more: Top TV Execs Meet With President-Elect Trump in Tower Summit Also on Tuesday morning, Trump's senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said the Trump administration will not pursue further investigations into Hillary Clinton's email practices. "I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don't find her to be honest or trustworthy, but if Donald Trump can help her heal then perhaps that's a good thing," Conway said on MSNBC's Morning Joe. The decision comes after months of Trump vowing to investigate his Democratic opponent, whom he nicknamed "Crooked Hillary," while on the campaign trail. Inciting his rallies to chant "lock her up," Trump even told Clinton during a presidential debate that if he won the presidency she would "be in jail." Ahead of Election Day, the FBI cleared Clinton, saying there were no criminal charges to pursue. "I think when the president-elect, who's also the head of your party now, Joe," Conway said to the host, "tells you before he's even inaugurated he doesn't wish to pursue these charges it sends a very strong message, tone." Despite multiple campaign promises to the contrary, President-elect Donald Trump no longer plans to pursue charges against Hillary Clinton in relation to her email scandal and Clinton Foundation dealings, a top aide confirms. Former Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, now a senior advisor to his transition, told MSNBCs Morning Joe Tuesday that PEOTUS is not interested in ordering a further investigation into his former campaign rival. I think when the President-elect, whos also the head of your party, tells you before hes even inaugurated that he doesnt wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone, and content, she said when asked whether Trump will encourage fellow Republicans to stay away from the issue and focus more on their legislative agenda. Clintons use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state caused much controversy throughout the 2016 presidential election. Initially, FBI Director James Comey closed the investigation into Clintons server usage with a recommendation that no charges were appropriate. Just ahead of the election, however, Comey announced a renewed probe related to emails found on Clinton aide Huma Abedins personal computer. Ultimately, the FBI stood by its decision that no charges were warranted. During the second presidential debate in October ahead of the FBIs surprise, extended investigation Trump promised to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. If Trump had followed through on the charge, it would have marked the first time in modern history that a sitting president used the attorney general to prosecute a rival, Time reported. The plan inspired a popular chant among Trump supporters Lock her up which was heard at the president-elects victory party. Said Conway on Tuesday, Look, I think hes thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign are not among them. Story continues RELATED VIDEO: Hillary Clinton Says Colin Powell Advised Her To Use Personal Email In a Tuesday address with the press pool at Trump Tower, former New York City mayor and Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani further addressed the topic, saying, Look theres a tradition in American politics that after you win an election, you sort of put things behind you. And if thats the decision he reached, thats perfectly consistent with sort of a historical pattern of things come up, you say a lot of things, even some bad things might happen, and then you can sort of put it behind you in order to unite the nation, he continued. So if he made that decision, I would be supportive of it. Id also be supportive of continuing the investigation. I think the president elect had a tough choice there, you could go either way. If he made the choice to unite the nation, I think, all those people who didnt vote against him, maybe, could take another look at him. Newegg Canada Unveils Plans for Black Friday and Cyber Monday Newegg, a leading tech-focused e-retailer in Canada, today kicked off a 10-day celebration of great deals on the best tech this week. This morning Newegg unlocked thousands of deep discounts, many of which are highlighted in Newegg's Black Friday eFlyer. All told, Newegg will offer amazing deals on thousands of products November 21 - 30. "Newegg is stretching out the Black Friday savings this year with some of the best deals in tech from now until well after Cyber Monday (News - Alert)," said Merle McIntosh, Newegg SVP of Sales & Marketing. "We hope everyone is able to take advantage of these great deals." Black Friday (News - Alert) Sale - November 21 - 26 In addition to the early Black Friday deals unveiled this morning, hundreds of additional deals will be unlocked this Wednesday and again on Black Friday. Following is a sampling of the deals Newegg is offering the week of Black Friday: Available Monday, November 21 at 1:01pm PST 34-232-766 ASUS ROG G752VT-DH72 G-Sync Gaming Laptop 6th Generation Intel Core i7 6700HQ (2.60 GHz) 16 GB Memory 1 TB HDD 128 GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3 GB GDDR5 17.3" Windows 10 Home 64-Bit: $1,599.00 86-611-007 Huawei Smart Watch Stainless Steel with Stainless Steel Mesh Band Model 55020544: $399.99 26-138-190 Philips SHP9500S Over-Ear Headphone Exclusive - Black: $39.99 14-202-223 SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 480 100406NT+8GOCL 8GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card: $346.99 34-331-249 ThinkPad X1 Carbon (4th Gen) 20FB005WUS Ultrabook Intel Core i7 6600U (2.60 GHz) 256 GB SSD Intel HD Graphics 520 Shared memory 14" Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit / Windows 10 Pro Downgrade: $1,979.99 26-104-938 Logitech G602 Black RF Wireless Optical Gaming Mouse: $39.99 96-268-080 Rosewill RHAI-15001.1800-Watt 5 Pre-Programmed Settings Induction Cooker Cooktop with Stainless Steel Pot Induction Cooker: $59.99 Available Friday, November 25 at 12:01am PST 26-106-638 Sennheiser PC350 Special Edition High Performance Gaming Headset - Brown Box Version $99.99 13-157-547 ASRock H97M Anniversary LGA 1150 Intel H97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard: $44.99 23-126-406 Logitech K400+ Wireless Touch Keyboard with Built-In Touchpad for Internet Connected TVs: $24.99 81-183-053 LaView LV-KN988P86A4 Premium IP Surveillance System 8 Channel NVR + 6 x Full HD 1080P Day/Night In/Outdoor Cameras (No HDD Included): $549.99 Cyber Monday Sale - November 27 - 30 This year Newegg stretches Cyber Monday into a four-day event, with thousands of deals unlocked November 27 & 28, plus an extended sale featuring fresh discounts and other promotions November 29 & 30. Hybrid Centre Is Open in the GTA (News - Alert) for Package Pick Ups Customers in the greater Toronto area can save time and shipping costs by using the Pick Up service located in Newegg's state-of-the-art Hybrid Centre in Richmond Hill. Hybrid Centre visitors can experience tech like they never have before, with the opportunity to test out the latest tech products before making a purchase. Pick Ups are also available at Newegg's distribution centre in Vancouver. Additional information about Newegg's facilities in Ontario and British Columbia can be found here. Newegg has long been the shopping destination of choice for tech enthusiasts, and this year the company is offering amazing deals for video game enthusiasts, DIY makers and anyone else seeking great prices on the best tech products. Whether shopping from home or on the go, Newegg's desktop, mobile and app-based shopping experience is second to none. For more information and to stay up-to-date on the latest holiday deals from Newegg, visit http://www.newegg.ca/HolidayDeals. About Newegg Inc. Newegg Inc. is the leading electronics-focused e-retailer in the United States. It owns and operates Newegg.com (http://www.newegg.ca) which was founded in 2001 and regularly earns industry-leading customer service ratings. The award-winning website has more than 28 million registered users and offers customers a comprehensive selection of the latest consumer electronics products, detailed product descriptions and images, as well as how-to information and customer reviews. Using the site's online tech community, customers have the opportunity to interact with other computer, gaming and consumer electronics enthusiasts. Newegg Inc. is headquartered in City of Industry, California. Newegg operates Hybrid Centers in City of Industry, CA (News - Alert) and Richmond Hill, Ontario. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161121006138/en/ U.S. President-elect Donald Trump appears at Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S., October 28, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo President elect Donald Trump said Tuesday during an interview at the New York Times that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft founder Bill Gates called him after the election to congratulate him on his victory. Trump said: I was honored yesterday, I got a call from Bill Gates, great call, we had a great conversation, I got a call from Tim Cook at Apple, and I said, Tim, you know one of the things that will be a real achievement for me is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States, or many big plants in the United States, where instead of going to China, and going to Vietnam, and going to the places that you go to, youre making your product right here. He said, I understand that. I said: I think well create the incentives for you, and I think youre going to do it. Were going for a very large tax cut for corporations, which youll be happy about. But were going for big tax cuts, we have to get rid of regulations, regulations are making it impossible. Whether youre liberal or conservative, I mean I could sit down and show you regulations that anybody would agree are ridiculous. Its gotten to be a free-for-all. And companies cant, they cant even start up, they cant expand, theyre choking. Cook was a Hillary Clinton supporter and hosted a fundraiser for the Democratic candidate in August. Trump, several times during his campaign, threatened Apple specifically with taxes on imports from China, where Apple's products are manufactured. "I'm going to bring jobs back," Trump said in March. "I'm going to get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China. How does it help us when they make it in China?" After the election, Cook sent a memo to all US Apple employees, which did not reference Trump but did include some language about celebrating diversity, which was widely seen as a rebuke to Trump's anti-immigration and anti-Islam platform. Story continues Apple has yet to comment on Trump's remarks publicly. Microsoft declined to comment. The Gates Foundation did not immediately return a request for comment. NOW WATCH: 7 places you cant find on Google Maps More From Business Insider President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter on Monday to share his views on diplomacy by endorsing British conservative and Brexit-backer Nigel Farage as potential U.K. Ambassador to the U.S. Many people would like to see Nigel Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States, Trump tweeted. He would do a great job! Farage reportedly said he was flattered by the suggestion. But regardless of whether Trump or many people want Farage to become the diplomatic bridge between the two countries, the U.K. government says its not going to happen. The Guardian reports that a Downing Street spokesperson responded: There is no vacancy. We already have an excellent ambassador to the U.S. Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 Twitter users quickly displayed a wide array of reactions ranging from We love Nigel!!!!! to and many millions would also really, really rather not. It didnt take long for a hashtag to emerge: #BetterAmbassadorsThanFarage. Trump and Farage have displayed a long and friendly history. Farage even joined Trump on the campaign trail in August, and in the lead-up to the November poll he praised his American conservative counterpart as a big alpha male following what appeared to most observers to be an imperfect performance in a debate against his democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. Farage, the far-right interim leader of the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP), is known for his vocal and sometimes misleading support for Brexit; he campaigned for the U.K. to leave the European Union on a platform of hard-line anti-immigration policies and promises to re-allocate social spending that he later admitted were a mistake. The famously brash Farage upset the traditional diplomatic order earlier this month, when he became one of the first foreign politicians to meet with the President-elect after his win. Under ordinary circumstances, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britains Conservative Party would have met first with the incoming head of state, as Farage does not currently hold a place in the U.K. government. (Hes a member of the European Parliament.) It was a great honour to spend time with @realDonaldTrump. He was relaxed and full of good ideas. I'm confident he will be a good President. pic.twitter.com/kx8cGRHYPQ Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) November 12, 2016 The Guardian reported Tuesday that Farage is expecting an invitation to Trumps inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20. Trump has not yet extended a formal invitation for May to visit the U.S., while a leaked transcript of a recent telephone call between the two appears to reveal his rather unorthodox suggestion: If you travel to the U.S. you should let me know. When Donald Trump was a colorful real-estate developer, he soaked up media coverage like it was sunshine. Now that hes about to become the next President of the United States, he seems to have had enough of it. In what two people familiar with the incident described as a tough sit-down between the nations major TV-news outlets and the President-elect and his top advisers, Trump dressed down top executives and anchors Monday afternoon, reserving particularly harsh words for CNN and NBC News. The off-the-record meeting, convened by Trumps staff over the last day or two, was rancorous, one of these people said, and not much substantive discussion was held, although there was some talk about his goals for shaping immigration policy, this person said. Spokespersons for CNN and NBC News did not offer immediate comment. A Trump spokesperson could not be reached for immediate comment. Executives and anchors from CBS News, ABC News and Fox News were also in attendance. The meeting could serve to dash hopes that the Trump administration would prove willing to discuss issues of media coverage and candidate access, which have been sore points with media outlets in recent weeks. The U.S. President and President-elect both typically travel with a protective pool of reporters in tow, but in at least two instances in recent days, Trump has moved without a press entourage. He and his family went out for dinner without notifying a pool assigned to him, and he also traveled to Washington, D.C., without press alongside him. CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker raised the issue of the pool, according to one of the people with knowledge of the meeting, but Trump appeared disinterested in the topic. He kicked the question to Reince Preibus, the former Republican National Committee chairman who will serve as Trumps chief of staff. Other Trump confidantes present at the meeting included adviser Steve Bannon and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. The president-elects wife, Melania Trump, made an appearance, according to the people familiar with the situation. Story continues The meeting was viewed as something of a re-set, one of the people said. Trump hoped his severe talk, which also included a walk through the way his campaign boosted cable-news ratings and a dig at a popular female anchor whose identity could not be immediately confirmed, would start a new chapter between his administration and the media. He is expected to meet with New York Times executives and editorial personnel this week. A whos who of TV news personnel attended the summit, held in Trump Tower in New York. Bill Shine and Jack Abernethy, co-presidents of Fox News attended, according to these people, along with Deborah Turness, president of NBC News; Jeff Zucker, president of CNN Worldwide; James Goldston, president of ABC News; and Phil Griffin, president of MSNBC. David Rhodes, president of CBS News, was unable to be present, these people said. Others attending included Erin Burnett and Wolf Blitzer from CNN; John Dickerson of CBS Face the Nation; Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Norah ODonnell from CBS This Morning; Chris Isham, Washington Bureau Chief of CBS News; George Stephanopoulos and Martha Raddatz from ABC News; Lester Holt and Chuck Todd of NBC News; and Jay Wallace executive vice president of news for Fox News; Brian Jones, executive vice president of Fox Business Network; and Suzanne Scott, executive vice president of programming for Fox News. Related stories Donald Trump Skips TV for YouTube to Offer Brief Transition Update CNN Anchor and Kellyanne Conway Spar Over Donald Trump's 'SNL,' 'Hamilton' Tweets Speculation About Trump's Pick for FCC Leader Grows as Candidates Emerge As Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House after his inauguration in January, hell be doing so without his wife and son by his side. Although the separation might come as a shock to citizens used to seeing the first family together inside the iconic Washington, D.C. landmark, Trump implied to PEOPLE last year that he wasnt fixated on his family joining him in the White House and that young Barron enjoys his life in New York. When asked whether a then 9-year-old Barron was excited about possibly living in the White House, Trump replied, not so much that. He does love New York and he loves his school. Not so much living in the White House, he continued. He does like what hes got right now. That would be a whole change of life. But when he hears Im going to help people that solves the problem. PEOPLE confirmed that Melania and Barron will not join Trump in the White House for at least six months after Barron finishes the school year and multiple sources tell PEOPLE that the first lady-to-be is not interested to live in the White House full-time after that, and instead would prefer to just go to Washington as needed. Related Video: Sources Say Melania and Barron Trump Will Not Move to the White House Melania wants to stay in New York while her son goes to school, a Palm Beach source recently PEOPLE. I dont know if she will ever live away from New York full time, especially with her son in school there. She loves her home in Manhattan and her independent life. Even so, Trump told PEOPLE last year that Melania was excited by how well hes done on the campaign. Shes a very outstanding person and woman and shes very much involved in womens issues and she wants to be involved in womens issues and shes very excited about this. Story continues However, sources say Melania has made it clear that Barron is her top priority, and as Trump himself said last year, Barron finds the idea of leaving New York for D.C. a little scary, even though he fully supports his father. I can help so many young people and thats when he really starts to understand that its a good thing, not a bad thing, but its a little scary for him because he think he is going to be taken away from his friends, he said. He has a very good school in New York where he has a lot of friends. But I tell him if this happens, Daddy will help people, and can help children like him, and that makes him happy. Hes a young boy who is 9 years old and he is strong and smart and he gets it, he also said. He sees it. justin timberlake Dr Pepper Snapple Group is purchasing Bai Brands, one of the fastest-growing flavored-water companies in the US, for $1.7 billion, Reuters reports. The deal could turn Bai into a huge threat to Coca-Cola and Pepsi, which have seen soda sales plunge over the last decade as people opt for healthier drinks. While soda sales have plummeted, Bai's sales have soared. Bai generated $120 million in sales in 2015, and this year it's on track to reach $300 million, the company says. Bai could grow even faster next year with the help of its new spokesman, Justin Timberlake. Timberlake is joining the Bai team as an investor and its first chief flavor officer, the company announced last month. He will also star as the face of the brand in a $100 million marketing campaign that Bai is launching next year, the company's founder and CEO, Ben Weiss, told Business Insider. Bai It will be Bai's biggest marketing campaign since its founding in 2009. As chief flavor officer, Timberlake will work with the executive team at Bai's headquarters near Trenton, New Jersey, Weiss said. "He'll be involved in everything from flavor innovation and product launches to marketing and digital content," Weiss said. "We will see a lot of him. His fingerprints are going to be on this brand." Bai Brands makes drinks called Bai, Bai Bubbles, and Antiwater. The first two drinks offer fruit flavors and antioxidants with no artificial sweeteners, five calories, and one gram of sugar per serving. Antiwater has "antioxidants in the form of a super-purified bottled water," the company says. Bai's relationship with Timberlake was forged about six months ago, when a mutual friend put Weiss in contact with the the actor and musician. Weiss said he traveled to Los Angeles to meet with Timberlake, and they talked about the possibility of a partnership. Timberlake was a huge fan of Bai and stockpiled the drink in a place where his wife, actress Jessica Biel, wouldn't find it, according to Weiss. Story continues "He said he found himself drinking it and storing it away from his wife in a secret little refrigerator," Weiss said. "He was very passionate about it." NOW WATCH: A style expert explains what 'business casual' actually means For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS. More From Business Insider donald trump President-elect Donald Trump on Monday lashed out at several top media executives and their outlets in a high-profile meeting, according to the New York Post. Prominent journalists and executives from CNN, NBC, CBS, and Fox were among those in attendance at the meeting at Trump Tower. "Trump kept saying, 'We're in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong,'" a source told the Post. "He addressed everyone in the room calling the media dishonest, deceitful liars. He called out Jeff Zucker by name and said everyone at CNN was a liar, and CNN was [a] network of liars," a source told the Post. Trump specifically took aim at Zucker, CNN's president, a source told the Post, reportedly telling him: "I hate your network. Everyone at CNN is a liar, and you should be ashamed." Those in attendance were under the impression that the media's access to Trump would be discussed, but they instead got an earful from Trump. The president-elect has repeatedly criticized the media for what he said was biased coverage of his campaign, often describing journalists as "dishonest." On Monday night, Trump continued his attack on Twitter, referring to the press as "the crooked media" and dismissing suggestions that his businesses presented potential conflicts of interests for a commander-in-chief. Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world.Only the crooked media makes this a big deal! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 Earlier, Kellyanne Conway, Trump's senior adviser who ran his presidential campaign, called the meeting "excellent" and "unprecedented," praising the fact that it was arranged in two days. Conway later denied that Trump lashed out at the media during the meeting. "No, that's not true at all. I sat right to his left. He did not explode in anger," Conway said during an appearance on Bloomberg's "With All Due Respect." Story continues She added: "By the way, it's an off-the-record meeting, so whoever said that and mischaracterized it should think twice. But no he did not explode in anger. He's the president-elect. He won winning solves a lot of problems. Winning makes a lot of statements. I'm really happy he reached out to them after a very long and bruising, hard fought, not-always-fairly-covered campaign." A Politico report characterized the meeting as "less intense," with Trump expressing the possibility of a "reset" in relations with the press. But that report also suggested that he ripped into the executives in attendance. The meeting came as the media has scrutinized Trump over his press access. He has not held a press conference since he won the November 8 election and has yet to accommodate a protective pool, which would allow a member of the news media to be with him at all times. Last week, Trump broke protocol and left Trump Tower to have dinner in New York City without alerting a pool of journalists waiting outside his home. NOW WATCH: 'Were in a room of liars': Trump reportedly lashes out at the media in off-the-record meeting with top journalists More From Business Insider By Laila Kearney (Reuters) - The driver charged with homicide in a Tennessee elementary school bus crash that killed five children and critically injured six others appeared to be speeding in the moments leading up to the wreck, police said. Johnthony Walker, 24, was driving the bus full of students home from Chattanooga's Woodmore Elementary School when, just before 4 p.m. CST, it veered off a road, flipped onto its side and smashed into a tree and telephone poll, according to a police affidavit. Walker was driving on a narrow winding road at well above the speed limit of 30 miles per hour (48 km per hour) when he lost control, leaving the bright yellow bus mangled and nearly severed in two, the affidavit said. Walker, who was cooperating with authorities, was charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. School officials have found no record of complaints against Walker, said Melydia Clewell, spokeswoman for the Hamilton County District Attorney's office. It was not immediately clear how long Walker, who was working for a private company hired by the school district, had been licensed to drive school buses. The bus was not equipped with seatbelts but did have two cameras on board as well as an engine chip that could contain information, Christopher Hart, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said during a news conference on Tuesday. He urged witnesses or anyone with information about the crash to contact police. The school district, which remained open on Tuesday, set up a fund for the victims and planned an evening vigil. "We are heartbroken for all of our students and their families," Hamilton County Schools Interim Superintendent Kirk Kelly said at a news conference on Tuesday at the elementary school. "Yesterday was the worst day that we had." Kelly said five children were killed: a kindergartner, a first-grader and three fourth-grade students. Story continues Six students were in critical condition and another six were hospitalized with less severe injuries, Kelly said. Walker's mother, Gwenevere Cook, told CNN that her son had tried to rescue students from the bus after the crash but blood and the children's limp bodies made it difficult. Cook described her son as a responsible father of a 3-year-old who held down two jobs and had never been in trouble. While Cook said she grieved for the victims and their families, she also sought mercy for her son, who is being held on $107,500 bond. "I am asking for compassion also for my son," she said. Residents in and around Chattanooga, a city of about 170,000, sent their condolences and provided aid to the school children and their families. People lined up at blood donation centers that stayed open late on Monday night, local media reported, and one woman donated 45 teddy bears to the school to comfort students. "There are no words to comfort the broken heart of a mother or father," Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke said at a news conference. "So today our city is praying for these families." (Reporting by Laila Kearney in New York; Additional reporting by Rory Carroll in San Francisco; Editing by Bill Trott and Lisa Shumaker) By Kathryn Doyle (Reuters Health) - Giving people with severe ankle sprains physiotherapy soon after their injury doesnt necessarily result in better recovery compared to the usual rest, ice, compression and elevation, according to a new study. People who suffer a bad sprain should have the injury assessed by an appropriate healthcare professional like a doctor or physical therapist to determine the severity of the injury and to get, at a minimum, advice and instruction on how to manage the injury, said co-lead author Brenda Brouwer of Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. The researchers recruited 503 people aged 16 years and older who suffered an acute ankle sprain without other injuries or mobility-limiting conditions. Half of the patients received standard emergency department care, medical assessment and a page of instructions for at-home management, including wearing a brace, rest, ice, compression, elevation, pain medication and gradual return to weight-bearing activities. The remaining half of patients received the same information in addition to supervised physiotherapy, including up to seven 30-minute clinic visits for exercise sessions designed to decrease pain and swelling, increase range of motion, strength and exercise tolerance. The therapy involves an initial assessment of the injury to determine the structures involved, the associated symptoms such as pain, swelling, bruising, and the development of a treatment plan to get the individual back to pre-injury function, Brouwer told Reuters Health by email. Home exercises and strategies to promote normal joint mobility are prescribed. In the usual care group, 37 percent of people had achieved excellent recovery by the three-month point, compared to 43 percent of people in the physiotherapy group. That difference is not large enough to rule out the possibility it was due to chance, according to the report published in BMJ. There was little important difference between the groups at six months post-injury. As such, it may give pause to individuals who have experienced a simple ankle sprain in terms of deciding whether or not to access physiotherapy, its a choice that our findings suggest will not impact recovery providing they have had their injury assessed and received general instruction on how to manage it, Brouwer said. Many participants in both groups failed to achieve excellent recovery, which is worrisome, and will need to be explored through further study, she said. There was little information on the nature of the rehabilitation exercises in this study, said Chris Bleakley of Ulster University in Newtownabbey, U.K., who wrote an accompanying editorial. I feel that (physiotherapy) is an essential part of recovery post sprain, Bleakley told Reuters Health by email. However, this study highlights clearly that not all physio treatments are equally effective in our recent review, we have already shown that studies employ a wide range of exercises, treatment durations and intensities but the optimal combination is not yet clear. Quantity and dose of physiotherapy may determine effectiveness, he said. Indeed, it is analogous to a drug treatment if its under dosed, the treatment effect will be blunted and overdosing can cause harmful side effects, he said. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2eMpWzt and http://bit.ly/2gdtbfu BMJ, online November 16, 2016. Have you been eager to see how Eaton Vance Corp. EV performed in fourth-quarter fiscal 2016 (ended Oct 31) in comparison with the market expectations? Lets quickly scan through the key facts from this Massachusetts-based investment management firms earnings release this morning: Earnings Miss Eaton Vance came out with adjusted earnings per share of 57 cents, missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 60 cents. Rise expenses were largely responsible for earnings miss. How Was the Estimate Revision Trend? You should note that the earnings estimate for Eaton Vance depicted a bearish trend prior to the earnings release. The Zacks Consensus Estimate has inched down over the last 7 days. Also, Eaton Vance doesnt have a decent earnings surprise history. Before Q4 earnings, the company has negative earnings beat in two of the trailing four quarters, with an average negative surprise of 2.1%. EATON VANCE Price and EPS Surprise EATON VANCE Price and EPS Surprise | EATON VANCE Quote Revenue Came In Lower Than Expected Eaton Vance posted total revenue of $346.8 million, which lagged the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $351.2 million. However, it compared favorably with the year-ago number of $341.5 million. Key Statistics/Developments As of Oct 31, 2016, assets under management (AUM) were $336.4 billion, up 8% year-over-year. Also, total net inflows amounted to $19.3 billion in the reported quarter. In Oct 2016, Eaton Vance announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire Calvert Investment Management, Inc., a subsidiary of Ameritas Holding Company. During fiscal 2016, Eaton Vance repurchased nearly 7.3 million shares its Non-Voting Common Stock for $253 million. What Zacks Rank Says The estimate revisions that we discussed earlier have driven a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) for Eaton Vance. However, since the latest earnings performance is yet to be reflected in the estimate revisions, the rank is subject to change. While things apparently look unfavorable, it all depends on what sense the just-released report makes to the analysts. The Best Place to Start Your Stock Search Today, you are invited to download the full, up-to-the-minute 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 >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report EATON VANCE (EV): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research [November 21, 2016] Fitch Rates Jennie Stuart Medical Center's (KY) 2016 Revs at 'BBB-'; Outlook Remains Negative Fitch Ratings has assigned a 'BBB-' rating to the following County of Christian, Kentucky, Hospital Revenue Bonds (Jennie Stuart Medical Center Project), issued on behalf of Jennie Stuart Medical Center (JSMC): --$55.5 million series 2016. In addition, Fitch has affirmed the following ratings: -$60.1 million of series 2006 (remarketed in 2008). The Rating Outlook remains Negative. The series 2016 bonds are expected to be issued as fixed rate. Proceeds, together with proceeds of an approximately $10 million taxable bank loan and an equity contribution, will be used to advance refund all of the series 2006 bonds, fund certain capital improvements, create a debt service reserve fund (DSRF), and pay for costs of issuance. SECURITY The bonds will be secured by a pledge of gross revenues, a first mortgage lien on certain property and a DSRF. KEY RATING DRIVERS ONGOING NEGATIVE PERFORMANCE: Maintenance of the Negative Outlook is driven by JSMC's three years of negative operating performance. In 2015, JSMC had a negative 6.1% operating margin ($7.0 million operating loss) and a 3.0% operating EBITDA margin, both significantly below Fitch's 'BBB' category medians of 1.5% and 8.7%, respectively. Operating margin improved slightly to a negative 3.9% through the nine-month interim (ended Sept. 30, 2016). IMPROVED DEBT BURDEN: Post issuance, JSMC's maximum annual debt service (MADS) drops to $4.4 million, representing a manageable 3.6% of total annualized revenues through the interim. Pro forma debt to capitalization of 41% is favorable to Fitch's 'BBB' median of 50.2%. The lower MADS results in improved debt service coverage of 1.9x through the interim, still unfavorable to Fitch's median of 3.0x, but improved from 1.3x in 2015. ADEQUATE LIQUIDITY POSITION: At Sept. 30, 2016, JSMC's $52.5 million in unrestricted cash and investments, equated to 161.4 days cash on hand (DCOH) and a 12x pro forma cushion ratio, both in line with Fitch's 'BBB' medians of 161.2 days and 11.7x, respectively. Pro forma cash to debt of 80.6% was slightly unfavorable to the 90.8% median. Pro forma cash to debt does not incorporate the impacts of the potential equity contribution and the expected reimbursement for prior capital from the 2016 issuance. Liquidity has remained largely stable over the last three years and is a key credit strength at the rating level. VANDERBILT AFFILIATION: JSMC signed an affiliation agreement with Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Vanderbilt) in 2016, with JSMC becoming part of Vanderbilt's Clinically Integrated Network. Under the agreement, Vanderbilt will assist JSMC with several specialty service lines including oncology and cardiology. Fitch views the affiliation positively and believes it should benefit JSMC's quality indicators, physician specialty coverage, and financial results over the medium term. LEADING MARKET POSITION: JSMC's has a leading market share of 66.7% in its primary service area (PSA), which has remained stable over the last three years. However, the service area remains economically challenged, as JSMC's payor mix consisted of 23.3% Medicaid in 2015. RATING SENSITIVITIES OPERATING IMPROVEMENT NEEDED: The 'BBB-' rating on Jennie Stuart Medical Center is contingent upon operating improvements in 2016 and 2017 and continued stability of liquidity levels. Failure to improve operating profitability and coverage to levels more consistent with the 'BBB' category will likely result in a downgrade. CREDIT PROFILE JSMC is a 194 licensed bed inpatient acute care hospital located in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, approximately 70 miles north of Nashville, Tennessee. JSMC had total operating revenues of $113.9 million in 2015. WEAK OPERATING PERFORMANCE JSMC's operating losses of $8.1 million in 2014 and $7.0 million in 2015 equated to negative 7.4% and 6.1% operating margins, respectively. The operating losses are attributed to declining inpatient volumes and significant losses at JSMC's employed physician practice. Management has developed a cost reduction and process streamlining initiative in regards to its physician group in 2015. The initiative is currently being implemented and all physician contracts that come up for renewal are being reviewed and renegotiated to reflect current market conditions and productivity. Other initiatives center around vendor contract renegotiations and volume improvements. JSMC's operating margin improved slightly to a negative 3.9% through the nine-month interim period, and management is budgeting to end 2016 with a negative 3.2% operating margin. JSMC was approved for Sole Community Provider (SCP) status in April of 2016. The annual benefit going forward should be in excess of $800,000. Furthermore, JSMC received approval for reclassification into the Nashville MSA effective October of 2016, which will increase its wage class index reimbursement level, with an estimated net operating benefit of approximately $1.3 million annually. Neither the SCP status nor the MSA reclassification is incorporated in the 2016 budget. Fitch views the realization of the financial benefits from both programs as essential to maintaining the rating. IMPROVED DEBT BURDEN JSMC's pro forma MADS represents a manageable 3.6% of total annualized revenues through the interim period, equal to Fitch's 'BBB' median. Pro forma debt to EBITDA improved to 7.9x through the interim due to better operating performance, but still remained unfavorable to Fitch's median of 4.3x. Lower MADS and better operating performance helped improve pro forma debt service coverage to 1.9x through the interim period, still below the 30x median, but improved from 1.3x in 2015 and 1.2x in 2014. Capital spending has been tempered over the last three years, averaging at just 57% of annual depreciation. Lower CapEx resulted in an increased average age of plant of 15.6 years in 2015, unfavorable to Fitch's median of 11.4, and indicative of deferred capital spending. Management is not planning any large capital expenditures over the medium term, and the new money from the 2016 issuance will fund up to $8.3 million in future capital, which should help JSMC further build its liquidity. DEBT PROFILE The series 2016 bonds and the taxable bank loan will be issued as fixed rate and will have the same financial covenants. The bank loan fully amortizes over a 15 year period. The advance refunding of the 2006 bonds will allow for the release of the Assured Guaranty insurance. CONTINUING DISCLOSURE JSMC covenants to disclose audited annual information within 150 days of fiscal year end to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's EMMA system. JSMC also discloses quarterly statements to EMMA, and Fitch notes that disclosure has been timely and thorough. 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=1015154 Solicitation Status https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=1015154 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 (News - Alert) THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEB SITE AT WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM. 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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/20161121006213/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Court of Cassation overturned on Tuesday a life sentence against deposed President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood and ordered a retrial in the case that revolves around accusations of espionage with Palestinian group Hamas. The court last week overturned a death sentence against Mursi in a separate case, meaning he no longer faces execution. Democratically elected after the 2011 uprising, Mursi was overthrown in mid-2013 by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi following mass protests against his rule, and was immediately arrested. He remains in jail on separate convictions. Mursi was one of 22 high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood officials and supporters convicted last year of spying for fellow-Islamist group Hamas. The Court of Cassation's ruling on Tuesday overturns all convictions in the case including life sentences against Mohamed Badie, the General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, and 15 others.Senior Brotherhood officials Kheirat al-Shater and Mohamed al-Beltagi as well as Mursi aide Ahmed Abdelatti had originally been sentenced to death in the case and also saw their convictions dropped on Tuesday. Since toppling Mursi and winning a presidential election the following year, Sisi, a former general, has crushed dissent. Security forces killed hundreds of Mursi supporters in a single day in 2013, in one of the bloodiest incidents in the country's modern history. Thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters have since been detained and hundreds have received death sentences or lengthy prison terms in mass trials condemned by human rights groups as legally flawed and politically motivated. The Egyptian government says it does not interfere in the work of the judiciary. Egypt's judiciary says it is independent. The government deems the Brotherhood, Egypt's oldest Islamist movement, a terrorist group. The Brotherhood says it is committed to peaceful activism. (Reporting by Haitham Ahmed; Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Dominic Evans) Rome (AFP) - At least eight people were confirmed dead Tuesday and many more were missing after a new series of boat tragedies left Italy on the verge of a record year for migrant arrivals. Confirming the latest fatalities in what is already a record year for migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Italy's coastguard said 1,397 people had been saved in 12 operations between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon. The rescues will take the number of migrants to have arrived in Italy by sea this year to almost 170,000, a whisker short of the previous record set in 2014. A coastguard boat recovered seven bodies and oversaw the rescue of 182 people from a stricken rubber dinghy in waters off Libya. The other confirmed victim, a man, died on the Topaz Responder, a boat operated by Malta-based charity MOAS with a Red Cross medical team onboard. Three others were in a critical condition: a woman who was helicoptered off a coastguard boat after suffering cardiac arrest and two people on the Responder who were transferred to coastguard speedboats suffering from hypothermia. MOAS said survivors' accounts suggested that "many" people were unaccounted for, including the mother of two children who survived. The organisation said it had helped rescue some 600 people in four difficult operations, including 117 from one sinking dinghy. The vessel of choice for people traffickers operating out of Libya, such dinghies typically have between 120 and 150 migrants crammed onto them. "The doctors managed to revive several people with hypothermia but it was too late for one of them," MOAS spokeswoman Maria Teresa Sette told AFP. The coastguard said the 12 stricken boats assisted in the latest rescues included one larger wooden vessel that was was carrying 450-500 people, six smaller wooden boats with a few dozen people on board and five dinghies. - Migrant killed by train - Unusually, the survivors included "many families" from Syria, according to MOAS, as well as people from the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Sudan. Story continues Of late, migrants leaving Libya have been overwhelmingly from sub-Saharan or East Africa with a much-anticipated surge in the numbers of refugees from Syria's war having failed to materialise following the de facto closure of the Turkey-Greece migrant route earlier this year. The latest victims will add to a total of 4,655 migrants confirmed to have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean so far this year, according to counts by the International Organisation for Migration and the UN refugee agency. The rescued survivors will add to a total of 168,544 migrants who have been registered at Italian ports in 2016. The highest previous annual total was 170,100, in 2014. The vast majority of the migrants landing in Italy come from Africa and begin their sea crossings from Libya, typically paying traffickers several hundred dollars for the often perilous crossing. With Italy's neighbours having tightened their borders, the numbers being housed in reception facilities spread across the country have risen to an unprecedented total of over 176,000, prompting howls of protest from some local authorities. Many migrants arrive in Italy with the intention of travelling north, often to try and rejoin relatives, with Germany and Sweden among the popular destinations. One such man, thought to be from Eritrea, died overnight while trying to board a freight train travelling from Italy to Austria via the Brenner tunnel through the Alps. The man was hit by a train moving in the opposite direction near the main station in Bolzano, close to the border. Police said the incident was the first of its kind for Bolzano. Recent weeks have seen several migrants killed by cars while trying to cross from Italy into France at their coastal border. Applying to college can get expensive, fast. Between campus visits, standardized tests and application fees, families can spend hundreds of dollars on college before the acceptance letters start rolling in. On top of that, many students enter the college application process unaware of the costs. "I think that depending on the college, there is a bit of a sticker shock," says Evan Jackson, a school counselor and president-elect of the Ohio School Counselor Association. The average application fee among the ranked schools who submitted these data to U.S. News in 2016 is $42. While some colleges allow students to apply for free, applications at some highly ranked universities can cost between $75 and $90. Stanford University -- ranked No. 5 in National Universities -- charges students $90. "It's not often, but I have had students say, 'I'm not going to apply to this one because this is too expensive,'" he says. Instead of limiting where they apply to save money, students struggling to pay for college should reach out to their high school counselors to find out if they're eligible for fee waivers. Students can look for resources to cover the following four college admissions components. 1. Save money on your college visits: To help students who can't afford to visit, some colleges have fly-in or diversity programs that allow students to learn about a school while staying on campus overnight or for a weekend. These programs for high school seniors, which usually occur during the summer or fall, cover part or all of students' travel costs. Spots are limited, and programs can vary from year to year and may have specific academic or demographic requirements. Some schools also offer travel vouchers, which may not have specific requirements. For example, prospective students can fill out a quick form to download a $200 travel voucher to visit Converse College, a private institution in South Carolina. Story continues "What I tell my students is, 'If you know that you're interested in a school and you know that you'd like to go visit them, then come see your school counselor and we can research the college fly-in programs,'" says Katherine Pastor, school counselor at Flagstaff High School in Arizona and the 2016 School Counselor of the Year for the American School Counselor Association. 2. See if you qualify for a SAT or ACT waiver: For students who register online or by mail, the SAT costs $45 -- $57 for an exam with an essay. That fee includes four score reports that can be sent to colleges. The ACT will set you back $42.50 -- $58.50 for an exam that includes the writing section -- and also includes four score reports. [See which students benefit from test-optional, test-flexible admissions.] But students who qualify for a fee waiver can get their registration fee for the SAT or SAT subject tests covered; a total of eight score reports, which can be ordered at any time after they register for the exam; access to two services that allow students to see which questions they answered correctly; and up to four college application fee waivers. Similarly, an ACT fee waiver will cover the cost of the ACT with or without the writing section, a report sent to the high school and reports sent to up to four colleges. Eligible students can only waive the exam fee twice, according to the ACT's website. Students can only get a fee waiver for both tests under a few circumstances, such as if they qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch at school or are enrolled in a low-income student program like Upward Bound. 3. Ask about college application waivers: "Using a fee waiver is a common part of the application process, and most colleges have information about fee waivers on their websites," Jaslee Caryol, a spokeswoman for the College Board, wrote in an email. She encourages students who need more than the four application waivers that come in the SAT waiver package to talk to their school counselors and look at the National Association for College Admission Counseling website and the Common Application for more options. But students who don't meet those standards can also apply for free. Students can get waivers for applying online, visiting colleges or being related to alumni, at some schools. [Read more examples of how to apply to college for free.] The College Board has a database of 2,375 schools to let students know which institutions accept the College Board's application fee waivers. 4. Apply for a CSS/Financial Aid Profile waiver: In addition to the FAFSA, students applying to private schools should fill out the CSS/Financial Aid Profile which more than 300 colleges, professional schools and scholarship programs use to award institutional financial aid and scholarships. [Explore 10 shattered myths about financial aid.] The application cost is $25 for the first program or school and $16 for additional programs. Students who received a SAT waiver can also receive up to eight profile waivers. Low-income students who didn't apply for a SAT waiver can still apply to receive a profile waiver. Students who need help filling out the CSS Profile form or finding waivers should reach out to their counselors. "I always tell my students that you don't know what you don't know," Flagstaff's Pastor says. "The school counselor's job is supposed to help them navigate those waters." Trying to fund your education? Get tips and more in the U.S. News Paying for College center. Briana Boyington is an education digital producer at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at bboyington@usnews.com. Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fstory%2fthumbnail%2f28794%2fellen White House security does not mess around, and pulling a "Do you know who I am!?" probably isn't going to help much. Ellen DeGeneres is in the nation's capitol to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedombut because she forgot her ID, the comedian and talk show host had a hard time getting inside President Obama's house. SEE ALSO: The internet takes a fond look back at the Obama presidency They haven't let me in to the White House yet because I forgot my ID. #NotJoking#PresidentialMedalOfFreedom pic.twitter.com/sHocwqChKV Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) November 22, 2016 "They haven't let me in to the White House yet because I forgot my ID," DeGeneres tweeted, attaching a photo of herself lounging on one of Washington D.C.'s finest benches. She even added in a "#NotJoking" to make sure no one thought she was faking it. "In her work and in her life, she has been a passionate advocate for equality and fairness," a White House press release described DeGeneres, who is one of 21 recipients of the "highest civilian honor." Eventually, DeGeneres did make it in and, in classic Ellen fashion, she immediately made the staff and others join her in a (hopefully waning) social media trend. She uploaded a video of her own White House #MannequinChallenge. This will be President Obama's last year honoring individuals like her, Diana Ross, Michael Jordan and more. BONUS: Colombian President wins Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to end 52-year-old conflict What Were Following Hail Trump: Thats how a group of white nationalists saluted the November 8 victory of the president-elect this weekend at the annual conference of the National Policy Institute, as seen in an exclusive video filmed by The Atlantic. The disturbing scene came during an after-dinner speech by alt-right leader Richard Spencer, who among other anti-Semitic and racist statements described America as a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. His audience cheered, and many raised their arms in Nazi salutes. Trump has not endorsed these statements, of course, nor has he asked white nationalist groups for their support. But the sentiment is alarming. Democracy Now: Theres no question that Trump legitimately received enough electoral votes to secure the presidency. And yet, as mail-in and absentee ballots continue to be counted, Hillary Clintons lead in the popular vote is over 1.5 million and growinga wider margin, as one reader notes, than that by which seven presidents have won office. Thats part of the reasoning behind calls for the electoral college to vote against Trump; another compelling reason is that stopping the rise of a reckless demagogue is just the purpose for which the electoral college was designed. It would be a grave step to break the norms of how American presidents are chosen, but to many of Trumps critics, this is a grave situationand at least two electors are trying to make it happen. Recommended: 'Hail Trump!': Video of White Nationalists Cheering the President-Elect Around the World: Trumps election has also called into question the future of Americas alliances, after he criticized the nations obligations to its allies on the campaign trail. South Korea, Japan, and other allies in Asia and the Pacific are concerned about whether the U.S. will back them against the rise of China as a regional power and North Koreas growing nuclear capacities. Meanwhile, NATO has a couple of possible paths aheadand whether the alliance will hold may depend on Trump choosing between NATO and Russia. Story continues What we covered this weekend: Trumps potential conflicts of interest, the question that underpins the death penalty, rewriting the Bibles curse on women, the real media bubble, the emotional labor of waitressing, the lessons of 1984 in 2016, and the future of the Trump-Putin bromance. Snapshot Police use tear gas and water cannons against protesters attempting to force their way through barricades at the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline on November 20, 2016. More photos from the protest here. (Stephanie Keith / Reuters). Who Were Talking To William Darity Jr., an economist, discusses whether Trumps policies will help close the wealth gap between black and white Americans. Recommended: The Electoral College Was Meant to Stop Men Like Trump From Being President Alexander Todorov, a psychologist, explains how exposure to different people can help overcome biasesmore easily than scientists once thought. John Hanke, CEO of the company that developed Pokemon Go, discusses how augmented reality will change the way we experience tech. Watch here. Torry McAlvain Jr., a project engineer at the Idaho construction company his family has run for three generations. Were just a hard-working blue-collar workforce, says McAlvain. I think that everybody in Idaho, in a way, has that blue-collar mentality. Thats rolled right into who I am as a person. How has your community shaped your career? Does your job serve the specific needs of the place where you live? Or, do you carry the values you learned growing up into your working life elsewhere? Wed like to hear your stories: hello@theatlantic.com. Evening Read Emma Green on Blase Cupich, the Chicago cardinal whos been called Americas Pope Francis: In many ways, Chicago is the American test case for Franciss vision of the Churchone that is vibrant, energized, and focused on caring for those who have been thrown away by society. Many pastors, like Cupich, have welcomed this renewed call to smell like the sheep they tend in their churches. But the pope has his enemies, too; especially in America, not everyone agrees that Francis is taking the Church in the right direction. Cupich has made a dizzying ascent, earning a job thats part Roman consigliere, part CEO, and part social worker. If he succeeds, his work will be a testament to Francis-style Catholicism. If he fails, though, the consequences wont just be political. Cupich wants to lift people out of poverty, create better education systems, and bring an end to the gun deaths. But the city and the Church he serves are both struggling to hold violence at bay. Keep reading here, as Emma outlines how Cupich is trying to save Chicago. Recommended: The Secret to Love Is Just Kindness What Do You Know? 1. In 1971, a 27-year-old man completed the longest known fast in history after surviving on water and vitamin supplements for ____________ days. Scroll down for the answer, or find it here. 2. The most successful domestic film release in U.S. history belongs to ____________. Scroll down for the answer, or find it here. 3. Americas workforce of administrative professionals is ____________ percent female. Scroll down for the answer, or find it here. Reader Response What could Trumps presidency mean for Africa? Shayera, a reader in Nigeria, writes: Personally, I think Trumps presidency might be a boon for Africa. Say he decides to cut aid to the continent: That could be the beginning of the end of Nigerias perpetual debt cycle, and then perhaps true representation via taxation will finally take root. Nigerian leaders would be forced to listen to electorates instead of foreign donors. Also, if he refuses to honour trade agreements, trade restrictions across the continent may loosen, and with free movement of goods and people comes the opportunity for African countries to grow their economies. Read more here. If you live in Nigeria or elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa and have a different take than Shayeras, please send us a note: hello@theatlantic.com. Verbs Shark DNA sampled, liberal bubble burst, turkey hotline called. The Atlantic Daily is written by Rosa Inocencio Smith. To contact us, email hello@theatlantic.com. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. President-elect Donald J. Trump might have some unique decisions to make about how his business assets are managed as he serves in the White House, thanks to an obscure constitutional clause. (credit: Gage Skidmore) President-Elect Donald J. Trump Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution contains what is known as the Foreign Emoluments Clause, which reads, no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. An emolument is defined by Merriam-Webster as the returns arising from office or employment usually in the form of compensation or perquisites. On Tuesday, the New York Times Adam Liptak wrote about a possible debate about how the clause needs to be evaluated as it applies to Trumps business holdings. (Editors note: the newspaper and President-elect Trump are involved in an on-going dispute about its coverage of the former presidential candidate.) Liptak said that legal experts believed current arrangements, such as the Bank of China renting space in New Yorks Trump Tower, could be called into question. But there is also very little precedent for someone with Trumps business holdings assuming the presidency. The Supreme Court has never squarely considered the scope of the clause, and there are no historical analogies to help understand how it should apply to a president who owns a sprawling international business empire, Liptak said. He also quoted at length two scholars who wrote about the Foreign Emoluments Clause for the National Constitution Centers Interactive Constitution project: Zephyr Teachout a law professor at Fordham and Seth Barrett Tillman, a lecturer at the Maynooth University Department of Law in Ireland. In a joint essay for Interactive Constitution, the two scholars agreed that the application of the Foreign Emoluments Clause to elected officials is subject to debate. Story continues The question whether the Constitutions Foreign Emoluments Clause, reaches any or all federal elected positionsi.e., Representative, Senator, Vice President, President, and presidential electorposes a difficult interpretive challenge, Teachout and Tillman said. George Washington, while President, accepted and kept two diplomatic gifts, but he never asked for or received congressional consent. However, subsequent presidents, such as Andrew Jackson, in similar circumstances, sought congressional consent. Whose practice should we rely on? they asked. Teachout and Tillman said there was evidence that the clause signaled the Founders commitment to counter corruption, but the validity of such interpretations, which rely in large part on Framers intentions rather than specific constitutional text, is highly controversial. As for the case of President-elect Trump, it remains to be seen how Trump will structure and handle his business interests as Inauguration Day approaches. Federal election documents show that Trump has financial interests in more than 500 domestic and foreign firms. Liptak does point out that there is another debate: about the ability or standing of anyone to sue a President who violates the Emoluments Clause. And also Congress would have some say in the matter, since it can offer consent under the Emoluments Clause and it also has impeachment powers to deal with constitutional violations. Read more from our Interactive Constitution from our two scholars: The Foreign Emoluments Clause By Zephyr Teachout The Foreign Emoluments Clause Reached Only Appointed Officers By Seth Barrett Tillman Recent Stories on Constitution Daily Presidential nepotism debate goes back to the Founders time Dont expect Electoral College drama on December 19 Explaining President Obamas outgoing pardon powers Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - The European Parliament's main groups said Tuesday they will vote this week to freeze membership talks with Turkey over its crackdown after a coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The vote threatens to deepen the rift between Ankara and the European Union, although it will not be binding and European Union states are for the most part against halting the drawn-out accession process. "No business as usual with Turkey, we support a freeze of EU accession negotiations," said Manfred Weber, head of the centre-right European People's Party, the largest group in the parliament. Gianni Pittella, leader of the Socialist group, the second biggest in the assembly, added: "Turkey's EU accession talks must be temporarily frozen. There are not the conditions to proceed now." Speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Pittella said it would send a "political message to Erdogan" to stop the "mass detention, accusation of political leaders and MPs, repression of judges & journalists." Liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt, the former prime minister of Belgium, said that his group too was "asking to supend the negotiations with Turkey." Verhofstadt had earlier accused Erdogan of being part of a "ring of autocrats" along with Russian President Vladimir Putin and, potentially, US President-elect Donald Trump who were trying to undermine the EU. But EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned that halting Turkey's accession process would be a "lose-lose" move. Turkey formally applied to become an EU member in 1987 and accession talks only began in 2005, even though Ankara's aspirations to become part of the bloc dates back to the 1960s. Turkey and the EU agreed to speed up membership talks in March as part of an accord on curbing migrant flows into Greece in exchange for Turkey getting cash and visa-free access for its citziens. But the process has neared collapse as Brussels has harshly criticised the Turkish government's crackdown on alleged coup plotters, urging Ankara to comply with rights and freedoms criteria. Erdogan warned the EU last week to make a decision by year's end on Turkey's membership or he would call a referendum on the matter. STRASBOURG (Reuters) - The European Parliament will not accept an agreement for Britain's exit from the European Union that would endanger any of the four EU freedoms, including the freedom of movement of people, parliament's negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said on Tuesday. Verhofstadt spoke to reporters after meeting Britain's minister in charge of leaving the EU, David Davis. "It is impossible to find a solution that would destroy the so-called four freedoms," Verhofstadt told a news conference. "These four freedoms are key, they are a basic element of the European Union: the freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and of people. We will certainly never accept whatever development where these four freedoms at put at risk," he said. He said he agreed with Davis that talks on Britain's exit, or Brexit, from the EU should conclude before the next European parliamentary elections in 2019, after Britain submits a formal notice that it wants to leave by the end of March 2017. "I also underlined the fact that parliament needs to give its consent. That takes a few months so the window for negotiations in fact, if you look to it more in detail, is more or less 14-15 months, let's be honest," Verhofstadt said. Speaking separately, Davis said Britain will have sorted out its position on migration, security, and the single market before it submits the formal exit notice by the end of March but it needed time until then to "get it right". "What we're after is that which is in the interest of the Union and in the interests of the United Kingdom: trading interests, business, manufacturing and services and the aim is to make it as open as possible ... that's the clear overarching aim," Davis said. (Reporting By Jan Strupczewski, Philip Blenkinsop and Alastair Macdonald) [November 21, 2016] ZeroCash and Dark Market Work Together with Ebitz to Bring Complete Anonymity PARIS, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- A European ethical hacker group takes pleasure in announcing the imminent launch of Ebitz cryptocurrency, a ZCash new version minus his disadvantages. Ebitz crypto tokens will be available for purchase during the month-long open sale starting November 28, 2016, at 13:00 hours (UTC). The Ebitz ICO will end on December 26, 2016, at 13:00 hours (UTC), or when we reach the goal of 500 BTC. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441797LOGO The creators of Ebitz have made two significant changes to the ZCash project. Unlike ZCash, Ebitz doesn't support "founder rewards" and at the same time, the consensus algorithm has been changed to Proof of Stake (PoS) to prevent the platform from being controlled by few centralized GPU farms. These two issues affected and continue to affect the state of ZCash. That is why we want to offer an overcoming proposal without these problems. Our solutions: Change the algo to PoS / Destroy the founder rewards / We are not an US company. Ebitz promises enhanced privacy and anonymity features while maintaining selective transparency. The Ebitz ICO is an open pre-sale open for everyone. Ebitz, with its enhanced features, will be available for use on the dark net markets from the first day. Remember that bitcoin in the early days progressed thanks to the volume and movement provided by the deep web. "We belong to a European group of ethical hackers with a belief that technology behind ZCash is the future in anonymity. Our obvious step is to make a new version but after removing its corporate vestiges and promote it for wide use on the deep web using our contacts and influence. We are using our influence for negotiations to make Ebitz the only coin after Bitcoin to be used on the deep eb." During the ICO, Ebitz is making 95 percent of the 21,000,000 coins available to the interested investors. With the implementation of Proof of Stake consensus algorithm, the platform offers an annual interest of 3 percent to the token holders. The minimum stake age and block times are 12 hours and 60 seconds respectively. Five percent of the Ebitz tokens will be held by the team as pre-mine for development and bounty programs. Ebitz is offering early bird discounts to ICO participants. Those investing during the first two days of the ICO stand to gain a 25 percent bonus. From the third day, until the end of the first week, the bonus offered by Ebitz is fixed at 20 percent. Similarly, investors during the second and third week receive 15 percent and 10 percent bonus respectively. The platform offers bounties for translations, Bitcointalk signature campaign, Twitter campaign and for coverage on news and blogs. Investors can participate in the upcoming ICO here. About Ebitz We are a new version of ZCash with removed founder rewards and modified algorithm created by a group of ethical hackers. It is a ZeroCash implementation with more fair-use and organization for the crypto community. In addition, we want to develop new features on top of Ebitz that are not included on ZCash. "Ebitz will be the project that brings the tech behind the Zerocash protocol to the deep web to fill the gap searched by the Dark Markets and finally bring complete anonymity." Learn more about Ebitz at https://www.ebitz.org Participate in Ebitz open sale https://www.ebitz.org/invest/ Ebitz on Bitcointalk https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1681965.0 Access Ebitz whitepapers at Whitepaper 1 | Whitepaper 2 See the Ebitz infographic here http://i.imgur.com/F6KbTSP.jpg Media Contact Contact Name: Byte Contact Email: [email protected] Location: Paris, France Ebitz is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest. Related Links Bitcoin PR Buzz Ebitz This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zerocash-and-dark-market-work-together-with-ebitz-to-bring-complete-anonymity-300366863.html SOURCE Ebitz [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] By Alissa de Carbonnel STRASBOURG (Reuters) - The leaders of the European Parliament's two largest groups called on Tuesday for the European Union to halt membership talks with Turkey because of its post-coup purges. "Our message to Turkey is very clear: accession negotiations should be frozen immediately," said Manfred Weber, the head of the largest faction in the European Parliament, the center-right European People's Party. He was echoed by Gianni Pitella, the leader of the socialist group, the parliament's second biggest: "We want to freeze the accession talks." More than 110,000 people in Turkey - including soldiers, academics, judges, journalists and Kurdish leaders - have been suspended from their positions or dismissed over their alleged backing for the plotters of a failed military coup in July. Some 36,000 have been arrested and media outlets have been shut. "Turkey under Mr Erdogan is more and more drifting towards an authoritarian regime," Pitella said, referring to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. "Our political message towards Turkey is that human rights, civil rights, democracy are non negotiable if you want to be part of the EU. Erdogan, exasperated with the EU's intensified criticism of his rights record, has said the bloc would have to "live with the consequences" should it stop the talks and that Ankara could instead join an security alliance run by Russia and China. The post-coup crackdown has taken the EU aback, annulling a period of warmer tone between Turkey and the bloc, which had promised as recently as last March to speed up Ankara's accession talks in exchange for its help in keeping migrants away from European shores. This cooperation, critical for the EU, is still going on but some in the EU worry it could eventually fall victim to the spiraling recriminations. Erdogan, who blames the EU for not showing enough understanding for the gravity of the situation in Turkey, said he could put the EU talks to a national referendum next year. Turkey still hopes to win visa-free travel to the EU but earlier promises of granting the privilege to Ankara by the end of the year now seem distant. Among EU countries, Austria and Luxembourg have led calls to stop Turkey's membership talks, which have only made very limited progress over 11 years in any case. But Germany, France and most of the other EU states for now back continued engagement and fear putting at risk Turkey's collaboration on migration. All stress, however, that the talks would come to an end should Turkey reinstate the death penalty. (Additional reporting by Tom Koerkemeier, writing by Gabriela Baczynska Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.) Evan Peters just posted a photo of Emma Roberts, it is worth a thousand words One of our favorite on-again, off-again couples seems to be happily trucking along, according to the world of Instagram. Thats because Evan Peters posted a photo of Emma Roberts and this is a HUGE deal, you guys. Yes, Peters and Roberts have reportedly been back together since September, but this social media declaration of love shouldnt be taken lightly especially based on their past. After the pair broke up for the second time in May 2016, Peters deleted all photos of Roberts from his Instagram account, POPSUGAR reported. So thats what makes his latest post so exciting for fans of this adorable couple. This girl A photo posted by Evan Peters (@booboodaddy) on Nov 21, 2016 at 5:51pm PST With Roberts looking casual (but STUNNING, per usual) and Peters writing, This girl, this must mean Roberts and Peters are legitimately on again, right? And on a sushi date no less. From his other recent Instagram post, it appears like these American Horror Story costars might have traveled to Canada together since Peters shared a snowy photo with the message, Freezing up here eh? Freezing up here eh? A photo posted by Evan Peters (@booboodaddy) on Nov 21, 2016 at 9:37am PST The chilly Canada weather is a far cry from how Roberts was living just a week ago, since she posted a photo of herself strolling the streets in a tank top. Good morning A photo posted by Emma Roberts (@emmaroberts) on Nov 15, 2016 at 8:10am PST As for where she is now, Roberts might be reciprocating the love for Peters on social media. She posted a video of her using a Snapchat filter where someone keeps interrupting her. Since she captioned it This guy, matching Peters post I think its safe to assume that her main beau is the guilty party. This guy... A video posted by Emma Roberts (@emmaroberts) on Nov 21, 2016 at 12:59pm PST So rejoice! We always want the best for this couple and hope that Peters photo of Roberts will be just one of many more to come. The post Evan Peters just posted a photo of Emma Roberts, it is worth a thousand words appeared first on HelloGiggles. Photo credit: Drew Angererundefined From Esquire The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exists to serve as a constant reminder of the horrors we as a species are capable of. So after the museum's leaders issued a statement today calling on Americans to reject "racist thinking and divisive hateful speech" following a white nationalist conference held in the Ronald Reagan Building near the museum, it may be time for us to wake the fuck up. The US Holocaust museum has released a statement calling on all Americans to "confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech" pic.twitter.com/im2m46t9dP - David Mack (@davidmackau) November 21, 2016 That conference, of the National Policy Institute, was billed as a gathering of the "alt-right," the rebranding vehicle for white nationalism. (The organization describes itself as "an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.") The Institute's leader, Richard B. Spencer-who in the past has called for a "peaceful ethnic cleansing" in America-spoke before a group of 200 people, declaring at one point, "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" In response, many audience members erupted and yelled back the slogan: "Hail Trump!" That's when the Nazi salutes started. Photo credit: The Atlantic The Atlantic, which is shooting a video profile of Spencer, has video of the speech. It is chilling, but every decent human being in America ought to watch it. It's a crash course in Third Reich propaganda speech. Spencer referred to the media as the "lugenpresse," a Nazi term for reporters unreceptive to the party's propaganda. He wondered whether "these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem animated by some dark power." (In Jewish folklore, Golem are anthropogenic beings summoned by a rabbi to protect Jewish people.) He spoke of a country that was "until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity." He decried the "crimes committed against us." And he made shadowy allusions to a dehumanized Other, whom he described as "some of the most despicable creatures to ever populate the planet." Story continues The danger of this rhetoric is not lost on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It should not be lost on any of us. You Might Also Like eve v laptop tablet Microsoft's Surface tablets essentially invented the market for laptop/tablet hybrid computers, setting a standard that even Apple ended up following with its iPad Pro. Now Eve, a Helsinki-based startup with backing from Intel, thinks it can one-up Microsoft with the Eve V (pronounced "Eve Vee") its own Windows 10-powered take on the Surface Pro, starting at $1399 for preorder via IndieGoGo, though it's backordered to April 2017. Today, Eve says so many people lined up to buy the first run of Eve V devices, it actually briefly overwhelmed IndieGoGo's payment processing system. At the time of writing, the Eve V had raised $722,833, or 964% of its $75,000 goal. Even Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has taken an interest in the Eve V project after reading about it, says Eve CEO Konstantinos Karatsevidis, and will be getting a unit to try out when it starts shipping in February. After all, from Microsoft's perspective, the whole reason it first created the Surface was to inspire PC manufacturers. "[Microsoft] really wanted to see the device," Karatsevidis says. eve v team The machine is totally finished and functional, thanks to Intel's funding, Eve says; the IndieGoGo campaign is to cover manufacturing costs and handle preorders. At this point, you may be wondering what makes the Eve V so special. If you ask Karatsevidis, the answer is simple: It's all about the community. See, every aspect of the Eve V, from the design to the processor to the keyboard cover material, was decided with full and complete input from Eve's community of fans. "We immediately started to see huge advantages" The Eve V is actually Eve's second bit of Windows hardware. The first, early 2015's Eve T1, was a budget Windows 8.1 tablet, designed to balance price with performance. At the time, Karatsevidis says, Eve was really just two guys looking to make the kind of gadget they themselves would want to use. Story continues "We were pretty unhappy with the products in the market," Karatsevidis says. eve v fact sheet The Eve T1 got pretty solid reviews, but Karatsevidis says that Eve was getting a ton of feedback, both via e-mail and in the comments sections of press articles about the tablet. A lot of people had a lot of ideas for how the T1 could have been done better. Karatsevidis didn't just welcome the feedback he rebuilt the company around it. In June 2015, Eve introduced Eve.Community, a site where anybody could register and help guide the company as it worked on its next project, what would become the Eve V. "We immediately started to see huge advantages to this," Karatsevidis says. "The community stepped in and stopped us" Karatsevidis says that there's this tendency in the market, especially when talking about hybrids like the Surface Pro, to focus on sleekness above all else. The problem, Karatsevidis says, is that this sleekness comes at the cost of things that users really care about, like battery life or additional USB and monitor ports. So while Eve's original designs called for something as thin and light as possible, the community came in and set them straight. Microsoft Surface Pro 4 "The community kicked in and prevented us from doing so," Karatsevidis says. "As a result, we have a lot of battery life." Now, Karatsevidis says, he realizes that battery life can make or break a product, "no joke." Similarly, the Eve V sports Thunderbolt 3, USB-C and 2 full-sized USB-A 3.0 ports, which beats the Surface Pro 4, which only has one USB port. The payoff has been this tremendous rush of interest in the Eve V, as a device built by power users, for power users. "We really want to challenge the big guys" Intel found the project "quite accidentally," Karatsevidis says, but was really intrigued by the notion of product development via the wisdom of the crowd, which is a big bet for Eve in the future. Going forward, Karatsevidis says, he's happy to see the Eve V go head-to-head with Microsoft, Asus, Lenovo, and every other PC manufacturer. But he doesn't see the company stopping there: There's no reason why Eve couldn't apply its approach to crowdsourcing designs for phones, tablets, or even electric vehicles, he says. eve v ports "We really want to challenge the big guys," Karatsevidis says. "We want to crowd-develop all kinds of tech with the community." Still, don't expect to see the Eve V on the shelves at Best Buy or Target any time soon. From Karatsevidis' perspective, a big part of maintaining the relationship with the community is by selling the devices directly to fans. NOW WATCH: Everything you need to know about the $3,000 Surface Studio Microsoft's first desktop PC More From Business Insider A Florida man who says he once dated one of the twin sisters at the center of an alleged murder in Hawaii stemming from a fatal car crash in May tells PEOPLE he wasnt shocked upon learning the news. Keith Weiss says that it has been more than ten years since he and the former Ann Dadow ended what he described as a tumultuous six-month romance. Weiss says his ex-girlfriend and her sister, the former Alison Dadow, had a toxic relationship. (The twins changed their names in 2014: Ann and Alison Dadow became Anastasia and Alexandria Duval, respectively.) There was just so much drama, Weiss tells PEOPLE. They would really get into it. I remember this one time, the three of us were at the mall, and Ann smacked Alison in the back of the head. Hard. They raged. They went back and forth with each other, pulling hair, pinching each other it was as if they had blocked everything out around them. On Nov. 11, for the second time in seven months, Alexandria Duval, formerly Alison Dadow, was arrested for her sister the alleged murder of Anastasia, formerly Ann, according to a police statement obtained by PEOPLE. Authorities caught up to Duval in upstate New York, one month after a warrant was issued for her arrest. Alexandria has been indicted in her twin sisters death; authorities allege she intentionally drove herself and her sister off a cliff in Hawaii on May 29, leaving herself with numerous injuries and killing her twin sister. Eyewitnesses whod been driving behind the sisters told police Alexandria and Anastasia appeared to be fighting, and that Anastasia could be seen pulling her sisters hair, officials have alleged, according to the Associated Press. The fatal crash followed years of failed business ventures, personal bankruptcies and moves for the sisters, who first made a name for themselves as yoga instructors in Florida only to change their names while living in Utah, according to multiple reports. After her first arrest, Alexandria was cleared by a judge, but new, unspecified evidence has since surfaced, prompting the refiling of charges. Story continues Weiss, a trained chef, says he first met his Ann while he was working at a South Florida restaurant. When I knew them, they were both in school for court stenography, Weiss recalls. Alison came in every night to hang out at the restaurants bar and Id talk to her. Ann came in with her one day, and we hit it off and ended up going out for drinks together. On at least two occasions, the twin sisters began fighting inside Weiss car, once when Ann was driving. Both of those scuffles were very intense and nearly resulted in crashes. The first time, Ann was driving, and they just started fighting, Weiss says. She let go of the wheel and they were going back and forth with each other, oblivious to the obvious danger and the other cars around us. She almost lost control of the car. Weiss says he split from Ann not long after the second incident. We were driving home and they wanted me to stop so they could get some wine, he starts. But I didnt want to stop, and Ann, she started kicking my hands kicking them off of the steering wheel. Alison was kicking the windows and they were screaming, I want you to stop! I told them, Youre going to end up killing us. They didnt care. Weiss says Alison would tag along on his dates with Ann. It almost seemed like Alison was jealous of Ann, who always got the guy, Weiss explains. Alison was just a bystander, basically. Alison was always the one who was tagging along. Weiss says that whenever the sisters would drink alcohol, bad things would happen. I once got call from Ann saying, Get over here now Im going to kill her,' Weiss recalls. She actually started hitting Alison with the phone. I heard it thump, thump, thump. They were both screaming at each other. I get to their apartment and theres broken glass everywhere from wine bottles and shattered glasses. There was blood everywhere, and the bedroom door was falling off its hinges. Both of them were sitting on the couch when I walked in, and they were like, Hey how are you doing? Alison had a bruise on her face. I asked them if they were okay, and they were like, Were good, were fine. Were just watching a movie. Meanwhile, all around them its total destruction. They seemed to not know they wanted to kill each other just minutes earlier. A Bizarre Yoga Class The Duval sisters drama didnt wane when they moved to Park City, Utah, where the twins worked as yoga instructors. A woman who took a private yoga class from the siblings describes the experience as bizarre, telling PEOPLE a feeling of one-upsmanship pervaded the class. The former student herself, a yoga instructor says the class taught by Alexandria and Anastasia Duval in Park City was unlike any other class she has ever taken, and says their instructions, their demeanor and their energy were off-putting. It was very frenetic and disorganized, explains the woman, who spoke to PEOPLE on condition of anonymity. They were teaching at the same time, speaking over one another really fast: Do this, lift your arm, lower your left arm. It was honestly one of the most bizarre yoga experiences I had ever had. They were giving instructions that didnt seem to be making much sense to me and at the same time, they were both assisting me. It was a very unusual experience in the yoga community Im sure any regular practitioner or teacher would agree. 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. The onetime student says Park Citys yoga community is quite small, so the sudden presence of the tall, blonde Duval twins sparked intrigue. She attended one of their evening classes, and nearly walked out when they made fun of my pose, which she believed was rude you never want to demean someones personal experience, but also, yoga is about your personal experience. She further claims the sisters spoke in pseudo-spiritual speak that didnt mean anything and insists a lot of their information was incorrect it was just incorrect. Sisterly Rivalry The former pupil tells PEOPLE that, as a student in the Duval sisters class, it didnt seem like it was necessarily about me, noting the twins had a weird dynamic I wasnt sure if they were trying to impress me or each other. In the weeks after that single class, she says she reached out to other yoga teachers in the community who had signed up for a session with the twins. I did hear other students say that they had some similar experiences to me, where they were just bizarre and chaotic and disorganized, the former student explains. She believes the twins were very much loners in Park City. were equally chaotic and based on my interaction with them, just distracted, ungrounded, unorganized, the woman says. Alexandria Duval has not been extradited from New York and has not entered a plea. PEOPLEs calls to her lawyer, Todd Eddins, have not been returned. With reporting by HARRIET SOKMENSUER If there's any safe bet when it comes to the Oscars, it's betting on Amy Adams. In the past 10 years, she has earned five Academy Awards nominations. Her first was Best Supporting Actress for Junebug in 2006, followed by nominations in the same category for Doubt in 2008, The Fighter in 2010 and The Master in 2012. She secured her first Best Actress nod in 2013 for American Hustle and that streak could continue this year with either Arrival or Nocturnal Animals. "I'm always grateful if I get to be there," Adams humbly told ET when asked about garnering Oscar buzz for two films in one year. She then added, just as chipperly, "If not, then that's OK too. I'm happy to support really good films. I'm in the Academy, so I'll be voting for the awesome films and performances I've seen so far." EXCLUSIVE: Isla Fisher on Being Mistaken for 'Nocturnal Animals' Co-Star Amy Adams: It's a Huge Compliment Paramount Pictures Academy rules stipulate that Adams can't actually compete against herself -- an actor cannot earn two nominations in the same category in the same year -- and it doesn't behoove her to submit herself for Best Actress twice and risk splitting the votes. Actors can and have been nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress in the same year though, and while Adams is indisputably the lead of both Arrival and Nocturnal Animals, she wouldn't be the first to lean into a rather loose definition of "Supporting" to suit her needs. Here's how I imagine it will unfold: Adams will make herself available for your consideration as a Best Actress contender for Arrival. With Viola Davis going Supporting for Fences, there's a spot open in the race. Emma Stone (La La Land) and Natalie Portman (Jackie) are all but guaranteed nominations, with the other three likely going to a combination of Adams, Annette Bening (20th Century Women), Ruth Negga (Loving), and Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins). Story continues In Arrival, Adams plays linguistics professor Dr. Louise Banks, who is enlisted to help communicate with a number of alien heptopods that have landed on earth. Ahead of the screening I saw, screenwriter Eric Heisserer discussed the difficulties of getting his movie made, recalling his conversations with a number of studio heads: Is Chris Pratt the hero? No. Are there explosions? No. Does it begin a franchise? No. The story is not about an alien threat, because there seemingly isn't one; it's about trying to understand the aliens and the purpose of their arrival. It's the lead up to what could cause a War of the Worlds and the exploration of how that could be avoided with patience and communication. It is a first contact movie that might just teach us how to be better human beings. "The script was beautifully, beautifully written. It was one of my favorite scripts that I've ever read. It got me right away and it became one of those that I had to do," Adams explained to ET. It also offered her the opportunity to showcase just how sure-footed an actress she is: She plays Dr. Banks with muted nuance, confident and vulnerable, logical and affecting. She's the anchor at the heart of the movie, supported by Jeremy Renner as a theoretical physicist, of which Adams insisted: "He really is a leading man in his own right. Very often you see women who are willing to go back and forth between supporting and lead, but that's not as common for men." RELATED: Every Award-Worthy Movie You Absolutely Must Watch To Be Prepared for the 2017 Oscars Focus Features Should she shoot for dual nominations, Adams must then submit herself for Best Supporting Actress for Nocturnal Animals, though that would stretch even the most lenient interpretation of what it means to be supporting. As we're only talking theoretically, it is a less crowded field, so far: Davis will get her nod and is the frontrunner to win, with nominee potential for Greta Gerwig (20th Century Women), Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea), Naomie Harris (Moonlight), and Nicole Kidman (Lion). Nocturnal Animals is the second feature film by designer Tom Ford and Adams stars as Susan, a deeply unhappy artist who receives a novel manuscript, likewise titled "Nocturnal Animals," written by her ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal). Adams spends a large portion of the film draped over some sort of chaise or another in her mansion, lovingly if not erotically photographed reading said book. Nonetheless, as with every other time she's appeared onscreen, she is captivating. She taps into a darkness here that we are not used to seeing from her, playing a character that is cynical in ways that she most certainly is not. "When you look into Amy's eyes, it's as though you look right into her soul," Ford gushed. "There is so much there, and you can sense whether she's happy, sad, stressed, depressed. You can read what she wants you to. As an actress, she can project that." It's a meaty performance that mines places I'm not sure the rest of the film goes. Nocturnal Animals is beautifully shot from the first scene, but ultimately, it's just a not-so-subtle metaphor that proves more style than substance. Ford has never met a nude scene he hasn't loved, and the movie aches to eke out emotion via juxtaposing style and beauty with the dregs of depravity. The entire movie can be summed up in one shot: Aaron Taylor-Johnson sits on a toiler, naked, his beautiful body on display, as he takes a s**t and then, after wiping, Ford makes a choice to show the dirty toilet paper. The director's previous film, 2009's A Single Man, did net Colin Firth a Best Actor nomination, but I imagine that Adams will let Nocturnal Animals swirl down the drain and focus her attention on Arrival and the Best Actress race. It's her best shot at winning an Oscar, and, for the record, she's due. Related Articles During their season of The Bachelor, Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell memorably bonded on an extravagant date: they hung out in a hot tub in the middle of nowhere. But this month, the couple got closer in a place where some people don't even have easy access to clean drinking water: Honduras. Higgins has worked with the Humanity & Hope United Foundation for years, even wearing a bracelet supporting the nonprofit during his time as Bachelor. The group's aim is to help locals develop sustainable change to make their lives better: creating farms that will bring jobs, sending kids to school and more. In November, for the first time, Bushnell joined him on a trip to Honduras with the foundation. "It's hard to put words to," Higgins tells ET of sharing the experience. "I watched her play with kids invest in their lives, and honestly, it made my heart soar. It was a beautiful thing for me to see; to see the person that I love going out of her comfort zone at times and loving on people she's never met." EXCLUSIVE: Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell are 'Happier Than Ever' After Putting their Wedding on Hold Higgins,28, has been going on trips to Honduras for 10 years, five of them with Humanity & Hope. He says this one felt different. "Seeing poverty is not easy, but for one of the first times I've seen what Humanity & Hope has done to uplift people out of poverty," he says. "And the joy and the health of the kids and the adults there really left me feeling like what we were doing was making an impact." Part of that impact is thanks to Bachelor Nation. Bachelor producer Elan Gale has helped Higgins coordinate T-shirt sales to raise money for the organization. Higgins says the first round of sales raised $27,000 and helped supply a drinking well to a local village, giving residents six months of clean water so far. Plus, fans are becoming active participants. Higgins is close friends with H&H co-founder Riley Fuller, and says Fuller recently told him that 80 percent of people taking trips to Honduras with the group are women most finding out about it thanks to social media and The Bachelor. "This is a reality show, but the show is also impacting real reality," he says. Story continues Gale's help also meant sending children to school, and some are becoming the first in their village to get an education beyond sixth grade. "We were there for their [sixth grade] graduation," Higgins shares. "One of the girls stood up and spoke on her dreams. She said, 'A year ago, I thought sixth grade was it for me and I was preparing to make tortillas and wait to have kids -- and that's what my life looked like. And now I dream of being a lawyer and supporting people that don't have a voice.'" Bushnell says the experience was, in a word, "changing." "I was kind of hesitant to go down because I'm a planner and like to know exactly what I'm getting myself into, and I've never really been to a developing country," she admits. "[These kids] taught me more lessons in a week about kindness and positivity and attitude then I think I've really ever learned in that short of a period of time." The lifestyle blogger says when she saw the work firsthand "the puzzle pieces just clicked," and she understood why Higgins has been so involved. "They're not just handing people things or leaving and never coming back," she says of H&H's staff and supporters. "It's all about sustainability, creating an economy [people] can be proud of, and it's their hard work that they see the results of." EXCLUSIVE: Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell Reveal Whether They'd Get Married on TV Next up for Higgins and Bushnell is another uplifting project they helped a local Colorado woman with a home makeover. The results will air on the Nov. 22 episode of their Freeform show, Happily Ever After? Related Articles Kris Jenner attended the Angel Ball in New York City on Monday, where her ex-husband, the late Robert Kardashian Sr., was honored at the black-tie event. Kris attended the event along with her daughters, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian, and stopped to talk with ET about how Kim Kardashian has been recovering since her frightening encounter with armed robbers in Paris in October. Kim was rumored to also be attending the event, but was not pictured with her family on the red carpet. "She's [taking things] one step at a time," Kris shared. "It's a process." WATCH: Kim Kardashian 'Still Very Shaken Up' Over Paris Robbery but 'Focused' on Trying to Feel Better Since being held at gunpoint in her hotel room in Paris last month, Kim has stepped back from the spotlight and taken a break from social media and public appearances, but has returned to filming new episodes of the family's E! reality series, Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Jenner also opened up about her son-in-law, Kanye West, and his abrupt cancellation of his Saint Pablo Tour dates. ET also confirmed on Monday that the rapper had been hospitalized after scrapping the final 21 shows of his U.S. tour. "I think he's exhausted. Just really tired," Jenner offered. "It's a grueling tour." WATCH: Kanye West Cancels Rest of Saint Pablo U.S. Tour Dates, All Tickets Will Be Refunded After going on headline-making rants during his two latest shows, and abruptly ending his concert on Saturday night after just 30 minutes, West announced on Sunday that all upcoming tour dates were cancelled. The rapper's recent rants have included diatribes about his longtime friend Jay Z, and an admission that he didn't vote, but would have supported Donald Trump if he had. Check out the video below to hear more. Related Articles [November 22, 2016] Global IT Leaders Convene At Nasuni's Annual Summit To Chart The Future Of Storage And Eliminate File-Related Headaches NATICK, Mass., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - In October, IT leaders from some of the world's largest and most data-intensive organizations convened in Boston for Nasuni's Fifth Annual Summit. The summit brings Nasuni's customers and partners together with the company's engineers, executives and employees to discuss best practices, share ideas and plan for the continued advancement of solutions that radically change how enterprises address their file-related challenges, including storage, backup, disaster recovery, collaboration and mobility. A provider of Enterprise File Services to distributed organizations, Nasuni created the world's first cloud-native filesystem, UniFS, and uses the public, private or hybrid cloud in much the same way that traditional storage vendors use commodity disk drives in their boxes. With Nasuni, enterprises benefit from the almost limitless capacity and inherent resiliency of the cloud, and all file-related operations occur on a system that features military-grade encryption and centralizes control including provisioning, permissions and encryption keys solely under corporate IT. This year's summit included presentations and panel conversations with numerous luminaries in the disciplines of storage, backup, disaster recovery and sync-and-share. Notably, two distinguished executives for both IBM and Microsoft's cloud operations spoke at the event. Russ Kennedy, senior vice president at IBM, and former senior vice president of product strategy and customer solutions at Cleversafe which was acquired by IBM last fall discussed the drivers behind IBM's new IBM Cloud Object Storage unveiled on the day of the summit Vamshidhar Kommineni, principal PM manager for Azure at Microsoft, also discussed Microsoft's cloud-related investments and developments. Other customers and partners who spoke at the summit included: IT architect at Burns & McDonnell Lee Biggendon, director at Nephos Principal architect, storage and backup infrastructure at Ecolab Rich Kucharksi, vice president of solutions architecture at Simplivity In addition, celebrated analyst Curtis Preston, "Mr. Backup," presented a thoughtful and entertaining session on the future of strategies to safeguard and replicate file data. Finally, Nasuni's engineering team presented proposed enhancements to the company's product development roadmap while seeking customers' feedback both at the summit and in the weeks and months to come all while updating customers on the continued growth and expansion of UniFS. Updates included: More than 300 global enterprises now deploy Nasuni's Enterprise File Services in 59 countries; More than 2.1 billion global file-locking events have now occurred; More than 12 petabytes (PB) of client data are currently stored; and More than 21.4 billion files are under Nasuni's management, with some 64 million more added each week. "The willingness of our customers to take the time to discuss their experience with our solution enables us to move forward in our effort to solve every file challenge enterprises face," said Andres Rodriguez, president and CEO. "It's great to see this summit foster an even stronger dialogue between our customers and our employees, including the engineers who write our code. At our summit, we are relentless asking what we can do better and what needs attention because that is how we advance our alternative to the costly, unsustainable, antiquated and broken approaches to storage, backup, disaster recovery and sync-and-share that have held enterprises hostage for years." About Nasuni Nasuni provides an integrated solution to store, protect, share and access all enterprise files. Powered by UniFS, the first cloud-native file system, Nasuni transforms enterprise file infrastructure. With unlimited scale, continuous versioning and high-performance distributed file access, Nasuni delivers the complete suite of Enterprise File Services all at a significantly reduced cost. Nasuni is privately held and based in Natick, Mass. For more information, visit www.nasuni.com. Social Media Links Twitter: www.twitter.com/nasuni LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nasuni The Nasuni Cloud Storage Blog: http://www.nasuni.com/blog All company and product names are property of their respective owners. For more information, contact: Jeff Miller PR Manager LEWIS 541.207.3461 [email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-it-leaders-convene-at-nasunis-annual-summit-to-chart-the-future-of-storage-and-eliminate-file-related-headaches-300367134.html SOURCE Nasuni [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] By Guy Faulconbridge and Jonathan Saul LONDON (Reuters) - Russian tankers have smuggled jet fuel to Syria through EU waters, bolstering military supplies to a war-torn country where Moscow is carrying out air strikes in support of the government, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. At least two Russian-flagged ships made deliveries - which contravene EU sanctions - via Cyprus, an intelligence source with a European Union government told Reuters. There was a sharp increase in shipments in October, said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. A separate shipping source familiar with the movements of the Russian-flagged vessels said the ships visited Cypriot and Greek ports before delivering fuel to Syria. The Russian defence and transport ministries did not initially respond to requests for comment. The defence ministry later said EU sanctions on fuel supplies to Syria could not be applied to the Russian air group in that country. A spokeswoman for EU foreign affairs and security policy said the implementation of EU restrictions lay with member states. "We trust that competent authorities are complying with their obligation to ensure respect of the restrictive measures in place and to pursue any circumvention attempts," she added. Greece's foreign ministry referred questions to the shipping ministry, which was not immediately available to comment. The Cypriot government said its authorities had not approved the docking of any Russian tankers carrying jet fuel bound for Syria. "We would welcome any information that may be provided to us on any activity that contravenes U.N. or EU restrictive measures," the Cypriot foreign ministry added. Syria's civil war, which began in 2011, has become a theatre for competing global powers, with Russia and Iran supporting President Bashar al-Assad, and the United States, Gulf Arab and European powers backing rebels who want to depose him. Story continues Russia changed the course of the conflict in favour of Assad's government last year when it intervened with air strikes. Moscow says it targets only Islamic State militants and other jihadist fighters. EU Council Regulation 1323/2014, introduced two years ago, bans any supply of jet fuel to Syria from the EU territories, whether or not the fuel originated in the European Union. Over one two-week period in October, Russian tankers delivered 20,000 metric tonnes of jet fuel to Syria - worth around $9 million at today's world prices - via the European Union, according to the EU government intelligence source. "The jet fuel shipments from these vessels have played a vital role in maintaining Russian air strikes in the region," said the source. "This points to a sustained Russian build-up of resources needed to support their military operation and ambitions in Syria." Some of the shipped fuel also went to the Syrian military, helping to "keep Assad's air assets operational", the source added. The shipping source and a third person, an intelligence consultant specialising in the Mediterranean area, also said the fuel was likely intended for Russian and Syrian military use. TRANSPONDERS OFF Publicly available ship-tracking data confirms that at least two Russian tankers, the Yaz and Mukhalatka, made one trip each between September and October, stopping in Greece and Limassol in Cyprus. In Greece, the Yaz stopped at Agioi Theodoroi port but it is unclear where the Mukhalatka stopped. From Cyprus, they sailed towards Syria and Lebanon. Their tracking transponders were switched off near the coasts of those countries, according to the data. The EU intelligence source said the Mukhalatka went on to deliver jet fuel to Syria, while the other two sources said the Yaz almost certainly carried fuel to the country. All the people declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. It was unclear where the fuel might have originated. Alexander Yaroshenko, general director of the owner of the Yaz and Mukhalatka ships, St Petersburg-based Transpetrochart, declined to comment when asked by Reuters about the shipments. Transpetrochart asked for written questions, which were supplied, but did not provide an immediate response. Transpetrochart says on its website that it was founded in 2002 and specialises in shipping crude oil, fuel oil, diesel oil, gasoline and other oil products. It operates seven oil tankers. The intelligence consultant said the Yaz was investigated by Greek authorities for possible EU sanctions violations during its stay in the port of Agioi Theodoroi in September, but that it was allowed to leave bound for Turkey. The Greek coastguard service said in September that it had investigated the Yaz for possible breaches of EU regulations regarding Syria and had pressed charges against the ship's captain. A spokesman did not give further details about the investigation when contacted by Reuters. One coastguard official said separately the captain was charged and released pending trial. The EU government intelligence source said Russia was also using ships flying the flags of other countries to carry jet fuel to Syria. Reuters was unable to corroborate that allegation with other sources, or with ship-tracking data. (Additional reporting by Michele Kambas and Renee Maltezou in Athens and Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow; Editing by Pravin Char) By Guy Faulconbridge and Jonathan Saul LONDON (Reuters) - Russian tankers have smuggled jet fuel to Syria through EU waters, bolstering military supplies to a war-torn country where Moscow is carrying out air strikes in support of the government, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. At least two Russian-flagged ships made deliveries - which contravene EU sanctions - via Cyprus, an intelligence source with a European Union government told Reuters. There was a sharp increase in shipments in October, said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. A separate shipping source familiar with the movements of the Russian-flagged vessels said the ships visited Cypriot and Greek ports before delivering fuel to Syria. The Russian defence and transport ministries did not initially respond to requests for comment. The defence ministry later said EU sanctions on fuel supplies to Syria could not be applied to the Russian air group in that country. A spokeswoman for EU foreign affairs and security policy said the implementation of EU restrictions lay with member states. "We trust that competent authorities are complying with their obligation to ensure respect of the restrictive measures in place and to pursue any circumvention attempts," she added. Greece's foreign ministry referred questions to the shipping ministry, which was not immediately available to comment. The Cypriot government said its authorities had not approved the docking of any Russian tankers carrying jet fuel bound for Syria. "We would welcome any information that may be provided to us on any activity that contravenes U.N. or EU restrictive measures," the Cypriot foreign ministry added. Syria's civil war, which began in 2011, has become a theatre for competing global powers, with Russia and Iran supporting President Bashar al-Assad, and the United States, Gulf Arab and European powers backing rebels who want to depose him. Russia changed the course of the conflict in favour of Assad's government last year when it intervened with air strikes. Moscow says it targets only Islamic State militants and other jihadist fighters. EU Council Regulation 1323/2014, introduced two years ago, bans any supply of jet fuel to Syria from the EU territories, whether or not the fuel originated in the European Union. Over one two-week period in October, Russian tankers delivered 20,000 metric tonnes of jet fuel to Syria - worth around $9 million at today's world prices - via the European Union, according to the EU government intelligence source. "The jet fuel shipments from these vessels have played a vital role in maintaining Russian air strikes in the region," said the source. "This points to a sustained Russian build-up of resources needed to support their military operation and ambitions in Syria." Some of the shipped fuel also went to the Syrian military, helping to "keep Assad's air assets operational", the source added. The shipping source and a third person, an intelligence consultant specialising in the Mediterranean area, also said the fuel was likely intended for Russian and Syrian military use. TRANSPONDERS OFF Publicly available ship-tracking data confirms that at least two Russian tankers, the Yaz and Mukhalatka, made one trip each between September and October, stopping in Greece and Limassol in Cyprus. In Greece, the Yaz stopped at Agioi Theodoroi port but it is unclear where the Mukhalatka stopped. From Cyprus, they sailed towards Syria and Lebanon. Their tracking transponders were switched off near the coasts of those countries, according to the data. The EU intelligence source said the Mukhalatka went on to deliver jet fuel to Syria, while the other two sources said the Yaz almost certainly carried fuel to the country. All the people declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. It was unclear where the fuel might have originated. Alexander Yaroshenko, general director of the owner of the Yaz and Mukhalatka ships, St Petersburg-based Transpetrochart, declined to comment when asked by Reuters about the shipments. Transpetrochart asked for written questions, which were supplied, but did not provide an immediate response. Transpetrochart says on its website that it was founded in 2002 and specialises in shipping crude oil, fuel oil, diesel oil, gasoline and other oil products. It operates seven oil tankers. The intelligence consultant said the Yaz was investigated by Greek authorities for possible EU sanctions violations during its stay in the port of Agioi Theodoroi in September, but that it was allowed to leave bound for Turkey. The Greek coastguard service said in September that it had investigated the Yaz for possible breaches of EU regulations regarding Syria and had pressed charges against the ship's captain. A spokesman did not give further details about the investigation when contacted by Reuters. One coastguard official said separately the captain was charged and released pending trial. The EU government intelligence source said Russia was also using ships flying the flags of other countries to carry jet fuel to Syria. Reuters was unable to corroborate that allegation with other sources, or with ship-tracking data. (Additional reporting by Michele Kambas and Renee Maltezou in Athens and Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow; Editing by Pravin Char) By Yeganeh Torbati WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it had issued a second license to France's Airbus to sell commercial planes to Iran Air, bringing Iran's flag carrier a step closer to receiving new Western jets under last year's deal to ease sanctions. The move in the waning months of Democratic President Barack Obama's administration to further unlock jetliner sales to Iran prompted complaints from Republicans in Congress and is likely to raise the ire of President-elect Donald Trump. Trump has said he would dismantle the 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran, which includes a measure allowing U.S. and European companies to sell Iran civilian aircraft. Licenses allowing such sales could easily be withdrawn by the Trump administration if he chose to do so, sanctions experts said. But he would likely face opposition from U.S. allies and other world powers who were partners in negotiating the deal to lift some sanctions in exchange for Tehran curbing its nuclear program. The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control on Monday issued the license for the sale of 106 planes to Iran Air, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, on condition of anonymity. An Airbus spokesman confirmed that the company had received the OFAC license, but declined to confirm the exact number of planes approved. Although Airbus is based in France, it must have U.S. approval to sell planes to Iran because at least 10 percent of the aircraft's components are American-made. Tehran provisionally ordered more than 100 jets each from Airbus and Boeing this year. Before the license was issued on Monday, Airbus had U.S. permission for the sale of 17 jets to Iran. Members of Trump's transition team did not respond to a request for comment on the license. Opponents of the nuclear deal argue that passenger aircraft could be used for military purposes, such as transporting fighters to battle U.S. troops or allies in Syria, something Iranian officials deny. In a letter to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon accused Iran of using commercial airline flights to ship weapons to Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah. The U.S. Treasury says that the licenses it issues contain strict conditions to require planes be used solely for commercial passenger use, and not be sold or transferred to a sanctioned person or group. Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill intending to block the sale of commercial aircraft to Iran, which would also affect sales by U.S. firm Boeing . The measure is unlikely to become law during the current Congress, as it would need to pass the Senate, where it would face stiff opposition from Democrats. The White House also said Obama would veto the measure even if it did pass the Senate. On Tuesday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce sent a letter to Obama asking him to refrain from trying to boost international investment in Iran or issuing new regulations, licenses or guidance on remaining sanctions in the last two months of his administration. McCarthy said in a statement on Tuesday that Obama should not allow for the Airbus sale. "Actions like this underscore the need for the upcoming Trump Administration to review all options when it comes to this failed deal," the statement said. Confirming a Reuters report on the issuing of a second license, the U.S. State Department said the Obama administration was not trying to push through Iran-related measures on its way out. "This particular license that we're talking about today isn't new. It is something that has been in train for quite some time, as other licenses have been as well," said State Department spokesman John Kirby in a press briefing. "There's no Machiavellian intent here to push in any way outside the bounds of our normal commitments and obligations here in the final months of the administration." Republican members of Congress unanimously opposed the nuclear agreement, seen as one of Obama's hallmark foreign policy achievements. The deals by Airbus and Boeing to sell or lease over 200 jets to Iran Air would help modernize and expand the country's elderly fleet, held together by smuggled or improvised parts after years of sanctions. Iranian officials have voiced growing concerns about what they see as unfair delays in obtaining U.S. licenses, or clarity over banking and financing rules. Sanctions experts said Treasury licenses allowing such aircraft sales, and easing the way for other commerce with Iran, could easily be reversed by Trump if he chose to do so. "The licenses can be withdrawn at any moment...so long as they're not required by legislation, which is a very small number," said David Mortlock, a former White House sanctions official. The airplane deals still face major obstacles, including reluctance from major European banks to finance deals involving Iran. The Airbus spokesman said that taken together, the company's two Treasury licenses cover its entire 118-plane deal with Iran, implying that there is some overlap between the two licenses. Some aircraft have been canceled because of delays in receiving authorizations, and officials say Iran no longer plans to take delivery of A380 superjumbos, so the final tally is likely to be closer to 100 aircraft. (Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Emily Stephenson and Lesley Wroughton in Washington and Tim Hepher in Paris; editing by Grant McCool) Washington (AFP) - Hillary Clinton was about to be indicted, Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump: the battle over fake news is heating up after a White House campaign in which the misinformation industry may have swung the outcome of the vote. Last week, Google and Facebook moved to cut off ad revenue to bogus news sites. But media watchers say more is needed to stamp out a powerful phenomenon seen by some people as a threat to democracy itself. One of those people is President Barack Obama, who has warned that fake news threatens the basic principle of freedom of speech. "If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect," Obama said during a visit to Germany. The hoaxes of the 2016 election season were in many cases spectacular -- "Did the Clintons Commit Murder?" -- and created by groups purely out to make money from clicks and ads. And since Trump's victory, reports have exposed the dark underbelly of operations -- run from Macedonia to California -- that boast of making easy money with wholly fabricated stories, under such headlines as "Look At Sick Thing He Just Did To STAB Trump In The Back." An analysis published by BuzzFeed News found that the 20 top-performing bogus stories from hoax websites and extremely partisan blogs generated slightly more than 8.7 million "shares" on Facebook to just 7.4 million from major news websites, in the three months before the election. Now, the outcry over fake news and its apparent role in the election is prompting calls for Facebook to consider itself a media company, with editorial responsibilities, which the social network has repeatedly rejected. - Arbiters of truth? - Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan argued that Facebook "should hire a top-flight executive editor and give that person the resources, power and staff to make sound editorial decisions." For Gabriel Kahn, a former journalist who teaches at the University of Southern California, "they're in the same business as pretty much every media company, which is aggregating audiences and using that to sell advertisements." Story continues And Kahn believes that Facebook, by considering itself a "neutral" platform, "allows the media ecosystem to be polluted" with bogus news. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Friday offered additional insight on plans to curb online misinformation while arguing for caution. "The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically," Zuckerberg said in a posting. "We believe in giving people a voice... We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties." Zuckerberg said nonetheless that Facebook would step up efforts to weed out fake news with "stronger detection," an easier process to report hoaxes and "third party verification" from "respected fact checking organizations." Tech entrepreneur Elad Gil said it should not be too difficult for a company like Facebook to apply its technical expertise to determine when a news story is fake. "Intriguingly, a group of undergrads at Princeton were able to build a quick and dirty fake news classifier during a 36-hour hackathon," Gil said in a blog post. - 'Click farms' vs ideology - Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy argued that it is important to differentiate between "click farms" which make money off entirely fake news and politically driven news sites. "I think Facebook could do a lot to crack down on fake news, and I think that's something everybody could agree on, but if they try to go against the ideologically motivated sites it will inevitably get caught up in the culture wars," Kennedy said. The prevalence of ersatz news, analysts note, comes in a context of deep distrust of mainstream media, which is often accused of one-sidedness. Any effort to filter out those voices could "lead to the relitigation of ancient disputes over media bias," said Kennedy. Reason magazine editor Scott Shackleford said it would be hard to draw a line between filtering bogus news and ideological censorship. "So a decision by Facebook to censor 'fake news' would heavily weigh in favor of the more mainstream and 'powerful' traditional media outlets," he wrote. City University of New York journalism professor Jeff Jarvis and startup entrepreneur John Borthwick argued in a blog post that the media and technology industries should work together to help readers establish the credibility of news. "We do not believe that the platforms should be put in the position of judging what is fake or real, true or false as censors for all," they wrote. "The platforms need to give users better information and media need to help them." Even if the online platforms do not turn into media firms, the two wrote in the blog, they should "hire high-level journalists inside their organizations" to "bring a sense of public responsibility to their companies" and "to explain journalism to the technologists and technology to the journalists." Facebooks North American ad revenue has overtaken the money traditional media companies like CBS, Disney and Comcast make with ads in the U.S. for the first time this year, according to an analysis from The Information. This could be another sign of trouble for traditional media, as advertisers are increasingly shifting their budgets from TV networks to digital. Facebook generated $9.1 billion in ad dollars in North America during the first nine months of this year, according to SEC filings analyzed for the report. Comcasts North America ad revenue for the same time frame was $7.6 billion; Disney followed closely with $6.7 billion, and CBS trailed with $5.4 billion. A year ago, Facebook was still behind Comcast, with both companies generating ad revenue of $5.5 billion and $6.6 billion respectively during the first three quarters of 2015. Its worth noting that even with its explosive growth, Facebook isnt getting anywhere close to Google, which generated $21.5 billion with advertising in North America during the first three quarters of 2016. Also, these numbers alone dont say much about the financial health of the companies involved. Comcast has a highly profitable internet access business, and media companies like CBS generate a growing percentage of their revenue with retransmission fees paid by TV operators to carry their programming. In fact, CBS saw its profits rise during the last quarter due to a 32 percent jump in retransmission and affiliate fees. However, the flip side of this coin is that CBSs broadcast ad revenue declined by 2 percent. Facebooks ad revenue on the other hand has been skyrocketing in recent months. The company generated a total of $7 billion during its most recent quarter, up from $4.5 billion during the same time a year ago. Related stories Facebook to Add 500 Employees in U.K. When New London Office Opens Mark Zuckerberg Responds to Fake News Controversy for Third Time in One Week Social Media Only Makes My Trump Angst Worse (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump spoke on a wide range of issues with New York Times editors and reporters on Tuesday. The following is a summary of some of his comments as reported by the newspaper or its reporters. * CLINTON INVESTIGATION Trump said prosecuting Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for her handing of classified information while secretary of state or the dealings of the Clinton Foundation was "not something that I feel very strongly about." "I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont," Trump said. "She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways." "I think it would be very very divisive for the country," he said, referring to prosecuting Clinton or her husband, former President Bill Clinton. During campaign rallies, Trump often fired up his supporters by calling for pressing for investigations of Hillary Clinton, spurring chants of "Lock her up!" by the crowd. * CLIMATE CHANGE Trump, who previously called man-made global warming a hoax, said: "I think there is some connectivity" between humans and climate change. "Im looking at it very closely," Trump said about the 2015 Paris climate accord, which he had promised to quit during the presidential campaign. "I have an open mind to it." * ALT-RIGHT AND STEVE BANNON Trump condemned an alt-right conference in Washington over the weekend where some members performed a Hitler salute and yelled: "Hail Trump!" after a speech about white nationalism. "I condemn them. I disavow, and I condemn," he said. "It's not a group I want to energize. And if they are energized I want to look into it and find out why." Rejecting charges by some critics that his chief White House strategist Steve Bannon is a racist, Trump said: "Ive known Steve Bannon a long time. If I thought he was a racist, or alt-right ... I wouldnt even think about hiring him." Critics say Bannon, a former head of the conservative Breitbart News, had made the website a forum for the alt-right, a loose grouping that rejects mainstream politics and includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites. * CONFLICT OF INTEREST The real estate mogul said he saw no conflict in his business dealings and being president. "In theory I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly. Theres never been a case like this," Trump said. "I'd assumed that you'd have to set up some type of trust or whatever and you don't," he said. But he added: "I would like to do something." "The law's totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest." * DEALING WITH THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT Trump said his son-in-law and close aide, Jared Kushner, could help broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and that the president-elect himself could play a role in achieving what has eluded his predecessors. "I would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians, Trump said. That would be such a great achievement." (Reporting by Mohammad Zargham in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney) By Herbert Lash NEW YORK, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Lower leasing costs, more efficient office space and the hope of projecting an image more appealing to millennials are leading hedge funds and large corporations to leave Manhattan's most-coveted business district for a rejuvenated Downtown and the trendy far West Side. The construction of gigantic new office buildings that allow tenants to use 20 percent less space is pressuring prices and driving firms like consultants BCG and law firm WilmerHale out of the tony Plaza District in Midtown Manhattan. In the latest potential blow to the area surrounding the elegant Plaza Hotel - the city's most coveted business address for decades - asset manager BlackRock Inc is poised to lease 850,000 square feet at a planned 58-story tower at the new Hudson Yards development on the far West Side. Also spurring the slow exodus is the notion that the area just southeast of Central Park, which includes the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, is showing its age and fails to satisfy the city's burgeoning millennial workforce. Buildings along Park Avenue in the half-square-mile Plaza section of Midtown on average were built in 1960. The area roughly runs from 50th to 59th streets and is bounded by Lexington and Sixth Avenues. "For large, dynamic companies, these older buildings don't work as well, they just don't," said Bill Montana, senior managing director at New York-based Savills Studley, a unit of global real estate firm Savills Plc. The new buildings are significantly more efficient and large companies use the space to compete for top talent, Montana said. Four towers with an average height of 69 stories that are under construction by Related Cos, Brookfield Properties and the Moinian Group at Hudson Yards already are pressuring prices. Five other behemoths have been proposed for the far West Side. Average leasing rates for 62 "trophy" buildings in Midtown have slid a touch more than 1 percent in October from a post-recession peak last year of $99.43 a square foot, which capped a 33 percent increase since 2009, real estate specialist Jones Lang LaSalle said. Story continues Asking rents for the Plaza District averaged $95.47 a square foot for Class A buildings in the third quarter, compared to $66.05 a square foot for space in the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, real estate firm Colliers International said. BlackRock would like to add a cafeteria and auditorium, amenities that are missing at its two offices across the street from each other on 52nd Street, said a source with knowledge of the real estate search. The move, which would involve about 2,800 staff, but has not been finalized, is as good or better financially than to stay, the source said. Projected rents for anchor tenants in the Plaza District when BlackRock's leases are up in 2023 are much higher. A BlackRock spokesman declined to comment. There is no new, large-scale construction underway in the Plaza District, though landlords have ordered major renovations such as a $325 million makeover at the old Time-Life Building on Sixth Avenue that has been rebranded 1271 Avenue of the Americas. LEASING RATES FOR 'TROPHY' BUILDINGS SLIP To be sure, no one is writing the area off. The Plaza still has cachet for many. "Midtown will always prosper," said Cynthia Wasserberger, a managing director at JLL in New York. "Those landlords have to react a little differently to how they're going to fill the hole left behind." Earlier this year JLL said almost half the world's 428 hedge funds with at least $1 billion in assets had New York offices. Of those 208 sites, 94 percent were in Midtown Manhattan, with almost two-thirds located in the Plaza District, JLL said. One marquee hedge fund, Citadel LLC, in February agreed to pay a record $300 a square foot for part of the penthouse at 425 Park Avenue, according to media reports. Citadel's average rent will be $175 a square foot on average after its other floors are included. Citadel declined to comment. Still, high-profile names have left or will soon, such as private equity firm KKR's planned move from the Solow Building on West 57th Street, often called the city's most prestigious building, to Hudson Yards. The move is seen as highly symbolic. The Plaza District has been losing ground for a while. It has been the third-lowest recipient of corporate cross-market relocations in Manhattan since 2011, when leases of more than 50,000 square feet are examined, according to Colliers. But the Plaza, the city's biggest sub-market, has seen the largest departure of companies that have moved from Midtown, Midtown South or the downtown business centers in the almost six-year period up to mid-September, a Colliers report said. During that time Midtown lost 30 tenants, a dozen of those from the Plaza, including five that moved to new construction, Colliers said in its "Manhattan Without Borders" report. A drop-off in leasing demand is particularly apparent in the Plaza District, where the increase in available space surged by almost 4 percentage points in the third quarter to 12.9 percent from a year-ago, according to a recent Savills Studley report. "There is a very strong base of people who still want to be in the Plaza District, myself included," Montana said. "For a lot of younger people, that's not what they aspire to. So the demand is less for the Plaza District because of building stock and because of change in taste." (Reporting by Herbert Lash; Additional reporting by Lawrence Delevingne; Editing by Bill Rigby) Banks and energy firms have been big winners since Donald Trump stunned the world with his surprise victory in the US presidential election on Nov. 8. Stocks in those two sectors are up around 10% since Election Day, as investors anticipate new Trump policies favorable toward each industry. But thats a trifle compared with the rally in shares of Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC), the housing finance agencies now run by the federal government. Fannie is up 92% since Election Day; Freddie, 99%. Investors, who own a minority of shares not controlled by Washington, are betting that Trump will free the two agencies from government control and begin sending their considerable profits back to private-sector shareholders. If that were to happen, the biggest winners would be a handful of hedge funds that have placed risky wagers on Fannie and Freddie during the last few years. The top shareholder is Pershing Square Capital Management, run by billionaire Bill Ackman, which bought a large stake in both firms in 2013. Ackman owns 116 million shares of Fannie and 64 million shares of Freddie, and his stake has gained about $272 million in value since Election Day. Ackman had been underwater on the investments, since the share prices had fallen well below what he paid for them in 2013. But Trumps election and the improved prospects for the two firms have put Ackman in the black. Ackman is not an active Trump supporter, but another Fannie and Freddie investor is. Hedge fund billionaire John Paulson owns 1.33 million shares of Freddie, with his holdings gaining about $2 million in value since the election. Paulson supported Jeb Bush and Scott Walker early in the presidential race, but signed on with the Trump campaign once Trump became the Republican nominee. Eventually, he became one of Trumps top economic advisors. The huge jump in Fannie and Freddie shares could be due in part to the perception that Paulson could persuade the future president to steer the two firms back toward private ownership. Story continues Other investing firms holding a stake in Fannie or Fredde include Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb, Third Avenue Management and William Harris Investors. While their stakes are small, they could win big if either agency is freed from government control. Both stocks traded above $60 prior to the housing bust, then plunged almost all the way to zero as they collapsed and the government rescued them. Each now trades around $3 per share. Ackman has argued that the shares could go as high as $50 if the government gets out of the way, which would make those returns since Election Day look like peanuts. But traders betting on a second act for Fannie and Freddie may be banking too heavily on Trump, who has not taken a public stance on the fate of the two agencies. There have been false dawns before with the Fannie and Freddie trade, says Michael Bright of the nonprofit Milken Institutes Center for Financial Markets. Theres a lot of rumor and speculation, but no one is getting involved in these things based on the underlying fundamentals of the company. The question is whether Congress will deal on a payout for the owners of Fannie and Freddie. There have been several attempts in Washington to enact housing finance reform that would settle the fate of the two firmswith virtually no progress. The government bailout cost taxpayers $187.5 billion, with the government taking a 79.9% ownership stake in each company. Fannie and Freddie have since paid back the bailout money, with interest. But the original bailout legislation left unanswered the question of what to do with the zombie firms after that. The two firms still back roughly two-thirds of all new mortgages, making them essential to the housing market and impossible to liquidate without a detailed backup plan. In 2012, the Obama administration changed its policies and announced a quarterly sweep of every dollar of profit that each firm earns going forward. That means the two firms profits go straight back to the Treasury, making them highly unusual government-operated corporations with a smidgen of public ownership. The two organizations have been profitable since 2012, and theyve funneled more than $240 billion in profits back to the government since then. But remitting all their profits means they cant build capital, invest like a normal company or plan for the future. Ackman and other investors sued to challenge that move, with the suits still winding through the courts. Various reform proposals run the gamut from shutting down Fannie and Freddie completely and replacing them with a new federal agency, to privatizing them fully and regulating them like a big Wall Street bank. A Milken Institute blueprint would convert the two agencies into a sort of insurance company owned not by the government or individual shareholders, but by banks and other lenders that issue mortgages. I think what will happen is theyll be kept around in some form with a smaller footprint, and the door to competition in the mortgage space will be opened a bit, says Bright. What investors like Ackman and Paulson care about is what happens to current shareholders whenever the feds decide what to do. The government could wipe them out completely, compensate them at some fixed rate or engineer an outcome that generates billions of dollars worth of profit for shareholders. And Trump will have a lot to say about it. If Wall Street ends up feasting on Fannie and Freddie, theyll have the next president to thank. Rick Newman is the author of four books, including Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman. Its no secret that Teen Mom OG star Farrah Abraham is on the outs with her fellow MTV co-stars-- and she doesnt plan on reconciling with them. After Abraham fought with Amber Portwood, Catelynn Lowell and Maci Bookout on the reunion special in October, she still isnt talking to the Teen Mom OG cast. Abraham, 25, didnt have any harsh words for Portwood, Lowell or Bookout. I hope they channel how to find their happy place in life. I wish that for them all, she told Radar Online in an exclusive interview Tuesday. I dont like to see other people struggling or being negative. But it doesnt mean theyre going to hang out anytime soon. I have a better life without them in my life, Abraham added. Drama eruption on the reunion stage in October when Abraham made disparaging comments about Matt Baier, the man engaged to Portwood. When it came to taking sides, Bookout and Lowell slammed Abraham on social media. Since the reunion hasnt aired yet, rumors about how the fight went down swirled on social media. I hope this finale shows the reality behind the scenes so you could get a clear picture of whats really going on, the entrepreneur said. There was a bunch of hype about the reunion. Abrahams on-again, off-again boyfriend, Simon Saran, was the only one who defended her. He touted her as a good mother during an interview with Radar Online in September, but their relationship isnt always easy. Its definitely an adventure, he said about dating the sex tape star. Some really good moments and some really awful moments. But thats what keeps it interesting. Teen Mom OG airs on MTV Mondays at 9 p.m. EST. An air date for the reunion special has not been revealed. Farrah Abraham Photo: Getty Images Follow me on Twitter @mariamzzarella Related Articles [November 22, 2016] Conformance Technologies Partners with Base Commerce for PCI Compliance, Penetration Testing and PAN Scanning Conformance Technologies, a fast-growing provider of operating systems, education systems and expertise used in managing business compliance requirements, today announced that Base Commerce has selected its PCI ToolKit solution for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) merchant portfolio compliance validation. Base Commerce merchants will also have access to Conformance Technologies' Cyber Attack Readiness ToolKit, which provides cost-effective and easy-to-use penetration testing and primary account number (PAN) scanning services that fully meet tough PCI (News - Alert) DSS requirements established last year. 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About Conformance Technologies Conformance Technologies is a fast-growing provider of operating systems, educational systems and expertise used in managing business compliance requirements. More than 300,000 small and midsize business end-users rely on Conformance Technologies' solutions to protect their businesses every day, both domestically and around the world. Available solutions include the patented PCI ToolKit, Data Incident Management Program, TINMatch ToolKit, Cyber Attack Readiness ToolKit, Payment Security Awareness System, Breach Defense Reviewer and InConRadar which offers cost effective, real-time merchant website monitoring. Conformance Technologies is a privately held corporation headquartered in Reno, Nevada. Evolving from a payments consultancy and PCI compliance firm originally established in 2003, the Company has become a leading provider of automated compliance and sensitive data protection systems and services. For more information, please visit conformancetech.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005033/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Consumers Union (CU),the policy and mobilization arm of Consumer Reports, supports and advocates for initiatives to ensure that all Americans have the secure retirement they deserve. Learn moreand get involvedat ConsumersUnion.org. Defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB has helped retirees by reining in predatory reverse-mortgage lenders, among other initiatives. Since opening in 2011, it has returned some $11.7 billion to consumers wronged by the financial industry. The industry and some in Congress want to weaken the CFPB by advocating for more oversight of its activities. CU will fight to maintain the CFPB in its current, potent form. Improve education on reverse mortgages. These loans can be a lifeline for some, but the risk that borrowers will overextend makes them a last resort, CU maintains. To ensure consumers understand those risks, California recently improved its mandated reverse-mortgage education, provided by trained counselors. CU pushed for the change and advocates for similar reforms nationwide. Help workers save for retirement. Most Americans save for retirement through their workplace, but some 30 million Americans ages 18 to 64 dont have access to an employer-sponsored plan. Californias new Secure Choice program will automatically enroll most workers without a 401(k) in a state-run retirement pool, at minimal cost to employers and taxpayers. Unless they opt out, participants will have payroll deductions invested in low-cost options overseen and managed by fiduciaries. Other states are expected to follow suit. CU supports providing workers with access to such accounts. Fight financial elder abuse. CUs End Robocalls campaign urges telecom companies to provide free tools to screen or block unsolicited phone calls from telemarketers and scammers. Support the fiduciary rule. The Department of Labors 2016 rule requiring retirement advisers to act in clients best interests is arguably the most important investor protection in decades. CU opposes attempts by the financial services industry and some in Congress to roll back the regulation. Story continues More on Retirement Planning Editor's Note: This article also appeared in the January 2017 issue of Consumer Reports magazine. More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright 2006-2016 Consumers Union of U.S. Tax reform will be a top priority for the Trump administration. Though nobody knows exactly how presidential and congressional proposals will play out, financial advisors are recommending clients take steps now to prepare for any tax changes that may lie ahead. "We think this a policy shift of enormous magnitude. If Reagan was a Richter 8, this is a Richter 9," said Leon LaBrecque, a certified public accountant and a certified financial planner as well as managing partner and CEO of LJPR Financial Advisors. Given what we know about these proposals, the tax advice is "very simple," said Roger Stinnett, a CFP, CPA and director of financial planning at Westmount Asset Management. "Defer income and accelerate deductions. Rates will likely go down," he said. Proposals by President-elect Donald Trump and House Republicans have many similarities. Both plans call for simplifying the personal income tax code from seven to three brackets: 12, 25 and 33 percent. The tax plans also want to more than double the standard deduction from $6,300 to $15,000 for single filers and from 12,600 to $30,000 for married couples filing jointly. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center has estimated how much taxpayers would save annually based on their income under tax plans from Trump and the House GOP. (See chart below.) The trade-off for taxpayers is that deductions are capped at $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for married couples filing jointly under Trump's proposal. "This could be a problem for those that have a big mortgage, property taxes and big state taxes," Stinnett said. However, the lower overall tax rate may reduce the financial effect of losing the deductions, he said. Here are some tax moves advisors are telling their clients to make before the Trump administration begins: Alternative minimum tax The alternative minimum tax would be repealed under the Trump and the House GOP tax plans. The AMT repeal would benefit people who have large property taxes and large state income taxes, such as those who live in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. Story continues Many upper-middle-class households are hit by the AMT. Last year, about 27 percent of households with incomes between $200,000 and $500,000 were affected by the AMT, according to estimates from the Tax Policy Center. "This might be the most beneficial item to many of our clients," Stinnett said. However, the size of the benefit depends on how lawmakers limit itemized deductions. Charitable deductions High-income people who regularly contribute to charity should plan for a possible limit on deductions by creating a donor-advised fund at a public foundation this year if they haven't done so already, said Thomas O'Connor, a CFP, CPA and a financial planner at WorthPointe. A donor-advised fund allows you to make a charitable contribution, receive an immediate tax benefit and then recommend grants from the fund over time. More from Investor Toolkit: Overplanning an estate can really hurt Inflation expectations 'soar' after election 10 good reasons to stop panicking about interest rates Community foundations run a number of these funds, but investment managers such as Fidelity, Vanguard and Schwab have some of the largest donor-advised funds by assets. Such a fund "avoids future deduction limits and offsets today's 39.6 percent federal tax rate [for the top bracket] instead of the proposed 33 percent rate," O'Connor said. Estate taxes Trump has proposed ending the estate tax while taxing capital gains on assets upon the owner's death, with a $5 million exemption for single filers and a $10 million exemption for married couples filing jointly. "It's way too early know if the estate tax will be abolished," said Adrienne Penta, an estate lawyer and executive director of Brown Brothers Harriman's Center for Women & Wealth. Most high-net-worth clients already have estate plans in place and should stick with those until the Trump administration and lawmakers work out more details about what a repeal of the estate tax would look like, Penta said. If lawmakers decide to end the estate tax through the budget reconciliation process in the Senate, which only requires a simple majority instead of 60 votes to prevent a filibuster, the ban could be easily overturned in the future. "We are not putting a hold on clients' wealth transfer plans unless it involves paying gift tax currently," said Brian King, a CPA, CFP and director of financial planning at Plancorp. Tax plans from Trump and the House GOP have proposed eliminating the gift tax. Net investment income tax The 3.8 percent Medicare surtax technically called the net investment income tax is on the chopping block in Trump and Republican tax plans. The tax applies to investment income of taxpayers with a modified adjusted gross income of more than $200,000 for single filers and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. If you are subject to this tax, "consider deferring capital gains and any other portfolio income if possible to next year," Stinnett said. More From CNBC By John McCrank NEW YORK, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Wall Street's industry-funded watchdog took steps to crack down more quickly on manipulative trading practices in the securities markets but needs more authority, according to a regulatory filing. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is concerned that it has no quick means to stop disruptive trading activity after it has been identified without resorting to proceedings that can take years to complete, according to a filing on Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "FINRA believes that there are certain clear cases of disruptive and manipulative behavior, or cases where the potential harm to investors is so large, that FINRA should have the authority to initiate an expedited proceeding to stop the behavior from continuing," it said. FINRA has proposed rules that take aim at practices known as "spoofing" and "layering," in which one or more traders move the price of a security by placing bogus orders and then modifying or canceling them so that they never become actual trades. Once there is an appearance of interest in the security, the trader can then buy or sell on the other side at better prices. Earlier this month, a London-based day trader pled guilty to U.S. federal charges of contributing to the May 2010 "flash crash" by spoofing futures on CME Group's Chicago Mercantile Exchange. FINRA would be better able to protect investors and market integrity if it had the ability to issue cease-and-desist orders more quickly to stop obvious disruptive and manipulative trading, the regulator said. There also have been numerous cases in which manipulative trading originating from overseas, where FINRA has no direct jurisdiction, has been allowed to continue throughout lengthy investigation and enforcement procedures, FINRA said. Under current rules, FINRA can initiate temporary cease-and-desist orders to alleged manipulators but they only remain in effect until the underlying disciplinary proceedings have concluded. Story continues The proposed rules, which would require approval from the SEC, would allow FINRA to issue permanent cease-and-desist orders regardless of whether underlying disciplinary proceedings were taking place. Only FINRA's chief executive officer or a senior officer designated by the CEO, could initiate permanent cease-and-desist order proceedings, and only after other attempts to resolve the conduct had been attempted, FINRA said. The proposed changes are similar to rules adopted in February by exchange operator Bats Global Markets. FINRA polices all registered U.S. broker dealers and stock and options exchanges. It conducts cross-market surveillance and has surveillance agreements with 18 exchanges. (Reporting by John McCrank; Editing by Bill Trott) * Workers at Lanco's Griffin Coal mine face 43 pct wage cut * Other resource firms want changes to boom time wages, conditions * 46,000 mining construction jobs lost 2013-15 - NAB By Jonathan Barrett and Aaron Bunch SYDNEY/PERTH, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Coal prices may be recovering, but there are no celebrations in the mining town of Collie, Western Australia, where workers are fighting Indian conglomerate Lanco Infratech over plans to slash their wages almost in half. The move to cut pay at Lanco's Griffin Coal mine comes five years after the peak of a commodity price boom that saw miners, truck drivers and even cleaners earning six-figure incomes in Australia's remote outback mines and offshore oil and gas fields. But unwinding the wage hikes has proved difficult after a collapse in prices for coal, iron ore and other resources pushed dozens of mining companies into bankruptcy and many more to the brink. Lanco's move to switch from an employee-friendly wage agreement to statutory minimum pay when the agreement expired is among the first of its kind and has quickly become a national test case. China's Yanzhou Coal Mining Co and U.S. giant Exxon Mobil Corp are among other companies pursuing controversial changes to wages and conditions. While lower wages will help struggling projects survive, some economists worry widespread cuts to worker incomes will weigh on consumer spending and economic growth. Australian wages are growing at their slowest pace on record, the Australian Bureau of Statistics data for the September quarter shows, representing less than half the wage growth rate workers enjoyed a decade ago. Workers in Collie believe the wage cuts will have devastating consequences for their tight-knit town of about 7,000 residents. Graham Latham, who retired from Griffin Coal in July because he was unhappy with the new pay rate and job conditions, said businesses including a hardware store, camera shop and fashion boutique have already shut their doors. Story continues "When I first started at out there it felt like a family atmosphere, but now you just feel like a number, you know?," he said. WAGE RECLAIM A KPMG report for lobby group the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) has found wages in the iron ore industry are 20 percent higher in Australia than in competing jurisdictions, and offshore vessel operators are paid 2-1/2 times more. During the boom time, miners regularly paid dump truck drivers high six figure salaries, while travel arrangements allowed some workers to live in holiday areas such as the Indonesian island of Bali during their breaks. Nicholas Ellery, partner in legal firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, said the severity of the wage cuts was a result of these high wages and incentives many people enjoyed in stronger economic times. "Businesses are just trying to find ways to survive and stay viable," Ellery said. "This is happening across sectors and while industries are doing it tough, we'll see more of it." Companies including Fortescue Metals Group have changed shift rosters, and penny pinching - from cutting back on soap and bottled water at mines - has become commonplace. Still around 46,000 mining construction jobs were lost between 2013 and 2015, according to National Australia Bank data. Coal prices have surged this year but projects run by Lanco and Yanzhou's local arm, also in Collie, operate on longer-term contracts and have yet to see higher prices feed through. Griffin has lost an average A$48.9 million ($36.2 million) a year since 2011, according to court filings. "There is a significant gap between the cost of production and the income received for selling each tonne of coal," Griffin's chief financial controller James Riordan told Reuters. "Labour costs are by far the biggest cost of production." A spokesman for Yanzhou's local coal operations said the company had been negotiating since early last year without success. "The proposed 15 percent reduction is unfortunately reflective of the difficult economic and operating conditions we are continuing to address at this time," the spokesman said in a statement. COMPANIES IN BOX SEAT Lanco's successful bid in Australia's industrial relations tribunal to return workers to an industry minimum has set a precedent that other companies are now holding over their work forces during negotiations, said unionist Steve McCartney. "Companies think this is a green light to attack wages and conditions for workers all over Australia," said McCartney. "Our people in Collie are digging in." Some Griffin maintenance workers are facing a potential pay cut from around A$130,000 a year to A$80,000, although negotiations with the company are ongoing. Exxon Mobil subsidiary Esso wants to move workers at its oil platform operations in the Bass Strait fields, south of Australia's mainland, from one-week-on, one-week-off shifts, to two-weekly shifts designed to improve productivity. It has started proceedings to move workers onto award wages although an agreement could be reached in the interim. An Esso spokesman declined to comment. Jane Beauglehole, a long-term resident of Collie and wife of a worker at Lanco's operations, said industry minimum wages would affect all aspects of family life. "Work is saying, 'We've got counsellors you can use, come use them'," said Beauglehole. "And I say, 'a workforce shouldn't need counsellors to help the workers because it should be a happy place to work in'." ($1 = 1.3524 Australian dollars) (Editing by Lincoln Feast) By Jonathan Barrett and Aaron Bunch SYDNEY/PERTH (Reuters) - Coal prices may be recovering, but there are no celebrations in the mining town of Collie, Western Australia, where workers are fighting Indian conglomerate Lanco Infratech (LAIN.NS) over plans to slash their wages almost in half. The move to cut pay at Lanco's Griffin Coal mine comes five years after the peak of a commodity price boom that saw miners, truck drivers and even cleaners earning six-figure incomes in Australia's remote outback mines and offshore oil and gas fields. But unwinding the wage hikes has proved difficult after a collapse in prices for coal, iron ore and other resources pushed dozens of mining companies into bankruptcy and many more to the brink. Lanco's move to switch from an employee-friendly wage agreement to statutory minimum pay when the agreement expired is among the first of its kind and has quickly become a national test case. China's Yanzhou Coal Mining Co and U.S. giant Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) are among other companies pursuing controversial changes to wages and conditions. While lower wages will help struggling projects survive, some economists worry widespread cuts to worker incomes will weigh on consumer spending and economic growth. Australian wages are growing at their slowest pace on record, the Australian Bureau of Statistics data for the September quarter shows, representing less than half the wage growth rate workers enjoyed a decade ago. Workers in Collie believe the wage cuts will have devastating consequences for their tight-knit town of about 7,000 residents. Graham Latham, who retired from Griffin Coal in July because he was unhappy with the new pay rate and job conditions, said businesses including a hardware store, camera shop and fashion boutique have already shut their doors. "When I first started at out there it felt like a family atmosphere, but now you just feel like a number, you know?," he said. WAGE RECLAIM A KPMG report for lobby group the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) has found wages in the iron ore industry are 20 percent higher in Australia than in competing jurisdictions, and offshore vessel operators are paid 2-1/2 times more. Story continues During the boom time, miners regularly paid dump truck drivers high six figure salaries, while travel arrangements allowed some workers to live in holiday areas such as the Indonesian island of Bali during their breaks. Nicholas Ellery, partner in legal firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, said the severity of the wage cuts was a result of these high wages and incentives many people enjoyed in stronger economic times. "Businesses are just trying to find ways to survive and stay viable," Ellery said. "This is happening across sectors and while industries are doing it tough, we'll see more of it." Companies including Fortescue Metals Group (FMG.AX) have changed shift rosters, and penny pinching - from cutting back on soap and bottled water at mines - has become commonplace. Still around 46,000 mining construction jobs were lost between 2013 and 2015, according to National Australia Bank data. Coal prices have surged this year but projects run by Lanco and Yanzhou's local arm, also in Collie, operate on longer-term contracts and have yet to see higher prices feed through. Griffin has lost an average A$48.9 million ($36.2 million) a year since 2011, according to court filings. "There is a significant gap between the cost of production and the income received for selling each tonne of coal," Griffin's chief financial controller James Riordan told Reuters. "Labour costs are by far the biggest cost of production." A spokesman for Yanzhou's local coal operations said the company had been negotiating since early last year without success. "The proposed 15 percent reduction is unfortunately reflective of the difficult economic and operating conditions we are continuing to address at this time," the spokesman said in a statement. COMPANIES IN BOX SEAT Lanco's successful bid in Australia's industrial relations tribunal to return workers to an industry minimum has set a precedent that other companies are now holding over their work forces during negotiations, said unionist Steve McCartney. "Companies think this is a green light to attack wages and conditions for workers all over Australia," said McCartney. "Our people in Collie are digging in." Some Griffin maintenance workers are facing a potential pay cut from around A$130,000 a year to A$80,000, although negotiations with the company are ongoing. Exxon Mobil subsidiary Esso wants to move workers at its oil platform operations in the Bass Strait fields, south of Australia's mainland, from one-week-on, one-week-off shifts, to two-weekly shifts designed to improve productivity. It has started proceedings to move workers onto award wages although an agreement could be reached in the interim. An Esso spokesman declined to comment. Jane Beauglehole, a long-term resident of Collie and wife of a worker at Lanco's operations, said industry minimum wages would affect all aspects of family life. "Work is saying, 'We've got counsellors you can use, come use them'," said Beauglehole. "And I say, 'a workforce shouldnt need counsellors to help the workers because it should be a happy place to work in'." ($1 = 1.3524 Australian dollars) (Editing by Lincoln Feast) A large position is showing support for Oasis Petroleum. OptionMonster's market scanners show that 10,000 December 13 puts were sold in one print for $0.90 yesterday. This is clearly a new position, as open interest in the strike was only 388 contracts before the trade occurred. Short puts lock in a price where investors must buy a stock, while letting them collect premium. Traders use the technique when they like a stock and think that the risk of a big drop is limited. (See our Education section) OAS rose 8.33 percent to $13.40 yesterday and is up 25 percent in the last three months. The oil and natural-gas company is expected to report earnings after the close on Feb. 23. Overall option volume was 7 times greater than average in the name yesterday. More From optionMONSTER ANKARA (Reuters) - Followers of the cleric Turkey blames for orchestrating a failed coup this year are still active in the armed forces, judiciary and police, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday, as he vowed to continue to root them out. Turkey blames Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, for masterminding the abortive putsch in July, where a group of rogue soldiers attempted to overthrow the government. "There is no place in this academy and land drenched with the blood of martyrs for those who sold their souls to Pennslyvania, the separatist terrorist organisation, or any other illegal organisation," Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara. Erdogan frequently refers to Pennsylvania as a shorthand for Gulen's followers and the "separatist organisation" as a reference to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Thousands of people have been sacked or suspended from the police, judiciary and civil service following the coup. (Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing David Dolan; Editing by Daren Butler) NESS ZIONA, ISRAEL / ACCESSWIRE / November 22, 2016 / Foresight, a leading developer of advanced systems for road traffic accident prevention (TASE: FRST), announced today that it will be presenting at the 9th Annual LD Micro Main Event on Wednesday, December 7 at 12:00PM PST / 3:00PM EST at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. Ariel Dor, co-CEO of Foresight, and Elen Katz, CEO of Rail Vision, will be presenting, as well as meeting with investors. To schedule a meeting, please contact Miri Segal at msegal@ms-ir.com. The LD Micro Main Event is the largest independent conference for small/microcap companies and will feature 240 presenting names. News Compliments of Accesswire About Foresight Foresight (TASE: FRST), founded in 2015, is a technology company engaged in the design, development, and commercialization of 3D multi-camera-based Advanced Driver Assistance Systems ("ADAS"). The company, through its subsidiary, develops advanced systems for accident prevention, which are designed to provide real-time information about the vehicle's surroundings while in motion. These systems, which are based on 3D technology, advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence, will revolutionize ADAS by providing an automotive grade, cost-effective platform, enabling highly accurate and reliable detection while ensuring the lowest rates of false alerts. About LD Micro LD Micro was founded in 2006 with the sole purpose of being an independent resource in the microcap space. What started out as a newsletter highlighting unique companies has transformed into an event platform hosting several influential conferences annually (Invitational, Summit, and Main Event). In 2015, LDM launched the first pure microcap index (the LDMi) to exclusively provide intraday information on the entire sector. LD will continue to provide valuable tools for the benefit of everyone in the small and microcap universe. For those interested in attending, please contact David Scher at david@ldmicro.com or visit www.ldmicro.com/events for more information. Story continues Contact: Name: Miri Segal-Scharia Phone: 917-607-8654 Email: msegal@ms-ir.com SOURCE: Foresight via LD Micro A large forest fire broke out near the Jewish-Arab coexistence settlement of Neve Shalom in Israel early on November 22. Fire officials said they believed the fire was caused by human negligence rather than arson. The 270 residents were evacuated from the area, and 150 firefighters and 13 airplanes were dispatched to battle the blaze, according to i24 News. By noon, the fire no longer posed a threat to the settlement and residents were cleared to return to their homes. Credit: Facebook/Israel Police via Storyful Photo credit: Marc Thompsonundefined From Road & Track Earlier this month, news broke that Ron Dennis would step down from his position as CEO and Chairman of McLaren. Dennis has been with the team since the 1980s, and while he will remain a shareholder and non-executive chairman of the automotive division, the news still came as a shock. Now, a week later, a new hire is headed for McLaren F1. McLaren has just officially announced that former racer Zak Brown will take on the position of Executive Director of the McLaren Technology Group, the parent company that includes the F1 team and the supercar company. McLaren says Brown "will be a significant part of a resturcutring program that will align the Group's commercial and strategic operations relating to achieving success in Formula 1." Brown and McLaren Group COO Jonathan Neale will "jointly lead the businesses as part of the first step in the Group's transition to a new and strengthened organizational structure," McLaren said in a statement, noting that the search for a new CEO (to replace ousted boss Ron Dennis) continues. Brown is a savvy choice to join McLaren. He's a renowned motorsports marketing expert who founded Just Marketing International, an Indiana-based motorsports marketing firm responsible for putting together some of the biggest sponsorship deals in motorsports. After JMI was bought by Chime Communications, Brown moved to London to head up its motorsports work, but resigned earlier this year. Brown brings a wealth of knowledge on forging deals with sponsors, something McLaren has struggled with since Vodafone left the team years ago. Dennis came under fire after attempting to work out a deal with Chinese investors to take back majority control of McLaren. That deal fell through and ultimately forced his resignation, but he still retains his 25-percent share of McLaren. This story was last updated on November 21st, 2016 at 1:00 PM EST with McLaren's official announcement. H/T Joe Saward. You Might Also Like Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone said he wants to strike a "long-term" deal with Singapore this year, playing down earlier comments that the city-state is looking to drop its iconic night race. Ecclestone's latest statement provide some positive news for Formula One in Southeast Asia, after neighbouring Malaysia confirmed it was dropping its grand prix after 2018. He claimed his initial comments had been taken "in a funny way" by a German auto magazine which quoted him as saying that Singapore no longer wanted to host Formula One. "F1's stand is to hopefully continue in Singapore," the 86-year-old told Singapore's Straits Times newspaper. "Everybody is happy to be in Singapore and (we) don't want to lose Singapore. "Negotiations are ongoing and will be sorted out shortly... before the end of the year, I'm sure. We want to extend long-term. We'll see what happens." Ecclestone has described Formula One's first night race, which started in 2008 and snakes past Singapore landmarks, as a "crown jewel" of the sport. But Germany's Auto Motor Und Sport quoted him as saying that Singapore wasn't looking to renew its current contract, which will expire after next year's race. "Yes, the grand prix has cost Singapore a lot of money, but we've also given them a lot of money. Singapore was suddenly more than just an airport to fly to or from somewhere," Ecclestone was quoted as saying. "Now, they believe they have reached their goal and they do not want a grand prix any more," he added, according to the report. When contacted by AFP, a Singapore GP spokesperson said: "We don't comment on ongoing commercial negotiations." Singapore's 23-turn, Marina Bay street circuit is seen as one of the most challenging on the calendar and has proved popular with fans. But organisers said a slowing economic climate has seen daily attendance slump to 73,000 this year from 87,000 in 2015. On Monday, Malaysia confirmed it was pulling out of F1 after 2018 due to falling revenue and a lack of interest, ending one of Asia's longest-running races. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 22, 2016 / Forum Uranium Corp. (OTC PINK: FDCFF) (TSX-V:FDC) ("Forum" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce positive results from its summer gravity and till sampling programs on the 100% owned Fir Island project, located along the north rim of the Athabasca Basin, northern Saskatchewan. Fir Island is located 200 kilometres by road to the Areva/Denison McLean uranium processing facility. Highlights Six high interest gravity anomalies were identified by a recent survey along the East Channel Structure where drilling in 2015 discovered strong dravite alteration , anomalous uranium and pathfinder geochemistry, and major reactivated thrust faulting. The tills down-ice from three of the six new gravity targets returned anomalous geochemical values in B, Cu, Co, Pb, Ni, Mo and Y, providing excellent targets for future drill programs. Forum plans further ground gravity surveys, till sampling and an airborne electromagnetic survey in 2017 prior to drilling. A gravity survey was completed in August of 2016 with 1193 station readings taken on a 100m x 100m grid. This survey was then followed by a sampling program that tested the geochemistry of the tills down-ice from the newly identified gravity lows in an attempt to prioritize the targets. A total of 84 C-horizon till samples were collected in a series of four parallel lines spaced 200m apart on the west side of the gravity lows. Samples were collected at 100m spacing along the lines, locally reduced to 50m spacing in areas immediately west of a gravity low (See Figure 1). The samples were sieved to -106um (0.106mm or 0.0042 inches across) to concentrate the fine-grained component, then analyzed at the Saskatchewan Research Council geoanalytical laboratories by ICP-1, an analytical process specifically designed by the SRC for uranium exploration. Figure 1: Boron values in till samples from the Fir Island project. These values are plotted on the results of the gravity survey (blues are gravity lows, reds are gravity highs). The ice direction in this area is from east to west (right to left). Several of the highest results are west of Oak and Pine, and also spread down-ice from Elm. These samples also returned elevated As, Co, Cu and Pb, and to a lesser extent, Ni and Mo. To view an enhanced version of the Boron values in till samples from the Fir Island project, please visit: [https://www.accesswire.com/uploads/Forum_Uranium_Corp.jpg] Story continues The soft and clay-rich alteration halo within the Athabasca sandstones overlying a mineralized zone would have been scraped out by the glaciers and incorporated into the tills and spread down-ice to the west. The results from this survey have shown that three of the gravity lows have strongly anomalous elements located down-ice and one gravity low has moderately elevated elements. These elements are typically elevated in the alteration halos that surround a uranium unconformity deposit in the Athabasca Basin. Future plans for 2017 are to a) expand the gravity survey coverage b) sample tills for geochemical pathfinder elements down-ice from any new gravity anomalies and c) conduct an airborne EM survey over the entire project area. Future drill programs will concentrate on these newly developed target areas, as well as on the Willow gravity low just on the northwest side of the island where 5 diamond drill holes in 2014 (Figure 1) intersected a thrust fault with a 50m offset of the unconformity and returned boron-rich dravitic clays (typically found near uranium deposits) well up into the sandstones. Ken Wheatley, P.Geo., Forum's Vice-President, Exploration is the Qualified Person that has reviewed and approved the contents of this news release. About Forum Uranium Forum Uranium Corp. is a Canadian-based energy company with a focus on the acquisition, exploration and development of Canadian uranium projects. Forum has assembled a highly experienced team of exploration professionals with a track record of mine discoveries for unconformity-style uranium deposits in Canada. The Company has a strategy to discover near surface uranium deposits in the Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan by exploring on its 100% owned properties and through strategic partnerships and joint ventures with Cameco, AREVA, Rio Tinto Exploration, NexGen and Uracan. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Richard J. Mazur, P. Geo. President & CEO 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. For further information contact: Rick Mazur, President & CEO Tel: 604-630-1585 Matt Terriss, Director, Corporate Affairs Tel: 604-689-2599 SOURCE: Forum Uranium Corp. DUBAI (Reuters) - Four suspected al Qaeda members have gone on trial accused of plotting to assassinate the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, newspapers in the kingdom reported on Tuesday. The reports provided no details on the alleged assassination plot or when it may have occurred, but said the defendants were also charged with belonging to an extremist group, communicating with an al Qaeda leader and attempting to recruit Saudi youth. "The trial of four al Qaeda terrorists accused of plotting to assassinate the late King Abdullah opened at the Special Criminal Court," the Arab News daily said, adding that the accused had been convicted earlier on other militancy charges. Saudi Arabia overcame an al Qaeda insurgency almost a decade ago but has suffered several deadly attacks on mosques and security forces claimed by Islamic State. King Abdullah died of natural causes in January 2015 and was succeeded by his brother Salman. (Writing By Noah Browning, Editing by William Maclean and Dominic Evans) Photo credit: undefined From Esquire A Brooklyn man who allegedly traveled to Yemen in an effort to join ISIS was arrested Monday after he spoke about wanting to attack Times Square. The man, Mohamed Rafik Naji, 37, was charged with providing material support for terrorism, according to the New York Daily News. Authorities allege that Naji-who drove for a car service and scheduled rides through Uber-traveled to Yemen in 2015 and tried to join ISIS but was unsuccessful, according to NBC New York. He returned to the U.S. several months later. At some point after his return, he expressed support for an attack on Times Square like the one that ISIS carried out in Nice, France in July. In that attack, a truck intentionally slammed into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day, killing 86 people and injuring 400 others. "They [ISIS] want an operation in Times Square," Naji reportedly told the informant on July 19. There's no indication he actually took steps to carry out the attack, according to NBC New York. The Daily News said Naji also revealed his support for ISIS on his Facebook page, with a photo of the ISIS flag, videos of jihadist, and a link to a video showing an ISIS spokesman encouraging attacks on Western targets. The arrest comes just three days before the Thanksgiving holiday and as the FBI has alerted law enforcement officials across the country about concerns over a potential terrorist attack around Thanksgiving or the Presidential Inauguration in January. According to CBS News: The alert specifically warned of homegrown terrorists and cited shopping malls, special events and other crowded venues as possible targets. Specific locations in Washington, D.C. and northern Virginia are described as "target-rich" zones. Potential tactics that could be used include guns, IEDs or drones equipped with IEDs. It does not appear Naji's arrest was related in any way to these concerns. You Might Also Like London (AFP) - An editor for the right-wing US news website Breitbart has been banned from giving a talk at his former school in Britain on Tuesday, sparking a social media storm over free speech. The school said it decided to cancel the lecture by Milo Yiannopoulos citing security concerns due to planned protests and after consulting with a government "counter extremism unit". Yiannopoulos, who is technology editor for the right-wing US news website, is known for his provocative social media posts and was banned from Twitter in July for fuelling abuse directed at "Ghostbusters" actress Leslie Jones. The British journalist is a vocal supporter of Donald Trump -- nicknaming the US president-elect "Daddy" during his election campaign -- and has become one of the faces of America's "alt-right" movement. Breitbart's support is believed to have helped Trump win the US election. "This decision was taken following contact from the DfE (Department for Educaton) counter extremism unit," said a spokesman for the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury, southeast England. He said staff and students at the school had been "overwhelmingly in favour" of hosting the former pupil, with 220 students signing up to attend. But "the threat of demonstrations at the school by organised groups and members of the public and our overall concerns for the security of the school site and the safety of our community," had led to the decision to scrap the talk, the spokesman added. Yiannopoulos hit out at the move, which sparked heated reactions from supporters and detractors on social media, branding it an assault on free speech. "Free speech is dead in the UK", the self-declared internet "supervillain" wrote on his Facebook page alongside an article from the Sun website. The tabloid newspaper said Yiannopoulos, seen by many as a toxic figure but a star writer at Breitbart, had been expelled from the school more than a decade ago. Story continues The Department for Education (DfE) said the decision to cancel the event "was a matter for the school". "When concerns are raised by members of the public following media coverage in advance of an event, DfE would contact the school as a matter of routine to check they had considered any potential issues," a DfE spokesman said. The school said it would "remain committed to the principle of free speech and open debate and will resist, where possible, all forms of censorship." PARIS (Reuters) - French shoppers plan to spend less online on average this Christmas, the country's e-Commerce Federation (Fevad) said on Tuesday, amid caution in view of a still struggling economy and elections next year. France's gross domestic product (GDP) rebounded less strongly than expected in the third quarter with a 0.2 percent rise, as consumer spending stalled. Shoppers are expected to spend an average 195 euros online for Christmas presents, down 2 percent from a year ago, Fevad said in a statement. However, online Christmas retail sales are expected rise around 10 percent year-on-year to reach over 13.5 billion euros ($14.35 billion), as French shop online more frequently. This would lift total online retail sales in France to over 71 billion euros in full-year 2016 from 64.9 billion in 2015, Fevad Director General Marc Lolivier told Reuters. France is ranked as the fifth biggest e-commerce market worldwide. In Europe, only Britain is bigger. In 2015, e-commerce represented an estimated 7 percent of retail sales in France. ($1 = 0.9411 euros) (Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Maya Nikolaeva) By Bate Felix PARIS (Reuters) - A record output increase from gas-fired electricity generators since the start of the month could enable France avoid rolling outages this winter amid reduced supply from the country's aging nuclear reactors, gas network operators said on Tuesday. France's grid operator RTE warned earlier this month that power shortages could force outages this month, an unprecedented step in one of the world's wealthiest economies that would expose its dependence on nuclear power. France has stepped up power imports from neighboring countries. GRTGaz, majority-owned by gas group Engie, and gas storage company TIGF, said in their 2016/2017 winter outlook that extra capacity and adequate stock levels meant gas supplies were sufficient to cover the higher output levels. "In the event of a cold spell, existing gas infrastructure should allow suppliers to cover French (gas) consumption with a surplus of 680 gigawatt (GW) hour per day of gas, equivalent to a daily average of 28 GW of electricity," the companies said in a statement. French nuclear safety regulator ASN has ordered state-controlled utility EDF to shut down and carry out safety checks on 12 of its 58 reactors. Market worries over tight supplies this winter have pushed spot and forward power prices to record highs. Thierry Trouve, Director General of GRTGaz, told reporters that output from France's 14 gas-fired power stations was now regularly exceeding 6.5 Gigawatts (GW) and hitting 8.5 GW at peak demand periods. "This morning for example, we are at 7 GW," Trouve said. Government plans for a carbon floor price plan had prompted investors to hesitate over financing new projects that would add more gas-generated power to the grid. That carbon floor price plan has now been shelved because it could potentially run foul of European Union state aid regulations and hurt jobs. Even so, Trouve said government policy lacked clarity five months ahead of presidential and then legislative elections in which the Socialist government looks likely to be kicked out of power. "There are a lot of policy uncertainties. A few months ago when the government was thinking about a carbon floor price on coal and gas-fired power plants, some operators told us they will shut down if the plan went ahead," Trouve said. France, normally a net power exporter, typically derives 75 percent of its power from nuclear plants. Gas-fired power stations currently account for over 11 percent of output. (Reporting by Bate Felix; editing by Richard Lough and David Evans) General Electric Company GE recently chose Prysm Visual Workplace a visual collaboration cloud to help its employees, customers and partners share highly visual content, and stay connected across any given location. General Electric shares an ongoing relationship with Prysm. Its software is used across various key business areas in General Electric's new headquarters in Boston. Additionally, General Electrics new office in New York City will also have Prysm technology installed. This collaboration will, in turn, help strengthen the two companys business ties. In order to establish itself as the world's premier digital industrial company, General Electric looks forward to enhancing its ability to connect seamlessly across all media. The Prysm Visual Workplace will enable the company to keep a tab on its employees, whether they are in the office or outside, working from their mobile device. GENL ELECTRIC Price GENL ELECTRIC Price | GENL ELECTRIC Quote A few days back, SAP SE SAP partnered with GE Digital to foster the development of Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) by integrating SAPs proprietary SAP HANA Cloud Platform and GE's Predix operating system. This partnership reflects the companies attempt to expand joint go-to-market capabilities and escalate innovation for cloud platforms. SAP and GE Digital are trying to enable the concept of "Things to Outcomes" for the oil and gas industry. This will empower owners, operators and makers of their equipment to share data and context, thus creating end-to-end processes. In order to augment its revenues, General Electric has also initiated steps to supplement its digital presence in Europe and foster growth of the industrial ecosystem for the continents overall development. The strategic move is largely fuelled by the market predictions that digitization of products and services is likely to yield an excess of 110 million Euros in annual revenues in Europe over the next five years. Story continues General Electric has also opened a new digital office in Paris Digital Foundry, which is likely to be the hotbed for the industrial ecosystem. The Digital Foundry forms a global network of centers through which GE Digital intends to incubate local startups, form client collaborations to develop new applications and extend the burgeoning community of industrial developers in Europe. Additionally, GE Digital acquired Meridium, Inc., a global leader in asset performance management (APM) software and services for asset-intensive industries. The acquisition will facilitate GE Digital to augment its comprehensive APM offering by leveraging Meridiums expertise in cognitive analytics, reliability centered maintenance, operational risk management and asset health, as well as intelligent asset strategies. All these offer a huge growth potential to the company. We continue to be bullish on the strategic expansion in the digital ecosystem of this Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) stock. A couple better-ranked stocks in this industry include AO Smith Corp. AOS and Danaher Corp. DHR, both carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. AO Smith has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 10.7% and is currently trading at a forward P/E of 25.6x. Danaher has long-term earnings growth expectation of 11.9% and is currently trading at a forward P/E of 22.0x. The Best Place to Start Your Stock Search 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 >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report SAP AG ADR (SAP): Free Stock Analysis Report DANAHER CORP (DHR): Free Stock Analysis Report GENL ELECTRIC (GE): Free Stock Analysis Report SMITH (AO) CORP (AOS): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research As President-elect Donald Trump fills the Cabinet positions for his incoming administration, Fox News Military Analyst Gen. Jack Keane, who reportedly turned down the position of Defense Secretary due to personal issues, weighed in on who should be tasked with leading the Defense Department in order to make Americas military stronger and more efficient. The Defense Department by far is the most expensive department thats in the federal executive branch and clearly we are the best military in the world. And whats happened to us is we need to also be so superior that our adversaries do not want to challenge us and that has been eroding, Stuart, and weve got to go back and rebuild it and repair it, Keane told the FOX Business Networks Stuart Varney. Keane discussed why Trump should look to the business world, of all places, while organizing the leadership at the Defense Department. I believe strongly that the number two man in the Defense Department should be a CEO from a Fortune 500 company who has been involved in a turnaround or multiple turnarounds recently of a very large organization. Though Keane says Americas military is second to none in battle, he believes it could benefit from someone with the business savvy to improve how it operates as an organization. The Defense Department, what it does so well, and the American people have seen this for 70 years, is that when it comes to war fighting were the best in the world. But Stuart, when it comes to business, were third rate at best. And we need somebody in there, the Defense Department is not a business, but theres so many things we need to do that are business-like and we need that kind of expertise in there to find that money. According to Keane someone with financial experience from the private sector could also add a fresh perspective to the federal budget. I also think that the Comptroller, whos usually a federal budget guy who understands the federal budget process, we need a Chief Financial Officer in there who understands how to contain costs, who understands auditing, internal control measures, financial reviews on a regular basis and that brings also somebody who has vast business-like experience to make the Pentagon work in terms of decision making more rapidly like a business and also to keep costs down and hold people accountable for cost measurement. Related Articles By Andrea Shalal BERLIN (Reuters) - The German military could spend up to 1 billion euros in coming years for use of new Airbus A330 MRTT tanker planes to be bought as part of a new European multinational fleet, according to a German budget document. In a project initiated by the European Defence Agency, the new refueling aircraft will be bought by the NATO Support and Procurement Agency and be stationed at Eindhoven Air Base in the Netherlands for pooling and sharing. The German parliament is expected to approve this week the 2017 federal budget, which includes an initial 2.5 million euros for potential "membership dues" for Germany's participation in the new Multinational MRTT Fleet. A report sent to parliament with the overall budget plan said Germany could spend around 1 billion euros on the program, which will replace its current fleet of four ageing A310 tankers. It gave no timetable for the expenditures. The cost of the new tanker fleet, which will also offer medical evacuation capabilities, will be divided among members according to flight hours. Germany estimates it will need 4,500 flight hours per year, about 51 percent of the 8,800 planned for the total fleet, according to the document. The plan must still be approved by the German parliament, something Berlin wants to see before September 2017 national elections. The Netherlands and Luxembourg have already signed an agreement initiating the program. Norway and Belgium are considering joining in, with decisions due by Jan. 31 2018 at the latest. Before it joins, Berlin is insisting on assured access to the planes and creation of a forward operating base for the new tankers at the Cologne-Bonn airport, as well as representation in the leadership of the new consortium. (Editing by Andrew Roche) Athens (AFP) - Greece is "open" for talks with Turkey on the issue of divided Cyprus, Athens said Tuesday a day after key negotiations between the island's rival leaders ended without a deal. "We think this issue is open, we will proceed carefully," government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos told reporters. He had been asked about speculation that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was arranging to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reportedly on December 4. Tzanakopoulos said that during a phonecall with Erdogan on Friday, Tsipras "expressed desire for a bilateral meeting" but added that no specific date had been set. "After yesterday's (breakdown in talks) we will see what happens," the spokesman said. The much-heralded talks in the Swiss resort of Mont Pelerin between Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mustafa Akinci were supposed to produce a map of the internal boundaries of a future federation and pave the way for broader talks aimed at reaching a deal by early next year. But like the five days of negotiations earlier in November, the two-day session broke up in the early hours of Tuesday without progress, and with each side blaming the other. Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded the northern third of the island in response to an Athens-inspired coup seeking union with Greece. Owing to agreements that led to the island's independence in 1960, Britain, Greece and Turkey have guarantor powers in Cyprus. The Greek Cypriots and Athens want to scrap this arrangement, while the Turkish Cypriots are reluctant to do so. A Greek diplomatic source this week said Athens wants the guarantee issue resolved before it joins multi-party talks on Cyprus. "Greece has agreed to join multi-party talks, provided there is a prior agreement between Greece and Turkey on the issue of guarantees and security," the source said. "Greece will not join multi-party talks unless this discussion is held (first)." Brandon Victor Dixon, the Hamilton actor who addressed Vice President-elect Mike Pence after the show Friday night, joined The View on Monday to talk about the message he delivered to Pence and the reaction it has gotten nationwide. Pence, who does not have a good track record with the LGBTQ community as governor of Indiana, was reportedly leaving the theater when Dixon began speaking directly to him, but he stopped to listen to the entire message. Vice President-elect Pence, we welcome you and we truly thank you for joining us here at Hamilton, an American musical. We really do. We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, Dixons message began. Dixon went on to say that he hopes Pence will work for all Americans and uphold everyones inalienable rights. Though the address was short and respectful, some, such as President-elect Donald Trump, saw it as an attack and sent out tweets chastising the Hamilton cast members and saying they had harassed Pence. Dixon fired back a tweet of his own, saying, @realDonaldTrump conversation is not harassment sir. And I appreciate @mike_pence for stopping to listen. In an interview on Sunday, Pence said that he wasnt offended and that it was a joy to be at the play. He also stated that the cast was incredibly talented. Dixon said he was appreciative of Pences response throughout the situation. It was important for us to take the stage and to let our message be heard. Im glad we did, and Im very grateful to Vice President-elect Mike Pence for staying there and listening to what we had to say. Im also grateful for his words yesterday, his response to it. Its encouraging, Dixon said. Pence did, however, question the timing of the address, and hes not alone in that line of thinking. Dixon had a fairly obvious message for Pence and anyone else who feels the same: If people are coming to see to Hamilton to leave their politics behind, you came to the wrong show, he said. Story continues Music and politics ruled the night at the American Music Awards: Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Khail Anonymous, on Twitter. From Esquire At just a glance, you might not understand why Visvim, Hiroki Nakamura's label, has a cult following. But then you feel it, wear it, and something clicks. Embodied by Nakamura himself and inspired by workwear from a time in America when things were built to be indestructible, the clothes evince a kind of soul from labor-intensive Japanese artisanship, both traditional and technological. Like Nakamura's style, it's of the past and the future at once. Jacket by Visvim, visvim.tv; Shirt by Visvim, visvim.tv; Jeans by Visvim, visvim.tv; Boots by Visvim, visvim.tv "Items that exude the personality and individuality of their creator possess a charm that can be difficult to articulate," Nakamura writes in one of his many brand dissertations-linguistic and visual manifestos that, on the surface, articulate the intangible gravitas of what would otherwise seem like just a simple, well-designed object, when in fact they're allegories for how to live-or, at least, a philosophy on how to create and consume. "Whenever I get a new pair of shoes, I immediately break them in by stepping on the left shoe with my right foot, and the right shoe with my left foot. It's similar to getting a haircut, and wanting to get over that odd, uncomfortable feeling," he says. "The more you use something, the more you see it becoming a reflection of your own character, and you begin to feel an inexplicable fondness for the object. The fact you own something like this brings you happiness, and I am drawn to these kind of objects." Whenever I get a new pair of shoes, I immediately break them in by stepping on the left shoe with my right foot, and the right shoe with my left foot. It's similar to getting a haircut, and wanting to get over that odd, uncomfortable feeling. It's been a long road to international cult status for Visvim, which started as an independent Harajuku-based brand sixteen years ago. Fast forward to today and the company is worth hundreds of millions in sales and is a favorite of tastemakers including Rihanna, Kanye West, A$AP Rocky, and Kaws. Along the way, Nakamura himself has become a fashion industry style icon in his own right-as much for his perfectly imperfect aesthetic as well as for the authenticity of his brand story. These days, he divides his time between homes in Los Angeles and Tokyo. "When I started the business, I asked myself what I wanted out of this, and I realized what I wanted was to create products that made me happy," he told Guy Trebay at The New York Times earlier this year. "I also wanted to build a brand that was timeless and borderless." Story continues This past summer, Nakamura and his wife road-tripped from Los Angeles to San Francisco, shooting a story for Japanese menswear magazine Popeye and photographing an online travel guide along the way. "The mystique and spiritual mood set forth by the Sequoia forests, beautiful sandy beaches that seals gather on, and sunsets sinking into a horizon covered by thick fog have long attracted bohemian writers to this place," the guide says about Big Sur. It all seems to organically dovetail so well with the brand's overarching ethos: "Visvim is a journey to find happiness through creation, and the products and collections that are born each season are our most honest attempts at reaching towards that goal." You Might Also Like There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have. - Don Herold Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane. - Phillip K. Dick In the fight between you and the world, back the world.- Frank Zappa Paris (AFP) - Leicester kept their Champions League dreams aflame Tuesday, cruising into the last 16 with a 2-1 win over Belgium's Club Brugge, where they were joined by Real Madrid -- but not a crestfallen Tottenham. Joining the hopeful debutants and the holders on the night were Juventus, Bayer Leverkusen and Monaco. They join last year's runners-up Atletico Madrid, Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, who had already booked their tickets to the knockout phase with two group games to spare. Leicester's success saw the Foxes advance as Group G winners in their maiden season in the event, giving a major fillip to Claudio Ranieri's side, who are just two points above the domestic drop zone. "We're on another journey. I don't know where, but we're excited!" Ranieri said afterwards. Referring to his side's poor league form the Italian added: "Maybe we have been more concentrated in the Champions League. Now the group is won, (it is) important to come back in the Premier League." Shinji Okazaki netted after just five minutes and a Riyad Mahrez penalty made it 2-0 before Jose Izquierdo notched a second-half consolation for Brugge. "We wanted to finish first in the group. It wasn't easy today but we did it," said Foxes' Algerian star Mahrez. The Colombian's strike was the first goal Leicester have conceded in the tournament to date. As Leicester celebrated, Tottenham in contrast saw their adventure in Europe's top club competition come to a grinding halt after a 2-1 loss at Monaco, who won Group E in the process. Spurs had a let off when their French keeper Hugo Lloris saved Radamel Falcao's early spotkick. But quickfire goals from Djibril Sidibe and Thomas Lemar just after the break, sandwiching a Harry Kane penalty, did for the Londoners. In the same group Bayer Leverkusen drew 1-1 at CSKA Moscow to take the Germans into the knockout stages following Spurs' loss. Story continues Kevin Volland put Leverkusen ahead after 16 minutes before Israeli international Bibras Natcho levelled. Spurs will host CSKA in a final game whose outcome will decide who goes into the Europa League. In any case, 'home' advantage at Wembley Stadium has hardly shone on Mauricio Pochettino's side, given that they succumbed to defeats by Monaco and Leverkusen. Kane said those games sank them. "I'm gutted. We wanted to go far but it is something we will have to deal with. "We will look back and say it was the home games were we should've been better," the striker told BT Sport. Holders and 11-times winners Real Madrid joined 1997 champions Borussia Dortmund in qualifying from Group F after a 2-1 win at star man Cristiano Ronaldo's former club Sporting Lisbon. Raphael Varane gave the 'meringues' the lead before Adrien Silva netted a spot-kick for the Portuguese only for substitute Karim Benzema to pop up with the winner for Real. The Spaniards suffered a huge injury scare, however, just 11 days before facing Barcelona in La Liga as Welsh star Gareth Bale exited with an ankle injury shortly after half-time. "We knew it would be complicated, but we got the three points," said Real coach Zinedine Zidane, who won the 2002 title as a player for the Spanish giants and then as coach last May. "When you concede a goal you can think it will be tough but we continued to play and responded and finally had our reward with Karim's goal," Zidane told beIn Sports. - Record goalfest - Dortmund secured the group win with a game to play after swatting Poland's Legia Warsaw 8-4 -- a record goalfest for a Champions League encounter. The Germans became one of an elite clique to notch five goals in a single Champions League half having led 5-2 at the interval. Marco Reus scored a hat-trick and Japanese star Shinji Kagawa netted a brace as Dortmund ran riot. Two-times champions Juventus are through after defeating previous Group H leaders Sevilla, Europa League champions for the past three seasons, 3-1 in Spain. Claudio Marchisio with a penalty, Leonardo Bonucci and Mario Mandzucic scored for the 'Old Lady' of Turin after Nicolas Pareja had put Sevilla ahead early on. Perennial challengers Barcelona and Manchester City were hoping to book their tickets Wednesday with wins over Celtic and Borussia Moenchengladbach respectively. Minnesota, Austin-based Hormel Foods Corporation HRL is a prominent meat products firm, conducting trade in the global consumer goods sector. The company sells superior-branded high-quality convenient, nutritious and flavorful edible products to its global customers. HRL shares high brand value in the market but is also exposed to certain risks of external market uncertainties. Currently, HRL has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) but that could change following its fourth-quarter fiscal 2016 earnings report which has just released. We have highlighted some of the key details from the just-released announcement below: Earnings: HRL miss on earnings. Adjusted earnings per share came in at 45 cents per share, a penny lower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 46 cents. Revenue: Revenues of $2,627.9 million came above the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2,625 million. Key Stats: HRL anticipates to accrue organic sales growth of 5% in fiscal 2017. After eliminating the earnings of 3 cents per share from the Farmer John divestiture, HRL anticipates earnings within the range of $1.68-$1.74 per share in fiscal 2017. Stock Price: As of Nov 21, 2016, HRLs closed the trading session at $34.94 per share. HORMEL FOODS CP Price HORMEL FOODS CP Price | HORMEL FOODS CP Quote Shares price did not show any movement in the pre-market trading session. Check back later for our full write up on this HRL earnings report later! The Best Place to Start Your Stock Search Today, you are invited to download the full, up-to-the-minute 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 >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report HORMEL FOODS CP (HRL): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Warren Beattys first movie in 15 years, Rules Dont Apply, begins with a quote from its subject, Howard Hughes, whom Beatty plays: Never check an interesting fact. The film, out Nov. 23, spins a fictional yarn, and one which Beattywho had been chewing on the idea for decades and also wrote, directed and produced ithas repeatedly insisted is not a biopic of the eccentric aviator, entrepreneur and filmmaker. But for all the insistence that audiences accept it as a fantasy, Beattys depiction of an aging, outlandishly idiosyncratic Hughes all but begs a revisiting of the subjects behavior during his later yearswhich was often so strange it sounds fictional itself. Rules Dont Apply is less about Hughes than it is about two young people in his employ: a naive starlet named Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), newly arrived in Los Angeles following a chaste Baptist upbringing in Virginia, and Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), a driver with entrepreneurial aspirations and a similarly uncorrupted youth. This being the sexually repressed Hollywood of the 1950s, their boss forbids romantic relationships among his employees. This being a Hollywood movie, they immediately fall in love. As Marla and Franks forbidden affair percolates, Hughes is at once an unwelcome obstruction and the gatekeeper of their professional aspirations, a fairy godfather with the power to bless or bankrupt their dreams. At times, his concernssuch as Congressional hearings related to his aeronautical innovationsseem a distraction from the central narrative, but they paint a picture, and by all accounts a fairly meticulous one, of a man who continues to fascinate 40 years after his death. As far as Hughes life story, Rules Dont Apply picks up roughly where The Aviator, Martin Scorseses 2004 drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio, leaves off, though it fudges the timeline a bit (lest we forget, this is a work of fiction). When Beattys Hughes enters, hes a man in his 50s, decades removed from inheriting his familys fortune, earned in the oil tool business, at age 18. He has already produced many successful movies, set air-speed records with his ever more advanced aircraft and developed a reputation as a Casanova with such famous paramours as Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner and Ginger Rogers. But Beattys Hughes is somewhere in the early stages of a long decline, the more advanced degrees of which we see in flash-forwards set in the 1960s. The billionaire spent the final decades of his life as an increasingly agoraphobic recluse, fueled in large part by obsessive compulsive disorder and chronic pain caused by a near-fatal airplane wreck in the mid-40s (the movie pushes this event back by a decade). When he appears, in the films opening and closing moments, bedridden and disheveled in an Acapulco hotel, his appearance is indeed drawn from the real Hughes regular refusal to trim his hair or fingernails. Many of the peculiarities the movies Hughes exhibits are borrowed from real-life anecdotes. He did once halt production on a movie because he disliked the shape of an actress brassiere (Jane Russell, The Outlaw, 1943). He did, despite his wealth and access, prefer TV dinners over posh restaurants. He did send his staff into a frenzy, demanding that they procure banana nut ice cream despite the fact that Baskin Robbins had discontinued the flavor and would only sell the remaining barrels in bulkonly to find that their boss capricious cravings had already moved on to a new flavor. Hughes also did, as in the film, hole up in the movie theater of a Las Vegas hotel he bought (he had a penchant for buying up hotels, restaurants and airports for his exclusive use) on a continuous loop for days, never leaving to eat or relieve himself. A dependence on painkillers often left him incoherent as his OCD left him almost paralyzingly germophobic. His body wasted away in accordance with his mind. When Hughes died in 1976on an airplane, as befits a word-class aviatorhe left no will designating his wishes for a multibillion-dollar estate. A protracted legal battle would ensue over the decade to follow, and a yearlong posthumous psychological autopsy commissioned by the estate would find that his health issues, as well as his tendency to withdraw during times of anxiety, stemmed from an isolated childhood under the care of a mother who feared intensely that her son would contract polio. As these tangled matters began to surface, late in 1976 TIME correctly predicted an ongoing fascination with the recently deceased tycoon, the mysterious nature of whom would no doubt lend itself to many artistic interpretations: Whatever the outcome of the legal proceedings, Hughes will be one of the hottest show-biz properties of 1977. People the world over will be seeing and reading more about Howard Hughes next year than at any time since he was setting new air records and squiring numerous beautiful women in the 1940s and 50s. Warner Bros, is planning to make The Howard Hughes Story, possibly starring Warren Beatty. Fancy thatit took four decades, but Beattys Hughes has finally landed. By Mohammad Nurul Islam and Wa Lone COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh/YANGON (Reuters) - Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar crossed the border to Bangladesh over the weekend and on Monday, aid workers said, seeking shelter from escalating violence in the northwest that has killed at least 86 people and displaced some 30,000. An official from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations' migration agency, who did not want to be identified, said he had witnessed more than 500 people enter its camps in the hills near the border on Monday. Aid workers from other United Nations agencies and Reuters reporters in the IOM camps also reported seeing Rohingyas who said they had recently fled the fighting in Myanmar. The UN workers did not give specific numbers, but expressed concern about a sudden influx of people. The bloodshed is the most serious since hundreds were killed in communal clashes in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine in 2012, and is posing the biggest test yet for the eight-month-old administration of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Soldiers have poured into the area along Myanmar's frontier with Bangladesh, responding to coordinated attacks on three border posts on Oct. 9 that killed nine police officers. Moulavi Aziz Khan, 60, from a village in northern Rakhine, said he left Myanmar last week, after the military surrounded his home and set fire to it. "At that time, I fled with my four daughters and three grandsons to a nearby hill ... later, we managed to cross the border," he said. Myanmar's military and the government have rejected allegations by residents and rights groups that soldiers have raped Rohingya women, burnt houses and killed civilians during the military operation in Rakhine. New York-based Human Rights Watch said at the weekend satellite images taken on Nov. 10, 17 and 18 showed 820 destroyed buildings in five villages in northern Rakhine, bringing the total number it says it has documented to 1,250. CHECKING REPORTS Myanmar's government has also rejected previous reports of Rohingya civilians trying to escape to Bangladesh. Zaw Htay, presidential spokesman and member of the newly-formed information taskforce on Rakhine, said the government continued to investigate such reports, but had not so far been able to substantiate any of them. "We checked with the military and police about people fleeing to Bangladesh since Oct. 9. Some people fled from their villages, but we put them back to their villages," he said. "If something like that happened, we are concerned and we will continue to investigate. We are not rejecting all allegations...our government always checks all the allegations, and some were found to be untrue." Myanmar's army has declared an "operations zone" in mainly Muslim northern Rakhine, where it says it is battling Islamist-inspired Rohingya insurgents, and it is not possible for international reporters to enter the area to verify claims. Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya, viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh by many of the country's majority Buddhists, are denied citizenship and face severe restrictions on their travel. Up to 30,000 people are now estimated to be displaced and thousands more affected by the recent fighting, the UN has said. Humanitarian operations that had been providing food, cash, and nutrition to more than 150,000 people have been suspended for more than 40 days. The UN refugee agency called on the Myanmar government for access to allow it to distribute aid. "The idea is to help them where they are, so that they wouldn't be forced to cross over into Bangladesh," Vivian Tan, regional public information officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told Reuters Television. "If they can't get the assistance where they are then, if they are forced to cross into another country like Bangladesh, we're really appealing to the Bangladeshi government to honor its long tradition of hospitality and open its borders to these refugees." (Additional reporting by Serajul Quadir in DHAKA and Juarawee Kittisilpa in BANGKOK; Editing by Alex Richardson) Hundreds of Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in neighbouring Myanmar, community leaders said Tuesday, many with horrific tales of troops killing and burning villages. Bangladesh says it has prevented hundreds more from crossing into the country, despite pleas from the United Nations to open its border after up to 30,000 Rohingya were displaced by violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state. Bangladeshi troops have intensified patrols along the 237-kilometre (147-mile) border, but Rohingya community leaders estimate that 1,000 people have still managed to get in over the last week. Most are hiding out in camps for the 32,000 legally registered already living in southeast Bangladesh, fearing repatriation if they are found by authorities. Mohammad Amin, 17, said he and 15 others fled their homes in Rakhine five days ago and reached Bangladesh by swimming across the Naf river that divides the two countries. "The (Myanmar) army killed my father and elder brother. I hid on a hill and then walked and swam across the river, and took refuge at a mosque (in Bangladesh)," he told AFP by phone from Cox's Bazar near the border. "Where I looked I saw only burnt houses. I don't know what happened to my mother and sister." Zohra Khatun, 25, arrived late Monday with her seven children after their village was burned to the ground, and has been helped by a relative already living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. "I waited two days before I had the chance to cross the river to come here," Khatun told AFP by phone. The relative, who asked not to be named, said that at least 100 families had arrived at the camp from Myanmar in the last two days. Another community leader said 500 people had taken shelter near two other Rohingya refugee camps in the area. Commanders of the Border Guard Bangladesh said their troops had blocked nearly 300 Rohingya from crossing the border overnight, the highest number since the crisis began last month. Story continues "We're preventing them on the zero line, especially those who were trying to cross the barbed-wire fences erected by Myanmar," said Imran Ullah Sarker. - 'Horrific stories' - Myanmar troops have poured into a strip of land that is home to the stateless Muslim Rohingya minority since a series of attacks on police border posts last month. State media reports in Myanmar say security forces have killed almost 70 people and arrested some 400 since the lockdown began six weeks ago, but activists say the number could be far higher. Witnesses and activists have reported troops killing Rohingya, raping women and looting and burning their houses. "We're hearing horrific stories from them," said one international rights worker visiting the area, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity. "We've heard that they have to bribe some people to enter Bangladeshi territory. The government must open the border and allow access of aid workers," he said. Bangladesh places restrictions on the work of international aid groups in the area, home to thousands of unregistered migrants as well as the 32,000 registered refugees. The arrival of more has caused tensions with the local community in Teknaf town, which border Myanmar's western Rakhine state and is one of the country's poorest. "If they (the government) don't act now, soon there will be a flood of Rohingya entering Bangladesh," said Teknaf councillor Anwar Hossain. Sarker said many Rohingya were sent back after they managed to sneak across unmanned parts of the border. Security guards are also patrolling the Naf river, the commanders said, adding that more than a dozen boats packed with Rohingya tried to land at the ghats (stations) in the Bangladeshi parts of the river. "They told us that their houses were torched and they came here seeking safe shelter," said one border guard official. LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Global IT group IBM will triple the number of its cloud data centres in Britain, it said on Tuesday, joining Facebook and Google in investing in the UK after its vote to leave the European Union. IBM said it would build four new data centres to meet demand from its corporate and public sector clients who were increasingly storing data and managing their businesses in the cloud. IBM Europe's general manger for cloud services, Sebastian Krause, said the investment reflected the strength of the UK economy and the size of the opportunity in cloud computing. "UK customers truly understand the capabilities of cloud to drive innovation, to be more flexible on their business model, to have better insight for decision making, and to deliver better customer service," he said in an interview. IBM had evaluated its cloud capacity in Britain before the June "Brexit" vote, he said, but it saw no reason to change course as a result of the decision. "Everyone has concluded the UK economy will continue to be very strong and there will be significant opportunities with or without Brexit," he said. Tech bosses have been balancing Britain's enthusiasm for technology and a deep pool of talent, fuelled by world class universities, against the uncertainty of the country's future relationship with the European Union, and in particular the ability to attract workers from across the trading bloc. Companies including Google and Facebook have decided the advantages outweigh the risks, but they've emphasised the importance of being able to attract the best people. IBM said its footprint in Britain would increase from two data centres to six, serving customers such as travel group Thomson, which is owned by TUI, retailers Boots and Dixons Carphone, and National Grid, as well as the government. It did not disclose the size of the investment. Brexit also creates uncertainty about Britain's future compliance with European data protection rules, which have recently been overhauled. Krause, however, said IBM was "well-equipped" for any post-Brexit scenario, and it had 10 data centres in continental Europe that it could also use if Britain did not adhere to any European standards in the future. (Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Mark Potter) The Hague (Netherlands) (AFP) - The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Tuesday put foreigners fighting with Islamic State jihadists on notice that she was seeking ways of bringing to justice those behind crimes in Syria and Iraq. Neither Syria or Iraq have joined the tribunal, but chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told AFP her office had jurisdiction over crimes committed in either country by citizens of the 124 nations which have signed up to court. "We definitely have jurisdiction over those nationals," Bensouda told AFP, in an interview in the ICC's new headquarters on the outskirts of The Hague. But she also revealed that apart from a handful of exceptions most foreign fighters "are not really at the top echelons of the ISIL structure," and that the "primary responsibility" for prosecuting them lay first with their national courts. She was speaking a day after meeting with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who assured her France was "ready to cooperate" with the court and action could be "launched" if it concerns "nationals who are engaged in the war in Syria alongside Daesh," using another name for the Islamic State group. France has been among countries upping the pressure at the UN Security Council to mandate the ICC to investigate war crimes committed by all sides in the five-year civil war in Syria. The United States on Monday named a dozen Syrian generals and officers accused of leading attacks on civilian targets and running torture prisons, warning they will one day face justice. "Those behind such attacks must know that we in the international community are watching their actions, documenting their abuses and one day they will be held accountable," said US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power. But so far any attempts to agree to a resolution giving the ICC powers to investigate crimes in Syria have been vetoed by Russia, the main ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and China. Story continues Set up in 2002, the tribunal based in The Hague is meant as a court of last resort to prosecute the world's worst crimes when national governments are unwilling or unable. - Defections - But the court, which is holding its annual meeting of state members in The Hague this week, is under a cloud amid a wave of defections by three African nations, which have accused the tribunal of being biased against the continent. Russia also dealt the tribunal a blow last week when it withdrew its signature to the court's founding Rome Statute, prompting the Philippines to say it too may leave. But Bensouda has vowed the row will not impede her work, saying the court was there "to ensure there is accountability for those people who perpetrate these crimes." Her office will also soon decide on whether to open a full investigation into the conflict in Afghanistan, after determining that the Taliban militants, Afghan government forces and US troops all may have committed war crimes in the country. Bensouda revealed an ICC team had just been in Afghanistan meeting with authorities there, and she was awaiting one more piece of information before making a final determination on whether to press ahead with a full-blown inquiry. With many experts saying it would be unlikely that Washington would hand over any US personnel, Bensouda admitted it would be a complex investigation. But she stressed: "Were still trying to complete the preliminary examination process, and in doing so we reach out. We reach out to all the parties that are part of the conflict there, including the international forces." The Hague (AFP) - Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court will probe the trafficking of migrants out of Libya to see if there is evidence of war crimes, the chief prosecutor told AFP Tuesday. With the situation in Libya "deteriorating," Fatou Bensouda said "my office is planning to make Libya a priority in investigations" in the coming year. "One of the areas I intend to look into is the issue of the migrants, and the fact that we see hundreds of thousands of migrants being trafficked across from Libya, coming into Europe," she said. She was speaking in an interview with AFP in the ICC's new permanent home on the outskirts of The Hague, just as Italy was on the verge of a record number of migrant arrivals for the year. Asked if such trafficking could be considered "a crime against humanity," Bensouda replied: "It could be, depending on what evidence we find." "We are still continuing with our investigations in Libya. We are receiving a lot of information with regards to the crimes that are being committed." - 'Women, children bear brunt of crimes' - Italian officials said on Tuesday at least eight people had died and an unknown number were missing in a new series of boat disasters in the Mediterranean. Some 1,400 people had been saved in a dozen separate operations between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon, the Italian coastguard said. The rescues will take the number of migrants to have arrived in Italy by sea this year to almost 170,000, just short of the previous record set in 2014. "The crimes are just many. And unfortunately it is the civilians... the women and children who are bearing the brunt of those crimes," Bensouda said. Although Libya is not a party to the Rome Statute which underpins the ICC, the UN Security Council unanimously mandated the tribunal to investigate abuses in the country in February 2011. It was then still under the rule of longtime leader Moamer Kadhafi, who was killed months later by rebels in a NATO-backed uprising. Story continues An arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity is still outstanding for his son, Seif al-Islam, said to be behind bars in Zintan, a town southwest of Tripoli that opposes the unity government based in the capital. The new unity government in Tripoli still faces dogged resistance from jihadist holdouts, who seized on the chaos unleashed since 2011. Bensouda's attempt to have the ICC warrant served on the battalion commander in charge in Zintan, to compel him to turn over Islam to the court, was Monday turned down by the trial chamber in The Hague. But she vowed her office would keep up its investigations, and said new arrest warrants could perhaps follow next year. "So far the judges have decided that we should continue to have contact with the authorities in Libya... we will follow that up and see what we can do. The efforts have to continue." By Allison Lampert MONTREAL, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Investors Group and GWL Realty Advisors are set to buy two Montreal office buildings from Germany's KanAm Grund Group for around C$415 million ($308.99 million), though the transaction has not been finalized, two sources familiar with the deal said. Investors Group is part of IGM Financial Inc while GWL is part of Great-West Lifeco Inc. Power Financial Corp is the controlling shareholder of both companies. Power Corp of Canada in turn controls Power Financial. The buildings are expected to be sold at a low capitalization rate for the Montreal market, indicating that demand for high-quality office buildings is spilling over from Toronto and Vancouver. The potential sale of the office towers was reported on Friday by Reuters. Power Corp spokesman Stephane Lemay referred a reporter's query directly to Winnipeg-based Investors Group which declined to comment. GWL Realty in Toronto and KanAm could not immediately be reached for comment. The deal should close before year's end, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because terms of the transaction have not been made public. The downtown buildings are expected to be sold at a capitalization rate of just over 5 percent, which is indicative of a premium asset, said the sources. Capitalization rates are calculated by dividing an asset's net operating income by its market price. According to recent data from Colliers International, Montreal cap rates for Class A buildings range from 5.50 percent to 6.25 percent. "It (a 5 cap) is unusual for the city," said a third source familiar with both the deal and the Montreal commercial real estate market, who declined to comment because the transaction is not yet public. According to data from CBRE Ltd, Montreal's third quarter downtown vacancy rate was 11 percent, compared with 10.6 percent for downtown markets in Canada as a whole. KanAm, which owns real estate assets in Europe, North America and Australia, acquired the buildings at 1350-1360 Rene-Levesque West, in 2007 and 2008. Story continues The nearly 1 million square-foot property is managed by Canderel Inc, a Canadian real estate developer. Tenants include IT services providers CGI Group, Computer Sciences Canada, IBM and TD Bank, according to its website. Real estate services firm JLL, which is selling the properties, declined to comment. ($1 = 1.3431 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Allison Lampert; Editing by Andrew Hay) Adrian was the first player Immortals signed. (Jeremy Wacker) Esports organization Immortals has announced that it is parting ways with Adrian Adrian Ma, the support player in its League of Legends line-up. The news was revealed on the Immortals Twitter account Tuesday. He was the first player the organization signed on, shortly after it was founded in October 2015. Adrian will be joining North American team Phoenix1 in the support role. It is not known who will be filling the support role at Immortals in his absence. Prior to joining Immortals, Adrian was signed to Team Impulse, who enjoyed moderate success in 2015 at the Spring/Summer Splits and Playoffs. However, Riot Games banned the organization from fielding a team in the LCS after allegations of delayed payments to players. Phoenix1 is a relatively new team, having formed in May this year. The team notably went on to end Team SoloMids win streak during the NA LCS Summer Split. Yesterday, Phoenix1 players Austin Gate Yu, Brandon Mash Phan, and Andrew Slooshi Pham announced their respective departures from the team, becoming free agents. The announcement follows on from news that Immortals AD carry Jason WildTurtle Tran would be playing with Team SoloMid for IEM Oakland. It is not clear if he will be staying with TSM for the Spring Split. By Hidayat Setiaji and Gayatri Suroyo JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Tuesday he was determined to "prevent the growth of radicalism", after reports that Islamist extremists are planning protests to destabilize his government. Officials say there has been mounting alarm in the government since more than 100,000 Muslims, led by hardline Islamists, took to the streets of Jakarta on Nov. 4 to demand the removal of the capital's governor, a Christian, for alleged blasphemy. National Police Chief Tito Karnavian warned on Monday of a threat to parliament during rallies expected this Friday and on Dec. 2. "There are hidden methods by certain groups to enter and occupy parliament," Indonesian media quoted him as saying. "If (these actions) are intended to overthrow the government, that's a violation of the law." Widodo has blamed "political actors" for fanning violence during the Nov. 4 protest, without naming anyone. The president held talks with a senior coalition partner on Tuesday, the latest in a series of meetings with top political, religious and military officials to signal the unity of his government and support from the security establishment. "I want to emphasize the spirit of pluralism," he told reporters after the meeting at the presidential palace. "The government is determined to prevent the growth of radicalism in this country." Widodo, the leader of his party Megawati Sukarnoputri and opposition leader Prabowo Subianto have all called for calm. On Tuesday the president tried to assuage concerns among investors in Southeast Asia's largest economy. POLITICS "A LITTLE HEATED" "The political situation has been a little heated recently, but this is very normal around elections," he said in a speech, referring to upcoming local elections in Jakarta. "There is no reason to be pessimistic," he told the event attended by bankers, investors, and top company executives, adding that inflation and growth were both in line with government targets. The trigger for the tensions was a comment that Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the first Christian and ethnic Chinese in the job, made about his opponents' use of the Koran in political campaigning. Purnama, popularly known as Ahok, is running for re-election in February against two Muslim candidates, including the son of former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Widodo has been seen as one of the governor's main supporters. Police have opened an investigation into the allegations that Purnama insulted the Koran and questioned him on Tuesday. Prosecutors are expected to bring a case to court in the coming weeks. He could face up to five years in prison if found guilty of blasphemy. Police said they were investigating a social media campaign calling for a run on banks on Nov. 25 in protest over the government's handling of the complaint against Purnama. Government officials have urged the public not to participate and played down the potential impact of any such campaign. Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population and is also home to Christian and Hindu communities. (Additional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor and Jakarta bureau; Editing by Andrew Roche) While Marcela Valladolid may be known for her work in the kitchen, it turns out her interior-design eye is pretty enviable too. The chef and co-host of the Emmy-nominated Food Network show The Kitchen talked to PEOPLE exclusively about her soon-to-arrive daughters nursery, which she designed with a few very specific things in mind. I chose a subtle owl theme for the nursery because of its symbolism in Native American culture as a protector, says Valladolid, 38, who just launched her brand new website and blog at ChefMarcela.com. Adds Valladolid, who is also mom to sons David, 19 months featured in some of the nursery photos and Fausto, 12, If our daughter is born on or around her due date, she also happens to fall under the owl animal symbol on the calendar. Want all the latest pregnancy and birth announcements, plus celebrity mom blogs? Click here to get those and more in the PEOPLE Babies newsletter. The soon-to-be mother of three, whose daughter will be her second child with fiance Philip, incorporated pieces from Anthropologie, Folk-Project.com and Kate Spade into her little girls nursery. The owl wallpaper is from the Kate Spade Collection, Valladolid, whos due in December, shares. I spotted it while walking into a meeting in Manhattan in a showroom with a company Ive been looking to work with for awhile. I instantly fell in love with it, and took it as a sign that good things were to come. Aside from the owl theme, the room is chock full of whites, blushes and pops of yellow and gray. But Valladolid admits the pink route wasnt something that came naturally to her. As much as I thought I would NEVER be able to embrace pink, thank goodness blush rose is the color of the winter season and there are so many options from furniture to decor, she explains. I even set my Thanksgiving table in all blush rose this year. And the cultural influence in Valladolids daughters sleep space doesnt stop at Native American. Story continues I always like to add one or two elements that remind me and my children about our Mexican culture, so I added two gorgeous pillows from folk-project.com made from hand-embroidered Mexican textiles, she explains. Im using them as floor pillows. Valladolid admits that one specific element of her little girls room is only partly about the color match in fact, shes already setting her daughter up to be a strong woman. In terms of inspiration later on, Sophia Amorusos book Nasty Galaxy is in her dresser, she says. Not only because of the inspiring and empowering quotes, but because its the perfect shade of pink! With reporting by ANYA LEON By Andrei Khalip LISBON (Reuters) - When international creditors released Portugal from onerous loan conditions two years ago, they hailed the nation for some major reform achievements - not least, an overhaul of the judiciary. The International Monetary Fund applauded Lisbon for reforming a dysfunctional court system which had been a brake on the economy. And with the European Union, it approved Portugal's exit from a 78 billion euro ($83 billion) bailout programme which had begun in 2011. But judges and entrepreneurs say the system was never really fixed and a deeper analysis of case-load data shows it has improved less than the official statistics suggest. It remains a bottleneck in an economy still staggering under bad debts. Almost 900,000 disputes over bad loans, unpaid bills and mortgages are pending in the courts, restricting new bank lending to companies and families and weighing on investment. These so-called "enforcement of payments" cases, which experts say are likely to be worth tens of billions of euros, are down by a quarter from their 2012 peak. However, judges attribute this reduction in large part to a 2013 decree that swept the oldest, most hopeless cases from the system. Cases where creditors have a better chance of recovering a borrower's assets still inch their way through the courts. The decree eliminated three quarters of all cases processed in 2013, justice ministry data shows. No data exists for later years, but one judge says the space this created to work on more promising claims was largely filled by new, hopeless cases. As they cleared futile claims, where creditors have almost no chance of recovering debts, more such cases arrived, largely from banks that would rather park them in the judiciary than take hard decisions to write them off, experts and judges say. "Most of the cases end with zero debt recovery ... In that aspect the reform was inefficient and dysfunctional," said Joao Raposo, a judge in the district court of Sintra, near Lisbon, who is also deputy head of the Portuguese Judges Association. "The statistics look good, but it's a bit of an illusion that the bailout lenders were happy to accept," said Raposo. The IMF, which had lauded Portugal for "one of the most successful reforms" ever undertaken in the judiciary, denied it had exaggerated those achievements in order to show to anti-austerity campaigners that the bail-out programme was a success. In an email to Reuters, it cited a drop in pending enforcement cases, faster processing times and a boost in loan recoveries from a new electronic system for seizing cash from overdue debtors' bank accounts. This new system, though, has not made a major dent in total debts stuck in courts, judges say. Portugal's backlog of pending non-criminal cases - mostly debt-related - remains by far the largest in the European Union when adjusted for population, EU data shows. Though it fell to some 11,000 cases per 100,000 people in 2015 from a 2012 peak of over 14,400, the backlog is still almost double that of runner-up Italy with 7,500. Neighbouring Spain has fewer than 2,000 cases per 100,000 people. 'WE'VE GOT NOTHING' Portugal's main business lobby says courts still offer little hope for creditors seeking to recover debts. "The judicial reform for the economy has failed," said Antonio Saraiva, head of the Portuguese Business Confederation, calling the courts slow, costly and unpredictable. "Court delays cause unbearable constraints on companies cash flow, generate a sense of impunity and make up one of the main obstacles to investment in the country." Virgilio Valadas, director of building firm Construcoes Monsaraz, is suing several of his customers for unpaid bills totalling 2 million euros ($2.1 million), equal to nearly half its annual turnover. One case has been pending for six years. He said courts appeared faster to set hearing dates, "but in terms of recovering debts, we've got nothing so far". "Where it hurts the most is when it comes to investment decisions," said Valadas, 43, whose firm employs 70 people and builds housing and hotels in the Alentejo region and in Lisbon. He said he planned to use any funds recovered through the courts to take advantage of a pick-up in property prices and revive several frozen real-estate projects. Unlike many construction firms, Valadas's Construcoes Monsaraz survived the recession and financial crisis that had triggered the EU-IMF bailout in 2011 and gave rise to many of the bad debts that he is still seeking to recover. "The reform's nature was cosmetic to show to the troika (of EU-IMF lenders) that Portugal was taking action," said Professor Joao Paulo Dias, a judicial expert at Coimbra University. BANKS STACKING THE COURTS? The IMF, judges and experts agree on one thing, however: that banks need to take a much more aggressive approach to the problem of bad debts rather than use the courts as a way of parking them and avoiding the need to write them off. "It will take years to change the mindset of creditors, banks mainly, who prefer to flood the justice system with often hopeless claims rather than acknowledge bad loans and write them down or off," said Raposo, of the judges association. Portuguese banks must provision for bad loans but do not need to write them off if they are pursuing repayment in courts. Non-performing loans are still rising two years after the nation exited its bailout programme: they totalled 17.8 billion euros in September, double their 2010 levels, Bank of Portugal data show. Bad loans represent a fifth of all loans outstanding, more than three times the EU average, the European Banking Authority data show. This is restricting bank lending. Even as euro zone lending grows, Portugal's banks wrote about 3 percent fewer loans in September than a year ago. Portugal's banking association denies banks contribute to the problem and says it is working with the government on plans to remove legal and judicial bottlenecks. Instead, it blames slow justice for bad loans remaining on their balance sheets for four to six years, the EU average of two years. Raposo's court in Sintra near Lisbon has 60,000 cases pending, worth an estimated 2 billion euros in enforcement claims. It has been at this level for a few years, says Raposo who alone has a personal case-load of 20,000 enforcement cases. The 2013 decree eased his court's backlog, but he said it remained overwhelmed. Despite being assigned back-up judges, he added, his court needed double its three permanent judges. There is no data on the overall value of the roughly 900,000 enforcement cases still choking up Portuguese courts. But if Raposo's district court were a representative sample, they could amount to more than 30 billion euros, or 17 percent of GDP. The government has said it is working on a solution to rid banks of bad loans, but details are still scarce. The court system has been streamlined under bailout reforms: more than 200 district courts have been closed, with their cases transferred to larger courts, and enforcement cases are now handled by one judge rather than a panel of three previously. The courts have installed a single computer network and appeal fees have been raised to discourage excessive litigation. However, these efficiencies were accompanied by a cut in the judicial budget, which is down 14 percent since 2011. Judges complain of a lack of qualified assistants and equipment. "The reform was done hurriedly and cheaply, which means more costs in the longer run," said Coimbra University's Dias. The Justice Ministry counters that the case-clearance rate has risen for 15 straight quarters, saying the removal of hopeless cases had helped to unclog the system. "One cannot affirm that there are no effects in terms of debt recovery," the ministry said in a written reply to Reuters. INVESTMENT SUFFERS The business confederation's Saraiva said a recent survey showed companies rated slowness of courts as their main concern weighing on investment. The Justice Ministry said judicial spending would rise 6.5 percent next year. At 1.8 percent of total state spending, the judicial budget is similar to France and Norway, it added. However, Joao Costa, director of metal-parts manufacturer Arpial, is not convinced. He has been trying without success to collect unpaid bills through the courts for four years. "Justice works terribly, never has worked and I doubt it ever will. Nothing has improved for us since the reform," Costa said. "Who's going to invest here if there's no way you can recover a client's debt?" ($1 = 0.9347 euros) (Editing by Mark Bendeich, Janet McBride) GENEVA (Reuters) - Civilians in the southwestern Yemeni city of Taiz are trapped by intense fighting, with dead bodies lying in the streets and 200 people wounded in the past three days, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday. Houthi fighters and government forces backed by a Saudi-led military coalition are battling for control of Taiz, the country's third largest city with an estimated pre-war population of 300,000. "Sniper fire and indiscriminate shelling has trapped civilians. Dead bodies are in the streets and people are unable to attend to their most basic needs. The situation is desperate," Alexandre Faite, head of the ICRC in Yemen, said in a statement. Some 200 people have been wounded over the past 72 hours, the aid agency said. "Many patients are suffering from blast injuries. Many have had to have limbs amputated," it said. The coalition has been fighting Houthis and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who hold much of the north of Yemen including the capital Sanaa, since March 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognized President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power. A unilaterally declared two-day ceasefire after nearly two years of war expired at midday (0900 GMT) on Monday, a spokesman for the coalition told al-Arabiya television, with each side blaming the other for violations. The ICRC called on all warring sides to spare civilians and to protect schools, hospitals and residential neighborhoods. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay) MATTOON (JG-TC) -- Charleston and Mattoon firefighters held their annual Thanksgiving food basket program for families in financial need this week. Members of Mattoon Firefighters Local 691 delivered food baskets Tuesday morning to 165 families in the Mattoon city limits, said union representative Bart Owen. Charleston Firefighters Local 3200 representative Todd Foster said their firefighters, plus several family members, delivered 200 food baskets Monday morning throughout Charleston and the rest of Coles County. Both Mattoon Firefighters Local 691 and Charleston Firefighters Local 3200 purchased the groceries needed for the baskets from locally owned Mark's My Store in Mattoon once again with funds raised from the community. Each basket contained a turkey, stuffing mix, canned vegetables and other side dishes, bread, dessert ingredients, milk, and more. "It's pretty much all the food you will need to make your own Thanksgiving feast," Foster said. Charleston Firefighters Local 3200 uses any monetary donations leftover after the Thanksgiving food basket program to help support the annual Christmas party at Camp New Hope, Foster said. By John O'Donnell and Francesca Landini FRANKFURT/MILAN (Reuters) - Monte dei Paschi di Siena's (BMPS.MI) move to swap debt for shares, pushing losses onto investors, could help Rome resurrect a bid to help the troubled Italian bank, European officials believe. The threat of political and market turmoil from a Dec. 4 referendum on constitutional reform, expected to go against Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, has cast further doubt over the world's oldest bank and its bid for 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) of fresh capital. The wider threat to Italy's banks and economy, the euro zone's third largest, has prompted Italy and European regulators to prepare a fall-back plan - possibly taking a softer stance on imposing losses on all bondholders, allowing the state to help, said the sources. "There is flexibility in the rules," said one official of the procedure of asking for European Union approval for state support, which first requires such bondholders to take losses. Earlier this year, Rome sought approval from Brussels to support Monte dei Paschi, but the EU's antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager wanted investors to share the cost, in keeping with stricter post financial crisis rules known as 'bail-in'. Rome refused, arguing that Italian pensioners would be hit and investors would shun the country's debt, and Monte dei Paschi was forced to launch its third recapitalisation in as many years -- planned for immediately after the referendum. Italy's third biggest bank, which emerged as Europe's weakest lender in regional stress tests this summer, is trying to fill a 5 billion euro capital hole. That begins with a 'voluntary' debt swap, which analysts estimate could raise 1 to 1.5 billion euros, and continues with a share sale. In practice, with the bank in a fragile state, they have little choice but to accept. INVESTOR SHIELD Now European officials believe the debt-for-equity swap later this month could unlock the earlier impasse over state aid, if the bid for investor cash fails. Story continues Uncertainties remain, including whether Italy would offer guarantees to underpin the bank or inject capital. It is unclear what would happen to retail investors who are the main owners of 2.1 billion euros of the bank's subordinated bonds and whose vulnerability is a key concern for the Italian government. "If Monte dei Paschi needs state aid, its junior bondholders will be hit before the state puts public funds in the bank," said one official with knowledge of the bank's plans. "The hit will surely target institutional bondholders, while there is a chance that retail bondholders could be spared to avoid perverse effects on the other banks and shield small investors," the official added. Italy, the European Commission, and Germany, which has argued for strict enforcement of bank rescue rules, may ultimately fail to agree. Nevertheless, the debt-for-shares swap offers a first route to a rapprochement and one of the potential "answers" that Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco said on Tuesday would be found if banks struggled to raise fresh capital. ($1 = 0.9410 euros) (Additional reporting by Stefano Bernabei and Giuseppe Fonte in Rome; Editing by Alexander Smith) Iran is building two large naval zones and three bases on the coasts of Makran along the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, a strategic military region for world leaders. Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari announced Monday the navy construction projects under Iran's ongoing efforts to secure naval routes and protect merchant vessels against pirates. The construction comes after several tense standoffs between U.S. and Iranian naval officials in the region. In September, seven Iranian fast-attack boats had a so-called "unsafe encounter" with the USS Firebolt that could have led to a collision. In all, there have been 31 unsafe America encounters involving Iranian vessels in the Persian Gulf so far, up from 23 last year. In January, Iran held 10 U.S. sailors after two small Navy vessels ventured into Iranian waters. U.S. Army Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of US Central Command, has called the Iranian navy's conduct "concerning." Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has said development of the region is a high priority. He told navy commanders during a November 2014 meeting that building up the region was a basic goal that "should be carried out more rapidly." Sayyari said Monday that the Navy had deployed 44 flotilla warships in recent years to protect naval routes north of the Indian Ocean. Iran's naval forces also have guarded 3,844 merchant ships and oil tankers in the Gulf of Aden, he said. In October, Iran's navy announced it had obtained a "suicide drone" armed with explosive materials that could be aimed at targets at sea and on land to bolster its maritime surveillance. Security experts have warned of a possible war in 2016 between Washington and Tehran, but both nations have worked in recent years to improve relations. Iran dismantled most of its nuclear program earlier this year in compliance with a historic deal brokered between Iran and six world powers to limit its nuclear development. In exchange, the Obama administration lifted some economic sanctions that had pummeled Irans economy for years. Related Articles Tehran (AFP) - Iran said on Tuesday it had sent 11 metric tonnes of heavy water to Oman as part of its obligations under last year's nuclear deal with world powers. Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, said the heavy water has been sold to an unnamed third country. Heavy water is not itself radioactive, but is used in certain types of reactor which can produce plutonium that is used in a nuclear bomb. "Eleven tonnes of heavy water has been sent to Oman and the other party has announced its readiness for the purchase," Salehi said, according to the IRIB news agency. In a report this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran's stocks of heavy water had crept 100 kilos above the 130-tonne level set out in the nuclear deal with world powers that came into force in January. Tehran denied last week that this breached the agreement. "Iran has fulfilled its obligations on heavy water stockpiles," Atomic Energy Organisation spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Friday. "We were required to put on the international market any excess over 130 tonnes, and so far we have sold 70 tonnes," he said. The IAEA report said Iran has met its other obligations under the deal. Tehran complains that it has not yet seen the expected benefits of the deal since sanctions were lifted in January. Continuing US sanctions linked to Iran's ballistic missile tests and human rights record mean that international banks remain wary of doing business with the Islamic republic. BUDAPEST (Reuters) - OPEC should allow Iraq to continue raising output with no restrictions, Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari told reporters in Budapest on Tuesday, commenting on a plan by the organization to limit supply in order to support prices. "We think we should increase output. Iraq is in a special situation ...we are at war," he said, referring to the ongoing military campaign to defeat Islamic State. "It would not be fair for us to cut oil output." OPEC meets at the end of the month at its headquarters in Vienna. Iraq is the second-largest producer of the 14-member group, behind Saudi Arabia. (Reporting by Gergely Szakacs in Budapest; writing by Maher Chmaytelli in Baghdad; editing by Jason Neely) All the carbs. (Photo: Stocksy) Stress eating due to political drama? Youre not alone. Whether youre dreading talking politics with family over the holidays (weve got you covered), still dealing with election stress, or just caught up in the news, many Americans no matter who they voted for are dealing with the aftershocks of a divisive election. But just because you might feel out of control in the wake of the election doesnt mean you have to forfeit control forever (and certainly not for the next four to eight years). Many people are feeling some stress after this election. The result was such a big surprise that many Clinton supporters are going through a grieving process. Grief takes a while to process, Art Markman, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, Austin, tells Yahoo Beauty. It is helpful for people to reach out to others who are feeling the same way to talk and to find a positive outlet for the energy and emotion they are experiencing. when does "post election stress eating" become "making poor food choices?" asking for a friend. pic.twitter.com/dqgU895crW citizen janey (@citizenjaney) November 16, 2016 Michelle Obama worked really hard to encourage healthy habits and now Donald Trump has us all stress eating. Sad! The End. (@Nomnomqondiso) November 17, 2016 As I continue to soothe myself with my kids' leftover Halloween candy, I envision a national weight gain that will be called "the Trump 15." Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) November 15, 2016 Since election night my hobbies include Stress Eating Watching the SNL parody debates Ugly Crying Filling out visa applications Isy Zuniga (@IsyZuni) November 16, 2016 If there's one thing I'm thankful for this year it's the election and how much stress eating has helped prepare me for Thanksgiving dinner. Canadiense de Sangre (@CanadiaDeSangre) November 17, 2016 probably gonna put on 15 lbs of stress eating comfort food this season. my election 15, if you will. The People's El-Bro (@jmrivera02) November 10, 2016 Do the results of this election have anyone else stress eating? ???? Erin Althaus (@TheErinAlthaus) November 15, 2016 This years weight gain is brought to you by: Election 2016. Bring your stress eating back to life. #Election2016 Christine Eggleston (@cytheria21) November 15, 2016 Stress eating through an election is one thing, stress eating through 4 years is anotherbut I think I'm up to the task. Patrick Dillon (@mpdillon) November 11, 2016 Markman adds that one great way to help yourself feel better and put down the Oreos and/or that glass of pinot grigio is to actively get involved in your community. Find a charity, nonprofit, or religious group that shares your values and volunteer, Markman says. Help in the community. He explains that feeling a connection with others will help strengthen your existing social connections and provide rewarding experiences that will counteract the effects of all the stress, anxiety, and uncertainty so many people are feeling right now. And theres an added benefit too, he notes, especially important as America tries to figure out how to come together after an election that was truly divisive. Giving back to your local community is an opportunity to begin to repair some of the factors that led to the anger on both the left and right that characterized many of the voters in this election. In other words, want to make America great? Start by investing in making change in your own backyard. Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel on Tuesday jailed an elderly ultra-Orthodox rabbi for 18 months after he confessed to sexually assaulting three women, the justice ministry said. Rabbi Eliezer Berland was convicted of sexually assaulting the women, kissing them against their will and rubbing himself against them, the ministry said in a statement. Berland, 78, initially denied culpability but later accepted a plea bargain giving him the 18-month sentence. He told the court on Tuesday he "regrets his actions from the bottom of his heart," Israeli media reported. "For such acts, the Bible would have pronounced the punishment of stoning," he supposedly added, promising to have no more contact with women. Berland is a spiritual leader in the Breslov Hasidic sect, a strand of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, who respect ancient Jewish laws in all aspects of everyday life. Many of the faithful remain convinced of his innocence despite his arrest at the end of a highly publicised manhunt. The rabbi, who has a long white beard and wears a black outfit characteristic of ultra-Orthodox Jews, fled Israel in 2013 after several women laid charges of indecent assault against him. He evaded capture in the United States, Switzerland, Morocco and Zimbabwe. He was finally arrested in South Africa this year. Berland rose to prominence in the 1980s for organising clandestine pilgrimages to the tomb of his movement's founder in Ukraine. The pilgrimage has become popular since the fall of the communist regime. His Facebook page, followed by more than 17,000 people, asked his supporters to continue to back him. Sara Markovitz, a lawyer for one of the complainants, denounced the agreement and criticised the absence of a full trial. "The message to female victims of harassment is that filing a complaint is useless," she said. Florence (Italy) (AFP) - How many enthusiasts does it take to restore a fleet of rust-riddled Volkswagen camper vans? Ask the Italians. At the back of a hanger in the heart of Florence, two VW fans have dedicated their lives to restoring these iconic vans from the Swinging Sixties, importing them from South America before fixing them up and selling them on. Some are over 50 years old, but once they are patched up by Mauro Altamore and his mechanic Giacomo Nucci, they are expected to chug on for another half a century at least. "With good maintenance, these vans are indestructible. We have to overhaul a good part of the mechanics, but keep the original engines," Nucci told AFP as he showed off a van that looked like it had rolled off an assembly line, despite its age. From Ferrari to Fiat, Italy is a car crazy country, but Nucci firmly believes there is nothing better than a VW camper. He's been sprucing up these classic vans for collectors for over seven years and these days boasts an increasing number of businesses and advertising companies among his customers. Fashion companies ask for "made to measure" vans for photo shoots or catalogues, he says pointing to a row of shiny red, blue and cream coloured vans, as well as one with a slogan stamped on the side. Their distinctive VW hood emblems -- which enjoyed a period of fame as rapper pendants thanks to the Beastie Boys -- glint as new. - A childhood passion - Customers can be picky: one purist wants the rust on the bodywork kept, even down to craters that look like bullet holes. Another wants the original motor replaced with a Porsche engine. Altamore, who came up with the idea for restoring the vans, says clients come not just from Italy but from all over Europe. Inside the company's office are dozens of ceramic models of the "Peace and Love" campers he has collected down the years. His passion started in childhood when he used to collect models of the iconic Volkswagen Beetle, whose rear engine and axles were later used in production of the camper vans. Story continues When he was 18, he set his heart on buying one but his father refused to pay for it, denouncing the little car as a petrol guzzler. So he got a camper instead and can now no longer remember how many of the old clappers he has bought and restored. About a decade ago, while in Brazil working in the clothing import and export business, Altamore decided to switch his business focus to vans instead, fondly remembering his first client: "a famous biscuit manufacturer". He eventually dedicated himself full time to the van business with Nucci's help. - Symbol of freedom - Restoration takes around six months and costs between 10,000 to 50,000 euros ($10,600 to $53,000), largely because picking up parts, which are out of production, is not always easy. But these vehicles, which remain hugely popular, can often command prices which are much higher, with a 1955 model going under the hammer in Germany for around 200,000 euros ($235,000) in November 2014. Manufactured in Germany until 1979, and in Brazil until 2013, the classic campers continue to fascinate people well beyond the "free love" hippy generation and have become a symbol of freedom. "You turn the key and off you go," Altamore says with a grin. "The windshield opening says it all: it was like riding a motorbike. You would set off, stop where you want, you could even sleep inside. "I reckon more than a few children have been born inside... and many have been conceived!" Ivanka Trump is making efforts to separate herself from her eponymous brand. On Monday, the future first daughter shared on Instagram that moving forward @IvankaTrump will be my personal channel. Stick with me here to see what Im up to inside the office and out of it. She added that the handle @IvankaTrumpHQ new accounts have been created for Facebook and Twitter as well will be the home for the latest from #TeamIvanka, highlighting the content created for the site. On IvankaTrump.com, the editors added their own message. Our companys mission is not political it never was and it never will be however, Ivanka, personally, has an increased opportunity to advocate for women and be a positive force for change. As a private citizen, with full awareness of her heightened visibility, she will broaden her efforts to take a stance on issues of critical importance to American women and families. The post concluded, This is an unprecedented time for our company and we are being intentional in how we move forward, working hard to ensure were creating the best possible community for our readers. Trump, who has the Ivanka Trump collection that includes dresses, shoes, and jewelry, does not sell her goods on the platform. Rather, the items are available for purchase at select retailers including Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, and Amazon. Instead, its used as a destination for her customers to come together that features content, such as inspiration, tips, tricks, and life hacks, celebrating the lives of working women who transition between their various roles in professional and personal capacities. Story continues My family sat down for our first interview post-election with @60minutes. Tune in at 7pm EST to watch! A photo posted by Ivanka Trump (@ivankatrump) on Nov 13, 2016 at 10:52am PST The separation between Ivanka Trump, President-elect Donald Trumps daughter and executive vice president of development and acquisition at the Trump Organization, and Ivanka Trump, the brand, comes on the heels of a controversy in which the mother of three was called out for the potential conflict between her political persona and business endeavors. During a 60 Minutes interview, the 35-year-old wore a $10,800 18-karat yellow gold diamond bangle from the Ivanka Trump fine jewelry collection. Shortly after CBS aired the segment, a public relations representative sent out a press release touting the piece. That wasnt the first time Ivanka wore her own wares while promoting her fathers interests (although it has been the only instance since he won the election). To introduce him at the Republican National Convention, she wore a $138 light pink sheath dress, which quickly sold out after she wore it and her brand tweeted out the shopping link. While Ivanka has insisted that she will not be involved with her fathers administration beyond being his child, she, as well has her husband, Jared Kushner, was named to his transition team. Ivanka has reportedly been present for high-profile meetings including a recent sit-down with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. Late Late Show host James Corden will host the 59th Grammy Awards. This will be Cordens first time hosting the music trophy show, which will be broadcast live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 12 at 8 PM on CBS. Hell take the reins from hip-hop artist and NCIS: Los Angeles star LL Cool J, who is exiting after a five-year hosting stint. Thanks to Carpool Karaoke, weve all been on some incredible rides with James, and The Recording Academy couldnt be more excited to welcome his passion and enthusiasm for music, both as an entertainer and a fan, to the Grammy stage on Feb. 12, said Recording Academy president/CEO Neil Portnow. Hes got big shoes to fill after the magnificent run we had with LL Cool J, but James Corden is a commanding, dynamic showman who, we believe, is perfect to host the Grammy Awards. Corden earned critical praise as host of the Tony Awards in June. Since taking over The Late Late Show in March 2015, the show has won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program and become known for Cordens groundbreaking videos and sketches, including his signature Carpool Karaoke segment, which has featured music superstars Adele, Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga, Sir Elton John and Justin Bieber, among others. The segement has set YouTube records, with nearly 2 billion views and more than 8 million subscribers for the shows YouTube channel. The Late Late Show Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special won an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special. James Corden is a captivating host, and I have no doubt that his musical background, personal charm and comedic instincts will resonate with our audience, said executive producer of the Grammy Awards Ken Ehrlich. For the past five years, weve been fortunate to have had LL Cool J host our show, and I trust that James will bring the same professionalism and charisma to Musics Biggest Night. I am truly honored to be hosting The Grammys next year. Its the biggest, most prestigious award show in music, and I feel incredibly lucky to be part of such an incredible night, said Corden. The 59th Annual Grammy Awards show is produced by AEG Ehrlich Ventures for The Recording Academy. Ken Ehrlich is the executive producer, Louis J. Horvitz is the director, Ben Winston is a producer, and David Wild and Ehrlich are the writers. Story continues Related stories Bruno Mars Reveals 'Carpool Karaoke' Appearance Eddie Redmayne's 'Fantastic Beasts' Suitcase Searched By TSA On 'Late Late Show' Madonna Next In Line For 'Carpool Karaoke' With James Corden SPRINGFIELD -- Feeling ignored by Gov. Bruce Rauners administration, people with disabilities who receive state-funded in-home care are turning to the General Assembly in an effort to block proposed overtime restrictions for their caregivers. The Rauner administration is seeking to prohibit personal assistants who provide care through the states home services program from working more than 40 hours per week under most circumstances. The state implemented the rule earlier this year in response to U.S. Department of Labor ruling that said home care workers must earn time-and-a-half pay if they work more than 40 hours in a week. Facing a lawsuit from a union representing 25,000 home care workers, the state Department of Human Services put the rule on hold in August to seek approval from a bipartisan House and Senate committee charged with signing off on such rules. While a final draft of the rules has yet to be submitted to the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, the Senate last week approved a bill that would prohibit the department from making its proposed changes. The bills sponsor, Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, said the administrations proposal fundamentally undermines the vastly successful home services program. The restriction on overtime needlessly penalizes workers and sows confusion overall, Lightford said. The measure, which the Senate approved on a veto-proof 38-18 vote, now goes to the House, where Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, has signed on as the chief sponsor. Spokeswoman Meghan Powers wrote in an email that the department sought to create a rule that protects residents who depend on the Home Services program, individual providers and the taxpayers of Illinois. This legislation allows for unlimited overtime hours without any oversight, leaving our most vulnerable without backup providers, less job creation in Illinois and additional costs of at least $14 million annually, Powers wrote. However, advocates and people in the program say the changes would deny them their choice of caregivers. K.L. Cleeton, a 27-year-old Effingham resident whos paralyzed from the neck down because of spinal muscular atrophy, testified about the issue at a public hearing last month and spoke last week at a Statehouse news conference in support of Lightfords bill. We deserve to be heard, and we wont be ignored, said Cleeton, adding that he was speaking on behalf of tens of thousands of Illinoisans with disabilities. Cleeton said hes been able to graduate college and start his own video production business thanks to the care he receives from his parents, Ken and Lillie, through the home services program. But the departments proposed changes would require him to hire additional caregivers because his needs go well beyond what his parents could provide in the 80 hours per week they would be allowed to work. The impact on our family and thousands of other families in every corner of the state has been devastating and made the future very uncertain, Lillie Cleeton said. Meanwhile, the Illinois Labor Relations Board has scheduled a hearing for late January on whether the department violated labor law by implementing the rules without first negotiating with the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois, which represents workers in the program. The Senate last week also overrode Rauners veto of a bill that would raise pay for those workers from $13 an hour to $15. Elephants are one of the most amazing animals on earth, yet unless we get together to help protect them, they could become extinct. Because of us. We all have the power to make a difference and, when we take action, we can have lasting impact. Thats why The Ivory Game, from directors Richard Ladkani and Kief Davidson is such an important documentary it can make all the difference for the elephants and for future generations. Ive spent my life first working with chimpanzees and then raising awareness about the importance of conserving the natural world. I have come to realize how each and every one of us makes an impact on the planet every day and that we have a choice as to what kind of difference we will make. I have seen how, when people come together around a cause, huge change can happen. Ive also learned that successful conservation isnt merely about protecting one species or cleaning up a single part of the environment; rather, we need to take a holistic approach, realizing that everything is interconnected. The Ivory Game examines why elephants are being slaughtered for their tusks because of the value of ivory. But the story describes a complex socioeconomic system that, unless we can change it, will lead to the extinction of these amazing beings. It is indeed a complicated situation but The Ivory Game explains how each of us can take action to right this wrong. The Ivory Game goes deep into the political, environmental and regulatory drivers behind the illegal ivory trade, taking us through a labyrinth of back-room dealings and covert operations, unfolding like a thriller. As the filmmakers head into increasingly dangerous situations to tell the story, the details reveal that the real fight cant be on just one front. It starts on the ground, with the courage of the rangers fighting the poachers, but it extends to the halls of power. We need the U.S. to continue to uphold its federal ban on ivory, and encourage ivory bans at the state level (only four states have banned ivory in the U.S., and trophy hunting, shockingly, is still legal across the country). The U.S. and China are the two biggest markets and, given their role on the world stage, they have the power to lead the way for all countries to adopt a ban. This is about survival, not politics, as experts estimate elephants will be extinct in 15 years if we dont act. And we must not only put a stop to the slaughter of elephants, but also to the tragic loss of life among the rangers as they struggle to protect elephants and other endangered species. They work with few resources and inadequate equipment. More than 100 die every year, many killed by commercial poachers who fuel the ivory trade, others by armed militias who often use poached ivory to fund their wars. This is yet another reason why ending the ivory trade is so important. Many people involved in the making of The Ivory Game put their lives at risk to tell this powerful and important story. It has all of the tension and excitement of an action movie but, sadly, the action in this documentary is altogether real. It shows, graphically, the hard truth about what is happening to elephants on the African continent. It is beautifully shot with overhead scenes showing the magnificence of elephants existing in the wild in contrast to stark, unflinching shots revealing the aftermath of poaching. Like every great story, The Ivory Game has heroes and villains whose motives are at odds. But the outcome whether good or evil will triumph is up to us. We have the power to determine the ending, and this documentary inspires us to do everything we can. In this spirit, I ask each of you to stand with me to call for an immediate, global ban on ivory. Helmer Kief Davidsons documentaries have won awards at the Intl. Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Silver Docs, and AFI. His latest, The Ivory Game, is in the current awards season conversation and Jane Goodall, world-renowned British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and U.N. Messenger of Peace, explains the urgency and importance of the films conservation subject and message. The IDFA runs Nov. 16-27. . Related stories IDFA Film Review: 'The Grown-Ups' Documentary Veteran Frederick Wiseman: 'I Don't Like the Description 'Observational Cinema' IDFA: Wide House Takes 'Too Black to Be French,' 'Bolingo, the Forest of Love' (EXCLUSIVE) Lending their support! Stars are speaking out after Kanye West was hospitalized on Monday. The news came shortly after the rapper canceled the remaining U.S. dates on his Saint Pablo Tour. WATCH: Kanye West Hospitalized After Cancelling U.S. Tour Dates, Bizarre Onstage Behavior LAPD officials confirmed to ET that they responded to a call in Los Angeles at around 1:20 p.m. "Upon our arrival the disturbance call became a medical emergency only where LAFD responded," police continued. "Our job was done there and they took over the medical emergency." West's mother-in-law, Kris Jenner, told ET at Monday night's Angel Ball, "[I think he's] just really tired, yeah, it's a grueling tour." WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Kris Jenner Shares Updates on Kim Kardashian and Kanye West: 'One Step at a Time' Amid speculation as to the cause of his hospitalization, West has received lots of support from fellow celebrities on social media. Here are some of their tweets: PRAYING FOR KANYE. PRAYING HE HAS THE RIGHT ENERGY SURROUNDING HIM DURING THIS TIME. SENDING PEACE AND LOVE. Janelle Monae, Cindi (@JanelleMonae) November 22, 2016 Hey @kanyewest , get better man! People are making jokes right now, but having been there myself, I hope he gets the help he needs. emile hirsch (@EmileHirsch) November 22, 2016 The easy thing to do is make Kanye West jokes. The compassionate thing to do is hope he's ok and gets the help he needs. andy lassner (@andylassner) November 22, 2016 Sorry. I suffer from depression. I don't find breakdowns funny. But to each his own I guess. https://t.co/fa0YdHnnru andy lassner (@andylassner) November 22, 2016 And I hope u all pray for @kanyewest too. He's not just an artist but he's a father, a son a husband and above human. Get well soon marlon wayans (@MarlonWayans) November 22, 2016 West's wife, Kim Kardashian, was reportedly scheduled to attend the Angel Ball with her mom and sisters Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian, but supposedly canceled to be with her husband. The event honored her late father, Robert Kardashian, and would have been her first public appearance since her traumatic Paris robbery in October. Story continues The recent cancellations follow a series of erratic behavior from West at several concerts. Last week he declared he would have voted for Donald Trump after seemingly supporting the president-elect's opponent Hillary Clinton with his wife last year, dissed longtime friends Beyonce and Jay Z, and ended his concerts early after ranting for long blocks of time. For more on Kanye's recent behavior, watch the clip below. Related Articles A 28-year-old man died in Japan after choking on a rice ball at a speed-eating contest, an event organiser said Tuesday. The man, whose name was withheld, died on November 16 in hospital three days after choking, said the local farmer's cooperative that sponsored the event in the western city of Hikone. Contestants competed to see how fast they could eat five "onigiri" balls of locally grown steamed rice, a popular Japanese comfort food. The man shoved his fifth rice ball into his mouth before passing out and was rushed to a local hospital where he later died, the organiser said. The contest was composed of three sets of five contestants each. "We had the first and the second sets finished and were watching the third group when this happened," said the official at the cooperative, who declined to be named. Eating contests are popular events at various regional fairs held in Japan to promote local produce and culture, as in other countries where choking deaths have been reported. Japan's best known competitive eater is Takeru Kobayashi, who won fame as champion of an annual hot dog eating contest in New York. After news of the latest death was reported, New York-based Kobayashi tweeted warnings about amateurs trying to eat too much too fast. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday that the Trans-Pacific Partnership would be meaningless if the U.S. pulled out of the deal. His comments came just before President-elect Donald Trump said the U.S. will exit the TPP. Abe said earlier on Saturday during a meeting of TPP leaders in Lima, Peru, that there hadnt been any discussions on the implementation of the TPP should the U.S. choose to withdraw from the deal. The TPP would be meaningless without the United States, Abe said Monday. In a video released Monday, Trump outlined his plans for his first 100 days in office after his Jan. 20 inauguration. These plans including pulling the country out of the TPP, which he described as a job-killing disaster. I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen here, Trump said, claiming his goal was to restore our laws and bring back our jobs. The real estate mogul said he would negotiate fair bilateral trade deals to bring jobs and industry back to American shores. The TPP is a controversial trade agreement involving 12 countries including the U.S., Japan, Vietnam, Australia, Malaysia and Chile. The deal seeks to reduce trade barriers between member nations and will impose stricter labor and environmental rules, legal protection for drug companies and increased copyright protection. Trump, his rival Democrat Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders all opposed the deal during the election race. Abe was the first foreign leader to meet Trump after his stunning victory earlier this month. Our alliance does not work without mutual trust, Abe reportedly said. Now, I know for sure that Mr. Trump is a credible leader. He didnt reveal any details on what the two leaders discussed, saying: I communicated my basic thoughts on a range of issues. Trump said of the meeting: It was a pleasure to have Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stop by my home and begin a great friendship. Related Articles Photo credit: Flickr/Benny Lin; Getty (Kushner) From Town & Country When Georgetown University announced in September plans to make amends for its historical participation in the slave trade, President John J. DeGioia drew a curious parallel. The descendants of 272 slaves sold by the university in 1838 to pay off debts, he said, would receive the same advantage in admissions as the children of Georgetown alumni. He seemed unaware of the irony. Alumni children at prestigious universities like Georgetown tend to be white and to come from affluent families. In other words, DeGioia was equating a remedy for past racism with a policy, known as legacy preference, that itself discriminates against low-income and minority students. "If Georgetown really wants to come to grips with its discriminatory past and present, it would also end admissions policies like legacy preference that unconscionably favor the already privileged," said Michael Dannenberg, director of strategic initiatives for policy at Education Reform Now, a think tank affiliated with the advocacy group Democrats for Education Reform. As a U.S. Senate staffer in the early 2000s, Dannenberg pushed unsuccessfully for legislation restricting admissions preference for alumni children. DeGioia's comparison underscores the staying power of legacy preference-despite critics like Dannenberg and me. My 2006 book, The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges-and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates, documented how colleges exploit admissions as a fundraising tool, lowering their standards by hundreds of SAT points to let in children of well-heeled alumni, business tycoons, politicians, and celebrities. Using students' names, class ranks, and test scores, I challenged the colleges' propaganda that they either don't consider family wealth and background in admissions or just use it to break ties between equally-qualified candidates. By exposing these practices, I hoped to spur both transparency and reform. Story continues The Price of Admission stirred attention, controversy, and outrage. I decried what I called the "preferences of privilege" in appearances on Ivy League campuses and on television shows from The Colbert Report to Nightline. I even testified before a Senate committee. My findings could not be dismissed as merely anecdotal, because a mounting stack of academic studies corroborated them. One put the advantage of being an alumni child at 160 points on the SAT, which had a possible range of 400 to 1600. Another examined admissions decisions at 30 highly selective colleges and universities and concluded that the odds of a legacy being accepted at the alma mater of one of his or her parents are more than seven times better than an ordinary applicant's. One of the most notable legacy families of late is, of course, the Trumps. One of the most notable legacy families of late is, of course, the Trumps. The president-elect earned his bachelor's degree at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and served on the school's board of overseers. Two of his children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, also have Wharton degrees. A third, Tiffany, graduated from Penn in 2016. (Although she didn't go to Wharton, she still qualified for legacy preference under Penn's policy.) Photo credit: undefined But it was a kid who only later joined the Trump clan whom I mentioned in The Price of Admission. Jared Kushner was in high school, starting the college admissions process, when his father, New Jersey real estate developer and NYU alumnus Charles Kushner, pledged $2.5 million to Harvard, in 1998. Harvard named both Charles Kushner and his wife Seryl to its Committee on University Resources, which consists of its biggest donors. Jared enrolled there in 1999. (A spokeswoman for the Kushner Companies says there was no relationship between the gift and Jared's admission, adding, "Jared was an excellent student in high school.") Polls indicate that most Americans disapprove of legacy preference. In a 2016 Gallup poll, 52 percent of respondents said colleges should not consider whether an applicant's parent is a graduate, 35 percent said it should be a minor factor, and 11 percent a major factor. Yet nothing has changed. In fact, the practice has only intensified. The allure of rewarding potential benefactors with an admissions break for their children, especially in an era when colleges are increasingly dependent on private giving, has simply proven too strong. A decade after my book came out, sources still pepper me with new indignities. One example: Despite finishing dead last in his prep school class, the scion of a prominent business family was admitted to a highly rated university where his mother is an alumna and donor. The allure of rewarding potential benefactors with an admissions break for their children, especially in an era when colleges are increasingly dependent on private giving, has simply proven too strong. As they reject more applicants every year, most top universities still make room for as many alumni children as they did a decade ago. Legacies make up 22 percent of this year's freshmen at Notre Dame, 13 percent at Yale, and between 18 and 19 percent at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At Princeton, admissions dean Janet Lavin Rapelye told me recently, legacies have comprised between 11 and 15 percent of every freshman class for a quarter century; this year it's at the upper end of the range. "They tend to be very good students who have achieved at a high level in their high schools," she said. "They have taken advantage of the advantages that have been given to them." Although the acceptance rate for legacies at elite universities has declined, these candidates have maintained or widened their edge over others. The University of Pennsylvania, for example, admitted 38 percent of alumni children in 2005, as against 21 percent of all applicants. This year it took 22 percent of legacies, versus 9 percent overall. So legacies were accepted at more than twice the average rate this year, a bigger proportional advantage than in 2005. Elite colleges have become adept at insulating the legacy edge from criticism by linking it to preferences for more sympathetic groups, from slave descendants to students who are the first generation in their families to go to college. Recent freshman classes at U. Penn have contained almost as many first-generation students (13 percent) as alumni children and grandchildren (16 percent). "There's a nice symmetry to that," said admissions dean Eric J. Furda. "The door to the Penn tradition is there, but also for students coming into the college environment for the first time" in family history. [contentlinks align="left" textonly="false" numbered="false" headline="Related%20Story" customtitles="These%20Are%20the%20Hardest%20American%20College%20to%20Get%20Into" customimages="" content="article.8404"] One out of every 10 Georgetown undergraduates is a legacy. The university admits 29 percent of alumni children, as against 16 percent of applicants overall. Tying the slavery and legacy preferences together "makes some sense to me," Georgetown admissions dean Charles Deacon said. "If you're going to defend a legacy policy, surely you should apply it to" other members of the Georgetown community who were mistreated historically. Other elite universities that owned slaves are discussing whether to adopt a similar admissions policy, he said. He added that Georgetown will forever give an edge to the descendants of all slaves whose labor has benefited the university, even if affirmative action is banned. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently upheld affirmative action in admissions, most recently in June in Fisher v. University of Texas. Eliminating affirmative action in college admissions, as several states have done, often spurs a backlash against legacy preference. Meanwhile, colleges woo alumni children more assiduously than ever. The last decade has seen a proliferation of perks: legacy luncheons, workshops on application strategy, early dormitory move-in, and even lucrative scholarships. Ten years ago, as I noted in The Price of Admission, alumni children were "overwhelmingly white and rich." At the time, though, admissions deans assured me that the legacy ranks would become more diverse as the children of minorities who gained access to elite universities with the advent of affirmative action reached college age. But that doesn't seem to have happened. Based on a Harvard Crimson survey of freshmen entering Harvard in 2015, alumni children remain a homogeneous group. Legacies constituted 16 percent of the class-but they were one-fourth of white freshmen and more than 40 percent of freshmen with household incomes of $500,000 or more. The last decade has seen a proliferation of perks for legacies: legacy luncheons, workshops on application strategy, early dormitory move-in, and even lucrative scholarships. Closely associated with legacy preference-and also favoring the rich-is early admission. It typically requires a binding college commitment, hindering low-income students from shopping around for the best financial aid package. Early applicants, who are often alumni children, tend to be affluent and savvy about the college admissions game. Days after my book was published, Harvard announced that, to be fair to minority and low-income applicants, it was abandoning early admission. Princeton and the University of Virginia followed its lead. A few years later, though, all three universities reversed their decisions, because many top candidates wanted to apply early. Since then early admission has expanded nationwide. U. Penn enrolled 54 percent of its class this year under early decision, up from about 45 percent a decade ago. Since students admitted early are locked into attending Penn, they boost the university's yield rate, or proportion of accepted students who enroll, which is often regarded as a barometer of a school's standing. Penn's website encourages alumni children and grandchildren to apply early to be "given the most consideration." Low-income students on financial aid account for much of the growth in Penn's early decision enrollment, especially because the school instituted a policy in 2008 of meeting all need with grants instead of loans, Furda said. Still, he added, "I don't think it will ever be to the point that it's as diverse as our regular decision pool." One reason college admissions offices still genuflect to major donors is that other sources of revenue aren't keeping pace with costs. In the past decade many top universities have increased financial aid. Harvard, Yale, and Stanford give a full ride, including tuition plus room and board, to students whose family income is below $65,000. At Stanford, parents who earn less than $125,000 pay no tuition. Where is the money coming from? Not tuition alone. Intimidated by widespread criticism of price hikes, private colleges reduced their average annual increase in tuition and fees from 3 percent between 1995'96 and 2005'06 to 2.4 percent between 2005'06 and 2015'16, according to the College Board. Notre Dame's financial aid budget has risen 50 percent since 2010, almost twice as fast as the price of attending the university, according to Don Bishop, associate vice president for undergraduate enrollment. Penn's undergraduate financial aid budget has soared 155 percent since 2005, more than double the 65 percent rise in tuition. "Recognizing that the market is more competitive and that we're constrained in our ability to raise prices, we are going to be more dependent on philanthropy," said Donald Heller, provost and vice president of academic affairs and professor of education at the University of San Francisco. "That means there's probably more pressure on admissions offices around legacies and development admits"-applicants recommended by the development (i.e., fundraising) office. And here's the kicker: The percentage of alumni donating to the country's top 20 universities dropped over the last 10 years, but the average alumni contribution nearly doubled-meaning that this crucial source of support is coming from large checks written by a relative few. In 2015 alone, seven individuals made gifts of more than $100 million apiece to higher education, including one bequest. And as the ultrarich boost philanthropy to universities, the price for giving their progeny an admissions edge has escalated correspondingly. "People think that if they give a couple hundred thousand or a million they're big donors. That's just no longer the case at major universities," Notre Dame's Bishop said. On the other hand, if someone gives $15 million, "which could fund 10 to 15 scholarship kids in perpetuity, do you let their children have some special interest? Yes. But they still have to be quite good." The percentage of alumni donating to the country's top 20 universities dropped over the last 10 years, but the average alumni contribution nearly doubled. Ten years ago elite universities were already so selective and gave preference to so many groups (legacies, development admits, athletes, underrepresented minorities, etc.) that candidates who didn't fit any of these categories faced steep odds. In an interview for my book, Daniel Saracino, then Notre Dame's assistant provost for enrollment, told me, "The poor shmuck who has to get in on his own has to walk on water." Today the prospects for these unconnected applicants, who are predominantly middle-class whites and Asian-Americans, are even bleaker. The poor shmucks have to walk on water-during a tsunami. Saracino, now a higher education consultant, switched metaphors in a recent conversation. "The pie isn't getting any bigger, but the pieces all want to grow a little bit," he said. "It will come at the cost of the everyday kid." Daniel Golden is a journalist, an editor at ProPublica, and the author of The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges-and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates. [contentlinks align="center" textonly="false" numbered="false" headline="Related%20Stories" customtitles="The%20Top%20US%20University%20Is%20Not%20in%20the%20Ivy%20League%7CAmerica's%20Best%20College%20Is%20in%20a%20Tiny%20Town%20in%20Maine%7CThese%20Are%20the%20Best%20Women's%20Colleges%20in%20the%20Country" customimages="||" content="article.8281|article.8333|article.8378"] You Might Also Like jared kushner When it came to helping Donald Trump's campaign, Jared Kushner tapped the tech world for help and inspiration. Kushner, who is Trump's son-in-law and the older brother of New York venture capitalist Josh Kushner, used techniques from the tech startup world to build Trump's campaign strategy almost from nothing, according to a new profile by Steven Bertoni of Forbes. "I called some of my friends from Silicon Valley, some of the best digital marketers in the world, and asked how you scale this stuff," Kushner told Forbes. "They gave me their subcontractors." But Kushner's work extended beyond calling in Silicon Valley's top talent he began testing tools well known to the tech community but not as well to the world of politics, and he ran the campaign with a "lean startup" mentality. That ended up working to the campaign's advantage. Targeted advertising over traditional spending The campaign's approach took basic ideas common in the lean startup movement promoted by Silicon Valley gurus such as Steve Blank and Eric Ries in which young companies try a lot of ideas in an attempt to find product-market fit and quickly discard ideas that aren't working. This philosophy is often encapsulated in Facebook's early motto: "Move fast and break things." "We weren't afraid to make changes. We weren't afraid to fail. We tried to do things very cheaply, very quickly. And if it wasn't working, we would kill it quickly," Kushner told Forbes. "It meant making quick decisions, fixing things that were broken, and scaling things that worked." The campaign also used the kinds of technical tools that lean startups use to attract customers. Early on, it avoided spending heavily on traditional (and expensive) advertising like TV and internet spots, instead going after social media audiences and using machine learning to fuel its fundraising efforts and send targeted ads. Among other things, Kushner built a geolocation tool using Google Maps API to plot location density for different types of voters, such as those worried about immigration or healthcare. Story continues Kushner also tested Facebook's ad targeting tools, which show promotions to specific audiences, to help sell campaign merchandise like the "Make America Great Again" hats or promote videos of Trump talking to the camera. "We played moneyball, asking ourselves which states will get the best ROI" return on investment "for the electoral vote," Kushner said. "I asked, 'How can we get Trump's message to that consumer for the least amount of cost?'" In the final days of the campaign, Kushner said he had spent so little money and relied so heavily on data that the campaign was able to unleash one last rallying cry in the form of on-the-ground volunteers and new targeted TV ads. It makes sense that Kushner adopted Silicon Valley tactics, as he has ties to several notable tech investors and CEOs, including his younger brother; Peter Thiel, a billionaire investor and Trump transition team member; and Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba and an investor in Kushner's real-estate startup, Cadre. NOW WATCH: An exercise scientist reveals how often and for how long you should work out to see real results More From Business Insider Photo: Instagram/Jasmine Tookes via Victorias Secret Jasmine Tookes is honored to wear the $3 million Fantasy Bra down the Victorias Secret runway on Dec. 5. The 25-year-old model has been walking in the Victorias Secret show since 2012, but its been a longtime dream of hers to wear the Fantasy Bra something thats considered the ultimate privilege. Tookes is also only the third black woman to wear the diamond-encrusted bra in all of its 20 years. In other words, its kind of a big deal. 12 more days until I get to wear this masterpiece down the runway???? @eddieborgo @awmouzannar @swarovski @serkancuracouture @victoriassecret #VSFantasyBra A video posted by Jasmine Tookes (@jastookes) on Nov 18, 2016 at 6:53am PST So when Tookes excitedly Instagrammed a teaser video of herself in this years diamond- and emerald-embellished bra, many fans came to her praise. I am so proud of you, being one of the few black women to have the honor to wear the fantasy bra, one fan commented. Keep inspiring. Cant wait to see you on the runway. #myfavoritevictoriasecretmodel. Others were not so encouraging, though. Photoshop till she looks white? Shes beautiful the way she is, I dont get it, one person commented. I think she bleached herself, she used to look black, said another. Tookes was shocked and insulted, and she felt the need to defend herself on social media. Are you kidding me!?!?!? Who in the world does that? First of all, lighting is everything and not to mention Im way darker in the summer and much lighter towards the winter, my skin tone changes all the time just like everyone else, she wrote. WORD???????? #BeYouAndLoveYou Goodnight world???? A photo posted by Jasmine Tookes (@jastookes) on Oct 17, 2016 at 8:14pm PDT Fans encouraged Tookes not to respond to the haters, but she had every right to defend herself. Skin lightening is more common than people may realize. While its not socially accepted in the U.S., the harmful practice is widespread in African and East Asian countries where women are taught that their self-worth is dependent on their skin color, and lightening products are advertised to them from a young age. In some countries, including Ghana, there are bans on skin bleaching products to curb their usage. Were glad that Tookes spoke up and that she embraces her skin color, and we hope that her confidence can inspire others to do the same. Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Hoards of people attacked Gigi Hadid for her disrespectful Melania Trump impersonation at the AMAs, but theres one person who doesnt think an apology is in order Jay Pharoah. The models co-host took to social media to express his frustration at the critics, stating that racist and sexist remarks made at Michelle Obamas expense havent generated the same outrage. Everybody pump the brakes one damn minute! Pharoah wrote in a Facebook post. The Beautiful Flotus has been called Ape, Gorilla, Monkey, Manish, Ugly, Disgusting, Not fit to be in the whitehouse, always physically attacked by the general populous, nobody really snaps about it! Also Read: Gigi Hadid Apologizes for Impersonating Melania Trump at AMAs The comedian went on to rip the logic of the uproar over his and Hadids performance when they were satirizing a real incident. At the AMAS we exaggerated a SPEECH THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED, where Melania CLEARLY PLAGIARIZED(cause that was the joke) didnt call her ugly, manish, or anything, and everybody LOSES IT?! Really? GTFOH, Pharoah wrote. On Sunday, Hadid did an impersonation of Melania Trumps speech at the Republican National Convention, which contained passages plagiarized from a speech delivered by Michelle Obama years earlier. Social media quickly blasted Hadid for the impression, characterizing her as a bully for making fun of the soon-to-be first lady and calling her performance cringeworthy. Also Read: AMAs 2016: Host Gigi Hadid Roasted for 'Cringeworthy' Performance, Melania Trump Impression The model took to Twitter on Monday and apologized. I apologize to anyone that I offended and have only the best wishes for our country, the model wrote in a handwritten note she shared via Twitter on Tuesday. I was honored to host the AMAs last night and to work with some of the most respected writers in the business, she continued. I removed or changed anything in the script that I felt took the joke too far, and whether or not you choose to see it, what remained was done in good humor and with no bad intent. Story continues Related stories from TheWrap: Gigi Hadid Apologizes for Impersonating Melania Trump at AMAs AMAs 2016: Host Gigi Hadid Roasted for 'Cringeworthy' Performance, Melania Trump Impression Gigi Hadid, Jay Pharoah to Host 2016 American Music Awards How do we love the ones we love? Hell or High Water actor Ben Foster said of the acclaimed Texas-based family heist picture from CBS Films. How do we take care of the people closest to us, and what would you do for the person you love the dearest? And thats where the lines of love get blurred in terms of ethics. Speaking to a packed DGA on November 5 at The Contenders Presented by Deadline, Foster was joined onstage by fellow HOHW stars Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine and Gil Birmingham plus director David Mackenzie. the-contenders-2016-logo Having debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May and released on August 12, the Taylor Sheridan-written film follows brothers Toby Howard (Pine) and ex-con Tanner (Foster) as they tear up the Lone Star State in a string of bank robberies to raise money to save the family farm. Texas Rangers Marcus Hamilton (Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Birmingham) are after them and in search of something else themselves, as are the siblings. The spirit of Texas is in every pore of this film, Mackenzie told me of the New Mexico shot film at the all-day awards-season event. I think we all tried to embrace that. Yes, indeed take a look at a part of our Hell or High Water panel in the video above. The sixth annual The Contenders featured panels and presentations by 21 studios and distributors including a first look at the new trailer for CBS Films Patriots Day. RelatedMark Wahlberg Felt Burden To Get Patriots Day Right; The Societal Relevance Of Hell Or High Water The Contenders Related stories Mel Gibson On The Fierce Battle To Bring 'Hacksaw Ridge' To The Screen - The Contenders Video Warren Beatty On Sex, Love, Puritanism & Hollywood Then And Now - The Contenders Video Deadline's The Contenders Photo Studio 2016: Emma Stone, Denzel Washington, Amy Adams & More Jennifer Lawrence explains why there was no way Anna Faris would be threatened by her Our best friend who doesnt know shes our best friend Jennifer Lawrence, is the 2016 cover model for the Vanity Fair holiday issue. The actress sat down with the magazine to talk about her life and success in the six years shes been beaming in the spotlight. Even with an Oscar and three Golden Globes under her belt, and being marked as the highest-paid actress in Hollywood two years in a row, Lawrence remarkably thinks and acts like any average girl in her mid-20s. She talked to Vanity Fair about her co-star, Chris Pratt, in their upcoming romantic sci-fi film Passengers. Although we hear horror stories of co-stars falling in love and leaving their spouses for one another, Lawrence assures that Pratts spouse, Anna Faris, has no reason to be worried. She said, I think women can sense if you are the kind of woman who is going to run off with their husband, Lawrence explains. I dont think I give off that vibe. I give off the Please like me! desperation. Which is not threatening. Tomorrow, every moment counts. Don't miss #JenniferLawrence and #ChrisPratt in the full #PassengersMovie trailer. A video posted by Passengers (@passengersmovie) on Sep 19, 2016 at 12:00pm PDT Lawrence chalks her on-screen chemistry with Pratt during their love scenes in Passengers up to the fact that Pratt could have chemistry with a cactus. And, Jen dont downplay yourself! It truly cant be hard having chemistry with such an ethereal being such as yourself, so give yourself some credit, girl! After six years of blockbusters like @thehungergames, V.F. Holiday cover star Jennifer Lawrence is showing no signs of slowing down with next months @PassengersMovie. Link in bio for full story. Photograph by @therealpeterlindbergh. A photo posted by Vanity Fair (@vanityfair) on Nov 21, 2016 at 5:04am PST Faris, star of Mom on CBS, and Lawrence get along swimmingly. Lawrence appeared on Faris podcast, Anna Faris is Unqualified to talk about her on-screen romance with the hosts husband. Lawrence was also joined by Audrey Plaza, Pratts wife on Parks and Rec. Pratt, who called into the episode, remarked how strange it was to be on the phone with his real wife, his TV wife, and his fictional space girlfriend in Passengers. Faris, being ~ incredibly chill ~ offered to marry the on-screen couple at the end of the film. CUTIIEEE #jenniferlawrence #vanityfair A photo posted by Lea (@jennifeereverdeen) on Nov 21, 2016 at 9:47am PST The episode came about after Lawrence described her sex scene with Chris Pratt at a Hollywood Reporter roundtable event. I had my first real sex scene a couple weeks ago and it was really bizarre. It was really weird, she said. When asked how she prepared for it, Lawrence blatantly answered, You drink. Jennifer Lawrence has blazed a new path in Hollywood. Read the Holiday 2016 cover story at the link in bio. Photograph by @therealpeterlindbergh. A photo posted by Vanity Fair (@vanityfair) on Nov 21, 2016 at 2:06pm PST She admitted she got drunk, even. But being drunk led to anxiety and guilt about kissing a married man. And I knew it was my job, but I couldnt tell my stomach that, Lawrence said. So I called my mom, and I was like, Will you just tell me its OK? It was just very vulnerable. But everything turned out to be ok in the end. Faris even wrapped up her podcast interview by telling Lawrence, You know I have a small obsession with you. Obviously, eternally star-struck Lawrence, returned the compliment. Passengers hits theaters on December 21st. The post Jennifer Lawrence explains why there was no way Anna Faris would be threatened by her appeared first on HelloGiggles. Vespiario (Thailand) Co.,Ltd., is the sole authorized Thailand importer and distributor of the iconic Vespa brand of Italian scooters. Stylish andunmistakable, Vespa is the authentic scooter since 1946 and will soon be officially available in Thailand. To support this expansion we havean immediate opening for the following position: johnsonoath It was on this day in 1967 that two states, Nevada and Minnesota, made the Constitutions 25th amendment a reality, clearing up questions about presidential succession that dated back to the Founders time. President John F. Kennedys death on November 22, 1963 led a united Congress to push for the key constitutional change. Kennedys assassination created moments of chaos in the federal government that afternoon. Vice President Lyndon Johnson was in the same motorcade as Kennedy, and there were early, erroneous reports that Johnson was also wounded. As the country came to grips with the assassination, Johnson made sure the moment when he took the oath of office, about two hours after Kennedys death, was documented, so the nation knew a constitutional change of office had taken place. Kennedys sudden passing accelerated an argument about a constitutional change that had been in the works in Congress in 1963. Technically, the Constitution never spelled out how a Vice President would become President if a President died, resigned or was unable to perform the offices duty. This oversight became apparent in 1841, when the newly elected President, William Henry Harrison, died about a month after becoming President. Vice President John Tyler, in a bold move, settled the political debate about succession. There was a question in Congress about what powers Tyler had and what he should be called (Acting President, President or Vice President). Tyler settled the debate by asking a local judge to administer the presidential oath, and he fought all attempts by his many political foes to treat him as anything but the legitimate President of the United States. In the following years, presidential successions happened after the deaths of six presidents, and there were two cases where the offices of President and Vice President almost became vacant at the same time. The Tyler Precedent stood fast in these transition periods. Furthermore, there was no constitutional way to replace a Vice President who had vacated office, or to handle a situation where a President became incapacitated while in office. Story continues By 1963, Congress was debating an attempt to amend the Constitution to clear up all succession matters and add a procedure for dealing with a leader who became unable to perform the offices duties temporarily or permanently. This became a bigger issue with the realities of the Cold War and with President Dwight Eisenhowers illnesses in the 1950s. The influential Senator Estes Kefauver had started the amendment effort during the Eisenhower era, and he renewed it in 1963. Kefauver died in August 1963 after suffering a heart attack on the Senate floor. With Kennedys unexpected death, the need for a clear way to determine presidential succession, especially with the new reality of the Cold War and its frightening technologies, forced Congress into action. The new President, Lyndon Johnson, had known health issues, and the next two people in line for the presidency were 71-year-old John McCormack (the Speaker of the House) and Senate Pro Tempore Carl Hayden, who was 86 years old. Senator Birch Bayh had replaced Kefauver on the Senate subcommittee that considered constitutional amendments, and he tried to get a version of the Kefauver amendment approved in Congress in 1964, after Kennedys death. That first effort failed, but Bayh, with President Lyndon Johnsons support, proposed it again right after Johnsons inauguration in January 1965. Within three months, the House and the Senate agreed on the wording of what would become the 25th Amendment, and in July 1965, Nebraska became the first state to ratify the proposed amendment. Minnesota was the 37th states and Nevada was the 38th state to ratify the amendment, both on February 10, 1967, making it the law of the land. Section 1 of the 25th Amendment made it clear that the Vice President became President when the presidency became vacant under three circumstances: death, resignation and removal from office. Section 2 gave the President the power to name a new Vice President, if that office became vacant, with the permission of Congress. The amendments other two sections detail the process for the Vice President to serve as Acting President if the President was unable to perform his or her official duties, and how to resolve disputes about the Presidents ability to discharge official powers. The 25th Amendment would receive its first test in October 1973, when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. Gerald Ford became the new Vice President in December 1973, after President Richard Nixon nominated Ford for congressional approval. Ford himself invoked the 25th Amendment nine months later, when he nominated Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President, after Nixons resignation. Recent Historical Stories on Constitution Daily Remembering William Henry Harrison: The most obscure President? How FDR lost his brief war on the Supreme Court The day the Senate picked a U.S. vice president on its own Jimmy Kimmel wants you to have the most non-confrontational, micro-aggression-free Thanksgiving ever. The Jimmy Kimmel Live host turned the story of the first Thanksgiving into a safe space on Mondays episode of the late night show by having a group of children perform in a politically correct Thanksgiving pageant. Most of us are familiar with the traditional tale of the first Thanksgiving you know how it went, the one we learned in school. Its a heartwarming story but this is not 1621, this is 2016, and some of the story is out-of-date, said Kimmel, 49. So we thought it might be a good idea to update the story of Thanksgiving to reflect our modern sensitivities. The crowd cheered only to have the young narrator chastise viewers for their enthusiasm. Please dont applaud, its insensitive to people with no arms, she said. The place: Plymouth, Massachusetts. The year: 1621 if you choose to believe in the culturally oppressive Greco-Roman calendar. From there, the children reenacted the first Thanksgiving, taking great care not to offend anyone. I am cold and hungry, said one boy. Me too, but lets not dismiss the experiences of all those who are not cold and hungry, replied another girl. The pilgrims and Native Americans went on to enjoy a locally sourced feast but not before saying grace: Dear generic higher power, who we choose to believe in or not believe in thank you or never mind. A turkey was then brought out, much to the horror of the pilgrims, who informed the audience they dont eat turkey because its not morally justifiable. Fortunately, a Thanksgiving miracle happened in the form of a Tofurkey made of bean curd and wheat protein. The pilgrims and Native Americans alike spat it out, wailing that it was disgusting and tasted like wood pulp. Exactly, said the wise Tofurkey. You see, when we all come together and compromise and spend all of our time trying to please everyone, we end up with a lumpy round of brown goo. Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights (11:35 p.m. ET) on ABC. joel-edgerton Getty Image / Focus Features We, as a society, take Joel Edgerton for granted. When has anyone ever said, Joel Edgerton was bad. That never happens. he always delivers and we dont acknowledge that enough. Which leads to another point: Cmon, stop making Joel Edgerton sign pictures of himself as Uncle Owen from Attack of the Clones. As he states ahead, hes happy to do it, but its always Uncle Owen. Think how happy hed be to see a picture of himself from, say, Warrior? Edgerton is currently starring in Jeff Nichols Loving (its always nice to talk to someone in a movie thats already out, because you can see it right now if you want, and you should), the real-life story of Richard and Mildred Loving (played by Edgerton and Ruth Negga) whose 1967 Supreme Court Case made interracial marriage legal in every state. (And whats crazy about this is that 1967 wasnt really that long ago.) Edgerton and Negga add nuance to Richard and Mildred who, more than anything, just want to be married and be left alone. And ahead, Edgerton explains why Loving is an even more important story in todays political climate. This is rare, we are talking about a movie already in theaters. People can see it right now. Yeah, its quite rare, actually. Normally you get to talk about them a lot before they come out, so I keep forgetting its already at the cinema. I saw Loving is September and remember thinking that its such an important story. Due to recent events, it feels even more important. Or am I overreacting? Well, no. I mean, one of the interesting things, Jeff decided to focus on the people at the center of this court case rather than the court case itself. Right. We dont even see the court proceedings. No, and that means it was a very kind of personal exploration of their lives and that situation rather than a big courtroom drama. But when you look at that case, that decision by the Supreme Court was a unanimous decision. That doesnt happen much anymore. Well, no, it doesnt really. And the chances of it happening in the near future, depending on what happens, is also under question. But, interestingly enough, when you look at Richard and Mildreds case, you think that back in that time in 1967 there was obviously a complete unanimous willingness on the behalf of the Supreme Court to make that change. And I guess now, more than ever, its just a question of how much ground have we made on certain aspects or topics and things that are relevant to us in terms of our freedoms. You know, how much ground have you made and how can you hold onto that ground without losing it. And the fear is that youll always slip back to a place thats less progressive, and I think thats what feels in the atmosphere right now. Story continues And that the Supreme Court made this decision in 1967, that wasnt that long ago. Yeah. But then again, I think it was like four months ago a guy walked up to an interracial couple at a bar and called out some racial abuse and then stabbed the guy. And theres been an uptick recently. And I mean thats not the 50s or the 60s. Its not even the 90s. I mean, its like a few months ago. Look, it was interesting going to Virginia, to Richmond, and realizing that a lot of the architecture and streets and all that just looked the same. The courthouse is still there. And in some way, that made the whole thing feel like it really wasnt that long ago. And on sort of a social fabric level and on a ethical level and on a progression level, its definitely not a movie about 50 or 60 years ago: its a movie about all the time. Those same problems just keep swirling around. A lot of people say right now that the movie is more relevant. Its very particularly relevant to this year and its like none of those problems ever go away. It just depends on how newsworthy they are at the moment. And, right now, its a very particular kind of spike of stories that surround racial inequality. And particularly in this country, that stuff is very hot conversation. Its very loud, intense stuff thats going on. Youre right, this is getting more attention right now. But I think its also because people are worried laws might be changed now. Yeah. I think you could legislate all that you want. You could set rules in place and have laws, but you cant really legislate personal opinion. You cant get inside the minds of people and tell them how to think and what to do. You can show them good examples and you can tell them good stories that will hopefully lead to a shift in their own understanding of things and their own belief systems. But you cant really legislate peoples minds. You can tell them that there are rules in place that if they act a certain way, theyll be punished. But the sad thing about people being punished, I think, is that theyve already committed the act and theres already been some damage done. The trouble when the laws are sort of dissolved, or stepped back, or reversed, or what have you, is that its amazing how quickly you see the personal opinion of people come out of their dormant kind of scared minds and into acts of public violence or acts of abuse. People feel empowered now. Suddenly, its okay. Its okay to think what Im thinking and Im going to do it and do stuff. Whats interesting about the way Jeff Nichols presents this story is that Richard and Mildred Loving didnt seek the limelight. They just wanted to be married and live their lives and be left alone. Absolutely. I always feel like theres two kinds of revolutionaries or crusaders or heroes of change. Some of them get up in the morning and theyre writing speeches and theyre imagining themselves standing at podiums and talking to crowds. Knowing that theyre in the cross-hairs or potentially that what theyre doing is putting their lives in jeopardy or their familys lives in jeopardy. But theyre doing it willingly and aggressively for a cause, selflessly or selfishly or whatever is motivating them. And we need those people because they do make a difference. But its harder to identify with them, in a way. Were glad they exist because we cant be them if were inclined to be more private and quiet. Richard and Mildred were kind of the opposite, and in many ways its very easy to relate to their story because I think a lot of people could imagine being in their shoes or relate to them on a very domestic, quiet level. That they were just like regular people. And Mildred started to get a sense that as much as they didnt like the limelight, that if they kept moving forward with their case, then she knew that they were going to help a lot of other people. Exactly. It was always a real selfless thing on her behalf, and I think Richard just wished that he could disappear. Well, not so much disappear, that everybody would just leave them alone. And I think theres something beautifully human about his naive approach to the lawyers at first: of wondering why, if they werent hurting anybody, why they couldnt just be left alone. You may not like this, but I feel as an actor we take you for granted. [Laughs.] Why would I not like you saying that? Some people dont like being taken for granted. I appreciate you saying that. But theres something nice about disappearing in that world as well. Even going back to Warrior, every movie we just kind of say, and Joel Edgerton was great and we move on. Yeah, but thats the joy of it to me, is just sort of disappearing in it a bit. I dont know. Every time I watch Attack of the Clones, Im like, When did Rose Byrne and Joel Edgerton get put in this movie? I know. I know. We were coming into the AOL building today, and theres people there, you know, theres always people with photographs for you to sign. And theres this photograph of me, I must be 25 or 24 or something, in my Uncle Owen outfit. [Laughs] And I was like, Oh, no. Do you ever say, Hey, Ive been in other movies? No, Im not disappointed about that, because that was like the greatest gift I ever got. Actually, I found out I was doing Star Wars on my birthday. Oh, that is a nice birthday present. My brother had bought me a video player, and I thought that was pretty rad, and then I got a phone call saying I could do Star Wars. And so that was one of the greatest birthday presents that Ive ever had. But I was in the movie for like three minutes, and it became my big swindle to meet agents in Hollywood. Because George Lucas took 18 months to put the movie together. And all I had to say was that I was in Star Wars and they were like, Oh, come in. Sit down. Lets talk. [Laughs.] Oh, thats a great ruse. And then it was, By the way, Im not in the movie for very long. There can be only one and, in this case, it's Chad Stahelski. Stahelski, who, along with David Leitch, was the filmmaker behind John Wick, has signed on to direct the long-gestating reboot of Highlander for Lionsgate. "I've been a huge fan of the original property since I saw it in high school," Stahelski told The Hollywood Reporter. "Such great themes of immortality, love, and identity are all wrapped up in such colorful mythology. I can't think of a better property that gives the opportunity to create interesting characters, mythic themes and action set pieces." Neal H. Moritz and Peter Davis are producing the project, which could also see Stahelski and Leitch join the team via their 87Eleven production and action stunt company, though that is still to be determined. The original 1986 Highlander pic starred Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery and Clancy Brown as immortal beings, hunting down one another and collecting more power. Lambert played Scottish swordsman Connor MacLeod, Connery portrayed Egyptian Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez and Clancy was a barbarian known as the Kurgan. The film - with its "There can be only one" catchphrase - spawned four sequels and three television series. The Highlander reboot has been in the works since 2008 when Lionsgate-owned label Summit acquired the rights. The project has seen directors such as Justin Lin, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and Cedric Nicolas-Troyan pass through its doors. But Lionsgate never gave up on what it believes could be its next big franchise. A search for new scribes to work with Stahelski is about to get underway. Stahelski worked in the stunt world and doubled for Keanu Reeves in the Matrix movies before co-creating the stunt company 87Eleven with Leitch. They worked as second unit directors on action movies ranging from Ninja Assassin to Captain America: Civil War and made their directorial debut with the well-regarded actioner John Wick, which starred Reeves and was released by Lionsgate. Stehelski is coming off of directing the recently wrapped John Wick: Chapter 2. He is repped by WME and Gang Tyre. Read more: 'Highlander' Comic Book Series Launching In 2017 (Exclusive) By Suleiman Al-Khalidi ZAATARI, Jordan (Reuters) - Mohammad Othman's bicycle route through the marketplace in the Syrian refugee camp of Zaatari was once a struggle against a tide of people. Now it's an easy ride. So many residents have left for the West, or been forced back to Syria by Jordanian authorities, that Zaatari, once the fastest-growing refugee camp in the Middle East, has gone quiet. "Before, even if I was walking, I would not be at ease with so many people jostling," said Othman, 24, who recalls how tents for newly arriving refugees could not be erected fast enough when he arrived with his family in 2012. Where there had been empty desert, a sprawling slum city emerged, with a population of 125,000 at its peak. Around half a million people have passed through. Shops sprang up offering everything from ice cream to pizzas, mobile phones or wedding gown rentals. Prime spots changed hands for thousands of dollars. "From the very beginning there was a great industriousness, Syrians being tremendously resourceful," said Paul Stromberg, of the UNHCR refugee agency in Jordan. The camp's expansion helped to rejuvenate the economy of a neglected part of Jordan previously known for the smuggling of everything from sheep to arms and drugs. Ostentatious villas have been built by local contractors who secured lucrative donor-financed service deals in Zaatari. Economists estimated that a million dollars a day were being funneled into the camp at its peak. But many residents joined the refugee trail to Europe last year, returning to Syria and crossing the war-torn country to travel on via Turkey. Others have left through more formal channels, their applications for immigration accepted by Western states. There are no new arrivals to replace them. Jordan sealed its 370-km (230-mile) border with Syria in May 2013, citing strain on its limited water resources and economy. The number of residents of Zaatari has plunged to 79,000, according to an official U.N. figure, and some say it is even lower. Its economy has slumped dramatically. The operations of the U.N. agencies and NGOs in the camp have shrunk. Funds for cash-for-work programs to supplement meager U.N. handouts have dried up, experts and donors say. NO TREES, NO PAVEMENTS Othman now scrapes a living using his donkey cart to collect stale bread to sell as animal fodder. The Jordanian authorities, nervous of any signs of permanence, have banned any form of motorized transport in the camp. "The Zaatari camp is stagnant," said Saba Mobaslat, a senior official for Save the Children. "The fact is that we are not receiving new arrivals so whoever leaves the camp for what reason is not being replaced so the population will continue to decline." Donor states are prodding the Jordanian government to relax labor laws to allow thousands of refugees to work legally in industrial parks and businesses near the camp. "If only the Jordanians would give us more leeway to better ourselves by ourselves - to give us more freedom in work," said camp resident Abdullah Salamah. The government of a country shaped by waves of refugees from regional wars is anxious to prevent Zaatari turning into a long-term settlement. Corrugated iron is allowed in, but not cement. Refugees are forbidden to plant trees or lay pavements. Desperate to earn some cash outside the camp, hundreds of refugees queue daily at a government office to apply for a 15-day permit to leave. A trickle of refugees, including children, go out through the heavily guarded gate to do casual day work on nearby farms. Tough conditions mean some cannot wait for the permit, and sneak out illegally. If caught, they can be sent back to Syria. "The problem is that at any time they can send me back to the war I fled," said Abu Ayham, 38, a refugee from the Damascus suburbs, after a day spent picking tomatoes. "I would prefer to leave for Europe or America than remain afraid that any day they could send me back." (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Tom Perry and Andrew Roche) Kali Inc. (KALY) Accepting Appointments Now For Meetings At Conference SARASOTA, FL / ACCESSWIRE / November 22, 2016 / Kali Inc. (OTC PINK: KALY) today announced registering for the International Marina & Boat Conference scheduled January 25-27, 2017 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. KALY is participating in the conference to advance its Marina Management strategic plan. The Company is welcoming inquiries now and appointment scheduling in conjunction with the conference. Parties interested in KALY's marina management services, partnerships to provide services, or acquisition by KALY can contact at management@wavemarineservices.com or 941.444.6994. International Marina & Boatyard Conference (IMBC) The International Marina & Boatyard Conference (IMBC) is the leading marina and boatyard conference. It is geared specifically toward marina and boatyard owners, operators, and managers, as well as dockmasters, harbormasters, boat builders and repairers, and industry consultants. The conference is produced by the Association of Marina Industries (AMI) and offers an exhibit hall featuring over 125 vendors, over 25 educational seminars. Exhibitors include companies who supply marinas and boatyards with the products and services they need to run their business including dock builders, forklift and travelift manufacturers, pumpout suppliers, software developers, and more. Click here to learn more about IMBC. KALY Reports Latest on Strategy to Carve-Out Niche in $100 Trillion Market KALY recently published an online presentation providing a progress report on the Company's ongoing execution of its strategic business plan to carve-out a niche in the High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) population anticipated by Capgemini to reach a collective wealth of over $100 trillion by 2025. Specifically, KALY is pursuing the HNWI boating hobby and lifestyle niche. KALY entered the $5 billion fragmented and underserved marina management market sector earlier this year when it acquired Wave Marine & Yacht Services as the first acquisition in a comprehensive roll-up strategy. Industry analysis indicates that no dominant player currently exists in the marina management market. KALY's plan is to build upon the $5 billion marina management market opportunity by adding complimentary business lines that will increase the Company's overall revenue opportunity in addition to building an asset rich balance sheet. Story continues CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL ONLINE PRESENTATION. Management plans to update the online strategic progress presentation on a regular basis. Check back frequently for the latest. Learn more about KALY: wavemarineservices.com This press 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 (the "Exchange Act"), and as such, may involve risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements relate to, amongst other things, current expectation of the business environment in which the company operates, potential future performance, projections of future performance and the perceived opportunities in the market. The company's actual performance, results and achievements may differ materially from the expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements as a result of a wide range of factors. CONTACT: Kali Inc. 941.444.6994 management@wavemarineservices.com SOURCE: Kali Inc. Photo credit: undefined From Harper's BAZAAR Kanye West has cancelled all the remaining dates on his Saint Pablo Tour, his reps confirmed to Pitchfork this morning. "Tickets will be fully refunded," they added. The announcement follows news that the rapper cancelled his show in Los Angeles last night and stopped a concert short in Sacramento after playing three songs before calling out Beyonce, Jay Z and Hillary Clinton in a 15-minute speech. West's Saint Pablo Tour kicked off in August to promote his latest album, The Life of Pablo, which released in February. He had postponed certain show dates in early October after his wife, Kim Kardashian, was robbed at gunpoint in Paris. Although rumors suggested that-in light of the impassioned concert rants-the artist was taking time off for mental health reasons, a source close to West says that he is just worn out from work, especially his fashion design projects. "It's nothing like that. He's just exhausted," a source told People. "He's been working around the clock on fashion design, both on his own line and the Adidas line. He's a notorious workaholic, so balancing both that work which is extremely important to him and the rigors of the tour every night, it really wore him out." See the list of cancelled dates below: 11/22 Fresno, CA: Save Mart Center 11/23 Anaheim, CA: Honda Center 11/26 Dallas, TX: American Airlines Center 11/28 Denver, CO : Pepsi Center 12/01 San Antonio, TX: AT&T Center 12/02 Houston, TX: Toyota Center 12/04 Fort Lauderdale, FL: BB&T Center 12/06 Orlando, FL: Amway Center 12/08 Atlanta, GA: Philips Arena 12/09 Columbia, SC: Colonial Life Arena 12/11 Albany, NY: The Times Union Center 12/13 Philadelphia, PA: Wells Fargo Center 12/15 Philadelphia, PA: Wells Fargo Center 12/16 Newark, NJ: Prudential Center 12/18 Toronto, Ontario: Air Canada Centre 12/20 Louisville, KY: KFC Yum! Center 12/22 Auburn Hills, MI: The Palace of Auburn Hills 12/27 Washington, DC: Verizon Center 12/28 Boston, MA: TD Garden 12/30 Brooklyn, NY: Barclays Center 12/31 Brooklyn, NY: Barclays Center You Might Also Like Kanye West was hospitalized on Monday (Nov. 21) and put under observation at a Los Angeles-area hospital. NBC News reports Los Angeles police responded to a medical welfare call around 1:20 p.m. local time. There was no criminal activity and the decision to hospitalize West was considered for his own health and safety. A source tells Billboard that West has been suffering from exhaustion and sleep deprivation and went to the hospital today of his own will and under the consultation of his physician. The Associated Press reported, "Without confirming West's identity, Los Angeles police told the Associated Press the patient was placed on a psychiatric hold." The news follows a bizarre weekend for the hip-hop superstar, including rants endorsing President-elect Donald Trump, calling out Beyonce and Jay Z, cutting a concert short and canceling the remainder of his Saint Pablo Tour. Following the news, West's wife Kim Kardashian skipped her scheduled appearance at the Angel Ball in New York City on Monday night, which would have been her first public appearance since she was robbed at gunpoint in a Paris hotel. Kardashian's sisters, Khloe and Kourtney, and her mom Kris Jenner attended the black-tie fundraiser. When asked how the couple was doing, Jenner simply smiled and said, "They're good," according to the AP. Kanye West was hospitalized on Monday after abruptly canceling the remainder of his Saint Pablo tour, a source confirmed to Variety. The Los Angeles Police Department responded to a call of a disturbance at about 1:20 p.m. PST on Monday. Upon arrival, authorities discovered a medical emergency, and West was transferred to the hospital by paramedics. The hospitalization comes after a tumultuous week for the rapper. Last Thursday, West made headlines by announcing at a San Jose concert that if he did vote in the election, he would have voted for President-elect Donald Trump. The statement was met largely with boos from the crowd. Just a few days later, on Saturday, West arrived at his Sacramento concert 90 minutes late and performed only two songs before launching into a rant slamming Beyonce, Jay Z, Mark Zuckerberg, and others. The hashtag #KanyeIsOverParty began trending on Twitter shortly after videos of the rant hit social media. On Sunday, he canceled his Los Angeles concert only hours before it was set to begin, and then axed the remaining 21 dates of his Saint Pablo tour early Monday. West did not provide a reason for the last-minute cancellations. Variety has reached out to Wests rep for comment. Related stories Kanye West Cancels All Remaining 'Saint Pablo' Tour Dates Kanye West Cancels Los Angeles Concert Last Minute Kanye West Calls Out Beyonce and Mark Zuckerberg Before Abruptly Ending Concert Are you ready to USE your TALENTS to make the world a better place for Children? If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the worlds leading childrens rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote childrens survival, protection and development. The worlds largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. Kanye West was hospitalized on Monday after cancelling the remaining U.S. dates of his Saint Pablo tour. LAPD officials confirmed to ET that they responded to a call in Los Angeles at around 1:20 in the afternoon. "Upon our arrival the disturbance call became a medical emergency only where LAFD responded," police continued. "Our job was done there and they took over the medical emergency." LAFD officials tell ET, "An adult male described as medically stable was taken to an area hospital for further assessment." According to a report by NBC News, West was hospitalized for "his own health and safety" after a medical welfare call. RELATED: Kanye West Cancels Rest of Saint Pablo U.S. Tour Dates, All Tickets Will Be Refunded The news comes just a few hours after West cancelled the remaining U.S. dates of his Saint Pablo tour. A rep for the rapper confirmed the tour news to ET, adding that all tickets would be refunded at point of purchase. ET spoke to the rapper's mother-in-law, Kris Jenner, on Monday night at the Angel Ball in New York City, where she said she thinks West is "exhausted." "[I think he's] just really tired, yeah, it's a grueling tour," Jenner added. West's wife, Kim Kardashian, was rumored to be attending the event in her first public appearance since being robbed at gunpoint in Paris last month, but it was not immediately clear whether she was actually present. EXCLUSIVE: Kris Jenner Shares Updates on Kim Kardashian and Kanye West: 'One Step at a Time' West was scheduled to play all throughout the rest of the year, canceling 21 shows total. In addition, the rapper was scheduled to play a show at the Forum in Los Angeles on Sunday night -- a makeup show for the Nov. 3 concert he cut short due to losing his voice -- but also canceled the concert three hours before it was set to begin. The cancellations follow a string of bizarre onstage behavior, in which West spoke to crowds about supporting president-elect Donald Trump and took shots at longtime friends Beyonce and Jay Z, as well as Hillary Clinton -- before cutting several shows short after just a few songs. Story continues "Beyonce, I was hurt. 'Cause I heard that you said you wouldn't perform unless you won Video of the Year over me and over 'Hotline Bling,'" West said at a concert in Sacramento over the weekend, referencing this year's MTV Video Music Awards. "Jay Z, call me bruh. You still ain't called me. Jay Z, I know you got killers, please don't send them at my head. Just call me. Talk to me like a man." See more in the video below. ET has reached out to West's rep for comment. WATCH: Kanye West Says He Prefers to Only Talk Through Emojis: 'Words Get in the Way of What You Really Want to Say' Related Articles Kanye West was hospitalized for exhaustion on Monday afternoon after canceling his Saint Pablo tour, PEOPLE confirms He is exhausted and currently dealing with sleep deprivation, a source tells PEOPLE. He went to the hospital at will under the advice of his physician. Hes fine. The source added that he was not restrained and that he went freely. The Los Angeles Police Department responded to a call at about 1:20 p.m. for a disturbance. The Los Angeles Fire Department took over when it was clear it was a only a medical emergency. The 39-year-old has interrupted a string of his concerts with rants, walk-offs and no-shows, before officially canceling his tour on Monday. According to NBC News, Los Angeles police responded to a medical welfare call late Monday. His wife, Kim Kardashian West, was scheduled to attend the Angel Ball in New York City, but did not attend. It would have marked her first public appearance since she was robbed in Paris in early October. A representative for the father of two confirmed that remaining tickets will be fully refunded at point of purchase. The news follows the cancellation of his Sunday show at the Los Angeles Forum just hours before it was scheduled to begin. While rumors swirl about the state of his mental health, a source close to West deny that hes in the midst of any sort of breakdown. Its nothing like that, the source tells PEOPLE. Hes just exhausted. Hes been working around the clock on fashion design, both on his own line and the Adidas line. Hes a notorious workaholic, so balancing both that work which is extremely important to him and the rigors of the tour every night, it really wore him out. Reporting by JANINE RUBENSTEIN Hours after Kanye West canceled the remainder of his Saint Pablo tour, the rapper was placed under observation for exhaustion at a Los Angeles hospital Monday, his rep told the New York Times. NBC Los Angeles reports that police responded to a "medical welfare" call involving the rapper at 1:20 p.m. local time. Although no criminal activity had been committed, paramedics at the scene made the decision to hospitalize West was made for "his own health and safety." According to the Times, the rapper's doctor had called the LAPD. A representative for West did not immediately reply to Rolling Stone's request for comment. While the Los Angeles Fire Department, citing HIPA laws, could not confirm whether West was involved, a spokesperson for the LAFD told Rolling Stone, "At 1:20 p.m. today, the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to an unspecified medical aid request in the 900-block of North Laurel Avenue. An adult male described as medically stable was taken to an area hospital for further assessment." West's recent Saint Pablo shows had recently been marred by bizarre rants from the rapper, including his controversial statements onstage about how he "would have voted for Donald Trump" in the presidential election. The canceled tour comes after West abruptly ended a Sacramento concert after a 30-minute rant. Four songs into the show, West launched into a tirade that called out Jay Z and Beyonce, radio programmers, Hillary Clinton, Google and Mark Zuckerberg before cutting the concert short. West was scheduled to perform Sunday night at Los Angeles' Forum itself a makeup show after vocal problems forced the rapper to cut a previous Forum gig short but that concert was canceled at the last minute Sunday. West flooded his Instagram with exactly 99 caption-less photos of Margiela fashion spreads after the concert was canceled. Related Content: Kanye West was under observation at a Los Angeles hospital Monday evening, according to NBC News. An unnamed source close to the case told NBC that Los Angeles police responded to a medical welfare call around 1:20 p.m. PST Monday afternoon. Sources say that the decision to bring West to the hospital was "for his own health and safety" and that no criminal activity was involved. This comes on the heels of a controversial show in Sacramento that was cut short after three songs and the news that the rest of his nationwide "Saint Pablo" tour will be cancelled. No other details are available at this time and West's representatives have yet to release an official statement. Continue Reading On PigeonsandPlanes More from PigeonsandPlanes Photo credit: Getty From Cosmopolitan Following the surprising news that Kanye West has decided to cancel the rest of his Saint Pablo Tour, NBC now reports that the rapper has been hospitalized "for his own health and safety." According to sources close to Kanye, the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a medical welfare call early Monday afternoon, but when they arrived at the rapper's residence, he wasn't at home. However, TMZ reports that paramedics also responded to the call, and ultimately ended up bringing Kanye to the UCLA Medical Center via ambulance for a psychiatric evaluation. TMZ goes on to state that Kanye was reportedly being treated for severe sleep deprivation at the hospital when a member of the medical staff declared that he needed to be admitted. As of Monday evening, he is still "under observation." His admittance to the hospital follows an especially controversial week for Kanye: On Thursday, he declared his support for Donald Trump at a concert in San Jose, then on Saturday, went on a rant against Beyonce, Jay Z, Hillary Clinton, and more during a show in Sacramento. Just hours before it was set to begin, Kanye also canceled his show in Los Angeles on Sunday before announcing he had canceled the rest of his U.S. tour. Updated 11/21 at 8:00 p.m.: TMZ now reports Kanye West was at his trainer's home and was "acting erratically" when police responded to the medical welfare call on Monday afternoon. Us Weekly adds that his wife, Kim Kardashian, immediately rushed to the hospital to be with her husband after she found out that he'd been admitted. Kim was originally scheduled to make her first public appearance since last month's terrifying Paris robbery on Monday at the Angel Ball in New York City, alongside her family. The event was held in honor of her late father, Robert Kardashian. Follow Gina on Twitter. You Might Also Like Reports are beginning to emerge about Kanye West's hospitalization on Monday (Nov. 21), which a source told Billboard was due to exhaustion and sleep deprivation. According to a TMZ report, West's personal physician called 911 and reported that 'Ye was suffering from "temporary psychosis due to sleep deprivation and dehydration" and that he was placed under a 5150 psychiatric hold. Doctor Michael Farzam reportedly told police that West was not violent but would likely become so when police came to fetch him. Asked by Billboard on Tuesday (Nov. 22) morning to confirm that he is West's personal physician and that he has been treating the star, Farzam offered a "no comment." An unidentified law enforcement source told TMZ that the call came in describing a male with mental illness, with Farzam ID'ing the patient as "Jim Jones, 39 years old, 5'8", 175 lbs." The police report obtained by TMZ also says that Farzam claimed he'd placed West on a 5150 psychiatric hold and wanted him transported to UCLA Medical Center, though it's unclear if Farzam personally placed the 5150 on his patient. Farzam reportedly told police that the rapper had attempted to assault a staff member at the gym where he was working out. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed to Billboard that a patient matching West's description was transported without incident by paramedics to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on Monday afternoon after reports of a "medical emergency." TMZ reported that, per protocol for a 5150 hold, West was handcuffed to a stretcher during his transport to UCLA, though that detail has not been confirmed by police or the hospital. Spokespeople for West did not provide additional comment at press time. The news follows a bizarre weekend for the hip-hop superstar, including rants endorsing President-elect Donald Trump, calling out Beyonce and Jay Z, cutting a concert short and canceling the remainder of his Saint Pablo Tour. Kanye West's health scare was described as a "psychiatric emergency" in a 911 call between responders, TMZ reports. The site released audio of the exchange on Tuesday, November 22, hours after the rapper, 39, was hospitalized. In the muffled clip, several paramedics can be heard speaking to one another. PHOTOS: 14 Times Kim Kardashian Was Actually Funny "Rescue 41, psychiatric emergency," one man says. Later, a second responder chimes in: "We're on the scene here." As previously reported, authorities were called to the home of West's trainer Harley Pasternak in L.A. on Monday night. Per TMZ, Kim Kardashian's husband was acting "erratically" and was restrained before being transported to UCLA Medical Center for psychiatric evaluation. PHOTOS: 10 Times Rob Kardashian Sassed the Kardashian Family A source told Us Weekly that West has been "suffering from exhaustion and sleep deprivation" lately. "[He] went to the hospital today on his own will and under the consultation of his physician," the insider noted. West's odd behavior made headlines just days earlier. On Saturday, he ended his Sacramento, California, show after just 30 minutes and ranted about Jay Z, Beyonce and Hillary Clinton. He would later cancel the rest of his concerts for his Saint Pablo tour. PHOTOS: Celebrity Music Video Couples Additionally, West who often goes on epic Twitter rants posted more than 90 random fashion magazine photos on his Instagram account in a short amount of time on Sunday. Fans went from posting the hashtag #KanyeIsOverParty to #PrayforKanye on social media following his health scare. Listen to West's dispatch 911 call here. Related Content: Kanye West has had a rocky week, one that included onstage monologues supporting Donald Trump, lambasting Beyonce and Jay Z while cutting short a performance in Sacramento on Saturday after just 30 minutes and the cancelation of a make-up show in Los Angeles on Sunday. On Monday, West nixed the rest of his Saint Pablo Tour, which had 21 dates remaining and was scheduled to last through the end of the year. While canceling one date is complicated enough, what's the damage when the number climbs past 20? Counting the rescheduled, then canceled, final Los Angeles date, West is on the hook to refund 22 dates of the tour. According to Billboard Boxscore, of the 26 dates reported from the Saint Pablo Tour so far, West had grossed $34.5 million on attendance of 396,972, numbers that include the final Forum date before its eventual cancelation. The 22 canceled dates will force ticket refunds worth about $27.3 million, Billboard estimates, including multi-night runs in Philadelphia and Brooklyn. One important note: Billboard Boxscore includes the 26 shows reported by Live Nation so far, though the Forum cancelation knocks that number down to 25; West has played 40 shows in total to date on this tour. Canceling a tour of this magnitude is not unprecedented. Lady Gaga was forced to cancel the final 22 dates of her Born This Way Ball Tour in 2013 after requiring surgery for a labral tear in her right hip, prompting $25 million worth of ticket refunds. In Gaga's case, however, she was likely covered by insurance that would have kicked in due to injury; as an industry standard, a major tour along the lines of hers would be covered by various levels of insurance, including expenses related to shutting down the tour, advertising costs and lost revenues for both the promoter and performer. However, West's situation is slightly more unclear. A rep for West said in a statement only that the dates have been canceled, and that tickets will be fully refunded at point of purchase, but did not state a reason for the cancelation, leaving the insurance question up in the air. In October, West added more than 20 shows to the original Saint Pablo run, which make up the bulk of the canceled dates. Story continues After the Born This Way Ball Tour was cut short, Billboard broke down the mechanisms behind the complicated, multifaceted process of ending the outing, including notifying venues, preparing press releases, implementing massive production shutdowns and figuring out the logistics of not only getting the staging and production gear returned home, but also the 130-odd cast and crew that was working on the tour. Read more: Kanye West Tells Shocked Concert Crowd: "If I Voted, I Would Have Voted for Trump" This article originally appeared on Billboard.com. Yesterday (Nov. 21), after a rep for Kanye West confirmed that the remaining 21 dates of his Saint Pablo Tour would be canceled, Billboard estimated it would result in the refunding of more than 300,000 tickets, worth $27.3 million. At the time, however, the big unknown was why West canceled the dates, leaving open the question of whether insurance would cover the costs of shutting down the tour. Last night, West was placed under observation at a Los Angeles-area hospital, and a source told Billboard he was suffering from exhaustion and sleep deprivation. And while there is little to no further information about West's condition or the specific reasoning for canceling the tour dates, exhaustion raises several possibilities in terms of West's potential financial liabilities. Assuming West had insurance for his Saint Pablo Tour, a standard policy within the music industry would cover an "accident to or illness of any insured person which, in the opinion of an independent medical practitioner approved by the underwriters, entirely prevents any insured person from appearing or continuing to appear in any or all of the insured performances or events." Essentially, that would require a third party medical practitioner to determine whether or not West's exhaustion would physically allow him to continue. But it also would typically come with exclusions: for instance, if the exhaustion was due to drug use, sexually-transmitted diseases, "unreasonable or capricious behavior" -- which would include cancellations as a result of excessive partying or similar behavior -- and whether there was a pre-existing condition, meaning if the person had a history of exhaustion or a previously-diagnosed and undisclosed illness. A fairly textbook example of a situation that would be covered by this type of policy is Lady Gaga's 2013 Born This Way Ball Tour. With 22 dates to go on the trek, Gaga suffered a labral tear in her right hip that required surgery, forcing her to cancel the remaining shows on the tour and causing $25 million worth of ticket refunds. Gaga's injury clearly would have been covered by this type of insurance, including expenses related to shutting down the tour, advertising costs and lost revenues for both the promoter and performer. Story continues Again, however, West's situation is slightly different, and there is no clear answer. "[The policy] is often invoked very quickly for specific injury or illness that is diagnosed easily," says Paul Bassman, president/CEO of Ascend Insurance Brokerage, one of the top insurance firms in the music industry. "Exhaustion would definitely be harder to prove, but I wouldn't say it's impossible." Live Nation, the promoter for the Saint Pablo Tour, likely has its own policy, which generally differs from an artist's policy by not carrying exclusions for things like drug use, capricious behavior or other situations, though the independent medical evaluation would still be required. That could leave open a situation where Live Nation would be covered for its own expenses, including its guarantees to West (if they are responsible for paying those guarantees in the event of a cancellation), while if West's condition was not deemed to be covered by his insurance policy, he may still be on the hook. For now there is little to do but hope that West is getting the treatment he requires, while any definitive judgment is too early to assess. "We just don't know enough about why he canceled," Bassman adds. "Until more information is available on the specifics of the cancellation, it's not possible to determine whether this will be covered by insurance or not." Keeping Up With the Kardashians star Kim Kardashian is concerned about her husband, rapper Kanye West, Us Weekly reported Tuesday. The performer was taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center Monday after he reportedly suffered from exhaustion, stress and dehydration. Kardashian, 36, was slated to tour with her husband, but became reclusive after she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris last month. She was supposed to be on a lot of the tour dates with him and because of what happened with [her Paris] robbery, she wasn't feeling up for going to all these different tour dates, an insider told Us Weekly. So [Kanye] hasn't had his family, his support system, with him. Kim is very worried. West, 39, canceled the rest of his shows on his Saint Pablo Tour on the same day of his hospitalization. He faced a backlash after he said he wouldve voted for President-elect Donald Trump Thursday and slammed longtime friend Beyonce Saturday. When Kardashian was in crisis Oct. 3, West flew to France to be with his wife. [Kanye] took on a lot and the Paris incident sort of split up the family because he hasn't been able to spend hardly any time with Kim, the source told Us Weekly Tuesday. The robbery caused so much stress for this family. Now, West was placed on a 5150 psychiatric hold, TMZ reported Tuesday. Theres some discrepancy if the star was really placed on a 5150, which occurs when a person, as a result of a mental health disorder, is a danger to others or to himself, California law states. West tried to assault a staff member at the home of his trainer, Harley Pasternak, TMZ added. He was handcuffed to a stretched and taken to UCLA Medical Center for psychiatric evaluations. Handcuffs are standard protocol when a patient is acting erratically. Kardashian has not issued an official statement about her husbands mental health status. Kim Kardashian Photo: Getty Images Story continues Follow me on Twitter @mariamzzarella Related Articles Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, said Tuesday that he will not pursue an investigation against Hillary Clinton, walking back one of his controversial campaign promises. I think when the president-elect, whos also the head of your party now, Joe, tells you before hes even inaugurated he doesnt wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong messagetone and contentto the members, Conway said in an interview on MSNBCs Morning Joe. And I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans dont find her to be honest or trustworthy, but if Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps thats a good thing. During one of the presidential debates, Trump promised that, if elected, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clintons use of a private email server as secretary of state. 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, he said at the time. The U.S. Department of Justice announced in July that it would not prosecute Clinton or her aides over their use of the server. In the same month, FBI Director James Comey recommended that no criminal charges be brought against Clinton, after an investigation into the server revealed no evidence of criminal behavior. While campaigning, Trump accused both institutions of being biased in favor of Clinton. But Conway said he has no plans to further pursue that charge. I think hes thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign arent among them, she said. Photo credit: Getty From Cosmopolitan Photo credit: Getty Kim Kardashian immediately rushed to be by her husband Kanye West's side on Monday after she was alerted that he had been admitted to the hospital. According to Us Weekly, the reality star received the news while en route to New York by private jet to attend her first public event since her terrifying Paris robbery last month. Along with her mother Kris and sisters Khloe and Kourtney, Kim had been flying to New York to attend the Angel Ball, a gala honoring her late father, Robert Kardashian. But once she found out her husband had been hospitalized, she immediately returned to Los Angeles. "Kim was seen boarding a private jet to New York at around 5am LA time and had planned to make a late entrance to the gala, skipping the red carpet, to honor her father," a source told Page Six. "But when she landed in New York, something was very wrong with Kanye, she turned around and headed straight back to LA to be at his side." Kanye was admitted into the UCLA Medical Center on Monday after police received a medical welfare call. At the time, the rapper was at his trainer's house and was reportedly "acting erratically." He was later taken to the hospital by ambulance, where he was treated for sleep deprivation and is currently being kept under observation. His admittance to the hospital came just hours after the rapper had announced he would be canceling the remainder of his U.S. tour following a series of controversial rants at his last two shows. Follow Gina on Twitter. You Might Also Like Getty Image After Kanye Wests hospitalization today Page Six reports that Kim Kardashian immediately flew back to Los Angeles, missing the Angel Ball, a gala honoring her late father. People reports that her sisters Khloe and Kourtney, as well as her mother Kris still attended the event. Since she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris, Kim has been shunning social media, her historical medium of choice. Early on Monday morning she was seen leaving Los Angeles on a private jet, for the scheduled public appearance in New York. The event would have been her first public appearance since she was robbed. Instead, she went to visit her husband in the hospital. Following several rants on his Saint Pablo tour, including a back and forth with Kid Cudi, disses toward Jay Z and Beyonce, and the news that he didnt vote but wouldve chosen Trump, this morning West abruptly canceled the remainder of his tour all together. Later in the day, news broke that he had been hospitalized following a medical welfare call. 2016 has been particularly rough for the Kardashian-West clan. Heres hoping things improve immediately and Kanyes stay in the hospital is short and painless. Probably wouldnt hurt if Jay Z picked up the phone to smooth things out with his old work friend, too. Theres a time for grudges, and then theres a time to bury the hatchet. Kim Kardashian skipped her first planned public appearance to be by Kanyes side, and were really feeling for her It definitely seems like life has been stressful for Kim Kardashian lately. There was the horrific Paris robbery, and now husband Kanye West has been hospitalized after canceling the remainder of his Saint Pablo tour. And we just found out that Kim skipped a gala to rush to his side at UCLA Medical Center. The event which was the Angel Ball for cancer research would have been her first public appearance since the Paris robbery The gala which was partly in honor of Kims late father Robert Kardashian who died of cancer in 2003 was still attended by sisters Kourtney and Khloe and mom Kris. Reunited with my angels. #AngelBall A photo posted by Kourtney Kardashian (@kourtneykardash) on Nov 21, 2016 at 7:33pm PST From what we know so far, it seems like exhaustion is the culprit for Kanyes behavior. He ended a recent show early for health reasons, and cancelled the rest of his tour soon after a seemingly bizarre stage rant in Sacramento. There were a ridiculous amount of dates on his tour often with no days to rest in-between cities so its understandable that hed require some time off to regain his strength and stamina. And apart from his tour, Kanye balances music with fashion design and being a father and husband, so yeahsome down time sounds incredibly needed. Were sending all the healing vibes to Kanye, and best wishes to the whole family as they deal with this together. H/T: Us Weekly The post Kim Kardashian skipped her first planned public appearance to be by Kanyes side, and were really feeling for her appeared first on HelloGiggles. Kim Kardashian West skipped the Angel Ball in New York City on Monday, the same day her husband Kanye West was hospitalized in Los Angeles for exhaustion. The Angel Ball would have been Kardashian Wests first public appearance since the Paris heist on Oct. 3, when she was tied up, gagged, held at gunpoint and robbed of millions of dollars of jewelry in her No Address Hotel apartment. Her sisters Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian as well as momager Kris Jenner were in attendance at the black-tie event that honored the late Robert Kardashian. Also at their table were Corey Gamble and Jonathan Cheban. The Angel Ball, which was held at the Cipriani Wall Street in New York, celebrates individuals who have made significant humanitarian and philanthropic contributions in support of cancer research. Despite protesters who were outside the event shouting at the family for wearing fur, Kourtney, Khloe and Jenner walked the red carpet before heading inside to the event 45 minutes after it began. When an onlooker asked Jenner Hows Kanye? about her son-in-law, the Keeping Up with the Kardashians matriarch said, Exhausted! Inside the event, Kourtney and Khloe were seen smiling and laughing with Cheban and Gamble while the auction took place. Around 10 p.m., attendees watched a compilation of home videos of the late Robert Kardashian with the family over the years as Kanye Wests song Only One played. Kris was clearly emotional as the videos played and could be seen wiping her eyes while watching the clips. A video posted by Khloe Kardashian Snapchats (@khloesnapchats) on Nov 21, 2016 at 7:38pm PST Designer Tommy Hilfiger then took the stage and introduced the family. not only global brands but they are recognized personalities over the world Hilfiger said of the sisters, and added that behind the cameras theyre also a very tight knit family who work tirelessly for the causes they believe in and one has been cancer awareness. Story continues Tonight theyre here to honor the memory of Robert and to continue to raise awareness, Hilfiger continued. After wrapping his warm welcome, Jenner, Khloe and Kourtney took the stage to accept an honor on Roberts behalf. A beautiful accepance on behalf of the late Robert Kardashian Thank you @krisjenner @khloekardashian @kourtneykardash and the Kardashian family for all of your love and support always. #angelball2016 #CureCancerNow #ResearchCuresCancer #GabriellesAngels A photo posted by Gabrielle's Angel Foundation (@gabriellesangels) on Nov 21, 2016 at 7:24pm PST That video was a little bit of a tough act to follow, Jenner said in her emotional speech. (The Angel Ball) is one of the most rewarding things we do on an annual basis. Lastly, I just want to say when I met Robert Kardashian, I was 17 years old. He kind of raised me and we had four kids together. One of the things he used to teach me and then passed down to our children was about philanthropy and about giving and about doing it diligently, constantly, joyfully and generously. He taught me and them that no matter what you do in life and what you make, you give back. And you do it without saying a word because thats what the Bible said. And we did. Upon closing her emotional, heartfelt speech, Jenner and her two daughters presented Gabrielles Angel Foundation with a check for $250,000. We just wanted to do a little something that hopefully will be a start of a continuous donation, Jenner said. Kardashian Wests cancellation of the event comes nearly two months after she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris during Paris Fashion Week. On Oct. 3, Kardashian West stayed in for the night as her former bodyguard, Pascal Duvier, escorted sisters Kourtney and Kendall Jenner for an evening out in France. Just after she FaceTimed with brother Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna for the engaged couples baby shower, five armed, masked men gained access to her private apartment after threatening the buildings concierge with a weapon, handcuffing him and forcing him to open the residence, according to CNN. Two of the men entered her room, held her at gunpoint, bound her hands and feet with tape and then locked her in the bathroom before making off with her jewelry. Though the robbers did not physically harm the E! personality, her rep confirmed She is badly shaken but physically unharmed sources told PEOPLE that Kardashian West blamed herself after the incident for showcasing her ring on social media. Kims in shock and blaming herself. Shes tearing herself up that she Snapchatted the ring so much and wore it all the time. This incident is making her question everything. How she dresses, what she does, a source close to the Kardashian family told PEOPLE. Kanye wants to buy her the ring again but she just says she doesnt want to think about it. He says he wants everything to go back to normal and for the incident to not affect their lives. Since the terrifying incident, Kardashian West has maintained a low-profile life. The only positive thing about the robbery is that Kim changed pace. Instead of working nonstop, her life has slowed down significantly. She seems happy about this, a source told PEOPLE, and added, She very much likes spending every day with her kids. Many times in the past, it was very hard for her to be way from her kids for work. Now she gets to wake up with her kids and go to sleep with her kids. By Junko Fujita TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. buyout firm KKR & Co is buying Nissan Motor-backed auto parts maker Calsonic Kansei Corp <7248.T> for up to 498.3 billion yen ($4.5 billion) in its biggest deal in Japan, seizing on a rare chance there to do a multi-billion dollar purchase. KKR announced on Tuesday it will pay 1,860 yen per Calsonic share, or a 28.3 percent premium over the stock's last closing price, for the 41 percent stake held by Nissan <7201.T> and for the rest of the shares from the market through a tender offer. It beat out rival private equity firms Bain Capital and MBK Partners, which, according to Thomson Reuters LPC, had bid to buy Nissan's stake. Japan's second-biggest automaker opened the auction to sell the stake in June. Calsonic provided private equity firms a rare opportunity to conduct a multi-billion dollar deal in a country where large companies are still reluctant to sell their units through drastic restructuring. Japan's private equity industry has been held back by decades of pitiful economic growth and a hostile corporate culture. But, encouraged by governance reforms and demographic shifts, the industry could see a flurry of activity. The KKR deal comes as Nissan is seeking to invest in areas such as development of new technologies, including in next generation electric cars and automated driving functions. Nissan also bought a controlling stake in embattled Mitsubishi Motors Corp <7211.T> earlier this year. Calsonic Kansei, which specializes in traditional auto parts, including interiors, electronics, air conditioning units and compressors, relies for about 80 percent of its global sales on Nissan. KKR said it would help Calsonic expand internationally amid a shrinking home market for the Japanese company. "As a partner to Calsonic Kansei's management team, we aim to assist the company in achieving its growth ambitions and make available our international network and industry expertise to continue Calsonic Kansei's success globally," Hiro Hirano, head of KKR Japan, said in a statement. Story continues The company expects the tender offer to be launched in February 2017. EXCESSIVE RELIANCE Some private equity firms that did not bid to buy Calsonic had concerns about its excessive reliance on Nissan for revenue, and limited growth potential for the auto parts it makes, according to sources. But as more Japanese automakers dismantle their supplier groups, Calsonic has been trying to grow its client baseaway from Nissan. It now counts Renault SA - which owns 44 percent of Nissan - Isuzu Motors and other automakers as clients. In Japan, KKR has done some sizeable deals. These include the 2013 purchase of Panasonic Healthcare from Panasonic Corp <6752.T> in a deal worth $1.67 billion and the acquisition of Pioneer DJ from Pioneer Corp <6773.T> in 2014 for $550 million. And KKR agreed to sell Intelligence Holdings for 68 billion yen in 2013, almost double what it initially paid for the temporary staffing agency three years ago. The U.S. buyout firm had also been interested in buying Takata Corp <7312.T>, the Japanese parts maker at the center of the world's biggest auto recall, but the buyout firm was no longer in the bidding, sources told Reuters earlier this month. Calsonic shares were untraded earlier on Tuesday after the company said it would discuss Nissan's stake sale at its board meeting. The shares closed at 1,450 yen, up 9.7 percent. Nissan shares closed down 1.4 percent. KKR was advised by Morgan Stanley Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co on the Calsonic deal, while Bank of America Merrill Lynch advised Nissan. (Additoinal reporting by Taiga Uranaka and Elzio Barreto; Editing by Stephen Coates and Muralikumar Anantharaman) Sex and the City star Kristin Davis recently opened up about interracial adoption and protecting her child in a sit-down conversation at The Greene Space in New York. Davis, 51, adopted her 5-year-old daughter, Gemma Rose Davis, in 2011, and candidly discussed being the parent of a child with a differing race. I am white. I have lived in white privilege. I thought I knew before adopting my daughter that I was in white privilege, that I understood what that meant. But until you actually have a child, which is like your heart being outside you, and that heart happens to be in a brown body, and you have people who are actively working against your child, its hard. It fills me with terror, Davis told WNYCs Rebecca Carroll during a How I Got Over discussion of not understanding white privilege until she adopted her daughter, who is black, in 2011. Following the results of the Nov. 8 election, which saw GOP nominee Donald Trump take the victory over Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton, the actress said that she is on an intense learning curve in her role as a parent. Im on the intense learning curve because I have to protect my child. I might have had the intellectual learning curve that we all hope and wish we have, but its different than the actual life that youre on the line for. I have to protect my daughter at all costs, the mother of one admitted. My initial thoughts on Wednesday morning was that I wanted to move to the woods and learn to shoot a gun. It makes no sense. Im fully aware. Im 100 percent aware that it literally makes no sense but the fear of what is happening and how am I going to make sure that no one hurts my child, even in a subtle way, which was already a fear I had honestly, but it just became so, so heightened. Davis, who starred as Charlotte York Goldenblatt on the HBO series from 1998-2004, was raised in South Carolina and revealed that she was exposed to racism while growing up. Right now I want to be in the bubble. I dont want to talk to any Trump people, the actress said, and added, I grew up with some really ugly racism in front of me. Not in my family. We were at the university where things were cool but around us was really, really not cool. And it was intensely illuminating and as a young person really shocking. And to think that my daughter is now going through a different version of this is pretty stunning and shocking. Story continues Talking about her parenting style, Davis also spoke about how she regularly gives her daughter encouragement and affirmations. I always tell her that her curls are beautiful, your black skin is beautiful. Youre beautiful. Youre powerful. Youre a goddess, Davis said. She later added: Serena is a household fixture at our house. And like Serena was on the cover of New York Times, and that thing sat there for six months. I work really hard at the representation part in terms of beauty, magazines. By Chris Arsenault SRE AMBEL DISTRICT, Cambodia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A group of farmers who survived the Khmer Rouge's notorious "Killing Fields" genocide in Cambodia are at the center of a landmark legal case that could change the way global corporations manage large-scale land acquisitions, experts say. More than 400 families from a sleepy rural hamlet in Sre Ambel district in south-western Cambodia say they were pushed off their farms to make way for sugar plantations. The villagers are part of a larger group of about 770,000 Cambodians or five percent of the nation's population taking action for being forced off at least four million hectares of land, according to a lawyer presenting their case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. After taking power in 1975, the Khmer Rouge destroyed property records and forced urban residents into the countryside in pursuit of a peasant utopia, killing at least 1.8 million people during a four-year reign. Human rights attorneys say the ICC could decide by the end of the year whether the case - launched against the Cambodian government and business leaders on behalf of the farmers - should proceed. Legal experts say the case is internationally significant as it could change the way community displacement in the wake of large-scale land deals is tested and prosecuted under international law. "We all survived the genocide of the Khmer Rouge and started a new life but we have nothing after they took our land," rice farmer, Chhim Phan, 45, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation outside his house 160 km (100 miles) west of Phnom Penh. His wife cried as she spoke of appealing to neighbors and charities to feed their children after losing the family's rice paddies - their only source of income. "We have tried to file complaints (with local authorities) but it hasn't worked," said Phan. "Maybe if there is a trial (at the ICC) the people would get justice. It would stop other leaders from plundering the property of people." 'BIG DEAL' Cambodian officials, however, dismiss the ICC case as a ploy by a local opposition party to gain attention and smear the image of the national government which, they say, has reduced poverty and delivered fast economic growth. Prime Minister Hun Sen, a self-styled strongman, and former Khmer Rouge official, has ruled Cambodia for three decades. Phay Siphan, a spokesman for Cambodia's Council of Ministers, said the government "is not at all concerned about this case" and do not think it will go ahead. He would not say if the government has hired a lawyer to defend its interests. "The lawyers launched this case just for their own personal interests," Siphan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview. "We don't give it any value." Richard Rogers, a partner with British-based law firm Global Diligence LLP, said he was optimistic the ICC would give the green light to the case, launched in 2014, because of a change in the way serious international crimes can be prosecuted. The ICC's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, signaled in September that the court will start investigating cases of large-scale environmental destruction and what she called "land grabs" as severe violations of international law. Legal experts have interpreted this statement as a major shift in the court's approach with Cambodia the test case. "This is a big deal," said Kaitlin Y. Cordes, a lawyer who analyses territorial deals at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment in New York. "It puts governments and companies on notice that the ICC will be taking a closer look at some of these widespread land grabs," Cordes told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "If the Cambodia case went to trial and won, it would mean individuals would be found guilty of crimes against humanity." LONG-RUNNING DISPUTES Authorities in the Southeast Asian nation of 15 million people do not believe the litigation will go ahead. Seng Laut, spokesperson for the Land Ministry said the number of territorial conflicts in Cambodia has been dropping rapidly - a claim that is supported by campaign groups. "The cause of land conflict in Cambodia is our history," said Laut, who refused to comment directly on the ICC case. Prior to the genocide, farmers would apply dye to the borders of their plots in waterlogged rice fields to mark out their property to other growers. Farmers in Sre Ambel said such traditional systems of land demarcation worked as everyone in the close-knit community understood which families controlled different plots based on historical claims and local knowledge, rather than title deeds. But these systems were destroyed during the genocide with the influx of urban residents, farmers said. Since 1992, the government has been rebuilding its property registry amid work to facilitate Cambodia's transition from a state-based to a market economy, Laut said. Invariably, he added, there have been some disputes along the way. Officials said they're working to reduce conflict by monitoring companies which are granted land concessions for breaches of contract or unfair displacement of residents. Laut refused to comment on specific cases but said the government's large-scale land titling program aims to have all of the country's land formally registered by 2023. This should drastically reduce the level of conflicts, he said. "Everything came from zero, like a baby," Laut told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "ONLY FOR THE RICH" The origins of the dispute in Sre Ambel, revealed in one of the documents presented to the ICC, date back to 2006. Files viewed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation show that Cambodian authorities granted land concessions to two sugar plantation operators who received just less than 10,000 hectares each, the maximum allowed by law. Koh Kong Sugar, a plantation operator and milling company operated by Thai and Taiwanese investors at the center of the land dispute in Sre Ambel, did not respond to requests for comment made in writing and in person. British-based confectionary firm Tate & Lyle had sourced sugar from Cambodia before it was criticized by Oxfam and other campaign groups for allegedly supporting land grabs. A company spokesman said the firm stopped all sourcing from Cambodia in 2012, stressing the reputational risks - and now the legal risks with the ICC - businesses face when their supply chains are linked to displacement. Teng Kao, 55, said he owned 14 hectares of land growing rice, jackfruit and cashew nuts before the company arrived with bulldozers and he was glad the case was before the ICC. "The land concessions don't benefit the poor at all, just the rich," said Kao, whose two children left the area in search of work after the land was taken. "I want the government to be held responsible," said Kao, who has unsuccessfully filed petitions with local officials and marched to the capital seeking compensation or new land. Analysts say the possibility that companies involved in displacing entire communities could be prosecuted internationally should force firms to change the way they manage their supply chains. If the ICC case is allowed to proceed, Cordes said it would affect the way companies calculate risk when buying commodities sourced from areas affected by large-scale land disputes. "Investors need to be doing proper community engagement on the ground and greater transparency about intentions," she said. Villagers in Sre Ambel who lost land say they hope more companies follow Tate & Lyle in light of the ICC case. Sitting outside his ramshackle wooden house near a highway, with a cow tied up nearby, Phan said the sugar company wants his last remaining half-hectare of land and would have taken it already if dozens of villagers not turned up to protest. "No-one listens," he said. (Reporting By Chris Arsenault, Editing by Paola Totaro and Belinda Goldsmith. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking and climate change. Visit news.trust.org) Washington (AFP) - The number of casualties from landmines and similar explosive devices soared to a 10-year high last year as armed conflicts raged across the world, a report found Tuesday. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) blamed the sharp increase on wars in Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, but also noted that a greater availability of casualty data had pushed numbers higher. According to this year's Landmine Monitor, an annual report by the ICBL, the number of people killed and wounded by mines, improvised devices and "explosive remnants of war" rose to 6,461 in 2015. The total, which included at least 1,672 fatalities, marked a 75-percent increase from casualty numbers in 2014. "The decade-high number of new casualties caused by landmines and unexploded ordnance, and the continued suffering of civilians, more than a third of whom were children, proves again that these indiscriminate weapons should never be used by anyone," Loren Persi, casualties and victim assistance editor of Landmine Monitor, said in a statement. Afghanistan recorded the highest number of casualties in 2015, with 1,310 people killed or wounded -- though that number was similar to 2014. Libya saw 1,004 victims, while Yemen recorded 988 casualties, Syria saw 864 and Ukraine's total was 589. However, the report noted, the use of antipersonnel mines by nation states remains extremely rare thanks to a ban signed by most countries. The only government forces planting landmines last year were Myanmar, North Korea and Syria, none of which have signed the Mine Ban Treaty first agreed in 1999. Non-state armed groups in Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen and Nigeria planted explosive devices, the Monitor said. Despite the increase in casualties, ICBL said funding for mine action dropped. In 2015, 35 donors contributed $340 million in international support for mine action to 41 states and three other areas -- a drop of almost $77 million from the year before, the campaign group said. "At a time when casualties are increasing, it is worrying to find decreasing international and national support to clear mine-contaminated land and assist landmine victims," Jeff Abramson, an editor of Landmine Monitor 2016, said in a statement. LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- The Latest on a former USA Gymnastics doctor being charged with criminal sexual conduct (all times local): 5:40 p.m. A Los Angeles woman has filed a civil lawsuit against a former USA Gymnastics doctor charged in Michigan with sex abuse involving a girl under 13. Attorney Brian McKeen says the suit was filed Tuesday in Ingham County against Larry Nassar. He says his client was sexually assaulted in 1996 and 1997 during treatments for lower back pain when she was a 14-year-old gymnast in East Lansing. Two former USA Gymnastics national team members have filed separate civil lawsuits in California against Nassar and USA Gymnastics. Nassar pleaded not guilty Tuesday to three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Those alleged assaults occurred between 1998 and 2005. The girl was not a gymnast. Nassar is a former associate professor of osteopathic medicine at Michigan State University. He was fired in September. 2 p.m. Michigan's attorney general says charges against a former USA Gymnastics team doctor are the ''tip of the iceberg'' as authorities investigate roughly 50 complaints filed with police. Bill Schuette said Tuesday that Larry Nassar of Holt posted bond after he pleaded not guilty earlier in the day to three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in his home with a girl under 13. The alleged assaults occurred between 1998 and 2005. Schuette says the girl wasn't a gymnast, a patient or a family member. He says his office is working with the FBI and a U.S. attorney's office in Michigan. The 53-year-old doctor has been under scrutiny since two gymnasts, including a member of the 2000 U.S. women's Olympic team, accused him of sexual abuse during medical treatments. --- 10:05 a.m. A former USA Gymnastics team doctor has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in his Michigan home with a girl aged 6 to 12. The plea was entered Tuesday by Larry Nassar of Holt, who was arraigned by video from jail. He was arrested Monday while running an errand. Story continues The alleged assaults occurred between 1998 and 2005. Magistrate Mark Blumer, who set bond at $1 million, said the girl wasn't a gymnast. Nassar's attorneys said the family hopes to quickly post the 10 percent needed to be freed. The 53-year-old doctor has been under scrutiny since two gymnasts, including a member of the 2000 U.S. women's Olympic team, accused him of sexual abuse during what were supposed to be medical treatments. Republicans take full control of the government on Jan. 20, and their biggest problem may be the calendar. Their agenda is expansive repealing Obamacare, pushing through tax cuts and rolling back a host of President Obamas regulations and some elements have a time limit attached. Between those deadlines and the Senates procedural penchant for grinding everything to a halt, Republicans may not be able to accomplish all their goals. Thats why theyre trying to create a kind of legislative trash compactor that mushes a bunch of bills into one package. That could be the only way for them to maximize their rollback of the Obama regulatory state. Related: How the GOP Could Make Huge Changes in One Fell Swoop The scheme would streamline a clunky existing law that allows lawmakers to overrule federal agencies. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) of 1996, a priority of Newt Gingrichs Contract with America, gives Congress the ability to overturn any executive branch rule within 60 legislative days of it being finalized in the Federal Register. Congress can introduce a resolution of disapproval, which only requires a majority vote in the House and Senate, to vanquish the rule, and force any future rule of that type to get explicit congressional authorization. Because presidents dont really appreciate having Congress cancel out their priorities, this gambit has worked exactly once in the 20 years since enactment, to overturn an Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule on ergonomics in March 2001. But those circumstances mirror the situation today: a new Republican president replacing a Democrat, with Republican control of both houses of Congress. This Congress has designs on much more than one rule. Under the 1996 law, Congress can consider any rule finalized within 60 days of the end of the legislative session. Legislative days only count if Congress is in session, a rare event in 2016. The Congressional Research Service estimates that any rule submitted to Congress after May 30 of this year would be available for overturning. The Congressional Research Service lists 48 major rules that could be wiped off the books; the Wall Street Journal identifies 180 in all. That doesnt include several others scheduled for completion between now and the end of Obamas term. Story continues Related: Trumps Coming Surprise 40 Republicans Could Stop Him Cold Plus, if Congress adjourns sooner than anticipated, it would be able to upend more rules, which is critical. Republicans desperately want to block a Department of Labor rule that doubles the salary threshold for workers eligible for overtime. That rule was finalized May 23, so the GOP could conceivably move back adjournment long enough to give them the opportunity to nuke it. The idea here is to block midnight regulations, passed in secret before a changeover of power. But a midnight lasting from May to January doesnt exist anywhere on the planet, not even the North Pole. The CRA stretches the definition of midnight so anti-government conservatives can nullify months of rulemaking, sometimes on regulations that took several years to shape. But the clock is ticking, albeit slowly. As every observer of Congress knows, passing legislation eats up time. The CRA limits Senate debate but doesnt eliminate it: Senators still must hold multiple votes, and the minority still gets 10 hours to discuss each resolution. There are opportunities to reduce that, but in general terms Democrats would still have enough tools to limit CRA resolutions to about one per day. You cannot assume that all of the first 60 legislative days of the new Congress would be spent on rolling back Obama rules. The Senate has Donald Trumps entire cabinet to confirm, and if Congress passes a short-term funding bill sometime in the next few weeks as expected, it will to complete another budget bill next spring, which will take up much more floor time. Related: Trumps $1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan Raises a Red Flag for Dems In short, it doesnt seem metaphysically possible to kill all the rules Republicans desire in the specified time. Thats where a new bill called the Midnight Rules Relief Act comes in. Devised by California Republican Darrell Issa, who may not make the next Congress (hes up 4,200 votes in his re-election race, with several thousand left to count), the bill would allow multiple CRA resolutions to be combined into one big ball of disapproval. This eliminates the timing problem by vanquishing all the rules Republicans want with one resolution rather than dozens. In the name of efficiency, it creates a process to erase the work of the last several months of the Obama presidency. With support from the Chamber of Commerce, the House passed the Midnight Rules Relief Act last week, inexplicably getting three conservative Democrats (Henry Cuellar, Collin Peterson and Kyrsten Sinema) to vote for it. Of course, Obama promised a veto, calling it unnecessary and arbitrary. But President Trump would eagerly sign this; reversing the thrust of Obama administration goals appeals to him. And Issa (or if hes gone, someone else) plans to reintroduce the bill after the inauguration. Unlike the CRA, the Midnight Rules Relief Act is an ordinary bill, meaning that its subject to the filibuster. So 41 committed Senate Democrats out of the 48 in the next Congress could prevent this from passing. That would seem likely, but Republicans could promise to shield certain coveted regulations or include others disfavored by moderate Senate Democrats to reach the 60-vote threshold. With 10 Democrats from states won by Trump up for re-election in 2018, its not out of the question. If the Issa bill passes, one vote would wipe out the efforts of thousands of executive branch bureaucrats and millions of hours of public input and review. It would effectively shorten the term of office of a president, much like the Senate did when it refused to even schedule a hearing for Obamas Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. If you want three-year terms for president and one year of paralysis, write a constitutional amendment. But the proliferation of end-runs to artificially limit the power of a particular branch of government are dangerous. Related: More Than 2 Million Government Jobs Under New Scrutiny by GOP Because our 18th-century governing structure is ill-suited to a partisan age, you get these aggressive power grabs. Democracies only work when there are clear lines of accountability, when everyone knows that their vote translates into decisions made on their behalf. When you lose that, voting becomes nothing more than an exercise in picking your favorite celebrity. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: Five schoolchildren have been killed after a bus hauling the kids from an elementary school crashed in Chattanooga, Tennessee, according to officials. Read: Brave Driver Saves 80-Year-Old Woman From Brutal Bus Beating The bus, which was carrying about 35 students from Woodmore Elementary School, crashed at about 2:30 p.m. The students on the bus ranged between kindergarten and fifth grade. Read: 23 High School Students Hospitalized After School Bus Flips Over on Highway At least 23 people were taken to local hospitals, according to the Chattanooga Fire Department. Photos from the scene showed the bus on its side and wrapped around a tree as firefighters worked to extricate students from the vehicle. Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher said the bus was the only vehicle involved in the crash. "Our hearts go out, as well as the hearts of all these people behind me, to the families, the neighborhood, the school, for all the people involved in this, we assure you we are doing everything we can," he said at a press conference. Authorities are interviewing the driver to determine what happened. Hamilton County Public Schools, including Woodmore Elementary, will be open Tuesday, and grief counselors will be on hand for students. I understand if parents feel it necessary to keep their students home from Woodmore Elementary today, but want to once again remind everyone that extra trained personnel will be there to counsel and aid anyone seeking assistance in dealing with this horrible tragedy, Hamilton County Public Schools Interim Superintendent Dr. Kirk Kelly said in a statement. "Our next step as a school system in the coming days, weeks, and months is to work to heal as a community, said Dr. Kelly. Watch: Bus Driver Saves Little Boy's Life After He Was Choking on Penny Related Articles: Moscow (AFP) - Bayer Leverkusen played out a 1-1 draw at CSKA Moscow on Tuesday to put the German club on the verge of qualifying for the Champions League knockout stages. Kevin Volland put Leverkusen ahead after 16 minutes before Israeli international Bibras Natcho converted a second-half penalty to snatch a draw for the Russian club. Leverkusen will be assured of qualifying if Monaco beat English club Tottenham in Group E later Tuesday. Bayer manager Roger Schmidt said he was pleased with a point. "It was a very intense match," he told a news conference. "I'm pleased that I made clear the importance of this match to my men and we looked really well in the first half. We opened the scoring and had chances to increase our lead. "But in the second half CSKA picked up steam and reversed the situation to pull the scores level. Hopefully, later today we will be able to find out how precious was the point that we've gained here." The visitors started in a lively fashion and in the eighth minute Hakan Calhanoglu squandered a chance for an opener sending the ball inches wide off the far left post with an angled low shot. CSKA replied with a shot by Alexander Golovin from the edge of the six-yard box, which was confidently denied by Bernd Leno. In the 16th minute Volland made CSKA pay for loss of concentration as he escaped an offside trap to latch on to a razor-sharp pass by Kevin Kampl, who fired the ball home from eight yards out past helpless 'keeper Igor Akinfeev. Alan Dzagoev, who has returned after two months out with injury, missed an opportunity to level just before the half-hour mark as his seven-yard volley flew just over the crossbar. Bayer skipper Omer Toprak also sent the ball into the net in the 39th minute but his goal was rightly ruled out for offside. After the break CSKA, who needed to win to keep alive their hopes for a place in the knockout stages, poured forwards and in the 69th minute Alexander Golovin failed to score from a rebound from just four yards out. But in the 76th minute Natcho pulled level from the spot after Bayer back Benjamin Henrichs fouled Mario Fernandes in the box. Volland could have restored the visitors' lead with 10 minutes to go but his curling close-range effort hit the woodwork and bounced back into play. Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f290492%2ffb7f2262402c46048c927c4c62348d91 In the wake of Donald Trump's election, many concerned voters have taken to personally lobbying Congress about the President-elect's cabinet picks. Informative guides on lobbying Congress like the "We're His Problem Now" Calling Sheet or Jezebel's piece on effective congressional lobbying (please look at these) have led to a surge of individual calls to representatives. None of them, however, give tips on how to bring up fun stuff like HBO's Westworld while you have them on the phone. SEE ALSO: Quotes from Trump's new chief strategist that will terrify you In a democracy, it's vitally important that you, as a concerned citizen, make these calls and put pressure on your representatives. Also though, I think that your representatives are people too and it would be nice of you to talk about something cool like HBO's Westworld while you've already got their attention. For example, you could say something like this: "Hello, this is [Your name], Im a resident of [Your district]. Im calling to ask if [Your congressperson] has a statement or plan for dealing with [Specific topic of concern]. Also, I was curious as to whether or not [Your congressperson] thinks the Westworld robot horses have the same software as the robot people and if all youd need to do is bump up their intelligence like Sylvester and Felix do for Maeve to make them talk." A house divided on fiscal policy and the 'Westworld' timeline theory. Image: Getty Images Going off script and being yourself is fine. Dont be nervous! This is your representative, they work for you and the rest of their constituents. Also, they arent lunatics theyre watching Westworld every Sunday at 9 p.m. and spending every episode wondering about the horses just like the rest of us. If, after being connected to a staff member of your representative, you dont receive a satisfying answer, ask to speak with a senior staffer. They should know more about the representatives stance and also are more likely to have an HBO Go account. Story continues Theres also a possibility that youll only be able to leave a message, in which case you should state your phone number, a brief outline of your question or concern and a detailed explanation of why you think Westworld has too many bad guys who wear hats and have black hair (very confusing). Call on your congressperson to speak out against injustice but also speak out against how many guys look like these guys on 'Westworld.' Image: HBO While individual lobbying is a great exercise in democracy, an in-person meeting with your representative is also possible. If you know a large group of people who share your views on your topic of concern, setting up a group visit to your congresspersons state office could bring about real change. Last week, I brought 300 friends to Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvanias Harrisburg office to express concerns about Steve Bannons appointment and also to ask him if he could reach out to HBO to find out if the maze in Westworld is a physical maze or more of a metaphorical maze because if its metaphorical a lot of us are going to feel ripped off. While Senator Casey wasnt able to speak with our group, he did end up condemning Bannons appointment. Also, those of us who drove together were able to talk about the maze thing and came to the conclusion that its probably a little bit of both, which is cool. Feel free to make this your desktop background. Image: mashable composite; hbo, getty images Remember, there is a human element to Washington that is often overlooked. Respect, brevity and an understanding of the process go a long way. So whether your representative shares your political beliefs or not, or if theyre one of those people who think Ford is a robot (dumb) or not (smart), its worth your time and effort to talk with them. NOTE: Mashable does not actually suggest you talk to your representatives about Westworld, this is a joke. Call them and talk about real things. It's important. As was announced before Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was released, the movie will be the first in a cycle of five films that tell one singular story, as decided by franchise creator (and Harry Potter author) J.K. Rowling. But after viewing the first pic, the question has to be asked: How many will involve the same characters? It's not merely that Fantastic Beasts more or less ties up the loose ends from its primary story by the time its credits roll - it helps that the film's central narrative is relatively simple, of course, consisting of the dual plots of "Will Newt find his missing monsters?" and "Will Percival Graves' plot to ignite a race war be successful?," neither of which are really in question considering the status quo of the latter Harry Potter world that fans know so well. But, beyond that, there's the fact that so much of the movie is spent setting up stories that purposefully don't play out in Beasts itself - and don't really include any of its central cast. It's noteworthy that the opening and closing of the movie center on Gellert Grindelwald, a villainous threat that, despite the Scooby Doo-esque climactic reveal, is essentially absent for the majority of the movie, yet purposefully left at the end gnashing metaphorical teeth and announcing that he'll be back. Of course he'll be back; that was obvious just from the simple fact of casting of Johnny Depp in the role in the first place - you don't bring him on as a villain just for three minutes of melodrama, although he certainly provides that. Similarly, Zoe Kravitz as Leta Lestrange is a genuinely nonsensical casting decision if it weren't for the sequels - why cast such a notable actress to play a photograph? Also lampshaded is the importance of Langdon Shaw, younger brother of murdered U.S. Senator Henry Shaw Jr., who gets a scene to rant about the existence of witches and wizards for no obvious reason other than foreshadowing. Read more: Every Magical Creature Ever Shown in a 'Harry Potter' Movie Rowling and director David Yates are clearly trying to set up the events of all future Fantastic Beasts stories in the first film, but what's interesting is how disconnected all of them are to the first movie's cast. Outside of contractual demands, what would bring Jacob Kowalski or Queenie Goldstein into what looks to be a large-scale story about conflict inside - courtesy of Grindelwald - and outside - via Shaw - magical New York society? Beyond tortured coincidence, why would Newt cross the Atlantic again at exactly the same time as the subsequent events take place? What, if anything, will any story featuring the existential threat of Grindelwald or Shaw have to do with the discovery or care of fantastic beasts of any sort? As beloved as the core foursome from the first movie may be - and at this point, who can even tell if that's the case - none of them have any personal connection into the threads left dangling by the first film, with the arguable exception of Tina and the missing Credence. Without that, not only would the mechanics of pushing them into each new story would become increasingly obvious, but the repeated appearance of the same characters randomly connected to major events would make the fictional world seem smaller when just the opposite should be true. It's possible - likely, even - that what lies ahead between Fantastic Beasts and the existing Harry Potter canon is on a scale that goes beyond the first movie (we already know that it involves Dumbledore, who just earned a mention in this initial installment) and builds out the mythology in a direction that abandons the quartet of leads from the first episode. There are many other stories to tell in the Wizarding World, after all. The question is, how long before the filmmakers realize that? Read more: 'Fantastic Beasts': 5 Things to Expect in the Sequel Deere & Co. (DE) is set to report its fiscal fourth-quarter financial results before the markets open on Wednesday. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters are calling for $0.40 in EPS and $5.38 billion in revenue. The same period from last year had $1.08 in EPS and $5.93 billion in revenue. The recent additional leg down in global grain prices as recently as August undermined the cyclical recovery prospects, while trends in the North American construction equipment market also remained disappointing. However the close of the U.S. presidential election has given rise to construction-related stocks, considering President-elect Trump is focused on building up infrastructure. ALSO READ: Cities Where You Don't Want to Get Sick Back in August, Merrill Lynch saw some risks to Deere in this quarter, namely a sharper-than-expected correction in the ag cycle, further deterioration in global grain prices, a worsening used-equipment price outlook, inability to raise prices to offset Final Tier 4 expenses, unfavorable regulatory policy toward farmers, slower than expected recovery in non-residential construction, and global recession. But seemingly a Trump presidency appears to be favorable for Deere. Ahead of the earnings report, a few analysts weighed in on Deere: Baird has a Neutral rating. RBC Capital has an Outperform rating. Mizuho has a Neutral rating. Oppenheimer has a Market Perform rating. JPMorgan reiterated an Underweight rating. Barclays has an Underweight rating with a $68 price target. Wells Fargo has an Outperform rating. Deutsche Bank has a Hold rating with a $90 price target. Piper Jaffray has an Underweight rating with a $70 price target. Jefferies has a Hold rating with an $85 price target. So far in 2016, Deere has outperformed the broad markets with the stock up 21% in this time. ALSO READ: America's Richest (and Poorest) States Shares of Deere were last trading at $92.21, with a consensus analyst price target of $85.21 and a 52-week trading range of $70.16 to $93.14. Related Articles Malaysia's government is attempting to quash political activism through new security laws and fresh arrests. But its critics say the extreme measures only reveal the extent of Prime Minister Najib Razak's authoritarian regime. Organized by the electoral reform group Bersih, thousands took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak over his alleged involvement in a grand corruption case. The rally drew as many as 40,000 protesters according to official estimates, but some claim the crowd was larger. This was the organization's fifth mass anti-government demonstration since 2007. At least 15 activists and members of the political opposition have since been arrested, including Bersih chairwoman Maria Chin Abdullah who was taken in under a new security law meant for terrorists. Passed in 2015, the controversial lawcalled the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act or SOSMAenables officials to arrest and detain people without a warrant and bail. A statement from the Barisan Nasional government released on Saturday also declared it was unlawful for parties to unseat a democratically-elected administration via street protests. This weekend's developments were widely seen as a fresh crackdown on anti-government critics following the introduction of the National Security Act in August, which enabled the government to establish martial law in any part of the country. "These crude attempts to intimidate Malaysian civil society activists and human rights defenders further damages [the] Barisan Nasional government....This clampdown on its critics is another sign of the Najib government's failed governance and bankrupt agenda," Bersih said in a statement on Saturday. "The arrests show that PM Najib is grasping at straws to stop the Bersih rally. The Malaysian authorities must immediately end the arbitrary arrest and harassment of Bersih members and supporters and refrain from impinging on their right to freedom of peaceful assembly," echoed Andrea Giorgetta of Paris-based human rights organization FIDH. Story continues Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told local media that more arrests were expected, from both Bersih and the pro-government Red Shirts group that staged a counter-rally on Saturday. The police classified both protests as illegal. Malaysia is increasingly creating a dangerous atmosphere for political freedoms, Claire Rewcastle Brown, founder of online publication The Sarawak Report, told CNBC's " The Rundown " on Monday. "Within the country, it is an intimidating situation for journalists, civil rights activities, and opposition politiciansbasically anyone who wants to speak the truth regarding 1MDB." The latest laws and arrests are aimed at shutting this story up, but it's not proving successful so far, she continued. "My site was banned for disseminating false information, but people still managed to access it, that's new media for you." The Sarawak Report has been a key chronicler of graft in Malaysia. Together with the Wall Street Journal in 2015, it launched an alarming expose, built around documents and emails, that reportedly showed the PM receiving $681 million from state investment fund 1 Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB. Investigations into the entire affair are on-going in six countries , including the U.S. and Switzerland, and have "raised issues of governance, accountability and transparency in Malaysia," Societe Generale economists said in a recent note. Rewcastle Brown and Abdallah have both faced the wrath of the government's aggressive crackdown on opponents, which have also included former attorney general Abdul Gani Patail and ex-deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin . Political strategists widely believed both were removed from their respective posts for being too critical of Najib. "Malaysia has asked Interpol to arrest and extradite me but again, but it's not getting much luck there," said London-based Rewcastle Brown. Abdallah, who spoke to CNBC on Friday before her arrest, said she had been receiving regular death threats. But despite the administration's suppressive mechanisms, both believe Malaysians would continue to protest. Najib's administration has claimed that Bersih rallies have only frustrated the country by producing a national political fatigue and while Abdallah did admit to some political weariness among the public, she said it did not curb people's enthusiasm to fight for a leadership change. "If we keep quiet and don't do anything, the consequences will be worse. We have to continue telling our government that this, the abuse of power and laws to silence dissent, cannot carry on," she stated on Friday. Najib his denied any wrongdoing and has been cleared by the country's new attorney general Mohamed Apandi Ali, who was appointed last year after his predecessor Patail was terminated. The 63-year old Najib has managed to weather the storm thus far thanks to the unflappable backing of elites who keep him in power but there is speculation he may call snap polls ahead of the June 2018 general election to retain his post. Should he proceed to do so, it would only further reveal the government's hypocrisy, according to Rewcastle Brown. "The parliamentary system that both Malaysia and Britain share enables the PM to call elections at any time, but it also behoves the PM to step down if his leadership stands under the kind of scrutiny that Najib faces now," she pointed out, noting that the British Prime Minister resigned following results of the U.K.'s Brexit referendum. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK, Nov 22 (Reuters) - A federal bankruptcy judge on Tuesday dismissed lawsuits by the trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff's firm to recoup funds from Koch Industries Inc, the company controlled by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, and dozens of other defendants. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stuart Bernstein in Manhattan said defendants in most of the 88 lawsuits could keep money that Irving Picard, who is liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, traced to the swindler but was sent outside the United States. Picard had sought to recover hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign entities that had received Madoff-linked money from other foreign transferees, including "feeder funds" operated by Fairfield Greenwich Group and Tremont Group Holdings, as well as the Kingate feeder funds. But in an 87-page decision, Bernstein dismissed a majority of Picard's claims against the "subsequent foreign transferees" because of international comity, the need to let other countries enforce their own laws. He also dismissed dozens of claims, including against affiliates of HSBC Holdings Plc and UBS Group AG , based on "extraterritoriality," because the defendants had insufficient ties with the United States. Bernstein cited a 2014 ruling by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan that Picard could not recoup "purely foreign subsequent transfers" because of a presumption that U.S. laws, including in bankruptcy, apply only within the United States. The bankruptcy judge let Picard pursue several other claims. Amanda Remus, a spokeswoman for Picard, said the trustee and his lawyers are reviewing the decision, and pending a thorough review are unable to discuss their next steps. Picard sued Koch to recoup $21.53 million allegedly sent by Madoff to Fairfield Sentry, a British Virgin Islands-based feeder fund, and then to a Koch entity in Great Britain. The trustee did not accuse Koch of wrongdoing, but said U.S. law entitled him to recoup sums that helped Madoff further his Ponzi scheme, even if recipients did not know about the fraud. Story continues Bernstein dismissed claims against Koch on comity grounds. Koch is a privately-held industrial conglomerate based in Wichita, Kansas. A spokesman, Rob Carlton, declined to comment. Charles and David Koch are each worth $42.7 billion, and tied as the world's ninth-richest people, Forbes magazine said. Picard has recouped $11.2 billion for Madoff customers, whom he has said lost $17.5 billion, in the nearly eight years since the swindler's December 2008 arrest. Madoff, 78, pleaded guilty to fraud in March 2009 and is serving a 150-year prison term. The case is Picard v. Bureau of Labor Insurance, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-ap-02732. The main Madoff bankruptcy case is Securities Investor Protection Corp v. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in the same court, No. 08-01789. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby) By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal bankruptcy judge on Tuesday dismissed lawsuits by the trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff's firm to recoup funds from Koch Industries Inc, the company controlled by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, and dozens of other defendants. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stuart Bernstein in Manhattan said defendants in most of the 88 lawsuits could keep money that Irving Picard, who is liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, traced to the swindler but was sent outside the United States. Picard had sought to recover hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign entities that had received Madoff-linked money from other foreign transferees, including "feeder funds" operated by Fairfield Greenwich Group and Tremont Group Holdings, as well as the Kingate feeder funds. But in an 87-page decision, Bernstein dismissed a majority of Picard's claims against the "subsequent foreign transferees" because of international comity, the need to let other countries enforce their own laws. He also dismissed dozens of claims, including against affiliates of HSBC Holdings Plc and UBS Group AG , based on "extraterritoriality," because the defendants had insufficient ties with the United States. Bernstein cited a 2014 ruling by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan that Picard could not recoup "purely foreign subsequent transfers" because of a presumption that U.S. laws, including in bankruptcy, apply only within the United States. The bankruptcy judge let Picard pursue several other claims. Amanda Remus, a spokeswoman for Picard, said the trustee and his lawyers are reviewing the decision, and pending a thorough review are unable to discuss their next steps. Picard sued Koch to recoup $21.53 million allegedly sent by Madoff to Fairfield Sentry, a British Virgin Islands-based feeder fund, and then to a Koch entity in Great Britain. Story continues The trustee did not accuse Koch of wrongdoing, but said U.S. law entitled him to recoup sums that helped Madoff further his Ponzi scheme, even if recipients did not know about the fraud. Bernstein dismissed claims against Koch on comity grounds. Koch is a privately-held industrial conglomerate based in Wichita, Kansas. A spokesman, Rob Carlton, declined to comment. Charles and David Koch are each worth $42.7 billion, and tied as the world's ninth-richest people, Forbes magazine said. Picard has recouped $11.2 billion for Madoff customers, whom he has said lost $17.5 billion, in the nearly eight years since the swindler's December 2008 arrest. Madoff, 78, pleaded guilty to fraud in March 2009 and is serving a 150-year prison term. The case is Picard v. Bureau of Labor Insurance, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-ap-02732. The main Madoff bankruptcy case is Securities Investor Protection Corp v. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in the same court, No. 08-01789. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby) Over half of Americans are optimistic about Republican Donald Trumps first term as president of the United States, a new poll found Monday. However, many are unsure about Trumps goals and vision for the country. A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 56 percent of those surveyed believe the real estate mogul is likely to have a successful first term while 39 percent think his first stint as POTUS will be unsuccessful. Voters had similar expectations during President Barack Obamas second term in 2012 but in 2008, 67 percent believed Obama would have a successful first term. Although 93 percent of Democrat Hillary Clintons supporters were unhappy that Trump won the 2016 election race, 58 percent said they are willing to give him a chance and see how he governs. But 39 percent of Clinton supporters said they couldnt see themselves giving Trump a chance because of the kind of person he has shown himself to be. Some voters (53 percent) also expressed their fear of a Trump presidency. The poll found that at least one in four voters feel either sad or scared about a Trump presidency. Ninety percent of Clinton supporters said they were uneasy about Trump in the Oval Office. Trump said in his acceptance speech that he would be a president for all Americans and 51 percent of voters believe he will stand by that statement. But 46 percent said he will give more priority to his supporters than the rest. As many as 48 percent of voters believe that Trump, who pitched himself as the anti-establishment candidate, would change Washington for the better but 25 percent believe that with Trump things may take a turn for the worse. Voters (49 percent) are also unsure of what exactly Trump has planned for the country. Trump, during the campaign, promised to deport an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. However, since winning the election, Trump has softened his stance saying initial deportation efforts would focus on immigrants convicted of crimes, drug dealers and gang members. Story continues While 20 percent of voters believe Trump should give top priority to healthcare, the real estate mogul noticeably did not mention any healthcare action in his video tweet Monday, in which he detailed his actions during his first 100 days in office. On the campaign trail, he vowed to immediately repeal the Affordable Care Act but, since his win, he has softened his stance saying he agreed with some provisions of Obamacare. The Pew Research poll was conducted between Nov. 10 and Nov. 14 among 1,254 people. Related Articles Nsanje (Malawi) (AFP) - An HIV-positive Malawian man who said he had sex with at least 100 girls and women in traditional cleansing rituals was sentenced Tuesday to two years in jail for "harmful practices". Eric Aniva, 45, was prosecuted on the orders of President Peter Mutharika after publicly speaking about his role as a "hyena" in a BBC radio documentary earlier this year. "I convict you to serve 24 months' imprisonment," judge Innocent Nebi told Aniva in a packed courtroom in the remote southern district of Nsanje. In the first case of its kind, Aniva was found guilty on two charges on Friday after a one-day trial. Custom in some parts of southern Malawi demands that a man, known as a "hyena", is paid to have sex with bereaved widows to exorcise evil spirits and to prevent other deaths occurring. At the request of a girl's parents, the "hyena" is also paid to have sex with adolescent girls to mark their passage to womanhood after their first menstruation. Aniva, who pleaded not guilty, told AFP immediately after the sentence: "I am disappointed because I thought I would be given a suspended sentence." The charges, brought under the gender equality act, involved sex with bereaved widows as none of the younger girls would testify. - International outcry - The ritual, which many Malawians say is rarely practised today, is believed to also train girls to become good wives and protect them from disease or misfortune that could fall on their families. "The convict had no regard to the feelings of widows, no regard to dignity of women and it is even doubtful that condoms were used," the judge said. "Such a culture has no place in Malawi." After an international outcry over the documentary, President Mutharika ordered Aniva's arrest in July. "This case represents the reality on the ground and is a breakthrough because the law has taken its course," Charles Mazenga, deputy director in the gender and children ministry, told AFP. Story continues He said Malawi had "passed a big test" and he hoped the punishment on Aniva "would help put sexual cleansing to its end." Malawi is one of the worst HIV-affected countries in the world, with 27,000 deaths from AIDS-related illnesses and nine percent of the adult population infected with the virus. Aniva faced a maximum five-year jail term, and his lawyers said they would launch an appeal. "This is a miscarriage of justice," said lawyer Michael Chipeta. "There were a lot of errors made in the conviction and sentencing." Aniva had told the BBC that he had slept with at least 104 women and girls, some as young as 12, in a ritual that lasts three days. He said each family paid him a fee of between $4 and $7. "As a country we have a lot of work to do in raising awareness on HIV and AIDS prevention and its impact," Maziko Matemba, director of the Health and Rights Education Program non-profit group, told AFP. "The sentencing has opened a new chapter." But, outside the court, local farmer Ganizani Ngololombe, 38, told AFP that the ritual of sexual cleansing by "hyenas" would not be easily stopped "because it is deeply rooted here." (Updates with detail, quote from CEO) KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Malaysia's Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd said on Tuesday it would rationalise its operations, which could lead to financial impairments and losses. This is to "address the inherent structural and financial issues weighing upon our business," the world's third largest palm plantation operator said in a statement late on Tuesday. "We will not be sentimental about our assets. Where we don't see a meaningful return, we shall cut our losses," said Chief Executive Zakaria Arshad. Earlier in the day, Felda reported a wider net loss for the third quarter ended September, largely due to lower crude palm oil production, a fall in earnings from its downstream segment and poor performance of a jointly controlled entity. Net loss came in at 94.9 million ringgit ($21.40 million), compared with 33.9 million ringgit a year earlier, while revenue fell to 4.19 billion ringgit from 4.51 billion ringgit. The company said it expected to post a full-year loss, and that higher CPO prices could compensate for lower crop production, but the upside could be limited by a narrower price discount against soyoil. Slower global growth and currency volatility due to a stronger dollar continue to affect the group, the company said. Felda said it would focus on consolidating its assets next year for sustainable returns, but that "there are still tough decisions to be made before the end of this year." The company, which has also interests in sugar, rubber and trading and logistics, had said in August that it was disposing its stake in a local insurance company. Felda shares closed 10.6 percent lower, underperforming a 0.1 percent gain in the benchmark stock index. ($1 = 4.4350 ringgit) (Reporting by Emily Chow; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu) Two weeks after Election Day, an American citizen has just found out who won the presidency. Read: Trump Lays Out First 100 Days in Office in New Video: My Plan Is to Put America First Georgia resident Joe Chandler says he couldn't wait for the election to come to an end. He went to extremes and on election night he decided he didn't want to know. Two weeks later, he was still in the dark. The artist said he has been wearing headphones to block any sound when he goes out, as well as a sign that reads: "I don't know who won and don't want to. Please don't tell me." "I liked the not knowing," he told Inside Edition. "I liked the solace, I liked the fact that all that noise and all that bickering just stopped for me." He did text his daughter Emily to ask if the race was close and she replied: Almost a tie, so exactly 50% of the people are really unhappy. But Im not telling which 50%!!" Chandler and his daughter went to Atlanta radio station Q-100 and finally found out who Barack Obamas successor is going to be. Read: 'Hamilton' Actor Says 'There is Nothing to Apologize For' Following His Remarks to Mike Pence I'm not doing this because I want to know. I'm doing it because I want to be able to go out and get a burger, he admitted. The radio station sealed a box filled with balloons in the studio. They would be red in the event of a Trump victory, and blue if Hillary had won. As the box was opened and the red balloons popped out, Chandler stayed surprisingly cool. "Oh look at all of those red balloons," he said. "I am hoping we look back and say this was the beginning of a better America," he added. Watch: Melania Trump Will Not Be Moving to the White House Until Barron Finishes School Year Related Articles: Photo credit: WXIA From Cosmopolitan Photo credit: WXIA In what is perhaps the most creative demonstration of Being a White Guy that the United States of America has ever seen, a gentleman from just south of Savannah, Georgia, is living in what he calls a "bubble of ignorance" by refusing to learn the results of the presidential election. While Joe Chandler said he was invited to watch the results of the election roll in like all other good citizens did, he declined - deciding, instead, to sleep. "All I wanted to do is give myself twenty-four hours of blissful ignorance," Chandler told the Today show Saturday in a Skype interview (it's hard for him to leave his home in post-election America). But then those 24 hours turned into two days, and into three days, and now Chandler has lived nearly two weeks in Trump's America without even knowing he's living in Trump's America. Chandler seems to be at peace in his cozy nest of white male security, and as long as he is inside of that nest, he is almost certainly aging more slowly than the rest of us. "Having subtracted myself from this political fracas and all of the mayhem of the digital media, I kind of found the center of the cyclone, it is very peaceful in my bubble of ignorance," he told Fox 5. How does Chandler pull off such a feat? It's simple, really. According to WXIA news, he works from home as an artist, making it easy to avoid contact with humans who are painfully aware of the hellscape that stands just on the other side of the new year. He's turned off his cellphone, avoids newspapers, and on his jaunts through town, wears headphones and a sign that reads: "I don't know who won, and don't want to. PLEASE DON'T TELL ME!" It certainly doesn't hurt that our favorite new bubble boy Joe Chandler is a white man, meaning he doesn't have to find out who won because it literally doesn't matter to him. He won't be forced to join any sort of registry, or be kicked out of the country for his undocumented status, or lose access to free birth control, should he ever decide to descend from his throne of White Male Ignorance and join the rest of us here in hell. Greetings from hell, Joe! It's so toasty down here. Story continues Chandler told WXIA he doesn't have an "exit plan" for safely exiting his privilege bunker and crawling back into the sentient world, but when he does finally find out who the next ruler of the free world is, he plans to finally reveal who he was "rooting for" all along. I sure do wish Joe Chandler would free us from this misery of not knowing who he wanted to win the presidency. I feel I can speak for everyone when I say not knowing the status of Joe Chandler's political beliefs is causing many a sleepless night across America. Follow Hannah on Twitter. You Might Also Like An Idaho man said he could only think of one person after he was hit by a car, fell 50 feet into freezing cold water and broke his leg: his infant son. Steven Arrasmith, 34, from Boise, Idaho, was making his two-hour commute to work around 6 a.m. Monday when he saw that the driver of a pickup truck had lost control after hitting a patch of black ice, according to KBOI. He pulled over to assist, but soon after the driver of another vehicle lost control on the ice and hit Arrasmiths car, which caused it to lurch forward. The impact threw him over the bridge into the Snake River. There was only one thing going through my mind, Arrasmith told the news outlet. I had to make it to shore to see my 7-month-old son. He says that he was able to hold onto the bridge railing for about five to 15 seconds before he fell into the river. Arrasmith was able to swim to a nearby island, but with a badly broken leg and bruised ribs he was unable to pull his legs and feet out of the icy water. The father, who shouted to get the first responders attention, was fully submerged in the water except for his head for five to ten minutes, KBOI reports. Arrasmith is currently in a local hospital and is expected to have surgery on his leg. hicourtweb P Mageswaran is facing one charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. (Yahoo file photo) A Singaporean man begged his godmother to lend him money in order to pay for his new flat in Johor, Malaysia. When 62-year-old Kanne Lactmy refused to do so, P Mageswaran, 49, decided to steal her valuables while he was in her Yishun flat in December 2013. He was caught red-handed by Kanne and in an attempt to silence her, Mageswaran allegedly strangled and suffocated his victim to death. Mageswaran pleaded not guilty to one charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder before Judicial Commissioner Ho Sheau Peng in the High Court on Tuesday (22 November). Various media reports said that Kanne was Mageswarans godmother and that the accused had worked for the womans son, Balasubramaniam Chinapan, previously. In his opening address, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Wong Kok Weng said that Mageswaran needed RM 5,000 ($1,612) to pay for a deposit for his new flat in Johor. The court heard that at about 8.35 am on 9 December 2013, Mageswaran arrived at Kannes flat in Yishun where he asked for a loan of $2,000 to $3,000 from her. She rejected him, saying that she did not have enough money. While Kanne was in the kitchen toilet to brush her teeth, Mageswaran quickly walked around the flat to look for valuables to steal. The accused entered the master bedroom and forced open a locked wardrobe where he found a box of jewellery valued at about $10,000. At that point, Kanne entered the room and saw him holding on to the box. She demanded that Mageswaran return the jewellery but the accused refused and pleaded with her to let him take the box. After Kanne threatened to call her son, Mageswaran pushed his victim onto the floor, DPP Wong said. Mageswaran used a pillow to suffocate Kanne with one hand while he strangled her with his other hand for about four minutes. Mageswaran then released his grip on the deceaseds neck but continued pressing the pillow on her face with both hands for another six or seven minutes until she stopped struggling, DPP Wong added. The accused placed the box of jewellery into his bag and left for Johor via a bus. He later pawned the jewellery for RM 26,300. It was not revealed in court where and when he was arrested. Looking expressionless as his charge was read to him in Tamil, Mageswaran kept his head bowed throughout the proceedings. The trial will resume on Wednesday (23 November). If found guilty, he faces a lifetime in jail and caning. ROME Martin Scorseses passion project Silence, about Portuguese Jesuit missionaries in 17th-century Japan, is set to be screened at the Vatican this month for an audience comprising several hundred Jesuit priests, ahead of its initial U.S. release via Paramount on Dec. 23. The Vatican screening, which is the long-gestating films de facto world premiere, is likely to have been sought, and certain to be welcomed, by Paramount. News of the Vatican Silence screening was first reported by The New York Times, based on an interview with Scorsese. Variety has learned that the screening is almost certainly scheduled for Nov. 29. Scorsese has said he will attend. It is considered unlikely, though not impossible, that Pope Francis, a Jesuit himself, will be in the audience. The Vatican is known to promote faith-based films in various ways. In 2003 Pope John Paul endorsed Mel Gibsons The Passion of the Christ after seeing the film in a private screening. Silence, which is based on a novel by Japanese author Shusaku Endo, is about two Portuguese Jesuit priests, played by Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield, who must contend with various forms of persecution, including torture, while traveling through Japan to proselytize locals and track down their mentor, played by Liam Neeson. While its not unusual for new faith-based films to screen in Vatican City for audiences largely made up by clergy, its rare for the Vatican to become the first place where an upcoming Hollywood release gets its first public screening. It happened once before, in 2006, when The Nativity Story, directed by Catherine Hardwicke and produced by New Line, world-premiered in the roughly 7,000-seat Paul VI Hall next to St. Peters with Hardwicke and the films cast in tow. Several high-ranking cardinals were present, though then-Pope Benedict XVI did not attend. The Silence screening will be a more low-key affair, in a smaller Vatican City venue. No cast members are expected to be present. Story continues In 2015, a Pope Francis biopic produced in Italy titled Call Me Francesco world-premiered in the Paul VI Hall for an audience that included Romes homeless, parishioners of all ages from throughout the Eternal City, and nuns and priests from many different Roman Catholic orders. The last Hollywood production to get a Vatican screening was the Angelina Jolie-directed war drama Unbroken, which has a strong spiritual component. It unspooled last year at the Vaticans Pontifical Academy for Sciences for high-ranking Vatican prelates following its theatrical release. Jolie met briefly with Pope Francis after the Vatican screening, which he did not attend. Related stories Martin Scorsese Joins American Cinematheque Salute to Irwin Winkler 'Taxi Driver,' 'Raging Bull' Cinematographer: 'Great Cinema Need Not Be Beautiful' 'Mission: Impossible 6' Gets Summer 2018 Release Date Martin Scorsese's highly anticipated new film Silence will premiere at the Vatican, having its first public screening in front of an audience of several hundred Jesuits and invited guests. The film opens Dec. 23 in New York and Los Angeles and nationwide in January. Based on the novel by Shusaku Endo, Silence follows two Portuguese Jesuit priests (Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver) who are tortured and persecuted when they travel to Japan to find their mentor (Liam Neeson) and spread Christianity. Scorsese will attend the Vatican screening, as he recently revealed in a New York Times profile. It is not known if Pope Francis, himself a Jesuit, will attend the screening, but it is likely that Scorsese will have a chance to meet with the pontiff, either in a prearranged meeting or during the pope's weekly meetings with the public. Although it is rare that the Pope attends an event like a film screening, Pope Francis has been much more open about public appearances. He is set to make his feature film debut in Beyond the Sun, the first time ever a Pope will appear in a narrative film. Beyond the Sun is a family adventure meant to tell the story of the Gospels in several tales. The Vatican holds screenings for films with a topical concern for the Church. Last year, Angelina Jolie's spiritual film Unbroken played for Vatican members. And the Vatican commission to end child abuse held a private screening of Spotlight for its members in February. The Pope Francis biopic Call Me Francis premiered at the Vatican last December to an audience of refugees and homeless, who were given a bag lunch at the screening. In 2006, Catherine Hardwicke's The Nativity Story had its world premiere at the Vatican with cast in tow. Pope Francis has rarely spoken publicly about film, but he is a fan of Italian neorealist cinema. He has said that one of his favorite films is Federico Fellini's La Strada, a story in which he draws parallels to the wandering life of his namesake St. Francis of Assisi. Read more: Pope Francis to Make Feature Film Debut in 'Beyond the Sun' NAIROBI (Reuters) - Mauritian bank group SBM Holdings will acquire full ownership of Kenya's Fidelity Bank, a small lender, in a deal valued at 100 shillings ($0.98), SBM said on Tuesday. SBM said in a filing with the Mauritian bourse that it would inject 1.45 billion shillings of fresh capital into Fidelity, once the deal gets all the required regulatory approval. "The acquisition is in line with SBMH's regional expansion strategy into East Africa," SBM said in the filing. The Kenyan central bank said the deal was expected to be completed by the end of this year. "SBM Group will bring its experience and expertise from Mauritius and other markets, to enhance competitiveness and the resilience of Kenya's banking sector," the central bank said. Fidelity, which started operating as a commercial bank 20 years ago, has 14 branches in Kenya and is ranked 31 out of 41 Kenyan lenders by market share, with 0.39 percent, the central bank said. SBM Group, which operates one of the Indian Ocean island nation's leading commercial banks, SBM Bank, had assets of $4.2 billion as of September. It also operates in India and Madagascar. Analysts say rising bad debts, the capping of commercial lending rates and weaknesses in corporate governance exposed by the collapse of two lenders in the past year and a half, have made the Kenyan banking sector ripe for consolidation. "CBK (Central Bank of Kenya) welcomes the interest of foreign banks that will contribute to the emergence of a world-class financial sector," the central bank said. ($1 = 101.8000 Kenyan shillings) (Reporting by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Mark Potter) From Esquire Photo credit: The Washington Postundefined Does anything strike you about this picture? That's the president-elect and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an anti-immigration hardliner whom he is considering for the Secretary of Homeland Security post. If you squint a bit, you can see that the future defender of our homeland is unintentionally leaking his confidential plan by posing with it for a photoshoot. And if you look even closer, you can see that "PLAN FOR FIRST 365 DAYS" in all its grotesque glory: Hey @nytimes, if you havent assigned all your reporters to the @kanyewest announcement yet maybe put one on this. pic.twitter.com/wpZ756iUFH - Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) November 21, 2016 While much of the text is obscured, we can make out a few bullet points quite clearly: "Update and reintroduce the NSEERS screening and tracking system (National Security Entry-Exit Registration System) that was in place from 2002-2005. All aliens from high-risk areas are tracked." (Editor's note: The system, put in place following 9/11, was shelved in 2011 because it was ineffective, costly, and often seen as harassment.) "Add extreme vetting questions for high-risk aliens: question them regarding support for Sharia law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution." "Reduce the intake of Syrian refugees to zero." Farther down the page, things are murkier. The next header appears to call for some course of action for a "record number of criminal aliens in the first year." Later, a plan for that famous wall along the southern border with Mexico invokes the PATRIOT Act. What could go wrong? The Council on Islamic-American Relations has already "expressed alarm at Kobach's plan," according to his homestate Topeka Capital-Journal, calling the proposed extreme vetting process "inquisition-style questions." A spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper, was unsurprised, however: "I think this is unfortunately in line with the actions we've seen from President-Elect Trump's transition team," he told the paper. Story continues According to an NBC News report last week, Kobach expressly supports a Muslim registry and "believes Trump can take action immediately with the swipe of a pen." The report continues: "In an interview with Reuters this week, Kobach said Trump's immigrant transition team proposed drafting executive actions to reinstate a post-9/11 era program that registered immigrants and visitors from countries designated as havens for extremist activity." That appears to be reflected in the NSEERS section of the plan Kobach exposed today. According to TPM, Kobach designed the original program as a lawyer in George W. Bush's Justice Department. Photo credit: undefined That NBC story also sheds some light on the connection between the border wall and the PATRIOT Act. Kobach has been a policy adviser to Trump for some time, and engineered his most specific plan to get Mexico to pay for the wall: Using a provision of the PATRIOT Act to prevent Mexican nationals in the U.S. from sending money home to their families. It would essentially be a hostage scheme to force the Mexican government, under pressure from their expats and the families dependent on them, to accept Trump's demands. Trump alluded to the plan at various points during the campaign. TPM also suggests a line farther down reading, "Draft Amendments to National Voter..." may refer to the National Voter Registration Act. That federal law has blocked Kobach's voter suppression initiatives at the state level multiple times. Judges have ruled that "his attempts to require Kansans to show documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote" are in violation of the NVRA. All this citing of post-9/11 legislation is a reminder of the pitfalls of rapidly expanding executive authority in the wake of a traumatic event. Kobach, of course, has a strong record of cooking up legal justifications for extreme right-wing policy. He wrote Arizona's infamous "papers, please" immigration law, and has waged war on voting rights in his own state. His role in crafting Trump's more detailed nativist policies seems to be greater even than previously known. We'll all have to wait and see what his hand was covering on that paper. This post has been updated. You Might Also Like The alt-right isn't just a U.S. phenomenon. Worldwide, upstart online sites modeled on the Breitbart News strategy of current affairs and commentary posts, conspiracy theories and click-bait headlines have made inroads, riding a wave of nationalist and anti-globalization sentiment and benefiting from the increasing importance of social media. "My sense is [these sites] are not getting a huge amount of traction at the moment, because national news media tends to be stronger in countries [outside the U.S.] and social media use is lower," says Nic Newman from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in London. "But it's rising fast. In the U.K., we found among 18-24 year-olds, around a quarter use social media as their primary source of news. A few years ago, it was around 1 percent-2 percent. And social media use fuels these sites, giving visibility to more extreme, ferocious views." Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election and the appointment of former Breitbart CEO Stephen Bannon as chief strategist for the new administration has given heart to these sites - from Brazil, to Germany, Japan to Canada (yes, even Canada) - to up their rhetoric and push for a Trump-like uprising at home. Oh and Breitbart itself, which has already launched outlets in Israel and the U.K., has announced plans to roll out in both France and Germany ahead of elections in those two countries in 2017. Read more: Inside the "War Room" as Breitbart CEO Claims "Smear Campaign From Mainstream" Here is THR's look at Breitbart or similar operations in various countries: France Fdesouche.com, SOS Racisme Anti-White Fdesouche.com is the cornerstone of the French alt-right, aggregating stories about immigration, Islam and crime. "16 Gypsies Rob Tourists at the Eiffel Tower" is a typical headline. The site is generally tamer than Breitbart but serves as the public face for a wide spectrum of more extreme French alt-right outlets, including Brujitafr.fr (sample headline: "President Obama to unleash devastating solar storm before Trump takes office") and popular Facebook site SOS Racisme Anti-White, which recently posted a meme of mugshots of Islamic terrorists with the headline: "Juppe's government cabinet 2017," referring to the centrist conservative politician Alain Juppe, one of the candidates for the French presidency in next year's elections. Story continues In Paris, the government has been proactive in combating these and other conspiracy theory sites, launching its own website on how to detect and dissect fake news. U.K. Breitbart London Alt-right sites have had a tough time gaining traction in the Britain, in part because the country's notorious tabloids already occupy much of the same space (a columnist for top tab The Daily Mail, for example, advocated for gun boats to shoot refugees trying to flee across the Mediterranean to Europe). But a British version of Breitbart, launched in 2015, has seen readership jump 135 percent year-over-year and boasted 15 million page views in July, giving it a bigger reach than Vice Media in the U.K. There are also political ties: Breitbart London's Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam is a former adviser to Nigel Farage, the face of the Brexit campaign and an adviser on Trump's campaign. Germany Politically Incorrect Founded by German teacher Stefan Herre in 2004 to combat "anti-Americanism" following the re-election of George W. Bush, Politically Incorrect saw its popularity surge following the Muhammad cartoons controversy as it shifted its coverage, becoming overtly anti-Islamic. The site sells "Islamophobic and proud" T-shirts. It openly backs Alternative for Germany (AfD), an anti-immigration and anti-European Union party expected to make major gains in next year's national elections. Hungary Kuruc.info Registered in California, this Hungarian-language site (named after the rebels who fought for independence in the late 17th and early 18th centuries), includes news categories such as "gypsy-crime," "migrant crime" and "Jewish crime" and regularly posts racist anti-Semitic and gypsy jokes in its "humor" section. Kuruc recently posted a story about Hungarian Son of Saul actor Geza Rohrig doing a photo shoot for New York department store Barneys under the headline "Auschwitz fashion plate." Read more: Tim Allen: Hollywood "Hypocritical" for Bashing Trump as a "Bully" The Netherlands GeenStijl One of the top 10 news sites in The Netherlands, GeenStijl (literally "without style") is more prankster than political - it's staged several media hoaxes, including a famous () claim that it would bus in voters to unseat a prominent politician facing reelection. But the site has been criticized for allowing xenophobic and racist comments to flourish in its comments section. GeenStijl is infamous for using a variety of terms, many invented by editors and readers, to refer to immigrants. Japan Hoshu-Sokuho The Hoshu-Sokuho ("Conservative Bulletin") website acts as the mouthpiece for the country's Net-uyoku ("Internet-Right"), a small but vocal ultra-nationalist minority whose main preoccupations include the evils of China, South Korea and domestic liberals. Among its recent articles was a report claiming that Fuji TV - part of the country's largest conservative broadcast and print media group - has been infiltrated by Koreans who are inserting subliminal anti-Japanese messages in its programs. It has reveled in Trump's victory and ran the entire article, with a Japanese translation, from the American Spectator that claimed Hillary Clinton had a meltdown on election night. Canada The Rebel Liberal Canada's Breitbart copy is The Rebel. Launched by popular TV talk show host Ezra Levant last year after Canada's Fox News equivalent, Sun News Network, shut down, The Rebel mostly avoids race-baiting, but it is anti-immigrant and often anti-Islam, and it regularly posts climate change denials. "Hole in the ozone layer" hoax was the dry run for "global warming," said a recent headline, and The Rebel enjoys taunting the "liberal elite." Post-election, the site carried an op-ed addressed to anti-Trump celebrities, telling them not to emigrate north. "We have more than our share of left-wing loonies here," it said. Australia DingoTwitter Down under, racist memes and anti-immigration rhetoric has found an online home under the hashtag #DingoTwitter and related video podcast @TheDingoes', which has attracted mainstream media attention for provocative statements about Aboriginal Australians. For example, it has said that they "belong to a separate species and must be segregated...to restrict their atavistic dark energies." It has also said that Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is "a merchant banker, and his mother was likely Jewish." Brazil RodrigoConstantino.com Right-wing blogger and fervent libertarian Rodrigo Constantino deliberately modeled his brand of populist, politically incorrect commentary on Breitbart. His posts have slammed feminists, called affirmative action a form of racism and pushed for harsher prison sentences for teenagers. But Constantino found his cause as the figurehead of The Free Brazil movement, dedicated to attacking Brazilian Prime Minister Dilma Rousseff ("the great villain of our country"). When Brazil's Senate impeached Rousseff on corruption charges, Constantino claimed his first major scalp. Rhonda Richford in Paris and Gavin Blair in Tokyo contributed to this report. Read more: Anti-Defamation League Slams Donald Trump's Appointment of Stephen Bannon Meredith Vieira is putting her weight behind Tower, an innovative documentary about one of the countrys first mass shootings. The former host of The View and Today has signed on as executive producer on the film and has been doing her part to draw attention to the project. Tower focuses on the 1966 murders at the University of Texas and combines interviews with people who were on campus as Charles Whitman opened fire on students and residents from his perch atop a clock tower, with animated recreations of the carnage. By the time police killed the gunman, 16 people were dead and dozens were wounded. The event shattered a sense of innocence in the country and raised the specter of mass violence; its an issue that Americans continue to grapple with as the death toll rises in places like Newtown, Columbine, and Orlando. Keith Maitland directs the picture, which is currently in limited release. Vieira talked with Variety about gun violence, her involvement in the project, and the post-presidential election hangover. Why was it important that the film be animated? When I was told about the animation, I was slightly indignant. I thought it would never work. Not with a topic as serious as this. But its a very powerful tool. I was incredibly moved by the use of the technique. It was the only way to give the sense of immediacy and put you there. The animation plays up the surreal quality of that day. Why tell this story now? I was 13 when the shooting happened, so I had a memory of it, but not a strong memory of it. I couldnt recall how many people were shot. I just knew there had been a shooting in a tower in Texas. The more I learned about it, the more it became clear that the victims had never told their story. We knew a lot about the shooter, but not the people on the ground. One of my favorite moments in the film is theres a college student who says, I learned that day that Im a coward. Im glad thats included because peoples reactions that day ranged from true heroism to what she was expressing. I dont know where I would fall. Story continues I think Id be a coward. I think I would, too. I would hope that Im not, but I totally understand the instinct to save yourselves. When 9/11 happened, I was at The View. Up until then Id had 20 years as a journalist. My instinct that day was to run toward my family. To get my kids. Not to run toward the towers. That told me a lot about myself that day. A few years earlier, before I had a family, I would have gone to the towers. Why hadnt the people who witnessed the Texas shootings told their stories? Was the media different then in terms of how it covered a story? Im not sure if it was the news media. Certainly if it happened today the coverage would have been blanketed. There were snippets and some archival footage, but most of it was from a great distance. For the most part, nobody wanted to talk about it. People wanted to brush it under the carpet. Nothing like this had ever happened. Nobody thought you would be on a college campus and be shot. Once it was over, people wanted to put it behind them and there may not have been the emphasis on talk that there is now. Do you want this film to make a statement about gun control or gun laws? Keith didnt want to politicize the situation. It wasnt about the politics of gun rights. It was to tell the story of the folks that were on the ground. To humanize them and to give them their day. The hope is to provoke conversation on both sides. No matter how you feel about guns and gun control, Second Amendment rights, I dont think anybody feels its okay to shoot students on a campus. Its to keep the dialogue going. Too often we talk across each other and dont listen to the other side. We need to keep the conversation happening, because I dont think this is going to end. I wish it would. The film barely includes a mention of Charles Whitman, the name of the shooter. Was that a conscious decision? A lot was known about the shooter, because so many questions were asked about why he did that. Keith felt that he didnt want to focus on him. The people on the ground that he shot, they didnt know who he was or why he did what he did. They were just walking to class or delivering newspapers or whatever. That was the story he wanted to tell. There is some debate about how much information you should publish about a shooter. Should you give them more attention by stating their names or writing about their backgrounds. Do you think there is value in trying to understand what motivates these killers? Of course, I worry about copycats. But as a journalist Ive always been taught that you tell the truth and relay facts and one of the facts would be, who is the person. Motivation is a curious thing, so I would air on the side of getting as much info as you can and knowing full well that may spark someone else to behave similarly. The past presidential election was very hard-fought and consequential. Did you feel any urge to cover a big story like that? Not really. I didnt want to get back into the fray. This has been a very difficult election cycle for me, and Im not talking about because Donald Trump won. There was such ugliness that came out. Almost from day one there was something dirty about it, and sad about it, and worrisome. What happened to me is I developed anxiety. I never binge watch stuff, and I started binge watching things. I think I was trying to escape it. Are you still feeling anxious? Totally. How many days are we since the election and already youre seeing signs that are very divisive about who may or may not be in the cabinet and the tweeting. Donald Trump said he was going to bring us together, and I dont sense thats happening. Theres such unrest in the country, and I get it on both sides. I want to believe that well work through it because we always have, but Im just not sure. You recently participated in a reunion on The View. What was it like to go back? It was lovely. Its a little like riding a bike. You get out there and you do your thing, and we did our thing the way we would have done it 20 years ago. Im just sorry Barbara Walters couldnt be at the reunion, because she was the one that most deserved a seat at that table. Related stories 'Eagle Huntress,' 'O.J.: Made in America' Among Producers Guild Documentary Film Nominees SXSW Winner 'Tower' Gets October Release SXSW: Grappling With Technology and Violence, On Screen and Off American military personnel can now carry privately owned, concealed weapons at defense facilities, the Pentagon said in recent directive. The decision was taken following a spate of fatal shootings in the last 10 years on U.S. military bases. The directive was issued Friday and was reportedly approved by Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work. Personnel not less than 21 years of age can apply to carry concealed firearms. Commanders with ranks O-5 and above may grant permission to DoD [Department of Defense] personnel requesting to carry a privately owned firearm [concealed or open carry] on DoD property for a personal protection purpose not related to performance of an official duty or status, the directive read. Written permission will be valid for 90 days or as long as the DoD Component deems appropriate and will include information necessary to facilitate the carrying of the firearm on DoD property consistent with safety and security, such as the individual's name, duration of the permission to carry, type of firearm, etc., it said. Previously, military officials were not allowed to carry personal weapons on bases. However, following a series of deadly shootings at military bases led authorities to change the policy. It was after the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood in Texas where former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan gunned down 13 people that officials worked toward authorizing personnel to carry their personal firearms at military installations. Last July, four Marines and a sailor were killed in attacks at a recruiting station and Navy reserve center in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Authorities reportedly suspected international terrorism influenced the attack. Related Articles By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Award-winning "Hamilton" musical creator Lin-Manuel Miranda swaps the politics of 18th century Washington for the charms of Polynesia in the Disney animated movie "Moana." Miranda, 36, worked with musicians from the South Pacific to create original songs for the movie about a plucky teenage girl who sets sail on an epic journey to help save her tribe. Miranda spoke with Reuters about "Moana," which opens in U.S. movie theaters on Wednesday, and his work as an actor on the upcoming "Mary Poppins" movie sequel. The interview took place before Friday's performance of "Hamilton" in New York at which U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence was booed by some in the audience and the cast of the play - with Miranda's support - urged Pence to "work on behalf of all of us." President-elect Donald Trump said the cast owed Pence an apology. Following are edited excerpts of the Miranda interview. Q: What were you eager to capture of the Pacific Island community when you were working with Samoan-born musician Opetaia Foa'i and his band Te Vaka? A: We all went into this keenly aware that this is a part of the world that isn't represented on screen very much so you want the people who live there to see the movie and say hey, that's us, and with pride. Opetaia took the lead on the rhythms and harmonies ... I'm Ginger Rogers - he leads the dance and I write lyrics, I write melodies. Q: Which was your favorite song? A: The one that represents our collaboration the best is "We Know The Way." We started writing that the weekend we met. We met in New Zealand (and) we went to this Pacifica music festival where we heard choirs from all over the different islands. Q: How has life been post-"Hamilton?" A: I love the subway in New York. I think it's a national treasure. I did a lot of writing on the train. For a while, I couldn't take the train without someone sitting next to me and talking to me ... (Now) I'm working on a movie in London. I can walk around with my son (and) it's not a big deal, so it's nice to have that back. Q: Speaking of "Mary Poppins," what can you tell us about your character Jack? Will we be hearing a Cockney accent? A: You're going to hear the worst accent you've ever heard in your life! You're not going to know what country I'm from. It's going to sound like I came from another planet! Q: You've worked on "Star Wars" music for "The Force Awakens" and you're involved in Disney's princess world with "Moana" and "Little Mermaid." Any Marvel comic characters? A: I'm a Marvel buff. I grew up reading those comic books. If they ever do a "Maximum Carnage" storyline, I want dibs on Carnage. (Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Bill Trott) Donald Trump Mitt Romney Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is President-elect Donald Trump's top choice to lead the State Department in his administration, according to The Wall Street Journal. Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president, met with Trump over the weekend. Sources familiar with the transition team's deliberations told The Journal that Trump is leaning toward picking him for secretary of state. But the decision is not yet set in stone according to The Journal, some in Trump's orbit want him to instead pick former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was viewed as the early front-runner for the post. Others want him to look at candidates aside from those two. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a top Trump ally, hinted on Monday that he viewed Giuliani as the stronger pick. "That entirely is a question of the president-elect and deciding whether in fact Romney would be willing to be his secretary of state or in fact Romney would work to make Trump Romney's version of the presidency," Gingrich said. He added: "I think they've got to talk it through. I am for whoever the president-elect picks. I think there are huge advantages to Rudy Giuliani, frankly. I think that if you want someone who is going to go out and be a very tough negotiator for America and represent American interest in the way that Trump campaigned, I think that probably Rudy is a better pick and has the right temperament." Giuliani was one of Trump's earliest supporters, while Romney became one of Trump's most vocal critics throughout the campaign. Romney spoke out against Trump frequently and refused to endorse him despite Trump endorsing Romney in 2012. Romney declined to say whom he voted for in the general election. Trump also torched Romney during the campaign, calling him a "spoiled brat" and "nasty guy." After the election, Romney said on Twitter he wished Trump the best. Other developments on Tuesday indicate Trump's Cabinet is starting to take shape. He said he's "seriously considering" retired neurosurgeon and former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson for secretary of housing and urban development. Story continues The Journal also reported that Trump was likely to name retired Marine Gen. James Mattis as secretary of defense, and favors South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as a candidate for US ambassador to the United Nations. NOW WATCH: 'HOLD UP!': Watch Obama defend a Trump protester and scold the crowd at a Clinton rally More From Business Insider Tehran (AFP) - More than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria have been killed in the conflict, the head of Iran's veterans' affairs office said Tuesday. "The number of martyrs from our country defending the shrines has now passed 1,000," Tasnim news agency quoted Mohammad Ali Shahidi Mahalati, the head of Iran's Foundation of Martyrs' and Veterans' Affairs, as saying. Iran has sent military advisers, as well as volunteer fighters recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to work with Assad's forces. They are known in Iran as "defenders of the shrines" in reference to Shiite holy sites in Syria. Shahidi did not specify the nationalities of those killed. Shiite Iran is a staunch supporter of Assad and provides both financial and military support for his regime. The Fatemiyoun Division of Afghan recruits organised by Iran comprises the majority of volunteers sent from Iran to fight in Syria and Iraq. Iran says they are sent to fight against Sunni extremists such as the Islamic State group (IS). The Islamic republic denies having any boots on the ground in Syria, and insists its commanders and generals of the elite Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations wing act as "military advisers" both there and in Iraq. Iranian media regularly report on the death in Syria of Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani "martyrs" whose bodies are buried in Iran. The latest death toll is significantly higher than previous tallies, although no overall figures have been officially announced so far. In August, Shahidi said Iran's Foundation of Martyrs' and Veterans' Affairs was caring for 400 people related to fighters killed in action in Syria and Iraq, half of them Afghans. "We immediately cover (the families) that the Quds Force announces to us," he said, according to ILNA news agency, referring to the Guards' foreign operations wing headed by Major General Qassem Suleimani. Story continues "We are waiting for the Quds Force to confirm the martyrdom" of more fighters, "so we can cover their families too," he said at the time. Iran in May passed a law allowing the government to grant citizenship to the families of foreigners killed while fighting for the Islamic republic. The law could apply to volunteers from Afghanistan and Pakistan who are fighting in Syria and Iraq against jihadists including those from IS. Aden (AFP) - Renewed clashes between Yemeni government forces and rebels killed more than 40 people Tuesday, military officials said, a day after a fragile 48-hour ceasefire expired without halting the violence. Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi repelled an attack by Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies on the western outskirts of Taez city, the officials said. The attack that began late Monday targeted the Al-Dhabab area, which provides pro-Hadi forces with their only access to the flashpoint city of 300,000 people that is surrounded by insurgents. Warplanes from the Saudi-led Arab coalition took part in operations to repel the attack, officials said. Military officials also reported heavy artillery fire in an eastern suburb of Taez as pro-Hadi forces pressed a campaign to wrest back control of a presidential palace, police headquarters and an air defence base from the Huthis. Eleven rebel fighters and five pro-government soldiers were killed in the clashes around the southwestern city, they said. In northwest Yemen, fighting around the coastal town of Midi cost the lives of 18 rebels and four soldiers, a loyalist commander on the ground, Abdel Ghani Chebli, told AFP. Rebel sniper fire on Monday night killed three soldiers as the Huthis tried to advance on Midi's harbour, which is controlled by pro-Hadi forces. In the Saudi border town of Najran, a Yemeni civilian was killed and seven other non-Saudis were wounded by rebel shelling from Yemen, the Saudi civil defence said. Cross-border fire from Yemen has killed dozens of people in Saudi Arabia since March 2015. The coalition and the rebels have traded blame over violations of the ceasefire which came into effect on Saturday after US Secretary of State John Kerry intervened. It was the latest international attempt to end Yemen's 20-month conflict, which the United Nations says has killed more than 7,000 people and wounded nearly 37,000. The Huthis overran the capital Sanaa and other parts of the impoverished country in September 2014, prompting the coalition to intervene six months later in support of Hadi. Story continues In the southern city of Aden, an airport security officer, Colonel Abdel Rahim Samahi, was gunned down outside his home in an attack, a security official said Tuesday. The Islamic State group said it killed Samahi, the US-based SITE Intelligence Group reported. In recent months, IS and Al-Qaeda have stepped up attacks on Aden and south Yemen where loyalist forces have struggled to dismantle jihadist groups. Moscow (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday accused the UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura of "sabotaging" a resolution backing peace talks between the regime and opposition. "The United Nations in the form of its special representative Staffan de Mistura has been sabotaging the resolution for more than six months," Lavrov said in televised remarks while on a visit to Minsk. The resolution calls for "holding inclusive Syrian talks without preconditions," Lavrov said. "It seems there is no other way except for the patriotic opposition and the government to take the initiative into their own hands and organise Syrian dialogue," he said. UN Security Council Resolution 2254 adopted in December 2015 proposed the establishment of a body to head the political transition. But it has been plagued by disagreements over the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom the Syrian opposition does not want to see in any future role. In January and February, de Mistura oversaw indirect talks which were cut short as the opposition denounced the regime's offensive in northern Syria that was bolstered by Russia's forces. Despite efforts to relaunch the talks in April, they eventually collapsed when the opposition announced it would not formally participate as long as government forces bomb civilians. Russia has been flying air raids in Syria since September 30, 2015, intervening on the request of Assad, Moscow's longtime ally. Getty Image Preteens and teens may have mastered the use of social media to eerie proficiency but they reportedly have trouble sorting out reputable news sources. The Wall Street Journal details a Stanford University study, which found that approximately 82 percent of middle-schoolers couldnt tell the difference between real news and fake news. The latest study, which polled 7,804 students from middle school through college, shows how teens evaluate their news. The Journal found that students would judge the credibility of newsy tweets based on how much detail they contained or whether a large photo was attached, rather than on the source. The findings would be startling if they werent true, as it was reported fake news on Facebook actually outperformed real news outlets during the election. Facebook and Google have altered their policies weed out fake news from their sites, but a number of these content producers use loopholes, such as deceptive advertising, to still get the posts published. A possible explanation for a rise in fake news readership among teens may be the lack of resources schools have. Proper research skills and teaching students about media literacy the ability to analyze and evaluate media arent being hammered home as much anymore thanks to shrinking libraries in schools, The Journal reports. And despite their online fluency (kids are reportedly spending 7-1/2 hours outside of school online each day) quality of news sources isnt high on the priority list. However, many web browsers now offer extensions to help filter out fake news, which could eventually alleviate the issue. (Via The Wall Street Journal & Engadget) By Minami Funakoshi and Thomas Wilson TOKYO (Reuters) - On a morning in mid-September, Utinan Won hugged his mother and then watched as she passed through departures at Tokyo's Narita airport on her way to Bangkok. Two and a half months earlier, judges in a Tokyo court had upheld deportation orders against 16-year-old Utinan and his mother, Lonsan Phaphakdee, both Thai nationals living in Japan on provisional release status. But, in their ruling, the judges laid out a path for Utinan to stay in Japan if his mother left the country. For Lonsan, who had been living in Japan for more than two decades, the meaning of the ruling was clear: Return to Thailand, and she could open a way for her son to remain in Japan. "I couldn't imagine going back, but we lost in court," she said at the airport, speaking in Thai as her son interpreted in his native Japanese. "I never believed it would come to this." Utinan's case is another example of the agonizing pathway to residency offered by the Japanese immigration authorities and courts to some families living without visas in the country. Many of the parents, from countries such as Peru, Bolivia and Iran, entered Japan on tourist visas in the 1990s and stayed on, hoping to build a better life for them and their children. Lonsan's departure left Utinan, who was born and raised in Japan and has never been to Thailand, without any family. Utinan's parents his father is also Thai separated when he was young. "My mom is going back home so I can stay in Japan," he said. "I feel so alone." In their June 30 ruling, judges in the Tokyo District Court noted that Utinan was attending high school and had "increasingly adapted to Japanese society." "After the mother is deported, if there is a guardian able to care for the child on behalf of the mother; if there is a network of support; if the child himself wishes to continue life in Japan even if he is apart from his mother; then there is room to reconsider whether to grant the child a special residence permit," the ruling said. Utinan now lives with a Japanese man who has been supporting the family. He is waiting to hear whether the Japanese authorities will live up to their side of the deal. The Tokyo High Court is expected to rule on his case next month. In total, Reuters spoke to five other families who said they had received a direct, verbal offer of residency from immigration officers for the children if the parents left the country. But they turned down the offer, they said, preferring to continue their battle to stay in Japan rather than break up their families. A Filipino family that has lived for nearly 20 years in Japan, nine of them on provisional release, said immigration officers had raised the idea with them last year. Their son, a junior high school student, was born and raised in Japan. Japanese immigration officials won't comment on individual cases, but they told Reuters that such offers were only ever put on the table if the families first raised the idea. (Edited by Peter Hirschberg) In 1982, Charles Haughey, then serving as Irelands prime minister, described the incident of a double-murderer staying as a house guest of the Irish attorney general as a bizarre happening, an unprecedented situation, a grotesque situation, an almost unbelievable mischance. Responding to this, and other scandals befalling the Haughey government, the journalist Conor Cruise OBrien coined the acronym GUBU, the better to summarize the state of Irish public life. Ever since, GUBU grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre, and unprecedented has been a shorthand for Irish political malfeasance. The election of Donald Trump as president is Americas own GUBU moment. The new normal, it is already clear, is not normal and will not become so anytime soon. That has consequences for the United States but also, unavoidably, for the rest of the world. We are still adjusting to the startling fact that the U.S. president-elect appears determined to govern by tweet. This is novel, though unnervingly so. On Tuesday morning, for instance, Britons awoke to discover that Trump had offered Theresa Mays government some wholly unwanted advice. To wit: Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Sadly, the identity of these many people has not been revealed, but it is reasonable to say none of them work in Downing Street. By the standards of Trumps Twitter excesses, this might initially seem a minor kerfuffle, but it remains a revealing one. Like so many of his outbursts, it reveals something worse than his unsuitability for the office, because it reveals he doesnt even know what he doesnt know: namely, that casually attempting to interfere with an allied governments appointment decisions puts him wildly out of line. And worse than even that, there is no suggestion or reason to believe he is interested in acquiring the knowledge required to perform the duties the American people have, in their wisdom, entrusted him with. Story continues Alliances are founded upon shared interests but also upon something else reliability. It is already apparent that the new U.S. administration will offer little but trouble to its allies, already all too obvious that it cannot be relied upon and that past norms will be treated as inconvenient obstacles of the sort with which Donald Trump will not put up. Normal behavior is for little people; big league people can do what they want. If they smash things while doing so, thats not their fault, and it will fall to other people to clean up the mess. Doing so will even be good for them. Trumps apparent belief that he is entitled to recommend that Nigel Farage more on him in a moment should be appointed the United Kingdoms ambassador to Washington might just be another example of Trumpian carelessness, but it also reveals the extent to which his unpredictability causes problems for even the United States closest allies. Theres a reason Americas allies wanted Hillary Clinton to win the election: Whatever her faults may be, you knew what you would get from her. It is true that the British political class obsesses over the so-called special relationship to an often unseemly degree. Barack Obamas decision to relocate the White Houses bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office to another room spawned an extraordinary quantity of commentary predicated upon the fierce necessity of parsing this apparent slight to British honor and the two countries shared interests. Much of this was as mortifying as it was mawkish and represented a failure to appreciate that the U.S.-U.K. relationship has historically been based upon common interests more than personal relationships. Which is to say that if those interests remain strong, the alliance remains strong enough to survive cooler personal relationships between the inhabitants of the White House and Downing Street. That has never been more obviously the case than in this new age of Trump. This is the peg upon which the hopes of a stable architecture of international relations now hang. This supposes, however, that in the broader scheme of international affairs the interests of the United States and the United Kingdom do continue to align. It is hard to imagine a scenario in which the close security and intelligence ties binding the two countries cease being a cornerstone of their defense infrastructure, but in the age of Trump few things can be taken for granted. The president-elects attitude toward NATO, for instance, is already causing unease across Europe. And even those Britons who take a jaundiced view of the special nature of the special relationship have reason to worry that, on all the international problems that truly matter most, the United States risks becoming a thoroughly unreliable partner. What happens if or when the indispensable nation decides it is no longer needed? Even so, Trumps willingness to flatter Farage his tweet follows a meeting between the two men at Trumps impressively vulgar New York tower remains remarkable. Then again, perhaps he just knows a huckster when he sees one. Farage, who has seven times tried without success to be elected to the British Parliament, evidently enjoys basking in the reflected glory of the new presidents approval. Like Trump, Farage enjoys slithering from television studio to television studio imagining himself to be the voice of the people. This obscures the inconvenient fact that the people have a commendably low opinion of the leader of the UK Independence Party. Farage imagines himself as some kind of bridge between Mays government and the new American administration; mercifully, May disagrees. If Farage were such a bridge, it would be another bridge to nowhere. (Admittedly, there is one sense in which the role of British ambassador to Washington would suit Farage. Sir Christopher Meyer, who held the post from 1997 to 2003, claimed in his memoirs that Tony Blairs chief of staff sent him off with the instruction to get up the arse of the White House and stay there. Farage, it is clear, imagines a comparable anatomical future for himself.) In truth, the Trump-Farage brouhaha is an unwelcome distraction for May. Her government is trapped between a deep skepticism about Trump and the need to make the best of whatever president happens to occupy the Oval Office. Moreover, Britains post-Brexit interests lie in negotiating trade deals with its leading commercial counterparts including, prominently, the United States. This necessarily weakens the U.K.s strategic position vis a vis the White House. The official line on Trumps presidency, therefore, amounts to little more than one part lets wait and see and two parts lets hope for the best. But it is already clear that, as the old adage has it, when you sup with the devil, youd best use a long spoon. May would be well-advised to seek out the longest spoon she can find. Verify, then trust, is the sensible approach to this administration. Because if the overture to Trumps presidency has been grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre, and unprecedented, you aint seen nothing yet. This is a GUBU presidency before it has even begun. Photo credit: Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images As the saying goes, all good things come to an end and often times that's true for awful things too. If that good or awful thing is a job or career phase, having it end typically means planning an exit strategy, bowing out gracefully and telling your manager you're quitting. Quitting a job isn't always a bad thing. Sure, you have your situations in which you're miserable and ready to run out of there right now, but leaving a job may also mean you're ready for bigger and better things. Or at least a raise and a promotion at another firm. People quit their jobs all the time, and they do so in any number of ways. Some people storm out, stealing or breaking things along the way. Others make it known well in advance that they're planning to quit, retire or otherwise move on. Some seemingly fade away they stop showing up, and their colleagues forget all about them. There is a right way and wrong way, traditionally speaking, to go about quitting a job. How you do it, though, is ultimately dependent upon you and your circumstances. But what if you're just a prototypical employee who's ready to move on, or has accepted a job somewhere else? You're not angry or spiteful, for example, and just want to make the quitting process as smooth as possible. Well, you're probably familiar with the general "two week's notice" rule of thumb. That's a good place to start. A Two-Week Notice The idea of giving your employer two week's notice is that you're doing them a professional courtesy by cluing them in to your plans. They're going to have to replace you, in most circumstances, and by giving them a buffer to work with, that transition can be easier. It's the same logic if you're being fired or laid off though that often doesn't come with the courtesy of notifying you before it happens. That's the gist of the "two-week" rule. Though you're not legally bound to or obligated to follow it, in most cases (you may want to review your contract for any exit regulations to see what rules may apply to you). Story continues What's the proper etiquette, though? Who better to quote than the folks at the Emily Post Institute, the keepers of all things etiquette-related? Peggy Post, of the Post family and Post Institute, wrote a five-step plan for quitting in Good Housekeeping. The basic rundown is to tell your immediate supervisor, keep working hard, take care of your responsibilities and don't burn bridges. Essentially, you'll just want to handle it like an adult. Remember, though: You can leave anytime you want, and never come back. Just remember: There are consequences for doing that. Consider Your Overall Strategy Professional courtesies aside, you'll really need to take stock of your individual situation to know how and when to announce your resignation. While you might not like your boss or employer and spitefully want to walk out when it would hurt them the most, it may not be in your best interest to do so. Basically, what you want to do is ensure you're not doing any damage to your long-term career goals or strategy. This is why you want to be courteous leaving on a bad note might cost you references or relationships down the road. If a potential employer calls the place you left and you didn't go on good terms? That won't help you land the new gig you're hoping for. That's why it's a good idea to avoid these types of grudges and stop short of all out bridge-burning. To sum it all up, consider your individual situation. In most cases, giving your boss a heads up two weeks out is appropriate. Most people expect it, and it'll save you from ruffling too many feathers. [Editor's Note: Remember, many employers look at a version of your credit report as part of the application process. Because of this, it's a good idea to know where your credit stands. You can see your free credit report snapshot, updated every 14 days, on Credit.com.] Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities gathered Monday in the West Bank city of Nablus to protest an Israeli-imposed ban on the Islamic call to prayer. Demonstrators in the Palestinian city's main square performed the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer performed five times daily from the loudspeakers of a mosque. On Nov. 13, the Israeli parliament proposed a bill that would limit the use of megaphones at the mosques within Israel. The bill was backed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was met with widespread criticism from all three major faith communities. The Bishop of the Catholic Church in Nablus Yousef Saada called the law a sign of the [Israeli] occupations ethical, moral and political bankruptcy. The Palestinian followers of all religions are united against this [Israeli] bill. This is a proof that Israel has started the stage of collapse and it is fading, he added, according to Middle East Monitor. The bill was proposed by far-right Jewish Home Party member of parliament and former Israeli military commander Moti Yogev, who claimed that it would reduce "noise pollution." He argued that "hundreds of thousands of citizens suffer habitually" from the calls to prayer, the first of which occurs at dawn before sunrise. The restriction was approved by lawmakers and will be read three times before being introduced as law. The move was met with massive protests across Palestine and Israel. We will not stop the muezzin [the person who leads the call to prayer] and will not stop our prayers, Adel Badir, mayor of the Arab-majority city of Kafr Qasim in Israel, said, according the Times of Israel. Our right to a muezzin and to prayer does not derive from any law, it is a basic right, like the right to life, or the right to live under a roof. It is an inseparable part of our right to exist and to pray, he added. The Islamic call to prayer can be heard from mosque minarets in cities around the world with large Muslim populations. Officials in some countries such as Indonesia, Switzerland and the U.S. have moved to set limits on the use of loudspeakers to broadcast the call to prayer. Related Articles Naya Rivera and Ryan Dorsey surprised fans when they decided to tie the knot just three months after the Glee star broke off her engagement to Big Sean. Two years later, Rivera has filed for divorce. After much consideration, we have made the decision to end our marriage, the former couple told PEOPLE in a statement Monday. Our priority is and always will be our beautiful son that we share together. We will continue to be great co-parenting partners for him. We ask for respect and privacy for our family during this difficult time. In 2014, Rivera was accused of switching grooms when rapper Big Sean called off his engagement to the actress just three months before her wedding to Dorsey. But, the actress had a long romantic history with Dorsey. To this day, Ill be doing interviews and people will be, like, Oh my God! Yall were friends? Rivera previously said of the media portraying her relationship with Dorsey as solely platonic before their engagement. Im, like, What are you talking about? During her early years on Glee, Rivera and Dorsey dated briefly before ending things so she could focus more on her career. A few weeks after the split, Rivera found out she was pregnant with Dorseys child and decided to terminate the pregnancy without informing him. When I made that decision , I made it by myself, as I feel is the case for a lot of women, and I did not share it with Ryan at the time, said Rivera, who chronicles her relationship with Dorsey in her memoir Sorry Not Sorry. The two would remain distant until Dorsey reached out with his condolences after her split form Big Sean. By the time we sort of reconnected, I was like, gosh, theres a reason why you keep coming back in my life and we keep coming back together, she wrote. Three short months later, the old friends-turned-lovers married on July 19, 2014 in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in front of a small group of family members. We feel truly blessed to be joined as husband and wife, the couple previously told PEOPLE in an exclusive statement. Our special day was fated and everything we could have ever asked for. Story continues A little over a year later, the two announced they were expecting a little one. Ryan and I feel so blessed and cant wait to welcome the newest member of our family, the actress, who originally posted a photo of a bun in the oven on Instagram, later wrote on her website. Documenting her pregnancy journey on her PEOPLE.com blog, Rivera described the good, the bad, and the awkward stages of pregnancy including her intimate moments with her hubby. Things like sex with my husband became a bit odd for me due to the fact that I was now limited to about two positions in order to not squash as my husband puts it its roof or have the baby (my belly) staring him in the face, she wrote. I feel like men are constantly imagining their baby winking at them when they make love to their pregnant wives thus making sexy times more few and far between. In September 2015, the happy couple welcomed their first child together, son Josey Hollis Dorsey (who is now 1). Rivera, who first revealed her abortion in an excerpt from her memoir to PEOPLE, stated that her husbands reaction could not have been more understanding. He said, In the short time that we dated, I wish that I could have done something to make you feel like you could have trusted me with that information because I would have loved to have been there with you, Rivera said. I think it was the kindest, best thing that any man could have ever said in that situation, she said during the interview. It just made me love him that much more. It was good to tell our story and put the truth out there, Rivera said of sharing the couples story. Weve been married now two years and have a gorgeous son and it feels good to let everyone know what really happened. Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka continue to raise the bar when it comes to adorable celeb parents. The couple brought their cute 6-year-old twins, Harper Grace and Gideon Scott, to the Cinema Society Screening of Disney's Moana at Metrograph in New York City on Sunday and the happy family could not have looked cuter. Getty Images PHOTOS: The Most Adorable Celebrity Dads Harris, 43, and Burtka, 41, got into the Polynesian spirit of Moana with their kids, rocking tropical-inspired ensembles that livened up the red carpet. Moana, which hits theaters on Wednesday, tells the story of a young woman, the eponymous Moana (played by Auli'I Cravalho), who sets sail for a mythical island along with the heroic demi-god Maui (played by Dwayne Johnson). WATCH: Neil Patrick Harris Takes His Adorable Twins to Their First Football Game -- See the Cute Pics! Back in October, the Harris-Burtka family paid tribute to classic Hollywood with their group Halloween costumes. Check out their epic Tinseltown attire in the video below. Related Articles Nepal's newly restored Boudhanath stupa reopened to the public Tuesday after it was damaged in the deadly 2015 earthquake that left much of the country's cultural heritage in ruins. The white-domed golden stupa -- the country's largest and one of the holiest sites of pilgrimage in Tibetan Buddhism -- was left with deep cracks after the powerful 7.8-magnitude quake hit in April last year, devastating the Himalayan nation and killing nearly 9,000 people. Restoration work began in May 2015 and cost $2.1 million -- including over 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of gold -- according to the Boudhanath Area Development Committee. To mark the opening, which took place after a three-day purification ritual, colourful prayer flags and flowers covered the stupa and monks chanted prayers. "This is a proud moment for us.... The successful reconstruction of Boudhanath is an inspiration for what we have to achieve in quake affected areas," Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said after walking up the freshly painted stupa steps. The UNESCO world heritage site, believed to have been built in the fifth century, was restored with donations from devotees and from Buddhist organisations around the world. "I am here almost everyday and was heartbroken to see it damaged after the quake. But it is now open to us, I am very happy to see it standing tall," said 66-year-old Dawa Lama who had come to the stupa to offer prayers. The towering domed structure used to draw over 300,000 visitors globally, but tourists dropped to less than half after the quake. Thangka artist Hom Bahadur Tamang, who has sold his Buddhist paintings in the stupa grounds for 21 years, said business had been slow. "The reconstruction of the stupa has given us new hopes that we will rise again," Tamang said. While work has begun to repair quake-damaged temples and monuments, only a handful have been completed, with experts saying it will be years before Nepal's architectural heritage is fully restored. Many of the millions left homeless by the quake are facing a second winter without proper shelter because they have still not received the compensation money they need to start rebuilding their homes. A rumor that Oceans Eight stars Anne Hathaway and Cate Blanchett are feuding on the set of their upcoming film started swirling over the weekend. Hathaways camp, however, has denied the rumor. In a statement obtained by E! News, a representative for Hathaway addressed the claim, saying: Its complete rubbish and totally false. Everyone on the film is having a blast with each other. So typical that a tabloid would pit females against each other. Its sad. They dont do this with men. Australian tabloid Womans Day claimed that Hathaway rubbed [Blanchett] the wrong way despite Blanchett being very laidback, according to The Daily Mail. The source also reportedly told the publication that the two exchanged angry words and stopped speaking to each other for a few days. The two have been trying to be casual at work now, though, but things are still tense. While there may not be tension on the set, Mindy Kaling, who co-stars on the film, has admitted that shes nervous about being cast alongside big names in Hollywood. In an appearance on The Late Show, Kaling said: Look, Im real scared, man because when I look at that list of people, Im like, I know that my skills gonna be [something like] Im gonna get attacked by the guard dog so they can break into the casino. Details about the movies plot have not been revealed, but a source reportedly told The Hollywood Reporter that it will revolve around a heist at New Yorks Met Gala. Shooting for the film started in early November. Apart from Hathaway, Blanchett, and Kaling, the movie will also feature Rihanna, Awkwafina, Sarah Paulson, Helena Bonham Carter and Sandra Bullock. The screenplay was written by Olivia Milch and Gary Ross. Ross will also direct the film. Oceans Eight will be released in June 2018. Anne Hathaway Photo: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson Related Articles Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump started the day tweeting about the "unfair" news media. He ended it with a polite sit-down with the New York Times where he called the daily a "world jewel." The turnabout may -- or may not -- signal a truce in the bitter war between the US president-elect and the press. Trump unleashed a stream of early morning tweets assailing the "failing" New York daily for continuing to "cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!" After some confusion over whether his meeting with the paper would even take place, the Republican sat down with its journalists for an interview notable for its lack of rancor. Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted that Trump "says he has been treated unfairly during campaign. Says he'd like to improve relationship, that it would make his job easier." And according to her fellow reporter Julie Davis, the billionaire upon his departure described the daily as "a great great American jewel -- world jewel." The Times' journalists live-tweeted the conversation, which touched on concerns over conflicts of interest involving Trump's business empire, the "alt-right" movement that has cheered his election, and his decision not to push for prosecution of Hillary Clinton. Notably absent was the vitriol seen in a bruising campaign where the candidate dubbed journalists "thieves and crooks" and was himself labeled a "liar" on the news pages. - Closed vs open - The conversation was in sharp contrast to a day earlier, when the Republican billionaire resumed his onslaught in a closed-door session with high-ranking television executives where, despite expectations of fence-mending, he reportedly gave them a dressing-down over their coverage of the 2016 race. New Yorker editor David Remnick, citing sources attending the session, said Trump complained that NBC News used unflattering photos showing his double chin, and asked for "nicer" images. Story continues Attendees said they were taken aback at the tone from the president-elect, who repeated claims of insulting and inaccurate coverage. "I really am offended," one of them was quoted as saying. "This was unprecedented. Outrageous!" Far from sobered by his heavy new responsibilities as head of state, one participant was quoted as saying Trump "is the same kind of blustering, bluffing blowhard as he was during the campaign." Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway offered a different version, calling the meeting "cordial" and "productive," adding that "there was no need to mend fences." - Trump-media war - Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan praised the Times for holding Trump to an on-record interview. "The Times played it right," Sullivan wrote. "The paper successfully called Trump's bluff. As much as he professes to despise the Times, he remains in some ways the Queens boy who lusted after Manhattan success and acceptance." But despite the apparent lull, many analysts say they expect the relationship between Trump and the media to remain rocky. US news organizations dug into a host of Trump controversies as he campaigned for the world's most powerful office. These included allegations by women that he had harassed or sexually assaulted them, his past failures as a real estate developer and indications that he avoided paying taxes for years. The Republican pushed back hard -- charging the election was being "rigged by corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies" and colluding to hand victory to Clinton. - 'Foil for Trump's message' - Trump's clashes with the media appear to foreshadow a stormy relationship when he moves into the White House in January. Some groups have already complained Trump has not yet guaranteed "pool" media access, as has been customary, where a small group of journalists accompanies the president-elect on all public events and meetings. "It's not the media that needs this, it's the public," said Lucy Dalglish, dean of journalism at the University of Maryland. "He doesn't seem to understand the role that an independent, freely functioning media plays in a democracy. And not to recognize that role is troubling." Joel Kaplan, associate dean of journalism at Syracuse University, agreed that the media and Trump are in uncharted waters. "Even those (presidents) who didn't have the best relationship going in understood the role of the press and tried to court individual members," Kaplan said. Kaplan noted that Trump's hand is helped by a deepening distrust of the news media by the US public, but claimed that should not be a reason to change coverage of the White House. "The role of the news media is to inform the public," he said. "Once that happens, the public is responsible for what it does with that information." For Leonard Steinhorn, a communications professor at American University, there is good reason to expect more arm-wrestling between Trump and the news business. "There's going to be an adversarial relationship because the media serves as a foil for Donald Trump's message," Steinhorn said. "He will criticize the media if he doesn't like the coverage and it will help him rouse his base." Over the past few months, Samsung has been hit by repeated recalls of some of its biggest products. The Note 7, a flagship device that was supposed to challenge the iPhone 7 got pulled twice, photos of burning Jeeps were all over the internet, and oh, then some Samsung washing machines started hurting people. Its a perfect storm (an inferno, even) of bad PR, but it seems that no-one really cares. An opinion poll conducted over the last few weeks shows no real damage to Samsungs brand. In other words: fanboys and fangirls would rather have a stylus and an iris sensor than a non-incinerated car. DONT MISS: Watch the new SNL sketch that pissed off Donald Trump yet again The online poll surveyed 2,375 Samsung owners and 3,158 iPhone owners across all 50 states, giving us an accurate (for a change!) idea of how the Note 7 debacle has affected Samsung. The poll shows that Samsung owners are still loyal to their brand: 91 percent of current Samsung owners would buy another Samsung smartphone, and 92 percent another Samsung product in general. Thats nearly the same as the loyalty shown by iPhone owners to Apple, 92 percent of whom would buy another iPhone. The poll also showed that the recall hasnt changed anyones likelihood to buy a Samsung device. 27 percent of users who knew of the recall would go to Samsung first if they were thinking of a new smartphone, compared to 25 percent of those who didnt know about a recall. The higher likelihood to buy Samsung among informed users can probably be explained by the overlap of people who know about the recall also being more tech-savvy in general. The overall message from the survey is a massive relief for Samsung. It shows that even though Samsung botched the initial recall procedure, it hasnt lost any of its brand loyalty. Thats a huge deal for Samsung, which stands alone as one of the few Android manufacturers that commands significant brand loyalty. Without its name, Samsung is competing with a bunch of other excellent Android smartphones, many of which offer similar specs to the flagship Galaxies for hundreds of dollars less. Story continues Provided that Samsung can rebound properly with a killer Galaxy S8 device sometime early next year, the company should be able to write off 2016 as a bad blip and continue with regularly scheduled programming. If only the rest of us were so lucky. Trending right now: See the original version of this article on BGR.com By Alissa de Carbonnel STRASBOURG (Reuters) - European Parliament leaders told London's Brexit negotiator on Tuesday that Britain should expect to be shut out of cooperation in areas it values once it leaves the European Union. David Davis met Guy Verhofstadt, the EU legislature's lead Brexit negotiator, and Manfred Weber, a conservative ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel who leads the biggest bloc in the parliament The European Parliament must approve Britain's divorce deal. The meetings were part of preparations before British Prime Minister Theresa May triggers negotiations under Article 50 of the EU treaty, which she has pledged to do by March. They focused on procedure, but there were hints of clashes to come. Weber voiced impatience with a lack of clarity from May on what she will ask for. In notably harsh terms, he said a suggestion from Davis that Britain remain in or closely tied to the EU's single market while rejecting free immigration by Europeans or the oversight of EU courts was not workable. "Brexit means Brexit," he said in Strasbourg, echoing May's famously opaque definition of what her government will ask for following the June referendum vote to leave the Union. "I see a British government that keeps saying where it wants to cooperate closely and not how it wants to leave the European Union," he told reporters after meeting Davis. He said Davis voiced an interest in maintaining economic ties and also close cooperation in areas such as justice and criminal affairs. "So I must stress again: Brexit means Brexit, that means leaving the European Union, that means cutting off relations ... and not cherry picking, not special relationships," Weber said. Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and champion of much closer EU integration, again insisted that Britain could not enjoy the three freedoms of movement for goods, services and capital without the fourth, freedom of labor. He also insisted that the Brexit deal be wrapped up before the next EU legislative elections in May 2019. UNDERSTANDING PROCESS Davis, asked if he wanted single market membership, said: "What we are after is that which is in the interest of the Union and in the interest of the United Kingdom: trading interests, business, manufacturing and services and the aim is to make it as open as possible ... That's the clear overarching aim." He said he found Verhofstadt "a very nice man". In September, when asked about the Belgian's appointment, he remarked to a British lawmaker "Get thee behind me, Satan!" "It is important to ... first get to know each other, meet each other, get to trust each other and secondly to understand the structures," he told Reuters after the meetings, a day after talks in Brussels with Michel Barnier, who will lead the overall negotiations run by the executive European Commission. Despite general efforts to maintain politeness on both sides, there were reminders in Strasbourg of the anger many European politicians feel toward Britain's Brexit campaigners. Weber lashed out at Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson for having told Turkey he would help it join the EU after he had used the prospect of Turkish accession to urge British voters to leave the bloc to avoid immigration by Turks. "It's unbelievable, it's a provocation and it's arrogant," he said. Verhofstadt derided both fellow European Parliament lawmaker and Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who suggested on Tuesday that May name Farage her U.S. envoy. "One clown in Washington is more than enough," Verhofstadt told the chamber. (Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Tom Heneghan) After proposing to his girlfriend on Valentines Day earlier this year, Jarrod Bradley, 35, couldnt wait to marry Becky Yonker. The two met at a friends 30th birthday party in the summer of 2012 and always knew theyd end up making it down the aisle. But when Becky, 33, was diagnosed with a stage four brain tumor just a year after the couple met, wedding plans seemed like an impossible dream. Its been a crazy past few years, Bradley tells PEOPLE exclusively. The Charlotte, North Carolina, couple never imagined the doctors and nurses treating Yonker would end up making the wedding happen. Weve been trying to plan a wedding and everything kept coming up so we kept having to postpone it, Bradley recalls. Yonker, who works in marketing, went to the doctor for what she thought was a sinus infection back in July 2013. When doctors realized she actually had a brain tumor the size of a plum, they operated. They got it all and Becky was doing well until two years later in December 2015 when the tumor came back. She had surgery on Christmas Eve, but was home the next day to celebrate with Jarrod. It was tough. She had more chemo, more radiation. We always knew it would come back. Weve known from the beginning this is gonna be what kills her, Jarrod says. But Jarrod wasnt the only one to fall in love with Becky. Her doctors at Levine Cancer Institute did too and decided the couple deserved the wedding theyd been forced to postpone. One afternoon, I shared some bad news with Becky and she just looked in my eyes and told me she wanted to live, says Beckys neuro-oncologist, Dr. Ashley Sumrall. Then she whispered that she wanted to have a wedding and I knew we had to make it happen and fast! My team quickly got behind the cause. Beckys doctors and nurses planned the Oct. 9 wedding at St. Marys Chapel in just a few days and got everything donated from the venue to the food, music and photographer. Eight of us were there that day, Dr. Sumrall recalls. My nurse practitioner was the pianist, our chaplain performed the ceremony, my mother and I designed the flowers. Story continues It was pretty unbelievable the fact that the doctors took it upon themselves to organize it. With all that weve been through to have someone else do it, it was a relief and were very grateful. Having just had a treatment a few days before the ceremony, and battling some stoke like symptoms, Becky had to use a wheelchair to get down the aisle, but Jarrod says hell remember that moment forever. Pretty much the happiest moment of my life. She looked beautiful. Beckys brother who is serving in Afghanistan even managed to be a part of the wedding. Friends made a life-size cutout of him to have at the wedding and the photographer livestreamed the ceremony so he could watch from his base overseas. Beckys doctors, nurses, friends and family, all say they struggled to fight back tears. Becky tells PEOPLE, We never thought our wedding would be anything more than a dream with all our setbacks and medical issues. I was so happy. I couldnt believe we actually got a real wedding! She struggles with her speech and has good days and bad, but the couple is looking forward to celebrating their first Christmas together as husband and wife. Becky has already outlived what doctors initially thought possible in fighting her brain tumor. Three years ago, Dr.Sumrall told her the average survival is 14 to 22 months. I also explained there are miracles, too, the doctor says. Beckys smile lights up a room and her tears will bring you to your knees. We have watched her experience the ups and downs. Death is inevitable, but how we live life is a choice. My team and I had the best time preparing for her wedding. She has truly embraced each day as a gift and having the opportunity to impact her life is such an honor. Photo credit: undefined From ELLE Donald Trump is in a Twitter war with Hamilton! Donald Trump is mad at SNL! Donald Trump is picking a fight with the New York Times! Do not be distracted. But Donald Trump called Hamilton "overrated!" How can it be overrated? It won 11 Tonys! It won a Grammy! It won the freaking Pulitzer! Look at this adorable 4-year-old rapping "The Ten Duel Commandments!" And have you seen Daveed Diggs? Do not be distracted! [contentlinks align="left" textonly="false" numbered="false" headline="Related%20Story" customtitles="The%20Cast%20of%20'Hamilton'%20Had%20a%20Message%20for%20Pence" customimages="" content="article.40893"] Sure, it was shocking and dramatic to watch video of Mike Pence, the vice president-elect, being booed in the Richard Rogers theater. It was even more shocking and dramatic to see-almost in real time!-a video of Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Vice-President Aaron Burr, single out Pence urgently from the stage in a plea to acknowledge the many Americans "who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights." In an address written in conjunction with the show's creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, director Tommy Kail, producer Jeffrey Sellers, and the cast, Davis implored Pence "to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us." ZOMGGGGG DID YOU SEE THAT???? And sure, it was also shocking and dramatic to see the president-elect of the United States tweet peevishly in complaint that Pence had been "harassed" and that Hamilton had violated the "Theater" as a "safe and special place." And though we were all buzzing about this on Friday night, and then Saturday, on Sunday morning Trump tweeted again, this time that Hamilton was "overrated" and demanding an apology, and called Dixon out for not actually memorizing the statement (he subsequently deleted that tweet, because Trump). Story continues But. Do. Not. Be. Distracted. [contentlinks align="left" textonly="false" numbered="false" headline="Related%20Story" customtitles="What%20You%20Need%20to%20Know%20About%20Jeff%20Sessions%20" customimages="" content="article.40868"] Because on the same day that Mike Pence was booed at a Broadway show, President-elect Donald Trump appointed the anti-immigrant, so-racist-he-was-barred-from-being-a-judge Jeff Sessions as Attorney General and the on-the-record anti-Muslim former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as his National Security Advisor. Oh and he also settled the Trump University fraud lawsuit for $25 million. The day before, President-elect Trump had his daughter Ivanka sit in on a meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister and met with Indian business associates, both in a complete breach of presidential protocol and while Trump's plan to have his adult children both serve on his transition team and take over the family business comes under fire. Last week also saw the Washington, D.C. Trump hotel host a cocktail party for 100 foreign diplomats. And this in the wake of his appointment of a white supremacist as his closest advisor. Now to be clear, the Hamilton fracas matters. It matters that Mike Pence, a politician whose rise to prominence-and this current role-has been in no small part due to his virulently anti-gay positions (and as Mark Joseph Stern pointed out at Slate, Broadway felt deeply the homophobia of the Reagan administration which turned a blind eye to the AIDS crisis, which decimated the theater community). It matters that a group of artists spoke truth to power. It matters that we have a clear view of just how a President Trump feels about dissent (he'd lump the Hamilton cast in with paid protestors, no doubt). It matters that Hamilton isn't just a show, but a political statement insofar as it has cast all the key historical figures portrayed in the show, save King George, with minorities and people of color. It matters that Hamilton is clearly inspired by the work of black artists and has a strong pro-immigrant message ("Immigrants - we get the job done"). It matters that Trump rejected all of that out of hand with a few churlish tweets because it is a clear window into not only how complex is the ecosystem of interlocking liberties at risk under a Trump administration, but also into just how little Trump cares, or thinks, about any of them. So yes, the Hamilton fracas matters. But it also becomes a distraction when it becomes the only news story to dominate the cycle to the exclusion of all else. And unfortunately with Trump, there is plenty of all else. And as Laurel Raymond of ThinkProgress discovered, coverage of that "all else" declined, as evidenced by Google Trends, as interest in the Hamilton imbroglio spiked. Trump knows how to hijack the news cycle with his tweets. Part of why that happens is because the media is generally obsessed with Hamilton, true. But it's also because Trump knows how to hijack the news cycle with his tweets. And when Trump tweets, that becomes not just part of the story, but part of the lede, and even the headline (the story went quickly from "Pence booed" which focused on the substance of why Pence might be unwelcome on Broadway, to "Trump is mad at Hamilton" which put the focus on the president-elect, his temperament, and his Twitter proclivities). Call it a "basket of distractibles"-whether whining about Hamilton, teasing "finalists" for cabinet positions, lying about the NYT losing subscribers (it actually picked up 41,000 subscribers post-election), or fantasizing about how he might have won the popular vote (fun fact: he didn't-the popular vote was won heftily by Hillary Clinton), Trump's tweets function as little news bombs that plop into the news cycle and explode into all the coverage of everything else that is going on. (And there is a lot of "everything else"-just today, Peggy Noonan called the news that Trump may have asked the Argentinian president to wave away permit issues for one of his projects a "terrible sign"...as though there has just been one terrible sign!) This is the same trap we fell into during the campaign: Fresh headlines make the last ones fade from view, and blur into each other as Trump says or does or tweets something else outrageous and we just get used to it. Then it becomes a litany of crazy things, which take too long to itemize so it just becomes, "Trump is controversial!" and that's the talking point that is then debated, often on TV panels that are very carefully balanced to have pro-Trump speakers hewing to their talking points. And lo, that is how all of this gets normalized...even though none of this is normal. Also being normalized: the new Donald Trump version of good-cop-bad-cop. As a follow-up to Trump's over-the-top Hamilton tweets, and the media maelstrom that followed, Mike Pence went on Fox News Sunday and said he wasn't bothered by the Hamilton criticism, no siree! "That's what freedom sounds like," he said, looking mature and professional next to Trump, or, like a "grown up" as one person in my Facebook feed noted. This, too, is a distraction-because as Trump moves the goalposts of what reasonable behavior looks like wildly off course, behavior that is merely reasonable begins to look praiseworthy. To be clear: Just because Pence is being reasonable about something that is inherently reasonable in the first place (expression of First Amendment rights) does not mean that Pence himself has suddenly become a safe harbor for people worried about Trump. Far from it. This is what Donald Trump does: He moves the goalposts, he lowers the curve. He leaves the media on the defensive about why they should be able to follow him to dinner and makes just talking to Mitt Romney seem like a ray of hope. Meanwhile Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff projects stability and experience even while he normalizes all of the above. This isn't a question of just one tweet. Heck, Trump spat out four just on Hamilton alone! This is about the avalanche of affronts, aggressions, abuses, and abnormalities that are the building blocks of anything and everything Donald Trump. And if we are not careful, he will continue to pit them all against each other in a zero-sum game of attention. Like he did here, because I mentioned the adorable 4-year-old rapping "Ten Duel Commandments" exactly as many times as I mentioned the $25 million Trump University settlement. For fraud, by the way. From the president-elect of the United States. I repeated that one, just for emphasis. It's easy to get distracted. You Might Also Like From Esquire It's surely one of the great feats of presidential politics to suggest bragging about torture as national policy and have it mostly fly under the radar. That's what president-elect Donald J. Trump managed to do when he repeatedly mused about bringing back waterboarding-and, at various points, "a hell of a lot worse"-and it failed to disqualify him in the court of public opinion. Perhaps we were all just stuffed on the rest of the outrage buffet. But Sunday, Trump's VP-elect, Mike Pence, seemed to double down on the suggestion in an interview on CBS' Face the Nation: Will Trump allow waterboarding? "We're going to have a president who will never say what we'll never do," says Gov. Mike Pence. pic.twitter.com/GuFaQPXM8q - Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) November 20, 2016 Host John Dickerson framed the question in an interesting way, with a clip of Arizona Senator and torture victim John McCain declaring, full stop, that we are not going back to waterboarding. Pence began by expressing his respect for McCain (a point of disagreement with his running mate), but then left the door wide open to reinstating so-called enhanced interrogation techniques with a line presumably cribbed from Catch 22: "We're going to have a president again who will never say what we'll never do." This is an adaptation of one of Trump's more facile criticisms of President Obama: that he "tells the enemy what we're doing." It is also absurd. Declaring you will comply with international law and not commit human rights violations is not for suckers. It's what the United States should do at all times, without hesitation. When you consider that torture and whatever it is we're doing at Guantanamo Bay make for great jihadist recruiting tools, this macho idiocy is even more reprehensible. Story continues Perhaps most unsettling, though, is that this is anything but political suicide. After a delayed but forceful reaction to revelations about CIA torture under the George W. Bush administration, we clearly have not faced up to those crimes. Ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden has said no CIA officers will participate in waterboarding again, but he's not going to be CIA director. That will be Senator Mike Pompeo, who thinks his new boss' stance on intentionally making someone believe they're about to drown is A-OK. Oh, and one other thing: It doesn't work. You Might Also Like Swiss drug maker Novartis AG NVS announced that it has acquired Selexys Pharmaceuticals Corporation, a privately held company specializing in the development of therapeutics for certain hematologic and inflammatory disorders, following the receipt of results from the phase II SUSTAIN study on SelG1 for the treatment of patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). The study evaluated the use of SelG1, an anti-P-selectin antibody, in the reduction of vaso-occlusive pain crises in SCD patients. Results were presented at the plenary scientific session of the American Society of Hematology. As per the terms of the agreement, the value of the transaction could reach $665 million, including upfront, acquisition and milestone payments. We remind investors that Novartis had obtained the exclusive right to acquire Selexys and SelG1 in 2012. The acquisition of Selexys represents an important step toward the continued development of SelG1, which will complement and expand Novartis hematology pipeline. Considering the lack of FDA-approved drugs for SCD, there exists significant unmet for new treatment options. Meanwhile, among other companies, GlycoMimetics, Inc. GLYC is evaluating its pan-selectin antagonist, rivipansel, in a phase III study for the treatment of vaso-occlusive crisis in SCD, in collaboration with Pfizer Inc. PFE. Rivipansel enjoys a Fast Track in the U.S., and orphan drug status in both the U.S. and the EU. NOVARTIS AG-ADR Price NOVARTIS AG-ADR Price | NOVARTIS AG-ADR Quote Zacks Rank & Key Picks Novartis currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Vanda Pharmaceuticals, Inc. VNDA is a better-ranked stock in the health care sector, with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Vandas loss estimates narrowed from 68 cents to 56 cents for 2016 over the last 60 days, while its earnings estimates increased from 16 cents to 17 cents for 2017. The company posted a positive earnings surprise in three of the last four quarters with an average beat of 56.65%. The Best Place to Start Your Stock Search 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 >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report PFIZER INC (PFE): Free Stock Analysis Report NOVARTIS AG-ADR (NVS): Free Stock Analysis Report VANDA PHARMACT (VNDA): Free Stock Analysis Report GLYCOMIMETICS (GLYC): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. By Ben Hirschler and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen (Reuters) - Rivals Novo Nordisk and Sanofi have won U.S. approval for new combination drugs to treat diabetes, sparking a fresh battle for sales in a fiercely competitive market. Novo's Xultophy and Sanofi's Soliqua both combine a long-lasting insulin with a so-called GLP-1 medicine that stimulates insulin production in the pancreas. Officials at the Danish and French companies said on Tuesday the rival treatments would be sold at discounts to the combined price of the component ingredients. The combination products are viewed by analysts as having substantial sales potential and the two drugmakers hope they will boost revenue at a time when insulin prices are under intense pressure in the key U.S. market, the world's biggest. Some 400 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, with type 2 accounting for more than 90 percent of the total, as rising obesity rates fuel the epidemic in the United States and many other countries. Jakob Riis, Novo's head of North American operations, said millions of U.S. diabetics were using insulin but around half were not getting satisfactory treatment, so there were lots of patients who could benefit. Achieving Xultophy's full potential will take time, however, as Novo negotiates reimbursement terms with insurers. "We will go for a focused launch of Xultophy, which will reflect the fact that not all patients will have access to this product through their insurance. That is something we will develop over time," Riis told Reuters. The timing of the approvals is broadly in line with expectations for Sanofi but a few weeks ahead of the scheduled decision date for Novo. Following the green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Sanofi said it planned to launch Soliqua in January, while Novo intends to launch Xultophy in the first half of next year. ONCE-DAILY INJECTIONS Industry analysts expect Xultophy to generate annual sales of around $1.20 billion in 2021, while Soliqua is forecast to reach $550 million by then, according to consensus estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters. Xultophy, approved in Europe since 2014, combines Novo's insulin drug Tresiba with its GLP-1 agonist Victoza. Soliqua is a mix of Sanofi's Lantus and the GLP-1 Lyxumia. Novo said Xultophy would be offered at a 20 percent discount to the combined price of Tresiba and Victoza, while Sanofi said Soliqua would cost about same as a GLP-1 drug. Both new drugs are given as once-daily injections and are designed to improve glycaemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes. Jefferies analysts said the most notable aspect of the FDA decisions was that Sanofi had only been granted approval for a single pen device, with one fixed ratio between insulin and GLP-1. The French drugmaker had originally filed for two devices with different ratios but FDA advisers considered this could cause confusion. Shares in Sanofi's small biotech partner Zealand Pharma, which is entitled to royalties on Soliqua sales, rose 7 percent by 1320 GMT. Sanofi and Novo shares were little changed. (Additional reporting Divya Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Jon Boyle) - By Harsh Jain Over the past five years, the stock price of NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA) has surged more than 550% and currently trades just below its all-time high. The company has managed to beat consensus estimates in the past nine out of 10 quarters on both the earnings and revenue fronts. Recently, NVIDIA reported robust third-quarter results that suggest with each passing quarter, the company's financial performance is getting better. In the third quarter of 2016, the company reported bottom line of 94 cents, 37 cents more than the estimates, whereas top line came in at $2 billion, beating the consensus by $310 million. Most significantly, that figure represents a whopping surge of 54%. On the other hand, the graphics card giant escalated its dividend by 22% to 14 cents. As a matter of fact, NVIDIA's gaming business played a very significant role in the previous quarter as the revenue produced from that segment increased to $1.244 billion from $761. This is due to the launch of its new graphics card architecture, Pascal. NVIDIA made a smart move by launching new Pascal-based graphics cards for both notebook and desktop devices, which helped the company to futher fortify its leading position in the gaming industry. Apart from this, the company detailed that the revenue generated from its data center business reached $240 million, a surge of $158 million compared to the year-ago period. After rising 193% in the prior quarter, data center turned into the fastest-growing segment of NVIDIA's overall business. The staggering growth in the company's data center business is mainly due to the progress in artificial intelligence, which is igniting demand for supercomputing components. Not only this, the company's automotive segment is also growing at a rapid rate as many automakers are working on autonomous cars. Story continues NVIDIA's Drive PX 2 platform, specifically designed for autonomous cars, is currently being used to power Tesla's new autopilot system. Keeping this in mind, it appears NVIDIA is in a great position to gain huge benefits in the imminent years. On the other hand, NVIDIA's foremost rival, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), has also performed very well this year. However, one thing that makes NVIDIA a better option is its diversified revenue stream. Moreover, the company has massive free cash flow that allows it to spend largely on research and development. Summing up Although NVIDIA's stock price surged 30% after reporting its third quarter, it looks like the company still has plenty of room for growth. The company has been expanding its reach in several markets and its core business has also seen strong growth. Considering the aforementioned figures, I expect NVIDIA to continue moving higher in the imminent years. Disclosure: No position in the stocks in this article. Start a free 7-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Obituaries Newsletter Sign up to get the most recent local obituaries delivered to your inbox. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy Jan O Jorgensen has apologised and insisted he wasn't being "disrespectful" after he tossed a shirt emblazoned with the Malaysian flag during badminton's China Open, prompting an angry reaction from fans. The Dane, who went on to win the title in Fuzhou on Sunday, drew ire when he threw a discarded shirt belonging to Malaysia's Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin on to the court during a break in their semi-final. Zainuddin took offence and told Malaysian media: "My jersey has the Malaysian national flag. I don't have a problem if you want to disrespect me. But please respect the Jalur Gemilang (Flag of Malaysia) on my shirt." Irate fans took to social media to criticise Jorgensen, who later issued an apology via Facebook. "I'm sorry for all the Malaysians I have offended by throwing Iskandar's shirt. Not my meaning to be disrespectful... I have a lot respect for him," Jorgensen wrote. It did little to placate some fans, with one commenter on Instagram writing: "Pls learn how to respect people dude!" The row comes after a group of Australians dubbed the "Budgie Nine" were detained for stripping down to swimwear decorated with the Malaysian flag during the country's Formula One Grand Prix last month. Jorgensen and his Danish team-mates are well known for their spirited behaviour on court, with shirtless victory laps and emotional outbursts common at their matches. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama reduced the sentences of another 79 federal prisoners by exercising his commutation power, the White House said on Tuesday, bringing to more than 1,000 the number of prisoners whose sentences were commuted under Obama. The prisoners are mainly non-violent drug offenders, a group the White House had hoped to reach through criminal justice reform bills that have stalled in Congress. Obama, with the help of pro-bono lawyers and the Justice Department, announced in 2014 that he would use clemency and commutation powers to right the wrong of sentences he saw as overly harsh and unfit of the crime. "While we are continuing to push for criminal justice reform, and that important piece of business remains unfinished, I'm pleased to say the president has not just met but exceeded what he set out to do in 2014 by reinvigorating the clemency project," said White House Counsel Neil Eggleston. Eggleston said the vast majority of the more than 1,000 prisoners have served far more time than the sentence they would have received if they had committed the same crime today. Eggleston said he anticipates additional grants before Obama leaves office in January. The Obama administration was flooded by petitions for clemency after the 2014 announcement. There were about 6,000 pending petitions for drug offenders as of Aug. 31, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and the Justice Department made a commitment to review all of those petitions by the end of the administration. President-elect Donald Trump has not said how he will treat pending petitions for clemency when he takes office. (Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by David Gregorio) It was a week where both oil and gas prices ended with substantial gains. On the news front, acquisitions and deals were in focus with pipeline operator Sunoco Logistics Partners L.P. SXL agreeing to acquire larger rival Energy Transfer Partners L.P. ETP for $21 billion. Meanwhile, downstream bellwether Tesoro Corp. TSO signed a deal to buy fellow oil refiner Western Energy Inc. WNR for about $6.4 billion. Overall, it was a good week for the sector. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures added 5.3% to close at $45.69 per barrel, while natural gas prices rallied 8.6% to $2.843 per million Btu (MMBtu). (See the last Oil & Gas Stock Roundup here: Shell to Invest $10B in Brazil, Chevron Starts Angola Project.) Oil prices notched up their first weekly gain in a month on growing conviction that OPEC members will agree next week to rein in output as part of the plan reached in Sep. The commodity was also bolstered by reports suggesting Russias willingness to back the oil cartels decision to curb production. However, the bullish sentiment was partly offset by the U.S. Energy Department's weekly inventory release, which showed an unexpected build in crude stockpiles. Oils-Energy Sector Price Index Oils-Energy Sector Price Index Meanwhile, natural gas also turned sharply higher following forecasts of colder weather that translates into strong demand for the heating fuel. Recap of the Weeks Most Important Stories 1. Energy pipelines and terminals operator Sunoco Logistics Partners L.P. entered into an agreement to acquire rival pipeline firm Energy Transfer Partners L.P.in a unit-for-unit transaction worth $21.3 billion. Under the terms of the transaction, unitholders of Energy Transfer will receive 1.5 common units of Sunoco for each common unit of Energy Transfer they own. Post the merger, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners will remain the overall parent of the combined entity. The deal is expected to close early next year, subject to approval by shareholders of Energy Transfer, and other customary closing conditions. Story continues This merger is expected to create several commercial synergies, and result in $200 million worth of annual costs savings by 2019. The transaction is also expected to strengthen the financials of the combined organization by making use of cash distribution savings to lower debt and to finance a portion of the growth capital expenditure programs of the combined entity. 2. Downstream operator Tesoro Corp. has agreed to acquire El Paso, TX-based fellow oil refiner Western Energy Inc. for about $6.4 billion. The deal has been unanimously okayed by both companies boards but is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals. Tesoro and Western Refining expect to close the transaction in the first half of 2017. As per the deal, Western Refining shareholders would have the option to receive $37.30 in cash or 0.4350 shares of Tesoro common stock for each share they hold, representing a total value of $4.1 billion. At Western Refinings Wednesdays closing stock price of $30.50, the deal values the companys shares at 22% premium. Additionally, Tesoro will assume $1.7 billion in debt and shell out another $605 million for a non-controlling stake in Western Refining Logistics L.P. the fee-based limited partnership formed by Western Refining. The acquisition is expected to transform Tesoro into a downstream powerhouse that will account for about 6% of crude processing capacity in the U.S. with attractive exposure to the prolific Permian Basin of West Texas, an area that continues to be profitable even at the current low oil prices. (Read more: Tesoro Set to Snap Up Western Refining in $6.4 Billion Deal.) 3. Upstream energy firm Whiting Petroleum Corp. WLL has signed a purchase and sale agreement to divest 50% stake in its North Dakota-based Robinson Lake natural gas processing plant. The company has also signed an agreement to sell 50% interest in Belfield natural gas processing plant and associated natural gas, crude oil and water gathering systems. Whiting Petroleum currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Both the Robinson Lake and the Belfield natural gas processing plant reported an average daily throughput of 132 MMcf per day for the second and third quarters of 2016. These North Dakota assets, which are jointly owned by Whiting Petroleum and Gas Corp., consist of over 650 miles of crude oil, natural gas and other gathering pipelines. Independent refiner Tesoro Corp.s master limited partnership Tesoro Logistics L.P. will be purchasing these assets for about $700 million. Whiting Petroleums share of sale price is estimated to be approximately $375 million. 4. Contract drilling services provider Helmerich & Payne Inc. HP reported net operating loss per share for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2016 (three months ended Sep 30, 2016) excluding special items of 33 cents, narrower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate for a loss of 43 cents. The outperformance came on the back of greater operational efficiency and lower operating costs, which decreased by approximately 27% to $424.7 million. However, the bottom line compared unfavorably with the year-ago adjusted profit of 4 cents amid sharply lower drilling activity. During the quarter, Helmerich & Payne spent approximately $37.6 million on capital programs bringing the full-year figure to $257.2 million. As of Sep 30, 2016, the company had approximately $905.6 million in cash, while long-term debt stood at $491.8 million (debt-to-capitalization ratio of 9.7%). (Read more: Helmerich & Payne Posts Narrower-Than-Expected Q4 Loss.) 5. Brazil's state-run energy giant Petrobras PBR announced its decision to divest its liquefied petroleum gas unit Liquigas Distribuidora SA for $819 million. The segment, which distributes cooking gas, will be sold to Ultrapar Participacoes SA a fuel and petrochemical holding firm. The deal has received clearance from Petrobras board but is awaiting approval from Brazils antitrust agency CADE The divestment plan is in sync with Petrobras efforts to lower its huge debt burden. In fact, the company is the most indebted in the world with a debt burden of $122.65 billion at the end of third-quarter 2016. As a result, Petrobras intends to divest assets worth as much as $15.1 billion over the 20152016 period and another $19.5 billion over 20172018. Through these initiatives, the company expects to achieve a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 2.5 times in 2018 as against 5.3 times at year-end 2015. (Read more: Petrobras to Lower Debt with Liquigas Distribuidor Sale.) Price Performance The following table shows the price movement of some the major oil and gas players over the past week and during the last 6 months. Company Last Week Last 6 Months XOM -1.92% -3.47% CVX +1.32% +10.87% COP -3.20% +6.35% OXY +1.67% -7.53% SLB +0.81% +8.93% RIG +8.49% +28.84% VLO -11.20% +18.51% TSO -0.60% +9.99% Over the course of last week, The Energy Select Sector SPDR was up 0.78% thanks to expectations for an OPEC output deal. Consequently, investors witnessed buying in most market heavyweights. The best performer was offshore drilling giant Transocean Ltd. whose stock price jumped 8.49%. Longer-term, over the last 6 months, the sector tracker has gained 10.35%. Again, Transocean was one of the major beneficiaries during this period, experiencing a 28.84% price increase. Whats Next in the Energy World? With the Q3 earnings season now behind us, market participants will be again closely tracking the regular weekly releases i.e. the U.S. government data on oil and natural gas. Energy traders will also be focusing on the Baker Hughes data on rig count. Confidential: Zacks' Best Investment Ideas Would you like to see a hand-picked "all-star" selection of investment ideas from the man who heads up Zacks' trading and investing services? Steve Reitmeister knows when key trades are about to be triggered and which of our experts has the hottest hand. Click for his selected trades right now >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report SUNOCO LOGISTIC (SXL): Free Stock Analysis Report PETROBRAS-ADR C (PBR): Free Stock Analysis Report ENERGY TRAN PTR (ETP): Free Stock Analysis Report TESORO CORP (TSO): Free Stock Analysis Report WESTERN REFING (WNR): Free Stock Analysis Report HELMERICH&PAYNE (HP): Free Stock Analysis Report WHITING PETROLM (WLL): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research London (AFP) - A woman died and a pensioner was missing Tuesday as flash floods and strong winds swept across Britain, stranding a ferry carrying 150 people for 26 hours. The 39-year-old woman was rescued from the sea off England's south coast early Tuesday, but later died in hospital, according to Kent Police. "A 39-year-old lady rescued from the sea in Folkestone has sadly passed away despite efforts from emergency services to save her," said the force. South Wales Police on Tuesday also resumed the search for Russell Sherwood, 69, who disappeared after setting off on a car journey as "Storm Angus" first hit on Sunday. Fading light and bad weather had earlier forced rescue teams to call off their search. "This remains a difficult search in very testing conditions," police chief Simon Davies said. "The river is very swollen and fast flowing, and as such specialist officers with specialist equipment are conducting the search." Elsewhere, howling gales marooned a ferry off the Welsh coast after it was judged to be too dangerous to dock. The 150 passengers on board eventually reached land at Fishguard, south Wales, at 11:00am (1100 GMT), having spent over a day in the Irish Sea. Rail operator Network Rail warned commuters of "major disruption" on some routes while hundreds of homes were left without power in north east England. The Environment Agency issued 16 flood warnings across England and Wales, advising people to take immediate action, and 118 flood alerts, meaning flooding is possible. Black Hair magazine caught some ire from people on the Internet after accidentally putting a nonblack model on its cover. The magazine caters to black and mixed-race women in a world where many publications dont, so its easy to see why some women were offended by the image. The controversial Black Hair magazine. (Photo: Black Hair) One of the women troubled by the cover was the model herself, Emily Bador, who first drew attention to the cover by posting an apology for the mix-up to Instagram, according to BuzzFeed. Bador took to Instagram to express her outrage, saying that she didnt know her likeness would be used for the cover and that she understands how problematic the photo is in this particular context. This shoot is from when I was around 15 and didnt understand cultural appropriation or the impact it has on POC [people of color], she wrote. Growing up in a very very white city, I had no idea the struggles black women face and how often they were persecuted for their hair I didnt understand that shoots like this support the very Eurocentric beauty standard that the mainstream media focus on which reinforce the idea that black features are only OK on white women. I didnt understand that as a white passing woman Id be praised for this hair, but if I was a black woman Id be persecuted. Story continues guess whos taking over the @americanappareluk instagram ???????????? A photo posted by e m i l y bador (@darth_bador) on Sep 16, 2016 at 4:04am PDT Bador, who, according to the Root, identifies as white, English and Malaysian, says the photo was never intended to be on the cover of this magazine. She also mentions that even though she understands the implications of black hair and appropriation in the media, she is still learning. Commenters on Badors photos applauded her keen insight on the matter and that she took time to think critically about what it means in our society. Im just amazed and in awe how you realized this and acknowledged this, because so many models would not do this. Im so proud to be a fan of you, one person wrote. You probably wont see this, but as a black woman randomly coming across your apology I want to say thank you for your words. At a time when everyone is so divided and mostly occupied with showing why they are right, you extended a heartfelt sorry. For what its worth, I accept your apology. You are as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside, another said. The depth of your self-awareness, sensitivity and integrity are wonderful to witness, particularly in the world we live in, where black and POC womens experiences and voices are played down, belittled and continuously silenced, a commenter wrote. Black Hair magazine editor Keysha Davis released a statement to magazines Facebook page saying they were not aware that the model wasnt black or part black when the magazine decided to use the photo. We often ask PR companies/salons to submit images for the magazine, specifically stating that models must be Black or mixed race. We can only take their word for it, and of course, try to use our own judgment, according to the magazine. At Black Hair we continuously strive to celebrate black women in all our beautiful variation of skin hues and hair textures. We are keenly aware of how black women are underrepresented in the mainstream media and the last thing we want to do is add to our erasure. In this ever-changing world, race will surely become even more fluid and no doubt conversations around Black identity will continue to change, and we definitely welcome the dialogue. The magazines apology was met with mixed reactions in the comments section. Some people still want Black Hair to pull the cover. This is a huge slap in the face to the countless STRUGGLING black models in the industry. Even more so a slap in the face to your readers who pay a lot of money each publication to see hairstyles that represent THEM, being modelled by women who look like them, one commenter wrote. Still, others could see how the mistake was made, saying that Badors ambiguous features, plus the curly kinky wig could have easily tripped up some people. The fact is the magazine made a mistake, they addressed it, which took some real guts. Short of doing a DNA test how were they supposed to know the model was not mixed/black, another person offered. I thought she was mixed race. (shrugs shoulders) Did anyone else notice? Did you alert the staff at Black Hair? The fact is the people behind the magazine work tirelessly to bring out a fantastic issue and with challenging resources. Dont knock them because of one slip. Others appreciated the apology and Black Hairs commitment to catering to black women. Id like to publicly acknowledge how much I KNOW you and your team uplift and promote black women of all shades and sizes. Knowing your ethics and your extensive work over the years, I know that this was a mistake and nothing else!! Unfortunately some black women will still be incandescent even after your heartfelt apology but most of us who pick up and read your magazine know how much you love us and are passionate about giving us positive examples and reflections of ourselves. Davis herself took to Facebook to say how surprised she was to find out that the woman on the cover actually wasnt black. I feel awful because the magazine champions celebrating black beauty and I pride myself on that, so this is a faux pas of massive proportions. Moving forward Im not sure how I can prevent this happening in the future, were certainly living in interesting times, I never thought Id see the day when non-black models were made to look black, but from where Im looking, that does seem to be the case. Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. VIENNA/DUBAI (Reuters) - OPEC will debate an oil output cut of 4.0-4.5 percent for all of its members except Libya and Nigeria next week but the deal's success hinges on an agreement from Iraq and Iran, which are far from certain to give their full backing. Three OPEC sources told Reuters a gathering of experts from the oil producer group in Vienna had decided on Tuesday to recommend that a ministerial meeting next week debate a proposal from member Algeria to reduce output by 4.0-4.5 percent. But sources also said the representatives of Iran, Iraq and Indonesia had expressed reservations about their level of participation in the proposed deal. (Reporting by Alex Lawler and Rania El Gamal; Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson) By Alex Lawler and Rania El Gamal VIENNA/DUBAI (Reuters) - OPEC will debate an oil output cut of 4.0-4.5 percent for all of its members except Libya and Nigeria next week but the deal's success hinges on an agreement from Iraq and Iran, which are far from certain to give full backing. Three OPEC sources told Reuters a gathering of experts from the oil producer group in Vienna had decided on Tuesday to recommend that a ministerial meeting on Nov. 30 debate a proposal from member Algeria to reduce output by that amount. Such a cut would bring OPEC's current output down by more than 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd), according to Reuters calculations based on the group's October production, and is towards the upper end of market expectations. But sources also said the representatives of Iran, Iraq and Indonesia had expressed reservations during talks that continued for 11 hours about their level of participation in what would be the group's first supply-limiting deal since 2008. Brent oil futures were trading slightly up at around $49.2 per barrel at 2010 GMT, having lost most of their earlier gains of around $1 a barrel. In September, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to reduce production to between 32.5 million and 33.0 million bpd - an effort to prop up prices - from OPEC's own latest production estimates of 33.64 million bpd. OPEC's deal faces potential setbacks from Iraq's call for it to be exempt and from Iran, which wants to increase supply because its output has been hit by sanctions. Iraq's foreign minister said on Tuesday in Budapest that OPEC should allow Iraq to continue raising output with no restrictions. BIG BARGAIN Iran and Iraq raised certain conditions for participating in the deal, according to sources, who were not allowed to speak on the record because the experts were meeting behind closed doors. Sources said Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have signaled they were prepared to cut close to 1 million bpd of their output. The Algerian proposal would see all member countries, except Nigeria and Libya, cutting 4-4.5 percent from OPEC's estimates of their October production with the aim of reaching a total output target of 32.5 million bpd, OPEC sources have said. That would mean Saudi Arabia alone could cut up to 500,000 bpd, sources said. OPEC's own estimates, based on what it calls "secondary sources", are usually lower than countries' direct submissions to the organization. Under the Algerian proposal, Iran was asked to cut 4.5 percent from almost 4 million bpd, according to sources. But Tehran has signaled it wants to cut from higher levels of 4.1-4.2 million bpd, one of the sources said. Iraq was asked to cut about 200,000 bpd. Baghdad is also still debating whether it should cut from the levels of OPEC's estimates or its own, higher, production figures. "Eighty-five percent of proposed OPEC cuts are from Gulf countries but Iran is still not in favor," one source said. Non-OPEC producer Russia was also still not agreeing to cut production but favoring a freeze, a senior OPEC delegate said. "This will make it difficult for OPEC alone to rebalance the market and bring prices up," the source said. (Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson/Ruth Pitchford) A 53-year-old Lincoln man sentenced Monday for sexually assaulting a young girl repeatedly over nine years will be in prison until he's at least 80 years old. Jack Borkowski pleaded no contest in September to a single count of first-degree sexual assault of a child. About two dozen people, many wearing Bikers Against Child Abuse jackets, watched in the courtroom Monday as Borkwoski said he wanted to apologize to everyone involved. "I regret what I did," he said. Chief Deputy Lancaster County Public Defender Bob Hays argued for a minimum sentence of 20 years, which would mean Borkowski would be eligible for parole at age 70, given that he accepted responsibility and entered a plea in the case and had nothing on his criminal record before this beyond minor traffic offenses. Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Nick Freeman argued for at least 50 years and up to life in prison for the horrific nature of his crime. In an interview with Lincoln police, Borkowski admitted to more than 200 incidents of sexual assault on the girl, he said. In May, the girl, now a teen, told police that he started touching her inappropriately when she was 6 and it escalated to him forcing her to engage in sexual acts. In court Monday, Freeman said Borkowski "changed the trajectory of this young woman." Both she and her mother wanted him to get a life sentence for what he did. In a victim impact statement, the girl said Jack Borkowski robbed her of her virginity and time with her family. "Essentially what you did, Mr. Borkowski, is steal this young woman's childhood," Lancaster County District Judge Andrew Jacobsen told him. "She doesn't get a second chance at that childhood." The judge said now she is undergoing psychological and physical distress, and he's the reason. With that, he sentenced Borkowski to 40 to 50 years in prison. Because the charge carries a mandatory minimum, he won't be eligible for parole until after serving 27 years. He also will be on the sex offender registry and subject to parole supervision for the rest of his life. BERLIN (Reuters) - Despite all their differences, opposition groups in Syria agree that there cannot be a future with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told a conference hosted by his Social Democrat party on Tuesday. Steinmeier repeated his call for an end to the bombardment of civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo and other parts of the country, and said a transition plan was needed to get to a political solution for ending the civil war there. He said there were discussions about bringing humanitarian relief supplies into Aleppo via Turkey, but there were no guarantees for success. (Reporting by Andreas Rinke; Writing by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Madeline Chambers) LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 22, 2016 / Optex Systems, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Optex Systems Holdings, Inc. (OTCQB:OPXS), a leading manufacturer of precision optical sighting systems for domestic and worldwide military and commercial applications, announced today that it will be presenting at the 9th Annual LD Micro Main Event on Wednesday, December 7 at 12:30 PM PST / 3:30 PM EST at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. Danny Schoening, Optex's CEO will deliver the Company's corporate presentation and discuss recent business highlights. In addition to the presentations, management will also be available for one-on-one meetings. To arrange a one-on-one meeting with management, please contact Robert Haag at opxs@irthcommunications.com or 1-866-976-4784. The LD Micro Main Event is the largest independent conference for small/microcap companies and will feature 240 presenting names. View Optex Systems' profile here: http://www.ldmicro.com/profile/OPXS News Compliments of Accesswire About Optex Systems Optex, which was founded in 1987, is a Richardson, Texas based ISO 9001:2008 certified concern, which manufactures optical sighting systems and assemblies, primarily for Department of Defense (DOD) applications. Its products are installed on various types of U.S. military land vehicles, such as the Abrams and Bradley fighting vehicles, Light Armored and Armored Security Vehicles, and have been selected for installation on the Stryker family of vehicles. Optex also manufactures and delivers numerous periscope configurations, rifle and surveillance sights, and night vision optical assemblies. Optex delivers its products both directly to the military services and to prime contractors. For additional information, please visit the Company's website at www.optexsys.com. About LD Micro LD Micro was founded in 2006 with the sole purpose of being an independent resource in the microcap space. What started out as a newsletter highlighting unique companies has transformed into an event platform hosting several influential conferences annually (Invitational, Summit, and Main Event). Story continues In 2015, LDM launched the first pure microcap index (the LDMi) to exclusively provide intraday information on the entire sector. LD will continue to provide valuable tools for the benefit of everyone in the small and microcap universe. For those interested in attending, please contact David Scher at david@ldmicro.com or visit www.ldmicro.com/events for more information. Contact: Robert Haag Managing Director IRTH Communications OPXS@irthcommunications.com 1-866-976-4784 SOURCE: Optex Systems via LD Micro The original Top Gear trio is back Richard Hammond, James May, and of course, the controversial Jeremy Clarkson. Their roaring return to television came last weekend courtesy of Amazons The Grand Tour, with all the fury of a Bugatti Veyron ripping down the Nurburgring. Exact streaming numbers are known only to Amazon, but the company announced that it had become the services most-watched series ever. The Grand Tours audience is already global, with millions of viewers in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Austria, and Japan. Exactly how much Amazon ponied up for the right to host the gang has been something of a mystery. Early reports pegged it at $160 million, or about $14.5 million per episode. Ted Sarandos, chief content officer of Amazon rival Netflix, suggested to the Telegraph that it might have been closer to a quarter of a billion dollars. But then again, hed have good reason to want to splash some cold water on this roadway. Speaking of cold water, lets not forget the reason this new show exists in the first place. In March of last year, Jeremy Clarksons relationship with the BBC ended after what they termed a fracas. The outspoken host was alleged to have called his producer a lazy Irish and punched him in the face. But, hey, every day is a new dawn right? The Grand Tour is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video. Watch the Top Gear guys get quizzed by James Corden while racing through the desert: Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Khail Anonymous, on Twitter. Just in time for holiday shopping season, & Other Stories, H&M's quirky, upscale sister, has opened its first store in Beverly Hills. Located in the Art Deco building on the corner of Beverly Drive and Brighton Way that was once occupied by struggling U.S. retailer Gap, the open and airy 5,700-square-foot store features the Swedish brand's entire range of clothing, beauty and accessories, including a 'deal-of-the-day' special on a single item, that shoppers have to come into the store to discover. "California has been a part of Stories narrative since our launch in 2013, so in many ways this opening feels very much like coming home. Can't wait to get to know more of our customers here and see how our West Coast story will grow and evolve every season," Samuel Fernstrom, managing director of & Other Stories, said in a release. Courtesy of & Other Stories And indeed, later this year, the retailer plans to open a design studio in Los Angeles to complement the brand's already-existing studios in Paris and Stockholm. Fernstrom launched & Other Stories based on the notion of personal style, and designed the brand to appeal to all ages. (Nonagenarian style icon Iris Apfel starred in one of the early campaigns.) Most of the clothing is priced in the $65 to $200 range, and specialties include sparkly knitwear, party dresses, cool trousers, metallic boots, whimsical jewelry and nail polish in hues that correspond to the clothing collection. & Other Stories has collaborated with several designer brands and tastemakers over the years, including Los Angeles-based Rodarte and Clare V. H&M also owns Cos, which has a boutique across the street on Beverly Drive. & Other Stories also has a store at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, and stores in downtown Los Angeles and Glendale will open soon. & Other Stories, 370 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, CA, stories.com.us. Courtesy of & Other Stories By Alexander Cornwell DUBAI (Reuters) - Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is evaluating an order for wide-body Airbus and Boeing jets as it looks to upgrade its ageing fleet, an executive for the state-owned airline said on Tuesday. "Boeing 777X would be a good option," the airline's executive director of human resources and works, Raheel Ahmed, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Dubai, adding that PIA is also looking at the Airbus A330 and A350 models. PIA would consider purchasing the aircraft directly from the manufacturer and financing the order through a sale and leaseback arrangement, when an airline sells a jet to a lessor who then leases it back. It would also consider a direct leasing agreement, known as a dry lease. Ahmed did not say when PIA would order the jets or how many it could buy. It has a fleet of 38 narrow-body and wide-body Airbus and Boeing jets, with three A310s to be retired on Dec. 31, he added. Ahmed also said PIA would cut its 18,000 workforce by between 3,000 and 3,500 employees by the end of 2017 as the Pakistan government looks to turn around the loss-making airline and sell-off a 49 percent stake. However, PIA later said Ahmed's figures were incorrect, and no decision had as yet been taken on how many jobs would be cut or over what timeframe. A meeting between Pakistan's Privatization Commission and PIA top management was also held on Tuesday, "to determine the best suitable restructuring model to make PIA into a viable entity," a senior government official who attended the meeting told Reuters. The official said restructuring would be done in two phases, carving out non-essential units within three to six months "to attain a clean balance sheet," followed by the gradual carving out of other business units. The airline would spin-off four "special business units" from January 2017, starting with its catering business and later its flight training, engineering and courier businesses. The units are planned to operate independently of PIA with their own general managers and marketing teams. PIA would later look to sell a stake in the units if they are profitable. (Additional reporting by Mehreen Zahra-Malik in Islamabad; Editing by Mark Potter and Alexander Smith) (Reuters) - An Israeli security guard shot and killed a Palestinian who tried to stab him at a busy checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Israeli police said. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the Palestinian was brandishing a knife and approached the guard on foot in the vehicle lane of the Qalandiya checkpoint. The guard was not hurt, she said. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the man was dead. At least 228 Palestinians have been killed in violence in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip since October 2015. Israel says at least 154 of them were assailants in a wave of lone attacks often targeting security forces and using rudimentary weapons including kitchen knives. Others died during clashes and protests. The street assaults killed at least 33 Israelis and two visiting Americans over the same period. Israel says one of the main causes of the violence is incitement by the Palestinian leadership, with young men encouraged to attack Israeli soldiers and civilians. Families say assailants acted out of desperation, frustrated by the lack of progress towards peace and Israel's continued building of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want for their own state. Palestinians accused Israeli police and soldiers of using excessive force in many cases, saying many assailants could have been stopped or detained without being killed. In several cases, Israel has opened investigations. Israel has occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem for nearly 50 years, since the 1967 Middle East war, and maintains tight restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in some areas, especially checkpoints that border Israel. (Reporting by Maayan Lubell and Ali Sawafta; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky) Jerusalem (AFP) - A Palestinian was shot dead at a West Bank checkpoint on Tuesday after walking towards guards with a knife in his hand, Israeli police said. "A Palestinian attempted to cross the checkpoint using the vehicle lane and approached security guards brandishing a knife," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement. "The terrorist was neutralised," she added, later confirming he had been killed. There were no Israeli casualties. Palestinian security sources identified the dead man as Jihad Khalil, 48, from near Nablus in the northern West Bank. The incident happened at the Qalandia checkpoint between the northern West Bank and Jerusalem, which is used by thousands of Palestinians every day. The heavily fortified checkpoint is a hated symbol of Israeli occupation for Palestinians and has seen a number of attacks during an upsurge of violence over the past year. Since October 2015, 240 Palestinians, 36 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed, according to an AFP count. Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out attacks, according to Israeli authorities. Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some died in Israeli air strikes on Gaza. The violence has calmed significantly in recent months. By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) - - Palliative care may offer a better quality of life to chronically sick or terminally ill patients even if it doesnt help them live longer, a research review suggests. Research to date on the impact of palliative care has produced mixed results. Some studies have shown a survival benefit but findings have often been muddled by the possibility that there are differences between patients who choose palliative care and those who opt for other types of treatment. For the current study, researchers examined data from 43 previously published studies with a total of almost 13,000 patients and 2,500 caregivers to see if a pooled analysis could offer a clearer picture. Our analyses suggest that patients who received palliative care had better quality of life and less severe symptoms than those patients who hadnt received palliative care, said lead study author Dio Kavalieratos of the University of Pittsburgh. We also saw that those who received palliative care were generally more satisfied with their care and so were their caregivers. Still, they found no association between palliative care and survival. While some studies have shown a positive relationship, others have not; when we combined the results of these studies, on the whole, we found no relationship, Kavalieratos said by email. That said, the underlying assumption here makes sense intuitively that if you improve peoples symptoms and quality of life, their suffering will decrease, they will be able to engage in and enjoy their lives, and perhaps live longer, Kavalieratos added. However, it is a long pathway from symptoms to survival. By design, palliative care is focused on reducing suffering for seriously ill patients and their families. Many U.S. hospitals have inpatient palliative care programs, and outpatient and community-based alternatives are becoming increasingly common, researchers note in JAMA. Across the studies, patients were 67 years old on average. The majority of studies involved people with cancer, but some also focused on patients with heart failure. These two diagnoses are the most common reasons for palliative care, the study authors note. Most of the studies in the analysis measured how well palliative care addressed both physical and psychological issues. In the analysis, palliative care was associated with statistically and clinically significant improvements in measures of patient quality of life and symptom burden after one month and three months of follow-up. When researchers looked at only the subset of five studies with a low risk of bias due to the types of patients who received palliative care, the impact on quality of life was less pronounced and there was no longer a statistically meaningful impact on symptom burden. Palliative care was, however, consistently associated with improvements in advance care planning, patient and caregiver satisfaction and less healthcare use. One limitation of the research review is that variation in the types, timing and duration of palliative care in he included studies made it hard to draw firm conclusions in some instances, the authors caution. Still, the findings suggest that more providers should be trained in palliative care and that researchers should work to pinpoint the best way to make this type of intervention effective for patients, Dr. Preeti Malani of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor writes in an accompanying editorial. Families are often not made aware that palliative care is an option, especially when cure is the focus, Malani told Reuters Health by email. Clinicians, patients and families all could benefit from education on the availability of palliative care and what these services can and cant offer - what they are and are not (i.e. palliative care does not mean we are giving up treatment for example), Malani added. Too often palliative care is equated to hospice or end of life care but palliative care is much more than that. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2fBWxo2 and http://bit.ly/2fZshns JAMA, online November 22, 2016. A 23-year-old man will spend 42 years in prison for sexually abusing a young Lincoln girl multiple times. Rafael German Mora pleaded no contest in October to a count of first-degree sexual assault of a child. His brother, Felipe German Mora, was found guilty at a trial last month of four counts of sexual assault of a child, three of them first-degree and one third-degree for sexually abusing the same girl for years. Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Nick Freeman said Rafael German Mora admitted to assaulting the girl twice. The second time, Freeman said, German Mora was caught by his girlfriend and the abuse was reported to police. The girl has said he abused her three times. At the time of the abuse, the girl was 10 years old and German Mora 22. The state believes both men were in the country unlawfully. During a sentencing hearing Tuesday afternoon, Freeman asked retired Lancaster County District Judge Jeffre Cheuvront to give German Mora the maximum, citing German Mora's lack of remorse. "He basically says he was framed," Freeman said. Defense attorney Chris Eickholt argued that German Mora should not be sentenced as harshly as his brother -- who was given 60 years to life in prison Monday. "There's a difference between two to three times and a couple hundred," he said. Eickholt also argued that German Mora has no criminal history, has not been disciplined in jail and is making attempts to learn English. Asked if he had anything to say, German Mora, through an interpreter, said, "I just need another opportunity to help my family, my son, my wife and my parents." When it came to sentencing, Cheuvront noted German Mora's lack of remorse, saying that even when speaking in court, he only thought about himself and not of the impact his actions have had on the young girl. "It's as if you looked upon her merely as an object for your gratification," the judge said. German Mora was given 25 to 70 years in prison. Because there's a mandatory minimum, he'll have to serve at least 42 years. He was given credit for 435 days already served. Masked men robbed two elderly Qatari women of valuables worth at least $5.3 million in a Paris motorway, according to reports Tuesday. The incident comes a month after American reality television star Kim Kardashian was robbed of $10 million worth of jewelry at her apartment in the French capital. The incident happened after the Qatari women left Le Bourget airport in the northeast of Paris. The women, both in their 60s, were travelling in their Bentley when two masked men stopped them, sprayed tear gas and took away everything in the vehicle: jewels, clothes, luggage, a police source told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Paris police has launched an investigation after the driver of the Bentley reported the robbery. The French capital was in headlines last month after Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint by masked men. The 36-year-old socialite was in the city to attend Paris Fashion Week. She was reportedly gagged and locked in the bathroom of her apartment during the heist while the robbers looted jewelry. An investigation into the robbery is underway. According to AFP, robberies have become common on the stretch of motorway heading north from Paris to the Charles de Gaulle and Le Bourget airports. In October, a taxi carrying the CEO of a French furniture company and other passengers was held up by three thieves after leaving Le Bourget. The robbers took over $105,000 worth of valuables. Last year, three people robbed a Korean art collector of over $4 million in jewels from her car. Related Articles Headquartered in St. Paul, MN, Patterson Companies Inc. PDCO is one of the leading distributors of dental and companion-pet veterinarian supplies in the United States and Canada. Currently, Patterson Companies has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) but that could change following its second-quarter fiscal 2017 earnings report which has just released. We have highlighted some of the key details from the just-released announcement below: Earnings: Patterson Companies posted adjusted earnings from continuing operations of 56 cents, flat versus the year-ago quarter and missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 61 cents. Sales: Net sales from continuing operations surged 2.1% from the year-ago quarter to $1,418.2 million, which missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1,435.0 million. Key Stats: Patterson Animal Health sales surged 4.2% to $807.1 million, driven by higher contribution from the consumable segment of the business (up 4.4%). However Dental sales were flattish year over year. Guidance: Patterson Companies affirmed full year fiscal 2017 adjusted EPS guidance range of $2.25 to $2.35 per diluted share. PATTERSON COS Price and EPS Surprise PATTERSON COS Price and EPS Surprise | PATTERSON COS Quote Check back for our full write up on this Patterson Companies earnings report later! Now See Our Private Investment Ideas While the above ideas are being shared with the public, other trades are hidden from everyone but selected members. Would you like to peek behind the curtain and view them? Starting today, for the next month, you can follow all Zacks' private buys and sells in real time from value to momentum . . . from stocks under $10 to ETF and option moves . . . from insider trades to companies that are about to report positive earnings surprises (we've called them with 80%+ accuracy). You can even look inside portfolios so exclusive that they are normally closed to new investors. Click here for Zacks' secret trades >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report PATTERSON COS (PDCO): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. EXCLUSIVE: Lifetime is taking on Prison Break: The Joyce Mitchell Story, setting Penelope Ann Miller to star in the networks latest ripped-from-the-headlines TV movie. This one is inspired by the infamous 2015 jailbreak in upstate New York pulled off by convicted murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat that launched a 21-day manhunt for the pair. The statewide search captivated the cable news networks; Matt was found and killed in the attempt to apprehend him, and Sweat eventually was found and taken into custody. In the movie written and to be directed by Stephen Tolkin, Miller will play Joyce Mitchell, the married mother of three who met Matt (Myk Watford) and Sweat (Joe Anderson) while running the tailor shop at the Clinton Correctional Facility. In real life, the cons seduced Mitchell, and, thinking the men were in love with her, she agreed to help them break out, supplying tools and agreeing to pick them up on the outside after the escape. Part of the plan was to kill her husband so they could run away together to Mexico, but at the last second she decided she couldnt go through with the plot and didnt show up at the pickup point. She later was convicted of promoting prison contraband and criminal facilitation and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Mountainair Films is producing the pic, with Judith Verno and Frank Von Zerneck executive producing. David Manzanares co-produces and Ron Schmidt is the line producer. A 2017 premiere is planned. Miller most recently starred opposite Nate Parker, Armie Hammer and Gabrielle Union in Sundance hit The Birth of a Nation. Her other TV credits include American Crime, Mistresses and Men of a Certain Age. Shes repped by APA and Untitled. Lifetime also has in its pipeline Britney, a two-hour TV movie about Britney Spears starring Natasha Bassett (Hail, Caesar!) as the pop icon. It also last week set a January 21 premiere date for its remake of Beaches starring Idina Menzel and Nia Long. Story continues Related stories 'Beaches': Premiere Date & Promo For Lifetime Remake Starring Idina Menzel & Nia Long 'A Midsummer's Nightmare': Courtney Love Cast In Lifetime's Shakespearean Pilot Former CMT Programming Exec Katie Buchanan Tapped For SVP Role At Lifetime/LMN Washington (AFP) - The Pentagon has softened rules on US troops carrying firearms while at government facilities, an action prompted by a series of deadly attacks on uniformed personnel. Troops already carry weapons as part of certain job functions, but the new rules will allow commanders to authorize the carrying of privately owned handguns, according to a November 18 directive. Commanders may grant permission to Department of Defense "personnel requesting to carry a privately owned firearm (concealed or open carry) on DoD property for a personal protection purpose not related to performance of an official duty or status," the directive states. In July last year, an attack on a Chattanooga, Tennessee recruitment center and a Navy and Marine Corps reserve center left four marines and one sailor dead at the hands of a lone gunman, who according to the FBI was inspired by radical Islamist propaganda. The rampage prompted Congress to ask President Barack Obama's administration to loosen current regulations on US troops carrying arms. On November 5, 2009, Major Nidal Hasan, 39, a US Army psychiatrist of Palestinian origin opened fire with a pistol at the Fort Hood base in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding more than 40 before he was arrested. The new policy has no bearing on firearms regulations for US troops in war zones. Photo credit: undefined From Harper's BAZAAR On Sunday, Prince Harry arrived in Antigua for the beginning of his two-week tour of the West Indies on behalf of the Queen, in which he will visit the Commonwealth country of Guyana as well as six countries where the Queen is still head of state: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines . The primary purpose of Prince Harry's visit is, somewhat ironically, to mark the 35th anniversary of independence in Antigua and Barbuda and the 50th anniversary of independence in Guyana and Barbados, the latter of which will have him meeting with Rihanna. His arrival, however, has been greeted by an anti-colonial campaign trending under the hashtag #NotMyPrince, an obvious hat tip to the #NotMyPresident campaign that launched in America following the election victory of Donald Trump. Fully support the @NotMyPrince movement. Time to put Britain's embarrassing colonialism to bed and move forward. #NotMyPrince - Jamie (@JamieBellinger) November 21, 2016 Send this patronising waster a message that the pillage & slavery brought to the Caribbean by his forefathers is not forgotten #NotMyPrince - Joe Kerr (@JoeKerr484848) November 21, 2016 Princes belong in fairy tales, not democracies. #NotMyPrince - James (@James_G_Hill_) November 21, 2016 Social media users are not the only ones protesting the British Monarchy's lasting hold over these regions. Last year, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart of Barbados said he planned to replace the Queen with a local president. In October 2014, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne spoke out against Europe's colonial past at the second Conference of Reparations, saying "We hold no living person of any European nation responsible for the evils of the ruling classes that controlled their societies and enriched themselves from the cruelties and barbarism from which they subjected our ancestors. However, this does not preclude them from acknowledging these wrongs and to commit themselves to the noble action of resolving them by accepting our reparatory claims." You Might Also Like New York (AFP) - US soda giants PepsiCo and Dr Pepper Snapple Group both announced acquisitions Tuesday of niche producers of healthier and healthier-sounding drinks that have been taking market share from traditional cola. PepsiCo bought KeVita, a leader in fermented probiotic and kombucha beverages, for an undisclosed price. PepsiCo praised KeVita for having a "loyal and rapidly growing consumer base in the fast growing functional beverage space." Dr Pepper Snapple bought Bai Brands, a maker of carbonated flavored water and other beverages, for $1.7 billion. Dr Pepper Snapple chief executive Larry Young praised Bai as a leader in fast-growing beverage businesses and said he would support Bai's efforts "to continue the breakthrough and disruptive branding and innovation that have revolutionized their categories." US soda consumption fell to a 30-year low in 2015 as worries about obesity and diabetes hit sales. Soda makers have responded with a series of reforms, include use of smaller portion sizes. Soda makers have also faced punitive laws in US cities such as Berkeley, California and Philadelphia, which have imposed taxes on sugary drinks. In November, several other cities joined this movement, including Boulder, Colorado and San Francisco. LIMA (Reuters) - Peru rolled out the red carpet and heaped praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday in a celebration of tightening ties with the Asian powerhouse in the wake of Donald Trump's surprise U.S. presidential victory. China surpassed the United States as Peru's top trade partner years ago, and Peru's centrist President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has courted fresh Chinese investments since taking office in July, visiting China before any other country. Trump's election in the United States has added urgency to Peru and China's deepening diplomacy, with his criticism of Chinese trade and Latin American migrants raising questions over the future of the U.S. role in the fast-growing Asia Pacific region. Xi's official visit extended the welcome he received at the APEC summit that Peru hosted through Sunday, where he promised to further open China's economy amid concerns of protectionism. Peru, on track to become the world's second-biggest copper producer this year thanks to a new Chinese mine, is one of the world's most open economies. "Peru was the first Latin American country to sign a comprehensive free trade agreement with China. It's leading the region on cooperation with China," Xi said through an interpreter in a speech before Peru's Congress. Greeted in Lima by women who sang a welcome song in Mandarin, Xi signed a series of pacts with Kuczynski that included plans to promote Chinese mining projects, including one derailed by deadly protests in 2009. Kuczynski, stressing the importance of cultural ties, said a local museum should explore Peruvians' possible roots in Asian migration across Bering Strait. "It's vital to know where you're from so know where you're going," Kuczynski said as he and Xi stood before a backdrop that blended photos of Peru's Machu Picchu Incan ruins with the Great Wall of China. Kuczynski joked in June that he would sever ties with the United States if Trump won the election and said this month that he would oppose the proposed wall for the U.S.-Mexico border in the United Nations. A former Wall Street banker, Kuczynski hopes to diversify Peru's exports to China away from copper. On Monday his government announced Peru's first shipment of agricultural products to China by plane. But not all Peruvians are keen on China. A leftist congressional bloc opted out of an award ceremony for Xi, saying Chinese companies put profits before workers, communities and the environment. (Reporting By Mitra Taj; Editing by Richard Pullin) SAO PAULO, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Petroleo Brasileiro SA , the world's most indebted large oil company, is reviewing terms of a profit-sharing accord with workers, as rifts between the Brazilian state-controlled company and unions escalate, the Valor Economico newspaper reported on Tuesday. According to Valor, Petrobras intends to modify aspects of the PLR, as the profit-sharing mechanism is commonly known. Unions leaders told the newspaper that the proposal could include barring a current rule that would guarantee a one-time bonus for workers even if the company posts an annual loss. Unions are challenging efforts by Petrobras Chief Executive Officer Pedro Parente to dispose of assets and limit pay raises. He says such actions could help prevent the company's $130 billion debt from growing. Workers are considering a stoppage on Nov. 30 to protest a potential revision of the profit-sharing agreement, Valor said. Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras, as well as the media offices for unions representing oil workers in the states of Sergipe and Alagoas, did not respond to requests for immediate comment. Last week, Parente vowed to stick to a $15.1 billion asset sale goal for the two years ending in 2016, signaling that Petrobras is making headway on its downsizing plan. Unions recently won an injunction to halt the sale of the Bauna and Tartaruga Verde fields to Karoon Gas Australia Ltd . Petrobras has vowed to appeal the injunction, Valor said. (Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal; editing by Jason Neely) Marlene Rashidi met Germichael Kennedy for the first time an hour before he killed her. She and some friends ran into him in downtown Lincoln about 2 a.m. on June 26. The three other women with her knew Kennedy; one of them grew up with him in a small town in Mississippi. They would later tell police their conversation lasted about two minutes. Newly released interviews and physical evidence presented to a grand jury in October detail how Rashidi's and Kennedys paths would cross again on Portia Street about an hour later. Investigators would try to piece together why Kennedy unloaded a semi-automatic pistol into two cars, killing Rashidi and injuring Dezarae Mann, who also didn't know Kennedy. Neither of the women lived in the Belmont neighborhood. Kennedy would be killed by Lincoln police hours later, and forensic testing confirmed the bullet lodged in Rashidis lower back matched bullets found in his car and in the gun Kennedy pointed at an officers head. The Journal Star reviewed hundreds of pages of testimony and evidence from the grand jury investigation required by Nebraska law whenever someone dies in police custody or while being arrested. The transcript includes details that give a clearer picture into how Rashidi, a 20-year-old University of Nebraska at Kearney student, a published poet and an aspiring lawyer, ended up in the worst place at the worst time. * * * The events that led to Rashidi's death began between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. on June 25. Germichael Kennedy, 22, was visiting a friend who lives near 12th and D streets. The two went to a party near Knox and Portia streets, and the friend decided to walk the four miles back to his apartment at about 10:30. Kennedy had been consuming a lot of alcohol and (the friend) just didnt want to ride home with him, Lincoln Police Officer Luis Herrera, who investigated Rashidi's death, told the grand jury. Kennedy stayed at the party until 1 a.m. and got into a fight with a couple of women, cursing at them and calling them names. At one point, (Kennedy) threatens to shoot somebody in the face, Herrera said, noting that the young man from Mississippi wasn't armed at that point. He punched a 24-year-old man in the face and left the party, heading downtown, where he ran into Rashidi and her friends. According to the grand jury transcript, Kennedy was pulled over by a Lincoln police officer near 14th and O streets at 2:11 a.m. The traffic stop lasted four minutes. Basically I think just to get him straightened out, Herrera said about why he was stopped. Hes going the wrong way on a one-way street. When asked by multiple jurors why Kennedy was allowed to drive home, Herrera said that to his knowledge, there was no indication during the stop that he had been drinking. Fifteen minutes later, Kennedy was pulled over again -- this time by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln officer at 16th and P streets. That stop lasted 23 minutes, and Kennedy was cited but Herrera told the grand jury he didn't know what for, adding that there was no way for the UNL officer to know LPD had just stopped Kennedy. And apparently, once again, there was no indication Kennedy was drunk. He was allowed to leave about the same time Rashidi and her friends were driving to an apartment on Knox Street in the same Belmont neighborhood to which Kennedy was headed. The women planned to change clothes before heading out to a party. Just before 3 a.m., Kennedy pulled back onto Portia Street. The women were in an apartment changing when a group of men confronted Kennedy outside. He threatened one of them and asked if he'd ever been shot. (The man) says he has been shot (before), Herrera said. And he doesnt think thats funny. He takes great offense. He pushes back Kennedy ... other people that are present assault Kennedy. Kennedy left the neighborhood and posted a selfie to Snapchat showing his bloody, cut-up face from the altercation. A neighbor called 911 at 3:05 a.m. to report the fight, and when Officers Joseph Villamonte and Joseph Coleman arrived, groups of people began to scatter. Theyre asked by residents to stay in the area on foot because people feel like theres a lot of tension in the air, Herrera said. Coleman would later testify that that was rare -- people dont usually ask the cops to stick around. Five minutes later, Kennedy walked into his friend's 12th Street apartment, grabbed a handgun and headed back to Portia and Knox. Kennedy's friend was worried, but he stayed home. At roughly the same time, Herrera estimated, Rashidi and her friends left the apartment and got into two separate cars and headed west on Knox toward Portia. Rashidi was in the rear passenger seat of a red Kia. A lot of what came next happened about the same time, Herrera told the grand jury. Rashidis three friends all told police they saw Kennedys white Hyundai approaching from Adams Street. The woman in the second car said she saw him get out and start shooting toward the Kia. The driver sped off, not realizing Rashidi had been hit. Kennedy then headed to the second car and put a gun to a womans head. She starts pleading for her life and asking him not to shoot her," Herrera said. "She says, You know me, you know me, you know me. Dont do this. Kennedy does not say anything. He simply gets back into his vehicle and starts driving north (on Portia). When Rashidis friends realized she'd been shot, they tried to take her to a hospital but got lost and called for help from 21st and K streets. Once at the hospital, Rashidi was rushed into surgery, but she died. A bullet that penetrated the rear of the car hit her in the lower back and pelvic area, causing significant damage to blood vessels, an autopsy that was included in the grand jury report said. Back on Portia Street, Dezarae Mann had just dropped a couple of friends off at an apartment and was headed south when she saw Kennedy's car speeding toward her. She swerved to get out of his way and then stopped. Kennedy stopped in the middle of the street, got out and shot Mann's car six times. A bullet hit her near the armpit, traveled down, exited her abdomen and landed on her lap. She was hospitalized but survived and is back at work. Officers Coleman and Villamonte were still in the area and headed toward the noise, knowing only that the suspect was in a white car. Then, Coleman saw Kennedy step out of a white car. I draw my gun, I see him holding a gun, Coleman said in an interview with the Lancaster County Sheriffs Office that is now part of the grand jury transcript. Kennedy ran toward the officer but didn't point the gun at Coleman. Im going, Drop the gun, drop the gun, Coleman said. We are just kind of facing each other, I am behind my car door, but my window is down and I am up, my gun is up. Kennedy turned around and got back into his car, threw it into reverse and floored it, getting away from the cops. Three hours later, he'd have his fourth run-in of the night with police. MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine and United States military officials agreed to scale back joint exercises and reduce U.S. troop deployments, a Philippine general involved in the talks said on Tuesday, though a statement issued by the allies spoke of "close cooperation". The joint statement omitted mention of any reduced level of engagement between the two militaries, though President Rodrigo Duterte has expressed his opposition to having foreign troops on Philippines' soil and has threatened to scrap exercises and abrogate pacts. U.S. officials present at the talks in Manila took no questions, and the joint statement was issued via the hosts. Reading the statement, spokesman Brigadier-General Restituto Padilla said there would be continued "close cooperation in areas central to both our national and security interests". That would include humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, counter-terrorism and maritime security, he said. But one Philippine general involved in the talks said the two sides also agreed to reduce the size and frequency of joint exercises and the number of U.S. troops taking part. "The two allies will focus more on humanitarian assistance and disaster response operations and other non-traditional military training and exercises," said the general, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. The number of U.S. troops would be "small", he added. Some 5,000 American soldiers have taken part in exercises in the Philippines in the past two years. The Philippines has for decades been one of the United States' most important Asian allies but the relationship has been shaken by Duterte voicing disdain and mistrust of Washington. Speaking to business leaders in Beijing last month, Duterte spoke of his "separation" from the United States. A few days later he backtracked on those comments. In Peru on Saturday Duterte met Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time and bemoaned what he called hypocrisy and "bullying" by the United States and allies. The Philippine general said the defense ministry had instructed the military to scale back joint exercises, which should be "refocused on disaster" relief, and end naval and amphibious landing drills. Planned U.S. deployments under a 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) - which Duterte has also said he would try to stop - would go on as scheduled. "But, that too, we will see a scaling down on the number of aircraft and troops rotated in our bases," the general added. (Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Martin Petty and Simon Cameron-Moore) Three of the five Woodmore Elementary School students who were killed in Mondays bus crash in Chattanooga, Tennessee, have been identified, according to their family members and friends. Zyanna Harris, 10, Cordayja Jones, 9, and Zoie Nash, 9, were on the bus that crashed, turned on its side and wrapped around a tree, critically injuring several more students. The bus driver has since been charged with vehicular homicide. The three students have been described as sweet, lovable spirits. Zyanna liked to dance as did Zoie, the only girl in her family, who also played softball. Cordayja was always smiling. School officials have previously said three fourth-graders, a first-grader and a kindergartner were killed in the crash. There were 37 students on board, according to the BBC, NBC News and The Tennessean. Zyanna Harris A close family friend of Zyanna says that she was a sweet girl who was never involved in drama. She was into dancing, cheering, anything girly, 13-year-old Sireunya Eberhardt tells PEOPLE. She was loving and very kind to her brothers and sisters. She was a family person and very friendly. Quiet and always smiling is how Sireunya remembers Zyanna. If you needed anything, she says, Zyanna was there to help. If her little brother fell, shed pick him up and make sure he was okay. Sireunya, who is friends with Zyannas older sister, found out that she died around 1 a.m. Tuesday. I just burst into tears. I didnt know what to do. I just didnt believe it was true, she says. We wouldve never really thought this would happen so soon. She barely got her foot in life to get to experience everything. But shes in a better place. Zyannas family could not be reached (her mother was not ready to speak publicly), but her stepfather also confirmed her identity to WREG. 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. Cordayja Jones Cordayjas aunt tells PEOPLE the 9-year-old was among the dead. Story continues She didnt meet any strangers, Kellie Jones says. She was my niece, but she was also my baby, too. She was very special. She is missed by so many people. Kellie says Cordayjas mother and father have been hit hard by her death, understandably: Were trying to comfort each other. Were trying, Kellie says. Its hard. We find ourselves sitting back talking to her or reminiscing and then sometimes you just have to break down. I sat in my car last night and just broke down and screamed. Kellie says she learned about the crash Monday afternoon as she was getting off work, when a friend who works for the school called her. She learned Cordayja who went by Dayja had died as she drove to the scene. When I got to the hospital, I told , I wish you could just breath for me, Kellie says. I told her I loved her. Cordayjas cousin, LaFrederick Thirkill, took to Facebook to share the familys grief. Our family appreciates your sympathy during this tragic incident, he wrote. She was a sweet girl and will surely be missed. She was always smiling, very soft-spoken, Thirkill told the Times Free Press. My heart is truly broken for her and her mother. Whenever I was with her she was always on my phone, taking pictures, Kellie tells PEOPLE. I can go on my phone and if I want I can hear her voice and listen to her videos that she made. Thats all she did make videos. Im always going to hold onto that, my memories of her. Zoie Nash Zoies uncle Antwon McClain told the Times Free Press that the fourth-grader the only girl in a family of brothers loved playing softball, made good grades and was also on a dance team. Zoies mother confirmed her death to PEOPLE. Misti Forrest Nash describes Zoie a people person. She was one of six the only girl, Misti says. She couldnt do nothing, she said she could never have a boyfriend. They all looked out for her. Misti says that Zoies younger brother Zecheriah, with whom she was real close, was on the bus with her when it crashed. Though he was initially in the ICU, his condition has improved. They always take that bus home, Misti says. She says she learned of the crash while at work, when Zachariahs teacher called her. She didnt know Zoie had died until she got to the hospital. It seems like a dream, Misti says. It hasnt hit me yet. was so lovable, McClain, her uncle, told the Free Press. She had a great spirit. She was a great athlete. Bus Driver Charged and in Custody According to police, Johnthony Walker, 24, was driving the bus that crashed and is facing charges for vehicular homicide, reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Police allege he was speeding before losing control of the vehicle. Walker remains in custody and as of Monday morning had not entered a plea or retained an attorney. He is cooperating with investigators, according to multiple reports. Walkers mother, Gwenevere Cook, told CNN the crash was a horrible nightmare. I feel bad for my son, said Cook, who could not immediately be reached. And I am torn up for the family members. At a news conference Tuesday, officials at the Childrens Hospital at Erlanger said 12 students remained hospitalized there six critically. The officials described a chaotic scene after the crash, with many of the victims too young to provide basic information such as their parents names. Several students said their mothers names were mama. A vigil is planned for Tuesday night at the Woodmore Elementary. With reporting by MARLENE LENTHANG A huge pile-up on a Chinese motorway killed at least 17 people when a total of 56 vehicles crashed into each other in winter weather, state media said Tuesday. The accident happened in snow and rainy weather in the northern province of Shanxi, on an expressway linking Beijing with Kunming, the official news agency Xinhua reported. Pictures of the scene showed lorries scattered haphazardly across the road, some of them overturned, and burnt-out wrecks of cars after the crash Monday. Another 37 injured people were stable after treatment, Xinhua said. Traffic accidents are common in China, with the World Health Organization estimating that more than 260,000 people were killed on the country's roads in 2013. The WHO figures are strikingly higher than official pronouncements, in a country where government data are often questioned, with the National Bureau of Statistics reporting 58,539 traffic fatalities that year -- less than a quarter of the WHO's approximation. The number of donations to Planned Parenthood in Vice President-Elect Mike Pences name has more than doubled in the last six days. Planned Parenthood confirms to PEOPLE that theyve now received 50,000 individual donations in the Indiana governors name, representing 25 percent of the 200,000 donations that came in since the election on Nov. 8. Weve seen an unprecedented outpouring of support, with more than 200,000 people donating in the week following the election a quarter of whom pledged to be monthly supporters, recognizing the long-term work that is needed, Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement shared with PEOPLE. Tens of thousands more are pledging to make sure access to health care is protected. We are so grateful to this community across the country, and we will never stop fighting for them. The truth is that the majority of Americans, including Trumps own voters, support access to health care at Planned Parenthood and do not want to see women lose access to safe, legal abortion. Weve stood defiant in the face of opposition for the last 100 years. We will never back down, and we will never stop providing the care our patients need. These doors stay open, no matter what. Back on Nov. 16, the non-profit organization reported a total of 20,000 contributions in honor of Pence. The idea to send donations to Planned Parenthood in his name went viral on social media as a response to Pence and Donald Trumps election win. Pence has fought throughout his political career to defund the organization. Pence first introduced a bill to eliminate their funding as a member of Congress in 2007. The legislation did not pass, but he continued to fight Planned Parenthood because the organization provides abortions. If Planned Parenthood wants to be involved in providing counseling services and HIV testing, they ought not be in the business of providing abortions, Pence told Politico in 2011. As long as they aspire to do that, Ill be after them. With every donation to Planned Parenthood in his name, Pences office receives a letter thanking him for his support. AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Police forces across Europe and the United States arrested 178 people as part of a crackdown on money laundering last week and identified some 23 million euros ($24.46 million) in stolen funds, the European Union judicial agency Eurojust said. The arrests were the result of an operation targeting the practice of money muling, where illicit funds are disguised by wiring them through the accounts of intermediaries, or mules, who are paid with a cut of the proceeds. Some 580 money mules were identified and police interviewed 380 suspects during the operation, which was intended to tackle the growing volume of online payment and card fraud across the continent. The growing scale of card fraud was highlighted at the weekend, when cyber security analysts said criminals had used malicious software to "jackpot" cash machines in more than a dozen European countries - rigging them so they spit out cash . Money mules are essential to the money laundering strategies of many criminal networks. Since the practice is often disguised as legitimate employment, many are unaware they are involved in a scam for which they can end up facing criminal charges. "Money muling may on the surface seem to be a small crime, but (it) is orchestrated by organized crime groups," said Michele Consinsx, president of Eurojust, which helped coordinate the operation alongside European policing agency Europol. Authorities from Britain, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Ukraine and the United States were involved in last week's operation. (Reporting By Thomas Escritt, editing by Larry King) The two Lincoln cops did not want Germichael Kennedy to die. But after a foot pursuit and a physical struggle, the young man from Mississippi pointed a gun at one of them and Officers Mario Robinson and Josh Atkinson opened fire, hitting him 13 times. Robinson, a 22-year veteran of the Lincoln Police Department, and Atkinson, an officer for eight years, said in recorded interviews after the June 26 shooting near the Belmont Recreation Center that they tried to reason with Kennedy but he lifted his gun and pointed it at Robinson's head. Multiple witnesses confirmed that account. I wanted to attempt to save his life, Atkinson told the Lancaster County Sheriffs Office. I didnt want him to, uh, I didnt want him to die, so I holstered and started lifesaving efforts. Police started looking for Kennedy at 3 a.m. after he shot 20-year-old Marlene Rashidi to death and wounded Dezarae Mann, 23. Interviews and physical evidence presented to a grand jury in October detail what happened from the time police developed Kennedy as a suspect in the separate shootings and offer a window into the internal struggle one officer had in deciding whether lethal force was necessary. Nebraska law requires a grand jury investigation whenever someone dies in police custody or while being arrested. In this case, the grand jury ultimately cleared both officers. The Journal Star reviewed hundreds of pages of testimony and evidence from the grand jury transcript to get a clearer picture of what led to Kennedy's death. * * * Kennedy shot at a red Kia with three women in it just after 3 that morning at Portia and Knox streets. Rashidi was in the backseat and died later at a local hospital. Mann was in a separate car hit by six bullets, one of which hit her near the armpit, traveled through her abdomen and landed on her lap. The shooting followed a fight between Kennedy and a group of men in the area. None of the women had anything to do with the fight, police said. In fact, Rashidi and Mann did not know each other and were with separate groups that morning. Multiple witnesses named Kennedy and described his car, which had been stopped for two unrelated traffic violations just hours earlier. A friend of Kennedy's called police at 4:02 a.m., saying he saw Kennedy grab a gun from the friend's apartment near 12th and D streets about an hour earlier and was worried about him. At 4:30, police spoke with Kennedy's mother, Shirley, who said he called her in Mississippi to say he'd been involved in a shooting and was in trouble, Officer Luis Herrera told the grand jury. "She was talking to him, telling him to turn himself in," said Herrera, who investigated Rashidi's death. "But she said that he wasn't going to do that. He was afraid." About two hours later, police found Kennedys car in a lot at 20th Street and Cornhusker Highway. Thirty-two live rounds lay on the passenger seat, Robinson said. Kennedys cellphone was in a cup holder, his ID on the drivers seat. At 9 a.m., Robinson got a report that Kennedy was walking on Conestoga Drive, a curved street off Portia just south of Hartley. Robinson drove there, saw Kennedy and got out of his cruiser. I basically tell him to let me see his hands, Robinson told the grand jury. I was going to place him in custody at that time. He continues walking northbound Im getting on the radio saying its him. I have him at gunpoint. But Kennedy kept his right hand by his waist, out of Robinson's view, and just stared at him instead of following his orders. Im thinking at that point in time is he bluffing me or not? Robinson told the grand jury. I put my firearm away. I pull out my Taser. And I kind of think about it. Its like, well, hes supposed to have a weapon. I cant see his hands. I put my Taser back and go back to my firearm. He doesnt say a word to me. I keep telling him youre under arrest and let me see your hands, and he just stares at me and stands there with his hand inside of his shorts. Robinson moved closer and tried to arrest Kennedy, but the two struggled and fell to the ground. Kennedy got up and Robinson reached for his shirt, but Kennedy broke free and ran. The two ran west behind the apartments on Portia Street. Robinson holstered his weapon as the chase went on. They came face-to-face again near Belmont Baptist Church. Robinson shot the Taser but missed Kennedy as he jumped through a row of bushes. By this time hes jogging now, Robinson said. ... Hes getting tired, Im getting tired. He starts jogging. Then we come to a walk. Robinson started to hear sirens. Officer Joseph Coleman, who was nearby and witnessed the struggle and chase, said Kennedy seemed calm at that point. As Robinson and Kennedy approached Belmont Elementary, Kennedy pulled a handgun from his pocket. The two were about 35 feet apart. Im still yelling, Stop, drop the gun, drop the gun, Robinson said. And he now turns and faces down the sidewalk and starts walking southbound. Im still behind him. I also come out on the sidewalk at that time. He continues to walk. At that point, Officer Josh Atkinson arrived and stood near Robinson, who said he was focused on Kennedys gun. I looked at the magazine well, what we call where the rounds go, and I kind of looked at it, Robinson said. At that time I was like, I seen -- not seeing a magazine. Didnt look like there was one. Kind of argued to myself for a couple of seconds trying to rationalize if he would pull a gun that has no magazine. At that point in time it didnt make a difference to me. I know some semi-automatic weapons can fire without a magazine if theres a round in the chamber. Kennedy continued to walk -- nonchalantly. I try to make eye contact because I want to see what hes doing, Robinson said. By the time when I look up, he points the handgun right at my face. Coleman, Atkinson and an area resident who saw the shooting would all testify that Kennedy pointed his gun at Robinson's head. Asked by a Lancaster County Sheriff's Office investigator if he believed Robinson's life was in danger, the passerby said yes. Asked if the officer acted inappropriately, the man said, "he did what he is supposed to do." When Kennedy fell to the ground and officers determined he was no longer a risk, they ran to his side, Atkinson applying pressure to some of his wounds. We talk to him, tell him to stay with us, Atkinson said. Kennedys autopsy report said he was shot in the arms, chest, legs and back. Bullets hit both lungs, his heart, liver and intestines. He tested positive for alcohol and caffeine. There was no evidence at the scene that Kennedy shot his weapon, said Sheriff's Capt. Josh Clark, who investigated the officer-involved shooting. All together, the officers shot 17 bullets. Asked by members of the grand jury if the officers acted appropriately, Clark said, in his opinion, yes. "Sergeant Robinson had given more commands than I have really seen in my career as far as the initial contact with Mr. Kennedy," he said. "... Once (Kennedy's) weapon was actually drawn, Sergeant Robinson displayed a lot of patience as far as continuing to give commands and recognizing initially that handgun was pointed to the ground." Kennedy was from Jonestown, Mississippi. Shirley Kennedy said that after her son graduated from the Job Corps of Louisville, Kentucky, he moved to Lincoln to pursue a job in telecommunications. Despite the grand jury's decision that the officers acted appropriately, Shirley Kennedy said she believes her son's death wasn't justified and that he was intentionally targeted by police. "I don't think my son was a danger," she said. "Even if he killed someone, killing him won't bring her back. My son didn't have a voice there .... They didn't have to shot him that many times." Kennedy's sister, Mekell, said her family hasn't been given all the information on what happened when Kennedy was killed. There is no dash-cam video or body camera video that shows the shooting. "We're not putting anybody down for them carrying out their jobs," she said. "The only thing we're trying to do is make sure they used all their procedures to prevent what happened. We asked if (the police) had proof (of) him holding the gun. We haven't seen that." By Ian Simpson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A settlement between the U.S. Justice Department and Baltimore on reforming the city's troubled police department is unlikely before Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake leaves office next month, she said on Tuesday. Responding to a query from Maryland congressional lawmakers about progress in the settlement talks, Rawlings-Blake said the issues were complex and such accords can take months, if not years, to conclude. Baltimore, torn by rioting last year over the police-caused death of a black man, also has not received Justice Department drafts of its proposals, she said in a letter released by her office. "Thus, it is extremely unlikely that any agreement can be concluded during the current Administrations term," which ends on Dec. 5, she said. Mayor-elect Catherine Pugh and the new City Council also will need time to review the talks, Rawlings-Blake said. Settlement talks had been expected to conclude by Nov. 1. The Justice Department probe was launched after the 2015 death of a black man, Freddie Gray, from an injury in police custody. Gray's death sparked rioting in the largely African-American city and fueled the Black Lives Matter movement protesting police brutality against minorities. Six police officers accused in Gray's death were either acquitted or charges were dropped. A Justice Department report released in August found that the 2,600-member police department engaged in a pattern of conduct that violated the Constitution or federal law. The congressional letter was sent on Monday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Rawlings-Blake and Pugh. It was signed by Senators Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin, Senator-elect Chris Van Hollen and Congressmen Elijah Cummings, Dutch Ruppersberger and John Sarbanes, all Democrats. The lawmakers said they were hearing growing concern from constituents about delays in drafting the settlement. Rawlings-Blake said she had received the legislators' letter just after a three-hour meeting with Justice Department officials. A Justice Department spokesman said the lawmakers' letter was under review. Vanita Gupta, head of the department's civil rights division, said last month that both sides were working toward an accord as quickly as possible. (Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Dan Grebler) By Andrei Khalip LISBON (Reuters) - When international creditors released Portugal from onerous loan conditions two years ago, they hailed the nation for some major reform achievements - not least, an overhaul of the judiciary. The International Monetary Fund applauded Lisbon for reforming a dysfunctional court system which had been a brake on the economy. And with the European Union, it approved Portugal's exit from a 78 billion euro ($83 billion) bailout program which had begun in 2011. But judges and entrepreneurs say the system was never really fixed and a deeper analysis of case-load data shows it has improved less than the official statistics suggest. It remains a bottleneck in an economy still staggering under bad debts. Almost 900,000 disputes over bad loans, unpaid bills and mortgages are pending in the courts, restricting new bank lending to companies and families and weighing on investment. These so-called "enforcement of payments" cases, which experts say are likely to be worth tens of billions of euros, are down by a quarter from their 2012 peak. However, judges attribute this reduction in large part to a 2013 decree that swept the oldest, most hopeless cases from the system. Cases where creditors have a better chance of recovering a borrower's assets still inch their way through the courts. The decree eliminated three quarters of all cases processed in 2013, justice ministry data shows. No data exists for later years, but one judge says the space this created to work on more promising claims was largely filled by new, hopeless cases. As they cleared futile claims, where creditors have almost no chance of recovering debts, more such cases arrived, largely from banks that would rather park them in the judiciary than take hard decisions to write them off, experts and judges say. "Most of the cases end with zero debt recovery ... In that aspect the reform was inefficient and dysfunctional," said Joao Raposo, a judge in the district court of Sintra, near Lisbon, who is also deputy head of the Portuguese Judges Association. "The statistics look good, but it's a bit of an illusion that the bailout lenders were happy to accept," said Raposo. The IMF, which had lauded Portugal for "one of the most successful reforms" ever undertaken in the judiciary, denied it had exaggerated those achievements in order to show to anti-austerity campaigners that the bail-out program was a success. In an email to Reuters, it cited a drop in pending enforcement cases, faster processing times and a boost in loan recoveries from a new electronic system for seizing cash from overdue debtors' bank accounts. This new system, though, has not made a major dent in total debts stuck in courts, judges say. Portugal's backlog of pending non-criminal cases - mostly debt-related - remains by far the largest in the European Union when adjusted for population, EU data shows. Though it fell to some 11,000 cases per 100,000 people in 2015 from a 2012 peak of over 14,400, the backlog is still almost double that of runner-up Italy with 7,500. Neighboring Spain has fewer than 2,000 cases per 100,000 people. 'WE'VE GOT NOTHING' Portugal's main business lobby says courts still offer little hope for creditors seeking to recover debts. "The judicial reform for the economy has failed," said Antonio Saraiva, head of the Portuguese Business Confederation, calling the courts slow, costly and unpredictable. "Court delays cause unbearable constraints on companies cash flow, generate a sense of impunity and make up one of the main obstacles to investment in the country." Virgilio Valadas, director of building firm Construcoes Monsaraz, is suing several of his customers for unpaid bills totaling 2 million euros ($2.1 million), equal to nearly half its annual turnover. One case has been pending for six years. He said courts appeared faster to set hearing dates, "but in terms of recovering debts, we've got nothing so far". "Where it hurts the most is when it comes to investment decisions," said Valadas, 43, whose firm employs 70 people and builds housing and hotels in the Alentejo region and in Lisbon. He said he planned to use any funds recovered through the courts to take advantage of a pick-up in property prices and revive several frozen real-estate projects. Unlike many construction firms, Valadas's Construcoes Monsaraz survived the recession and financial crisis that had triggered the EU-IMF bailout in 2011 and gave rise to many of the bad debts that he is still seeking to recover. "The reform's nature was cosmetic to show to the troika (of EU-IMF lenders) that Portugal was taking action," said Professor Joao Paulo Dias, a judicial expert at Coimbra University. BANKS STACKING THE COURTS? The IMF, judges and experts agree on one thing, however: that banks need to take a much more aggressive approach to the problem of bad debts rather than use the courts as a way of parking them and avoiding the need to write them off. "It will take years to change the mindset of creditors, banks mainly, who prefer to flood the justice system with often hopeless claims rather than acknowledge bad loans and write them down or off," said Raposo, of the judges association. Portuguese banks must provision for bad loans but do not need to write them off if they are pursuing repayment in courts. Non-performing loans are still rising two years after the nation exited its bailout program: they totaled 17.8 billion euros in September, double their 2010 levels, Bank of Portugal data show. Bad loans represent a fifth of all loans outstanding, more than three times the EU average, the European Banking Authority data show. This is restricting bank lending. Even as euro zone lending grows, Portugal's banks wrote about 3 percent fewer loans in September than a year ago. Portugal's banking association denies banks contribute to the problem and says it is working with the government on plans to remove legal and judicial bottlenecks. Instead, it blames slow justice for bad loans remaining on their balance sheets for four to six years, the EU average of two years. Raposo's court in Sintra near Lisbon has 60,000 cases pending, worth an estimated 2 billion euros in enforcement claims. It has been at this level for a few years, says Raposo who alone has a personal case-load of 20,000 enforcement cases. The 2013 decree eased his court's backlog, but he said it remained overwhelmed. Despite being assigned back-up judges, he added, his court needed double its three permanent judges. There is no data on the overall value of the roughly 900,000 enforcement cases still choking up Portuguese courts. But if Raposo's district court were a representative sample, they could amount to more than 30 billion euros, or 17 percent of GDP. The government has said it is working on a solution to rid banks of bad loans, but details are still scarce. The court system has been streamlined under bailout reforms: more than 200 district courts have been closed, with their cases transferred to larger courts, and enforcement cases are now handled by one judge rather than a panel of three previously. The courts have installed a single computer network and appeal fees have been raised to discourage excessive litigation. However, these efficiencies were accompanied by a cut in the judicial budget, which is down 14 percent since 2011. Judges complain of a lack of qualified assistants and equipment. "The reform was done hurriedly and cheaply, which means more costs in the longer run," said Coimbra University's Dias. The Justice Ministry counters that the case-clearance rate has risen for 15 straight quarters, saying the removal of hopeless cases had helped to unclog the system. "One cannot affirm that there are no effects in terms of debt recovery," the ministry said in a written reply to Reuters. INVESTMENT SUFFERS The business confederation's Saraiva said a recent survey showed companies rated slowness of courts as their main concern weighing on investment. The Justice Ministry said judicial spending would rise 6.5 percent next year. At 1.8 percent of total state spending, the judicial budget is similar to France and Norway, it added. However, Joao Costa, director of metal-parts manufacturer Arpial, is not convinced. He has been trying without success to collect unpaid bills through the courts for four years. "Justice works terribly, never has worked and I doubt it ever will. Nothing has improved for us since the reform," Costa said. "Who's going to invest here if there's no way you can recover a client's debt?" (Editing by Mark Bendeich, Janet McBride) On Nov 21, we issued an updated research report on PPL Corporation PPL. PPL Corporations diverse asset portfolio and business model allow it to perform in and adapt to different market conditions. However, volatile commodity prices and regulatory risks are challenges. Recently, PPL Corp. reported third-quarter 2016 adjusted earnings of 63 cents per share, topping the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 59 cents by 6.8%. Reported earnings also increased 23.5% on a year-over-year basis. PPL Corp.s total revenue of $1,889 million missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2,000 million but were up marginally from the year-ago tally of $1,878 million. PPL Corp. continues to follow an organic growth strategy to expand and upgrade its utility systems. The company expects compound annual earnings growth of 56% from 2017 through 2020 driven primarily by strong rate base growth of approximately 5% compounded annually in regulated operations over the 20162020 period. The utility anticipates earnings growth of 68% from domestic operations and 46% from UK operations through 2020. PPL CORP Price PPL CORP Price | PPL CORP Quote PPL Corp.s capital investment plan primarily focuses on infrastructure construction projects for generation, transmission and distribution. The company projects total capital expenditure of approximately $15.4 billion in the 20162020 timeframe. On the flip side, PPL Corp.s operations are subject to service disruptions in form of breakdown of equipment, natural calamities like hurricanes and earthquakes, and sudden outages. These not only obstruct the transmission of electricity but also increase maintenance costs, thereby adversely affecting cash flows. Zacks Rank & Key Picks Currently, PPL Corp. carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A few better-ranked stocks in the same space include Avista Corp. AVA, Ameren Corporation AEE and DTE Energy Company DTE. Avista has seen one upward estimate revision for 2016 over the last 60 days. The stock carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Story continues Ameren Corp., another Zacks Rank #2 stock, has seen four upward estimate revisions for 2016 over the last 60 days. DTE Energy has seen six upward estimate revisions for 2016 over the last 60 days. The stock carries a Zacks Rank #2 as well. The Best Place to Start Your Stock Search 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 >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report AMEREN CORP (AEE): Free Stock Analysis Report DTE ENERGY CO (DTE): Free Stock Analysis Report PPL CORP (PPL): Free Stock Analysis Report AVISTA CORP (AVA): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Fans are rallying behind Kanye West. Shortly after the rapper was hospitalized on Monday, November 21, the hashtag #PrayforKanye began to trend on Twitter. "No matter how controversial he may be at times Kanye West has so much love that he tries to spread, this is heartbreaking #PrayForKanye," one commenter wrote. PHOTOS: 14 Times Kanye West Couldnt Stop Staring at Kim Kardashian A second added: "#PrayForKanye i dont really like him because of his manners BUT i do love his fashion, music, and everything else about him." As previously reported, police responded to a medical welfare around 1:20 p.m. PT in L.A. According to TMZ, West, 39, was at his trainer Harley Pasternak's home at the time and was "acting erratically." He was restrained and taken to UCLA Medical Center to be evaluated. PHOTOS: Nine Times Kim Kardashians Klaws Kame Out A source told Us Weekly that West has "been suffering from exhaustion and sleep deprivation and went to the hospital today on his own will and under the consultation of his physician." The incident occurred hours after West decided to cancel the last 21 concerts of his Saint Pablo tour dates. On Saturday, he began his show in Sacramento, California, 90 minutes late and ended it after only 30 minutes. While on stage, he ranted about Beyonce, Jay Z and Hillary Clinton. Last week, he revealed that he didn't vote in the election, but that he would have voted for Clinton's opponent Donald Trump. PHOTOS: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's Sweetest PDA Moments As Us reported, Kim Kardashian canceled her plans to be by West's side on Monday night. She was scheduled to attend the Angel Ball in NYC along with sisters Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian, which would have marked her first red carpet appearance since her scary Paris robbery on October 3. The famous reality family has yet to release a statement about the matter. Kourtney and Khloe, however, posted photos from the star-studded event on social media. Story continues Read more #PrayforKanye reactions below: Related Content: President-elect Donald Trump responded to renewed controversy surrounding his business ties in a Tuesday interview with The New York Times, insisting "the president can't have a conflict of interest" as he faces scrutiny over a series of questionable interactions. Tweets from Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Mike Grynbaum from the meeting showed that Trump understood how his business ties could be perceived. "The law's totally on my side. The president can't have a conflict of interest," he said. "My company's so unimportant to me relative to what I'm doing." Still, Trump said that "in theory" he could continue signing checks at his company, but he is "phasing that out now" and passing control of his company to his adult children. "In theory, I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly," he said, adding that "there's never been a case like this" involving the presidency. "I'd assumed that you'd have to set up some type of trust or whatever, and you don't," he said. "I would like to do something." Asked if he would simply sell his holdings, he said it would be a "really hard thing to do, because I have real estate." Trump's ability to separate his business ties from the presidency has been questioned in recent days. His daughter Ivanka, who stands to be a leader in taking over his company, sat in on a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last week and was on a congratulatory phone call between the president-elect and Argentine President Mauricio Macri. "If it were up to some people, I would never, ever see my daughter Ivanka again," Trump said. Trump also met last week in his Trump Tower office with three Indian business partners who are building a Trump-branded apartment complex near Mumbai, The New York Times reported. The three men posed with Trump in a picture posted to Twitter, and a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization described the meeting as a courtesy call from the three executives. Story continues "It was not a formal meeting of any kind," Breanna Butler, the spokeswoman, told The Times. In a text message exchange with The Times, one of the three businessmen said a report in an Indian newspaper about another partner discussing a desire to expand the deals with Trump's family was accurate. Butler said the president-elect would not be involved in the day-to-day dealings of the Trump Organization, while another spokeswoman added that "the structure that is ultimately selected will comply with all applicable rules and regulations." At various points along the campaign trail, Trump said his business would be controlled by his children in what he said was a "blind trust," even though that constitutes an independent manager who typically is not someone as closely tied to the holder as their children. Ivanka's presence in the meeting and on the phone call appeared to only further blur the lines between the Trump business empire and the upcoming Trump presidency. According to a Sunday Washington Post story, at least 111 separate Trump companies have conducted business in 18 countries across South America, the Middle East, and Asia. Pointing specifically to a Trump Towers project in Istanbul, something that Trump at one point said could present "a little conflict of interest," The Post wrote that "policy and ethics experts are scrambling to assess the potential dangers of public rule by a leader with a vast web of private business deals." The biggest legal risk Trump faces as a result of his business ties is a passage in the Constitution known as the emoluments clause, which forbids government officials from receiving gifts from foreign governments. As The Post reported, a payment from a foreign official or state-owned company to a Trump hotel or other company bearing his name could potentially violate the clause. So could favorable legislation or treatment overseas from a government aimed at benefiting a Trump property. NOW WATCH: Animated map shows how drastically split different demographics are this election More From Business Insider Nov 22 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. The Times Michael Sherwood, the most senior British executive at Goldman Sachs Group Inc, is to leave, bringing an end to a 30-year career that recently became embroiled in the BHS collapse. http://bit.ly/2fWCMbk The amount of money in a bank that is safeguarded by the government is expected to be raised early in the new year after the Bank of England said on Monday it was considering restoring the deposit guarantee limit to 85,000 pounds ($106,190.50) only a year after it was cut 75,000 pounds. http://bit.ly/2fWCu4h The Guardian Citigroup Inc has replaced HSBC Holdings Plc and joined JPMorgan Chase & Co to top a list of banks potentially posing the greatest risks to the global financial system in, according to an annual ranking by the Financial Stability Board. http://bit.ly/2fWMeeA Patients could be told to bring two forms of identification including a passport to hospital to prove they are eligible for free treatment under new rules to stop so-called health tourism. The most senior official in the Department of Health told MPs on Monday that he was looking at making hospitals check patients' papers to find out whether they should be paying, a proposal he admitted was "controversial". http://bit.ly/2fWJQoq The Telegraph Britain's aerospace industry is pitching for a slice of the 2 billion pounds pledged by Prime Minister Theresa May to boost science and technology research, saying the cash will help deliver high-skill, high-value jobs for the country. http://bit.ly/2fWGBNF IBM Corp has committed to a multi-million pound project to build four new data centres in UK, the latest in a series of UK investments by major U.S. technology groups. http://bit.ly/2fWD4it Sky News Chesnara Plc, owner of Countrywide Assured, is in advanced talks to buy Legal & General Group Plc's Dutch operations, in the latest example of European insurance industry consolidation. http://bit.ly/2fWB89A Story continues Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to cut business tax to the lowest level in the G20 but has come under fire for watering down plans to put workers on company boards. In a bold pledge in her first speech to a CBI conference, May suggested the government could cut corporation tax below the 15 percent promised by Donald Trump during his campaign. http://bit.ly/2fWN9vy The Independent Richard Branson's Virgin Group is to help bankroll a campaign set up in secret by Blairite former ministers and advisers to derail Brexit, according to an email seen by the Independent. http://ind.pn/2fWKTEE ($1 = 0.8004 pounds) (Compiled by Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler) Nov 22 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. - Exxon Mobil, which has been accused of scheming to pay surrogates to deny the threat of climate change, is trying to turn the tables by calling its opponents the real conspirators. It is fighting state attorneys general, journalists and environmental groups in an all-out campaign to defend its image. http://nyti.ms/2gwSdKH - Donald Trump's charitable foundation will not be paying any of the $25 million settlement to resolve a series of lawsuits concerning Trump University. Representatives for Trump sent a letter on Friday to Eric Schneiderman, the New York State attorney general, stating that no funding for the settlement would come from "any charitable foundation or other charitable entity." http://nyti.ms/2gwWga9 - Facebook owned Instagram is rolling out two more new features. The company is unveiling one feature focused on live video and one on ephemeral messaging. The new features thrust Instagram more directly into competition with Twitter and into a heightened rivalry with Snap. http://nyti.ms/2gwWYUy (Compiled by Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru) Prince Harry's two-week tour of the Caribbean has inspired social media users to start a #NotMyPrince campaign, criticizing the monarchy's involvement in the region's affairs. The 32-year-old prince, born Henry Charles Albert David, arrived Sunday in Antigua and will visit six other nations under the Commonwealth of the British Empire, an international organization of nations formerly under U.K. rule. Social media users, many from the Caribbean, opposed the monarch's visit on Twitter and Tumblr ahead of a planned military parade and grand ceremony. A number of commentators pointed out the colonial imagery involved and recalled the monarchy's forcible enslavement and relocation of Africans to the region, as well as the violence used to quell frequent rebellions between 1602 and 1834. Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth is head of state of six of the seven countries on the agenda - Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines. Guyana declared independence from the crown in 1966. Regional leaders have also expressed their disdain for the monarchy. Prime Minister Freundel Stuart of Barbados announced last year he wished to transform the country into a republic, replacing Queen Elizabeth with a local president. Last month, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne attended the second Conference on Reparations, pushing European nations to acknowledge past crimes and demanding economic compensation. We hold no living person of any European nation responsible for the evils of the ruling classes that controlled their societies and enriched themselves from the cruelties and barbarism from which they subjected our ancestors, Browne said at the conference. However, this does not preclude them from acknowledging these wrongs and to commit themselves to the noble action of resolving them by accepting our reparatory claims. Earlier this month, Harry issued a statement denouncing racist remarks aimed at his relationship with actress Meghan Markle, born to a black mother and white father. He claimed he was concerned for her safety and that insults both on print and social media "crossed the line." Story continues The #NotMyPrince hashtag is inspired by the #NotMyPresident campaign sparked by the presidential election of Donald Trump earlier this month. Trump's election has triggered protests nationwide with certain communities growing concerned by racist and sexist language used by the president-elect and his supporters. Related Articles Princess Kate revealed that her son Prince Georges favorite dinosaur is the T-Rex because it is big and loud! She told youngsters at a tea party on Tuesday that her son loves volcanoes and daughter Princess Charlotte enjoys playdates with her older brother. Kate, in a $460 dress by favorite British line L.K. Bennett, was talking to the kids as they celebrated a special dinosaur exhibit in London Dippy the Diplodocus. She had taken the short drive from Kensington Palace to the Natural History Museum, for the party where she joined the children for dino-inspired crafts and a mini fossil dig. There, chatting with kids from Oakington Manor Primary School, in London, she asked them which was their favourite. Eduarda, 10, told reporters, She said George likes the T Rex because he is the biggest and the loudest. And Amani, 10, added, She was asking us if we knew the story of Curious George and how he climbed up on the diplodocus. Everyone did. We asked her about her home lifestyle and her children. She said that Charlotte is very chatty and likes doing play dates with George. George is interested in dinosaurs and volcanoes. The kids school is one of 282 that is partnered by one of Kates mental health charities, Place2Be. Place2Be, which has Kate as its patron, is the countrys leading childrens mental health charity providing in-school support and expert training to improve the emotional wellbeing of pupils, families, teachers and school staff. Then, Kate joined the museums director Sir Michael Dixon to cut a celebratory cake to mark the send off for the plaster cast Diplodocus, which is set to be taken around the country in a tour to educate and inspire millions of other people. He told reporters that Kate had paid private visits to the museum with the children. George would have loved to come today. She remarked on the fact that as her children get older she is going to have to mug up on the names of the dinosaurs. I said Dont worry, the children will make you do that.' Story continues She is actually very knowledgeable on the natural world and passionate about oceans. She is a keen scuba diver. She is very, very keen to engage more with the museum and its collections. She has been behind the scenes on a number of occasions and talked to some of our researchers and seen quite a lot of our collection areas. Dippy arrived in London in 1905, and has been on show in Hintze Hall at the museum for nearly 40 years. Its last day in the hall before the tour kicks off will be on January 4. The prime spot at the entrance to the museum is being taken by a real skeleton of a 25.2 metre female blue whale, weighing 4.5 tonnes. University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds has tapped 15 people to serve on a search committee dedicated to finding the next chancellor of the University of Nebraska at Omaha. John Christensen, who has served as UNO chancellor for a decade, will step down when a new chancellor is in place. The committee, announced Monday afternoon, includes faculty, staff, students and members of the UNO community. Theresa Barron-McKeagney, associate dean of UNO's College of Public Affairs and Community Services, and Michael Yanney, chairman emeritus of the Burlington Capital Group LLC, will co-chair the committee. Other committee members include: * Phani Tej Adidam, chair, UNO Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship * Alex Bauer, graduate assistant, UNO Service Learning Academy * Heidi Blackburn, assistant professor, UNO Criss Library * Patrick Davlin, UNO student body president and student regent * Nancy Edick, dean, UNO College of Education * Washington Garcia, director, UNO School of Music * Cecil Hicks Jr., UNO assistant vice chancellor for human resources * Jay Irwin, UNO associate professor of sociology * Jaci Lindburg, UNO assistant director for digital learning * Mitch Pirnie, energy group general counsel, Kiewit Corp. * Yong Shi, UNO professor of information systems and quantitative analysis * Deborah Smith-Howell, UNO associate vice chancellor for academic and student affairs and dean of graduate studies * Bob Woody, UNO Faculty Senate president and professor of psychology Bounds said the search committee will work with a yet-to-be-named firm to recruit, assess and recommend candidates for the chancellor position. The NU president said he will consider four candidates as finalists before naming a single "priority candidate" under a new Nebraska state law pertaining to top administration searches at the university. The four candidates' names will not be public, but the priority candidate's name will be made public. The priority candidate will be subject to a 30-day vetting period before the appointment is ratified by the Board of Regents. Bounds and NU Executive Vice President and Provost Susan Fritz will host a series of listening sessions to gather input from UNO students, faculty, staff and stakeholders on Nov. 29 in the Milo Bail Student Center. Sneakers, like songs, have a way of getting leaked nowadays, which is what happened last week when preview images of the latest collaboration between Pusha T and Adidas starting circulating. But for the 39-year old rapper, it was a sigh of relief. "You basically cross your fingers and close your eyes, hoping and praying that people are growing with you," says Pusha of the positive response it has received among the online sneaker communities. The King Push EQT Grayscale is the third shoe he has done with Adidas in an ongoing collaboration that started in 2014, so one might assume the process is streamlined by now. But Pusha says it has taken the entire year since debuting the last shoe to get this one right: "We made a sharp U-turn in the design," he says. "We had to make sure that it was something that was going to make waves and make people talk." Unlike the last two styles, which were luxed-up versions of the brand's classic Running Guidance EQT, this latest sneaker has a completely different silhouette, which, according to Pascha Naderi-Nejad, senior director of Adidas Originals brand communications, is a sign of things to come. "It will be a large part of our upcoming season," she notes. The shoe incorporates the brand's Primeknit material and Boost technology - the latter of which can also be found on the perpetually sold-out Yeezys. Whether or not it's coincidence that the $15.3-billion dollar-grossing German brand also employs some of Pusha's closest music collaborators - Kanye West and Pharrell Williams - the rapper insists that the three do not bounce design ideas off of each other. "To even be able to be there with them, I'm super appreciative," he says. "I've known him (Pharrell) for a long time and it's just part of his DNA. And Kanye has proven to be a driving force of this fashion and sneaker culture. They line up for them." Like his G.O.O.D. Music boss and former Clipse collaborator, Pusha knows more about design than just sneakers: He and his brother No Malice started their Play Cloths brand in their hometown of Virginia Beach back in 2008, when label disputes kept them from recording anything more than their mixtapes. "I'm excited for the fact that Play Cloths is still here, it's still relevant. It's local and homegrown, and now it's gone international," he says. The brand is streetwear focused, but they've also used it to make political statements, as they did with the "Delete Your Account" t-shirt, which referenced Hillary Clinton's call for Donald Trump to drop his Twitter habit back in June. Pusha was among the many music artists (including Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and J.Lo) who actively campaigned for Clinton, but he has taken the election's outcome in stride: "I feel like this was a wake up call for many of us who were looking for Hillary to be in office but were a bit passive about getting her in office. There are a multitude of things that to me are why she is not in office now. There are plenty of groups who put Trump in office. We all could have done more," he says. "Now, we have to wear this burden, we are going to have to fight through it for four years, and hopefully we will never forget. Sometimes losses are the best teachers." The rapper also says he'll continue his push towards changing the criminal justice system. "That's not going to stop simply because Hillary is not in office. Whoever is in office will have to address it or at least hear us out. It's a blemish and black eye on our society." #KingPushEQT @adidasoriginals A video posted by Pusha T (@kingpush) on Nov 21, 2016 at 8:13am PST The new sneaker - which Pusha and Adidas will officially debut next week at Art Basel Miami Beach, when it goes on sale Dec. 3 - might seem like a welcome distraction from politics, but the rapper is also currently finishing his next album (also called "King Push"), and recent events have been influential. "It's going to speak to everything that is going on in society today, from the political to social issues, to what is actually going on in the street today," he says. "All of that is fused with the great fundamentals of lyrical hip hop and the mastery of Kanye's production." Adidas King Push EQT Grayscale, $200, available December 3 at adidas.com. JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The American rapper known as Mos Def will be allowed to leave South Africa on Tuesday after he apologized for breaking immigration laws. The rapper - whose real name is Yasiin Bey - was arrested in January after trying to leave South Africa on a "World Passport", which South Africa does not recognize as a legal travel document. Bey, who has lived in Cape Town since 2013, will be declared an undesirable person for his actions and will not be granted re-entry to South Africa, the home affairs department said. "(He) has unreservedly apologized to the Government of South Africa," it said in a statement. "The department is satisfied with the apology (and) will withdraw the charges against him." The World Passport is a document issued by a non-profit organization called World Service Authority, set up in the United States after World War Two to advocate for world citizenship. Citing the United Nations' right to freedom of movement, it has been issuing World Passports since 1954. Many countries do not accept the passport either as a travel document or a formal identity but WSA claims countries such as Togo, Mauritania, Ecuador, Zambia, Tanzania have accepted the 30-page document in the past. (Reporting by Joe Brock Editing by Jeremy Gaunt) The American population is getting older, but the percentage of U.S. seniors with dementia is actually declining, a new study found. In the study, the researchers analyzed information from a nationally representative sample of about 21,000 U.S. adults ages 65 and older who were tested for dementia from 2000 to 2012. (About 10,500 people were tested in 2000, and 10,500 were tested in 2012; about 4,000 of the participants were tested in both of those years.) In 2000, 11.6 percent of older adults had dementia, but that number dropped to 8.8 percent by 2012, the researchers found. Although some previous U.S. studies had suggested the prevalence of dementia in the U.S. was declining in recent years, those studies were not representative of the entire U.S. population, the researchers in the new study said. The new findings "add to a growing body of evidence that this decline in dementia risk is a real phenomenon, and that the expected future growth in the burden of dementia may not be as extensive as once thought," Dr. Kenneth Langa, the lead author of the study and a professor at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research and School of Public Health, said in a statement. Dementia is not a specific disease, but rather a group of symptoms, which can include problems with thinking and solving problems, as well as personality changes, according to the National Institutes of Health. [6 Big Mysteries of Alzheimer's Disease] The risk of developing these symptoms has also been linked toother factors, like education, the new study suggested. Researchers found that the people in the study who had more years of education had a lower risk of dementia. Those with 16 years or more of education were about 70 percent less likely to have dementia, compared with those who had less than 12 years of education. During the study period, the average number of years of education among participants increased from 12 to 13 years. Story continues More years of education may help protect against dementia in a number of ways, the researchers said. Spending more years in school may help the brain's "cognitive reserve," meaning the brain may be better able to compensate for abnormalities that occur in older age. Having more years of education can also allow people to obtain more cognitively challenging jobs, which could also help protect the brain, the researchers said. And people who have more years of education may also be more likely to exercise and eat healthy, and less likely to smoke, which are all behaviors that are linked with better brain health. Interestingly, the researchers noted that the drop in dementia prevalence occurred despite increases in the rates of certain conditions that can increase the risk of dementia: diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. The researchers said they suspect that better treatment of cardiovascular disease and diabetes may have also contributed to the decline in dementia. Still, more research is needed to identify all the factors contributing to the decline in dementia prevalence, the investigators said. The researchers noted that, despite the decline seen in the study, dementia will still be a very important health issue in years to come. "It does nothing to lessen the impact that each case has on patients and caregivers. This is still going to be a top-priority issue for families, and for health policy, now and in the coming decades," Langa said. Original article on Live Science. Editor's Recommendations Photo credit: Getty Images From Harper's BAZAAR Just Back From...Marrakech, Morocco Trip Duration: 4 days Flight Plan: I flew with way too much of everything to be honest. We were flying from Milan and heading straight to Paris afterwardsso my checked baggage situation was a little embarrassing. I have to say one of the things that has most significantly impacted my travel life is incredible luggage. I just sort of mixed and matched random mediocre bags when I traveled in the past. Understandably, when when you're in your 20's, epic pieces of investment luggage are not always high on the splurge list. About a year ago I fell in love with a very pretty Tumi bag. It was a little investment to get the whole set but to be honest, it changed my life. Now I'm basically George Clooney in Up in the Air. Photo credit: Aurora James Tour Group: My favorite travel buddy, Browne Andrews. Where I Stayed: We stayed at LaSultana Oualidia and also LaSultana Marrakech. These hotels are definitely my home away from home. I think I have been there six times, so they're my extended family at this point. Photo credit: Aurora James Photo credit: Aurora James Best Thing I Ate: Always the tagine from LaSultana. Maybe that's why I keep coming back. Best Hang Out Spot: I'm a sucker for the souks in Oualidia. It's much more laid-back than Marrakech and I love that it's an easygoing beach town. Photo credit: Aurora James Photo credit: Getty Images Photo credit: Aurora James Best Daytime Activity: We had such a fun time riding horses along the beach. Then, we took a paddle boat to a quiet secret spot for a picnic which was pretty magical and a total surprise for me. One day we went on an expedition searching for flamingos. We were not lucky this timemaybe next! Best Night Out: The hotel built a fort for us on the beach at Oualidia and we ate fresh lobster and drank wine on the beach and listened to the calming, nighttime sounds of Morocco. It wasn't a wild night out per say, but it was a perfect, quiet and enchanting one. Photo credit: Aurora James Photo credit: Aurora James Photo credit: Aurora James Trip Highlight: Seeing all of the familiar faces in the souks and at the hotels. Morocco really feels like my second home. Story continues Could not Leave Home Without: Glossier serum, Kiehl's Body butter, Ryan Roche cashmere capes in both blush and black, my Brother Vellies Babouche in denim and my Marabou Lamu sandals! Photo credit: Brother Vellies; Glossier; Kiehl's; Farfetch Most Inspiring Aspect: Visiting my workshop in Moroccothey are so good at making something out of nothing. We spent a day working together and basically finished the Pre-Fall collection using all different types of things supplied by local artisans. Photo credit: Aurora James Photo credit: Aurora James I wish I had...ridden a camel! I have yet to ride one in the desert!! Favorite Shopping Trip: the souks in general is basically the best sort of 'mall' on the planet. If you look very closely around the souks, you will come upon one very cute secret shop that sells Brother Vellies. Look long and hard, only the brave will discover it. Photo credit: Aurora James Why Morocco? It is home to one of our very first shoe workshops and the people, colors, sights and smells are endlessly inspiring to me. Africa as a continent is so large and diverse and Morocco is such a great reminder of that! You Might Also Like Donde Plowman has been tapped the lone finalist as executive vice chancellor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Plowman, who serves as the dean of the College of Business Administration, will attend forums for faculty and the public on Dec. 5-6 at the Nebraska Union Auditorium. The executive vice chancellor is a new position at UNL created by Chancellor Ronnie Green, who announced Plowman's selection by the search committee on Tuesday. Each of the academic deans at UNL, other than those in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, report to the executive vice chancellor. Plowman was appointed dean of the business college in 2010. Since then, she led an $84 million private fundraising drive to build a new 240,000-square-foot College of Business Administration set to open next year. She has also been instrumental in the growth of the business college, which has seen enrollment jump 22 percent in the last six years, including a 14 percent growth in graduate students. A total of 50 faculty members have joined CBA during Plowman's tenure. Before coming to UNL, Plowman led the Management Department at the University of Tennessee and served as a faculty member and associate dean for Graduate Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio for nine years. Plowman holds degrees from Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin. Green previously considered four finalists nominated by a search committee: Sheryl Tucker, associate provost and dean of the Oklahoma State University Graduate College; Elizabeth Spiller, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech; Mark Sheridan, vice provost for graduate and postdoctoral affairs and dean of the Graduate School at Texas Tech University; and Cheryl Achterberg, dean of the College of Education and Human Sciences at Ohio State University. Green said earlier this year that creating the executive vice chancellor position would bring UNL more in line with other Big Ten universities. He hopes the new executive vice chancellor will begin work Jan. 1. Getty Image On Monday evening, NBC News broke the story that the Kanye West has been hospitalized. This comes after several rants, most notably about his support for Donald Trump and frustration with Beyonce and Jay Z. Then, came this mornings news that the rapper had canceled all remaining dates on his Saint Pablo tour following a set cut short in Sacramento. According to NBC, the rapper was under observation at a Los Angeles hospital after the police responded to a medical welfare call around 1:20 PM PST. Sources say the decision to hospitalize West wasnt due to criminal activity but out of concern for his own health and safety. TMZ reports that the hospital Kanye was treated at is UCLA Medical Center and that he is there for a psychiatric evaluation after being examined by a doctor for possible severe sleep deprivation. Reportedly, he did not want to go and had to be restrained while transported. Further reporting from The Los Angeles Times reveals that paramedics, police, and fire fighters responded to a 911 call regarding Kanye from an address in Beverly Grove, south of West Hollywood. The situation escalated into a medical emergency during which the LAFD took over, but Kanye was medically stable when paramedics took him to the hospital, which was confirmed to be Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. The LA Times reports that he is being treated for stress and exhaustion. The Saint Pablo tour has been packed with drama and confusion, including a diss from his former protege Kid Cudi, who Kanye later completely forgave and dedicated his own song to, and relationship issues with Jay Z that remain unaddressed by Hov. Since the rapper aired out his views on Trump, responses have been strong Snoop Dogg and Talib Kweli both personally responded to his rant. Aside from Kanyes own personal struggles, his wife Kim Kardashian has been out of the spotlight after she was robbed in Paris earlier this fall. She has made very few public appearances since then, but was at one of Kanyes recent LA shows. As TMZ pointed out earlier today, she was seen boarding a plane early this morning, because shes scheduled to appear at Denise Richs Angel Ball for her first public appearance since the robbery. She has since canceled the appearance. There has been no official comment from Kanyes reps or the Kardashian camp on the situation. This story is developing and will be updated. The restaurant where reality TV star Tila Tequila was seen giving a Nazi-style salute has apologized for what occurred inside a Washington, D.C., establishment. On Friday afternoon at a Washington restaurant, former reality TV star Tila Tequila gave the Nazi salute with members of the National Policy Institute at Maggios Little Italy. Read: 'Hamilton' Actor Says 'There is Nothing to Apologize For' Following His Remarks to Mike Pence She posted the photo to Twitter with the caption: Seig Heil!, misspelling the word Sieg. She has since deleted the post. Following the Tequila incident, a shocking video has emerged of a National Policy Institute meeting in Washington, showing some in attendance giving Nazi-style salutes. The event for the National Policy Institute, which occurred Saturday inside the Ronald Reagan Building, saw many, including leader Richard Spencer, say: Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory! Spencer has popularized the recent term alt-right and described in the past his dream of a new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans. He has also called for peaceful ethnic cleansing. The Trump transition team condemned the meeting, saying in a statement: President-elect Trump has continued to denounce racism of any kind and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American." Read: Gigi Hadid Apologizes to Melania Trump Trump is heading to his Florida retreat, Mar-A-Lago, Tuesday for Thanksgiving as the sanitation trucks forming a barricade around Trump Tower in Manhattan will be redeployed to protect the Thanksgiving Day Parade from any potential terror threats. Watch: Comedian Who Writes Fake News Claims: Trump Won the Election Because of Me Related Articles: Poor, black neighborhoods have persisted in America for decades. And despite a few public-policy efforts to make things betterwhich include helping families move to other neighborhoods, getting better jobs for parents, and placing children in better schoolsthere are some signs that poverty is becoming even more concentrated in American ghettos. Yet the governments interventions have amounted to policy tweaks, and havent focused enough on the unjust system that created these areas in the first place, argues Tommie Shelby, a Harvard professor of African-American Studies and Philosophy, in his recent book, Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform. Instead of discussing the actual end game of addressing concentrated poverty, Shelby comes up with a set of principles that he says should inform any movement to eradicate modern ghettos. I talked with Shelby about his book and what role the black poor have in redesigning their future. The interview that below has been lightly edited for clarity. Recommended: 'Hail Trump!': Video of White Nationalists Cheering the President-Elect Alana Semuels: Why write this book now? Tommie Shelby: Here at Harvard I have lots of colleagues who work on ghetto poverty. Being around them, I have noticed certain patterns in the way they approach the topic. I think there's a tendency to be pretty technocratic about social policy. Theres a medical model: Here are these manifest problems or symptoms, and here are some underlying causes to try to act on. There's a tendency to think that all you really need is the empirical facts, and you don't have to engage in any sophisticated way with questions of political morality, questions of justice and rights and opportunities and liberties. But those are questions you have to tackle head on. You have to ask questions about, what are the principles that should govern our association together? I want to take focus away from just how to solve the problems of the ghetto, and think more broadly about the society that we're all participating in and sharing, and how that ought to be structured for us all to live as equals. I want to move away from just what interventions can we make into the lives of the black poor so that they'll behave better and get better integrated into society. Story continues Semuels: What is different about addressing ghetto poverty and addressing other forms of poverty, including rural and white poverty? Shelby: Ghetto poverty is marked by racial stigma and involuntary segregation. Not all forms of poverty have those features. It's also true that the ghetto poor live in and around cities, and there are things that go along with that. There's a point that Martin Luther King always would make about being humiliated by living in poverty in the midst of all this opulence that's surrounding you every day, and how that adds to the stress and strain of living under poverty. I think also living in and around cities, people tend to feel a threatening presence of police in their daily lives in a way in which people who may be living in more rural areas may not. It's easy to feel that you're under siege and that people don't care about you. Recommended: The Electoral College Was Meant to Stop Men Like Trump From Being President Semuels: Some successful government programs, such as Moving to Opportunity, help move black families from poor and dangerous neighborhoods to wealthier, white areas. Yet you argue that residential integration and programs such as these are not a fair solution. Could you explain your reasoning? Shelby: I think first you have to distinguish integration from desegregation. The civil rights movement was very focused on desegregation, which had to do with ending the white privileges that went along with that regime. What I find troubling is that in an attempt to deal with the problem of ghetto poverty, the government makes needed resources and services available only on condition that poor black people join predominantly white communities. I regard it as almost insulting to put the economic fate of the ghetto poor in the hands of more affluent whites, who then get to decide whether to allow blacks into their social networks and on what terms. Then you're sort of putting disadvantaged blacks in a supplicant position in relation to people who often have contempt for them and who often possess privileges and ill-gotten gains. There's nothing wrong with black people wanting to live with people who share their interests and values and historical experiences. The solution becomes, how can they participate in privileges that some whites possess. It's important for people to have both economic justice and certain liberties, including the freedom to choose the communities that they want to live in. Recommended: The Secret to Love Is Just Kindness Semuels: Another argument you make is that it is sometimes morally acceptable for the poor to refuse to participate in the labor market. What is it about the construction of modern ghettos that makes you argue that the jobless there should not necessarily seek out legitimate work? Shelby: In a just society I believe that each of us has a civic duty, to contribute something to the maintenance of our society. But I think if economic deprivation is severe enough, and if the only jobs available are low-paying, menial, and stigmatizing, then it can be justified to refuse to contribute as a form of dissent, as a form of registering your dissatisfaction with the way economic relations are structured. I don't mean to suggest that everybody that refuses to work has any high-minded principles in mind. They may or may not. I think that probably some do, and that's something that can be signaled to others who might feel similarly. You could certainly imagine other economic regimes where we would think that if people refused to work it wouldn't be unjustified, such as the cases of slavery and serfdom. Semuels: Exploitative conditions, you argue, make permissible actions that otherwise would not be permissible. I think that you talk about shoplifting or joining a gang. In what types of conditions are lawless activities acceptable? Shelby: It may seem radical, but I do think some transgressions of legal property claims can be a justified form of political dissent. We construct a set of economic entitlements and property claims in a way that's fair to everybody that's participating in this society. But there are ways of constructing those entitlements that are unfair. If they're sufficiently unfair, then refusing to respect people's conventional claims to those resources might be justified. I don't think that people should do it out of spite or do it just to gain status and leisure items for themselves. But if they refuse to participate in a labor market, then there's still going to be the question of how to make a living. Often that means participating in an underground economy. They might do that simply out of economic need, but they might do that partly as a transgressive, politically-motivated act. That might make permissible some economic crimes, some economic lawlessness in the ways that don't impact the already unjustly disadvantaged. Semuels: Kind of like Robin Hood. Shelby: Yeah, it could be that. I suppose you might be doing it to help others, but you might be doing it to help yourself. You might be doing it just as a way to communicate something about how you regard the prevailing economic relations, a way of kind of denouncing them. Semuels: Whats the role of poor residents in rethinking their surroundings? What should they be doing? Shelby: During the turn from the mainstream civil-rights movement to black power in the late 60s, I think there was a fair amount of agreement on the importance of regarding the black urban poor as political agents in their own right, as people to work with in changing things. It's a belief that ordinary people can participate in changing their society. We've really moved away from that picture of engagement. What we do mostly now, even in the liberal policy community, is figure out ways to intervene in their lives to get them to adapt themselves more to their circumstances or trying to meet their material needs without fundamentally changing our relations to each other. Its important to take seriously the moral and political agency of even the most disadvantaged people in our society, and it's important that political elites, who maybe think of themselves as liberal or progressive, respect that moral and political agency. They need to think of the people they're trying to help as people who they can work with in solidarity to make things better. That was a big commitment, I think, during the civil rights/black power phase of the black freedom struggle, and it's something that, I'm not exactly sure why, we've certainly moved very far away from. Semuels: You spend much of the book talking about how the poor may behave to protest an unjust system. What's the argument for the people that aren't disadvantaged to heed your call and address this? Shelby: We should be appealing to a broader sense of justice and reciprocity among citizens. I don't want to make that seem like it's a simple matter, because it's hard to get people to overcome too much investment and self-regard. During the Civil Rights movement against Jim Crow, moral appeals were joined with various forms of political pressure, not only to draw attention to the injustices, but also to make people feel some sort of the burdens that people who are unjustly burdened already feel. This was sometimes through boycotts or refusal to go along with things, or just being disruptive of actions that other people take. Sometimes it was trying to make the comfortable less comfortable so that they could take more seriously the claims of those who claim to be unjustly treated and disadvantaged. You have to combine those moral appeals to justice and the sense of reciprocity with various forms of social pressure: organizing and solidarity and individual acts of dissent to get them to turn their attention to those moral concerns. That was, I think, a very successful strategy during the civil rights movement, and I think similar approaches could work under our current circumstances. Semuels: I think it's also interesting to think about the current political climate and whether it's going to be harder to move forward in a more equitable way. It seems like the urban poor might turn out to be the big losers in the upcoming four years. Shelby: I think that's right. It's interesting that Trump has spoken sometimes about ghettos. He's mostly focused on problems of crime and violence in those communities when he's talked about it at all, and he tended to generalize talking about black people in a very general way of, all black people live in the ghetto, which only a minority do. But he hasn't really said that much about racial and economic injustice when talking about the black poor. He's mostly just talked about law and order. He really hasn't been responsive to pretty loud and persistent demands for a fairer criminal justice system and the need to end unnecessary use of police violence. In fact, he has suggested a greater use of stop and frisk, which suggests that he doesn't really understand the problem of racial profiling, or doesn't really take seriously worries about police harassment of innocent citizens. I certainly haven't heard him say anything about problems of mass incarceration, so it's a huge setback there. On the other hand, there's already mobilization on the ground around criminal justice issues from policing, prosecution, prisons, releasing decisions, and so on. So that mobilization will obviously continue, I like to think. It's not like ghettos were going to go away in the next four to eight years if Hillary Clinton had been elected. It's a long-term project, so I don't think in that senseit's a setback, but I don't think it really changes fundamentally how I'll think about the problem and ways to move forward. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. As our world has gotten bigger, noisier and more complex, things that used to seem simple have become incredibly complicated. Even old-fashioned pleasures now come tricked out with technological bells and whistlesalthough sometimes, almost against the odds, the results can surprise you. Robert Zemeckis gorgeous nostalgia dream Allied is a case in point. Zemeckis has made some terrific movies (Used Cars, Cast Away), some wickedly sharp ones (Death Becomes Her) and at least one vile eyesore (The Polar Express). His obsession with motion-capture technology, in particular, hasnt served him well. But Allied is something else: The picture, written by Steven Knight, is a riff on wartime romancesCasablanca is the clear model and muse. Its story and dialogue are so straightforward and comforting that even when you think you can hear the next beat comingand you willthe finale still comes as a cathartic surprise. But the visual beauty of Allied, set in early-to-mid 1940s Casablanca and London, is an illusion made possible only by technology: In the opening scene, Brad Pitts Canadian spy-on-the-fly, having just touched down in the Moroccan desert, emerges like a mirage against the sand dunes. Decked out in a turban and sunglasses, hes only a minor Peter OToole, but that still isnt half bad. Yet even if Pitt is real, the dunes arent: They were created on a special set constructed to allow elaborate visual-effects enhancements. In a later scene, footprints were actually sculpted right into the dunes: Zemeckis the perfectionist simply will not stand for messy, free-for-all sand anarchy. Still, there are worse sins, and Zemeckis care and control pay off. When Pitts Max Vatansuch a fabulously, ridiculously perfect name!lands in Casablanca, his first order of business is to meet his fellow operative for the first time. He must find her at a crowded dinner and greet her as if she were his wife. Luckily, shes easy to spot, because shes Marion Cotillardor, rather, Marianne Beausejourand shes wearing a shimmery deep-purple dress that looks like the fleeting layer between darkest night and sunrise. Although Max is all about business, focused on the duos upcoming, risky Nazi-killing mission, Marianne likes to live dangerously. She seduces Max, and you cant blame him for yielding to her charms, which are both feral and fawnlike. Much of the pleasure of Allied lies in watching beautiful people swanning through beautifulor even just painstakingly re-createdlocales. Max and Marianne work their undercover magic, elegantly, in 40s Casablanca, a cosmopolitan dreamland of mosaic-decorated facades and satiny, twinkling nightclubs. Later, the action switches to war-torn England. The skies are gray by day, and pierced by ominous searchlights at night. But by now, the two spies have succumbed to coupledom, finding enormous happiness in their love: If this is a terrible world, its also a cozy one, at least until treachery creeps in. These settings are clearly false, highly movie-fied worlds. Nothing in real life looks like this. Not even old movies, created on soundstages and sets, looked like this. We tend think of old movies as being innocent just because theyre old, but thats just a way of condescending to them. Even seemingly simple movies can work on us in mysterious, confounding ways, lodging somewhere in our hearts and brains. Their sophistication can be stealthy. Allied is a fascinating and novel experiment, sophisticated in a different way: Zemeckis uses technology to elicit the feeling we get when we watch old favorites. Its almost like Smell-o-Vision, but with intensified visuals instead of aromatics. Even within this highly synthetic world, Pitt and Cotillard give sturdy, coded performances that feel naturalistic, not phony: They understand clearly that their chief mission is to tap the tradition of melodrama, and they take it seriously. Somehow, almost incomprehensibly, it all works. Allied looks old but smells new, and the scent is heady. With a crack of his whip, Qin Yusheng drives his mules through the ocean surf off the Chinese coast, labouring to bring in the day's catch. For decades, equine-powered carts have trundled through the shallow waters off the peninsula near Xianrendao to meet shallow-keeled trawlers piled high with jellyfish, which teem in the waters of the Yellow Sea. Now Qin, 55, and his last two mules are ready to retire, as the area's traditional way of life slides into history. Not long ago, Qin and his team of horses and mules spent 12 hours a day shuttling back and forth between the fishing boats and the shore. Fishermen emptied their slippery catch into dozens of horse carts, which hauled them through the knee deep waters to processing sheds. Now, the vessels pull up to a new concrete pier, where they offload their product directly into waiting lorries. There is "not much need" for the animal-drawn carts any more, said Qin, who now helps shift haul smaller catches, like crabs caught in the shallows. "I have no choice but to retire." Wang Fenghu, 55, who used to have a team of horses until he quit to open a small grocery store, explained: "A couple of trucks can carry between 2,000 and 2,500 kilos. "There used to be 40 or 50 horses grazing on the lawn here," he said with a wave to the village green. Wang sold his four horses a little over a decade ago to farmers in the nearby hills. "I haven't sold my cart, yet," he added. But "now it's only good for firewood". - Oil and coriander - Jellyfish is a popular ingredient in Chinese cooking, and the largest plant in Xianrendao, in the northeastern province of Liaoning, processes around 5 million kilograms a year. During the high season, migrant workers spend 13 hours a day in the factories, large open sheds with corrugated roofs, separating jellyfish heads from their bodies. Men and women in tall rubber boots and gloves shovel a mixture of salt and alum into giant concrete tanks, where the jellyfish soak for a week. The process makes their skin thin and easy to slice. Story continues The finished product is exported to Japan, Korea and cities across China, where it is often mixed with oil and coriander to make a cold, crunchy salad. Business is good, according to locals, but the catches have become smaller and smaller every year. "There are fewer jellyfish, but the price is higher," Qin said. Locals blame a chemical plant near the village. "When the wind blows, you can smell the odour," Qin said. "It also dumps waste water into the ocean. That's bad for sea creatures." Qin is one of only a handful of villagers who still rely on their animals to make a living. "I try do as many runs as I can, but I'm not as young as I used to be," he said, adding that if his mules were not docile, he was "completely exhausted by the end of the day". "We're going to sell them next year," Qin said, either to farmers or a slaughterhouse. "We're sorry to let them go, but we have no choice." - This story accompanies a photo essay by Johannes Eisele - Kabul (AFP) - An international rights group and victims' families urged the Afghan government on Tuesday to protect the minority Shiite community after a bloody mosque bombing, the latest in a series of deadly sectarian attacks. A massive suicide blast claimed by the Islamic State group targeted a Shiite congregation in Kabul on Monday, killing at least 27 people and wounding 64. ISIS has stepped up its horrific and unlawful attacks on Shia public gatherings, making no place safe, Patricia Gossman, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement using an alternative acronym for IS. The government, Shia leaders, and civil society groups should work together to develop appropriate ways to improve security during vulnerable public and religious gatherings so that Shia community members can exercise their basic rights. she said. Amnesty International, in a statement Monday, said Afghan authorities "have a duty to take effective measures to protect Shia Muslims from attacks and end impunity for previous abuses against the Shia community". The latest attack was mounted as worshippers gathered for the major Shiite ceremony of Arbaeen, marking the end of a 40-day mourning period after Ashura. Ashura itself commemorates the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Angry Shiite mourners on Tuesday accused the government of failing to provide protection as they buried loved ones. "We voted for this government, people's fingers were cut by militants for voting. In return the government should provide us with security," said Ghulam Haydar, a relative of a victim. "I want the the international community to help us get rid of the terrorists and stop them from harming the people." The interior ministry said it had suspended four police officials in connection with the attack and launched a thorough investigation. Last month a powerful blast targeting Shiites during Ashura killed 14 people in northern Afghanistan. It followed twin attacks claimed by IS that also targeted Shiites and killed 18 in Kabul. Story continues In July IS jihadists claimed twin explosions that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 85 and wounding more than 400. Those bombings marked the deadliest single attack in the Afghan capital since the Taliban were ousted from power in a 2001 US-led invasion. Fighters from IS, which controls territory across Syria and Iraq, have been making steady inroads in Afghanistan, challenging the Taliban on their own turf -- mainly in the east. It says something about Donald Trump that a retired Marine general nicknamed "Mad Dog" is uniting the divided swamp the next president has promised to drain. It's true. Democrats and Republicans, NeverTrump and NeverHillary, the alt-right and the wonky cucks of the GOP all agree: James Mattis for Secretary of Defense. So far, the swamp looks like it will get its wish. Mattis visited Trump Saturday in New Jersey and Republican sources are chattering that he is now the front-runner to be the civilian leader of the world's greatest military. This news was greeted with bipartisan relief here at the Halifax International Security Forum, an annual conference in Nova Scotia that brings together foreign policy elites from Western democracies. For the most part, this is not Trump country. It is however, Mattis country. Let's start with some progressives. "Given the range of people who have been suggested, I think he will be a good choice," Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen told me. "I have not met Gen. Mattis," Sen. Chris Coons, another Democrat, said. "But by his reputation he is seasoned and capable military officer. Obviously he deserves a full and fair hearing." Heather Hurlburt, the director of the New Models of Policy Change initiative at the New America think tank, said, "Mattis is respected by people I respect." I know what you're thinking. The swamp has already gotten to the Donald. He's nominating a squish to appease the Georgetown set. But this is not the case. Take Mike Gallagher, a Marine veteran who just won his first election to serve as a Republican member of the House from Wisconsin. He told me, "I know of no better patriot, warrior or servant-leader than Gen. Mattis." Syndicated radio host and Trump backer Laura Ingraham agrees. She on Friday that "Mattis is the best candidate for SecDef." This is understandable. When Mattis served in President Barack Obama's first term as the head of U.S. Central Command, he was frustrated the U.S. did not more robustly respond to an Iranian plot to murder the Saudi ambassador in Washington. This year, he said the Iran nuclear agreement was only a temporary delay to Iran's quest for a nuclear weapon, not the foundation for friendlier relations, as some of the deal's proponents argue. Then there is the persona Mattis has cultivated as the ultimate warrior-Marine. Just look up "Mattis quotes" on Google. One of my favorites: "I'm going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years." At the same time, quotes like that don't capture another side of Mattis, who is also known as the "Warrior Monk," because he never married and is an avid reader. In his retirement, he works out of Stanford University's Hoover Institution, where he edited a serious book about civil-military relations. That book will be more pertinent than ever because Mattis, who retired in 2013, has not been out of the military long enough to serve as the Secretary of Defense. Republicans supporting his nomination have said they will have to get a congressional waiver, but expect there won't be any problem with that. Finally, Mattis himself has shown sound political judgment in a year when most of the professional political class failed to predict the election of Trump. When he was approached in the spring by a handful of NeverTrump Republicans to launch an independent run for president, the Mad Dog demurred and declined. Needless to say, the NeverTrump crowd is delighted at the prospect of the Warrior Monk/Mad Dog running the Pentagon. It appears Trump is coming around to this, as well. The president-elect tweeted Sunday morning: "General James 'Mad Dog' Mattis, who is being considered for Secretary of Defense, was very impressive yesterday. A true General's General!" On this point, almost all of Washington agrees. LIMA President Duterte said he would adopt a foreign policy that veers toward a China-led regional development in a pronouncement that highlights Manilas pivot to Beijing amid its rocky relationship with traditional ally Washington. I have given you my word, we will cooperate with you, Duterte told Chinese President Xi Jinping during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit here. I said, with my thrust of an independent foreign policy, we will find ourselves mutually agreeing in so many things and align our foreign policy towards the development of Asia, strengthening of ties among the countries in the region, with China leading the way in the economic development, he added. The Philippines, which toed the line of the US during previous administrations, is now seeking closer ties with China following a rift between Duterte and American officials over his aggressive campaign against illegal drugs. Washington has called out Duterte for the spate of killings tied to his anti-drug war and has asked him to make sure that human rights are upheld in all law enforcement operations. Duterte responded by accusing the US of hypocrisy, citing the alleged discrimination against African-Americans and the atrocities committed by American troops against Muslim Filipinos in the 20th century. During his visit to Beijing last month, Duterte declared that he would be separating from the US in terms of security and the economy. Officials clarified though that the Philippines is not cutting ties with US but is just pursuing a more independent foreign policy where the national interest is paramount. At the same meeting, Duterte told Xi that his four-day state visit to Beijing last month opened a new chapter in Philippine-China relations and signified the need to fast-track mutually beneficial areas of cooperation. Story continues Though it was a short visit, it has produced a lot of goodwill in my country and we hope to remain a good friend of China, Duterte said. Duterte also invited Xi to visit the Philippines at a mutually agreeable date. Xi accepted the invitation. Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said the purpose of the meeting was to follow through on the memoranda of understanding (MOUs) signed during Dutertes state visit. Thirteen bilateral agreements covering a wide range of areas including trade, tourism, agriculture, security, health and infrastructure were signed during the visit. Im very happy to report that we are on track on this one. We will be pushing for now a more vigorous talks for the purpose of implementation the broad strokes that we have arrived at when we signed the MOUs, Yasay said. These are things we are looking forward to. Were very happy that China is as enthusiastic as the Philippines in making sure that the trade and economic relationships that we would like to foster would be fast tracked, he added. Guaranteed access? Yasay said Duterte and Xi also talked about the South China Sea dispute, with the Chinese leader guaranteeing Filipino fishermen access to Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal. We spoke a little bit about the South China Sea disputes not for the purpose of resolving them now but I think most of the conversation along that line was an expression of good will, Yasay said. We have the assurance, we have not asked for it but this is a voluntary act on the part of the Chinese that fishermen will continue to be having free access to their traditional fishing grounds, he added. Panatag Shoal is located 124 nautical miles off Zambales and is within the Philippines exclusive economic zone. China started occupying the shoal in 2012 when it prevented the Philippine Navy from arresting Chinese poachers who harvested endangered species. Yasay said China reiterated its offer to train Filipino fishermen on the culturing of fish to support their livelihood. We also had made sure that any actions that would be taken by us will be precisely to just simply promote our interests in the area of jurisdiction. Territorial ownership and sovereignty will be set aside in the meantime until a solution is in sight in the future, Yasay said. Upbeat Yasay said Duterte is very optimistic about the prospects of the relationship between the Philippines and China. We have instructions from the President to also move forward fast on this and incidentally, the agricultural aspect, sector of our relationship will be pushed through. China has indicated an intention to really beef up their importation of agricultural products particularly in the area of fruits, he said. They also mentioned the lifting of the ban of tourists coming over and we expect in the few weeks a marked increase in tourists coming from China. Yasay said Xi also invited Duterte to attend the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) conference in September 2017. Ron Thornton, a visual effect pioneer known for his work on Babylon 5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, died Monday in his Albuquerque, N.M., home after a short illness. He was 59. Born in London, Thornton moved in 1984 to the U.S., where he went on to shoot and create miniature sets for the films Commando, Space Balls, Critters, and Robot Jox. Prior to emigrating to America, he worked at BBC on Doctor Who and Blakes 7, also creating props and miniatures. Thornton is best known for bringing computer-generated imagery (CGI) to television, most notably on the series Babylon 5. Following its series pick-up, he formed Foundation Imaging in 1992 with Paul Beigle-Bryant, who would go on to supervise visual effects for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding achievement in visual effects in 1993 for his work on the television film Babylon 5: The Gathering. His other credits include the show Nashville, the 2002 television film Superfire, and Star Trek spinoffs such as Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. He received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination in 1999 for his work on Star Trek: Voyager. Thornton is survived by his wife, Lada. A GoFundMe page was created in September to help cover his costly medical expenses. Related stories 'Star Trek' Producer Compares Mr. Spock to an Immigrant Don Marshall, Actor on 'Star Trek' and 'Land of the Giants,' Dies at 80 John Vulich, Makeup Artist on 'Buffy,' 'X-Files,' Dies at 55 Moscow (AFP) - Russia has accused Ukraine of abducting two Russian servicemen on the annexed Crimea peninsula, but Kiev said it had merely detained two Ukrainian army deserters. In a statement carried late Monday by local news agencies, the Russian defence ministry said servicemen Maxim Odintsov and Alexander Baranov were "illegally detained and removed from Crimea by Ukrainian security forces" on Sunday. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the men's capture "an unlawful act of provocation carried out by Ukrainian special services towards Russian citizens on Russian soil," quoted by TASS state news agency. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) meanwhile said the two were "former Ukrainian servicemen who betrayed their oath and went to serve in the Russian military after the illegal annexation of Crimea". The SBU added that the men stood accused of "desertion and treason" and had been detained at a checkpoint after crossing the administrative frontier between Russian-annexed Crimea and Ukraine. It said the men had been caught after trying to bribe Ukrainian officials to obtain education certificates they needed to become officers in the Russian army. A Russian Black Sea fleet spokesman told TASS the men were lured over the frontier apparently to receive higher education certificates and then immediately detained by SBU officers. The two face jail sentences of up to 15 years if convicted of bribery and desertion. Russia seized Crimea in 2014 by sending in thousands of special forces to take control of Ukrainian bases and holding a hastily organised referendum that was rejected by the international community. The move shattered ties between the two ex-Soviet neighbours and sent relations between Moscow and the West plummeting to their lowest point since the Cold War. In August, President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of attempting armed incursions into the disputed region. Russia's security agency said at the time it had thwarted "terrorist attacks" in Crimea by Ukrainian military intelligence and beaten back armed assaults, but Kiev furiously denied the incidents. The allegations ratcheted up tensions in the feud between Russia and Ukraine sparked by Moscow's seizure of the Black Sea peninsula and sparked fears of a wider conflict. MOSCOW Max Malyshev first started using drugs as a teenager in Tver, an industrial city north of Moscow, mostly because it was just fun, the 39-year-old said. He grew up in what he called a typical Russian family, one where the father drinks too much and everyone suffered in the face of an uncertain future in post-Soviet Russia. He was looking for an escape. So, at age 16, he began injecting amphetamines and heroin. Eventually, he moved on to krokodil, a locally produced, opioid-based drug nicknamed after the reptile for the skin ulcers it frequently produces that resemble scales. Malyshev spoke of the freewheeling parties he attended, where no one worried about drawing drugs from the same vial. In 1997, after Malyshev was arrested for dealing drugs, the police forced him to take an HIV test, a standard government policy. His results were positive. But when he was released, he found no reason to change his lifestyle. What option was there? he asked. After all, as he put it, there were barely any services available to treat his addiction. Antiretrovirals to treat the disease funded by the government were offered to him in theory. But with a chaotic lifestyle of daily drug use, cold indifference from health-care providers who viewed him as a junkie, and a near total absence of addiction services, access to care for Malyshev was effectively nonexistent. Today, there are an estimated 1.5 million people who have been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS in Russia, which has a population of 140 million. Although the spread of HIV has been stemmed in sub-Saharan Africa, in Russia the rate of HIV infection is rising 10 to 15 percent each year a pace comparable to the infection rate in the United States in the 1980s, when the basic biology of HIV was poorly understood and the antiretroviral drugs used to treat the disease were years away from discovery. And the uncontrolled rise of the disease is unlikely to abate in the foreseeable future, as the Russian government firmly rejects scientifically tested policies out of apathy and political expedience. Story continues The Soviet Union didnt even begin to officially report HIV infections until 1987. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, heroin and other injectable drugs became easily accessible to Russians. In the late 1990s and onward, as trafficking routes from Afghanistan through the porous borders of former Soviet Central Asia and into Russia further developed, infection rates across the region steadily rose. The drug trade from Afghanistan to Russia has since morphed into a multibillion-dollar illegal economy for traffickers, accounting for about 25 percent of all Afghan heroin and leaving a wake of corruption and infection in its trail. Russia, the top market, has been hit the hardest. In 2014, the most recent year of data available, the Russian Federal AIDS Center found in that intravenous drug use accounted for 58 percent of HIV infections and the rest from sexual transmission. Despite the startling statistics, the Kremlin refuses to embrace the globally accepted, evidence-based strategies that reduce the spread of the epidemic among drug users. And the governments defiance in its policy, according to health experts, is almost certain to result in increased cases of HIV infections. As Michel Kazatchkine, the U.N. secretary-generals special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said in an interview: On the drug side [of its HIV response], Russia has not changed. [If anything,] it is toughening. Central to an evidence-based response to intravenous-fueled HIV is the use of opioid substitution therapy (OST), which replaces intravenous drug usage with an opioid-based oral medication like methadone or buprenorphine. These medications are prescribed by a physician and do not induce a high. By reducing the use of needles and allowing drug addicts to have a more stable life, it has been shown to substantially decrease the transmission of HIV for which the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it an essential tool in 2004. The use of OST reflects an increasingly popular philosophy among global public health leaders of harm reduction where the focus is centered on preventing the negative effects of drug use rather than trying to prevent drug use itself. But the Russian government views OST as merely replacing one addiction with another. In 1997, it made its use illegal, punishable with up to 20 years in prison. Needle exchange programs in Russia another pillar of harm reduction that has been proved to decrease HIV transmission and save lives in programs across the world currently receive almost no funding. Until 2009, needle exchange programs had been widely available, mostly with financing from the Global Fund, a public-private consortium that is the worlds largest financier of HIV projects. But when that agencys money was withdrawn in 2010 largely because Russia had achieved the status of a high-income country Moscow did not replace funding, and the number of needle exchanges in the country dropped from 80 to 10. In lieu of these kinds of programs that have worked in other countries, the Russian government offers drug addicts who are trying to quit options that are ineffective and difficult to access, said Anya Sarang, the president of the Andrey Rylkov Foundation, a Russian nongovernmental organization (NGO) focused on harm reduction. Most government-funded services are only in detoxification, allowing people to briefly withdraw from their addiction and then to return to their life situation, Sarang said. Private rehabilitation services have grown, where people can go after detoxification, but mostly you can only use them if you have money. If you dont have money, there are still basically no options. Many Russian health providers and bureaucrats disagree with the governments position. But because speaking out could jeopardize their jobs, few do so. A lung disease specialist in Moscow who asked to remain anonymous said Russia knows how to rein in its HIV epidemic. Intravenous drug users make up most of my patients. To treat them and for their HIV, for the tuberculosis that usually comes with it they need to take pills every day, the specialist said. The only reliable way to bring them in is with OST. Without it, patients only come when they are feeling deathly ill and leave as soon as they can get their next fix. Even compared to authoritarian countries, Russia stands out for its refusal to implement harm reduction in drug use. China and Iran countries that traditionally focus on the enforcement aspect of drug control have established methadone maintenance programs. Chinas Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that since its program began in 2003, it has grown to support 170,000 injection drug users and estimates that at least 13,000 HIV drug infections have been averted. Among the former Soviet countries most of which also face high rates of HIV and drug addiction only Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have not made OST available. In neighboring Ukraine, where methadone has been legalized, the rate of HIV transmission growth decreased, particularly among young people who inject drugs, for whom infection rates decreased more than fivefold between 2007 and 2013, according to the most recent statistics from the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine. Official figures for the entire country have not been available since the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine, but the turbulent two years are believed to have sent infections rates back up. Russias zero tolerance drug policy reflects, in part, a strain of social conservatism running through the country that views drug use as a personal moral failing. Methadone is considered in the same category as tolerance to gays rotten Western practices, said Sergey Lukashevsky, the director of the Sakharov Center, a Moscow-based facility for discussion on Russian culture and history. This perspective which paints the problem as a foreign-imported plot is inflamed to build support for the government. Victor Ivanov, the former director of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN), explained his organizations position on OST in a 2015 statement. Customers of this murderous therapy are prisoners chained by their own chemical handcuffs, Ivanov said. Attempts to impose its legalization in Russia are not associated with therapeutic objectives [but] with the political ambitions of the global drug lobby and the economic interests of pharmaceutical companies. But the FSKN itself may have been a big part of the problem. Lukashevsky said the FSKN has long made policies with an official aim of fighting drug dealing but with an unofficial aim of self-preservation. The drug control service has jockeyed against other agencies attempting to win favor and resources from the government, taking actions that gain headlines but are in fact highly ineffective. The agency has arrested bakers for suspicion that their poppy seeds are used in drug production, has restricted opioid-based pain control in palliative care facilities, and has removed from bookstores literature perceived to promote drug use, such as the writing of American novelist William Burroughs. In April, the FSKN was absorbed into the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Ivanov, a former KGB colleague of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was removed from his post. The new leader of the drug agency, career cop Maj. Gen. Andrey Khrapov, has a history of being more pragmatic than his predecessor, who followed a hard line on drugs. But with health-care budgets slashed across Russia as the country has slumped into economic crisis, Moscows strict stance on methadone looks set to continue. With the number of those infected continuing to rise, the government has finally decided to respond. Russia has expressed its aim to implement the newest strategy recommended by the WHO in 2015 to limit the spread of HIV: treatment as prevention. This policy would provide all HIV/AIDS patients with antiretroviral drugs not only for those who show progression in their disease. In March, Russia tentatively announced plans to increase its coverage from 17 to 60 percent of HIV/AIDS patients, and Veronika Skvortsova, the health minister, promised an extra $315 million in funding. But without the use of both OST and the widespread needle exchange programs to support the expanded coverage, Russia will have difficulty curbing its epidemic, predicts David Wilson, the director of the World Banks global HIV/AIDS program. Russias AIDS investments will not be optimal unless they focus on all three core interventions, Wilson said. And Russia faces more hurdles in containing its HIV/AIDS growth. Russia is an outlier among the BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa in the high cost of antiretroviral medications. The prices of the standard first-line regiment medications are 3.2 times the average of prices for middle-income countries, according to the World Bank, in part because many of these medications are imported and the Russian ruble has been falling sharply in the past year. And the Russian ban on propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors, or the so-called LGBT propaganda law, enacted in 2013, has also been linked to a rise in HIV among men who have sex with men. Information about the prevention of HIV directed toward this group is forbidden, and individuals increasingly avoid seeking testing and treatment owing to severe discrimination. One survey from St. Petersburg, conducted between 2012 and 2015 by the Russian human rights NGO Phoenix Plus, found that the prevalence of HIV among men who have sex with men had increased from 10 percent in the year before the law was enacted to 22 percent in 2015. Max Malyshev, for his part, managed to find help for his addiction a few years after his diagnosis. An initial experience with the state-funded detoxification system did not go well, but friends brought him to private counseling and 12-step programs that eventually stuck, and he subsequently pursued care for his HIV. Now, at age 39, he works with the Andrey Rylkov Foundation in the needle exchange program in Moscow, the only one left in the capital. But even the foundation has come under further pressure of late; it was labeled a foreign agent this year under Russias restrictive laws that seek to stigmatize NGOs that rely on foreign contributions. After decades of experiencing Russias frozen-in-time drug policy, Malyshev said he has stopped thinking about hoping that harm reduction will arrive anytime soon. But he laughs a lot as he works, clearly enjoying what he does. He knows that even if it is only a dent in the massive and growing crisis, he, at least, is making a difference. Photo Credit: BRENDAN HOFFMAN/Getty Images Russia demanded Ukraine return two Russian soldiers reportedly abducted from the Crimean peninsula after Kiev said it picked up the deserters because they defected to Russia from the Ukrainian military following Moscow's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Russia called the arrest "another act of gross provocation," Reuters reported Tuesday. The Russian defense ministry said the soldiers were "illegally detained" Sunday in the former Ukrainian region annexed by Moscow in 2014. The soldiers, Ensign Maxim Evgenyevich Odintsov and Junior Sergeant Alexander Vyacheslavovich Baranov, were transported to Ukraine's Mykolaiv region, north-west of the peninsula, BBC News reported. Russia claimed Ukraine would use "psychological and physical pressure" to get confessions from the soldiers "for crimes allegedly committed against Ukraine." Sergei Lavrov, Russias foreign minister, accused Ukraine Tuesday of an illegal provocation, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was doing everything that should be done to secure the return of the soldiers. Ukraine denied that it kidnapped the soldiers. Kiev said the men were detained in Ukraine. "We did not abduct anyone - we arrested two deserters who had crossed the border at the Chongar checkpoint," said Elena Gitlyanskaya, spokeswoman for the Security Service of Ukraine, to Ukraine's Unian news agency. The men were under criminal investigation, she added. Ukraine and Russia have maintained tense relations since Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula more than two years ago. Ukraine and Western leaders have accused Russia of backing pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine. There were more than 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers in Crimea at the time of the annexation. Only 6,010 Ukrainian military staff have since returned to mainland Ukraine. The International Criminal Court ruled last week that Russia and Ukraine were in a de facto state of war over the annexation. Story continues "This international armed conflict began at the latest on 26 February [2014] when the Russian Federation deployed members of its armed forces to gain control over parts of the Ukrainian territory without the consent of the Ukrainian Government," the report states. Related Articles Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - A top European lawmaker warned Tuesday that a "ring of autocrats" was trying to wreck the EU, citing the presidents of Russia and Turkey and their future counterpart Donald Trump. "It seems to me more and more we are surrounded by autocrats. Putin, Erdogan and then, the first appointments of Mr Trump, worries me also a lot," said Guy Verhofstadt, who is the European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator. The former Belgian premier added: "What I see today is now Russians and Americans and Turks... working together more and less on European soil to destroy the European model." Verhofstadt accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of "openly financing" populist and eurosceptic parties and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of targeting Turkish opposition members in Europe. He went on to compare them to the US president-elect, singling out plans by Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon to open new bureaus of his rightwing Breitbart News website in France and Germany "to influence elections". Verhofstadt, who leads the Liberal group in the European Parliament, said the three leaders had a "common point of view that they want to bash and ... even destroy our way of thinking, our values." "We have to fight back, this is a crucial moment in the history of the EU," said Verhofstadt. "We have the Brexit negotiation, we have this ring of autocrats around the EU instead of the ring of friends. It is the moment to build a real political Union, a strong one, an effective one." Kanye West's performance at Sacramento's Golden 1 Center on Saturday night (Nov. 19) was cut short after just 30 minutes following a lengthy, now-standard monologue from the MC -- who was reportedly an hour-and-a-half late -- that targeted Beyonce, Jay Z, Hillary Clinton, Taylor Swift and the radio industry. Kicking things off by teeing up radio, he accused the "real people that gotta feed their kids" of not playing artists like Frank Ocean and Kid Cudi because they get paid to play the same songs over and over again. (He peppered in plenty of "Radio, f--- you!" sound bytes as well.) It would be his last show of 2016 -- a rep for West confirmed to Billboard yesterday (Nov. 21) that the remaining 21 dates of his Saint Pablo Tour are canceled. It also proved to be the last time West's music would be played on Sacramento's KHHM Hot 103.5 for "a very long time," according to the station's music director, Justin "JayMarzz" Marshall, who went on a lengthy monologue of his own yesterday morning on Hot's Sugabear in the Morning a.m. show. In a YouTube clip uploaded by the radio station called "WTFNEWS: JAYMARZZ GOES IN ON KANYE WEST!," the three morning show DJs begin by playing West's "Fade" before Marshall stops the record. "That's the last time you're going to hear Kanye West's 'Fade' on this radio station -- also the last time you hear any Kanye West song on this radio station for a very long time," he begins, before addressing the Sacramento show and laying out a few reasons for the ban. "Everybody came out to have a great time Saturday night. A lot of fans in the building, a lot of people had spent a lot of hard earned money, bro, a lot of hard earned time," he says. "Time is something we can't get back. Everyone can get a refund back, but you can't get your time back. You can't get the emotion back that you were gonna put into that show, to watch someone that you love... This is called a moment, folks; these are what make our lives. Moments and memories to share with each other and stuff. And he took that from people Saturday night." A fair assessment. But Marshall was just beginning, somewhat confusingly calling West "a piece of crap, because I can't say what I want to say" and said West should "go to hell for that." He then addressed West's criticism of the radio industry, saying that KHHM has played every single off The Life of Pablo. "You're going to go into Sacramento and say 'F radio,' really bro? Really?" Marshall says. "You're the same guy 15 years ago that was begging radio to play you. And they did and they gave you a shot. Without radio you didn't blow up to be the artist that you were. That you were, because you're no longer that artist anymore. You're no longer the guy pushing five million albums, selling millions and millions of singles." The fact that nobody, save Adele, is pushing five million albums these days seems to be beside the point for Marshall. He then references Nielsen Music numbers -- on which the Billboard charts are built -- to say that "Fade," released as a single in September, ranked at No. 67 in singles sales in the past week with 10,000 downloads, compared to Rae Sremmurd's "Black Beatles," released in as a single in August and which sold 144,000 downloads as it flew to No. 1 on the Hot 100 on the strength of the viral Mannequin Challenge. (Also worth noting, regarding the power of a viral push like the Mannequin Challenge: in the week ending Nov. 10, the week "Black Beatles" first hit No. 1 and the sales week Marshall is referencing, the song ballooned 320 percent in sales over the previous week; of its 433,000 sales to date by the week ending Nov. 17, 298,000 have come in the last two frames. "Fade" has sold 133,000 copies through the week ending Nov. 17.) While the comparison is pretty apples-to-oranges given the random nature of viral hits, Marshall uses the juxtaposition to argue that West's fans don't buy his music anymore, and that radio still plays a big role in breaking records. That is often true for mainstream records, of course, although using "Black Beatles" as an example is a curious way to promote radio's importance. The song rocketed to No. 1 with the least airplay for a song atop the Hot 100 since Zayn's "Pillowtalk" in February, and has increased 57 percent and 63 percent in the past two weeks, respectively, in airplay impressions as radio pushes to catch up to the song's demand. Of course, the music industry is betting its future on streaming, as that medium became the dominant revenue stream for the business in the first half of 2016, according to the RIAA, accounting for 57.4 percent of overall revenue. West, whose Pablo album became the first-ever LP to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with more than half of its units coming from streaming back in April, will be fine there, with no radio station boycotts stopping fans from listening to his catalog. Ticketmaster has offered to refund all tickets for West's Sacramento show, while West, after canceling the rest of his Saint Pablo Tour, was reportedly hospitalized due to exhaustion and sleep deprivation. (Marshall's comments were made before news of West's hospitalization was reported.) It's fair to wonder what Marshall's real gripe here is: is he defending the local Sacramento fans who felt betrayed and had their time wasted by West's actions? Is he angry that West seems ungrateful, in a way, to a radio infrastructure that has supported him in the past? Is it something more personal? Marshall did not respond to a request for comment from Billboard. "Don't crap on your fans, man," he says. "Don't crap on the people who have given you this life that you have. Don't do that. Because if they don't buy your music, if they don't buy your tickets, there is no Kanye West. You're just another bum local rapper trying to push a mixtape on a corner if people don't buy your music. If you wanna be on your Trump crap, get online with your own life, bro. Why don't you start thinking about your own life, think about the family that you married in. All that fake plastic that surrounds you and you want to be real and have emotions? You married into the fakest family in the world. All they give a damn about is money and fame, and you're so anti that right now? Really? You hypocrite." Update (Nov. 22, 5:28 p.m.): After publication of this story, Marshall did respond to Billboard and elaborated on some of his reasons for the ban, which he says has gotten a "95 percent positive" reaction from KHHM's listeners. "First and foremost, basically hurting the fan base in Sacramento who took a lot of time and effort to go see the man perform and then a lot of anger that night due to the fact of him walking off stage," Marshall said about why he banned the music. "And then two, when you talk bad about an industry that's supported you for so long, it's kind of like, 'Why should we continue to support someone that clearly feels this way about our industry and what we do?'" On West's comments targeting radio, Marshall said he understood the point West was trying to make about playing artists like Cudi, but that as "one of those guys that radio plays over and over and over again, it was a very interesting thing to say... I don't think ungrateful is the word I'd use, but I definitely think he feels he has gotten bigger than the medium." And regarding West's health -- as previously stated, Marshall's words came well before reports that West had been hospitalized -- Marshall was sympathetic but resolute. "I hope and I want Kanye to get better and fix those issues so he can get back to a better place and come back out and perform, because that's what people want to see at the end of the day," he said. "But I still do not feel what he did to Sacramento was right, regardless." With ISIS calling the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade an "excellent target," officials have taken a unique measure to keep millions of spectators safe. Read: Take a Look at One of the World's Most Expensive Thanksgiving Dinners, Priced at $50,000 Sanitation trucks filled with sand will be deployed as a line of defense during the parade. A barrier of trucks filled with sand was lined bumper-to-bumper outside Trump Tower following the presidential election and will now be sent to the parade route. Authorities are concerned about a repeat of the monstrous truck attack in Nice, France where 86 pedestrians were mowed down and killed by an ISIS terrorist during Bastille Day celebrations in July. Read: Grandma's Thanksgiving Invite Mistakenly Goes to Stranger, But Ends Up Uniting Two Families In New York, the trucks will block all side streets from Central Park down through the center of Manhattan and all the way to the finish in Herald Square. NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller told CBS This Morning: We've ordered up to 81 sand trucks. You can ram a sanitation truck with a lot of things, but you aren't going to move it. Watch: Heartbreaking 'Proof of Life' Video of ISIS Hostage Kayla Mueller Emerges: 'It's Very Terrifying Here' Related Articles: Do you like to drink water? So do I. This basic pleasure and necessity is at risk for citizens of Lincoln, Omaha, and much of Southeastern Nebraska. Here is why. With neither citizen approval nor an environmental impact study, Mayor Getzschman and the City Council of Fremont voted to allow a Georgia-owned Costco poultry processing plant just south of their town. The wellheads for the municipal water supplies of both Omaha and Lincoln are downriver. (10 miles away for Omaha at Yutan and 25 miles away at Ashland for Lincoln.) The decision of one small governing body has enormous consequences for us all. Set to be built this spring, this operation includes a feed mill, hatcheries and 400 new chicken barns, spread across 11 counties and housing 43,000 birds each. Costco will manage17 million chickens at a time with over 300,000 chickens processed every day. This plant will be managing 19 times the number of chickens housed in our entire state in 2012. At the request of citizens from Dodge County, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future in the School of Public Health researched the impact of this likely plant. They calculated that it will generate roughly 4 million pounds of waste per day, which is twice the amount of the entire city of Omaha. This waste will include blood, flesh, feathers, excrement, carcasses, phosphates, growth hormones, fecal coliforms and nitrates. Nitrates are known to have serious health effects including neurological, liver and thyroid damage. In Southeast Nebraska, our water is already impaired. A significant increase in nitrates could easily be the tipping point for our water supplies. We are at risk to become the next Des Moines where overdevelopment of industrialized agriculture has created nitrate problems. Iowa State Senator David Johnson explained that because of excessive nitrates, Des Moines now has a de-nitrification plant in addition to its water processing plant. De-nitrification is an expensive process and the cost is added to customers utility bills. Des Moines has also sued drainage districts in three areas. Iowa is in expensive legal battles with the city. Sen. Johnson is concerned about the impact of Costco on water supplies. He said, Iowa has learned the hard way how to regulate these plants so that they do not impact water supplies. Nebraska does not have adequate environmental standards, rules and monitoring." The Fremont municipal wastewater plant has agreed to treat wastewater from Costco. The quantity of water involved and the number of dangerous contaminants will make this a hard commitment to keep. Citizens are likely to be exposed to the wastewater from leaking tanks, excessive runoff from manure applications to the soil, and improper disposal of poultry carcasses in areas prone to flooding. Nutrient runoff may increase algae blooms in recreational areas and make it impossible to fish or swim. Poultry trucks may expose citizens to pathogens and drug-resistant bacteria. Dander from 17 million chickens will increase asthma and allergies. And it's going to stink. Nebraskans have been asleep at the wheel as this catastrophe approaches. Individual citizens and advocacy groups, such as Nebraska Communities United, are researching ways to slow this operation down for further study and citizen input. However, as of this moment, concerned citizens have no reason to be optimistic. Costco's plant will not be easy to stop or regulate. We do not have many laws on the books for this enterprise. Nebraskans have been blessed with abundant waters, but with Costco, we are putting our blessing at risk. The people of our state, and even the people of Fremont, have not been given any choices in this decision. If Costco is allowed to build, corporate profits will outweigh the quality of life for Southeast Nebraskans. We deserve a decision process that allows for citizen input and government oversight. We are requesting an environmental impact study, an emergency plan for worst-case scenarios and a report on the infrastructure development required to keep our water safe. We want Costco to purchase insurance to cover the costs of any environmental damage to our state. Although in reality, nothing can cover the cost of losing our clean water. If you share our concerns, educate yourself on these issues. Write letters to the editor. Call the governor, the mayor, the Health Department and City Council members. Insist that they act on behalf of the citizens. Offer to help them in any way you can. Time is of the essence. Lets go to work! RIYADH (Reuters) - Walking and jumping on smashed glass and bracing for sharpened knives to be dropped onto his belly, Khaled Allukman is a 10-year-old daredevil with a mission - to win "Arabs Got Talent". The boy from Saudi Arabia is hoping to show off his risky moves on the next edition of the hugely popular television show and has been training hard ahead of traveling to Beirut, where the MBC show is filmed. Each year, contestants sing, dance and perform feats of all descriptions to impress a panel of judges, from all parts of the Middle East. Khaled, who trains with his father and is sponsored by a local healthcare company, says he is particularly keen to meet Egyptian actor and judge Ahmed Helmi on the show. "I have trained a lot and put a lot of effort in," he said. (Reporting by Reuters Television; Editing by Louise Ireland) The driver of a school bus that crashed in Tennessee Tuesday has been arrested and charged following the wreck that left five young children dead. Chattanooga police announced that Johnthony Walker, 24, has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment, and reckless driving after his bus turned on its side and wrapped around a tree Tuesday afternoon. Watch: 13 People Dead and 31 Injured in One of California's Deadliest Highway Crashes In a Tuesday morning press conference, authorities said the victims would not be named but noted they include three 4th graders, a kindergarten student and one first grader at Woodmore Elementary School. Hamilton County schools interim Superintendent Dr. Kirk Kelly said four of the victims were girls and one was a boy. Among the dead is 10-year-old Zyanna Harris, whose identity WREG confirmed with her stepfather. All told, 24 students were taken to hospitals. It reportedly took about two hours to extricate the last children from the bus. Six of the hospitalized students were in the Intensive Care Unit, Kelly said. Police said they are looking at speed very, very strongly as a factor in the crash. "The defendant was traveling at high rate of speed on Talley Road, which is a narrow winding road. Based on witness statements and physical evidence the defendant was driving the school bus at a high rate of speed, well above the posted speed limit of 30 MPH," the police report reads. Alarmingly, one parent told WWJ-TV that her child told her the driver made disturbing statements prior to the crash. "The mother says that in the moments before the crash, the bus driver said something to the effect of Are you all ready to die? and then seconds later, the bus was on its side and five kids were killed," CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassman said. And, in a cruel twist, the mother of one of the victims told WRCB that she wrote a letter to the school complaining about Walker's driving just two weeks ago. The station reports that two sisters in that same family were on the bus and are now in intensive care. Story continues Walker remains in custody on $107,500 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on November 29. Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher said the bus was the only vehicle involved in the crash. "Our hearts go out, as well as the hearts of all these people behind me, to the families, the neighborhood, the school, for all the people involved in this, we assure you we are doing everything we can," he said. Read: Commuter Train Engineer in Deadly Crash Had Undiagnosed Sleep Apnea: Lawyer Hamilton County Public Schools, including Woodmore Elementary, were open Tuesday, and grief counselors on hand for students. I understand if parents feel it necessary to keep their students home from Woodmore Elementary today, but want to once again remind everyone that extra trained personnel will be there to counsel and aid anyone seeking assistance in dealing with this horrible tragedy, Kelly, the superintendent, said in a statement. "Our next step as a school system in the coming days, weeks, and months is to work to heal as a community, said Kelly. Watch: After New Jersey's Train Crash, Here's How to Escape a Collision Alive Related Articles: Martin Scorsese's latest film "Silence" is set to premiere at the Vatican later this month. The Paramount movie, which is set in 17th century Japan and tells the tale of Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, will be shown to hundreds of Jesuit priests weeks before its US debut on December 23, Variety reports. It is not known whether Pope Francis will attend the screening, although Scorsese is expected to be present. The cast, which includes Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver and Liam Neeson, will not be in the audience. By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The Scottish government is pushing for Britain and the European Union to give Scotland special terms in any Brexit deal to keep it closer than England to EU markets, its lead negotiator said in Brussels on Monday. Telling an audience that included EU officials and diplomats that only the "softest" break with the EU would suit Scotland, Edinburgh's Brexit minister Mike Russell said that if that were not possible, then Scotland should vote again on independence. British Prime Minister Theresa May's drive to restrict immigration from the EU and end EU judicial oversight made it unlikely, Russell said, that Britain would remain in the EU single market. As a result, he said, the letter May promises to send the EU by March to trigger withdrawal should include commitments to negotiate special terms for Scotland as well as those expected to be required to accommodate Northern Ireland's problems in modifying what is now an open land border with EU member state Ireland. "What we need to see in the letter is a recognition that there will not be a uniform Brexit for every part of the UK but that there will be different arrangements," Russell said on the day when London's Brexit minister, David Davis, was in Brussels for a first meeting with chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier. May herself set out plans on Monday to get big business behind her Brexit strategy, toning down proposals to put workers on company boards and promising to spend billions of pounds on science, technology and research. Russell said creative solutions for Scotland would be needed on both sides, but that unprecedented arrangements to keep Scotland close to EU markets, and even to maintain EU citizenship for Scots, should not be ruled out. The pro-independence government of Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has embarked on a charm offensive with the EU since Scots voted heavily to remain in the bloc when Britain as a whole voted to leave in the June 23 referendum. A new senior director took over running the Scottish mission in Brussels on Monday and the government published a pamphlet aimed at making Scotland's case to fellow Europeans for its rights and wishes to stay in the bloc. Wary of secessionists in other EU states, the Union was cool to Scottish pleas to stay in the bloc during an independence referendum in 2014. The Brexit vote has brought sympathy for a country voicing support for the much criticised bloc but Russell said that it remained to be seen what the EU was ready to do to help. "We are having good conversations," he said. "Sympathy, fascination, support do not necessarily translate into anything. But there are important issues at stake here for the EU upon which I hope there is reflection by all the member states." By Sindhu Chandrasekaran Nov 22 (Reuters) - Most Southeast Asian stock markets rose in line with Asian peers, buoyed by gains in energy shares as global oil prices surged overnight and in early Asian trade on Tuesday. Oil extended gains on Tuesday, bolstered by growing conviction that major oil producing countries would agree next week to limit output. OPEC members are due to agree on a world oil freeze pact at a meeting in Vienna. The jump in oil prices is an indication of improvement in the world economy, which has improved sentiment in the regional markets, said Manny Cruz, an analyst with Manila-based Asiasec Equities Inc. Singapore's FTSE Straits Times Index rose, led by consumer services and oil and gas. Offshore oil-rig builder Keppel Corporation gained 1.7 percent. Thailand stocks were up 0.5 percent, on track for a third straight session of gains, led by energy stocks. Oil major PTT Pcl rose 1.2 percent. Vietnam rose to the highest in more than a week, with utilities leading the gainers. Oil and gas refiner Petrovietnam Gas Joint Stock Corporation climbed 2.4 percent. In next week's OPEC meeting, we might see a happy ending for the year, at least in terms of the oil market, said Victor Felix, equity analyst at Manila-based AB Capital Securities. Philippine stocks however slid 1.5 percent, the lowest in a week, led by industrials. Ayala Corp fell 3.3 percent. "It has to do with the selling pressure from foreign investors. The market has already fully digested the Q3 corporate earnings and GDP data," Felix said. "So, investors right now are in more of a wait-and-see mood." The Philippine economy grew at its fastest pace in more than three years in July-September. Malaysia rose 0.2 percent, while Indonesia gained marginally. In Asia, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 1.3 percent. For Asian Companies click; SOUTHEAST ASIAN STOCK MARKETS STOCK MARKETS Change at 0428 GMT Market Current Prev close Pct Move Singapore 2830.97 2816.67 0.51 Story continues Bangkok 1485.96 1478.3 0.52 Manila 6879.01 6979.06 -1.43 Jakarta 5158.528 5148.319 0.20 Kuala Lumpur 1630.84 1627.28 0.22 Ho Chi Minh 677.73 674.29 0.51 Change on year Market Current End 2015 Pct Move Singapore 2830.97 2882.73 -1.80 Bangkok 1485.96 1288.02 15.37 Manila 6879.01 6952.08 -1.05 Jakarta 5158.528 4593.008 12.31 Kuala Lumpur 1630.84 1692.51 -3.64 Ho Chi Minh 677.73 579.03 17.05 (Reporting by Sindhu Chandrasekaran; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath) University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Ronnie Green struck the right tone when he called for civility and respect after the election while at the same time encouraging robust dialogue on campus. Greens email was delivered to students, staff, faculty and others on campus after reports of harassment and intimidation. According to a petition circulated on campus, a female student alleged that a man grabbed her and yelled grab them by the (deleted.) Another young student was told, Go back to where you came from. The Southern Poverty Law Center said that more than 400 complaints of election-related harassment have been made since the election. Its important to note that Green calling for voluntary action on the part of the university community. In this email and in early statements Green has been careful to extoll at the same time both the virtue of civility and value of free speech. The two values are not mutually exclusive. The exercise of free speech accomplishes zilch if it consists of little more than an exchange of epithets or simple-minded phrases. Instead Green is calling for students, faculty and others to a higher standard. Disagreements and alternative points of view are to be expected, and in fact are encouraged as part of a vibrant university community where robust dialogue is integral to the mission of teaching and research, Green said in his email. Its not the first time Green has spoken on that theme. In remarks to freshmen at the start of the school year, Green said, We believe in the freedom of speech and encourage the expression of ideas and opinions, and we do not tolerate actions of hate and disrespect. The stifling atmosphere that can result when political correctness is overly severe has justifiably been mocked in some quarters. (See George Wills column in last Sundays Journal Star.) The University of Chicago stirred debate this year with a welcome letter that asserted, Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual safe spaces where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own. For the record, there is no policy at UNL requiring or prohibiting faculty trigger warnings of controversial topics and no officially designated safe spaces. Instead Green has repeatedly has encouraged students and faculty to voluntarily create a positive atmosphere in which people respect and seek out inclusion of differences, realizing we can learn from each other. We hope Green succeeds in the attempt. LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 22, 2016 / Second Sight Medical Products, Inc. (EYES) ("Second Sight" or "the Company"), a developer, manufacturer, and marketer of implantable visual prosthetics to provide a form of useful vision to blind patients, announced today that it will be presenting at the 9th annual LD Micro Main Event on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 2:30 PM PST (5:30 PM EST) in Track 1. The Company's CEO, Will McGuire, will be presenting and holding one-on-one meetings with investors throughout the day. A live webcast of the presentation will be available at http://wsw.com/webcast/ldmicro11/eyes. The LD Micro Main Event is the largest independent conference for small/micro-cap companies and will feature 240 presenting names. View the Second Sight profile here: http://www.ldmicro.com/profile/EYES News Compliments of Accesswire. About Second Sight Second Sight's mission is to develop, manufacture, and market innovative implantable visual prosthetics to enable blind individuals to achieve greater independence. Second Sight has developed and now manufactures and markets the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System. Enrollment has been completed in a feasibility trial to test the safety and utility of the Argus II in individuals with Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Second Sight is also developing the Orion I Visual Cortical Prosthesis to restore some vision to individuals who are blind due to causes other than preventable or treatable conditions. U.S. Headquarters are in Sylmar, California, and European Headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland. For more information, visit www.secondsight.com. About the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System Second Sight's Argus II System provides electrical stimulation that bypasses the defunct retinal cells and stimulates remaining viable cells inducing visual perception in individuals with severe to profound outer retinal degeneration such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The Argus II works by converting images captured by a miniature video camera mounted on the patient's glasses into a series of small electrical pulses, which are transmitted wirelessly to an array of electrodes implanted on the surface of the retina. These pulses are intended to stimulate the retina's remaining cells, resulting in the perception of patterns of light in the brain. The patient then learns to interpret these visual patterns, thereby regaining some useful vision. The system is controlled by software and is upgradeable, which may provide improved performance as new algorithms are developed and tested. Therefore current and future Argus II users may benefit from the continuously improving technology. The Argus II is the first artificial retina to receive widespread approval, and is offered at approved centers in Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Story continues About LD Micro LD Micro was founded in 2006 with the sole purpose of being an independent resource in the microcap space. What started out as a newsletter highlighting unique companies has transformed into an event platform hosting several influential conferences annually (Invitational, Summit, and Main Event). In 2015, LDM launched the first pure microcap index (the LDMi) to exclusively provide intraday information on the entire sector. LD will continue to provide valuable tools for the benefit of everyone in the small and microcap universe. For those interested in attending, please contact David Scher at david@ldmicro.com or visit www.ldmicro.com/events for more information. Investor Relations: Institutional Investors In-Site Communications, Inc. Lisa Wilson, 212-452-2793 President lwilson@insitecony.com or Individual Investors MZ North America Greg Falesnik, 949-385-6449 Senior Vice President greg.falensik@mzgroup.us or Media Relations: Pascale Communications, LLC Allison Potter, 412-228-1678 Senior Account Executive allison@pascalecommunications.com SOURCE: Second Sight Medical Products, Inc. via LD Micro President Obama will spare the lives of two turkeys for his final presidential pardon ceremony on Nov. 23, 2016. The annual ceremony, in which the president symbolically saves at least one turkey from being killed for a holiday feast, has become a Thanksgiving traditionbut its unclear just how the tradition got started. According to the White House, president Lincoln supposedly gave mercy to a Christmas turkey after his son Tad begged him not to kill it. Some people give President Truman credit as the first to participate in the modern version of the ritual, but according to the Presidential Libraries his turkeys had a different destiny: Truman sometimes indicated to reporters that the turkeys he received were destined for the family dinner table. Most historians agree that, in fact, in 1963 President Kennedy was the first to unofficially pardon a Thanksgiving turkey, with the words, Well just let this one grow. But it was President Reagan who first used the term pardon, in 1987, in the middle of an exchange during which he was questioned about pardoning people involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. Deflecting questions about the scandal while describing how hed been assured the turkey would go to a farm rather than a holiday table, he told Sam Donaldson of ABC News, If theyd given me a different answer on Charlie [the turkey] and his future, I would have pardoned him. George H.W. Bush formally pardoned the thanksgiving turkey two years later when he told reporters, Let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey, that he will not end up on anyones dinner table, not this guy. Hes granted a presidential pardon as of right now. Since then, the tradition has stuck. As President Obama said in 2015: Time flies even if turkeys dont. Washington (AFP) - A US drone strike has killed a senior Al-Qaeda leader in Syria who previously operated in Afghanistan, the Defense Department announced Tuesday. The November 18 strike near Sarmada in northwestern Syria targeted Abu Afghan al-Masri, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said. "He had ties to terrorist groups operating throughout Southwest Asia, including groups responsible for attacking US and coalition forces in Afghanistan and those plotting to attack the West," Cook said. Al-Masri was an Egyptian who originally joined Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and later moved to its Syrian affiliate, Cook said. The Pentagon did not immediately provide further information about Masri, only that he had a "senior leadership role" in Al-Qaeda. "This is someone who helped organize Al-Qaeda activities," Cook said. He "has been on our radar for some time." A US-led coalition is striking Islamic State group targets in Syria, but has also hit leaders from other groups including the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which has renamed itself Fatah al-Sham. In October, the Pentagon said a US air strike near Idlib had targeted a Nusra senior leader, Ahmed Salama Mabrouk, an Egyptian also known by his nom de guerre Abu Faraj. BERLIN (Reuters) - A contender to be the next German foreign minister urged U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday not to cancel the Iran nuclear deal or move too close to Moscow, saying such policy shifts could cause more instability in the Middle East. Rolf Muetzenich, a potential successor to Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier if the latter is elected German president in February, said Trump had not articulated a clear agenda for the Middle East, creating a "conceptual vacuum". "We have to prepare for difficult situations, particularly if Trump and the Republicans try to cancel the Iran nuclear deal," Muetzenich, foreign policy speaker for Germany's Social Democrats, told broadcaster Suedwestrundfunk. During the campaign, Trump was critical of the nuclear deal struck under President Barack Obama in which Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Muetzenich also expressed concern that the incoming U.S. administration may not fully understand the complexity of the Syrian war and that it went well beyond U.S. and Russian interests. The failure of Trump to articulate clear policy ideas for the Middle East "makes me fear further instability and even possible additional proxy wars," Muetzenich said ahead of a meeting with the U.N. Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura. Muetzenich said Syria and Russia were taking advantage of the time before Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20 to "create facts" in Syria through a resumption of bombing and air strikes, but only a political solution would be possible in the end. He said it was important for other parties, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran, to be involved in a political solution to prevent the crisis escalating further. "Until now it has been focused on Syria and parts of Iraq, but that doesn't mean it can't expand even further," he said. Trump's opponents fear that his stated intention to work more closely with Russian President Vladimir Putin means Washington could withdraw support for Syrian opposition groups and agree to President Bashar al-Assad staying in power. While Russia has maintained strong support for Assad, whom it regards as a bulwark against Islamist militancy, the Obama administration has said Assad must leave power under any political transition. Muetzenich said the question of whether he could succeed Steinmeier was "interesting," but he could not comment publicly on the issue. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Helen Reid) late night with seth meyers donald trump hamilton feud nbc Seth Meyers warned his viewers that President-elect Donald Trump's feud with Broadway's "Hamilton" cast is meant to divert us from other damaging news. "If you live in New York City, you would've bet everything you own on Friday morning that it was impossible for people to talk about the musical 'Hamilton' more," Meyers began the latest "A Closer Look" segment on Monday's "Late Night." "And by Saturday morning, you'd be broke." Last Friday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence attended "Hamilton" and was greeted by boos from the audience and later a prepared statement from the cast, which urged Pence and Trump to embrace minorities and work to represent them in the White House. In response, Trump posted a demand for the cast to apologize, even though Pence says he wasn't bothered by the experience. "So [Trump] spent the weekend in a Twitter fight with a Broadway musical," Meyers said. "But once he's done with that, it's on to you, ISIS!" Meyers then listed the other news surrounding Trump this week, including his settling the Trump University fraud suit; the fact that Ivanka Trump sat in on a meeting with the Japanese prime minister; Trump's hotel in DC is openly marketing itself to diplomats, who say they're staying at Trump hotels to win favor with the president-elect; and the fact that Trump has yet to follow through with a blind trust for his businesses. Much of this news presents potential conflicts of interest for the president-elect. "So Twitter feuds may be fun," Meyers said, "but we need to pay attention to what Team Trump is really up to, because they want us to be distracted." Watch the whole segment below: NOW WATCH: 'I don't give a damn what the president of the United States wants to do': John McCain says waterboarding won't be reinstated More From Business Insider Facebook has created a censorship tool to automatically suppress certain posts in specific geographic areas and several employees who worked on the project quit in dismay, reports the New York Times. This software would give third parties, like internet service providers, the ability to monitor Facebook for popular stories, and suppress them at will. This tool is one of many that Facebook has experimented with to get back into China, where it's been blocked from users since 2009, says the report, and has never actually been used. Regardless, the fact that company leadership would even consider this approach has reportedly troubled some Facebook employees, seeing it as a betrayal of the social network's values around openness and transparency in the name of getting access to the vast market represented by China. The topic became so contentious, Facebook turned it into the subject of an all-hands employee Q&A in July, the report says. Zuckerberg reportedly expressed his belief that it's better to be "part of enabling the conversation in China," even if it can't let users participate in "full conversation." Facebook is hardly the only tech company struggling with re-entry into China: Companies like Twitter and Google are still blocked there, even as Apple has invested heavily in selling the iPhone in the country. A Facebook spokesperson tells Business Insider: "We have long said that we are interested in China, and are spending time understanding and learning more about the country. However, we have not made any decision on our approach to China. Our focus right now is on helping Chinese businesses and developers expand to new markets outside China by using our ad platform. Read the full New York Times report here>> NOW WATCH: A Facebook bug was telling people they died More From Business Insider Vicki Gunvalson was hurt, so she wanted to hurt Shannon Beador. That was the reasoning the 54-year-old Real Housewives of Orange County star gave for spreading unverified rumors that Shannons husband, David Beador, was physically abusive towards Shannon in the past. During Mondays explosive end to the three-part RHOC reunion, Shannon maintained that Gunvalson was lying and that David doesnt beat the s out of . But Gunvalson bitterly stood by her seemingly false allegations and refused to apologize even after Shannon clarified the story Gunavlson was using as proof of the spousal abuse. Shannon and David had gotten into an argument after she learned about Davids affair, two-and-a-half years prior to the reunions taping, Shannon explained. He locked himself in a room and, trying to get to him, Shannon had attempted to barge through the door. In the process, she bruised her right shoulder and her right hip. Earlier in the evening, Shannon said she had also gone out to dinner with David and either had too much to drink or was slipped something. She blacked out, and David found her blocks from the bar with rips on her knees and blood on her pants. That was the darkest place for me, Shannon said, showing host Andy Cohen pictures of the bruising. I charged a door down in one of my darkest moments when I found out my husband had an affair We went to Hawaii two days later, and I have huge bruises. my husband did not beat me. He had had an affair on me and I was doing my best to bring my family back together. She also explained a 2003 call she made to police while she and David were having an argument. It was nothing physical, Shannon said. We had a verbal argument I wanted the argument to end. After hearing the story, even Gunvalsons only ally Kelly Dodd sided with Shannon and said that her story made sense. But Gunvalson wouldnt back down. Thats a typical classic abusive situation you deny, Gunvalson said, telling Shannon I hope to God youre not abused. When you called me screaming for your life? I hope it was not true. Story continues I will never ever condone a man touching a woman, she added. Just saw the way your husband speaks to woman. And I know he yells at you and I know its physical I will always look on the right side and the right side is a man will never touch a woman. The claims sent Shannon flying off the reunion couches in tears. You are horrible. You need to stop right now. Shannon said. I would never stay in a marriage if I were beat up. I would never teach that to my children. Most people are going to believe me because I havent hid anything about my relationship with David, she continued. But what you have done? Now its on the show and its in the universe, there will be people that will go up to my children and say, Your father beats your mother. That is so damaging. Heather Dubrow defended Shannon and eloquently pointed out that while Dodd was wrong for repeating the false allegations, it was Gunvalson who should apologize. Its like youve been waiting to use this, she told Gunvalson. Shannon confided in you in a dark moment. And it really speaks to your character that you would recklessly repeat that I am highly disgusted and disappointed that you would repeat such a disgusting and dark thing. If you didnt want to bring it out, you never would have mentioned it. She continued: You should be kissing Shannons ass and begging her for forgiveness. You did lie. Maybe you can think about how what you said affects one other. Take a moment and realize what you have done to Shannon. RELATED VIDEO: RHOCs Shannon Beador Reveals if Shell Ever Be Able to Repair Friendship With Vicki Gunvalson But Gunvalson wasnt changing her tune. should beg me for forgiveness, she yelled. She put me through the ringer. She made me out like a con woman and a liar and I didnt lie. I didnt go on a cancer scam. And Im tired of it! When Shannon returned to the reunion, the conversation pivoted to the false rumors Gunvalson spread about Tamra Judges husband Eddie. Its a rumor! Gunvalson said of the claim that Eddie is gay. I never said it was true How would I know if its true or not? Weve never talked about it. Then you dont spread it! Tamra said of the lies, which discredited her and Eddies marriage. Stop spreading rumors about people! And then you wouldnt be in this s. By episodes end, Gunvalson had apologized for spreading the gossip about Shannon and Tamra to Dodd but not for the words themselves or for her claim that Shannon had been abused. I made a mistake, she said. I told her how hurt I was by . Of course I was wrong. For Shannon, the damage was done. My family is hurt from this, she said. Its a problem. Spousal abuse is a very serious allegation. You have made an allegation that is a lie something that someone goes to jail for, she told Gunvalson. You are despicable. I will never, ever speak to you again. Shonda Rhimes stressed the importance of television as a global platform - even more so now than ever before - during the International Emmy Awards on Monday night. "It's the most powerful source of communication in the world: We sit with you in your homes, you spend more hours with many of my characters than you do with members of your own family," said the executive producer of Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder, The Catch and Still Star-Crossed upon accepting the Founders Award, presented by Scandal actor Tony Goldwyn. "That comes with an enormous responsibility, and I take it very seriously. Words have power. TV has power. My pen has power." Read more: The Rise (and Rise) of the International Emmys: Why the Small-Screen Award Is Now a Very Big Deal Rhimes explained that she previously shrugged off notions that her shows' stories were purposely written to include underrepresented communities onscreen. "I don't often think about it, because I have not had to. People have asked me about diversity and I've chastised them; people have asked me about legacy and I ignored them; they've talked to me about influence and I changed the subject," she continued. "I've had the luxury of living in a free and fair America where I slept peacefully under the ideals of equality and the making of a more perfect union. The ideals are still there; whether or not we're actually gonna live up to them is the question." Because of the election of Donald Trump, Rhimes said, she will continue to write these characters, but even more consciously. "A lot of people right now are scared, nervous or worried: people of color, any woman who values her body and her choices, LGBTQ people, immigrants, Muslims, people with disabilities," she said, without ever mentioning Trump by name. "They're afraid their voices will no longer be heard, or they believe they're going to be silenced. My pen has power - I'm thinking about that." Story continues The ceremony was held at the New York Hilton Midtown, the same venue where Trump celebrated his presidential election victory less than two weeks ago - a fact that host Alan Cumming pointed out at the top of his opening monologue. "This hall was one the venue for one of the darkest, most negative nights in the history of this country.... This very stage was where Donald Trump first stood as the president-elect of the United States of America." He told the British nominees, "Trump makes Brexit look positively benign - still a tumor, but one that hasn't metastasized yet." Read more: International Emmy Host Alan Cumming on His Fears (And Hopes) After Trump Election "We do not have to breathe the same foul, ignorant and bigoted air that was so recently exhaled by the Cheeto Jesus," he continued, noting that the ballroom had been thoroughly cleansed by "industrial loads of sage" and multiple spiritual leaders. "And every one of you who walks on this stage to accept an honor is also kicking away the foul spirits that once remained here. Creativity, authenticity and brilliance is tonight the vanguard of a new tomorrow.... Let's drink to windows, not to walls." Alan Cumming informs that room also hosted Trump's election party, "one of the darkest, most negative nights in US history." #iemmys pic.twitter.com/2X63gio7Iq - Ashley Lee (@cashleelee) November 22, 2016 The evening's presenters shared their own Trump-related punchlines. Ed Schulz told the nominees visiting New York City, "Hope you enjoyed the trip, because the next guy might not let you back in," and Nick Sandow joked that earlier in the day, he had a meeting with the president-elect at Trump Tower, and that he'd been offered the position of director of the federal bureau of prisons. "He watched the show and said I do a great job, and he likes my credentials," said the Orange Is the New Black actor. Damian Lewis, Peter Scolari, Bernadette Peters, Debi Mazar, Miriam Shor, Sarah Rafferty, Christina Ricci, Harry Lennix and Ben Rappaport were also among the night's presenters. The evening continued at Forty Four at the Royalton. According to a recent article ("Ticket irks animal advocate," Nov. 15), a local animal advocate said Lincoln Animal Control should "reevaluate its priorities." Presumably this means tickets should not be issued for animals off leash if you are a animal rights advocate, the animal is only off leash for 15 to 20 feet, the dog goes right to where is it supposed to, the dog is very smart, you've owned the dog for 8 years and it's a wonderful dog, the dog is trained to stay right beside you or collars irritate the dog's neck. Reactions from antibiotics are responsible for more than 65,000 children being rushed to ERs every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A new study out today from a team at the CDC shows specifically that allergic reactions to these powerful drugs are the top culprit. The review of nearly 6,000 medical records of children under the age of 19, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that their most common reactions included skin rashes, hives, swelling of the mouth and throat, or difficulty breathing. Others had stomach cramping, diarrhea, dizziness, fainting, headaches, and muscle weakness. Some children developed another infection as a result of taking these drugs. Candida, a fungus that causes yeast infections, and C. difficile, a bacterium that causes a dangerous type of diarrhea that can even prove deadly, can develop when antibiotics wipe out the bodys protective bacteria, leaving the body vulnerable to these germs. Results showed that eight of the top 15 drugs that caused the most problems included common antibiotics such as amoxicillin (Amoxil, Moxatag, and generic), azithromycin (Zithromax, Z-Pak, and generic), clindamycin (Cleosin and generic), and penicillin. For children aged 5 years or younger, antibiotics were the most common type of drug involved in ER visits for adverse side effects. The same drugs were also to blame for nearly a third of such ER visits for children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years. For Many Kids, Antibiotics Aren't Helpful "Many antibiotic prescriptions are not necessary to begin with," says Adam Hersh, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Treatment guidelines from medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, in addition to the Choosing Wisely initiative, of which Consumer Reports is an active partner since the campaign launched five years ago, advise against prescribing antibiotics for common childhood ailments such as colds, coughs, and sore throats not caused by strep. Story continues Yet, according to a 2011 analysis by researchers at the CDC, more than half of all U.S. antibiotic prescriptions for children aged 14 years or younger are for respiratory tract infections, which are commonly viral. "Cold, the flu, and other respiratory infections are typically caused by viruses," says Hersh. "And antibiotics dont work against viruses." Antibiotics do, however, play a vital role treating bacterial infections, says Hersh. Keep Your Kids Out of the ER The first step in making sure your child doesnt land in the ER because of an antibiotic is knowing when one is truly needed, according to Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs. Treating common viral infections with an antibiotic wont help your child feel better faster and puts him or her at risk for side effects, which in rare cases can be very serious, says Hersh. Whats more, overuse of the drugs is contributing to the rise of dangerous superbugsstrains of bacteria that are resistant to multiple antibiotics. If your doctor tells you an antibiotic is not necessary for you childs illness, our medical experts recommend making sure your child gets plenty of rest and fluids. For sinus pressure and other nasal discomfort, try a saline (saltwater) sinus rinse or spray and inhale steam from a hot bath, shower, or kettle. For easing pain, give an over-the-counter pain reliever such as acetaminophen (Tylenol and generic) or ibuprofen (Advil and generic). And try honey for treating coughsaccording to a 2014 review of studies by the Cochrane Collaboration, its safer than over-the-counter cough medicines, though should not be given to children under 1 year of age. So, how do you know if your child needs an antibiotic? According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, if: Your childs cough does not get better in 14 days. Your childs doctor diagnoses a bacterial form of pneumonia or whooping cough (pertussis). Your child has a yellow-green nasal discharge and a fever of at least 102 F for several days in a row, or symptoms get better and then worsen. Your child has strep throat, based on a rapid strep test or a throat culture. Note that antibiotics should not be prescribed unless one of the tests is positive for strep. Strep cannot be diagnosed just by looking at the throat. Editor's Note: These materials were made possible by a grant from the state Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Education Grant Program, which is funded by a multistate settlement of consumer fraud claims regarding the marketing of the prescription drug Neurontin (gabapentin). More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright 2006-2016 Consumers Union of U.S. Almost 7 in 10 said so. In the third quarter of 2016, Debtwire canvassed the opinions of 60 private equity investors, prop desk traders, hedge fund managers, credit risk or workout managers, and emerging market investors in the Asia-Pacific region. Respondents were questioned about their expectations for the Asia-Pacific distressed debt and special situations market over the next 12 months. Distressed debt in general refers to high-risk debt securities which are in default or bear a significant chance of defaulting in the near future, and typically sell at a depressed percentage of par value with a potential for high return. Special situations, meanwhile, are circumstances in which the trade of a security is motivated by conditions pertinent to the situation, such as a change in valuation, making the situation event-driven. When respondents were asked to rate each country in the region based on its expected distressed debt/special opportunities in the next 12 months, 67% or almost 7 in 10 say Singapore offers few opportunities; 28% say it offers some opportunities and 5% say it offers no opportunites at all. Singapore is at the bottom of the ranking for countries offering significant opportunities. China is rated by the most respondents (97%) as a country offering significant opportunities in distressed debt and special situations, followed by South Korea and Vietnam both at 93%. More From Singapore Business Review By Yiming Woo SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Researchers in Singapore have come up with a solution to curb accidents involving phone-obsessed walkers, a self-driving mobility scooter that drives single pedestrians along footpaths. The one-seater, four wheel, 50 kg (110 lbs) vehicle travels at a top speed of 6 kmh (4 mph) and has laser sensors to help navigate around obstacles. The scooter, developed by the National University of Singapore (NUS), is the city-state's latest experiment with driverless vehicles as it pushes ahead with its vision of using autonomous technology to help deal with the challenges of its limited land and labour. The scooter has undergone successful tests on campus and developers said it can help improve mobility for all ages, cut down on the need for cars and also lower accident rates. "I'm sure you have experienced people who just use their handphone while walking, and almost run into you ... so it would be nice if you are just sitting down and checking your emails," said NUS Associate Professor and project leader Marcelo Ang Jr. "We just give you more choices." Ang Jr said that the scooter would be able to work in tandem with other driverless vehicles in Singapore, where robo-taxis are being tested and trials are planned for self-driving buses. He said the scooter was meant for use on narrow pathways which larger vehicles cannot access. Currently the scooter takes a few seconds to calibrate a different route when it nears an obstacle - something Ang Jr. said the team was looking to improve. Users, though, did not seem too bothered by the brief pause. "It goes really smoothly and travels very safely," said student Kevin Xiangyu Hui, who tested the scooter. The project, a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), and NUS will be further tested and is not for sale. (Editing by Marius Zaharia/Patrick Johnston; Editing by Michael Perry) Yaounde (AFP) - An attack by Nigeria's Boko Haram jihadists against a Lake Chad army base manned by an anti-insurgent regional force has left six Cameroonian soldiers dead, a military source said Tuesday. "Boko Haram attacked a base of the Mixed Multinational Force on the island of Darak (on Lake Chad) at around 2200 (2100 GMT)" on Monday, said the source, who asked not to be named. He said six soldiers had been killed. Boko Haram frequently travel around the many islands of Lake Chad, which borders northeast Nigeria, the far north of Cameroon, Niger and Chad. A civilian from a vigilante group working with security forces to combat Boko Haram incursions was also killed, another security source said. The jihadist group, which is seeking to impose strict Islamic sharia law in Nigeria's mainly-Muslim north, has killed at least 20,000 people and left more than 2.6 million homeless in its six-year insurgency. Cameroon has battled the extremist group since 2014 and has joined Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Benin in setting up a joint force against Boko Haram. The regional counter-offensive has helped the Nigerian military retake swathes of territory from the insurgents, but the jihadist group still poses a security threat to civilians. Also on Monday evening, a would-be suicide bomber was shot dead before detonating her device as she sped on a motorbike towards a military roadblock near the Cameroonian border town of Kolofata. As the big watch brands gear up for Januarys annual Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH)the annual event where a selection of high-end brands unveil the years new timepiecesPanerai has dropped cover on a pair of special-edition timepieces that pay homage to the brands military heritage, the Radiomir 3 Days Acciaio with either a black or a faded-brown dial. Of the pair, theres something quite charming about Panerais execution of the brown model (the PAM687) and its ability to replicate the kind of dial fading that can occur with vintage watches over the course of decades. The trend of reissuing past vintage models is by no means new, but using a browned luminous material to give a piece that aged look is not particularly common. And in the case of this new Panerai, it works extremely well. Both watches are fitted with a 12-sided bezel engraved with the words Officine PaneraiBrevettato, a reference to the patented luminous material Panerai developed in the early 20th century. The pieces are a nod to a series of watches the brand presented to the authorities of the Royal Italian Navy in the 1930s as they began testing new watches and other underwater instruments. Both watches boast hefty 47 mm stainless-steel cases, thick untreated leather straps, and most notably, are powered by Panerais in-house P.3000 hand-wound mechanical movement, which has a power reserve of 72 hours. Pricing has yet to be announced for either model, although we expect further details to be announced in January. (panerai.com) More From Robbreport.com Yayoi Kusamas Mesmerizing Infinity Rooms Embark on a North American Tour Take a Look at Ferraris Last Great Prototype-Sports Category Racecar Lurssen Launches 403-Foot Jupiter Superyacht Robb Report Unveils Annual Holiday Ultimate Gift Guide This Ferrari 512 M Changed the Game Despite an Unlucky Racing Season This Dom Perignon Comes with a Trip to France * Doctors, nurses, tax inspectors among those sacked * Turkey blames U.S-based cleric Fethullah Gulen for coup * Erdogan says cleric's network not yet fully cleansed * European lawmakers want end to EU membership talks (Adds Erdogan quotes, European Parliament) By Tuvan Gumrukcu and Nick Tattersall ANKARA/ISTANBUL, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Turkey dismissed 15,000 more state employees on Tuesday, from soldiers and police officers to tax inspectors and midwives, and shut 375 institutions and several news outlets, deepening purges carried out since a failed coup. The dismissals, announced in two decrees, bring to more than 125,000 the number of people sacked or suspended in the military, civil service, judiciary and elsewhere since July's coup attempt. About 36,000 have been jailed pending trial in the crackdown condemned by Western allies and rights groups. President Tayyip Erdogan said the measures had significantly weakened the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose followers are blamed by Ankara for infiltrating state institutions over several decades and carrying out the attempted putsch. But he made clear the purges were not yet over. "We know they have not been completely cleansed. They are still present in our military, in our police force, in our judiciary," he told a conference on policing in his palace. "We will not leave our country to them, we will not let them consume this nation. We will do whatever is necessary," he said. The coup and its aftermath have shaken confidence in the stability of Turkey, a NATO member key to the fight against Islamic State and a bulwark for Europe against the conflicts raging in neighbouring Syria and Iraq. The crackdown has covered a vast range of professions - often where links to Gulen's network are unclear - including doctors, nurses and midwives. Dismissals are announced in the Official Gazette with no reasons given beyond "membership of, or links to, terrorist organisations or groups deemed to be acting against national security interests". Story continues Some of the accused have been targeted for having accounts with a bank once controlled by Gulen's followers, being members of an opposition union, or using a smartphone messaging app seen by the authorities as a Gulenist communications tool, according to Turkish media reports. European allies have criticised the breadth of the purges, and EU parliament lawmakers called on Tuesday for a freezing of Turkey's EU membership talks. A senior U.N. official has described the measures as "draconian" and "unjustified". Erdogan has rejected such criticism, saying Turkey is determined to root out its enemies at home and abroad, and could reintroduce the death penalty. He has accused Western nations of siding with coup plotters and of harbouring terrorists. 'SOLD THEIR SOULS' Ankara blames Gulen and his network, which it refers to as the "Gulenist Terror Organisation" (FETO), for the events of July 15, in which more than 240 people were killed as rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, fighter jets and helicopters, bombing parliament and other key buildings. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania in the United States since 1999, denies involvement. "There is no place in this ... land drenched with the blood of martyrs for those who sold their souls to Pennsylvania, the separatist terrorist organisation, or any other illegal organisation," Erdogan said. He frequently uses "Pennsylvania" as shorthand for the cleric's network. The "separatist organisation" is a reference to the Kurdish PKK group, which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey's southeast. Nearly 2,000 members of the armed forces, 7,600 police officers, 400 members of the gendarmerie, and more than 5,000 public workers, including nurses, doctors and engineers, were dismissed in Tuesday's decrees for suspected links to terrorist organisations. The Official Gazette made clear they would not be able to claim any severance or seek any other job in public service. The decrees were issued under the emergency rule imposed in the wake of the failed coup, which allows Erdogan and the government to bypass parliament. Erdogan's opponents say the purges go well beyond a crackdown on suspected Gulenists and are being used to crush dissent. Those accused are often unable to find other work and ostracised in their community, with Turkish media reports saying some have committed suicide before their trials can begin. Pro-Kurdish politicians have been detained in a parallel crackdown, accused of links to the PKK, including the leaders of parliament's second-largest opposition grouping the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). EUROPEAN OUTRAGE On top of Tuesday's decrees, authorities issued arrest warrants for 60 people, including air force pilots in the central city of Konya, over suspected Gulenist links. More than 300 pilots have already been detained or dismissed. In another operation around Istanbul, 19 prison staff including the warden of Turkey's largest jail Silivri were held on suspicion of using smartphone messaging app ByLock, which authorities say is used by Gulen's network. A trial also began on Tuesday of Gulen, in absentia, and 72 other people accused of trying to overthrow Turkey's government. The case pre-dates the coup attempt, but is likely to be expanded to include charges related to the events of July 15. Arrest warrants were also issued for 22 executives from telecoms firm Turk Telekom, the Hurriyet newspaper said. It said 12 of them had been detained in an operation spanning four provinces. Turk Telekom shares fell 0.7 percent, underperforming a 0.5 percent rise on the Istanbul stock index. Tuesday's decrees also announced the closure of 375 institutions or associations, including minority rights groups, lawyers' associations and women's groups. The decrees also shut 18 charities and nine media outlets. Turkey has closed more than 130 media outlets since July. Guy Verhofstadt, head of the Liberals in the European Parliament, said the assembly was calling for EU officials to suspend negotiations with Turkey over membership of the bloc. "Dozens of media outlets closed, members of parliament penalised or put in jail, there is a debate on the death penalty, there is more and more political control of the judiciary ... Our relationship with Turkey becomes more and more of a liability," he told a news conference on Tuesday. (Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul, Jan Strupczewski in Brussels; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Pravin Char) JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's main opposition party said on Tuesday that police had promised to look into its accusations of corruption against President Jacob Zuma. The Democratic Alliance (DA) filed a criminal complaint against Zuma last week after an anti-corruption agency published a report listing allegations of influence-peddling in Zuma's government. The DA said an investigation would be conducted by the Hawks, a priority unit within the South African Police Service that handles serious crimes, including corruption. "I can confirm today that the Hawks will be investigating the DAs corruption charges against Zuma relating to his role in State Capture," DA leader Mmusi Maimane said in an emailed statement. A spokesman for the Hawks, Hangwani Mulaudzi, said the case had been referred to the division for "further investigation", but it was too early to say what the investigation would focus on. The anti-graft agency's report, released on Nov. 2 and entitled "State of Capture", stopped short of reaching conclusive findings against the president, some of his ministers and heads of state-owned companies. But it has plunged Zuma into the latest crisis. Since coming to power in 2009, Zuma has survived a string of corruption scandals almost unscathed. He and his supporters have regularly dismissed accusations of corruption. (Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Larry King) JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African retailer Edcon returned to quarterly profit thanks to lower debt repayment charges following this year's debt-to-equity swap that slashed the company's heavy-debt pile, it said on Tuesday. Bain Capital handed control of the clothing retailer to creditors in a $1.5 billion debt-to-equity deal in September after the company struggled with repayment costs of its debt, which it took as part of the private equity firm's highly leveraged buyout deal in 2007. Edcon notched up 163 million rand ($11.60 million) in net profit in the quarter to September, compared with a loss of 2.1 billion rand the same time a year earlier, the company said. However, price mark downs to clear old stock slashed the company gross profit margin to 31.8 percent from 35.4 percent. The deal reduced Edcon's debt by 80 percent to 6 billion rand and cut its finance costs from as high as 4.5 billion rand to around 500 million rand. It also freed chief executive Bernie Brookes to focus dressing up the 87 year-old chain for stock market flotation in three to four years. "While we still have some way to go, progress is pleasing," said Brookes, who spent nearly a decade at Australia's biggest department store chain Meyer taking it from a buyout to a listing. Edcon said sales fell 6.8 percent to 5.7 billion rand, weighed down by a drop in sales by customers who buy on in-store credit cards, reflecting an industry-wide slump due to tougher government regulations on credit extension criteria. "The difficult consumer environment, led largely by challenging macro-economic factors, continued to weigh on the Group's share of profits," Brookes said. ($1 = 14.0500 rand) (Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Alexandra Hudson) Nebraska State Patrol troopers who helped respond to anti-pipeline protests in North Dakota will return to Nebraska by Thanksgiving as scheduled. This is the second group of Nebraska troopers to respond to North Dakotas request for help after the governor there declared a disaster related to continuing protests and civil unrest over the Dakota Access Pipeline. On Monday, organizers delivered two petitions that contained the names of more than 29,000 people calling for Gov. Pete Ricketts to bring the troopers home. In October, the Nebraska State Patrol sent 11 troopers and two people assigned to an aircraft to assist with the response. Those troopers returned home this month following a three-week tour, but the state agreed to send more. In the latest tour, 11 troopers traveled to North Dakota for an 11-day mission that began Nov. 13, according to a mutual aid request form shared by Gov. Pete Ricketts' office on Tuesday. All expenses are covered by North Dakota, and the patrol says the temporary loss of the troopers hasn't led to any overtime for others. The pipeline would carry North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois. Photo credit: Butterball From Good Housekeeping On a recent Thanksgiving Day, Phyllis Kramer got a phone call from a furious family. They were calling the Butterball Turkey Talk Line (1-800-BUTTERBALL) to complain that their bird had absolutely no meat in it. But Kramer, who has worked on the line for 14 years, knew it wasn't defective. After calming down her caller, she had a simple solution: Flip the turkey over. The callers had cooked the bird upside down and were trying to carve a "breast" that wasn't in the right place. Once they figured out their mistake, the family went from fuming to cheering over the phone. That's just a typical day for Kramer and her coworkers, who run a hotline that answers all sorts of turkey questions from the beginning of November through Christmas Eve. They're a group of nearly all women, many of whom are retired from careers in food service, and they now make a living stopping Thanksgiving crises before they start. Along the way, they've gained valuable cooking expertise and formed lifelong friendships. Photo credit: Butterball Butterball started the Turkey Talk Line in 1981 with six home economists who answered 11,000 turkey-related questions. It's since expanded to 50 call-takers, nearly all of whom have experience in food service or nutrition, who take an average of 100,000 calls each season. The average tenure of a Talk Line staffer is around 15 years, though a handful have been around since the beginning. The women (and a few men) get together in the off-season to watch movies, eat dinner and play a dice game called Bunco. Rookie Talk Line workers (three years of experience or less) must attend "Butterball University," where they take on eight different turkey challenges, like cooking a frozen turkey. (Yes, it's possible, but it's complicated, and may not taste exactly the same.) In the fall, all the Talk Line workers gather at the Talk Line headquarters in Naperville, Illinois, for a refresher on the latest cooking trends and techniques. Story continues As the calls start to trickle in when the line opens at 8 a.m. on November 1, people usually want to know what size turkey to buy. Then, they want to pre-plan their techniques. November 17 is what the company calls Thaw Day, a.k.a.when people should start thawing their frozen turkeys. That's when the calls really start to ramp up, and it's also when the workers start taking longer shifts at the call center. Then comes Thanksgiving Day, when everything goes crazy. At 6 a.m. sharp, the lines are already full of waiting callers. Meals are provided for the workers, and Talk Line staffer Charla Draper always brings her famous pound cake, though she still refuses to share her secret recipe. The goal is to take calls quickly and efficiently, basically nonstop, so people aren't on hold for very long. "It's just like fourth of July, Christmas and New Year's all in one," says Marty Van Ness, who has worked on the Talk Line for 27 years."It's gangbusters." This year it might be even crazier, because the company has introduced a 24-hour text message line from November 17 through November 24. Photo credit: Megan Friedman Callers range from cooking novices to hobbyists who want to show off their new turkey methods. Sometimes, workers have to act as surrogate family members or neutral parties to smooth over family tension. "I had a question from a couple of sisters - they were calling from the closet of the spare bedroom because they didn't want their mother to know they were calling Butterball for help," Draper says. Kramer says she once had to play mediator for a young bride who called from the closet in the kitchen; her mother and mother-in-law were arguing whether the turkey was done or not, and the mother-in-law ended up being right. Many Talk Line workers say their most memorable calls come from families that are dealing with loss, especially of that one family member who always cooked the turkey. Sue Smith, one of the co-directors of the Talk Line, once had a caller, a 91-year-old man, whose wife had always cooked Thanksgiving dinner. His wife had died earlier that year, and the man was trying to get a dinner set up on his own. "He said, 'My kids could do this, they keep telling me they can do it for me, but I want to do it for my wife,'" she says. Smith stayed on the phone for 42 minutes with the man until he got things right. Van Ness remembers one family that was struggling financially, but still wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving in full force. "Here's this young mom and maybe the husband or father and two little kids in a motel room, and all they have is this little microwave oven, but they want to cook a turkey," she says. "I said, 'Well, you're going to have to cut it apart.' And we have microwave directions we can give them for cooking those parts. It was just very touching. I remember the sad things; I don't know why. I guess because it's just that time of year when you're with your family." Photo credit: Megan Friedman On Thanksgiving Day, the late-shift workers usually close up shop around 6 p.m., then they head off to their own families' Thanksgiving dinners. And because of the work they do, they're often the key family member to give advice - and to impress. Kramer says she brings a meat thermometer in her purse every Thanksgiving, just in case. Overall, her advice to worried cooks is the less you do to your turkey, the better. Keeping it simple helps keep your mind at ease. "The turkey is the easiest part of the dinner, and that's a hard sell to everybody," Kramer says. "You know what? Worry about the sides. Worry about the mashed potatoes or the green beans, because the turkey is the easiest thing." You Might Also Like By John McCrank (Reuters) - The on-demand economy, which uses smartphone technology to immediately fill consumer needs, has changed the way people order food, a car, or a place to stay. Now, technology startups are targeting the next business frontier - insurance - offering coverage with the swipe of an app. Trov, a San Francisco Bay Area firm that provides smartphone-based on-demand insurance for individual assets, like computers or cameras, for any duration, launched in the United Kingdom on Tuesday, backed by AXA Insurance, a subsidiary of AXA SA (AXAF.PA). "We literally track risk to the second so when you turn something on, it turns it on to the second and then it prices your usage to the second should you want to turn it off," Scott Walchek, Trov's chief executive officer, said in an interview last week. "It's literally the same swipe right to turn it on, swipe left to turn it off." The multitrillion-dollar dollar insurance industry is poised to be transformed "beyond recognition" by new technologies like artificial intelligence, new payment systems, drones and blockchain, CommerzVentures GmbH said in a white paper in March. "Effectively cooperating with startups may be the only way for incumbent insurers to fend off potential competitors such as Google (GOOGL.O), Amazon (AMZN.O), Facebook (FB.O) and other non-traditional players," said CommerzVentures, the fintech venture capital fund of CommerzBank (CBKG.DE). Trov has been doing business in Australia for the past five months in partnership with Suncorp Group Ltd (SUN.AX) and plans to launch next year in the United States, where it has teamed up with Munich Re (MUVGn.DE), Walchek said. Trov's main users are millennials who live "untethered" lifestyles, meaning they might work from home or from a coffee shop with their laptop, which they want to protect, Walchek said. The firm started with electronics and photography equipment coverage in the UK, and will add other insurance categories going forward, such as sporting goods, Walchek said. Story continues The insurance industry has been slow to adopt new, potentially disruptive technologies, in part because it is subject to moral hazard and adverse selection, said Erik Brynjolfsson, professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. "Meaning that one party may know information that the other doesn't and markets tend to break down in those situations," he said in an interview. Technology firms' ability to mine vast amounts of web-based data, along with the type of ratings systems used by firms like Airbnb and Uber to verify trustworthiness and reliability, may help insurers overcome those barriers, he added. (Reporting by John McCrank in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department on Monday issued an alert to U.S. citizens about a heightened risk of terrorist attacks throughout Europe, particularly during the holiday season. "U.S. citizens should exercise caution at holiday festivals, events, and outdoor markets," it said in a statement, adding that there was credible information that Islamic State, al Qaeda and their affiliates continued to plan attacks in Europe. The department noted extremists had carried out attacks in Belgium, France, Germany and Turkey in the past year, and said it remains concerned about the potential for attacks throughout Europe. "U.S. citizens should exercise vigilance when attending large holiday events, visiting tourist sites, using public transportation, and frequenting places of worship, restaurants, hotels, etc.," the statement said. The travel alert expires on Feb. 20, 2017, it said. (Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Eric Beech and Dan Grebler) * Graphic: sterling and gilt yields http://bit.ly/2dgAXn1 * Graphic: World FX rates in 2016 http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh By Jemima Kelly LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Sterling fell back to around $1.24 on Tuesday, with illiquid trading conditions helping the pound reverse around half of a 1 percent rise the previous day on the view that Brexit will be slower - and softer - than had been feared. The pound jumped above $1.25 on Monday after Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to address business concerns that Britain could fall off a "cliff edge" into uncertainty when it leaves the European Union, hinting at some form of a transitional agreement. But having initially built on those gains on Tuesday, touching a one-week high of $1.2514 in Asian trade, sterling slid steadily throughout Tuesday, trading at $1.2404 by 1535 GMT, down 0.7 percent on the day. Analysts said sterling's current volatility was the result of thin liquidity and stretched positions against the pound, rather than any fundamental drivers. "Positioning will mean you get the odd bit of volatile price action - liquidity in the sterling/dollar pair is very thin compared with normal," HSBC currency strategist Dominic Bunning said. "Financial investors ... are just not as active in the market and don't want to be involved in sterling because of the political risk - they just almost think it's not worth it." May's speech on Monday was the strongest signal yet that she might be open to a deal that would offer Britain time to forge a new trading relationship with the EU when formal divorce talks are concluded, probably in 2019. "If the government were to stick to a two-year deadline that would be unlikely to result in any kind of agreement, so that would be likely to lead to a really hard Brexit, so this transitional arrangement is positive," said Societe Generale currency strategist Alvin Tan. "If the final agreement takes five years, as some are saying, or even seven years, like the Canada-EU trade agreement, then the transitional arrangement is what markets are going to be focused on. Five to seven years is further than most people's horizons when it comes to financial markets." Story continues Against the euro, sterling edged down 0.2 percent to 85.31 pence, after trading below 85 pence on Monday - its strongest level in two months. Sterling was little moved by data showing Britain ran a much smaller than expected budget deficit in October. Public finances still looked weak for the year as whole. The market's focus will now switch to Wednesday's budget update from the British government. Finance minister Philip Hammond on Sunday played down the chances of a major new boost for spending in the autumn statement - his first in his role as head of the Treasury. Analysts expect some modest infrastructure spending and housing stimulus on Wednesday but nothing that would radically change expectations of a weaker economy next year when difficult talks begin on the terms of Brexit. (Editing by Mark Heinrich) The Wireless Earphones are Compatible with the iPhone 7 and Other Bluetooth Capable Devices NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 22, 2016 / The founders of Stoned Audio are encouraging people to officially "get stoned," thanks to their new high-quality wireless earphones. The Stoned Earphones, which were just released, make the perfect holiday gift for music fans. To check out the new Bluetooth wireless earphones and read about their many features, please visit https://stoned.audio/. As it notes on Stoned Audio's Facebook page, the new Stoned Earphones are ideal for anybody who would like to experience wireless sound. In addition to offering users crystal clear audio and being water and sweat resistant, they are priced at an affordable $99. The lightweight and portable wireless earphones also feature secure silicone eartips, which means they are not only comfortable, but they will also stay put in the ear. They can also be connected to smartphones and tablets. The Stoned Earphones come in a case that keeps them and other devices charged through a handy USB port; this helps ensure that the wireless earphones will be ready to go at all times. The earphones will charge in about an hour and will provide up to 5 hours of audio playback. As a spokesperson for Stoned Audio noted, the Stoned Earphones will begin shipping in December, and the company also offers partnership, referral and ambassador programs. "The small, light Stoned Earphones leave the tangly wires behind, so you can finally feel truly free and the snug silicone eartips keep them right where they belong," the spokesperson said, adding that Stoned Audio did not rely on crowdfunding. "With advanced active noise-cancellation, you'll enjoy crystal clear sound whether you're listening to music or on a call." About Stoned Audio: Stoned Audio is dedicated to creating true wireless earphones with premium design and quality at affordable prices. With a focus on design and polish that can rival much larger brands, Stoned has positioned itself as a leader in the nascent wireless audio market. Since 2016 they've been focused on building the best wireless earphone possible and they've managed to bring it to market faster than any of their competitors. For more information, please visit https://stoned.audio/. Story continues Contact: Zach Kelling press@stoned.audio (650) 318-1319 Stoned Audio 244 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016-2417 SOURCE: Stoned Audio Investors interested in getting into the cannabis market have become more comfortable with the idea of putting their money into businesses that "touch" marijuana, a new study has found. The 2016 Cannabis Investment Study, conducted by New Frontier Data and Arcview Market Research, found that 68 percent of investors have become interested in investing either in companies that directly grow and sell marijuana or ancillary businesses that do not directly deal with cannabis. The former is considered businesses that touch marijuana, while the latter does not. It is notable to see investors' appetite is now broadening beyond just ancillary services where there has been less stigma and risk attached in the past, New Frontier Data CEO Gladha DeCarcer said in a statement. Related: 10 Cannabis Startups You Need to Watch With the cannabis industry forecasted to grow at a compounded annual rate of 29 percent over the next four years, making it one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S., investors are now open to exploring any opportunity in the sector whether it touches the plant or not." New Frontier Data specializes in analytics and big data associated with the marijuana business, while Arcview is a cannabis market research company. Related: How to Grow a Cannabis Farming Business in the Blazing Marijuana Economy Key findings. According to information from New Frontier Data and Arcview Market Research, the report included a number of key findings about the changing landscape of marijuana industry investment. They include: 71 percent of investors expect to invest more in the cannabis industry in 2016 than they did last year. Nine out of 10 investors have interest in medical and adult use markets. Only 36 percent have interest in CBD markets. The states drawing the biggest interest from investors are California (57 percent) and Colorado (37 percent). When considering the global market, 64 percent of investors voiced interest in the Canadian cannabis market. Story continues Most of those surveyed said preferred stock (76 percent) and convertible debt (73 percent) are their favorite investment choices. Public stocks ranked last. Related: The 411 on 4 Smoking Hot Marijuana Startups Areas of investor interest. While acceptance grows among investors for companies that touch marijuana, the report also shows the favorite area for investors (62 percent of those surveyed) remains ancillary commercial products. That covers a wide range of products, from companies that provide security to insurance providers, accountants and vaporizer companies. About 46 percent have interest in non-flower products, such as edibles and marijuana-infused beverages. The third most popular choice is cultivation facilities (38 percent). The report noted these facilities are especially popular investments in markets that limit the number of grower licenses. That area could prove more of interest as California company Innovative Industrial Properties, a REIT that invests in growing facilities, is seeking to become the first publicly traded marijuana company on the New York Stock Exchange. The full report from New Frontier Data and Arcview Market Research can be downloaded from the company sites. The cost is $399. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 22, 2016 / Sunridge Gold Corp. (the "Company" or "Sunridge") (SGCNF) reports that the Board of Directors (the "Board") has been assessing the obligations of the Company in order to allow them to determine and announce the amount and timing of the second return of capital distribution (the "Second Distribution") of C$0.03 per share to shareholders and the planned date of the dissolution of the Company. The Company must pay or make provision for all of its liabilities and obligations prior to dissolution, and in this connection the Board has been identifying and assessing all of the Company's liabilities to determine the amount of net cash that will be available to be distributed to the shareholders prior to dissolution of the Company. The Company's only contingent obligation relates to the ultimate settlement of a foreign arbitration judgment (the "Foreign Arbitration Award") awarded to Delizia Limited ("Delizia") against the state of Eritrea in April 2006. On January 9, 2015, the Company was issued a final order of garnishment ("FOG") by a Prothonotary of the Federal Court of Canada ordering that any debts owing or accruing from the Company to the State of Eritrea be paid into Court to answer the Foreign Arbitration Award in the amount of $4.4 million. This case does not arise from any conduct or activity by Sunridge. The Company appealed the decision to issue the FOG to the trial division of the Federal Court of Canada and the appeal was heard in November 2015. On April 8, 2016, the Federal Court of Canada overturned the FOG based on the appeal but a few days later Delizia delivered notice to the Company that it intends to appeal the decision to overturn the FOG to the Federal Court of Appeal (see Sunridge news release April 14, 2016). Both Delizia and the Company are currently following the process with the Federal Court of Appeal for the appeal to be heard which is expected to be in the second quarter of 2017. Story continues The Board, supported by independent legal advice, does not consider it probable that any significant cash will be required to resolve the Delizia matter. However, the Board also considers it prudent to provide for the unlikely eventuality that the Company would be obligated to pay funds to Delizia and as a result the Board has decided to hold back a sum of money for the protection of the shareholders and directors of the Company to be deposited with an agent (the "Agent"). When the matter with Delizia and the Company is resolved, the Agent will transfer the remaining funds to the Company's transfer agent who will then distribute that cash to the shareholders of the Company as of the Record Date (see below). The Board has made arrangements for the Agent to hold approximately $6 million in trust for the benefit of shareholders until the Delizia appeal is finally resolved and to cover any other post-dissolution matters that may arise. The Board has therefore determined that the Company be dissolved on December 9, 2016 (the "Dissolution Date") and that $0.03 per share will be distributed on December 8, 2016 (the "Distribution Date") to its shareholders of record at close of trading on the OTCQB on December 5, 2016 (the "Record Date"). The share register of the Company will be closed on the Record Date and that register of the holders of the 231,762,265 shares of the Company will be archived and used to pay the final third distribution if and when there is one. Record Date shareholders include registered shareholders and beneficial shareholders. Beneficial shareholders have their shares on deposit with a stock broker, who in turn hold the shares with a depository such as CDE, CEDE through DTCC, and it is those depositories who are the Record Date shareholders. Sunridge shares have continued to trade on the OTCQB marketplace and will continue to trade in that marketplace until the Record Date. Sunridge will file a corporate action notice with the United States Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), by November 23, 2016, so that the beneficial shareholders of the shares held with DTCC on the Record Date will be paid the Second Distribution through DTCC. For additional information on the Company visit our website at www.sunridgegold.com. SUNRIDGE GOLD CORP. "Michael Hopley" Michael Hopley, President and Chief Executive Officer For further information contact: Dan O'Brien, Chief Financial Officer 604-536-2711 ext 5 This news release contains certain statements or disclosures that may constitute forward-looking statements or information ("forward-looking statements") under applicable securities laws. All statements and disclosures, other than those of historical fact, which address activities, events, outcomes, results or developments that management or the directors of the Company, anticipate or expect may, or will occur in the future (in whole or in part) should be considered forward-looking statements. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as "may", "will", "expect", "anticipate", "believe", or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements presented in such statements or disclosures may, among other things, relate to: the amounts to be paid and the provisions to be made to settle the Company's obligations, the timing and amounts of any cash distributions to be made by the Company, and the planned dissolution of the Company. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The Company is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or disclosures. SOURCE: Sunridge Gold Corp. A Diller-Odell High School teacher is accused of striking a student in a classroom last week. According to a news release from the Gage County Sheriffs Office, Ronald D. Rickstrew, 59, of Diller was cited for third-degree assault and released. The Sheriffs Office was notified by school officials of an incident that happened shortly before 1 p.m. Nov. 15. Several middle school students said they were in the ag classroom after lunch when one student either leaned against or was moving a desk, which caused the legs of the desk to squeak on the floor. Rickstrew, the teacher, was in the classroom at the time. He allegedly told the student to stop moving the desk and, while standing behind the student, reached out and slapped the student on the right side of his face with an open hand. The student described the slap as being a medium type of force, the Sheriff's Office said. An investigator interviewed school officials and students last week. Rickstrew, who was not present at the school when the investigator interviewed the students, went to the sheriffs office Monday to be interviewed. He admitted to striking the student in the face, describing it as a light slap, similar to the force used to swat a mosquito. School administrators at Diller-Odell High School were notified of the citation. The superintendent declined to comment. Jeremy Jordan thinks that his Supergirl character, Winn, wont react negatively when he finds out that Alex (Chyler Leigh) is gay. Personally, I think Winns totally cool about it, though its not something weve fully addressed, Jordan said in a recent interview with TVLine. I dont know if or when shes going to fully come out to everybody, so weve yet to see how everybody would react to that, but I cant imagine he would have a negative reaction. If you remember the pilot, Winn was very excited about the prospect of Kara (Melissa Benoist) being a lesbian. Jordan also told the news outlet that he was completely aware of the fact that there were a lot of fans who thought that Winn was the character from the CWs DC TV universe that would be coming out as gay this TV season. Although Winn didnt end up being that character, Jordan apparently kind of loved the speculations surrounding his characters sexuality. Someone at Paleyfest mentioned that all the [Greg] Berlanti shows usually have at least one gay character, so I raised my hand to volunteer, Jordan recalled. Like, its cool. Winn can be bi or something. But I cant see Winn being gay, not after the ludicrous amount of pining he did over Supergirl last season. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month, executive producer Andrew Kreisberg said that it was interesting that there were some fans who speculated that Winn would be the one coming out instead of Alex. We thought that was interesting because, you know, Winn was so clearly in love with Kara, he couldnt have seemed more straight to us, Kreisberg said with a laugh. We thought it was interesting that people were assuming it was going to be Winn. In next weeks Season 2, episode 8 of Supergirl, titled Medusa, Winn, along with James (Mehcad Brooks), considers telling Kara the truth about the Guardian. The episode, airing on Monday, Nov. 28 at 8 p.m. EST on The CW, also kicks off the four-night crossover event between Arrow, The Flash Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow. Story continues Jeremy Jordan as Winn Photo: The CW Related Articles Coal mines have the canary, endangered species have the panda bear, melting ice has the polar bear, and now sea level rise has the octopus? Climate change's impact on sea levels has made tidal flooding in Miami more severe, according to scientists. After the "supermoon" earlier this month triggered high tides, parts of Miami flooded and at least one sea creature was left far from home: an octopus that became stranded in a flooded parking garage, reported the Miami Herald. Miami resident Richard Conlin discovered the octopus, and shared images of the displaced sea creature on Facebook. According to Conlin, the octopus was brought home by building security officers, who returned the animal to the ocean in a bucket of water. [Supermoon Photos: Full Moon Rises Across the Globe] Marine biologist Kathleen Sullivan Sealey, from the University of Miami, told the Miami Herald that the cyclical "king tides" a period of especially high tides caused by the alignment of the sun, Earth and moon's gravitational forces were intensified by the supermoon and likely washed the octopus out of pipes underneath the garage. "When that much sea water comes in, the octopus is like 'What's this?' and goes to explore and ends up in a bad place," Sealey told the Miami Herald after examining the photos. She said the marooned octopus was either a small Caribbean reef octopus or a large Atlantic pygmy octopus. Though the building's drainage pipes were designed safely above high-water marks, Sealey said rising sea levels have left some of the pipes partially submerged during very high tides, such as the king tide. These submerged pipes combine two of an octopus favorite things, Sealey said: a cramped, dark space with fish to eat. In his Facebook posts, Conlin noted that his building has been flooding more frequently. "This flooding to this extreme is new and gets worse each moon," he wrote. "In the past the floor of the garage would be damp but this extreme flooding is new." Conlin added that every day for the past six months there has been "some type of water seepage in the garage." Story continues Florida is especially at risk of flooding due to climate change. A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) determined that about 13 million Americans could be affected by rising seas caused by climate change, and nearly half of them live in Florida. In Miami alone, a third of the county could be forced to relocate, according to the NOAA study. And sea creatures that wash ashore may become a more common occurrence, Sealey said, because ocean waters will be pushed deeper onto land more frequently due to rising seas. "The sea is moving in, so we have to share the space," Sealey said. Original article on Live Science. Editor's Recommendations A suspect has been arrested in the murder of a San Antonio police officer, one of a string of "ambush-style" cop shootings reported across several states on Sunday. Otis Tyrone McKane was arrested without incident on Monday, a day after the murder of San Antonio Police Detective Benjamin Marconi. Watch: Daughter Adorably Kisses Veteran Dad As He Struggles With Stutter To Read Story Before he was booked on a capital murder charge, McKane, 31, reportedly said he'd been angry over a child custody dispute at the time of the shooting. "Ive been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didnt deserve it," McKane told reporters as he was escorted to a police car in handcuffs on Monday night. "I just want to see my son." McKane reportedly blamed society for "not allowing me to see my son" when asked why he allegedly committed the murder. When asked if he had anything to say to his alleged victim's family, he said: "Sorry." Marconi was inside his vehicle writing out a ticket during a stop in front of the city's police headquarters Sunday evening when cops say the suspect pulled up behind his cruiser, walked up to the window and unloaded two rounds into Marconi's window before fleeing. McKane was taken into custody at around 4:30 p.m. local time on Monday. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said McKane was a passenger in a car that was pulled over on Interstate 10. A woman was driving the car, which was also carrying a 2-year-old child, although McKane's relationship to them was not immediately released. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott condemned the slaying as an "horrific act of violence." "Attacks against law enforcement officers will not be tolerated in Texas and must be met with swift justice," Abbott said in a statement. Hours after the San Antonio incident, another officer was shot in St. Louis, Missouri. Story continues While apparently unrelated, the San Antonio incident bore a striking similarity to the shooting in St. Louis, where an officer was shot in the face as he sat in his cruiser. A suspect in the car is believed to have pulled up next to the officer, fired and fled. In this instance, the officer is expected to survive. Police said he was speaking and conscious when help arrived. Cops said a suspect, who was not named, was later located by police. The suspect was reportedly killed by police fire. Also in Missouri, an officer with the Gladstone PD outside Kansas City was shot Sunday when police say a struggle followed a traffic stop around 10:30 p.m. Shots were fired and the officer received non-life-threatening injuries. The suspect was shot and killed, per the Kansas City Star. In a fourth incident, this one in Florida, an officer with the Sanibel PD was shot in his patrol car after a routine traffic stop. The officer was treated for a shoulder wound and later released. Read: Woman Recently Engaged and Father of 3 Among Four Victims Killed in Air Ambulance Plane Crash The shooting was a first for the upscale Gulf coast tourist town. Sanibel resident John Webster Hay has been arrested and charged in the shooting. Hays, 49, faces an attempted murder charge in the first degree. He was ordered held without bond in Lee County Jail and is due in court Tuesday. Watch: Police Sergeant Who Correctly Predicted He Would Be Shot While on Duty Dies Related Articles: ZURICH (Reuters) - Talks in Switzerland on reuniting the divided island of Cyprus have failed to strike a deal, the United Nations said on Tuesday. In the latest round of U.N.-brokered talks in Swiss resort of Mont Pelerin, Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci had been negotiating for two days. "Despite their best efforts, they have not been able to achieve the necessary further convergences on criteria for territorial adjustment that would have paved the way for the last phase of the talks. The two sides have decided to return to Cyprus and reflect on the way forward," the United Nations said in a statement. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the talks, saying the leaders were both committed to trying to reach a deal this year. Cyprus's 800,000 Greek Cypriots and approximately 220,000 Turkish Cypriots live on the divided island, which is split east to west by a U.N- patrolled ceasefire line. Cyprus was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup. But friction between the two sides dates back at least a decade, when Turkish Cypriots pulled out of a power-sharing government at perceived attempts by Greek Cypriots to limit their say. Anastasiades and Akinci are both moderates leading their respective communities and the negotiations were directed towards reuniting Cyprus as a loose federation of two constituent, largely self-governing states. Besides territorial swaps, Greek Cypriots who represent Cyprus in the European Union are adamant that a deal see the withdrawal of Turkish forces from the island. Thousands of Turkish troops are stationed in Cyprus's north, a breakaway Turkish Cypriot state recognized only by Ankara. (Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) The Syrian army prepared Tuesday to direct a new volunteer military corp to fend off rebel attacks against President Bashar al-Assad. The move is aimed at growing Syria's military amid an ongoing civil war that has killed thousands and displaced millions. "In response to the rapid development of events, to support the successes of armed forces and to meet people's wishes to put an end to terrorist acts in the Syrian Arab Republic, the general command of the armed forces announces the formation of a Fifth Attack Troop Corps of volunteers," an army statement said. Syria requires men who are at least 18 years old to serve in the army, which counted 300,000 members before the war. Men were asked to serve two-year terms before the conflict began, but many have complained of a never-ending service under the war. Some have deserted the army, or paid bribes to get out of the draft. The new volunteer corp will include men over 18 years of age not already eligible for military service. Deserters cannot join, Reuters reported Tuesday. The Syrian military also called on rebels in east Aleppo Tuesday to leave the area amid a campaign to take back the city, Agence France-Presse reported. They spread the word by airdropping leaflets in rebel-controlled neighborhoods. "To those involved in carrying weapons, we stretch out our hand to you. Reserve your place before it is too late," the leaflets read. The war began as a peaceful opposition movement to Assad inspired by the Arab Spring in March 2011. It has since left more than 250,000 people dead and fueled a global refugee crisis. More than 4.8 million people have fled Syria to Europe or neighboring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Syria has teamed up with Russia, Iran-backed militias and fighters from Lebanon's Shiite Muslim Hezbollah group to wipe out rebel groups angling to unseat Assad. Roughly 250,000 Aleppo residents are stuck in the cross-fire. United Nations humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien said Monday the Syrian government has put nearly one million people across the country at risk because of its offensive campaign. Story continues "Civilians are being isolated, starved, bombed, denied medical attention and humanitarian assistance in order to force them to submit or flee," he told the UN Security Council. Assad succeeded his father, Hafez, in 2000. Related Articles BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's army said on Tuesday it had formed a new corps of volunteers to fight alongside its soldiers and allies against opponents of President Bashar al-Assad. It plans to recruit from across the country, but it was not immediately clear how many people would be involved. "In response to the rapid development of events, to support the successes of armed forces and to meet people's wishes to put an end to terrorist acts in the Syrian Arab Republic, the general command of the armed forces announces the formation of a Fifth Attack Troop Corps of volunteers," an army statement said. Syria already conscripts its men at age 18 into the army. Before the war, service would last for two years but now many conscripts say they have served for several years, with no sign of being discharged. Military experts think the Syrian army numbered around 300,000 personnel pre-war, but its current size after almost six years of conflict is not known. Young men are known to desert the army, or leave the country or pay bribes to avoid being drafted. Syria's forces are bolstered by Iran-backed militias and fighters from Lebanon's Shiite Muslim Hezbollah group, as well as Russian air power. They are fighting against anti-Assad rebels and jihadist Islamic State militants. The statement said those eligible to volunteer must be over 18 and not already eligible for military service or deserters. Those willing to join could sign up at recruitment centers around the country. (Reporting by Lisa Barrington Editing by Jeremy Gaunt) By Lisa Barrington and Stephanie Nebehay BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - The Syrian army on Tuesday said that rebels in eastern Aleppo were hoarding warehouses full of food and that they should clear land mines from humanitarian corridors, statements that rebels dismissed as propaganda. The siege and intense bombardment of east Aleppo, aggravated by renewed, frequent air strikes on hospitals in the past week, have left residents even shorter of medicines, food and fuel. The U.N. has not been able to access the rebel-held sector since early July and, on Friday, said that aid supplies had run out in the area, where all eight hospitals are either out of action or barely functioning. "The general command of the armed forces calls upon militants in the neighbourhoods of east Aleppo to open ration warehouses and distribute food to those that need it," an army statement said. U.N. spokesman Jens Laerke said it was unclear whose warehouses the army was referring to. "There are no U.N. warehouses of food that can just be opened up... There are no food stocks on the U.N. side left in the warehouses," he told Reuters. The last U.N. rations were distributed on Nov. 13, he said. Zakaria Malahifji, a politburo member of the Fastaqim rebel group in Aleppo, said there were no such warehouses. "People are searching for bread. (The army) is saying these things to appear like they care for people," Malahifji said. Malahifji and another witness in Aleppo told Reuters that civilians protested last week outside a building said to belong to the city council for opposition-held Aleppo, thinking there was food inside. The council could not immediately be reached for comment. About 250,000 people in eastern Aleppo have been under effective siege since the army, aided by Iranian-backed militias and Russian jets, cut off the last road in early July. A renewed assault began last Tuesday after a weeks-long pause in air strikes and shelling, although battles and air strikes had carried on along the city's front lines and in the surrounding countryside. In a separate statement, the army told rebels to clear mines from crossings into the government-held western sector designated by the Syrian and Russian militaries as humanitarian corridors, and to let civilians who want to leave do so. The Syrian government has said rebels are stopping residents from leaving. Rebel groups and residents of east Aleppo say people are scared to use the corridors for fear of snipers, bombs or arrest. At least 141 civilians, including 18 children, have been killed over the past week in rebel-held districts, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday. The Britain-based monitoring group said it had documented hundreds of injuries as a result of Russian and Syrian air strikes and shelling by government forces and its allies. It said there were 87 other deaths of rebel fighters and people of unknown identity in the eastern sector. The Observatory also documented 16 civilian deaths, including 10 children, and dozens of injuries as a result of rebel shelling of government-held west Aleppo. The U.N. has been trying to get all parties to the conflict to agree to a humanitarian relief plan, and says rebel groups have agreed in principle to the plan, but it is still waiting for an official green light from Russia. "We need the political actors and the military commanders on the ground to allow this plan to proceed," Laerke said. (Editing by Louise Ireland) Aleppo (Syria) (AFP) - Syrian pro-government forces have pushed deeper into rebel-held eastern Aleppo, forcing civilians to flee to southern neighbourhoods to escape the onslaught as the regime pressed an assault to recapture the entire city. Recapturing east Aleppo would be the government's biggest victory yet in Syria's five-year conflict and deal a potentially decisive blow to the opposition. The city was once the country's economic powerhouse, but it has been ravaged by the war that has killed 300,000 people since it began with anti-government protests in March 2011. Military aircraft dropped leaflets over east Aleppo, urging rebels to distribute food to civilians, leave the area and allow residents to do so too. Government forces pounded the area with air strikes and barrel bombs as ground troops advanced in the key eastern district of Masaken Hanano, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. A week into the latest round of fighting for the city, the regime controls around a third of the district, the Observatory said. The area has been shelled heavily during the war, and many residents had already fled, but the latest fighting prompted even the last holdouts to leave. Milad Shahabi, a member of the local council, told AFP that residents were fleeing to southern parts of the opposition-controlled east. Masaken Hanano was the first Aleppo district to fall to rebels in 2012, and it is strategically vital. Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said that if regime forces manage to take the district they will be able to "cut off the northern parts of rebel-held Aleppo from the rest of the opposition-held districts". - Trapped civilians - At least 143 civilians, including 19 children, have been killed in the city's east since the latest assault began on November 15, according to the Britain-based monitor. Another 16 civilians, including 10 children, have been killed in rebel fire on government-controlled western Aleppo, it said. Story continues It added that residents of eastern districts had suffered from "suffocation" after four barrel bomb attacks and that medical officials suspected a chlorine gas attack. The Organisation for the Prohibition for Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said that the regime's key backer Russia had offered it "samples" relating to an alleged chemical attack in Aleppo. The global watchdog tasked with destroying chemical weapons is probing more than 20 reports of the alleged use of toxic arms in Syria since August. Government troops, backed by Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group and Russian and Iranian forces, are battling rebels on several fronts inside opposition-held districts. Iran's veterans' affairs office said that more than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad had been killed in the conflict. Tehran has sent military advisers, as well as fighters recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to work with Assad's forces. The renewed fighting comes amid international concern for the fate of more than 250,000 civilians trapped in besieged rebel-held areas of Aleppo. Despite searing international criticism, there is little sign that the government advance will be halted. - 'Now it's too late' - For the past four years, Aleppo has been divided between the government-controlled west and rebel-held east, which has been sealed off from the outside world since the army surrounded it in mid-July. No food aid has entered since then, and locals suffer severe shortages of food, fuel, electricity and water. Rebels have tried several times to break the siege, without success. The UN's aid chief Stephen O'Brien on Monday slammed the use of sieges in Aleppo and elsewhere. In remarks to the Security Council, he said nearly one million Syrians were living under blockade. Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said there was very little the world could now do to prevent the whole city falling to pro-regime forces. "You can't send weaponry in any more, all the supply roads are cut, and you won't intervene from the air because of the costs and the risks," he told AFP. "There was a time to do something about Aleppo... but now it's too late." Russia, meanwhile, accused the UN's Syria envoy of torpedoing a Security Council resolution to revive peace talks between the regime and opposition. "The United Nations in the form of its special representative Staffan de Mistura has been sabotaging the resolution for more than six months," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. The resolution calls for "holding inclusive Syrian talks without preconditions", he said. And in Washington, the Pentagon said a US drone strike had killed a senior Al-Qaeda leader in northwestern Syria. The November 18 strike near Sarmada targeted Abu Afghan al-Masri, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said. "He had ties to terrorist groups operating throughout Southwest Asia, including groups responsible for attacking US and coalition forces in Afghanistan and those plotting to attack the West," Cook said. A Syrian opposition-run media outlet posted a message on Twitter Friday that included a video apparently showing two volunteer rescue organizers performing the viral video stunt known as "The Mannequin Challenge." The Revolutionary Forces of Syria (RFS) media channel shared the tweet, which has since been deleted, along with the the words "Edge of death" in English and Arabic and accompanied by the hashtags #MannequinChallenge and #RFS. The video depicts three men, two of them wearing uniforms associated with the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as "the White Helmets," a non-governmental volunteer rescue organization. A third man is seen wearing dust-covered civilian clothing and partially stuck in rubble from a presumed air strike. As per the rules of the popular viral Internet video, the three men remain motionless for the first half of the video. About 25 seconds in, yelling and screaming is heard as the two men dressed as aid workers pull the a man out of the debris. After successfully extracting him, one of the uniformed men says, "We're done, let's go, grab the car," in Arabic as the pair carries the man away to the sound of an ambulance. RFS told International Business Times they were preparing a statement explaining the situation Tuesday. The White Helmets have not responded. The tweet was shared Monday by Damascus resident and university student Lina Arabi. A number of social media users reacted with outrage, some speculating on the authenticity of the video. The White Helmets state they are a neutral, unarmed volunteer organization that deliver service to some 7 million people in Syria and estimate they have saved over 70,000 lives, mostly from Russian and Syrian government air strikes on civilians. Syrian government supporters, however, accuse the organization of accepting Western funding, allying with rebel forces and fabricating footage. The White Helmets were the subject of an eponymous Netflix documentary earlier this year and were nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Story continues The Syrian Civil War has raged on for over five years and has killed over 470,000 people. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies are backed by Russia and Iran, while the West, Gulf countries and Turkey support a loose network of rebel groups. Kurdish forces and the Islamic State militant group have also clashed with all sides, as well as one another. Related Articles Taipei (AFP) - Taiwan's troubled TransAsia Airways said Tuesday it would close down after two deadly plane crashes, massive financial losses and an insider trading probe. Board members reached the decision at a hastily called meeting, with all flights immediately axed. Chief executive officer Liu Tung-ming bowed in a sign of contrition as he told reporters of the "painful" decision. "I'm sorry that our recent efforts could not meet public expectations," Liu said. "The board meeting convened today has approved the decision to dissolve the company and suspend all flights from today." The decision will be formalised by a shareholders' meeting next January. "We choose to dissolve the company at this time when we are still able to take care of our employees and passengers," said chairman Vincent Lin. He promised to fully refund all tickets and said the suspension of flights was estimated to affect 100,000 passengers. The dramatic crash of flight GE235 in February 2015 grabbed global headlines as car dashcam footage showed it clipping a road bridge and careering into a river shortly after take-off from Taipei, killing 43 people. An investigation blamed a catalogue of pilot errors, with one found to have mistakenly switched off the only functioning engine after the other had failed. It came just seven months after another jet slammed into trees and houses near Magong city on Taiwan's scenic Penghu island, leaving 48 dead. The pilots were flying below the minimum altitude required in poor visibility in a procedural mistake widespread among TransAsia's pilots at the time, the Aviation Safety Council said in its investigation report. TransAsia, Taiwan's first private airline, was set up in 1951. It said it had introduced six training programmes following the two crashes. - Widening losses - But despite moves to combat safety fears, it incurred losses of Tw$1.1 billion ($34.38 million) last year as load factor plummeted to 20 percent. Story continues Those losses widened to Tw$2.2 billion in the first three quarters of this year, and in October its budget airline V Air folded. Its woes were exacerbated by a slump in Chinese tourists as relations with Beijing worsened under Taiwan's new president Tsai Ing-wen. Lin said the airline currently incurs a daily loss of Tw$10 million even though load factor has improved to around 60 percent. TransAsia is also now mired in a probe over share trading. Lin and two executives were questioned by prosecutors early Tuesday after the Taiwan Stock Exchange warned of "apparent" insider trading in Monday's session, as rumours began to swirl that the firm was going under. Trading volume in the company's shares on Monday was nearly 27 times higher than on Friday. "We answered questions as witnesses to clarify the case ... I didnt sell any stocks (yesterday)," Lin said. TransAsia currently operates a fleet of 16 passenger aircraft serving 27 international, Chinese and domestic locations. It has a staff of 1,795 and assets worth around Tw$5 billion. Mont Pelerin (Switzerland) (AFP) - The latest round of talks between rival leaders on ending Cyprus's 42-year-old division broke up without agreement on Tuesday, the United Nations said. Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mustafa Akinci have been meeting on the shores of Lake Geneva since Sunday in the second round of talks this month. "Despite their best efforts, they have not been able to achieve the necessary further convergences on criteria for territorial adjustment that would have paved the way for the last phase of the talks," UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said in a statement. "The two sides have decided to return to Cyprus and reflect on the way forward." The talks are aimed at reunifying Cyprus, a Mediterranean island whose division remains one of the world's longest-running political disputes. The island has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-inspired coup seeking union with Greece. Anastasiades and Akinci met earlier this month, between November 7-11, to discuss potential territorial readjustments -- seen as the trickiest issue to resolve. That round finished short of a deal but hopes had been high that the second round could produce a map of internal boundaries for a future federation of Greek- and Turkish-speaking states on the island. The Turkish invasion saw thousands of Greek and Turkish Cypriots displaced. Territory is an intractable problem for the talks, since any agreement would inevitably involve a redrawing of existing boundaries and see members of both communities ousted from their current homes. The leaders had been thought to be close on the percentage of territory to be governed under Turkish Cypriot jurisdiction, with Akinci suggesting 29.2 percent and the Greek Cypriots proposing 28 percent. The sticking point is which towns and villages come within those boundaries. The UN and outgoing Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have staked much on solving the conundrum. A former middle school teacher in Texas is likely to end up in jail for 30 years for having sexual relations with a 13-year-old student for nearly a year, according to reports. Alexandria Vera pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault of a child as a part of a deal to avoid getting life imprisonment. The 24-year-old taught English to eighth graders at Stovall Middle School in Houston when she met the student during summer classes in 2015. Following this, Vera and the teenager were reportedly involved in sexual relations for months. She was taken into police custody this June after Child Protection services received a tip-off about her and the students relationship. During the investigation, she told the authorities that the two love each other, according to court documents cited by KHOU, a CBS affiliate. Vera also told the investigators that the boy introduced her to his parents as his girlfriend and that the family was supportive of their relationship. She also conceived from the underage student and reportedly told the authorities that the boys parents were excited after learning of her pregnancy. The former teacher is now out on bail after posting $100,000 and has been ordered by court to wear a GPS monitor and keep a distance from minors. Vera was initially charged with continuous sexual assault of a child that could have sent her to jail for life. However, she pleaded to a lesser charge following which her likely sentence was reduced to 30 years, the Houston Chronicle reported. Vera is also reportedly qualified for deferred adjudication where she will be put on probation and will not have conviction on her record if she completes the term successfully. Were very much hoping for deferred adjudication, defense attorney Ricardo Rodriguez reportedly said. State District Judge Michael McSpadden is expected take over a pre-sentence investigation following which he will decide a suitable punishment at a hearing in January. Related Articles Photo credit: Getty From Cosmopolitan Photo credit: Getty A Texas Tea Party state senator, Konni Burton, filed a bill in her state legislature last week that would effectively require school employees to out LGBTQ students to their parents, without student permission. The bill, Senate Bill 242, is meant to clarify laws in the Conservative state pertaining to "the right of a child s parent to public school records and information concerning the child." Burton's bill would mandate disciplinary action for any school employee who fails to disclose "any general knowledge regarding the parent s child." Burton's S.B. 242 might seem inconspicuous enough if it weren't for an op-ed she recently wrote about her opposition to new policy in hometown school district - Fort Worth ISD - that gives additional protection to transgender students. That policy makes it so that teachers must address their students by their preferred gender pronoun and can only disclose preferred gender pronouns with students' parents on a strictly "need-to-know" basis. Or basically, the policy allows for students to be out among their peers at school but provides a small, additional layer of protection from coming out to family members who may not be supportive. According to the New Civil Rights Movement, Burton's bill is anti-LGBTQ legislation in a state rife with anti-LGBTQ legislation. "If passed, S.B. 242 would place LGBT youth in the conservative state at risk for abuse, neglect or suicide if their parents aren't accepting," reported the New Civil Rights Movement. "It could even expose them to the dangerous, discredited practice of 'reparative therapy,' which happens to be endorsed in the Texas GOP platform." As news outlets have drawn attention to S.B. 242, Burton has started asserting - via her Twitter - that the bill is not, in fact, aimed at outing LGBTQ students in Texas to their parents. Anger stoking, click bait sites that do not contact sources to write a story depend on ur anger to keep them relevant. Don't be their puppet - Konni Burton (@KonniBurton) November 18, 2016 Once again, I contacted ur office and left message. Sry if u don't like it when people call you out on anti-#LGBT bigotry #txlege https://t.co/M6gkDJcBKv - Texas LGBT News (@lsqnews) November 19, 2016 @the_mical This legislation is not about that. *You* are making it about that. That is not what we are addressing with this legislation. - Konni Burton (@KonniBurton) November 18, 2016 Stop spreading that lie. The legislation does no such thing. https://t.co/1lLtRhFqPZ https://t.co/fm0XForPzY - Konni Burton (@KonniBurton) November 18, 2016 Burton's bill doesn't specifically mention disclosure of gender identity or sexuality to a student's parents, but that seems to be the issue - there are no protections for LGBTQ public school students in her filed bill, and that's what opponents to the bill would like to see added. Story continues Follow Hannah on Twitter. You Might Also Like Thailand's military leaders Tuesday announced $358 million in cash handouts for some of the kingdom's poorest people, a surprise giveaway from a junta that decried subsidies by the civilian government it toppled. The move comes as Yingluck Shinawatra, whose democratically elected administration was kicked out in a 2014 coup, faces up to a decade in jail over a generous rice subsidy aimed at the rural poor. Since seizing power junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha has railed against the rice scheme, which cost Thailand billions of dollars, and vowed to end Thailand's culture of "populist" government subsidies. But in its latest sop to an increasingly hard-up public, Prayut said $358 million in cash handouts would be released next month. "It's a measure to help low-income earners," he told reporters adding the move would be a "stimulus to the economy that would trigger more spending". Those earning under 30,000 baht ($845) a year will receive a 3,000 baht one-time handout while those earning between 30-100,000 baht will be given 1,500 baht. Farmers are not included in the latest handout because they had already received financial help, he added. The military has stifled opposition to its rule by clamping down on rights but has found economic success more elusive. Although the economy has picked up since the coup -- with a forecast growth rate of 3.2 percent this year -- high household debt, weakening exports, slumping foreign investment and low consumer confidence crimp what was once one of the region's strongest economies. Farmers, especially in the enormous rice and rubber sectors, have been hit hard by low commodity prices this year. The economic wobbles have seen the junta resort to the kind of populist tactics they vowed to end. Earlier this month the junta approved a rescue package of at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for farmers who agree to delay selling their crops to avoid a glut. Rice is Thailand's staple dish and one of its main agricultural exports, but also has major political significance as farmers are the backbone of a pro-democracy movement that the junta has suppressed. BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai lawmakers have been asked not to leave the country next week, the head of parliament said on Tuesday, as a much-touted December date for Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn to ascend the throne draws near. The death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej on Oct. 13 at the age of 88 has left the Southeast Asian nation of 67 million people without a monarch, but Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has made it clear that the king's only son and appointed heir, Prince Vajiralongkorn, will inherit the throne. Thailand is making preparations for the prince to ascend the throne on Dec. 1, Reuters reported in October. Pornpetch Wichitcholchai, head of the National Legislative Assembly, said lawmakers had been asked not to take leave between Nov. 28 and Dec. 2 and not to travel abroad or outside of the capital Bangkok over an upcoming long weekend holiday. "December 3 to December 5 are holidays and the government might have urgent legislation to raise or a special session might be called," Pornpetch told Reuters. Pornpetch said that the assembly had not yet been ordered by the government to enact Article 23 of the constitution, which says that parliament will convene and invite the heir to the throne to become king and "proclaim such heir king". Parliament needs a quorum in order to proclaim the new monarch. Prayuth said last month that the prince had asked to delay his ascension to the throne while he mourns his father. Regardless of when the prince ascends the throne, a formal coronation can only take place following the late king's cremation next year. (Reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Panarat Thempgumpanat; Editing by Nick Macfie) I had noticed the house every day as I drove home. In my mostly Democratic suburb of New York City, it was hard to miss, with its Trump lawn signs, its Trump flag, the Trump bumper sticker on the pickup in the driveway and, for a while before Halloween, the noose hanging from a tree out front. But this time, a few days after Election Day, I didnt just drive past. As a journalist, I knew my next months and years would be spent exploring these Divided States of America the communities, neighborhoods and families who share a nation but not a worldview. How do you heal a country whose citizens cant find a way to hear each other? I decided to start by meeting my neighbor. Gigi Fresiello seemed as surprised to see me on her front stoop as I was to be there. When I explained my mission writing about split neighborhoods, starting with my own she called up to her husband, Chris, who, she said, is the political one. He was less surprised that Id stopped by. Im happy to talk politics with anyone all day, he said. He was taken aback, however, when I told him my visit was motivated in part by a discussion Id had with another neighbor about the youngsters on the block who were afraid to stand at the bus stop, which is in front of the Fresiellos house. That makes me sad, he said. It also makes me question the kids parents and what they are telling their children. Why would they be afraid of me? Im the one whos outnumbered here. Politically, he is. Our town voted 65 percent for Clinton and 32 percent for Trump. But in other ways he is representative of the neighborhood a white (67 percent), Catholic (46 percent) man (49 percent) of Italian descent (16 percent). Trump supporter Chris Fresiello at his New York home on Nov. 17. (Photo: David Scott Holloway for Yahoo News) Perhaps it was the noose, I suggested. I didnt put an effigy of Hillary in it, he said, laughing, though he also adds hed considered that. That noose has been part of my Halloween decorations for 20 years, he said part of a graveyard scene, with headstones and a ghost. This is the first time anyone complained. Story continues The noose drew a visit from the local police, who said theyd received a concerned call that a child might accidentally stick a head into the decor, with ghoulish consequences. I pointed out to the officer that it was 7 feet 2 inches off the ground, and what child could reach that high? he said. But I raised it another few inches just to be neighborly. Chris and I sat in the sparsely furnished living room, on the couch next to the five rifles in the glass-fronted cabinet the first time I had ever seen guns in a neighbors home. There were signs everywhere of a recent move. Chris and Gigi Fresiello along with their 11-year-old son, 6-year-old daughter, Chris mother and a guinea pig named Nibbles have lived in this house for only three months. They landed in the four-bedroom, $4,000-a-month rental after selling what Chris calls his dream compound an acre with a house and a cottage at a huge loss this past summer, and he says it stings to be renting when he used to own. When I first moved in, I was bitter, decided, Im not going to introduce myself to anybody because Im not going to be here long, he said. But everyone was welcoming. In a way, it was a return home. Gigi grew up a few blocks away, and Chris a few miles south, in the Bronx. After they married, they traveled the country as Chris, who chose to use my hands instead of going to college, worked his way up to manager of a car repair business. Then, in 2000, Gigis mother died suddenly, and Gigi, who was close to her mother, having lost her father in Vietnam when she was 3, wanted to move back to her old neighborhood. My goal was to stay by her side until she went a full day without crying, Chris said of his wife. So he quit his job, bought a house a stones throw from where he rents now and began to build a thriving business as a home renovation contractor. In 2007, they found the kind of home Chris, who is now 50 years old, had always wanted, that dream compound. By 2008 they had moved in, but had not yet sold their first house, when the bottom fell out of the housing market and Chris renovation business all but evaporated. Eventually, they found a buyer for the first house at a huge loss, but the business never really recovered. They spent the next eight years, which, as it happens, were the whole of the Obama administration, trying to get back on their financial feet. I went from the guy who smoked $50 cigars in his hot tub, to the guy who was doing everything he could just to stay afloat, Chris said. Taxes alone on his new home were $20,000 a year. The lien against it was more than $1 million. He sold everything he could his Lionel train collection, his vintage guitar collection, his restored cars. His lawyers said he should declare bankruptcy, but he felt it was like wearing a scarlet letter and refused. Trying to save the house became his first priority, so he let other things lapse, and when his family health insurance reached $3,900 a month in 2012, from the $900 it had been three years earlier, I had to do something I swore I would never do, he says, and he dropped his coverage. He put his children on New York states low-income program, a handout that I used as a safety net some people dont, but I actually did. He and his wife, in turn, refused to apply for Medicaid and just sucked it up. And if we had to see a doctor, we paid cash. And when he didnt have the cash? Ultrasound to break up his kidney stones would have cost $8,000, he said, so I pissed blood for weeks instead. Same when he broke his arm and ankle in a motorcycle accident. I splinted and wrapped it and had a friend who is a vet X-ray it, he said. I took it easy, and it healed. I got through it with no government help. Eventually, he did become insured again under an Obamacare policy. Eventually, he also declared bankruptcy. Realizing he had fallen into a serious depression, he found a therapist. With new energy, he started doing whatever jobs he could find changing brakes in his driveway, delivering flowers for $10 and tips, networking in towns north of his own that might not have been hit as hard by the recession to rebuild his home improvement business. I told myself, At least I have something to fall back on. You have a lot of college-educated idiots who would just die, he said. Fresiello with his wife, Gigi, and kids at their New York home. (Photo: David Scott Holloway for Yahoo News) In June of 2015, he saw Donald Trump come down the golden escalator at Trump Tower and I knew right away he would win, Chris said. The real estate mogul was not Chris first choice. He preferred Ted Cruz, whom he saw as sharing his real conservative values. But over the months, he became a true believer. The appeal, he said, was that Trump stands for law and order, and I am a rule follower. Youve got to follow the rules they are there for a reason. Rules came up a lot during the more than two hours we spent talking. When I go to a parking lot, I dont drive through the parking spots. When people do that, it drives me crazy, he said at one point. Thats why Im a strict constitutional constructionist, because the rules are the rules, he said at another. The rules say the states should decide. If you have a state thats generally conservative, why should the federal government come in? If a state wants to be backwoods about something, that should be their right. I was struck, not for the first time during our conversation, by the contortion of the logic, but I had decided when I rang the bell that I was there to listen more than talk. I spent much of my time during this visit rethinking that approach in this new world, every decision feels political, and I know that theres an argument that any silence is agreement but I kept returning to the baseline belief that Id come to hear, not preach. And so I listened as this man who believes in rules went on to explain that the government should make far fewer of them. Abortion, he said, should be nobodys business but the womans. Its her body. Following the same logic, he feels he should be allowed to ride his motorcycle without a helmet because it messes my hair. And should a head injury leave him uninsured and vegetative because of that choice? Pull the plug, he said. It is because he thinks there are too many rules that he is not bothered by the fact that Donald Trump so often flouts them. Hes a businessman, thats how you do business, he said when asked about the president-elects fraud settlement, his refusal to pay some contractors (even though he actually knows at least one contractor who was personally stiffed by Trump) and his use of loopholes to avoid paying income tax. (Trump does pay property taxes and payroll taxes, Chris said, and thats a lot of tax.) His forgiveness applies to rules that are unwritten too like saying things that in earlier years would have driven a candidate from a presidential race. Suggesting that Mexican immigrants are rapists? Thats just him mouthing off, talking like a real person, not a politician. Lewd comments on an Access Hollywood tape? Thats cringeworthy, but Ive spoken like that too. Its because of the whole penis thing, thats what makes guys pigs. It messes everything up, we cant concentrate. As he said all this, I kept thinking how unsettling it was to actually like this man. He was funny. He clearly would do anything for his family. He loved this neighborhood as much as I did. He was thoughtful. (Even if I didnt agree with many of his thoughts, I credit him for giving them so much thought.) I truly believed that if I called him for help in a crisis, he would be there. But at the same time, he was seeing humor where I saw misogyny, seeing refreshing straight talk where I saw alarming racism. Neighbor to neighbor, I shared my deepest concern about a Trump presidency. What about those who seem emboldened by these kinds of comments? I asked. What of the uptick weve already seen in racist, sexist, homophobic and Islamophobic incidents since election night? How do we fix this? The ugliness is a good thing, he answered. If Im going to work on a basement, the first thing you do is expose whats down there, the mold, the spiders. You need to see it before you can clear it out. Okaaay, I think. But then you stomp on them, right? The ugliness has been there all along, he continued, and it is better that we see it. Id rather have a guy fly a swastika right outside his house so I know thats how he thinks rather than him thinking that way but hiding it, he said. I want to know who the jerk is whos flying that thing. My stomach lurched, and for a moment I thought I might retch up the lovely cup of Keurig coffee Chris mother had brought me. But again I didnt push back. I didnt tell him that my relatives had fled that swastika, and what he saw as some sort of let the jerks be jerks, I saw as normalizing hate and encouraging others to do the same. Why didnt I tell him that? I reminded myself, again, that it was because I was there to listen. But at the same time, I realized that wasnt my only reason. There are but two other times in my life that I have been hesitant to let someone know I was Jewish once during a visit to the Soviet Union under communism and once in deep West Texas while riding in a speeding pickup truck whose driver was ranting about how some cheater had Jewd him. This was the third, and it made me shudder for my country. But why argue swastikas while sitting next to a neighbors gun cabinet? Eventually we said goodbye and I headed home. The part of our talk that I spent the most time thinking about was those spiders wanting the metaphor to be correct, trying to believe that this is the start of a housecleaning, not the dismantling of a house. Then I read his Twitter account. The Fresiello home. (Photo: David Scott Holloway for Yahoo News) It was a roil of anger calling for punching anti-Trump protesters; endorsing the killing of Muslims in the U.S. and the nuking of Muslim countries abroad; suggesting Hillary Clinton should hang herself; joking that Obama might be shot. He accused Clinton of a career spent killing unborn babies after having told me in detail that he believed abortion was not the governments business. He advocated pitchforks and torches, having assured me that my fear of violence was baseless. That smug c*** has been sitting on that tape just waiting to release it to the media shes way behind and desperate, he wrote after the Access Hollywood audio was released. Finally someone is speaking to this f***ing witch the way she deserves to be spoken to, he wrote after the first presidential debate. .9% of the US Population is Muslim 63 percent of those are immigrants. Would it really be a big loss if we just got rid of them all? he asked after the Brussels attacks. And the day after Id stopped by, hed written, These sensitive frustrated liberals blathering over a Trump win are like spoiled naughty children being scolded for the first time ever, meaning maybe we hadnt been sharing in quite as friendly a way as I had thought. A few days later, I headed back to talk some more. I brought a camera crew because Chris had agreed we could make a video to run with this article. I also brought some printouts from his Twitter feed and warned him in advance I might be reading them aloud in case he wanted his children to leave the room first. Chris, I blurted, cameras rolling. You ARE the spider. And the problem with his analogy, I suggested, was that instead of cleaning them out, this election has fed them and encouraged them to multiply. He agreed the tweets were awful. A pressure valve for his anger is how he described them. If I thought those were bad, he said, I should have seen the ones he deleted. He thanked me for not reading the worst of the actual words, using letters instead, because my children dont know words like that. But he didnt really mean most of it, he said. Or I was being too sensitive. When he wrote, Hey maybe when Obama goes to Dallas today he can hop into a convertible and drive by Dealey Plaza Just sayin, it was a joke, he said. Thats what the just sayin was there to imply. And when he wrote, Your turn to eat s*** you liberal a**holes, that was just my worst self poking through, he said. But what happens to a nation whose leader brings out those worst selves, I asked, adding, I can only imagine the reaction in the comments when this video runs. Again, Chris looked genuinely surprised. If there was going to be anger, he said, it would be directed at him, no? For his support of Trump. After all, hes the one afraid of losing business because of his political beliefs. Hes the one the neighbors called the cops about. Another example, I said, of how you and I have watched the same election and seen completely different things. I told him a little of how Id been called things online this year that I had to look up in Urban Dictionary because I wasnt entirely clear what sexual act I was being told to perform. I told him of the time my son called to warn me not to read the comments on my own story because they were so threatening. We agree to meet again after this article runs and read the comments aloud without his kids around. Im hoping it will be the first of many conversations. We seem to have a lot more talking to do. The Duchess of Cambridge is known for shopping her own closet, wearing her favorite items time and time again. And Tuesday night was no exception well, sort of. At the Place2Be Wellbeing in Schools Awards in London, Kate Middleton stepped out in a black dress in a strikingly familiar silhouette. Why does it feel like fashion deja vu? Well, the royal has actually worn the same tea-length dress from Preen already, just in a different color. During her tour of Canada in September, the duchess attended a black-tie reception in Victoria, B.C., wearing the piece, which features a draped bodice and full midi skirt, in red. She accessorized with a diamond maple leaf brooch. The Duchess of Cambridge wore matching red heels. (Photo: Getty Images) For the $1,715 dresss reappearance just two months later, the mother of two changed things up by opting for the off-the-shoulder number in black. She jazzed up the LBD (or MBD midi black dress) with a $1,055 Temperley London belt with a crystal pendant and suede Prada pumps. The Duchess of Cambridge attended the Place2Be Wellbeing in Schools Awards at Mansion House on November 22, 2016 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo: Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images) Which color on Kate was best? Sound off below! Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. Theresa from Westworld looked very happy (and alive) in this super chic head-to-toe black outfit We know Westworld is only a show, but the lines between reality and fiction are totally blurred at this point. But, good news for all Westworld fans! While were wondering whether our beloved Theresa is alive or not, her alter-ego was spotted on the red carpet very much alive after Sundays episode. Also known as Sidse Babett Knudsen IRL, the danish actress attended the premiere of La fille de Brest at UGC Cine Cite des Halles in Paris, wellbreathing. The Westworld star looked super chic in a classic black, head-to-toe outfit, and we loved every bit of it! Alive and well, Sidse looks absolutely adorable in her red carpet fit. And were obsessed with her sweater, cover-up! "La Fille de Brest" Paris Premiere at UGC Cine Cite Les Halles Ok, so we may be taking it a little too far, but Sundays episode left us with our mouths to the floor! Theresa and Bernards love affair ending abruptly could mean that he actually offed her, or it could simply be a ploy to confuse Ford. Either way, were intrigued and excited more than ever for the upcoming episode! In the meantime, well totally just keep our ears to the streets hoping and praying for any info to leak between now and then. The post Theresa from Westworld looked very happy (and alive) in this super chic head-to-toe black outfit appeared first on HelloGiggles. A thunderstorm in the Australian city of Melbourne on Monday caused an unprecedented outbreak of asthma and respiratory distress, according to local emergency officials. The BBC says that 800 calls reporting asthma attacks or other breathing difficulties were made to local ambulance services during a five-hour period. Mick Stephenson, executive director of emergency operations for ambulance services in the state of Victoria, told the BBC that the situation was extraordinarily busy, it was unprecedented. Private hospitals were forced to open to the public in order to accommodate what state health minister Jill Hennessy called an emergency management surge. Many patients had not experienced an asthma attack before, the BBC reports, adding that the outbreak was caused by severe levels of rye grass pollen in the air as a result of storm winds. Rain broke down the pollen into smaller particles, making it easier to inhale. Because its so small, it will get into the lungs, Robin Ould, head of a local asthma foundation, told the BBC. Two deaths were reported during the storm. Investigators are assessing if they are related to the asthma outbreak. [BBC] Jason LaVeris/Getty Images It looks like Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire isnt simply sitting around brooding over his recent split from his wife of nine years, Jennifer Meyer. Maguire plopped down almost $13 million on a newly constructed mansion in Brentwood, says Yolandas Little Black Book, a Hollywood real estate blog. Located in the high-priced and quiet Brentwood Park, the new digs are described as modern traditional and feature six bedrooms and 7.5 baths. The three-level home has two brick chimneys, light oak floors, and vaulted ceiling in the master bedroom that includes his-and-her bathrooms. The chefs kitchen contains teal, Shaker-style cabinets and flows into a family area. The backyard has an infinity swimming pool and inset spa. Other wow factors include the theater, gym, wine cellar, and elevator. Exterior realtor.com The property last changed hands in April 2014 for $3.98 million. Since then, its been a construction zone as this new spec home was built. Maguire has a love affair with Brentwood. He bought an acre of land there for $10 million in 2008. In 2014 he bought a mansion from former talk show host Ricki Lake for $8.45 million; he sold it a year later for $10.4 million. Maguire also has a compound in Santa Monica, CA, that he recently listed for $3 million. Its now pending sale. Maguire is best known as the web-spinning title character in the Spider-Man film trilogy. He also starred in Seabiscuit and The Great Gatsby. The post Tobey Maguire Picks Up Brand-New Brentwood Mansion for $13M appeared first on Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com. Tommy Hilfiger with his wife, Dee, at the Angel Ball on Monday night. (Photo: AP) Seems like Tommy Hilfiger will not be joining Sophie Theallets boycott of the future first lady. I think Melania is a very beautiful woman, and I think any designer should be proud to dress her, Hilfiger told Womens Wear Daily in response to the French fashion designers declaration that she wouldnt dress or associate with Mrs. Trump. Hilfiger added, Ivanka is equally as beautiful and smart, although she wears her own clothes. I dont think people should become political about it. Everyone was very happy to dress Michelle [Obama] as well. I think they look great in the clothes. Youre not gonna get much more beautiful than Ivanka or Melania. Open letter | Sophie Theallet | November 17th, 2016 pic.twitter.com/g1hIAyBmdF sophie theallet (@sophietheallet) November 17, 2016 Theallet, a immigrant to the United States, encouraged her fellow designers to follow suit. As one who celebrates and strives for diversity, individual freedom and respect for all lifestyles, I will not participate in dressing or associating in any way with the next First Lady, she shared in a statement last week. The rhetoric of racism, sexism, and xenophobia unleashed by her husbands presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by. Theallet acknowledged the fact that mixing business and politics is not wise. However, she added, as a family-owned company, our bottom line is not just about money. We value our artistic freedom and always humbly seek to contribute to a more humane, conscious and ethical way to create in this world. Hilfiger has a history with the Trump family. He cast Ivanka in a Tommy Jeans campaign as a teenager that featured celebrity offspring Kimberly Stewart, Kidada Jones, and Balthazar Getty. She was a doll, she was a sweetheart, Hilfiger told Yahoo Style of working with the businesswoman back then. She is today. More sophisticated, more grown up. Shes an amazing girl. Story continues Additionally, a week after the election, Hilfiger was spotted at Trump Tower in New York City where President-elect Donald Trump has been actively holding transition meetings (although who he was visiting at the building remains unclear). Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. Ben Carson A top aide to retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson told Business Insider on Tuesday that Carson was "seriously considering" what he characterized as an offer from President-elect Donald Trump to be the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Armstrong Williams, Carson's business manager and close confidant, added that the job was "very attractive" to Carson. "HUD is a place that has an impact on something that Dr. Carson cares tremendously about," Williams told Business Insider. "The inner city and urban America. Dr. Carson really has a passion for those issues where you could really make a difference and impact America's mayors. And while he would like to remain in private life, the president has made an offer that he will really seriously consider, and that's what he's doing." Carson had been rumored to also be in consideration for the top positions in the departments of Education and Health and Human Services. Williams said "all of them are very important in this country," but HUD would be a department that ties closely to "a strong passion that he has." "It doesn't matter what agency, Dr. Carson doesn't rank one over the other," Williams said. "All are important. But he also understands that, with housing and urban development and what you can do in urban America, in these inner cities, it's very attractive to him. It's a strong passion that he has." During a Tuesday interview with Fox News, Carson said HUD secretary "was one of the offers that's on the table." "Our inner cities are in terrible shape, and they definitely need some real attention," he said. Trump tweeted earlier Tuesday he was "seriously considering" Carson to be his HUD secretary, even though Carson had repeatedly said he was not looking to serve inside a Trump administration. "I am seriously considering Dr. Ben Carson as the head of HUD," Trump wrote. "I've gotten to know him well he's a greatly talented person who loves people!" Story continues Carson met with Trump at Trump Tower on Tuesday. Last week, The Hill reported that Williams said Carson wouldn't join the administration and would instead be an unofficial adviser after reports surfaced that Carson rejected an offer to be HHS secretary. "Dr. Carson was never offered a specific position, but everything was open to him," Williams told The Hill. "Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience; he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency." Carson subsequently published a Facebook post disputing what Williams attributed as his reason for not seeking a position. And speaking with Business Insider on Tuesday, Williams said Carson never completely ruled out serving in a Trump administration. "Only on-record interview last week was with Robert Costa of The Washington Post, and he was very clear that his preference was to not take a position, to stay outside," Williams said. "He thought he would be more effective. But if the president did ask, he would have to strongly consider the president's request. And the president has made the request and Dr. Carson is strongly considering." In an interview with Business Insider just before the election, Carson said, "I don't want to be a part of the administration." "Not that I have anything against it," he said. "Just that I think my voice will actually be more valuable outside the administration. There are so many issues that affect our country right now, and we can't lose sight of them. So winning the election is really just step one." "I'll continue to write, continue to speak publicly, and work on helping to focus us as a nation on what's really important," he said. In a Monday Facebook post, however, Carson seemed to signal a shift in his thinking, though he wrote "there is no reversal of my position in terms of working with the Trump administration." "I have always made it clear that I preferred to work outside of the government as an advisor, but if called upon, I would serve inside of the government," Carson wrote. "I believe it is important to have voices that are outside of the administration combating media bias and the divisiveness that has infected our country." Costa tweeted shortly after Trump's tweet that Trump "has been relentless" in pushing Carson to reconsider his position from last week, when he said he was not interested in a Cabinet position. NOW WATCH: Why Ivanka can't serve in a Trump cabinet More From Business Insider Mel Gibson, Warren Beatty and Robert Zemeckis have a trio of films on offer this month that could appeal to Academy voters longing for a throwback vibe, while Ben Affleck has another on the way in December. Gibsons Hacksaw Ridge, a World War II epic centered on conscientious objector Desmond Doss, feels like a prestige battle picture cut from the Allan Dwan/William Wellman mold. One of the best compliments Ive received is, Wow, its like the way they used to make films, Gibson said recently on Varietys Playback podcast. I said, You mean like back in the 40s? And they said, No, like back in the 80s like its ancient history! Such comments are a reflection, the director says, of the fact that the character of the feature-film business has changed. Its like chain restaurants or something, he said. I believe that if something is good, its going to resonate; its just going to have a harder time being heard. Films get obliterated by the marketing budgets; nobody has enough nerve to put their money where their mouth is, unless [someone] is wearing spandex. Beatty, whose Rules Dont Apply opens Nov. 23, concurs, noting that he came into the business at a time when a film could open and linger in theaters for a year, finding its way to an audience organically. It was the discussion of the movie that took place between people that would alert people to what the picture might be, what it could be, he said in a recent Variety interview. It would be difficult today to make Lawrence of Arabia, which then ran for many, many, many months. Or, lets say, A Man for All Seasons. No movie stays in theaters a long, long time anymore. The number of films released today, versus when Beatty first broke in, makes all the difference. Movies now have much smaller windows in which to perform before the audience moves on to the next big thing in a crush of new releases. With the 1950s-set Rules Dont Apply, Beatty has crafted a film that feels born of that era, a loose period romp packed with ornate sets and a vintage tone that owes a debt to Billy Wilder. Its just the sort of movie that once would have lingered, but in todays climate it appears destined to be lost in a glut of awards-season plays, such as Manchester by the Sea and La La Land, or event movies like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Moana. Story continues Meanwhile, one of the selling points for Brad Pitt in taking on Allied, a spy thriller set in WWII London, was Zemeckis nostalgic filmmaking sensibility. It was like a throwback to the old 40s films, when youd see people in cars and youd see the rear screen, and you know theyre just sitting on a set, Pitt said at a Q&A for the film. That was a really fun experience for us. But for all its classical texture, Allied employs a number of modern digital techniques. The trick was to make it feel like we were making a 40s movie, but make it completely photo-real, said the technology-conscious Zemeckis. It does have that flavor of the early David Lean movies. When we were shooting the stuff in the sand dunes, I was definitely channeling David Lean. Well, not channeling I was copying him! And speaking of 40s cinema, Afflecks Live By Night, opening Dec. 25, was inspired by the Warner Bros. gangster pictures of old. But more than just a bunch of actors playing dress-up, it was conceived with traditional visual storytelling ideals in mind. I wanted it to feel classic, Affleck said at a recent screening, like it could have been made in the 70s or even the 40s, not doing too much cutting, not having very tight close-ups, allowing scenes to play and giving the actors space to play across the frame. Will Oscar voters celebrate this streak of 2016 cinema anchored in the past? Whether they do or not, the adage holds true: They dont make em like they used to. Related stories Thanksgiving Box Office: Disney's 'Moana' to Feast on Brad Pitt's 'Allied,' 'Bad Santa 2' Sony Aims for Oscars With 'Sausage Party' Original Song 'The Great Beyond' (NSFW) 'Moana' Tops Studios' TV Ad Spending Washington (AFP) - US President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday that advice from a Marine general renowned for his frank talk had convinced him to think again about authorizing the torture of detainees. The Republican tycoon had previously made bloodcurdling pledges to restore waterboarding and "far, far worse" in US detention centers, scorning President Barack Obama's ban on the practice. But last weekend Trump sat down with James Mattis, a retired general respected across Washington and the US military for his no-nonsense approach, to discuss naming him defense secretary. On Tuesday, in an interview with the New York Times, Trump said he'd been surprised to discover that such an uncompromising commander was opposed to allowing US personnel to torture suspects. "He said: 'I've never found it to be useful'," he said, adding that Mattis advised building a rapport with detainees: "Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I'll do better." "I was very impressed by that answer," Trump told the Times, in a marked U-turn from his campaign mantra: "Torture works, OK? Believe me, it works." Trump's rhetoric was cheered to the rafters at campaign rallies, but on Tuesday he admitted that torture is "not going to make the kind of a difference that a lot of people are thinking." Mattis is reportedly interested in becoming Trump's defense secretary, and Trump said he is being "seriously, seriously considered" despite his opposition to illegal interrogation methods. Michigan State punter Mike Sadler was one of two college punters killed in a car accident in July. (Getty) Former Michigan State punter Mike Sadler was not impaired at the time of a single-vehicle crash that killed him and Nebraska punter Sam Foltz, according to a toxicology report obtained by the Associated Press on Monday. Sadler, Foltz and LSU kicker Colby Delahoussaye were returning from a kicking camp in Wisconsin when Sadler lost control of his 2014 Mercedes. The car struck a tree and burst into flames. Sadler and Foltz died at the scene. Delahoussaye was treated for second-degree burns. According to the report, Sadler had a blood-alcohol level of 0.03; the legal limit is 0.08. Sadler also had a low level of amphetamines in his blood. Waukesha County District Attorney Susan Opper told the Associated Press that it was not uncommon for a low level of amphetamines to be found in the blood. Opper said wet pavement and Sadlers unfamiliarity of the area contributed to the crash. She said authorities were not able to determine if speed factored into the accident. More College Football from Yahoo Sports: Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter! TrackX to Present at the 9th Annual LD Micro Main Event LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 22, 2016 / TrackX Holdings Inc., (TSX.V:TKX) a cloud based provider of asset tracking and inventory management solutions, will be presenting at the 9th annual LD Micro Main Event on Wednesday, December 7 at 3:00 PM PST / 6:00 PM EST at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. Tim Harvie, President and CEO of TrackX will be presenting, as well as meeting with investors. The LD Micro Main Event is the largest independent conference for small/microcap companies and will feature 240 presenting names. It is the only conference where the most influential names of the buy-side and sell-side gather to collaborate, research, and invest. TrackX's enterprise solutions are deployed globally for a growing number of government agencies and Fortune 500 companies and other industrial companies seeking real-time visibility and advanced analytics pertaining to their high-value assets and inventory items. Combined with powerful analytics capabilities, TrackX's solutions drive operational improvements and workflow efficiencies in a platform that can be integrated with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and is delivered in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Harvie will be providing an introduction and update on TrackX's activities and sales pipeline growth since its public offering in May 2016. The Company has enhanced its talent-base with the addition of SaaS-based computing pioneer and former Chairman of Descartes Systems, Group, Art Mesher, as Advisor to the Board. Another Descartes alumni, Jason Read, has also joined TrackX as its Chief Operating Officer. TrackX is currently deploying solutions for several accounts including multiple divisions of one of the world's largest Fortune 500 beverage companies and a recently announced enterprise sale to a leading U.S. used car retailer. View TrackX's profile here: http://www.ldmicro.com/profile/TKX.V Story continues News Compliments of Accesswire About TrackX TrackX, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, is a cloud-based industrial, returnable, and high value asset tracking solutions provider. TrackX delivers a highly configurable software platform that offers visibility, utilization, analytics and executable business intelligence pertaining to high-value assets in a vast array of industries. TrackX's patented, enterprise-scalable asset tracking platform combines support for multiple auto-ID technologies with workflow, event management, alert notification and a comprehensive analytics platform to deliver significant value to a growing list of Fortune 500 customers. About LD Micro LD Micro was founded in 2006 with the sole purpose of being an independent resource in the microcap space. What started out as a newsletter highlighting unique companies has transformed into an event platform hosting several influential conferences annually (Invitational, Summit, and Main Event). In 2015, LDM launched the first pure microcap index (the LDMi) to exclusively provide intraday information on the entire sector. LD will continue to provide valuable tools for the benefit of everyone in the small and microcap universe. For those interested in attending, please contact David Scher at david@ldmicro.com or visit www.ldmicro.com/events for more information. TrackX Contact: Name: Knox Henderson Phone: 778-373-2003 Address: 9200 E Mineral Ave, Suite 350, Centennial, CO 80112 Email: khenderson@trackx.com SOURCE: TrackX via LD Micro RACINE The Racine Zoo announced that one of its African male lions, Hodari, will be moving Monday to Fort Waynes Childrens Zoo in Fort Wayne, Ind. Hodari was born at the Racine Zoo, 2131 N. Main St., on July 7, 2014. He arrived as one of three cubs and was a happy surprise, as he arrived more than four hours after the arrival of his brother and sister, according to a release from the Racine Zoo. Fort Waynes Childrens Zoo recently lost its male lion, named Bill, and is looking forward to welcoming its new patriarch, Racine Zoo officials said. As recommended by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), it is in the best interest of Hodari to relocate and start a pride of his own. He will be slowly introduced to his new companion, Ina, and will be on display at his new home in 2017. The Racine Zoo is an accredited organization though AZA and collaborates with other AZA-accredited organizations to manage species survival plans for numerous species, including the African lion. There are currently no breeding suggestions for the pair, but the zoo is hopeful for the couples future, according ot a release from the Racine Zoo. The transfer of Hodari is a hard one, said Racine Zoo Executive Director Beth Heidorn. We are honored to have had Hodari with us from birth, and sad to see him leave. But we know that Fort Wayne is truly appreciative and will benefit from this transfer along with the survival of the African lion. We will undoubtedly miss Hodari and his charismatic playfulness. He is a joy to be around. Fort Wayne is going to just love him as much as we do, said Racine Zoo Curator of Conservator and Animal Care Theresa Donarski. We have hope for the future. The zoos other male African lion, Enzi, will be moved to another AZA-accredited zoo sometime in 2017. Hodari is a Swahili African tribal name that means strong. His name came from former Racine resident Amy Eisenman as part of a naming contest the Racine Zoo conducted after the lions were born in 2014. Enzi means power in Swahili and his name was suggested by Sarah Breach of Racine. Enzis and Hodaris sister, Zuri (which means beautiful in Swahili, a suggestion from Therese Osius of Racine) also remains at the Racine Zoo. Which Donald J. Trump will be calling the shots on matters that affect small investors? If we're lucky, it will be the guy who vowed in his victory speech that he'd have the backs of "the forgotten man and woman." That would be the same Trump who said earlier this year that he was "not going to let Wall Street get away with murder" and that he'd like to bring back Glass-Steagall, the post-Great Depression reforms that separated depository banks from investment banks. But then there's that other Trump, the one who has said "the regulation industry is one business I will put an end to." That's the Trump I'm worried about. If a betrayal of small investors is in the cards, you'll start to see the Trump administration rolling back tough financial rules and installing his deregulatory brethren in consumer-friendly agencies. Sadly, those seeds already are being planted. Consider Trump's vow to dismantle the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the birthplace of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Trump hasn't weighed in specifically on the agency's future, but his fellow-Republicans are going all-out to neuter it. The CFPB is arguably the most effective financial agency out there -- if you define "effective" as being true to its mission to look out for the public. Most recently, it was behind that $100 million settlement in September with Wells Fargo , the disgraced bank whose employees opened hundreds of thousands of bogus customer accounts to satisfy sales quotas. That's "bogus" as in "the customers were clueless that accounts were opened in their names." Along with big public cases that call banks, credit unions and others to task, the CFPB has infuriated financial companies by publishing more than 600,000 consumer complaints online. Wall Street, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republican lawmakers were so riled by even the notion of a consumer financial agency that attacks against it began before its 2011 launch. Story continues Texas congressman Randy Neugebauer, a vociferous critic, has called the CFPB a "national nanny" and "benevolent financial products dictator." Now it turns out that Neugebauer's name is being floated as a possible replacement for the agency's current director, Richard Cordray, according to the Huffington Post. That would make Trump's life infinitely easier if he decides he wants to take on the legal fight to fire Cordray. With Neugebauer in charge, the 45th president of the United States wouldn't even have to go to the trouble of trying to shut the place down. And then there is the new, investor-friendly Department of Labor rule that would force stockbrokers giving retirement advice to put their clients' interests ahead of their own, a standard that already applies to investment advisers. Hedge fund manager and Trump economic adviser Anthony Scaramucci has relentlessly trash-talked the fiduciary duty rule. Borrowing a favorite adjective of the future president, Scaramucci said in a Twitter post earlier this month that the rule, set to be effective next April, was "disgusting." Disgusting for Wall Street, anyway. A White House study concluded that investors lose $17 billion a year in their retirement accounts as a result of inflated fees that go to brokers who recommend products with the highest commissions. Brokerage firms don't want to give up that $17 billion a year that they shouldn't have been pocketing in the first place. In his zeal to paint the rule as immoral, Scaramucci once likened it to the 1857 Supreme Court Dred Scott decision that ruled African-Americans could not be U.S. citizens. (This, apparently, because the DOL rule amounts to discrimination against stockbrokers, a moral affront you may not have considered until now.) He subsequently explained in an Oct. 19 tweet that the analogy was to the "bad governmental decisions" at work in each case. Noted. Scaramucci has made several public comments that suggest the rule is redundant. He told Yahoo! Finance that professionals in the investment community already are held to a fiduciary standard of putting investors' interests ahead of their own. He similarly tweeted earlier this month that "there are already fiduciary rules in place to protect the client." His incomplete statements ignore the fact that an army of investment professionals -- the nation's stockbrokers -- are not held to the standards required of investment advisers, a problem that's addressed in the DOL rule. Scaramucci has suggested that a better idea would be a "self-auditing process" for brokers. He told me in an email that this would amount to "training advisers on a principles-based regulatory framework" and "putting the onus on firms to demonstrate sound compliance processes." Of course, firms already are expected to have sound compliance processes. Ask a victim of broker fraud how well that's been working out in a world where 7% of brokers have at least one black mark on their records. Asked if Trump agreed with his assessment of the DOL rule, Scaramucci said he couldn't speak for the president-elect. Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, says it's too soon to know whether Trump was sincere in his pledge to make Washington work for average Americans. "Anyone who says they know what to expect in a Trump administration is delusional," she told me. But she's worried to see that former Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul S. Atkins is recommending financial regulation policy on Trump's transition team. If Atkins were to use his position on the team to remake the SEC in his image "that would be bad news indeed for investors," she said. The deregulation-prone Atkins has opposed Dodd-Frank and has spoken out against levying big fines on securities lawbreakers. You won't find Atkins' name in many sentences that include the phrase "investor advocate." Ditto the Wall Street elitists from Goldman Sachs , Bear Stearns and various hedge funds who either are advisers to the future president or are landing on his short lists of Cabinet appointees. Will Trump make sure that Wall Street doesn't get away with murder? Shame on you if you believed it to begin with. EXCLUSIVE OFFER: See inside Jim Cramers multi-million dollar charitable trust portfolio to see the stocks he thinks could be potentially HUGE winners. Click here to see his holdings for FREE. It is hard to imagine two presidents more dissimilar than Barack Obama, the cerebral and elegant liberal law professor, and Donald Trump, the brash populist and reality TV star. But if Trumps campaign pronouncements are anything to judge by, his foreign policy may be more in sync with President Obamas than either man would care to admit. And not in a good way: Trump shares with Obama a desire to pull back from the world but lacks Obamas calm, deliberative style and respect for international institutions. A Trump presidency is inherently unpredictable no one knows how much of his overblown rhetoric to take seriously but if he does even half the things he suggested on the campaign trail, the result could be the end of the post-1945 Pax Americana. One of Trumps top priorities is to improve relations with Vladimir Putin. In a post-election phone call, Trump told the Russian dictator that he is very much looking forward to having a strong and enduring relationship with Russia and the people of Russia. Sound familiar? Obama spoke in virtually identical terms when he took office in 2009. Hence his failed reset of relations with Moscow. This was part of Obamas larger rejection of what he saw as the moralizing, interventionist approach of the George W. Bush administration. (Obama also thought that Dmitry Medvedev, then Russias president, would be a more accommodating partner than Putin, who remained as prime minister.) During the 2008 campaign, Obama made a big point of saying that he would talk to any foreign leaders without any preconditions a stance that his primary challenger, Hillary Clinton, criticized as naive. In office, Obama has re-established relations with the Castros in Cuba and Myanmars junta, reached a nuclear deal with Ayatollah Ali Khameneis Iran, and did little to back up his calls for Bashar al-Assad to leave office. Instead of enforcing his red line with Syria, Obama agreed to a Russian-orchestrated deal under which Assad was supposed to give up his chemical weapons (a pledge the Syrian despot has not fully carried out). Obama has also refused to take any military action to stop Assads assaults on civilians, notwithstanding his creation of an Atrocities Prevention Board. Story continues Obama has often expressed his admiration for George H.W. Bush, and he has largely governed as an amoral realpolitiker who has put American interests, as he defines them, above the promotion of American values. Far from proselytizing for freedom and democracy, Obama has given a series of speeches in venues including Cairo and the Laotian capital of Vientiane speeches that, to critics, have sounded like apologies for past American misconduct. (Obamas aides have claimed he was merely reckoning with history.) When Iranian protesters took to the streets in the 2009 Green Revolution, Obama did not express support because he feared that doing so would interfere with his attempts to engage with the Iranian regime. On only a few occasions has Obama allowed idealistic considerations to gain the upper hand in his cold-blooded foreign policy and never for long. He did intervene in Libya to help topple Muammar al-Qaddafi an intervention Trump supported at the time but now criticizes but he did little to try to shape post-Qaddafi Libya and gives every indication of regretting his initial intervention. He also called for Hosni Mubarak to step down as Egypts ruler during the Arab Spring but did not oppose the subsequent military coup that ousted an elected Muslim Brotherhood government and installed the regime of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. It is obvious that human rights promotion, while not dismissed entirely, has not been an animating principle of the presidents foreign policy. More broadly, Obama has given every indication that he does not see America as an exemplar but rather a deeply flawed nation whose forays abroad often have harmful consequences. In a 2009 press conference, Obama dismissed the idea that America is uniquely qualified to lead the world, saying, I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. That doesnt mean that Obama hates America, as the cruder right-wing attacks have had it. In the very same press conference, he went on to say: Now, the fact that I am very proud of my country and I think that weve got a whole lot to offer the world does not lessen my interest in recognizing the value and wonderful qualities of other countries, or recognizing that were not always going to be right, or that other people may have good ideas, or that in order for us to work collectively, all parties have to compromise and that includes us. Thus Obama sees the United States as imperfect but virtuous as long as it acts in concert with others something that it has not always done. Enter Donald Trump, who has a far more jaundiced view of America than Obama does. In a revealing July 20 interview with the New York Times, Trump dismissed concerns about the massive violations of civil liberties being committed by Recep Tayyip Erdogans regime in Turkey: When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I dont think were a very good messenger. In a similar vein, Trump dismissed concerns that Putin kills journalists: Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too. This is the kind of moral relativism that Republicans once denounced but now accept from the president-elect. As with Obama, Trumps refusal to see America as a country with a mission leads him to look askance upon interventions abroad. Like Obama, he eschews nation-building and expresses a preference to work with foreign rulers regardless of their lack of democratic legitimacy. Trump reiterated to the Wall Street Journal after his election that he plans to end support for Syrian rebels and align with Russia in Syria: My attitude was youre fighting Syria, Syria is fighting ISIS, and you have to get rid of ISIS. And never mind that Iran, Russia, and Assad are all committing war crimes. Trumps approach is quite different from what Clinton advocated during the campaign; she called for no-fly zones and safe zones. But its not so different from Obamas current policy, which provides a modicum of aid to the Syrian rebels but tacitly concedes that Assad will stay in power and does little to oppose the Iranian-Russian offensive in support of the Syrian regime. Indeed, some Syrian rebels welcome Trump for at least being honest: Today, one rebel leader in Aleppo told the New York Times, we know that [the Americans] are really and practically not backing us, whereas before, we considered them our friend while they were implementing our opponents agenda. This is not to suggest that Trumps worldview is identical to Obamas. One of their big divisions is over international institutions. Obama negotiated an international accord to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases; Trump has said global warming is a Chinese hoax and called for pulling out of the Paris agreement. Obama negotiated a nuclear accord with Iran; Trump promises to renegotiate it, calling it a disgraceful deal and an embarrassment to our country. Obama is a free-trader who negotiated the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); Trump is a protectionist who vows to withdraw from the TPP, rip up NAFTA, and impose tariffs. Obama has been supportive of NATO, working to expand the forces that the alliance deploys in Eastern Europe and the Baltics to guard against Russian aggression; Trump has called NATO obsolete and questioned the need to station U.S. troops to defend countries that dont pay enough for the privilege. In sum, Obama is a believer in international organizations and international law; Trump is not. It is hard to imagine Trump saying, as Obama did: I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; its our willingness to affirm them through our actions. In turn, it is hard to imagine Obama ever threatening to bomb the shit out of another country, to steal its oil, or to torture detainees all of which would constitute war crimes. In the terms coined by Walter Russell Mead, Obama is a Jeffersonian, while Trump is a Jacksonian: The former believes that the United States should perfect its own democracy and go not abroad in search of monsters to destroy, whereas the latter believes that the United States should not seek out foreign quarrels but that it should clobber anyone who messes with it. What unites Jeffersonians and Jacksonians, in spite of their substantial differences, is that both support quasi-isolationism or, if you prefer, noninterventionism unless severely provoked. Obama has been intent on pulling the United States back from the Middle East. The result of his withdrawal of troops from Iraq and his failure to get more actively involved in ending the Syrian civil war has been to create a vacuum of power that has been filled by the likes of the Islamic State and Hezbollah. Undaunted, Trump has said he wants not only to continue the pullback from the Middle East (he wants to subcontract American policy in Syria to Putin) but also to retreat from Europe and East Asia. He has suggested that he may lift sanctions on Russia and pull U.S. troops out of countries (from Germany to Japan) if he feels they are not paying enough for American protection. It is quite possible, then, that Trumps foreign policy would represent an intensification rather than a repudiation of Obamas lead from behind approach. American power survived eight years of an Obama presidency, albeit in diminished form. If the president-elect governs the way he campaigned (which, admittedly, is not necessarily a safe assumption), there is good cause to wonder whether U.S. ascendancy will survive four to eight years of Trumpism. The post-American age may be arriving sooner than imagined, ushered in by a president with an America First foreign policy. Photo credit: WIN MCANMEE/Getty Images Washington (AFP) - Britain ruled out replacing its ambassador in Washington on Tuesday after US President-elect Donald Trump, in his latest unorthodox intervention, tweeted that Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage "would do a great job". The decision on who is appointed to represent the United Kingdom in Washington is a matter for the British government, but that did not stop the controversial property mogul turned world leader from weighing in on social media. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States," Trump said on his Twitter account. "He would do a great job!" Farage, interim leader of the nationalist UK Independence Party which campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union, met recently with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. The British politician -- who has failed repeatedly to be elected to the British parliament -- wrote on right-wing news site Breitbart that Trump's suggestion had come as a "bolt from the blue" and that he would "do anything to help our national interest". "I can still scarcely believe that he did that," he added. But Downing Street and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson both stressed Tuesday that there was "no vacancy". "We have a first rate ambassador in Washington doing a very good job," Johnson told MPs in parliament. Kim Darroch, the UK's former national security adviser, only took over the diplomatic post in January. Trump's suggestion "highlights the current unsettled condition of transatlantic relations," said Richard Whitman, associate fellow of the Europe Programme at Chatham House. - UK hopes to 'shape' Trump policy - During the divisive US presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly compared his presidential bid to the Brexit referendum in which a majority of Britons voted to split from the EU. Trump's call on Twitter is unusual -- ambassadors are appointed by the governments they represent, not by the administration of the country in which they serve. Story continues Britain is keen to build bridges with Trump after many of its leading government figures criticised the president-elect during his successful election campaign. "I had a very good conversation with vice president-elect Mike Pence and we see eye-to-eye on a great many matters," Johnson said Tuesday. The government hopes to "shape and influence" Trump's policies on shared defence -- stressing the importance of NATO -- and free trade, he added. London is also interested in sounding out a US trade deal as it plots its departure from the European Union. Queen Elizabeth II could host Trump within months of him becoming president, with the British government confirming Monday that it was considering a state visit next year. Royal officials said the government was responsible for organising state visits, and a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said the proposal was "under consideration". Trump told May that he was a "big fan of the Queen" when the pair spoke by telephone following his victory, and is also reported to have told Farage that his late mother Mary would have been "chuffed to bits when I meet the Queen." Britain will not issue an invitation to a president-elect, but is expected to make its move shortly after Trump's inauguration on January 20. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump will not pursue investigations against his former Democratic rival for the White House, Hillary Clinton, over her use of a private email server while secretary of state or her family's charity, MSNBC said in a report that a Trump senior adviser did not dispute. During their bitter presidential campaign, the Republican Trump vowed to jail Clinton and crowds at his rallies chanted "Lock her up." He now believes she "has been through enough," MSNBC reported on Tuesday, citing an unidentified source. Addressing the report in an interview with MSNBC, senior Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway did not deny it and indicated it was correct. "Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don't find her to be honest or trustworthy, but if Donald Trump can help her heal then perhaps that's a good thing," she said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. During the campaign, opinion polls found that many Americans did not find Clinton trustworthy. The FBI investigated Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state during President Barack Obama's first term, concluding earlier this year that her actions were careless but that there were no grounds for bringing charges. The Clinton Foundation charity has also been scrutinized for donations it received while she led the State Department. Clinton acknowledged her use of a private email server was a mistake and denied links between foundation donors and her work as secretary of state. There has been no evidence that foreign donors to the foundation obtained favors from the State Department while Clinton headed it. Congress can pursue its own investigations regardless of whether Trump opts to appoint a special prosecutor, as he vowed during the campaign. U.S. Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has said he will continue investigating Clinton's use of a private server. Conway indicated Trump would frown on that. "When the president-elect, who's also the head of your party now, tells you before he's even inaugurated he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message - tone and content - to the members," Conway said on MSNBC. The New York businessman has been holding meetings since his Nov. 8 election victory to build his administration and fill senior posts before he takes office on Jan. 20. "He's thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sounds like the campaign aren't among them," Conway said. NYT MEETING BACK ON Earlier on Tuesday, Trump abruptly canceled a meeting with The New York Times, a newspaper he has frequently criticized, complaining on Twitter about inaccurate coverage and a "nasty tone." Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told reporters hours later the meeting was still on. On Monday Trump met with television anchors and news industry executives and reporters in a session The Washington Post described as a contentious but generally respectful. Trump singled out reporting of his campaign by CNN and NBC that he considered to be unfair, the Post said, citing four participants at the meeting in New York. Trump, who has never previously held public office, was quick to bristle at unflattering news coverage during the campaign, even as he remained accessible to certain reporters, including several from the Times. "I canceled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice," Trump said in an early morning Twitter post. "Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!" Trump wrote in a second post. A spokeswoman for the Times said the newspaper was not aware the meeting was canceled until Trump's tweet, issued at about 6:30 a.m. EST (1130 GMT). Trump has not held a news conference to talk about his priorities since his election, although on Monday he issued a short video message on his plans for his first days in office. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Frances Kerry) The transition into the presidency for President-elect Donald Trump has been rife with scandal. The latest controversies Tuesday involved everything from Trump's foundation flouting charity laws to wide-ranging conflicts of interest involving the real estate mogul's business interests. The Washington Post, which closely tracked Trump's foundation during the election cycle, first reported the bombshell news that the foundation had admitted to "self-dealing" on an Internal Revenue Service form. Self-dealing rules prohibit those in charge of nonprofits from using charity money to help themselves, their family, or their business interests. The penalty for self-dealing could be as high as three times the amount the person benefited from, a law expert told USA Today. Trump could also reportedly face further penalties from state agencies as the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been investigating the foundation. On Friday, Trump agreed to a $25 million settlement in a fraud case against Trump University, which involved a lawsuit from the New York attorney general. Trump's bevy of business interests have raised growing concerns about conflicts of interest as president. His adult children, particularly his oldest daughter Ivanka Trump, continue to attend meetings with world leaders, despite the fact that the adult Trump children are reportedly set to control the real estate mogul's interests during his presidency. Ivanka Trump was reportedly on a phone call between Donald Trump and Argentina's President Mauricio Macri, just days after she drew criticism for sitting in on a meeting between the president-elect and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Donald Trump has seemingly kept other ties to his businesses, meeting with Indian business partners during the transition, as foreign diplomats are reportedly rushing to book rooms in a Trump property to gain favor with the president-elect. Dispatches on Twitter from a meeting between Trump and the New York Times appear to show he is relatively ambivalent toward these purported conflicts of interest. Story continues "The law's totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest," Trump said, according to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman. The president-elect reportedly confirmed in the Times meeting that his Washington, D.C., hotel was doing better after his election-night win and that he may have brought up wind farms that affect his United Kingdom businesses in a meeting with British politician Nigel Farage. Despite Trump's lack of concern, a number of typically conservative-leaning outlets have called for him to wholeheartedly remove himself from his businesses. The Wall Street Journal's editorial board urged him to liquidate his stake in the family businesses, while the New York Post, which supported Trump, said he should put his businesses in a truly blind trust not run by his children. Another recent controversy concerned Neo-Nazi supporters of Trump, who were videotaped at a Washington, D.C., gathering yelling "Hail Trump" while giving the Nazi salute. It was an event organized by Richard Spencer, who runs the National Policy Institute, which claims to be a so-called "alt-right" think tank. The Trump camp responded by saying the president continued to denounce racism but did not mention the gathering or alt-right by name. He did reportedly say in the Times meeting that the alt-right is "not a group I want to energize." But concerns linger over Trump's connection to the so-called alt-right, a group proven to be rife with white nationalists. Trump's choice as his top strategist, Steve Bannon, previously ran the website Breitbart, which Bannon had described as a platform for the alt-right. Related Articles In a lengthy Tuesday interview with the New York Times, Donald Trump repeatedly cast aside some of his provocative past statements. The president-elects phenomenal rise to the White House was characterized in part by his boisterous personality and flair for the theatrical. His off-the-cuff responses to journalists questions and impulsive attacks against rivals endeared him to conservative voters who wanted a candidate to tell it like it is. But it could be difficult to make governing compromises with the same level of mud-slinging coming from the Oval Office. Trump struck a far more mellow tone during his interview with the Times. Based on early tweets about the session, by Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Mike Grynbaum, Trump backed off of several extreme policy proposals and harsh insults against political opponents. He even backed off his attacks against the Times earlier in the day. Here are a few instances of times that Trump drastically changed his tune. Electoral College During the 2012 presidential election, Trump called the Electoral College a disaster for a democracy and said it had made a laughingstock out of our nation. But after he defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote, Trump tweeted that the Electoral College is actually genius because it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. President-elect Donald Trump walks past a crowd as he leaves the New York Times building on Tuesday. (Photo: Mark Lennihan/AP) With the Times, he returned to his previous preference. He told the paper that he would rather do the popular vote, and that he was never a fan of the Electoral College. President Obama In May, President Obama delivered a thinly veiled critique of Trump by saying that in politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue. Trump quoted the line and declared that it was the reason that Obama was the worst president in U.S. history! But he told the Times that he had a great meeting with Obama, whom he had never met before, after the election and that he liked him a lot. Story continues Investigating Hillary Clinton During the second presidential debate, Trump told Clinton that shed be in jail if he were in charge of U.S. law enforcement. He also told Clinton that hed appoint a special prosecutor to go after her. During his rallies, he proclaimed Clinton guilty as hell. Trump told the Times, however, that he thinks prosecuting the Clintons would be very, very divisive for the country. "I think it would be very very divisive for the country," Trump says about prosecuting the Clintons. Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 When pressed as to whether he absolutely ruled out prosecuting Clinton, he replied, Its just not something that I feel very strongly about. I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont, Trump said. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways. Clinton Foundation On Aug. 22, Trump released a statement arguing that the Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit corporation established by former President Bill Clinton in 1997, should be shut down. Hillary Clinton is the defender of the corrupt and rigged status quo. The Clintons have spent decades as insiders lining their own pockets and taking care of donors instead of the American people. It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history. What they were doing during Crooked Hillarys time as Secretary of State was wrong then, and it is wrong now. It must be shut down immediately. He told the Times that theres an argument that the Clinton Foundation has done good work. He said hes inclined to use whatever power he will have as president to say lets go forward. This has been looked at for so long, ad nauseam, he said. Donald Trump waves as he departs the lobby of the New York Times building. (Photo: Lucas Jackson/Reuters) Climate Change Trump has dismissed climate change as an expensive, money-making hoax and vowed to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, in which nearly 200 countries agreed to reduce carbon emissions in an effort to keep the increase in average global temperature to below 2C. But he told the Times that he doesnt dismiss the possibility of man-made climate change, for which theres an overwhelming scientific consensus. Tom Friedman asks if Trump will withdraw from climate change accords. Trump: Im looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it." Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016 I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much, he said of human activity and climate change. When asked if hed pull out of the climate change accords, Trump said, Im looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it. The New York Times Another institution thats been at the receiving end of Trumps vitriol is the Times itself. He has bashed it as a seriously failing paper thats becoming irrelevant with readership way down. He also gloated over how badly he perceived the Times to be doing. The failing @nytimes has gone nuts that Crooked Hillary is doing so badly. They are willing to say anything, has become a laughingstock rag! he tweeted. Trump further railed against the failing Times earlier Tuesday morning when he temporarily canceled the meeting. But as he wrapped up his interview, Trump called the Times a great, great American jewel world jewel. Donald Trump bypassed the mainstream media and sent out a video message about his plans for his first 100 days in office. Read: 'Hamilton' Actor Says 'There is Nothing to Apologize For' Following His Remarks to Mike Pence My agenda will follow a simple core principle putting America first, he said in the two-and-a-half-minute video. In the video, he also laid out that he will withdraw the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pact signed by 12 countries that includes America, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru. The idea of the TPP was to strengthen economic ties, cut tariffs and help bring trade between the nations. Trump said he would rather have fair trade deals that bring jobs back on American shores. He also laid out basic plans for his energy and infrastructure tactics which he says will help job growth. On Monday, Trump met with top news anchors and network executives at Trump Tower including CNN's Wolf Blitzer, ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Rose of CBS. Read: Gigi Hadid Apologizes for Impersonating Melania Trump: I Have Only the Best Wishes for Our Country The New York Post reported that the meeting was a firing squad. Trump reportedly told the newsmen and women: "We're in a room full of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong." But that's not how top Trump aide Kellyanne Conway described it on Morning Joe Tuesday. It was an off-the-record meeting. It was very cordial, very candid and very honest. From my perspective it's great to hit the reset button. It was long hard-fought campaign, she said. Watch: Comedian Who Writes Fake News Claims: Trump Won the Election Because of Me Related Articles: By Malathi Nayak NEW YORK, Nov 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's choice of experts to focus on new policies at the Federal Communications Commission signals a regime that will have a "lighter" touch on regulation and be more likely to favor large mergers in telecoms industries, analysts said. Economist Jeff Eisenach and former Sprint Corp lobbyist Mark Jamison were named by Trump's transition team to oversee hiring and policy for the FCC. They both oppose some recent telecom industry regulations resisted by telecom and cable heavyweights such as Comcast Corp and AT&T Inc and have voiced support for mega mergers in the past. The FCC is composed of five commissioners, including one designated as chairman, who are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Only three commissioners can be from the same political party and Trump's pick for FCC chairman would tip the balance in favor of Republicans. The addition of Eisenach and Jamison to Trump's "landing team" on Monday come as the Republican president-elect puts together a team to staff various government departments and agencies after he succeeds Democratic President Barack Obama on Jan. 20. The two appointments are harbingers of "a more typical Republican FCC that is lighter on regulation and more focused on competition," said Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics. "The focus will be more on reducing regulation than creating new ones." That would be in stark contrast to the Obama administration's FCC that enacted or proposed a handful of new industry rules and disapproved some proposed combinations, including Comcast's bid for Time Warner Cable and AT&T's attempt to buy T-Mobile. The FCC under Chairman Tom Wheeler, a Democrat, has had a rocky relationship with large telecom companies, some of which strongly opposed the agency's 2015 net neutrality or open internet rules. The rules, which require internet service providers to treat all data equally and bar them from obstructing or slowing down consumer access to web content, were seen as a major victory for internet businesses like Alphabet Inc's Google that offer services but do not own internet networks. Story continues 'PRO-BUSINESS POLICY' Eisenach has supported mergers such as AT&T and T-Mobile as well as Sprint and T-Mobile that were dismissed by regulators during Obama's administration, according to analysts. He is known in telecom circles for having a "pro-business" mindset, New Street Research analyst Spencer Kurn said. "Whoever gets picked (as FCC chairman) is likely going to implement a similar pro-business policy," Kurn said. Eisenach, who was previously tapped by the Trump campaign as an adviser on technology and telecom policy, is currently a managing director at consulting firm NERA Economic Consulting's communications, media and internet practice. He previously held advisory roles at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the White House Office of Management and Budget. In 2014, he testified in the U.S. Senate against net neutrality rules, arguing there was no need for new regulation as existing antitrust rules, while "not perfect," offered safeguards against concerns about the business practices of internet service providers. Jamison is the director of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida. Like Eisenach, he has strongly disagreed in his publications with Wheeler's rules, including net neutrality and a proposal to open up the market for rented pay-TV set-top boxes. That measure was aimed at breaking the telecom and cable companies' grip on the $20 billion market and bringing in players such as Google and Apple in an effort to lower prices for consumers. Some analysts said the appointments also raised questions over whether Trump would carry out his campaign pledge to kill AT&T's $85.4 billion proposal to buy Time Warner. Matt Wood, policy director of the technology rights group Free Press, said that even as Trump opposes the deal, he picked the pro-business economist Eisenach, who was unlikely to want to block such a merger. (Reporting by Malathi Nayak; Additional reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Peter Cooney) Sen. Jennifer Shilling of La Crosse was again elected leader of the Democratic caucus in the state Senate on Tuesday, the same day her most-recent challenger announced he would seek a recount in the race that earned Shilling a second term. Shilling ran unopposed for the position of Senate Minority Leader, a spot she's held since 2015. She will lead a smaller caucus after the defeat of Sen. Julie Lassa, D-Stevens Point, in the general election. Meanwhile, the Nov. 8 election provided historic Republican majorities for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester. The Republican victories came at the same time voters in Wisconsin elected a Republican president for the first time since 1984 and re-elected Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Oshkosh over Russ Feingold, a Middleton Democrat who held the seat for years before Johnson unseated him in 2010. Voters' choices in the presidential and Senate races -- for which polling indicated Democrats would prevail -- indicate a need for Democrats to reconnect with the electorate, Shilling acknowledged on Tuesday. Shilling said while "Republican gerrymandering and national factors" limit Democrats, the party needs to do a better job of connecting with voters. Also elected on Tuesday was Sen. Janet Bewley, D-Ashland, as assistant minority leader and Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, to the position of caucus chairman. "It is clear we need to make sure we are connecting with rural parts of the state," Shilling said to reporters after the election. She said her re-election to the position of minority leader and Bewley's election as her assistant "reflects that recognition" because the two are from areas. Shilling and Bewley said the Democrats intend to be more visible to voters and communicate about the kind of legislation their caucus puts forward. Shilling said part of that job is to remind voters which party is in charge. "If voters continue to feel frustrated and continue to feel the majority or government are out of touch with them -- the Republicans control everything," she said. Bewley expressed frustration at the dynamic in the Legislature, which rarely provides for opportunities to "cross the aisle." "One of the challenges of a Republican adminstration in a state that is so split is the Republicans don't have a mandate," said Bewley. "My Democratic colleagues want to be able to produce for the people of Wisconsin and in order to do so, we need to be able to cross the aisle ... And yet we're gridlocked on so many of the important issues." Shilling won her race against Dan Kapanke by just 56 votes out of more than 89,150 cast in the 32nd District in a race that pitted the Senate minority leader against the Republican she unseated in a 2011 recall. County clerks estimate a recount could take five to 10 days. Crawford, La Crosse, Monroe and Vernon counties would all have to hold recounts, although about 70 percent of the votes were cast in La Crosse County. Debt-cutting measures need to be a consideration for President-elect Donald Trump , as he prepares to execute on campaign promises to boost infrastructure spending, rebuild the military and slash taxes, according to the bipartisan co-chairs of the Campaign to Fix the Debt. Trump policies, without red ink-reducing components, "[by] our estimate would explode the debt by $5 trillion in the first 10 years ... and by the end of 10 years our debt as percentage of GDP would be over 100 percent," Democratic former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. There are ways for Trump to reduce the national debt of nearly $20 trillion while still pursuing his policy agenda, said Judd Gregg, Republican former New Hampshire senator and governor and Rendell's co-chair at Fix the Debt. "We put together a Simpson-Bowles 2.0 plan, which is sort of a comprehensive proposal, and we've also set up a cafeteria line of ideas on how you can address things like tax reform, which is absolutely critical. It should be one of the first things out of the box," Gregg said. "I think tax reform would create massive economic activity, which would actually help us significantly out of our debt problems," he said, while predicting that it's possible for the U.S. economy to once again grow at a 4 percent rate, after being stalled since the 2008 financial crisis. The reference to Simpson-Bowles was a nod to the 2010 debt-reduction plan that never got off the ground. It was crafted by Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles, co-chairs of President Barack Obama 's debt commission. Bowles, White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, and former Wyoming Senator Simpson in 2012 founded the Campaign to Fix the Debt. More From CNBC Ben Carson President-elect Donald Trump tweeted on Tuesday he's "seriously considering" retired neurosurgeon and 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson to be the secretary of housing and urban development in his administration. Carson has repeatedly affirmed he is not looking to serve inside a Trump administration. He was previously rumored to be under consideration for secretary of education and secretary of health and human services. "I am seriously considering Dr. Ben Carson as the head of HUD," Trump wrote. "I've gotten to know him well he's a greatly talented person who loves people!" Carson will meet with Trump at Trump Tower on Tuesday, according to MSNBC. The Hill reported last week that Armstrong Williams, Carson's business manager and close confidant, said Carson wouldn't join the administration and would instead be an unofficial adviser after reports surfaced that Carson rejected an offer to be HHS secretary. "Dr. Carson was never offered a specific position, but everything was open to him," Williams told The Hill. "Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience; he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency." Carson subsequently published a Facebook post disputing what Williams attributed as his reason for not seeking a position. "My decision not to seek a cabinet position in the Trump administration has nothing to do with the complexity of the job as is being reported by some news outlets," he wrote. "I believe it is vitally important for the Trump administration to have many outspoken friends and advisers who are outside of the Washington bubble. It is vital to have independent voices of reason and reconciliation if our nation is to heal and regain its greatness. I will continue to work with the transition team and beyond as we build a dynamite executive branch of government." In an interview with Business Insider just before the election, Carson said, "I don't want to be a part of the administration." Story continues "Not that I have anything against it," he said. "Just that I think my voice will actually be more valuable outside the administration. There are so many issues that affect our country right now, and we can't lose sight of them. So winning the election is really just step one." "I'll continue to write, continue to speak publicly, and work on helping to focus us as a nation on what's really important," he said. In a Monday Facebook post, however, Carson seemed to signal a shift in his thinking, although he wrote "there is no reversal of my position in terms of working with the Trump administration." "I have always made it clear that I preferred to work outside of the government as an advisor, but if called upon, I would serve inside of the government," Carson wrote. "I believe it is important to have voices that are outside of the administration combating media bias and the divisiveness that has infected our country." Washington Post reporter Robert Costa tweeted shortly after Trump's tweet that Trump "has been relentless" in pushing Carson to reconsider his position from last week, when he said he was not interested in a Cabinet position. Williams did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on Carson's stance. NOW WATCH: How to move to Canada and become a Canadian citizen More From Business Insider donald trump President-elect Donald Trump told The New York Times on Tuesday that he thinks there is "some connectivity" between human activity and climate change. "Some, something," he said, according to Times editors and reporters who met with the president-elect. "It depends on how much." The comment was an apparent departure from his previous sentiments, including a statement he made on Twitter in 2012 calling climate change a "hoax" created by the Chinese. The meeting provided some insights into Trump's views on climate change and the Paris Agreement the US signed this year to reduce carbon emissions. Here are the key quotes we've seen: Does Trump think human activity is linked to climate change? I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much." Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016 On climate change, Trump says he is also thinking about "how much it will cost our companies & the effect on American competitiveness. Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016 Tom Friedman asks if Trump will withdraw from climate change accords. Trump: Im looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it." Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016 Gavin Schmidt, a top climate scientist at NASA, told Business Insider earlier this month that our best science shows human activity accounts for all of the warming since the 19th century and perhaps a bit more, because trends suggest we should be in a slow cooling period right now. The questions asked Tuesday are among the first direct ones Trump has faced on climate change. Critics of Trump's previous stances on climate change might detect reason for optimism. Story continues Trump seemed to suggest at least an openness to engaging with science and policy issues regarding the climate. He also suggested he might not pull out of the Paris Agreement, though he didn't lend any specifics or details. The Trump transition website still contains a statement that current climate change policy is a "radical political agenda." And Trump has picked Myron Ebell, who is known for denying climate change, to head his Environmental Protection Agency transition. NOW WATCH: Scientists may have discovered what caused these mysterious giant holes in Siberia More From Business Insider DailyFX.com - Talking Points Asian currencies have been hit by the stronger US Dollar, as have others But is the Trump trade solely to blame here? Political uncertainties are not the province of the West Many Asian currencies have been battered by the rising US Dollar in the wake of Donald Trumps unexpected win in the US presidential election. The Yen has endured two weeks of falls, for example. USD/JPYs Monday peak of 111.36 was its loftiest point since the end of May. Malaysias Ringgit has had things even worse. The US Dollar has risen 6% against it in November so far. The rationale behind the Trump trade is that the new US President will pursue reflationary fiscal policies. These will increase the attraction of USD-denominated assets. A stronger greenback will also make life tougher for those countries with plentiful US Dollar debt. This has hit most traded currencies of course, not just those in Asia. The trade-weighted US Dollar index, which tracks the greenbacks performance against a basket of widely traded units, hit a 13.5 year high on Friday. But the foreign-exchange world is largely trying to assess a new Western political landscape. This of course involves not just parsing Trump but following the rise of populism in a Europe still reeling from Junes Brexit vote. However, while Western political tectonics are undoubtedly shifting, there is also an unusually broad range of political unrest across Asia at the moment. Here's a rundown: In South Korea, President Park Geun-hye has been under pressure for a month for allowing a close friend of hers, one Choi Soon-Sil to become involved in political affairs. There have been widespread public protests against Park, and the tension ratcheted up a little on Monday when opposition parties in Seoul called for a review of the countrys impeachment procedures. They also said that they would begin taking signatures from those who support Parks removal from office. Meanwhile Malaysias capital saw protests on Saturday demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razaj. His administration has been buffeted by allegations of graft involving the indebted 1 Malaysia Development Berhad state fund, which he founded. Story continues Across the South China Sea,Indonesia has also seen a rally calling for unity amid clearly-deepening religious divisions in Southeast Asias largest economy. There has also been communal violence in Myanmar, notably in the countrys western state of Rakhine. The state hasbeen under a security lockdown since early October. Hong Kong has seen protests against Beijing after a court there banned two elected lawmakers from taking their seats in the territory last month. Finally, we come to Thailand. There, King Bhumbibol Aduvaleis death in October is still being mourned. However the country is only two years past a military coup. The late Kings vast moral authority helped sooths many past internal wounds and investors do not yet have the same confidence in his son. Obviously these are issues of differing magnitudes and concern to investors. That said, many of the countries involved are either established investment destinations, such as South Korea and Hong Kong, or nations often touted as the next Asian tiger, such as Myanmar. Its unusual to see such widespread political issues right across the region at the same time.And while the Trump trade is undoubtedly behind a lot of the US Dollars strength, it doesnt look as though it is the whole story in Asia. Sign of the times? The US Dollar has surged against Malaysias Ringgit since Trumps win. Can Chart compiled using TradingView. --- Written by David Cottle, DailyFX Research original source DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets. Learn forex trading with a free practice account and trading charts from IG. President-elect Donald Trump told a meeting with top executives, columnists and reporters from The New York Times that they would be happy with his commitment to the First Amendment, amid concerns that his criticisms of the media during the campaign and attacks on the paper afterward will chill free speech. I think youll be happy, Trump told the gathering, according to a tweet from one of the reporters who was there, Maggie Haberman. Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted that he was canceling the meeting because the ground rules for it had changed at the last moment. He complained that the publication continues to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone and called the Times failing. But a couple hours later, he announced that the meeting was back on. A Times spokeswoman said that they did not change the ground rules, but that Trumps team had sought to make the entire gathering off the record, which we refused to agree to. Instead, they stuck to the original plan for a small off the record session followed by a larger gathering with staffers. At the on-the-record session, Trump complained about the way he had been covered but also acknowledged the need for a reset. I have great respect for the New York Times. I have tremendous respect. I think I have been treated very rough, he said at the gathering according to other tweets. He said that he would like to improve his relationship with the Times because it would make the job I am doing much easier. On Monday, at Trump tower, he met with network anchors, news executives and correspondents and berated them for their coverage, according to sources. That session was off the record. At the Times meeting, which lasted 75 minutes, Trump also was asked about his campaign pledge to open up libel laws, making it easier for plaintiffs to sue. According to Mike Grynbaum, Trump said that someone told him after he made the comment, You know, you might be sued a lot more. I said, You know, I hadnt thought of that.' Story continues Trump also defended his choice of Steve Bannon to be his chief strategist, triggering criticism that he had selected someone who has moved Breitbart News to draw in readers with racist and anti-Semitic views. Trump said that if thought he was a racist, or alt-right he wouldnt even think about hiring him. Hes having a hard time of it, because its not him, Trump said. He also said that Breitbart News is just a publication that cover[s] stories like you cover stories. Trump also said that he disavowed a gathering over the weekend of white nationalists in Washington, where they praised the incoming president and even engaged in a Nazi salute. During the campaign, Trumps attorneys had threatened to sue the Times after it published stories quoting women who claimed that he had groped them. Although his legal team fired off a letter to the Times, they have yet to file suit. He said that he does read the Times, but unfortunately, I would live about 20 years longer if I didnt. Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist, asked Trump if he would back out of the Paris climate agreement. Trump said that he was looking at it very closely and had an open mind to it, but was also weighing the impact that climate change would have on U.S. companies and competitiveness, according to tweets from the session. Trump also attempted to dismiss criticisms that his business holdings posed conflict of interest questions. He said that the laws totally on my side, the president cant have a conflict of interest. But he also suggested that it would not be easy to sell off his holdings because much of his investments are in real estate. Instead, his children are going to be managing those businesses. Related stories CNN Apologizes for Inflammatory Graphic Donald Trump Abruptly Cancels, Then Resets, Meeting with New York Times Nathan Lane on Trump's 'Hamilton' Tweets: The Theater Should Also Be 'Angry and Unforgiving' Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump faced growing calls Tuesday to denounce a fringe white nationalist group that celebrated his election win with rousing Nazi salutes. The so-called National Policy Institute held a conference Saturday around the corner from the White House. It had been scheduled before the results of the November 8 election were known. The group describes itself as an organization dedicated to "the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world." It is part of the far-right movement known as the alt-right. One of the conference organizers, Richard Spencer, concluded a speech by shouting "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" -- reminiscent of the German 'heil'. Some of the people in the crowd clapped wildly, cheered and gave the Nazi salute. This was seen in a video excerpt posted online by the magazine The Atlantic. Trump attacked the cast of the Broadway hit "Hamilton" over the weekend when it expressed worry that his administration might not respect America's racial and cultural diversity. "Mr. Trump's itchy Twitter finger, however, fell silent when 200 or so white nationalists of the 'alt-right' movement gathered ... to celebrate his election with a very public coming-out party filled with racist and anti-Semitic filth," the New York Times said in an editorial Tuesday. "Mr. Trump, who brought this group out of the shadows during the campaign, has a duty to unequivocally denounce its toxic propaganda," the newspaper said. The National Policy Institute says on its website that "the past 12 months might be remembered as the year of Donald Trump ... the year of the Red Pill ... and the year of the Alt Right." The pill reference comes from the 1999 movie "Matrix" and refers to the act of embracing reality. The NPI adds: "It was a time when more people joined our movement then ever before and when our ideas began invading the mainstream." Story continues Spencer told the Times he does not believe Trump should be considered alt-right. "I do think we have a psychic connection, or you can say a deeper connection, with Donald Trump in a way that we simply do not have with most Republicans," Spencer said. Trump has caused alarm among Democrats and other critics by naming as his chief strategist Steve Bannon, former head of the news website Breitbart, associated with white nationalism. "If Trump doesn't do something more forceful to disown his neo-Nazi hangers on, they will continue their brazen march into the mainstream," Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote Tuesday. "There is room for cooperation on much of Trump's agenda. But cooperation is difficult, if not impossible, when a president gives sanction to bigotry," Milbank added. Free trade advocates hoping against hope that President-elect Donald Trump might change his mind regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal had those hopes shattered Monday night. In his first substantive policy announcement since winning election on Nov. 8, Trump announced that withdrawing from the deal would be his first order of business after his inauguration. The deal, negotiated over nearly a decade by the U.S. with 11 partners around the Pacific Rim (notably excluding China and Russia), had been languishing in Congress and was denounced by both Trump and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. It was widely viewed as dead in the water barring a spectacular change of heart by the eventual president, and Trump made it clear Monday that isnt happening. Related: Trump, on YouTube, Delivers a Message to the Public and the Media On his first day in office, Trump said, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores. The move also raises concerns about whether it will damage U.S. foreign relations and perhaps even global security. U.S. allies like Japan, Australia and New Zealand all spent enormous amounts of time and effort negotiating the deal and the disappointment after Trumps announcement was almost palpable. Speaking at a meeting of TPP countries in Peru, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that without the U.S., the TPP has no meaning. While the 11 remaining nations will continue working on the pact, the decision by the U.S. to pull out destroys the basic balance of gains inherent in the arrangement, Abe said. The decision will no doubt please many Americans of both parties, who have come to see free trade deals as job killers because they make it easier for U.S. companies to shift production overseas. Free trade advocates insist that the effect on U.S. jobs is overblown, and many are horrified at the idea of the U.S. opting out of a deal that covers such a huge swathe of the global economy. Story continues Related: Whos Being Left Behind by the Stock Markets Trump Trade? Experts warned that the move to negotiate all trade deals on a bilateral basis flies in the face of global trends. Were moving to regional trade blocs. There will be an Asian trade bloc, and the U.S. isnt going to be part of it, Kit Juckes, global strategist for Societe Generale said in an appearance on Bloomberg Television. That has two major implications for the U.S., said Scott Lincicome, an international trade attorney and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington. Economically, it excludes the U.S. from the Pacific supply chain, he said, meaning that U.S. competitors in Asia will enjoy the benefits of a system in which the component parts of different products can move freely and efficiently between parties. Related: Why Trump May Leave the Federal Reserve Alone for Now Legally, strategically and geopolitically its perhaps even a bigger deal, Lincicome said. The TPP was seen as the launching point for 21st century commitments on all sorts of relatively new trade issues like e-commerce and genetically modified organisms. There were new provisions on labor, environmental rules, new discipline on state owned enterprises. Well, by leaving the TPP and by TPP perhaps dying, U.S. leadership on those 21st century issues goes away, he added. The only people taking up the mantle are likely to be less free-market oriented than the United States. And at a time when China is proving increasingly aggressive, both economically and militarily, there are also serious questions about the effect the withdrawal might have on security policy. While the deal itself does not touch on issues like national defense, many senior defense figures see strengthened economic ties as a natural complement to military alliances. Last April, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said, In terms of our rebalance in the broadest sense, passing TPP is as important to me as another aircraft carrier ... It would deepen our alliances and partnerships abroad and underscore our lasting commitment to the Asia-Pacific ... And it would help us promote a global order that reflects both our interests and our values. Related: The Latest Republican Trick to Roll Back Obamas Rules Now, some worry, the U.S. has effectively ceded the territory to China, which has been pushing its own comprehensive trade deals in the region, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, which would include Russia. Theres more than a little irony in the fact that Trump is the person who delivered the coup de grace to TPP. Throughout his campaign, he railed against China for what he described as unfair trade practices and currency manipulation. But one of the key reasons why China was left out of the TPP was to put pressure on Beijing to bring its policies more in line with global standards. Now, with the deal effectively dead, the leverage over China disappears, and it becomes Beijing rather than Washington that wields the most influence over future deals. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: By Ami Miyazaki and Tom Westbrook TOKYO/SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Asia-Pacific trade deal stands almost no chance of working now that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has pulled the plug on it, proponents of the pact said on Tuesday, opening the way for China to assume the leadership mantle on trade. Japan and Australia expressed their commitment to the pact on Tuesday, hours after Trump vowed to withdraw from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership on his first day in office, calling the deal "a potential disaster for our country." Trump's declaration appeared to snuff out any hopes for the deal, a signature trade initiative of President Barack Obama, five years in the making and meant to cover 40 percent of the world economy. The TPP, which aims to cut trade barriers in some of Asia's fastest-growing economies and stretch from Canada to Vietnam, can't take effect without the United States. It requires the ratification of at least six countries accounting for 85 percent of the combined gross domestic product of the member nations. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said "the TPP would be meaningless without the United States," even as parliament continued debating ratification and his government vowed to lobby other members to approve it. Yet even without U.S. ratification, the TPP won't just die, a senior Japanese official said. "It just continues in a state of not being in effect," said Shinpei Sasaki of the Cabinet Office's TPP headquarters. "In the future if the United States takes the procedures and it passes Congress, that would satisfy the provisions and the TPP would go into effect." AMENDING AGREEMENT Other members of the 12-nation grouping could conceivably work around a U.S. withdrawal. Australian Trade Minister Steven Ciobo told reporters in Canberra countries could push ahead with the TPP without the United States by amending the agreement and possibly adding new members. "We could look at, for example, if China or Indonesia or another country wanted to join, saying, 'Yes, we open the door for them signing up to the agreement as well.'" Story continues But Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said reopening negotiations wouldn't be easy. "If you sign a fresh agreement, you have to go through it again. We haven't crossed that bridge yet. We'll cross it if and when we come to that." CHINA'S RIVAL PACT China has pushed its own version of an Asia-Pacific trade pact, called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which notably excludes the United States. It is a more traditional trade agreement, involving cutting tariffs rather than opening up economies and setting labour and environmental standards as TPP would. The RCEP was a focus of attention at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru over the weekend. Tan Jian, a senior member of China's delegation at the summit, said more countries are now seeking to join its 16-member bloc, including Peru and Chile, and current members want to reach a deal as soon as possible to counter rising protectionism. Chinas foreign ministry said on Tuesday Beijing has an open attitude towards any arrangements that promote free trade in the region as long they dont become fragmented and politicized. Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the RCEP was an initiative led by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which China has been promoting. We are willing to keep pushing the (RCEP) talks process with all sides to achieve positive progress at an early date, he said. Vietnam last week shelved its own ratification of TPP, after Obama abandoned efforts to push it through a lame-duck Congress, while Malaysia has shifted its attention to the RCEP. (Reporting by Ami Miyazaki and Elaine Lies in Tokyo, Kiyoshi Takenaka in Buenos Aires, Tom Westbrook in Sydney, Marius Zaharia in Singapore and Elias Glenn in Beijing.; Writing by William Mallard. Editing by Bill Tarrant.) By Yuka Obayashi and Elaine Lies TOKYO (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake rocked northern Japan early on Tuesday, briefly disrupting cooling functions at a nuclear plant and generating a small tsunami that hit the same Fukushima region devastated by a 2011 quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. The magnitude 7.4 earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, sent thousands of residents fleeing for higher ground as dawn broke along the northeastern coast. There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries hours after the quake hit at 5:59 a.m. (2059 GMT Monday). It was centered off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 kilometers (6 miles), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. A wave of up to 1.4 meters (4.5 ft) high was recorded at Sendai, about 70 km (45 miles) north of Fukushima, with smaller waves hitting ports elsewhere along the coast, public broadcaster NHK said. Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from harbors as tsunami warnings wailed after alerts of waves of up to 3 meters (10 feet) were issued. "We saw high waves but nothing that went over the tidal barriers," a man in the city of Iwaki told NTV television network. Aerial footage showed tsunami waves flowing up rivers in some areas, and some fishing boats were overturned in the port of Higashi-Matsushima before the JMA lifted its warnings. The U.S. Geological Survey measured Tuesday's quake at magnitude 6.9, down from an initial 7.3. All Japan's nuclear power plants in the area have been shut down in the wake of the March 2011 disaster, which knocked out cooling systems at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing reactors to melt down and spew radiation into the air, soil and sea. The cooling system for a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at the reactor at its Fukushima Daini Plant was initially halted on Tuesday, said a spokeswoman for Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, but was restarted soon after. Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest. Nuclear plants need cooling systems operating even when in shutdown to keep spent fuel cool. Tohoku Electric Power Co said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported there were no irregularities at the Tokai Daini nuclear plant in Ibaraki prefecture. COAST EVACUATED Japanese Minister for Disaster Management Jun Matsumoto told reporters there had been no reports of significant injuries. One woman suffered cuts to her head from falling dishes, Kyodo reported, citing fire department officials. Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater. The March 11, 2011, quake was magnitude 9, the strongest quake ever recorded in Japan. The massive tsunami it generated knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier. Systems have been updated since the 2011 disaster to spread warnings more quickly, said Tsunetaka Omine, head of the Disaster Management Division in Iwaki, a city in Fukushima prefecture. Previously, there were complicated directions on where to evacuate. "But now, we basically just tell people to head away from the sea, to the highest possible ground," Omine said. Authorities now also send tsunami warnings to every mobile phone in the area and broadcast on local radio. Staying in a traditional Japanese inn on the coast in the city of Ofunato with a dozen international high school students on a study tour, teacher Kathy Krauth said the shaking began just seconds after a quake alarm on her phone went off. I felt like the lessons of 3-11 were really taken to heart," said Krauth, who teaches a class on the March 2011 disaster and its aftermath. The feeling was, we just dont know, but were going to be as cautious as we can. Nissan Motor Co said it would suspend work at its engine factory in Fukushima at least until the latest tsunami warning was lifted. A spokesman said there were no injuries or damage at the plant, which was badly damaged in the 2011 disaster. Toyota Motor Corp said all its factories in northeastern Japan were operating as usual. Japan's famous Shinkansen bullet trains were halted along one stretch of track and some other train lines were also stopped. Japanese financial markets were little affected, with the Nikkei 225 index closing up 0.3 percent and the yen steady against the U.S. dollar. (Additional reporting by Chris Gallagher, Jon Herskovitz, Osamu Tsukimori, Aaron Sheldrick and William Mallard; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing Paul Tait) The Tupac Shakur biopic, All Eyez On Me, finally has a release date. After announcing last week that the movie wouldnt be hitting theaters on Nov. 11 as rumored, producer L.T. Hutton told fans at a recent event that the film will be released next year on the slain rappers birthday. Tupac died at the age of 25 in 1996. In an Instagram video posted by the Shade Room on Monday, Hutton told a crowd of people that All Eyez On Me will be in theaters on June 16. Actor Dominic Santana, who will play Suge Knight in the film, also confirmed the release date and explained to fans why it was taking so long for the movie to drop. Get ready its coming. And please no whining about the date. Its Pacs b day. Were all anxious for it to come out but people gotta remember its a major film and theres a lot of process to releasing major films, he said in a post Monday. Because it was Tupac a lot of buzz was created word of mouth even while we were filming which usually doesnt happen until a movie is about to come out. This was no regular movie so youve been hearing about it since we started. According to Santana, the movie isnt behind schedule. So relax and look for the formal announcement soon and actual promotion to start coming out, he concluded. In April, Demetrius Shipp Jr. revealed that they had wrapped production on the movie. Shipp Jr. will play Tupac in All Eyez On Me. Taking to Instagram his last day on set, the upcoming star thanked everyone for their support. Still cant believe what my life has become and is becoming, he wrote. Not too long ago it was just struggle, stress and trying to figure it all out. Now I just wrapped up a feature film and Im the star, and not just any movie, the life of Tupac, CRAZY. This month, filmmaker John Singleton lashed out at the film, bashing it during ComplexCon. Singleton was initially going to direct the movie, but announced his departure last year, writing on Instagram that the people involved didnt really respect the rappers legacy. Story continues According to BET, Singleton said during the panel that he wont be watching All Eyez On Me when its released because hes knows its not going to be good. They want to make the Tupac story that involves them and not the Tupac story, he said. I did a great script and I thought they were going to go forward with it, but because Im so mouthy and opinionated, some people dont like to work with a Black man in Hollywood who has an opinion. I knew they werent going to make a good movie at all and they didnt. All Eyez On Me will be released June 16, 2017. All Eyez On Me biopic release date Photo: Reuters Related Articles (ANKARA) Following a public outcry, Turkeys government has withdrawn a proposal that critics feared would legitimize the practice of men marrying underage girls. The proposal, which was scheduled to undergo a final vote on Tuesday, would have deferred sentencing or punishment for sexual assault in cases where there was no physical force and where the victim and perpetrator were married. The government said it would now submit the proposal for review to a parliamentary committee. The age of consent in Turkey is 18, although courts permit civil marriages for people as young as 16. Many younger people are married in Islamic ceremonies. The government has argued of the need to redress unfair treatment of families where fathers were placed in jail for marrying girls under the age of 18 even if both parties and their parents consented. Opponents argued that the bill amounted to a pardon for statutory rape if the perpetrator was married to his victim and would disrupt efforts to prevent child marriages and sexual assault on children. They maintained that it would, for example legitimize the practice of men taking brides as young as 13 or 14. Hours before the vote, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters the government was pulling back the proposal from the floor and would ask an all-party commission on family affairs to review it. His comments came after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the state-run Anadolu Agency late on Monday that a broad consensus on the issue should be sought. Due to a lack of full public consensus, our presidents call for a broad consensus and to allow opposition parties to develop their own proposals, we are taking this proposal which is in parliament to the commission, Yildirim said. This problem will certainly be solved after being discussed in detail, with all parties views being taken into account. Opposition parties, rights groups and citizens had widely condemned the proposal, issuing statements and staging demonstrations across multiple cities nationwide. Story continues United Nations agencies, including the childrens fund UNICEF, issued a joint statement on Monday warning that the proposal would weaken the countrys ability to combat sexual abuse and child marriages. The government had insisted it was committed to fighting child marriages but said the one-time measure was needed to help some 3,800 families where underage marriages had occurred according to customs. We cannot ignore this (problem), Yildirim said. There are 3,800 cases and thousands of children. The children are paying the price of their parents mistakes. Istanbul (AFP) - Turkey on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for the leader of the main Syrian Kurdish political party over a deadly bombing in Ankara in February blamed on Kurdish militants. Arrest warrants were issued for the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) leader Salih Muslim as well as several fugitive leaders of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) over the February 17 bombing against military vehicles, the state-run Anadolu news agency said. Turkey had blamed the PYD and its military wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), for the attack which left at least 28 people dead and was followed by another devastating bombing in the capital in March. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) -- a radical splinter group of the better-known PKK -- claimed the suicide bombing, saying that it was in response to security operations in the southeast. But Anadolu said that Ankara prosecutors believe that the order for the attack came from the PKK's "highest leadership" and the TAK was merely a "front group" for the organisation. In his first reaction to the warrant, Muslim wrote on his official Twitter account that he did not take the order seriously. "It's known that Turkey is being ruled by decrees and a fabricated decree has been issued concerning me. I don't think anyone will take it seriously," he wrote in Turkish. He later told AFP in Beirut: "I am not a Turkish citizen to be targeted by an arrest warrant." The warrant for Muslim came after Turkey earlier this month arrested 10 MPs from Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party on charges of links to the PKK, sparking international condemnation. "The courts in Turkey take their orders from the authorities. Even members of parliament are being held," Muslim said, referring to the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmakers. Reacting to the Turkish accusations, he said: "We condemned that attack when it took place and I consider this attempt to involve me in it as completely unacceptable." Story continues - 'Emptied of YPG' - Turkey considers the YPG and the PYD to be terror groups, accusing them of seeking to carve out an autonomous Kurdish region in northern Syria and working with President Bashar al-Assad. But while the United States sees the PKK as a terror group, it works closely with the YPG as its main ally on the ground in the fight against jihadists in northern Syria. The dispute over the YPG and PYD has raised tensions between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Washington, with Turkey also firing on YPG positions in northern Syria. Erdogan reaffirmed in a speech Tuesday that Ankara-backed Syrian rebels planned to advance towards the key town of Manbij to expel remaining YPG and PYD elements. "We want to see that area fully emptied of YPG and PYD." Arrest warrants were also issued for fugitive PKK leaders Cemil Bayik, Murat Karayilan and Fehman Huseyin over the bombing, Anadolu said. All three are believed to be at the group's paramilitary rear bases in mountainous northern Iraq. Muslim is believed to travel frequently including numerous trips to Brussels. His last visit to Turkey according to Turkish media reports dates back to 2015. In the early days of Syria's civil war, Muslim was a relatively regular visitor to Ankara which saw him as a possible ally. Turkey now accuses him of backing its enemy Assad, accusations the PYD denies. - 'Impossible' - In comments to AFP in Stockholm earlier this month, Muslim said that reconciliation with Turkey was "impossible" so long as Erdogan was in power. He said his aim was to build a "democratic Syria... No other way. A democratic federal Syria." While the Turkish authorities have for some time made no secret of their enmity for Muslim, this is the first time Ankara has issued an arrest warrant for him. The arrest warrants also target two Kurdish figures residing in Brussels, Zubeyir Aydar and Remzi Kartal, who are both prominent in the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) which Ankara sees as a branch of the PKK. Both were arrested by Belgian authorities in March 2010, in a move that pleased Turkey, but were later released. Erdogan has lashed out in recent weeks against EU states -- especially Belgium and Germany -- who he has accused of failing to hand over hundreds of wanted militants. By Ece Toksabay ANKARA (Reuters) - The trial of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen and 72 other people accused of trying to overthrow Turkey's government began on Tuesday, with the case likely to be expanded to include charges related to an abortive coup in July. Gulen lives in self-imposed exile in the United States and has so far not been extradited to Turkey. He is among those charged with fraud, political and military espionage, as well as the formation and management of a terrorist organization. Journalists and prominent businessmen were also named in the indictment. The seven jailed defendants appeared before the court on Tuesday, as several of the more senior defendants are believed to have fled abroad after the July 15 coup attempt. Some are not jailed pending trial and may show up at future hearings. The cleric has repeatedly denied accusations that he instructed followers to infiltrate Turkey's police, judiciary and armed forces in order to seize control of the state. He has also denied involvement in the coup and condemned it. The case in the Ankara Fourth High Criminal Court stems from an investigation initiated before the failed coup and therefore does not include charges related to it. However, both state media and lawyers at the courtroom said the hearing would later be broadened to include such charges and more defendants. More than 240 people died when a group of rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, helicopters and fighter jets on July 15 in attempt to attack parliament and topple the government. Turkish authorities on Tuesday dismissed 15,000 more officials, from soldiers and police officers to tax inspectors and midwives, and shut 375 institutions and news outlets alleged to have backed the coup. The widening purge has been condemned by Western allies and human rights groups. [nL8N1DN0E6] Plaintiffs included lawyers and family members of prominent author and professor Necip Hablemitoglu, who was killed in 2002 before he could complete a book about Gulen's network. Also present were lawyers for Ali Tatar, a colonel who committed suicide in 2009 after being targeted by an investigation into the military that prosecutors now say was concocted by Gulen's followers in the army in an effort to consolidate their power. Gulen's lawyer, who was appointed by the Turkish bar association, has withdrawn from case, citing public pressure and the fact that Gulen is still in the United States, where he has lived since 1999. Ankara has repeatedly called on Washington to hand Gulen over. The United States has said that extraditions are subject to the judicial process and therefore must meet with its standards of evidence. (Editing by David Dolan and Mark Heinrich) ... New Delhi: The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on Monday said it has signed an agreement with the IIT Kanpur, IIT(ISM) Dhanbad and NIT Rourkela for establishment of 'BIS Standardization Chair Professor' at these institutes. More In todays TV news roundup, ID announces another season of Barbara Walters Presents, Animal Planet premieres its newest series Ocean Warriors, Tony Hale hosts IFCs first holiday special and more. SPECIALS Tony Hale (Veep) will host IFCs first holiday special, the aptly named Joes Pub Presents: A Holiday Special, on Wednesday, Dec. 21 at 10 p.m. Filmed at Joes Pubs legendary Public Theater in Manhattan, comedians scheduled to perform include Bridget Everett (Inside Amy Schumer), Jo Firestone (Broad City), Jen Kirkman (Drunk History) and more. The special is produced by Show Shop, and directed and executive produced by Alex Coletti, alongside executive producer Frank Garritano. DATES Investigation Discovery will open its vaults to present another season of Barbara Walters Presents, premiering Tuesday, Dec. 6 at 9 p.m. Featuring brand new interviews and extended scenes, the three-episode series will run through Tuesday, Dec. 20. Barbara Walters Presents is produced for Investigation Discovery by Lincoln Square Productions with John R. Green serving as senior executive producer, alongside Peri Muldofsky and David Perozzi as executive producers. Animal Planet will premiere its newest series Ocean Warriors on Sunday, Dec. 4 at 9 p.m. From executive producers Robert Redford and Paul Allen, the six-part series features activists who will stop at nothing to protect the earths oceans. The series is a co-production between Animal Planet, Sundance Productions, Brick City TV and Vulcan Productions. TV Land has set the return of comedy series Teachers and the premiere of the late-night series Throwing Shade, both schedule to air Tuesday, Jan. 17 at 10 and 10:30 p.m., respectively. Written by improv group The Katydids, season two of Teachers marks the return of cast members Caitlin Barlow, Katy Colloton, Cate Freedman, Kate Lambert, Katie OBrien and Kathryn Renee Thomas. Throwing Shade, based on the hit Funny Or Die web series, is hosted by Erin Gibson (Parks and Recreation) and Bryan Safi (Modern Family) who will discuss todays hottest political topics, including gay rights and feminism. Story continues Related stories Robert Redford, Saoirse Ronan, Nick Hornby Movies Rack Up Sales for Rocket Science (EXCLUSIVE) Golden Globes Kick-Off Party Draws A-List Attendees Robert Redford Says He's Retiring From Acting Lost in Space has found a new cast member in Parker Posey. The actress has joined the cast of Netflixs reboot of the classic 1960s sci-fi series, our sister site Deadline reports. Posey will play Dr. Smith, the bumbling scientist played by Jonathan Harris in the original series. PHOTOSYour Guide to TVs 100+ Reboots and Revivals: Knight Rider, Dynasty, Greek, L.A. Law, Twin Peaks and More Toby Stephens (Black Sails) and Molly Parker (House of Cards) have already been cast in the lead roles of John and Maureen Robinson in the Netflix remake, which is currently scheduled for a 2018 debut. Ready for more of todays newsy nuggets? Well * Empire has added Nia Long as a recurring guest star on the current third season, per Deadline. Long, who just starred in ABCs short-lived Uncle Buck remake, will play Vegas club owner Giuliana, who butts heads with Cookie as she tries to secure a deal with Empire. RELATEDEmpire Recap: The Cold Light of Decolletage * The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons will executive-produce a royalty-themed comedy for Freeform, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The single-camera project centers on the fictional country of Andova, where the kings just-discovered illegitimate son snatches the keys to the kingdom away from the kings daughter. * Cartoon Networks hit franchise The Powerpuff Girls is headed to Hulu, the streaming service announced Tuesday. Episodes from both the original 1998 series and the current reboot will stream exclusively on Hulu, starting in 2017; a selection of classic Powerpuff Girls episodes are available to stream now. Related stories Ratings: Criminal Minds, Empire Rebound From Series Lows Empire Recap: The Cold Light of Decolletage Lifetime's Beaches Remake Gets Premiere Date -- See New Photos Nov 22 (Reuters) - The Department of Justice is investigating Seaboard Corp. about whether the food processing giant did business with people and a company on the U.S. government's designated-terrorist list, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. Seaboard, the Kansas-based firm known for its Butterball turkey brand in the United States, did not return Reuters' calls or emails seeking comment on the media report. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the agency does not confirm or deny whether a matter is under investigation. The newspaper's front-page story reported that, as part of a broad criminal probe, federal investigators are looking at whether Seaboard "tried to mask wheat-flour sales to firms linked to a Lebanese businessman and his family in the years after he and two brothers were put on the government's terror blacklist in 2009 and 2010." A Treasury Department memo from 2010 said Kassim Tajideen, his brothers and business partners had financial ties to Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim militant group based in Lebanon, according to the Journal's report. Seaboard, according to the Journal's story, denied the allegations. The newspaper also reported that Tajideen said he had never heard of Seaboard and he denied having any ties to "any terrorist group." "Penalties for companies working with anyone on the list range from fines to prison under laws intended to starve terror groups of cash to carry out attacks," according to the Journal story. (Reporting by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by Andrew Hay) By Saif Hameed and Stephanie Nebehay BAGHDAD/GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. forces backing an Iraqi army campaign against Islamic State in Mosul carried out an air strike on a bridge spanning the Tigris river, restricting militant movements between western and eastern parts of the city, a U.S. official said on Tuesday. U.S.-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service forces are pushing deeper into east Mosul, the last major city controlled by the Sunni hard-line group in Iraq, while army and police units, Shi'ite militias and Kurdish fighters surround it to the west, south and north. Militants have steadily retreated into Mosul from outlying areas. The army's early advances have slowed as militants dig in, using the more than 1 million civilians inside the city as a shield, moving through tunnels, and hitting troops with suicide bombers, snipers and mortar fire. Five bridges span the Tigris that runs through Mosul. They have all been mined and boobytrapped by militants who took over the city two years ago as they swept through northern Iraq and declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria. Despite planting the mines, Islamic State fighters have so far been able to continue using those bridges which have not yet been destroyed by air strikes. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said on Tuesday an air strike hit the number four bridge, the southernmost, in the past 48 hours. "This effort impedes Daesh's freedom of movement in Mosul. It inhibits their ability to resupply or reinforce their fighters throughout the city," he said using an Arabic acronym for the militant group. A month ago, a U.S. air strike destroyed the No. 2 bridge in the center of the city and two weeks later another strike took out the No. 5 bridge to the north. The United Nations' International Organisation for Migration expressed concern that the destruction of the bridges could obstruct the evacuation of civilians. "That is a concern of IOM because this is going to leave hundreds of thousands without a quick way out of the combat," spokesman Joel Millman told reporters in Geneva. COMMANDERS CAPTURED The battle for Mosul, launched five weeks ago, is turning into the largest military campaign in more than a decade of conflict in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi military estimates around 5,000 Islamic State fighters are in Mosul. A 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government forces, Kurdish fighters and Shi'ite paramilitary units is surrounding the city. Mosul's capture would be a major step towards dismantling the caliphate, and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to have withdrawn to a remote area near the Syrian border, has told his fighters to stay and fight to the end. Counter terrorism units and an army armored division are the only forces to have breached the city limits from the eastern side. Other army and federal police units have yet to enter the northern and the southern sides. A Kurdish security source said on Tuesday four Islamic State commanders were captured in a U.S. special operation near Baaj, a town close to the Syrian border. Baghdadi was not among them. The coalition did not confirm the operation. Islamic State said it launched an attack on the north-western front of Mosul, seizing a duty free zone and oil depots located a dozen kilometers from the city limits. The army did not confirm the claim. Iranian-backed militias have captured the Tal Afar air base, west of Mosul, part of their campaign to choke off the route between the Syrian and Iraqi parts of the caliphate Islamic State declared in 2014. The number of people displaced by the fighting in and around Mosul has slightly decreased, an indication that some people have began returning home in places retaken by government forces, according to the IOM. "68,112 displaced is actually a downtick from couple of days ago," said Millman. It's "worth noting because it indicates that some people are already starting to return to safe areas in the region." The number of registered displaced people was over 68,500 on Monday. The figure does not include the thousands of people rounded up in villages around Mosul and forced to accompany Islamic State fighters to cover their retreat towards the city. An Iranian-backed Shi'ite group taking part in the offensive denied a Human Rights Watch report that it detained and beat 10 shepherds, including a boy, from a village near Mosul on November 3. Human Rights Watch on Tuesday said the League of the Righteous, or Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, also stole the village's entire flock of sheep. "These reports are completely wrong, they aim to stall the operation" against Islamic State, said Asa'ib's military spokesman Jawad al-Talabawi. The Iraqi government has not published an overall death toll for the offensive, whether among military or civilians. The warring sides claim to have killed thousands in enemy ranks. (Writing by Patrick Markey and Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Dominic Evans) By Elias Biryabarema KAMPALA (Reuters) - Oil firms including China's Sinopec have expressed an interest in developing Uganda's planned oil refinery and an investor for the project will be selected by February 2017, a top government official said on Tuesday. The East African country, which discovered oil fields in 2006 but has yet to start production, began trying to secure a private investor for the project nearly two years ago, but a previous tendering process collapsed earlier this year. Energy and Mineral Development Minister Irene Muloni told an oil conference in Kampala that some new firms had expressed interest in the project and that fresh talks were underway. "There are a number of companies that have expressed interest in joining us in the development of this refinery," Muloni said, adding interested parties included China's China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec). "We hope by February next year we should have identified a lead investor," she said. Ugandan oil fields were found in the Albertine Rift Basin along its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, but wrangling over taxes and the viability of the refinery have been blamed for delaying production, which is now projected for 2020. Uganda said it was negotiating with Russia's RT Global Resources on a final agreement in 2015, but the talks broke down this year. Subsequent negotiations with a consortium led by South Korea's SK Engineering [SKEC.UL] also collapsed. [nL8N1D240H] Kampala estimates crude resources at 6.5 billion barrels, of which 1.4 to 1.7 billion barrels is considered recoverable. This year, Uganda agreed with Tanzania to develop a pipeline to help export its crude, snubbing Kenya which wanted to host the export route via its newly-discovered oil fields. Muloni said France's Total, one of the three explorers operating in the country alongside China's Cnooc and Britain's Tullow Oil, had indicated it would take up a 10 percent stake in the refinery project. Kenya and Tanzania have also committed to taking up stakes of 2.5 percent and 8 percent respectively, Muloni said. (Editing by Edmund Blair and Alexander Smith) KAMPALA, Nov 22 (Reuters) - The Ugandan shilling was broadly stable on Tuesday but steady appetite for dollars from commercial banks was expected to put pressure on the currency. At 1140 GMT, commercial banks quoted the shilling at 3,605/3,615, little-changed from Monday's close of 3,603/3,613. UGX Spot Rate..... Ugandan Shilling Money Guide.... Calculated Cross Rates.......... Deposits..................... Deposits & Forwards............. Uganda Equities Guide....... Uganda All Share Index........ Shilling background ..... Ugandan Debt Guide............ All Uganda Bonds............. Uganda T-Bills.............. Uganda Benchmark............. Central Bank ................ Ugandan Contributor Index.... Uganda Coffee Prices....... (Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Edmund Blair) By Huw Jones and Carolyn Cohn LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. insurer AIG may move its European headquarters from London to another European Union country because of Britain's vote to leave the EU, the head of the AIG's European and UK operations said at an industry conference on Tuesday. AIG joins a growing list of finance industry companies that have said they may have to shift some operations to continental Europe to maintain links to customers after Brexit. Speaking at the same conference, trade minister Mark Garnier said the government was listening to the financial industry's concerns over Brexit. "We will aim to limit uncertainty surrounding business," Garnier said. "The government fully understands the implications of Brexit for the financial services industry," Garnier told insurance trade body ABI's annual conference. Banks, insurers and asset managers in Britain fear losing access to the EU's single market, and a damaging "cliff edge" effect of leaving the bloc if there are no transitional arrangements ahead of any new trading terms agreed with the EU. Anthony Baldwin, chief executive of AIG's European and UK arms, said the group might decide in the coming year to move its European head office from London to an EU country after Brexit, though it would still maintain a big London hub. AIG has around 2,500 staff in Britain. Baldwin told reporters on the sidelines of the conference he was looking at half a dozen locations, including Dublin, though the impact on staffing would not be material if the headquarters moved out of London. "At a certain point in time you have to pull the trigger in the absence of any clarity on where negotiations are going with the transition period," Baldwin told the conference. "We will always continue to have a big London hub but we might have a European headquarters elsewhere," he said. Baldwin said AIG has experience of moving operations after shifting its European head office from Paris to London five years ago. About a couple of hundred jobs were moved. "We know what it takes," Baldwin said, adding the process had taken around 18 months. The Lloyd's of London insurance market, underwriters Hiscox and Beazley , and motor insurer Admiral have also said they might shift operations from London to centers like Dublin. Huw Evans, director general of the ABI, said the insurance industry should not moan about the Brexit vote, but instead engage with politicians to find a way forward and minimize risks to the sector. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will start formal divorce talks with the EU by the end of March. "That timetable has not changed," Garnier said. (Reporting by Huw Jones, editing by Carolyn Cohn and Jane Merriman) A top Ukrainian official said Saturday that less U.S. support to the country could result in further destabilization of the region, which could trigger worse consequences for other parts of the world. Ukraine is in the midst of fighting back Russian aggression since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014. This equilibrium, if it is ruined, then it could actually lead to drastic consequences in other parts of the world, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine, told Defense News at the Halifax International Security Forum. She added that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994 and was assured by the U.S., major European powers and China of protection if Ukraines sovereignty or independence came under threat. If Ukraine is not protected, if we are not continuing, for example, non-recognition policy of illegal annexation of Crimea, if we are ruining this, just one single part of it, how do you ensure the non-proliferation regime working further? Klympush-Tsintsadze asked. President-elect Donald Trump has expressed his desire to improve U.S. ties with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin called to congratulate Trump on his victory earlier this month and both leaders agreed to begin new dialogue based on equality, mutual respect and non-interference in the others internal affairs. Wouldnt it be a wonderful thing, Trump said in August, if we actually got along with Russia and worked out some kind of deal where we go and knock the hell out of ISIS [Islamic State group] along with NATO and along with the countries that are in that area? Putin and Obama Photo: SPUTNIK/KREMLIN/ALEXEI DRUZHININ/VIA REUTERS Klympush-Tsintsadze added that the Baltic States agree that stability in Ukraine is crucial and right now are also raising their voices because they understand if the West gives up on unity and support to Ukraine and its struggle to defend itself from Russian attack, then Baltics are the most visibly vulnerable potential target for the Russian federation and we share this concern. Story continues She added that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had also called to congratulate Trump and invited him to visit the country. President Barack Obama hasnt visited the country in his eight years as commander-in-chief. In the event that Trump pulls back support for Ukraine, Klympush-Tsintsadze said: First and foremost, we are counting on ourselves, so its not that we are sitting there and waiting for someone to help, that is very important to understand. It is the Ukrainian Army that is holding the Russian aggression right now without foreign boots on the surface, on the ground. Obama urged Putin to honor Moscows commitments on Ukraines sovereignty when the two met briefly on the sidelines of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru, on Sunday. Obama asked Putin to stick to the Minsk agreements to stop the fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine where Russia has allegedly supported dissident groups by supplying arms and military advice. Related Articles EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Engineering support services company Babcock International (BAB.L) posted a 7 percent rise in first-half operating profit and said a strong pipeline and growing international interest underpinned its confidence for the full year. Babcock, whose main source of revenue is the Ministry of Defence, said it had seen little direct impact from Britain's vote to leave the European Union, with underlying operating profit up 7 percent to 269.7 million pounds ($336 million). "Whilst the environment under which we operate has been subject to some change during the period, most notably the UK's referendum vote in favour of leaving the European Union, the fundamentals of our business are unchanged," it said. First-half revenue on an underlying basis rose 6 percent to 2.49 billion pounds and the company said it expected its full-year results to be in line with forecasts despite "slightly lower organic growth". Babcock said it was too early to predict the long term impact of Brexit on Britain's economy, but it said it had not seen a slowdown in its key markets. It saw opportunities for winning more work outside Britain, where customers were looking for cost-efficiencies in both civil and defence sectors. Babcock cited a recent French contract win and long-term opportunities in Australia and Canada as examples of growing interest in foreign markets. Overall growth expectations were also underpinned by orders of 20 billion pounds, the company said. Babcock provides a range of services to the UK Ministry of Defence with services such as training, support and maintenance of the submarine fleet, surface ship refit work and management of naval bases. ($1 = 0.8024 pounds) (Reporting by Elisabeth O'Leary; editing by Kate Holton) Amman (AFP) - The United Nations on Tuesday announced a resumption of aid to some 85,000 Syrian refugees stranded on Jordan's border with war-torn Syria in what Amman has declared a military zone. The kingdom closed the border on June 21, halting aid deliveries to a makeshift camp, after a bombing claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group killed seven Jordanian soldiers. Since then, the kingdom has allowed a single delivery of aid to the refugees, back in August. In October, Amnesty International said more than 70,000 Syrians were trapped in "hellish conditions" in a remote, arid strip of no-man's land on Syria's side of the desert frontier. "The resumption of assistance comes at the start of the coldest period of the year, when temperatures can drop dangerously low," a UN statement said on Tuesday. It said the aid would include food, hygiene kits, winter clothing, blankets and plastic sheeting. Jordan's government said early last month that it would allow a resumption of aid in coming weeks. The United Nations says there are more than 600,000 refugees from Syria in Jordan, a figure Amman puts at 1.4 million. In August, King Abdullah II said his country was "doing its utmost to help refugees" from Syria. "However, we have reached our limits... This is an international crisis and an international responsibility, and the world has to do its part," he said. Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Monday called weekend attacks by Syrian and Russian forces on Aleppo horrifying and singled out specific commanders, shaming them for their participation. Syria rejected a U.N. truce proposal during the weekend that would have declared parts of eastern Aleppo under rebel control autonomous zones. Instead, Power said 180 airstrikes were conducted Saturday. Powers comments came just one day after President Barack Obama confronted Russian President Vladimir Putin on the issue at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru. The U.N.s emergency relief coordinator estimated 1 million Syrians are living under siege, the number having doubled in the past six months. Russian envoy Vladimir Safronkov pushed back, saying Moscow has assisted in humanitarian efforts and has been trying to push a political settlement, CNN reported. Syrias representative, Bashar Jaafari, said civilians had been allowed to flee the eastern Aleppo area and blamed rebels for forcing them to act as human shields. Horrifying video from eastern Aleppo affirms a shocking inhuman barrage on civilian neighborhoods, Power said in prepared remarks. samatha power Photo: Brendan McDermid/Reuters "The United States will not let those who have commanded units involved in these actions hide anonymously behind the facade of the Assad regime," she said, listing a number of generals by name as well as commanders at detention facilities where torture allegedly has been inflicted. "The United States will not forget the cases of the many Syrians who have suffered so much at the hands of individuals like these, and we will continue fighting to hold them accountable for their hateful crimes," she said. Syrian forces ended a three-week lull in attacks last Tuesday. By Saturday, the death toll had reached at least 289, the Syrian Civil Defense Force reported. Bombing continued Monday, killing at least 27 and injuring 120, the group said, adding a suspected chemical attack had killed four children and their parents. Story continues gas attack Photo: Reuters The United States also condemned shelling by opposition forces, but Power focused on the Assad regime and Russia. But, I ask, will Russia condemn even a single airstrike by the Assad regime here in this chamber today or any day? Power asked Will Russia ever condemn its ally Bashar Assad here at the [Security] Council for a single one of these attacks? Power said Russia and the Syrian government are conducting indiscriminate bombing across Syria and blocking humanitarian aid. Related Articles Baghdad (AFP) - The US-led coalition said it carried out an air strike Tuesday that destroyed a bridge over the Tigris river in central Mosul to stop jihadists from rotating their forces in the Iraqi city The strike leaves Mosul's oldest bridge, which was British-built, as the only one still standing out of five in the centre of the city, according to residents. "The reason for that is Daesh (IS) were using those as their lines of communications to re-supply their forces on the eastern side of the city and reinforce their forces, essentially rotating their forces," a coalition spokesman said. "So were not going to let that happen," Colonel John Dorrian told AFP. The fighting inside the city so far has focused on eastern neighbourhoods, which elite counter-terrorism and army forces entered earlier this month. The Islamic State group has offered fierce resistance to defend its last remaining bastion in Iraq, the city where its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a caliphate in June 2014. The eastern bank of the Tigris was expected to offer less resistance when tens of thousands of Iraqi forces launched a huge offensive on Mosul on October 17. Most of the jihadists' traditional bastions are on the western side of Mosul, as is the old city whose narrow streets will be hard to penetrate for the government forces' armoured vehicles. Washington (AFP) - The United States on Tuesday named a French veteran of the Foreign Legion as a suspect in the planning of bloody attacks in Paris and Brussels. The US State Department added Abdelilah Himich, also known as Abu Suleiman Al-Faransi, to its list of "specially designated global terrorists." The designation said he founded 300-strong Islamic State "European foreign terrorist fighter cell" and reportedly helped plan the deadly attacks. US and French officials describe Himich as 27 or 28 years old and as a Moroccan-born French citizen who served six months in the French Foreign Legion. In November last year, Islamists attacked the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, sprayed cafes with bullets and set off bombs outside a soccer match. In all 130 people died, and hundreds more were hurt. Then in March, suicide bombers attacked Brussels airport and a metro station, killing 32 more. According to the State Department, Himich helped plan these attacks, as well as providing fighters for Islamic State operations in Iraq and Syria. The designation also blacklisted Abdullah Ahmed al-Meshedani, who allegedly houses fighters, answering to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It also named Basil Hassan, who is accused of shooting and wounding Lars Hedegaard. a 70-year-old Danish historian, in February 2013. Asuncion (AFP) - Venezuela will be suspended from South American trade bloc Mercosur at the beginning of next month, a top official said Monday. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government has not adopted 112 resolutions as Venezuelan law, routine procedure for members, leading to its sidelining beginning December 1, Paraguay's Foreign Minister Eladio Loizaga said. Venezuela has said it cannot adopt the text because it conflicts with its domestic laws. "If you join an international agreement and something conflicts with local law, you indicate reservations," and Caracas has not, Loizaga said. Mercosur countries had given Venezuela a three-month period to get up to date on putting the bloc's measures into effect. Although Venezuela joined Mercosur in 2012, it has yet to ratify a large number of rules governing trade, politics, democracy and human rights. Venezuela's neighbors are becoming increasingly wary of developments in the once-booming economy. Maduro's opponents blame him for an economic meltdown marked by food shortages, riots and looting in the oil-rich country which is facing its third year of deep recession, hit hard by the plunge in global crude prices since mid-2014. The crisis comes at a delicate moment for Mercosur, which has relaunched free-trade negotiations with the European Union. Tensions between Maduro's government and its Mercosur partners were exacerbated with the election of Mauricio Macri as president of Argentina in 2015 and the replacement of Brazil's ousted former president Dilma Rousseff with Michel Temer. Both right-leaning leaders replaced leftist presidents. By Corina Pons CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday ordered state oil company PDVSA to look into legal action against JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) after the U.S. investment bank reported delays in $404 million in bond interest payments. PDVSA said on Monday it was using a 30-day grace period for coupon payments on its 2035 bond but that reports of other payment delays were wrong. It suggested paying agent Citibank was creating a backlog that had spooked markets. "JPMorgan's attitude is of a criminal nature," Maduro said during a salsa music programme he broadcasts from the presidential palace. He said local and foreign opponents were conspiring to give a false impression that Venezuela is on the verge of a debt default. Maduro accused JPMorgan of falsely reporting that PDVSA was in default. In fact, the report in question said payments on three bonds were not made on time and that the company had a "30-day grace period to make payments on the coupons before (the situation) becomes an event of default." Maduro said he had asked PDVSA head Eulogio Del Pino to study legal options. "The least JPMorgan can do is apologise to the Venezuelan people," Maduro said. Maduro also said the U.S. Treasury Department was behind a campaign against PDVSA. JPMorgan, Citibank and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. PDVSA said it had "punctually" paid this month's obligations for 2021, 2024 and 2026 paper but had activated the grace period for the 2035 bond. For years, investors have been concerned that PDVSA might ultimately be unable to meet its hefty debt obligations during a severe recession at home and a fall in oil prices. "I'd tell the bondholders to call Citibank and ask why they are delaying payment of money that is already in their accounts," Del Pino said on state television late on Monday night. Del Pino suggested Citibank was participating in "attacks" on Venezuela's socialist government and implied that it had reneged on its contract, but later said the bank confirmed it was making payments. Story continues The Citigroup Inc (C.N) unit told bondholders in a letter in July that PDVSA would need to name a new paying agent for seven outstanding dollar-denominated bonds. Citigroup will stay on as paying agent until PDVSA finds a new one, said the letter, which Reuters saw. (Reporting by Eyanir Chinea; Writing by Girish Gupta and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Alexandra Ulmer and Lisa Von Ahn) Photo credit: Instagram From Harper's BAZAAR Fashion isn't shy when it comes to the subject of weed. From Alexander Wang's cannabis-inspired Fall 2016 collection to marijuana leaf fine jewelry by Jacquie Aiche, brands have bringing the drug to the runway for years now. So it only makes sense that Vetements is getting in on the action now, too. The street style-favorite brand is selling weed grinder necklaces, available in both gold and silver. The Vetements-engraved piece, which is currently available at The Webster, will set you back a whopping $750, though. The new accessory comes shortly after marijuana legalization passed in California, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Maine-just in time to celebrate (if you're willing to throw down $750, that is). Ah, fashun. You Might Also Like An exciting feature of the annual Amsterdam Art Festival, RijksakademieOPEN (November 24-27) is an opportunity for the general public to visit the Dutch art school and see work by all of the resident artists. Rijksakademie art school Founded in 1870, the Rijksakademie -- aka "The School of Allebe" -- is known as the birthplace of Amsterdam's Impressionist scene. The school has maintained its reputation for cultivating forward-thinking artists, with past students including Karel Appel, Floris Arntzenius, Piet Mondrian and George Hendrik Breitner. 45 resident artists Every year, the Rijksakademie provides 2-year residencies to around 50 contemporary artists from around the world, who receive their own studio, production budget and stipend to cover living expenses. During the residency, the school imposes no program or preferred style, but instead offers their residents "time, people and possibilities." During the RijksakademieOPEN, visitors will be able to tour the studios of each of this year's 45 resident artists, who will present their spaces, new work and experimentations, providing insight into future trends and evolutions in visual art. As with previous years, 2016's residents come from around the world, from Moroccan Hamza Halloubi and South Korean Noah Ryu to Peruvian Martinez Garay and home-grown Eva Spierenburg. Amsterdam Art Festival 2016 One of the Dutch city's most important art events of the year, the annual festival features around 100 events (exhibitions, performances, film screenings, lectures and tours) taking place at over 50 art and cultural institutes around the city. The Amsterdam Art Festival 2016 and RijksakademieOPEN will be held from November 24 through 27. For more information: http://weekend.amsterdamart.com/ By Andreas Cremer WOLFSBURG, Germany (Reuters) - Volkswagen said on Tuesday it would drop diesel vehicles in the United States and refocus on sport utility and electric vehicles, as the automaker looks to reboot strategy for its core brand in the Americas in the wake of a damaging diesel emissions cheating scandal. The move, announced by VW brand chief Herbert Diess, breaks with earlier suggestions it could return to the once-popular technology after the emissions scandal fades from memory. The decision to drop diesel vehicles - which formerly made up a quarter of the brand's U.S. sales - is just one element of a strategic overhaul that Diess conceded could take a decade to close the gap with rivals in the United States. Volkswagen has agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines and compensation payouts to U.S. customers since admitting last year to cheating on federal diesel emissions tests. "For years we have been lacking a blueprint for success in the United States, while we are losing ground to rivals in markets like Brazil or India," said Diess, a former BMW executive who joined VW in July 2015. VW had missed "the SUV boom," he said. The brand now plans to have 19 SUV models globally by 2020, up from just 2 now, and including some electric ones. It aims to sell 1 million electric vehicles a year by 2025. "At the moment we assume that we will offer no new diesel vehicles in the U.S," Diess told European business daily Handelsblatt. Volkswagen showcased its Atlas SUV, built expressly for the U.S. market, at the Los Angeles Auto Show last week. Diess said success in the Americas was vital to reviving the core Volkswagen brand that accounted for 59 percent of the German group's auto sales in 2015 but only 16 percent of group underlying operating profit. The CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, Hinrich Woebcken, told reporters last week in Los Angeles that Volkswagen wants to shift from being a "niche" player into a "family-oriented SUV company." Entry into the lucrative SUV segment will help VW reach 60 to 70 percent of the U.S. market, up from an earlier 40 percent, he said. "We not only want to be profitable in Europe and China but are determined to generate positive results in all major markets by 2020," Diess told reporters. Volkswagen last week announced a cost-cutting deal with labor unions that will allow it to axe 30,000 jobs at the VW brand by 2020. On Tuesday, Diess set out a recovery strategy to 2025 and beyond, spanning a wide range of initiatives including SUVs, electric cars, digital services and plans to launch a budget car in China and India by about 2019-2020. The long-term goal, he said, was to lift the VW brand's operating profit margin to 6 percent by 2025, compared with just 2 percent forecast for this year. That would still lag some rivals such as PSA Peugeot Citroen , which is aiming to hit 6 percent in 2021. "Its good and necessary that VW is tackling those issues, but it will be a long road," said M.M. Warburg analyst Marc-Rene Tonn, referring to plans to fix underperforming markets and lift margins. He has a "hold" rating on Volkswagen shares. Shares in Volkswagen, whose 12 brands range from upmarket Audi and Porsche to the cheaper SEAT and Skoda, rose 0.42 percent to close at 120.45 euros. The stock is still down around a quarter in value from before the emissions scandal. (Additional reporting by Alexandria Sage; Writing by Georgina Prodhan and Mark Potter; Editing by Maria Sheahan/Keith Weir/Bill Rigby) * Aims to triple VW brand margin to 6 pct by 2025 * Dropping diesel in the United States * To invest 4.5 billion euros a year * To focus on SUVs, electric cars; ditch weaker models (Updates with Diess diesel comment, LA Auto Show details) By Andreas Cremer WOLFSBURG, Germany, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Volkswagen said on Tuesday it would drop diesel vehicles in the United States and refocus on sport utility and electric vehicles, as the automaker looks to reboot strategy for its core brand in the Americas in the wake of a damaging diesel emissions cheating scandal. The move, announced by VW brand chief Herbert Diess, breaks with earlier suggestions it could return to the once-popular technology after the emissions scandal fades from memory. The decision to drop diesel vehicles - which formerly made up a quarter of the brand's U.S. sales - is just one element of a strategic overhaul that Diess conceded could take a decade to close the gap with rivals in the United States. Volkswagen has agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines and compensation payouts to U.S. customers since admitting last year to cheating on federal diesel emissions tests. "For years we have been lacking a blueprint for success in the United States, while we are losing ground to rivals in markets like Brazil or India," said Diess, a former BMW executive who joined VW in July 2015. VW had missed "the SUV boom," he said. The brand now plans to have 19 SUV models globally by 2020, up from just 2 now, and including some electric ones. It aims to sell 1 million electric vehicles a year by 2025. "At the moment we assume that we will offer no new diesel vehicles in the U.S," Diess told European business daily Handelsblatt. Volkswagen showcased its Atlas SUV, built expressly for the U.S. market, at the Los Angeles Auto Show last week. Diess said success in the Americas was vital to reviving the core Volkswagen brand that accounted for 59 percent of the German group's auto sales in 2015 but only 16 percent of group underlying operating profit. Story continues The CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, Hinrich Woebcken, told reporters last week in Los Angeles that Volkswagen wants to shift from being a "niche" player into a "family-oriented SUV company." Entry into the lucrative SUV segment will help VW reach 60 to 70 percent of the U.S. market, up from an earlier 40 percent, he said. "We not only want to be profitable in Europe and China but are determined to generate positive results in all major markets by 2020," Diess told reporters. Volkswagen last week announced a cost-cutting deal with labour unions that will allow it to axe 30,000 jobs at the VW brand by 2020. On Tuesday, Diess set out a recovery strategy to 2025 and beyond, spanning a wide range of initiatives including SUVs, electric cars, digital services and plans to launch a budget car in China and India by about 2019-2020. The long-term goal, he said, was to lift the VW brand's operating profit margin to 6 percent by 2025, compared with just 2 percent forecast for this year. That would still lag some rivals such as PSA Peugeot Citroen , which is aiming to hit 6 percent in 2021. "It's good and necessary that VW is tackling those issues, but it will be a long road," said M.M. Warburg analyst Marc-Rene Tonn, referring to plans to fix underperforming markets and lift margins. He has a "hold" rating on Volkswagen shares. Shares in Volkswagen, whose 12 brands range from upmarket Audi and Porsche to the cheaper SEAT and Skoda, rose 0.42 percent to close at 120.45 euros. The stock is still down around a quarter in value from before the emissions scandal. ($1 = 0.9403 euros) (Additional reporting by Alexandria Sage; Writing by Georgina Prodhan and Mark Potter; Editing by Maria Sheahan/Keith Weir/Bill Rigby) Warren Beattys list of ex-girlfriends reads like a whos who of Hollywood in the 60s, 70s and 80s. That all changed when the actor met Annette Bening on the set of the 1991 film Bugsy. However, Beatty was intrigued by Benning now his wife of 24 years before he even met her. In this weeks issue of PEOPLE, the 79-year-old actor reveals Bening canceled a meeting with him when she was being considered for a role in the 1990 film Dick Tracy. When they met for lunch in preparation for Bugsy, Beatty knew his life was going to change forever. I remember losing interest in the garlic chicken I was eating within 20 seconds. And the garlic chicken had been very good, he recalls. At that meeting, the screen legend promised Bening that he wouldnt hit on her while filming. However, that rule went out the door toward the end of shooting when he asked her out to dinner. Although there was a moment of hesitation on her part, the duo went out to eat and the rest is history. The couple married in 1992 and had four children Stephen, 24, Benjamin, 22, Isabel, 19, and Ella, 16. Thats the biggest thing thats ever happened to me and their mother, Beatty says of his kids. Thats bigger than fame, and it came not a moment too soon. For much more from Warren Beatty, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now Beatty recently told Vanity Fair that oldest child Stephen, a transgender activist and writer, is a revolutionary, a genius and my hero, as are all my children. He says now: Theyve always known I felt that way. Although hes one of the biggest movie stars of his day, Beattys fame doesnt mean much to his kids they havent even seen their parents iconic movies. Once in a while Ill say, Did you ever see such and such? And they havent, Beatty says. I said to my 19-year-old last year, Have you ever seen Shampoo? and she was like, Nooo. So theres my legacy for you. At least around here. Whats important to him isnt that his kids know his biggest roles, but that hes a great parent. When asked if he thinks hes a good father, he replies without hesitation, I know it. Reporting by CHRIS NASHAWATY rules don't apply 20th Century Fox Rules Dont Apply is Warren Beattys first film as a director since Bulworth in 1998 and his first film as an actor since Town & Country in 2001, two stats that suggest Beatty doesnt have that much interest in working these days. But Beatty has always been selective, as evidenced by a relatively thin filmography that has more undeniable classics that most actors with twice as many films to their name and a pretty good record as a director, too. It also means that the films that dont work tend to fall into the interesting misfire category, but even these often deserve a second look. (Ishtar became synonymous with failure in the 80s, but its a lot more entertaining than its reputation.) Not taking everything youre offered frees you up to make Bonnie and Clyde, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Parallax View, and Shampoo in a single decade when you do work. The long-gestating Rules Dont Apply, however, belongs on the interesting misfire pile. Born of Beattys long interest in making a film about Howard Hughes, its an odd mix of biopic and romantic comedy that moves at a race cars pace but doesnt quite know where it wants to go. Its never dull and or less-than-stylish, thanks in large part to cinematographer Caleb Deschanels masterful evocation of classic Hollywood style and the lush period production. Its one of those movies that feels like its world extends far beyond the boundaries of what we see on screen. A clearly personal work with some obvious connections to the Hollywood of Beattys youth and his long stint as the towns most high profile ladies man, its bubbly one moment and borderline tragic the next. The film struggles figuring out what its trying to say but it does so with a lot of craftsmanship and panache. Call it pleasantly unsatisfying. It also serves as a reminder of how deft and charming Beatty can be as an actor, and how skilled he is at using those traits to skirt expectations. His Hughes lives in a cloistered world filled with people so awed by him his reputation, his mystique, and his money they cant always see him clearly. Alden Ehrenreich (late of Hail, Caesar! and soon to play Han Solo), plays Frank Forbes, an aspiring entrepreneur who serves as part of Hughes fleet of drivers. Hes intent on getting Hughes to invest in a parcel of land, and so impressed by his employers reputation that it takes a while to see that his eccentricities have started to overwhelm his acumen. Similarly overwhelmed: Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), a small-town pageant winner who joins a coterie of aspiring starlets on Hughes payroll, preparing for a movie that Hughes apparently has no intention of ever making. She attends classes, keeps to a strict schedule, draws a good salary, and lives in a nice apartment overlooking the Hollywood Bowl, but its a luxurious limbo. Hughes drivers whisk her from place to place, including Frank, with whom she finds he has an easy rapport. But their budding romance faces impediments: Shes a strict Baptist. Hes an only slightly less strict Methodist. And, most imposing of all, Hughes forbids romantic relationships between his employees. Beatty has long talked about making a film about Hughes, and the film feels like the result of decades of thinking about the subject. Its filled with odd details, like Hughes fixation on a particular flavor of Baskin-Robbins ice cream, an obsession that sends those who work for him scrambling to secure it at all costs only then watch as their boss loses interest. The best scenes dig into Hughes odd behavior and attempt to understand it. Called into action in the middle of the night, Frank finds himself taking a long stroll with Hughes that suggests he hasnt entirely lost his ability to bond with others. But Hughes interactions with Marla suggest just the opposite: Summoning her to a hotel room he keeps for such occasions, he serves her a TV dinner and makes awkward conversation. For anyone else, it would be a disastrous encounter. But Beatty plays Hughes as a man not used to being judged like everyone else and Marla leaves more intrigued than disturbed. As a depiction of the way wealth and fame can distort reality, its often effective, particularly when Beatty lets notes of loneliness and despair creep into whats fundamentally a comic take on Hughes. Hes so deep in the bubble of the life hes carved out for himself that he doesnt realize how close hes come to losing it all. But its those same dark notes that keep the film from working as a romantic comedy. What kind of romance can develop when an unstable mans eccentric whims can undo it at any moment? Even when Beatty the filmmaker tries to keep the mood light, the darkness at the heart of his character keeps creeping in to upset it. Theres a truly memorable film about a man who doesnt understand he wields the power to destroy lives, and destruction created by that somewhere in the middle of Rules Dont Apply. Its just hard to see for the froth sometimes. Day One in the Trump White House is going to be busy and not just because the incoming presidents team might be frantically working to diffuse Joe Bidens pranks. On Monday evening, President-elect Donald Trump released a video outlining the executive orders hell hand down once hes ensconced in the Oval Office. Its a rare step for an incoming president to reveal his Day One itinerary so far ahead of his inauguration. But nothing on Trumps list comes as much of a surprise theyre all part of his long-touted campaign platform to make America great again and drain the swamp that is Washington. Heres what made the top of Trumps to-do list: Rescind TPP. Calling the Trans-Pacific Partnership a potential disaster for our country, Trump said in the video he would scuttle the TPP and replace it with a series of bilateral trade deals. Revamp the Fossil-Fuel Industry: The president-elect said he would cancel job-killing restrictions on the American energy industry including shale and clean coal to create many millions of high-paying jobs. Repealing regulations: Trump will institute a new rule that for every new regulation instituted, two old regulations must be repealed. An infrastructure focus for national security: He said hed instruct the Pentagon and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a comprehensive plan to protect U.S. infrastructure from cyber attacks and all other forms of attacks. Ramp up immigration scrutiny: Trump would ask the Department of Labor to investigate all visa issues that undercut the American worker. New ethics reform to drain the swamp: As part of his campaign pledge to drain the swamp (aka Washington), Trump pledged a five year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists once they leave government. He will also impose a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. These are just a few of the steps we will take to reform Washington and rebuild our middle class, Trump said at the end of the video. I will provide more updates in the coming days as we work together to make America great again for everyone and I mean everyone. Photo credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images By Rod Nickel WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Ranchers in western Canada whose herds are under quarantine due to the spread of bovine tuberculosis told federal legislators on Tuesday that they desperately need to sell cattle or receive compensation to avoid financial disaster. Ranchers who raise calves typically sell them in autumn to feed lots, where they are fattened to slaughter weight. But some ranchers are absorbing the cost of feeding calves longer due to quarantines by the Canadian government on 34 farms in southeast Alberta and two farms in southwest Saskatchewan. The federal Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has confirmed six cases of Alberta cattle with bovine TB, dating back to the September discovery of an infected cow at a U.S. slaughter plant. "The feed costs are going to destroy us," said rancher Ross White, speaking by video to Canada's agriculture committee meeting in Ottawa. "...I'll be broke by spring." Rancher Brad Osadczuk told legislators that the quarantine is costing him C$92,000 ($68,000) per month to feed 400 head of cattle, one-third of his herd. Canada's C$10.5 billion ($7.8 billion) cattle industry is centered in Alberta, the biggest cattle-raising province, and home of slaughter plants owned by JBS USA Holdings Inc and Cargill Ltd . An estimated 18,000 head of cattle are held in quarantine for testing, Rich Smith, executive director of Alberta Beef Producers, said in an interview. While the quarantines are causing "great hardship" for ranchers directly affected, it is unlikely to have a major impact on overall cattle supplies, he said. Exports of young cattle from Canada, the sixth-largest beef and veal exporter, to U.S. feed lots have dropped by more than one-third year to date, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A CFIA spokeswoman could not immediately comment on whether compensation is under consideration or if some quarantines may be lifted soon. The agency has said its testing, aimed at tracing the spread of TB, could take months. Bovine tuberculosis is a contagious disease caused by bacteria that are closely related to the bacteria that cause tuberculosis in humans and birds, resulting in illness, coughing and death, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). ($1 = 1.3464 Canadian dollars) (Adds minister's comment on compensation) By Rod Nickel WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Ranchers in western Canada whose herds are under quarantine due to the spread of bovine tuberculosis told federal legislators on Tuesday that they desperately need to sell cattle or collect compensation to avoid financial disaster. Ranchers who raise calves typically sell them in autumn to feedlots, where they are fattened to slaughter weight. But some ranchers are absorbing the cost of feeding calves longer due to quarantines by the Canadian government on 34 farms in southeast Alberta and two farms in southwest Saskatchewan. The federal Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has confirmed six cases of Alberta cattle with bovine TB, dating back to the September discovery of an infected cow at a U.S. slaughter plant. "The feed costs are going to destroy us," said rancher Ross White, speaking by video to Canada's agriculture committee meeting in Ottawa. "...I'll be broke by spring." Rancher Brad Osadczuk told legislators that the quarantine is costing him C$92,000 ($68,000) per month to feed 400 head of cattle, one-third of his herd. Canada's C$10.5 billion ($7.8 billion) cattle industry is centered in Alberta, the biggest cattle-raising province, and home of slaughter plants owned by JBS USA Holdings Inc and Cargill Ltd . Canadian Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay said the government pays compensation for animals that are destroyed, but there currently is no program to help farmers whose herds are under quarantine. "I've asked my department to look into that and try to rectify the situation," he told reporters. "Having been a farmer, I fully understand the cost that's involved." An estimated 18,000 head of cattle are held in quarantine for testing, Rich Smith, executive director of Alberta Beef Producers, said in an interview. While the quarantines are causing "great hardship" for ranchers directly affected, it is unlikely to have a major impact on overall cattle supplies, he said. Story continues Exports of young cattle from Canada, the sixth-largest beef and veal exporter, to U.S. feed lots have dropped by more than one-third year to date, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. CFIA has said its testing, aimed at tracing the spread of TB, could take months. Bovine tuberculosis is a contagious disease caused by bacteria that are closely related to the bacteria that cause tuberculosis in humans and birds, resulting in illness, coughing and death, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). ($1 = 1.3464 Canadian dollars) (Additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Dan Grebler) On day one of his White House administration, president-elect Donald Trump has vowed to withdraw the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement covering 12 countries. "Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores," Trump said. The president-elect has made no secret of his opposition to TPP, a flagship policy of the Obama administration, which was agreed in 2015 but has not yet been ratified. Last year Trump tweeted that the deal "must be stopped" to "protect the American worker". TPP does not stop Japans currency manipulation & China has a backdoor to join. It must be stopped. We need to protect the American worker! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2015 But what does the US' withdrawal from TPP mean for the world economy, and what are the implications for the other trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership? What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? The Trans-Pacific Partnership will create a free-trade zone with common labour and environmental standards, and measures to protect data and intellectual property of large companies. It was agreed after nearly a decade of international talks between Washington and its international partners and is the most significant free trade deal since the US signed the North America Free Trade Agreement in 1994. But it will still need ratification in all the parliaments of its major participants. There are 12 countries involved across the Pacific Rim: Japan, the US, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. The Pact was a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's strategic "pivot" towards Asia and his bid to reassert to US economic hegemony over China. Story continues The idea is that it will benefit the US and its Asian trading partners by leveling the playing field and eliminating unnecessary taxes. It could also lead to strong commitments on labour practices and the environment. The US' withdrawal from TPP could be the advantage of China, which may now be free to pursue its own deals in the region. What is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)? This is a deal being negotiated between the European Union and the United States. Deliberations over the deal have been going on for years, but the first official round of talks took place in 2013. It is hoped that whatever the agreement eventually looks like, it will result in increased trade and prosperity for those on both sides of the Atlantic. Lower barriers to trade should mean that more of it takes place, and the ensuing competition should result in better and cheaper goods and services, making all sides better off. But it's not just tariffs that the TTIP is meant to tackle. Politicians also want to get rid of non-tariff barriers, known as NTBs, which are rules that countries or regions, such as the EU, impose on goods, such as standards and sizes. TTIP is intended to bring about lower trade tariffs, and to reduce regulatory barriers that make trade between the US and the EU more costly than it need be. If approved by US and EU politicians, TTIP would be the biggest agreement of its kind. But the UK's decision to vote for Brexit, and the election of Trump, make TTIP's future decidedly uncertain, with many commentators now assuming that the agreement is dead in the water. Why doesn't Trump like these deals? Although Trumps policy statements have been, at best, contradictory, he has been consistent in his opposition to TPP. "There is no way to fix the TTP," the president-elect said in June. By extension, he is also deeply critical of TTIP and is widely expected to either ditch the deal or renegotiate the trade deal. Trump does not like the deals because he thinks they will hurt American workers and undercut US companies. His stance on trade is protectionist: he has vowed to shield Americans from the effects of globalised trade by slapping hefty tariffs on cheap Chinese imports of up to 45pc. He has even talked of getting ride of Nafta, the North American Free Trade Area, and questioned the US' relationship with the World Trade Organisation. He fears previously protected sectors in the US could be subject to liberalised rules that will disadvantage them. Many American states have buy American policies, and would put up a fight at the idea of TTIP overruling these. Trump also wants to appoint "tough and smart trade negotiators to fight on behalf of American workers". That said, in an interview with CNBC in August, Trump qualified his stance on global trade, saying: The fact that Im negotiating trade will mean that were going to make good trade deals. But we are absolutely going to keep trading. I am not an isolationist. And they probably think I am. Im not at all. Im a free trader. I want free trade, but its got to be fair trade. Its got to be good deals for the United States." FAQ | What is TTIP? NBC This Is Us (NBC, 9:00 p.m.) In the past, Jack and Rebecca take a detour while on their way to Rebeccas parents house for Thanksgiving. In the present, Kate is forced to make two drastic decisions; Kevin invited his new girlfriend to the familys Thanksgiving celebrations; and Randall learns a hurtful secret his mother kept from him. Dancing With the Stars (ABC, 9:00 p.m.) A winner for season 23 is announced, but only after a final competition round; performances by Vanilla Ice, Andy Grammer and Kenny Babyface Edmonds; and a preview of the Dancing With the Stars: Live! We Came to Dance tour. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox, 8:00 p.m.) Jake goes overboard to impress Amys dad a former cop at her familys Thanksgiving dinner while Holt helps Pimento cope with the fact that he can no longer work for the NYPD. NCIS (CBS, 8:00 p.m.) Agent Bishop questions the work shes done for the NSA after travelling to Gitmo to gather evidence in the murder case of a Navy chaplain. Meanwhile, Bishops brothers visit for Thanksgiving and harass her coworkers into telling them who shes dating. The Flash (CW, 8:00 p.m.) Caitlin uses her abilities to save Barry but the effort causes her to unleash her inner Killer Frost, who terrorizes the city in her hunt for Dr. Alchemy, kidnapping Julian and battling both the Flash and Vibe. The Middle (ABC, 8:00 p.m.) Frankie takes some pretty extreme measures in order to ensure Axls girlfriend April doesnt make it into the familys holiday photos. The Voice (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) Another hopeful is sent home tonight as the Top 11 becomes the Top 10. WWE SmackDown (USA, 8:00 p.m.) The stars of Raw face off against the biggest names from Smackdown in the definitive battle for brand supremacy. American Housewife (ABC, 8:30 p.m.) Katies on edge when her mother visits for Thanksgiving but a surprising ally surfaces to help ease the tension between the two women. New Girl (Fox, 8:30 p.m.) Jess plans the ultimate Thanksgiving day feast but when Schmidts heartbroken dad and Ceces ex boyfriend show up, the festivities are threatened. Meanwhile, Nick learns that Regan is putting off moving in with him and Winston deals with his heroic injury. Story continues Bull (CBS, 9:00 p.m.) Marissas wardrobe and attitude makeover cause Danny and Cable some concern as Bull investigates a conspiracy involving a corrupt assemblyman while helping a new client facing vehicular manslaughter charges. Good Behavior (TNT, 9:00 p.m.) Letty faces an ultimatum from her parole officer as she and Javier scramble to tie up loose ends following a violent crime he committed. Teen Wolf (MTV, 9:00 p.m.) Stiles is still MIA but at least the group is starting to realize it. While Scott, Lydia and Malia search for lost memories of their missing friend, Corey stumbles upon a link between his powers and the Wild Hunt. Scream Queens (Fox, 9:00 p.m.) A blood shortage at the hospital prompts Dean Munsch and Chanel to start a blood drive. Meanwhile, Nurse Hoffels plan for revenge is put in motion; Hester devises a way to join the hospital staff; and a shocking revelation about the Green Meanie is uncovered. Chicago Fire (NBC, 10:00 p.m.) Dawson runs over a pedestrian while responding to a call and the station faces a lawsuit because of the accident. Ink Master (Spike, 10:00 p.m.) The artists work together to create cyborg pieces for their canvases. NCIS: New Orleans (CBS, 10:00 p.m.) A sailor is killed during a motorcycle rally in the city and the team must determine whether it was an accident or something more sinister. Shooter (USA, 10:00 p.m.) Bob Lee winds up in jail and must figure out a way to protect his family from behind bars as Isaac attempts to permanently silence him. Tosh.0 (Comedy Central, 10:00 p.m.) In which Tosh meets a beautiful British Beefeater; locates his Internet twins; and tries to set a record for hugs. Sweet/Vicious (MTV, 10:00 p.m.) Jules decides to hang up her vigilante costume until Ophelia convinces her to return to the fight. Drunk History (Comedy Central, 10:30 p.m.) Tonight we learn about the Boston molasses flood of 1919; how New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia fought the mob over artichokes in 1935; and see the beginnings of Julia Childs love story when she meets her future husband while working for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. Search Party (TBS, 11:00 p.m.) Dory and the gang travel upstate to Chantals vigil at her familys house where the group makes quite the impression. Later, Dory and Drew invite Chantals crazy ex-boyfriend over for dinner in order to find out more about her disappearance. LATE NIGHT GUESTS Jimmy Kimmel Live!: Bono, Julia Roberts, Channing Tatum, Kristen Bell, DJ Khaled, Neil Patrick Harris, Halsey, the Killers The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Sarah Jessica Parker, Scott Patterson, Liza Weil, Sean Gunn, Frank Pellegrino Jr. The Late Show With Stephen Colbert: James Marsden, Jimmie Johnson, John Waters Late Night With Seth Meyers: Gayle King, Ben Platt, a performance from Broadways Dear Evan Hansen The Late Late Show With James Corden: Aaron Eckhart, Trevor Noah, Green Day A new 2015 IRS filing calls into question just how charitable the Donald J. Trump Foundation really is. The forms, posted late Monday on nonprofit tracking site GuideStar and first discovered by the Washington Post, reveal the foundation has admitted to violating the legal ban on self-dealing, meaning the charitys funds were improperly used by an insider, their friends or family members. Representatives for the foundation checked yes on the section of the form asking whether assets had been transferred to a disqualified person in 2015 and in previous years. In the case of the Trump Foundation, a disqualified person could include Trump himself, people close to him or even his businesses. A spokeswoman from law firm Morgan, Lewis and Bockus, which uploaded the documents, declined to comment. The Trump campaign and the Trump Organization did not return calls for comment at the time of publication. While it is unclear whether the same 990 forms were actually sent to the IRS, a spokeswoman from GuideStar told FOXBusiness.com the following: We can confirm that someone with the email address matching Morgan Lewis domain uploaded the 990. It is important to note that since this is a self-uploaded document it may not be the exact/final version they sent to the IRS (if it was already sent). The penalties for such violations range from an excise tax to forcing the repayment of money unlawfully obtained from the foundation, according to the Post. The Washington Post has been following other suspicious practices at the Donald J. Trump Foundation in recent years, including the use of the charitys money to settle legal disputes for Trumps businesses and also to purchase multiple items at charity auctions on behalf Trump and his wife, Melania. As a result of these allegations, the New York Attorney Generals office has opened an ongoing investigation into the nonprofit. These specific forms do not offer any color as to the exact nature of the violation the foundation is reporting, and whether it is related to any of the aforementioned incidents. Story continues Also noteworthy from the filing was the foundations contribution to Project Veritas, the activist organization responsible for the release of undercover footage of alleged attempts at voter fraud by the Democratic Party this fall. The foundation has paid penalties in the past, including a $2,500 fine for illegally gifting $25,000 to Pam Biondis campaign for Florida AG in 2013. At the time, Biondi was allegedly deciding whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University, which she ultimately declined to follow through on. At the end of 2015, the Trump Foundation had $1.1 million; throughout the year the foundation took in $781,000 while giving away $896,000. The charity received $566,370 from the Trump Corporation in 2015, the first time an organization fully owned by the businessman has donated to the foundation since 2008. Related Articles The self-titled "Canada's Coolest Film Fest" -- taking place this year from November 30 - December 4, 2016 -- will be celebrating the work of several influential figures as part of its Signature Series program. Whistler Film Festival The film festival, held every year in British Columbia, Canada, since 2001, will this year feature ten juried competitions (up from eight in 2015) with a total of 90 movies (45 features and 45 shorts) from Canada and internationally to be screened. Last year, the festival attracted over 13,000 attendees, of which 855 were industry delegates. The Signature Series Whistler's Signature Series recognizes "distinguished artists of our time and honors them with an award and an intimate on stage interview, complimented by a feature presentation of their most recent film." The awards and presentations take place at the Maury Young Arts Centre. For 2016, the Whistler Film Festival will honor the Oscar-nominated director John Madden, appearing at the Whistler Film Festival with the Canadian Premiere of "Miss Sloane" starring Jessica Chastain. Madden ("Shakespeare in Love", "Captain Corelli's Mandolin") will discuss highlights from his long career in the industry with Variety Vice President & Executive Director Steven Gaydos. For a fifth consecutive year, Variety's 10 Screenwriters to Watch, Class of 2016 will honor "the brightest and most promising new writers." Previous winners have included Oscar winners Meg LaFauve ("Inside Out"), Jennifer Lee ("Frozen") and Charlie Kaufman ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"). The honorees for 2016 have yet to be announced. Also TBA under the Signature Series program are the Artists Spotlight feature for filmmakers still on the rise, and the Tribute feature to honor distinguished filmmakers. By Ian Simpson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum expressed alarm on Monday over "hateful speech" at a white nationalist meeting over the weekend, and a restaurant apologized for hosting the group after a woman tweeted a picture of herself making a Nazi salute. The National Policy Institute, a think tank that is part of the alt-right movement that includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites, held a gathering at the federally owned Ronald Reagan Building on Saturday. The alt-right movement came to the fore during the U.S. presidential election. President-elect Donald Trump has drawn criticism for naming Steve Bannon, former head of a website linked to the alt-right, as his chief White House strategist. Trump's transition team issued a statement on Monday saying Trump has continued to denounce racism, CNN reported. "President-elect Trump has continued to denounce racism of any kind and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American," Trump-Pence Transition spokesman Bryan Lanza said in a statement. The gathering on Saturday drew scores of protesters who blocked traffic around the building to express their outrage over the meeting. A video by The Atlantic taken inside the conference showed Richard Spencer, leader of the National Policy Institute, shouting, "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" as some of the people in attendance lifted their hands in a Nazi salute. "The Holocaust did not begin with killings: it began with words," the Holocaust Memorial Museum said in a statement. "The museum calls on all American citizens, our religious and civic leaders and the leadership of all branches of the government to confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech." Some of those who attended the nationalist meeting later gathered for a banquet at Maggiano's Little Italy restaurant in northwest Washington. Protesters converged on the site and prompted the restaurant to close to protect the safety of staff and guests, the management said in an apology on Facebook. The restaurant said the booking was a last-minute affair made under a different name, so staff were unaware that the National Policy Institute was dining there and did not know what the group represented. "After the event, an attendee sent a tweet in which she made a 'Seig Heil salute' in support of Hitler and white supremacy. This expression of support of Hitler is extremely offensive to us, as our restaurant is home to teammates and guests of every race, religion and cultural background," the Facebook post said. The restaurant apologized to the surrounding neighborhood and said it was donating the profits from its sales on Friday, $10,000, to the Washington office of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group. The Ronald Reagan Building, the biggest structure in the U.S. capital city, is federally owned, but run by Trade Center Management Associates, a unit of Drew Co., a Boston real estate development company. The firm defended allowing the nationalist group to use the venue. It said in a statement that its contract mandates that unless there is a security threat by an organization or person who asks for meeting space, the building is available for rental. The agenda of the National Policy Institute's Saturday meeting included a breakdown of the 2016 election and plans for the growth of the alt-right. The nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, described Spencer as an "academic racist" who backs creation of an Aryan homeland. Twitter Inc suspended several accounts linked to the alt-right last week, including Spencer's. The move followed the microblogging service's announcement that it would upgrade some features to better combat cyber-bullying. (Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Andrew Hay and Lisa Shumaker) China's debt level ballooned to 250% of GDP this year. Chinese policymakers have been taking steps to address potential credit risks stemming from the country's growing corporate and local government debt load. But while BMI believes that their efforts will aid in alleviating credit risks, it cautions that a continued reliance on credit growth to maintain real GDP growth at above 6.5% would negate such efforts. The research house argues that only a reduced dependency on credit, together with deeper structural reforms, will help China transit towards a more sustainable growth path. Here's more from BMI: China's overall debt level continues to rise, jumping to more than 250% of GDP in 2016, from around 150% of GDP in 2008, and Chinese policymakers are turning some of their attention towards tackling potential credit risks within the economy. In our view, the rapidly growing debt load (particularly headed towards inefficient state-owned enterprises [SOEs]) over the past couple of years remains one of the biggest risks to the Chinese economy, particularly as economic growth is on a downtrend. The majority of overall debt in China lies within the corporate sector, standing at 169.1% of GDP in Q116, and in our view, the market-driven guidelines announced by the State Council on October 10 will help to gradually reduce credit risks . The main aim of the government appears to be 'eliminating the weak, and strengthening the strong', with the debt-equity swap (DES) programme gaining traction among market participants since the announcement. The SOEs that have been reported to be involved in the DES programme so far are mainly those provincial level SOEs that have strategic importance in their individual sectors, but are facing short-term financial difficulties. For example, according to Xinhua News, China Construction Bank (CCB), one of the country's big five state-owned banks, has signed DES agreements worth around CNY95bn (USD13.8bn) with various central and provincial SOEs, as of November 17. Story continues Out of the CNY95bn, the deal with Shandong Energy Group Co (China's fourth largest coal producer and also the province's largest SOE) alone was worth CNY21bn. However, an overall turnaround of the performance of these Chinese companies still largely depends on various factors. Firstly, the implementation of each individual agreement remains key to the success of the DES programme. Secondly, profitability at these firms would improve if management were able to reduce excess capacity and improve their competitive positions, following the reduction in financial costs. For example, if the state is the key investor in the DES agreement, political and social stability considerations such as unemployment could still result in inefficient operations as the government heavily influences management decisions. Allowing for a greater number of bankruptcies through the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law enacted in 2007 is also one of the ways that the Chinese government aims to lower corporate leverage. In our view, there is likely to be an increased number of defaults over the coming quarters (at a gradual pace), but bankruptcies even for zombie companies are likely to be used as a last resort by policymakers, if other approaches such as negotiations with creditors or merger and acquisitions (M&A) fail. For example, in the case of Dongbei Special Steel Group (a local state-owned from Liaoning province), the company was driven into bankruptcy in September after creditors rejected plans to restructure the firm's debt (swapping debt for equity). That said, we expect the companies that are most likely to go bankrupt will be those that are of lesser strategic importance and are smaller in size due to continued political considerations More From Singapore Business Review Comcast has reached a deal with Dish Network, one of its fiercest competitors in the pay-TV market, to offer the satcasters array of Sling TV internet-delivered services on the cable giants X1 platform. Whats going on here? It might seem odd that Comcast would enter into a business arrangement with an over-the-top rival especially because all the channels in Sling TVs core packages are also available from Comcast. But the partnership between the two companies is primarily aimed at offering Sling TVs international and multicultural programming to the cable companys video subscribers. In addition to its skinny bundles for general entertainment, news and sports, Sling TV offers a suite of standalone and add-on Spanish-language programming packages tailored to English-dominant, bilingual and Spanish-dominant U.S. households. Overall, Sling TVs multicultural programming packages currently provide more than 320 channels in 21 languages including in Arabic, Chinese, Urdu, Hindi, Italian, German, Polish and Vietnamese. The addition of Sling TVs multicultural programming will be an excellent complement to the existing international offerings on X1 and will be attractive to our customers, Javier Garcia, senior VP and GM of multicultural services for Comcast Cable, said in a statement. Our customers are becoming increasingly diverse and this is a fantastic opportunity to quickly deliver even more customized and multicultural programming to them, on an X1 platform thats smart, fast and easy-to-use. The companies didnt say when Sling TV would be available on X1, promising to provide more details later. Financial terms of the deal werent disclosed. The move comes after Comcast earlier this month launched Netflix on X1, with the goal of making the cable service the one-stop hub for home entertainment. As of the end of September, Comcast had 22.4 million video subscribers nationwide and the operator says it expects about 50% of its TV subscribers to be on X1 by the end of 2016. Story continues Pricing for Sling TV services on X1 will be consistent with current offers on other platforms; Sling TVs multicultural packages start at $10 per month. All Sling TV packages will be available on Comcasts platform, so someone could theoretically subscribe to the $20-per-month baseline Sling Orange plan and watch it through their Comcast set-top. Related stories Will Skinny Bundles Like AT&T's DirecTV Now Destroy Pay TV? NBC News, Euronews in Talks for Strategic Partnership Dish Sheds 116,000 TV Customers in Q3, Profit Jumps 57% but Misses Expectations By Ginger Gibson and Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It is no surprise that Democrats in the U.S. Congress will oppose Donald Trump but the most important resistance to fulfilling the president-elect's agenda is beginning to emerge from Republicans on Capitol Hill. A small number of influential Republicans in the Senate are threatening to block appointments to Trump's administration, derail his thaw with Russia and prevent the planned wall on the border with Mexico. The party held onto control of the Senate at the Nov. 8 election but by only a thin margin, putting powerful swing votes in just a few hands. That empowers Republican Senate mavericks such as Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas. Both were bitter rivals to Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. Paul, a libertarian lone wolf, says he will block Senate confirmations if Trump nominates either former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani or former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton to be secretary of state. South Carolina's Lindsay Graham has started publicly outlining places he might be willing to oppose Trump. He is against the Mexican border wall and is delivering warnings against Trump's intention to revoke legal status for undocumented immigrants brought here as children - although that would not require congressional approval. Graham, a traditional Republican foreign policy hawk, strongly disagrees with Trump's attempt to improve ties with Russia. "I am going to be kind of a hard ass" on Russia, Graham told reporters recently. "We cant sit on the sidelines" and let cyber attacks blamed on Russia "go unanswered." The early stirrings of opposition from Senate Republicans are a sign that the New York businessman, who has never held public office, might run into harsh political realities soon after taking office on Jan. 20. Other Senators who might defy Trump are Arizona's John McCain and Jeff Flake, Nebraska's Ben Sasse, Florida's Marco Rubio, Maine's Susan Collins and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, said senior Senate aides and lawmakers. Story continues These lawmakers have ruffled feathers in the past and some have a good political reason not to fear Trump: Paul, McCain, Murkowski and Rubio do not have to run for reelection until 2022. Graham, Collins and Sasse will have to face the voters in 2020; Cruz and Flake have an earlier election, in 2018. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose job is to keep the Republicans in line, knows the challenges ahead. A senior Republican aide said McConnell is loathe to spend time trying to move bills that lack the needed Senate votes. McConnell is aware he will not have the support of some of his own lawmakers on bills that could pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, such as appropriating money to build the Mexican wall and further abortion restrictions, the aide said. DEMOCRATIC STRAYS But Trump has a history of taming what appear to be well-entrenched Republican opponents. He won the party nomination against all the odds and some of his staunchest opponents like Rubio and Cruz ended up endorsing him. And swing votes in the Senate cut two ways. The Democrats have their own potential renegades such as West Virginia's Joe Manchin, who has already declared his support for Trump's nomination of Republican Senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general. Such swings by Democrats toward Republicans may be likelier ahead of the 2018 elections, when Democrats must defend more vulnerable Senate seats than Republicans. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer must deal with this. Trump said over the weekend he and Schumer "always had a good relationship." Republicans are likely to control only 52 seats in the 100-seat Senate, meaning three defections within the party are enough to block cabinet appointments which only require 50 votes. Vice President-elect Mike Pence would break 50-50 ties. The task for McConnell gets more difficult when it comes to passing legislation, which requires 60 votes, known as cloture, to allow a bill to move forward. If Trump plans to sign a bill while in office, perhaps one that will change immigration law or restrict abortions, McConnell will have to keep all Republicans in line and win over an additional eight Democrats. Trump could deliver on campaign promises that do not require legislative approval like blocking the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal or ending the Iran nuclear pact. The repeal of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, enjoys robust Republican support and would be done through a legislative maneuver that does not require any Democratic support. Collins and Murkowski have a history of crossing the aisle to join Democrats and could shy from abortion restrictions. Cruz has never feared disrupting Senate business to prove a point or seek concessions in legislation. Sasse did not waver from his staunch criticism of Trump through the campaign. Flake has said he is eating crow after Trumps win, but he could defect on immigration and border security, issues he has previously joined with Democrats on. Paul was asked last week on MSNBC if he would put a hold on Giuliani or Bolton. In the Senate, a hold allows a single senator to delay a confirmation. He left open the possibility of such a move, saying, I feel pretty strongly about it. He said: "We have a 52-48 majority, all it would take is two or three Republicans to say they cant go along with Giuliani and cant go along with Bolton. (Reporting by Ginger Gibson and Richard Cowan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Alistair Bell) President Obama (Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP) President Obama announced he would free 79 more drug offenders from federal prison Tuesday, pushing the total number of commutations under his tenure to over 1,000. With this new grant, Obama has handed out more commutations than the past 11 presidents combined, part of his 2014 decision to use his previously dormant clemency power in a new and aggressive way. That year, the Justice Department asked prisoners who had been sentenced for nonviolent drug crimes to apply for clemency, funneling them through a group of pro-bono lawyers to help them with their petitions. The president saw his commutation power as a way to correct for overly harsh drug sentences that sent people away to prison for decades and sometimes life for nonviolent crimes. He is committed to using his clemency power in ways not seen from any other president in the modern era, White House Counsel Neil Eggleston told reporters. He said the commutations send a message that the U.S. is a nation of second chances. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said that her office is committed to processing the remaining 6,300 drug petitions and getting them to the presidents desk before he leaves office. Its unclear how many more of them Obama will grant, though Eggleston said there will almost certainly be more before Jan. 20. Most drug prisoners who have received grants so far had served at least 10 years in prison for a drug crime. The administration officials said they dont know whether a Trump White House will pursue Obamas aggressive use of clemency. Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trumps pick for attorney general, has called Obamas commutations reckless and an abuse of executive power. He pointed out that some of the freed prisoners were also serving time on firearms charges. This president has been personally committed to this, said Eggleston. This White House has cared a lot about it, this Department of Justice has cared a lot about it. But I cant really talk to whether the next administration would have a similar sense of enthusiasm. A Dallas woman is accused of pretending to be pregnant and then killing a woman she knew and kidnapping her newborn baby, authorities say. Yesenia Sesmas, 34, is expected to be charged with murdering 27-year-old Laura Abarca in Wichita, Kansas, and taking off with her 6-day-old daughter Sophia on Nov. 17, according to the Associated Press and local authorities. Detectives say Sesmas had faked a pregnancy over the past several months before traveling to Wichita, killing Abarca and taking Sophia. Sesmas then returned to Dallas with the infant, a spokesman from Wichita Police Department said during a media briefing Monday. Information led investigators to a house in Dallas where baby Sophia Gonzalez was found inside of the residence and she was safe, the spokesman said. Baby Sophia is now on a plane with our detectives heading home to be reunited with her family. Wichita Police (@WichitaPolice) November 19, 2016 Sophia was taken to a local hospital in Dallas for a medical checkup and was found to be unharmed. She was then reunited with her family in Wichita. The relationship between Sesmas and Abarca is unclear, however the spokesman confirmed that officers believe the two had known each other for a few years. Sesmas was being held by authorities on Tuesday, with murder and kidnapping charges pending, the Wichita Police Department said. Sesmas said in interview from jail that she hadnt intended to kill Abarca, the Associated Press reports. Illegal salvagers have plundered at least six World War II shipwrecks near Indonesia for scrap metal, including the wreck of an American submarine that has now "completely vanished," according to investigators. The damaged wrecks include three Dutch and two British warships sunk by Japanese forces after the Battle of the Java Sea in February 1942, and the American submarine USS Perch, which sank in the Java Sea in March 1942 after being damaged in an attack on Japanese destroyers. The scale of damage to the historic shipwrecks was discovered early this month by an international team of divers and underwater survey specialists, sponsored by a Dutch naval memorial society, the Karel Doorman Fund. The fund had hoped to capture video footage of the Dutch shipwrecks in preparation for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Java Sea next year. [See Photos of the Historic WWII-Era Shipwrecks in the Java Sea] The Dutch wrecks were almost intact when they were rediscovered by amateur divers in 2002, but the latest expedition found only holes in the seabed where many of the wrecks once lay. "It was shocking," Jacques Brandt, president of the Karel Doorman Fund, told Live Science. "As the representative organization of the next-of-kin [of the ships' crews], it was a big blow to us, as we considered those ships as being war graves under the sea and they clearly should not be tampered with." The survey team reported that the wrecks of two of the Dutch warships the HNLMS De Ruyter and the HNLMS Java appear to be missing. A large part of a third wreck the HNLMS Kortenaer is also missing. The wreck of the Dutch cruiser HMNLS De Ruyter has disappeared from the floor of the Java Sea. Investigators think it was broken up for scrap by illegal salvage operators. Koninklijke Marine They also reported that two British war wrecks in the area the HMS Exeter and the HMS Encounter have been almost entirely scavenged for scrap metal, and that the wreck of the USS Perch has "completely vanished." Wrecking history The Java Sea survey report has now been turned over to the Dutch defense ministry, which is in charge of protecting the nation's naval wrecks, Brandt said. Story continues "It is a very serious offence if the wrecks have been deliberately removed, but before we make that conclusion the authorities will have to make further investigations," he said. The Dutch defense minister made a statement to members of Parliament last week, noting the destruction reported by the expedition to the Java Sea wrecks. Britain's defense ministry also issued a statement in response to the expedition's report, condemning the damage and desecration done to the wrecks and suggesting that illegal metal salvagers are to blame. Under international agreements, naval vessels remain the property of their governments after they sink, and it is illegal to disturb or salvage them without official permission, said marine archaeologist Innes McCartney, a visiting research fellow at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom. [Sunken Treasures: The Curious Science of 7 Famous Shipwrecks] But a "perfect storm" of high metal prices and a lack of enforcement has resulted in many wartime shipwrecks being broken up for scrap metal by illegal salvagers, especially in the Asia and Pacific regions, he said. "There has been anecdotal evidence for an abundance for years that shipwrecks in the area of the Battle of the Java Sea have been getting hammered by salvage companies," McCartney told Live Science. "From my standpoint it's incredibly frustrating. We will now never be able to archaeologically study the Battle of the Java Sea it's gone, it's lost to us forever." Metal pirates Suspicion surrounding the destruction of the Java Sea war wrecks has fallen on a number of salvage ships operating in Southeast Asian waters, McCartney said. They include a Mongolian-flagged salvage barge that was photographed last year taking metal from a popular scuba diving wreck near Singapore, according to Underwater Photography Guide News (UWPG News). Illegal salvagers are also thought to be responsible for recent damage to the wrecks of the British warships HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, which were sunk by Japanese aircraft near Malaysia's Tioman Island in 1941, and the illegal salvage of a Dutch submarine wreck, the HNLMS 0-16, in the Gulf of Thailand in 2012, reported the New Strait Times. The U.S. Navy reported last year that the wreck of the American cruiser USS Houston, which sank in February 1942 in the Sunda Strait, southwest of the Java Sea, with around 650 sailors and marines onboard, had also suffered "unauthorized disturbance of the grave site." McCartney said the salvage barge photographed near Singapore last year appeared to be equipped with a large crane and a 5-ton "drop chisel," which is designed to cut a shipwreck apart. "What they're doing is just dropping it down on the wreck, chopping the wreck into manageable pieces, and then using that crane to haul it on board," he said. Similar equipment was used by some Dutch salvage operators in recent years to remove especially valuable metals, like brass, from British shipwrecks that were sunk at the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea in 1916, McCartney said. Although researchers have identified and documented the salvage firms responsible for much of the damage to the Jutland wrecks, so far the Dutch authorities have taken no action, he said. Eyes in the sky Radio beacons and satellite radar technology now make it possible to track salvage ships in the same way that many fishing trawlers are now tracked to prevent illegal fishing, McCartney said. Salvage ships that are seen to linger over known shipwrecks, or that exhibit other suspicious behavior, can be flagged automatically and inspected when they reach port, he said. McCartney also noted that a growing number of countries have agreed to mutually protect shipwrecks in their waters under the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. But, several leading countries including the U.S. and the U.K. have not ratified the convention, out of concern that it will be too difficult or expensive to enforce, he said. McCartney said, however, that modern methods of enforcement are mostly electronic, and dont require sending warships to physically protect the shipwrecks. "The legal framework is there, and the technological framework is there it just requires the countries of the world to get on and do it," he said. Original article on Live Science. Editor's Recommendations - Former champion Vincent Riou has pulled out of the Vendee Globe solo around the world yacht race with a broken keel after hitting an underwater object. He was fifth and speeding towards the Cape of Good Hope when he became the second skipper after Bertrand De Broc to be forced out of the epic challenge expected to take around 80 days. Riou won the event in 2004 and was third in 2009 before also being forced to quit in 2012. The damage concerned the axis of the keel attaching it to the hull and there was a risk it could eventually have become separated from the craft. The Frenchman will now head to Cape Town for repairs before sailing the 60ft craft back to France. Meanwhile the front group of skippers is still headed by Welshman Alex Thomson with Sebastien Josse and Armel Le Cleach close behind. AFP You have to hand it to Anezka she really did a good job impersonating her twin sister Petra that nobody noticed that she placed her sister in a coma and pulled off the classic switcheroo, not even Petras former husband, Rafael Solano (Justin Baldoni). It was only eagle-eyed Jane Villanueva (Gina Rodriguez) who managed to catch on to her trick, but even then, Jane wasnt 100 percent sure Anezka impersonated her sister. Yael Grobglas, the actress who played both Petra and Anezka, said that despite Anezkas evil plan, she made sure fans can still differentiate Petra from Anezka. Despite their similar looks, Grobglas told Vanity Fair that there are ways to tell the twins apart. Petra prefers wearing tight-fitting clothes and high heels, while Anezka feels comfortable wearing high-top sneakers. And so its almost as if the moment I put on the shoes and I get into that physicality of the two separate characters, you cant really confuse them, she said. Even when Anezka was pretending to be Petra, Grobglas made sure fans can still tell them apart. I added little things like, you know, she doesnt know how to walk in heels, so once in a while she kind of bobs around on her heels a little bit even as Petra, Grobglas said. Little giveaways like that. Earlier, Grobglas told Deadline that Jane the Virgin writers came up with a pretty good backstory on how the twins mother Magda contacted Anezka and hatched her evil plan. We will have to unpack that in season 3, she said. Meanwhile, the shows title will change from now on, since lead star Jane is no longer a virgin. Showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman told The Hollywood Reporter that theyre going to put interesting twists to the title week after week, depending on the storyline. We're keeping the title but with changes, like a line crossed through, like Jane the Guilty Catholic, she explained. Jane the Virgin Season 3 airs every Monday at 9 p.m. EST on The CW. Yael Grobglas Photo: Getty Images/Jason LaVeris Related Articles Miami (AFP) - Some Zika-infected babies who appeared normal at birth still showed significant brain defects and went on to develop unusually small heads, a condition known as microcephaly, researchers said Tuesday. A total of 13 Brazilian babies whose mothers were infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus while pregnant were described in a report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Among these infants, 11 later developed microcephaly," said a CDC statement. "Slowed head growth and microcephaly were accompanied by significant neurologic complications." Seven of the 13 children had epilepsy, and "all had significant motor disabilities consistent with mixed cerebral palsy," said the report. The infants were studied for their first year of life, and were too young to evaluate for any intellectual deficits. Researchers have known that Zika infection can cause microcephaly, and can also cause brain defects even without the appearance of microcephaly. But the latest study shows the first laboratory evidence of Zika virus infection in the womb leading to microcephaly developing after birth. "This report documents that microcephaly at birth is not an essential hallmark of congenital Zika syndrome," it said. "Microcephaly might not be evident at birth but can develop after birth in infants with underlying brain abnormalities." Not all infants born after exposure to Zika have developmental problems, and researchers said the current study sheds no light on how common the delayed onset of microcephaly might be. However, they urged doctors to conduct prenatal brain scans on Zika-exposed fetuses, and the need for comprehensive medical and developmental followup. Italy is a frequent choice for honeymoons or other romantic getaways. With its breathtaking landscapes, temperate climate, and abundance of wine, the country is a natural desitnation for those in love. And one Italian town hopes to reward visitors for their lovemaking. Ten hotels in Assisi, in central Italy, have signed on to a campaign from the Fertility Room initiative: Couples who conceive a baby during their stay at the hotels can get a free trip. By returning with a birth certificate that shows a child was born nine monthsgive or take ten daysafter their stay, a couple can either be reimbursed by the hotel or return for a free stay depending on the location, The Local Italy reported. Related: Cilento Coast Travel Guide The campaign is intended to highlight low fertility rates in Italy, where the rate has halved in the past 50 years. With the lowest birthrate in the European Union and one of the lowest in the world, Italy has looked to encourage conception through a variety of programs in the past few years, to varying degrees of success. And with varying degrees of controversy. Assisi is the birthplace to 13th century Franciscan friar St. Francis of Assisi, who would become the inspiration for Pope Francis namesake. Some former and current city officials have objected to the program, given the Catholic tradition of the city, and distanced themselves from it. One former mayor of Assisi called the project incongruous with local values. Italian women have also pushed back against the campaign, which critics have said encourages conception without offering meaningful support once a child is born. For now, though, the program is set to continue. This article was originally published on TravelAndLeisure.com This years readers choice winner for Travel + Leisures Destination of the Year is Santa Fe, New Mexico, which earned 65 percent of the vote in an online survey. In second, with 14 percent of the vote, is Slovenia. In third place was Norway. Steeped in the history of the American West, Santa Fe has long captured the imagination of artists and freethinkers, with its pueblo-style architecture and rugged landscapes. But a growing alternative arts scene driven by the citys outre creative class is giving newfound edge to the southwestern town. This cultural renaissance is perhaps no more apparent than in the citys Siler Road District, where a peppering of small theater companies, live-work spaces for artists, and The Meow Wolf art complex have sprung up alongside auto-repair garages and metal shops. Meow Wolfs House of Eternal Return an immersive, 22,000-square-foot art installation featuring secret rooms and interactive light displays is arguably the neighborhoods hottest attraction. Across the town in the citys Railyard District, the artist-led rebirth has given way to new galleries, restaurants, shops, independent art-movie houses (including the George R.R. Martin-owned Jean Cocteau Cinema), and a popular farmers market. SITE Santa Fe, the nonprofit contemporary-art center widely credited with catalyzing the neighborhoods transformation 21 years ago, made headlines again this fall when it debuted a reimagined facility (complete with a pleated metallic facade and 1500 square-feet of gallery space) designed by New York City-based SHoP Architects. The citys red-hot art scene is matched only by its fiery cuisine, renowned for its smoky red and green chiles grown in the southern part of the state. At Cafe Pasqual, a Santa Fe institution for more 40 years, locals and tourists endure long waits to sample mouth-watering Mexican eats like chile bison cheeseburgers quesadillas with long-simmered angus beef and chile de arbol sala. If your palette cant endure any more heat, check out Paper Dosa, where chef Paulraj Karuppasamy and his wife, Nellie Tischler, dish up South Indian cuisine and their eponymous specialty, a thin crepe made from a fermented rice-and-lentil batter. Nestled at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo range, where it is surrounded by 1.5 million acres of unspoiled national forest, Santa Fe makes a great jumping-off point for exploring the areas mountainous terrains and stark desert landscapes. Wed recommend a hike through the Nambe Lake Recreation Area, just 25 miles outside the city, and home to the gushing Nambe Falls, one of the most spectacular natural waterfalls in the southwest. Considering Santa Fe enjoys some 320 days of sunshine per year, theres really no excuse for not hitting the great outdoors. Read about Travel + Leisures editors pick for the 2017 Destination of the Year: Canada. Mike Pence said he wasnt offended by Hamilton casts message, which is a good thing for everyone After the cast of Hamilton broke the fourth wall during bows at Friday nights performance, weve all been waiting to for Vice President-elect Mike Pence to break his silence on the event, the boos, and the casts message to the newly elected leader. As it turns out, Mike Pence wasnt offended by the Hamilton cast at all, so that might actually be a good sign that open dialogue is a thing that still exists. Unlike the president-elect, who tweeted his dissatisfaction with the Broadway casts message, Pence stayed silent on the matter on social media and spoke up instead on Fox News Sunday. According to Reuters, Pence said simply, I wasnt offended, and while Donald Trump may have asked for an apology, Pence did not. At the very least, were all about open minds over here and if Pence is willing to let people speak their minds, everyone is better off. Even if he does have some questionable views on womens reproductive rights that we should talk to him about, perhaps. Mike Pence on "Hamilton": "I heard the remarks that were made at the end and, you know, I wasn't offended by what was said" pic.twitter.com/4AwyYJhiWO CBS News (@CBSNews) November 20, 2016 In a separate interview on CBSs Face the Nation, Pence stated, I want to assure people who were disappointed in the election results, people who are feeling anxious about this time in the life of our nation, that President-elect Donald Trump meant exactly what he said on election night, that he is going to be the president of all the people of the United States of America. That is either very reassuring to voters or not at all, which is why the cast of the hit Broadway musical felt the need to speak up in the first place, since they had a one in a million chance to be heard by the next vice-president. Because its super unlikely the cast will be invited to the White House again like they were last year). Story continues Pence also added that he thought the show was incredible, though his boss, Donald Trump, called it overrated. Lets hope these two guys can start agreeing on things soon. The cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologize to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2016 While Vixen, who plays controversial past Vice President Aaron Burr in Hamilton, read the statement to the audience, The New York Times reported that Lin-Manuel Miranda preemptively co-wrote the statement.After Fridays show, Miranda tweeted his support to the unconventional curtain call: Proud of @HamiltonMusical. Proud of @BrandonVDixon, for leading with love. And proud to remind you that ALL are welcome at the theater. Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) November 19, 2016 According to CBS, audience-members booed Pence before the show and cheered during relevant lyrics such as, Immigrants, we get the job done! If anything, the theater was a perfect place to talk politics. Hamilton is largely about the foundation of American values and turning the tables on conventional American history lessons. Maybe it was good that someone from the next White House was in attendance at a time when Americans are more divided than ever. While many of the brilliant lyrics of Hamilton eerily apply to the state of our country today, one of the most important to sing loud and proud is from The World Was Wide Enough. It goes: America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me / You Let me make a difference / A place where even orphan immigrants / Can leave their fingerprints and rise up. With so many important issues, like immigration and other civil rights on the line, were so lucky to have Lin-Manuel Miranda to serve as the voice of reason. And a guy like Pence who at least heard the message. At least. The post Mike Pence said he wasnt offended by Hamilton casts message, which is a good thing for everyone appeared first on HelloGiggles. As part of a broader effort to refocus on products that contribute substantially to its bottom line, Apple is reportedly planning. According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple has disbanded the division responsible the companys AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Time capsule products. In turn, engineers from the recently disbanded division have since been reassigned to other product areas within Apple. DONT MISS: Best Black Friday deals on Apple gear: iPhone 7, MacBooks, iPads, Beats and more That Apple would say goodbye to its router development efforts shouldnt come as much of a surprise. After all, Apple hasnt updated its aforementioned lineup of routers since 2013, itself a strong hint that Apple didnt see a solid future for said products. Additionally, weve already seen Apple begin to streamline its already streamlined product line up as of late, with the company reportedly exiting the external monitor business as well. Apples AirPorts have historically lagged behind those of companies such as D-Link Corp., Netgear Inc. and Belkin International Inc., which have rushed to adopt new standards. Apple, which has charged more for its routers, has focused more on integrating control of its devices into its computer operating system and industrial design. The companys decision to leave the business may be a boon for other wireless router makers. Commenting briefly on the matter, Kirk McElhearn astutely points out Apple killing its router division was arguably long overdue. Frankly, its about time, McElhearn notes. Theyve been limping along, unable to keep up with new technology. I used to really like Apples AirPort hardware, but somewhere in the past few years, it started to suck. They never updated the AirPort Express for 802.11ac, making their hardware useless in any but the smallest setups. Fair points all around. Incidentally, Apples trio of routers are still available for purchase on Apples website. Story continues Trending right now: See the original version of this article on BGR.com Want to travel like Gwyneth Paltrow? The actress turned lifestyle guru has launched a revamped edition of her travel app under the rather cheeky name, G. Spotting. An extension of the City Guides section from her lifestyle website Goop, the mobile app covers about 25 cities with tips on little-known gems, restaurants, specialty shops, boutiques, hotels, and museums to visit. Aside from a few European capitals like London, Paris and Amsterdam, the app covers mostly US cities. Hong Kong is the lone Asian destination. Recommendations and suggested itineraries are sourced from Goop editors, locals, insiders and some of her celebrity friends like Reese Witherspoon and Tim McGraw. Guides are broken down into sections that include food, neighborhoods, classic and hipster to meet different travel personalities. In Paris, for instance, young, trend-conscious travelers looking to dine with ilk of their kind are advised to hit up hipster-friendly joints where words like organic, local, gluten-free, vegan and chia seeds are more likely to appear on the menu. These include restaurants and cafes like Glou, Cafe Pinson, Derriere and Bob's Kitchen. New York is divided into neighborhoods like Midtown, Upper and Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, hipster capital of New York. One of the most densely populated destinations for hipster tourists? Brooklyn Bowl, a venue that includes concerts, bowling and restaurant dining. Paltrow is the latest celebrity to parlay her fame into the travel world. Rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his son Jack hosted a 10-part travel show called Ozzy & Jack's World Detour which began airing on the History channel this summer. Andrew McCarthy is an actor-turned-travel-writer for the esteemed "National Geographic Travel" publication. And Ashton Kutcher helped get Airbnb off the ground as one of the early investors. MarketWatch After record-breaking sales of I-bonds in October, the U.S. Treasury is dangling another good deal in front of savers for the next six months. Starting Nov. 2, when I-bonds will be available again after site maintenance at TreasuryDirect.gov, the inflation-adjusted annualized rate will be 6.89%, down from 9.62%. The fixed rate at the time of purchase will stay with the bond as long as you hold it up to 30 years but the inflation adjustment resets every six months in November and May. Android malware isnt a thing, the savviest Android users will tell you. And they are partly right. They and users like them will probably never have to deal with Android malware. But then there are reports like this one, which claims that a powerful backdoor program was discovered preinstalled on 3 million Android devices. DONT MISS: Take a look at Apples new design book without spending $300 Found by security firm BitSight Technologies in the firmware preinstalled on almost three million Android phones, the backdoor is vulnerable to attacks that would allow a third-party with malicious intentions to gain full control of a device. The backdoor found in Ragentek firmware goes out of its way to conceal the presence of the underlying binary file, Ars Technica reports. In this case, the developer added an exception when iterating over the system processes to explicitly skip over the affected binary (debugs), and thus not display it in the returned results, BitSight researcher Dan Dahlberg told the tech site. In other words, the programs were modified to pretend this binary did not exist. But the firmwares purpose doesnt appear to be related to malware. Ragentek is intended to push legitimate over-the-air updates to the phone, and the backdoor capabilities might be unintentional. However, the flaw could have been exploited by anyone with knowledge of the matter. All an attacker would have needed to target these devices is control of two internet domains, which are now operated by BitSight. Had hackers obtained the addresses before the security site, they could have installed malware on the Android devices that actively try to connect to these addresses for some sort of software updates. The Chinese company Ragentek Group does not encrypt communications sent and received to phones, and doesnt use code-signing to authenticate legitimate apps. Most devices susceptible to such an attack are based in the US, BitSight revealed. Most devices are made by BLU Products, although other lesser-known Android device makers are also on the list, including Infinix, Doogee, Leagoo, and Xolo. Story continues Researchers discovered that many connections come from all sorts of sectors, including healthcare, government, and banking. The list of affected devices could grow in the coming weeks. Only BLU patched the issue so far, although its not clear how effective the security update rollout is. Users looking to protect their data should go to networks they trust and use VPN software when possible, on unsecured Wi-Fi connections. Trending right now: See the original version of this article on BGR.com Microsoft will be launching its own VR platform for Windows 10 next year, and it looks like it won't need a very expensive PC to work. Microsoft recently announced that it will be adding virtual reality support for all Windows 10 PC next year in the Creators Update in 2017 as it prepares to launch its own VR platform. In light of this, Microsoft appears to have settled on some of the PC minimum hardware requirements to support the upcoming feature. On the latest builds of Windows 10, Microsoft has added an app called the Windows Holographic First Run. The app tests a PC whether its compatible with its VR platform, called Windows Holographic. A users machine must have USB 3.0 support, at least 4GB of RAM, a video card that supports DirectX 12 and a processor/CPU with at least four cores, according to The Verge. The minimum requirements appears to be quite basic, and it looks like Windows 10 PCs bought in the last two years are compatible. Users who only have dual-core (two cores) processors on their PCs should also work as long as it comes with hyper threading. Dual-core CPUs with hyper threading are recognized by Windows as having four cores, according to Engadget. These are not the final hardware requirements for Microsofts Windows Holographic VR platform. The company hasnt specified processor speeds and the type of graphics cards required. However, it does look like mid-range computers will be able to support Windows Holographic. Companies like Oculus and HTC have their own VR platforms, and Windows Holographic will be Microsofts own. Windows Holographic is based on the same software that powers Microsofts HoloLens. The company is also planning to sell its own VR headsets next year and those will have a starting price of just $299. Microsoft seems to be making a lot of effort in ensuring that virtual reality is accessible to a lot of Windows 10 users. In comparison, the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive requires high-end PCs to work smoothly. In addition, the Rift and Vive headsets are also very expensive. Related Articles By John McCrank (Reuters) - The on-demand economy, which uses smartphone technology to immediately fill consumer needs, has changed the way people order food, a car, or a place to stay. Now, technology startups are targeting the next business frontier - insurance - offering coverage with the swipe of an app. Trov, a San Francisco Bay Area firm that provides smartphone-based on-demand insurance for individual assets, like computers or cameras, for any duration, launched in the United Kingdom on Tuesday, backed by AXA Insurance, a subsidiary of AXA SA . "We literally track risk to the second so when you turn something on, it turns it on to the second and then it prices your usage to the second should you want to turn it off," Scott Walchek, Trov's chief executive officer, said in an interview last week. "It's literally the same swipe right to turn it on, swipe left to turn it off." The multitrillion-dollar dollar insurance industry is poised to be transformed "beyond recognition" by new technologies like artificial intelligence, new payment systems, drones and blockchain, CommerzVentures GmbH said in a white paper in March. "Effectively cooperating with startups may be the only way for incumbent insurers to fend off potential competitors such as Google , Amazon , Facebook and other non-traditional players," said CommerzVentures, the fintech venture capital fund of CommerzBank . Trov has been doing business in Australia for the past five months in partnership with Suncorp Group Ltd and plans to launch next year in the United States, where it has teamed up with Munich Re , Walchek said. Trov's main users are millennials who live "untethered" lifestyles, meaning they might work from home or from a coffee shop with their laptop, which they want to protect, Walchek said. The firm started with electronics and photography equipment coverage in the UK, and will add other insurance categories going forward, such as sporting goods, Walchek said. The insurance industry has been slow to adopt new, potentially disruptive technologies, in part because it is subject to moral hazard and adverse selection, said Erik Brynjolfsson, professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. "Meaning that one party may know information that the other doesn't and markets tend to break down in those situations," he said in an interview. Technology firms' ability to mine vast amounts of web-based data, along with the type of ratings systems used by firms like Airbnb and Uber to verify trustworthiness and reliability, may help insurers overcome those barriers, he added. (Reporting by John McCrank in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis) By Patpicha Tanakasempipat BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's military government, which has cracked down on online dissent since seizing power in 2014, is pushing ahead with cyber security bills that rights groups say could mean more extensive online monitoring, raising concerns over privacy protection. Amendments to Thailand's 2007 Computer Crime Act to be considered by parliament next month have come under fire from critics who say the bill could give state officials sweeping powers to spy on internet users and restrict online speech. Critics say parliament is likely to approve the amendments because lawmakers voted unanimously to pass the bill in its first reading. The amendments come as the military government has ramped up online censorship since the May 2014 coup, particularly perceived insults to the royal family, as it tries to ensure a smooth transition following the death of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej on Oct. 13 and ahead of a 2017 general election. Since the coup, the government has shut down or blocked thousands of websites it has deemed offensive or inappropriate. The amendments to the cyber law, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, have pro-democracy activists worried that they could lead to arbitrary invasion of privacy without a court warrant. Sam Zarifi, Asia Director at the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation, said the amendments would strengthen the government's ability to silence speech that it deems violates Thailand's lese-majeste law, a crime that is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. "This absolutely curbs free expression," Zarifi told Reuters. In the amendments, Articles 18 and 19 of the Computer Crime Act say state officials can obtain user and traffic data from service providers without court approval and can seize a computer device within an unspecified time period. Article 20 says a website that could threaten national security or "offend people's good morals" can be removed or suspended. A committee would be in charge of flagging suspicious content. The current law says officials need court approval to remove content. In a statement last month, the ICJ and four other rights groups called for Thailand's parliament, or National Legislative Assembly, to reject the draft. The National Human Rights Commission has also opposed the amendments. Members of the National Legislative Assembly declined to comment on the cyber security bills when contacted by Reuters. The amendments will be followed by the Cyber Security Act and the Personal Data Protection Act, which the government has approved in principle and aims to pass through parliament by March. Experts say the Computer Crime Act is a benchwarmer for the more dangerous Cyber Security Act, which would allow the state to wiretap phones and computers without judicial approval. "These laws are aimed at controlling online media, accessing personal data, and when the Cyber Security bill is passed, mass surveillance is a real threat," said Kanathip Thongraweewong, a data privacy expert at Saint John's University in Bangkok. Under the act, a National Cyber Security Committee will have the power to order any state or private agency to do anything without judicial oversight. The committee could take down whatever it wants, said Arthit Suriyawongkul of the Thai Netizen Network group, which has campaigned against the bills. Drafts of the bills show the committee's secretary will also serve as secretary in the Personal Data Protection Committee, raising conflict of interest questions. "A committee that protects people's rights and freedom should be independent from the state, especially when the state is a potential violator," said Arthit. (Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Nick Macfie) 411,364 Nepalis in Malaysia currently Despite a steep decline in number of Nepalis going to Malaysia, Nepali migrant workers still make up the second largest group of foreign workers after Indonesians in the East Asian nation, according to Malaysian officials. Chinese envoy sees VP, Nidhi Chinese Ambassador Yu Hong paid a courtesy call on Vice President Nanda Bahadur Pun at Bahadur Bhawan on Monday. Foresight and handshake It is the first real indication of Deuba rising above partisan politics within the Nepali Congress Govt docs refuse to comply with Health Ministry directive to extend service hours The Government Doctors' Association of Nepal (GDAN) has expressed its inability to implement the government directive to render health services including the outpatient department (OPD) from 10 am to 5 pm every day. Govt-set paddy prices of little use to farmers The government has fixed the minimum support price (MSP) of paddy, but an ambiguous rider has undercut its usefulness to farmers. Health Minister Thapa donates first month's salary to oncology fund Health Minister Gagan Kumar Thapa has donated the amount tantamount to his salary of first month to the oncology fund set up in Kanti Children's Hospital to provide monetary aid to poorest children suffering from cancer. Nepal-India oversight meeting next week The first meeting of the bilateral oversight mechanism formed to remove bottlenecks in India-funded projects in Nepal is going to take place in Kathmandu next week. Nepal yet to localise SDGs Nepal, one of the first countries in the world to prepare a preliminary national report on implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), New bill ignores reproductive health rights A new bill to protect the rights of people living with disabilities has ignored the reproductive health rights of women living with disabilities. NMA warns of nationwide protest in support of fasting surgeon KC The Nepal Medical Association (NMA) has said it will stage protests across the country if the government fails to address the demands of Dr Govinda KC who is on a fast-unto-death for the last nine days. PM attends KU convocation after release of vandalism accused ANNISU(R) member Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal attended the 22nd Convocation of Kathmandu University on Tuesday after the release of party- student wing ANNISU (R) Secretary Sushil Khanal, who was charged with a public offence case for vandalizing the office of KU Vice-chancellor. PM calls govt secretaries on the carpet Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Monday called government secretaries on the carpet for failing to act as per his instructions and demanded progress reports of the ministries they represent. Profit of banks jumps 44pc in first quarter The net profit of commercial banks surged by 44 percent in the first quarter of this fiscal year on the back of mergers and amid pressure to expand business in line with the expansion in capital base. Protests continue against restructuring proposals Protests against the local restructuring proposals continued in different parts of the country on Monday as well. Timely release of funds crucial to implement projects: NRA The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has said that adequate and timely allocation of budget from the government is crucial to implement the reconstruction works within the set timeframe. Trump wages war on 'dishonest' US media Donald Trump has cancelled a meeting with the New York Times, a day after berating media chiefs at his headquarters for "unfair" coverage. United RPP has 37 lawmakers Two right-wing parties Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal and the RPP, the fourth and seventh largest forces in Parliament respectively, merged on Monday to become a single entity vowing to fight for reinstating Nepal as a Hindu state. Waiting in anticipation Socio-economic change, a key part of the peace process, is still a work in progress Offer a personal message of sympathy... You'll find individual Guest Books on the page with each obituary notice. By sharing a fond memory or writing a kind tribute, you will be providing a comforting keepsake to those in mourning. . From a Guest Book, you may log in with your Google, Facebook, Yahoo or AOL account to leave a message. If you have an existing account with this site, you may log in with that. Otherwise, it's simple to create a new one by clicking on the Create "Sign up" button and following the simple steps on the Sign Up page. I had always wanted to visit Rummu quarry and the former prison area. Well, last year I had a chance to do that - it was a wonderful experience. Here are some photos of the prison area, or at least what was left of it. I found a wonderful story from this site , which will help you understand the history of the place better: Rummus underwater prison is located in northwestern Estonia (about 40 kilometers west from Tallinn). Rummu is a small town in Estonia and had a nearby limestone quarry which was founded on 1 January 1938 together with Murru Soviet Prison (how conveniently) Convicts were forced to mine limestone. In 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, Estonia again gained its independence and limestone mining was ended, Soon enough the quarry became a quarry lake (faster than many assumed) thus resulting the flooding of buildings within the former soviet prison compound and even some machinery. Nowadays the local people of Rummu fondly refer to the newly formed lake as the blue lagoon. This once eerie place which held about a thousand inmates is now an amazingly popular and mesmerizing beach where people swim in the deep blue water during the summer and dive almost yearlong. Labels: beauty, calm, love, session, structure, travel By Ruth Anderah The prime suspects in the murder of child rights activist Kenneth Watmon Akena have been remanded to Luzira prison. The suspects who include Cynthia Munwangari, her boyfriend Mathew Kanyamunyu and his brother Joseph Kanyamunyu were this afternoon produced separately at Nakawa Magistrates Court, each of them arrived aboard a police patrol pick-up truck. The two brothers were each handcuffed, while the woman moved about freely. Nakawa Grade One Magisttrate Sajabi Noah has sent them on remand up to Dec 6th when they return to court for mention of the case. Prosecution led by Anne Ntimba and Itau Deborah have told court that investigations into the matter are ongoing. Prosecution states that on 12th November 2016 along Kampala-Jinja road in Nakawa division, the accused with malice aforethought caused the death of Akena. Akena was short in the stomach and died the following morning at Norvik hospital along Bombo road where he had been admitted at the Intensive Care Unit. By Ruth Anderah A government ballistic expert has told the International Crimes Division of the High Court that that the two slain Muslim sheikhs; Mustafa Bahiga, Hassan Ibrahim Kirya and slain senior Principle State Attorney Joan Kagezi were murdered using bullets fired by the same gun, an AK-47. Robinah Kirinya has appeared as prosecution witness number ten in a murder case against 14 suspects including the leader of the Tabliq sect Yunus Kamoga and his brother Siraje Kawooya. The suspects are accused of engineering the murder of sheikhs Bahiga and Hassan Kirya. Sheikh Bahiga was murdered from Bwebajja Mosque in December 2014, Sheikh Kirya was murdered in Bweyogere in July 2015 whereas Kagezi who was the lead prosecutor in the 2010 twin bombings case was shot dead in Kiwatule on March 30th /2015. Kirinya has testfied that between January and October 2015, while at the Government analytical Laboratory in Wandegeya, she received instructions from Kajjansi Bweyogerere and Kiwatule police stations respectively to examine bullet cartridges to establish the make and probable type of rifle that could have fired them. Kirinya has told court that basing on the similarities regarding the relative position of shooting and an indication of possible common origin of the cartridges, she was able to conclude that the three murders were committed using the same gun. The expert concluded that the cartridges were fired by an AK-47 gun and its variants manufactured in different years but could not ably establish the manufacturer of the guns due to limited materials. She further testified that police also asked her to establish whether the same riffle was used to fire bullets that killed other Shiekhs in Mayuge district, Old Kampala and Matugga between 2013 and 2014. However Kirinya said she found no similarity and relation to cartridges used in those other murders. The ballistic experts four reports containing her findings and conclusions and the bullet cartridges have been tendered in court as exhibits. The Marine Corps is seeking feedback on its artillery rounds to look for areas where they can improve their dominance on the battlefield. Ammunition professionals with Marine Corps Systems Command's Ammunition Program Management Office recently went out to the range at Quantico, Virginia to participate in a live-fire field artillery demonstration of an M777 155mm howitzer and improve their comprehensive understanding of ground operations, officials with Systems Command announced this month. The trip to [the Training and Education Command range] was unique for our employees because most testing for ammunition is done in very controlled environments by a select audience, Lt. Col. Bill Lanham, deputy program manager for program manager ammunition, said in a statement. This was a great opportunity for employees who more times than not are looking at drawings and talking with engineers, but not actually seeing the products in use. It also allowed for an open dialogue with Marines about how we can improve the technology they use. PM Ammo buys and fields 155mm howitzer rounds, officials said. The demonstration was designed to allow engineers and officials in the program to understand the rounds better and help them make better future purchasing decisions. "It is our job to make sure we are buying and delivering items that fit the necessary requirements so the ammunition works the first time, every time, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Michael Reynolds, project officer for artillery and fuzes for PM Ammo, said in a statement. It is important that we continually understand the Marines requirement outside of our individual tasks so that we put out a quality product that is reliable, safe and as lethal as it is designed to be. Sometimes we have to open our aperture to look at the big picture of what our work does. The field day was part of the Marines' full-court press effort to improve the gear and weapons used by Marine Corps infantrymen. In September, Marine Corps Systems Command hosted an "Infantry Equipping Challenge"--an industry day in which they invited professionals to come up with creative ways to improve the Marine grunt's combat load, from moisture-wicking underwear to better-fitting body armor. Marine Corps ammunition professionals have also talked about finding creative ways to make Marines lighter, even suggesting they might ditch or redesign the classic ammo can to cut weight. No Yes, a light case Yes, two or more light cases One serious case Two or more serious bouts Vote View Results KENDALLVILLE Glowing Christmas trees, meaningful wreaths and inviting gift displays provided a festive setting for the approximately 375 people attending the Festival of Trees Saturday night at the Kendallville Event Center. The 19th annual event sponsored by the Parkview Noble and Parkview LaGrange foundations raised more than $52,000 to benefit the hospice programs of Parkview Noble and Parkview LaGrange hospitals. Parkview Home Health and Hospice help hundreds of Noble and LaGrange county residents spend their final months at home with family, alleviating pain, reducing discomfort, treating symptoms and enhancing their quality of life. Hospice provides care to all patients, regardless of insurance coverage or ability to pay for services. Tina Smith spoke about how hospice made a difference to her father, Vernie Blevins, and their family. Another especially meaningful portion of the evening was when Parkview Noble Foundation director Cathy Linsenmayer gave special recognition to Jane Roush, who retired this summer as executive director of the Parkview Noble Foundation. In the 15 years that Jane was director of the Parkview Noble Foundation, not only did she grow the foundation, but she made the Festival of Trees what it is today, Linsenmayer said. The success of this years event and the number of people who donated their time, resources and passion show Janes ongoing dedication to the Festival of Trees. The silent and live auctions received enthusiastic support. One of the biggest crowd pleasers was a Harley-Davidson rocker that sold for $3,000 to Michelle Phillips. The rocker was donated by Ron and Lori Grate, huge supporters who believe strongly in the services provided by hospice care, Linsenmayer said. Ron Grate drove to Illinois on Thursday to obtain the rocker, handcrafted by Paul Roberts. It is 100 percent wood and 100 percent American made. Decorated by LeAnn Conley, KPC Media Groups white Christmas tree won the Peoples Choice award, and the Cubs tree sponsored by Burnworth Zollars and decorated by Abbie Samko won the Judges Choice award. The Cubs tree sold in the live auction for $3,500. The KPC tree won the Judges Choice second place award, and the Mannequin Tree, sponsored by the Marcella Boman family and decorated by Becky Schermerhorn and Susan Ross, was third place Judges Choice. Also placing in Peoples Choice were the 3-foot tree sponsored by Harper Funeral Home, decorated by ARC, and the wreath in memory of Alma Kiser. For information about Parkview Home Health and Hospice, call 347-8910. Donald Trumps weekend criticism of cast members of the Broadway musical Hamilton was panned by opponents as an overreaction by a thin-skinned president-elect who chose rhetorical skirmishing over soberly building his administration. Rather, it was a display of a so-far successful tactic Trump is likely to use to his advantage throughout the transition and, come January, as the nations first Twitter president. Trumps social media blast against the cast of Hamilton deftly distracted from bad news a $25 million settlement in a fraud case brought by former students at Trump University and accusations of conflicts between his business and political careers. Tuesday morning, a similar tweet attacking The New York Times shifted attention away from new controversies over whether he or those close to him had used his influence to bolster his overseas business interests. In both cases, Trump reignited the war on elites that helped him secure the loyalty of voters outside the coastal metropolises. And he spoke directly to his supporters, bypassing the media he considers reflexively unfair. His tweets may have a downside, but unarguably provide an upside: Even as Trump works to staff a government that will inevitably include establishment figures some of his backers abhor, he was reasserting his disruptive bona fides to those who support him the most. Talking to the people Trumps use of Twitter as a communications engine is only one of the ways he has, since his surprise election, worked to maintain a direct line to voters. On Monday, he released a video describing his plans for his first days as president. He asserted that his transition was moving very smoothly, efficiently and effectively to hire patriots. My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America first, he said. Whether its producing steel, building cars or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here on our great homeland, America, creating wealth and jobs for American workers. The video was the first of many, he hinted, promising to make America great again for everyone I mean everyone. Trump is hardly the first president to try to bypass traditional gatekeepers: President Barack Obama often appeared on nontraditional formats while granting relatively few interviews to traditional media. For Trump, that approach has become supercharged. He has not held a news conference since July; since he claimed victory in the early morning hours of Nov. 9, he has sat for an interview on CBS 60 Minutes and one with The Wall St. Journal, but offered no formal remarks, unusual for a president-elect. That has given even more prominence to Trumps social media comments and the brief, tweet-sized remarks he made over the weekend as he bade farewell to visitors vying for Cabinet positions. The real deal, he said of the departing Gen. James Mattis on Saturday. Hes just a brilliant, wonderful man. The appearance of authenticity Trump did not adopt Twitter as a preferred communications vehicle because of the campaign. He used the micro-messaging system well before he became a candidate (often to express views that were exactly the opposite of what he would later say while campaigning for president). Twitter became a potent tool for candidate Trump because it dovetails with the demands of todays political environment: delivering brief, blunt statements that because of their pithiness seem authentic truthful or not. Hes been very successful in developing an image of himself by tweeting, said Pablo Barbera, a University of Southern California assistant professor of international relations who has studied the use of social media by politicians. In contrast to Hillary Clinton who had a very professional look Trump was more raw and authentic, and it helped him. In his 60 Minutes interview, Trump called Twitter a great form of communication and bragged of adding 100,000 followers on the Thursday after the election. (He has 15.7 million Twitter followers; Clinton has 11.2 million.) I think that social media has more power than the money they spent (on ads), and I think maybe to a certain extent, I proved that, he said. A risky strategy Its not been without stumbles: At times, Trumps use of Twitter to nurse grievances can interfere with his broader goals. A month before the election, for example, Trump used Twitter to falsely accuse a former Miss Universe of starring in a sex tape. (The woman had accused Trump of maligning her weight when he ran the pageant.) In the final weeks of the campaign, his top campaign aides appeared to have taken control of his Twitter account to avoid controversies. Days after the election, Trump tweeted criticism about protesters objecting to his victory, then followed the blast a few hours later with an uncharacteristic message praising them for exercising their right to free speech. But much of the time his tweets seem strategic, both in the topics he addresses and those he avoids. He has not, for example, commented on outbreaks of post-election violence against gays, women and others by people purporting to be his supporters. He has not tweeted any comment on the weekend meeting of white nationalists in Washington who praised his victory. He has devoted more than half a dozen tweets since the election to criticizing reporting by The New York Times, a favorite target of Trump and his followers. The tweets included denials of statements that Trump clearly had made. And he took on the multicultural cast of Hamilton accusing it of harassing the incoming vice president, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. The incident began when Pence arrived at the play Friday night to a mixture of applause and boos. The cast did not join in the booing, instead distancing themselves from it. After the show, actor Brandon Victor Dixon read a statement from the stage thanking Pence for attending but adding that the cast represented the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us. He told Pence he hoped the show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us. Pence later said that he was not offended by the booing or the statement and praised the show. But Trump began issuing tweets the next morning. He insisted that the cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologize to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior. Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing, he said. This should not happen! A perfect culture war For Trump, teeing off on the cast allowed him to appear to oppose the New York elite hes a member of given his Fifth Avenue penthouse and self-described billionaire status on behalf of someone who isnt. The gesture symbolically aligned him with supporters who cant afford a ticket to the hit show. Thats a perfect culture war, said University of California, San Diego political science professor Thad Kousser, who has studied candidates and social media. What Twitter allows him to do is speak directly to his base in the most stirring terms possible. Picking a fight with Hamilton is picking a fight with the coastal intelligentsia. Its a perfect platform for continuing to show his voters why he sticks up for them against the people they feel are down on them. Trumps tweets about the play overshadowed an earlier tweet in which he defended settling the Trump University fraud lawsuit. And the one-way nature of Trumps tweets meant he didnt have to have to confront follow-up questions. Over the weekend, when a reporter shouted a question about Trump University, Trump did not respond. Studies of other politicians who have used Twitter to communicate with their public have shown that is part of its appeal: it offers bite-sized press releases, delivered without any expectation of a back-and-forth. Politicians from other countries who have relied on Twitter have moderated their comments once they took office. None of them, however, was Donald Trump. In the 60 Minutes interview, he nodded in the direction of becoming more restrained, but then defended his use of Twitter. Its a modern form of communication, he said. There should be nothing you should be ashamed of. Its its where its at. Robert Bonine died at home Nov. 5, 2016, because of A.L.S. (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). RoxAnne was by his side. Bob accepted his diagnosis in March 2013 and lived the remainder of his life with grace and dignity. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him. Per Bobs wishes, there will be no funeral or visitation. A celebration of his life will be held from noon until 3 p.m. Nov. 26, which would have been Bobs 60th birthday. A brief program will begin at 1 p.m. Food and beverages will be served. Memorials can be made to the Wisconsin Chapter of ALS, www.alsawi.org/donate; or to Gundersen Hospice, www. Gundersen health. org. Jandt-Fredrickson Funeral Homes and Crematory, Woodruff Chapel, La Crosse, is assisting the family. Online condolences may be sent www.jandtfredrickson.com. Stuffing a bus has something in common with stuffing a turkey, after a fashion: Both require more care to pack than to unpack. That comparison springs from the impression of eighth-grader Olivia Belland that it was easier for her and other student council members from Aquinas Middle School in La Crosse to unload the school bus they had filled with foodstuffs and other staples in their 14th annual Stuff the Bus drive for the WAFER food pantry. I would say unloading is easier, because when youre loading, you have to cram everything in and make sure it wont fall, Olivia explained as she pushed a grocery cart to help unload the bus in 25-degree weather Monday morning under the direction of Aquinas and WAFER staffers. Thats just like stuffing a turkey, a delicate task in which a cook must take care to insert the dressing carefully enough so that the cooking turkey boosts the flavor, but not so much that it delays cooking until the cook pulls it out for guests to stuff themselves. Unloading (the bus), you just have to pull it off, Olivia said of the task she and nine other student council members faced in transferring nearly 3,000 pounds from the bus to the warehouse of WAFER, the largest food pantry in the Coulee Region. If there had bunch more, we would have had to add a trailer, said bus driver Ken Covey. I feel like Im working for Festival, with the bus loaded front to back. The student council coordinates the drive, including setting up competitions among eight home rooms to boost the collection of everything from soup to nuts and then some including cereal, canned goods, juices, cleaning supplies, laundry detergents, personal hygiene items and toilet paper. They are so enthusiastic every year, WAFER executive director Erin Waldhart said as the students streamed in and out of WAFERs storage area. This comes at a really fantastic time, after summer donations have been depleted, Waldhart said. This drive also provides a variety for our clients, with canned goods and personal hygiene items. We always appreciate donations of canned goods, but hygiene items are important, too. If they cant afford food, they cant afford that, either, she said. Alexis Smith, a seventh-grader shivering in much colder temperatures than she had expected when she donned her light zip-up sweatshirt, said activities such as cereal dominoes and building towers from the food fueled the drive for a good cause. It was great school period, for students, faculty and staff, said Aquinas Middle Principal Patty Gallagher-Kosmatka. The fun competitions for who could bring in the most weight helped push each other in what they were really doing, which was giving. And WAFER was happy to receive, as it shares the food not only with those who stop at its headquarters at 403 Causeway Blvd. but also with other food pantries throughout La Crosse County and in La Crescent. This month has been busier than in the past for us, Waldhart said. I imagine it will stay busy through Wednesday as people prepare for Thanksgiving WAFER provides food packages to more than 1,500 families a month, prepared with the goal of providing four to five days worth of food per person. Last year, it collected and distributed 1.4 million pounds the equivalent of 1.2 million meals through in-house and outreach programs. Republican Dan Kapanke will seek a recount in his bid to unseat state Sen. Jennifer Shilling, who was elected Tuesday to a second term as her partys leader in the Senate. An attorney for Kapankes campaign told a meeting of the Wisconsin Elections Commission Tuesday morning that a petition would be submitted Wednesday, the final day on which he can request the recount. Shilling defeated Kapanke by just 56 votes out of more 89,000 ballots cast in the 32nd District race, which pitted the Senate minority party leader against the Republican she unseated in a 2011 recall. Once the petition is submitted, recounts will begin Monday in Crawford, La Crosse, Monroe and Vernon counties. Kapankes campaign said in a statement Tuesday that he decided to request a recount because the results were so close. Shilling issued a statement saying the vote total did not change during the canvass process. The decision to put taxpayers through a costly recount is up to my opponent, she said. With the election behind us, Im going to keep my focus on moving Wisconsin forward. Because the margin was less than 0.25 points, Kapanke will not have to pay for a recount. Each county will have to absorb the cost. La Crosse County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer expects her recount will cost at least $10,000. Dankmeyer said she anticipates it will take five to six days to complete the recount, with 30 to 35 poll workers needed to sift through the nearly 62,500 votes cast in La Crosse county, which represents about 70 percent of the total. Other county clerks estimated they will need two to five days. Most of the ballots will be counted by hand. Dankmeyer said the slowest part of the process will be the very cumbersome process for counting 21,846 absentee ballots. It will be the first countywide recount for La Crosse County since the 2011 Supreme Court race between Justice David Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg, which took poll workers about 5 days to process fewer than 30,000 ballots. Prosser picked up 11 votes in that recount, and Kloppenburg got an additional 25. Dankmeyer said she doesnt expect results to change as much in this case because the county has since adopted more accurate tabulating machines that are able to detect marks made with colored pens. Most of the gains were because of improperly marked ballots, she said. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats unanimously selected Shilling Tuesday to again serve as their leader in the upcoming legislative session, when the party will return with the smallest minority since the 1970s. While Republican gerrymandering and national factors have limited our progress, we also have to re-evaluate our efforts and do a better job connecting with voters across Wisconsin who are anxious about our stagnant economy, upset with the growing income inequality and concerned about the future of our state, Shilling said in a statement after the party meeting in Madison. Today begins a new chapter. MADISON Wisconsin hunters killed about 7,500 fewer deer on opening day of this year's nine-day gun deer season than they did last year, according to data from state wildlife officials. Hunters killed 68,756 deer on Saturday, according to preliminary estimates the Department of Natural Resources released Sunday evening. That would be 7,467 fewer deer than the 76,223 that were killed on opening day last year. The open-day total was down a third in La Crosse County, from 1,179 last year to 791. Hunters killed more deer 38,273 of them in the central farmland zone than in any of the state's three other hunting zones. Last year, hunters killed 45,607 deer on opening day in the central farmland zone, which includes 36 counties across the state's mid-section. They killed the fewest deer 3,215 animals in the central forest zone, a seven-county, L-shaped chunk of territory in the middle of the state. That was about 500 fewer than last year's opening day. Hunters in the northern forest zone killed 12,330 deer on Saturday, which was more than the 10,071 killed there last year. It was the only zone where the number of deer killed was higher and is an encouraging sign for DNR game managers, who have been trying to regrow the herd in that region after harsh winters in 2012-13 and 2013-14 devastated the population. Gun deer license sales suggest far fewer hunters took to the woods on opening day this year. According to DNR tallies, the agency had sold 533,502 licenses as of 4 p.m. Friday, which was about 17,250 fewer than it had sold by the same point last year. Weather conditions were raw Saturday, too, with gusty winds and temperatures in the middle to lower 30s. Many hunters may have decided to stay indoors or gave up early. Kevin Wallenfang, a DNR big game ecologist, declined to comment on Monday morning, saying the agency was still compiling reports from the field. The DNR was expected to release preliminary harvest data for Sunday on Monday evening. News Story not available This story has been published on: 2022-11-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. This story is no longer available on our site. WINONA, Minn. Winona State University says it has received reports of date rape drugs possibly being used at off-campus parties. The university sent out a mass email Friday asking students to be vigilant and to report any suspicious activity to campus security. If you suspect that you or a friend has been roofied, seek medical testing as soon as possible, the release read in part. Chris Cichosz, director of security at the university, said Monday that he did not know or would not disclose how many of these reports have been filed, when exactly they came in, what details they may or may not include, how many if any of the reports have been verified, or what the university may be doing in response to the reports. In the meantime, the university chose to advise potential victims to make plans to get home before they go out, to watch their drinks at all times, not to walk alone at night, and to look after one another. WSU did advise that it maintains an escort service provided by WSU security, which students can use at any time by calling 507-457-5555. The following editorial appeared Saturday in the Chicago Tribune: If he is confirmed as attorney general of the United States, Jeff Sessions will no doubt provide many opportunities for criticism by those who didnt vote for Donald Trump. The policies Sessions can be expected to implement at the Justice Department on immigration, voting rights, terrorism and crime will not be agreeable to a lot of Americans. We expect to find many grounds to take issue with him. But thats why we have elections: so Americans can choose the leaders and policies they prefer. Trump won the election, and Sessions is exactly the sort of person he could have been expected to place in his Cabinet. So anyone who doesnt like the appointment should blame the 61 million people who voted for the Republican nominee. His choice to head the Department of Justice is proof that Trump meant what he said in the campaign, particularly about immigration. It should reassure Trump supporters that the incoming president isnt going to be co-opted by bland mainstream Republicans. Sessions was the first senator to endorse him during his presidential campaign, and we doubt that anyone ever has called him bland. Trump has chosen someone who is not only aligned with him on policy but experienced, able and savvy in the ways of Washington. A fourth-term senator from Alabama who has served on the Judiciary Committee, Sessions spent 12 years as the U.S. attorney in Mobile before being elected attorney general of Alabama. Hes unarguably well-prepared for his new assignment. Not that Sessions will have an easy road to confirmation. His 1986 nomination to the federal bench failed in the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee because of claims that he had made offensive remarks about racial matters, in addition to calling the ACLU and the NAACP un-American. Those matters will be revisited by the current Judiciary Committee in its deliberations, and they could hurt his chances. But they are less likely to prove fatal, because senators have far more information by which to assess him today than they did 30 years ago. Sessions represents a conservative state and his views are consistently hard-line. He voted against John McCains 2005 bill to ban cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees by the military. He is a staunch foe of comprehensive immigration reform that would grant many undocumented foreigners a path to citizenship, which he decries as amnesty. He has opposed measures to reduce sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. On all these issues, we disagree with Sessions. But then, presidents are entitled to considerable deference in choosing the people they want to carry out their policies barring some clear evidence of unsuitability. Strongly disagreeing with some of Sessions opinions doesnt meet that test. It would be hard to find anyone who can better represent and advance President Trumps policies at the Justice Department than Sessions. Opponents may think thats reason enough for the Senate to reject him. But all of us ought to remember who won the election. It should reassure Trump supporters that the incoming president isnt going to be co-opted by bland mainstream Republicans. Dan Kapanke will seek a recount in his bid to unseat state Sen. Jennifer Shilling in a race she won by just 56 votes. An attorney for Kapankes campaign told a meeting of the Wisconsin Elections Commission Tuesday morning that a petition would be submitted Wednesday, the final day on which he can request the recount. The 32nd District race pitted the Senate minority party leader against the Republican she unseated in a 2011 recall. Once the petition is submitted, recounts will begin Monday in Crawford, La Crosse, Monroe and Vernon counties. About 70 percent of the more than 89,000 votes were cast in La Crosse County. La Crosse County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer said she anticipates it will take five to six days to complete the recount with 30 to 35 poll workers on the job. Other county clerks estimated they will need two to five days. Most of the ballots will be counted by hand. Dankmeyer said the slowest part of the process will be the very cumbersome process for counting 21,846 absentee ballots. Shilling declared victory as the final precincts reported numbers early Nov. 9, but Senate Democrats postponed their leadership vote last week under the shadow of uncertainty surrounding that race and the loss of the 24th District seat held by Julie Lassa of Stevens Point. That leadership vote was scheduled to take place Tuesday, and Shilling last week asked her colleagues for their support in her bid for the minority leadership spot. The 32nd District includes the towns of Angelo, Adrian, Tomah, Leon, Wells, Ridgeville, Wilton, Portland, Jefferson, Sheldon and Wellington and villages of Norwalk, Wilton, Melvina and Cashton in Monroe County. I would bet that the most-used word to describe the condition in which the 124,000,000 (of the 250,000,000 eligible citizens) who voted on Nov. 8 found themselves late that night or early the next morning was shock, defined as a sudden upsetting or surprising event or experience. I would also bet that the two most-shocked people who voted were presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: Hillary because she lost and Donald because he won. I count myself among the shocked electorate. But other words come to my mind that describe how I feel about what happened that day. Apocalyptic (resembling the end of the world) is hopefully too strong a description of what happened when almost 50 percent of the votes were tallied for Donald Trump on the 8th. (Hillary actually won the popular vote by over a quarter-million votes.) The saddest result of the election has made me realize that even if I wanted to bemoan the outcome, I would have to be very careful to whom I complained, simply because again, half of the people I know may have voted for a candidate I opposed. I do not want to lose friends, so I will not talk about the election. But the It is what it is description of what happened that night could only be accepted by me if I changed my daily routine and stopped reading the on-line political sections of the countrys major newspapers and tuning in all day to CNN. Therefore I made a quick and firm decision Nov. 9 to free myself from what will be happening in America and around the world for the next four years. Call it shameful (unpatriotic?) of me, but I do not want to watch or read about a 70-year old bully with not one redeeming quality running amok on Twitter and Breitbart. (Cheating the government by not paying Federal taxes for 18 years is not a redeeming quality.) Trump can try to pass himself off as the greatest ever leader of the free world, but a leopard cannot change its spots. I suspect his racism and misogyny will play out on the international stage. My only solace is knowing that my vote was against allowing it. Because I have canceled my subscriptions to the New York Times and Washington Post, you may wonder how I will know what of interest, note or calamity is happening in the world. I have the La Crosse Tribune, Tomah Journal and the Associated Press headlines to tell me if the world is coming to an end. These media will suffice. Take notice that this is all I am going to say, in public or private, about Donald Trump, who is what he is. What I will say about a more important person in my life (me) is that I have become free ... free to spend my remaining days (or at least the next four years) reading really good books and watching PBS dramas that transport me to an often better, though sometimes tragedy-filled world of fiction. I will take up a new, more fulfilling hobby (politics was more of an obsession than hobby for me), find ways to spend my time in charitable pursuits (participating in the Hospice Touch and Palliative Care annual Love Lights ceremony being held here in Tomah on Dec. 4th, at 6:30 p.m. at Tomah Memorial Hospital) and enjoy the simple pleasures of life (walking and cuddling with my Yorkie, Cocoa). I will continue to be a good citizen by paying my taxes and voting in local and state elections. But my focus will not be on the political world, which may well become a more unreal world than the starkest drama PBS has to offer. The holiday season that is upon us is a good time to start my new, free life. I may knit a sweater for someone and will certainly make my traditional Christmas pizzelles, rosettes and Greek walnut rolls. I will think hard about the New Years resolutions I make for next year. The good news is I will definitely have more time to keep them. And unless an Associated Press headline predicts an apocalyptic meteor shower for the Tomah area in the near future, I can continue my life ... born free and free at last! The Westby Thanksgiving Day community dinner will be served on Thursday, Nov. 24, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Our Saviors Lutheran Church basement, which is handicap accessible. In 2015, the Westby Lions Club, who hosts the meal served 339 dinners and the number of carryout meals continues to grow. Event coordinator Gary Daines is hoping that the events loyal bakers spend a little more time in the kitchen this year to make sure they dont run out of pie and lefse, which happened last year. Last year the community dinner served 25 turkeys, 45 dozen lefse and 70 homemade pies all donated from area church congregations and service organizations. The Lions Club is always in need of community ovens to help bake the turkeys. Residents with open ovens are encouraged to contact the church if they would like to volunteer to bake a turkey for the meal. Turkeys to be baked are available for pickup in the church basement anytime on Wednesday, Nov. 23 and early Thursday morning. All baked turkeys must be returned to the church by 11 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day. We appreciate any and all the help we receive every year, Daines said. Food expenses for the meal and dinnerware are paid for with a grant from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, plus donations from local businesses and organizations. Monetary donations also help cover food purchases, with any remaining funds going to Bethel Butikk Food Pantry. Last years freewill donations were more than $2,000. For every dollar donated to the food pantry, I can purchase an average of $18 worth of groceries from Second Harvest/Feed America. Thats a lot of bang for the buck and we appreciate every penny donated, Daines said. The Westby Thanksgiving Day community dinner will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 24, in the basement of Our Saviors Lutheran Church in Westby. Residents unable to attend the dinner in person can request home delivery meals by calling 608-634-4871. Viroqua The Viroqua Ministerial Association will once again be hosting the annual community Thanksgiving dinner, held at St. Marys Catholic Church, 400 Congress Ave. This year the Church of Christ will be the host church. Members of various area congregations will prepare food donated by them and many area businesses. The doors will open for this annual tradition at 11 a.m., with serving from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. The dinner is free; however, monetary donations will be accepted and appreciated. For delivery to the homebound, leave a message at 637-3549, from now until Wednesday, Nov. 23. Leave the name of the homebound person, address, phone number, and the number of meals to be delivered. No carryouts are provided. La Farge Thanksgiving Day dinner will be served at La Farge Free Methodist Church, 214 S. Cherry St., from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Carryouts are available; the meal is free. Homebound residents who would like a meal delivered to them may contact Doris Odegard at 625-4382 until the end of the day, Wednesday, Nov. 23. On Thanksgiving Day, they may call the church at 625-6242. Stoddard A community Thanksgiving dinner will be held at St. Matthews Lutheran Church activity center, 303 N. Main St., Wednesday, Nov. 23, from 4-6:30 p.m. Everyone is invited to attend the dinner, which is free of charge. All freewill donations will be given to the Stoddard community food pantry to help those in need. Call 457-2711 for more information. Dear reader, we're asking for your help to keep local reporting available for all today during our fall fundraiser. Your financial support keeps stories like this one free to read, instead of hidden behind paywalls. We believe when reliable local reporting is widely available, the entire community benefits. Thank you for investing in your neighborhood. Start your day with LAist Sign up for How To LA, delivered weekday mornings. Subscribe Rapper Kanye West has reportedly been hospitalized and is currently under psychiatric evaluation. LAPD Officer Tony Im told LAist that officers reported to a home on the 900 block of North Laurel Avenue around 1:20 p.m., Monday afternoon. Im said that what was originally a disturbance call became a medical emergency. Brian Humphrey, spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed to LAist that firefighters responded for "an unspecified medical aid request" and added, "an adult male, described as medically stable, was taken to an area hospital for further assessment." According to TMZ, one of West's doctors was checking him for sleep deprivation when someone with the rapper decided he needed to be admitted. TMZ says West did not want to go and had to be restrained when transported to the UCLA Medical Center. This comes on the same day that his Saint Pablo Tour was abruptly canceled. Last night's concert at the Forum in Los Angeles was unexpectedly canceled, and just in the previous days he went on rants at his concerts in Northern California against Jay Z, Beyonce and Mark Zuckerberg and also said he would have voted for Donald Trump. Monday, November 21, 2016 Thanks to all who responded to my query two weeks ago on teaching corporate fiduciary duties. I continue to contemplate your suggestions as I recover from the cold that has consumed me now for a week. Don't catch this version of the common cold! It's a bear. Anyway, the weekend after I published that post, I presented at a super symposium on shareholder rights at the University of Oklahoma College of Law--"Confronting New Market Realities: Implications for Stockholder Rights to Vote, Sell, and Sue," hosted by the Oklahoma Law Review. (I spoke on rights to sell securities purchased in an offering exempt from registration under the CROWDFUND Act, Title III of the JOBS Act.) Although it was not part of the formal agenda for the symposium, I got a chance to chat informally with a group of folks at and after the conference, including our host, Megan Shaner, along with Jessica Erickson, Gordon Smith, and Vice Chancellor Travis Laster from the Delaware Chancery Court (among others) about fiduciary duty complexity. All, even the Vice Chancellor, had sympathy, offering ideas for simplifying corporate fiduciary duty law (as opposed to merely the teaching of it) that made sense. And it seems that among those of us in the academy, there are many ways this material currently is taught in an introductory Business Associations/Organizations or Corporations course. Of course, I am not the only one worried about teaching the law of business associations. In extended discussions on the topic, co-blogger Marcia Narine raised a great question. In general, she asked how one might teach business associations law to a relatively small class. I understand that she in the past has taught 60-75 students in a four-credit-hour course. That's similar to my situation at UT Law. I typically teach up to 72 students (although I teach a three-credit-hour-course). But in the future, Marcia may teach as few as 30 students in her four-credit-hour offering. She noted that she doesn't want to overburden the students or herself, but she wants to think about doing things differently. She floated the idea of more peer grading. I suggested in response that my oral midterm exam becomes more palatable in a smaller class. I also noted that I would generally use more skills training in that environment and maybe even introduce current events or group presentations (2-3 students in each group) over the course of the semester. But I also allowed as how I wouldn't try too many things all at once. In fact, I noted that she might be better off just deepening what she already does that works. What ideas do you have? Do some of you teach a Business Associations class that includes as few as 30 students? Do you use any specific pedagogies or tools that may be especially useful in a course like Business Associations/Organizations--a basic doctrinal upper-division course--when taught to a 30-student class? Do you have any tricks of the trade you would feel comfortable offering? If so, please post them in the comments. In other Business Associations teaching news, I requested and have received permission to increase my Advanced Business Associations offering to three credit-hours from two. This is great news. I use this course to focus in more on publicly held and closely held firms, business combinations, derivative and securities litigation, and social enterprise and corporate social responsibility topics. I ask the students to describe and assess the interaction among policy, theory, doctrine, and practice skills in corporate governance. I like to have the students read full cases and law review articles, in addition to teaching text and excerpts. (And I now plan to add Ann Lipton's new book chapter to the reading list this spring for the part of the course in which we cover the importance of bylaw amendments to contemporary corporate governance. Great timing.) Bottom line? The course, structured this way, just felt too densely packed with only two hours per week of teaching time. So, my last two-credit-hour version of the course will be taught this spring. Then, I will revamp the syllabus to add the extra credit-hour for 2018. Interestingly, it was my students who came to me originally asking for the change, because they wanted to pause more over some of the material. I did, too. So, now I am not worried about this any more. One thing to take off the ever-growing list of Business Associations teaching worries . . . . https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/business_law/2016/11/still-worried-about-teaching-business-associations-.html From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report. For nearly 20 years, opioid abuse has been spreading across the United States. Health experts say increasing numbers of Americans are growing physically dependent on painkilling medicines containing opioids, or narcotic drugs. The problem is so great that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service is calling 'opioid use disorder' an epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that from 2000 to 2014, nearly half a million Americans died from drug overdoses. CDC officials reported that opioid overdose deaths hit record levels in 2014, with an alarming 14 percent increase in one year. The American Society of Addiction Medicine notes on their website that drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. The website says that in 2014, 47,055 people died nationwide because they took more than the medically recommended amount. Prescription painkillers containing opioids have led to thousands of overdose deaths and stays in hospitals. But until now, researchers have yet to study how this epidemic affects the youngest members of society. Julie Gaither is with the Yale School of Medicine in Connecticut. As an epidemiologist, she studies how diseases spread and how to control them. Gaither is concerned about the huge growth in opioid sales over the past 20 years. "The opioid epidemic has grown exponentially. It really began in the mid-1990s when physicians were encouraged to do a better job of treating chronic pain. In 2014, there were approximately 19,000 deaths that were attributed to opioid medications." The CDC says that 48 people nationwide in the U.S. die every day from opioid overdoses. And a new study found that over a 16-year period, more than 13,000 children and teenagers were hospitalized for opioid poisonings. Deepa Camenga is another doctor at the Yale School of Medicine. Both she and Gaither looked at hospital records showing children and young people sent home from hospitals. They wanted to find out how many children had been hospitalized in recent years for prescription opioid poisonings. "We found that the rates of hospitalizations for opioid poisonings doubled during 1997 to 2012. ... We also found that the highest number of hospitalizations were among teenagers, ages 15 through 19. The highest rates of increase in hospitalizations were among our youngest population, which was one to four-year-old children." Camenga says the way that medicines with opioids are sold to patients needs to change. She also called for changes in the way in which the drugs are marketed and thrown away. "Our national conversation has focused on how to improve the treatment and prevention of opioid misuse and abuse, but we also hope that this conversation focuses on how to safeguard children from this epidemic." The researchers published the study in JAMA Pediatrics. Im Anna Matteo. Carol Pearson wrote this story for VOANews.com. Anna Matteo adapted her report and added additional information for Learning English. George Grow was the editor. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story epidemiologist n. medical: an expert in the study of how disease spreads and can be controlled exponentially adj. very fast; increasingly very quickly encourage v. to make (something) more appealing or more likely to happen; to persuade chronic adj. medical: continuing or happening again and again for a long time approximately adj. almost correct or exact; about attributed v. to explain by showing a cause epidemic n. a situation in which a disease spreads quickly and affects many people alarming adj. of or related to a signal or warning President Barack Obamas public approval rating is higher now than at any time in his second term in office. Many observers think Obama will have high popularity ratings when he leaves office in January 2017. Yet during his eight years as president, the Democratic Party has suffered a sharp reduction in power at the national and state level. Republicans now hold more power nationwide than at any time since the 1920s. The Washington Post newspaper recently noted that the biggest stain on (Obamas) political legacy may turn out to be the decimation of the Democratic Party on his watch. Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election this month. Barack Obama and his wife Michelle supported Clintons campaign for the presidency. They made campaign appearances for her in many states. But many Americans who had voted for Obama did not seem to support Clinton. The president told reporters I think its fair to say that I was surprised by the election results. Voters also kept Republican lawmakers in control of the United States Senate and House of Representatives. A continued Republican majority in the House was expected, but many political experts thought Democrats would retake control of the Senate. Republicans will have as many as 52 to 53 of the 100 seats in the Senate and at least a 41-seat majority in the 435-seat House. Now, for the first time since 1928, Republicans will control the presidency, the House, the Senate, and most state governorships. They also have the chance to name a new Supreme Court justice. Some observers have noted that soon after 1928, The Great Depression began, causing economic hardship across the country. And soon after 2007, The Great Recession began. In 2008, when Barack Obama was elected president, he received more votes than any candidate in U.S. history. Voters gave the Democratic Party a 257-178 majority in the House. The party also had its largest majority in the Senate since the 1970s, when Jimmy Carter was president. But two years later, in the 2010 congressional elections, Democrats suffered their largest losses since the 1920s. Republicans won 63 seats in the House -- enough to gain control of the chamber. Republicans won six seats in the Senate, but did not gain a majority. However, in 2014, Republicans won enough seats to gain control of the Senate. They also claimed their largest majority in the House since World War II. While voters made major changes on the national level, the National Conference of State Legislatures notes that voters left the overall partisan landscape in state legislatures relatively unchanged. Republicans gained power on the state level during the Obama presidency and expanded their control during the recent election. Nationwide, there are 7,383 legislative seats on the state government level. The country now has at least 816 fewer Democratic state legislators than there were in 2008, when Obama took office. In January, Republicans will hold 4,160 state legislative seats. That represents about 56 percent of the total. It also is the largest number of seats for Republicans since 1920. Republicans now control the house, senate and governorship in 24 states. That is a record for the party. Democrats control the state house, senate and governorship in just five states -- California, Delaware, Hawaii, Oregon and Rhode Island. That is the lowest number in the history of the Democratic Party. The United States now has the fewest number of divided-government states since the 1940s. Experts say fewer American voters are splitting the ticket -- voting for both Democrats and Republicans in the same election. Many voters now choose either all Republican or all Democratic candidates. In 2008, 29 states had Democratic governors. Now, just 15 do. There are now 33 Republican governors, the most since 1998. In 1922, there were 34 Republican governors. In 1992, the Democrats controlled every state government in the 15 states that make up the American South. Now, Republicans control all of them. Almost two-thirds of all state legislators in the South are Republicans. As a result of the 2016 elections, Democratic lawmakers now control the New Mexico House and the Washington State Senate. There was a tie in the Connecticut and Delaware Senates. Democrats retook control of both chambers in the Nevada Legislature. And Democrats now control every seat in the Hawaii Senate. This is the first time one party has controlled all the seats in a state chamber since 1980. The National Conference of State Legislatures said Republican candidates won more offices in the recent election than experts had predicted. It said this happened at a time when many experts thought that Democrats would increase the number of seats they controlled in state legislatures. Republican control of state legislatures is important for many reasons. Dan Diorio is a policy specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures. He told DailySignal.com that despite total Republican control in Washington now, states are where the action is -- and will be -- for public policy that actually impacts people. The speed of the Republican Partys success began to increase in 2010, two years after Barack Obama was elected president. From 1952 to the early 2000s, Democrats controlled a majority of state legislatures. Many observers say it appears Democratic candidates cannot count on the support voters gave to Obama as recently as 2012. As the Washington Post noted, the impressive political operation that Obama built does not appear transferable to other Democrats, and therefore may not live on past his presidency. Im Jill Robbins. And Im Alice Bryant. Christopher Jones-Cruise reported this story for VOA Learning English. George Grow 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 stain n. something that causes people to have less respect for someone; something that damages a persons reputation (usually singular) legacy n. something that happened in the past or that comes from someone in the past decimate v. to severely damage or destroy a large part of (something) chamber n. a group of people who form part of a government partisan adj. strongly supporting one leader, group or cause over another landscape n. a particular area of activity This is Whats Trending American Vice President-elect Mike Pence saw the Broadway show Hamilton in New York City over the weekend. The play tells the story of Alexander Hamilton, one of Americas founding fathers. Hamilton was killed in 1804 in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr. The real story is surprising and dramatic. Also surprising and dramatic is the fact that the show Hamilton is a hip-hop musical. Many of the people who play the historically white founding fathers are African-American or Latino. Its lead performer is openly gay. Just after the show ended Friday night, actor Brandon Victor Dixon gave a speech on stage. Dixon plays Aaron Burr, Americas third vice president. The actor spoke directly to Pence, who will soon be Americas 45th vice president. He told Pence that the shows diverse performers are worried about the countrys future. He also said he hoped the show had inspired Pence. We, sir, are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, Dixon said. We truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. All of us. The vice president-elect exited the theater before Dixon finished his speech. Some people in the audience called boo as he left. Dixon urged them not to. The Associated Press reported that a show official told them Pence stood in the hall outside the theater and listened to the rest of Dixons speech. The speech did not please President-elect Donald Trump. Trump wrote on his Twitter page that our wonder future VP Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton. In another tweet, he said that the cast of Hamilton should apologize to Pence. Dixon responded to the president-elect on Twitter. He wrote, Conversation is not harassment sir. And I appreciate Mike Pence for stopping to listen. Trump tweeted again on Sunday about the issue. He wrote, The cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologize to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior. Supporters of President-elect Trump also were not happy. They called for a boycott of Hamilton. The hashtag #BoycottHamilton became a trending topic on social media. Some people, however, believed that a boycott of one of Broadways most popular shows ever was not likely to happen. Mike Pence himself has said that he was not offended or upset by Dixon or the Hamilton cast. He told Fox News on Sunday that he attended the show with his daughter and some of her friends. He said he heard some of the booing in the crowd, as well as some cheers. Pence said he told his daughter, Thats what freedom sounds like. And thats Whats Trending. I'm Ashley Thompson. Ashley Thompson adapted this story from VOA News and the Associated Press materials. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story duel - n. a fight between two people that includes the use of weapons (such as guns or swords) and that usually happens while other people watch diverse - adj. made up of people or things that are different from each other inspire - v. to make (someone) want to do something : to give (someone) an idea about what to do or create alarmed - adj. feeling fearful or worried anxious - adj. afraid or nervous especially about what may happen : feeling anxiety harass - v. afraid or nervous especially about what may happen : feeling anxiety offended - v. to cause (a person or group) to feel hurt, angry, or upset by something said or done appreciate - v. to be grateful for (something) The advertisements are out and the holiday lists growing has the Black Friday mayhem shifted to Thursday? Has Black Friday mayhem shifted to Thursday? Retailers are gearing up for busy shopping days Some say Thanksgiving is a day to spend with family Some shoppers in Tampa said there's no way they're willing to give up family time on Thanksgiving to go out and fight the crowds for the sales. But retailers are telling a different story. Walmart is getting ready for one of the busiest shopping days of the year. In-store deals at Walmart start at 6 p.m. Thursday. Store manager Aaron Powell said in addition to the in-store deals starting Thanksgiving Day, you can also find Black Friday sales online starting at midnight Thanksgiving. "Things move more online, but the crowds are still a pretty decent size. (Shoppers) come out and want the items actually in their cart and items in their hands," Powell said. Some shoppers who were out stocking up for Thanksgiving dinner said they want anything but items in their hands on turkey day. "We do not do Black Friday shopping, almost as a rule," Sara Tallent said. "We just prefer to spend that time with our family." Another shopper echoed Tallent's sentiments. "I want to enjoy my family time on Thanksgiving, so if I'm going to go out, I'll go out on Friday, or I'll go online," Ramona Mueller said. According to Florida's retail federation, the average person spends just less than $1,000 on gifts, which could explain the rush for the savings. As you load up on the gifts and stuff your cars, Tampa Police said they will be out in force to prevent thefts. Starting Nov. 22 through Jan. 1, officers will patrol parking lots and shopping areas. The City of St. Petersburg is now the first city in Florida to commit to transitioning to 100 percent clean, renewable energy. St. Petersburg becomes first Florida city to transition $250K from BP oil spill settlement used to reach goal The plan builds on mayor's executive order to establish a net-zero energy goal for the city The city council voted to use $250,000 from the BP oil spill settlement fund to reach this goal. The "Intergrated Sustainability Action Plan" (ISAP), will chart a roadmap to 100 percent clean, renewable energy in St. Petersburg. The plan also incorporates components of a climate action plan, a resiliency plan and strategies for St. Pete to achieve a 5 Star community rating. The 100 percent clean energy roadmap builds on Mayor Rick Kriseman's Executive Order establishing a net-zero energy goal for the city. In a statement, Mayor Kriseman wrote: "The Integrated Sustainability Action Plan builds on my Executive Order on Sustainability by creating a roadmap to achieve the City's long-term sustainability goals. This is the most robust, comprehensive climate planning initiative St. Petersburg has ever undertaken. Working towards 100% clean energy and zero waste is just one way we continue to build our city of opportunity where the sun shines on all who come to live, work and play. We still have a lot of work to do, but I want to thank City Council for their partnership and leadership in unanimously voting to pass this plan." In addition to the $250K allocated for the Integrated Sustainability Action Plan, two other projects have been allocated from the reserved $1 million from the BP Oil Spill settlement funds. $250K has been allocated for an energy efficiency audit and energy retrofits for City facilities. $300K has been allocated for collaboration with Pinellas County in developing a vulnerability assessment and modeling program that will asses the impacts and risks from potential future scenarios, like sea level rise and direct hurricane hits. JUBA, South Sudan - An increasing number of South Sudanese will continue to face difficulty in meeting daily food needs in the coming months despite harvests, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization has warned. Image by 123RF The end of the lean season and start of harvests in South Sudan are traditionally associated with a reduction in food insecurity due to more food stocks and lower food prices in the markets, bringing much needed relief. According to recent FAO assessments, the number of severely food insecure people at this time is 3.7 million people 31% of the countrys estimated population and an increase of an overall 1 million people compared to the same period last year. Though harvests have provided some reprieve, FAO experts warn that the benefits will be short lived as local stocks will deplete rapidly. Following seasonal patterns food insecurity levels in 2017 is destined to rapidly deteriorate to massive proportions. The risk of famine is increasingly real, especially for South Sudans 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. 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, warns Serge Tissot, FAO Representative. The Equatoria region which is responsible for over half of the countrys net cereal production has been severely impacted by the recent violence. In active conflict areas, an estimated 50% of all harvests have been lost and even more farmers were unable to plant for the second season due to insecurity. The displacement of people from those areas is also due to have profound effects on agricultural production, FAO experts warn. Moreover, of grave concern is the most fragile areas Northern Bahr el Ghazal where the structural drivers of food insecurity - including the protracted economic crisis, market failure and the loss or depletion of livelihood assets - have continued to escalate. FAOs harvest assessments findings show that farmers in this area have produced less than last year, with some areas being hard-hit by flooding and dry spells, raising their vulnerability. The report highlights Aweil East where sorghum production almost halved, dropping from 0.9 to 0.5 tonnes. Since the outbreak of fighting in South Sudans capital Juba and other parts of the country, cereal prices have increased by more than 500% compared to the same period last year. Trade has been crippled by rampant insecurity along the main trade routes and traders inability to access hard currency for imports forcing them to close-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, explains Tissot, FAO Representative. During the forthcoming dry season campaign, FAO aims to target 1.2 million people with distributions of vegetable and fishing kits and provision of trainings to farmers on modern farming techniques to increase yields. At the same time, FAO is preparing to meet the countrys greatest needs for the main planting season; this includes the provision of much needed agricultural inputs so that the most vulnerable can produce their own food. For this to happen, the food agency requires US $ 28 million by the end of the year. LUANDA, Angola - AccorHotels international hotel operator and the Angolan group AAA Activos LDA, have inaugurated the ibis Styles IU Talatona hotel. This opening is part of the partnership with AAA Activos LDA, which plans to open 50 hotels under management contracts - 6,084 rooms, ranging from economic to luxury segment. Paulino Baptista, Minister of Hospitality and Tourism of Angola. Paulino Baptista, Minister of Hospitality and Tourism of Angola, said: "The opening of this hotel marks an important milestone in the hospitality and tourism sector, as it symbolises the entry of one of the largest hotel chains in the world in our country, thus placing Angola on the international tourist route. The French hotel chain AccorHotels presence in the country will contribute greatly to the improvement of services in the sector, to increase the competitiveness in the hotel market and to improve the brand image of the country, particularly at this early stage of development." Jean-Jacques Dessors, CEO of AccorHotels Middle East and Africa said, "On behalf of AccorHotels, we thank AAA for the trust it has placed in us. It is a great day for AccorHotels to see the exclusive partnership with the Angolan group AAA ACTIVOS LDA come to fruition. Angola will soon play a key role in the African market for hospitality and tourism. Angola has the means to become a major tourist destination and our 50 hotels will stimulate national and international tourism." Antoine Guego, COO of AccorHotels Africa and Indian Ocean, added "The opening of this first hotel ibis Styles Talatona is the cornerstone of the development of AccorHotels in Angola." Carlos Manuel de Sao Vicente, founder and wwner of AAA, stressed that this cooperation with AccorHotels was a unique alliance in the Angolan hotel sector. "This is an investment of national dimension and international scope." ibis Styles IU Luanda Talatona is ideally located south of Luanda, near the Avennida Shopping Mall, Talatona Convention Centre and the International Exhibition Centre which hosts many cultural events. The airport and the city centre are easily accessible from the hotel. The ibis Styles IU Luanda offers all the brand standards with unique personalities and multiple designs of the business entity of AccorHotels group. The hotel features modern architecture emphasising comfort and well-being. It boasts 60 rooms, two meeting rooms, one restaurant and one large reception room. The rooms are equipped with king size beds, a digital TV, mini-bar, safe, telephone, internet and air conditioning. 50 hotels in the strategic locations of Angola During the first quarter of 2017, ibis Styles IU will open in the provincial capitals of Angola, constituting a national network of hotels for structuring the Angolan economy. Eventually, 27 hotels will be grouped under the economic brand ibis Styles, 22 under the brand Mercure Grand Hotel and 1 under the luxury Sofitel brand. The group's commitment in Angola, which has 25 million inhabitants of which 40% are actively working, also involves the training of 3000 employees hired locally. The group has partnered with the School of Hospitality and Tourism of Lisbon to set up a hospitality school within a hotel and provide the necessary training to the teams on site. "The transmission of knowledge is open to a wide range of jobs in the hotel, from room service to hotel management positions. By 2018, our ambition is to prepare the new generation of Angolan managers who will be able to manage future locations," said Guego. New Delhi: There are as many as 2,071 industrialists whose loan accounts with an exposure of Rs 3.89 lakh crore have turned into NPAs, Parliament was informed today. All these industrialists had taken loan of Rs 50 crore or more. As of 30 June 2016, NPA accounts above Rs 50 crore were 2,071 with outstanding amount of 3,88,919 crore, Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha. "In terms of instructions of RBI, every bank has to have its own recovery policy, including the manner and procedure of write-offs," he said. Loans are written off after appropriate provisions have been made to take advantage of tax benefits and capital optimisation, he said. In respect of technical write-offs, RBI has permitted write-offs at the head office level while recovery efforts are still continued at the branch level, he added. In reply to another question, Gangwar said the government has not ordered any enquiry against any bank for allegedly depositing Re 1 in large number of Jan Dhan accounts purportedly to minimise zero balance account. As many has 25.45 crore Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY) accounts have been opened till 2 November. With a view to increasing banking penetration and promoting financial inclusion and with the main objective of covering all households with at least one bank account per household across the country, PMJDY was formally launched on 28 August 2014. To another question, Gangwar said NITI Aayog has not moved any proposal to create a bad bank to hold the stresses and non-productive assets and loan recovery of banks. New Delhi: India may be the toast of the the world in terms of stupendous air traffic growth, which has remained above the 20% mark month on month throughout 2016 but our state-owned Air India continues to defy logic. The airline dropped to its lowest share of the domestic market this calendar year in October to just 13%. October was a busy month for air travel in India with both, Dussehra and Diwali festivals falling in the same month and total domestic air traffic growth continued to be a strong 23.18%. Put simply, this means the government-owned airline lost market share when the overall market continued to expand. Also, one must remember that during the same month when Air India was losing share, market leader IndiGo scaled a new high of 42.6% of the market. The Jet Airways group and GoAir were the other two laggards, both also at their lowest market share points during October. Air India's combined on-time performance at India's four busiest airports was at 71.8% in October, second from the bottom in the industry with only GoAir faring worse. The passenger load factor was also at 71.8%, ahead of only Vistara among national airlines. So about three in 10 flights were delayed across its network and the same proportion of seats on its flights was empty. From Mumbai airport - which has seen OTP of all airlines suffer due to severe congestion issues - Air India operated just 57% of its flights on time, the worst performance among all airlines. This means at least three in 10 flights were delayed from Mumbai airport. With dwindling market share, falling financial performance and worsening operating performance during peak travel season, how will Air India achieve its stated objective of a 10-fold growth in operational profit this fiscal to over Rs 1,000 crore? A source said the main reason for the airline losing share in one of the busiest air travel months of the year was lack of aircraft availability. He said engineering issues, frequent ramp returns and some truancy by crew meant that more flights were delayed than in other months plus total traffic carried by the airline also suffered. An Air India spokesperson did not return calls for comment. The airline has 66 aircraft of the Airbus 320 family in its fleet, of which 5 remain on standby. Of the remaining 61, average aircraft availability is at about 56. The source also wondered about the lofty operating profit target for this fiscal, since the airline has logged operating losses to the tune of Rs 700 crore already in the April-September period and continued to lose about Rs 3 crore daily during the October and mid-November period too. The first half losses come in the backdrop of a target of operating profit of about Rs 200 crore. Now, all eyes are on the operational performance and number of passengers carried during November and December. Minister of Stat for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha, said in a written reply in Lok Sabha last week that that the airline notched up operating losses in Q1 of this fiscal as yields on passenger traffic fell 6% and cargo traffic revenue also declined during the quarter. Air India also continued to top the passenger complaints' list during October and as per DGCA data, the airline paid the maximum (nearly Rs 54 lskh) to passengers for denying boarding, late flights and cancellations. The Jet Airways group was a close second, with payout for the same reasons totaling to Rs 47.5 lakh. During October, India remained one of the fastest growing aviation markets across the globe with traffic up 23.18% to 86.72 lakh against Rs 70.39 lakh in the same month last year. In September too, traffic had risen by 23.46 per cent to 82.30 lakh. Cheap fares and increasing connectivity are two of the main reasons for robust traffic growth - and with the regional connectivity scheme UDAN expected to become operational next year, things will only improve for the Indian air traveller. SpiceJet had maximum cabin occupancy at 91.9% with market leader IndiGo at just 84.9% and GoAir at 84.4%. So except SpiceJet, no domestic airline could fill 9 in 10 seats on its aircraft in one of the busiest months of the year. Not just load factor, SpiceJet also led the industry with 86.1% OTP at the four airports of Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Vistara was at 83.6% and IndiGo at 81.2%. New Delhi: In a big step towards fighting black money stashed overseas, Switzerland today agreed to automatic sharing of information with India on Swiss bank accounts of Indians as of September 2018 and onwards. They will not share details about accounts held prior to that period, while the first such exchange will happen in September 2019. The 'Joint Declaration' for implementation of AEOI signed today between India and Switzerland provides that both countries will start collecting data in accordance with the global standards in 2018 and exchange it from 2019 onwards. While Switzerland has conformed to the global standards on automatic exchange of information with the signing of the declaration, India, on its part, has promised to safeguard the confidentiality of the data. "It will now be possible for India to receive from September, 2019 onwards, the financial information of accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland for 2018 and subsequent years, on an automatic basis," said a Finance Ministry statement. Describing the signing of declaration as a "big step", Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia tweeted: "The income tax department will be able to obtain information from accounts of all Indians stashed in Switzerland from 2018 onwards." The Swiss Federal Department of Finance said in a statement that the signing of the joint declaration with India confirms Switzerland's international commitment to implementing the automatic exchange of Information (AEOI) standard. "Switzerland is thus strengthening its network of AEOI partner states. India meets in particular the high demands in terms of adherence to the principle of speciality and the safeguarding of confidentiality for the data delivered, which are prerequisites for the introduction of the AEOI," it said. Switzerland, which has always been at the centre of the debate on black money allegedly stashed by Indians abroad, used to be known for very strong secrecy walls till a few years ago around its banking practices. A huge global pressure has resulted in Switzerland relenting on the tough secrecy clauses its local laws gave to the banks. Several information requests on details about Indians who had accounts in Swiss banks are still pending. Today's declaration, however, does not talk about exchange of information based on stolen data or pending requests from India. Following the government's demonetisation of high value currency notes earlier this month as a crack down on domestic black money, some opposition parties have been demanding that the government take action to bring back the unaccounted Indian money stashed abroad, particularly in Swiss banks. The Switzerland Department of Finance said the automatic exchange of information with India will be implemented based on the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (MCAA). The MCAA is based on the international standard for the exchange of information developed by the OECD. The Swiss Federal Council has authorised the Federal Department of Finance to conduct a consultation for the introduction of the AEOI with India and other countries. "It will be initiated soon. Thereafter, the corresponding federal decrees will be submitted to Parliament for approval," it added. In a significant step in the continuing global efforts to crackdown on illicit fund flows in the system and do away with banking secrecy practices, Switzerland had in September ratified the multilateral convention on administrative assistance in taxation matters. The Indian Finance Ministry's statement said fighting the menace of black money stashed in offshore accounts has been a key priority area for the present government. The Joint Declaration for implementing AEOI was signed today by CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra and Deputy Chief of Mission of Swiss Embassy Gilles Roduit here in India. On June 6, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann at Geneva and discussed the need for expeditious exchange of information for combating tax evasion together with an early start to negotiations on the Agreement for Automatic Exchange of Information. As a follow up, Adhia and Switzerland's State Secretary for International Financial Matters Jacques de Watteville met on June 15 and agreed to move towards an early agreement for the implementation of AEOI between the two countries. Deposits were nearly five times as large as withdrawals over 10 days to 18 November, 2016, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on 8 November, 2016. Exchange/deposits of invalid notes Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 amounted to Rs 5,44,571 crore ($80 billion) between 10 and 18 November, according to data released by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday. While exchange of soiled notes (invalid currencies are called soiled in banking parlance) amounted to Rs 33,006 crore ($4.85 billion), deposits amounted to Rs 5,11,565 crore ($75 billion). Banks have also reported to RBI that account holders have withdrawn Rs 1,03,316 crore ($15 billion) during this period. The Prime Minister, in one stroke, made 86 percent of currencies worth over Rs 14 lakh crore ($217 billion) invalid, IndiaSpend reported on 8 November, 2016. The government said the move would flush out black or unaccounted money from the system, stop terrorism funding and counterfeit currency. But the move also affected millions of Indians who may not have black money but transact in cash. Long lines continue at automated teller machines (ATMs) and banks, particularly in rural areas, to exchange old notes and withdraw money. Currency in denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 increased 50 percent over three years (from Rs 9.6 lakh crore in 2012-13 to Rs 14.1 lakh crore in 2015-16), according to RBI data, IndiaSpend reported on 12 November, 2016. The currency with people rose during the last three years 2013 to 2016 against deposits kept by people in banks, RBI data show. From being almost equal in 2007, currency with Indians was 50 percent more than bank deposits in these three years, IndiaSpend reported on 12 November, 2016. You can also watch videos here: 1) How does demonetisation affect the Indian economy? Will the move lead to a reduction of black money? Which businesses will be affected most? We spoke to Govind Ethiraj, founder of IndiaSpend, journalist, and founder-editor of Bloomberg TV India, about the implications of the move for the Indian economy. 2) Demonetisation: Prospects and Perils How quickly can the RBI print currency? Is this exercise actually demonetisation? How accessible is a bank to the average Indian? IndiaSpend spoke to Praveen Chakravarty, senior visiting fellow at IDFC Institute. Indiaspend.org is a data-driven, public-interest journalism non-profit New Delhi: With the public still facing cash crunch, Big Bazaar on Tuesday announced that customers can withdraw cash up to Rs 2,000 by using debit cards at all its stores from 24 November. In a statement, the Future Retail firm said all its stores, along with all fbb ones, "will be enabled to allow customers to withdraw up to Rs 2,000 from their own bank accounts, using their debit/ATM cards". It said the facility is now available at 258 Big Bazaar and fbb stores in over 115 cities and towns across the country. State Bank of India has helped Big Bazaar activate this facility through the bank's Cash at POS machines. Customers can withdraw cash from their bank accounts of any scheduled bank in the country, the company said. "We are trying hard to ease any difficulties faced by customers due to the demonetisation of some currency notes and support the government's initiative in meeting its objective," Kishore Biyani, chairman, Future Retail, said. "Now with customers being able to withdraw cash at Big Bazaar stores, they are welcome to visit our stores instead of qeueing up at banks and ATMs." Customers can follow four simple steps to withdraw cash: Visit the dedicated cash counter at the store, swipe their debit/ATM cards, enter the PIN and withdraw up to Rs 2,000 from their accounts. The cash withdrawal facility will be subject to all applicable restrictions imposed by banks, Reserve Bank of India and government notifications from time to time. The government recently allowed the withdrawal of cash of up to a limit of Rs 2,000 by swiping debit cards at select petrol pumps using point-of-sale transactions (POS) machines. Auto refresh feeds Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations are equal to piece of paper from tonight midnight (8 November 2016). "You have 50 days to return the old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 to your respective bank from 10 November 2016 to 30 December 2016. The banks, however, will have a cap on how much cash can be withdrawn Rs 10,000 daily and Rs 20,000 weekly." New Rs 2,000 note that will be soon issued New Rs 2,000 note that will be soon issued "And no one should blame me if I take tough decisions after the 30th. This money belongs to the countrys poor. No one has the right to loot this. This is my commitment. I am working with full force and will continue the effort," he had said. Apparently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given a fair warning to all the black money hoarders in this interview with CNN-News18 in September this year. Replying to a question on if he intended to carry forward his tough line on curbing black money, Modi had urged those with undeclared wealth to take advantage of the disclosure scheme before the deadline of September 30 and return to into the mainstream. A lawyer by profession, Kamboj said that he understands the legal consequences of doing any such thing. "I know I can land up in big trouble if I do something so foolish. What Kejriwal is doing is nothing more than dirty politics. He will see what will happen to him in Punjab." There were various news reports about the probable introduction of new notes. What was new in that? Kamboj added. Rubbishing Kejriwal's claims, Kejriwal said: I had only written that new notes would soon be introduced. But nowhere I had talked about or even mentioned banning of the old notes. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday alleged that BJP had informed its 'friends' beforehand about its decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, to help them fix their black money. Firstpost reporter Amitesh Singh spoke to Sanjeev Kamboj, co-convener of BJP's law and legal affairs department in Punjab, who had tweeted the picture of Rs 2,000 notes on 6 November. Only tweeted about new notes, not ban on Rs 500, Rs 1,000: BJP leader Sanjeev Kamboj tells Firstpost The step is being taken after it was observed that same people have been withdrawing money, again and again, misusing the facility and not giving a chance to others to exchange their money. The government has decided to use indelible ink to mark people who exchange cash over the counter in the banks. Indelible ink to be used to mark people who exchange cash in the banks: Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das Are you willing to give PM Modi 50 days to make good on his promise? "Government should allow old Rs 500 notes to remain in circulation along with the new notes. Also, Rs 100/50/10 notes must be made easily available. Rs 1,000 notes may be withdrawn when circulation improves by 30 December, or at your discretion. No need for anymore faltu, action-less announcements. Sometimes blunders lead to more more blunders," says the West Bengal Chief Minister. In a series of tweets on Friday, Mamata Banerjee said that there are ways that the government can restore normalcy and help people. "Such tax evasion activities can be made subject to income tax and penalty," ANI reported. The ministry added that thos who allow their accounts to be misused will be prosecuted."However, genuine people having their own household savings in cash and depositing the same will not be questioned," the ministry was quoted as saying by ANI. Announcing that small deposits made in banks of artisans, workers, housewives will not be questioned by Income Tax Department, the finance ministry said that there are reports that a few people were "using other's accounts to convert their black money into new denomination notes." The Opposition parties are not wrong this could have been planned better and the government is not giving us all the facts. The truth is the government did have a plan. Not for recalibration for which it has come under severe attack but for the preemptive calibration of ATMs. If this plan had run its course, it could have considerably smoothened the currency exchange at ATMs. But the plan ground to a halt even before it took off. But more on that later. And the answer is yes and no. An entire population of 1.25 billion is living in misery, craving something they already have: A strange contradiction of shortage in abundance. The only question that everyone is asking is: Did Prime Minister Narendra Modi send a country into war against black money without planning? "What is the difficulty? " the bench asked Rohatgi. The AG explained the situation by stating that after printing, the currency has to be moved to thousands of centres across the country and ATMs have to be re-calibrated. "There is no shortage of funds," he said. At the outset, the bench questioned the relief measures undertaken by the Centre by saying, "Last time you said there will be relief for people in the coming days but you have squeezed the exchange limit to Rs 2,000 only." "It's a political attempt in the court. I have seen your (Sibal's) press conference also. You are not appearing for a political party, but for an advocate. You are turning the apex court into a political platform," Rohatgi said. The Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi in his response, said there is no dispute, but the queues are getting shorter and even suggested that the Chief Justice of India can go out during lunch and himself look at the queue. "Kindly go in the lunch time," the AG told the bench and took objection to senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for a private party, for allegedly exaggerating the situation. "We have also come to know that corruption through new notes has already started. Such reports are surfacing in newspapers and especially on the social media," he said, claiming the goal of unearthing black money and weeding out fake currency notes will not be achieved. On the Centre's stand that demonetisation will check corruption, Akhilesh said cases of graft involving new currency notes are already making news in some parts of the country. Talking to reporters in Lucknow on Friday after presiding over a Cabinet meeting, Akhilesh Yadav said, "The meeting was of the opinion that farmers should get relaxation in use of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes...cooperative banks to which farmers are directly linked should get relaxation as money is not promptly reaching bank branches." SC made the remarks as Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi submitted that any matter relating to challenge to the demonetisation issue be heard by the apex court only. "Some measures are required. See the kind of problems people are facing. People have to go to the high court. If we shut them from going to the high court, how can we know the magnitude of the problem. People going to different courts indicates the magnitude of the problem," the bench said. "It is a serious issue which requires consideration," a bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice A R Dave said, while asking the parties to be ready with data and other issues in writing. The apex court also refused Centre's request to put on hold petitions pending in various high courts challenging the decision to demonetise. Coming down heavily on the Narendra Modi government for not taking the issue seriously, the Supreme Court on Friday questioned the move to reduce the exchange limit of old notes from Rs 4,500 to Rs 2,000. The apex court added that the situation was serious and there are possibilities of riots breaking out. "We are not against demonetisation. We are against the hardships being faced by poor people due to mismanagement in implementing this scheme," Ravat said, when he was detained and taken away by police. Those who have been detained include Vadodara Congress president Prashant Patel and General Secretary of Gujarat Congress Narendra Ravat. In Vadodara, at least 100 Congress workers were detained from different parts for trying to block the roads. While two Congress workers were detained for setting fire to tyres on Ahmedabad-Vadodara highway on the city outskirts, around 100 have been detained for blocking an internal city road at Dandiya Bazar area. Slamming the Centre over faulty implementation of the demonetisation drive, Mayawati said that the government has unleashed an Economic Emergency on the nation and the party does not care how people of the nation are suffering. Just like Samajwadi Party, BJP is digging its own grave before Uttar Pradesh elections: Mayawati He then said that India trusts its citizens who will make the country emerge successful after "this test of fire". "But I see your support. Despite so many attempts to dissuade you, you have understood this move for the welfare of this nation," said the Prime Minister. "The entire world is watching this move. Every economist is analysing this move. The world is watching whether 1.25 crore Indians, despite difficulties, will achieve success." "But for 70 years, we have been tolerating the disease of corruption and black money. The cure to that disease cannot be simple," he said. "When I had taken this decision, I had said that this is full of difficulties. And the implementation of this decision was also bound to be difficult. I knew about the kind of difficulties people would have to face," Modi said. "I knew that it will definitely take 50 days to come out of the effect [of demonetisation]," he added. "A lot of people have asked me to talk more about the currency ban," said the Prime Minister, as he began talking about demonetisation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday talked about the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on the radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat' and appealed to the people of India to help him create a "less-cash society". Sources have told CNN-News18 that the central government has stepped up the printing of the new Rs 500 notes. The news channel also reported that the shortage in Rs 500 notes will be over by the end of December. Old Rs 500 notes at petrol pumps and for airline tickets will be accepted till 2 December as against 15 December announced earlier, reports PTI. Exactly a month ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced scrapping of high denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. On Thursday, Opposition parties and Members of Parliament protested outside the Parliament House. Modi said, "The government's decision has several gains for farmers, traders, labourers, who are the economic backbone of our nation. I always said that the government's measure will bring a degree of inconvenience but this short term pain will pave way for long term gains. No longer will the progress and prosperity of rural India be curtailed by corruption and black money. Our villages must get their due. We also have a historic opportunity to embrace increased cashless payments and integrate latest technology in economic transactions." In a series of tweets, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the government never denied that the demonetisation drive will not be inconvenient, but "this short term pain will pave way for long term gains." I always said that the Government's measure will bring a degree of inconvenience: Modi Slamming the government, West Bengal Chief Minister on her Facebook page slammed the move and said, "One month of harassment, pain, hopelessness, financial insecurity and utter chaos." Leading members of Opposition took to social media to speak on demonetisation. 8 December marks one month since the Modi government scrapped high-denomination notes and introduced the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes. The Opposition parties will meet with BJP leaders as well at around 12 pm on Thursday to discuss demonetisation. The Bharatiya Janata Party has announced that it will hold a party meet at 9.30 am on Thursday. According to CNN-News18, the party meet will discuss demonetisation and will be broadcast live. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be addressing the nation as well, the news channel said. PM said Congress had chance to clean the system in 1971, but it didnt | ANI 'It's a pity that this opposition party, who fought against the Congres both inside the Congress and outside the Congress are ready to work with Congress. Trinamool Congress, CPI (M) are with Congress. Even DMK who had taken talaq from Congress are rallying behind it. They don't even know what their leader is going to talk about. The congress regime was filled with scams. They will have to explain it to the people," he added. 'It's ironic to see that government is fighting corruption, and the opposition is opposing it. Many people are shaken because vested interests are shaken. They are trying to create panic in the public. And therefore, they are trying to tarnish Prime Minster's image,' Venkaiah Naidu said. It's ironic that parties which opposed Congress are now supporting it: Venkaiah Naidu Unlike Gandhi, who in a letter dated 24 August, 1974, to all chief ministers, sought selective action against bigger people that could be publicised to counter the perception in the public mind and in Parliament, Modi and his officers were well prepared in advance to scrutinise the shades of unaccounted stash in the country, even if that meant severe criticism of his government. Modi is not Indira Gandhi and 2016 is not 1974 when TA Pai, the then Union Minister for heavy industry told Gandhi: "Currency has no complexion and it is neither white nor black." (Declassified black money files of prime ministers office, no 37 (465)/74 PMS). When Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a televised address on 8 November, told the nation that the existing Rs 500 and 1,000 notes can no longer be used for transactions and they are now mere pieces of papers, he very well knew that a huge number of zero-balance accounts were going to witness sudden activity from the very next morning. Narendra Modi did what Indira suggested was not for her to do This means that these notes will not be acceptable for transactions from midnight onwards. The 500 and 1,000 rupee notes hoarded by anti-national and anti-social elements will become just worthless pieces of paper. To break the grip of corruption and black money, we have decided that the 500 rupee and 1,000 rupee currency notes presently in use will no longer be legal tender from midnight tonight, that is 8th November 2016. As (Narendra) Modi gets ready to address the nation on 31 December in a stock-taking speech, sober watchers of the game may find no nail-biting finish or clear winner. We might need to use something resembling the Duckworth-Lewis method that cricket scorers use when rains or disruptions mar a match. As time to submit demonetised notes comes to a close today, people queue up outside RBI offices across India The government is also planning to come out with an Ordinance making possession of old Rs 500/1,000 notes beyond a specified limit for numismatic purposes illegal and punishable. People, however, will still have time to exchange the currency notes at designated RBI counters till 31 March after giving valid reasons for not depositing defunct notes in their accounts by 30 December. The 50-day deadline to deposit the old Rs 500/1,000 notes in banks comes to an end today, but the cash crunch and queues before ATMs are likely to continue for some more time as currency printing presses have failed to meet the huge demand for new bills. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to address the nation on Saturday after his self-imposed deadline of 50-days for the situation to return to normal ends. While some people are hoping for an extension in the deadline, the government maintained it had no plans to do so. The deadline to deposit old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in banks ends today. From next week onward, those still holding the scrapped currency can deposit it only with the Reserve Bank of India till 31 March, 2017. After 31 March, holding demonetised notes would be illegal and could invite hefty fines and even jail, according to an ordinance passed by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday. Post #DeMonetisation Govt. to roll out massive campaign. PM's address to the nation on Dec 31st will be beginning of this campaign: Sources PM Modi could launch massive campaign in his address on New Year Meanwhile, the RBI's image seems to have been dented significantly during the period. Post the announcement, the action mostly happened in Delhi and the central bank was relegated to the background. Moreover, the frequent rule changes, mostly dictated by the political bosses in Delhi, unfairly affected the central bank's image. The man who is complaining the most is the one who is affected and that is not the common man, believes Bijoor. He places Modis popularity on a ratio of 80:20 with 80 percent having welcomed the bold move of the PM. The common man is in the mood to forgive the prime minister as he realises that demonetisation is a big task that irritants like more than 60 policy flip-flops after the announcement of the scheme can be tolerated, says Harish Bijoor, chief executive officer of brand and business strategy firm Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. The brand Modi might have received a good boost after the demonetisation drive, however, the brand RBI, the monetary authority in charge of the Indian currency, may have taken a huge drubbing, brand experts told Firstpost's Sulekha Nair . The cash crunch in cities seems to be easing. Just for a lark i went to 5-10 different ATMs on diff days and all yielded cash Queues shorter (Cont) to deposit the same in any Issue Office of Reserve Bank or a currency chest on December 31, 2016 itself: RBI SBNs (Specified bank notes) cannot form part of banks cash balances from the close of business as on December 31, 2016: RBI Specified bank notes (SBNs) cannot form part of banks' cash balances from the close of business as on 31 December, 2016 to deposit the same in any Issue Office of Reserve Bank or a currency chest on 31 December, 2016 itself, RBI said. Bihar: Tattered demonetised notes of Rs 500 found by locals in Gopalganj. Police on the spot for further investigation #DeMonetisation pic.twitter.com/QmYMDbFRsF As time to submit demonetised notes comes to a close today, people queue up outside Reserve Bank of India's Kolkata branch #DeMonetisation pic.twitter.com/Ct3HHxhoMP Delhi: Today being the last day to submit demonetised notes, people seen queuing up outside RBI #DeMonetisation pic.twitter.com/LjhkeRdacC As time to submit demonetised notes comes to a close today, people queue up outside RBI offices across India Fearing a jump in footfalls to deposit or withdraw cash following the demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1,000 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. 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 Rs 500 and 1000 notes. Bankers have also been advised not to take additional leaves for the next one month, during which the government has asked holders of over 22 billion currency notes that are no longer legal tender, to deposit them in bank accounts. For public convenience, banks will remain open on coming Saturday and Sunday, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das tweeted. The Reserve Bank also came out with an order instructing all the banks to be open for business on the coming weekend, including Sunday. RBI also said ATMs will remain shut tomorrow as well. The nation's largest lender State Bank of India was among the first to announce an extension in banking hours, till 6 pm tomorrow and also said each of its branches will be having a dedicated 'exchange counter' to change the currency notes. ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO Chanda Kochhar said the bank's branches will be open till 8 pm on Thursday and Friday. The bank also introduced a slew of relaxations on the electronic payments or withdrawals front. All charges pertaining to cash deposit into one's accounts will be waived till 30 November and the fees for transacting at ATMs will also be scrapped till 31 December, ICICI Bank said in a statement. It has also doubled the daily usage limit of debit cards for use at merchant ends as well as online transactions. Axis Bank has also waived cash handling charges, and done away with the five free transactions a month limit on its own ATMs and extended banking hours, its president Rajiv Anand told PTI. While making the announcement to discontinue Rs 500 and 1,000 banknotes yesterday, the government had also announced closure of bank branches and ATMs today. It also announced the launch of newer notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 from 10 November. People holding to the older notes will be very keen to do away with them and also get the newer series banknotes of higher denomination when the bank branches reopen tomorrow. ICICI Bank said it is ensuring that Rs 2000 and the existing notes of Rs 100 notes are available at its 'main branches' from tomorrow. It also announced an expansion of up to 20 per cent in the credit limits for 'worthy' customers using its credit cards. Anand said there is no need for the customers to panic and appealed them to defer their visits to branches, pointing out that there is a 50-day limit to change the older notes. Anand said the bank also expects a significant jump in alternate channels like the newly introduced UPI, points of sale terminals and mobile and online banking because of the RBI moves. Kotak Mahindra Bank joint managing director Dipak Gupta said apart from the cultural change in adopting digital faster, we should also see a surge in activation of new bank accounts. In the biggest-ever move to curb black money, and crime funding Prime Minister Narendra Modi had last night announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 bank notes would become illegal tenders from last midnight and massively curbed cash withdrawals through ATMs and from bank counters. "In order to meet the anticipated heavy demand from members of the public to conduct their banking transactions, it has been decided that banks shall remain open for public transactions on Saturday, 12 November, and Sunday, 13 November, 2016," RBI said in a statement. Banks are advised to keep all their branches open on 12 and 13 November, 2016, as regular working days for transacting all business, it said. RBI also asked banks to give due publicity to the availability of banking services on these days. As per the normal schedule, the coming Saturday being the second would have been an holiday, but keeping in view the expected rush at the branches, it was decided otherwise. 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. At the same time, the government and RBI are yet to take a call on keeping banks open on Monday, 14 November, which is a holiday. There are about 149 scheduled commercial banks, including 56 regional rural banks, with branch network of about 1.30 lakh across the country. Besides, the cooperative banks have also been asked to take deposit and exchange the old with the new one. The first demonetisation happened under the British rule in 1946 and the first one after the Independence on 16-17 January, 1978 when the Morarji Desai government demonetised bank notes of Rs 1000, 5000 and 10,000 notes. The news triggered panic and people started queueing up at all ATMs or CDMs to either withdraw money or deposit Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. The banned Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes account for over 86 per cent of the total Rs 16.42 lakh crore value of bank notes in circulation as of 31 March, 2016, according to Reserve Bank's latest annual report. For convenience of customers, Financial Services Secretary Anjuly Chib Duggal said banks will be working extra hours. Meanwhile, SBI said all branches will remain open tomorrow with extended business hours up to 6 pm. Kochhar said branch timings will be extended by two hours on 10-11 November and branches at prominent locations will remain open from 8 am to 8 pm. Many other banks like HSBC and PNB has also announced extension of working hours. Along with the economic chaos that has been unleashed by the move to demonetise the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, another distressing fallout has been the number of deaths allegedly happening in long queues or cramped bank campuses. Siya Ram, a 70-year-old man who stood fruitlessly in a queue for three days to exchange his notes, collapsed and died from a hemorrhage perhaps brought on by the strain of the exercise. It appears that Siya Rams family has now moved Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution, seeking compensation for his death from the Union government. The Supreme Court is an odd choice of a forum as the first instance for the family. There are good reasons why lawyers dont advise clients to approach the Supreme Court first. For one, if things go wrong with the case and you dont get what you asked for, there is no higher forum of appeal to set it right. Second, the Supreme Court has, over the years, adopted an unwritten policy of refusing to hear Article 32 petitions, directing parties to approach the jurisdictional high court, unless its a matter of national importance. This has been a source of concern in some quarters for a while as the right to approach the Supreme Court under Article 32 is a fundamental right, and by adopting such a policy, the Supreme Court has effectively nullified this fundamental right. The Supreme Court has, over the years, interpreted Article 32 to be discretionary, even if the right to file and be heard is a fundamental right. This is perhaps a distinction that the Constitution framers did not have in mind. There are pragmatic reasons why Supreme Court has adopted this policy. The Supreme Courts workload over the years has increased dramatically, partly due to the courts own liberal use of its jurisdiction to hear Special Leave Petitions and partly due to the increasing population and economic growth in India spurring growth in litigation overall. As a rule of thumb, unless the issue being agitated in an Article 32 writ petition relates to an issue of national importance (judicial appointments or high-level corruption) or a problem across multiple states (female foeticide or drought relief), the court generally declines to hear an Article 32 petition. However, that doesnt mean the court will inevitably dismiss it. It usually gives the petitioner the option of approach the high court first, and then coming up to the Supreme Court in appeal if she so chooses to. There is one other reason why Siya Rams family approaching the Supreme Court may not be a sound litigation strategy. The Supreme Court is not a fact-finding forum. Where there is a dispute on the basic facts of the case, unlike in a trial court which is obligated to conduct a trial and assess evidence, the Supreme Court may refuse to entertain an Article 32 petition asking the parties to approach a lower court where such disputed questions of fact can be sorted out. This would be appropriate specifically in a case like this where the government is likely to deny responsibility for the death, questioning the attribution of the death to the demonetisation move. But even if the Supreme Court entertains the writ petition, it would not be without precedent. The court has evolved the concept of a constitutional tort where a person whose fundamental rights have been violated by an action (or inaction) of the government can move the constitutional courts, namely the high courts and the Supreme Court for relief. First elaborated in the context of custodial deaths, this principle has been expanded by the Supreme Court to grant compensation for crimes committed by other government employees also. Siya Rams family contend therefore that the chain of causation for Siya Rams death leads directly to the Union governments policy a violation therefore of the right to life protected under Article 21 and consequently, deserving of compensation on the part of the government. That there have been many instances of people standing in seemingly interminable queues for cash or deposit cannot be disputed. How many deaths and whether they are directly due to the policy is disputed by the government. Unlike with natural or manmade disasters (such as the recent derailment in Uttar Pradesh) the government has not come forward to announce any ex-gratia compensation for those who have died in queues. Whether the Supreme Court grants Siya Rams family the compensation or not, there are still questions that the government must answer: Did it foresee the level of disruption that demonetisation would cause in peoples lives and in the economy? If so, what measures were taken beforehand to minimise the same? And why arent they working as what was promised to be a few days of disruptions looks like its going to stretch over months? Whether the demonetisation exercise ultimately benefits the Indian economy, in the long run, remains to be seen but the government of the day needs to be held accountable all the same for the shoddy implementation and haphazard rulemaking were seeing. The author is an advocate and visiting fellow, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. Views expressed here are purely personal. Mumbai: Hit by adverse currency movements, India's household wealth has fallen by USD 26 billion to USD 3 trillion in the current year, shows the latest report by global financial services major Credit Suisse. According to the 'Global Wealth Report' compiled by Credit Suisse Research Institute, wealth in the country in dollar terms went down by 0.8 percent (USD 26 billion) to USD 3.099 trillion in 2016 compared to last year. The report noted that while wealth has been rising in India, not everyone has shared in this growth. "There is still considerable wealth poverty, reflected in the fact that 96 percent of the adult population has wealth below USD 10,000," the report said. "At the other extreme, a small fraction of the population (0.3 percent of adults) has a net worth over USD 1,00,000," it added, noting that due to India's large population, this translates into 2.4 million people. As per the report, the country has 2,48,000 adults in the top 1 percent of global wealth holders, a 0.5 percent share. "By our estimates, 2,260 adults have wealth over USD 50 million, and 1,040 have more than USD 100 million," it added. Overall, the Asia Pacific region in 2016 saw wealth increase by 4.5 percent to nearly USD 80 trillion. "China and India were hit by adverse currency movements and as a result, their household wealth fell by 2.8 percent and 0.8 percent to USD 23 trillion and USD 3 trillion, respectively," the report noted. Among other major economies in the region, wealth in Australia remained largely unchanged (decline of 0.2 percent) and South Korea saw an increase of 1 percent. Globally, the wealth stood at USD 256 trillion -- a rise of 1.4 percent from a year ago. The report noted that rise in global wealth is in line with the increase in the world's adult population with average wealth per adult remaining constant at USD 52,800. According to Credit Suisse, while developing economies are likely to outpace the developed world in terms of wealth growth, they will still only account for just under a third of growth over the next five years. "They (developing nations) currently account for around 18 percent of global household wealth, against just 12 percent in 2000," it added. "China is expected to account for more than half of this growth, with over 7 per cent coming from India," it added. Credit Suisse noted that the United States is likely to remain the engine of global wealth growth in coming years, with the total tally reaching USD 112 trillion by 2021 -- USD 28 trillion more than in 2016. In its forecast for India, the report said that in terms of ranking, the country will probably jump to 12th spot from its current position of 14th -- overtaking Switzerland and Taiwan -- in the next five years. Further, the report noted that countries in the Asia-Pacific, including China and India, currently host more than 32,000 ultra high net worth individuals as against nearly 30,000 in Europe. "This difference in favour of APAC will increase further, and by 2021, the region is expected to add another 17,000 ultra high net worth individuals to reach a total of nearly 49,000, 39 percent of whom will be from China (against 34 per cent today)," Credit Suisse said. The report is compiled from data on the wealth holdings of 4.8 billion adults across over 200 countries from billionaires in the top echelon to the middle and bottom sections of the wealth pyramid. Mumbai: US-based taxi aggregator Uber has written to the Maharashtra government highlighting concerns over proposed rules to govern the ride-sharing industry and said pricing as well as cab restrictions would render its business inefficient and inconvenient. "We have written to the government about proposed restrictions which could render our business inconvenient to customers and inefficient," Shailesh Sawlani, General Manager of Mumbai for Uber India, told PTI here. "We are awaiting a response regarding this," he said. In its revision of the proposed City Taxi Scheme 2015 last month, the state government mooted maximum and minimum fares for app-based taxi aggregators, based on the type and capacity of vehicles. It also stipulated that more that 50 percent of the vehicles on the ride-sharing platforms must be over 1400cc. "This means economical and fuel efficient vehicles will disappear from the platform and will also take away the freedom and flexibility of drivers to have the vehicle of their choice, forcing them to buy more expensive cars which will in turn increase fares," Uber had said on its company blog. The proposed increase in the price of permits needed to drive on ride-sharing platforms creates barriers to accessing economic opportunities for drivers, it said. Also of concern are restrictions that put a cap on the minimum amount that can be charged for a trip, preventing market forces determining lower fares when possible, Uber said. "We look forward to discussing the draft with the government and work towards the shared goal of a sustainable city that fosters entrepreneurship and economic growth," Sawlani said. Uber has over 75,000 drivers in Maharashtra of its total 4 lakh drivers. India is one of the largest markets for Uber outside of the US, and in order to be more customer-centric, it has relaunched its mobile platform, Sawlani said. By Alissa de Carbonnel | STRASBOURG STRASBOURG European Parliament leaders told London's Brexit negotiator on Tuesday that Britain should expect to be shut out of cooperation in areas it values once it leaves the European Union.David Davis met Guy Verhofstadt, the EU legislature's lead Brexit negotiator, and Manfred Weber, a conservative ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel who leads the biggest bloc in the parliamentThe European Parliament must approve Britain's divorce deal.The meetings were part of preparations before British Prime Minister Theresa May triggers negotiations under Article 50 of the EU treaty, which she has pledged to do by March. They focused on procedure, but there were hints of clashes to come.Weber voiced impatience with a lack of clarity from May on what she will ask for.In notably harsh terms, he said a suggestion from Davis that Britain remain in or closely tied to the EU's single market while rejecting free immigration by Europeans or the oversight of EU courts was not workable."Brexit means Brexit," he said in Strasbourg, echoing May's famously opaque definition of what her government will ask for following the June referendum vote to leave the Union."I see a British government that keeps saying where it wants to cooperate closely and not how it wants to leave the European Union," he told reporters after meeting Davis. He said Davis voiced an interest in maintaining economic ties and also close cooperation in areas such as justice and criminal affairs."So I must stress again: Brexit means Brexit, that means leaving the European Union, that means cutting off relations ... and not cherry picking, not special relationships," Weber said.Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and champion of much closer EU integration, again insisted that Britain could not enjoy the three freedoms of movement for goods, services and capital without the fourth, freedom of labour.He also insisted that the Brexit deal be wrapped up before the next EU legislative elections in May 2019. UNDERSTANDING PROCESS Davis, asked if he wanted single market membership, said: "What we are after is that which is in the interest of the Union and in the interest of the United Kingdom: trading interests, business, manufacturing and services and the aim is to make it as open as possible ... That's the clear overarching aim."He said he found Verhofstadt "a very nice man". In September, when asked about the Belgian's appointment, he remarked to a British lawmaker "Get thee behind me, Satan!" "It is important to ... first get to know each other, meet each other, get to trust each other and secondly to understand the structures," he told Reuters after the meetings, a day after talks in Brussels with Michel Barnier, who will lead the overall negotiations run by the executive European Commission.Despite general efforts to maintain politeness on both sides, there were reminders in Strasbourg of the anger many European politicians feel toward Britain's Brexit campaigners.Weber lashed out at Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson for having told Turkey he would help it join the EU after he had used the prospect of Turkish accession to urge British voters to leave the bloc to avoid immigration by Turks."It's unbelievable, it's a provocation and it's arrogant," he said.Verhofstadt derided both fellow European Parliament lawmaker and Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who suggested on Tuesday that May name Farage her U.S. envoy."One clown in Washington is more than enough," Verhofstadt told the chamber. (Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Tom Heneghan) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Burdwan: An elderly farmer's body was found hanging near his residence at Kalna in Burdwan district on Monday with the Trinamool Congress and family claiming he committed suicide since he was unable to till land due to banning of Rs 500, 1000 denomination currencies. Arjun Mandi, son of deceased farmer Shibu Mandi said his father, a share-cropper, was depressed for past few days as he was facing problem in buying fertiliser for harvesting their plot of land due to the currency crisis and hanged himself to death this morning. A senior police officer said a case of unnatural death has been registered and the family members and neighbours were being questioned to know circumstances behind the death. Meanwhile, Burdwan Zilla Parishad Sabhadhipati Debu Tudu said Shibu had not been able to clear dues with demonetised currencies of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination and was faced with debt since he could not get the new currencies from the local cooperative bank which is witnessing acute cash crunch. "This led to the tragedy and we will launch demonstration in the district to highlight the plights of farmers like him who are faced with starvation in the wake of demonetisation and lack of adequate number of currencies after the sudden ban", he said after visiting the house of deceased with West Bengal minister Swapan Debnath. Debnath promised the West Bengal government will provide compensation to the family of deceased. Is it really that difficult to understand that a dress code carries a certain sanctity with it? In the armed forces, how you dress makes a major difference. Each uniform has a role and is worn with a certain unquestionable elan. It has a meaning, a certain sartorial arrogance that is necessary for morale. But it seems that Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar was not aware of this when he showed up to commission INS Chennai, an indigenously designed guided missile destroyer, in Mumbai on Monday. Photographs doing the rounds on social media highlighted his casual attire, saying that he was dressed in a 'sloppy, slovenly rude manner.' Imagine, you go to commission a destroyer and end up 'destroying' the ambience of the occasion. There you have a group of Admirals including the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sunil Lanba, and a retired officer of high rank dressed to the hilt for a ceremony that ranks as one of the most vital in the Indian Navy's history. In the same picture, we have Parrikar, dressed casually in chappals (slippers) as if out for a Sunday afternoon stroll. What sort of a person goes on board a naval ship as the senior most VIP wearing chappals, with an untucked shirt hanging out of his trousers? Had he been dressed ethnically, one could have probably accepted the open-toed footwear; but sadly, that was not the case either. When you go to a glittering ceremony where sailors are all lined up in their glorious best, proud to wear 'INS Chennai' on their caps and are cheering the commissioning of their floating arsenal and home, damn it man!, the least you can do is honour them for their brief, shining moment in the sun. Crisp marching, the sound of music and a chief guest in slippers! Even the ladies invited on board were advised not to wear high heels or chappals. This is not a grotesque version of the see what a straightforward guy I am approach. It is actually an insult of the armed forces as Parrikar was conducting the ceremony to induct the third guided missile destroyer in the Kolkata class. Didnt anyone tell him about ethics, a code, a certain courtesy that you display to the officers who are honouring you. How can you not dress properly...or adequately. https://twitter.com/manoharparrikar/status/800623371675258880 This is not the first time he is doing it either. We have seen photos of him taking a guard of honour as if he was strolling down Miramar beach in Goa. The point is that it is a big deal, it is really important and you are duty bound by the numerous perks and privileges you get as the defence minister if nothing else to rise to the occasion with grace and dignity. Yes, there are those who will say, so what, its okay, there are bigger things in life. But disrespecting the armed forces cannot simply be ignored because we equate it with being spartan and spiritually ascetic. You are shabby sir and it is not done. And it is not as if your prime minister is setting the low standard. On the contrary, Narendra Modi has become sartorially elegant and raised the bar ever since he assumed office. Suggest you do the same and follow your chiefs example before your ship sails away. Until then, do not be derisive of our armed forces and their traditions. Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump seems to have a friendly perspective towards India, a senior BJP leader has said and expressed hope that he would bring "fresh ideas" to combat terrorism and establish the rule of law. Summarising the current state of Indo-US relationship, Ram Madhav, the general-secretary of the ruling party, said the ties reached a new peak under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama. The relationship is likely to march ahead under the Trump administration, he said. "Going by his pre-election statements towards India, the president-elect seems to have a friendly perspective towards India. He does not seems to be a run-of-the-mill politician, hence we expect him to bring fresh ideas to counter-terrorism, and establish the rule of law," he said. Madhav is the first senior leader of the ruling party to have addressed on India-US relationship after the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States. He said India has earned a tremendous trust from its neighbours in the significantly important Indo-Asia Pacific region. At an event organised by the Federation of India and Indian Diaspora Studies, Madhav said India assumes the responsibilities along with its neighbours to establish peace and "law and order" in the region. But, he said, India expects the US to continue its pivotal role in the region instead of slowing trade and military engagement in the region. "The regional powers will have to take a leading role with America playing a supportive role. That is perhaps the way forward," he said at the event on Friday in the suburbs of Washington DC. New Delhi: From September 2019, India will start getting information automatically about accounts held by Indians in Swiss banks. An Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) accord signed by the two countries on Tuesday facilitates this. "Fighting the menace of black money stashed in offshore accounts has been a key priority for the present government," a Finance Ministry release said in New Delhi. Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Sushil Chandra and Deputy Chief of Mission in the Swiss embassy here Gilles Roduit signed the joint declaration for implementation of Automatic Exchange of Information between the two nations, the statement said. "It will now be possible for India to receive from September 2019 onwards the financial information of accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland for 2018 and subsequent years on an automatic basis," it added. The government's recent demonetisation of high-value currency notes has provoked calls from opposition parties for the government to act also against black money stashed abroad, particularly in Swiss banks. Kairana, which was in the news earlier this year for the alleged exodus of Hindu families due to threats from a particular community, saw a witness in the gangrape and murder of a 35-year-old woman being shot on Monday. According to The Indian Express, 55-year-old Brahmpal Singh was a key witness in the gangrape and murder of a woman in Shamli district, where Kairana is located. Singh was reportedly shot dead when he was sleeping in his house, the police said. The report mentioned that Singh was the brother-in-law of the woman who was kidnapped on 4 April who was found murdered three days later. This incident was highlighted by BJP MP Hukum Singh who then claimed that it led to the forced migration of Hindu families from Kairana. In June this year, BJP MP Hukum Singh released a list of 346 Hindu families, who he claimed had left their homes and fled because of "threat and extortion by criminal elements belonging to a particular community". Political parties such as the Congress and Samajwadi Party, slammed BJP for trying to stoke communal tension in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the state Assembly elections. On 10 June, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice to the Akhilesh Yadav government on Friday, seeking a response. The NHRC observed that the allegations made were serious and also directed the state's DIG (Investigation) to depute a team of officers for a spot inquiry in the matter covering all the allegations made in the complaint and submit a report within two weeks. The complaint noted that a woman belonging to the Kashyap caste was abducted, gangraped and killed, but no action was taken by the police against the offenders. The complaint also stated that in 2014, two businessmen and brothers, Shankar and Raju, were shot dead in broad daylight at a market, when they refused to pay 'protection money' to a Muslim gang, the complaint also noted, according to a report in the Hindustan Times. The late Brahmpal Singh's brother, Ramesh named six people in his complaint, of which two were related to the accused in the gangrape and murder case, The Indian Express report mentioned, which added that MP Hukum Singh would visit the spot after the Parliament session. The police have also registered a case of murder against the six named in the complaint. After Hukum Singh's allegations, the Uttar Pradesh government ordered a probe on the same. The NHRC found that the exodus was indeed a reality and that many families "migrated" from Kairana due to threats relating to "increase in crime" and "deterioration" of law-and-order situation. Based on the findings, the commission sent a notice to the chief secretary and director general of police of the state to submit an action taken report, on the observations and recommendations of the team within eight weeks. Three Indian soldiers were killed "in action" along the Line of Control (LoC) in Machhal, Jammu and Kashmir, while the body of one soldier was mutilated, the Indian Army said on Tuesday. Taking strong objection to the disrespect showed to the martyred Indian soldier, India has forally lodged protest with Pakistan, reported CNN-News18. The Vice Chief of Army Lieutenant General Bipin Rawat has briefed the Union Defence Minister on the incident and Parrikar has told the forces to send the "strongest possible message." The Defence Minister also tweeted out a public condemnation of the Pakistan Army's act calling it 'cowardly'. Condemn the cowardly & brutal killing of our soldiers & mutilation of one of them. Salute these brave martyrs for their supreme sacrifice. Manohar Parrikar (@manoharparrikar) November 22, 2016 A counter intersurgency team was ambushed near the border in Machhal Sector by the Pakistani troops in the afternoon, after which heavy cross-shelling along the international border has continued, according to Times Now. The TV channel further reported, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is also holding a review meeting with senior defence ministry and home ministry officials. Reacting sharply to the incident, the Indian Army has vowed a befitting revenge, with the Northern Command promising "heavy retribution for the cowardly act". #JKOps 3 soldiers killed in action on LC in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act @adgpi NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) November 22, 2016 "Three soldiers killed in action on LC in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act," the Northern Command said. This is the second such incident of mutilation of an Indian soldier by Pakistan in a month's time. #FLASH 3 soldiers killed in an encounter with terrorists in Machhal (J&K). Body of one soldier mutilated. ANI (@ANI_news) November 22, 2016 The last time the body of an Indian soldier mutilated was in October, when terrorists aided by the cover fire by Pakistani Army, crossed the Line of Control and killed an Indian Army jawan and mutilated his body in Macchal sector of Kupwara district of Kashmir on 28 October. One attacker was killed in the incident. A day after the Indian soldier's body was mutilated by terrorists, who escaped back into Pakistani side under covering fire from Pakistani troops, the Indian army hit back, destroying four Pakistani posts and inflicting "heavy casualties". The posts were destroyed in a massive fire assault in Keran sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara, said the army's Northern Command. This is not the first time Pakistan has mutilated the bodies of Indian soldiers. During the Kargil war in 1999, Captain Saurabh Kalia, Sepoys Arjunram Baswana, Mula Ram Bidiasar, Naresh Singh Sinsinwar, Bhanwar Lal Bagaria and Bhika Ram Mudh of four Jat Regiment were captured by Pakistani troops and brutally tortured. The soldiers had their ear drums pierced with hot iron rods, eyes punctured and genitals cut off. The autopsy of the bodies also revealed that they were burned with cigarettes butts. Their limbs were also chopped off, teeth broken and skull fractured during the torture. Even their nose and lips were sliced off. In another incident, on 8 January, 2013, Pakistani soldiers entered Indian territory in Krishna Ghati sector of the border and killed two Indian soldiers Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Indian officials said both the bodies were mutilated, and Hemraj's body was decapitated. With inputs from agencies Some subjects like railway safety for example do not lend themselves easily to political stunts; jolts that are meant to create dramatic and transformative policy changes. Consider this Sundays IndorePatna Express accident that killed over 140 people and injured 200 more. Most of the dead and the injured belonged to Indias underclasses, which continue to remain dependent on the vagaries of the neglected Indian railway system. Even on the register of rhetoric, railway safety does not figure on the agenda of politicians and governments. And things are no different for the present dispensation. The terrible accident occurred at a time when the Narendra Modi government has in one fell swoop overturned the countrys entire monetary system. One cannot help but wonder why the government did not invest the same missionary fervour and energy it has put into demonetisation, in ensuring safety for millions of passengers who travel by train, especially when train travel continues to be very risky for millions of ordinary passengers. With the expansion of the civil aviation sector and proliferation of airlines, the wellheeled hardly ever travel by train any longer. Not only has the government neglected the plight of millions, a few months ago, it even initiated a mechanism that would inflate ticket prices based on the number of seats being filled in certain classes of the train. As an article in The Washington Post on Monday pointed out, despite having the worlds third largest railway system, the Indian railway system lacks modern signaling and communication systems. Most accidents are blamed on poor maintenance, outdated equipment and human error. Moreover, the massive territorial reach of the railways notwithstanding, train accidents continue to occur with alarming regularity, killing large numbers of poor people. A 2012 government report put the annual death toll in train accidents at 15,000. Faced with such a grim situation, several questions come to mind. Why did the central government not prioritise railway safety over the recovery of black money? Why is there so little discussion in the corridors of power about protecting lives of people at risk for doing something as ordinary as travelling by train? Why did the Modi government (although all previous governments are equally culpable) not push through measures as drastic as the monetary measures we are now witnessing, to put the railways squarely at the top of governments agenda? The possible answers draw attention to the cynical ways in which contemporary politics is conducted and policies are implemented. Every move is turned into a theatrical spectacle or a policy stunt that aims to create racy, eyegrabbing headlines, or capture votes by the dozen. The government headed by Modi that loses no opportunity to assume the role of a preacher preaching from the pulpit, is no different in this matter than the many governments before it. In fact, it can be argued especially after demonetisation that the present regime has shown itself to be more driven by political stunts than it predecessor, the Congressled United Progressive Alliance. After all, Manmohan Singh, with his sombre demeanour, could hardly hold a candle to the theatrical personality of Narendra Modi. The fact of the matter is, of course, that the issue of railway safety does not cater to the politics of the spectacle in the same way as, say, the recovery of black money or the introduction of a uniform civil code. This government is all about the spectacle. The slogan of Swachch Bharat, for example, though focused on a dry subject, was nevertheless easy to turn into a media event. Remember those images of Modi wielding a broom stick and how they dominated the news cycle? We could also think, in this context, of the sudden and massive government initiative to popularise yoga. Once again, images of the prime minister performing yoga in Janpath, with senior ministers clumsily following in his footstep, were good material for social media campaigns and publicity. The recent demonetisation drive falls into this same genre of politics that looks to produce shock and awe. Railway safety, is, by comparison, boring and mundane. It is the matter of stockintrade, conventional policy reform. The government remains unmoved by the sheer urgency of the situation. Never mind that safety measures would directly impact the lives of ordinary citizens. Following the loss of lives in the latest accident, the Prime Minister tweeted that he was anguished beyond words, and promised to modernise Indian railways. One would be entirely justified in asking Modi why the railways are so low on the list of priorities for his government. But one also has the sneaky suspicion that until the issue can be turned into a photogenic event, not much will happen. Islamabad: Amid rising Indo-Pak tensions, Pakistan on Tuesday said "credible minimum deterrence" was needed for regional stability and warned that instability has consequences with "far more dangers". Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said the imperative of strategic stability was an important dimension of Pakistan-India relations. "There is need for credible minimum deterrence as instability has consequences with far more dangers," he said while addressing an international conference on 'Strengthening Peace and Cooperation in South Asia: Incentives and Constraints' organised by Islamabad Policy Research Institute. Aziz claimed that Pakistan is maintaining "minimum nuclear deterrence" for peace and stability in the region and called upon the international community to desist from policies and actions that undermine strategic stability in South Asia. He stated that supply of weapon systems widens the existing conventional capabilities in the region. Aziz regretted that the world has not fully recognised the dangers posed to the peace and stability in the region. On the Kashmir issue, Aziz was quoted as saying by Radio Pakistan that, "India was responding to indigenous struggle of Kashmiris for their right of self-determination by denial and illusion." He criticised India for terming the "Kashmiri struggle" as terrorism and declaring Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part. "India must understand ground realities and recognise the indigenous nature of right to self-determination movement in Kashmir," he was quoted as saying. Aziz said during negotiations with India, Pakistan would continue to seek normalisation of relationship and promoting steps that would pave the way for settlement of all lingering disputes including the core dispute of Jammu and Kashmir. On the NSG issue, Aziz called for criteria-based and non-discriminatory approach for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), asserting that otherwise it will affect the strategic stability in the region. He said Pakistan's application for NSG membership should be evaluated on the basis of fair criterion. Aziz regretted India's opposition to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor project, saying it is based on "no apparent reason". Aziz alleged that India is doing so to obstruct Pakistan's path towards progress and development. He claimed that the "Indian hegemonic temptations" and aggressive posture undermine regional cooperation. Aziz said Pakistan believes in peaceful co-existence based on mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity but at the same time it cannot remain aloof from the prevailing situation in the region. He accused India of "sponsoring and fomenting" terrorism in Pakistan. Aziz also alleged that India had increased violations along the Line of Control to put constraints on Pakistan's ability to deploy more troops on the western border. Jalgaon: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday said that the goal of 'housing for all' will be met by end of 2019. "The central government has the policy to provide houses for all till 2022. However, in Maharashtra, everyone would get house by the end of 2019," Fadnavis said. He was addressing a rally at Faizpur in the district while campaigning of BJP candidates in the local bodies polls, first phase of which is starting on 27 November. The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna envisaging 'houses for all by 2022' was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year. The scheme is mainly aimed at providing affordable homes to people living in urban areas. The Maharashtra government had last year proposed to bring the improvised, practical and better version of the Centre's 'Housing for All' by 2022. Almora: BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday hit out at the opposition parties protesting demonetisation, saying the discomfort is evident on the face of the leaders opposing the move, which should worry only those who possess blackmoney. "Those who don't have any black money in their homes, do they have any reason to worry? Do you see any worries on the faces of our leaders? Now have a look at the face of Rahul baba (Gandhi) and see if you can notice discomfort or not," Shah said addressing a public meeting in Almora. He also targeted other parties, asking the crowd if they could see worry on the faces of SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, BSP chief Mayawati or AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, as the audience answered back saying "yes". "All of them are worried," he said. Underlining the effects of the government's move to demonetise high currency notes, Shah said that through blackmoney terrorism, naxalite movement, drug mafia and counterfeiters operate and "(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi ji, with one stroke of the pen, has turned this blackmoney into scrap". "On 7 November, they said, Modi ji what did you do on the issue of black money. Now they say, Modi ji why did you do it. The 'what' has turned into 'why'. Those people are concerned who have millions and billions stashed in their bungalows," Shah said, taking another jibe at opposition party leaders. The BJP President said that if the human body has an ailment, doctors have to conduct an operation and similarly, demonetisation will have a positive effect. "The way demonetisation is being opposed, I believe, these people are siding with blackmoney and corruption," he added. Shah claimed that BJP was sensitive to the problems being faced by people queuing up outside the banks and ATMs but said they must realise that the step had hurt "those sleeping over hoardes of blackmoney three thousand times more than the people on the streets". Addressing a huge gathering on the occasion of Parivartan Yatra in the Kumaun University SSJ Campus, Shah said the people have to make a decision in the upcoming assembly elections in Uttarakhand - whether they want a state which is developed or not - as he sought votes to bring change in the state, presently ruled by a Congress government. "We will work to combat Chinese insurgency at the border, control generation of electricity, and work for industrial progress for the benefit of Uttarakhand people," he said as he appealed to the people to vote for BJP, which "will give you a strong, fear-free and corruption-free government" and then Uttarakhand will be the strongest state in the country. Mumbai: Amid Shiv Sena's growing criticism of Centre's demonetisation move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday told the party MPs had former party patriarch Bal Thackeray been alive, he would have supported the move. Modi said this while interacting with Shiv Sena MPs, who met him in the national capital urging him to allow co-operative banks, district central co-operative banks (DCCBs) and credit co-operative societies to exchange notes. "Prime Minister told the visiting MPs that had late Sena supremo Bal Thackeray been alive, he would have supported the decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes," a Sena source said. Responding to Modi's invocation of former Sena supremo, party president Uddhav Thackeray said he was happy that PM had respect for Balasaheb in his heart. "But right now, Modi needs to answer the people who are looking up to him with questions. If people get the answers they seek and their lives are made easier, Balasaheb would be happier," Thackeray said. Centre's demonetisation move seems to have brought more bitterness in the already-strained ties between the two ruling allies BJP and Sena as the Uddhav Thackeray-led party has been consistently slamming Modi over the decision. In an embarrassment for the BJP, Shiv Sena had taken part in the protest march led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in New Delhi last week against demonetisation. MPs Chandrakant Khaire and Gajanan Kirtikar of Shiv Sena had taken part in the march. New Delhi: BJP and Trinamool Congress shared the honours by winning two Lok Sabha seats each, claiming it was a vindication of their stand on demonetisation, as ruling parties in six states and Puducherry held sway in byelections, retaining most of the 10 Assembly seats up for grabs. In the Assembly bypolls held on 19 November, results of which were declared today, BJP and AIADMK won three seats each, CPM got two while Congress and Trinamool bagged one each. BJP won the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat in Assam, vacated by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, by a margin of 1,90,219 votes and Shahdol Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh, both ruled by the party. Trinamool Congress swept Tamluk and Coochbehar Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal by a whopping margin of over 4.9 lakh votes, almost doubling the gap from 2014 polls. Trinamool also won the Monteswar assembly seat with candidates of CPM, Congress and BJP losing their deposits. In Madhya Pradesh, BJP's victory margin in Shahdol Lok Sabha came down to 60,000 from 2,41,301 in the 2014 general elections. It bagged the Nepanagar Assembly seat, where it increased its winning margin to 42,198 votes as against 22,178. In Tamil Nadu, AIADMK, whose supremo Jayalalithaa is hospitalised for two months, retained Thanjavur and Thirupparankundram Assembly seats and wrested Aravakkurichi seat from DMK by margins ranging from 20,000 votes to 42,000. The ruling CPI(M) in Tripura wrested Barjala (SC) seat from Congress and retained Khowai. Senior Congress leader and Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy won the bypoll to Nellithope Assembly seat defeating AIADMK's Om Sakthi Segar by a margin of 11,144 votes. North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) candidate Dasanglu Pul of BJP won Hayuliang assembly by-poll in Arunachal Pradesh defeating her lone rival Yompi Kri, an independent candidate, by 942 votes. Pul is the youngest of the three wives of former chief minister Kalikho Pul. The bypoll was necessitated by his suicide. Union Minister Ananth Kumar and Sonowal said the BJP's win in the bypolls showed that people have endorsed the government's decision against black money and corruption. "BJP's victory in by-polls is a clear indication that people are fully supporting the decision to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes. It is people's mandate for the Prime Minister's decision of demonetisation," Sonowal told reporters. West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, however, termed the byelection result as a mandate against the Centre's decision of demonetisation. "The by-election result is a befitting reply against the anti-people demonetisation by the Centre. It's a people's revolt, rather a mass revolt against the Centre. BJP should take lessons from this mandate," she told newsmen in Kolkata before leaving for New Delhi to join the protest by the Opposition. Conducted 10 days after the demonetisation drive and held across six states and one Union Territory, the bypolls were seen largely as a referendum on Prime Minister's daring move. The results succinctly explain the high frustration levels of opposition parties who seem at their wits' end to stop the Narendra Modi juggernaut. Some of the outcomes for 14 seats (four parliamentary and 10 Assembly) are still being updated but enough information has already emerged to draw the outline of the story. And the story is that BJP continues to be a party on the rise. If the by-elections were a gauge of public mood on demonetisation, it seems to be firmly behind the party. And if the polls were a personal test for Modi, he has started on the right note. Final Snapshot of #Bypolls. Each State Gov has got thumping Victories to showcase them as Win in Favour/Against #DeMonetisation drive. pic.twitter.com/Vr3lTWhdVw N33R4J (@_N33R4J_) November 22, 2016 In BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, the party retained Shahdol Lok Sabha and Nepanagar Assembly seats at the cost of Congress. According to news agency PTI, BJP's Gyan Singh defeated Congress candidate Himadri Singh of Congress in Shahdol by a margin of over 60,000 votes. In the Nepanagar Assembly seat, BJP's Manju Dadu defeated Congress rival Antar Singh Barde by a margin of 42,198 votes. The Shahdol Parliamentary seat fell vacant after the death of BJP's Dalpat Singh Paraste. In Assam, another BJP-ruled state, the party bagged both the Lok Sabha and Assembly seats. According to PTI, Pradan Barua retained the Lakhaimpur LS seat, defeating Congress's Hema Prasanga Pegu by a massive 1,90,219 votes. The seat was vacated by Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal. BJP's Mansing Rongpi, who had deserted the Congress in July, won the Baithalangso Assembly seat beating nearest Congress rival Ruponsing Ronghang by 16,600 votes. In Arunachal Pradesh, BJP-backed Dasingu Pul, wife of former chief minister Kalikho Pul who committed suicide in August, won the Anjaw assembly seat by 944 votes beating Independent candidate Yompi Kri. In Tripura, the CPIM-led Left Front retained one seat and wrested another from the Congress. CPM's Biswajit Datta defeated TMC's Manoj Das by 16,094 votes in Khowai while in Barjala, CPM youth leader Jhumu Sarkar defeated BJP's Shista Mohan Das by 3,374 Votes. In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress retained the Tamluk and Cooch Behar Lok Sabha and Monteshwar Assembly seats by huge margins, prompting Mamata Banerjee to say that the results were "a revolt against demonetisation". The Bengal CM's comments are a stretch because if we look at the vote swing, as psephologist and CVoter founder Yashwant Deshmukh demonstrated on Twitter, the BJP with 21 percent votes has registered a positive swing of 10 percent relegating CPM, who suffered a massive downswing of 21 percent, to a miserable third place. Notwithstanding Mamata's bluster, BJP seems to have gained in Bengal. Ladies & Gentlemen; In West Bengal Grand Total of ALL #ByPolls votes; the BJP (21%) has pushed CPM+ (14%) to third place. #AbsoluteStunner Yashwant Deshmukh (@YRDeshmukh) November 22, 2016 In West Bengal #Bypolls of 2 LS & 1 VS; the BJP has polled 21% which is upswing of +10%. The CPM+ managed 14%, downswing of - 21% . #Stunner Yashwant Deshmukh (@YRDeshmukh) November 22, 2016 But the story of the day came from North-East, where the BJP officially replaced the Congress as the dominant national force. Even as Tripura became Congress-mukt, despite failing to register a win the BJP gained a massive footprint with 20 percent positive swing. Tripura ByPolls 2016 Total Vote Share CPM: 57%(Vote Swing: +2 %) INC: 2%(Vote Swing: - 41 %) BJP: 21%(Vote Swing: +20 %)#FinalResult Yashwant Deshmukh (@YRDeshmukh) November 22, 2016 In Tripura, Congress vote has nosedived from 43 percent plus to just about 2 percent votes. This is MASSIVE downswing. BJP makes HUGE North East inroads. Yashwant Deshmukh (@YRDeshmukh) November 22, 2016 BJP's North-East conquest had started with a win in Assam where it unseated the Tarun Gogoi government and kingmaker Himanta Biswa Sarma showed he has not lost his touch. Lotus is blooming in both Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Assam ByPolls 2016 Baithalangso VS INC: 41%(Vote Swing: +1%) BJP: 54%(Vote Swing: +25%) Others: 5%(Vote Swing: -26%)#FinalResult Yashwant Deshmukh (@YRDeshmukh) November 22, 2016 Arunachal ByPolls 2016 Hayuliang VS (Cong Cand Disqualified) INC: 0%(Swing:-78%) BJP: 54%(Swing:+38%) Others: 46%(Swing:+40%)#FinalResult Yashwant Deshmukh (@YRDeshmukh) November 22, 2016 The BJP has not only taken in its stride a hugely disruptive socio-economic step, it seems to have blossomed in spite of the inconveniences and hardships that have been unleashed due to the currency ban. That points to a deep-seated trust between the electorate and Modi, who had positioned the insanely risky manoeuvre as a morality test against corruption. The result will relieve the PM. If a poll that took place within the most disruptive period brings such heartening results for BJP, Modi would be well within his rights to hope for a better political dividend in the long run. The results proved that the lotus is now a truly pan-Indian force and enjoys the kind of momentum the Congress once did at the height of its popularity. The BJP is breaking new grounds, creating footprints where none existed and consolidating position where it had the advantage. Democracy isn't instant coffee, however. It would be churlish to interpret bypoll results solely through the prism of demonetisation. The forces that worked behind BJP's stunning rise are still at work. What should simultaneously please the party and worry its opponents is that Modi has hit such a sweet spot, he can afford to take even more risks. Economist Jean Dreze, a known critic of Narendra Modi, has slammed demonetisation as shooting a bullet at the tyres of a booming economy. If the PM manages to steer the economy to a path of growth and reap political dividends even with a flat tyre, the opposition will be left chasing his shadow. Raipur: Congress on Monday tried to corner the BJP government in the Chhattisgarh Assembly over the deaths of 13 women after sterilisation surgeries in the Bilaspur district in 2014, alleging that no action has been taken against guilty officials. A heated discussion took place on the last day of Winter Session on the judicial commission's report on the deaths of women after sterilisation surgeries. The Leader of opposition TS Singhdeo alleged no action was taken against the guilty officials even after the judicial inquiry report came out. The report had noted that negligence in following the standard operating procedure for tubectomy camps and poison-laced medicines led to the incident, he said. Reports from laboratories and doctors had confirmed that medicines administered to victims had poisonous substances. Even the room where the operation was performed was not properly sterilised, he added. Government ordered probe but never revealed the action taken on the report, he said. Singhdeo also sought to know whether the action was taken against the drug manufacturer under Drug and Cosmetics Act. Replying to the discussion, Health and Family Welfare Minister Ajay Chandrakar said the state government was not trying to save anyone. Doctors from Aiims Delhi, Apollo Hyderabad and other medical institutes were pressed into service for the treatment of affected women. Government ordered probe on next day of the incident, Chandrakar said, describing the incident as serious and unfortunate. Compensation of Rs 4 lakh was given to the family members of each deceased woman while the government made arrangements for a better future of children of these women, he said. The minister assured the House that as soon as the court cases are over, all necessary action will be taken for implementation of commission's recommendations. New guidelines have been issued, wherein, such camps can be held only at places which meet the norms fixed by the state government, he said. Health facilities were expanded during the BJP regime in the state, he claimed. While 12 women who were operated upon at the camp in Pendari village of Bilaspur on 8 November, 2014, died, a protected Baiga tribe woman was the lone casualty from the camps in Pendra block on 10 November, 2014. Both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned for the day on Tuesday after the Opposition, for the fifth consecutive day stalled Parliament proceedings over the issue of demonetisation. Earlier in the day, at the BJP parliamentary party meet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, "demonetisation is not the end but the beginning of a long, deep and constant battle against black money and corruption and will benefit the poor and the common man", as the party passed a unanimous resolution endorsing the prime minister's "great crusade". As the party members gave a standing ovation to Modi, the scene at both the Houses was quite the opposite. Speaking at the first meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Party in the Winter Session, Modi said the poor and the lower and middle classes have suffered the most due to black money, fake currency and corruption and his government is working to rid the country of these evils and make the economy stronger. Modi turned emotional for a while as he spoke about his commitment to the poor's welfare. The resolution said the demonetisation move had people's support, claiming it was "the most profound statement to have ever come from the country". Rallying around the prime minister at a time when opposition parties have united to corner the government over the measure citing hardships being faced by the masses, party MPs passed a unanimous resolution supporting demonetisation and gave him a standing ovation. Hitting out at the rival parties, the resolution asked them to decide whether they stand by the people of India and the government or hoarders of black money. While hailing PM's "great crusade" against corruption, it accused the opposition of trying to provoke violence and chaos and disrupt Parliament, Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters. "We have come to power not for us or those close to us but for the poor. For 70 years, the poor and the lower and middle classes suffered and have been exploited by black money, corruption and terrorism. Our aim is a deep, long and constant struggle against them. "This is not the end but only a beginning of our struggle," the Prime Minister said and cited measures like setting up of a SIT on black money and Income Disclosure Scheme, 2016. Rajya Sabha Rajya Sabha was adjourned four times in a matter of three hours and over one issue. Demonetisation. The rare unity in Opposition parties brought Congress and Trinamool Congress as well as Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) together as their slogan-shouting members trooped into the Well of the House, even as treasury benches countered them demanding resumption of the debate on the issue. Opposition parties demanded Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of each of the 70 persons who lost their lives post-demonetisation and the presence of Modi during the debate on the issue. Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien first adjourned the House till 11.30 am, then till noon and then till 2 pm. Rajya Sabha resumed proceedings only for Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari to adjourn it again for the day. The Upper House will meet on Wednesday 11 am. No sooner were the listed papers laid on the table, Sharad Yadav (JD-U) said the government should pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the kin of the 70 persons who lost their lives due to hardships caused by the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 rupee notes. Naresh Agarwal (SP) and Mayawati (BSP) said Modi should be called before starting the discussion on demonetisation. "He should come and listen to the pain people have faced because of his decision," Mayawati said. Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad (Congress) said the opposition is ready for discussion on the issue but Prime Minister should come to the House first. As he spoke, members of the BJP moved into the aisles raising slogans. At this point, TMC members carrying placards of "Financial Emergency" trooped into the Well, with Congress members following suit. As they shouted slogans from the Well, Kurien said, "You cannot speak in the Well. Shouting in the Well is of no use. If you go back to your seats, I will give you time (to speak)." He told Azad that he was ready to accept his notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of business. "Mr Azad, I am ready to admit your notice under 267 if only there is order in the House." As BJP members also created a ruckus, an angry Kurien snapped at them. "Why should treasury benches do this? Mr Minister, why should treasury benches to this," he asked Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. With the pandemonium continuing, he said this was "blatant indiscipline." "Both sides do not want discussion. Not only the opposition but treasury benches are also disrupting the proceedings. That is very unfortunate," he said before adjourning the proceedings till 11.30 am. The uproar continued when the House met again at 2 pm with the opposition insisting on its demand that Modi should be present for the discussion on demonetisation. Kurien wanted the resumption of the debate on demonetisation and called out the names of SP leader Naresh Aggarwal and TMC leader Derek O'Brien to speak on it but both were not present in the House. He then called out the name of CPM leader TK Rangarajan, who said he is willing to speak but wanted Modi to be present. An angry Kurien retorted, "I cannot bring Prime Minister to the House. It is not my job...I can request Finance Minister..." Kurien, then adjourned the House till Wednesday, less than five minutes after 2 pm. Lok Sabha Opposition ranks in Lok Sabha were boosted with AIADMK members joining them in their noisy protest on demonetisation, as the government vehemently resisted their demands, including a debate under a rule which entails voting, forcing the House to adjourn for the day. Amid noisy Opposition protests in the Well which continued right from the start, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar insisted that the government was willing to debate every aspect of the issue and went on to cite BJP's win in the bypolls in Madhya Pradesh and Assam to claim that people have endorsed the government's decision against black money and corruption. Opposition parties like Trinamool Congress and CPM too have won in the bypolls in West Bengal and Tripura, ruled by them. Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and TMC's Sudip Bandhopadhyay said they wanted a debate but demanded prime minister's presence and that the Speaker admit their adjournment motion, which will result in the division of votes and passage of a resolution, on demonetisation. They received a shot in the arm when AIADMK's P Venugopal spoke about "suffering of people" due to shortage of currency notes and said his party had also given an adjournment notice. Opposition parties cheered as he spoke. AIADMK is perceived to be more sympathetic to the treasury benches on many issues. "Government is willing to start a debate. I don't think that the opposition parties are in support of black money, fake currency and terrorism when the whole country is supporting the Modi government over its decision," Kumar said. Kharge said they too were ready for a debate but wanted Modi's presence and that their adjournment notice be admitted. Equating Speaker Sumitra Mahajan with a mother, he said she should hear them to which she retorted that a mother would want all her children to live together happily. Like previous days, Opposition members trooped into the Well and began protesting as soon as the House met at 11.00 am. The Speaker carried out most of the Question Hour amid noisy scenes before adjourning the House briefly till noon. After laying of the listed papers, she adjourned the House till Wednesday as Opposition parties remain unrelenting. Members of Congress, TMC, Left parties, SP and AAP were demanding discussion on the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 under Rule 56, that entails voting. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was seen in his seat having an intimate discussion with AAP MP from Punjab Harinder Singh Khalsa. Row over PM Modi not addressing the House Modi's absence in both the Houses of Parliament was at the heart of Opposition's protest. As BJP slammed the Opposition for stalling Parliamentary proceedings for the fifth consecutive day, Opposition stood united and demanded that Modi should address the issue of demonetisation and the deaths related to it. The prime minister did not make an appearance in either of the Houses, but senior leaders of BJP slammed Congress and other national parties protesting, and said that the Opposition is just shifting their goalpost and their only motive is to stall Parliament proceedings. Attacking the Congress, Union Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "Today they want PM Modi to address Parliament, tomorrow they will be demand a JPC on the demonetisation issue. Trust me, the opposition is just shifting the goalpost. Why are they running away from a debate? Why do they just want prime minister to speak, is the finance minister not competent enough to reply to their questions?" asked Prasad. Opposition wasn't too far behind with their response. Speaking to press outside Parliament, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi wondered if Modi could speak over demonetisation on different platforms and at a pop concert, what was stopping him to speak in Parliament. PM can speak on TV, pop concert, but why not in the Parliament?: Congress Vice president Rahul Gandhi #DeMonetisation pic.twitter.com/TKT3TD2HGx ANI (@ANI_news) November 22, 2016 According to political experts, Modi, most likely, will not address MPs in either of the Houses and the reason is BJP does not want to look vulnerable. Discussing the issue on CNN-News18, senior editor Bhupendra Chaubey said that the BJP will be on a back foot if the prime minister appeared to address the demonetisation issue now especially with the scheme still in process. Queues in front of banks and ATMs are shorter than they were last week, but the system is still not in place. ATMs are non-functional and there are still glitches in the system. It will probably be in BJP's best interest to hang in till the ground situation is under control. Winter Session headed towards a washout The British Parliament prides itself in not wasting a single session. Its Indian counterpart does the exact opposite: it doesnt utilise a single session. Winter Session of Parliament 2016 is no better than its predecessor. The Winter Session of 2015 was a total bust: Those who had expected a thaw in the relations between the government and the opposition were proved wrong; the dark clouds of the Monsoon Session got murkier. The Opposition, led by the Congress, did not let the government function. The BJP lacked the political precision to thwart the rivals. Result: This session witnessed the lowest number of bills being passed since the Winter Session of 2010. Even though the current Session has only just begun (16 November) but the five days that it was supposed to do business, all they did was raise slogans and not table any of the bills that they were supposed to. While we mull over the time our MPs and legislators waste slinging mud at each other during a Session, it is also paramount to remember that the legislators argue and counter-argue at the cost of the exchequer and eventually taxpayer. As of 2012, each minute of running Parliament during sessions costs the exchequer Rs 2.5 lakh. Like this article of Firstpost argues, the lack of debate in Parliament causes a much bigger harm than just a few thousand crores of rupees. From important policies on education to public health facilities, infrastructure sectors, justice delivery system, everything is broken. Image courtesy: PRS Legislative The ghosts of demonetisation have clearly failed to scare the voters of Shahdol and Nepa Nagar in Madhya Pradesh, as the BJP won both seats in the Parliament by-election. The bypoll results, announced on Tuesday, have given a clear thumbs-up to the ruling Shivraj Singh Chauhan government in Madhya Pradesh. Though opposition parties in Delhi have projected that "crisis and fear factor arose due to Narendra Modi's demonitisation move", the Congress party failed to utilise this to its advantage. BJP's Gyan Singh emerged winner in the Lok Sabha (LS) constituency, defeating Himadri Singh of the Congress by a margin of 60,333 votes, while the party also enjoyed success in Nepanagar Assembly seat, where its candidate Manju Dadu defeated Antar Singh of Congress. The Nepanagar seat was vacated following the death of sitting MLA Rajendra Shyamlal Dadu in a road accident. Citizens of the two constituencies have credited the BJP's attractive policies and the inability of the Congress party to appeal to them for the results. "It's due to Modi and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan that the BJP has won. Senior Congress leaders from Madhya Pradesh failed to make their presence felt in this by-election; they failed to use the demonetisation issue to their advantage. Moreover, several attractive schemes of the state government worked in favour of the BJP candidates," said Pramod Singh, a cooperative society employee from Nepanagar. However, while the BJP won in Shahdol, its margin reduced from 2,41,301 votes to 60,333. Initially, the Congress was upbeat about this Lok Sabha seat; at one point in time, it was even expected it would win here. Congress candidate Himadri Singh, who belongs to the royal family of Pushparajgarh, was said to have an edge over Gyan Singh, who was considered an "outsider" from Umaria. Political analysts feel it was Chouhan's master strategy that catapulted Gyan Singh to the winning seat. Initially, Gyan Singh himself was not convinced about contesting, but Chouhan considered his candidature above other aspiring candidates and fielded him. The BJP holds 27 out of 29 Lok Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh, while its tally in Vidhan Sabha is 165 from the 230-seat House. In July this year, the BJP had lost three municipal body polls in Isagarh, Maihar and Mandeep to the Congress. It was a big jolt to the ruling party, but it hasn't translated into similar victories in the bypolls. Gyan Singh will now have to vacate his Umaria Assembly seat, meaning there will be another bypoll and another opportunity for the Congress. Advantage BJP: Shivraj Singh Chouhan's personal charisma among rural voters, and the one-on-one connection he enjoyed in the past. The state government's schemes like 'Mukhiyamantri Tirth Darshan Yojna' (Pilgrimage scheme for senior citizens), schemes for students and girls, etc. CM Chouhan and other senior ministers and BJP leaders conducted a series of rallies in the two constituencies. Disadvantage Congress: Overconfidence: In July, three municipal polls went to the Congress. It was a big blow for the BJP, and the Congress may have become over-confident during the bypolls. It failed to properly use the demonetisation issue to its advantage. In comparison to the efforts put in by Chouhan and his cabinet colleagues, campaigning done by the Congress bigwigs like Kamal Nath, Digvijay Singh, Arun Yadav, etc remained a mere formality. The Madhya Pradesh Congress also failed to use party vice-president Rahul Gandhi and his image to its advantage. According to the voters, Congress had nothing new to offer no plan or welfare programme for the public, in case it had won. The party's grass root communication with the masses was missing. Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Arun Yadav failed to convince voters in Nepanagar to vote for the party, though it falls his his Lok Sabha constituency. Umesh Chandra Shrivastava, a voter from Umaria said the Congress party's chances in the upcoming bypoll are also remote. "Only time will tell how the Congress will fare. But people in Madhya Pradesh are well aware that the party has nothing tangible to offer. Moreover, the party's internal politics in MP have corroded it from inside and ruined its chances of winning any elections. Winning a municipal poll is quite different from winning a Vidhan Sabha or Lok Sabha seat," Shrivastava said. Results of bypolls held for four Parliamentary seats and 10 Assembly seats indicate that the citizens of India are, by and large, willing to give Prime Minister Narendra Modi more time following his demonetisation move. Bypolls were spread across six states Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and one Union Territory, Puducherry, and had evoked additional curiosity in political and social circles because they were held exactly 10 days after the decision to discontinue Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. Poll patterns and results were expected to be indicative of the popular mood, whether people still trust Modi and his capacity to deliver. But though the demonetisation drive has been hard on people, forcing thousands to endure hours in queues at ATMs and banks, results of the bypoll can be considered as people continuing to be patient with the government and its policies. So although it's perhaps too early to take it as a popular thumbs-up, it can still be considered that people tend to think of the move as being for the long-term popular good. The BJP retained Parliamentary seats in Sahdol, Madhya Pradesh and Lakhimpur in Assam. As expected, Trinamool Congress won both seats in West Bengal; three seats in Tamil Nadu went to AIADMK, proving that chief minister J Jayalalitha may have been in hospital for over a month, but her popular connect remains intact. Two Assembly seats in Tripura were won by the CPM, but the BJP did enjoy a massive upward swing in the voteshare, while Congress' share has ebbed to insignificant levels. BJP also has received encouraging trends coming in from Arunachal Pradesh and West Bengal. The only consolation for the Congress is from the Union Territory of Puducherry, where chief Minister V Narayansamy won. The results mean that the BJP can now go to the people in a confident frame of mind, particularly in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. The party still has several hurdles to cross though, and would hope that in days to come, the problem of cash availability eases and the daily life of ordinary citizens returns to normalcy. Just hours before the bypoll results came, Modi made yet another bold innovative, calling for an opinion poll on demonetisation. Moreover, he did so without resorting to a market research agency; he did not keep the survey's methodology secret, as political parties and agencies often do, fearing an adverse outcome. Modi took to Twitter and announced that he wants to know what citizens think. First hand opinion on demonetisation. "I want your first-hand view on the decision taken regarding currency notes. Take part in the survey on the NM App," Modi said in his tweet. He also posed a series of 10 questions to the citizens of India. It would be interesting to see if people actually downloaded the app and responded to his questionnaire, and what were the voting patterns. Consider the questions asked: 1. Do you think that black money exists in India? 2. Do you think the evils of corruption and black money need to be fought and eliminated? 3. Overall, what do you think about the government's moves to tackle black money? 4. What do you think of the Modi government's efforts against corruption so far? 5. What do you think of the government's move of banning old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes? 6. Do you think demonetisation will help in curbing black money, corruption & terrorism? 7 Do you think demonetisation will bring real estate, higher education and healthcare within the common man's reach? 8. Did you mind the inconvenience faced in our fight to curb corruption, black money, terrorism and counterfeiting of currency? 9. Do you believe some anti-corruption activists are actually fighting in support of black money, corruption and terrorism? 10. Do you have any suggestions, ideas or insights you would like to share with Prime Minister Narendra Modi? This is first such move conducted by the Prime Minister of the country, to try and connect or interact directly with the people on a subject that affects every person residing on Indian territory. Modi is known for his innovative approach and using the digital medium in the past as well. This latest move is another example of him maximising social media's reach and ability. He has yet again proved that his ideas on use of digital platform are often miles ahead of his rivals, as also his peers in government and party. As it is it should be taken as a welcome move, that too when it comes two weeks after demonetisation move. Though some questions have been raised about the timing whether this has been done under pressure, or he needs popular opinion back up to do some policy correction but doing a popular mood survey that too directly by the Prime Minister has its own positives. It's been 10 days since the demonetisation drive began, and it's enough time for people to form an opinion; they have faced hardships, stood in long queues, suffered a cash crunch. These are problems faced by people across different stata of society. There was a time when even Modi's supporters and sympathisers couldn't come out with opinions politically encouraging to the Prime Minister. The app survey would reflect whether the anger and frustration was temporary, whether people were willing to be patient and give Modi more time to deliver his intent and purpose. This survey will, however, have its limitations. It is limited only to those who have smartphones and are generally comfortable experimenting with various apps. Rural India will be especially be underwhelmed by the move. But if urban India responds overwhelmingly, it will set a new trend of reaching out to people. Response numbers and opinion patterns would indicate Modi's continued charm, or lack of it. The demonetisation divide is disturbing. Sitting on the opposite side of the treasury bench, it becomes a normal impulse to oppose the government. But moving beyond partisan politics, a few decisions need to be seen in the context of both their end purpose and the means employed, without divorcing one from the other. The recent decision by the BJP government to demonetise requires one such analysis. Today, India is facing countless challenges; both internal and external. Externally, a major challenge is posed by increasing assertiveness of China, a country that started its development journey with us but is now challenging the worlds biggest superpower, the USA. It cannot be disputed that it was only after it became an economic super power that Chinas presence started being felt on the global high table. On 13 November, Pakistans prime minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated the operational activities of the strategic Gwadar Port, an important trade link between western China and the Arabian Sea. Gauging its strategic implications is not a tough job and is indeed a matter of concern for India. Fresh manoeuvring in the relationship of Bangladesh with China and Pakistan in the past few months compelled our defence minister to forge new ties with Bangladesh. The way India is being surrounded in the India Ocean also raises serious strategic concerns. Without getting into the finer nuances of these issues, it is can be safely remarked that external challenges equal the internal ones, which are no less. This country is of the youth. They are both our capital and strength. If we cannot provide employment to them, nation-building will not be possible. That is a categorical fact. The needs of our rapidly increasing population also need to be taken care of. Environment degradation is staring us in the face. We have mixed poison in the air and are inhaling it. Various reports have indicated how more people in India are dying than in China because of diseases caused by environmental degradation. It is not only impacting our health, it is impacting our society and our economy at large. If we dont take strong steps in the economic realm, it is not very viable to expect the country to remain in its current shape. Demonetisation and its desirability Marxs proposition that it is economic decisions that forge the historical narrative is so true and China is a living example of this. After Independence, the dream of making India great, a dream nurtured by the freedom fighters, was met with several roadblocks and the economic ones were the most gigantic among them. To remove these roadblocks, it was only on two occasions that decisive steps exuding full determination to bring a substantive change were taken. In 1969, the nationalisation of 14 banks by the Indira Gandhi government was a big step in regard to economic reforms. Also, the abolition of privy purses and nationalisation of coal mining in (1971-1973) was a decisive step that sent a very strong message to the people. Again, decades of economic mismanagement pushed our economy to the wall compelling the PV Narasimha Rao government to initiate liberalisation and opening up of the economy in 1991. The BJP government, while announcing the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on 8 November, joined the same line of reforms. Its consequences will be judged in time, but it can be safely said that it would be beneficial for the economy at large, given that it is taken to its logical conclusion by initiating more reforms. It is the sheer misfortune of this country that a decision that provides a direction to the country and determines it destiny is seen through a political prism. Politics has become a 24-hour vocation for almost all the political parties. Every step is evaluated in terms of personal and political gain. Of course, there are exceptions like Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar who chose to see it from a different perspective, not allowing myopic oppositional politics to colour his views. On the very next day after the demonetisation announcement, Nitish supported the move. The reason for his support was simple: Cleansing Indian polity of black influence. I have earlier, in various discussions in Parliament talked about the Mumbai blasts of 1993. And I have also highlighted that in the same year the NN Vohra Committee submitted its report. The committee highlighted the problem of the criminalisation of politics and of the nexus among criminals, politicians and bureaucrats in India. It showed how this nefarious syndicate is destroying this country. It pointed out that this syndicate draws its strength from black money. The report was completely forgotten. We should deliberate upon implementing its recommendations. While we kept talking about curbing black money, a new power-broking class like Ponty Chadha, Matang Singh and Abhishek Verma and a host of political people who still hold important posts in different political parties, has emerged. Their sole interest is to generate black money on which to thrive. These power brokers have permeated defence deals, major policy decisions and even in the justice delivery system. Demonetisation is an important but small step to check these trends. To take it to its logical conclusion, the government has to strike on benami property, where most of the black money is invested. Tough economic decisions are required to strengthen democracy. Nitishs decision to ban liquor estimated to cause a revenue loss of thousands of crores was to benefit the people at the bottom of the social pyramid. And when this happens it strengthens the democratic ethos of the country. In 2005, Bihar was written off by the leading publications of the world such as The Economist, TIME and Newsweek. It was declared as a hopeless case. But the same Economist magazine in 2010 talked about its transformation and turnaround. It was the result of some very strong legal and economic steps, like speedy trials wherein 90,000 criminals where convicted in record time and sounding the bugle against benami properties of corrupt government officials and politicians. It is assumed that in a democracy, strong steps cannot be taken with decisiveness. And the long-held image of India as soft state allows the corrupt and the thugs to turn audacious enough to openly endorse, support and perpetrate wrong. Today top economists are arguing that the current demonetisation might be problematic in the short run but it will be beneficial in the long. Consider this: In Khairagarh, Chattisgarh, after 29 years, people came out in the open to pay up tax worth Rs 50 lakh. This is a story of a small district in Chattisgarh. In Ranchi, after demonetisation, Rs 1.16 crore was deposited as municipal tax in one week against Rs 20 lakh a week in normal times. A Congress member asked in Parliament as to what was so great about demonetisation. It has happened earlier too. Now consider this: In 1945, of a total Rs 1,235 crore worth of currency, Rs 143 crore (11.57 percent) was demonetised. In 1978, out of Rs 9,512 crore, Rs 146 crore (1.53 percent) was demonetised. In the current exercise, of the Rs 16,41,500 crore currency, Rs 14, 21,539 crore (86.6 percent consisting of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations) has been demonetised. This is huge and unprecedented. In terms of the value of the currency, it is a whopping 73.656 percent more than the 1978 exercise. In terms of the number of notes that need to be removed, it is even more mind-boggling. Against around 10,00,000 (give or take a few lakh) notes taken out in 1978, this time around 22,56,00,00,000 (two thousand two hundred and fifty-six crore) pieces of currency will have to be taken out. That is, this time, the effort is 22,56,000 percent larger. Now the government should ascertain the impact of demonetisation on Naxal funding, insurgency in Kashmir and the North East. It needs to enquire as to what extent the reports of note-burning like the one reported from Kolkata are true and who these people are. Information regarding this will justify the governments move. And in due course, all efforts should be made to ensure that if we want to move towards a cashless economy, the infrastructure to support this dream is put in place quickly. What the Opposition should be doing now Now what should be the role of the Opposition in this case? I think it should be of constructive deliberation. Rather than blindly opposing demonetisation, it is a moment when the Opposition should initiate a debate as to why in the last several decades, in spite of all the serious talk on the issues of corruption and black money, we failed to take any decisive steps. In 1962, Lal Bahadur Shastri formed the Santhanam Committee to suggest ways to tackle corruption. While one of its recommendations did result in the setting up of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), several other important recommendations were never debated seriously. In the following years, numerous committees were formed on the same issue and several reports on corruption and black money were submitted to the government, but without any substantive outcome. Corruption and black money was once a big issue. But over the decades, instead of sharpening the fight against corruption, ironically it got normalised by the shameless acceptance of its inevitability. In Jawaharlal Nehrus first Cabinet, a minister named Keshav Dev Malaviya had to resign because he was accused of taking Rs 10,000 donation in elections. Sankar Das, in his biography of Nehru, writes that in April 1963, certain charges of a minor nature were brought against KD Malaviya a Central minister. Nehru asked SR Das, a Supreme Court judge, to ascertain whether there was a prima facie case against Malaviya. Nehru otherwise liked Malaviya because he had done useful work in helping develop oil prospecting in India. Das enquiry was not conducted openly; it was held in camera. However, Das found that there was a prima facie case against Malaviya on two out of six charges. Malaviya resigned. This sort of aversion to corrupt practices has dissipated largely. It is an indisputable fact that black money is the direct outcome of corruption and there is a symbiotic relation between the two. In the past 40 years, since the time I started observing social and political developments, the base and impact of black money has increased manifold. As members of the Opposition we need to look up how many committees were formed to check corruption and black money in last few decades and question why no steps were taken to implement their recommendations. We need to ask if the governments till now were only interested in forming committees. The World Bank has put the extent of India's parallel economy at roughly 20 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). The 2014 and 2009 Lok Sabha elections were evidently fought with black money. People like Baba Ramdev, Ram Jethmalani and Professor R Vaidyanathan were vocal about this. It can be nobodys case that the host of social evils facilitated by black money can be allowed to remain. Now that the government has decided to demonetise currency, there is no point in irrationally criticising it. Of course, some tough questions need to be asked of the government. But before that as an Opposition we should see that the government machinery ensures that people in the most distant places get the new notes in the shortest span of time. Debate, dissect Also, all the news that is emerging after demonetisation should be debated. A few days ago a leading financial paper reported that at the India-Bangladesh border, the fake currency racket has suffered a huge setback due to the demonetisation process. The same day Mint published a report headlined, 'Hoarders woo friends to turn black money into white'. According to this report. big politicians and government officials are asking people to help them convert their black money into white for a commission. Some other reports claimed that the government is monitoring the income of around 400 big jewellers. Given the fact that a 10-gram gold coin costs Rs 30,000, a briefcase full of such coins can hold black money worth crores. Another important concern is the way Jan Dhan accounts are being used to stash black money. According to a Times of India report, Rs 170 crore was deposited in these accounts in just three days. The government needs to probe all abnormal transactions in these accounts. It is estimated that Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 crore of hawala money is with terrorist organisations. According to some estimates, terrorists funding in Kashmir rides on this money and following demonetisation, this has been severely affected. All these news reports both positive and negative need to be debated and dissected by the Opposition to ensure the government follows through and taken demonetisation to its logical end. The extent of black money is vast. According to World Bank, it is around 20 percent of the total GDP. The government estimates it at a far more conservative Rs 15-20 lakh crore which is less than 20 percent of GDP. What is the exact extent of this is tough to ascertain. Professor Arun Kumar, who has written a very important book on the subject, has, in his article published in Economic and Political Weekly (subscription required), put the figure at 62 percent of the GDP. That, too, in 2013. It is true that farmers, small businessmen and traders, patients, passengers and common people are facing huge problems. But in a decision of this scale, it was bound to happen. An argument has been made that people should have been given some time before announcing demonetisation. It is common sense that if such a big decision had leaked even 15 minutes before earlier, it would have had the potential of destroying the economy. It is natural that with a population of around 1.3 billion, there will be challenges. The government needs to provide immediate succour to the people and move quickly to mitigate the adverse impact of this massive move. This is a fight against organised corruption. Information regarding tax havens on foreign shores was given to this government time and again. In 2015, the Black Money Bill was introduced to bring back black money. But a measly Rs 2,500 crore was netted. Then came the income declaration scheme. By September-end, only Rs 65,000 crore had been received. If the estimated black money is Rs 10-15 lakh crore and only Rs 65,000 crore is received, it surely calls for some serious steps. All said and done, there is no denying the fact that demonetisation is an audaciously positive move. But it can reach its logical end only if it is accompanied by electoral reforms, confiscation of benami properties and stern action against those still in possession of wealth disproportionate to their known source of income. These objectives if attained substantially would set India on a different course. Politics can come later. The author is a former editor of Prabhat Khabar, a Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar and JDU spokesperson. Views are personal. New Delhi: Marking a complete U-turn in their stance on demonetisation, a delegation of Shiv Sena MPs on Tuesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and lauded the move as "a bold and historic decision" and assured of their full support. The MPs, who called on the Prime Minister in his Parliament House office, stated that they are with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). "Our MPs had a good meeting with the Prime Minister. The delegation assured him that we are all in the NDA," a senior party leader told IANS in New Delhi. "Nothing much or politically significant should be read in the Sena participating in the march to Rashtrapati Bhavan with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee," he added. However, the delegation led by the party's floor leader in Rajya Sabha, Sanjay Raut, urged the Prime Minister "to make judicious use of the dense network of cooperative banks and allow them to participate in the demonetisation drive". According to sources, during the meeting, Modi also recalled the BJP's long association with the Shiv Sena. In fact the Shiv Sena, once a regional outfit in Maharashtra, has been the first ally of BJP since the late 1980s. The two-page memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister, however, said that the "on-ground situation" in the last 13 days since the announcement to ban high denomination currencies has become "alarming". The letter signed, among others, by Sanjay Raut and party MPs like Anandrao Adsul (deputy leader of Sena in Lok Sabha), Chandrakant Khaire and Arvind Sawat, pointed out that as per the government directives, the rural and cooperative banks and credit societies are not eligible to handle currency exchange transactions. "A large section of our population, who don't have accounts in nationalised banks, has been put in a precarious situation after this move," the letter said. The Sena also demanded that the banned notes collected by various institutions in the cooperative sector in Maharashtra since demonetisation "be accepted by the nationalised banks." All India bank officers confederation, which claims to have representation from 2.5 lakh officers across banks, has demanded Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, Urjit Patels resignation taking the moral responsibility of the havoc caused to the economy with the unprepared decision on demonetisation. Well, it is nonsensical to bay for Patels blood. First of all, Patel and the RBI had very little role in this whole demonetisation exercise. The demonetisation wasnt an RBI idea from the beginning. It was a political decision. Except at a presser on 9 November alongside economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das, Patel has never appeared in public to talk on demonetization. Similarly, except issuing a few press releases, the RBI hasnt held any pressers to explain the cash situation in the country even after 13 days of confusion and panic among the public. A political necessity for Modi, of course As mentioned in an earlier article, Modi sensed the bigger opportunity in taking personal responsibility of the gigantic move against black money. Once the pain-days are over, the move will surely be seen as a landmark reform ever undertaken in the independent India to unearth black money from the financial system after the 1978 currency crackdown by Moraji Desai government. Even more so, given the fact that Modi had to prove that he is doing what he promised on black money in the run up to the 2014 general elections. The effectiveness of demonetisation to tackle black money effectively is a matter of debate, no one will dispute the governments intention. Modis previous attempts to recover black money through two separate amnesty-like windows, one in 2015 and the other concluded in last September cannot be termed as a big success since the amount of money recovered from these operations were either too small, or way below expectations. The government managed declarations worth Rs 4,147 crore from foreign black money holders in the first round and in the second, Rs 65,250 crore. But, the currency crackdown doesnt leave any room for criticism as far as the governments intention is concerned, excluding the implementation part. The point is besides the black money hunt, demonetisation was also a major political necessity for Modi. But, why is RBI governor silent? Agree, demonetisation was a political decision but the total absence of Patel, who is the face of the central bank after all, in this whole crucial affair is unfortunate and raises several questions on the RBIs independent character. Communication is equally important for a central bank as decision making. This is particularly important when the whole country is feeling the pain of cash crunch and confusing signals were emerging out of government on cash withdrawals/deposits. But, Patel wasnt in the picture. The central bank governor, the statutory authority of monetary policy and currency, remained on the sidelines throughout the spectacle. Though Patel was seen alongside economic affairs secretary, Shaktikanta Das, at the Delhi presser, Modi's surprise announcement and the body language of technocrats at the Finance Ministry-RBI joint presser clearly signalled that the government has effectively hijacked the show. Does this also prove that how the Modi government has gradually deconstructed the image of the central bank post the Raghuram Rajan-era? The importance of the RBI has significantly been undermined by the government when the monetary policy committee was formed. The way RBI and government presented themselves in the currency crackdown is another example. A public assurance by governor Patel, the signatory on the currency notes, would have reassured the public and investor community that things are still under control. Given the credibility, integrity and stature of an organisation such as the RBI, such a move would have meant a lot to calm the nerves. Interestingly, both Rajan and Patel have had to face currency-related crises, though in unrelated contexts, in the beginning of their terms. Rajan had to deal with a depreciating currency, which he managed well with swift measures. Patel too has a currency crisis. He is totally missing from the picture so far. But, RBI will be called for cash At the end of the demonetisation exercise, the North Block will likely turn to the Mint road for the windfall profits. How this will happen exactly is still a matter of debate. The assumption doing round in the media is something like this. Over the Rs 14 lakh crore worth of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that have been banned (86 percent of the currency in terms of value), about Rs 3-4 lakh crore will not likely return to the system, hence it will reduce the liability of RBI, thus boost its profit, which will then be transferred to the central government as surplus. But, as Anush Kapadia points out in this Mint column, this is only a theory. This argument is based on a misreading of the central banks balance sheet. Currency notes are not the same thing as having a checking account with the central bank. Seigniorage is paid out of the RBIs income flow but cancellation of currency notes changes only its net worth. Conflating both income and value as well as currency and credit can have seriously monetary consequences, Kapadia wrote. Of course, the government is entitled to receive dividends from the central bank, which it transfers every year. But, thats from the real income earned by the central bank like investments in bonds etc, not through such an exercise that will become part of its nominal reserves. The windfall from the demonetisation wouldnt constitute real income, most economists believe. But, surely, the government will make its case for the windfall Rs 3-4 lakh crore which it can use to recapitalise banks that are broke on account of huge bad loans. Patel should get ready for a few meetings with the government on this. Claims of "interview of the decade" were a little rich for what seemed more like a teaser for a photo exhibition on Indira Gandhi's life on her 99th birth anniversary but even among that vanilla script and candy floss questions, Sonia Gandhi amply demonstrated why the Congress party looks thoroughly out of tune with present times. Speaking to India Today's Rajdeep Sardesai at Swaraj Bhavan, Nehru-Gandhi familys ancestral home in Allahabad, the usually reticent Congress president exuded the same sense of speaking from a pedestal that has so alienated the party from the electorate. In some ways, the problem is intrinsic to the Congress which has become synonymous with a dynasty. It must hark back to its illustrious past since it has little to offer by way of future. Since there seemed to be some sort of prior understanding between the interviewer and the interviewee that questions would remain Indira-centric part of Congress's buildup ahead of the former Prime Minister's 100th birth anniversary next year a lot of the exchanges were limited to Sonia's personal equation with her mother-in-law. But even as she tried to humanise and soften the hard edges of Indira's persona and politics, Sonia let slip the arrogant positioning of Congress brand. To a question how the young generation would see and evaluate her mother-in-law, Sonia said: "As a woman who was completely and totally devoted to her people, who was willing to give her everything, including giving up her life for the people of the country." "Gandhi sacrifice" has been a recurrent theme in Congress politics over the years. While it may have resonated with the electorate in the 80s and the 90s, for the post-liberalisation generation this trope carries little sense or value. In a modern democratic polity, the leader is expected to lead from the front like the CEO of a company, not "sacrifice" his or her life for the nation. It represents the image of a benevolent 'mai-baap sarkar' that treats citizens as subjects and showers largesse and beneficence and in return, demands absolute loyalty. It is completely out of sync with the notion of a government and the electorate being equal partners in nation-building. That the Congress seems unable to come off the trappings of "self-sacrifice" as a way of doing politics should tell us something about their trajectory into political oblivion. Despite the bravado and forced confidence about the future of Congress, Sonia's comments also revealed an insecurity and a dilemma that she suffers as the outgoing president and the mother of a leader who appears destined for perennial apprenticeship. While talking about Congress being synonymous with dynasty politics, Sonia offered that just like progenies of a family of doctors or business empires follow the footsteps of their predecessors, her family too followed the path of the head of the family. "Just like in a family of doctors, professor business one or another will choose the path of the father. There is a difference in politics as in politics you are elected and defeated democratically," said Sonia. That the Congress president would fall back on a false equivalence to make a case for Rahul's foray in politics is interesting because elsewhere in the interview, Sonia repeatedly says that neither did she want to be in politics, nor did she want her husband to follow the footsteps of his mother. She even went to the extent of saying that Indira Gandhi herself never wanted to be in politics. Rahul Gandhi's reference to power as a poisoned chalice is well known. Taken together, one gets the impression of a family that has a deeply complex relationship with power. The members feel compelled to drink from the chalice despite an ominous foreboding. That may explain why Rahul fits easily into the armour of a reluctant general, but equally, it doesn't justify why Sonia would continue to make the case for her son to be in politics. One can only deduce that the Congress president fully understands that the weight of the surname is the only glue to keep the party from falling apart. One expected a few questions on 2G, CWG, Coalgate scams or even a passing mention of Robert Vadra but all we got was one oblique reference to Emergency where even the interrogator seemed too embarrassed to press the point. Sonia's answer was equally evasive. She revealed that Indira Gandhi was "uneasy" about the Emergency. "I cannot say how she would see Emergency today, but if she had not felt extremely uncomfortable she would not have called for elections." It seems rather odd that Indira Gandhi let her conscience bite her for 21 long months before she decided to test her fate at the electoral hustings. History would beg to differ. Allahabad: A day after attending a function commemorating the birth centenary of Indira Gandhi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her daughter Priyanka Vadra met local party leaders, enjoyed a stroll at the sprawling Anand Bhavan premises and visited the Kamla Nehru Hospital before returning to New Delhi. "This was the first occasion in more than a decade when Sonia and Priyanka were together at the Swaraj Bhavan. The last time they had spent the night at their ancestral house was during the campaign for 2002 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh," UPCC spokesman Kishore Varshney said. On Monday, they were joined by Rahul Gandhi during the inauguration of the photo exhibition organised by the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust. The party vice-president left on Monday. "For Congress supporters, yesterday was a memorable occasion as it was for the first time when mother, son and daughter were together at their ancestral house," Varshney said. He, however, added that they (Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka) had also come to Anand Bhavan way back in 1991 when they were carrying the ashes of Rajiv Gandhi. "However, that was an occasion marked by grief and hence we do not wish to count that." On Tuesday morning, Sonia and Priyanka went to the Kamla Nehru Hospital which is governed by a trust headed by the Congress president herself. Sonia inaugurated a blood bank there and interacted with a group of nurses who had completed their training recently. "Thereafter, they returned to Anand Bhavan, enjoyed a stroll on its sprawling lawns and interacted with the staff there," Varshney said. Later, a group of local party leaders led by the divisional election campaign committee chief Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi called on them. "Sonia and Priyanka heard their grievances and offered advice besides exhorting them to work hard for improving the party's position in the upcoming assembly elections in the state," the UPCC spokesman said. Jerusalem: It is 4:30 am and Mufeed Shawana is rushing to Al-Aqsa Mosque, as the first Muslim call to prayer of the day rings out across the Old City of east Jerusalem. But he stops short when asked how he feels that the sound echoing from the minarets could soon be dampened. "It upsets me. The calls to prayer have happened for 1,400 years." A bill backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ban mosques around Israel and annexed east Jerusalem from using loudspeakers to amplify late night and early morning azans, or calls to prayers, has been approved by a ministerial committee ahead of a parliamentary debate and voting. It has been temporarily blocked but the government is still confident of pushing it through. Shawana argues that nobody would deny Jews their own religious rituals, which are "their right". "This is our right," he adds, before disappearing inside the mosque to pray. The dispute around high-decibel minarets is not unique to Israel, which argues that other states, including in Europe and North Africa, have similar restrictions to those it is looking to implement. But it has touched a raw nerve in Israel, where many in its minority Arab population around 17.5 percent of the whole and overwhelmingly Muslim believe Netanyahu's rightwing government is systematically persecuting them. They also worry that their connection to Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam, is under threat. Large numbers of Israeli Jews view the azans as noise pollution, with the bill's sponsor Motti Yogev, of the far-right Jewish Home party, arguing they disturb the peace of hundreds of thousands of people. He has also claimed that in some cases they are used by religious leaders to incite against Israel. In its current draft, the law would prevent the summons to worshippers between 11:00 pm until 6:00 am from being relayed on loudspeakers. Palestinians and Arab Israelis have organised protests against the ban, with an Arab Israeli MP performing the azan in Israel's parliament to the fury of some of his Jewish colleagues. Government watchdogs call the bill a threat to religious freedom and the Arab League has termed it "a very dangerous provocation". Arab Israelis, who largely identify as Palestinians, are the descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. 'Terrible noise' Beit Safafa in southern Jerusalem is an Arab village flanked by Jewish neighbourhoods, including the area of Pat, a few hundred metres (yards) away. In a passionate sermon at Beit Safafa's mosque, Najih Qiraat, a religious leader from Al-Aqsa visiting for the weekly Friday prayers, railed against the Israeli plans. "It is very clear the Israeli occupation with this law, or the attempt at this law, wants to Judaise the city. They don't want to hear Arabic prayers in the city, they don't want to see churches in the city," he later told AFP. "The prayers represent a racket but the Israeli Jewish celebrations, celebrations at night you hear until dawn, they don't represent a racket?" he asked. For Israelis in Pat, turning the volume down is only fair and they accuse the Palestinians of being unreasonable. "We are a Jewish neighbourhood next to an Arab village -- the noise is terrible. I have a little kid who cannot sleep," said Ayelet Sadeh, 42. Just like Qiraat and Shawana, she sees calculated malice rather than cultural misunderstanding behind the actions of the other side. She points to the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, when life in Israel grinds to a standstill for a day, as an example -- pointing out Muslim prayers also continue on that day. "Sometimes," she said, "it feels like they are doing (it out of) spite." Al-Aqsa Health Minister Yaakov Litzman of the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism blocked the bill as he was worried it would silence the weekly siren alerting Jews to the start of the Sabbath, or holy day. An Israeli official told AFP the authorities were confident they'd find a way to pass the bill "while protecting religious freedom for all and the right of all to be free from excessive noise". There are more than 400 mosques in the country, including east Jerusalem, according to Israeli government figures, and implementing any law could be tough. "Forbidden fruit is sweet," Qiraat said, suggesting Muslims would organise loud prayer calls from homes. "If they ban the prayers, every house will become a prayer house every house will pray, every person," he said. "Day and night, until the occupation understands they cannot interfere in religious issues." Washington: Donald Trump has tweeted that Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage "would do a great job" as British ambassador to the US, in the latest unorthodox intervention by the president-elect. The decision on who is appointed to represent the United Kingdom in Washington is a matter for the British government, but that did not stop the controversial property-mogul-turned-world-leader from weighing in on social media. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States," Trump said on his Twitter account. "He would do a great job!" Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 Farage, interim leader of the nationalist UK Independence Party that campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union, met recently with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. The British politician said he was flattered by Trump's tweet. "I'm very flattered by the comments," Farage told Britain's Press Association. "I have said since I met the president-elect that I would like to do anything I can to act in a positive way to help relationships between our two countries." But according to a Downing Street spokesman, "there is no vacancy. We already have an excellent ambassador." Kim Darroch, the UK's former national security adviser, took over the diplomatic post in January. During the divisive US presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly compared his presidential bid to the Brexit referendum in which a majority of Britons voted to split from the EU. Trump's call on Twitter is unusual ambassadors are appointed by the governments they represent, not by the administration of the country in which they serve. Britain is keen to build bridges with Trump after many of its leading government figures criticised the president-elect during his successful election campaign. London is also interested in sounding out a US trade deal as it plots its departure from the European Union. Queen Elizabeth II could host Trump within months of him becoming president, with the British government confirming Monday that it was considering a state visit next year. Royal officials said the government was responsible for organising state visits, and a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said the proposal was "under consideration". Trump told May that he was a "big fan of the Queen" when the pair spoke by telephone following his victory, and is also reported to have told Farage that his late mother Mary would be "chuffed to bits when I meet the Queen." Britain will not issue an invitation to a president-elect, but is expected to make its move shortly after Trump's inauguration on 20 January. Washington: President-elect Donald Trump will not push for further investigation of Hillary Clinton related to her private email use and the Clinton Foundation, a close adviser said today, breaking with a key campaign theme. Trump triggered consternation and widespread condemnation when he made an unprecedented campaign threat to jail his Democratic rival should he win the White House. The Republican made Clinton's email scandal and allegations of pay-to-play at her family foundation a core theme of his campaign, railing against her "crimes" and leading fired-up supporters in chants of "Lock her Up!" But since his election he has deflected questioning on the subject, saying in an interview he would think about it, but had other priorities as incoming head of state. "I think when the president-elect... tells you before he's even inaugurated that he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone, and content" to fellow Republicans, Trump aide Kellyanne Conway said in an interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe. During their second presidential debate in October, Trump told Clinton he would instruct his attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into her email practices when secretary of state. Clinton responded: "it's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country." Trump then quipped: "Because you'd be in jail." Conway told CNN that Clinton "still has to face the fact a majority of Americans don't find her to be honest or trustworthy." "If Donald Trump can help her heal, perhaps that's a good thing," she added. "He's thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign aren't among them." Clinton has attributed her loss to the bombshell decision by FBI director James Comey to re-open the probe into her use of a private email server, less than two weeks before the vote. In a call with donors, she claimed that two letters Comey sent to Congress - re-opening the probe and closing it again after finding no new evidence of wrongdoing - had tilted crucial states towards her Republican rival. Comey's second letter, sent three days before the election, stated that the FBI had not changed its July recommendation not to charge Clinton. Cracks in America post-election are becoming more apparent. A few days ago, the cast of Hamilton a renowned Broadway musical delivered an impassioned speech to Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence, who was attending the show: "We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights," said Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, the nation's third vice president, as his fellow actors joined hands. "We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us." This was not received well by the President-elect Donald Trump, who tweeted: "The cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologise to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior." The cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologize to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2016 Mike Pence on the other hand brushed it off and said that the boos and jeers were the sounds of freedom. "That's what freedom sounds like." And Richard B Spencer, the alt-right movement leader and head of the National Policy Institute seems to be testing how far this freedom goes. On Saturday, at the end of his annual conference on the alt-right movement, he said: "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail our victory!" Spencer is credited with giving his movement 'alt-right' due traction and visibility. The 'alt-right' movement has been called as a white nationalist movement by many and that it significantly helped Donald Trump win the presidency. According to The Guardian, the day-long conference where Spencer spoke was a discussion on how the movement could be the "intellectual vanguard" for the Trump presidency. The Guardian reported that the conference in fact turned out to be a "shocking insight into the racism, sexism and disturbing beliefs of the 'alt-right'". The website said that Spencer addressed the audience on the efforts of the 'alt-right' movement in exerting influence in the policy sphere by "advancing white nationalist ideas" and that the 'alt-right ideas' can become a part of mainstream dialogue through Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. The Atlantic reported that at the end of the conference, Spencer delivered the speech to the followers that was "dripping with anti-Semitism" and called his media critics as "Lugenpresse" it means 'lying press' and it was a term that used by Nazis in reference to press critics. An excerpt from the speech: We are faced with binary choice, fight or flee, join or die, resist or cuck. That is the position of white people right now. Two weeks ago, I might have said the election of Donald Trump might actually lessen the pressure on white Americans. But today, it is clear that his election is only intensifying the storm of hatred and hysteria being directed against us. As Europeans, we are uniquely at the centre of history. We are, as Hegel recognised, the embodiment of world history itself. No one mourns the great crimes committed against us. For us, it is conquer or die. This is a unique burden for the white man, that our fate is entirely in our hands. And it is appropriate because within us, within the very blood in our veins, as children of the sun, lies the potential for greatness. That is the great struggle we are called to. We are not meant to live in shame and weakness and disgrace. We are not meant to beg for moral validation from some of the most despicable creatures who ever populated the planet. We were meant to overcome all of them because that is natural and normal for us. For us, as Europeans, it is only normal again when we are great again. Heil Trump! Heil the people! Heil victory! In the video (above, put up by The Atlantic), some of the members in the audience raised the Nazi salute after Spencer's speech. Holocaust museum alarmed The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) put out a statement that they were "deeply alarmed at the hateful rhetoric" at the conference that was held at the Ronald Reagan building just a few blocks from the USHMM, of white nationalists held on 19 November at the Ronald Reagan Building just blocks from the Museum. The statement also said: "The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words. The Museum calls on all American citizens, our religious and civic leaders, and the leadership of all branches of the government to confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech." Twitterati discussions As soon as news broke, many Twitterati took to the platform to express their disgust. They spoke of how Donald Trump didn't denounce or condemn the meeting, whereas, he berated the cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL) and the Hamilton cast on Twitter. Not one tweet from @realDonaldTrump denouncing alt-right "Hail Trump" Tweet storm SNL and Cast of Hamilton Wily Woman (@rosematoes) November 22, 2016 If u defend neo nazis chanting "hail trump"but say the Hamilton speech"wasn't the right forum" u ARE a racist M'el (@melallen14) November 22, 2016 Hillary Clinton received 1.7 millions votes ahead Donald Trump.Despite this, Nazis will be in the White House.#TrumpAltRightFilms Hail Trump Testigo/Eyewitness (@leonmextestigo) November 22, 2016 "Alt-right leader: 'Hail Trump!'" O_O What the f**k. Dude. That's not "Alt-right" that pure racism. DAW-mi-Neek JAYD (@RandomDom) November 22, 2016 By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS Israel has accused Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of using commercial airline flights to ship weapons to the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah.In a letter to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon accused Iran of using airlines such as Mahan Air. The United States has sanctioned the Iranian carrier for providing services to the Quds Force, a special forces unit of the IRGC, as well as Hezbollah.Iran's mission to the United Nations and Mahar Air were not immediately available to comment on the accusations.Danon wrote that Quds Force officers pack arms and materiel into suitcases that are transferred to Hezbollah either by commercial flights to Beirut or commercial flights to Damascus in Syria, and then transferred by land to Lebanon. "It is clear that Iran is still the primary supplier of arms and related materiel to Hezbollah, in blatant violation of numerous Security Council resolutions," Danon wrote. "The Security Council must condemn Iran and Hezbollah for the violation of its resolutions."Danon's letter to the 15-member Security Council, seen by Reuters, did not offer any evidence to support his accusations. The charge may add fuel to the debate about the agreement among Iran, the United States and five other nations to remove some of the economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for restraints on the country's alleged nuclear weapons program.U.N. Security Council missile restrictions and an arms embargo on Iran are not technically part of the nuclear agreement. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and several of his national security appointees have criticized the nuclear deal and charged that it does not do enough to halt the Islamic Republic's support for terrorism."Stop all engines on this nuclear deal. Take a step back. Really take a deep-dive look at everything going on in the Middle East," former Defense Intelligence Agency head Michael Flynn, Trump's choice for national security adviser, said in a Fox News interview in March. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by John Walcott and Jonathan Oatis) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Islamabad: The countdown has begun in Pakistan to appoint the next Army Chief with Gen Raheel Sharif set to step down on 29 November. The ball is now in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's court to choose his successor among the top four generals. If sources are to be believed Prime Minister Sharif has already made up his mind over who will succeed Gen Sharif, but has so far kept his cards close to his chest. The word in political circles is that Lt. Gen Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmed, who is currently serving as Multan corps commander, will be named the next army chief. Lt Gen Zubair Mehmood is likely to be appointed chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee, according to reports. Others in contention for the top military post include Bahawalpur Corps Commander Lt Gen Javed Iqbal Ramday and Inspector General Training and Evaluation Lt Gen Qamar Bajwa. All four generals are from the Pakistan Military Academy's 62nd Long Course, but have had different career trajectories. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has said that completion of ongoing counter-terrorism operations would be the responsibility of the new army chief. The war against terrorism, the situation along the border with India, and alleged "Indian aggression in Pakistan through Afghanistan" will be among the major responsibilities the new army chief will have to focus on, Asif said. Nawaz Sharif's choice will be important in the context that the new army chief would have to oversee the transition of the army from counter-terrorism assignments to its conventional role of defending the borders. The formal process for nomination starts with the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi sending a list of the senior-most generals to the Prime Minister via the defence ministry, but without making any formal recommendations. The Prime Minister then will hold informal consultations with the outgoing Army Chief before announcing his decision. Gen Sharif initiated his farewell meetings at the Lahore Garrison on Monday, where he told a gathering of officers and men from the army and Rangers that he was leaving the country "more secure and stable", with a "sense of greater hope and direction" and ready to thwart all challenges. By Axel Bugge | LISBON LISBON The incoming head of the United Nations warned on Tuesday that rich countries were ignoring the "losers of globalisation" by turning to nationalist agendas, as in the U.S. election and Brexit referendum.Antonio Guterres, elected in October to take over as U.N. secretary general next year, told a conference in his native Lisbon that this trend had undermined the willingness to receive refugees in Europe this year.He said the world must re-establish international protection for refugees coming from war zones such as Syria, but it would not be easy as developed countries were turning to nationalist agendas. Europe has struggled to handle a huge influx of refugees, many of whom displaced by the war in Syria. The United States has accepted only a very small number of refugees and may take in even fewer next year. "In 2016, we have witnessed a dramatic deterioration of that international protection regime (for refugees)," Guterres said. "This example started in the developed world, it started essentially in Europe, it is spreading now like a virus into other parts of the world." Guterres, who was U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees until last year, linked the growing resistance to accepting refugees to wider concerns about globalisation."I don't think we can look strictly at the refugee issue, I think the problem is a broader problem," he told the conference on Europe's refugee crisis. There was a consensus in the mid-1990s that globalisation would benefit all, he said. "But a lot of people were left behind ... In the developed world, (there are) those who have been losers in globalisation," he said. "The recent analysis of the rust belt in the United States, I think, is a clear demonstration of that, when we speak about the elections."Donald Trump won this month's election in the United States in part thanks to support from voters who have seen their jobs lost to countries with cheaper labour. Guterres said many voters had become angry with globalisation and felt "that political establishments and international organisations are not paying attention".This led to what he called "a kind of evolution" in which anti-establishment parties now tended to win elections and referendums tended to attract majorities against whatever was put to a vote.This year has seen a series of unexpected vote results, notably Britain's vote to leave the European Union in June and Donald Trump's election in the U.S. this month. (Reporting by Axel Bugge; Editing by Tom Heneghan) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Islamabad: On Tuesday, ahead of his retirement, Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif confirmed death sentence handed down to 10 "hardcore terrorists" by military courts for their involvement in killing four commandos and other heinous offences related to terrorism. The 10 condemned terrorists were given capital punishment by special military courts set-up after the 2014 Peshawar school attack for speedy trial of terrorists. "Today, Chief of Army Staff confirmed death sentences awarded to another 10 hardcore terrorists who were involved in heinous offences related to terrorism, including killing of innocent civilians," army said in a statement. The militants had also slaughtered Special Services Group's four commandos who had been captured and mercilessly killed during Swat operation of 2009. Army said the convicts also planned and executed attacks on Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies of Pakistan which resulted in deaths and injuries to several soldiers. They were also involved in destruction of educational institutions and communication infrastructure. Fire-arms and explosives were also recovered from their possession. The military courts were set up in Pakistan to expedite the trial process for terror-related offences following the December 2014 Taliban's massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar in which over 150 people, mostly school children, were killed. Following the attack, the government had lifted the moratorium on the death penalty and the Parliament passed the 21st amendment which established military courts which was challenged in the Supreme Court. The apex court ruled in favour of setting up of the courts in August last year. It is not known where the trial was held and when the verdict of conviction announced, as the military courts work in secrecy due to fear of backlash by militants. Raheel will end his three-year term as army chief on 29 November. Ankara: Turkey on Tuesday dismissed over 15,000 more civil servants, police officers and military personnel within the state of emergency imposed after the July failed coup, in a purge that shows no sign of slowing. More than 100,000 people within the military, police, judiciary and education sector have been arrested, suspended or sacked so far in a crackdown on those alleged to have links to coup-plotters. In the latest government decree published on Tuesday, 7,586 personnel working in the police, including police chiefs and commissioners, were dismissed. Meanwhile, 1,956 soldiers and personnel in the air force and navy were sacked while another 403 were removed from the gendarmerie, which looks after domestic security. Thousands more were dismissed in government ministries and state institutions, including nearly 3,000 officials in the interior ministry and its linked institutions. In total, 15,726 people have been dismissed under the latest decrees. The dismissals are allowed under the state of emergency, which was extended by another three months in October, and was originally imposed in the wake of the coup. But its scope has been vehemently criticised by the European Union and human rights activists. The decrees, published in the latest issue of the official gazette, also ordered the closure of 375 associations, nine provincial press outlets and 19 health institutions. Critics have claimed that the crackdown goes well beyond the suspected coup plotters and targets anyone who has dared show opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Ankara blames the coup plot on the US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen and says an unrelenting campaign is needed to root out his influence from public life. Gulen denies the allegations. In a separate development on Tuesday, Turkish authorities detained 20 staff at Silivri jail outside Istanbul accused of using the Bylock messaging app that Ankara says was specially developed by Gulen supporters for the coup plot. Those detained include the head of the prison, named as HT, it added. Hundreds of suspects rounded up after the coup are being held in the jail. WASHINGTON The State Department on Monday issued an alert to U.S. citizens about a heightened risk of terrorist attacks throughout Europe, particularly during the holiday season."U.S. citizens should exercise caution at holiday festivals, events, and outdoor markets," it said in a statement, adding that there was credible information that Islamic State, al Qaeda and their affiliates continued to plan attacks in Europe.The department noted extremists had carried out attacks in Belgium, France, Germany and Turkey in the past year, and said it remains concerned about the potential for attacks throughout Europe. "U.S. citizens should exercise vigilance when attending large holiday events, visiting tourist sites, using public transportation, and frequenting places of worship, restaurants, hotels, etc.," the statement said. The travel alert expires on Feb. 20, 2017, it said. (Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Eric Beech and Dan Grebler) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The State Department on Monday issued an alert to US citizens about a heightened risk of terrorist attacks throughout Europe, particularly during the holiday season. "US citizens should exercise caution at holiday festivals, events, and outdoor markets," it said in a statement, adding that there was credible information that Islamic State, al Qaeda and their affiliates continued to plan attacks in Europe. The department noted extremists had carried out attacks in Belgium, France, Germany and Turkey in the past year, and said it remains concerned about the potential for attacks throughout Europe. "US citizens should exercise vigilance when attending large holiday events, visiting tourist sites, using public transportation, and frequenting places of worship, restaurants, hotels, etc," the statement said. The travel alert expires on 20 Febuarary, 2017, it said. Korea is a popular tourist destination for Japanese and Chinese visitors, which both combined account for almost 60% of total international visitors in 2015. The geographic proximity and attractive tourism offerings cater to short getaway visits, particularly the capital city Seoul. The Korean tourism industry is driven by the cultural trend called 'Hallyu' or Korean wave. Starting from popular media including performing K-Pop artists and TV dramas gradually spread to industries such as cosmetics, food, electronics, etc. According to the Korea Foundation for International Culture Exchange (KOFICE), the Korean wave effect on production inducement was estimated to be approximately, KRW 15.6 trillion (USD 14bn) in 2015. Among the numerous regional tourism destinations, Korea consistently ranks within top 5 destinations for Chinese travelers for the last 3 years. Gwanghamun Palace Photo by HVS The Korean peninsula protrudes into the sea between China and Japan. The west coast of the Korean Peninsula is bound by the Korea Bay to the north and the Yellow Sea to the south; the east coast is bounded by the East Sea. Two hundred kilometres of open water separate the peninsula from eastern China. The Japanese islands of Honshu and Kyushu are located 206 km to the southeast. The total area, including the surrounding islands, measures 99,720 km2, of which about 99% (96,920 km2) constitute the land area of the Republic of Korea. There are about 3,000 islands belonging to the Republic of Korea. Jeju Island, which lies off the southwestern corner of the peninsula, is the country's largest island. The majority of the Korean population of about 50 million does not practice any religion (43.3%), followed by Christian (31.6%) and Buddhist (24.2%). Visitor Arrivals Figure 1: Visitor Arrivals 2005-2015 Photo by Korea Tourism Organization, 2016 In 2005, South Korea recorded total international visitors of 6.0 million. The majority of international visitors were Japanese at 2.4 million which accounts approximately 40% of the total international visitor arrivals, followed by China and the US at 11% and 9%. While total international visitor arrivals increased in subsequent years, Japanese visitation levels decreased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.5% between 2012 and 2015 due to an unfavourable exchange rate between the Korean Won and Japanese Yen. However, following the easing of visa restrictions for mainland Chinese, the Chinese market registered very strong growth, more than compensating for the decline in Japanese visitors further boosting the local tourism industry. Figure 2: Currency and Japanese Visitors to Korea Photo by HVS Figure 2 illustrates the correlation between Japanese Yen over Korean Won and Japanese visitors to Korea. Since Shinzo Abe was elected as the prime minister of Japan in 2012, the government implemented the policy called "Abenomics" to boost the domestic demand and gross domestic product by monetary easing and structural reform. The policy resulted in an unfavourable exchange rate for Japanese visitor to Korea, limiting the number of tourist arrivals. MERS Outbreak in 2015 In May 2015, Korea experienced the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) which led to the death of 38 people and negatively impacted the Korean tourism industry. During the MERS outbreak, from June to August, South Korea recorded a significant YoY drop in foreign visitors of 40%, compared to a 12.4% YoY increase for the same period in 2014. July 2015, the worst of the three months, registered a 53.5% YoY drop. Recovery from MERS Figure 3: Visitor Arrivals 2005-2016 YTD August Photo by Korea Tourism Organization, 2016 Due to the government support and promotion such as President Park visiting China for military parade commemorating the defeat of Japan after World World II and advancing the dates for the Korea Grand Sale, to October 2015, the decline in inbound tourism was reversed, reaching 3.65 Million visitors for the last quarter of 2015. From January to May 2016, Korea recorded a YoY increase of 10.6%, while June to August registered an increase of 100.9% over 2015 and 20.6% over 2014, showing a healthy growth and full recovery. Other risks in Korea (Political) South Korea Tourism Overview | By Jae Hyun YOO and Daniel Voellm Photo by HVS The Korean peninsula is politically divided into two nations, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). 63 years after the hostilities of the Korean war ended, no peace agreement has been reached and both countries are only in a ceasefire, leading to military and political risks between the two and neighbouring countries. Following a series of nuclear weapons test and missile launches, South Korea together with its US allies agreed to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense ('THAAD') Missile system in 2016. The deployment was strongly objected to by the Chinese government as THAAD's radar called TPY-2 has a range of 2,000 km, posing a threat to Chinese national security. What does it mean to Tourism Industry? Figure 4: Visitor Breakdown 2015 Photo by Korea Tourism Organization, 2016 The South Korean tourism industry depends heavily on Chinese tourists. In 2015, approximately 6 million Chinese visitors visited Korea which accounts roughly 45% out of all international arrivals. Considering China's track record for economic retaliation to Korea during the 'Garlic War' in 2000, there is a downside risk in the exercise of soft power. At the time the Chinese government banned importing polyethylene and mobile phones from South Korea as and act of economic retaliation when South Korea increased the tariff on imported Garlic from China to safeguard the Korean agriculture. Similar to the Garlic incident, the THAAD crisis is expected to have a negative effect on the Korea tourism industry. Subsequent to the THAAD deployment decision, China started strengthening regulation about Korean media content in China and applied more strict standards toward Korean cosmetics. Decreased access to the Chinese market can negatively impact visitor arrivals. More imminent, accroding to the local press1, the China central government inofficially gave instructions to major provinces such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin and others for travel agencies to reduce the number of group tourists by 20% by restricting travel package sales. Focus Market: Seoul, Capital of Korea Han River, Seoul Photo by HVS Seoul is the capital and largest city of South Korea. At a population of more than 10 million, the city is home to over one-fifth of the South Korean population. Seoul is the heart of the country's economy, politics and culture with a rich history spanning 600 years. Due to the convenient air access and competitiveness of Korean air carriers, Seoul has been the main benefactor of the 'Korean wave' phenomenon, welcoming the majority of tourists to the country. The city is served by two main airports, Incheon International Airport and Gimpo Airport. Incheon International Airport opened in early 2001, replacing the international function of the old Gimpo Airport. The Incheon International Airport serves as the national hub for international arrivals, currently serviced by 69 airlines, offering connectivity to more than 160 destinations worldwide with annual capacity of 44 million passengers. Incheon airport is also directly connected to the domestic High Speed Rail System KTX, providing access to all major cities in the country. Gimpo Airport connects the city to mostly domestic destinations and five major cities in East Asia that are located within a range of 2,000 kilometres - Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Osaka and Tokyo. The airport is currently served by five domestic airlines and six international airlines, namely All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines, China Eastern, China Southern Airlines, Shanghai Airlines and Eva Air with an annual capacity of 34.7 million passengers. Hotel Performance in Seoul Figure 5: Overall Seoul Hotel Performance 2013-2016F Photo by HVS Despite increasing visitor arrivals, occupancy and average rates slightly decreased since 2013 due to the decline in the high-spending Japanese source market and increase in supply around Seoul. Although the number of Chinese visitors increased rapidly, the majority are tour groups, opting to stay in more affordable accommodations in the outskirts of Seoul. Thus, both occupancy and average rate were negatively impacted in 2014 and 2015. Moreover, in 2015, the MERS outbreak had a major negative impact on both occupancy and average rate for a three-month period. For 2016, we forecast a recovery in occupancy levels as the market normalizes during the summer months affected by MERS in 2015. However, average rate remains under pressure, as operators applied value-based pricing policies to stimulate demand on the back of MERS and facing new supply entering the market. Figure 6: Seoul Hotel Performance by Segments 2013-2016F Photo by HVS Research Comparing performance across the segments, the Super Deluxe segment continuously decreased average rate from KRW 222,400 to KRW 196,500 while maintaining the occupancy at average of 70.5% from 2013 to 2015, reflective of the decline in the Japanese visitor arrivals. The Deluxe segment showed a similar pattern but with more fluctuation in occupancy, relying more heavily on leisure travellers. Deluxe hotels' average rates declined from KRW 118,400 to KRW 108,200 and occupancy declined from 80% in 2013 to 70% in 2015. The First Class hotels' average rate remained relatively stable compared to the other two segments however, the occupancy level showed a different trend with a peak at 70% in 2014 and 2013 and 2015 closer to the 60%-mark. All segments are showing a recovery in occupancy levels in 2016, however rebuilding average rate will take a longer time, challenged by the change in visitor arrival mix. Conclusion South Korea is one of popular tourist destinations for regional travellers in Asia and Seoul is the pulse of the Korean tourism industry. However, due to the consecutive decrease in high spending Japanese source market since 2012 combined with unfavourable event such as MERS, Seoul was unable to push the overall average room rate upwards. Despite the historical performance shown in Figure 6, the hotel performance in Seoul is projected to gradually improve as the Japanese Yen slowly strengthens compared to the Korean Won bringing Japanese tourists back to Seoul in the medium-to-long term, which will also be a positive sign for new hotel development opportunities in the Deluxe segments. On the other hand, although the Chinese visitor arrivals show healthy growth, the growth does not directly benefit the Seoul hotel market performance as the Chinese tourists are price oriented and together with the political tension between South Korea and China, a careful observation in the Chinese tourism market is needed. Ultimately, the locational focus of the tourism traveller and high attraction value of the Myeongdong area concentrates leisure demand to a relatively small area of Seoul. Opportunities for developments in other parts of the city remain, yet those require tailored positioning strategies and business models to cater to local demand. View source GET OUR APP Our Spectrum News app is the most convenient way to get the stories that matter to you. Download it here. Afghan security forces and civilians walk around the Shiite Baqir-ul Ulom mosque in Kabul after a suicide attack inside it A suicide bomber killed at least 28 people inside a Shiite mosque in the Afghan capital, Kabul, officials and eyewitnesses said. Ismail Kawasi, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry, said yesterday that at least 45 others were wounded in the attack. Kawasi added that at least one small child is among the dead. Faredoon Obiadi, head of the criminal investigation department for the Kabul police, said the attacker detonated his suicide vest among the crowds inside the Baqir-ul Ulom mosque in western Kabul. The attack took place on the first floor of the two-story building where Shiite worshippers had gathered to commemorate the death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammads grandson and an iconic Shiite martyr, in Karbala, Iraq in 680 A.D. I was inside the mosque and the Mullah was reading the prayer, suddenly a huge explosion happened then everywhere was dark, said Ewaz Ali, 50 who suffered minor injuries. No group has yet claimed responsibility but militant Sunni fundamentalists like the Taliban and the Islamic State group view Shiites as apostates and frequently attack Shiite mosques and public gatherings. Mondays bombing struck a ceremony commemorating 40 days since the anniversary of Husseins death. In early October, at a gathering commemorating the actual death anniversary, militants attacked another Shiite shrine in Kabul, killing 14. Amnesty Internationals South Asia Director Champa Patel said, The attack on a Shia mosque in Kabul is a horrific and deliberate attack on civilians. The Afghan authorities must investigate this crime immediately and bring the perpetrators to justice. They have a duty to take effective measures to protect Shia Muslims from attacks and end impunity for previous abuses against the Shia community. Shiites in Afghanistan make up an estimated 15 percent of the population of around 30 million. Their public celebrations and commemorations were largely banned during the five years when the Taliban controlled the country. But Afghanistans Shiites have become more public since the extremists were overthrown in the U.S. invasion of 2001. In July this year, a suicide bomber targeted ethic Hazaras, who are mostly Shiite, as they marched through central Kabul to protest discrimination. At least 80 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in the blast that was claimed by the Islamic State group. In 2011, at least 54 people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated his device at a Kabul shrine where hundreds of people had gathered.Rahim Faiez & Amir Shah, Kabul, AP A scandal that has captivated a nation took a new twist this weekend when prosecutors directly linked South Koreas president to alleged misdeeds by a shadowy confidante seen as pulling government strings. With hundreds of thousands taking to the streets each weekend in anger, President Park Geun-hye is digging in her heels, refusing to meet with prosecutors. The looming question now is: Will legislators take the politically risky path of impeaching her? Here are several things to know about the troubles mounting around Park: A NEW TWIST The scandal centers on Choi Soon-sil, Parks friend for about 40 years and the daughter of a late cult leader. Choi, who has no official role in Parks administration, allegedly pulled government strings from the shadows and, with the help of two Park aides, used her ties to the president to pressure companies to donate millions of dollars to two nonprofit foundations controlled by Choi. Prosecutors indicted Choi and the two former presidential advisers on Sunday. Investigators also said they believe Park conspired in the criminal activities. According to documents submitted by prosecutors to the court, Park allegedly ordered Choi and one of Parks ex-aides last year to collect money from businesses to help support the launch of the two nonprofit foundations controlled by Choi. Prosecutors also say in the court documents, which were revealed to South Korean media, that another ex-presidential aide allegedly passed dozens of confidential presidential documents to Choi, at Parks order. Those sensitive documents include high-profile personnel appointments and secret military talks with North Korea before Park took office, according to South Korean media. Parks office and her lawyer called the accusations groundless. WILL SHE BE IMPEACHED? The prosecutors announcement provides Parks liberal rivals and dissidents in her own conservative ruling party with a real legal path to parliamentary impeachment. Thats because the National Assembly can only oust a president when enough lawmakers believe he or she has violated the law. Two main opposition parties said yesterday theyll seek parliamentary impeachment because Park has refused to step down. Presidents have immunity from criminal lawsuits while in office. To get an impeachment through the single-chamber 300-member parliament, at least 200 or two thirds of the total votes are necessary. South Korean media said opposition parties, left-leaning independents and anti-Park lawmakers in her own ruling Saenuri Party can band together for more than 200 seats. If Park is impeached, shell be immediately stripped of her constitutional powers until the Constitutional Court can rule on her fate. Parks prime minister, the No. 2 position in the government, would take over her presidential responsibilities, including her role as commander of chief for South Koreas 630,000-member military, which faces a standoff with nuclear-armed North Korea. If at least six of the nine-member Constitutional Court approves her impeachment, shell be formally unseated. Then, within two months, South Korea must hold national elections to choose her successor, who will have a single five-year term. PARKS GAMBLE Park, the daughter of late dictator Park Chung-hee who is still revered by many here for his economic achievements, may believe that daring parliament to try for impeachment is her last, best hope to finish out the five-year term that ends in early 2018. Even if shes impeached, the conservative-leaning Constitutional Court can take up to 180 days to deliberate. That could buy her enough time to allow current public anger to subside. Or the court could overturn the impeachment. Thats what happened in 2004 to the liberal president at the time, Roh Moo-hyun. He was impeached on allegations of incompetence and illegal electioneering. But the impeachment triggered a strong public backlash that helped his party win big in parliamentary elections; the Constitutional Court then ruled that his actions did not warrant removal from office. Impeachment could also backfire for current liberals. Even though shes extremely unpopular, South Korean politics are still deeply divided. Many conservatives here could band together in elections next year if they see a partisan frenzy to get Park impeached in parliament. Hyung-Jin Kim, Seoul, AP Leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific nations ended their annual summit with a call to resist protectionism amid signs of increased free-trade skepticism, highlighted by the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum also closed with a joint pledge to work toward a sweeping new free trade agreement that would include all 21 members as a path to sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth, despite the political climate. We reaffirm our commitment to keep our markets open and to fight against all forms of protectionism, the leaders of the APEC nations said in a joint statement. APEC noted the rising skepticism over trade amid an uneven recovery since the financial crisis and said that the benefits of trade and open markets need to be communicated to the wider public more effectively, emphasizing how trade promotes innovation, employment and higher living standards. Speaking to journalists at the conclusion of the summit, Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said the main obstacle to free trade agreements in Asia and around the world is the frustration felt by those left behind by globalization. Protectionism in reality is a reflection of tough economic conditions, said Kuczynski, the meetings host. Referring to Britains vote to leave the European Union and Trumps election win in the U.S., he said those results highlighted the backlash against globalization in former industrial regions in the U.S. and Britain that contrasts with support for trade in more-prosperous urban areas and developing countries. This is an important point in recent economic history because of the outcome of various elections in very important countries that have reflected an anti-trade, anti-openness feeling, he said. This was the last international summit for U.S. President Barack Obama and he had been expected to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, a 12-nation trade deal. But he is no longer expected to seek ratification by Congress before he leaves office because of the election victory by Trump, who called the agreement a disaster for jobs. Obama told reporters that the way to address income inequality and to create jobs is through crafting trade policy and agreements like the TPP in ways that will increase exports to the Pacific Rim countries that make up a third of the worlds population. When it comes to trade, I believe the answer is not to pull back, he said at his last overseas news conference. The answer is to do trade right, making sure it has strong labor standards, strong environmental standards that it addresses ways in which workers and ordinary people can benefit rather than be harmed by global trade. Questions about Trump trailed Obama throughout trip as anxious world leaders quizzed him on Trumps stances on key issues like trade, foreign policy and the NATO alliance. On his final day in Peru, Obama sought to reassure the leaders gathered here that their longstanding ties with the U.S. wouldnt falter under Trump. Leaders of other nations said at the APEC meeting that they might seek to modify the TPP deal to make it more appealing to the incoming president or seek to implement it without the U.S. But the statement issued at the close of the summit said the organization would also work toward adoption of a broader 21-nation pact favored by the Chinese government known as the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he is keeping an open mind about Trump, who has threatened to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement between his country, the U.S. and Mexico. Were not going to jump to any conclusion about what the incoming American administration is going to actually do, Trudeau said. Theres been a certain amount of things said. But at same time we know that trade is good for the middle class and those working hard to join it. The APEC statement also said the members would adhere to the carbon reduction goals set in Paris last year to address climate change, a problem that they called a threat to food production and food security.Ben Fox & Joshua Goodman, Lima, AP For the third time, a proposal that aims to protect Coloanes environment in a more meaningful way has been rejected in the Legislative Assembly. The motion was supported by 11 lawmakers and opposed by 20. According to Macau law, there are 198,060 square meters in Coloane that are included in the citys protection area. This area exists to protect the regions science, ecosystem, and education fields. Jose Pereira Coutinho proposed the law be extended so that it will ban the construction of buildings in Coloanes legally protected lands. Song Pek Kei voiced concerns about how the neighborhood, more specifically the Seac Pai Vans public housing residents, will be treated once the law is passed. According to Coutinho, it has not yet been revealed to the public how much land is still under the protection of the law. He noted that many years have passed since the laws first establishment by the Portuguese administration. Coloane is the backyard of Macau. Besides Zhuhai, Coloane is the only relatively green place in Macau that local residents can visit, said Leong Veng Chai, who remarked that even the pandas live in Coloane. If buildings are to be built in Coloane, where are the pandas going to go? Ho Ion Sang also expressed his opinion on the bill. Ho said I am willing to protect Coloane, although he still has many doubts over the details regarding an article on preventing construction in the area. Lei Cheng I, who supported the motion said that even though the bill was rejected again, it should continue to be discussed in the future. Japanese peacekeepers, with a broader mandate to use force, landed in South Sudan yesterday, the first overseas deployment of the countrys troops with those expanded powers in nearly 70 years. Dressed in green camouflage uniform, Squad leader Yoshino Tanaka stepped off the plane at the head of the Japanese group. He was greeted and shook hands with Japans ambassador to South Sudan, Masahiko Kiya. The 350 Self-Defense Forces will be tasked with engineering and construction in the capital, Juba. For the first time since the end of World War II, these peacekeepers will have the ability to use force to protect civilians, U.N. staff and themselves. Sands Retail Academy recognized its fifth cohort of graduates last week at a graduation ceremony at Conrad Macao, Cotai Central, honoring the latest group of Sands Shoppes retail employees to complete the academys training program. Over 400 frontline retail team members received certificates at Thursdays ceremony after successfully completing their training programs. The training aims to improve the quality of service at Sands Shoppes in order to enhance customers shopping experiences. Since recognizing the importance of developing frontline employees within this sector, the Sands Retail Academy has delivered over 20,000 training hours to more than 5,000 employees of Sands Shoppes retailers to date. Launched in November 2013, the Sands Retail Academy offers complimentary training to retail professionals at Sands Shoppes Cotai Strip Macao comprised of retail real estate at the Four Seasons, the Venetian, Cotai Central, and the Parisian. In total this amounts to over 850 retailers. MGM donates mop500,000 to Tung Sin STng MGM donated MOP500,000 to Macau Tung Sin Tong Charitable Society in support of its annual fund-raising activity. As part of MGMs dedication and commitment to the community, the company has donated a total of MOP3.1 million to the society over nine consecutive years in support of its community programs and charitable causes, said the operator in a statement. We have very similar corporate philosophies regarding social responsibility, and we agree that it is very important to support initiatives that can have a positive impact in the well-being of the community, MGM Chinas CEO, Grant Bowie, said. MGMs ongoing relationship with Tung Sin Tong dates back to 2008, with the common goal of providing support and resources to people in need within Macaus community. MGM said that it will remain a consistent supporter of community initiatives, in line with its vision to Create a Better Tomorrow Today. The first training program at the Global Center for Tourism Education on Tourism Capacity Building for Government and Public Officials, concluded yesterday. The event was attended by delegates from tourism-related bodies across the Asia-Pacific region. The course, organized by the Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) in partnership with the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), was attended by 16 tourism-related representatives including the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) and the Forum for Economic Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese-speaking countries. Speaking on the sidelines of the programs closing ceremony yesterday, IFT president Fanny Vong stressed the importance of establishing and maintaining links with international organizations and society. Concerning the regions vision of becoming a world center for tourism and leisure, Vong noted: To be aligned with this policy, I think it is very important for Macau to have a strong tourism and related education and training portfolio. According to Vong, the institute tries to include participants from Macau, noting the importance of enhancing residents knowledge and skill level. She also remarked that the MSAR government has sponsored some of the programs costs. Vong also said that there are currently a great number of students enrolling in the institutes hotel management degree programs. She revealed that the IFT plans to establish two training hotels on its Taipa campus although the institute is still in discussions with government departments and would need another two years for the design and preliminary construction works to be finalized. With the Taipa campus, we hope that we would introduce some other management styles. [] We hope that with this new addition of training facilities, we will expose students to different types of management styles and challenges, she explained. Meanwhile, a representative from the MGTO, Isabela Manhao, expressed doubt that visitors in the region are receiving high-quality tourism services; particularly due to the large number of tourists the territory currently accommodates. If you want to provide good service, you really need the room to let people serve properly. With such big numbers of tourists that we have, I dont think that [they are] getting what [they] should be getting, she explained. She also cited the need for the region to continually enhance infrastructure such as transportation as well as other services. Manhao also believes that the perception of Macau as a destination should change, noting that tourists should be exposed to the cultural aspect of the territory. You can find experiences here in which you can feel theres no casino. So this is what weve [MGTO] been trying to do. This is our aim also. And for Macau residents, I think this image is also very important, Manhao explained. The MGTO representative also stressed that the Macanese culture and cuisine should be further promoted in the region. Its something we can focus on and have Macau [showcased] to the world with Macanese gastronomy, which I believe is worth mentioning, she added. The training program at the institute covered tourism-related management strategies and practices. IFT expressed the hope that the knowledge acquired during the course could be useful for overseas participants in the development of tourism and hospitality industries in their respective countries. The second training program for the newly established center will be held next year. Police in Ohio are accusing a woman of selling sex for USD60 and some nachos. Officers near Youngstown say they arrested 36-year-old Crystal Hotlosz during an undercover operation yesterday. Beaver Township police say an officer texted the woman after seeing an online advertisement for sex services. Officers say she first wanted $50 and some nachos and later upped her price to $60. Police say that when the undercover officer later met the woman in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant, she asked if he had the extra money and her nachos. WKBN-TV in Youngstown reports Hotlosz has been charged with solicitation and possession of criminal tools. Human rights victims who suffered during the rule of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos filed petitions yesterday asking the Supreme Court to order the exhumation of his remains that were buried last week at the countrys Heroes Cemetery. They also want the court to hold officials and his heirs in contempt for carrying out the burial before the court heard final appeals against it. Former President Fidel Ramos, who played a key role in the peaceful army-backed revolt that ousted Marcos in 1986, called the former leaders burial at the military-run cemetery an insult to the sacrifices of soldiers and veterans. Left-wing former lawmaker Saturnino Ocampo and other activists urged the court to hold Marcos widow Imelda, their three children, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and two military officials in contempt for the hasty, shady and tricky burial on Friday of the long-dead president at the Heroes Cemetery. The petition said they should be fined and detained for mocking the legal process that gave petitioners 15 days to appeal the courts Nov. 8 ruling allowing the burial. Opposition Rep. Edcel Lagman, who represents another group of petitioners, sought a court order to have the remains exhumed because the hasty and surreptitious interment was premature, void and irregular. He asked that the remains be examined to determine if they are not a wax replica. The secrecy-shrouded burial at the cemetery reserved for presidents, soldiers and national artists shocked democracy advocates and human rights victims, prompting street protests in Manila and other cities. Marcoss rule was marked by massive rights violations and plunder. After being ousted in 1986, he flew to Hawaii, where he lived with his wife and children until he died in 1989. Groups opposed to the burial called for a national day of protest on Friday at Manilas Rizal Park and in other parts of the country. Organizers urged Filipinos to join the protest and hold President Rodrigo Duterte accountable for allowing the burial and the Supreme Court for obscuring the crimes of the dictator. Ramos, 88, who led soldiers in turning against Marcos in 1986, told reporters the burial was an insult and a trivialization of the role, the sacrifices of our armed forces, [police], coast guard, veterans. Ramos, a supporter of Duterte, expressed hope that Marcos widow, Imelda, will apologize to the Filipino people and contribute whatever ill-gotten wealth remains with the family to help compensate human rights victims and their descendants. AP Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has decided to declare a lagoon in China-controlled waters to be a marine sanctuary where Filipinos and Chinese will be prohibited from fishing, officials said yesterday. China seized the Scarborough Shoal in 2012 after a tense standoff with the Philippines. Dutertes plan is delicate because it may imply Philippine territorial control there. Chinese coast guard ships have closely guarded the shoal since then, and both governments have suspected the other of planning construction to cement their claims to the area. If Dutertes plan proceeds, fishermen of any nationality would only be allowed in the deeper waters just outside Scarborough, but not its vast triangular-shaped lagoon naturally fenced by coral outcrops with an entryway watched by Chinese coast guard personnel. Duterte relayed his marine sanctuary plan to Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the just-concluded Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said. Xi did not say whether he agreed to Dutertes plan in the Scarborough Shoal, according to the statement from Esperon and other Philippine Cabinet officials present at the meeting. It is our position not to have fishing activities inside the triangle, Esperon said of Scarboroughs shallow lagoon. The president has decided to declare that as a sanctuary. That is a unilateral action from government. China, Esperon said, also prohibits fishing inside the shoals lagoon. If they dont want to allow fishing there, we dont want to allow fishing there either, Esperon said of the countries similar but separate regulations in the disputed area. The Philippine government is considering declaring other disputed South China Sea areas as government-protected marine sanctuaries, according to Esperon. After taking control of Scarborough, which lies about 228 kilometers off the northwestern Philippines, Chinese coast guard personnel shooed away Filipino fishermen, at times with the use of water cannons or by deploying armed personnel on speed boats to chase them off. Dutertes predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, responded by bringing the shoal dispute and other territorial issues against China to international arbitration. An international tribunal ruled in July against China, saying it violated the Filipinos rights by banning them from fishing. China, however, ignored the ruling, which also invalidated its vast claims to virtually all of the South China Sea. Duterte, who took office in June, reversed his predecessors adversarial stance and reached out to China. Shortly after Duterte discussed the Scarborough dispute with Xi in a state visit to Beijing, Filipinos were allowed to return to the shoal to fish. Philippine coast guard ships also resumed patrols in the vicinity of the shoal. While the territorial disputes persist, China and the Philippines have signed about 20 trade and economic agreements. China has also sent officials to meet Filipino fishermen, who were displaced by the rift over Scarborough, to find ways of helping them, Esperon said, explaining how Dutertes approach has reaped immediate benefits. Remember that in our relations with China, the sum total is not Scarborough, he said.Jim Gomez, Manila, AP PHILIPPINE President Rodrigo Duterte decides to declare a lagoon in China-controlled waters to be a marine sanctuary where Filipinos and Chinese will be prohibited from fishing. More on p11 HONG KONGs leader said Chinese President Xi Jinping has affirmed his handling of a political dispute in the Chinese-ruled territory in which two recently elected legislators were barred from taking their seats. INDONESIA Authorities said yesterday they believe a protest planned by Muslim hard-liners next month in the capital may be a guise for treason and are warning the organizers against holding the rally. The protest planned for Dec. 2 is to demand the arrest of Jakartas minority-Chinese governor who is being investigated for alleged blasphemy after he spoke about a passage in the Quran that prohibits Muslims from electing non-Muslims as leaders. MYANMAR Human Rights Watch says satellite images show 820 newly identified structures destroyed this month in five Rohingya Muslim villages in the Myanmars troubled Rakhine state where the military is carrying out counter-insurgency operations. JAPAN-US A top defense policy adviser for Japans government proposes using U.S. President-elect Donald Trumps demand that Tokyo contribute more to its own defense as a chance to update the countries security alliance to reflect Japans greater military capability and todays harsher security environment. PAKISTANs powerful army chief begins a farewell tour of various army outposts across the country, ending public speculation that he might seek an extension of his term in office. AFGHANISTAN A suicide bomber struck a Shiite mosque in the Afghan capital yesterday, killing 32 people, the U.N. office said, the second large-scale attack targeting minority Shiites in Kabul in just over a month. GERMANYs main center-left party pushed back yesterday against pressure to decide quickly on a challenger to Angela Merkel in next years election after the chancellor announced she will seek a fourth term, insisting that it will wait until January. BRAZIL Investigators so far have found no bullet holes in a crashed Brazilian military helicopter or in the bodies of four police officers who died when the chopper went down during an anti-drug operation. APEC SUMMIT Leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific nations have ended their annual summit with a call to resist protectionism amid signs of increased free-trade skepticism. They announced a joint pledge to work toward a sweeping new free trade agreement that would include all 21 members as a path to sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth. TWIN FALLS Jensen Jewelers CEO Tony Prater has high hopes for the holiday shopping season. Since construction began on a new City Hall and a public gathering area downtown, Prater has seen an increase in people visiting local downtown businesses. Our business has almost doubled because people now are seeing something happening, said Prater, who also heads up the Downtown Twin group of local businesses. And the rise in traffic could continue, as many people have already started their gift shopping early, ordering custom items at Jensen Jewelers downtown. On the cusp of the busiest season for retailers, area businesses are making preparations for Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. Were certainly encouraging folks to shop locally, said Shawn Barigar, Twin Falls mayor and Chamber of Commerce CEO. Barigar read a proclamation Monday during the City Council meeting in support of Small Business Saturday. Heres what a few retailers in the area had to say about their plans Friday and Saturday. Jensen Jewelers at 133 Shoshone St. N. and 1485 Pole Line Road E. will open 6 a.m. for Black Friday, with door-buster specials, including featured blue diamond earrings. In Rupert, Mad River Laser at 502 E. St. will be open on Black Friday for the first time. As weve gotten bigger, weve gotten a lot of requests to be open, Sales Manager Tamara Long-Partei said. The store sells personalized gifts and can engrave on wood or metal. Staff have already been taking orders from families and businesses. Everything in the store will be on sale, Long-Partei said. Hot cider will be available for customers, wholl have a chance to earn free gifts when they spend a certain amount. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, but may be extended Friday. Fashion 15 Below, at 143 Main Ave. E. in Twin Falls, will participate in Black Friday for the first time. It opened in February. We get new customers in here every day, owner Erin Rigel said. The clothing store will have extended hours, with door-buster specials between 8 a.m. and noon. The store carries womens clothing in sizes 0 to 22 for $15 or less. Rigel said she has more than 10,000 items with new arrivals daily. Fashion 15 Below will open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday. Its also open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. Deseret Book will have extended hours from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, with specials starting for its rewards program members now until Thanksgiving. The bookstore, affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, offers books, gifts and more than 300 nativities. A good half of our items are non-denominational, said Richard Crowley, the stores general manager. Crowley expects this holiday shopping season to compare with years past. Its a big month for retail, he said. POCATELLO, Idaho (AP) The founder of an Idaho company that introduced the use of drones in agriculture is dreaming bigger literally. Empire Unmanned founder Steve Edgar is considering using Pocatello Regional Airport as a future hub for possible freight-carrying drones, reported The Capital Press (http://bit.ly/2eZjXr0 ). Edgar spoke about the possibility and the future of aerial shipping at Idaho State University last week. It could be more than 10 years before the Boeing 747-size drones he envisions are hauling cargo, Edgar acknowledged, but he still plans to analyze the infrastructure at the airport and the surrounding community next year. Pocatello is ideal because it has an under-served airport surrounded by open space, is a stop on a major rail line and has easy access to two interstate highways, Edgar said. He also pointed to expertise provided by the university and Idaho National Laboratory. Airport Manager David Allen said the city should study how to best position itself if other investors share Edgar's enthusiasm "I think it's worth looking at this," he said. "It would be a fun bone to chew on." Currently, the Federal Aviation Administration only allows commercial drones to be flown within the pilot's line of sight. Edgar said he is optimistic that the FAA will allow pilots to fly drones outside their vision sometime next year. ___ Information from: The Capital Press (Ore.), http://www.capitalpress.com/washington SUN VALLEY Dr. Bill Morgan didnt need to look far for a teachable moment during the recent Saint Alphonsus Ski & Mountain Trauma Conference. He simply pointed to Septembers dramatic helicopter rescue on the 11,865-foot Devils Bedstead East a few dozen miles east of Sun Valley. Thats where 25-year-old Avery Shawler, who manages the Wood River Wolf Project, fell on fresh snow that had melted and turned to ice. She broke three ribs, her left arm, her right kneecap and her left eye socket. Shawler had a DeLorme InReach global satellite device with her. But, she said, she had forgotten to charge it. So she tried her cellphone 19 times without getting a signal. Finally, on the 20th try she got through to Blaine County dispatch, which enlisted the aid of Custer County Search and Rescue and Two Bear Air Rescues twin-engine Bell 420 helicopter. Rescuers found her within an hour, saving her from possible hypothermia as night set in. Ironically, Shawler had one of the best tools there is for signaling for help if only she had charged it, said Nate Smith, director of Mountain Education and Development, which instructs clients around the world on remote first response and wilderness medicine. DeLorme communication devices cost about $300 with monthly fees of $12 to $100, depending on the options the user chooses. They have extended battery life and allow users to text back and forth. They accurately track users locations with built-in navigation with waypoints and routing. And they can be paired with a mobile device to access topographic maps and NOAA charts. Back home friends can follow you on a map. And you can send them preset messages, like Leaving the trailhead and Made it to camp. Done for the day, without it costing any more, Smith said. In contrast, satellite radio, which has been so popular, is expensive and bulky. It doesnt always work, and its battery life is far shorter, he said. Smith spoke on using technology in the backcountry at the Sun Valley conference, founded by orthopedic surgeon Richard Moore in 2006 after a Ketchum woman became paralyzed in a ski accident. The conference is the only conference of its kind in the United States, Moore said. Its committed to raising the level of hands-on care. Its through conferences like this that we get to do it better tomorrow. Anyone using the backcountry should know how to use a map and compass, despite all the technological devices available, Smith said. But the handheld GPS is rapidly becoming obsolete. Maps have to be updated its just one more device you have to keep charged, he said. Smith said he encourages backcountry users to carry a smartphone with a reliable GPS in a waterproof case. A variety of map apps can be downloaded onto the phone. You can, for instance, view and download more than 70,000 U.S. Geological Survey and Canadian topographical maps for just $7.99 (topomapsapp.com). GPS maps covering the world can be downloaded for $19.99, but, Smith said, they tend to be a little confusing to follow. Google Earth maps can be downloaded free. Its absolutely incredible how good the apps have gotten, Smith said. You can use a little button to pinpoint where you are and put in waypoints to figure out how long it will take to get to your next waypoint. Community members can even add notes, icons or photos to maps. Smith has tested the maps and devices around the world from Kenya to Ecuador. And, he said, theyre pretty accurate. Thats good because these small details can become really big concerns when youre out there. Smith carries a $40 charger for his phone that provides 10 watt-hours when hes out for extended periods. He carries a 50- or 100-watt-hour lithium pack with a solar panel that folds to the size of a book. He also carries a backup stick that he keeps in a Ziploc bag with the cable. I tell clients on expeditions that theyre welcome to take pictures or notes on their smartphone. But as they have to begin using a backup stick, picture- and note-taking stops. At that point, they use their phone for emergencies only. TWIN FALLS A fire in a Twin Falls home started from a buildup of bird nesting material near a chimney, a battalion chief said. The Twin Falls Fire Department responded to the blaze just after 9 p.m. at the home at 182 Dubois Ave. W., Battalion Chief Brian Cunningham said. The fire appeared to start above the fire place near the ceiling from a build-up of nesting materials above the wall plates, probably from a bird, Cunningham said. The nesting material was in too close of contact with the chimney, and thats likely what ignited it. Nobody was injured in the fire, Cunningham said. But the battalion chief, who started his 24-hour shift Tuesday and was not on duty during the fire, was uncertain whether the family in the home was displaced. I would almost bet thats true based on the damage, Cunningham said, but I dont have verification. The blaze caused an estimated $30,000 worth of damage between the property and items inside the home, the battalion chief said. Three engines responded to the blaze, which was brought under control quickly, Cunningham said. Fire crews cleared the scene about 11:50 p.m. TWIN FALLS A mental health evaluator found that a Salt Lake City man being held in custody on $100-million bond is likely having translation issues, not mental health issues. Mulugeta Zemu Mana, 32, has been in custody at the Twin Falls County Jail since he was charged with felony battery July 29. A judge set his bond at an astonishing $100 million after prosecutors asked that his bond be set at $1 million and Mana responded by saying he didnt care and the judge can even make it $100 million. Mana, a refugee whos likely from the African horn nation of Eritrea based on the Tigrinya language he speaks, is accused of attacking a fellow refugee outside a Twin Falls home July 28. Mana told arresting officers he traveled from Salt Lake City to attack his victim, Samuel Gebreegziabher, because Gebreegziabher and two others ruined his life. Mana was set for a preliminary hearing in August, but the public defender representing him, Ben Andersen, asked that Mana undergo a mental competency evaluation, telling the judge he didnt think Mana was fit to proceed. But a licensed clinical social worker from the Department of Health and Welfare who evaluated Mana last month said she doesnt believe Mana has mental competency problems. The evaluation found no evidence of any delusions or mental health issues, evaluator Chelsea Lee wrote in a letter to 5th District Magistrate Judge Roger Harris. It appeared that many of the concerns voiced in the initial report may directly correlate to misinterpretation of Mr. Manas reports from the first translator and/or cultural differences. The evaluator went on to write that jail staff also corroborated that they had not witnessed or observed any behaviors that alluded to a mental illness during the time of Mr. Manas incarceration. The Department of Health and Welfare planned to conduct another evaluation earlier this month, Lee wrote in her letter to the judge, and then the department would review the evaluations and make a recommendation to the court on whether Mana is mentally fit and competent to proceed. A preliminary hearing in the case is set for Dec. 9. TWIN FALLS The College of Southern Idaho is restructuring and enhancing its community education and workforce training offerings, the college announced Monday. The workforce training and continuing education unit will be led by Brandi Turnipseed, previously CSIs workforce development director. The college is also seeking a director of business development and training, wholl oversee employee training for businesses across south-central Idaho. Last year, more than 9,700 students were served through CSI-provided trainings, according to CSIs statement. The college will still offer adult enrichment and community education classes. Fine arts special events coordinator Camille Barigar will take over that role, with support from student services specialist Diane Gause. We will continue to offer a robust slate of enrichment courses both here and in the off campus centers, and people can expect a full course (catalog) the first of January with the course offering from Twin Falls and all outreach centers, Barigar said in a statement. RUPERT The table is being set for 400 people Thursday for a free traditional Thanksgiving Day feast. One hundred turkeys will be roasted in the Elks huge rotisserie. Everyone is welcome, Ron Anderson, owner of Alaskas Best restaurant, said. Ron and his wife, Deb, have held the holiday meal for 15 years. The first two years the dinner was held at their restaurant, until it outgrew the space, Ron said. We do this because sometimes people dont have family and the holiday is all about family gathering. Sometimes people are left with no family but they sometimes see old friends during this dinner and are able to sit and talk and catch up, Deb said. The widows and widowers that attend have a special place in her heart. They are so thankful and appreciative, Deb said. I always tell my drivers who are delivering meals to make sure to stay and talk for a while. Take the time for them and dont rush back. Sometimes we are the only people they see that day. The first year the Andersons held the event, their restaurant was down the street from where it is now and they had only one cook stove, Ron said, so some of the turkeys were cooked at the church across the street. We were running back and forth across the street because we needed more mashed potatoes, he said. The third year, someone suggested they rent the Elks building, but the Elks said they would donate the kitchen and dinning room for the event. Elks members now do all the set up and tear down at the building and provide all the equipment for the meal along with volunteering for other duties. It is fun, Mike Zemke said. By the end of the day Im tired, but its a good kind of tired. Zemke said Elks members start cleaning the turkeys Wednesday night, which is a chore. But he cooks up some turkey gizzards and hearts to provide a little snack during the evening. About two dozen volunteers show up Thursday to help in the kitchen and serve meals and another dozen drivers provide rides for those who need them and deliver meals. Requests for rides and meals must be placed before 5 p.m., Wednesday. The giant rotisserie cooks 40 birds at a time in 2 hours. They are just perfect and look like they come out of a magazine, Ron said. The turkeys drip on each other as they cook, which provides a natural basting, Zemke said. At 8 a.m. about a half dozen volunteers are put to work carving the first batch of turkeys. When they are done carving the first batch, the second batch of birds are ready, but its a little more dicey carving them because the turkeys are steaming hot, he said. One guy, all he does is the mashed-potatoes, Ron said. Deb is charged with the stuffing and making about 30 gallons of gravy, one gallon at a time. And there are 30 gallons of corn to heat. Minidoka County School District cooks will make and donate 60 dozen fresh rolls and Sophies Chatterbox along with some church volunteers will make little cheese cakes for dessert and there will be cranberry sauce. The Kat Kountry radio station will donate dozens of turkeys that employees collected during a community turkey drive. Other volunteers line up to serve people in the buffet line and fill orders to be delivered, while other drivers scurry off to pick up people for dinner. Over the years the biggest event provided 700 meals. The first four years Ron and Deb covered the cost of the meal. And even though it is a free meal, many people offer a donation, which is put towards paying the costs for next years meal. Ron said at about 3 p.m. they evaluate how many more meals they will serve and they cook the remaining turkeys to be given whole to families who would otherwise go without. Sometimes people do not have the resources to cook a frozen turkey, he said, and they really appreciate having a cooked one. BURLEY Toxic Blue-green algae in the Snake River in Mini-Cassia has killed dogs and horses in the past few weeks, according to a local veterinarian. The toxic algae a photosynthetic bacteria that comes in many different hues including purple, black, pink, red or light shades of those colors, and it can look like mats, foam or surface scum. Exposure can result in a range of health effects from skin irritation and stomach upset to neurotoxic effects, and at high levels, death. The toxic bacteria are potentially fatal for people, pets and livestock along with wild animals and can occur from ingestion, skin contact or inhalation. When Ive seen blooms, it always looked vibrant, like spilled paint in the water, Briedi Gillespie said. If you see a really colorful hue on the sand or purple or pink stuff on the bank, stay away. Gillespie and her husband, Bart Gillespie, both teach veterinarian medicine at Utah State University and have family in Mini-Cassia. Their Chesapeake Bay retriever, Rose, came back from the Snake River bank soaking wet before the couple left a home they were visiting in mid-October in an area upstream of the Twin Bridges area off exit 216 on I-84. She was unconscious in less than 20 minutes, Briedi said. Her respiratory system was completely paralyzed. The couple began cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and rushed the dog to Barts father, Clyde Gillespies, veterinary clinic in Paul, where she was placed on a mechanical ventilator and given intravenous fluids for the next eight hours, which saved the dogs life. We are concerned that not enough is being done to warn people of this public health hazard, Briedi Gillespie said. Gillespie said she took samples on the bank and in the water where her dog went into the river, which both came back positive for the toxic bacteria. There are two types of the toxin, one affects the liver, the other paralyzes the animal, she said. Clyde Gillespie said hes treated two other dogs at his clinic that were exposed to the bacteria in the past few weeks. He was able to save both of them. When they come in they cant blink, swallow or breathe, but you can tell they are awake, Clyde Gillespie said. If you can keep them breathing they have a chance to survive. Heyburn veterinarian Bill Fulcher said there was an outbreak in Mini-Cassia on the Snake River about 10 years ago, which resulted in some animal deaths. Fulcher said he has treated three dogs in the past few weeks that were exposed to the toxic bacteria. I could only save one out of the three dogs, he said. Fulcher is also aware of three horses that were killed by the toxins. We really want to get this out to the public, he said. If someone suspects that their dog was exposed, they need to get it to the vet immediately. Balthasar Buhidar, the surface water manager for the Idaho Department of Environmental Qualitys regional Twin Falls office, said there are positive samples of blue-green algae from two Snake River locations near Rupert. One of the species identified has no research available on it, he said. DEQ tested at the site where the Gillespies dog came in contact with the substance and a second place upstream of the Montgomery Bridge near Rupert. The algae requires multiple conditions to be just right to pose a hazard, like temperature, low water flow, nutrients and wind action on the water. It makes a toxic cocktail, Buhidar said. The bacteria are normally present in small amounts in lakes, streams, reservoirs and other bodies of water. The first year the DEQ tested for the bacteria was in 2014, where a positive sample was taken from Salmon Creek Reservoir. In 2015 no sightings were reported, but this year DEQ found positive samples all over Mormon Reservoir and in Magic Reservoir at Lava Point. Outbreaks have occurred in other states in the region and on the East coast, where mollusks and shrimp are affected. Neither boiling nor disinfecting removes the toxins from the water. If fish are exposed, only the fillet portion should be consumed, and the skin, organs and fat should be removed. People should wash their hands after handling exposed fish. We dont want to frighten people, but we do want to call attention to it, Buhidar said. The different colors of the bacteria are determined by where it is in its life cycle, he said. A hard freeze and temperatures in the 30 degree range will kill the algae, but toxins can remain for up to 25 days. The fall draw down of the river water levels created stagnant areas that likely contributed to this outbreak. We are sometimes asked how to deal with it. Just stay out of the water, Buhidar said. If you see it, dont touch it, get away. If you want to fish or boat, find another place to do it. Buhidar said DEQ is working with the public health district to alert people when they get positive samples. We dont want anybody sick and we dont want people, dogs, cattle or horses dying, he said. TWIN FALLS The Magic Valleys first doctor put his life on the line to save others. Dr. Albert F. McClusky died in 1928 at the age of 50 after treating three children diagnosed with spinal meningitis. Now his story and others endure on a wall in the waiting room of the Wellness Tree Community Clinic. It is the same clinic his grandson Dr. David Albert McClusky II volunteers at two nights a week to help patients who are without health insurance or who live in poverty. There are four generations of McCluskys who became doctors and served the Magic Valley. A mural depicting pioneer medical providers was unveiled at the Wellness Tree on Monday night. The mural was the idea of Arne Walker, the clinics executive director. Two years ago, he envisioned putting a small mural inside the clinic to pay homage to the areas first doctor McClusky and its first dentist James M. Rogers. Walker reached out to local artist Gary Stone to create the 16-foot wide mural. Stone, who has been painting for 41 years, worked on the mural for three months. This mural gets to tell their story a little bit without having it in writing, Stone said. It includes the people, places and developments of medicine in the Magic Valley. The mural depicts Twin Falls first hospital, the original Perrine Bridge, McCluskys horse drawn buggy, his Ford Model T and the camp his wife, Louise, started after his death to help sick children. McClusky was the mayor of Buhl from 1921 to 1927. Before buying his Ford Model T, McClusky used a horse and buggy to make house calls. I like it very much, McCluskys grandson said Monday. I think it tells the story of early medicine and development in our community. It shows we as a community can come together for the health of the community. McClusky II is one of four generations of doctors who have served the Magic Valley. His father, David Albert McClusky, died when he was completing his medical residency. And his son David Albert McClusky III has a practice in the Wood River Valley. Albert F. McClusky came to Buhl in 1908 and died in 1928 of spinal meningitis. His wife, Louise, started a camp called the McClusky Health Camp, in honor of her husband. The camp was in the present day Dr. A.F. McClusky Park in Buhl. Its purpose was to feed malnourished children and children who had become sickly from tuberculosis, flu or pneumonia. There were a lot of kids that would die during the winter because they were too skinny, Walker said. The mural cost $1,000 to create. Stone donated his time and labor, while the Wellness Tree paid $1,000 for the materials needed to create the mural. Its more than I hoped it would be, Walker said. I hoped to put a small mural at the end of a hallway. I never thought it was going to be this big with so much on it. While there was a lot of information on the Magic Valleys first doctor, Walker said, he couldnt find much about the first dentist at the library or the Twin Falls County Historical Museum. I went and spend hours looking through the old black and white pictures, Walker said. We laid all the pictures out on a long table and picked and chose what would be the most relevant and interesting. The Wellness Tree also enhanced its dental clinic with a new panoramic X-ray installed on Monday. The dental clinic opened last year and has since extracted 720 rotten teeth from patients mouths. One of the challenges volunteer dentists faced was that without a dental panoramic X-ray, they could could only take photos one section at a time, Walker said. That is fine if the patient has one bad tooth, Walker said, but many patients have multiple problems. The most teeth extracted from one patient at one time was 19. Without a panoramic X-ray, he has to look at multiple X-rays and connect them in his mind, he said. Having a panoramic X-ray will help our dentists get a better overall view of our patients overall health. The X-ray cost about $24,000 and was purchased using a $15,000 Glanbia grant in addition to other foundation money and individual donations. The mural brings so many founders of our healthcare here, Walker said, as he stood next to the mural Monday. I think our community is pretty neat with the four generations of doctors who serve the community. In 1982, McClusky II treated one of the little boys, by then an adult, diagnosed with spinal meningitis and cared for by his grandfather. The man told McClusky II that he remembered lying a few beds down from his grandfather when he died. It was not the first, nor last time, that McClusky II treated former patients of his grandfather. It was fun to have patients who were delivered by my grandfather and treated by him, McClusky II said. Q: People are dumping prescription medications and they are getting in our groundwater. What is the proper way to dispose of prescriptions? A: In Twin Falls specifically, I have been told that the sheriffs department and the city police are able to collect pharmaceutical medications, said Josh Jensen, South Central Public Health District Program Manager. The permanent take-back locations in the Magic Valley are: Twin Falls Police Department, Kimberly/Hansen Police Department, Buhl Police Department, Jerome County Sheriffs Office, Wendell Police Department, Gooding County Sheriffs Office, Shoshone Police Department, Cassia County Sheriffs Department, Heyburn Police Department, Rupert Police Department, Blaine County Sheriffs Office, Hailey Police Department, Ketchum Police Department, and Sun Valley Police Department. Sharps, IV tubing, and infectious waste are not accepted. There are concerns about trace levels of drug residues found in surface water, such as rivers and lakes, and in some community drinking water supplies from flushing certain medications. Almost all medicines can be thrown in the household trash. Do not flush medicines down the sink or toilet unless specifically instructed to do so, the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations website says. Some medications that could be harmful to other people if taken specifically instruct the user to flush down the sink or toilet when they are no longer needed, the FDA said. If no disposal instructions are given on the prescription drug labeling, throw the drugs in the household trash following these steps from the FDAs website: 1. Remove them from their original containers and mix them with an undesirable substance such as used coffee grounds, dirt, or cat litter (this makes the drug less appealing to children and pets, and unrecognizable to people who may intentionally go through the trash seeking drugs). 2. Place the mixture in a sealable bag, empty can, or other container to prevent the drug from leaking or breaking out of the garbage bag. 3. Scratch out all identifying information on the prescription label to make it unreadable. This will help protect your identity and the privacy of your personal health information. 4. Do not give your medicine to friends. Doctors prescribe medicines based on your specific symptoms and medical history. Something that works for you could be dangerous for someone else. 5. When in doubt about proper disposal, ask your pharmacist. The National Drug Take Back Day was last month, Jensen said. The Idaho Office of Drug Policy reported Idaho residents turned in 1.6 tons of unused medicine which was removed from circulation on Oct. 22. It aims to provide a safe, convenient, and responsible means of disposing of prescription drugs, while also educating the general public about the potential for abuse of medications stated the U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration. The UN Security Council unanimously voted on extending investigations aimed at identifying the perpetrators of the chemical attacks in Syria last year and requested that a report be completed within 90 days by the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) of the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The mandate of the investigation team has been widened to include terrorist chemical threat within the region following Russias request. There have been rampant reports of chemical attacks in Syria since last year and previous reports submitted by JIM held the Syrian government responsible for chlorine gas attacks while the Islamic State is said to have used mustard gas. Damascus has always denied the allegations stressing that there are no physical evidence to link it to such attacks. Efforts by Britain, France and the USA to impose sanctions on Syria based on the published reports have been rejected by Russia at the Security Council because the findings are insufficient to warrant such actions. Investigations carried out in the war torn country have often been challenging because of restricted access to affected areas and collaboration during the process has not been forthcoming. Both Damascus and the rebel groups have accused each other of being responsible. Meanwhile, the upgraded version of the strategic Tupolev-95MSM bomber went on its first mission to Syria on Thursday armed with X-101 cruise missiles to destroy the strongholds of terrorist groupings, Russian Defense Ministry stated. There are also reports that the P-800 Onyx supersonic cruise missiles were also fired for the first time from the Sea onto land targets with the Russian military affairs specialist Konstantin Sivkov telling a state news agency that this was the first time the Bastion complex, equipped with Onyx missiles has been used against targets on the ground. He thinks it was test fire to determine the possibility of using this weapon for land attack. Russia is a strong ally of the Damascus regime and has been able to prevent tough decisions being made against it at the UN Security Council. Claims that Egyptian parliament will vote on a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 have resurfaced again and the head of the Armenian National Committee of Egypt said a draft could be presented in its agenda. Armen Maslumyan, head of the Armenian National Committee of Egypt, said during a meeting with the European Delegation, Egyptian MP Mustafa Bakri acknowledged that it is a shame stigma for Turkey while hoping that the inhumane massacre should be condemned. The draft resolution if subjected to a voting could easily be passed considering that more than 300 members of the Egyptian parliament had supported the request for a recognition of the genocide earlier this year. Turkey has always refuted the genocide claims because the victims were both Armenians and Turks. The matter of recognizing the genocide surfaces less than a week after Cairo accused President Erdogan of making irresponsible statements that showcased Turkeys double standard approach in Egyptian affairs over the past years with the help of the Al-Jazeera television channel. Erdogan accused the Egyptian regime of providing support to the Gulen movement but Ankara can differentiate between the Egyptian people and the administration there. The interview was aired on the eve of the 11 November demonstrations and the Turkish president stated that we love the nation like it was ours and thats why we have provided all support to them but we are against coup governments and the violation of freedoms, and we will stand with the Egyptian people in their fight for democracy. Relations between the two countries have been at an all time low as both sides accuse each other of supporting dissident groups that are determined to overthrow their governments. Elsewhere, the European parliament is preparing to vote on a resolution that will request for the suspension of Turkeys accession to the European Union but the European Parliament President Martin Schulz hopes that Turkey will not give up on negotiations to join the organization. Foreign minister of Madagascar Atallah Beatrice Jeanine has hailed Moroccos decision to rejoin the African Union (AU) and pledged to support the North African Kingdoms bid to retake its legitimate seat within its African institutional family. Mrs Beatrice made the remarks in Antananarivo on the occasion of the official visit King Mohammed VI is paying to Madagascar within the frame of a new African tour to bolster Moroccan-African partnership and foster further South-South cooperation. Madagascar top diplomat said that President Hary Rajaonarimampianina has responded favorably to the letter sent to him by Head of the Union African Commission Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on Moroccos bid to rejoin its African institutional family. Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda, which were visited lately by the Moroccan Sovereign, also backed Moroccos return to the AU. During the latest African Summit held in Kigali (Rwanda), 28 African member countries out of 54 submitted a motion welcoming Moroccos application to rejoin the African Union, noting that the North African country is one of the founding members of the AUs predecessor, the Organization of African Unity (OAU.) Panama Canal. President Hary Rajaonarimampianina, who held Monday in Antananarivo tete-a-tete talks with King Mohammed VI, underlined the importance of the royal visit to his country, saying this is the first visit by the Moroccan King to Madagascar, a visit which has a strong symbolic meaning. The royal trip will give new momentum to the friendship ties existing between the two countries, added the Malagasy president, recalling Moroccos special ties with Madagascar, notably the city of Antsirabe, which had welcomed late King Mohammed V and the royal family during their forced exile in 1954. After the warm welcome of the Moroccan Sovereign by the Malgasy president, government and people, the two African Heads of State held private talks and exchanged the highest honorary distinctions. Afterwards, the two leaders chaired the signing ceremony of twenty-two bilateral cooperation agreements. These agreements seek to enhance partnership in agriculture, banking, civil service, youth, sports, taxes, renewable energy, education and vocational training. Morocco, which chairs COP22, pledged on this occasion to help Madagascar upgrade and preserve the Canal of Pangalanes, a 700- km long waterway which is four times longer than the Suez Canal and eight times longer than the Panama Canal. Morocco is banking in this regard on its experience accumulated in revamping and restoring Cocody Bay in Ivory Coast, a landmark project and best illustration of the South-South cooperation. Turkey has issued arrest warrants for Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria alleging that they took part in planning and executing a car bomb explosion that killed around 29 people in Ankara at the beginning of the year. The arrest warrant by a local court targets 48 people including the Kurdistan Workers Partys (PKK) Zubeyir Aydar and Remzi Kartal and the head of the Syrian based Democratic Union Party (PYD), Salih Muslim as well as other prominent leaders. The attack dates back to 17 February and its main target were military service vehicles that were passing by but most of the dead were civilians. Turkey blamed the PYD and its military wing, the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) for the bombing. PYD is a Syrian based Kurdish group that has gained prominence in the fight against ISIS due to significant contribution of the YPG in repelling the extremist group. However, Turkey considers the group as a terrorist organization and a threat to its national security. At the beginning of the month, Turkey arrested several senior officials of pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) stating that they were being investigated. The move led to a boycott of parliamentary sessions by the party which announced on Tuesday that it will beginning attending sessions without providing further explanations. Ankara has embarked on a large scale crackdown of suspects and sympathizers of Fethullah Gulen but it has been criticized for not respecting Human rights during the process. Critics allege that the failed plot is being used as a venture to pursue its fight against the Kurdish armed groups. The meeting between Saudi Prince Khaled Al Faisal, the governor of Mecca, and President Michel Aoun of Lebanon in Beirut on Monday is being considered as a warming up of ties between the two countries and the presidents office stated that it was keen to strengthen relations with Riyadh. Prince Faisal said Lebanon should be a place for Arab accord, not an arena for Arab discord. Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri also reiterated Beiruts determination in reviving the ties stating at a dinner banquet that Lebanon is committed to all the Saudi-led causes, from the issue of regaining all Arab rights to combating all forms of extremism and terrorism. He hailed the brotherly ties between them describing his visit as timely while applauding the kingdoms keenness on Lebanons independence, sovereignty and prosperity. A breakdown in relations between Beirut and Riyadh was worsened by the Aouns Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) allying with Hezbollah; a politico-military group that is considered by Saudi as a terrorist group. Saudi also blamed Aouns son-in-law, interim foreign minister Gebran Bassil, for the breakdown in relations. The appointment of Hariri as prime minister is expected to calm the tension because the latter is a close ally of the Saudi regime. President Aoun has decided to visit the kingdom after the formation of a government following the extension of an invitation from Riyadh. The gesture is seen as a positive move between the two countries but Hezbollahs influence in Lebanese politics would continue to be of concern to the Saudi authorities due to its close links to Tehran and the Houthi Movement allegedly. The ceasefire in Yemen has ended with the warring parties accusing each other of multiple violations. The truce which lasted for 48 hours in order to make an opening for new peace talks failed and hostilities have been renewed. Spokesman Major General Ahmed Assiri of the Saudi-led coalition said the Houthi Movement and its allies showed no respect to the ceasefire and there have been more people killed in Taez and more attacks with surface-to-surface missiles, so automatically the conditions are not there. The coalition said there were hopes that the ceasefire could be prolonged if it was respected by the rebels but for the moment, such plans at the military level are over. Assiri accused the rebels of violating the cease-fire about 500 times in Yemen and about 100 times across the border, in the southern provinces of Najran and Jazan. Brigadier Abdo Majli, spokesman of the pro-Hadi forces, confirmed that fighting has resumed and they will continue until legitimacy is restored. He added that they have been making progress with the support of the coalition forces which has helped them in taking over some parts of Taez province and an air base defense in the city. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moons spokesman Stephane Dujarric lamented that the resumption of the the hostilities will affect humanitarian efforts as relief organizations continue to struggle in overcoming the bureaucratic obstacles they face from both sides. According to a UN World Food Program report on Yemen issued on November 14, more than 21 million people, or 82 percent of the population, are in need of humanitarian assistance. Despite the difficulties, aid reached 4.6 million people aid last month, the spokesman added. The coalition has vowed to reinstate President Hadi as the legitimate government in Yemen but its progress towards Sanaa has been stiff as the battle for Taiz has been going on for more than six months. 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. Relations between Morocco and Madagascar are poised to have a bright future as the two countries public institutions and private economic operators seem determined to enhance their cooperation and partnership. This determination was translated Monday by the signing of twenty-two agreements covering a large array of sectors at a ceremony in Antananarivo, co-chaired by King Mohammed VI and President Hary Rajaonarimampianina. The agreements, which fall in line with the Moroccan Kings African strategy and his vision of South-South cooperation, aim at strengthening the legislative framework governing bilateral cooperation, primarily in matters of agriculture, finance, culture, employment, renewable energies, vocational training, and river preservation. Actually, one of the Memorandums of Understanding signed on Monday provides for the development and preservation of the Canal des Pangalanes and nearby areas. The 700-Km long Canal des Pangalanes, which is four times longer than the Suez Canal, consists in a series of natural rivers, waterways and man-made lakes. The development and preservation project will be carried out in partnership with the Moroccan Marshica Med Ltd, which has developed over the years a recognized expertise in the fields of large-scale environment-friendly territorial projects. Marshica Med Ltd, which developed the Marshica Lagoon, has set up the necessary technical and institutional tools to manage this site on a long term basis. The Marshica Lagoon development plan encompasses urban management, transportation, liquid purification and water. Marshica Med Ltd is currently sharing its expertise with the Ivorians to develop the Cocody Bay project. Under this MoU, Moroccos Marchica agency will develop projects aiming at safeguarding Canal des Pangalanes biodiversity and developing integrated projects in the sectors of agriculture, industry, mines, ports, urban planning and tourism. Funding the Canal des Pangalanes project was made possible thanks to the role played by King Mohammed VI who convinced Arab funds to extend financial assistance to Madagascar. The funds were channelled through Moroccos Attijariwafa Bank. Before the agreements signing ceremony, King Mohammed VI had a tete-a-tete meeting with President Rajaonarimampianina who decorated the Monarch with Madagascars highest honorary distinction, in recognition for his efforts to enhance inter-African cooperation for the sake of African peoples. King Mohammed VI on his part decorated the Malagasy President with Al Wissam Al Mohammadi, the Kingdoms highest distinction. The Malagasy head of state told the media that the Moroccan Kings visit to Madagascar bears a strong symbolic meaning, and would undoubtedly reinforce friendship relations between the two countries. After he highlighted Moroccos special ties with Madagascar, notably the city of Antsirabe, where the late King Mohammed V and the royal family had settled after their forced exile in 1954, President Rajaonarimampianina underlined that the talks he had with King Mohammed VI and the agreements signed herald a fruitful future for bilateral cooperation. The Moroccan Sovereign arrived on Saturday in Antananarivo for an official visit to Madagascar, 2nd leg of a new African tour that led him to Ethiopia and will take him to other African countries. The previous tour had taken the Sovereign to Rwanda and Zambia. Egypts Court of Cassation on Tuesday annulled one of two life sentences handed down against the former president Mohamed Morsi and called for a retrial of the cases. In its Tuesday ruling, the Court of Cassation also quashed the death sentences of five other leaders of Morsis now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group, including its leader Mohamed Badie, in the same case. The court further struck down life sentences passed in the same case against 21 Muslim Brotherhood members. Mohamed Morsi, Egypts first democratically-elected president was sentenced to death in June 2015 on charges of participating in prison breaks and violence against policemen during the 2011 uprising which toppled former dictator Hosni Mubarak. While the new ruling spares him from the threat of execution, Morsi is serving three lengthy jail sentences totalling 60 years in addition to a life sentence. Note that Mohamed Morsi has been sentenced in four trials in the last three years. The Court of Cassation will later this month begin reviewing a second life sentence against Morsi in a separate trial on charges of stealing documents relating to national security and handing them over to Qatar, a longstanding supporter of the Brotherhood. US-based non-governmental organization Freedom House has described Egypts courts a tool of repression rather than a pillar of justice. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has finally announced his retirement, Africanews portal reports. According to Africanews, the 92-year-old Mugabe, the only President Zimbabwe has had in 36 years of independence was addressing a group of war veterans who rallied to support him, in the capital Harare last weekend. Mugabe was quoted as saying the countrys economy is crumbling and its time for him to retire. According to State media, Mugabe told war collaborators that he believes he had now defeated the British and Americans and that he understood times were difficult in Zimbabwe. We are in a critical time of regime change. To think that we will be toppled by whites who say we want to change the government of Zimbabwe which we fought for all these years, will we simply yield? I say no. The British [and] Americans are working hand in hand, but I think we have defeated them. So change will come in good time, he told former liberation fighters. If I have to retire, let me retire properly; people must sit down and discuss it cordially and not go to traditional healers, Mugabe said. Zanu-PF has picked Mugabe as its 2018 presidential candidate and if he is re-elected, he will only retire in 2023, when he turns 99. The newly appointed Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo Samy Badibanga is at the centre of controversy in the central African nation after the opposition claims he holds both Belgian and Congolese nationalities. According to the opposition, the new Prime Minister attained Belgian citizenship through naturalization in 1992. The Congolese Constitution stipulates that Congolese nationality cannot be held concurrently with any other nationality and that to occupy an official position in government, one has to be a Congolese citizen. The countrys Minister for Parliament Affairs Tryphon Kin-Kiey Mulumba who spoke to RFI said dual citizenship poses legal and moral issues. In his words, The Prime Ministers appointment is perhaps the right choice for those in the presidential majority camp. He is a friend, an affable man but there was a problem. I can predict a heated debate in parliament. He would have to first renounce his acquired foreign nationality. It will not be easy to pass the nomination stage if this prerequisite is not resolved Joseph Kabila, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has appointed Samy Badibanga as prime minister last week under a controversial power-sharing deal that effectively extends his term in office. The main opposition bloc, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), denounced Badibangas choice as a provocation, dashing hopes the decision might ease the risk of violence over Kabilas plan to stay on until at least April 2018. Allergy and immunology experts at Rush University Medical Center, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago have conducted the first study designed to assess and characterize the racial and ethnic difference in food allergies among children in the U.S. The researchers found that both African American and Latino children had significantly higher rates of corn, shellfish and fish allergies compared to white children, confirming that race and ethnicity play an important role in how people are affected by food allergy. Results of the study were published in the upcoming Nov. 21 issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, In practice. "Food allergy is a prevalent condition in the U.S., but little is known about its characteristics and severity in racial minority groups," said Dr. Mahboobeh Mahdavinia, study principal investigator, lead author and allergy and immunology expert at Rush. "Our goal was to characterize the food allergy related outcomes in these children and to identify any disparities in health care usage among African American, Latino and white children with food allergy." Food allergy is an immune system reaction that occurs soon after eating a certain food. Even a tiny amount of the food individuals are allergic to can trigger signs and symptoms, such as digestive problems, hives, breathing problems or anaphylaxis (a severe, potentially fatal allergic reaction). Food allergy is major public health concern affecting eight percent of children in the U.S. with an estimated economic burden of $24.8 billion annually. "It has been well documented that the prevalence of food allergy has been increasing in children in the U.S., but little data and research exists about its frequency, severity and outcomes among minority race and ethnicities in the U.S.," said Mahdavinia. Mahdavinia and her colleagues at Rush, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and Lurie Children's conducted a large study of children from birth to age 17 who were diagnosed with food allergy and were seen in allergy/immunology clinics at two urban tertiary care centers in the U.S. The study included 817 children in all and was composed of 35 percent African Americans (285 children), 12 percent Latino (99 children), and 53 percent non-Hispanic white children (433 children). Results of the study indicate that compared with non-Hispanic, white children, African American children had significantly higher odds of having asthma and eczema, as well as significantly higher odds of allergy to wheat, soy, corn, fish and shellfish. "We found African American children had a significantly higher rate of wheat allergy than did white children," said Mahdavinia. "Wheat-based bread is a staple in the U.S. and consumed on a daily basis in most U.S. households with an average consumption of more than 130 pounds per person per year. Wheat allergy can be a significant financial burden, especially for low-income families," said Mahdavinia. "The higher rate of wheat allergy among African American children could potentially explain the higher rates of anaphylaxis, which is a severe allergic reaction that requires immediate care, and the emergency room visits observed in this population." Latino children had significantly higher odds of allergy to corn, fish and shellfish, but a similar rate of asthma compared to non-Hispanic white children. The rate of corn allergy in Latinos could due to corn being a major food staple in Mexican and Hispanic families. The study also found that compared with whites, African American and Latino children received less follow-up care for food allergy from an allergy specialist and had higher rates of food allergy related anaphylaxis and emergency room visits. In this study, 55 percent of African American, 18 percent of Latino and 11 percent of white children were covered by Medicaid, indicating lower income rates among the African American families participating in the study. Low income children incur higher costs for emergency room visits and hospitalization and spend less on specialty care. Shorter follow-up duration can negatively affect food allergy outcomes and can increase rate of death. Peanut was the most common food allergen in all three groups. The only allergen more common among white children than African American and Latino children was tree nut. Tree nut allergies are distinct from peanut allergy because peanuts are legumes, whereas a tree nut is a hard-shelled fruit. "A major concern is that African American and Hispanic children had significantly higher rates of food-induced anaphylaxis than White children. Furthermore, African American and Hispanic children also had higher odds of emergency room visits for food allergy related reactions compared to White children," said Mahdavinia. "The three centers evaluated their patient population separately, but when we pooled the data together we saw the striking similarity of the findings among the centers, which confirmed our initial suspicion that food allergies present differently in various races. This is an important issue to make pediatricians and allergist aware of so they can look for the relevant allergies in each of the various races," said Dr. Amal Assa'ad, study co-author and allergy and immunology expert at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "We found a difference in the insurance coverage among the various races, which may impact access to care and adherence to follow up visits and avoidance measures," added Assa'ad. "We need to conduct further research to identify food allergy and food sensitivities among all races and ethnicities so we can develop culturally-sensitive and effective educational programs to improve food allergy outcomes for all children," said Mahdavinia. "It is critically important for us to understand food allergy in children of different races and ethnicities, so we can improve management for all children," said Dr. Ruchi Gupta, senior author of the study and pediatrician and researcher at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. China, the world's biggest cigarette producer and consumer, aims to impose national smoking-control regulations by the end of this year, authorities said Tuesday. The Asian giant has the world's largest smoking population, with 28 percent of all adults and half of its adult men estimated to regularly use cigarettes. The World Health Organization (WHO) says a million people in China die of tobacco-related illnesses annually, with second-hand smoke contributing to some 100,000 deaths each year. In June 2015 Beijing municipality adopted the toughest anti-smoking legislation in the country, banning smoking in offices, restaurants, hotels and hospitals. Venues that flout the ban can face fines of up to 10,000 yuan ($1,450). Last week Shanghai also amended its tobacco regulations to ban indoor smoking and also outdoor smoking at public areas such as bus stops, schools and stadiums. At a WHO conference in the commercial hub, government health spokesman Mao Qunan indicated measures would be rolled out across the country. "The nationwide regulation to control smoking in public is undergoing the legislative process and is hoped to be announced and carried out this year," he told reporters. "Strictly controlling smoking in public places through legal forms is an advancement for health." Nearly 20 cities have already drawn up public no-smoking rules, Mao added. The commission first drafted the law in late 2014. Enforcing anti-smoking measures can be difficult in China as the state-run tobacco industry provides the government with colossal sums1.1 trillion yuan ($160 billion) in taxes and profits in 2015, up 20 percent year-on-year. China's tobacco regulator shares offices and senior officials with the state-owned China National Tobacco Corpa near-monopoly and by far the world's biggest cigarette producer. WHO director-general Margaret Chan called on more cities "to make sure that the tobacco control in China will make further progress". 2016 AFP Unenhanced head CT shows brain atrophy, calcifications in cortico-subcortical junction, simplified gyral pattern and ventricular dilatation in a neonate with Congenital Zika Syndrome. Credit: Radiological Society of North America Three new studies reporting on the effects of the Zika virus outbreak in Brazil will be presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The first study looks at CT findings of the central nervous system in 16 newborn babies with congenital Zika virus infection confirmed by tests in cerebral spinal fluid. The researchers identified a pattern of CT brain findings in the babies, including decreased brain volume, simplified gyral pattern, calcifications, ventricular dilatation and prominent occipital bone. "We live in Pernambuco, a state in northeastern Brazil, which had the highest number of patients with microcephaly during the Zika outbreak in our country," said study author Natacha Calheiros de Lima Petribu, M.D., from the Department of Radiology at Barao de Lucena Hospital. "Our study proves that Zika virus infection can cause congenital brain damage in babies with and without microcephaly." Another study analyzed the imaging results of three target groups affected by Zika: adults who developed acute neurological syndrome, newborns with vertical infection with neurological disorders, and pregnant women with rash outbreaks suggestive of Zika. A side view of a fetus with hands and clubfeet (arthrogryposis), enlargement of the cerebral fluid space and dilation of cerebral ventricles. Thinning of the brain tissue, a poorly developed cerebellum and the absence of brain cortical gyri. Credit: Radiological Society of North America Many of the adults had symptoms of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disorder in which the body's immune system attacks the nervous system causing rapid onset muscle weakness. A few showed inflammation of the brain and spinal cord (Bickerstaff's encephalitis) or brain stem and spinal cord lesions. Common MRI findings included enhancement of certain spinal and facial nerves. In the newborns, MRI showed orbital injuries and anatomical changes in brain tissue. "It was alarming to find so many cases of neurological syndromes in adults, some very serious, related to Zika virus infection," said study author Emerson de Melo Casagrande, M.D., from the Department of Radiology at Antonio Pedro University Hospital - Federal Fluminense University. "We have also noticed a difference between these syndromes, even though the trigger was the same." In a third study, ultrasound and fetal MRI were performed on pregnant patients with Zika virus infection at different gestational ages. Once the babies were born, they underwent ultrasound, CT and MRI. The researchers then created 3-D virtual and physical models of the skulls. More than half the babies had microcephaly, brain calcifications and loss of brain tissue volume, along with other structural changes. "The emergence of Zika virus in the Americas has coincided with increased reports of babies born with microcephaly," said study author Heron Werner Jr., M.D., Ph.D., from the Department of Radiology at Clinica de Diagnostico por Imagem. "An early diagnosis may help in treating these babies after birth. Moreover, the knowledge of abnormalities present in the central nervous system may give hints about the pathophysiology of the disease." A fetal MRI -- Sagittal T2 (37 weeks). Credit: Radiological Society of North America Zika is mainly spread to humans via the bite of an infected mosquito. Symptoms may include fever, rash, joint or muscle pain, headache and bloodshot eyes. More serious conditions, such as Guillain-Barre syndrome, have been associated with Zika infection in adults, but are uncommon. Many adults infected with Zika have no symptoms at all. Zika appears to be most dangerous when transmitted from a pregnant mother to her fetus during the first trimester of pregnancy, increasing the likelihood of severe brain defects in the baby, including microcephaly. Zika has also been linked to eye defects, hearing impairment and stunted growth in babies. Pregnant women and women who are considering becoming pregnant should avoid visiting areas where infected mosquitos are known to be present. However, if women live in areas where the mosquitos are present, the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is to wear clothes that protect from mosquito bites, use mosquito repellent and get appropriate testing, including routine prenatal care and an ultrasound at 18 to 20 weeks. Pregnant women who are worried that they may have contracted the virus should speak with their obstetrician to initiate testing. Although these reports focus on the Zika outbreak in Brazil, the infection has spread to countries and territories around the world, including the United States. More information: "Common Findings on Head Computed Tomography in Neonates with Confirmed Congenital Zika Syndrome": Natacha Calheiros de Lima Petribu, M.D., Marilia B. Abath, M.D., Andrezza C. Vieira Fernandes, M.D., Felipe R. Queiroz, M.D., Jannie D. Araujo, M.D., Glauber B. Carvalho, M.D., and Vanessa van der Linden, M.D. "Common Findings on Head Computed Tomography in Neonates with Confirmed Congenital Zika Syndrome": Natacha Calheiros de Lima Petribu, M.D., Marilia B. Abath, M.D., Andrezza C. Vieira Fernandes, M.D., Felipe R. Queiroz, M.D., Jannie D. Araujo, M.D., Glauber B. Carvalho, M.D., and Vanessa van der Linden, M.D. "Neuroradiological Findings Related to Zika Epidemic:Experience from a Brazilian University Hospital": Cristina A. Fontes, M.D., M.Mc., Alair Augusto S. Santos, M.D., Ph.D., Emerson de Melo Casagrande, M.D., Victor M. Bussed, M.D., Daniel G. Neves, M.D., and Alessandro S. Melo, M.D., Ph.D. "Essentials of Intrauterine Zika Virus Infection: Pre and Postnatal CNS Findings": Bianca Guedes Ribeiro, M.D., Heron Werner, M.D., Luiz Celso H. Da Cruz, M.D., Pedro Daltro, M.D., Renata A. Nogueira, M.D., and Tatiana M. Fazecas, M.D. New research has shown that integrated care interventions can be effective in reducing hospital activity, but the evidence base is poor and suggests that transforming services to integrate health and social care may not be enough to meet national policy targets for halting the rise in hospital activity. The paper is the first of its kind to analyse all of the international evidence about integrated care for patients with chronic diseases and is published in BMJOpen by NIHR-supported researchers at the University of Birmingham. It summarised the findings of 50 reviews of existing integrated care interventions. The paper was written in response to the increasing policy emphasis on integrated care as a way to address the challenge of rapidly rising rates of hospital activity in the UK and the associated costs. Integrated care aims to organise and deliver health and social care services that improve co-ordination across and between settings. Following the establishment of a series of integrated care 'pioneers' in 2013, hospital trusts and commissioning organisations in England have invested in integrated services via the Better Care Fund, which aims to promote joint working at a strategic and operational level, and more recently through regional Sustainability and Transformation Plans. A lack of integration particularly affects patients with multiple chronic conditions who need to access multiple health and social care settings but who typically experience fragmented and poorly co-ordinated care. So, by facilitating more patient contact, treatment and follow-up in primary care, in the community or in patients' homes, integration aims to reduce substantially the number of emergency and other admissions to hospital, and facilitate timely and effective discharge from hospital to other settings. The researchers found that discharge management with post-discharge support, multidisciplinary team care with teams including condition-specific expertise, specialist nurses and/or pharmacists, and self-management as an adjunct to broader interventions were all likely to be effective in reducing hospital activity. Interventions were most effective when targeting single conditions such as heart failure, and when care was provided in patients' homes. Dr Sarah Damery, at the University of Birmingham explained "The primary reason for doing this work was to try and establish the effectiveness of integrated care interventions, to help inform service design and future interventions. It's an opportunity to build an evidence base from which best practice can be identified." "What we can say is that, despite there being clear benefits from many of the integrated care interventions we reviewed, the combined reductions in things like rates of hospital admission, readmission, length of hospital stay and A&E attendance may fall short of national policy targets for reductions in hospital activity." More information: Sarah Damery et al. Does integrated care reduce hospital activity for patients with chronic diseases? An umbrella review of systematic reviews, BMJ Open (2016). Journal information: BMJ Open Sarah Damery et al. Does integrated care reduce hospital activity for patients with chronic diseases? An umbrella review of systematic reviews,(2016). DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011952 Credit: CDC The large randomised study of 200,000 children was led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal. It found Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) also reduced cases in those above 10 years of age by a quarter, demonstrating that the intervention had contributed to reducing transmission of the disease. SMC provides a high degree of personal protection but until now it was assumed that it would not contribute to community-wide reduction in the transmission of malaria. There were approximately 214 million malaria cases and an estimated 438,000 malaria deaths in 201589% of cases and 91% of deaths occurred in Sub Saharan Africa. SMC is a relatively new tool in the fight against malaria. It involves treating children with antimalarial drugs sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and amodiaquine once a month during the rainy season, to prevent malaria where the disease is highly seasonal. Following a series of successful studies by the School and its partners in West Africa, the World Health Organization recommended that children under five years of age living in the African Sahel and sub-Sahel should receive SMC. National malaria control programmes have been quick to respond and SMC has now been rolled out to 11 countries, reaching about 15 million children in 2016. However, with the relative number of malaria cases in the region's older children increasing, this new study was undertaken to examine the effectiveness of SMC extended to include children up to age 10. Between 2008 and 2011, 54 local health centres in central Senegal were randomised to provide SMC to children up to age 10, or act as controls. Over three years 780,000 SMC treatments were given to children. Malaria cases in each community were then monitored at outpatient clinics and hospitals, and deaths were recorded through surveys. Dr Paul Milligan, lead investigator from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: "Although progress is being made to tackle malaria, it remains one of the biggest killers of children in sub Saharan Africa. Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention is designed specifically for situations where the malaria is intense but confined to a short period each year. We wanted to know if it was practical to include older children in SMC programmes, and discover what the subsequent effect on their health and malaria transmission would be. "We found that SMC delivered by district health teams using community health workers reduced the incidence of malaria in the under 10s by 60% and the incidence of severe malaria by 45%. The intervention also led to a 26% decrease in cases of malaria in those above 10 years of age, showing that SMC could contribute to reducing malaria transmission. Although this effect was modest it is essential to winning the long-term fight against the disease. It is important now to strengthen national surveillance systems so we can define the regions where expanding the age range for SMC would have the greatest benefit." Importantly, the team found that including older children did not greatly increase the time needed to deliver the intervention each month. The treatments also provided a high degree of protection for an average cost of $0.50 per child each month and no severe side effects were recorded. Dr Badara Cisse, lead investigator from the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, said: "The SMC intervention in Senegal is an example of a locally-adapted approach to malaria control that could be a blueprint for an effective strategy to tackle malaria in this part of Africa. The development of the SMC intervention illustrates the value of partnerships between researchers in endemic countries, malaria control programmes, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine." The authors acknowledge limitations of the study, including the need to better understand the effect of SMC on antimalarial drug resistance and the fact that they weren't able to demonstrate an effect on mortality. However, since the study was completed, Senegal has started to introduce SMC for children up to 10 years of age as part of its national malaria control strategy. The monitoring and evaluation of this new programme includes assessments of drug safety and efficacy, and measuring the impact on malaria and child survival. The study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. More information: Badara Cisse, El Hadj Ba, Cheikh Sokhna, Jean Louis NDiaye, Jules F. Gomis, Yankhoba Dial, Catherine Pitt, Mouhamed NDiaye, Matthew Cairns, Ernest Faye Magatte NDiaye, Aminata Lo, Roger Tine, Sylvain Faye, Babacar Faye, Ousmane Sy, Lansana Konate, Ekoue Kouevijdin, Clare Flach, Ousmane Faye, Jean-Francois Trape, Colin Sutherland, Fatou Ba Fall, Pape M. Thior, Oumar K. Faye, Brian Greenwood, Oumar Gaye, Paul Milligan. Effectiveness of Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention in Children under Ten Years of Age in Senegal: A Stepped-Wedge Cluster-Randomised Trial. PLOS Medicine. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002175 Badara Cisse, El Hadj Ba, Cheikh Sokhna, Jean Louis NDiaye, Jules F. Gomis, Yankhoba Dial, Catherine Pitt, Mouhamed NDiaye, Matthew Cairns, Ernest Faye Magatte NDiaye, Aminata Lo, Roger Tine, Sylvain Faye, Babacar Faye, Ousmane Sy, Lansana Konate, Ekoue Kouevijdin, Clare Flach, Ousmane Faye, Jean-Francois Trape, Colin Sutherland, Fatou Ba Fall, Pape M. Thior, Oumar K. Faye, Brian Greenwood, Oumar Gaye, Paul Milligan. Effectiveness of Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention in Children under Ten Years of Age in Senegal: A Stepped-Wedge Cluster-Randomised Trial. References: 1. World Health Organization's World Malaria Report 2015. 2. Cisse, B, Sokhna, C, Boulanger, D, Milet, J, Ba, elH, Richardson, K, Hallett, R, Sutherland, C, Simondon, K, Simondon, F, Alexander, N, Gaye, O, Targett, G, Lines, J, Greenwood, B and Trape, JF. Seasonal intermittent preventive treatment with artesunate and sulfadoxine- pyrimethamine for prevention of malaria in Senegalese children: a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial. Lancet.DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68264-0 3. Dicko, A, Diallo, AI, Tembine, I, Dicko, Y, Dara, N, Sidibe, Y, Santara, G, Diawara, H, Conare, T, Djimde, A, Chandramohan, D, Cousens, S, Milligan, PJ, Diallo, DA, Doumbo, OK and Greenwood, B. Intermittent preventive treatment of malaria provides substantial protection against malaria in children already protected by an insecticide-treated bednet in Mali: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. PLoS Medicine. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000407. 4. Konate, AT, Yaro, JB, Ouedraogo, AZ, Diarra, A, Gansane, A, Soulama, I, Kangoye, DT, Kabore, Y, Ouedraogo, E, Ouedraogo, A, Tiono, AB, Ouedraogo, IN, Chandramohan, D, Cousens, S, Milligan, PJ, Sirima, SB, Greenwood, B and Diallo, DA. Intermittent preventive treatment of malaria provides substantial protection against malaria in children already protected by an insecticide-treated bednet in Burkina Faso: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. PLoS Medicine.DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000408. 5. Cairns, M, Roca-Feltrer, A, Garske, T, Wilson, AL, Diallo, D, Milligan, PJ, Ghani, AC and Greenwood, BM.Estimating the potential public health impact of seasonal malaria chemoprevention in African children. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1879 Journal information: PLoS Medicine , The Lancet , Nature Communications Credit: www.shutterstock.com Polls indicate that one demographic slice instrumental in electing Donald Trump was white women. Indeed, 53 percent of white women cast their votes in his direction. There's current debate on why this might be blatant or veiled racism, admiration for Trump's business prowess or supporting someone who's fired up to protect us from terrorism and radical Islam. But one unrecognized and insidious force one that some women will likely minimize or deny is internalized gynophobia. Many people are familiar with the term homophobia dislike of or prejudice against people who are homosexual. Some of us may even know the phrase "internalized homophobia" when lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender and queer people take on society's negative perceptions about them, leading to devaluation and poor regard for themselves. As a clinical psychologist, I avoid engaging in armchair analysis. But watching this election, and the strong resistance to a female candidate, I've found myself wondering if the women who vehemently oppose Hillary Clinton suffer some kind of version of related self-loathing. And, I worry about the consequences for women's health. It's curious to me that women were so opposed to a female candidate and unwilling to excuse her flaws but that they overlooked the flaws of a male candidate who had made many disparaging words against women. We do know that harmful words, attitudes and actions harm women's health. The effects of rape, discrimination and harassment are long-lasting, affecting the personal and professional lives of women for decades. The health effects of sexual assault for women across their lifespan are potentially enormous. For example, even after controlling for other childhood adversities, childhood sexual abuse was associated with the subsequent onset of 14 mood, anxiety and substance use disorders among women depression, dysthymia, mania, agoraphobia, panic attack, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, social phobia, alcohol problems, alcohol dependence, drug problems, drug dependence and severe drug dependence. Soak that in for a minute. The frequency and intensity of sexual harassment are also related to physical and mental health problems for women, as well as difficulties in work and interpersonal activities. Was it hate speech? If you're a woman and you cast your ballot for Trump, I'm not looking to judge you. You are my family members and my friends. And I care about you deeply. I'm asking you to quietly consider how you feel about your own power where you feel it comes from (your role as mother, daughter, spouse, worker) and how comfortable you are with sources of your power that are not defined by traditional nurturing roles. I'm also asking you to respectfully join me in thinking through this potential issue, as I believe it holds us and our country back. This is important because of the potential health as well as social effects. Already, millions of women have felt at least temporarily depressed by the election of a man who they believe values women only if they look a certain way - tall, young, long-legged and big-breasted. He has repeatedly graded women on the "1-10" scale, saying that a woman with small breasts would have a hard time being rated "a 10." In addition, he reportedly told talk show host Howard Stern that it was OK to call his daughter "a piece of a##." Had he been speaking of another group of people, it might have been viewed as "hate speech." Recently, three middle-aged white women friends from college called me up, out of the blue. They had gotten together for a girls' weekend and wanted to say "hi." I was delighted to hear from them. We hadn't spoken in almost 15 years. As the conversation went on, their negative opinions on Hillary came out from, "being a bad role model for our children by staying in a relationship with her husband after he cheated on her" to "not caring about the American people." Stupefied, I began asking them questions to understand their thinking. I'm not saying that women ought to always like or support one another. But the vehemence which is projected onto the screen of Hillary is disconcerting and needs examination. The calls of "lock her up" did not come from men only. This leads me to wonder about the role of self-loathing. Women voting for Trump may say something about how women feel about their own power as well as who has the power to govern. Political scientists have proved women's overwhelming effectiveness in federal and state government. Thus, based on their effectiveness in office, one might think that the bias would be reversed, unless there's something very deep going on inside. With internalized gynophobia, there seems to be disproportionate dependence believing that only men can take care of us, disempowerment without the protection and support of a man, severe self-limits in asking for our needs to be meet at home and on the job, and woman-bashing. Of course this is a simplification. And not every stress or intensity of being LGBTQ can be equated with being women. Women in the U.S. don't typically experience fear of being disowned because of their gender, and we don't typically face overt disapproval within our religious communities. We also don't have to come out or fear getting "outed." Our family, friends, workplace, world and religion can tell we're women by looking at us. But we do share some historical and contemporary parallel experiences with the LGBTQ population in terms of oppression fear of discrimination or violence and societal judgment and disapproval. The impact of internalized homophobia on psychological distress has been fairly well-documented. Fear and loathing of self negatively influences the mental health of the LGBTQ population. Gay men reporting higher levels of internalized homophobia are less likely to have come out of the closet and thus be their authentic selves. I wonder if the same could be true for women who experience internalized gynophobia. Similar to sexually diverse populations, women are at an increased risk for mental health concerns. And there have been studies on women's self-loathing and its relationship to acceptance of their bodies as well as eating patterns. A roster of contributing factors There's probably a host of conscious and unconscious reasons contributing to internalized gynophobia. Maybe personality traits like deference. Or maybe it's coming from women from traditional backgrounds, who are taught through upbringing or socialization processes to be a dutiful and good girl. It may also come from women who have learned to value themselves by their attractiveness and see their power solely or primarily through the seduction of and protection by men. Whatever the cause, the world could benefit from healthily addressing issues such as internalized gynophobia, expected rejection, stereotyping and oppression. Discrimination and sexual harassment at work go beyond even mental and physical health. Sexual harassment is a significant public health problem that also affects work-related satisfaction and functioning. One potential mechanism to support sexual minorities' resilience is the development of growth-fostering relationships authentic and mutual connections with close LGBTQ friends. Others might be to acknowledge the gynophobia or sexism implicit in our world and work to counter the internalized gynophobia that may occur in us or others. Again, I'm not saying that every woman should have been "with Her." And let me be clear, this is not just about our feelings toward Hillary. Other powerful women in business or leadership has felt the deep cuts of rejection before Martha Stewart, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Marisa Meyer, to name a few. But in this post-election, it would be helpful and healing and maybe even protective for all of us to understand that Hillary's femaleness was not the deal-breaker. And I offer my hand in community to all willing to explore this perspective further. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Alliance of Patriots nominates candidate for Vice Speaker By Messenger Staff The third opposition political party in Parliament, the Alliance of Patriots - named party leader Irma Inashvili as its candidate for the Vice-Parliament Speakers post.Herewith, the Alliance of Patriots in Parliament, which is composed of at least of six lawmakers, will be chaired by the partys Political Secretary, Giorgi Lomaia.After the countrys October parliamentary elections, three parties gained seats in the legislative body.The ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party won 115 seats, the opposition United National Movement gained 27 seats, and the Alliance of Patriots won 6 seats.Two remaining seats were obtained by an independent majoritarian candidate and by a representative of the Industrial Party.Candidates for the Vice-Speaker must be named by factions in Parliament. Each faction must be composed of at least of six lawmakers.Georgian legislation reads that the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party has the right to name no more than three candidates for the post of Parliaments Vice-Speaker.The ruling team has already named its candidate for the Parliament Speaker and three candidates for the Vice-Speaker position, referring to Irakli Kobakhidze as an alleged Parliament Speaker, Tamar Chugoshvili as first Vice-Speaker, and Zviad Dzidziguri and Giorgi Volski as Vice-Speakers.Meanwhile all those factions which are not aligned with the ruling party are eligible to name no more than three candidates for the Vice-Parliament Chairperson.The Alliance of Patriots will have no right to name more than one candidate, as it constitutes only one faction in Parliament.However, if at least six lawmakers separate from the United National Movement faction and form a new faction in Parliament, they will have the chance to name the third opposition Vice-Speaker candidate.A United National Movement representative, Irma Nadirashvili, stated the party may have two factions in the future Parliament.It is also mandatory for Parliament to elect a Vice-Parliament Speaker from the Supreme Council of Adjara, the legislative body of the countrys western, coastal Adjara Autonomous Republic.All the candidates named for the Parliament Speaker and Vice-Speakers would need the support of a majority - ie. at least 76 votes out of the 150-seat legislative body - to take the posts.Theoretically, the future Parliament Speaker may have six deputies: three from the ruling party, two from the opposition and one from Adjaras legislative body.However, the exact number of Vice-Speakers would be dependent on the majoritys support.The ninth Parliament of Georgia must gather no later than November 19.Previously, the United National Movement and part of analysts believed the Alliance of Patriots, which was prominent for its more-pro-Russian statements, allegedly was liked by the founder of the Georgian Dream party, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.It is very likely that the future parliament, where the ruling party has a constitutional majority, to support at least one of opposition candidates as a Vice-Parliament Speaker, to meet the principles of democracy.It remains to be seen who will be the candidate, whether there will be room for the Alliance of Patriots or from the United National Movement. The News in Brief Situation in Georgia is clearly extremely encouraging Federica Mogherini It was an issue that not only Ministers discussed, but which I raised to the Ministers in the very beginning visa liberalisation both for Georgia and for Ukraine - with a clear sense around the table of the Foreign Ministers that this is a priority for the European Union to deliver on that, as Georgia has met the criteria and there is a determination to move forward on that, EU High Commissioner Federica Mogherini said after the meeting of the EU foreign ministers. I am looking forward to the visit of the Prime Minister here, she added. It was considered by all that the situation in Georgia is clearly extremely encouraging, extremely positive and that there is a need on the European Union's side to deliver on visa liberalization, Mogherini has declared. (IPN) Georgia Names its Candidate for UNWTO Secretary General Georgia has named Zurab Pololikashvili, ambassador to Spain and permanent representative to the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), for the position of the organizations secretary general. Zurab Pololikashvili was re-appointed as Georgian Ambassador to Spain in March 2012. Initially he held this position in 2006, before becoming Georgias economy minister in August 2009. Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said on November 14 when nominating Pololikashvili that he has played a great role in promoting the countrys tourism potential and attracting foreign investments to this sector. He also noted that Pololikashvilis background fully meets the eligibility criteria for assuming the UNWTO Secretary Generals duties. The term of office of the incumbent Secretary General of the UNWTO, Taleb Rifaia, a Jordanian national, is coming to an end next year. The new Secretary General for 2018-2021 will be selected in May 2017 by the organizations executive board comprised of 33 nations, according to the Georgian governments office. (Civil.ge) Saakashvili ally Khatia Dekanoidze resigns in Ukraine Ukraines National Police Chief Khatia Dekanoidze, who was in charge of police reform in the country, stepped down on Monday just a week after the resignation of her compatriot and ally, Odessa Governor Mikheil Saakashvili. Ill be frank and say that we have failed to root out corruption in our (law enforcement) bodies, Dekanoidze, 39, was quoted by Kyiv Post. Unfortunately my authority and will were not enough for radical change. My function has been accomplished, and thats why Im resigning. Dekanoidze emphasized that during her tenure she faced number of attempts by politicians to meddle in the work of the police. Appointments in law enforcement agencies must not be negotiated with politicians, she said, adding that it is absolutely necessary to reform the prosecution and justice systems. Dekanoidzes resignation was preceded by the same steps of other members of Georgian reformers who moved to Ukraine from Georgia after Mikheil Saakashvili ceded power to his rival, Bidzina Ivanishvili. These include ex-Deputy Interior Minister Ekaterina Zguladze-Glucksmann, Grigol Grigalashvili, ex-head of the National Polices internal security department, and Odessa Oblast Police Chief Giorgi (Gia) Lortkipanidze. Yulia Marushevska, the head of Odessa Oblast customs and another significant Saakashvili ally, resigned on Monday. Marushevska was a Euromaidan activist and has headed the regions customs since October 2015. (DF watch) Georgian wine envoys visit China's Hunan Province On November 11-12 Georgian National Wine Agency's chairman George Samanishvili visited Hunan Province in South Central China. He met with vice governor He Zhuxiang and director of Hunan Provincial Department of Commerce Zhou Yue. As reported by Xinhua News Agency, "Georgia is an important node along the Silk Road Economic Zone. Georgia has expressed strong will to participate and adopted various concrete measures. In recent years China is becoming the sixth largest investor in Georgia and the fourth largest trading partner of the country, with frequent high-level visits and growing economic cooperation. Since January 2016, Georgia exported 4.3 million bottles of wine to China, and China has become the second wine exports market for in Georgia. "We attach great importance to the development of cooperative relations with China and the vast Chinese market, the establishment of the Georgian wine centers," pointed out George Samanishvili. During the visit, George Samanishvili participated in the opening ceremony of the International Commodities Exhibition and Trade Center of the Takahashi Grand Market in Hunan Province. He met with the officials of the Hunan Provincial Department of Commerce to attend the first official promotion meeting of the Georgian wine industry. (IPN) @ByKristenMClark Newly reelected state Sen. Dorothy Hukill was the only senator not in attendance for Tuesday's organizational session of the 2016-18 term. But she has a very justifiable reason for her excused absence. The Port Orange Republican was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer and is undergoing treatment. In a letter to new Florida Senate President Joe Negron, she said: "I am fortunate that it has been diagnosed in the early stages and my medical team advises that my prognosis for full recovery is good." During Tuesday's session, Negron acknowledged Hukill's "health challenge." He said Hukill is expected back in Tallahassee in early December for the Legislature's first committee week preceding the 2017 session. "Our thoughts and prayers are with her," Negron said. Hukill -- who represents parts of Volusia and Brevard counties -- has been in the Florida Senate since 2012 and, before that, served in the Florida House for eight years. @ByKristenMClark As Sen. Joe Negron officially took over control of the Florida Senate on Tuesday, the Republican from Stuart outlined once again his priorities for improving higher education, stopping harmful discharges from Lake Okeechobee and reforming juvenile justice. Negron first detailed those plans in his designation speech almost a year ago, but now he's in a position to personally drive that agenda for the next two years. The Florida Senate unanimously elected Negron as its chamber president for the 2016-18 term during the Senate's one-day organizational session on Tuesday, which lasted roughly two hours. Miami Republican Sen. Anitere Flores was also elected unanimously as Negron's No. 2; she is the first Hispanic woman to hold the position of Senate president pro tempore -- and among several Miami-Dade lawmakers in positions of power for this upcoming term. MORE: "Oscar Braynon, Lauren Book named Florida Senate Democrats' top leaders" In his 15-minute acceptance speech, Negron demonstrated some of his most well-known characteristics: thoughtful deliberation and a wonkish knack for public policy. Democrats played their rules cards aggressively Tuesday in the quest to name the chairman of the powerful Miami-Dade delegation that includes 13 Democrats and 11 Republicans. Despite their attempt to flex their muscles, four Democrats crossed over and the group re-elected Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, R-Miami, to the one-year post that has the power to make appointments to several local boards of directors. Diaz was challenged by the current vice chair, newly-elected state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami. He collected 14 votes to Rodriguez's 9 while Diaz failed to vote. Democrats who voted for Diaz over their party's candidate were Rep. Joe Geller of Aventura, Rep. Roy Hardemon of Miami, Rep. Nick Duran of Miami Beach and Sen. Daphne Campbell of Miami. "I think it's still a united delegation,'' Diaz said after the vote. "Every election gets like this. The best part about our delegation is that no matter what happens today at the election, we always work together throughout, so it's going to be a good couple years. I'm excited. I felt confident I had the votes, but we still need to come here and that we follow through with the right protocol." The meeting began when Rep. David Richardson, D-Miami Beach, called a point of order suggesting the need a for a quorum after only 10 members of the 24-member delegation were in attendance, including eight Democrats and two Republicans. Diaz then started recruiting members by text and phone and several more showed up until they had a quorum. "I'm disappointed,'' said Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Lakes, who voted for Rodriguez by proxy. "I think Pepe [Diaz] will be a good delegation chair but that's not the point. The eternal question is, what do Democrats really want? We had a chance to have a position of power and elect a Democrat for the first time and we didn't do it." The partisan fight was the first rift in what was promised to be a unified delegation. Traditionally, the delegation has been split less by partisan bickering than by the personality and political infighting among Republicans within the delegation. This time, Democrats said the election gave them a majority in the delegation for the first time in years and therefore should rightfully take the leadership.Republicans, led by Diaz, argued that the position of chair is traditionally held for the same person for two years and he was entitled to another year. The delegation also elected Rep. Kionne McGhee, D-Cutler Bay, to be vice chair. He edged out Campbell, who refused to vote for Rodriguez saying she resented the lack of support from the Democratic Party in her tough re-election effort. Campbell was courted by Republicans to vote for Diaz and the written tally sheets showed that five Republicans voted for her to be vice chair as well as three of the Democrats who supported Diaz but a total of 11 voted for McGhee while three abstained. Miami Herald staff writer Kristen Clark contributed to this report. Sen. Marco Rubio does not want to talk about the 2018 race for U.S. Senate. Fresh off re-election, he's safe in his seat for six years, but Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson is up for election next year. And it appears likely Gov. Rick Scott could challenge Nelson for the seat. Nelson and Rubio have a close relationship as the sitting senators from Florida, despite their differing party labels. So asked Monday by the Associated Press' Gary Fineout whether Scott should throw his hat in the ring, Rubio bristled. "I don't know. Running for office is a decision people have to make on their own," Rubio said. "I want us to have a Republican majority and grow that majority, but I have a good working relationship with Bill Nelson, so I'm not going to jump into an electoral argument right now." 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AKRON, Ohio Joe Valenti describes his bout with drug addiction as switching seats on the Titanic. No matter what seat you take, he said, youre still on a sinking ship. But Valenti, 32, eventually took a seat on a lifeboat sobriety 3 1/2 years ago. He suspects the sinking ship will loom in the back of his mind the rest of his life, but hes vowed to never board it again. At the height of their struggle with addiction, he and his wife 31-year-old Stephanie Valenti, a fellow addict in long-term recovery lost everything: their home, their children, their cars and each other. Today, the Stow, Ohio, couple has reformed their life together. Theyve regained custody of their three children, they run a painting company together and they attend support group meetings several times a week to help other addicts, and each other, stay sober. The story of the Valentis struggle with addiction isnt uncommon. According to Summit County data, 20-somethings are the most likely to seek publicly funded drug treatment in Summit County. In addition, residents 25 to 34 account for more than a third of the countys overdoses so far this year. Adults ages 35 to 49 are the next most at risk, the data show. Despite this, a perception exists that minors are most at risk of drug abuse and overdose. Social media users talk of the prevalence of drugs in schools and perpetuate the stereotype that addicts are mostly school-age. Minors using pills Valenti said he suspects minors might indeed be using drugs, but they havent reached the level of risk-taking drug addicts reach in their 20s and 30s. These kids are using pills, he said, referring to prescription painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin. Its not until later that they start using the more dangerous stuff. About 16 percent of Summit County high schoolers reported theyd used prescription pills that werent meant for them, according to a study published by the Summit County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services (ADM) Board in 2014. The same study found 4 percent reported heroin use, 5 percent used methamphetamine and 6 percent used cocaine. While those numbers might be alarming, data from Summit County Public Health show minors make up about 2 percent of the countys overdoses so far this year. Jerry Craig, ADMs executive director, said thats because drug addiction is described as a progressive illness, meaning it gets worse as time passes. The addiction gets deeper and deeper, Craig said. The consequences that land them in the system happen much later from the time they start experimenting. Most often, Craig said, todays addicts were prescribed painkillers for legitimate reasons like treating injuries or pain from surgeries. Using the medications changes the brains chemistry for some people, leading to painful withdrawal symptoms if they go without using. Craig said when prescriptions run out, addicts might attempt to coerce doctors into giving them the drugs, or they might purchase them illegally from street dealers. Addicts getting sober But illicit painkillers are expensive, and efforts by pharmaceutical companies to make their pills less desirable for addicts have led to more switching to heroin, which provides a similar high for a lower price. This is the first time they might not even know what theyre injecting, Craig said. Heroins potency varies wildly, but the dose an addict takes generally remains the same or even rises as tolerance grows. Couple that with drug dealers mixing in more dangerous drugs, like the deadly fentanyl and carfentanil, and the rate of overdose skyrockets. Valenti said his path was similar to the norm. He started drinking alcohol as a teenager, which awakened his addiction, and pills that werent prescribed to him followed. It wasnt until he was 25 that he started using heroin. Ive always had it in me, he said, referring to addiction. All drugs did was set it off. He said he felt he was destined to be an addict. Its a disease. They say its free will, but thats not the case, he said. Maybe I needed this experience so I could help people. For Joe and Stephanie Valenti, recovery was a matter of coincidence. They sought treatment together, but a series of events out of their control led to Joe getting sober first. Its a good thing, too. Experts say addicts should not have romantic relationships while theyre getting clean. He got to work on himself before he got better, Stephanie said, so when I saw how he got sober, I thought maybe I could do that too. Joes been sober since April 20, 2013. Stephanie got clean a few months later, on Aug. 11. They lived apart for a full year before getting back together, and eventually they got their kids back too. The couple said recovery is hard, but the children now ranging in age from 5 to 12 make it worth every second. Instead of looking at them like burdens, I can see that theyre blessings, he said. Im looking at them through different eyes. His wife agreed. We can go to bed at night and think about all the things we did that day to make our family better, she said. We have the tools to make our lives better and manage them. We dont need drugs and alcohol to make it better anymore. And their lives continue to improve. The couple is now expecting their fourth child. The baby is the first theyll have while leading sober lives. Coming soon Free wellness presentations The St. Francis of Assisi Health and Wellness Ministry is hosting the following free wellness presentations Thursdays at the St. Francis Pastoral Center, 411 S. Fifth St., in Hamilton: Reduce Stress & Fatigue Promote Focus & Relaxation with Joan Morgan, occupational therapist, 3 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1. Red Cross blood drives The American Red Cross encourages eligible donors to give blood to help ensure a readily available blood supply for emergencies. Donors of all blood types are needed. To make an appointment to give blood, download the Red Cross Blood Donor app, visit redcrossblood.org or call 800-733-2767. Donors are encouraged to make appointments and complete the RapidPass online health history questionnaire at redcrossblood.org/rapidpass to help reduce wait times. Upcoming blood drives: POLSON: Tuesday, Nov. 22, noon-5 p.m., Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, 1002 Fourth Av.e E. MISSOULA: Tuesday, Nov. 22, 9 a.m.-2:45 p.m., Washington Companies, 101 International Way; Monday, Nov. 28, 8:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m., PEAK Health and Wellness, 5000 Blue Mountain Road (register at redcrossblood.org, use sponsor code PEAK); Forward Montana, near corner of Broadway and Higgins in the blood mobile, Dec. 2, 10 a.m.-2:15 p.m. (register at redcrossblood.org, use sponsor code "care". ST. IGNATIUS: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Main and 93, Dec. 1, noon-6:15 p.m. Register at redcrossblood.org, use sponsor code "stignatius". Red Willow Center For more information on the following classes at the learning center, 825 W. Kent, call 406-721-0033 or visit redwillowlearning.org: "Restorative Yoga," Nov. 21-Dec. 12, 6-7:30 p.m. Mondays, $75. "Yoga for Round Bodies," Nov. 23-Dec. 21, noon-1:15 p.m. Wednesdays, $50, doctor's release required. Ongoing classes include "Yoga for Wellness" at noon Mondays, $12 or $40 for four weeks; "Mindfulness Meditation" at 12:10 p.m. Tuesdays, $12 or $40 for four weeks; "Yoga Beyond Cancer" at 4 p.m. Tuesdays, $40 for four weeks; "Yoga for Wellness" at 10 a.m. Wednesdays, $12 or $40 for four weeks; "Yoga for Chronic Pain" at 5 p.m. Wednesdays, $40 for four weeks plus $50 for prerequisite screening' "Meditation for Veterans" at 1:15 p.m. Thursdays (no class Nov. 24) at Missoula Vet Center, 910 Brooks, free. Ongoing programs AA and Al-Anon For the latest Alcoholics Anonymous meetings list, visit aa-montana.org or call the Missoula hotline at 406-543-0011. For more information on Al-Anon and Alateen, which are 12-step recovery programs for relatives and friends whose lives have been affected by alcoholism, visit mt.al-anon.alateen.org. Acupuncture for cancer caregivers Missoula Community Acupuncture, located in the Radio Central Building, 127 E Main St., Suite 314, offers free acupuncture treatments for friends, family, nurses, doctors or anyone who takes care of cancer patients 5-7 p.m. Wednesdays. No appointment is necessary. For more information, call Michael Peluso at 406-926-1611. Adult Asperger's support group An open meeting for those with Asperger's as well as their family and friends is held 6-7:30 p.m. every Thursday at the University Center, Room 215, on campus. Contact Monique Casbeer at 406-721-3947 or Cindy Bacon Janego at cjanego@communitymed.org for more information. Alzheimers support Meets the second Wednesday of each month at noon at the Summit Independent Living conference room, 700 S.W. Higgins Ave. Another group meets the fourth Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the Missoula Senior Center, 705 S. Higgins Ave. For more information, contact Jackie Johnson at 406-549-3433 or jackiej45@yahoo.com. Alzheimers caregivers support group Meets the fourth Monday at 6:30 p.m. of each month at the Missoula Senior Center, 705 S. Higgins Ave. For more information, call Jackie Johnson at 406-549-3433. Arthritis programs The Montana Arthritis Program offers physical activity and self-management education programs, such as the Arthritis Foundation Exercise Program, Walk with Ease and Stanfords Chronic Disease Self-Management Program. Classes are available in several communities including Florence, Hamilton, Kalispell, Libby, Missoula, Plains and Polson. To find a class or for more information, visit dphhs.mt.gov/publichealth/arthritis. Bereavement support groups Frontier Hospice offers open door meetings 6-7 p.m. Thursdays at the following locations: The Springs at Whitefish on the first Thursday; Rising Mountains Assisted Living Community in Bigfork on the third Thursday; and Frontier Hospice in Kalispell on the second and fourth Thursdays. Call 406-755-4923 for more information. Breast cancer support group Meets the first and third Wednesday of the month from 11 a.m. to noon at the Montana Cancer Center, St. Patrick Hospital Broadway Building, second floor. Call 406-329-5656. Cancer Center support group Meets noon-1:30 p.m. the second Thursday of each month at the Montana Cancer Center, 500 W. Broadway. For more information, call Bonnie at 406-240-0996. Cancer Resource Guide The online guide covers resources including support groups, treatment centers, camps and retreats, in Missoula, Mineral and Ravalli counties. It is available at cancerresourcesMT.org. Cancer support group A support group for anyone affected by cancer meets noon-1 p.m. on the second and fourth Mondays at the Polson United Methodist Church, 301 16th Ave. For more information, call Tammy at 406-883-7284 or 406-824-2868. Celebrate Recovery The Christian-based 12-step recovery program meets 6-9:30 p.m. every Friday at Christian Assembly Foursquare Church, 1001 Cleveland St. Dinner is available from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. and child care is provided for ages birth to 11. For more information, call 406-721-6884 or email cafc@4bible.com. Cheerful Heart Lake County cancer patients in treatment can receive a massage and help with hair and skin problems, free of charge, from local therapists and cosmetologists. Other non-medical services include transportation to treatment and doctor appointments, running errands, yard work and meal preparation. Appointments may be scheduled by calling 406-883-3070. Colorectal Cancer Support Group Meets 1-2 p.m. the third Friday of every month through March 20, Community Cancer Care Conference Room, 2827 Fort Missoula Road. "Coping, Education & Support for Women with All Cancer Types" The support group for women in all stages of cancer treatment or survivorship will be held noon-1:30 p.m. the second Monday of every month through March 14, 2016, at the Community Cancer Care Conference Room, 2837 Fort Missoula Road. For more information, call Deb Rivey at 327-3912, Terri Paxinos at 406-327-3957 or Kimberly Hardwick at 406-327-3906. Diabetes program At 6:30 p.m. on the first Wednesday of every month, there will be a short presentation on a topic related to the management of Type 1 diabetes at the YMCA, 3000 S. Russell St. It will be followed by the option for socializing in the foyer or being active together at the Y. A fee of $5 per person will be collected at the door for those choosing to use the facility. Designed for ages 14 and older, children are welcome but must be accompanied by a parent/caregiver. Double Trouble in Recovery The 12-step program for people with mental health and addiction issues meets 3-4 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Winds of Change Recovery Mall, 2685 Palmer St., No. C (second floor). Coffee is provided. For more information, call Veronica at 406-721-2038. Epilepsy support group Meets the first Monday of the month from 2-3:30 p.m. at the Summit Independent Living Center, 700 S.W. Higgins Ave., Suite 101. Patients, friends, family and caregivers welcome. Call Debbie at 406-721-0707 for more information. Free health exams Women ages 30 to 64 who meet necessary income guidelines and either have no health insurance or have insurance that will not pay for breast and cervical health exams can receive free exams through Partnership Health Centers Montana Cancer Screening Program. Call 406-258-4162 for more information. Gentle yoga class The Missoula Senior Citizen Center, 705 S. Higgins Ave., offers a class that focuses on balance training, back strength and core conditioning through gentle yoga matwork every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 9 a.m. Fee is $4 per class. All ages welcome. For more information, call 406-543-7154. Health Insurance Assistance Service Montana cancer patients can call the American Cancer Societys 24-hour toll-free number to be connected to a health insurance specialist to ask about coverage and insurance programs specific to the state. The number is 800-227-2345. Mens cancer support group Open to men in all phases of testing, treatment and followup, the group meets the fourth Tuesday of the month from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Montana Cancer Center, 500 W. Broadway. It is facilitated by Gary Weisbrich and Tom King. Call 406-329-5628 or email gary.weisbrich@providence.org for more information. Narcotics Anonymous Meets at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Alano Club, 8 Third Ave. W., Polson. Call 406-883-4135. National Alliance on Mental Illness NAMI Missoula meets every Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon in the lower level (behind the cafeteria) of the Providence Center. It is open to anyone affected by mental illness or interested in learning more about the group. The NAMI Connection group for adults living with mental illness meets 1:30-3 p.m. Thursdays at the NAMI offices, 202 Brooks St., Room 210. Call 406-880-1013 with questions. NAMI Family Support Group National Alliance on Mental Illness Missoula meets Wednesdays from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 202 Brooks St., in Room 210. The peer-led support for adult family members, caregivers and loved ones of individuals with mental illness is free. For more information, call 406-880-1013 or email namimissoula@gmail.com. My No-Nonsense Nutrition Program A seven-week webinar course to improve your nutrition and fitness. Faith-based approach to better health. Free initial consult with Judy Gilman, registered nurse, diabetes and wellness educator. mynononsensenutrition.com or 406-546-7819. Overeaters Anonymous Local meetings include 7 p.m. Monday and 9 a.m. Saturday at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 202 Brooks St. A meeting for newcomers is at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday followed by a "Back to Basics" meeting at 7 p.m. at St. Paul's. Everyone who wants to stop eating compulsively is welcome. There are no dues, weigh-ins or lectures. For more meeting information, visit oa.org. SAA For the latest Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting list visit saa-recovery.org, call the Missoula hotline at 406-241-4005 or email MissoulaBetterway@yahoo.com. SAA is a 12-step fellowship of men and women who share experience, strength and hope for the purpose of finding freedom from addictive sexual behavior and helping others recover from sex addiction. S-Anon Local meetings are held weekly for this recovery program for people affected by another persons sexual behavior. Visit sanonmontana.org or call 406-544-1271 to learn more. Stroke and Brain Injury Support Group Meets the second Thursday of each month from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Providence Center, 902 N. Orange St., in the dining area on the fourth floor. For details, call 329-5784. Tai Chi for Arthritis Class offered 9:15 a.m. Mondays at the Missoula Senior Citizens Center, 705 S. Higgins Ave. $4 per class. All ages welcome. Tai Chi Chih Classes are offered at the following locations: Missoula Senior Citizens Center, 705 S. Higgins Ave., 9:15 a.m. Wednesdays, $4 per class; PEAK Health & Wellness Center, 5000 Blue Mountain Road, 11 a.m. Tuesdays, call 251-3344; and The Womens Club, 2105 Bow St., 9 a.m. Fridays, call 728-4410. TOPS Take Off Pounds Sensibly, an affordable, nonprofit, weight-loss support and wellness organization, meets at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the First Christian Church, 2701 S. Russell St. Another TOPS meeting is 6:30 p.m. Monday at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, 2512 Sunset Lane. For additional meetings, go to tops.org, click on "Find a Meeting" and enter your ZIP code or call 800-932-8677. The Missoula City Council passed a six-week paid pregnancy leave for city employees Monday night, in advance of discussions next summer about expanding the leave to 12 weeks and including partners and adoptions in the available time off. Harlan Wells, a Ward 2 representative, asked for council debate on the medical leave-related measure. Wells, who does not sit on the Administration and Finance Committee that discussed the plan last week, brought up concerns about the cost of the policy related to paying workers to cover for pregnant women, which he felt wasnt addressed in the meeting that he watched on the city councils website. Im not against this concept, Wells said, but bemoaned the lack of a clear answer when people asked the cost. The six weeks of pregnancy-related medical leave is the only step in the proposed leave package that doesnt require budgeting new spending in certain departments. Salaries are planned out at the beginning of each fiscal year, though the fire and police departments would have to pay overtime for absent employees. Wells said he researched the idea and found other cities had taken a cut of each employees paycheck to cover costs for pregnancy or adoption leave. He said he would support that approach, but wouldnt support any policy that made taxpayers cover the time off. At this point my only objection to it is not understanding the true financial impact, Wells said. After a few minutes, Ward 3 representative Emily Bentley voted to end discussion and vote. Scraping together time off is an incredibly stressful thing to new mothers, Bentley said. Were talking about a nominal cost to help women tremendously. The leave policy passed in a 10-1 vote, with one council person absent. Ward 6 representative Michelle Cares was gone Monday night after recently giving birth to a baby girl, her fellow Ward 6 representative Marilyn Marler said. Down the road, the council plans to look into another six weeks paid time off for pregnant mothers and 12 weeks of paid leave for partners of pregnant women or adopting couples, both of which would require the city to budget money for overtime pay or hiring temporary staff, especially in emergency services. Central Services Director Steve Johnson told the Missoulian last week those departments estimated yearly costs of covering leave at about $150,000. In a unanimous vote, city council set a public hearing for spending the last $389,533.99 of the citys 1995 open space bond funds on the 12-acre Montana Rail Link property on Johnson Street that will finalize the Bitterroot Branch Trails run from East Missoula to Lolo and offer a new park for Franklin to the Fort residents. Though the purchase was already approved by the council earlier this month, spending that last bit of bond funds has to go through its own approval process. The hearing will be on Dec. 12. The council also set a hearing on updating Missoula Parks and Recreation fees for programs, facilities and concessions for Dec. 19. The Parks and Recreation Committee is set to discuss the changes on Nov. 30. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wardens hope that the public can offer information on two recent poachings where mule deer bucks were killed and then left to rot. Both large bucks were killed in Ravalli Countys two trophy mule deer hunting districts. Those districts have the most highly sought after mule deer permits in the state, said FWP warden Justin Singleterry. It is frustrating. They were large deer as far as body size goes. The first deer was discovered early in the week of Nov. 6 just off the Skalkaho-Rye Road near its intersection with Railroad Creek east of Hamilton. Wardens have recovered the antlers of that animal. Singleterry said a fellow warden received a phone call from a man who had cut the antlers after finding the animal dead. He didnt realize it had been shot, Singleterry said. Its legal to take antlers if the deer died naturally. The deer was killed by a poacher. The second mule deer buck was found by a hunter on Saturday just off Brennan Creek road, which veers off Gird Creek Road in the Skalkaho area east of Hamilton. There have been a number of mule deer bucks that were shot recently just for their antlers and the meat left to waste, Singleterry said. This shows a huge disrespect for the resource and is causing outrage amongst the hunting community. Someone out there knows more and we need them to call us. A third mule deer buck was discovered Nov. 12 in the Skalkaho area a short distance from the turnoff to Dam Creek Lake. The head and antlers were removed and almost all of the deer was wasted. While Singleterry said wardens arent ruling out the possibility that all three poachings could be tied together, they are investigating each as a separate incident. Anyone with information is encouraged to call 1-800-TIP-MONT (1-800-847-6668). Callers can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to a conviction. The Missoula Food Bank will hand out more than 1,800 turkeys to families for Thanksgiving this year, and the pretty-full pantry had executive director Aaron Brock feeling especially thankful Monday. Last week, the food bank asked the community for more turkeys, and the nonprofit received a healthy bounty of birds that looked like it would fill the need. "We try to be grateful all year 'round, but we're especially grateful right now to folks who responded last week," Brock said. "When we ask for help, Missoula steps up time and time and time again." The food bank is scheduled to give out turkeys and fixings from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday at the fairgrounds. Brock said by 1:30 p.m. or thereabouts Monday, the nonprofit had given out birds to nearly 500 families. Last year, the organization distributed an estimated 1,800 turkeys in two days, and he's anticipating a few more families this year. "I think we're prepared for an increase in demand if that's what we see," Brock said. At the same time, he said the food bank continues to accept turkey donations at its main location and store. If turkeys are left over after Tuesday's giveaway, the food bank will offer them at 219 S. Third St. W. "It's been a pretty incredible outpouring of support," Brock said. Donate a turkey at 219 S. Third St. W. Make a non-turkey donation here: donatenow.networkforgood.org/missoulafoodbank. Time is of the essence for the University of Montana to stave off its enrollment decline and ensure its budget is lined up with its priorities. At the Montana Board of Regents meeting last week, regents quizzed UM officials on its enrollment, strategic plan, and financial needs. Again and again, regents asked UM for its timeline for changing its program spending priorities, for starters. "This is not a broken campus," said Regent Bob Nystuen. "It's one that clearly needs some additional direction and attention and messaging to continue to restore it to where it really belongs." The higher education officials also talked about "changing the narrative" for UM. UM vice president of enrollment and student affairs Tom Crady, for instance, said he sees it as part of his job to help spread the good word about the university's world-class faculty and academics. Last week, Crady said, he started to hear a different tone on campus. He said people are excited about the changes that are taking place across Missoula. "For the first time, I heard people say we feel differently about where we are right now, and I'm hearing that in town," Crady said. UM President Royce Engstrom opened and closed the report from campus officials, but he took a back seat during some of the discussion. He said Monday the regents had requested to hear details from specific people on campus working on areas of enrollment the provost, finance vice president, enrollment vice president, and a dean overseeing UM's strategic plan update. At one point, Nystuen asked a question answered by vice president of finance Mike Reid, and the regent requested the president weigh in on the matter as well. Nystuen had wondered if the budget cuts on campus had limited UM's ability to invest in programs seeing enrollment increases and needing more resources. He named computer science as one possibility. While UM cut its budget last year, the Commissioner's Office has noted that it's also receiving more money than it has in the past, and it's spending a record amount of money per student this school year. Reid said the priority on campus is stabilizing enrollment, and UM does not have resources to do everything it would like to do. After Reid commented, Nystuen asked Engstrom to share his point of view. In response, Engstrom said he and his team appreciate the need to put money into growing areas as well as the need to move quickly. "We have a tremendous sense of urgency about this, but at the same time, I don't have the ability to write a blank check to computer science or anybody else to all of a sudden ramp up," Engstrom said. Roughly a year and a half ago, he said, UM underwent an "Academic Alignment and Innovation" process to identify growing areas. As a result, he said, UM has tried to protect business, health and computer science as it makes funding decisions. But he said UM still is in the process of identifying the places it will take resources from in order to shift them into growing programs. "I wish we could do that overnight, but the fact is we have to move the money to do that, and that doesn't happen overnight," Engstrom said. Regent Bill Johnstone suggested the Montana Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education see if it can help UM with immediate resources, and Regent Fran Albrecht agreed. In response, Commissioner Clayton Christian said a couple other campuses have similar issues, and he would look into the options. At the same time, he said the pool of funds is finite. *** In his report, Reid said UM's budget is aligned with its enrollment, and it's projected to get $1 million more than it budgeted. At the same time, he said UM is spending 82.5 percent on personnel, and that number needs to be closer to 70 percent. The amount of money going to salaries and benefits is stifling UM's flexibility to invest in other areas, Reid said. "We have to reduce our personnel," he said. Monday, Engstrom said the figures Reid reported were to illustrate UM is "personnel heavy" and show that it still needs to make adjustments, but the numbers shouldn't be taken too literally. One year ago in a budget forum announcing cuts, Engstrom said UM's goal was to be at an 18 to 1 student-to-faculty ratio. After public outcry, UM didn't make the reductions in faculty to get to that figure, and with another enrollment drop this fall, the campus didn't move the dial much from its 16 to 1 ratio. In a brief telephone conversation, Engstrom said UM doesn't have a deadline to hit the target ratio, but it needs to move in that direction. He also said the cuts UM made last year resulted in some progress. "We know that that's the direction that we need to head, and that's what we will do as we move forward," Engstrom said. *** During the update, Nystuen said the enrollment decline at UM affects vendors at the mall and downtown. As such, he wanted to be certain the university was communicating its positive momentum and "controlling the message" itself. Crady said he sees it as part of his job to help change the narrative, and it takes help from the community to "turn the enrollment ship around." He gives an interview just about every other day, he said, and he's become more recognizable in Missoula than he's ever wanted to be. But his many conversations with community members and media interviews give him the chance to share UM's successes with a broader audience. He estimates enrollment will go up 3 percent next fall, but he said that's a low estimate. In his opening remarks to the enrollment update, Engstrom said UM's academic quality remains excellent, and its priority is bringing in more students. "We have a laser beam focus on this issue, and we are going after it with a multifaceted approach," Engstrom said. Target Range School's enrollment is outpacing nearly every other district in Missoula County, due in large part to an increase in out-of-district students. It's led to the school board asking the Office of Public Instruction for additional funding an approximately $98,000 request "as a result of an unanticipated enrollment increase," according to the trustees' Oct. 17 proclamation. That increase was about 22 students, said district clerk Tammy Tulberg, 20 of whom were homeless. It's one-time money, and has to be spent this school year. Superintendent Corey Austin said it's not a budget shortage but instead additional funding available due to enrollment growth. In the same vein, the Three Forks School District recently got a budget bump due to increased enrollment. The additional direct state aid will be used to purchase "playground equipment, computer and/or technology equipment, other instructional supplies and advertising at Target Range School," according to the budget amendment resolution, which was approved unanimously Monday night. The K-8 school has seen a 50 percent enrollment increase since 2006, according to Missoula County's superintendent of schools office. It's second only to Sunset School (though that's because Sunset increased from five to nine students). Austin attributed part of the uptick to student populations that are difficult to track and predict: homeless students and students from Watson Children's Shelter. Over the past several years, the out-of-district student population has been a primary contributor to increasing enrollment. Target Range started open enrollment in the 2007-2008 school year. Since then, the number of out-of-district students has grown nearly sevenfold, from 30 in 2007 to 207 this fall, according to Target Range data. In-district student enrollment, on the other hand, has remained relatively flat over the years, from 371 in 2007 to 369 this fall. *** As of Monday, Target Range was up to 576 students, nearly 100 more than when Austin took over five years ago. "If you ask all the individual K-8s, everyone grew. I think it's a regional thing," he said. "We thought ours was increasing because others were declining, but that's not the case." The only Missoula County school district that saw a decline from 2015 to 2016 was Hellgate Elementary, according to the county superintendent of schools office. "Fortunately, our footprint can withstand all of this growth," Austin said of the school building. While districts are allowed to charge tuition for out-of-district students, Target Range never has. For comparison, Missoula County Public Schools charges $1,088.80 for out-of-district K-8 students and $1,394 for out-of-district 9-12 students this school year. "The philosophy of this district is not to charge tuition," Austin said Monday morning. That night, a discussion about tweaking the tuition policy launched a broader conversation among trustees about charging tuition and open enrollment. Trustee Evan Rosenberg said the district needs to be more transparent about its annual decision whether to charge tuition, as the policy says the board should even if it's simply to reiterate that the district will waive tuition. "I feel like we made that decision years ago, is the thing," said board chair Sharon Sterbis. A district can change dramatically within a year, Rosenberg argued. "What's our waiting list like? Is it five kids? Ten kids? Five hundred kids?" he said. "If it's 500, I'd think about charging tuition." Resident Kathleen Harvey said she thinks Target Range should think twice about its no-tuition philosophy. "I don't understand how 200-plus out-of-district students for free doesn't figure into the situation," she said prior to Monday's board meeting. "I just find it frustrating." In the end, the board decided to ask its attorney for clarification on the tuition policy and whether charging tuition must be reviewed annually. *** Target Range also started preschool last fall, capped at 10 students. This fall, they have seven pre-schoolers. It's a program that isn't state-funded. Montana is one of eight states that doesn't fund preschool. Gov. Steve Bullock's past efforts for $37 million to fund preschool have failed. He's pushing preschool again in his recently released proposed budget for the 2019 biennium, though his proposal has dropped to $12 million. "This takes care of our special-needs population students of that age group," Austin said of Target Range preschool. "We do get some funding from the state for that. ... As far as funding goes, we had a teacher on staff already who had the correct licensure, and we had space in the building." Austin said the school still takes out-of-district students if there's room in a grade. Some grades, however, are full at the moment and therefore capped. He said the out-of-district population is good for the school, because it allows students to use the facility and participate in programs "that we would not be able to afford or hire employees for" otherwise. "Years ago before we allowed open enrollment, there was a section of the school that was closed off, mothballed and used for storage," he said, "because in-district enrollment was declining." Last year's outgoing eighth-grade class was smaller than normal, Austin said, at 44 students. By comparison, this fall's incoming kindergarten class is pushing 60. Target Range is allowed to request a budget amendment for increased state funding if it sees an unanticipated enrollment increase of more than 4 percent. "It's being responsible, it's not leaving any funding on the table that we can use to support students," he said. Many of us want to see a better future for Montana's working families. I just recently learned about Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) and wanted to pass along what I know so far. PACE is a way to finance energy efficiency, renewable energy and water conservation upgrades to existing buildings. These projects are funded by banks and investors and are repaid through property assessments over a term of up to 20 years. Why does this help families and small businesses? PACE can finance 100 percent of a project's total cost with no money down and no credit checks. You begin saving money immediately, and will save more than you repay annually. It would be completely voluntary for property owners and counties to participate. PACE will save money on utility bills giving people more disposable income. PACE will create jobs and help grow existing businesses. PACE enables property owners to access private capital to improve their buildings and increase property values. With all these benefits, PACE would improve the economic possibilities for our communities. PACE is currently in 32 states. Across the country, commercial PACE has led to $280 million in projects on 790 buildings that created 3,300 new jobs. Bringing PACE to Montana will require legislative action in the upcoming session and I urge our legislators to support it. I am so excited, that as a property owner living on a fixed income, I will be able to put solar panels on my house and reduce my carbon footprint. Virjeana (Jeannie) Brown, Belgrade To the Donald Trump chumps: It is a statistical fact that 50 percent of the population is below average intelligence and 25 percent have IQs below 90. So it is not surprising that so many chumps were unable to critically evaluate Trumps statements, sort through his lies and recognize that many of his policy pronouncements were incoherent, inconsistent, idiotic and infeasible. BILLINGS - A Facebook comment targeting American Indians sparked controversy across the state Monday. Ryan Carter, 39, posted a photo of a gun and a comment threatening American Indians on Sunday after he read an article about the pipeline standoff in North Dakota on property bordering the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. "Indians! Come at me! There is still a law in Montana, if more than three of you do, it's considered a war party and I can defend myself!" he posted. Carter's Facebook page stated that he worked at Tire-Rama, and at least one reader of Carter's post responded by listing the telephone numbers of three Billings-area Tire-Rama shops and saying, "Let's make this person famous." Carter and Tire-Rama received threats on Monday. The incident was similar to one in Missoula a week earlier, in which a Nissan Hyundai employee's "vulgar" posts about unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton caused a furor. The employee lost his job. Tire-Rama Sales and Marketing Manager Glen Korf said Carter was employed by the company more than a year ago, but worked less than three months. Montana tribes are important customers for Tire-Rama, Korf said, which has contracts with tribes for the repair and supply of government vehicle tires. "The racist remarks, threatening remarks, those aren't remarks shared by Tire-Rama," Korf said. The company responded to more than 20 angry calls from people as far away as Spokane and Texas, Korf said. Tribal representatives from Browning also contacted the company. In a conversation with The Billings Gazette, Carter apologized for anger being directed at the company. He said he had just gotten his wisdom teeth pulled and was still under the influence of anesthesia when he made the comments. Carter said he does believe protests should be peaceful, and only meant that people have a right to defend themselves against violence. He apologized to American Indians and to anyone taking offense to his comment. "The tribes have their right to stand up for their water," Carter said. "I really was not clear in the head." The police contacted Carter on Monday to ensure he had deleted the post, which he had. Carter wasn't sure where he got the idea Montana law stated three Indians together was a war party. Montana Department of Justice Spokesperson Eric Sell said he is not aware of any such law. There may be antiquated laws on the books, Sell said, but the state Legislature attempts to repeal them when they're discovered. Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, said he does not have specific examples of Montana state laws that discriminate against Indians. But there are certain state landmarks and monuments that could better reflect Indian history in the state, he said. He pointed to a proposed law that was killed in draft during the 2013 Legislature that requested state agencies remove the term "half breed" from signage and geological features in Montana. The history of Montana does not take into account the viewpoints of Native Americans, Windy Boy said. He said when he travels the state, he sometimes stops to read the signs posted at historic sites. Most do not reflect the history of the tribes. "The ones memorializing wars between Indians and the U.S. government call the wars the U.S.-won victories," Windy Boy said. "And the ones the Indians won, massacres. One word really changes the whole dynamic." The U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has proposed a bill to repeal obsolete laws relating to Indians. Some of the outdated laws include the banning of federal funds going to Indian tribes holding white hostages and the banning of federal funds going to "Indians while they are under the influence of any description of intoxicating liquor." The bill, called the Respect Act, was proposed by Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota. Laws discriminating against American Indians began to concern Rounds while he was governor of South Dakota. The bill still needs to be voted on by the Senate. It is symbolic in nature, but still worth doing, Rounds said. Some things shouldnt be found in federal law, Rounds said. He called the bill a small step forward, but an important one. Montana Cannabis Industry Association attorney Jim Goetz filed a request in Broadwater County District Court on Tuesday seeking the immediate implementation of medical marijuana reform Initiative 182, and the restoration of access to thousands of patients otherwise cut off until June 30. Goetz's complaint contends the implementation date of June 30 is a scrivener's error, and that voters passed I-182 under the belief it would be implemented immediately, not eight months later. In the complaint, Goetz claims the date couldn't have been the intention of the bill's drafters, citing years of litigation against specific provisions of Senate Bill 423 that cut off 93 percent of patients from their medicine. I-182, approved by voters earlier this month, was drafted to combat the issue. According to Goetz, the scrivener's or clerical error was the result of the renumbering of provisions in I-182 in drafts between advocates and the state, which ended with the erroneous inclusion of a June 30 removal date for the three-patient limit. The complaint specifically asks the judge to issue a writ requiring the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services immediately begin issuing registry identification cards. It also seeks an injunction preventing DPHHS from delaying in doing so. And, it asks the judge to declare the June 30 implementation date a scrivener's error, enacting I-182 in full immediately. The respondent in the matter is the state health agency, but Goetz told The Montana Standard he doesn't believe DPHHS will oppose the measure. The health agency advocated earlier this year against the three-patient limit that I-182 removes. "DPHHS is in the process of thoroughly reviewing today's court filing," health department spokesman Jon Ebelt said in an email to the Standard. "Until that legal review is complete, it would be premature to comment further. The department understands how important this issue is to thousands of Montanans, and will work as quickly as possible to file an appropriate response with the courts," Ebelt said. With legislators lining up to reform or repeal I-182 on Jan. 2, Goetz hopes to have access to patients restored through the courts before the session begins. "It should be significantly before that," Goetz said, "before the middle of December hopefully." If the court denies Goetz' request, he could appeal to the Montana Supreme Court. Three medical marijuana patients, a provider and an advocacy group also plan to ask a district judge to block the state from enforcing the three-patient cap on pot providers until the law is repealed. Montanans Ensuring Access to Natural Medicine and the other plaintiffs on Tuesday released a draft update to a lawsuit filed in September. They are asking Lewis and Clark County District Judge James Reynolds to prevent enforcement of the three-patient limit until July 1. Attorney Bruce Fredrickson says he expects the amended lawsuit to be filed within days. Among the plaintiffs are medical marijuana patients Jason Brandle of Helena, Rory Gordon of Bozeman and Melody Brown of Great Falls, and registered medical marijuana provider Brad Russell of Helena. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright 2022 HT Digital Streams Ltd All Right Reserved A first step by Butte school administrators in making school attendance a community priority is educating the public about why attendance matters, and that it is chronic absenteeism rather than truancy that is the real problem. Truants are students who miss school without an excuse, or skip school entirely. Truants violate basic attendance requirements. School districts, including the Butte district, have a variety of interventions including punitive measures designed to address truancy. (National experts are now moving away from advising punitive measures, such as school suspension, even for truants.) Chronic absentees are students who miss school for a variety of reasons illness, homelessness, family activities, unreliable transportation. Punitive responses are usually not appropriate. Rather, schools work with families to address the hindrances that prevent attendance, and educate families that missing school has academic consequences, that kids who miss school and instruction invariably fall behind. The Butte School District facilitates 180 days of school annually missing 10 percent of the school year means 18 days, or about two days of school per month. Thats chronic absenteeism, and it negatively affects a students academic achievement. (Students who are members of low-income families are four times more likely to be chronic absentees, and the reasons for being absent are often beyond their control unstable living conditions, no transportation, lack of access to health care.) At a recent meeting, top school administrators discussed the reasons why many local students miss school. Hunting is at the top of the list. Many parents who want to teach their kids to hunt, who want to instill a hunting culture, excuse their kids from school to attend days-long hunting camps. These kids are actually chronic absentees who return to school and immediately find themselves in catch-up mode, with full days of instruction missed. Some absences are so frequent and lengthy that students actually never get caught up. The national numbers underscore the depth of the problem an estimated 5 million to 7.5 million U.S. students miss nearly a month of school each year. Kids not feeling well is also at the top of the list. School District Superintendent Judy Jonart said administrators are not advising that children attend school when they are truly ill. But kids can still learn when they have the sniffles. (Recognizing the importance of school attendance, the Montana Asthma Program features a home visiting program focused on children ages 0-17. The program has many offices in Montana, including one at the Butte-Silver Bow Health Department. Part of its mission is to keep children who are asthmatic in school.) School District Curriculum Director Jim ONeill said the districts schools work with families that may not realize the importance of school attendance. Thanksgiving doesnt mean kids should be gone the rest of November, said ONeill, adding that official three-day holidays shouldnt grow into four or five days. (Dont even get school administrators talking about Halloween. I recently noticed that several school teachers were lamenting on Facebook that Halloween fell on a Monday this year. I asked Jonart and ONeill why. Teachers, they both agreed, have curriculum accountabilities, and Halloween festivities eat into the time during which those accountabilities are delivered school parades and parties are fun, but no instruction can occur. This past Halloween, younger students were up late trick-or-treating Monday evening, and they were tired (or absent) for several days after. Jonart asked those attending the most recent Community Action Team meeting whether we thought Butte could get behind annually celebrating Halloween on the final Friday of October, giving kids a weekend to recover. I think Butte could get behind that idea. More to come.) School attendance matters early on. Studies show many children who miss too many days in kindergarten and first grade can struggle academically in later years, says Attendance Works, a national non-profit focused on reducing chronic absence. They often have trouble mastering reading by the end of third grade. Younger children in particular benefit from regular bed times and morning routines these kids need nine to 11 hours of sleep every night. Parents can help by laying out clothes and filling backpacks the night prior. (The Web site for Attendance Works is located at www.attendanceworks.org.) Older kids need to understand that school is their first and most important job (Butte school administrators fully realize that school attendance is a workforce issue.) Older students are learning how to show up for school on time every day, says Attendance Works to students. When you graduate and get a job, youll know how to show up for work on time every day. There is a strong correlation between chronic absenteeism and students who eventually drop out of school. This means something students who have regular attendance are likelier to graduate high school and find a decent job high school graduates make, on average, $1 million more over a lifetime than a dropout. Jonart is hoping that a continuing campaign talking about school attendance will incorporate employers, many of whom have students working for them. Some employers have late-night hours kids working until midnight or beyond have a difficult time making it to school at 8:30 a.m. the next day. (The huge societal issues we are facing likely will not be addressed by a school attendance campaign Jonart said todays reality includes the fact that some students are paying the rent on behalf of their families.) Attendance matters. Families must do everything within their power to get their kids to school as often as possible all day, every day. School attendance has lifelong implications. I am hoping that we can develop community solutions to prompt strong school attendance (annual Friday Halloweens, anyone?) Lets get schooled. Montana Cannabis Industry Association attorney Jim Goetz filed a request in Broadwater County district court on Tuesday for the court to immediately implement medical marijuana reform Initiative 182 and restore access to thousands of patients otherwise cut off until June 30. Goetz' complaint contends the implementation date of June 30 is a scrivener's error, and that voters passed I-182 under the belief it would be implemented immediately, not eight months later. In the complaint, Goetz' claims the date couldn't have been the intention of the bill's drafters, citing years of litigation against specific provisions of Senate Bill 423 that cut off 93 percent of patients from their medicine, and that I-182 was drafted to combat. According to Goetz, the scrivener's or clerical error was the result of the renumbering of provision in I-182 in drafts between advocates and the state, which ended with the erroneous inclusion of a June 30 removal date for the three-patient limit. The complaint asks the judge specifically to issue a writ requiring the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services immediately begin issuing registry identification cards, issue an injunction preventing DPHHS from delaying in doing so, and declare the June 30 implementation date a scrivener's error, enacting I-182 in full immediately. The respondent in the matter is the state health agency, but Goetz told The Montana Standard he doesn't believe DPHHS will oppose the measure. The health agency advocated earlier this year not to implement the three-patient limit that I-182 removes. "DPHHS is in the process of thoroughly reviewing today's court filing," health department spokesman Jon Ebelt said in an email to the Standard. "Until that legal review is complete, it would be premature to comment further. The department understands how important this issue is to thousands of Montanans, and will work as quickly as possible to file an appropriate response with the courts," Ebelt said. With legislators lining up to reform or repeal I-182 on January 2, Goetz hopes to have access to patients restored through the courts before the session begins. "It should be significantly before that," Goetz said, "before the middle of December hopefully." If the court denies Goetz' request, he could appeal to the Montana Supreme Court. Three medical marijuana patients, a provider and an advocacy group also plan to ask a district judge to block the state from enforcing the three-patient cap on pot providers until the law is repealed. Montanans Ensuring Access to Natural Medicine and the other plaintiffs on Tuesday released a draft update to a lawsuit filed in September. They are asking Lewis and Clark County District Judge James Reynolds to prevent enforcement of the three-patient limit until July 1. Attorney Bruce Fredrickson says he expects the amended lawsuit to be filed within days. Among the plaintiffs are medical marijuana patients Jason Brandle of Helena, Rory Gordon of Bozeman and Melody Brown of Great Falls, and registered medical marijuana provider Brad Russell of Helena. Butte police are investigating the homicide of a man after he was found dead Sunday morning in his residence, less than four miles east of Fairmont Hot Springs Resort, Sheriff Ed Lester told media Tuesday afternoon. Lester said police were dispatched to 2300 Gregson Lane around 9:15 a.m., Sunday, after a male discovered the mans body. Lester did not release the name of the man who discovered the body, but said the victim was Stanley Gene Becker, 59. Lester said Becker was a resident of the Gregson Lane home and appeared to live alone, but did not provide any additional information about Beckers identity. After an initial investigation Beckers body was sent to the Montana State Crime Lab, Lester said, where his manner of death was ruled as a homicide. Lester would not release how the man was killed, but said that he appeared to have died sometime before Sunday. Although the homicide was discovered Sunday morning, police did not notify media until Tuesday morning with the issuance of a news release. When asked why media were not contacted earlier, Lester said police withheld information to aid in the investigation and to notify family members ahead of time. Police are continuing to investigate the homicide, the sheriff said, but noted that he would not name any people of interest for the time being. People with information are asked to call Det. Sgt. Ray Vaughn at 406-497-1156 or Crimestoppers at 406-782-7336. Callers may be eligible for a reward. 7:00 pm Mayor Walter called the City Council meeting to order. Roll Call Present were Council members Anderson, Phillips, Nelson, Haynes and Hills. Minutes of the Last Meeting Nelson made a motion and Hills 2nd. Approve Agenda Mayor Walter announced agenda changed from AFR to SFR. Haynes made a motion and Nelson 2nd. City Clerk's Report Financial Statement - Haynes approved and Nelson 2nd. Review of Bank Statement - Haynes approved and Phillips will do next month. Old Business Stop sign - Mayor Walter said we should look at Letts that theirs are very bright. We will table this until later. What to do with Summerfield Blvd. was discussed and no decision was made again but we will not do a drain. Haynes reported that paint will cost $2650 which will be adjusted for tearing down the wall in city hall but a motion was approved by Haynes and Nelson 2nd. Mayor Walter reported that it would cost $3500 to tile and Hills would like a price on everything including kitchen and bathrooms. Nelson needs new drawings to get a construction bid. New Business Street financial report was approved by Haynes and 2nd by Nelson. Holiday resolution was approved by Anderson and 2nd by Phillips with resolution number 2016-11-09. Shoppa reported that Big Papa would charge $50-65 per coyote to trap coyotes in the city limits. A contract needs to be signed and they want proof. Anderson made a motion and Haynes 2nd. Planning & Zoning A motion was made to approve Troy Curry and Mark Yerington to planning and zoning board. It was approved by Phillips and 2nd by Hills. A motion was also made to approve Shoultz acres subdivision by Haynes and 2nd by Phillips. Park It was agreed by all that the benches look great! Correspondence Citizen's Opportunity It was brought to our attention that someone is putting compost piles in the ground and that is probably why there is coyotes. Steve Rudolph wants the Summerfield Blvd. project to come to an end even if we just taper edges. Pay Bills Hills made a motion and Nelson 2nd. Closing Comments Adjourn Motion by Hills. DeWayne Walter, Mayor Becca Shoppa, Assistant City Clerk Mayor Broderson called the City Council meeting for Thursday, November 10, 2016, to order at 7:00 p.m. Councilmembers present were Rehwaldt, Natvig, Saucedo, Bynum, Harvey, and Spread. PUBLIC HEARING Mayor Broderson stated this public hearing concerns a proposed amendment to the City Code amending Chapter 4 of Title 10, Floodplain Management Regulations. There were no oral or written petitions for or against the proposed amendment. Public hearing closed. First reading approved of an ordinance amending Title 4 of Chapter 10, Floodplain Management Regulations. The next item on the agenda was an update on the HVAC System at the Public Safety Building. Public Works Director Brian Stineman stated he was not providing an update but rather a request to move forward on the repairs to the HVAC system at the Public Safety Building. He stated it is staff's recommendation to move forward with Option A as provided for in the study which includes all labor and equipment necessary to supply and install a 20 ton air cooled chiller and also includes spare motors and variable speed drives in order to expedite repairs in the event the unit malfunctions. He stated the estimated cost for this option is expected to be in the range of $41,000 to $68,000 and that funds are available in the Building & Grounds Deferred Maintenance Budget. There were questions and comments from City Council that were addressed by Public Works Director Stineman and City Administrator Gregg Mandsager. The next item on the agenda was discussion on the city's Speed Bump Policy. Public Works Director Stineman stated that speed bumps are a recurring event for the Traffic Committee. He stated it is the opinion of the Committee that the permanent speed bumps are an impediment to roadway maintenance, cause damage to low profile vehicles and snow plows, and are not cost-effective for traffic control. He stated the Committee is recommending the permanent speed bumps be removed from the road surface as soon as practicable. Public Works Director Stineman stated the city has better methods of addressing speeding which include temporary speed bumps, increased enforcement patrols, and the speed camera trailer. He stated the Committee is recommending the following Speed Bump Policy: "Permanent speed bumps of any type of construction that adhere directly or incorporate existing street payment of any composition shall not be placed on public streets, and those that are existing shall be removed as soon as practicable. The Street Maintenance Division may, at the request of a resident and with approval of the Traffic Committee, install pre-manufactured, removable, rubberized temporary speed bumps for a period not to exceed 30 days for the purpose of drawing attention to posted speed limits. The placement of the temporary speed bumps shall not occur during the winter season." There were questions and comments from City Council that were addressed by Public Works Director Stineman. It was the consensus of City Council to remove the permanent speed bumps for staff to proceed with the policy. The next item on the agenda was review of proposals for the Houser Street/Fulliam Avenue intersection. Public Works Director Stineman stated this intersection was discussed during the Traffic Committee's November meeting. He stated that traffic is expected to increase at this intersection in the near future making traffic control an issue. Public Works Director Stineman stated that development is expected in the area west of Houser Street and the main access to that development will be Fulliam Avenue. He stated that currently northbound and southbound traffic on Houser Street are free flowing and eastbound and westbound traffic are controlled by a two-way stop. He stated that traffic turning onto Houser Street from Fulliam Avenue can expect long delays. He gave an overview of the traffic counts performed by the IDOT in 2014. Public Works Director Stineman stated there are several options that could be considered for traffic control at this intersection including construction of a mini roundabout, a signalized intersection, or a four-way stop. He stated a mini roundabout and traffic signal would both be the most costly. There were questions and comments from City Council that were addressed by Public Works Director Stineman and City Administrator Mandsager. The following residents were present to state their preferences for what should be done at this intersection: Karen Fisher, 1812 Duncan Drive, stated she preferred a four-way stop and explained why. Dan Giebel, 1807 Duncan Drive, stated he preferred a four-way stop and explained why. Brock Duncan, 1808 Duncan Drive, stated he feels a four-way stop would be the right decision and explained why. Milton Fisher, 1812 Duncan Drive, stated he feels a four-way stop would be the best choice. He stated that he felt posting a "No Outlet" sign would also be a good idea. Amanda Duncan, 1808 Duncan Drive, speaking in reference to a proposed subdivision, asked when questions could be answered about this issue. Mayor Broderson asked Ms. Duncan to keep her comments on the current topic being discussed. City Planner Andrew Fangman stated that for clarification purposes, there is not technically a subdivision just a development plan. He stated the S-3 zoning allows for a broad range of potential uses. He stated the development plan was acted on Tuesday and involves turning the former county building into a housing complex. He stated that because it is a development plan, it does not require action by City Council. Melissa Dillon, 1716 Duncan Drive, asked what she should do to discuss this matter with someone. City Administrator Mandsager recommended she call Community Development at City Hall and ask to talk to Mr. Fangman. Jean Mosch, 1816 Duncan Drive, stated that anything that is done will be helpful because there is a safety issue at that intersection. She explained why she felt a traffic signal with a flashing turn would be the best choice. The final item on the agenda was discussion on City Code updates. There were questions and comments from City Council that were addressed by City Administrator Gregg Mandsager. Under comments, Councilmember Saucedo stated he has had discussions with several businesses in the downtown area concerning the conversion of 2nd Street from a one-way to a two-way street. He stated he received a lot of good responses. He stated one business owner had questions about loading zone signs. Councilmember Saucedo then asked City Engineer Jim Edgmond for an update on the Mulberry Avenue project. Mr. Edgmond stated there is still a ways to go but it still looks like the project will be completed before Thanksgiving. He stated several residents have complained about the dust issue but the contractor should be taking care of it. Councilmember Natvig asked if the elevation issues were going to be addressed. Mr. Edgmond stated there are some issues caused by the need to meet ADA sidewalk requirements. Councilmember Rehwaldt stated it was his understanding that the engineers for the Mississippi Drive Corridor Project would have the plans done by the end of November. He asked if that was correct. Mr. Edgmond stated the original plan was to have the plans done for a January bid letting. Councilmember Rehwaldt asked Mr. Edgmond if he would check on where they are with the plans. He stated it was his understanding the plans would be done in November for a January bid letting. Councilmember Rehwaldt asked where the city is with their plans to eliminate the bump outs on 2nd Street. Mr. Edgmond stated this project is on Public Works list of things to be done but it has not made it to the top of that list. He stated he was not sure of the status but could revisit it. Councilmember Rehwaldt asked him to please do so and bring back an answer at next week's City Council meeting. Councilmember Natvig thanked the residents of Duncan Drive for coming tonight. Mr. Fisher, 1812 Duncan Drive, made additional comments concerning the city's refuse collection process, the city's yard waste bag process, and parking on city streets. Mayor Broderson stated that the next Coffee with the Mayor is on November 19, 2016 at Happy Joes on Lake Park Boulevard beginning at 9:00 a.m. Mayor Broderson stated she would be flying to Denver and that Councilmember Bynum would be acting as Mayor Pro Tem if issues arise. Mayor Broderson thanked everyone for their prayers during her father's illness. Councilmember Harvey moved the meeting be adjourned at 8:00 p.m. Gregg Mandsager, City Administrator WAPELLO, Iowa A Wapello woman has been arrested and charged in alleged connection with the second burning of a Minion, a character from the film "Despicable Me," dressed as a hay bale in downtown Wapello. Nikki Marie Hardin, 32, was arrested and charged with third-degree arson, an aggravated misdemeanor, in alleged connection with a fire that was started in the evening hours of Tuesday, Nov. 15. Hardin was arrested on Friday, Nov. 18, according to the arrest report. According to a press release from the Wapello Police Department, the Minion was on fire when it was pushed into the street by a local citizen passing by, which saved the city light pole it was near from being damaged. The fire was extinguished by the Wapello Fire Department. Hardin is set to appear at 9 a.m., Nov. 23, in Louisa County District Court, according to online court records. Also on Nov. 15, Emmanuel Nunez Diaz, 21, of Wapello, was arrested in alleged connection with a fire that destroyed a hay bale clothed as a Minion, in the early morning hours on Oct. 27. In addition to destroying the hay bale Minion, the fire also damaged a city light pole, according to the press release. Nunez Diaz has been charged with second-degree arson, a class C felony, and third-degree criminal mischief, an aggravated misdemeanor. According to online court records, Nunez Diaz has entered a plea of not guilty and his arraignment has been set for 8 a.m. Friday, Dec. 2. DES MOINES Its a good time to be a turkey in Iowa. The turkey industry has recovered from the avian influenza that decimated flocks in 2015. And four Iowa turkeys will be spared places as ahem guests of honor at the Thanksgiving table this year thanks to pardons from Gov. Terry Branstad and President Barack Obama. Branstad pardoned two Iowa-raised turkeys, an annual Thanksgiving-week tradition, on Monday morning at the governors mansion on Terrace Hill in Des Moines. The two turkeys chosen to be spared the carving knives are named Bryant and Rizzo, a nod to Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo of the World Series champion Chicago Cubs. The turkeys come from the farm of Noel Thompson of Ellsworth, Iowa. I, Terry E. Branstad, governor of the state of Iowa, do hereby proclaim Rizzo the turkey and Bryant the turkey free from the harm of the carving knives and gravy for this Thanksgiving Day, Branstad declared Monday. Meantime, two more Iowa turkeys were chosen to be pardoned by Obama in the annual ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. Those lucky birds, who will be named by the president and his staff, are from the farm of Chris and Nicole Domino in northwest Iowa near Early. The Dominos farm was chosen for the presidential pardoning ceremony by the chairman of the National Turkey Federation. Gretta Irwin, executive director of the Iowa Turkey Federation, said it is the seventh time an Iowa turkey has been pardoned by the president. Iowa farmers produce 11 million turkeys annually, the eighth-most in the nation. In 2015, the avian flu caused the death of more than 1 million turkeys in Iowa. Irwin said Monday that the industry has rebounded. This years been a really great year for the Iowa turkey industry. Our numbers continue to increase in our turkey production, and weve added a few more farmers in Iowa, which is always great, Irwin said. Its doing quite well right now in Iowa. MUSCATINE, Iowa The local branch of a shoe store has begun collecting socks and shoelaces to send to Muscatine and area U.S. military members and veterans. Shoe Sensation, part of a privately held corporation based in Jeffersonville, Indiana, operates 149 stores in 18 states. The Muscatine branch at 1903 Park Ave. will offer a 20 percent discount on socks purchased for donation through Dec. 24, according to a press release. Shoe Sensation partnered with the Rock Island Arsenal to aid in getting the socks to troops in the field as well as providing socks for local veterans in need. New socks purchased elsewhere may also be donated, but the press release stated Shoe Sensation has secured a special selection of military approved socks that meet the requirements for active duty service members. Casual socks will also be sent for those who are off-duty and to local veterans. "Anyone who has served in the military or worked outdoors in difficult conditions understands the difference dry, clean socks can make," stated the press release. "While the military does provide clothing including socks, extra socks are one of the top requests of U.S. personnel overseas." More than 50 socks and shoelaces have been collected. MUSCATINE, Iowa Linda Last and Allison Morgan usually work at Monsanto, but today theyre delivering meals to some of Muscatines elderly residents through the Senior Resources Meals on Wheels program. Their route begins at the hospital, where they pick up two insulated boxes, the kind your pizza delivery man might carry. Today, theyll deliver hot meals to five residents. Theres Darlene, who sits atop a vibrant green and white couch in a faded living room on Liberty Street. She looks drowsy and disoriented. Theres a faint outline of an oxygen line under her nose, though she is not wearing it now and an oxygen tank fills a corner of the crammed living room. I was taking a nap, she tells them. Last nods. Thats what Id like to do, she says with a smile. They place a paper bag with Darlenes meal on the cluttered coffee table. I slept all day Saturday night and all day Sunday," Darlene tells them. Her voice is faint and breathless. Last and Morgan wish her a Happy Thanksgiving. She likes to bake, Last says when they reach the car. Then theres Georgia, whose small porch adorned with colorful trinkets that shimmer in the November sun. A walker and gray slippers await her near the door. Last knocks. Hello? Meals on wheels! she says as she reaches for the door knob. A television blares in the background. Just a minute, Georgia calls out. Georgia enters the kitchen with a second walker. After they give her the bag, she talks to Last and Morgan about the weather and sees them out. You girls take care, she tells them. "Be careful. Don't fall," she adds. "Same to you," Last says. On the way out, they talk about the trinkets on Georgias porch. And as Last and Morgan enter the van, they notice that Georgia is walking to her mailbox. They wait for her to enter her home before they leave for the next delivery. They love to talk, Last says. Sometimes youll be the only chat they have. Todays route consists of five deliveries, which allows Last and Morgan to linger a bit at each home. But sometimes, their route involves eight or even 10 deliveries. It makes it a little hard to talk, Morgan said. In the last year, Senior Resources delivered nearly 17,000 meals to 121 seniors. The program runs almost entirely on volunteers like Morgan and Last. Some meals are subsidized by Medicaid, but some seniors pay for their meals. Volunteers are our lifeblood, they are what enables us to keep our costs low, said Todd Poci, executive director of Senior Resources. Deliveries can take as little as an hour and Senior Resources could always use more volunteers, Poci said. Even if you can only deliver one time a month or one time a day it helps, said Shannon Abel, Meals on Wheels coordinator. Meals on Wheels operates five routes during the week and two during the weekend, and the organization serves people 60 or older who have a mental or physical disability that prevents them from safely cooking for themselves. Each meal has one third of the daily nutritional intake a person might need, Poci said. And delivering the meals serve not only the nutritional needs of the seniors, but it also provide human interaction to seniors who dont always have someone to talk to. Seeing the joy that we bring these people and their families who are appreciative of our help is really the big thing for me, Abel said. Abel has been delivering meals when volunteers are not available to deliver them and she said she treasures the conversations she has with the seniors. Back on the route, Last and Morgan knock on Leonard Radas door. He opens the door almost immediately, greeting them with a warm smile. In his dark, warm living room, the 94-year-old talks about his wife. She died two years ago and hes been getting meals from Senior Resources five days a week ever since. They do a good job, Im glad to see them, he says. MUSCATINE, Iowa The Pearl City Painter, Bill Kaufmann, will host a class on painting a White Christmas piece on a 16 x 20 canvas at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 30 at Boonies On The Avenue, 214 Iowa Ave., Muscatine. All skill levels of painters are welcome. The class provides a fun, relaxed atmosphere for friends to gather and learn basic painting on canvas techniques. It will be held upstairs at Boonies On The Avenue, where there will be a bartender to serve food and drinks. MUSCATINE, Iowa The Pearl City Players will be holding auditions for William Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights dream at the Vineyard Church, 224 E. 3rd St., Muscatine. Auditions will be held from 1:30-4:00 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 11, and 6:30-9:00 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 12-13. All ages are encouraged to audition for this production. There is no need to have materials for the auditions and all auditions will be from the script. The Pearl City Players will present A Midsummers Night Dream on April 7 and April 8, 2017. For more information about auditions, please contact the producer, Ben Fix, at 563-299-2968. They're all famous they've been inducted into the Hall of Fame, after all. But these 20 artists are the top of the top. Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi [] Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes [] LAS VEGAS A California ex-convict who neighborhood children called "grandpa" stood shackled in a Las Vegas courtroom Monday while a judge scheduled a Feb. 3 preliminary hearing of allegations that he offered candy to lure young girls into his apartment and committed sex acts with them. Jose Azucena, 63, had a Spanish-language translator for his Las Vegas Justice Court appearance and did not speak. His court-appointed lawyer, Carli Kierny, said later that Azucena plans to plead not guilty and contest the charges. Azucena is being held at the Clark County jail without bail on 10 felony charges, including child sexual assault, lewdness and kidnapping which could get him life in state prison if he's convicted. Las Vegas police said they were trying to determine how many children may have been lured with promises of candy into Azucena's apartment at a complex east of downtown. An arrest report said the alleged victims were as young as 7 and 8 years old. It accuses Azucena, who also used the name David Azucena, of groping, kissing and exposing himself to several children during the last year. At least two of the children were sisters. Some told investigators that Azucena also showed them cellphone videos depicting adults involved in sex acts. Azucena allegedly told the children that if they told their mothers what he had done, ""he would take the girls far away and then kill their mothers." Records show that Azucena served time in California state prison after being convicted of manslaughter and sentenced in May 1991 in Los Angeles County to 18 years. One mother told detectives her daughters tell her they have nightmares about Azucena standing at their windows at night. A group of graduate students toured Brannan Cottage Inn last week to learn about the buildings history and that of its namesake and Calistoga founder, Sam Brannan. Organized by Sonoma State University lecturer Stacy DeShazo, 18 graduate students of her practicum class on National Register of Historic Places, met with Eden Umble, marketing and hospitality director for the inn, to see one of the towns original inns, still in its original location at 109 Wappo St. DeShazo, the former director of Napa County Landmarks and the historic preservation consultant during the inns renovation, shared her extensive knowledge of Brannan, the inn and its architecture and Calistogas rich history. Sam Brannan died in San Diego. They didnt know who he was for a couple of years, DeShazo told the group. Thats the way he lived. He was all in. Its just who he was. Umble said they hear different stories about Brannan all the time learning more about the citys founder. Walking through the inn, its common areas, and private rooms, Umble and DeShazo paused along the way pointing out such things as the original flooring, wavy glass windows and photos of Brannan. An oval window near the front entrance was added after the original building was built, Umble said, and the redwood siding is mostly original. We only replaced what really needed to be replaced, she said of work done during the renovation. DeShazo asked her students to call out architectural details they noticed about the building such as the brackets, arches, wraparound porch, gabled roofs or gingerbread scrollwork. The Brannan Cottage Inn is the only existing example of one of two different architectural designs chosen by Brannan for his resort cottages. Sharpsteen Museum is an example of the other Brannan Cottage architectural design still surviving today, but it has been moved from its original location. The inn was one of the first buildings in town to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, where it is placed as number 685 on the state register. In the wake of Donald Trumps election victory, the American Canyon City Council is considering the idea of becoming a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants. Councilmember Joan Bennett on Tuesday raised the question of American Canyon offering protection to immigrants who might become subject to deportation under a Trump administration. In American Canyon we have a very diverse community, said Bennett, and we have a lot of immigrants who have come into our community. Some are documented, and some are not. But in light of the election and the promise of the president-elect to hurry up and deport 11 million people, Bennett said, I looked into what it takes to be a sanctuary city. Bennett told the other council members that she asked City Attorney William Ross to consider the legalities of the matter. Ross said the gist of becoming a sanctuary city would result in local police disregarding requests from federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, regarding deportation of undocumented immigrants unless theres a court order to do so. The city attorney said he would continue to research the issue and provide the council with a memorandum at a later date. Bennett asked the council for their support to bring the matter back as an official agenda item at a future meeting. None of the other members disagreed with doing so. Mayor Leon Garcia said he supports researching the pros and cons of becoming a sanctuary city. He said his conversations with immigrant communities revealed the matter of deportation isnt a problem yet. But, There is a lot concern what could happen under President Trump. There is a deep concern within the Mexican community for its members with regard to their status here and the impact to them, said Garcia. The mayor cited the ordeal of one immigrant family with which he and his wife were friends, and how the familys life changed when one of the parents was deported for being in the country illegally. The wife and children are U.S. citizens, the dad was undocumented, said Garcia. An issue came up at work, he was deported. They lost their house, she got injured, lost her business, she had no way to support her family, and they moved out of American Canyon. He added the family was not the only one hes known that was impacted by a deportation order. Garcia said the issue of what will become of families with undocumented members arose during the student protest at American Canyon High School last week. Many students staged a peaceful demonstration in the school quad during lunch to voice their displeasure over Trumps victory and what his policies might mean for them and the nation. The mayor said it was important, regardless of whether American Canyon becomes a sanctuary city, that people should know we are a supportive community and take care of each other. Becoming a sanctuary city could produce consequences for American Canyon. During the presidential campaign, Trump said cities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration efforts should not receive taxpayer dollars. Following his victory over Hillary Clinton, Trump also said his administration would deport 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants who have a criminal history. Mariam Aboudamous, an attorney specializing in immigration law, said it was too early to decide if the city should join the ranks of New York, Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland and other cities that protect undocumented immigrants from being deported. I think we need to do more research on it before approving it because there are going to be federal implications, said Aboudamous, who is awaiting the final election results to see if she won a seat on the City Council. For example, Donald Trump is not going to be pro-sanctuary city, so well probably get a cut from federal funding if American Canyon goes that direction, she said. Bank of Marin announced the names of 16 students from 12 North Bay high schools whose photography is featured in the banks 2017 community calendar. Photographs by Nils Waterfield of Justin-Siena High School and Angelica Vance of Napa High School were chosen to be included in the calendar. This marks the seventh year in a row that Bank of Marin has worked with photography teachers and students at North and East Bay high schools to select images for the calendar, said a news release. Students submitted more than 150 images, and judges at the bank made the final photo selections. We believe strongly in supporting and encouraging our local youth, said Russell A. Colombo, president and CEO of Bank of Marin. Our annual calendar allows us to showcase their talents and also to give back to the schools that help educate them. Bank of Marin will donate $100 to each participating high schools photography program for the purchase of supplies and equipment. The 2017 community calendars will be available for free at all Bank of Marin branches. After a month-long detour and mechanical problems earlier this month, the dredging crew for a long-awaited project to excavate the Napa River now has less than two weeks to finish the job. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the first dredging project on the Napa River since 1998. Workers are facing a state-imposed Nov. 30 deadline to avoid disrupting fish migrations in the waterway. Dredging in Napa began in late September but was soon halted as the Corps contractor, Ahtna Design-Build Inc. of Alaska, moved its equipment north to excavate the port of Fort Bragg ahead of the states Oct. 31 deadline there. Upon returning to the Napa River this month, workers have had to cope with accumulated debris and silt from the past two decades. Workers began excavating near the Third Street bridge Tuesday but encountered mechanical problems that slowed progress into Thursday, according to city spokeswoman Jaina French. Its construction and theres a lot of moving parts, said Pamela Patton, project manager in the Corps San Francisco district. The cutter head on the dredger has sucked up tires and debris, and weve had to deal with getting it out of the head and disposing it. Its because we havent dredged there for so long, theres a buildup of miscellaneous debris that gets caught up in the machinery. The Corps is preparing, but has not yet locked in, arrangements for completing the work if parts of the river are not excavated by months end, she said. Plans call for clearing 60,000 cubic yards of silt from various shallow spots on a 17-mile section of river, from the Third Street bridge down to Asylum Slough near Highway 37 in Vallejo. The project will ensure a minimum 9-foot depth on the river to downtown Napa, the limit of its navigable waterway. The project will correct shoaling problems that have increased the hazards even for smaller vessels and caused the cancellation last December of the Napa Valley Yacht Clubs annual Lighted Boat Parade. The work is being carried out with a barge-like vessel equipped with pumps, support poles to anchor the boat to the riverbed, and a cutter head attached to a pipeline, according to the Corps. After positioning the dredge over a shallow section of river, workers lower the cutter to the channel bottom, where the cutter head rotates and breaks up sediment. A system of pipes and pumps conveys the sediment to one of two deposit sites, one near Imola Avenue and another near the future Napa Pipe development. With the deadline fast approaching, the Corps has expanded its dredging schedule, which Patton said will run 24 hours a day for most of the river despite earlier plans to shut down work overnight within city limits. At the waterways northern tip in downtown, dredging will shut down between midnight and 6 a.m. to minimize the disturbance for guests at the Napa River Inn, she said. The Corps has advised those living or working near a dredging zone to expect noise of about 90 decibels, with peaks of 100 dB, as crews shift from north to south down the river. A 90 dB sound level is equivalent to being 25 feet from a motorcycle, while 100 dB is about the noise level of lawn mower or garbage truck, according to Purdue Universitys Department of Chemistry. Such noise may affect guests at the Napa River Inn, where some guest rooms will be as close as 40 yards to the dredge, for about five days, according to the hotels manager Sara Brooks. But the impact, she added, will be less than it could be because the delays have pushed work into a quiet window between the Napa Valley Film Festival and Thanksgiving weekend. Because of the delay it actually benefited the hotel; occupancy (this week) just isnt as high as it normally is, she said Thursday. NAPA -- The Napa County Historical Society has relocated its office and part of its library into office space at Tulocay Cemetery, 411 Coombsville Rd. The new offices are in the Juarez building just inside Tulocays main gates, said Nancy Levenberg, the group's executive director. The Juarez building was the original cemetery office, she noted. The Historical Society will remain at Tulocay until earthquake repairs are completed on the Goodman Library on First Street. According to the city, repairs will begin in late 2016 or early 2017 and take nine months. In November, the Historical Society will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Thursday and by appointment. December hours will be announced. All regular services remain available including: research, house and business histories, a book store, tours, programs and scavenger hunts for school-age children. Levenberg said there is also a permanent exhibit in the works, honoring and commemorating Cayetano Juarez and the history of the cemetery. Donations, aid and volunteers welcomed. The unemployment rate in Napa County was 3.8 percent in October, unchanged from a revised 3.8 percent in September, and below the year-ago estimate of 4.3 percent, the Employment Development Department reported on Friday. This compares with an unadjusted unemployment rate of 5.3 percent for California and 4.7 percent for the nation during the same period. Construction jobs in Napa County rose 4.5 percent, and leisure and hospitality jobs rose 8.3 percent compared to October 2015. Hiring within the city of Napa increased by 200 jobs year-over-year. Jobs in the information industry category showed the biggest decline year-over-year, going from 500 to 400 positions, Employment Development reported. The number of people looking for jobs in Napa County dropped 9.1 percent from a year earlier, the state reported. There were 3,300 local job seekers last October compared to 3,000 this October. At the same time, the total labor force in the county rose slightly, from 76,400 to 78,900 people. Napa County continues to have the fourth lowest unemployment rate for the state, officials said. NAPA People waged the Walt Ranch battle in the Napa County Board of Supervisors chamber and on the street. County supervisors on Friday opened what will be a multi-day hearing on the proposed vineyard project. Walt Ranch involves creating 209 acres of vineyard blocks amid 2,300 acres in the mountains between the city of Napa and Lake Berryessa. Opponents and supporters packed the Board chambers and spilled into overflow areas where they watched the proceedings on television. They had the chance to make their cases to supervisors. But opponents also took their case to the public. About 100 of them at noon stood in front of the county administration building holding up signs reading clean water and no chainsaw wine. Whats so bad about Walt Ranch? Elizabeth Bosch of Napa doesnt like the idea of removing thousands of oaks to make room for vineyards. You cant replace a watershed, she said as she held a sign with a picture of a chainsaw on it. Thats a wonderful, pristine watershed. Local resident Jim Wilson helped organize the rally. The goal is to increase awareness and sensitivity to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor so we can reflect on what were doing, on how our behavior impacts our environment, he said. He expressed hope the demonstration would influence the Board of Supervisors. He is hoping for strong moral and political leadership, Wilson said. A Register reporter during a Board of Supervisors meeting break approached a handful of people wearing tags proclaiming their support of Walt Ranch. Each politely declined to comment. Hall Brambletree Associates LLP applied to the county for the Walt Ranch vineyard project in 2007. Championing the project are Craig and Kathryn Hall of HALL Wines in St. Helena. County Planning, Building and Environmental Services Director David Morrison in August approved the needed erosion control plan for Walt Ranch. He said the project complies with the countys general plan and takes appropriate steps to mitigate environmental impacts. Appealing his decision to the Board of Supervisors are Napa Sierra Club, Living Rivers Council, Center for Biological Diversity and, in a joint appeal, Circle Oaks County Water District and Circle Oaks Homes Association. City of Napa Water General Manager Joy Eldredge in a 2014 letter to the county warned that water runoff from Walt Ranch vineyards containing nutrients and other materials could hurt water quality in Milliken Reservoir. Improving the reservoir water treatment plant to handle potential problems could cost $20 million. But on Friday, Eldredge praised a water monitoring plan the city and Walt Ranch agreed to last summer. Walt Ranch is to monitor water runoff at nine locations and take steps to deal with any problems that might arise. Its a rational approach, Eldredge said. It gathers data. I think thats where we need to be in the future. Mike Reynolds of Walt Ranch in a Nov. 7 letter to the county noted how the project has changed. The environmental impact report analyzed a version calling for 356 acres of vineyards and a total of 507 acres of disturbed land. Morrison approved 209 acres of vineyards and 316 acres of disturbed land. Although vineyard acreage has shrunk, costs for environmental mitigations and other expenses have not. Environmental review, engineering and entitlements alone have cost $5.2 million, Reynolds wrote. He calculated the expense to create 209 acres of Walt Ranch vineyard will be $269,000 an acre. Buying an existing vineyard in the Atlas Peak area would cost about $234,000 an acre. Costs in excess of this amount are, from an economic perspective, infeasible, in that a rational investor would not pay more than this amount, Reynolds wrote. Reynolds argued that the vineyard acreage shouldnt be reduced still further. Thomas Lippe on behalf of Living Rivers Council drew another conclusion from this financial information. Lippe characterized Walt Ranch officials as in essence saying a feasible alternative exists to creating a 209-acre vineyard. That is going out and buying vineyards that are already developed. Supervisors heard from consultant Annalee Sanborn, the project manager for the Walt Ranch environmental impact report completed for the county. She too stressed how the proposed Walt Ranch vineyard acreage has shrunk over the years. Part of the confusion and controversy could be a lack of understanding of how the project has evolved, Sanborn said. For example, she said, the number of trees to be cut down has been reduced from 28,000 to 14,000. The county had not previously mentioned this new figure at a public meeting. But the new figure failed to satisfy Wilson. Removing 14,000 oaks from Walt Ranch is indefensible, he said during the outdoor rally. One controversy is whether creating Walt Ranch vineyards will increase runoff from the property, possibly washing fish-harming sediments into creeks and and increasing landslides. The environmental impact report said the Walt Ranch project wont increase runoff. Among the stated reasons is that earthmoving equipment will dig into soils two feet to six feet deep before vineyards are planted. Thomas Smith of RiverSmith Engineering said this soil ripping will break up an impermeable layer of rock and allow for more water to seep into the ground. Appellants challenged whether this increased infiltration will be permanent. Smith acknowledged the controversy, but told supervisors he stands by his report. I stamped it and signed it with full confidence there is no offsite impacts to this land use change, Smith said. Lippe on behalf of Living Rivers Council said field tests involving the effects of deep soil ripping on infiltration has been done at only one Walt Ranch location. Now the county is looking at requiring tests at proposed vineyard block locations to be done after project approval. You just cant do it that way, Lippe said. The Board of Supervisors spent most of the all-day session simply taking all of this in. I want to underscore, we are here to listen to you, Board Chairman Alfredo Pedroza told the packed chamber as the hearing began. The Walt Ranch hearing is to continue when the Board of Supervisors meets at 9 a.m. Tuesday in its chamber at the county administration building, 1195 Third St. in downtown Napa. Napa Valley Unified School District should soon no longer be running a wildlife preserve to help save the California red-legged frog, an undertaking that has cost it millions of dollars over a decade. The district bought about 307 acres in 2007 for $4.6 million to serve as the American Canyon Ecological Reserve. This allowed it to meet federal Endangered Species Act requirements for the frog and other environmental laws in order to build American Canyon High School and a future middle school. But the district never intended to run the preserve itself. Rather, the plan from the start has been to give the preserve to an agency that specializes in these undertakings. On Nov. 16, the state Wildlife Conservation Board authorized the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to accept the land from the school district. The district will provide a $1.4 million endowment to support habitat monitoring and maintenance. Once all the signatures are complete, the district should no longer have to pay several thousand dollars a year for a biologist to survey the property and make annual reports. It will be a relief to the school district to finally bring it to a conclusion, district construction chief Don Evans said. Bullfrog battles The California red-legged frog is found locally in various areas near the border of Napa and Solano counties, including the brush-covered hills separating American Canyon, Fairfield and Benicia. There, this rare native frog wages a constant battle to avoid being eaten by the common, non-native bullfrog. That means one task at the American Canyon Ecological Preserve is to keep bullfrogs at bay. The school district built a one-acre pond designed by its depth and other factors to be unwelcoming to bullfrogs, but a perfect home for red-legged frogs. But the school district is in the business of educating children, not battling bullfrogs. It wasnt supposed to be this way. The district initially hoped the Land Trust of Napa County would take over the property. We wanted to walk away from it, Evans said. We wanted to buy it and turn it over to them, never having to maintain it. When that didnt work out, the district turned to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to be the preserve owner and manager. The two parties had some terms of the agreement worked out in 2010, but only now has the deal come to fruition. This has taken years and years, Evans said. More than red-legged frogs should benefit from the American Canyon Ecological Reserve. Bottas pocket gophers, savannah sparrows, deer mice and Western burrowing owls find this area to their liking. Also, the state considers the property as potential habitat for rare Callippe silverspot butterflies. The general public might be allowed to visit this California red-legged frog paradise, though plans are for docent-led hikes only. Local high school students interested in biology might have the chance to meet a frog close-up. They tell me if you walk along quietly, youll see a red-legged frog, Evans said. Some people might wonder why the federal laws should force a school district to spend millions of dollars to help California red-legged frogs. They might wonder what would be so bad if this particular frog species went extinct. I think its really an ecosystem function, said Ryan Olah, coast bay division chief for the Sacramento U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office. Red-legged frogs eat insects. They, in turn, are eaten by raccoons and snakes. In that sense, they are part of a complex food chain. We dont always understand what might happen if you take one of these species out of the ecosystem, Olah said. For example, he said, sea otters eat sea urchins and urchins eat kelp. When the sea otter population fell due to fur hunting, the kelp-eating urchin population grew and decimated kelp forests that provide habitat for marine life. Celebrity frogs The red-legged frog is the largest native frog in the western United States. It is 1.5 inches to 5 inches long and its lower abdomen and legs are often red to salmon pink, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency that listed the frog as a threatened species in 1996. These are frogs of fame and distinction. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report said they are widely believed to be the frogs featured in Mark Twains short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Gov. Jerry Brown in 2014 signed legislation naming the California red-legged frog as the state amphibian. School children from Sea View Elementary School along the Salton Sea where no red-legged frogs are found championed the designation. The state legislation says that 1849 Gold Rush miners in the Sierra Nevada had more uses for the California red-legged frog than as jumping contest participants memorialized by Twain. Miners, known as 49ers, consumed nearly 80,000 frogs per year, nearly eating the species into extinction, the legislation says. He hadnt heard that story before, Olah said. Its one of the ideas people may have, Olah said. Evidence shows there used to be more red-legged frogs in the foothill areas, so the thought is maybe they ate a lot of them. I think that probably wasnt the biggest threat to them. The most important step in the agencys 2002 red-legged frog recovery plan is habitat protection, Olah said. Creating frog havens The agency in 2010 designated 1.6 million acres in 27 counties as critical frog habitat, including the hills where the American Canyon Ecological Reserve is located. Such status in-and-of-itself doesnt set aside land for the frog, but shows where key habitat exists. American Canyon Ecological Reserve isnt the only local red-legged frog sanctuary. The Solano Land Trust has frog habitat in its Lynch Canyon Open Space Park and King-Swett ranches near to the American Canyon property. We see the frogs there, so were maintaining the population, said Sue Wickham of the Solano Land Trust. Whether were increasing the population, I really dont know. You need long-term trends for that and you need consistent monitoring. The Fish and Wildlife Service also lacks detailed population count data to show how well the red-legged frog is doing. But Olah sees a positive sign. I think were setting them up pretty well by having land protected in perpetuity for the frog, he said. There were threats of (important habitat) to be developed in 1996 when they were listed. Wickham said caring for the red-legged frog can include such tasks as cleaning out ponds that fill with sediments. Typically, a pond will dry up for a period of time after the red-leggeds breed, Wickham said. Thats good for the red-leggeds and bad for the bullfrogs. If you have the perfect pond, it will dry up at just the right time and control the bullfrogs. The American Canyon Ecological Preserve combines with the Lynch and King-Swett properties and the Newell Open Space Preserve to provide several thousand acres that include red-legged frog habitat. It isnt an isolated piece of frog paradise. Thats a really great property, how it connects with the other ones, Olah said. Other frog-affected projects American Canyon High School isnt the only local project that has had to reckon with the frog. Widening Highway 12 in Jameson Canyon in 2014 meant disturbing potential frog habitat. The state Department of Transportation in its environmental report for Jameson Canyon project said it would preserve at least 147 acres of frog habitat elsewhere as mitigation. Plans to build the Soscol Flyover at Highway 29 and Highway 221 will also have to reckon with the frog. Caltrans plans to preserve 27 acres of red-legged frog habitat elsewhere because the projectshould money ever be found to build itcould affect nine acres of habitat. With the clout of the Endangered Species Act behind it, the red-legged frog is a powerful creature. It compels school districts and Caltrans alike to spend money protecting it. Wickham sees another side to Californias state amphibian. They can live under bushes and in cracks all summer, she said. They are pretty adaptable. Pretty cool little guys. ST. HELENA Our Town St. Helenas plan to build eight sweat equity housing units on McCorkle Avenue is heading to the City Council. The Planning Commission voted 3-0 last week to approve the project, with Commissioners Bobbi Monnette and Sarah Parker recused because they live near the property. The council still needs to sign off on an exemption from the citys water-neutrality requirements, since the project would increase the sites water use by an estimated 968 gallons per day. The date of the council hearing hasnt been announced. The project is at 684 McCorkle Ave., a half-acre lot purchased by the city for $700,000 in 2013 and later sold to the nonprofit Our Town for $1. The homes are scheduled to be built by the third quarter of 2018. The homes are being financed partly through a U.S. Department of Agriculture program reserved for sweat equity projects, in which the families who will live in the units are partly responsible for building them. The arrangement cuts construction costs dramatically and makes it easier to finance affordable housing projects. The developers named the project Brenkle Court after Father John Brenkle, who retired from the St. Helena Catholic Church after decades of advocating for farmworker rights and helping build affordable and farmworker housing. Mary Stephenson of Our Town said 48 families applied to participate, and eight of them were selected in a lottery. The average family size is five, with a total of 19 kids younger than the age of 18. The families have an average household income of $51,000, which is 62 percent of the Napa Valleys median income. Of the 14 full-time workers, 13 are employed Upvalley in the wine industry, hospitality, food service, elder care or social services. Each family currently lives in local rental housing, five of them at affordable rental complexes like Stonebridge, Stephenson said. Providing them with permanent homes would make their former apartments available to other applicants who have been on waiting lists for at least two years. Opening up five units in these complexes and another three in the general Upvalley area will have a very positive effect, Stephenson said. Commissioner Tracy Sweeney praised the ripple effect of opening up other rental housing, and said the project was well-designed. The eight townhouses would be split between two buildings, each containing four units. The only person who spoke in opposition to the project was Vickie Bradshaw, whose husband David has filed a claim threatening to sue the city for housing discrimination. At Tuesdays hearing, Vickie Bradshaw said the project would have been more suitable in another location closer to community infrastructure and away from other affordable housing. Building it on McCorkle worsens the segregation of having nearly all of the citys affordable housing on the east side of town, she said. Taking further action only provides additional evidence that the city intends to continue to engage in ongoing housing discrimination, and could be viewed as compounding the citys potential financial liabilities related to such housing discrimination, Bradshaw said. City Attorney Tom Brown told the commission he couldnt comment on the pending claim, but said the commission was not constrained in any manner in considering the project. In fact, its counter-intuitive from my perspective that the approval of an affordable housing project would somehow violate, in and of itself, anti-discrimination laws, Brown said. No one knows how pervasive President-elect Donald Trump's business interests actually are. Well, no one outside the Trump Organization and the Trump family, that is. For the first time in 40 years, Americans elected a president who didn't provide detailed tax records; for the first time in history, we elected a president whose only experience is rooted in those businesses we don't really know anything about. The Washington Post's Drew Harwell and Anu Narayanswamy took a look at where and how Trump's business empire might conflict with the business of government. Trump has stated that he will hand over management of the Trump Organization to his children, but it's not clear how that will prevent conflicts. At the same time, Trump's decision to skip the traditional traveling press pool as president-elect means that there's less transparency about who he's meeting with and when. Since the election, there have already been a number of alleged or demonstrated instances in which Trump's new position as president-elect has overlapped with his promotion of or involvement with his business interests. --- Trump met with developers from a project in India after winning the election. The weekend after Trump won the presidential election, a group of Indian businessmen arrived at Trump Tower and met with Trump and his children. (The group posed for photos with the Trumps that were published on Facebook.) One of the businessmen told the New York Times that the discussion was simply meant to offer congratulations. Another, though, admitted that the meeting included "discussions with the Trump family about possible additional real estate deals." One consultant who'd worked with Trump, Pranav Bhakta, explained the benefit to the Times: "To say, 'I have a Trump flat or residence' - it's president-elect branded. It's that recall value. If they didn't know Trump before, they definitely know him now." This story was first reported by foreign media outlets, not by American reporters tracking Trump's transition effort. --- Trump's family met with the prime minister of Japan. When Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe came to Trump Tower to meet Trump, his daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner were included in part of the conversation. Ivanka, again, is supposed to be running Trump's business interests over the next four years, meaning, in essence, that Trump is providing access to resources he's gained from his public position to the person in charge of his personal interests. Photos of the event were made available by the Japanese prime minister's office, as American press was not allowed access to the meeting. --- Trump allegedly asked the president of Argentina to approve permits for a Trump development. Talking Points Memo noted a detail in a report from the Argentinian newspaper La Nacion where, according to journalist Jorge Lanata, Argentinan president Mauricio Macri phoned Trump to offer his congratulations on the election outcome. Trump allegedly used the opportunity to ask Macri to facilitate permitting for a project he's working on in Buenos Aires. The only source we have for this claim is a third-party report from a foreign media outlet. The Trump campaign has not responded to a request for comment, but a reporter from Public Radio International spoke with the office of the Argentinian president who denied the report. Grains of salt very much apply. But the Argentinian president is no doubt aware of Trump's investments in his country. The president-elect's corporate website pitches a residential tower in Buenos Aires (Trump Tower, Punta del Este) as "the only property in all South America to bear the Trump name." Another report indicates that the Trump Organization and the same developers are working on an office building in the city. The developer proudly touts its association with Trump on its own website. Talking Points Memo also notes that the developer was at Trump's celebration on election night and was photographed with Eric Trump. Earlier this year, Eric Trump told a newspaper in Uruguay that he saw Macri as a model for the sort of president his father might be. --- Foreign diplomats see the Trump Hotel as an opportunity to curry favor with the president-elect. Earlier this year, Trump triumphantly opened a new Trump-branded hotel down the street from the White House. As The Post reported over the weekend, foreign diplomats have been courted as a likely clientele for the project. From that report: About 100 foreign diplomats, from Brazil to Turkey, gathered at the Trump International Hotel this week to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect's newest hotel. One Asian diplomat put the issue bluntly to our Jonathan O'Connell and Mary Jordan: "Why wouldn't I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, 'I love your new hotel!' Isn't it rude to come to his city and say, 'I am staying at your competitor?'" The only sure way to guarantee that Trump isn't confronted with conflicts of interest as president, experts suggest, is to liquidate his properties and re-invest the money in ways that Trump isn't aware of. That's trickier than it might seem, given how much of Trump's stated net worth is tied up in projects that leverage his name (as opposed to his owning properties, for example). Many of Trump's projects are licensing deals in which he allows the use of his name to a developer in exchange for a fee or part of the profits. Deals based on his name would be harder to extricate his interests from; his business partners seem to have gotten very lucky thanks to the American electoral college system. It's already clear, though, that -- even without detailed information about Trump's business interests -- there are significant reasons to be concerned about how and where Trump's personal interests overlap with the power that he'll inherit on January 20. The Board of Directors of the Lake Berryessa Chamber of Commerce urges the Napa County Supervisors to enter into a Managing Partner Agreement with the Bureau of Reclamation to manage the Lake Berryessa Recreation areas. We need this revolutionary strategy to stop the death spiral at Lake Berryessa. The rationale for this change is simple: 1. Napa County successfully ran the lake from 1958 to 1975. In fact, a 1972 county position paper shows that Napa County actually fought to retain management of the lake, but were frustrated by the federal bureaucracy at the time. Our community needs the present Board of Supervisors to emulate their 1972 predecessors. Now is the time to make the lake a successful recreation destination and Napa County resource again. 2. The federal government has shown its inability to successfully implement its own policies for decades, resulting in the destruction of a once-thriving region. However, Reclamation now appears willing work with the county to create an MPA. This is a significant opportunity for community revitalization. 3. Knowledgeable recreation and hospitality companies have pointed out the flaws in the federal governments contract policies, policies which would need to be changed before serious companies would be interested. An MPA would allow these changes. 4. The federal government (Bureau of Reclamation or Bureau of Land Management) is unlikely to change its policy on those flawed contract terms - which is a recipe for future lack of action since no bidders responded to the last bid prospectus, which included those terms. 5. Napa County managing the recreation areas is a home-rule issue, which solves many problems the county has complained about for decades, including the cost of public services with no financial return. Napa County can call on the many professional resources available through the Visit Napa Valley tourism organization to support this change. Simply put, the federal government owes the Lake Berryessa community and Napa County. Napa County managing Lake Berryessa in partnership with Napa Valley tourism professionals is the best opportunity, if not the last chance, to save Lake Berryessa. On behalf of the chamber board: Peter Kilkus, president; Bob Lee, vice-president; Jerry Rehmke, secretary/treasurer; Craig Morton; Paul Quarneri; Marcia Ritz; Tracy Renee. Peter Kilkus Napa Council to discuss water, sewer rates at public hearing The St. Helena City Council will hold a public hearing on proposed water and wastewater rate hikes at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 29, at Vintage Hall. Customers received a letter giving notice of the proposed new rates and giving instructions on how to file a protest. If 50 percent plus one parcel owners submit written protests, the rates will have to go on the ballot and be subject to voter approval. The new revenue is needed to keep the citys water and wastewater systems in compliance with state regulations and prevent potential fines, legal expenses and court-ordered improvements, Mayor Alan Galbraith wrote in a letter to the editor last week. If adopted, the rates would begin to take effect in February and gradually be implemented through November 2021. Details are available at cityofsthelena.org/ratestudy. NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg will meet with the Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia, Mr. Aleksander Vucic on Wednesday, 23 November 2016. Mr. Vucic will also meet the North Atlantic Council. Media Advisory +11:45 Joint press point by the Secretary General and the Prime Minister Main entrance, NATO HQ The press point will be webstreamed live on the NATO website and available on demand via Eurovision Geneva. Still and video imagery will be available on the NATO website after the event. Accreditation and access Journalists holding a 2016 NATO media pass will have access to the press conference as usual, upon presentation of their pass. Media without a 2016 NATO media pass will have to present an ID and a valid press card (provided by a recognised national professional body of a NATO country i.e. government, professional association or union, etc. Access to the main entrance will be open as of 11:15. Follow us on Twitter (@NATOPress and @jensstoltenberg) The NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg will travel to London on Wednesday, 23 November and to Oxford on Thursday, 24 November 2016. During his visit the Secretary General will meet Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, The Right Honourable Ms. Theresa May and the Secretary of State for Defence, Mr. Michael Fallon. On Thursday 24 November, Mr. Stoltenberg will deliver a speech at Oxford University. Media Advisory 23 November 18:05 (Local time) Press opportunity outside Downing Street The press opportunity will be available near live online and via satellite upon request. 24 November 15:00 (local time) Keynote Speech by the NATO Secretary General, Oxford University The speech will be available live on the NATO website. Still and video imagery of the visit will be available on the NATO website after the event. Follow us on Twitter (@NATOPress and @jensstoltenberg) A three-way partnership using remote monitoring is bringing round-the-clock eICU care to patients at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, delivered by critical care physicians based in Sydney, Australia. The pilot program aims to improve the outcomes of high-risk patients in greatest need of constant observation. Emory Healthcare critical care physicians and nurses based onsite at Macquarie University's MQ Health in Sydney will use Royal Phillips' remote intensive care unit (eICU) technology to provide monitoring. Combining daytime critical care coverage in Atlanta with night-time coverage from Sydney provides focused, 24-hour-a-day management of ICU patients by critical care specialists, potentially decreasing the risk of complications, shortening patients' length of stay and saving lives. MQ Health is the first university-led integrated health campus in Australia, bringing together research and clinical care. The creative vision to turn "night into day" was developed by Timothy Buchman, MD, founding director of the Emory Critical Care Center, and Cheryl Hiddleson, MSN, RN, director of the Emory eICU Center. Tim Buchman and Cheryl Hiddleson By using providers in a complementary time zone in this case, Sydney to cover the Atlanta eICU night shift, it reverses two of the largest drawbacks of critical care night staffing: a shortage of senior clinicians willing to cover night shifts, and the toll that working nights takes on caretakers and their attention levels. "Thanks to our eICU program we can continuously monitor Atlanta-based patients from MQ Health in Sydney and support the bedside team by recognizing adverse physiology, making critical diagnoses and intervening before those issues become significant problems," says Buchman, who is chief of critical care service at Emory Healthcare.'' "In Australia, these types of technologies also have far-reaching potential to support care of rural and remote patients," he says. "Currently the optimal medical treatment there, in a stressful setting such as the ICU, can be thousands of miles away. The introduction of electronically-delivered specialist care has the potential to standardize the quality of care between the hospital and the countryside." Considerable logistical challenges had to be overcome, but Hiddleson feels confident that the remote monitoring and consulting from Sydney is as secure and effective as remote monitoring by providers in the same city. "The primary responsibility still falls on the team members at the patient's bedside," she says. "We're there as a second set of eyes, with the added benefit of being able to speak directly to the bedside staff, patient and family." Emory's eICU The Emory project leaders are currently tracking sleep cycles, mood changes, clinician stress as measured by cortisol levels, and overall quality of life, says Hiddleson. They are testing the efficiency of Emory clinicians practicing in Australia as well as the program's impact on patient well-being. Future plans include expanding intramural and outreach coverage, and possibly extending the international options for Emory clinicians working in the eICU. "The notion of a global eICU network is an interesting one," Buchman says. "I am having some 'what if' conversations with colleagues on what it would take to put critical care professionals shoulder to shoulder around the world, local and "visiting expatriates," so that everyone's home night-time care could be delivered from somewhere that is daylight." To view a video about the new collaboration, click here. The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] Students exhibit documents life in area communities by Pete Rosenbery CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The work of Southern Illinois University Carbondale students to photograph and document residents in local communities will be on display beginning next week. Twenty students in a biennial Small Town Documentary Class in the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts have spent the fall semester each chronicling a separate community. The exhibit begins Tuesday, Nov. 29, and runs through Dec. 5, with the work on display in the north wing of the Communications Building, between the School of Journalism and cinema and photography departments. An opening reception is from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., Nov. 29. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public. Daniel Overturf, a professor in the Department of Cinema and Photography, teaches the biennial class. This is the 10th edition of the class since it began in 1996. Students blend geography, sociology, history, contemporary issues, education, art, individual curiosity and photographic skill. The work can be a mix of portraits, every day and unique events, and other notable features of the students selected community. The students also research their communities and form attachments to them. They closely monitor community events, including festivals, school and church gatherings, and this year, Election Day activities. Yet organized events are not the only areas students look for. The casual random experiences, such as men splitting wood in a yard in Karnak to help a neighbor are almost more fundamental to the education part of class because it reinforces the idea that you simply need to be there, and quite often, that is the difference, Overturf said. Some of the most memorable photographs will come from an informal opportunity. Those photographs are sometimes the most telling about the community, and it is an opportunity for students to do their best work. Overturf said he likes students to pursue new communities and unincorporated areas, when possible. Since this is among the largest of the 10 classes, that became even more necessary this year. Some of the 14 new communities featured include Carrier Mills, Freeman Spur, Grand Chain, Jonesboro, Karnak, Maeystown, New Burnside, Oakdale, Olmsted, Thompsonville, and Wamac. Prior to 2016, 70 communities and areas within Southern Illinois have been photographed. One of the most satisfying elements of teaching the course is watching students go through the process of putting themselves out there and taking themselves from the comfort and familiarity of university life and being somewhat forced to activate an aspect of their curiosity that might not have been as used in the past, Overturf said. Over the course of four months, its almost involuntary. Overturf has said that one of the joys in the twice-weekly class is hearing the students stories from their journeys. Overturf and invited guests review students prints in class. Students are also required to keep journals documenting their experiences as part of their overall course portfolio. Students participating in the project, by hometown, year in school, major, and their chosen communities, shown in bold, are: ILLINOIS: Alhambra: Miranda Munguia, sophomore, cinema and photography, Thompsonville Aviston: Adam Holbrook, junior, psychology, Oakdale Batavia: Jackson Covey, cinema and photography, Freeman Spur Carbondale: Jenny Johnson, masters student, mass communications and media arts, Makanda Carterville: Nathan Oestry, senior, cinema and photography, Old Carterville Chicago: Branda Mitchell, junior, journalism, Elizabethtown Chicago Heights: Anna Petrelli, senior, cinema and photography, Grand Chain Ellsworth: Zach Gulley, junior, cinema and photography, New Burnside Frankfort: Melissa Wortel, junior, cinema and photography, Jonesboro Irvington: Nate Fortemeyer, masters student, professional media and media management, Wamac Jonesboro: Eli Scherer, languages, cultures and international studies, Elkville Makanda: Ellen Esling, masters student, mass communication and media arts, Boskeydell Metropolis: Jay Holland, senior, journalism, Brookport Rockford: Aidan Osborne, communication disorders and sciences, Karnak West Frankfort: Jacob Wiegand, senior, journalism, Joppa Wheaton: Josh Davis, senior, cinema and photography, Carrier Mills GEORGIA Savannah: Haley Powell, sophomore, cinema and photography, Waltonville MISSOURI Kirkwood: Daniel Drier, junior, cinema and photography, Maeystown St. Louis: Marcus Kimbrew, junior, cinema and photography, Colp AUSTRALIA A team of students and researchers from Louisiana State University plans to launch two large weather balloons like the one shown here from Saluki Stadium in order to take real-time video and conduct scientific experiments during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017. Scientific instruments and video equipment will be suspended from the balloon, as shown in this picture of a previous launch. (Photo provided) LSU researchers, students plan solar eclipse balloon launch from SIU by Tim Crosby CARBONDALE, Ill. -- A team from a southern university is the latest group planning to travel to Southern Illinois University Carbondale next summer for the total solar eclipse. The team, made up of students and researchers from Louisiana State University and two to three other Louisiana institutions, plans to launch two large weather balloons from Saluki Stadium about 90 minutes or so before the eclipse totality, which is set for 1:21 p.m. on Aug. 21. The team will attempt to coordinate the expected climb rate of the balloons to coincide with the event, in order to capture live video and conduct student-driven experiments. T. Gregory Guzik, director of the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium at LSUs Department of Physics and Astronomy, said his students have conducted such balloon launches in the past to study a variety of phenomena, but never for an eclipse. The difference this time will be the precision of the launch, both from a particular site and within a margin of error of about 15 minutes or so, Guzik said. We want the balloons to be at about 90,000 feet when totality begins, and they typically ascend at about 1,000 feet per minute. Balloons at that height will assuredly be above any unfortunate cloud layer that day -- although weather patterns typically call for clear skies that time of year in Southern Illinois. The balloon equipped with a video camera payload will send back real-time images as the moon blots out the sun. The feed will be made available to the NASA television program, Edge, which also will be broadcasting from SIU that day. Southern Illinois will be the site of the longest duration of the upcoming total solar eclipse. SIU is gearing up to play a major role in the event, which will feature the first total solar eclipse over the mainland United States since 1979. As many as 50,000 eclipse enthusiasts are expected in Carbondale in the days and hours leading up to the event. Not only that, but a second such event is due in 2024. The intersection of the two eclipse path centerlines is just south of Carbondale near Cedar Lake. The region offers a unique opportunity to observe these two eclipses from the same ground-based spot. The university is planning a variety of activities for the 2017 eclipse, including the Crossroads Art and Craft Fair, the Crossroads Astronomy, Science and Technology Expo, and educational programming provided by the Adler Planetarium of Chicago. The main event, of course, will be eclipse viewing in Saluki Stadium. More information, including ticket prices, is available at eclipse.siu.edu. The second balloon the LSU team plans to launch will carry up to five scientific experiments currently being designed by students at other Louisiana institutions as part of a competition, Guzik said. The exercise will help train students to think like scientists do in developing such payloads, as well as build presentation and leadership skills. The eclipse, he said, is an excellent opportunity to fire such imaginations and motivations. They are getting the opportunity to develop something with their own hands that will travel to the edge of space, Guzik said. Space is a good draw, and the scientific focus of the eclipse makes it even sweeter. The balloon launches in Carbondale that day will be among about 50 similar launches stretching all across the country as eclipse totality sweeps from northwest to southeast. Teams will launch balloons with video and experimental payloads all along that path as part of an effort led by the Montana Space Grant Consortium and funded through the NASA National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program, and the NASA Science Mission Directorate. Guzik, whose work as a scientist focuses on cosmic radiation, said he has been involved with launching such high-altitude balloons for 20 years. Students have become more involved in the practice during the last 12 years, while newer, more affordable video and global positioning system equipment has made launching balloons to the edge of space even more commonplace than ever before. Its not difficult to find examples of such projects on popular internet sites. At 90,000 feet, the video camera will be able to see some 200 miles out toward the horizon. Guzik said it may be possible to see the moons shadow coming toward Carbondale at a distance, though the group will have little or no control over which way the camera is pointed at any given time. The video picture hopefully will become more stable once the balloon is above 50,000 feet or so, where the wind turbulence is less, he said. The video balloon will use a wireless serial link -- essentially a wireless Ethernet modem -- to transmit the data back down to the ground. Two ground stations, one on the roof of the Neckers science building and one top of the Saluki Stadium Club, will pick up the signal and pass it along. Federal Aviation Administration rules restrict unpiloted balloons to carrying less than 12 pounds of total suspended weight, including parachutes, beacons and other payloads. During a test of the video system in September in New Mexico, Guzik said the team achieved good video data transmission from as far as about 40 miles line-of-sight. During the eclipse event, researchers expect the balloon to only be about 25 miles away. So we hope to have some very good video, Guzik said. After the event, and once the balloons reach about 100,000 feet, the teams will activate a terminate device which will send the equipment falling back to Earth before parachutes activate. Guzik said the team expects the equipment to land about 35 miles northeast of Carbondale, and chase vehicles with GPS equipment will be ready to track them down. The LSU teams involvement is only the latest development as SIU prepares for the event. The university also recently completed pouring a series of concrete pads at a spot near the University Farms in the countryside west of campus that will provide scientists as well as amateur astronomers with firm, level resting spots for their telescopes Minster of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre told the Rajya Sabha: "As per assessment, there has been an increase in infiltration attempts after the killing of Burhan Wani (on July 8 this year)." The minister said the Indian Army had adopted a "robust" counter-infiltration strategy along the Line of Control (LoC), with an appropriate mix of technology and human resources to check infiltration. "Innovative troop deployment, pro-active use of surveillance, monitoring devices and the Anti-Infiltration Obstacle System have enhanced the ability to detect and intercept terrorists attempting to infiltrate/ exfiltrate," the minister said. In a written reply to the Lok Sabha last week, Bhamre had said that in 2016 there were 167 ceasefire violations along sections of the International Border and LoC with the army until November 14. In parts of the International Border with the Border Security Force (BSF), the total number of ceasefire violations was 210 until November 1. Last year, there were 152 ceasefire violations along the LoC and International Border with the army and 253 along the International Border with the BSF. --IANS ao/nir/mr ( 221 Words) 2016-11-22-19:24:13 (IANS) The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on Tuesday announced the launch of Self-regulation Code of Conduct for the E pharmacy sector in the presence of key stakeholders here. Accessibility, affordability and lack of awareness are the major challenges for last mile access to medicines. These barriers could be effectively overcome by adopting technology, specifically the Internet, into the healthcare system. Over the last one year, E-pharmacy has come up as a significant channel to provide last mile access to medicines. This will most importantly benefit patients of chronic diseases, elderly patients and sick patients who are not in a condition to go out to find a pharmacy. The E-Pharmacy model provides tracking and traceability of medicines, addressing the problem of counterfeit medicines, consumption of drugs without prescription, tax loss and provides value added services for consumer empowerment in healthcare, which are well aligned with Digital India initiative of our Prime Minister with a vision to transform the country into a digitally empowered society. The conference started with the release of the Self-regulation Code of Conduct to have proper safeguards so as to ensure that consumer's health and safety is not compromised. Processing medicines against Prescription Scheduled medicines must be processed only against a valid copy of prescription (physical or scanned copy) of a registered medical practitioner Restriction of Sensitive habit forming medicines. E pharmacy must ensure that no schedule X and other sensitive habit forming medicines are processed through their platform. Ensure there are adequate checks and balances in place to prevent sale of any such drugs. Dispensation only from duly licensed pharmacy domiciled in India E Pharmacy must ensure that the medicines are dispensed through licensed pharmacies only. The E pharmacy must make reasonable effort to ensure that all the pharmacy partners (before facilitating the sale of any medicines through such pharmacy partners) are duly registered under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act/ Rules. Convenient access of medicines E-pharmacy player must make suitable arrangements to ensure that the medicines are packed, transported and delivered in such a way that their integrity, quality, and effectiveness are preserved. Public health Initiatives of Government of India E pharmacy players must partner with Government for any recall of medicines and collect adverse events of medicines (consumer reports) and comply to submit them to National Centre for Pharma-covigilance. Customer grievances E pharmacy must ensure that there is a proper mechanism in place to address any queries or grievances that the end-customer may have. E pharmacy players must appoint an ombudsman commission comprising of reputed members of civil society to address any public grievance. The Ombudsman commission shall be appointed for six months by members of the governing council in consultation with other stakeholders. Dr. Didar Singh, Secretary General, FICCI voiced the support of consumer friendly models and mentioned that India needs to move with the times and embrace new age models to stay ahead. Arvind Gupta, Head of Digital India Foundation said, "We need to embrace technology - in both offline and online models. There is a great opportunity to take this ecosystem ahead by leveraging the India stack using the existing infrastructure of Aadhar and Digi-locker to maintain the repository of prescription, health records and monitor the dispensing of sensitive medicines. All pharmacies, online or offline, should check prescriptions on this locker." Pawan Kaul, Co-Chair of FICCI e-commerce committee added that by recognizing and registering the legitimate e pharmacies, Government can easily address the challenges by maintaining sanctity of both IT act and Drug and Cosmetic Act. This will bring effectiveness and efficiency in the entire ecosystem. (ANI) Standing true to its academic excellence, Amity was selected to participate in the "Israel-India Academic Summit" which was organized in New Delhi during the State visit of the President of State of Israel, Reuven Rivlin to India. During the Summit, top Israeli Universities and selected Indian Universities were invited for interaction and signing of agreements of mutual cooperation. The Amity Delegation was led by Dr. Aseem Chauhan, Chancellor, Amity and Additional President, RBEF and the members in the Delegation included Ajit Chauhan. Vice-Chairman, Amity Distance and Online Education, Dr. Gurinder Singh- Amity Group Vice Chancellor, Dr. W. Selvamurthy- President, Amity Science Technology and Innovation Foundation, Dr. DK Bandyopadhyay- Chief Adviser, Amity Group, Wg Cdr SK Goel- Vice President, International Affairs, Amity and Akhil Bhardwaj- Assistant Director, International Affairs, Amity Group. Amity was one of the few selected Universities from India to participate in "Israel-India Academic Summit" and the representatives from Amity University had the privilege to interact with the heads of Israeli Academic Institutions. During the occasion, Amity University signed three wide ranging agreements with the following Universities in the presence of President of Israel and the Minister of HRD of India. The Israelis signed several other agreements with Indian Universities and Institutions, but the largest number of MOUs were signed with Amity University, which has heralded an education revolution in the country. The President of Israel, during the Summit, spoke very warmly about the commonalities with India and the great opportunities Israel and India have to work together. He expressed his desire to see more student mobility and more research between the two countries. While addressing the participants, Dr. Aseem Chauhan highlighted the necessity of private education in India and the leading pioneering role Amity has played in the higher education scenario in the country. After the inaugural, Dr. Aseem Chauhan and Ajit Chauhan led fruitful and informative discussions with the Israeli Educational Institutions. Discussions were initiated with President of IDC Herzliya for establishing a Centre for Research which will focus on Management and Cyber Security. Suggestions were mooted for developing proposals for Amity India Immersion Programs, Internship Programs, Student and Staff exchanges with focus on research since Israel has high quality of research and Science and Technology. Prof Aris Maharshak, President of Braude College expressed his keen interest in collaborating with Amity in the Engineering domain. During the Summit, it was proposed that a Research Conference will be organized in 2017 jointly by Amity and Israel. The Israel Government and the Embassy indicated their strong support in terms of funding and other areas. CLB is a leading academic institution of Israel which is known for its innovative, professional and global approach and its impeccable reputation not only in Israel, but across the globe. Prof. Cohen-Eliya, President, College of Law and Business (CLB) discussed with Dr. Gurinder Singh- Amity Group Vice Chancellor the possibilities of Staff and Student Mobility, Research and Publications, Short duration programs that will attract Israeli students to Amity in India and vice versa, Joint Internships and developing e-learning partnerships. Tel-Hai College is the leading public academic college in Israel and an engine of change for the educational, economic and social development of the Upper Galilee. Tel-Hai is known for its dynamic research collaborations in areas of Sciences, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Through partnership with the world-renown MIGAL Galilee Research Institute, groundbreaking work has been done in such varied fields as cancer prevention, solutions to water and soil pollution, and molecular medicine. Dr. Yoseph A. Mekori discussed with Dr. Selvamurthy - President, Amity Science Technology and Innovation Foundation the possibilities of joint research in the afore stated areas of specialization. A letter of intent was also signed between the two Institutions. (ANI) A Toronto-bound Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight had to make an emergency landing in Manchester in Britain to have its loos unblocked, it was reported on Tuesday. The plane was flying from Toronto to Lahore in Pakistan. PIA said the plane landed to have its drains unblocked since "it would not be possible to continue all the way to Pakistan without any functioning loos". --IANS ahm/mr ( 76 Words) 2016-11-22-14:42:13 (IANS) The positive effects of demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1,000 notes are unlikely to be of long term nature to support banks' credit profile, said Fitch Ratings. The rating agency, which reaffirmed its negative outlook on the Indian banking sector, said: "The move (demonetisation) has the potential to raise government revenue and encourage bank lending, but Fitch Ratings believes the positive effects are unlikely to be strong and sufficiently enduring to support credit profiles." "The impact on GDP (gross domestic product) growth will increase the longer the disruption continues, but we will already need to revise down our forecasts to reflect what will almost certainly be a weak 4Q16," it said. The cash crunch seems to be holding back economic activity with reports about disruption in supply chains. The move could boost government revenue to the extent that demonetisation helps to move economic activity from the informal to the formal sector, as more earnings would be declared, and it is possible that this positive effect would soon outweigh the drag on revenue collection from lower short-term GDP growth, Fitch said. Government finances may also benefit from a proportion of high-denomination notes not being traded. "This potentially significant amount would be subtracted from the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) liabilities, and the authorities would have the option to transfer this windfall to the government," Fitch said. According to Fitch, India's sovereign credit profile would benefit from an improvement in government finances, which currently stand out as a major weakness. Demonetisation is a one-off event, and people that operate in the informal sector will still be able to use the new high-denomination bills and other options (like gold) to store their wealth. On the impact on the banking sector, Fitch said some banks have already reported large increases in deposits since demonetisation began. "A surge in low-cost funding may remove a constraint on banks that prevented lending rates from keeping pace with the RBI's policy rate cuts in recent years," it said. Furthermore, the positive impact on funding conditions will depend on deposits remaining in banks beyond the next few months, said the agency, adding that there is nothing to prevent them being withdrawn again. --IANS vj/vd ( 379 Words) 2016-11-22-16:28:13 (IANS) In an emotional speech to parliament members from his ruling BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday vehemently defended the demonetisation move, saying it was done for the benefit of the people. Addressing the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting here, Modi urged the members to counter what he called was "misinformation" being spread by the opposition parties on the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. "We came to power for the poor, not for our own sake," the Prime Minister said in his speech, according to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar. "The poor, the lower middle class and middle class have been suffering since the last 70 years due to corruption and black money." "This decision is in favour of the people and against black money, corruption and counterfeit currency. Our target is fight a long battle against all these," said Modi, according to Ananth Kumar. According to sources, the Prime Minister said that demonetisation decision is just a "beginning of government's crusade against black money and corruption", and such type of actions will be continued. Sources also said that Prime Minister asked party leaders not to use the word "surgical strike" for demonetisation. "Don't call it a surgical strike. Only a soldier can do that," a source quoted Modi as saying at the meeting. Incidentally, BJP President Amit Shah, in his first reaction after demonetisation scheme was announced, had dubbed the move as surgical strike on black money and corruption. The BJP Parliamentary Party also passed a resolution backing the government's decision to spike the high value currencies. The resolution was moved by Home Minister Rajnath Singh. Ananth Kumar told the media: "The Parliamentary Party unanimously passed a resolution on the historical demonetisation decision of November 8." "The Parliamentary Party unanimously welcomes the historic announcement made by PM withdrawing the legal tender value of currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 and compliments the Prime Minister, the government and the Reserve Bank Of India," the resolution said. "The parliamentary party is supremely confidant that this bold initiative will achieve the intended objectives cutting off financial support to terrorists and extremists organisations, address the problem of counterfeit currency besides checkmating unaccounted money in the system and serving as a serious warning to those indulging in corruption," it added. It also acknowledged the initiative as a national project of cleansing the system and of great significance that will usher in behavioural and attitudinal changes encouraging honesty in personal and public life, particularly political life. "This will benefit the poor and the common man in several ways. Over the last 70 years, common man has resigned to grudgingly accept the foul ways of these in power and close to power, to exploit the system and make ill-gotten wealth," it said. The resolution condemned "malicious efforts" of some political parties which are "desperate to provoke violence and chaos" having been rattled by the widespread support of the people to the government's initiative and bent upon disrupting the proceedings of Parliament on one pretext of the other". The BJP Parliamentary Party also hailed the common man for patience despite facing hardships. "They are queuing for a better India," the resolution said. --IANS bns/vd/vt ( 544 Words) 2016-11-22-17:22:15 (IANS) He is accompanied by his aide Acharya Balkrishan and others. The manufacturing unit, which will produce various Patanjali Ayurved products, has been established by noted Nepali businessman Upendra Mahato at an estimated cost of NRs 1 billion. Upon reaching Nepal, Ramdev tweeted: "Reached Nepal, the pictorial land of Mata Sita and Gautam Buddha, for the yoga camp." He is also scheduled to conduct a five-day yoga camp in Birgunj. President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda', President of Nepali Congress Sher Bahadur Deuba, Ministers, leaders and members of the business community have been invited to the camp. Over 10,000 yoga trainers from Nepal and India have assembled in Birgunj -- a Nepali city sharing the international border with India -- and the border city has been gaily decorated for the occasion. Later in the day, Swami Ramdev interacted with local business leaders in Birgunj. Ramdev, who has created a business empire through various ayurveda products, has established a large number of outlets in Nepal that sell Patanjali products which are very popular in Nepal. Apart from these engagements, he is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda', several ministers and members of the Nepali business community during his stay here. He will also visit some districts of Nepal and explore business opportunities there, according to his aides. --IANS giri/nir/dg ( 267 Words) 2016-11-22-18:58:13 (IANS) "He's a visionary," shared the 26-year-old star. Lawrence had long been a fan of the 47-year-old director, sharing that she has wanted to work with him since she saw his film 'Black Swan', according to the Daily Mail. Aronofsky was also seen on the campus of Duke University on the US election day, offering students the chance to FaceTime with the 'American Hustle' actress, in exchange for heading to the polls. An insider also told Us magazine that Lawrence, who previously dated 'Coldplay' frontman Chris Martin and her 'X-Men' costar Nicholas Hoult, has already met the 'Noah' director's 10-year-old son, Henry, whom he shares with ex-fiance Rachel Weisz. (ANI) "And it's a Las Vegas wrap! 'Simran'," Mehta wrote on Tuesday. "Simran", which stars Kangana Ranaut and National Award winning actor Sohum Shah, is being shot in the US and is said to be based on a real life story. It will release next year. According to reports, Kangana will be seen as a 30-year-old divorcee in the movie. "Simran", which is slated to release in 2017, is co-produced by T-Series honcho Bhushan Kumar and Shailesh Singh. --IANS dc/nv/bg ( 107 Words) 2016-11-22-17:20:16 (IANS) Experiencing music at an early age can contribute to better brain development and may as well be useful in treating autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). According to a new study, presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), taking music lessons increases brain fiber connections in children and may be useful in treating autism and ADHD. "It's been known that musical instruction benefits children with these disorders, but this study has given us a better understanding of exactly how the brain changes and where these new fiber connections are occurring," said Pilar Dies-Suarez, M.D., chief radiologist at the Hospital Infantil de Mexico Federico Gomez in Mexico City. The researchers studied 23 healthy children between the ages of five and six years old. All of the children were right handed and had no history of sensory, perception or neurological disorders. None of the children had been trained in any artistic discipline in the past. The study participants underwent pre- and post-musical-training evaluation with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of the brain. DTI is an advanced MRI technique, which identifies microstructural changes in the brain's white matter. "Experiencing music at an early age can contribute to better brain development, optimizing the creation and establishment of neural networks, and stimulating the existing brain tracts," Dr. Dies-Suarez said. The brain's white matter is composed of millions of nerve fibers called axons that act like communication cables connecting various regions of the brain. Diffusion tensor imaging produces a measurement, called fractional anisotropy (FA), of the movement of extracellular water molecules along axons. In healthy white matter, the direction of extracellular water molecules is fairly uniform and measures high in fractional anisotropy. When water movement is more random, FA values decrease, suggesting abnormalities. Over the course of life, the maturation of brain tracts and connections between motor, auditory and other areas allow the development of numerous cognitive abilities, including musical skills. Previous studies have linked autism spectrum and ADHD with decreases in volume, fiber connections and FA in the minor and lower forceps, tracts located in the frontal cortex of the brain. This suggests that low connectivity in the frontal cortex, an area of the brain involved in complex cognitive processes, is a biomarker of these disorders. After the children in the study completed nine months of musical instruction using Boomwhackers -- percussion tubes cut to the exact length to create pitches in a diatonic scale, DTI results showed an increase in FA and axon fiber length in different areas of the brain, most notably in the minor forceps. "When a child receives musical instruction, their brains are asked to complete certain tasks," Dr. Dies-Suarez said. "These tasks involve hearing, motor, cognition, emotion and social skills, which seem to activate these different brain areas. These results may have occurred because of the need to create more connections between the two hemispheres of the brain." The researchers believe that the results of this study could aid in creating targeted strategies for intervention in treating disorders like autism and ADHD. (ANI) By I. Ramamohan Rao New Delhi, Nov.22 (ANI) The Kumaon Regiment observed the anniversary of the Battle of Rezangla during the week-end. My thoughts go back to the year 1963 when, I had the opportunity to cover the inauguration of a war memorial constructed in honor of the jawans of the Charlie Company of the 13th battalion of the Kumaon Regiment, which was led by Major Shaitan Singh, who held the Rezang La feature overlooking Chushul literally to the last man and the last round. While people knew of the reverses the country suffered in the Eastern Sector, not much was known about the brave resistance put up by the Indian Army in Ladakh. The jawans of the Kumaon Regiment held their ground at Rezang La and stopped the progress of the Chinese towards Chushul. The Chinese Army carried out a massive assault on November 18 at Rezang La, which is located at a height of 5,180 meters after an artillery barrage. The Kumaon Regiment only had mortars to respond. They decided to respond to the attack the Chinese Army with their rifles and with their war cry "Dada Kishan Ki Jai'. Only nine jawans of the Company of 118 survived. Major Shaitan Singh was awarded the Param Vir Chakra posthumously. Asked to cover the function, I flew to Leh from Jammu where I was posted and proceeded by road to Chushul. It took me two days to reach Chushul by jeep from Leh. I had to travel along the banks of the River Indus and turn westwards from Dungti towards Pangong Lake. After resting the night at Chushul, I reached the site of the memorial an hour earlier to cover the inaugural ceremony. Going around, I noticed the cover of a candy box with a picture of Lord Krishna on the barbed wire of the memorial. The Junior Commissioned Officer who was in charge of the location mentioned to me that all the soldiers of the company were Ahirs who worshipped Lord Krishna. He told me that when he went to collect the bodies of the jawans, each one of them had either a rifle or a mortar. The cover of the candy box was in the hand of one soldier. He said the jawan must have taken the candy cover from his haversack to offer prayers in his last moments. I took a picture of the candy cover with the memorial at the back with my Rolliflex camera. The memorial was inaugurated early in the morning by Major General Budh Singh, then GOC of the 3rd Division. Following the inauguration, I requested Major General Budh Singh whether I could accompany him in his helicopter to Leh, as I wanted to go to Delhi to release the picture. He agreed. In an hour we reached Leh. I boarded a C-130 cargo aircraft operated by the US Air Force between Delhi and Leh. By noon, I was at Delhi airport. Those days we had to get the photographs taken in forward areas cleared by the military intelligence directorate before releasing them. The military intelligence officer refused to clear the picture, even though I told him that the site of the memorial was visible to the Chinese through their binoculars from their location near Rezang La. I rushed to the Director of Public Relations, G.G. Mirchandani. He gave me the clearance to release it. Next morning, the photograph got a front page display in almost all Delhi newspapers and outside. I also got a call the next day from the Director of Military Intelligence. I was afraid that I , a young army captain, would be facing punishment. I was surprised when he complimented me and said that in future, if I had any problem, I could approach him. And the next time I visited Leh, Major General Budh Singh invited me into his office, offered me a cup of tea, a rare honour for an army captain. Incidentally, a suggestion to include the story of the battle has been made by Gaurav Sawant, whose father Brigadier Chittaranjan Sawant became a colleague and was in charge of the broadcasting section. The then Human Resources Develepment Minister promised to consider the request, but nothing seems to have happened. One hopes that the Government would take up the issue , which would be a honour to the Jawans who laid down their lives in the epic battle. Mr. I.Ramamohan Rao is a former Principal Information Officer of the Government of India. He can be reached on his e-mail: raoramamohan@hotmail.com. (ANI) Choudhary had contended that such jokes portray the Sikh community in negative light and wants such websites, which disseminate such 'insensitive' jokes, to be prosecuted under laws that carry a prison term of six months to five years. The petitioner argued that such jokes on many social network websites portray Sikhs as "unintelligent", "foolish" and "nave", making them an easy target of ridicule and racial abuse. Choudhary, herself belonging to a Sikh family, said that she too had been a target of ridicule and abuse because of such jokes. The Supreme Court has asked an expert panel headed by former apex court judge H.S. Bedi to submit draft guidelines so that appropriate orders can be passed to prevent circulation of sardar jokes on websites. In July, a bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud gave six weeks time for the panel to hold discussions and submit the guidelines. The bench passed the order after hearing the counsel for various parties including the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) which said that the community is being bullied by such jokes. (ANI) Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad on Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to stop addressing public meetings and be present in parliament to address the concerns of the opposition and the 130 crore Indian citizens. "The Prime Minister comes to Parliament, sits in his chamber, but doesn't attend either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha, which is a matter of concern not just for the opposition, but also for the 130 crore people of this country. After all, we want to know the reason why the prime minister does want to come to both houses, but feels free in giving speeches outside parliament," Azad told ANI. "We said the opposition is ready for a discussion, but a prime minister who is addressing public rallies on daily basis, should at least be present in the house," he added. Azad further said, "The prime minister should have cancelled his public meeting after he got news of the Kanpur train tragedy. He should have thought that such a big accident had taken place and rescue operations to save passengers' lives were still on. But, the Prime Minister commenced his meeting as he was more worried about abusing the opposition, rather than saving passengers." Shifting his focus on the Centre's demonetisation policy, he said, "Around 60 lives have been lost since the government brought into force the demonetisation policy. Children, women, elderly, farmers, and poor queue up for long time to get money. As all these lives were lost due to the wrong policy of the government, we demanded that the House should also pay tribute to them, along with the passengers who were killed in the rail mishap, but they refused." When his response was sought on the government's claim that its drive got mass support, Azad shot back: "If they are getting support of the people, then why he (PM) is shying away from making this statement in the House. Our complaint with the prime minister is that he visits abroad, addresses public meetings in Goa, Agra and other places; now Parliament is in session, but he is not attending." "The prime minister has taken such a big decision of demonetisation when parliament was not in session and that is why it becomes his prime responsibility that when parliament started functioning, he should have made statements in both houses on the very first day," he added. Meanwhile, leaders of opposition parties will meet in Parliament at 9.30 a m today. (ANI) Mawahib al Shaibani, who works as an Art of Living member to provide trauma relief and support to refugees and victims of war in Syria and Iraq, has said that though the menace of terrorism exists, these people should be given a chance to live in peace. Mawahib is currently spearheading a rescue operation for Yazidis trapped in Sinjar and is presently in India, along with 27 Iraqis from different faiths - Sunnis, Shias, Christians, Yazidis, to learn techniques that will give them peace and free them from trauma. They will then return as instructors to teach these peace-giving techniques in one of the most conflict-ridden and traumatized regions of the world. People who constantly live in a war torn country get affected psychologically and need to be provided relief and taught how to find peace through various exercises and activities. When asked about her experience of working in two different countries, both of which are war hit, she told ANI over phone, that in Iraq the suffering regions are accessible for aid and relief, but such is not the case with Syria. Many regions in Syria are completely inaccessible due to heavy shelling and the people there are stranded without any help, she said. She said everyone wants peace and the international community should help them address problems at the grass root level. She also agreed that terrorism needs to be rooted out. Sharing her experience on working in Syria, she said, "Thousands were trapped in the mountains with no food or water. 7000 Yazidi girls, aged between 9-35 years, were taken captive by the ISIS. We rescued and rehabilitated a 15-year-old girl victim of gang-rape along with many other women who are trapped and are being sold by ISIS for as little as USD 10." She is currently involved in a women empowerment project that trains Iraqi women in computers and other income generation activities. (ANI) Farmers in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, are finding it difficult to purchase seeds and fertilizers due to shortage of money, and are now so desperate post demonetisation, that they are even approaching moneylenders to make ends meet. Parmod Kumar Singh, the chairman of the State Cooperative Federation said there are ten public sector banks and around 658 agricultural official committees in Dehradun district from whom the farmers take loans. "We are connected with Kisaan family societies... with all such societies and we do our transactions with them only. The farmers deposit and withdraw their money from them. Restrictions have been imposed on transactions across the entire state government committees. Even the transactions of government banks have been restricted. Farmers could be liberated from the clutches of moneylenders. In other banks, some money can be withdrawn but in government banks they have completely restricted it. Does that mean that 80 percent farmers of the state are thieves? Do the farmers have all the black money? It seems like the Bharatiya Janata Party government is a government of businessmen," he said. "It is very unfortunate that the wheat sowing season is going on and for that there is no seed, no fertilizer and no money to withdraw or to give to the farmers, how is it going to work? Every person in the country is affected but the most affected ones are the farmers. They have an anti-farmer mentality. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should apologize and should improve the condition." " he added. "The farmers have suffered losses because of demonetisation. Our transactions are through cooperatives only. There is no private shop in our area. The distribution of seeds and fertilisers takes place through the cooperative stores. The old banks of farmers which were in cooperative banks have come to standstill and even the business class is of farmers," Ishwar Pal, the president of the sugarcane committee, told ANI. He further said that 7,000-8,000 farmers itself are in the sugarcane committee and their work has come to a standstill. "There are some fertilizers in the stores and once it is finished then we won't be able to bring fertilizers. The conditions are worse. The government said we will get 25,000 but when we visit the banks we can't get more 2,000-4,000." He added. Earlier, in a press conference the Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said that the farmers can withdraw up to Rs. 25,000 per week from their KYC compliant accounts. Besides, Kisan Credit Cards will be subject to same new limit.(ANI) "This is completely unbelievable. He does not want to make a comment in Parliament. He is becoming more and more like a dictator," Rao told ANI. He said the Prime Minister has no respect for parliamentary procedure, the Constitution, the judiciary or the media. Escalating his diatribe, Rao said if Prime Minister Modi could comment on demonetisation in Japan, Goa, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, what prevented him from doing so in parliament? "Unfortunately, he (Prime Minister Modi) doesn't seem to be interested in attending Parliament and talking to his fellow Members of Parliament that what was his reason, why he did this, the logic and try to convince the members," said Rao. (ANI) They said security forces and Special Operation Group (SOG) of Jammu and Kashmir police launched a joint operation following a tip-off about the presence of militants in village Gorikhan, Hajan, in Bandipora district early this morning. As the forces were moving towards a particular area in the village, militants hiding there opened fire, which was retaliated ensuing an encounter. Intermittent firing was on when the reports last came in, they said, adding that reports suggest that two to three militants are holed up there.UNI BAS CJ SB 0840 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0094-1033115.Xml Oil extended gains on Tuesday, bolstered by growing conviction that major oil producing countries would agree next week to limit output. OPEC members are due to agree on a world oil freeze pact at a meeting in Vienna. The jump in oil prices is an indication of improvement in the world economy, which has improved sentiment in the regional markets, said Manny Cruz, an analyst with Manila-based Asiasec Equities Inc. Singapore's FTSE Straits Times Index rose, led by consumer services and oil and gas. Offshore oil-rig builder Keppel Corporation gained 1.7 percent. Thailand stocks were up 0.5 percent, on track for a third straight session of gains, led by energy stocks. Oil major PTT Pcl rose 1.2 percent. Vietnam rose to the highest in more than a week, with utilities leading the gainers. Oil and gas refiner Petrovietnam Gas Joint Stock Corporation climbed 2.4 percent. In next week's OPEC meeting, we might see a happy ending for the year, at least in terms of the oil market, said Victor Felix, equity analyst at Manila-based AB Capital Securities. Philippine stocks however slid 1.5 percent, the lowest in a week, led by industrials. Ayala Corp fell3.3 percent."It has to do with the selling pressure from foreign investors. The market has already fully digested the Q3 corporate earnings and GDP data," Felix said. "So, investors right now are in more of a wait-and-see mood." The Philippine economy grew at its fastest pace in more than three years in July-September. Malaysia rose 0.2 percent, while Indonesia gained marginally. In Asia, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 1.3 percent. For Asian Companies click; SOUTHEAST ASIAN STOCK MARKETS STOCK MARKETS Change at 0428 GMT Market Current Prev close Pct Move Singapore 2830.97 2816.67 0.51 Bangkok 1485.96 1478.3 0.52 Manila 6879.01 6979.06 -1.43 Jakarta 5158.528 5148.319 0.20 Kuala Lumpur 1630.84 1627.28 0.22 Ho Chi Minh 677.73 674.29 0.51 Change on year Market Current End 2015 Pct Move Singapore 2830.97 2882.73 -1.80 Bangkok 1485.96 1288.02 15.37 Manila 6879.01 6952.08 -1.05 Jakarta 5158.528 4593.008 12.31 Kuala Lumpur 1630.84 1692.51 -3.64 Ho Chi Minh 677.73 579.03 17.05REUTERS CJ GC1047 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1033226.Xml Three people were killed and 13 others injured in a road accident near Marakkanam in Villippuram district of Tamilnadu.The incident took place here last night. According to police,Sakthi of Koonimedu was coming to Puducherry in his car around midnight last night when a van proceeding to Marakkanam carrying women employees of a private company collided head on with the car near Koonimedu market killing Sakthi on the spot. The injured women were rushed to the Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) here.Two women Kaliyammal and Shanthi died on way to hospital. UNI PAB SDR 0831 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1033110.Xml Police recovered two two-wheelers, arms and ammunition from the accused in Brijwasan area on Monday night, a police officer said. Police said Sonu Rana, a property dealer, and his wife were shot dead by the accused on November 14 when they visited their house. --IANS sp/ahm/mr ( 78 Words) 2016-11-22-13:26:15 (IANS) The much publicised big rally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on December 24, the eve of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's birthday, has been postponed to the first week of January, 2017. Though there was no specific reason given for the postpone of the rally, slated to be held at the Ramabai Ambedkar ground, but BJP leaders claimed that as they are anticipating announcement of election dates before the rally hence they have postponed it. Now the PM's rally would be held in the first week of January. The mega rally was planned to mark the culmination of four parivartan yatras that began in the first week of November. However, the BJP leader has denied a media report that they were forced to postponed the PM's rally as they are not sure to bring crowd in the meeting." As four parivartan yatras would culminate in the state capital, there would be enough leaders and people here hence why the party should be suspicious about the crowd," they claimed. Instead of the PM's rally, now the BJP could go for a roadshow in the state capital on December 24 ,mostly likely to be led by Union home minister and local MP Rajnath Singh along with other senior leaders and Union ministers. The yatra's route had earlier been changed to facilitate availability of Narendra Modi to address rallies in one district from each of the six regions of the BJP organisation. Before cancellation of PM's rally, the corner meetings at district headquarters scheduled in the parivartan yatras when they had begun too were called off at some places. The PM is slated to address four more Parivartan yatra public meetings in coming days in UP with November 27 in Kushinagar, December 3 at Moradabad, December 11 at Bahriach and December 18 at Kanpur. Mr Modi had already attended Parivartan Yatra meetings at Ghazipur on November 14 and at Agra on November 20.UNI MB SB 1336 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-1033405.Xml Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara todaysaid that cases filed against some innocent persons during the riotsin North Karnataka during Mahadayi agitation will be withdrawn afterdue process but said those who indulged in arson will not be spared. Answering a question from Kudachi MLA P Rajiv, during Questionhour in the Legislative Assembly, he said in all 82 cases have beenfiled against 842 agitators who indulged in violence and burnt 12government offices and a court building besides torching severalgovernment vehicles including those belonging to police department. However, some farmers who were facing charges had been foundinnocent and cases against them will be withdrawn after taking thematter at the Cabinet sub-committee meeting. Out of 82 cases 44 werefiled against farmers. The cases were relating to rioting, arson andtorching public properties, he said. Mr Rajiv said that police had filed cases under Section 496 and397 CrPC with serious charges of dacoity against farmers and it wasunfair on part of the government. The Minister said that the government will always stand by thefarmers and it had no intention to punish the innocent. The chargesheets have been filed in most of the cases and next process is forthe Cabinet to withdraw cases against some found innocent. Opposition leader Jagadish Shetter, expressing his disappointmentover the reply, slammed the government for unleashing policebrutality against innocent farmers. He asked the Home Minister toinitiate disciplinary action against policemen accused of highhandedness against innocent villagers. He also urged the Governmentto speed up the process to withdraw cases. Riots broke out after the Mahadayi Tribunal rejected the interimpetition filed by the Karnataka government seeking 7.5 tmc of waterallocation from Mahadayi river for supplying drinking water inparched districts. The inter-state river project involves Karnataka,Goa and Maharashtra. Goa had rejected Karnataka's request forsharing water that led to the state government seeking apex courtfor intervention.UNI RS MSP RSS1350 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-1033488.Xml Superintendent of Police N Shashikumar told newsmen here thatDevukumar (12), son of a government servant Rajshakher, was abductedin a auto on November 20 evening, when he was going to music classnear his house at Sai Mandir, in the outskirts of the city inAshokanagar police station limits. He said that the miscreants asking the boy to show the hospitalas they are feeling pain in the heart and took the boy in the autoand abducted him He said that the miscreants kept the boy in unknown place anddemanded ransom of Rs 20 lakh for his release. After collecting the details from mobile tower about thelocation the boy was rescued and arrested the culprits. Two sharp weapons, four mobile cell and Rs two lakh bannedcurrency were seized. Mr Shashikumar said the miscreants were city based native andthey were identified as Sridhar (19), Vinod (20), Vijaya (20) andTrimurti (20). Trimurti, an auto driver, was the kingpin. UNI SD MSP RSS1400 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-1033511.Xml Amid the ongoing stalemate in both Houses of Parliament over the issue of demonetisation, the BJP today said it was time for all political parties to deliberate on measures to eliminate the scourge of black money. A resolution to this effect was passed by the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting which was held here. The resolution was moved by Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh and was seconded by Minister for Information & Broadcasting M Venkaiah Naidu at a BJP Parliamentary Party meeting which was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the meeting, the BJP Parliamentary Party hailed the demonetisation move by the Prime Minister as a historic, revolutionary and pro-poor measure. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Naidu said the political parties have to choose whether they would stand by the people or protect the interests of black money hoarders. In the resolution, the BJPP had condemned the malicious efforts of some political parties who were desperate to provoke violence and chaos having been rattled, by the wide spread support of the people to the Government's initiative, and bent upon disrupting the proceedings of Parliament on one pretext or the other. ''At this crucial juncture, the political parties have to choose whether they would stand by the Government and the people or protect the interests of black money hoarders. It is time for all political parties to deliberate on measures to eliminate the scourge of black money. Then only national interests will be served," the resolution said. The BJP Parliamentary Party also congratulated the Prime Minister for his historic, daring and pro-poor decision in the interest of nation. It had urged the Prime Minister and the Government to call for other effective measures to clean up the entire system.More UNI NY-RBE SNU 1435 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0427-1033479.Xml Union minister and Punjab BJP president Vijay Sampla today thanked the party workers for attending the state- level booth workers' conference in Jalandhar in huge numbers and making it successful. Mr Sampla said he was proud of his party cadres. "Around 1.5 to 2 lakh workers had gathered for the conference and their enthusiasm, zeal and energy was great," said Mr Sampla. Boosting the morale of the workers, he said, " the energy and passion which was displayed in Jalandhar, has to be converted into victory in the upcoming polls. We have BJP governments at the Centre as well as the state hence development will continue unhindered. A victory in Punjab is important to strengthen the Modi-led NDA government". Exhorting the party cadres, Mr Sampla said they would ensure a thumping victory in the upcoming polls. "After witnessing the energy of our cadres in Jalandhar, I am confident that the Akali-BJP coalition government will be formed in the state for the third consecutive time and no one can stop us", he added.UNI XC SV 1402 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-1033475.Xml Expressing serious concern over the increasing number of illegalimmigrants from Bangladesh BJP member V Sunil Kumar (BJP) todaydisputed Home Minister G Parameshwara's claim that there were only748 nationals from Bangladesh in the state and of them 282 werestaying illegally. He said that every day 1000 Bangladesh nativeswere entering the State. Mr Parameshwara replying to a question said 58 natives of theneighbouring south asian nation have already been deported andremaining were facing police cases and some of them were in custody. Mr Sunil Kumar said several thousand Bangla immigrants areworking in Coffee estates of Kodagu and Chickmagalur. There areseveral such immigrants in Bengaluru too, creating law and orderproblem. Intervening former speaker K G Bopaiah from Virajpet said therewere at least one lakh Bangladeshis staying illegally in coffeedistrict of Kodagu alone. Another BJP member D N Jeevaraj fromSringeri said some of the Bangladeshi's had also got hold of BPLration cards and officials who issued them should be punished. However, Mr Parameshwara rejected the BJP members claim andsaid maintained that there were only 748 Bangladeshis across the state. He however agreed that illegal immigrants are a threat tointernal security, and hence a task force is set up to tackle withthe issue.UNI RS CNR ADB1510 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-1033621.Xml Karnataka has witnessed a sharp rise in itsborrowings to the tune of 24,768.84 crore during 2015-16 taking thetotal debt to Rs 1,75,623.06 crore, the statement of borrowings andother liabilities prepared by Comptroller General of India (CAG) has said. The Finance Accounts listing the borrowing and other liabilitiesby the CAG presented to the state assembly today said the off-budgetborrowing was to the tune of Rs 7698.60 crore during the previous fiscal. The report, brought out in two volumes said the ratio ofoutstanding public debt and other liabilities including the balanceof off-budget borrowings at the end of the year at the end of theyear, as a per cent to GSDP works out to 24.91 per cent, the report said. These were long term loans raised in the open market to financedevelopment schemes. In recent years, the borrowing profile of theState had shown an increasing trend towards more reliance on OpenMarket Borrowings. The outstanding Market Borrowings at the end ofthe year works out to 48.02 per cent of the Gross Public Debt.During the year, the Government had raised Market Loans amounting toRs 16,187.50 crore.UNI RS CNR ADB1555 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-1033705.Xml The Crime Branch police today filed a petition in the Saidapet Metropolitan Magistrate Court seeking ten days'custody of film producer and Vendhar Movies owner S Madhan, whowas arrested on charges of cheating more than 100 medical aspirants to the tune of RS 84.59 crores, yesterday. The petition was expected to come up for hearing this evening or tomorrow. Since Madhan's mother has filed a habeas corpus petition in the Madras High Court after he suddenly went missing since May 29after leaving behind a suicide note, the police were also expectedto submit a report to the High Court that he was traced. Madhan, was picked up from a house at Tiruppur yesterday, endingthe nearly six month long search. He was brought to the city last evening and produced before a Magistrate Court, which remanded him in judicial custody. Greater Chennai city Police Commissioner S George said a specialteams, consisting of nine Inspectors, two Additional Commissionersand one Additional Deputy Commissioner, and headed by Deputy Commissioner C Sudhakar, was formed to hunt Madhan. After searching in various places, the team got to know that Madhan had come to Tiruppur to visit a woman, who is said to be his 'friend' and arrested him.UNI GV 1625 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1033773.Xml In an attempt to reduce the burden onphysically challenged students, University of Mysore today decidedto give fee exemption to those pursuing PhD at the University. The decision was taken at the second ordinary academy councilmeeting of the UoM held here, Vice Chancellor Prof K S Rangappatold newsmen. The Council also agreed to introduce Massive Open Online Courses(MOOCs) through MHRD's Swayam platform in Geography and Sericulture. The Academic Council agreed to introduce five new gold medals, acash prize and an Endowment lecture in the name of Mysore UniversityComputer Science Alumni Association (MNICSAA), Prabhavathi ShankarSingh gold medal and Endowment, Tumpudi Raghavendra Bhagavath goldmedal and Endowment, Rattehalli Vasudevamurthy gold medal,Rattehalli Saraswathi gold medal, Late N Srikantha memorial cashaward and Prof D S Achuta Rao memorial national seminar in thehistory subject from this academic year. Prof Rangappa said that the University is all set to release themuch-awaited centenary celebration commemorative coins of Rs 5 andRs 100 on December 3. Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting and UrbanDevelopment M Venkaiah Naidu will release these commemorative coinsat Crawford Hall on that day. The executive kit containing Rs 5 andRs 100 denomination coins will be brought to the University in a fewdays time and this would be given to dignitaries at the event. Thosewho want to buy these coins can get them directly from thegovernment mints. "The design and logo minted on the coins are based on motto ofthe University and the Department of Finance has agreed to it,"Prof Rangappa said. The newly constructed UGC-Human Resource development centre atthe Manasagangotri campus will be inaugurated by Chairman ofUniversity Grant Commission (UGC), Prof Ved Prakash on December 1.On the same day, Prof Ved Prakash will be inaugurating the collegePrincipals' meet on quality enhancement in higher education: issuesand concerns, which will be held at Crawford Hall. A book titled'Language politics and policies in India during 20th century'authored by Prof Midatala Rani will be released on the occasion.UNI BSP MSP AK1702 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-1033864.Xml At a time when common people are struggling and standing in long queues across the country to get new currency notes after ban on high denomination notes, two Rs 2000 notes were recovered from two militants who were killed in an encounter with the security forces in north Kashmir district of Bandipora early this morning. The ban of high denomination notes, implemented by the Centre on November 8, was aimed at drying up militant funding and wiping out the fake currency notes in circulation, especially with the militant outfits operating from across the border. Official sources here said, ''security forces recovered around Rs 10,000 in cash, including two Rs 2000 and rest Rs 100 notes, besides weapons and other items from the slain militants.'' These militants were killed in an encounter at village Gorikhan, Hajan, in Bandipora early this morning. This is for the first time that new currency notes have been recovered from militants after the Centre announced demonetisation of high value notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 and introduction of Rs 2,000 note two weeks ago.UNI ABS AE SNU 1612 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0433-1033657.Xml "During the current financial year (up to October), 15 contracts with value of Rs 71,953 crore have been signed with foreign vendors including those from France, US, Russia, Israel, UK, and Germany for capital procurement of various defence equipment including aircraft, missiles and ammunition," Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply. During the last financial year, the ministry has signed 17 contracts with value of Rs 29,171 crore, he added. --IANS rs/vd ( 110 Words) 2016-11-22-19:02:26 (IANS) ''We have lost three of our soldiers in action on the Line of Control (LoC),'' Col Rajesh Kalia told UNI. He said body of one of the soldiers has been mutilated. He vowed ''heavy retribution for the cowardly act''. However, he did not say whether it was an encounter with infiltrators or ceasefire violation. On October 29, a Border Security Force (BSF) jawan Mandeep Singh was killed, when Pakistani troops violated ceasefire and targeted the Indian forward posts in Machil sector. The ceasefire violation came, following heightened tension between India and Pakistan after troops carried out surgical strikes across the LoC in September, when 19 soldiers were killed and as many injured in a fidayeen attack on Brigade headquarters at Uri. All the four fidayeen were also killed by the troops on September 18. An Army soldier and a militant were killed in an encounter at Machil sector on June 15, 2016, while a day earlier, five soldiers were injured, when troops foiled an infiltration bid in the same sector. UNI BAS RJ 1915 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-1033930.Xml The Reserve Bank of India today warned of stringent action against the bank officials, who were allegedly conniving with some miscreants and indulging in fraudulent practices of changing demonitised currency notes of denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1000, with the new currency notes of denomination Rs 500 and Rs 2000. Issuing a notification in this regard, the Bank directed all Public and Private Sector Banks, Foreign Banks, Regional Rural Banks and Urban and State Co-operative Banks to ensure that such fraudulent practices were stopped forthwith, through enhanced vigilance. RBI further said that the Banks should ensure strict compliance with the instructions issued with regard to the exchange of Specified Bank Notes (SBNs), as also deposit of such notes into the accounts of their customers. Towards the same, the bank branches are required to maintain proper record of the denomination-wise details of the SBNs and aggregate value of non-SBN notes deposited in the account of each deposit or loan customer from November 9 onwards.Besides, RBI also asked to maintain customer-wise and denomination-wise record in respect of SBNs exchanged by walk-in and regular customers, saying the Banks should be ready to provide the details at short notice. UNI MKS RJ 2030 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1034305.Xml Contradicting any move by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to go closer to BJP after supporting the demonetisation move, Janata Dal (United) General Secretary and Spokesperson K C Tyagi today said the statement of JD(U) President was wrongly interpreted and there was no bickering in the 'Mahagathbandan' in Bihar. "Nitish Kumar was demanding ban on the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currencies, since he assumed CM post in Bihar to prevent black money and corruption. As his demands were accepted by (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi, thus he supported the move and nothing should be read either on his statement or the act," he told the reporters here. "We were against the BJP in the past and will continue to remain the same in future. Our electoral battle in UP is only against the BJP and will try to stop them from coming to power. We are not against SP or BSP in UP," he clarified. Mr Tyagi further reiterated that they were interested in forging alliance with Samajwadi Party, but party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav ditched them, even after holding talks, while the Congress was yet to show its inclination towards this front. The Rajya Sabha member, who was present during the yesterday's announcement of JD(U), RLD and BSP forcing an alliance in UP to contest the coming Assembly elections, said that five smaller political outfits- Pragitisheel Manav Samaj Dal, Rashtriya Samanta Dal, Rashtriya Kranti Party, Janwadi Party (socialist) and Jaihind Party have joined the alliance, while Bharatiya Samajik Naya Morcha merged with JD(U). These smaller outfits, under the banner of Ati Pichara Chetna Manch, will organise the 'most backward rally' in Lucknow on December 17, which will be addressed by Bihar CM and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar, he added. "The alliance would concentrate on the issues relating to the most backwards in the state and go for empowering this section of the society by holding series of rallies in UP during December-January. These rallies would be addressed by leaders of JD(U), RLD and other smaller parties," he stated. He said in Bihar, the Nitish Kumar government had done enough for the most backwards, by giving them 20 per cent reservation among the backwards, besides making a separate department for their upliftment, increasing the scholarships of the students by three times and constructing hostels for MBC students in all districts. "The budgetary grants for the MBCs in Bihar was also hiked to Rs 1900 crore in 2016-17, from just Rs 42 crore given in 2008-09," he said. Rashtriya Samanta Dal president Moti Lal Kushawaha alleged that the present Samajwadi Party government in UP has given 400 per cent reservation facilities to a particular caste in the backward category, while the most backwards have been ignored totally.UNI MB RJ 2020 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-1033759.Xml Frequent adjournments over the demonetisation issue with the opposition adamant on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence stalled business in both house of parliament for the fourth successive day on Tuesday. The opposition, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party, Nationalist Congress Party and the Left, continued to create ruckus in both Houses, which riled Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairmain P.J. Kurien, who expressed their annoyance quite explicitly. While, in the Lok Sabha, Mahajan said that "it pains when elected representatives behave like this", in the Rajya Sabha, Kurien was annoyed enough to say that "this kind of behaviour (by members) is to be condemned". "I am sorry, I am not able to run the House in order... I am helpless," said Kurien. The Lok Sabha witnessed uproarious scene as a united opposition reiterated its demand to discuss the demonetisation issue under a rule which entails voting. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge reiterated the demand to suspend Question Hour and start the discussion but Mahajan did not permit it. When the House met at noon after an adjourment, opposition members, including from the Congress, Trinamool, and the Samajwadi Party, trooped towards the Speaker's podium shouting slogans. Parliamentary Affairs Minister H.N. Ananth Kumar said the people of the country favoured the November 8 demonetisation decision. "We have won the Shahdol and Lakhimpur Lok Sabha constituency seats. What is the signal? People's voice is clear. They are against black money and corruption," he said. As the opposition parties didn't relent and continued their protests demanding Modi's presence, the Speaker adjourned the House for the day. In the Rajya Sabha, as soon as the House met for the day, Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Sharad Yadav demanded compensation for the families of those who have died post-demonetisation as a result of shock or exhaustion while standing in long queues in front of banks or ATMs. "The government should give Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of the people who have died since demonetisation," he said. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati supported his stand and also demanded Modi's presence in the House. Minister of State (MoS) for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi urged the chair to start a discussion on the demonetisation issue and accused the opposition of avoiding a discussion. At this, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad retorted: "We are ready for discussion, but the Prime Minister should come to the House." Meanwhile, the opposition members streamed towards the Chairman's podium and started shouting slogans. The Chair adjourned the House for half an hour. As soon as the House met again at 11.30 a.m., the opposition members again started loudly demanding Modi's presence. "Pradhan Mantri sadan me aao (Prime Minister come to the House)," they shouted. Naqvi again asked the Chair to initiate discussion on demonetisation. "When the discussion (on demonetisation) started, there was no logic or facts in their (opposition's) arguments. They struggled for arguments all through. The discussion should not be in bits and pieces. Please allow a discussion," he said. But Azad said: "If he (Modi) can give speeches all across the country, what stops him from coming to this House." The House was then adjourned amidst pandemonium till noon, then till 12.30 p.m., again till 2 p.m. and finally for the day. --IANS mak/vd/dg ( 568 Words) 2016-11-22-21:12:13 (IANS) Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and National Conference Working President Omar Abdullah today said that youth did not die for Rs 500 or Rs 1000 notes. Making a pointed reference to Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's claim that demonetisation had a positive impact on the Kashmir situation, Mr Abdullah said the youth did not die for Rs 500 or Rs 1000 notes. ''Instead of continuing to invest in delusions and deflections, there is need to understand real issues so that a solution can be worked out'', Mr Abdullah said, while addressing a public rally in Doda district. He further said that Kashmir was a political issue and needed a political solution for heralding lasting peace in the state. ''For arriving at a solution, New Delhi must open channels of dialogue with all the stakeholders'', the Working President referred to the alarming Kashmir situation of the past over four months and said, ''the issues involved are beyond economics or law and law and order and therefore, New Delhi must take political initiatives for resolving these''. He expressed profound grief and sorrow over the deaths of young men and women in the unrest and said the contradictions and opportunism of the PDP-BJP alliance was at the root of turmoil in the Valley. He said the National Conference made a sincere and honest bid to put an end to peoples' miseries and to defuse the situation by meeting the President, the Prime Minister and the Opposition leaders in New Delhi. ''We did not politicise the situation like the PDP did by creating obstacles in smooth functioning of the government from 1999 to 2002 and between 2008 and 2014'', he said, while referring to the stark contrast between Mehbooba Mufti of the Opposition and Mehbooba Mufti as leader of the PDP-BJP alliance. ''Where has that posturing gone'', he asked, saying that Ms Mufti would not miss an opportunity while in the opposition to exploit the pain and grief of the people. Now, he said, the Chief Minister is blaming one and allthe youth, the institutions, the socio-religious organisationsexcept for herself for the mess the state is in. While giving an overview of the current political situation across the State, Mr Abdullah cautioned people against the divisive politics being penetrated into the socio-political fabric of the pluralistic state and appealed for isolating such elements by maintaining time tested unity, amity and tranquillity.UNI VBH RJ 2136 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-1034503.Xml The Odisha Apparel Policy 2016 approved by the state cabinet today will attract the Odia workers working in the apparel sector in Delhi, Bangalore,Coimbatore and create employment opportunities. Briefing newspersons after the cabinet meeting Chief Secretary A P Padhi said the new policy has the provision to provide an incentive of Rs 1,000 per worker per month on actual employment by the unit on financial year basis if the unit has minimum 200 workers at any given time in a year after commencement of commercial production. The facility, he said will be avaialble to a unit for a period of 36 months where 90 per cent of the workers including unskilled, semi skilled, skilled must be domicile of Odisha. The policy provides capital grant of 20 per cent of project cost of the park excluding cost of land, limited to maximum Rs 20 crore towards development of common infrastructure if owned by SPV. The policy also provides interest free loan up to 10 per cent subject to maximum limit of Rs 10 crore of project cost excluding cost of land . After a moratorium period of two years from date of disbursement of loan, SPV shall repay within five years minimum 20 per cent loan per year with an option to prepay the loan, Mr.Padhi said.UNI BD DP SJC -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-1034493.Xml After assuming the office of the US Consul General in Hyderabad on October 18, Ms. Katherine Hadda paid a courtesy visit on Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N.Chandrababu Naidu today in Vijayawada. Ms.Hadda's visit aims to upgrade the people to people contact between the US and Andhra Pradesh as a part of broadening the Indo-US ties. The Consul General, who is visiting Andhra Pradesh for the first time, said that in her 28 years of service as a member of the Senior Foreign Service, she had heard about the Chief Minister's ambition and meticulous planning and that everyone who works under him admiringly speaks about his vision. The Chief Minister briefed her about the rich, glorious cultural heritage of Andhra Pradesh. Ms.Hadda said that she was happy to note that two American companies are collaborating with Andhra Pradesh in two prestigious projects. It may be recalled here that the US Trade and Development Agency, signed a MoU for developing Visakhapatnam as a smart city and CRDA had appointed Ch2M Hill as project management consultant. Ms. Hadda remarked that she was delighted to see Andhra Pradesh ranked as No. 1 in Ease of Doing Business. "Your clarity and quick decision making helped the state to achieve this", she added. The Chief Minister gave a brief overview of the advantages in the State. He said that the State has the second longest coastline in India along with major deep water ports beside rich natural resources in its hinterland. UNI DP ADG 2124 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1034283.Xml Jammu and Kashmir Congress today demanded free ration and cash assistance to border migrants in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district, in view of continuous cross border firing and shelling.Former MLC and Senior Congress Leader Ravinder Sharma conducted tour of Nowshera area to meet the border migrants and victims of PAK firing and listened to the problems and demands. Mr Sharma targeted Pakistan for resorting to heavy firing on civilian population causing loss of lives and properties of the civilian population. He met the firing victim, Shanti Devi undergoing treatment at SD Hospital Nowshera and enquired her condition and asked the doctors to provide her best medicare.Later Mr Sharma visited the migrant camp and listened to their problems, which included shortage of ration and adequate bedding etc in the winter conditions and they have no source of earning in camps also.The migrants demanded that the Govt. should provide free ration @35 kg per family in the camps besides cash assistance to each family as was being given to them after migration during Kargil conflict. They also demanded colony for in safe zone for the border residents.Mr Sharma took up their day today problems with the local administration and assured them that their demands would be taken up at higher level regarding other facilities of ration, K.oil, cash assistance on the pattern of migrants during Kargil conflict. UNI VBH JW ADG 2102 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1034325.Xml The Central Government' move of demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes has posed problems for the public, particularly for the daily wagers and now hundreds of labourers working in Dubai and Jeddah are not being paid wages and have also been illegally detained overseas by their employers. These workers have sent tweet about their condition to Director General of Police Javeed Ahmed, who today wrote a letter to the Uttar Pradesh government, seeking their immediate intervention to get the victims released. ``We are receiving messages on our twitter handle @uppolice for the last few days through which the residents of Uttar Pradesh working in Jeddah and Dubai were informing us that they were not getting their salaries and that the employers had also illegally detained them", disclosed director general of police Javeed Ahmed here. An official release of the DGP office confirmed that these victims provided their details along with their mobile numbers seeking help to get them released and rescued from the Gulf countries.The release said that responding positively to the SOS sent to his twitter handle, Ahmed had written a letter to the state government and to principle secretary home, Dewasheesh Panda, requesting them to immediately get in touch with the officials concerned in Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) as well with Indian High Commission office in Dubai and Jeddah to extend necessary help to the stranded workers. The release said that DGP also twitted the above problem in MEA twitter handle @MEAindia and also to the twitter handle of minister of state for foreign affairs @Gen_VKsingh asking for immediate help in the matter. UNI MB RJ 2152 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1034394.Xml Punjab Deputy Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal President Sukhbir Singh Badal today said the people of Punjab would not forget the Congress for the sins it had committed in 1984 by attacking the holiest Sri Darbar Sahib with tanks and then indulging in massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other states. "The Congress is anti-Sikh and anti-Punjab party, not in any way concerned with development of the state, rather has only one objective of looting Punjab and its resources," he said while addressing the gathering on the occasion of laying the foundation stone of the development projects costing Rs 25 crore here today. Attacking Congress party, Mr Badal said Congress never did justice to Punjab on any issue especially concerning SYL canal and other important issues of Punjab. He also said that PPCC president Capt Amarinder Singh never cared to venture out of his royal palace to know the condition of the people of Sanaur region then how can he be expected to devote time to the entire state? He further said Capt Amarinder Singh owes an explanation to the people of Punjab regarding his foreign bank accounts if he has any concern left in him for the sake of probity. Taking on AAP, Mr Badal said this party also stands exposed before the people of the state with its changing stands on SYL issue and its Convener Kejriwal is still tight-lipped on the sharing of river waters of Punjab. He said AAP went back on its word of not forming any alliance by teaming up with the Bains brothers who have many cases going on against them. He said AAP is a bunch of worthless fellows who do not have any regard for the religious sentiments of any community and its leader Arvind Kejriwal cannot tell a difference between the two crops then how come he harbours dream to rule Punjab which is predominantly an agrarian state. Describing SAD-BJP as the farmer friendly government, Mr Badal said keeping in view the interests of farming community of the state in mind, the Punjab government has de-notified the SYL land andreturned it to the farmers. He reiterated that not even a single drop of Punjab's river waters would be allowed to go outside the state.UNI DB RJ BL2311 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-1034261.Xml The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are busy these days poaching on disgruntled politicians of Punjab hoping to gain some credence to sail them through in the impending assembly elections. Stating this, in a statement here today, party spokesman and MP Prem Singh Chandumajra said that the Congress had opened its back door channels for months to get the Bains brothers of Ludhiana in its fold and spared no efforts to accomplish it. Strangely, he said that on having lost in poaching game, upset Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh hit at alliance of AAP and Insaf Party of Bains brothers though he himself cherished analliance with the duo. On getting a snub from Bains brothers, Amarinder dubbed their Insaf Party 'non-descript'. It is another matter that till then he had been angling for Bains brothers and would have flaunted them as a 'big catch' to bolster the party's electoral prospects had Amarinder been successful in his venture, he added. The Akali MP said that while AAP is bragging of its catch from other political outfits, the Congress is boasting of inducting rejected and outdated politicians from its rivals. Chandumajra said that the Congress is making a desperate attempt to hook on remainder of Awaze-e-Punjab comprising Sidhu couple and Olympian Pargat Singh. Not only the party's master advisor Prashant Kishore but even party's vice president Rahul Gandhi too is making all efforts for Sidhu couple's induction to the party hoping that these straws would help them cross the ensuing turbulent polls, he added. Evidently, both the AAP and Congress hope to thrive on those self seekers who have deserted their parties on denial of tickets or are otherwise completely frustrated and dysfunctional, Chandumajra asserted.UNI DB RJ -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-1034328.Xml Terming the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha bypolls in Shahdol (ST) and Nepanagar as examinations for the BJP, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan today said the party passed in both the seats comfortably. "Earlier, we have won Maihar and Ghodadongri by-elections and these two by-polls were also test for us which we have passed," Mr Chouhan said at the party headquarters here after the results declared. Dedicating the victory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the people of the state, the Chief Minister said that the people had endorsed our development works. Addressing the workers, Mr Chouhan asked to become polite and stressed on the need for more hard work as the continuous winning had increased our responsibility. Slamming the Congress for leveling allegations on the BJP over various issues, Mr Chouhan said the party took the victory in both the seats as granted but the electorate thought otherwise. The BJP refrained from celebrating the victory to pay respect to the former Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav, who died in Lucknow early today. Several ministers of the Chouhan Cabinet and senior BJP leaders were also present on the occasion. BJP candidate Gyan Singh defeated his nearest rival of Congress' Himadri Singh by a margin of over 60,000 votes to retain the Shahdol seat while Ms Manju Dadu (BJP) humbled Mr Antar Singh by over 42,000 vote in Nepanagar assembly by-poll. The BJP also retained the seat.UNI SN-BDG RJ BL2347 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0044-1034158.Xml Sitting Congress MLC Amar Rajurkar won the election to the Nanded segment of the state Legislative Council, held on November 18 and counting of votes was done today, by defeating the only rival Shamsundar Shinde. Of total 472 voters, Mr Rajurkar secured 251 whereas his only rival Mr Shinde, the former government officer, got 208 votes. While, 12 votes proved invalid. One voter did not exercise his right to franchise. Mr Rajurkar is an ardent follower of MPCC chief and MP Ashok Chavan, while Mr Shinde is a close realtive of MLA Pratap Patil-Chikhalikar, who lost the election despite support of Shiv Sena, the BJP and the NCP. UNI XR SS RJ BL2337 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0171-1034022.Xml Haryana Technical Education department has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC), under Union Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, to set up a technology centre at Neemka in Faridabad district. The MoU was signed by NSIC Chairman-cum-Managing Director Ravindra Nath and Haryana Technical Education Department Principal Secretary Anil Malik in the presence of MSME Secretary K K Jalan and Haryana Chief Secretary D S Dhesi here today. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Jalan appreciated the initiative of Union Minister of MSME Kalraj Mishra and Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar to set up this centre. He said that a lot of homework had already been done before signing of the MoU. Therefore, the Centre at Neemka would be able to commence its operation by April, 2017. He said that 18 such centres are functional in the country and 15 new centres are under construction. Training was being provided to about 2000 to 5000 persons in these centres and 98 per cent of the trainees get employment, he added. Describing the day as significant for MSME sector of Haryana, Mr Dhesi said that today approval has also been given for setting up of Project Management Unit (PMU) in Directorate of Industries for promotion of industries in the State. He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been setting targets under Make in India and Skill India programmes. The MSME is the best sector for realising his vision. He said that NSIC has made a name for itself beyond boundaries of the country and its Centre at Neemka would be the best centre. He said that the construction work of Technology Centre at Rohtak was under progress and it would soon be completed. Mr Ravindra Nath said that Mr Jalan has made concerted efforts for the setting up of this centre and it would be one of the best centres in the country. He said that quality training would be imparted at the centre to ensure that the trainees get absorbed by the industry. He said that now Andhra Pradesh government has approached NSIC for setting up such centres in their state.UNI DB RJ ADG 2323 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-1033841.Xml With over 63.09 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of paddy arrival in the mandis of Haryana sofar during the current Kharif season, the State has exceeded its last year's record of total arrival of over 61.91 lakh MT of paddy. Stating this here today, a spokesman of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department said that out of the total arrival, over 53.21 lakh MT of paddy has been procured by the government agencies which is also on higher side as compared to the procurement of 42.69 lakh MT during corresponding period last year. The millers and dealers have purchased over 9.88 lakh metric tonnes. Giving details of the purchase made by government agencies, he said that over 22.57 lakh MT of paddy has been purchased by Food Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs department and over 18.34 lakh MT by the HAFED. Haryana Agro Industries Corporation has purchased over 6.30 lakh MT of paddy, Haryana Warehousing Corporation over 5.67 lakh MT and Food Corporation of India has procured 31,770 MT of paddy. He said that more than 12.41 lakh MT of paddy has arrived in mandis of Karnal, more than 11.31 lakh MT in Kurukshetra, over 7.27 lakh MT in Ambala, more than 7.37 lakh MT in Kaithal, over 6.91 lakh MT in Fatehabad, more than 5.30 lakh MT in Yamunanagar, 3.03 lakh MT in Jind, 1.95 lakh MT in Sirsa, over 1.40 lakh MT in Palwal, more than 1.71 lakh MT in Sonipat, more than 1.21 lakh MT in Panchkula, 83,130 MT in Hisar, 28,208 MT in Faridabad, 5,312 MT in Mewat, 2,085 MT in Rohtak, 2,730 MT in Jhajjar and 993 MT in Gurugram.UNI XC RJ 2325 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-1033848.Xml With the addition of two more militant outfits in the ban list in Pakistan, the total number has reached 63. The federal government has proscribed the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi Al-Alami after both claimed responsibility for recent attacks on sectarian grounds in different parts of the country. The updated list on National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) website now shows a total of 63 outfits that have been proscribed by the federal government. The final decision was taken after feedback from different security, intelligence, investigation and law enforcement agencies and the same was forwarded by the Sindh police and its Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) mainly after the October 29 killing of five persons, including three brothers, outside a Nazimabad house where a Muharram majlis for women was in progress. Jamaatul Ahrar (JuA), a breakaway faction of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTO) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Almi (LeJA), a franchise of the sectarian terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have claimed responsibility for 10 major terrorist attacks, including the August 8 deadly suicide bombing at Quetta's Civil Hospital. Two other organisations, Ghulaman-e-Sahaba (GeS) and Maymar Trust (MT), have been under observation (11th Schedule) for six months. The GeS was put on the 'observation list' on June 30, 2016, while the MT was listed two months later on August 31, 2016 by the interior ministry. Similarly, Jamaatud Dawa has been on the same list since Jan 17, 2007, though no timeframe has been given by the ministry for the observation of the charity which, India alleges, is a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group. (ANI) Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that the Afghan government should develop a security plan to better protect minority Shia during high-profile public events. At least 32 worshippers, including children were killed and 50 others injured by a suicide bomber at a Shia mosque in Kabul during observance of the religious ceremony of Arbaein. Since July, a wave of sectarian suicide attacks has injured or killed more than 500 members of the Shia community. Insurgents who affiliate themselves with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for this attack, their fourth on gatherings by Afghanistan's Shia community since July 2016. The group also said they carried out two attacks during the Shia ceremony of Ashura on October 11, in Kabul, and on October 12, in the northern province of Balkh, that altogether killed at least 32 people. The group also claimed a July 23 attack against a demonstration by mainly Hazara Shia in Kabul, killing at least 85 and injuring 413, the deadliest attack in Afghanistan on civilians since 2002. "ISIS has stepped up its horrific and unlawful attacks on Shia public gatherings, making no place safe," said Patricia Gossman, senior Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The government, Shia leaders and civil society groups should work together to develop appropriate ways to improve security during vulnerable public and religious gatherings so that Shia community members can exercise their basic rights," he said. The security environment is worsening for all Afghans in the face of an intensifying insurgency, claiming high levels of civilian casualties as fighting increasingly happens in densely populated areas, Human Rights Watch said. However, the wave of targeted attacks on Shia Hazaras is largely attributable to the emergence of insurgent groups affiliated with ISIS, underscoring the increasing vulnerability of the Shia community beyond active battlefields and in urban areas under government control. The plight of Hazara Shia in neighboring Pakistan highlights the dangers of unhindered escalation of sectarian violence, Human Rights Watch said. Pakistan's besieged Hazara communities have faced targeted mass attacks by the extremist anti-Shia militant group Lashkar-e Jhangvi for more than a decade. Lashkar-e Jhangvi has already conducted attacks on large religious ceremonies in Afghanistan in 2011, when an attack on an Ashura gathering killed more than 60 people. Since then, other groups have adopted similar tactics in Afghanistan, including seeking out Hazara bus passengers and executing them, and attacking Shia places of worship. "Insurgents who are responsible for atrocities targeting a specific ethnic or religious community as part of an attack on a civilian population are committing crimes against humanity," Gossman said. (ANI) TransAsia Airways is set to hold a news conference shortly, Taiwan's stock exchange said, one day after the struggling carrier applied to suspend flights on Tuesday without warning.The stock exchange said on Monday it had halted trading in shares of TransAsia, which has a poor safety record, pending an announcement from the company.REUTERS CJ GC1046 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1033225.Xml A 31-year-old man was arrested in the fatal ambush shooting of a San Antonio police officer, one of four officers shot in the line of duty in Texas, Missouri and Florida.The attacks on Sunday, which injured three other officers and led to the shooting death of a suspect, revived memories of deadly ambushes targeting police in July in Dallas and Baton Rouge.Otis McKane was arrested without incident in a car with woman and a 2-year-old, San Antonio police said, adding they did not know the motive for the killing of 50-year-old Benjamin Marconi, a 20-year veteran of the San Antonio force.He was fatally shot as he sat in his squad car during a routine traffic stop outside the city's police headquarters."Everyone is relieved," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus told a news conference, adding the suspect has a criminal history."The fact that he has been taken into custody, that does not negate the fact that there are people out there who are still targeting police officers," he added.The assailant stopped his car behind the police cruiser, walked up and shot the officer in the head through the window as he was writing a ticket, McManus told a news conference earlier yesterday.The gunman then reached through the window, fired a second shot into the officer, returned to his vehicle and sped away.A total of 57 US law enforcement officers have been killed by gunfire so far this year, a 68 per cent increase from the same period in 2015.Also on Sunday, a 46-year-old St. Louis police sergeant was shot in the face by a person in a car who pulled up beside the officer's cruiser at an intersection. St Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said the wounded officer was conscious and able to speak after the attack.The suspect was later killed in a shootout after officers spotted his car, police said yesterday.Meanwhile, a third police officer was shot on Sunday during a traffic stop on Sanibel Island on Florida's Gulf Coast but was not seriously hurt, local media reported.The officer was treated for a shoulder wound, according to the reports, while the suspect was apprehended at his home on an island off Fort Myers.In a fourth incident, a police officer in Kansas City, Missouri, was shot and, wounded during a struggle with an armed suspect who tried to flee after a traffic stop, police said.The suspect was killed and a Kansas City police spokeswoman said investigators were determining whether the officer was shot accidentally by one his colleagues.The Texas case is a capital murder, which can result in the death penalty, prosecutors said.About four hours before the shooting in San Antonio, surveillance video showed the suspect had briefly entered police headquarters and asked a question of a desk clerk before leaving.McManus said it was not immediately known why the suspect entered the building, and he declined to say what the clerk was asked."This is everyone's worst nightmare," McManus said. Referring to the recent ambush killings of police officers in Texas and Louisiana, he said, "Unfortunately, like Dallas, like Baton Rouge, it's happened here now."The latest shootings come amid an intense national debate over the role of law enforcement and especially the use of force by officers against minorities.REUTERS SDR 0759 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1033101.Xml When international creditors released Portugal from onerous loan conditions two years ago, they hailed the nation for some major reform achievements - not least, an overhaul of the judiciary.The International Monetary Fund applauded Lisbon for reforming a dysfunctional court system which had been a brake on the economy. And with the European Union, it approved Portugal's exit from a 78 billion euro ($83 billion) bailout programme which had begun in 2011.But judges and entrepreneurs say the system was never really fixed and a deeper analysis of case-load data shows it has improved less than the official statistics suggest. It remains a bottleneck in an economy still staggering under bad debts.Almost 900,000 disputes over bad loans, unpaid bills and mortgages are pending in the courts, restricting new bank lending to companies and families and weighing on investment.These so-called "enforcement of payments" cases, which experts say are likely to be worth tens of billions of euros, are down by a quarter from their 2012 peak.However, judges attribute this reduction in large part to a 2013 decree that swept the oldest, most hopeless cases from the system. Cases where creditors have a better chance of recovering a borrower's assets still inch their way through the courts.The decree eliminated three quarters of all cases processed in 2013, justice ministry data shows. No data exists for later years, but one judge says the space this created to work on more promising claims was largely filled by new, hopeless cases.As they cleared futile claims, where creditors have almost no chance of recovering debts, more such cases arrived, largely from banks that would rather park them in the judiciary than take hard decisions to write them off, experts and judges say."Most of the cases end with zero debt recovery ... In that aspect the reform was inefficient and dysfunctional," said Joao Raposo, a judge in the district court of Sintra, near Lisbon, who is also deputy head of the Portuguese Judges Association."The statistics look good, but it's a bit of an illusion that the bailout lenders were happy to accept," said Raposo.The IMF, which had lauded Portugal for "one of the most successful reforms" ever undertaken in the judiciary, denied it had exaggerated those achievements in order to show to anti-austerity campaigners that the bail-out programme was a success.In an email to Reuters, it cited a drop in pending enforcement cases, faster processing times and a boost in loan recoveries from a new electronic system for seizing cash from overdue debtors' bank accounts. This new system, though, has not made a major dent in total debts stuck in courts, judges say.Portugal's backlog of pending non-criminal cases - mostly debt-related - remains by far the largest in the European Union when adjusted for population, EU data shows.Though it fell to some 11,000 cases per 100,000 people in 2015 from a 2012 peak of over 14,400, the backlog is still almost double that of runner-up Italy with 7,500. Neighbouring Spain has fewer than 2,000 cases per 100,000 people.'WE'VE GOT NOTHING'Portugal's main business lobby says courts still offer little hope for creditors seeking to recover debts."The judicial reform for the economy has failed," said Antonio Saraiva, head of the Portuguese Business Confederation, calling the courts slow, costly and unpredictable."Court delays cause unbearable constraints on companies cash flow, generate a sense of impunity and make up one of the main obstacles to investment in the country."Virgilio Valadas, director of building firm Construcoes Monsaraz, is suing several of his customers for unpaid bills totalling 2 million euros ($2.1 million), equal to nearly half its annual turnover. One case has been pending for six years.He said courts appeared faster to set hearing dates, "but in terms of recovering debts, we've got nothing so far"."Where it hurts the most is when it comes to investment decisions," said Valadas, 43, whose firm employs 70 people and builds housing and hotels in the Alentejo region and in Lisbon.He said he planned to use any funds recovered through the courts to take advantage of a pick-up in property prices and revive several frozen real-estate projects.Unlike many construction firms, Valadas's Construcoes Monsaraz survived the recession and financial crisis that had triggered the EU-IMF bailout in 2011 and gave rise to many of the bad debts that he is still seeking to recover."The reform's nature was cosmetic to show to the troika (of EU-IMF lenders) that Portugal was taking action," said Professor Joao Paulo Dias, a judicial expert at Coimbra University.BANKS STACKING THE COURTS?The IMF, judges and experts agree on one thing, however: that banks need to take a much more aggressive approach to the problem of bad debts rather than use the courts as a way of parking them and avoiding the need to write them off."It will take years to change the mindset of creditors, banks mainly, who prefer to flood the justice system with often hopeless claims rather than acknowledge bad loans and write them down or off," said Raposo, of the judges association.Portuguese banks must provision for bad loans but do not need to write them off if they are pursuing repayment in courts.Non-performing loans are still rising two years after the nation exited its bailout programme: they totalled 17.8 billion euros in September, double their 2010 levels, Bank of Portugal data show. Bad loans represent a fifth of all loans outstanding, more than three times the EU average, the European Banking Authority data show.This is restricting bank lending. Even as euro zone lending grows, Portugal's banks wrote about 3 percent fewer loans in September than a year ago.Portugal's banking association denies banks contribute to the problem and says it is working with the government on plans to remove legal and judicial bottlenecks. Instead, it blames slow justice for bad loans remaining on their balance sheets for four to six years, the EU average of two years.Raposo's court in Sintra near Lisbon has 60,000 cases pending, worth an estimated 2 billion euros in enforcement claims. It has been at this level for a few years, says Raposo who alone has a personal case-load of 20,000 enforcement cases.The 2013 decree eased his court's backlog, but he said it remained overwhelmed. Despite being assigned back-up judges, he added, his court needed double its three permanent judges.There is no data on the overall value of the roughly 900,000 enforcement cases still choking up Portuguese courts. But if Raposo's district court were a representative sample, they could amount to more than 30 billion euros, or 17 percent of GDP.The government has said it is working on a solution to rid banks of bad loans, but details are still scarce.The court system has been streamlined under bailout reforms: more than 200 district courts have been closed, with their cases transferred to larger courts, and enforcement cases are now handled by one judge rather than a panel of three previously.The courts have installed a single computer network and appeal fees have been raised to discourage excessive litigation.However, these efficiencies were accompanied by a cut in the judicial budget, which is down 14 percent since 2011. Judges complain of a lack of qualified assistants and equipment."The reform was done hurriedly and cheaply, which means more costs in the longer run," said Coimbra University's Dias.The Justice Ministry counters that the case-clearance rate has risen for 15 straight quarters, saying the removal of hopeless cases had helped to unclog the system."One cannot affirm that there are no effects in terms of debt recovery," the ministry said in a written reply to Reuters.INVESTMENT SUFFERSThe business confederation's Saraiva said a recent survey showed companies rated slowness of courts as their main concern weighing on investment.The Justice Ministry said judicial spending would rise 6.5 percent next year. At 1.8 percent of total state spending, the judicial budget is similar to France and Norway, it added.However, Joao Costa, director of metal-parts manufacturer Arpial, is not convinced. He has been trying without success to collect unpaid bills through the courts for four years."Justice works terribly, never has worked and I doubt it ever will. Nothing has improved for us since the reform," Costa said. "Who's going to invest here if there's no way you can recover a client's debt?" REUTERS CJ VP1245 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1033378.Xml The European Union should discuss debt relief for Greece and potentially move ahead even without the International Monetary Fund, Portuguese Finance Minister Mario Centeno said in an interview published Tuesday by the Bild newspaper."We have to start this discussion," the German newspaper quoted Centeno as saying.Euro zone finance ministers are due to discuss wide-ranging debt relief for Greece when they meet next month, but German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has opposed such measures, saying it would weaken efforts to enact further reforms .Centeno said the EU could proceed with debt relief for Greece, even the IMF does not participate."The European currency union has very strong institutions in the meantime. We can deal with most problems on our own," the newspaper quoted him as saying.Centeno also said that Europe's Stability and Growth Pact should be reworked and replaced. The current debt rules have "a lot of room for improvement," he saidReuters CJ GC1311 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1033410.Xml Turkish authorities issued an arrest warrant for the leader of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) today in relation to a bomb attack in February that targeted a military bus in the capital Ankara, Anadolu Agency said.Authorities issued the warrant for Salih Muslim, the co-chairman of the PYD, as well as 47 other people in relation to the attack, the state-run agency said. The PYD is affiliated with the YPG militia, which the United States is backing in the fight against Islamic State in Syria.NATO member Turkey has been angered by that support. It sees the Syrian Kurdish militia as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has carried out a three-decade insurgency in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. REUTERS JW PR1612 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1033736.Xml Turkey-backed forces have besieged the Islamic State-held Syrian town of al-Bab from the west and have set their sites on Manbij for their next offensive, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said today.In a speech in the capital Ankara, Erdogan said YPG Kurdish militia forces must completely leave Manbij. Erdogan, who views the Syrian Kurdish fighters as hostile forces, also accused Kurdish militants of trying to turn Iraq's Sinjar into a base. He said Turkey will not allow Sinar to become a "terror centre". REUTERS JW PR1850 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1034185.Xml The Philippine and US militaries on Tuesday agreed to scale down their joint military exercises, reduce deployment of US forces in the Philippines and focus more on humanitarian activities. A Philippine military official said the agreement was forged here during a meeting attended by Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Gen. Ricardo Visaya and head of the US Pacific Command Adm. Harry Harris, Xinhua news agency reported. The official said US troops, military aircraft and equipment will also be reduced. A statement issued at the end of the annual Mutual Defence Board - Security Engagement Board (MDB-SEB) meeting said both sides reaffirmed the "robust" military relations between the two allies. "The successful completion of the MDB-SEB (meeting) ensures continued, robust relations between the US and the Philippine militaries," the statement said. Both sides said they "look forward to continued, close cooperation in areas central to both our national and security interests including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, counterterrorism, cyber-security, and maritime security." The high-level security meeting traditionally discusses the details of the joint exercises that both militaries plan to conduct next year. But the statement did not mention the details of next year's joint military activities. The Philippine defence department had said earlier that it wants the number of joint exercises to be reduced from current 13 to about six or seven. The defence department had also indicated that it wants to scrap the annual joint exercises like the Amphibious Landing Exercises and the Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training or CARAT naval exercises, and just push through with the Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) Exercises. Padilla said the two sides also discussed the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that Washington and Manila signed in 2014. --IANS vgu/dg ( 297 Words) 2016-11-22-21:28:13 (IANS) The leaders of the European Parliament's two largest groups today called for the European Union to halt membership talks with Turkey because of its post-coup purges. "Our message to Turkey is very clear: accession negotiations should be frozen immediately," said Manfred Weber, the head of the largest faction in the European Parliament, the centre-right European People's Party.He was echoed by Gianni Pitella, the leader of the socialist group, the parliament's second biggest: "We want to freeze the accession talks." REUTERS RJ BL2111 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0098-1034476.Xml Turkey dismissed 15,000 more state employees today, from soldiers and police officers to tax inspectors and midwives, and shut 375 institutions and several news outlets, deepening purges carried out since a failed coup. The dismissals, announced in two decrees, bring to more than 125,000 the number of people sacked or suspended in the military, civil service, judiciary and elsewhere since July's coup attempt. About 36,000 have been jailed pending trial in the crackdown condemned by Western allies and rights groups. President Tayyip Erdogan said the measures had significantly weakened the network of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose followers are blamed by Ankara for infiltrating state institutions over several decades and carrying out the attempted putsch. But he made clear the purges were not yet over. "We know they have not been completely cleansed. They are still present in our military, in our police force, in our judiciary," he told a conference on policing in his palace. "We will not leave our country to them, we will not let them consume this nation. We will do whatever is necessary," he said. The coup and its aftermath have shaken confidence in the stability of Turkey, a NATO member key to the fight against Islamic State and a bulwark for Europe against the conflicts raging in neighbouring Syria and Iraq. The crackdown has covered a vast range of professions - often where links to Gulen's network are unclear - including doctors, nurses and midwives. Dismissals are announced in the Official Gazette with no reasons given beyond "membership of, or links to, terrorist organisations or groups deemed to be acting against national security interests". Some of the accused have been targeted for having accounts with a bank once controlled by Gulen's followers, being members of an opposition union, or using a smartphone messaging app seen by the authorities as a Gulenist communications tool, according to Turkish media reports. European allies have criticised the breadth of the purges, and EU parliament lawmakers today called for a freezing of Turkey's EU membership talks. A senior UN official has described the measures as "draconian" and "unjustified". Erdogan has rejected such criticism, saying Turkey is determined to root out its enemies at home and abroad, and could reintroduce the death penalty. He has accused Western nations of siding with coup plotters and of harbouring terrorists.'SOLD THEIR SOULS' Ankara blames Gulen and his network, which it refers to as the "Gulenist Terror Organisation" (FETO), for the events of July 15, in which more than 240 people were killed as rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, fighter jets and helicopters, bombing parliament and other key buildings. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania in the United States since 1999, denies involvement. "There is no place in this ... land drenched with the blood of martyrs for those who sold their souls to Pennsylvania, the separatist terrorist organisation, or any other illegal organisation," Erdogan said. He frequently uses "Pennsylvania" as shorthand for the cleric's network. The "separatist organisation" is a reference to the Kurdish PKK group, which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey's southeast. Nearly 2,000 members of the armed forces, 7,600 police officers, 400 members of the gendarmerie, and more than 5,000 public workers, including nurses, doctors and engineers, were dismissed in today's decrees for suspected links to terrorist organisations. The Official Gazette made clear they would not be able to claim any severance or seek any other job in public service. The decrees were issued under the emergency rule imposed in the wake of the failed coup, which allows Erdogan and the government to bypass parliament. Erdogan's opponents say the purges go well beyond a crackdown on suspected Gulenists and are being used to crush dissent. Those accused are often unable to find other work and ostracised in their community, with Turkish media reports saying some have committed suicide before their trials can begin. Pro-Kurdish politicians have been detained in a parallel crackdown, accused of links to the PKK, including the leaders of parliament's second-largest opposition grouping the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).EUROPEAN OUTRAGE On top of today's decrees, authorities issued arrest warrants for 60 people, including air force pilots in the central city of Konya, over suspected Gulenist links. More than 300 pilots have already been detained or dismissed. In another operation around Istanbul, 19 prison staff including the warden of Turkey's largest jail Silivri were held on suspicion of using smartphone messaging app ByLock, which authorities say is used by Gulen's network. A trial also began today of Gulen, in absentia, and 72 other people accused of trying to overthrow Turkey's government. The case pre-dates the coup attempt, but is likely to be expanded to include charges related to the events of July 15. Arrest warrants were also issued for 22 executives from telecoms firm Turk Telekom, the Hurriyet newspaper said. It said 12 of them had been detained in an operation spanning four provinces. Turk Telekom shares fell 0.7 percent, underperforming a 0.5 percent rise on the Istanbul stock index. Today's decrees also announced the closure of 375 institutions or associations, including minority rights groups, lawyers' associations and women's groups. The decrees also shut 18 charities and nine media outlets. Turkey has closed more than 130 media outlets since July. Guy Verhofstadt, head of the Liberals in the European Parliament, said the assembly was calling for EU officials to suspend negotiations with Turkey over membership of the bloc. "Dozens of media outlets closed, members of parliament penalised or put in jail, there is a debate on the death penalty, there is more and more political control of the judiciary ... Our relationship with Turkey becomes more and more of a liability," he told a news conference today.REUTERS RJ BL2123 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0098-1034494.Xml Campaigners urging voters to reject Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's constitutional reform in the upcoming referendum might sue if ballots from Italians living abroad swing the election in favour of the government, the "No" camp said today. The threat to turn to the law courts in the event of defeat underscored the increasingly bitter nature of the campaign, which pits Renzi against an array of parties across the political spectrum. Beppe Grillo, the founder of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, said today that Renzi was like a "wounded sow, who attacks anything in sight". A day earlier, he compared "Yes" campaigners to "serial killers" plotting the murder of children. Every opinion poll over the past month has shown Renzi losing the Dec. 4 vote, with a final wave of surveys released on Friday ahead of a blackout on polling showing the "No" camp leading by up to 12 percentage points. Renzi has said he will resign if he loses and his opponents say the high stakes have raised the prospect of electoral fraud, especially in the little-regulated overseas postal ballot, with some four million Italian expatriates eligible to vote. "If the vote abroad proves decisive in a victory for 'Yes' then we can lodge a (legal) complaint," said Alessandro Pace, an academic who heads the broad-based "No" committee. Renzi's centre-left government has denied accusations of fraud and say opposition angst over the foreign vote suggests the race is closer than the opinion polls make out. "If they are so convinced they are winning, why are they so freaked out by the foreign vote?" Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told a rally on yesterday evening."STRANGE THINGS HAPPENING" Italians living abroad have traditionally supported Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party, handing it victory in the 2013 general election and ensuring that former centre-left leader Romano Prodi won a majority in the upper house in 2006. A diplomatic source in Rome said the foreign ministry had come under pressure to make sure Italians living abroad were registered to vote. "Strange things are happening," said Matteo Salvini, head of the right-wing anti-immigrant Northern League. "Take 20 friends with you to vote to make up for all the votes that are being bought abroad," he told a rally in Rome at the weekend. The government is proposing scrapping direct elections to the upper house Senate and drastically curbing its powers in a move it says will simplify decision-making and boost political stability. Opponents say it will make the legislative process more complicated and less democratic. The opposition camp has been fired up by Renzi's pledge to quit if he loses, and pollsters say many Italians are treating the referendum as a de facto poll on the government's performance since it took office in 2014. REUTERS RJ BL2147 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0131-1034522.Xml The sanctions imposed by the European Union on fuel supplies to Syria cannot be applied to the Russian air group in the country, a Russian Defence Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the news agencies today. The Russian news outlets said he was commenting on reports of illegal fuel supplies to Syria. Earlier today, Reuters reported that Russian tankers had smuggled jet fuel to Syria through EU waters, bolstering military supplies to a country where Moscow is carrying out air strikes in support of the government, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. REUTERS SDR BL2338 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1034580.Xml STRASBOURG, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The political landscape of France has been upended, the tables have been turned. After the first round of voting in the French presidential primaries for right and center parties, ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy was formally eliminated. Former prime minister Francois Fillon finished ahead of Bordeaux mayor Alain Juppe and has been anointed -- to much surprise -- as the new champion of the French right. Against all expectations, Fillon seems well on the point of being nominated by his political family to lead the combat for the leadership of the French republic next May. Certainly, he will only be nominated by his colleagues after he has won the duel against his rival Juppe during the second round of voting which will be held on Sunday. But his hefty lead on the mayor of Bordeaux, who had for months been a favorite in polls, places him in a comfortable position. This is even more the case as he receives more and more endorsements from other political figures. The results of the primary defied all predictions. With more than 44 percent of the votes, Fillon dominated the first round. Juppe, who adopted a more centrist stance, received 28.6 percent of the vote. But the principle victim of the first round is incontestably the former head of state Nicolas Sarkozy, who finished in third place with 20.6 percent of the vote. "More than an elimination, a humiliation; a magisterial blow," the French press commented after the results. Since Sunday evening, Sarkozy announced he will support Fillon, and that he counted on dedicating himself to other activities. Other primary hopefuls together earned less than seven percent of the vote. With more than 4 million voters, this primary beats the turnout for the socialist primary in autumn 2011, which brought together 2.7 million voters for the first round, and close to 2.9 million for the second. The surprise finish by Fillon has called into question the credibility of pollsters and media outlets. As with Brexit and the U.S. elections, they were largely off target with their predictions. Should Fillon be victorious or not next Sunday at the second round of voting in the primaries of the right and center, the rest of the French political establishment will need to reposition itself as well. President Francois Hollande will be watching closely even though it is still uncertain whether he will stand for reelection as the head of the French republic. Hungarian President Janos Ader attends the release ceremony of a commemorative postal stamp to mark the Budapest Water Summit in Budapest, capital of Hungary, on Nov. 21, 2016. Janos Ader sponsored the issue of the commemorative postal stamp on Monday, to mark the Budapest Water Summit of which he is chief patron, set to begin in a week's time. The stamp, issued as a commemorative block with a face value of 400 forints (1.37 U.S. dollars) was designed by artist Anita Laczko and portrays a unique bird shaped from droplets of water rising above a water surface. (Xinhua/Attila Volgyi) BUDAPEST, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian President Janos Ader sponsored the issue of a commemorative postal stamp on Monday, to mark the Budapest Water Summit of which he is chief patron, set to begin in a week's time. Ader warned that accessible fresh water made up only 0.007 percent of the overall water on Earth, and that we were regularly polluting even that amount. Meanwhile, he pointed out, the population of the planet was increasing. Ader said that we have only 15 or 20 years to prevent a global water shortage which, he argued, would stifle food production, industrial development, environmental sustainability, and global health, while triggering political conflicts. The summit is expected to focus on how the political decision-making process, capital, science, and technology are all interconnected with the non-governmental sphere when it comes to achieving a sustainable water management system. Ader noted that the recommendations of a Water Summit held in Budapest in 2013 were included in the sustainability goals issued by the United Nations, and voiced the view that the latest Budapest Water Summit, scheduled for Nov. 28-30, 2016, would most likely be just as successful. Heads of state and government, as well as representatives of global organizations and financial institutions are expected to attend. The stamp, issued as a commemorative block with a face value of 400 forints (1.37 U.S. dollars) was designed by artist Anita Laczko and portrays a unique bird shaped from droplets of water rising above a water surface. Visiting Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari attends a press conference with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier after their meeting in Berlin, capital of Germany, on Nov. 21, 2016. Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said on Monday that his country will not accept that other states interfered in Iraq's internal affair after a conversation with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier here. (Xinhua/Shan Yuqi) BERLIN, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said on Monday that his country will not accept that other states interfered in Iraq's internal affair after a conversation with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier here. Steinmeier received his Iraq counterpart at Germany's Federal Foreign Office on Monday to talk about the liberation of Mosul, the last major city still occupied by Islamic State (IS) militants, as well as regional conflicts in Yemen and Syria. Steinmeier stressed that no Shiite militias should be allowed to penetrate into the "core city" during the battle for Mosul. Al-Jaafari said that he could not name a concrete date for the complete reconquest of Mosul, adding that the army proceed very cautiously out of consideration for civilians. According to Steinmeier, a joint Stabilization Council for Mosul is already on its way to specify the priorities for the period after the liberation. With regard to situation in Yemen, Steinmeier regretted the fact that the ceasefire has already become increasingly fragile. Even in Syria, no major steps towards a political solution were to be expected during the government change in the United States, he added. Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) holds talks with his Peruvian counterpart Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in Lima, capital of Peru, Nov. 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei) LIMA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Peruvian counterpart, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, on Monday agreed to promote better and faster development of the two countries' comprehensive strategic partnership. The consensus was reached during in-depth talks between the two heads of state after a red-carpet welcoming ceremony hosted by Kuczynski in front of the presidential palace. Invited by Kuczynski, Xi arrived in the Peruvian capital of Lima on Friday to attend the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting and pay his first state visit to the Latin American country. Xi told Kuczynski that he hopes the visit will deepen the two countries' traditional friendship, promote all-round dialogue and cooperation, and boost the China-Peru comprehensive strategic partnership, so as to bring more benefits to the two peoples. Recalling Kuczynski's visit to China in September, the Peruvian president's first foreign visit since he was sworn in on July 28, Xi said they held fruitful talks and agreed to push forward bilateral relations into a new phase. The coming five years are a significant time for national development of both countries, the Chinese president said, urging the two sides to weigh top-level design and overall planning for bilateral ties, run their cooperation mechanisms well, fully implement their joint action plan for cooperation in 2016-2021, and strengthen synergy of development strategies so as to obtain real results of their consensuses. He stressed that both countries should treat industrial capacity cooperation as a new engine for their economic ties and strive for early harvest of major projects. The two sides can also further reinforce cooperation in mining industry, energy and infrastructure construction, as well as explore new cooperation fields such as environmental protection, clean energy and information connectivity. Calling on both countries to upgrade their free trade agreement signed in 2009 in a bid to inject new vitality into two-way trade, Xi said the Chinese government will continue to encourage capable enterprises to invest in the Latin American country. In addition, Xi advised both sides to constantly expand exchanges in culture, education, science and technology, healthcare, sports, media, colleges and universities, think tank and other areas, as well as strengthen tourism cooperation. Xi congratulated Peru on the success of the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, noting that the substantial results of the meeting contained Peru's contribution and Latin America's wisdoms at large. He said China stands ready to work with Peru and other APEC member economies to earnestly implement the meeting's results, constantly push forward the process of building a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), and jointly forge an open economy in the region. Hailing the sustained growth of bilateral relations, Kuczynski said Peru is looking forward to further enhancing ties with China since both share similar historical experiences, same aspiration for national development, and huge potential for cooperation in the economic and cultural fields. Peru is willing to upgrade its free trade agreement with China, Kuczynski said, adding that Chinese investment in mining industry, energy, hydropower, transportation and infrastructure are welcomed. The Peruvian president also voiced hope that both countries will strengthen ties in education, culture and tourism and create more favorable conditions for people-to-people exchanges. Peru appreciates China's support for the country in hosting the APEC meeting, Kuczynski said, stressing that Lima is ready to work with Beijing in boosting trade and investment liberalization as well as opposing protectionism in the Asia-Pacific. Following their talks, Xi and Kuczynski witnessed a signing ceremony of cooperation documents, including an inter-governmental joint action plan for cooperation in 2016-2021, and deals in trade and economy, mining industry, industrial parks, information connectivity, economic technology, quality inspection, environment and other fields. Accompanied by Kuczynski and his wife, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan paid tribute to the monument of Peru's independence heroes earlier in the day. Peru is the second leg of Xi's current three-nation Latin America tour. Prior to Peru, Xi paid a state visit to Ecuador. The final stop of the week-long tour will be Chile. It is Xi's third visit to Latin America as Chinese president since he took office in 2013. File photo taken on July 16, 2016 shows U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a campaign event in New York, the United States. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday that he will withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership on his first day in office. U.S. presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump (4th, left) and his running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence (3rd, left) are joined by their families on stage during a campaign event in New York, the United States, July 16, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) WASHINGTON, Nov.21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday that he will withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership on his first day in office. "I'm going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country," Trump said. Trump made the remarks in a short video in which he outlined his policy plans for the first 100 days in office. "Instead, we'll negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry onto American shores, " he added. He also touched on energy, regulation, national security, immigration and ethics reform. GENEVA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The latest UN-mediated talks on the reunification of Cyprus, held in a resort hotel in Switzerland' s Mont Pelerin, has concluded early Tuesday morning without reaching an expected agreement, sources with the negotiation teams said. A tweet from Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci's office said that the Greek Cypriot side's "maximalist" positions had led to the fail of this latest talks. Photo taken on Nov. 21, 2016 shows the accident scene on the Pingyang section of Beijing-Kunming expressway in north China's Shanxi Province. A total of 17 people died and 37 others were injured after 56 vehicles piled up on a Beijing-Kunming expressway in Shanxi Monday. (Xinhua/Zhan Yan) TAIYUAN, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- A total of 17 people died and 37 others were injured after 56 vehicles piled up on a Beijing-Kunming expressway in north China's Shanxi Province Monday. The accident happened at 9 a.m. Monday due to snow and rainy weather. The injured people are in stable condition after treatment, according to local authorities on Tuesday morning. Local police, firefighters, doctors and officials were involved in the rescue operation. Investigation into the cause of the accident is underway. YANGON, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Two vehicles carrying aid workers to care for displaced people have been attacked by a combined forces of three ethnic armed groups as the vehicles were heading for the 105th Mile Muse Border Trade Zone in Myanmar's northern Shan state, said the Information Committee of the State Counselor's Office Tuesday. The three armed groups were identified as Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Kokang's Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). In the attacks on Monday afternoon on the two vehicles, respectively owned by the Myittamon Philanthropic team and the Parami Civil Society, one aid worker was seriously injured. The shooting with light firearms from an uphill position forced the vehicles to return to Muse hospital with the injured on board without proceeding. On Monday, armed clashes continued in Muse with the combined force of three armed groups numbering over 100 attacking Phangsai police station with small and heavy weapons. A wooden bridge on Namtu-Baw Thwin highway was blown, halting the traffic. However, the Lashio-Muse road near the entrance of Nanaun village, 32 km south of Muse, which was blocked by some heavy trucks robbed by the armed groups since Sunday night, have been cleared and opened on Monday morning by the government forces, the information committee said. Military conflicts have broken out in border area of northern Myanmar's Shan state early Sunday morning with the alliance of three ethnic armed groups launching simultaneous and surprise attacks on government's military outposts and police stations in Muse and Kutkai townships as well as a border trade center there. The government claimed that a total of eight people including one soldier, three policemen, one people's militia and three civilians so far lost their lives and 29 others injured including nine policemen, two customs officers and 18 civilians. Their attacks targeted government military outposts and police stations in areas of Muse, Kutkai, Monekoe, Kyukoke, Phangsai, Pangsang, Manken and Kyinsankyawk (Honang). SEOUL, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- South Korea on Tuesday endorsed a bilateral military intelligence pact with Japan at a cabinet meeting despite public and parliamentary opposition. The pact to directly exchange military intelligence on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear and missile programs was approved at the cabinet meeting chaired by Yoo Il-ho, deputy prime minister for economic affairs. The cabinet meeting was initially presided over by President Park Geun-hye, but the president hasn't appeared at the meeting on growing public fury over the scandal involving President Park and her longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil. Prosecutors identified Park as a criminal accomplice to Choi in many of criminal acts when indicting Park's decades-long friend on multiple charges including abuse of power and extortion on Sunday. The signing ceremony of the pact, dubbed the General Security of the Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), is scheduled to be held in Seoul on Wednesday. With the presidential ratification expected later Tuesday, South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo and Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine would formally seal the pact. It will go into effect immediately after the signing. If realized, the two countries would reach an agreement less than a month after resuming talks on the pact. South Korea has hurriedly pushed the accord as part of efforts to find a breakthrough by regaining support from conservative voters sensitive to security issues. Seoul and Tokyo held the first working-level dialogue earlier this month and initialed the pact a week ago. The pact was approved here at vice ministers' meeting three days later. South Korea's three main opposition parties have opposed the hurried, unilateral push, saying they will propose the impeachment of the defense minister if it is signed. Public objections are strong. According to a Gallup Korea poll released on Friday, 59 percent opposed the deal with Japan unrepentant of its brutalities during World War II. The Korean Peninsula was colonized by the Imperial Japan from 1910 to 1945. SEOUL, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- A South Korean lawmaker on Tuesday raised suspicion on U.S. weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin's link to Choi Soon-sil, President Park Geun-hye's confidante who has been indicted on multiple crimes including abuse of power and extortion. Rep. Ahn Min-seok of the biggest opposition Minjoo Party appeared in a radio program of local broadcaster MBC, saying he received internal information from the military last weekend about a possible link between the president's decades-long friend and the U.S. arms supplier. Lockheed Martin financially supported the child of a "core figure" in charge of South Korea's security policy when the child was studying abroad several years ago, said Ahn, who didn't elaborate on whether the child was staying in the United States. The opposition lawmaker raised a possibility for the core figure to introduce Choi to the Lockheed Martin side, saying he will try to find a truth when the National Assembly launches its own investigation into the scandal next month. Ahn has claimed a collusive link between Choi and the U.S. arms company to peddle undue influence on the South Korean government's weapons procurement contracts. In an emergency parliamentary session on Nov. 11, Ahn inquired Defense Minister Han Min-koo about whether the defense chief was informed of the contacts of Jeong Yoon-hoe, Choi's ex-husband, with arms lobbyist Linda Kim and the Lockheed Martin side. Lockheed Martin is a manufacturer of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), a U.S. military defense system which South Korea agreed in July with the U.S. to deploy in its soil by the end of next year. It was a surprising decision given that Seoul had refrained from the issue and seemingly felt uncomfortable with even mentioning it. Choi had reportedly maintained an acquaintance with the arms lobbyist at least since 2000. The lobbyist has been detained in October for drug-administering charges. Asking to see Linda Kim at the detention center has recently been banned, said the Minjoo Party lawmaker who described the arms lobbyist as one of "key men" that can tell the truth about the collusive link. Local media speculated that Choi may have engaged in South Korea's weapons procurement projects as well as the THAAD deployment decision. Boeing's F-15 Silent Eagles were supposed to be selected as Seoul's next-generation fighter jets in 2013, but the widespread expectation was overturned in September of the year as the defense ministry's arms procurement committee voted it down. About two months later, Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jets were offered as a sole candidate and finally picked to replace South Korea's decrepit combat planes. Park took office in February 2013. WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- At least six children were killed and 23 more injured on Monday after a school bus crashed into a tree in the U.S. state of Tennessee, local authorities said. Five children were found dead at the scene and another died at a local hospital after the bus with 35 children on board crashed in Chattanooga, Tennessee, according to Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston. The children were kindergarten goers, local press reported. This is the second bus wreck in Tennessee in recent days. About two dozen students were injured on Friday morning after a school bus flipped on Interstate 65 in Nashville, the capital city of Tennessee. WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. space agency NASA on Monday ignited a fire inside the private Cygnus cargo spaceship in order to learn more about how flames spread in microgravity. Cygnus, operated by U.S. space firm Orbital ATK, departed from the International Space Station early in the day, completing a 29-day stay at the orbiting laboratory. Under normal circumstances, the resupply craft, packed with tons of trash from the space station, will soon re-enter the Earth's atmosphere for a fiery destruction over the Pacific Ocean. But this time, ground engineers set nine materials inside the spacecraft on fire through remote control. "We've received confirmation that the first Saffire-II test sample has been ignited," NASA said in an update at 7:14 p.m EST (0014 GMT). "We're lighting a fire in space ... on purpose! We want to learn how fire burns in space in order to prevent them," the space agency added via Twitter. The materials involved included "flame retardant fabrics used for astronaut clothing, station Plexiglas window samples with edge variations and structures used for storage containers and silicone composites," said NASA. Each sample is two by 11 inches (five by 28 centimeters), the size sample NASA uses to screen materials on Earth before they are used on a spacecraft, the space agency said. This is the second time Cygnus has been used as a platform for fire experiments in space by NASA and Orbital ATK. NASA has planned altogether three Saffire experiments, deemed critical for the safety of astronauts who live and work in space. Besides the fire experiment, Cygnus will release four small satellites called CubeSats from an external deployer on Friday, sending them to join a remote sensing satellite constellation that provides global ship tracking and weather monitoring. The spacecraft will remain in orbit until Nov. 27, when it will reenter Earth's atmosphere and burn up over the Pacific Ocean. Cygnus was launched on Oct.17 on an Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, for Orbital ATK's sixth NASA-contracted commercial resupply mission. LIMA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping met President of Peruvian Congress Luz Salgado here on Monday on boosting legislative cooperation and exchanges in various fields. Xi recalled the smooth development of China-Peru ties since they forged diplomatic relations 45 years ago, saying the two countries are good friends with mutual trust, and good partners with common development. The China-Peru comprehensive strategic partnership, which has been enjoying close high-level exchanges, deepening political mutual trust, fruitful practical cooperation and increasing people-to-people communication, continues to grow with new vitality, said Xi. Noting that the Chinese side has full confidence in a bright future for bilateral ties, the president said China stands ready to work with the Peruvian side to implement the important consensuses and results reached during the visit, lift bilateral relations to a new stage and better serve the well-being of both peoples. Xi also said the friendly exchanges and cooperation between China's National People's Congress (NPC) and the Peruvian Congress have effectively promoted comprehensive development of bilateral ties. He called on both countries to improve communication mechanisms between their legislative bodies, enhance friendly exchanges at all levels, boost experience sharing in such fields as legislature, supervision and governance, and enhance communication and coordination in the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an international organization of parliaments of sovereign states, in order to contribute to the healthy and steady development of China-Peru relations. For her part, Salgado welcomed Xi's visit to Peru while highlighting the two countries' traditional friendship. Expressing admiration for China's development achievements, Salgado said the Peruvian Congress attaches great importance to nurturing Peru-China relations and is willing to strengthen communication and cooperation with China's NPC. She also vowed to enhance cooperation with China on infrastructure construction, knowledge and technology transfer and youth, so as to advance the development of Peru-China comprehensive strategic partnership. Xi also delivered a speech at the Peruvian Congress. The Chinese president kicked off his first state visit to the Latin American country after attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima. HANOI, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) planned to sell out over 130 million shares or 9 percent of shares in the country's state-owned dairy giant Vinamilk, on Dec. 2. The first sale of these shares is worth around 800 million U.S. dollars at current market value, local Tuoi Tre (Youth) online newspaper quoted the SCIC as saying on Tuesday. SCIC, which owns 44.7 percent of Vinamilk shares, said it would not look for strategic investors during the first stake sale in the country's biggest listed firm. The corporation has not decided the time for selling its remaining stake in Vinamilk, said SCIC chairman Nguyen Duc Chi. The biggest foreign investor in Vinamilk, F&N Dairy Investment, which now owns 10.95 percent of Vinamilk, backed by Thai beer billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, has not submitted any offer to buy more stakes in the firm, Chi added. According to Vinamilk, the firm's revenue reached 1.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2015, with total profit standing at over 415.74 million U.S. dollars. In the first nine months of 2016, Vinamilk's profit hit some 403.6 million U.S. dollars. The firm accounts for 49 percent of Vietnam's diary product market share. BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- With substantial progress featuring mutual trust and fruitful win-win cooperation in economy and trade, China-Chile cooperation has entered the "fast lane." Chinese President Xi Jinping is about to pay a state visit to Chile, the final stop of his week-long three-nation tour of Latin America. Xi's visit marks another high-level interaction between the two countries, signalling closer ties and cooperation between China and Chile. In July 2014, Xi met with his Chilean counterpart, Michelle Bachelet, during a meeting with Latin American leaders in Brazil, and the two agreed to further deepen bilateral economic cooperation and political coordination. In November 2014, Bachelet attended the 22nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Beijing, where she again met with her Chinese counterpart to discuss the development of bilateral ties. In May 2015, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang paid an official visit to Chile, and expressed the will to expand bilateral trade, unlock the free-trade dividends, and continue to upgrade the China-Chile free trade areas. He hoped the two sides would take infrastructure construction as a foothold in strengthening production capacity cooperation, namely industrial and investment cooperation. Li also called on the two countries to deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges. "We have very important political and commercial ties with China," Bachelet said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua prior to Xi's visit. DEEPENING TRADE TIES China and Chile established diplomatic ties on Dec. 15, 1970. Chile was the first country in South America to have established diplomatic ties with China. It was also among the first to have recognized China as a market economy and backed China's entry into the World Trade Organization. China and Chile signed a free-trade agreement (FTA) in November 2005, which entered into force in October 2006. Chile was the first Latin American country to have signed a bilateral FTA with China. In 2014, the bilateral trade volume reached 34.15 billion U.S. dollars, almost five-fold the amount after the signing of the agreement. Once being the 25th trade partner of Chile before the FTA was reached, China is now Chile's biggest trade partner, buyer and importer. In 2015, although the overall trade value declined to 31.9 billion dollars because of the global financial crisis, Chile's exports to China still accounted for more than one-fourth of its total. The FTA has additionally diversified trade, with an accompanying increase in the number of China-made products entering Chilean markets. Chinese-brand cars account for 15 percent of all cars in circulation. Chile is China's third largest supplier of bottled wine. China imports 98 percent of its blueberries from Chile, 80 percent of its cherries, and 50 percent of its apples and grapes. Liu Rutao, the economic and commercial counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Chile, highlighted the economic and trade cooperation between the two countries. A new level of free trade will introduce e-commerce, trade in services, digital customs, and more scientific inspection and quarantine into the traditional commodity trade, Liu said. The two countries have been actively seeking out financial cooperation as well. During the meeting with Bachelet in July 2014, Xi stressed the importance of finance, as he called on both countries to form a new cooperation pattern driven by financial cooperation and supported by trade and investment cooperation. In June 2016, the China Construction Bank (CCB), one of China's largest banking institutions, opened its Santiago branch, which made it the first clearing bank for transactions in Chinese currency Renminbi in South America. The bank, with a bank capital far bigger than all other foreign banks in Chile, not only helps boost economic and trade exchanges and financial collaboration between China and Chile, but also becomes an economic platform for all of Latin America. It has "allowed us to diversify the reserves of the Central Bank of Chile, decreasing our dependence on the U.S. dollar," Bachelet said. EXPANDING PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE EXCHANGES Greater bilateral exchanges can also be seen in the field of culture, with 2015 declared the Year of Chinese Culture in Chile and 2016 the China-Latin America and Caribbean Cultural Exchange Year. Broad exchanges were conducted in various fields including art, literature and film, facilitating activities in different forms containing exhibitions, performances and film panoramas. Many Chinese celebrities, for example, the famous Chinese pianist Lang Lang, were invited to perform in Chile. Among many other cultural events, there is an exhibition of treasures from China's Forbidden City now on display in the Central Cultural Palace in Chile, following the last exhibition in 2000 of Terracotta Warriors from the tomb of China's First Emperor, Qin Shihuang, who lived thousands years ago. The 2016 exhibition has so far attracted more than 200,000 visitors in Chile within two months. Besides, many famous Chinese writers, poets, directors and cantors have visited Chilean universities to introduce Chinese literature and art. Chile also witnessed a passion for learning Chinese language and culture. Two Confucius Institutes and more than 20 Chinese language teaching schools have been opened in Chile so far. The Confucius Institute Latin America Regional Center is headquartered in Santiago, where there are over 50 Chinese voluenteer teachers teaching Chinese to more than 5,000 Chilean students. "In Chile, we have already started Mandarin Chinese studies to facilitate more exchanges ... to let us learn more about each other and have greater experiences," said Bachelet. SYDNEY, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Anti-poverty campaigners Oxfam on Tuesday released their Christmas "naughty or nice" list of clothing brands that have detailed where their apparel is made, scooping up some international giants. The Christmas period is key for Australian retail sales, however, the progressive populace are voting with their wallets to find articles that fit with their clear commitments to global social justice. Since the shocking Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, many companies have vowed to improve their factories and worker practices. "Unless a company publishes the locations of its factories, there is still no way of checking if their clothing is being made under safe and fair conditions," Oxfam said, the impetus to be added onto the Naughty List. "There's no other way out of the Naughty List," Oxfam said. Swedish multinational H&M, U.S. label GAP, Australian giants Pacific Brands and the Cotton On Group, among many others, have all made the nice list in 2016 for being transparent in their sourcing practices. Maybe British brand ASOS, Japan's Uniqlo and Spanish multinational Inditex, which owns fashion giant Zara, could take a lesson, as they all made Oxfam's "naughty list". Inditex and ASOS have made significant strides towards transparency in 2016, Oxfam conceded, but a full list of where products are sown or their top tier factories is still missing. "(ASOS) have promised to publish (the full list), though, so the elves are ready and waiting to move them onto the Nice List soon," Oxfam said. "It's embarrassing to be on the naughty list and companies know it." WELLINGTON, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's primary producers Tuesday welcomed the announcement that the country is to upgrade its free trade agreement (FTA) with China. The two governments announced at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Peru that negotiations to upgrade the bilateral FTA would begin in the first half of next year. Farmer-owned cooperative Fonterra, the world's biggest dairy exporter, said the announcement was an opportunity to strengthen the bilateral relationship. "We are committed to continuing to build our business in China and the FTA will remain the key platform for that growth," Fonterra chairman John Wilson said. Fonterra had substantial investments on the ground in China, including two farming hubs, and employed more than 1,500 people in China, he said. China was New Zealand's largest dairy export market with 2.7 billion NZ dollars (1.91 billion U.S. dollars) worth of trade in 2015. Federated Farmers president William Rolleston said the review of the eight-year-old agreement should enhance tariff removal and elimination, particularly on primary sector products such as dairy. "One of the keys to the success of this agreement has been the determination by our negotiators to focus on non-tariff trade barriers, which can often be as costly as tariffs," Rolleston said in a statement. The forestry industry was also anticipating more timber exports to China, and more employment in New Zealand, chair of the New Zealand Wood Council Brian Stanley said in a statement. Forest products were New Zealand's second most important export to China at 1.8 billion NZ dollar (1.27 billion U.S. dollars) a year. Stanley said the New Zealand industry would like to see the China FTA result in more production and work for processors in New Zealand. "At the moment China takes more than two-thirds of our log exports, but it lags behind the United States, Australia and Japan for importing processed timber from New Zealand, such as sawn timber, panels and paper," he said. WELLINGTON, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Immigration into New Zealand hit a new record in the year to October, stoking criticism of the government's immigration policies. The annual net gain of migrants (more arrivals than departures) hit a high of 70,300 for the year to October, surpassing the previous record of 70,000 for the year to September, the government's Statistics New Zealand agency said Tuesday. "The record annual net gain in migration was driven by the increase in migrant arrivals," population statistics manager Jo-Anne Skinner said in a statement. "At the same time migrant departures decreased, adding to the high net gain." Migrant arrivals numbered 126,100 in the October year, setting a new annual record, while departures were 55,800. The opposition New Zealand First party said the government was continuing to allow immigration "to run amok." "We have tens of thousands of young New Zealanders who can't get a job, congested roads, a housing crisis, over-burdened hospitals and schools and yet the government persists with a madcap policy that is not working in the best interests of all New Zealanders," New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said in a statement. "The high level of low-skilled workers coming to New Zealand, including international students, has undermined working conditions and put a lid on wages." Last month, the government cut the overall number of residence approvals for the next two years from 90,000-100,000 down to 85,000-95,000, amid an ongoing debate over whether the country's infrastructure and public services were coping with the record arrivals. BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Zhang Yue has been a wholesaler in Beijing for nearly a decade. But if he wants to continue his business, he now has to resettle in a strange, new place. Zhang, 40, from eastern China's Anhui Province, started his clothing wholesale chain at the Beijing Zoo wholesale market 10 years ago. Starting last year, major wholesale markets in Beijing have been relocated one after another. "Many wholesalers and I have visited Yongqing County for several times, and, probably, my family are going to move there next year," Zhang said. Yongqing County, an hour's drive south of Beijing, is located in neighboring Hebei Province. With an investment of 60 billion yuan (8.7 billion U.S. dollars), a new market is being built there to provide new work and homes to those displaced from Beijing. RELOCATION AND POPULATION "Some wholesalers have already moved to Baigou, Baoding City in Hebei, a two-hour drive from Beijing," Zhang said. According to the latest municipal development plan, Beijing plans to cap its population at 23 million by 2020, reducing the population in six core districts to 15 percent lower than 2014 levels. Non-capital functions, including manufacturing, logistics, wholesale markets, and partial functions of public service, are gradually being phased out to ease Beijing's "urban disease," the municipal government said in July last year. Built in the mid-1980s, Beijing Zoo wholesale market became a hit with young people wanting to look fashionable on a budget. The relocation of the market started in 2014 and is expected to be completed by the end of the year. So far, over 300 wholesale markets have closed or relocated in the past three years in an effort to reduce traffic congestion and curtail population density in Beijing. "As businesses are moved away, so are the people who work in them," said Ren Luyan, director at the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform. According to the commission, the annual growth of Beijing's population in 2014 and 2015 decreased by 231,000, down 1.3 percentage points, compared with the former three years of the 12th Five-year Plan (2011-2015) period. Beijing was home to 21.7 million permanent residents by the end of 2015, 189,000 more people than 2014, registering a 0.9 percentage point decrease in its growth rate. The dual decrease of Beijing's population net increase and growth rate has shown some progress in the city's population control, an official with the commission said. "I will try my luck in Yongqing. If my business does not work there, I will consider switching to another line of work, or going back to my hometown." According to Zhang, the new site in Yongqing is not as advantageous as the Beijing Zoo market and is desolate for now. "But I want to continue my clothing wholesale business, which is what I am familiar with. I hope the government can do more to help us attract customers in Yongqing," Zhang said. TRANSFORMATION AND INNOVATION Beijing has also adopted a differentiated water and electricity price policy as another way to cut the population , imposing higher charges for factories dumping pollution while lowering those reducing emissions. Water, gas, electricity and heating prices are also higher in the six core districts than in other districts. The six core districts are home to 12.8 million residents, 294,000 more people than 2013. The central districts of Xicheng and Dongcheng saw negative growth, a decrease of 9,000 compared with 2013, according to official figures. Over 1,300 manufacturing factories have been shut down in the past three years, and some traditional factories have started to transform. Beijing No.7 Paper Mill originally opened in 1955 and has been shut down to soaring costs and intense competition. It is now being rebuilt as an innovation park aiming to nurture high-tech talent. A regional plan on reform and innovation in accordance with Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration was rolled out this July to push forward the innovation-driven economy. "Instead of relying on the household registration system to keep people from rushing in, we should rely more on industrial transformation to curb Beijing's population growth," said Zhao Hong, deputy dean at Beijing Academy of Social Sciences. RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Michel Temer said on Monday that although government secretary Geddel Vieira Lima is being investigated for alleged influence peddling, he will not be fired. The Brazilian presidency's ethics committee decided on Monday to start the probe against Lima, who has been accused of influence peddling by former Culture Minister Marcelo Calero. Calero, who resigned last week, accused Lima of trying to push his department to authorize a million-dollar real estate investment in the historical center of Salvador, Bahia state, in which Lima had personal interests. Lima denied putting pressure on Calero about the matter, but confirmed that he discussed it with the culture minister. Salvador, one of the oldest cities in Brazil, served as the country's first capital. The real estate project in question had been embargoed by the Brazilian historical preservation agency Iphan, which is part of the Culture Ministry. By Leng Tong SANTIAGO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to Chile will promote bilateral ecomonic cooperation, providing an opportunity to review the progress and challenges in the relationship, a Chilean expert said. "Bilateral economic and trade ties have reached the level where China is this country's leading trading partner, and therefore that should be reflected by a strategic proposal to reinforce the relationship," Osvaldo Rosales, a consultant and former director of International Trade and Integration at the Santiago-based Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean told Xinhua in a recent interview. In 2014, the trade volume betweeen China and Chile reached 34.15 billion U.S. dollars, almost five-fold the amount after the signing of a free trade agreement (FTA) in 2005. Before the FTA was reached, China was the 25th trading partner of Chile. Now it is Chile's biggest trading partner and importer. In 2015, although the overall trade volume declined to 31.9 billion dollars because of the global financial crisis, China still imported over one-fourth of the country's exports. Rosales underlined that Chile has bolstered its ties with China, the engine of the global economy in the 21st century. He also said: "It is time to examine trade ties, not in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality." Chile's challenge is to diversify its exports, currently "concentrated on a few basic products," he said, adding that one way to address this issue is to promote Chilean exports to parts of China where supply has yet to meet demand. "China can be a more effective partner for Chile" by helping Chilean exports gain a foothold in "west or southwest China, where there is relatively less development," said Rosales. "Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities are already covered by the whole world." Chile's state-run Production Development Corporation and China's agency for trade and investment promotion could work together on a Chilean export program for those regions, according to Rosales. Chile should also do its part, he said. "The Chilean government and business institutions have the task to provide interested Chinese entities with business opportunities, and trade and technological partnerships, and to advance in the assessment of projects, so that when Chinese investors arrive, they can find out about the potential opportunities," Rosales said. By Xinhua writers Leng Tong, Mao Pengfei SANTIAGO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming state visit to Chile will open a new chapter of bilateral ties, Chinese Ambassador to Chile Li Baorong said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua on the eve of the visit. This milestone visit will inject new vitality into bilateral cooperation and have a significant impact on the long-term development of bilateral relations. Li said that, in recent years, China and Chile have maintained frequent high-level exchanges and deepened political mutual trust. The important consensuses reached during those visits have played an irreplaceable role in the development of ties. Chile established diplomatic ties with China in 1970, the first country in South America to do so. The Chinese and Chilean people have maintained a profound traditional friendship ever since, Li said. China and Chile are strategic partners, with solid political mutual trust, complementary economies, fruitful educational, cultural and technological exchanges, and huge potential for future mutual beneficial cooperation, Li added. Both sides have also showed mutual understanding and support on major issues concerning each other's core interests. The strategic significance and overall influence of China-Chile ties have been continuously enhanced, said Li. He said that China and Chile have long enjoyed friendly exchanges between government departments, legislatures and political parties. The Chilean parliament was the first Latin American parliament to establish a political dialogue mechanism with China's National People's Congress, and a political consultation mechanism has been established between the two foreign ministries. These friendly exchanges, dialogues and consultations have further deepened mutual understanding and friendship and effectively promoted bilateral friendly cooperation, Li said. In the fields of economy, trade and financial cooperation, Li said that Chile was the first Latin American country to sign a free trade agreement(FTA) with China in 2005. Bilateral trade volume has grown fourfold since the FTA went into effect in 2006. China is now Chile's largest trading partner, its largest export destination and the largest buyer of copper products. China's first RMB clearing bank in Latin America was opened in Chile in June this year, setting up a financial platform to upgrade financial cooperation between China, Chile and the rest of Latin America. Li also said that in recent years, trade between the two countries has been well diversified. Currently, Chile is China's second largest source of wine imports, with bottled wine exports to China having increased by 46 percent in 2015. The two countries have signed a number of quarantine agreements on cherries, blueberries and avocados. China has become an important market for Chilean cherries, blueberries, apples, grapes and a variety of seafoods such as salmon. Chinese products with good quality and competitive prices are also popular among Chilean consumers. For example, Chinese-made cars have taken up a considerable share of the Chilean auto market. Li said China-Chile mutual investment, whose total amount is still limited, has been continuously growing, and expanding to industries like infrastructure construction, renewable energy, mining, agriculture, telecommunications and others. The two governments have done a lot to promote mutual investment. In 2015, the two countries held the first economic cooperation and strategic dialogue, and signed a series of agreements to strengthen investment and boost industrial cooperation. Cultural exchanges in recent years have enhanced the mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples. 2015 was the "Year of Chinese Culture" in Chile, while this year has been designated the "China-Latin America and Caribbean Cultural Exchange Year." Finally, some 50 Chinese teachers from the Confucius Institute's Latin American regional center in Santiago, two Confucius Institutes and over 20 Chinese teaching centers have been working hard to popularize the Chinese language and culture in Chile. Li concluded by stressing that Chinese President Xi's visit to Chile will definitely be historic. SANTIAGO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's state news agency Xinhua and the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on Monday agreed here to deepen their cooperation. Xinhua News Agency has maintained closer cooperation with the United Nations than many other global media organizations, and it has already signed strategic cooperation deals with over ten UN bodies, Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao said during a meeting with ECLAC's Executive Secretary Alicia Barcena. He also briefed Barcena on the current situation of China's economic structural adjustment. China and Latin America are far apart and the media should serve as a bridge between the two sides so as to promote their relations, Cai said. Xinhua and the ECLAC have great potential to further their cooperation, as the former is a leading news agency and a main think tank in China, and the latter is an important UN agency in Latin America, Cai said. For her part, Barcena said that the ECLAC attached great importance to China-Latin America relations, especially Chinese President Xi Jinping's ongoing visit to Latin America, which proves the Chinese government highly values its relations with the region. As she sees it, China and Latin American countries have broad prospects for future development. Both face the challenges of economic structural reforms, so deepening bilateral economic and trade ties will also help the recovery of the global economy. Barcena also expressed appreciation for Xinhua's coverage of the UN body's activities during the years, saying that her agency would maintain a close relationship with Xinhua, and was ready to further enhance their cooperation. Headquartered in Santiago, the ECLAC is one of the five UN regional commissions. It was established in 1948 to promote socio-economic development and facilitate economic cooperation between countries in the region. On Monday, Cai also met with Ricardo Lagos Weber, president of the Senate of Chile. Cai told Lagos about the active efforts made by Xinhua News Agency in the mobile-Internet era and expressed Xinhua's commitment to offering true, objective and balanced news reporting for users around the globe,including those in Latin America. Lagos said that Chile has long been in the forefront of developing relations with China. He also said Chile's "three firsts" in its relationship with China, namely the first country in South America to establish diplomatic relations with China, the first one in Latin America to acknowledge China's full market economy status and the first in the region to sign a free trade agreement with China. Besides trade and economy, Lagos added that the two sides also see great cooperative potential in the fields of education, culture and media. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the Peruvian Congress in Lima, Peru, Nov. 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) LIMA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered an address Monday at the Peruvian Congress during his first state visit to the country after attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima. The following are some quotes from his speech that underlines the deep friendship between China and Peru, and China's willingness to share development opportunities with the rest of the world. -- "Peru and China are 'neighbors' connected by the Pacific Ocean. The exchanges between our two peoples started more than 400 years." -- "The Spanish word 'paisano' refers especially to Chinese descendants in Peru and 'chifa', a word that originated from the Cantonese dialect for 'having meals', has become the term the Peruvians use to refer to Chinese restaurants." -- "China and Peru are good brothers that trust each other." -- "China and Peru are good partners that pursue common development." -- "China and Peru are good friends that shoulder responsibilities together." -- "Today, China has become the second largest trading partner of Latin America and the Caribbean, and Latin America and the Caribbean a major destination for outbound Chinese investment, second only to Asia." -- "With one fifth of the world's total area and nearly one third of the world's population, China and Latin America and the Caribbean are crucial forces for world peace and stability." -- "China will increase sharing of governance experience and improve planning and coordination of macro policies with Latin American and Caribbean states to better synergize our development plans and strategies." -- "In the next three years, China will increase the number of training opportunities of various kinds for Latin America and the Caribbean to 10,000." -- "China will ask its companies to respect local culture and customs, abide by local laws and undertake due social responsibilities through localizing investment and promoting local employment and public services." -- "As the world is caught in this historical process of accelerated evolution, the rise of emerging markets and developing countries has become an irresistible historical trend." -- "All countries are equal members of the international community. The big, strong and rich must not bully the small, weak and poor. And the right of every country to independently choose its social system and development path should be upheld." -- "Committed to a path of peaceful development, we will never seek hegemony, expansion or sphere of influence, no matter how the international situation may evolve and how much development we can achieve." -- "China will share its development experience and opportunities with the rest of the world and welcome other countries to board the express train of its development, so that we can all develop together." BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- China and Brazil should work together to address steel sector overcapacity, as protectionism only compounds the situation, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Tuesday, after Brazil launched probes into Chinese steel products. "The Chinese government has always held that trade remedies should be used in a cautious and restrained manner, and encouraged its businesses to solve trade frictions through trade, investment and technological cooperation with their foreign counterparts," said Wang Hejun, head of the MOC trade remedy and investigation bureau. Protectionism will do no good in overcoming difficulties in the global economy and steel sector. On the contrary, it will hinder normal trade, Wang said. The two emerging economies are closely-related in the steel sector as Brazil boasts vast iron ore deposits, and China is the largest steel producer in the world. Wang's remarks came after Brazil announced Monday its first anti-subsidy investigations into hot rolled steel plate from China. Chinese steel products saw 14 anti-dumping probes from the Brazilian government in the past five years, with most cases ending in restrictive measures. But Chinese steel accounts for less than two percent of the Brazilian market, according to Wang. Plagued by excess production, the global steel sector has seen more trade disputes in recent years, with Chinese companies suffering the most. China is calling for unity in tackling severe overcapacity, and has achieved remarkable progress in downsizing its domestic steel industry. The country has reduced more than 90 million tonnes of excess capacity during the past five years, and the government plans to slash more by 2020. A South Korean maritime policeman searches for Chinese fishing boat in west waters off South Korea, on Nov. 22, 2016. A Chinese fishing boat sank in west waters off South Korea on Tuesday afternoon. The sinking is believed to have been caused by bad weather conditions. (Xinhua) SEOUL, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese fishing boat sank in west waters off South Korea on Tuesday, with seven people rescued but one still missing, South Korea's coast guard said. The maritime police was quoted by Yonhap news agency as saying that Chinese maritime authorities informed the South Korean coast guard of the sinking of one fishing vessel among the two boats fishing near the South Korean waters. The Chinese boat was sailing in waters about 167 km southwest of an island off Gusan city in North Jeolla province, but it sank at about 2:20 p.m. local time (0520 GMT). One Chinese sailor remained unaccounted for, but seven others were rescued. The cause of the sinking were not identified. The Gusan coast guard dispatched a 3,000-ton patrol ship to the site after receiving the notification. CAIRO, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian court overturned on Tuesday a life sentence against former president Mohamed Morsi in Hamas espionage case, and ordered retrial, state-run Ahram newspaper reported on its website. The Court of Cassation, the highest degree court in Egypt has ordered that Morsi and 21 co-defendants, including the supreme guide of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, will also be retried. Morsi was sentenced to life sentence of 25 years in Egypt in June 2015 in connection with delivering secret documents to Palestinian group Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah group and Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The court last week overturned the only death sentence against Morsi in a jailbreak case. Morsi no longer faces execution. Morsi, the first democratically elected president after 2011 revolution was overthrown by the army in response to mass protests against his one year rule in July 2013. The Islamist ousted president has received several jail sentences in other cases related to spying and espionage, in which he appealed. China UnionPay Chairman Ge Huayong (L), Unicre CEO Luis Flores (R) and Chinese Ambassador to Portugal Cai Run pose for pictures in Lisbon, Portugal, Nov. 21, 2016. About 40 percent of the merchants in Portugal will accept China UnionPay cards, UnionPay International announced Monday. (Xinhua/Zhang Liyun) LISBON, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- About 40 percent of the merchants in Portugal will accept China UnionPay cards, UnionPay International announced Monday. UnionPay International, a subsidiary of China UnionPay, announced Monday that it reached an agreement with Unicre on enabling all the merchants in Unicre's network to accept UnionPay cards. An increasing number of Chinese tourists are visiting Portugal and UnionPay cards are the most convenient payment method for them. In 2015, the number of Chinese tourists in Portugal saw a year-on-year growth of about 40 percent. China UnionPay Chairman Ge Huayong said the Chinese company plans to enable all POS terminals in Portugal to accept UnionPay cards by the end of 2017 and make breakthroughs in mobile QuickPass acceptance, local card issuance and online payment. Unicre CEO Luis Flores said Unicre will deepen cooperation with UnionPay International to let more local merchants accept UnionPay cards in order to offer more convenient financial services to Chinese visitors. Accepting UnionPay also helps Portuguese merchants attract more customers, and thus realize a win-win result, Flores added. Since China and Portugal established a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2005, the two countries have enhanced trade and economic cooperation as well as people-to-people exchanges. China is Portugal's largest trade partner in Asia. Chinese enterprises are investing more in Portugal and an increasing number of Chinese people are living in the country. So far, UnionPay is accepted in 39 countries and regions in Europe, covering about 2 million merchants. Xinhua News Agency President Cai Mingzhao (R) meets with Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago, capital of Chile, Nov. 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Dan Hang) SANTIAGO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's state news agency Xinhua and the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on Monday agreed here to deepen their cooperation. Xinhua News Agency has maintained closer cooperation with the United Nations than many other global media organizations, and it has already signed strategic cooperation deals with over ten UN bodies, Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao said during a meeting with ECLAC's Executive Secretary Alicia Barcena. He also briefed Barcena on the current situation of China's economic structural adjustment. China and Latin America are far apart and the media should serve as a bridge between the two sides so as to promote their relations, Cai said. Xinhua and the ECLAC have great potential to further their cooperation, as the former is a leading news agency and a main think tank in China, and the latter is an important UN agency in Latin America, Cai said. For her part, Barcena said that the ECLAC attached great importance to China-Latin America relations, especially Chinese President Xi Jinping's ongoing visit to Latin America, which proves the Chinese government highly values its relations with the region. As she sees it, China and Latin American countries have broad prospects for future development. Both face the challenges of economic structural reforms, so deepening bilateral economic and trade ties will also help the recovery of the global economy. Barcena also expressed appreciation for Xinhua's coverage of the UN body's activities during the years, saying that her agency would maintain a close relationship with Xinhua, and was ready to further enhance their cooperation. Headquartered in Santiago, the ECLAC is one of the five UN regional commissions. It was established in 1948 to promote socio-economic development and facilitate economic cooperation between countries in the region. Xinhua News Agency President Cai Mingzhao (R) shakes hands with Ricardo Lagos Weber, president of the Senate of Chile in Santiago, capital of Chile, Nov. 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Dan Hang) On Monday, Cai also met with Ricardo Lagos Weber, president of the Senate of Chile. Cai told Lagos about the active efforts made by Xinhua News Agency in the mobile-Internet era and expressed Xinhua's commitment to offering true, objective and balanced news reporting for users around the globe,including those in Latin America. Lagos said that Chile has long been in the forefront of developing relations with China. He also said Chile's "three firsts" in its relationship with China, namely the first country in South America to establish diplomatic relations with China, the first one in Latin America to acknowledge China's full market economy status and the first in the region to sign a free trade agreement with China. Besides trade and economy, Lagos added that the two sides also see great cooperative potential in the fields of education, culture and media. BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The community of common destiny that China and Latin American countries are endeavoring to build will not only lead their ties to a new height, but also benefit the world at large. Chinese President Xi Jinping is paying his third visit to Latin America since he took office in 2013. Such high frequency of visits has showed Beijing's determination to build the community of shared destiny with the region and further their relations on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and common development. The China-Latin America community of common destiny is represented in various aspects. First, China and Latin America have conducted candid dialogue and broadened their consensus, providing political guarantee for the sustained and sound development of bilateral ties. Sharing a history of fighting for independence, China and Latin America have empathy with each other and treat their relations from a strategic and long-term perspective. The two sides can understand and support each other on issues concerning their key interests such as territorial sovereignty and development rights. Secondly, on such a solid political basis, China and Latin America can integrate their development strategies and carry out pragmatic cooperation. Dovetailing their development strategies can offer a top-level design to connect domestic and overseas markets, integrate industry chains and value chains, and deepen China-Latin America cooperation. Third, fruits of cooperation are being shared to benefit the two peoples. The Year of China-Latin America Cultural Exchange celebrated in 2016 has strengthened the friendship and mutual understanding between the two peoples. Xi, during his visit, announced new measures such as increasing the number of training opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean to 10,000 in three years, setting up a center for press exchange in China and holding a roundtable on environment and development strategies in Beijing in 2017. Furthermore, bilateral cooperation under the community of shared destiny will benefit the world as well. Deepening bilateral cooperation in economy and trade, and actively participating in trade, investments and innovation in the Asia-Pacific not only accord with the development demands of the two sides, but also inject confidence and dynamism into the world economy. China-LatAm collaboration in such issues as climate change and sustainable development will also set an example for South-South cooperation, help developing countries gain a greater say on the global stage and provide wisdom for global governance. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the Peruvian Congress in Lima, Peru, Nov. 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) LIMA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called on China and Latin American countries to strengthen dialogue on global issues and boost cooperation on domestic development, in a bid to better build their community of common destiny on a new starting point in history. Xi made the remarks while addressing the Peruvian Congress on his first state visit to the country after attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima. Xi proposed that China and Latin America and the Caribbean hold high the banner of peaceful development and cooperation, seek synergy between their development strategies, speed up and upgrade practical cooperation and bring benefits to both peoples. In his address, the president also elaborated on China-Peru relations, China's stance on international order and China's economic development. NEW COURSE FOR CHINA-LATAM TIES "We will strengthen strategic communication and dialogue on global issues and strive for greater representation and voice of emerging markets and developing countries," the Chinese president said. He noted that China will firmly support Latin American countries in seeking development paths suited to their national conditions, gaining greater strength and prosperity through unity, and playing a bigger role in regional and international affairs. Xi called for synergizing development strategies between China and Latin American and Caribbean states, and developing their relationship in the context of international and regional development through active participation in trade and investment arrangements and innovative development in the Asia-Pacific. He highlighted the role of trade, investment, finance, industry and other sectors in scaling up their bilateral practical cooperation and urged the two sides to promote the development of the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Forum. "We need to make sure that our people are the ones who promote, conduct and benefit from our cooperation," the president said. He announced that in the next three years, China will increase the number of training opportunities of various kinds for Latin America and the Caribbean to 10,000. A center for press exchange will be set up in China and journalists from Latin America and the Caribbean will be invited to study or work in China, he said. In addition, China would like to suggest a roundtable on environment and development policies be held in Beijing next year and looks forward to having active participation from LatAm countries, he said. The Chinese president arrived in Peru Friday, the second stop of his ongoing three-nation Latin American tour. He had visited Ecuador and will also travel to Chile. It is Xi's third visit to Latin America as president since he took office in 2013. In his address, Xi also reviewed the friendly relations and exchanges between China and Peru, and between China and Latin American countries over the past years. Before the speech, Xi was awarded the Grand-Cross Medal of Honor of the Peruvian Congress by Luz Salgado, president of the Congress. During Xi's second Latin American visit in July 2014, he and leaders from the region held a summit meeting and the two sides agreed to establish a comprehensive cooperative partnership featuring equality, mutual benefit and common development. The China-CELAC Forum was also set up during the visit to steer cooperation between China and the 33-member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Chinese official statistics showed that China has become the second largest trading partner of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the latter is a major destination for outbound Chinese investment, second only to Asia. Alfonso Miranda, president of the National Society of Industries' (SNI) Fisheries Committee, said that China is Peru's top trading partner and the deepening of ties is crucial to the economic growth of this country in the years to come. "The bilateral relations are linked to the aspirations of Peruvian producers to enter the Chinese market, considered to be one of the largest in the world, which would allow us to boost exports," he said. Carlos Aquino, an economics professor at the National University of San Marcos in Lima, said that one of the most important parts of the Chinese president's speech was his call for intensifying cooperation, and boosting investment and socio-economic development in Latin America in order to improve the quality of life of its people. "One initiative that is also highly relevant was his desire to see both sides work together, at all levels, to exchange experience, especially China's solid experience in technological development, innovation, education and sustainable development," he said. NEW MODEL OF INT'L RELATIONS In his address, Xi urged the international community to push for a new model of international relations featuring win-win cooperation, and foster a community of common destiny for mankind. China has maintained that countries around the world should make joint efforts to foster a partnership of equality, consultation and mutual accommodation, and a security architecture of fairness and justice that is built and shared by all, he said. "All countries are equal members of the international community. The big, strong and rich must not bully the small, weak and poor. And the right of every country to independently choose its social system and development path should be upheld," Xi said, adding that all forms of Cold War mentality should be rejected. As the leader of the world's second largest economy, Xi promised that China will continue to build international peace, contribute to global development and maintain international order. "Committed to a path of peaceful development, we will never seek hegemony, expansion or sphere of influence, no matter how the international situation may evolve and how much development we can achieve," he said. China will stay committed to the path of common development, the win-win strategy of opening-up and the balanced approach to friendship and interests, the president said. "China will share its development experience and opportunities with the rest of the world and welcome other countries on board the express train of its development, so that we can all develop together," he said. He also pledged that China will continue to stand together with other developing countries and firmly support greater representation and say of developing countries in the international governance system. On China's development, Xi said it can bring opportunities to the rest of the world, citing that in the next five years, China is expected to import 8 trillion dollars of goods, use 600 billion dollars of foreign investment and invest 750 billion dollars overseas, and Chinese tourists will make 700 million outbound visits. "All this will present an even bigger market, more capital, a greater variety of products and more valuable cooperation opportunities to countries around the world, including Latin American and Caribbean countries," he added. Aquino, the economics professor, spoke positively about Xi's remarks on international relations. "With respect to China's stance on world peace, sustainable development and mutual respect between nations, I think this reflects the humanitarian spirit which has arisen in China and it must fulfill a leading role in global development and stability," he said. DHAKA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Uber, the U.S. online taxi hailing company, Tuesday launched its operation in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. In a statement the company said that "The world's largest on-demand mobility platform will be available in Dhaka (from today) to offer safe, reliable and affordable rides at the push of a button while opening up flexible, economic opportunities for driver-partners." "As we roll out our services in Dhaka, we are excited to partner with Bangladesh's leading telecom partner Grameenphone with their most powerful 3G network that will elevate the experience for our riders and drivers." "Uber has a simple goal to use technology to make our cities more accessible while reducing congestion and pollution. In line with the government's vision of Digital Bangladesh, we are thrilled to be in Dhaka to harness technology for the benefit of riders, drivers and the city," said Amit Jain, president, Uber India & South Asia, as quoted by the statement. Uber allows consumers with smartphones to submit a trip request, which the software program then automatically sends to the Uber driver nearest to the consumer, alerting the driver to the location of the customer. Statistics say that as of August 2016, the Uber service was available in over 66 countries and 507 cities worldwide. TOKYO, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- A 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck northeastern Japan on Tuesday with tsunami waved of over 1 meter observed, however worries abated as tsunami alerts were later lifted and no major damages were reported. The quake, which occurred at 5:59 a.m. local time (2059 GMT Monday) registered lower 5 on the Japanese seismic scale of 7 in northeastern Fukushima prefecture. The temblor was centered at depth of 30 km under seabed of the Pacific Ocean off shore of Fukushima, which is north of Tokyo and home to the nuclear power plant destroyed by a huge tsunami following a massive 8.8-magnitude quake in March 2011. The Japan Meteorological Agency warned of further tidal waves of up to 3 meters for Fukushima and 1 meter for other parts on the Pacific coastline, after the first wave of tsunami was observed 20 km east of Iwaki city in Fukushima prefecture and then 1.4-meter wave were spotted at Sendai port in northeastern Miyagi prefecture. Tidal waves of 0.3-1.4 meters have been observed Tuesday morning at Onahama port and Soma port in Fukushima prefecture, Ofunato port and Kuji port in northeastern Iwate prefecture, Sendai port and Ishinomaki Ayukawa in northeastern Miyagi prefecture, Oarai port in eastern Ibaraki prefecture, and Katsuura in eastern Chiba prefecture. Less than four hours after the tremor, the tsunami warning for northeastern prefectures of Miyagi and Fukushima was downgraded to advisory and all tsunami warnings and advisories in northeastern and eastern prefectures were lifted later by the weather agency. Calling Tuesday's tremor an aftershock of the 2011 quake, which caused a devastating tsunami, damaged nuclear reactors and killed over 15,000 people in the country, The Japan Meteorological Agency also warned that another quake of a similar scale might occur within a week. A nuclear fuel cooling facility of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's No. 3 reactor halted operation temporarily after the quake. There were no abnormalities observed at other nuclear plants in the country. Japanese government's top spokesman Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference Tuesday that the cooling failure will not immediately lead to a radiation leak or an increase in the temperature of the fuel. So far there have been no reports of significant damage from the quake or tsunami, said Suga, adding that the government will continue to ascertain damage and work closely with the Self-Defense Forces for disaster relief. The spokesman also called on people in the affected areas to be alert to evacuation instructions and pay attention to information broadcast on television and radio and help each other. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is on a visit to Argentina, said at a press conference in Buenos Aires that he has ordered government officials to assess the damage, provide the public with accurate and timely information and do all they can to respond to the disaster. Aircraft and helicopters have been sent by the Defense Ministry to check for damage in quake-hit regions. No serious injuries or major damages were reported. A total of 12 people have been reported injured slightly in Fukushima, Miyagi, Chiba and Tokyo, including one struck by falling tableware at home and another cut by broken glass at a nursing home. About 10,000 people fled to evacuation centers in coastal areas before all tsunami warnings and advisories were lifted. Affected by the earthquake, rail, air, road transportation services were partially suspended or delayed in northeastern and eastern Japan. At least 1,100 households in Fukushima prefecture and central Niigata prefecture were left without power while water supply was cut off in some parts of Fukushima and Sendai. Primary and middle schools were closed Tuesday in northeastern prefectures of Fukushima, Miyagi and Aomori. Three small boats overturned off the coast of Miyagi during tsunami, according to the Japan Coastal Guard, who are checking whether there was anyone onboard. A Fire was reported at a petroleum complex in Iwaki of Fukushima prefecture and was then put out without reports of injuries. As worries over Tuesday's quake abated with tsunami warnings lifted and no major damages reported, Tokyo shares closed higher Tuesday, with the Nikkei index ending at a roughly 10-and-a-half-month high. Investors expected the economic impact of the quake and ensuing tsunami to be limited. NEW DELHI, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- India's main opposition Congress party Tuesday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not speaking in the Parliament about his government's sudden move to demonetize currency notes of higher denominations. "The Prime Minister can speak on television, at a pop concert, but not in Parliament," Congress party's second-in-command Rahul Gandhi, told the media in Delhi, referring to Modi's remarks at the Coldplay concert in Mumbai at the weekend. The 46-year-old Nehru-Gandhi scion had criticised the prime minister of taking "the most important economic decision" without consulting more than "just three to four people" that resulted in chaos and a nationwide cash crunch. In a surprise address to the nation on Nov. 8, Modi announced the move to scrap currency notes of 500 rupees and 1,000 rupees (7.5 U.S. dollars and 15 U.S. dollars respectively) as part of his government's crackdown on corruption and illegal cash holdings. Though the move has been welcomed by most Indians, it has led to millions queuing up outside banks to exchange their old notes for new 500 and 2,000 rupee ones and ATM machines running out of cash. Nearly 80 billion dollars of old currency notes have been deposited in banks so far, the Indian government said, while the prime minister has asked people to bear with some hardship and allow him "just 50 days" till end of the year to push forward his government's crackdown on black money. WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President-elect Donald Trump Monday unveiled his first 100-day plan in office, which is topped by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and creating jobs. "I'm going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country," Trump said. Trump made the remarks in a short video less than three minutes long, in which he outlined specific policies for his tenure for the first time since his victory in the presidential election earlier this month. "Instead, we'll negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry onto American shores," he added. The TPP, a free trade pact between 12 Asia-Pacific countries, has been signed but not yet ratified by U.S. lawmakers. During his election campaign, Trump had said he strongly opposed the deal. Rebuilding the middle class in the United States is a priority of his new policies, Trump said. Other initiatives boosting job numbers include loosening regulations on the energy sector. "I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the productions of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs," Trump said. A probe into visa abuses headed by the labor department would also be conducted, in order to stop illegal immigrants from undercutting U.S. laborers, Trump said. Political reform is also high on the agenda, as Trump pledged to "drain the swamp" in Washington. Specific plans include imposing a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the administration, and a lifetime ban on their lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. Also to cut red tape, Trump said for every new regulation being implemented, the government will cut two old ones. The 100-day plan also touched on national security, outlining a "comprehensive plan to protect America's vital infrastructure from cyber attacks and all other form of attacks." Notably missing from the plan are the president-elect's previous promises to build a wall along the Mexican border and to amend Obamacare, two highly controversial issues that have won him as much criticism as praise. Reception of Trump's plan is mixed, with many applauding him for the courage to make changes, while others are alarmed by the environmental impact of his energy plans. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week, health care reform was the top issue U.S. citizens want to see addressed in Trump's first 100 presidential days. Jobs and immigration came in second and third. The plan was released amid a flurry of meetings Trump is conducting with potential candidates for unfilled government positions, the more important of which include the defense secretary and the secretary of state. Trump said his transitioning team is working "smoothly, efficiently and effectively," and is bringing in "talented" people. Trump clinched the presidency earlier this month after beating Democrat Hillary Clinton. He is now in the process of forming his administration and preparing to officially take over the White House on Jan. 20 next year. CAPE TOWN, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) on Tuesday rejected the much-awaited minium wage proposal, urging all stakeholders to reconsider it. On Sunday, the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) proposed a national minimum wage of 3,500 rand (about 246 U.S. dollars) per month, which amounts to 20 rand per hour. The proposed wage is expected to help ease labor tension at a time when South Africa's credit rating faces the risk of being downgraded to junk status by international rating agencies later this year. The ANCYL will like to appreciate first and foremost that there is move and consensus on the principle of a minimum wage across the country and among stakeholders, ANCYL national spokesperson Mlondi Mkhize said in a statement emailed to Xinhua. "The ANCYL is however not happy with the current proposal. The ANCYL holds a strong view that the minimum wage ought to be R5,000," it said. The ANCYL, he said, wishes to advise stakeholders to first conduct a study of living conditions and expenses of the least paid workers rather then looking at what employers say how much they can pay workers. The most affected here are general workers, domestic workers, security guards and cleaners. These sectors are highly populated by the youth, some of whom are parents and heads of households, according to Mkhize. Earlier, the ANCYL's parent group, the African National Congress (ANC), welcomed the proposal which it said would help reduce prolonged and violent strikes. The proposed wage is part of interventions meant to stabilize the economy and help create jobs as envisaged in the 9-Point Plan, a blueprint for economic growth in the country, ANC national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa has said. Currently around 47 percent of South Africans who do have work earn a wage below 3,500 rand a month. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the biggest national trade federation in the country, has also said it is not impressed by the proposed minimum wage. The federation voiced concerns that the minimum wage alone is not enough to combat poverty and inequality. "While R3,500 is a move from what government and business were proposing from NEDLAC, it still falls short of what the federation put on the table," COSATU spokesperson Sizwe Pumla said. COSATU is unhappy with the fact that it's not the R4,500 that it wanted, Pumla said. BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday condemned a terrorist attack on a mosque that left at least 27 dead and 35 others wounded in Afghanistan. A suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest inside Baqir-ul-Ulum Mosque on Monday in the Afghan capital of Kabul while Shiite Muslim worshipers were holding a religious procession at the site. "China strongly condemns the terrorist attack, expresses profound condolence to the victims and sincere sympathy to the injured and the families of the victims," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at a regular news briefing. China hopes Afghanistan can achieve peace and stability on an early date, and will staunchly support the Afghan government and people to fight terrorism, maintain national stability and people's safety, Geng said. KABUL, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- About 700 Afghan youth including 141 girls after completion of a one-year training course in Kabul Military Training Center graduated Tuesday and commissioned to the national army. "All the newly 700 graduated officers after receiving their certificate today will be deployed elsewhere in the country to defend motherland," General Qadam Shah Shahim, the Afghan Chief of Army Staff, said in his address at a ceremony. He said that the Taliban and other armed militant groups will not be able to disrupt security, saying all the insurgent outfits are deemed to defeat. Afghanistan currently owns 352,000-strong national security forces including 195,000 service members of army, fighting the armed opposition groups including Taliban militants to ensure lasting peace in the militancy-plagued country. JERUSALEM, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Israeli police said they shot a knife-wielding Palestinian man dead at Kalandia checkpoint in the West Bank on Tuesday. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that the suspect walked down a passage for vehicles, "waving a knife in his hand," adding that he approached a security guard at the checkpoint before other guards shot him. A separate notice confirmed his death without disclosing details about his identity. The checkpoint, located east of Jerusalem, was closed off following the shooting. It was the first such incident in two weeks. A year-long wave of violence in the West Bank and Israel has killed at least 230 Palestinians and 34 Israelis since September 2015. Israel says that most of the Palestinians were killed for perpetrating or attempting to carry out stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks. The Palestinians and human rights organizations say that Israel is using excessive forces to quell the uprising, and in many cases, kill Palestinians who could be stopped without using lethal force or were mistaken to be attackers. Israeli leaders accuse the Palestinian National Authority of "inciting" the unrest, while the Palestinians say it is the result of nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, home to more than five million Palestinians, where they wish to establish their state. Chinese peacekeepers patrol at the Protection of Civilians site 1 beside the United Nations House in Juba, South Sudan, Aug. 11, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Baishun) JUBA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Sanctions imposed on war-torn South Sudan will not solve, but instead escalate the ongoing conflict in the world's youngest nation, officials and experts have said. This came after the United States last week circulated to the UN Security Council (UNSC) a draft resolution urging for arms embargo on South Sudan. However experts have argued that the proposed sanctions will only harden the resolve of the warring parties to continuously pursue the unending military solution to the conflict. "I don't believe sanctions will resolve the issue, they tend to harden the resolve of those in power. Sanctions have been tried elsewhere and failed to work," Juba-based Ebony Center for Strategic Studies researcher James Alic Garang told Xinhua on Monday in Juba. He added that the solution is with the peace monitor -- the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) and the international community in pressurizing both the government and rebel forces to implement the fragile peace agreement. Garang also said that he did not believe South Sudanese leaders across the political divide have intention of driving the country toward the brink of genocide, despite reports of ongoing targeted killings. The UN Special Adviser for genocide prevention Adama Dieng earlier this month warned that the oil-rich yet impoverished country risks descending into genocide based on intensity of targeted killings along ethnic lines. "I don't believe South Sudanese have that appetite to go for full-blown genocide. But of course there are targeted killings along ethnic lines especially against the Dinka ethnic group from whom President Kiir hails," he observed. The conflict since December 2013 between the SPLA-in Opposition (SPLA-IO) led by ousted First Vice President Riek Machar and troops loyal to President Salva Kiir has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 2 million in the region. South Sudan's foreign ministry spokesman Mawien Makol told Xinhua that the final solution to the conflict lay in implementation of the peace agreement signed in 2015 by the two warring parties. "There is no reason for arms embargo here because the peace implementation is ongoing," he said. Political science lecturer at Juba University Jacob Dut Chol told Xinhua that sanctions might work on individuals but make little sense to these leaders as they do not travel often. "Overall sanctions won't help this country, what is needed is to engage the leaders on the peace agreement with special focus on the upcoming 2018 elections," Chol said. He also noted that the 2018 elections present the opportunity to end the conflict as dissidents like Machar and the former agriculture minister Lam Akol are most likely to return to Juba to participate in the country's first-ever elections. "We have never had election since President Kiir was elected in 2010 and he has been a transitional leader. Elections are going to end the entire headache in the country," Chol observed. President Kiir was elected in 2010 before South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011. Political analyst with the Sudd institute Abraham Awolich told Xinhua that proposed sanctions will demonstrate the failure of diplomacy in solving the conflict, and that if eventually imposed on the country they will strain relationship between the U.S,, UNSC and South Sudan. "Once you impose sanctions you basically end diplomacy. When you punish somebody they will no longer cooperate with you," Awolich noted. He further cautioned that if the UN Security Council wants to still have influence on both warring parties, they should desist from imposing sanctions. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan, and Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and his wife Nancy Lange view an exhibition of 121 selected pieces of Chinese treasures spanning over its 5,000 years of civilization after the closing ceremony of the China-Latin America and Caribbean 2016 Year of Culture Exchange in Lima, capital of Peru, Nov. 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang) LIMA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Peruvian counterpart, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, pledged to boost bilateral cultural exchanges and mutual learning between China-Latin America and Caribbean civilizations here on Monday. Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan, warmly welcomed by Kuczynski and his wife Nancy Lange, attended the closing ceremony of the China-Latin America and Caribbean 2016 Year of Culture Exchange at Peru's National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History in Lima. Speaking at the ceremony, Xi called for deepening cultural dialogue between China and Latin America and the Caribbean countries, based on mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, in order to facilitate mutual learning between their respective civilizations, thus promoting friendship between China and Latin America and Caribbean peoples, and the progress of the human society and world peace. The China-Latin America and Caribbean 2016 Year of Culture Exchange was proposed by Xi during his visit to the continent in July, 2014, and was widely welcomed by governments and peoples in the region. Cultural relations are important components of the overall China-Latin America and Caribbean diplomacy, said Xi. Noting the long history of China-Latin America and Caribbean cultural exchanges and its recent booming, Xi said their peoples, though far apart from each other, share understanding and profound friendship. He touched on the similar experiences of China and Latin America and Caribbean countries, which boast long histories and splendid cultures, had suffered from foreign invasion and social turmoil, and are now devoted to the great cause of developing economy and improving people's livelihood. Highlighting their common dreams and pursuit, Xi stressed that China and Latin America and Caribbean peoples need not only economic development, but also cultural prosperity. He called on relevant parties to take the culture exchange year as a new start point, seize the opportunity of the China-Latin America and the Caribbean overall cooperation, and fully learn from each other's cultural achievements, so as to make the cultural exchanges between China and Latin America and Caribbean a model for the harmonious coexistence and mutual promotion among different civilizations, and contribute to the world's cultural diversity. Kuczynski, for his part, hailed the thousands-year-old civilizations of Peru and China, their mutual learning in the long history and closer cultural exchanges over the recent years. Peru is willing to enhance cultural and people-to-people exchanges with China in order to better promote the development of bilateral ties, said the president. After the ceremony, the two heads of state and their wives viewed an exhibition of 121 selected pieces of Chinese treasures spanning over its 5,000 years of civilization. Founded in April, 1826, the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History is Peru's oldest state museum. Also Monday, Peng visited Colegio Juan XXIII, one of the prestigious Chinese language schools in Peru. The school was established in 1962. Students demonstrated abacus calculation, calligraphy, singing and dancing. Peng praised them and said she hoped the school could further foster Chinese culture and make new contribution to China-Peru friendship. Xi arrived in Peru on Friday, the second stop of his ongoing three-nation Latin American tour. He had visited Ecuador and will also travel to Chile. MOSUL, Iraq, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi paramilitary units of Hashd Shaabi on Tuesday launched an operation to encircle the town of Tal Afar before storming it to drive out the Islamic State (IS) militants, a military statement said. The predominantly Hashd Shaabi units advanced in the morning to isolate and encircle Tal Afar in preparation for the next stage to free it from the IS militants, the statement quoted the Hashd Shaabi spokesman Ahmed al-Asadi as saying. Later in the day, the Hashd Shaabi units liberated the village of Kharabat Jheish in west of Tal Afar from the IS militants as they advanced to the town, another Hashd Shaabi statement said. On Nov. 16, the paramilitary troops recaptured a strategic airbase near Tal Afar, some 70 km west of the IS-held city of Mosul. Tal Afar, held by the IS since June 2014, has majority of both Sunni and Shiite Turkoman people, as well as other minorities of Kurds and Arabs. The advance of the pre-dominantly Shiite paramilitary units in the ethnically mixed region, where Sunni Muslims form a majority, could spark sectarian tension with Sunni Arabs and neighboring Sunni state of Turkey. The recapture of Tal Afar would cut off the IS supply route between Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa, the capital of IS self-declared caliphate. Moreover, the presence of the Hashd Shaabi in west of Mosul would secure the border areas between Iraq and neighboring Syria. The advance to Tal Afar is part of a massive offensive to dislodge the IS extremist militants from the city of Mosul, which represents their last major stronghold in Iraq. 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. 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. LOME, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Togolese Prime Minister Komi Selom Klassou on Monday officially opened the 13th Lome International Trade Fair (FIL), which this year aims to promote the development of the agricultural industry in the country and wider region. Some 880 exhibitors from 20 countries have already started activities on the weekend at the Lome Center for Exhibition and Fair in the outskirts of the capital city of Lome. Organizers announced earlier that at least 1,100 exhibitors from 30 countries were expected to attend the 2016 edition of the FIL and a simultaneous trade fair for cosmetics and beauty products. Egypt is the special guest-country for this year's FIL and it is represented by 14 enterprises specialized in agriculture and leather industries. During the opening ceremony, Trade Minister Bernadette Legzim-Balouki praised the agro-themed trade fair, saying the hosting of the event is in line with government endeavors to promote agriculture, a pillar industry of the national economy. BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- China has published a collection of rare ancient medical books that were once thought lost in China until they were discovered overseas. The collection, published by Zhonghua Book Company, incorporates 427 ancient traditional Chinese medical books into 403 volumes. At the launch event Tuesday, Zheng Jinsheng, editor-in-chief of the collection, said that since the 1990's, he and his team had traveled to Japan, Germany, France, Britain and other countries to collect the books. China has developed unique medicine theories and practices, and a great deal of books and works have been published on the subject, some of which ended up in other countries while some of them have been lost. The publication is a milestone in traditional Chinese medicine literature research and has been welcomed by researchers. PAYA INDAH, Malaysia, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and Malaysian armed forces began a joint exercise on Tuesday in Paya Indah, a wetlands park in the state of Selangor, as the two countries aim to forge closer military ties and safety and security cooperation. "Aman Youyi 2016," or "Peace Friendship 2016," is a joint exercise on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, involving 410 participants from the Malaysian Armed Forces and 195 from the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Observers from the Royal Thai Armed Forces will also witness the exercise. Launching the opening ceremony of the exercise, Fang Fenghui, a member of China's Central Military Commission (CMC) and chief of the Joint Staff Department under the CMC, expressed the hope that the two sides can take this opportunity to make continuous joint efforts in combating terrorism and addressing maritime threats. "We've always believed that nothing is more important than the all-round growth of the friendly relations between the two countries and the two militaries as well as jointly safeguarding peace and stability in the region including the South China Sea," said Fang. He also reiterated China's stance on the South China Sea and pointed out that China always opposes outside interference in the South China Sea issue. Zulkifeli Bin Mohd Zin, chief of the Malaysian defense force, said multinational initiatives such as "Aman Youyi" would afford greater synchronization and stronger awareness in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. After the opening ceremony, Chinese special forces performed close quarters combat skills while commanding officers from the two sides conducted a Table Top Exercise. China and Malaysia have seen closer military ties in recent years. It is the third time that China and Malaysia have conducted such joint exercises. Last month, a Chinese naval fleet paid a friendly visit to the Malaysian port of Klang. CAPE TOWN, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. hip-hop artist Mos Def, who was detained in South Africa for violating immigration laws, is allowed to leave the country after making an apology, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) said Tuesday. Mos Def, also known as Yasiin Bey, has unreservedly apologized to the South African government for his actions, DHA Director-General Mkuseli Apleni said. In January, Bey was arrested at Cape Town International Airport for using an unrecognized "World Passport," which was declined by immigration officials. Following this incident, the DHA leveled criminal charges against him. Before that process was finalized, the department received a written apology from Bey for contravening the provisions of the South African Immigration Act and Passports and Travel Documents Act, according to Apleni. The DHA is satisfied with the apology and has agreed in principle for him to depart from South Africa using a U.S. passport, Apleni said, adding that the DHA will withdraw the charges against him. For his conduct, Mos Def will be declared an undesirable person, and will therefore not qualify for a port of entry visa or admission to the country, Apleni said. The 42-year-old American embarked on his hip-hop career in 1994, and has been living in South Africa since 2013. BANGKOK, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Some Thai nationals are suspected to have secretly supported the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group in Syria, said a police general on Tuesday. Deputy Police chief Pol. Gen. Srivarah Rangsipramanakul said the Australian police had alerted the Thai police that a number of Thai nationals had secretly supported the ISIS, but declined to give names or tell how many people might be so suspected. Srivarah quoted the Australian police as alleging that the pro-ISIS Thais had visited the terrorist group's website for over 100,000 times so far this year. Some of the alleged terrorist supporters had expressed verbal support while others had visited Syria and donated some money to the terrorist group, the deputy police chief said. He made no comment on allegations that those unidentified Thais had been involved in bombings and other terrorist acts in southern Thailand earlier this year. The Special Branch police and provincial police units have been assigned to track down on the unidentified suspected ISIS supporters, he said. Highlights of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Peru Xinhua Weibo Facebook Twitter Reddit Diigo Delicious Digg Linkedin MySpace Sina Weibo Kaixin Renren Q-zone Tencent Weibo Sohu Weibo NetEase Weibo Source: Xinhua | 2016-11-22 19:18:18 | Editor: huaxia Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski holds a red-carpet welcoming ceremony for Chinese President Xi Jinping in front of the presidential palace on Nov. 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Tao) LIMA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the Peruvian capital of Lima on Friday to attend the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting and pay his first state visit to the Latin American country. During in-depth talks between the two heads of state on Monday, Xi and Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski agreed to promote better and faster development of the two countries' comprehensive strategic partnership. Chinese President Xi Jinping meets Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on Nov. 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei) The coming five years are a significant time for national development of both countries, the Chinese president said, urging the two sides to weigh top-level design and overall planning for bilateral ties, run their cooperation mechanisms well, fully implement their joint action plan for cooperation in 2016-2021, and strengthen synergy of development strategies so as to obtain real results of their consensuses. He stressed that both countries should treat industrial capacity cooperation as a new engine for their economic ties and strive for early harvest of major projects. Hailing the sustained growth of bilateral relations, Kuczynski said Peru is looking forward to further enhancing ties with China since both share similar historical experiences, same aspiration for national development, and huge potential for cooperation in the economic and cultural fields. Following their talks, Xi and Kuczynski witnessed a signing ceremony of cooperation documents, including an inter-governmental joint action plan for cooperation in 2016-2021, and deals in trade and economy, mining industry, industrial parks, information connectivity, economic technology, quality inspection, environment and other fields. Accompanied by Kuczynski and his wife, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan paid tribute to the monument of Peru's independence heroes earlier in the day. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the Peruvian Congress in Lima, Peru, Nov. 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) While addressing the Peruvian Congress on his first state visit to the country on Monday, Xi called on China and Latin American countries to strengthen dialogue on global issues and boost cooperation on domestic development, in a bid to better build their community of common destiny on a new starting point in history. Xi proposed that China and Latin America and the Caribbean hold high the banner of peaceful development and cooperation, seek synergy between their development strategies, speed up and upgrade practical cooperation and bring benefits to both peoples. Xi urged the international community to push for a new model of international relations featuring win-win cooperation, and foster a community of common destiny for mankind. In his address, the president also elaborated on China-Peru relations, China's stance on international order and China's economic development. Before the speech, Xi was awarded the Grand-Cross Medal of Honor of the Peruvian Congress by Luz Salgado, president of the Congress. Chinese President Xi Jinping meets President of Peruvian Congress Luz Salgado on Nov. 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) Xi also met President of Peruvian Congress Luz Salgado on Monday on boosting legislative cooperation and exchanges in various fields. Noting that the Chinese side has full confidence in a bright future for bilateral ties, the president said China stands ready to work with the Peruvian side to implement the important consensuses and results reached during the visit, lift bilateral relations to a new stage and better serve the well-being of both peoples. Xi also said the friendly exchanges and cooperation between China's National People's Congress (NPC) and the Peruvian Congress have effectively promoted comprehensive development of bilateral ties. Expressing admiration for China's development achievements, Salgado said the Peruvian Congress attaches great importance to nurturing Peru-China relations and is willing to strengthen communication and cooperation with China's NPC. Alfonso Miranda, president of the National Society of Industries' (SNI) Fisheries Committee, said that China is Peru's top trading partner and the deepening of ties is crucial to the economic growth of this country in the years to come. "The bilateral relations are linked to the aspirations of Peruvian producers to enter the Chinese market, considered to be one of the largest in the world, which would allow us to boost exports," he said. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan attend the closing ceremony of the China-Latin America and Caribbean 2016 Year of Culture Exchange at Peru's National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History in Lima. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang) Xi's visit to Peru also draws attention from worldwide media. Reuters said in a report titled "Peru and China hail tightening ties as Xi visits after Trump win" that China surpassed the United States as Peru's top trade partner years ago, and Peru, one of the world's most open economies, is on track to become the world's second-biggest copper producer this year thanks to a new Chinese mine. Xi's official visit extended the welcome he received at the APEC summit that Peru hosted through, where he promised to further open China's economy amid concerns of protectionism, said the report. The Associated Press focused on China's trade relationship with Peru when reporting Xi's visit to the Latin American country, saying that Peru is one of China's partners in the country's drive "to boost world trade in the face of protectionist stirrings." Many netizens also responded warmly toward the Chinese president's visit to Peru and his speech at the Peruvian Congress, with one Facebook user named "Fred Opara" saying that "The commitment and zeal of President Xi and China to birth a peaceful world anchored on sustainable development is legendary." Another Facebook user named "Boy Gargar" said in the comments section of a China Xinhua News post that "Go China-Peru friendship, for more prosperity of two peoples and the rest of the world!" Enditem Xinhua Weibo Facebook Twitter Reddit Diigo Delicious Digg Linkedin MySpace Sina Weibo Kaixin Renren Q-zone Tencent Weibo Sohu Weibo NetEase Weibo Back to Top Close HARBIN, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- A court in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province Tuesday sentenced Chen Tiexin, a former senior political advisor in Liaoning Province, to 13 years and nine months in prison for taking bribes. Chen, former vice chairman of the Liaoning Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, will have personal property worth two million yuan (290,613.19 U.S. dollars) confiscated, according to the Harbin City Intermediate People's Court in Heilongjiang. From 2008 to 2013, Chen took bribes of cash and goods worth a total of 21.95 million yuan when he was Communist Party chief of Chaoyang City. He helped the companies or individuals that offered the bribes with construction projects, bank loans and promotions, it said. According to the court, Chen repented, confessed and returned his illegal gains "in an active manner," all of which are grounds for leniency. Morsi, the first democratically elected president after 2011 revolution, was overthrown by the army in response to mass protests against his one year rule in July 2013. (AFP photo) CAIRO, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian court overturned on Tuesday a life sentence against former president Mohamed Morsi in Hamas espionage case, and ordered retrial, state-run Ahram newspaper reported on its website. The Court of Cassation, the highest degree court in Egypt has ordered that Morsi and 21 co-defendants, including the supreme guide of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, will also be retried. Morsi was sentenced to life sentence of 25 years in Egypt in June 2015 in connection with delivering secret documents to Palestinian group Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah group and Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The court last week overturned the only death sentence against Morsi in a jailbreak case. Morsi no longer faces execution. Morsi, the first democratically elected president after 2011 revolution was overthrown by the army in response to mass protests against his one year rule in July 2013. The Islamist ousted president has received several jail sentences in other cases related to spying and espionage, in which he appealed. Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Hong Liang (front) speaks during the inaugural ceremony of the Myanmar Chinese Communication and Cooperation Central Association (MCCCCA) and Chinese Enterprises Chamber in Myanmar (CECM) in Yangon, Myanmar, Nov. 22, 2016. Chinese Ambassador Hong Liang on Tuesday urged all parties to exercise restraint to immediately end the armed conflicts near the China-Myanmar border. (Xinhua/Zhuang Beining) YANGON, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador Hong Liang on Tuesday urged all parties to exercise restraint to immediately end the armed conflicts near the China-Myanmar border. Hong made the call at an inaugural ceremony of two Chinese non-governmental organizations in Yangon, Myanmar Chinese Communication and Cooperation Central Association (MCCCCA) and Chinese Enterprises Chamber in Myanmar(CECM). Noting that Myanmar is full of hope and business opportunities currently, Hong called on Chinese businessmen to work for the country's economic and social development as well as enhancement of trade cooperation between China and Myanmar. MCCCCA would also help push forward the two countries' friendly cooperation, he said, adding that it needs a good environment for such cooperation. He expressed deep concern over the current outbreak of armed conflicts near China-Myanmar border, calling on all parties to exercise constraint to immediately end the conflicts. Pledging support of Myanmar's peace process, Hong maintained that peace talks are the only channel to gain national reconciliation and eternal peace. Chairman of the MCCCCA U Thitsa said the association was formed with the aim of working for the welfare of the people based on friendship of the two countries and development and consolidation of such bilateral relations. Chairman of CECM Lv Dexing stressed that his organization would push the cooperation between businessmen of the two countries and enhance the friendly relations between the two peoples. Noting that Myanmar and China are neighboring countries enjoying traditional Paukphaw (fraternal ) friendship, Speaker of the Yangon Region Parliament U Tin Maung Tun called for doing more in economic and social cooperation. COLOMBO, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera on Tuesday said there was no change to the country's policy towards Palestine. Samaraweera made the remarks in the parliament. He said Sri Lanka-Palestine relations were strong as ever. The foreign minister recalled that Sri Lanka has supported Palestine in the international fora including the UN. He said successive governments have backed the Palestinian cause and that policy has not changed. "Sri Lanka's principled support for Palestine remains," he stressed. The foreign minister also said Sri Lanka feels the issue between Palestine and Israel should be resolved through negotiations. HOHHOT, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Zhu Guangzhong had a great National Day holiday this year, and he didn't even have to leave his hometown. Bayan Hot, where Zhu lives, played host to a desert car race, which drew more than 900,000 visitors. "I opened my house as a home stay a month before the national holiday. I charge 100 yuan (15 U.S. dollars) for each bed," Zhu said. "I made about 10,000 yuan during the holiday." It is hard to imagine that only a decade ago. The remote town in Alxa League, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, was little more than a dust trap, plagued by dry and sandy winds, with sparse land due to over-grazing, far from what it looks like today. About 93 percent of Alxa League is sand or rocks, and the Badan Jaran, Tengger and Ulan Buh deserts account for a third of its total area. Many of its residents, who lived below the poor line, had turned to excessive grazing to make a living, which made the environment even more hostile. China has one of the worst records for desertification in the world, with more than 1.5 million square kilometers of sandy areas, accounting for about 15.9 percent of the country's land, according to a report issued Tuesday report by Tencent. In June, Vice Premier Wang Yang spoke about the effective measures taken by China to contain the spread of desertification, adding that the nation would continue to preserve the environment and strive to build a beautiful China. In Alxa League, the local government had turned to developing tourism in the desert to not only improve the environment but also to benefit residents. TOURISM HOT IN DESERTS In Alxa, an increasing number of herdsmen have shifted to the tertiary industry, with many employed at local tourist destinations or by tour companies. The increased number of visitors in recent years has improved local accommodation and catering businesses. During this year's National Day holiday, room prices at some hotels rose by as much as eight times. Tourists came to experience the "Grotesque Stone Festival," the "Populus Euphratica Tree Festival," a bicycle tournament and a desert race. Ma Juan, manager of a local hotel, said that rooms of her hotel had been reserved days before the holiday. "Room prices rose significantly thanks to these activities," Ma said. "Our cheapest room rose to 780 yuan from a little over 100 yuan." About 1.8 million domestic and foreign tourists visited Alxa League during the holiday, generating tourism revenue of 1.36 billion yuan. Herdsmen also benefited from the tourism boom. "Even in the deserts, I can still make money," said Erdengdalai, who lives deep in Badan Jaran Desert. A few years ago, the local government limited grazing in the area to restore environment, which saw his income decrease. But after a series of tourism festivals and desert racing competitions were launched, he found a new way to make money. "The government helped me buy an SUV and encouraged me to take tourists for a ride through the desert," he said. "With the SUV business, I can make about 80,000 yuan each year." The local government said it plans to further boost the tourism industry in Alxa League, and will try to make it an "international tourism spot" in the next five years, according to a government meeting held earlier this year. BETTER ENVIRONMENT While developing the industry, local authorities are also paying attention to environmental restoration. In the league's Ejin Banner, for instance, hundreds of thousands of Chenopodiaceae plants have been growing over an area of 3,500 mu (233 hectares). Ejin Banner was once the worst source of sand storms, but after the local government encouraged farmers to return land and limit grazing, the eco-system has been recovering. The plantation of populus euphratica trees in Ejin Banner has reached 444,000 mu so far, attracting 87,000 visitors during the National Day holiday. "In the past, life was bitter because generations in my family depended on excessive grazing to make a living," said Erdengdalai. "But now with tourism on the desert, our lives are so much better." TAIPEI, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan's TransAsia Airways announced Tuesday that it will close over financial and flight safety woes. The company made the decision at an emergency board meeting Tuesday. Its operation and shares have been suspended. The island's third largest carrier could not restore public confidence in the wake of two fatal accidents in as many years. BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- She was honored that Chinese President Xi Jinping praised her father's enduring commitment to further strengthen the friendship between the Chinese and Peruvian people, Lourdes Fernandez Esquivel, the older daughter of the renowned Peruvian journalist, told Xinhua. Esquivel was shocked when Xi mentioned her father Antonio Fernandez Arce, a Peruvian friend of China, during his speech at Peru's Congress, and said "my father was a simple, humble man." Born in Trujillo, in northern Peru in 1931, Arce was a born news reporter. He made a living from selling newspapers in his childhood, became a prominent journalist, and was honored as president of the Journalists' Association of Peru at the age of 25. Starting from the 1960s, Arce made many trips to China and he was warmly welcomed by former Chinese leader Mao Zedong in 1960. His frequent travels between China and Peru enabled him to present a real picture of the country to the Latin American people. "CHINESE BLOOD" IN ARCE'S YOUNGER DAUGHTER'S VEINS In 1970 Arce was busying translating highly confidential documents and had no time to take care of his newborn daughter Flor de Maria Fernandez, who was suffering from blood poisoning. Upon learning this news, former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai immediately ordered the best doctors in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to attend to the baby. Flor de Maria survived thanks to many Chinese soldiers who had donated blood to help save her. ENVOY OF BUILDING CHINA-PERU TIES Arce played a significant role in China's developing diplomatic relations with Peru. Zhou talked to Arce about China's willingness to further develop the friendship with Peru before Arce returned to Peru to visit his sick father in 1970. Zhou also expressed his hope that Arce could deliver some concrete ideas to Peru's authorities concerning building diplomatic ties between the two countries. Arce conveyed Zhou's message to Peru's former president and was picked up by the president's driver as soon as he arrived in Peru. Later, communication between China and Peru became available through Arce's help and he served as the consultant for Peru's commercial office in China. China forged diplomatic relations with Peru on Nov. 2, 1971. Upon hearing the news, Arce was so excited his eyes glistened with tears. CONSCIENTIOUS COPY EDITOR Arce started his work as a copy editor for Xinhua News Agency in 1983. He devoted his energy to his work, and when he was typing, the whole office echoed with the sound, said his colleagues, adding that they were inspired by the excited look on his face when he finished reports about China or polished an article. Rigor and full concentration were his work attitude, Arce's colleague Ni Runhao said, adding that he was sincere but strict in training younger generations in translation and reporting. "It is hard to find such a conscientious and strict copy editor," said Ni. He wrote plenty of high-quality reports about China through in-depth interviews and research, which were frequently published in the foreign press. Acre presented "Machu Picchu/The Great Wall: Monuments to Eternity" in 2011, 40 years after China and Peru established diplomatic relations. He described the magnificent Great Wall with Latin American thinking in Chinese, English and Spanish. The renowned journalist died at the age of 83 in his hometown on May 14, 2014. Xinhua paid its highest respects to him by calling him "an old friend of the Chinese people." PHNOM PENH, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The National Assembly of Cambodia ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change on Tuesday with 105 out of 106 lawmakers in attendance voted in favour of the pact. Environment Minister Say Samal said Cambodia joined with world leaders to sign the agreement on April 22, 2016 in New York. "As of early November this year, 91 countries out of 197 countries had ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change," he told the parliament. He said the agreement urges countries to combat climate change, accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low-carbon future, and adapt to the increasing impacts of climate change. WUHAN, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- A total of 159 items originally received by public servants as business gifts went up for auction last weekend in central China's Hubei Province. The gifts were turned in by staff from nearly 30 government organs, public institutions and state-owned enterprises in the past two years in Wuhan, capital of Hubei. China does not allow public servants to receive gifts. Those who take business gifts must hand them in and register them within one month. The auction was seen by many as showing the local government's determination to fight corruption. The gifts included jewelry, paintings, watches, electronic devices, wine, and stamps. Initial bidding price of all items totaled 593,700 yuan (about 86,218 U.S. dollars). About 200 locals participated in the bidding. Of the 159 pieces auctioned, 97.5 percent or 155 were sold. The opening price of an Iphone 6 with 16G storage was 1,800 yuan and it was sold for 2,900 yuan. The most popular items were gift cards and coupons, said an unnamed staff member with the Hubei Integrity Auction Co., Ltd. The initial prices of the cards and coupons were 78 percent of their value. "Gift cards worth 10,000 yuan mostly sold for 9,300 yuan, with a commission fee of about 400 yuan," he said. "In the past, business gifts handed in by public servants were put in warehouses, which was a waste," said an official with the local discipline inspection commission. "By having an auction, we are making the confiscation of business gifts more transparent and avoiding waste in the meantime." One auction bidder, Mr. Fei, bought three painting and calligraphy items. "By holding the auction, the local government is warning Party members and cadres to abide by regulations and resist temptation," he said. China's anti-corruption campaign shifted up a gear following the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in late 2012. Two documents -- the norms of political life within the Party under the new situation and a regulation on intra-Party supervision -- were released following the sixth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee to further regulate Party members. Qiao Xinsheng, director of the clean governance research institute at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, noted that the move showed the local government's resolution to fight corruption. "The auction solved problems left over from previous years," he said. "With growing awareness of anti-corruption, fewer business gifts will be given and taken, and such auctions will disappear." YANGON, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Sporadic explosions took place in Muse, Myanmar's northern Shan state Tuesday, the third day of armed conflicts between Myanmar government forces and a combined forces of three non-ceasefire signatory ethnic armed groups, according to the release of the Information Committee of the State Counselor's Office . The combined forces of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Kokang's Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) numbering about 200 stopped a truck loading with water-melons on its way from Mandalay to Muse and destroyed it at a location near Kutkai with grenades and small weapons. In another incident, some local companies-owned vehicles, on their way from Nan Naing to Kutkai, were also robbed to be used to block the way. Two drivers were killed and others injured in the clashes, the sources said, adding that the government forces was making clearance operation on the armed groups following the incident. Military conflicts broke out in border area of northern Myanmar's Shan state early Sunday morning with an alliance of the three ethnic armed groups launching simultaneous and surprise attacks on government's military outposts and police stations in Muse and Kutkai townships as well as a border trade center there. The government claimed that a total of eight people including one soldier, three policemen, one people's militia and three civilians had so far lost their lives and 29 others injured including nine policemen, two customs officers and 18 civilians. Their attacks targeted government military outposts and police stations in areas of Muse, Kutkai, Monekoe, Kyukoke, Phangsai, Pangsang, Manken and Kyinsankyawk (Honang). NAIROBI, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan government said Tuesday that it will partner with private investors to roll out new training and mentorship program for youth aspiring to work in the hospitality sector. Cabinet Secretary for Tourism Najib Balala said that skills development will be key to reinventing the tourism industry that currently contributes 12 percent to Kenya's GDP. "The country requires a critical mass of trained and motivated personnel to work in the rapidly evolving hospitality industry. We still have a skills gap in a sector that has attracted huge foreign direct investments lately," Balala said. He spoke in Nairobi during a review of the impact of a training and mentorship program for high school students keen on pursuing careers in the tourism sector. Kenya's ministry of tourism has partnered with the Global Travel and Tourism Partnership (GTTP) regional office to train and expose young adults to vast opportunities in hospitality industry. Balala said Kenya aims to become a training hub for professionals in tourism sector through establishment of additional learning facilities alongside curriculum reforms. "The second largest tertiary institution for training workers in the hospitality sector will be completed soon. Several public universities have also rolled out courses in tourism and travel to help meet a growing demand," said Balala. He disclosed that three major international hotel brands will soon open branches in Nairobi thanks to availability of abundant skilled workforce alongside improved investment climate. GENEVA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- A group of United Nations (UN) experts on Tuesday issued a statement stressing that breastfeeding is a human rights issue for babies and mothers and should be protected and promoted for the benefit of both. They also urged states to take urgent action to stop the "misleading, aggressive and inappropriate" marketing of breast milk substitutes in a multi-billion-dollar global industry. Those who signed the statement include UN Special Rapporteurs on the right to health, Dainius Puras, and on the right to food, Hilal Elver, as well as the UN Working Group on discrimination against women, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child. "These marketing practices often negatively affect the choices women make on how to feed their infants in the best way possible, and can impede both babies and mothers from enjoying the many health benefits of breastfeeding," the experts said. "This is particularly harmful when companies are targeting untapped markets in developing countries because those in developed countries are already saturated," they noted. According to the experts, the tools available to states to crack down on inappropriate marketing practices are not being used sufficiently, and too few states have adopted the necessary stringent, comprehensive and enforceable legal measures. "We call on them to adopt such measures to protect babies and mothers from misleading marketing practices, and fully align with the recommendations contained in the international code of marketing of breast-milk substitutes and subsequent relevant World Health Assembly resolutions," they stressed. Figures given by the experts in the statement showed that only one in three of the world's babies under six months old are exclusively breast-fed. GENEVA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Some 68,100 individuals have fled the Iraqi city of Mosul since military operations to recapture one of the Islamic State (IS)'s last strongholds began on Oct. 17, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Tuesday. "The number of displaced people continues to increase, even as we are seeing more people returning to their homes," IOM Iraq Chief of Mission Thomas Weiss said in a statement. "Making sure displaced people as well as affected communities are receiving assistance is more critical than ever as temperatures are close to freezing at night," he added. According to figures, some 6,120 individuals were forced to flee the center of Mosul on Nov. 19 as a result of indiscriminate shelling carried out by IS fighters. A further 3,180 civilians were displaced on Nov. 18 and Nov. 21, with most internally displaced people arriving at Khazer M1 camp. IOM revealed that around 78 percent of those recently displaced by Mosul operation are living in formal camps. A further 16 percent have taken shelter in private settings, while 6 percent are in critical shelter arrangements and less that 1 percent are passing through screening sites. Supported by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Iraqi troops kicked off operations last month to take back the city which fell into IS hands in June 2014 after government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions. International aircraft as well as Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition artillery units are supporting ground operations there. According to reports, more than 5,000 IS militants were initially holed up in Mosul, though they are losing ground amid ongoing military operations. The UN Refugee Agency had warned before the military campaign kicked off that as many as 1.2 million civilians could be displaced by fighting. BEIRUT, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon celebrated Tuesday its 73rd Independence Day with an official ceremony including a military parade by the Lebanese Armed Forces and other Security agencies, staged at Shafiq al-Wazzan Boulevard in Downtown Beirut. President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and Caretaker PM Tammam Salam attended the ceremony. During the parade, hundreds of red, white and green balloons representing the colors of Lebanon's flag were launched skywards after military helicopters overflew marching soldiers. Aoun, Berri, Hariri and Salam later headed to Baabda palace where they received well-wishers. Former Army Chief Michel Aoun was elected on Oct. 31 as the 13th President of Lebanon ending more than two and half years of vacancy in the post that started with the end of the six-year tenure of former President Michel Suleiman on May 25, 2014. Hariri was designated to form a government but the formation is witnessing some delay amid wrangling over the distribution of ministerial portfolios. Lebanese Independence Day commemorates the country's liberation in 1943 after 23 years of governance by French Mandate that succeeded the Ottoman rule at the end of the First World War in 1918. Aoun hailed on Monday the Lebanese army for "gaining citizens' confidence and being their source of security and serenity," calling for "liberating civil servants from the culture of corruption." He has said in a televised address to the nation on the eve of Lebanon's Independence Day "when dangers threaten the country, the army remains its security valve and the firm core of its national unity." "We must immunize independence through refraining from seeking help from foreign forces to achieve partisan interests at the expense of the public interest," the president noted. In addition to the pledges of economic growth and security, Aoun said in his oath of office that Lebanon must work to ensure Syrian refugees "can return quickly" to their country. He also urged to endorse an "independent foreign policy" and to protect Lebanon from "the fires burning across the region." MOSCOW, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Kremlin said Tuesday that it is closely monitoring the situation concerning two Russian servicemen reportedly detained by the Ukrainian security service (SBU). According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the two servicemen, ensign Maksim Odintsov and contract service junior sergeant Alexander Baranov, were detained on Sunday at a checkpoint on the border with Ukraine. "They are citizens of the Russian Federation. In this case, it is the main thing," the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying, adding that "proper authorities" of Russia are monitoring the situation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the detention was an "illegal provocation." Earlier in the day, an unnamed spokesperson of Russia's Black Sea Fleet was quoted by Novosti as saying that the SBU has lured the two servicemen into a trap by promising to give them certified documents confirming their higher education in Ukrainian universities. Odintsov and Baranov were detained immediately after crossing the border of Russia and taken to the Mykolayiv region of Ukraine, the military source said. Meanwhile, a SBU spokesperson told the Interfax news agency that it had detained two former Ukrainian servicemen, who deserted in 2014 from the Ukrainian Armed Forces to the Russian Army, which was deemed by Kiev as a violation of their oaths. In 2014, Russia absorbed Crimea, formerly part of Ukraine, following a referendum, which was recognized by Moscow but rejected by Kiev and Western powers. RAMALLAH, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- France is determined to hold an international conference for peace in the Middle East before the yearend regardless of Israeli and U.S. objection, the Palestinian foreign minister said Tuesday. "The conference will be held in France on Dec. 15 at the level of foreign ministers," Reyad al-Malki told official "Voice of Palestine" Radio. The Palestinian side is in full contact with the French side in this regard, he said. It is unclear if the United States would join the conference or not, while Israel opposes the principle. Al-Malki expected that France will delegate its foreign minister or its envoy to the Middle East to visit the Palestinian territories within the coming few days to follow up preparations for holding the conference. In June, an international ministerial meeting was held in Paris and discussed preparations for holding an international conference for peace with Israel. It was attended by 25 foreign ministers, including four Arab ones. The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, sponsored by the United States, collapsed in April 2014, after nine months of futile efforts. HARBIN, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Two suspects were arrested 35 hours after a blotched robbery attempt in the early hours of Monday in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, local authorities said. The government of Mishan City said the police received a call from a local bank at 1:16 a.m. Monday. A dead bank guard surnamed Wang and a large sum of cash totalling 3.04 million yuan (440,000 U.S. dollars) were found at the scene. The cctv footage showed a man in a camouflage coat attempting to take cash out of the vault. The suspect fled when the security guard reacted, abandoning the cash. The suspect, surnamed Du, and his partner surnamed Zhang were arrested Tuesday. Both confessed their crimes to the police. The case is under further proceedings. WINDHOEK, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- It has been more than nine years since Monika Kapofi was told that she was HIV positive. Kapofi from Oshikango, the north central region of Namibia, says she was not saddened by the news though. "I accepted the results and communicated them to my two elder sisters who also seemed OK with my condition," she says. However, Kapofi later noticed some changes in the house. "People began avoiding using the things I used. Even the children were told not to touch me. I guess they were told about my condition and so, they avoided me. I then thought about joining a support group," she says. Today, she runs the Edundja Support Group with the help of funding from EuropeAid. The support group, Kapofi says, freed her. "I was able to speak about HIV and my status openly. In 2007, we started community-based support groups because the existing one was far away," she recalls. Today Kapofi says she can walk around doing her work in the community freely. "I am no longer the way I was when I tested positive," she adds. The medication, Kapofi says, has helped her a lot as the recent tests failed to detect the virus in her blood. "Personally, I think being HIV positive no longer scares me. I regard myself just like any other person," she says. Kapofi is one of the success stories of Namibia, which has been chosen by UNAIDS to launch its 2016 Global Annual World Aids Day report. The report was launched Monday in Windhoek by President Hage Geingob and the UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe. Sidibe said UNAIDS chose Namibia as a launch pad for the report due to the country's political leadership that has been consistent in fighting disease, its providing access to medical care and translating commitment into budget allocation. Namibia had its first HIV case reported in 1989, a year before the country attained independence. At independence, the new Namibian government crafted a number of policies to fight the disease. A report commissioned by the health ministry and launched in 2010 set out to address the prevalence of HIV. Although its 14-percent HIV prevalence still makes it one of the many countries with a high rate, Namibia's efforts to reduce new infection and preventing mother-to-child transmission make this nation of about 2.3 million a star. Geingob detailed Namibia's road to reducing HIV infection and death last year when he met the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Sidibe at the Empress Zewditu Memorial Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last year during the launch of the 2015 report. Geingob told Ban Ki-Moon that ever since Namibia de-stigmatized, most people have opened up to voluntary testing and embraced treatment. "AIDS is no longer the proverbial white elephant in the room. As a result of this, our people opened up to voluntary testing and embraced HIV-AIDS treatment. The results were phenomenal," Geingob said. Namibia's success, he said then, was achieved by significant scaling up of resources on all fronts and a multi-faceted approach that includes awareness raising at an early age, HIV-AIDS counseling, the extension of medical infrastructure and personnel, as well the provision of life-saving medicines. He also said Namibia has seen a drop of nearly 50 percent in new HIV infections over the last 15 years; a more than 60-percent reduction in new HIV infections among children and more than 132,000 Namibians are on anti-retroviral treatment. "The excellent results would not have been possible if it were not for the assistance of our international partners," Geingob said, adding that his government has realized the strong link between the medical response to AIDS and the fight against poverty. "We have, therefore, taken the additional step of declaring war on poverty, as poverty is a contributing factor to AIDS. I believe that as we progress in to putting measures in place to eradicate poverty in Namibia, the results of our AIDS response will just improve," he said. Furthermore, he said, 95 percent of all women in Namibia have access to HIV medicines to prevent mother-to-child transmission. In line with Geingob's stance on poverty, Namibia set out to improve the Human Development Index (HDI) from 0.542 in 2008 to 0.55 by end of 2015 /16. Geingob hopes that Namibia will also be on fast-track in combating HIV. ANKARA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- An Ankara court Tuesday issued arrest warrants for 48 Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) members, including several senior figures, over a terrorist attack in Ankara this February. Salih Muslim, the head of the PYD, is on the terrorist list of planning and carrying out the February bomb attack, state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The arrest warrant covers the PKK's senior members, Zubeyir Aydar and Remzi Kartal, both responsible for the terror group's operations in European countries. Turkish government regards the PYD as the Syrian affiliate of the terror group of the PKK. A total of 29 people were killed and more than 60 were wounded in the attack on Feb. 17 when a bomb-laden car was detonated during the passing of a military vehicle. ISLAMABAD, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif on Tuesday confirmed death sentences to 10 hardcore terrorists after they were found guilty of carrying out terrorist acts, the military said. Those criminals, who were given death sentence, were involved in heinous offences related to terrorism, including killing of innocent civilians and military officials, a statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said. The convicts are associated with the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Islam groups, according to ISPR. Both groups are accused of attacking the security forces, political leaders, government officials and members of the peace committees. These convicts were tried by military courts that were set up after a terrorist attack on an army school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December 2014 for speedy trials of the terrorism-related accused. All the convicts "admitted offenses before the magistrates and the trial courts," the army said. WINDHOEK, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Namibia on Tuesday donated 44,000 U.S. dollars (610,000 Namibian dollars) to the Namibia National Disaster Emergency fund. At an event in the capital Windhoek, Namibia's Deputy Prime Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah received the donation from the Chinese Charge d'Affaires Wu Wei. Nandi-Ndaitwah said the donation by China is yet another reaffirmation of thriving relations of friendship, solidarity and cooperation between the two countries. "We are confident that this donation will go a long way in assisting and will bring relief to the most needy and vulnerable communities affected by the severe drought," she said. She added that the donation will be used to purchase essentials that will be distributed to those that are in dire need of drought relief, especially in the rural areas. Meanwhile, Wu said the donation towards Namibia was a token to show solidarity with Namibia in their efforts to fight the ongoing drought. "The Chinese government will continue to help Namibia to improve it's capacity-building against natural disasters and we are willing to share experiences and render any necessary support to improve people's livelihoods," he added. Furthermore, Wu said that the first batch of the 4,000-tonne rice donation pledged by China, will arrive in Namibia by mid-December. - 1 2022 2 290,9 , 18% 2021 36,6% . Chinese and Malaysian armed forces take part in a joint exercise in Paya Indah of Selangor, Malaysia, Nov. 22, 2016. (Xinhua/Chong Voon Chung) PAYA INDAH, Malaysia, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and Malaysian armed forces began a joint exercise on Tuesday in Paya Indah, a wetlands park in the state of Selangor, as the two countries aim to forge closer military ties and safety and security cooperation. "Aman Youyi 2016," or "Peace Friendship 2016," is a joint exercise on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, involving 410 participants from the Malaysian Armed Forces and 195 from the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Observers from the Royal Thai Armed Forces will also witness the exercise. Launching the opening ceremony of the exercise, Fang Fenghui, a member of China's Central Military Commission (CMC) and chief of the Joint Staff Department under the CMC, expressed the hope that the two sides can take this opportunity to make continuous joint efforts in combating terrorism and addressing maritime threats. Fang Fenghui, a member of China's Central Military Commission (CMC) and chief of the Joint Staff Department under the CMC, delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the joint exercise, in Paya Indah of Selangor, Malaysia, Nov. 22, 2016. (Xinhua) "We've always believed that nothing is more important than the all-round growth of the friendly relations between the two countries and the two militaries as well as jointly safeguarding peace and stability in the region including the South China Sea," said Fang. He also reiterated China's stance on the South China Sea and pointed out that China always opposes outside interference in the South China Sea issue. Zulkifeli Bin Mohd Zin, chief of the Malaysian defense force, said multinational initiatives such as "Aman Youyi" would afford greater synchronization and stronger awareness in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. After the opening ceremony, Chinese special forces performed close quarters combat skills while commanding officers from the two sides conducted a Table Top Exercise. China and Malaysia have seen closer military ties in recent years. It is the third time that China and Malaysia have conducted such joint exercises. Last month, a Chinese naval fleet paid a friendly visit to the Malaysian port of Klang. Members of Chinese special forces conduct an anti-terrorist drill, in Paya Indah of Selangor, Malaysia, Nov. 22, 2016. (Xinhua/Chong Voon Chung) BUDAPEST, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Stability in Iraq is a key issue to European security, said Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto on Tuesday. He made the remarks while addressing a news conference following a meeting with his Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Szijjarto noted Iraq was engaged in a crucial battle against the Islamic State (IS) militants, which had to be annihilated for the world's safety. The victory of the Iraqi forces would also mean an end to the migration crisis, he added. The two officials signed an accord eliminating dual taxation, and discussed ways of improving cooperation between Iraq and the European Union since 4.5 million people living in Iraq were displaced from their homes and 10 million needed government aid to survive. Hungary, Szijjarto said, was doing its part, including deploying 146 Hungarian soldiers in northern Iraq and supplying weapons and training Iraqi forces in Hungary. Hungary is also ready to receive and treat wounded Iraqi soldiers, Szijjarto added. Al-Jaafari said the war in Iraq was not a conflict of countries or religions, since the IS was threatening all peoples and all religions. ISIS, he said, was "attacking humanity." Iraq, he said, was traditionally a home to multiple religions and ethnic groups, and its various peoples had lived together in peace and harmony before the IS stepped in to destroy it. Al-Jaafari spoke of the fighting in and around Mosul but said that liberating the city was taking longer than anticipated because of efforts to spare the civilian population. So far, the Iraqi minister said, Iraqi forces had killed 1,700 extremists and captured another 120. In addition, he said, the Iraqi forces had destroyed 650 vehicles that extremists had turned into explosive devices. He also said that Iraq needs to boost its crude oil extraction to fund the fight, given that oil accounted for 90 percent of the country's budget. A secretary works at the headquarters of the Santiago branch of China Construction Bank (CCB), the first Chinese bank in Chile, in Santiago, Chile, on June 17, 2016. (Xinhua/Jorge Villegas) By Xinhua writers Leng Tong, Mao Pengfei SANTIAGO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming state visit to Chile will open a new chapter of bilateral ties, Chinese Ambassador to Chile Li Baorong said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua on the eve of the visit. This milestone visit will inject new vitality into bilateral cooperation and have a significant impact on the long-term development of bilateral relations. Li said that, in recent years, China and Chile have maintained frequent high-level exchanges and deepened political mutual trust. The important consensuses reached during those visits have played an irreplaceable role in the development of ties. Chile established diplomatic ties with China in 1970, the first country in South America to do so. The Chinese and Chilean people have maintained a profound traditional friendship ever since, Li said. China and Chile are strategic partners, with solid political mutual trust, complementary economies, fruitful educational, cultural and technological exchanges, and huge potential for future mutual beneficial cooperation, Li added. Both sides have also showed mutual understanding and support on major issues concerning each other's core interests. The strategic significance and overall influence of China-Chile ties have been continuously enhanced, said Li. He said that China and Chile have long enjoyed friendly exchanges between government departments, legislatures and political parties. The Chilean parliament was the first Latin American parliament to establish a political dialogue mechanism with China's National People's Congress, and a political consultation mechanism has been established between the two foreign ministries. These friendly exchanges, dialogues and consultations have further deepened mutual understanding and friendship and effectively promoted bilateral friendly cooperation, Li said. In the fields of economy, trade and financial cooperation, Li said that Chile was the first Latin American country to sign a free trade agreement(FTA) with China in 2005. Bilateral trade volume has grown fourfold since the FTA went into effect in 2006. China is now Chile's largest trading partner, its largest export destination and the largest buyer of copper products. China's first RMB clearing bank in Latin America was opened in Chile in June this year, setting up a financial platform to upgrade financial cooperation between China, Chile and the rest of Latin America. Li also said that in recent years, trade between the two countries has been well diversified. Currently, Chile is China's second largest source of wine imports, with bottled wine exports to China having increased by 46 percent in 2015. The two countries have signed a number of quarantine agreements on cherries, blueberries and avocados. Chinese Ambassador to Chile Li Baorong, delivers a speech during a ceremony to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, at Chinese ambassador's residence, in Santiago, Chile, Sept. 29, 2014. (Xinhua/Jorge Villegas) China has become an important market for Chilean cherries, blueberries, apples, grapes and a variety of seafoods such as salmon. Chinese products with good quality and competitive prices are also popular among Chilean consumers. For example, Chinese-made cars have taken up a considerable share of the Chilean auto market. Li said China-Chile mutual investment, whose total amount is still limited, has been continuously growing, and expanding to industries like infrastructure construction, renewable energy, mining, agriculture, telecommunications and others. The two governments have done a lot to promote mutual investment. In 2015, the two countries held the first economic cooperation and strategic dialogue, and signed a series of agreements to strengthen investment and boost industrial cooperation. Cultural exchanges in recent years have enhanced the mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples. 2015 was the "Year of Chinese Culture" in Chile, while this year has been designated the "China-Latin America and Caribbean Cultural Exchange Year." Finally, some 50 Chinese teachers from the Confucius Institute's Latin American regional center in Santiago, two Confucius Institutes and over 20 Chinese teaching centers have been working hard to popularize the Chinese language and culture in Chile. Li concluded by stressing that Chinese President Xi's visit to Chile will definitely be historic. An injured female worker is transferred to a hospital in Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, Nov. 22, 2016. Dozens of workers, mostly women, sustained injuries as a fire broke out at a gas lighter factory in Ashulia on the outskirts of Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Tuesday, a police official said. (Xinhua/Rizwan Karim) DHAKA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of workers, mostly women, sustained injuries as a fire broke out at a gas lighter factory in Ashulia on the outskirts of Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Tuesday, a police official said. According to the official who did not like to be named, seven units of firefighters after hectic efforts of hours managed to douse the fire at around 5:00 p.m. local time at the Color Max (BD) Limited. "At least 26 workers got admitted to different hospitals including the Burn Unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital," he said. Of them, according to the official, five female workers' suffered serious injuries and are in a critical condition. The cause of the fire was not immediately known. A spokesman of the factory was not immediately available for comment. The government formed a three-member committee to probe the fire mishap. Bottles of wine are seen in a shelf of a restaurant in the city of Santiago, capital of Chile, on June 10, 2015. (Xinhua/Luis Echeverria) By Leng Tong SANTIAGO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to Chile will promote bilateral ecomonic cooperation, providing an opportunity to review the progress and challenges in the relationship, a Chilean expert said. "Bilateral economic and trade ties have reached the level where China is this country's leading trading partner, and therefore that should be reflected by a strategic proposal to reinforce the relationship," Osvaldo Rosales, a consultant and former director of International Trade and Integration at the Santiago-based Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean told Xinhua in a recent interview. In 2014, the trade volume betweeen China and Chile reached 34.15 billion U.S. dollars, almost five-fold the amount after the signing of a free trade agreement (FTA) in 2005. Before the FTA was reached, China was the 25th trading partner of Chile. Now it is Chile's biggest trading partner and importer. In 2015, although the overall trade volume declined to 31.9 billion dollars because of the global financial crisis, China still imported over one-fourth of the country's exports. Rosales underlined that Chile has bolstered its ties with China, the engine of the global economy in the 21st century. He also said: "It is time to examine trade ties, not in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality." Employees work in food-producing industrial plant Agrosuper, in Rancagua, 90 km from Santiago, capital of Chile, on Aug. 11, 2011. (Xinhua/Jorge Villegas) Chile's challenge is to diversify its exports, currently "concentrated on a few basic products," he said, adding that one way to address this issue is to promote Chilean exports to parts of China where supply has yet to meet demand. "China can be a more effective partner for Chile" by helping Chilean exports gain a foothold in "west or southwest China, where there is relatively less development," said Rosales. "Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities are already covered by the whole world." Chile's state-run Production Development Corporation and China's agency for trade and investment promotion could work together on a Chilean export program for those regions, according to Rosales. Chile should also do its part, he said. "The Chilean government and business institutions have the task to provide interested Chinese entities with business opportunities, and trade and technological partnerships, and to advance in the assessment of projects, so that when Chinese investors arrive, they can find out about the potential opportunities," Rosales said. VIENTIANE, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) and Lao National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI) recently signed an agreement to develop new tools for farmers to adapt to climate change in Laos. Following the agreement, WFP and NAFRI will establish schools where farmers can learn more about crop management and how to best adapt to climate variations, Bounthong Bouahom, Director General of the NAFRI told local Vientiane Times on Tuesday. The project will give farmers weather information to make decisions about their crops in times of fluctuating meteorological patterns, and will provide them with real-time rainfall forecasts, provided by the National Department of Meteorology and Hydrology. WFP's support to this project comes at an important time and will be crucial in ensuring the country is better prepared to deal with climate change," said Bounthong. Over the past years, Laos has experienced higher temperatures and reduced rains during the dry season, and more intense rainfall during the rainy season, leading to longer and more severe droughts, and an increased risk of floods. In an economy highly dependent agriculture, particularly in rural areas, reducing the impact of climate change in agricultural production is important in order to protect household food security. Helping farmers with extreme weather linked to climate change is key to improve food security in the country," said WFP Laos Country Director Sarah Gordon-Gibson. The project aims to help farmers in the seven main rice growing provinces of Xayabouly, Bolikhamxay, Khammuane, Savannakhet, Salavan, Attapeu and Champasak. It will also have longer-term impact in the agricultural development sector by improving the knowledge and resources of national institutions and policy makers. BANGKOK, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Thai cabinet on Tuesday agreed that the country's long-stay visa for tourists aged over 50 can be extended to a maximum of 10 years from the current one year, though the visa holder still have to report to immigration police every 90 days. Apisit Chaiyanuwat, vice minister at the Prime Minister's Office, said after the meeting of the cabinet that the 10-year long-stay visa, set for tourists aged over 50, has other requirements. A foreigner seeking the visa must have a minimum monthly income of 100,000 baht (about 2,777 U.S. dollars) or a minimum deposit of three million baht (about 83,333 U.S. dollars) in a bank account and it has to be maintained for at least a year. Besides, they have to have a health insurance lasting a minimum of one year and worth a minimum of 1,000 U.S. dollars. According to Apisit, the visa will be valid initially for five years and could be renewed for another five and the visa fee was set at 10,000 baht. Though got a 10-year long-stay visa, one still have to report to immigration police every 90 days as before. The prolonged visa aimed to promote medical and wellness tourism while the target groups are visitors from many countries, such as China, Japan, India, United States and the United Kingdom. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (L) speaks during the second presidential debate with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Washington University in St. Louis, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2016. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's administration will not further probe into his former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over her private email server use, a top aide to Trump said Tuesday. The new administration will also not open any investigation into foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation when Clinton was secretary of state in the Barak Obama administration, said the top aide. On the campaign trail, Trump, the then Republican presidential nominee, vowed to launch further investigation of Clinton once he wins the White House. "If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation," Trump told Clinton at the second presidential debate in early October. "Look, I think he's thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the President of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign are not among them," Trump's former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I think when the President-elect, who's also the head of your party, tells you before he's even inaugurated that he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone, and content" to fellow Republicans, said Conway. Trump said in an interview with CBS after the election that prosecuting Clinton would not be a priority. "I don't want to hurt them", he said of the Clinton family. "They're good people." JERUSALEM, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Brush fires broke out on Tuesday in northern Israel, causing the evacuation of an entire town and injuring ten people, including children and an infant. In Zichron Yaakov, a town north of Tel Aviv, at least 40 firefighting vehicles and eight jets struggled to tamp down a blaze. Yoram Levi, a spokesperson from the Fire and Rescue Service, said that the fire erupted in the bushes outside the town and was quickly spreading due to strong winds and dry weather. Police evacuated the residents and blocked entries to the town. Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported that the winery of Carmel, Israel's largest winery, was also evacuated due to fear that ammonia containers inside might explode. The Fire and Rescue Service said that at least a dozen homes were damaged by the fire. Israel's MDA emergency service said its teams treated ten people lightly injured due to smoke inhalation, including children and a ten-day-old baby boy. Some 40 kilometers north of Zichron Yaakov, in the Nesher Industrial Zone, another fire broke out, prompting the evacuation of three plants, the Fire Service said. There were no reports of injuries in Nesher. A large forest fire broke out overnight Monday between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and forced the evacuation of Neve Shalom, a Jewish-Arab coexistence community Tuesday morning. The fire erupted in a natural forest in Latrun. Some 60 firefighting teams and ten jets have been struggling to gain control over the blaze. The fire broke out amidst a rare string of hot days with strong eastern winds in what seems to be a drought year. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the reasons for the fire are under investigation, in case of possible arson. ISLAMABAD, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Foreign Affairs Adviser to Prime Minister, Sartaj Aziz, said his country is ready to resume meaningful dialogue with India to resolve all outstanding issues including the dispute of Jammu and Kashmir through comprehensive and composite talks. Addressing the Senate, Aziz called for urgent restoration of back channel talks with India. He said Pakistan has also welcomed UN secretary general's offer to use his good offices to resume dialogue between the two countries. He said Pakistan is committed to respect the understanding reached between the two countries in 2003 to observe ceasefire on Line of Control. He said India has committed over three hundred ceasefire violations in this year alone and the Pakistani forces are giving befitting response, adding that India is trying to divert world attention from the atrocities being committed in the Indian-controlled Kashmir by increasing escalation with Pakistan. He said the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has also request the Indian authorities to allow its fact finding mission on human right violations in the held Kashmir, but New Delhi is not allowing that mission. He said Pakistan wants peace in the region and fighting terrorism, adding there is no room for non-state actor on Pakistan's soil against any country. Fighters from a Kurdish-Arab alliance, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, gather on the frontlines in the village of Tuwaylaa, just outside the city of Raqa, on November 16, 2016. (AFP/Xinhua) DAMASCUS, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Syrian army announced Tuesday the formation of a fifth army corps from volunteers with the aim of battling terrorism across the country, state news agency SANA reported. The formation of the new corps is to restore security and stability to all of the Syrian territories and to support the Syrian forces in their war on terror, said the military statement. It noted that any Syrian citizen can join the new formation in any Syrian province, adding that the volunteers must be physically fit and have already finished the compulsory military service. The Syrian army has been engaged in battles against an array of rebel groups, including ultra-radical ones, such as the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and the Islamic State (IS) group for over five years. TEHRAN, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- An Iranian security official said Tuesday that the Iranian Intelligence Ministry busted a terrorist team in the eastern parts of the country, Press TV reported. One of the four members in the terrorist group was killed and the other three were arrested, deputy interior minister for security affairs, Hossein Zolfaqari, told reporters. In the operation, some explosives were confiscated, Zolfaqari said, without specifying the affiliation of the militants and the accurate location of the clash. Iran has reportedly thwarted a number of terrorist activities along border and within the country over the past months, arresting several terrorists and confiscating large amounts of explosives and bomb-making materials. ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) and Iran have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the area of peace and security. The signing came on Monday as part of a three-day visit by the AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, Smail Chergui to Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, where he met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Javad Zarif, and other senior officials, including Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs, Hossein Jaberi Ansari; and the Director General of the Africa Department, Mehdi Agha Jafari, said a statement from AU on Tuesday. Chergui discussed with his interlocutors a range of regional and global issues of mutual interest and concern, including piracy, transnational organized crime, terrorism and violent extremism. Also included in the discussion were the regional and global repercussions of the situation in the Middle East and particularly the threat posed by returning foreign fighters, and thus the need for integrated security and development approaches to combat the transnational threats. They have agreed to establish stronger counter-terrorism cooperation through exchange of expertise and joint trainings, according to the statement. The Iranian counterparts have applauded the increasingly critical role of the AU in managing conflict situations across the continent and expressed support for more predictable funding for AU Peace Support Operations that takes into consideration their complex mandates. They have further agreed to enhance cooperation in the areas of conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction and development to consolidate peace and stability on the continent, according to the statement. GENEVA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan De Mistura is continuing to meet with key stakeholders in a bid to find a solution after political peace talks were put on hold in April, it was announced Tuesday. "De Mistura he continues to travel and speak to people and try his best with the UN Security Council to continue these diplomatic efforts," Alessandra Vellucci, director of the United Nations Information Service, told the press here. "We can't just stay here and look, and we are not so the efforts are continuing," she added. Amid ongoing violence and a dire humanitarian situation in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) urged all parties in the five-year Syrian conflict to allow critical aid to reach 275,000 civilians trapped in rebel-held east Aleppo. The UN has repeatedly warned that the situation in eastern parts of what once Syria's economic hub is particularly alarming. If all parties to the conflict give the green light, the UN hopes to provide medical supplies, conduct medical evacuations, deliver food and other supplies while sending more medical personnel to eastern districts. "We need political actors and actors on the ground to create a situation whereby we can implement the UN plan," OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told the media. The human rights situation in the country has also spiraled out of control since violence broke out in March 2011. Amid almost daily accounts of people dying horrible deaths across the country, widespread torture, massive detention and thousands of disappearances, a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesman said that there is little doubt that both war crimes and crimes against humanity have been perpetrated by all parties to the conflict. "The situation is ghastly, I've been doing this work for 24 years and with the possible exemption of the Rwandan genocide, I can't think of anything worse that Syria," Rupert Colville said. "It's hard to overstate the horror of Syria," he added. An estimated 400,000 people have died during the war pitching forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against rebel factions seeking to oust him, while millions more have been displaced. PARIS, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve on Tuesday vowed to further strengthen security cooperation and better coordinate efforts to fight terrorism. "We reaffirmed our commitment to fight with total determination against jihadist terrorism," Cazeneuve said after meeting his counterparts from 11 African countries. "We will continue to cooperate closely to prevent and detect radicalization at an early stage and to better combat terrorist propaganda by developing targeted and easily accessible counter-propaganda campaigns," he pledged. Earlier on Tuesday, the French minister met his counterparts from Benin, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad and Togo to hammer out "a strategy of reinforced cooperation" to face "new challenges of terrorism fight in Africa." Following the Paris meeting, participants agreed to bolster operational cooperation and improve the exchange of information between intelligence and police services in addition to having more joint field exercises. The ministers also decided to better control borders and coordinate acts relating to counter-propaganda campaigns to better combat jihadist propaganda which targets young and fragile people. Since Aug. 1, 2014, France has launched the Barkhane mission carried out by the French army and forces of the Sahel region states to fight against terrorist groups. NICOSIA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Officials and laymen in Cyprus expressed deep disappointment and concern on Tuesday following the breakdown of the latest round of Cypriot peace negotiations against all expectations. The United Nations (UN), which brokers the reunification negotiations, announced in the early hours of Tuesday that the leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities had failed to achieve the necessary convergences on criteria for territorial adjustments that would have paved the way for the last phase of the talks. Cypriot government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said the Greek Cypriot side was very disappointed and not happy at all that "a very promising process" had failed to reach a compromise. He also expressed concern at the fact that the Turkish Cypriot side was quick to lay the blame on the Greek Cypriots for the impasse only moments after the talks ended in Mont Pelerin, Switzerland. "We do not want to play the blame game. But the reference by the Turkish Cypriot side to maximalist positions by the Greek Cypriot side do not respond to reality," he said. He added that the UN, which followed the 18-month long process, knew very well the reasons for this outcome of the talks. Greek Cypriot sources with inside knowledge of the negotiations were quoted by state radio as saying the talks collapsed because the Turkish side refused to even enter into discussion about the return of Morphou, a town to which about 7,500 displaced people would return after reunification. Turkish Cypriots control about 37 percent of the eastern Mediterranean island's territory, which was occupied by Turkish troops in 1974 in response to a coup by the military rulers of Greece at the time. The sources said Akinci insisted that Turkish Cypriots should keep 29.2 percent of the territory, and he did not move from his original position that only about 55,000 Greek Cypriots out of 170,000 displaced people would return to their properties from which they were evicted by Turkish troops. TEHRAN, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Tuesday that the U.S. president-elect Donald Trump is expected to undertake Washington's obligations pertaining to last year's nuclear deal, semi-official Fars news agency reported. "I imagine when the U.S. president practically takes the country's leadership, he will take actions on the basis of the realities as the nuclear deal is not an issue between the two countries to allow the other side to defy its undertakings, and we believe that there will be no problem," Salehi of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) was quoted as saying. "It is an international issue and we think that we will not face so many problems," Salehi said. "The Islamic Republic of Iran acts upon its commitments under the nuclear deal and we expect the other side to act upon its undertakings as well," he added. On Monday, Iran's Foreign Ministry also said the incoming administration of the U.S. president-elect is unlikely to break the Iranian nuclear deal to harm the interests of the United States. "It is still soon to judge what is going to come about," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said, adding that he believes there is enough rationality within the U.S. society to prevent potential acts from endangering American and international interests. He also said Iran would prepare contingency plans for any possible scenario. Under the nuclear deal between Iran and the six world powers in July 2015, the disputes over the former's controversial nuclear program were ended. The deal, which went into effect in January, requires Iran to scrap the bulk of its nuclear activities in return for the ease of international sanctions on the country's energy and financial sectors. ARUSHA, Tanzania, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa has called upon responsible authorities dealing with tourism promotion to promote tourist destinations aggressively, saying the current pace is not encouraging. He made the remarks on Tuesday in Dodoma when he met with high-ranking officials in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. Majaliwa asked the Director of Tourism Department in the ministry, Zahoro Kimwaga, together with the Tanzania Tourists Board (TTB) to be more business oriented, rather than continue with 'business as usual.' He said more needed to be done for the country to benefit from its unique natural resources. "Promotion of the tourism industry is still unsatisfactory, I don't see your aggressiveness in promoting what we have in different platforms. If you had done so, we could have collected more than what we have," the prime minister said. "It is so astonishing to see major highways without advertisements that promote Tanzania's tourist potentials. Along most of our roads you find only billboards for mobile phone companies," he noted. Majaliwa urged the responsible authorities to unveil the country's treasures in tourism to lure more people into visiting its tourist destinations such as national parks. He also asked them to be creative by using electronic screens at major airports and road junctions to air pictures of wild animals to ensure many people know what is happening in the country's sanctuaries. The country's tourism sector plays a significant role in the Tanzanian economy. It is estimated that in 2014 alone, tourism generated around 2 billion U.S. dollars, which constituted 25 percent of Tanzania's foreign exchange earnings. WAJIR, Kenya, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Unknown gunmen on Tuesday opened fire in an examination center in Wajir County in northeast Kenya, disrupting ongoing examinations which are taking place across the East African nation. Regional government official Mohamud Saleh said a security operation has been launched to track down the suspects whom the locals and police say could not establish their motive. No injury was reported. Saleh said the armed men forced their way into Abaqkorey High School and opened fire at the candidates just a few minutes after they had started their History paper, forcing the examiners to stop examinations for some minutes as security personnel there sought to establish the source of the gunshots. "There were gunshots in the area that forced disruption of the sitting of History paper but security officials there did not establish the source and those behind the same. They fired back when the first shots rang," said Saleh. He added that there were six police officers manning the center at the time of the incident and some of them fired back when the shots were heard from outside. The police said the students scampered for safety after they heard gunshots before the assailants fled into a nearby bush. Wajir borders Somalia where Al-Shabaab have been mounting cross-border attacks. Local police commander Caleb Wesa confirmed that no student was injured and that they had launched a manhunt for the two men. "We are yet to establish the motive behind the attack but we are investigating the matter," he said. The center is in a small town and is in Habaswein district and near the border of Garissa and Wajir counties. The area is embroiled in clan fighting over boundary issues. Saleh could not tell if those behind the shooting were Al-Shabaab gunmen or local militia involved in fighting over clan and boundary issues. The Wajir region has been crippled by persistent insecurity incidents propelled by Al-Shabaab terrorists. The incident comes after the police killed four Al-Shabaab militants in neighboring Mandera County on Sunday. Al-Shabab has staged numerous cross-border raids since Kenya decided in October 2011 to send troops into Somalia to confront them. The group says it is fighting for an Islamic state in Somalia. By Maria Spiliopoulou CHALKIDA, Greece, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Greek authorities on Tuesday inaugurated an upgraded hosting center at Ritsona, a suburb of Chalkida, 80 km north of Athens, pledging to step up efforts to provide more aid to thousands of refugees stranded in Greece, especially as temperatures begin to fall. A similar accommodation camp at Koutsochero, 350 km north of the Greek capital, will be inaugurated on Wednesday, migration minister Yannis Mouzalas and deputy defense minister Dimitris Vitsas announced. Approximately 500 Syrian refugees are housed at Ritsona and another 200 are expected to be transferred next week. The heated containers with running water were set up by the Greek authorities in collaboration with the UNHCR, the Red Cross, the Red Crescent and the support of the United Arab Emirates and can accommodate 160 families. The Syrian refugee Ritsona camp was established seven months ago at the premises of an old Greek Air Force base and is supervised by the International Organization for Migration. Lately, the tents have been replaced by containers as part of ongoing efforts to improve facilities for the refugees ahead of the harsh winter. Last year, thousands of people spent the winter out in the open in makeshift camps or facilities deemed inappropriate for accommodation by the UNHCR and NGOs. In recent months, the Greek government, with international supports, has taken steps to improve the situation. Two Red Cross doctors are working at Ritsona camp. Another four doctors will join the team on Dec. 1. Under a pilot program, the refugees hosted at Ritsona will be receiving a monthly allowance of 90 to 330 euros (95 to 350 U.S. dollars) depending on the number of family members and their needs. Refugees can take a bus free of charge to Chalkida and Athens three times per week. From Monday to Friday, the children are transferred to local schools to attend afternoon classes under a program launched by the Greek education ministry in September. "It is unprecedented having children attending school just six months after being stranded in a country. Without the support of the local officials, without such teachers, it could not happen," Mouzalas said during Tuesday's ceremony. "We will continue like this in all camps. We are getting prepared for the winter; we are preparing the new camps. Living conditions will improve," Vitsas added. The inauguration ceremony on Tuesday was held as tension on the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea has been on the rise in recent weeks. Eight months since borders closed across the Balkans, leaving 62,500 people stranded in Greece across more than 40 official accommodation centers, according to the latest official account released on Tuesday from the Greek government, some 16,000 refugees and migrants have been sleeping in overcrowded facilities on the islands of Lesvos, Samos, Chios, Leros and Kos which have a capacity of 7,500 people. Under the EU-Turkey agreement launched in March to stem the refugee influx, all new arrivals are stuck on the islands until their asylum bids are assessed. Delays in procedures have fuelled frustration and tension. Protests by refugees are frequent lately, while islanders who showed solidarity with the refugees since 2015 have also taken the streets, requesting more support from Athens and the international community. (1 euro = 1.06 U.S. dollars) UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called on the international community to invest in water security as a means to ensure long-term international peace and security. Ban told the UN Security Council that competition for scarce water resources can exacerbate communal tensions and armed conflicts in turn can affect access to clean water. Despite these challenges, Ban said the international community must recognize the potential for cooperation around shared water resources. "Three quarters of UN Member States share rivers or lake basins with their neighbors," said Ban. "Shared water has historically ... brought adversaries together, and served as a crucial confidence building measure in both inter-state and intrastate conflicts." In this regard, Ban called on the 15-nation council to highlight the value of water as a reason for cooperation, not conflict. DAMASCUS, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian army on Tuesday renewed calls on the rebels to allow the civilians to leave rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo, according to state news agency SANA. In a statement, the general-command of the Syrian army urged the rebels in eastern Aleppo to allow the civilians who want to leave rebel-held areas to evacuate, and to open the warehouses of food for the civilians in that area. The army stressed that the Syrian government allows the evacuation of the wounded and ill out of eastern Aleppo toward the government-controlled part, west of Aleppo, through passageways the government has previously identified. This comes amid news that the civilians in eastern Aleppo have recently attacked warehouses containing food stuffs under the rebel control as a result of the tough situation in eastern Aleppo. Activists also said that all hospitals in rebel-held areas in Aleppo city have been rendered out of service as a result of the intense shelling by the government forces. Meanwhile, the Syrian army urged the civilians to cooperate with the Syrian army and avoid venturing out in the streets and to stay away from the rebel positions. The statement also encouraged the rebels to take the chance of the presidential pardon by laying down their weapons and surrendering themselves in exchange for an amnesty. A military source also told Xinhua that Syrian aircrafts dropped leaflets on eastern Aleppo on Tuesday, urging the rebels to surrender. UN special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, proposed recently the evacuation of the ultra-radical groups from eastern Aleppo, while other rebel groups can maintain a local administration in their areas. However, the Syrian government rejected the proposal, and Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem made it clear that the Syrian administration has taken a decision for retaking all of Aleppo back. For months, the Syrian government and Russia have been urging rebels to leave Aleppo, offering them safe passages to other rebel-held areas in the northwestern province of Idlib. The rebels, however, turned down all offers, which has resulted in intensified violence. Chinese President Xi Jinping (C F) and his wife Peng Liyuan (3rd R) arrive in Santiago for a state visit to Chile Nov. 22, 2016. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang) SANTIAGO, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the Chilean capital of Santiago Tuesday afternoon for a state visit to the Latin American country. Chile is the third leg of Xi's three-nation Latin America tour, which has already taken him to Ecuador and Peru. In Peru, Xi also attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting. According to a written speech upon arrival, Xi hailed Chile as an important country in Latin America, saying that Chile, the first South American nation to have established diplomatic relationship with the People's Republic of China, has made a string of "firsts" in developing relations with China. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties 46 years ago, the two sides have deepened their political mutual trust, and nurtured a fruitful all-round cooperation and exchanges, said the Chinese leader, adding that bilateral cooperation is facing an even broader prospect for development. "My visit this time is to strengthen traditional friendship, deepen mutually-beneficial cooperation and boost common development," he said, adding that he expects to join the Chilean leaders during the trip to blueprint the future development of China-Chile ties. "I believe that this visit will surely promote China-Chile relations to a new level so that the peoples of the two nations can enjoy more benefits," he said. Chile established diplomatic ties with China in 1970, the first country in South America to do so. Meanwhile, Chile was the first Latin American country to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with China, and the first one in Latin America to acknowledge China's full market economy status. Bilateral trade volume has grown fourfold since the FTA went into effect in 2006. China is now Chile's largest trading partner, its largest export destination and the largest buyer of copper products. Currently, Chile is China's second largest source of wine imports, with bottled wine exports to China up by 46 percent in 2015. The two countries have signed a number of quarantine agreements on cherries, blueberries and avocados. China has become an important market for Chilean cherries, blueberries, apples, grapes and a variety of seafood such as salmon. Chinese products with good quality and competitive prices are also popular among Chilean consumers. For example, Chinese-made cars have taken up a considerable share of the Chilean auto market. China's first RMB clearing bank in Latin America was opened in Chile in June this year, setting up a platform to upgrade financial cooperation between China, Chile and the rest of Latin America. ANTANANARIVO, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Hosting the 16th Francophonie Summit marks the final return of Madagascar to the international scene, the Ambassador of International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) for Indian Ocean Malik Sarr said on Tuesday. "Madagascar had a rather difficult digression, a political digression, because it was isolated from the international community, it was suspended from the African Union and from la Francophonie," Malik Sarr said during a press conference on Tuesday in Antananarivo. According to him, being in the spotlight in front of 80 countries is important for a country like Madagascar. "Everyone dreams of going out, showing himself in his finest clothes," he said. "Here we have the most beautiful village of la Francophonie ever seen since the history of the villages of La Francophonie," Malik Sarr told the journalists. "It is exceptional what Madagascar offers to the francophone community, and the Malagasy people must be proud of this beautiful achievement,"he said. As for Madagascar during the summit, the OIF Representative to the Indian Ocean said that Madagascar received more visitors; all the hotel rooms and car rental in the capital were fully booked. "Another immediate fact is the currency reserve at the central bank of Madagascar will increase immediately after the summit because of the arrival in Antananarivo of thousands participants to the summit," Sarr explained. For him, the summit is not only diplomatic, because there are also business leaders among the delegations. The trade fair (Salon des Industires de Madagascar) which will be held from Nov. 24 to 27 in Antananarivo is also a special edition, because it will be the opportunity for these businessmen to discover Madagascar. In addition to all agreements that will be signed during the Summit, the international conference center and the five-star hotel will be the legacy to Madagascar after hosting the Francophonie Summit. "Madagascar can tell the world that it can now host other summits. This is very important for the country's CV, its attractiveness, its ability to host international meetings," Sarr said. According to the OIF, the Francophonie authorities moved the 13th summit of La Francophonie to Montreux, Switzerland, in 2009, because of the political crisis that plagued the Madagascar, though the later already prepared to host it in 2010 for its first time. During the 15th Francophonie Summit in Dakar, the heads of state and government decided to give the organization of the 16th Francophonie Summit to Madagascar. The Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci (3rd L) and the Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades (3rd R) hold a meeting in Mont Pelerin, Switzerland, Nov. 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan) NICOSIA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Both officials and laymen in Cyprus expressed deep disappointment and concern on Tuesday following the breakdown of the latest round of peace negotiations against all expectations. The United Nations which brokers the reunification negotiations announced in the early hours of Tuesday that the leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities had failed to achieve the necessary convergences on criteria for territorial adjustments that would have paved the way for the last phase of the talks. Cypriot government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said the Greek Cypriot side was very disappointed and not happy at all that "a very promising process" failed to reach a compromise. He also expressed concern at the fact that the Turkish Cypriot side was quick to lay the blame on the Greek Cypriots for the impasse only moments after the talks ended in Mont Pelerin, Switzerland. "We do not want to play the blame game. But the reference by the Turkish Cypriot side to maximalist positions by the Greek Cypriot side do not respond to reality," he said. He added that the United Nations which followed the 18-month long process knew very well how the talks have had this outcome. Greek Cypriot sources with inside knowledge of the negotiations were quoted by state radio as saying that the talks collapsed because the Turkish side refused to even enter into discussion about the return of Morphou, a town to which about 7,500 displaced people would return after reunification. Turkish Cypriots control about 37 percent of the eastern Mediterranean island's territory, which was occupied by Turkish troops in 1974 in response to a coup by the military rulers of Greece at the time. The sources said that Akinci insisted that Turkish Cypriots should keep 29.2 percent of the territory, and he did not move from his original position that about only 55,000 Greek Cypriots out of 170,000 displaced people would return to their properties from which they were evicted by the Turkish troops. Former Attorney General Alecos Markides, who has had a long engagement in past negotiations for the reunification of Cyprus, said that he was afraid about a possible breakdown of the entire peace process. He said it was noticeable that the UN statement made no reference to the continuation of the negotiations. But the leaders of the two bigger Cypriot parties, DISY and AKEL, said that despite the setback, they would advocate whatever it takes to continue the negotiations. Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, who returned to Cyprus late on Tuesday, is expected to consult with party leaders on moves to resume the negotiations in Cyprus. "President Anastasiades will review the situation and will take concrete decisions," his spokesman said. He added that there is clearly a will and determination on the Greek Cypriot side to continue the effort. WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The White House said on Tuesday U.S. President Barack Obama would not sign any bill in his final months in office that would undermine the Iran nuclear deal. "We certainly are not going to, however, sign a piece of legislation that would undermine the ability of the international community to continue to successfully implement the international agreement to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a daily briefing. Earlier on Tuesday, U.S. House Republican leaders asked Obama not to take new measures to reinforce the Iran nuclear deal before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in January amid reports that the White House was considering such new measures. "We respectfully request that your administration take no further actions designed to bolster international investment in Iran, or otherwise change or alter the existing sanctions regime within international organizations," House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said in a letter to Obama. The Republicans also informed the Obama administration that legislation to extend the Iran Sanctions Act for another 10 years would soon be sent to him. "President-elect Trump deserves the opportunity to assess United States policy toward Iran without your administration imposing or implementing additional measures that could complicate the incoming administration's ability to develop its policy," said the letter. Iran and six world major countries -- the U.S., Britain, China, Russia, France and Germany -- reached an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue in July 2015 that puts Iran on the path of sanctions relief but more strict limits on its nuclear program. The deal sets limits on Iran's nuclear activities as it will take Tehran at least one year to produce enough fissile materials for producing a nuclear weapon, and allows regular inspections of the facilities inside Iran. In return, the U.S. and the European Union will suspend nuclear- related sanctions against Tehran, with the lifting of all past UN Security Council sanction resolutions. Many members of the U.S. Congress had expressed deep concern about the deal, warning that Tehran could evade inspections and use the money from sanction relief to destabilize the region. Photo provided by Antonio Fernandez Arce's wife shows he was received by former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. (Xinhua) BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- She was honored that Chinese President Xi Jinping praised her father's enduring commitment to further strengthening the friendship between the Chinese and Peruvian people, Lourdes Fernandez Esquivel, daughter of the renowned Peruvian journalist, told Xinhua. Esquivel was shocked when Xi mentioned her father Antonio Fernandez Arce, a Peruvian friend of China, during his speech at Peru's Congress, saying "my father was a simple, humble man." Born in Trujillo, in northern Peru in 1931, Arce was a born news reporter. He made a living from selling newspapers in his childhood, became a prominent journalist, and was honored as president of the Journalists' Association of Peru at the age of 25. Starting from the 1960s, Arce made many trips to China and he was warmly welcomed by former Chinese leader Mao Zedong in 1960. His frequent travels between China and Peru enabled him to present a real picture of the country to the Latin American people. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the Peruvian Congress in Lima, Peru, Nov. 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) "CHINESE BLOOD" IN ARCE'S DAUGHTER'S VEINS When Arce was working in China as foreign expert in 1970, his newborn daughter Flor de Maria Fernandez suffered from blood poisoning. Arce, who was busy translating important documents, had no time to take care of his daughter. Upon learning this news, former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai immediately ordered the best doctors in the People's Liberation Army to attend to the baby. Flor de Maria survived thanks to Chinese soldiers who had donated blood to help save her. Antonio Fernandez Arce was received by then Chinese Vice Premier Chen Yi when he led a group of Peruvian journalists to visit China, on July, 22, 1966. (Xinhua/Chen Baokun) ENVOY OF BUILDING CHINA-PERU TIES Arce played a significant role in China's developing diplomatic relations with Peru. Zhou talked to Arce about China's willingness to further develop the friendship with Peru before Arce returned to Peru to visit his sick father in 1970. Zhou also expressed his hope that Arce could deliver some concrete ideas to Peru's authorities concerning building diplomatic ties between the two countries. Arce conveyed Zhou's message to Peru's former president and was picked up by the president's driver as soon as he arrived in Peru. Later, communication between China and Peru became available through Arce's help and he served as the consultant for Peru's commercial office in China. China forged diplomatic relations with Peru on Nov. 2, 1971. Upon hearing the news, Arce was so excited his eyes glistened with tears. Photo shows the cover of Arce's book "Machu Picchu/The Great Wall: Monuments to Eternity." (Xinhua) CONSCIENTIOUS COPY EDITOR Arce started his work as a copy editor for Xinhua News Agency in 1983. He devoted his energy to his work, and when he was typing, the whole office echoed with the sound, said his colleagues, adding that they were inspired by the excited look on his face when he finished reports about China or polished an article. Rigor and full concentration were his work attitude, Arce's colleague Ni Runhao said, adding that he was sincere but strict in training younger generations in translation and reporting. "It is hard to find such a conscientious and strict copy editor," said Ni. He wrote plenty of high-quality reports about China through in-depth interviews and research, which were frequently published in the foreign press. Acre presented "Machu Picchu/The Great Wall: Monuments to Eternity" in 2011, 40 years after China and Peru established diplomatic relations. He described the magnificent Great Wall with Latin American thinking in Chinese, English and Spanish. The renowned journalist died at the age of 83 in his hometown on May 14, 2014. Xinhua paid its highest respects to him by calling him "an old friend of the Chinese people." Enditem Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang delivers a speech at the China-U.S. Agriculture and Food Seminar held during the 27th Session of the China-U.S. Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT), in Washington D.C., the United States, Nov. 22, 2016. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Officials from China and United States on Tuesday hailed the two countries' agriculture cooperation and pledged to strengthen the partnership. Agriculture is one of the earliest, most productive and potential areas for Sino-U.S. cooperation, said Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang at the China-U.S. Agriculture and Food Seminar held during the 27th Session of the China-U.S. Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT). "In the past 15 years since China joined the World Trade Organization, bilateral agricultural trade volume witnessed an average annual growth of 17 percent, reaching 32.1 billion US dollars last year," said Wang. The agricultural cooperation between China and the United States has made fruitful achievements in trade and investment, technology exchange and personnel training, and has made important contributions to the development of Sino-U.S. relationship, he said. "The growth of food and agriculture trade between our nations is impressive," said U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. "From 2000 to 2015, U.S. agriculture exports to China increased eleven-fold, and China's agriculture exports to the United States grew seven-fold," said Froman, adding "China has been one of our top export markets for our food and agriculture exports for some time." "The United States remained committed to partnering with China to achieve our mutual goals of protecting human health and food safety while facilitating and expanding trade,"said Tom Vilsack, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Wang said agriculture is becoming one of the fastest growing areas of investment in China as the country is transforming its agricultural development through structural reforms in order to meet the upgrading needs of Chinese consumers. China and the United States can strengthen cooperation in agricultural technology and management, "Internet plus agriculture" and co-development of third-country markets, said Wang. China welcomes U.S. agricultural enterprises to invest in China and the entry of U.S. high-quality and safe agricultural products and food into Chinese market,he said. China hopes that the U.S. will create a favorable environment for the export of China's poultry and aquatic products to the United States, said Wang. Wang also said it was "inevitable" for China and the United States to have some differences in agricultural cooperation because of two countries' different conditions. He said China and the United States should expand the agricultural cooperation pie with mutual efforts on deepening agricultural scientific and technological cooperation, promoting agricultural investment and cooperation, as well as expanding agricultural trade and innovating agricultural cooperation model. SANTIAGO, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- China and Chile agreed on Tuesday to lift bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership. The decision was announced during Chinese President Xi Jinping's first state visit to Chile since taking office in 2013. SANTIATO, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- China and Chile agreed Tuesday here to start negotiation on upgrading their Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The announcement was declared during Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to the South American nation. The two countries signed their FTA in 2005, which helped boost bilateral trade volume to nearly 32 billion U.S. dollars last year. By Zhang Maorong, researcher with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations; cartoon drawing by Liao Tingting Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote address, Forging ahead towards the future and boosting development and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific Region at the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, capital of Peru on November 20. Xi elaborated on Beijings proposal to promote Asia-Pacific development and prosperity, outlining a new blueprint for Asia-Pacific cooperation. Two years ago, the 2014 APEC Beijing meeting laid a strong Chinese imprint for Asia-Pacific development. Consensus achieved in Beijing has provided a driving force for APEC development. Nowadays, Xi put forward unswerving measures to calibrate the direction of Asia-Pacific cooperation, as a pathway for the dream of APEC development and prosperity.The world economy still finds itself in profound adjustment with weak recovery and the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation is facing a new situation. Xi's speech has shown Beijings determination to take root, build and benefit the Asia-Pacific region, which demonstrates that China is a major country featured as a promoter, builder and contributor for regional cooperation and global governance. From Beijing to Lima, China has played a leading role, and served as a responsible major country. Under Beijings wisdom, the road of Asia-Pacific cooperation is expanding. The Asia-Pacific cooperation is like a ship that is cleaving through waves and heading for a prosperous and beautiful future. (Source: CNTV.cn) Chinese President Xi Jinping (5th L F) poses for a group photo with other participants of the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, Peru, Nov. 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Ding Lin) LIMA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Amid a rising tide of worries over protectionism and anti-globalization sentiment, Chinese President Xi Jinping's substantial backing for free trade and economic globalization, demonstrated during a five-day trip to Peru, has injected much-needed confidence into the world. Xi attended the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting on Saturday and Sunday in Peru's capital Lima, and later paid his first state visit to the Latin American country since 2013. "REAL STAR" AT APEC ON OPEN ECONOMY Speaking at the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting on Sunday, Xi highlighted the APEC's role as a pioneer, leader and trailblazer of economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific and the world at large, and called on APEC members to leverage the Asia-Pacific's role as a growth engine and work for an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy. At the high-level gathering of APEC economic leaders, Xi urged the APEC economies to stay committed to pushing economic globalization forward, increasing openness in the Asia-Pacific economy, breaking bottlenecks in regional connectivity and blazing new trails in reform and innovation. Citing the blueprint for strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive world economic growth produced by the G20 Hangzhou Summit in September, the Chinese president said it embodies the spirit of partnership to jointly rise to challenges as well as the commitment to common development. "Instead of coming to a stop because of the temporary difficulties, we need to continue our involvement in economic globalization. What is important is to combine it with our respective development practices, strive to ensure equity and justice, and steer it towards a more inclusive and mutually beneficial direction," he said. On the building of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), which was launched at the 2014 APEC meeting in Beijing, Xi hailed the smooth completion of the collective strategic study this year, saying it marked a new phase in FTAAP development. "We need to stick to our agenda and take more effective actions to realize the FTAAP at an early date, thus bringing about an Asia-Pacific economy with greater openness," said the Chinese president. Calling on APEC members to take more collective and individual actions to implement the Connectivity Blueprint for 2015-2025 adopted in Beijing and promote connectivity in infrastructure, institutions and personnel flows, Xi underlined the need for a multi-dimensional connectivity network and a well-connected Asia-Pacific community. China is making progress with the Belt and Road Initiative. Featuring extensive consultation, joint participation and shared benefits among partners in the region, Xi said the initiative will contribute to enhancing connectivity in the Asia-Pacific, and pledged to seek synergy in development strategies and cooperation initiatives with relevant parties. The APEC economic leaders agreed to build an open economy in the region, oppose protectionism, advance the FTAAP process and boost connectivity, thus injecting new impetus into the Asia-Pacific and global growth. Xi's resolution was warmly received by observers. Financial Times described the Chinese president as "the real star at this year's Lima summit." Mario Mongilardi, president of the Lima Chamber of Commerce, believed Xi sent an encouraging message to the business communities of the APEC members. In a keynote speech at the APEC CEO Summit on Saturday, Xi reassured global business leaders on China's economic growth and opening-up strategy, saying that the country will carry out supply-side structural reform, accelerate the shifting of growth model, promote innovation-driven development, and replace old growth drivers with new ones. China will also boost high-standard, two-way opening-up to deliver win-win outcomes, and push for shared and green development to make life better for its people, he said. The president cited that in the next five years China will import 8 trillion U.S. dollars of goods, introduce 600 billion dollars of foreign investment and invest 750 billion dollars overseas, and Chinese tourists will make over 700 million outbound visits. "All this means a bigger market, more capital, a greater variety of products and more valuable cooperation opportunities for countries around the world," Xi said. bpTTs Beyond Borders food plan gets thumbs up Rambharat visited the various booths and sampled the exotic cuisine on offer. I sampled most of the products here and I can tell you that even though Im very proud of the booth of my home town, Mayaro, everything here tastes first class. This was a fantastic experience and I applaud bpTT for leading the way in their role as responsible corporate citizens. They have fostered this programme which delivers a myriad of benefits, including reducing the food import bill, diversifying the economy, empowering communities and expanding our local choices, Rambharat explained. Thousands lined up throughout the day to savour the free samples of culinary delights developed from watermelon, pigeon peas and sweet potato by groups originating from Kernahan Village, Mayaro; Covigne, Diego Martin; and St. Barbs, Laventille. The Living Exposition, held under the banner Sustaining Communities: Building Enterprises for Community Resilience, represents a pivotal platform in bpTTs investment toward empowering at-risk communities across Trinidad and Tobago through the Beyond Borders programme. Launched in 2010, the programme is implemented by The Rose Foundation and provides training in organisational development skills for groups in marginalised communities across Trinidad and Tobago. Toco Secondary Schools Food and Nutrition teacher, Eartha Thomas, brought several of her Form Six students to experience the gastronomic magic at the expo. I brought the students because the innovation on display here will serve them well in doing their internal assessments for exams. We are all amazed at the versatility of the groups in transforming these ordinary products into exotic delicacies. It encourages us to stick to our local produce, which will only serve to make us healthier and wealthier as a nation, Thomas explained. Explaining the companys involvement was Ronda Francis, Corporate Responsibility Manager, bpTT, The initial stage of this programme was focused on formalising the various community groups, identifying their strengths, and developing their institutional capacity through training. This expo is a representation of the evolution of the programme where these communities have found their areas of expertise and enterprise, and are now ready to market their products to consumers. Not only will this bring sustainable benefits to their communities, it will also add value on a national level. By the end of the day, some 14,000 samples were distributed by the various groups and consisted of products such as watermelon bread and salsa, sweet potato cheese and ice cream, pigeon peas pizza and pastelles and various beverages created from the three selected products. The expo also featured other products that are being marketed as part of the overall Beyond Borders programme, including local wines, pepper sauce, candied fruit and oxygen infused water. All of this progress is possible because of bpTTs vision of transforming communities toward attaining sustainability and giving them the opportunity to contribute to the economic and social health of our nation. Weeping widow in $1.5M property battle Sarah Ramdeen has described herself as the weeping widow who fears she may be left penniless and out on the streets by Christmas. Ramdeen, 26, received a pre-action protocol letter last week Friday which threatened to take her to the High Court if she refuses to leave the house located at Shelly Street, Reform Development, near Gasparillo in the next three-anda- half weeks. Ramdeen has been reminded in the letter that she is the widow of Mark Thackoor, 26, who on September 26, died at the Petrotrin Medical Centre due to acute coronary artery thrombosis and severe artery disease. In a pre-action protocol letter sent by the law firm Harrikissoon and Company, Ramdeen was further informed, by Prakash Thackoor, who is the father of the deceased, that he obtained lands from Caroni (1975) Limited as part of a Voluntary Separation of Employment Package (VSE P) and he decided to build a house on it. He further stated that Ramdeen was allowed to move into the house but only by virtue of her intended marriage to his son. But since his sons death in September, Thackoor stated, there has been occupation of the house by Ramdeen and her other relatives. As a result, he has called upon Ramdeen to not go into the house and occupy it, and, that she should leave because she in unjustly enriching herself by trespassing. If not, legal proceedings would be instituted against her to recover possession of the house. Contacted yesterday, Ramdeen said that as far as she is concerned, she is entitled to the house and she would be seeking legal advice. Attorney Stephen Boodram is advising her on whether she is entitled to property left by her deceased husband. Ramdeen said, As far as Im concerned, this is not unjust enrichment. I am entitled. It has not been easy staying in the house every night. But the law would take its course. My husband and I worked and built that house and we had a good relationship with the family until he died. Hairdresser, man in court for murder Senior Magistrate Gillian Scotland called the case in which Mathews, a 40-yearold security guard of Ghandi Street, St Helena and Coutain, a 25-year-old hairdresser of Phase 2, Malabar, Arima were charged. Both were remanded into custody and will reappear in court on December 15. The victim Taylor was the step-mother of Coutain. Taylor was found dead at her Phase 2, Malabar home on Monday October 24. Her semi-nude body was discovered with lacerations to the neck. Detective Constable Schankar Bedessie of the Homicide Bureau of Investigations (Region II) laid the charge on Sunday, after receiving instructions from the Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard SC. Murdered granny laid to rest Relatives yesterday noted that the service was a private one and, as such, requested that there be no media coverage of it. Police reports state that at about 3.30 am on Thursday, bandits broke down the front door to the house, ransacked the inside and stole $1,000. Investigators believe that the elderly woman, who was alone, ran out of the house in an attempt to escape her attackers while holding on to a cellular phone. But before she had a chance to telephone anyone, one of the intruders struck her with the concrete block causing her to fall. The men used the concrete block to bash in Alis head and chest. When her body was discovered on Thursday afternoon, her arms were spread wide with one hand still clutching her cellular phone. Police found burn marks on a window in the kitchen area which they believe was an attempt to hide evidence. For the past eight years, Ali had been staying at her daughters home located at Wellington Road in Debe. However, she preferred to live alone at Farnum Village where she operated a flower business. An autopsy conducted at the Forensic Science Centre in St James on Friday, revealed that she died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head. The search continued yesterday for the killers and officers of the Homicide Bureau, San Fernando are continuing investigations. Semester at Sea returns SAS, a study abroad programme aboard the World Odyssey cruise ship, first visited Port of Spain in November 2015. Over two hundred students and faculty representing thirty-two countries were treated to an authentic local pan yard experience at the event. The event incorporated key elements of Trinidad and Tobagos culture including Carnival characters like the midnight robber, moko jumbies, masqueraders in costume, steelband performances by PCS Nitrogen Silver Stars, tassa drumming, the Laventille Rhythm Section and limbo dancers. The students and faculty also sampled homemade ice-cream, and other culinary staples like doubles, pelau, corn soup and pastelles. The objective of the Pan Yard Lime was to provide an authentic experiential event in which the attendees could experience Trinidad and Tobagos culture and cuisine with the aim of generating interest in the destination as a fun and welcoming holiday option and encouraging return visits. For the duration of the semester, the ship docks at various ports around the world for one to two days, exposing students to authentic experiences within those destinations. The students participate in on-shore excursions and field classes while at the destination. Among the other activities the students and faculty participated in during their visit to Trinidad were: * Tour of Paramin * City Tour Calypso/ Storytelling in and around Port of Spain * Tour of the Indian Museum * Food Tour * Tobago Day Trip * North Coast Tour * San Juan Market tour * Marianne Waterfall Hike * Caroni Bird Sanctuary * Nariva Swamp and Bush Bush Wild Life Sanctuary. The World EMA police shut down noisy bar A police report stated that around 1.15 am yesterday, officers accompanied by their colleagues from the Arima Police Station went to a bar at Guanapo Road in Arima and found the establishment to be in excess of the required decibel level and as such, was disturbing the peace. The owner was ordered to stop playing all music. An hour earlier the officers had visited a bar at Gandhi Village, Arouca and the owner was also found to be in breach of the noise control rules. The music was also stopped. At the time, officers said both places were crowded with patrons. EMA officers said business owners found in breach of the law could end up being prosecuted and advised residents to notify them of the lawbreakers. Young slams UNC race talk Addressing a news conference at the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs Tower in Portof- Spain, Young noted Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilals call to UNC supporters to throw roti at Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley. He also noted Princes Town MP Barry Padaraths claim that Rowleys exposure of wastage in expenditure at a October 2014 Divali function hosted by former prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, had undertones similar to the 2013 Tobago House of Assembly (THA) election. Young said Bisnath alerted the PNM yesterday to threats with respect to him and the St James East district. Saying the party is treating these matters very, very seriously, Young said the, racial undertone is being proffered squarely by members of the Opposition and that is not going to be tolerated by the PNM administration. Declaring the PNM believes firmly in the words of this countrys national anthem, Young said, There is absolutely no suggestion or reference whatsoever to any racial conversation by the PNM. He added this is reflected in the composition of the Governments benches in both houses of Parliament. Regarding the threats against Bisnath, Young said the PNM has also been informed there is an attempt to intimidate persons wanting to vote in next Mondays Local Government elections. He said the PNM is also being informed, that persons of a particular race are being told, not to vote for the PNM. Asked if additional security has been provided to Bisnath and Ramkissoon, Young said the PNM is heartened by the assurance from Acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams that the police are investigating the threats against both of its candidates. He was confident that if the police find anything out of the ordinary, they will provide the necessary support. Young said the PNM continues with its campaign and, we certainly do not encourage our supporters at all to engage in anything other than peaceful canvassing. Saying all of the PNMs interactions with the electorate have been very peaceful, Young reiterated, We do not encourage any divisiveness whatsoever on the part of any citizen of TT. He also said none of the partys supporters have interpreted statements made by Public Utilities Minister Fitzgerald Hinds on a political platform in Mayaro to, to do harm to anybody. He said Hinds statement was very different to Moonilals call to throw roti at Rowley. NSA calls for an end to vandalism In a statement to the media yesterday, NSA general secretary, Rajindra Mohan, noted that the party has been informed by its candidates that NSA posters and banners are being defaced, slashed and pulled down in certain electoral districts in these two Corporations. In addition to this, in the Electoral District of Sangre Grande Northwest, an unsigned letter is being placed in the mail boxes of constituents attacking a political party and its leader with derogatory statements in an attempt to make it look as though the National Solidarity Assembly is doing this. This demonstrates a poor and pathetic attempt at reverse psychology in order to gain votes, Mohan said. The National Solidarity Assembly is calling for an end to this type of gutter and bacchanalia politics, being practiced by the two main incumbent political parties and is calling on both the PNM (Peoples National Movement) and UNC (United National Congress) to deal with the issues facing the country rather than with petty divisiveness, he stated. The party pointed out that every citizen had a democratic and constitutional right to engage in the electoral process however they may see fit and to support a party of their own choice. This is not PNM country or UNC country, this country belongs to every citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and it is time the leadership of both the PNM and the UNC realise this, Gopaul added. Garcia responds to protest at Montrose Vedic Garcia promised this after meeting with the schools principal and executives of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) yesterday afternoon on the schools premises. Last week, the PTA and students protested and teachers refused to continue working because they were being bitten by, what has been called, invisible mites which have scarred some students with rashes and made others ill. They clamoured for the school to be temporarily relocated to the National Enrichment Centre in Carlsen Field while the problem was rectified. Garcia said that the Centre is suitable and can house the schools 525 students, but his attempts to contact the Social Development and Family Services Minister Cherrie-Ann Crichlow-Cockburn for approval have been unsuccessful. I have been trying to contact the Minister. Unfortunately, I have not been able to do so but I will continue to contact her. But as soon as we get approval from the Minister - and I am sure we will get that approval because we have been told that nothing is going on at that site at the moment - we will move the school from this site to that site at Carlsen field. We are hoping that that can be accomplished in a very short space of time, perhaps in a matter of days. The Education Ministry commissioned the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) to perform an investigation into the cause of the biting last October, but the report has not been produced. Asked by Newsday why the report was yet produced, Garcia said he could not say but assured that the permanent secretary would see that it is delivered soon. However, Minister in the Ministry of Education, Dr Lovell Francis, chimed in and said the report was given to them. He then responded to rumours that the report was not provided by the CARIRI because the Ministry had not yet paid for it. The report was paid for, Francis said. We have a preliminary report which was provided before the last school term ended. We have received the entire report. We will now vet the report and we will plot a solution going forward. Asked by Newsday when the report was given to them, Francis said, that I cannot answer but he said it would be vetted this week. Garcia said that the long-term plans for the school may involve a complete relocation as there is a body of opinion that most of the problems in the school arose due to its proximity to the Chaguanas market. However, that would require approval and cooperation by the Vedic Board. Protests also raged today at the Mayo RC, La Fillette RC and the Reform Hindu schools, each calling for repairs and relocation from the Ministry of Education. Garcia said his Ministry remains committed to alleviating all the issues. Hosein believes in service The son of late former San Fernando Mayor Rakeeb Hosein recalled his father wanting him to be a doctor or lawyer but admitted for some reason unknown to him he was just obsessed with rubbish trucks and wanted to work in the San Fernando City Corporation. During an address last week at a PNM public meeting in Cocoyea, San Fernando he told of a sketch drawing of a rubbish truck that earned him first place in a competition. Since I small, I drawing rubbish truck. In those days, the rubbish truck was a roll top and you had to push up the sides. I draw one of those trucks and came first with that drawing. I didnt know what it meant, adding that he was not a comedian for the night but telling the truth. I ended up in the corporation (San Fernando) in a summer job and started at the lowest level which was a tool checker. I started to check tools. I used to come to work at five oclock in the morning and the garbage truck going out. My job was to check the tools to make sure it was on the garbage truck. It is nothing to be ashamed of. I worked at the lowest point and I am proud of it. Hosein spoke of the boy days when his father will wake him up early on mornings to go to the Coffee Street San Fernando PNM office for the late Prime Minister Patrick Manning to clean before going to school. Hosein continued: I just passed Common Entrance (now SE A) for Naparima College. My father used to wake me up between half past five and six oclock in the morning. In those days we had a galvanize bucket, gazette paper, a mop and I used to walk from home go up there, clean the office, take the gazette paper, clean the window make sure the seat clean, everything, go back home, bathe, change and walk to school at Naparima College. In 1978, he told the crowd, he became employed at the San Fernando City Corporation. He worked in almost all the departments in the corporation gaining knowledge of the system as he went along and it was a chance meeting with a former PNM councillor at a funeral in Roodal Cemetery, San Fernando that he was invited to become a councillor. As a devout Muslim who wanted to be a servant for the people, Hosein said he did not turn down the offer and in 2003 he became a councillor and never looked back. He spoke of working closely with now Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley during his time in Opposition. In 2013 he became the mayor of San Fernando. At the meeting, a confident Hosein boasted: Just as I cleaned up San Fernando, I am going to clean up the whole of Trinidad now in the ministry (Local Government and Rural Development) where I am employed as the minister of Rural Development and Local Government. I am not going to sit down in the office at Kent House. He promised to meet directly with elected mayors and chairmen and councillors. He added: I am going to each corporation and I am going to do what the people put us there to do. What they want, we are going to execute it. Highlighting projects under his watch as mayor of San Fernando such as the homeless shelter, a new look Harris Promenade complete with a refurbished monument of the Last Train to San Fernando , new public convenience, water fountain, car park and a re-designed Marabella and Mon Repos Roundabouts, Hosein said he will continue his mission of service. Turning to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley seated on stage, Hosein added: I want to assure you tonight that I will not let you down and I will not let down the government and I will not let down the people of San Fernando. Hosein said his Muslim upbringing is responsible for where he has reached today. It has taught me to be humble and I believe in service to humanity. Hosein says he prays five times a day and went to Mecca in 2012 where he performed Hajj. George Soros War on America: Time to Prosecute the Billionaires Global Crime Spree Not My President! Not My President! Day after day, in cities from coast to coast, the chanting mobs of rioters have illegally blocked streets and freeways, set fires, thrown Molotov cocktails, injured police officers, destroyed property, and defaced public buildings with graffiti. Portland, Oregon, a bastion of progressive Democrats, has been the epicenter of much of the violent action aimed at president-elect Donald Trump. Of course, as we have previously reported, not only did most of the Portland rioters who were arrested fail to register to vote, a large percentage of them appear to be professional, paid protesters. Article by William F. Jasper Many of them, no doubt, were hired in response to the advertisements for paid anti-Trump protesters that appeared on Craigslist and other media in Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, New York, and elsewhere. Many of these spontaneous protests/riots would not have occurred without organized efforts involving hundreds of busses transporting thousands of protesters/rioters, many of whom appear to have travelled across state lines. Many of the anti-Trump rioters, then, would appear not only to have violated state laws against rioting and inciting to riot, but also federal law against the same crime. Specifically, the rioters could be (and should be) charged under Title 18 U.S. Code 2101, which provides (a) Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or uses any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including, but not limited to, the mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, with intent (1) to incite a riot; or (2) to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or (3) to commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or (4) to aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot. Shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. The definition section of 18 U.S. Code 2102 defines the crime of rioting this way: (a) As used in this chapter, the term riot means a public disturbance involving (1) an act or acts of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons, which act or acts shall constitute a clear and present danger of, or shall result in, damage or injury to the property of any other person or to the person of any other individual or (2) a threat or threats of the commission of an act or acts of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons having, individually or collectively, the ability of immediate execution of such threat or threats, where the performance of the threatened act or acts of violence would constitute a clear and present danger of, or would result in, damage or injury to the property of any other person or to the person of any other individual. Obviously, the anti-Trump rioters who were arrested for starting fires and committing other acts of violence and public disturbance should be prosecuted under applicable state laws, and those who traveled interstate to do the same should also be prosecuted under federal law as well. But what about the organizers of the riots, those who hired the rioters and transported the perpetrators across state lines to engage in this criminal activity? Are they not also culpable under the aid and abet provisions cited above? Are they not also liable for prosecution under the federal conspiracy statute (18 U.S. Code 371) which provides: If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. The Obama Department of Justice had no problem with charging Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond respected, hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens with terrorism and arson, for accidentally burning a few acres of public land while carrying out a controlled burn on their own land. The Obama/Lynch DOJ prosecuted these dangerous terrorists and threw them into federal prison. (See here and here). When supporters of the Hammonds, led by Nevada ranching family members Ammon and Ryan Bundy peacefully occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in protest earlier this year, the Obama administration mobilized all its resources in response, including an ambush that resulted in the shooting death of Hammond supporter Robert LaVoy Finicum. The Obama administration and its media allies were stunned a few weeks ago when an Oregon jury acquitted the Bundy brothers and their five additional co-defendants of all charges, including charges of conspiracy to use force, intimidation, and threats against federal employees. Will the Obama/Lynch DOJ show any similar zeal to prosecute the thugs who carried out the violent riots in Portland, Oregon or in the many other venues around the country? Will they prosecute the co-conspirators who financed and planned the riots? That is highly unlikely, since the financiers of the #NotMyPresident anti-Trump rallies are some of the Democrat Partys biggest donors. Heading the list of the Rioters-R-Us financiers is top Obama/Clinton fundraiser George Soros (shown at right), the Daddy Warbucks of all causes socialist and subversive. Over the past couple of decades, the hedge fund billionaire and globalist gadfly has poured hundreds of millions of dollars of his ill-gotten gains into hundreds of organizations and dozens of schemes aimed at empowering global government through the United Nations and destroying our constitutional limitations on government. Here is a short list of the many violent, illegal, and/or unethical rent-a-mob actions and Astroturf movements for which philanthropist George Soros should be called to account: The recent anti-Trump riots have been reliably reported as the handiwork of paid protesters organized by MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood, #BlackLivesMatter, and other groups that have been heavily funded by Soros. The violent #BlackLivesMatter riots that have wracked America and fomented racial turmoil since the Ferguson, Missouri police shooting have been funded with tens of millions of dollars from Soros foundations. The WikiLeaks e-mails have exposed the Soros funding of the United Nations/Obama administration scheme for flooding the United States and Europe with unvetted Muslim refugees. Soros was a principal funder for the August 28, 2016 protest/rally in Washington, D.C. to boost the Obama/UN refugee/migration plan. Top Hillary Clinton Campaign and Democratic National Committee operatives have been exposed in the undercover videos by Project Veritas boasting of their illegal activities, including voter fraud, inciting riots, and instigating violence at Trump rallies. Soros funding ties to these operations and his past funding of similar illicit activities indicate that, at the very least, he be investigated for possible prosecution regarding these serious crimes as well. Various organizations, including those funded by Soros, have announced plans for massive demonstrations leading up to, and on, Inauguration Day, January 21. Based upon the rhetoric of the organizers and the recent record of their activities across the country, there is very good reason to believe that these upcoming protests will be as violent and lawless as those we have already witnessed. George Soros has been allowed to operate above the law for too long. It is time that he and other uber-rich activist financiers like him be put on notice that they will be held accountable for funding criminal activity. These Lords of Chaos must find out that they too are subject to the same rule of law that is binding on the rest of us mere mortals. Photo at top shows protester in Portland, Ore., Nov. 10, 2016: AP Images Read more at: thenewamerican.com Submit a correction >> The high price of being a 'nice' woman: Less salary United Kingdom,Lifestyle/Fashion,Business/Economy, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS London, Nov 22 (IANS) Ladies, please take note. The nicer or more agreeable you are at work, the lower your salary is likely to be, says a study. Dominant, assertive women, who clearly express their expectations and do not retreat from their demands, are compensated better than their more accommodating female peers, the study found. "We found that women aren't aware that more agreeable women are being punished for being nice," said one of the researchers Michal Biron from the University of Haifa in Israel. "The nice women we polled in our study even believed they were earning more than they deserved," Biron added. The same goes for dominant men versus their more conciliatory male counterparts, but even dominant women earn far less than their male colleagues, dominant or otherwise, the researchers said. The research, published in The European Journal of Work and Organisational Psychology, examined status inconsistencies between men and women through the lens of traditional male and female characteristics. For the purpose of their study, the researchers surveyed 375 men and women at a Dutch multinational electronics company with 1,390 employees. The participants were selected at random from all 12 of the company departments. The researchers used both objective and subjective criteria for the study. For objective data, they analysed tenure, education and performance data relative to income and promotion statistics. "We found that women were consistently and objectively status-detracted, which means they invest more of themselves in their jobs than they receive and are compensated less than their male colleagues across the board," Biron said. For subjective data, they examined how the individual perceived the fit between their education, experience and performance on the one hand, and their income and rank on the other. In the subjective part of the study, nearly all the employees responded that they felt dissatisfied with their input-compensation ratio, but agreeable and non-dominant women answered that they felt they earned too much. "This blew our minds," said Sharon Toker of the Tel Aviv University Coller School of Business Management in Israel. "The data shows that they earn the least -- far less than what they deserve. And they rationalise the situation, making it less likely that they will make appropriate demands for equal pay," Toker noted. --IANS gb/bg PIA plane diverted over blocked toilets Pakistan,Indo-Pak/Pakistan,Business/Economy, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Islamabad, Nov 22 (IANS) A Toronto-bound Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight had to make an emergency landing in Manchester in Britain to have its loos unblocked, it was reported on Tuesday. The plane was flying from Toronto to Lahore in Pakistan. PIA said the plane landed to have its drains unblocked since "it would not be possible to continue all the way to Pakistan without any functioning loos". --IANS ahm/mr Pope Francis empowers Catholic priests to forgive abortion United Kingdom,Religion, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS London, Nov 22 (IANS) Announcing in an apostolic letter released on Monday, Pope Francis has extended indefinitely the power of Catholic priests to forgive abortions. It continues a special dispensation granted last year for the duration of the Year of Mercy -- which finished on Sunday -- which gave all priests, rather than just bishops and specially designated confessors, the power to absolve the sin of abortion, CNN reported. While the practical effect of Francis' announcement remains unclear, it draws attention to the prevailing theme of his papacy: That the doors of the Church must remain open, just as God's forgiveness and mercy extend to all those who repent from sin. That said, the Catholic Church's stance on abortion has not changed -- it is still viewed as a "grave sin." But it makes it easier for women who have had abortions to be absolved for their actions and rejoin the church. "I wish to restate as firmly as I can that abortion is a grave sin, since it puts an end to an innocent life," the Pope's letter stated. "In the same way, however, I can and must state that there is no sin that God's mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with the Father." The letter noted: "May every priest, therefore, be a guide, support and comfort to penitents on this journey of special reconciliation. "I henceforth grant to all priests, in virtue of their ministry, the faculty to absolve those who have committed the sin of procured abortion," the letter read. --IANS sku/ PM should listen to Parliament debate on demonetisation: Azad Delhi,National,Politics,Business/Economy, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Tuesday reiterated the opposition's demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should attend the debate on demonetisation in the Rajya Sabha. Interacting with media persons outside Parliament House, the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said: "He (Modi) should listen to the debate." "As far as my understanding goes, he (Modi) should have come (to the house) and made the statement," Azad said. He also demanded to know if the Prime Minister was supposed to come to Parliament only once a year when he has to reply to the presidential address to the joint sitting of the House. "Should the Prime Minister hear and speak just once a year in Parliament?" he asked. Both the houses of the Parliament have been witnessing adjournments and disruption over the issue of demonetisation for the past four days. The Rajya Sabha had a day-long debate on demonetisation on the very first day of the on-going Winter Session of Parliament, but opposition parties became restless when Modi did not show up in the House during the debate. From November 17 onwards, they started demanding the presence of Prime Minister Modi in the House, saying he should be present as demonetisation is an issue of national importance. The Winter session began on November 16. --IANS sk/rn 244 killed in week of attacks in Syria's Aleppo Lebanon,Defence/Security,Terrorism, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Beirut, Nov 22 (IANS) At least 244 people were killed in the past one week in attacks in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, a British war monitor said on Tuesday. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 25 people have died in the past 24 hours, EFE news reported. At least 228 people were killed in airstrikes carried out by military planes and helicopters in the eastern districts of Aleppo, as regime forces closed in on opposition rebel fighters. Among those killed in the city's east, at least 141 were civilians, 87 were fighters and another 16 remain to be identified. Meanwhile, at least 16 people died in west Aleppo, including 10 school children, in attacks on areas controlled by government forces. The monitor said the number of victims could increase taking into account the many injured. The NGO pointed out the lack of medical supplies and staff in east Aleppo, where four hospitals were out of operation between Friday and Saturday due to damages. There were some health centres open in east Aleppo, according to the observatory, after the World Health Organisation and Aleppo health directorate declared the closure of all hospitals in the area over the weekend. The WHO said over 250,000 civilians lacked access to healthcare, though some small clinics were attending patients. After a three-week cease-fire, attacks resumed on November 15 in the eastern part of the city. --IANS py/dg BJP lesser known in MP tribal areas: Minister Madhya Pradesh,National,Politics, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Bhopal, Nov 22 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is lesser known in the tribal areas of Shahdol, but is called 'Shivraj mama ki party' (Uncle Shivraj's party) owing to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's popularity, a minister said. In the ongoing Madhya Pradesh by-polls, BJP's Manju Dadu defeated Congress' Antar Singh in Nepanagar by 42,198 votes, while BJP's Gyan Singh is leading in Shahdol against Congress' Himandari Singh. Exemplifying the Chief Minister's popularity, State Home and Transport Minister Bhoopendra Singh said on Tuesday," At the election rally in Shahdol, Chouhan realised that BJP is known among the tribal areas as 'mama Shivraj ki party' (Uncle Shivraj's party)." Talking to reporters, Singh said "The Congress tried to capitalise on the popularity of the Chief Minister and told people in these tribal areas that his election symbol was the hand." "Our party members had to go around later and say that the Chief Minister's election symbol was actually the lotus," he added. --IANS hindi-vgu/bg Rajya Sabha adjourned for day amidst demonetisation pandemonium Delhi,National,Politics,Business/Economy, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) After repeated adjournments, the Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the day at 2 p.m. amidst pandemonium by the opposition MPs demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence in the House over the demonetisation issue. The House saw adjournments in the pre-noon session over the demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes by the government and the travails of the common people due to cash crunch. While the opposition demanded Prime Minister Modi's presence in the House, the government accused the opposition of running away from orderly discussion on the issue. Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien told the protesting opposition members that he could not ask Prime Minister Modi to be present during the discussion. As soon as the Rajya Sabha met at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, the opposition members started raising a ruckus. The chair requested the members to allow the House papers to be laid on the table. Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Sharad Yadav demanded compensation for the families of the people who have died post-demonetisation as a result of shock or exhaustion in long bank queues. "The government should give Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of the people who have died since demonetisation," Yadav said. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati supported Yadav's stand and also demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence in the House. Minister of State (MoS) for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi urged the chair to start a discussion on the demonetisation issue and accused the opposition of avoiding a discussion. Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said, "We are ready for discussion, but the Prime Minister should come to the House." Meanwhile, the opposition members streamed to the Chairman's podium and started shouting slogans. The Chair adjourned the House for half an hour. As soon as the House met at 11.30 a.m., the opposition members again started loudly demanding Prime Minister's presence. "Pradhan Mantri sadan me aao (Prime Minister come to the House)," they shouted. Naqvi again asked the Chair to initiate discussion on demonetization. "When the discussion (on demonetisation) started, there was no logic or facts in their (opposition's) arguments. They struggled for arguments all through. The discussion should not be in bits and pieces. Please allow a discussion," Naqvi said. Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Sitaram Yechury again demanded Modi's presence in the upper House. Azad said the opposition was all for discussion but the Prime Minister should "come here and listen to people's grievances". "If he can give speeches all across the country, what stops him from coming to this House," Azad said. The House was then adjourned amidst pandemonium till 12 p.m., later till 12.30 p.m. and then till 2 p.m. The House was adjourned for the day minutes after it met at 2 p.m., but not before Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien made his displeasure with the opposition's ways clear. "I am sorry I am not able to run the House in order. This kind of behaviour is to be condemned...I am helpless,' Kurien said as he adjourned the House for the day. --IANS mak/rn Morocco dispatches inspection mission to its embassy in Madagascar Malta,Defence/Security,Diplomacy, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Rabat, Nov 22 (IANS/MAP) The Moroccan government has dispatched an inspection team to its mission in Madagascar capital Antananarivo following "cross-checked" information regarding acts of wrongdoing by former ambassador to the island country, Mohammed Amar. The decision on Monday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation to send the inspection mission, which also includes members of the General Inspectorate of Finance, "is based on cross-checked information that the former ambassador to Madagascar allegedly misappropriated funds, on the occasion of humanitarian operations in favour of the Madagascan people", the Ministry said in a statement which was cited by MAP news agency. The ambassador, who held this post since 2006, also allegedly made "acts of interference in the country's internal affairs, in violation of diplomatic practices and in contradiction with the Moroccan diplomatic tradition", the statement added. Former Moroccan ambassador to Madagascar Mohammed Amar also reportedly "discriminated against the non-Muslim communities of the country, without respecting the ethnic and religious diversity of Madagascar, nor the values of openness and tolerance advocated by the Muslim religion and promoted by (Moroccan) King Mohammed VI", the statement said. --IANS/MAP sm/dg Katie Holmes, Jamie Foxx back together United States,Cinema/Showbiz,Hollywood, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Los Angeles, Nov 22 (IANS) Actors Katie Holmes and Jamie Foxx are reportedly back together after splitting for a brief period last month. The pair broke-up because Foxx kept refusing to go public with their romance. Holmes and Foxx have patched things up and they secretly rekindled their romance just a few days ago, reports radaronline.com. According to sources, the actress' close friends are thrilled to know that the two are together again. Holmes and Foxx have reportedly been in an on-and-off relationship since 2013. Following their split in October, the "Dawson's Creek" star was rumoured hooking up with her "Phone Booth" co-star Kiefer Sutherland. --IANS ks/nn/ Government denies approving Naimishya Samman Awards Delhi,National,Politics,Art/Culture/Books, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) The central government on Tuesday denied reports suggesting that the Ministry of Culture has allowed the cultural unit of the RSS to institute 'Naimishya Samman' Awards. "A section of the media had reported that the Ministry of Culture had given the go ahead to the cultural unit of the RSS to institute Naimishya Samman Awards. This information is completely wrong," the Ministry said in a statement here. The media reports, denounced by the Ministry, had suggested that a grand extravaganza, titled, "Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsava" would be held in Varanasi in December to kick-start the first edition of the awards. The statement said that a section of media had published this news without verifying it from the authorised sources. This has created a lot of confusion in the minds of the stakeholders of the Ministry and general public. It also clarified that no proposal was received from any quarter to introduce awards referred to as Naimishya Samman in the fields of Peace, Human Rights, Literature, Visual and Performing Arts, Science and Education. --IANS mg/lok/dg Cambodia ratifies Paris climate accord Cambodia,Business/Economy,Environment/Wildlife, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Phnom Penh, Nov 22 (IANS) The National Assembly of Cambodia on Tuesday ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change with 105 out of 106 lawmakers in attendance voting in favour of the accord. Environment Minister Say Samal said Cambodia joined with world leaders to sign the agreement on April 22 in New York, Xinhua news agency reported. "As of early November this year, 91 countries out of 197 countries had ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change," he told the parliament. He said the agreement urges countries to combat climate change, accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low-carbon future, and adapt to the increasing impacts of climate change. --IANS py/dg France insists on Middle East peace meet before yearend Israel,Politics,Diplomacy, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Ramallah, Nov 22 (IANS) France is determined to hold an international conference for peace in the Middle East before the yearend regardless of Israeli and US objection, the Palestinian Foreign Minister said on Tuesday. "The conference will be held in France on December 15 at the level of foreign ministers," Xinhua news agency reported. The Palestinian side is in contact with France in this regard, he said. It is unclear if the US would join the conference or not, while Israel opposes it in principle. Al-Malki expected that France will delegate its Foreign Minister or its envoy to the Middle East to visit the Palestinian territories within the coming few days to follow up preparations for holding the conference. In June, an international meeting was held in Paris and discussed preparations for holding an international conference for peace with Israel. It was attended by 25 foreign ministers, including four Arab ones. The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, sponsored by the US, collapsed in April 2014, after nine months of futile efforts. --IANS py/vt Help comes for Indian man living on terrace for 8 months in UAE Togo,Diaspora,Human Interest/Society,Immigration/Law/Rights, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Abu Dhabi, Nov 22 (IANS) An Indian man who had been living on the terrace of a building for the past eight months in UAE's Ajman city as his employer had not returned his passport after settling his dues, was offered help overwhelmingly by people after a local media reported his plight. Sajeev Rajan, a one-eyed man in his early 40s who worked for a Sharjah-based construction company, made the barren concrete terrace of a six-storeyed building his residence. He has been desperately trying to return home to Kollam, in Kerala, where his wife, two children and ageing parents await him. After Khaleej Times reported his story, now several people have come forward with offers to buy air tickets, give him a job, or provide monetary help. Rajan, an electrician, had been surviving off the generosity of some construction workers and shop owners in the neighbourhood during his 237-day stay on the terrace. According to Khaleej Times, officials of the Indian consulate refused to comment on the issue. Rajan's employer told the daily on Monday that he was "trying his best" to repatriate the worker. "There is no other option but to wait for the labour court hearing and I don't know when that is due," S. Singh, the employer who hails from Punjab, told the daily. On Monday, Rajan's told Khaleej Times: "Please send me home or I will die here ... there is no money for food or room." "I was living in the company accommodation for two years. My contract ended on March 11 and I wanted to go home. Working for Dh900 ($245) per month did not meet my expectations." "I do not have money for food, but a restaurant owner gives me food. One person gives me Dh3 per day for breakfast." Rajan told the daily that he has approached the labour court "several times", the Indian Consulate, community associations and others "but nobody could help me". After getting offers of help on Tuesday, Rajan thanked the people for their support. "I am happy that after a long time today I will get money for food. For several months, I had been eating from a restaurant without paying them. "For eight months, I knocked on several doors for help. I have been to the Indian consulate many times and I hope I will be able to go home soon," he said. "I got a call from the consulate asking about my situation. Last time at the consulate, my employer had agreed to settle everything within four days. But nothing happened." The Indian consulate had earlier told Khaleej Times that the employer had promised to settle the issue by the first week of October but nobody contacted them. --IANS sm/rn 'Some Thais secretly support IS' Thailand,Defence/Security,Terrorism, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Bangkok, Nov 22 (IANS) Some Thai nationals are suspected to have secretly supported the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, police said on Tuesday. Deputy Police chief General Srivarah Rangsipramanakul said the Australian police had alerted the Thai police that a number of Thai nationals had secretly supported the IS, but declined to give names or tell how many people might be so suspected, Xinhua news agency reported. Srivarah quoted the Australian police as alleging that the pro-IS Thais had visited the terrorist group's website for over 100,000 times so far this year. Some of the alleged supporters had expressed verbal support while others had visited Syria and donated some money to the terrorist group, the deputy police chief said. He made no comment on allegations that those unidentified Thais had been involved in bombings and other terrorist acts in southern Thailand earlier this year. The Special Branch police and provincial police units have been assigned to track down on the unidentified suspected IS supporters, he said. --IANS py/dg Child smuggling racket in Bengal busted, 8 arrested West Bengal,National,Crime/Disaster/Accident, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Kolkata, Nov 22 (IANS) Eight people, including a doctor, two quacks and the owner of a nursing home, have been arrested from West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district for allegedly running a child smuggling racket, a senior CID officer said on Tuesday. Acting on a tip-off, the Criminal Investigation Department personnel raided Sohan Nursing Home and Polyclinic in Baduria in North 24 Parganas district on Monday night and recovered three infants who were about to be smuggled, the officer said. --IANS mgr/ssp/vgu/dg Several die in US school bus accident United States,Crime/Disaster/Accident, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Washington, Nov 22 (IANS) Several persons were killed when a school bus ran into a tree in Tennessee, US, authorities said. The bus was carrying 35 kindergarten and primary-school students in Chattanooga, when it met with the fatal accident, Efe news reported on Tuesday. "Multiple fatalities," Chattanooga Assistant Police Chief Tracy Arnold said, explaining that the department was unable to offer an exact number. More than 20 persons were taken to hospitals. While some media outlets cited the Hamilton County prosecutor's office saying that six persons were killed, a television news network reported at least 12 deaths. --IANS in/ Bihar court frames charges against road rage killer Rocky Yadav Bihar,National,Politics,Crime/Disaster/Accident, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Patna, Nov 22 (IANS) A Bihar court on Tuesday framed charges against Rocky Yadav, son of Janata Dal-United MLC Manorama Devi and three others accused of killing a class 12 student Aditya Sachdeva in Gaya in May this year. The Gaya civil court has framed charges against Rocky, his father Bindi Yadav, cousin Tony Yadav and Rajesh Kumar, the security guard of his mother. "The court will start witness proceedings from November 30," a district police official in Gaya said. Rocky was accused of shooting student Aditya Sachdeva after his Swift car overtook Rocky's Land Rover on May 7. Rocky was arrested on May 11 and is currently lodged in Gaya Central Jail. In October, Rocky was granted bail by the Patna High Court but later the Supreme Court cancelled his bail and he was sent back to jail. According to police, Rocky has confessed that he killed Sachdeva. Rocky's mother Manorama Devi, suspended Janata Dal-United MLC, is a powerful figure and his father Bindi Yadav is a criminal-turned-politician in Gaya. --IANS ik/sm/bg Delhi hospital performs first scar-less surgery in India Delhi,National,Health/Medicine, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) Surgeons at Fortis Escorts Heart Institute here performed the first scar-less surgery in India on an 18-year-old boy from Uzbekistan who developed a congenital heart defect. In a scar-less surgery, the incision given on the patient's chest is almost invisible as it is in the fold of the areole, just beneath the nipple. Toshikinov Doniyor suffered from pain in the left chest for over two years, and was diagnosed with atrial septal defect -- a birth defect of the heart in which there is a hole in the wall (septum) that divides the upper chambers of the heart (atria). The condition results in blood shunted also into the right atrium besides going into the left ventricle. A hole can vary in size and may close on its own or may require surgery. In due course, and without timely intervention, the condition could accelerate to pulmonary hypertension leading to failure of the right side of the heart, doctors at Fortis Escorts Heart Institute said. As a result of this, Doniyor showed breathlessness while walking or climbing stairs, pain in the chest, and inability to walk for a long time or long distances, skipped heartbeats and swelling of legs, feet, or stomach area. As the doctors in Doniyor's country could not offer him a scar-less or a minimal invasive surgery with a minimal scar, he flew to India for the treatment. "The challenges in using minimal invasive instruments were putting heart ports, visibility into the area of treatment, and adopting peripheral bypass to conduct the surgery," said Yugal Mishra, Director (Cardiovascular Surgery) at Fortis Escorts Heart Institute. The youth has been discharged from the hospital and is doing fine, Mishra said. --IANS rt/sm/dg Bikano to launch 'Ready to Eat' foods Delhi,Business/Economy, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) FMCG company Bikano on Tuesday said it will launch 'Ready to Eat' product ranges in the domestic food market early next year. According to the company, the new packaged food products will be launched in native flavours such as Shahi Paneer, Rajma and Saag. "Bikano's vision is towards a healthy India with focus on preparations of products in a hygienic environment with strict quality measures and the correct proportion of nutritional value, which ultimately supports idea of being healthy yet keeping the traditional taste alive," Manish Aggarwal, Director, Bikanervala Foods, said in a statement. "We plan to enhance our production capacity to meet the increasing demand in domestic market over the next two to three years." The company has already started exporting 'Ready to Eat' products in overseas markets including the US, Dubai, the UK, Canada and New Zealand, the statement added. --IANS ppg/sm/dg India, Switzerland ink accord for info on Indian account holders Delhi,Business/Economy,Immigration/Law/Rights,Diplomacy, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) From September 2019, India will start getting information automatically about accounts held by Indians in Swiss banks. An Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) accord signed by the two countries on Tuesday facilitates this. "Fighting the menace of black money stashed in offshore accounts has been a key priority for the present government," a Finance Ministry release said here. Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Sushil Chandra and Deputy Chief of Mission in the Swiss embassy here Gilles Roduit signed the joint declaration for implementation of Automatic Exchange of Information between the two nations, the statement said. "It will now be possible for India to receive from September 2019 onwards the financial information of accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland for 2018 and subsequent years on an automatic basis," it added. The government's recent demonetisation of high-value currency notes has provoked calls from opposition parties for the government to act also against black money stashed abroad, particularly in Swiss banks. --IANS bc/nir/vt No business in Parliament for 4th day; Chairs express displeasure (Roundup) Delhi,National,Politics, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) Frequent adjournments over the demonetisation issue with the opposition adamant on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence stalled business in both house of parliament for the fourth successive day on Tuesday. The opposition, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party, Nationalist Congress Party and the Left, continued to create ruckus in both Houses, which riled Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairmain P.J. Kurien, who expressed their annoyance quite explicitly. While, in the Lok Sabha, Mahajan said that "it pains when elected representatives behave like this", in the Rajya Sabha, Kurien was annoyed enough to say that "this kind of behaviour (by members) is to be condemned". "I am sorry, I am not able to run the House in order... I am helpless," said Kurien. The Lok Sabha witnessed uproarious scene as a united opposition reiterated its demand to discuss the demonetisation issue under a rule which entails voting. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge reiterated the demand to suspend Question Hour and start the discussion but Mahajan did not permit it. When the House met at noon after an adjourment, opposition members, including from the Congress, Trinamool, and the Samajwadi Party, trooped towards the Speaker's podium shouting slogans. Parliamentary Affairs Minister H.N. Ananth Kumar said the people of the country favoured the November 8 demonetisation decision. "We have won the Shahdol and Lakhimpur Lok Sabha constituency seats. What is the signal? People's voice is clear. They are against black money and corruption," he said. As the opposition parties didn't relent and continued their protests demanding Modi's presence, the Speaker adjourned the House for the day. In the Rajya Sabha, as soon as the House met for the day, Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Sharad Yadav demanded compensation for the families of those who have died post-demonetisation as a result of shock or exhaustion while standing in long queues in front of banks or ATMs. "The government should give Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of the people who have died since demonetisation," he said. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati supported his stand and also demanded Modi's presence in the House. Minister of State (MoS) for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi urged the chair to start a discussion on the demonetisation issue and accused the opposition of avoiding a discussion. At this, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad retorted: "We are ready for discussion, but the Prime Minister should come to the House." Meanwhile, the opposition members streamed towards the Chairman's podium and started shouting slogans. The Chair adjourned the House for half an hour. As soon as the House met again at 11.30 a.m., the opposition members again started loudly demanding Modi's presence. "Pradhan Mantri sadan me aao (Prime Minister come to the House)," they shouted. Naqvi again asked the Chair to initiate discussion on demonetisation. "When the discussion (on demonetisation) started, there was no logic or facts in their (opposition's) arguments. They struggled for arguments all through. The discussion should not be in bits and pieces. Please allow a discussion," he said. But Azad said: "If he (Modi) can give speeches all across the country, what stops him from coming to this House." The House was then adjourned amidst pandemonium till noon, then till 12.30 p.m., again till 2 p.m. and finally for the day. --IANS mak/vd/dg First Hindu Congresswoman, a Democrat, meets Trump United States,Diaspora, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS New York, Nov 22 (IANS) The first Hindu elected to Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, crossed her Democratic party line to meet Republican-elect Donald Trump on Monday to discuss Syria, terrorism and national security matters and warn of the risk of a nuclear confrontation with Russia amid speculation that he may be checking out the war veteran for a position in his administration. On economic and social issues Gabbard belongs to the leftist wing of the Democratic Party, but she is closer to Trump's policies on fighting terror while avoiding foreign interventions and this makes her a prime candidate for the president-elect's efforts to reach out to his opposition. Media reports said she may be under consideration for defence or foreign policy position in Trump's government. A major in the Army National Guard, Gabbard has served two tours of duty in Iraq. "I saw firsthand the cost of war, and the lives lost due to the interventionist warmongering policies our country has pursued for far too long," she said after the meeting with Trump who has criticised United States military entanglements abroad. During this month's election, Republican Party leadership had helped Gabbard by withdrawing support for their own party's candidate Angela Kaaihue who made a bigoted attack on Gabbard with anti-Hindu vitriol calling her a "pathetic Hindu 1,000 gods leader." Trump's outreach to Gabbard illustrates the complexity of United States politics, where Trump is a dove when it comes to foreign interventions while extremely tough on Islamic terrorism, whereas his Democratic Party rival Hillary Clinton is a hawk advocating interventions abroad and a confrontation with Russia. Gabbard said she told Trump about her concerns with enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria that Clinton, along with Democratic and Republican hawks, advocates to counter Bashar al-Assad and Russia. "It would lead to more death and suffering, exacerbate the refugee crisis, strengthen ISIS (Islamic State) and al-Qaeda, and bring us into a direct conflict with Russia which could result in a nuclear war," she said. If the US were to enforce a no-fly zone it could be drawn into a direct confrontation with Russia, which conducts bombing raids over areas controlled by Islamic State terrorists. Though Gabbard, who represents a constituency in Hawaii, is not of Indian descent, she is a second-generation Hindu by religion. She is only 35 years old and is considered a rising start in the Democratic Party. "For years, the issue of ending interventionist, regime change warfare has been one of my top priorities," she said in a veiled attack on Clinton who has promoted an agenda of overthrowing governments from Egypt to Ukraine with disastrous results. Gabbard made a scathing attack on Republican neo-conservative hawks like Paul Wolfowitz, the planner of the deadly Iraq War, who had crossed over to Clinton's side. She said it was important for her to meet the "President-elect now before the drumbeats of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government - a war which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families," Gabbard said. She has previously expressed support for Russian bombing of Islamic State-held territories in Syria. "While the rules of political expediency would say I should have refused to meet with President-elect Trump, I never have and never will play politics with American and Syrian lives," she added. During the Democratic Party's presidential nomination race Gabbard was aligned with Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist who defied the party leadership to run against Clinton. Gabbard resigned as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee after clashing with the then-Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whom she accused of unfairly backing Clinton and working against Sanders. This could make her a potential conduit to the discontented supporters of Sanders, who emerged a strong rival to Clinton with his populist platform appealing to the disempowered, the working class and foreign policy doves. Underlining the differences with Trump on other matters, Gabbard said, "Where I disagree with President-elect Trump on issues, I will not hesitate to express that disagreement." Gabbard has criticised President Barack Obama for his reluctance to label as Islamic extremism terrorist attacks carried out by some Muslim, a criticism Trump has also voiced. She has advocated a tough line on Pakistan for its role in international terrorism and tried to get Congress to cut aid to Islamabad and increase pressure on it to stop this violence. (Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in) --IANS al/tb Key lies in closing gap between academia, industry (Comment: Special to IANS) Delhi,National,Opinion/Commentary,Business/Economy, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS 'Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much' - Helen Keller Ideally, a robust and functional collaboration should exist between industry and academia. That would augur well for any country, given that it would enable the growth of the education system and also produce employment-ready workforce. The common interaction between the two pillars of society has been that of producer-consumer, where the industry provides feedback to the academia for faulty products rather than providing keen insights and feedback, which will help improve the quality of education, research or infrastructure. This has led both sides to develop a frosty relationship. These are the major pain points in the academia-industry relationship, as also the key to addressing them: * Social environment and lack of awareness: One of the biggest problems that both the industry and the academia face is the lack of knowledge on what the other really wants. Despite being a long-standing problem, there is no specific model that is widely used. The lack of structure and appropriate forums meant that the few interactions that took place were neither structured nor on going. Both look for self-serving purposes rather than with the objective of working out the differences. Hence it is important to note that the two entities need to work with a common vision instead of isolating each other. We can also see that a lot of innovation and entrepreneurship is happening at a young age. This has been possible due to convergence of ideas and technology, and through the networking of communities. If we look at the evolution of Cloud Data, Mobility, Big Data, a lot of entrepreneurship has been facilitated through technology as these disruptive changes have increased employment opportunities for the youth. * The bane of stereotyping sciences: Firstly, there is very little awareness about scholarships and other basic understanding of various streams and there are very few institutes that offer quality education in the sciences. Also, parents and students have built stereotyped images of pure science subjects, which are thought to lead to a career in darkness, with the result being that there are more engineers today than science students. Secondly, many companies prefer to do their own research rather than associate with a university, unlike the West. * Research and development: The intellectual capital of Indian talent is well-known. However, research funding is not uniform across all sectors. For example, a fund crunch has hit research in ICMR institutions. While India is being touted as a R&D destination, it has contributed only 4.36 per cent of the global research output in 2013. Many R&D partnerships between the corporate and the academia are yet to take off even though the investments are tremendous. The proof is always in the pudding, so we will have to wait and see how they pan out. However, it is encouraging to note that India is fast emerging as a new innovation destination of choice. The Central government instituted the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) to rank institutions across the country. According to NIRF methodology, one of the parameters that carries a lot of weightage is the number of research papers published. Hence, it has become necessary for institutes to collaborate with the industry for research fellowship programmes, which is a win-win for both. * Outdated curricula and teaching methodologies: Technology is advancing at such a rapid rate that the curricula and teaching methodologies in universities seem outdated and out of sync with the market. This results in companies spending a tonne of money in reskilling employees in the skills they need. Recent surveys have shown that a majority of educated youth in the country are unemployable and given the rising demographic dividend, it can quickly turn into India's worst nightmare if adequate measures are not immediately to address this demand-supply gap. For India to emerge as a global leader, job seekers, academia and corporates need to work towards a common goal of fighting the challenges of unemployment and domain knowledge in India. Besides domain skills, the industry also looks at soft skills, team building, values and attitude of an individual at the time of hiring. Upgrading curriculum and keeping up with the changes is required of the institutes. Each domain curriculum needs to be driven by the respective sector to be able to create almost-job-ready students. The need of the hour is a framework or network that can bring industries and academia on to a platform for dialogue and collaboration. This platform should facilitate identification of synergies and enable outcomes that are lucrative and attractive to both parties. The Worldwide Academia Industry Network (WAIN) is an attempt to fill this yawning gap by creating a robust platform for students, corporate leaders and academicians to share, identify and collaborate on various levels. Under this platform we will witness an innovation focused event called MeltingPot2020 Innovation Summit 2016 to facilitate dialogue and collaboration between all players in the innovation eco-system. This initiative will see a confluence of ideas from academia and corporate to drive innovation and catalyze India's transformation into one of the top 10 Innovative countries of the world. (Indu Kanan is a senior marketing professional. The views expressed are personal. She can be contacted at marketing@keystone.in) --IANS indu/vm Ruling CPI-M wrests one assembly seat, retain another in Tripura Tripura,National,Politics, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Agartala, Nov 22 (IANS) The ruling CPI-M-led Left Front on Tuesday wrested one assembly seat from the Congress and retained another in Tripura, increasing its tally in the 60-member assembly to 51. According to election department officials, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) wrested the Scheduled Caste Reserved Barjala seat and retained the Khowai assembly constituency, defeating their nearest rivals Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) respectively, in the by-polls held on November 19. In Barjala constituency CPI-M's youth leader Jhumu Sarkar defeated BJP's Shista Mohan Das, a former bureaucrat, by a margin of 3,374 Votes. Sarkar got 15,769 votes and Das secured 12,395 votes in the seat, an election department official said. The official said that in Khowai seat, CPI-M's Biswajit Datta trounced TMC's Manoj Das, a former Left leader, by a margin of 16,094 votes. Datta bagged 24,810 votes and Das managed 8,716 votes. Erstwhile, main opposition party in Left ruled Tripura, Congress candidates in both Barjala and Khowai secured distant fourth positions. The Barjala seat fell vacant after Congress legislator Jitendra Sarkar resigned on June 6 following an internal feud within the party while the Khowai seat has been vacant since the death of veteran CPI-M legislator Samir Deb Sarkar. Five candidates each contested from the two constituencies. Elections were held on Saturday with over 91 per cent of the 78,400 electorate casting their votes in the two politically important assembly constituencies. Once Tripura's main opposition party Congress' nominee and former Tripura government senior official Rajendra Kumar Das got only 1,063 votes in Barjala and the party's candidate Pranab Biswas secured a mere 696 votes in Khowai. In 2013 general assembly elections, defeating the Congress nominee, CPI-M candidate Samir Deb Sarkar had won the Khowai by a margin of 8,833 votes while Congress nominee Jitendra Sarkar had succeeded in Barjala defeating the CPI-M candidate by a margin of 261 votes. The CPI-M, a dominant partner of the ruling Left Front, secured the Khowai seat five consecutive times while the Left party intermittently won the Barjala seat several times. A former CPI-M legislator, Sarkar, who served as Speaker of the Tripura assembly twice in the past joined the Congress in March 2010 and won the seat in 2013 defeating the CPI-M nominee, resigned from the assembly membership a few months back. After internal feud in the Congress, he rejoined the CPI-M on June 6 this year after resigning from the assembly membership. Political analyst Sanjib Deb said the BJP has become an emerging political force in Tripura. "Due to split in main opposition Congress, the TMC has also become a significant political force in Left ruled Tripura," Deb told IANS. --IANS sc/rn Share The United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority wants to make Dubai the smartest city in the world by next year. Part of that effort will involve creating an environment in which drone use is supported and encouraged. In an effort to make that happen, the UAEs GCAA recently tapped Nokia (News - Alert) to provide it with unmanned aerial vehicle Traffic Management technology, which will be employed by Dubai government security network operator Nedaa to develop a network for mission-critical and smart city services. Nokias UAV Traffic Management technology was designed to track and manage devices in the airspace, and relative to people and other connected devices. It will support use of automated drones for commercial and government applications by providing automated flight permissions, beyond-visual-line-of-sight functionality, and no-fly zone control. It also will allow for testing of various drone applications. The UAE is committed to making Dubai the smartest city in the world, and UAVs are expected to play a critical role in this process by supporting a wide variety of smart city services, says Bernard Najm, head of the Middle East Market Unit at Nokia. This collaboration with the GCAA, the first of its kind in the world, gives us a unique and extensive test bed where we can trial and refine our UAV Traffic Management system, and shape the future of UAV management overall. This is an exciting opportunity that builds on our strong relationship with the UAE to help facilitate its smart city journey. According to Gartner (News - Alert), in 2016 smart cities will use 1.6 billion connected devices. Thats a 39 percent increase over 2015. That represents deployments across healthcare, public services, smart commercial buildings, smart homes, transportation, utilities, and other categories, notes Ken Briodagh in the second quarter 2016 issue of IoT Evolution magazine. All of these will need to be intertwined in connectivity loops, contributing to data warehouses in the cloud that can deliver actionable intelligence to city planners, zoning boards, administrators, and residents, he notes. Edited by Alicia Young Lori Beth Denberg, Josh Server, Danny Tamberelli, Kel Mitchell (front), Derrik Lang, and Emily Bicks. (Harrison Hill / Los Angeles Times) 'Double Dare' lives at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con. (Harrison Hill / Los Angeles Times) Marc Summers stood in front of a giant prop nose filled with goo. He was explaining to '90s Nickelodeon star Lori Beth Denberg () how to root around the nostrils to retrieve a neon orange flag from inside.Fans ofrecognized the iconic, gross-but-funny obstacle from the enduringly popular Nickelodeon game show. The series revolutionized kids programming during its late '80s-early '90s run by giving children the chance to embrace messy, public play supervised and warmly encouraged by beloved host Summers.Its been more than 20 years sinceended its original run, but, at San Diego Comic-Con this summer, fans lined up for autographs and mobbed Summers, who hosted a modified version that streamed live on Facebook and featured other past Nickelodeon stars such as Denberg and Kel Mitchell ().Nickelodeon executive Keith Dawkins told the Los Angeles Times that it was magical to watch Summers interact with fans, whose childhood is coming to life in front of them again.It will come to life once more when Nickelodeon USA airs on Wednesday, Nov. 23 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Nick at Nite USA, commemorating the shows 30th anniversary. And, if enough people watch, the physical challenges, the giant nose, the obstacle course, the trademark Nickelodeon green slime the whole kit and kaboodle could be resurrected for a new generation!The audience will really decide, Dawkins said of the show, which was canceled in 1993 after 525 episodes hosted by the infectiously energetic Summers. Theyll decide the fate of this, whether we do it as a one-off special, or a many-year special, or as a series.Summers is both amazed and humbled by the ongoing attention from those who grew up with the show, but it wasnt always that way. When it ended and he sought other work in Hollywood, Summers admits, I went through a period, honestly, where yeah, [my association with ] made me angry because I was trying to do other things and it always came back down to kiddie show host Marc Summers. Now, though, at age 65, the Indiana native lights up as he delivers the line that began every physical challenge on the show: On your mark, get set, go!He has had occasion to deliver it several times this year. In addition to Comic-Con, Summers, in his iconic Size 9 white Reebok shoes, starred in eight sold-out performances ofat the Bloomington Playwrights Project in Bloomington, Ind.Part vaudeville, part drama and part including two physical challenges the show recounts Summers life, in which hes faced a number of serious obstacles of his own.finds Summers crawling across the floor, arranging fringe on a rug, illustrating the reality of living with obsessive-compulsive disorder. He tells the story of a horrific 2012 accident when his face smashed into a taxis partition. He details learning that he had leukemia. And he takes calls from a violent stalker who later confronts Summers on a walk, threatening his family members lives.The stalker a personification of Summers OCD played by actor Mike Nappi concludes the show by drenching Summers with the famed green slime. During its fourth performance in April, an audience of 85 people watched and recoiled in empathetic horror for the man whod just shared his life story.The play is both biography and a triumph of vulnerability, a very public rejection of the fear of being stigmatized after sharing his OCD diagnosis during an episode of his 90s Lifetime talk showThat honesty cost him a job hostingin 1998 and, with the talk show canceled, his family was in trouble. We sold a house because we were in bad shape financially, says Summers. He was left doing corporate speaking gigs for a pharmaceutical company. But talking about OCD constantly for years and years left him stuck and depressed.Translating Summers memoir and memories to the stage over the course of five years was the work of Tony-nominated actor Alex Brightman () and his writing partner, Drew Gasparini. The play traces Summers life from his days as a page at CBS to the present.It drains me every night, Summers says of re-enacting emotionally charged moments. During an initial read-through of the play in December, someone told Summers, Youre spilling your guts out, and I said, Yeah, I guess I am. I got a little concerned: Should I pull back? I think you get to a point and maybe its because of the cancer and the car accident I dont give a Summers is hoping that the show will make its way to Philadelphia next year and eventually to New York and that it will perhaps lead to other roles on Broadway, since theater is now offering opportunities that television is not.Thats because Summers is facing what he did at the start of his career: ageism. Back then, however, he looked too young; now, ironically, They think Im too old. The audience doesnt care, but they do, he says, referring to television executives.Summers most prominent television role recently was mainly behind the scenes as executive producer of Food Networks. It was canceled this summer.Yet Summers has only kind words for the network that offered him a path back to television in 2001 as host of. A decade later, when it was canceled, he was a year into treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia.Without, he wouldnt have been able to afford his $20,000 treatments. Food Network is like the best network in the history of the world, Summers says. They could have said, Were sorry, too bad, but they gave me more episodes so I could get through the chemo.Now in remission, Summers is going strong. Besidesand the potential revival of, a documentary calledis being shopped to potential distributors, either for a theatrical release or on Netflix or premium cable. (It includes interviews with Summers friends and mentees, including Neil Patrick Harris, Guy Fieri and Ryan Seacrest.)I closed the office forJuly 1, and two weeks later, I was in San Diego for Comic-Con, he says. Ive never worried about whats next. Ive been really lucky, since the Nickelodeon years, where one thing jumped into the other.As Summers says in the play, Life keeps knocking me down, but I keep getting back up.You can watch a exclusive video of the cast of All That playingthis summer at Comic-Con International: San Diego 2016 here on latimes.com Nickelodeon USA and The SplatWednesday, Nov. 23 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Nick at Nite USA, with a special encore on The Splat at 10 p.m. ET/PTTV-G (suitable for all ages)"Double Dare" Host Marc Summers Was Recognized By Who?! "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda did not give away his shot to have a nostalgic moment with the Nickelodeon host! Get the scoop in this fantastic video interview with Marc Summers from from from E! News !: The cast of Nickelodeon Latin America's "Yo Soy Franky" Showfax, Inc. is reporting the very exciting Nickelodeon News that Nickelodeon started production on, the networks English language adaptation of Nickelodeon Latin America's hit live-action series,, on Monday 21st November 2016!Please note, however, that this news is currently unconfirmed by Nickelodeon.is the story of "Frankie", an experimental android who navigates the perils and wonders of being a teenager. Frankie looks like any other girl, but functions like the newest computer: complete with Internet access, extensive memory and a hard disk. Frankie goes to school and no one but the members of her family know her secret. She adapts to the real world quite well, despite having no feelings or emotions, but all that changes when she begins to experience family life, make friends and have a boyfriend. Her biggest challenge will be to fall in-love without her operating system malfunctioning!Nickelodeon has ordered 20 x 30 minute episodes which will be distributed to Nickelodeon's global audiences spanning 160 countries and territories via the brand's more than 80 channels and branded blocks., originally produced asby Nickelodeon Latin America in Colombia, was created by renowned Argentine writer Marcela Citterio, produced in Colombia by Televideo, and is distributed by Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) The Americas through its Division of International Sales Programming (IPS), the division responsible for the international distribution of programs, formats and activities produced by the brands of the company.The English language version,, is being adapted for global audiences by Catharina Ledeboer, who has written multiple Nickelodeon hits, including most recently(which completed four seasons) andProduction ofwill be split between Los Angeles , California, and in the new state of the art Viacom International Studios in Miami. The studio, which boasts two 15,000 sq. foot stages and was completed in late 2015, serves as a multiplatform production hub for all of Viacom's brands. Christine Scowley is serving as Casting Director on the series.Showfax has also revealed the names of some of the characters that will be inFrankieAndrewByronCaseyColeDaytonDr. Sigourney GainesJamesJennyKingstonLuciaMakaylaMr. ManhartMs. HoughPegs1RobbieTammyWill Still, the world carries on. At an international climate-change summit in Marrakesh, Morocco last week, delegates issued a proclamation confirming the Paris accord and pledging that the battle against global warming would continue to be a matter of urgent priority. Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said Ottawa will forge ahead with its plans to reduce carbon emissions by, in one way or another, taxing them. Chinas delegate to the conference said tackling climate change is a global trend that is irreversible. His remarks were echoed by delegates from all the big emitters, including India, the European Union, Japan, the Middle Eastern oil states and Brazil. It's true that the accord does not do enough. And the commitments are promises. they're not binding. But that makes it easier for the rest of the world to not knuckle under to Trump. And he's a man who measures success by his ability to get others to knuckle under. Then there's China: More to the point, there is China. It wants to be recognized as a world leader. It is willing to spend money to achieve that goal. It is attracted to renewable energy in part to deal with its own coal-based smog pollution. But it also sees renewable energy as part of a long-run industrial strategy. Trump believes he can get China to knuckle under by imposing stiff tariffs on Chinese goods. He's a fool, of course. Can the rest of the world prove him a fool on climate change? We'll see. Still, Walkom advises his readers not to buy ocean front property in Florida. Image: Peace Palace Library When George W. Bush was elected president, he withdrew the United States from the Kyoto Protocol. Canada followed suit. Now, sixteen years later, Donald Trump vows to withdraw the United States from the Paris Accord. But this time, Justin Trudeau says that Canada will back the accord. In fact, yesterday he vowed that by 2030 coal would no longer be a source of Canadian energy. Tom Walkom writes Malagasy Foreign Minister Atallah Beatrice Jeanine expressed her countrys support for Moroccos decision to reintegrate the African institutional family. President Hery Rajaonarimampianina welcomed the letter sent by President of the African Union Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, regarding Moroccos request to return to the African institutional family, said Malagasy Foreign Minister in a statement to MAP following the signing ceremony of 22 cooperation agreements with Morocco. The signing ceremony was chaired by King Mohammed VI and Malagasy President Hery Rajaonarimampianina in Antananarivo. the second leg of a second phase of an African tour that previously took the King to Ethiopia. The agreements aim at strengthening the legislative framework governing bilateral cooperation in terms of river preservation, agriculture, finance, culture, employment, renewable energies and vocational training. Morocco withdrew from the predecessor of the African Union, the Organization of African Unity in 1984, on grounds of the violation of neutrality in the Sahara conflict by admitting the Algeria-based separatist entity as a full-fledged member. Last September, Morocco has officially submitted a request to regain its natural place as a member of the African Union (AU). Robbed? Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Hillary Clinton is being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump, New York has learned. The group, which includes voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, believes theyve found persuasive evidence that results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or hacked. The group is so far not speaking on the record about their findings and is focused on lobbying the Clinton team in private. Last Thursday, the activists held a conference call with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign general counsel Marc Elias to make their case, according to a source briefed on the call. The academics presented findings showing that in Wisconsin, Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic-voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots. Based on this statistical analysis, Clinton may have been denied as many as 30,000 votes; she lost Wisconsin by 27,000. While its important to note the group has not found proof of hacking or manipulation, they are arguing to the campaign that the suspicious pattern merits an independent review especially in light of the fact that the Obama White House has accused the Russian government of hacking the Democratic National Committee. According to current tallies, Trump has won 290 Electoral College votes to Clintons 232, with Michigans 16 votes not apportioned because the race there is still too close to call. It would take overturning the results in both Wisconsin (10 Electoral College votes) and Pennsylvania (20 votes), in addition to winning Michigans 16, for Clinton to win the Electoral College. There is also the complicating factor of faithless electors, or members of the Electoral College who do not vote according to the popular vote in their states. At least six electoral voters have said they would not vote for Trump, despite the fact that he won their states. The Clinton camp is running out of time to challenge the election. According to one of the activists, the deadline in Wisconsin to file for a recount is Friday; in Pennsylvania, its Monday; and Michigan is next Wednesday. Whether Clinton will call for a recount remains unclear. The academics so far have only a circumstantial case that would require not just a recount but a forensic audit of voting machines. Also complicating matters, a senior Clinton adviser said, is that the White House, focused on a smooth transfer of power, does not want Clinton to challenge the election result. Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri did not respond to a request for comment. But some Clinton allies are intent on pushing the issue. This afternoon, Huma Abedins sister Heba encouraged her Facebook followers to lobby the Justice Department to audit the 2016 vote. Call the DOJand tell them you want the votes audited, she wrote. Even if its busy, keep calling. Update: Halderman has elaborated on his claims in a Medium post published Wednesday morning. Defiant. Photo: James MacPherson/AP Tensions remain high after protests on Sunday night against the Dakota Access Pipeline left hundreds injured and led to the arrests of 16 activists. Police dramatically escalated their response to demonstrators who have been in the area for months, shooting them with pepper spray and rubber bullets, throwing concussion grenades, and soaking them with water cannons in below-freezing temperatures. While activists paint the confrontation as a case of police using violence against peaceful protestors, police say the protest devolved into a riot, with activists behaving violently toward officers and lighting fires. Some of the water was used to repel some of the protest activities that were occurring, and it was used at a time where they were aggressive towards the officers,said Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier. Police also claim that protesters were throwing rocks and logs at them, and one officer was struck in the head. But medics from the Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council working at the site are describing Sunday night as a mass casualty incident and say that more than 300 activists were injured, many from rubber bullets and shrapnel from concussion grenades, and that 26 had to be hospitalized with head injuries. Other protesters showed signs of hypothermia, and one even had a heart attack and had to be revived by medical personnel. Dallas Goldtooth, a spokesman for the Indigenous Environmental Network, said that the sheriffs departments use of water cannons was ripe with irony as protesters had been told by the same sheriff to leave their camps because the weather in North Dakota can become dangerously cold. Videos also show that police were behind barbed wire when they sprayed and shot at protestors, and Jen Cook, policy director for the ACLU of North Dakota spoke out against the police tactics, saying, Its absolutely a blatant disregard for the safety and humanity of unarmed protesters. Police fired water cannons at peaceful protectors ON video, like shooting me w rubber bullet. #StandingRock #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/3ASmgHGKxJ Erin Schrode (@ErinSchrode) November 21, 2016 But the police took more issue with the word choice than the action. Speaking at a press conference, Kirchmeier went to lengths to explain that the police dont have a water cannon. I dont know where the term water cannon comes from, he said. This was basically just a fire hose. STOP being distracted by Trump for a sec & focus on #StandingRock. happening on our watch. Water protectors targeted. #NoDAPL Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) November 22, 2016 On Monday, Bernie Sanders threw his support behind the protestors, tweeting and posting video to his Facebook of the confrontation. President Obama must take all appropriate measures to protect the safety of the Native Americans protesters and their... Posted by Bernie Sanders on Sunday, November 20, 2016 I urge @TheJusticeDept to send observers to defend the water protectors' right to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline. https://t.co/YDCGofUIlL Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 22, 2016 Reports of injuries continue to come in, including one woman from New York whose arm was injured by a concussion grenade, requiring surgery. Woman hit by concussion grenade may lose her arm. Way past time for federal observers at Standing Rock #NoDAPL Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) November 22, 2016 Dave Archambault II, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which has been the motivating force behind the protests, said, The use of water in freezing temperatures just goes to show that theyre being more aggressive and theyre actually trying to hurt people. This is far more threatening to human life than any other time of confrontation with law enforcement. Enjoy photos like these before theyre banned. Photo: PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images A much-anticipated meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and influential media figures did not go exactly as anticipated. The off-the-record summit at Trump Tower was expected to be an opportunity for Trump to allay the medias fears about access during the presidency. Instead, according to sources speaking to the New York Post, network bosses, reporters, and anchors walked into something of an untelevised Apprentice episode in which they were all pretty much fired. One unnamed source who was at the meeting said that it was like a f**king firing squad. Trump kicked things off by addressing CNN president Jeff Zucker directly. I hate your network, he allegedly said. Everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed. All parties agreed beforehand that the meeting would be off the record, and reports of what occurred diverged widely. Another source told CNN that real progress was made, and others said that their concerns about the press pool that travels with the president at all times and which Trump recently ditched to grab dinner were addressed. About 40 people met in one of Trump Towers boardrooms, and according to several reports, journalists struggled to be heard as Trump subjected the whole room to a comprehensive dressing down. Among the attendees were Deborah Turness, Lester Holt, and Chuck Todd from NBC; James Goldston, George Stephanopoulos, David Muir, and Martha Raddatz from ABC; Norah ODonnell, John Dickerson, Gayle King, Charlie Rose, and Christopher Isham from CBS; Jeff Zucker, Wolf Blitzer, and Erin Burnett from CNN; Phil Griffin from MSNBC; and Bill Shine, Jack Abernethy, Jay Wallace, and Suzanne Scott from Fox News. According to the Post, while the whos who of the mainstream media tried to ask questions, time and again they were interrupted by Trump, who allegedly kept repeating the same sentiment: Were in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong. Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner a newspaper owner himself was in attendance, as well as Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, the alt-right media executive. Even Trumps wife, Melania, made an appearance. While another source described the day as a total disaster, Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway had a different take. She called it an excellent meeting very cordial, candid, and honest Pretty unprecedented meeting we put together in two days. Trump is expected to meet with representatives of the New York Times perhaps his greatest media foe on Tuesday. Voters go to the polls in Milwaukee to cast their votes earlier this month. Photo: Darren Hauck/Getty Images Were entering our second week of presidential election postmortems, and theres an ongoing argument over the extent to which Hillary Clintons campaign was hampered by its own weaknesses, as opposed to forces beyond its control. What is clear, from the numbers, is that Clinton did not get the turnout she and her campaign were expecting from key Democratic voting blocs like Latinos and African-Americans. On that particular issue, a very useful data point was published yesterday in the form of a Times dispatch from a poor part of Milwaukee where the numbers suggest black voters were extremely unenthusiastic about the prospect of voting for Clinton. Its useful, in part, because it punctures several myths about how black voters were supposed to respond to Clintons campaign, according to journalists and politicos in major-media bubbles like New York and Washington. As Sabrina Tavernise explains, turnout in Wisconsin, a high-turnout state relative to the rest of the nation, was the lowest it had been in 16 years. And the decline was concentrated in poor areas. Milwaukees lowest-income neighborhoods offer one explanation for the turnout figures, she writes. Of the citys 15 council districts, the decline in turnout from 2012 to 2016 in the five poorest was consistently much greater than the drop seen in more prosperous areas accounting for half of the overall decline in turnout citywide. The biggest drop occurred in District 15, a stretch of fading wooden homes, sandwich shops and fast-food restaurants that is 84 percent black, so Tavernise spoke with voters there to try to figure out what happened. For the most part, the residents there who spoke with Tavernise simply saw no affirmative reason to vote for Hillary. Some saw her as corrupt; others noted that they had not seen their economic situation improved during the Obama years. Aint none of this been working, said a barber who had trouble finding health care, is now shelling out $300 a month for a plan he cant afford, and who didnt vote. Many residents of the neighborhood also openly said they admired Trump, and were apparently unaware of his bankruptcies, frequent ripoffs of contractors, and other well-reported facts that might detract from that image. From a business perspective, I loved him, said a security guard who didnt vote, but said Trump would have gotten his vote if he had. One interviewee, who voted for Trump to protest Clinton, said of what he viewed as Trumps racism, Its better than smiling to my face but going behind closed doors and voting against our kids a point another resident echoed: He was real, unlike a lot of liberal Democrats who are just as racist, she said. Its important, in parsing all these different election postmortems, not to lose sight of the broader picture, not to overinterpret from a collection of anecdotes, which is what Tavernises article is. Clinton did win the popular vote by a significant margin despite a barrage of fake, WikiLeaks-sourced news, James Comeys harmful last-minute announcement, and other issues. Plus, the reduction in black turnout wasnt entirely voluntary: States like Wisconsin and North Carolina enacted voter-registration laws designed, all but explicitly, to make it harder for people of color to vote. But still, a few points stand out from this story, partly because they seem to be relevant not only in Milwaukee, but also on the various other parts of the map that doomed Clinton as well. The African-American Milwaukee voters were less outraged by Trumps bigotry and misogyny than many optimistic Democrats expected them to be. Over and over, Democrats and journalists stated and wrote confidently that Trumps outrageous statements about minority groups would fire up and turn out the Democratic base, making Trumps uphill battle even steeper. It didnt happen exit polls suggest Clinton underperformed among African-Americans and Latinos. One interpretation is that members of these groups were, overall, less offended than bubble-denizens assumed they would be, or at least less mobilized by that offense. In the case of the Milwaukee voters Tavernise interviewed (an admittedly nonscientific sample), Trumps bigoted remarks just werent near the top of their list of concerns. One likely possibility is that African-Americans views on Trump were mediated by class and education. Just a month ago, the Times ran an article quoting a handful of the many black voters who were disturbed by Trumps racial rhetoric. But it appeared to be a somewhat different crowd than the folks interviewed by Tavernise: Among the anti-Trump interviewees were a graduate student, another graduate student, a finance professional, and the head of a gay-rights group. It may be that high-information, politically engaged minority voters those who are likely to have higher incomes and be better educated found the choice obvious, but lower-information ones didnt. Its not like white people dont have the same pattern. This is reminiscent of how many Democrats approached the question of gender this cycle: The common thinking was that there was no way all that many women could possibly vote for someone with as extensive and explicit a record of misogyny as Trump, and that this would corrode the GOPs usual base of white support. Again, the bubbles produced a spate of news stories reinforcing this belief: Trump Is Losing Educated GOP Womenand Splitting Up Families Along the Way, went the Politico headline. That was part of the basis for Chuck Schumers now infamous prediction that For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. But nope: White women broke quite solidly for Trump. Clinton got walloped by something like a 2-to-1 margin among white women without a college degree, according to one set of exit polls cited by Claire Malone of FiveThirtyEight, and only won those with college degrees those respectable suburban types by 6 points. The outrage was not as potent a force outside the bubbles as it was within them. For the African-American Milwaukee voters, the improving economy was invisible. It shouldnt surprise liberals, who have rightly been complaining about Americas runaway inequality for a long time, that the purported economic gains of the last few years unemployment is at 4.9 percent didnt trickle all that far down. Even among those who do have jobs, economic insecurity abounds. Inequality isnt getting better; wages have been stagnant for decades. (And theres good reason to apply several grains of salt to unemployment statistics anyway, since the numbers dont capture people who have effectively given up and stopped looking for work.) So it also shouldnt be surprising that a group of low-income African-Americans didnt see a compelling reason to vote for another Democrat. Again, theres a cross-racial comparison here: Dems overall confidence rested, in part, on the idea that things were looking up for white voters, too, in places like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and that the models suggest there are three dangerous words that incumbent-party candidates benefit during economic upswings. But a huge chunk of white America, like a huge chunk of black America, is in the midst of a decades-long slow-burn crisis in which many people lack affordable access to housing, education, and health care, in which they can barely stay afloat, and in which in the case of white people, at least there has been a recent, terrifying increase in mortality rates. Things havent felt like they were getting better lately. You cant count on voters to understand complex policy stuff. Quick, what were Hillary Clintons signature policy proposals? If you dont know, youre not alone neither, apparently, did the black Milwaukee voters Tavernise spoke with, who were supposed to be part of her backbone of support. Many of them just saw her and Trump as two equally corrupt Establishment figures in part, its safe to say, because Clinton and her campaign didnt tell enough clear, compelling stories about how her policies would improve their lives. (The fact that she didnt campaign in Wisconsin probably didnt help.) Some of Clintons critics on the left have taken this criticism too far, acting as though she didnt have policies and didnt have any interest in, for example, reducing inequality. That isnt fair she was a policy-oriented presidential candidate with an active team of wonks working busily outside the spotlight. But maybe they were a bit too outside the spotlight. Whereas Trumps proposals were as bombastic and offensive as they were ridiculous deport illegals, build a wall, fix trade, stop getting us ripped off they did speak to economically insecure (and frequently racially aggrieved) white GOP voters. What were Clintons equivalent policies? Given how little the average voter knows about policy, is it any wonder that while Trumps intended audiences in key states were energized by his big, hollow talk, Clintons were less than awestruck? Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images The world of modern art is often viewed as irrational and perplexing by outsiders and insiders alike. Last fall, for example, an Italian art museum displayed an unusual installation, consisting of strewn-about champagne bottles, cigarette butts, and confetti. The piece was meant to represent the excesses of the 1980s age of plenty in that country; it also, unfortunately, looked an awful lot like garbage. As such, cleaners at the gallery threw it all away, mistaking it for the leftover detritus of a party held at the museum the night before. the artwork by #goldiechiari removed by cleaning staff has now been fully reinstalled. https://t.co/HSypzoAKaL pic.twitter.com/joIgKW5iMM Museion (@MuseionBZ) October 27, 2015 Meanwhile, a Jackson Pollock canvas containing seemingly random paint spatters sold for $200 million, putting it among the top-five most valuable paintings of all time, according to Wikipedia, a full $50 million more than Vincent van Goghs Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold for in 1990. Marcel Duchamps Fountain an upside-down urinal was broadly described as one of the most influential pieces of art of the past century, after topping a poll of 500 art experts in the run-up to the 2004 Turner Prize. The original urinal was destroyed long before it began to be so widely revered, but a replica was eventually commissioned and can be seen today at the Tate Modern in London. What is it about a specific piece of art that makes it become seen as an esteemed creation, while something entirely similar can be viewed as nothing more than (quite literally) a vessel for disposing of human excrement? This was the brazen question that researchers at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Leuven in Belgium recently tackled using the scientific method. They published their results in the journal Human Nature in October. To test this experimentally, the researchers presented art experts and students with a series of bland, expressionless photos of womens faces, taken with a simple passport-style exposure and plain white backdrop. The art experts were volunteers recruited through a European art museum and tested using a quiz to select only those with the highest artistic knowledge. The images were shown to the volunteers among a series of similar decoy artworks taken from New Yorks Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The experts, as it turned out, were just as bad as the students at spotting the fakes and in fact were more likely to say that the genuine MoMA works were fake than they were to call out the fakes. These are the portraits included in the study that can be found in the MoMA. Photo: MOMA/ Rineke Dijkstra, Tanyth Berkeley, Nicholas Nixon, Gillian Wearing The researchers discreetly placed a MoMA watermark at the bottom of some of the photographs and asked the volunteers to rate the quality of the various pieces of art. While the laypeople werent swayed by the watermark, the art experts were, preferring the fakes if they had the prestigious stamp. The finding suggests that art experts are particularly inclined to agree with what has previously been deemed prestigious, rather than evaluating work solely on its own merits. The fake portraits were taken from an earlier study of facial attractiveness; this enabled the researchers to investigate what the art experts found attractive in the various different portraits. While the laypeople preferred the artworks involving more attractive faces, the art experts preferences were in the opposite direction favoring the less attractive faces. According to the studys lead author, Jan Verpooten, this may be because of a trend in the art world to actively deviate from our innate aesthetic preferences. Photos from previous research on facial attractiveness. (These ones were deemed highly attractive.) Photo: Human Nature Perhaps art experts instinctively veer away from traditional ideas of beauty in order to distinguish themselves. In the words of artist Grayson Perry, if you use that word [beauty] in the art world, be very careful, there will be a sucking of teeth and a mournful shaking of heads. To Perry, this is because beauty is all about familiarity and reinforcing an idea we have already. To quote Duchamp himself, aesthetic delectation is the danger to be avoided. More photos from the previous study on facial attractiveness. In that research, these faces were considered moderately attractive. (Poor faces.) Photo: Human Nature Its easy to understand the growing appeal of less traditional artwork when we live in a world where we are surrounded by digital imagery. Photographic technology has progressed to a point where a cheap point-and-shoot can take extremely high-quality photos, and artificial intelligence can now closely imitate the styles of esteemed artists. Googles DeepMind neural network recently created art that raised $84,000 in a two-day exhibit for the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. But this still doesnt quite explain what exactly it is that makes something worth hundreds of thousands of dollars while very similar work is valued at sweet nothing. Thats probably a question that no scientific study will ever be able to answer definitively. MoMA declined to comment on the findings, describing them as outside our purview. The Four Seasons. Photo: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg via Getty Images Back in my former, fancy life as the editor-in-chief of a Conde Nast fashion magazine, I spent a lot of time putting in command performances. Mostly they had to do with advertisers: lunching with them, accompanying them to black ties at the Waldorf (always the Waldorf), meeting with their offspring to discuss internships, which were always theirs for the asking. But there was one event, this one in-house, that loomed so far above the rest in terms of importance that it wasnt even fair to put it in a league with the others. You would not dare claim a scheduling conflict: Heavy-stock Save the Date cards went out via interoffice mail months in advance. Editors whose magazines were based on the West Coast flew in for it. I cannot imagine a circumstance, barring labor or death of an immediate family member, that would have prevented anyone on the guest list from showing up. The holiday lunch was that important. The holiday lunch was held, as it had been for years, at The Four Seasons, in a private dining room off the pool room, right before Si Newhouse, the companys chairman, flew off to Europe to begin his winter vacation (in Vienna, always, for the opera). Many of the companys senior executives attended, but it was most notable for being the only time all the editors-in-chief and publishers were in the same room at the same time the entire year, and was therefore employed as an opportunity to let the seating arrangement speak to ones and ones titles current standing in the company. This rendered the event the subject of a great deal of anticipation and fascination not only among those of us in the room as we all strained to see how wed made out in comparison to our rivals (and how others had made out in comparison to their rivals) but by the New York media world at large. The Posts media columnist would always run a postmortem the next day that included enough surprisingly accurate details about what was said and done there to assume that at least one person in attendance had to be leaking choice bits. (At least I always assumed the leaks were multiple everyone had an interest in making sure Keith Kelly shined his light kindly upon them, and sharing information about the lunch was a pretty low-stakes risk.) Still, the paper always managed to botch the seating chart, so one year, Conde Nasts PR department started just sending it over so theyd get it right. Which only made sense, really. No other publishing company had a ritual that incited nearly so much fascination and chatter among media watchers. Lip service would be paid each year by the bosses as to how irrelevant seating at the lunch was, but everyone knew better. How could that be when the boldface editors never failed to get prime spots? And why would there be a large poster board erected at the entrance to the room comically, I always thought, as there was a place-card table rendering it redundant not three yards away with a diagram of all the tables and its exact seating configuration, if we were we not supposed to take more than passing note of it? In fact, it was tough not to stand there and openly study it, as one might an oversize copy of ones Oscars office pool. The golden ring, of course, was a seat at Sis table. The other two key tables were Steve Florios he was the CEO and editorial director James Trumans. A place with one of the other top 11th-floor guys was nothing to be ashamed of for all but the most pathologically competitive among us. Anywhere in the front half of the room, really, was reason to not fear for your livelihood. But be seated in the back half particularly if you were the editor of one of the bigger titles meant that lunch couldnt end soon enough. Siberia didnt necessarily mean trouble somebody had to sit there. It definitely meant the Post was going to take note, though. But as long as at least one of your dining companions was a person you knew the company considered a valued player, you could console yourself that you were in decent company. Still, one never knew. You didnt necessarily have to make your numbers every year to stay in favor at Conde Nast that was a wonderful thing about being at a company that took the long view and valued creativity, which Conde Nast really did in those days but if you werent making your numbers, Siberia meant that at the very least the 11th floor was watching. I always anticipated the holiday lunch with dread. Sweating the seating was part of it, but the very least of it. Never was my inability to fully get it together as a member of the Conde Nast community more apparent to me than it was there. The expression not a hair out of place could quite literally have been invented to describe all the assembled women, and a great number of the men. I could show up with a manicure, a blowout, possibly even professional makeup, and still have regretted not making time for the eyebrow wax and oxygen facial. There was simply no way to ever feel polished enough. And I had nothing that came even close to fitting the rather narrowly-defined-but-unspoken dress code for the occasion. The holiday lunch called for something that toed the rather tricky line between unimpeachably stylish and yet completely work-appropriate. Not a touch of sexiness; not precisely trendy, but, in the parlance of fashion caption copy, completely on-trend. This wasnt so easy to pull off, and yet, these enviably composed women, in their sharp color-paneled Narciso Rodriguez sleeveless shifts that revealed (inevitably) perfectly toned arms; their military-themed YSL suits with just a touch of froufrou; their thoughtfully belted arty-corporate dresses from Marni they managed it. Some came by their good style naturally; others paid stylists and personal shoppers to wheel rolling racks into their offices and endow them with it for a price. Either way, the effect was flawless. At home the night before, I would attempt to mimic them. And would almost invariably fall dramatically, hilariously, short. I had plenty of clothes, but they were the wrong clothes. I relied far too heavily on the color black, which was viewed upon by upper-tier fashion editors as a sign of weakness and lack of imagination. I was allergic to belts and other finishing touches. I preferred a big flat boot to a sharp high one, a cardigan over a jacket, and a pair of dark tights over bare legs (which these ladies all of whom I have long thought could handily survive a month in the frozen wilderness routinely pulled off in any weather). Some years, after emptying the entire contents of my closet onto my bed the night before and trying and retrying everything repeatedly, I would manage to compose an outfit I did not view as a complete humiliation. But most years Id just throw myself at the mercy of the fashion closet. (I can not count the number of times the fashion closet and its endless racks of designer samples; its embarrassment of handbags; its sub-closet of shoes had saved my ass in similar circumstances. But there were many.) And yet. Even with a passable outfit, even with a good table and Id always done reasonably well, always in the front half of the room I was miserable. Because for me, the great misery of this event was the event itself. It was preceded by a cocktail hour, and this was the keenest source of my horror. I was being paid to display some mastery of the social graces. A reasonable demand, given the nature of my job. So I wanted to negotiate this moment with some degree of grace, and yet feared that I failed terribly. I could never understand why this was, and loathed this about myself and viewed it very much as my own shortcoming. In my personal life, I could handle pretty much any room; in my previous professional life Id never had any problem. I had interviewed celebrities and rock stars some of whom Id worshiped since adolescence and had never been at a loss for words. Even after having to give up the handy social lubrication a few glasses of wine could provide, I found that I could chat up almost anyone. But in a room full of these colleagues or advertisers; whether at a work-related benefit, black tie, or perfume launch, I skied the bunny slope. Poorly. This was one tough room I always felt a distinct spirit of exclusion the moment I walked in the door. I could remind myself in advance of the handful of other editors I actually liked and would make a point of seeking them out, and that there were other corporate types who could be relied upon to fill a few anxiety-neutral minutes. But the rest of the time was a nerve-jangling reminder of the yawning gap between myself and the other people in the company; how much they thrived on this intense internal rivalry, and how much it ate away at me. Id be certain to say hello to the other editors in my peer group, even my closest competitors, who always displayed a kind of glossy, well-calibrated warmth that for years I mistook for the real thing. I was acutely aware that no matter how eager anyone was to talk to you, they were equally eager to move on to the next person, or whatever little power huddle they spied just beyond you. Indeed, they all seemed to possess unnaturally superior peripheral vision that rendered them capable of sizing up whoever was about to enter their field of vision without appearing to move even the faintest of facial muscles. Whether or not theyd turned to look at you at all as you walked past was no indication of whether theyd seen you. Whether youd been snubbed was a question best left to ponder on the ride back to the office. On a normal year, this was all too dispiriting to contemplate. This year it was December 2003, and I was in a depression so thick and so resistant to medication that I felt less hopeful of a cure by the day the very thought of it flattened me. In some respects, the distastefulness of the event couldnt help but be diminished in the wake of my current state of mind: whether or not I would be ignored on the way to the bar for my Pellegrino-and-lime scarcely mattered when it was a struggle to even contemplate getting across that room. I could barely bear to be around my closest friends at this time, and was in the habit of retreating up to my bedroom when my husband and I had guests over, because the pressure of trying to engage in normal conversation was just too much to stand. When we visited my mothers house with my brothers and their families for Sunday dinner, everyone would head to the living room after arriving, and Id take my coat off and slide directly off to the guest bedroom and get under the covers. How Id carry on even the simplest conversation with my professional peers when I could barely manage such a thing with my best friends and closest family members was the central concern. Predictably, the morning of the lunch found me in a very dark place: the task of getting out of bed had become, in those days, challenging on a level that felt almost physical. Bed was the only place I felt safe; the only place my life knew any grace, and trying to get out of it was an especially ugly undertaking on those days when I knew I had no other option but to do so. I laid there with the dog curled up close unlike the humans who surrounded and worried over me, she wasnt the least bit concerned over the amount of time I spent in bed; shed prefer if I stayed there all day. Her look of alarm when I did get up was so impossibly sweet, and so much more appealing than anything the day had on offer, that Id often lose what tiny bit of resolve Id managed to muster and just crawl right back under the sheets and hang on to her for dear life, like she was my blankie. Eventually I slunk off to the shower and got on with things. Because the odds were actually quite good that Id be seated at Sis table the magazine had had a pretty excellent year, not that Id allowed myself to enjoy a minute of it Id gotten a reasonably suitable outfit together the night before: a skinny boucle skirt suit that looked retro-y and cool and kind of French and expensive even though it was DKNY; Prada Mary Janes that might ideally been some color other than black, given that the suit was brown, but kind of worked anyway; and a top that probably wasnt entirely right, but that the fashion closet would be able to fix if the editors I polled for a reaction deemed that it wasnt. Under the circumstances, I was not entirely displeased with my efforts at styling. The morning passed like sludge. I read pages without concentrating, left them on the desk to approve later. The half hour before I was scheduled to leave saw me sitting in the office with my door closed, staring down the sofa and willing myself not to cross the room, lay down and feel the wave of relief that I knew simply closing my eyes would bring. But getting up once I did would have required a more heroic effort than I had in me. I was pretty sure thered be some stale cigarettes under my bathroom sink, and was wildly tempted, but stopped myself: I was just two weeks out from surgery to remove a minuscule but quite definitely malignant growth in my left breast, and its discovery had propelled me to kick the habit Id picked up again when the depression entered its current, brutal phase. Plus, practically speaking, it would not do to reek of tobacco today. So I swiveled my chair away from the desk, crossed my arms around myself and bent over with my head in my lap for a while, hoping to gain just a nominal amount of relief from the unbearable ache in my chest that was the constant companion to my sadness. Eventually my assistant knocked on the door to give me the five-minute warning. I stood up, checked myself in the mirror, dotted some concealer on my puffy eyes by then I was only ever two or three hours away from my last or next crying jag applied something bright to my lips and cheeks, and headed downstairs. By the time I got to the 43rd Street entrance there were only a few town cars left. Everyone was either on their way over or already there. Most years, I aimed to time my arrival for the last 15 minutes of cocktail hour just respectful enough, not a second longer but I was pushing it today. As the car crept up 52nd Street, I tried to comfort myself with the thought that the anticipation of certain events is almost never as bad as the event itself I generally believe this to be true, but today the words washed over me like so much noise. By the time I arrived, the room was completely full, as Id figured it would be. My plan was to proceed to the bar immediately, without making eye contact with anyone just quickly get some sense of the room and how Id manage it. This immediately proved impossible, however: from the moment I entered, a variety of other guests, were giving me air kisses, patting me on the back, congratulating me on my year. Everywhere I turned, it seemed, was somebody who wanted to say hi, to put in a kind word. Publishers whod never thought to do more than say a quick hello now lingered to chat for a moment. The room opened itself up to me in a different way. Luckys stock at Conde Nast had risen to the point where nobody could ignore its success, and this seemed to have earned me a few points toward membership at the holiday lunch. It was torture. For each person who came by to offer the same hello, the same congratulations, I had to manufacture the same smile (could they see horrible effort it required? I was certain they could) to repeat the same thanks, to make the same pale attempt at small talk. I felt paralyzed. Eventually I made my way over to the place card table and opened the envelope with my name on it. Table 1. Which could only mean one thing. I went to the poster board. There I was. Right next to Si. I felt punchy with fear and excitement. This was a very good moment, a very big moment, and certainly one Id never banked on having any version of, even five years ago. How weird life was! I might have hated the holiday lunch, but I knew what an honor it was to have made it to this room; what it meant to have been given this magazine. What a wild thing it was that Lucky was such a success. And of course I wasnt so entirely uncompetitive as to not to be happy at the thought of how much this would displease my rivals. And then, in a second, all that excitement, and the sliver of happiness it generated, was gone. Just like every other moment when I tried to truly feel proud of what Id done at Lucky, or to feel any joy it might generate. It existed at a distance from me now, on the other side of a thick, glassy wall. All I was left with was a walloping dose of fear. The other side of the reality that I would now have to actually engage in a couple of hours worth of conversation with Si had kicked in. I did my best. I ate enough of my chicken pot pie to not appear as though I had an eating disorder and attempted to engage my boss on a variety of topics, but in the end just had to give in and let his other dining partner take over. She was an editor-in-chief of roughly my age, the protege of a very spit-and-polish member of the Conde Nast community, impeccably dressed on all occasions and so far my superior in this sort of endeavor that it wasnt even fair to have us attempt to charm an important person at the same time. I had seen her in action before and she was unstoppable. So I engaged the person to my left, the publisher of one of the companys biggest titles. He was exceptionally affable the best publishers are gifted in their ability to talk to anyone. It was like scaling a mountain, but it was the far simpler of the two propositions. The way it worked, generally, was that nobody left before Si did, and then pretty much everyone left immediately, except for a few stragglers who stayed behind for bourbon and cigars. I couldnt get out of there soon enough. I negotiated the logjam at coat check as gracefully as I could and dashed to the car. I felt taxed beyond belief, and recalled something Id overheard once. I was doing a story for Spin and was on a chartered jet that was on the runway in Oslo, about to take off for Paris, with a rock star and her entourage. The publicist was saying that her sister was terrified of flying, and that at the end of every flight, she was exhausted from the pure exertion of keeping the plane in the air. I would return to that notion again and again during that horrible time; when I was in meetings, or out with family, when friends came over to visit. Maybe at some boutique, trying on clothes and having to deal with a chatty shop girl. Really, just being in the world of human interaction, having to show up and exist. When youre not depressed, all of this is as simple as breathing air. When you are, there is no greater trial, nothing more downright bone-wearying, than keeping the plane in the air. The next day, when I arrived at work, the Post was waiting for me along with all of the local papers, stacked neatly on my desk. I flipped right to Keith Kellys column, saw the layout they did every year of the seating chart, with my disembodied head floating on the page right next to Sis, and skipped ahead to the accompanying copy, which read: Few were surprised to see Lucky editor-in-chief Kim France at Sis left hand. I read it again. I couldnt ask for much better than this, and in truth I wasnt displeased. Here, in print, was hard evidence that I had succeeded at something big, even. But as for the feeling of outsize triumph I might have expected myself to experience, that eluded me entirely. Instead, I felt a huge emptiness, one that I would refuse for years to acknowledge had anything to do with the job itself. Being the editor of a fashion magazine was never my dream, and its the type of job that should only belong to somebody whos never wanted anything else. I wished, not for the first time, that this was all happening to somebody else not quite realizing that that wish, too, would come true soon enough. This essay was originally published in 2016 on Medium.com. Kim Kardashian West and Khloe Kardashian. Photo: Courtesy of E! Entertainment Welcome, Dolls! This weeks episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians was the final episode of season 12. This season has brought us so much joy and grief, and this episode in particular brought us some dates well want to hold on to forever. I wont make you wait: Come on through to your last KUWTKE of 2016! Our A plot was Rob and Chynas baby shower; our B plot was Kris Jenners accident; and our C plot involved more of Rob. Ive got some Thanksgiving Day sides to prepare so, #LEGGO. Scene 1/Cold Open: Khloe Kardashian invites both Kourtney Kardashian and Kendall Jenner to relax in her home. However, out of the blue, Khloes guests criticize the amount of fruit she has chosen to keep in her kitchen. World traveler Kendall comments that Khloes fruit would be of better use if it were served to children in Africa. Kourtney thinks its presence is simply wasteful. Khloes not having it, and tells both Kendall and Kourtney to go elsewhere in Calabasas because she eats a TON of fruit, okay!? To prove it, she explains that she consumes a bowl of fruit each morning and a fruit smoothie every afternoon. Plus, she has fruit trees somewhere on her property. After Khloe lashes out at them regarding her fruit consumption, Kourtney and Kendall enjoy the healthy snacks in silence. Khloe defended her right to own fruit on August 5, 2016. Scene 2: Health maven Kourtney hosts Khloe and Kim at her house. Apparently Kourtneys been drinking floral drops that cause her to be more emotional. She cried at an Adam Levine song in the car, which basically just means shes a real mom. Khloe tells Kourtney to stop crying so much because thats not really her brand. Kim remains silent on the subject. The sisters have gathered to contact Blac Chyna about her baby shower, and it seems Kim wants to focus on that task alone or nothing at all. Each of Robs sisters will be out of town during Chynas baby shower, so theyd like to do something that makes up for that. Its unsaid, but Kourtney and Kim will be in Paris at that time. They call Chyna, and shes okay with the news. Still, the sisters overly emphasize their desire to spoil Chyna with a day of pampering and gifts. Chyna tells them to set it up;shell be there. The sisters feel successful. This scene was filmed on August 11, 2016. Scene 4/Scene 5: While Kylie and Khloe prepare for a day of filming at Khloes house, Khloes assistant, Alexa, rushes in to tell the sisters that Kris has been involved in an accident. The scene of the accident is near, so Kylie and Khloe rush to be by Kriss side. Khloe and Kylie arrive to see Kriss car completely totaled. Kris hasnt suffered any serious injuries but is in shock as she sits in the front seat of a Range Rover. Her daughters stare at her. Kris was involved in an accident on August 3, 2016. Scene 6: Following the accident, Kriss children and her employee Corey Gamble rally around her. Kim, who didnt make it to the accident, is told what happened by her mom. She listens closely. Liberal enemy, known Trump supporter, and problematic robot Kanye West is there, too. Someone most likely programmed his machinery to hug Kris in her time of crisis, so thats what he does. Like Kris, her kids are shaken by the accident. Theyre realizing that life is fleeting and things could have turned out differently. Like Scenes 4 and 5, this scene was filmed on August 3, 2016. Scene 7: Days after the accident, Kim visits Kris. Kris is laid up in the bed and tells Kim shes exhausted and achy. Without missing a beat, Kim offers to help Kris with any work she has. Skeptically, Kris accepts Kims help. The main task at hand is coordinating Kylies upcoming trip to Australia. Kris tells Kim that the deal isnt as easy as it seems shes in charge of getting Kylie there, plus figuring out glam, a hotel, and an appearance fee. Kim thinks she can handle it, until she calls Kylie. On the phone, Kim asks if Kylie wants to save money by hiring hair and makeup people locally in Australia. Kylie all but laughs Kim off the phone, and tells her no. After watching Kim experience her first managerial roadblock, Kris looks at Kim like shes Tyga*. This scene was filmed on August 8, 2016. *Useless trash. Scene 8: Kim Kardashian West, Rob Kardashian, and Scott Disick retreat to KUWTK season 12s main filming location Khloe Kardashians home. Everyone admires Kims lingerie look, and Khloe suggestively handles a popsicle. Things soon turn to business as usual when Khloe asks Rob about his mental state and relationship with Chyna. Rob claims to be all right, even though he and Chyna arent living together. He also doesnt give his sisters a straight answer when they ask if he is engaged or not. All he manages to communicate is that if he and Chyna were completely broken up, she wouldnt still be wearing his ring. Beyond his complicated relationship with Chyna, Rob laughs through his admission of having no idea how to take care of a baby. Hes cutting himself a break because hes a first-time dad he doesnt think he should bother to learn much before the baby is born. Everyone urges Rob to learn some things about parenting before Chyna delivers their child, but hes not pressed at all. Khloe takes Rob to show him her new guesthouse, leaving Kim and Scott alone. Kim asks Scott how he feels about Rob and Chynas setup, and Scott admits that hes not the best fatherhood example since his situation is unconventional. All Scott wants is for Rob and Chyna to get on the same page when it comes to raising their kid. Kim agrees. This scene, like Scene 2, was filmed on August 11, 2016. Scene 11: Kim, now her familys manager, is taking her new job very seriously. She visits Kylie on the set of her Complex cover shoot, and has Khloe join so they can discuss some business, which includes Khloes new fitness line, called KhloFit. Kim and Khloe are a bit distracted by how good Kylie looks in her latex wardrobe. When we look back at this scene in our history books, it shall be noted that this is the exact moment when both Kim and Khloe realized that their expiration date was sooner than they thought. Through gritted teeth, the sisters tell Kylie that she looks hot. They both leave soon after. This scene was filmed on July 19, 2016, almost three weeks before Kim agreed to be her familys manager. Scene 12: Khloe visits Kourtney for a day of sitting and staring at everything but each other. They take a break from this to talk about Chynas day of pampering/baby shower. Khloe tells Kourtney that shes unsure they should do something for just Chyna since she and Rob may not even be together. Kourtney feels the same, so they call Rob and ask if its okay to throw him and Chyna a joint baby shower to celebrate the both of them. Rob is completely down, and very grateful to his sisters for this sweet gesture. Happy, the sisters get back to staring at stuff. This scene was filmed on August 23, 2016. This was almost two weeks after Rob told Khloe about his declining relationship with Chyna in Scene 8. Oddly, Scene 8 was filmed on the same day as Scene 2, when the Kardashian sisters initially asked Chyna if they could do something special for her. Scene 16: Khloe invites her manager, Kimberly West, into her home to properly yell at her for doing a poor job. Kim had arranged for herself and Khloe to meet with a marketing team for her KhloFit line, and Kim bailed on the meeting. Kim doesnt think her absence was such a big deal, as she was working on a deal for Kylie. Plus, Kim says shell get the report sheet from the meeting and tie up any loose ends. Khloes still upset and wants an explanation for being the sister who always gets the short end of the attention stick. Despite her sister and client being upset with her work ethic, Kim reminds Khloe that at the very least she got her a KhloFit meeting. Looking Khloe deep in her eyes, Kim says, Did Kris Jenner even set up the meeting? No. Once Khloe calms down a bit, Khloe tells Kim that the main takeaway is that Kris needs a team of people to make sure each sister has adequate attention.This scene was filmed on July 31, 2016, just days before Kriss accident and Kim agreeing to take over Kriss duties. Scene 19: At Khloes house, Kim and Kourtney visit to wrap up some elements of the story line. Before getting down to business, Kim tells her sisters that she believes she was once in a Tupac video. Neither Kourtney nor Khloe believe her, but Kim swears by her statement and vows to find the footage. After this, Kim tells her sisters that Rob doesnt want to come to their baby shower anymore. He said that Chynas pregnancy has been awful for him and hes no longer in the celebratory mood. The sisters decide Rob will come to the baby shower if Chyna isnt there, so they call her up to politely uninvite her. On the phone, Chyna is annoyed at Robs sudden change of emotion; then, in an obvious voice-over, Chyna tells the Kardashian sisters to have the shower just for Rob. Though theyre over Robs constant emotional changes, the sisters agree that this is best. This scene was filmed on September 22, 2016. Scene 20: Its finally the day of Chynas special day of pampering, Rob and Chynas baby shower , Robs baby shower. Robs loved ones are roaming around Kourtneys property aimlessly when Kim gets a call from Rob. Hes very angry that Chyna has been disinvited and is therefore refusing to come to the shower. Kim breaks the news to her family, and to cope they put on DILF hats and curse Robs name. Like Scene 19, this scene was filmed on September 22, 2016. Rob must also hold a grudge hard, since, out of anger over this shower mishap, he tweeted Kylies phone number on September 26. Scene 22: Days after the baby-shower debacle, Rob and Chyna head to Kourtneys to open their gifts. The couple now understands that there were some severe miscommunications when it came to the baby shower, and are apologetic to the family. With everyone looking on, Rob and Chyna open gifts for their baby girl, including a pink baby coat that Rob came home from the hospital in when he was a newborn. Aside from that, the soon-to-be parents receive mini Range Rovers, Hermes clothing, and other designer goods. More shocking than everyone using Kourtneys pool table as a gift table and playpen is the date on which this scene was filmed. This scene was filmed on October 10, 2016, just over a week after Kim was robbed in Paris on October 3, 2016. Khloe taped an appearance for Ellen on this day and said Kim was doing terribly. In the scene Kim seems to be in good spirits, which is great news. This also means that the KUWTK filming hiatus lasted only a week. Well, Dolls. This marks the end of season 12 of E!s critically acclaimed docu-drama Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Since its the holiday season and Im in the giving spirit, Ive arranged for you to meet me here next month for Rob & Chynas delivery special and recaps of E!s Mariahs World. #RIPPablo Photo: Kuzma/Getty Images/iStockphoto A cold case that lay unsolved for more than two decades finally came to a close on Monday when a California jury convicted a husband from La Mirada, California, of hiring a hit man to murder his first wife. The twisting story involves a young, married couple with a 6-month-old son, a drug dealer turned hit man, and a subsequent fabricated cover-up story involving a group of random catcallers and a deadly robbery. After a week of deliberating, a jury found Morrad Ghonim guilty of first-degree murder for the July 23, 1992, killing of Victoria Ghonim, who was 17 at the time. Prosecutors said that Morrad Ghonim, then 19, planned out his young wifes death by paying a local drug dealer to murder her and make it seem like an attempted robbery, according to the Los Angeles Times. He subsequently threw off the investigation by inventing a tale involving a group of random catcallers who leered at his wife while they strolled through the park with their son. His wife, Ghonim said, talked back to the catcallers, who he said were perhaps gang members, and that he got a bad feeling and ushered his family toward their car, according to the Times. Thats when Ghonim said he heard gunfire, and while attempting to drive away, he didnt see the shooter, who he said hid behind a bush. Their son watched from the back seat of the car. Police subsequently found a discarded lump of clothes in the park but were unable to identify whom it belonged to. The case remained unsolved for years until a decade ago, when the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department got a grant to reopen cold cases by examining genetic evidence. Their testing of a pair of black sweatpants from the crime scene led them to Leon Martinez, who was serving time for an unrelated burglary. Though Martinez initially tried pinning the murder on a deceased friend, he eventually confessed to the murder of Victoria Ghonim. But it was Ghonims idea he claimed. He just wanted her dead, Martinez said, according to the Times. So, high on cocaine, he went up to the couple one evening at the park and shot her multiple times in the passengers seat. When she slumped over, Ghonim handed him an envelope with cash and he jogged away, shedding his outer layer of clothes before getting picked up by a friend. Ghonims defense argued that Martinezs account was unreliable, given that hed struck a plea deal with prosecutors, according to the Whittier Daily News. Instead of serving life without possibility of parole, hed get 28 years to life. Not to mention, they argued, hed frequently changed details of his story. Ultimately, though, prosecutors urged the jury to also consider the testimony of Ghonims second wife, Nisreen Alfaleh, who testified that after one argument the couple had, hed threatened her. If you ever think of getting a divorce, Ill hurt you, she said he told her. It cost me $500 then, it wont cost me much now. Ghonim faces life without the possibility of parole at his sentencing in December. Photo: Courtesy of NNAF In 1976, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds to cover abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or threat to a womans life. Some states, including New York, use their own funds for work-arounds, but in 33 states Medicaid wont cover the overwhelming majority of abortion procedures. That means the very women who by definition have the fewest resources must come up with cash to cover their procedures on their own and within a short window of time. Seventy-five percent of American women who have abortions are poor or low-income. In the absence of a publicly funded safety net, volunteers across the country started raising money to pay for womens procedures. In 1993, National Network of Abortion Funds was founded to help coordinate and build political power with those local grassroots funds. Since 2010, state legislatures have passed at least 288 abortion restrictions, shuttering clinics, sending women on long drives and thereby raising the costs associated with having an abortion. In no uncertain terms, Trump and Pence have said they aim to limit access to many kinds of health care, including contraception and abortion. The Cut talked with National Network of Abortion Funds director Yamani Hernandez about why she works to fund abortion, and how shes preparing for whats to come. How and why did you get involved in work-around abortion access? I had an abortion myself when I was 19, but it wasnt something that politicized me. I actually have a masters degree in architecture, so I went through that hell. [Laughs.] Ten years ago, I was doing a design project with young people where one of the girls in the program confided that she was willing to pay the other youth in the program to beat her up so that she wouldnt have to have an abortion. This was 2006. In Chicago. When I had an abortion myself I hadnt had any access issues, honestly. I literally just made an appointment and went with my boyfriend at the time, who became my husband, now ex-husband. We just paid for it together. [Talking with the young woman] was the first time I realized that theres a lot of shame around abortion. When talking to her about it, she was like, Its just easier to explain getting beat up than it is to explain going to get an abortion. Which blew my mind. She was like, It will be cheaper. Problem solved. As a part of trying to help her, instead of her resorting to violence, I found out about the Chicago Abortion Fund. That was my first exposure to an abortion fund. I always have trouble telling that story because its not actually my abortion story. I worry about telling somebody elses story, but it also is a story from my vantage point too, in terms of my awakening, realizing the desperate measures that people would go to, even in 2006, instead of just going to a provider, because of not being able to afford it, being ashamed. In this case, it was a threat of parents being like, If you get pregnant, you have to get out. Facing homelessness. It really opened my eyes to a lot of the issues, and so I made a career change. I started working on reducing shame and stigma around sexuality more generally. I increasingly got more interested in abortion. Can you describe what abortion funds provide? We have 70 abortion funds in 38 states. Thousands of volunteers help raise money for people to get their procedures. They also give people rides. They also watch peoples children while they go to the procedure. They also provide funding for hotel stays, or have people stay over in their actual homes. Its really, really, really an incredible safety and support network. In addition to those direct services, they also have been really active in repealing the Hyde Amendment, which would take care of the funding piece, but it doesnt take care of all the access pieces, like traveling across state lines. Can you describe the difference between reproductive health, reproductive justice, and reproductive rights? We see ourselves at the intersection between all of them, but reproductive health is really concerned with the access to health services. Reproductive rights is focused on the actual right to an abortion. Reproductive justice takes a little more of a holistic stance in looking at all of the intersecting oppressions that might impact a persons ability to make family at all. Not only is it advocating for access to abortion, but also advocating for the right to have child, to not have a child, and to parent the children you have with dignity and respect in a safe community. The reproductive-justice framework has embraced gender identity and the right to live your life with dignity and respect as the gender that you are. Its a framework that was started by women of color, black women in particular, and really centers on [people of color] leadership. Most people would say youre not a reproductive-justice organization if youre not led by women of color, people of color. What are some of the common logistical barriers that women who seek help from abortion funds face? Unfortunately, it can be more complicated than it really needs to be. Theres not a single answer. When people are able to get services earlier, its cheaper. It may be $500. When people have to wait longer, the price rises. And often people without means, people making minimum wage, or people who are underemployed will get stuck and have to wait longer, which pushes the gestational age higher. I think the average the national fund gives away is something like $600. I think the individual funds average at around $250. Usually people who call abortion funds are making multiple calls and piecing together. We take about 100,000 calls a year, and were able to serve about a third [of those women]. The statistic is something like 67 percent of Americans are not prepared for an unexpected cost of $500 or more. So for a lot of people, having to come up with $500 is a big stretch. Like any other medical procedure, if you werent able to use your insurance, you might be able to go to the doctor for it. Its not affordable. How do you respond to the argument that because some Americans are opposed to abortion they shouldnt have to subsidize it with their tax dollars? I definitely always come back to that statistic that the majority of Americans agree abortions should be safe and legal. In terms of taxpayer funding, what about the people who are getting abortions? Theyre taxpayers. Theres this idea of us and them. We who dont have abortions shouldnt have to pay for abortions. Were all taxpayers. So we should all have the right to health care that we need when we need it, and its as simple as that. How have your thoughts shifted since the election? If anything, this really increases our need to organize, and to really get locally focused, because federally it looks like things are going to be pretty anti-choice. We want to start building relationships with people that call abortion funds, inviting them to our movement, because we really believe that the people that are most impacted by these heinous restrictions are the best people to be on the front lines demanding the dignity and respect and rights that they deserve. People are already going state to state [for their abortions]. If you cant afford your procedure now, you certainly cant afford to travel 600 miles or 1,000 miles. If theres a call to readers, I would say, please, please, please contact your local abortion fund, become a volunteer, donate, do whatever you can do locally, because theyre going to need you. All of the unimaginable things, were really concerned about those things. Do you have any advice in terms of dealing with all of this? How do you keep going? You mean coping mechanisms? [Laughs.] Yes! I mean, going forward, more Americans are going to look out at the landscape and see what abortion providers have seen for a long time a hostile government. A colleague yesterday was saying, This is a time for ferocious love. This is a time for ferocious levels of compassion. That adrenaline rush of when a mom has to pick up a car that has fallen on a baby thats the level of love we have to draw from. Always coming back to love and compassion, which is really hard to do with so much hateful rhetoric constantly. But I think anybody who has ever taken a call from somebody who needed help knows its really hard not to remember those people. That compels all of us to work harder. To not leave anybody behind. And realizing, If not us, then who? We are more important than ever before. Theres this big urge to be like, Whats the strategy? And we have to do that, but if we dont allow ourselves to grieve, we will break. So balancing honest disappointment, grief, righteous anger, and ferocious love, and being there for people. Is there any perception or portrayal of women who seek help from you that you in particular want to squash? Anybody who has the capacity to bear children could become pregnant at any time. So it seems inhumane that only some people can access help or access care. This is really about equality, dignity, love, and compassion. We dont know what peoples situations are, whether its income, abuse, homelessness. Sixty percent of women who have abortions are already parenting. People will try to make it seem like, Oh, these people are anti-children or anti-family, as opposed to understanding that the majority of people are really trying to take care of their families the best that they can. I always say, I am a mother, and Ive had an abortion. I really come to this work with a deep, deep love for children and wanting children to have the best possible circumstances that they can. This interview has been edited and condensed. Sarah Weddington in 1970, after her initial Roe v. Wade win in Texas federal court. Photo: Courtesy of Sarah Weddington After graduating from the University of Texas Law School in the mid-1960s, Sarah Weddington interviewed for a job at a prestigious law firm. A sharp legal mind, she aced the first interview in Austin, and was asked to come in for a second interview at the main office in Dallas. But because she was a woman, and not the male candidate the firm was looking for, Weddington was initially told shed have to fund her own way to Dallas. Once she finally made the trip, however, the young lawyer was discredited on the basis of her gender. They basically said, Well, we think youll be a real good lawyer and youve got very good recommendations, but were just a little hesitant about this, Weddington told the Cut. But sure enough, several of the men in my class got those jobs but I didnt, and I never forgot that. The fateful interview ended up altering the course of Weddingtons life as well as the lives of millions of women in the United States. Propelled by her anger over the blatant sexism she faced, Weddington took a job at her law school and became involved in a womens advocacy group in Austin. Shortly thereafter, at the age of 26, Weddington became the youngest person ever to argue in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, when she represented Norma McCorvey otherwise known as Jane Roe in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion across the country. Now, at age 71, she finds herself in a precarious position. Since her work in Roe v. Wade, shes gone on to serve three terms in the Texas House of Representatives, worked as general counsel for the Department of Agriculture, and acted as special assistant to then-president Jimmy Carter. She was instrumental in convincing Carter to appoint Ruth Bader Ginsburg whom she knew from womens liberation activities to the federal bench, which paved the way for then-president Bill Clinton to later appoint her to the Supreme Court. In other words, shes dedicated her entire adult life to being a champion of womens rights only now, so much of what shes accomplished is under threat. President-elect Donald Trump has said that he will appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court, who will potentially overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to again set their own abortion laws. Its the first time that Weddington has seen such a severe threat to the abortion rights she fought to secure. I am so determined that when we talk about women having the right to make decisions about their own lives, that abortion and reproductive issues are one of the things that most determines a womans future and options in many ways. I am so determined that Roe v. Wade be upheld, Weddington told the Cut. Weddingtons copy of the opinion, signed by the nine justices. Photo: Courtesy of Sarah Weddington When Weddington first became involved in womens advocacy in the late 1960s, abortion was illegal in most states. Groups of like-minded people We just called it womens lib would fundraise and organize trips for pregnant women to go to clinics in New York, California, and Colorado, where abortion was legal. Members of those groups living in states where abortion was illegal were under constant threat of arrest for facilitating the procedure. However, the success of Griswold v. Connecticut gave Weddingtons group an idea. The 1965 Supreme Court decision ruled that access to contraceptives was protected under the right to privacy couldnt the same be said for abortion? Weddington recruited a friend from law school, Linda Coffee, to join as her co-counsel, and together they represented Norma McCorvey, a pregnant woman who agreed to serve as their lead plaintiff. The pair of young and inexperienced attorneys soon found themselves arguing, and winning, their case in front of a three-judge federal panel in Texas. However, the Dallas district attorney Henry Wade refused to comply with the ruling that had made abortion legal in the state, which paved the way for the case to go directly up to the U.S. Supreme Court. At the time, the Supreme Court bench was not full, and there were only seven justices, as opposed to nine. You had a situation much like we have now, except it was two people who had died or retired, Weddington said. She argued the case once in front of the seven-justice panel in 1971, but was then asked to re-argue the case after two more judges were appointed in the fall of 1972. However, the decision wasnt made public until January 1973. By the time the opinion was released, Weddington had already become the first woman elected to represent Travis County in the state legislature she ran on the off-chance the court decided against Roe, in which case shed instead have to try to change the law in the legislature. On January 22, a reporter called Weddingtons assistant and asked if she had a comment on the ruling, which Weddington hadnt even been made aware of yet. The reporter informed her that the justices ruled 7-2 in her favor and that she had won, and later Weddington received a telegram informing her that the opinion would be mailed to her shortly thereafter. The telegram Weddington received from the Supreme Court. Photo: The Weddington Center/Copyright 2008 Sarah Weddington Though it took months for the case to be decided, the law was instantly changed like a lightning strike as soon as the opinion was released. Here in Austin, there was a doctor who had gotten the equipment to do abortions and he hadnt done any because of the Texas law, Weddington said. But once Roe v. Wade was decided, he had one of his patients who happened to be a professor in the nursing school here at UT who was leaving that afternoon to go to California to get an abortion. He called her and said, Wait, you dont have to go to California. I can do it for you here in my office. So she came in that afternoon and he did her procedure. Thats how quick the change was. Since then, Weddington has seen Roe v. Wade be contested time and time again in the Supreme Court, though it has always been upheld. She worries, though, what might happen if Trump succeeds in appointing two or three more justices, and also fears what may happen if abortion laws are once again decided by individual states. Trump has said, if that were to happen, women could merely cross state lines to get the procedure. But Weddington remembers what it was like for women to have to fund their own trips to get an abortion and knows that not everyone can afford to travel great distances to abort an unwanted pregnancy. For a lot of us who have been pro-choice through the years and have been involved in trying to keep it so that women have that choice, I think its really frightening, because its not immediate. Right now, nothing has changed. The president is opposed to abortion, but the law has not changed yet. And so once Trump is president, and once Pence does occupy the [president of the Senates] chair, then youve got the possibility for dramatic change, Weddington said. Wow, that is quite the board! Amanda Knox exclaimed on Friday morning, taking in the massive mixing console at the Platinum Sound recording studio in Hells Kitchen, as she deposited her luggage in a corner of the room. The former exchange student, who was prosecuted by Italian authorities for the murder of her roommate based on a ludicrous theory that nonetheless inspired feverishly lurid headlines around the world, was in town from Seattle to tape a holiday edition of the Wrongful Conviction podcast. Graceful and warm, with a bright easy smile, she wore a loose putty-colored sweater and bore little resemblance to the accused teen temptress and sadistic killer whose supposed misdeeds were so gleefully chronicled by the tabloid media. (The charges were finally thrown out by the Italian Supreme Court in 2015, and a documentary on the case is currently available on Netflix.) Knox and the shows other guests, Jarrett Adams and Jeff Deskovic, had each been convicted of a savage crime and subsequently proven innocent. For this installment of the series, which the production team was calling, half-jokingly, A Very Special Wrongful Christmas, the plan was to talk about what its like to celebrate the holidays behind bars, when your situation is more Franz Kafka than Frank Capra. The recording facility, which has also hosted such well-known artists as Rihanna, Shakira, and Kendrick Lamar, features an impressive 85-channel vintage SSL console. That might seem like overkill for a podcast, but the series creator and host, Jason Flom, is hardly a typical podcaster. Described in a lengthy 2003 New Yorker profile as one of the most successful record men of the last 20 years, he is the founder and CEO of Lava Records and has held the top jobs at Atlantic, Virgin, and Capitol. Over the course of his nearly four-decade-long career, he discovered and nurtured an impressive roster of acts, including Twisted Sister, White Lion, Stone Temple Pilots, Matchbox 20, Skid Row, Tori Amos, Jewel, Hootie & the Blowfish, Kid Rock, Lorde, and Katy Perry. Amanda Knox speaks to the media after her acquittal at a press conference in front of her parents home in Seattle, Washington, 2015. Photo: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images In certain quarters, a few of the names on that list might get Flom himself charged with a crime. But his deep philanthropic commitment more than compensates. The affable and well-regarded industry veteran has spent decades fighting to reform the justice system. He is the founding board member of the Innocence Project, which has exonerated nearly 350 wrongfully convicted people. He founded the Bronx Freedom Fund, which helps cover bail for indigent defendants charged with low-level offenses. He is a board member of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, The Legal Action Center, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the NYU Prison Education Program. This year, he launched the podcast featuring his intimate conversations with the exonerated themselves. Perhaps surprisingly, given its grave subject matter, the series hit a nerve, reaching as high as No. 7 on the iTunes podcast chart. Flom has committed to donate a dollar to the Innocence Project for every download or stream, up to $1 million, and theyre nearly a third of the way there. The episodes are often spellbinding, due in part to Floms skillful, empathetic interviewing style. He does stand-up in his spare time, and says he gets happy around a microphone. Perhaps more critical to the shows success is the opportunity to hear these harrowing stories of injustice unfiltered, making for a powerful addition to the newly reinvigorated true-crime genre (Serial, Making a Murderer, The Jinx). Flom attributes his interest in criminal justice to reading Victor Hugos Les Miserables, which he devoured in his 20s. I was actually sobbing at the end of it, he said. But he didnt get involved in the issue until the early 90s, when he came across a newspaper article about a man named Steven Lennon, who had been denied parole and was serving 15-to-life on a cocaine-possession charge. Flom persuaded a lawyer to take the case pro bono, and Lennon was eventually released on a technicality. Flom held Lennons mothers hand in court as the decision was announced. That was a cathartic moment for me, he said. My first thought thought was That was fun. I want to do more of that. Flom has an interesting background. His father, Joseph Flom, led the law firm Skadden Arps, and earned the nickname Mr. Takeover for his pioneering work as a mergers and acquisitions specialist. But even as he was putting together those massive Barbarians at the Gatestyle deals, the elder Flom had a philanthropic streak of his own, sponsoring college tuition for kids from low-income backgrounds and creating the Skadden Fellows program, which funds salaries for talented law-school graduates to work in public-welfare jobs for two years. That was his proudest achievement, Flom says. The music executive, who is wiry and unpretentious, was wearing horn-rim glasses, suede boots, and a velvety dark-blue sport jacket over a T-shirt. A scarf resembling a threadbare American flag was looped around his neck. He gave the group a quick introduction to the podcast, and ran through a rough outline. Then he removed his collection of bracelets so their jangling wouldnt interfere with the recording, and led his guests into the adjacent studio space. The hour flew by. Adams, who was falsely charged with gang rape at age 17 and served nearly a decade of a 28-year sentence before being exonerated in 2007, recalled staying up all night before every holiday behind bars in hopes of sleeping through the next day to avoid thinking about his situation. (He subsequently earned a law degree, and he now lives in New York, working on post-conviction litigation for the Innocence Project and running a nonprofit called Life After Justice.) Deskovic, who was just 16 when he was accused of rape and murder and served 16 years before his exoneration, remembered how a civilian volunteer arrived on the tier to play Christmas carols on the bugle each year, only to be met with a chorus of shouted obscenities. And Knox sang a few bars of Aveinu Shalom Aleichem in Italian, fondly recalling a sympathetic priest who invited her to accompany him on guitar during mass and taught her the song for one Christmas service. The musical part of my brain is about to explode, Flom said when shed finished. My mind is going to a mix of your Jewish-Italian Christmas song and the bugle with the curses. If only we could get Frank Zappa Jeffrey Deskovic embraces attorney John Miras outside the Westchester County Courthouse after his release from prison. Photo: Robert Sabo/NY Daily News via Getty Images Afterwards, Knox, who first met Flom in 2014 when she was invited to an annual conference for exonerees (her final appeal was still pending at the time), described him as an incredible force in this movement. Deskovic agreed, noting that his level of commitment to the cause, as somebody who has not been wrongfully convicted and who doesnt have a family member who has been, is phenomenal. Its very meaningful. They also had praise for Floms down-to-earth approach to the issue. Hes just so refreshing, Knox said, turning to face him. The lawyers are doing their job, but they can be a little dry sometimes. Youre way looser. Inevitably, talk turned to politics. It had been an ominous morning. News outlets were reporting that President-elect Donald Trump had offered the job of Attorney General to Senator Jeff Sessions, no great champion of civil rights. He has been a real thorn in the side of the criminal-justice reform movement, Flom said. He seems to be aggressively disinterested in, and even hostile to, the plight of the exonerees. But there was some disagreement as to just how bad the new administration might be. For his part, Deskovic was willing to give Trump a chance. After all, he pointed out, the liberal hero Bill Clinton had a disastrous legacy on the issue. He signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which severely limited the ability of federal courts to help free the wrongly imprisoned. He signed the 1994 crime bill, with its three strikes provision, and supported other policies that led to years of mass incarceration, devastating entire communities. And he presided over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, despite the mans mental incapacity due to a suicide attempt behind bars. Knox acknowledged a little ambivalence as well. Although she strongly opposes the president-elect and even wrote a newspaper column denouncing his candidacy, she acknowledged a bit of awkwardness, given that in 2011 Trump had donated money to her defense and spoken out on her behalf. That said, she believes his comments, which included calling for a boycott of Italy if she werent immediately released, likely did her more harm than good, inflaming anti-American sentiment in the country. She pointed out that Trump had also waded into another controversial case, the flawed prosecution of the so-called Central Park Five, and gotten it wrong. Two weeks after five African-American and Latino teenagers were charged with the 1989 rape and attempted murder of a jogger in Central Park, Trump published an inflammatory advertisement in the citys leading newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty. Although the accused teenagers were later exonerated as well (Flom interviewed one, Raymond Santana, on Wrongful Convictions first episode), the president-elect has yet to apologize for essentially calling for their deaths. In fact, he recently insisted that they are actually guilty despite the exculpatory DNA evidence and the confession of the real criminal. I cant help wondering why he supported me and not them, Knox said. Is it because I was a young female? Because I was white? From left, Jason Flom, Amanda Knox, Jarrett Adams, and Jeffrey Deskovic in the studio after recording the Wrongful Conviction podcast. Watching the three exonerees interact, one couldnt help but be struck by how at peace they seemed over the multiple injustices theyd suffered the long nights of fear and loneliness, the public vilification, the stolen years they will never get back. Nobody seemed angry. As Flom told me later, Im continually amazed by the almost total lack of bitterness that exonerees exude. When I asked Deskovic how he felt about the police and prosecutors whod put him behind bars as a teenager despite having evidence of his innocence, he insisted flatly, I dont think about them. He now runs his own nonprofit, the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation, which has successfully exonerated two wrongfully convicted inmates. My attorney told me the best revenge is success, Adams said with a grin. They hate that. I had a mandatory release in 2019, and here I am practicing law. You tell me whos winning? Knox, who has also become a vocal advocate of criminal justice reform, was perhaps the most philosophical of the group. Something horrible happened, and I was blamed for it, and because people were so entrenched in their anger about it, they were blinded to the reality of how complex it was, she said. Its not that were not angry. But I dont want to repeat the same mistake. If I get all fire-and-brimstone about what happened to me, thats going to blind me and disable me from being able to do anything practical about the problem. For Flom, who seems to have no shortage of practical ideas, the primary goal of the podcast is to educate listeners in particular, the would-be jurors among us about how common false confessions actually are in criminal cases, particularly among juveniles, and to remind the public that not everything a prosecutor or police officer tells them is automatically true. The way Knox sees it, the podcast is fulfilling another critical role: For many of those who have been wrongfully convicted, simply being heard is the most helpful thing, she said. It helps you to not feel like a crazy person. This goes for victims of crime as well as victims of the criminal-justice system. Acknowledgement is the first thing we can give to people to make it up to them. and this is still my fave tweet about it Calling nazis "alt right" is like calling cancer "alt cell growth." Mary Beth Williams (@embeedub) November 22, 2016 i saw respectable media sources still calling them 'alt-right' while reporting the fucking sieg heil salute, ffs.and this is still my fave tweet about it Reply Thread Link lmao Reply Parent Thread Link I'm glad people are pushing back on this but I don't see the media changing Reply Thread Link Like in that meeting yesterday where Tramp called them together to humiliate them. Hope they feel happy about that $3 billion in free advertising that they gave him. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link We're way past due for that asteroid. Reply Thread Link we are living in super dark times Reply Thread Link This is my first thought every morning I wake up and read shit like this. What a fucking time to be alive. Reply Parent Thread Link I hate the media. Reply Thread Link People never learn. They never fucking learn from the world wars and the repercussions it had yuuup. i read this pretty good piece in the guardian this morning, kind of an open letter to Obama & the end of his presidency & this bit really stuck with me: Youve often said, quoting Martin Luther King, that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. We in Europe arent so sure of that. In fact, weve never been. Perhaps this is what separates American exceptionalism from European scepticism. Europeans have sleepwalked into catastrophe several times in the last century. (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/18/europe-barack-obama-president) i'm pretty terrified about the future right about now. yuuup. i read this pretty good piece in the guardian this morning, kind of an open letter to Obama & the end of his presidency & this bit really stuck with me:i'm pretty terrified about the future right about now. Reply Parent Thread Link Um, really?? He speaks out about diversity a LOT and has worked on a ton of multi-racial/cultural films. Maybe try not rudely turning on the few good ones we have left. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I haven't finished watching The Strain, but two of the main characters were a Mexican and an Argentinian, and that was based on books he co-wrote. If Cuaron couldn't get Salma Hayek for Gravity because racists didn't approve, I doubt Del Toro has much more power. Reply Parent Thread Link i have even seen comments here saying "bush wasn't so bad" yadda yadda like they are already rewriting the bush years to be something less sinister than they were. i know a lot of people here were young when bush was in power but he was AWFUL. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Those who forget history etc etc Reply Parent Thread Link This is so true. Every time I heard "they wanted to shake things up" I roll my eyes. Seeing it now, after 8 years of Obama, after all the shit he did to make this country better after they broke it the last time, frightens me. They're always going to want to "shake things up" no matter what good is done. It almost makes me think there truly is a balance of good verses evil that must be maintained or someting dramatic has to happen to put it back in its place. There will never be peace, there will never be harmony. Reply Parent Thread Link I watched this last night before bed and wondered how this wasn't a spoof ala Dwight Schrute. D: D: D: Reply Thread Link I've basically been avoiding the news, but I just heard Shaun King talking about this on Tom Joyner during my ride to class. I want to say it's unbelievable, but after everything that's been going on, it's not. smh Reply Thread Link Election tampering, Russian ties, conflicts of interest, NAZIS. Is our current administration going to actually do anything about this or?????????? Where the fuck are you, Obama? No words on this or DAPL. You moved out already???? jfc Reply Thread Link Obama is dropping the ball big time tbh. Reply Parent Thread Link all that + Chelsea Manning. Reply Parent Thread Link That's what pisses me off the most. Over here taking this shit and doing nothing when the republicans always play dirty. Playing nice doesn't fucking work. Reply Parent Thread Link obama is walking a fine line right now. he's not just a random celeb on twitter that gets to vent their opinion. (not talking about DAPL though). Reply Parent Thread Link what fine line tho? he literally has nothing to lose right now, from a political standpoint. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link don't forget voter suppression Reply Parent Thread Expand Link And what exactly is the president supposed to do? Declare the election void and put Clinton in as our next president? The power to do something lies with congress and come January they better get their act together. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link this is the hell we're living in this is what america voted for i can't fucking deal with this Reply Thread Link The most infuriating part about it is I don't believe this is what America voted for. A majority certainly didn't vote for Trump and I read recently that the American public voted to put more dems in congress but were ultimately blocked due to gerrymandering. Reply Parent Thread Link I agree. Most of America didn't vote for this. Reply Parent Thread Link Americans didn't vote for him. But the US did with the electoral college. Reply Parent Thread Link It's not though. We voted for her, she is ahead 1.7 millions votes. The electoral college might vote for this but don't get it twisted, we chose her. Reply Parent Thread Link some of the reaction of "ur literally saluting ur grandad's enemies!!!" falls flat for me whe people's parents who fought against nazis literally came home and put on hoods to terrorize black people. it's sickening that this is what this country is turning into but let's be honest: this country was never all that better given our history of racism, domestic terrorism, and internment camps Reply Thread Link That's why when his supporters say Make America Gteat again, I say bitch when??? America was never great. Reply Parent Thread Link lol right? It doesn't surprise me though, Americans are taught to be idealistic, which means solely focusing on the positive and ignoring anything negative or anything that conjures up negative feelings. Reply Parent Thread Link i saw somewhere that a native american woman was selling red baseball hats that say 'make america native again' & reaaally wanted one lol, but then again i'm from europe so there's not exactly any trump supporters here to annoy & it'd all be a bit pointless Reply Parent Thread Expand Link honest question, have you ever gotten an actual response to that. bc i have asked numerous ppl when was america great that we want to get back to and all i get is 'jobs and family values'. its almost like no one wants to specify exactly when america was supposedly great bc they know if they say something particular, a certain decade or 'era' they KNOW theyll look like racist sexist assholes bc there was no greatness. there was always oppression or segregation at some point. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link They're saying we became slightly less racist but now they wanna make us totally racist again. Reply Parent Thread Link people keep on saying that they hate that the wwii generation has to see this happen, forgetting that the wwii generation voted for trump by overwhelming margins Reply Parent Thread Link Nazis literally got their inspiration from American colonization/eugenics. Reply Parent Thread Link seriously FUCK ALL THIS. stop acting like this is just another opinion, just another form of conservatism. it's not. it's hate. no longer can we claim we're better than nazi germany if we keep allowing this to happen. Reply Thread Link The election is over so they need to stop playing games now. Reply Thread Link They're Nazis plain and simple. Honestly, this country pretends that it's better than its past when we're, for the most part, still pretty firmly in it. Reply Thread Link Now I'm curious if this happened in Michigan lmao Edit: I think so since the ticket looks like michigan tickets. LOL Edited at 2016-11-22 05:33 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link Fingers crossed he goes into court right before lunch time when the judge is really hungry. Reply Parent Thread Link lmaoooo Reply Parent Thread Link Lmao Reply Parent Thread Link ROTFL That would be me, no fucks given. Reply Parent Thread Link At first I cackled for five minutes. I immediately stopped when I realized it was a smart survival tactic for black people. Or Latinx. Or Native to avoid a violent interaction with police. At least at McDonald's it would be on video with witnesses. Didn't notice the finger. Started laughing again. Then got fucking bummed. Reply Parent Thread Link I'm a potato european (sweden) :P I'm a potato european (sweden) :P Reply Thread Link Potato ftw. Reply Parent Thread Link im a potato european but i never eat potatoes and all my meals are v much tomato based whatsthetruth.gif Reply Parent Thread Link I stan all nightshades though I stan all nightshades though Reply Parent Thread Link tomato living in potato, lol Reply Parent Thread Link Potato but I never eat them. Reply Parent Thread Link potato, swedish and irish Reply Parent Thread Link Canadian but Italian background so tomato! Reply Parent Thread Link I'm American, but my ancestry is Irish and therefore very much potato. Reply Parent Thread Link I'm from the country/continent Europe invaded so they could get their tomatoes and potatoes. Reply Parent Thread Link I'm American, therefore corn-based Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Potato Reply Parent Thread Link Tomato! :D Great Grandma was from Palermo Italy :D Reply Parent Thread Link potato all the way. English, Dutch, Irish, Polish and Russian. Reply Parent Thread Link Tomato living in potato europe Reply Parent Thread Link i'm sliced Reply Parent Thread Link I'm argentinian with Italian and Spanish ascent but I'm potatoes all the way! Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Tomato, which is fitting since I'm from Italy. Reply Parent Thread Link Potato. I'm of Polish decent. Reply Parent Thread Link Other than my Italian ancestry, I'm 100% potato. Reply Parent Thread Link i need tips on successfully negotiating salary when you're being offered a job. help! Reply Thread Link how much are you making now? add up your cost of living + any extras like what's your commute going to be like? are you going to be spending a lot of $$ on gas and car maintenance based on your commute? are they going to be providing benefits or will you have to contribute? Reply Parent Thread Link I have a number in mind, however, I'm very shy and I need something like a script lol Reply Parent Thread Expand Link After doing some research and weighing my own experience, I feel that a fair salary for this position would be XXK-XXK. Reply Parent Thread Link ANOTHER ROUNDUP POSTED BY VEHICLES. [conspiracy time] Reply Thread Link You're the overlord we deserve. Reply Parent Thread Link it's a coup! Reply Parent Thread Link BRENDEN WILL BE PART OF TRUMP'S PARTY PEOPLE Reply Parent Thread Link vehicles is coming in to Make America ONTD Great Again. Reply Parent Thread Link I really want Chanel's 404 Julia Lipstick but I can't afford it boo :( Reply Thread Link I love it, personally. Autism IS complicated and it's so hard to get people to think beyond one narrow parameter. Reply Parent Thread Link I didn't get off work until almost 1 am yesterday. At least I got overtime. Reply Thread Link Nope, TV Reply Parent Thread Link that's ugly. one time i had to do a close-open, and i just slept over. you ever spent the night at your job? so many levels of discomfort. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Men are assholes. Water is wet. Anything new and optimistic in this world? Reply Thread Link that's good and congrats! Reply Parent Thread Link knowing this about the general man is so depressing. Reply Parent Thread Link i've been trying to figure out if one of my facebook friends is gay lol. i knew her in college bc we were part of the same christian fellowship group, and i always thought of her as a true blue conservative christian believer, but she's obviously been corrupted by the homosexual agenda. me: "she posted on fb that she's interested in seeing the handmaiden? soooo gay." impeccable logic, amirite? Reply Thread Link isn't that still a limited release? 100% gay Reply Parent Thread Link lol yeah, i guess there's some sort of screening at our college (she still lives in the area) and she said she's interesting in attending. and now that i think about it, she never expressed interest in guys back in college. like at all. i was the same way and look at how i turned out, so i'm projecting hardcore on to her lmao. so very gay. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link ia Reply Parent Thread Link Definitely gay. I say as A Gay going to see The Handmaiden tomorrow Reply Parent Thread Expand Link i have a theory that every woman I meet is into women until they tell me otherwise Reply Parent Thread Expand Link lol does that mean i'm gay for seeing it at 9am on the first day of TIFF Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I'm watching finding dory right now and it's so cute. Reply Thread Link Voted! Best of luck! Reply Parent Thread Link Overthrown again! Reply Thread Link Total # of deaths connected to American Nazi Party in last quarter century: ZERO; Total # of deaths connected to Al Sharpton: 9 I know of. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) November 22, 2016 she really needs to d*e. she really needs to d*e. Reply Thread Link But... the holocaust... it wasn't the American nazi party sure but?????? Reply Parent Thread Link she's actually defending Nazis? I don't know why I'm surprised but I thought even she had a limit Reply Parent Thread Link This bitch, the devil needs to come and take her now. Reply Parent Thread Link she is not using any part of her brain omg Reply Parent Thread Link This is a new, unexpected low even for her. Tf? Reply Parent Thread Link Is she just making shit up? What? Reply Parent Thread Link I hate her so much. Reply Parent Thread Link If she was in that black mirror ep where people tweet who they want to die and the most tweets dies, she would die Reply Parent Thread Link i got a job offer and i accepted it. i'm excited and everything but i just put in two weeks noticed at my movie theater job and honestly i'm devistated. like it's my first job and hoenstly one of my first thoughts it's what if i don't do well st this new job and i get fired then what? i have no job. like hoenstly i'm happy but sad :/ Reply Thread Link true , my boss said he enjoy me and was a good worker but it be awkward if i try to come back. Reply Parent Thread Link starting anything new always comes w/ a risk (a new job, a big move, a new relationship etc., etc), you just have to take the jump with both feet in and hope for the best/ do your best. also if you had a good experience at your old job and didn't leave on a bad note (b/c you did something shady...it seems like you just got a better offer), i wouldn't worry too much about it. if this current job doesn't pan out, maybe you can find a way back with your old connections or find something new w/ those old connections. don't worry about it bb!!! congrats on the job offer btw. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link moving on is a part of life. you're leaving your previous job in a very respectful manner, they'd be happy to have you back if this next one doesn't work for you. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Congrats! You got this, bb! Reply Parent Thread Link Congrats!transitions are so exciting! Reply Parent Thread Link congrats! it's always scary starting something unknown but regardless of how it works out, trying new things and moving on is part of life so you gotta take a leap when you can! Reply Parent Thread Link It's always a risk to make a life choice. And jobs are definite life choices! Just think: you left on a good foot, you were hired for a reason, and you will likely find a million things to love about the new job! Reply Parent Thread Link Aw, congrats! If that job falls through, you may be able to go back to the theater. Reply Parent Thread Link How thrilling! Reply Parent Thread Link 250 legible signatures? good luck omg Reply Parent Thread Link THE WORST Reply Parent Thread Link We did ours last week-- it literally gets to the point where I'm like "is this really my name? Is this how it's spelt? What is happening...." Reply Parent Thread Link But are you allowed to take all day with it? Reply Parent Thread Link your desk looks nice tho Reply Parent Thread Link Ugh I'm sorry. I'm SO GLAD my office stopped making us sign the holiday cards individually. Reply Parent Thread Link damn i need a funko for my desk Reply Parent Thread Link We haven't even agreed on an idea for a card yet. lolllll Reply Parent Thread Link we just all signed one piece of paper then they ordered the cards. so it all looks personalized, but we're still lazy. Reply Parent Thread Link Oh dear. I hope for his sake and the sake of his family that he gets better soon and gets the help, at least from the outside looking in, he so desperately needs/has needed for such a long time. Reply Thread Link :( Hope he gets better. I didnt realize sleep deprivation could cause psychosis though, damn. Reply Thread Link oh lord, it gets bad I went three days once and started hearing shit that wasn't there Reply Parent Thread Link omg :( that sounds brutal Reply Parent Thread Link I had vestibular motor hallucinations with sleep deprivation once where I felt like I would float away if I didn't hold onto something. I really thought I was gonna die. it was scary. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link same :( it nearly triggered a panic attack. i thought someone was trying to break into our house because i kept hearing noises. Reply Parent Thread Link I had a similar issue at three days of no sleep, I kept hearing what sounded like people trying to break into my bedroom through the windows and seeing shit out of the corner of my eyes... super close to calling 911 because I was alone and not sure what might happen if I didn't sleep. D: Reply Parent Thread Link My dad couldn't sleep back in 2007 and he kept getting HORRIBLE vertigo episodes. He ended up in a hospital for a few days. :( Reply Parent Thread Link That's what happened to Mariah when she had her breakdown. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link It definitely can. Sleep deprivation can wreak complete havoc on your mind. Reply Parent Thread Link And it can be the other way around too. Mania/psychosis can cause severe insomnia. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Last year I went about a week where I slept probably 4 hours total and I kept seeing things in the corner of my eye. I was still together enough thankfully where I knew it was just from sleep deprivation but it was terrifying. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Yeah, it can really fuck with you. Sleep deprivation is frequently used as a form of torture. Reply Parent Thread Link unrelated to psychosis, but when i was trying to finish my dissertation i didn't get a full night's sleep for 7 days. i slept for a couple of hours on the first 3 days, and on the last 4 days i'd take literal 15-minute power-naps. only. by day 3, i had lost the ability to speak english coherently (it's not my native language, but i was studying in england at the time). by day 5, i couldn't speak coherently at all, in any language. i'd blurt out random sounds and mix up my words. my voice was also raspy to the point of pain, and i had a constant, 24/7 headache. my reflexes were totally gone. one of my flatmates would call my name, and i'd respond like a minute later, like a zombie. or i'd be cooking and i'd burn stuff because my concentration was shot. it was scary. (i was still able to type coherently though, lol. which is scary in itself.) Reply Parent Thread Expand Link It can get pretty scary. I went through a few bad bouts of insomnia and started hallucinating. Reply Parent Thread Link I've volunteered on crisis hotlines, suicide hotlines, crisis texts, etc since about 2010 now and one of the first things you want to check is sleep (among if they ate lately). It's often times the little things that amplify the big things. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Yeah I went like a little more than 2 days without sleep once and I was seeing shit move in reflective surfaces that wasn't there. Then I couldn't fall asleep because I was terrified. It was a mess. Reply Parent Thread Link i will never not sleep, like, the only way i'd skip a night's rest is for experimentation. i take sleep so seriously, i literally cannot lose it to anything. sleep & food deprivation turns you into nothing, you have no control, how scary Reply Parent Thread Link I had a period of about 4 days where I got less than 2 hours of sleep per night, and I was an absolute mess. I had auditory hallucinations and some visual ones too (not like tripping on acid kind, just constantly thinking that I was seeing something out of the corner of my eyes, people darting in front of my car, etc.) I had to pull over for coffee and to stop freaking out before making the last few miles back home, and I ended up completely crashing and sleeping for about 15 hours. Luckily I got help for my insomnia soon after that, and actually being able to get a full nights sleep has been life changing. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Wasn't that part of Fight Club? Reply Parent Thread Link one time I had the flu bad and my nose was so stuffed up every time I tried to go to sleep I was jearked awake because I stopped breathing. I went without sleep for a few days and at one point I hallucinated that a women was trying to drown me under a faucet and what I saw as the faucet was my pillow so I didnt wanna put my head down. thankfully I eventually passed out and gained my wits again. Reply Parent Thread Link i went three days once and it was physically painful, like my joints hurt (keep in mind I was 20 at the time and with zero health problems/conditions), and I was afraid to walk down steps because I literally hallucinated that they weren't there, or were where they weren't. I basically spent that time with a death grip on the banisters every time I had to use stairs, or holding a friend's hand to get me up ones that didn't have them. Reply Parent Thread Link My dad was hospitalised on my 7th birthday for what everyone thought was appendicitis. Took his appendix out - nothing wrong with it. Then they realised that actually, long term sleep deprivation and exhaustion were shutting his organs down - he'd been working a fulltime day job and and fulltime night job. He came out of hospital and his personality was completely different. He'd gone from being a perfectly decent person to a psycho control freak (he eventually killed himself when I was 15). You do not fuck with sleep deprivation, man. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link welp Reply Thread Link He can burn for all I care. Reply Thread Link same Reply Parent Thread Link Yep. I hope he loses everything. Reply Parent Thread Link I'm torn because I have never liked him but at the same time I wonder how much of it has been mental-health related and whether he really had the support to get help, etc., before now. Reply Parent Thread Link The thing is, being a racist, sexist, asshole who condones statutory rape (his "he got in early" Tyga comment) isn't symptomatic of, or exacerbated by, mental illness. I spent 5 years of my life working with people diagnosed with BD and those who were assholes before treatment were still assholes after treatment (that is being stabilized on meds and receiving therapy). What changed was their ability to manage their moods and behavior, not their personality or beliefs (so the racists patients I worked with were still racists even after treatment). Reply Parent Thread Expand Link disgusting. ive never had any sympathy for him and never will. Reply Thread Link and there's plenty of reasons for that, but this isn't one. Reply Parent Thread Link I was expecting something like this tbh, he's known to go on tirades and when I read that he was involuntarily sent in...I pretty much assumed it was because of one of his blow ups expect this time he went further than just his usual yelling. Reply Thread Link Sleep deprivation can cause you to hallucinate if it's severe enough. Granted, I def. don't think that sleep deprivation is the whole story here. Reply Parent Thread Link it def can, but the real question should be what caused the sleep deprivation, bc that's the hallmark of a manic episode. Reply Parent Thread Link Mte. I'm thinking he was either on some sort of stimulant or manic. Most people need something like that to cause that level of sleep deprivation. Reply Parent Thread Link It's absolutely possible. Brain function is altered by lack of sleep, and add to that an underlying condition causing/exacerbating the insomnia and it's a shitshow. Reply Parent Thread Link It is possible. Although he might be bipolar and already in the middle of a manic episode. Loss of sleep is a common symptom in mania and when you're manic + not sleeping = chaos. Reply Parent Thread Link yes. in university i'd go days without sleeping and usually at the 2/3 day mark i would start hearing/seeing shit. it usually wasn't really severe....just like things moving that weren't moving etc. but one time i thought i saw something that really really scared me and i screamed and my roommate was really worried lol. i can't imagine how bad it gets when you're going on 4/5 days to a week.... Reply Parent Thread Link i've been up for 36-48 hours a few times, and i could def. tell that i was in a different headspace, nothing as serious as psychosis, but i could believe that i was on the beginning path of it Reply Parent Thread Link I remember reading somewhere (probably reddit) that sleep deprivation can kill you faster than starvation Reply Parent Thread Link I remember Demi saying that when she was manic, she wouldn't sleep and be working nonstop on new songs. Reply Parent Thread Link :( I hope he takes a good long break from the spotlight and gets his health sorted out. (And then maybe comes back to slay us in like, 2020 or so with MBDTF pt. 2) Reply Thread Link mistress_f OT: does anyone know what happened to Reply Thread Link WHUT Reply Parent Thread Link omg, she deleted??? Reply Parent Thread Link noooo Reply Parent Thread Link just saw it... h0tfuss always does the fucking most. she seemed to be having a rough few weeks/months, going by some of her comments. i just hope she's ok. :( Edited at 2016-11-22 08:31 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Oh no :( Reply Parent Thread Link oh yeez, all this over a Michael Shannon gif? Reply Parent Thread Link i think the tila tequila post Reply Parent Thread Link wtf i hope she comes back, her comments are always interesting to read Reply Parent Thread Link She deleted after someone pointed out there was some nasty context behind her "Time for the urn" Michael Shannon gif, but I think she's also been really busy irl so I hope she undeletes and comes back. Reply Parent Thread Link I love ha! Come back girl, don't let these unhappy sanctimonious Sally's who sit and wait for someone/something to scold run you off. Shit is getting out of control here. People just assume the worst and literally prey on others and come at the neck for some bullshit Reply Parent Thread Link Whaaat nooo Reply Parent Thread Link NOOOOO :(((( Reply Parent Thread Link Nooooooo Reply Parent Thread Link nooo she neeeds to come back Reply Parent Thread Link Aww, hope she comes back :( Reply Parent Thread Link Oh man, I had no idea she'd had a hard week, hope she's ok Reply Parent Thread Link oh no, she deleted? :( I hope she undeletes and comes back, she was one of my fav users here. Reply Parent Thread Link Dr. Michael Farzam said his patient's name was "Jim Jones, 39 years old, 5'8", 175 lbs ... suffers from temporary psychosis due to sleep deprivation and dehydration." Jim Jones tho Reply Thread Link IKR Reply Parent Thread Link wow Reply Parent Thread Link um isn't this a violation of hipaa Reply Parent Thread Link no i'm pretty sure 911 calls are public record. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link no Reply Parent Thread Link omg i understand why he gave a fake name but wow at all the names possibly Reply Parent Thread Link It was that or John Wayne Gacy. Reply Parent Thread Link Yikes Reply Parent Thread Link lmao dude lives in california, how do you do this Reply Parent Thread Link IIRC - if you're taken into a hospital and they can't verify your identity by official documentation you have on you (ID, passport, drivers license, etc) they assign you a john doe type name (no matter the circumstances). when my friend OD'd and wasn't coherent they admitted her as Sarah Smith until someone came to confirm who she was, even tho one of the nurses on duty was our other friend's sister. Reply Parent Thread Link mte, wtf Reply Parent Thread Link Is this his Britney-2007 phase? Edited at 2016-11-22 08:24 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link Oh @ people feeling sorry for this abuser and not the victims. I'm disgusted. Reply Thread Link do you know what abuse is, jw?? Reply Parent Thread Link they're a troll Reply Parent Thread Expand Link they don't know anything besides Beyonce. Reply Parent Thread Link "His doctor also told police that he tried to assault a staff member at the gym. " He physically abuses the people he works with and people are more concerned about him then the people he assaults. Reply Parent Thread Link go back to 4chan. Reply Parent Thread Link ten comments in and it's already ugly in here. and you wonder why it's hard for mentally ill people to speak up Reply Thread Link mental illness and addiction posts here get so damn nasty Reply Parent Thread Link yep. i feel sorry for those people, clearly they lack some basic genes the rest of the human race possess. Reply Parent Thread Link Not to argue too much but would you have the same opinion if someone like Donald Trump said they had mental health issues and that's why they were acting that way? But to your point, I agree. ONTD is very weird about mental illness unless it involves them. Reply Parent Thread Link Except that no one has said that that is why he's acting this way? Plenty of ppl have said they hate him while expressing sympathy Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Except as far as we know Kanye hasn't been charged with rape like Trump has though? Reply Parent Thread Link Mfte. I dont know why I expected any different but here we go Reply Parent Thread Link Seriously. You can hold him accountable for the gross things he's said and still have compassion for the fact that he is clearly suffering from severe mental illness. They don't just 5150 people for being assholes. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Yes, but failing to separate "having a mental illness" from "just being an asshole" is very harmful to the mental illness community. The stigma that being mentally ill means you're a terrible person or can't be held accountable for your actions is irresponsible and hurtful. I don't think pointing this our or reminding people to keep this in mind is uncalled for. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link mte. People here can be such awful fucking assholes. You don't have to excuse what Kanye's said and done over the years to have sympathy for him. He's obviously not well. Reply Parent Thread Link The extent to which he is obviously fractured is so sad. It must have been terrifying for the gym staff member to have him coming after them. I hope this is the end of the escalation and not the already-dreadful tip of an iceberg. Reply Thread Link The magazine is called Black Hair and they used a white model in a fro? Por que? Reply Thread Link they said that companies/PR submit images to them because they request images of women that are black or of mixed heritage, but a company submitted this photo so they used it taking their word for it Reply Parent Thread Link I just read her response, she's mixed too? Reply Parent Thread Link it's nice to see everyone admitting to the mistake and apologizing versus ignoring or denying or being defensive. Reply Thread Link exactly, the fact that she reached out to the magazine speaks volumes to me Reply Parent Thread Link this is a decent apology in general, miles better than "sorry if you were offended (:" Reply Parent Thread Link IA Reply Parent Thread Link she seems sincere so I'm not gonna persecute her for it. Reply Thread Link The difference in writing style between the apology and the parenthetical at the end makes me think there's no way she wrote that herself. But it's a good apology. Reply Thread Link Ah, those are all good points I hadn't thought about. It just struck me as strange, but that makes sense. Reply Parent Thread Link lmao right wtf. it's like an email i send to a professor vs a txt i send to a friend. Reply Parent Thread Link Eh, the model probably sold her rights to the image and trade magazines like Blackhair just take stock photos anyway. Not outraged over this one. Reply Thread Link Lol Reply Parent Thread Link LOL Reply Parent Thread Link lmao Reply Parent Thread Link after looking through her instagram, I think she's pretty cute tbh Reply Thread Link Lol wow... She does look like she could be mixed, though. Reply Thread Link oh, this ain't even Sophisticate's foh Reply Thread Link She's half Malaysian actually. Reply Thread Link lmao how did you not know before hand? The name of the magazine tells you everything you need to know. Reply Thread Link Do you mean the model? It's an old photoshoot which was probably sold to a stock photo company which the magazine probably got the picture from. Reply Parent Thread Link No, the magazine. They should definitely know better. Reply Parent Thread Link did you read tho? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link This is a good apology. I don't totally believe she wrote it herself but I think she meant it and it's very on point. I like that she actually included why it's offensive for those who are wondering why it's a big deal. Reply Thread Link Great apology tbh, perpetrators take note Reply Thread Link Do people still use these mags? I just go on IG or I google something like "Beyonce curly hair" for inspiration for my weaves. Reply Thread Link Salons probably Reply Parent Thread Link When I worked at a grocery store, I used to "steal time" looking at them. I'd never pay for one, though. Reply Parent Thread Link My hair lady has them all over the place Reply Parent Thread Link I've never bought one. I usually just go on black hair blogs to get ideas. P.S. I love your icon. <333 Reply Parent Thread Link Thanks! Hockey (the Pens mostly) has taken over my life. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Everybody's Fine (2009) : Adventure, Drama: Frank Goode lives by himself in Elmira, NY, a recent widower with heart trouble, retired from a factory job, proud of having pushed his adult children toward success. In the summer, all four kids bail on a reunion, so, against doctor's orders, Frank decides to surprise each with a visit. He sets out to see his artist son in New York City, his daughter the ad exec in Chicago, his son the conductor on tour and presently in Denver, and his daughter who's a performer in Vegas. None are as he imagines or hopes. Will they let him see themselves as they are, and can this dad adapt? Four Christmases (2008) : Comedy, Drama, Romance: Brad and Kate have been together three years, in love, having fun, doing all sorts of things together with no intention of marriage or children. Christmas morning, they're on their way to Fiji, having told their two sets of divorced parents that they're off to do charity work. Through a fluke, they have no choice but to visit each of their four idiosyncratic parents. As the day progresses, Brad and Kate remember growing up, each learns more about the other, and Kate realizes that her life may not be as good as it could be. Do they know each other well enough to weather the storms families bring? This Christmas (2007) : Comedy, Drama, Romance: This year Christmas with the Whitfields promises to be one they will never forget. All the siblings have come home for the first time in years and they've brought plenty of baggage with them. As the Christmas tree is trimmed and the lights are hung, secrets are revealed and family bonds are tested. As their lives converge, they join together and help each other discover the true meaning of family. The Family Stone (2005) : Comedy, Drama, Romance: The Stone family unites in common cause when their favorite son brings his uptight girlfriend home for the Christmas holiday, with plans of proposing. Overwhelmed by the hostile reception, she begs her sister to join her for emotional support, triggering further complications. The Ref (1994) : Comedy, Crime, Drama: Denis Leary plays an unfortunate cat burglar, who is abandonded by his partner in the middle of a heist, and is forced to take an irritating Connecticut couple (Kevin Spacey, Judy Davis) hostage. He soon finds that he took more than he bargained for when the couple's blackmailing son and despicable in-laws step into the picture. Before long they're driving him nuts with their petty bickering and family problems. The only way for him to survive is to be their referee and resolve their differences, before he can be nabbed by the police. Do you have a good relationship with your family?? And it is Groundhog Day again, as the OPEC rumor-mill gets cranked up once more. Fortunately we get the welcome distraction of an inventory report tomorrow, while some respite follows that in the form of Thanksgiving. But for now, hark, here are five things to consider in oil markets today: 1) Looking for some sense in the current oil market kerfuffle, a seemingly timeless quote resonates from Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the Saudi oil minister from 1962 to 1986: 'in the short run, oil prices are determined by politics, in the long run, they are determined by economics'. 2) As an OPEC agreement is seemingly edging closer to becoming a reality, it is worth considering who relies most on the cartel for their crude. The top five destinations of OPEC crude account for ~16 million barrels per day of deliveries. As we have discussed recently, U.S. imports of OPEC crude are up nearly 20 percent compared to year-ago levels, at an average of 3.2mn bpd - putting the U.S. in third place. But is the demand hubs of China and India that pull in more crude from the cartel; together they account for 7.4 million barrels per day, with China pulling in slightly more. Japan is the fourth largest importer of OPEC crude, although volumes are flat on year-ago levels at 2.75mn bpd. South Korea is fifth, pulling in 2.45mn bpd, up 7.5 percent on year-ago levels. Eighty-eight countries have imported OPEC crude since the beginning of last year. (Click to enlarge) 3) Our ClipperData below show U.S. LPG exports continue to show strength, rebounding from summer lows. Last week's LPG exports were a split of ~84 percent propane and ~16 percent butane, with volume boosted by the first export from Phillips 66' Freeport LPG terminal. The first ever VLEC (Very Large Ethane Carrier) is on its way to Enterprise Product Partners' Morgan's Point terminal - the world's largest ethane export terminal. The VLEC is expected to arrive in the second week of December with a 48,600 MT cargo, after passing through the Panama Canal. (Click to enlarge) 4) The chart below relates to the IEA's world energy outlook released last week, highlighting how global gasoline consumption is expected to level off from here, as growing emerging market demand is offset by an increase in electric vehicles. The IEA projects there will be more than 150 million electric vehicles by 2040. Related: Will We Ever See $100 Oil Again? Although petroleum demand in transportation is projected to increase through to 2040, this is to come from the maritime, aviation and freight sectors - and their higher consumption of diesel, fuel oil and jet fuel. The petrochemicals sector is projected to be the leading source of demand growth over the coming decades. (Click to enlarge) 5) Through to 2040, renewable energy is still expected to see the most growth in energy use for heating and electricity, than it is for transportation: By Matt Smith More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: While the market has taken the latest round of "optimistic" jawboning by OPEC members in stride, sending crude higher by 4 percent ahead of next week's meeting in Vienna where the terms of the OPEC production cut are expected to be finalized, the reality is that a favorable outcome may be problematic. As Bloomberg's Julian Lee explained overnight, "OPEC says its close to a deal to cut oil output for the first time since 2008, a move that may halt a 2 1/2-year price slump. The actions of individual member states tell a different story. The simple math supporting cuts looked solid at OPECs meetings in June and December. Prices then were way below most members fiscal break-even points. An output cut now of 1.5 million barrels a day, or 5 percent, would need to boost the oil price by only $2.50 a barrel for OPEC nations collectively to be better off. A $5 price increase would boost the value of what they pump by about $100 million a day." There are various nuances as to why a deal, one in which Saudi Arabia would bear the brunt of total production cuts, remains unlikely. As Lee notes, while OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo has been touring member nations to shore up support for an agreement before the Nov. 30 meeting, culminating with a trip to Doha for talks last week, "the meeting didnt resolve much. It certainly didnt tackle any of the thorniest questions that OPEC must still overcome if coordinated measures are to happen." The road from the OPEC agreement in Algiers to the next official OPEC meeting in Vienna is long and bumpy, said Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodities strategy at BNP Paribas SA in London. Meanwhile, OPEC production continues to surge, hitting new all-time highs this month, effectively leaving the cartel little option but to reduce supply, however even with a cut it would only bring down production to a level seen as recently as May of this year. As a result, as Bank of America notes, downward oil price pressures are now coming mostly from within the cartel itself. "Will OPEC decide to end the price war or not? For starters, it is important to note that the cartel is running with very limited spare production capacity. As a result, we would argue that it makes good economic sense to end the price war, or at least declare a truce, at this stage." Related: How Risky Are Oklahoma Earthquakes For The Oil Business? Which brings us to the 4 possible outcomes from the Vienna meeting and how they would impact the price of oil. Here is how Bank of America lays out the possibilities: o First, we see only a slim chance that OPEC does not announce an oil supply cut deal on November 30, an outcome that could send oil prices temporarily below $40/bbl, in our view. o Most likely, OPEC will go with a 500 thousand b/d or 1 million b/d supply cut announcement, in our view. Should OPEC just deliver a half a million barrel deal, we see prices staying around the current levels. o For prices to firmly break over $50/bbl, OPEC would have to deliver a 1 mn b/d cut. o If the cut comes with firm quotas and a tight control mechanism, we see WTI prices averaging $59/bbl in 2017, while a looser deal would probably shave $5 off this number. (Click to enlarge) Some more detail on the two most likely outcomes: OPEC agrees to 1 million cut: Historically, Saudi production has fluctuated quite extensively to follow price (or demand) trends (Chart 15), in turn allowing for a steady and well managed inventory cycle. While BofA is not expecting a return to the old regime, where Saudi micromanaged global oil stocks, it does project OPEC crude supply to drop sequentially (Chart 16). Under this scenario, BofA's base case, WTI crude oil prices will average $55/bbl in 1H17 and $59/bbl over the course of the year. The cut would enable a fast rebalancing of global crude markets and possibly a shift into backwardation. Moreover, the deal would likely incorporate a production freeze from Russia. (Click to enlarge) Oil may drop to $40/bbl if the cartel cannot agree to cut: A 1million b/d swing in global oil supplies impacts prices, on average, by about $17/bbl (Chart 19). With non-OPEC supply stabilizing and OPEC adding more barrels to the market in recent months, a price recovery is looking less likely. If OPEC does not come to a deal on supply, we see the oil market surplus extending through 3Q17 (Chart 20) and oil prices facing a renewed slump. In some ways, it is OPEC's moment of truth, or maybe just a moment of truce. After all, the ongoing price war is driven by technology. Even if the cartel puts a 12-month supply cut deal together, technological advances will likely keep pressing down shale oil cost structures. By Zerohedge More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: More than a month after shocking the market by saying that Russia was ready to join OPECs efforts to reduce global oil supply, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that his country was ready to freeze production at todays level, injecting more optimism that OPEC and non-OPEC producers might really pull off a deal. Meanwhile, Russia announced on Monday that it is pushing back a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Russian oil firms until December 19well after the OPEC meeting in Vienna, scheduled for November 30. The meeting, which was supposed to discuss output curbs, was originally scheduled for November 23rd, a week prior to the OPEC meeting. "The commission was postponed as the agenda is still being worked out. Work with Russian oil companies is being regularly carried out by the energy ministry. There are no separate meetings scheduled by the president," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Despite the meeting pushback, Russia is adamant that it still plans to curb output at current record levels. Related: Electric Cars Provide Little Threat To Oil Demand We have spoken on this matter before and have said that we are ready to freeze production at todays level. We do not think that would create any problems for our energy sector. The Energy Ministry is in constant contact with the big energy companies, and they are ready to go ahead with this, the Kremlin said, reporting Putins answers to reporters at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Like the remarks of OPEC members leading oil officials in recent days, Putin also expressed optimism that a deal can be reached. I cannot say for certain whether they will reach an agreement or not, but I do think it highly probably that they will. As I see it, the main differences that existed between the OPEC countries, perhaps not all the differences, but the bigger ones at least, if they have not been already settled, they can be. As far as we understand the situation, there are no serious issues remaining, Putin told the reporters at the APEC forum. Despite Putins optimism, it would seem that Russia is pushing back their internal talks until it becomes clear that OPEC has successfully reached an agreement on November 30, and that any meeting of the oil minds in Russia before that time would be premature. Related: Trumps Saudi Oil Threat Is A Hollow One At least for non-insiders, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran seem to still be at odds over whether the Saudis are going to do most of the heavy-lifting as the heavy-weight OPEC champ; whether OPECs secondary sources figures should be used as reference for freezes/cuts; and whether Iran and Iraq, or both, or none of them, should be exempt from cuts. While Russia is waiting to see if OPECs biggest three Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran will be able to overcome differences, it has been ramping up oil output (possibly hedging against any freeze), with its production hitting a new post-Soviet era high at 11.2 million bpd in October. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: A total of 60 percent of all gas pipelines operating in Russia are between 40 and 50 years old, a manager at a Russian gas equipment repair company has said, flagging concerns over the deterioration of the gas infrastructure in the country. The problem with the too old gas pipelines must be solved to avoid emergencies and problems with providing gas to households, Alexander Machulin, director general at Promgazenergoservis LLC, said at a meeting of the Russian Chamber of Commerce, local media report. Russia holds the worlds largest natural gas reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). In 2014, Russias dry natural gas production was the second-biggest in the world after the dry natural gas output of the United States. As of last year, Russias natural gas transportation system consisted of around 100,000 miles of high-pressure pipelines and more than 20 underground natural gas storage facilities. Last year, nearly 90 percent of Russias natural gas exports of 7.3 trillion cubic feet were shipped via pipelines to Europe, with customers in Germany, Turkey, Italy and Belarus receiving most of those exports. Europe is also dependent on imports from Russia, and its giant Gazprom. Last year, more than 30 percent of the EUs gas imports came from Russia. Some countries in Europe, including Finland, the Baltic states and most of southeast Europe, rely almost exclusively on natural gas imports from Russia. Its not uncommon for Russia, and Gazprom, to use the dominant gas-provider status to price gas in bilateral deals with European clients according to how friendly a country is to Moscow, which has raised EU competition concerns. Now Gazprom is expected to soon settle the half-decade-old dispute over natural gas pricing, and the resolution could change the way the Russian company does business and lead to lower gas prices for much of Eastern Europe. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: There are countless Milwaukeeans who have left an indelible mark on the city, even though folks rarely utter their names. More than the Kilbourns, Juneaus and Walkers, these folks, who toiled for their town and have now been relegated to relative obscurity, have captured my attention. One of them is Sebastian Brand, a German immigrant firefighter and mason turned architect, who is not to be confused with Sebastian Brand, a German immigrant boiler maker, whose 1850s Galena Street home survives out on a leafy green lot out in Oconomowoc. Brand the former was born Aug. 22, 1844 to Johannes Brand and Margaretha Wild in Nierstein, Germany (in the Hessen-Darmstadt region), on the banks of the Rhine River. Apparently, Brand the latter was also born there, sometimes rendering this research somewhat confusing. Did I mention both Brands also lived on Galena Street? Oy. In November 1865, Brand emigrated to the United States and spent some time in Chicago before landing in Milwaukee, where he married Augusta Gesse on Feb. 19, 1871. The Brands had 13 children, only two of whom outlived their father and researching this part of Brands life was really just tracing one tragedy after another. A son Charly was born in 1872 and another, Louis, followed in 1874. A daughter, Anna, was born in 1875. All three died in 1877. George was born that year and died in 1880. Emile, born in 79, died two years later, a year after Edward died at just one month old. Another son, Henry, died the same year he was born. And on and on. Brand joined the Milwaukee Fire Department on Nov. 16, 1872 and was assigned to Engine Co. 5. On May 2, 1882, he was transferred to Truck No. 3 and on Oct. 22, 1884, he was appointed captain of Engine 9, after having climbed the ladder from pipeman to truckman to foreman to lieutenant. On March 9, 1893, he responded to the Romadka Brothers fire on 3rd, between Kilbourn and Wells. "We had been ordered to scale a ladder placed against the real wall of the building," Brand later recounted to a newspaperman. "With a roar that was heard several blocks away, the wall caved in and the ladder fell. We were buried beneath an avalanche of bricks and mortar. I woke up in the hospital the next day and they told me that my arm would be useless for the rest of my days." With that devastating injury to his right arm, which reported hung "useless from its socket," Brand was retired from active firefighting duty. Luckily for Brand who had previously worked as a mason but had no formal training as an architect hed already been moonlighting for the Milwaukee Fire Department designing firehouses. By the time he was injured, hed already designed houses for Engine 9 (1885), Ladder 5 (1886), Engine 4 (1888), Engine 11/Ladder 6 (1888), Engine 14 (1889), Engine 16 (1890), Engine 18 (1890), Engine 2 (1892) and Engine 10 (1893, picture just below). Brand received no special distinction and no extra pay for the design work he did while also fighting fires. In 1887, Chief James Foley said that Brands work saved the city $1,500 that year. In 1894, reporting on Brands architectural work since 1883, Foley said Brand was "attending to his regular 9 duties as captain of Engine Company No. 5, as well. The direct saving to the city has been in round figures $14,966 (more than $400,000 today). According to a city historic designation report for the Ladder 5 building, which still stands on the citys East Side, "In 1885, under the leadership of Chief James Foley, the department embarked upon a new program to control and standardize the design and construction of firehouses. He directed Sebastian E. Brand, foreman of Engine 9 and an ex-mason, to design all the new stations. "Brands work expressed both the increased concern for functionalism and a stolid masonry interpretation of Victorian styles. He often mixed Gothic and Classical detailing in generally vertical elevations. At least 10 of Brands designs spanning nearly three decades survive today, either in continuous use as fire engine houses or with a new use. Many of the smaller buildings were remarkably similar employing a two-story, three-bay design. In this scheme, two smaller bays with narrow windows [and a pedestrian door] flanked a central engine door. Otherwise straight cornices were varied on some structures by an inset gable over the central bay. A corner tower was sometimes added." Engine 31, 2400 S. 8th St. In 1912, a newspaper article celebrating his 40 years of service noted that Brand was the oldest man in the department at the time. During his many years of service, one newspaper estimated that Brand fought about 5,000 fires, including the Newhall House fire, to which Brands Engine Co. 5 responded on the second alarm. "He has cheated death by narrow margins many times. He has engineered thrilling escapes and has taken part in brave rescues." After his injury, Brand was named superintendent of the departments buildings and its draughtsman. The 1912 article says that Brand designed houses for Engine Companies 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31 as well as for Trucks 5, 6 and 7, and Chemical No. 8. It is for this work that Brand is now remembered, when he is remembered. Ive written about some of his designs, including Truck 5, Engine 3 and Engine 2. Engine Co. 26, 1140 S. 26th St. In 1912, Brand said, "I expect to die in harness. The life has gotten into my blood and Im sure I would be lonely away from the clanging gong and the apparatus." But, in fact, Brand retired on pension on July 1, 1919, when he was 75. At the time, his son Albert, was assigned to Engine 4, and Brand was living with his daughter Louise and her husband William C. Brill, at 1090 41st St. Beyond Brand changing his mind, there are other reasons this may have occurred, according to that Truck 5 historic designation report. "Changes were beginning to take place, however, within city government. While Brand continued to design all new firehouses and accessory buildings and superintend all repairs to the buildings, carried out by the way by the firefighters themselves, his work began to be routed through the Board of Public Works starting around 1904. The Board of Public Works had a number of divisions and the Bureau of Bridges and Public Buildings became the department where all work on bridges and civic buildings became centralized. "Over the next decade the Fire Departments autonomy over the upkeep and construction of firehouses decreased. Whether this was the result of Sebastian Brands advancing age or merely part of the reformist reorganization of city government cannot be determined at this time. The emphasis on professional architectural credentials that culminated in the state licensing of architects in 1917 may also have played a part. Old time designers like Brand who came up through the ranks of the building trades were being retired from professional positions in favor of university trained architects who had theoretical knowledge but not necessarily any expertise in construction. "In 1915 the shift between the departments had been completed and the Fire Department Annual Report indicates that the Bureau of Bridges and Public Buildings was supervising construction of the new fireboat house at todays 105 N. Water St. The Bureaus Charles Malig is credited with the design of the new structure and went on to design public buildings, including the popular Bungalow firehouses, through the rest of his long career with the city." Sebastian Brand died at home on 41st Street in January 1923 at the age of 79 of what one newspaper called "the result of advanced age." He was buried in the Fairview Mausoleum. When the mausoleum was closed in the mid-'90s, Brand's remains re-interred at Graceland Cemetery. The mausoleum was later demolished and the site is now home to wait for it a new firehouse for Engine 35 and Ladder 16. While obituaries celebrated his service as a firefighter, the ones I found contain nary a peep about the many and enduring buildings he designed. While roaming through the slums of Mumbai, India in the late 1960s, this Peace Corps Volunteer was a keen observer of art. Yes, the 12 by 16' rooms of the four-story tenements of my first work site, Worli Chawls, had art hanging from their walls viewable through their barred windows. Worli Chawls of Mumbai, India (Image by DWAYNE HUNN) Details DMCA There were three categories of the art in Worli Chawls, pictures of: 1) Gandhi and Nehru 2) Hindu gods 3) John Fitzgerald Kennedy Why JFK? Because JFK used the camera well, offered the struggling a vision along with programs to implement peace and prosperity, and sent more "Shanti Senna" Americans annually to India than to any other country. Hindi "Shanti Senna" translates to "Peace Army." Gandhi conceptualized it as a nonviolent volunteer-peacekeeping program dedicated to minimizing communal violence in India. Doing more than ... (Image by praba_tuty) Details DMCA JFK conceptualized "Peace Corps" to minimize violence throughout the world. Even those struggling in the chawls of India seem to know that . Pesident-Elect Donald Trump uses the camera well and hopefully is conceptualizing programs for peace and prosperity. Could media savvy Trump build a AWSC National Service Corps that rebuilds the Peace Corps to the size JFK envisioned it, and muscle-up other do-good organizations to the size JFK knew they needed to be? If President Trump pushes Congress to introduce and pass the American World Service Corps National Service (AWSCNS) Congressional Proposal, America and the world would have a healthier, greater future. Implementing this AWSCNS could move America together toward greatness... A robust AWSCNS Congressional Proposal could help knit this fraying great nation back together again by having diverse colors, regions, classes, and religions work together to address domestic and international problems. For two years of AWSC National Service in such organizations as Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat, Doctors Without Borders, Head Start, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, Americans Friends Service Committee, TechnoServe, Heifer, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, State Conservation Corps, In-Need Schools, Hospitals Therapy Wards, Homes for The Elderly, etc., four years of college/vocational tuition would be paid, or equivalent home down payment, health-care savings deposit, tax credit granted, etc. Free education would be earned. Immigration rights earned. Public policy understanding enhanced. And, as Mark Twain correctly opined, the national service and travel a million Americans a year would be engaged in at home and abroad would be "fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." Also, reintroducing and enacting Congresswoman Boxer's HR 1807 would dramatically reduce worldwide tensions by having Americans and Russians work together on a Joint US-Russian Peace Corps. Sen. Barbara Boxer, who introduced HR1807 (Joint US-USSR Peace Corps) in 1989. (Image by Neon Tommy) Details DMCA Let's build tens of thousands of bonds between serving Russians and Americans, not just between a couple hundred astronauts, cosmonauts, and executives. Let's start building armies around peaceful service rather than around expensive drones. Let's try People's Lobby's non-traditional funding mechanisms so that the heaven-bound goodness and wisdom of the super-rich funds 21 million Americans doing, learning, and forging friendships at home and abroad via national service over the next 27 years, without costing taxpayers a dime. Let the Trump administration bring Congress together in recognizing that there are cost-effective means to build security peacefully and thereby address President Eisenhower's concerns. Image Deleted Because Wiki Page Empty or Removed Image From Consortium News Two weeks after Donald Trump's shocking upset of Hillary Clinton, the imperious and imperial neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist understudies may finally be losing their tight grip on U.S. foreign policy. The latest sign was Trump's invitation for a meeting with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, on Monday. The mainstream media commentary has almost completely missed the potential significance of this start-of-the-work-week meeting, suggesting that Trump is attracted to Gabbard's tough words on "radical Islamic terrorism." Far more important is that Gabbard, a 35-year-old Iraq War veteran, endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries because of his opposition to neocon/liberal-hawk military adventures. She starred in one of the strongest political ads of the campaign, a message to Hawaiians, called "The Cost of War." "Bernie Sanders voted against the Iraq War," Gabbard says. "He understands the cost of war, that that cost is continued when our veterans come home. Bernie Sanders will defend our country and take the trillions of dollars that are spent on these interventionist, regime change, unnecessary wars and invest it here at home." In the ad, Gabbard threw down the gauntlet to the neocons and their liberal-hawk sidekicks, by accusing them of wasting trillions of dollars "on these interventionist, regime change, unnecessary wars." Her comments mesh closely with Trump's own perspective. So, the surprise election results on Nov. 8 may have represented a "trading places" moment for the neocons and liberal hawks who were eagerly counting the days before the "weak" President Barack Obama would turn over the Commander-in-Chief job to former Secretary of State Clinton who had made clear that she shared their hawkish agenda of escalating the war in Syria and ratcheting up the New Cold War with Russia. There was even speculation that one of Clinton's neocon favorites within the State Department, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, might be rewarded with State's top job for her "regime change" in Ukraine that sparked the start of the New Cold War in 2014. Nuland, the wife of arch-neocon Robert Kagan , sabotaged President Obama's emerging strategy of collaborating with Russian President Vladimir Putin on sensitive global issues. In 2013-14, Putin helped orchestrate two of Obama's brightest foreign policy successes: Syria's surrender of its chemical weapons arsenal and Iran's guarantee that it would not develop nuclear weapons. But those agreements infuriated the neocons who favored escalating both crises into direct U.S. bombing campaigns aimed at Syria and Iran -- in accordance with the desires of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Saudi monarchy. Yet, there was perhaps even greater alarm at what the next move of the Obama-Putin tag team might be: demanding that Israel finally get serious about a peace deal with the Palestinians. So, the neocons took aim at Ukraine, which neocon National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman identified as "the biggest prize" and an important stepping stone to an even bigger prize, a "regime change" in Moscow removing Putin . While Gershman's NED funded (with U.S. taxpayers' money) scores of projects inside Ukraine, training anti-government activists and journalists, Nuland took the point as the key organizer of a putsch that removed elected President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014, and replaced him with a fiercely anti-Russian regime. Given the geopolitical sensitivity of Ukraine to Russia, including its naval base on the Crimean peninsula, Putin had little choice but to react, supporting a referendum in Crimea in which 96 percent of the voters favored leaving Ukraine and rejoining Russia -- and assisting ethnic Russian rebels in the east who resisted the violent ouster of their president. Of course, the mainstream Western news media presented these developments as simply a case of "Russian aggression" and a "Russian invasion." And, faced with this new "group think," Obama quickly abandoned his partner, Putin, and joined in the chorus of condemnations. Nuland emerged as a new star inside the State Department, a hero of the New Cold War which was expected to funnel trillions of tax dollars into the Military-Industrial Complex. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). From Reader Supported News President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Rep. Michael Pompeo (R-Kan.) sends a crystal clear message that Trump was telling the American people the truth when he said that he would bring back the torture program and do "a hell of a lot worse." Pompeo himself said that CIA officers who engaged in torture "are not torturers. They are patriots." The only conclusion one can draw is that Trump intends to return the CIA to the dark days of the Bush administration. And this is despite the fact that torture is illegal under the Federal Torture Act, the United Nations Conventions Against Torture, and the McCain-Feinstein Amendment. Pompeo's nomination was something of a surprise. Although he supported and endorsed Trump during the Republican primaries, he was not a player in the campaign, he is not one of the more prominent members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), where he served only three years, and he was not among the names being circulated among "people in the know" in Washington for CIA Director. But Trump apparently likes West Point graduates, who are more likely to say, "Yes, sir" than they are to say, "Mr. President, let me tell you why that's a bad idea." Pompeo is a yes man with credentials. He graduated first in his class at the U.S. Military Academy, and then went to Harvard Law School before going into business and politics. Pompeo also has towed the Tea Party line on national security issues since being elected to Congress in 2010. He called NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden "a traitor" and in an interview on C-SPAN added, "he should be brought back from Russia and given due process, and I think the proper outcome would be that he would be given a death sentence." Pompeo was a member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, where he said that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had "failed to lead," despite the fact that his committee's leadership had found that the former secretary had done nothing wrong related to Benghazi. And he wants to keep the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay open, calling it "the right option for American security" and "an important asset that must remain open." He said after a visit to Guantanamo that he had seen the detainees there and that he wants them "right where they are." Further afield, Pompeo has said that he supports dragnet surveillance against American citizens, including NSA interception of all U.S. metadata, voicemails, emails, and text messages. He wants this information housed along with "lifestyle information" on Americans in a database that would be accessible to all U.S. law enforcement, something more akin to Orwell's Big Brother than any other politician has put forth. He criticized his Congressional colleagues for rolling back some of NSA's warrantless wiretapping programs in the aftermath of the Snowden disclosures, and added that the lone wolf attacks in San Bernardino in 2015 were a result of Congress not allowing NSA to do its job. Pompeo apparently has never commented publicly on the civil liberties and legal questions at play when a U.S. intelligence agency spies on American citizens. So what can be done about a far-right activist CIA director serving a far-right president and being overseen by far-right Congressional committees? For us average citizens, not much, unfortunately. But there are some things we can do. We can write our members of Congress and demand that they hold the CIA and its new director to both the letter and the spirit of the law. Torture is illegal. That isn't going to change. If the CIA engages in torture, its leadership must be brought to task. If the Justice Department won't file charges against torturers and those who order the torture, then maybe foreign courts will, just like Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who filed charges of human rights violations against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. We can write, speak out, and march against human rights and legal violations. We can initiate direct actions. And perhaps most importantly, if we have standing, we can sue, bog the CIA down in litigation, and force as much of the information as possible into the glare of the public spotlight. Pompeo's nomination is a bad thing. But it's not the end of the world. We just have to be ready for a 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. Articles Listed By Date List By Popularity Search Title Date Between Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 and Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 (7 comments) SHARE It's Not Too Late! Push Hillary for Recount in 6 Key States Did human error, computer glitches, hacking, or other problems change the outcome? While there is, as yet, no compelling evidence, the news about hacking and deliberate interference makes it worth finding out. Please contact Sen. Gillibrand and Congresswoman Lowey (info included) to ask HRC to press for a recount. This is not (only) about her; it's about all of us and what faces our nation if she does not! Tuesday, November 22, 2016Did human error, computer glitches, hacking, or other problems change the outcome? While there is, as yet, no compelling evidence, the news about hacking and deliberate interference makes it worth finding out. Please contact Sen. Gillibrand and Congresswoman Lowey (info included) to ask HRC to press for a recount. This is not (only) about her; it's about all of us and what faces our nation if she does not! (1 comments) SHARE New Yorkers, help pass Resolution 2236, to KEEP OUR LEVER MACHINES! Our state budget is worse than predicted in July, and we will continue to lose jobs and essential services. We can't afford expensive new voting equipment that we don't need, and can't afford to use securely! Friday, November 6, 2009Our state budget is worse than predicted in July, and we will continue to lose jobs and essential services. We can't afford expensive new voting equipment that we don't need, and can't afford to use securely! SHARE Op-scan demos in NYC start today 2/17 Please try to attend at least one demo. Here are questions to keep in mind and ask of the election officials. Tuesday, February 17, 2009Please try to attend at least one demo. Here are questions to keep in mind and ask of the election officials. (1 comments) SHARE What Can We Do Now To Protect the November Election "Politics is the way a free people govern themselves." --Bernard Crick. Our elections can be honest if all citizens participate in conducting and observing them. Our governmental policies can provide for the good of all citizens if all citizens participate in our civic and political life--and provide the kind of knowledgeable oversight that can keep democratic government honest. Americans need to tithe our free time for this. Friday, September 12, 2008"Politics is the way a free people govern themselves." --Bernard Crick. Our elections can be honest if all citizens participate in conducting and observing them. Our governmental policies can provide for the good of all citizens if all citizens participate in our civic and political life--and provide the kind of knowledgeable oversight that can keep democratic government honest. Americans need to tithe our free time for this. SHARE NY CITY RESIDENTS: URGENT HELPTO PASS RES. 961 Our City Council Members must voice the need for voting equipment that is under full public control,open to public scrutiny, and worthy of public confidence.Pass Resolution 961 to send a message to the New York State Board of Elections to commission the development of a system that would be owned entirely by our state, or to accept a free system from citizens who have developed it. Thursday, July 26, 2007Our City Council Members must voice the need for voting equipment that is under full public control,open to public scrutiny, and worthy of public confidence.Pass Resolution 961 to send a message to the New York State Board of Elections to commission the development of a system that would be owned entirely by our state, or to accept a free system from citizens who have developed it. SHARE What's wrong with S 1487? Let us count the ways... This is an in-depth analysis of Sen. Feinstein's "election reform" bill S 1487. For the faint at heart or those with a short attention span, even skimming this well-researched article will give you ample reason to oppose the bill. Hearings on S 1487 are scheduled for Wednesday,July 25th.Talk about it;pass it around. After all,they're YOUR elections; it's YOUR vote.What are you prepared to do about it? You snooze, you lose! Tuesday, July 17, 2007This is an in-depth analysis of Sen. Feinstein's "election reform" bill S 1487. For the faint at heart or those with a short attention span, even skimming this well-researched article will give you ample reason to oppose the bill. Hearings on S 1487 are scheduled for Wednesday,July 25th.Talk about it;pass it around. After all,they're YOUR elections; it's YOUR vote.What are you prepared to do about it? You snooze, you lose! (3 comments) SHARE HAVA and HR 811 - Voting Machines' Impact on Minority Communities HR811, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007, was a shock to grassroots election integrity activists, especially those of us who lobbied for previous versions of the bill. Several lists of problems and amendments have been submitted to Congress. Sunday, April 1, 2007HR811, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007, was a shock to grassroots election integrity activists, especially those of us who lobbied for previous versions of the bill. Several lists of problems and amendments have been submitted to Congress. SHARE ACTION ALERT! Amend HR811--contact your members of Congress ASAP Editor's Note: While this letter from activist Teresa Hommel gives information for local (NY) elected representatives, it is pertinent to ALL of us, wherever we may live. Use this as a template for action. Contact YOUR elected officials in Washington regarding the dangerous flaws in Rep. Holt's HR 811. Friday, March 16, 2007Editor's Note: While this letter from activist Teresa Hommel gives information for local (NY) elected representatives, it is pertinent to ALL of us, wherever we may live. Use this as a template for action. Contact YOUR elected officials in Washington regarding the dangerous flaws in Rep. Holt's HR 811. SHARE Victory in NY City Council Resolution 131 for paper ballots and optical scanners passed the New York City Council by unanimous vote today, March 14, 2007. The resolution was brilliantly written by the council to make clear to all that elections must be observed by the people, and should not require "trust" in computer experts to say whether the votes were properly handled.(Ed.note: a step in the right direction,showing 'people power' at its best.) Thursday, March 15, 2007Resolution 131 for paper ballots and optical scanners passed the New York City Council by unanimous vote today, March 14, 2007. The resolution was brilliantly written by the council to make clear to all that elections must be observed by the people, and should not require "trust" in computer experts to say whether the votes were properly handled.(Ed.note: a step in the right direction,showing 'people power' at its best.) SHARE Ensure Election Integrity and Verified Voting in NYC! We need people to speak in favor of paper ballots/optical scanners at community board meetings as well as public hearings that the Commissioners are supposed to hold before they make their decision on new voting equipment. Please join us for a training session to learn about the issues and obtain talking points for public hearings: Sunday, September 24, 2006We need people to speak in favor of paper ballots/optical scanners at community board meetings as well as public hearings that the Commissioners are supposed to hold before they make their decision on new voting equipment. Please join us for a training session to learn about the issues and obtain talking points for public hearings: Four civilians killed in AJK by Indian shelling Four civilians residing in the border villages of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) were killed on Monday by Indian shelling while six Indian Army soldiers were killed by retaliatory fire by Pakistan Army troops, confirmed the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). The cross border shelling by Indian forces also injured 18 civilians. The deceased were identified as Altaf, 40, a resident of Chota Nar Dabsi village and Nazia, 30, a resident of Mathrani village. Cross-border shelling was also reported from Samahni sector in Bhimber district. Two children, Tasaver and Ateeq, were killed in Baroh village and another three were wounded in the same sector. Not only the vulnerable villages in Nakyal tehsil, but also those in the neighbouring tehsils of Kotli, Charhoi and Khuiratta in district Kotli were hit by Indian shelling, an official at the Kotli deputy commissioner's office told Dawn. The LoC in district Kotli remained calm on Sunday, but only until 8:30pm. "In the southern Poonch district, Battal, Mandhol and Madarpur sectors also came under Intense Indian shelling, leaving three women and two men wounded," said Deputy Commissioner Poonch Chaudhary Altaf. Residents in different affected areas said that Pakistani troops were responding to Indian shelling. According to Mr Zaeem, an official at a control room established by the AJK government in the office of State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) in Muzaffarabad, the latest killings have pushed the death toll along the LoC to 27, while the number of injured persons is 97. These figures had been compiled since October 5, Mr Zaeem said. He said during the current spell of ceasefire violations, around 11,000 families have been forced to quit their homes in the most vulnerable areas along the unmarked dividing line (LoC). Of these displaced families, the maximum, 8869, had left their homes in Kotli district followed by 1,588 in the southernmost Bhimber district. AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider told Dawn on Monday that his administration had been bracing for more evacuations as the situation along the LoC was extremely critical. "If the xenophobic Indian rulers are not reined in by the international community, I am afraid around 500,000 people living along the LoC in the whole of Azad Kashmir may be forced to move to the safer areas," he said. The Indian Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh was summoned by the Foreign Office and a strong condemnation was registered against the unprovoked ceasefire violations by Indian forces, said a statement from the Foreign Office. The Deputy High Commissioner was told that the deliberate targeting of civilian populated areas was highly deplorable, added the statement. Pakistan also expressed concern over Indias refusal of diplomatic flight clearance to Pakistani Aircraft. This action by India constituted a violation of the 1991 bilateral agreement between Pakistan and India. Cross-border firing appears to have become a routine as tensions simmer between Pakistan and India following an alleged 'surgical strike', unrest in Kashmir and the Uri army base attack. The Indian deputy high commissioner has been summoned to the Foreign Office several times in protest against 'unprovoked' Indian fire and loss of lives due to incidents of cross-border firing. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stepped up a drive to isolate Pakistan diplomatically after the Uri army base attack last month. Hours after the attack occurred, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh termed Pakistan a 'terrorist state' and accused Pakistan of involvement. The Uri attack occurred days before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was set to address the United Nations General Assembly regarding Indian human rights violations in held Kashmir. Following the attack, India claimed it had conducted a cross-border 'surgical strike' against 'launch pads of terror' in Azad Jammu and Kashmir a claim Pakistan has strongly rejected. Pakistan maintains that India is attempting to divert the world's attention away from atrocities committed by government forces in India-held Kashmir. Pakistan and India have, most recently, locked horns over Kashmir since Indian forces stepped up a crackdown against protesters after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed by government forces in July. Raheel Sharif started his farewell visits Gen Raheel Sharif has kicked off his farewell visits nearly a week before he is expected to retire as Chief of Army Staff, DG Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Asim Bajwa announced. The army chief began his visits on Monday at the Lahore Garrison where he addressed and thanked a huge gathering of soldiers of Pakistan Army and Rangers. Addressing the soldiers, Gen Raheel said accomplishment of peace and stability was "no ordinary task". "Our sacrifices and joint national resolve helped us in off-setting all odds against [the] country." The army spokesman had in January rubbished rumours regarding an extension in Gen Sharif's tenure as Chief of Army Staff, quoting the army chief as saying he will "retire on the due date" in November this year. Speculation had been rife regarding an extension in the COAS' term after former military ruler Musharraf called for an extension in his tenure, warning against a change in the military leadership. The post of Army chief is inarguably the most powerful in Pakistan. On Nov 27, 2013, the government approved Sharifs appointment for the post, a position that he took over from Ashfaq Parvez Kayani who stepped down on Nov 29, 2013. Gen Sharif is expected to pass on the baton of command of the army to the next army chief at a ceremony by the end of this month. He would be the first army chief to retire on time in two decades. His predecessors Gen Kayani and Gen Pervez Musharraf got extensions, while Gen Jehangir Karamat was sent home prematurely. Going by the book, it is the senior most three-star general who would become the next chief. But this rule is seldom observed. Even when Gen Sharif became the army chief he was third on the seniority list. A panel of three general officers is sent to the prime minister by the defence ministry, but it is his (PMs) discretion to appoint anyone whom he thinks is most suited for the job. The next four in line are: Lt Gen Maqsood Ahmed (currently on deputation with the UN), Lt Gen Zubair Mehmood Hayat (Chief of General Staff), Lt Gen Syed Wajid Hussain (HIT Taxila) and Lt Gen Ishfaq Nadeem (Corps Commander Multan). The race is wide open but some defence analysts are of the opinion that Gen Hayat and Gen Nadeem are among the front-runners. Back in 2013 when Gen Kayani announced that he would not take an extension for a second time, Gen Sharif was not among the favourites in the race for army chief. Even after he beat all the odds to become the chief, his detractors continued to doubt him saying he lacked intelligence and operations background. But he did not allow those shortcomings to become a handicap and proved everyone wrong. The high point in his tenure was the start of Operation Zarb-i-Azb in North Waziristan against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan in June 2014, something from which his predecessor shied away fearing blowback. The operation is now in its last stages. He is also credited for action against militancy in Karachi and partially restoring calm in the city. Gen Sharif has all along been supportive of the government, except for a statement at the corps commanders conference last November when he expressed reservations over civilian administrations governance. The comment presented the spectacle of a row between the civilian and military leadership. He has, nevertheless, maintained strong influence over the governments foreign and national security policies. The general garnered unprecedented popularity among the general public and on social media. Earlier this year, mysterious banners calling on Gen Sharif to "take over" the government popped up in various cities across the country. Most recently, banners were spotted in Rawalpindi which urged him to contest the general elections in 2018. The army denied having any connection to the banners. Raheel Sharif was born in Quetta on June 16, 1956 to Major and Mrs Muhammad Sharif, Army chief Gen Raheel Sharif grew up steeped in the military tradition. He attained his formal education at Government College Lahore and later went on to attend the Pakistan Military Academy. As a young officer, he performed his duties in Gilgit in an infantry brigade and also served as adjutant of Pakistan Military Academy. Over the years, Sharif climbed up the military ladder mentored by Musharraf who handed him command of the 11th Infantry Division in Lahore. He was awarded the Hilal-i-Imtiaz, the second highest civilian award and honour that is given to both civilians and military officers of the Pakistan armed forces. Despite the common surname, Raheel Sharif is not related to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but is known to be close to tribal affairs minister Lieutenant-General Abdul Qadir Baloch, a key confidante of the Sharif family. The general is married with two sons and a daughter. 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Por culpa de Chavez Cerveza Polar Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar Translate 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! While salaries for upper income black men have continued to climb since the 1960s, a starkly different picture appears for lower income black men. Credit: Duke University After years of progress, the median earnings gap between black and white men has returned to what it was in 1950, according to new research by economists from Duke University and the University of Chicago. The experience of African-American men is not uniform, though: The earnings gap between black men with a college education and those with less education is at an all-time high, the authors say. The research appears online in the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper series. The paper looks at earnings for working-age men across a span of 75 years, from 1940 to 2014. The earnings gap between black and white men narrowed during the civil rights era. Then, starting around 1970, the gap between black and white men's wages started widening once again. "When it comes to the earnings gap between black and white men, we've gone all the way back to 1950," said Duke economist Patrick Bayer, who co-authored the paper with Kerwin Kofi Charles of the University of Chicago. The picture for black men looks very different at the top of the economic ladder versus the bottom, the authors say. Since the 1960s, top black salaries have continued to climb. Those advances were fueled by more equal access to universities and high-skilled professions, the study finds. Meanwhile, a starkly different story transpired at the bottom of the economic ladder. Massive increases in incarceration rates and the general decline of working-class jobs have devastated the labor market prospects of men with a high school degree or less, the authors say. The changing economy has been hard on all workers with less than a high school education, but especially devastating for black men, Bayer said. "The broad economic changes we've seen since the 1970s have clearly helped people at the top of the ladder," Bayer said. "But the labor market for low-skilled workers has basically collapsed. "Back in 1940 there were plenty of jobs for men with less than a high school degree. Now education is more and more a determinant of who's working and who's not." In fact, more and more working-age men in the United States aren't working at all. The number of nonworking white men grew from about 8 percent in 1960 to 17 percent in 2014. The numbers look still worse among black men: In 1960, 19 percent of black men were not working; in 2014, that number had grown to 35 percent of black men. That includes men who are incarcerated as well those who can't find jobs. "The rate at which men are not working has been skyrocketing, and it's not simply the result of the Great Recession," Bayer said. "It's a big part of what's been happening to our economy over the past 40 years." The situation would be even worse if not for educational gains among African-Americans over the past 75 years, Bayer said. On average, black men today have many more years of schooling than black men of the past, and the education gap between white and black men has shrunk considerably. Nevertheless, a gap remains: These days, black men have about a year's less education than white men, on average. "In essence, the economic benefits that should have come from the substantial gains in education for black men over the past 75 years have been completely undone by the changing economy, which exacts an ever steeper price for the differences that still remain," Bayer said. The findings show the need for renewed focus on closing racial gaps in education and school quality, which have been stuck in place for several decades, according to the authors. They also suggest that any economic changes that improve prospects for all low-skilled workers will have the important side effect of reducing racial economic inequality. "We clearly need to create better job opportunities for everyone in the lower rungs of the economic ladder, where work has become increasingly hard to come by," Bayer said. More information: "Divergent Paths: Structural Change, Economic Rank, and the Evolution of Black-White Earnings Differences, 1940-2014," Patrick Bayer and Kerwin Kofi Charles. NBER Working Paper No. 2279, November 2016. An image of a diplonemid taken at sea; the cell was isolated for genomic sequencing. Credit: Patrick Keeling A rare microbe that was once thought to be insignificant has turned out to be one of the most abundant single-celled hunters in the ocean, and a team of researchers led by UBC have captured the first glimpse of these elusive predators. Diplonemids are tiny cells that have more or less been ignored by researchers until recently when surveys of marine diversity showed they are the most abundant protozoa, a diverse group of single-celled organisms that excludes bacteria and viruses, in the ocean. Despite their abundance, they had never been captured or observed directly in the ocean. Scientists from UBC and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) went to sea and managed to observe them for the first time. "When a microbe is so abundant, it probably plays a very important role in the ecosystem," said Patrick Keeling, a professor of botany at UBC and director of the Integrated Microbial Biodiversity program at CIFAR. "The microbial world is one of the last frontiers of exploration on our planet, and we're using microscopes together with genomics to learn as much as possible about this invisible life." The team sailed from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California to a well-studied part of the ocean known as Line 67, where the water is deep yet poor in nutrients. Here they photographed organisms from deep-water samples and used technology to sequence the genomes of these single-celled organisms. The research showed that diplonemids are a diverse group of species of many different shapes and sizes, and that they hunt both bacteria and larger algae. "It's like discovering lions after having only seen gazelles, antelopes and zebras for so many years," said Keeling. Diplonemids also proved to have interesting genomes that are large and full of "junk" DNA called introns that interrupt genes. Introns are found in genes of all complex cells, but the diplonemid introns are unique and appear to spread similar to how a virus copies its genetic material into other cells when it attacks. To learn more about the ecology of these organisms and the role they play in maintaining the marine ecosystmes, the next step will be to figure out how to keep diplonemids alive in the lab, "which will now be a lot easier since we know what they look like," said Keeling. More information: Ryan M.R. Gawryluk et al, Morphological Identification and Single-Cell Genomics of Marine Diplonemids, Current Biology (2016). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.09.013 Journal information: Current Biology Credit: NASA NOAA/NASA's Suomi NPP satellite captured this image of the fires that continue to blaze in the southeastern United States with no end in sight. There are several fires visible. Two are fires that are listed on the Inciweb site that keeps track of fires across the U.S. One is a fire that doesn't appear on either the Inciweb site or the GeoMAC wildfire viewer site and may not have been discovered as yet or may not have been reported to national authorities. The two fires that are named are the Chestnut Knob fire and the Rock Mountain fire. The Chestnut Knob fire began on November 06, 2016. Its cause is still under investigation. The fire has grown to 6,424 acres in size and is 40% contained. In the forecast is very low humidity and winds would could serve to flame the fire and help it to spread. Firefighters are continuing to hold the fire line in anticipation of the weather event. The Rock Mountain fire began on November 09, 2016 and was human caused. Currently the fire is 11,287 acres in size and is 30% contained. Unfortunately there is a high potential for extreme fire behavior from winds, low humidity and extremely dry fuels. The breezy conditions in the area continued to hamper firefighter efforts to control the perimeter. Wind gusts of 20-25 miles per hour, relative humidity minimums near 10%, and lack of meaningful rainfall in over three months are making extinguishing this fire very difficult. NASA's Suomi NPP satellite collected this natural-color image using the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument on November 20, 2016. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner with information from Inciweb. Provided by NASA Supercomputing and cryo-electron microscopy reveal this section of the human pre-initiation complex. The open conformation density map and model show the path of the DNA (blue/green) and its engagement by the transcription factor component TFIIH (pink). Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: He, Y. et al. Near-atomic resolution visualization of human transcription promoter opening. Nature 533, 359365 (2016). It sounds like something out of the Borg in Star Trek. Nano-sized robots self-assemble to form biological machines that do the work that keeps one alive. And yet something like this really does go on. Every cell in our body - be they flesh and blood, brain and everything in between - has identical DNA, the twisted staircase of nucleic acids uniquely coded to each organism. Complex assemblages that resemble molecular machines take pieces of DNA called genes and make a brain cell when needed, instead of, say, a bone cell. These molecular machines are so complex, yet so tiny, that scientists today are just starting to understand their structure and function using the latest microscopes and supercomputers. Biological molecular machines could lay the foundation for developing cures to diseases like cancer. How small can one see, and what will one find? Cryo-electron microscopy combined with supercomputer simulations have created the best model yet, with near atomic-level detail, of a vital molecular machine, the human pre-initiation complex (PIC). A science team from Northwestern University, Berkeley National Laboratory, Georgia State University, and UC Berkeley published their results on the PIC May 2016 in the journal Nature. "For the first time, structures have been detailed of the complex groups of molecules that open up human DNA," said study co-author Ivaylo Ivanov, associate professor of chemistry at Georgia State University. Ivanov led the computational work that modeled the atoms of the different proteins that act like cogs of the PIC molecular machine. The PIC finds genes associated with making a specific protein, such as an antibody or an enzyme. There the PIC pulls apart the two strands of DNA and feeds the coding strand to the workhorse enzyme RNA polymerase II. This starts transcription, where DNA bits are copied by RNA polymerase II into a single strand of messenger RNA. The RNA makes its way to 'protein factories' in the cell called ribosomes that take them as orders for which protein to make. If DNA is like the blueprint of a new house, RNAs are instructions to the 'contractors' at the ribosome work station. The manufactured proteins are like the nails, wood, plaster, and just about everything else in the house. The experiment began with images painstakingly taken of PIC. They were made by a group led by study co-author Eva Nogales, a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at UC Berkeley and also Senior Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Howard Hughes Medical Investigator. Nogales' group used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), a rising star in lab techniques. They cryogenically froze human PIC bound to DNA. The freezing kept it in a chemically-active, near-natural environment. Next they zapped it with electron beams. Thanks to recent advances in direct electron detector technology, cryo-EM can now image at near atomic resolution large and complicated biological structures that have proven too difficult to crystalize. The go-to technique, X-ray crystallography, requires crystallized specimens, and cryo-EM avoids this hard step. Over 1.4 million cryo-EM 'freeze frames' of PIC were processed using supercomputers at the National Energy Research for Scientific Computing Center to sift out background noise and reconstructed three-dimensional density maps that show details in the shape of the molecule that had never been seen before. "Cryo-EM is going through a great expansion as are all the computer software used to generate both the density maps and also to interpret them like we've done in this study," Nogales said. "It is allowing us to get higher resolution of more structures in different states so that we can describe not just one picture of how they look, but several pictures showing how they are moving. We don't see a continuum, but we see snapshots through the process of action." Study scientists next built an accurate model that made physical sense of the density maps of PIC using XSEDE, the eXtream Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, funded by the National Science Foundation. XSEDE allows scientists to interactively share computing resources, data and expertise via a single virtual system. Ivaylo Ivanov's team has run over four million core hours of simulations on the Stampede supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center to model complex molecular machines, including those for this study. Ivanov's broader molecular machine work also includes an XSEDE allocation of 1.7 million core hours on the Comet supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputing Center. "I have been using XSEDE resources for more than 12 years now," Ivanov said. "Without the availability of XSEDE resources, all of our research would have been much more limited in terms of the systems that we can address. For us, XSEDE has been absolutely essential." The goal of all this computational effort is to produce atomic models that tell the full story of the structure and function of the protein complex of molecules. To get there Ivanov's team took the twelve components of the PIC assembly and created homology models for each component that accounted for their amino acid sequences and their relation to similar known protein 3-D structures. Next they approximated the experimental densities Nogales' team found onto a grid. "We can use a method called molecular dynamics flexible fitting," explained Ivanov, "where you essentially run a molecular dynamics simulation. And you use the experimental density to bias the atoms in the molecular dynamics simulation to move into the denser regions of the EM map. That's the process of flexible fitting to the EM map." They refined the model with the Phoenix crystallographic refinement package. "That is a complimentary technique that allows us to position side chains and improve the model so that we can capture all the details that are present in the density map," Ivanov said. XSEDE was "absolutely necessary" for this modeling, said Ivanov. "When we include water and counter ions in addition to the PIC complex in a molecular dynamics simulation box, we get the simulation system size of over a million atoms. One cannot run that on a work station or even on a modest cluster. For that we really need to go to a thousand cores. In this case, we went up to two thousand and forty-eight cores. And for that we needed access to Stampede," Ivanov said. One of the insights gained in the study is a working model of how PIC opens the otherwise stable DNA double helix for transcription. Nogales explained that one could imagine a cord made of two threads twisted around each other. Hold one end very tightly. Grab the other and twist it in the opposite direction of the threading to unravel the cord. That's basically how the living machines that keep us alive do it. "The DNA needs to be opened and moved into the polymerase active site to encode for the first RNA nucleotide," explained Nogales. "The pre-initiation complex is holding the two strands of the DNA very tightly together at one end, so that they cannot move and they cannot open. On the other side of the PIC there is a machine that uses energy to push the DNA, twisting it in the opposite direction in which the two strands are threaded. And when this happens, in between the two sides, the strands will open," said Nogales. This study resolved the structure of that molecular machine that acts like the twisting fingers, the transcription factor component TFIIH. "TFIIH has a translocase sub-unit, whose role is to simultaneously push the DNA toward the active site of the polymerase and unwind the DNA. By the combined pushing and unwinding, effectively you are separating the two strands of the DNA," Ivanov said. Both scientists said that they are just beginning to get an atomic-level understanding of transcription, crucial to gene expression and ultimately disease. "Many disease states come about because there are errors in how much a certain gene is being read and how much a certain protein with a certain activity in the cell is present," Nogales said. "Those disease states could be due to excess production of the protein, or conversely not enough. It is very important to understand the molecular process that regulates this production so that we can understand the disease state." "This work illustrates well two general principles that will drive science in the next few years," commented Peter Preusch, program officer with the National Institutes of Health (NIH). "One is the application of hybrid methods combinations of biophysical methods including x-ray crystallography and cryoEM along with large scale computational methods to integrate information on larger molecular complexes. Two, there's the requirement for team science drawing the expertise of multiple investigators to solve problems that cannot be tackled by any single lab working alone." Peter Preusch is the Biophysics Branch Chief, Cell Biology and Biophysics Division, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH. While this fundamental work does not directly produce cures, it does lay the foundation to help develop them in the future, said Ivanov. "In order to understand disease, we have to understand how these complexes function in the first place A collaboration between computational modelers and experimental structural biologists could be very fruitful in the future. " The May 2016 Nature Articles study (DOI: 10.1038/nature17970), "Near-atomic resolution visualization of human transcription promoter opening," was authored by Yuan He, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and now at Northwestern University; Chunli Yan and Ivaylo Ivanov, Georgia State University; Jie Fang, Carla Inouye, Robert Tjian, Eva Nogales, UC Berkeley. Funding came from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIH) and the National Science Foundation. More information: Yuan He et al. Near-atomic resolution visualization of human transcription promoter opening, Nature (2016). DOI: 10.1038/nature17970 Journal information: Nature Coral skeleton sample from the study, and its 3-D reconstructions showing the external surface in gray, and CT-scan analysis of new structure added on the outside (colored green) and boreholes from worms showing structure loss on the inside (in blue). Credit: Enochs, Manzello, Kolodziej, Noonan, Valentino & Fabricius Scientists studying naturally high carbon dioxide coral reefs in Papua New Guinea found that erosion of essential habitat is accelerated in these highly acidified waters, even as coral growth continues to slow. The new research by the University of Miami Rosenstiel School's Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS), NOAA, and the Australian Institute of Marine Science has important implications for coral reefs around the world as the ocean become more acidic as a result of global change. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, measured changes in the structural habitat at two reefs situated in volcanically acidified water off remote Papau New Guinea and, for the first time, found increased activity of worms and other organisms that bore into the reef structure, resulting in a loss of the framework that is the foundation of coral reef ecosystems. These 'champagne reefs' are natural analogs of how coral reefs may look in 100 years if carbon dioxide continues to rise and ocean acidification conditions continue to worsen. "This is the first study to demonstrate that ocean acidification is a two-front assault on coral reefs, simultaneously slowing the growth of skeleton, and speeding up the rate at which old reef habitats are eroded, said Ian Enochs, a coral ecologist at CIMAS and NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory and lead author of the study." Enochs placed pieces of coral skeleton alongside these 'champagne reefs' for two years to allow diverse coral reef communities to settle on them and to understand how reefs respond to ocean acidification conditions. 3-D animation of the coral cat scan showing erosion and accretion in naturally acidified waters. Credit: Enochs, Manzello, Kolodziej, Noonan, Valentino & Fabricius Using high-resolution CT scans similar to those taken at hospitals, the scientists created 3-D models of the coral skeletons to peer inside the coral skeletons and to see the bore holes left by worms and other organisms. These scans allowed them to measure the difference between new coral material added by calcifying organisms and coral material lost through bio-erosion. The analysis found that a net loss of coral reef skeletons was occurring due to increased bio-erosion and at the pH tipping point of 7.8, reef frameworks in this region will begin to dissolve away. "At these reefs, carbon dioxide from subterranean volcanic sources bubble up through the water, creating conditions that approximate what the rest of the world's oceans will experience due to ocean acidification," said Enochs. "This is the first study to piece together all of the separate coral reef ocean acidification processes, simultaneously looking at the different organisms that grow and erode reef habitats, and their net effects on one another over time." More information: Ian C. Enochs et al, Enhanced macroboring and depressed calcification drive net dissolution at high-COcoral reefs, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2016). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.1742 Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B Nigerian tribal king Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi has flown to London for a High Court hearing in which lawyers for more than 40,000 Nigerians are demanding action from Shell to clean up oil spills King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi holds up a plastic bottle containing contaminated water from his community in Nigeria, proof of oil pollution that he blames on Royal Dutch Shelland on which he hopes a London court will deliver justice. "My people are drinking this water," said the tribal king of the Ogale community in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Okpabi has flown to London for a High Court hearing on Tuesday in which lawyers for more than 40,000 Nigerians are demanding action from Shell to clean up oil spills that have devastated their communities for decades. "There are strange diseases in my communityskin diseases, people are dying sudden deaths, some people are impotent, low sperm count," he told AFP. "I can afford to buy water. But can I afford to buy for everybody? No." The Anglo-Dutch oil giant argues that the case should be heard in Nigeria, pointing out that it involves its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the government, and Nigerian plaintiffs. But Okpabi, wearing a traditional robe with a red necklace and black top hat, said the English justice system was his only hope to end the blight on his people's lives. "Shell is Nigeria and Nigeria is Shell. You can never, never defeat Shell in a Nigerian court. The truth is that the Nigerian legal system is corrupt," he said. King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi sits next to plastic bottles containing contaminated water from his community in Nigeria, proof, he says, of oil pollution by Royal Dutch Shell He wants the High Court to compel Shell to implement a 2011 landmark report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which warned of dangerously high levels of hydrocarbons in the water, bitumen-coated mangroves and poor air quality. It should order the company to "go and clean-up Ogale, go and provide water for them; go and do medical history for them, and where medical attention is needed provide for them," he said. The king said no money would be enough to address the damage, which UNEP warned could take 25 to 30 years to resolve, but wants compensation, adding: "We are dying." Sabotage Shell will challenge the jurisdiction of the English courts in the case during three days of hearings this week, while it also disputes the claims made by lawyers Leigh Day, who represent Ogale and the smaller Bille community. "Both Bille and Ogale are areas heavily impacted by crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining which remain the main sources of pollution across the Niger Delta," a company spokeswoman said. She noted SPDC has not produced any oil or gas in Ogoniland, the region surrounding Ogale, since 1993. A man in Nigeria's Ogoniland region looks at a mix of oil and water in a boat on the Bodo waterways, heavily polluted by oil spills attributed to Shell in 2011 But Okpabi and his lawyers say the company's ageing, leaky pipelines still run through the region and it must take responsibility. SPDC says it has delivered water and healthcare to the community and is supporting the implementation of the UNEP process by the government, which in June launched a $1 billion (800 million, 940 million euros) oil pollution clean-up programme in the Niger Delta. Okpabi said he believed President Muhammadu Buhari is "sincere" in wanting to address the issue, but warned: "If we wait for the system to roll on its own, I hate to say this, but it may be too late for the people of Ogale." Attacks on Nigerian pipelines have increased this year, cutting output and helping tip the country into recession, but Okpabi insists "there is no vandalising" in Ogale. The king condemned the saboteurs, warning that "you cannot bomb your house to get attention". However, he added: "I'm also appealing to Shell and the Nigerian government to listen to those communities that are non-violent and do something." In January 2015, Shell agreed to pay more than $80 million to the Nigerian fishing community of Bodo for two oil spills in 2008, following a case brought by Leigh Day in London. In December, a Dutch court permitted four Nigerian farmers and fishermen to sue the company for environmental pollution, potentially opening the door to other cases to be brought in the Netherlands. 2016 AFP Douglas V. Gibbs is a proud member of the American Authors Association Douglas V. Gibbs is a proud member of the Military Writers Society of America. A reader left me this question on my voice mail this morning: How can Hillary be winning the popular vote? It actually is very possible, and it happened in 2000 when George W. Bush lost the popular vote by about 540,000 votes to Al Gore. Here is how the folks at factcheck.org explained it: Because candidates can win some states by wide margins and others by a slim one, it is possible for a candidate to win the Electoral College vote even if he or she loses the national popular vote. That is what happened this year. Donald Trump won states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by the slimmest of margins, while Hillary Cllinton won some of the most populous states California, New York and Illinois by wide margins. What was truly disturbing is that my caller believed that the media is cooking the books. But this would be the fourth time it happened in U.S. history. USA Today reported Tuesday that Clintons lead is about 1.7 million votes and continues to increase due to an influx of absentee and provisional ballots still being counted in California. The tally right now is 63.7 million votes for Clinton to 62 million for Trump. Clinton tallied 3.5 million more votes than Trump in California alone, which easily explains why she is winning the popular vote. Rita McCarthy NEW PALTZ - Rita McCarthy, 92, formerly of New Paltz, New York, died peacefully at Westview Health Care Center in Dayville, Connecticut, Nov. 20, 2016 after a very brief illness. She had resided at Creamery Brook Retirement Village in Brooklyn, Connecticut since 2011. Rita was born Nov. 9, 1924 in Glens Falls, New York, the daughter of Helene and Frank Kelleher. She was a very bright child and skipped two grades in elementary school, graduating from South Glens Falls High School at age sixteen. After graduation, Rita chose to work for a year, deferring her acceptance to SUNY Plattsburgh. Her secretarial skills were remarkable, and in a short while she was secretary to the Vice-President of the Glens Falls Insurance Company. Studies in Plattsburgh were forgotten. She remained at the insurance company until she married Edward J. McCarthy on May 23, 1953. As a young couple, they moved around, living in Buffalo, Albany, and Holden, Massachusetts before settling in New Paltz, in 1966, living there for 45 years. After the birth of their son, Rita became a stay-at-home mom for more than a decade. She then returned to work, first in the Continuing Education Department of SUNY New Paltz, and then at the Mid-Hudson Medical Consortiumew York Medical College. In retirement, Rita and Ed led a quiet life, traveling to Hawaii, Ireland, Las Vegas, Myrtle Beach, Maine, and various other places. Edward McCarthy, her husband of 56 years, died in 2009. She was also predeceased by her brother, Leo Kelleher; and her cousins Frances Hay and Reverend Robert Buckley, all of Glens Falls. Rita is survived by her son, Michael McCarthy, of Willimantic, Connecticut. The family is especially thankful for the staff and residents of Creamery Brook Retirement Village, who helped to make Rita's final years fulfilling and enjoyable. She loved living there! In lieu of flowers, donations in Rita's name may be made to: New England Music Camp Scholarship Fund, 8 Goldenrod Lane, Sidney, ME 04330. Calling hours will be held 9 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 23, at Potter Funeral Home, 456 Jackson St. (Rte 195) Willimantic, CT. with a procession to the Funeral Mass to be celebrated at 10 a.m. at St. Joseph Church, 99 Jackson St., Willimantic, CT. Interment will be at Saint Mary Cemetery, South Glens Falls, NY. To sign the online memorial guest book, please visit www.potterfuneralhome.com QUEENSBURY -- A Queensbury man was charged with felony criminal contempt Saturday for allegedly violating an order of protection, police records show. Anthony A. Baker, 21, was arrested on West Mountain Road shortly after State Police received a complaint about an order of protection violation, according to the State Police public information website. Baker was also charged with non-criminal harassment for having unwanted physical contact with another person, the website showed. Baker was arraigned and sent to Warren County Jail for lack of bail, but had posted bail as of Monday. GLENS FALLS A death by suicide creates shockwaves in a family and the community at large. The aftermath of suicide leaves so many questions, so much misery. Why did this happen? Why didnt she know how much we loved her? Why didnt he come to me? I would have helped him, said Sandra Spaulding, pastor for Bottskill Baptist Church in Greenwich and Lakeville Baptist Church in Cossayuna. The inability to make sense of horrible loss causes survivors to feel out of control sometimes and very vulnerable, Spaulding said. Spaulding said she wants to help because she has seen many lives touched by suicide, including her sister-in-law. Spaulding is the Washington County team leader for the Warren Washington County Suicide Prevention Coalitions new Postvention Response Team. The team is a group of volunteers and professionals who are available to assist someone who has been affected by suicide. The members have received training in suicide prevention and awareness. The support and resources offered in the very first days are critically important and they can be life-affirming in ways that are so needed, Spaulding said. About 20 people gathered at the Charles R. Wood Theater on Monday for the announcement of the teams. Allison Reynolds is the Warren County team leader and also chairwoman of the Suicide Prevention Coalition. She said the coalition has been around for three years and, since that time, the group has been getting calls from schools and community agencies about how to deal with friends and family members after a death by suicide. Postvention is really that time afterward where we know that a tragic death or suicide can increase the risk for some individuals that maybe already having thought of suicide, she said. Reynolds said they can provide resources for parents, educators and community members. People or agencies can call 232-4056 to seek help from the team. Teams are on call seven days a week throughout the year to respond within 24 to 72 hours of the event. Reynolds said they will refer people to other agencies. Among the services they will provide are debriefings, information and referrals, education, problem-solving and practical assistance. The team also may offer small group or one-on-one support. The team does not provide counseling or therapy but can refer people to services. This area has a higher risk for death by suicide, according to Reynolds. Warren County and Saratoga County both have about 12 deaths per 100,000 by suicide, according to 2015 data. Washington County has 15 deaths per 100,000 and Hamilton County has 17.7. Were higher than Albany and were higher than New York City, she said. Reynolds said the coalition is working side by side with the Hometown vs. Heroin Coalition because overdose deaths are community tragedies, which could lead to suicide. Suicide is a public health problem, according to Linda Wright, children and youth single-point-of-access coordinator for the Warren County Office of Community Services. It creates ripple effects on the people who are left behind. Our purpose is to help people impacted by the sudden tragic loss by suicide or other means. Its important to help them regain control over their lives, she said. It is important that they are provided with grief support and mental health resources, she added. For more information, contact Reynolds at allisonreynolds@councilforprevention or Lauralee Tucker at lauraleetucker@councilforprevention or by calling 746-1527. Karen Cormies job these days is to drive people around the Glens Falls area late at night and into the morning, long after most of us have gone to bed. The 45-year-old Tri-County Cab driver from Queensbury, who worked for 20 years at The Post-Star in graphics and production, chatted Tuesday morning, minutes after her shift ended, about her new career. Q. After 20 years in four stints at The Post-Star, why become a cab driver? A. Oh boy. I found myself with an injury to my foot, so I needed a job where I was sitting down. I went to college in between that for mortuary science, expecting to be a funeral director. I was in need of a job and always thought, boy it would be fun to be a cab driver. I always wanted to try it. One day I was in need of a job and just went out and got my city permit and did it. Q. Tell me the funniest cabby moment in your year-plus of driving late night? A. That would be definitely a customer I was bringing from a Lake George bar, taking him up north, and he really had to relieve himself, he had to pee. There was a long stretch of woods and it was 1 to 2 in the morning, so I pulled over to let him do his business. He went into the woods a little bit, a considerate young man. As soon as he went into the woods, out of nowhere two fully uniformed rangers with hard-brimmed hats came out and asked what I was doing there. The customer came out the woods and said, I asked her to pull over because I couldnt find my phone. I just went along with it. I think they might of known, but they said OK and we left. Q. How about a sad moment? A. I think, in general, when youre bringing people in Medicabs that are ill. Of course, I have a great deal of empathy for anyone battling sickness or if they just lost a loved one. Thats honestly the worst times. I try to be a lending ear, to listen and give them any kind of condolences or anything I can. A lot are very thankful. They get out and say thank you so much for listening. Thats rewarding for me and hopefully it helped them a little. Q. Are you ever scared as a female cab driver in the city late at night? A. I get that a lot. The easy answer is Id be more scared in daytime traffic in Albany than in Glens Falls at night. I own the roads at night. The people that dont talk much or say anything at all, they make me wonder. Most people are happy, wanting to come and go, out having a good time. I had only one person who got on the violent side. I kicked him out. He was quite inebriated and was verbally violent, saying vulgar things. I think he thought I was someone else. The greatest thing about that is the cops are all over the place. Sometimes I just wont take them. And my fellow cab drivers always say, just say help and well be there iN seconds flat. Q. You said you went to school to become a funeral director. What appealed to you about that job? A. I lost my mother at age 14, and I think when something like that happens to you, you have great sincerity toward people in the funeral home because they were there to help you through it. I really wanted to eventually be a bereavement counselor. When you have anything profound happen to you, having someone there to help you through is what I wanted to do. I wanted to be there for the living. Funerals are for the living. Q. What can fares expect to listen to in your cab on the radio? A. You dont have much time to play around with the radio, but I listen to 101.7 or 106.5. When people ask to turn on dance music, I do, but its painful. Im an old metal head. Q. Do you develop bonds with frequent riders? A. Yes, definitely. A woman I began picking up eight months ago babysits her grandkids and goes home late at night. The first couple times I brought her home. You know, people are so funny, so comical. I love it when I get people that make me laugh the whole time. She said, Someday Karen, you and I are going to drive off in the sunset like Thelma and Louise. I never saw the movie, I told her, and she said You have to because were going to do that. They pull me into their world and Im very privileged to share pieces of them, especially the comedy. Q. What has been the longest fare so far? A. Ive gone to North Creek, farthest north, Albany to south. Being nights, we dont go far. Ive never driven to NYC and dont want to and I dont have an enhanced license so I cant go to Canada. I do end up doing 800 to 1,000 miles a week. Q. Describe your worst night in the cab? A. Probably when I tried to tell a gentleman he had to get out of my cab. He wasnt being nice and there were other customers in the car. He didnt leave, but wanted to stop at Cumberland Farms to get beer. His wife was one of the people in the car. He got out and I left him there. His wife said Thank you so much for leaving him there. You dont want to have to do that. I felt bad, but I saw him the next night and he didnt even remember it. Q. What is an average tip and whats the biggest tip you got? A. Average is $5. Biggest was $50. Ive heard other drivers say theyve gotten more. Q. I know you love this job, but tell me a pet peeve about it? A. Having to hold my bladder too long. Trying not to hit people when there are 3,000 pedestrians in Lake George. Very, very loud motorcycles. Car malfunctions like flat tires. Speeding tickets. Bad road conditions. Q. Our morning is your night. Whats good and bad about that? A. Good thing is nights are calm. Me and the sun dont get along too well, so its nice not to see the sun. I like the calmness of nighttime. Bad things are having to get up in the day to do anything. Even make a phone call. Just like you wouldnt want to get up in the middle of your night, you know? But you have to, because thats the way the world works. Q. Whats next for Karen Cormie? A. I want to learn how to fly a Cessna plane. Dont know why. I'm not on Facebook and do not post to Medium. Twitter has suspended me. I don't know why. mscriver@3rivers.net COMMENTS WELCOME unless they are anonymous. Inventory needs to be managed and managed well, or you are going to get in recurring trouble, and lose your credibility and hard-earned conversions, whether Read more Maw Julie is 58. When she was in her mid-20s, the Burmese Army came looking for her aging father. They tied up her father and brother and beat them, accusing them of being part of the Karenni ethnic army. After the soldiers left, Maw Julie found the bullet-riddled bodies of friends in the center of her village. Her father refused to leave home. He stopped eating. Three months later, he died. Maw Julie headed east through the jungle, living off the land, making her way to a refugee camp in Thailand: a city of bamboo huts filled with close-knit Karenni families as well as troublemakers. A decade ago, she met a man she thought wanted to court her. Instead, he came to her hut and raped her, time and again. An American aid worker put her in touch with the United Nations agency that resettles refugees. In 2012, she moved to North Carolina. With no English skills, unable to concentrate and unable to work, Maw Julie fell through a hole in the states social safety net and ended up homeless. A nephew suggested she move to Buffalo, where she made friends in the local Karenni community and took joy in going to church every Sunday. Her doctor prescribed an antidepressant that helped. Then, Maw Julie said, her landlord decided he didnt want welfare tenants anymore. The property manager took to calling Maw Julie and ordering her to get out. When he called, she panicked. The phone rang again on a warm morning this June when Maw Julie was packing her belongings. As the phone rang and rang, she got more and more scared. She rushed to the window of her second-story flat and opened it, hoping for fresh air. She blacked out and fell out the window to the ground below. Maw Julie woke up in Erie County Medical Center. After back surgery and months of rehabilitation, she is back home in another West Side flat. She spends her time in a wheelchair. On a recent Saturday morning, her worries centered on an empty pill bottle on her coffee table. Her prescription antidepressant had run out, and she had no idea how to get it refilled. Glick didnt go into medicine on the poor West Side to earn such living tributes. Instead, Glick said, he and his wife, Joyce, founded Jericho Road in 1997 in hopes of providing health care to anyone who needed it, whether they have insurance or not. Over time, the West Side changed, and Jericho Road changed with it, as thousands of refugees from Burma and elsewhere flooded into the neighborhood. Before long, Glick found himself in a new role, as friend and counselor as well as healer to countless refugee families. Peter and Zin Ei Kyaw, more than most, witnessed Glicks special brand of caring, especially as Zin Ei Kyaw suffered a miscarriage six months into her first pregnancy. Dr. Glick took care of her like a father, Peter Kyaw said. Zin Ei Kyaw agreed. I was very depressed at the time," she said. He counseled me not to feel bad. He gave me energy. He said: We will make this happen. And within a year or so, young Glick Kyaw was born. Obviously, Jericho Road is an outlier in an age of impersonal medicine, which is just the way Glick wants it. Once a family practice, Jericho Road is now a community health center employing more than 20 medical professionals, as well as a we-do-it-all service provider to the refugee community. Refugee women go to Jericho Road for pregnancy counseling before a doctor from Jericho Road delivers their babies. Then they rely on Jericho Road for in-home services and an after-school program as their children grow. For adult refugees, Jericho Road offers English classes, financial literacy training and support for homebuyers as well as the Hope Refugee Drop-In Center, sort of a one-stop problem-solver. Its more than Glick ever imagined. I did not foresee us being about caring for people from 70 countries, Glick said. But Im happy were able to ride this wave. By no means is it an easy wave to ride. Virtually none of the refugees arriving from Burma has ever seen a dentist, and many have destroyed their teeth by chewing betel nuts, a cancer-causing Asian addiction. A small percentage arrive with Hepatitis B, or undiagnosed HIV. Once or twice a year, Jericho Roads staff sees a patient with tuberculosis, which is still common in Southeast Asia. Combine all this with the fact that many refugees do not know English which is why Jericho Road employs a tag team of interpreters and it all poses a series of daily challenges for Glick and his colleagues. You have to have a lot of humility to care for this population, Glick said. Theres so much you dont know. That was evident when Dr. Glick was informed of his new namesake. When I told him, he stopped for a minute and got really quiet, Zin Ei Kyaw said. And then he smiled and said: Wow. Wonderful. Jerry Zremski These days, she is 8,000 miles from home, in Buffalo. A bright and fit young woman with long black hair and a glimmering smile, she studies accounting at Medaille College and teaches Sunday School and sings in the choir at the Lai Baptist Church. And its all because her mother, Hniag Doi, struck a deal with an agent a human trafficker to ferry her family from Burma to Malaysia. The move came as a surprise to Ni Bor Hlawn, but it shouldnt have. She was a healthy young girl who could serve as an attendant for the soldiers. A lot of poor families, they were forced to give up their daughters, who were forced to join the military, Ni Bor Hlawn said. It was frightening. A lot of people were running away. But running wasnt easy. Ni Bor Hlawn recalls her mother waking her and her brother and leading them on a journey by foot, from one safe house to another, for many days until they reached the Burmese coastline. There, Ni Bor Hlawn and her family crowded onto that tiny old steamboat with about 20 other people. Nighttime wasnt the worst time, because the passengers crowded up close against each other didnt have to hide then. Daytime, though, was hellish. The crew would hide the passengers under a tarpaulin, and the passengers endured the next 12 hours baking beneath it as the tropical sun bore down on the dark plastic above them. Ni Bor Hlawn remembers her little brother crying endlessly as he suffered in the heat. She remembers a passenger becoming ill and throwing up all over her. And she recalls the steadiness of her mom, who kept the family fed with the snacks she brought along for the days-long journey. The suffering was supposed to end at the Malaysian coastline, where the passengers were to crowd into vans for the drive to Kuala Lumpur, the metropolis where thousands of Chin refugees had already found off-the-books work and formed an underground community. But for Ni Bor Hlawn, Malaysia at first only meant more pain. The human traffickers shoved her into one van and her mother and brother into another, meaning she soon found herself alone in a foreign city of 1.5 million at the age of 12. The Chin refugees in Kuala Lumpur took good care of her, finding her a place to stay and enrolling her in school. But Ni Bor Hlawn couldnt stop crying, until one day at school three weeks later, when she heard her mothers voice calling her. The family settled into a five-bedroom apartment with about 20 other Chin refugees and awaited the arrival of Ni Bor Hlawns father, Kilmang Zathang, about a year later. And a year after that, the family got the word that they were coming to America. Ni Bor Hlawn arrived in Buffalo in 2009 not knowing English, so she enrolled in School 33 feeling like a stranger. But teachers helped, as did the unlikely teachers she listened to at home: Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson. I tried to memorize and pick up their accents as much as I can, said Ni Bor Hlawn, who now speaks fluent English. These days, Ni Bor Hlawn said she enjoys school at Medaille, and she dreams about going back to Chin State and helping her people someday. She said she has seen media reports about the Rohingya boat people who died making the same journey she survived. But she chooses to focus more on her future rather than that flashback memory. I can imagine being there and suffering like that, she said. I can just feel myself back there, and I dont like it. Jerry Zremski Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Home Regional News East "He told me to come back at 7:30pm. And I told him I have lectures AND HE TOLD ME TO MISS my class. Then gave me his number and told me to save it as my name too. My phone kept on blinking and he was so nervous and scared and he told me hope I am not recording him. I was frightened throughout the day, even when we were going to write exams, thinking he was going to recognize my face, but fortunately enough, he couldn't recognize my face. I've been going for his lectures without he even knowing and remembering what happened the same day", Mary told Pulse.com.gh. Mary seemed lucky as thousands of mostly female university students in Ghana have faced even worse situations at the hands of some lecturers, teaching assistants and other university staff. Many have been forced to face the option of giving sex for good grades or declining to lose grades. Some lecturers have failed students repeatedly for refusing to yield to their sexual demands. READ ALSO: Kenyan man invents a bed that charges phones when making love And Nadia is one of such students. She believes she lost some grades because she turned down a proposal from her lecturer. "A course that many people had A, he gave me a C. I just decided to let sleeping dogs lie and concentrate on my studies. It started with an IA, after checking the IA and everything which was bad, I took it for remarking, and he told me at a point that the IA looked good, but he wasn't going to do anything about it". Other victims of sexual harassment who have refused to give in to the sexual demands of their lecturers are pestered constantly on campus, as Lydia, a level 300 university explains. "He tells you to come to his room at odd hours even though there is no light. When he meets you outside, he will still be asking you why you wouldn't come to his room". While sexual harassment in universities is mostly viewed from the angle of male lecturers chasing after female students, little is often spoken about female students deliberately seducing male lecturers, mainly for better grades. Dr. Evans Aggrey Darko is a lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana. He says he has been approached by female students who wanted to trade sex for good grades. "But of course, I'm not a novice, and when somebody demonstrates that willingness, I see them. We need to have a certain moral capacity. Dr. Aggrey Darko said. We are all human beings, we get attracted you know. Anybody who says he doesn't see things in a system is a hypocrite or a sycophant." In spite of the prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual assaults on Ghanaian campuses, many of the victims confessed that they were neither aware of where to go nor whom to approach when lecturers or teaching assistants harassed them. Several of them expressed a lack of faith in the ability or willingness of their university management to provide justice in cases of sexual harassment. They feared being victimised if they reported. READ MORE: Fetish priest in police grips for defiling minor Last year, five lecturers of African University College of Communications, were reportedly asked to proceed on leave over an explosive sex scandal, featuring one Matilda Wilson, a level 300 AUCC student and some lecturers in the school. This was after the agreement between them to adore her with good grades turned sour. This is just one of the few instances where action has been taken in a sex for grade situation; perhaps it is because it became public. Several concerns have been raised as to how the menace can be curbed in the Ghanaian society. At the University of Ghana, for instance there is the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy, CEGENSA which deals with sexual harassment complaints. And there is also a Gender unit at UPSA which handles some of these complaints of sexual harassment Some anti-sexual harassment campaigners have said managing sexual harassment should focus on changing behaviour. Shatta Wale in a Twitter rant yesterday (Dec. 21) alleged that Obour is not serving the purpose of the musicians union thus he should resign. Shatta Wale started his rant by asking Obour to resign and also discussed the frustrations of musicians about how Obour had misused funds of the union. Responding to these allegations, Obour told Pulse.com.gh that any member of the union will not take Shatta Wales comments serious. This is not new. He has been doing this for the past two years. Shatta Wale drives on a lot of controversies so I am sure any MUSIGA member will take his comments seriously. The members of the union who see the works will not take these comments seriously. Anybody who takes these comments seriously is not a MUSIGA member. We launched MUSIGA Academy, MUSIGA Grand Ball, peace campaigns and all that so when these comments come from people who are not members and dont see the developments, we treat those comments as comments that are coming from outside, Obour told Pulse.com.gh When quizzed whether there is a friction between them, Obour said Shatta Wale has nothing against him. He also asserted that controversy is part of Wales persona and that he does it occasionally to get the media talk about it. I dont think he has something against me. I have not offended him either. I just think controversy is part of his art. Periodically, he picks on people and has the media talk about it. Mayor John Cranley has declared the 17th November of each year an 'Okyeame Kwame Day'; to solemnise his status as International Cultural Ambassador to the city. A presentation ceremony on 21st November 2016 at the Renew Community Church saw the city Mayor applauding the artiste for his unprecedented efforts at fighting Hepatitis B, for which the Black Nurses Association recognises. "Now, therefore, I John Cranley Mayor of the great city of Cincinnati do hereby proclaim November 17th, 2016 as your day!" And we want to make sure you always come back to Cincinnati and we have an open door for you. So we're also giving you a key to the city", he added. The presentation of the key to the city signifies the beginning of a new day where the African is given recognition for their positive contributions to development. It represents a freedom of expression for the thousands of the residing Ghanaians. It is a symbol of trade, and cultural unity between Ghana (through the Ashanti empire) and Cincinnati of Ohio State. The 17th of November of the ensuing years will see a collaboration between the artiste and various departments on culture and health agencies to inspire people through his music. Earlier this year, Ghanaian investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas and award-winning actor, Abraham Attah had been given the keys to Massachusetts in recognition of their respective accomplishments. The "Key to the City" is an honour bestowed by a city upon esteemed residents and visitors. The two lawmakers had been summoned by the CS to discuss security matters but ended up fighting each other even before they had a meeting with Nkaissery. Daily Nation quoted Mr. Lempurkel as saying that he was attacked by Ms Korere when he got to the boardroom where he was to wait before meeting Nkaissery. The Laikipia North MP further revealed that he was also attacked by everyone in the boardroom when he tried defending himself against Ms Korere. Ms Korere started insulting me and rose trying to slap me, and when I tried to defend myself, everyone who was in the room turned against me and beat me up. I sustained injuries on my head, wrist and chest. I was taken to Parliament Police Station where I recorded a statement before going to the Karen Hospital, Laikipia North MP Mathew Lempurkel was quoted by Daily Nation. Ms Korere and Mr. Lempurkel have been engaged supremacy battles before; the latter, who was nominated on a jubilee ticket, seeks to unseat the former who was elected on an ODM ticket. "With eight cases in 2015 in Anjouan and three in Moheli, we can say we have reached the phase of total elimination of the epidemic, although sporadic cases are still recorded on the Grande Comore," said Mbae Toyb, a doctor with the Comorian Association for Family Welfare. After a 10-year anti-malaria campaign, health workers in the capital Moroni say the parasite is no more than a bad memory. "We can go for one or two months now without a single case," said a caregiver at El-Maarouf hospital. This has changed life for businessman Hassane Assoumane, who suffered recurrent attacks of the mosquito-borne disease that can be fatal if not diagnosed and treated early. "I was (like) a malaria subscriber," said Assoumane. "For me it was (like) my monthly period." "But for the last four years, nothing." The eradication of malaria from the impoverished islands off the coast of Mozambique is a huge accomplishment for their 800,000 inhabitants. It means fewer maternal and infant deaths, less absenteeism from work and school, and substantial financial savings. "Treatment for a child with malaria costs 15,000 francs ($33)," Assoumane says, and "if you add a brother, father, mother ..." Some 214 million cases of malaria were reported worldwide last year, killing 438,000 people, mainly in Africa, according to the World Health Organization. There is currently no vaccine against malaria, which is caused by parasites transmitted to people bitten by infected female mosquitoes. "Until 2004, the Comoros was ranked among countries with intense and perennial malaria transmission," affecting 40 percent of the population, especially children, said Toyb. Awaiting certification But in less than five years the number of deaths from malaria has fallen drastically to almost zero, he said. The targets of the drive were early treatment, prevention among pregnant women and the wide use of treated mosquito nets. But the key to its success was probably more attributable to a treatment blitz of Artequick, a combination drug therapy derived from a Chinese plant, artemisinin, and an antimalarial called piperaquine. Artemisinin, a derivative of a plant called sweet wormwood, has in recent years become the frontline anti-malarial drug, after chloroquine and sulphadoxine-pyrimethanine lost their parasite-killing powers. Its use has reduced the numbers of death to one in 10 in severe cases, according to experts. The therapy was first rolled out in Moheli, the smallest of the three islands which has a population of 40,000 people. In 2012, government extended the treatment to Anjouan island before taking it to the Grand Comore in 2013. The second five-year campaign valued at $11 million started in 2010. "The number of cases went from 54,078 in 2004 to 1,052 in 2015, a drop of more than 98 percent," said Toyb. Since 2014, the numbers of deaths from malaria have dropped to nearly zero at hospitals, said Toyb. What remains now is to ensure the gains achieved are sustained and to await WHO certification. "This is the most delicate phase," warns Toyb, adding that while some people still suffer from the disease, there have been no new infections. Speaking at a town hall meeting organised by the Media Foundation for West Africa, Sefa Kayi was hugely critical of the Electoral Commission and the Ghana Police Service. He described the ECs decision to charge journalists an accreditation fee as shameful I think it is shameful that you charge the media to cover the electionsI dont think it is a very good thing you have done. I dont think it is a smart thing to do. What is 10 cedis to you [EC] from a journalist?...I am not very happy as a media person. On an apparent roll, he then turned his focus to the police, which was represented by the Nima police commander. Earlier this month, supporters of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) clashed outside the residence of the flagbearer of the NPP; which is a stones throw away from the Nima Police Station. It was right in your territorybut you are here telling us the police service is very prepared. It happened in your backyard. What did you do?...[You say you are going to clamp down on troublemakers]. It happened next door, you did nothing. The National Commission on Civic Education was not spared in Sefa Kayis critical gaze. [The NCCE] you dont have money. You complain to us in private but you are here [talking as if you do] What is this hypocrisy and dishonesty that we are all pushing? ...It is two weeks to an election, they havent put one single advert out educating the public on how we should even vote. The acting president of the Akwamu Traditional Council, Osuogyasono Yaw Boadu IV has reiterated his stance that the people of Akwamu will vote massively for President John Mahama and the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC). We support any government in power but the good relationship that this government has established between us when the time comes, we will remember him. He was earlier criticised by other members of the traditional council after he first endorsed President Mahama. However the Krontihene of Akwamu Traditional area, Nana Aware Akowua, condemned Osuogyasono Yaw Boadu IV saying the chief could not choose who they vote for. Meanwhile the Krontihene also endorsed Nana Addo during his tour of the region. But reacting to the criticisms, Osuogyasono Yaw Boadu IV said there must be unity irrespective of which political party an individual supports. We want quality education and Development...Osarfo Marfo and Adjei Marfo are siblings but are in different political parties, NPP and NDC respectively but we have not heard them fight, so I want people of Akwamu to take a lesson from it. If you are in Party A and someone is in Party B, you are not enemies instead just political opponent so stop insulting me, he added. According to him, all of his adult life has been spent fighting for the progress of the Ghanaian people, without recourse to ethnicity, colour or tribe. "I fought Acheampongs Union Government. Acheampong was an Ashanti, but it didnt make any difference to me. I thought the Union Government was a bad idea and I opposed it. I opposed PNDC under the Rawlings, who is Ewe, because I thought military government is not good for Ghana. I am tribal blind, I am colour blind. It is Ghana which is my interest. I dont mind where anybody comes from," he added. On the choice of Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as his running mate, Akufo-Addo stressed that, "he (Dr. Bawumia) is not my running mate not just because hes from the North. He is my running mate because hes one of the most brilliant economists that our country has got, and hes going to help me put the economy of our country on the path of progress and prosperity, and ensure the wellbeing of our people." Addressing the NPPs Upper East Regional rally at Bolgatanga, he said, with the wind of change blowing all over our country, President Mahama, instead of defending his record in office and telling the people what he will do for them, is rather resorting to the use of tribal and divisive language. See also:IPP endorses Nana Addo "Instead of being a figure to bring all of us together, he wants to set North against South, he wants to set tribe against tribe. That should not be the task of a Ghanaian leader. A Ghanaian leader should try and bring all the people of Ghana together as one, whether they are Mamprusis, Dagombas, Gonjas, Frafras, Kusasis, Grushis, Walas, Dagartis, Ashantis, Akuapems, Akyems, Kwahus, Fantes, Ahantas, Nzemas, Ewes or Gas. We are all one people, and our leaders should ensure that the coherence amongst us is maintained," he added. He, thus, urged all Ghanaians to "turn our backs on tribal language, and turn our backs on the politics of reaction and the politics of yesterday. Let us look forward, look forward to that bright future, which is our lot as Ghanaians, and fulfil our destiny as the Black Star of Africa." This follows similar tour by Julius Debrah and his team to the Upper West, Brong Ahafo, Volta, Eastern and the Ashanti regions. READ ALSO: Peace Council condemns violent clashes between NDC and NPP In these regions campaign rallies were held for Debrah to market his boss. He also met with traditional rulers of the areas he visited. READ ALSO: NPP petitions IGP over attacks against its members In the Ashanti Region specifically the Chief of Staff paid a courtesy call on the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, where he consoled him on the death of his mother. The deceased is said to be the Offinso Constituency Chairman of the NDP, Isaac Mensah Afedzi. According to the General Secretary of NDP Mohammed Frimpong the presidential candidate of the party is not hurt. READ ALSO: Vice President escapes death again in car crash Unfortunately one vehicle in the convoy was struck from behind by a speeding Burkinabe cargo truck. The vehicle summersaulted and hit several people. Unfortunately one of our people got injured on the spot and was taken to a clinic and later on transferred to a hospital. Unfortunately he passed away. The convoy was returning from Techiman to Kumasi in the Ashanti region. Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings has proceeded on her campaign tour to the Western region. Addressing a press conference on Monday the Chairman of the Peace Council Most. Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante said the Council unreservedly condemns such acts of violence, provocation and impunity. The recent skirmishes between supporters of the NDC and the NPP cast a slur on Ghanas hard earned democratic credentials and image. This act should awaken all Ghanaians to the reality that electoral violence is possible in our country. The current level and spate of violent clashes between the NDC and the NPP have the potential to foul the political atmosphere during and even after the elections, he added. He therefore called on the leaders of the political parties and the members of the respective parties to exercise restraint in all they do especially during these times. The Council calls on the supporters of the parties in question to exercise caution and circumspection, as they embark on their legitimate rights to promote the virtues of their parties. It is pertinent to note that Ghana is bigger than any political party and that political hooliganism and violence have never been a legitimate mechanism for ascension to political power in any part of the world. These comments follow a number of political clashes recently in the country. The recent one happened in New Juaben North in the Eastern Region. Another occurred at Nima in front of the residence of the NPP falgbearer about a week ago. In all these issues the police is still investigating. At a press conference in Ho in the Volta region on 21st November, 2016, he stressed that "hate speeches must stop now, it leads to citizens hating on each other. You must stop now otherwise the laws of this country will catch up with you." Hate speeches are very difficult to withdraw and thus those who "spew" it should be very careful - especially politicians, he added. Mr. Bani emphasized that the security heads will not tolerate any threats that will disturb the peace Ghana is enjoying because of some people. In recent times there have been incidence of hate speeches involving some politicians like the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, and the Northern regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, Bugri Naabu. The minister reiterated that the government is doing everything possible for the 2016 elections to come to pass peacefully with "little incidence or none." He further stressed that "this election is not the beginning of a war. We have done it six times and we will do it again come 7th December." Groups and rogues disturbing the peace will be dealt with accordingly, he noted emphasizing on the need for citizens to respect leaders, each other and the laws. "We can forge forward if we have respect for our institutions." Mr. Bani commended the regional early elections task force for its diligence, "I can say the region task force are prepared for the elections." The teacher group explain that the Mahama-led administration has not made any policy decision favourable to teachers since he took office hence their decision. They mentioned issues such as the scrapping of teacher trainees allowance, governments decision to pay recruits only three month salaries, the delay in payment of promotion arrears amongst others. "How can I work for over a year only for you to pay me three months salary, the Upper West regional Chairman of the CCT Alhassan Abdallah Salifu quizzed. Speaking to Accra-based Starr FMAlhassan Abdallah Salifu said they are only seeking the welfare of their members. READ ALSO: Peace Council condemns violent clashes between NDC and NPP "We are not doing this with a partisan mind-set but based on our convictions as teachers who have not been treated right". "It will surprise you to note that the leadership of the CCT in the Upper West region has some serious members of the NDC among us. We are interested in ensuring that our members are treated right," he told Lansah. From taxes, to health insurance through to where your power should come from, American app developers Matt Schulman and Brennan Weiss have created a ten question survey meant to compare the political views of Ghanaians with those of Ghana's two main political parties, The National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP). The Policy Matters GH creators wanted their non-partisan app to help voters define the differences between the two parties. The app, free on Android phones, came about after the school friends took a trip across Ghana meeting with various people where they heard views on the upcoming election. While travelling they researched what people were interested in, and over dinner with a priest near Kumasi the idea for the app was formed. They were discussing the election and the passion voters across the country have for positive change. "This was the aha moment when Brennan and I thought of riding this wave of national political passion and creating an app to help people better understand the candidates policies. After doing some brief comparative market research, we concluded that a survey combined with an algorithm to analyze users answers would be simple, interactive, and informative, Schulman said. Back in Accra they got to work on creating Policy Matters GH. Weiss, a foreign journalist currently based in Accra wrote the content of the app after reading through the NPP and NDC manifestos. The technical side was handled by Schulman, who has been travelling the world since May this year. While exploring the world, he has been working to create localised mobile apps and websites that can add value to lives in many countries. His work is created from listening to people and what they need, he said. During my travels, I really want to spend time doing all that I can to help develop localised educational tools and technological resources that can enhance the lives of citizens in countries around the world. "As an outsider, I am often very self-conscious about stepping into new places with foreign cultures and naively thinking that I can understand what new apps or tools people desire, Schulman told Pulse.com.gh The pair are hopeful the app will prove useful in Ghana, and are working with Ghanaian organisations to improve it, Weiss said. "Although weve been in Ghana for some time, we realise there is only so much that we can contribute as Americans. We launched an app that we hope will have some impact, but its success is not possible without contribution from Ghanaians. "With that in mind, were currently working on fostering partnerships with local think tanks and policy experts to make sure the app is overseen and improved by Ghanaians so that it can serve a real purpose beyond our stay in Ghana." A limited time frame in creating the app meant they could only focus on NPP and NDC, though Weiss said they plan on updating and expanding the app to include all political parties for future elections. You can download the app here. Over ten questions, Policy Matters GH asks users to rate their level of agreement/disagreement over key policy issues, including taxes, fuel imports, the teacher trainee allowances and NHIS funding. She wrote, "I had a very scary dream last night. I have had quite a number of dreams similar to that this year. I woke up panicking, heart beat racing, very afraid. Fast forward to a few minutes ago, I was taking my son to school. Sitting in the back seat with him, he reached out and lifted my hand to his face, as if he knew something was wrong. I had to fight back my tears. It felt like he was reminding me to stay strong for him. He is only two! No one will ever fully understand what your struggles and fears are. No friend, no family. The only one who has enough reason to make a decision is you. ALSO READ: Actress shares cute photo with her son If you are looking for approval from anyone before you make that move, you will remain at the bottom, in sorrow, till you are courageous enough to put your foot down and fight for what you want (or against what you do not want).I know many of us would want to leave all the necessary adjustments in the "new year resolution folder". We all think we have all the time in the world. What if we don't? Be angry and tired enough to start making changes to your life, now! Live the life you deserve, the life that you would be happy to look back at when you die. Do not worry about what people will say or think. It is your life! Live it in a way that gives YOU peace." Us Weekly reports that Kanye's Rep confirmed the cancellation, saying: "The remaining dates on the Saint Pablo tour have been cancelled. Tickets will be fully refunded at point of purchase." According to the reports, Kanye had 21 dates to go in the U.S part of his tour. A source reportedly disclosed to Us Weekly, "He's just exhausted. He's been working around the clock on fashion design, both his own line and the Adidas line. He's a notorious workaholic ... so balancing both that work which is extremely important to him and the rigors of the tour every night, it really wore him out. "All the time spent away from his family has been a stress on him, as well. They are the most important to him. Obviously he's a professional and wants to give his fans a great experience, and I think his gut was telling him not to extend the tour through the end of the year, but he decided to push through. He doesn't want to give his fans anything less than the best." Earlier reports revealed that the "Fade" rapper ended his show on Saturday, November 19, at Sacramento's Golden 1 Center after starting 90 minutes late and barely performing four songs. He later went on a 15-minute rant about other famous people including Beyonce, Jay-Z, Hillary Clinton, DJ Khaled, Mark Zuckerberg and LeBron James, before dropping the microphone and cancelling the rest of the show. This is the second time the rapper has left his fans sorely disappointed by his show cancellation. ALSO READ: Kanye West talks about running for president The fans took to Twitter shortly after, creating the hashtag #KanyeIsOverParty which trended on Sunday. Kanye West later went on Instagram and posted 99 weird old-schools after having just one post since he joined the picture and video sharing medium. The statement released to journalists, reads, "My attention has been drawn to an online publication of the aforementioned. The story is pretty laughable and better left in the court of public opinion. Ordinarily, 1 do not want to join issues with the writer of the publication but I have a responsibility to set the records straight for my fans, friends and foes , in the defence of the truth. "To say the least, the news did not only grossly misinform unsuspecting public; it also portrays traces of campaign of calumny by some mercenary hirelings hell bent in destroying my name, for reasons best known to them. "Having read with keen interest the completely self-serving spirited attempt to destroy my person, it has become imperative and timely that a rejoinder is written to state the fact clearly. "I want to state here categorically and emphatically that though I was at Computer Village to address some issues, but I was never arrested for stealing 10 I phone 7s, as stated by the writer of the story, the matter has since been resolved by the Nigeria Police; and the issue of me stealing phone is devilish from the said writer. "Furthermore, It is rather unfortunate that the said writer will amount to cheap blackmail to deceive the unsuspecting public with a view of gaining cheap popularity. "It is germane to note that I am a charitable, humane, and grass root person, who has exhibited selflessness in communal service, which have used as a veritable tool for social development. "Finally, I wish to inform the general public to discard the report. I am presently at home relaxing!" ALSO READ: Seun Egbegbe signs police undertaking not to disturb actress According to earlier reports, eyewitnesses say Egbegbe went to a certain Keelcech Innovations Store in computer village, took two iPhone 7 and some iPhone 6+, told the sales girl he was coming, and then crossed to enter his Jeep. They caught up with the movie producer and a mob gathered and beat him up but for the timely intervention of the owner of the store, Mr Kolawole Aleshinloye, and was taken to the Area F Police station where he was reportedly detained. We are however not sure if the photos are from a movie scene or real. Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Total Media reports that the letter was written in Yoruba language and circulated in the area by unknown people, clearly telling the residents to be prepared for the visit as the robbers would not entertain any excuse of lack of money. It was gathered that the letter has caused a lot of anxiety and fear with many of the residents relocating from the area. A landlord in the community who spoke on the receipt of the letter hinted that some people had to relocate for fear of being attacked by the robbers. The spokesperson of Kelebe Landlords Association, Hakeem Bolarinwa, told journalists that the warning was real and called on police and other security agencies in the state to set up necessary security measures that would ensure the safety of residents of the area. The group is reportedly notorious for the kidnap operations carried out within Asaba, the state capital and its environs, Punch reports. ALSO READ:Another kidnapping syndicate squashed The Commissioner of Police in Delta State, Zanna Ibrahim, made the revelation in a statement issued on Sunday, November 20. According to Punch, the statement gave the names of the arrested suspects as Malachy Chikwado, 28, of No. 10, Okocha Street, Cable Point, Asaba; John Obi, 22, of No. 22 Femi-Okun Estate Lekki, Lagos; Osita Obiakwe, 24, of Jarret Street, Ogbe-Ofu, Asaba and Ezeah Chinedu, 36, of Uzowani, Igbueze L.G.A, Enugu State. The statement reads in part, On 13/11/2016, at about 1710hrs, a five-man kidnap gang led by one Malachy Chikwado m lured one man (name withheld) and his girl friend to Dema Kitchen, Asaba. While there at Dema Kitchen, other members, one John Obi m , Osita Obiakwe m, Ezeah Chinedu m and two others now at large left their gang leader, Malachy Chikweado, with their targeted victim and went to lie in wait for him in a bush around his house at Bonsac area Asaba. ALSO READ: Port Harcourt kidnap syndicate busted by police As the victim was returning home, the suspects came out and attempted to kidnap him into a Toyota car. The victim, however, raised the alarm which attracted people from the neighbourhood, thereby forcing them to abandon their prey and escape. On receipt of the report, Operatives of SAKCCS commenced a diligent investigation and arrested the aforementioned suspects from different locations, the statement added. Oshai, who resides at No. 624, Ikota Housing Estate, Lekki, Lagos, pleaded not guilty to the one-count charge of defilement. The prosecutor, Sgt. Anthonia Osayande, told the court that the accused committed the offence at No. 624, Ikota Housing Estate, Lekki, Lagos, at about 2.00 p.m on Oct. 11. She said the accused lured the girl to his apartment while her parents were not around and defiled her. The prosecutor said the offence contravened Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011. Ruling on the bail application of the accused, Chief Magistrate Ipaye Nwachukwu, granted Oshai bail in the sum of N200,000 with two sureties in like sum. She said one of the sureties should be gainfully employed with verified address and should provide evidence of tax payments to the court. This assertion was made by Fidelia Setle, the Assistant Director, Child Welfare, Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development in the state, during the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) annual review meeting organised by the Bauchi Field Office of the body in Jos. Set'le added that seven cases of separated and unaccompanied children were reported with five of them reunited with their families and two still pending. According to her, residents have been encouraged with the launch of the Violence Against Children (VAC) campaign in the state in September. As a result of the VAC campaign launched in September, we have been recording more people coming to report ; this means people have become more aware. In the last one month, 37 rape cases were reported to us, and all of these cases are either pending or with the Police. Also, seven separated and unaccompanied cases were reported to us; we were able to reunite five with their families but two cases are still pending." Channels TV reports that the protest was carried out at the gates of University of Benin consultancy Nursery and Primary School, Ekenwan campus, Benin City, Edo State. ALSO READ: Residents protest sexual assault and killing of Ghanaian The protesters including the aggrieved parents called on the school's management to bring out the staff behind the alleged defilement which reportedly occurred on November 8. Expressing her feeling on the issue, the victim identified as Valerie Oruade' mother said: My child could not talk because she was so tensed. The pained woman stated that when she told the school authorities of the incident, they told me to protect my childs image and shouldnt allow anybody to know, rather than take immediate action. A child rights protection activist, Jennifer Ero, who joined the protest, attributed the case to sheer negligence. She said: We are saying that we send our children to school not to be defiled. If the schools can no longer protect our children it means our children are not safe." The accused identified as 25-year-old Ganiyu Alabi, David Murphy, 27, Folarin Isiaka, 42, and 28-year-old Kehinde Musa, were remanded in jail by a Federal High Court in Lagos on Friday, November 18, Punch reports. The suspects were arraigned on six counts bordering on land grabbing by the police and are accused of attacking seven communities at Oko-Olomi, Ibeju Lekki, and demolishing several houses standing on 1,561 hectares of land. According to the prosecutor, the defendants, armed with guns and cutlasses, allegedly conspired with some other persons who are still at large, to invade the communities at about 8am on April 17, 2016. According to Punch, the accused' are also accused of beating up residents of the communities and inflicting bodily harm on the victims identified as Muniru Salia, Raji Adisa, Kamol Agoro, Bariu Abuogunloko, Edward Onwunle, Tolani Anifowoshe, Tajudeen Eleku, Kufuli Babatunde, Waliu Alabi, Mohammed Quadri, Ajoke Abiodun and Taiwo Agbaje. Following the actions, the defendants reportedly went on to demolish the homes of the victims. According to the police, three pump-action guns and one double-barrelled gun were recovered from the defendants. The crime reportedly contravened sections 86, 355, 390, 451 and 516 of the Criminal Code. The defendants were also accused of violating Section 27(1)(a)(I) of the Firearms Act Cap F28, Law of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004. ALSO READ: Land grabbers arrested for murder in Ogun However, Punch reports that the accused' pleaded not guilty to the charges levelled against them. The 45-year-old identified as Sunday Obayemi, who hails from Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti state was arrested by policemen attached to the state Task Force on Environmental and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit, Alausa, Ikeja and has confessed to the crime, Daily Post reports. ALSO READ: Ministry of Environment officials arrested for fraud He reportedly met his waterloo after he was reported to the police by a tenant, one Nurudeen Duroti, on Olumo Street, Agege. Daily Post reports that the security operatives stormed his house following a tip-off and found fake Lagos State Government documents after a thorough search. While parading the suspect before newsmen over the weekend, the spokesperson for the police, Dolapo Badmus, stated that the state Commissioner of Police, CP, Fatai Owoseni, has given a directive that the suspect be transferred to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, SCIID. Meanwhile, the task force chairman, SP Saheed Egbeyemi, urged Nigerians to be wary of dubious elements specialised in duping members of the public using fake documents of government agencies. According to the suspect's confessional statement, he retired from the Lagos State Ministry of Environment in 2014, Daily Post reports. Obayemi confessed to using the fake documents to extort money from tenants. He said,The last one I did was a notice to quit, which I served a tenant on Olumo Street, after collecting N50, 000 from the landlady of the house with a fake Lagos task force letterhead. I made my money from using fake letterheads of governments ministries and agencies. I will stop this illegal business if I am pardoned by the government, Obayemi added. According to the Despite the revelation that MMM is a Ponzi scheme and CBN advising Nigerians not to invest in it, MMM has grown in popularity as more Nigerians are signing up. MMM Nigeria donated relief materials worth N5 million to two Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in the Federal Capital Territory. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the gesture was part of the communitys humanitarian week tagged MMM cares to mark its one year anniversary on Saturday, November 19, 2016 ALSO READ: Lawmakers have outlined a plan to destroy MMM in Nigeria The Gwoza and Bama IDP Camp located in Durumi area and the New Kuchingoro IDP camp were the two beneficiaries of the relief materials. Bags of rice, beans, Garri, as well as cartons of beverages and noodles, were some of the items donated by the group. The group also donated clothing, drugs, and educational materials for the pupils among them. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is investigating the Mavrodi Mondial Movement (MMM) investment scheme, its spokesperson has said. EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, also spoke on the House of Representatives order to shut down the scheme. We can only arrest people based on the evidence that we have. The House made a resolution but the resolution is a public announcement, Uwujaren told Daily Post. The 32-year-old Badagry-born suspect was arrested in the Apapa area of the state where he ran a hospital, Be Well Hospital on Liverpool Road, after the husband of a pregnant woman who died in the hospital, reported him to the police. It was gathered that during investigations, the police realised that Yolonfun who dropped out of a Nursing School, had paid someone the sum of N700,000 to obtain fake certificates of the Nigerian Medical Association and the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, with which he has been parading as a qualified doctor. On interrogation, Yolonfun confessed that he was not a qualified doctor. I have been practising since 2005. I did not attend any school in Nigeria. I went to the Benin Republic. I sat for the General Certificate Education two years ago. I wanted to attend a university in Nigeria to study Medicine. But my wife fell sick and I could not. I dropped out of a nursing school in the Benin Republic. I came back to Nigeria in 2004, and I started the hospital in 2005. Since I started the hospital, only two persons had died in the hospital. The first patient died in 2013. The second patient was that woman who died penultimate Saturday. The woman was pregnant. She also had high blood pressure. After giving her the initial treatment, I planned to refer her to a bigger hospital, but she died before I could move her. Her baby also died. Dr Halima Abdu, Health Specialist in the UNICEF Bauchi Field Office, made this known in Jos at the ongoing 2016 review meeting of the funds activities. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that UNICEF Bauchi Field Office controls Bauchi, Plateau, Gombe, Adamawa, Taraba and Jigawa. According to Abdu, the training is targeted at building the capacity of health workers in meeting the mandate of UNICEF in curbing malnutrition, high maternal mortality and malaria amongst women and children. She also explained that with the large number of health workers trained in different aspects of health sector, the field office had exceeded its targets pegged at 7,215. We have trained 5,100 health workers in Adamawa, 1,006 in Plateau, 2,188 in Jigawa, 1,146 in Taraba and 263 in Bauchi States. We actual targeted to train 7,215 health workers in 2016, but we were able to exceed the target with over 2,000. These health workers were trained in areas like Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM), Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), and host of others, she said. Abdu said that the health sector would intensify effort to ensure that more workers were trained in 2017. This is to give children in the six states in particular, and Nigeria in general, a better and healthy future." The meeting, which was held on Monday, November 21, was convened by the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETfund and chaired by its chairman, Senator Jibrin Barau. It was gathered that the Committee adjourned the meeting indefinitely after the two parties failed to reach an agreement on the matter. In attendance at the meeting were the national leadership of ASUU led by its national president, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi; the executive secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed; and the director general of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), Mrs. Ahonu-Amazu, among others. According to Leadership newspaper, the meeting ended at about 8.20pm on Monday. However, the one-week warning strike will end on Tuesday, November 22. ALSO READ: Senate intervenes in ASUU, FG crisis The union had vowed to follow it up with an infinite action if its demands are not met before the end of the warning strike. Senator Barau told newsmen after the meeting that the peace meeting agreed on all issues at stake except the one on 'earned allowance, which made them call it off for further engagements among all parties. According to Punch, Mohammed is claiming damages for his continued detention by the anti-graft agency. A 15 page affidavit deposed at the High Court in Abuja, the former ministers counsel, Umar Usman said the EFCC invited Mohammed for a chat on October 24, 2016 and arrested him till date. The affidavit also claims that Mohammed has suffered substantial deterioration of his health and untold psychological trauma and mental torture. The former minister wants the court to declare that his arrest and detention by the EFCC is illegal, unlawful, unreasonable, unjustified and unconstitutional. Also, Mohammed is seeking a declaration of court, stating that he should be released on bail by the EFCC pending any arraignment before a court of law. The former minister also wants the court to issue an order enforcing and restoring his fundamental right to personal liberty as contained in section 35 of the 1999 constitution, which he said has been violated by the EFCC. This was disclosed by NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Group Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa via a statement released on Tuesday, November 22. The statement reads: The Nigerian Air Force fighter jets have attacked a number of Boko Haram Terrorist locations in Northern Borno, killing several insurgents. On 16th November 2016, an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance aircraft reported a gathering of BHTs under a tree at Kadari. An Alpha jet on armed reconnaissance was called in to strafe the location thus killing a number of the insurgents and causing survivors to flee in different directions. On November, 18 2016, NAF fighter jets again carried out a series of coordinated air strikes against BHT locations at Ngoshe. ALSO READ: 2 suicide bombers kill at least 9 in IDP camp We believe that there are up to a million people in the areas and villages we havent been able to reach, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, Toby Lanzer told Reuters. We are very concerned about the security situation. Do not think that the crisis is anywhere near over, Lanzer added. ALSO READ: 2 suicide bombers kill at least 9 in IDP camp Reacting to the statement by Alhaji Buba Galadima that the masses will abandon Buhari in 2019, the official spokesman, Garba Shehu described the statement as "unfounded and utterly ridiculous." Galadima, a former national secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) had said ordinary Nigerians were the backbone of Buharis mandate "and the only reason he ran for the office is to protect them against the rapacious merchants of corruption who held Nigeria back for decades." Shehu, however, said Galadimas calculation and prediction "is utterly confused and misleading." He said the masses are solidly behind Buhari "because he is not stealing their money and their future. "The Presidents enormous goodwill remains ever-strong because the people are convinced that he is acting in their best interest, despite the temporary unintended consequences of reforms." ALSO READ: President Buhari rallies support for Akeredolu According to him, the President is far from isolation and he enjoys very strategic relationship with ordinary Nigerians; the relationship is as solid as the proverbial rock, he said. "If Buba Galadima thinks that because he has no role and no job in this government that means president is isolated, he is putting himself up to ridicule," Shehu said. Shehu stated that Galadima is not in the position to speak for the masses as far as their steadfast loyalty to Buhari is concerned. While acknowledging that Galadima is entitled to advance his own political agenda, the presidential aide said Galadima does not have the right to decide for ordinary voters. Shehu recalled that Galadimas disagreement with President Buhari is based on principle, saying that Buhari is committed to level playing field and will not want anyone to link his name to injustice. The Presidential aide also recalled that Galadimas disagreement with Buhari started in 2011 "when a group within the party orchestrated an organisational mess by which the CPC embarked on the imposition and substitution of candidates for cash payments at the expense of those duly and democratically elected." The regional spokesman for the group, Jibrin Abubakar, said in a statement issued in Abuja that the company will commence work immediately. The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, Magaji Gusau, signed on behalf of the Federal Government, while the Adviser to the President of the Dangote Group, Joseph Makoju, signed on behalf of the group. According to the statement, the contract was awarded to the Group on tax concession basis at N5.24 billion, with N6.2bn difference being the corporate social responsibility of the conglomerate. ALSO READ: Dangote's tomato company threatens to quit production Gov. David Umahi made the disclosure when participants of the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Senior Course 39, Jaji, visited him in Abakaliki on Monday. According to the governor, the order would soon be enforced to ensure that the residents patronise home-grown Ebonyi Rice. I will personally lead a task-force, consisting of the State Executive Council members to various markets and enforce the order. Individuals who are selling the produce will provide certification of its quality because most of the rice brought into the state is not parboiled. Any rice that is not parboiled after six months turns to chaff as most of them brought into the country stay for about 10 years before being imported. The rice then becomes poisonous and we have banned cooking of non-Ebonyi rice inside the states Government House, hotels and public functions. The Ebonyi rice still presents its unique taste even when cooked without meat and we will give you some quantities for attestation, he said. The governor remarked that the state had three functional rice mills and would inaugurate mills in the 13 Local Government Areas of the state before the end of 2017. When we conclude the inauguration, we will consult our stakeholders who show zeal and commitment but may not have money to purchase the mills. We will then aggregate and sell the mills to them with government maintaining about 20 per cent minimum equity shares and the stakeholders-80 per cent. This is the type of Public Private Partnership (PPP) we will be engaging, in line with the theme of your study-`tour of the state, he said. Leader of the delegation, Commodore Michael Okonkwo, said the study tour was one of the programmes that enabled participants to study the socio-economic problems that confront the country. The theme of the tour is: Enhancing Economic Development through Public-Private Partnership, as we aim at evaluating aspects of the theme that concerns Ebonyi. We are the third group of the study-tour consisting of 27 members and nine other groups are touring other states of the country for the same objective. The other selected states include: Anambra, Gombe, Cross River, Kano, Nasarawa, Niger, Rivers, Taraba, and Zamfara, he said. He said each team required to write a report and make a formal presentation to the college on their observation in the visited states Dogara said further that Nigerias unity is not a mistake because it was ordained by God. The Speaker made the comments during a meeting with the group, Northern Nigeria Christian Politicians in Abuja. For some of us who think Nigeria was a mistake, or that the North, having aggregated so many ethnic groups, and then two dominant force is a mistake, I want to advise us to do a rethink, Dogara said according to a statement released by his media aide, Turaki Hassan. The one who put together Nigeria and the North is God and He has the mandate. And anybody who is fighting for the disintegration of this country will not succeed because I believe that God has a plan for Nigeria and l believe God has a plan for northern Nigeria. Until God is done with his plan, the north will remain as it is and Nigeria will remain as it is. If anyone can upturn that, it means he is greater than God, he added. The governor, who gave the order when he visited the area to condole with victims of the attack, said the suspect must be produced or be arrested by security agencies. The News Agency of Nigeria [NAN] gathered that the recent attack might have been a retaliation by Haruna, whose house and cattle were said to have been attacked earlier by villagers, when he allegedly encroached into a farm. El-Rufa'i said it was important for Haruna to present himself to the government, so that we know what his grievances are and find a way to listen to his side of story. But if doesnt come forward, the security agencies have a very clear instruction to hunt and apprehend him and bring to justice. We will not accept the situation in which people result to self help that lead to loss of lives and property in Kaduna state. He also warned that the government would not condone any attempt to take advantage of the current situation in the area by self serving interests to whip up sentiments and further enflame more crisis As you can see, there are always people that try take advantage of such situation and it is our duty to ensure we dont succumb to that. We insist on law enforcement, fairness and justice to every one. El-Rufa'i, therefore, appealed to the people of Southern Kaduna to live in peace with one another, to ensure development and progress. According to him, the security of any community begins with the people themselves who must agree to shun violence and settle differences through dialogue. It is necessary to live in peace because security is not just in the hands of leaders or traditional rulers or security agencies, ultimately we can only be secure if we choose to live in peace with one another. Leaders and law enforcement agencies can only come in to settle disputes or prosecute those that committed crimes, but living in peace is the responsibility of everyone. If communities that have lived for a hundred years wake up one morning and say this one is a stranger, this one is an indigene or settler, this speaks of trouble. That is why in this state, this government has given very top attention to the issue of indigeneship. We believe that anyone that comes and live in Kaduna and is contributing to development of this state is a citizen of Kaduna state, and he will have equal right as everyone. We dont believe that any Nigerian can be a stranger in Kaduna. So I appeal to the people to continue to live in peace, to respect one another. He assured people of the area, that the government would provide necessary infrastructure to guarantee development. We have resources constraints, because all states are going through difficult times, but we are going to do our best. Kauru is the only Federal constituency that voted for president Buhari is southern Kaduna. So it is a very special constituency for us and any time I see the President, he always asks me what are you doing for Kauru, because this is a local government very special to him. We are working on ensuring the telecom infrastructure here works better, because many parts of the local government are not covered by GSM services, we are working on that. The governor commended traditional rulers in the area including leaders of the Fulani community for their maturity and push for dialogue and peaceful settlement of the crisis. NAN recalls that three communities in the area were attacked on Sunday, Nov. 10, leaving behind 38 people dead. The minister, at Ikot Inyang village in Ikot Ekpene Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom, said that the switch on of the station would boost electricity supply in the country. He said that the station was expected to evacuate electricity from power plants in Alaoji, Afam, Calabar and Ikot Abasi and route same to Ugwuaji in Enugu up to Jos. Fashola said that the development would solve the problem of stranded power as the generating plants would have their power evacuated for use. The minister added that the project was bedevilled with challenges but for the intervention of the National Assembly, which resolved the contending issues for the completion of the project. The Managing Director of Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), Mr Chiedu Ugbo, who was at the inauguration, said contract for the project was awarded in 2006. Ugbo said that the project was delayed due to challenges and lauded the stakeholders for the commitment toward completing the project. He noted that the new management of NDPHC was committed to ensuring improved power generation, saying that the switching of the station on would mark the end of epileptic power supply. He expressed gratitude to Gov. Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom and his predecessor, Sen. Godswill Akpabio and the host community for providing conducive environment for the completion of the project. In her speech, Princess Maryam Akanmode, the contractor handling the project, said the 330 KV station had 12 inter-connectivity lines to evacuate power from the four plants to the national grid. Akanmode, who is the Managing Director of Carlark International Limited, lauded the Federal Government and stakeholders for assisting in the completion of the project. The Akwa Ibom Governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel, said the event marked significant turning point in the march toward new dawn in both power infrastructural renaissance and industrial revolution. Represented by his Deputy, Mr Moses Ekpo , the governor said that the Ibom Power Plant had approval for upgrade to 685 megawatts from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission. He said that the state was generating 191 megawatts from the Power Plant in Ikot Abasi Local Government Area of the state. Emmanuel disclosed that the state government had equally partnered a private investor for the take-off of the N90 billion Uquo Gas Plant at Esit Eket. According to Vanguard, the Governors also agreed to form a common regional front to stand against any external influence that will hamper the economic and social interest of the region. The Governors put away party affiliations and said they will stand together to commonly pursue the development of the region. The Governor of Oyo state, Abiola Ajimobi was the host of the South-West Governors economic forum which was held in Ibadan. Ajimobi said Your presence at this meeting is a clear testimony of the importance you all have attached to the common challenges confronting us as a people. Today our country is buffeted by economic and political challenges. Several states are struggling to pay basic salaries with arrears running into several months; manufacturers struggling to access foreign exchange for raw materials are shutting down leading to mass redundancy of our people. Unfortunately most of these people are resident in the South-West region, which is the industrial base of the country. We need to quickly explore escape routes from poverty through empowerment and equipping of our youths with requisite skills. Speaking also, Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti state, said the main aim of the meeting was to work out how best to develop the region and put food on the common mans table. He said All states, including Ekiti, have subscribed to and agreed that regional integration is the best way forward. We must do everything humanly possible not to go back on our resolves. It is forward for the people and for the Yoruba race. We agreed that the next meeting, which holds in the next two months, will be held in Ekiti State. Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun state also said the Governors should put aside political interests and unite to build the South-West. The Osun state Governor, Rauf Aregbesola also called on the Governors to ensure the prosperity and survival of the people in the South West. The Governors also issued a communique saying the interest of the Yoruba people should be in focus at all times, and all politics must be politics of development. That regional cooperation, synergy and economics of scale is important to move the region forward; that good intentions must be backed by sincerity of purpose; that the prosperity of any constituent part is negated if others are not. Governor Fayose also revealed that Ekiti state will host the next meeting in two months time. Ngwuta, a Supreme Court Justice, is one of seven judges who were arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) during a series of operations between October 7 and 8. We very regrettably have to object to the application for bail of the defendant. The defendant has placed all of us in this court room in very difficult situation. I ordinarily would not have objected to an application for bail in respect of a man of his calibre and standing, FG lawyer, Charles Adeogun-Philips said. What we have in this situation is peculiar and unique in many aspects. There are sufficient grounds of believing that the defendant will interfere with potential prosecution witness and or the evidence which might be adduced. We are of the opinion that there is a substantial likelihood that the defendant may conceal and or destroy evidence," he added. Adeogun-Philips said further that when Ngwuta was released, he made moves to get rid of useful evidence from his home in Abakaliki, Ebonyi state. The first instruction was Go and get rid of those cars. The second instruction was go into my bathroom at my residence where you will find two or three bags, get rid of it immediately, the FG lawyer said. If the witness had gotten into the bathroom and found bags stuffed with newspapers, we wont be raising this objection today. But the bags contained N27m which they removed from the defendants residence to another place. We could not even find it again. When we searched his residence in Abuja we didnt know there was N27m in his bathroom at his private residence located at Engineering Close, Off Onwe Road, Abakaliki. Ebonyi State, he added. He stated this in Abuja on Tuesday, November 22, at the resuscitation of the council. The Federal Executive Council presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, on October 5, gave the nod for the resuscitation of the council which had been in existence for sometime. He said that the council acts as an ombudsman that meets once yearly to review policies in the sector, bringing together people from business, oil sector, oil communities and relevant ministries. Kachikwu said: "As you put together this hydrocarbon council, I urge all of you to take cognisance of so much that is going on in the Ministry of Petroleum. "It is one of the most challenging, exciting times we have in creating, develop the right policies, right principles to address frustrations that are in the system." He said there is so much to do in the industry. ALSO READ: Kachikwu says FG will review fuel price According to him, these include growth of the upstream through policies on oil and gas, passage of the long-sought-after petroleum industry bill and issues of Niger Delta security among others. He said: "Were setting for ourselves very comprehensive goals that we want everybody to participate in. We are taking the bull by the horn for every little problem that we have. "Those solutions shouldnt stop at the ministry. "It should first begin with you, your various undertakings in the sector whether its as scholars, ministry representatives, investors, policy formulators, traditional rulers who provide framework. "Whatever capacity, everybody needs to have an input. We will study it. There is nowhere in Nigeria today where there is an urgency of yesterday as the petroleum sector. "Like I say, oil got us to where we are today. It is going to take oil to take us out of it." Counsel to Mrs Jonathan, Ifedayo Adedipe (SAN), had filed an application before Justice Mohammed Idris, seeking him to stop Justice Kuewumi from making any forfeiture orders until the determination of an interlocutory application on the subject. At the hearing on Tuesday, November 22, Justice Idris acknowledged a letter from counsel representing Skye Bank, Mr. Lanre Ogunlesi, stating that he was indisposed and could not attend the court. Jonathan had instituted a fundamental rights suit against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), claiming the sum of $200 million as damages for inconveniences suffered. In her suit, she had joined the EFCC, Skye Bank plc, and a former aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, Warampo Dudafa as respondents. Also joined in the suit are four companies namely: Pluto Property Ltd, Seagate Property Development and Investment Company Ltd, Transocean company Ltd and Globus Integrated Service Ltd. It will be recalled that Dudafa was charged alongside the four companies before Justice Kuewumi, on 15 counts of money laundering. ALSO READ: Pro-Patience Jonathan protesters embarrassed their families Representatives of the four companies, which the EFCC claimed were used by Dudafa to launder the money, had all pleaded guilty to the offences. The $15.5m is the same sum which the former first lady claimed belongs to her as sole signatory to the accounts of the companies. Justice Idris said since Ogunlesi has requested for a new date to enable him to appear in court, the hearing of the application on notice can not proceed. Meanwhile, before the court could adjourn the case, Adedipe urged the judge to direct the EFCC not to tamper with the subject matter of the case pending the hearing of the interlocutory application. In response, Counsel for the EFCC, Mr. Rotimi Oyedepo, urged the court to dismiss the application on the grounds that the accounts which housed the money has been frozen. He urged the court to dismiss the application with a "wave of hand", adding that there is already an order of court convicting four defendants for warehousing proceeds of crime. In a short ruling, Justice Idris held that he could not go into the merits or demerits of the interlocutory application until it is moved. He ordered accelerated hearing of the case and said that he could not make any order that will be prejudicial to the outcome of the main suit. He consequently, adjourned the case to December 7 for hearing of the main application. Saraki attributed the source of his wealth of hard work and the opportunity of being born into a blessed family. He stated this in an interview with BBC Hausa service. On his ongoing trial on alleged corruption and false declaration of assets, the Senate President expressed confidence that he would be cleared of the charges against him. Saraki also denied allegations that he owns secret offshore companies as highlighted in the controversial Panama Papers, some documents which revealed the secretive offshore companies of influential people around the world used to hide their wealth. ALSO READ: FG to open Saraki's case on October 7 His wife, Toyin Saraki, was also fingered in the documents. She allegedly registered a company offshore to buy a London property. The Senate President said: "Based on legal advice the company was set up because they were acquiring an asset and it was advised at that time and thats how it was set up to the best of our knowledge. It was not a company that was set up by ourselves; it was set up by a legal firm and under a legal firm as far as to the best of our knowledge no law was being broken." At the resumed hearing to Saraki's trial in May,he had revealed the cash deposits in his various bank accounts before he became the Kwara State governor in 2003. He said he had $22 million, about 12 million, 2.6 million Euro and about N4 billion in cash in his various accounts. The group also slammed President Buhari for not commiserating with the families of those who lost their lives. According to Punch, the Head of Martyr Foundation of IMN, Sheikh Abdulhamid Bello, alleged that the police attacked sect members after they concluded the Ashura procession in Kano. He also called on Buhari to order the security agents to release the corpse of their members so they can bury them. Bello said We were walking away from Kano toward Zaria and we did not obstruct traffic. It was the heavily armed police officers, who scattered the hitherto orderly, peaceful and solemn procession. There was simply no justification for the police attack, who unjustifiably shot indiscriminately, killing men, women and children, including an eight month-old infant. Adding that President Buhari and his lieutenants and to remind them that they were not voted into office to kill those they harbour religious enmity against. Finally, we also reiterate our demand for the unconditional release of our leader, Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, his wife, and all those being detained illegally since the pogrom against us commenced. There have been at least one hundred militant attacks in twelve local government areas of Benue state since August 2015, with over 300 deaths and five communities completely burnt. With hundreds of IDPs scattered around different parts of Benue, it became difficult for the state government to cater for the needs of these people alone. As part of interventions in Nigeria, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) started the Daudu Shelter Project for IDPs with support from the Benue state government and a coalition of Non-Governmental Organisations in Benue State (BENGONET) to provide accommodation for these vulnerable Nigerians. Speaking at the commissioning ceremony in Guma local government, on Friday, November 18, 2016, UNHCR representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Angele Dikongue-Atangana said the event makes good the promise to provide roofs on the heads of some displaced households. Atangana disclosed that the UNHCR had recently conducted a Peace Project in Benue state which includes a research into the impacts of the conflicts, provision of relief materials worth over 20 million, psychosocial support and livelihood support of N10,000 targeting 120 vulnerable households. She said: "The Guma Shelter was conceived as the pilot project which will be replicated in parts of the northeast to accommodate some of the thousands of vulnerable IDPs households in the region; especially the aged population, widows and handicapped who sleep in open around residences and other public places even as we abode in the comfort of our homes." ALSO READ: Statelessness: Plight of persons without nationality The UNHCR representative urged the government to consider modifying and replicating this project in other parts of Benue state as well as ensure its sustainability. In his remarks, the Benue state governor, Samuel Ortom who was represented by his deputy, Benson Abounu expressed gratitude to the UNHCR and the entire UN System for their intervention in the state. He insisted that the state government will not make land reservations for grazing as majority of her indigens are farmers. He pledged the readiness of the state to partner with the UNHCR to carry out projects that would benefit the state and Nigeria at large. Non-food items provided by the UNHCR include 400 small sized mattresses, 400 wooden plank beds, 400 blankets, 200 sets of cooking pots, 200 charcoal stoves, 400 buckets, 200 jerry cans and 200 powered lanterns among others. About film A young Barack Obama, known to his friends as Barry, arrives in New York City in the fall of 1981 to begin his junior year at Columbia University. In a crime-ridden and racially charged environment, Barry finds himself pulled between various social spheres and struggles to maintain a series of increasingly strained relationships with his Kansas-born mother, his estranged Kenyan father, and his classmates. Barry is the story of a young man grappling with those same issues that his country, and arguably the world, are still coming to terms with 35 years later. Directed by Vikram Gandhi, the biopic follows Obama questioning race and identity in America in the early 1980s. "Barry" stars Devon Terrel as a young Obama. It also stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Jason Mitchell, Ellar Coltrane among others. The minister received the reviewed document from Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, the coordinator of a committee which was undefined Speaking at the event, Mohammed thanked the committee and pledged to immediately kick-start the process of making the regulatory body a reality. We will critically look at the reviewed draft document, which you have handed over to us, and we will immediately kick-start the process of making MOPICON a reality for the benefit of the movie industry, he said. According to him, the governments interest in the setting up of MOPPICON is driven by the fact that the supervising ministry need to work with a formidable representative group that is empanelled to lobby for the growth, development and welfare of the industry and its practitioners as well as make for a better organised and more visible and vibrant Nollywood industry. ALSO READ:undefined In her remarks, Anyiam-Osigwe said members of the committee were unanimous in their decision to support the establishment of MOPICON. What we come to understand and appreciate is that a council of some sorts is required in order to make this industry work. How this council will operate, we have advised, she said. In this document, we have taken cognisance all the guilds and associations and we have also taken into cognisance all the uproar in the media about the MOPPICON and what it stands for and the misconception of what it is, she added. ALSO READ: undefined The Motion Picture Practitioners Council of Nigeria (MOPPICON) Billwas created over 10 years ago after a group of industry practitioners sat to draft it. It is all a long way from her Copenhagen roots -- especially for an actress who spent a long time struggling, before finally making the big time. The award-winning 47-year-old, who played Denmark's first female prime minister in the political drama, is currently starring alongside Hollywood veteran Tom Hanks in "Inferno" by Oscar-winning director Ron Howard. Back in Europe she won a Cesar, France's version of the Oscars, this year for "L'hermine," while her latest Gallic outing is in "La Fille de Brest" after French film icon Catherine Deneuve suggested her for the role. When director Emmanuelle Bercot offered her the part, the elegant blue-eyed actress didn't believe him at first. "I was like 'What are they thinking?' because I don't speak French very well. I thought maybe somebody told them I was half French because I studied in France," she told AFP, sitting in a plush Paris hotel. "Maybe they thought that was it," she added. Much like in "Borgen," for which she shared a BAFTA award, she loves playing strong and intelligent women. "I love being in the skin of courageous people. That inspires me," she said. "When I read a part, either I think it makes the world smaller or the world bigger. I want to go towards those where I see the world getting bigger." In "Inferno," she plays the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), while in HBO megaseries "Westworld" she is the operations manager of a futuristic amusement park. "It's been wonderful to work in such different places and in such different settings. I really liked that," she said. Childhood ambition Born in Copenhagen to a photographer father and teacher mother, she spent part of her childhood in Tanzania -- but she decided at the tender age of eight that she wanted to be an actress. But it was only 10 years later, when she arrived in France with a bicycle to be an au pair, that she started doing something about her ambition to be on the big screen. Between odd jobs she took acting lessons, indulged her love for cinema and spent lots of time in the Pompidou Centre, where she learned French by reading a translation of Kafka's Metamorphosis. But after six years she decided to return to Copenhagen, tired of struggling to make ends meet. "I came back because it was not easy being (in Paris) I had no place to live and it was just going around with your hat, asking for jobs all the time. It became a bit too hard," she said. Back in her home town, "a friend of mine did (Ibsen's) 'Peer Gynt', and she asked me to come to Dan, and I thought 'Yeah, do that'." Further parts with the same theatre group followed. Her cinema breakthrough came in the 1997 improvisational comedy "Let's Get Lost," which won her a best actress Bodil, Denmark's version of Hollywood's famous golden statuettes. She followed that in 1999 with romantic comedy "The One and Only" by Susanne Bier, and seven years later "After The Wedding" with Mads Mikkelsen. But she really made the big time with "Borgen," which hit TV screens in 2010. The Danish TV series, in which she plays premier Birgitte Nyborg, has been a hit around the world, with one US critic comparing it to Emmy and Golden Globe-winning political drama "The West Wing". Momodu is no stranger to these sorts of games and the public should be wiser to his schemes by now. According to Momodu, Goodluck Jonathan who was voted out of office last year, will make a return to the ballot in 2019 and win. Momodu wrote: I have been reading about the rising profile of our former President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, and wish to state without equivocation that no one should rule him out of the 2019 presidential race. I first hinted this possibility about two months ago and wish to reiterate that Nigerians should prepare for the shock that awaits us. The story of should bring us back to our senses. Nothing is impossible. The second coming of Goodluck Jonathan may be so far-fetched or even belong in those categories of impossibilities but I wish to plead with our government and my fellow citizens not to rule it out. As one of those who made our modest and humble contributions to the coming of this Buhari government, Im pleading with trepidation. First off, theres no rising profile of former President Goodluck Jonathan in the manner Momodu describes it. Only Momodu should prepare for the shock that awaits us. ALSO READ: And conflating the Trump phenomenon with another Jonathan Presidential run is a stretch; an overreach. Its the stuff that shallow, paid-for public commentaries are made of. Trump was an outsider who campaigned as an anti-establishment figure. His candidacy resonated with voters who saw in him a disdain for all that Washington has come to stand for. Jonathan has been part of the establishment in Nigeria for as long as anyone can remember. He was Deputy Governor, then Governor, Vice President and then President. Jonathan has been around since the PDP swept its way into power in 1999. Unlike Trump who only joined the Republican fold a few days before the first GOP primary, Jonathan has been dining and hobbling with the same PDP elite who contributed to running Nigeria aground. And Jonathan was a prominent figure when the same PDP was swept out of power by disenchanted voters, 16 years after. The rising profile of Goodluck Jonathan Momodu refers to has to do with the mans globe-trotting since he handed over. Its only fitting that the international audience fawns over and fetes a man who lost an election as an incumbent and handed over without spilling blood. Especially because it occurred in Africaa continent where sit tight rulers like Robert Mugabe and Mobuto Sese Seko reign(ed) supreme. A continent where a certain Olusegun Obasanjo made to tamper with his countrys constitution just to get another term in office. Jonathan was an example for the rest of the continent and for the rest of the third world. He has become a living example that you can transfer power through the ballot box without burning down whole towns and communities; and without suppressing the will of the people by rigging the vote. Hell long be remembered for that selfless act. Momodu and the rest of the cast are ostensibly drawing their Jonathan will come back in 2019 orgasm fit from an event that transpired in Sokoto. Jonathan had visited the Northern State to pay his last respects to the late Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki. The late Dasuki is father of Jonathans disgraced former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasukiwho has been swapping prison cells and courtrooms in Nigeria. Jonathan has sworn that Dasuki couldnt have stolen the money he has been accused of stealing by the federal government. ALSO READ: In Sokoto, the former President was met with a motley crowd who wielded placards with the inscription: Baba Jonathan Come Back. There is the temptation to draw all kinds of conclusions from an isolated event like what happened in Sokoto--from a small sample size. The State is an APC controlled one. Like most of Northern Nigeria, Sokoto played a prominent role in kicking Jonathan out of office. To return to that sort of territory and be met with Baba Jonathan Come Back placards, can leave the media and columnists like Momodu with plenty of jaded ink for another week or two. Jonathan wont come back, sorry. He handed over power after he had done his bit. That bit wasnt good enough for Nigerians in 2015 and wont be good enough for Nigerians in 2019. Besides, the man is enjoying his moment in the sun as an enabler of democracy in Africa and the international community is falling over itself just to hear him speak. Hes also become an election observer on the continentthe one man all countries in Africa want around during elections because hes been there and done that. Jonathan will get paid to speak at international circuits on democracy and governance and hes been asking for photo-ops; surrounded by cheering Caucasians and millennials wherever he shows up. Heck, he has even become a deft Twitter user! Why should he trade all of that glory and adulation for the pains, sleepless nights and heartaches that come with being Nigerias President? Why should he trade all of that peace of mind for another perilous, uncertain Presidential run? Of course, hes constitutionally entitled to run for President again, but you only needed to see how relieved he was as he conducted Muhammadu Buhari round the presidential palace grounds during the hand-over days; you only needed to see how chubby and happy he looked a few months after leaving Aso Villa; you only need to see the spring in his steps these days, to realise that the man is better off where he is than having to deal with 180 million people who tagged him clueless and corrupt for more than four years and kicked him out of office for his troubles. Momodu and his PR specialists should look for another 2019 hopeful to prop up. Jonathan certainly isnt their man. Lalong, who is the Chairman of Ondo APC Governorship Campaign Council, made this known to State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the Akure APC rally, which was witnessed by President Muhammadu Buhari, Senate President Bukola Saraki, and other prominent members of the party, was attended by only Gov. Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun from the South West. NAN also observed that the APC governors from Imo, Kano, Kogi, Jigawa, Nasarawa and Edo states attended the rally. The governors of Lagos, Oyo and Osun states, Mr Akinwumi Ambode, Sen. Abiola Ajimobi and Mr Rauf Aregbosola respectively, as well as former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, were also absent at the event. Gov. Lalong, who was accompanied by the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr Kayode Fayemi, however, explained that all the prominent APC personalities who failed to attend the rally had offered useful and convincing explanations. He said that the national leader of the party, Tinubu, was not at the rally due to ill-health. He added that we explained their absence. They sent in their apologies. You heard what happened there. As far as we are concerned, the President, who is the leader of the party, was at the rally. The national chairman was also there, as far as we are concerned, everybody was there. If a leader was not there and he said he was not there because of ill-health, we prayed that God will heal him. Lalong said he was in the Villa to thank the President for attending the Ondo rally. He noted that we have come to thank the President for going to Ondo for the grand finale rally. NAN recalled that Tinubu, who is being addressed as National leader of the APC, had opposed the emergence of Rotimi Akeredolu as APC governorship candidate in Ondo. He, therefore, demanded the resignation of the national chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, whom he said had derailed from the path of progressives. According to Punch, the Chairman of the group, Chief Wale Oshun said the APC candidate is the best man for the job. Oshun said this after paying a courtesy visit to Akeredolu in Lagos on Monday, November 21, 2016. The Afenifere boss also said Ondo people deserve the kind of progress going on in other APC run states in the South-West. He said Certainly, we are here to endorse him. Akeredolu has been one of us, he is one of us, he is an activist; a tested progressive and he strongly believes in the welfarist principles of the founders of Afenifere. What is important at this stage is that he is the one that believes in the ideology of the political philosophy of Yorubaland. He is the one that believes in the principles laid down by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He is not just claiming it; we can identify and affirm it. He had been one of us and his party has deemed it fit to allow him to run as the candidate and because he is the best in the circumstance to rule the state. We believe we should give him our open support. We have played this critical role in many elections held in the South-West and we believe this should not be an exception. And we wish him well and we are praying for him. He has worked hard and we hope the Almighty God will answer our prayers for him. Akeredolu also dismissed reports of cracks in the APC, because its national leader, Bola Tinubu was not at his campaign rally in Akure. He said All of us in the APC are working together now. We are all working together as a party. Even Segun Abraham has come out to ask his supporters to come and work for the APC. The only person, for instance, who left is Olusola Oke and was never a member of our party. He came after we elected President Muhammadu Buhari. He just rushed in thinking he could capitalise on the use of money to swing people to his side but when he failed, he decided to opt out. And he went to another party. Somebody who spent 16 years in the Peoples Democratic Party; 16 years as a conservative cannot wake up one day and become a progressive. It is not possible. So he had to opt out of the progressive group to be on his own. He is the only person that left, no other person joined him. I contested in 2012 to be Governor, there were good reasons for me to contest then. These reasons have only multiplied, they have increased, expanded and therefore, so long as those conditions are still prevailing and multiplying, I will be failing in my responsibilities not to come out at this time, Oke said during a meeting with journalists. Ondo State is a state generously loved by God. If we look at the resources available to us, we should be leading; a shining example to others in Nigeria. Im talking in terms of natural resources, human resources, agriculture resources; whatever resources you can imagine that would help the development of a state, Ondo state has it in abundance: the largest rich human resources, they are all there but we are not doing well. A critical assessment of Ondo State today would show that the people of Ondo State are poor. They are not poor in their heads but in their pockets. And I have come to appreciate that over time that poverty of the pocket could also affect the poverty of the head. If you traverse the entire landscape of Ondo State today; you cannot. find one industry that is producing anything. The concomitant effect of that is that employment cannot be generated anywhere. Government has come to a standstill in terms of the employment of its citizens. When you have situation like this, it calls on men who have the fear of God, who have vision, who have direction and who have mission to come on the stage. I believe that given the opportunity to be the governor of Ondo State, I can start to re-direct the development of the state. And the starting point will be to examine what is on ground. I already have the database on what is on ground; how do we utilize what we have to solve the problems confronting us. They will help in creating wealth for our people; they will help in adding value to the communities where they are situated. I believe further that anyone who must lead Ondo State at this crucial period must have the fear of God, must be one that is well known to the people and that knows the length and breadth of the state, and I fit into these descriptions. That is why I cannot relent until we sing a new song in Ondo State; until we have a new lease of life; until we have a new sense of direction; that is only when I can say okay, let others run. For now, it is a man that fits my description that Ondo State needs, he added. The party and former ministers briefed newsmen after their meeting on Monday in Abuja, saying the shift was necessary in order to resolve the legal dispute over the partys candidate for the state election. The National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Mr Dayo Adeyeye, said it would be wrong for INEC to continue with the election as planned for Nov. 26 since the matter was still before the Supreme Court. Adeyeye said that the case which was now before the Supreme Court had denied Eyitayo Jegede, his faction candidate, the opportunity to campaign in the last few weeks The secretary expressed dissatisfaction with INEC for recognising the Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff-led factions candidate, Mr Jimoh Ibrahim, for the elections instead of Jegede. He added that INEC must postpone the election for a minimum of three weeks to allow everyone to participate. Every party should be allowed to present candidates of their choice. The election must be postponed in the interest of peace. INEC should wait for the decision of the Supreme Court before conducting the election. He said people should remember that the second republic was truncated partly because of the electoral crisis in the old Ondo State, saying that Ondo State is a highly educated state. We witnessed what happened in 1983. Ondo State wanted to choose their own leader. The events lead to collapse of second republic. We dont want that to happen again. INEC should allow Ondo people to choose their candidate. Let there be level playing ground for all political parties to choose their candidates. Mr Tanimu Turaki, who spoke for the former ministers, said that the Forum support the PDP in the call for the postponement. He also pledged the loyalty and support of the former ministers to the Makarfi leadership, saying PDP would not die. We believe we have come to a point where every responsible, every loyal, every committed party member should be seen to be rendering efforts to strengthen this party, Turaki said. Earlier, Makarfi had said during an interactive session with the ministers that it was regrettable that Ondo State was in the centre of the raging party crisis. He expressed the hope that all legal issues involving the party would be resolved before the end of the year. He added that our expectation was that before we begin thinking of going to the Supreme Court it should be next year. But somehow, we will be in Supreme Court tomorrow (Nov. 23) and some major decisions might be taking. So, if you look at it and calculate, hopefully before the end of the year we will be done with legal issues. Makarfi urged the ministers to consult with every member of the party and start strategizing on how PDP could capture power in 2019. If we dont capture power, it is a wasted effort. We must strategise so that we cannot be cornered. As a caretaker committee, we feel we should create a forum to bring our people together, to discuss and make recommendations on how to move forward. Zoning of the presidency to the north and the party chairman to the south is a major fundamental strategy decision, Makarfi said. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is expected to deliver judgment on the PDP candidate for Ondo election on Tuesday, Nov. 23. The Inspector-General of Police (IG), Ibrahim Idris, disclosed this on Tuesday, November 22, in Akure, the state capital. Speaking in a meeting with officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and representatives of the political parties in the state, Idris said the force is in control of the security of lives and properties during and after the polls. He said: "Twenty-six thousand police officers will be deployed in the state, and five officers will be at each polling unit during the election. "Also, 20 gunboats will be deployed in the water ways to ensure maximum security along the riverine areas while three helicopters will be patrolling at each of the three senatorial districts of the state." According to the IG, three commissioners of police will also be on ground in the state for special operations during the election. ALSO READ: Protesters invade INEC office ahead of Ondo Election [PHOTOS] Idris issued a stern warning to security agents who fail to attach their name tags to their uniforms, saying anyone who disobeys the order will be arrested and brought to justice. He also warned that all security personnel must remain at their designated posts throughout the process. Makarfi also highlighted the steps which the PDP has taken to ensure that they achieve their 2019 goal. According to Punch, the caretaker Chairman said the party is working hard to rescue Nigerians from the clutches of hunger. He also revealed that the leadership of the party has resolved to zone the presidency to the North and party chairmanship to the South. Adding that What remains is how to strategise about how to achieve this. He said We have met with the members of the Board of Trustees of our party, governors, former governors, state chairmen and other interest groups in our party. We therefore felt that we should meet with all interest groups and thats why we are having this meeting. You are aware of the setting up of a committee as a number of you are members of the committee known as Inter-Party. Some people are giving different meanings that we are changing the name of the party, we are doing this and that. They dont know how democracy functions. The ultimate is how we are going to capture power in 2019. By doing so, you cant remain in captivity, remain in one place. But if people (opposition) dont know how to come at you, they are confused. We are working on how to take Nigerians out of the shackles of poverty and hunger. We are concerned with how to rescue the nation. We will continue to do that. We wont give up." Lalong had said that Tinubu was not present at the APC governorship campaign rally last Saturday because he was sick. In a statement issued on Tuesday, November 22, Afikuyomi described the Governor's claim as "carelessly disingenuous, patently false, grossly unfair and most embarrassing." It is believed that Tinubu deliberately boycotted the rally because he is not in support of the party's candidate for the election - Chief Rotimi Akeredolu. Some state Governors believed to be loyal to Tinubu also shunned the campaign finale which was attended by President Muhammadu Buhari and other APC chieftains. ALSO READ: I have no issue with APC leader - Akeredolu The Governors include Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State, Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo and Rauf Aregbesola of Osun. At the governorship primaries conducted in Akure on September 3, Akeredolu defeated Segun Abraham, who is said to be Tinubu's candidate. A letter of apology signed by the bishops representing the nine dioceses in Rwanda, a copy of which AFP received, had been read in all churches on Sunday marking the end of the Holy Year of Mercy declared by Pope Francis. "We ask for forgiveness for all Christians who were involved in the genocide," said the bishops commission president Philippe Rukamba, recalling that the Church had already called for understanding in 2000. The bishop added however that the Church was seeking forgiveness for individuals and not for the institution as such. "The Church did not participate in the genocide," he said. That comment came after Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said on Twitter late Sunday: "The Catholic Church of Rwanda apologises for its role in the 1994 genocide, 22 years later! Better late than never!" Since the genocide, whose victims were mostly from the Tutsi minority, the Catholic Church has been accused of being close to the Hutu extremist regime in power in 1994 and some of its priests and other clergy were implicated in the massacres. A number of churches became scenes of mass killings as the Hutu militiamen found people seeking refuge there, sometimes turned over by the priests, with no way out. Several Catholic priests as well as nuns and brothers were charged with participating in the genocide and tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and by a Belgian court, leading to some convictions while others were acquitted of the charges. The highest-ranking Church official to be tried for genocide was the late bishop Augustin Misago, who was acquitted and freed from prison in June 2000. The students made the appeal in Nsukka on Tuesday while reacting to the ongoing warning strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). The President of the Students Union Government (SUG) in the university, Mr Emmanuel Chukwu pleaded with President Muhammad Buhari to urgently address the grievances of the striking lecturers. Chukwu said that this had become necessary in order to prevent disruption in the academic calendar of universities in the country. Miss Amarachi Okafor of the Department of Psychology urged the Federal Government to dialogue with ASUU not to allow the strike snowballed into an indefinite one. Okafor also pleaded with ASUU to consider the plight of students who would be spending extra years in the university, especially in this period of recession. The longer the strike lingers, the more the rate of crimes will increase and parents will be paying more for extra years spent in school, she said. Another student, Mr Emmanuel Ochi of Mass Communication Department pleaded with ASUU to consider the interest of students in order not to constitute a setback to their academics. I want the Federal Government and ASUU to resolve their misunderstanding amicably in the interest of students and tertiary education in this country. Students have suffered enough over incessant strikes and we do not want a repeat of what happened in the last administration by ASUU, he said. Academic activities have continued to be paralysed at the UNN over the warning strike by ASUU. The chairman of UNN-ASUU chapter, Dr Ifeanyi Abada told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that academic activities grounded in the university in compliance of directive by the National Executive Committee of ASUU. NEC made efforts to resolve this issue with government but it remained unyielding because of its insensitivity to issues concerning education. Since government failed to do the needful, ASUU is left with no option than to proceed on a one week warning strike and failure to meet with our demands we will go on an indefinite strike, he said. Abada said that ASUU was not taking it lightly with government on issues raised, especially the demand that universities be exempted from the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy. The strike compliance in UNN is total, no lectures, no examinations no departmental and faculty meetings as members will not participate. UNN chapter will not renege on the directive of the national body till government addresses all the issues raised. The warning strike which was embarked on by the union over the non-implementation of a 2009 agreement with the Federal Government, was reportedly called off on Tuesday, November 22, Daily Post reports. ALSO READ: Students appeal for government urgent intervention Speaking with newsmen in Abuja, the President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, said that lecturers should return to work immediately. We are making progress, especially with the intervention of the Senate. In the next one or two meetings, if we are able to get a clear path to the matter, we will avoid elongation of the strike action, Punch quoted him as saying. I have been receiving these reports that ASUU says strike continues. No. The strike ends today (Tuesday). All lecturers are to go back to work Wednesday morning. ALSO READ: LASU lecturers join warning strike Hosted by growth and impact facilitators, Starta and Ingressive, the summit was exclusively dedicated to teaching entrepreneurs how to build, scale and fund high growth businesses in Africa. Delivering the Keynote address, From Zero to One Billion Dollar companies: What Ive learnt, Afam Edozie of Grow Africa shared a wealth of knowledge gained from his vast experience with a variety of companies. Speaking on growth focus, he advised founders and entrepreneurs on the need to emphasise a particular problem, develop a practical solution and dominate it. He added that startups should focus on design and perfecting processes before injecting money as most businesses do not understand finance and how to use it to their advantage. In the spirit of discussion, the event moved to a panel session on the topic, Why Government doesnt get startups; moderated by Dotun Olowoporoku of Starta. Panellists included Omobola Johnson, former Minister of Communication Technology, now with TLcom Capital; Tomi Davies, a member of the African Business Angels Network and President of the Lagos Angel Network; Kareem Sudanki of the National Office for Content Development in ICT; and Jill Moss of the United States Agency for International Development. The panellists agreed that, among others, engagement and constant interaction between the government and stakeholders in technology were important to facilitate the catalytic role of the government as well as maximise its impact. The summit was rounded off with masterclasses on topics and issues of interest to technology founders and entrepreneurs. Speakers and facilitators included Adebola Williams of Red Media Africa, Afua Osei of She Leads Africa, Ebi Atawodi of Uber Nigeria, Yvonne Wassenaar of New Relic, Rob Withagen of Asoko Insight among others. The company operates in the country as an internet-based technology platform as opposed to a transportation company, something the Taiwanese authorities have deemed a misrepresentation of its services and ordering it to pay back taxes (just like in Lagos). However, Reuters reports that Uber has said it is communicating with Taiwanese authorities and that it complies with local regulations. "Uber has not done what it says it will do, so we are looking at another way by requesting its apps be removed from Apple and Google (app stores)," Liang Guo-guo, a spokesman for Taiwan's Directorate General of Highways, which is handling the matter, told Reuters by phone on Wednesday, the report said. Liang also said the request to remove the Uber app from the app stores will include the removal of the UberEATS app, which Uber just launched in Taiwan recently. It is uncertain if the move will affect Uber's operations in Taiwan since removing the app will not stop people from finding alternative ways. Taiwanese authorities have also not made any statements on how apps that have already been downloaded will be dealt with. According to the Reuters report, Uber and Apple did not immediately respond with comments but a Google spokesperson stated policies on Google Play indicate that the search giant does not allow apps that promote or support illegal activities. Bangladesh says it has prevented hundreds more from crossing into the country, despite pleas from the United Nations to open its border after up to 30,000 Rohingya were displaced by violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state. Bangladeshi troops have intensified patrols along the 237-kilometre (147-mile) border, but Rohingya community leaders estimate that 1,000 people have still managed to get in over the last week. Most are hiding out in camps for the 32,000 legally registered already living in southeast Bangladesh, fearing repatriation if they are found by authorities. Mohammad Amin, 17, said he and 15 others fled their homes in Rakhine five days ago and reached Bangladesh by swimming across the Naf river that divides the two countries. "The (Myanmar) army killed my father and elder brother. I hid on a hill and then walked and swam across the river, and took refuge at a mosque (in Bangladesh)," he told AFP by phone from Cox's Bazar near the border. "Where I looked I saw only burnt houses. I don't know what happened to my mother and sister." Zohra Khatun, 25, arrived late Monday with her seven children after their village was burned to the ground, and has been helped by a relative already living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. "I waited two days before I had the chance to cross the river to come here," Khatun told AFP by phone. The relative, who asked not to be named, said that at least 100 families had arrived at the camp from Myanmar in the last two days. Commanders of the Border Guard Bangladesh said their troops had blocked nearly 300 Rohingya from crossing the border overnight, the highest number since the crisis began last month. "We're preventing them on the zero line, especially those who were trying to cross the barbed-wire fences erected by Myanmar," said Imran Ullah Sarker. 'Horrific stories' Myanmar troops have poured into a strip of land that is home to the stateless Muslim Rohingya minority since a series of attacks on police border posts last month. State media reports in Myanmar say security forces have killed almost 70 people and arrested some 400 since the lockdown began six weeks ago, but activists say the number could be far higher. Witnesses and activists have reported troops killing Rohingya, raping women and looting and burning their houses. "We're hearing horrific stories from them," said one international rights worker visiting the area, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity. "We've heard that they have to bribe some people to enter Bangladeshi territory. The government must open the border and allow access of aid workers," he said. Bangladesh places restrictions on the work of international aid groups in the area, home to thousands of unregistered migrants as well as the 32,000 registered refugees. The arrival of more has caused tensions with the local community in Teknaf town, which border Myanmar's western Rakhine state and is one of the country's poorest. "If they (the government) don't act now, soon there will be a flood of Rohingya entering Bangladesh," said Teknaf councillor Anwar Hossain. Sarker said many Rohingya were sent back after they managed to sneak across unmanned parts of the border. Security guards are also patrolling the Naf river, the commanders said, adding that more than a dozen boats packed with Rohingya tried to land at the ghats (stations) in the Bangladeshi parts of the river. A massive suicide blast claimed by the Islamic State group targeted a Shiite congregation in Kabul on Monday, killing at least 27 people and wounding 64. "ISIS has stepped up its horrific and unlawful attacks on Shia public gatherings, making no place safe," Patricia Gossman, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement using an alternative acronym for IS. "The government, Shia leaders, and civil society groups should work together to develop appropriate ways to improve security during vulnerable public and religious gatherings so that Shia community members can exercise their basic rights." she said. Amnesty International, in a statement Monday, said Afghan authorities "have a duty to take effective measures to protect Shia Muslims from attacks and end impunity for previous abuses against the Shia community". The latest attack was mounted as worshippers gathered for the major Shiite ceremony of Arbaeen, marking the end of a 40-day mourning period after Ashura. Ashura itself commemorates the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Angry Shiite mourners on Tuesday accused the government of failing to provide protection as they buried loved ones. "We voted for this government, people's fingers were cut by militants for voting. In return the government should provide us with security," said Ghulam Haydar, a relative of a victim. "I want the the international community to help us get rid of the terrorists and stop them from harming the people." The interior ministry said it had suspended four police officials in connection with the attack and launched a thorough investigation. Last month a powerful blast targeting Shiites during Ashura killed 14 people in northern Afghanistan. It followed twin attacks claimed by IS that also targeted Shiites and killed 18 in Kabul. In July IS jihadists claimed twin explosions that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 85 and wounding more than 400. Those bombings marked the deadliest single attack in the Afghan capital since the Taliban were ousted from power in a 2001 US-led invasion. The last scions of the Konbaung dynasty gathered in the former seat of royal power as monks chanted prayers to mark the end of their family's reign, the first time they have publicly marked King Thibaw's exile to India 130 years ago inside the palace. Among them was Prince Taw Phaya, now in his 90s, one of the last king's two surviving grandchildren. "When we were young we used to come and play here," a beaming Taw Phaya, dressed in traditional maroon sarong and cream jacket, told AFP inside the audience hall where his grandfather once ruled from on high. "The British tried to keep us away from the common people. But... today the common people will pay respects to royalty," he added. Thibaw was only on the throne for seven years before British troops swept into Mandalay on November 28, 1885 and ordered his family to leave the country the very next day. The sight of the monarch and his heavily pregnant wife being paraded through the streets on old bullock carts as his subjects wept and prostrated themselves was a humiliation that has been seared on Myanmar's collective memory ever since. Fearing the royal family would become a focus for dissent, the British closed off the palace to the public and the doors remained shut after independence in 1948. The brutal junta that seized power in 1962 also sidelined the family, seeking instead to reinvent themselves as the successors to the warrior kings of old during a half-century rule that ruined Myanmar's economy and closed its people off from much of the outside world. Royal renaissance But interest in the monarchy reignited under the quasi-civilian government that took power five years ago when former president Thein Sein, a reformist general, visited Thibaw's tomb in the Indian seaside town of Ratnagiri. Myanmar's remaining royals, who used to gather in secret for their commemorations, have seized on the renewed interest in their family this year. In October they held a ceremony to commemorate the death of Thibaw's father King Midon while Tuesday's gathering was the first time they have publicly marked the fall of their dynasty. The family also plan to hold a commemoration in India in December to mark Thibaw's death in 1916. One of Thibaw's great-grandsons, Soe Win, has described the commemorations as a chance to restore "the (lost) human dignities of our country". Experts say the public gathering of royals will help Myanmar rediscover a critical period in its history as it embarks on a hopeful and more open future under the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. "Burmese self-identity congealed around a very defensive attitude to the outside world, because that period of the Burmese kingdom was also a period of extreme threat," historian Thant Myint U told AFP. Hla Nyunt Yi, a 48-year-old vendor from western Rakhine state who attended the ceremony, said she had mixed feelings about seeing what remains of Myanmar's once mighty royal line. Israel and Turkey had earlier this year finally mended a years-long crisis in relations with the naming of ambassadors, but a considerable potential for tension remains. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has backed the bill, which if agreed would apply across Israel and also to annexed east Jerusalem where more than 300,000 Palestinians live. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that for centuries the Islamic call to prayer, church bells and Jewish prayers had mixed together in multi-faith Jerusalem. "This is something on which there can be no compromise," Kurtulmus, who is chief government spokesman, said after a cabinet meeting. "It's absolutely unacceptable. The bill initially met opposition from ultra-Orthodox Jews -- who feared Jewish rituals could also be hit -- but could now be revived after efforts were made to meet their concerns. The bill was drafted in response to complaints about noise from mosques, but would in theory apply to all religious institutions. Israeli Jews living in settlements in the east of Jerusalem had protested against the volume of Islamic prayer calls. Relations between Israel and Turkey plunged to an all time low in 2010 after an Israeli raid on a Turkish ship killed 10 Turkish activists heading to Gaza. But the two sides are already working to bring cooperation back to former levels and are holding talks on building an ambitious pipeline project to pump Israeli gas to Turkey and Europe. Nevertheless, considerable tensions remain with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presenting himself as a champion of the Palestinians and regularly meeting with Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal. A couple more months? The senator from Iowa may demand a draining of the VA swamp by then. In the four months since U.S. lawmakers demanded an investigation into the suicide of Davenport veteran Brandon Ketchum, nothing has happened. At least, nothing has come out of the VA's Office of the Inspector General. But four months to the day that Brandon was told there was no room at the inn at the VA in Iowa City, another Iowa veteran, Curtis Gearhart, 32, took his own life. The 32-year-old combat veteran from Ankeny could not withstand the five- to six-week wait for treatment at the VA in Des Moines. He, like Brandon, knew he was in trouble. Gearheart died Nov. 7. On July 7, Ketchum left Iowa City in frustration. He returned to the Quad-Cities, wrote a Facebook post about being rejected by the VA and, sometime early the next day, shot himself. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, is making it her personal mission to find out what's going on at the VA. In a letter last week to Inspector General Michael J. Missal, Ernst wrote, "I cannot begin to describe my continued frustration, disappointment, and sadness that I must again write to you demanding answers about the loss of yet another promising, young Iowa veteran." The Office of the Inspector General has acknowledged receiving the letter, Ernst's people said Tuesday, but the VA has not come up with a timeline to deliver answers about what happened and what is being done to prevent more desperate Iowa soldiers from being turned away. Now, sources say, the VA is saying it could be a couple more months. It's not as if the inspector general's office has been doing nothing. In the time that has passed since Ernst, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, and another senator from Wisconsin (Brandon's home state) asked Missal to find out what happened on Brandon's last visit, the office has released the findings of at least six other, unrelated investigations. Even so, at question here is what happened on July 7. That's one day. It was part of one day, actually. The VA medical documents I acquired through an open records request more than two months ago seemed to me to give a clear-cut accounting: Brandon was struggling emotionally, and he acknowledged as much to medical staff at the VA. He had attempted suicide in the past, which his psychiatrist knew. He asked the doctor to admit him to the psychiatric unit, saying he knew he would start using heroin that very day if he didn't get help. The doctor's reply was, "that unit is currently full." Certainly, there are details to sort out, people to interview. But Ketchum's family members say no one from the Office of the Inspector General has even contacted them. Some folks from the VA spoke with his brother, combat veteran Brad Ketchum, in August. But nothing since. Early this week, Ernst didn't have to say she was frustrated. It showed: "The VAs failure to take seriously Mr. Ketchums request to be admitted for inpatient services is heartbreaking, frustrating, and entirely unacceptable. More than four months have gone by and we need answers immediately. Our veterans deserve far better than a failed VA system that allows our veterans seeking help to slip through the cracks. Loebsack chimed in Tuesday: "Like many others, I have been awaiting the results of the final report looking into what happened to Sgt Ketchum during his final days. While time is needed to ensure all the facts are correct, Sgt Ketchum's family and the community also need closure. That is why I have personally pushed the VA Secretary to make this case a priority. The public deserves to know the answers and the report must be completed in a timely manner." I would quarrel that "timely manner" has come and gone. Ernst clearly is running out of patience, telling the Office of the Inspector General last week, "I expect to see a response before the end of the year." Of course, she demanded a response last time. She specifically asked for a timeline, and she didn't get one. I've said it before: Maybe the VA is overwhelmed? Maybe they simply cannot keep up? Officials at the VA and Inspector General must surely be at some crisis level to repeatedly ignore members of the U.S. Congress, who hold considerable power over their agency. It benefits no one to delay an investigation or to put off announcing the results of one. If they had an explanation, they sure would share it. Instead, it appears the VA in Iowa is once again turning away a veteran. This time, it's Sen. Ernst. Maquoketa police are seeking the public's help in identifying a suspect wanted in connection with a break-in at Briggs Elementary School. The break-in occurred about 4 a.m., Nov. 16, at the school, 400 W. Quarry St. When officers arrived they discovered the school had been broken into with the suspect fleeing before their arrival. Surveillance video (see photos) obtained show a subject inside the school during the time of the incident. Any person who was information about this incident or subject please contact Officer Thomson at the Maquoketa Police Department at 563-652-2468. The Family Museum, 2900 Learning Campus Drive, Bettendorf, will continue its tradition of its WinterFest celebration from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 4. Admission to the event and the museums hands-on gallery is free with the donation of a non-perishable food item or monetary donation to a local food pantry. The schedule of events includes: Santa and Walgreens photo, noon to 5 p.m. Bettendorf High School Chamber Orchestra, caroling from noon to 12:30 p.m., performance in the Great Hall at 12:30 p.m. Family Museum Dance Company, 1:30 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. Wood carver with ornaments for sale, noon to 5 p.m. Model Magic and Scratch Art, noon to 5 p.m. Ice demonstrations, 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Buddy the Elf ("Selfie with the Elfie") in the ThinkShop, noon to 5 p.m. Rock Island High School Chamber Orchestra String Quartet, 3-4 p.m. For more information, call 563-344-4106 or visit www.familymuseum.org. DES MOINES Gov. Terry Branstad on Tuesday praised the Board of Regents for its new two-year budgeting model, noting his own push for longer-term planning. We are all for the two-year budget, he told board President Bruce Rastetter during a presentation on the regent university budgets. And I want to compliment you on that, Branstad said. Because were going to submit a biennial budget that fits within the guidelines that the Iowa Taxpayers Association has recommended in terms of accurate budgeting. We think it gives stability and predictability. Since 2011, Branstad has presented two-year budgets annually, although hes gotten some pushback from Democrats. He could see a more amendable Legislature this time following the Republican takeover in last months election. Earlier this year, regents debuted a two-plus-two plan that lays out two years of projected tuition increases for resident undergraduates and two years of state appropriation requests for its universities general education funds. In each of the next two academic years, the board plans to raise tuition for resident undergraduates 2 percent a bump that doesnt include potential increases for nonresidents, graduate students and those in high-cost programs. The board plan also calls for requesting 2 percent more in state support for each of the next two budget years, although the board has said it will approve tuition and state funding requests one year at a time and could increase those figures later if legislative funding falls short in the first year. The intention of the two-year plan, according to Rastetter, is to help students and families budget for the cost of college and give lawmakers foresight of the plans. Were very appreciative and very supportive, Branstad said, with the start of the upcoming legislative session just over a month away. Rastetter called Branstads reaction to the budgeting model and requests really positive. Well see what state revenues are like as to whether that can be funded or not, he said. If the answer is not, Iowa State University President Steven Leath said his campus would continue to struggle to provide a quality education to a student population that has grown 40 percent since 2007. During the presentation, Leath showed how state appropriations have not kept pace. This year, were receiving $3,300 less in state funds for each Iowa kid than we did eight years ago, he said. And that is huge, quite frankly. And were really struggling. Leath, like Rastetter, acknowledged the economic realities we face as a state. We can only expect a reasonable level of increase from state appropriations, he said. But the reality is those increases were asking for are really critical. University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld also highlighted the need for more state resources stressing the Legislatures partnership with the university and students in funding the institution. He said the university, in part through new efficiencies, is hoping to save or generate nearly $12 million more this budget year and beyond. Proposed tuition and fee increases, which regents are scheduled to approve at their Dec. 5 meeting, are expected to generate $16 million for University of Iowa, Harreld said. That leaves the 2 percent bump in appropriations equal to more than $4.6 million for the university. These resources are vital to our success, he said. Were hopeful that the state will see a way to help us. Interim University of Northern Iowa President Jim Wohlpart said the boost in state funding which for the university includes a request for $2.5 million in addition to the 2 percent would go to change our business model. We need to spend more time thinking about things like recruiting out-of-state students that will get us the extra tuition that we need, Wohlpart said. Two more development plans are in the works in Bettendorf. The Bettendorf Planning and Zoning Commission has recommended approval of site development plans for The Fountains Senior Living and a new University of Iowa Community Credit Union branch. The Fountains, an assisted senior living community on Thunder Ridge Road, is looking to expand its current offerings with the construction of a four-story building north of its existing facility. Russell Companies is the developer for the project, which will mirror the current 52-unit facility. "I can't comment on future plans, but we always hover around 100 percent capacity, so we do see there is a need," executive director Becky Hinton said. The University of Iowa Community Credit Union's expansion will join Greatest Grains in the growth of commercial development in Bettendorf. Located west of Middle Road and south of Woodfield Drive, the credit union will be neighbors to Greatest Grains, which had its site development plan approved by the Bettendorf City Council three weeks ago. Developer Build to Suit Inc. has submitted plans for a building similar to the branch's 53rd Avenue location. Jim Kelly, senior vice president of marketing for the credit union, said the new branch likely would employ 10 to 12 people. Kelly said Middle Road's activity and the growth of the market were behind utilizing the new branch's location. "We have another branch on 53rd, but this seemed to be a good location because of how many would be served off Middle Road and it cuts the market," Kelly said. The credit union had 4,094 members in Scott County as of Oct. 31, up 45 percent since the beginning of the year. While residential growth has made up most of the development projects toward the city's boundaries, Community Development Director Bill Connors said the latest plans were an encouraging sign of growth. "The north part of the city has been primarily residential," Connors said. "It's kind of a chicken and the egg scenario because you need roof tops and traffic counts before someone will invest in the area." The Islamic Center of the Quad-Cities, 6005 34th Ave, Moline, will hold an open house 2-3:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10. The free event will feature informative booths about Islamic beliefs and practices, the positive role Muslims play in the Quad-Cities and American society, tours of the prayer hall, snacks, henna, fellowship and oter activities. Everyone is welcome. Attendees will be encouraged to get to know one another on a personal level. For more information, call Imam Saad Baig, 630-915-5874, or Lyndsey El Bahi, 563-299-1510, or visit www.icqconline.org. MUSCATINE, Iowa - The Muscatine Parks and Recreation Department would like to invite the community to the Elves Workshop from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 17, 2016 in the Muscatine Mall Center Court. Santa and his elves are taking a break from building toys, and now its your turn. Children will have the opportunity to work in Santas workshop decorating crafts to take home as well as talk to Saint Nick himself. It is a FREE activity for children and families. There is no pre-registration required. Here's the afternoon forecast from the National Weather Service. Skies will be cloudy and breezy with rain likely after 1 p.m. The afternoon high will be near 45 degrees. Southeast winds around 15 mph will produce gusts as high as 20 mph. The chance of precipitation is 80 percent with new precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Tonight there's a 100 percent chance of precipitation with new precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. The low will be around 39 degrees. The Illinois Secretary of State's office plans a statewide sting operation to catch those who illegally park in disabled spots at shopping malls. Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White made the announcement today ahead of the Black Friday shopping rush the day after Thanksgiving. Secretary of State police will conduct compliance checks at malls across Illinois during the holiday season. Fines for parking in a spot reserved for those with disabilities without a placard or special license plate is up to $350. The fine for illegally using a placard or disability license plate is $600 and possible six-month driver's license suspension. Thankful, privileged and humble. Times reporter Jack Cullen says he lost count how many times Sgt. Maj. Carlos Murcia, of the U.S. Marine Corps, repeated those first two words during an interview with him. Murcia returned to his native Quad-Cities for Thanksgiving for the first time in three years, and will be honored as the Military Hero at Friday's Iowa-Nebraska game for his 24-year-plus military career. Check out his story later today at qctimes.com. No turkey today, just news and notes to get you ready for Fridays Heroes Game including the naming of two Cedar Rapids men as Iowas Citizen Heroes. All that and more, including Josey Jewell joining elite company and all-state honors for a future Hawkeye, are among details in todays Hawkeye 10@10. Read more from Steve Batterson. 1. Rain likely later today A good Tuesday. Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, the official start of the Christmas holiday shopping season, are almost upon us. Here's how the weather is shaping up as forecasted by the National Weather Service. Today: We'll likely see some rain after 4 p.m. Skies will be cloudy with a high near 45 degrees. Southeast winds between 10 to 15 mph will produce gusts as high as 20 mph. The chance of precipitation is 70 percent with new precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Tonight: Rain is likely before 4 a.m. The overnight low will be around 39 degrees. The chance of precipitation is 90 percent with new precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. Wednesday: More rain is likely before noon. Skies will be cloudy with a high near 46 degrees. The chance of precipitation is 70 percent with new precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. Wednesday night: Mostly cloudy with a low around 32 degrees. Thanksgiving Day: Partly sunny with a high near 42 degrees and a low around 34 degrees. There's a slight chance of rain and snow between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. Friday will be partly sunny with a high near 45 degrees and a low around 29 degrees. 2. Wundram: The night I fell out of bed 3 times Times columnist Bill Wundram writes of a story that can only be told in ker-plunks because three is the number of times he fell out of bed last Saturday night. Says Bill, "It may sound unlikely that an old codger like me who is a fairly lively old coot would fall out of bed three times on the same night. I suppose it could be serious, but between groans and self-effacing laughs, I survived." Bill finishes the story. 3. Three people injured in vehicle-pedestrian accident in Davenport Three pedestrians with non-life-threatening injuries were transported to a hospital Monday night after a vehicle struck them at the intersection of West 3rd and Sturdevant streets, Davenport. Emergency responders rushed to the scene at 6:24 p.m., said Davenport Police Sgt. Austin Kean. "It doesn't appear to be anything malicious," he said. Police blocked off a stretch of 3rd Street between Division and Sturdevant streets while first responders tended to victims and searched for evidence. The accident, which occurred outside Harris Pizza #3, remains under investigation. 4. Here's what Thanksgiving dinner cost you for the last 30 years Yes, Thanksgiving is almost upon us. Whether planning to prepare a grandiose meal, or just picking up a pre-made pie, most Americans are looking forward to a satisfying meal and a relaxing long weekend. But how much will that turkey dinner cost you? Read more. 5. Former grocery store will be new VA clinic Quad-City military veterans should find expanded health services closer to home when a new Veterans Administration clinic opens in Davenport in about 18 months. Work is expected to begin in January or February to retrofit the former Jewel grocery store on West Locust Street across from the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds into a new VA outpatient clinic, said Bryan Clark, public affairs officer for the Iowa City Veterans Administration Health Care System. Read more. 6. Today in History: President Kennedy assassinated On Nov. 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was shot to death during a motorcade in Dallas; Texas Gov. John B. Connally, riding in the same car as Kennedy, was seriously wounded; suspected gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. Take a look back to happier times when JFK was in the Quad-Cities. Also: JFK by the numbers: 25 things to know about the 35th president from cigars and ponies to the brink of nuclear war a look at the unique intricacies of JFK's life. SPRINGFIELD Exelon Corp. would keep open its financially struggling Clinton and Quad-Cities nuclear power plants for at least a decade under a forthcoming version of its proposed energy policy overhaul. The energy giant and its northern Illinois power utility Commonwealth Edison have also agreed to drop a rate restructuring proposal, which has drawn criticism from the Illinois attorney generals office and consumer groups such as AARP Illinois, and proposed subsidies for Dynegy-owned coal plants in southern Illinois. The revisions are part of a new version of legislation that received approval last week from an Illinois House committee. Exelon said additional changes could be made before lawmakers return to Springfield next week for the second half of their fall veto session. Following intense discussion regarding potential energy price spikes for both consumers and large employers, Exelon and ComEd committed to working with Ameren on inserting a guarantee into the legislation that would by law protect both consumers and large employers from any significant rate increase, said a senior official in Gov. Bruce Rauners administration, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations. Joe Dominguez, an Exelon executive vice president who handles governmental affairs, said in a prepared statement that the goal all along has been a comprehensive plan to address the states complex energy and economic challenges. In the past week, we have heard from groups and individuals representing a broad cross-section of interests, Dominguez said. We have listened to what they had to say and have made changes to the bill based on their input. After the House Energy Committee last week approved the most recent version of the bill, negotiations have been ongoing in an attempt to deal with many of the criticism leveled at the massive package. Environmental groups, for example, support provisions of the bill that would increase investment in energy-efficiency programs and renewable power, but they oppose subsidies to keep open the Dynegy coal plants. Exelon has left the door open to revisiting the latter issue in the near future. Environmental groups are also concerned that downstate utility Ameren Illinois hasnt committed to the same energy-efficiency requirements as ComEd. Consumer and business groups, meanwhile, were concerned about provisions that wouldve changed the way customers are charged for their power. The previous version of the bill would have cut in half the fixed monthly charge but shifted from charging customers for how much power they consume in a month to charging based on an average of the demand they place on the grid at given times. That proposal has been dropped. This story will be updated. EARLIER UPDATE SPRINGFIELD Exelon Corp. would keep open its financially struggling Clinton and Quad-Cities nuclear power plants for at least a decade under a forthcoming version of its proposed energy policy overhaul, according to a senior official in Gov. Bruce Rauners administration. The energy giant and its northern Illinois power utility Commonwealth Edison have also agreed to drop a rate restructuring proposal that has drawn criticism from the Illinois attorney generals office and consumer groups such as AARP Illinois. Both proposals would be part of a new version of legislation that received approval last week from an Illinois House committee. Following intense discussion regarding potential energy price spikes for both consumers and large employers, Exelon and ComEd committed to working with Ameren on inserting a guarantee into the legislation that would by law protect both consumers and large employers from any significant rate increase, the administration official said. An Exelon spokesman could not immediately comment. After the House Energy Committee last week approved the most recent version of the bill, negotiations have been ongoing in an attempt to deal with many of the criticism leveled at the massive package. Environmental groups, for example, support provisions that would increase investment in energy-efficiency programs and renewable power, but they oppose other provisions that would subsidize Dynegy-owned coal plants in southern Illinois to keep them open. Those groups are also concerned that downstate utility Ameren Illinois hasnt committed to the same energy-efficiency requirements as ComEd. Consumer and business groups, meanwhile, are concerned about provisions that would change the way customers are charged for their power. The current version of the bill would cut in half the fixed monthly charge, but it would shift from charging customers for how much power they consume in a month to charging based on an average of the demand they place on the grid at given times. The governors office said Exelon has agreed to drop the so-called demand charge in the forthcoming version. This story will be updated. Three pedestrians with non-life-threatening injuries were transported to a hospital Monday night after a vehicle struck them at the intersection of West 3rd and Sturdevant streets, Davenport. Emergency responders rushed to the scene at 6:24 p.m., said Davenport Police Sgt. Austin Kean. "It doesn't appear to be anything malicious," he said. Police blocked off a stretch of 3rd Street between Division and Sturdevant streets while first responders tended to victims and searched for evidence. The accident, which occurred outside Harris Pizza #3, remains under investigation. No other information was available late Monday. WASHINGTON -- BuzzFeed reported recently that fake news stories about the election generated more engagement on Facebook than the top election stories from 19 major news outlets -- combined. And that's not the half of it. Not only is fake news getting more attention than actual news but the leading purveyor of fake news in the United States is now the president-elect. For 17 months, Donald Trump treated the nation to a series of outlandish promises. He'll eliminate the $19 trillion federal debt in eight years. He'll balance the budget without cutting Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements. He'll bring back lost coal jobs. He'll make Mexico pay for a border wall. He'll deport 11 million illegal immigrants while growing the economy by at least 6 percent. Now Trump is the president-elect, and it's time to deliver on the impossible. No wonder his transition is racked with chaos and infighting. Scripture tells us you can't serve both God and mammon. Yet Trump proposes to be served by both Reince Priebus and Stephen Bannon -- one a chief of staff who is a paragon of the establishment and the other a top adviser who is a leading voice for white supremacists. The array of impossible promises and false claims has all the appearances of a Ponzi scheme, with the $18 trillion U.S. economy in the balance. Bernie Madoff's scheme lost only $50 billion. Early indications are that Trump plans to continue to fake it. On Thursday night, he tweeted that as a result of his work with Ford, the automaker would keep a plant that makes Lincoln SUVs "in Kentucky -- no [sic] Mexico." But Ford had never planned to close the Kentucky plant. It was merely planning to make more Ford Escapes instead of Lincolns there -- a change that would have resulted in no job losses. Ford is proceeding with its previously announced plan to build a new factory in Mexico. We see the Ponzi scheme unraveling in the substance of what Trump is proposing, too. One of Trump's surrogates, Carl Higbie, caused a furor last week by saying the infamous internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II provided a legal "precedent" for Trump's plan to create a Muslim registry. But for all the outrage Higbie caused, the actual policy being floated -- reinstatement of a George W. Bush-era policy -- is far more modest than Trump's proposed ban on Muslim immigration and threat to register American Muslims. This is the best-case scenario -- that Trump's fake-news presidential campaign really was all a con. Preposterous promises give way to modest proposals. This would disappoint his supporters, but perhaps save the country. Trump's vow that Carrier would reverse its plans to move a factory to Mexico and eliminate 1,400 U.S. jobs by 2019? Carrier is continuing with its plans. Trump's bold threats to appoint a "killer" ambassador to Japan and to force Japan to pay for U.S. military protection? Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, after visiting Trump on Thursday, thinks otherwise; he said he has "great confidence" in Trump. Many of Trump's absurd promises will come due soon. Trump spoke of abolishing the Education Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, said he would rebuild American roads for one-third the current price, monitor mosques, prosecute Hillary Clinton and never take a vacation. He said he would "bomb the s--- out of" the Islamic State, kill the relatives of terrorists, shut down parts of the internet, reinstate waterboarding, dramatically increase tariffs, eliminate Wall Street reforms, cut the budget 20 percent and end birthright citizenship. No surprise that the transition is chaotic. Lobbyists are in, then out. Chris Christie and Mike Rogers are in, then out. Frank Gaffney is in, or perhaps not. Eliot Cohen withdraws his cooperation, predicting "ugly" things ahead. And Trump says everything is proceeding "so smoothly." The British are fuming because at least nine foreign leaders, including Egypt's, reached Trump before theirs. Trump plays cat-and-mouse with the national press corps and continues to tweet like an internet troll, complete with bad spelling. His advisers give contradictory accounts about personnel decisions. Qualified candidates are rejected in favor of loyalists. You can't make this stuff up. Or maybe you can. Paul Horner, the leading purveyor of fake news on Facebook, told The Washington Post's Caitlin Dewey he was stunned by Americans' gullibility: "I mean, that's how Trump got elected. He just said whatever he wanted, and people believed everything." But surely you can't fool all the people all the time. SMALL-TOWN FRAUD PERSISTS: State Auditor Mary Mosiman said Tuesday her office is conducting up to 25 investigations of small-town fraud every year. During her yearly budget request hearing with Gov. Terry Branstad, Mosiman said she issued 25 special investigation reports since Jan. 1 and currently has about 26 special probes under way around the state that will result in more special reports on alleged fraudulent activities in Iowa municipalities. Im not seeing any decrease, according to the state auditor. Theres a need to provide these examinations that we do for the cities and theres a need to have an investigative unit in the State Auditors Office because if people want to perpetrate a fraud, they can. She said her office conducts routine audits at least once every eight years, and has surprised some city officials by sending auditors back to follow-up on recommendations or to check financial records. Theres potential for fraud to take place if they dont have annual audits. But, with more than 900 cities, we wont have annual audits. The periodic examination works, but we want to make sure that were not only showing up for the initial audit but well be following up, added Mosiman, who made a status-quo request for $11.5 million in fiscal 2018. A 2014 law require small towns with fewer than 2,000 residents and a budget of more than $1 million for two fiscal years in a row to undergo audits on a more regular basis. Cities that fit the requirement also are subject to periodic exams at least one time during an eight-year period, the law says. The changes were proposed after former state auditor David Vaudt found that, in a study of fraud investigations over two periods of six years ending in 2011, fraud in small towns had increased 350 percent, while fraud in other towns generally remained consistent. HUMAN SERVICE COST SAVINGS: Chuck Palmer, director of the state Department of Human Services, said Tuesday his agency now projects the states savings from switching its Medicaid system to privately managed care will be $118.7 million for the current fiscal year. The DHS director told Gov. Terry Branstad the savings are one way his agency is helping to meet the governors goal of reducing the size and cost of state government. Were on track to be a little better than estimated, said Branstad. According to DHS calculations, the state would have spent more than $1.716 billion in fiscal year 2016 had it not switched to Medicaid modernization versus the nearly $1.694 billion in state medical assistance expenditures. For fiscal year 2017, the projections were $1.658 billion with modernization and nearly $1.777 billion without, prompting Palmer to declare: We believe that weve been able to bend the Medicaid curve. DHS budget documents also indicated the departments staff went from 5,267 full-time employees in January 2011 to 4,476 last Nov. 3 and saved the state money by closing three facilities: the Iowa Juvenile Home in Toledo, $8.9 million; the mental health institute in Clarinda, $8.8 million, and the mental health institute in Mount Pleasant, $7.2 million. Overall, Palmer submitted a fiscal 2018 state budget request for $1.814 billion, which DHS officials projected to be about 2.6 percent, or $45.5 million, above current state appropriations used to serve more than one million needy and vulnerable Iowans. --Times Bureau The above organizations are recognized by Queens Crap as being beneficial to the city as a whole, by fighting to preserve the history and character of our neighborhoods. They are not connected to this website and the opinions presented here do not necessarily represent the positions of these organizations.The comments left by posters to this site do not necessarily represent the views of the blogger or webmaster.Street or satellite shots used here are from Google Maps or Windows Live Local PIERRE | Dave Mickelson is about to join the South Dakota Lottery Commission. He is the youngest son of the late Gov. George S. Mickelson, who won office in the same 1986 election when South Dakota voters approved the constitutional amendment allowing a state lottery. Dave Mickelson lives in Sioux Falls, where for the past five years hes run Graham Tire Auto Parts. The company has 18 locations in South Dakota and Nebraska. He previously worked in banking for more than 15 years. Gov. Dennis Daugaard appointed Dave Mickelson to the Lottery Commission on Nov. 15. His term starts Jan. 2 and runs until Jan. 1, 2020. He succeeds Bob Hartford of Pierre, who must step aside after serving two consecutive terms. Hartford previously was head of the Music and Vending Association of South Dakota, a pro-video lottery group. When he took a reporters phone call Monday afternoon, Mickelson said he was in the process of filling out lottery paperwork for a spot on the commission. He said he spent time Friday night reading minutes from past commission meetings. I was asked about it a month ago. I dont know a lot about it, but it sounds interesting, Mickelson said. His mother, Linda Mickelson Graham, has been treasurer for Gov. Dennis Daugaards campaign committee. She was widowed in April 1993 when a state airplane crash killed George Mickelson and seven other men. She later married Tom Graham. As governor, George Mickelson oversaw the start of the South Dakota Lottery in 1987 during the first year of his administration. He scratched the first instant ticket on the Capitol steps that fall. Later in his administration the Legislature added video lottery and jackpot lotto games. For Dave Mickelson its a new field. He said he doesnt personally know any of the other commission members. The commission sets the regulations and oversees the lottery staffs general direction and initiatives. The governor also announced the reappointment of Joe Kafka of Valley Springs to the commission. One of the seven seats has been open for the past year. The governor will have another vacancy shortly when former Rep. Chuck Turbiville, R-Deadwood, returns to the state House of Representatives and must give up his seat on the commission. The other members are former legislator Jim Putnam, R-Armour, former legislator Bob Faehn, R-Watertown, and Brent Dykstra of Fort Pierre. Turbiville currently is chairman. Putnam is vice chairman. Mickelsons older brother is state Rep. G. Mark Mickelson, R-Sioux Falls, who was chosen last weekend to serve as House speaker for the coming 2017-2018 term of the Legislature. Mark Mickelson recently announced he wouldnt run for the Republican nomination for governor in 2018. He had started raising money last year for a campaign for the nomination. An Oklahoma man who has pleaded not guilty to child sex crimes was assigned on Monday a jury trial on Jan. 25 and 26. Richard Walker, 71, has been charged with first-degree rape and sexual contact with a child under 16. Prosecutors say the crimes occurred in Pennington County between May and June 2014 and that the victim was 11 years old. Walker was extradited from Oklahoma in August and has since been detained at the county jail. His bond last week was reduced from $50,000 to $10,000. First-degree rape carries a penalty of 15 years to life in prison; the sexual contact charge, 10 to 15 years. Considering their man won, South Dakotans who went for Trump two-to-one can feel pretty good about their decision but with one caveat. Voters in this state really need to consider the consequences of the President-elect's tough talk on trade. Depending on where he was and when, Trump has promised to declare China a currency manipulator, put TPP talks on hold, and place tariffs as high as 45 percent on imported goods. And that's just for starters. I won't burden you with more of the rhetoric, which you've heard plenty of during the past couple of years. What's missing from Trump's politically repetitive tirades is a grasp of how his pugnacious approach to foreign trade might have consequences for Americans whose personal livelihoods and surrounding economic settings might be affected by his hard-line approach. Getting fair and mutually lucrative trade deals is everybody's goal, but I wonder if Trump understands the benefits that Americans get from the trade deals (NAFTA, WTO, among others) that are already in place. On a manufacturing level, consider that General Motors sells twice as many vehicles overseas as it does in the United States, including more cars in China than here at home. Many are manufactured in or close to their markets, of course, but the profits are repatriated here, as millions of GM shareholders and their 5 percent dividends happily know. As far as domestic activity, the U.S. auto industry is responsible for over 7 million jobs (including a 50 percent gain in direct employment since 2004), many of them created by foreign-owned companies like Nissan, Toyota and Honda, among others. Here on the South Dakota home-front, the situation is just as meaningful. According to the Business Roundtable, trade supports 130,000 (or 22 percent) of our jobs. Ten percent of those jobs are with companies that are mostly foreign-owned. Last year South Dakota exported $1.4 billion worth of manufactured goods, about $1 billion of which went to our NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico. Our ag exports were even more stunning, totaling about $4.3 billion. Since 2005, SD ag exports to our free trade agreement partners have grown by 81 percent, with the growth to our NAFTA partners (about $400 million) far outpacing the rest. Numbers like these should be in the backs of our minds as we assess the hostile rhetoric that Donald Trump has directed at our trade policies. My general sense is that Trump's bad-mouthing assumes that our trading partners will willingly go along with his threatened actions. History shows that it doesn't work that way and that retaliation is the most likely result, something we most definitely do not need here in South Dakota. A driver fleeing a South Dakota Highway Patrol officer caused a crash involving five vehicles, one of which rolled over, Monday afternoon at the intersection of Lacrosse and Anamosa streets, officials said. Lt. Elias Diaz with the Rapid City Police Department reported multiple injuries but no fatalities. The exact number and severity of injuries was uncertain, but at least four people went to Rapid City Regional Hospital for treatment of their injuries, a news release from the police department said. Police said that shortly before 3 p.m. a state Highway Patrol officer stopped a late-model Monte Carlo driven by Andrew Chipps, 25, of Wanblee, who then fled south on Lacrosse Street, causing the five-vehicle wreck at the corner of Anamosa Street. Witnesses told police the Monte Carlo ran a red light at a high rate of speed at the intersection, causing a chain-reaction crash. Chipps was arrested at the scene on charges of aggravated eluding, driving under the influence, driving under suspension, open container in a vehicle and four counts of vehicular battery. Diaz said that alcohol was a factor in the crash, though whether the driver was intoxicated remained under investigation Monday afternoon. There was a presence of alcohol in the vehicle as well as on the person, Diaz said, adding it was unclear whether the driver was injured. I know he had some blood on him but Im not sure if it was his. The intersection where the crash occurred remained closed for several hours Monday afternoon as the investigation continued. South Dakota is set to once again be represented on the national stage as the float featuring Mount Rushmore and its iconic faces will appear in Thursday's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The event may be watched by more than 50 million people live and on TV. National recording artist Ben Rector, who is best known for his 2015 pop hit, "Brand New," will perform on the float this year, said Katlyn Richter, spokeswoman for the South Dakota Department of Tourism. The South Dakota float is the only tourism destination float in the parade through New York City and is officially called Mount Rushmores American Pride. The Department of Tourisms living Mount Rushmore mascots will be on the float again this year, as well as other characters and elements that represent South Dakota culture, said Richter. This is South Dakota's seventh year in the parade, and Richter said Macy's continues to receive a really great response and feedback about the float. "There is really that sense of pride when you see it come down Herald Square," Richter said. "It's just that overwhelming feeling of pride to be an American." She said that people watching can get a real sense of South Dakota from the float. "Oftentimes they pull out some of the unique things about the float," said Richter. "It's more than Mount Rushmore. We have buffalo, there are people that walk beside the float dressed as park rangers, kids dressed as buffalo. So we get comments on some of those fun things that bring out South Dakota culture as well." Both the parade and the National Memorial are celebrating anniversaries this year. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade will mark 90 years, while Mount Rushmore has spent the year celebrating 75 years. The parade is featured on NBC. The program starts at 9 a.m. and goes until noon on NBC in all time zones. An estimated 50 million people watch the parade on TV. Officials do not expect any controversy this year over their choice of musical artist, which in the past has included Don McLean of "American Pie" fame. In 2013, Macy's moved the band Joan Jett and the Blackhearts off of South Dakota's float after ranchers complained about having a vegetarian and animal rights advocate representing the state. MOSCOW, November 22 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) Documents related to Kirovles embezzlement case against Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny reached the Leninsky District Court of Kirov on Tuesday, RAPSI learned in the court. Last week, Russia's Supreme Court overturned sentences against opposition politician Navalny and his accomplice Pyotr Ofitserov in Kirovles embezzlement case and sent it for retrial. Russia's Supreme Court delivered the ruling taking into consideration the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Nevertheless, the ruling of the Supreme Court didn't meet expectations of both prosecutors and defense lawyers. The ECHR ruled in February that Russia had violated Navalny's and and Ofitserovs right to a fair trial. In particular, according to ECHR, sentences against them were issued with numerous violations because of a lot of references being made regarding another defendant Vyacheslav Opalyov. Proceedings against Opalyov were treated as a separated criminal case after he admitted his guilt. Additionally, ECHR noted that Russian courts failed to review claims by defense that Kirovles case may have a political motive behind it and did not provide adequate evaluations of such claims. ECHR itself did not find a political motive in the case. The court ruled to compensate Navalny with 48,000 euro of legal costs and Ofitserov with 22,000 euro. Additionally, Russia is to pay 8,000 euro each in damages. Russias Justice Ministry filed a request seeking referral of the case to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, but the request was dismissed. Navalny was given a five-year suspended sentence for embezzlement at the Kirovles timber company in July 2013. In May, Moscow's Lyublinsky District Court increased a probation period for him to 5.5 years. Ofitserov received a four-year suspended sentence. According to investigators, while serving on a voluntary basis as an adviser to the Kirov Region governor Navalny organized the theft of over 10,000 cubic meters of timber from Kirovles company between May and September 2009. Investigators claimed that Pyotr Ofitserov, then Director of Vyatka Timber Company, and Kirovles CEO Vyacheslav Opalyov were involved in the scheme. HELENA More than 2,000 people from across Montana are planning to meet in Helena Jan. 21 to march to the Capitol in solidarity with the Wome When I travelled to 'Eua in 2015 Masalu and his wife Pisaina made me and my family welcome in Kolomaile, feeding us puaka and kava and sharing tales. Now I am delighted to be able to make Masalu welcome in Auckland. He will be the guest of honour on Thursday night at Auckland public library. The librarians will be making a podcast to commemorate the launch of, and they are looking forward to recording a few words from Masalu. I am sure many other Aucklanders are looking forward to some talanoa with the elder of Kolomaile. Comments and links to reports on science, and its applications. 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REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump abruptly canceled a meeting scheduled for Tuesday with The New York Times newspaper that he has frequently criticized, complaining in morning Twitter posts about inaccurate coverage and a nasty tone. The move came a day after the Republican real estate magnate met with television anchors and news industry executives and reporters in New York in a session The Washington Post described as a contentious but generally respectful. Trump singled out reporting of his campaign by CNN and NBC that he considered to be unfair, the Post said, citing four participants at the meeting. The moves illustrated Trumps complicated relationship with the news media. As a presidential candidate, Trump was quick to bristle at unflattering news coverage, even as he remained accessible to certain reporters, including several from the Times. At one point, he banned The Post, Buzzfeed and Politico from receiving credentials to attend his events after their coverage was critical of him. I canceled todays meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice, Trump said in a Twitter post. Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone! Trump wrote in a second post. A spokeswoman for the Times said the newspaper was not aware the meeting was canceled until Trumps tweet, which came at about 6:30 a.m. EST (1130 GMT). Trumps team tried to change the conditions of the meeting on Monday, asking that it be off the record, but the newspaper refused, said spokeswoman Eileen Murphy. In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off the record session and a larger on the record session with reporters and columnists, she said in a statement. Trump has not held a traditional news conference to talk about his priorities since his election on Nov. 8. KATHMANDU, Nov 22: The Members of Parliament (MPs) have called for developing the bill related to the social security to turn it into a fund based purely on contribution. The lawmakers took part in the discussion on social security related bill, 2072 during the meeting of the International Relations and Labor Committee under the Legislature Parliament. They suggested making the bill based purely on labor contribution of the workers and employees by removing the provision for providing social security amount for elderly, differently-able and single women. The lawmakers also demanded keeping a distinct arrangement for provision on social security. As the bill was introduced with trilateral agreement between the government, labourers and the owners in 2067 BS, the lawmakers have called for finalizing it in the same manner. They have also called for integrated approach for labour bill and social security bill. On the occasion, lawmaker, Pushkar Acharya, said it would not be justified to provide social security money for other people by drawing the money from the fund based on contribution of employees and laborers. Lawmaker, Binod Shrestha, said the bill became chaotic as it tried to address all the sides. Lawmaker, Chudamani Jungali, said the lawmakers have already registered an amendment proposal on the bill presented at the parliament to remove the subjects other than laborers. The fund currently has a deposit of Rs 12.10 billion accumulated over the years since 2067 BS by slashing one per cent of the allowance received by the government employees, security organs and labourers, said labor and Employment Ministry's Secretary, Laxman Prasad Mainali. RSS Kathmandu, Nepal: The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), the anti graft constitutional body of the country, has filed a corruption case against former Additional Inspector General (AIG) of Armed Police Force (APF), Rishav Dev Bhattarai by taking into custody on a corruption case on Tuesday. The CIAA moved to the Special Court (SC) claiming that Bhattarai earned Rs 10.91 million without any legal sources. With the case, the CIAA has also demanded fine and prison sentence under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 2059. Bhattarai is the Central Council member of the Naya Shakti Nepal, the party formed by the former Prime Minister and Maoist leader Dr. Baburam Bhattrai. As part of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relationship between Japan and Nepal, and aiming at promoting Japanese culture to the people of Nepal, the Embassy of Japan together with the Japanese Language Teachers Association Nepal (JALTAN) is going to organize the Japanese Karaoke Competition at the Tribhuvan Army Officers' Club, Tundikhel, on Saturday, November 26, 2016 from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. The competition is jointly supported by JICA Nepal Office, Japanese Association in Nepal; Japanese Universities Alumni Association, Nepal (JUAAN); JICA Alumni Association of Nepal (JAAN); and Nepal AOTS Alumni Society (NAAS). H.E. Mr. Masashi Ogawa, Ambassador of Japan will attend the event. During the competition, the audience will have an opportunity to enjoy, live, various traditional as well as contemporary Japanese songs, which they very rarely have a chance to hear in Kathmandu. The competition will be organized among the Japanese Language students. Entry passes, which are mandatory to enter the venue, are available at the Embassy of Japan, Panipokhari, as well as at JALTAN Office located at the Campus of International Languages, Exhibition Road on a first-come-first-served basis. It is hoped that this type of occasion will help promote cultural ties between the people of the two countries, which ultimately helps to expand the ever-growing friendly and cooperative relationship between Japan and Nepal. PARBAT, Nov 22: Nepali Migrant workers in Qatar have provided financial assistance to a kidney-ailing girl. Youths of Parbat, who are currently in Doha, Qatar for overseas employment, have provided financial assistance of Rs 30,000 to Anita Sharma, 14, of Ramjathanti VDC-3 in the district. Anita is suffering from kidney disease for the past four years. At a programme organised at Kushma on Monday, Parbat Chairman of CPN (UML), Padam Giri, handed over the amount to Anita's father, Dilliram Sharma. Anita, who is seventh grader at a local Saraswoti Lower Secondary School, has been receiving treatment at different hospital in Kathmandu after problem in her both kidney and taking medicine regularly. Dilliram urged all to provide necessary support for her daughter's treatment as their financial condition is poor. The financial assistance was collected at the initiative of Chairman of Parbat Liaison Forum, Doha. RSS Kathmandu, Nepal: Two CPN Maoist Centre leaders and CPN UMLs youth leader of the Doti district defected to the Nepali Congress, the oldest democratic party of the country. CPN Maoist centers central committee members- Jagadish Pal and district leader of the party Paramananda Bhatta, and Doti district chief of the CPN-UMLs youth wing Nilam Saud defected to the Nepali Congress on Tuesday. Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba gave general membership of the party amid a function held at Partys central office, Sanepa. BANEPA, Nov 22: Prime Minister and Kathmandu University's Chancellor Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Tuesday suggested the graduate students to serve as a model in providing service as a good citizen. Addressing the 22nd Convocation Ceremony of the Kathmandu University (KU) at Dhulikhel, PM Dahal cautioned the graduates that medical sector is not a frivolous thing, but a sensitive one. He said the graduates' shoulders are now heavy with the responsibility of the society and country and urged the students to dedicate the definition of life's success to human life. Stating that the medical knowledge is a subject linked with community health service, PM Dahal praised the work of KU in medical knowledge as commendable. On the occasion, University of Western Sydney, Australia Vice Chancellor and President Dr Barney Glover spoke of unlimited challenges for using manpower. The total of 1,377 students received the medical graduation degrees under the bachelor and master's- level. Among the graduates, 7.26 percent are foreign students. The number of graduates from India is 93 while seven are Sri Lankan. The total percentage of successful women students is 52.51 per cent and Pranita Rajbhandari of Lumbini Medical College was awarded the gold medal as the excellent student. RSS The Daily Star - November 22, 2016 by Taj Hashmi Recently, Muslim mob attacks on Hindu houses and temples in Nasirnagar (Brahmanbaria) and elsewhere in Gopalganj, Chittagong, and Sunamganj districts in Bangladesh have drawn wide media attention, within and outside the country. I cant agree more with Daily Stars editorial (Nov 2) that Government inaction would only embolden the bigots; and that: aany mix of politics and faith cannot work a democracya. Whoever plays with fire should know that fire would ultimately play him.a The attacks on dozens of Hindu temples and destruction of hundreds of Hindu houses in Nasirnagar alone were based on wild rumours about one local Hindu youths offensive Facebook posting against Islam. However, these are false flag operations to justify the attacks on local Hindus. The main motive of the attacks, as the National Human Rights Commission observes, was ato grab Hindu propertya . While Hindu victims were licking their wounds in Brahmanbaria, Chittagong, Gopalganj, and Sunamganj villages, on November 6 some rowdy Bangladeshi Muslims a allegedly with police and local ruling party MPs support a attacked and killed two atribala Santal Christians at Gobindapur in Gaibandha district in northern Bangladesh. Thousands of Santals lost movables, forced to flee the villages, and local police had arrest warrants for 300 Santals (who fled to avoid arrest) for resorting to violence. We believe the expropriation of thousands of Santal peasants from around 800,000 hectares of land in the locality was the main reason why local Muslim villagers a with support from a ruling party MP and police a initiated the premeditated attacks on Santals. Muslim villagers set ablaze hundreds of makeshift homes of the Santals after ransacking and looting their valuables and driving them out of their homes. Sultana Kamal, a leading human rights activist in Bangladesh, blames ruling party supporters for the acommunal attacksa on minorities across the country. I have strong reservations about using the expression, acommunal attacksa in this regard. While colonial divide-and-rule policy, conflicting economic and political aspirations, and religious fanaticism of people were mainly responsible for the communal riots in British India, the post-colonial ethno-religious conflicts in South Asia are anything but acommunala . Historically, communal riots in colonial Bengal were between rival communities who hated, maimed, plundered, raped, and killed each other; there was hardly any one-sided victimization of minorities by members of majority communities as has become normative in Bangladesh since 1947. Kishoreganj (1930), Dhaka (1941), Noakhali (1946) and parts of Comilla and Jamalpur witnessed one-sided attacks by majority Muslims on minority Hindus during the British rule. While expropriation, rape, and killing of minorities werent uncommon in Bangladesh up to early 1970s, they reached their climax in 1971, when with Pakistani occupation army support, even certain minority communities retaliated against the majority. Politically, economically, and numerically dominant Bengali Muslims havent put an end to the process of victimisation of disempowered members of the population in general, and especially of the Hindu, Chakma, Larma, Mogh, aboriginal Garo, Santal, and other communities, after the Liberation. Its not a religious problem. The popular culture based on age-old tradition of hatred for people professing different religions from the religion of the main stream of the population a albeit in the name of religious superiority a nurtures communal hatred. Hate and mistrust for minorities who speak different languages or belong to different ethno-linguistic groups also promotes racial or linguistic riots. Bangladesh is no exception in this regard. Thanks to the bitter history of Hindu domination of Bengali Muslims in British India, and the manipulative communal historiography and policy promoted by the Pakistani authorities during 1947 and 1971, many Bangladeshi Muslims nurture a deep suspicion of anything Hindu and Indian. However, its too trite an assumption that attacks on Hindus, Santals, and other minorities in Bangladesh by majority Muslims are acommunally motivateda . The way some Bangladeshis desecrate Hindu-Buddhist temples, burn down minority properties, expropriate, rape, and kill members of minority communities are primarily greed-induced, economically motivated political violence by a tiny minority of Muslim hoodlums. Being too weak to resist the criminals, non-Muslim, and non-Bengali (Hill Tribes, Garos, and Santals) victims simply suffer, flee, or die without any redress. Many of them sell their properties (at nominal price) and migrate. Similarly, the killing of thousands of Muslims following the destruction of the Babri mosque by Hindu mobs in India in 1992, and the Gujarat killings organised by the Hindu extremists and those in power in 2002 a around 3,000 Muslims got killed a were not communal riots but state-sponsored pogroms of Muslims. Prime Minister Hasinas statement is heartening. She promised foolproof security to the minorities; didnt blame the major opposition parties for the attacks on Hindus at Nasirngar; and admitted internal feuds within her party had been the main factors behind the problem. One wonders as to how one would explain attacks on Hindu minorities elsewhere in the country, before and after the Nasirnagar incidents! Firstly, there are extremists among Bangladeshi Muslims who justify discriminatory treatments against Hindus a including expropriation, expulsion and even rape and killing of Hindus a only because intolerant Hindus do so to the minority Muslim community in India. Secondly, criminal elements among Bengali Muslims take advantage of the troubled waters to loot and extort hapless Hindus and other marginalised people, in the name of glorifying Islam. In the backdrop of the growing intolerance towards Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh, politicians, intellectuals, and people from every walk of life should resist the manifestation of intolerance and racism in any form. They eventually lead to totalitarian governance or fascism. Educated Bangladeshis aversion to politics, and their insatiable greed, and proclivity to plunder to become rich overnight are big obstacles to good governance. Theres no point blaming the leaders while the followers are equally bad. aA people that elect corrupt politicians a are not victims a but accomplicesa , said George Orwell. Its time to make using pejoratives like kafir and malaun against ethno-religious minorities a felony, a hate-crime. It would be a bold step toward ending persecution of religious and ethno-national minorities, because any society that allows hate-crime against minorities, eventually witnesses large scale religious or racial riots, and even pogroms. We know the history of unimpeded hate-crime against Jews in Germany, and African Americans in the US. The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan (Sage, 2014). Email: tajhashmi[at]gmail.com The Island - November 20, 2016 Itas less than two years ago that a sustained campaign was fought to rid this country of the tyranny of the previous regime. Under the platform of a government of the people, ayahapaalanayaa won, rejecting the unilateral, anti-democratic, anti-pluralistic nature of the government that was then in place. Teachers, lawyers, students, fishers, garment factory workers, farmers, artists, women and men from urban centres and villages, ordinary people from everywhere left their daily lives to campaign for a government that would represent their needs. They went to events, marched, distributed leaflets, and talked to people so that they could form a future that was better for us all. I am thankful for their courage and dedication. It was clear what they voted for was not more of the same, but a change in the trajectory of the country. They voted for a government that was answerable to the people, a government that would strengthen education, health, law, and other services to ensure that people are not left out, and one that would rein in businesses so that another Rathupaswala would never happen. The 2017 Budget is a slap in the face for all those people. It does not rein in business; in fact it frees it to make progressively greater inroads into services, particularly in health and education. While some initiatives clearly open doors today for profits from the public, others such as cost sheets for hospital services will pave the way for such future initiatives. In other words, todayas cost sheets are tomorrowas bills. This budget is no more than a gift basket to big business at the expense of the rest of the people of the country. It is an attack on these people, and future generations of Sri Lankans who will find themselves at the mercy of profit oriented businesses to fulfill their needs. Who are the biggest winners in our budget? Insurance companies will gain through insuring teachers, schoolchildren, pensioners, artists, and accident victims. Secondly, technology companies will benefit as programmes to digitalize various aspects of government are proposed. Finally, other businesses that will be doled out resources ranging from private educational establishments, which are now eligible for government funded training and state subsidized educational programmes, to free trade zones. Who loses from this budget? Public education. Last yearas budget indicated some commitment to revive education. At least in paper, a substantial allocation was made to education. At the time the Government promised 6% of GDP to education, FUTA called for a gradual increase in the budget, a systematic review of the system, and a clear policy and action plan. Looking through the budget carefully, itas clear that what should have been a multi-year systematic project to uplift the school system has ended abruptly with nothing to show for it. In fact, funds for everyday functioning of the education sector are cut drastically. A one yearas rise and then a dip, on the excuse that they were unable to spend is simply not acceptable. A demand made by FUTA and other groups to successive governments was for a clear policy education. The government has failed in this regard and 2017 allocations seem arbitrary at first glance. The Budget, however, is anything but aimless. Implicitly, the programmes support unprecedented steps to provide government funds to private educational interests, such as the Rs. 400 million as loan schemes to encourage students to join private educational institutes. The policy for education is not different from the pro-big business policy direction that permeates the rest of the budget. Public Health .If Sri Lanka has a free health programme, why focus on health insurance? Such programmes allow the Government to reduce their responsibility to provide health services to its people. I have heard of countless accounts of greedy business people, sometimes doctors and sometimes hospitals, that would increase hospital stays, require unnecessary tests, and mandate unnecessary consultations simply to enhance profits. People are often left suspicious of whether they were tricked. Do we want more of this or do we want a government that makes a commitment to create a good public health service. This government has clearly indicated its myopic commitment to private health care. Finally, the general public. With services diminishing and taxes on goods and services increased, people who are already struggling to make ends meet must spend more. The government has substituted welfare schemes with loans, which have to ultimately be repaid. This is a budget without mercy. It is not one for all those people who fought for a new beginning, who wanted more vision, caring, and service to the public through this government. What we have got is more of the same, spirited in under the cover of admittedly a more democratic environment. Can a government that shows a lack of accountability to its people even talk about yahapalanaya? Shamala Kumar Faculty of Agriculture University of Peradeniya The News - November 17, 2016 The bomb blast at the shrine of Sufi saint Shah Noorani in Khuzdar, Balochistan has added to the hundreds killed in similar attacks on Sufi centres of worship; these attacks began a decade ago. Since then there have been at least 25 major attacks, targeting devotees at shrines which include Data Gang Bakhsh in Lahore, Baba Farid in Pakpattan, Abdullah Shah Ghazi in Karachi and Rehman Baba the Pashto poet and scholar whose writings on Sufism are a subject of scholarly study for experts on the tradition. These attacks have been conducted by hard-line, extremist forces whose orthodox line of thinking opposes core Sufi beliefs including tolerance, peace and coexistence. Sufi poetry and thought is of course embedded deep in our culture with people across the rural Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan able to recite or sing verses from their works almost continuously. For centuries, the Sufi tradition held many sects and groups together in the Subcontinent, uniting them in a common belief in humanity. Sufi philosophy is a matter of study at many institutes of learning not only within the Subcontinent but across the world, and its depth of meaning equals that of philosophers who have helped shaped the world. For today, in our own country we can say with some confidence that the majority of people still belief in Sufi traditions and respect the men, and women, who helped developed these in the region. The attacks from orthodox groups represent a deliberate attempt to change culture and tradition and intervene directly in the lives of people. It is ironic that in many areas, for example in Lahore where Sufi saints lie buried, top security measures have had to be put into place with surveillance cameras now going up in some streets to guard against a possible bombing or suicide attack. But of course as we already know from past experience such security measures cannot ward off every threat. One way or the other determined killers will still get through, especially since many of the shrines are scattered along relatively remote areas of the country in all the provinces. Attempts to gun down guardians of the Sufi tradition, notably in interior Sindh, is an example of the determination to silence the followers of Sufism and create a situation where they are less significant in the country. The reality is that Sufism goes far beyond religion alone. It is the part of culture that is handed down from generation to generation with the verses of the best known poets such as Bulleh Shah or Rehman Baba still moving millions, and the thought they express inviting many to ponder a little more about their lives and the manner in which they lead them. The question of agooda and relationship to the higher power come again and again in Sufi writings, and discussions and debates about these matters is extremely important, in a world that is today caught in mass confusion over its identity and its beliefs. What is hard to assess is how many people have been affected in any real manner by the new hard-line trends brought in essentially from the Middle East and used by powers in the country for their own self interest. We saw this happen most markedly in the 198s, when the schism between religious sects was quite deliberately created in order to ensure greater control over all that happened within the country. While every blast, every explosion and every verdict by groups such as the Council on Islamic Ideology, at present led by a hard-line cleric with a limited vision, naturally enough make headlines what we do not know is what the majority of people actually think and how they behave. It is obvious that for both spiritual and psychological reasons shrines remain popular places for millions of devotees of all ages and all schools of belief. The traditions linked to these shrines play in with the mindset of people and the indigenous culture of the Subcontinent, a region of the world where poetry, verse and philosophical thought have been rooted from an age that predates the arrival of Islam in the area. The Sufi scholars added a great deal to this and created an especially enlightened view of the world expressed in a manner that people could easily understand and follow. It is a huge tragedy that we today see this tradition under attack. Quite beyond the matter of bomb blasts or killings, warnings and threats have been made to persons who arrange Sufi-style gatherings within the privacy of their homes. Clearly these individuals are under watch which in itself is a frightening idea. We need to do much more to protect what is an important part of our heritage. Taking this away from people robs them of much that belongs to them and to the very soil that gave them life. We must not allow it to be taken away quite so easily and without a fight. How is this fight to be conducted? Sadly many of the forums which help frame opinions have been taken over by orthodox and particularly obscurantist views on religion. These include media channels and the content of textbooks in most educational institutions. Beyond this we also have clerics with only a limited education or understanding of their religion. The same is true of people who follow them blindly and without understanding. The Sufis argued for understanding as a primary human need. They held that, until basic concepts about religiosity and power on this earth and beyond it were comprehended, it could be difficult to move forward in any direction. We can argue about these thoughts. But no thinking should be destroyed or demolished through violence. To prevent this requires something a little more than security measures at shrines or the mass deployments of police when an aursa or other important event is taking place. The solution has to lie both in eliminating the small number of extremists who have used violence to take control of so much in our country. We need to remember that their numbers are limited. We can fight back against them by making a thought-out effort to encourage people to use their own minds to follow the traditions that their elders have adhered to for so many years. These traditions were born and moulded in the Subcontinent. They have taken shape from its earth and in turn shaped the people who live on it. It would be a travesty to try and meddle with this in any way. A country that loses large portions of its culture becomes a weaker and less integrated one. Tradition is not always a positive influence, but in so many ways what it consists of unifies people and brings them together. We need this unity today more than at any other time in the past. To ensure it is not stripped away it is vital to act against extremist groups such as Isis while at the same time giving people space to hold on to their own beliefs without the fear that they would be killed in the process of doing so. There is a danger that we are losing our heritage. It is crucial that we fight off this threat and reassert all that we truly believe in. The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor. We hope you are having a great holiday season. As the year winds down, take a few minutes to go through this gallery of the top 2016 stories f Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. You have permission to edit this collection. Edit Close The eighth annual CARE Turkey Fest provided all the fixings for a traditional Thanksgiving meal to around 50 parents in Santa Maria and almost 20 in Lompoc, including a 16- to 18-pound turkey, rolls, stuffing, green beans and potatoes, and to top it all off, gravy. The meal also includes pumpkin pie and whipped cream for dessert. Close It was early morning on Friday last week when I spotted a Facebook post from a friend of mine, an actress and stuntwoman named Bridger Fox Doran who mentioned she was going to be away from social media to tend to a family emergency. Needless to say, that emergency became much more known as the days passed with various sources reporting of a crash that resulted with extinuating injuries suffered by her mother and father and law on Thursday following a car-to-car shooting in San Leandro, California. As NBC Bay Area reported last week to date, victims Paul and Susan Doran had to be pulled out of their Toyota Prius with the jaws of life. Paul's life now hangs in the balance as of Thursday when his heart stopped beating, along with multiple internal upper-body injuries. He's in a medically induced coma while Susan awaits surgeries for several broken bones that torn ligaments and other injuries affecting her arm, leg, rib and spine. As such, Bridger and wife Kaitlin will be covering 100% of Paul's medical costs while a new crowdfunding effort is underway over at You Caring, courtesy of Bridger who took to NBC Bay Area to tell her story. Susan's insurer, Kaiser recently informed the Dorans' they wouldn't be able to pay for her surgery if they didn't move her to one of their own facilities instead of staying at Highland Hospital, essentially seperating her from her husband. The comapny has since reportedly hinted at not doing so, but that doesn't change the fact that her medical bills will be beyond what the remaining family can afford at this point. You can read more in full detail about this situation at the family's You Caring page where you can also donate. If not, copy and paste the link anywhere visible to friends and family or anyone able and willing to help this family in their time of need. The filmmakers behind Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the first spinoff of the incredibly successful Harry Potter series, apparated in New York City to meet the press. I knew exactly where to find stars Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol, director David Yates and producer David Heyman. Be Warned: There are spoilers in some of Ezra Millers answers. Ezra Miller The Lady Miz Diva: When I first saw your character, Credence, he reminded me of the silent film actors Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon, those sort of sad-faced clowns. Where did you collect the pieces that made him? Ezra Miller: Its interesting because in the script, Newt is described as Buster Keaton-esque. So, I felt like I was maybe treading on his territory a little, but I will tell you in earnest that I did use Buster Keaton as a reference. I think for Newt, it was more the quirkiness of Buster Keatons body language. For me, there was something about the way that sadness came through the stillness of Buster Keaton that appropriate for Credence. I had a few reference points from popular culture also; Daniel Johnston, this artist that Im a big fan of, I liked his physicality. Really, the most important models for Credence were these people who I had the privilege of talking to who had survived circumstances parallel to the ones that Credence endures in the film. Specifically, speaking to a couple of people who had survived abuse in foster care, who will remain anonymous for the purpose of these interviews. My approach to Credence was someone who never got the love they needed and who was also subject to this sort of violent indoctrination that made him believe that he was bad. And that stops him from allowing the truth of who he is to rise to the surface, and it seems like the character itself is sort of an exploration of the results of that type of trauma and that sort of repression. What happens when we dont let ourselves be ourselves; it can actually be pretty sad and scary. LMD: Theres so much of the film thats based in CGI. What were you shown that helped you with Credence and what was it like to play against this imaginary backdrop? EM: I was really thankful to be brought into a very collaborative process with the visual effects team, in which from an early stage I was given an understanding of what their idea of how this entity would look was. And also that they were interested in working with me in incorporating some of the choreography that I was doing into the language of the Obscurus movements. That was an incredible journey. Early on, when I first got there, before my hair was even cut, theres a video somewhere of me embodying the Obscurus for the visual effects team because they wanted an understanding of the interplay between Credences movements and the way that the Obscurus acts when its coming out of him. LMD: Did you wear a motion capture suit? EM: I did wear this type of motion capture suit that has gyroscopics in various points on your body. Its incredibly cool; while youre wearing it, you can look at a computer screen that has a sort of mannequin-looking person, but you could do a little dance and it does the dance simultaneously because its tracking all of the movements of these points in your body. And whats very incredible to observe is that you recognise your movement in in this computer mannequin, and when you see other people, you can identify who it is. Like they had done it with another actor, and I could tell it was them because theres something inherent about the way we all move, which I think is very fascinating. LMD: Transporting the magical world that began with Harry Potter in modern-day England to New York in the 1920s is a big change to this franchise. As the Harry Potter fan that youve said you are, what surprised you about this presentation of the world; things you might not have seen coming. EM: I just think its fascinating the way that some of the differences between England and the United States are explored, but through the lens of the magical community, so the idea that the International Statute of Secrecy is much more of a hard line in the United States because the persecution of people who dont fit into the status quo is more heightened really resonates with me. I mean, the 1920s in the United States is an important time - especially the late 1920s - for us to look at right now in US history, because there was a rise of Fascism, sort of Death Eater behaviour. In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan saw its height, historically. In the late 1920s, there were all of these new ideologies; new people coming into the United States and this unfortunate tendency for human beings to fear, reject, and act out violently towards what is unknown to them was at a height in US history in the late 1920s. So I think its fascinating that she chose this time to explore through the lens of the wizarding world, but especially in the time were in when we see Voldemort on TV every day. LMD: I recently spoke with Colin Farrell about being directed by David Yates in this film and he praised Yates and the family feeling on the set. Please talk about coming into this new project with a bunch of people who have already worked with each other over multiple films in the Harry Potter series. EM: Its an incredible feeling to be brought into a family. I think its a really sweet thing and its really good way to describe their methods of running a production. And I have to say that they were impossibly sweet and generous with me. Taking so much time to answer all my questions and giving me so much encouragement and making me feel at home in this world that I had always hoped that I would be at home in, but youre nervous once its happening and you want to do a good job. They made me feel really safe to take plunges and take risks, which I think is what makes for really good art. Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol The Lady Miz Diva: Im huge fan of Queenie Goldstein. I thought the character was this adorable combination of Lorelei Lee and Clara Bow Alison Sudol: Ah! Clara was like my main inspiration, actually. Its amazing that you caught that! Thats brilliant! {Laughs} LMD: You might have just answered my question. In the press notes, Dan describes his character, Jacob, as this kind of palooka, and as Queenie sort of reminded me of several different people. I wondered what external sources you used to create the characters? AS: Clara Bow was a huge inspiration to me because she was just this otherworldly creature. She could go from wildly explosive and fun and magical and dancing, to eyes brimming full of tears in an instant, and it was so real and you just couldnt help but feel everything that she was feeling. Its like she freed up something in you when you watched her. And also she was from Brooklyn, and she was a real girl who just happened to be pretty magical, and so I loved her. And also, I drew a lot from kids, too, because kids, especially when they are really small, before they have had anything societal put on them, they are so insightful. As we grow up, we get more and more kind of closed off, but when youre little, you just see things for what they are and you say it. Theyre full of wonder about the world and excitement and fun and playfulness, so I got to tap into all of those things for Queenie. Dan Fogler: For Jacob, I felt like I was stepping into the shoes of my great-grandfather on a kind of ancestral level. Im from New York and my great-grandfather Isaac was a baker on the Lower East Side, famous for his loaves of pumpernickel and he went to the war. So I felt like it was in my blood, playing this part. And of course I felt like I had to infuse this guy with Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and when you see Newt and I together, were like Laurel and Hardy, or Abbott and Costello, Cagney. So, this guy was probably a boxer in the Army, or something. LMD: I just love that you get the girl DF: Isnt that wonderful? {Laughs} Thank you, J.K. LMD: One of the things that Alison mentioned was the warmth of Queenie, but I feel like theres a warmth throughout the bonds between Queenie and Tina, as well as Jacob and Newt DF: And its a kind of Christmas movie {Laughs} LMD: That only occurred to me toward the end of the film, but its true. I wondered if any of the time you guys spent together offscreen helped create the bonds we see onscreen? DF: We spent a lot of time. We had about a month or two of rehearsal, beforehand. I mean, man, he {Redmayne} is so charming, he would have good chemistry with this microphone. He is just fantastic and he just made me feel so comfortable in a situation that wouldve been incredibly nerve-racking; flying to London for a screen test the first time I met the guy. My prediction is hes going to be the youngest man to be knighted. They did so well hand-picking us and finding the kinds of people that we would just like to chill with and just get the job done right. Thats what David Yates surrounds himself with. AS: Yeah, David Yates is a brilliant and amazing person, as is David Heyman, as is J.K. Rowling. They are really very, very wonderful human beings, so maybe they attract that, and they gather people that are also good people. DF: At every level. AS: At every level, yeah. From every aspect of their career. With Katherine {Waterston}, we were doing our screen tests, and they put us on the couch and said, Okay, you two are sisters, and go. And we were kind of like, Hi, Im Alison. Hi, Im Katherine, okay, here we go. {Laughs} That was our screen test. There was something about her face, where I took one look at her and she shifted as soon as it was the scene, and she looked so vulnerable, and I said something along the lines of, Dont let them get you down; they dont see you. And her eyes, they just broke my heart, and I didnt know what to do, so I just got behind her on the couch and I started braiding her hair. And just remembering it is giving me goosebumps again, because it was just such a beautiful, intimate moment and it actually meant a lot to me as a person. I dont have a sister: Ive made my own sisters in this world, and it was just an instantaneous moment where both of us allowed that to happen, and that connection, we could almost take it for granted in the film because it was just there. We didnt have to be like, Hi, were sisters. Sister. Sister. There was just a natural bond. Eddie Redmayne and Katherine Waterston The Lady Miz Diva: FANTASTIC BEASTS is interesting because its the first film in the wizarding world thats based on a book, but not really. The book is more or less a catalog of the creatures, with very little insight as to Newt Scamanders character, and no one else in the film exists. The script for this film really is straight from J.K. Rowlings head, so you dont really have anything to look back and base your characters on. Im curious how you created your characters, and when you knew or if Ms. Rowling said, Thats Newt. Thats Tina? Eddie Redmayne: Well, for a start, I love your T-shirt. Does it actually say, My Patronus is Godzilla, because if it does, then its the greatest thing Ive ever seen. Katherine Waterston: Yeah! ER: Its a great question, that, actually. She had written for Comic Relief, a glossary, which is the book that he is researching in this film, basically, but it didnt say much about who Newt was. When we read the script, the most amazing thing about the script was not only was the dialogue kind of wonderful, but when J.K. Rowling writes a script, the detail in between was so intricate and so kind of exotic and enticing, that it was all there. It was so sort of fully-formed, where I had an absolute sense of who Newt was pretty much from the first time Id read it. And then when I met with Jo a week or so before we started filming, she talked about where Newt came from in her imagination and in her life, and as with everything with Jo, it comes with her soul, and it was actually amazing, that conversation and it kind of kickstarted me in the right direction. KW: Its always kind of hard to take credit for creating a character. It does actually start with the writer. The writer really creates a character and its a question of whether we are able to pick up on what theyve given us. With this, because each character is so multidimensional and well-drawn and vivid, it was sort of like starting on the varsity team; it wasnt like starting with Pee-wee, or chucking you an underhand in softball. It was like we already had the muscles we needed. She gave us so much already, from the start. Its also kind of hard to pinpoint the moment where youre like, Oh yeah, now Im her. Its more like something I find you kind of chip away at slowly, one foot in front of the other. Costume design is really important to me ER: Wand design? KW: Yeah, wand design ER: Genuinely helpful. {Laughs} KW: Actually, weirdly, this is one of those ways that you work from the outside in, where, for example, with the wand design, they sent me for options and three were so clearly not my wand ER: {Laughs} KW: and I cant say why; I was already just working out who she was. Because I was beginning to make all those decisions about who she was, it was clear to me that only one of those ones could be my wand, it was simple and practical and basic. With the costume design, I was thinking of ease-of-use and someone who doesnt give a damn about the fashion of the times, doesnt have the money to go buy fancy things, is wanting it to all be utility, and so Colleen {Atwood} and I together came up with this idea that I was sort of shopping out of my parents closet. So, the trousers are my fathers, but I had to take them in at the waist, so now theyre too short - Who cares? Cant be bothered. This shirt isnt 20s, its not like the latest fashion; its actually more Victorian, something of my mothers that was still in the closet. So when I got to be their size, I just took their old clothes. Its so wild now, because its all been mass-produced. And the locket was something that was so dear to me, and I loved so much, and their pictures were inside, and now its on all these little dolls and stuff, and Im thinking, Thats my fucking locket. What you doing with it? But as all that stuff comes together, you sort of feel like you have permission and authorship to play the part, but its not like in one day. It works slowly. David Yates and David Heyman The Lady Miz Diva: Whats amazing about Fantastic Beasts is that youve trusted this film to a first-time screenwriter. David Yates: We were so lucky to find her. Where did we find her? David Heyman: She gave us trust. LMD: Screenwriting is a different art than writing a novel. Can you talk about whether you, Mr. Yates, whos directed the last four Harry Potter films, and you, Mr. Heyman, whos produced the entire film series, collaborated with J.K. Rowling in making the transition from writing a novel to writing something specifically for the screen? DY: Jo admitted it was her first screenplay, so she said, Im going to go on a steep learning curve and she entrusted us with guiding her, ultimately, but she is an amazingly quick learner. So the biggest challenge to begin with was tonally: We had to kind of figure out what kind of movie it was going to be. And Jo is so eclectic and imaginative and passionate and story pours out of her, so it was actually kind of figuring out the sort of emotional compass of the piece. Jos first screenplay was very whimsical. It was really delightful, and much of that still exists in the movie that weve got, but it felt like it lacked a Well, we werent sure what it was really about. What that first draft gave us, I think, and what it gave Jo was a sort of twinkle and a wonder of what she would eventually get to. The second version of the script went really dark. It was intense it was very ooh, scary. It was violent. It was the complete opposite; we lost all the wonder, all the twinkle. And this is a sort of very natural, healthy process for a writer to go through; she was finding the parameters of the world, finding the parameters of the story and the character. So, she turned in a draft that was really intense. I loved it and she loved it, but everyone else said, Whoa, its too dark. And then, eventually, over the process of the third or fourth draft, with the help of Steve Kloves, whos just a wonderful partner in all of this for David and I, and especially for Jo; she kind of hit a melody that balanced the light with the dark, and which was eventually the movie that weve ended up with, effectively. And then when she hit that sort of tonal balance, she was away, and we couldnt stop her, and it was struggle to keep up with her. But shes prolific, and she loves to write, and she loves to be in that place where things pour out. So, she was learning, but she got it really quickly, and interestingly, the first draft of the second movie didnt have any of the exploration of, Should it be this, or She knew exactly what she needed to do. She got the form and she was flying, effectively. So, yeah, it was a process; it was a learning curve. DH: I think the environment that David creates around the film is one where people feel safe. We talk about trust, and I think Jo felt incredibly safe with him, and it allowed her to make those big swings, so she could go to a really dark place knowing that she was in safe hands. It is important for any artist to be able to express themselves and not to feel hamstrung, and to do that they need to feel safe and David provides that for the actors, for the crew, for Jo, so that she can try things out. They may not all be right, but explore, go down to the ends because that would reveal things in itself. I mean, even the first draft, you saw there was remarkable writing. When I read the first draft, the script arrived and of course theres some hesitance, some trepidation, I was nervous because what a bummer it would be if the script was lousy. {Laughs} As you said, she is a novelist, theres a big difference between a novelist and a screenwriter; its a different form. Even though it wasnt right - yet - it was a strong first draft and you could tell she was a formidable writer. LMD: Id asked Ezra Miller earlier as a Harry Potter fan, what he found surprising about transporting the magical world to 1920s New York. What were some of the things that were interesting to both of you? DH: I think that one of the things that is very important for David and the way hes approached these films, and Stuart Craig, and the way hes designed them, is that theyre all grounded in a reality. This isnt a fantasy world. Yes, in this film we may spend a lot of time in the real world, as it were, as opposed to at Hogwarts; but even at Hogwarts, the environments were - how Stuart approached them - they were grounded. It felt accessible, so there was a familiarity. It wasnt fantasy, it was a reality. And Davids approach to the beasts in this film, for example, was grounding them: Nature is the most extraordinary and magical thing, and you can look at that as your foundation, and you can build from that. So youre not dealing with this language of fantasy characters in fantasy films, which is fine Great! - but thats not what we wanted. We wanted to ground our world, ground our story. The pleasure for me in this film is, yeah, its fantastic and magic, and fantasy, wands and fantastic beasts, but its actually the characters and finding the points of connection that makes this whole world feel accessible and possible. DY: I didnt think of it as a period movie in a weird way. I know thats crazy. I just found the ideas in it very contemporary and interesting, especially politically. I mean I love the texture and the world and the cars, and all of thats fun, but it felt to me resonant of now, in a weird way. It felt timeless. LMD: Well, how many pictures are you talking about, here? DY: Well, were just working on the second one, but yeah, Jos got a plan for five, but we have to see how these movies are received. Spectacular beauty is on display throughout Moana, the 56th theatrical feature from Walt Disney Animation Studios. Even better, the film's protagonist is an admirable young woman who is determined to come of age on her own terms, without any adolescent romantic yearnings to distract from her journey to adulthood. Further, the world in which she lives is inhabited (almost) entirely by her fellow Polynesians, without any intrusions from explorers, Caucasian or otherwise, seeking to claim the territory as their own. Yet it's difficult to shake the nagging feeling that, story-wise, Moana is altogether too calculated and machine-tooled to be entirely convincing. It also manages to reinforce stereotypes that should be crumbled. Directors Ron Clements and John Musker are veteran animators who began working at Disney in the 1970s. Their directorial debut, The Great Mouse Detective (1986), showed great promise and they delivered on that promise with The Little Mermaid (1989) and Aladdin (1992). Their followups, Hercules (1997) and Treasure Planet (2002) were less successful creatively, and when their next planned project was rejected, they resigned from the company. They returned to Disney after Pixar veterans John Lasseter and Edwin Catmull took oversight of the studio and asked them to work on The Princess and the Frog (2009). The musical comedy features gorgeous hand-drawn animation, and wonderfully quirky songs by Randy Newman, but its characters and story threads felt tattered and worn. Clements and Musker began developing Moana in 2011, eventually joining with collaborators to work out the details of the story and characters. Moana (voiced by newcomer Auli'l Cravalho) is a teenage girl who lives on an island in the Pacific Ocean that is completely isolated from the outside world. She is the daughter of the extremely protective Chief Tui Waialiki (voiced by Temuera Morrison), who has forbidden his people from ever venturing into the sea. He has good reason -- a tragic experience in his younger years -- and the people have been content to obey his restriction. Lately, though, the island and the sea have not been yielding their usual bounty of fruit and fishes, respectively, and the people have become anxious. Perhaps if they venture a bit further afield? As it happens, Moana has had an intense curiosity about the outside world ever since she was a child, when the sea itself appeared to beckon to her. Daring to disobey her father, she sneaks out on a epic voyage in search of a demigod known as Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson), who is in possession of a stolen object that must be returned in order for Moana's people to be restored to favor and thus survive the crisis they are experiencing. Like a classic road trip movie set at sea, Moana's journey is one of individual episodes. The overarching theme is that Moana needs to come of age so she can serve her people as ruler but, frankly, she's almost there already. She's not a selfish kid; she's kind and always thinks of the needs of others. Sure, her journey is driven in part by her own desire to explore; what's the matter with that? Moana is such a friendly, rounded. 'wise beyond her years' character that the movie is in need of someone else to make a big change, and that someone is, unsurprisingly, her reluctant travel companion, Maui. He's a powerful demigod with cute, hand-drawn, 'living' tattoos on his body, but he's also incredibly selfish and lazy, always taking the easy way out of any possible problems. Despite his advanced age, he's the one who needs to grow up and take responsibility for his actions. The movie thus inverts the expected paradigm; Moana is not a hero's journey, it's a sidekick's journey. The young girl Moana learns practical things -- how to sail -- while slowly becoming a supporting character to Maui, a male demigod who needs to learn Important Life Lessons. What may have been intended as an inversion of gender roles instead ends up reinforcing them. A cheerful, happy movie, Moana tries hard to be fresh and modern, but it doesn't quite get there. It's still lovely and enchanting. The film opens in theaters throughout North America on Wednesday, November 23. HBO has launched this Autumn season with a bang, dropping a load of a new quality television. From the serialized remake of Michael Crichtons 1973 film and a supposed Game of Thrones surrogate Westworld, through Sarah Jessica Parker post-Sex and the City comeback Divorce, Sorrentinos ornamental created by British talent Sharon Horgan, The Young Pope, a comedy by Issa Rae and Larry Wilmore Insecure, to originally Vimeo webseries High Maintenance transitioned to the small screen. It's a very generous line-up; however HBO remains active also in regional productions outside the U.S. soil and one such operation has just premiered in the Czech Republic. HBO Europe production in coproduction with young and ambitious Czech production outfit nutprodukce joined forces to deliver three-part miniseries Burning Bush directed by Polish veteran filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, focusing on the fallout after the historical event of the self-immolation of Jan Palach. The series was later re-edited into feature format and re-released for a regular theatrical run. It was also originally selected as the countrys candidate for Best Foreign Language Film, only to be disqualified by the Academy due to earlier original television release. The series gained praises and the two company repeated the partnership on a new project, eight-part miniseries Wasteland. Wasteland was already screened in its entirety (449 minutes) at this years Toronto International Film Festival in the Primetime programe line-up. The directing duties on the miniseries were equally shared by the Czech filmmaker Alice Nellis and award-winning director of commercials, Ivan Zacharias. Wasteland is a bleak mystery thriller resembling Scandi Noir while benefiting from the grim environment that Eastern European films are usually framed in. The miniseries was already aired in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Hungary and the Balkan region. The official synopsis goes: When Hana Sikorova, mayor of a northern Bohemian village, stands up to a large coal mining concern that offers villagers large compensation in exchange for abandoning their houses built on land containing brown coal deposits, her fourteen-year-old daughter Misha disappears. The search for her daughter makes Hana suspicious of the whole community, after years of peaceful coexistence. Under the pressure of unfolding events, the community starts to fall apart and show its true face. Solving the mystery divides the story into several interweaving narratives that ultimately connect in unexpected ways. The episodes roll out on a weekly basis with the miniseries finale scheduled to air a few days before the Christmas Eve. Wasteland is available through HBO GO. An early morning earthquake struck off the Japanese coast Monday near Honshu triggering a tsunami warning for Fukushima prefecture, the same place that suffered devastating tsunami damage in the March 2011 earthquake there. As CNN reports, the earthquake occurred at 5:59 a.m. local time, or 12:59 Pacific Time (3:59 ET), and the Japanese coast was bracing for a tsunami wave of one to three meters. The quake was reportedly shallow at just 10 km deep, and an initial report of it having a magnitude of 7.3 has now been downgraded. Reuters reports that there were no immediate reports of damage or injury from the quake, but Japanese broadcasters are sounding alarm bells about the coming tsunami. Also, they say, "Tokyo Electric Power Co was checking its nuclear plants in Fukushima for damage, public broadcaster NHK said." As occurred in the much larger 2011 earthquake, which was 8.9M and also struck offshore, modest tsunami waves could also be headed for Hawaii and the western coast of the U.S. in the coming hours. After that quake occurred on March 11, it took approximately 10 hours for the first tsunami waves to reach Crescent City, California, and about 7 and a half hours to reach Hawaii, where water cause some minimal flooding in beachfront resorts. That tsunami inflicted minimal damage in the US, but did wreak havoc in harbors in both Santa Cruz and Crescent City. However in Japan, waves were reported as high as 20 feet (6 meters), killed nearly 16,000 people, 2,500 of whom remain missing. A possible tsunami warning may be coming for approximately 11 p.m. PT or later on the West Coast. No such warning has yet been issued. Update: The largest tsunami observed so far, as CNN reports, was a 1.4-meter wave at 8:03 a.m. local time in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. Also, the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management is saying there is no tsunami threat to Hawaii. Japan's news agency is announcing a tsunami of 3 meters high is expected to make landfall pic.twitter.com/ANdv9r1DDK Nathan McDermott (@natemcdermott) November 21, 2016 The last time I heard @nhk announcers get this emotional was March 11, 2011. https://t.co/8h0x7ZDAUw pic.twitter.com/3X70LbRqym Steve Herman (@W7VOA) November 21, 2016 Below, a video of the tide receding and the effects of the tsunami as seen on a beach in Alameda on March 11, 2011. Anthony Bourdain has famously few qualms when it comes to consuming, shall we say, overlooked foods, but he's been adamant about drawing the line at dog meat, telling ABC in a 2011 interview that he's "gone out of my way to avoid cat and dog [meat]" and that although "its an arbitrary decision," he chooses not to trifle with it. Still, that proclaimed stance didn't keep one protestor from heckling the food writer at a recent San Francisco appearance, the latest in a string of anti-meat and anti-dog meat demonstrations across the Bay Area. In September, for example, members of the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere barged into the Chez Panisse dining room to make their case against meat-eating in general. And later, under the group's influence, the Berkeley City Council passed a resolution condemning a Chinese dog-meat festival. Of that political maneuver, East Bay Express food critic Luke Tsai argued that "moral grandstanding against Chinese dog eaters a relatively small percentage of people in China only helps feed into a certain kind of racism and xenophobia." Bourdain was the latest to be raked over the coals onstage, no less on the subject when he spoke last week at the War Memorial Opera House as part of his "The Hunger" tour. TMZ, as it does, acquired the charming video (picked up by Eater), in which a heckler accuses Bourdain of eating dog. Bourdain responds with his usual caustic wit: "How much worse could [dog meat] be than kale? he jokes. Its so good to be back in San Francisco..." Bourdain added before losing patience and quipping that Twenty more seconds of this and Im going out and shooting a puppy in the fucking leg." He punctuated his remarks with a request that the protestor be kind enough now to fuck off. Speaking later to TMZ, Bourdain contextualizes the incident. He was rudely interrupted mid-dick joke," he says. "As I pointed out to [the heckler], Ive never eaten dog meat. I have no plans to do so. I like dogs. However, after about three minutes of her harangue I may or may not have threatened to run right out and get myself a puppy smoothie. Related: Anthony Bourdain: SF Beer Nerds Are Like 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' Berkeley Passes Resolution Banning Dog-Eating Festival... In China As a longtime San Francisco politics writer, Joe Eskanazi knows where the bodies are buried... or, as the case may be, not buried at all. That's what appears to be the trouble with the remains of Chinatown organizer and influencer Rose Pak who died on September 18. In death as in life, Pak seems to be at the center of political power play and subterfuge, and according to Eskanzi she was not, as advertised, interred on September 24 following a massive funeral procession through Chinatown. "After the ceremony at Old St. Marys Cathedral," Eskanazi writes for San Francisco magazine, "Paks body was placed in a hearse and paraded through the streets of the city en route to Cypress Lawn in Colma, where it was supposed to be cremated and interred in a plot purchased by Paks older sister, Theresa Pak Wang." Instead, Pak's remains were whisked back to San Francisco where they are still housed at the Green Street Mortuary. "This was a phony funeral," Wang tells SF Mag. WTF why, you ask? Pak's sister, Ms. Wang, says that their youngest sister, Joanna Pak Kish, had the body removed from a crematorium so that it might be subjected to a private autopsy that could result in personal gain. Kish is reportedly considering a malpractice suit against San Franciscos California Pacific Medical Center, who treated Pak before her death after a prolonged illness. The woman was, according to older sister Wang, "a ticking time bomb," with, to mix metaphors, a fuse shortened by diabetes, high cholesterol, and 40 years of smoking. More than appearing to be rather unnecessary, a private autopsy would have had other adverse effects. From San Francisco Magazine: According to both Wang and multiple organizers of Paks public funeral, Kish and her family pushed hard for a private autopsy. This autopsy, Wang says, would be both unnecessary and would have delayed Paks services until after the date that had been publicly disseminated in both the English- and Chinese-language media. Wang authorized Paks cremation and hired an attorney named Ernest Der to inform the Green Street Mortuary that there should be no autopsy and the funeral should not be delayed. But while the funeral did proceed, Wang claims her sister intervened afterward and had Paks body whisked away from the crematorium at Cypress Lawn. An autopsy was subsequently performed, according to the manager of the Green Street Mortuary. Paks body remains at the mortuary; Wang claims her relatives will not release to her the results of that autopsy. Wangs husband, John, worries that possession of this autopsy report will allow Kishs family to access Paks overseas accounts. A probate hearing scheduled for Wednesday will begin to divide up Pak's at least $550,000 estate, further elevating tensions. As that approaches, Wang's husband, John Wang, want matters wrapped up quickly and privately. I am hoping to save her reputation, John Wang tells SF Mag, seeming to imply untoward origins for her wealth and possessions. Let her be cremated, he said.He should be telling that to his wife: Now Theresa Wang says that she'll refuse to sign cremation papers unless her sister, Ms. Kish, who has been pushing for the malpractice suit, promises to file no such litigation. Will the Central Subway be running to and from Rose Pak Station, a proposed name for that transit line's Chinatown stop, before Pak's body is in the ground? At this rate... Related: Supes Pass Resolution Urging SFMTA To Name Chinatown Central Subway Station After Rose Pak That beleaguered staple of San Francisco, Yellow Cab Cooperative, is for sale. The Examiner reports that the almost 40-year-old taxi company just couldn't overcome the one-two punch of a series of lawsuits stemming from collisions and the ever-present competition from ride-hail companies Uber and Lyft. In particular, a single lawsuit that settled for around $8 million really hit hard. Yellow Cab Co-Op is basically over, the president of the Medallion Holders Association, Carl Macmurdo, told the paper. This news follows on a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by the company this past January. At that time Yellow Cab's former president, Jim Gillespie, told the Examiner that the company would continue to operate as normal for as long as possible. The situation reportedly became rather dire in 2015, with the Business Times noting that a subpoena revealed that Yellow Cab was not generating enough revenue to give checks to the members. It stopped paying them, in other words. Yellow Cab owns approximately 520 taxis. No asking price was included in the letter announcing the company's availability for purchase, the Ex reports, and it is not immediately clear if the desired sale will in any way affect day-to-day operations. While it is perhaps difficult at this time to tease out exactly how much of Yellow Cab's problems are due to lawsuits and how much are due to the ride-hail effect, that competitor Flywheel Taxi announced earlier this month it is suing Uber for alleged predatory pricing and violating antitrust rules gives us a window into just how badly the tech giant is hurting the traditional taxi industry. "Uber has been able to maintain below-cost pricing for its UberX and UberXL services in the San Francisco Ride-Hail Market due to vast reserves of capital invested with the expectation of reaping extraordinary future returns, Flywheel's complaint states, per Bloomberg. In adopting this approach, Uber has veered from free market principles and artificially deflated fares of UberX and UberXL to prices below cost in an effort to drive competitors out of the market. Meanwhile, the price of taxi medallions has been on the decline nationwide, and in San Francisco, medallion lease rates what cab companies like Yellow Cab pay taxi medallion holders each month in exchange for the use of their medallion in the fleet have been nearly halved in the last couple of years, leading some drivers to flee to other companies, and/or try to sell their medallions and start driving for Uber or Lyft themselves. As Sherpa Share explained earlier this year, come Yellow Cab drivers saw months with no payments, or saw payments of just $1,000 a month, which did not cover their loan payments for the medallions, many of which they bought for $250,000. If things don't turn around for Yellow Cab soon, Uber may soon have one fewer competitor and San Franciscans may have one fewer option for getting about town. Previously: SF's Yellow Cab Enters New Chapter... 11 Bankruptcy Taxi Drivers and Cab Companies Are Escalating Their Losing Battle Against Uber and Lyft You've probably had a few of these conversations in the last week in which at least one Californian says, referring to states that went red this election, "Well, we could just stop sending them iPhones and shut off their Gmail and tell them to grow their own carrots and strawberries and almonds. See how they feel then." It is a gut reaction to the nausea and pain many of us are experiencing, and one I empathize with, but sadly the #CalExit movement is in all likelihood just going to be a symbolic one, because without a civil war or a constitutional amendment, it isn't actually possible to secede. Nevertheless, a group calling themselves the Yes California Independence Campaign has submitted a petition that they hope will result in a 2018 ballot measure to authorize a secession vote, which would then take place in 2019, as the Associated Press reports. The group's vice-president and co-founder, Marcus Ruiz Evans, has been an advocate for secession for a while now, and wrote a self-published book laying out his arguments in 2012 titled California's Next Century. He suggests that because California receives less in federal funding than its taxpayers pay in to federal coffers it should become an independent nation-state that could serve as a global negotiations hub, like the Switzerland for a new century. (But as one reviewer points out, he may not be the sharpest student of history, at one point suggesting that President Obama granted statehood to West Virginia.) Evans tells the LA Times that the group had been planning to wait for a later election to make their push, but "Were doing it now because of all of the overwhelming attention" that #CalExit was getting in the wake of Trump's victory. He also tells the paper they already have 13,000 volunteers signed up to help gather signatures for their petition. In order to successfully secede without a civil war, California would have to get the support of 38 states to ratify a constitutional amendment, and I think we can all acknowledge that will never happen. And don't we all think it seems childish and dumb every time someone in Alabama says they're going to secede, over gay marriage or whathaveyou? And you know Alabama declared secession ahead of the Civil War all because of the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln and the fear that freed slaves were going to rape "our wives and daughters"? The other moonshot being talked about in the news today is the Hamilton Electors, a movement started by two Democratic electors in two blue states, Washington and Colorado, calling on their colleagues on both sides of the aisle to cast votes for someone other than Donald Trump on December 19 they're even pushing to allow for a Republican replacement, not Hillary Clinton, as a compromise in this "emergency." They will, however, need to convince 37 electors in red states to go along with this plan, and electors are bound by law in many of those states to vote the way of the popular vote, or face fines or other punishments, such as simply being replaced as an elector. Previously: Trump's Election Inspires #Calexit Movement [LAist] San Francisco's in-person turnout at the polls on November 8th was nothing to write home about: Just about half of the city's registered voters made it to a polling place on election day according to the SF Public Press. But that's not the whole story: "More vote-by-mail ballots were cast for this election than for any previous San Francisco election," Department of Elections director John Arntz wrote in an election results report this weekend, the 15th such update since election day. "The Department will ultimately process nearly 1.3 million ballot cards associated with vote-by-mail ballots," he said. "[Were] pretty much running on sugar and caffeine at this point, Jill Fox, the Department of Elections outreach manager, told the Public Press. She and 285 permanent and temporary staff have been working since the end of October, when they were registering voters. Since the 8th, they've been tallying ballots. There was an incredible amount of interest in this election," says Fox. Her Department's goal is to finish with time for everyone to take the Thanksgiving holiday. "Were all seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, she told the Public Press. In the end, San Franciscans cast 393,318 votes this election, more than any previous. That means about 77 percent of registered voters made their voices heard although our population approaches 850,000, far fewer are registered to vote. This year's numbers topped those from the 2008 general election: Those were 388,112, although with lower voter registration and a smaller population at the time, that meant turnout was higher as a percentage of registered voters, with 81 percent of them casting ballots that year. The highest percentage of registered voters ever to vote in San Francisco remains the 1960 presidential race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. 86 percent of registered voters, or 348,000 people, cast ballots in that election. 84 percent of voting San Franciscans selected Hillary Clinton for president, who appears on track to win the national popular vote by millions according to some measures. Just under 10 percent voted for President-Elect Donald Trump, who is on track to be chosen by the electoral college. Nationally, just 58 percent of registered voters cast their ballots in the November 8th electionaccording to the US Elections Project. In California, civic engagement was markedly better, with 65 percent of registered voters casting ballots per official provisional voting results. Related: When Did Ballot Initiatives Start In CA, And What Was The Longest Ever Ballot? The former site of an upscale candy and soda shop, The Fizzary, is once again in the news following reports that the location's current tenant is still running an illegal, late-night gambling and prostitution operation out of the building. Mission Local reports that neighbors again feel threatened by the rowdy patrons and accompanying brawls, and that police have been unresponsive to their concerns. As you may recall, this is not the first time this building at 2949 Mission Street has been used as a house of ill repute. In October of last year we noted that, in a rare case of reverse gentrification, the shop had been transformed following its closure into a late-night party spot and had played host to at least one shooting. Things even got so bad that the Fizzary's owner and then lease-holder, Taylor Peck, vandalized his own storefront with the words "ILLEGAL CLUB" in an effort to draw attention to his allegedly law-breaking subtenants. His efforts seemed to eventually pay off, and after he was evicted (he had been living in the space) the den was finally shut down in January of this year. God help the property owner, tenants, and neighborhood that those low life speakeasy vampires will inevitably sink their infected fangs into next, Peck told Capp Street Crap at the time. Unfortunately for the store's neighbors, it seems the fangs in question never strayed too far as now the same late-night action is just operating out of the back of the building facing Lilac Street. Theres been fights in the back alley, people urinating, vomiting, a neighbor told Mission Local. Theres no parking in the back alley. All these people park back there, honking all night long and its hard to sleep. Its the same thing as at the Fizzary, the exact same thing, another neighbor told the paper. When I call the police its the same thing. They either dont come or they dont do much. At least one neighbor told the publication that the same men who ran things last year are behind the business proving that in San Francisco you just can't keep an entrepreneur down. Or, at least without a warrant anyway. We need to have that concrete evidence," SFPD spokesperson Carlos Manfredi explained to Mission Local. "We have to have a reason to go inside the building. Its one of those things where we can only do as much as were allowed to by the law. Previously: Fancy Soda Shop Turned Gambling Den FINALLY Shut Down A worker at a San Francisco lumber yard was killed Monday afternoon, crushed beneath the forklift he was driving. According to a tweet by San Francisco Police Department Bayview Station Captain Raj Vaswani, the incident occurred at Goodview Lumber, a hardware store and lumber yard located at 1320 Marin Street. We are investigating this with CAL OSHA and Medical Examiner's Office. Incident occurred on Goodview Lumber's Property. https://t.co/qswK91fMp9 Captain Vaswani (@sfvas) November 22, 2016 The SFPD reports that they were called to the scene at 1:54 p.m. Monday, on reports of an "industrial accident." When they arrived, they discovered a 59-year-old deceased male. The man, police say, "was working on a job site when a forklift fell over and landed on [him]." Workers at the scene attempted to rescue him, police say, but were unsuccessful. According to the Chron, "The forklift tipped over at the bottom of one of three ramps leading up to the companys loading dock. A wooden pallet that had been loaded with bags of material was still stuck on the forklift." KRON 4 confirms that report, saying that the man "was driving a forklift when it went off a ramp, according to a spokeswoman for the California Department of Occupational Safety and Health...The employee got pinned underneath the forklift and died of his injuries." Bay City News reports that on Tuesday morning the San Francisco Medical Examiner's office identified the dead man as South San Francisco resident Ruan Qiang. According to the SFPD, SF police and Cal/OSHA will work together to investigate the incident. Related: Garbage Truck Ordeal: Sleeping Bay Area Man Crushed In Trash Compactor (Twice!) Officers with the San Francisco Police Department have their "eyes on a swivel," a spokesperson says, braced for action following a day in which at least four cops were shot in states other than California. According the the Ex, SFPD is on "high alert" following four incidents across the US on Sunday in which police officers were shot, one fatally. On Sunday in San Antonio, Texas, Detective Ben Marconi "was shot at close range...as he wrote a traffic ticket outside of police headquarters," CNN reports. The alleged shooter, 31-year-old Otis Tyrone McKane "killed [Marconi ] specifically because he was a law enforcement officer." Also on Sunday, 19-year-old George P. Bush III allegedly "pulled up in a silver car next to a marked Chevy Tahoe and opened fire" in St. Louis, CNN reports, striking a "46-year-old sergeant and 20-year veteran of the force...twice in the head." That officer, who has not been publicly named, is expected to survive. He was "ambushed," St. Louis Police Department Police Chief Sam Dotson says, by a suspect who "likely shot the officer Sunday night out of fear he would be recognized for his role in the recent string of crimes." A police officer in the small town of Santibel, Florida, was also shot Sunday, the city's first reports the News-Press. In that case, the officer "was wounded by a drive-by shooter as he sat in his patrol car after completing a routine traffic stop near Bailey and Sandcastle roads." 49-year-old Jon Webster Hay has been arrested in the case, and charged with attempted homicide. Finally, 18-year-old Jacob Stevens was shot and killed by police in Gladstone, Missouri, after he allegedly opened fire on two officers after the pulled over the car in which he was a passenger. Speaking with KMBC, Kansas City Police Officer Darin Snapp says that incidents like Sunday's are "our absolute worst nightmare...Were going to have to watch everybody that walks by us, every car that drives by, because you just never know." Those incidents have not going unnoticed in San Francisco, where SFPD spokesperson Officer Carlos Manfredi tells the Ex that These incidents happened when the officers were caught off guard, just going about their business...They were basically attacked from surprise by behind. According to Manfredi, even though officers with the SFPD almost always patrol in pairs, "the department will ensure officers are not riding alone in the immediate aftermath of the shootings," reports the Ex. "The public is also asked to remain on the lookout for anything suspicious, and to make note of license plates or suspect descriptions if a crime is witnessed," the Ex reports. And in the end, Manfredi says, it all comes down to staying frosty. Attacks on officers (for example, the shooting of SFPD Officer Kevin Downs near Stern Grove last month) are, Manfredi says, "one of those things where its really hard to predict...Youve got to keep your eyes on a swivel and look for anything out of the ordinary." Related: Man Who Allegedly Shot SFPD Officer Had Been Living In A Van Parked In The Sunset Expand Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Magnolia Grandiflora File Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904) under unjustly forgotten artists. The American painter wasnt especially popular during his lifetime, although he is now recognized as one of the most gifted artists of the nineteenth century. But Heade himself is partly to blame for his neglect. He suffered from the arrogance of the highly gifted and painted sensual canvasses that scandalized his Victorian viewers. Nature and Opulence: The Art of Martin Johnson Heade, the first major retrospective of Heades work in twenty years, is on display at the Milwaukee Art Museum through January 26, 2017. Off the Cuff spoke with MAMs Brandon Ruud about Heades life and work. Who was Martin Johnson Heade and why havent we heard of him before? Heade was a nineteenth century American painter, one of the most innovative painters of that entire century. He was the only artist of his generation to explore such a variety of different subjects landscapes, seascapes, marsh scenes, natural history paintings, beautiful still lifes. He was also compositionally and technically innovative in how he depicted these subjects. When he became interested in painting hummingbirds, for instance, he dissected specimens and even visited Brazil to study them in their natural habitat. However, Heade stood outside the mainstream of American art. On the one hand, if you think about his subjects, they fall in line with what was popular in American art of the era. But they are so different in tone and spirit from his contemporaries that he didnt have many patrons or the support of the art world generally. Friends of the Shepherd Help support Milwaukee's locally owned free weekly newspaper. LEARN MORE Still, Heade was proud of his outsider status. He threw down the gauntlet. I am no bootlicker to the rich, he claimed. That attitude certainly doesnt endear you to collectors and patrons. It wasnt until the mid twentieth century that Heade began to be rediscovered. What was Heades reputation during his lifetime and what accounts for posthumous rediscovery? When critics did write about him, it was with praise. They realized that no other artist was painting such subtle, beautiful landscape paintings that emphasized atmosphere and quality of light. Even with the critical praise, the subtlety of Heades work made it a tougher sell with collectors and patrons. Even though he fostered the persona of a rebel, Heade was well versed with what was going on in the art world. He spent two years in Europe, where he visited museums and got acquainted with the works of the masters. He also had a studio in New York City, which was the heart of the art world even then. The resurgence of his reputation has to do with collectors reevaluating nineteenth century American art as a whole. By the early twentieth century that whole era had fallen into decline. No one wanted to buy paintings by the Hudson River School. People wanted to buy Modernism. But eventually people became interested again in these artists once again and the innovative quality of Heades work began attracting notice. Heades oeuvre consists of landscapes, seascapes, still lifes of flowers, studies of South American hummingbirds hardly racy stuff by contemporary standards. Why was he such a controversial artist in his day? Today its hard to imagine that any of these images would be considered racy. But many of Heades paintings have sexual overtones that did not go unnoticed by a Victorian audience. For instance, many of the works based on his travels through Central and South America are quite literally about the birds and the bees. In many cases the hummingbirds were in mating position. For a nineteenth century audience conversant in natural history this would have been obvious. Theres a famous quote from a twentieth century critic that compares Heades later still lifes of orchids to a reclining odalisque. Despite the fact that he was focusing on the natural aspect of specimens, there was still an erotic overtone to these sensual, lush paintings. In fact, his single flower still lifes from the end of life only had a single patron. Still, the way that he captured the light and the dew on the petals is breathtaking. Tell me about Heades first major retrospective in nearly twenty years. People can expect to see a cross-section of Heades work including some of the most beautiful landscapes and still lifes of the nineteenth century. There are approximately forty works by Heade that have been juxtaposed with paintings by his contemporaries. This contextual setting allows people to see what was so different and exceptional about Heade. The exhibition is also an opportunity to absorb the MFA Bostons collection of American art. Its one of the best in the world. Does Heades nineteenth century art still speak to the contemporary viewer? Absolutely. On one level there is the pure pleasure of Heades technical virtuosity. Every rock is rendered with such precision. Its hard to look away, to not get absorbed in the solitude of the painting. There is even a surreal quality in some of the later still lifes. In terms of subject matter, Heade is also still relevant. His interest in the environment resonates with the renewed focus on the environment today. Although Heade stood outside mainstream art and politics of his time, he was very familiar with what was going on in the world and some of his paintings have metaphors about the state of America during this time. Theres a great painting in the exhibition of a farm scene. You see a man and young boy walking out to a herd in the background. Storm clouds are brewing overhead. If you look closely you can see that the man and boy are African Americans. Heade painted the work just as nation was entering the Civil War. SIOUX CITY | The Sioux City Council voted unanimously Monday to raise the salary of city manager Bob Padmore by 8.7 percent to keep his pay competitive with other city managers around the state. Effective Nov. 28, Padmore's salary will rise to $175,750 per year plus benefits, which include an annual car allowance of $4,200 plus $15,818 in deferred income. His total cash compensation will be $195,768. The raise places Padmore ninth among Iowa's city managers and administrators in terms of total compensation, according to statistics compiled by the city of Sioux City. Sioux City is Iowa's fourth-largest city. Mayor Bob Scott on Monday acknowledged Padmore's salary still ranks low in comparison and said the raise was necessary to keep it competitive. "We need to stay competitive, simply because he's done a very good job here," Scott said. "When you have a person that really cares about the community and works real hard ... you need to make sure that we can do everything we can to keep that person on board." Iowa's highest-paid city manager, Jeff Pomeranz of Cedar Rapids, makes nearly $279,000 as a base salary plus nearly $93,000 in benefits -- a total of $371,715 -- for managing the state's second-largest city. The city manager of Des Moines, Iowa's largest city, makes $237,920 in total compensation. The city manager of Davenport, Iowa's third-largest city, is just below Padmore with a total cash compensation of $194,536. A direct comparison in job responsibilities for city managers is difficult due to differences in the forms of city government. Padmore, appointed as city manager in 2014, is Sioux City's highest-paid employee. His last raise was approved last December and went into effect in February. I did not like Barack Obama as president. He has, in fact, turned out to be the worst president in the history of the United States. Nevertheless, Barack Obama was duly elected president of the United States and as a United States citizen, he was therefore my president, whether I liked it or not. Now we have a new president-elect. Being a constitutional conservative, I am really not all that enthralled with Donald Trump either. Still, he was duly elected to the office of president of the United States, and being a United States citizen, he is also my president. For those people protesting the election of Donald Trump, burning effigies, and causing other mayhem, I suggest we take them at their word. They say that Donald Trump is not their president. If this is true, then they must not be United States citizens; and not being United States citizens, I propose that they be arrested and deported as we would any other noncitizen who disrupts the tranquility of the republic of the Untied States. - Mark Solheim, Sioux City LEONARDTOWN, Md. Maurice Terrell Kent, age 33, of Great Mills and Gohar Tarek Shaaban, age 23, of Lexington Park. Disclaimer: In the U.S.A., all persons accused of a crime by the State are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. See: so.md/presumed-innocence. Additionally, all of the information provided above is solely from the perspective of the respective law enforcement agency and does not provide any direct input from the accused or persons otherwise mentioned. You can find additional information about the case by searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Database using the accused's name and date of birth. The database is online at so.md/mdcasesearch . Persons named who have been found innocent or not guilty of all charges in the respective case, and/or have had the case ordered expunged by the court can have their name, age, and city redacted by following the process defined at so.md/expungeme. (Nov. 22, 2016)The St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office Vice Narcotics Division released the following incident and arrest reports. The Division is an investigative team comprised of detectives from the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office and Federal Drug Agents (HIDTA Group 34). The Division was established on September 1st, 2007.Vice/Narcotics detectives developed information regarding a heroin distribution network operating throughout St. Mary's County. Detectives began making numerous undercover purchases of heroin from the two main suspects, Latece Cantelle Greer, a/k/a T, age 28, and Keara La Shawn Greer, a/k/a KeKe, age 26.As the investigation continued, detectives determined the distribution network was operating in Calvert County and surrounding jurisdictions. Detectives utilized existing partnerships with the Maryland State Police Criminal Enforcement Division-Central South Region and the Calvert County Sheriff's Office as the investigation widened.Search and seizure warrants were obtained for several locations, one of which was a home in Great Mills. Suspect Keara Greer was located inside the home with several children ranging in age from 5 months to 6 years old. A search of the residence revealed thirty-three (33) clear plastic bags containing suspected heroin totaling 13.7 grams with a street value of $1,650. Also seized was a cellular phone, nearly $900.00 in cash and a 2007 Volkswagen Jetta 4-door sedan utilized by Keara Greer and other members of the drug organization.A second warrant for a residence in Prince Frederick was executed with the assistance of the Calvert County Sheriff's Office Special Operations Team. During the search officers located four plastic bags containing one hundred seventy-five (175) bags of suspected heroin totaling 69.2 grams having a street value of $8,750. Also seized were a quantity of marijuana, cellular phones, a digital scale with residue, packaging materials, almost $1,000.00 in cash, and a 2011 Dodge Nitro. Later, detectives located a 2000 Chevrolet Impala belonging to Suspect Keara Greer, which she utilized to facilitate her distribution operation. That vehicle was seized as well.Detectives obtained two search and seizure warrants for bank accounts connected to Suspect Greer and seized approximately $7,500. In total detectives seized 83 grams of heroin (Valued at more than $10,000), nearly $9,400 in cash, multiple cell phones, and three vehicles.Suspects Kearea Greer and Latece Greer were indicted on multiple counts of Distribution of Heroin and Possession with the Intent to Distribute Heroin. Both suspects were located and arrested on 11/172016. A third suspect, Aaron Dwayne Johnson, age 20, who was indicted on charges of Conspiracy to Distribute Heroin and Distribution of Heroin arrested on 11/18/2016. Additional charges and arrests are pending.The St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office Vice/Narcotics division will continue this investigation with both the Calvert County Sheriff's Office and Maryland State Police.HEROIN: St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office Vice/Narcotics detectives identified Maurice Terrell Kent, age 33, of Great Mills, as a distributor of heroin. As a result of evidence recovered during the execution of a search and seizure warrant on his home, he was indicted for Possession of Heroin with the Intent to Distribute.MARIJUANA: Gohar Tarek Shaaban, age 23, of Lexington Park, was indicted and subsequently arrested for Possession of Marijuana with the Intent to Distribute. Financial fraud has landed a Broward County attorney in federal prison. Alan Koslow, 62, of Hollywood, was sentenced to one year in federal prison for agreeing to launder what he believed to be cash proceeds of illegal activity. In a news release dated Nov. 10, the Federal Bureau of Investigations Miami Field Office announced the verdict. In addition to his prison sentence, Koslow is ordered to pay a $7,500 fine and $8,500 in restitution. A co-conspirator in the case, Susan Mohr, 57 of Delray Beach, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 8 in Fort Lauderdale. According to court records, Koslow and Mohr met with undercover FBI agents and agreed to launder cash from an illegal gambling business and unlawful sale of narcotics and counterfeit Viagra. Koslow and Mohr, the feds say, operated Mohr2GoGifts in Fort Lauderdale. In the press, Koslow was often described as flamboyant, flashy and even trashy. He lobbied on behalf of Diplomat Resort, Pompano Park Racing and Isle of Capri Casino, reports the Sun Sentinel. The FBI said the law firm that employed Koslow Becker & Poliakoff was not involved in the criminal activity. Koslow and Mohr previously pled guilty to conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, in violation of Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 371. U.S. Judge William P. Dimitrouleas sentenced Koslow to one year and one day in prison, followed by supervised release. The case was prosecuted by senior litigation counsel Neil Karadbil. A hurricane and an election can sure change a speech. This was not the speech I thought Id give on Oct. 8, Steve Rothaus wrote in Monday mornings edition of the Miami Herald. On Saturday evening, Rothaus was honored by the National LGBTQ Task Force with the 2016 Eddy McIntyre Community Service Award. The Task Forces Miami Gala, originally scheduled for Oct. 8, was postponed due to Hurricane Matthew. And then came the surprising election of Donald J. Trump. Now more than ever we need to protect the progress weve made and to look ahead to making South Florida an even better place for LGBTQ people to live, work and vacation in, Rothaus writes. Held at the iconic Fontainebleau Miami Beach, the Task Forces 20th annual Miami Gala raised more than $650,000 for programs providing direct services to LGBTQ people. The gala also honored Broadway producers Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley. The duo conceived the idea of What The World Needs Now Is Love a musical tribute to the victims of the Pulse Nightclub massacre. More than 700 people attended Saturday nights black tie affair and Rothaus offered a reminder that the fight for equality and justice is far from over. As we sit here in the glamorous Fontainebleau ballroom, enjoying our dinner some folks even planning to stay overnight there are abandoned LGBTQ youth in our own community who dont know where their next meal is coming from, where they will sleep tonight or with whom, Rothaus said. That is the real reason for this fundraising gala and why we each do what we do. Now, more than ever, the people in this room must not forget the mission or slow down for even a moment. Rothaus award is named in honor of a South Florida activist who hung himself in a Miami Shores garage in 2007. In his Monday piece in the Herald, Rothaus reflected on his career as a journalist and some of the more impactful moments. More than ever, journalists today must share opposing points of view you should know what other people are thinking, even if you disagree with them. That provides you with information that helps in decision making, such as who to vote for, he wrote. Check out the latest in lesbian, transgender and queer news! Lesbian - Lesbian Recording Artist's Upcoming Music Video Challenges Religious Right (EDGE) Lesbian recording artist Danielle LoPresti released her new music video, "Holy," which features herself, with real-life wife Alicia Champion and actress Anna Khaja, who is best known for her roles on "Quantico" and "Silicon Valley." In the video, Champion, whom viewers might remember from this summer's pop/rock song and music video, "Bi," asks Khaja "If God came to you tomorrow and asked you to become a lesbian, would you? An insinuation to demonstrate that who you love is not a choice." Previous teasers have unveiled real life families and couples, one of which is actor John Barrowman ("Arrow," "Torchwood") and husband Scott Gill, who are all seemingly debating equal acknowledgment of their sexuality and relationships with a palpable undertone of religion. Between the teasers and the song title it would seem LoPresti, who was raised Catholic, is challenging the theory that religion and being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender cannot co-exist. The debate between LGBT equality and Religious Freedoms has been a forefront issue during the heated Presidential race. The stakes for the LGBT community couldn't be higher. All of the teasers can be found on the official website HolyMusicVideo.com and on LoPresti's official YouTube channel. The song "Holy" is the leading favorite single on LoPresti's new, "House of D," available now on iTunes. For more information, follow Danielle LoPresti on Twitter at @DLPandTheMasses and @OfficialDanielleLopresti on Instagram. Transgender - GOP Sweep Heightens Anxiety for Many Transgender Americans (AP) Anxiety is high among many transgender Americans after the sweeping Republican election victory. They fear stronger resistance to their push for civil-rights protections, including broader access to public restrooms, and wonder if their newly won right to serve openly in the military is in jeopardy. Transgender people "are concerned for their safety, survival and legal rights in the coming years," said Chase Strangio, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who often works on transgender issues. Among the specific concerns: - Many transgender people expect that Republican President-elect Donald Trump's administration will abandon or weaken the efforts by President Barack Obama's administration to enable transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice at public schools. Republican officials in numerous states have opposed that campaign, saying schools should not be required to let such students use bathrooms or locker rooms based on their gender identity. - There are fears that more GOP-governed states will approve legislation limiting transgender rights and will reject proposals to expand such rights. - There's uncertainty about the Pentagon's recently adopted policy of allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military. Some conservative groups, including the Family Research Council and the Center for Military Readiness, have suggested a reversal of the policy. So has GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee. Queer - Anti-LGBT Protesters Picket Queer Punk Band in Miss. (EDGE) A group of Christian anti-LGBT protesters, holding signs with Bible verses and gay slurs, picketed outside a concert in Jackson, Miss. for the queer punk band PWR BTTM, Pitchfork reports. The duo, from New York, documented the protest on social media. The musicians, Ben Hopkins and Liv Bruce, said they were eating dinner before their show at Big Sleepy's when they noticed the disgruntled protesters. In a statement to Spin magazine, the band said they, "saw four men with giant signs walking up to [their] show. They posted up outside and proceeded to yell homophobic stuff at the crowd the entire night." PWR BTTM then decided it was best if they "moved the entrance to the show to the back of the venue and blocked off the windows at the front. It was a freaky ass night, but the local police helped us keep things safe." "They were like baiting us to hit them, they wanted to be able to sue us," Hopkins told Spin. "We haven't ever received threats, but I have a feeling this isn't the last time this will happen. It won't deter us, nothing will." PWR BTTM also posted pictures and video from the picket. Check out the latest news from around the world! International - Rabbi's Remarks on Homosexuality Spark Protests in Jerusalem (AP) Dozens of LGBT activists have protested in Jerusalem against comments reportedly made by the city's chief rabbi disparaging the gay community. Rabbi Shlomo Amar told an Israeli newspaper last week that gay people were an "abomination" and homosexuality a "cult." Protesters holding rainbow pride flags faced off outside the rabbinate in Jerusalem against ultra-Orthodox Jews supporting the rabbi. Police say a large pride flag was hung outside the building overnight. The protests highlight the deep divisions in Israel between its secular majority and increasingly powerful nationalist and ultra-Orthodox camps that have spoken out forcefully against the LGBT community. While liberal Tel Aviv is seen as gay friendly, the fault lines have been pronounced in Jerusalem, the ancient biblical city rich in religious history and tradition. Politics - Trump's AG Pick Gets Ringing Endorsement from Anti-LGBT Hate Group (EDGE) The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council today commended President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as the next Attorney General in the new administration. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement: "I offer my congratulations to Senator Sessions and commend President-Elect Trump for making another wise selection by choosing Senator Sessions as our nation's next attorney general. This selection is, of course, is in addition to the other quality individuals that have been announced by the Trump administration. "Yet again, President-elect Trump has defied naysayers criticizing his transition team. President-elect Trump has surrounded himself with solid advisors, and his selection of Senator Sessions for attorney general increases my confidence that the Trump administration will be one that cherishes the Constitution and its protection of our freedom from government oppression. Senator Sessions understands the importance of all of our God-given rights, respects the rule of law, and will be a vital part of restoring our nation to its greatness. "I look forward to January when the nation again has an opportunity to make freedom mean something under President Trump's leadership," concluded Perkins. Legal - Justice Thomas Calls Conservatives to Continue Scalia's Work (AP) Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says conservatives should make the work of the late Justice Antonin Scalia a "prologue" in the effort to limit the power of the courts and other branches of government. The Supreme Court has too often granted rights to people that are not found in the Constitution, Thomas said, citing the decision in 2015 that made same-sex marriage legal across the country. Both Scalia and Thomas dissented from that decision. "With such unchecked judicial power, we leave it for the least accountable branch to decide what newly discovered rights should be appended to our Constitution," Thomas told 1,700 people at a Thursday night dinner to honor Scalia, who died in February. He paraphrased Lincoln's Gettysburg address to exhort the audience to "be dedicated to the unfinished business for which Justice Scalia gave his last full measure of devotion." Thomas said he and his longtime friend and colleague formed an "odd couple" of a white New Yorker and a black man from Georgia. "But together, we soon became our own band of brothers," Thomas said. Thomas' talk to the Federalist Society, along with one earlier Thursday by Justice Samuel Alito, came at an unexpectedly upbeat moment for the conservative legal organization. Many among its 40,000 members had resigned themselves to having Scalia's seat filled by someone more liberal, expecting that Hillary Clinton would become president. President Barack Obama had nominated Judge Merrick Garland for the seat. "Then, on Nov. 8, Hurricane Trump hit. The future can be difficult to predict," Federalist Society President Eugene Meyer said, referring to Donald Trump's surprising victory. Now Thomas is more likely to acquire a new conservative ally. Indeed, nine state and federal judges on Trump's list of possible Supreme Court nominees are taking part in the group's conference, which runs through Saturday. Crime - Attacker Allegedly Tells FL. Senior: My President Says We Can Kill You Faggots (EDGE) A 75-year-old gay man said he was attacked outside his home Monday night in Sarasota, Fla. by a Donald Trump supporter, who apparently took issue over the victim's rainbow marriage equality bumper sticker, ABC Action News reports. Chuck Redding said he was driving home when he noticed a car was driving very closely behind him. He initially thought it was a "jerk that was following too close" but quickly realized something was wrong. When he turned onto his street, Redding said the car came even closer to him and he knew "something was wrong." He said he parked outside a neighbor's house when the driver stopped his car, jumped out and ran toward Redding's car. The man banged on Redding's car window before forcing the door open, Redding says. The man then allegedly threw Redding to the ground. "He yanked the door open, dragged me out, ripped my shirt. I was on the pavement," Redding told ABC Action News. The man fled the scene, leaving Redding with a bruised arm, cut hands, scrapped knees and a fractured toe. Redding says he was assaulted because he had a rainbow marriage equality bumper sticker on his car. "He kept saying, 'You know my new president says we can kill all you faggots now,'" Redding said. "It's absolutely horrendous." Since Trump was a elected president last week, there have been a number of reported hate crime incidents related to the election results. A Florida LGBT church was vandalized with swastikas and Trump's campaign motto "Make America Great Again" and New York state senator, who is Jewish and openly gay, found swastikas carved into his the building where he lives. Before Trump was elected, a trans woman from Tennessee said her truck was set on fire and vandalized with the word "Trump." Crime - Fla. LGBT Church Vandalized with Swastikas, 'Make America Great Again' (EDGE) The violence towards minorities, including members of the LGBTQ community, connected to Donald Trump being elected president of the United States, continues to grow. Local Tampa, Fla. news station WTSP reports an LGBTQ church in St. Petersburg, Fla. has been vandalized with swastikas and the president-elect's campaign motto "Make America Great Again." Members of the King of Peace Metropolitan Church discovered Monday the symbol and the motto drawn in chalk on the driveway of the church. "It's not the kind of thing I want to have left on the sidewalk. It's left our members uneasy and not quite sure what to make of it," Reverend Candace Shultis told WTSP. "I think we were targeted because we are an LGBTQ and with the atmosphere in our country right now, it just makes you feel uncertain." The church has more than 300 members and has been part of the community for 40 years. Shultis added the phrase "Love one another, please. -God" to the church's marquee after the presidential election results were announced. Regardless of the results, she said she'd never expect to be hit with anti-LGBT messages. "It gave me a sense of incredible disappointment and anger. Nobody likes to be targeted by hate but it also increases my resolve to continue to preach the message of love," she told the news station. Shultis, who said the incident was reported to police, also claims the church's sister congregation located in Washington, D.C., was also vandalized with someone leaving feces in front of the church's entrance. Before Trump was elected, a trans woman from Tennessee said her truck was vandalized with the word "Trump" and was set on fire. It was reported earlier this week that a gay college student said he was attacked after leaving a bar because he was wearing high heels. He connected the incident to Trump's win. Additionally, New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman, who is gay and Jewish, discovered swastikas carved into the apartment building where he lives with his husband and young daughter. 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. NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 21 November 2016. NASA Expedition 50 robotic arm operators Shane Kimbrough of NASA and Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) commanded the International Space Stations Canadarm2 robotic arm to release the Cygnus spacecraft at 8:22 a.m. EST while the space station was flying 251 miles over the Pacific Ocean, off the west coast of Colombia. Earlier, ground controllers detached Cygnus from the station and maneuvered it into place for its departure. Once Cygnus is a safe distance away from the station, ground controllers at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio and at Orbital ATK in Dulles, Virginia, will activate the Saffire-II experiment. Cygnus also will release four LEMUR CubeSats from an external deployer on Friday, Nov. 25, sending them to join a remote sensing satellite constellation that provides global ship tracking and weather monitoring. The spacecraft will remain in orbit until Sunday, Nov. 27, when its engines will fire twice, pushing it into Earths atmosphere, where it will burn up over the Pacific Ocean. The Cygnus resupply craft launched Oct. 17 on an Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, for the companys sixth NASA-contracted commercial resupply mission. The companys seventh contracted resupply mission is targeted for spring 2017 on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. On-Orbit Status Report Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) Potential Wastewater Storage Tank Assembly (WSTA) Leak: This morning an unexpected caution indicating UPA Potential WSTA leak annunciated following use of the Waste and Hygiene Compartment (WHC). The crew isolated the UPA and WHC was configured to internal [EDV] to isolate the system. An on-orbit inspection by the crew showed pretreated urine on the urine valve block. The crew cleaned up the pretreated urine and closed out the WHC. WHC is No-Go for use and ground specialists are working the follow-on plan. The crew has been authorized to use the Russian toilet. Due to the leak, the planned WSTA leak was aborted. Cygnus Departure: Cygnus was unberthed nominally from the ISS at 5:23 AM CST and was released at 7:22 AM CST. Post departure science objectives for Cygnus including Saffire-II and NanoRacks CubeSat deployments. Cygnus re-entry is planned for November 27. Later today, Saffire-II will initiate and conduct a roughly 2-hour experiment session, followed by multi-day data downlinks. The Saffire-II experiment attempts to quantify the flammability of several materials in microgravity, and compares them to flammability limits in normal gravity. The NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer External (NRCSD-E) deploy is planned November 25, at which time the Cygnus will be 100 km above the ISS, this will be the the first time NRCSDs deploy above the ISS. A total of 4 LEMUR-2 satellites will deploy from the Cygnus vehicle. The NanoRacks-LEMUR-2 satellites are part of a remote sensing satellite constellation that proves global ship tracking and weather monitoring. Marrow Collections: The crew performed their first blood collections in support of the Canadian Space Agencys (CSAs) Marrow experiment. After collecting, the blood was spun in the Refrigerated Centrifuge and stored in the Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI). The Marrow investigation looks at the effect of microgravity on the bone marrow. It is believed that microgravity, like long-duration bed rest on Earth, has a negative effect on the bone marrow and the blood cells that are produced in the bone marrow. Fine Motor Skills (FMS): The 49Soyuz USOS crew performed their first FMS sessions this morning. FMS is performed regularly during the crews on-orbit stay, with several sessions within the first week, then as the mission progresses, more time elapses between sessions. Each FMS session involves the crew performing a series of interactive tasks on a touchscreen tablet. This investigation is critical during long-duration space missions, particularly those skills needed to interact with technologies required in next-generation space vehicles, spacesuits, and habitats. The crewmembers fine motor skills are also necessary for performing tasks in transit or on a planetary surface, such as information access, just-in-time training, subsystem maintenance, and medical treatment. MATISS Installation: The crew installed four MATISS sample holders in the Columbus module. The MATISS experiment investigates the antibacterial properties of materials in space to see if future spacecraft could be made easier to clean. The experiment aims to understand the mechanisms of attachment of biofilms in microgravity conditions. The optimization of the internal surfaces of the International Space Station (ISS) is a challenge. The first objective is to simplify MATISS decontamination operations to save time crew. The second objective relates to space exploration: the validation of these innovative surfaces would indeed have new assets for the development of future spacecraft, including in the context of long journeys. Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL) Sample Cartridge Assembly (SCA) Installation: The crew inserted a new cartridge in the MSL, located in the Material Science Research Rack (MSRR), today. The sample processing date is scheduled for later in the increment. The Batch-2b of the Materials Science Laboratory Sample Cartridge Assemblies (MSL SCA-Batch 2b-ESA) serves two projects investigating how different phases organize in a structure when metallic alloys are solidified. The METCOMP project studies the phase formed by the reaction of the remaining liquid phase with an already formed solid, to form a second solid phase on cooling. For this purpose, Bronze (Copper-Tin Alloys) of different compositions will be processed. The other project, Solidification along a Eutectic path in Ternary Alloys (SETA), looks at how two phases that form together organize into lamellar, or fibre, structures when cooling Aluminium (Copper-Silver Alloys). Both projects will provide benchmark samples that will enable to test numerical models that aim to predict these structures. Mobile Servicing System (MSS) Operations: Following the successful Cygnus unberth and release, the Robotics Ground Controllers performed a video survey of the Node 1 Nadir Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM). They then walked the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) off Node 2 onto Mobile Base System (MBS) Power Data Grapple Fixture 3 (PDGF3) and maneuvered the SSRMS to a Mobile Transporter (MT) translation configuration. Currently the Robotics Ground Controllers are performing additional troubleshooting of the SSRMS End B Camera Light Pan/Tilt Unit (PTU) Assembly (CLPA). Todays Planned Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. USOS Window Shutter Close ??-8. Setup Body Mass Measurement BMMD CSA Generic Frozen Blood Collection Photo/TV Depress Video Setup Cygnus-Node1 Vestibule Depressurization: Part 2 ??-8. Closeout Ops CSA Generic Refrigerated Centrifuge Configure Cygnus-Node1 Vestibule Depressurization: Multimeter Reset KORREKTSIYA. Logging Liquid and Food (Medicine) Intake COSMOCARD. Photography of the Experiment Session [Aborted] CSA Generic Sample MELFI Insertion Auxiliary Laptop Computer System Virus Definition File Update CARDIOVECTOR. Experiment Ops. Fine Motor Skills Experiment Test CARDIOVECTOR. Photography of the Experiment Session Closing Shutters on windows 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14 CSA Generic Frozen Blood Collection Conclude And Stow Cygnus-Node1 Vestibule Depressurization: Part 3 Measuring CO partial pressure at Central Post using CSA-CP analyzer Robotic Workstation (RWS) High Definition (HD) Monitor Downlink Setup Bringing ODF up to date using Soyuz 733 delivered files Cygnus PCS Command and PROX Link Verification Cygnus-Node1 Vestibule Depressurization: Part4 Glacier Tray Insert Repositioning ????-1? (Storage Battery Current Converter) (from pos. ?306 to pos.?308) and ????-1? (from pos.?308 to pos.?306), preparation Scheduled monthly maintenance of Central Post Laptop Log-File Downlink from the Laptop. ISS Crew Orientation PILOT-T. Preparation for the experiment. Cygnus-Node1 Vestibule Depressurization: Part 5 PILOT-T. Experiment Ops. Photo/TV Depress Video Deactiviation ISS Crew Handover ISS Crew Adaptation Cygnus Procedure Review Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) Cygnus Release Fluid Shifts Dilution Measures Reference Material Review Fluid Shifts Dilution Measures Setup KORREKTSIYA. Logging Liquid and Food (Medicine) Intake Filling (Separation) of ??? (???) for Elektron Handover Filling (separation) of ??? (???) for Elektron or ???-?? ARED USB Adapter Cable Installation HTV-6 ESA items trash gather Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOCA) Water Recovery System (WRS) Sample Analysis ESA Active Dosimeter Mobile Unit Allocation ??? maintenance Cygnus PROX Switch OFF Remote Workstation Monitor HD Video Downlink Deactivation RWS. European Modular Cultivation System Air Mix Supply Module Supply Check PCS Laptop Relocate PILOT-T. Experiment Ops. Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System (RGN) WSTA Fill [Aborted] DOSIS 3D Passive Detector Pouch handover after upload of dosimeters with Soyuz. Installation of the DOSIS 3D passive detector packs in Columbus and photodocumentation. SKIN B Laptop Power connection using METERON2 Laptop Power Chain Material Science Laboratory SCA Exchange2B #5 Installation of Matiss Sample Holders IMS Update Meteor Shutter Open Joint Station LAN Edge Router Cable Demate Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOCA) Sample Data Record Exercise Data Downlink via OCA RAD Detector USB Cable Install KORREKTSIYA. Logging Liquid and Food (Medicine) Intake Preparing for Antivirus scan on Auxiliary Computer Laptops Completed Task List Items PPE Cleanup [Completed Saturday] Veggie Bungee Wipe [Completed Saturday] Wanted OGA H2 Sensor [Completed Saturday] Veg 03 Pillow Water [Completed Saturday] 49S USOS Unpack Ground Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. Cygnus unberth and undock ops SSRMS ACBM inspection SSRMS Walkoff to MBS3 Three-Day Look Ahead: Tuesday, 11/22: Water Monitoring Suite, JAXA Stowage outfitting, Fluid Shifts, MagVector, Emer Role/Resp Rvw Wednesday, 11/23: Aquamembrane, Everywear, JAXA Stowage outfitting, OBT Emer H/W Fam, Eye Exam, EVA UIA Biocide Filter Thursday, 11/24: Aquamembrane, Fluid Shifts, CBEF, PEPS Inspect, Storytime QUICK ISS Status Environmental Control Group: Component Status Elektron On Vozdukh Manual [???] 1 SM Air Conditioner System (SKV1) Off [???] 2 SM Air Conditioner System (SKV2) On Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab Standby Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 Operate Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab Operate Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 Idle Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) Standby Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) Standby Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab Off Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 Full Up Mars Ice Deposits NASA Frozen beneath a region of cracked and pitted plains on Mars lies about as much water as whats in Lake Superior, largest of the Great Lakes, researchers using NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have determined. Scientists examined part of Mars Utopia Planitia region, in the mid-northern latitudes, with the orbiters ground-penetrating Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument. Analyses of data from more than 600 overhead passes with the onboard radar instrument reveal a deposit more extensive in area than the state of New Mexico. The deposit ranges in thickness from about 260 feet (80 meters) to about 560 feet (170 meters), with a composition thats 50 to 85 percent water ice, mixed with dust or larger rocky particles. At the latitude of this deposit about halfway from the equator to the pole water ice cannot persist on the surface of Mars today. It sublimes into water vapor in the planets thin, dry atmosphere. The Utopia deposit is shielded from the atmosphere by a soil covering estimated to be about 3 to 33 feet (1 to 10 meters) thick. This deposit probably formed as snowfall accumulating into an ice sheet mixed with dust during a period in Mars history when the planets axis was more tilted than it is today, said Cassie Stuurman of the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas, Austin. She is the lead author of a report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Mars today, with an axial tilt of 25 degrees, accumulates large amounts of water ice at the poles. In cycles lasting about 120,000 years, the tilt varies to nearly twice that much, heating the poles and driving ice to middle latitudes. Climate modeling and previous findings of buried, mid-latitude ice indicate that frozen water accumulates away from the poles during high-tilt periods. Martian Water as a Future Resource The name Utopia Planitia translates loosely as the plains of paradise. The newly surveyed ice deposit spans latitudes from 39 to 49 degrees within the plains. It represents less than one percent of all known water ice on Mars, but it more than doubles the volume of thick, buried ice sheets known in the northern plains. Ice deposits close to the surface are being considered as a resource for astronauts. This deposit is probably more accessible than most water ice on Mars, because it is at a relatively low latitude and it lies in a flat, smooth area where landing a spacecraft would be easier than at some of the other areas with buried ice, said Jack Holt of the University of Texas, a co-author of the Utopia paper who is a SHARAD co-investigator and has previously used radar to study Martian ice in buried glaciers and the polar caps. The Utopian water is all frozen now. If there were a melted layer which would be significant for the possibility of life on Mars it would have been evident in the radar scans. However, some melting cant be ruled out during different climate conditions when the planets axis was more tilted. Where water ice has been around for a long time, we just dont know whether there could have been enough liquid water at some point for supporting microbial life, Holt said. Utopia Planitia is a basin with a diameter of about 2,050 miles (3,300 kilometers), resulting from a major impact early in Mars history and subsequently filled. NASA sent the Viking 2 Lander to a site near the center of Utopia in 1976. The portion examined by Stuurman and colleagues lies southwest of that long-silent lander. Use of the Italian-built SHARAD instrument for examining part of Utopia Planitia was prompted by Gordon Osinski at Western University in Ontario, Canada, a co-author of the study. For many years, he and other researchers have been intrigued by ground-surface patterns there such as polygonal cracking and rimless pits called scalloped depressions like someone took an ice-cream scoop to the ground, said Stuurman, who started this project while a student at Western. Clue from Canada In the Canadian Arctic, similar landforms are indicative of ground ice, Osinski noted, but there was an outstanding question as to whether any ice was still present at the Martian Utopia or whether it had been lost over the millions of years since the formation of these polygons and depressions. The large volume of ice detected with SHARAD advances understanding about Mars history and identifies a possible resource for future use. Its important to expand what we know about the distribution and quantity of Martian water, said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Deputy Project Scientist Leslie Tamppari, of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. We know early Mars had enough liquid water on the surface for rivers and lakes. Where did it go? Much of it left the planet from the top of the atmosphere. Other missions have been examining that process. But theres also a large quantity that is now underground ice, and we want to keep learning more about that. Joe Levy of the University of Texas, a co-author of the new study, said, The ice deposits in Utopia Planitia arent just an exploration resource, theyre also one of the most accessible climate change records on Mars. We dont understand fully why ice has built up in some areas of the Martian surface and not in others. Sampling and using this ice with a future mission could help keep astronauts alive, while also helping them unlock the secrets of Martian ice ages. SHARAD is one of six science instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which began its prime science phase 10 years ago this month. The missions longevity is enabling studies of features and active processes all around Mars, from subsurface to upper atmosphere. The Italian Space Agency provided the SHARAD instrument and Sapienza University of Rome leads its operations. The Planetary Science Institute, based in Tucson, Arizona, leads U.S. involvement in SHARAD. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the orbiter mission for NASAs Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver built the spacecraft and supports its operations. Image: Diagonal striping on this map of a portion of the Utopia Planitia region on Mars indicates the area where a large subsurface deposit rich in water ice was assessed using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The area is about halfway between the planets equator and north pole, and the deposit is estimated to hold about as much water as what is in Lake Superior, largest of the Great Lakes. The scale bar at lower right indicates 140 kilometers (76 miles). The violet vertical bars show depth to the bottom of the ice-rich deposit, as estimated from SHARAD passes overhead. Darkest violet indicates a depth of about 550 feet (about 170 meters). Palest violet indicates a depth of about 33 feet (10 meters). The value of 2.8 plus-or-minus 0.8 in the upper right corner denotes the dielectric constant, a property related to radar reflectivity. The value of 14,300 cubic kilometers is an estimate of the volume of water in the deposit. More imagery 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... BeanFruit Coffee Companys owner, Paul Bonds, grew up disinterested in coffee. At Mississippi College, he drank commercial-grade stuff mainly as fuel for his studies. Yet today, his roasting operation in Jackson, Mississippi, is good enough to have earned a 2015 Good Food Award. It was seven years ago that Bonds had his epiphany. During a cupping in 2008 at Mississippi Coffee Company he tried a washed Ethiopia Yirgacheffe that changed my mind completely about coffee, he recalls. Since there werent many options nearby, he began ordering coffees online from Austins Cuvee Coffee, Brooklyns Cafe Grumpy, Santa Cruzs Verve Coffee Roasters, and San Franciscos Ritual Coffee Roasters to brew up at home. I would taste the coffee and be like, This is good, you know, what else is good? Bonds says. I would try different things from different origins, and it just opened up a whole new world to coffee. Soon after, Bonds slid further down the rabbit hole when he began to roast at home for fun. First, he oven-roasted beans on pans before stepping up to a small Behmor roaster. After a friends suggestion to pursue roasting further, Bonds considered graduating his hobby to a business. At the time, he was working on the manufacturing floor at an aerospace company, a job with benefits. But all he needed was a two-kilogram Ambex roaster, which he set up in the guest bedroom, and a trial run selling beans at a local farmers market in Jackson. With a humble start, BeanFruit Coffee was launched in 2010. As his customer base grew, Bonds began pulling double-duty days, beginning as early as 3 a.m. to roast, squeezing in coffee deliveries on his lunch break, and following up with customers after work at night. This went on for several years before he decided to leave his job in 2012 and pursue BeanFruit full time. The Good Food Award paid tribute to Bondss hard work, but he almost didnt even enter the competition. He admits he lacked the confidence, but a push from Ben Myers, owner of Athens, Georgias 1000 Faces Coffee, led Bonds to submit his washed Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Chelelektu for the 2015 award cycle. When I went out [to San Francisco for the awards] I actually spoke on behalf of specialty coffee, too, Bonds says. I tell my friends I felt like a donkey at the Kentucky Derby because Im just this guy from Mississippi whos roasting. Then Im standing onstage with the owner of Blue Bottleand all these other companies that were there. It was pretty overwhelming. [My winning brought] more attention to BeanFruit, of course, but [also to] specialty coffee in Mississippi. Were not known for it. It also caught the attention of potential new clients. The owners of GoCoffeeGo were there. We sent them coffees and they really liked them, so that also got us an entry [with them], which helped get our brand and our name out so much more. It wasnt some Oprah effect, but any kind of publicity and positive attention can help. Currently, Bonds hones his craft in a warehouse space in Pearl, a suburb of Jackson, on a yellow, 10-kilogram Ambex roaster. On a visit there one early summer Thursday, the temperature inside the BeanFruit warehouse stands at 86 degrees, with 71 percent humidity. Equipped with merely a stopwatch and a clipboard, Bonds begins to roast. Approximately every 30 seconds he uses the tryer to pull out a sample of roasting beans, checking the smell and the beans color. Bonds focuses in, making occasional adjustments to the roasters gas. He roasts several batches and begins bagging them for a retail delivery to Sneaky Beans, the quintessential Jackson coffee house and one of BeanFruits first wholesale customers. At one point the phone rings. Bonds chuckles over the line. Even though BeanFruit is currently just a roasting company, he regularly fields calls from people asking if they can swing by to buy beans. When the callers arrive, Bonds describes his current selections at length, including a Colombia Finca San Jose that just scored 92 points on Coffee Review. After selecting two bags, Bonds steers the discussion toward brewing equipment as he walks them through various options (he stocks some gear for his web store). The Good Food Award medal is camped out on his desk during all of this. Soon a Chemex goes into the shopping bag, before the happy customers thank Bonds and head off. Quickly, its back to work. The beans are loaded up and taken to Sneaky Beans. There, Bonds chats up the baristas as he unloads the delivery. Its been a long road to this point, but he knows he needs to keep moving forward. Grind, hustle, he says. Typical words you hear from entrepreneurs [that] you understand like, You just got to make it happen. I feel like it can either defeat you or it can give you drive, and with me it was the latter. Evan C. Jones is a Sprudge.com contributor based in St. Louis. Read more Evan C. Jones on Sprudge. VilanovaiLa Geltru, 18 November 2016 Mr Pierre Galland, President of the European Coordination of Solidarity with the Sahrawi People, Ladies and Gentlemen members of the Task Force and the presiding board of the Conference, Ladies and Gentlemen representatives of governments, parliaments, political parties, organisations and associations, Ladies and Gentlemen members of the international movement of solidarity coming from all the continents of the world, Ladies and Gentlemen, The 41st edition of the European Conference for Solidarity with the Sahrawi people kicks off today. This annual international event demonstrates each year, with renewed determination, the strength, continuity and wide scope of the movement of solidarity with the struggle of the Sahrawi people for freedom and independence. I would like to extend our sincere thanks and appreciation to all those who have contributed in one way or another to the preparation and organisation of this seminal forum. I would also like to applaud the tremendous efforts that have been made in record time and under great difficulties by the friends of the Sahrawi people in the municipality of Vilanova i La Geltru andin Catalonia and Spain in close cooperation with the Task Force and the representations of the Frente POLISARIO in Catalonia and Spain. Ladies and Gentlemen, The organisers have decided to open the Conference with a deserved tribute to a great man in the history of the struggle of the Sahrawi people and the struggles of peoples in general for restoring their usurped rights, Martyr Mohamed Abdelaziz, the late President of the Sahrawi people. We have lost a seasoned leader, a staunch militant and a courageous fighter, ready to give everything for the most precious thing, the freedom and dignity of his people. We have lost a dignified man who was a glorious example of sacrifice and dedication throughout all his life that he spent struggling on the path of the great heroes such as Sidi Mohamed Ibrahim Bassiri and founding leader, Martyr El Wali Mustapha Sayed. The late Mohamed Abdelaziz, above all, was a man of peace and a staunch advocate of human values. He is the model for the peaceful Sahrawi people that are averse to violence and who have been forced to resort to armed struggle, a legitimate right of colonial peoples, in defence of their right to live in dignity. Our struggling people have shown the world their ability to deal with this tragedy consciously and responsibly in an atmosphere of unity and harmony and have achieved a smooth transition based on the rule of law and democracy, thus foiling all the plans and plots of the enemies. This is a message addressed to the Moroccan state of occupation and all those who support it that betting on fatigue or weakness amid our people is definitely a lost gamble. It has been more than 41 years of resistance and struggle and facing up to the harshest of conditions and challenges, but the flame of resistance has not been extinguished. With every day that goes by the Sahrawi people are more confident in the victory and independence, and the network of solidarity with their just struggle keeps on growing and expanding. The Sahrawi state, as eternal and practical embodiment of the will of the Sahrawi people, has become an irreversible national, regional and international fact. It is operating with its executive, legislative and judicial institutions and is strongly present in Africa and worldwide. The Sahrawi people, victim of Moroccan expansionism and aggression and subjected to genocide, displacement, repression and torture, have managed, under the leadership of the Frente POLISARIO, to achieve a quantum leap in record time that have brought about radical changes. Our people have built a modern and open society that is committed to its objectives and noble values and believes in the principles of democracy, equality and peaceful coexistence among religions and cultures. This unique experience is being targeted today by a new kind of threats represented by organised crime gangs and terrorist groups that receive support and funding from drugs coming from the Kingdom of Morocco, the largest producer and exporter of cannabis in the world and the greatest threat to peace and stability in the region. Through its social, educational, religious and cultural policies, among others, the Sahrawi state has become a factor of moderation and stability in the region. In line with its international and African Union obligations, and in cooperation with the countries of the region, the Sahrawi State has been working relentlessly to combat terrorism and extremism. These are great risks that threaten humanity and it would be a shame on the international community not to provide support and protection for our people and their legitimate cause. Ladies and Gentlemen, We note with satisfaction the positive developments that have taken place politically, legally and judicially in Europe in relation to the Sahrawi cause. The ruling of the European General Court issued in December 2015 and the opinion of the EU General Advocate Mr Wathelet delivered in September 2016 have debunked categorically the remaining misconceptions and fallacies in relation to the European legal engagement with the Moroccan-Sahrawi conflict. For the European Union, as is the case of the United Nations and the African Union and others, the Kingdom of Morocco does not exercise any sovereignty over Western Sahara and therefore the EU-Moroccan agreements do not include the territories of the Sahrawi Republic and its territorial waters. In addition to establishing the fact that Spain is still legally responsible for the Territory as a colonial administering power, the ruling also affirmed that the Frente POLISARIO is the sole legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people and that it has legal competence to present legal cases before European courts. Despite these unequivocal legal and judicial facts, in practice the position of the European Union in this regard is still fraught with indifference and contradiction. Europe is responsible for the outbreak of the Moroccan Sahrawi conflict given the fact that Spain has not yet fulfilled its duty as a colonial administering power of Western Sahara regarding the decolonisation of the Territory. Europe is responsible for the continuation of the conflict because parties such as France and Spain continue to support the Moroccan aggressive expansionism militarily, economically and diplomatically. Europe is responsible for the suffering of the Sahrawi people because France, Spain and other parties continue to conclude agreements, contracts and partnerships that violate international law and the ruling of the European General Court itself. They encourage the Moroccan state of occupation to persist in its intransigence and rebellion against international legality and its repression and human rights abuses and massive looting of the natural resources of the Sahrawi people and keeping them divided between refugee camps and exile and occupation and oppression. Ladies and Gentlemen, I regret to say that the just and peaceful solution to the Moroccan Sahrawi conflict is in grave danger today. The explosive situation at Al Guergarat, in southern Western Sahara, would not have arisen if the Security Council, through the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), had not failed in preventing the Moroccan transgression. Because of this failure, the Sahrawi army was forced to intervene to prevent Morocco from annexing new territories and changing the status quo established under the military agreement n 1 that regulates the relationship between MINURSO and the two parties to the conflict. There is no doubt that the Moroccan state of occupation is the responsible for this threat through its repeated escalation and provocation. However, the prime responsibility lies with the UN Security Council because it has failed since 1991 in implementing and defending its decisions aiming at the decolonisation of Western Sahara. The UN Security Council is responsible for the impasse confronting the conflict today because it has unfortunately allowed MINURSO to be an exception, thus subjecting it to the will of the Moroccan military illegal occupation. Unlike other peacekeeping operations that operate in line with certain standards and procedures, no such considerations have been taken in the case of MINURSO in terms of car license plates, entry visas and monitoring of human rights as well as ensuring freedom of observers to visit the Territory and interacting with the population and the like. Because of its continuous indifference and indecisiveness, the UN Security Council has given the Moroccan state of occupation a free hand to rebel against international legality and to attack the authority of the Council itself by expressing its unwillingness to cooperate with the UN Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy, expelling the political and administrative component of MINURSO and breaching blatantly the cease-fire. If the UN Security Council has a collective responsibility in this regard, France in particular, as a permanent member of the Council, has systematically sabotaged the implementation of international legality. It continues to provide protection for the Moroccan obstructionist position and has blocked the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2006 and prevented that MINURSO be mandated to protect human rights. France is today a stumbling block that continues to impede the Security Council from taking critical decisions that may give back to the Council its prestige. For this reason, it is responsible for any serious deterioration in the tense situation at Al Guergarat, where the Moroccan and Sahrawi armies are separated by a distance of not more than 120 meters. Peace in Western Sahara is in danger. The UN Security Council therefore should take a decisive decision to enforce expeditiously the provisions of the UN-OAU Settlement Plan endorsed by the Council and signed by the two parties to the conflict, which aims at holding a free and fair referendum in which the Sahrawi people would exercise their right to self-determination and independence. Ladies and Gentlemen, The occupied territories of the Sahrawi Republic live under blockade at a time when the Moroccan state of occupation persists in repression and torture, detention and various forms of gross violations of human rights in addition to its systematic expulsion of independent international observers from the occupied Territory. Perhaps there are among us today some of those who have been subjected to this disgraceful treatment that is unfortunately met with complicit indifference by governments and international institutions including the European Union. On this occasion, we call for the lifting of the unjust blockade, the removal of the wall of the Moroccan occupation, which is a crime against humanity, the end of human rights abuses and the plundering of natural resources as well as providing MINURSO with an effective mechanism to protect, monitor and report on human rights. In a suspicious move, the Moroccan state of occupation suddenly decided to withdraw the sentence passed by a military tribunal against the prisoners of Gdeim Izik, while keeping them under severe detention and ill-treatment conditions. There is no justification for their detention in Moroccan prisons, and they should be released immediately along with all other Sahrawi political prisoners. The Moroccan State of Occupation should also account for the whereabouts of all Sahrawi disappeared owing to the Moroccan military invasion of Western Sahara on 31 October 1975. Ladies and Gentlemen, On behalf of the Sahrawi people, I would like to convey to you, members of the solidarity movement, our sincere thanks and appreciation and to pay tribute to the heroes who have left us. We salute all continental, national and regional parliamentary and friendship associations and groups and specialised bodies such as the International Western Sahara Resource Watch, among others. Your standing by our people in their plight is a noble message to all nations and peoples of the world. Your principled positions ease the suffering of the Sahrawi people, reinforce their confidence and assure them that they are not alone in their struggle for freedom and dignity. The commitment and devotion to such lofty principles is clearly reflected by the European Coordination, headed by dear brother and friend Mr Pierre Galland and other honourable members, which has maintained its firm position since the first days of the Moroccan invasion of Western Sahara. The Sahrawi people are still in desperate need of more support and assistance. The Moroccan state of occupation persists in its policies of oppression, impoverishment and destruction of livelihoods and plunder of the natural resources in the occupied territories. In the meantime, the refugees are suffering not only from the harsh conditions and natural disasters but also from repeated attempts to reduce the humanitarian aid, which is already insufficient. I would also like to express our most sincere greetings to sisterly Algeria and its government and people for the principled position in support for the just struggle of the Sahrawi people. The firm position that Algeria has exhibited from the very beginning underlines the need for the implementation of the UN Charter and resolutions based on the respect for the free and sovereign will of the Sahrawi people. Our many thanks also go to Africa and its great organisation, the African Union, which has been strongly committed to defending the cause of the Sahrawi people as the last decolonisation issue on the continent considering that the freedom of Africa will be incomplete without enabling the Sahrawi people to regain their legitimate rights. As we are proud to belong to Africa, we are also proud of our present and future cultural and geographical relations with Spanish and Latin American peoples. I would like to take this occasion to convey our greetings and appreciation to the immense movement of solidarity that reflects the fraternal and sincere attitude of the Spanish peoples regarding the Sahrawi people. We look forward to seeing the Spanish state assuming its legal and moral duty towards our people by achieving expeditiously the decolonisation of Western Sahara. Spain is still, and perhaps more than ever, part of this problem that cannot be barred by any statute of limitation; it started in the past but it is still an integral part of the present. We are not opposed to relations between Spain and Morocco in all fields, but it would be a heinous crime if the price to be paid would be more conspiracy against the blood, sweat and suffering of the Sahrawi people. Spain of 2016 is not Spain of 1975, and there is no justification for not correcting this error because the democratic transition will remain incomplete as long as the Spanish state has not removed the stigma represented by the infamous Madrid Accords. The new government and the new parliament are called upon to act seriously to end the tragedy of the Sahrawi people by means of a referendum of self-determination. If Spain manages to do this, which it is able and legally bound to do, it will achieve a historic reconciliation with itself and with its history, and will contribute to the triumph of justice, democracy and peace. Long live free and independent Western Sahara! Strength, Determination and Tenacity to enforce Independence and Sovereignty! Thank you! (SPS) 062/090 Eliminations for this years Hap Hansen Progress Pace went postward Monday at Dover Downs, and sons of Somebeachsomewhere were in the spotlight. Check Six survived a tough trip from first-over to take his $35,000 elimination for driver Yannick Gingras and trainer Ron Burke. Easy Lover Hanover, who was a $25,000 supplement to the event, shot to the top and sliced out fractions of :26.3, :56.1 and 1:24.1. Check Six, who got away fourth, came first-over on the way to the mid-way point, and he continued to grind away in the back half of the tilt. Check Six used a :27.2 closing panel to prevail by a neck over race favourite Easy Lover Hanover in 1:51.3. Lyons Snyder, JK Will Power and Big Top Hanover took home the final cheques. Sent off as the 7-5 second choice in the wagering, Check Six won for the 11th time this season for the partnership of Burke Racing Stable LLC, Weaver Bruscemi LLC, William Switala and James Martin. The 15-time winner, who is out of the mare Southwind Vanna, pushed his earnings past $1.1 million with the win. Manhattan Beach took the other elimination, and he showed no mercy to the competition in doing so. Matt Kakaley was in no hurry with the Scott Di Domenico pupil, but the same couldnt be said for Western Fame. That pacer charged to the lead and put up fractions of :26.4, :56.1 and 1:25 before being inhaled by a host of backfield challengers. Manhattan Beach tracked cover from second-over through the middle stages of the mile before blasting to the lead and drawing away to a five-length win in 1:52.4 over Katies Rocker. Rounding out the top five were odds-on favourite Boston Red Rocks, Western Fame and Stolen Glimpse. Off at odds of 3-1, Manhattan Beach improved this years record to 5-3-6 from 25 trips to the track with the win. John McGill and Brian Carsey share ownership on the six-time winner who is out of the mare Benear. The speedster has stashed away more than $58,000 to date. The richest event on Mondays card was the $100,000 Delaware Standardbred Breeders Fund Final for two-year-old trotting colts and geldings, and in that big money affair it was Crosby lighting the lamp in upset fashion for driver George Dennis. The 17-1 shot got away seventh from Post 1, be he rallied into a slowing back-half tempo and drew clear to win by 1-1/2 lengths over Moonshine Lavec in 2:03.3. Jiggs took home third prize. Trainer Linda MacDonald co-owns the homebred son of Keystone Activator-Melody Luv with Susan Durham of Smyrna, DE. The win improved the rookies record to 2-1-1 from five trips to the track and the $50,000 payday bumped his bankroll to $69,000. On Tuesday (Nov. 22) the Horse Peoples Alliance Of Ontario issued a statement regarding Ontario Racing's long-term funding framework and consultation process. The release is as follows: For far too long the Thoroughbred, Standardbred and Quarterhorse horse people of Ontario have been marginalized, and put off to the side when significant decisions as to their future have been made. On too many occasions horse people have been asked for their views only to find that those views are heard but not listened to. For too many years the intentional confidential compartmentalizing of decisions and agreements have kept important information from horse people. For much of the last decade the divisions between the breeds have been emphasized so as to restrict and impede the sharing of knowledge. As a consequence, a go it alone approach that inappropriately and unfairly creates competition amongst the horse people, which should only be a factor on the race track, has been generated at the decision making table. Too often the required principles of transparency and accountability have been pushed aside in the desire to effect speedy change. The Horse Peoples Alliance of Ontario sees that it is happening again and a voice of protest must be raised and heard by the Ontario Government. The Horse Peoples Alliance of Ontario appreciates and recognizes the significance of the role of the Ontario Government in the racing industry to stabilize, regulate and to assist importantly in its financial future viability, and the genuine desire of the Ontario Government to do the right things to achieve that goal. Given the foregoing, horse people of all three breeds view with grave concern the current draft proposal of Ontario Racing to reorganize the racing industry, placing even greater control with the racetrack, and setting out a financial model for the government without any discussion or input from those who will risk their careers and livelihood under that model. There is something seriously amiss with a proposal that puts forth a predetermined reorganization and then grants to others a truncated right to a limited number of consultative opportunities all premised on a basis that the reorganization must be accepted as proposed or the Ontario Government will tire of the industry and give up on racing. Fear mongering and sowing seeds of division within and across the breeds is no longer an effective approach to solving the very real issues the racing industry faces today. The Horse Peoples Alliance of Ontario trusts the Ontario Government to be considerate of the needs and interests of all horse people. The Horse Peoples Alliance of Ontario believes that the Ontario Government is not unmindful of the thousands of horse people who directly participate in horse racing and the many thousands more in the rural and agricultural communities of the province who are dependent on racing and breeding for their economic well-being. The answers to the future viability and growth of the industry, and a return to a time when owning, breeding and training horses in this province was in many respects the best in North America lies in making haste at a slower pace. It lies truly in the application of transparency and accountability to all that is done, considered and decided. It lies in the full disclosure of the agreements that exist today and the negotiations that are carried on in and for the future. The Horse Peoples Alliance of Ontario therefore calls upon the Ontario Government to accept that the horse people of the province have a right to make considered representations as to the future of the industry that they love and have worked in for so long, and that they are entitled, now, to a full and complete disclosure of the agreements and understandings that they must tolerate today in order to participate, and that decisions as to the future need not be made on the quick. The Horse Peoples Alliance of Ontario trusts that the Government does not require a speedy conclusion based only on one set of representations by only one entity. Horse people of Ontario need the opportunity to examine the current realities that bind parties today through confidential agreements which have never been available to them, but yet they are expected to simply accept as the governing rules. The Horse Peoples Alliance of Ontario believes that the following sets out some, but not necessarily all of the information that is needed for the Alliance and horse people of all breeds to make recommendations to the government as to how the industry should be organized, how to bring back fairness and openness through which true partnerships can be crafted for the betterment of all, racetrack, owner, breeder, trainer and the agricultural community. Contracts between Associations and Racetracks; Alliance agreement between WEG and other Racetracks; Transfer payment agreements between Government and Racetracks; Ontario Lottery and Gaming rental agreements; Allocation of Pari-Mutuel tax reduction funds; Wagering information from CPMA; Commissions from wagering, uncashed ticket revenue, uncashed purse cheques; Commissions from sale of Ontario product; Budgets for Ontario Racing or Ontario Lottery and Gaming Racing division; While recognizing that a continued certainty of funding is necessary, certainly for the breeding segment of the industry, the Horse Peoples Alliance of Ontario seeks to moderate sensibly the rush to a judgment that need not be quickly concluded, particularly if the speed to the conclusion works to the contrary of the best interests of those most concerned. The Horse Peoples Alliance of Ontario asks for the fuller opportunity for the disclosure of information thereby making horse people a true knowledge partner in the industry. The Horse Peoples Alliance of Ontario asks for the right and the opportunity to have its voice heard. For more information or to join, visit: OntarioHorsepeople.com Chairman Frank L. Roth Non-Executive Consultant Steven Lehman Advisory Committee Dr. Paul Branton Rene Hunderup Brian O'Leary Mark Williams Garland Williamson (with files from The Horse Peoples Alliance of Ontario) Pastor Rick Warren and Bishop Robert Barron Join Forces to Raise Awareness About Dangers of Assisted Suicide Laws Contact: Alexandra Snyder, Life Legal Defense Foundation , 202-717-7371NAPA, Calif., Nov. 22, 2016 / Standard Newswire / -- Life Legal hosted a conversation about life and death between two of the nation's most prominent faith leaders to discuss problems with assisted suicide laws.Pastor Rick Warren is the head Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, which attracts over 20,000 weekly attendees to its 18 campuses worldwide. Bishop Robert Barron serves as auxiliary archbishop to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which is the largest archdiocese in the United States with over 5 million professing members.The two met for the first time last week. They discussed their concerns about assisted suicide and the problems inherent in legislation that allows doctors to kill their patients.Pastor Warren talked about his son's death by suicide in 2013 and how his personal tragedy helped shape his opposition to assisted suicide. "The fact is, we belong to God. Theologically, we are not our own I didn't choose when I came into the world and I don't get to choose when I go out of the world. It's appointed by GodIt's not a political issue for me; it's a moral issue. And of course it's a practical issue, having had a son who took his life by suicide. I care very deeply about this."Bishop Barron explained the philosophical underpinnings of Catholic theology and then called for Christians of all faith traditions to minister to those who are suffering with untreatable illness. "One way the Catholic tradition deals with this more philosophically is this idea of the inviolable dignity of the individual so that it's intrinsic evil ever to take a human life from the moment of conception to natural deathmeaning there's no motive, there's no circumstance, no consequence that would ever justify such a moveBut it's not just an abstract moral issueIt's a summons to the Christian community now to engage in good ministry."Their conversation was moderated by author, attorney and radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt. Hewitt's law partner, Stephen Larson, is co-counsel in Life Legal's lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California's End of Life Option Act. That case is currently being litigated in state court in Riverside, California."We are grateful for the leadership of Bishop Barron and Pastor Warren in sounding the alarm about assisted suicide laws," said Alexandra Snyder, Executive Director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation. "We have a moral and philosophical obligation to protect vulnerable human life by engaging in thoughtful and articulate opposition to assisted suicideand by showing up to help those who are hurting."The conversation between Pastor Warren and Bishop Barren is available at lifelegaldefense.org About Life Legal Defense FoundationLife Legal Defense Foundation was established in 1989, and is a nonprofit organization composed of attorneys and other concerned citizens committed to giving helpless and innocent human beings of any age, and their advocates, a trained and committed voice in the courtrooms of our nation. For more information about the Life Legal Defense Foundation, visit www.lldf.org Beste Stan, Het is bijna zover, na maanden voorbereiding kijk ik er erg naar uit om het tweede pianoconcert van Brahms te spelen met het S... Hood rat. Thats what a person called Amber Wederski when she was 10 years old sitting at the bus stop. Its the moment, Wederski said, that made her feel like she was different the bad seed other kids were not allowed to see. She was going nowhere fast. I had teachers, I had guidance counselors, who didnt believe in me, she said. They treated me different, so I always felt like I was different. Fourteen years later, Wederski is on track to graduating from Warner Pacific College with a bachelors degree in human development. She wants to work in social services, potentially as a juvenile probation officer. And she just received the Spirit of Youth Award from the governors office, providing a $1,000 scholarship for school and making her a member of the Washington State Partnership Council on Juvenile Justice. She entered truancy court when she was 9 years old. She was expelled from all Longview schools at age 11 for egging on a fight that left a girl beaten. She was put on probation at 14, after charges of being a minor in possession of alcohol and stealing Starburst from WinCo. For years she was in and out of the juvenile detention center. But probation led her to Trish Scudder, a Cowlitz County probation officer Wederski connected with. When I first met her, I just wanted her dead, Wederski said. I said, God, I hate this lady. Every week she was locking me up. But the day before Wederskis 15th birthday, she began feeling differently about Scudder. Scudder frantically looked around the office trying to find a gift for Wederski. I realized she was a sweet person, Wederski said. The first week Wederski went to school without missing any classes, Scudder gave her a big hug. She was the only person that I could see that was really proud of me and that really cared about me. Scudder said it wasnt easy. Wederski was stubborn and crafty, and often there would be epic battles. Scudder recalled a moment she showed up at her school right when Wederski was cutting across the lawn. Scudder pulled her car right in front of her, she said, and asked her where she was going. Shes a very funny kid, Scudder said. Wederskis success, Scudder said, came when everyone began working together: Wederskis family, school administrators and Scudder. Those who knew Wederski when she first appeared on probation said they never expected her to get this far. At a county commissioners meeting, Supreme Court Judge Gary Bashor said he remembers when Wederski first appeared sitting in his courtroom on probation with arms crossed, legs crossed, looking at me like, You are never going to tell me what Im going to do. Today, on top of her full-time course load, Wederski works full-time as a residential assistant at a womens treatment center, PPW in Longview, helping women keep their kids out of foster care. She connects with her clients, Wederski said, because her mother grew up in an abusive foster home and didnt know what a normal mom was. I went through all the hard times. Ive been through everything at a young age, she said. She gives Scudder credit for her rise. She needed someone to believe in her, she said. Wederski was in a juvenile detention center when she began thinking about a career as a probation officer. Someone had asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. I really like Trish. I really like what she does, and I think shes the best person ever, Wederski recalled responding. She gets paid that much money to lock kids up? Ill do that. In a key victory for KapStone, a federal judge found the company acted legally when it fired union pickets in last years strike. The administrative law judge on Nov. 17 sided with the company that the workers acted unlawfully by blocking traffic and intimating contractors during the 12-day walkout in late August and early September last year. The union has not decided whether it will appeal the decision, said Jim Anderson, area representative for Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers. Were discussing what to do next. Obviously, were disappointed with the decision. We had prevailed initially when the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board found merit in the unions charges, Anderson said. The director wrote that the company was acting to discourage employees from engaging in these (union) activities when it fired the workers. Federal labor law protects striking union workers jobs unless they engage in misconduct. Attorneys for the NLRB, arguing on behalf of the union, said the workers picketed peacefully inside a public right-of-way and at times had to defend themselves against violence from contractors. About 800 KapStone mill workers are still without a ratified contract more than two years after the old one expired. No contract talks have occurred in at least 10 months. Union officials filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB after the company fired striking union members James Froberg, Jon Bouchard, Melvin Elben, Mike Allen and Steve Blanchard. The company agreed to give Allen his job back as part of a settlement earlier this year, but declined to extend the offer to Froberg, Bouchard, Elben and Blanchard. (Details of Allens firing and reasons for reinstatement were unavailable.) There are two incidents during the strike which led to Blanchards termination. The first happened on Aug. 30, 2015, when he kicked the side of a GMC truck that belonged to Delta Fire, a contractor. The unions attorneys argued that it was a split-second kick that left an imprint of a shoe on a dirty truck. But the company argued that he dented and damaged the contractors vehicle. By kicking the side of the truck, Blanchard intended to instill fear on the contractors part, not to return to the mill during the strike, wrote administrative law judge Lisa Thompson. About an hour later, Blanchard and about 10 to 15 other pickets stood outside the contractors gate on Fibre Way and gathered in front of a Chevrolet Tahoe exiting the mill. As the Tahoe continued moving, Blanchard jumped on the hood of the vehicle. (The incident was captured in a cell phone video available on tdn.com.) The driver, a contractor with a suspended license, then accelerated forward, sending Blanchard flying off the vehicle. He reportedly went to the emergency room with a head injury, but he left without treatment when he realized KapStone had cut off his medical insurance, according to the union. The windshield was smashed in the process, although the two sides cant agree on whether Blanchard intentionally slammed his picket sign into the windshield. Blanchard said he jumped on the vehicles hood to avoid being run over. Yet the judge sided with the company that Blanchard jumped onto the hood of the truck in order to gain a tactical advantage and further intimidate the contractor. The company fired the other three pickets after they stood in front of an 18-wheel semi-truck for 20 minutes until sheriffs deputies asked them to move aside, according to court documents. (There were no citations or arrests resulting from the incident.) Froberg, Bouchard and Elben said they were standing in a pedestrian right-of-way away near the mill exit and the truck encroached into the area, where deputies earlier had told them they could stand. But the judge and company said they intentionally blocked the vehicle in violation of a temporary restraining ordered imposed by a Cowlitz Superior Court Judge. Thompson blasted the workers for offering nonsensical explanations and inconsistent testimonies during a March hearing, which she said undermined their credibility and at times contradicted video evidence. Anderson, the union rep, maintained that the workers were illegally terminated. I do know our guys were standing where it was legal. They were not out blocking out traffic, he said. Regarding the Tahoe incident, Anderson said, When I saw the video I didnt see what the (judge) seemed to see. (Blanchard) did what he needed to do to not get pulled down underneath. KapStone officials were unavailable for comment for this story. hidden Cyber criminals have remotely attacked cash machines in more than a dozen countries across Europe this year, using malicious software that forces machines to spit out cash, according to Russian cyber security firm Group IB. Diebold Nixdorf and NCR Corp, the world's two largest ATM makers, said they were aware of the attacks and have been working with customers to mitigate the threat. The newly disclosed heists across Europe follow the hacking of ATMs in Taiwan and Thailand that were widely reported over the summer. Although cyber criminals have been attacking cash machines for at least five years, the early campaigns mostly involved small numbers of ATMs because hackers needed to have physical access to cash out machines. The recent heists in Europe and Asia were run from central, remote command centers, enabling criminals to target large numbers of machines in "smash and grab" operations that seek to drain large amounts of cash before banks uncover the hacks. They are taking this to the next level in being able to attack a large number of machines at once, said Nicholas Billett, Diebold Nixdorfs senior director of core software and ATM Security. They know they will be caught fairly quickly, so they stage it in such a way that they can get cash from as many ATMs as they can before they get shut down. Group IB declined to name banks that were jackpotted, a term used to describe forcing ATMs to spit out cash, but said the victims were located in Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Britain and Malaysia.Indeed, Dmitry Volkov, head of threat intelligence with Group IB, told Reuters he expects more heists on ATMs. More Heists expected Hackers have moved from stealing payment card numbers and online banking credentials to more lucrative hacks on bank networks, giving them access not only to ATM machines, but also to electronic payment networks. A February attack on servers at Bangladesh's central bank that controlled access to the SWIFT messaging system yielded more than $81 million in one of the biggest digital heists on record. Russian banks lost over $28 million in a series of wire-fraud cases that were identified earlier this year. "What we are seeing demonstrated is the new model of organized crime," said Shane Shook, an independent security consultant who helps banks and governments investigate cyber attacks and reviewed Group IB's findings. Diebold Nixdorf and NCR both said they had provided banks with information on how to thwart the new types of attacks. "We have been working actively with customers, including those who have been impacted, as well as developing proactive security solutions and strategies to help prevent and minimize the impact of these attacks," said Owen Wild, NCR's global marketing director for enterprise fraud and security. Disclosure of the campaign follows two ATM hacks in July: $2.5 million was stolen from Taiwan's First Bank and $350,000 from Thailand's state-run Government Savings Bank. Hackers remotely infected ATMs at both banks, forcing them to spit out cash that was collected by teams of "money mules," who authorities say traveled to Asia from Eastern Europe. One Criminal Group? The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this month sent a private alert to American banks, warning them to be on the lookout for attacks on ATMs following the heists in Taiwan and Thailand, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the attacks in Europe. Group IB released a report describing its findings late on Monday, saying it believed the attacks across Europe were conducted by a single criminal group which it dubbed Cobalt. It named them after a security-testing tool known as Cobalt Strike, which the perpetrators used in the heists to help them move from computers in the bank network that were infected with tainted emails to specialized servers that control ATMs. Group IB believes that Cobalt is linked to a well-known cyber crime gang dubbed Buhtrap, which stole 1.8 billion rubles ($28 million) from Russian banks from August 2015 to January 2016, because the two groups use similar tools and techniques. Buhtrap stole money through fraudulent wire transfers, not ATM jackpotting. The ATM Security Association declined to comment on Group IB's findings. Members of the group, which works to improve ATM security, include ATM maker Diebold Nixdorf as well as banks ABN Amro, Bank of America Corp, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Wells Fargo & Co. Representatives of Europol, which coordinates investigations of cyber crimes across Europe, had no immediate comment. Reuters hidden Facebook said it would expand its presence in Britain by 50 percent in 2017, joining other U.S. technology firms in increasing investment despite the uncertainty sparked by the country's vote to leave the European Union. The social network firm said it would hire 500 new staff, adding to the 1,000 people it already employs in Britain, as Facebook gears up to open a new UK headquarters in London next year, following other firms drawn by talent and a thriving tech start-up scene. Before the Brexit referendum in June, campaigners in favor of remaining in the EU had warned that international companies could seek to reduce their presence in Britain as a withdrawal from the bloc would make it a less attractive place to invest. Some big banks such as Goldman Sachs and Citi, which employ many thousands in London's financial center, are said to be considering shifting some jobs elsewhere in Europe as a result of Brexit, a worry for the British economy where financial services account for around 10 percent of output and provide some of the best paying jobs. Facebook's UK expansion comes after Google, owned by parent company Alphabet Inc, said earlier in November that it would invest an estimated 1 billion pounds, and make 3,000 new hires in the Britain. "The UK is definitely one of the very best places to be a technology company," Facebook vice-president of Europe, Middle East and Africa Nicola Mendelsohn said at a conference run by the CBI, an employers group, adding that it was too early to say what Brexit would mean for the movement of labor. "The movement of talent is something...that matters to us." she said, adding that Facebook employs people of 65 different nationalities in Britain. Facebook opened its first engineering office outside the U.S. in London in 2012 and has been growing rapidly in the UK since. Its main UK operating unit's staffing increased by 90 percent in 2015 from 2014, according to its latest accounts, with more than half of those hired engineers. It also employs hundreds of sales and marketing staff who tend to focus on larger clients or running regional teams, according to Facebook job ads and linkedIN profiles of staff. Amazon, which created 3,500 UK jobs in 2016 at its head office, research and development centers, customer service centers and distribution depots, plans a further 2,300 jobs at three new distribution centers in 2017. Amazing Ecosystem Such investments have helped Britain's tech sector to shine at a time when some other firms are less optimistic. A recent survey showed that three out of four companies with sales between 100 million pounds and 1 billion pounds have considered moving operations to the European continent in the wake of the vote. Mendelsohn said that Britain needed to work hard to keep its position as a global hub for technology. "We need to make sure that we continue to look outwards and not inwards; we need to stay competitive, and we need to remain a welcome home to tech," she said. London ranked no.1 for start-ups in the 2016 European Digital City Index, and Google said the talent pool, educational institutions, and passion for innovation helped it decide to invest more in Britain, sentiments echoed by Mendelsohn. "It's a place that our engineers want to come and work at, it's a place that we see this amazing ecosystem, not of just tech companies but also of creative companies coming together inspiring, fuelling one another," she said. Facebook has a complex corporate structure for tax purposes and declared Dublin as its European headquarters which means almost no taxable profits are reported in the UK. It also has significant historic tax losses on its books, which means any cut in corporation tax would have little impact on its finances. UK Prime Minister Theresa May is reported to be considering cutting corporation tax from the 20 percent headline rate in a move to attract companies away from other parts of the EU to Britain. Reuters hidden Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) said on Monday it was trying to ascertain if Yahoo! Inc's (YHOO.O) decision to scan clients' email accounts at the behest of the U.S. authorities last year broke European law. Sources have told Reuters that Yahoo used a software program to sift through millions of emails for specific information related to national security. At the time last month, the DPC said it was seeking more information from Yahoo. Now it has begun actively investigating the case, it said on Monday. "We are in regular contact with Yahoo! EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) in clarifying certain facts of this case and will then proceed to take appropriate next steps," a DPC spokeswoman said in a statement. Yahoo did not respond to a request for comment. Last month, it declined to confirm whether Europeans' emails were intercepted as part of the program. Yahoo said it complied with the laws of the United States. Lawyers said mass surveillance of EU citizens email would be against incoming European Union data rules. The DPC, the lead European regulator on privacy issues for Yahoo because its European headquarters are in Dublin, is trying to ascertain what exactly Yahoo did and whether it breached the privacy rules that prevailed last year. "We are receiving active and engaged responses to our queries," the spokeswoman said. Analysts said the email scanning could prompt Verizon Communications to rethink the terms of a planned $4.8 billion takeover of Yahoo. Reuters hidden Hillary Clinton was about to be indicted, Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump: the battle over fake news is heating up after a White House campaign in which the misinformation industry may have swung the outcome of the vote. Last week, Google and Facebook moved to cut off ad revenue to bogus news sites. But media watchers say more is needed to stamp out a powerful phenomenon seen by some people as a threat to democracy itself. One of those people is President Barack Obama, who has warned that fake news threatens the basic principle of freedom of speech. "If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect," Obama said during a visit to Germany. The hoaxes of the 2016 election season were in many cases spectacular -- "Did the Clintons Commit Murder?" -- and created by groups purely out to make money from clicks and ads. And since Trump's victory, reports have exposed the dark underbelly of operations -- run from Macedonia to California -- that boast of making easy money with wholly fabricated stories, under such headlines as "Look At Sick Thing He Just Did To STAB Trump In The Back." An analysis published by BuzzFeed News found that the 20 top-performing bogus stories from hoax websites and extremely partisan blogs generated slightly more than 8.7 million "shares" on Facebook to just 7.4 million from major news websites, in the three months before the election. Now, the outcry over fake news and its apparent role in the election is prompting calls for Facebook to consider itself a media company, with editorial responsibilities, which the social network has repeatedly rejected. Arbiters of truth? Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan argued that Facebook "should hire a top-flight executive editor and give that person the resources, power and staff to make sound editorial decisions." For Gabriel Kahn, a former journalist who teaches at the University of Southern California, "they're in the same business as pretty much every media company, which is aggregating audiences and using that to sell advertisements." And Kahn believes that Facebook, by considering itself a "neutral" platform, "allows the media ecosystem to be polluted" with bogus news. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Friday offered additional insight on plans to curb online misinformation while arguing for caution. "The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically," Zuckerberg said in a posting. "We believe in giving people a voice... We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties." Zuckerberg said nonetheless that Facebook would step up efforts to weed out fake news with "stronger detection," an easier process to report hoaxes and "third party verification" from "respected fact checking organisations." Tech entrepreneur Elad Gil said it should not be too difficult for a company like Facebook to apply its technical expertise to determine when a news story is fake. "Intriguingly, a group of undergrads at Princeton were able to build a quick and dirty fake news classifier during a 36-hour hackathon," Gil said in a blog post. 'Click farms' vs ideology Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy argued that it is important to differentiate between "click farms" which make money off entirely fake news and politically driven news sites. "I think Facebook could do a lot to crack down on fake news, and I think that's something everybody could agree on, but if they try to go against the ideologically motivated sites it will inevitably get caught up in the culture wars," Kennedy said. The prevalence of ersatz news, analysts note, comes in a context of deep distrust of mainstream media, which is often accused of one-sidedness. Any effort to filter out those voices could "lead to the relitigation of ancient disputes over media bias," said Kennedy. Reason magazine editor Scott Shackleford said it would be hard to draw a line between filtering bogus news and ideological censorship. "So a decision by Facebook to censor 'fake news' would heavily weigh in favor of the more mainstream and 'powerful' traditional media outlets," he wrote. City University of New York journalism professor Jeff Jarvis and startup entrepreneur John Borthwick argued in a blog post that the media and technology industries should work together to help readers establish the credibility of news. "We do not believe that the platforms should be put in the position of judging what is fake or real, true or false as censors for all," they wrote. "The platforms need to give users better information and media need to help them." Even if the online platforms do not turn into media firms, the two wrote in the blog, they should "hire high-level journalists inside their organizations" to "bring a sense of public responsibility to their companies" and "to explain journalism to the technologists and technology to the journalists." AFP tech2 News Staff Microsoft announced last month that it is working on the new Windows 10 Creators update which will be arriving next year in spring. It had also announced that it has partnered with companies like Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Asus and HP to make affordable VR headsets that will launch once the new update starts rolling. The company had revealed a starting price of $299 and a hint on how it would be based on the HoloLens headset and Windows Holographic environment. However it didnt give any details as to what kind of system will be required to efficiently use these upcoming VR headsets. Thanks to The Verge, we now have a bit of a clue. The latest test builds of Windows 10 is said to include "Windows Holographic First Run" application that allows one to test if a machine is compatible or not. According to the tests, the requirements are going to be quite nominal. These include 4GB of RAM, a USB 3.0 port, a graphics card with DirectX 12 support and a CPU with 4 cores or a dual-core processor with hyper-threading. This means that you dont need a high-end system to run the upcoming Microsoft's upcoming partner-made Windows VR system. However the mentioned requirements are needed for most experiences. Essentially it means that it may not be enough to experience the full potential of the headsets. The Verge has added that Microsoft will give out more details about its VR headsets for Windows 10 at an event in December. The full holographic shell is not yet available to run on devices like HTCs Vive, even though the first run app is currently available in the test builds. The coming weeks should see Microsoft enabling this as it starts to discuss more about its VR plans. This is clearly a move to bring a proper VR experience to the masses. It is still expensive than what Google is offering with Daydream, but it seems to be a bit more immersive than just a smartphone hanging in front of your eyes. With the Oculus and HTC Vive sitting on a higher price tier, will the Windows 10 based VR headsets have an upper hand? Only time will tell. hidden The on-demand economy, which uses smartphone technology to immediately fill consumer needs, has changed the way people order food, a car, or a place to stay. Now, technology startups are targeting the next business frontier - insurance - offering coverage with the swipe of an app. Trov, a San Francisco Bay Area firm that provides smartphone-based on-demand insurance for individual assets, like computers or cameras, for any duration, launched in the United Kingdom on Tuesday, backed by insurance firm AXA SA. "We literally track risk to the second so when you turn something on, it turns it on to the second and then it prices your usage to the second should you want to turn it off," Scott Walchek, Trov's chief executive officer, said in an interview last week. "It's literally the same swipe right to turn it on, swipe left to turn it off." The multitrillion-dollar dollar insurance industry is poised to be transformed "beyond recognition" by new technologies like artificial intelligence, new payment systems, drones and blockchain, CommerzVentures GmbH said in a white paper in March. "Effectively cooperating with startups may be the only way for incumbent insurers to fend off potential competitors such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and other non-traditional players," said CommerzVentures, the fintech venture capital fund of CommerzBank . Trov has been doing business in Australia for the past five months in partnership with Suncorp Group Ltd and plans to launch next year in the United States, where it has teamed up with Munich Re, Walchek said. Trov's main users are millennials who live "untethered" lifestyles, meaning they might work from home or from a coffee shop with their laptop, which they want to protect, Walchek said. The firm started with electronics and photography equipment coverage in the UK, and will add other insurance categories going forward, such as sporting goods, Walchek said. The insurance industry has been slow to adopt new, potentially disruptive technologies, in part because it is subject to moral hazard and adverse selection, said Erik Brynjolfsson, professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. "Meaning that one party may know information that the other doesn't and markets tend to break down in those situations," he said in an interview. Technology firms' ability to mine vast amounts of web-based data, along with the type of ratings systems used by firms like Airbnb and Uber to verify trustworthiness and reliability, may help insurers overcome those barriers, he added. Reuters hidden Norway's Opera Software no longer plans to buy or sell companies and will instead stay focused on developing its mobile advertising units after the recent divestment of a key business, chief executive Lars Boilesen told Reuters on Monday. In charge since 2010, Boilesen initially expanded Opera's business through a string of acquisitions before putting the whole company up for sale in mid-2015, though in the end only parts of the firm, the internet browser business and related units, were sold. The close to $600 million proceeds from divesting Opera's consumer business, a transaction that was finalised in early November, will not be used to buy more companies, Boilesen said. The company is expected to use several hundred million dollars on an extraordinary dividend and share buybacks. "New acquisitions from our side are highly unlikely," Boilesen told Reuters. He also dismissed suggestions by some analysts and investors that the mobile advertising business could be sold shortly. "We have just been through a very long and demanding strategic process and I'm certain we won't launch another one now. It is way too time consuming and disruptive... We are left with a very exciting company I think a lot of things will happen for us in 2017." Skyfire, an online cloud-based service for operators of mobile phone networks, one of Opera's last acquisitions, will probably turn profitable in 2017, Boilesen added. "I think it will happen pretty fast I am sure it will make money already next year," he said. Reuters hidden Blockchain company R3 CEV has reduced the amount it aims to raise from bank members in its first large round of equity funding to $150 million from $200 million and is changing the structure of the deal, according to a person familiar with the plans. R3, a New York-based startup that runs a consortium of more than 70 financial institutions, now plans to give bank members a 60 percent equity stake in exchange for the funding, the source said. More than 90 percent of its original 42 bank members have expressed an interest in investing, the source said. Initially, it aimed to create a new company providing shared services for the owners, who would get a 90 percent stake. R3 would have run this utility for 10 years and retained a stake in it. Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Banco Santander SA, both original participants, are not renewing their memberships and not investing in the deal, spokespeople said. Morgan Stanley and National Australia Bank are also not participating, said the source, who requested anonymity to discuss plans that were not public. Most other banks have agreed to the new terms of the deal, but R3 does not expect all existing members to join the round, said the source. R3's fundraising comes as banks and other large institutions ramp up their investments in blockchain, which is also known as distributed ledger technology. It first emerged as the technology underpinning digital currencies such as bitcoin but is now being adapted for use in more traditional financial tasks, such as transaction processing. Other new companies are also looking to sell blockchain-based technology to banks. Competition among these startups has intensified over the past few months as they try to secure investments and deals with large institutions to provide the technology. R3's funding will be raised in phases over the next nine to 12 months, the source said. Through its consortium and technology development lab, R3 comes up with ways for the financial industry to use blockchain software. According to the new terms of the deal, the banks will also acquire a stake in the development lab, which tests new blockchain-based applications. The group's original 42 members have been given first dibs at investing in the company, followed by members of the company's development lab. If the $150 million target is not reached, the round will be opened to other strategic investors, such as a technology company, the source said. Since it began operating in September 2015, R3 has rapidly gained the support from the world's largest banks, with members including UBS Group AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Deutsche Bank AG. So far they have paid membership fees to participate in the company's activities. Thomson Reuters Corp is also a member of R3. In a statement, R3 said it expected members of the consortium to change over time, as the scale and scope of the project changed. Although Goldman and Santander have abandoned R3, they have investments in other blockchain startups, including Digital Asset Holdings LLC, which is led by former JPMorgan executive Blythe Masters. Reuters tech2 News Staff Tesla has announced the full acquisition of SolarCity which closed on Monday morning. With this, the electric vehicle company is now merged with the solar energy company. SolarCity was founded by Musks cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive. The merger was proposed earlier in the year and the final deal was approved by Tesla and SolarCity shareholders last week. More than 85 percent of Tesla shares voted in favour of the merger. According to AP, the all-stock deal valued SolarCity at $2 billion based on Tesla's closing stock price while it was worth $2.6 billion when Tesla and SolarCity announced the agreement in August. Were trying to make an integrated product. So you have an integrated solar roof with a Powerwall and an electric car, and you just go into a Tesla store, just say yes, it just happens. It all works, its seamless and you love it, said Musk during a meeting with Tesla shareholders in Fremont, California. Musk has been quite keen on providing clean energy and had recently showcased solar roof tiles. The merger is nothing but obvious. With the merger, Tesla has taken an important step towards Musks Master Plan which is to provide customers with solutions for owning their own energy production, storage and consumption. Earlier, Tesla has mentioned that the merger with SolarCity Corp would add over $500 million in cash while contributing over $1 billion to revenue in 2017. hidden Thailand's military government, which has cracked down on online dissent since seizing power in 2014, is pushing ahead with cyber security bills that rights groups say could mean more extensive online monitoring, raising concerns over privacy protection. Amendments to Thailand's 2007 Computer Crime Act to be considered by parliament next month have come under fire from critics who say the bill could give state officials sweeping powers to spy on internet users and restrict online speech. Critics say parliament is likely to approve the amendments because lawmakers voted unanimously to pass the bill in its first reading. The amendments come as the military government has ramped up online censorship since the May 2014 coup, particularly perceived insults to the royal family, as it tries to ensure a smooth transition following the death of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej on Oct. 13 and ahead of a 2017 general election. Since the coup, the government has shut down or blocked thousands of websites it has deemed offensive or inappropriate. The amendments to the cyber law, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, have pro-democracy activists worried that they could lead to arbitrary invasion of privacy without a court warrant. Sam Zarifi, Asia Director at the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation, said the amendments would strengthen the government's ability to silence speech that it deems violates Thailand's lese-majeste law, a crime that is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. "This absolutely curbs free expression," Zarifi told Reuters. In the amendments, Articles 18 and 19 of the Computer Crime Act say state officials can obtain user and traffic data from service providers without court approval and can seize a computer device within an unspecified time period. Article 20 says a website that could threaten national security or "offend people's good morals" can be removed or suspended. A committee would be in charge of flagging suspicious content. The current law says officials need court approval to remove content. In a statement last month, the ICJ and four other rights groups called for Thailand's parliament, or National Legislative Assembly, to reject the draft. The National Human Rights Commission has also opposed the amendments. Members of the National Legislative Assembly declined to comment on the cyber security bills when contacted by Reuters. The amendments will be followed by the Cyber Security Act and the Personal Data Protection Act, which the government has approved in principle and aims to pass through parliament by March. Experts say the Computer Crime Act is a benchwarmer for the more dangerous Cyber Security Act, which would allow the state to wiretap phones and computers without judicial approval. "These laws are aimed at controlling online media, accessing personal data, and when the Cyber Security bill is passed, mass surveillance is a real threat," said Kanathip Thongraweewong, a data privacy expert at Saint John's University in Bangkok. Under the act, a National Cyber Security Committee will have the power to order any state or private agency to do anything without judicial oversight. The committee could take down whatever it wants, said Arthit Suriyawongkul of the Thai Netizen Network group, which has campaigned against the bills. Drafts of the bills show the committee's secretary will also serve as secretary in the Personal Data Protection Committee, raising conflict of interest questions. "A committee that protects people's rights and freedom should be independent from the state, especially when the state is a potential violator," said Arthit. Reuters hidden Volkswagen is putting the Americas at the heart of the turnaround plan for its core VW brand, pinning its hopes on new higher-margin SUVs and electric cars to rebuild its image following the diesel emissions cheating scandal. Europe's biggest carmaker is battling to recover from the biggest business crisis in its history after admitting last year to cheating U.S. diesel emissions tests. Key to this will be a turnaround plan for its mass-market VW brand, which accounted for 59 percent of group auto sales in 2015 but just 16 percent of underlying operating profit. The German group announced on Friday a cost-cutting deal with labor unions that will allow it to ax 30,000 jobs at the VW brand by 2020. On Tuesday, brand chief Herbert Diess set out more details of its plans, and said conquering U.S. and South American markets would be a major goal. "We not only want to be profitable in Europe and China but are determined to generate positive results in all major markets by 2020," he told reporters. The VW brand has long struggled in North America, with analysts blaming its reluctance to adapt to local tastes and a slowness in launching new models. Diess, a former BMW executive, said he planned to focus on the fast-growing and higher-margin SUV market in the United States, with the brand aiming to have 19 SUV models globally by 2020, up from just 2 now. However, he added it could take 10 years to compete with mass-market rivals in a market where VW's reputation is currently at rock bottom following the emissions scandal. Diess said investment in the VW brand would remain at around 4.5 billion euros ($4.8 billion) a year in the coming years, with savings of around 2.5 billion euros from scrapping unidentified unprofitable models to help pay for new SUVs and limousines, as well as several new electric vehicles. The brand aims to raise its operating profit margin to more than 6 percent by 2025. That compares with a forecast of just 2 percent this year, but would still lag European rival Peugeot Citroen, which is aiming to hit 6 percent in 2021. Shares in Volkswagen, whose 12 brands range from upmarket Audi and Porsche to the cheaper SEAT and Skoda, were up 0.7 percent to 121.20 euros by 1035 GMT (5:35 a.m. ET). The stock is still down around a quarter in value from before the emissions scandal. Reuters hidden By Asheeta Regidi Data released recently by the National Crimes Records Bureau of India reveals that Indias rate of conviction for cybercrime remains abysmally low. Maharashtra was found to have only 1 conviction in 2015. This problem, however, is not restricted to Maharashtra and can be seen throughout India. The NCRB report shows that in 2015, a total of 8045 cybercrimes were reported. While 5,102 persons were arrested, only 250 were convicted. This is an increase over the statistics released last year, where 7,201 cybercrimes were reported and only 65 persons were convicted. Despite the increase, it is clear that not much has improved since last year. UP highest number of convictions, Maharashtra and Karnataka way behind The number of cases registered with the police has increased by 20% since 2014. Of these, the highest number of cases reported are from Uttar Pradesh, with 2,208 cases, followed by Maharashtra with 2,195 cases and Karnataka with 1,447 cases. As far as convictions go, however, UP has the highest number with 99 this year, followed by 29 in Chattisgarh and 25 in Telangana. Maharashtra and Karnataka, home to 2 top Indian cities, Mumbai and Bangalore, have only 1 and 3 convictions respectively. Delhi, another major city, only has 3 convictions in 2015. Very high rate of pending cases According to the NCRB data, a total of 11,789 cases are pending investigations. 60.1% of the cybercrime cases with the police are pending, while the courts have an even higher pendency rate of 90.3%. The courts are reported to have 6,435 pending trials. The high rate of pending cases leads to the very low rate of convictions. The chief cause of this is the issue of evidence and investigation. The problems with evidence are prevalent at every stage of the case. These range from delay in discovery and reporting of cybercrimes, improper handling of evidence by the victims or the police themselves, to an insufficient understanding of the complicated procedures established under law for valid digital evidence. In a previous article analyzing 2014 NCRB data, this was found to be the major cause of the low cybercrime conviction rates back then. Clearly, the issue remains unresolved. Difficulty in arresting foreign nationals The NCRB statistics show that of the arrests made, 9,960 arrests were of Indian nationals, while only 8 arrests were of foreign nationals. The transnational element of cybercrimes means that a large number of cybercrimes are committed from abroad. For example, the cyberterrorist activities like the hacking of Indian websites are mostly from other countries. Even the recent ATM banking fraud showed use of the cards in other countries, indicating that the hackers may have been from abroad. The lack of proper treaties in place to achieve the required cooperation for carrying out arrests prevent any action from being taken against cybercrimes conducted from abroad. For example, in one case, 4 Nigerian nationals who were granted bail for a cybercrime escaped from India, preventing any further progress in the trial. Though the Information Technology Act,2000 as well as the Indian Penal Code, 1860 provide the courts with the required long-arm jurisdiction, enforcing it practically becomes impossible. Inadequate cooperation for investigations This issue also exists when trying to conduct investigations. For example, it is difficult to obtain IP addresses, since the service providers are often located outside India, and do not provide the information easily. This could also be seen in the recent case where YouTube refused to divulge the IP address of an accused to the Madras High Court. The lack of such cooperation often prevents investigators from obtaining information that is vital for any progress in the case. The police have reported cases that have been pending for over 8 years due to this. Similar problems also exist at a more local level, where cybercrimes conducted from one part of India affect another part. Issues have been faced with achieving the cooperation of the local police for carrying out investigations. With something as delicate as digital evidence, every small delay makes it that much more difficult to carry out a successful investigation. Difficulty in validating evidence The difficulties and inordinate delays faced with investigation have prevented many cybercrimes reported from going to trial. Even when cases are chargesheeted- over 2396 cases were chargesheeted in 2015- many can lead to acquittals on grounds like insufficient evidence. Presenting sufficient and legally valid evidence for a cybercrime is very difficult. For example, even when the offending device is seized, establishing the involvement of the accused in the use of the device becomes difficult. Yet another issue is that while the number of persons being trained in this field is increasing, frequent transfers prevents many cases from being concluded. Lack of expertise Clearly, there are a greater number of cybercriminals than there are experts to resolve cybercrimes. Incentives need to be provided to attract a greater number of experts, like ethical hackers, to cybercrime investigation. Training must be provided at an international level to ensure quality of the investigation. Every person involved in the trial of a cybercrime, from the police officer at the ground level to the judges dealing with the cybercrime cases, need to be specifically trained in the field. India is yet to acquire adequate experts in the field of cyber forensics, particularly when compared to its foreign counterparts. The use of mobile phones to commit crimes has led to a new set of problems. The different operating systems of each mobile device implies that each device needs a different method of extraction. India is not yet adequately equipped in the field of mobile forensics. Good signs for cybercrime resolution Despite the bad news through the NRCB report, some improvement can also be seen. Maharashtra inaugurated 34 well equipped cyber labs earlier this year. A few months ago, Interpol agreed to assist the Hyderabad police in tracking cybercriminals attacking India from other countries. Increased cooperation for cybercrime resolution has also been promised between India and Israel, and also India and China. Greater technical expertise and improved international cooperation can go a long way in resolving cybercrimes. Hopefully, these steps will lead to an increased conviction rate by next year. The author is a lawyer with a specialisation in cyber laws and has co-authored books on the subject. Bid to quieten Muslim call to prayer amplifies Israel tensions A Palestinian protester burns an Israeli flag during a rally gathering Muslims, Christians and Samaritans to protest against an Israeli draft bill that would limit the volume of calls to prayer at mosques in Israel and Jerusalem, Nablus. AFP, Jerusalem : It is 4:30 am and Mufeed Shawana is rushing to Al-Aqsa Mosque, as the first Muslim call to prayer of the day rings out across the Old City of east Jerusalem. But he stops short when asked how he feels that the sound echoing from the minarets could soon be dampened. "It upsets me. The calls to prayer have happened for 1,400 years." A bill backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ban mosques around Israel and annexed east Jerusalem from using loudspeakers to amplify late night and early morning azans, or calls to prayers, has been approved by a ministerial committee ahead of a parliamentary debate and voting. It has been temporarily blocked but the government is still confident of pushing it through. Shawana argues that nobody would deny Jews their own religious rituals, which are "their right". "This is our right," he adds, before disappearing inside the mosque to pray. The dispute around high-decibel minarets is not unique to Israel, which argues that other states, including in Europe and North Africa, have similar restrictions to those it is looking to implement. But it has touched a raw nerve in Israel, where many in its minority Arab population-around 17.5 percent of the whole and overwhelmingly Muslim-believe Netanyahu's rightwing government is systematically persecuting them. They also worry that their connection to Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam, is under threat. Large numbers of Israeli Jews view the azans as noise pollution, with the bill's sponsor Motti Yogev, of the far-right Jewish Home party, arguing they disturb the peace of hundreds of thousands of people. He has also claimed that in some cases they are used by religious leaders to incite against Israel. In its current draft, the law would prevent the summons to worshippers between 11:00 pm until 6:00 am from being relayed on loudspeakers. Palestinians and Arab Israelis have organised protests against the ban, with an Arab Israeli MP performing the azan in Israel's parliament to the fury of some of his Jewish colleagues. Government watchdogs call the bill a threat to religious freedom and the Arab League has termed it "a very dangerous provocation". Arab Israelis, who largely identify as Palestinians, are the descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Erdogan seeks Nato support in fight against Kurds, IS AFP, Istanbul : Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday urged the European Union and other Western nations to step up support for Ankara's fight against Kurdish militants, as he addressed a meeting of Nato lawmakers. Erdogan said he expected the backing of Nato countries in Turkey's fight against "all terror groups" including the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the militant Islamic State (IS) group and the group blamed by Ankara for the failed July 15 coup. He called on the European Union to tighten its approach to the PKK, which Brussels designates as a terror group but whose members, according to Erdogan, are allowed to roam freely within the bloc. "Those who have a hesitant attitude against terrorist organisations will be hit themselves sooner or later," he said in a speech to deputies at the Nato Parliamentary Assembly. Turkey has been a member of Nato since 1952 but its bid to join the European Union has been further set back by disputes over the extent of its crackdown in the wake of the coup. Erdogan had at the weekend mooted that Turkey could join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a loose security and economic bloc led by Russia and China sometimes seen as an eastern counterpart to Nato. But he did not refer to this in his speech in Istanbul to the Nato meeting. Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg meanwhile emphasised the alliance's "solidarity" with Turkey in the wake of the coup and said Ankara "has the right" to prosecute those responsible. Pressed by a Dutch lawmaker to condemn the crackdown that has seen over 35,000 arrested, Stoltenberg said he had told Turkish leaders all measures had to be taken within the rule of law. He said he welcomed cooperation between Turkey and the Council of Europe over the legal measures after the coup, saying this should be an "important tool" to ensure the rule of law and human rights are applied. He added he wanted to see "more assurance measures" from Nato states to help Turkey on its unstable borders, in addition to the current surveillance flights and deployment of missile batteries on the Syrian frontier. Stoltenberg said last week Turkish officers serving in Nato command posts had asked for asylum following the failed putsch. Later on Monday in a statement Stoltenberg said he had spoken with the Turkish president about the filling of Turkish posts in the alliance's command structure, which he described "as a national decision for Turkey - as it is for any other Nato ally". He added that "Nato's commitment to the security of Turkey is absolute." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left) and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg (right) at a meeting between Ankara and the military alliance.AP Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan holding a meeting with Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg 6 held at JU admission test forgery JU Correspondent : The authority of Jahangirangar University (JU) handed over 6 men to police including 3 fraud gang members in separate drives from different spot of the campus area on Sunday night at the second day of the entry exam. On Monday the authority also caught 5 others admission seekers as they change exam shift in deferent building and freed after interrogation. On Sunday, the university security team in assistance with university journalists caught them, among them at red handed from different spot of campus area and handed over them to police after deep interrogation. The detainees culprits were identified as Morshed Alam Jamal, Shoaeb Alam Choudhury, Monirul Islam, Shahnewaj Adnan Pranta, Mahbubur Rahman and Ashik Kabir, while 11 admission seekers were also caught as they change exam shift, the authorities have freed them after taking written statement of not to involve such guilty again. Among them, 7 held from university central Shaheed Minar, 4 from central cafeteria and 5 held from business studies faculty and one held from physics gallery for changing the shift. On an another case, the general students of Mir Mosharraf Hossain Hall detained a member of Freud gang on Sunday night named Shahnewaj Adnan Pranta from the dormitory and handed over to the university authority. JU proctor Professor Tapan Kumar Shaha said, "We handed over the culprits to police besides we are investigating the matter, we always alert to ensure a fair admission test. No forgery will allow in the admission test". Mentionable that, the admission test of honors first year of 2016-17 academic has begins on Nov 19 and continue till November 23. 23 pc pass , classes to start from Jan 15 Barisal Correspondent : On an average 23 percent admission seekers have passed in intake test of Barisal University (BU) and classed will start from January 15. Prof. Dr. S M Imamul Huq, Vice Chancellor of BU, holding a press conference at the conference room of BU at 2:30 PM on Monday, declared the result through online. According to the published result 13.6 percent admission seekers of 'Ka' unit, 25.5 percent of 'Kha' and 29.9 percent of 'Ga' unit passed in the intake test held on Friday and Saturday last. Details of the result available at the website of BU as http:// admission. eis. Bu.ac.bd and date for completing admission formalities fixed as December 13 to 20, 2016. Classes of the newly admitted students would be started from January 15, 2017, the VC of BU told. He said Dola Saha obtained highest 166.10 marks in 'ka', Kawsar Hossain obtained 165.5 marks in 'Kha' and Khalid Saifullah obtained 160.5 in 'Ga' unit of the test and all of them passed HSC fro Barisal Education Board. Dhaka University helped BU in preparing the result. Prof. Dr. AAMS Arefin Siddique, VC of DU also attended the intake result publishing ceremony through video conference. Teachers, officials of BU, journalists of print and electronic media attended the press conference of result publishing ceremony of BU. Shweta Tripathi`s bachelorette trip Actress Shweta Tripathi along with three other actresses is a part of show which is based on a bachelorette trip. Shweta plays the bride to be, were as Lisa Haydon, Sapna Pabbi and Malika Dua are her best friends. They plan a road trip from Delhi to Thailand and over the journey they discover themselves through each other. The shoot has already started and we have already seen a couple of behind scene pictures. The girls are having the time of their lives, We love the photos and cannot wait to see more. Leganes beat Osasuna 2-0 in Spain AP, Madrid : Midfielder Rober Ibanez scored a goal in each half as promoted Leganes defeated Osasuna 2-0 to win its first home match in the Spanish league's top flight. Ibanez scored with shots from inside the area in the sixth and 57th minutes to secure the team's first win at its Butarque stadium after debuting in the first division this season. It had opened its home campaign with a draw and then lost four in a row at Butarque. The win also helped Leganes snap a four-match losing streak in the league and moved it into 15th place, three spots clear from the relegation zone. SEC must prove capable to rein in brokerage houses VIGILANCE over brokerage houses by stock market regulator and other watchdog agencies need to be strengthened to restore investors' confidence and make investment safe in the stock. A local English daily recently reported that a significant number of capital market investors have been waiting for years to get back their investments which were defrauded by a number of brokerage houses in collaboration with the company owners. The prevailing situation in the stock market will worsen the investment insecurity if due remedial actions not initiated shortly. This will in turn lower the investment flow in the secondary capital market. People who are afraid of investing in share market since the market crash in 2010-11 would feel threatened if their small savings and investments become insecure. In this situation the incompetence of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) is more disturbing as it is failing to control the brokerage houses from malpractices. Sylhet Metro City Securities embezzled investors' fund worth Tk 12.63 crore in 2014 by selling shares of their clients without their consent. The Chief Executive of the brokerage house left the country without repaying investors money. The broker also destroyed all accounts-related information of the investors. In September this year, the Chittagong Stock Exchange suspended Trading Rights Entitlement Certificate (TREC) of another brokerage house. But by obtaining a High Court stay order, the said house is still continuing their fraudulence. Another brokerage house named Chittagong Bourse Trendset Securities has embezzled investors' funds amounting to Tk 24 crore in 2007-2009. After that, the CSE confiscated the TREC of the house and sold the firm to settle the investors' claims, but investors are yet to get their full money back. A significant number of investors' complaints about fund fraud by a number of brokerage houses have also been pending with the SEC which received 26 such complaints in July-September this year. As per the regulation, brokerage houses do not require any asset of its own to be considered as security fund to deal with clients' funds. It means that anyone can handle crores of taka of clients provided he/she has only a TREC. Laxity of legal provisions have simply weakened the controlling authority of the SEC as regular of the Blue Chip market. This has also opened scope to indulge in malpractices such as embezzlement, fraud or cheating of the investors' money. In turn, the share market failed to generate capital needed for the industry sector debarring upward movement of the economy as a whole. In our view people responsible for such fraudulent activities must be brought to book soon opening criminal proceedings against them. The SEC's should also strengthen its overseeing activities to detect such fraud to protect small investors from being robbed of their investment. Dutch envoy`s handbag not yet recovered Footages provided to police: Suspect still absconding: Theft incident goes viral in social media Footage showns the fleeing thief lifing the bag Staff Reporter : After 36 hours into the incident, police are yet to recover the handbag of Netherlands ambassador Leoni Margaretha Cuelenaere, which was stolen from an exhibition at Fine Arts Faculty of Dhaka University on Monday afternoon. Not only that, the police still could not arrest anyone in connection with the theft, whereas the footages of the fleeing thief along with the booty were provided to the Police Department a few hours after the incident. When contacted, Officer-in-Charge of Shahbagh Police Station told The New Nation on Tuesday evening: "We've not yet nabbed the criminal. We've launched a manhunt to catch the thief None was so far arrested on suspicion of involvement in the incident." "The thief has been seen in the footages shot by several TV channel crews. We're analyzing the footages now. It was a young man who did the occurrence. His identity is yet to be confirmed," the OC further said. Officials said the Dutch envoy went to the Arts Faculty premises to inaugurate a photography exhibition as the Chief Guest. The exhibition was arranged on the occasion of fourth anniversary of Photography Institute 'Counter Foto.' Significantly, it was not an occasion of Fine Arts Faculty's own. Dean of Arts Faculty Nisar Hossain said there were mobile phone, notepad and some important documents in the purse. "The ambassador left the purse on the chair when it was stolen. The footages show that the young man fled with the purse as soon as the Dutch envoy left her seat to light a candle as part of the programme at about 5:00pm." Meanwhile, the incident of theft in the crowded place has created sensation among the diplomatic circle while the envoys are getting some special security during their movement against the backdrop of recent terror attacks. At the same time, the incident of theft defying security arrangement has also hit the headlines of the social media. Especially, the 'frustrated' picture of the aged envoy went viral in the Facebook where Margaretha Cuelenaere was seen asking the officials concerned about her stolen purse. Several Facebook users have termed the incident as 'national shame'. They also demanded immediate arrest of the thief. Some Facebook users have also commented that these types of incidents will certainly damage the image of Bangladesh in the outer world. Fate of 40,000 pvt varsity students uncertain M M Jasim : The fates of about 40 thousand students of the 18 private universities have been uncertain due to the in action of the University Grants Commission (UGC) against the irregularities of the University authorities'. They face severe problems when they apply for jobs in government and private institutions as the UGC announced the certificate of these institutions illegal for violating the Private University Act-2010. The students also expressed their disappointment at the role of their respective universities because the varsity administration created such problem for administering the universities by the acting Vice-Chancellors. The students and their guardians have been gathering in front of these universities since November 17 and blamed the administrations for running academic activities by acting Vice-Chancellors. They asked the authorities that they would not take any responsibility of their irregularities. A student of Asian University seeking anonymity told The New Nation that she completed her Honours Courses and studying for Masters Degree. But why we will bear the cost of whimsical activities of the university authorities, he asked. "I am applying in many institutions for job submitting the university's degree. Some offices called me for viva-voce. But after declaration of the UGC, everything has been stopped. I do not know what I will do now," she said. Rifat Hossain, a student of Premier University, told this correspondent that they went to the university and wanted to know about the UGC's announcement. But the administration could not provide any answer to them. "The University authorities told us to wait for some more days and assured us that everything would be solved soon," he said. A guardian of North Western University in Khulna said, his only son is studying in Honours courses. His family is anxious about their son's future. Meanwhile, some students blamed the UGC for not informing them before their admission. They said that it was difficult for a student to search who is VC or getting information about VC before admission. Some of the students also said that the UGC did not take any stern action against the Universities before banning certificates. Rejecting the allegations of the students, the UGC officials said that they sent many letters to the universities to appoint the permanent VC, Pro-VC and other top officials. But the authorities did not give any attention to their letters. UGC Chairman Professor Abdul Mannan told The New Nation that the commission asked the universities to follow the Private University Act-2010 for running their institutions smoothly. "Our officials visited many universities and gave them enough time to run the institutions with permanent VC. But they disobeyed UGC's directives. So we took the decision and declared their certificate without permanent VCs' signature illegal," he said. He also asked the students not to be worried about their certificates as they would get certificates after appointment of the permanent VCs of their respective universities. Violence escalates More fleeing Rohingyas pushed back A group of people having displaced after the feud between Myanmar government force and rebels. Internet photo Bangladesh continues to push back Rohingya Muslims fleeing for shelter in the wake of escalating violence and bloodshed in the western Rakhine state of Myanmar. Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) on Monday pushed back another 114 Myanmar citizens who were trying to cross into Bangladesh through Cox's Bazar and Bandarban districts. They were sent back across the zero point at Teknaf and Ghumdum of Nakkhangchharii upazila, BGB officials said. "We have pushed back more than 80 Rohingya from early Monday to midnight as they were trying to cross over the zero point of Bangladesh-Myanmar river (Naf) boundary," Major Abu Rasel, Deputy Commander of Teknaf 2 BGB Battalion told The New Nation on Tuesday. Another 37 were sent back through various points at Ghumdhum in Cox's Bazar, said Lt Colonel Imran Ullah Sarkar, 34 BGB Battalion Commander. On November 19, BGB pushed back 125 Rohingyas who tried to cross the border into Bangladesh seeking shelter, as the army began crackdown in the Rakhine state where the Rohingyas, a religious minority in Buddhist Myanmar, have highest concentration. Nine personnel of the Myanmar Border Police died on October 9 after 'militants' attack on three security outposts leading to the army crack down that has killed at least 100 people and displaced some 30,000. Besides, hundreds have been detained by the military, dozens of women claim to have been sexually assaulted, more than 1,200 houses have been razed and many people have fled for their lives, according to media reports. The actual number of causalities and the intensity of violence are yet to be ascertained as humanitarian workers and journalists have been banned from the affected areas after the Myanmar (Burmese) army, known locally as the Tatmadaw, carried out what it calls "clearance operations." Myanmar's military and the government, however, rejected allegations. Meanwhile, a large number of Rohingaya people have already entered Bangladesh territory despite 'high alerts' on borders along with Myanmar. Most of the Rohingayas came from Mongdu of Rakhine state and took shelter at Tekhnaf. They have managed to cross over during the late night evading the eyes of the border security forces, reports our correspondent stationed in Cox's Bazar. The illegal migrants from Myanmar entered Bangladesh with the help of brokers and took shelter at the refugee camps of Ukhia and Teknaf. Admitting the sudden influx of people, Abu Siddique, president of Kutupalang Rohingya slump told The New Nation on Tuesday that at least 250 Rohingayas of 35 families came to their slump in the last two days. "They came here in the early morning and took shelter at various rooms of the slump," he added. "Burmese army set fire on our homes forcing us to flee from Myanmar. We lived in jungle for the last 40 days. We reached the slump on Monday morning crossing the Unchipang border," Md Hashem, an illegal migrant from Myanmar, told The New Nation on Tuesday. He said, Rohingya civilians are trying to escape to Bangladesh following the worst-ever bloodshed ensued by the army crackdown that rendered up homeless. More than 500 Rohingya people entered the camps of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the hills near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border on Monday, reported Reuter quoting an unnamed IMO official. They had recently fled from Myanmar. The aid workers of international agencies did not give the specific number, but expressed concern about a sudden influx of people, according to the report. Humanitarian operations that had been providing food, cash, and nutrition to more than 150,000 people have been suspended for more than 40 days. The UN refugee agency called on the Myanmar government for access to allow it to distribute aid. "The idea is to help them where they are, so that they wouldn't be forced to cross over into Bangladesh," Vivian Tan, regional public information officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told Reuters Television. "If they can't get the assistance where they are then, if they are forced to cross into another country like Bangladesh, we're really appealing to the Bangladeshi government to honor its long tradition of hospitality and open its borders to these refugees." SCBA to protest Rohingya massacre today Staff Reporter The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) on Tuesday expressed concern over the killing of Muslim Rohingyas in Rakhine State of Myanmar and announced to form a human chain in front of the Supreme Court on Wednesday to protest the killing. They also urged to different human rights organisations including United Nations for strong interference in stopping the Rohingya massacre in Myanmar.The SCBA asked the authorities concerned to take back Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel peace prize, which was given for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights. The SCBA demanded to lay siege to the Myanmar Embassy. Yusuf Hossain Humayun, president of SCBA, made the written demands at a press briefing at the Supreme Court. According to the written demands placed before the press briefing, it is said the Rohingya massacre in Muslim-majority northern Rakhine State was happening under the leadership of Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi. They also urged the different human rights organisations to play a stronger role to stop the killing. Police must save themselves to be people`s police The High Court on Monday issued a rule on concerned government authorities to explain in two weeks why they should not be directed to take necessary steps to prevent police from abusing Section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). Acting on a petition filed by one Ashish Kumar Sharma, owner of a garment factory in Gazipur on November 17 challenging the legality of a notice sent to him by a Sub-inspector (SI) of Detective Police of Gazipur, the court issued the order. In the letter the SI asked him to appear before him at his office to answer over a written complaint against him by another garment factory owners that Ashish is not paying back Tk 31.90 lakhs he owed to him. The matter that has been challenged in the writ is that the SI has abused power given to police under the CrPC Section by summoning him although no case or general diary (GD) had been filed to open the case. Moreover he was asked to appear before him as a witness not as an accused misleading the complaints and that there was also no permission of a magistrate to open investigation or interrogation into the matter under the relevant CrPC code. The policeman has acted on ill- motive. The court comprising of Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and Justice Mohammad Ullah has wanted to know why the steps taken by SI should not be declared illegal. The Home Secretary, Inspector General of Police, Superintendent of Police of Gazipur, officer-in-charge of the Detective Branch of Police in Gazipur and the concerned SI has been made respondents. The SI also has been asked to explain his action on December 4 appearing before the court. The writ came before the court at a time when the Supreme Court has just issued detailed guidelines barring abuse of power by police under section 54 of CrPC and such other clauses of the Criminal Act. The court has rightly said in the recent judgment that establishing the rule of law will be difficult if police don't rightly apply the law and respect people's right. The Supreme Court also advises some changes in the laws to make justice fair and visible. Their Lordships also expressed their minds about delay in prosecuting while one is procrastinating in jail. The court will release them if delay is made. There are hopeful signs for the victims of abuse of police power. Meanwhile as per media report senior police authorities have sounded skepticism over the Supreme Court judgment in the Cabinet Committee meeting to make the point that it may adversely affect maintenance of law and order. We must not forget to emphasise that we are witnessing the excessive power of police but the law and order situation cannot be improved by arbitrary use of police power. The police is only taking the blame and they have put themselves more under political pressure. The high officials will recognise that unless ones guilt is proved they cannot be sure if the accused has been arrested leaving safe the dangerous criminals. The Gazipur SI's action shows how unlawful police action can victimize people at their will. Such abuse of power that needs to be strictly prohibited is however endangering people's life and property on daily basis all over the country. News report early this week said a policeman was arrested while snatching Tk 44,000/- from an egg-trader of city's Karwan Bazaar area while another escape from the scene. The arrestee is a traffic police who blocked the egg-trader's rickshaw van as he was returning to his business after delivering supply to local shops. The most agonizing fact is that snatching cash of egg-delivery vans is almost regularly taking place and policemen involvement is terribly upsetting. A Kushtia Court last week issued arrest warrants against three policemen, including an officer-in-charge, for allegedly killing a farmer in 2007. He was picked from his village home in Sadar Upazila to local police station and asked the family to pay Tk 3 lakhs for freedom. But the family refused because they have not so much money only to see he was killed in police 'cross-fire' dubbing his as a criminal. His bullet-hit body was found on Kushtia-Jhenaidah highway. After long hearing, senior Judicial Magistrate issued the arrest warrants against the three stirring unhappy reaction from police quarters. In another case a Dhaka Court recently framed charges against five persons including three former policemen of Pallabi Police Station in connection with death of a youth in police custody in February 2014. A Sub-Inspector of Pallabi police station picked five family friends from a weeding celebration and the young man died in the custody in police torture. In another case in recent past a tea shop vendor was killed by a cop at Shah Ali police station in the capital's Mirpur area as he failed to pay bribes for running the shop on roadside. Such incidents are almost a routine matter all over the country. We know how important police are for our safety and security. We want it most sincerely that police will be people's police under strict police discipline. It is known to all how dangerous police will be if discipline is not strictly imposed. We have very smart and responsible police officials but they make us feel more disappointed. "We have been working actively with customers, including those who have been impacted, as well as developing proactive security solutions and strategies to help prevent and minimize the impact of these attacks," said Owen Wild, NCR's global marketing director for enterprise fraud and security. ATM hackers who long relied on tactics of stealing payment card numbers and online banking credentials to steal millions are now targeting the bank itself to steal cash directly from the machines.Earlier this year, a gang of cyber criminals infected several ATMs with malware in Taiwan and Thailand that caused the machines to spit out millions in cash, and the gang members then stood in front of the infected ATMs at the appointed hour and collected the money.Now, the FBI has warned U.S. banks of the potential for similar ATM jackpotting attacks, saying that the agency isATM jackpotting is a technique used to force automated teller machines to spit out cash.According to Russian cyber security firm Group-IB, cyber crooks have remotely infected ATMs with malware in more than dozen countries across Europe this year, which forces machines to spit out cash.The world's two largest ATM manufacturers, Diebold Nixdorf and NCR Corp., said they were aware of the ATM attacks and had already been working with their customers to mitigate the threat.The cyber criminals have been targeting ATMs for at least five years, but the latest hacking campaigns mostly involved small numbers of ATMs due to the fact that hackers required physical access to the machines to collect cash.Group-IB did not name the banks targeted in the campaign but said the victims were located in Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Romania, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Malaysia.Both Diebold Nixdorf and NCR said they had already provided banks with information on how to thwart the attack, Reuters reported The disclosure of the new campaign comes months after two large ATM hacks, wherein hackers stole $2.5 Million from Taiwan's First Bank and $350,000 from Thailand's state-owned Government Savings Bank.While Group-IB believes the attacks across Europe were conducted by a single criminal group, dubbed, the FBI believes the malicious software used in the attack could be linked to the Russian ATM gang known as, the Wall Street Journal reported However, citing the tools and techniques used by both groups, Group-IB believes that Cobalt is linked to Buhtrap, which stole 1.8 Billion rubles ($28 Million) from Russian banks between August 2015 and January 2016. Robert Benoit has broken his public silence on statements made by whistleblowing landman Dan Collins and challenged Collins to a debate with both men hooked up to polygraph machines. In the 11 months since a 19th Judicial District jury found that DNR had retaliated against Collins for exposing wrongdoing in an Atchafalaya Basin water quality project, the landman has been taking his story to the public in forums and in media interviews. Robert Benoit Benoit, who worked for DNR for 12 years before becoming confidential assistant to Mayor-President Joel Robideaux time that included stints as assistant director of the Atchafalaya Basin Program and DNR chief of staff agreed to an interview with ABiz in order to correct what he says are inaccuracies in Collins story. On Friday morning in Benoits office inside the City Hall on University Avenue, he had his say. My problem with Dan is that, most of the things hes wrong about, he knows hes wrong about, Benoit maintains.I tell you what, if Dan Collins wants to debate, they can hook us up to lie detector tests. Ill pay for it. And he can ask me any questions he wants and Ill ask him some. In advance of the interview, Benoit emailed a five-page document he had prepared in response to an article in ABiz on Collins published earlier this year. The document, which Benoit said he prepared himself (with some technical assistance from a former official at DNRs Office of Mineral Resources), addresses statements made by Collins in that article and in other venues after winning his whistleblower lawsuit. At the core of the suit is Collins claim that he was denied work by DNR and the Atchafalaya Basin Project after he presented evidence of wrongdoing in connection with the Bayou Postillion water quality project to Benoit and then-DNR secretary Scott Angelle, who is now in a runoff with Clay Higgins to replace Charles Boustany in the 3rd Congressional District. Benoit notes that Collins made his allegations about altered state mineral lease maps in a meeting in which he was present along with Angelle and Charles St. Romain, the then-administrator of the Office of State Lands. Collins claimed and a jury agreed that he was blocked from further work with the Atchafalaya Basin Program and DNR after that. He [Collins] said he was blocked from work, and thats ridiculous, Benoit says. We had three non-compete contracts awarded after his quote unquote whistleblowing, and he got two of them. Benoit says Collins lost out on competitive bid contracts based on technical analysis of the bids that were conducted by independent teams who had no knowledge of Collins allegations regarding the Bayou Postillion project. Benoit asserts that no one in state government found that Collins had been cut out of state work. This was looked at by a whole lot of people and no one sided with [Collins] on this except 12 jurors, he says. Dan Collins Benoit and Collins agree that the Bayou Postillion water quality project was initiated during then-Gov. Mike Fosters administration and that the late Newman Trowbridge played a central role in winning property owner approval for the project since the bayou ran through land owned by Trowbridges extended family. In "The Newman Trowbridge Files," a July 2007 story in ABiz sister pub The IND, it was revealed that Trowbridge got the Atchafalaya Basin Program to agree to widen and deepen the dredge in order to open the land along Bayou Postillion to oil and gas drilling. Making the bayou drilling barge friendly was one condition of getting the landowners approval of the project. Benoit says, though, that Collins assertion that the dredging led to the drilling that began in the area after completion of the project is false and that, in his trial, Collins own witnesses said so. Harold Schoeffler testified that the drilling barges accessed those drilling sites through the old river, not through Bayou Postillion, Benoit says. And I think Harold Schoeffler knows more about the basin than Dan or anyone else for that matter. Benoit says hes puzzled as to why he ended up in court defending a project in which he had played no role in initiating. He points out that the project was developed long before he went to work for DNRs Atchafalaya Basin Program in 2004. He also notes that the land deal involved in the dredging was approved by two administrations Mike Fosters and Kathleen Blancos and that two commissioners of administration and two attorneys general had signed off on the transaction. I dont know why Dan thinks I own this project, Benoit says. But I was forced to defend it because for some reason he never asked Sandra Thompson a question. Never deposed her. I dont know why he never asked her anything. I guess he has his reasons. Thompson served as Atchafalaya Basin Program director under Blanco appointee Angelle until her retirement in 2007. The state is appealing the $750,000 jury award, primarily claiming that Collins was not locked out of work and should not be classified as a state employee. Benoit is puzzled by the turn his friendship with Collins has taken. I dont have a beef with Dan, but hes apparently got one with me, Benoit says. Dan and I were good friends until he found all this. Benoit says he still respects Collins professionally and referred work to him from people who were seeking a good landman to represent them in negotiations with Tuscaloosa Marine Shale drilling companies. Hes the only landman Id ever hire to do that kind of work, Benoit declares. Benoit, though, defends the Bayou Postillion project and the other two projects that have been carried out by the Atchafalaya Basin Program. Without these projects, we are going to lose these bayous and with them the mineral royalties attached to state ownership of those waterbottoms, Benoit explains. One of the things that Collins has said set off red flags about the Bayou Postillion project was the fact that the cover maps released by the Louisiana Mineral and Energy Board in the mineral lease nomination process had been altered. Bayou Postillion was renamed Bayou Gravenberg and the location of the proposed leases were shown to be 20 miles or more to the west of their actual location. In Collins view, this represented tampering with the state mineral lease process something he had never seen before. He also has said he believed the altered maps raised troubling questions about the credibility of the state mineral lease process. Benoit, in the prepared document and in the interview, says the inaccurate maps were an error made by others, not by people in OMR. In the interview, Benoit admits that Rick Heck, director of Petroleum Lands for OMR, provided the information for that part of his written response to Collins claims. Benoit says Heck served as an attorney at OMR for about 30 years before retiring. In the statement Heck helped produce, Benoit goes through a lengthy technical explanation of why the altered cover maps would not have misled a landman who had dealt with OMR in a nominating and leasing capacity. That conclusion is based on the fact that accurate location information was included deeper into the lease nomination documents, something that Collins has also noted. Collins has maintained that the maps were intended to throw off environmentalists and crawfishermen who would have connected the proposed leases to the Bayou Postillion water quality project. Those maps would not have thrown off an experienced landman, and Dan Collins is certainly an experienced landman, Benoit says. Benoit adds that crawfishermen have opposed every dredging project proposed. When asked why that is, Benoit replies, youd have to ask them. In a Nov. 2 interview on Baton Rouge radio station WHYR, whistleblower Collins revealed that he had filed an ethics complaint against Benoit and then-DNR secretary Scott Angelle in connection with the hijacking of the Bayou Postillion water quality project by oil and gas interests. Collins says the complaint was filed on Dec. 23, 2010. Benoit and Collins agree that the ethics complaint was brought up in Collins trial and that it brought matters to a halt when lawyers for the state argued that it could not be discussed under provisions of the state ethics code. Collins says the complaint was made part of the trial record. Benoit says it was entered but remains sealed. Benoit believes Collins broke the law when he discussed his ethics complaint during an interview on radio station WHYR in Baton Rouge on Nov. 2. Benoit explains that under the law the accused can discuss an ethics complaint but not the person filing. I can talk about the complaint, but nobody else can, Benoit asserts. Only the people who are the focus of the complaint can. When asked to discuss the complaint, Benoit refused to do so. Im not going to tell you about it, but I promise you Ill be exonerated just as the court exonerated me in the litigation, he says. Photo Illustration from caricature by DonkeyHotey and photo by Takkk/Wikimedia The Mandeville-based Innovative Advertising, led by partner Jay Connaughton, oversaw 45 percent of the total media buys for President-elect Donald Trumps campaign this year. In all, Connaughton and his Louisiana team produced 30 television commercials for Trump, of which eight made it to the air nationally. Innovative was one of three firms working on Trumps media. Connaughton already had a professional relationship with Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway before the long shot presidential bid took off. She asked him to pitch for the job in New York following the Republican convention. I started working in Trump Tower around Labor Day and only got to come back to Louisiana twice, Connaughton said. And hes not coming back any time soon. Connaughton is sticking around to help with advocacy and policy issues during the transition. I think well play a pretty significant role in that process, he added. Also getting some national attention is Bill Skelly of Metairie, partner and co-founder of Causeway Solutions. Skelly and his team at Causeway managed data operations and voter contacts for the Republican National Committee this cycle. It was part of a $175 million overhaul and the RNC leaned heavily upon Skellys predictive modeling he ran 9.6 million predictions across 20 battleground states. The next move for Skelly will be to bring his system further down ballot, which he has already done in Kentucky, where the state House was flipped. Were going to expand it, he said. Paris, TX (75460) Today Areas of fog early, then partly cloudy this afternoon. High around 75F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low near 60F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now. Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market. In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender. India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex. Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted. But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted? Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner. If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems. I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now. I want more variation in masturbation I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own. If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end. What is sex toys for Indian? Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation. It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms. They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable. Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner. The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner. It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past. In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping. Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order. In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing. Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome. Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own. But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance. More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around. Sextoy situation in India Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years. In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India. Mumbai Kolkata Bangalore Delhi Chennai Hyderabad These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India. In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well. If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too. If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it. What are Sextoys for beginner? Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms. Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy. I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion. I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy. If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma. Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it. Advantages of using sextoy for Indians There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways. Can have stimulating sex Can develop new sexual zones If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern. However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways. You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation. Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever. There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure. This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it. When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems. It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms). For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles [Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou... Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India. Sextoy for beginner men in India So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners. For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men! The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men Masturbator Cock rings Love Doll Sex Lubricants Toys for the prostate Lets check each one in detail. Masturbator The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products. It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands. Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands. They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.) Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much. Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! ! Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa SEXToys India PR (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018 Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood. If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ... [For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien... Cock Ring A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis. It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow. It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber. In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection. Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction. It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it. Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time. Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function. Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy. You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect. [Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat... Love Doll Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex. There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women. Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price. The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true. You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste. There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice. You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls. If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to... Sex lubricants Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules. It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution. Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse. There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent. Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent. If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here. What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many... Toys for the Prostate Another sextoy for men is prostate toys. The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line. Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men. Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men. What is the prostate? The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm. You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus. By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms. Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.) The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation. Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure. sextoy for beinner women in India The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy. The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy. Vibrator. Dildo Electric Masserger Lets check out what each one is in detail. If you want to check out womens toys, click here. [BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm... Vibrators A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator. Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy. It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy. Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women. For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators. Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex. Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself. This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual. Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men. When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons. Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most... Dildo A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis. It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass. A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it. They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well. It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device. A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo. Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands. For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis. This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one. To learn more about dildo, please click here. What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th... Electric Masserger A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores. It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low. Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels. Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation. It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure. For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm. It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out. If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager? To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here. What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th... How to choose a sextoy for Indian Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one. Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points: Does the size fit you (the partner)? Does the size fit you (your partner)? Is the environment able to produce sound without problems? Price range First of all, the choice of size is quite important. Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women. For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage. Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems. Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise. If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level. Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it. Finally, there is the price range. The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest. Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy. Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy? I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance. For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics. If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out. How to buy sextoys in India The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping. For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below. Sextoy is one of them. Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping. SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India. They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry. Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card. To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy. ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal. Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on. Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture. Cautions for Indians using sextoy When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind Keep sex toys clean Watch out for electrical leakage Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone. Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there. It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case. In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness. Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful. If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it. You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly. Summary What did you think? In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India. The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future. As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values. However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health. If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try? Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women. I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it. MURPHYSBORO A Carbondale woman pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree murder for her involvement in the death of Robin L. Stief, whose burned remains were found in August in a wooded area in Carbondale. Lauren L. Stinde, 23, entered the guilty plea at an arraignment inside Jackson County Courthouse on Monday afternoon. The sentence for a murder conviction in Illinois is 20 to 60 years. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 1 at 10:30 a.m. First-degree murder charges were also filed Monday against Tiesha D. Anderson, 22, and Robert J. Dennis, 25, according to a news release from Jackson County States Attorney Michael Carr. Both individuals were previously charged with concealment of a homicidal death in the case. Stinde was indicted Nov. 7 by a grand jury in Jackson County. The indictment charged that on Aug. 29, Stinde, acting in concert with another, killed Stief by hitting her on the head with a hammer, strangling and suffocating her. Authorities began the investigation Aug. 30 when the burned remains of a human being were found in the 900 block of East Main Street in Carbondale, according to the release. Detectives discovered that the victim had recently associated with Stinde. On Oct. 28, Stinde was arrested for her involvement in the concealment of the victims remains. She later confessed to detectives about her role in the murder and the concealment of the body. CHESTER A judge in Randolph County raised bail for the Chester man who has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of a Chester Police officer last month. Jason Stoker, 34, appeared in a Randolph County courtroom Monday for a bail hearing. Stoker allegedly led Chester Police Officer James Brockmeyer on a high speed chase Oct. 28 on Palestine Road in Randolph County, which led Brockmeyer to crash his vehicle. Emergency crews responded and took Brockmeyer to Memorial Hospital in Chester, where he was pronounced dead. Stoker is charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing and eluding, and one count each of reckless homicide and first-degree murder, potentially facing more than 50 years in prison. Judge Richard Brown presided over the hearing, where Randolph County States Attorney Jeremy Walker argued to increase Stokers bail from $250,000 to $1 million. The increase was requested as more charges have been added since the original amount was set. Walker said Stoker allegedly fled to Missouri after talking with investigators and learning of the new charges filed against him, namely reckless homicide and first-degree murder. It is alleged he then fled the state. Walker also said Stokers actions in fleeing to Missouri, where he was later arrested, indicate he likely would not comply with the conditions of bail. Stokers attorney, Randolph County public defender James Kelley, told a different story, saying Stoker was not in jurisdiction when the conversation with investigators took place, and therefore did not flee. He said bail should not be punitive. Kelley said after speaking with Stokers family, he knew they would not be able to post the 10 percent for even the $250,000 bail, and added increasing it was not necessary. Judge Brown met the two in the middle and increased Stokers bail to $750,000. Stoker is scheduled to reappear in court for a preliminary hearing Dec. 5. HARRISBURG Each year, Benjie Willsey and her fifth-graders at East Side Elementary School host a Thanksgiving dinner. Students each invite a member of the community to join them for a Thanksgiving feast. The invitation is a hand-written letter. I was invited to the feast by Tessa Harrison. Tessa wrote: Mrs. Willsey has been doing this for many years and Hear the food is delicious! I am so excited for this even(t) and I really hope you can come. Willsey has been hosting a dinner for her students and guests from the community for many years about 16. The meal began after a class discussion about Thanksgiving and a comment from one student. He said he was going to eat at Ryans. I thought it was just sad, Willsey said. That was very different from Willseys Thanksgiving traditions. She grew with dinner prepared by her mother and her mothers seven siblings a large family affair. The mayor of Harrisburg was the only guest that first year, and every student wanted to sit by her. The next year, Willsey invited five guests, one guest per table, so each student could sit with a guest. Eventually, Willsey decided to have each student invite a guest from the community. I started having them write letters to invite people ahead of time, she said. What other time do students get to meet their local officials, like the mayor and school board?" Willsey asked. With additional guests, the Thanksgiving feast outgrew the classroom, and was moved to the Harris-Pruett Building, about a block from school. Willsey enlists family, friends and parents to help prepare the meal, including her mother. They help prepare and serve the food. In the classroom, students talk about what it means to have good manners and look nice, questions they can used to spur conversation. I asked what preparations they made for the dinner. Several of the students ate a lighter breakfast, so they could eat a little more at lunchtime. They also skipped their morning snack. I dressed nice and combed my hair, Caleb Nelson said. "We made your presents, Harley McCabe said. Guests were given a small scarecrow and a framed turkey poem that was personalized. The turkeys back feathers revealed a word related to the guest. Guests included Harrisburg Mayor and Illinois Sen.-elect Dale Fowler, Harrisburg Finance Commissioner John McPeek, Principal Brandon Henshaw, Saline County Sheriff Keith Brown, as well as many other local celebrities and officials. One very popular guest was Olympian DeAnna Price who placed eighth in the hammer throw at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Price talked to students about her upcoming plans and signed autographs for students. It was a pleasure to have a Thanksgiving dinner with Tessa and her classmates. SPRINGFIELD Feeling ignored by Gov. Bruce Rauners administration, people with disabilities who receive state-funded in-home care are turning to the General Assembly in an effort to block proposed overtime restrictions for their caregivers. The Rauner administration is seeking to prohibit personal assistants who provide care through the states home services program from working more than 40 hours per week under most circumstances. The state implemented the rule earlier this year in response to U.S. Department of Labor ruling that said home care workers must earn time-and-a-half pay if they work more than 40 hours in a week. Facing a lawsuit from a union representing 25,000 home care workers, the state Department of Human Services put the rule on hold in August to seek approval from a bipartisan House and Senate committee charged with signing off on such rules. While a final draft of the rules has yet to be submitted to the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, the Senate last week approved a bill that would prohibit the department from making its proposed changes. The bills sponsor, Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, said the administrations proposal fundamentally undermines the vastly successful home services program. The restriction on overtime needlessly penalizes workers and sows confusion overall, Lightford said. The measure, which the Senate approved on a veto-proof 38-18 vote, now goes to the House, where Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, has signed on as the chief sponsor. Spokeswoman Meghan Powers wrote in an email that the department sought to create a rule that protects residents who depend on the Home Services program, individual providers and the taxpayers of Illinois. This legislation allows for unlimited overtime hours without any oversight, leaving our most vulnerable without backup providers, less job creation in Illinois and additional costs of at least $14 million annually, Powers wrote. However, advocates and people in the program say the changes would deny them their choice of caregivers. K.L. Cleeton, a 27-year-old Effingham resident whos paralyzed from the neck down because of spinal muscular atrophy, testified about the issue at a public hearing last month and spoke last week at a Statehouse news conference in support of Lightfords bill. We deserve to be heard, and we wont be ignored, said Cleeton, adding that he was speaking on behalf of tens of thousands of Illinoisans with disabilities. Cleeton said hes been able to graduate college and start his own video production business thanks to the care he receives from his parents, Ken and Lillie, through the home services program. But the departments proposed changes would require him to hire additional caregivers because his needs go well beyond what his parents could provide in the 80 hours per week they would be allowed to work. The impact on our family and thousands of other families in every corner of the state has been devastating and made the future very uncertain, Lillie Cleeton said. Meanwhile, the Illinois Labor Relations Board has scheduled a hearing for late January on whether the department violated labor law by implementing the rules without first negotiating with the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois, which represents workers in the program. The Senate last week also overrode Rauners veto of a bill that would raise pay for those workers from $13 an hour to $15. Medical Ministries Inc., an organization providing quality free health care to South Carolina residents, has opened its seventh health clinic at Edisto Fork United Methodist Church. The recently held open house for the clinic included remarks from Bowman state Sen. John Matthews and a donation of $300,000 from the State of South Carolina. Matthews said the clinics arent designed for just church members, but also the community. Most people feel comfortable going into the church, so we think it's going to provide quality health care at a substantially reduced cost per patient. ... The idea is to pick up the underserved communities who don't have health care. It keeps people out the emergency room because the emergency room is the highest form of cost for health care, Matthews said. The senator noted that many of the clinic locations are positioned in health care deserts, meaning that residents of those locations are in rural health care communities or places where health care is between 5-15 miles away. The services provided at each clinic see about 10 patients per day and 25 patients each night. Since the funds to run each clinic are provided by the state, patients dont need insurance, co-pay money and can expect no wait time. Patients are not seen based on their income levels, so even those with insurance can receive free health care services from the licensed medical staff at each clinic. Medical Ministries Inc. specializes in the areas of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, smoking cessation, labs, pharmacy, health issues, preventative health care and EKG. Ken Weatherspoon, special assistant to the Medical Ministries CEO, urges the community not to fool around with health care. If you're out there and you need help, get on the phone and we can make it happen, he said. Transportation to and from the clinics can be provided for patients in need. The Rev. Ellis White, pastor of Edisto Fork United Methodist Church at 356 Lariot Road, said it is important to foster a clinic at his church because it represented an opportunity for churches overall to expand ministry in a meaningful way other than the regular health fair. What I'm looking to gain out of this is to see the underserved receive the health care they deserve and if we have healthier communities, that means the church will have healthier congregations. It gives us and affords us the opportunity to not only minister to the spiritual but also to develop the physical, he said. Ellis said the success of the clinic lies in the hands of the community and the ability to spread knowledge by word of mouth. I think the coworkers make the patients feel a part of a family. They make them feel like they don't have to worry. They can come see the doctor and get the follow-ups and they'll come back, Medical Ministries CEO Bonnie Banks said. The Medical Ministries Inc. health clinic at Edisto Fork United Methodist Church is open on the first and third Thursday of each month. Patient services are also available in Ridgeville, St. George, Ladson, North and Dorchester. Each clinic operates during different hours and days of the month. To find a participating church closest to your area, or to receive transportation, contact Clinic Manager Norma Smith at 843-414-1929. Since its opening in 2012, Medical Ministries has grown to service more than 500 patients. Participating churches also provide pastoral guidance and clinic volunteers. Partners include Cerberus Healthcare LLC, Medical Director of Medical Ministries Inc. Dr. Allen Abel, Roper St. Francis Hospital Charity Program, Coastal Pathology and Trident Tech College Department of Health Science. Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office Two employees of the Piggly Wiggly in Neeses were robbed at gunpoint on Friday night, according to a sheriffs office incident report. Deputies responded to 6611 Savannah Highway at 10:23 p.m. where two employees stated a gunman approached them as they left the business for the night. The gunman told both of them they would be shot if they did not give money to him. The employees had an undisclosed amount of cash in a white paper bag. Inside the bag was a black bag containing coins. They gave the bag of money to the gunman. The gunman ran across the street through an opening at the flea market that leads to an open field. Deputies used a dog to track the gunman. With the help of the dog, deputies discovered skid marks in the open field but the gunman was nowhere to be found. The incident remains under investigation. In other reports: A Shillings Bridge Road woman reported Friday morning that someone cut each of the tires on her vehicle, scratched the word b - - - - in the hood and drivers side and put sugar in the gas cap. On Friday afternoon, the manager of Bilton Ford at 7621 Old State Road, Holly Hill, reported that someone stole a 1997 tan Ford Explorer valued at $5,000. A Chokeberry Road, Eutawville, man reported on Friday afternoon that someone stole his 2009 EZ Go gas golf cart valued at $8,000. On Saturday afternoon, the manager of Spinx gas station on St. Matthews Road reported that 30 cartons of cigarettes were missing. She told deputies she reviewed video footage and saw that two men entered the backroom on Wednesday just after 9 p.m. and stole 15 cartons of Newports and 15 cartons of Marlboros. The value of the stolen cartons is $2,900. A Woodbine Drive resident reported Saturday night that two 55-inch flatscreen LG televisions were stolen. They are valued at $1,798. A Eutawville resident reported Sunday morning that someone broke into her Tunita Street home. A Yamaha motorcycle, tools and a small automobile battery charger were stolen. The stolen items are valued at $1,350. On Saturday afternoon, a Charleston Highway man reported that someone stole his 2003 red Ford Mustang valued at $3,500. WASHINGTON -- The Republican Party is fractured by ideological divisions, led by an inexperienced and unpredictable president-elect, and quite possibly headed for a fratricidal civil war. The Democratic Party should be so lucky. There is much unpleasant reality for Democrats to deal with right now, starting with this: The GOP controls virtually everything. The two-party system is, at best, one and a half. Republicans won the presidency. They retained control of both houses of Congress. Soon, when Donald Trump appoints a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, they will re-establish a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. As far as the federal government is concerned, that's the whole trifecta. But there's much more: After making significant gains on Nov. 8, Republicans control both legislative chambers in 32 states -- and hold the governorships in 33. Some of the nation's most diverse and populous states, including Texas and Florida, are living under one-party Republican rule. Democrats should reject the urge to take comfort in favorable demographic trends. It is true that within a generation, minorities will be in the majority -- and that minorities tend to vote for Democrats. But what would the country be like after 20 or 30 years of near-total Republican control? I'm sure most progressives would join me in not wanting to run that dangerous experiment. Did Democrats lose the White House because their presidential candidate had baggage and was not perfect in every way? Come on, the Republicans nominated Trump, for heaven's sake, a man who bragged about grabbing women by the genitals. I don't have nearly enough space to list all the ways in which he disqualified himself. Yet he won. The Republican Party is so splintered -- the establishment, the tea party wing, the fiscal tightwads, the defense hawks, the social conservatives, the libertarians and now the Trumpistas -- that sometimes I think of it as Afghanistan: with each faction having its own warlords and grievances and goals. Many of the demands they make upon Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will be uncompromisingly extreme and mutually exclusive. There will be blood (metaphorically, of course). Yet if Democrats expect to sit back and watch the GOP self-destruct, I fear they will be disappointed. Consider this fact: The Republican Party not only survived the Trump candidacy, but prospered. Why would the same not be true of a Trump presidency? One of the biggest lessons I draw from the election is that the GOP basically came together behind its candidate. Despite all the Never Trump noise, most prominent Republican officials eventually fell in line. Some voiced strong reservations but said they would vote for him anyway, which amounted to an endorsement. Others, such as the Bush family, declined to publicly proclaim their opposition in a way that perhaps might have made a difference. Maybe they thought he was bound to lose anyway; if so, they miscalculated. Another lesson, perhaps the most important one, is that the Democratic Party cannot hope to succeed by relying solely on its ability to win the popular vote in presidential elections. Democrats have won the popular vote in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012 and now 2016. That's six out of the last seven presidential contests. Yet the Republican Party is running the country, or at least most of it. The Democratic Party cannot just wait for the next Barack Obama to come along. The president is a unique political talent of the kind that appears only once in a great while, when the stars magically align. Instead, Democrats need to do what Republicans did, which is to build from the ground up and start winning state and local elections. A Democratic rebound has to begin with the basics: Getting people who agree with you to vote. Less than 60 percent of those eligible to cast ballots in the election bothered to do so. Conservatives who say this is "a center-right nation" may be right in terms of who votes, but they're wrong in terms of who COULD vote. Polls show that the country favors Democratic over Republican positions on most issues. The Democratic Party should put its energy and money into connecting with potential voters at the grass-roots level. Trump made a bunch of pie-in-the-sky promises he can never keep. Democrats need a hopeful but realistic message recognizing that while most big cities prosper in today's globalized economy, much of the rest of the country suffers. Democrats will win when theirs is the "big tent" party. Right now, though, the GOP circus is in town. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. By now, I am guessing that you would have read of my Princess tale at Rokeby Manor in Landour. If you have missed that, have a look through this link. This fairy tale stay of mine would not have been complete without the fairytale kingdom of Landour. View of Landour Mussoorie from Rokeby Manor A small British styled town Landour is a twin town of Mussoorie in Uttarakhand. A quiet little cantonment settlement with chirping birds, gorgeous landscapes and tiny roads is a perfect getaway for anyone who loves a bit of heritage and nature. I completely fell in love with this pretty hamlet in the hills. My own little kingdom -where there is plenty to do and yet, time stands still. Let me introduce you to my little holiday kingdom and share with you the things to do in Landour. Introduction to Landour Landour, Mussoorie, Uttarakhand When the Indian royalty embraced Mussoorie as a location for their princely summer homes, the British set up its twin town Landour for themselves. They even named this twin town based on a Welsh town Llanddowror. Even today, Landour still has those English homes, some of them built in Tudor style. Some of them have been acquired by Rokeby Manor, while the others are occupied by the local families. There is a certain English charm that still prevails in this town with its deodar and rhododendron landscape that frame every corner and the distant snow clad the Himalayas in the background. It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that this town along with Mussoorie is known as Queen of the Hills. Landour is not just an idyllic setting. It has plenty to do enough to be occupied and yet not be in a rush. Here are my suggestions for things to do in Landour. Discover Gol Chakkar in Landour A path along Gol Chakkar, Landour The British set up their cantonment area in the figure of 8. The Gol Chakkar or the round path is a 3 km circuits on a hill that gives you a 360 view of Landour as a location. While on one side you can see the quaint little town, on the exact opposite side you can witness the snow-clad Himalayas. Landour Language Center and Kelloggs Church At the node is a famous Landour Language Center and the Kellogg Memorial Church. This church was set up in 1903 by an American missionary. The language school was used by the British to learn Hindi. Even now, you will find the school active with a lot of students. I am given to understand that they primarily learn Hindi, English and Urdu these days. View opposite the Cemetery along Gol Chakkar, Landour As you walk towards Lal Tibba area from this node, you pass by a cemetery. While one is not allowed it, you can see some of the crosses and epitaphs as you walk along the Gol Chakkar. This side faces the gorgeous peaks of Himalayas and has a certain peace and calm to it. The one thought I had was that indeed the people resting there were at peace! Walk at night along the Gol Chakkar, Landour A walk or a jog along the Gol Chakkar anytime of the day is just as pleasant for each time of the day gives it a different charm! Me I made sure I managed this every single day that I was there. Lal Tibba Lal Tibba means red hill in the local language. The point so named owing to the reddish color of the hill, especially during Sunset and Sunrise. This is considered to be one of the highest points of Landour. A small cafe has its base set up here and with a small fee of INR 20, you can access its terrace for a clear view of the Himalayas. A set of binoculars is set up here for a closer view of the peaks. The owner guided me through the peaks starting with the left most being Yamnotri, Gangotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath. Lal Tibba makes a great stop when wandering along the Gol Chakkar. Char Dukkan in Landour Char in Hindi means Four while Dukkan refers to shop. These 4 shops have been a part of Landour from quite sometime now. Initially they served as a British Depot while now, you will see a lot of people enjoying some omelets, fresh sandwiches, some hot Maggi noodles and a cup of Indian Chai. The small shops boast of their celebrity visitors like Sachin Tendulkar and it is easy to see why these celebs spend some time here. You cannot find a better place than this to enjoy the chirping birds and grab a bite while soaking in the heritage of the place. St Pauls Church, Landour St Pauls church, Landour Right next to Char Dukkan, is this heritage church built in 1834. A small place that has some lovely stained glass painting adorning the insides. Since photography was not allowed within the church, I cannot share the lovely interiors. Personally, I loved the setting of the church on a small hill with lots of green trees that allow the golden sunlight to just fall on the right places of the church. Beware of the monkeys though they love the church as much as I did. Sisters Bazaar in Landour Sisters Bazaar, Landour Sisters Bazaar is a small little road along the Gol Chakkar with a few shops the Landour Bakehouse, the famed Anil Prakash stores and a handicraft mart. It was called so as it was frequented by the nurses who stayed in the sanatorium in Landour. Interestingly, it is quite popular even with the tourists from Mussoorie who walk up or drive here just for the Landour bakehouse and peanut butter. Inside Landour Bakehouse The Landour bakehouse is a lovely cafe that you can sit around and compose a few lines in. A waft of fresh bake scents greet you as you push through the door and adding further food lust is the sight of those yummy baked delights in the bakery. Remember to spot this antique van right opposite the bakery. When I queried who had put it there, no one seemed to know. It has been around for some time now is what I am told. Spot this opposite Landour Bakehouse Peanut butter and Jams at Anil Prakash stores, Landour Right next to it is the famed peanut butter store Prakash stores. This store is a heritage one and is the reason behind the fact that Landour is the peanut butter capital of India. What is interesting about this fact is that Peanut butter is not native to India. It was introduced by the British and when they left Landour, they left behind the peanut butter making equipment. Mr. Anil Prakash and family bought some of these and from then on, peanut butter became a specialty of this town. Watch out for their home made jams another specialty of the Prakash stores something that you can carry back home George Everests abode House of Sir George Everest, Hathipaon. Mussoorie Sir George Everest the famed surveyor who was responsible for measuring Mount Everest had his abode set up close to Landour in Hathipaon. Around an hours drive from Landour, you can visit the house of this famous surveyor. Though the house is in shambles, it was quite a location. High up on a peak, it overlooks the gorgeous valleys of Mussoorie. What is left of the house can only be seen from the outside rooms with fireplace, a large hall and empty kitchens. The rest of it seems to have fallen. House of Sir George Everest, Hathipaon. Mussoorie No care has been taken to restore it. It was easy for me to see how pleasant it would have been back then but for now, it has nothing except for the lovely view of the valley from the outside. A trip that is worth just for the scenic view but no longer for the heritage monument. View of the Valleys from the house of Sir George Everest, Mussoorie Happy Valley, Mussoorie Shedup Choephelling monastery, Happy Valley, Mussoorie The first ever settlement of the Tibetans in India is right here in Mussoorie. Just a 30 45 mins ride from Landour, you can visit this really Happy place to see the first school and the Shedup Choephelling monastery. It is said that when the 15th Dalai Lama crossed over to India with his followers in the 1950s, he set up the Happy valley. It was after that the settlement moved to Dharmashala. Like most monasteries, this one too is a vibrant picture of calm overlooking the gorgeous valleys enclosed by the hills of Mussoorie. While visiting here, dont miss out on the old polo grounds behind the school. The Tibetan school in Happy Valley, Mussoorie The Corn Village of Sainji A house in the Corn Village of Sainji, Mussoorie Now this is truly a unique experience. Close to the Kempty falls in Mussoorie lies this small little village with around 15 20 houses. The Sainji village is popularly known as the Corn village and is filled with warm people welcoming you into their abode. The village survives on corn cultivation but what makes it unique and scenic is that through the year, they have corns stringed together, adorning their homes. These are not really for aesthetic purposes but for drying, so that they can reuse their seeds for next year. I visited them just after their harvest season and though their farms were bare, their abodes were filled with color. A separate note on my visit can be accessed here Trekking through Jabarkhet Reserves Jabarkhet Nature Reserves, Landour Around 15 minutes away from Landour Cantonment lies a nature reserve that promises you sighting of Leopards, bears, gorals and porcupines. Sadly the day I went for a trek, I missed them all. However, I did see enough captures of them visiting the previous evening thanks to the motion cameras that are placed in the park. I did however, spot a gorgeous woodpecker as well as a few other winged beasts. Woodpecker spotted in Jabarkhet Nature Reserves, Landour What I missed in terms of Fauna was made up by the flora. The park has some lovely trails that take you along the deodars, rhododendrons, oaks and pines. I could so imagine how it would look in April and the monsoons the blooming season for most flora in Landour. Here and there, you can spot some lovely butterflies fluttering around. The trek also, winds around the hills to give you a sight of the Himalayas from a different angle. Totally a picturesque setting with a little hit of adrenaline. The Lone Oak and the Himalayas beyond at Jabarkhet Nature Reserves, Landour Pari Tibba near Landour A distant view of Pari Tibba and Woodstock School, Landour This one I missed but was an fascinating read. One of the hillock here is known as a Witchs hill. The hillock makes a great trekking trail and is a spot of mystery. The area was a popular hunting grown for the royal family of Mussoorie but is devoid of humans owing to the large number of forest fires that occur due to frequent lightening strikes. Nonetheless, in the day time, it still remains as a popular hikers trail. Along the way, you can spot the famous Woodstock school of Landour. Catch the famous Winter Line of Mussoorie The perfect Winter Line of Mussoorie, caught from my porch at Rokeby Manor The Winter Line is a rare phenomenon that is said to happen in only a few places Mussoorie and Switzerland being two. The skyline is tri-colored with shades of orange, mauve and red. This happens generally around mid October to January around sunset when the sun is at a particular angle and refracts light behind a false horizon. Landour is a perfect place to catch this and I was lucky enough to witness one during my own visit. Another view of the firs at Landour. Catch the changing colors of sky in the background Life in Landour is just perfect scenic, quiet and busy. People here are calm, blissful and extremely polite. It is a perfect therapy for any creative block that you may face or if you just need a break from your everyday life. I know I fell in love with this hamlet in the hills and something tells me that you will too! Getting here: Dehra Dun is the closest airport to Landour. There are regular flights from Delhi to Dehra Dun. You can even reach Dehra Dun by railway or road. From Dehra Dun, Landour is a 2 hour drive. There are plenty of cabs available at the Railway station or Airport to take you to Landour. They charge around INR 2500 to Landour Travel Tips: Landour is best during April to June. It sees some really heavy monsoon in July September, after which it is quite pleasant till December. The winter months does have some snowfall and it can get really cold then. No matter when you go, woolens are recommended. Flat walking shoes are the best for here as there is plenty of walking to be done. There are a few ATMs and basic essentials in Landour. It is better to however, stock a little cash when here as the smaller local stores do not have a card machine. To get to Jabarkhet Reserve, you need to book in advance. The entry fees for the same is INR 450. If you need a guide, you need to let them know in advance. Here is where you can get more information about this reserve. P.S: A big thank you to Rokeby Manor for hosting me in Landour. Popularly referred to as a Restless Ball of Energy. My Mom refuses to entertain my complaints about my equally restless daughter & assures my husband that I was born with a travel bug. I am a Post-Graduate in Marketing by qualification and a travel blogger by passion. Besides travel, I enjoy photography and if you dont find me at my desk, I would be out playing badminton or swimming or just running. I believe in planning for every long weekend through the year. And when I cannot travel physically, I travel virtually through this travel blog. My travel stories have also, got published on various websites and magazines including BBC Travel, Lonely Planet India and Jetwings. I have recently published my first book When Places Come Alive a collection of stories that are based on legends, landscapes, art and culture of a place which is available in both ebook and paperback format. By Azernews By Nigar Abbasova French energy major Total marked the 20th anniversary of its activity in Azerbaijan on November 22. A solemn event, which has been held in Baku, brought together French Ambassador to Azerbaijan Aurelia Bouchez, BP Regional President for Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey Gordon Birrell, U.S. Ambassador Robert Cekuta, as well as Azerbaijani, French officials and public figures. SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev, addressing the event, hailed fruitful cooperation between the company and Total, as well as the role of the oil-gas projects in ensuring the regional and international energy security. Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne said the company is interested in developing relations with Azerbaijan, mentioning that there are wide opportunities for bolstering of ties. He underlined that Total would continue to make investments to oil-gas operations in Azerbaijan. Executive Director of Total in Azerbaijan Denis Lemarchal highlighted the activity of the company in Azerbaijan covering last 20 years. The executive director also spoke about the support rendered by the government of Azerbaijan, Ministry of Energy and SOCAR to their activity in the country. Total, which ranks among the worlds seven largest companies, operates in more than 130 countries worldwide. Business of the company in Azerbaijan covers exploration and production, marketing services, trading and shipping. Total has operated in Azerbaijan since 1996, mainly focusing on exploring and producing of oil and gas. By Azernews By Gunay Hasanova On the background of changes in the global political scene, there appeared a definite hope for revival of efforts to solve the long-lasting Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The new replacements in the OSCE Minsk group team, as well as, the recent U.S. presidential elections, may for instance, accelerate the further prospects of Karabakh conflict's settlement. Although president-elect Donald Trump is going to primarily focus on America's domestic policy and turmoil in the Middle-East, a number of experts consider that he holds strategic, economic and geopolitical interests in the South Caucasus region. Therefore, he won't be indifferent towards conflicts the South Caucasus countries face. The Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Vladimir Zhirinovsky believes that the U.S. revitalization in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict during Donald Trumps presidency is possible. Zhirinovsky, however, is not sure that Donald Trump will intervene to the affairs of South Caucasus since the U.S. cant simply get out of Middle East problems. They have enough of their own problems," the Moscow-Baku portal quoted him as saying. "As in Europe, there are a lot of immigrants in the territory of U.S. as well. Nevertheless, the president-elect Donald Trump may contribute to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, he said, adding that in case if it happens, lets hope that this contribution will lead to positive results in the resolution of this old conflict. As to Trump's policy on Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Iran, Vladimir Zhirinovsky considers that the creation of so-called the Eastern Union, which includes Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq, may promote dialogue between the United States and these countries. Baku expects the true assistance of Trump-led U.S. to a fair settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In a congratulatory letter to the new-elect president of the United States, the Azerbaijani leader also expressed hope that the U.S. will contribute to the soonest resolution of the long-lasting conflict. Trump has business interests in Azerbaijan and knows about the country very well. Previously, he made investments in Azerbaijan and undoubtedly understands the investment attractiveness of the country. Azerbaijan plays an important role for the West in terms of cooperation in the field of energy security, so it is predicted that Donald Trump will put a modest weight on Azerbaijani factor, the resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict including. 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. While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as a sole mediator in the resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign State with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of the 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 the tension high in the region. By Trend Iran and Slovenia are scheduled to sign three cooperation agreements tomorrow in presence of Slovenian President Borut Pahor, according to President of Slovenia Chamber of Commerce Samo Hribar Milic, IRNA reported. Milic made the remarks in a meeting with Vice-Chairman of Iran Chamber of Commerce Pedram Soltani. He said that lack of banking relations with Slovenia is the reason for the low level of trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. Underlining the significant role of Iran in regional developments, Milic said that the two countries can serve as gates for the big markets of the Middle East and Europe. The Iranian official, for his part, said that a visit to Tehran by Slovenian president accompanied by 50-member delegation is indicative of the country's interest in expansion of economic ties with Iran. Noting that the Slovenian embassy in Tehran is due to reopen on Wednesday, Soltani said that the embassy would help link economic sectors of Iran and Slovenia. Heading towards the end of the year, the real estate markets in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi appear to be making strides towards recovery, said a report. There has been a noticeable slowdown in the rate of price drops and a visible uptick in average rental values in both emirates following months of continued downward movement, according to UAE real estate portal Bayut. The average price for apartments in Dubai dropped by a paltry 1.2 per cent in October compared to the Q3 value, while the fall in Abu Dhabi was also significantly smaller at 0.7 per cent. Similarly, the average apartment rent in Dubai dropped by a negligible one per cent in October compared to the Q3 value, and posted an encouraging one per cent increase compared with the average rent in September, it stated. The average apartment rent in Abu Dhabi held its ground against the Q3 number, while some individual bed categories posted healthy surges in rates, it added. According to Bayut, the changes in both the rental and sale markets will have a positive bearing on the real estate market that is constantly fine-tuning its way towards maturity. Apartment rents across all bed categories averaged Dh124,000 ($433,750) in October 2016, exhibiting a one per cent increase compared with the September 2016 figure. Average yield for apartments in Dubai also improved by one per cent point to climb to 5.6 per cent, though the rental yield for individual categories went as high as 7.8 per cent. Studio apartments remained the obvious high performers during the month, posting gains in average rental value when compared with both September and Q3 2016 rates. The portal said the rent for an average studio unit in Dubai climbed to Dh56,000, posting an eight per cent gain in value compared to the September average and a two per cent increase over the average rent recorded over the course of Q3. Yield for the category also outclassed others at 7.8 per cent. At Dh92,000 per annum, the average rent for one-bedroom apartments showed a one per cent improvement over the Q3 average, but stayed stable against the Q3 value, returning landlords a rental return of 6.6 per cent. The rental rate of the two-bedroom category dropped one per cent compared with the Q3 average to Dh143,000, as did the Dh199,000 rental average for three-bedroom units. The yield for both categories was recorded at six per cent. Although the rental yield remained sub-par for the four-bedroom-plus category in October, the rental average of Dh295,000 was one per cent higher than the average rent in September 2016. The most popular apartment renting localities in October were Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Lake Towers (JLT), Al Nahda, Downtown Dubai and Bur Dubai. On Abu Dhabi market, Bayut said the first three quarters saw rents in the UAE capital undergoing downward adjustments, making accommodations more and more affordable for tenants. However, the downward spiral appears to be nearing its end as the average apartment rent in Abu Dhabi rose by one per cent to Dh130,000 in October compared to the price level the previous month. The rental average also stayed stable when against the Q3 value, while the overall rental yield remained at an attractive seven per cent. Like in neighbouring Dubai, studio apartments in Abu Dhabi led the upward charge with a nine per cent increase in average rent when compared with the September average. The Dh58,000 per annum average earned landlords an average yield of eight per cent. One- and two-bedroom apartments witnessed increases of two and one per cent respectively, with rents averaging at Dh92,000 and Dh130,000. The average rental yields for the two categories in October 2016 were 7.2 per cent and seven per cent. The three-bedroom category posted a two per cent increase in average rent, taking the average value to Dh174,000 and the yield to 6.4 per cent, said the UAE real estate portal. Larger options in the four-bedroom category posted an increase of three per cent compared with the September value, with the average rent recorded at Dh254,000. Compared to the Q3 values, this increase was even more pronounced at five per cent, bringing more heartening news for landlords. The rental return for the category was recorded at 6 per cent. On the future outlook, Bayut said considering the recent project launches, the inclination of developers to market more and more projects to first-time home buyers and genuine end users, and the robustness of UAEs various economic sectors, it is safe to say that the real estate market is heading towards maturity, one where genuine demand from stakeholders regulates supply. The upsurge in rental values and slowing down of price drops hints at the market edging towards stability following months of speculation over global issues such as Brexit and a liquidity crunch owing to low oil prices, it stated. Amid fluctuations in regional and western real estate markets, the UAE offers a relatively stable playing field to global investors looking for capital value growth and superior rental return, stated the Emirati portal. With the UAE economy having ably negotiated the oil price crunch on the back of its diversity, both Dubai and Abu Dhabi will continue to be regional real estate hubs and offer lucrative returns to anyone willing to have faith in their potential, it added.-TradeArabia News Service The Dubai Airport FreeZone Authority (Dafza) is set to hold discussions with several international construction and engineering groups at The Big 5 construction expo inviting them to set up their regional bases in the leading freezone. Over the next two days, it will aim to capitalise on the freshly formatted expos immense global popularity to showcase its competitive advantages as a regional base of operations for construction and engineering firms, said a statement from Dafza. A team from Dafzas sales, project and marketing departments will directly engage The Big 5 shows participants at a dedicated stand. The freezone will also arrange special business-to-business meetings with select exhibitors, it stated. During the discussion, it will highlight the numerous benefits of operating within its premises. Jamal Bin Marghoob, the director of marketing and corporate communication, Dafza, said: "Each year, The Big 5 Dubai draws in thousands of global suppliers and buyers of construction products, technologies and services to explore prime opportunities within the dynamic Arab construction markets." "It is an excellent platform for us to network with exhibitors, visitors, practitioners and experts and share Dafzas highly influential role in helping construction and engineering companies establish a strong and highly productive presence within Dubai, the regions commercial and hub, and from here pursue more lucrative prospects in neighboring Middle Eastern, Asian and European markets," stated Marghoob. According to him, Dafza will take the opportunity to further expand its community of hosted multinational corporations (MNCs). As of Q3 2016, MNCs from the Big5 sectors of engineering and building materials and engines and machines accounted for 12 per cent of the freezones newly registered companies. Around 14 per cent of the hosted companies is related to the Big 5 sectors, 31 per cent of which are MNCs. These companies collectively occupy over 25,000 sq m area at Dafza, he added.-TradeArabia News Service The first operational phase of a fund to finance innovation in the UAE has been inaugurated by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The e-platform, which is set to receive requests from applicants for the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Fund to Finance Innovation has also been launched, said a Wam news agency report. Sheikh Mohammed stressed the importance of long-term investment in innovation and supporting UAE innovators and enabling them to turn their ideas into innovative projects that benefit people. ''Supporting UAE innovators is a key pillar of the future work and efforts of the government to embed the concept of innovation into corporate cultures and society,'' he said. He visited the Innovation Festival, organised by the Ministry of Finance (MoF) from November 21 to 22 to celebrate the UAEs Innovation Week. Sheikh Mohammed said the UAE government has worked to create an environment for innovation incubators by adopting models for financial and moral support that work on building capacities and upgrading national competencies. He emphasized that in order to support innovation, there must be an effective cooperation and participation between society and the public and private sectors, which is thereby essential for the development and growth of various sectors. Sheikh Mohammed also attended the Hackathon challenge which is implemented by MoF in cooperation with Microsoft. The Hackathon is an intense programming activity which takes place for 36 hours and includes 100 students from six different universities in UAE. The Hackathon develops innovative applications which serve the key sectors of the National Innovation Strategy. This activity received great interest where more than 200 students applied and 100 students have been shortlisted. Sheikh Mohammed also attended several workshops specialised in business development, organised by MoF in cooperation with 20 different entities from the private sector. Younis Haji Al Khouri, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance, said the fund aims to raise the level of national innovation to higher standards, and supports individuals during their innovation journey in addition to providing funding solutions and the appropriate environment to assist them in transforming their ideas and innovations into projects that support the National Innovation Strategy and achieve the UAE Vision 2021. He stated that the Funds team will study and evaluate the funding requests and will discuss them with experts in related entities, in order to determine their compliance with the funds standards, and to successfully meet the commercial side of transforming those creative ideas into successful projects. The applicants need to provide long-term plans for their projects supported by a study in order to qualify them to receive the required funding. Emirati women now make up about 10 percent of the people working at the UAE's nuclear energy plant Barakah and 20 percent of the employees at the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec), it has been revealed. Mohamed Al Hammadi, Enec's chief executive officer, was quoted by Wam news agency as saying: "Emirati women are expected to play an increasingly important role in the UAE's nuclear industry and we are capable of attracting more of them into the industry." He was speaking at the 24th Women in Nuclear (WiN) Annual Global Conference in Abu Dhabi, the agency said. According to Al Hammadi, 220 trainees are enrolling in Enec's nuclear scholarship programme that offers students a unique opportunity to become engineers at the forefront of the UAE's nuclear energy industry, including 64 female trainees. "In 2008, there was only one nuclear engineer who is now representing the UAE in the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, and today we have more than 200 Emirati engineers and over 200 students enrolling in the Higher Diploma in Nuclear Technology,'' he noted. The conference is being held under the patronage of Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, chairwoman of the General Women's Union, Supreme Chairwoman of the Family Development Foundation and President of the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood. Hosted by Enec for the first time in the Middle East, the three-day conference celebrates women's achievements in the nuclear space and inspires them to be involved in all aspects of the nuclear industry, including energy and healthcare. King Edward VIIs Hospital in London will make its first appearance at Arab Health 2017, being held from January 30 to February 2 at the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre, Dubai. Located within the Harley Street Medical Area, King Edward VIIs Hospital is an independent, acute, private hospital famed for its medical excellence in treating complex and life threatening conditions. Throughout the Arab Health Congress, King Edward VIIs Hospital will be located on the Harley Medical Area Stand on the UK Pavilion stand Z1F30. A registered charity, with Her Majesty the Queen as its Patron, King Edward VIIs Hospital was initially established in 1899 to care for officers returning from the Boer War. Today the hospital treats anyone seeking private healthcare, and its charitable focus continues to support service and ex-service personnel of all ranks. The hospital has developed a number of specialist areas including Pain and Neuroscience, Womens Health and Orthopaedics, said a statement. Equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and providing consistent clinical excellence within a culture of kindness, the hospital is renowned for its superb standard of nursing, and is the only hospital in the UK where consultants are invited to practice, it said. King Edward VIIs Hospital embraces cutting edge technology and has recently entered a new partnership with Vital Imaging, giving Consultants access to 2D/3D diagnostic images from their browser, tablet or smartphone, providing them with the swiftest and most accurate diagnosis of patient conditions. King Edward VIIs Hospital has also introduced Londons first ultra-high definition 4K integrated operating theatre. The very latest cameras and monitors have a resolution of 8 million pixels, four times more than standard. The combination of ultra-high definition monitors and extremely accurate colours offers surgeons the best vision and clarity when carrying out procedures, it said. Andrew Robertson, chief executive, said: We are very excited to be attending Arab Health for the first time, and to showcase the high standards of private medical care that our hand-picked consultants, outstanding nurses and first class staff have to offer. Leading orthopaedic surgeon Professor Justin Cobb said: The main reason for going to King Edward VIIs is human: the nursing staff are brilliant, ensuring that the patient is immaculately cared for both on the wards and in the operating theatre. Without that element, all the machines in the world would not be enough. As a surgeon it is just a pleasure to bring patients to the Hospital, knowing that they will be looked after perfectly. Of course the hospital invests every penny in the latest technology, whether in the operating theatre, on the ward, in imaging or in the physio gym. As a charitable institution, it doesnt have to send profit back to its shareholders, so can concentrate on doing the best for the patient. For over 200 years, the Harley Street Medical Area has continued to attract world-leading clinics and behind its Georgian facade lays the latest in cutting edge medical technology, the statement added. -TradeArabia News Service UK-based scientist Dr Meritxell Huch, from Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, has been declared the winner of the Hamdan International Award for Medical Research Excellence for her study on liver disorders. Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, the UAE Minister of Finance and the Patron of the Award, will present the award to Dr Huch at a grand ceremony to be held in Dubai, UAE, on December 14, said a statement from the Hamdan Medical Award organisers. Besides her, 14 other eminent personalities and organisations from US, France, Australia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco, will be honoured, it stated. "Dr Huch's research is focused on the contribution of stem cells to the regeneration of adult liver and pancreas tissues as well as on the development of organoid cultures for these endodermal organs (stomach, liver and pancreas). She has established a new culture system that maintains the self-renewal status of liver stem cells in vitro, while differentiation towards functional liver cells can be induced by modulating key signaling pathways", said the organisers. "Dr Huch and colleagues located the specific type of stem cells responsible for this regeneration. By isolating these cells and placing them in a culture medium, the researchers were able to grow organoids, they stated. "The British scientist is now moving on to testing it with human cells, which would not only be more relevant to research into human disease, but would also lead to the development of a patient's own liver tissue for transplantation," they added. Beside Dr Huch, two US scientists have won the award for Medical Research Excellence. Prof Sanford Markowitz, Case Western Reserve University, School of Medicine, Cleveland Ohio, bagged the award for his work on colon disorders, while Prof David Tuveson, the deputy director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Centre, New York, won it for pancreatic diseases.-TradeArabia News Service The Monster Employment Index (MEI), a monthly gauge of online job posting activity in the Middle East, has registered an 18 per percent decline in online job postings across the UAE compared to the same period last year. Despite this, the index registered the most optimistic results in the region on the month, reporting 16 per cent growth over the month of September, said a statement from the company. Industries that recorded the highest growth in online recruitment across the region included production/ manufacturing, automotive and ancillary; and healthcare at 4 per cent and 2 per cent respectively, it said. The most in-demand occupations were seen in purchase, logistics and supply chain, reporting 7 per cent growth, it added. In contrast, the hospitality sector recorded the highest decline in online job postings with a reduction of 37 per cent from the same period last year, while demand in finance and account professionals saw job postings down by 49 per cent from October 2015. From the GCC countries analysed, the latest MEI reveals Bahrain (2 per cent) and Oman (5 per cent) both registered a decline in online recruitment from last year, for the first time in six months. Saudi Arabia recorded a 6 per cent month on month decline and a 12 per cent year-on-year decline. Looking at the wider Middle East region, Egypt witnessed a dramatic (47 per cent) decline since last year, the steepest among all countries monitored by Monster. E-recruitment activity in the country also plunged nine percent from last month. Sanjay Modi, managing director, Monster.com, Asia-Pacific (APAC) region and Middle East, said: This has been the first time the results for the UAE have improved since July this year, and while we hope this is an early indication of a recovery in the UAE recruitment industry, it is too early to make any predictions. The UAE is the most promising market among the regions monitored. This can be attributed to the nations commitment to diversifying its economy and becoming less reliant on oil export revenues, he said. With ambitious visions and developments undergoing in many sectors, the governments strategy has succeeded in reducing the impact of the reduced oil prices on the UAE economy. Through time, and as developments continue, we believe demand for talent in the UAE will increase, he added. The Monster Employment Index is based on a real-time review of tens of thousands of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career web sites and online job listings. The Index does not reflect the trend of any one advertiser or source, but is an aggregate measure of the change in job listings across the industry, it stated. TradeArabia News Service Stunning jewellery designs selected by the Emerging Jewellery Design Awards jury will be brought to life and available on display at Dubai International Jewellery Week from December 7 to 10. Maha Al Sibai, an internationally acclaimed jewellery designer and one of the awards judges based in Dubai, said Arabic crafts have been the underlining key trend in the submitted designs this year. All entries were unique and we noticed that many of them were inspired by Arabic art and crafts with elements of ornamental and geometric lines often seen in carpet artistry, said Al Sibai. The pieces, designed by three international winners and chosen from a pool of over 300 regional and international entries, will be manufactured by Al Sibai and available for purchase during the show hosted at the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC). Awarded in three different categories, the winning designs included Niqab A Legacy to Treasure, designed by Harshmi Sheth from India, who won the gemstone category; Perneck by Marjan Shakeri and Dazzling Choker by Paria Garshasbi, who won the freestyle imaginative and cultural-inspired jewellery categories, respectively. The designer of Niqab A Legacy to Treasure used the pear shaped stone to show a face of a woman wearing a traditional Arabic veil which has never been done before, said Al Sibai. Paria Garshasbi, on the other hand, used gold to create lines, flowing down from the choker like a waterfall with water sparkles depicted by precious stones, giving it both dazzling and calming effect. The cultural-inspired design by Marjan Shakeri employs simple lines that represent Persian art motives making it an amazing and unforgettable piece. Al Sibai believes that the Emerging Jewellery Design Awards provide young and emerging artists with a unique opportunity for exposure to both local and international jewellery collectors. She said: Introducing talented debutants to the public at large has been an extremely rewarding experience and I am excited to be working with such imaginative and inspiring debutants. They never fail to surprise me with unique designs that stand out and stay in my memory for long. The winners will be officially presented with the awards at a glamorous gala reception on the first day of the show (December 7) at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Overall, the exhibition will showcase more than 10,000 jewellery designs from around the world and feature jewellery and fashion master classes and workshops during which participants will have an exclusive opportunity to learn the best ways of complimenting a variety of outfits with jewellery from leading stylists, fashionistas, and expert bloggers. Admission to the Dubai International Jewellery Week is free to the general public, while anyone under 16 must be accompanied by an adult at all times. The show is open from 2:00 pm to 10:00 pm daily, with the exception of Friday December 9 when doors open at 3:00 pm. - TradeArabia News Service Wyndham Hotel Group has appointed Ignace Bauwens as the its new regional vice president, Middle East and Africa. Bauwens joins Wyndham Hotel Group with almost 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry, including senior operations roles at Accor and InterContinental Hotels Group. Based in the Middle East since 2002, he most recently served as managing director for BLH bvba Hospitality Consultancy and as CEO of Abu Dhabi National Hotels (ADNH). In his new role, Bauwens will work out of the companys Dubai office and will oversee one of Wyndham Hotel Groups fastest-growing regions. Wyndham Hotel Group has a very bold development strategy to ensure that wherever adventure leads, travellers can find our hotel brands nearby. Nowhere in EMEA is this strategy more evident than in the Middle East and Africa. I look forward to continuing in the remarkable work the team has done establishing our brands in some of the most exciting travel destinations on the planet, Bauwens said. This year Wyndham Hotel Group has reached important development milestones in EMEA, including introducing the Super 8 brand to Europe, opening the companys 50th hotel in Turkey, expanding into Greece with the Wyndham Grand Athens and announcing new hotels in emergent destinations such as Oman, Iraq and Ethiopia. - TradeArabia News Service The International Air Transport Association (Iata) announced that Muhammad Ali Albakri will join Iata as regional vice president for Africa and the Middle East (AME). Albrakris appointment is effective January 1, 2017 and will be based in the Iata regional office in Amman, Jordan. Muhammad Ali Albakri is stepping into a critical role at Iata. Africa and the Middle East are among the fastest growing markets for air transport. While the region has tremendous potential, it also faces some big challenges. Infrastructure, regulation and taxation must align to support the social and economic benefits of a successful aviation sector. I am confident that Muhammads solid aviation background will deliver great value to our members and aviation in general across AME, said Alexandre de Juniac, Iatas director general and CEO. Albakri is a Saudi national and aviation veteran. Since the beginning of this year Albakri has served as executive vice president for Strategic Projects and Transformation at Saudi Arabian Airlines. In that role he was charged with delivering various initiatives as part of a broad transformation strategy devised to strengthen the competitiveness of the airline as it aims to double its size by 2020. Under Albakris leadership, Saudia successfully moved its second largest domestic hub operation into the new Terminal 5 at Riyadhs King Khalid International Airport in May of this year. He is also leading similar relocations of the airlines operations to new facilities in Jeddah and Cairo. Albakris career at Saudia spanned some 26 years. He rose through the ranks of the airlines IT Division, eventually being appointed as vice president of Information Technology (2009-2016) concurrent to holding the responsibility of Chief Financial Officer (2012-2016). In these roles, Albakri led the strengthening of the carriers technology infrastructure and the modernisation of its financial practices and processes. I am tremendously excited to take-up this challenging role. Iata has made critical contributions to the development of aviation around the world. That work is especially evident in Africa and the Middle East where the industry is rapidly changing. I have seen first-hand the transformational power of Iatas global standards such as Fast Travel, e-freight and New Distribution Capability. These boost competitiveness and please customers at the same time. In my new role, I am excited to be responsible for the full suite of Iatas activities and shall be a tireless advocate for aviations success in the AME region, said Albakri. Albakri will lead Iatas regional office for AME where a total of 124 employees are responsible for Iatas operations across 68 countries. This includes the operation of Iatas settlement systems which efficiently handle some $23 billion of industry money annually across 38 Countries. The fast growing AME region is home to 58 of Iatas 265 member airlines and accounts for 11.6 per cent and 15.5 per cent of global traffic in terms of RPKs and FTK, respectively. Aviation support some 9 million jobs and $130 billion of GDP across Africa and the Middle East. Albakri succeeds Hussein Dabbas who led Iata in the region from 2012 until June, 2016. - TradeArabia News Service The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection is accusing a coal company operating in Wyoming of potential fraud by failing to disclose as much as $100 million in liabilities during its exit from bankruptcy earlier this year. In a complaint filed Nov. 16, the West Virginia regulators argued that had the $100 million cash burden been known, it might have derailed the approval of Alpha Natural Resources restructuring agreement, which involved the forming of a new company led by former Alpha executives, Contura Energy. Contura bought Alphas strongest assets, the Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr mines in Campbell County. The West Virginia regulators argue that Alpha Natural Resources and Contura Energy leaders and their top lenders likely knew about the undisclosed liabilities. Alpha representatives denied the allegations, arguing in a rebuttal also filed Nov. 16 that the $100 million was not included in cash flow statements provided to the court, but was listed in other documents. It is hardly an indication of bad faith or misconduct that certain errors with respect to the projections may have been made during this complex process, Alphas lawyers argued in a rebuttal claim. It bears repeating that the projections were never intended to be a guaranty. Regulators are asking the bankruptcy judge to revoke some of the agreements made with Alpha, Contura Energy, lenders and key leaders during restructuring agreements that essentially allowed those entities to exit bankruptcy with a clean slate and obtain permits to operate coal mines. The Appalachian state regulators are not seeking to dismantle the complicated restructuring agreement. However, revocation of the company and its leaders protections could pave the way for additional legal actions against Contura, one of Wyomings largest coal companies, some experts say. The missing $100 million came to the West Virginia regulators attention three months after Alpha exited bankruptcy when Alpha, Contura and senior executives filed a settlement agreement, mentioning the previously unaccounted for liabilities. In the settlement Alpha, Contura and senior lenders agreed to share the $100 million burden. West Virginia regulators filed an objection to that settlement on Oct. 31. In Wednesdays complaint, the regulators lawyer introduced the potentially incriminating allegation of intentional fraud. Alphas financial position was razor thin even without the additional liabilities, regulators argued. The inclusion of some $100 million in additional cash demands on the reorganized debtors would only have exacerbated an already precarious reorganization by a factor of two or more, regulators said. Alpha was the first of three major coal companies operating in Wyoming that sought Chapter 11 protection in 2015 and 2016. Many coal firms had invested heavily in a potential metallurgical coal boom that busted almost as soon as it peaked. Alpha, Peabody Energy and Arch Coal each suffered from the bad bet on met, and were left with billions in debt that pushed them toward bankruptcy. The bad investments came at an already difficult time for coal, as market competition from cheap natural gas was driving down both production and price. Conturas board of directors denied the West Virginia departments allegations of fraud, calling them inaccurate and defamatory in a statement released Friday. The lawyers representing the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection declined to comment on the filed complaint. Casper advertising firm Adbay has purchased local news website Oil City from Lander-based Pitchengine. The deal closed on Monday. The acquisition comes as Pitchengine looks to shed the community news streams the company operates around Wyoming and focus on its publishing technology, Pitchengine CEO Jason Kintzler said in an email. Were looking to localize some of our Wyoming streams essentially turning them over to the communities they serve, Kintzler wrote. Adbay owner Shawn Houck said that the company bought Oil City when it learned that Pitchengine was considering shutting down the site. Houck said he had originally encouraged Kintzler to create a Casper news website but that the company had struggled to find success. Without having local roots, I think it became more challenging for them to tell a story from the community perspective, Houck said. He declined to disclose the purchase price. Houck said the debate over where voters were getting their news during the recent presidential election highlighted the importance of online media such as Oil City. From my seat as a civic consumer of news, we see that digital news platforms are super important, Houck said. He did not yet know how Oil City would benefit Adbays business but noted that the company served as Pitchengines local advertising sales representative during the websites first 18 months. Adbay has replaced the sole Oil City staffer. Tim Kupsick, a former Oil City employee, has been hired to cover crime, and Houck is bringing in former K2 Radio journalist Trevor Trujillo to serve as editor. Houck said Adbay will spend the next several months determining an editorial vision for Oil City. As far as Oil City is concerned now, its business as usual, he said. The corporate entity switched hands, but were not making any sweeping changes. But Houck emphasized that while Adbay is an advertising agency with clients in the community, Oil City will retain its independence as a news outlet. The content will be run out of a separate office at a separate location with a separate staff, Houck said. Houck said it was too early to say whether Oil City might publish articles critical of Adbays clients. In addition to working with corporate clients, Adbay has done advertising and branding work for state Rep. Tim Stubsons U.S. House campaign and designed the city of Caspers WyoCity logo. He said that over the past few years the website had not published many articles that would fall into this category and did not know whether that would change. If our editorial vision hardens compared to what its been... then thats something that wed need to have an answer for, Houck said. Houck expects to have a clear vision for the website in place by January. He doesnt see Oil City as competing directly with other news outlets in the community and says its focus will be limited to the city. A lot of news organizations ... do great coverage of things that happen not just in Casper but throughout the entire state, Houck said. Oil City will look at news that happens specifically here. Wednesdays support meetings Alcoholics Anonymous: 6:30 a.m., 917 N. Beech; 8:30 a.m., 500 S. Wolcott; 10 a.m., 328 E. A; noon, 500 S. Wolcott; 2 p.m., 917 N. Beech; 5:09 P.M., 917 N. Beech; 5:30 p.m., 1124 Elma, Imitate the Image Church; 7 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott; 8 p.m., 8 p.m., 328 E. A; 8 p.m, 328-1/2 E. A, closed; 8:23 p.m., 719 3rd St., Evansville. Douglas: 7:30 p.m., 628 E. Richards (upstairs in back); 7:30 p.m,. 805 E. Richards, Ste. 1. Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are open. Casper info: 266-9578; Douglas info: (307) 351-1688. Al-Anon: 7-8 p.m.,500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200, 12-24 Club, for grades 6 and up. Info: 377-7260 or 258-1444; 7 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 302 E. 2nd. Use east entrance, meet downstairs in Room 12. Narcotics Anonymous: noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 8 p.m., 302 E. 2nd St., Methodist Church, enter east side. Web site: http://www.urmrna.org. Nicotine Anonymous: noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club. Info: Pam M., 577-0518; Troy Y., 267-6326. OIF/OEF Support Group: 6:30-8 p.m., Casper Vet Center, 1030 N. Poplar St., Ste. B. All OIF/OEF Veterans are invited to attend. No need to pre-register. Info: 261-5355. Teen Addiction Anonymous: 7- 8 p.m., 12-24 Club Teton Room. Info: 258-7439. TOPS #35 Weight Loss: 6:45 a.m., First Christian Church, 520 CY Ave. Weight Loss Support Group, Weigh-in is from 6:30 a.m.-8 a.m. Info: 258-2603 or 234-5644. TOPS #162: 8:30 a.m., United Methodist Church, 1880 Poplar. Anyone interested is invited to join. Info: 472-4926. Schools Out day camps at BGCCW Parents and families can count on a day of fun and enriching activities to keep their kids busy while school is out of session. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Wyoming will be open for day camps during school breaks, except for select days for our staff to enjoy the holidays with their own families. Day Camps will be held at the Main Club, 1701 East K St. Members from all sites are welcome. Lunch and snacks will be served along with engaging field trips, enriching educational programming and games and activities. After school rates apply. Schools Out day camps will be held on Nov. 23, Dec. 21, 22, 27, 28, 29, 30; Jan. 3, Feb. 17, Feb. 20, March 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, and April 14. For more information, call 235-2456 or visit the Main Club in Casper. Depression group begins J.R.s Hunt for Life is offering See it Clearly, a free peer support group for persons suffering from depression and other mental conditions that lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. We are not professionals but rather a group of like-minded peers wishing to support each other in these struggles. We offer anonymity and confidentiality to all attending. Our meetings are at 6:45 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at 500 South Wolcott in the conference room on the second floor, (12-24 Club). If you have ever considered or attempted taking your life or are struggling, please come. You are important to us. Family continues suicide support Good Grief, Support will continue at 5:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at the 12-24 Club, 500 S. Wolcott, by request of attendees. The family of J.R. Hunter, who died from suicide in June 2015 began the support before the especially tough holiday season. Anyone who is grieving a suicide, death, or considering suicide is encouraged to attend. Attendance at the meeting, as well as the content, will be strictly confidential. The Fresh Start Cafe will be open, and you can eat during the meetings. This meeting place was offered by Dan Cantine of the 12-24 Club. You need not be a member to attend. Skate All Day when schools out The Casper Ice Arena will be hosting Skate All Day sessions on Nov. 23, Nov. 25, and Nov. 26 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission for Skate All Day is $6 and skate rental is free. Participants can come and go throughout the session. Skating-tutors are available for $3 each. Children 4 years old and under are free with a paid admission. The Casper Ice Arena will be closed Nov. 24 for Thanksgiving. For the current public skating schedule and additional information on public skating, birthday parties, skating classes, or any other upcoming ice arena special event, please call 235-8484 or visit www.casperwy.gov. Twelve Days of Christmas open The 12 Days of Christmas store will open for its 43rd year at 5 p.m. at 544 E. Park St., in the old Oil City Printers building. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m., until Dec. 23. More than 30 Wyoming crafters and artists will be displaying their talents in the store. This year, new items will include wooden turned bowls and copper ornaments, along with foods, jewelry, pet gifts, fiber arts, tole painted ornaments and stained glass. The charity this year is Black Dog Rescue. Roller rink fun Fun activities when schools out at the Wagon Wheel Roller Skating on Nov. 23 and 24 from 1 to 3 p.m. Three-hour open sessions are Friday, 7 to 10 p.m., Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m., and 7 to 10 p.m., and Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m. Regular session admission $7 with your own skates and $9 admission with any rental. $3 more includes wristband for inflates. Personal skates must be clean and in good repair. Sessions include games, prizes, and disco light show. Check our rates to have a Birthday on Skates. For information, call 265-4214 or go to facebook, www.wwskate.com Thanksgiving Eve service Trinity Lutheran Church, 1240 S. Missouri, will have a Thanksgiving Eve Divine Service at 7 p.m. Please call 234-0568 for more information. Her raised voice breaking, Jami Ferguson explained to school district leaders that the people of Grant Elementary were like her family. We dont care about the money. We care about our kids, said Ferguson, a mother to four students at Grant, which could close after this school year. She was one of around 50 parents sitting in folding chairs and lining the back wall of Grants gymnasium Monday night, looking to hear why the school theyve trusted with their children might close. They sought answers from Natrona County School District officials, including Superintendent Steve Hopkins and Associate Superintendent Verba Echols. Two years ago, as the economy took a turn for the worse, the board of trustees asked the school district to cut costs, evaluate all programs and take a look at facilities, Hopkins said. The facility study started in September and finished in mid-November. Among other things, it recommended the closure of Grant and the disposal of it and other vacant schools, like North Casper and the old Roosevelt High School. District officials last week explained that disposal would ideally mean selling the schools but could also mean tearing them down. Frustration Parents learned of the possibility of the closure in an email Thursday afternoon. Hopkins last week stressed that faculty recommended letting parents have the opportunity to break the news to their children. As parents frustration washed over them, district officials stressed that the decision to close Grant was only a recommendation and that nothing was certain yet. The Board of Trustees, a majority of whom attended the meeting, will vote on the proposal Monday. The officials explained that the parents had two options should the school close: They could go through the enrollment process, in which they would have preference over the rest of Natrona County in selecting a new school, or they could decide to move the soul of the school students and faculty to a new building, likely the newly completed Journey Elementary. Many parents who spoke called for the second option. Ill be voting for the mass move, Josh Ryle said after the meeting. Ryle works in the energy industry and moved from Arizona to Casper with his wife and 6-year-old daughter. Sergio Sanchez, who moved from California and whose three children found a home and new friends at Grant, said he was pulling for the mass move. He, like many parents at the meeting, voiced his frustration with the recommendation to close the neighborhood school. The meeting was kind of what they want to do, they didnt listen to our advice, he said. This is what its going to be; you like it or not. Some parents, like Josh Ryles wife, Stephanie, asked if parents could band together and save the school through fundraisers. One parent asked if the district would match whatever donations the parents could pull in. Building repairs Hopkins explained that the school would need around $500,000 in repairs. Officials said last week that Grant needed a new roof and foundational work. Grant is the highest in Natrona County in need for improvement, said Michael Jennings, the executive director of human resources and one of the district officials who conducted the study. Officials told the crowd that the Legislature is not handing out the funds it used to because of the economic downturn and because Natrona County has 500 open elementary seats, an enrollment decline that helped drive the decision to close schools. Some strategies that we used in the past (to fund repairs) arent available to us now, Hopkins said. At times, parents shouted out and talked over each other, raised voices blending together and causing confusion. One question that kept popping up was why Grant had been overlooked for repairs while new schools were built and older schools were remodeled. When I look at schools being rebuilt, I cant help but notice their location, one parent said. Officials explained that before the economy started to slip two years ago, the districts elementary enrollment was going up by more than 150 students per year. So schools being completed now were built to keep up. Now, Hopkins explained, more than 200 elementary school students have left the district, a majority of them in the past nine months. Kevin Christopherson, the chairman of the board and a Grant alum, stood up from the crowd and took the mic. He told parents that moving to a brand-new school could be a good thing. Some things that look bad like your school closing can be a fantastic opportunity, he said. What on the inside One parent responded that children losing the teachers theyve connected with and the friends theyve made isnt a great opportunity. Ferguson, who said after the meeting that she bawled Thursday when a teacher told her the school may close, said how nice a school is doesnt matter to her. We dont care about how fancy the school is. We dont care about how it looks like on the outside. We care about whats on the inside, she said, her voice growing emotional. To many parents, including Ferguson, Principal Shawna Smith is inextricable from the Grant that they want to preserve and protect. This is special. This is not something thats common, one parent said, explaining that Smith was a primary reason for that. It was unclear from the meeting whether Smith would follow the school to Journey should parents decide to move en masse. District spokeswoman Tanya Southerland said Tuesday that the district is working closely with Smith but that it was difficult to say where Smith would end up after the reassignment process was complete. Southerland stressed that Smith is involved in the process and is working with Echols. Smith, who stood by the wall during the meeting and called on questioners by the names of their children, hugged some parents as the meeting stretched toward its second hour and chairs emptied. Some parents left in a huff, including one who repeatedly questioned why Grant had fallen into disrepair while new schools were built. Others took their children home as bedtimes neared. One father stood up, his young daughter in his arms, and thanked the officials for answering questions. Then he patted his daughter on the back. This one will never be a Grizzly, he said, referring to Grants mascot. But shes got a great Grizzly yell. His daughter let out a cry, and the crowd burst into applause as the father carried his daughter out the door. For an increasing number of Casper families, a Thanksgiving turkey just doesnt fit in an already slim budget. So hundreds donned jackets Monday morning and lined up outside a church hoping for a little holiday help from Wyoming Food Bank of the Rockies. Sue Seager, 48, waited for a ride with her bags of donated food outside the Casper Faith Assembly of God. While her family has received assistance with Thanksgiving meals before, this year was particularly difficult. Her husband, a lifelong coal miner, recently lost almost half of his hours at work as the industry shrinks. Her son, who also works in the energy sector, recently lost his job. This years been hard, man, she said. Were just trying to make things work out. Hundreds of others waited outside the church at 11 a.m., when the food bank was scheduled to begin its largest Thanksgiving food distribution ever. In a sign of the states economic downturn, people were already parked on the grass around the church even before the distribution began the parking lot had already filled up. Mothers held babies in knit caps, older children played in the parking lot and older folks asked volunteers if they could have a chair to sit on while they waited. Although the temperatures remained in the mid-50s, the snow on Casper Mountain was a constant reminder that winters chill was imminent, along with higher heating bills and Christmas purchases. Inside the church, people filled large paper bags with Thanksgiving fixings: canned cream of mushroom soup, potatoes, green beans, oranges and frozen turkeys. Throughout the day, more than 200 volunteers helped carry bags, restock supplies and register peoples names. More than 1,700 people signed up to receive Thanksgiving meals this year more than double the number last year and hundreds more than the 1,200 expected by the food bank. Tonja Funch, agency relations manager for the food bank, said the organization will most likely help more than the 1,700 families by the end of the day. In Casper, many of those families are like Seagers: people who recently lost good jobs in the energy sector and are now stuck with car payments and mortgages that their reduced income cant quite cover, Funch said. Need has grown, and pantries have struggled to keep up. This is pretty indicative of what our pantries have been seeing, Funch said, gesturing to the lines of people trickling past the food-laden tables. A lot more people are asking for help. According to the food banks website, one in eight Wyomingites experiences hunger and food insecurity, about the same as the rest of the nation. People who experience food insecurity dont have reliable access to adequate food that is nutritious. A common misconception about food pantries is that they are only for people who are homeless or in dire poverty, Funch said. But thats generally not true, she said, especially in Casper. Its your middle-income families, who cant quite make it paycheck to paycheck, she said. It could be a neighbor, it could be a teacher it can be anybody. Nancy Vanatta, 56, waited in line with her daughter Monday morning, her second year receiving Thanksgiving food from the food bank. Vanatta had to enroll in disability benefits two years ago when her doctor told her she couldnt keep stocking shelves with her heart condition. Now, she spends her days taking care of her mother, who has Alzheimers disease. The familys budget is tight. By the time they pay rent, car payments and other bills, the family has about $80 left over, she said. Thats enough to get by but not enough for a Thanksgiving meal. By the time all the bills are paid, theres basically nothing, Vanatta said. This year, money is even tighter. Vanattas husband was admitted to the hospital a few days ago with a blood infection. Sunday, Vanatta got a bill for more than $10,000. Medicaid should cover the costs, Vanatta said, but its terrifying having that hefty of a bill looming and knowing that more could come. But Vanatta remained optimistic. Her family is together, at least. Her husband is still alive. Either theyll gather at home for their turkey and mashed potatoes, or theyll gather beside his hospital bed. If he gets out of the hospital before the holiday, that would be a blessing, she said with a small smile. Were taking lemons and making lemonade. JACKSON Mice and the little brown pellets they leave behind were one of the first things Clay Alderson and Claudia Rector had to battle when they first showed up three years ago at the Goosewing Ranger Station. The historic cluster of buildings 20 miles up Gros Ventre Road is where the retired couple planned to lay their heads for four months, and from the beginning they had plenty of company. We lived with the mice, Rector said. Wed sit on the couch and watch where the mice came from, and then wed put hardware cloth over the holes. We quickly evicted them. There were plenty of other tasks to be done to make the main cabin a livable, inviting place: cleaning, painting and the odds and ends that inevitably come with keeping up an 80-year-old structure. Our first year was pretty much just putting the building back on its feet, Rector said. Eligible but never nominated for the National Register of Historic Places, the main component of the Goosewing Ranger Station is a 51 kit installed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934. Besides the main cabin the property includes a barn, a bunkhouse and several smaller outbuildings. All needed plenty of work, and now, three years into Alderson and Rectors seasonal tenure, theyre all in nice shape. Its an incredible turnaround, considering that a decade ago the Goosewing was a candidate for being razed. The water system went dry, electricity went out, and the Bridger-Teton National Forest stopped regularly using the remote compound. Alderson, who lived in Jackson Hole off and on from 1959 to 75, got the idea of whipping the Goosewing back into shape when he was volunteering for the National Elk Refuge by helping staff the Jackson Hole/Greater Yellowstone Visitor Center. The Bridger-Teton found a way to make the partnership work and enlisted Alderson and Rector as full-time volunteers. Theyd live at the property from June into October and provide passers-by with information about the Gros Ventre. Daily patrols are part of the gig, to make sure people are obeying the rules of the Bridger-Teton and have any necessary licenses. The shift technically spans Saturday to Monday, but frequently a day off isnt all that much different from a workday. Its a flexible lifestyle in a remote, beautiful place that theyre plenty fond of. We dont have a lot of decisions to make, Alderson said. Get up early this morning or do I sleep in? Rector beamed: Weve taken much too well to retirement. Time away from the Goosewing, typically November to May, is spent at a cabin near Tagish Lake in Canadas Yukon Territory. Comparatively, the Goosewing is bustling with people and activity. Days yearning for a larger dose of humanity are few and far between for Rector. Maybe its a reflection of our personalities, but we consider the deer to be our neighbors, she said. Theres a bird going over every minute and things happening. Its the way weve chosen to live. Weekly visits to Jackson and regular human visitors break up the days and weeks. And as the Goosewing has improved in stature, more and more people are coming to stay the night. Over the course of a couple of late-October weekdays visitors included the Wyoming Game and Fish Departments Aly Courtemanch and Jon Stephens and the Bridger-Tetons Kerry Murphy and David Wilkinson. Even though most of the major work on the Goosewing Ranger Station is done the retired duo has inventoried much of the property and compiled a long list of fixes that could bring it back to an even better state. Old buildings have issues and you have just got to learn to work with them, Rector said. Windows need replacing, a weather station is being eyed for resurrection, and historic trash is strewn throughout the willows and bushes that surround the property. It needs to be picked up and sorted out. Next year, health permitting, Alderson and Rector will venture south from their Yukon outpost to check off the next round of repairs. Most Cowboy State residents want government spending to stay at the same levels or increase, a new poll from the University of Wyoming shows. The poll also found that a majority of Wyomingites are open to some tax increases a somewhat surprising result given Wyomings tax-adverse reputation although the taxes they would be willing to pay wouldnt raise enough revenue to maintain the services they want. The results come as the Wyoming Legislature considers cutting programs to shore up a $157 million hole in the state budget. Forty-five percent of Wyomingites who participated in the poll want an increase in state government spending on roads and highways. Fifty-one percent want to keep spending at current levels, according to the October poll, results of which were released Tuesday morning. Similarly, the survey found the public wants to maintain or grow public school spending, with 44 percent wanting increases and 44 percent preferring spending at current levels. Most Wyomingites also wanted to maintain or increase spending on health and social services (82 percent) and on law enforcement (91 percent), the poll shows. The state is facing a shortfall this year due to lower-than-expected revenues from oil, gas and coal. On Jan. 10, 2017, when the Wyoming Legislature convenes in Cheyenne, lawmakers will have to determine whether to raise taxes, cut government spending or dip into the states $1.6 billion rainy day fund to fill the shortfall. The Wyoming Constitution requires the state to balance the budget. While campaigning this year, many Republicans argued there had not been enough government cuts. Early retirement for state employees and other measures needed to be considered, they said. Some lawmakers even signed a pledge by the Wyoming Liberty Group to not raise taxes over the next two years. UWs Political Science Department and the Wyoming Survey and Analysis Centers Survey Research Center conducted the poll by randomly calling Wyoming residents between Oct. 5 and 11. Over 350 people answered questions about state government spending and taxes. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent. Eighty-five percent of Wyomingites believe their current taxes are generally reasonable, a number that Jim King, UW political science professor, called an overwhelming majority. In fact, 63 percent of respondents said they are willing to pay higher taxes but only in the so-called sin taxes: 81 percent favored raising beer and alcohol taxes, and 78 percent want to raise the cigarette tax. Fifty-two percent want to raise the mineral severance tax which will likely be a non-starter in Cheyenne, due to the slump that the energy sector is experiencing. But for taxes in areas that really hit the wallet, Wyomingites are opposed: 80 percent oppose property tax increases, 59 percent oppose sales tax increases and 58 percent oppose gasoline tax increases. King noted that Wyomingites ideas on government spending and taxes are problematic. He noted that they like their government services. But the taxes people want to raise the taxes on tobacco and alcohol bring very little money into the states coffers, King said. And raising the mineral severance tax isnt feasible when the coal, oil and natural gas industries are experiencing decreased production and lower prices. State decision-makers are in a very challenging position. Wyoming does not have an income tax, and the states residents are divided on the issue: 49 percent reject the idea of a state income tax, 18 percent approved it unconditionally, 23 percent would accept a tax if another state levy, such as sales or property taxes, was reduced at the same time. The poll does not indicate substantial support for a state income tax. But it signals a willingness by some Wyomingites to consider it, King said. The survey shows a division that leans against a Wyoming income tax but not by as wide of a margin as might be expected, he said. *** The Star-Tribune emailed the poll to some state lawmakers and asked to talk to them about their feelings about state cuts and taxes, now that theyve seen independent data. But they did not return messages Tuesday. Gov. Matt Mead will be releasing his budget recommendations Nov. 30 to the Wyoming Legislature. By law, the governors budget recommendations may not anticipate tax increase revenue, said Meads spokesman, David Bush. Gov. Mead will comply with the law. There is a disconnect between the amount Wyomingites pay in taxes and the services they expect, said Buck McVeigh of the Wyoming Taxpayers Association, a group that represents some of the large companies that pay taxes to the state. McVeigh cites state research showing the average family of three pays $3,000 in taxes if they own a house valued at $190,000. And they receive about $30,000 in public services from roads to schools to firefighting and cemeteries. The more children you have, certainly the more benefit youre deriving, McVeigh said. Wyoming is heavily subsidized by the minerals sector. People are vaguely aware of this fact, but they dont fully appreciate how much the minerals companies are really paying, he said. The Tax Association is opposed to revenue increases at this time. McVeigh said that could change in the future. The group isnt anti-tax; they were leaders in the coalition that supported the 10-cent-a-gallon increase in fuel taxes in 2013. But for now, the association wants the state to find more ways to be efficient, even if that means cutting some personnel. The Wyoming Association of Municipalities, on the other hand, wants the Legislature to look at tax increases. State aid is an important source of money to Wyomings cities and towns. The money helps cities provide services from garbage collection to snowplowing and police and firefighting services. The associations Shelley Simonton said that shes happy about the poll, since there is now some independent data that documents peoples feelings on government services and taxes. Theres going to have to be a really concerted education and outreach effort to our own constituents, she said. I dont blame them for wanting what they want. Theyre taxpayers. They want good services, they want their potholes filled and they want their garbage picked up. As the study shows, people like their government amenities, Simonton said. But many cities and towns throughout Wyoming are looking at cordoning off parks to save the city money in gardening and police services and cutting hours of the city pool and the library. In Green River, theyre at point where theyre getting 2003 (sales tax) receipts and they have 2016 expectations of services, she said. PRAY, Mont. U.S. officials on Monday blocked new mining claims outside Yellowstone National Park as the Obama administration races in its last days to keep industry out of natural and environmentally sensitive areas. Mining claims on 30,370 acres north of the nations first national park would be prohibited for at least two years while a long-term ban is considered, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said during a visit to Montanas scenic Paradise Valley. Details were obtained by The Associated Press in advance of the formal announcement. Interior officials last week blocked new oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean and cancelled 25 oil and gas leases in western Colorado and 15 in northwestern Montana. Republicans and industry representatives have criticized the administrations eleventh-hour actions to limit development. Theyve promised to seek their reversal once Obama leaves office and Donald Trump takes charge of the White House. The latest move came after a pair of gold exploration proposals north of Yellowstone drew strong opposition from business owners, environmentalists and Montana elected officials. Local officials worry mining could hurt an economy heavily dependent on tourism and outdoor recreation. Jewell hiked a rocky trail to examine the landscape surrounding one of the mining sites, beneath the snow-capped peaks of the Absaroka Mountains. She said she hoped the temporary ban would discourage the projects sponsors and shield Yellowstone and surrounding areas of Custer-Gallatin National Forest from development. The two-year prohibition would not explicitly block the pending proposals, both of which involve private lands. However, Jewell and other government officials said it would make large-scale mining more difficult if the projects were expanded onto public lands. This is right on the doorstep of Yellowstone National Park, one of the most amazing places in the world, Jewell said. It needs to be part of a larger ecosystem and this forest is part of that ecosystem. Mining will damage that. It will damage the ability of the animals to migrate. It will impact potentially the watershed. It could impact the geothermal features. Recreation and other activities still will be allowed in the area. A Canadian company, Lucky Minerals, has applied to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to explore for gold and other minerals north of Yellowstone near Emigrant. Another company, Spokane, Washington-based Crevice Mining Group, is seeking permission to explore for gold near Jardine, just over Yellowstones northern boundary. Lucky Minerals Vice President Shaun Dykes said he was disgusted with Mondays announcement and said hed received no advance notice from federal officials. The administrations action, he said, could scare off potential investors who can easily steer their money to mining projects elsewhere. Theyre sending a huge message to mining and exploration (companies), saying youre not welcome in Montana, Dykes said. He accused Jewell of trying to ram it through before Trump takes office and said the reserves his company is targeting hold up to 10 million ounces of gold. If Lucky Minerals plans get stopped, Dykes said the company would be entitled to compensation for its foregone profits. Jewell said the recent actions were in the works well before the election and the administration was seeking merely to wrap up its longstanding agenda before leaving office in early January. Crevice Mining Group managing director Michael Werner said Jewell and other officials were wrong to think his project could be derailed by Mondays actions. Because the mine would be relatively small roughly 300 tons of ore removed daily Werner said the companys private land holdings were sufficient to see the project through to completion. U.S. Sen. Jon Tester had urged the administration to intervene to help stop mining in the area. The Montana Democrat said following Jewells announcement that he would introduce legislation in the next Congress to make the prohibition on new mining claims permanent. The Interior Department ban can extend a maximum of only 20 years, officials said. Both of the proposed exploration sites have a history of mining. However, in recent decades theyve become more closely associated with the natural amenities of Yellowstone and the surrounding Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. Opponents argue that mining would industrialize wild areas populated by grizzly bears, bighorn sheep and other wildlife and harm streams that drain into the Yellowstone River. CHEYENNE A committee of state lawmakers voted Friday to advance a bill that would require large online retailers to collect sales tax on purchases made by Wyoming customers. Members of the Legislatures Joint Revenue Interim Committee voted to send the bill to the full Legislature when it convenes in January. Supporters of the measure say such a law would even the playing field for businesses in Wyoming. Thats because customers now may be inclined to buy items online instead of at Wyoming businesses to avoid paying sales tax. To be subject to having to collect sales tax under the bill, a business would have to conduct $100,000 in sales or 200 separate transactions in Wyoming annually. That means businesses with small operations or that only occasionally sell to Wyoming customers would be exempt. Enforcement of the law would be through the state Department of Revenue. Sen. Ray Peterson, R-Cowley, co-chairman of the Revenue Committee, said it comes down to not creating an advantage for large online retailers over local businesses. Its not a new tax; its the same tax we charge at our Main Street businesses, he said. Its a fairness issue with me. Peterson also said the bill would help Wyoming diversify its revenue streams. This is just one of those areas we arent fully assessing the sales tax, he said. Peterson said he expects the bill to pass the full Legislature. Rep. Mike Madden, R-Buffalo, the other Revenue Committee co-chairman, said it was a good decision to send the bill forward. He said committee members had received letters in opposition to the proposed law from groups representing retailers the law would affect. But buyers pay sales tax, not retailers themselves, so the bill is not asking retailers to pay more money themselves, he said. Further, Madden said, Wyoming is part of the multi-state Streamlined Sales Tax group, which has resources to make it easy for retailers to collect state and local sales taxes. However, similar laws passed around the country, including in South Dakota and Alabama, are under court challenges, as the laws could conflict with a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. That year, the high court ruled in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota that retailers that did not have a physical presence in a state could not be forced to collect sales tax. The case stemmed from the state of North Dakota attempting to force Quill, an office supply company often associated with mail-order catalogs, to collect North Dakota sales tax on purchases made by entities in North Dakota. But that case was before the proliferation of the internet and online shopping. In South Dakotas case, the Legislature there knew the law, passed earlier this year, would be challenged. Lawmakers there are hoping the case will lead to the U.S. Supreme Court revisiting the 1992 ruling in light of new technology. Madden acknowledged the court cases and said companies will have to justify why they dont want to administer the tax. Sales tax is a state sovereignty issue, and its based on the fact that its a tax upon the citizens, its not a tax on them, he said. Wyoming could stand to gain between $23 million and $46 million annually if online sales tax were collected, the state Department of Revenue has said. During a presentation by the Wyoming Association of Municipalities later in the Revenue Committees meeting, Cheyenne Mayor Rick Kaysen was asked about the proposal. We are interested in that going forward as well, he said. We hear locally its hard for the mom-and-pop shops to compete. I find the Chattin with Sal article printed on Nov. 14 to be very insulting to the outstanding medical professionals who provide quality health care to the hardworking people of Wyoming. During my career in medicine I have had the pleasure of working in Texas, Maryland, Colorado, North Carolina, Iowa and Wyoming. I have been a practicing pediatrician in Wyoming for the last 13 years. Three years ago I began working as a travel medicine doctor, providing coverage at various hospitals and pediatric clinics throughout the state. I have found the people of Wyoming to be highly knowledgeable and concerned about their childrens health, not backward and uneducated, as Dr. Springer implies with her comment People dont know what they dont know in Wyoming. They dont know how the rest of the country has progressed. My patients have done their research as to what is going on in different parts of the country in regards to their childs specific needs. They are eager to find out resources and treatment options that are available for their children both in and out of this state. In regards to Dr. Shelley Springers comment, Wyoming is the only state in the union that does not have 21st century childrens health care, I have worked with many quality Wyoming providers, who are as knowledgeable and up to date on the latest health care methods as those in other states. And while it is true that we do not have a childrens hospital or the pediatric specialists that can be found at these hospitals, I and many of the other pediatricians in this state have had a wonderful working relationship with the childrens hospitals in Colorado and Utah. They have always been more than willing to give advice over the phone on difficult patients long before telemedicine existed. There are also outreach clinics provided by these specialists throughout the state of Wyoming. Regarding premature babies born in Wyoming, I am not sure where Springer is getting her facts, but not all babies born prematurely have to be transported out of state for care. I personally have been able to take care of many babies born prior to 37 weeks in our hospitals across the state. These babies have thrived both in and out of the hospital. I would hazard a guess that there are plenty of other pediatricians in the state that could say the same. While it is true that extremely premature infants most often need to be transferred to a Level III nursery, a large majority of our mildly premature infants do not. Level III nurseries have a full range of services and resources including advanced ongoing respiratory support and surgery if needed, as well as immediate 24-hour availability of sub-specialists and concentrated staffing by skilled nurses trained specifically to care for these critical newborns. In an ideal world it would be great to have this level of care at all hospitals throughout this country, but this is not practical. Even in the other states where I have practiced that had a childrens hospital, there were towns and cities that were as far from them as many of our towns in Wyoming are from the childrens hospitals in Denver or Salt Lake. Living in a state that has a childrens hospital doesnt necessarily mean that you have increased access to these hospitals. As for the comments about the ER doctors, I have many colleagues in the ER who practice in Wyoming and I have never heard of a single one of them seeing a mother in preterm labor and giving them a shot of morphine and sending them home. These patients are routinely evaluated by both the ER doctor and the obstetrician while in the ER. I have also found that it is not routine practice for the obstetricians to induce labor simply because a mother is miserable or the doctor wants to be out of town. According to the March of Dimes website, Wyoming did get a C grade this year, but then so did the U.S. as a whole. There were other states in the union, who have level III nurseries, that received grades of D and F. Wyoming may not have a childrens hospital or a NICU, but we have quality and knowledgeable health care professionals taking care of the pediatric patients and their families in this state. Nearly 2 million Arizonans plan to travel over the Thanksgiving holiday, up 5.6 percent from last year, according to AAA Arizonas annual travel forecast. But the number of Arizonans who plan to fly to their destinations is down 6 percent the first drop in Thanksgiving air travel in four years, according to AAAs annual survey. The number of Arizonans who plan to drive is up 9 percent, likely because low gas prices are prompting more families to hit the road, AAA says. With a current statewide average of $2.15 per gallon of regular, Arizona drivers will be paying pay the lowest gas prices for the Thanksgiving holiday since 2008. AAAs annual survey counts travel of 50 miles or more, from Wednesday through Sunday. Nationally, AAA projects that 48.7 million Americans will travel nationwide this Thanksgiving, a 1.9 percent jump from last year and the highest number of Thanksgiving travelers nationwide since 2007. Thanksgiving air travel nationwide is expected to rise 1.6 percent, to 3.7 million travelers. Of the estimated 1.9 million Arizonans traveling over the holiday, more than 345,000 plan to fly, AAA says. The AAA survey was conducted by Phoenix-based Behavior Research Center. Flying from Tucson The Thanksgiving Day holiday period is the busiest time at Tucson International Airport, with airlines adding flights to accommodate demand. Sunday will be the busiest day of the year at the airport with 130 scheduled flights, 25 percent more than average, airport officials say. TIA offers some travel tips: Parking and construction: Installation of solar canopies in the parking lots in front of the terminal has temporarily taken about one-third of the spaces in the daily lot out of service. Alternatives are the parking structure off South Country Club Road or the economy lot off East Corona Road, west of the entrance to the terminal. Terminal construction: Passengers should be aware of temporary directional signage for ongoing terminal renovation work, but disruptions should be minimal. American and United swap: In September, American Airlines and United Airlines swapped ticket counter and concourse locations. All American flights now depart and arrive on the B Concourse, and United flights arrive and depart from the A Concourse. Aeromar: In October, international commercial airline service resumed with Aeromar flights to Mexico. Aeromars check-in counter is on the east side of the terminal, next to Southwest, and its flights depart from gate A2. Arriving passengers can be met at the International Arrivals Welcome Lounge, next to the entrance of Concourse A on the second (ticketing) level. Dont bring a Note 7: The U.S. Department of Transportation has banned all Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone s from aircraft, even if turned off. If you have one, its best not to even bring it to the airport. Security lines: To allow time to navigate ticket counters and Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, plan on arriving at the airport at least 90 minutes before departure time on the busiest travel days. Some airlines now require bags to be checked at least 45 minutes prior to departure. For the Thanksgiving holiday, the busiest time is for flights departing from 6 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and again in the afternoon for flights departing between 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., airport spokesman David Hatfield said. It will be especially crowded on the B Concourse (Alaska, American and Delta) when those airlines have six flights scheduled to depart between 2:05 and 2:36 p.m., he added. Arrivals: Go to www.flytucson.com for real-time flight arrival times. A cellphone waiting lot is available for free. Turn right just before reaching the terminal to get to the lot. Flying from Phoenix: For information on flights from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, including current security-checkpoint waiting times, go to skyharbor. com Nearly 2 million Arizonans plan to travel over the Thanksgiving holiday, up 5.6 percent from last year, according to AAA Arizonas annual travel forecast. But the number of Arizonans who plan to fly to their destinations is down 6 percent the first drop in Thanksgiving air travel in four years, according to AAAs annual survey. The number of Arizonans who plan to drive is up 9 percent, likely because low gas prices are prompting more families to hit the road, AAA says. With a current statewide average of $2.15 per gallon of regular, Arizona drivers will be paying pay the lowest gas prices for the Thanksgiving holiday since 2008. AAA's annual survey counts travel of 50 miles or more, from Wednesday through Sunday. Nationally, AAA projects that 48.7 million Americans will travel nationwide this Thanksgiving, a 1.9 percent jump from last year and the highest number of Thanksgiving travelers nationwide since 2007. Thanksgiving air travel nationwide is expected to rise 1.6 percent, to 3.7 million travelers. Of the estimated 1.9 million Arizonans traveling over the holiday, more than 345,000 plan to fly, AAA says. The AAA survey was conducted by Phoenix-based Behavior Research Center. The board of the Tucson Airport Authority on Monday authorized a new lease agreement with Raytheon Missile Systems as part of a plan to help the missile maker expand here. The airport board also voted to exercise an option to extend the airports lease and operating agreement with the city of Tucson by another 25 years to 2098, to accommodate the Raytheon lease. The actions are part of cooperative efforts by the airport authority, the governor and Arizona state officials, the city, Pima County and others to enable Raytheon to expand its operations at TIA. Raytheon has announced it plans to add nearly 2,000 high-paying jobs as part of an expansion projected to generate an economic impact of $7.9 billion over the next 10 years. The city and county are finalizing millions of dollars in tax incentives to help Raytheon grow. Under the new agreement with the airport, Raytheons nine leases will be consolidated into one that will include an additional 21 acres of land adjacent to 183 acres Raytheon has under its existing leases. The initial term for the new lease is 30 years with options for up to an additional 30 years, the airport authority said. To accommodate the potential 60-year lease extension, the TAA board also agreed to exercise the option to extend Tucson International Airports lease and operating agreement with the city. In 2015, the city and TAA agreed to a lease extension to 2073. Under this latest extension, the airports lease will go to Oct. 14, 2098. The Tucson Police Department has spent about $34,000 to outfit 400 officers with a new tool designed to save lives a nasal spray that can be administered to a person overdosing on opioids. Mayor Jonathan Rothschild announced the new initiative on Monday, giving officers a kit that can reverse an opiate overdose within minutes. Itll be part of a first-aid kit that many officers carry to provide initial treatment to trauma victims. Rothschild said the growing opioid epidemic has led to too many hospitalizations and deaths in the community. Figures from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner suggests the number of deaths related to narcotics has increased by 20 percent in a single year. Last year in Pima County, 226 people died from opiate-related overdoses. The city has bought 450 Narcan nasal spray kits, paying about $75 for each unit which can provide up to two doses. In some circumstances, a person who overdosed may require more than a single dose. Dr. Francisco Garcia, the Pima County Health Department director, said the cost is a fraction of the estimated $12 million spent annually on hospital and emergency room-related visits for treating addicts locally. Tucson Police Department Chief Chris Magnus urged the public to call 911 if they suspect anyone has overdosed, saying his department is less concerned about an arrest when responding to a call of someone overdosing. The department is interested in trying to help addicts while focusing on arresting drug dealers. Simply locking them up doesnt solve the addiction problem, Magnus said at a news conference. Susannah Castro talked about her 19-year-old son, Cree, who overdosed on heroin in Veinte de Agosto Park last month. Nationwide we are losing a generation of Americans, she said about the opioid abuse epidemic. She said if Tucson police officers had Narcan kits two years ago, it is possible they could have saved her sons life. The Tucson Fire Department has been using the kits for years, said Capt. Barrett Baker, a department spokesman. In the last 30 days, paramedics administered the drug 137 times to 93 patients, he said. After hearing several hours of public comments from dozens of speakers, who were almost unanimous in their opposition to agribusiness giant Monsantos plan to come to Pima County, the board of supervisors decided to delay a vote on potential tax breaks until Feb. 21. They did agree to establish an Agricultural Science Advisory Commission to address some of the concerns raised by the speakers. The vote to delay was 5-0. A sea of yellow signs reading Say no to Monsanto greeted supervisors as they opened Tuesday's meeting. In exchange for commitments to spend at least $90 million on the development and hire at least 50 people at an average salary of roughly $44,000, the supervisors were considering the companys application for so-called foreign trade zone status, which would substantially reduce its property tax burden over the next 10 years. The designation would drop the propertys assessment ratio from 15 percent to 5 percent. Documents obtained by the Star show the annual difference in property taxes would be paid to the county after $96 million in development would be around $370,000 lower with the FTZ rate. It is the U.S. Department of Commerce, not the county, that approves FTZ applications. The property tax reductions are established by state law, according to a memo from County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry to the board. A number of speakers criticized providing the Fortune 500 company with those tax breaks. Marana is a poor farming community, speaker Wendy Wiener said, echoing many others. Why dont we give them tax breaks? In an October memo to Supervisor Ally Miller, County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry pointed out that if the land were to remain undeveloped, it would bring in roughly $20,000 in all property taxes, but $11 million if the development proceeds, even with the FTZ designation. Additionally, the companys move is estimated to bring about roughly $284 million in economic impacts between 2016 and 2025, according to Sun Corridor Inc. Citing those benefits, as well as what he described as Monsantos demonstrated history of innovation, Tucson Metro Chamber CEO Michael Varney was one of a handful to speak in support of approval. After placing a handful of what he said was genetically modified cotton on the table, Jack Mann, head of the Arizona Farm Bureau Federation in Pima County, lent his voice in support as well, saying the greenhouse presented an opportunity to try to develop and improve our production. We need to be able to grow, and be able to provide food, he added. Monsanto has already purchased 155 acres near Marana, at the intersection of Twin Peaks and Sanders roads. The company intends to break ground on a 7-acre corn-growing greenhouse before the end of 2016, according to a memo from Huckelberry. Dan Contorno, the chief financial officer of the Marana Unified School District, said he and other officials are excited about some of the educational benefits this facility will bring to our community. The districts board recently approved an arrangement with Monsanto in which the company will give a one-time donation of $500,000 to a foundation affiliated with the district and pay a smaller annual property tax bill. The deal would save the company roughly $3.4 million over 10 years, as first reported by the Star. The proceedings were far more emotional than typical board meetings, with several speakers crying while addressing the board. Another, who declined to provide her name to the Star, addressed Supervisor Ray Carroll directly shouting: Look at me! I'm speaking to you! She went on to say she would personally participate in civil disobedience to block the project, citing ongoing clashes surrounding the North Dakota Access Pipeline as an example. In a moment that brought smiles to opponents, supporters and supervisors alike, 7-year-old Katie Fox told the board that she opposes the project because of her love for bees, adding: I dont like Monsanto because it kills bees, seeming to reference the claim of critics that some agricultural inputs may be linked to the phenomenon of hive collapse. Her mother Carrie Fox and 10-year-old brother Gabriel Fox also spoke in opposition to Monsanto. An independent review of the University of Arizonas two medical schools, which has not been released to the public, cost the state nearly $180,000 in public money. And the former dean of the UA College of Medicine Phoenix, whose departure in part prompted the review, says he was never interviewed for the report. The Arizona Board of Regents says it has paid the law firm Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP $179,653 as of Nov. 16 for its report on the UA Colleges of Medicine. The Board of Regents is the governing body for the states public university system. After a special meeting in August, the regents announced they would hire an outside expert to review concerns about the medical schools. The regents held the August meeting due to increasing scrutiny of the medical schools and their leadership. Governance of the UAs two medical schools, which are separately accredited, ultimately falls under UA senior vice president of health sciences Dr. Joe G.N. Skip Garcia and UA President Ann Weaver Hart. Garcia, who reports directly to Hart, oversees all of the UAs health colleges the UA College of Medicine-Tucson, the UA College of Medicine-Phoenix, the UA College of Pharmacy, the UA College of Nursing and the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. Dean departures Public criticism of the UA medical school leadership began after well-regarded UA College of Medicine-Phoenix dean Stuart D. Flynn announced he was leaving in March to be the founding dean of a new medical school in Texas. Shortly after, five members of Flynns leadership team, including the associate dean of admissions and the vice dean of academic affairs, announced their departures. In June, the 4,000-member Arizona Medical Association, which has a membership of physicians and medical students, called for an independent investigation into why virtually the entire leadership team left the Phoenix medical school. The association also expressed concern that the departure of so many top leaders could affect the schools attempt to see full accreditation, a process that is ongoing. The association asked for exit interviews with the departed deans and publicly called on the Board of Regents to initiate an investigation into any U of A organizational impediments or policies that contributed to the departures of the well-respected and quality team that was in place. As further fuel to the scrutiny, Garcia, who earns a salary of $870,000, attracted public attention in August when he was the subject of an Arizona Republic article. The article focused on his travel expenses, including a chauffeured car that costs $475 or more for trips between Tucson and Phoenix. During the special regents meeting in August, regents President Eileen Klein referred to troubling questions and claims about the medical school leadership, regarding ethics, use of public money, workplace culture and treatment of employees. The board and university leaders will need to go beyond these public hearings and take additional actions to better understand and address these concerns and determine whether any improprieties have occurred, she said at the time. On Aug. 19, the regents held an executive session and afterward announced they would hire an outside expert to review the concerns. Its going to be a broad look at whats going on, regents chairman Greg Patterson said at the time. Were doing a comprehensive evaluation, so its going to be full 360s of management style, structure, etc. Secret report On Oct. 26, the regents spent more than two hours behind closed doors to discuss the report. They then announced that the report was complete and that no further inquiry into the medical schools leadership was needed. Citing attorney-client privilege, Patterson said the report would not be released to the public. The regents have now released the cost of the report and provided the Star with documents outlining the contract terms. Flynn, the departed dean, says he was not interviewed for the report. He said he was approached by an attorney but before answering any questions he asked for indemnity, which means he wanted to be protected against being sued over anything he might say. I was contacted by the attorney conducting the interview, as were several of my colleagues. I told him we would be happy to answer any questions they had, but we also asked if the Regents would indemnify us so that we would not put ourselves at risk, Flynn wrote in an emailed statement. We never heard back on this request, or again from the attorney, so I can only assume that they did not want to offer us that protection. Public good Many say the loss of Flynn was huge for the fledgling Phoenix medical school, part of a growing biomedical campus in the citys downtown. Supporters of the medical school want both answers and assurances of the UAs commitment, particularly given Arizonas current and projected doctor shortage. Releasing the regents report, even a redacted version, is a matter of public interest, said Cary Pfeffer, a Phoenix resident, author and owner of a consulting firm who sat on a community advisory board to the Phoenix medical school for several years. If you are going to spend almost $200,000 on a report, there must be some public good, one would assume. ... Its critical for the state to have medical education, Pfeffer said. There are ways to protect confidential information, such as redacting names. PHOENIX Gov. Doug Ducey agreed Monday to allow full-scale gambling at the Tohono Oodham casino in Glendale, in exchange for a promise the tribe wont seek more gaming sites in the Phoenix area until after 2026. The deal officially is between the state and all of the states tribes. It offers the tribes some additional gaming opportunities more poker tables and keno games now and possible additional casinos after 2026 if they, too, will limit gaming to existing reservation lands until then. That could help compensate them for revenues they may lose to the Glendale casino, which they have opposed until now. The time has come to allow each tribe more freedom in their gaming operations and give every nation the opportunity to have a seat at the table, Ducey said Monday at an orchestrated mass signing of the deal by 10 tribes. Notably absent was anyone from the Tohono Oodham Nation, whose West Valley Desert Diamond Casino in Glendale created the legal dispute in the first place. Chairman Edward Manuel would say only that the tribe is reviewing the proposal, which it has had now for only a week. Kirk Adams, chief of staff to Ducey, said this deal to modernize the gaming compacts first authorized by voters in 2002 has been in the works for some time. But it comes just days before U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell is to hear arguments in the latest dispute between the state and the Tohono Oodham over whether the tribe has the legal right to operate a full-scale casino in Glendale, complete with slot machines and table games. The Oodham sued after the state denied the permits for full, Class III gaming after claiming the tribe engaged in fraud in 2002 by hiding its plans for the Glendale casino even as state officials and voters were told there would be no new casinos in the Phoenix area. In the interim, the tribe has opened the casino with Class II slot machines, essentially interconnected instant bingo operations. The tribe wants not only true slot machines but also table games like poker and blackjack. Federal courts have sided with the tribe in previous lawsuits over the issue. Gubernatorial legal counsel Michael Liburdi said he was very confident the state would win the current lawsuit. Still, he said, it makes sense to settle. As the governor has said, hes interested in doing the business of the state with as little legal activity as possible, Liburdi explained. The way we view this is the Tohono Oodham Nation gets what they want: the casino in Glendale, he said. Allow them to have what they want and lets move forward with a new compact where all sides in the state could benefit. That benefit is financial. Its about keeping Arizona money in Arizona, said Navajo Tribal President Russell Begaye. He said more gaming opportunities in-state, including more table games and possibly more casinos after 2026, means fewer people going to Las Vegas or Laughlin, Nevada. That aids not only the tribes but also the state, which has a tribal gaming revenue-sharing agreement that now brings in about $100 million a year. Mesa Mayor John Giles cheered the deal. He said the original 2002 deal included what voters believed was a promise that casinos would be limited to existing reservations. But that premise was undermined by the fact the Oodham took advantage of a little-known provision in the pact to buy land near Glendale, have it made part of its reservation and construct the casino there. It settles some uncertainty a lot of the communities have felt in watching the events in Glendale, Giles said. Theres some nervousness that we might see casinos unexpectedly appear in other parts of the valley. That fear also exists for other tribes in the Phoenix area, who compete for the same gaming dollars and who have fought the Oodham casino in court and in Congress for years. The deal allows the Glendale casino to remain, with an assurance there wont be more, at least not before 2026. While it appears to give the Tohono Oodham Nation what it wants, the tribe remains leery after years of legal spats. Manuel, in his response, specifically noted that Duceys office did not notify tribal officials of the proposal until last week. The lack of communication on this important issue is a concern, Manuel said. But he said the tribe stands ready to consider compact amendment language that would resolve the outstanding litigation. Representatives of 10 other tribes, including those who have been involved in prior litigation with the Tohono Oodham, showed up Monday to sign the deal and apparently are willing to settle. One sweetener includes an extra five gaming tables for poker or blackjack on top of the 100 already permitted for tribes in the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas; those in rural areas remain limited to 75. And there are two additional keno games per casino, double the existing number. But the real benefit could be long-term. Now, 16 tribes operate 23 casinos, each with a limited number of devices. What Ducey essentially is offering is the possibility of more sites, machines and tables in the future. That was enough to get the support of the Gila River Indian Community which, with the closest casino to West Valley Desert Diamond, has been its biggest foe. Tribal Gov. Stephen Lewis called the offer of expanded gaming the opportunity to see a substantial return for having kept our promise to Arizonas voters and leaders. Even non-gaming tribes might benefit: Hualapai Chairman Damon Clarke noted the law allows his tribe to make money by selling its rights to its gaming machines to other tribes. There are other issues remaining, however, including the delays by the state in acting on the Oodham request for a liquor license at the Glendale facility. Last year Alfonso Avitia and his brother passed out McDonalds to homeless people spending Thanksgiving in Tucsons parks. He thought hed up his game this year. Last Monday, Nov. 14, he launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise $1,000 to feed 20 families on Thanksgiving. Avitia, 23, posted a video to Facebook encouraging his 4,200-plus friends to donate. Every dollar donated, he would match up to $50, he promised. He says he stopped matching when the total hit $1,000. Thats what I always say, he says in his video. You bless someone else and that alone is a blessing to yourself. He did some research and decided $50 a family could provide a $25 turkey plus all the other good stuff. He gave his community until Thanksgiving to raise the cash. The next morning, the goal was met. By Monday evening, the total was about $1,400, and Avitia estimates about 30 families will now get meals. Frys has agreed to prepare them. An internet salesman for Jim Click Nissan, Avitia has had a good year. He got a promotion, has his own office and was one of the Arizona Daily Stars 2016 Readers Choice best auto salespeople. I am paying half, Avitia says of the campaign. Its something I am able to do. Ive been blessed. He blesses us to bless other people. Avitia says his Christian faith motivates him to love other people, and he knows what it feels like to go without. Ive been in the situation before where you open your refrigerator, and youre working so hard and dont see anything for it, he says. I know how it can be when youre hungry, and I dont believe anyone should go through that. Victory Worship Center will help him identify families in need. This has always been about rallying the community. The last thing I would definitely want is all the attention to come at me because of what everyone else did in participating, he says. That in itself shows that the love we have for one another in this community is not only the money that has been donated, but now how everyone is volunteering to help out. How to help Gift cards and gifts to add to your holiday shopping list Youth On Their Own Annual Holiday Appeal Youth On Their Own is seeking donations of 800 new adult-sized blankets and throws and 1,100 gift cards in $20 increments to Wal-Mart, Frys, Safeway and Target in order to provide gifts to 1,100 homeless and near-homeless teenagers. Donations are requested by Dec. 9 in order to deliver gifts to students before the holidays, but contributions will be accepted through the end of December at YOTO, 1660 N. Alvernon Way. Donations can also be made online at yoto.org or by calling 293-1136. To support YOTO students during your holiday shopping, consider buying at the YOTO Resale Home Store, 1642 N. Alvernon Way. Store hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays; donations of new and gently-used items for the home are also welcome. You can also support the YOTO through the Arizona Charitable Tax Credit, which allows a dollar-for-dollar tax credit of up to $400 for singles and $800 for married couples filing jointly on 2016 Arizona income taxes; Donations can be made online at yoto.org or by calling 293-1136. Tucson Troop Support 6th annual holiday party for children of local military families Donations of at least 600 new, unwrapped toys, gifts and gift cards for ages newborn though age 18 are needed to provide holiday gifts for local children of members of the military. Especially needed are items for pre-teens and teens such as action figures and remote control cars; ear buds, Iphone chargers and video games; movies and CDs; toiletries, perfume and makeup; basketballs and soccer balls; and gift cards. Donations of wrapping paper, scotch tape and other holiday trimmings are also welcome, along with arts and crafts. Each child will receive a free toy; donations will also stock a store in which children shop for their siblings for the holidays. Children can also make crafts for parents and wrap the gifts at a wrapping station. Donations can be dropped at the following locations: Hydra Clothing, 145 E. Congress St.; Circle K at 1990 La Canada Drive in Green Valley; Tucson City Council Ward 5 Office, 4300 S. Park; and The Echelon of Tucson Senior Living, 6250 S. Commerce Ct. If you would like donations to be picked up, call 477-1028. Volunteers are also needed to assist with gift wrapping and other activities at the holiday party from noon to 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 18, at the Disabled American Veterans Hall, 3455 S. Wilmot Rd. For information, visit www.tucsontroopsupport.org or call 477-1028. OPINION: "Dickens' famous passage about an earlier fraught time captures this knife-edge moment: 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us...'" writes Tucsonan Brent Harold. Help India! By Mohammed Siddique, TwoCircles.net Hyderabad: Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, the president of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) passed away on Monday in Hyderabad after a prolonged illness. 76 year old Owaisi, popularly called Salar-e-Millat (leader of the community) was admitted to the Care hospital two weeks ago with the complaint of difficulty in breathing and he was kept on ventilator. But his condition gradually deteriorated and he died of multiple organ failure today. Support TwoCircles He is survived by wife, three sons and a daughter. His eldest son Asaduddin Owaisi, the member of Lok Sabha from Hyderabad is likely to succeed him as the president of the party. His second son Akbaruddin Owaisi is the leader of five member MIM group in the state legislative assembly while third son Burhanuddin edits and publishes an Urdu daily Etemaad. The Namaz-e-Janaza will be performed on Tuesday afternoon at party headquarters Darussalam and he will be laid to rest at the family burial ground in Dargah Agha Dawood. The minister for power Mohammed Ali Shabbir announced that the senior most Parliamentarian from the state will be accorded state funeral and the Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy along with other cabinet colleagues will attend the funeral. The Chief Minister who was in Delhi has cancelled all his programs and was rushing back to Hyderabad. An emergency meeting of MIM executive unanimously elected Asaduddin Owaisi as the new president of the party. Under the leadership of Asaduddin Owaisi we will continue to fight for the constitutional rights of Muslims and to uplift them educationally, economically and politically, said Akbaruddin Owaisi, partys floor leader in assembly. As the news of his death spread, thousands of workers and supporters of MIM gathered outside his residence in Himayat Nagar mourning his death. Starting with Abdul Wahed Owaisi, who became the first president of MIM on its revival in 1950s, the Owaisis became politically the most influential and powerful family in Hyderabad. Salahuddin Owaisi became the president of MIM in November 1975 after his father and a reputed lawyer passed away. Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi Visited Darus Salam Hyderabad with MIM Supremo Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi During his tumultuous political career spanning over nearly half a century Salahuddin Owaisi built MIM in to a strong political force completely dominating the Muslim dominated parts of the city. In a reflection of its strength the MIM became the ruling party in the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad whenever polls to the civic body were conducted. It also increased its strength in the state assembly gradually. Owaisi himself was elected to the assembly for the first time in 1960 and remained its member with out any break till 1983. In 1984 he was elected for the first time to the Lok Sabha from Hyderabad and represented the seat for 20 years without any break. With his health failing he retired from electoral politics in 2004 and made the way for his London trained barrister Asaduddin Owaisi. While initially he had the image of a fiery speaker and a rabble rouser championing communal politics, the latter half of his political career was marked by his keen interests in educational and social welfare of the minority community. He set up several professional educational institutions including a medical and an engineering college, a super specialty hospital and an urban cooperative bank. Asaduddain Owaisi, MP, and Akberuddain Owaisi, MLA, along with MIM Supremo Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi During the 1970s and 1980s, when communal riots had become a regular feature in Hyderabad, the MIM emerged as the champion and savior of Muslim minority while the Hindus rallied around the BJP. He enjoyed a blow cold blow hot relationship with the major political parties including Congress. In an acknowledgement of the strength and influence of MIM, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had visited MIMs headquarters Darussalam in Hyderabad in 1980. MIM is till an ally of the Congress party in the state politics. Help India! Riyadh : Saudi police arrested an Indian immigrant who allegedly disrespected Islams holy Kaaba site on Facebook, covering it with an image of Buddha, a local report said Monday. The regions investigative department were able to capture and arrest a suspect, in his forties and who works in agriculture, who insulted our holy site, said a Riyadh police spokesman cited by the Al-Arabiya TV network. Support TwoCircles He superimposed a picture of the Buddha on the Kaaba and posted on social media, Al-Arabiya quoted the spokesman as adding. Police were able to identify and arrest the unnamed Indian at a farm in Al Majmaah city in the province of Riyadh, he said. The Kaaba, an ancient monument at the centre of the Al-Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca, is Islams most sacred place. Help India! By Faisal Fareed, TwoCircles.net In the run up to 2017 assembly polls three parties announced their alliance in Lucknow. The partiesRashtriya Lok Dal, Janata Dal (U) and BSSS (Bahujan Swabhiman Sangharsh Samiti) headed by former BSP minister R K Choudhary targeted Mulayam for straying away from the path of Dr Lohia. Support TwoCircles Ajit Singh, who was had lately been trying for an alliance with Samajwadi Party, minced no words in claiming that Mulayam has left the path of Lohia and Choudhary Charan Singh. Sharad Yadav of JD (U) also agreed to his allegations. Both these leaders recently attended the 25th silver jubilee celebrations of SP in Lucknow and appealed from the stage to Mulayam for taking over the reins of proposed alliance. Mulayam, who was busy sorting out political squabble of his family, however, finally turned it down few days later claiming that there will be no alliance and those who wish can merge their parties with his SP. Hurt by the cold shoulder response, Ajit Singh remarked: When before Bihar polls there was talk for merger of all socialist parties, Mulayam did not agree. Now when there were talks of alliance in UP, he again pulled out. What is the reason that Mulayam does not want to see the anti communal forces and followers of Lohia and Choudhary Charan Singh on one platform ? Ajit Singh in a veiled attack claimed that everyone knows what are the limitations of Mulayam for not going for an alliance and he does not want things to come out from his mouth. Now the time is not left for merger. We tried for alliance of all followers of Lohia and Choudhary Charan Singh but it did not materialize. We are ready for merger but where is the time. Now these three parties will contest polls as alliance partners. Talks are going on with few other smaller parties, Sharad Yadav said. Ajit Singh however claimed that so far no talks have been held with Congress over alliance. In the upcoming UP polls, parties are now scrambling for alliance. The BJP has already tied up with Apna Dal and Bhartiya Samaj Party. Smaller parties with their pockets of influence are getting their due. SP has already finalized merger with Mukhtar Ansaris Qaumi Ekta Dal. On the other hand Peace Party of Dr Ayub has tied up with Mahaan Dal. Congress too is in talks with several smaller groups while its poll strategist Prashant Kishore had held meeting with Mulayam, Shivpal and Akhilesh adding speculation to a possible tie up which was nipped in the bud by Mulayam. Smaller outfits like Rashtriya Ulema Council too are busy reviving the Ettehad Front. Help India! By Faisal Fareed, TwoCircles.net What would you call a function attended and hosted by the Gandhi family in Allahabad, a few months before the UP elections? Surely this was meant to discuss the partys strategy for the upcoming elections? Support TwoCircles Well, according to Congress leaders, it was a non-political function, meant to celebrate the birth centenary of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The venue was Swaraj Bhawan and the Gandhi family ensured that they acted like good hosts, attending each and every guest. Needless to say, this was an exclusive party, with guests including UP Congress President Raj Babbar, UP incharge Ghulam Nabi Azad and former Delhi CM Sheila Dixit. Presence and activeness of Priyanka Gandhi once again gave air to the question which only she can answer better: Will she join active politics? Sonia was all praise for Indira Gandhi and shared her experiences. After decades, the whole family was in Allahabad together. The family claimed Allahabad is the birthplace of Indira:she was born and brought up here and married and so Allahabad was chosen for celebrating her birth centenary, which included a photo exhibition about the life and times of Indira Gandhi. While Rahul Gandhi discussed issues arising out of demonetization, Sonia Gandhi stopped her speech on hearing Azan and even covered her head with the saree pallu. Her actions were seen as a gesture towards Muslims. The step and efforts by Gandhi family clearly reflects that despite being on a sticky wicket in UP, they are not going to give a walk over to others in the state and that efforts will be made to revive the grand old party. Help India! By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter, Pune (Maharashtra): Aggrieved by the non-fulfilment of promise from central government of providing reparation and the slow speed of trial against 22 members of Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS) even after more than two and half years after Mohsin Shaikh was brutally murdered by members of HRS in Pune, his father has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Support TwoCircles On June 2, 2014, 24-year-old Mohsin Shaikh, a resident of Solapur district in Maharashtra who was working as a manager in an IT firm in Pune, was assaulted and killed by the members of HRS when he was returning from a Mosque. The incident had taken place only a week after Narendra Modi took the Prime Ministerial oath in New Delhi. On Monday ,Sadiq Shaikh sent a two-page letter to Modi urging him to consider recommendations of National Commission for Minorities that was submitted by it to the government after its visit to Pune in the aftermath of the sporadic violence under taken by the Hindu radicals in June 2014 resulting into death of his son. Among other demands, Shaikh has asked for banning HRS and hearing of the case in a fast track court to avoid tardiness. A three-member team of National Commission for Minorities comprising of Tsering Namgayal Shanoo, Dr. Ajaib Singh and Captain Parveen Der had visited Pun city after couple of months of the incidence and had met Shaikh. I was told by the commission in August 2014 that they would propose for ban over HRS but no action has been taken against it yet. What more proof is required to ban such organisation when so many members have been arrested in this case who not only ignited communal violence in the city but also killed my son as he was a Muslim, Shaikh said while speaking with TwoCircles.net. In addition to this, he has also urged Modi to provide financial assistance to him under Victim Relief Fund and provide a job to his younger son in Railways, as was recommended by the Minority commission. Related : Mohsin Shaikhs murder: Even after two years, family awaits compensation Help India! By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net New Delhi: On the occasion of Arbaeen or Chehlum of Imam Husain, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh), Anjuman-e-Haideri (Delhi) called upon people from all faiths to observe the day as Anti-Terrorism Day, bringing together scholars, spiritual leaders from different faiths and ambassador, diplomats from Iraq, Syria and Russia. Support TwoCircles For the second year in a row, the event condemned terrorism and created awareness among people, along with bringing diplomats and ambassadors from countries suffering from menace of terrorism and those fighting against it. The event, which took place on Monday November 21st at Dargah Shah e Mardan, Jor Bagh in Delhi was attended by more than 50,000 people. Ambassador of Iraq to India and diplomats from Russia and Syria shared the dais with religious leaders and vowed to fight terror together. Iraq is right now going through a very difficult phase. We are against terrorism and our fight against terrorism will continue. We got millions of people fighting against Islamic State in Iraq who are inspired by the sacrifices made by Imam Hussain (AS), said Iraqi Ambassador to India, Fakhri Hassan Al-Issa. The Iraqi Ambassador also focused on international community to come forward with humanitarian aid required for people who got displaced due to fight against terrorism in Iraq. While appreciating Indian support to fight against terrorism, the Syrian diplomat thanked Indian people and Indian leadership for its continued support to Syria for their fight against Islamic State. The fight against Islamic stage is in decisive phase and we are hopeful that we will hear some good news in near future in this war on terror, said the Syrian Diplomat. General secretary of the All India Majlis Ulema Hind, Maulana Kalbe Jawad also condemned terror unleashed by Islamic state across the world. Besides he spoke on sunni-shia in the Indian context, We should take steps towards Sunni-Sjhia unity and we will fully cooperate in this regard, he said. Morton County Sheriffs Department(NEW YORK) For the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline perpetuates a long history of broken promises made by the U.S. government. We live with so many broken promises, theres no reason for it, Dave Archambault II, the chairman of the tribe, told ABC News. We understand what lands we own, and what lands were illegally taken from us, he added. The nearly 1,200-mile-long, $3.7-billion Dakota Access pipeline plans to cross the Missouri River just north of the Standing Rock Reservation, prompting concerns for the safety of the tribes drinking water and preservation of its sacred sites. For months, the Standing Rock Sioux and their supporters have camped out along the banks of the Missouri River in an effort to stop the controversial project. Hundreds of protesters, or water protectors, as they prefer to be called, have been arrested since the protests began, many charged with criminal trespassing. But the protesters say they arent trespassing; in fact, they say they are the victims, citing the broken treaties their ancestors made with the U.S. government. The proposed route passes through land that was once set aside for the Sioux in the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. That historic agreement ensured the Sioux could retain portions of five states, but ceded all of their land east of the Missouri River to the U.S. government in exchange for money, agricultural aid and strict rules about any access to Sioux territory by outsiders. However, the agreement was short-lived. Before the ink was dry, westerners were coming in, Archambault said. The U.S. government did little to stop white settlers from infringing, according to the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Things only got worse for the Sioux after gold was discovered at the headwaters of the Missouri River in 1861, prompting a flood of settlers. The tribes repeatedly objected to the intrusions and demanded government recognition of the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty, but their complaints fell on deaf ears. By 1868, the U.S. government and representatives of various Sioux tribes convened once again at Fort Laramie. The resulting treaty established a much smaller territory known as the Great Sioux Reservation, but under Article 12 no further land loss could occur unless approved by three-fourths of adult Sioux males. Nevertheless, after gold was discovered in the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota deep in Sioux territory, Congress passed the Act of 1877 which ceded the Black Hills to the United States without tribal approval in one of the most controversial land grabs in U.S. history. More than a century later in 1980, the Sioux took the Black Hills case to the Supreme Court and won a decision that rewarded the tribe with more than $100 million. To this day, the Sioux have refused to accept the funds, hoping instead to get back the sacred land itself. After seizing the Black Hills, Congress moved to further reduce the Great Sioux Reservation in acts passed in 1887 and 1889, dividing it into fragments of its original 1868 version. Since then, the Standing Rock Reservations borders have essentially remained the same, though the tribe claims it lost thousands of acres of its best lands to flooding after the government erected several dams along the Missouri River without consulting the tribe in the mid-20th century. Its a dark history that weighs heavily on the Standing Rock Sioux and their sympathizers. Just last week, the Army Corp of Engineers, the government agency responsible for determining whether to issue the final easement necessary for the pipeline to cross the Missouri River, announced that "additional discussion and analysis are warranted in light of the history of the Great Sioux Nations dispossessions of lands," according to a statement released on Nov. 14. It's like a perpetrator committing a crime on an innocent individual, Archambault told ABC News. If you do it once, you should be stopped; if you do it again, you should be stopped; if youre not, you become a serial perpetrator time and time and time again, and today we are saying, 'No, dont put this pipeline here, enough is enough,' he said. Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. The American Television Series "Insecure" is described as the opposite of how Modern-day black women might be perceived which is strong and confident, However, this is basically the opposite of Issa and Molly who are the main Characters in the TV series "Insecure". The two best friends deal with their own real-life flaws, their insecurities and together they cope with an endless series of uncomfortable everyday experiences. This television series is created by co-star Issa Rae and writer/comic Larry Wilmore ("The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"). This comedy series looks at the friendship of two black women in a unique and authentic way. It also features the music of both indie and established artists of colour, and touches on a variety of social and racial issues that relate to the contemporary black experience. In the series, Issa is having a hard time getting out of her late 20s. Shes the only black person who works at a non-profit that caters to helping school kids in troubled neighbourhoods. Her romance with live-in boyfriend Lawrence (Jay Ellis) is wilting and shes on the verge of breaking up with him. Meanwhile, her successful lawyer friend Molly played by (Yvonne Orji) cant meet a good man, maybe because shes always trying to corral them into a relationship against their will. HBO's new comedy show 'Insecure' HBOs long-gestating comedy "Insecure" is the first pilot this season that comes close to perfection, because it is the sort of show that leaves you feeling giddy and eager to tell all of your friends about it. Issa Rae, who is also the creator of the web series Awkward Black Girl writing skills, is funny, crisp and original, her performance, as the character called Issa in "Insecure", is also excellent. The secondary characters are all enjoyable (apart from her best friend Molly, who needs a good shake but in a loving way). The hip-hop soundtrack is amazing, featuring many female rappers. "Insecure" is just so good and too amazing to be missed so I urge everyone to tune in to see this series. Definitely, a TV series to catch up on - that is if you havent already seen the episodes that are out now An exquisite Victorian porcelain vase is back where it belongs following a successful 50,000 #fundraising bid launched by Shropshire's Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. The Northumberland Vase is believed to be one of the largest pieces of porcelain made by The Coalport China Company at Ironbridge. For the last 30 years it had been on loan to the Coalport China Museum one of ten museums at Ironbridge. Other antiques could also have been lost However, the vase along with five other significant pieces of Caughley and Coalport china were in danger of being lost forever when the owner decided to sell them at auction. The precious items were considered to be of great local and international interest and it was feared that if sold off they could disappear from public view forever. However, determined not to lose this important part of Shropshire's history, the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust launched a fundraising appeal in August 2016 to raise the money to buy them back and return these beautiful works of art to the museum where they could continue to inspire Youngsters for generations to come. Financial support from individuals and organisations Within four months, with support from the local community, various charities and foundations, they reached their target and managed to buy all six items back. #Fundraising manager at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, Nicole Hermanns was delighted and grateful to everyone who had made the acquisition of these items possible. She said that while they had many ornamental pieces of Coalport porcelain, nothing compared to the quality, size and opulence of the Northumberland Vase. She added: The acquisition of this piece has greatly enhanced our nationally Designated collections. UNESCO World Heritage Site Ironbridge Gorge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution. In the 19th century the Coalport China Company was renowned for producing some of the finest porcelain in Britain. The Northumberland vase was created to show off that superior quality and was exhibited at the 1862 International Exhibition in #London where it was awarded a bronze medal. It was then bought by Lord Percy the Duke of Northumberland, and kept at Alnwick Castle. A happy reunion The other items which the museum has successfully bought back are two beautifully decorated 18th century Caughley bowls made at the Caughley China Factory at Broseley; a Coalport China 'Loving Cup'; and two Coalport plaques decorated by one of Coalport's most acclaimed artists, John Randall. All are now safely back home at the Coalport China Museum where they originated. #Youngsters #Art Japanese authorities have predicted the height of a tsunami to reach 3 meters following as 7.4 magnitude Earthquake. The tsunami has already hit a very wide area including Fukushima. Waves as high as 140 centimeters are already being observed throughout northern japan. Although no deaths have ocurred, panicked residents have started taken precautions. Japanese PM message The Japanese PM is currently in Argentina and has ordered government officials to provide updated information on a on going basis and evacuation alerts and instructions. The tsunami will hit repeatedly, so residents have been told to evacuate to higher ground and tall evacuation buildings, and not leave the safe buildings until officials say it is safe to do so, due to the high possibility of getting aftershocks for days to come. They are also issuing information to the public that a new earthquake may hit Japan next week. Fukushima nuclear facility The nuclear team authorities in Fukushima nuclear facilities said there are no reports of abnormalities and it is safe as of now. No changes of radiation were observed around those facilities, altough waves are reaching a meter high. So far, about two thousand people have evacuated the coast of Japan, the areas presenting the highest danger. People have been told to be very cautious for the next seven days and to avoid the entire coastal areas. Some people are reportedly hearing alert sirens on and off. The earthquake which caused this tsunami had a 7.4 magnitude and an epicenter in Fukushima. Japan is one of the most earthquake prone countries on earth, with more than 1,000 earthquakes recorded each year in the nation, altough most earthquakes have much lower magnitude than the one we saw on the news today. U.S department of state issued warnings to Americans in Japan The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo issued a warning to U.S. citizens in coastal areas of Northeastern Japan saying that the Japan Meteorological Agency has issued a Tsunami warning for Fukushima Prefecture, the Pacific Coast of Aomori Prefecture, Iwate Prefecture, Miyagi Prefecture, Ibaraki Prefecture and the Kujukuri and Sotobo Area of Chiba Prefecture. The Tsunami Warning follows a powerful earthquake that struck off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture just after 6:00 AM Japan Standard Time. Persons in coastal regions under the Tsunami Warning should evacuate immediately from coastal regions and riverside areas to a safer place such as high ground or an evacuation building. Tsunami waves are expected to hit repeatedly. Do not leave safe ground until the warning is lifted. All U.S. citizens living in or traveling to the area should monitor local weather reports, follow directions from local officials, and take other appropriate actions as needed. The Embassy is monitoring the situation and will provide further information as it becomes available ". As of 9 pm U.S eastern standard time, the tsunami evacuation alert has been downgraded to an advisory. North Carolina Campus Compacts Prestigious Award Given to UNCW Student UNCW senior Regina Elise Wilson 17 has been awarded the Community Impact Award from the North Carolina Campus Compact as one of the Compacts 2016 Election Engagement Fellows. A lifelong humanitarian, Wilson worked toward bettering her community long before entering college, traveling all over the world for the nonprofit Operation Smile to provide operations for children with cleft lips and palates. Now Wilson is changing the face of civic commitment on the UNCW campus. Already an engagement guide for the Office of Student Leadership and Engagement, a Boys & Girls Club volunteer and an elementary and middle school tutor, Wilson joined the NC Campus Compact to get more involved in voter registration. Her efforts across the UNCW campus have reached past OSLE to student government, the political science honor society, the Black Student Union and beyond. She reached roughly 2,000 students with her message, leading a team that registered approximately 700 people to vote before the recent election. NC Campus Compact and OSLE have given me everything and have really helped me with my UNCW experience, said Wilson. I feel like I should be giving them an award. A network of 36 North Carolina universities and colleges, the NC Campus Compact works to enhance civic engagement across higher education. They do this in part by recognizing students like Wilson. This year, she was among 25 students highlighted, joining the ranks of the 200 students the Compact has recognized since 2006. Wilson attended their annual CSNAP conference on Nov. 12 with other Election Engagement Fellows to present on their efforts and receive the award. At the core of Elises involvement with our office is positive community impact, said Erin Williamson, assistant director for OSLE. Perhaps more meaningful than her contributions, however, is the important side effect of her work. Elise has developed her passion for a more just society. The contributions of students like Elise combined with their own personal development is what our work at UNCW is all about. In the future, Wilson wants to focus on continuing to help her community, and part of that help means turning toward education. After graduation, Wilson will start a two-year appointment with Teach for America where she will serve in an underprivileged and low-income community. Wilsons long-term goal is to attend law school, where she hopes to focus on education reform. Education is the most important thing you can do to help a generation grow up and lead a nation, Wilson said. Its critical to teach children equality, equity and everything thats happened in our world. -- Caitlin Taylor 18M #SA #OSLE blockchain Technology: Opportunities and Challenges is a conference currently underway at the Bundesbank Conference Centre in Eltville, Germany on the Rhine River. The conference was organized by Germany's central bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, in collaboration with the internationally renowned, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. Scheduled to take place across the four days between November 21st and 24th, the conference is centered around a series of workshops hosted and facilitated by speakers from European central banks, financial institutions, EU Parliament, industry and academia. The Blockchain Revolution Deutsche Bundesbank describes the focus of the conference as follows: "This workshop addresses technological achievements of Blockchain and possible business cases especially in the financial sector. It tries to answer the question whether Bitcoin has a future in payments and illustrates examples for a possible use of Blockchain Technology. Furthermore, it discusses the topic from the viewpoint of central banks and regulators." Blockchain technology has been heralded as a truly revolutionary financial technology innovation for a number of unique reasons. In essence blockchain is described as a distributed database that expands link by link, block by block, in a steady and segmented fashion. Each block contains a specific time stamp as well as a link to the previous block in the chain. The data inside each block, by design and through the power of complex cryptography cannot be altered. Blockchain technology has been celebrated for the way this technology can democratize global financial transactions and trade. A blockchain system allows consumers and suppliers to connect directly, removing the need for a third party such as bank. Because of how the system is designed, blockchain technology has been suggested to be extremely secure. In essence the blockchain acts as a decentralized database or on-going digital record of transactions which everyone on a particular network can view independently. The first blockchain designed by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. In 2009, bitcoins were unveiled and were the first currency to be built off of blockchain technology. By utilizing a peer-to-peer network and a decentralized timestamping server, a blockchain database is managed autonomously. Will blockchain change the world? In a 2014 interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Deutsche Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele suggested that bitcoins should be regulated by central banking authorities. In that interview Thiele outlined the speculative nature of the bitcoin market as the main reason to seek regulation: "Bitcoin users often assume that Internet payments with bitcoin are cheaper than international bank transfers or paying with a credit card. They forget, however, that the price of bitcoins fluctuates greatly, among other things. Ultimately, the losses can quickly become considerably higher than transfer or credit card fees." At this time, it is unclear whether Blockchain Technology: Opportunities and Challenges will lead to new German or European regulation around bitcoins and other blockchain technologies but it is abundantly clear the topic has gained the attention of the world's largest financial institutions and regulatory bodies. TAIPEI -- Taiwanese carrier TransAsia Airways announced Monday that it will suspend operation on Nov 22 without elaborating on the cause. The island's third largest carrier said it will release more information to the general public after holding a temporary shareholders' meeting on Tuesday. The company said passengers would get a refund for their tickets within 45 days. Taiwan's aviation regulator said TransAsia Airways will be punished for its abrupt suspension, and for not reporting it to the regulator and the general public in advance. The company has been slammed for poor flight safety for years. On Feb 4, 2015, a TransAsia Airways ATR-72 airplane crashed into Keelung River in Taipei shortly after takeoff, killing 43 people of 58 people onboard. On July 23, 2014, TransAsia Flight GE222, a ATR 72-500 model, crashed near Magong Airport in Penghu. The company did not achieve any remarkable improvements in safety measures after those mishaps. The aviation regulator said earlier this year that it had neglected flight safety and fostered a culture of sloppy practice among its ATR 72 pilots. TransAsia Airways reported a loss of 2.22 billion new Taiwan dollars ($69.54 million) in the first three quarters. The company's share prices plummeted after news of the suspension was released. An official from the island's labor department was quoted saying that the carrier was on the brink of closure. According to Taiwanese laws, the carrier could be fined up to three million new Taiwan dollars for the abrupt announcement and suspension. Founded in 1951, the island's first private airlines, TransAsia Airways first focused on routes in the island. It now operates many international and cross-Straits flights. Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Yang and US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew compared notes on Monday on economic cooperation between the two countries and the implementation of the consensus reached at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou in early September. Wang, leading a Chinese delegation, is in Washington to attend the 27th session of the China-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) from Monday through Wednesday. The US delegation is led by Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and US Trade Representative Michael Froman. US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack also will attend the dialogue. It will be the last high-level economic and trade dialogue between the two governments this year. The meeting will focus on how to implement the consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama, exchanging views on major economic and trade issues and exploring ways to expand mutually beneficial cooperation, according to the Ministry of Commerce. During the JCCT session, a business roundtable, symposium on the digital economy and a seminar on food security also have been scheduled. First launched in May 1983, long before the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), the JCCT has been regarded as one of the oldest high-level dialogue mechanisms between the two governments. The Ministry of Commerce has described JCCT as playing an indispensable role in expanding mutually beneficial cooperation, easing economic and trade frictions and pushing forward China-US economic and trade relations on a healthy and stable development path. Besides the annual high-level plenary sessions, 14 JCCT working groups meet throughout the year to address topics such as agriculture, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, information technology, travel and tourism and intellectual property rights, according to the US Department of Commerce. The 26th JCCT meeting was held in Guangzhou, capital city of South China's Guangdong province, from Nov 21-23, 2015, when the two sides reached a consensus on a host of issues such as export control, intellectual property rights, innovation policy, two-way investment, competition policy, the approval of pharmaceutical and medical devices, and agricultural and forestry goods trade and aviation cooperation, according to the Ministry of Commerce. The US was China's second-largest trade partner, top export market and fourth-largest source of imports in 2015. Meanwhile, China was the largest trade partner for the US, the third-largest export market and the No. 1 source for imports, according to the ministry. Two-way goods trade reached $558.4 billion in 2015, while total two-way foreign direct investment exceeded $160 billion. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com The outlook for Chinese internet firm LeEco's electric-vehicle factory in the US state of Nevada remains bleak, although the Beijing-based firm said it will aggressively raise capital. A state official showed his concerns about the fate of Faraday Future, the electric carmaker building a $1 billion plant in North Las Vegas, which was backed by LeEco, and the financial strength of LeEco and ability of Jia Yueting, its CEO and founder. "The projects Jia invested in, including in China, seem very difficult for him personally to realize," Nevada State Treasurer Dan Schwartz said in an interview with China Daily. "If you look at Leshi (LeEco's listed arm) it has roughly $6 billion in revenue, but it's netting about $50 million. That profit margin is less than 1 percent. ... Grocery stores make 2 percent to 3 percent," Schwartz saod. "It's clear Mr Jia doesn't have any money; it's clear that Leshi isn't making money. That's the reason for my concern." Schwartz said the factory construction stopped earlier last week, and he believed it was because no payment had been received from Faraday. A statement from Faraday Future last week claimed it never halted work on the Nevada factory, but finished the first phase of construction, with plans to move into the second phase in February. "The damage to the state will be fairly minimal, because we haven't issued any bonds. The governor would be very embarrassed, and the economic development agency would be very embarrassed," said Schwartz. For North Las Vegas, the consequences might be more serious because the city has basically run out of money; it was counting on the project to get them out of the hole. LeEco did not deny defaulting on construction costs for the FF project, and confirmed the capital isn't available, saying it is now actively raising money. In August, the company announced it would invest 20 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) to build an auto park in Zhejiang province to mass-produce electric cars. It said on Monday the project will begin construction by year-end. Shen Meng, director of Chanson & Co, a boutique investment bank in China, said there is still doubts whether LeEco's electric-vehicle projects in Nevada and Zhejiang could realize mass production. "The company is facing a funding gap, and where the over 70 billion-yuan capital raised in the past has gone is still a mystery," said Shen. Jia has said that the firm has problems in supply chain management and capital issues, and pledged to end overexpansion and cash burning. Contact the writers through fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn By An Baijie in Lima, Peru | China Daily USA | Updated: 2016-11-22 13:11 President Xi Jinping announced several measures on Monday to share China's development opportunities with Latin American countries during his third visit to the region as China's head of state. In a speech delivered at the Peruvian Congress, Xi said that China will enhance technology transfer to Latin American countries and boost human resources cooperation with the region. In the next three years, China will raise the training quota to 10,000 for people from Latin America and invite Latin American journalists to work and study in China. He also proposed a roundtable discussion on environmental protection with Latin American countries next year. Xi last Thursday began state visits to three countries - Ecuador, Peru and Chile. He will fly to Chile on Tuesday. In his speech, Xi urged Chinese investors to respect local traditions, abide by national laws and shoulder their social responsibilities in promoting employment when their companies expand overseas. Xi said that China firmly supports developing countries to increase their voices in the global governance system. He called on Latin American countries to proactively participate in free-trade arrangements in the Asia and Pacific region and oppose all forms of protectionism. Xi earlier had met with the Peruvian Congress President Luz Salgado and received an honorary medal. Peru would like to enhance its cooperation with China in areas such as laws, trade, investment and infrastructure, Salgado told Xi. It is Xi's third visit to Latin America as president since he took office in 2013. Chinese statistics show that the trade volume between China and Latin America rose more than 20-fold during the past decade to reach $236.5 billion in 2015. China is the second-largest trading partner and third-largest investment source in Latin America, while Latin America is China's seventh-largest trading partner. Xi's state visits show that China is keen to strengthen ties with Latin America, Venezuelan political analyst Vladimir Adrianza told the Xinhua News Agency. China represents both an "excellent" development model for regional countries and provides attractive incentives, said Adrianza, who teaches at the Bolivarian Military University of Venezuela in Caracas. "A growing China-Latin America relationship can help promote multilateral and global development," he was quoted as saying. Sun Xiaohui, a researcher of international strategy at the China Institute of International Studies, said that Xi's three trips to Latin American countries show that China will never forget its friends of developing countries. China is playing an active role in providing public services and products for developing countries, which will bring prosperity, he said. anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn November 21, 2016 - Dhaka, Bangladesh - Bangladeshi students protest against the recent mass killing of Rohingya people in Myanmar at the Dhaka University campus in Dhaka, Bangladesh on November 21, 2016. Hundreds of students of Dhaka University gathered at Raju Memorial Monument around with placards and festoons and urged the United Nation and other global human right bodies to force the Myanmar government to stop the mass killing and violence against the Rohingya people. The protesters also demanded the cancellation of Nobel Prize of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi as she failed to stop the violence against minority Rohingya people of Rakhine state.[Photo/IC] The intense fighting that broke out between Myanmar's government forces and the members of three armed groups on Sunday near the border with China has shown that the road to national reconciliation in Myanmar remains long and tortuous. Beijing has wasted no time in calling on all parties to exercise restraint, and it has urged the conflicting parties to agree to end the fighting and restore stability. In the meantime, the People's Liberation Army has been put on alert to protect the lives and property of Chinese citizens in the event the fighting escalates. On previous occasions, Chinese residents have been killed and injured when fighting has spilled over the border into China. It is to be hoped, however, that all parties in Myanmar will make concrete efforts to progress the peace process by adhering to dialogue and consultation. The victory of Aung San Suu Kyi's party in Myanmar's elections last year raised fresh hope that peace and reconciliation could be achieved in Myanmar based on fair and transparent power sharing and trust-building among all parties through talks and consultations. And although Sunday's fighting happened amid the attempts by the Myanmar government to secure non-conflict agreements with those ethnic groups that have not yet signed one, so as to pave the way for the national-level political dialogue scheduled late this month, the push for peace will continue. China, as Myanmar's friend and partner, stands ready to help the country put an end to its decades of armed conflicts. As President Xi Jinping said during his meeting with Myanmar's Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services Senior General Min Aung Hlaing during the latter's visit to China earlier this month, both countries can seize the opportunity to give new meaning to China-Myanmar ties in the new era, so as to bring benefits to the people of both countries. If fighting persists, it will inevitably disrupt peace and stability in the border area. It will also result in an influx of more fleeing Myanmar people into China and damage hopes for the future development of the area. Stability and a peaceful border will not only protect the lives and security of people from both countries, but also help boost bilateral trade and help complete at an early date the proposed economic corridor linking India, Bangladesh, China and Myanmar that will facilitate development in the area, deepen cooperation and jointly safeguard the common interests of the countries involved. Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Yang speaks at the closing ceremony of the 2016 China-US Tourism Year in Washington. [Photo by Chen Weihua/chinadaily.com.cn] Top Chinese and US leaders have high hopes for growing bilateral relations between the two nations by boosting two-way tourism. President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama sent their congratulations to participants of the closing ceremony of the 2016 China-US Tourism Year on Sunday evening at the Warner Theater in Washington. Xi recalled the announcement that he and Obama made in September 2015 to hold the China-US Tourism Year, saying the decision was made "to promote the building of a new model of major country relationship, pushing forward practical cooperation, and enhancing people-to-people friendship between our two countries". He said the tourism year has been marked with colorful and fruitful events, which helped to expand people-to-people exchanges and practical cooperation in various areas, and inject new impetus into China-US relations. "The growth of China-US relations requires the participation and support of our peoples. I hope the two sides will build on the success of the China-US Tourism Year to sustain the momentum of people-to-people and cultural exchanges, enhance mutual understanding and friendship between our two peoples, and reinforce the social foundation for the development of China-US relations," Xi said in the letter, read by Vice-Premier Wang Yang, who led a Chinese delegation to attend the closing ceremony and the China-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade to be held in Washington this week. In a letter read by US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Obama said the US-China Tourism Year has enabled the American and Chinese peoples to experience new cultures, explore new places and get to know each other. "A future of peace and prosperity and friendship depends on our efforts to understand each other. That is why the United States will continue to welcome the Chinese people to our shores, whether to hike to our national parks, dine in our vibrant cities, or learn more about our rich history. I also encourage Americans to discover all China has to offer," Obama said. Xi and Obama just met on Saturday in Lima, Peru, on the sidelines of the APEC Leaders' Meeting. The 2016 China-US Tourism Year was announced by Xi and Obama last September during Xi's state visit to the US. An opening ceremony was held in Beijing in February this year. In the first three quarters of this year, the number of Chinese travelers to the US jumped by 14.7 percent over the same period last year while the number of US travelers to China rose by 7.3 percent. Total number of two-way Chinese and American travelers is expected to exceed 5 million this year. Last year, Chinese tourists made 2.59 million trips to the US, with total spending estimated at $30.1 billion. This year, Chinese are expected to make more than 3 million trips, creating some 45,000 direct jobs and 230,000 indirect jobs in the US, according to Wang. The vice-premier said China is willing to make concerted efforts with the US side to further facilitate visa policies and to provide more convenient, comfortable and safe services to tourists. He also pledged to further open the tourism industry to foreign investors. "The China-US Tourism Year is drawing to a close, but the show of tourism cooperation between the two countries has just begun," Wang said, ahead of an evening concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra and China's National Center for the Performing Arts Orchestra. The two orchestras have a close collaboration for many years. The Philadelphia Orchestra was the first US orchestra to visit China in 1973 at the invitation of then-US president Richard Nixon, who made his historic trip to China a year earlier. Pritzker recalled her first trip to China in 1984 when she visited the Great Wall in Beijing and the Bund in Shanghai. "Looking back, what I am most grateful for has been the opportunity to see China then, so I could appreciate what it is growing to today," said Pritzker, who has made many business and leisure trips to China since then. "I witnessed China's incredible evolution into one of the most remarkable and popular tourist destinations in the world," she said. US Ambassador to China Max Baucus cited the Chinese saying that "reading 10,000 books is not as good as walking 10,000 miles". "You need to get out and experience that country," he said. Baucus, who has been in Beijing for about three years, said one of his great joys is going out to meet as many people as he can. He said through traveling he felt that people either in the United States or China or elsewhere in the world want basically the same thing. "We all want good jobs, we all want to make ends meet, we want good education for our kids, we want clean environment to live in, clean air to breathe," he said. WASHINGTON - Chinese President Xi Jinping said Sunday that the China-US Tourism Year has helped expand people-to-people exchanges and given fresh impetus to bilateral relations. "Thanks to joint efforts, the Tourism Year has been marked with colorful and fruitful events, which have helped expand our people-to-people exchanges and practical cooperation in various areas, and injected new impetus to China-US relations," Xi said in a written message to the closing ceremony of the China-US Tourism Year 2016 held in Washington on Sunday. He urged the two sides to build on the success of the Tourism Year to sustain the momentum of people-to-people and cultural exchanges, enhance mutual understanding and friendship, and reinforce the social foundation for the development of China-US relations. "The growth of China-US relations requires the participation and support of our peoples," he said. The China-US Tourism Year was an outcome of Xi's state visit to the United States in September 2015. Xi said he and US President Barack Obama made the decision with a view to promoting the building of a new model of major-country relationship, and carrying forward practical cooperation and enhancing friendship between the two countries. Students protest against a military intelligence pact between South Korea and Japan, Nov 22, 2016. [Photo/IC] SEOUL - South Korea on Tuesday endorsed a bilateral military intelligence pact with Japan at a cabinet meeting despite public and parliamentary opposition. The pact to directly exchange military intelligence on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear and missile programs was approved at the cabinet meeting chaired by Yoo Il-ho, deputy prime minister for economic affairs. The cabinet meeting was initially presided over by President Park Geun-hye, but the president hasn't appeared at the meeting on growing public fury over the scandal involving President Park and her longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil. Prosecutors identified Park as a criminal accomplice to Choi in many of criminal acts when indicting Park's decades-long friend on multiple charges including abuse of power and extortion on Sunday. The signing ceremony of the pact, dubbed the General Security of the Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), is scheduled to be held in Seoul on Wednesday. With the presidential ratification expected later Tuesday, South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo and Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine would formally seal the pact. It will go into effect immediately after the signing. If realized, the two countries would reach an agreement less than a month after resuming talks on the pact. South Korea has hurriedly pushed the accord as part of efforts to find a breakthrough by regaining support from conservative voters sensitive to security issues. Seoul and Tokyo held the first working-level dialogue earlier this month and initialed the pact a week ago. The pact was approved here at vice ministers' meeting three days later. South Korea's three main opposition parties have opposed the hurried, unilateral push, saying they will propose the impeachment of the defense minister if it is signed. Public objections are strong. According to a Gallup Korea poll released on Friday, 59 percent opposed the deal with Japan unrepentant of its brutalities during World War II. The Korean Peninsula was colonized by the Imperial Japan from 1910 to 1945. During a state visit, President Xi says China will encourage its business giants to invest in the South American nation China and Peru signed a number of cooperative documents on Monday as the two countries look to upgrade their free-trade agreement during President Xi Jinping's state visit. The signings of the agreements and memorandums of understanding (MOU) were witnessed by Xi and Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. The two countries agreed to enhance cooperation in areas including energy, trade, mineral, finance, industrial park and infrastructure. According to the documents, China agreed to assist with equipment for an archeological museum in Lima. While talking with Kuczynski, Xi said that the two countries should make full use of production capacity cooperation as a new engine for bilateral economic and trade growth. The Chinese government will continue to encourage Chinese business giants to invest in Peru, Xi said, adding that the two countries should explore new cooperative areas such as environmental protection, clean energy and information interconnection. Xi also congratulated Peru for successfully hosting the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting over the weekend, which could inject new impetus into the economic development of the Asia-Pacific region. Kuczynski said that Peru welcomed China's investment in areas including minerals, energy, hydropower, traffic and infrastructure. Peru would like to make a joint effort with China to upgrade the bilateral free trade agreement, he added. Xi's state visit to Peru came only about two months after Kuczynski, who was sworn in on July 28, made his first foreign visit to China. On Monday, Xi and Kuczynski also attended the closing ceremony of the China-Latin America and Caribbean 2016 Year of Culture Exchange. This year marks the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Peru. The two countries signed a free-trade agreement in 2009. China is now Peru's biggest trade partner, export market and source of imports, while Peru is China's sixth-largest trade partner in Latin America. Two-way trade between the two countries reached about $7.2 billion in the first half of this year, up 10.7 percent year on year, according to Chinese official statistics. The two countries have maintained close cultural and educational exchanges. To date, four Confucius Institutes have been established in Peru. anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn State of the Blog I'm not keeping up the blog like I used to. Posts will be here and there, as the mood strikes. Most of what I have to say is in my book. Thank you for reading. Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page. Loading... Checking your browser before accessing the website. This process is automatic. Your browser will redirect to your requested content shortly. Please wait a few seconds. iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Four police officers have been shot within a 24-hour span across four cities, adding to what has become a violent year for members of law enforcement. Of the shootings, authorities have labelled two as being targeted attacks. One of the attacks took place in San Antonio, where a 20-year veteran of the force was killed, and the other took place in St. Louis, where a 46-year-old sergeant was shot twice in the head during an ambush but is expected to survive. The other two incidents Sunday, which took place in Florida and Missouri, were not believed to be targeted shootings. The National Law Enforcement Fund, an organization that tracks police officer deaths, said that the total number of fatalities this year has increased by 16 percent. Firearms-related deaths of officers are up 67 percent, the data show. Targeted shootings of police officers, as well as recorded videos of police shooting victims, have regularly made headlines this year, leading to debates and protests on both sides of America's fractured political landscape. President-elect Donald Trump referred to himself as the "law and order candidate" throughout his campaign for president, and frequently addressed the subject of targeted police shootings during rallies and campaign stops. After the widely covered police shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., a gunman killed five police officers in Dallas at a protest. Also in July, a man wearing a ski mask and armed with two rifles and a pistol killed three officers near a gas station and convenience store in Baton Rouge. Earlier this month, Scott Michael Greene of Urbandale, Iowa, allegedly shot and killed two police officers in an ambush-style attack. In San Antonio, multiple authorities, including the Governor of Texas, likened the shooting to similar ones that took place in Dallas and Baton Rouge this past July, and condemned it for targeting police. On Monday, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus told the media that the "uniform was the target," and said that he and his colleagues felt targeted in the wake of the attack. "Absolutely they feel targeted," he said, referring to his colleagues on the force. McManus then reflected and personalized the subject of violence against police. "I feel targeted," he said. Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. DA NANG Mitsubishi Motors Viet Nam has inaugurated a new showroom in the central city of Da Nang, its seventh in the central region and 30th in Viet Nam. The nearly VND20 billion (nearly US$900,000) facility includes a showroom, service centre and accessories and spare parts sale centre. According to its latest report, Mitsubishi Motors Viet Nam, 82 per cent of which is owned by Mitsubishi Motors, sold 4,600 cars in the first 10 months of 2016. Its central Viet Nam showrooms are located in Thanh Hoa, Vinh, Nghe An, Gia Lai, Dak Lak, Quang Ngai and two in Da Nang. In 2015, Da Nang hosted the fourth stage and fifth starting point of the 2,200km Viet Nam-trans Mitsubishi Caravan. Last year, Hino Motors Viet Nam also debuted a showroom in Da Nang. Japan is the biggest investor in Da Nang, with 112 projects worth $397 million 10 per cent of the foreign direct investment (FDI) projects in the city, creating 32,000 jobs. The city plans to build an industrial park on 134ha for medium-sized and small businesses from Japan. A direct flight between Osaka and Da Nang will be launched in 2017. The seven direct flights per week to Tokyo have helped promote tourism and investment since their launch in 2014. VNS HA NOI National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines has asked its shareholders to register their ownership by the end of this month to serve its trading registration on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM), which is expected in December. The airline will finalise the list of shareholders on November 30, and it will cease to receive dossiers for transfer of securities ownership a day earlier, Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD) announced. The state-owned airline will list nearly 1.23 billion shares with the face value of VN10,000 per share, equivalent to charter capital of VN12.3 trillion (US$549 million), on the UPCoM under the stock code of HVN. The specific date of debut has been unclear but the company expects it in December, it said in a recent filing to VSD. Vietnam Airlines made its public offering (IPO) in late November 2014 which raised $51 million via a sale of 3.47 per cent of its capital. In July this year, the State sold nearly 8.8-per-cent equity to Japans ANA Holdings for $109 million, equivalent to nearly VN22,600 per share. Under its restructuring plan, the aviation company is looking to cut the State stake from the current 86.16 per cent to 75 per cent and eventually 65 per cent. It reported consolidated revenues of over VN36 trillion ($1.6 billion) and pre-tax profit of VN1.6 trillion in the first half of this year, completing nearly 70 per cent of the target set for the whole year. Vietnam Airlines is now among the worlds leading four- to five-star carriers and been recognized as one of the worlds top three most improved airlines last year by UK-based airline review organisation Skytrax. Shares of Vietnam Airlines are being traded on the Over The Counter (OTC) market for around VN28,000 per share in recent days. At this rate, the airlines market value reaches VN34.37 trillion ($1.53 billion). A number of big corporations have recently buoyed the market by listing shares on the UPCoM, including Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) with over 2 billion shares debuted on the UPCoM yesterday, being the biggest listed stock here for market value of VN76.2 trillion ($3.4 billion) at Mondays price of VN35,000 per share. 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 over 360 stocks with a total market capitalisation of around VN170 trillion ($7.6 billion). VNS HA NOI The National Assembly has adopted a resolution cancelling a project to build the Ninh Thuan nuclear power plant, said the Chairman of the Government Office, Mai Tien Dung, at a news conference yesterday. The project, approved by the NA in 2009, called for two nuclear power plants to be built in the southcentral province of Ninh Thuan, with a capacity of 2000 MW each, to supply power for the national grid and contribute to the nation and the provinces socio-economic development. The decision to scrap the project stems from the countrys current economic situation, according to Dung. The development of the national macro-economy has undergone many changes since the project was adopted. Now there are not only ways to save power, there is also an option for trading power supply with neighbouring states. In addition, renewable energy like solar and wind power have become more economically feasible as prices have dropped in the past five years. "Viet Nam is also in dire need of capital to build a synchronised and modern infrastructure system and tackle problems due to climate change," Dung said, emphasising that the cancellation was not due to technological problems. He said the nuclear technologies of Russia and Japan, which were supposed to be used for the project, were the most advanced and offered a very high level of safety. The decision was made after careful consideration by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the Government and the NA in order to ensure the countrys sustainable development, Dung said. The decision would not affect the countrys power supply as production of other kinds of electricity would be boosted to supplement the national power grid. These include thermo-electricity, renewable electricity, and electricity generated from liquefied natural gas (LNG). The possibility of buying electricity from neighbouring countries, particularly from Laos, would also be considered, he said. In the future, thermal power plants using environment-friendly technology and LNG-based power plants will be built to make up for the abolished Ninh Thuan Power Plant, according to Dung. VNS HA NOI South Korean author Hwang Sun-mi, whose works are loved by Vietnamese readers, will meet with fans in Ha Noi and HCM City. She will talk with readers, sign books and talk about writing for children and the world of animals in childrens literature in Ha Noi on November 24 and HCM City on November 26. The talk shows, organised by Nha Nam Company, will include Vietnamese authors like Vu Thi Thu Hang and Ta Thanh Tan. Hwang is a beloved writer in South Korea, where she has won many awards and published more than forty books enjoyed by adults and children. She was born 1963 and started writing in 1995. She is best known for her fable The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, which has also been made into a successful animated film in South Korea entitled Leafie, A Hen into the Wild. Her books translated into Vietnamese include The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, Friends in Sun-rising Valley, The Blue Hairy Dog and The Bad Boy Stickers. VNS President Tran ai Quang. VNA/VNS Photo HA NOI President Tran ai Quangs highly anticipated official visit to Italy takes place at the very moment ties between the two countries are growing strongly across various fields, the Vietnamese ambassador to Italy, Cao Chinh Thien, said. The ambassador said the bilateral relationship between Viet Nam and Italy is entering its most vibrant period, especially since the two sides established their strategic partnership in 2013. The Italian leadership hail President Tran ai Quangs visit as a milestone in bilateral ties, showing both countries commitment to strengthening their relationship, he said. The bilateral relationship has expanded to numerous areas, including co-operation in economy, trade, education and training. Bilateral trade has doubled to US$4.3 billion between 2013 to 2015. Viet Nam has also become Italys biggest ASEAN trade partner, surpassing strong economies like Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Viet Nam has become an investment destination for strong Italian brands like Piaggio, Ariston and Bonfiglioli, opening roads for new investment projects from Italian enterprises. In culture, education and training, the two countries have signed nearly 100 co-operation agreements among universities, colleges and institutes, said the ambassador. Italian visitors to Viet Nam have sharply increased recently, as the country is better known among Italians as a country with two protracted resistance wars for national liberation and a destination with breathtaking landscapes, friendly people, rich culture and delicious cuisine, he said. During his visit, President Quang plans to hold talks with the host on co-operation potential in all fields from politics, diplomacy, economics, transport, science and technology and co-operation between localities. Accordingly, the two sides are expected to ink numerous deals, such as an action plan to implement the strategic partnership, a co-operation programme in science and technology, and co-operation in transport. That more than 40 Vietnamese enterprises will accompany the President and nearly 100 Italian enterprises are attending a Vietnam-Italy Economics Forum demonstrates a practical co-operation, contributing to specialising bilateral co-operation, the ambassador said. This gives ample opportunity for Vietnamese firms to introduce the countrys potential for trade exchange as well as investment projects in Viet Nam and learn about the hosts strong fields such as high-tech, green technology, and renewable energy. Speaking about measures to accelerate economic co-operation between Viet Nam and Italy, Ambassador Thien said the economic and trade relationship has not reached its potential and expectations. It is necessary to determine causes or obstacles to the economic ties, especially geographic distance, mutual misunderstanding and language difference. What needs to be done is to eliminate the geographic barrier, facilitating the travel of businessmen and local people by establishing a direct flight between Viet Nam and Italy." Also, it is important to accelerate the teaching and study of the Italian language and culture in Viet Nam and vice versa. Currently, five million Vietnamese live and study in the European country. VNS HCM CITY IFProfs Viet Nam, a professional social network for French-language teachers and professionals, has been launched by the French consulate in HCM City and the French Institute in Viet Nam. It brings together French language educators from all over the world and shares teaching materials and methodology resources to improve professional practices. IFProfs, developed by the French Institute in Paris, has 4,500 members in 29 countries, including 186 in Viet Nam. In Viet Nam, French is taught from primary to tertiary levels. Around 100 French-language teachers from secondary schools and universities in HCM City and Can Tho City attended a meeting hosted by the French consulate on Saturday to honour their contributions to teaching the language. VNS All residents, especially pregnant women, should take precautionary measures against mosquito bites. Photo tamvocviet.vn HCM CITY The HCM City Preventive Health Centre has been instructed to co-operate with five hospitals to set up procedures for testing, diagnoses, admission and treatment for patients, especially pregnant women infected with the Zika virus, as the number of Zika cases has increased. Dr Tang Chi Thuong, deputy head of the citys Department of Health, said the Hospital for Tropical Diseases was the main unit in charge of testing, diagnosis and treatment for these patients under the Ministry of Healths guidelines. He spoke at a meeting on the establishment of the process held last week. Dr Le Manh Hung, deputy head of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, said that tests for the Zika virus were being done among people with suspected symptoms and were prescribed by doctors only. Tests cannot be ordered by patients, he added. For pregnant women who test positive for the virus, the hospitals doctors provide counselling and send them to obstetrics hospitals for monitoring and treatment. Thuong said that all health facilities should take samples and send it to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases for testing and diagnosis. The tests results are reported to the citys Pasteur Institute for Zika disease surveillance, he said. A strict process of assessment for possible abortions should be done for pregnant women with the Zika virus whose fetuses are diagnosed with fetal microcephaly, an abnormally small head caused by the virus, he added. After the process is officially issued, the department will open training courses for all health facilities in the city. According to the Preventive Health Centre, the number of Zika cases had risen to 62 as of Sunday. The number of districts with Zika-infected patients increased to 16 of the total 24 districts in the city. All residents, especially pregnant women, should take precautionary measures against mosquito bites. Water containers, which could be home to larvae, should be emptied. VNS Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday sent condolences to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi over the loss of lives in the derailment of a train in Kanpur Dehat district of Uttar Pradesh state. Photo Getty Images HA NOI Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday sent condolences to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi over the loss of lives in the derailment of a train in Kanpur Dehat district of Uttar Pradesh state. The same day, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh also extended his sympathy to Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj. The accident occurred on Sunday, killing at least 146 passengers and injuring more than 200 others. VNS HCM City The second phase of HCM Citys Tan Hiep water pumping station began operation yesterday with a daily capacity of 300,000 cubic metres. The plant, situated on a 3.2 hectare site in Tan Hiep Commune, Hoc Mon District, cost VN1.2 trillion (US$54 million). It supplies fresh water to the 12 districts of 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, Go Vap, Tan Binh, Binh Tan, Tan Phu, Binh Chanh, and Hoc Mon. The citys seven pumping stations now have a total capacity of 2.1 million cubic metres and fully meet its needs. By 2020 two more pumping stations will be built to meet the growing demand as the citys population increases. VNS HA NOI The Australian Embassy has invited a new group of 53 Australia Awards scholars to leave Viet Nam for postgraduate studies in Australia in early 2017. Reflecting Australias commitment to study opportunities for women and disabled Vietnamese, 38 of the 53 scholars are women and one awardee has a disability, according to a press release today. Awardees will be able to undertake vocational training, professional development, research fellowships or postgraduate study at a university of their choice in Australia in a diverse range of areas. The new scholars are the latest of a total of 5,800 Vietnamese students who have received long-term and short-term training opportunities from the Australian Government since the opening of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1973. The Australia Awards are a central pillar in the development of Australias economic and innovation partnerships with Viet Nam. They are building invaluable connections between the Australian and Vietnamese scholars and academics, which in turn helps develop innovation partnerships that boost productivity and economic development, said Australian Ambassador to Viet Nam Craig Chittick. The Australia Awards Scholarships are part of a broader investment by the Australian Government in human resource development in Viet Nam. The Australian Government recently launched the Australia Global Alumni Engagement Strategy to connect with alumni well after their studies are finished through ongoing learning opportunities and access to a thriving network of like-minded professionals that extends across the globe. New application rounds for Australia Awards Scholarships will open on 1 February 2017 and in April 2017 for the Australia Awards - Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships. VNS MONT PELERIN, Switzerland The latest round of talks between rival leaders on ending Cypruss 42-year-old division broke up without agreement today, the United Nations said. Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mustafa Akinci have been meeting on the shores of Lake Geneva since Sunday in the second round of talks this month. "Despite their best efforts, they have not been able to achieve the necessary further convergences on criteria for territorial adjustment that would have paved the way for the last phase of the talks," UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said in a statement. "The two sides have decided to return to Cyprus and reflect on the way forward." The talks are aimed at reunifying Cyprus, a Mediterranean island whose division remains one of the worlds longest-running political disputes. The island has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-inspired coup seeking union with Greece. Anastasiades and Akinci met earlier this month, between November 7-11, to discuss potential territorial readjustments -- seen as the trickiest issue to resolve. That round finished short of a deal but hopes had been high that the second round could produce a map of internal boundaries for a future federation of Greek- and Turkish-speaking states on the island. The Turkish invasion saw thousands of Greek and Turkish Cypriots displaced. Territory is an intractable problem for the talks, since any agreement would inevitably involve a redrawing of existing boundaries and see members of both communities ousted from their current homes. The leaders had been thought to be close on the percentage of territory to be governed under Turkish Cypriot jurisdiction, with Akinci suggesting 29.2 per cent and the Greek Cypriots proposing 28 per cent. The sticking point is which towns and villages come within those boundaries. Neo-Nazi crowd cheers Hail Trump WASHINGTON, D.C. (TNS) A newly released video shows a room full of people doing the Hitler salute and yelling Hail Trump! after listening to a speech about white nationalism that invokes Nazi terminology. The video was taken over the weekend by a reporter for The Atlantic while working on a documentary about Richard Spencer. Spencer is the person speaking in the video. He runs the National Policy Institute, a self-described alt-right think tank that openly supports white nationalist and neo-Nazi policies. Spencer is one of the leading intellectuals of the alt-right movement, according to the website Breitbart when it was being run by incoming White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon. Trumps campaign issued a statement in response to the video: President-elect Trump has continued to denounce racism of any kind and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American. Pipeline protesters doused, hospitalized CANNON BALL, N.D. (AP) Authorities Monday defended their decision to douse protesters with water during a skirmish in subfreezing weather near the Dakota Access oil pipeline, and organizers said at least 17 protesters were taken to the hospital some treated for hypothermia. The clash occurred late Sunday and early Monday as protesters trying to push past a long-blocked bridge on a state highway were turned back by authorities using tear gas, rubber bullets and water hoses. One officer was injured when struck in the head with a rock. One protester was arrested. Protesters and officers massed at the bridge again late Monday morning but dispersed a few hours later at the request of tribal elders after police warned the crowd theyd identified firearms and that anyone with a weapon should leave. Pope: Priests can absolve of abortion VATICAN CITY (AP) Pope Francis told Catholics worldwide he is allowing all priests to absolve the faithful of abortion women and health workers alike even while stressing it is a grave sin in the eyes of the church to end an innocent life. In an Apostolic Letter made public Monday, Francis said he was extending indefinitely the special permission he had granted to all rank-and-file priests during the just ended Holy Year of Mercy. There is no sin that Gods mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with God, the pope wrote in the 10-page letter, signed Sunday, the day the Holy Year ended. Japanese quake spurs tsunami fears TOKYO (AP) A powerful earthquake off the northeast Japanese shore today sent residents fleeing to higher ground and prompted worries about the Fukushima nuclear power plant destroyed by a tsunami five year ago. Lines of cars snaked away from the coast in the pre-dawn hours after authorities issued a tsunami warning and urged residents to seek higher ground immediately. The warning was lifted nearly four hours later. The magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck in the same region that was devastated by a tsunami in 2011, killing some 18,000 people. There were reports of minor injuries and damage. The earthquake shook buildings in Tokyo, 150 miles southwest of the epicenter. Video showed water rushing up a river or canal, but well within the height of the embankment. It was eerily reminiscent of the 2011 disaster. CEDAR RAPIDS Five of Iowas six members of Congress have written President-elect Donald Trump urging him to scrap the controversial Waters of the United States rule when he takes office in January. Calling the Environmental Protection Agencys WOTUS rule an economic assault on small businesses, manufacturing and agriculture, the five Republicans said it threatens the very livelihood of our fellow Iowans. Sens. Charles Grassley and Joni Ernst, and Reps. Rod Blum, David Young and Steve King say those industries are the backbone of rural America. The election results signaled that Americans are ready for the last eight years of EPAs power-grabbing mentality to come to an end, they added. Second District Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack did not join in the letter. The Republicans are likely to find Trump more sympathetic to their request than President Barack Obama, who vetoed a resolution of disapproval of the WOTUS regulations. The resolution passed with bipartisan support in the House and Senate. During his campaign for the White House, Trump signaled he wanted to lighten the regulatory burden on farmers and businesses. Although they support the intent of the Clean Water Act to address pollution in navigable waters and improve water quality, the Iowans said the expanded WOTUS definition far exceeds what was originally intended. Through WOTUS, they said, the EPA is trying to expand jurisdiction over waters not originally covered as well as on private land. They have argued WOTUS could give EPA power to regulate activities on 97 percent of Iowa land. A U.S. Court of Appeals has issued a nationwide stay blocking enforcement of WOTUS, but settling that litigation could take years, the Iowa members of Congress said. In the meantime, Iowa farmers and businesses are left with uncertainty and concern the EPA will attempt to enforce it through a piecemeal approach. WATERLOO -- Alaric Rodney "Al" Hart, 56, of Waterloo, died Sunday, Nov. 20, at Covenant Medical Center of natural causes. He was born Nov. 26, 1959, in Starkville, Miss., son of Joseph and Verna Hart. Al grew in Waterloo, worked at Rath Packing Co. for two years, moved to Minneapolis for a time, and then attended the School Art Academy in Canada and became a cartoon artist. He later returned to Waterloo. Survived by: his parents; two sisters, Bridgette Hall of Sacramento, Calif., and Brenda Lobato-Ford of Starkville; a brother, Alexis Hart of Minneapolis; a niece and two nephews. Preceded in death by: a sister, Beverly R. Hart. Memorial services: 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 23, at Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, 55 Newell St. Sanders Funeral Service is assisting the family. Memorials: may be directed to the family at 400 Charles St. Al looked forward to waking up and enjoying life on a paradise earth without any pain or suffering. WATERLOO After years of not making it to the Mike and Leona Adams Thanksgiving Dinner, Justine Hickey took the plunge Monday. And she was not disappointed. The turkey was good, the dressing was good, everything was good, said the Waterloo woman, who ate with grandson Malkhi Hickey and a friend, Stephanie Telutkir. I heard about it for years and years and years, and this year I said Im going to come. They were among hundreds who showed up for the 35th annual event at the United Workers Hall. Weve got the dinning room filled and more waiting, said Julie Gage, an organizer and Veridian Credit Union employee. Tonights good weather, so we might have a lot of them. She noted they were prepared to serve 1,000 people a traditional Thanksgiving meal, which requires 40 turkeys. Between 650 and 850 diners typically show up. Dinners also were delivered to 360 people in partnership with the Meals on Wheels program. Everything we dont serve tonight, we put it in the fridge until tomorrow and deliver it to the Salvation Army, said Gage. Started in 1982 by Mike and Leona Adams following massive layoffs at John Deere, it is now run by Veridian employees and retirees of UAW Local 838. As many as 150 people volunteered in the hall. Another 40 volunteers delivered meals to home-bound people. They partnered with University Avenue Hy-Vee, which provided the turkey, dressing, rolls and pie. Volunteers made the mashed potatoes, gravy, corn and cranberry sauce. The meals are always good. They do a good job, said Waterloo resident Darryl Pritchard, who started attending a number of years ago when he lived in Independence. Everything is run so smooth. With seating for 240, organizers worked to efficiently move people in and out of the dining area. Attendees filled a row of chairs in the lobby before being ushered into the room, where they lined up to get plates full of food. They were then directed to recently cleared seats. A number of diners commented on the service provided by the volunteers. Everybodys very courteous, said Janine Altema of Waterloo, another first-time diner who praised the food especially the pie. Its a very nice thing for someone to do. Charlotte Easterwood of Waterloo and her 6-year-old daughter, Nevaeh, were there with family. Its a great social community event where you can socialize and meet new people, said Easterwood. My mom told about about it, so I thought Id give it a try. And I dont never get out. I stay cooped up in the house. Arlene Necker and Kenneth Graves, both of Independence, have come for five years. We enjoy the fellowship, said Necker, noting they used to meet Graves relatives at the event. We look forward to it every year. Waterloo resident Tammy Wordes learned about the meal through Operation Threshold, an agency that offers support for low-income families. Met Transit provided a ride so that Wordes, her three daughters and two friends could get to the meal. Its one of the free services that are part of the event. After eating, the group saw a stylist from Clip Art Corner in the lobby providing one more perk free haircuts. Wordes said that was kind of a surprise, but all agreed it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. So, the whole familys getting haircuts, she said. Weve had a very good time tonight just bonding as a family, noted Wordes. I love to see just the generosity of it. I definitely will come next year. STACYVILLE A judge has ordered a Stacyville man to pay a $100,000 penalty for illegally operating a waste tire collection site and repeatedly dumping tires onto his property and a nearby creek. Gary Eggers, 60, who operates an unlicensed salvage yard, was ordered to pay the penalty after he failed to respond to a state environmental lawsuit filed in September, according to a default judgment filed last week by District Court Judge James Drew. Eggers is to pay the $100,000 penalty on top of a previously unpaid $10,000 penalty, The lawsuit alleged that since at least 2013, Eggers has illegally stored and dumped waste tires on his property. Since 2013 the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has investigated several complaints that Eggers unlawfully disposed of tires, waste tires had washed into a nearby creek and onto a neighboring property, and that Eggers was burning tires, according to a press release from the Iowa Attorney Generals Office. In 2015 the DNR issued two notices of environmental violations. On Aug. 31, 2015, the DNR issued an administrative order to cease collecting tires, provide documentation of properly disposed-of existing tires, and pay a $10,000 penalty. Eggers did not comply with the order or pay the penalty, according to the Iowa Attorney Generals Office. He has allegedly continued to dump tires on his property and allowed existing tires to wash into a creek and onto a nearby property. In addition to ordering Eggers to pay the two penalties, the Mitchell County District Court order prohibits Eggers from storing or dumping any additional tires and requires him to provide proof of properly disposing of existing tires, if they exceed 500, within 60 days. Eggers must also cease salvaging vehicles until he obtains a state vehicle recycler license and proper storm water permit. WATERLOO Police are investing a Monday night incident where a Waterloo woman came under fire while she was driving. No injuries were reported, but bullets struck her vehicles windshield and rear passenger-side door, said Capt. David Mohlis with the Waterloo Police Department. The shooting happened at about 9:35 p.m. Monday while Lashay Angenette Hughes, 36, was driving in the area of Conger Street and Burton Avenue. She fled and reported the attack to police. FLOYD A recently unveiled plan for an overpass at a controversial intersection on Avenue of the Saints near Floyd is drawing mixed reviews. Many are excited the Iowa Department of Transportation has chosen a plan to replace the at-grade intersection at U.S. Highway 218 and Quarry Road, but some also worry the design will have negative impacts on existing businesses. The plan would close three other at-grade crossings in Floyd at Liberty Street, Montgomery Street and Packard Avenue. Business owner Ron Dugan fears that will make it difficult for customers to access his restaurant, Dugans Restaurant & Lounge. The Avenue has been the lifeblood of his business since he cleared some lots and built the restaurant 500 feet from the Montgomery Street turnoff 16 years ago. He said hes not against building an overpass but hopes the DOT will consider frontage roads or other alternatives to allow travelers to access his business. Its my livelihood. It just scares me to death to hear the state talk about closing all these exits, Dugan said Thursday at his restaurant. It would put us on a dead-end street. The DOT accepted comments on the design proposal through Monday. It will submit the proposal and an environmental assessment study to the Federal Transportation Safety Administration. If approved, the estimated $23 million project would be eligible for federal funding and may be added to the Iowa DOTs five-year plan. Community effort Residents of Floyd have lobbied for years for an overpass at Quarry Road and Highway 218. Critics say the existing at-grade intersection is confusing, vehicles pass through at high speeds and theres not enough room for semitrailers to get across and through. Truck traffic has increased over the years, and locals worry it will increase even more when the new Loves truck stop opens later this year. Efforts to get an overpass built reached another level in July when 23-year-old T.J. Houdek was killed crossing the intersection. More than 3,000 people signed an online petition circulated after his death, urging the DOT to take action. A community meeting was called, and more than 100 people talked about witnessing crashes, of having family members injured in collisions and regularly seeing cars drive in front of oncoming traffic. A delegation of local officials lobbied the DOT in person at the agencys meeting in August in Sioux City. Floyd County Chief Deputy Jeff Crooks says the community needs to press for the project to be in the DOTs five-year plan. He fears if it isnt, it will stall like it has in the past. The next step is actually the critical step, he said. We need it to get passed by the state and get funding so it can go ahead. If approved for federal funding, the overpass design would be sent to the Iowa Department of Transportations Board of Commissioners. The group selects projects for the five-year plan in June. Safety concern Floyd businesswoman Terri Sargent says there are pros and cons to the current overpass design. She strongly believes an overpass is necessary to protect the public but thinks the current plan may have unintended consequences. She worries truck traffic will be shifted through downtown Floyd, cutting off parking, and cutting off all other access points could limit future growth on the west side of the city. The DOTs plan calls for frontage roads to connect neighborhoods east of the project but does not have frontage roads for Montgomery Street, Liberty Street or Packard Avenue. I want them to look and see if they can find some better alternatives to deal with the situation, said Sargent, a member of the citys planning and zoning commission. Iowa DOT Field Services Coordinator Pete Hjelmstad said nearly all of the Iowa DOTs interchange designs require closing off other access points. Its a big safety thing, he said. Youve got people coming on and off at highway speeds and theyre not expecting someone right off a ramp entering into traffic. Floyd City Clerk Lauri Reetz says she doesnt like the idea of closing exits either but fears that might be the trade-off for getting rid of the at-grade intersection at Quarry Road and Highway 218. Everybodys complaining about it, she said of the existing intersection. They want something done. Theyve got to do it the way they think is safest. Dugan hopes the DOT will consider design alternatives. That way he can stay in business, and the public will be safe. As long as they can figure a way to get customers to and from my restaurant. ... Other than a helicopter. CEDAR FALLS Jim Skaine remains a persistent voice of dissent at City Council meetings. The retired University of Northern Iowa professor Monday night asked all 35 items on the councils resolution calendar be discussed and voted on individually. Normally, the council approves those items, either non-controversial or discussed at previous meetings, on a single motion unless a council member or citizen asks for separate discussion of an item. The mayor summarizes those items not separately discussed for the audience. Mayor Jim Brown told Skaine he would not allow him to hijack the meeting by allowing him to speak on each of the 35 items. Im going to have to have you restrict that down a little bit more, Brown said. It would be an unprecedented move. Skaine objected. The people here, and the people there, don t know what youre talking about, Skaine said, referring to the audience in the council chambers and watching on cable television. Skaine has been removed from council meetings twice in four months, the last time two weeks ago when he tried to return to the microphone after finishing his remarks. Brown said he was out of order once again Monday, and told him to save his comments for public forum at the end of the meeting. If you have an issue with how this is being run you will have five minutes at the end of the council meeting. Potentially, Brown said firmly. Youre violating the (Iowa) Open Meetings Law, Skaine replied. Ultimately Skaine winnowed down his request to one item one of several that involve the acquisition of construction easements or right of way for the next phase of the University Avenue reconstruction. The projects first phase, in front of College Square Mall and Black Hawk Village, is under construction. Skaine objected, saying the property in question would be used to build more roundabouts, which he said are unsafe for pedestrians. He also called for a center turn lane for better business access. Council member Susan deBuhr, who opposed the design for reconstructed University Avenue, and city staff noted none of the properties or easements being acquired by the councils action Monday were related to roundabouts. Interim Community Development Director Stephanie Houk Sheetz said after the meeting pedestrian crossings planned as part of the University project are spaced and separated from roundabouts. Skaine again asked for Brown to apologize for defaming him by removing him from meetings. But if not, there are other ways to address defamation of character, Skaine said. WATERLOO Hell froze over Monday for critics of the citys tax-increment financing districts. Waterloo City Council members voted unanimously to approve Mayor Quentin Harts recommendation to release $300,000 of city TIF revenue next year to the general tax rolls. The amount isnt large compared to the $7.7 million the seven special taxing districts are expected to generate in property taxes during fiscal year 2017-18. But detractors who contend the city spends too much on economic development in TIF districts never releasing money to help lower taxes for other property owners applauded the move. I understand this is just getting our toe into the water very shallow, said Councilman Steve Schmitt. But I think its a great first step, and hopefully it will lead to other opportunities. Councilman Tom Lind thanked Hart for working with council members to move the release forward. Its a little step that we can all take to try to compromise and try to move the city forward in a positive way, Lind said. The more successful the TIFs can become and the more we can release, were all better off. Waterloo, like most large Iowa cities, uses tax-increment financing to create industrial parks, install roads and sewers and provide tax breaks to lure new development and jobs. The new property taxes generated by the development is diverted from the citys general fund, school districts, county government and other taxing bodies to repay the city for its investment in the districts. City officials expect to be able to release additional increment taxes in the future once the TIFs expire or the districts fully develop. The $300,000 release next year comes from the Northeast Industrial TIF, which was used to help lure Ryder Integrated Logistics, Ferguson Enterprises and other businesses near Tyson Foods and the John Deere tractor assembly plant. While the city is spending money to add more lots in the Northeast Industrial Site and is talking to industrial prospects, Hart said he believed the $300,000 release wont jeopardize those efforts. We have to be careful in those decisions, Hart said. We dont want to eliminate our opportunity to compete nor lose our opportunity to attract jobs and build our overall economic base. The amount that were going to be able to release just this year was the amount we were able to give back to the community based upon the success that weve seen from the creation of this overall district, he added. The city doesnt get all of the new revenue for its general fund. Chief Financial Officer Michelle Weidner said the city will get an estimated $128,000 of the released cash while the remaining $172,000 would go to the other taxing bodies. Based on current tax rates, Weidner said, the owner of a home valued at $100,000 would have saved $2.99 off their property tax bill based on the TIF release. The actual amount next year will depend on budgets set by taxing bodies over the winter. CEDAR FALLS One man is dead following a single-vehicle crash in Cedar Falls Monday afternoon. The driver involved in the single vehicle fatality accident, at the interchange of Iowa Highway 57 and U.S. Hwy 218, was identified as Richard Charles Coleman Jr., 30, of 2209 Thunder Ridge Blvd. Coleman was eastbound on Highway 57 and struck a concrete pillar for the Highway 218 overpass. He was dead at the scene. Coleman was the only occupant in the vehicle and no other vehicles were involved in the accident. Cedar Falls Police were assisted by Cedar Falls firefighters, Sartori Memorial Hospital paramedics, the Iowa State Patrol and the Iowa Department of Transportation. The accident occurred at about 2:44 p.m. A schedule for public forums with the four finalists for the University of Northern Iowa presidents job was recently announced, and we encourage all citizens to attend. The Iowa State Board of Regents had made a promise of conducting a transparent process during this particularsearch, and public forums are a good sign it is happening. A little background: Trust between the board and state university stakeholders was shaken last year when the regents hired Bruce Harreld as the new president at the University of Iowa. Harreld had a business background as a top executive at IBM and Boston Market with little academic leadership experience. That prompted a letter from three Iowa lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Jeff Danielson of Cedar Falls, that demanded a transparent process in the search for the next president of UNI. The letter asked for a process that actually and fully involves the faculty and students in the spirit of shared governance. State taxpayers also should pay attention. In response, Regents President Pro Tem Katie Mulholland sent a proposed timeline and letter to lawmakers, reassuring them the UNI search process would differ from the controversial University of Iowa search. Were pleased to see that is apparently the case. After the regents selected Harreld, the UI Faculty Senate, UI Student Government and the Graduate and Professional Student Government all issued no-confidence votes in the regents. The American Association of University Professors at Iowa State University and UNI issued statements of support for the UI faculty. Compounding the issue is the fact former UNI President Bill Ruud left the university under somewhat mysterious conditions after just three years at the helm. He took the top job at a much smaller Marietta College in Ohio. Ruud stated his decision had nothing to do with the fact the board had not updated his three-year contract a detail that fueled speculation he was encouraged to leave. Despite his short tenure at UNI, Ruud seemingly had support among faculty, staff and the public. Considering the recent past, a little more transparency from the regents is more than welcome. The candidate forums will be held from 2:30 to 3:45 p.m. Nov. 29, Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and Dec. 2 in the Old Central Ballroom in Maucker Union on the UNI campus. Each candidates curriculum vitae also will be made available 24 hours in advance of their respective visits. They also will be available on the presidential search site. Following the campus visits, the Board of Regents will meet Dec. 5 and 6 on campus to interview the finalists and select the universitys new president. This is a search that is definitely being watched closely by faculty and others employed by the university. However, wed also like to remind all residents of the Cedar Valley thatthey are indeed stakeholders in this decision. UNI has a massive role in theeconomic impact on this region and is involved in many important and beneficial partnerships throughout the Cedar Valley and the state of Iowa. Remember: Transparency is nice, but it is meaningless if youre not watching. New Medicaid CHELLE ADKINS CEDAR FALLS -- When comparing the old Medicaid system to the new Medicaid modernization plan, the contrast is startling. Under old Medicaid, patients had no choice when it came to providers. Under the new plan, Medicaid recipients have the power to choose between three different managed care organizations based on individual need. Patients retain the benefits of the old system, but the modernization plan affords them more than 80 value-added benefits like a 24-hour nurse hotline, weight control programs, nutrition counseling and financial management. Medicaid modernization gives patients more access to services. The new plan brings 142 percent more access to doctors, 124 percent more nurses and 142 percent more physical therapists. Additionally, more than 22,200 extremely high risk Medicaid patients with chronic conditions now have a health care coordinator. The new plan also improves accountability. Whereas old Medicaid placed a premium on volume, Medicaid modernization emphasizes value. The new plan verifies payment on the front end, avoiding the pay and chase model of the old system. Although the shift to managed care shook up some vested interests, it was a good move for Iowas poor and disabled. I applaud policymakers for forging a new health care path for our neediest citizens. End of politics BRIGETTE YANES LA PORTE CITY -- I would just like to reach those who voted for Trump of the dire warnings that were predicted. Already we see the rich are going to make the most money in tax cuts. He's also backing up against Obamacare. Not to mention all his promises to change the face of politics by having a cabinet filled with nonpoliticians; yet, the predictions appear to be all politicians. Yep, he's making changes. Instead of an active president, the country will be run by the cabinet. He'll run his companies, which should be a conflict of interest, while others handle the country. Although I have to say it's better if someone else does run the office, as long as it's not Gingrich. Hillary's honesty DICK SMITH CEDAR FALLS -- Janice Nolting, in her letter to the editor (Nov. 17), first lists some of the promises Hillary Clinton made to voters during the campaign. Then she says the voters ignored the promises and voted for Trump. She says the reason for this is the Trump supporters "are some of the most ignorant people in the country." She thought all those promises would guarantee votes. What Ms. Nolting conveniently forgot to mention was the approximately 70 percent of voters polled said Hillary Clinton is not honest or trustworthy. Promises from Hillary Clinton don't mean much to well informed voters. I'm by no means a big fan of Donald Trump, but I believe his proposed policies are designed to benefit the whole country while Hillary Clinton's main concern for much of her political life has been enriching the Clinton bank account. Ms. Nolting thinks we "elected one of the best con artists in the country." 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be a collection of videos, photographs, and funny stories that have been sent to me by various people. These are here for your amusement and enjoyment. None are meant to offend, but some might. I hope to post something new here each day. WARNING: It's best to come here on an empty stomach, and please don't take a mouthful of coffee until you've read the latest post. Nov 21, 2016 | By Nick A Dutch hotel is closing in on the funds it needs to produce a high-tech 3D printed conference center that can recreate the ambience of New Yorks Central Park and other iconic locations. If everything goes to plan, it will be the first 3D printed, zero-footprint building in Europe. De Slaapfabriek Teuge is a boutique hotel with just 12 rooms. Despite its modest size, however, the hotel has become a favorite amongst business leaders in the Netherlands. Now, the hotel wants to capitalize on its burgeoning reputation with a 90-square-meter conference center that will be 3D printed from the ground up. Thanks to Dutch crowdfunding platform NLInversteert, which differs from the likes of Kickstarter in that investors provide loans and expect a return on their investment, hotel owners Arvid and Marjo Prigge have already raised more than $108,000 (100,000) of the total $398,000 (375,000) they need. This cutting-edge conference center is close to coming off the drawing board and into the real world. We are going to make an enormous experience, that will make a difference to your meetings, said Arvid Prigge. We have all-day meetings in standard rooms and it really doesnt make you happy. We are going to do it differently. When the conference center is complete, it will come with an integrated projection system that can turn the walls into a park in New York or a tropical beach, complete with piped-in sounds. The screens also offer a totally custom look and feel, which means the conference center could be ideal for product launches, as well as company training sessions and major meetings. Remarkable moments will really stick with you, said Arvid. Its all about experience, sensations, and feeling. Can we transform todays bland office space into a truly inspiring environment? According to the Prigges, there were several reasons for choosing 3D printing construction techniques, but the main draw was the prospect of producing at least 40% less carbon emissions than they would have otherwise. The project could even end up being totally energy neutral. The Netherlands is a world leader when it comes to the environment, and this new conference center will be a shining light for the environmental advantages of additive manufacturing. As well as reduced carbon emissions, 3D printing reduces the materials waste by at least 75%. This all contributes to reduced transport costs that also have a real effect on the buildings overall environmental impact. The 3D printing approach also gave the Prigge family almost complete freedom when it came to the building's design, and they have settled on a unique aesthetic that simply wouldn't have been economically viable with traditional techniques. To develop the building, they brought in both The Form Foundation and architect Pim Wylick, who took inspiration from the swirling trails left by the planes taking off from the nearby airport, developing the concept at the Dutch Construction Hackathon at Startup Fest Europe. Cybe Construction, based in Oss, will print the building in just 10 days after working with TU Eindhoven and Revelating to perfect its role in the long construction process. This building has thrown up a vast amount of technical and aesthetic challenges, with the team having had to think on its feet to come up with the most effective printing methods for this complex, curvaceous design. There are other 3D printed buildings in the world, but only a select few have been printed on site. However, other printed buildings, such as the 3D printed Beijing villa, simply do not have the quality of finish or the complexity that this Dutch effort is looking for. In some ways then, this new building is a step into the unknown. With printers that can produce basic shelter from soil and slash the cost and time it takes to build a house, the construction industry is starting to embrace 3D printing. This unique conference center is a groundbreaking project, but were sure that many more will follow. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Nov 21, 2016 | By Benedict Filamentarno, a Russian 3D printing materials company, has released Prototyper Soft, a range of flexible and transparent filaments marketed under the brand name PROTOTYPER. The filaments are made from a hard rubber polymer called styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS). For users of single-extruder 3D printers, multi-color or multi-material 3D printing can be a challenge. While it is possible to change materials mid-print, it is often the case that one material requires certain printer settings and the other a completely different set of parameters. Since changing these settings in the middle of a print can be a slow process, it is much easier to use a group of materials which requires similar print settings. In an appeal to makers in this position, Russian filament company Filamentarno has developed its Prototyper 3D printing materials to all require similar printer settings. The latest addition to the series, Prototyper Soft, allows 3D printer users to add flexible and transparent materials to their arsenal. The range of Filamentarno 3D printing materials is divided into subcategories: T-Soft, a series of solid-color SBS filaments; M-Soft, a series of solid metallic filaments; and now Prototyper Soft, a set of transparent SBS filaments. With the addition of Prototyper Soft, 3D printer users now have the option of creating impressive transparent objects such as lampshades, decorative vases, mock glassware, and other items. According to Filamentarno, the new range of Prototyper Soft 3D printing materials gives users a choice between two aesthetic effects: total transparency, or an unusual translucent appearance. To achieve transparency, which is ideal for bottles, filters, lights etc., users simply need to print with thin walls, or select the spiral vase" option available on slicers like Slic3R, Simplify3D, and Cura. With this setting, objects can be printed with substantial wall thickness when using a nozzle with a 0.8 or 1.0 mm opening. To achieve a less clear print, users can print with thicker walls without the spiral vase option, giving an interesting decorative effect. In order to achieve ultimate, glass-like transparency with the new range of filaments, Filamentarno recommends treating the 3D printed parts with a solventxylene or D-Limoneneafter printing. Xylene dissolves plastic and evaporates from the surface faster than D-Limonene, but D-Limonene has a more pleasant citrus scent, being a distillation of citrus skins, and is therefore more suitable for items that will be used in the kitchen. A hair dryer can be used to speed up the drying process. In addition to its transparency, the new Prototyper Soft series is also made from high-quality, heavy-duty plastic, giving the filaments low shrinkage, a good flow rate, and a high level of impact resistance. Prototyper Soft properties: Impact-resistant and frost-resistant (up to -80C) Glass transition temperature: 80C Minimal temperature warp Can be printed with PLA settings Resistant to acids, alkalis, alcohols, fats Certified for food contact (including hot food) by Russian Standards No odor during or after printing Does not absorb moisture Prints can be chemically treated for added finish or strength Posted in 3D Printing Materials Maybe you also like: kb wrote at 11/28/2016 9:32:54 PM:Is there any hard transparent material? (with mechanical properties close to PLA)Taco Joe wrote at 11/22/2016 1:53:17 AM:That's awesome, but their website is in Russian. Any news on when it will be available in the US? Nov 22, 2016 | By Tess If youve ever been licked by a cat, youll know that their tiny tongues are actually quite rough, with a texture comparable to that of sandpaper. Unlike sandpaper, however, a cats tongue is abrasive because its surface is covered with tiny backwards facing spines called papillae, which have a number of useful functions for the cat, such as efficient grooming, scraping meat from their preys bones, and more. Recently, cat owner and mechanical engineering doctoral candidate Alexis Noel decided to explore the physiology of a cats tongue with the help of 3D printing to see if its spine composition could be appropriated for other applications such as soft robotics. Noels research, which was largely conducted at the Hu Biolocomotion Lab at Georgia Tech, was presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Societys Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD), which is being hosted in Portland, Oregon. Notably, in her investigation of cat tongues and their functions, Noel actually 3D printed an artificial cat tongue at 400% scale for testing purposes. What initially got Noel interested in recreating and exploring cat tongue functionalities was when she observed her own cats tongue get stuck to a microfiber blanket while licking it. While helping to remove the blanket from the cats mouth, she noticed the tiny spines that were stuck to the blanket and something clicked. As she explained, When the cat's tongue hits a snag, it pulls on the hooks, which rotate to penetrate the snag even further. Like a heat-seeking missile for snags, the hook's mobility allows the cat to better tease tangles apart. With that as a starting point, Noel and her team of researchers decided to explore the cats tongue in a more in-depth way. Using macro and high-speed videography equipment they were able to zoom in a capture the animals unique tongue structure, observing its intricate papillae. As mentioned, a big part of the research involved 3D printing a large scale (400%) cat tongue mimic, which the researchers were able to test on various surfaces. According to Noel, Both the cat tongue and mimic are very good at cleaning and removing tangles in fur samples. We also discovered that the cat tongue is self-cleaning it's easy to remove hair beneath the spines by simply brushing the tongue from tip to end. Why is this research important? Well, being able to recreate a structure that mimics a cat tongues papillae could have applications within the field of soft robotics, as researchers are constantly in search of ways to create soft materials that are capable of gripping surfaces. Aside from soft robotics, the 3D printed cat tongue mimic could be used as a model to create an easy-to-clean hairbrush, or could even be used to develop a wound cleaning tool. The next step in the research will be to further analyze how the spacing between spines on the cats tongue have an impact on frictional resistance. This would allow them to create a 3D printed mimic that could help develop a hairbrush specifically suitable for human grooming. Noel is also hoping to expand the research to include the tongues of lions, tigers, and other large cats. For now, Noel is hoping to talk to beauty specialists and medical device companies about her research to see what the potential applications could be for the 3D printed cat tongue mimic. Weve already submitted a technology disclosure form and intend to file a patent within the next year, she commented. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Jocelyn Thelen wrote at 12/8/2016 7:20:42 PM:I am looking for an artificial cat tongue to teach an orphaned kitten how to groom itself. This site is interesting as it recreates the actual natural mechanism that I seek. All available grooming tools are huge, unlike a real cat tongue. Nov 22, 2016 | By Benedict North Dakota materials company 3D-Fuel has introduced Landfillament, a new 3D printing material made from recycled waste. To create the material, municipal solid waste (MSW) is subjected to pyrolysis, which produces a char byproduct that can be used as filament. Although operating a 3D printer can demand a lot of energy, many companies in the 3D printing industry are working hard to create green products that make additive manufacturing a more environmentally friendly process. Given the sheer volume of plastic waste produced around the world every day, perhaps the most important group of eco-friendly 3D printing products is recycled filament, with companies like InnoCircle and Better Future Factory making use of car parts, PET plastic bottles, and other waste to create functional 3D printing materials. Another business looking to make 3D printing as green as possible is 3D-Fuel, (not to be confused with British 3D scanning company Fuel3D) a 3D printing materials company from Fargo, North Dakota, whose new Landfillament 3D printing material is made from recycled municipal solid waste. Just like Doc Brown in Back to the Future II, the company has found a way to turn trash into a valuable resource, giving makers a chance to print objects safe in the knowledge that their material choice is benefitting the planet. To make MSW into a printable material, 3D-Fuel first removes all metals from the mix, before running the remaining waste through a process called pyrolysis. Through this process, which involves the thermochemical decomposition of organic material at high temperatures in the absence of oxygen, a char byproduct is created, which can eventually be used as 3D printing filament. The gas byproducts of the pyrolysis are also retained for new uses, meaning each spool of Landfillament sequesters .909lbs of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is the equivalent amount of greenhouse gas emitted by a car driven 1.1 miles. Interestingly, 3D-Fuels Landfillament isnt its only eco-friendly filament, with the company also having developed materials made from coffee, beer, and hemp. With the addition of Landfillament, which prints a solid black color, customers now have a range of safe, Earth-friendly materials at their disposal. We love that all our c2composites have a great story behind them, says Jake Clark, COO of 3DomFuel (a merger of 3Dom and 3D-Fuel) North America. Lots of other creators value the story behind their materials. Like a carpenter using old barnwood or a sculptor using clay from their favorite beach. Why cant 3D printing have that? As a unique project for Landfillament users, 3D-Fuel has posted a Thingiverse design for a miniature trash can. So when using the black Landfillament 3D printing material, makers can enjoy the "circle of life" moment of fabricating a trash can out of trash. The fun object can be printed without rafts or supports, with a resolution of 0.2 mm and infill of 10%. According to Fuel-3D, Landfillament prints well at 180-210C, or around 10C cooler than PLA. Landfillament, like all of 3D-Fuels other c2composites, was developed in collaboration with c2renew, a biocomposites company also based in Fargo. The new filament will retail for $39.99 for a 500 g spool of either 1.75 or 2.85 mm filament. Posted in 3D Printing Materials Maybe you also like: Nov 22, 2016 | By Tess As weve seen through organizations such as Open Bionics and e-NABLE, 3D printing is helping to make upper limb prosthetics, especially for children, more accessible than ever. Through innovative open source designs created by makers all over the globe, people in remote areas or with limited means now have the ability to access their own assistive devices, such as prosthetic hands, simply by having access to a 3D printer. Po, a Paraguay-based company, is hoping to make a difference on this front by offering customized 3D printed upper-limb prosthetics to local people in need. According to Po co-founder Eric Dijkhuis, because of a lack of work safety regulations, a high number of people in Paraguay suffer injuries, many of which require amputations. That reality, combined with relatively low incomes, means that many people do not receive the restorative care they need after injuries, and less than 3% of those in need receive suitable prostheses. Po, in seeing the potential of 3D printing to help solve this problem, set to work creating a functional, durable, customizable, and 3D printable prosthetic hand and lower arm that could be made widely accessible to Paraguayans in need. The first working version of the prosthetic, which is currently being used by over one hundred people in Paraguay, is based on a mechanical control system with relatively limited functions. Now, however, Po is working on devising a new and improved version of the prosthesis that can be controlled with a Myo device. Myo, for those unfamiliar with the device, is worn on a users arm, and can translate muscle movements into bioelectric signals which are in turn translated into different types of motion and communicated wirelessly to other devices. Developed by Thalmic Labs, the Myo basically allows small movements, such as tilting your hand or wrist, to control other devices. In terms of prosthetic limbs, this means that by simply rotating your wrist or making another similar movement, the Myo can instruct the prosthetic hand and fingers to follow accordingly, making it grab, grasp, pinch, etc. Currently, Po has five people testing out the MyPo, the new prosthetic arm that incorporates the Myo device. As Dijkhuis explains, At a fraction of the cost, MyPo mirrors the traditional functionality of a prosthetic hand, including several grips, degrees of freedom, and it can even integrate applications that already exist with the Myo armband. The latter refers to possible interactions with such things as social media and various mobile or computer apps. As mentioned, Pos prosthetic arm device is all open-source, and the 3D printing files for it are readily available through the company's Thingiverse page. As part of its mandate, Po has helped to bring the device to people in need within Paraguay largely through private donors and sponsors. According to the company, users are asked to pay a figurative amount that they can afford and the rest is covered by Po. The funding, as Dijkhuis explains, comes mainly from private donations, but also through independent professionals, NGOs, allied businesses, and public organizations. Our model is currently being replicated in North Argentina and South Brazil by Po partners, but our entire workflow is going to be open so anyone can start their own chapter with standardized, ready-to-go procedures, he explained. Po is not the only startup exploring the potentials of the Myo for innovative and accessible prosthetic limbs, as a team of German researchers has also been using the concept for a 3D printed wristband that turns prosthetics into easy-to-use digital computer mice. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Jennifer Senior at The New York Times: Three days after the presidential election, an astute law professor tweeted a picture of three paragraphs, very slightly condensed, from Richard Rortys Achieving Our Country, published in 1998. It was retweeted thousands of times, generating a run on the book its ranking soared on Amazon and by days end it was no longer available. (Harvard University Press is reprinting the book for the first time since 2010, a spokeswoman for the publisher said.) Its worth rereading those tweeted paragraphs: [M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers themselves desperately afraid of being downsized are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else. At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet. Matt Wolfe in The New Republic: Early one summer morning, Son Yo Auer, a Burger King employee in Richmond Hill, Georgia, found a naked man lying unconscious in front of the restaurants dumpsters. It was before dawn, but the man was sweating and sunburned. Fire ants crawled across his body, and a hot red rash flecked his skin. Auer screamed and ran inside. By the time police arrived, the man was awake, but confused. An officer filed an incident report indicating that a vagrant had been found sleeping, and an ambulance took him to St. Josephs Hospital in Savannah, where he was admitted on August 31, 2004, under the name Burger King Doe. Other than the rash, and cataracts that had left him nearly blind, Burger King Doe showed no sign of physical injury. He appeared to be a healthy white man in his middle fifties. His vitals were good. His blood tested negative for drugs and alcohol. His lab results were, a doctor wrote on his chart, surprisingly within normal limits. A long, unwashed beard and dirty fingernails suggested he had been living rough. But the only physical signs of previous trauma were three small depressions on his skull and some scars on his neck and his left arm. Psychologically, though, something was obviously wrong. Doe refused to eat or speak. He kept his eyes shut. Whenever a doctor touched his chest, he thrashed his limbs. After several days, Doe ate some ice chips and spoke a few words to a nurse. He said he had lived in the woods for 17 years. Asked his name, he replied, They call me B.K. around here. No, she said, your real name. B.K., Doe said. But youre getting me confused. Then he went silent. More here. [Thanks to Omar Ali.] Auditor's offices do plenty of preparation before Election Day About This Quiz They may both be run by the same iconic mouse, but these two theme parks each have a flavor all their own, with unique rides, shows and histories. Put on your mouse ears and see if you can tell them apart in our Disney parks quiz! We dont rush our Nevada Seniors and we take the time necessary to explain Nevada Medicare in simple clear English (and Spanish), states Frank Arbizu of Nevada Health Insurance Specialists. Free book explaining Medicare available from Nevada Health Insurance Specialists. The book provides all the information for beneficiaries and those researching for their parents. Medicare and You 2017 is a government publication sent to each Nevada Medicare Senior every year. In our experience we have found some publications go missing in the mail or are inadvertently thrown out, states Frank Arbizu President of Nevada Health Insurance Specialists. This publication contains important information and we want to ensure all Seniors and family have a copy. If your copy didnt arrive or family members need extras we are happy to send them out to you. Simply call our office at 702-573-7766 to request additional copies of Medicare and You 2017. This is a free publication and theres absolutely no charge or obligation for requesting copies. Nevada Health Insurance Specialists, based in Las Vegas, have affiliations with all the major insurance companies. Unlike many other insurance agencies they are not restricted to any particular insurance company. This freedom allows them to provide the best options at affordable pricing that meets the unique needs of each individual client. Arbizu continues, The Nevada Medicare choices our educated customers make are very important decisions and we work hard every day to educate ourselves on the latest Medicare programs to help our Nevada Seniors find the right program at a price which is affordable. What we do is extremely important, personalized and accurate. We dont rush our Nevada Seniors and we take the time necessary to explain Nevada Medicare in simple clear English (and Spanish). Every time we help a Nevada Senior make a decision thats right for their situation, it makes a strong team of our Seniors and Nevada Health Insurance Specialists. At Nevada Health Insurance Specialists we are dedicated to serving those Nevada Medicare Seniors in need of insurance and Nevada Medicare education. We are independent brokers, answering only to our customers needs. Nevada Medicare is a federal program and Seniors qualify for it generally at age 65. Medicaid is a state program funded by the federal government and Medicaid is available at any age although most people get Medicaid under the age of 65. Nevada Medicare open enrollment started on October 15th and ends on December 7th. Failure to meet this deadline means that enrollment will be delayed until October 2017. To get your free, no obligation copy of Medicare and You 2017 please call (702) 573-7766. Nevada Health Insurance Specialists also provide current information on Medicare Supplement, Life, Dental, Vision and Critical Care plans. All questions are answered by a trained and licensed agent. For more information please go to www.NevadaHealthInsuranceSpecialists.com Media Contact Company Name: The Bridge Marketing Agency Inc Contact Person: Keith Hunt Email: Keith@TheBridgeMarketingAgency.com Phone: 909-636-4012 Country: United States Website: http://www.nevadahealthinsurancespecialists.com/ Announces Successful Production Test at Hummer Sydney, Nov 22, 2016 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Petsec Energy (the "Company") ( ASX:PSA ) ( PSJEY:OTCMKTS ) is pleased to advise the successful flow testing of its Main Pass 270 No. 3 BP 1, Hummer discovery well, offshore Louisiana, Federal waters, USA. The well was tested over a 48 hour flow-back period, beginning 16 November 2016. Flow rates were measured at restricted rates on variable choke sizes over the last three hours of the 48 hour test period the well flowed at an average rate of 19.88 MMcfpd (million cubic feet of gas per day) and 396 bcpd (barrels of condensate per day) through a 16/64th inch choke with an average flowing WHP of 9753 psi (pounds per square inch) and no formation water. Production rates continued to rise over the duration of the test with a maximum gas rate of 20.5 MMcfpd recorded. The MP 270 #3 BP 01 well was perforated from14,100 feet to 14,186 feet measured depth (MD), 14,058 feet to 14,144 feet true vertical depth (TVD) in a Miocene age sand reservoir. Well logs indicate additional potential reservoirs in the well, but a decision was made not to run additional tests at this time. These untested sands will be targets of future drilling activity on the Hummer Project. Significant production occurs for similar reservoirs along trend. Peak production rates from those intervals can exceed 25 MMcfpd and 1000 bcpd. After testing, the well will be temporarily suspended pending the design, fabrication and installation of permanent production facilities and pipelines. The Company estimates first production from the Hummer project to commence mid-year 2017. The Hummer discovery well is located in U.S. federal waters approximately 50 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana. The water depth at the location is approximately 215 feet. The well was drilled, logged and temporarily suspended during Q3/Q4 2015 and has awaited testing until a recently completed production jacket could be installed over the well. The Ensco 87 rig was used to tie-back the well bore to the jacket and complete and test the well. The next stage of development will be to utilise the results of the test to design, fabricate and install a deck section with production facilities on the jacket, lay flow lines and connect to existing oil and gas transportation systems. It is anticipated that this process will take approximately 6 to 8 months. Petsec will continue to update the market on completion of key milestones in the development of the project. Petsec's Chairman and Managing Director, Terry Fern, commented: "We are very pleased with the drilling and test results of this initial well on the Hummer Project. This success is the culmination of an effort that began prior to 2010 when Petsec initially identified the prospect on 3D seismic data and continued through leasing and eventual drilling of the project several years later. Hummer is a significant oil and gas discovery covering a large prospective area and extending over portions of three offshore lease blocks that will require additional wells and facilities to define and develop. Although current information is limited from a single well and test, the indicated resource potential significantly exceeds the Company's pre-drill mapped target estimates. The Company holds a 10.24% net revenue interest in the project. We look forward to the commencement of production from this well and further development of the project." Participating working interests in the well are: Petsec Energy Inc. 12.5% Other Private Companies 87.5% Details of the Hummer Development Project: Discovery Well Name: OCS-G-22812 #3 BP 1 Type of Well: Exploration, Pending Production Well Location of Well: Offshore Louisiana, Federal Waters Original TD: 16,041 feet MD/16,000 feet TVD By-pass TD: 14,342 feet MD/14,300 feet TVD Project Operator: Castex Offshore, Inc. Petsec Working Interest: 12.5% Petsec Net Revenue Interest: 10.24% About Petsec Energy Ltd Petsec Energy Ltd (ASX:PSA) (OTCMKTS:PSJEY) is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. It has operations in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico and state waters of the Louisiana Gulf Coast region of the USA, and exploration activities in the Gulf Coast onshore and bay areas of Texas and Louisiana, USA and Yemen. Rodman CPAs Waltham, Mass. firmRodman CPAsannounced this week that they recently held a day of service atHope and Comfort, a local nonprofit that donates personal care products to people in need within the Greater Boston area. On October 21, a Rodman CPAs team of 19 volunteers donated their time at Hope and Comfort for their "Soap for Hope" program. Rodman's team ultimately packed 488 kits filled with soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, and toothbrushes for students in Boston Public Schools, Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston, and the Waltham Boys and Girls Club. Another Rodman team member, experienced associate Justin Horr, additionally raised thousands of dollars for Hope and Comfort competing in the Worlds Toughest Mudder challenge in Las Vegas late last month. Hope and Comfort is very thankful to everyone from Rodman CPAs for all of their volunteer efforts to help us get essential hygiene products to people in need throughout Greater Boston," said Jeff Feingold, Hope and Comfort president and founder, per a statement. "Not only did employees volunteer their time, they also collected hundreds of hygiene items and made a very generous financial donation. We could not help as many people as we do without great volunteers and donors like everyone at Rodman CPAs. Hope and Comfort supports and improves the health and self-esteem of thousands of children and adults in our community, stated Steve Rodman, president of Rodman CPAs. We are pleased to have the opportunity to work with such a great organization and will continue to support their efforts. Since its inception in 2011, Hope and Comfort has distributed over 230,000 items, with over 113,000 of those items distributed in 2016 alone, according to the organization. For more on Rodman CPAs, head to theirsite here.For more on Hope and Comfort, head to the organization'ssite here. Donald Trumps incoming administration may decide to make some changes in tax policy for household employers and employees, including an idea that Trump credited to his daughter Ivanka to allow parents to deduct childcare expenses from their taxes. Trump and his daughter unveiled the proposal on the campaign trail in September (see Ivanka Trump Takes Bow for Fathers Proposal for Childcare Tax Break). The proposal would enable working parents to deduct childcare expenses from their taxes for up to four children. Families who take the standard deduction, along with those who itemize deductions, could qualify. However, individual taxpayers who earn more than $250,000 a year or couples filing jointly who earn more than $500,000 a year wouldnt qualify for the tax break as proposed. The maximum amount of the deduction would be capped at the average cost of childcare in each state. However, whether or not the proposal actually ends up in Trumps budget or tax reform plan next year is anybodys guess. Tom Breedlove, director of Care.com HomePay, a service that specializes in handling the tax and HR obligations surrounding household payroll, sees some benefits to it. I think that it would help families pay for care and thats a good thing, he said. The tax breaks to help working families pay for care have been stagnant for way too long, and the real purchasing power of those tax breaks has really become almost de minimis at this point. Were all in favor of anything we can do as a society to help working families. The prospects of that particular proposal that Donald Trump laid out will have to go through a scoring system with the [Congressional] Budget Office to make sure they can afford it. Assuming they can afford it, it would help families pretty significantly, but well see what the appetite is when they score the cost. Even before the Trump administration takes office, though, there are some tax breaks families can take advantage of now if they hire household employees. For starters, they should be aware the Social Security taxable wage base will be increasing from $118,500 to $127,200 next year. Breedlove doesnt anticipate the increase will have a big impact on most domestic workers because household employees typically earn less than $50,000 a year. But there are some tax breaks families should definitely know about for next tax season. Most families tend to overlook a lot of the tax breaks that are available to them regarding dependent care, whether its a child or an elder situation, said Breedlove. They can usually take advantage of one of the dependent care tax breaks. That can save them around $2,000 or sometimes even more. A lot of families will probably be looking at that next year. Expect changes in the Affordable Care Act too. Congress is likely to vote next year for at least the 60th time to repeal the Affordable Care Act next year, but this time Republicans may actually succeed since they wont be facing a veto threat from President Obama. But until that happens, there are some tax breaks still available under Obamacare that might still be around under Trumpcare, or whatever replaces the ACA. For the caregivers themselves, theres a federal subsidy or the premium assistance that the government offers for those who have purchased health insurance through the exchange, said Breedlove. Until we know otherwise, the Affordable Care Act will continue, and the federal subsidies that were promised workers that earn within 400 percent of the federal poverty level, which is about $47,000. So anyone who is making less than $47,000 is going to be entitled to a federal subsidy on health insurance, but they have to have documented wages in order to do that. I think well see a lot of caregivers who are trying to capitalize on that particular tax advantage. He acknowledged that only part of the vast Affordable Care Act has a direct impact on household employment, most significantly the individual mandate to have health insurance. Thats really on the worker, said Breedlove. Some of the tax breaks that employers get if they do offer health insurance can affect families, but I think that in both of those scenarios, there is still going to be a strong desire for people to have health insurance, and there will probably be strong incentives for employers to offer health insurance. I dont really anticipate it having a huge impact on household employment, but well see. Despite all the unknowns at the federal level, there are some changes that are definitely on the horizon in many states and cities in areas such as the minimum wage and paid family leave. When we look at the changes that we know are coming, they tend to fall largely in the payroll and labor law kind of category, said Breedlove. There are a lot of minimum wage changes and then also paid sick leave. Many municipalities and states are beginning to follow the concept that we dont want sick workers to go to work and infect other people, so theyre asking employers to accrue paid sick leave for their employees and make sure they have some paid days off so they dont feel forced to go to work. Thats sweeping the country. There are so many municipalities and states that are requiring employers to do that. Another area that Breedlove anticipates will affect tax preparers is the Social Security Administrations changed filing deadline for copy A of the W-2 and the W-3. Those are now going to be due at the end of January, so tax preparers need to know thats been moved up, he said. Coinciding with that, a lot of statesthe ones that have annual reconciliations where wages have to be recapped at the end of the yearare now changing their deadline to coincide with the Social Security Administrations deadlines, so at the end of January well have more to-dos than normal. On top of that, seven states have passed Domestic Workers Bill of Rights legislation, most recently this past May in Illinois. The other six states are California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts and New York. These are state statutes that provide protections for domestic workers, and there are quite a few protections at the federal level under the Fair Labor Standards Act, said Breedlove. But many states didnt have anything on the books to protect domestic workers. Now domestic workers [in those seven states] have more rights and more specific protections and remedies if they are wronged, so they have easier ways to dispute wages or to try to collect unpaid wages from their employers on things like overtime and paid sick leave. Families who hire employees to take care of their aged parents and grandparents can also qualify for tax breaks. In the senior care world many people are not aware that nonmedical senior care can be part of the medical expense deduction if its prescribed by a doctor, said Breedlove. There are lots of Alzheimers and dementia patients who have been told that someone needs to be there for fellowship or protection to care for that patient. Even though its not a medical caregiver, it can be considered medical care and therefore they can take advantage of the medical expense tax deduction. With our aging population thats a really important point. Household employers also should be aware of tax breaks for some of the benefits they might provide to caregivers. Most families overlook a number of forms of nontaxable compensation that prevent both the family and the caregiver from having to pay taxes on a certain portion of the wages, said Breedlove. Those get overlooked so often that I always want to make sure that people are aware of that. If we can sit down with the family when theyre in the hiring process, we can help them take advantage of things like employer-paid health insurance, employer-paid tuition, cell phone usage, parking and public transportation. Things like that are considered nontaxable forms of compensation. You know you need to grow your practice. One logical path would be a whole new base of clients. Sometimes that can mean getting up to speed on an industry you know little about. Consider it first a learning challenge. I love new industries, said Jennifer Brown, an EA at Implex Tax & Accounting in Clearfield, Utah. It provides a new perspective on expenses that we see every day. I love always learning new things, said EA Jeffrey Schneider in Port St. Lucie, Fla. An example from his practice? I have business clients who are involved in bartering, and they had no idea on how taxes come into play, Schneider said. Particularly difficult Establishing a niche focus isnt easy it takes a lot less energy to say youre a tax practitioner serving any industry, instead of only serving a certain industry, such as health care or manufacturing, wrote authors Tom Hood and Pascal van Dooren in the Accounting Today article, Riches in Niches. The tax prep profession does enjoy one huge advantage regarding securing clients in new industries: They all still need to do their taxes, said Kerry Freeman, an EA at Freeman Income Tax Service in Anthem, Ariz., and with each new business or industry comes new and unique challenges. Freeman offers an example of an industry that has blown up in a short time: Just look at the cannabis industry, seeing this industry blow up in such a short time and the ways we as tax professionals have to comply with the federal law as well as asset our clients to legally be in business. EA and blogger John Dundon of Taxpayer Advocacy Services in Englewood, Colorado, most definitely enjoys working with clients in new industries with that one exception marijuana, what he terms the cutting edge of legalized weed. Marijuana tends to generally bring around characters that are particularly difficult to work with more so than any other new industry, Dundon said. The success of the marijuana industry, though, seems to be turning some pharmaceutical companies upside down, which is both welcomed and encouraged. So we find ourselves on occasion helping well-meaning proprietors weed out noise and stay focused on compliance. Ask, talk, leverage I like learning, and this presents an excellent opportunity, said Laurie Ziegler, an EA at Sass Accounting in Saukville, Wis. Besides, just because its a new industry or new to me doesnt mean there arent resources available. Experts polled in Inc. magazine offer several pointers for cracking new industries and niches. Ask questions. Never be afraid to admit your own ignorance, and use every opportunity to learn more. Leverage your fresh perspective. While your inexperience means you have a lot to learn, it also means you have no biases, which may allow you to see issues in a different light. Talk extensively customers and partners. Those whove gone before you in the industry can be your guides. Engaging a new client in a new industry is always a challenge I enjoy because it contains researching, planning and designing, said EA Janet Sienicki in Schererville, Ind. Researching the industry, how the IRS audits these businesses, and how the clients business fits into that industry helps to provide the foundation for designing accounting systems and appropriate tax planning. Hood and Van Dooren also suggest: Many firms built their practices based on specialty areas of interest. Perhaps youve been around medicine your entire life because your father or mother is a doctor; maybe you enjoy the analytical aspects of financial statements, which translates into a forensic accounting focus. Theres a niche focus in every industry and every service. The Internal Revenue Service is extending the due dates for some information reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act. Notice 2016-70 extends the deadline for certain information reporting requirements for 2016 imposed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act under sections 6055 and 6056 of the Tax Code. The notice specifically extends the due date for furnishing the 2016 Form 1095-B, Health Coverage, along with the 2016 Form 1095-C, Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage to individuals, from Jan. 31, 2017, to March 2, 2017. The notice also includes transitional good-faith relief from the penalties imposed by sections 6721 and 6722 of the Tax Code relating to the 2016 information reporting requirements under sections 6055 and 6056. Greatland, a company that specializes in W-2 and 1099 information reporting, is advising employers to take note of the extensions, but to continue their preparations as if the deadline had not been extended, so they can ensure compliance and avoid penalties from the IRS. While we expect this deadline change to have minimal impact to the far majority of our customers, we still are encouraging businesses to not wait until the last minute, which can lead to mistakes or missing the deadline, event with the extension, said Greatland CEO Bob Nault in a statement. Failure to file 1095 forms for the 2016 tax year could be very costly for businesses. This is the second year in a row that the IRS has decided to keep the good faith transition relief in place to give filers additional leniency to file properly. The 30-day extension gives employers and issuers an extra month to provide individuals with forms reporting on offers of health coverage and the coverage that is provided. The due dates for 1095-B and 1095-C deadlines are Feb 28, 2017 for paper 1095 forms with the IRS; March 2, 2017 for 1095 copies to be sent to recipients and employees; and March 31, 2017 to e-file 1095 forms to the IRS. ACA reporting is still required for 2016, though the good faith transition relief from 2015 has been extended for 2016, Greatland noted. The ACA reporting requirements for 2016 have not changed, but there is a little more time now to fulfill the requirements. Rohan Mehta, CEO, Media Kinnect, sheds light on the cost of ad-blocking for advertisers as well as media publishers, the advantages of shorter ad formats and more. How much are these Ad-blockers costing the advertisers as well as media publishers in terms of revenue? Ad-blockers do not affect advertisers as much as media publishers. Advertisers choose different channels to allocate their funds to compensate for decreased reach on certain publishers. A 2015 PageFair Report estimates that publishers lose about $21.8 billion of their revenue due to Ad-blockers. How big is this problem of ad-blocking in India? In India, approximately 122 million users from a total population of 350 million internet users in use ad-blockers. How would the phenomenon of ad-blocking affect the campaigns of the advertisers? Advertisers get affected differently, depending on the campaign type. In cases where the deal type is CPM or CPC, the advertisers only pay for ads that get served/ clicked, therefore, the monetary loss is non-existent. The only probable issues they might face are slower campaign rate and difficulty in reaching a certain set of audience. In the case of fixed buys/ innovations, the advertiser stands to lose a lot. Decisions are usually made on the basis of overall traffic/ pageviews on a publisher and the costs are fixed irrespective of their performance on the day or period of the campaign. Here, the advertiser loses out on a substantial number of impressions that would have otherwise served in the absence of ad-blockers. What do digital marketers need to do in terms of attention economics? A digital marketer needs to understand the attention economics of its consumer before trying to address the issue he/she faces with attention economics as a whole. The basics of attention economics is driven by five factors Attention, Permission, Engagement, Trust, and Action. Attention Address the who, how, where, what, why of your online consumer Permission Gain permission from the consumer to advertiser such as asking them to subscribe to an emailer list Engagement Its the most important factor for content and mainly defines time spent on a piece of content Trust Since two major goals are acquire new customers and retain old customers, trust becomes a key factor for attention economics Action Content is created to ensure that the end goal is achieved but in no wise means action is sure thing. Hence, it is very important to drive action actively How far can shorter Ad formats help brands to meet changing audience demand? The attention span of an online user is approximately 8 seconds, and this is the major reason why shorter ad formats work with todays consumers. We have all experienced the point where we want an ad to end so that we can move to the main content. This irritation is avoided when shorter ad formats are used. Such ads are direct in their messaging and also value the time of their viewer. Today, there is no commodity more valuable than time; shorter ad formats work as they do not take much of the users time. What kind of challenges does the increasing Ad-block technology adoption pose? Media houses that that rely on digital ads for revenue will have to reconsider their business plan to stay afloat. A power house like Google saw a 10 per cent decline in ad revenue in 2015, which resulted in a loss of $6 billion. Considering that they use paywalls to generate revenue, the market for paid news consumers is very small and cannot cover up for ad generated revenue. Advertisers will have to create ads that are more creatively crafted to grab the attention of their consumer. They will also have to make sure that they use the right channel with the target audience. Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) has unveiled a first-of-its-kind urban water, hygiene and sanitation community centre in Azad Nagar, Ghatkopar, one of the largest slums in Mumbai. HUL CEO and MD Sanjiv Mehta today inaugurated the centre. The centre, named Suvidha, is a purpose-built, sustainable community centre which addresses the hygiene needs of low income urban households who face severe challenges due to lack of infrastructure and facilities. The centre provides toilets that flush, handwashing facilities with soap, clean showers, safe drinking water and state-of-the-art laundry operations at an affordable cost. Suvidha will cater to over 1,500 people living in the area. Sanjiv Mehta said, There is an urgent need for innovative solutions that work at scale to address the challenges of rapid urbanization in India, particularly for the less privileged sections of society. Suvidha is a unique community initiative that aims to address the key challenge of providing people with easy and affordable access to quality hygiene and sanitation facilities in a sustainable manner. The centre would not have been possible without the support of Pratha Samajik Sanstha, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai and the local community. Suvidha (which means facility in Hindi) uses circular economy principles to reduce water use. Fresh water is first used for brushing teeth, bathing, handwashing and laundry. The waste water from these activities becomes the input for flushing toilets. This will help save an estimated ten million litres of water per annum. The launch of Suvidha on World Toilet Day (November 19) reinforces Unilevers commitment to helping 25 million people gain improved access to toilets by 2020. Together with its partners, Unilever has helped over five million people gain access to a toilet through behaviour change interventions and capacity building initiatives since 2012.[1] In Bihar, for example, our Domex Toilet Academies (DTAs), in partnership with PSI and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have helped build over 70,000 toilets in rural households impacting 350,000 people. Last year, HUL launched the Swachh Aadat Swachh Bharat (Clean Habits Clean India) programme in line with the Government of Indias Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission) to promote good health and hygiene practices. The Swachh Aadat Swachh Bharat programme educates people on the need to adopt three simple good habits washing hands five times a day, using toilets for defecation and adopting safe drinking water practices. These initiatives are in line with the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan global ambition of helping more than a billion people take action to improve their health and well-being. Since 2010, we have helped over 125 million people through our health and well-being programmes in India. Lifebuoys handwashing behaviour change programme has reached over 65 million people in India and Pureit has provided more than 70 billion litres of safe drinking water. Mr. Pankaj R. Patel, Chairman and Managing Director of Zydus Cadila - Cadila Healthcare Ltd. has been elected President of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) for the year 2017. Zydus Cadila is a global pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures and markets a broad range of healthcare therapies in over 50 countries worldwide. The group has 1200 researchers across 19 sites converging to look at differentiated medicines for the future. From APIs to vaccines, biosimilars and niche technologies, the company looks at different ideas and concepts to bridge unmet healthcare needs. Mr. Pankaj Patel is actively involved in various educational institutions and is on the advisory committees and academic councils of several educational institutions such as Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, IISER, Kolkata, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, The Ahmedabad University and Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies. He is the Executive Chairman, Vice President and Trustee of the Gujarat Cancer Society and Chairman of the Gujarat Cancer and Research Institute, a Regional Cancer Centre and one of the largest cancer centres of India, reaching out to the needy and underprivileged cancer patients. Mr. Patel will take over from Mr. Harshavardhan Neotia, Chairman of Ambuja Neotia Group, during the FICCI AGM to be held on 16 and 17 December 2016 in New Delhi. Sujeet Jain, Group General Counsel and Company Secretary, Viacom18, said, I welcome this order from the Honble Madras High Court.It is estimated that India loses $2.5 Billion to online movie piracy every year. With increased penetration of technology and internet in India, piracy through online distribution is expected to continue to be a major source of revenue leakage for the movie industry. This order is a significant development for the film industry in its fight against online piracy. As immediate next steps, weve also launched an investigation into identifying the source of piracy at the threshold level and we will be soon taking strict action on that front. Babcock International Group has finalised a joint venture with Oman Drydock Company (ODC) to enhance the naval capabilities at Duqm Port in Oman, providing local and international navies with specialist engineering services. Courtesy Oman Drydock Company The completion of the joint venture arrangements correspond with the UK Secretary of State for International Trade, Liam Fox MP, visiting Oman and underpin the UKs commitment to support the development of Duqm as a strategic location to create valuable employment in the area and secure future opportunities. After signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) earlier this year, both companies have worked tirelessly to bring together a winning combination of ODCs well-established commercial shipyard capabilities and Babcocks international naval and engineering expertise, to provide maintenance and support to warships and support vessels from across the globe. Initially this will include the Royal Navy of Oman, the Royal Oman Police Guard, the UK Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary. International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox said: The trade routes across the gulf are some of the oldest in the world. We share Omans commitment to open and free trade, and this joint venture with a leading British company will help both our countries increase our naval and trading capabilities in the region. Babcock is leading the way for other UK companies to follow in a country with huge opportunities. Oman Drydock Company Chairman, H.E. Dr. Abdulmalik bin Abdullah Al Hinai, commented: We are proud to see the hard working outcome of the joint venture and we are committed to this partnership with Babcock International Group. Delivering superior service is our top priority and we believe that the combination of Oman Drydock Company and Babcock International Group allows our clients to benefit from the complementary strengths of both companies within the maritime industry. Babcock Divisional Chief Executive, John Howie, commented: Having worked closely with Oman Drydock Company through the planning stages, we are delighted to be moving towards the operational and growth phases of the JV and are fully committed to enhancing the marine engineering and port capabilities at Duqm with the support of the UK Government and the Sultanate of Oman. FANUC America Corporation, the leading supplier of robotics, CNCs, and factory automation has been named one of Michigans top 100 workplaces by the Detroit Free Press for the fifth consecutive year. The list of the best places to work in Michigan is based on employee responses to an independent survey conducted by the Detroit Free Press. Companies whose workers expressed satisfaction with workplace advantages such as culture, pay, benefits, and amenities make the top workplace list. We are honored to earn this recognition for the fifth straight year, said Karen St. Louis, director of human resources, FANUC America. It sends a strong positive message about our employees commitment to and satisfaction with their employment at FANUC America. We have an amazingly talented group of professionals who are among the best in the automation industry, added St. Louis. Their outstanding performance contributes to a thriving environment and a top workplace. About FANUC America Corporation FANUC America Corporation is a subsidiary of FANUC CORPORATION in Japan, and provides industry-leading robotics, CNC systems, and factory automation. FANUCs innovative technologies and proven expertise help manufacturers in the Americas maximize efficiency, reliability and profitability. FANUC America is headquartered at 3900 W. Hamlin Road, Rochester Hills, MI 48309, and has facilities in: Atlanta; Boston; Charlotte; Chicago; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Houston; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; Montreal; Pine Brook, NJ; Pontiac, MI; San Francisco; Seattle; Toronto; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Sao Paulo, and Manaus, Brazil; and Aguascalientes, Mexico City, and Monterrey, Mexico. For more information, please call: 888-FANUC-US (888-326-8287) or visit our website: www.fanucamerica.com. Also, connect with us on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005667/en/ FANUC America Corporation Cathy Powell Industry Marketing Manager Robotics and ROBODRILLs T: 248-377-7570 E: cathy.powell@fanucamerica.com or Derek Sheedy Marketing Communications Specialist CNC T: 847-898-5679 E: derek.sheedy@fanucamerica.com DENVER, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (cUAS) industry is gaining momentum as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) opens up the sky to public and commercial drone operators, and this week, the FAA and the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS), managers of the FAA-designated Nevada UAS Test Site, teamed together with Northern Plains UAS Test Site to test counter-UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) technology at the Denver International Airport (DIA). Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) that enter the protected airspace around airports can pose a serious threat to manned aviation safety. The FAA and its partners are working to evaluate new technologies for detecting unmanned aircraft near airports, and this DIA FAA test represents a major milestone in the right direction for developing minimum operational performance standards for drone detection at major airport and critical infrastructure locations. "With the FAA UAS Test Site designation, Nevada was given an incredible opportunity to lead in the research and development of a commercial drone industry," said Tom Wilczek, Aerospace and Defense Industry Specialist for the Governor's Office of Economic Development. "This latest test proves that safety and privacy remain paramount concerns in developing a thriving unmanned aerial systems industry, and Nevada is grateful and excited to be a lead participant in these groundbreaking efforts." "We flew over a half dozen fixed-wing and multi-rotor drones during the ground detection system testing in Denver," said Chris Walach, Director of the Nevada UAS Test Site. "As the FAA-designated Air Mission Lead for both UAS Test Sites, our mission was to fly the scenarios per the FAA test cards under every imaginable flight profile that an airport would see [drones] intruding in their airspace. During the main FAA Pathfinder demonstration on 16 November 2016, the flight crews experienced high winds with gust over 20-25 knots and winds at the maximum for the smaller drones; however, despite the high winds, all Nevada flight teams executed their test cards with precision and a high-degree of safety. Walach continued, "This was a first: two UAS Test Sites jointly executing a very high profile FAA Pathfinder mission in Class B Airspace. The Nevada Team did exactly what a World Series UAS Team could have done in any high-profile scenario - achieving the first to fly in the Class B National Airspace which occurred day and night through multi-aircraft operations under severe cold-weather and snow conditions. Simply put, these tests mark a big step forward in developing a Counter Unmanned Systems industry." The Nevada Team included Nevada-based Eye in the Sky UAS, Colorado-based UASUSA, North Dakota-based ISight RPV Services, and the Nevada UAS Test Site flight team. Eye In The Sky Unmanned Aerial Systems was proud to fly the first series of Rotary-wing UAS in Class B airspace, as part of the FAA's Pathfinder Program for UAS Detection at Airports and Critical Infrastructure. Hand-selected by the Nevada UAS Test Site, Eye In The Sky flight team flew the various test cards using the InstantEye Gen3 and DJI Advanced platforms at Denver International Airport (DIA). "This is a major milestone for the Unmanned Aerial Systems Industry and for safely integrating UAS into the National Airspace System," said Rinaldo F. Brown, Director of UAS Operations for Eye In The Sky Unmanned Aerial Systems. "This project was an exciting chance for us to help advance the UAS industry, while also expanding our own technical capabilities. That combination made it a valuable and rewarding project for our team," said Adam Overvold, Chief Pilot, ISight RPV Services. "UASUSA was proud to demonstrate the Tempest's performance, and to be the first fixed-wing commercial drone launch in Class B Airspace held at Denver International Airport. The purpose was to support and study drone flight safety, a significant stepping stone to move the UAS industry forward," said Skip Miller, founder and CEO UASUSA. Nevada's Silver Springs Airport participated as the primary training location for all flight crews. "It was an honor and privilege to participate with NIAS in this historic event with our clients," said Kay Bennett, Silver Springs Airport Owner and Manager. About the Governor's Office of Economic Development Created during the 2011 session of the Nevada Legislature, the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) is the result of a collaborative effort between the Nevada Legislature and Governor Brian Sandoval to restructure economic development in the state. GOED's role is to promote a robust, diversified and prosperous economy in Nevada, to stimulate business expansion and retention, encourage entrepreneurial enterprise, attract new businesses and facilitate community development. More information on the Governor's Office of Economic Development can be viewed at www.diversifynevada.com. About the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS) On behalf of the Nevada Governor's Office of Economic Development, NIAS helps to grow the Autonomous Systems Industry through business teaming, partnerships, research and development, and education awareness in order to bring in business and jobs to the State of Nevada and to facilitate full and safe UAS integration into the National Airspace System. Learn more at www.nias-uas.com or www.flynevada.com. About Eye in the Sky Eye In The Sky Unmanned Aerial Systems, with Training locations in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Carrabelle, Florida focused on UAS Training, to include Part 107, Maintenance and Support Operations. Our focus on First Responders, Search and Rescue, and unique Payload R&D has allowed us to participate in industry-changing projects shaping the future for UAS support. About UASUSA UASUSA, based in Longmont, Colorado, is a leader in fixed-wing drone manufacturing and operations. Our unmanned aircraft systems, such as the Tempest, are civil servants in the air. We are helping governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations resolve some of society's biggest commercial, environmental, and scientific challenges. UASUSA's deep experience with small UAV flight, system efficiency and performance, result in unparalleled mission capability. About ISight RPV Services ISight RPV Services, based in Grand Forks, ND, provides Remotely Piloted Vehicle operations to agriculture, critical infrastructure, wildlife management, insurance, and emergency services companies, enabling them to unlock the value and efficiency of collecting data with unmanned aircraft. We maintain a fleet of innovative UAS platforms and a team of professional pilots to meet a wide range of customer needs. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nevada-uas-test-site-leads-groundbreaking-faa-uas-detection-at-airports-pathfinder-program-air-operation-300367355.html SOURCE Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS) BRADY, Texas, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Texas Right to Know (TRTK): Every 10 to 15 years Texas agencies are evaluated on the performance of their duties by the Texas Sunset Commission. Currently, several of the health care regulatory and license boards for medical physicians, chiropractors, dental, nursing boards, etc. are currently under review by the Sunset Commission. Many health care practitioners complain of unjust treatment and gross lack of due process from the Texas Medical Board, resulting in legal bills totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars for their defense and in some cases the loss of their licenses. In spite of these complaints, the TMB's November 2, 2016 Sunset Staff Commission Report stated, "Sunset staff did not detect any obvious indications of bias in favor of or against any type of practitioner." The Sunset Staff Commission Report's denial of any problems is troubling in light of the many complaints coming from the integrative medicine and alternative health care community and the number of lawsuits the board is involved. Evidently, discrimination by the TMB is not limited to practitioners. An email from a Lyme disease support group organizer stated, "The TMB Executive Director has stated in open session meetings that they are making a great effort to reduce the number of complaint investigations and are having great success in this way. In particular, almost every complaint filed regarding Lyme or Tick Borne Disease has been returned to the complainant as "non-jurisdictional." As the TMB spends untold tax payer's dollars on frivolous investigations of practitioners where there are no patient complaints, no patients harmed and no suspicious practices involving prescription abuse, they return valid complaints by the public claiming "non-jurisdiction." Other threats are coming from the Texas Medical Association (TMA), a physician medical society, who propose policies which would infringe on Texans' medical treatment options. One instance is the case where the TMA filed suit against Texas Board of Chiropractic Examiners (TBCE) to deny chiropractors the ability to diagnose patient conditions. Inability to make a diagnosis prevents chiropractors' ability to bill insurance on behalf of their patients for their services. The original case sided with the TBCE. The TMA won their appeal with ruling issued by Judge Rhonda Hurley of the 353 Judicial Court in Travis County. The court also specified that the definitions of "musculoskeletal system" to include "nerves," "subluxation complex" as a "neuromusculoskeletal condition," and use of the term "diagnosis" by TBCE in its rules all exceed the scope of practice as defined by the Texas Occupations Code. The TBCE has appealed. Should the TMA versus TBCE court case be awarded as TMA proposes, patients would need a physician's referral for certain chiropractic procedures. This ruling and other actions of the TMA is moving Texans' treatment options toward an allopathic, medical monopoly. It is speculated that the TMA may follow suit with the American Medical Association in their call for elimination of the right to a conscientious or religious exemption from the administration of state-mandated vaccines, leaving only medical exemptions. Many parents of vaccine injured children testified in 2015 Texas legislative hearings that their children were injured after vaccine injections and their physician recommended that neither the injured child nor their siblings be given future vaccinations. They went on to describe the difficulty of finding a physician to give their child a medical exemption since many physicians fear retaliation from the TMB. If the conscientious and religious exemption options are removed, Texans will be forced into mandatory, invasive medical treatments on the general public in a one-size-fits-all, totalitarian approach. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 relieved drug companies from all liability for harm caused by vaccines mandated by government. From the National Vaccine Information Center, "Every American pays a surcharge on every vaccination. There is $3 billion dollars waiting to be awarded in the Vaccine Injury Trust Fund, which has already been raided by federal agencies dragging vaccine victims through years of litigation and looking for ways to deny vaccine risks. The Supreme Court has now given Pharma and evangelistic doctors a green light to lobby legislators to require every American, who lives to be 78 years old, to get more than 130 doses of government recommended vaccines starting on the day of birth through the last year of life." It seems the time may have come for the TMA and TMB to re-familiarize itself with the law of the land. The writers of the Texas Constitution had enough foresight to anticipate the potential for a medical monopoly when they the added Article 16 Section 31, which states: PRACTITIONERS OF MEDICINE. The Legislature may pass laws prescribing the qualifications of practitioners of medicine in this State, and to punish persons for mal-practice, but no preference shall ever be given by law to any schools of medicine. A person physical body is the most precious personal property. When the government is given power to supersede an individual's medical decisions over their personal body with forced medication or forced medical procedures, the society is under medical tyranny. About Texas Right to Know: TRTK is a service designed to inform and connect people in the community regarding local and state issues that affect their basic necessities of life, such as: Government, EMF Dangers, Air, Water, Food, Medical Freedom, Energy, Education, and Transportation. www.texasrighttoknow.com Media Contact: Sheila Hemphill, CEO Texas Right To Know | info@texasrighttoknow.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/texas-right-to-know-asks-is-texas-headed-toward-a-medical-monopoly-300367735.html SOURCE Texas Right to Know Bay Area ANG unit rescues Navy contractor The California Air National Guard's 129th Rescue Wing conducted a long-distance rescue mission over the Pacific Ocean Nov. 12, saving the life of a seriously ill 63-year-old civilian contractor on board the USS Guadalupe. "The 129th Rescue Wing's bottom line is the Air Force rescue community's motto: That others may live," said Col. Taft Aujero, the 129th RQW commander. "Our more than 1,000 saves both at home and abroad speaks to the extraordinary talent of our members. I could not be prouder of them and their accomplishments." The USS Guadalupe was approximately 560 miles off the California coast when the U.S. Coast Guard requested Air Force Rescue Coordination Center (AFRCC) assistance. "Due to the distance of the vessel and no local assets in the area, we reached out to the 129th Rescue Wing for assistance," said Lt. Kayla Abruzzese, the 11th Coast Guard District watchstander. "Through the coordination efforts, we were able to get the person in distress to higher medical care." With AFRCC and Coast Guard coordination, the 129th RQW launched two HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters, an MC-130P Combat Shadow aircraft and a pararescue team from Moffett Federal Airfield around 11 a.m. to the USS Guadalupe. Once the team boarded the ship, they stabilized the patient before loading him into an HH-60G that departed back to Moffett Air National Guard Base. The pararescue team continued to provide en route care for the patient during the four-hour return flight. An ambulance met the contractor at Moffett ANGB and immediately transported him to a local hospital. The 129th Rescue Wing is credited with saving the lives of more than 1,000 people. The wing conducts combat search and rescue missions, as well as the rescue of distressed persons on board ships, lost or injured hikers, and medical evacuations across the West Coast. Airmen provide air base defense in northern Iraq Giulio Douhet's military concept states, "the only effective way to counter airpower is to destroy its bases on the ground." As such, air base defense serves as the core of Air Force security forces' doctrine. It's the foundation from which the career field planted its roots. "The history books of security forces are riddled with examples of how air bases, when defended by the Army, weren't sufficient," said Capt. Scott Hlavin, the 821st Contingency Response Group defense force commander. "Not because the Army personnel weren't trained or capable. They just weren't air minded. That's where the security forces defender comes into play." Today, defenders assigned to the 821st CRG are on the front lines in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, providing air base defense for Qayyarah West Airfield in northern Iraq. Situated just 30 miles south of Mosul, Qayyarah West Airfield is a strategic launching pad and frontline resupply depot. It is one of the northern-most hubs for coalition airpower in Iraq. The contingent of defenders here is responsible for the security and safeguarding of a five-kilometer airfield. Hlavin said, Our mission is threefold, it includes working with our joint partners (Army), our Iraqi brethren, and the one we take most personally, defending this air base to allow for unhindered air operations. "An airfield is vulnerable," he said. "We have the worlds greatest Air Force. When we are in the air no one can touch us, but when we are on the ground we are just as vulnerable as the next guy. Our aircraft are too valuable and too important as strategic platforms in the fight against (ISIL) or whoever the enemy may be. It's our mission to ensure our air base is ready to go." Since the 821st CRG's arrival in mid-October, security forces personnel have secured an additional kilometer perimeter around the airfield; hardening defenses and enabling security resources to be freed up for supplementary operations. "This is definitely something you read about in history books and never think you will be part of it," Hlavin said. "A lot of times we are behind the front lines. But here at Qayyarah West, our core principles of integrated air base defense are alive and well." CRG defenders The 821st CRG is highly specialized in training and rapidly deploying personnel to quickly open airfields and establish, expand, sustain and coordinate air mobility operations in austere, bare-base conditions. "Our forces set the stage for that gap between the Army seizing an airfield and our follow-on forces setting up an even more in-depth posture to protect our assets on the ground," Hlavin said. "In order to achieve that end state, you have to maximize your efforts, your firepower, your weapon systems and you have to have the right people." Hlavin added that while his defenders are young, they have grown during their time at Qayyarah West. Senior Airman Jonathan Sorber, an member of the 821st CRG, is on his first deployment and is one of those Airmen. His duties situate him on the edge of the fight against ISIL. In full kit and armed with a M240B, where he scans unimpeded terrain surrounding the air base; he is the first line of defense for the sprawling airfield. "My mission here is to support the opening of the air base and provide elite airfield security," Sorber said. "We work every day, providing security on the front lines. Ultimately, we are the ones between the bad guys and our guys, and at the end of the day when everyone makes it home safe, we know we did our jobs." Defenders bear the responsibility for the safekeeping of their fellow Airmen. They are the "sheep dogs." The hours are unforgiving and the shifts often isolating, but their mission remains essential to the overarching objective of projecting superior airpower within the region. "Its not easy joining up to go to war," Hlavin said. "You find yourself thrust in your first deployment here in the middle of Iraq. Its not easy. But seeing the troops actually grow and learn, watching them grow out here in the real deal is humbling; coming back with smiles on their faces knowing they kept the base safe on their shift." Developing relationships In addition to air base defense, an essential function of the 821st CRG Defenders' role at Qayyarah West remains increasing interoperability with their Iraqi counterparts. "Our end goal is to start furthering our training with our Iraqi partners," Hlavin said. "We want to get them up in the towers, out on the berm and running their own security. We want to ensure that when we hand this base off to them they have the power projection capability to defeat future threats" Although the language barrier remains an obstacle, Hlavin said relationships continue to develop. "You see that they aren't much different than we are," he said. "Many of them are young, have families and are fighting for the future of their country. "It's exciting to watch and see what the future of Iraq is. We have a lot of friends who started this over a decade ago feeling as though their sacrifices were for nothing. Today, we are here watching them have their airplanes flying and fighting a common enemy. Its a humbling experience to be a part of." Moody Airmen host riot training for local state troopers Airmen from Moody Air Force Base hosted Georgia State Patrols Mobile Field Force semiannual riot control training here Nov. 16-17. The GSP used Moodys facilities to ensure their readiness for riots while Airmen supported by participating as rioters. The training consisted of both classroom and outdoor portions. In this day and age, were going to have peaceful protests, and were all about that, said GSP Capt. Kevin Rexroat, the Troop H commander. Unfortunately, were also going to have some agitators in every peaceful protest. This training gives the troopers a scenario to know what theyre looking for, how to engage and let the rest of the peaceful protesters get their word out. Moody facilitated this training by providing the Military Operations in Urban Terrain village, a training area consisting of buildings, obstacles and gravel roads. Sometimes, we dont have the luxury of a facility like this, Rexroat said. Most of the places weve (trained) have been generally flat areas, such as airport hangars and taxiways. This facility gives us a more realistic scenario of what were facing in real-word situations, and it is a great benefit to our troopers. Not only did Moody AFB provide the MOUT village, but also added to the realistic environment by role-playing as rioters who yelled, protested and threw debris at the police officers. Rexroat explained how knowing steps and techniques of crowd control can only take you so far. When an actual person is yelling in the face of a police officer, he or she has to apply those skills in a high-stress atmosphere to keep the peace. Most of the time, our goal is to have a command presence, Rexroat said. We show the command presence and dictate, just by being there. Our ultimate goal is to keep everything peaceful and not let anything get out of control. Not only did having the Mobile Field Force train at Moody AFB aid the GSP, but it also allowed Airmen to see how their civilian counterparts conduct business. We got to see what they can do and learn from them, said Senior Airman Chester Montague, an 823rd Base Defense Squadron fire team member who acted as a riot role-player. If they have proper training to handle situations like this, it better suits everyone else. The GSP reciprocated Montagues enthusiasm. I hope this shows the public the collaborative effort of the military and civilian law enforcement -- that we work together as a team, Rexroat said. Foreign minister of Madagascar Atallah Beatrice Jeanine has hailed Moroccos decision to rejoin the African Union (AU) and pledged to support the North African Kingdoms bid to retake its legitimate seat within its African institutional family. Mrs Beatrice made the remarks in Antananarivo on the occasion of the official visit King Mohammed VI is paying to Madagascar within the frame of a new African tour to bolster Moroccan-African partnership and foster further South-South cooperation. Madagascar top diplomat said that President Hary Rajaonarimampianina has responded favorably to the letter sent to him by Head of the Union African Commission Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on Moroccos bid to rejoin its African institutional family. Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda, which were visited lately by the Moroccan Sovereign, also backed Moroccos return to the AU. During the latest African Summit held in Kigali (Rwanda), 28 African member countries out of 54 submitted a motion welcoming Moroccos application to rejoin the African Union, noting that the North African country is one of the founding members of the AUs predecessor, the Organization of African Unity (OAU.) Panama Canal. President Hary Rajaonarimampianina, who held Monday in Antananarivo tete-a-tete talks with King Mohammed VI, underlined the importance of the royal visit to his country, saying this is the first visit by the Moroccan King to Madagascar, a visit which has a strong symbolic meaning. The royal trip will give new momentum to the friendship ties existing between the two countries, added the Malagasy president, recalling Moroccos special ties with Madagascar, notably the city of Antsirabe, which had welcomed late King Mohammed V and the royal family during their forced exile in 1954. After the warm welcome of the Moroccan Sovereign by the Malgasy president, government and people, the two African Heads of State held private talks and exchanged the highest honorary distinctions. Afterwards, the two leaders chaired the signing ceremony of twenty-two bilateral cooperation agreements. These agreements seek to enhance partnership in agriculture, banking, civil service, youth, sports, taxes, renewable energy, education and vocational training. Morocco, which chairs COP22, pledged on this occasion to help Madagascar upgrade and preserve the Canal of Pangalanes, a 700- km long waterway which is four times longer than the Suez Canal and eight times longer than the Panama Canal. Weeks after they celebrated the release of 21 of their abducted daughters, the people of Chibouk in Borno State say their communities are being overrun by suspected Boko Haram insurgents. They said at least nine communities under Chibok local government area have been either attacked, sacked or burnt down by rampaging Boko Haram insurgents. The federal government has said that talks are continuing with Boko Haram for the release of some 196 Chibok girls still in captivity. But the recent upsurge of hostilities by Boko Haram within and around Borno State, has raised concerns about the prospect of such talks. The chairman of Chibok local government area, Yaga Yarkawa, on Monday, told journalists in Maiduguri that the most attack on Chibok communities took place was in Thlaimaklama village. He said hundreds of persons fled their homes as the insurgents torched houses, looted foodstuff and stole livestock. Chibok is now under Boko Haram siege, he said. Contrary to claims by government and security operatives, Chibok is not safe. There has been series of renewed attacks on our communities. As I am talking to you now the villages of Kuburmbula, Tsilari, Kamdzilari, Kuburnvwu, Kautikari, Kwada, Buftari and Kakulmari have all been attacked, and burnt down completely in the past weeks. Most of the villages bordering Damboa and Sambia forest parts of the state. He said the latest attack took place at the weekend in Thlaimaklama village where the insurgents carted away farm products in 15 vehicles, after setting ablaze three vehicles and several numbers of houses without any confrontation from the military. BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday admitted that people are suffering due to demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs 1,000 notes whereas Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Demonetisation is not the end but the beginning of a long, deep and constant battle against black money and corruption. I can understand that people are suffering due to the note ban, Shah told a rally ahead of the Uttarakhand assembly election. The problems will remain for a few days but it will help in improving the economic condition in the country, he said. The BJP President also said that people who did not have black money were not unhappy over the currency spike that has triggered a cash chaos all across the country. It seems (some) leaders opposing the demonetisation drive have amassed black money, he added. Shah urged the people to vote for the BJP to get rid of the corrupt Congress government. Speaking at the first meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Party in the Winter session, Modi said the poor and the lower and middle classes have suffered the most due to black money, fake currency and corruption and his government is working to rid the country of these evils and make the economy stronger. Rallying around the PM at a time when opposition parties have united to corner the government over the measure citing hardships being faced by the masses, party MPs passed a unanimous resolution supporting demonetisation and gave him a standing ovation. Hitting out at the rival parties, the resolution asked them to decide whether they stand by the people of India and the government or hoarders of black money. While hailing PMs great crusade against corruption, it accused the opposition of trying to provoke violence and chaos and disrupt Parliament, Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters. We have come to power not for us or those close to us but for the poor. For 70 years, the poor and the lower and middle classes suffered and have been exploited by black money, corruption and terrorism. Our aim is a deep, long and constant struggle against them. This is not the end but only a beginning of our struggle, the Prime Minister said and cited measures like setting up of a SIT on blackmoney and Income Disclosure Scheme, 2016. Both Congress and NCP are pointing fingers at each other after the results of biennial polls. The results of the biennial elections to the state Leglislative Council has turned out to be a massive setback for NCP as it could win only one out of the four seats held by it earlier. Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Ashok Chavan has blamed the NCP for allowing BJP-Sena alliance win additional seat in biennial election. Expressing his displeasure over the results of the election, Chavan said, The NCP was averse to the proposal of fighting six seats together in a 3:3 ratio. If the party had adopted this seat sharing formula with us then the results would have been different. Instead the party had helped Sena-BJP by stitching an unholy alliance with them which had cost the Congress dearly. If NCP had agreed to the 3:3 formula leaving Yavatmal and Sangli-Satara for Congress, both parties would have easily won all the six seats. The party should review its strategy and should refrain from supporting Sena-BJP combine in future elections, added Chavan. The voting was held on Saturday and the counting of votes took place on Tuesday. The NCP retained only Pune local bodies seat while Congress retained Nanded and wrested Sangli-Satara local bodies constituency from NCP. The BJP retained the Jalgaon local bodies seat. The Sharad Pawar-led party lost Bhandara-Gondia to BJP and Yavatmal to Shiv Sena Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said, The NCP had helped Shiv Sena in Yavatmal and BJP in Jalgaon by withdrawing its candidates. Similarly, Shiv Sena supported NCP in Pune. Even in Nanded, NCP joined Sena-BJP to support an independent against Congress Amar Rajurkar. On the other hand, NCP held the Congress responsible for the partys poor performance in biennial election. NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said, Our party had to suffer defeat due to horse trading activities and non-cooperation from the Congress. Had the party supported us in Sangli-Satara in exchange for our support in Yavatmal, we both could have retained our seats. However, NCP continues to be the single largest party in the House. The biennial polls to five seats from teachers and graduates constituencies are also scheduled for which dates will be announced soon, an election official said. In the 78-member Upper House, Congress now has 20 members, the NCP tally has been reduced to 23, while BJP has 18, and Shiv Sena has nine members. Nokia is planning to re-enter the smartphone business in 2017, a slide from Nokias capital markets day 2016 has revealed. The event that was held on November 15 for investors, the company stated that 2017 will represent Nokia brands return to smartphones., Phone Arena reported on Friday. Since it does not have the required manufacturing facilities, Nokia will rope in Finnish company HMD Global, and Taiwanese giant Foxconn to manufacture the smartphones. Led by former Nokia execs, HDM will develop, market and sell Nokia-branded phones and accessories, while Foxconn is dealing with R&D and manufacturing, the report added. The first smartphone of Nokia after its come back is rumoured to be the D1C that runs on Android 7 Nougat with a Snapdragon 430 processor, and offers a 1080p display and 3 GB of RAM. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should speak in parliament and give answer to peoples question on his decision of sudden demonetization of Rs.500 and Rs. 1,000 denomination notes, Rahul Gandhi attacks Modi on the currency ban. PM can speak on TV, pop concert, but why not in the Parliament? The Congress Vice president was referring to PM Modi addressing the recently concluded Global Citizen Festival 2016 that was held in Mumbai. Taking a jibe at Prime Minister Modi, Gandhi said: He doesnt even take inputs from his ministers, does whatever comes to his mind. Gandhi claimed that banks are dispensing cash to a select few through backdoor. The people standing in queues told me that banks are cutting deals. Only select people are getting cash, he said. The Congress is playing a pivotal role in the criticism of the notes ban, introduced in a sudden televised address on November 8 by the PM. Mr Gandhi has thrice joined lines outside ATMs at different banks in Delhi and Mumbai. He said he wants to share the experience and hardship of the common man. Senior Left leader Sitaram Yechury made similar remarks on Twitter: A PM who has time to address pop music concerts but is refusing to face Parliament. #Demonetisation #ManMadeDisaster. Spokesman from Congress RS Surjewala said, 70 people have died in 13 days on account of demonetisation decision, will PM apologise to those families? Modi Govt has seen that it can neither go back nor go fwd on #DeMonetisation, they are devising escape routes, escapism wont do. However, replying to Gandhis question, BJP spokesperson Shaina NC said, The people are standing with the Modi Government. They know whether they face problem or not, it is in national interest. Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi echoing similar sentiments said that the government is ready for a debate on the demonetisation issue in Parliament but the opposition is finding unnecessary excuses. This desperation is not for ban on high-value currency but because of the steps initiated to get rid of the black money. We have appealed to the opposition that they should discuss and debate the issue but unfortunately they dont want to discuss it and are finding excuses, he said. The Army on Tuesday recovered Rs. 2,000 notes, which have been in circulation for less than a fortnight, from two terrorists killed in Bandipora district of Jammu and Kashmir. Security forces had cordoned off the area early morning after the terrorists who were holed up there opened fire. A heavy gunbattle ensued soon after. A combing operation was underway to flush out for more terrorists, if any, the agency further reported. The Army and the police in a joint operation had cordoned off the area to smoke out the two terrorists who were holed up and had opened fire, thus engaging in a heavy gunbattle early in the morning of Tuesday. Exchange of gunfire took place between both sides in which two terrorists were neutralised. A cache of arms and ammunition were recovered, in addition to Rs. 15,000 in cash two Rs. 2,000 notes and the remaining in Rs. 100 notes. Two AK-47 rifles, with arms and ammunition have been recovered from the killed militants. Both are suspected to be from the Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, the police say. Four masked and armed men burst into a bank in Kashmir and left with Rs. 13 lakh, largely in the old Rs. 500 and 1,000 notes. The robbery took place at a branch of the state-run Jammu and Kashmir Bank in Malpora, 100 km from Srinagar. The notes could have been sourced locally, said police. Investigations are underway. US-based taxi aggregator Uber has written to the Maharashtra government highlighting concerns over proposed rules to govern the ride-sharing industry and said pricing as well as cab restrictions would render its business inefficient and inconvenient. We have written to the government about proposed restrictions which could render our business inconvenient to customers and inefficient, Shailesh Sawlani, General Manager of Mumbai for Uber India, said. We are awaiting a response regarding this, he said. In its revision of the proposed City Taxi Scheme 2015 last month, the state government mooted maximum and minimum fares for app-based taxi aggregators, based on the type and capacity of vehicles. It also stipulated that more that 50 per cent of the vehicles on the ride-sharing platforms must be over 1400cc. This means economical and fuel efficient vehicles will disappear from the platform and will also take away the freedom and flexibility of drivers to have the vehicle of their choice, forcing them to buy more expensive cars which will in turn increase fares, Uber had said on its company blog. The proposed increase in the price of permits needed to drive on ride-sharing platforms creates barriers to accessing economic opportunities for drivers, it said. Also of concern are restrictions that put a cap on the minimum amount that can be charged for a trip, preventing market forces determining lower fares when possible, Uber said. We look forward to discussing the draft with the government and work towards the shared goal of a sustainable city that fosters entrepreneurship and economic growth, Sawlani said. Uber has over 75,000 drivers in Maharashtra of its total 4 lakh drivers. India is one of the largest markets for Uber outside of the US, and in order to be more customer-centric, it has relaunched its mobile platform, Sawlani said. Melania and Barron Trump not moving into the White House on the heels of a 'difficult' campaign period for the 10-year-old. From the very first day that Donald Trump announced his run for president his life became an open book with the media probing not only into his past life, but his wife as well. Now it is#Barron Trump the media is centered on after what some are referring to as awkward behavior seen during election night while standing on the stage with his dad. While the child is only 10 and was more than likely wiped out from a long ordeal that election day tends to be, there were some facial movements and stares that brought on questions about Barron possibly being autistic. Autism questions If Baron is autistic, the Trumps are in between a rock and a hard place when it comes to making that information public. The campaign and all the attention that centered on Barron has proved difficult for the young boy, according to the New York Post. Because the campaign period was so overwhelming for Barron, Melania has decided not to move into the White House and stay at home in Trump Tower with Barron when Donald moves in January. She wants him to be able to continue on at the same school he is enrolled in today. It wouldn't be fair to Barron for the Trump's to announce any health conditions he may or may not have. While #Autism is quite prevalent in the nation today, most kids who have this diagnosis aren't thrust into the public spotlight. If Barron is already finding all the chaos involved in being the young son of a president overwhelming, it would be understandable that if he is diagnosed with autism, his parents might opt to keep that under wraps. Trump very vocal over Autism and vaccines At one point Trump talked about a two-year-old child who was diagnosed with autism after being vaccinated. Reports say that Trump was talking about Barron in that story, according to the Morning Ledger. Donald Trump is giving up running his business and now his wife and son won't be moving to Washington DC with him, so he is giving up a lot to run this nation. Because of all the sacrifices this family has already made, the nation should respect their privacy around their young son. The question of Barron Trump having autism keeps popping up on Google News. I would hope that the media would show the same respect to Trumps family that they did with Obamas daughters. I think that the possibility of a President whos already shown that he questions the safety of vaccines and has publicly speculated on a link to autism would make a lot of people nervous. And if hes personally affected by autism, especially regressive autism, Trump may not be so willing to just light the White House up in blue and call for awareness like his predecessor did. Trump may be more than a little interested in the charge by a senior scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that his agency destroyed research showing a link between vaccines and autism. and that officials have never compared the health outcomes of fully-vaccinated and never-vaccinated children. and that while U.S. health officials have continued to tell us that there is no link between vaccines and autism, the Vaccine Compensation Program has paid out millions for over the last few decades for lots of vaccine injuries that included autism. and that HHS conceded the case of vaccine-induced autism in the case of Hannah Poling eight years ago. and that while officials release new autism numbers every couple of years, often showing jaw-dropping increases, no one has ever gone on the record stating that theres ever been a true increase in the number of Americans with autism. ...and that a wanted felon's research is used to vouch for injecting mercury into children. and that no official will call for a study accessing the rate of autism among adults to determine if there is a comparable rate to the stunning numbers of neurologically disabled children. and that no official will call for a study of children who were born healthy, developed normally and inexplicably lost learned skills and regressed into autism. These are just a few of the facts about vaccines/autism and the U.S. government that Trump may want to focus on. Editor's Note: Agri-Pulse and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs are teaming up to host a monthly column to explore how the U.S. agriculture and food sector can maintain its competitive edge and advance food security in an increasingly integrated and dynamic world. Show me a nation that cannot feed itself, and Ill show you a nation in chaos. Ive said it before and Ill surely say it again. A nations ability to feed itself depends on farmers. Farmers depend on agricultural research. As the Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and former Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I can confidently say that there is no issue in global security more timely or relevant than food security. Tonight, one in nine people thats almost 800 million worldwide, will go to bed hungry. Thats more than double the population of the United States. Around the world impoverished regions are facing increasing challenges in feeding their people from political unrest and social conflict like what we face in places like Syria, to weather driven crises like what we currently see in East Africa. Yet American farmers and ranchers are so efficient at producing food that we can aid less fortunate nations. In fact, in 1953 a farmer in Kansas by the name of Peter OBrien had the idea that American farmers could give aid to other countries in the form of food. Eventually this idea led to what is now called Food for Peace, a program that provides aid to nearly every country in the world. But thats not all that American agriculture is doing to fight world hunger. For just over 30 years, USDA has been using the Food for Progress program to help developing countries advance their own agriculture systems. By increasing productivity and expanding market and trade opportunities, countries are better able to grow their economies and respond to regional crises. Id be remiss if I didnt give due credit to my friend U.S. Senator Bob Dole (R-Kan.). Through the McGovern-Dole School Feeding Program (or as we say in Kansas, the Dole-McGovern program), USDA and partners have the ability not only to provide a child with a nutritious meal for the day, but also offer the opportunity to receive an education. The issues of global food security and agriculture research are not standalone issues. Both overlap with multiple issue areas. Both require the cooperation of multiple public and private agencies and organizations. Also required is the cooperation of both Republicans and Democrats. Ranking Member Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and I cosponsored an amendment to the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which expands agricultural trade technical assistance with an increased focus on sectors that support women. With the backing of Senator Stabenow and myself, the last Farm Bill authorized the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research. This is a perfect example of the potential for public-private partnerships to find innovative ways to support and advance agriculture research. This Foundation is going to make a difference, both domestically and internationally. This year the Global Food Security Act was signed into law. I worked closely with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ensure that agriculture, and the expertise of the agriculture community, play a strong role in this whole of government strategy to address global food security. As with any good policy, we cannot just look at the past or present. We must look to the future a future where the world population will grow to 9.6 billion by 2050. Continuing to invest in agriculture research now will mean less hungry mouths in the future. As I said, a hungry nation is sure to be a nation in chaos. Though many things remain uncertain with regards to the future of global food security, one thing is certain: agriculture must play a central role. USDA has invaluable expertise in agricultural development and has the capability to offer important technical assistance to nations establishing critically needed infrastructure. We are leading by example with Extension services that are second to none. The agriculture community relies heavily on the expertise of USDA, probably in no greater way than its support for research and its partnerships with research institutions. The work being done at land grant universities and other agricultural higher education institutions is a critical tool in combatting global hunger. We must continue to build upon the time-tested infrastructure of research in the U.S. to make an impact around the world. Building the capacity of public-private partnerships will produce real results in addressing issues related to hunger, and developing economies of food insecure populations. There are many seats at the table, and we need every one of them. About the Author: U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, R-Kan., is the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. He is the first member of Congress in history to have chaired both the House Agriculture Committee and now the Senate Agriculture Committee. Senator Roberts also serves on the Finance Committee; the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; the Rules Committee; and the Senate Ethics Committee. Chairman Roberts is a fourth generation Kansan. Following graduation from Kansas State University in 1958, Roberts served in the U.S. Marine Corps for four years, then worked as a reporter and editor for several Arizona newspapers. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1980 and the U.S. Senate in 1997. #30 For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2015 President-elect Donald Trump today announced that he will follow through on campaign promises to withdraw the U.S. from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact that is still supported by much of the agriculture sector. Trump, in a video statement, said he asked his transition team to come up with a list of executive actions to be ready for his first day in office. At the top of that list is pulling the U.S. out of the TPP. On trade, I am going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country, Trump said. Instead, we will negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores. The American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cattlemens Beef Association are just two of many farm groups who have been outspoken about their support for TPP because of the potential new revenue and market share in countries like Japan and Vietnam that it could provide. Colin Woodall, NCBA vice president for government affairs, told Agri-Pulse recently that the group is still lobbying lawmakers on Capitol Hill to vote on TPP ratification before December, but hasnt had any luck so far. Learn about the benefits of subscribing to Agri-Pulse. Sign up for your four-week free trial Agri-Pulse subscription. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, in an interview with Agri-Pulse this week, said it doesnt look like there will be a vote. When asked what would happen if the U.S. pulled out of TPP, Froman said the future was unclear. Were breaking new ground here, he said. We dont know. Its possible the other countries will find a way to move on without us with the hope that we would join sometime in the future. Its possible theyll pursue other trade agreements. #30 For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com Aiken, SC (29801) Today A mix of clouds and sun during the morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. High 76F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 53F. Winds light and variable. Full fleet of 15 helicopters delivered only two years after contract signature. H135 family confirmed as a reference for military helicopter training. EC135T2+ for Australian military training program Donauworth, Germany - Airbus Helicopters has achieved Factory Acceptance of the last six of the EC135 T2+ for the Helicopter Aircrew Training System (HATS) for the Australian Defence Force (ADF), completing on-time deliveries of the full fleet of 15 helicopters. Under the JP9000 Phase 7 HATS project, a new joint helicopter training program for Navy and Army aircrew will utilise 15 EC135 T2+ helicopters, along with flight simulators and a new flight-deck equipped sea-going training vessel. Boeing Defence Australia is the prime contractor for the new training system, partnered by Thales Australia who supplies the flight simulators and synthetic training devices. A member of the H135 family of light twin-engine helicopters, the EC135 T2+ is an ideal training platform, and initial flying activities have commenced at their new home in Nowra, Australia. Airbus Helicopters is proud to know that Boeing has accepted now all 15 of their new EC135T2+, on time and on budget, for their world leading helicopter aircrew training system for the ADF, said Peter Harris, Head of Governmental Sales for Australia Pacific. Following contract signature in November of 2014, and in the space of only two years, we have trained the initial cadre of Boeing and Commonwealth aircrew and technicians and all 15 aircraft have now been accepted. Boeings HATS Director Terry Nichols said that the Boeing team is very happy with the performance thus far of the EC135 and commended Airbus Helicopters for their on-time delivery. Boeing Defence Australia chose the EC135 as our preferred helicopter solution for HATS; it's a proven and reliable platform. We have been delighted with the cooperation from Airbus Helicopters to deliver these platforms that will form an important part of a world class training system. The EC135 T2+ is a consummate military training helicopter, offering a glass cockpit with high visibility, a multi-axis auto-pilot, the performance and safety of a twin-engine helicopter replacing current single types, plus other advanced technologies to help instructors perform training missions safely and provide the ADF with the flexibility to undertake additional missions. The H135 family is part of successful training systems in Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Japan, and has recently been selected in the United Kingdom. Airbus Helicopters has delivered around 1,200 H135s to customers around the globe who have logged a total of more than four million flight hours. The H135 is the unbeaten market leader in light, twin-engine, multi-purpose helicopters. Traditional missions for this class of helicopters include military training but also emergency medical services, law enforcement, VIP and business passenger transport, and maintenance of industrial wind parks. About Airbus Helicopters Airbus Helicopters, a division of Airbus Group, provides the most efficient civil and military helicopter solutions worldwide. Its in-service fleet includes nearly 12,000 helicopters operated by more than 3,000 customers in 154 countries. Airbus Helicopters employs more than 22,000 people worldwide and in 2015 generated revenues of 6.8 billion euros. www.airbushelicopters.com Medias: EC135T2+ for Australian military training program Media contacts: November 22, 2016 On Nov. 22, Jame-Jam daily published a photo on its front page of an Iranian warship along with the headline Iranian destroyers enter Atlantic Ocean for first time. Iranian Navy Commander Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari announced the news, detailing that the 44th fleet of the Iranian navy is now docked at the Port of Durban in South Africa. However, Durban is located on the Indian Ocean coast, some 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean. Tasnim news agency also covered the news and published a video of the flotilla on the sea. According to Tasnim, the Iranian navys 44th fleet consists of the Alvand destroyer and the Bushehr logistic vessel. Since Oct. 5, the 44th fleet of the Iranian navy has taken on a new duty to circle the African continent and reach the Atlantic Ocean. The flotilla first crossed the Gulf of Aden and on Oct. 29 docked for three days at the Tanzanian port city of Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean coast. According to Sayyari, the fleets mission is to safeguard maritime routes used by Iranian vessels and oil tankers against pirates. The Iranian navy has escorted 3,844 oil tankers and vessels in the Gulf of Aden to safeguard the countrys economy, he stressed. It is not the first time that Iran has sought to expand its presence on the seas to include the Atlantic Ocean. On Jan. 21, 2014, Sayyari announced that the Iranian Kharg helicopter carrier and the Sabalan destroyer were headed to the Atlantic Ocean. However, he did not specify the flotillas final destination, saying, Im not going to name any specific country [for the flotillas destination], but two-thirds of Earth is covered by water and 70% of that body of water is defined as international waters. That means every country has the right to be there. That mission was apparently called off in April 2014. Meanwhile, on Sep. 26, another Iranian flotilla docked at the Pakistani port of Karachi and participated in a joint drill with the Pakistani navy. The flotilla was comprised of the Konarak logistical vessel, Lavan helicopter carrier, and Khanjar and Falakhen missile cutters. Iran says that its presence in international waters is in line with international efforts against piracy. Senior Iranian navy officials have also stated on various occasions that Iranian fleets carry a message of peace and friendship to other countries. In separate news related to the Iranian military, Army Commander Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi on Nov. 21 said that soon the story of [the Islamic State] will be finished, accusing the United States of supporting militant extremists in the Middle East. Today, the United States is like a wolf, and we should not have interest in a wolf, said Salehi. One should not surrender in response to a wolf that just wants to tear up [its victim] and eat. Salehi also argued that Irans efforts to counter its adversaries are not only dependent on force but also strategic depth. We might not have the same military power [compared to our enemies], but we have showed them our strategic power and strategic depth, Salehi added. November 22, 2016 Israel's state comptroller, retired Judge Joseph Shapira, has apparently intensified his criticism of the way that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon made decisions concerning the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) readiness to face the threat posed by Hamas tunnels along the Gaza border with Israel. Political and military figures who read the Nov. 18 final draft of the state comptrollers report on the issue told Al-Monitor that most of the criticism revolves around the fact that neither Netanyahu nor Yaalon shared the IDFs intelligence about the threat posed by the tunnels with the members of the Security Cabinet. In the meantime, the prime minister was hit with the submarine scandal (questioning Netanyahus motives behind the deal), which pushed the draft of the state comptrollers report from the main headlines, though apparently not for long. The actual report is due to be released soon. It will inevitably lead to questions about how detailed, up-to-date information about the tunnels, known to almost every military officer of high and low rank serving in the Southern Command, was not brought before the Security Cabinet. As a result of this glaring omission, the IDF was left without a response to the armed Hamas fighters who penetrated Israeli territory during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. According to sources who read it, the most recent draft of the report actually tempers its criticism of the IDF. At present, the state comptrollers main criticism of the military branch is that the chief of staff, the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate and the other members of the General Staff should have tried harder to ensure that the Cabinet was warned about the tunnels. Netanyahu claims that the information was relayed to the Cabinet in 13 separate meetings. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that when armed Hamas fighters from the Nuhba (Elite) Unit burst out of the tunnels into Israeli territory on the eighth day of the fighting, it came as a complete surprise. The information was so obvious and familiar that no one imagined that this information known by everyone would never make it to the Cabinet, said one Israeli military source to Al-Monitor, speaking on condition of anonymity. What could people on our level do? Fire the chief of staff? Or maybe we should have interrogated the defense minister to see if he relayed the intelligence that we collected? he asked angrily. The IDF did, in fact, collect extensive intelligence about the Hamas tunnel project from various sources, open and secret alike. These included agents on the ground (it is the Shin Bets duty to relay their intelligence to the appropriate sources), aerial photographs (both from drones and balloons) and other conventional methods of intelligence gathering. All of these could have provided the Cabinet with a fairly precise picture of the enormous efforts invested by Hamas in digging the tunnels and preparing for a military conflict with Israel. Another Israeli source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that in addition to the normal collection of intelligence, there was also the open collection of information, which could have provided just as clear a picture of the vast tunnel project. In the case of the tunnels, this information was based on the testimony of Gaza residents who crossed the border from the Gaza Strip into Israel. When questioned, they described what they saw around their homes or on their way from central Gaza to the border crossings. It is no secret that some of the Palestinians who pass through the Erez crossing are questioned there. Sometimes pressure is employed against them, too, with their transit permits to Israel made conditional on the information they provide. In the past, human rights organizations offered sharp criticism of the interrogation techniques that security forces use at the border crossings with the Gaza Strip, noting how they exploit the precarious situation of those people trying to make it into Israel. On the other hand, it is a fact that in the past, this questioning resulted in detailed information about the precise locations of the excavations in various spots along the border. This intelligence began to accumulate just a few months after Operation Cast Lead in 2009, when the military wing of Hamas began to bolster its border defenses with Israel. They did so out of concern that in the next campaign against Israel, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades would have no way to respond to an IDF ground invasion of Gaza. Given the scope of the work on this ambitious endeavor, it was impossible to hide the excavation work completely. The project required enormous amounts of manpower and heavy machinery. And it was necessary to hide thousands of tons of earth that was dug up near the border with Israel. All Gaza residents knew about the work, especially those living near where the tunnels were dug, because Hamas declared those areas closed military areas and banned Palestinians from entering them. It is still too early to determine how the state comptrollers report will impact Netanyahu and Ya'alon. Meanwhile, Hamas is now moving ahead full steam with even more excavation work. The person currently responsible for the IDFs preparedness for this exigency is Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. Despite all his former threats, even he is doing nothing at least for now. His main concern, he explained is that an IDF military action to destroy the tunnels will lead to yet another round of violence. November 21, 2016 Like most countries, Jordan had been preparing for a Hillary Clinton presidency, which was largely expected to be a continuation of President Barack Obamas policies in a crisis-ridden Middle East. The former US secretary of state had strong working relations with regional leaders including King Abdullah. For the Jordanian government, a Clinton victory would have meant that strong bilateral relations, especially in security and military fields, would continue. There had been doubts and concerns when the Democratic candidate told an Iowa audience on Oct. 7, 2015, that a final peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is unlikely until both sides know what happens in Syria and also depends on whether Jordan remains stable. That statement elicited angry reactions from local commentators, while officials chose to ignore it. But Donald Trumps historic upset in the Nov. 8 elections took Jordanians off guard. Abdullah sent the president-elect a congratulatory cable on Nov. 9, but did not call him until Nov. 14. A terse statement from the royal palace said that the king had expressed his wish to work jointly with the new American leader on boosting US-Jordanian strategic relations. There was no mention of Trumps response. Since he took over in 1999, Abdullah has been able to strengthen Jordan's strategic relations with Washington. He dealt closely with two US presidents, George W. Bush and Obama, during turbulent times for a post-9/11 America and the Middle East following the US invasion of Iraq. The king is a frequent visitor to the White House and Capitol Hill and enjoys good working relations with officials from both parties. His communication skills and pro-Western policies have won him valuable bipartisan support for Jordan in both the economic and the military fields. In March 2007, he addressed a joint session of Congress pleading for a just resolution to the plight of Palestinians. He has worked closely with Obama to advance the peace process, train moderate Syrian rebels and confront terrorism through a US-led coalition combating the threat of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Under Obama, US aid to Jordan was boosted from $660 million to about $1 billion annually. American assistance to Jordan is essential as the kingdom faces endemic economic problems made worse by the presence of 1.2 million Syrian refugees who have poured from their war-torn country since 2011. Few observers doubt that the strategic relationship between Jordan and the United States will shift under Trump, especially in the realm of confronting IS terrorism and religious fanaticism. But many areas of Trumps Middle East policy remain the subject of much speculation. However, a Trump foreign policy adviser, Walid Phares, told BBC radio on Nov. 10 that the upcoming administration plans to set up a coalition with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jordan and Egypt to support counterterrorism efforts. Phares also said that Trump might not move the US Embassy to Jerusalem immediately and indicated he would make negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal a priority. There has been no official reaction in Amman to his statements, but political commentator Fahd al-Khitan wrote in Al-Ghad Nov. 13, Reviving an alliance that includes Jordan, Egypt and the GCC countries may have been easier in the past, but after the fall of the [President Hosni] Mubarak regime in Egypt, differing Gulf attitudes toward the military rule in Cairo and declining oil revenues, maintaining such an alliance would be difficult without US financial support. Phares was also quoted by a pro-Egyptian government news site Youm7 on Nov. 11 as saying that Trumps Middle East strategy will include designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Jordan has labeled the Brotherhood as an illegal entity but stopped short of banning it, aware of the risks involved in doing so. The movements political arm, the Islamic Action Front, won 10 seats in the September parliamentary elections. Trump designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization would create an internal crisis for the Jordanian government. Former Prime Minister Taher al-Masri believes the relationship between Jordan and the United States will not change under Trump. He told Al-Monitor that the phone call between the king and the president-elect left a good impression. But he said that Trumps policy toward the Palestinian issue remains unclear and it is too early to make judgments. For now, Trumps priority is to defeat [IS] and Jordan supports that direction, Masri said. But head of Al-Quds Center for Political Studies Orieb al-Rintawi said that while Jordan's strategic relationship with the United States will remain strong, Trumps position on Jerusalem and the West Bank settlements is a cause for concern. Obama did not revive the peace talks, but he maintained that the settlements were illegal. Trump does not see it that way, and if he reverses this policy it will mean the end to the two-state solution, Rintawi told Al-Monitor. Trumps position on the future of East Jerusalem will be of particular concern for Jordan, which under the 1994 peace treaty with Israel has a special role to play as guardian of Muslim holy places there. Abdullah has repeatedly criticized Israeli incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque and attempts to allow Jewish worshippers to pray there. Any alteration to the status of East Jerusalem and the holy places will be seen as a direct challenge to Jordan and to the kings authority in particular. Political analyst Amer al-Sabaileh is not optimistic about the future of the Palestinian issue. He told Al-Monitor that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have dramatic influence on Trumps position toward the Palestinians. Netanyahu is not interested in striking peace with the Palestinians, and he will be the political compass guiding Trump on issues such as settlements and East Jerusalem, he said. "Eventually, this will have tremendous negative effects on Jordans national security. As Jordan looks for further hints of what a Trump presidency will mean for the kingdom and the region, the local mood is apprehensive about the president-elects provocative statements on Muslims and radical Islam during his campaign. His recent choice of known Islamophobes such as his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, to fill key positions in his Cabinet will keep many Jordanians on their toes. November 22, 2016 BAGHDAD Iraq's parliament plans to vote Nov. 26 on a proposal to integrate the militias that operate under the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). The proposal follows a July 27 order by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to make the PMU militias a united governmental force under his direct supervision. The PMU, a state-sponsored umbrella organization for dozens of mostly Shiite militias, has been lobbying to improve its image in the eyes of the international community by meeting with Western leaders, politicians and diplomats. PMU leaders hope their efforts will help dispel its image as a group of outlawed militias and repair its reputation with the international human rights community. Since its inception in June 2014, the PMU has been accused of human rights violations against civilians in the areas where it has been involved in fighting the Islamic State (IS). On Oct. 26, Sadrist movement leader Muqtada al-Sadr met with Patrick Samonet, the European Union ambassador to Iraq. Sadr's Peace Brigades force within the PMU earlier this year threatened to attack US troops in Iraq. According to Sadrs website, Sadr and Samonet discussed the humanitarian situation in Iraq and the battle to liberate Mosul, as well as the EU's role in supporting Iraq at the humanitarian level. Hadi al-Amiri, the secretary-general of the Iraqi Badr Organization, which has a Shiite military wing, has been a busy ambassador recently for the PMU. He also met with Samonet on Oct. 10 to discuss the war against terrorism and the need to provide humanitarian support for the displaced. During the meeting, Samonet said, The PMU capabilities and victories are no secret to anyone. Iraq does not need any more ground troops, and we believe that PMU participation in the battles is an internal Iraqi matter. On Oct. 4, Amiri met with British Ambassador to Baghdad Frank Baker, whom he told, "The PMU obeys the orders of the commander in chief of the armed forces and will participate in the battle to liberate Mosul alongside other security forces and armed factions to eliminate IS there. On Sept. 29, the official website of the French Embassy in Baghdad carried the news about a meeting between Amiri and French Ambassador Marc Barety. According to the website, the men discussed the fight against terrorism, preparations for the battle of Mosul and the city's future after liberation with regard to politics and the humanitarian and security situations. The meeting also touched on the time frame of the upcoming Iraqi elections and the security status quo. In a video posted on YouTube, the Badr Organization quoted Barety as saying, France supports the unity and sovereignty of Iraq and we are well-aware of the great [war] efforts" made by the PMU. On Sept. 26, the secretary-general of the League of the Righteous movement, Qais al-Khazali, received Spanish Ambassador to Baghdad Jose Maria Ferre to discuss the PMU's image in the media. Just last year, Khazali was known by some in the West as "Iraq's most fearsome Shia militia leader." The movements website said Ferre has promised to address his government regarding the PMU's efforts. Something that stands out about these meetings, however, is that they did not include the American ambassador or ambassadors of the Arab and Gulf countries that consider the PMU to be a militia affiliated with Iran and say the PMU cannot be part of the Iraqi security institution. Yet pro-Iraqi government PMU leaders say the meetings demonstrate they have realized the importance of making overtures to the international community, instead of limiting themselves to the political environment of Baghdad and Tehran. Iraqi Ambassador to Switzerland Majid Abdul Redha has been lobbying in international forums to rebut allegations against the PMU, considering them to be accusations against the security forces of the Iraqi state. On Sept. 21, a PMU delegation headed by Ahmed al-Asadi, a member of parliament and a PMU spokesman, visited the Human Rights Council in Geneva to deny reports about PMU involvement in abuses against civilians. Asadi told Al-Monitor, There are some who are seeking to distort the PMU image in the eyes of the international community. Our role now is to relay the true image of the PMU, especially to the West, because we will not allow inaccurate information and reports about our national forces to make the rounds in the media. He added, We are here in Geneva to break this stereotyped image. We have met with Western diplomats and media outlets. We will not stop at this point." In his Sept. 23 speech during a seminar in one of the Human Rights Council halls in Geneva, Rayan al-Kaldani, a Christian PMU leader, said, We ask the international community not to comply with the [long-running] Saudi incitement against the PMU, not to harm any of its members and to release our heroes who are detained in Austria. If Europe has failed to pay tribute or honor those who are defending it against IS, the enemy of humanity, it can at least refrain from abusing or mistreating them. November 21, 2016 US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, met Nov. 20 on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit in Peru. The four-minute conversation is most likely to be the last meeting between Putin and Obama in Obama's capacity as president of the United States, though Putin invited Obama to visit Russia any time at his convenience. The brief encounter focused on the two issues that have been shaping the overall agenda for US-Russia relations in the last couple of years Ukraine and Syria. While both lamented the absence of progress on the Ukrainian track, statements on Syria signaled the goals and expectation each party had vis-a-vis the other. As Obama emphasized the need for Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to continue pursuing initiatives together with the broader international community to diminish the violence and alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people," Putin pointed out that the "remaining two months of [Obama's presidency] should be used for the continuation of the search for a Syrian settlement." The dialectic of the statements was: Although the parties perceive each other as untrustworthy, both share a need to preserve a political will to selectively cooperate. Neither Moscow nor Washington, however, is really expecting a breakthrough until the new US administration takes office. Obama is a lame duck, and in the months left before [Donald] Trumps inauguration he will be busy sealing his legacy rather than willing to invest his capital into something particularly challenging such as Syria, which ultimately may end up into yet another failure, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told Al-Monitor. Moscow is indeed hopeful that the new administration in the White House will prioritize the fight against terrorism and extremism and that joint dealings on Syria may culminate in a real cooperation. The spectrum of possible US-Russia interactions discussed in the Russian expert community varies from intelligence sharing between the respective agencies to coordinated joint military airstrikes to even a joint offensive on Raqqa sometime next year a notable action to mark 210 years of US-Russia diplomatic relations that Putin and President-elect Trump noted in their phone conversation a week ago. Yet, amid enthusiastic coverage of the Trump election victory by the majority if not all of the Russian media, Putin himself signaled a more cautious stance. Speaking after the APEC summit, he said, We all know theres a big difference in all countries between campaign promises and real policies. Besides, when asked about his first possible meeting with Trump after he becomes president, Putin suggested that it makes sense for the two teams to meet first. Coupled with Russias actions on the ground in Syria, this vision gives an idea of what the Kremlin is up to in the remaining months. Thinking of possible systemic factors that would limit Trumps desire to normalize ties with Russia, Moscow is closely looking at the recent activities in the US Congress both the new sanctions package on Syria passed in the House and the potential anti-Russian legislation discussed in the Senate. Among Russian decision-makers, the initiatives are viewed as on the one hand an attempt to narrow corridors of opportunity for Trumps foreign policy experiments, and on the other as an intent to set certain red lines for Trump in how far he can go in his deals with the Kremlin. Therefore, in this logic of hoping for the best but expecting the worst, Moscow believes it now has the opportunity and time to make critical gains in Syria. Russian airstrikes in Idlib and Homs provinces as well as the Syrian army offensive in Aleppo seem to be building in this line of reasoning. At the same time, this shouldnt contradict other Russian moves described previously with an overall decrease in anti-American rhetoric, more attacks on the Islamic State and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, and prospects for the deterrent built by the Russians in Syria to be a potential bargaining chip with the new administration. Similarly, the recent rise in the military activity of the opposition is also seen as a manifestation of uncertainty over what the Trump administration policies would be like. An expert close to the Kremlin told Al-Monitor, Rebels and their sponsors are full of despair that political, military and financial support for their activities may soon be ceased. So they are willing to indiscriminately fight everyone including each other with twice the force. Whether this is the prime reason for the renewed hostilities, the expert's opinion is representative of the general thinking in the Kremlin: The rebels are seeking to preserve the attention and support of external sponsors at any cost. Therefore, Russias own striving to dismantle key extremists infrastructure and gain more ground is set to secure a better negotiating position for future talks on the Syria settlement. At the same time, the military offensives are set to bring more rebel groups to direct talks with the Russian military. According to the Bulletin of the Russian Centre for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in the Syrian Arab Republic on Nov. 19, within the previous 24 hours truce agreements were signed with representatives of three inhabited areas of Hama province and two in Latakia province. Thus, the total number of inhabited areas whose leaders had signed the so-called reconciliation agreements now amounts to 956, while the number of cease-fire application forms signed with leaders of armed groups has reached 69. Finally, another track Moscow is pursuing is consultations with Iran and Turkey on strategic aspects of Syrian statehood, such as the countrys integrity. Both Tehran and Ankara favor the idea of a united Syria though each for their own interests and with specific visions for it. Nevertheless, it is important for Russia to find itself on the same page with the regional stakeholders on the critical issues before the situation in Syria is transformed into a postwar diplomatic mode. This means a busy agenda for Moscow as it prepares for whatever policies the Trump administration will pursue be they aligned with Russias own stance on Syria or crafted to counter it. November 21, 2016 The Saudis were surprised by Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election, and their numerous America watchers are trying to assess what Trump's foreign policy will mean for the kingdom. The Saudi partnership with America dates to 1943 when two future kings, Faisal and Khaled, were sent by their father, King ibn Saud, to Washington to confer with President Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt treated the two princes as the royalty they were. They stayed in Blair House, met Roosevelt in the Oval Office and traveled around the country to see how America was mobilized for war. Ever since, the kingdom has sought to understand American politics and influence US policy. But Trump was a surprise. The royals' longtime connections to America's two family dynasties, the Bushes and the Clintons, were on the wrong side of history. Some Saudi America watchers have argued that Trump's rhetoric on Muslims was crucial to his victory, a source of deep concern for a country that prides itself as the Custodian of the two Holy Cities. The Saudis are nervous about what they see as rising Islamophobia in America. But the Saudis are pleased with the strong talk from Trump and his appointees on Iran. Articles by key future decision-makers such as retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Kansas congressman Mike Pompeo's articulating the need for tougher American responses to Iran subversion and terrorism have been well-received in Riyadh. The Saudis will be ready for more security cooperation against Iran and its proxies. Saudi intelligence snatched the head of Iran's terrorist network in the Gulf, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil, last year in Beirut. The mastermind of the 1996 terrorist attack on the Khobar Towers, a US Air Force barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Mughassil is the epitome of what the Saudis argue is the most dangerous terrorist apparatus in the region. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef orchestrated the Mughassil operation. Riyadh would like to see more aggressive moves against Tehran. The United Nations-endorsed nuclear deal with Iran is not Riyadh's priority; instead, the Saudis want international attention and sanctions focused on Iranian subversion. They will welcome calls for regime change in Tehran and efforts to de-legitimize the Islamic Republic. The Saudis also welcome Trump's support for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Riyadh was a major backer of the coup that brought Sisi to power. While relations have been bumpier recently with Cairo, the Saudis want an American administration that focuses on stability and not reform. King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud believes the Arab Spring was a disaster for the region that should never have been welcomed by Washington. He will want strong American support for the Saudi military role in keeping the Sunni minority in charge in Bahrain. Riyadh is worried about Trump's views on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is the Saudis' bete noire for his ties to Iran. Salman will press the incoming administration to get more deeply involved in getting rid of Assad. The Saudis believe Damascus is the place to upset Iranian influence in the region. If the Sunni majority in Syria can oust the Alawite Assad, then Iranian domination of two Arab capitals Damascus and Beirut will be reversed. Assad, not the Islamic State (IS), is the top priority for the kingdom. The Saudis do agree that IS is a threat. Mohammad bin Nayef is actively seeking to destroy the nascent IS underground in the kingdom. But Iran and its proxies are the biggest threat. Salman's immediate problem is his war in Yemen. The king and his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman argue that they have prevented Iran from getting a foothold on the Arabian Peninsula by going to war against the pro-Iranian Zaydi Houthis and the loyalists of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but they recognize the war is increasingly costly. The kingdom is spending billions on a war when it needs to reduce military expenditures if Mohammed bin Salman's Saudi Vision 2030 has any chance of transforming the economy. The Yemen war is becoming more dangerous. An American destroyer was fired on twice last month. Another attempt at a cease-fire collapsed this week. A sudden crisis in the war could be an early test for the new US administration in February 2017. Saudi commentary on Yemen increasingly seems desperate to find an honorable way out of the Yemeni adventure. Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman has the most to lose if the war is an endless quagmire. A recent study of the cost of the war by a British think tank concluded that the defense minister is likely to be blamed for the conflict. Of course, the only opinion that matters is the king's, and Salman is still his son's booster. The Arab-Israeli conflict has receded on Saudi priorities for the last two years, but if Trump follows through on promises to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem, the kingdom will react harshly. Salman is a strong defender of the Islamic identity of Jerusalem. He has been involved in fundraising for supporting the Palestinian cause in Jerusalem since 1967, when then-King Faisal made him responsible for the effort. The Saudis and their lobbyists in Washington will press Trump on one immediate challenge to the US relationship with Saudi Arabia. The congressional override of President Barack Obama's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) means our oldest and strongest ally in the Arab world is going to be the target of what Saudis believe to be unnecessary and dangerous lawsuits. This is likely to damage counterterrorism cooperation with the kingdom and its Gulf allies, making us less safe. The bill also sets a dangerous precedent that could be used in the future against American soldiers and diplomats. In the interim between his election and the inauguration Jan. 20, Trump and his team should quietly encourage the lame-duck Congress to amend JASTA to give the new president a waiver to exclude from such lawsuits countries deemed by the president to be major partners in fighting terrorism. Obama could take the political heat and sign an amendment with waiver authority. This will not be an easy sell, but it is far better to change JASTA now than to have to live with it come January 2017. Failure to act responsibly on JASTA, and acknowledging that the issue of a Saudi role in 9/11 has been thoroughly investigated and debunked by two congressionally mandated commissions, will set back the next president's efforts to stabilize a very dangerous region before he even gets started. November 21, 2016 EIN ISSA, Syria The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have expelled Islamic State (IS) fighters from an area 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Raqqa, as violent battles are raging in the citys northwestern countryside. On Nov. 15, the SDF announced their control over Hazima town, the largest town in the countryside of Ein Issa, as well as al-Taweelah (about 5 kilometers southeast of Ein Issa), and Tel Khaneez and Tallat Maled in Raqqas western countryside. The SDF liberated al-Haisha village (in Raqqas northern countryside) and Khaniz al-Ghanem. It also took control of Tel al-Samen town, thus advancing toward the towns power station, south of Ein Issa, which is only 20 kilometers from Raqqas city center. On Nov. 5, the SDF launched Operation Euphrates Wrath with the participation of 30,000 militants in order to expel IS from Raqqa, its main stronghold in Syria, with the support of the US-led international coalition. The SDF includes the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), the Womens Protection Units (YPJ) and Arab fighters from the Shammar tribe, as well as the Syriac Military Council and Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa, whose fighters hail from Raqqa and aspire to liberate their city from IS. The commander in chief of Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa, who identified himself only by the pseudonym Abu Issa, told Al-Monitor, The Raqqa battle is important because the city is IS stronghold, and the world describes it as the capital of terrorism. He said, The battle is pivotal for us to save the inhabitants from IS grip and to prove to the world that Raqqas residents are far from radical and are not terrorists. We are peaceful people and wish peace upon our fellows across the world. Raqqa is the first Syrian governorate from which the regime forces completely retreated in March 2013, but a few months later, it fell into the hands of IS. The group took full control in January 2014 following violent battles with the armed Syrian opposition factions that had tightened the noose on the city after the departure of the regime forces in March 2013. Abu Issa noted that the Raqqa battle can be divided into two stages, The first stage began on Nov. 5 and aims at besieging the city, isolating it and cutting off all jihadi supply lines to IS in order to prevent the entry of militants from the groups regions of influence in al-Bab, in Aleppos eastern countryside. He said, This would weaken IS morale and fighting ability and pave the way for the second decisive stage, which entails entering the city and liberating it. Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa fighters are positioned in Ein Issa, 50 kilometers north of Raqqa and midway between Raqqa and Tell Abyad in the north. The SDF took control of the town a year and a half ago. Abu Issa underlined that Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa fighters will settle the battle, saying, We are all Raqqa citizens and enjoy a wide public base. It is our responsibility to instill stability and security in the city, with the cooperation of its citizens. Since the onset of Operation Euphrates Wrath on Nov. 5, the SDF has taken control of dozens of villages and farms in Raqqas northern countryside that had been in IS grip. The forces are only 30 kilometers from Raqqas outskirts. Abu Issa revealed that the SDF and Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa concluded an agreement to hand over Raqqas administration to its citizens and to restrict the militants role to overseeing the citys security until a civil council, a police force, judiciary and a military force are formed to protect and govern it. He said that Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa is a key component of the SDF and is considered their main Arab faction, noting, We are the only military unit formed of Raqqas citizens and rebels. We have a historical relationship with the Kurdish units, and we fought IS in Kobani in the summer of 2014 and in the Tell Abyad battle in the summer of 2015. The YPG and YPJ played a major role in the past two years as part of the US-backed SDF when they took control of large stretches of land that were under IS control. They expelled IS from Kobani in early 2015, and took hold of Tell Abyad in Raqqa province in June 2015 and al-Shaddadi in Hasakah province at the end of February. The YPG announced Nov. 16 in an official statement that they will withdraw their forces from Manbij in Syria to the northern side of the Euphrates River to participate in the liberation of Raqqa. In response to a question about the YPGs possible participation in the Raqqa battle, YPG spokesman Ridor Khalil told Al-Monitor, Raqqa is a Syrian city, and it is only normal for us to participate in liberating it from IS terrorist grip. For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the press Nov. 16 that he was sure the YPG would retreat to the east of the Euphrates from Manbij on Wednesday or Thursday, which Turkey has been demanding for a while. Turkey refuses the participation of the Kurdish units militants in the liberation of Raqqa that is inhabited by an Arab majority. Turkish analyst and writer Mohamed Zahed Kol told Al-Monitor that the Turkish government took precautionary measures along the southern borders with Syria because the northern Syrian borders have become hubs for terrorist parties and organizations attacking Turkish cities and lands from Syria and smuggling weapons to terrorist groups in Turkey also. He noted that the Turkish government launched Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria in August and said, The operation aimed at supporting the Free Syrian Army in defending its lands and cities from the racist attacks of Kurdish militias fighting with US and Irans support in northern Syria. Although the Kurdish forces participation in the mostly Arab Raqqa battle raised the ire of Turkey and the Syrian opposition, the United States and the international coalition settled the battle by relying on the SDF and Arab factions as ground troops in the Raqqa battle. November 21, 2016 The Turkish military is looking for more than a few good men. Many, many more. In fact, it needs so many replacements for the military personnel it has purged since a July 15 coup attempt, the government has actually been advertising in newspapers for people to fill almost 25,000 openings. Although four months have passed since the failed coup, the government continues suspending and dismissing members of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) at top speed, leaving it with gaping personnel deficits. At full force, the TSK had about 39,000 officers and 97,000 noncommissioned officers (NCOs), including the gendarmerie and the coast guard command. Minister of Defense Fikri Isik announced that the latest tally of discharges as of Nov. 17 had reached 3,665 personnel and 16,423 military cadets, for a total of 20,088. The government is purging anyone suspected of having ties to Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric residing in the United States whom officials believe was behind the coup. When asked why the expulsions continue four months after the failed coup, a military source in Ankara told Al-Monitor, At the moment, about 3,000 TSK personnel are either in detention or under arrest. As investigations continue, new names are discovered." Why are officers and NCOs who were not actively involved in the coup attempt also being discharged? In three major purges of July 27, July 31 and Aug. 18, officers and NCOs who were actively involved in the coup attempt or who did not do their duty to stand against the coup attempt were discharged. If you think this is all the Gulenists inside the TSK, this is only the tip of the iceberg, the source said. Obviously Ankara thinks there are thousands of officers and NCOs still linked to the Gulenist movement. Former military prosecutor Ahmet Zeki Ucok, who frequently says the Gulenists inside the TSK still have not been totally removed, insists that when compared with the Ministry of Education, the Security General Directorate (police) and the Ministry of Justice, the TSK is lagging far behind when it comes to eliminating Gulenists in their ranks. For example, indictments say 80% of cadets enrolled in military schools in the past 10 years were Gulenist-oriented. This means that of 5,000 cadets enrolled each year, at least 4,000 are working for the Gulen movement, Ucok told Turkeys Hurriyet newspaper. Ucok also says the percentage of Gulenists is higher among the TSK's lower ranks. He calculates that despite the discharges there are still about 20,000 active officers and about 50,000 NCOs who identify with the Gulenist movement. When asked why, if there are so many thousands of Gulenists in the TSK, they didnt all join in the coup attempt, Ucok didn't have a clear answer. But according to a retired colonel who spoke with Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, during the coup attempt the only Gulenists exposed were officers with the rank of major and above working at the chief of staff headquarters, force commands and other critical commands, plus a small number of Gulenist officers in field units. This retired officer thinks officials must continue weeding out lower-ranking officers and senior master sergeants. In my Sept. 16 Al-Monitor column titled How post-coup purges depleted Turkeys military, I wrote that the branch most affected by the personnel purges was the air force, followed by the army, with the navy being minimally affected. Serious personnel discharges from the Special Forces Command attached to the chief of general staff were not mentioned. In unexpected discharges in October and November, the navy was most affected. Military sources told Al-Monitor that because of continuing clashes in the country's southeast, the decision to redeploy major units and continue Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria was made to defer further expulsions from the army and the air force. Major purges can therefore be expected from the army in coming months. Another development noted in recent discharges was the change in methodology. Until October, expulsions of TSK personnel were routinely announced in long government-approved lists published in the Official Gazette. Discharges after October are now done every few weeks in smaller batches announced by the Ministry of Defense. A source told Al-Monitor, These discharges are conducted quietly without attracting media interest and the attention of the public. In other words, it is highly likely that the TSK will spread its discharges over perhaps two years to smaller packs of 20 to 30 names without attracting much attention. So, what is the TSK doing to overcome this bloodletting? At the beginning of November, advertisements were issued to recruit about 1,400 officers, 3,600 NCOs, 7,159 specialist sergeants and 11,907 specialist privates. Army, navy and air force officer training academies that had been declared closed were reopened for 3,500 students to transfer from civilian universities. For the first time, 200 officers and 500 NCOs will be recruited from the civilian public for the Special Forces Command. As of today, 6,129 people have applied as officer candidates for the special forces, and 11,368 as NCOs. Traditionally, special forces personnel were selected from among volunteering officers and NCOs with outstanding records. Opening their recruitment to civilians via newspaper ads instantly generated debates on the quality and experience of potential candidates. The same concerns are being raised in all branches. Also attracting attention was the landmark decision to allow theology high school graduates to apply for officer and NCO posts. The Justice and Development Party government is opening a new field of employment calling for about 300,000 male theology graduates annually, as I noted in my May 9, 2016, column titled "Turkish military faces secularism test. In what some see as another shift away from Turkey's secular state, as of August, the government began allowing female police officers to wear headscarves when in uniform. It won't come as a surprise if a debate arises soon over whether the TSKs female officers and NCOs should also be allowed to wear scarves when in uniform. Perhaps allowing female civilian employees of the TSK to wear scarves as of November was the first step. In short, drastic changes in the TSK's personnel profile are continuing with discharges and stepped-up recruitment to fill the ranks. And it is likely to continue for about two years in small batches. These changes are bound to transform the institutional culture, strategic identity and combat effectiveness of the TSK. November 22, 2016 A Turkish court issued a warrant for the arrest of Salih Muslim, the co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). The Nov. 22 move signals a further hardening of Turkeys position on the United States top ally against the Islamic State in Syria. The court also issued warrants for 47 other people, including senior commanders of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), over their alleged involvement in a car bomb that hit a military convoy in Ankara earlier this year that left 37 people, both military personnel and civilians, dead. It remained unclear why Muslim, the Syrian Kurds de facto foreign minister, was included in the list. For a while, Ankara flirted with the urbane PYD leader in hopes of persuading him to join Turkeys ill-fated proxy war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And even as Turkey egged on assorted Syrian rebels against the People's Protection Units (YPG) in places like Ras al-Ain, it offered free medical care to hundreds of YPG fighters wounded in battles against IS. Despite such contradictory signals, Muslim was in Turkey in February last year when YPG forces helped Turkish troops relocate the tomb of Suleiman Shah, which was besieged by IS militants, to the village of Esme near the Turkish border. The Esme spirit became the new rallying cry for the latest round of peace talks between Turkey and imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The dialogue broke down last year, partly because of differences over Syria and the PYD. The PYD is the political arm of the YPG, the Syrian Kurdish force that is at the forefront of the US-led coalitions ongoing battle to take the jihadis self-proclaimed capital Raqqa. Turkey now labels the PYD and the YPG terrorists because of their close ties to the PKK and has been lobbying Washington to cut off its support to the Syrian Kurds. Thus, the Turkish authorities' pinning blame for the Ankara attack on the YPG was calculated to embarrass the United States into shelving its alliance with the group. Never mind that the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, the PKKs urban terror wing, claimed responsibility for the bombing. But despite Turkeys protracted and ever shriller complaints, the United States continues to arm and train the YPG and its Arab affiliates, who operate under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces. The pro-government Yeni Safak claimed on its front page Nov. 22 that the United States had set up a training camp for the YPG and the PKK in the town of Tell Abyad across the Turkish border. The newspaper described the YPGs control over the town, which it wrested from IS last year with US backing, as an occupation. It asserted that US experts had so far trained some 1,400 terrorists ostensibly to take part in operations to retake Raqqa, but that many had been diverted to the Manbij front instead. It would hardly be surprising if the US special forces were training some Arabs in Tell Abyad, as it lies directly north of Raqqa and is mainly Arab. It has long been accepted that more Arabs, not just Kurds, need to oust IS from Raqqa. That Yeni Safak presented this as hostile activity rather than a welcome defense against IS, which presents a far bigger threat to Turks than to Americans, reflects the official thinking in Ankara: The YPG is a greater menace than IS. Since August, Turkey has ramped up efforts to contain the Syrian Kurds, both on the ground and from the air. On Nov. 22, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that Turkish-backed Syrian opposition forces, which are holding YPG/SDF forces in check around the strategic town of al-Bab, would head toward Manbij as well. Brett McGurk, the special US envoy for the anti-IS coalition, caused a stir when he tweeted on Nov. 16, Milestone: all YPG units to depart Manbij and return east of Euphrates after local units complete training to maintain security after [IS]." With these words, McGurk, who has become a bete noir in Ankara over his perceived affection for the Syrian Kurds, in Turkeys eyes, confessed that the YPG was still in Manbij. Washington had promised Ankara that the YPG would withdraw immediately from Manjib when it was seized from IS back in August. Ankaras ire was further stoked when American Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the anti-IS coalition, confirmed last week that Turkish-backed rebel moves on al-Bab were not being backed by coalition airstrikes. Over the past weeks, Turkey has taken matters into its own hands, resuming airstrikes against IS and YPG targets near al-Bab, ostensibly with Russias blessing. Washingtons frantic efforts to deconflict its Turkish and Kurdish allies are simply not working, and the YPG is threatening to pull out of the Raqqa campaign if Turkey does not halt its attacks. Erdogan might be betting that US President-elect Donald Trump will be more sympathetic to Turkeys concerns about the YPG. But the counterargument, that through its actions Turkey is undermining the fight against IS, may well prevail. November 21, 2016 GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip On Nov. 2, representatives of Sanad Construction Industries visited a vacant lot in the West Bank to conduct a land survey and to identify the ground coordinates in order to start preparations for the establishment of the first cement factory in Palestine. The lot was purchased in March by the Palestinian Investment Fund (PIF), which Sanad Construction Industries is affiliated with. Sanad representatives, however, were taken by surprise when the residents of the Arab al-Rashaida area in Bethlehem governorate, which is adjacent to the vacant lot, prevented them from carrying out their work, arguing that the factory would lead to environmental pollution. The Sanad officials were forced to leave after police intervention, but vowed to return to start their work after getting the final approvals from the Environment Quality Authority (EQA). On Oct. 1, Sanad announced the launch of the first phase of the project, which entails the construction of the crusher, after having obtained the initial approvals from the Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Local Government. In this context, Ahmed Rashaida, a representative of the Arab al-Rashaida Community Committee, told Al-Monitor, We are not against promoting Palestinian investments, noting that they are objecting the project in particular given the proximity of the anticipated cement factory to their village, as it lies about 500 meters (0.3 miles) from the nearest homes. Rashaida said that this project would also prevent the community from expanding to the east. According to statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Arab al-Rashaida area includes one-third of the livestock in Palestine. A cement factory would threaten their existence as it will be built on a natural reserve, comprising water wells that we use in grazing livestock, Rashaida said. He added that Basin No. 3, which is part of the land intended for the factory, is also part of the Arab al-Rashaida area, and that they have the documents to prove the ownership. He said that the remaining land is owned by the government and exploited by the residents. They can invest in a project that is not harmful to the people or the environment such as agricultural or animal husbandry projects, but building a factory is completely unacceptable, Rashaida said. He explained that building the factory would push the residents of the village to migrate as a result of the environmental hazards that would affect the area, stressing that evacuating the area would make it an easy target for Israeli settlements. Sanad has to look for another location to build the factory, he concluded. But Yasser Abu Shanab, the director of the Public Health Department at the EQA in Ramallah, said that the site intended for the establishment of the factory stretches along the eastern slopes along the Dead Sea and lies 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Arab al-Rashaida area, which is far away from the nearest community. He noted that the EQA sets the remoteness condition for such projects as a precaution, but the project organizers are not bound by a specific distance. The establishment of any factory requires the submission of the party that intends to build a factory to the EQA of an environmental impact statement, according to the applicable Palestinian Environmental law. In light of this study, the EQA would decide whether to deny or grant licenses under certain conditions, Abu Shanab told Al-Monitor. He added, The study ought to take into consideration the economic, agricultural and social dimensions of the population and set forth the alternatives that can be beneficial to the people. He said that the EQA had requested Sanad Construction Industries to complete the environmental impact statement for it to review, noting that the EQA teams have visited the site and conducted field tests showing that the location is appropriate for the cement plant. The location is in line with the favorable direction of air, which would limit the blowing of dust. The factory will also be built based on an eco-friendly system. Abu Shanab denied the allegations of the areas residents claiming that the site is annexed to their land, stressing that it is owned by the government and falls outside the parameters of the natural reserves, according to the environmental blueprints. In the same vein, the CEO of Sanad Construction Industries, Louay Kawas, told Al-Monitor, The factory site lies at about 4 kilometers from the nearest community. It is on land located in an arid desert area that was bought by the PIF, to which Sanad is affiliated. Kawas said the land the factory site is on could serve both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Commenting on the reasons behind building the factory, Kawas said that there has been increased demand for cement, which pushed Sanad to come up with the idea of building a factory. Palestines consumption of cement reached nearly 2 million tons in 2015 and this consumption is expected to rise to three tons on a yearly basis, especially in Gaza in light of the ongoing Israeli blockade. Kawas said that $25 million out of the projects total budget, which amounts to $310 million and is funded by the PIF, will be allocated to procedures for environmental protection. Commenting on the objection of some residents to the building of the cement factory, he said that the Palestinian community lacks awareness about these projects and cannot see the big picture. Manal Farhan, the director general of the Industry and Natural Resources Directorate at the Ministry of National Economy in Ramallah, told Al-Monitor, The industrial sector is one of the most important productive sectors and accounts for 14.1% of the Palestinian economy, which employs approximately 86,000 workers and supplies the market with [industrial] needs. Farhan pointed out that the establishment of a cement plant will contribute to the implementation of the ministrys strategic plan to increase the share of the industrial sector to 25% over the next 10 years by promoting strategic industrial diversification. She talked about the economic and national viability of the plant, which would reduce reliance on Israel and achieve economic independence, as it would put an end to the obstacles preventing development of the construction sector in Palestine. Farhan explained that the industrial sector suffers from several constraints, such as the restrictions imposed by Israel at the crossings, which discouraged potential investors in this sector because of the high risk ratio. Sanad had tried a year ago to construct the plant in the east of Tulkarm, but landowners opposed it, which prompted it to search for another site. The question is whether Sanad Construction Industries will succeed this time? Kohl's to close 18 stores across U.S. FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 27, 2015, file photo, shoppers push a cart of items as they leave Kohl's in Corpus Christi, Texas. The chain is already offering Black Friday sales on Monday before Thanksgiving. (Rick Romell Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) Here are the top stories in business on AL.com for Monday, Nov. 21, 2016. Follow all of Alabama's business news here anytime. You don't have to wait until Nov. 24 or 25th to enjoy Black Friday sales. Kohl's, Amazon and Toys R Us have special deals available now. One of the biggest perks for online shoppers this season is free or flat-rate shipping on their orders. Here's a look at some of the best free, reduced or flat-rate shipping deals from major retailers and online specialty stores. Go inside a Black Friday practice session at this Alabama Best Buy. The field of 3-D printing is open wide for manufacturing, and Auburn University is stepping in. Sunrise Ridge Assisted Living in Trussville is under new ownership. Atlas Senior Living, a Birmingham-based senior living company, has bought the facility at 7868 Gadsden Highway. A team of thieves boosted nearly $40,000 in high-dollar handbags from Saks Fifth Avenue in Birmingham, and now police are asking for the public's help in identifying them. When times get rough, Keli Lynch-Wright sings the words to Bob Marley's classic song "Three Little Birds" to her young son Ashton. She sang the words: "Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing gonna be alright," to her then 5-year-old son after their Alabaster home burned to the ground about seven years ago. Lynch-Wright still sings the song to her son, who will be 13 next month, from time-to-time, she said. Ashton even sings the song to her when she needs cheering up, she said. The song, along with the duo's love of helping others, inspired the disaster relief organization - Hatching Hope -- that Lynch-Wright and Ashton launched officially in January. The organization has ready helped dozens if not hundreds of families statewide. "It all flowed together," said Ashton, of how he came up with the name of the non-profit. The statement, though, also applies to how quickly Hatching Hope has taken off. Having worked in the apartment industry for 20 years, Lynch-Wright often found herself helping families across the state who lost their homes and possessions to fire. When she could, she brought Ashton along to help, even more so after they lost their home to fire. Over the years, Lynch-Wright became a master at recruiting volunteers, securing donations and corporate sponsors and connecting these volunteers and donors with those in need. This skill became essential when launching a statewide disaster relief organization (which Ashton hopes will expand worldwide). Lynch-Wright said the work often starts with a $10 donation and one person committing an hour's worth of time. "For years in this business, anything we set out to do, we get it done, and it is done bigger and better than anyone could have ever dreamed of," Lynch-Wright said. One example is the April 27, 2011 tornado that killed 53 people in Tuscaloosa and destroyed more than 5,300 homes there. Lynch-Wright said she felt compelled to do something to help, but the devastation was too big for many people to comprehend. She and others in the apartment industry partnered with a moving company and collected donations from property managers and delivered them to apartment dwellers who lost everything. The day before Thanksgiving last year, Lynch-Wright said she and her son responded to a massive fire at The Park at Hoover apartments to help those displaced. "The clubhouse was packed" with more than 100 people, she said. "Everyone was sleeping on the floor." Many of them escaped with only the clothing on their backs, Lynch-Wright said. She said Ashton suggested they go home and get the air mattress his friends use when they sleep over. They didn't stop there, Lynch-Wright said. They combed through the Black Friday sales and bought all of the air mattresses they could find. "That is where it all started," she said, of Hatching Hope. Lynch-Wright left her full-time job and moved quickly to get the non-profit up and running. Hatching Hope has grown from a handful of volunteers in Birmingham to a network of volunteers, sponsors and fire officials in Mobile, Montgomery, Auburn, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville and Birmingham. Hatching Hope is a registered partner of the American Red Cross. The group is affiliated with every apartment association in the state. Lynch-Wright said Hatching Hope is typically contacted about providing relief by the Red Cross or apartment management. Hatching Hope works first to meet the immediate needs of fire victims. The organization provides a kit complete with an air mattress, pillows, linens, towels and toiletry kit. Most of the kits have a personal message written by someone in Ashton's school in Alabaster, or another volunteer or donor. Children receive a teddy bear or action figure. Dana Robbins, the former manager of Mountain Lodge apartments in Vestavia Hills, said Hatching Hope is providing a vital service to apartment residents. She said Lynch-Wright and others responded to a March 11 fire at the apartments, which displaced about 10 families. "We had a couple of residents who didn't have any family in Birmingham," Robbins said. "For the first few days, the items from Hatching Hope were all they had." She said Hatching Hope goes a step beyond what Red Cross alone can provide for displaced residents, which is often one night in a hotel and a meal. Sometimes, Hatching Hope even responds faster. Because of her experience in the apartment industry, Lynch-Wright knows who to call for help, and apartment managers know to call her, Robbins added. "The help they have been able to offer in our industry, there is just not enough words to say how beneficial it is," she said. Through the assistance of Birmingham attorney and animal advocate, Angie Ingram, Hatching Hope recently launched Hatching Hope for Pets, which provides food, a leash, collar and blanket for pets displaced along with their families. Hatching Hope recently partnered with HD Supply, a supplier of multifamily and renovation supplies. The company is donating all of their opened returns, which they cannot resale, to Hatching Hope. Lynch-Wright plans to sell the inventory quarterly to raise money for relief efforts. The ultimate goal is to open a store year-round to raise funds. Visit Hatching Hope's Facebook page and website for more information on upcoming disaster relief workshops and fundraising events. Shooting Suspects Bessemer.jpg Deanthony Billingsley and Cardamien Cooper surrendered to Bessemer police on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016. (Bessemer Police) Two men sought in the shooting of a 6-year-old girl wounded when gunfire pelted her Bessemer home are now in custody. Deanthony Siquan Billingsley, 20, of Bessemer, and Cardamlen Demun Braxton Cooper, 21, of Hueytown, surrendered peacefully about 2 p.m. Monday to authorities at the Bessemer Police Department, said Sgt. Cortice Miles. Both are charged with two counts of attempted murder and one count of shooting into an occupied dwelling in the Thursday night incidents. Bessemer police and U.S. Marshals searched for the pair throughout the weekend. They are now awaiting transfer to the Jefferson County Jail, where they each will be held on $2.03 million bond. Alexis Davis was asleep on the couch of her family's home in the 400 block of 30th Street in Bessemer Thursday night. Gunfire peppered their home shortly after 11 p.m., but family members and police didn't realize Alexis was shot in the back until more than two hours later when she got up to use the restroom. That's when she complained of pain in her stomach, and blood was found on her and the couch. She was taken to Children's of Alabama where she underwent surgery Friday, and was scheduled to undergo a second surgery on Monday. Miles said her condition is improving. About 11:10 p.m., officers were dispatched on a shooting at the Dartmouth Avenue Convenience Store, located at 2931 Dartmouth Avenue. Miles said officers found a black male lying outside the store on his back with a single gunshot wound to the arm. The victim told officers he was shot in the arm while inside of the store by a person that he knows. He was taken to UAB Hospital, but was released a short time later. Miles said detectives believe that Billingsley and Cooper shot the male victim at the store as part of an ongoing dispute. "It is believed that Billingsley and Cooper went across the street and shot into the residence,'' Miles said. He said police received simultaneous calls about the shootings at convenience store and the gunfire at Alexis's home. It wasn't until 1:30 a.m. they discovered Alexis shot. "She didn't act like she had been shot,'' said her grandfather, J.D. Lucius. "She was laughing and everything." Miles said their investigation shows that Billingsley and Cooper intentionally shot into the home where Alexis was sleeping because they knew their intended victim - the man shot in the arm - had associations with that home. "We would like to thank everyone for their continued prayers for the victims,'' Miles said, "and for the information related to this investigation." An employee counts yuan banknotes at a bank in Huaibei, Anhui province June 22, 2010.[Photo/Agencies] BUENOS AIRES - The Chinese currency yuan is gaining importance in Latin America, due to ever closer financial collaboration between the Asian nation and the region, as well as the deepening of the yuan's globalization, experts said. On Oct 1, the yuan joined the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) basket of currencies, named the Special Drawing Rights (SDR), with a weight of 10.92 percent, a very important step for its process of internationalization. The IMF's decision has produced a positive impact on the economies of countries like Argentina, because "China is the main foreign direct investor in Argentina, above American and European investments," local analyst Jorge Castro told Xinhua. "China is also the buyer of over two-thirds of the country's agricultural exports," said Castro, director of Argentina's Institute of Strategic Planning (IPE). "The use of the yuan as a global currency will accelerate the pace of Argentina's agricultural exports and will lead to a growing yuan market in Argentina as a result of direct investments," Castro said. HSBC, the first bank in Argentina allowed to use the yuan for foreign exchanges, has carried over 1,500 foreign operations since 2011 involving 500 million yuan ($72.5 million), said Juan Pablo Scasserra, the bank's head of global trade. "Operating in the yuan allows Argentinean exporters and importers to negotiate better terms with their Chinese counterparts, among other benefits," he said last month in Argentina. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) also sees the internationalization of the yuan in Latin America as positive, for it will facilitate trade and open up alternative lines of financing, Alexandre Meira da Rosa, the IDB's vice president, told Xinhua last month. As ISIL goes on the defensive, Trumps victory and declaration of a Muslim registry will perpetuate its narrative. Donald Trumps electoral victory has led observers to speculate on the ramifications for American foreign policy to the Middle East and how regional leaders, from Syrias Bashar al-Asad, Egypts Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to Iranian hardliners, will benefit from his presidency. However, there has been one Middle Eastern leader neglected in this analysis: the self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who will also reap rewards from the elections results. The caliph, probably in hiding in Syria, has been watching as his territory shrinks. Despite this loss, the group still has the capability to direct or inspire terrorist attacks internationally. It declared that its violence is meant to destroy the grey zone, the sphere of coexistence between Muslim and non-Muslims, whether it be in cities such as Paris or Mosul, where Iraqi Christians and Muslims used to live side-by-side before the former were expelled in 2014. Trumps victory, and his plans for a Muslim registry, provides the rhetorical ammunition to ISILs claim that there is no grey zone. There is only black and white white representing ISIL, and the black camp, now led by an incoming orange-haired American president. ISILs view of the US election ISIL and its supporters watch domestic developments in the United States and seek to leverage them to buttress their narrative. For example, during the Ferguson protests, ISIL used Twitter to recruit African-Americans, and it will exploit Trumps victory to gain further adherents. One can deduce how Baghdadi views this upheaval in American domestic politics by examining how like-minded ideologues regarded the outcome. While ISIL, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban differ over ideology and tactics among themselves, they all celebrated Trumps success. The Jordanian preacher Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi tweeted that Trump reveals the true mentality of the Americans, and their racism towards Muslims and Arabs and everything. Despite Trump's rhetoric vis-a-vis a wall with Mexico, he did travel there in August 2016. He now needs to visit an American mosque, because his strategy to 'knock the hell' out of ISIL will require him to build bridges with Muslims in the US and rethink his ban on Muslim immigration. by Maqdisi was the spiritual guide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian foreign fighter who established the Iraqi insurgent group that would evolve into ISIL. Even though al-Maqdisi has disavowed ISIL, he has appropriated its discourse. During the presidential debates, Trump had criticised the military strategy of the US-backed Operation Inherent Resolve to expel ISIL from Mosul. Yet his electoral victory will have little effect on the military campaign, as the decisive battle for Mosul will continue until Trumps inauguration, and most probably will not change course once he is sworn in. Nonetheless, a Trump victory perpetuates ISILs narrative, even if it is defeated in Mosul. As ISIL goes on the defensive, its attempts to manipulate the grey zone will only increase. The American grey zone and the election A flurry of media reports have alluded to Russian President Vladimir Putins role in influencing the elections. Yet media neglected Baghdadis role in it. The rise of ISIL only exacerbated pre-existing Islamophobic trends in the US, upon which Trump capitalised. The San Bernardino attacks, conducted in the name of ISIL, resulted in Trumps declaration of December 2015 of a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US. This campaign rhetoric has buttressed ISILs claims. ISIL would have looked askance, however, at examples of the grey zone persisting during this campaign. Bernie Sanders hugging a Muslim woman during a rally, and promising to fight Islamophobia as a Jew, kept the grey zone alive. The fact that Huma Abedin is the top aide to Hillary Clinton proved that a Muslim American could achieve great heights in the US political system. It is for this reason that ISIL threatened her and Keith Ellison, a Muslim-American congressman. Both prominent figures undermined ISILs narrative. OPINION: The US is not a post-racial society Finally Humayun Khan, a Muslim American in the US military killed in Iraq in 2004, proved redolent in symbolism for both sides of the campaign, even in death. His parents appeared at the Democratic National Convention to blast Trumps Islamophobia and to demonstrate that a Muslim can be an American patriot. Yet Islamophobic sentiments continued to strengthen Trumps position until election, demonstrating that even a Muslim who fought in the US military was not enough to overcome the image of the Muslim as the other in the US. The fallout from Trumps victory Trumps plan for a registry for Muslims in the US is not new, and would follow similar measures implemented under the Bush administration. While the effect of the Trump administrations plan still remains uncertain, however, there have been tangible effects on Muslim Americans nonetheless since his victory. Women wearing the hijab have been assaulted across the US, and even cases of women removing their hijabs for their own safety. These events will only substantiate ISIL claims that one cannot practise the Islamic faith in the US or anywhere else in the grey zone. OPINION: Can the Muslim American family survive Trump? Despite Trumps rhetoric vis-a-vis a wall with Mexico, he did travel there in August 2016. He now needs to visit an American mosque, because his strategy to knock the hell out of ISIL will require him to build bridges with Muslims in the US and rethink his ban on Muslim immigration. Telling his supporters to simply stop it on TV will not be enough to control the hate he has already unleashed. Ibrahim al-Marashi is an assistant professor at the Department of History, California State University, San Marcos. He is the co-author of Iraqs Armed Forces: An Analytical History. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. Egyptian Abu Afghan al-Masri, described as a senior al-Qaeda leader, was killed in Idlib province, Pentagon says. A senior al-Qaeda leader in Syria was killed last week by a US air strike, according to the Pentagon. The killing of Egyptian Abu Afghan al-Masri took place near Sarmada, located in Syrias Idlib province, on November 18, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters on Tuesday. Cook said that Masri had originally joined al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and later moved to its Syrian affiliate. He had ties to terrorist groups operating throughout southwest Asia including groups responsible for attacking US and coalition forces in Afghanistan and those plotting to attack the West, Cook said. A handful of Arabic-language news agencies had reported Masris death at the time. Masri was a religious judge in Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, an armed group formerly known as the al-Nusra Front until its formal break with al-Qaeda earlier this year. The air strike was the latest in the US programme of targeted killings in Syria and Iraq. Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced that on October 17 it had killed Haydar Kirkan, who it said was a member of al-Qaeda and had been close to the late Osama bin Laden. In October, the Pentagon said a US air strike near Idlib had targeted a Nusra Front senior leader, Ahmed Salama Mabrouk, an Egyptian also known by his nom de guerre Abu Faraj. WATCH: The Disappeared of Syria The Syrian conflict started as a largely unarmed rebellion against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, but it quickly escalated into civil war. Throughout the past five years, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed during the fighting, though estimates vary widely. The conflict has drawn the intervention of the United States, Turkey and Arab countries, each supporting rebel groups to varying degrees, as well as Russian and Iranian forces backing the Syrian government. Elsewhere in Syria, fighting has intensified between government forces and rebels in the divided city of Aleppo. At least 141 civilians, including 18 children, have been killed in a week of renewed bombardment on the rebel-held eastern half of Aleppo, which has devastated its hospitals, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday. The Britain-based war monitor said it had documented hundreds of injuries as a result of Russian and Syrian air strikes and shelling by government forces. The assault began last Tuesday after a weeks-long pause in air strikes and shelling inside east Aleppo, although battles and air strikes did continue along the citys frontlines and in the surrounding countryside. The Observatory said there were another 87 deaths of rebel fighters and people of unknown identity in the eastern sector. It also documented 16 civilian deaths, including 10 children, and dozens of injuries as a result of rebel shelling of government-held west Aleppo. US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to quit a proposed 12-country free-trade bloc the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and renegotiate other trade deals upon entering the White House. Trump called the TPP a potential disaster for the US in a social media video message published late on Monday, pledging instead to negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores. Although the TPP terms were settled more than a year ago, the pact was never taken up by US Republican leaders in Congress, in part because of anti-free-trade rhetoric in the presidential campaign. Trumps comments would appear to snuff out any hopes among other TPP countries that the pact championed by President Barack Obama could be revived under the new administration. READ MORE: The Trans-Pacific Partnership in perspective Al Jazeeras Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington DC, said not only Donald Trump supporters but other Americans would be pretty happy about the development. A lot of people in this country are very concerned about the TPP namely for two reasons, she said. First because it was negotiated in secret, and even more so because there is this view that it favours corporations. Having said that, there is a lot of detail in that agreement that many Americans are not aware of. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is one of the most ambitious free trade pacts ever negotiated. It brings together the diverse economies of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam and accounts for a whopping 40 percent of the global economy. Partners react Japan reacted with restraint on Tuesday, with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga telling a news conference in Tokyo the protectionist US Republican has not yet taken office, and the government would like to refrain from commenting on each and every one of his remarks. Nonetheless, he conceded TPP has no meaning without the United States. In Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull seemed reluctant to give up on the trade deal, which he said is manifestly in our interest. We believe, as do the other the 11 nations who are parties to the TPP [that] it is an important strategic commitment, he said. Time will tell to what extent the US will engage with the TPP or an evolved version of the trade pact. New Zealands Prime Minister John Key voiced disappointment and expressed hope for the possibility of the bloc going forward without the US. There are a lot of alternatives that are available. One is that the other 11 countries go forward. But we cant control that process, he said. READ MORE: If TPP fails, China takes advantage Meanwhile, the development raised hopes for a rival deal that is backed by China the worlds second-largest economy which was excluded from TPP. Beijing said it hopes for early results in negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) a giant Asian trade pact. Now we hope that such negotiations can achieve early results, said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang. RCEP brings together 10 members of the Southeast Asian grouping ASEAN, plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, but notably excludes the US. Trump also vowed on Monday to renegotiate the 22-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico to make it a lot better for American workers . He said if the deal could not be improved to his liking, the US would leave NAFTA. But he said little about what improvements he wanted, apart from halting the migration of US factories and jobs to Mexico. Egypts Court of Cassation orders retrial in the case for deposed president who had a death sentence overturned earlier. Egypts deposed president Mohamed Morsi has had a life sentence overturned by the countrys Court of Cassation, which ordered a retrial in the case that revolves around accusations of espionage with Palestinian group Hamas. Morsi, Egypts first democratically elected president, had a death sentence overturned by the same court last week and a retrial was ordered. Morsi was overthrown by a military coup in July 2013 after having served just one year of a four-year term. The organisation to which he belonged, the Muslim Brotherhood, has since been outlawed. A government crackdown on the movement, as well as other groups, has resulted in tens of thousands of arrests and mass trials. Morsis lawyer, Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsoud, told AFP news agency that the sentences against several Muslim Brotherhood officials, who stood trial alongside Morsi on charges of spying for Iran and Hamas, were also overturned. Explaining the recent ruling, Yehia Ghanem, Al Jazeeras Middle East analyst, said from a judicial point of view, the court of cassation is the least politicised court in the country. The authorities in Egypt established a special judicial district three years ago to deal mainly with cases of what they call terrorism, or espionage and other charges that are politicised, Ghanem said. This district is where Morsi and thousands of others have been tried, Ghanem adde, and any opposition in Egypt is now tried under terrorism'. Morsi was previously tried on several charges, including one for escaping prison during the 2011 uprising against then-president Hosni Mubarak. PROFILE: Egypts deposed president Mohamed Morsi He was also accused of sharing state secrets with foreign powers, including Qatar. His defence argued that he was merely engaging all foreign entities within the limits that any head of state would. Looking at the indictment, there were a lot of mistakes, discrepancies, and contradictions, Ghanem said about Morsis trial. The trial itself failed to come up with any evidence to substantiate the charges. Morsis trials, and the trials of thousands of other opposition figures and civilians over the last three years, have been criticised heavily by rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Morsi was given several sentences, including life, a 20-year prison term and the death penalty. He appealed against those sentences, but has already had the 20-year term confirmed by an Appellate Court. He remains in jail on a separate espionage conviction. Emboldened by Donald Trump, alt-right movement with neo-Nazis and anti-Semites met in Washington near the White House. German Chancellor Angela Merkels government is concerned that white supremacists in the United States are being emboldened by the election of Donald Trump and is watching developments closely. The Berlin government declined to give an official reaction to a video circulating on the internet that showed members of the alt-right movement, a grouping that includes neo-Nazis, white nationalists and anti-Semites, meeting on Saturday in Washington a few blocks from the White House. But one senior official close to Merkel described the video which shows a speaker shouting Hail Trump and some audience members making the Nazi salute as repulsive and worrying. I dont think this is Trumps ideology because he seems to be largely free of ideology. But these people are riding on his coat-tails. We are watching this very closely, the official told Reuters news agency, requesting anonymity. Yair Lapid, a member of the foreign affairs and defence committee in the Israeli Knesset, called the video sickening and intolerable. One of the greatest mistakes humanity ever made was a failure to recognise the danger of fascism early enough and tackle it head on, said Lapid. We cannot let history repeat itself. In an interview with the New York Times on Tuesday, the US president-elect was quoted as saying he wanted nothing to do with alt-right. I condemn them. I disavow, and I condemn, said Trump. A spokesman for the Trump-Pence transition team said on Monday that Trump continued to denounce racism of any kind, and was elected to be a leader for every American. Trump, who has been active on Twitter in recent days, has not commented directly on the meeting himself. FBI: Hate crimes against Muslims in US surge 67 percent It came days after he outraged many Democrats, rights activists, and minority groups by appointing Steve Bannon, former head of a website linked to the alt-right, as his chief White House strategist. In the video, taken inside the conference and published by The Atlantic, Richard Spencer, a leader of the alt-right movement, says America belongs to white people, who he describes as children of the sun. He denounces the movements critics as the most despicable creatures who ever walked the planet. Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory! Spencer shouts at one point as some members of the audience raise their arms in the Nazi salute. The gathering on Saturday drew protesters who blocked traffic around the Ronald Reagan Building, a federally owned conference centre in downtown Washington for both public and private use. Crystal clear David Harris, chief executive of the American Jewish Committee in New York, said fringe groups espousing anti-Semitism and targeting minorities had emerged from the US presidential campaign with a vigour that has not been seen in decades. Trump victory: What now for the far-right movement? President-elect Trump issued a statement [about the Saturday meeting] but, assuming this group endures, will need to continue to find other opportunities to make crystal clear that he is the president of all Americans and condemns the alt-right and what it stands for, Harris said. In Germany, which has spent the past 70 years atoning for its Nazi past, using the Heil Hitler salute and other Nazi symbols is illegal and can result in a prison sentence of up to six months. Other European countries including Austria and France have similar laws. A second German government official said Trumps decision to bring Bannon into the White House showed he was not willing to forgo the movement and mobilisation of anger and resentment that swept him to the presidency. Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and a member of the European Parliament, accused Bannon on Tuesday of seeking to influence elections in France and Germany next year with the launch of new Breitbart News websites in Europe. David Keyes, a foreign media spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said: Prime Minister Netanyahu condemns anti-Semitism everywhere and appreciates President-elect Trumps denunciation of all forms of racism. Twitter suspends alt.right accounts Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said the United States appeared to be veering away from its own moral standards and might need to re-examine its stance on free speech. If words like this were used in Germany or Austria or France the people would have gotten in trouble with the law, he said, referring to the Washington meeting. Social media has created huge change. It has empowered and amplified the voices on the fringes. There may be a need in the United States to consider changes or limits to free speech to address this. ARV treatment on the rise, but UN urges urgent action as thousands of young women continue to be infected with HIV. The number of HIV-infected people taking anti-retroviral (ARV) medicine has doubled in just five years, the United Nations said while highlighting high infection rates among young African women. A new report released by UNAIDS, a UN programme, on Monday said thousands of young women and girls across the world are being infected with the HIV virus every week and preventing new infections is still proving difficult. The report added that while UNAIDS was on course to hit a target of 30 million people on ARV treatment by 2020, infection rates among young African women remained disturbingly high. In 2015, an estimated 7,500 teenagers and young women became infected with HIV every week globally, with the bulk of them in southern Africa. Data showed that in southern Africa, girls aged between 15 and 19 accounted for 90 percent of all new HIV infections among 10 to 19-year-olds, and more than 74 percent in eastern Africa. Crucially, the report found that between 2010 and 2015, the number of new HIV infections among women aged 15 to 24 was reduced by only 6 percent across the world. Young women are facing a triple threat, UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibe said at the reports launch in the Namibian capital Windhoek. They are at high risk of HIV infection, have low rates of HIV testing, and have poor adherence to treatment. The world is failing young women and we urgently need to do more. The number of HIV-infected people taking ARV drugs has doubled in only five years. Sidibe hailed the progress made with HIV treatment, but warned that any advance was incredibly fragile. READ MORE: AIDS 2016 This pandemic is far from over New threats are emerging and if we dont act now, we risk resurgence and resistance. We have seen this with TB. We must not make the same mistakes again, he said. Dr Kaymarlin Govender, research director at HEARD, an applied research centre on HIV/AIDS at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in South Africa, told Al Jazeera that adolescents and young girls remain highly vulnerable because of a number of factors at individual, social and structural levels. This includes early sexual debut, early pregnancies, biological vulnerabilities in women for HIV acquisition, school dropouts, poverty, intimate partner violence, child marriages, low perception of risk and lack of knowledge of HIV status and importantly HIV transmission dynamics [intergenerational sex]. There are three million more HIV-positive people on drug treatment now than there were in 2014. The UNAIDS report said that data from South Africa showed young women and teenagers were catching HIV from adult men, many of whom catch it much later in life but then continue a cycle of infection. The report also shed new light on HIV infection and treatment among adult men, showing that men are much less likely to know their HIV status and to access treatment than women. READ MORE: How Malawi reduced its HIV/Aids infection rate This means globally there are 18.2 million people on treatment. UNAIDS said its goal was to have 30 million on treatment by 2020. Last year, there were 5.8 million people over the age of 50 living with HIV, a figure that is greater than ever before. Govender said that reversing the trend required an element of social protection. We also need to focus on psychosocial support at family, peer and community in an effort to build healthy childhoods, Govender said from Durban. Fatal incident the latest amid flaring tensions in disputed region of Kashmir between rivals Pakistan and India. Three Indian soldiers have been killed along the de facto border with Pakistan in the disputed region of Kashmir, according to army officials. Army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said on Tuesday the attackers also mutilated the body of one soldier in Machil sector, in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act, he said. Another army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with military rules, said the three soldiers were ambushed by a team of attackers who came from the Pakistani side. Kalia did not specify if the attack was carried out by Pakistani soldiers or rebels fighting since 1989 against Indian rule in the Himalayan region. However, an army official told AFP news agency it was. This border action was like a sneak attack by Pakistan soldiers, he said on condition of anonymity. Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule in 1947. Both nuclear-armed rivals claim the territory in full and have fought two of three wars over the mountainous region. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians. In the past, the Indian army has blamed a combination of the Pakistani armys border action team and insurgents for carrying out operations along the so-called Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border dividing Indian and Pakistani-controlled regions. READ MORE: Reality Check Who actually cares about the Kashmiris? Following Tuesdays attack, heavy cross-border firing and shelling began at several posts in Machil sector. Pakistans army insisted it only returned fire after coming under attack near the LoC. There was no response to the ambush allegations. On Monday, four people, including two children, were killed and 10 others wounded in cross-border fire in Kashmir. Tensions across the long-disputed border reached dangerous levels in September after India blamed Pakistani fighters for a raid on an army base that killed 19 of its soldiers. India said it responded by carrying out surgical strikes across the heavily militarised border, sparking a furious reaction from Islamabad, which denied any attacks took place. Tehran deploys its troops, as well as Afghan and Pakistani recruits, to back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. More than 1,000 soldiers deployed by Iran to Syria to back government forces in the civil war have been killed, an Iranian official said on Tuesday. The death toll was a major increase from one reported just four months ago when Iran announced 400 of its soldiers had died on Syrias battlefields. Iran has been sending fighters to Syria since the early stages of the more than five-year-old war to support its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, against armed groups trying to topple him. Although many of the soldiers Iran sends are its own nationals, it is casting its recruitment net wide, training and deploying predominantly Shia-Muslim fighters from neighbouring Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. Afghan citizens represented half the death toll reported in August. OPINION: When will Iran abandon Bashar al-Assad? Now the number of Irans martyrs as defenders of the shrine has exceeded 1,000, Mohammadali Shahidi Mahallati, head of Irans Foundation of Martyrs, which offers financial support to relatives of those killed fighting for Iran, was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency. Iran alludes to its fighters in Syria as defenders of the shrine, a reference to the Sayeda Zeinab mosque near Damascus, which is where a granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammad is said to be buried, as well as other shrines revered by Shia. Many Iranians initially opposed involvement in Syrias war, harbouring little sympathy for Assad. But now they are warming to the mission, believing ISILs threat to the existence of their country is best fought outside Irans borders. The Syrian civil war started as a largely unarmed uprising against Assad in March 2011, but quickly escalated into a full-on armed conflict. The UN estimates more than 400,000 people have been killed, and 11 million Syrians half the countrys pre-war population have been displaced from their homes. Two Qatari sisters attacked and robbed of $5.3m worth of goods in highway north of the French capital Paris. Two Qatari women were held up on a Paris highway and robbed of valuables worth more than five million euro ($5.3m) north of Paris, according to French police. The women, in their 60s, had just left Le Bourget airport northeast of the capital on Monday when their chauffeur-driven Bentley was held up by masked men who sprayed them with tear gas, a police source told AFP news agency on Tuesday. The robbers stole everything in the vehicle: jewels, clothes, luggage, the source said. The French driver, who works for the women on a regular basis, reported the incident to police. A police official told the Associated Press news agency the robbers were in a car which forced the Bentley off the highway and then to stop in an emergency zone. The sisters names were not released. READ MORE: Robbers steal jewels worth millions in France heist Earlier this month, Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat and partner Cyrille Auxenfans were the targets of a robbery attempt, also involving tear gas, in their home in a wealthy area of Paris. The robbers fled empty-handed. In 2014, a Saudi princes diplomatic convoy was ambushed in a heist similar to Mondays one, as it headed to Le Bourget airport, commonly used for private jets. The attack on the Qatari women took place on a section of motorway leading north from Paris to the Charles de Gaulle and Le Bourget airports, which is often the scene of hold-ups targeting wealthy foreigners in luxury cars, some of whom carry large amounts of cash. The robbers often take advantage of traffic jams near the Landy tunnel, which is some 1.3km long, to pounce. The incidents have done little to help efforts by the government to coax tourists back to France after the November 2015 attacks in which 130 people died, followed by the Bastille Day lorry massacre in southern city Nice that killed 86. In the Paris area alone, tourism revenue is expected to plunge by $1.6bn this year. Security has been stepped up around tourist magnets in Paris in response to the high-profile robberies. Government troops and Houthi rebels suffer casualties in heavy fighting near Taiz and Midi a day after truce expires. At least 19 people have been killed in renewed battles between Yemeni government and Houthi rebels, a day after a 48-hour ceasefire expired without halting the violence. The news came as the International Committee of the Red Cross warned civilians in the city of Taiz were pinnned down by shelling and sniper fire with bodies rotting in the streets. Eleven rebels and five government soldiers were killed on Tuesday on the outskirts of Taiz, officials said, when forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi repelled an attack by Houthis and their allies. The attack that began late on Monday targeted the al-Dhabab area, which provides pro-Hadi forces with their only access to Taiz, which is surrounded by the rebels. Warplanes from the Saudi-led Arab coalition took part in defensive operations and repelling the attack, officials said. READ MORE Yemeni foreign minister: There is no clean war Three more soldiers were killed and four wounded by rebel sniper fire near the northwestern coastal town of Midi, a military official said. The Houthis have been trying to advance on Midis harbour, which is controlled by pro-Hadi forces, the official said. On Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) sounded an alarm about civilians trapped by intense fighting in Taiz. Sniper fire and indiscriminate shelling has trapped civilians. Dead bodies are in the streets and people are unable to attend to their most basic needs. The situation is desperate, said Alexandre Faite, the head of the ICRC in Yemen. 20-month conflict The city, one of the most populous in Yemen, has been besieged by the Houthis for more than a year. Locals accuse the rebels of indiscriminately shelling residential areas throughout that period. Fighters aligned with Yemens Saudi-backed government have slowly pushed the rebels back from positions inside the city, but have been unable to break the siege, although some difficult mountain routes reportedly provide a lifeline. More than 7,000 people have been killed and nearly 37,000 have been wounded in the 20-month conflict, according to the United Nations. The Houthis overran the capital Sanaa and other parts of the impoverished country in September 2014, prompting the coalition to intervene six months later in support of Hadi. More than 40,000 Nigerians demand action from Shell to clean up oil spills that have devastated communities for decades. Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi, leader of Nigerias Ogale people, unpacked four bottles of water from his homeland and lined them up on a table to show why his subjects are suing Royal Dutch Shell in a London court. The Nigerian water is contaminated with oil and cancer-causing compounds such as benzene. It is what his people drink every day. Lawyers for more than 40,000 Nigerians are demanding action from Shell to clean up oil spills. Britains High Court began hearing lawsuits on Tuesday filed by the Ogale and Bille people alleging that decades of oil spills have fouled the water and destroyed the lives of thousands of fishermen and farmers in the Niger River Delta, where a Shell subsidiary has operated since the 1950s. They brought their fight to Shells home base because they say the Nigerian courts are too corrupt. Let the shareholders of Shell who are residents of the advanced world, like Britain, let them see a representative of a kingdom that is being destroyed for them to have money, he told The Associated Press news agency on the eve the hearing. Thats blood money. The Anglo-Dutch oil giant argues that the case should be heard in Nigeria, pointing out it involves its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the government, and Nigerian plaintiffs. London law firm Leigh Day is handling the cases after it won a landmark agreement from Shell to pay $83.5m in compensation to the Bodo community for damage caused by oil spills in 2008 and 2009. Shell originally offered $50,000 before the Bodo took their case to the same UK court. The new lawsuits were brought by two communities located in Ogoniland, part of the oil-rich southern Niger River Delta. They want to hold Shell, incorporated in the UK, responsible for the actions of its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd, or SPDC. The subsidiary said it has produced no oil or gas in the region since 1993. The area is heavily affected by crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining. It is arguing in court that the legal challenge is speculative and full of legal and evidential weaknesses. READ MORE: Shell accused of lying over Nigeria oil spill clean-up SPDC said it will challenge the jurisdiction of the UK courts in this case arguing that it concerns Nigerian plaintiffs in dispute with a Nigerian company over issues in Nigeria. If the claimants lawyers are correct as to the existence of this novel duty of care, [Shell] and many other parents of multinational groups will be liable to the many hundreds of millions of people around the world with whom their subsidiaries come into contact in the ordinary course of their various operations, the company said in its court argument. That would constitute a radical if not historic expansion of the law and open the floodgates to litigation on an unprecedented scale. The Ogale and Bille communities account for only a small portion of the millions of Nigerians that human rights activists say have been injured by contamination they say would never have been allowed in the home countries of the multinational oil companies that operate in partnership with the Nigerian government. Shell was the first oil company to operate in Nigeria, starting production in 1958. In the 1990s, the military government sent armed troops to put down protests by the Ogoni people, turning the oil-producing south into a war zone. One of the leaders of those protests was Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer and environmental activist whose opposition helped stop Shells production in Ogoniland. He and eight others were hanged by the government of military dictator Sani Abacha in November 1995 in a case the US condemned. Dutch court: Shell can be liable for Nigeria spills President Muhammadu Buhari has promised a clean-up of Ogoniland, which was supposed to start in June but has been delayed. The new lawsuits come at a time when Shell is pivoting towards other areas, such as Brazil. It recently bought BG Group Plc for $52.4bn, increasing its proven reserves of oil and gas by 25 percent. And like other oil companies, it is also slashing jobs and postponing investments to adjust to lower oil prices. But Shell is still seen as having deep pockets, said David Elmes, course director of the Warwick Business Schools Global Energy Research Network. While Shell would argue that its settlement with the Bodo community shows its willingness to provide compensation for problems it caused, the new cases involve damage arising from what Shell says is sabotage and theft, Elmes said. And as Shell looks to move to other countries, people who feel they have a case against the company are looking to take action now, he said. In a 2011 report, the United Nations said in at least 10 communities in Ogoniland, public health was seriously threatened by drinking water contaminated with hydrocarbons. In one area, the water contained the carcinogen benzene at levels 900 times higher than what the World Health Organization says is safe. While the report recognised that oil production in the region had ceased, it criticised Shells oversight of the remaining facilities. Armed group blows up major pipeline in Nigeria The report recommended emergency measures to provide adequate drinking water. But so far nothing has been done, said Okpabi who describes himself as the paramount ruler of the Ogale people. He brought the bottles of water to his lawyers office in London just to make the point. Removing his hat and leaning forward, he argued that his people have been made poorer by the destruction of an ecosystem. He is angry at Shell, arguing it called the shots for its Nigerian subsidiary and so should be held accountable in Britain. My system cannot give me justice, Okpabi said. There is only one place that can give me justice. That is why I am here. Calls grow for refugee protection, as frustration mounts on Greek islands and more boat disasters occur off Libya. By the thousands they came, fleeing bombs, brutality and hardship. At day, they tore through muddy fields; at night, they huddled around small fires. Young and old, they passed through barbed wire, crammed inside trucks and braved rough seas in flimsy boats. Along the way, they saw loved ones wives and husbands, daughters and sons perish. With little left to lose, they persevered, only to have their path and a chance for a better life blocked. Days of despair have since turned into weeks, and weeks into months. But the nightmare wont let go, each time appearing under a new guise. Twice last week, a lethal mix of Molotov bombs and massive stones rained down on a cluster of tents perched inside the overcrowded Souda refugee camp on the Greek island of Chios. It cracked skulls, burned belongings and spread panic. By pure luck, no one died this time. Yet, the potentially murderous attacks, carried out from the top of an ancient castle wall rising next to the narrow camp, were enough to inflict further pain on Soudas already traumatised residents. Scores of children, men and women, some pregnant, refused to go back, opting to sleep out in the winter cold than risking suffering another night of violence. These people escaped war zones and survived shipwrecks, to be attacked now with firebombs and stones, Claire Whelan, a Chios-based worker for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Al Jazeera. They feel destitute, hopeless and abandoned. Just as Souda was burning, another tragic milestone was marked further south, off the coast of Libya yet few noticed. Four shipwrecks in less than three days left almost 340 refugees dead or missing, according to the International Organization for Migration. This means there have now been more than 4,500 deaths in the Mediterranean this year, making 2016 the deadliest for people risking the perilous journey to Europe. Thats at least 14 deaths a day, one every 100 minutes, just in these waters. Rise of the walls Its not hard to identify the culprits for the rising shipwreck deaths: bad weather, unseaworthy vessels and people-smuggling can all be blamed. Yet some argue the same can also be said about increasingly isolationist policies in a number of European countries which force people in desperate conditions to undertake treacherous journeys. A report this month by the Unravelling the Mediterranean Migration Crisis project concluded that a failure to open up safe and legal routes is directly driving refugees into the hands of human smugglers, who resort to more dangerous routes as a response to increased controls. Smuggling is driven, rather than broken, by EU policy, it said. Early last year, a series of Balkan and central European countries closed their borders along a humanitarian corridor towards northern Europe, leaving thousands stranded in squalid tent cities across Greece. Razor-wire fences were erected, and troops deployed to ensure no one was allowed to continue their journey. The central and eastern European countries are being very short-sighted to think that if they hold their breath, the emergency will pass, professor Anna Triandafyllidou, of the European University Institute, told Al Jazeera. But Triandafyllidou, citing initiatives such as mandatory resettlement quotas and naval rescue operations among others, said it would be wrong to disregard the EUs political will to deal with the crisis. If anyone has failed of rising up to the challenge, it was specific EU members who actually played this chicken game they didnt cooperate because others were cooperating, she said. Germany has received at least half a million asylum applications, Sweden 200,000 if all European countries did their share, there wouldnt be such an emergency. Snails pace One of the EUs most controversial responses has been its deal with Turkey last March, which drew widespread criticism both by aid groups and UN agencies. Under the agreement, migrants and refugees arriving in Greece after March 20 were to be held in centres on five islands, including Chios, and deported to Turkey if their asylum applications are rejected. The deal largely shut down the eastern passage to Europe, and forced increasing numbers of refugees to join thousands from Africa in the more dangerous central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy. Since then, deaths off Libya have spiked, and tensions on Greeces islands have also boiled over as the process moves at a snails pace. It is also applied inconsistently and fraught with particular difficulties, including refugees having to navigate a complex legal asylum system in foreign languages or travelling hundreds of kilometres just to register. Processing is also being done based on nationality, rather than arrival date and vulnerability, humanitarian groups say. As a result, people who started their journey a long time ago have now been stuck in overcrowded camps for more than six months. This multi-tier system is causing further friction among separate ethnic groups and a sense of discrimination. Amid the lags and the despair, some attempt to kill themselves; many self-harm. Big challenge In Chios, the UN says there are currently more than 2,000 refugees, with some 800 based in Souda. Overall, more than 60,000 refugees are stranded across Greece, trapped inside a country still down on its knees after more than six years of deepening recession. Since 2009, Greece has lost a staggering 25 percent of its economy. One-quarter of its population and more than half of its young people is without a job; the educational and health systems are under severe pressure; and economic recovery is admittedly nowhere in sight. On the refugee-hosting islands, many have also suffered additional economic losses from a steep decline in tourism arrivals. Amid a protracted downturn, far-right populism has found fertile ground to move from the fringes. Taking advantage of a protest vote against domestic political failures and internationally imposed austerity, the far-right Golden Dawn went from polling just 0.3 percent in 2009 to coming third in last years election with almost seven percent. Aid workers whisper that Golden Dawn members were behind last weeks Souda attack while refugees and volunteers shout it aloud. The local police have also come in for criticism for failing to act quickly enough, a charge they deny. But can the financial and social demise justify such attacks? Can it rationalise hate? Certainly not, said Seraphim Seferiades, a political science professor at Panteion University in Athens. Instead, they [the attacks] highlight the huge responsibility of an EU thinking which incubates the conditions for the emergence of such attitudes and the rise of xenophobia and right-wing groups. EU officials are quick to shed crocodile tears about the refugees drama, yet at the same time they adopt policies such as border closures that not only fail to deal with the causes of the problem, but actually make things worse, he told Al Jazeera. They should be held accountable for their criminal acts. Takis Giannopoulos, a member of the Greek activist group Anti-Nazi Zone, agrees. Chios is experiencing a real problem, but the only ones who are not to blame are the refugees living in inhumane conditions, he told Al Jazeera. The answer to that [problem] is not xenophobic attacks, but the integration of these people into the islands life, or the facilitation of the process that will enable them to continue their journey. Despite incidents like the Souda attack, most Greeks have been welcoming. Families have opened their houses; community groups have set up shelters; teachers have expanded their classrooms; artists have raised awareness. In a way, said Triandafyllidou, the plight of the refugees largely mobilised the positive reflexes of Greeks. It was surprising, she told Al Jazeera, but it was almost as if the financial crisis prepared people for reacting positively towards the refugees. During the big flow, the municipality of Athens and NGOs said dont bring any more clothes, toys, shoes; we dont know where to put them, we dont have enough volunteers to distribute them.' And that was also the reaction of many people across Europe, responding with commitment and compassion to the worst refugee crisis in decades. But is this enough, especially at a time when isolationist voices from Budapest, through London to Washington are increasingly moving into the mainstream? The challenge is big, said Triandafyllidou. We need to work on all fronts and recognise that migration is part of a whole socioeconomic transformation there wont be a one-size-fits-all policy, she added. There are no easy solutions and answers, so we need to work on every possible small solution because the many small solutions will do a big effect. Until then, attacks on refugees seem likely to continue, and death tolls will keep on breaking grim record after grim record. New volunteer military unit formed by Syrian army as troops battle their way into rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Syrias military announced it is forming a new commando force, calling on volunteers interested in achieving the final victory against terrorism to apply. The announcement on Tuesday, which named the new force the Fifth Corps, didnt specify where it would be deployed. After nearly six years of combat, the Syrian conscription-based armed forces has become overstretched and has increasingly relied on its regional allies that have boosted its numbers and capabilities. Iran announced on Tuesday its 1,000th troop fatality in Syria since the war started in 2011. Syrias army said it formed a new corps of volunteers to fight alongside its soldiers and allies against opponents of President Bashar al-Assad. An army statement said the move came in response to the rapid development of events, to support the successes of armed forces, and to meet peoples wishes to put an end to terrorist acts in the Syrian Arab Republic. The Fifth Attack Troops Corps of Volunteers will be made up of recruits over age 18 from across the country not already eligible for military service or deserters, it said. It was not immediately clear how many people would be involved. WATCH Syria: Witnesses for the prosecution Syria already conscripts its men at age 18 into the army. Before the war, service would last for two years but now many conscripts say they have served for several years, with no sign of being discharged. Military analysts say the Syrian armys pre-war numbers were about 300,000 personnel, but its current size after almost six years of conflict is not known. Young men are known to desert the army, leave the country, or pay bribes to avoid being drafted. Syrias forces are bolstered by Iranian troops, Iran-backed militias, and fighters from Lebanons Shia-Muslim Hezbollah group, as well as Russian air power. They are fighting against anti-Assad rebels and ISIL. Also on Tuesday, the Syrian military urged rebels to pull out of east Aleppo and allow civilians to also leave, as it pressed an offensive to recapture the citys opposition-held sector. The army, which has besieged the east for months, also demanded that rebels distribute food to civilians, while calling on residents to cooperate with its advancing troops. The military air-dropped leaflets with a picture of a green bus like those used in the past to transport civilians and rebels from areas retaken by the government. To those involved in carrying weapons, we stretch out our hand to you. Reserve your place before it is too late, the leaflets read. The picture showed the bus on a road marked the path of salvation. WATCH: The Disappeared of Syria At least 141 civilians, including 18 children, have been killed in a week of renewed bombardment on the rebel-held eastern half of Aleppo, which has devastated its hospitals, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday. The Britain-based war monitor said it had documented hundreds of injuries as a result of Russian and Syrian air strikes and shelling by government forces. The assault began last Tuesday after a weeks-long pause in air strikes and shelling inside east Aleppo, although battles and air strikes did continue along the citys frontlines and in the surrounding countryside. The Syrian Observatory said there were another 87 deaths of rebel fighters and people of unknown identity in the eastern sector. It also documented 16 civilian deaths, including 10 children, and dozens of injuries as a result of rebel shelling of government-held west Aleppo. Several parties claim victory as tensions spill out on the streets of Haiti following Sundays election. Election tensions spilled on to Haitis streets with shots fired outside the presidential palace as various candidates claimed victory in a re-run vote in the impoverished Caribbean country. Haitians are counting on their next president to lift the country out of political limbo and repair damage from Hurricane Matthew, which devastated the country last month, killing up to 1,000 people and leaving 1.4 million needing aid. Haitians are meanwhile being asked to remain patient and wait for official election results, after several factions have made early declarations of victory as well as accusations of fraud. Nearly 1,000 Haitian election workers began 12-hour shifts inside a warehouse on Monday, tabulating the results of the weekends presidential and legislative voting. Just one day after polls closed, hundreds of supporters of the Lavalas Family, the party of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, took to the streets of Port-au-Prince. Supporters of the Tet Kale Party of former President Michel Martelly, meanwhile, sent out text messages insisting their presidential candidate, Jovenel Moise, was victorious in Sundays balloting and that no second round would be needed. International observers asked Haitians to await the results as demonstrators had begun accusing other parties of stealing the election. Despite a low turnout of less than 22 percent, no election results are expected to be issued by Haitis Provisional Electoral Council before Sunday. Most tally sheets from voting centres were still being transported to the capital by trucks from districts across the mountainous country with no shortage of dilapidated roads. According to Al Jazeeras Teresa Bo, who was reporting from Port-au-Prince, many Haitians in remote areas were unable to vote due to the devastation from natural disasters, including the earthquake in 2010, and the lack of polling stations. Smooth election Uder Antoine, executive director of a revamped electoral council that is getting high marks for organising Sundays unusually smooth election, expressed confidence that tabulation workers will deliver accurate, transparent results that will be accepted. Its been many years since Haiti has had an election like this one. The nation woke up calm, people went to work, and kids went to school. Im very satisfied, AP news agency quoted Antoine as saying. Members of the Organization of American States observer mission said they would observe the 24-hour tabulation process until preliminary results are published. At a news conference, OAS official Gerardo de Icaza said it was important for people to wait for the official results and not be swayed by political declarations. Turkeys government has withdrawn a controversial bill that could have overturned mens convictions for child sex assault, following an angry public backlash. The controversial proposal sought to address whether all cases of marriage with people under the legal age of 18 should classify as sexual assault. Critics feared the proposal could have legitimised the practice of men marrying girls under the age of 18, which is the age of consent in Turkey. Thousands took to the streets in protest over the weekend. On Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the government was withdrawing the proposed bill. We are taking this bill in the parliament back to the commission in order to allow for the broad consensus the president requested, and to give time for the opposition parties to develop their proposals, Yildirim said at a news conference in Istanbul. READ MORE: Motion protecting child marriage draws debate This commission will evaluate and take into account all sides and surely a solution will be found. The proposal was scheduled to undergo a final vote on Tuesday and would have deferred sentencing or punishment for sexual assault in cases where there was no physical force and where the victim and perpetrator were married. The government said it would now submit the proposal for review to a parliamentary committee. Courts in Turkey permit civil marriages for people as young as 16, and many younger people are also married in Islamic ceremonies. The government has argued of the need to redress unfair treatment of families where fathers were placed in jail for marrying girls under the age of 18 even if both the bride and groom, as well as their parents, consented. Opponents argued that the bill could also amount to a pardon for statutory rape, if the perpetrator was married to his victim, and would disrupt efforts to prevent child marriages and sexual assault on people under 18-years-old. Broad consensus needed Yildirims comments came after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the state-run Anadolu Agency late on Monday that a broad consensus on the issue should be sought. The main opposition Republican Peoples Party had called for the bill to be withdrawn and vowed to go as far as the constitutional court to block it. The government has insisted it was committed to fighting child marriages, but said the one-time measure was needed to help some 3,800 families where underage marriages had occurred according to customs. We cannot ignore this [problem], Yildirim said. There are 3,800 cases and thousands of children. The children are paying the price of their parents mistakes. The bills withdrawal marks a rare concession to popular opposition by the ruling Justice and Development Party. Leader of key US-backed force fighting ISIL in northern Syria among 48 Kurds accused in deadly Ankara attack. Turkey has issued arrest warrants for 48 Kurdish fighters, including the leader of a US-backed Syrian Kurdish group that is a key military force against ISIL. Warrants were issued on Tuesday in connection with a suicide bomb attack in February in Ankara. The attack on a military bus near a main base killed 29 people and was claimed by a group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. Turkeys state-run Anadolu news agency said those wanted include two alleged PKK leaders currently in exile in Europe, including Salih Muslim, leader of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD. Turkish jets hit al-Bab in push to take ISILs Raqqa Muslim has repeatedly denied any operational links to the PKK. He told Al Jazeera that his group had nothing to do with the February attack, or any others inside Turkey. Its not true. We dont have any relation with any organisation outside of Syria. Its an internal matter for Turkey. It wasnt related to Syria at all, Muslim said on the phone from London. His PYDs armed wing is the YPG, or Peoples Protection Units, which is the primary ground partner for the US-led coalition in its battle against ISIL in northern Syria. Al Jazeeras Osama bin Javaid, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkey-Syrian border, noted that Ankara has launched Operation Euphrates Shield with troops inside northern Syira in an effort to sweep Kurdish forces out of the region. If you ask Turkeys ally the United States, it differentiates between the two organisations PKK and PYD. The PKK operates in Turkey and the PYD operates in Syria. The United States even US troops is closely linked to anti-ISIL operations being carried out in northern Syria with the YPG. Javaid noted when the arrests announced on Tuesday play out, it could have repercussions between Ankara and Washington. Ankara says the Kurdish PYD and YPG are an extension of the PKK in Syria. All three are designated as terrorist organisations. Syrias war: ISIL driven out from Turkey-Syria border The Turkish military launched Operation Euphrates Shield on August 24, entering Syria with the aim of both clearing ISIL from the border region and preventing the expansion of a Kurdish-controlled autonomous region. The Turkish military and its allied rebel forces have so far seized control of about 1,620 square kilometres of territory, according to the military. On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed a threat to oust Syrian Kurds from a key town in northern Syria. Erdogan reiterated that Turkish-backed fighters were close to capturing al-Bab from ISIL. Once that is achieved, Erdogan said, the troops would head towards the town of Manbij, currently held by the US-backed Kurdish forces. Kurdish forces drove ISIL from Manbij earlier this year, but Turkey said it was promised they would leave after the towns capture and retreat east of the Euphrates river. Why will we go to Manbij? Not because we are wild about the place but because the PYD and YPG are there, Erdogan said. They say a number of them have left. But we want the place to be totally emptied of the PYD and YPG. Instances of permit confiscation and lengthy interrogation by Israeli security are on the rise, says UN official. Jerusalem Last August, Pam Bailey, an American citizen and secretary of the Gaza-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, was denied entry to Israel upon arrival at Tel Avivs Ben Gurion airport. Israeli authorities detained her for 11 hours, while the airline retained her passport until she landed back on US soil. She was banned from returning for 10 years. I had a permit to enter Gaza, said Bailey who had visited Gaza a number of times before. Israel says its not occupying Gaza, but it wont let visitors in. Isnt that the definition of a prison? We dont want to go into Israel; we want to go to Palestine, Bailey told Al Jazeera. Do you know of any other situation in the world where one country can decide who gets in and out of another? Bailey is among a number of activists, researchers and journalists who have recently been denied access by the Israeli authorities, as Israel tightens its grip on Palestinians and their international supporters. Last September, the United Nations Human Rights Council called for international action to curb an Israeli campaign to evict international workers. READ MORE: Is Israel ramping up crackdown on BDS activists? The UNs Access Coordination Unit website logs such incidents, and according to Euro-Med figures, there has been a considerable increase in the number of forced cancellations of trips and deportations or denials of entry, to both Gaza and the West Bank. Israel says it's not occupying Gaza, but it won't let visitors in. Isn't that the definition of a prison? We don't want to go into Israel; we want to go to Palestine. by Pam Baily, Euro-Med secretary Based on the UN report, and other data collected by Euro-Med, the organisation estimates that deportations rose to around 10 percent in 2016, from just one or two percent in the three years prior. The UN only logs cases reported to its Access unit by UN and international NGO staff, excluding deportations or denials of entry to independent workers and consultants. International organisations have also reported a progressive deterioration in freedom of movement for Gaza-based staff since the beginning of the year. Permit denials for UN workers increased from three percent in January 2016, to 65 percent in August, and 45 percent in September. In absolute numbers, at least 280 applications for exit permits from Gaza have been denied for both UN and INGO [international NGO] national staff this year so far, Robert Piper, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in the occupied Palestinian territories , told Al Jazeera. Additionally, some of our UN staff have recently been banned from applying for permits for a whole year, with little explanation provided, he noted. Instances of permit confiscation and lengthy interrogation by Israeli security authorities at Erez crossing are also on the rise. Palestinians with Gaza IDs have to apply to Palestinian and Israeli authorities for special permits to leave Gaza via the Erez crossing with Israel, including patients who need treatment, students with visas to study abroad and local humanitarian workers. In most cases, we are not provided with details on the reasons for denial of permits of our teams, Piper said. In August, Israel alleged that the Christian aid organisation, World Vision, had diverted millions of dollars of Gaza aid money to Hamas. Mohammad el-Halabi, who managed World Visions Gaza operations, had been accused of diverting $50m from the organisations budget over seven years. A few days later, however, news emerged that the sum was more than twice the organisations budget in Gaza, over the same period. In addition, Halabi had previously been in a different position, with no control over the organisations full budget. Halabi was reportedly beaten and prevented from seeing a lawyer for 21 days, while World Vision is currently not allowed to attend his trial proceedings over which Amnesty International has voiced concerns . At the same time, Israel accused engineer Waheed Borsh, who has worked for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) since 2003, of diverting rubble for military purposes. The UNDP said the rubble had been taken to a location designated by the Palestinian Authority, complying with written instructions. Borsh, who was also accused of prioritising reconstruction in areas where Hamas members live, was indicted in September. His trial is ongoing. August saw the most substantial rise in restrictions on freedom of movement in Gaza, generally. According to the NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians, the month marked the lowest permit approval rate for patients leaving Gaza via Erez in seven years, with 186 denied and more than 700 receiving no response. But Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network, told Al Jazeera that, while obtaining permits for Palestinian NGO workers to travel out of Gaza had become slightly easier towards the end of 2015, restrictions came back in full force last March. Liaising with donors, lobbying, capacity building all these are restricted now. In the meantime, Gaza suffers from the worst humanitarian conditions in years and a high percentage of unemployment as a result of the blockade, Shawa told Al Jazeera. OPINION: Portrait of an Occupation A spokesperson for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, a branch of Israels defense ministry, told Al Jazeera that its civil policy towards the Gaza Strip of examining permits for the assistance of the population has remained unchanged. In July, Israel passed a controversial law that required Israeli NGOs to disclose their foreign funding. Critics of the law say that it targets human rights organisations that defend the rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Groups such as BTselem and Breaking the Silence have been the targets of a mounting demonisation campaign by Israeli politicians and right-wing groups, which the Israeli has press echoed. In mid-October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to amend Israels National Service Law, a voluntary alternative to military service for those who qualify for exemption, so that it would no longer be possible to serve with BTselem (which does not currently have any national service volunteers). The decision came after the organisation took part in a special meeting about settlement construction at the UN Security Council. Palestinian-run organisations, already subject to greater restrictions, have also been feeling increased pressure as a result of the smear campaign against organisations perceived as pro-Palestinian. Al Haq, a human rights organisation, reported death threats directed at its staff earlier this year. The Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, whose stated mission is to document and publicise distortions of human rights and international law in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, has been increasingly singling out foreign organisations for demonising Israel. Many in the NGO world are privately voicing concerns of an Israeli war on NGOs. Al Jazeera has also learned that some NGO workers have faced increasing difficulties in renewing their work visas over the past two months. In at least one case, a worker was stuck outside the country for weeks due to delays in processing the visa application. It is unclear whether this constitutes a change of policy, and NGOs prefer to keep a low profile to preserve their access rights. Looking ahead, we fear that any worsening in the political and security situation could lead to greater access restrictions, as has been the case in the past, Piper said. A UF anthropology doctoral student is using teeth to trace the birthplace of ancient civilizations. Ashley Sharpe, 29, is tracing chemical elements found in teeth with lead-isotope sourcing, a method of detecting lead in different regions of land. Her study, published this month, looks at how analyzing the lead can tell peoples birthplaces. We can accurately pinpoint where you mightve come from, she said. Sharpe, who studies Mayan and Central America archeology, said the study confirms existing Mayan trade theories and gives archaeologists a better idea of the Mayan economy and social structure. Its changing everything we know about Mayans, she said. It opens this whole window into the past about how people interacted. Researchers conduct the analysis by grinding down teeth and putting the fragments into a machine that extracts the lead, she explained, a process that can take up to a couple of weeks because of the effects of pollution. Examining the lead in tooth enamel allows Sharpe and her team to trace travel patterns by matching the lead in the teeth to the lead in the bedrock or the different regions they might have lived on, she said. Part of the history of how Mayans lived is still a mystery, and Sharpe said she hopes to piece together part of it through her work. It feels exactly like being a detective when were doing research, she said. She said she is hoping to expand her research into Southwestern U.S. and southern parts of Central America. John Krigbaum, a UF anthropology professor, said the study brings concepts from the past to life. Its not so much you are what you eat, he said. You are what you breathe as well. Researchers are using these new methods to look at cold cases to determine what they can and cant learn through tests, Krigbaum said. UF is investing in the equipment, he said. We are investing in the people, and as a result, were at the cutting edge of the work. Its good for the university. Its good for the students. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Eight hundred families are receiving locally grown food for Thanksgiving through a partnership between a part of UFs Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and a local organization. The UF/IFAS West Florida Research and Education Center, in collaboration with Feeding the Gulf Coast, will be giving Thanksgiving meals to families who pre-qualified at local food banks in Escambia and Santa Rosa County today until Friday as part of National Farm to City Week. Robin Vickers, an administrative support assistant for the UF/IFAS West Florida Research and Education Center, said the event is a way to educate the community on the importance of locally grown crops. I want people to understand you dont just go get your food from Walmart, Vickers said. They need to understand where their food comes from and the importance of agriculture and our local farmers. The center will provide about 16,000 pounds of collards, cabbage and grits. Feeding the Gulf Coast, an organization that works to feed families, will donate 31,908.5 pounds of turkey or ham, fixings and pastry boxes, she said. Local farmers are donating 4,500 pounds of sweet potatoes. Students studying agriculture from eight high schools in both counties helped harvest the cabbage and collards donated by the center, she said. During that time, they learn how to correctly cut, produce, wash and prepare food for trucks, Vickers said. Wesley Wood, the center director of the UF/IFAS West Florida Research and Education Center, said the opportunity gives the students a chance to get first hand experience. When students come out and help us, they get some awareness about what it takes to provide food to people, he said. Vickers said it has been rewarding to watch the program grow over the past six years. In its first year in 2010, the program fed 200 families. Our student participation has grown, and our community involvement has increased with sponsorship, Vickers said. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Eva Dupay, 26, knew she wanted to help the residents of Andros island when she found out it was severely affected by Hurricane Matthew. I have to. Theres no question about it, said the UF fourth-year dentistry student who visited the island last Spring. I wish I couldve given more. Dupay donated to fundraising efforts organized by Amanda Mullersman, a UF third-year dentistry student, for the people of Andros affected by the hurricane. Mullersman and Dupay are part of a group of about 10 students who visited the island in Spring to provide pediatric dental services to the island. So far, the group has raised about $200, Mullersman said. They are also taking clothes, canned foods, bottled water, toiletries, diapers and toys as donations until Dec. 2, or possibly later. We just wanted to get everything sent before the holiday rush, she said. A group of students in the College of Dentistry have gone on the trip for the last three years and will return this year, Mullersman said. Although Andros is the largest island in the Bahamas, no dentists live there. After the hurricane, one of the schools we visited was completely demolished, she said. Were just trying to do whatever we can. For Ericka Lowe Bennett, who has gone on all of the colleges mission trips as a volunteer faculty dentist, the fundraiser is personal. The 38-year-old grew up on the Bahamian island of Nassau before she attended college in the U.S. Her family in Nassau suffered minor damage to their house, but the citizens of Andros werent as lucky. That island was hit even harder than Nassau, she said. As far as we were told, everythings in need. Lowe Bennett said she thinks the fundraiser will be a success. I think it shows the generosity of the University of Florida students, she said. It raises your awareness to the purpose of charity and giving back as a student. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now A tree fell on Rockwood Villas, located at 900 SW 62nd Blvd Ste 500 in Gainesville, during Hurricane Matthew next to an apartment on Friday. Alachua County Sheriffs deputies arrested a Waldo woman Tuesday in connection to a handwritten bomb threat found in UFs New Engineering Building last week. Jessica I. Ward, a 24-year-old employee at the Java Hut Coffee Kiosk, located on the ground floor of the building, told investigators with University Polices Criminal Investigations Division that she wrote the note, which was found in a first-floor womens bathroom Nov. 16, in an effort to leave work, according to a news release. Ward told police she wanted me time, according to the release. Following the bomb threat, UPD evacuated the building and set up a perimeter until mid-afternoon. Police and K-9 units searched the building and found no evidence of a bomb. UPD officers worked with the College of Engineering to narrow down a list of people potentially involved in writing the bomb threat, according to the release. After interviewing Ward, she told police she wrote the note. A warrant for her arrest was filed Monday. Police arrested Ward this morning on a charge of false reports concerning planting a bomb, explosive, or weapon of mass destruction in, or committing arson against, state-owned property, or concerning the use of firearms in a violent manner. The offense is a second-degree felony. Ward was released Tuesday in lieu of a $15,000 bond from the Alachua County Jail. She declined to comment. University Police arrested a UF student Monday in connection to a sexual battery that occurred earlier this month at a campus residence hall. Parker Glen Griffie, an 18-year-old UF finance freshman, is accused of sexually battering a female UF student Nov. 5 after the two met at an off-campus event, UPD spokesman Maj. Brad Barber said. UF spokesman John Hines confirmed that Griffie is enrolled at UF but has been trespassed from campus. The woman told police she invited Griffie to her residence hall but later asked him to leave. As she tried to lead him out, he pushed her down and assaulted her, Barber said. The woman told police that she was eventually able to get Griffie to leave, Barber said. Barber declined to say in which hall the incident occurred to protect the womans identity. The woman reported the battery to UPD on Nov. 10, Barber said. The departments Criminal Investigations Division has been investigating the incident for the last 11 days, going over evidence and interviewing the woman and Griffie. Following the investigation, UPD served a warrant for Griffies arrest on campus Monday morning. Griffie was charged with one count of sexual battery upon a person 18 years or older, a first-degree felony offense, Barber said. At 10:39 a.m. Monday, authorities brought him to the Alachua County Jail where, as of press time, he remains in lieu of a $25,000 bond. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now The Spanish banking giant Santander has withdrawn from the bank consortium R3 CEV, becoming the second defector from the blockchain group this week after Goldman Sachs. Officials at Santander, a founding member of R3, declined to discuss the decision beyond confirming that it was leaving the group. Santander will refocus its blockchain efforts on other projects, according to a person with close knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named. The projects are said to include: Utility Settlement Coin, a blockchain project co-launched with Bank of New York Mellon, Deutsche Bank and UBS to create a global, blockchain-based clearing and settlement system, and the Global Payments Steering Group, the standards-setting group formed in September with five other global banks for the use of distributed ledger technology developed by Ripple. Santanders venture capital arm invested $4 million in Ripple last year. Goldman was said to have left for other reasons. It reportedly backed out of its membership when conditions of the investment framework for member banks changed recently. R3 initially sought to raise $200 million from its bank members in a round that would have granted them 90% of the firms equity and R3 the remaining 10%, Reuters first reported Monday. In early fall the deal was renegotiated to a $150 million target, with members to be given a 60% equity stake and R3 to get the remaining 40%. Goldman allegedly sought more leverage in the deal and a seat on the board, Forbes reported Monday. Those details were confirmed by a separate source who was familiar with the deal and asked not to be named. That deal has not been finalized, the source said. Morgan Stanley and National Australia Bank will not participate in the new deal, according to the Reuters report. Santander and Goldman are both investors in Digital Asset Holdings, the blockchain technology startup led by ex-Wall Street veteran Blythe Masters. Masters resigned as chairman of Santander Consumer Holdings this year to advise its Spanish parent, Banco Santander, on blockchain technology. First Tennessee Bank in Memphis is giving a veteran regional leader an unusual retirement present: a chairmanship. The $27.3 billion-asset unit of First Horizon National said Monday that it has named Pam Fansler chairman of the East Tennessee region, of which she has been president since 2011. Fansler, 64, will serve in that role from March until she retires in July. Dave Miller, executive vice president of consumer banking, will succeed Fansler as the region's president in March. Fansler joined the bank in 1976. She was appointed president of the Knoxville region in 2003. "Pam Fansler has been the face of First Tennessee in Knoxville for 15 years, and she will continue to provide community leadership, mentoring and business development as she works with Dave Miller on his transition into her former role," David Popwell, president of banking for First Horizon, said in a press release. Debating a Leftist is like trying to have a conversation with a Magic 8 Ball toy. You try to discuss a topic and then you wait for them to shake the black sphere, turn it over and have them read whatever phrase emerges from the glass. It is canned speech. It's like a caveman grunting 'Fire, hot!' They only say enough words that can fit onto a cardboard protest sign using a Magic Marker. Whenever the Left's opposition party is in power, they foment these convenient piecemeal fabrications of cobbled script and drop them like turds at a dog park without the courtesy of bringing their own plastic bag to pick them up. The Left is just not qualified for civic debate. It is because they are not civil, moral creatures who believe in the actual exchange of ideas. Instead, the Left carries on with maudlin assertions of hysteria. We saw this all the way back in 2000 when Bush was 'selected' and 'stole' the election. Back then 'Shrub' was daddy's little Bush who used the invasion of Iraq as a ruse; a 'War For Oil'. It was all caricature then, and remains so today. The danger however, is that the Left knows it works, and... it does. It is the steady drip of propaganda that can carve cultural channels, and eventually ingrain Grand Canyons of division within political society, turning discourse rancorous and superficial. When someone back then shouted 'Halliburton' it was its own assertion, dissertation and conclusion, all in one word. There was no need for them to back it up or connect any dots. You just need a megaphone. For a Leftist, the only requirement are decibels. Or, like cast members of the Walking Dead, a small wooden first strip to staple a sign to so they can become a zombie foot soldier in their endless war on intelligence. Every once in awhile you will get one who tries to defend their cheap two-word phrase. 'Koch Brothers' and they wait for you to retreat or fall back in line. And when you don't, 'I like the Koch brothers. They employ thousands of people in hundreds of companies who make real things people want.' 'But they control politicians!' 'And have you read their platform of what they stand for? Limited government. Free markets. Lower taxes?' It doesn't go much further than that. The caveman only knows how to grunt and they've run out of diaphragm strength to push air. They furiously shake their Magic 8 ball, but having cycled through their entire bank of phrases, they either have to repeat themselves(which they do endlessly) or shut up. At that point, it's like trying to nicely close the door on a Jehovah Witness as you realize all they have are pre-written paper tracts. The Left are pamphleteers in a world of conversation. They are the bumper sticker society. Except instead of sticking them on a car they try to silence you by sticking it over your mouth. In a way it's ingenious. They are great commercial writers. Their gift is in creating marketing jingles. There is a certain beauty in watching a well-trained border collie control a herd using a silver dog whistle. The notes are nearly impossible to hear, but the animal responds. And unfortunately there are a lot of sheep that one border collie with a loud enough bark can corral. It is important that we fight back, always, when confronted by a two-word grunt. You are headed into the holidays and will have the opportunity to have plenty of conversations with estranged relatives. There are always one or two leftists at every dinner table burping up political discourse. I usually start with the Socratic method. Ask them a question regarding their grunt. Then ask another if they can formulate a defense for the first. I can guarantee you that it is always a conversation worth having since the rate of a thoughtful leftist versus a drone is about one in a dozen, and even the more thoughtful ones are as easy to dissect as removing an avocado pit. It is imperative to challenge them. There are other ears around the table, peripherally, not all of them yet drifting off into the hazy fog bank of tryptophan and gravy. So be encouraged and lean in with your Santa cap. Everyone I am sure has at least one uncle who is a college professor. The 'educated' ones are some of the easiest to deconstruct and process besides the turkey on the table. Regarding Hamilton: What would Saul Alinsky do? He probably would not suggest boycotting the show. He would likely propose something he would find far more entertaining. First, a little background: In 1964, Saul Alinsky arrived in Rochester, New York to organize the black ghetto against the establishment -- the city government and the city's major employer, Eastman Kodak. Riots had recently occurred because among other things, blacks who had migrated from the south during the first part of the century were limited to 1.] menial jobs at Kodak and 2.] confined to living in a ten block-square area of the city with decrepit, substandard turn of the century housing. After riots erupted that summer, realizing that riots are actually counterproductive for the community, Alinsky was invited to counsel the black community on how to actually win the rights that these good people sought. Here, in his own words, is an easy tactic he suggested which helped win the day against a corporate giant and an oppressive government: Use the power of the law by making the establishment obey its own rules. Go outside the experience of the enemy, stay inside the experience of your people. Emphasize tactics that your people will enjoy. The threat is usually more terrifying than the tactic itself. Once all these rules and principles are festering in your imagination they grow into a synthesis. [In order to hit the establishment where it lives,] I suggested that we might buy 100 seats for one of Rochester's symphony concerts. We would select a concert in which the music would be relatively quiet. The hundred blacks who would be given the tickets would first be treated to a three-hour pre-concert dinner in the community, in which they would be fed nothing but baked beans, and lots of them; then the people would go to the symphony hall -- with obvious consequences. Imagine the scene when the action began! The concert would be over before the first movement! (If this be a Freudian slip--so be it!). On the following morning, the matrons, to whom the symphony season is one of the major social functions, would confront their husbands (both executives and junior executives) at the breakfast table and say, "John, we are not going to have our symphony season ruined by those people! I don't know what they want but whatever it is, something has got to be done and this kind of thing has to be stopped!" (Rules for Radicals, pages 138-140) Alinsky believed that ridicule and humor can be far more powerful tools for bringing about change than physical violence or confrontation. He has been proven right many times. Applying Alinsky to Hamilton Fast forward to today: Many have said that those who were offended by the treatment that vice president-elect Pence received should boycott Broadway's Hamilton. For those who hold expensive seats for a future performance at the Richard Rogers Theatre, Alinsky would probably suggest that rather than selling your tickets or being a no-show, consider an alternative: Send a message to the Hamilton cast and its producers by finding theatre-loving homeless persons ambling around Times Square an hour before curtain time and send them to the show in your place. They will especially appreciate this as the weather is turning colder. If they haven't had a bath or brushed their teeth for a few weeks or months, so much the better. The point is that this would place the theatre, the cast, the production company and the audience in a very uncomfortable situation. Their hands would be tied by their own standards made clear by the cast's spokesman, Brandon Victor Dixon, as he lectured vice president-elect Pence last Friday: We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. Certainly, the cast and theatregoers, comprised of many big-hearted progressives, will welcome the diversity inherent in the presence of the less fortunate in the theatre. Would they call on police to remove the city's most vulnerable, the homeless? Shouldn't theaters be a sanctuary for the homeless, just as NYC is a sanctuary for illegal undocumented immigrants?" Would they protect them, or reject them? Would they turn them away at the door? Don't the homeless have inalienable rights to see a hit Broadway show? Assuredly, these folks would not want to be seen as hypocrites. They would not dare suggest that these down-on-their-luck folks be turned away or ousted from a show whose cast values diversity -- or would they? The tactic could continue until a heartfelt apology were issued by Mr. Dixon. The Ends Do Not Justify the Means Again, this is what I think Saul Alinsky might propose, not what I would endorse. Clearly, Alinsky had no qualms about treating members of the black community in 1960s Rochester as pawns, used to achieve a goal. That in itself says a lot about Alinsky's approach to community organizing: The ends justify the means -- the universal tragedy of communism and all totalitarian regimes. I would not want to objectify the homeless by treating them as "tools" rather than as persons. We are all God's children, worthy of equal dignity. So on second thought, for all Hamilton ticket-holding theatre lovers -- go ahead and see the show with a clear conscience -- you paid for it! Just make sure you down a bucket of baked beans first. Remember Pinch Sulzbergers pledge after the election to cover Mr. Trumps policies and his agenda fairly? Well, here we are, just a week on, and the Newspaper of Record is breathlessly giving a run-down on the likely candidates for the top posts in the Trump administration. Somehow, I doubt that the Times has the best access to the inner workings of the transition team, but they plunge ahead as if they had been in the room. CIA Director: The new C.I.A. director will have to decide whether to undo a C.I.A. modernization plan put in place this year by Director John O. Brennan. But arent we all for modernization? Who wants to be retrograde? Brennan is the CIA director whom many suspect of having converted to Islam while stationed in Saudi Arabia. Even Snopes, that redoubt of progressive right-thinking, labels that rumor unproven. Worse, the Times labels Mike Pompeo, Trumps appointee, a sharp critic of Hillary Clinton during the congressional investigation into the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Anyone critical of Hillarys Benghazi adventure must be a racist, sexist, nativist, nationalist, Islamophobic Neanderthal, far outside the mainstream, so divisive. Attorney General: The nation's top law enforcement official will have the authority for carrying out Mr. Trump's law and order platform. Thus does the Times patronize its readers, spoon-feeding civics lessons to the kiddies who were not taught government in high school. And heres the really dangerous part of an AG Sessions: The nominee can change how civil rights laws are enforced. Indeed. Much as AG Holder and AG Lynch change[d] how civil rights laws are enforced. National Security Advisor: This position is a critical gatekeeper a function that takes on more importance given Mr. Trump's lack of experience in elective office. So now experience in elective office is important. Seems like I recall a junior senator from Illinois who had zero foreign policy experience, but that was a breath of fresh air, turning the page and all that. He sidestepped that deficiency by appointing a really, really smart and really, really experienced Secretary of State to do the heavy lifting. General Flynn has been outspoken about his view of the threat posed by Islamist militancy and was an ardent supporter of Mr. Trump during the campaign. His view shows that he is out of the mainstream. And outspoken and ardent. Does the Times expect those who work on political campaigns to be lukewarm about their candidate? The WSJ (Nov. 19-20, A10) quotes retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who said Flynn is the best intelligence officer of his generation. Sounds sufficient to me. Chief of Staff: The role will take on outsize importance in a White House run by Mr. Trump, who has no experience in policy making. Apparently the only experience that counts for the Times is working in government. Chief Strategist: Steve Bannon is a right-wing media executive. What could be more sinister? Plenty: Many have denounced the move, warning that Mr. Bannon represents racist views. Curious as to who the many were, I clicked the link, expecting to be redirected to a news source, but got another Times article instead, which identifies Bannons critics as including the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Just for a refresher, CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. The HLFs leaders received lengthy prison terms for laundering millions of dollars for Hamas. Another organization aghast at Bannons appointment is the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC has completely eradicated poverty -- for themselves. It sits on an endowment of $300 million and brags that approximately 68% of our total expenses were spent on program services in 2015. Thats appalling. Legit charities spend over 90% on program services, though the SPLC is way ahead of the Clinton Foundation. Another critic is one John Weaver, sometime strategist for John Kasichs campaign and previously an adviser to Sen. McCain. With a track record like that, we should listen to him because? Oh, there is a rabbi who accuses Mr. Bannon of being anti-Semitic. As the WSJ points out (Nov. 19-20, A9), the article on Breitbart News that called William Kristol a renegade Jew was written by David Horowitz, who is Jewish. Horowitz has taken credit for writing the headline himself. Secretary of State: Whether Mr. Trump picks an ideologue or a seasoned foreign policy hand from past Republican administrations, his challenge will be that the State Department is the centerpiece of the post-1945 experiment of alliance-building and globalism, which Mr. Trump said he would dismantle. In the Times binary world, a diplomat is either an ideologue or a seasoned hand. Talk about black-and-white thinking. The seven in the running (Bolton, Corker, Giuliani, Haley, Khalilzad, McChrystal, Romney) all look to me to be seasoned hands, so we should be okay no matter who gets the post. Wait -- I just noticed that this article has no bylines. But Im sure the reporters are all seasoned. Treasury Secretary: The Treasury Department also carries out or lifts financial sanctions against foreign enemies -- which are key to President Obamas Iran deal and rapprochement with Cuba. What exquisite choice of words! The deal and rapprochement were just that, not treaties, not ratified by the Senate, merely promulgated with a pen and phone call. Maybe there is reason for a president preening for history to process his aspirations through the Congress. Seems like the Constitution points in that direction. Veterans Affairs: The secretary will face the task of improving the image of a department Mr. Trump has widely criticized. Two points: 1) The incoming secretary's remit will be to improve the department, i.e., the actual delivery of health care to vets, not just the departments image. 2) Others widely criticized the VA as well, including Democrats. And maybe a new secretary of the VA would not pay $142 million in bonuses to VA executives who, among other things, managed construction of a facility in Denver, a disastrous project years overdue and more than $1 billion over budget. A spokesman for the Obama VA says such bonuses are necessary to attract and retain the best talent. What would a VA missing such talent look like? DHS: If Mr. Trump makes good on his promises of widespread deportations and building walls, this secretary will have to carry them out. The Times tees this one up nicely as a win-win for the paper: if Trump carries through he will be deplorable; if he does not the Times can tsk-tsk over a broken promise. And notice that this secretary will have to carry them out. Sounds like s/he is being set up as a fall guy, because no right-thinking person would ever wish to carry out such racist, sexist, nativist, nationalist, Islamophobic policies. It is gratifying to see Pinch Sulzberger making good on his commitment to going after the biggest stories in the world, and telling them as ambitiously as possible. Henry Percy is the nom de guerre of a writer in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d[at]gmail.com. Sunday Mornings political talk shows, as well as President Obamas Victory Lap press conference (live from Peru), focused on the faux issue of the difficulties and challenges and, of course, Trumps moral failings -- over his plan for putting his wealth in a blind trust to be managed by his children. There seem to be two conflicting positions -- and most pundits and rhetorical question-askers seem to embrace both of them. On the one hand, these nitpicking naysayers acknowledge that it would take longer than President Trumps entire first term -- or perhaps longer than his first and second terms (heavens forefend!, they shudder) -- to dismantle Trumps almost unbelievably immense financial empire. What, they wonder, is a poor, well-meaning president to do? Yet on the other hand, they condemn Mr. Trump for -- instead of liquidating his assets and putting them in T-Bills (as the relative pauper, Barack Obama, did) -- turning his assets over to his children to manage. This, they insist, remains a horrifying conflict of interest, even though (as they already admitted), it would be impossible for Trump to divest himself of a multi-billion-dollar financial empire -- a financial empire larger than the GDP of some smaller countries. What these progressives expect Trump to do is the impossible (of course). However, in creating this expectation, they ignore other factors that are far more important than their latest attempt at vilifying Mr. Trump. There are two different ways of looking at this dilemma they are trying to create through jawboning and filibustering. The first approach addresses the impossibility -- or at least acute implausibility -- of what they are demanding of president-elect Trump. The other approach addresses the necessity -- or, rather, the lack of necessity -- for what they are demanding. What they demand is impossible: First, they are blind to the fact that the Trump Organization is a privately-held, not a publicly-traded corporation, one with 515 subsidiaries located all over the globe. There is no ready market for private companies -- and the challenge of even attempting to unload the assets of 515 subsidiary companies is almost beyond comprehension. Next, these opponents are deaf to the fact that president-elect Donald Trump is not the sole owner of the enterprises which bear his name. His adult children, Eric, Ivanka and Donald Junior -- who have run the show now for nearly two years while dad successfully ran for president -- own major portions of the Trump Organization, as well as those 515 subsidiary businesses. Trump could sell out, yet the fact that his kids also own parts of his businesses would still -- at least to these nitpicking and often anti-capitalist progressives -- mean that there would be a conflict of interest, since a presidential action might inadvertently enrich his kids. In short, to satisfy these nitpicking demagogues, three adults with no personal ties to Federal office would also have to sell off their assets -- presumably at a significant loss, since those pushing for a blind trust want it to happen now -- for no good, moral or legal reason. Thats not going to happen, nor should it. While they helped their father win the presidency, that help shouldnt carry a price tag in the hundreds of millions of dollars, just to satisfy critics who would only find something else about Trump that doesnt pass their rarified-nostril sniff test. Finally, the critics are just plain dumb if they think anyone would want to buy a company named Trump without a Trump at the head of the company. That would be like buying Campbells without getting any soup. Making this skein of twisted lines of private-company multinational ownership even more convoluted, a significant majority of Trumps businesses are, as Tucker Carlson noted last week, euphonious -- which means they are named Trump. The Trump Organization owns 264 businesses that bear the name Trump, and another 54 businesses that feature the president elects initials in their name. These include Trump Tower, Trump Casino, Trump Jets, Trump Productions, and a vast network of others. While not all Trump businesses succeed -- Trump University being an in-the-news example -- obviously, several hundred of them do succeed. Yet what outsider would think it worthwhile to buy a Trump-branded business with no Trumps involved. What they demand is unnecessary: First, critics are blind to the fact that the president and the vice-president are specifically excluded from any Federal requirement to participate in a blind trust. According to a CRS legal finding regarding 18 U.S.C. 202(c), the disqualification requirements of federal law do not apply to Members of Congress, the President and the Vice President. For these legally-exempted officials, a simple financial disclosure form is deemed sufficient. Next, they are deaf to the president-elects oft-stated assertion that, having earned his fortune and conquered the business mountains that had, for nearly 50 years, captivated his attention, Mr. Trump is eager to leave that life behind and embrace the 24/7 job of Americas CEO. Business no longer holds his attention. Finally, these critics are just plain dumb if they think a man who says hes worth more than $10 billion dollars, with an annual income of $557 million dollars, can be bought by any amount of money. True, Forbes assesses Trumps real net worth at a miniscule $3.7 billion dollars, a figure Trump refutes with logic, if not with tax returns or balance sheets. However, even for a man worth not quite $4 billion dollars, finding someone with his price -- and a willingness to pay it -- defies expectations. So whats the bottom line? First, it is all but impossible to imagine how Trump could divest his entire empire of 515 companies in any presidentially-meaningful length of time. That assumes theres a market for a Trump anything without a real Trump attached to the deal. And, it ignores the fact that even if Trump does divest, his kids will still own most of the company, and theyre named Trump, too -- and forcing them to divest for the sins of the father is legally impossible and morally questionable. Next, its not necessary. The president is specifically exempt from all Federal blind trust statutory laws and regulatory mandates. However, the bigger issue is who could buy a multi-billionaire? The answer, in practical terms, is nobody -- or at least -- nobody smart enough to amass the $5 billion-plus asking price. Those who insist that Trump act despite the facts -- that such actions are both legally unnecessary and fiscally impossible -- are, sadly, deaf, dumb and blind -- to the truth. Ned Barnett (ned@barnettmarcom.com) is a long-time conservative political consultant, as well as partner in Las Vegas-based Crisis Survival Specialists. He is currently coauthoring two books on survival -- one for organizations, and one for individuals. As President-Elect Trump begins to form his governing team and to review the involvement of America in the world, it makes sense in the revolutionary change in American politics to look anew at almost everything. Trump has taken some hits for suggesting that our contribution to NATO has been disproportionately large. I will suggest what many of us may think but Trump may be too coy to openly state: America does not need NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created at the instigation of an American superpower trying to find a means of containing global communism, led by the Soviet Union, by bringing together those nations in Europe who needed to be reassured that a Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany would be resisted using conventional forces by those nations whose collective unity could cause the Soviets not to attempt a lunge through the Fulda Gap or other weak spots. This collection of allies included nations outside Europe America, Turkey, and Canada and although the language of the alliance did not specify the Soviet Union, that was the sole threat the alliance envisioned. The alliance succeeded in preventing war in Europe, and once America began trying to win the Cold War, the whole structure of the Soviet Empire dissolved, first with the unification of Germany, then the liberation of all the other Warsaw Pact allies, then the independence of the non-Russian nations within the Soviet Union, and finally with the overthrowing of the communist overlords of Russia. NATO was part of a grand system of alliances that America created to contain communism. CENTO, the Central Treaty Organization, included Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Britain, and America. SEATO, the South East Asia Treaty Organization, was a similar organization of regional partners and America, France, and Britain. While NATO, which was created for a specific threat, worked as intended, CENTO and SEATO proved colossal failures. When the Shah was overthrown, Iran pulled out of CENTO, and Iran and Iraq were soon involved in a horrific and long war. Afghanistan was invaded, Pakistan fought several wars with India, and the whole region intended to be protected has since descended into a simmering cauldron of bloody wars, civil unrest, and terrorism. SEATO was the umbrella under which America fought the Vietnam War. France and Britain not only did not help in that war, but actually behaved more like neutrals than allies. The SEATO alliance system was worse than useless during the Vietnam War. The British and French did not see their national interests at risk, so while American forces in Europe guarded France against communist aggression, the French did nothing to help America protect its recent colony of Indochina from communist aggression. Except for America, all the other nations of the planet form understandings, alliances, and security agreements when it serves the interests of the nation involved. Often the best course is to avoid organizations entirely. Israel defends itself. Switzerland and Sweden, both completely unaligned, defend themselves. Taiwan understands that it must largely defend itself. India, a large nation with external and internal threats, defends itself. NATO, in fact, may never have been needed. America always retained the ability to stop any invasion of Western Europe by using tactical nuclear weapons against military and logistical targets in Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Hungary, and during the last decades of the Cold War, the democracies of Europe could have built military power equal to the Soviet bloc. The defeat of the Soviet Union makes quibbling over NATO during the Cold War seem unimportant: we won a global war without firing a shot. What is the function of NATO today? Russia is not a totalitarian power bent on global domination. We know this, which is why the prospect of a tiny Iranian nuclear force is much scarier than a Russian arsenal many times greater. If NATO serves little purpose for America today, the prospect of NATO allies (aside from Turkey) becoming Islamic nations, as France may do in a few years, suggests that NATO may become a positive danger to American interests. Fifty years ago, President de Gaulle pulled French forces out of NATO, with no harm to French national interests at all. We have just elected our own President Trump, whose loyalty to America is as fierce as de Gaulle's loyalty was to France. Does NATO serve our national interests? If it does not, then President Trump ought to do what President de Gaulle did in 1966 and put the interests of the nation he governs first. Early hours of Wednesday, November 8. The sun has just started shining on the Gulf. It is early morning in Tehran and other parts of Iran, but it is Tuesday evening across the United States. The American people, as well as other nations, are still waiting for the news media to introduce the next occupant of the White house. Whether the next U.S. president is he or she is yet a guess. In Iran, however, a smiling picture of Hillary Clinton appears on some of the capital's morning newspapers, reporting that she has become the first female president of the United States. It seems that her presidency lasts for only a few hours as soon as the results come out, these papers are collected from stalls to be substituted with a new edition, this time with a smiley picture of Donald Trump. Is it a mistake? A tragedy, or even a joke? Or maybe all of them? Nobody knows, but it is the reality of Iran's political life. Just like many other events, the U.S. presidential election becomes a source of conflict within the system. Iran has been a main issue in the U.S. election campaigns. Both sides tried to show their distance from the ayatollahs. Trump, for example, said he will tear up the final nuclear deal. Iranians say, "When the soil gets tough, cows butt heads." That is exactly what is happening in Iran now. Four decades ago, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini could disguise himself as a Muslim leader and enjoy people's trust. That figure no longer has any buyers in Iran or elsewhere. The regime in Iran is now in its weakest position ever. Not a single day passes without a few anti-government protests here and there. The government's fear of being knocked down by the people is real. Each faction in the system needs to cling to outsiders to governments, politicians, and businessmen. Sadiq Ziba Kalam, a university professor in Tehran and a rhetorician of the mullahs, said in a recent interview with state newspaper Nassim Online, "It won't be long before the day comes that many in Iran will hold a torch looking for the time that Mr. Obama headed the White House and Mr. John Kerry held the position of U.S. secretary of state. That day they will realize what good old days it was when they could come to an understanding with the United States, to go for compromise, but we, in Iran, lost that golden opportunity." Years of appeasing the Iranian regime, particularly by the United States, have given the mullahs the opportunity to get closer to acquiring a nuclear bomb. Rouhani's government augmented Iran's executions and flagrant abuses of human rights inside and support of terrorist groups outside the country. Mr. Trump should stand against Iran's aggressiveness as promised during his election campaign. The language understood by Iran's ayatollahs is to stand firm. Mollifying the terrorists will only encourage them to cause more pain for our societies. As the Iranian people's struggle for democracy and regime change peaks anew, it is time for politicians in the U.S. and Europe to recognize the dangers the fundamentalist regime of Iran poses to the nation's people and to the rest of the world. The Iranian people deserve to live in peace and democracy. They keep pushing the cows at the top to head-butt each other more and more to their end. Hassan Mahmoudi is a human rights advocate and social media journalist seeking democracy for Iran and peace for the region. Last week, I warned that if Congress adjourned for the year too soon, it could open a window to give President Obama a Supreme Court pick. That's because of a provision of the Constitution that allows the president to make recess appointments that can last two or more years. Now we get word that Congress is planning to adjourn early, which will give Obama an opportunity to appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. This discussion is fairly complex, involving both constitutional and statutory law, so bear with me. 1) Why does Congress want to adjourn early? Members of Congress want to adjourn early this year so they can kill last-minute Obama regulations. According to a 1996 law, Congress has 60 legislative days in which to disapprove of presidential regulations. If Obama makes some horrendous last-minute regulations, by ending its session early, Congress has more time to overrule those regulations. That's why congressional leaders are tentatively planning to adjourn by December 9. 2) What does this have to do with the Supreme Court vacancy? Under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution: The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session. Courts have interpreted "recess" to mean a ten or longer-day gap between sessions of the Senate. That means Obama, during the recess, could appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, since by adjourning for the year on December 9, the Senate will be gone for far longer than ten days. 3) But doesn't Congress have the power to say whether it is in recess or not? Kind of. In NLRB v. Noel Canning, the Supreme Court said Congress has the power to decide whether it is in recess or not, but only up to a certain point. If Congress does not at least hold pro forma sessions, it cannot say it is in recess (see pages 4-5 of the actual opinion). 4) But wouldn't an appointment last only until the beginning of January? Note the words of Article II, Section 2 above. Note the word next, as in "not this session, but the next one." The one that's going to last for two years. That's how long Garland would be on the court. 5) But Article II, Section 2 talks about vacancies occurring during a recess. This isn't the situation here. Not true. The actual "vacancy" does not have to begin during the recess. Only the appointment need occur during the recess. That's how the Article II, Section 2 has been interpreted: Presidents have used the Recess Appointments Clause to fill not only vacancies that occur during recesses, but also those that initially arose when the Senate was in session. 6) But couldn't Congress declare itself in recess for purposes of recess appointments but still hold pro forma sessions? No. 7) You don't know what you're talking about! Ryan and McConnell would never be dumb enough to make such a move! Don't be so sure. Even if they are aware of Article II, Section 2, they may think Obama would never be bold enough to make such an appointment. Why else would they be making plans to give Obama such a window unless they never suspected he would use it? I'm an attorney. I went to Harvard Law School. I studied constitutional law. I've spent years listening to people like Mark Levin, who are experts on constitutional law. Trust me when I tell you that this is a potential problem. If Congress does recess on December 9 without coming back, Obama can appoint Garland to the Supreme Court. We could be in for two years of a solid leftist Supreme Court unless someone on Capitol Hill shows some common sense. Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com and an attorney by training. In 2009, President and Mrs. Bush landed in Texas after watching the former's successor get sworn in. His remarks were gracious and very kind about President Obama. He did not say he'd spend his retirement fighting the new president. Furthermore, love or hate him, he has slept comfortably since leaving office knowing that he put the country first and did the best he could in a very diffcult situation. Well, it does not look as though President Obama has anything like that in mind. We just read that he plans to "jump into the fray" to defend his policies against President Trump. Add to all of this that he is not moving anywhere. He will stay in Washington, D.C., not far from the White House. Unfortunately for President Obama and his legacy, history won't be kind at all. Of course, he will always be the first black president but not much more than that. Obamacare is collapsing on its own. Yes, the GOP majority will move to repeal it, but that's a bit like signing the death certificate on a person dead for months. President Obama's foreign policy is in total disarray. It's hard to see anyone defending any of it, except for liberal Democrats from safe seats who just want to oppose President Trump. The U.S. economy is desperately calling for liberation of Mr. Obama's regulations. Most of them will be reversed by another executive order. One pen cancels another! So what exactly is ex-President Obama going to "jump in the fray" for? What U.S. Senate Democrats running for reelection in 2018 are going to show up and follow their leader? Yes, the fall of the House of Obama is coming, and he can spend the rest of his life blaming himself, and no one else, for it. Yes, he made his own bed and now will have to sleep on it for years, as Marc A. Thiessen pointed out: Its not just Obamas executive actions that will soon be reversed. His signature legislative achievement, Obamacare, is headed for repeal and he has no one to blame but himself. Obama passed his health-care reform without any Republican buy-in or any effort to reach bipartisan consensus. He controlled both houses of Congress, and so he imposed his will over the objection of every single Republican. Now that Republicans control both Congress and the White House, they have no incentive to preserve the law. Last, but not least, I hope someone updates his contacts list. It's a much shorter list of elected Democrats eight years after he walked into the Oval Office. As Michael Barone pointed out, the party has not been this weak since 1930. Therefore, President Obama may hear a lot of recorded messages ("this number is no longer in service") when he calls Democrats from his new home office not far from where he works now. P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter. Many understood the huge significance of the revitalization of the U.S. oil industry on the world market, especially impacting the financial position of Saudi Arabia. In fact, 2015 data according to the CIA Fact Book has the U.S. and the kingdom almost equal in total year oil production. And of course, the slide in oil prices has required Saudi Arabia to enact austerity measures. As it turns out, the effects have come more quickly and severely than some predicted. This past Sunday, Arab News reported that the kingdom has just made a Saudi riyal 40-billion (10.5 billion USD) late payment owed to private contractors. And that amount still does not settle the matter. Fahad Al-Hammadi, chief of the National Contractors Committee at the Council of Saudi Chambers, said: The Saudi government is expected to pay up to 80 percent of the total dues to contractors during the remaining few weeks of this year by disbursing another SR100 billion (26.5 Billion USD)[.] The lag in payments in concert with the penalties against the Saudi Bin Laden Construction Group for the Mecca crane disaster have left tens of thousands of expat workers out of work and stranded in the country. An example is the Mohammad Al Mojil Group (MMG), which has directly appealed to Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that it could not continue operating in the current situation. MMG has been typical of many companies who felt that the good times would continue to roll and became overextended. Then, the founder, his son, and the chairman were sentenced by the Capital Market Authority (CMA) for fraud and manipulation and suspended the stock over the companys losses. The end result is that the company had to reduce its workforce from 25,000 to 3,000. Officially, there is a lot of optimism that the payment plan will work and that construction projects will resume. It was reported that some of the contractors from Germany, Turkey, Spain, and India confirmed that they are being paid their due. Yet construction in Riyadh has been on hold for several months. Construction sites for the planned metro subway system, medical facilities, roads, and highways still sit idle. Its anyones guess if the continued transfer of funds from the public treasury to private contractors will solve the problem, given the vastly reduced oil revenue. John Smith is the pen name of a former U.S. intelligence officer. A political realignment takes more than one election. The 2016 election was close, the losing candidate did win the popular vote, and only one region truly switched its electoral votes from recent patterns. That region included the tri-state area that I originally named "Minnewisowa" (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa) in 2004. Minnewisowa did change dramatically, with Wisconsin and Iowa voting for Trump (they voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012), and the Democrat won usually very blue Minnesota by only a few thousand votes out of almost three million cast. The other Midwestern region, often called "Middle Atlantic" America, is clustered around the Great Lakes and includes Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. All of these states but one (Indiana) voted for Mr. Obama in 2012. This year, all but one (Illinois) voted for Mr. Trump. That represents a shift of a decisive 74 electoral votes. Should the GOP nominee win these states again in 2020, that would represent an electoral college realignment. Most of these states fit into what has heretofore been called the "Rust Belt" because of its long-term loss of manufacturing jobs. Today, it might be more accurately described economically and politically as the "Transition Belt" as change and transformation come to these states in America's heartland. Popular vote realignments are more complicated. What has not changed is the rural-exurban division from urban locations in most states. Again, the 2016 vote is more tentative than conclusive. Mr. Trump made an unprecedented appeal to black inner-city voters and was rewarded with a higher percentage of them as well as the occurrence of many black voters staying home. The failure so far of President Obama's Cuba initiatives brought many Cuban-American voters back to the GOP in Florida this year. Mrs. Clinton's margin in the city of Philadelphia was only 400,000-plus in 2016, whereas it was more than 600,000 in 2012, easily enough votes to give the state overall to Mr. Trump. Clearly, black turnout was diminished in 2016 there and elsewhere. On the other hand, renovation and new high-rise residential construction in most large U.S. cities is bringing back increasing numbers of older suburbanites, many of whom have traditionally voted Republican. In the recent past, Republican state strategists have all but given up on making appeals in the inner cities, and this has contributed to the huge majorities for Democrats in these cities. Should these strategists decide to follow Mr. Trump's minority voter initiatives, and couple that with appeals to suburban-now-urban voters, the tentative realignment trends of 2016 could become more permanent. Another trend is the continuing relocation of many northern liberal voters to southern states where conservatism has dominated in recent decades. This new demographic has made big GOP states such as Florida and Texas more politically competitive. As I have suggested, realignments are complicated. A large and populous nation such as the United States, still economically powerful, will always be demographically dynamic in an age of increased mobility and technological change. Twenty-sixteen brought about a political earthquake with aftershocks that will continue for some time. Donald Trump summoned a group of 30 to 40 television executives and anchors to the Trump Tower yesterday and began a sophisticated media strategy. Naturally, he is already being underrated, and his enemies do not understand what is about to happen to them. The early report in The New York Post was more colorful than other subsequent accounts and has already been disputed, including by Joe Scarborough of MSNBC this morning. Donald Trump scolded media big shots during an off-the-record Trump Tower sitdown on Monday, sources told The Post. It was like a fing firing squad, one source said of the encounter. Trump started with [CNN chief] Jeff Zucker and said, I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed, the source said. The meeting was a total disaster. The TV execs and anchors went in there thinking they would be discussing the access they would get to the Trump administration, but instead they got a Trump-style dressing-down, the source added. A second source confirmed the fireworks. Joe Flint in the Wall Street Journal considerably toned down his account this morning: During the meeting, which was organized by Mr. Trumps staff, the president-elect criticized the executives and correspondents for their election coverage and predictions that he would lose to Hillary Clinton, according to a person familiar with the gathering. The president-elect also complained about some of the postelection coverage as well but wants to wipe the slate clean, this person said. That he wants to wipe the slate clean probably means that Trump is holding out a carrot. To be sure, he has many legitimate complaints, for instance about Martha Raddatz, who moderated a presidential debate and cried over Hillarys loss during the ABC TV election night coverage, as at least one source has indicated that Trump mentioned. There is no reasonable response to that other than an apology for it. Trump was conducting a seminar, reportedly in his boardroom atop Trump Tower. Dont kid yourself: these people are being affected by the fact that Trumps world is one of affluence they cant dream of. The message impressing itself on their subconscious is that this is unlike any other president of the United States. Over the weekend, at Bedminster, Trump showed the media how it is done, as the head of BET-TV urged blacks to give Trump a shot. KERNEN: And as far as some of the protests and what is behind the protests, whether its the racist accusations to the people that he is appointing or whatever, what would you say in this atmosphere right now after meeting with him? Is there a lot to fear for minorities and immigrants and everything else? JOHNSON: You know, Joe, I have known President-elect Trump for some time. I knew him when I was running BET, and Ive seen him at a number of events and its my conclusion that we can find common ground with the Trump Administration. I know I had a great dialogue with him, with his son-in-law, Jared, and I know Reince Priebus, so my approach to these guys is, look, I dont look at you as enemies and I dont look at you as necessarily friends. I look at the question as, on behalf of African-Americans, Im talking about we have permanent interests. That doesnt mean that one day we wont support you or one day we will support you. And thats where the African-American voter should be. This is something that a member Congressman Bill Clay from Missouri said when the Congressional Black Caucus was founded, that black American should have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. With the Trump Administration, thats the philosophy we should take and we should not lock ourselves in one part or the other. And Im a Democrat, and I say this with all due respect to the Democratic Party and to the Republican Party, this country needs somebody that is going to lead it and not somebody who is going to force us to choose sides. If President-elect Trump believes that he should be talking about what black Americans have to gain, as President Obama said and Hillary said, Lets give him a shot. Lets give him the benefit of the doubt and see if we can find common ground, and I think thats the best interest of African-Americans. There was of course a stick as well as a carrot. That did not even have to mentioned. Mr. Trump was quite knowledgeable about the ratings for many of the various networks represented at the meeting, a person briefed on the matter said. As a matter of fact, Trump had a long-running, highly profitable hit franchise and understands the economics of the television business better than any other politician in American history. Hes not a mere intellectual; hes a player. He doesnt need to go anywhere near a statement that could be construed as a threat. All he needed to do was indicate how well he understands their vulnerabilities. In addition, his wife, Melania also made a cameo appearance. This would be the very same Melania who just reaped a ton of sympathy for the mimicking and mockery she endured during a stupid music awards show. The same Melania who is the most beautiful, cosmopolitan, and exotic first lady in the history of the Republic. All the bigwigs in the room are old enough to remember the cult that quickly developed around Jacqueline Kennedy. Her televised tour of the White House catapulted her into superstar status, a key component in the development of the Camelot mythology. If I understand that Donald Trump is probably the most successful reality television producer in history, so did everybody in the room. Melania Trump will have many opportunities to captivate a majority of Americans, no matter how the deranged Trump haters may scream. Among other things, televising her variants on Jackies White House tour will be very profitable programming opportunities, for which the star can receive no compensation. The insanity of American higher education was on full display at Loyola University in Maryland recently when a party planned by student government for seniors was heavily criticized for its "America" theme After the election of Donald Trump, school administrators put enormous pressure on student government to change the theme, predicting that some students would be offended and feel "unsafe" at the university. Students who received the emails from school authorities shared them anonymously, fearing retaliation by administrators. Daily Caller: The universitys executive vice president, Susan Donovan sent an email to two SGA members claiming she talked with a number of students and heard from faculty members about the party. None of it is positive and it sounds very alienating, divisive and harmful. I encourage you to reconsider this plan in light of the legitimate concerns raised by so many, Donovan went on to say. We have made progress in providing a welcoming climate on campus and do we want to reverse that progress with a theme that divides us? Donovan did not return TheDCs request for comment by press time. Sheilah Horton, the universitys dean of students also tried to pressure students to change the party theme, in a lengthy email that portrayed the students as insensitive for not canceling the America theme. Horton worried that the theme provides an opportunity for students to dress or behave in a way that offends or oppresses others. Horton also said the administration would have to deal with any fallout from the party, which she worried would make students feel unsafe. She also worried that the America-themed party might keep potential students from attending Loyola and implied the event could be the defining incident of the senior class. Even one negative event, especially with social media can cause the campus community to feel unsafe; it can be shared with potential students which can have an effect on admissions and indeed can be the defining incident for the class of 2017, she said. So, you have made a decision that in effect, has the potential to cause negative consequences for the university and even to the students whose behavior crosses the line, she continued. Horton did not respond to TheDCs request for comment by press time. I was amazed and shocked at not only the reaction and lack of confidence of the administration in our class and SGA itself, but how they handled everything including some of the rude things said about our organization. It is quite disgusting how people feel and see the word America as something that is discriminatory, said one student government representative, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from the administration. A few years ago, this would have been shocking. An American university complaining about a celebration of America? But the anti-intellectuals who run America's colleges have a cartoonish and one-dimensional view of the United States as do those students who have to go out of their way and force themselves to be "offended" by the celebration of a country that more than any other in history has empowered ordinary people and changed the course of history. You've probably noticed the spate of commentary since the election that equates the simple, direct patriotism of the American people with some sort of dangerous "nationalism" as if demanding that our leaders stand up for and protect American interests is somehow a quasi-fascist worldview. Americans who love their country are being branded "racist" and "making America great again" a slogan of imperialism and tribalism. Those seniors at Loyola who went ahead and held the event anyway should be commended for standing up to the bullying and threats of ignorant administrators and snowflakes in the student body. There have been many excellent post-election analyses since Trump's improbable win, most of have which have identified the disaffected working class and the failure of the Democrats' politically correct identity politics as the driving factors. But one thing that seems to be overlooked is the Tea Party, the reasons for its beginnings, and its underlying anti-establismentarianism in this election. It was not just the failure of the Democrats' urban-centric political focus on minorities, women, and income inequality that deep-sixed Hillary Clinton's campaign. Walking it back, what has outraged so many grassroots conservatives was the phony conservatism under George W. Bush, culminating in the financial crisis of 2008. It pushed them overboard to no longer get fooled by the Republican establishment that had been basically a milder form of the big-government progressivism that had taken over the Democratic Party following the loss of Hubert Humphrey in 1968 to Richard Nixon. It was that crushing loss that sent Democrats on a far-left trajectory for decades to come. Bush did nothing to cut back the size and growth of government. Instead, he actually expanded it through his unfunded Medicare Part D prescription drug program and the "No Child Left Behind" federally mandated education program. There were no efforts at all to rein in spending and the size of the federal government. And the war with Iraq added untold billions to the ever expanding annual federal deficits. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" was liberalism in disguise. From "Decision Time for the GOP Elite" at AT: Remember that the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress during the presidency of George W. Bush and yet nothing was done to control the size, scope, or cost of the federal government. When the economy began melting down in 2007, culminating in the financial crisis of 2008, McCain was not offering any real solutions or differentiating himself from the "Democrat Lite" policies of both Bush presidencies. The result was an inexperienced but highly articulate and educated, attractive and charismatic man who would become the country's first black president. The bipartisan $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the $830-billion economic stimulus (where shovel-ready jobs were nowhere to be found) were the last straws. The grassroots had had enough, and the Tea Party was born to take on and push back the political elites driving the country into the financial ditch. It's common knowledge now that the 2010 and 2014 midterms were essentially driven by the Tea Party influence on the electorate, especially after the passage of Obamacare put the federal government on ever more powerful steroids in growing its size, spending, and intrusion on individual life. Kimberly Strassel writes at The Wall Street Journal: What Democrats should realize, because everyone else does, is that voters rejected both their policies (which have undermined middle- and low-income families) and their governance (which has fueled rage at a power-hungry federal government). The Tea Party's influence on the grassroots and especially the blue-collar working class culminated in the election of Trump. Right now they're not getting the credit they deserve, but when the history books are written about this election, the Tea Party movement should be getting most if not all of the credit for setting in motion the biggest presidential upset in history. It's the Tea Party that ushered in a complete outsider with zero political experience to upend the existing political order. Unlicensed networking has been given a reputation of being something of a disruptive technology, and its a stigma that businesses involved in unlicensed networking have worked hard to overcome. It is easy to see why some companies might be happy to let this reputation exist: licensing airwaves is expensive business, both to pay for the license and then to build and maintain the necessary infrastructure to use the frequency. Unlicensed broadcasters do not need to pay for the airwaves. Furthermore, for those networking technologies already existing and operating in unlicensed spectrum, any new entry into the airwaves may cause interference or disruption to existing services. This is an argument we have seen with unlicensed LTE (or LTE-U) operators, whereby the frequencies to be used are being shared with 802.11 Wi-Fi, something that has upset many Wi-Fi operators and caused new technologies to be developed such as LAA. However, a new report from the Wireless Broadband Alliance, or WBA, in conjunction with Maravedis-Rethink, highlights that both licensed and unlicensed technologies will need to work together in order to realize the expected standards and improvements of 5G networks. Currently, we do not have verified 5G networking standards, but the report goes into some detail as to how both licensed and unlicensed spectrum will be needed in order to improve both the performance and flexibility to avoid 5G simply being a faster and more efficient variant of 4G networking technology. What is interesting is that the WBA consists of a large number of todays carriers, equipment manufacturers and other interested parties, with names such as Google, Cisco, Microsoft and Boingo Wireless seen around the table. For 2016 the report concentrates on next generation Wi-Fi, the blend of licensed and unlicensed technologies for 5G, together with the concepts and ideas of connected and smart cities. Its these two last points that are of most interest to carriers: the report sets out that cellular network operators will still be a cornerstone of fifth-generation networks and smart cities, whereas some industry experts had doubted how much involvement the carriers might have. Tomorrows smart cities will use a blend of sensors and networks that are currently being considered in the Internet of Things category and in here we will find current cellular networks plus new generation signal. As for the missing 5G network standards, currently there are a number of proposals for these based around different use cases. Three examples given were different technology standards for low power, wide area networking, high-performance networking for busy areas and high-frequency network technologies. These standards will use some of the work that the IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) has been doing around Wi-Fi wireless networking standards. The IEEE wishes to collaborate with the 3GPP (the standards body working to develop cellular wireless networking technologies) in order to produce a set of standards for 5G networking. Given that next-generation networking is to operate on many different frequencies, a high level of cooperation should be very beneficial for the industry. Verizon and AT&T have both been looking towards the future lately, which is away from the wireless industry. With the wireless industry becoming more and more competitive, and the smartphone market plateauing, the two companies have been looking at ways to continue to grow and drive in more money. And the next step for them is becoming a media company. AT&T is arguably already a media company, with their own U-verse cable company and then picking up DIRECTV last year. Now they are aiming to pick up Time Warner for $80 million, a deal that has not been approved and President-elect Trump has already said he would block the deal. Verizon on the other hand has been picking up companies like AOL, Vessel and Yahoo to build their media empire. Barclays analysts wrote in a research note today that Verizons strategy in buying these three companies, appears to be a way for the company to watch consumption trends and change their strategy to fit these trends. This is a fast-moving market, so its important to identify trends quickly and move on them. Barclays analysts believe that their strategy is to address how it believes media consumption will evolve and fit with its broader expectations around network evolution. Verizon is also likely to embrace OTT distribution and create a framework in supporting new content options that can possibly rival those provided by cable operators. Verizon isnt just looking to be a media company though, they are also looking to become the third largest advertiser. Right now, Google and Facebook are the top two advertisers. Which should surprise no one, given their platforms. And with Verizon having both AOL and Yahoo in their pockets, two companies that were and still are, fairly large advertising companies, they can definitely have a run at the number three spot. Barclays notes that Verizon will likely face tough competition and high execution risk, in the mid-term we believe its strategy can still benefit from a large and growing digital ad market, even if it remains in a distant third position. They continued by saying that this strategy likely wont bring in a huge pay day for Verizon in the next several years. On Tuesday, Google began pushing out the final developer preview for Android 7.1, which means well be seeing a stable update to the new version of update fairly soon. As Googles Dave Burke notes in the blog post, this is the last preview before they send out Android 7.1.1 to everyone. So they are skipping Android 7.1 and going straight to Android 7.1.1. This update is due to land in December for all supported devices, which includes the Pixel and Pixel XL. But in the second developer preview, Google is bringing in some pretty small updates. Burke notes that this preview is a release candidate for Android 7.1.1 that you can use to complete your app development and testing and get it ready for the launch of Android 7.1.1 next month. This preview is basically the final release. The developer features and APIs on API level 25 are also included, those that were introduced in the first preview. Some of the developer features include round icon resources, app shorts and image keyboard support. Whats new with Developer Preview 2 is that the SDK build and platform tools in Android Studio have been updated. They have also made the latest version of the support library available for developers. Google is urging developers to get their apps ready and they can actually be published to Google Play now. Using the Alpha, Beta or production channels in Google Play. So that those with Android 7.1.1 Developer Preview 2 on their device can help you test your app and/or game. The beta is going to be available for the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9 and Pixel C. Theres no word on whether the Nexus 6 or Nexus Player will get the update to Android 7.1.1 next month, but its worth noting that they did not get the first developer preview (nor did they get the Android 7.0 previews over the summer, but did get updated to Nougat). Advertisement If youre interested in checking out the new developer preview and arent already part of the Android Beta Program, you can sign up at the link below. Once you sign up, youll get an OTA to this new developer preview pretty soon after. You can also opt to simply flash the whole factory image onto your device. But remember, that will erase all the data on your device. The travel industry has traditionally hosted some of the largest online advertisers that ever made use of Googles global advertising network. According to most surveys, ads promoting travel agencies pay off and in todays age of highly targeted advertising, that statement is probably more true now than ever before. After all, if youre able to pay for ads promoting your highly luxurious and expensive travel arrangements exclusively to people living highly luxurious and expensive lives wouldnt you? Following that train of thought, its not hard to understand why Google has traditionally been making a lot of money from ads paid for by the travel industry. That harmonious relationship is now experiencing some issues as the Mountain View-based tech giant is invading the tourism sectors home turf, both directly and indirectly. Speaking at the Phocuswright Conference held in Los Angeles last week, the CEO and co-founder of a largely successful travel agency Kayak described Google as annoying. In fact, he was quite blunt in stating that annoying is the first word that springs to mind when he thinks of Google. Hafner isnt the only influential individual in the travel industry expressing some degree of aversion towards Google, Bloomberg reports. The Mountain View Internet firm didnt make any friends in the tourism industry when it launched Google Trips in September, but thats not the only complaint its largest advertisers have about companys recent activities. More specifically, Google recently introduced Destinations, a Google Search feature which acts as an online travel guide within the companys search engine. Residents of some countries can even book flights and hotels directly from Google. Not surprisingly, the tourism industry isnt thrilled with that fact as online travel agencies obviously prefer customers to book their lodgings and means of transportation through them and collect a cut of related fees. While industry experts theorize that Google may be invading the online travel market in order to collect more data for its digital assistants to use, it doesnt seem likely that some of the companys largest advertisers care about that or any other reasoning. In other words, theyre losing revenue streams due to Googles strategy even though the Mountain View-based company repeatedly stated that its not interested in becoming an online travel agent. In fact, thats precisely what Google argued in front of the US Department of Transportation (DOT) two years ago when most major travel agencies vouched for it. Advertisement So, if these tensions keep increasing, its possible that many of Googles largest advertisers from the tourism sector like Priceline and Expedia will retaliate by redirecting more funds towards Facebooks advertising platform. As the Internet firm would probably prefer to prevent that from happening, it will be interesting to see how Google will balance the happiness of its advertisers with its growing travel-related ambitions. While Googles DeepMind is capable of having fun, its ability to contribute to science, research, and general betterment of humankind is certainly much more noteworthy. Today, DeepMind Technologies revealed another step in its long-term strategy of using AI technology to improve health. Namely, the company announced a five-year partnership with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust whose goal is to increase the quality of patient care in NHS hospitals throughout the United Kingdom. The initiative will revolve around Streams, a clinical mobile app currently in development by DeepMind Technologies with input from the NHS. More specifically, the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) just approved Streams as a medical device, which means its creators can finally start using it in practice and look to improve the app at a faster rate, thanks to more feedback. In an announcement published earlier today, DeepMind Technologies explained that this partnership will potentially save lives as Streams will be able to deliver timely and accurate analyses of patients data to clinicians. This solution will notify healthcare professionals the moment alarming test results come in. In other words, it will reduce response time and consequently improve survival rates. On the DeepMind side of things, the Google-owned company will not only handle the Streams infrastructure and development but also perform blood analyses. The initial version of the app will start rolling out in 2017 and will be specifically designed to detect acute kidney injuries and send alerts to clinicians. Of course, thats only the beginning, as the initiative also has plans to expand the analysis process to other serious medical conditions leading to organ failure like sepsis. In other words, Streams will initially focus on extending support for illnesses which require early intervention, especially those characterized by symptoms which are difficult for healthcare professionals to spot. In addition to that, DeepMind Technologies also announced plans to develop a messaging service, clinical task management, and several other Streams features which clinicians specifically requested. Last but not least, its worth noting that Streams is being developed using open standards so third-party developers will also be able to contribute to the project. HTC did not exactly introduce a ton of devices this year, but they did push out some really interesting smartphones though. The HTC 10 is the companys flagship, this handset was introduced back in April, and it has been available for quite some time now. The company had announced the HTC Desire 10 Pro and Desire 10 Lifestyle earlier this year as well, and the HTC Bolt landed on Sprint quite recently. Well, this Taiwan-based smartphone manufacturing company has just announced yet another smartphone, the HTC 10 evo, which is essentially a handset identical to the HTC Bolt which landed on Sprint quite recently, read on. The HTC 10 evo is actually a European variant of the HTC Bolt. The HTC 10 evo is made out of metal, and it looks identical to the HTC Bolt, while it also resembles the HTC 10 quite a bit. This phone features a 5.5-inch QHD (2560 x 1440) display, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable internal storage. The device is fueled by the Snapdragon 810 64-bit octa-core processor, and a 3,200mAh battery is included on the inside, while it is not removable. Speaking of the battery, you do get Qualcomms Quick Charge 2.0 fast charging here, just in case you were wondering. The 16-megapixel OIS shooter (BSI sensor, PDAF, f/2.0 aperture) is placed on the back of the HTC 10 evo, and an 8-megapixel camera (BSI sensor) can be found on the front side of this smartphone. HTCs BoomSound adaptive audio is also included here, and it is hi-res audio certified, while it also comes with hi-res audio stereo recording. Android 7.0 Nougat comes pre-installed on the HTC 10 evo, and on top of it, youll get HTCs Sense UI, as per usual when it comes to HTCs phones. This device is IP57 certified for water and dust resistance, and it comes with a Type-C USB 2.0 port which is placed on the bottom of the device. The phone measures 153.59 x 77.3 x 8.09mm, while it weighs 174 grams. Having said that, HTC is not partnering with any carriers in Europe for the launch of this smartphone, as they did in the US with Sprint in HTC Bolts case. HTC will sell this device online only, which is very odd for the company as this is the first time theyre doing something like that. We still dont know when will this phone become available for purchase, but it will cost between 450 and 500 in the UK. By most accounts, the Internet of Things (IoT) will be an important component of the next tech revolution, if it isnt already. All key players in the consumer electronics industry are aware of that fact, which is why theyve been investing a lot of resources into being a part of this highly connected future. The Chinese tech giant Huawei and the South Korean wireless carrier LG Uplus (LG U+) have both been rather active in their contributions to IoT-related research and development in recent years. Because of their previous endeavors, it isnt terribly surprising to hear that these two companies have now decided to work more closely together in an effort to drive further growth of the IoT market. Earlier this week, LG Uplus and Huawei held a joint press conference at the formers headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, revealing their brand new NB-IoT Open Lab. As the name suggests, this lab will be focused on developing the so-called NarrowBand-IoT, a Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) radio technology standard designed to connect various IoT hardware via traditional cellular telecommunications bands. With that in mind, this collaboration between Huawei and LG Uplus makes even more sense seeing how both companies have recently been investing a lot of resources into NB-IoT technology. The NB-IoT Open Lab will be situated in South Korea and cooperate with a broad range of companies associated with the IoT industry, allowing them to develop and test their solutions using the labs top-of-the-line facilities. Huawei has pledged to provide the NB-IoT Open Lab with 100,000 NB-IoT-enabled systems-on-chips and modules at no cost. This hardware will then be distributed to labs partners with the goal of expanding the market for this emerging technology. Speaking of which, the NB-IoT market is still in its infancy, which means that Huawei is also using this opportunity to test its viability in South Korea before potentially moving to other territories. Advertisement As revealed by Zhou Cheng, the Chief Executive Officer of Huaweis Cellular IoT division, the Chinese company is looking to create an NB-IoT ecosystem in South Korea as early as mid-2017. The NB-IoT Open Lab will initially be developing solutions designed for implementation in commercial terminals and services which are expected to start shipping by April of next year. So, we should know more about first fruits of this collaboration by spring. Over the years, Samsung have released a large number of Galaxy-branded smartphones, that is, devices based on Googles Android operating system. There are two flagship lines, the Galaxy S and the Galaxy Note families, and a number of mid-range devices, such as the mid-range and metal-bodied Galaxy A and the lower to mid-range Galaxy J families. In this time, Samsung have improved the specification of all models sold in any particular family, adding higher powered processors, bigger and higher resolution screens, and of course updating the operating system. There are certain trademarks of Samsungs low and mid-range devices; they are often launched on a less-than-current version of the Android platform and unfortunately are not updated very often. We have seen several leaks, rumors and renders of a new lower / mid-range device in the shape of the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2017). The new handset has visited the American regulatory website, the FCC, and Chinas equivalent TENAA and this has revealed much about the specification and technologies we can expect in the device. Previous leaks of the Galaxy J3 (2017) have shown it to have a model designation of SM-J327P, which is based around a 1.4 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 chipset backed up by 1.5 GB of RAM. Today weve learnt from the GFX source website that another variant of the Samsung Galaxy S3 (2017) device has been tested and this is based around a lesser chipset in the Qualcomm range, the Snapdragon 425, although it will also be clocked at 1.4 GHz. This is a notably weaker chipset compared with the Snapdragon 430, having a lesser Adreno 308 GPU and a quad core application cluster, compared with the more powerful Adreno 505 GPU and octa core configuration of the Snapdragon 430. The device will ship with 1.5 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage, supports up to Category 4 LTE, Bluetooth 4.1 Low Energy and 802.11ac high performance Wi-Fi networking. Theres a 720p HD resolution 5.0-inch display, a 5MP rear camera and a 2MP front facing unit. This particular variant of the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2017) will also run Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out of the box, and for all that the device is thought to include at this point, there is a rumored price of around Rs. 9,000 which could potentially be the cost for the Indian market. At this juncture there is no confirmation of when the device will be officially unveiled, although some reports have suggested that December 1st is on the cards for an official announcement date from Samsung. Just last week, LeEco reported that it will be receiving $600 million in fresh funding from 10 companies in its home country of China. This news came after Jie Yuting, the chief executive and founder of LeEco, penned a letter to his staff stating that the group is running low on resources and suffering from expanding too fast in too many directions. There have been concerns that the cash-strapped group may run into a financial crisis which will force it to abandon its electric car project, which has already cost them 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion). Yueting also mentioned that he will be reducing his salary to 1 yuan ($0.14) and his company will now pursue a slower growth path than before. Now, to make matters worse, Coolpad has unexpectedly warned of an imminent drop in sales, causing its shares to fall by 10 percent. Coolpad is a smartphone manufacturer based in China and LeEco happens to be the biggest shareholder in the company. On top of that, LeEco recently boosted its stake in the firm to 28.9 percent back in June of this year. After announcing that sales had fallen by 43 percent over the first 10 months of 2016, Coolpads stock dropped to a four-year low. The firm now expects to post a loss of HK$3 billion ($386.8 million) for the financial year of 2016. Coolpad has put the blame on tougher economic conditions and stiff competition in the Chinese smartphone market for its current troubles. LeEco and Coolpad released a smartphone together in August, called the Cool1 Dual and it was sold mainly in China. However, the device faced stiff competition from other well known Chinese brands such as Huawei, Oppo and Vivo, and didnt sell as well as expected. LeEco is currently facing financial problems after growing too rapidly in many different sectors. Just last month, the company entered the US market with a lavish launch event in San Francisco, where it announced a host of products which would eventually be sold in the country. Before that, the firm purchased 49 acres of land from Yahoo in California for $250 million back in June, and in the following month, it bought over US based TV-maker Vizio for $2 billion. Drones are becoming more and more commonplace among consumer electronics, but in addition to taking aerial photos and videos, remote-controlled pilotless aircraft has a lot more other potential applications. One avenue of innovation tech giants have recently been pursuing was trying to employ drones as tools to bring high-speed Internet service to remote locations. Thats pretty much what Googles Project Skybender is all about, and Facebook has been working on a similar solution over the course of the last few years. Unfortunately, things dont always go the way you expect them to, which is especially true for research and development involving cutting-edge technology. As it turns out, one of Facebooks drone tests conducted on June 28th resulted in a crash, and the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) took notice of the incident and decided to launch a formal investigation into the matter. That investigation just concluded, and Bloomberg managed to get in contact with an NTSB official who shed some light on the incident. The drone in question was Aquila, a high-altitude aircraft equipped with four electric engines. None of the engines malfunctioned, though, as an NTSB employee explained that the plane experienced a structural failure while landing. The drone which you can see in the image below otherwise performed well, and even Mark Zuckerberg labeled the June test as a success. However, up until now, there has been no word of an NTSB investigation into the crash, even though the social media giant admitted to the said structural failure over the summer. Regarding specifics of this ordeal, Aquila crashed in the early morning on June 28th near Yuma, Arizona. NTSBs investigators concluded their inquiry into the matter by ruling the incident and the failure which led to it as an accident. The damage to the drone was allegedly significant though the crash itself caused no land damage, Bloomberg reports. Advertisement While unfortunate, this incident is nothing new in the world of experimental pilotless aircraft, which is precisely why companies conduct these tests in remote locations where no one is likely to get hurt. Solar-powered drones, in particular, are have often been making headlines due to testing incidents, like Googles Solara 50 did last year when it crashed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The A350 jet of Delta Air Lines, the first US airline to take delivery [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines said it has seen rapid growth in China in the past few years, and the carrier is highly bullish on the potential of the air routes between China and the United States. Delta said its demand in China is growing much more than it is in the US, and China has become a key part of the airline's globalization plan. From 2009 to 2016, Delta saw its capacity growth on the China-US route surge over 220 percent, and the sales grew at a similar pace. "I have tons of confidence in the China market, and we are committed in China. We are not worried about the demand, we just need to make sure that we perform well and the rest will follow," said Vinay Dube, senior vice-president of Delta Air Lines, responsible for the Asia-Pacific region. "Delta strives to be the most Chinese-friendly US airline in China," added Dube. Currently, Delta serves direct China-US flights between Beijing, Shanghai and its hub cities Seattle and Detroit, in addition to routes between Shanghai and Los Angeles. The carrier said it doesn't have plans to launch direct flights between second-tier Chinese cities and major US cities in the near term. "So far, our strategy of concentrating on Beijing and Shanghai is working well. We rely on our Chinese partners like China Eastern and China Southern to help us to serve the secondary cities in China, and we plan to deepen our cooperation with them, for example, to improve the code share cooperation," Dube said. Meanwhile, Delta said it plans to use A350-a new wide-body aircraft produced by European aircraft manufacturer Airbus Group SE -for some of its routes between China and the US. When it comes to customer service on its flights, Dube said Delta aims to be thoughtful, innovative and reliable. In less than one year, the company would be the world's first airline to equip privacy dividers for its business-class seats and create a suite concept, which is typically reserved for first-class seats. In October, Delta announced that it completed installation of in-flight Wi-Fi on its entire long-haul international fleet, and it charges $16 for a 24-hour Wi-Fi pass. As the only US carrier that has done so, Delta said so far it has seen a growing demand of using Wi-Fi on its flights. A recent report shows that the demand of in-flight Wi-Fi has reached a new high among passengers in the Asia-Pacific, and 90 percent of the surveyed in the region said the availability of onboard connectivity would influence their choice of airlines, according to Inmarsat, a London-based provider of global satellite communication services. Chinese passengers are highly likely to use in-flight Wi-Fi, as the nation has the highest take-up of all the tested Asia-Pacific markets, and this signals strong opportunities for airlines in the China market, the report said. (ANSA) - Rome, November 22 - Italy lags in Europe in terms of safeguarding the health of women choosing to terminate unwanted pregnancies, the Association of Italian Gynecologists in Favor of the Application of the 194 Law (LAIGA) said Tuesday. The landmark so-called 194 law of 1978 legalized abortion within the first 90 days of pregnancy in Italy. LAIGA said an average of 70% of doctors in the heavily Catholic country refuse to terminate pregnancies by claiming to be conscientious objectors on religious grounds, with peaks of 80-90% in eight of Italy's 20 regions. Health ministry data shows just 60% of Italy's hospitals offer abortion services, which should be available to everyone by law. "This means we're almost at the levels of countries in which abortion is banned, such as Ireland and Poland," said LAIGA President Silvana Agatone. "We're light years from countries like France, where conscientious objection is at 7%, or Scandinavian countries where conscientious objection doesn't exist". "These numbers mean the health, and sometimes the lives, of women are at risk," said Christian Fiala, a past president of the International Abortion and Contraception Federation (FIAPAC). "Objectors shouldn't work on wards where abortions are carried out". "The problem is that conscientious objectors aren't just gynecologists, but also anesthetists, operation room staffers, nurses who refuse to insert a needle - even pharmacists," said Loredana Taddei, who is in charge of gender policies at CGIL trade union federation. Few are aware, however, that conscientious objection for pre- and post-abortion procedures is illegal, Magistrate Aniello Nappi pointed out. "It's important... not to allow forms of boycott that could drive women to resort to clandestine abortions," Nappi said. To remedy this situation, LAIGA is calling for every province to have at least one hospital offering abortion services, and a conscientious objector registry for every facility "so women can have previous access to the information on who will be treating them". CAGLIARI - Balearic Islands President Francina Armengol signed the "Pact Between the Islands of the Mediterranean", a document designed to face the issue of insularity, on Monday in Palma, Majorca with Sardinian regional governor Francesco Pigliaru and Corsican President Gilles Simeoni. Pigliaru said drafting the document was a "complex job" but that he, Armengol and Simeoni had decided it was "time to give common answers to common problems". The document focuses on transport, tourism and finances with specific and detailed dossiers created by the three islands' regional offices over the past few months, to create a shared strategy for overcoming the economic disadvantages of insularity. Sardinian Tourism Assessor Francesco Morandi and Transport Assessor Massimo Deiana are in Palma with Pigliaru to meet with their counterparts from the other two regions. The public signing of the agreement has taken place following technical meetings and a summit between the leaders of the three regions. "In the past, the disadvantages of insularity were handled in a different way with different results," Pigliaru said. "Over these past months we've compared our experiences, sharing both best practices as well as recognizing negative results of previous choices, in order to define the necessary points for reaching all our goals more quickly. Together we are much stronger in dialogue with the European Union and this will be very important every time we need to present common requests, as well as for supporting the adoption of specific measures and adequate resources for the islands". Italy 'among worst in Europe on abortion rights' Gyn group urges conscientious objector registry (ANSAmed) - ROME, NOVEMBER 22 - Italy lags in Europe in terms of safeguarding the health of women choosing to terminate unwanted pregnancies, the Association of Italian Gynecologists in Favor of the Application of the 194 Law (LAIGA) said Tuesday. The landmark so-called 194 law of 1978 legalized abortion within the first 90 days of pregnancy in Italy. LAIGA said an average of 70% of doctors in the heavily Catholic country refuse to terminate pregnancies by claiming to be conscientious objectors on religious grounds, with peaks of 80-90% in eight of Italy's 20 regions. Health ministry data shows just 60% of Italy's hospitals offer abortion services, which should be available to everyone by law. "This means we're almost at the levels of countries in which abortion is banned, such as Ireland and Poland," said LAIGA President Silvana Agatone. "We're light years from countries like France, where conscientious objection is at 7%, or Scandinavian countries where conscientious objection doesn't exist". "These numbers mean the health, and sometimes the lives, of women are at risk," said Christian Fiala, a past president of the International Abortion and Contraception Federation (FIAPAC). "Objectors shouldn't work on wards where abortions are carried out". "The problem is that conscientious objectors aren't just gynecologists, but also anesthetists, operation room staffers, nurses who refuse to insert a needle - even pharmacists," said Loredana Taddei, who is in charge of gender policies at CGIL trade union federation. Few are aware, however, that conscientious objection for pre- and post-abortion procedures is illegal, Magistrate Aniello Nappi pointed out. "It's important... not to allow forms of boycott that could drive women to resort to clandestine abortions," Nappi said. To remedy this situation, LAIGA is calling for every province to have at least one hospital offering abortion services, and a conscientious objector registry for every facility "so women can have previous access to the information on who will be treating them". (ANSAmed). (by Cristiana Missori) - Cairo - Egyptian director Ali Idreiss explores the phenomenon of migration to Europe from an Egyptian perspective in his 2016 film 'The Other Land' competing in the Cairo International Film Festival that runs until November 24. It is the "first film to narrate the problem of emigration (from Egypt) and sends a message to our government", Minister for Immigration Nabila Makram said of the movie, which got a warm reception at its premiere in the Egyptian capital. "My message is to call on the Egyptian government to do something for this country. It must provide opportunities for young people," Idreiss said. However, the film does not set out to dissuade people from leaving, he added. "(They) will go with or without me and my film," Idreiss said. Through the protagonists Magdi and Said, the movie tells the story of the hundreds of Egyptians who are without hope and prepared to abandon everything in search of a better life in Europe. It also recounts the evils of human trafficking and the risks inherent in the sea crossing to Europe, including the alleged possibility of running into unscrupulous Italian coast guard officials who extort money from migrants found being trafficked across the Mediterranean before abandoning them to their fate. Idreiss has been criticised for presenting an invented and offensive image of the Italian coastguard, which is engaged in saving the lives of migrants and refugees on a daily basis. "There are corrupt police officials in every country," the director told ANSA. "In my film I wanted to describe the illegal trafficking of migrants and the economic interests that underpin it," Idreiss said. (ANSAmed). Tunisian army exchanges fire with jihadists on Mt Sammama Army surrounds area for anti-terror op, media sources report (ANSAmed) - Tunis, November 22 - Tunisian soldiers exchanged fire with a group of jihadists during an anti-terrorism operation near Mount Sammama on Monday night, local media report. The military had support from the local population as it surrounded the area to capture the terrorists, the same sources said. The mountainous region in the Kasserine governorate is the habitual refuge of jihadist groups comprising Tunisians and Algerians and has been the scene of anti-terrorism operations for some time. (ANSAmed). Aoun presides over Lebanese independence celebrations Day marked after 2 years of political and institutional deadlock (ANSAMed) - Beirut, November 22 - Lebanon celebrated independence day on Tuesday after two years of political deadlock. The newly elected President Michel Aoun presided over the military parade marking the 73rd anniversary of the end of the French Mandate in 1943. In a message to the nation Aoun reaffirmed the need to "restore independence and strength to Lebanon". Aoun, a Maronite Christian, is a close ally of the pro-Iranian Shia movement Hezbollah and has the support of almost all the political confessional representatives in parliament. His election at the end of October became possible after former premier and Sunni leader Saad Hariri announced his support for the candidature with the blessing of France and Saudi Arabia, his international protectors, ending a long-running institutional vacuum. Aoun is in the process of meeting with representatives of the all the main regional powers. (ANSAMed) During this years mission, that started from Valetta, Malta, at the beginning of June, more than 19 000 men, women and children in emergency situations have been saved from drowning in the sea on their attempt to cross the Mediterranean by the MOAS crew - in partnership with the Italian Red Cross. Since MOAS launched in 2014, a total of around 30 000 persons have been rescued and assisted with medical aid. MOAS founder Christopher Catrambone said: The use of drones has been instrumental to MOAS' successful humanitarian efforts. The Schiebel Camcopter S-100, with its take-off and landing capability on the 40-meter-long ship MY Phoenix, has been providing real-time daylight and infrared video, widening the view of the crew on-board and enabling them to locate migrants in distress even well beyond the horizon. When it comes to shipborne search-and-rescue missions, the better all available assets are used, the more people can be saved. That is the reason why the role of our Camcopter S-100 has once again been so crucial; the information it generates makes up for the best possible coordination of all actors and resources involved in the missions, said Hannes Hecher, CEO of the Vienna-based company. The MoU was signed by Adel Al Redha, Emirates executive vice president and chief operations officer andMohammed A. Ahli, director general of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority in the presence of senior representatives from Emirates and DCAA on Wednesday 16 November 2016 at the Emirates Group Headquarters in Dubai. Under the MoU, Emirates and DCAA will explore opportunities for collaboration in innovation and development across a number of areas that will contribute to the aviation sector both in the U.A.E as well as regionally. Emirates is committed to developing and implementing innovative ideas that will positively impact and transform the aviation sector globally said Al Redha. Innovation and automation is the way forward to improve our efficiency and enhance our product offering. It is a key enabler of success in our business and this MoU will set the platform to further extend the collaboration between Emirates and Dubai Civil Aviation Authority on the development and roll out of innovative technologies across our operations. Emirates is at the forefront of innovation in the global aviation industry. The Emirates Innovation Lab, set up in 2012, is one of the airlines initiatives to bring together creative minds from across the company to brainstorm and develop ideas that, when implemented, can lead to improved efficiencies and productivity. The concept of collaboration between Emirates and DCAA was first mooted at a meeting between the regulatory authority and Emirates Innovation Lab earlier in 2016. According to the terms of the MoU, both Emirates and DCAA will work together and share information on a number of programmes relating to aviation strategies and innovation. In addition, both parties will also offer technical assistance and advice to each other in specific areas that will be identified for collaboration. Mohammed A. Ahli said DCAA with its new vision the airport of the world, Dubai will improve performance at all levels and facilitate customer happiness through innovation and by fostering innovation culture. This is in line with His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoums words Try to achieve the impossible and direct your people to ways of achieving it. This MOU with Emirates airline, our strategic partner, will encourage innovation and inspire talent in both entities to reach our common vision of the aviation sector in Dubai. I would like to thank the management at Emirates and the innovation teams of both entities, for their efforts involved, in realising this MoU. Around 50 students from Khalifa University and Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) in the UAE have visited the Etihad Airways Engineering facility in the past few weeks. The visit provided the students of diverse subjects such as mechanical and computer engineering, with an opportunity to see firsthand the engineering landscape in a professional working environment. Jeff Wilkinson, chief executive officer of Etihad Airways Engineering, said: There is a clear advantage for us in hiring graduates from different fields as each one brings with them a different perspective and expertise, all of which are required to fulfil our engineering needs. The technology on new-age aircraft is demanding to a point where a very high level of expertise is required to maintain and optimise them. This is critical to our success in being a world leading provider of maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities. Amani Al Balooshi, an industrial and systems engineering student in her final year at Khalifa University, said she joined the tour because she already had an interest in this sector. I love my major because I can work in every field aircraft, airport, manufacturing. We do a Modern Manufacturing course and it teaches you about processes in building and working to deliver engineered solutions that add value. Visiting here, I see how I can apply what I have learnt. Nouf Khalil is a first-year Preparatory student at Khalifa University. Visiting a hangar for the first time, she said she was impressed by the state-of-the-art facility. Its just great to come to a hangar to see how it all works. I have always been interested in engineering and, seeing this, has made me realise how interesting aerospace engineering really is. As part of their visits, students were given an overview of Etihad Airways Engineering followed by a tour of the workshops and hangar facility, during which they were able to interact with both graduate and experienced engineers specialising in different areas of the business. Young Emirati graduates interested in pursuing a career in the aviation industry have the opportunity to apply for a place on the Etihad Technical Graduate Engineering Programme. Launched in 2010, the programme currently hosts 300 UAE nationals who were all selected after extensive and rigorous assessments. Once fully qualified engineers, they become part of Etihad Airways Engineering team. The launch took place at a ceremony which was held at the centre and attended by government ministers, Oman Airs Board of Directors, senior airline managers, senior representatives of the Public Authority for Civil Aviation (PACA), Oman Airport Management Company (OAMC) and members of the media. At the heart of the facilities provided at OAFTC will be cutting edge flight simulators. In addition to being a requirement under international flight safety regulations, flight simulator training is essential to the provision of high quality training programmes for flight deck crew. The flight simulators are being supplied by one of the worlds best-known simulator manufacturers, Canada-based TRU-Simulation and Training Company. Based at Oman Airs headquarters in Muscat, OAFTC offers Oman Air the opportunity to provide its pilots and cabin crew with the highest standards of in-house training, in line with both civil aviation regulations and industry good practice. Furthermore, the innovative technology that is integral to OAFTC, together with its strategic location, enhances the high level of efficiency to which Oman Air is required to work. And by operating world-class training facilities in-house, and offering its services to commercial partners, Oman Air is able to make substantial cost savings which can subsequently be invested to the benefit of its customers. Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, Oman Airs Chief Executive Officer, Paul Gregorowitsch, said: Oman Air is pleased and proud to be opening this outstanding new facility. The Oman Air Flight Training Centre will enable Oman Air to continue operating to the highest safety standards and with absolute professionalism. Furthermore, Oman Airs investment in this training facility the first of its kind in Oman - will add an important milestone in the airlines contribution towards the development of the Sultanate. I would like to thank His Excellency the Chairman, and his colleagues on Oman Airs Board of Directors for their unwavering support. I would also like to express my gratitude to Captain Ali Hassan Sulaiman, Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, his colleagues and all at Oman Air whose hard work and commitment have ensured that this training centre has been completed within a very tight timeframe. Development of OAFTC was announced in November 2015 and by September 2016 the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) was able complete both its Compliance Monitoring System and Simulator Audits. Captain Ali Hassan Sulaiman added: OAFTC offers one Full Flight Simulator for Airbus 330 training, and another one for Boeing 737 training. In addition, one Flight Training Device for Boeing B737 training has been installed as a training tool for cadet training programmes. The centre also includes the facilities needed to train Oman Airs cabin crew. These include A330 and B737 mock-ups, along with a B787 door trainer. Each of these is designed to enable crew to train for, and practice, all the emergency procedures required as part of our cabin crew training and qualification courses. Furthermore, having the flight simulator trainers close to Oman Airs premises will support Oman Airs strategy to ensure cost-effectiveness in all areas of its operations by avoiding expensive excessive training expenses overseas. We also have the option of offering our facilities to commercial partners, creating an additional revenue stream for Oman Air. Present at the event were RJ President/CEO Captain Suleiman Obeidat, Deputy Head of Mission at the Austrian Embassy in Amman Christoph Sternat, Chairman of Jordan Society of Tourism and Travel Agents Shaher Hamdan, RJs Chief Commercial Officer Server Aydin, Regional Director/Area Jordan, West Bank and Gaza Osama Quntar and a number of RJ sales personnel. Captain Obeidat expressed RJs appreciation for travel agents efforts and their support to the national carrier of Jordan. He said they work hard to increase sales aboard RJ and that the airline is always ready to develop business ties with its partners, in the interest of all parties, and to give a boost to the local tourism and travel industry. He added that Royal Jordanian constantly improves its air and ground services while modernizing its fleet of aircraft and expands its route network for a better competitive edge. The airline recently introduced a sixth new Boeing 787 to the fleet, according to the plan of renewing the long- and medium-haul aircraft, to meet the needs of passengers eager to fly on board this state-of-the-art airplane. Obeidat also expressed gratitude for the cooperation extended to Royal Jordanian by Vienna Airport in sponsoring this event, highlighting the distinguished business relations between the two companies, which make the travel experience of passengers more convenient. The captain welcomed a number of Austrian travel agents who attended the ceremony. RJ has been flying to Vienna for 40 years now. The 26 students graduated at a ceremony at Massey University in Palmerston North, marking the completion of a successful two-year investment by the General Authority of Civil Aviation of Saudi Arabia (GACA), and the Saudi Arabian National Guard. The students arrived in January 2015 and spent their first year in New Zealand studying English with Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT) and Kaplan International College in Auckland. They then started a 12-month air traffic control (ATC) course at Airways' purpose-built training facility on the Massey University campus in Palmerston North. In the past year Airways has trained about 150 ab-initio ATC students in New Zealand and at overseas campuses through its international training programmes, Airways Training General Manager Sharon Cooke says. This is the third group of GACA students trained in New Zealand over the past five years. Were pleased to be providing top quality training services for overseas students, and at the same time helping to alleviate the current global shortage of air traffic controllers. This is a particular issue in the Middle East where air traffic growth is expected to continue, she said. Were proud of our on-going relationship with GACA which continues to send trainees to Airways due to the success of our programme. To date, all trainees have successfully completed on-job-training to become licenced ATCs once returning home, said Cooke. Ahmed Algharawi, one of the graduating students, says he enjoyed the pace and style of learning and living in New Zealand. It was a bit of a shock coming to Nelson at first because my English wasnt as good as it is now, but living with a homestay family really helped me improve. Living in New Zealand took some getting used to but now Im going to find it hard to leave. To help students adjust to living and learning in New Zealand, Airways used social media to create a learning community with the students before they arrived and while studying, with a dedicated Facebook page supporting them on anything from questions about their studies to their homestay environment and the culture in New Zealand. The students will now return to Saudi Arabia to begin their on-the-job training through GACA and Saudi Arabian National Guard. YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. There is a need to run a concrete policy on illegal circulation of goods within the territory of the Eurasian Economic Union. Anticounterfeiting 2016 International Forum was launched in Yerevan under the heading of Countering illegal circulation of goods within EAEU territory: Reality and Prospects, reports Armenpress. At the Forum Vice Prime Minister of Armenia, Minister of Economic Integration and Reforms Vache Gabrielyan delivered a welcoming speech. He thanked for organizing the Forum stating that the topic discussion is particularly relevant in the formation stage of the Eurasian Economic Union. He said the free movement of goods without state control creates difficulties in fighting against the illegal circulation. A serious work must be done for that. The decisions on fighting against the illegal circulation must be in compliance with the law and suppose accountability, he said. Russian Minister of Trade and Industry Denis Manturov said the integration process within the Eurasian Economic Union is developing with a new wave, however, the illegal circulation of goods hinders it, and effective fight must be done against it. We hope that during the thematic discussions of the Forum relevant decisions and approaches will be proposed which will be implemented within the framework of common economic territory. The EAEU Customs Code is already ready which will also provide good opportunities for fighting against the illegal circulation of goods, the Russian Minister said. The Minister said the illegal circulation of goods greatly impacts the economies of states. Manturov said the illegal circulation comprises 5-30% in Russias economy, which greatly damages it. In order to avoid damages, all countries must be supporters of a common market, he said, adding that there is a need of concrete policy on fighting against the illegal circulation of goods within the EAEU territory. During the Forum Armenian Minister of Economic Development and Investments Suren Karayan and Russian Minister of Trade and Industry Denis Manturov signed a joint statement on taking joint actions in countering the illegal circulation of industrial goods and deepening the integration cooperation on that path. The Forum will focus on issues of protection of intellectual property, cooperation of power structures, technical regulations, creating of product marking system and etc. The Forum will have a separate section devoted to formation of literate information policy and implementation issues in the field of fighting against the illegal circulation of industrial goods. YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Receiving money from Azerbaijan and lobbying for that country by Italian parliamentarian Luca Volonte first of all affects the European People's Party. Member of Armenian delegation to the PACE, MP Naira Karapetyan told Armenpress that the reputation the EPP family that includes a number of ruling European parties is endangered due to the possible crime committed by Luca Volonte. There are many parliamentarians and countries that still believe in the impartiality of the PACE, which is designated for spreading democracy and values of human rights. If Volontes crime is proved, I think the PACE should condemn this phenomenon for the sake of its reputation and invest some new mechanisms, Karapetyan stated. She added that legal proposals are being elaborated aimed at eliminating biased lobbying and delivering some types of services to some states. According to her, the current charter has some regulatory mechanisms, but lacks punitive measures. Referring to Volontes case, the Armenian MP introduced its background. In January 2013, when the PACE rejected the report of the member of the German delegation, Strasser, on political prisoners in Azerbaijan, many who voted against were from EPP political group. Back then I was myself from the EPP group and remember very well the proposals and even the demands of Luca Volonte, that if a political group decides to vote against of for, the parliamentarians are obliged to abide it, and in case of having an opposite opinion, must inform in a written way. After long disputes and thank to the Armenian delegation, in the face of Arpine Hovhannisyan and me, we managed to persuade them that this is not a national parliament and we cannot obey the decision of apolitical group and each can vote in accordance with the benefits of his or her country, Naira Karapetyan said. She reminded that when 2 million and 390 thousand Euros were transferred during the time Strassers report was rejected, for some reasons suspicions rose and investigation was launched as a result of which the Prosecution of Milan obtained some confirming documents such as the letter of member of the Azerbaijani delegation Muslim Mamadov to Luca Volonte, which said that the money is given to Luca Volonte so as he could be able to preserve the political line of the EPP and stated the money could be used by Luca Volonte and other parliamentarians. This once again documents that the money was given to him not only for his personal use, but also for allocating others. The disclosure of this letter unveiled many black deals aimed at supporting Azerbaijan, Naira Karapetyan said, adding when the Armenian delegation raised this issue in order to keep other parliamentarians informed, we received a, lets say, ultra-respond from Pedro Argamunt, and he, violating the PACE charter, deprived me of my right to speak which is another evidence that Pedro Argamunt is influenced by Azerbaijani lobbying, member of Armenian delegation to PACE stated. Touching upon the caviar diplomacy of Azerbaijan in general, Karapetyan noted that many international organizations have even prepared reports and brochures on that phenomenon. There is a work on specially Pedro Argamunt called The caviar diplomacy or why Pedro Argamunt should resign. It was ready even before Pedro Argamunt became PACE chairman when he was the chairman of the EPP. Talks about caviar diplomacy and the issue of bribed parliamentarians were constantly hang in the air, while the criminal case of Luca Volonte which is under investigation at the prosecution, best evidences that Azerbaijan plays in an unfair manner, Naira Karapetyan said. Best Health Products and Services Would you like to submit an article in the Health category or any of the sub-categories below? Click here to submit your article. Would you like to have your product or service listed on this page? Contact us. Best Marketing Products and Services Would you like to submit an article in the Marketing category or any of the sub-category below? Click here to submit your article. Would you like to have your product or service listed on this page? Contact us. Best Technology Products and Services Would you like to submit an article in the Technology category or any of the sub-category below? Click here to submit your article. Would you like to have your product or service listed on this page? Contact us. Despite starring in Saawariya, there have been reports of the two actors not getting along with each other. Mumbai: Salman Khan has a history of not getting along with other stars from the film industry and Ranbir Kapoor is also one of them. Despite starring in the same film Saawariya, there have always been reports of the two actors not getting along with each other. While Katrina Kaif is often termed as a reason for it, as Salman was reportedly dating her before she got into a relationship with Ranbir, there were reports earlier this year that Salman had slapped Ranbir in public before the latter had even made his debut in the film industry. And it definitely seems that nothing has changed as Salman, who is known for his witty one-liners on his reality show Bigg Boss, took a dig at Ranbir when Alia Bhatt and the team of Dear Zindagi recently made an appearance on the show. During one of the tasks on the show, Salman told Alia, Ranveer ko hi gayab kar do Ranbir toh waise hi gayab ho rahe hai! Salman was perhaps referring to the string of unsuccessful films Ranbir featured in before his last film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. Alia shares screen space with Ranbir is Dragon and it would be interesting to know how she might have handled the situation. Pakistan issues visas to the Hindu pilgrims for the 308th birthday celebrations of Shiv Avtari Satguru Sant Shadaram Saheb. New Delhi: Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi has issued visas to 81 Hindu pilgrims to visit shrines in Pakistan for the 308th birthday celebrations of Shiv Avtari Satguru Sant Shadaram Saheb. In line with Pakistan's efforts to encourage people to people contacts and promote religious tourism, the High Commission has issued visas to pilgrims under the 1974 bilateral protocol, said Manzoor Ali Memon, Counsellor (Press) in the Pakistan mission. Taking "note of the sentiments and devotion of the various communities in the two countries for the historic and sacred shrines in the other", India and Pakistan have agreed on a set of principles for facilitating visits to such shrines. As per the protocol, such visits from one country to the other shall be allowed without discrimination as to religion or sect and every effort should continue to be made to ensure that places of religious worship mentioned in the agreed list are properly maintained and their sanctity preserved. The project was put on hold for a while as Air India, which is already a loss making company, could not support it. New Delhi: Leopard Moth, the plane that Indian pioneer aviator and founder of Air India Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy (JRD) Tata flew from Karachi to Mumbai and later gifted to the headquarters of Aero Club of India at Safdarjung Airport in 1984 will soon be seen purring again. Air India chief Ashwani Lohani, who is credited with reviving the oldest working steam locomotive in the World, the 1855 built EIR 22 famously known as Fairy Queen, plans to make JRDs cub flyable by 2017, which is also the 75th anniversary of Air India. We are looking to restore JRD Tatas aircraf which is at the Are Club back to its original condition and recreate the the first flight from Mumbai to Karachi, Mr Ashwani Lohani, chairman and managing director, Air India told this newspaper. However, given the complex relations between India and Pakistan, Air India has a Plan B ready, which is to fly it from Ahmedabad to Mumbai if the original plan doesnt work. Famous business chief JRD Tata had in 1962 re-enacted his first flight from Karachi to Mumbai (then Bombay) for the airlines 30th anniversary. In 1982, JRD flew the refurbished Leopard Moth once again along the same route to celebrate Air Indias 50th anniversary before he gifted it to the club in Delhi in 1984. Mr Lohani who has executed various heritage projects during his earlier stint with the Railways is all set for another feather in his cap. While it takes a tremendous work to get a retired aircraft back to air, Air India has already chalked out a plan for making it possible. Indicating their interest to commemorate JRDs flight, cash starved Air India has already approached Ratan Tata for his support to pump in money so that the plane his uncle flew is all set to take off again. Sources said that Mr Tata has shown interest in the idea. The restoration and refurbishing is estimated to cost around Rs 3 crores. The project was put on hold for a while as Air India, which is already a loss making company, could not support it. However, with Mr Tata showing some interest in the project, it seems feasible again. We are going to meet Mr Tata soon, the source said. Aircraft refurbishing companies in the UK and US are being considered for the overhaul. If all goes as per plan, Air India will propose the first vintage flight next year. Retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act, the Army said in a statement. A soldier on guard near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. (Photo: PTI) Srinagar/Jammu: In a cross-LoC attack by suspected Pakistani terrorists, three Indian soldiers were today killed, with body of one of them being mutilated in second such incident in less than a month, triggering outrage in this country. The ambush on army patrol took place in Machhil sector of Kashmir, following which the Indian army vowed heavy "retribution". "A counter-infiltration patrol party of Indian army was ambushed by terrorists ahead of the fencing along LoC in forest belt in Machhil sector in Kupwara district today," a senior Army officer said. Three soldiers were killed in the attack, he said, adding the body of one of them was mutilated. The three slain soldiers were : 25-year-old Prabhu Singh of Khir Jamkhas village in Shergarh tehsil of Rajasthan, 31- year-old K Kushwah of Daddupur, Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh and 25-year-old Shashank K Singh of Nasirudinpur in Mohamadabad tehsil of Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh. Body of Prabhu Singh was mutilated, army sources said. Earlier, Army's Northern Command spokesman tweeted, "3 soldiers killed in action on LC (Line of Control) in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated." He said the "retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act." A Defence spokesman said heavy cross-Line of Control shelling was going on at four places in Machhil sector from 3.30 pm. "Around 1530 hour, heavy cross-LoC shelling has started from both sides at Dana Machhil, Ashni, Ringsar and Ringsar Payeen in Machhil sector of Kupwara district," he said. He did not give any further details. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was briefed by Vice Chief of Army Lt Gen Bipin Rawat on the killing of three soldiers. Defence Ministry sources said Lt Gen Rawat briefed the Minister in detail. This is the second such incident of mutilation of the body of an Indian soldier in the same sector since October 28. On that day, terrorists, aided by the cover fire by Pakistani Army, had crossed the Line of Control and killed 30-year-old Sepoy Mandeep Singh and mutilated his body in the Macchil sector. One attacker was killed in that incident. In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days. Seventeen soldiers have died in increased ceasefire violations by Pakistan since the surgical strikes. In September, Indian soldiers crossed over the Line of Control and destroyed terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. The strikes were seen as India's response to the Uri attack in which 19 soldiers were killed by terrorists from Pakistan. PM Modi had a strategic meeting with the finance minister and other officials to discuss how to deal with the situation. New Delhi: Fearing a backlash in rural areas ahead of key state elections, the government allowed farmers to purchase seeds for the rabi crops using old bank notes from state-owned outlets. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) also provided an additional 60 days for repayment of housing, car, farm and other loans worth up to Rs 1 crore as a sudden government move to replace all Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes has triggered a massive cash crunch. A senior official said that in the next 8-10 days the governments focus will be on rural areas facing a huge liquidity crunch. The government has already allowed farmers to make cash withdrawals up to Rs 25,000 per week against sanctioned crop loans. The moves came amid mounting public and political pressure even as millions continued to line up before banks and ATMs to deposit or withdraw cash across states, though queues are getting shorter. One person fainted and died on Monday while standing in a queue outside a Delhi bank. The Opposition said about 70 such deaths have taken place so far. The RBI relaxation will apply to dues payable between November 1 and December 31. It will help keep accounts standard even when payments are not received. The apex bank said that this is a short-term deferment, and does not result in restructuring of loans. The November 8 order on demonetisation made 86 per cent of the currency in circulation invalid. Restrictions on withdrawals and shrinking space for normal banking activities have also made EMI payments difficult. Prime minister Narendra Modi had a strategic meeting with the finance minister and other officials to discuss how to deal with the situation. Continuing its losing streak for a sixth straight day, Sensex crashed 385 points to hit a six-month low of 25,765.14 following sustained foreign outflows amid uncertainty over the economic impact of the demonetisation move. The RBI also relaxed norms on cash withdrawals and said that overdraft and cash credit account holders can now withdraw up to Rs 50,000 in a week. Accounts have to be operational in the last three months or more. Earlier, current account holders were allowed to withdraw up to Rs 50,000 in cash in a week. Government employees belonging to Group-C started receiving Rs 10,000 in cash as salary advance for the month of November. At least 1,000 Group-C employees working in the union home ministry were also given Rs 10,000 each as their salary advance. Providing some relief to Group C and D employees from the cash crunch, the West Bengal government allowed them to draw advance salary in cash. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is at the centre of an Opposition offensive against the government. The government earlier announced a raft of measures to ease the crisis but chaos persists as in India cash is still used in 70% of the expenses. The chaos is largely because ATMs are unable to meet a spiraling demand for cash or they are still not equipped to dispense the new bills. A large number of people in rural areas without banking facilities remain the worst hit. Opposition parties across states escalated their campaign against the currency swap, saying it has hit consumption, hurt agriculture and real estate, and scores of people have died in queues. The Supreme Court also warned on Friday that there may be riots and refused the governments plea to stay cases, filed against the demonetisation, in high courts and lower courts, saying how can we shut our doors to people when there is a problem of such a magnitude. The government has said the move would hit at corruption and counterfeit currency, besides brining billions of dollars worth of unaccounted wealth into the mainstream economy. Rs 2,500 is the maximum one can withdraw from a recalibrated ATM a day. Otherwise the cap is Rs 2,000. People can also withdraw cash from select fuel stations of state-owned oil companies. The government has said savings account holders can withdraw up to Rs 24,000 per week and current account holders can withdraw up to Rs 50,000 a week from banks with certain riders. Old notes are valid till November 24 for key utilities. Exchange limit for old notes is Rs 2,000. The government has also increased withdrawal limits for traders, farmers, and families needing money to bear wedding expenses. Army and the police in a joint operation had cordoned off the area to smoke out the two terrorists who were holed up and had opened fire. Since the surgical strike on terrorist launch pads in PoK on September 29, there have been a staggering 286 incidents of firing and shelling along the LoC and the International Border in J&K. (Photo: Representational Image) Srinagar: Security forces neutralised two terrorists in an encounter on Tuesday in Bandipora, Jammu and Kashmir. The Army and the police in a joint operation had cordoned off the area to smoke out the two terrorists who were holed up and had opened fire, thus engaging in a heavy gunbattle early in the morning. A combing operation is underway to ensure no untoward elements are still present in the area. Earlier, a BSF head constable was killed and three other army men were injured in the early hours of Monday after Pakistani Army resorted to heavy cross-border firing in Rajouri sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Since the surgical strike on terrorist launch pads in PoK on September 29, there have been a staggering 286 incidents of firing and shelling along the LoC and the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistani troops, which have resulted in the death of 26 people, including 14 security personnel. Congress has led the Opposition in the demand that PM must speak in the RS on the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday chaired BJPs Parliamentary party meeting in the national capital, where top leaders chalked out a strategy to tackle a united Opposition which practically paralysed the Parliament in the last few days over the issue of demonetisation. Demonetisation is not the end but beginning of our deep and continuous struggle against black money and corruption, Mod said at the meet where leaders passed a unanimous resolution congratulating him for his "great crusade" against black money and corruption. We passed a resolution in favour of demonetisation, it was moved by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, said Venkaiah Naidu after the party meet. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also spoke to the media and reiterated the government's readiness to debate any issue. We are ready for discussion on demonesation, have said it many times. This is a big decision that requires a lot of courage from the govt's part, Jaitley said. Lauding his government, Jaitley said it takes a lot of courage for a someone in power to make a move like demonetisation. "By stopping the 'normal' of last 70 years, PM Modi has created a new 'normal'. The whole country is supporting the move, it is a historic step," Jaitley said. Meanwhile, Opposition parties too held a meet in the Parliament on Tuesday, a day after they resolved to corner the government on demonetisation within and outside Parliament. Finding a common ground on demonetisation which has caused hardship to people, leaders of the Congress, Trinamul, JD(U), BSP, CPM, CPI, NCP, RJD, JMM and the DMK had held a meeting in on Monday too, to forge a common plan of action with an aim of mounting an attack on the government. The Congress has led the Opposition in the demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi must speak in the Rajya Sabha on the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. However, the government had made it clear that Modi will not speak in the Rajya Sabha, where the government is in a minority, and that finance minister Arun Jaitley will answer their questions. Merits and demerits will come out in a debate. Why are they (Opposition parties) running away from a debate?, Jaitley had said. This is clear now that the Opposition is not ready for debate and is coming up with new excuses to disrupt the House, Jaitley added amid slogan shouting by Opposition members who were in the well of the House. Leaders of the 10 parties decided that their MPs will stage a sit-in near Mahatma Gandhis statue in the Parliament complex on Wednesday. This will be followed by a march to Rashtrapati Bhawan, date for which is being worked out, the sources said. The court said the quality of presiding members, especially of non-judicial members at the state and district levels is poor. New Delhi: The Supreme Court expressed serious concern over the working of consumer courts, including the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, and said a systemic overhaul of the entire infrastructure is necessary if the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 is not to become a dead letter. A bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and L. Nageswara Rao in its order asked the Centre and states to intervene immediately to set right the system and fill up the vacancies of members in these courts. The Bench said with the proliferation of goods and services in a rapidly growing economy, Parliament envisaged the enactment to be the corner-stone of a vibrant consumer movement. Reality has been distant from the aspirations of the law. Since the state of affairs which has been revealed before the Court warrants systemic changes. The court said the quality of presiding members, especially of non-judicial members at the state and district levels is poor. One of the reasons is that the remuneration which is being paid to non-judicial members of consumer fora varies from state to state and is too meagre to attract qualified talent. The Bench pointed out that most of the non-judicial members are not even capable of writing or dictating small orders. At certain places non-judicial members act in unison against the presiding officer, while passing orders contrary to law, damaging the reputation of the adjudicating body. Some persons broke into Brahm Singhs house and opened fire after he refused to withdraw the gangrape-murder case. Security has been tightened in the village after the incident and extra police and PAC officials have deployed to keep vigil and thwart any untoward incident. (Photo: Representational Image) Muzaffarnagar: Tension prevailed on Tuesday in Akberpur Suneti village in Shamli district after a 50-year-old kin of gangrape victim was gunned down at his residence, even as police and PAC personnel were deployed in large numbers. Brahm Singh was killed on Monday after some persons broke into his house at the village in Shamli district and opened fire after he refused to withdraw the gangrape-murder case of his sister-in-law, SP Ajaypal Sharma said. The woman was allegedly gangraped and murdered on July 4. Her body was found in the jungle. Police has registered a case against the accused identified as, Saber, Mustafa, Mobin, Meshar, Amjad, Sufiyan and Pervez, Sharma said. Security has been tightened in the village after the incident and extra police and PAC officials have deployed to keep vigil and thwart any untoward incident, the SP said. 2nd such incident in Kashmirs Machhal in a month. Pakistan army soldier monitors the area from a forward area Bagsar post on the Line of Control (LOC), that divides Kashmir between Pakistan and India, in Bhimber. (Photo: File/AP) Srinagar/New Delhi: The Army vowed heavy retribution after Pakistans troops killed three Indian soldiers and mutilated one of the bodies at Machhal sector in Kashmirs Kupwara district along the Line of Control (LoC) on Tuesday. The Armys Northern Command tweeted: 3 soldiers killed in action on LoC in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act. The gory incident, second of its kind in the same sector in less than a month, immediately sparked heavy shelling. Army sources said the soldier whose body was mutilated was part of a counter-infiltration patrol party that was ambushed by a group of armed intruders, believed to be members of Pakistans Border Action Team (BAT) or terrorists backed by it in Kashmirs northernmost district. The Army briefed defence minister Manohar Parrikar on the killings. It is a numbers game now and it is just a question of a few days when we do what we have to do, said an enraged Army official, adding that the operation is typical of Pakistans BAT which often operates with the militants along the LoC. On October 29, infiltrating militants had mutilated the body of 30-year-old Sepoy Mandeep Singh, who was killed in a brief firefight with them along the LoC in the same sector. After mutilating the body, the militants ran back into Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir, under cover fire provided by Pakistans Army, officials said. In January 2013, the beheading of an Indian soldier and mutilation of anothers body in Mendhar sector of along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir Poonch district had left the two countries teetering on the brink of war. Border brutality. In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistanis BAT in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded a few days later. Earlier on Tuesday, security forces gunned down two militants in Bandipora district. A cache of arms and ammunition were recovered, in addition to Rs 15,000 in cash, including two Rs 2,000 notes. Meanwhile, a suspected Pakistani militant guide was shot dead by BSF troops near the International Border in Jammu, foiling an infiltration bid. Tension between the neighbours and fatal border skirmishes involving the facing troops rose after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in a deadly attack on an Army base in Uri in September 18, prompting India to launch a global diplomatic offensive, and carry out anti-terror surgical strikes across the LoC. The hostilities have claimed scores of civilian lives. Hundreds of families have been fleeing homes and relocating to safer places to escape border skirmishes. Local political groups and human rights activists have expressed concern over increasing civilian casualties. In the Lok Sabha, both the treasury and the Opposition benches stuck to their positions on the type of discussion needed for the issue. New Delhi: Parliament remained disrupted for the fourth consecutive sitting on Tuesday as Opposition parties continued to show a rare unity to corner the government over the demonetisation issue. The Opposition again insisted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi be present during discussions and make a statement on the issue, a demand again not conceded by the government. The parties decided to come together on a common platform outside the House for the first time and stage a demonstration within the Parliament premises on Wednesday. They will also try to meet President Pranab Mukherjee over the issue. Well announce a future course of action including a date for a country-wide protest, JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav told this newspaper. Both houses of Parliament saw disruptions as soon as they assembled with the Opposition demanding Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of each of those who died standing in queues trying to exchange old notes or draw cash after the government spiked high-value currencies about two weeks ago. The Lok Sabha was adjourned twice once till 12 noon and then for the day when it reassembled, while the Rajya Sabha saw a total of five adjournments, finally being adjourned till Wednesday at 2 PM. In the Lok Sabha, both the treasury and the Opposition benches stuck to their positions on the type of discussion needed for the issue. Amid noisy sloganeering by Congress, Trinamool Congress and Left parties, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said that the government was willing to debate every aspect of the issue and accused the Opposition parties of running away from a debate. The Opposition on the other side maintained that they were also willing to debate but under a rule which allows for voting and also demanded the presence of the Prime Minister during any such discussion. In the Rajya Sabha, the Opposition, led by the Congress, also demanded that a compensation of Rs 10 lakh should be paid to the kin of each of the 70 people who reportedly died due to problems after notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 were scrapped. The rare show of unity in the Opposition camp will spill over outside the Houses with all parties set to stage a demonstration against the demonetisation drive within the Parliament premises. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who had last week led a march against the move to the Presidents house, would also hit the streets of the Capital again on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the CPI(M) said it is seeking legal opinion on moving a contempt notice against PM Modi for announcing policy matters like demonetisation outside Parliament but not coming to the House to explain them. If the Prime Minister makes a major policy announcement outside Parliament, particularly when it has been summoned by the President, it is incumbent that he comes to both Houses to explain the issue. This has not been done, party general secretary Sitaram Yechury told a press conference here. We are examining the issue and we would like to move a contempt notice against the PM after discussions with other Opposition parties, Mr Yechury said. Death toll rises to 150; fresh GRP probe on. People take part in a candle light vigil to pay tribute to victims of Indore-Patna express train accident, in Patna on Monday. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Fixing responsibility for the derailment of the Indore-Patna Express, in which the death toll rose to 150 on Tuesday, the Railways transferred the divisional railway manager of Jhansi division and suspended five other officials. It also formed a 12-member GRP panel to probe the mishap. Railway officials said senior divisional mechanical engineer (carriage and wagon) Navaid Talib, divisonal engineer M.K. Mishra, senior section engineer Ambika Prasda Ojha, section engineer Iswar Das and senior section engineer Sushil Kumar Gupta were suspended for dereliction of duty. Jhansi DRM S.K. Aggarwal was transferred to Ranchi, while the five officials were suspended pending inquiry. It was very necessary to take action to fix responsibility. The suspension and transfer orders were issued pending an inquiry conducted by the commissioner of railway safety, an official said. Apart from two other probes, the Railways on Tuesday formed a 12-member team of GRP personnel to investigate the derailment. The DSP GRP of Jhansi will head the team. Experts said that despite recurring accidents which claim hundreds of lives each time, the Railways have studiously ignored the recommendations of parliamentary panels on the safety measures that need to be taken, instead taking knee-jerk measures like suspensions and the forming of committees. All these accidents are manmade. The entire system is in a danger zone. There is virtually no money to pump in for taking safety measures, Dinesh Trivedi, a former railway minister, told this newspaper. He said that in several reports submitted by him, there were recommendations made for safety audits, but no action was taken by the government due to lack of understanding by the Railway Board. In one report, for example, the standing committee on railways said 50 per cent of all rail accidents occur at level crossings and the Railways was not addressing the issue seriously. The committee was critical of the fact that out of total 31,254 level crossings across India, 12,582 remained unmanned. It blamed the Railways for its lackadaisical approach on a very serious safety issue and noted that utilisation of funds on safety had fallen short of allocations by upto 40 per cent in all years from 2008-09 to 2012-13. This, intelligence agencies, feel will spread more radicalisation among the local population in the Valley, particularly the youth. Youth shouting slogans outside the residence of hardline Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani as he along with moderate Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik held a seven-hour long marathon meeting with the stakeholders on future course of the agitation in the valley, in Srinagar. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Even as normalcy returns to the Kashmir Valley after a gap of almost four months, separatists and some Hurriyat leaders are reportedly preparing for another round of agitation in the days ahead. Intelligence reports received by the Union home ministry reveals that only this time the separatist elements are trying to rope in religious leaders and head of religious institutions, like imams and local mosque committees to incite poor people and relatives of those civilians who were either killed or injured during the recent protests. The Kashmir Valley witnessed unprecedented violence by agitating stone-pelters following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani by security forces in July. All major government and commercial establishments, including educational institutions, also remained closed and have started functioning again only a couple of days ago. Thus separatists and some Hurriyat leaders are once again trying to revive the agitation with the help of local religious leaders. This, intelligence agencies, feel will spread more radicalisation among the local population in the Valley, particularly the youth. Taking note of these recent inputs, the home ministry has directed security agencies to closely monitor the situation, particularly about the new evolving nexus between separatist and religious leaders. Security forces, including the state police, has been asked that, if required, such elements should be taken into preventive custody. We were always sceptical that radical elements would join hands with the separatists and these recent inputs only confirm that. The security agencies have already been cautioned and they are keeping a close watch to ensure that during religious sermons the leaders do not instigate the local population, a senior security official said. In the past few months in the Valley, security agencies have arrested 280 Hurriyat leaders, including 78 who were detained under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act. Intelligence sources said more such arrests and detention in the days cannot be ruled out. Taking serious not of a bank robbery in Budgam on Monday, the home ministry has also asked security agencies to ensure that adequate protection is given to all banks, ATMs and vehicles carrying cash in the Valley. Following demonetisation of `500 and `1,000 currency notes militants are said to be facing a major cash crunch for their operations and could target more banks in the coming days. Sources said the Ministry was in constant touch with senior police officials including the State Director General of Police. The hawala network which was the biggest source of funding for terror activities has also been badly hit by the demonetisation move with reports reaching Home Ministry suggesting that the hawala trade was down by almost 80 per cent. The ruling CPI(M) in Tripura wrested Barjala (SC) seat from the Congress and retained Khowai. New Delhi: The BJP and the Trinamul Congress won two Lok Sabha seats each, claiming it was a vindication of their stand on the demonetisation issue, as ruling parties in six states and Union Territory Puducherry swept byelections, retaining most of the 10 Assembly seats up for grabs. Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked people for expressing continued faith in the BJP and its unwavering focus on development and good governance following his partys success in the first elections after the governments move to scrap high-value currencies. West Bengal chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, however, termed the byelection result a mandate against the Centres decision to replace Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 banknotes. The government has said people support the November 8 move despite some inconvenience as the target is black money, corruption and counterfeit currency. Opposition parties have claimed deaths in winding queues before banks and ATMs to deposit old notes or just to withdraw cash have turned people against the government. The by-election result is a befitting reply to the anti-people demonetisation. Its a peoples revolt, rather a mass revolt against the Centre, she said in Kolkata before leaving for Delhi to join the Opposition protests. In the Assembly bypolls held on November 19, results of which were declared on Tuesday, the BJP and the AIADMK won three seats each, the CPI(M) got two, while the Congress and the Trinamool bagged one each. The BJP won Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat in Assam, vacated by chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, and Shahdol Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh, both ruled by the party. The Trinamool Congress swept Tamluk and Coochbehar Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal by whopping margins. The party also won Monteswar assembly seat with candidates of CPI(M), Congress and BJP losing their deposits. In Madhya Pradesh, the BJPs victory margin in Shahdol Lok Sabha came down to 60,000 from 2,41,301 in the 2014 general elections. It bagged Nepanagar Assembly seat, where it increased its winning margin to 42,198 votes as against 22,178. Ruling Rules In Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK, whose supremo Jayalalithaa is hospitalised for two months, retained Thanjavur and Thirupparankundram Assembly seats and wrested Aravakkurichi seat from DMK by margins ranging from 20,000 votes to 42,000. The ruling CPI(M) in Tripura wrested Barjala (SC) seat from the Congress and retained Khowai. Senior Congress leader and Puducherry chief minister V Narayanasamy won the bypoll to Nellithope Assembly seat defeating AIADMKs Om Sakthi Segar by a margin of 11,144 votes. North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) candidate Dasanglu Pul of the BJP won Hayuliang assembly bypoll in Arunachal Pradesh defeating her lone rival Yompi Kri, an independent candidate, by 942 votes. Every era in politics or history has its own problems, its own leaders and its own opposition, says Sonia. New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi broke her silence in an interview to a private TV channel and said there was no comparison between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the late Indira Gandhi, rejecting suggestions that her party lacked leaders to take him on. She added she was confident the Congress could come back to power with a full majority. Asked if she was troubled by the fact that Mr Modi was compared with the late PM as a strong personality, Mrs Gandhi said: It doesnt trouble me as I dont believe in it. I have my own clear views about it. There is no comparison. Absolutely not. Every era in politics or history has its own problems, its own leaders and its own opposition. I think the Congress Party is taking on the present dispensation, Mrs Gandhi told India Today TV. Speaking in Allahabad, where she had gone for the Indira Gandhi birth centenary celebrations, she rejected claims that her party didnt have a tough leader like Mr Modi, and said: I dont agree with that. She recalled Indira Gandhi was ridiculed, insulted and made fun of from within even more than outside when she entered politics, became Congress president and later PM. There was nothing she did was right. (But) she could overcome that, Mrs Gandhi said. Opposition parties have decided to hold a massive protest outside Parliament House tomorrow. New Delhi: A spirited Opposition escalated its attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government over his demonetisation move that has caused chaos across the country, even resulting in a string of deaths in some cases with people scrambling to deposit spiked notes and withdraw smaller or new bills. Parties including Congress, TMC, JD(U), BSP, CPI(M), CPI, NCP, RJD, JMM and DMK attacked the government through the day. They have decided to hold a massive protest outside Parliament on Wednesday. AAP leader and Delhis deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia along with his ministerial colleagues will also take out a protest march to Parliament on Tuesday. The PM however got support from an unexpected quarter when Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar again backed him and said, PM Modi is riding a tiger but theres great sentiment in favour of his move and we should respect that. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that PM Modi was threatening other parties raising voices against his move to replace high-value banknotes, and said she would hit the streets of Delhi to protest against the decision. The Prime Minister is threatening other parties raising their voices. PM should be sober. PM should behave like a PM. If necessary, he should convene an all-party meeting on the issue, she told a press conference. I will be in Delhi on November 23, 24 and in Lucknow on November 29. I will also go to Bihar and Punjab, she said. Mr Modi at a rally in Agra on Sunday said that political leaders behind multi-crore chit fund scams were attacking him because they had been hit hard by demonetisation, indirectly referring to the West Bengal chief minister. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi alleged that the PM was working only for a select few and was not concerned for the poor common man lining up for hours outside banks and ATMs. I have gone to banks to see the situation myself. People there told me that they are facing a lot of inconvenience (after Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes were withdrawn for replacement), Mr Gandhi said outside Parliament. The Congress also accused PM Modi of not following the law in the issuance of Rs 2,000 currency notes, and vowed to raise the matter inside and outside Parliament. Congress leader Anand Sharma said the introduction of Rs 2,000 notes is an illegal act as the notification required to be issued under the RBI Act for printing new currency has not been issued. The charges flew thick and fast as one more day of Parliament was wasted on Saturday over the issue, with the Opposition creating ruckus in both Houses. The Opposition continued to insist that Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak on the matter, a demand the government again rejected. The Lok Sabha could not function for the third straight working day. The Rajya Sabha, which saw a daylong inconclusive debate on demonetisation on the opening day of the Winter session on November 16, has also failed to transact any business since then. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati also alleged that the NDA government announced the demonetisation drive to fulfill their political interest in the wake of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. She dared Mr Modi to come to Parliament and face the opposition parties. The Centres demonetisation move is a plan which even the countrys worst enemies would not be able to better, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury alleged. He said the recovery of unpaid bank loans from corporates should have been the governments priority instead of demonetisation, thathas hurt only the poor. There is no name of this alliance as of now but it will be an honest alliance. New Delhi: After efforts to forge an anti-BJP grand alliance with the Samajwadi Party and the Congress come to a nought as of now, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, Janata Dal (United) and BS-4 a breakaway faction of the Bahujan Samaj Party on Monday came on a common secular platform to take on the BJP. SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav had last week ruled out an alliance for the coming Assembly polls in the state. He had said parties were welcome to merge with the Samajwadi Party. The three parties held a joint press conference in Lucknow to announce their alliance and said that they would contest on all the 403 seats in the state. There is no name of this alliance as of now but it will be an honest alliance. Though this is an alliance of three parties, talks are on with other smaller outfits, the statement said. JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav said, Mulayam was projected as a leader but it did not materialise. I would have merged my party with SP on Mulayams call but no time is left for this. RLD leader Ajit Singh said during Bihar Assembly election all Lohia wadi and Charan Singh wadi parties had agreed for an alliance with SP but then SP declined. Biker Rohith Subramaniam, who traversed India on a solo ride, recently undertook a 120 day-long journey covering south-east Asia. After riding across the country for over 150 days, I decided I wanted to ride across other countries, specifically in south east Asia. I flew to Singapore and then went to other countries, viz., Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It took me 120 days to complete this journey renting and buying motorbikes at different places. I chose south east Asia not only because its close to India, but also because I wanted to visit countries that were steeped in culture and history. On the road in Vietnam. Being Vegetarian I stuck to being a vegetarian throughout the journey, even though it was extremely difficult. But I liked the challenge because I did see other vegans who got by. The food otherwise was crazy, from snakes to frogs to other reptiles, everything was on offer on the streets. Besides, I had a lot of lovely vegetarian food wherever I went. My personal favourites were the Thai and Indonesian meals I had. In Indonesia, food that is cooked in the morning is what will be served for the next two meals of the day! Natures Bounty Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos had really great mountains that I rode through. I managed to do a lot of off-roading as well, which was an amazing experience for me. I tried to avoid the typical tourist destinations as much as I could. Vietnam and Cambodia had some of the best mountains, beaches and islands Ive experienced. Northern Vietnam also had many great loops and routes for bikers, including the Sapa-Sin Ho loop and Ha Giang. Motorcycle loop. Enjoying the Travel Sans Planning The best thing about travel is that different people enjoy different kinds of travel. I tried avoiding tourist hotspots and discovering alternate routes to reach locations. I covered the entire length and breadth of all these countries, and that required a lot of time. If you do have time, explore these countries on a bike. Go out and live in the moment, dont plan your entire trip meticulously. One of the interesting spots that stood out to me besides the loops was, of course, Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Then theres Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Cat Ba Island and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam that are worth visiting. The locals are extremely sweet, helpful and had a lot of love to share in all the countries I went to. There were times when I didnt have a place to sleep and would knock on peoples doors they were kind enough to let me stay with them. The culture and traditions are extremely friendly. In Vietnam, there is a tradition to drink rice wine with the host every night, which shows how open they are to different people. Memories and more I cant say there was just one experience that made an impact on me because every day was marvelous. I never thought Id buy a bike in Vietnam and then end up selling it for a higher price! Apart from that, I love to make conversation despite language barriers, and I ended up teaching English for a couple of days to kids in Vietnam. I even tried my hand at cooking! Once, I lost my bike keys while standing at Cambodias border getting my passport stamped. Finally, I ended up pushing the motorcycle into another country, while the officials looked on. It was a very funny incident that I will never forget. However, I think the entire journey was memorable. Future Plans Currently, I am on my way to Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar and will be ending the year with these three countries. Im indeed very excited! (As told to Kaavya Pillai) National bankers body suggests exchange of notes be done outside branches. New Delhi: With no respite to the common public queuing up outside banks for the 12th day since the banks reopened after the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8, the national organisation of bank workers has suggested that the procedure to exchange old notes should be shifted outside the banks to other centres. The move, they said, will prevent the hampering of daily functioning of the banks. Long queues were witnessed outside banks and post offices, even as a 49-year-old vegetable vendor died on Monday afternoon while standing in a queue outside a bank to deposit Rs 50,000 in demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the police said. The incident occurred outside the Oriental Bank of Commerce branch in Najafgarh area where Satish Sharma collapsed around 2.30 pm. The police said that Sharma, a resident of Keshav Puram in West Delhi, was standing in the queue since 11.30 am. The police said that Sharma was rushed to Mata Chanan Devi hospital in a police vehicle, but was declared dead by doctors. The exact reason behind Sharmas death is yet to be ascertained. It seems that he suffered cardiac arrest while standing in the queue. The fact will come after his autopsy report, the officer said. For better crowd management, the bank workers organisation said that retired bank employees should be involved in the exchange of the notes so that the regular bank works such as deposits, clearance of the cheques, fixed deposits, locker operations, issue of debit and credit cards does not suffer. People continued to queue outside the banks and the ATMs to withdraw cash. I came to the bank for the first time since the note ban and it has already been half-an-hour that I am waiting, a financial advisor with Genpact, standing at the far end of the queue outside Axis Bank, said. He hoped to get some cash in hand before the bank closed their business for the day. He had specially taken a days leave from office to be at the bank. Another man trading in foreign exchange, standing outside the same bank, said that although the wait is same as it was on day one, I think its a good move overall. Also on Monday, the police seized over Rs 49 lakh in old high-value currency notes from a man, who was taking the money to Haryana, on Tikri border in West Delhi. Dinesh (28) was apprehended on Sund-ay night. Mr Sisodia led hundreds of slogan-shouting AAP activists on a march from near the Jantar Mantar monument towards the Parliament. New Delhi: Over 50 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders, including deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, were detained after leading a protest against demonetisation on Tuesday. The leaders were later freed by the police. Denouncing the Centres move to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, Mr Sisodia led hundreds of slogan-shouting AAP activists on a march from near the Jantar Mantar monument towards the Parliament. The demonetisation has destroyed peoples lives while it has had no effect on black money, Mr Sisodia addressed the gathering that also included Delhi ministers Gopal Rai, Kapil Mishra and Satyendar Jain. Several AAP members of the Delhi Assembly also joined the noisy protest, carrying placards and demanding the reversal of the November 8 demonetisation policy of the high value currency that has triggered cash chaos. As they reached the police barricades outside the Parliament Street police station, barely one kilometre ahead of the Parliament, Mr Sisodia gave another speech hurling corruption allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said that demonetisation had caused misery and deaths to the common man. It was claimed that demonetisation will stop terror funding. Then how did the terrorists killed in Kashmir have the new Rs 2,000 notes on them? We were told that demonetisation will end corruption. But people are still indulging in bribery, using the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes, the AAP leader said. The AAP has come out strongly against demonetisation, saying the currency spike was a scam aimed at bailing out corporate houses that had borrowed heavily from banks. Meanwhile, the AAP volunteers detained at the Parliament Street police station on Tuesday found to their luck a functional ATM with no queue. In no time, everyone hurriedly withdrew cash. The ATM is normally used only by police personnel. I am making good use of my time. At other places one has to queue up for a long time, said Jagar Khan, a party volunteer from Mustafabad. Both were playing Rahmans popular rendition of the national song Vande Mataram at that time. Mumbai: The Mumbai police on Monday took legal action against the organisers of the Coldplay concert for playing loud music way past the deadline on Saturday, November 19 at the MMRDA grounds in Bandra-Kurla Complex. The police has slapped a fine of Rs 12,500 on the organisers as loud music continued to be played even after 10 pm deadline. The Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) police took a suo moto action, as there were reports that Coldplay kept on playing music, joined by music director A.R. Rahman. Both were playing Rahmans popular rendition of the national song Vande Mataram at that time. Deputy commissioner of police Ashok Dudhe, spokesperson for the Mumbai police, said, We have initiated action under section 33 of the Bombay Police Act. We imposed a fine of Rs 12,500 on the organisers, and they have already paid it. The fine was collected by the Bandra-Kurla Complex police. The Coldplay concert has been mired in controversies with Mr Martin being accused of disrespecting the Indian flag. Opposition parties in the state had also accused the organisers of extracting undue benefits from the government. Both, the state government and Coldplay have been asked to apologise for disrespecting the national flag. Repeated attempts to contact the organisers yielded no response at the time of going to the press. Captain Radhika Menon was awarded for her bravery in the dramatic rescue of 7 fishermen from a sinking fishing boat. Captain Radhika Menon received her medal and certificate of commendation at an awards ceremony at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) headquarters in London last evening. (Photo: Twitter/ANI) London: India's first female Merchant Navy captain has become the first woman to be awarded by the IMO for her exceptional bravery in the dramatic rescue of seven fishermen from a sinking fishing boat in tumultuous Bay of Bengal waters last year. Captain Radhika Menon received her medal and certificate of commendation at an awards ceremony at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) headquarters in London last evening. "I am honoured and humbled with this great honour for me and my team. It is a seafarer's duty to help souls in distress and I did my duty. Seafaring is a noble profession which contributes massively to world trade and economy as well as cultural integration. It does not always get the recognition it deserves," said Menon in her acceptance speech. Menon, who was nominated by the Indian government, became the first woman to receive the IMO Award for Exceptional Bravery at Sea, an annual award established by IMO to provide international recognition for those who, at the risk of losing their own life, perform acts of exceptional bravery. "Seafaring is a gender-neutral profession and if you work hard, like in any other field, you will win appreciation," said the Kerala-born ship captain. Her award related to her successful rescue of all seven fishermen from the fishing boat 'Durgamma', which was adrift following engine failure and loss of anchor in severe weather. Food and water had been washed away and they were surviving on ice from the cold storage. Through wave heights of more than 25 feet, winds of more than 60 knots and heavy rain in June 2015, the 'Sampurna Swarajya' vessel operated by the Shipping Corporation of India Ltd spotted the boat 2.5 kilometres away, off the coast of Gopalpur, Orissa. Menon, who was in charge of the vessel, ordered a rescue operation, utilising the pilot ladder, with life jackets and buoys on standby. It took three arduous attempts in the lashing wind and rain before all seven weak and starving fishermen, aged from 15 to 50 years old, were brought to safety on board the ship. "This act of exceptional bravery and the award will go a long way in raising the profile of this great profession. We will plan a publication to publicise this widely," said Dinesh Patnaik, the Indian Acting High Commissioner to the UK. The IMO Council had also endorsed the recommendation of its panel of judges that out of a total of 23 nominations, received from nine member states and one inter-governmental organisation, four should receive Certificates of Commendation and six should receive Letters of Commendation. Another Indian to receive a commendation during the ceremony in London was B M Das, Uttam Navik, a winch operator and diver of the rescue helicopter CG 822, Indian Coast Guard Air Station Daman. He was also nominated by India for rescuing all 14 crew members of the merchant ship 'Coastal Pride', which capsised and eventually sank. Anxiety over where US might be headed once Don takes office marks TV awards. Shonda Rhimes, winner of the Founders Award, appears in the press room for the 44th International Emmy Awards at the New York Hilton New York: TV hit-maker Shonda Rhimes vowed to be a voice for those who feel scared about being marginalised following Donald Trumps election victory as she accepted an honorary International Emmy award on Monday night. British and German TV productions each won three International Emmys, including acting honours for Dustin Hoffman and Christiane Paul. But the usually festive atmosphere at the gathering of international broadcasters was temper-ed by anxiety over where the United States might be headed once Trump takes office in January. Host Alan Cumming opened the ceremony by wryly noting that the Hilton New York ballroom was the same site used for Trumps election night victory party. I feel its my moral obligation to inform you that on November 8 this hall was the venue for one of the darkest, most negative and utterly destructive moments in the history of this country, The Good Wife star observed. He went on to say that the awards ceremony honouring excellence is about extinguishing the bad energy and bigotry. Tony Goldwyn, who stars as President Fitzger-ald Grant in Scandal, presented the honorary Inter-national Emmy Founders Award to Rhimes, whom he described as a groundbreaker for diversity on television by creating, wr-iting and producing such shows as Scandal, Greys Anatomy, and How to Get Away with Murder. With our political dialogue sadly exclusively focused on what divides us, the world of Shonda-land is a constant remin-der of Maya Angelous oft-quoted phrase: We are more alike my friends than we are unalike. Rhimes herself acknowledged the changed political climate as she spoke about the many people who feel scared about their future people of colour, women, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, Muslims and people with disabilities. They are afraid that their voices will no longer be heard and they believe that they are going to be silenced, she said. But television is the most powerful source of communication in the world ... Words have power. TV has power. My pen has power. I have been thinking about that. Hoffman received the award for best performance by an actor for the BBC One TV movie Roald Dahls Esio Trot, in which he portrayed a lonely retired bachelor who hatches an audacious plan to woo the widow in the flat below who is overly fond of her pet tortoise. Hoffman was not present to accept the award. Germanys Paul garner-ed the best actress award for her performance in Untern Radar (Under the Radar) as a judge whose life is upended when her daughter is suspected of being responsible for a bombing in Berlin. We have to remember what we are that were human beings and please dont have fear and dont be afraid from terrorism attacks, she said. You must remember that we all belong together and have to fight against the real problems of the world. A total of 40 nominees from 15 countries competed in 10 categories for International Emmys, which honour excellence in TV programming outside the US. Britains Hoff the Record, with former Baywatch star David Hasselhoff playing a fictionalised, over-the-top version of himself, won in the comedy category. Capital, about residents of a South London suburb whose lives are impacted when their homes become valued at several million pounds in a soaring property market, won the award for TV movie/mini-series. Unspecified number of Hindus from Bangladesh gaining citizenship. Assam, the theatre of independent Indias biggest mass uprising against illegal foreign migrants (read Bangladeshis), has once again been sucked into the vortex of the natives versus aliens discourse. This follows the Narendra Modi governments move to grant citizenship to minority Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan who have been residents in India for six years. As far as Assam is concerned, the worry among various sections is the possibility of an unspecified number of Hindus from Bangladesh gaining citizenship, a move that would amount to violation of the 1971 cut-off date for detection and expulsion of illegal migrants which forms part of the provisions of the historic 1985 Assam Accord that brought the curtain down on the six-year-old anti-foreigner agitation in the 1980s. The BJP-led governments compulsions can be understood with senior leaders like Assams finance, health and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma saying Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and elsewhere have only India to head for to seek refuge in times of crisis whereas Muslims have several places to go. If Hindus flee from countries where they fear religious persecution, India has to protect them and give them shelter. Where will these Hindus, who are minorities in other countries, go if India does not accept them? Muslims and Christians have got several places to go to, Mr Sarma was quoted as saying in September. Whether countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and others would open their borders to let Muslim refugees in during moments of crisis is another matter! Now, groups like the All Assam Students Union (AASU); Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), a peasants group; the Asam Sahitya Sabha, the states apex socio-literary body, and others have questioned whether citizenship can be granted on the basis of religion and whether the move would not violate the provisions of the Assam Accord and make the state a dumping ground for illegal migrants. In fact, the BJP-led government at the Centre and in Assam appears to have embarked on a serious exercise to take a hard look at the issue, perhaps after the response from various quarters on the proposal. In Assams context, the issue has become more complex because Clause 6 of the Assam Accord promises special safeguards for the Assamese people. Nothing has happened so far although 31 years have passed by. An acceptable definition as to who would come under the bracket Assamese people has also not been found yet. The two issues the issue of special safeguards to Assamese people and the move to grant citizenship to Hindu Bangladeshis are actually linked. One argument says it is fine to facilitate the stay of Hindus in India who had to flee countries like Bangladesh due to alleged religious persecution. But there are others who feel granting these people citizenship would have an impact on the linguistic sphere as the number of Bengali-speaking population is bound to rise. What is not known, however, is the extent of the increase because one really doesnt know the number of such people who could be already in Assam. Many are also asking whether such people can be dispersed across the country, and, if not, can they be confined to the Bengali-speaking Barak Valley districts. It may be difficult to restrict people in a particular area, and, therefore, the issue needs to be examined from all angles. Recently, senior BJP leader Ram Madhav, Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal and Mr Sarma held an interaction with a select group of opinion-makers from Assam on the subject. It was a good attempt at going deep into the matter that is indeed sensitive. Among the many points of view put across by those present was the question whether at least 80 of Assams 126 Assembly seats could be reserved for the indigenous people of the state. Well, it is a good idea and can fulfil the expectation generated 30 years ago with the provision finding a place in Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. But, how to go about it? After all, any move to reserve seats on a community basis must be able to stand legal scrutiny. The exact wording of the much-talked-about Clause 6 of the Assam Accord are as follows: Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as many be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people. Now, the obvious question is: who are the Assamese people? Had the drafters of the accord used the term indigenous people, there would not have been so much of a problem. Now, when ethnic groups have asserted their aspirations to maintain their distinct identity, like the Bodos, Dimasas, Karbis and so on, would they be willing to come under the bracket of Assamese people? One would wait and see how the BJP leadership negotiates through this issue and reach a solution. Again, there seems to be a move in certain quarters to try and have 1951 as the cut-off date for detection and expulsion of illegal migrants, and they have moved the courts in this regard. This will also have a bearing on the Assam Accord because it would amount to pushing back the cut-off date by 20 years. If this happens, one would expect more people to fall under the bracket of illegal migrants. But, what could be the fallout of any such move (if it happens) on the process of updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC)? Already, certain quarters have come out with the discovery that during the chief ministership of Gopinath Bordoloi, around 200,000 illegal migrants had been pushed back to the then East Pakistan. These people were said to have returned after a few years. The same quarters now say that people from this category had submitted their old documents during the NRC update process and that they should now be made to submit proof of continuous residence in Assam. Amid the confusion came a written reply by Union minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju in the Rajya Sabha on November 16 that there are two crore illegal Bangladeshi migrants in India. The basis of this figure is not known but it amounts to a 67 per cent increase over the 1.2 crore estimate given out by the UPA government in 2004 but withdrawn rather quickly. Whether the Assamese people would get their special safeguards is difficult to predict, but the politics of citizenship sure is going to gather steam in the days ahead. Farage was one of the few world leaders to have met and endorsed Donald Trump during the US presidential elections. Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, share a very good relationship. (Photo: AP) Washington: In an unprecedented move, President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday indicated that he would like to have Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit movement, as the next British Ambassador to the United States. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!" Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday. It is one of the rarest occasions that a foreign leader has indicated his favourite picture of a diplomatic envoy from other country. Trump and Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, share a very good relationship. Farage was one of the few world leaders to have met and endorsed Donald Trump during the US presidential elections. He had also helped Mr Trump prepare for debate. He had said that he is not for an ambassadorial posting. The British leader is likely to attend the January 20 inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. Mitt Romney had called Trump a conman, phony and fraud during the election campaign. Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump has said his former bete noire Mitt Romney, who had called him a "conman, phony and fraud" during the election campaign, wants to be his Secretary of State, a media report has said. During a meeting with television journalists and chief executives on Monday, Trump, 70, also said that he wanted to have a military man to head the Department of Defence this time, the report said. "Trump said he believes it is time to have someone from the military as secretary of defence and mentioned that former presidential candidate Mitt Romney 'really wants' the Secretary of State position," 'Politico' reported based on the information obtained from those present in the meeting. One of Trump's most vocal Republican Party critics, Romney had met the President-elect on Saturday. However, there has been no public confirmation from the presidential transition team. After his meeting with Trump, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich favoured Rudy Giuliani, the former New York Mayor for the position of Secretary of State. "I think there are huge advantages to Rudy Giuliani frankly, I think that, if you want someone who is going to go out and be a very tough negotiator for America and represent American interest in the way that Trump campaigned, I think that probably Rudy is a better pick and has the right temperament," Gingrich told reporters. "Because we're going to need somebody who is a fighter. We're going to need somebody, the world is not going to change just because we show up and say please. If that was going to work, Secretary Kerry would be successful," he said in response to a question. The Trump Campaign manager Kellylanne Conway said Trump had not spoken with Romney after their meeting. "They both recognised they had a rough and tumble campaign. I mean, a week before that, President-elect Trump had great practice in meeting with President Obama, and they had exchanged barbs on the campaign trail days earlier," she said. "I think that everyone agrees that they love this country and they want to help this transition into the next administration," Conway said. Meanwhile, top Republican Senator John McCain on Monday appeared to be supporting Trump's potential pick Gen (rtd) James Mattis as the Defence Secretary. "I am pleased that the President-elect found General Jim Mattis as impressive as I have in the many years I have had the privilege of knowing him. General Mattis is one of the finest military officers of his generation and an extraordinary leader who inspires a rare and special admiration of his troops," McCain said. "He is a forthright strategic thinker. His integrity is unshakable and unquestionable. And he has earned his knowledge and experience the old-fashioned way: in the crucible of our nation's defence and the service of heroes," he said. "General Mattis has a clear understanding of the many challenges facing the Department of Defence, the US military, and our national security. I hope he has an opportunity to serve America again," McCain said. In a tweet, Trump has indicated that Mattis is his favourite pick for the Department of Defence. A water cooling system at a reactor in separate Fukushima Daini facility had briefly stopped, but it was back up and operating. Vehicles make a line as they flee following a tsunami warning in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture early Tuesday. (Photo: AP) Tokyo: A powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit northeastern Japan on Tuesday, triggering tsunamis along the coast including a one-metre (3.3-foot) wave that crashed ashore at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant. National broadcaster NHK urged residents in the region to "flee immediately" to high ground, reminding listeners to heed the lessons of the "Great East Japan Earthquake". A massive undersea quake that hit in March 2011 unleashed a tsunami that left more than 18,500 people dead or missing, and sent three reactors into meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in one of the worlds worst nuclear disasters. An official from plant operator TEPCO told a news conference that a one-metre wave had hit the coast at the facility, but a spokesman for the company told AFP there were no reports of damage. TEPCO earlier reported that a water cooling system at a reactor in the separate Fukushima Daini facility had briefly stopped in an automatic response, but that it was back up and operating. "The biggest risk now is a case whereby contaminated water is carried away with the tsunami, which pollutes the environment," TEPCOs chief decommissioning officer Naohiro Masuda said at the televised press conference in Tokyo. Several other tsunami waves, the biggest measuring 1.4 metres (4.6 feet), hit elsewhere on the northeastern coast, according to NHK, but they were smaller than initial warnings of waves as high as 3.0 metres. NHK aired rolling coverage on the earthquake, with the words "Tsunami! Flee!" written in white lettering over a bright red band in the middle of the screen. 'Ground is still shaking' No signs of major damage were immediately evident from television images, and authorities reported a small number of light injuries, but residents along the coast were badly shaken. "It was huge and lasted so long," Akemi Anzai, from the city of Minamisoma which lies north of the Fukushima plant, said of the quake. "The tsunami siren warning can be heard from the coastline," she told AFP. "The ground is still shaking. Im so scared. But my concern is rather the situation at the nuclear plant." The United States Geological Survey said the 6.9 magnitude quake, at a shallow depth of 11.3 kilometres (seven miles), struck shortly before 6:00 am (2100 GMT on Monday) in the Pacific ocean off Fukushima. The powerful quake also shook buildings in Tokyo, which lies about 230 kilometres to the south. Japans Meteorological Agency, which estimated the quakes magnitude at 7.4, downgraded its tsunami warning from an "alert" to an "advisory" although still urged caution along coastal areas. Shinkansen bullet train services were temporarily suspended in the region and Sendai airport in Miyagi, north of Fukushima, was closed. Authorities said that a total of six people were lightly injured including five in Fukushima prefecture and one in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo, while two other people were hurt in Miyagi prefecture. The national disaster management agency said there was a minor fire at a laboratory in Fukushima but that it was quickly put out. NHK showed footage of what appeared to be sea water flowing up a river in Miyagi prefecture though none of it surged beyond the rivers banks. Some evacuees took to Twitter to express their fears. "Im at a cultural centre where I evacuated during the previous disaster (in 2011)," one person tweeted in Japanese. "This reminds me of that." Speaking during a visit to Argentina, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe directed the government to work with authorities in the affected areas. He said he had ordered his cabinet to "assess damage and do their utmost to cope with the disaster". Japan sits at the junction of four tectonic plates and experiences a number of relatively violent quakes every year. In April, two strong earthquakes hit southern Japans Kumamoto prefecture followed by more than 1,700 aftershocks, leaving at least 50 dead and causing widespread damage. Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage re resent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States, says Trump. London: Britain on Tuesday dismissed US President-elect Donald Trumps unprecedented expression of support for Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage to be made British ambassador to Washington, saying pointedly that there is no vacancy for the job. Mr Trump, who after his election victory met Farage before any EU leaders, said on Twitter that many people would like to see the former metals-trader-turned-politician as Britains ambassador. Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage re resent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Trump said. UK Prime Minister Theresa May was swift to reject such an undiplomatic proposal, with a spokesman saying Britain already had an excellent ambassador to Washington and that London would appoint its own envoys. We have first rate ambassador in Washington, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who campaigned for Brexit, told the British parliament. There is no vacancy for that position. Mr Farage, meanwhile, said Trumps suggestion that he serve as ambassador had come like a bolt from the blue but Trump understood loyalty in a way that those in the cesspit of career politics did not. I am in a good position with the President-elects support to help. The world has changed and its time that Downing Street did too, Farage said in an article written for the Breitbart news website. Mr Farage said Trump would be a great president after thepolitical revolution that brought Brexit in Britain and Mr Trump to power in the US. 5 paramilitaries were wounded in the attack, which happened when a Frontier Corps truck was travelling through a congested neighbourhood. Overall levels of militant-linked violence have fallen since the Pakistan army launched an operation in 2014 to wipe out militant bases in the tribal districts. (Photo: Representational Image/AFP) Peshawar: A bomb which targeted a paramilitary truck on a crowded city street killed three security personnel Tuesday in Pakistan's troubled northwest, where levels of militant violence had recently dropped. Police said another five paramilitaries were wounded in the attack, which happened when a Frontier Corps truck was travelling through a congested neighbourhood in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial capital of Peshawar. "The IED (improvised explosive device) was planted along the roadside and exploded as the FC truck passed by," Mohammad Sajjad Khan, a senior police official in Peshawar, told AFP. "Three FC men have been killed and five wounded," Khan said. Zulfiqar Babakhel, a spokesman for the city's main hospital, confirmed the death toll and said two of the wounded were critically injured. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Overall levels of militant-linked violence have fallen since the Pakistan army launched an operation in 2014 to wipe out militant bases in the tribal districts and end an insurgency that has cost thousands of civilian lives since 2004. But militant groups are still able to carry out periodic bloody attacks, particularly in the northwest. Raheel Sharifs successor will face challenges ranging from an increasingly hostile India to the conflict in Afghanistan. Islamabad: Pakistan's popular military chief is expected to stand down this week after winning the hearts of millions with his bruising campaign against Islamic militants, leaving a vacancy for arguably the most powerful job in the country. Whoever steps into General Raheel Sharif's shoes will play an outsize role in national life, offering the armed reassurance against arch-rival India that many Pakistanis see as vital to their identity. With the civilian government largely dismissed as corrupt and inefficient, the military offers a form of stability and steadfastness. "The army is the only institution in Pakistan that is organised," analyst Hassan Askari told AFP. "So the army has an advantage and also plays a role in politics, either openly or pulling strings from behind the scenes." Sharif was the figurehead behind a widely-lauded crackdown against militancy that is credited with pushing Islamist extremists to the margins. Many in Pakistan were so grateful the hashtag #ThankYouRaheelSharif went viral that some even called for the general to launch a military coup. Critics say rights are being rolled back in the name of defeating terror, pointing to the creation of military courts and the resumption of hangings after a six-year moratorium. But there is no sign of a course correction from military headquarters in Rawalpindi city, and the announcement on Monday that Sharif had begun a farewell tour scotched speculation he would extend his three-year tenure, set to end November 29, as previous military chiefs have done. The general's decision won him praise for respecting democracy, even as disappointed Pakistanis swarmed social media to pay tribute. His as-yet un-named successor will face challenges ranging from an increasingly hostile India to the conflict in Afghanistan, growing links between homegrown militants and Islamic State jihadists, and blowback from a Trump presidency. He will also take control of the military's uneasy relationship with the civilian government. The military has been in charge of Pakistan for more than half of its nearly 70-year history. The country is nominally ruled at present by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. But his administration is embroiled in accusations of corruption and waste, and increasingly finds itself playing second fiddle to a military that is already widely seen as controlling foreign policy and defence, leading to accusations it is carrying out a "creeping coup". "General Sharif will be remembered for positing the military as a state within a state more than many of the guys before him," analyst Ayesha Siddiqa told AFP. "The manner in which Sharif pushed the envelope was unbelievable." The contenders The power to choose the new military chief lies with Nawaz Sharif, though he is believed to be working off a shortlist supplied by the men in uniform. The highest-ranking contender is the army's Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Zubair Hayat, previously responsible for the safety and security of the country's nuclear programme. Behind Hayat in rank but seen by some analysts as a favourite, is Lieutenant General Ishfaq Nadeem, commander of the important Multan corps. The others in the running are Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa, chief of the army's training and evaluation branch, and Lieutenant General Javed Iqbal Ramdey, respected for an operation to drive out the Pakistani Taliban in northwestern Swat Valley in 2009. Analysts agree there may be little change in tack, especially with regards to Afghanistan, India and China. "The new generals coming up next are all trained by Raheel Sharif," said analyst Ahmed Rashid, though he warned there would be more pressure on the civilian government to perform. Much may depend on the relationship with Washington, which has supplied billions to the military for the fight against extremism since 2002. Sharif helped to improve relations after a furore over the US killing of former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, found hiding in Pakistan. But choppy waters lie ahead. The incoming Trump administration has said little about Pakistan specifically. However the president-elect's anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric, seeming desire to cut foreign spending, and business interests in India are ominous signs for Sharif's successor. If each of us is faithful to the Lord, when death comes, we shall say as Francis said, 'sister death, come' ... We are not scared. And when the day of judgment comes, we shall look to the Lord: 'Lord, I have so many sins, but I tried to be faithful'. And the Lord is good. Vatican City (AsiaNews) Pope Francis celebrated Mass this morning at Santa Marta House. During the service he said that if we are loyal to God, we will not be afraid when we die. The pontiff spoke about Jesus words about not being deceived (Luke 21.5 to 11) and the Churchs reflection in the last week of the Liturgical Year. He warned against the alienation of living "as if we should never die". Instead, he called upon us to think about the "traces our life leaves." "A call from the Lord to think seriously at the end, [. . .] the end of each of us, since everyone will have his or her end. [. . .] We might not like to think about these things, but there is the truth. [. . .] When one of us is gone, years will pass, and hardly anyone will remember us." I have an agenda," Francis said, "in which I write when a person dies" and each day I see this "event" and "how time goes by. [. . .] This forces us to think about what we leave, about the "traces" of our life. After the end, as todays page from the Apocalypse of John says, there will be a day of judgment for each of us. "It will do us good to think about how that day will be when I will be in front of Jesus, when He will ask me about the talents he gave me, about what I did with them, when He will ask me how my heart was when the seed fell, like a journey or as thorns: the Parables of the Kingdom of God. How did I receive the Word? With an open heart? Did I nurture it for everyones good or did I do it covertly?" Quoting from the Gospel of Luke about not being deceived, the pope warned that each of us will come before Jesus on Judgment Day. The deception he speaks of is the ' "alienation", "estrangement", the deception of the "things that are superficial," which "have no transcendence", the "deception of living as if we should never die. [. . .] When the Lord comes", he asks, "how will he find me? Waiting or in the midst of so many of lifes alienations? "I remember that when I was a child, when I went to catechism, we were taught four things: death, judgment, hell or glory. After the judgment there is this possibility. 'But, Father, this is to scare us . . . '. 'No, it is the truth! Because if you do not treat your heart, so that the Lord is with you, and you always live away from the Lord, there is perhaps the danger, the danger of going on like this, distant for eternity from the Lord. This is very ugly! In order to escape from the fear of that moment, Francis suggested again today's reading from Apocalypse of John. This is the Apostle's advice: "Remain faithful until death, said the Lord, and I will give you the crown of life." "Faithfulness to the Lord will not let you down. If each of us is faithful to the Lord, when death comes, we shall say as Francis said, 'sister death, come'. . . We are not scared. And when the day of judgment comes, we shall look to the Lord: 'Lord, I have so many sins, but I have tried to be faithful'. And the Lord is good. I shall give you this advice: Remain faithful until death, said the Lord, and I will give you the crown of life. With this loyalty we shall not be afraid of the end, when our end comes, we shall not fear the day of judgment." by Weena Kowitwanij The Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace issues a message for Human Rights Day. The late king always invested himself "for the good of everyone in accordance with democracy and the dignity of every person." Bangkok (AsiaNews) "His Majesty led a life in accordance with democracy, a model that reflects the teachings of Jesus Christ about love and mercy, justice and the commitment of everyone to the common good, writes Mgr Philip Banchong Chaiyara, president of the Committee for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Thailand (CBCT), in a message issued on Human Rights Day, celebrated on 20 November by the local Church. The bishop mentioned King Bhumibol Adulyadej who died on 13 October, who in his 70 years of reign "stressed the importance of the public good, regardless of differences in race, religion, political belief and social status." The king, the message goes on to say, "was concerned with social problems and appealed to political parties to be honest in conducting their business, in governance, and in doing their duty for the good of all." Human development carried out by giving priority to the person, based on a self-sufficient economy, on the principle of seeking useful innovations for all, writes Mgr Chaiyara, "is the centerpiece of the encyclical of Blessed Pope Paul VI, who wrote about how to develop the nation by placing each person at the centre, whilst respecting their dignity." The bishop noted that King Bhumibol was always a champion of religious freedom, "the patron saint of all faiths." He extended education opportunities to the disadvantaged and realised that everyone has the right to earn a living and be safe, the message reads. For this reason, he supported agriculture, the stability of food prices, and public health." On the day the Catholic Church celebrates human rights, "I am without words for the great loss of the beloved king of all Thai and Thai Catholics, Mgr Chaiyara writes. Thailand will mark Human Rights Day on 10 December, Constitution Day. Also on that date, in 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. by Melani Manel Perera In June, a huge fire damaged more than 2,000 homes. The owners of those with minor damages, about half of the total, were able to go home. The others still live in houses rented by the government. The authorities have paid for the houses but not for tools and furniture. Damage assessments undervalue losses. Many of those who lost their jobs as a result of the fire are still unemployed. Colombo (AsiaNews) Hundreds of the families took to the streets in Colombo to reiterate their right to a home. They were affected by a huge fire in June that swept the Salawa army base, east of the capital, damaging more than 2,000 houses and shops. The so-called Salawa victims gathered in front of Fort Railway Station and demanded that their situation be solved soon. Protesters complain that after five months and many promises, many of those affected by the fire are still forced to live in houses rented by the government and have not received adequate compensation for their losses. On 5 June, fire broke out on the army base and spread to the munitions depot, causing explosions felt within a radius of several kilometres. The debris caused extensive damage. So far the military have repaired about a thousand homes that suffer minor damage. "Compensation is handed by the district administration," said military spokesman Brigadier Roshan Senevirathna. "The government has not paid what they promised us, replied Hemantha Priyankara Rodrigo, head of the victims group. Some people have received some money for homes, but no compensation for tools and furniture that were completely destroyed. " Senarathne, another resident, complains that his home structure "had 17 pillars and I will never be able to rebuild it as it was." According to the owners of other businesses, the damage assessments by the authorities do not reflect the true market value of the properties but are lower by at least 30 per cent. Athula Parana Yapa, a local businessman, reports that more than 250 local workers have lost their jobs. What is more, "I paid millions of rupees in taxes and insurance, he noted, and so far I have not had any compensation." During the fourth weekend of protests, the South Korean people continue to crowd the streets of the capital. The presidential office rejects the prosecutors accusations, who say Park is an "accomplice" and "suspect". Seoul (AsiaNews) - About one million demonstrators took to the streets of Seoul to clamor for the resignation of South Korean president Park Geun-hye, involved in an alleged corruption scandal. It is South Koreas largest protest since the 1980s. The situation of the South Korean president Park Geun-hye continues to worsen, the Seoul prosecutor suspects her of colluding with longtime friend Choi Soon-sil, who was arrested in early November. Choi was accused of using her influence on the president to extort large sums of money from 53 industry groups for a total amount of 65.7 million US dollars. Other important elements of this scandal are Chong An bum and Jeong Ho-seong, former assistants to the presidency. Choi and An are accused of abuse of power, instead Jeong was accused of divulging 180 classified documents - 47 of them contained state secrets to Choi. President Park still enjoys parliamentary immunity and does not seem to realize the gravity of the situation, according to the Koreatimes. In a November 22 article by Park Si-soo it published a conversation between the president and one of the collaborators of her presidential office, suggesting to Park Geun-hye that "it would be wise if you resign. And that it would be the best way to save face. If you stand aside and disappear from the public, then public outrage would be assuaged". But the president reportedly answered: "Did I do something wrong?". This conversation was made public on Monday, 21 by Min Byeong-doo, representative of South Koreas majority Democratic Party, who attests to the reliability of the information from intelligence sources. Min added: "The president does not seem to be able to think and analyze the situation. I think deep down she really believes that she is not guilty and can only make decisions herself ". On Sunday, the prosecution said Park was an "accomplice" and "suspect". The presidential office did not hesitate to criticize the prosecutors decisions as "castles in the clouds", lacking in objective proof and swearing that Park will not cooperate with the prosecutors investigating the scandal. "The three themes announced above are intended to give a clear Marian tone to the spiritual journey of the next three WYDs. At the same time they give a picture of young people on a journey between the past (2017), present (2018) and future (2019), inspired by the three theological virtues of faith, charity and hope". Vatican City (AsiaNews) - The themes chosen by the Pope for the next three years World Youth Days will focus on the Beatitudes. They are: "The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name (Lk 1:49) for the 2017, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God (Lk 1:30) " (Lk 1:30) for 2018 and "I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word "(Lk 1:38) for the 35th International Day in 2019 that will be held in Panama. A statement of the dicastery for the laity, family and life published a statement today that said the spiritual path indicated by the Holy Father continues the reflection that started with the last three WYDs (2014-16) when the themes were focused on the Beatitudes. As we know, Mary is the one that all generations call blessed (cf. Lk 1:49). In Pope Francis prepared address for the meeting with WYD volunteers in Krakow, he spoke of the disposition of the Mother of Jesus and described her as a role model to be imitated. While speaking without notes on that occasion, the Holy Father invited young people to have memory of the past, courage for the present and to have/be hope for the future. The three themes announced above are intended to give a clear Marian tone to the spiritual journey of the next three WYDs. At the same time they give a picture of young people on a journey between the past (2017), present (2018) and future (2019), inspired by the three theological virtues of faith, charity and hope. This path that is being proposed to young people can also be seen to be in harmony with the reflection that Pope Francis has entrusted to the next Synod of Bishops: Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment. by Nirmala Carvalho She is one of the recipients of the Mother Teresa Memorial Award. In 2009 she escaped an assassination attempt in Kabul and decided to help children and youth. She produced illustrated books and set up storytelling schools in which the countrys cultural heritage is passed down by word of mouth. Mumbai (AsiaNews) Selene Biffi, a Hindu Italian social entrepreneur, believes that books can help children understand the power of education and enable them to always choose peace and repudiate violence. For her efforts, she recently received the 2016 Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice in Mumbai. For years, she has worked in Afghanistan, where she founded an association that encourages education and promotes the countrys cultural heritage. The local illiteracy rate is over 30 per cent and studying is hard to do under the constant threat of attacks. In 2004, Ms Biffi founded the Youth Action for Change (YAC), a non-profit organisation that focuses on the development of young people. Today, the association offers free online courses to young people in more than 130 countries worldwide. She says that she went from being an observer to being a facilitator of change. Her first experience in Afghanistan goes back to September 2009, when she arrived in Kabul as part of a United Nations project to write a textbook for children in rural areas that "teaches simple concepts in health, agriculture and development." Originally, she wanted to be an outside election monitor, but her application was turned down nine times. Shortly after arriving in Kabul, the Taliban carried out an attack against the hotel that housed international observers, killing six UN employees. As a result of this, she was evacuated and returned to Italy, where she decided to work for the poor children of Afghanistan. In addition to the book project for the United Nations, she decided to write an illustrated book on public health. In her view, this is the best way to overcome illiteracy. "Using illustrations to communicate information is the key to success". Her first experience in Afghanistan led her to set up a second NGO in 2010, Plain Ink, which produces and distributes children's books and comics in Italy and India. This was followed by the idea of establishing a storytelling school to preserve Afghanistans cultural heritage and instill hope in young people so that they could be advocates of information development. All her work, she said, "is due to her falling in love with Afghanistan. There is something magical here despite the difficulties, the war and everything else. It is the resilience and dignity of its people." The project has been in the work for more than five years, during which Selene saw the potential of educating 20,000 people every year in schools across the country. In its first year, the project took in unemployed boys and girls from various tribal groups. It includes courses in English, fiction and creative writing, music and art. As part of the programme, students receive personal and professional support and counselling. Selene Biffi is aware of the countrys political challenges and instability. A week after her initiative was alunched, a suicide attack in a Kabul neighbourhood close to where she lives caused the death of nine people. "When you work for the possibility of change, difficulties abound. However, the latter also give hope." The head of UN humanitarian operations speaks of people "isolated, starved, bombed without any medical care and humanitarian assistance." Government forces charged with deliberate use of "cruel tactics". In November, the rebels rockets on Aleppo killed more than 60 civilians in the western sector. The Security Councils inaction. Damascus (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The number of people living under siege in Syria has doubled in the last year, from 486,700 to 974,080 in the last six months. This was stated by the coordinator of UN humanitarian operations in Syria Stephen O'Brien, during a speech yesterday at the United Nations Security Council. The top diplomat spoke of people who are "isolated, starved, bombed without any medical care and humanitarian assistance, to force them to surrender or to flee." In Syria, especially in Aleppo, the situation seems to be getting more desperate. Local sources speak of government mortar shells, bombs and barrels bomb on the eastern sector. And yet, the very serious humanitarian crisis due to lack of food and the interruption - prolonged - of aid deliveries. In the east of the northern metropolis, the former economic and commercial hub, about 250 thousand people live under siege with no operating hospitals. A government air raid on November 20 destroyed the last operational hospital and the situation is increasingly critical. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) "there are no longer functioning hospitals" in the east. There is also violence in the western sector which is the government-controlled and inhabited by the vast majority of the population (about 1.2 million people). In November more than 350 mortar rounds and rockets fell fired by insurgents indiscriminately causing problems in most cases civilian targets. At least 60 people died in three weeks in the west, about 350 were wounded. A public school was hit on November 20; according to government sources at least eight children died in the attack. Speaking to the UN Security Council, Stephen O'Brien has denounced the "cruelty deliberate tactic" used by the armed forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al Assad. In recent weeks the areas under siege grew to include the suburbs of Jobar, Hajar al-Aswad and Khan al-Shih in Damascus, as well as several villages in the area of agricultural Ghouta, the eastern outskirts of the capital. Besides the capital, the most critical situation according to the senior official of the United Nations is in Aleppo, especially in the eastern sector, where humanitarian conditions have "gone from terrible to horrific" and now people struggle to survive." At the same time there has been a "massive increase" in the use of "cruel tactics", in particular "by the Syrian government." Finally, Stephen O'Brien criticized the same United Nations Security Council, "seemingly unable or reluctant" to end the war. Moreover, the veto by Russia so far has blocked all the initiatives concerning the Syrian issue, raising tensions between the various powers. In the context of the meeting, the United States ambassador to the UN Samantha Power has released a list of Syrian high officials who - according to Washington - attack civilians and should be brought to justice. In spite of the complaint, the US administration appears increasingly weak in the Syrian arena, where the incumbent president Barack Obama has never wanted a military campaign. This has encouraged the resistance of the Damascus government, strengthened last year after Russian interventionism. And the re-conquest of Aleppo, in this context, according to experts seems to be "matter of weeks" or before the inauguration of the new US administration, on January 20 next. In the background, the US president-elect Donald Trump, who seems determined to mend relations with the Kremlin after years of frosty contacts as well as the victory in the primaries of the center-right Francois Fillon French, candidate of the Republicans in the upcoming presidential Elysee, seems to be another factor in favor of the Syrian government. In recent weeks Fillon has repeated on several occasions that in the face "of Islamic totalitarianism" we must bring together "all possible forces, all possible states, whether they are democratic or no, to help to President Assad. Already in 1818, the highest Egyptian judicial institution had halted (radical) Saudi hegemonic ambitions. Now there is a renewed struggle, with the Riyadh boycott of al-Azhar. A cold and silent war that has favored the emergence of jihadist groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State. The Grand Imam Al-Tayeb promotes dialogue and tolerance between religions. Cairo (AsiaNews) - In less than two years is the bicentenary of the fight, which took place in 1818, between the theological home of the mosque of al-Azhar, supported by Egypt, and Wahhabism, supported by Saudi Arabia, which marked the end of latters expansionist politics. An attempt to dominate the Arab Islamic world, that was limited within the borders of the Arabian Peninsula. In what, more precisely, later became the kingdom of today's Saudi Arabia. Since then, although everything apparently seemed passed, flames have been flickering under the ashes of an unresolved conflict. Even during the twentieth century, there have been rival positions, and even boycotts by Riyadh of al-Azhars activities. Whats more, the Saudi Embassy in Cairo has funded the studies of Asian Islamic law students (fiqh) at the University of al-Azhar, and through conferences and publications, promoted their conclusion that what they were taught in al-Azhar was schism and deviation from the true religion, which is enclosed in Wahhabism the custodian of the holy places of Islam and where the religion of Mohammed was revealed. Many of these students of Islamic schools, attracted by the money and invitations to Saudi Arabia, despite having concluded studies at the Egyptian university and returning home with a doctorate in Islamic Sharia released by al-Azhar, then become part of the Wahhabis current. Thus, since the 1980s of the last century, Asians Wahabbi imams have increased "showered" with gifts and blessings from Saudi Arabia. Particular attention has been bestowed on Malaysia, where last February - thanks to a survey of the Egyptian site Yom Al Sabee - the news emerged of a parallel indoctrination promoted at Madina International University, a local institution created and funded by Riyadh, also based in Cairo. In order to be able to bestow religious doctorate recognized by al-Azhar, the Malaysian universities in question welcomed professors from the Egyptian institution, thus covering to its real academic program which is in direct contrast to al-Azhar. According to the Egyptian site, the Madina university academic course is a vessel for Wahabi ideas. In a similar fashion, Saudi Arabia has taken possession of the chairs of Islamic studies at the American University, where tens of thousands of graduates from over 100 different nationalities pass; these students end up supplying "Wahhabi" imams not only to Malaysia, but also many other nations of the African continent. The most affected country is Nigeria, where Salafi groups, inspired by Wahhabism, have increased at a phenomenal rate, as has their growth in Asia. Riyadh is now paying particular attention to Russia and the Caucasus, especially in Chechnya, where Wahhabism is constantly spreading, although the part of Saudi Arabia proselytizing work is done discreetly, as in America and Europe. This Cold War, silent and gentle against al-Azhar has spread thanks to the silence of the Egyptian political authorities, so far condescending to the Saudis who poured rivers of money and aid into Cairo's coffers. All this, while keeping a watchful eye on Wahhabi imams who are behind the spread of violent ideologies and politicized religion, and that led to the birth of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS), not to mention Boko Haram and Abu Sufian in Asia. Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Shaykh Ahmad Al-Tayeb, has recently spoken out against this extremist current in a message of peace to the international community for the World Day for Tolerance on November 16. The Islamic leader said that peace, tolerance, dialogue and respect for others, regardless of religious belief, are elements of all the monotheistic religions. Tolerance, he added, "is also one of the most important messages of Islam and al-Azhar wants to advocate in the world." Encouraged by the Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, al-Azhar and its vertices are strengthening contacts on the local and international level to bring out a moderate vision of Islam against extremist and violence ideologies that spread death and destruction. In Arab countries, as well as in Europe and the rest of the world. And a clash that is being waged, as mentioned before, against the Wahhabi ideology that the Arabian Peninsula has spread around the world. According to the Egyptian journalist Hamdi Saaid Al Salem is not just a tussle between two currents or two different Fikh schools of Islam. In fact, behind this clash there is bitterness and resentment, if not open revenge "for the defeat that Ibrahim Pasha dealt them " in 1818. Meanwhile revenge or not, Wahhabism has spread to almost every continent carrying ideologies of Islamic violence and terrorism like Salafi takfiri. According to an Egyptian cleric the strength of the Saudi proselytizing is in the huge sums of money invested. "Al-Azhar does not possess any organ of audio-visual information - says Imam Ahmad Karim - while the Wahhabis spread their proselytizing on the satellite waves of over 15 TV channels entirely dedicated to Islam and financed by Saudi Arabia." While Egyptian state TV devotes no more than ten minutes to the imam of al-Azhar in its television schedules, Wahhabism comes into every home and talks directly to the poor Egyptians and in Asia and Africa, many of whom are often illiterate in various languages. A massive communication that reaches their hearts but, even more, their minds by giving them hope [vain] for a better life through the martyrdom of the holy war. (PB-LL) White Supremacists Salute 'Hail Trump' At DC Conference Trending News: Literal Fascists Had A Party In The Nation's Capital Long Story Short The National Policy Institute, a Nazi-sympathizing organization, held a conference attended by 275 people in Washington, D.C., that promoted white nationalism and used the same word the Nazis used for the media, "Lugenpresse." Speaker Richard B. Spencer also yelled "Hail Trump," which was greeted with Nazi salutes. Long Story Don't be fooled by the suits or the boring name of the National Policy Institute they're just like Nazis or the KKK, minus the swastika or the hoods. The "alt-right" group (perhaps more aptly described as plain old fascists) is led by Richard B. Spencer who believes that whites are born to conquer and that there should be a "peaceful ethnic cleansing" in America, according to The Atlantic. This may sound absurd, and maybe your first urge is to blame the liberal media for cooking up an anti-Trump hoax. But the problem with that is there's clear video evidence of Spencer touting his insane beliefs steps from the White House just this past Saturday. Spencer yells "Hail Trump" into a microphone at the Ronald Reagan Building and the audience responded by shooting their arms up in the Nazi salute. Spencer was joined at the annual conference by a group of speakers who also advocated for anti-Semitism and ethnonationalism. Here's the proof: Now, it's fair to say that just because racists like these support the president-elect it doesn't mean he is like them or supports them. And that's true to an extent. A spokesman for the Trump said the future president "has always denounced these groups and individuals associated with a message of hate, according to The New York Times. But we know that Trump's spokespeople say one thing, while he says another. Or rather, doesn't say something, like his decision to not decry ex-KKK Grand Wizard David Duke on the campaign trail. We know that Trump sure loves to tweet, and I'd say a tweet bashing Spencer and the NPI would be pretty well-timed right about now. Own The Conversation Ask The Big Question Will Trump decry the National Policy Institute with his own words? Drop This Fact Spencer was reportedly the one to coin the term alternative right. Biglaw lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis, Jones Day , McGuireWoods, Morgan Lewis & Bockius and Morrison & Foerster have been named to Donald Trumps transition team at the US Department of Justice.The team, which will oversee hiring and policy at the DOJ as the President-elect transitions into office, was announced Friday and expanded yesterday, two reports from The National Law Journal reveal.On Friday, Kirland & Ellis partner Brian Benczkowski and Jones Day partner Gregory Katsas and associate James Burnham were revealed to be part of the team. Yesterday, McGuireWoods partner J. Patrick Rowan, Morgan Lewis & Bockius partner Ronald Tenpas and Morrison & Foerster partner Jessie Liu were also named to the team.Benczkowski, who specialises in litigation and white-collar defence, previously worked for Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trumps pick for US Attorney-General, on the Senate Judiciary Committee leading the Republican staff. He also has experience as chief of staff for the Office of the Attorney-General and the Office of the Deputy Attorney-General.Katsas, who served in the DOJ for the entire George W. Bush administration, was formerly the Civil Division chief and also served as acting associate attorney-general. He and Burnham are also partners with Donald McGahn II whos now the general counsel for the transition team, The National Law Journal reported.Meanwhile, Rowan, also a white-collar defence specialist, is the former head of the DOJs National Security Division. He was also a federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in Washington for more than a decade before moving to Main Justice in 2003.Tenpas, who also specialises in white-collar defence, was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois and a federal prosecutor in Maryland and Florida before overseeing the DOJs Environment and Natural Resources Division.Liu, another white-collar defence specialist, was deputy assistant attorney-general in the Civil Rights Division, deputy chief of staff in the National Security Division and counsel to the deputy attorney-general before leading the DOJs National Security and Civil Rights divisions. I turn to the devolved Administrations. What legislative measures would be necessary to extinguish the application of EU law in the devolved nations? I have a specific question to Sir David, if I may. Do you think that the Scottish Parliament would be likely to grant legislative consent? If they did not, what would be the consequences? The formal consequence is this. Under Section 29 of the Scotland Act 1998 the Scottish Parliament is bound by EU law, and, ditto, under Section 57(2) the Scottish Government are bound by EU law. Under the Scotland Bill that is going through Parliament at the moment, the Sewel convention will be recognised in Section 2 if it becomes an Act. Therefore, as I see it, you would have to amend the Scotland Act and, therefore, you would have to have legislative consent from the Scottish Parliament. As reflected in section 28(7) of the Scotland Act 1998, the devolution of power to Scotland was not an absolute transfer of power, but rather a sharing of power, with the UK Parliament retaining the absolute power to legislate in devolved areas. Section 28(8) remains subject to section 28(7) which states that This section does not affect the power of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to make laws for Scotland. Yet another layer of complexity has been added on top of the UKs quest to exit the European Union as it turns out the Scottish Parliament may have the legal standing to block the triggering of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.In an interview with The Guardian which comes to us via Business Insider, Conservative MP Anna Soubry mentioned in passing that the Scottish Parliament should determine devolved Scottish matters.Yes. Im reliably informed that the Scotland Act 2016 section 2 says that you cannot interfere with devolved Scottish matters, they must be determined by the Scottish parliament, Soubry, whos said to believe Holyrood has a strong case, commented.Edinburgh and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon are, of course, against Brexit, and if this gives Scotland a way to block the move, it may just use the opportunity to.The House of Lords has been given legal advice that the Scottish Parliaments approval would be needed to execute Brexit.In discussions of The Select Committee on the European Unions inquiry on leaving the EU back in March, Sir David Edward explained that since EU law is integrated into the Scotland Act, the Act would need to be revised.Nonetheless, other experts do not agree. According to Anderson Strathern partner Fiona Killen, the UK Parliament still retains absolute power to legislate over devolved areas, reported Business Insider: Two Sydney lawyers are in a protracted legal battle over $5.8 million in fees and interest stemming from a case way back in 2004.Eight Wentworth Chambers barrister Christopher Bevan alleges that Sydney solicitor Evangelos Patakas should pay him $4.1 million in costs and a further $1.7 million in interest, according to a Brisbane Times report.However, the other side claims that Bevan agreed to be engaged on a non-recourse or spec basis, meaning he would only be paid if the client won the case. Both parties have been going at it for years and their five lawyers battled at the Sydney Supreme Court on Friday.Prolonged as the case has been, the parties tendered an absurd volume of material in a preliminary hearing, Justice Robert McDougall had noted. The judge said that 16 lever arch folders of exhibits were submitted by both parties to the court.Bevan wanted a costs assessor, which would not involve a court case, to determine the claims. However, Patakas is sought an injunction to stop Bevan from applications for cost assessment saying the process is inherently unsuited due to the complex nature of the dispute.Justice McDougall upheld a temporary injunction to stop Bevans cost assessment applications saying that the court is the proper venue to resolve whether he is owed the fees in question. Justice McDougall also denied Bevans request to exclude alleged conversations about legal work based on these being protected confidences. The evidence is vital to the solicitors case and could determine whether the barrister did agree to be engaged on a conditional basis, the justice noted.Bevan is represented by Noel Hutley, SC, president of the NSW Bar Association, and junior barristers Philippe Doyle Gray and Julian Zmood while Patakas is represented by Guy Parker, SC, and Sonia Tame. The number of jobs on the skilled occupation list in Australia for overseas professionals is set to be reduced, the immigration minister has confirmed.The list is reviewed annually and with a lot of pressure around from politicians and trade unions for more jobs to be made available to Australians, immigration minister Peter Dutton has indicated that the list will be cut. It currently includes 650 occupations that are available for 457 visas, the short term visa for international skilled workers that permits them to work in Australia for up to four years if they are sponsored by an employer.There are a range of different occupations on the list with different salary levels and different education backgrounds, including GPs, midwives, cooks, cabinet makers and lift mechanics.According to the Immigration Department cooks were the most popular profession applied for by primary visa holders, that is those who directly applied for a 457 visa, followed by those wanting to fill cafe/restaurant manager positions.Dutton explained that it is about getting the balance right as while there might not be shortages in some of the occupations on the list in major cities, such as cooks, in regional areas these shortages do exist.'In some parts of the country it is very difficult to get a particular worker, say in hospitality or a doctor, whatever the classification might be, but in other parts of the country there is an abundance and most people want to work in capital cities or close to capital cities, but it is very hard to get people in regional areas,' he told Sky News.Dutton acknowledged that the 457 visa programme has been controversial and said that he has worked to tighten it up. 'Some employees were paying employers for the visa arrangement. We've stamped that out, made that a criminal offence. We've tightened up the arrangements around the advertising process and the way in which the employer must engage, try and engage an Australian worker to fill that job before they can pursue the 457 option,' he pointed out.Overall he wants the number of 457 visas granted to reflect the demand within the economy that can't be met by Australian workers. 'You hear lots of stories from tourist operators in Darwin or Cairns, for example, where they just can't get Australian workers to fill the jobs and in the end it costs more to employ somebody under a 457 visa,' Dutton added.'What is an unacceptable position is if jobs are being filled by workers from overseas that can be filled by Australian workers and we want to encourage the employment of Australian workers first. But if workers from Australia can't be found, then, we can't have jobs going unfilled because we lose economic productivity. So as long as we're meeting the objectives and the guidelines of the programme, then the numbers will be where they need to be,' he concluded. hi this AVI and i am on 489 visa and will be eligible for 887 in next year January. as this is November month and i am getting another good job. I am working for my current employer for almost 2 years. I AM WONDERING WHAT WOULD HAPPEN WHEN I WILL JOIN NEW COMPAny and leave this one. Will there be any affect on my application as i am getting new job and if immigration call my previous employer and if in case he can give some wrong information about me and will that affect on my application. Please reply thanks Hey all, How is everyone? One of my friends from Ukraine is wanting to move here to Brisbane and hopefully work as well. Have no issue with somewhere to stay as she can live with myself... But how would she/we be able to find an employer to sponsor her if she was to be able to come here on a skilled work visa? or another type of visa that would allow her to work and live normally here?Thank heaps in advance for any help Confused Hi I was happy when I discovered about the sponsor visa 457 then I called one immigration office registered australia in abudhabi wondering g about this type of visa I was told it's allowed for doctors from Canada and England mainly otherwise if I will apply it will be wasting of time and money unless if I'm registered in the amc after passing 2 exams ?the process it time and money consuming my plane was to relocate and start registration and do the exam later on .furthermore he added that it's easier for me to go to Canada it's open ,? I have been searching on this since long time and discovered that australia regarding weather and job and speciality is better for my situation Is it easy or difficult t to apply for Australia and work as a doctor I'm totally confused Company also aims to regain position as the top carmaker and become a global leader in electric vehicles. German carmaker Volkswagen today outlined plans to sharpen its focus around the entry-level car segment in India as a part of its major global transformation strategy for 2025 and beyond. In other major markets such as India, South America and Russia, Volkswagen intends to develop the economy segment, the company said in a release as it revealed its recovery strategy for 2025 and beyond. Volkswagen says the economy segment comprises attractively priced entry-level vehicles and is highly relevant for multiple markets in Asia as well. Volkswagen has been working to increase its presence in the segment, which is evident in the Ameo, a compact sedan specifically made for India. Other goals in its transformation strategy include regaining its position as the top carmaker with SUVs leading the growth in the first stage of the programme and electrification in the second stage. In fact, the carmaker plans to be a global market leader in e-mobility and wants to sell a million electric cars per year by 2025, according to VW brand chief executive Herbert Diess. "From 2020, we will be launching our major e-mobility offensive. As a volume manufacturer, we intend to play a key role in the breakthrough of the electric car. We are not aiming for niche products but for the heart of the automobile market. Our future electric cars will be the new trademark of Volkswagen," Diess said. The intense focus on electrification is no surprise given the recent high-profile emissions scandal at VW. The company aims to rebuild itself with this new plan and electrification remains not just a viable business proposition but also redemption for its past transgressions. Other areas of focus involve bringing about a comprehensive organisational reform. As reported recently, Volkswagen will cut 30,000 jobs in the next three years after striking a deal with its labour unions. The cuts are the result of the growing cost of the Dieselgate emissions scandal, but they're also aimed at increasing VWs focus on autonomous and electric cars, and according to reports, about 9,000 jobs related to electrification are expected to be created. The carmaker is also aiming at assuming a leading role in connectivity and is developing its own digital platform to offer owners a wide range of additional services. By 2025, it expects to have about 80 million active users throughout the world and estimates that its sales revenue from services related to networked vehicles will reach about 1 billion per year by that time. Such a Raging Bull family brawl is exactly what takes place in this piece of footage, which takes us to the drag strip for a complete adventure.The pair of Sant'Agata Bolognese demons engages in rolling drag races that seem them sprinting from 40 to 145 mph (64 to 225 km/h), delivering a spectacle that should leave the audience speechless. And that's without factoring in the aural side of the battle - few drag races involving street cars manage to reach such a level of aural intensity.So, what do the numbers tell us? Well, regarding the power-to-weight ratio, the Huracan actually has the edge, packing 2.7 PS per kilogram, while the open-sky incarnation of the Aventador burdens each of its horses with 2.8 kilograms.The torque department brings a serious case of role reversal, with the 6.5-liter V12's 501 lb-ft (690 Nm) easily dominating the 413 lb-ft (560 Nm) of the 5.2-liter V10.As if the figure game wasn't complicated enough, we must keep in mind that the rolling starts allow for quite a hefty error margin.Some of you might wonder why the Italian automaker allows for this sort of performance overlap situations in its stable. And the answer has to do with the... calendar. Once the Aventador receives its mid-cycle revamp next year, the situation will change, at least if we ignore the Huracan's Superleggera version, which is also due in 2017, as a 2018 model year.And this ever-changing velocity dominance, which obviously also takes places within other exotic carmakers' yards (here's a Ferrari example) is precisely why you should buy your dream car and lay off the internet for a while But the Scion iA has plenty of weird qualities, from its conception to the brand it used to belong to. And since it's a subcompact, you can also call it slow and joyless without anybody batting an eye.As the story goes, Toyota and Mazda signed a partnership a couple of years back. Part of the agreement was for the then all-new Mazda2 sedan to be shipped from Mexico to the States as the Scion iA.The Scion brand has been discontinued this year because the millennial generation which it was aimed at never cared about cars that much. The only thing they got right was the FR-S, but that's a $25,000 coupe, which is hard to justify for somebody still struggling with his Pokemon Go account.So you could say the iA sedan makes a lot more sense as it's about $16,000 when new. Many reviews have said not to buy a brand new subcompact until you've tried this one, and they are right.Even Regular Cars guy admits that the interior is pretty nice for what it is, and that it puts some Scions to shame. But he also makes an interesting point about Toyota getting lazy, allowing others to do the work for them like Chrysler did in the old days.The part that's not fantastic about the Scion iA and the Yaris iA that subsequently replaced it for the 2017 model year is the drivetrain package. Something wrong must have happened, because when I drove the 5-door with a mere 1.5-liter engine, it was like subcompact version of the MX-5, pure joy on wheels. Meanwhile, the sedan is supposed to be dull and lifeless in your hands.That must have something to do with the 42 mpg highway this sedan gets. It's a shame, because, with a standard short-shift manual, it could have been a frisky little thing. Remember, the MX-5 is actually sold in Japan with a 1.5-liter, though one that makes 130 horsepower.Like many of Scion's projects, the iA suffers from the ugly face syndrome. Many people with they could just buy the Mazda version the way it was supposed to look from the start. You can buy the JDM badges for it on Amazon for a couple of bucks, but the bumper is an entirely different issue. TDI SUV MQB The news comes from the sidelines of the Los Angeles Auto Show, where the VW brand's sales and marketing boss, Juergen Stackmann, told Automotive News that "Russia is one of the markets we are considering."But they are doing much more than just "considering" here, as the groundwork has already been laid for the Atlas 2.0to be shipped to Russia at a yet undisclosed time.Even though Volkswagen doesn't have any other 3-row, the chances of the Atlas being sold in the rest of Europe are nearly zero at the moment.Explaining why the U.S.-built Atlas is being shipped halfway across the world from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to frosty Siberia is almost impossible. China makes its own version of the Atlas called the Teramont, and it shares its Northern border with Russia.But there are subtle differences between the two. For example, while the Atlas is made with either a 2.0 TSI rated at 238 hp or a 3.6L VR6 with 280 hp . Meanwhile, the Chinese have a 2.0 TSI with either 186 or 220 hp. But how is that relevant, when Russia will only have a 2.0 TDI?We can only presume that one of the factories has leftover production. If demand picks up, maybe Russia will assemble its own version of the Atlas, as is often the case with cars sold here.It's still unknown precisely which 2.0 TDI will be offered. Logic would dictate that it's a powerful one, since the 5-meter, 7-seat SUV is the largestmodel ever made. The Europeans are offered 115, 150, 184, 190 and 240 hp versions, so there's plenty to choose from.The odd thing is that Russians don't get any 2.0 TDI engines, only the big 3.0 TDI on the slow-selling Touareg . Everything else is powered by TSI petrol units. Logo: Jaguar Land Rover Jaguar Land Rover has an opening for a U.S. based international key account manager (fleet), and is looking for an applicant who has prior experience working in fleet and business sales from a manufacturer perspective. Prior experience working in the automotive industry, particularly working for an import, luxury brand in an international capacity is preferred. The position will support international sales and business in North America, including the U.S. and Canada, and require about 70% travel. The position will report to the UK-based global sales manager. To read a more detailed description of the position and/or to apply, go here. Pat Bowie (third from right) and SHRM team members from Maryland meet with Matthew Spikes, Sen. Benjamin Cardin's legislative correspondent (third from left). Photo courtesy of Pat Bowie. Pat Bowie, the director of training and development for International Franchise Systems (IFS), owners of the Rent-A-Wreck, Priceless, and Nextcar brands, recently visited Capitol Hill with the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM) Maryland team. SHRM members from all over the U.S. attended the Day on the Hill visit. "Every office we encountered, the staff members told us how much they look forward to SHRM members' visits," said Bowie, known as Pat The Trainer. "We are their voice of reality and we provide them with a Cliff-note education on human resources issues. They valued our input and feedback on all aspects of human resources." Photo via Wikimedia Avis Budget Group has signed a new multi-year marketing agreement with USAA, a financial services provider for military members and their families. Through this agreement, Avis Budget Group will continue to promote its Avis Car Rental and Budget Car Rental brands and special offers to USAA's membership base of nearly 12 million current and former members of the U.S. military and their families. "Those who have served this great nation have our respect, said Beth Kinerk, senior vice president of sales, Avis Budget Group. One way we can demonstrate this is to partner with organizations that serve past and present members of the U.S. military. We're honored to be affiliated with USAA and to offer their members Avis' premium experience and the great value of Budget." As part of the agreement, the Avis and Budget brands will be featured in USAA's print and digital marketing channels, including USAA's online car rental booking tool, according to the company. Photo courtesy of car2go car2go plans to suspend its carsharing service in the Twin Cities and San Diego by the end of the year. In the Twin Cities, car2go has faced high state car rental taxes, according to a report by the Star Tribune. The carsharing service arrived three years ago in Minneapolis, with St. Paul service following in 2014. Currently, there are 400 car2go vehicles and about 29,000 members in Twin Cities. car2go said Minnesotas rental rates made the Twin Cities one of the most expensive places in North America to operate our service, according to the report. The rates made it hard to offer affordable pricing to car2go members, now at 41 cents per minute for shorter trips, car2go told the Star Tribune. In San Diego, car2go wasnt getting enough business to continue its operation, according to a report by San Diego Patch. "We invested a lot to support car2go in San Diego, but unfortunately we have not seen enough adoption to-date to continue,'' the company posted on its official San Diego Twitter account. Earlier this year, car2go switched its all-electric vehicle fleet to gas-powered cars due to a lack of charging stations. When car2go launched in San Diego in 2011, it was the only North American city with an all-electric fleet. Currently, car2go operates in nine U.S. cities and 19 other cities worldwide. Click here to read the full stories in Star Tribune and San Diego Patch. Photo courtesy of Nutonomy Self-driving taxi startup Nutonomy is expanding its autonomous vehicle trials to roads in the U.S. after it agreed to a partnership with the city of Boston and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, according to a report by Tech Crunch. Nutonomy was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but it initially started testing its robo taxi service in Singapore in August. Nutonomys relationship with the Singaporean government has been important to help it get its start in Singapore where it aims to launch a commercial service to the public by 2018, says the report. Nutonomy plans to start testing its autonomous vehicles at Bostons Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park before the end of the year. It will use its self-driving Renault Zoe electric vehicle, which includes its software system and engineers on-board to observe and take the wheel if necessary, according to the report. The cars wont be tasked with collecting passengers unlike Ubers autonomous vehicles. At this point, Nutonomy is still not certain if it will form a partnership with ride-hailing Lyft in order to pick up passengers in the U.S. Currently, Nutomony is working with Grab, a ride-sharing company in Southeast Asia, in Singapore, says the report. Boston is ready to lead the charge on self-driving vehicles, and I am committed to ensuring autonomous vehicles will benefit Bostons residents, Martin Walsh, Bostons city mayor, told Tech Crunch. This is an exciting step forward, and together with our public and private partners, we will continue to lead the way in creating a safe, reliable, and equitable mobility plan for Bostons residents. Click here for the full Tech Crunch report. Originally posted on Automotive Fleet More than 89% of holiday travelers plan to drive this Thanksgiving holiday, according to AAA. Photo via Wikimedia/B137 For the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday weekend, AAA Travel projects that 48.7 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home, an increase of one million travelers compared with last year. This represents a 1.9% increase over 2015 and the most Thanksgiving travelers since 2007. The Thanksgiving holiday travel period is defined as Wednesday Nov. 23 to Sunday Nov. 27. This years growth in Thanksgiving travel is spurred by improvements in the economy during the second half of the year, including rising wages, increased consumer spending, and overall strength in consumer confidence, according to AAA. One million more Americans than last year will carve out time to visit with friends and family this Thanksgiving, said Marshall Doney, AAAs president and CEO. Most will travel on the tried and true holiday road trip, thanks to gas prices that are holding at close to $2 per gallon. Others will fly, take the bus or set off on a cruise to celebrate with their loved ones. More than 89% of holiday travelers will drive this Thanksgiving holiday. The 43.5 million Americans planning a road trip represents an increase of 1.9% over last year, according to AAA. When it comes to gas prices, most U.S. drivers will pay the second-cheapest Thanksgiving prices since 2008 when the national average was $1.85. Todays national average price for a gallon of gasoline is $2.16, 11 cents more than the average price on Thanksgiving last year ($2.05), according to AAA. According to AAAs Leisure Travel Index, weekend daily car rental rates will average $52, 13% lower than last Thanksgiving. This years top 10 destinations for Thanksgiving include: Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Diego, Orlando, New York City, New Orleans, Anaheim, Calif., Fort Lauderdale, Philadelphia, and Seattle. An ongoing dispute between NavWorx and the FAA over the companys ADS-B navigation units escalated today, as the FAA issued an emergency order suspending the companys authorization to manufacture the units. The FAA says it has the authority to inspect suppliers quality systems, facilities, technical data, and products to determine whether they meet safety standards, but NavWorx has declined on repeated occasions to allow FAA personnel to conduct the required inspections. The FAA said it is concerned that two versions of the companys ADS600-B units may contain an internal GPS chip that does not meet the FAAs minimum performance standards for transmitting an aircrafts accurate location. NavWorx has denied access to FAA inspectors on two occasions, in August and November, the FAA said, after initially agreeing that access would be allowed. Due to the companys unwillingness to comply with these requirements, the FAA has determined that NavWorxs continued use of its FAA authorization is contrary to the interests of safety in air commerce, the FAA said today. During the suspension, NavWorx may not mark or otherwise indicate that its ADS600-B units meet FAA standards. NavWorx said in a statement last month that the FAA changed their [$500 rebate] system to stop sending traffic to our products for reasons unconnected to the performance or integrity of our products. Once every four days, on average, there is a fatal general aviation accident involving loss of control, the FAA says, so they are working to educate the GA community on best practices to ensure safe flight. You can help make a difference by joining our Fly Safe campaign, said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. I know that we can reduce these accidents by working together as a community. The FAA is producing monthly online updates with a loss-of-control scenario and a lesson developed by a team of experts. They have studied the data and developed solutions some of which are already reducing risk, the FAA said. This month, the campaign is focused on flying a stabilized approach and when to decide to go around. The FAA defines a stabilized approach as one in which the pilot establishes and maintains a constant angle glidepath toward a predetermined point on the landing runway. During the approach, the FAA says, the pilot must maintain a specified descent rate and airspeed, complete all briefings and checklists, configure the aircraft for landing, maintain the correct altitude levels and ensure only small changes in heading/pitch are necessary to maintain the correct flight path. If those conditions are not met, the pilot should consider a go-around. The FAA has published a Safety Enhancement Flyer about go-arounds (PDF), and a handout on stabilized approaches (PDF). The FAA also suggests a review of Chapter 4 in the FAAs Instrument Procedures Handbook (PDF). 22 November 2016 18:32 (UTC+04:00) By Gunay Hasanova Most of the international companies refuse to invest in Armenia not only for its corrupt regime and weak economy, but also due to the aggressive policy Yerevan pursues in the region. German Ambassador to Yerevan Matthias Kiesler has recently announced that German companies and investors are interested in countries where there is a large market and political stability, stressing that Armenia is out of their interest area, Aysor reported. "Unfortunately, German medias actual news titles about Armenia or the region dont indicate anything about stability; the particular topic is Karabakh conflict. Such news creates obstacles for small and medium-sized enterprises, which reduces investors interests, he said at a meeting with reporters. Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. As a response to Yerevan's aggressive policy, Turkey also closed its borders with Armenia, demanding it to withdraw its troops from occupied lands of Azerbaijan. The blockade of the country continues to slowdown economic growth in Armenia. Armenia's aggressive policy left the country out of all major regional economic and energy projects. Previously, Secretary of the Armenian National Congress parliamentary faction Aram Manukyan has admitted that Armenia remains left out of all regional projects, and nothing is expected in the long term. He noted that the countrys neighbors successfully develop political ties and economic cooperation, but Armenia remains an outcast of the region. By ignoring four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, as well as appropriate documents adopted by The European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the Non-Aligned Movement, Armenia intends to preserve the status quo in the region and freezes the needed settlement of the conflict. --- Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 15:23 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova Azerbaijan seeks to attract real-estate investments to revive the local market, especially the real estate market of the capital city. Head of the State Committee on Property Issues Kerem Hasanov, who addressed the opening of the exhibition on real estate and investments RecExpo II on November 22, said the main goal of the exhibition is to revive the countrys real estate market. Hasanov further noted the necessity of increasing the volume of local and foreign investments, as well as familiarizing foreign investors with the real estate market of Azerbaijan and involving them in the privatization process, which is currently underway in the country. Azerbaijans State Committee on Property Issues is engaged in the process of privatization of state-owned properties, while the acceleration of the process is defined as an important direction of the economic policy. The privatization process is designed to attract both foreign and local investors, as well as improve the business environment of Azerbaijan. Transport Minister Ziya Mammadov, who also addressed the event, said that the exhibition is of big importance for the attraction of investment in the market. RecExpo II is the only specialized exhibition in Azerbaijan dedicated to real estate, he said. Around 100 real estate projects of Azerbaijan, Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus will be presented at the exhibition. Along with the 15 largest Azerbaijani companies, construction and investment companies representing 10 countries, including Turkey, UAE, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Hungary, and Georgia will present their projects at the Baku Expo Centre, which hosts the event. Being a reliable investment instrument, real estate is deemed to be one of the most effective means to preserve and increase capital. The participants will be familiarized with the most recent reforms on the improvement of business environment, investment climate in the country, as well as novelties in the sphere of privatization. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 16:18 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova The European Union has launched a project on rendering a technical assistance to the Baku International Sea Trade Port in creation of Free Trade Zone. The aim of the project is to render support for the training of personnel, as well as the use of European practices in the implementation of port operations. Director-General of the Port Taleh Ziyadov, speaking at the event dedicated to the launch of the project, said that the Baku Port and the FTZ will significantly influence the volume of trade turnover with the European countries. European companies, specialized in the spheres of transport, logistics, ICT and agriculture will be able to benefit from the Baku FTZ, and create industrial clusters to enter larger markets, he said. Period of execution of the project is 1 year. Azerbaijan is expected to get huge benefits from its first-ever Free Trade Zone. Special tax and customs policy, which will be pursued in the territory of the free trade zone, will also stipulate further development and simplification of a number of procedures. The privileges can cover the income tax, VAT, tax of profit and property tax. The establishment of FTZ will also bring a large amount of foreign investment in Azerbaijan, as well as open the country's doors to new investors. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 17:16 (UTC+04:00) By Gunay Hasanova Air Arabia, the Middle East's largest and oldest low-cost airline, will soon launch flights to Azerbaijan. The airline will start performing the flights en route Sharjah (UAE)-Baku-Sharjah starting from March 16, according to Director of Sindbad Travel Agency Emil Aliyev. The launch of the new flights follows a joint cooperation agreement signed between Air Arabia, Azerbaijan Airlines, and interested local authorities. Air Arabia currently operates a total fleet of 43 Airbus A320 aircraft, serving 120 routes from five hubs in the UAE, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan. One of the features of the companys A320 airplanes cabin is distance between the seats (about 80 cm, which is more than the standard economy class salons), because instead of the usual 180 passenger seats Air Arabia aircraft has only 162 seats. This allows passengers to have more comparable flight. Moreover, Air Arabia offers the most reasonable prices in the world. Nevertheless, the company regularly conducts various campaigns reducing the already affordable ticket prices even more. Currently, there is a visa-free regime for persons with diplomatic and service passports, and since 2015, the UAE citizens has been visiting Azerbaijan on the basis of a simplified visa system. They can obtain an entry visa, valid for 30 days stay, at any international airport in Azerbaijan. Recently, Azerbaijan proposed to introduce a visa-free regime for citizens of both the UAE and Azerbaijan. The UAE government has already given prior consent, and now the issue is under consideration. --- Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 18:14 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli Representatives of the Turkish private sector will consider investing in the ICT sector of Azerbaijan within the framework of their forthcoming visit to Baku. Board Member of Turkey's Electrical Electronics and Services Exporters Association Salahaddin Esim said about this on November 22. The sides will discuss the two countries' cooperation in this field, taking into account the attraction of investments in the ICT sector of Azerbaijan, he said. In the post-oil period, Turkey and Azerbaijan need to form a strategic partnership in the field of communication, according to Esim. The Turkish delegation will include representatives of 12 companies. During the meetings scheduled for December 1-2, the delegation will meet with representatives of the private and public sector in Azerbaijan, as well as visit an international exhibition BakuTel-2016 to be held on November 29 - December 2. ICT is considered to be one of the crucial spheres for the further development of the economy and an integral part of the economic and political reforms which are currently implemented in Azerbaijan. Overall, the ICT sector has intensively developed in Azerbaijan over the past years. Creation and developing of the e-Government system, expanding the broadband internet services, launch of the telecommunication and low-orbit satellites, and many other are the evidence of Azerbaijans success in this sphere. The volume of investments made in the sphere of ICT and postal services amounted to 209.8 million manats ($ 129.4 million) in January-September 2016. The volume increased twofold as compared to the same period of 2015, while the index amounted to some 1.8 percent of the total volume of investments made in the economy of the country. The income obtained in the sector in Azerbaijan is projected to hit $9 billion by 2020. -- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 18:10 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli The deal on avoidance of double taxation between Azerbaijan and Sweden is expected to enter into force by year-end. The statement was made by Swedish Charge d'affaires Tomas Danestad during the opening of Electrolux store in Baku on November 22. The cooperation between Swedish and Azerbaijani companies is increasingly developing, according to Danestad. Noting that the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Sweden declined this year, the diplomat linked it with the global trend that affects many countries in the world. He emphasized that export of Azerbaijani energy resources such as oil and gas is a very important issue. Sweden imported from Azerbaijan mainly raw materials and production of oil and gas industry, he said, further noting that there is a potential for development of cooperation in other areas, such as information technology. "I think that we will achieve even greater cooperation between the two countries, especially after the agreement on avoidance of double taxation will come into force," he said. Danestad also mentioned that Azerbaijan has a very high-quality agricultural products, and this area has great potential. He believes that the fall in oil prices opened opportunities for Azerbaijan to develop non-oil sectors of the economy and make the economy more efficient, which will help attract even more investors. Commenting over the talks on new agreement on strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and the EU, Danestad said that this agreement will have a positive effect on the development of trade relations between Azerbaijan and the EU countries, including Sweden. "Azerbaijan and the EU had a break in relations. Out ties are now based on the partnership agreement of 1996, but today we need more strategic cooperation agreement. We see Azerbaijan as a part of Europe," said Danestad. The European Council approved the granting of the European Commission and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy the mandate to negotiate a new agreement with Azerbaijan on November 14. -- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 11:15 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Ismayilova The Azerbaijani Embassy in Estonia has participated in an annual charity event - International Christmas Bazaar organized by the International Womens Club of Tallinn, Azertac reported. The Azerbaijani stand displayed national food, tea, pomegranate juice, jams, and various national souvenirs. The Azerbaijani products displayed at the Christmas Bazaar were met with great interest of visitors. Numerous representatives of press and business, members of Estonian Parliament and government and Azerbaijani diaspora, as well as Azerbaijani students studying in Estonia attended the event. The International Womens Club of Tallinn was established in 1993 by four expat women focused on charities in Estonia that improve the lives of women and children in need. As for the moment the Club has 75 members from 22 countries. Christmas Bazaar is the excellent opening tact of advent season for many smaller and bigger Christmas waiting individuals. Every year foreign embassies accredited in Tallinn participate in this big charity event. Diplomatic missions staffs together with its family members display various national souvenirs, handicrafts, toys, food items to the visitors of the Bazaar. About 26 foreign countries embassies including Azerbaijan participated in this years Christmas Bazaar. Profits gained from the Christmas Bazaar were donated by the International Womens Club of Tallinn to the charity foundation for children in needs. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 10:23 (UTC+04:00) By Trend Withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the occupied Azerbaijani territories will bring an end to incidents, and so there will no longer be a necessity to investigate them, Hikmat Hajiyev, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys spokesman, told Trend on November 21. The mechanism of investigating the incidents is not a goal, but rather an auxiliary tool, which serves for the conflicts settlement, said Hajiyev. In recent days, Armenias foreign minister and other officials have made various statements distorting facts on the investigation of incidents on the line of contact between the troops of Azerbaijan and Armenia. Firstly, we must understand the causes of these incidents, noted Hajiyev. Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev in his comprehensive and meaningful speech at the Munich Security Conference in front of an international audience said the question is: what do Armenian soldiers do in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, in the Aghdam district? If they dont want to be killed, noted the president, they shouldnt go to Aghdam and should stay in Yerevan, Gyumri, in their country. Armenia specifically relegates to background the withdrawal of its armed forces from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, which is the main part of the conflicts settlement, and brings into the foreground such technical and auxiliary issues as the investigation of incidents and turns them into an object of speculation, added Hajiyev. It is obvious that using these mechanisms as a cover, Armenia is trying to consolidate the occupation of Azerbaijani territories and keep the status quo, which is considered as unacceptable and unsustainable by presidents of the countries co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group, noted the spokesman. He also said Azerbaijan has repeatedly stated its readiness to consider the mechanisms of investigating the incidents as a component of the Armenian armed forces withdrawal from the occupied territories. 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. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 16:58 (UTC+04:00) By Gunay Hasanova On the background of changes in the global political scene, there appeared a definite hope for revival of efforts to solve the long-lasting Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The new replacements in the OSCE Minsk group team, as well as, the recent U.S. presidential elections, may for instance, accelerate the further prospects of Karabakh conflict's settlement. Although president-elect Donald Trump is going to primarily focus on America's domestic policy and turmoil in the Middle-East, a number of experts consider that he holds strategic, economic and geopolitical interests in the South Caucasus region. Therefore, he won't be indifferent towards conflicts the South Caucasus countries face. The Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Vladimir Zhirinovsky believes that the U.S. revitalization in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict during Donald Trumps presidency is possible. Zhirinovsky, however, is not sure that Donald Trump will intervene to the affairs of South Caucasus since the U.S. cant simply get out of Middle East problems. They have enough of their own problems," the Moscow-Baku portal quoted him as saying. "As in Europe, there are a lot of immigrants in the territory of U.S. as well. Nevertheless, the president-elect Donald Trump may contribute to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, he said, adding that in case if it happens, lets hope that this contribution will lead to positive results in the resolution of this old conflict. As to Trump's policy on Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Iran, Vladimir Zhirinovsky considers that the creation of so-called the Eastern Union, which includes Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq, may promote dialogue between the United States and these countries. Baku expects the true assistance of Trump-led U.S. to a fair settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In a congratulatory letter to the new-elect president of the United States, the Azerbaijani leader also expressed hope that the U.S. will contribute to the soonest resolution of the long-lasting conflict. Trump has business interests in Azerbaijan and knows about the country very well. Previously, he made investments in Azerbaijan and undoubtedly understands the investment attractiveness of the country. Azerbaijan plays an important role for the West in terms of cooperation in the field of energy security, so it is predicted that Donald Trump will put a modest weight on Azerbaijani factor, the resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict including. 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. While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as a sole mediator in the resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign State with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of the 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 the tension high in the region. --- Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 17:36 (UTC+04:00) By Gunay Hasanova Chairman of the Caucasian Muslims Board Sheikhulislam Allahshukur Pashazade at a meeting in Moscow expressed his gratitude to the Russian Orthodox Church for its efforts on peaceful solution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. "The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is a wound for everyone, both Muslims and Christians. We appreciate your efforts to ensure that this conflict has not passed on the religious level. You aspire to make every effort to ensure that this conflict to be resolved peacefully, said Pashazade said, RIA Novosti reported on November 22. In turn, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia said that thanks to the joint efforts of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Caucasian Muslims Board - the highest spiritual and administrative authority of Muslim countries in the Trans-Caucasian region, we could prevent the radicalization of the conflict and to make sure that it didnt inflict serious wounds on the body of people who live there and suffer. Moreover, Patriarch also expressed his gratitude to the authorities of Azerbaijan and the country's Muslim community for their support and safe condition of the Baku-Azerbaijan Eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church. 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. --- Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 17:25 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli Bilateral relations between the U.S. and Azerbaijan, as well as issues of security and stability in the region became the main topics of the meeting between President Ilham Aliyev and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Bridget Brink in Baku. President Aliyev, who received the visiting U.S. official on November 22, recalled broad discussions on bilateral relations and regional issues that they held with Bridget Brink this summer. The head of state expressed hope that successful cooperation between the two countries would be continued with the new administration of the U.S. Brink highlighted her country's strong support for Azerbaijan, as well as for the entire region. She said the U.S. has carried out consistent policy in this regard for a long time. They had a broad exchange of views over the current state and prospects of relations between Azerbaijan and the U.S. The solution to the long-lasting Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was also discussed during the meeting. The bloody war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims against Azerbaijan, led to occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions by Armenian armed forces. In a cruel war more than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities, while over 4,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis were taken captive, hostage, or went missing as a result of the war. Since gaining independence Azerbaijan has always been the strategic partner of the U.S. in the South Caucasus. During the presidency of American leaders over the past 25 years relations between the U.S. and Azerbaijan always showed positive trend. Azerbaijan and the U.S. enjoy a strong strategic partnership founded on shared values and interests. A strong partnership with the U.S. plays a major role in Azerbaijans foreign policy. This has held true ever since the U.S. recognized Azerbaijans independence in 1991 and moved swiftly to establish diplomatic relations between the two countries. Over this period, the friendly and cooperative relations between the countries have risen to a high level. The two countries are actively cooperating in political, economic, energy and security spheres, including in the fight against international terrorism and in NATO peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan. The outcome of the presidential elections in the U.S. continues to be one of the central topics on media and world policy. The victory of construction magnate Donald Trump in the U.S. elections was oversurprising, who broke into the big politics, refuting analysts' forecasts over and over again. Addressing the meeting with a group of participants of the 5th News Agencies World Congress in Baku, President Aliyev said that people of America showed Trump their great support despite all the polls and expectations of the leading American media and despite aggressive campaign against him. My personal opinion is very positive," noted the president. He owns this election only to himself. He deserves great respect. Azerbaijan wishes success to the newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump, said the president, voicing his hope that relations between the two countries will continue successfully during his presidency as they developed in the previous years. President Aliyev said there are a lot of areas of cooperation, including political, economic and other areas. He went on to add that there are great expectations in the world with respect to Trumps policy. Several days after the elections in the U.S. Ilham Aliyev made a phone call to President-elect of the United States Trump to congratulate him on his victory in the presidential election, and wished him success in his high state activity. The fact that the newly elected president talked with Ilham Aliyev before contacting with many European leaders surprised many people outside of Azerbaijan, which showed an increasing importance of Azerbaijan for the U.S. -- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 18:42 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijani ambassador to Brazil Elnur Sultanov has received a diploma of an Honorary Citizen of Rio de Janeiro for his contributions to developing relations between the country and the city, Azertac reported. Member of the Rio de Janeiro City Council Joao Ricardo Ribas hailed ambassador Sultanov`s efforts to develop relations between Azerbaijan and Rio de Janeiro. He hailed the Embassys initiatives to carry out various projects aimed at promoting Azerbaijan in Rio de Janeiro and expanding bilateral relations. Ricardo Ribas shared his impressions of his visit to Azerbaijan, saying the country charmed him. Ambassador Sultanov thanked Rio de Janeiro City Council, noting that he feels proud to receive the award. He described the award as a symbol of friendship between Azerbaijan and Brazil, as well as between twin cities of Baku and Rio de Janeiro. He provided an insight into the role of national leader Heydar Aliyev in developing Azerbaijan after restoration of the state independence as well as successful internal and foreign policy carried out under President Ilham Aliyev. Elnur Sultanov told about traditions of tolerance and multiculturalism in the country. He also drew the audience`s attention to Armenia`s continuing military aggression against Azerbaijan. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 10:46 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova Azerbaijans state energy giant SOCAR and the French oil major Total will further cooperate on the development of the Absheron offshore natural gas field. The sides signed an agreement on the principles regulating the program of development of the field on November 21. The agreement, which was undersigned following a meeting between SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev and Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne envisages the establishment of the contractual and commercial terms for the first phase of the field production . The development process will cover the drilling of one well at a water depth of 450 meters. Production from the high-pressure field is expected to stand at 35,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, including a significant portion of condensate. The produced gas will mainly be directed to Azerbaijans domestic market, while the implementation of the first phase will also enable a dynamic appraisal of the field for future phases. During the meeting, Abdullayev said the effective cooperation between SOCAR and Total as part of the joint oil and gas projects plays a special role in regional and international energy security. Pouyanne, in turn, expressed interest in further cooperation with Azerbaijan, mentioning that the country possesses broad prospects. He mentioned that Total follows closely the projects implemented in Azerbaijan and will continue to study new investment opportunities, as well as invest in oil and gas operations implemented in the country. The official expressed intention to take advantage of participation in other oil and gas projects in Azerbaijan, including the development of the potential Umid-Babek structure. The company started its operations in Azerbaijan in 1996, primarily exploring for and producing oil and gas, while the discovery of Absheron field was announced in 2011. The reserves of Absheron, which is considered to be the second largest field in the country, are estimated at 350 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million tons of condensate, according to SOCAR geologists. The first volumes of gas from Absheron gas and condensate field is expected to be received in late 2021 and early 2022. Total is the operator of Absheron with a 40 percent interest alongside SOCAR (40 percent) and ENGIE (20 percent).Moreover, Total possesses a 5 percent share in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline project. Being headquartered in Paris, Total is considered to be one of the world's leading energy companies. The operations of the company cover the entire oil and gas chain including exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas as well as power generation, transportation, refining, product trading. SOCAR is involved in exploring oil and gas fields, producing, processing, and transporting oil, gas, and gas condensate, as well as oil and chemical products in domestic and international markets, and supplying natural gas to the industry and the public in Azerbaijan. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 12:00 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova French energy major Total marked the 20th anniversary of its activity in Azerbaijan on November 22. A solemn event, which has been held in Baku, brought together French Ambassador to Azerbaijan Aurelia Bouchez, BP Regional President for Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey Gordon Birrell, U.S. Ambassador Robert Cekuta, as well as Azerbaijani, French officials and public figures. SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev, addressing the event, hailed fruitful cooperation between the company and Total, as well as the role of the oil-gas projects in ensuring the regional and international energy security. Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne said the company is interested in developing relations with Azerbaijan, mentioning that there are wide opportunities for bolstering of ties. He underlined that Total would continue to make investments to oil-gas operations in Azerbaijan. Executive Director of Total in Azerbaijan Denis Lemarchal highlighted the activity of the company in Azerbaijan covering last 20 years. The executive director also spoke about the support rendered by the government of Azerbaijan, Ministry of Energy and SOCAR to their activity in the country. Total, which ranks among the worlds seven largest companies, operates in more than 130 countries worldwide. Business of the company in Azerbaijan covers exploration and production, marketing services, trading and shipping. Total has operated in Azerbaijan since 1996, mainly focusing on exploring and producing of oil and gas. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 13:47 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova Representatives of Azerbaijan's energy giant SOCAR will hold a meeting with Economy Minister of Greece Giorgos Stathakis to discuss the deal on the acquisition of a share in the Greek gas network operator DESFA. The meeting will reportedly play a significant role for the final deal. Representatives of Italian Snam Company are also expected to participate in the meeting, Greek media reported. SOCAR agreed to buy a 66 percent stake in the crisis-hit gas supply grid operator for 400 million in 2013. But the acquisition stalled after the energy giant of Azerbaijan faced EU concerns about a potential breach of its competition law. SOCAR was ordered to sell 17 percent of DESFA to a third party so that its stake drops to 49 percent and satisfy EU competition authorities. Italian gas grid operator Snam is interested in buying the 17 percent DESFA stake that SOCAR has to sell to satisfy EU conditions. The deal was further marred by more uncertainty when Greece passed a law, which raised DESFA's gas tariffs by a much lower amount than expected. Given the new conditions, the Azerbaijani side reportedly assesses the purchase of the share at 260 million, saying that DESFA's price should be now half of its initial value, as the new rules restricted profitability of the deal. SOCAR had previously said it would only go ahead with the deal should the cost was cut significantly; given that a number of obstacles had emerged since it first agreed to buy DESFA in 2013. SOCAR, the losses of which amounts to 40-50 percent of DESFAs total cost given the revised tariffs (according to preliminary estimates), repeatedly expressed its readiness to fulfill all obligations, should previous conditions stay in force. SOCAR earlier agreed to extend a term of a letter of guarantee under the tender on the acquisition of a share in DESFA till November 30. The letter was due to expire on September 30 and October 31. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 11:43 (UTC+04:00) By Gunay Hasanova Tehran, after the removal of the international sanctions that have battered the Iranian economy, made Italy its top priority trying to build on long-standing Italy-Iranian ties through cooperation in various spheres. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni in a telephone conversation on November 21 evening discussed bilateral ties and regional developments, IRNA reported. During the phone talk, Zarif and Gentiloni exchanged views on bilateral ties, regional issues and some other issues of mutual interest. In a relevant development in mid-April, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stressed that Tehran attaches great importance to its relations with Rome, and called for the rapid implementation of the agreements recently endorsed by the two countries. The Islamic Republic of Iran attaches great importance to its ties with Italy. Rome's stances during the hard times of sanctions were balanced compared with some other countries, Rouhani told reporters in a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in Tehran. He referred to the endorsement of 36 cooperation documents by both countries during his January visit to Italy and Renzi's current visit to Iran, and said, Implementation of these 36 documents can create a new path to develop economic relations between the two countries, especially in investment fields and importing new technologies from Italy to Iran. Italy was one of Irans leading economic and trade partners before sanctions when the trade turnover amounted to 7.5 billion Euros compared to the current $1.4 billion Euros. During his January visit, Rouhani headed a high-ranking delegation of business leaders and ministers, signing a pipeline contract worth between $4 billion and $5 billion for oil services group Saipem. Since the nuclear deal between Iran and Group P5+1, Italy has been trying to turn into Iran's first trade partner in Europe and in this connection several Italian ministers as well as trade and government delegations have visited Iran. --- Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 15:00 (UTC+04:00) By Trend Iran and the EU are doing their best to strengthen the nuclear deal, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said. Rouhani made the remarks during a joint press conference with visiting Slovenian President Borut Pahor in Tehran on November 22, the state-run IRINN TV reported. Iran and Slovenia discussed the importance of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, aka nuclear deal) and enjoying the opportunities emerging following the deal, Rouhani said. He further said the relations with the EU has big importance for Iran and the Slovenian presidents visit will serve to boosting mutual ties as well as ties with Europe. A comprehensive deal on Irans nuclear programme was inked in July 2015, bringing to an end a 12-year standoff that had threatened to trigger a new war in the Middle East, and potentially marking the beginning of a new era in relations between Iran and the west. The deal followed 17 days of almost uninterrupted talks in Vienna involving foreign ministers from seven countries Iran, US, UK, Russia, China, France and Germany and the EUs foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 14:37 (UTC+04:00) By Trend The Kazakh government will terminate the state regulation of AI-80 gasoline prices starting from 2017, the Kazakh Energy Ministry reported. The ban on the export of light oil products will be lifted starting from 2019, the ministry said. Currently, Kazakh Energy Ministry considers the issue of phased cancellation of the state regulation of the liquefied gas wholesale prices. In August 2016, Kazakhstan stopped regulating the diesel fuel prices. Regulation of the AI-92/93 gasoline prices were stopped even earlier in September 2015. Thanks to the timely decisions to deregulate the price of AI-92 gasoline and diesel fuel, the risk of the deficit of petroleum, oil and lubricants decreased to a minimum, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev was quoted as saying by the ministry. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 16:30 (UTC+04:00) By Gunay Hasanova Foreign companies have lined up to take advantage of cooperation with Iran after the removal of international sanctions imposed on the country over its nuclear energy program. German companies are studying the possibility of large-scale investment in the industrial sector of Iran, Deputy Head of the Chamber of Tehran Pedram Soltani was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency reported. He noted that a country such as Germany can play a big role in the reconstruction of the industrial facilities of Iran. "In the upcoming years, Iran can face serious problems in the sphere of employment. Foreign investments can help in addressing this issue since the local investments are not sufficient for creating enough job places, said Soltani. Moreover, he stressed that German companies pay special attention to the study of the Iranian market in the chemical, petrochemical, petroleum production equipment, power plant construction and automotive industries. Iran is the Middle Easts second-largest economy and is reported to be the largest to re-enter global markets since the Soviet Union in 1991. The international sanctions that had crippled Iran's economy were lifted following a January implementation of a deal between Iran and world powers called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Irans Customs Administration's statistics show that Germany exported $1.43 billion worth of goods to Iran and imported $248 million from this country during 10 months of current Iranian fiscal year, which started on March 21, 2015. German exports to Iran were valued at 4.7 billion Euros ($5.1 billion) in 2010 but have fallen as the West tightened sanctions imposed over Irans nuclear program. --- Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 22 November 2016 16:05 (UTC+04:00) By Trend Iranian intelligence ministry has disbanded a terrorist group in one of the countrys southern regions, a high ranking official said. Hossein Zolfagari, Iranian deputy interior minister for security, has said that the intelligence ministry forces have confronted a four-member terrorist team in the evening on Nov 21, IRNA news agency reported. According to the report, as a result of an armed confrontation, one member of the terrorist team was killed, three more got arrested. The official added that the security forces seized explosives from the team members but he did not disclose any further details on the last nights operation. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Bakersfield, CA (93308) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 61F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Rain showers early becoming a steady light rain overnight. Low 47F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders pose for a group picture in Lima, Peru on November 20, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, Peru, leaders from the member economies and participating enterprises expressed their concerns over the emerging trend of trade protectionism. That is why in his keynote speech to the APEC CEO summit, President Xi Jinping firmly advocated the establishment of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, which would offer institutional guarantees for an open economy in the region. Protectionism has been on the rise since the 2008 global financial crisis, and some major economies in particular, have taken continuous restrictive trade and investment measures. WTO statistics indicate that G20 economies have introduced 1,583 restrictive trade measures since 2008, but only 387 have so far been revoked. The intensifying protectionism has contributed a lot to the low growth of international trade in recent years. The WTO has estimated that this year's global trade growth may be lower than its economic growth for a fifth consecutive year. Given his previous protectionist rhetoric, his opposition to international trade rules and his threat to impose tariffs on particular countries, Donald Trump's election as US president has cast a fresh shadow over the already-disheartening global trade. In the context of the global economic downturn, freer trade worldwide would help revitalize the global economy and also help individual economies to give play to their comparative advantages and improve their industrial structures. As well as harming other countries and the global economy, restrictive, beggar-thy-neighbor protectionist measures will also harm the country applying them. China is a vehement supporter and advocate of liberalized trade and it has been actively pushing for the establishment of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). In Lima, Xi called for more effective actions to realize the FTAAP at an early date, thus bringing about an Asia-Pacific economy with greater openness. The FTAAP, if it comes into effect, would serve the interests of all economies in the Asia-Pacific region, including the United States'.--Beijing News A St. Petersburg teen was arrested on Monday for doing more than $80,000 worth of damage to three luxury vehicles parked inside the McNulty Lofts Condos garage last week, according to police. Police: Video shows Donovan Franklin, 18, damaging 3 cars at McNulty Lofts Condos Mercedes Benz, Rolls Royce and McLaren Social media tips helped find suspect Police said surveillance video captured Donovan Franklin, 18, trying the handle of a 2016 Mercedes Benz and then punching the rear drivers side quarter panel. Off camera, police said Franklin jumped on the hoods of a $420,000 Rolls Royce and $220,000 McLaren, both 2016 models. The incident happened last Wednesday at the condos located at 175 2nd Street South at 10 p.m., according to an arrest report. Detectives said the condo association and residents posted the surveillance video on social media which generated a suspect for police. As soon as they did that they tracked him down, said condo resident Levi Miles. Social media has become a really good help. According to an arrest affidavit, Franklin was identified by a subject who personally knows him by his father. Police said Franklin broke into the residence section of the parking garage by prying open metal bars on the sixth floor. Franklin was arrested on a half dozen charges including burglary and criminal mischief. On Monday, the teen was being held in the Pinellas County jail on a $19,000 bond. Wet, Windy Thanksgiving for Oregon Coast; Snow in Cascades Published 11/22/2016 at 3:43 AM PDT - Updated 11/22/2016 at 3:44 AM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Oregon Coast) Look for the Thanksgiving holiday to be a soaker along the Oregon coast, but a little difficult for the Cascade mountain passes with snow affecting some travel deeper inland. Wednesday and Thursday will see some extremely large wave action on the beaches, but that will calm considerably throughout the rest of the holiday weekend. (Above: Newport's Moolack Beach in a rainy mood). The National Weather Service (NWS) in Portland calls it a very active period of winter weather, but travel to, from and around the Oregon coast will be largely uneventful. Some high winds may complicate driving. Rain will be the most prominent sight, enough that towns like Yachats, Newport, and Lincoln City may have to look out for flooding. At lower elevations, rain will begin Tuesday and may be heavy at times, the NWS said. The heaviest periods at the coast are expected to be Tuesday afternoon and evening, and again Thursday. Heavy rain may cause some rivers to rise near or just above flood stage, particularly in the southern Willamette Valley and along the central coast of Oregon. The NWS said more storm systems will be coming in Friday through Sunday, and these will be closely watched for any impact on travel over the weekend. Meanwhile, in the Cascades, snow levels will drop to the passes, continuing over the weekend and possibly dumping as much as two inches over that time. For those spending time on the coast for the holiday, there will be some good storm watching but only through Thursday, Turkey Day itself. On Wednesday and into the evening, the Oregon coast will be breezy, and likely the same on Thanksgiving. By Wednesday night, winds will be steadily in the 20's with gusts as high as 36 mph. The NWs said it's possible high winds could pummel the beaches and coast range on the holiday. The beaches and rocky areas of the Oregon coast will be particularly spectacular, however. On Wednesday, combined waves will be up around 19 feet. On Thanksgiving day, wave height could be up around 23 feet, dropping down to 17 feet at night and down to four or five feet for the rest of the weekend. While the beaches may not be raging any longer over the holiday weekend, calm conditions should mean good beachcombing and agate hunting on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. However, this is not guaranteed: keep a close eye on what the breakers do. If you can see wet sand (where the tide has been) fairly close to any cliff on enclosed beaches like Hug Point or Gleneden Beach, stay away. For storm wave watching on Thursday, stay off jetties and any small beach such as Oceanside, Newport's Nye Beach, or much of Waldport. Broad, sandy areas like Manzanita, Seaside, most of Cannon Beach, about half of Lincoln City, or Newport's Agate Beach will be safe. The best sights will be had at rocky areas, from viewpoints at Depoe Bay, Yachats, Cape Perpetua, Cape Meares, or Arcadia beach near Cannon Beach. Oregon Coast Lodgings for this - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours. More on Oregon Coast Weather. More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Robert Littlefair on Monday stood in front of the Wienerschnitzel in Orange he has owned for almost two decades, waiting for lunchtime customers to pull up to the drive-thru so he could tell them the restaurant was closed. Some people were so upset by the sudden closing, they shouted at him, Littlefair said. Littlefair said a representative from the Galardi Group Inc., the Newport Beach, California-based company that owns the Wienerschnitzel franchise, came to his home Saturday afternoon to tell him the company was terminating his contract and shutting down the restaurant on MacArthur Drive effective Sunday. Littlefair said he understood the company will remodel the chain's MacArthur Drive location and open it under new management. Multiple phone calls to the Galardi Group on Monday went unreturned. "I had to tell 16 employees before Christmas that they lost their job today," Littlefair said. The drive-thru only restaurant, which specializes in chili dogs and chili cheese fries, opened in July 1969, Littlefair said. His father, Roy Littlefair, bought the Orange location in 1988 and operated it until 1998, when the younger Littlefair said he bought it for $300,000. Robert Littlefair said health problems in recent years left him unable to pay for needed repairs. He said he is behind on his taxes by more than $100,000. "I wasn't able to attend to my store like I was supposed to," Littlefair said. Littlefair's son, Ben, said he has worked at the restaurant for 22 years, starting when he was 14. Ben Littlefair said before he worked at Wienerschnitzel, he spent summer breaks visiting with his grandparents there. "This is all I've ever known," he said on Monday. Wienerschnitzel employee Michael Davis said he has worked at the store on and off for about 15 years doing maintenance work. Davis said he enjoyed the "family environment" of the establishment. "It's very sad," he said. "It's one of my favorite jobs I've ever worked." Customer Chris Hall said when he saw the news on his Facebook page, he thought it was fake. He had to come by to see for himself. Hall, a lifelong resident of Orange, said he has been coming to Wienerschnitzel since it first opened. "It's a great place to eat," said Hall. "It's iconic. It's a part of Orange. It's part of history. It's part of us." Scroll through the slideshow above to see other beloved restaurants from Southeast Texas' past. NKrebs@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/Natalie_Krebs At 61, Bo Derek still looks just as stunning as ever. The actress, whom's break-out movie was the 1979 hit "10," celebrates a birthday Monday and she looks simply phenomenal. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate It sounds like a fish tale: Multiple battleships resting on the bottom of the ocean after being sunk during World War II have vanished from their final resting places. But, it is no tale. And scrap metal scavengers may be to blame. The remains of the HMS Exeter, the HMS Encounter and HMS Electra, along with three Dutch ships, were found in 2002 about 230 feet down and 60 miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean. EXPLORING WRECKS: Looking at a WWII-era shipwreck with the crew of the Nautilus When divers went back to find the ships to film and photograph them for the 75th anniversary of the battle, they'd vanished. A "sizable section" of the HMS Electra remained, but it too was mostly missing. Also disappeared was a nearly 300-foot American submarine named Perch. The most likely answer, experts decided, was that scavengers pilfered the sites in hopes of selling the metal from the wrecks for profit. VALUABLE WRECK: $1 million in gold coins from wreck on the market "It's like a cottage industry, apart from the fact the illicit salvage boats are dealing with substantial wrecks. Basically they use explosives and grabs to rip things apart," Andy Brockman, an archaeologist and researcher in maritime crime, told The Guardian, a British newspaper. The British Ministry of Defense said the British government has contacted Indonesian authorities, requesting they investigate the missing ships and take "appropriate action to protect the sites from any further disturbance." "The desecration of a war grave is a serious offence," the British Ministry of Defense said in a statement. "Many lives were lost during this battle and we would expect that these sites are respected and left undisturbed without the express consent of the United Kingdom." Medline hosted an executive roundtable of ASC owners and administrators at the Becker's ASC 23rd Annual MeetingThe Business and Operations of ASCs on Oct. 28, 2016. The participants discussed the challenges their facing as well as strategies for success in the future. 1. The key challenges for reimbursement discussed at the event include increased expenses while reimbursement remains low. The physician fee schedule was one stressor, as ASC's are reimbursed on a different scale than hospital outpatient departments. CMS released the 2017 final rule on Nov. 1, 2016, increasing ASC reimbursement 1.9 percent. 2. The participants found orthopedics a good specialty as long as the center can control implants. Some of the centers were considering total joint replacements, but needed viable contracts from insurance companies to cover the costs at their centers. ASCs may also experience pressure from hospitals not to bring the large joint and spine cases into the ASC, which is an additional challenge. 3. When recruiting surgeons who are more familiar with the hospital setting, it takes time to transition into the ASC environment. It can be a challenge to bring in total joint replacement surgeons who have the hospital mindset, looking for a "doctor's lounge" or answering emails between cases. 4. Gaining an audience for payer contract negotiations was a challenge. The ASCs gathering data and sending it to the insurance companies accelerated their contract negotiations. Transfer rates, complication rates and infection rates are key to share with payers. Publishing data in peer review journals is also becoming a bigger trend to show Medicare and other payers ASCs can do big procedures safely and effectively. 5. Even ASCs that don't need physicians currently are recruiting to backfill space so the ASC will still be filled a few years down the road as physicians retire. The ASC owners and operators suggested bringing in new surgeons and specialties that fit with the current specialties at the center. Block scheduling and compressing the schedule opens up additional time for new cases. One administrator discussed filling block time with her physicians and rearranged unused block time to reassign efficiently. Another administrator reported her ASC has a scheduling committee that consists of physicians, so any issues with scheduling or filling block time are discussed physician-to-physician. There are markets where hospitals or corporations purchase physician practices and cost of care goes up. There were a few ASCs represented that reported reaching out to young physicians through a fellowship program and residency programs. Exposing the young physicians to the private practice setting can encourage them to remain independent; while many young surgeons seek employment after training it is still possible for physicians to forge a different path. 6. There were ASCs present that benefitted from hospital joint ventures, as the hospitals were eager to send low acuity cases to the ASC and open up their ORs to higher acuity cases. There were examples of ASC joint ventures where the hospital allowed physicians to go to the ASC because there wasn't enough space in the hospital for their cases. 7. At ASCs where physicians aren't owners, it can be challenging to motivate physicians to bring cases. At one center represented, the center staff members were directed to treat physicians as the customer. Another administrator changed the culture at her center after taking the helm to open a dialogue with physicians instead of always answering "no" to requests. 8. Administrators can build a relationship with physicians by going to board meetings and engaging them. There were a few centers that brought physician owners and their families together at informal gatherings, dinners and events at the center so everyone knows each other on a personal level outside of the office. 9. Communication with partners is important one administrator sends out a weekly email on Fridays with important information and news for the week. The emails also show what the ASC operations deal with every day. Another administrator emails information monthly and if she doesn't get a response, she visits the physician personally and requires the physicians attend board meetings to receive distribution checks. A physician from another center is present every day of the week at the center and makes sure data about the center are transparent. 10. Driving case volume has been a challenge over the past few years, especially as referring physicians and independent specialists become employed at hospitals. There were a few other centers planning to add young physician owners and purchasing physician practices to add cases in the next year. Additionally, one GI center allocated time to bring in cases from local prisons, as the federal prisons are looking for quality care at a low cost for prisoners. The physician reported the prison is among the best payers for the center. Officials arrested Andrew Davenport, chief executive of Pennsylvania-based Philidor Rx Services, a mail-order pharmacy, and Gary Tanner, an executive at Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, headquartered in Laval, Canada, over fraud and kickback scheme allegations, according to The New York Times. Here are seven things to know: 1. Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission are conducting a series of inquiries into Valeant's business practices. 2. Valeant purchased an option to buy Philidor in 2014, which Valeant revealed in 2015. However, Valeant did not share the acquisition information to investors in 2014, prompting many to question Valeant's motives. After media outlets said Valeant was purchasing Philidor to boost its sales and changing its prescription to say that Valeant was a brand-name drug, as opposed to an alternate, Philidor and Valeant severed its ties. 3. Federal prosecutors claim Mr. Tanner and Mr. Davenport were integral to this relationship, and said the two officials did not tell Valeant their plans to promote Philidor's interests through its connection to Valeant. Officials also claim Mr. Tanner used a secret email account to speak with Mr. Davenport under the name "Brian Wilson." 4. Through its relationship with Valeant, prosecutors allege that Philidor expanded to include 450 employees and had revenue reaching tens of million of dollars at the end of 2014, a substantial amount of growth as it was a small start-up in 2013. The federal complaint stated before the pharmacy was shut down in January 2016, Valeant sold at least 90 percent of the drugs that Philidor dispensed. 5. Through their relationship, Mr. Davenport allegedly used various shell companies to transfer a kickback payment to Mr. Tanner following the purchase-option agreement, NYT reports. Prosecutors said Mr. Davenport made $40 million from the Valeant and Philidor deal, and paid nearly $10 million to Mr. Tanner. 6. Following the arrest, Valeant said neither the company nor its top executives have been charged in the case and Valeant is cooperating with investigation officials. Mr. Tanner's lawyer said Mr. Tanner's innocence will be revealed at trial while Mr. Davenport's lawyer said his client will defend himself during the trial. 7. A lawyer for Mr. Tanner said, "It was Gary Tanner's job at Valeant to grow and promote Philidor. He performed that job exceptionally well, greatly benefiting Valeant's shareholders, and regularly communicated to his superiors what he was doing." Mr. Davenport's lawyer said his client acted with "full transparency" and that Philidor benefited Valeant, "which is why Valeant and its highly sophisticated and active management team sought to buy it." The American Hospital Association is calling on Congress to support "crucial must-pass legislation" for hospitals and health systems, reports AHA News. Legislation supported by the AHA includes: The Helping Hospitals Improve Patient Care Act. This bipartisan bill would amend changes made to Medicare hospital payments under the Bipartisan Budget Act in 2015. Among other things, it would ensure new payment policies, such as site-neutral payments, do not unfairly affect hospitals that were in the process of building off-campus outpatient centers, according to the House Committee on Ways and Means. According to the committee, the bill also would prevent hospitals serving low-income communities from receiving unfair penalties in the Readmission Reduction Program by including a provision that accounts for patients' socioeconomic status. The Rural Community Hospital Demonstration program. The AHA supports extending this program for more years. The CMS program aims "to test the feasibility and advisability of cost-based reimbursement for small rural hospitals that are too large to be critical access hospitals." Sustaining Healthcare Integrity and Fair Treatment Act of 2016. The legislation would extend "25 percent" rule relief for long-term care hospitals, the AHA said. Implemented in 2005, the "25 percent" rule penalizes long-term care hospitals that admit more than 25 percent of Medicare cases from onsite or neighboring acute care facilities. To advance hospitals' legislative agenda, the AHA will host an Advocacy Day briefing for hospital and health system leaders Dec. 6 in Washington, D.C., according to the report. AHA members will subsequently take their case for passing hospital legislation to U.S. legislators. Read the full AHA News article here to find out what other measures the AHA is backing. More articles on healthcare finance: Connecticut budget cutting scenario would reduce services for rape victims, mentally ill: 3 things to know 3 things to know about the global medical billing market VA stands by plan to close Hot Springs hospital amid community pushback: 5 things to know West Orange, N.J.-based RWJBarnabas Health has appointed Joanna Zimmerman as regional CFO, according to the Asbury Park Press. Ms. Zimmerman joins RWJBarnabas from Jersey City, N.J.-based CarePoint Health System, where she served as senior vice president of operations finance, according to the report. In her new role, Ms. Zimmerman will oversee the finances of two New Jersey hospitals: Manmouth Medical Center in Long Branch and Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus in Lakewood. More articles on executive moves: Conemaugh Health System appoints Dr. Elizabeth Dunmore inaugural VP of medical affairs: 3 points Lourdes Hospital names Michael Yungmann CEO: 4 takeaways San Joaquin Community Hospital in Bakersfield, Calif., a part of Roseville, Calif.-based Adventist Health, named Sharlet Briggs its permanent president and CEO. Here are four things to know: 1. Ms. Briggs has served at hospital's helm on an interim basis, in addition to her role as COO, since September 2016. 2. Ms. Briggs has been with Adventist Health for nearly 25 years, and has worked at a number of its hospitals, including Ukiah (Calif.) Medical Center. 3. She joined San Joaquin Community Hospital in 2012 as vice president for organizational excellence, and was then promoted to senior vice president. 4. Former hospital President and CEO Doug Duffield left his post to take on a leadership role at a healthcare system in the Pacific Northwest. Charlottesville-based University of Virginia Health System appointed Jeffrey Keller, PhD, as its inaugural chief innovation officer. Here are four notes: 1. Dr. Keller most recently founded a company that develops molecular diagnostics to improve the management of urological cancers. 2. He has also previously worked in operating roles at Little Chalfont, United Kingdom-based GE Healthcare and as an investment banker. 3. He has a doctorate degree in cell and developmental biology from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and has performed post-doctorate research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's David H. Koch Center for Integrative Cancer Research in Boston. 4. In his new role, Dr. Keller will serve as a facilitator between clinicians and researchers as well as will identify, develop and determine new technologies and treatments' effectiveness. "Jeff has both a scientific and a business background, and he has a great understanding of the biotech ecosystem," said Richard P. Shannon, MD, UVA's executive vice president for health affairs, in a statement. "Jeff will work at the interface between new discovery and new application of ideas across our health system. He will work with frontline nurses and clinicians to understand how technology might enable their work. All of this effort is designed to focus our discovery on the betterment of the human condition." Jackson County Supervisor Randy Bosarge called Monday for the resignation of Pascagoula, Miss.-based Singing River Health System CEO Kevin Holland over the way Mr. Holland dealt with the patients of neurologist Terry Millette, MD, with whom the hospital abruptly cut ties, according to the Sun Herald. SRHS shut down Dr. Millette's office, called Neurology Associates, Nov. 14, and terminated his contract with little notice. The decision follows a review by the hospital of how Dr. Millette diagnosed and treated patients with multiple sclerosis. He had more than 200 MS patients. Mr. Bosarge said he is "not happy with the direction the hospital system is going. I'm publicly asking Kevin Holland to resign," according to the report. Mr. Holland did not respond to Mr. Bosarge but other SRHS administrators responded in support of Mr. Holland. The board of supervisors heard testimony from patients who said they now fear for their health and expressed anger for being cut off from their physician without any explanation. Since the termination of Dr. Millette's contract, some of his patients must travel long distances to see replacement neurologists and were told they would need to be re-evaluated before they could be treated. Mr. Bosarge and others on the board of supervisors said they still do not know the details surrounding SRHS' decision to abruptly cut ties with Dr. Millette. "I don't like what's happening to Dr. Millette or any other doctors in the past and if I find out this was done in a reckless manner to Dr. Millette, I will take action, if I have to take action on my own," Mr. Bosarge said at the board of supervisors' meeting Monday, according to the report. "I believe we need a change in management," he added. The SRHS board of trustees on Monday provided a written statement saying it agrees with and supports Mr. Holland's decisions. Chief of Staff Steve Demetropoulos, MD, CMO Randy Roth, MD, and Chief of Staff Elect John Weldon, MD, released a joint statement in support of Mr. Holland's decision. They said SRHS has a process in place to review its physicians and, "We have been very thorough, fair and have followed our medical staff bylaws that govern these situations" and are now focused on the care of Dr. Millette's patients, according to the report. Team-based care really can make a difference, according to a recent study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes and featured by Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan Health System News. Researchers from U-M's medical school found better outcomes for patients who underwent heart bypass surgery were associated with teams of physicians who had more experience working together. In fact, heath systems with 25 percent more teamwork also had 17 fewer hospital readmissions per 1,000 patients, according to U-M Health System's blog. To determine this, researchers mapped the relationships of more than 460,000 physicians who treated more than 250,000 coronary artery bypass graft patients throughout their surgical episode. These networks were given coefficients that measured the level of teamwork. The research team then compared the relationship between a health system's levels of teamwork and its 60-day surgical outcomes, based on Medicare data. When controlling for sociocultural factors, health system staff size and caseload, the researchers found physician teams with stronger social ties were associated with lower readmission rates, emergency department visits and morbidity. The researchers plan to continue their research in other medical conditions and with other providers on the care team, such as nurses, nurse practitioners and physician assistants, according to the U-M Health System blog. More articles on integration and physician issues: Florida medical center no longer accepting ICU patients Number of male vs. female medical school applicants evens out after years of imbalance Mayo's 9-point plan to reverse physician burnout Farid Fata, MD, a Detroit-area hematologist-oncologist, was convicted in 2015 of purposely misdiagnosing patients with cancer and administering medically unnecessary chemotherapy to them. As of last week, more than 500 victims of Dr. Fata had submitted claims against him for unnecessary chemotherapy, funeral expenses for loved ones, medical bills and other expenses, according to Kaiser Health News. In September 2014, Dr. Fata admitted he prescribed and administered unnecessary aggressive chemotherapy, cancer treatments, intravenous iron and other infusion therapies to patients to increase his billing to Medicare and private payers. He also admitted to soliciting kickbacks from home healthcare companies in exchange for his referral of patients to those organizations. Dr. Fata, nicknamed "Dr. Death" by his victims, pleaded guilty to 13 counts of healthcare fraud, one count of conspiracy to pay or receive kickbacks and two counts of money laundering. Through the fraud scheme, he submitted approximately $225 million in claims to Medicare from August 2007 to July 2013. In July 2015, Dr. Fata was sentenced to 45 years in prison. However, the 51-year-old physician now claims he is innocent and that he pleaded guilty in 2014 while under duress. Dr. Fata told Kaiser Health News he plans to file a habeas corpus petition, which will require a judge to determine if his imprisonment is lawful. More articles on healthcare industry lawsuits: 6 latest healthcare industry lawsuits, settlements NJ cardiac monitoring company settles kickback case On Aug. 9, Joseph Mollura, MD, the 60-year-old medical director for State Correctional Institution Pittsburgh, died from complications related to pneumonia. The condition was likely spurred by a Legionella bacterial infection. Three months prior to Dr. Mollura's death, the bacteria was detected in one of the prison's cooling towers. Employees weren't notified about the contamination issue until Sept. 1, according to a report Trib Live. The news agency filed a Right-to-Know legal request and obtained records on the case from the Department of Corrections. Documents from May 12 indicated samples from the No. 1 water cooling tower, which served the prison's medical department, tested positive for 430 colony forming units per milliliter of Legionella bacteria. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration advises any cooling tower water with a concentration of 100 cfu/ml or more undergo a cleaning and biocide treatment. While documents from Aug. 12 report the contaminated cooling tower was cleaned and decontaminated, Robert McSurdy, chief of safety and environmental protection with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, contradicted this claim in an email on Sept. 1. "The original report of the cooling tower being drained and cleaned was inaccurate," McSurdy wrote, according to Trib Live. The department declined to comment on the documents obtained by Trib Live. Dr. Mollura's family has retained a lawyer to investigate the matter. Legionnaires' disease is a type of pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacteria. It can be contracted by inhaling mist from contaminated water sources such as air-conditioning facilities, steam rooms, plumbing systems and cooling towers. It is not spread by person-to-person contact or by drinking water. To learn more about Legionnaires' disease, click here. More articles on infection control: 1.2M gain access to HIV treatment in 2016 31 low-performing teaching hospitals for central-line infection prevention Sepsis-based immune system failure may be reversible, study finds To continue following the latest news and information for Bedfordshire and surrounding areas, simply enter your full postcode below The demonetization announcement of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been both criticised and hailed by the people of India. According to reports, the demonetization idea was suggested by a chartered accountant Anil Bokil a long time ago. The reports also confirmed that Bokil had suggested the PM that the circulation of fake currency can be controlled by the demonetization strategy. Steve Orr, director of Connect at Catalyst Inc: "Our priority recommendations are focused on becoming world-class in research and development in specialist clusters" Almost 40,000 people are now employed in the so-called 'knowledge economy' in Northern Ireland, boasting 5bn in sales each year. That's according to the Knowledge Economy Index (KEI), which also predicts that as many as 160,000 roles, including indirect jobs, will be created here by 2030. Today's publication of the annual report, supported by Bank of Ireland UK, also shows Northern Ireland's knowledge economy as the second-fastest growing in the UK for the third consecutive year. Companies involved in pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, software, electronics, aerospace and financial technology are among those driving the knowledge economy. Firms in Northern Ireland contribute 30% of the total exports, while 70% of its sales are based outside the EU - avoiding the potential impact of Brexit. Steve Orr, director of Connect at Catalyst Inc, which draws up the report, said: "Our priority recommendations are focused on becoming world-class in research and development in specialist clusters of healthcare, cyber security and data analytics as well as advanced engineering. "Secondly, education modernisation and investment up to PhD level, and thirdly immediate implementation of existing venture capital recommendations from the Economic Advisory Group." Wages in Northern Ireland's knowledge economy are 25% above the average, with salaries of 28,000. Northern Ireland is performing strongly in a number of areas. That includes the number of new start-ups, the number of venture capitalist deals, and innovation. However, it says areas of improvement include the overall level of investment, the number of publicly listed companies and the volume of science and technology graduates. Richard Johnston, associate director of the Ulster University Economic Policy Centre, which compiled the report, said: "...the challenge for Northern Ireland going forward is to translate these record levels of activity into more jobs, better wages and higher profits." And Ian Sheppard, Bank of Ireland's regional director for Northern Ireland, said: "Northern Ireland continues to see great examples of value creation through innovation." Economy Minister Simon Hamilton: "This level of investment in infrastructure by the company is a clear commitment to the project, jobs and the area" Hundreds of new call centre jobs promised for Co Fermanagh have still not been created more than a year after a major Invest NI announcement. The 800 posts by Teleperformance were to be added over a three-year period in Enniskillen and were announced in October last year. The jobs are due to pay an average of 14,700 and are backed by 2.5m from Invest NI. However, responding to an Assembly question from SDLP MLA Richie McPhillips, Economy Minister Simon Hamilton said: "Before Teleperformance can begin creating these new jobs major communications infrastructure works are required, including the construction of a new communications room which I understand was completed in June 2016." Mr Hamilton also said that Teleperformance is "installing new telephone lines to meet their business needs". He added: "Teleperformance requires two independent telecommunications exchanges and Enniskillen is only served by one. "The company is therefore investing in a new line to the Enniskillen Exchange and then a separate line that would connect to the Omagh exchange via the BT backbone." Earlier this month, the Belfast Telegraph revealed that in Fermanagh and South Tyrone just 9.25% of jobs which are promised for the region pay workers the Northern Ireland average wage. That's just 90 out of 972. The biggest single jobs announcement in the area during the year was the 800 Teleperformance posts. Mr Hamilton said: "The work for the first new line to the Enniskillen Exchange was completed in August 2016, work on a second line to the Omagh Exchange has still to be completed. "This level of investment in infrastructure by the company is a clear commitment to the project, jobs and the area. "It is important to note that this project was in addition to the deal announced in July 2015 that involved the transfer of Liberty Insurance staff to Teleperformance under the Transfer of Undertakings and Protection of Employment arrangements. The project has gone extremely well and 170 staff are now employed under the Liberty contract." Invest NI said it had nothing to add to the minister's remarks. More than 17 billion has now been returned to Government coffers since Lloyds Banking Group's 20.3 billion bailout The Government has reduced its stake in Lloyds Banking Group to less than 8% following a share sale. UK Financial Investments, which manages the stake in Lloyds, cut its holding in the lender by 1 percentage point. It means the taxpayer's stake in the bank now stands at 7.99%, with more than 17 billion being returned to Government coffers since the lender's 20.3 billion bailout. Philip Hammond said: "Selling our shares in Lloyds Banking Group and making sure that we get back all the cash taxpayers injected into it during the financial crisis is one of my top priorities as Chancellor." All proceeds from the sales will be used to reduce the national debt. The Government has progressively sold down its original 43% stake in Lloyds and in October ditched plans for a share sale to the public, opting instead to offload the holding to institutional investors. Last month Lloyds said it had set aside another 1 billion to meet compensation claims for the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) as it attempts to draw a line under the scandal. A Lloyds spokesman said: "Today's announcement shows the further progress made in returning Lloyds Banking Group to full private ownership and enabling the taxpayer to get their money back. "This reflects the hard work undertaken over the last five years to transform the group into a simple, low-risk and customer-focused bank that is committed to helping Britain prosper." Finance Minister Mairtin O Muilleoir is set to brief the Assembly this morning on a package of measures aimed at rebalancing the way businesses and home-owners pay rates here A major shake-up in business and domestic rates across Northern Ireland will include helping retailers and the hospitality sector, new regeneration pilot schemes and the scrapping of a ratings cap on homes here, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal. Finance Minister Mairtin O Muilleoir is expected to brief the Assembly this morning on a package of measures aimed at rebalancing the way businesses and home-owners pay rates here. It's understood a revamping of the small business rates relief system will aim to lessen the financial burden on small retailers and the hospitality sector. The minister is also due to reveal a new regeneration pilot scheme, which will help attract businesses to areas or towns which are not being fully utilised - with rates relief and other incentives. The package of measures aims to modernise and rebalance the business rates system in Northern Ireland. Business groups have reiterated calls to revamp rates here, which they say are a "significant financial burden on businesses". Manufacturers are also expected to welcome news that industrial de-rating will continue, saving more than 4,000 companies tens of millions each year. And, as for home-owners, a 400,000 cap on the rateable value of properties is set to be scrapped. That means that those owning high-value properties are likely to pay more in rates, following the changes. Prime Minister Theresa May addressing delegates at the annual Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference in London yesterday Northern Ireland will need to up its game in the race for investment from overseas if the Prime Minister goes ahead with a major corporation tax cut, it's been warned. In a speech to the CBI ahead of tomorrow's Autumn Statement, the Prime Minister set out her plans to help business - announcing an ambition to ensure the UK has the lowest corporate tax rates in the G20 group of advanced countries - as well as measures to boost productivity. Theresa May also said some clarity would be given to business during Brexit negotiations. "People don't want a cliff-edge; they want to know with some certainty how things are going to go." Northern Ireland already plans to introduce a rate of 12.5% from April 2018 in a bid to attract more foreign direct investment (FDI) and compete with the Republic's rate, also 12.5%. But if the UK cuts its rate, that will leave Northern Ireland in competition with the rest of the UK for FDI - particularly if the rate is cut to as low as 10%, as reports last month suggested. The current rate is 20%. PwC Northern Ireland partner David Armstrong said the Chancellor was likely to confirm a cut in corporation tax from 20% to 17% by 2020 tomorrow. But Mr Armstrong said UK-based businesses weren't always enthusiastic about tax cuts, as they could lead to suggestions of business not paying its fair share. "But the headline rate of corporation tax is a big deal for international investors and has long been perceived in Northern Ireland as the key to attracting new inward investment," he admitted. Northern Ireland will also have to repay the Treasury for the loss of tax revenue if it has a lower rate - but the lower the UK rate becomes, the less Stormont will have to repay, he added. Economist Andrew Webb of Webb Advisory said: "From Northern Ireland's perspective, every cut to UK corporation taxes further erodes the expected benefit from reducing our own rate to 12.5%. "That said, it also reduces the cost of implementing it here." But he said that if the UK continued to cut its own rate, "we really need to consider our options". "Perhaps it is time for Northern Ireland to think of a Plan B. How about we give a three-year corporate tax exemption to new local business-starts? That might unleash a wave of entrepreneurship and creativity of our own." He said the Prime Minister's speech was an attempt to "reboot" her relationship with business after her earlier speeches - some of which accused business of being far removed from the concerns of ordinary people. Mr Armstrong from PwC also said Northern Ireland would be far down Chancellor Philip Hammond's list of priorities in tomorrow's Autumn Statement - his first budget speech. "Clawing back the deficit, preparing for Brexit and getting innovation, productivity and economic performance back on track are his national priorities," Mr Armstrong added. A fracking exploration drilling site, as an MP said money from a 1 billion shale gas wealth fund should be spent on energy efficiency projects A 1 billion shale gas wealth fund should be spent on energy efficiency projects which will "stimulate growth, jobs and innovation", a Labour MP has said. Former shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint said tax raised from fracking should not be "frittered away" on general spending but ring-fenced and used to give Britain a green energy boost. Her comments, in an adjournment debate in the Commons, comes after the Government launched a consultation on how cash raised from the controversial energy source should be spent. Ms Flint said the money should bankroll a "big picture idea" that would help transform the UK's green credentials. She said: "I believe the fund should be ring-fenced for a clear purpose - improving the UK's energy efficiency, using the proceeds from a fossil fuel to reduce our future dependence on those same energy sources." She added: "Now is the time to think about the principles for such a fund, and how we can make sure it is not frittered away across government on different schemes that at the end of the day we can't really see the power of good is provided for the nation." She urged ministers to take inspiration from Norway, which created a sovereign wealth fund with tax raised from its oil exploration that is now worth more than the oil itself. Creating a similar fund for shale gas money could help wean Britain off fossil fuels in the long run, the MP added. She said: "We could look forward to a day where we are not dependent on fossil fuels by reducing our long-term energy use". Money could be spent on refitting homes to make them energy efficient, creating jobs and growth while bringing down household energy bills. And the process would help the UK reach its target to radically reduce carbon emissions as part of the effort to tackle global warming, she said. "Let the shale wealth fund become a warm Britain fund. "A fund that is a friend to those households that are yet to see the benefits of energy efficiency, a fund that foresees a low carbon Britain and contributes to that goal, a fund that creates jobs in every community - uniting politicians and the public for the common good. "A fund which truly leaves a legacy." She warned that too often "the loudest voices" in local communities get to determine where money is spent and urged ministers to set a national strategy for the cash. Treasury Minister Jane Ellison said the Government is committed to seeing the money channelled to the local communities where fracking is undertaken. She said: "Specifically we want to ensure that those communities and regions that host shale activity will benefit directly from doing so, and I mean they should benefit beyond the boost to the local economy you would expect them to receive in any case from the development of this new industry. "The Prime Minister has been very clear on this, local people must come first." The minister added: "A significant proportion of this is expected in the north, and that means the shale industry could play an important role in the economic development of parts of the Northern Powerhouse, helping to drive local growth, investment and jobs even further." Jennifer Lawrence at the 2016 Bafta Los Angeles Britannia Awards - the star says she is scared when fans invade her personal space (AP) Jennifer Lawrence has said she gets frightened when fans approach her. The Hunger Games actress - who was among the victims of hackers who posted nude pictures of famous women online in 2014 - said while members of the public recognise her, she does not know them. On occasion, she said, she even finds herself being rude to people who have invaded her personal space. Lawrence told Vanity Fair magazine: "You might think you know me, but when you approach me you're a total stranger to me and I'm scared. "I get very protective of my space. It took me a long time to be able to do that. "But if I'm eating dinner and somebody comes up and a flash goes off from someone's iPhone camera, I am really rude to that person. "Then other people at the restaurant will see and be like, oh, damn, I don't want to do that." The Oscar-winner continued: "Privacy is a full-time job and I work very hard at it." Lawrence, 26, also said that despite her stardom she sometimes feels insecure about her appearance. She said Paris Fashion Week was "the most intimidating time to be alive". She said: "You get ready in your hotel and you're like, I look awesome. "Then you walk outside, see the outfits and people who are like seven feet tall, and are like, I am a piece of garbage, I'm not going out any more." Peter Capaldi is one of the oldest actors to play the Doctor Doctor Who star and lifelong fan Peter Capaldi has compared being the Doctor to being the Wizard of Oz or Santa Claus. Set to resume his role as the regenerating, time-travelling alien in the show's annual Christmas special, he said that the fictional character was treated as "mythical" by overseas fans. Known for playing the less-than-family-friendly spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It, Capaldi shot to international fame when he became the 12th actor to represent the Doctor, generating a particularly large fan base in South America. He told the Radio Times: "I found it hard at first. You walk on stage and it makes people go crazy, not because you're me, because you're Doctor Who. "When you see little kids, that's fantastic. A wee bit like being a mythical character, like the Wizard of Oz or Santa Claus." At 58, Capaldi is one of the oldest actors to take on the role in its 53-year history, following the energetic performances given by Matt Smith and David Tennant. But he told the magazine that the Doctor's age changes were crucial in making him accessible to all audiences. "The Doctors I grew up with were not young," he said. "To me, Doctor Who was not a young man. Ironically, I'm older than any of those, except for William Hartnell. "The thing about Doctor Who is the constitution of the audience. "It covers a huge age range, so you have to entertain little kids and you have to entertain hipsters and students, and middle-aged men who should know better. "So sometimes there is a kind of metaphysical and intellectual aspect to it, which is more to the fore than other times. But generally, we just blow up monsters." The Doctor may see even further changes as lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat is replaced by Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall in 2018. But whoever the creative brains behind the show are, fans have been coming up with their own theories about the Doctor's origins for years. Having sent a fan letter to the show in 1974, when he was 15, Capaldi is one of them. He said: "He's really not human at all. Who you see is what he has chosen to present, because that's the only way that humans can understand him and what he is." "The truth is, he comprehends it too much. His problem is that he sort of knows everything. That makes life quite hard." :: Read the full interview in this week's Radio Times. James May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond moved together to Amazon Prime from the BBC. The debut episode of Jeremy Clarkson's new motoring programme The Grand Tour has set a new streaming record for Amazon Prime Video, the company has said. Former Top Gear stars Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May's new effort has become the subscription service's biggest premiere, beating previous number one show on the service, 2015's The Man In The High Castle. Amazon did not reveal the total number of views for that or for The Grand Tour's launch episode. A statement from the company said that "millions of Prime members" streamed the premiere episode over the weekend in the UK, US, Germany, Austria and Japan. The site said that "total new Prime membership sign-ups exceeded all previous days", aside from its Prime Day event on the day it became available to viewers. The Grand Tour's first episode, which saw Clarkson, Hammond and May head to a desert in California to entertain a crowd in their travelling tent and test drive three hybrid hypercars, became available to stream on Friday. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said: "The guys are back, doing what they do best - the chemistry between Jeremy, Richard and James is what makes The Grand Tour so entertaining. "Their creativity, along with the amazing production quality and 4K HDR streaming, has Prime members responding in a big way. Kudos and congrats to the whole team." The ex-Top Gear stars' move from the BBC to Amazon last year came after Clarkson's contract was not renewed due to a "fracas" with a show producer. Hammond and May followed him to the streaming service to create their alternative motoring programme. The Grand Tour's debut episode received largely positive reviews from fans and critics. Clarkson thanked fans for their praise, and admitted he was "relieved and grateful" for the response. The BBC's review of The Grand Tour, however, described it as "uncomfortably hubristic", and hinted at a rivalry between Clarkson and May. Arts editor Will Gompertz praised the scale of the production but said the programme seemed more suitable for the big screen rather than as a TV series. A new episode of The Grand Tour will be available to stream on Amazon Prime Video every Friday. Sir Lenny Henry said he got his first degree at the age of 46 Education is a right for everyone and not an "accident of birth", Sir Lenny Henry will say as he becomes a university chancellor. In his first speech as Birmingham City University's new chancellor, the comedian, 58, is expected to talk about how he grew up believing that education was "not intended for the likes of me", and did not begin studying for qualifications until he was an adult. He first attempted to gain qualifications while working with comedy duo Cannon and Ball in the early 1980s and gained his first degree at the age of 46. Sir Lenny, who received a knighthood last year, will tell an audience at Birmingham Town Hall on Tuesday: "I grew up with the belief that education was not intended for the likes of me. "It wasn't until I was doing a summer season with Cannon and Ball in 1981 that I was brave enough to embark on my GCSEs. It was tough going, but I got through it. "I was 46 before I got my first degree with the Open University and, while a comparative latecomer to higher education - whose career hardly relied on securing a BA or an MA after my name - that experience changed my life. It opened my mind to more possibilities, new thinking and different perspectives. "Being chancellor of Birmingham City University is a chance for me to give back, to contribute something to the generation of young people leaving school now and to those people coming back in to education - mature students - who, like me, missed out on the chance when they were younger." Sir Lenny, who was born in Dudley, will praise the university for having one of the most diverse student bodies in the UK, with more than 45% of students coming from low-income households and 48% from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. "This institution understands that education is a right, not an accident of birth, and if you're smart enough, creative enough and hardworking enough, Birmingham City University can provide you with life-changing opportunities, whatever your background," he will say. If two men married each other's mothers, what's the relationship of their sons? I ask not just to stimulate your intelligence, but to illustrate that families can be really confusing. They become even more so when one considers the inner child and inner parent. Of course, the inner parent is not real - at least, not in the way that a tuna fish sandwich can be real - but he/she does have a kind of reality. If you've ever had an imaginary spat with your inner mother to the point where you begin to experience real anger, you'll know what I mean. This brings us to the popular concept of emotional intelligence, which is defined as the ability to recognise, express and control one's emotions on the inside so that you can do the same in your relationships on the outside. Although the self-help books on the subject don't say so, mindfulness is the best way to develop it. I'll illustrate with an example. Yesterday, I was standing in a queue at a supermarket, waiting to be served by a cashier with whom I had squabbled in the recent past. As I waited and remembered our disagreement, I noticed I was feeling awkward. I had to tell myself to stop and be mindful. What were the actual sensations that I was labelling 'awkwardness'? In my case, it was nothing more than a little tension in the stomach accompanied by shallow breathing. Once I realised this and allowed myself to freely experience those waves of tension, they became just another set of sensations - neither good nor bad - and I had an enjoyable exchange with the cashier. Breaking your internal thoughts up into different 'parts' so that you can carry out arguments with yourself sounds like a crazy idea but it's something we do. In mindfulness we stop investing in the stories that we tell ourselves in order to focus on the wholeness of our ongoing experiences. It may not increase your IQ, but mindfulness will make you an Einstein of emotional intelligence. (PS: write to me if you figure out the relationship of those sons.) Some children dream of becoming a superhero; others of being transformed into a princess. Noah Coates simply wants to go outside and play like the other children. For as long as he can remember, the 10-year-old from Carrickfergus has suffered from Vanishing White Matter Disease - a devastating genetic condition which destroys myelin, the brain's white matter that insulates and protects nerves. The disease - an extremely rare type of Leukodystrophy estimated to affect just 250 people worldwide - can leave sufferers unable to walk, talk or eat. It can also cause spasticity, reduced cognitive ability, blindness and deafness. Most children die before reaching their teens and there is no known cure. Noah's sister, Gracie (6), also has the disease, but is so far relatively symptom-free and unaware that she has it. For the children's parents Sarah and Greg, who are both aged 39, each diagnosis has been devastating - and their lives have permanently altered as a result. They had never heard of the disease when Sarah found out she was pregnant with Noah. "I was just ecstatic because I just wanted to be a mummy," she says. "Noah came two weeks early, but when he was born everything was fine and there were no symptoms. I just thought he was perfect - as you do." He continued to develop normally and even began walking at 11 months. But when he was 13 months old, Sarah and Greg noticed that his walking pattern wasn't quite right. An X-ray came back all clear but Noah continued to have problems with his legs. "When he was about two-and-a-half, he was in the room next to me and had a wee fall - not even enough to leave a mark," recalls Sarah. "I lifted him up to comfort him, but when I put him back down again he couldn't put any weight on his legs." Thinking that he might have broken it, she took him straight to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. But by the time they arrived he seemed better again. Then, one morning - when Sarah was eight months' pregnant with her second child, Gracie - he couldn't walk at all. Greg and Sarah rushed him to hospital, where he had a CT scan. As they anxiously awaited news, they were still optimistic that they would be able to take their son home. "There had been talk of a lack of oxygen at birth and maybe slight cerebral palsy, so I remember saying to my husband: 'Well, if that's the worst then we can live with that'," says Sarah. "But when we were called into the room, we realised there were too many doctors and nurses for there to be any chance of sending us home. The doctor explained that Noah had a very abnormal brain scan. We thought 'Does that just mean he'll have difficulty walking?' But then she said he had a life-limiting condition called Leukodystrophy. "It was horrendous. Our whole life changed in a split second. We'd been looking forward to having our second baby - our wee daughter - and everything just changed." Noah's scans were sent away to a specialist in Holland, who diagnosed Noah with Vanishing White Matter Disease. More heartbreak followed, when Gracie, who had a one in four chance of inheriting the disease, was also found to have it. In fact, the siblings are the only people in Northern Ireland known to suffer from the disease. "It was just devastating," says Sarah. "We'd been really praying and hoping that she didn't have it." She and Greg have decided not to tell Gracie anything until she starts to develop symptoms, as they fear the news would be too distressing for her. "It will be harder for her because she'll be looking at her brother and seeing everything that he's going through," says Sarah. In a tragic irony, Gracie often pretends to suffer from the same symptoms as her brother - in order to make him feel better. Meanwhile, Noah's condition is deteriorating rapidly. He is now unable to walk, eat or go to the lavatory and has difficulty breathing. "The disease has now gone into his brain stem, which means that he's gone from walking at this time last year to not being able to get out of bed," says Sarah. There is currently no known cure for the disease, but research is being conducted both in Israel and Holland. So far, the family have travelled several times to Holland for consultations. Daily life is a struggle, but Sarah says their faith in God has been essential and helped them to cope. "We have a good Christian faith, and we talk to Noah a lot about heaven - not in a frightening way. "He certainly has an understanding that when we die, we go to heaven and that he will be made better and his body whole. "There have been times when he's said 'Mum, I think I'd like to go to heaven now', because his idea of heaven is somewhere he'll be able to run, fly and jump. It's just heart-breaking." Greg is employed as a team leader in the lab department at Schrader Electronics and, despite the constant demands at home, Sarah still goes to work twice a week at the charity Women's Aid. "For me, it's just a place where I can go where I'm not talking about medical stuff," she explains. "It sounds strange, but it's like a haven for me because it allows me to be distracted. "Whereas when I go home, there are a lot of professionals to deal with. "We've been really blessed with all the support we've received [from professionals and friends], but it's still hard when you have people in your home all the time." She's especially grateful to her friends, many of whom have raised money to help the family make life more comfortable for Noah and Gracie. Last week, five friends from Sarah's church organised a gala ball at the Europa Hotel in Belfast to raise money for the family, which was attended by around 500 people. "There is a lot of bad stuff happening in the world, and to think people are even coming out to pray for us has been overwhelming. It's really helped to give us a lift." In September, the family were supposed to travel to Disney Land in Florida, thanks to the Starlight Foundation, a charity which grants wishes for seriously ill children. However, Noah's deteriorating condition has made this impossible. As a gesture of good will, Gabrielle Riddiough, a local 'princess' impersonator, last Sunday organised a special princess-themed birthday party for Gracie, who turns seven in December. During the party, Gracie got a full princess makeover and had tea with several other Disney princesses and Prince Charming before they were joined by her friends. Noah, meanwhile, got a FaceTime call from his hero, Captain America. "We would like to offer our most heartfelt thanks to Gabrielle and the other princesses and prince and everyone involved in making Gracie's birthday so special," says Sarah. "It was really a party for Gracie, because a lot of attention goes to Noah. His needs are a lot higher, so sometimes she feels a wee bit left out. "With her condition, she's limited as to the things she can do because of the safety aspect - so they're going to take a bit of time to spoil her." At the moment, Gracie still dreams of becoming a princess, but she could soon be experiencing the same symptoms as her big brother. Although there is no cure for the disease, Sarah and Greg will never give up hope. "We still believe in miracles - we've witnessed them every day through the goodness of people," says Sarah. "And we still believe that God can heal both Noah and Gracie. "But if it's not here on Earth then we will continue to trust in God's goodness and love." For more information, visit: http://noahandgraciecoates.com. Donations to help find a cure for the disease can be made to savingchloesaxby.com A victims' campaign group has said four of its members have died since they first asked Stormont leaders in 2011 to agree on a pension for those left unable to work after being injured during the Troubles. Paul Gallagher, who campaigns for the Wave Trauma Centre, was left paralysed by a loyalist gun attack in 1994. As millions pour into the coffers of groups with links to former paramilitaries, Paul feels re-traumatised by Stormont's inaction over terror victims. His attackers had forced their way into his house in Lenadoon in west Belfast to wait for a neighbour to return home. When their target never arrived they shot Paul instead six times. Although he graduated with a First Class honours degree from Queen's University this year, Paul says his injuries make it impossible for him to return to full-time employment - and he fears having to rely solely on state benefits when he reaches retirement age. On a daily basis he requires help from his father and brother to use the bathroom and to get around. This year, complications from his paralysis also required him to have a kidney removed. Paul is thought to be one of at least 500 people who were injured in the Troubles through no fault of their own and left unable to work. "We've buried four of our members since this campaign started," he said. "It's really demoralising - it's as if violence is being put on us again, but we're fighting against this structural power." Today, Wave has written to politicians and church leaders to ask them to support the pension, with details of those badly in need of support. They include Peter Heathwood, shot and left paralysed by a loyalist gang in 1979 when he was 26. His father died from a heart attack when he arrived and thought his son was dead. Another victim, a 38-year-old mother of four, was blinded in 1982 when an IRA bomb shattered the windows in her office. Alan McBride is the Injured Group Co-ordinator for Wave. He said politicians needed to offer more than "tea and sympathy". He added the Injured Group have "hit a brick wall" as the DUP and Sinn Fein could not agree which victims deserved a pension. Mr McBride said he did not begrudge millions being awarded to groups with paramilitary links "to leave the stage," but couldn't understand why innocent victims were not also helped. Victims and Survivors Commissioner Judith Thompson said: "The fact that we have not been able to achieve the pension is a profound indictment of how we treat these individuals." A Garda killer who was jailed for seven years in 2011 has been charged with driving and drugs offences in Northern Ireland. Martin McDermott (31), who is originally from Raphoe in Co Donegal, was jailed five years ago after he drove a stolen car into a Garda car on the main Londonderry to Letterkenny Road in 2009. Garda officer Gary McLoughlin died from injuries he sustained in the impact. At Londonderry Magistrates' Court yesterday, McDermott, who now lives at Meehan Terrace in the Waterside, appeared with another man. He and Gary Dobbins (35), from St Eithne's Park in the city, are jointly charged with four drug charges linked to the seizure of 5,600 diazepam tablets, as well as conspiring with two other men to supply the tablets. Both men are alleged to have committed the offences on March 26 of this year. McDermott is further charged with offering to supply or sell Pregabalin, better known as Lyrica, and possessing it with a prescription. Those offences are alleged to have occurred last Saturday. He is also charged with driving while disqualified and driving without insurance on the same day. Dobbins is also charged with driving without insurance and while disqualified, driving without due care and attention and failing to stop for a police officer. Those offences are alleged to have taken place on a cross border road between Derry and Donegal on October 2. Opposing bail, a PSNI officer told District Judge Barney McElholm that McDermott had 99 previous criminal convictions in the Republic and 11 in Northern Ireland. "He was disqualified from driving for 20 years in the Republic of Ireland following the death of a Garda colleague yet he continues to drive without having a driver's licence," she told the court. McDermott received a seven-year jail sentence in July 2011 for the manslaughter of Garda Gary McLoughlin. The officer died when his squad car was struck at speed by a stolen car driven by McDermott at Burt, Co Donegal, in December 2009. The police witness said the drugs charges against the two defendants followed an investigation after large quantities of diazepam were intercepted by Royal Mail staff. This led to properties in Derry and in Belfast being searched. She said one of the boxes of drugs was addressed to Dobbin's home while an empty box related to McDermott's home address. The officer said in September last year, 5,600 diazepam tablets posted to McDermott's home address were intercepted by the police. She said McDermott's home address was searched on October 21 last year. Police found a box containing information leaflets relating to diazepam patches. Mr McElholm refused bail to both men, saying that he did not think they would stop offending if released. The heartbroken father of a young man who died after collapsing suddenly in the early hours of Sunday morning has spoken out about the dangers of drugs. Jamie Burns from the Shore Road area of north Belfast had been socialising at the Queen's University Student Union when he fell ill and died. The PSNI has launched an investigation into his death and a post-mortem is set to be carried out. His father William believes his son had taken a tablet before his collapse, and took to social media in his grief to warn other parents to make sure their kids are never tempted by drugs. "I lost my only son, 23 years of age, went out Saturday night with friends and stupidly took a tablet - he never came home," he said. "Please, please, please, make sure your kids, teenagers, young adults aren't tempted, no parent should have to go through this." He posted on to his Facebook page on Sunday: "You never think in your entire life that as a parent you would ever go through this. Today my life has ended, my son, my best friend died this morning." A spokeswoman for Queen's University said: "This is a police matter, we will assist the PSNI in their investigations." The PSNI has launched an investigation into the sudden death. Detective Inspector Richard Thornton said a post-mortem will take place to determine the cause of death. "Police in Belfast are investigating the sudden death of a 23-year-old man who collapsed at an address on the University Road during the early hours of Sunday, November 20, 2016," he said. "The male was brought to hospital by ambulance for medical treatment, but died a short time later. "A post mortem will take place in due course to determine the cause of death. There are no further details at present." Jamie was a student at the Northern Regional College in Newtownabbey. A service is planned to take place at the family home on Friday morning, before a funeral service at Roselawn Crematorium. A fundraising effort set up to help his family with funeral costs has already raised more than 1,300 of the 2,000 goal. On the crowdfunding website Just Giving, the family wrote of their shock and pain. "On the early hours of Sunday morning, we as a family got the tragic news of our 23-year-old son, brother, nephew, cousin and friend, was in serious trouble," they wrote. "On a regular night out in Belfast with friends he took what seems to be the absolute current 'norm', and now we are left with the deepest pain and heartache a family could ever imagine. This came without any warning at all and is a huge shock. We are completely numb. He was the most kind hearted and genuine boy you could meet. It only takes one time taking drugs on a night out in a club, but it leaves behind a gaping hole for the rest of the family's lives. "This is the side young people don't think about when experimenting in this madness." The family also revealed their worry about being able to pay for Jamie's funeral. "As a self-employed family, meaning money only comes in if you're out working to get it, and obviously this is completely impossible for the immediate family at this time, I have set up this crowdfunding page," they wrote. "This is simply if you wish to donate any money at all no matter how little, it will go towards the funeral costs at this devastating time. "We have received a lot of support and kind words on social media and through visits up to now all of which is so greatly appreciated, but the reality is this is also an expensive time which has landed so unexpectedly out of nowhere." Offences are alleged to have occurred at the Orchard Leisure Centre A fifty-six year old man has been charged with three counts of attempted voyeurism, following alleged incidents at an Armagh leisure centre. John Kerr of Derryfubble Road, Dungannon is accused of attempting to observe unknown persons doing a private act for sexual gratification. The offences are alleged to have occurred on 26, 29 and 30 September at the Orchard Leisure Centre. A police officer told Armagh Magistrates Court the charges could be connected. Kerr was remanded on continuing bail and ordered to return to court next month. Police were called in by staff on Friday 30 September who had observed a male acting suspiciously in the changing area. He had been noted on two previous days and staff moved swiftly when he appeared on the third occasion. Staff deployed the Leisure Watch safe-guarding protocol which led to an arrest. Police confirmed they returned to the leisure centre the day after the detection to interview witnesses and secure CCTV evidence. Brendan McConville and Siobhan Monaghan after their wedding in prison yesterday The family of an English woman who wed killer Brendan McConville behind bars say they'll never accept the dissident republican as her husband. The Belfast Telegraph can reveal that some of Siobhan Monaghan's family, who live in the Oxford town of Wantage, didn't even know she was marrying the Craigavon gunman until she left for Northern Ireland last week. They have now hit out at the romance, and say they fear the relationship could tear the close-knit family apart. "No-one can believe Siobhan has done this. Some of her children didn't even know she was going out with McConville," a source close to the family said last night. "She only told some of them about the wedding before she left for Ireland last week with a wedding dress. "It's caused mayhem. "As far as we are concerned he is a murderer and will never be part of the family. "Siobhan was made aware of just how strongly people around here felt before she left for Northern Ireland last week, and before she walked down that aisle. "All she could say though was that she loved him and she was marrying him. "Her teenage son is devastated, he doesn't know what to do. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Stephen Carroll with his wife Kate Brendan McConville Kate Carroll whose husband, police officer Stephen Carroll, was murdered PACEMAKER BELFAST 22/03/2016 Kate Carroll (widow of Stephen Carroll) During The funeral cortege for murdered prison officer Adrian Ismay arrives at Woodvale Methodist Church this morning. Mr Ismay died 11 days after being seriously injured in an under car bomb planted by a group calling itself the ONew IRAO on the 4th of March this year. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Murdered police constable Stephen Carroll Constable Stephen Carroll was shot dead in March 2009 Mandatory Credit - Picture by Freddie Parkinson/Press Eye Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Adrian Ismay: Funeral for prison officer targeted in van bomb The funeral for prison officer Adrian Ismay who died following a dissident republican bomb attack. Among the mourners was Justice Minister David Ford, George Hamilton Chief Constable of the PSNI, Kate Carroll widow of the late Stephen Carroll, Theresa Villiers Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and First Minister Arlene Foster. Press Eye - Belfast - Norther / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Stephen Carroll with his wife Kate "He loves his mum but he can't accept McConville. "He just keeps saying, 'My mum's married a murderer'. "Seeing the pictures of her wrapped around McConville yesterday broke his heart. "He's very angry. "She's due to fly back home tomorrow and there will be family crisis talks. "This relationship is ripping the family apart." The Belfast Telegraph revealed yesterday how McConville was set to marry Siobhan at a ceremony inside Maghaberry prison yesterday. The pair struck up a relationship after the 49-year-old began writing to him behind bars from her Oxford home. The religious nuptials, performed by a priest, took place in the prison's multi-faith room yesterday morning, and were followed by tea and buns. Around 10 guests, including a number of McConville's fellow dissident inmates, attended the vows but left the celebrations early to allow the happy couple some time alone. Minutes after leaving the jailhouse do, Siobhan couldn't wait to share her happy news on social media. Changing her surname on Facebook to McConville, she announced the marriage alongside a picture of the newly-married couple. Scores offered their congratulations - first among them was Brian Shivers. He was acquitted after retrial three years ago of the murder of two soldiers and six attempted murders at Massereene barracks in 2009. Commenting on the picture of McConville and his bride, he said: "A very happy man all the very best Brian." The happy couple are expected to continue their long distance romance through phone calls and letters as McConville serves the remainder of a 25-year sentence for killing PSNI officer Stephen Carroll. The 48-year-old from Banbridge, Co Down was shot in the head as he responded to a 999 call out in the Lismore estate in Craigavon in March 2009. McConville, who was lying in wait armed with an AK47 assault rifle, pulled the trigger. The devoted dad and granddad was the first PSNI officer to be killed by dissidents since the formation of the new force. McConville, along with 25 year-old accomplice JP Wootton from Lurgan, Co Armagh were convicted of his murder in 2012. They were sentenced to a minimum of 25 and 14 years in prison. Alliance leader Naomi Long has revealed that she was diagnosed with cancer at the height of the flag protests, when she was under threat from loyalists. Mrs Long had life-saving surgery but she described the moment that she was diagnosed as the most terrifying time of her life. "I guess a cancer diagnosis kind of puts a bullet in the post in perspective because, you know, whatever politics can do to you, whatever threats people can make, there is nothing quite as frightening as when your own body is working against you," she said. Mrs Long reveals her diagnosis in an interview with BBC Spotlight's Mandy McAuley which will be broadcast tonight. The programme tells her life story and examines her career and the challenges she is facing as Alliance's new leader. Mrs Long recalled how at the height of the flag protests, she noticed a mole on her wrist was bleeding. It turned out to be skin cancer, a malignant melanoma. She had it removed surgically and did not require any further treatment. She has been all clear from cancer for three and a half years but she had regular check-ups and has had further moles removed as a precaution. She said that she was speaking out now to raise awareness of skin cancer and how early detection and treatment is crucial. Mrs Long revealed that she deliberately didn't make her cancer diagnosis public at the time. "If I had talked about it then, it would have been portrayed as me wishing to be a victim and I am nobody's victim. I wasn't seeking people's sympathy and I didn't want anyone to think I was seeking sympathy," she said. During the flag protests, Mrs Long was warned by police that they had intelligence that she would be shot at her east Belfast home or at her office. Despite having bulletproof glass and security cameras, she was unable to use the front room of her house for three years. The Alliance leader, who was East Belfast MP at the time, said that as well as having the cancerous mole removed, she had to go back to hospital for further surgery. "I had an additional part of skin on my wrist removed around the mole, a sort of safe zone," she said. "And my arm then had to be reflected back and put in a cast to avoid me having a skin graft. So at the same time that all of that (the flag protest) was going on, I was dealing with I suppose quite a difficult sort of personal issue as well." Mrs Long's husband, Michael, who is the Alliance group leader on Belfast City Council, said that it has been a very challenging time for them. "It was like just pure devastation to find out that this was what it was, a malignant melanoma, and just that it had been there for a wee while and obviously that was of real concern," he said. "Really, I think at that stage you're just wondering what was coming next, to be honest with you, between the flag stuff and everything else." Mrs Long disclosed that she was now free of cancer. "Three and a half years clear and feeling good, I have had two other moles removed which were fine," she said. "But I am obviously really cautious now so anything that gives me any trouble I get it looked at immediately and preferably removed." She is ultra-careful when in the sun, making sure that her skin is well covered. She said that she hoped that by going public with her own experience, she could help others. "A third of us will face cancer at some point in our lives," she said. "And I think we as a society need to talk about it more. "We need to be better at supporting each other in terms of how we deal with it, and also we need to recognise the success stories. "Because there are success stories and we need to give people hope for the future and encouragement to believe that there is a life after a diagnosis." The Spotlight team filmed the Longs - who were childhood sweethearts and met at 14 - in their east Belfast home. Mrs Long, who took over from David Ford as Alliance leader last month, is questioned about the direction in which she plans to take the party and the challenges of increasing its electoral support. When asked about her position on the Union, the Alliance leader maintained that she isn't a unionist. "Would it make life easier for me if I pretended I was a unionist?" she asked. "Maybe it would, but it's not who I am and it wouldn't be honest." A coffin is taken to the Graveside as Police forensic teams at Milltown cemetery begin exhuming the body of Daniel Rooney, Mr Rooney was shot dead by the Army in 1972 at the St James Crescent area of west Belfast. His Body is being exhumed as part of an investigation into the Military Reaction Force (MRF). Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Teenager Daniel Rooney, who was shot dead in West Belfast more than 40 years ago (PSNI/PA) Police forensic teams at Milltown cemetery as they begin exhuming the body of Daniel Rooney, Mr Rooney was shot dead by the Army in 1972 at the St James Crescent area of west Belfast. His Body is being exhumed as part of an investigation into the Military Reaction Force (MRF). Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker The body of Daniel Rooney who was shot dead by the Army in 1972 is exhumed from his grave at the familys plot in Milltown Cemetery Police forensic teams begin exhuming the body of Daniel Rooney, Mr Rooney was shot dead by the Army in 1972 at the St James Crescent area of west Belfast. His Body is being exhumed as part of an investigation into the Military Reaction Force (MRF). Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker The body of Daniel Rooney who was shot dead by the Army in 1972 is exhumed from his grave at the familys plot in Milltown Cemetery An "object of interest" has been found following the exhumation of the remains of a teenager killed by an undercover Army unit more than 40 years ago. Daniel Rooney (18) was shot dead by soldiers from the secretive Military Reaction Force (MRF) in the St James Crescent area of West Belfast on September 26 1972. Detective Chief Inspector Neil McGuinness, who is leading the police investigation, said: "Mr Rooney's body has now been removed to allow some forensic work to be carried out; however, at this stage, we can confirm that we have found an object of interest that will be submitted for further forensic tests in due course." Read More The exhumation, which was completed on Monday, was ordered to discover if there were any bullet fragments among the teenager's remains. No post-mortem examination was undertaken at the time of Mr Rooney's death although a medical report noted a bullet entry wound but made no mention of an exit wound. Read More The complex dig at Milltown Cemetery in West Belfast is part of a wider investigation by detectives into allegations that the MRF carried out random and unjustified shootings during the Troubles. Mr McGuinness said police were continuing to liaise with the family and would " keep them informed of any further developments". The wide-ranging probe by the PSNI's Legacy Investigations Branch (LIB) was triggered after a referral by Northern Ireland's Director of Public Prosecutions, Barra McGrory. Mr McGuinness said the investigation was probably the most complex he had experienced in 20 years in policing. Letters warning of legal action against a group of pensioners who were issued with parking fines while taking part in a charity moped run in Belfast are to be cancelled. A small number of Wirral Wobblers, who had been told in May this year that the original parking fines would not be pursued, received notices from the Parking Enforcement Agency (PEA) in recent days. An administrative error led to the correspondence being wrongly issued. One of the charity motorcyclists, Martin Archer, received a letter on October 21, and said the notice had left him feeling stressed. "I thought all this was behind us," Mr Archer continued. "Oh please let there be an end to this torment." The group, from outside Liverpool, hit the headlines when they objected to being hit with fines for parking their mopeds on a pavement in the Titanic Quarter during a stop-off on their tour around Northern Ireland. The proceeds of the charity ride were in aid of the international organisation, Medecins Sans Frontieres. At the time, a spokesman for PEA said: "Unfortunately our patrol operatives were not made aware of the charity event being held. "As soon as we were informed of it, we cancelled all the fines issued." But yesterday, Wirral Wobblers spokesman Ted Bemand explained that the parking problem appeared to have reared its head once again. "This has been going on and off for a while now," Mr Bemand told the Belfast Telegraph. "At first we were told the fines were being rescinded, but now it seems that two or three of our members have received solicitor's letters threatening further action if the charges aren't paid. "So as far as I know, this all still seems to be in the pipeline." Mr Bemand was quick to stress that the parking fines would not deter his fellow members from visiting Northern Ireland in the future. "It was all very weird, really, because we had such good feedback from people in Northern Ireland at the time of our visit. "I even sent a letter to your newspaper, on behalf of the Wirral Wobblers, thanking the people of Northern Ireland for their help and welcome. "The business of the parking fines did put a little sting in the tail, I suppose, but we had such a great time and raised 1,240 for Medecins Sans Frontieres. "It was strange, if you think about it, because that figure was the exact total of our combined ages at the time!" During their visit to Northern Ireland, the Wirral Wobblers took in the stunning scenery along the north coast, even managing to check out some of the popular Game of Thrones filming locations, as well as riding around Lough Neagh and enjoying a number of private motorcycle collections. In a statement to the Belfast Telegraph, the PEA's managing director, Tom Harrington, confirmed that no further action would be taken against the Wirral Wobblers members in respect of the parking fines. Mr Harrington said: "We were unable to get a list of registrations of those involved at the time so unfortunately it looks like a couple slipped through the cracks but we will cancel them now." While some units are tested on their fitness most officers in the PSNI are not. The majority of police officers still routinely do not have their fitness tested - that's despite a 2014 pledge from the PSNI to introduce regular assessments. Following an Freedom of Information request, the Stephen Nolan show revealed on Tuesday that once police officers pass their initial recruitment fitness test, they may not be tested again throughout their career. Part of the intensive assessment process for wannabe cops involves a physical competency assessment. The assessment consists of an obstacle course based on physical activities that officers are likely to come across on the job which must be completed three times within 3.54 minutes. If a candidate fails the assessment they are immediately disqualified from the recruitment process. Once they enter the ranks, some specialist units within the PSNI have to undergo physical testing, while most officers do not. It comes after it was revealed earlier this year that over 2,000 pairs of trousers over a 40 inch waist were handed out to police officers. By contrast Firefighters are routinely assessed on their fitness for the job throughout their career. Ambulance crews, however, do not have any physical test prior to joining or after. Police head of human resources Jude Helliker, said: "Police officers within the Police Service of Northern Ireland undergo physical assessments prior to appointment, on completion of the Student Officer Training Programme and within Post Foundation Training. "Annual in-service physical assessments are conducted within all PSNI Specialist Units. At present, annual in-service physical assessments are not mandatory for all PSNI officers. "PSNI is currently considering the implementation of annual in-service physical assessments for all police officers in line with our commitment to their health, safety and wellbeing. "We wish to ensure that we have a sufficiently resilient workforce that is able to meet the challenges of policing and to keep the public safe." Read More In an interview for the Belfast Telegraph in May 2014, Acting Deputy Chief Constable Alistair Finlay said the force would introduce regular physical testing for all police - which could have included the chief constable and senior management team. "Very reasonable questions have been asked about why we test fitness at the beginning and then forget about it," he said. "We have people who operate in a lot of specialist roles undergo fitness assessments, but this type of fitness test will incrementally be included for all officers over the next few years." The Belfast Telegraph asked the PSNI when the tests would be introduced. It has yet to respond. The Police Federation - the union representing rank and file officers - said the perception that the workforce of the PSNI was unfit was wrong. Expand Expand Previous Next Close Police are expected to carry out a number of duties throughout the course of their work. Mark Lindsay is the chairman of the PFNI / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Police are expected to carry out a number of duties throughout the course of their work. Chairman Mark Lindsay said: "It has to be stressed this is not an unfit workforce. "There is an onus on officers to maintain a level of fitness and there are certain units which are tested. The numbers [unfit] would be minimal. "But just because others are not routinely tested do not mean they are not fit. Officers are involved in sport and we have police on bikes so it does help with their fitness. "With budget cuts it is costly to extract offices from duty, with stations closing it means there is no safe gym facility for officers say to go to on their lunch. "To facilitate exercise for all officers would prove costly. "People talk about seeing officers outside a chip shop eating, in reality they are stopping for something quick to eat and not taking a proper break because of the pressure on them. "They are working through their breaks, they are having rest days cancelled, they are working flat out." We need your consent to load this Social Media content We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content. Manage Preference Firefighters undergo a fitness test every six months of their career. Assessments include treadmill, step and shuttle run tests. Should a firefighter not pass the test they are referred to occupational health for investigation into the reasoning behind the fail. An officer may be stood down to allow for them to retake the test. The Fire Service said it takes a "supportive position in relation to those who fail to reach the aerobic level required and individual support programs can be put in place". On regular tests for police officers, Federation chairman Mr Lindsay added: "It is how the testing is managed. "People should be physically fit and mentally able to do the job. "Are older, more experienced officers who are maybe carrying the injuries from service going to have to pass rigorous tests and face punitive action if they fail? "And if officers do fail will they have to be taken off duty or face expulsion? And then there are different types of fitness to be considered. "What is needed is an improved approach to health and wellbeing across the police and in the public sector which would facilitate that. "I would argue that no matter how fit you are, it is your ability to deal with people that counts. "A lot of work is done with the brain rather than how fast you can climb a 6ft wall." Stormont will deliver a multimillion-pound motorway project to reduce congestion at a Belfast bottleneck, the Finance Minister has vowed. Mairtin O Muilleoir claimed the York Street Interchange was a priority and said all funding avenues should be explored. He said: "I am not the infrastructure minister, but we find common ground. "We both believe this is a priority project and will transform the road infrastructure of Belfast. "It is my view that we should be speaking to everyone who has influence over these matters, including the European Infrastructure Funds which won't come on stream until 2018 - but to the British government as well. "It remains a priority. We need to, and will, deliver the York Street interchange." The remarks were made during Question Time at the Assembly. Last week, Sinn Fein Infrastructure Minister Chris Hazzard accepted a recommendation from a public inquiry that the York Street Interchange scheme should progress in principle but reiterated warnings that Brexit had placed a question mark over funding. The inquiry into the proposal to link the Westlink, M2 and M3 with construction of a new bridge and associated underpasses was held last November - and a recommendation to proceed was handed to Stormont in January. North Belfast DUP MLA William Humphrey said the development was "crucial". Expand Close Finance Minister Mairtin O Muilleoir pledged support for the York Street Interchange project / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Finance Minister Mairtin O Muilleoir pledged support for the York Street Interchange project "Given that the public inquiry is progressed, the preparatory work has started and the procurement is well advanced, will the minister agree that this work essentially has begun on what is a crucial infrastructure project for this city and this region connecting airports, ports and two motorways in Belfast with the west of Northern Ireland," he said. Meanwhile Mr O Muilleoir also revealed that he had received a sympathetic ear when highlighting the need for peace funds during an address in Brussels last week. "I thought we had a sympathetic listen - sympathy isn't really what we want, but I do think actions will follow and that there is an awareness within the European Union that the peace process is the crowning achievement of the European Union and they will take additional steps to make sure the peace process is protected in the time ahead and we do get a special deal, or special case or special recognition for the time ahead," the Minister said. Stormont's education minister has urged teachers' unions to live in the "real world" as he described some of their pay demands as "fantasy figures". Peter Weir was answering an urgent oral question tabled in the Assembly on next week's proposed strike action by members of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT). Other unions are taking action industrial action stopping short of a walk out. They have rejected an offer of a 1% pay rise this year. Mr Weir told MLAs a bigger increase in 2016/17 could only be afforded by making redundancies. He said he was prepared to discuss "realistic" pay proposals for 2017/18 onward but claimed many of the figures suggested by the unions failed to acknowledge the pressure on expenditure across the public sector in Northern Ireland. "There is no doubt that all of us I think would like to see a greater degree of public sector pay for a range of workers, but we are in tight financial circumstances," he said. The DUP minister said one union had called for a 13% pay increase. "Those are just not realistic figures on that basis, and all of us have got to quite frankly live in the real world," he added. "Now I think there's got to be discussions on how we can best move forward but if there are fantasy figures getting produced in terms of what should happen in terms of pay there's got to be a realisation this can only be paid for out of the budget that is there for schools, which itself can only be paid for out of the budget for education and out of the block grant and those levels of increases in terms of pay are not realistic." NASUWT members in more than 100 schools in Belfast and Newtownabbey are expected to stage a one-day strike next Wednesday over pay, workload and job insecurity. The stoppage could cause severe disruption and force the closure of some schools. Teachers in other areas of Northern Ireland are set to take similar action early next year. The urgent Assembly question was tabled by Alliance MLA Chris Lyttle. Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, responded to Mr Weir's comments. "The fact that the minister is now issuing statements on an almost daily basis demonstrates he is clearly rattled by the action being taken by teachers," she said. Ms Keates added: "The minister would be better spending his time trying to resolve the trade dispute and avoiding the strike action by giving teachers the money that he was allocated for their pay award." Ms Keates said her union had not put a specific percentage on its call for a pay rise for teachers. "The NASUWT has never asked for 13%, in fact the union has never put a percentage on the pay claim we are seeking," she added. Elaine Orwin had to give up her career due to her sight Northern Ireland could face a blindness epidemic with tens of thousands losing their sight, a new report warns. The Macular Society report calls for more investment in research into Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) - the biggest cause of blindness here. Some 15,000 people in Northern Ireland suffer from the condition - which affects the central part of the retina called the macula - out of an estimated 600,000 across the UK. But with an increasing ageing population, this figure is expected to more than double to 1.3 million by 2050 - the equivalent of 400 new cases every day, according to the report. The report highlights the fact that just 6m out of the total 22.7m spent on eye disease medical research in 2014 was allocated to AMD, which is currently incurable and largely untreatable. It calls for more funding to be allocated to scientific research to find better treatments and, ultimately, a cure for AMD. Karen Toogood, the Macular Society's Northern Ireland regional manager, described it as an "urgent public health issue". "Unless strong action is taken right away, we will be facing an epidemic in the decades to come," she said. "AMD is almost as prevalent as dementia and represents a huge cost, care and societal burden, yet it does not receive a level of research funding proportionate to its impact. "Alongside the devastating personal consequences of sight loss, AMD costs the UK 1.6bn annually. "The drug costs alone are now more than 200m a year and the number of people with AMD is expected to double by 2050." The report - Age-related Macular Degeneration: collaborating to find a cure - has been backed by nine eye experts from Northern Ireland, including Usha Chakravarthy, Professor of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences at Queen's University, Belfast. She said: "I wish the Macular Society every success with its campaign to increase funding for robust scientific research into the prevention and treatment of sight loss. "The society has been at the forefront of this area of work for many years, which has helped improve the lives of people in the UK who have macular disorders." The report recommends bringing researchers together in a unified approach to AMD research, and securing a new funding model to support it. Elaine Orwin, from Bangor, Co Down, knows more than most about the devastating effects of the condition, which can leave people unable to drive, read or see faces. As a young child, she was diagnosed with Juvenile Macular Dystrophy - a form of macular degeneration that affects young people. "When I was four my mum noticed that I was holding things very closely and suspected there was something wrong with my sight," she told the Belfast Telegraph. Elaine added: "So my parents took me to the hospital, where I was diagnosed with macular degeneration which is hereditary on my father's side." Over the years, Elaine's sight continued to deteriorate. "By the age of 11 I was unable to see people's faces, which as you can imagine is very difficult socially. "But I just got on with things and became a teacher, teaching for 25 years." However, aged 47, Elaine's sight got so bad that she was forced to give up her career, after following the advice of her GP. "It was then I realised just how stressed I had been, even by what seemed to be the smallest thing, such as sitting in the staff room and not recognising people's faces," she said. Elaine (54) now runs a support group in Bangor where members share their experiences. Problems range from the loss of independence that comes from being unable to leave the house alone or giving up driving to being unable to cook or use kitchen utensils safely. "But the main factor is identifying people," she said. "It's so frightening when you can't see people's expressions or identify friends. Many people don't want to go into social groups." As well as helping to find a cure, it is also hoped the charity's campaign will encourage more people to get their eyes checked to increase early detection. "If you notice a little difference in your sight - for example a little wavy line or blurriness - don't ignore it and make sure that you see to it as soon as you can," added Elaine. Assembly members are 'spending a penny' in a bid to highlight deprivation overseas. A toilet-twinning initiative has been launched at Stormont - linking the Assembly's loos with Uganda's. In the past, towns and even entire council areas in Northern Ireland have been twinned with others across the world. But the latest example of twinning has taken an unusual twist. Stormont's all-party group on international development which was behind the toilet-twinning scheme revealed it is called the 'spend a penny' project. Committee chair Claire Hanna explained: "Stormont's toilet facilities will be twinned with two newly-built latrines in Uganda funded by MLAs. "We've been working with the Coalition of Aid and Development Agencies on this 'spend a penny' project. "In Northern Ireland we generally take the availability of toilets for granted, but in many parts of the world a lack of adequate water and sanitation leads to disease and can prevent girls, in particular, from accessing education. "By twinning these toilets we hope to remind MLAs, staff and visitors to the building of this need around the world." David Thomas, chair of the Coalition, said: "Our members work in some of the poorest communities in the world providing, among other things, clean drinking water, toilets and training in hygiene and disease prevention. "It is great that this work is being recognised by our local politicians, who have donated the cost of building two latrines in Uganda". Details were unveiled on what has been designated World Toilet Day - a day to raise awareness and inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis. It is estimated that 2.4 billion people are struggling to stay well, keep their children alive and work their way to a better future - all for the want of a toilet. The Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015, include a target to ensure everyone everywhere has access to toilets by 2030. This makes sanitation a global development priority. In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated November 19 as World Toilet Day. World Toilet Day is coordinated by UN-Water in collaboration with governments and partners. The spread of many diseases and chronic malnutrition in children - which can be connected to a condition called environmental enteropathy - is directly related to exposure to human faeces. The 11 toll roads in the Republic are a valuable source of revenue Infrastructure Minister Chris Hazzard has hinted that toll roads could be introduced in Northern Ireland. The Sinn Fein MLA said he was willing to consider the measure, to pay for new roads, as well as other alternatives to address projects his department hopes to deliver. Roads projects across Europe have been funded through the introduction of tolls. In the Republic of Ireland motorists can travel the length of the country on one continuous motorway, provided they pay the toll. In Northern Ireland tolls could help to fund the 130m York Street interchange project. It aims to replace the existing signal-operated junction at York Street with direct links between the Westlink/M1, M2 and M3 - the three busiest roads in Northern Ireland. However, funding for the project has thrown it into uncertainty. Read More In response to a Belfast Telegraph opinion piece on the introduction of tolls, the minister said he would not rule out the possibility. A Department for Infrastructure spokeswoman told the BBC Stephen Nolan show: The minister has made clear his willingness to consider alternative possibilities to enable him to address his capital priorities. "He will be discussing how best to meet these with the Finance Minister and the Executive in the coming days in the context of the Chancellors Autumn Statement later this week. Read More But would you be in favour of paying for roads, if it meant better and improved journeys? The cost of clearing up after vandalism to Translink property and premises last year in Northern Ireland was a staggering half a million pounds, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal. The most significant amount of that bill was spent on repairs to Northern Ireland Railways property, which was 319,331. Details of this huge financial pressure on an already over-stretched public purse have led to one Assembly member calling for Translink to reveal how it plans to tackle further incidents of vandalism and anti-social behaviour and deter future attacks on their facilities. Mid Ulster DUP MLA Keith Buchanan uncovered the information after tabling a question to the Assembly's Infrastructure Minister, Chris Hazzard. The minister explained that, in 2015/16 alone, the costs incurred by Translink due to vandalism were a total of 551,359. This figure represented damage of 132,353 to Ulsterbus property, 99,675 to Metro stock, and 319,331 to NI Railways property. In the previous year, Translink incurred costs totalling 618,071 to its property, with the largest amount of that attributed to vandalism of NI Railways. The worst year for vandalism to Translink property was 2013/14, when the company sustained costs of 755,643. Mr Buchanan said the money channelled to clearing up damage associated with vandalism could be "better spent" elsewhere by the transport sector. "I have been asked many times by constituents, for example, about upgrading bus shelters in rural areas and that prompted me to ask the question about just how serious the problem with vandalism to public transport is," he continued. "I understand vandalism is not the fault of Translink but the question arises about what the company plans to implement in order to bring this figure down. "I would also be interested to see a breakdown of the 319,331 cost of vandalism to NI Railways property over the last year. Does that constitute vandalism of seating, for example, paintwork damage or physical damage to the lines?" Mr Buchanan said he intends to conduct further research into vandalism to public transport over the coming months. Earlier this month, it was revealed that a bus route in west Belfast remained indefinitely suspended following incidents of anti-social behaviour, while an Ulsterbus service in the Brownlow area of Craigavon is currently omitted from the Lurgan to Portadown route, and a half-mile diversion is in place in Portavogie for an evening service between Greyabbey and Portaferry due to attacks. Figures released this month to Upper Bann MLA, John O'Dowd, showed there had been a total of 24 incidents of buses having to be withdrawn for at least one evening because of anti-social behaviour. And last November the Belfast Telegraph reported how Translink had offered a cash reward of 1,000 for information leading to a prosecution after stones were thrown at a bus on Ligoniel Road in Belfast. Responding to the most recent statistics provided by the Infrastructure Minister, a spokesperson for Translink told the Belfast Telegraph: "We strongly condemn all instances of vandalism and would encourage any witnesses to report anti-social behaviour to Translink or the PSNI." Sunrise from the summit of Slieve Bearnagh in the Mourne Mountains evokes the wintry settings of CS Lewiss Narnia, the land he based on the Co Down mountain range A magical space dedicated to one of Belfast's most famous authors is set to open tonight. CS Lewis Square - the latest phase of the 40m Connswater Greenway regeneration project - will mark the life and work of the writer, who spent his early childhood in east Belfast. Located at the intersection of the Connswater and Comber Greenways, the 2.5m square will feature seven sculptures created by Irish artist Maurice Harron based on characters from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Three hundred trees have also been planted around the square, which has a capacity to hold 2,000 people, and there will also be new railway tracks, arches, paths, street furniture and facade art around the development. The seven sculptures - including Aslan, Maugrim, Mr and Mrs Beaver, the Robin, the White Witch, the Stone Table and Mr Tumnus - will be unveiled at tonight's launch party, where the author's stepson Douglas Gresham will formally open the square. Mr Gresham said: "I am delighted to be back in Belfast again, particularly to celebrate the opening of CS Lewis Square. "The last time I was here was back in 1998 when another now famous Belfast man, Keith Getty, and I put together a special show to celebrate my stepfather's centenary. "This is a wonderful city, and it's a thrill that Jack (as he preferred to be called) is being honoured in this way. "The sculptures are terrific. I am sure that this square will be a great boost to Belfast, his childhood home which he so dearly loved." The launch is at 6pm and will be compered by east Belfast actor Dan Gordon and will feature a host of local performers. They include the dance group Ajendance performing the Dance of the White Witch, filmed under the H&W cranes, and local flute players performing the Waterboys' Further Up Further In, filmed at the waterfall at Cregagh Glen. Seven short films will also be shown as the sculptures are unveiled to bring them to life. To conclude the event, a snow machine will transform the magical space into a winter wonderland as Aslan is revealed to the public. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis will travel to Brussels. Brexit Secretary David Davis has travelled to the continent in an effort to establish links with key players in the process of leaving the European Union. The Cabinet minister held talks in Brussels with the official leading the negotiations and will travel to Strasbourg for talks with senior MEPs on Tuesday. Mr Davis was using his visit to build bridges with the officials and politicians who will play a major role in the Brexit negotiations. Officials said Mr Davis was signalling his "determination to approach negotiations in a spirit of goodwill". In Brussels, Mr Davis met the European Commission's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier to discuss an "orderly" withdrawal process, aides said. In Strasbourg the Cabinet minister will meet Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's Brexit negotiator, and a cross-party group of MEPs. Mr Davis said: "I want to begin the work of ensuring we have positive, strong, and productive relationship with our closest neighbours. "The people of the UK have made a clear decision to leave the EU, and that is one the Government will respect and implement. "But Britain will continue to be the same outward-looking country that it has always been. "I am confident that by working together we will be able to secure a deal that works in the mutual interests of the UK and the rest of the European Union." Officials in Brussels described the meeting between Mr Barnier and Mr Davis as a "courtesy coffee" and said that negotiations on Brexit could not begin until Article 50 had been triggered. A European Commission spokesman said: "Michel Barnier had a courtesy coffee today with Mr David Davis, at his request, to re-establish contact. They confirmed that there can be no negotiations before notification. "They agreed to work towards an orderly withdrawal of the UK from the EU once the UK has notified the European Council of its intention to withdraw." Nigel Farage would do a great job as the UK's ambassador in Whashington, Donald Trump said Britain's ambassador to Washington has met Theresa May for talks, after the Prime Minister rejected Donald Trump's call for him to be replaced by Nigel Farage. Downing Street refused to comment on the content of Sir Kim Darroch's conversation with Mrs May, but made clear she regards him as "an excellent ambassador who is doing a fantastic job". The US president-elect shocked Westminster with a late-night tweet declaring that Mr Farage would do a "great job" and that "many people" wanted to see him as the UK's senior diplomat in Washington. But Downing Street stressed that "as a basic principle, we appoint our ambassadors", while Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that the UK already had a "first rate" envoy in Washington. Mr Johnson praised veteran diplomat Sir Kim - who met Mrs May during a previously-planned visit to London - telling MPs: "We have a first rate ambassador in Washington doing a very good job of relating both with the present administration and with the administration to be, and there is no vacancy for that position." Interim Ukip leader Mr Farage accused Downing Street of putting its dislike for him ahead of the national interest, saying it was time for Mrs May to recognise that "the world has changed", as he claimed he was "in a good position, with the president-elect's support, to help". Mr Farage told the Press Association he was "very flattered" by Mr Trump's suggestion and was ready "to do anything I can to act in a positive way to help relationships between our two countries". The property tycoon's highly unusual endorsement was a fresh embarrassment for Mrs May, who was beaten to meeting the future president in person by Mr Farage. In a sign of the Government's efforts to forge links with the US president-elect, Downing Street revealed on Monday that an invitation for a state visit to the UK is under consideration. And Mr Johnson told MPs that "it's vital that we are as positive as we can possibly be about the new administration-elect" as he hit out at Labour for being" premature" in making "hostile judgments" about the next occupant of the White House. But writing on the website Breitbart - whose former executive chairman Stephen Bannon has been appointed Mr Trump's chief strategist - Mr Farage denounced "career politicians" who were pretending to be Mr Trump's friend after previously criticising him. "The political revolution of 2016 now sees a new order in charge of Washington. In the United Kingdom the people have spoken but the players at the top have, I am afraid, stayed the same," he said. "Those who supported Remain now hold senior positions. Worst still, those who were openly abusive about Trump now pretend to be his friend. It is career politics at its worst and it is now getting in the way of the national interest. "I have said since the now famous photograph with Donald Trump 10 days ago that I would do anything to help our national interest and to help cement ties with the incoming Anglophile administration. "At every stage I am greeted by negative comments coming out of Downing Street. The dislike of me, Ukip and the referendum result is more important to them than what could be good for our country. "I have known several of the Trump team for years and I am in a good position with the president-elect's support to help. The world has changed and its time that Downing Street did too." Mr Farage's comments may be seen as a reference to Mrs May's previous description of Mr Trump's remarks about Muslims as "divisive, stupid and wrong" at a time when he was seeking nomination as the Republican candidate for president. Mr Johnson had also ridiculed the tycoon in the past, joking that "the only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump". The Assembly should be allowed to give its approval before the Government kick starts formal negotiations on Brexit, Martin McGuinness has said. Speaking in the Assembly, he said he would be in favour of MLAs debating a "legislative consent motion" before Article 50 on Brexit is triggered by Prime Minister Theresa May. And the Deputy First Minister also revealed he would support 'special status' for Northern Ireland as the UK departs from the European Union. In a statement, which again underpins the extent of the gap with First Minister Arlene Foster over EU withdrawal, he said the Government had so far failed to tell the devolved administrations what their objectives are. "As far as I am concerned, everything is on the table," Mr McGuinness told MLAs at Question Time. "Nobody can put their hand on their heart and say exactly how this negotiation is going to work out." The Sinn Fein minister also accused Ulster Unionist and SDLP MLAs of asking questions they already know the answers to, which he said was "all right in politics". SDLP MLA Colin McGrath asked why the Executive did not give its support to the legal challenge to the Government's appeal to overturn the High Court's decision that Brexit must be debated by Parliament. And the UUP's Philip Smith asked if Mr McGuinness had held discussions with First Minister Arlene Foster on the Supreme Court appeal. "Quite clearly, in the run-in to the referendum, our partners in government were on a different side of the debate from us," Mr McGuinness said. "That is democracy; that is politics. I have to live with that, even if I did not appreciate it. But I have to deal with the outcome of all that." The Sinn Fein MLA added: "I think the entire process we are engaged in is in a state of flux. "Nobody - neither me, the First Minister, the member who has just spoken nor any other member - can put hand on heart and say that they know what the final outcome of all this will be," he said. In response to questioning by Jim Allister, Mr McGuinness said the TUV leader believes the overall UK vote should take precedence over the fact that the people here in Northern Ireland and Scotland voted to remain. "That creates a problem for the British Government, and it also creates a problem for the European Union," he said. "As far as I am concerned, in the upcoming negotiations everything is on the table." Risking the united front which he and Mrs Foster have agreed on the basis of reaching the best possible terms of agreement of a post-Brexit Europe for Northern Ireland, Mr McGuinness said: "Whether our partners in the Government favour that is a matter for themselves. "Speaking personally and on behalf of my party, not on behalf of the DUP, I would absolutely be in favour of a legislative consent motion." And he added: "Again, speaking personally, I would be in favour of a designated status (for Northern Ireland) within the European Union." Iraqi troops have moved to retake another neighbourhood in the eastern sector of Mosul but are facing stiff resistance from Islamic State militants, according to a senior army commander. Brigadier General Haider Fadel said IS fighters were targeting his forces with rockets and mortars as they slowly advanced in the densely populated Zohour neighbourhood. "We are cautiously advancing. There are too many civilians still living there," he said. Iraqi troops began their siege of Zohour on Sunday as they fortified their positions in neighbourhoods they had already retaken in eastern Mosul. Suicide bombings, sniper fire and concerns over the safety of civilians - there are a million still in Mosul - have combined to slow progress in the campaign to liberate the city, which began on October 17. Mosul, captured by IS in summer 2014, is Iraq's second-largest city and the last major IS urban bastion in the country. Most gains in the campaign so far have been made by special forces operating east of the Tigris River. Other forces, including Kurdish peshmerga troops and volunteer Sunni militiamen, are advancing on the city from different directions, and the US-led coalition is providing air strikes and other support. An air strike on Monday destroyed a major bridge over the Tigris in the southern part of the city, a move that appears designed to limit IS capacity to reinforce or resupply fighters on the east bank of the Tigris, where most of the fighting is taking place. It was the third of the city's five bridges on the Tigris to be targeted by the coalition - the first two were destroyed in air strikes shortly before and after the start of the Mosul campaign - a sequence that Iraqi officers said was likely to soon extend to the remaining two bridges to completely separate the city's eastern sector from the western bank of the Tigris. The Iraqi military is known to have received US-made pontoon bridges, which Iraqi troops will use as a substitute for the destroyed bridges. The advance came as a new analysis found there was high risk that IS would deploy chemical weapons against Mosul civilians or Iraqi troops fighting to retake the city. According to IHS Markit, the extremist group has used chemical weapons at least 52 times, including 19 in the Mosul area, since its fighters swept across much of Iraq and Syria in 2014. IHS Markit, a London-based intelligence analyst firm, said Mosul served as a centre for chemical weapons production for IS. Experts believe IS moved the materials and experts to Syria ahead of the Iraqi offensive to free the city. The analysis concluded that chlorine and mustard agents are the most likely chemicals to be used by IS in the Mosul battle. Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said progress in liberating Mosul has been slowed by IS's use of human shields and that 1,700 militants have been killed and 120 captured since the battle began. A third of Ninevah province, where Mosul is the capital, has been liberated so far, he added. AP Latest controversial comments by Recep Tayyip Erdogan come as Turkey and Israel strive to improve relations (AP) The President of Turkey has said he could not decide whether the Holocaust or Israeli military offensives in Gaza were more barbarous in an interview on Israeli television. Recep Tayyip Erdogan was conducting his first interview with the Israeli press in more than 10 years on Monday when he was questioned about accusing the countrys government of barbarism that surpasses Hitler in 2014. He was unapologetic for the remarks, which provoked outrage in Israel during international tension over Operation Protective Edge, the offensive against Hamas militants that left more than 2,200 Palestinians mostly civilians dead. I don't approve of what Hitler did, and neither do I approve of what Israel has done, Mr Erdogan said, according to a translation by AFP. When it's a question of so many people dying, it's inappropriate to ask who was the more barbarous. The Times of Israel reported a slightly different translation from the remarks in Turkish, quoting Mr Erdogan saying: Theres no place for comparison in order to say whats more barbaric. His comments on Israels Channel 2 came as Israel and Turkey attempt to improve relations marred by the killing of 10 Turks in an Israeli commando raid on a ship heading towards Gaza in 2010, prompting Ankara to expel the Israeli ambassador and freeze all defence ties. Mr Erdogan made another Nazi comparison in the aftermath of the attack, accusing Israel of "keeping Hitler's spirit alive" and has also claimed the Jewish state is carrying out "genocide" on Palestinians. On Monday, he told Channel 2 he was "well aware" of the sensitivities associated with Hitler, blamed for the deaths of some six million Jewish people in the Holocaust. But he said he found it "impossible to forget the hundreds, the thousands of people who died when [the Israeli military] struck Gaza". Israel and Turkey have recently been working to improve cooperation and are holding talks on building an ambitious pipeline project to pump Israeli gas to Turkey and Europe. Last week, Turkey appointed a foreign policy advisor as ambassador to Israel, sealing the normalisation of diplomatic relations after a six-year rupture but considerable tensions remain. Mr Erdogan frequently speaks on Palestinian issues and human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as meeting the leader of Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist group by Israel. No need to double-check the calendar. It is, indeed, coming up to Christmas, though you could've been forgiven yesterday for thinking that it must be Valentine's Day on hearing the heart-warming story of one Irishman's marriage to his English sweetheart. The bride was inundated with so many messages of congratulations on Twitter after announcing the news that it was like Monica and Chandler from Friends were renewing their vows. All together now: awww. So, where are the newlyweds going on honeymoon? Well, that's the problem. The answer is: nowhere. It's a bit tricky to head off for a couple of weeks in the sun when one of you is in jail for the murder of a policeman. The prisoner in question is Brendan McConville, a former Sinn Fein councillor, who is currently serving time for the 2012 murder of Stephen Carroll, the first PSNI officer to be killed in the line of duty. McConville was convicted of shooting the 48-year-old in the head with an AK-47 rifle after terrorists lured their victim to Craigavon on a bogus 999 call. The bride, Siobhan Monaghan, comes from the famous Irish nationalist stronghold of, er, Oxford and is, apparently, "well-known in republican circles" for supporting prisoners via letters. Now, a lengthy correspondence with Brendan had led to a trip up the aisle. At least all those stamps weren't wasted. It's not known whether Stephen Carroll's name, or that of his widow, Kate, was mentioned in any of the wedding speeches. Probably not. That sort of talk can spoil the big day. The happy couple wouldn't want that. And there's nothing any of us can do about it either way. Prisoners have a right to get married under the 1983 Marriage Act and English women from Oxford have a right to fall in love with men who are convicted of shooting policemen in the head. We might rather that they didn't, but it's their human rights, innit? Prisoners' rights can only be restricted if it's necessary for prison security, or for the prevention of a crime. Even the 80-year-old serial killer and cult leader Charles Manson was given permission to marry the 26-year-old woman who runs his social media site last year. If that isn't proof that love conquers all - including common sense - then nothing is. Last year, in the UK, saw the celebration of the nuptials of not one, but two murderers, as Mikhail Gallatinov (a convicted paedophile, who's been serving a life sentence since 1997 for the killing of a man he met through a gay chatline) and Marc Goodwin (sentenced to life in 2007 for a homophobic murder, ironically) tied the knot in their maximum security jail near York - though, reportedly, they have not been allowed to share a cell. The European Court of Human Rights is no doubt busy working on a case as we speak. In a way, though, Siobhan Monaghan is by far the more interesting side of this strange equation. Prisoners have little to lose. Having women write to them gives them something to look forward to. Marriage, especially if it involves conjugal visits, must be a pleasant distraction from prison food and slopping out. But what do the women get out of it? There's been much speculation about precisely that, with some suggestions that these women may be suffering from hybristophilia - a condition in which they're basically attracted to partners who've committed a crime. It doesn't have to be murder, or rape; sometimes, a good, old-fashioned armed robbery will do. Siobhan would, no doubt, insist that her case is entirely different to those other women. She says that Brendan is innocent; she's a prominent member of the campaign to get McConville and a second convicted prisoner - the so-called 'Craigavon Two' - released. But it can hardly be a coincidence that almost all serious offenders receive fan mail in prison and it's often of an erotic nature. There are even websites devoted to hooking up prisoners with those on the outside. Think of them as dating agencies - except that most people usually hope their date isn't a cold-blooded killer, whereas these women are banking on the fact he is. The American author of a book on this phenomenon interviewed numerous women who'd married, or fallen in love with, dangerous men behind bars and what she found, without exception, was that they were damaged in some ways by bad things in their pasts and found a relationship with a man behind bars easier to cope with. A man can't hurt you when he's in jail. He can't control you to the same extent. Knowing the relationship is taboo also adds a frisson of excitement to the mix. You can feel like Romeo and Juliet, as if your love is forbidden. People are out to stop you. The world doesn't understand you. It's an intoxicating feeling. The author noticed, too, that these women were able to hold on to an idealistic fantasy of a love affair for longer because reality never has to intrude. As she put it, the wife never comes home to find his dirty laundry on the floor. Real life isn't always romantic. Siobhan's tweets are typical. They're lovey-dovey in a way which seems a little odd for a 49-year-old. She adds little love hearts and pictures of red kissy lips to the end of messages, as if she was a giddy teenager, rather than a grown woman (though, interestingly, she always refers to Brendan McConville by his full name, never forgetting that there's a campaign on for his release and that it's her duty to garner publicity for the cause). The Facebook pictures of Monaghan in her wedding dress, sitting on McConville's knee, help that aim, too. Whether the marriage survives Brendan's eventual release, who knows? Perhaps it's wrong to even look on their unconventional relationship with disfavour. We live in a world where no one is supposed to judge how others live their lives. It's a good rule. Who marries whom is none of our business. Gay or straight; young or old; rich or poor - we should just butt our noses out. But the brother of the victim of the aforementioned Marc Goodwin put the other side of the story, when he heard that the killer had got married: "The justice system has gone potty. They seem to do more for the prisoners than they do for the victims." Of all the things that can be said, or written, about yesterday's marriage in Maghaberry, that statement stands alone as the one undeniable truth. US President-elect Donald Trump and Chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus (R) address supporters during his election night rally in Manhattan, New York, US on November 9, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] Donald Trump's election as the president of the United States has sparked a debate over climate change amid the just-concluded United Nations climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco, mainly because given his reputation as a climate change denier, he could put the Paris Agreement in jeopardy. Many see this as an "window of opportunity" for the European Union and China to move closer in the global fight against climate change, while others emphasize the need to strengthen global climate governance. And the media have highlighted what Trump tweeted in 2012: "The concept of global warming hoax was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive." However, Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, corrected Trump's view at the Marrakech climate conference, by emphasizing that climate change is not a hoax invented by China, because the UN climate negotiations were initially driven with the support of Trump's fellow Republicans during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush at a time when Beijing was learning how to integrate into the world economy. It was only later that China became a major player in the global fight against climate change. At the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, China was wrongly blamed by the West for "wrecking" the talks. The reality is that China, as the representative of developing world, could not accept the tough terms imposed by the developed economies that had not even tried to honor their obligation to help the poorer countries to adapt to and overcome the consequences of climate change which they were historically responsible for. Generally speaking, the Paris Agreement will be implemented for years beyond 2020 no matter what the incoming Trump administration decides to do. After all, the Kyoto Protocol, especially its second commitment, was implemented despite the US' withdrawal from it in 2001. Still, the incoming Trump administration should consider the fight against climate change as a global norm, because it has become an integral part of scientific research, education, business, politics and ordinary people's lives. Without fighting climate change, we cannot make our world a better place for humankind. Trump, as president-elect, cannot afford to dent the US' status as a global leader by not making efforts to resolve a non-partisan global issue. If Trump is serious about reviving the US economy, he has to first realize that economies today are highly interdependent, and fighting climate change is an important part of the global agenda. He has no choice but to attract private and foreign investments, and green technologies if he wants to expedite the growth of the US economy. And green technologies are integral to the global fight against climate change. To implement the Paris Agreement, China and the EU have to deepen their cooperation on the use of research in green technology. But before that, the two sides have to engage Trump and his administration in talks to convince them that only by meeting the promises it has made in the Paris Agreement can the US achieve true greatness. This is a chance for the US to show the rest of the world that it can act as a responsible power. Despite Trump's campaign rhetoric, we hope he will change his mind and support the Paris Agreement after he enters the White House. And even if he keeps denying climate change, he will have three years to ponder before pulling out of the Paris Agreement, because the agreement stipulates that the parties to it can apply to withdraw only after Nov 4, 2019.Hopefully by then Trump will accept the reality that is climate change, and agree to fight it. Let us hope that after pulling off a surprise win over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Trump will surprise us again by becoming a part of the fight against climate change. The author is deputy chief of China Daily European Bureau. fujing@chinadaily.com.cn There can be few stronger endorsements for the reliability and resilience of an IT and communications infrastructure than that of a customer dealing in the business of life. The 3fivetwo Group, one of Northern Irelands most progressive private healthcare companies, said it didnt think twice when it came to choosing BT Business in Northern Ireland to supply its wide area network (WAN) and mobile services. Stability and security are high up its list of priorities, so the decision was easy. It was a no brainer for us when it came to choosing BT, The 3fivetwo Groups IT manager Christopher Allen said. Theyre so established and a very safe pair of hands; that stability is key for us because in healthcare you cant risk an unstable network. The 3fivetwo Group owns multiple healthcare-focused businesses, including, Kingsbridge Private Hospital, Origin Fertility, H3 Health Insurance, 3fivetwo Training Academy, Cosmetech, DotComDr and Sweeney Eye and Hearing care. Its mission is to become a world-class provider of healthcare solutions by putting patients to the forefront of everything it does and to do that it needs an IT and communications network of some quality. Paul Convery, Head of BT Business in Northern Ireland said: A high-performing network is particularly important as companies like The 3fivetwo Group become more reliant on the cloud for access to business applications and data storage, particularly if they operate across diverse locations, he said. That can put pressure on the IT team to keep the business connected - to make sure employees can communicate, access the applications they need with speed, ease, and reliability; and do all of it securely. Sarah Callender, Field Account Manager for BT, helped ease that pressure on Chris and his team by accessing BT Businesss raft of specialists to find the right solutions for the Group. We have worked with The 3fivetwo Group, in partnership with local IT solutions company Nitec to build a network solution that matches the needs of the Groups business, she said. It wasnt a one-size-fits-all approach but rather a bespoke solution based on gaining a real understanding of their business needs. To that end we provided a WAN connecting all of their sites so that they can share information and applications securely. This allows them to access their emails and CRM from any of their multiple sites as well as being able to back up their data centrally and carry voice across the network." For internet connectivity they also chose BT Net leased lines. As they dont share bandwidth with anyone else this gives them guaranteed upload and download speeds of up to 10GB. And for mobile, 3fivetwo again turned to BT. The 3fivetwo Group also chose us for all their mobile needs through our EE network. This enables their employees to work more effectively on the move and has the ability to evolve as their business changes and grows. Chris has certainly benefitted from BTs products. I have been able to centralise my systems and reduce costs while at the same time becoming more resilient when it comes to handling sensitive data, he said. The WAN connections between our sites mean we can easily run a centralised patient management system and have the option of adding new sites as and when we need them. It is clear The 3fivetwo Group has been on a path of stellar growth over the last few years, one which shows no signs of slowing down. Together with the supportive partnership of BT Business in Northern Ireland providing bespoke IT and communications infrastructure, those bold ambitions for the future are within reach. For further information and to contact BT Business in Northern Ireland please email enterprise.accounts@bt.com Faith and technology have been combining over the last decade, and Christian leaders are taking notice. Bishop Christopher J. Coyne of Burlington, Vermont is active on social media, sharing his faith with his 13,000+ followers on Twitter alone. By 8 a.m. each day, his followers know the days saint, gospel reading, and latest news from the pope. Bishop Coyne says using social media is as much a part of his ministry as visiting the sick. Its where we need to be, he says. It goes to the core of spreading the good news. With the religiously unaffiliated now making up 25 percent of the American population, pastors are looking for new and innovative way to reach the masses. Faced with declining membership and participation, priests, ministers and rabbis are now popping up on Youtube discussing tattoos, tweeting about the dangers of gossip, and posting podcasts on living your faith. Some are even checking Facebook analytics, trying to uncover if posting at 6 a.m. reaches more people than posting at 7 a.m. Meredith Gould, author of Social Media Gospel: Sharing the Good News in New Ways, advises churches and clergy on developing a social-media strategy, and she sees a lot of wariness. When its always been done one way, changing that is scary, says Dr. Gould. Often, clergymen feel they need to maintain proper distance from their congregations and fear too much of an online presence can alter that. Others are afraid it will take away from the importance of in-person Sunday worship. Almost all feel that they have no clue where to even begin. But with the changing times and heavy focus on technology, many Christian leaders are realizing the necessity of making a presence online. It can help get their churches name out, allow them to participate in talk about public events, and create a positive image. For example, a priest can highlight their churches work in homeless shelters. Social media can also deepen relationships. People constantly flip through social media, at the office or standing in line at the grocery store. A fellow church member may post about having to drop their mother off at the hospital. This gives other members and Christian leadership a chance to say Hey I saw you posted this, I am praying for you or similar. Connecting with members online allows you into their lives in a different way and be a part of the conversation about whatever is going on in their life, says David Hansen, a 38-year-old fourth-generation Lutheran Minister from Texas. Hansen makes sure to build time for social media in his calendar. Each Monday, he schedules a weeks worth of Facebook posts that reflect on the past Sundays sermon and looks ahead to the next. He also posts an invitation on Facebook for prayer requests regularly, which sparks conversation and engagement with the wider community. He has since helped his father, also a Lutheran minister, to set up a Facebook page. The hardest thing, Bishop Coyne said, is the learning curve. He has a video-editing tool but hasnt figured out how to use it. His knowledge has grown exponentially, however, learning that satire and irony doesnt always work but videos perform phenomenally. It has become commonplace for leaders to join the social media bandwagon, and they are beginning to learn how to get the Word out to the masses in a cool new way. Bishop Greg Rickel of Washington blogs about gun violence and the Central American refugee crisis, and posts his sermons on his webpage, below a picture of him taking selfies with children. His goal, in part, is to reach those 35 and younger. We have to learn their language and the world they live in. Rickel says. Supporters of a coalition advocating clean government began holding candlelight vigils Monday for its leader, who is being held in solitary confinement after her arrest on the eve of a massive protest she had spearheaded against Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.The Bersih coalition will hold nightly vigils for chairwoman Maria Chin Abdullah in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur until she is released from police custody, activists with the group vowed on Facebook. Chin, who was arrested on Friday under Malaysias Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (SOSMA), could be held up for up to 28 days without charges, Chins lawyers and supporters said. On Monday night, Bersih officials announced that her lawyers would seek a Habeas Corpus writ in court seeking that she be produced before a judge in hopes of securing her lawful release. We're doing all we can to get Maria released as soon as possible. Our lawyers have been working round-the-clock and, tomorrow, they will file a Habeas Corpus application in court, the Bersih activists said. Chin was among at least 24 rally organizers and Bersih supporters who were arrested under various sections of Malaysias criminal code ahead of the Bersih 5 demonstration, a group of six NGOs said in a joint letter issued Monday that called for Malaysia to drop all charges and free the activists. According to the NGOs, at least another 14 Bersih supporters were arrested during and after the demonstration on Saturday, when tens of thousands of people marched and rallied in Kuala Lumpur to voice their criticism of the prime minister who has been linked to corruption allegations. These arrests violate international human rights standards. The Malaysia government should release all those arrested in connection with the Bersih 5 rallies immediately, said the letter, co-signed by Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists, Fortify Rights, Forum Asia, the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance. This man didnt wear a yellow T-shirt, but he was creative in showing his support for Bersih. [Hadi Azmi/BenarNews] Solitary confinement Except for Chin, many were released after 48 hours in custody, the NGOs said, but they added that authorities had also arrested leaders of pro-government groups known as the Red Shirts and Black Shirts. They had staged simultaneous counter-rallies against Bersih but in much smaller numbers, according to reports. Jamal Md Yunos and Ariffin Abu Bakar, the leaders of these respective groups, were still in custody late Monday, reports said. The NGOs commented in detail on the arrest and detention of Maria Chin Abdullah. This is the first case where government authorities used SOSMA against a civil society representative. If convicted, she faces up to 15 years imprisonment, they wrote. Citing her lawyers, the NGOs noted that they had been denied access to Chin during the first two days of her custody and that she was being kept in solitary confinement. Her lawyers later on reported that Maria Chin Abdullah is being kept in a 15 feet by 8 feet windowless cell with no bed, concrete floors, and with two light bulbs kept on for 24 hours a day, the NGOs said. Deceitful The police had declared the rallies being planned for Saturday illegal, and deployed thousands of officers to guard barricades and block roads leading to Independence Square the intended rallying site for Bersih, a coalition of local NGOs that advocate transparent government and free and fair elections. The rally was largely peaceful and culminated in front of the iconic Petronas Towers. Bersih activists have also called for the prime minister to resign over allegations of corruption linked to state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which he has denied. On Friday, Najib called the activists a tool of the opposition on his personal website. Their movement is deceitful. It is clear that these street protests are in fact the Opposition disguised as an independent NGO working to unseat a democratically-elected government, Najib said. The silent majority of people are fed up with the tactics of the Opposition. They just want the Government to deliver for them, and that is what my team and I will continue to do. Pro-government Red Shirts hold a protest countering the Bersih 5 rally in Kuala Lumpur, Nov. 19, 2016. [Muzliza Mustafa/BenarNews] ein Google-Unternehmen Google-Dienste anzubieten und zu betreiben Ausfalle zu prufen und Manahmen gegen Spam, Betrug und Missbrauch zu ergreifen Daten zu Zielgruppeninteraktionen und Websitestatistiken zu erheben. 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Ill share details. If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices For Immediate Release, November 22, 2016 Contact: Jared Margolis, Center for Biological Diversity, (802) 310-4054, jmargolis@biologicaldiversity.org Joan Marshall, Travis Audubon, (512) 300-2473, ed@travisaudubon.com Jason Rylander, Defenders of Wildlife, (202) 772-3245, jrylander@defenders.org Legal Action Taken to Preserve Protections for Extremely Rare Cave Dweller Near Austin Developers Seek to Strip Protection, Undermine Endangered Species Act AUSTIN, Texas Travis Audubon, the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife filed a legal intervention today to preserve Endangered Species Act protections for the Bone Cave harvestman, a rare, spider-like animal found in Travis and Williamson counties and nowhere else on Earth. The legal action comes in response to a lawsuit filed by developers who are arguing not only that the harvestman should be removed from the endangered species list, but that the Endangered Species Act itself is unconstitutional. Even though these same arguments have already been rejected by the courts, once again developers are attempting to attack the integrity of the Endangered Species Act, said Jared Margolis, a senior attorney with the Center. Protecting the lands that endangered species rely on for survival is good for all of us in the long run, so we have to protect our natural heritage from the shortsighted interest of developers. The Bone Cave harvestman, an incredibly rare granddaddy longlegs, is highly adapted to the limestone caves and karst habitat that is unique to the Texas Hill Country of the Edwards Plateau. In response to threats of harmful development and road construction, in 1985 Travis Audubon petitioned for Endangered Species Act protection for the harvestman and the native karst habitat it, and several other imperiled species, rely on. Protecting native habitats and the imperiled species that depend on them is vital to the ecological balance necessary for healthy, sustainable and habitable communities, said Joan Marshall, executive director of Travis Audubon. Ensuring that the Endangered Species Act continues to protect the harvestman and other endangered species is essential to the long-term conservation of these areas. Wildlife conservation is again under attack in the courts, said Jason Rylander, a senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. We are defending not only this unique cave species but the very legal foundations that protect wildlife and their habitats for present and future generations. Background The Bone Cave harvestman is a rare, underground invertebrate that is specially adapted to survive in the unique karst habitat of Travis and Williamson counties. Since it is particularly sensitive to humidity levels, and depends on stable temperatures and nutrients that wash or fall in from the surface, its habitat is highly tied to the overlying surface use and conditions. Development and road construction that results in contamination of the water and nutrients that wash into cave systems can have a devastating impact on this endangered species. This is not the first time efforts have been undertaken to undermine protections for the Bone Cave harvestman; the same claims have already been raised and rejected by federal courts. But property-rights advocates continue to argue that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lacks constitutional authority under the Endangered Species Act to protect species like the harvestman that live only in an individual state. Should this radical argument prevail, it would undermine federal protections for many other imperiled species. Travis Audubon, the Center and Defenders have intervened in the case to defend the Fish and Wildlife Services decision to reject a petition to remove the Bone Cave harvestman from the list of endangered species, and to defend the constitutionality of the agencys authority to protect the harvestman and other species under the Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. www.biologicaldiversity.org Defenders of Wildlife is dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities. With more than 1.2 million members and activists, Defenders of Wildlife is a leading advocate for innovative solutions to safeguard our wildlife heritage for generations to come. For more information, visit www.defenders.org and follow us on Twitter @DefendersNews. Travis Audubon is an independent chapter of the National Audubon Society and a nonprofit corporation with approximately 1,300 members that works to promote the enjoyment, understanding, and conservation of native habitats and the species that rely on them through land conservation, habitat restoration, environmental education, and conservation advocacy. For more information visit www.travisaudubon.org. For Immediate Release, November 22, 2016 Contact: Jaclyn Lopez, (727) 490-9190, jlopez@biologicaldiversity.org Sonny Bass, (305) 245-0930 Army Corps Urged to Move Quickly With Plan to Restore Everglades, Save Endangered Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. The Center for Biological Diversity, Dr. Stuart Pimm, and former Park Service Scientist Sonny Bass today sent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers a letter urging it to take steps proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to benefit Everglades restoration and recovery of the Cape Sable seaside sparrow. For years the flooding of western Everglades National Park has threatened the endangered sparrow with extinction. A new Service proposal calls for action to move more water to the east along its historic path in northeast Shark River Slough a primary goal of Everglades restoration. This new proposal provides a clear path forward for both Everglades restoration and the survival of this endangered bird, said Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director at the Center. Getting the water right for the sparrow means getting the water right for the Everglades. The Services proposal resulted from Endangered Species Act consultation over the Corps implementation of the Everglades Restoration Transition Plan. For the past few decades, the Corps has annually flooded extensive areas of western Everglades National Park during the sparrows breeding season. These releases do not follow the natural, historic flow and have resulted in loss of more than half the sparrows population. The proposal highlights measures to protect the sparrow, including maximizing flows in the eastern most structures draining WCA 3A into Everglades National Park, lengthening closures on these structures during the breeding season and diverting more water to northeast Shark River Slough through the L-29 Borrow Canal under the One-Mile Bridge. These measures both meet the overarching goal of moving more water to the east and maintaining the right dry and wet periods for the survival and recovery of the sparrow. We will be monitoring the Corps implementation of the Services proposal closely. It is the best hope for Everglades restoration and the Cape Sable seaside sparrow, said Bass. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. It can be tough to be a vegetarian. You have to work harder than everyone else to make sure youre getting all the nutrients your body needs. So, when its time to take a People of Artvin in Turkey get attacked by police for protesting bill on child abuse - A + A group of demonstrators in Turkeys Hopa district were violently attacked by police for wanting to hold a protest against the governments recent scandalous bill which suggests for suspension of the punishment for those convicted of child sexual abuse if the perpetrator marries the victim. Having met at the Municipality Park at Hopa town center yesterday (November 21) at around 15:00, the group, mostly made up of women but also accompanied by many men, wanted to gather at the park in order to read out their statement objecting the proposed bill and to demand its immediate withdrawal. As the women in the crowd stretched out the banner reading Rape is crime against humanity; it cannot be legitimized and started chanting this bill will not pass the Parliament, riot police also began surrounding them. In the video, it is seen that the demonstrators try to talk to the police, who tell them they cannot hold their demonstration because of state of emergency. When the police say no, women ask the police: Do you accept this bill? How could stand against us here? As the demonstrators continue trying to read out their message, police attacks them violently, causing a clash to break out. Several people were taken into custody as a result. Source: http://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/hopa-da-cinsel-istismar-duzenlemesini-protesto-eden-kadinlara-cok-sert-saldiri-136542.html Kirusa, a global leader in providing mobile and social media solutions, has announced that its InstaVoice service has reached the remarkable landmark of 100 million monthly active users. InstaVoice is highly popular amongst the mobile subscriber base in Africa. Nigeria tops the list of most number of users for this service, with over 50 million adopting InstaVoice. In Nigeria, InstaVoice is available for all mobile users across Airtel, Etisalat, and MTN. Some of the other countries in which InstaVoice is hugely popular are Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Malawi, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, and Uganda. InstaVoice, based on Kirusas patented technology, helps mobile users to be connected with each other using missed calls, voicemail, and Voice SMS. InstaVoice caters to all mobile users across feature phones and smartphones, making it a universal service for all mobile users. Feature phone customers can click on a number to hear the voice messages they have received, and respond by a simple press of a key. Smartphone users can download the InstaVoice app from Google Play Store, Apple App Store, or Microsoft Windows Store, and receive their Missed Calls, Voice Mails, and Voice SMS in a simple, user-friendly interface. Whats more, users can connect their multiple SIM cards to InstaVoice, and received missed calls and voicemails to all their numbers from within the single app. Over 40 mobile operators across the globe have partnered with Kirusa to provide an integrated InstaVoice experience to their users. Adia Sowho, director digital business, Etisalat Nigeria shared, We congratulate Kirusa for reaching 100 million users. This landmark demonstrates the popularity, scalability, and reliability of its InstaVoice service. InstaVoice is offering real value to our subscribers, and we wish Kirusa many more such milestones in the coming years. We are very happy in seeing Kirusa cross this milestone and wish it best in notching up more, said Neeraj Gala, director-product and innovation, Airtel Africa. I have seen and experienced InstaVoice closely, since its introduction in Africa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to its many disruptive innovations that led to its Pan-African expansion, across the leading mobile carriers in the continent. What InstaVoice has achieved in the last five years is truly remarkable, and I look forward to working with the Kirusa team to expand InstaVoice services to Smart subscribers in East Africa, said Akbar Ladak, chief operating officer at Smart East Africa. The impressive uptake of InstaVoice indicates that Kirusa is delivering unique features and innovation to users and carriers, with a cloud infrastructure used for interconnection between carriers within the same and different countries. Kirusa also remains committed to supporting the GSMA's 2020 Vision. Hence, it is not surprising to witness the company's impactful performance in this space," said Frost & Sullivan director of emerging telecoms, Ronald Gruia. Jozi market-goers were recently surprised and delighted as 8,000 paper butterflies were released into the air above the popular Neighbourgoods Market in Braamfontein. The bright origami butterflies were embedded with indigenous local flower seeds, and made from organic, biodegradable seeded paper. The butterflies were part of an activation for Strongbow Apple Cider in partnership with newly appointed advertising agency, M&C Saatchi Abel Cape Town, and activation agency, Sonic State. According to Gordon Ray, founding partner and executive creative director at M&C Saatchi Abel CT, the concept was modelled on the monarch butterfly migration, where millions of monarch butterflies migrate across America each year. Strongbow is a real apple cider made from real orchard apples, says Marcel Swain, Strongbows Marketing Manager. Weve always believed nature is the ultimate refreshment, so to launch our brand in SA, we identified some of the most dramatic, inspiring, refreshing moments in nature and we remixed them to rejuvenate cities across the country. This is just the first. After a global rebrand, Strongbow has launched in South Africa as an entirely new brand with new packaging, a new logo, a new recipe and a series of new taste variants. They also have a new global brand line - Nature Remix. We positioned Strongbow in South Africa as the urban cider a positive, natural apple cider grown from nature and remixed for the city, says Ray. We drew from the line Nature Remix to create a brand purpose that would resonate with a local market. That purpose is to remix natural beauty into urban spaces to rejuvenate the people who live there. This activation was something we created to bring that purpose to life. The butterflies werent just intended to be beautiful, they had a function. They were embedded with indigenous flower seeds, which meant that they brought nature into the city wherever they fell. They were also designed as coupons so that when people caught them out of the air they could be redeemed for an ice-cold Strongbow at the bar. The agency worked closely with a typographer/calligrapher to ensure that the copy printed on each butterflys wing looked as much like a real butterflys wing as possible. The attention to detail certainly paid off. We found on the day that many people took their butterflies back from promoters (after receiving their Strongbow) so that they could take them home and either plant or keep them, says Ray, noting that thousands of people got to experience the personality of Strongbow. In addition, the video of the activation was viewed and shared by tens of thousands of people in just a few days. The battle of the best Festive Season adverts has begun! Is 2016 going to be memorable by delighting us with some refreshing Christmas advertising? The signs are looking positive. We've selected five of our favourites so far. The competition in the UK to produce the best Christmas ads is legendary. Their people expect nothing less than big budget, feel-good, festive fabulousness from their favourite brands and, in particular, Waitrose and John Lewis, have not disappointed. Waitrose Christmas TV ad 2016 | #HomeForChristmas With over 2.4 million YouTube views were not alone in being charmed by this beautifully conceptualised ad. In the commercial we see a Robin taking an epic journey home, where a girl waits for his annual return, putting a (Waitrose) mince pie out to welcome him. Some of the YouTube comments on the ad include I cried, and Robin's have a special place in my heart and My heart sank when I thought the Robin was dead in that box! This is big, emotive storytelling with powerful feel-good associations which we imagine will tempt non-Waitrose customers into frequenting their stores. John Lewis Christmas Advert 2016 - #BusterTheBoxer More animals debut in the John Lewis #BusterTheBoxer ad, but this is a far cry from the National Geographic feel of Waitroses Robin. The story is of a little girl whos going to be surprised by her parents with a trampoline for Christmas. What happens when Buster sees the trampoline? Well, they all get a surprise. Its beautiful and absurd and it works. With a clever soundtrack of One Day I'll Fly Away and the payoff line which ties it together, Gives Everyone Will Love, no doubt John Lewis will be selling many trampolines this Christmas. Plus, theyre partners with The Wildlife Trusts to protect the UKs habitat, so thats an additional, authentic factor which is so important for brands these days. Coca-Cola Enjoy that Christmas Feeling Each time you watch this ad you see something new - look out for Santas Reindeer peering through the window. Coke does uplifting ads so well but whats outstanding about this is the reveal that the product itself is a gift at Christmas. A gift for Santa but also literally a present as the peel back label can be tied into a festive bow. It would be great if more local brands did something unique with their packaging during the Festive Season. Other holiday branding we love are Starbucks holiday cups; festive and all designed by women, from the US, Indonesia, Dubai, Canada, Russia and South Korea. Find the Magic in Christmas | Woolworths SA #findthemagic Kudos to Woolworths for pulling off this complex interactive series of animated adverts were looking forward to seeing more of them. The basic storyline is Santa (played by the voice of Hugh Masekela) wants to put the magic back into Christmas by exploring South Africa with his dog, Jingle. Created to watch on digital, the ads encourage you to Turn on Annotations and each element you click-on takes you to another scene (including the Woolworths shopping cart). Cleverly appealing to those whore a bit jaded and also looking for a little Christmas magic. Pick n Pay. Chapter One - Let's Go On Holiday The first point about this ad is that you probably need to be South African to get it. We love that its such a far cry from, well, any of the other Christmas adverts around. Starring Ladysmith Black Mambazo singing The Little Drummer Boy, some of these holiday scenes are so familiar youre not sure whether to laugh or cry. Pick n Pay asks What would Christmas be without all the Pa ra pa pa pum? as we get a tongue in cheek glimpse of rain, sunburn, long journeys and more. This is only Chapter One - have you seen Chapter Two? Now, healthcare practitioners involved in managing South Africa's HIV pandemic can access data from a new web-based system in near real-time. The first national CD4 /viral load monitoring dashboard, an online tool that monitors CD4 count and viral load in South Africas HIV positive patients will help the country to achieve one of UNAIDS three HIV elimination targets: for 90% of people on treatment to have a viral load fully suppressed by 2020, Response to treatment Viral load is the best predictor of an HIV positive patients response to treatment. The dashboard displays and analyses data in a way in which healthcare professionals involved in managing the epidemic can easily engage. It provides information at a national, provincial, district, single facility and individual levels, as well as for designated age groups. The dashboard has been made possible by PEPFAR and USAID through Right to Care, Boston University in the US, South Africas National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the national department of health (DoH). Chief medical officer: Right to Care, Dr Pappie Majuba says, It is accessible to all implementing partners and will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to contain the HIV epidemic and to fast-track viral suppression in those receiving antiretroviral therapy. Understanding how patients are managed Pathologist at the NHLS and at the school of pathology, Wits University, Dr Sergio Carmona explains, The better we understand how patients are being managed, the better control we have of the epidemic. It will also help to swiftly allocate resources where needed such as infrastructure, nurses and doctors, monitor hot spots and expedite the right responses, as well as evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to contain the epidemic. The data system also identifies HIV results for children and adults that require urgent action. The dashboard uses data from the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) and from the DoH information systems (DHIS), says director general of the DoH, Yogan Pillay. It was specifically developed because South Africa is one of the few countries that has a national and integrated pathology service through the NHLS. Dr Carmona explains, The NHLS is the sole provider of pathology services to close on 80% of SAs population. Therefore, the laboratory results from all these individuals since 2004 reside in the NHLS corporate data warehouse. This allows for almost national coverage of all South Africans that are infected. Children and adolescents Associate professor in the faculty of health sciences at Wits University Gayle Sherman says, Children and adolescents are often overlooked in our response to HIV/Aids. In reporting on national viral loads and CD4 counts, particular attention has been paid to these vulnerable populations. The new system will enable healthcare workers to focus attention on high risk, HIV-infected children and adolescents to improve individual outcomes and meet the 90:90:90 targets. The dashboards are a highly effective public health surveillance system. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines public health surveillance as the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-related data needed for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice. It is estimated that there are nearly 6,75m people infected with HIV in South Africa with 3,3m on treatment and of those who have accessed viral load testing, over 80% are suppressed. The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum, in conjunction with the FOJO Media Institute, has issued the 2nd December Declaration highlighting the need to strengthen and support free, independent and professional journalism as a means of countering disinformation and combatting hate crimes. Robert Owen-Wahl via Pixabay It particularly calls on media worldwide to support stronger protections for women journalists in a text released to mark the 250th anniversary celebrations of Swedens Freedom of the Press Act, the first of its kind in the world. Identifying women journalists as frequently the most vulnerable and exposed, the Declaration denounces as a danger to quality journalism - and ultimately democracy itself - those who use threats and hate to silence the women who are making their voices heard. Professional journalism is our most effective means of countering disinformation and combatting hate crimes. It is the best weapon we have against all types of prejudices, reads the Declaration. Journalists are on the frontline when it comes to protecting freedoms in society - and women journalists are often the most vulnerable and exposed. They are targeted, not only because they report on the abuse of power, but because they are women. At time of press, over 50 media organisations had pledged their advance support for the text. The Declaration coincides with an event in Stockholm on 2 December 2016 that will pay tribute to all women journalists who defy such dangers to pursue their mission of providing citizens with the information needed to make enlightened decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies and their governments. Prominent women journalists including Barkha Dutt (India), Laura Castellanos (Mexico), Galina Timochenko (Russia/Latvia), Jessikka Aro (Finland), Anita Sarkeesian (Canada/US), Miranda Patrucic (Bosnia), Jamela Alindogan (Philippines), Fatuma Noor (Somalia) and Baria Alamuddin (Lebanon) will attend a seminar hosted by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Fojo Media Institute/Linnus University, the Swedish Institute and the Swedish National Commission for UNESCO. The seminar will draw upon the stories of the invited journalists as a point of departure on how to find strategies to counter hate speech, threats and disinformation. For more information, click here. Join the campaign at www.ProtectOurJournalists.org. As the festive season approaches, with the influx of domestic and international tourists, as well as celebratory food and gift spending, retail business increases significantly. According to SA Tourism, tourists spent around R31bn in the first quarter of 2016. Around R4bn of that was spent on food and drink and around R6.5b on retail - and thats just international tourists. Furthermore, on average, a customer spends more if paying by card as opposed to cash, which can make a substantial difference to a small business that doesn't offer card payment facilities. Yoco, a South African point-of-sale payments venture that gives SMEs the tools to accept card payments, gives five reasons to install a card machine: 1. Go global International tourists may not necessarily have much cash, or not enough to cover all of the things they want to buy. Having a card reader means businesses can accept card payments from both local and international visitors, meaning the tourists can save their forex and the business make the sale. 2. Cards are convenient for everyone Having to search around malls and markets for an ATM and then standing in a long queue to withdraw cash is painful, especially during the busy season period. Not only is it an inconvenience to carry cash, but it poses a security risk to both the business and its customers. Cards are hassle free and easy to cancel with a simple phone call if they get lost or stolen. 3. Make bigger sales If someone desperately, desperately wants something from an establishment but does not have enough cash, giving them the option of a card payment means the business can still take the sale and make the customer happy. Customers spend on average 30% more when paying by credit card than when paying with cash. 4. It leaves a trace Card payments make cash up easier (especially if linked to a POS system with a smart back-end) as they leave a clear trail of what amount was spent with each transaction. The days of going to the bank to deposit a large sum of money - worrying about your safety - should exist no longer. Card payments clear in 1-4 days (depending on the provider) so small business will get the benefit of good cash flow without the hassle of banking hall madness. 5. Cards are safer Cash can be lost, stolen or destroyed, and businesses that are known to have high volumes of cash on the premises become a target for local criminals. Then there is the issue of counterfeit currency. Card payments have none of these hassles, even if someone loses a slip, the data is all on the machine, or immediately sent to a point of sale system. While the process for acquiring a card machine from a traditional institution is time consuming and costly, the entry of new players such as Yoco and others into the market means card machines are now viable for businesses that previously could not afford them or did not qualify for them. For more information, go to www.getyoco.co.za. Nampak revenue jumped 11% as trading profit from the rest of Africa surpassed turnover from the group's South African home market for the first time yet in the year to September 30. Andre de Ruyter.Picture: Supplied But the packaging company saw a R681m foreign exchange loss from its Angolan and Nigerian businesses, with Nigeria contributing the bulk. This pushed headline earnings per share down 48%. Group operating profit of R2.2bn, which was up 29%, benefited from a R1.3bn capital injection from a recent property sale and leaseback transaction. "Its a disappointing result as expected, due mainly to forex losses, and future losses cannot be ruled out," Mark Hodgson, an analyst at Avior Capital Markets, said on Monday. A lack of a final dividend in line with Nampaks cash conservation strategy would see dividend cover revised down over the liquidity problems in Nigeria and Angola. These came amid foreign exchange shortages and large currency devaluations in the two markets. But Nampak CEO Andre de Ruyter said "all in all it was a solid set of numbers". The biggest disappointment was the big foreign exchange loss. "We have seen continued volume growth in the business," De Ruyter said. The output of paper, plastics, metals and glass packaging were all up, he said. Glass had delivered a trading profit of R105m from a restated trading loss of R81m in 2015. Group trading profit of R1.9bn was up 4% as trading profit from the rest of Africa of R990m rose 12%, making it 52% of overall trading profit. Meanwhile, net gearing of 49% was well down from 72% in 2016. The share lost 0.28% on the day. Brian Mugabe, an analyst at Momentum SP Reid Securities, said on Monday that Nampaks results were in line with the trading update released a few weeks ago, and that the "bad news around the foreign exchange losses had been largely priced in". "[The results were] operationally positive, however, as the turnaround efforts are now becoming more tangible, and with some hedging in place and devaluation in Nigeria unlikely to be as severe in financial 2017, the base effects of this year should support an improved outlook going forward," he said. Despite the cash extraction rate in Nigeria and Angola rising to 77% from 59% in 2015, R990m, or 50% of R2bn of cash holdings in Nigeria and Angola were hedged by year-end. Nampak had warned that headline earnings per share for the year would plunge, with much of this coming from abnormal items. Asset impairments of R355m-R370m related mainly to the planned conversion of the Angolan tinplate beverage can line to aluminium. Nampak entered into a sale and leaseback deal on 15 properties in SA and the outright sale of one property for R1.7bn. This sum was received in September. The book value of the net assets included in the transaction at the end of September 2015 was R382m, with a capital profit of R1.3bn on the sale. This had allowed it to deleverage its balance sheet and strengthen the groups covenant positions. Packaging group Nampak on Monday reported a 48% drop in first-half headline earnings per share (HEPS), affected mainly by foreign exchange losses. HEPS, which excludes capital profit and impairments, slid to 107.6c in the year to September, which was in the middle range its recent trading guidance. The company suffered R681m in foreign-exchange losses, thanks to the devaluation of Angolan kwanza and Nigerian naira, which accounted for the greater proportion of the losses. The economies of the two countries are reeling from lower oil prices which, in turn, have affected their currencies. Nampak, which makes metal cans, glass bottles and a range of cardboard boxes, said it managed to limit potential further forex losses by hedging 50% of its R2bn cash holdings in these two countries. Total sales in the review period increased 11% to R19.1bn and group trading profit improved 4% to R1.9bn. The improved performance was due to the turnaround at the glass division, good trading in Nigeria and Zimbabwe, volume increases from new customers and benefits from operational improvements. The share price was off 0.97% to R17.42in late trade on the JSE on Monday, valuing the company at R12bn. LONDON: Facebook will open a new London headquarters next year and create another 500 jobs, the leading social network said Monday, despite uncertainty over Brexit. The group said the move will take its UK workforce to 1,500 staff, adding that Britain "remains one of the best places to be a tech company", amid ongoing jitters over the nation's looming exit from the European Union. The news comes one week after US tech giant Google confirmed it would expand its vast London campus in a move that could bring 3,000 more jobs. The Facebook announcement will be confirmed later at the annual meeting of top business lobby group the Confederation of British Industry, which is the country's top employers' organisation. "The UK remains one of the best places to be a tech company and is an important part of Facebook's story," said Nicola Mendelsohn, the company's vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "We came to London in 2007 with just a handful of people, by the end of next year we will have opened a new HQ and plan to employ 1500 people," she added in a statement. "Many of those new roles will be high skilled engineering jobs as the UK is home to our largest engineering base outside of the US." A spokeswoman added that the new office is currently under construction in the bohemian central district of Fitzrovia. London Mayor Sadiq Khan welcomed the news from the US giant. "Facebook's decision to expand in London is further evidence that London's strength as a tech hub keeps on growing," Khan said. "It follows news that London remains the best city in Europe for digital startups. "The capital's vibrant tech scene is the envy of Europe and Facebook's continuing commitment is another sign that London is open to talent, innovation and entrepreneurship from all four corners of the world." Last Tuesday, Google revealed it will add a new office building to a complex currently under development behind London's King's Cross train station. An estimated 3,000 jobs will be created by the move. A total of 7,000 Google staff will eventually be working at the hub, which is set to open in 2018. Source: AFP With news of state capture making headlines across South Africa, and the unexpected resignation of the state power utility's CEO Brian Molefe, it was easy to overlook an annexure in the finance minister's medium-term budget statement dealing with government's exposure to state-owned enterprises, and some of the finer points of Eskom's interim financial results A closer look suggests that South Africas largest state-owned enterprise may not be in as strong financial shape as generally thought. The power utilitys interim results show increasing costs and a decline in profits for the first half of the year. The relatively modest level of profits that were achieved provide little comfort when looking at a set of high probability risk factors unfolding over the next few years. These include the fact that about R40bn of under-recovered costs that had been expected to be decided by the end of this year are now unlikely to be reflected in tariffs until 2018/19, or later. It also seems highly feasible that tariff increases scheduled to start in April 2018 will be delayed in the courts, with the next major tariff increase perhaps set back to 2019/20 under this scenario. The picture becomes more troubling when looking at the medium term. Eskoms borrowings and finance costs are set to increase significantly over the next few years. Payments to independent power producers could easily double, and further increases in revenue are unlikely to match historical trend. With government financial exposure to the power utility at R368.5bn and perhaps doubling over the medium term this has implications for both Eskom and South Africas public finances more generally. What the numbers say In assessing governments financial risk exposure to Eskom, National Treasury noted, as a positive factor, its recent recapitalisation programme and subsequent improvement in liquidity. Indeed, there might be reason for optimism in some of the numbers. These include a 10.5% increase in revenue as compared to the first six months of 2015/16, a 23% increase in earnings before interest, tax and depreciation and profits of R9.356bn, and various cost reductions of some R14.4bn. But symptoms of a deeper problem emerge when unpacking these numbers. For example, revenue gains of some R21bn were driven primarily by an increase in regulated tariffs. The problem is that Eskom has relied on significant year-on-year increases in tariffs since 2008. There is no guarantee this will continue, with flat or decreasing tariff and revenue scenarios more likely for the next few years. The reason for this comes from an understanding of Eskoms regulatory environment. First, theres a huge question mark over R11bn of tariff increases allowed by the utility regulator for 2016/17. This has been set-aside by the High Court and sent back to the regulator for further review. On top of this, the effect of the court battle is that other important regulatory decisions have been parked until the matter is resolved. This alone has already delayed other decisions on some R40bn of under-recovered costs dating back to 2014/15. Whatever the amount finally awarded to Eskom it isnt likely to be reflected in tariffs until 2018/19, if at all. Cost reductions not so easy to achieve Eskom does, of course, have room to reduce costs. That said, the cost base is increasing, and in areas that are largely outside Eskoms control. Take the long-term power supply agreements which government has placed with the power utility. The annual cost of power purchases came to some R15.1bn last year, an increase of some R5.6bn over the previous year. This cost could easily double over the next several years as government programmes in renewable power generation, gas to power projects, and coal independent power produce projects come into commercial operation. Another way Eskom could conceivably cut costs is by substituting its own generation with supply from independent power producers. But there are two problems with this. Firstly, Eskom now has an excess of generating capacity. With weak demand and new generating units at Ingula, Medupi and Kusile in various stages of construction, it will be some time before this generating capacity can be fully utilised. Secondly, borrowings on capital invested in existing assets and those under construction must be repaid, whether used at full capacity or not. What about savings on coal costs as Eskom outsources power generation to independent producers? There isnt a great deal of room for manoeuvre here either. The regulator has required Eskom to engage in long-term coal supply arrangements. These are generally not easy to terminate, and storage or transfer to locations where the coal might be used is costly. A debt cliff-face looms down the line Eskoms debt obligations were reported as R317bn, with an increase in finance costs of roughly R4bn for the six-month period. While not significant in itself, this may well be the tip of the iceberg. For example, Eskom reported capitalised finance costs of R9 482bn. These are costs that are deferred and dont affect the reported bottom line of profits. This number wipes out the accounting profits Eskom reported of R9.356bn. And Eskom proposes to borrow more. To finance its capital expansion programme over the next five years the board has approved a further R327bn through to 31 March 2021. Assuming that most of the costs on those borrowings will be capitalised during construction a common accounting practice the full effect of finance costs will only be reflected in Eskoms bottom line profits (or losses) on completion of the current build programme. In looking at cash flow, Eskoms interest payments on debt last year reached some R22.8bn. Considering that total borrowings are projected to roughly double by 2020/21, it is not unrealistic to anticipate annual interest payments of well over R40bn. If repayments on principal debt are added, this could reach over R50bn per year within the next five years. So cant it cut costs? Yes. But by as much as R80bn per year to compensate for long term power purchase agreements, and borrowings? Not really. The Eskom board has highlighted a continued focus on identifying cost savings and efficiency opportunities. But as South Africas de facto electricity supplier of last resort there is not the flexibility to cut costs as might otherwise be the case. On top of this, key cost drivers are largely determined by the government. That is not to suggest that savings cant be made. But in providing essential services and implementing government policy, Eskom isnt free to aggressively initiate cost savings as it might want to. It would be comforting if the risks Eskom faces could be mitigated by large scale efficiency initiatives but it is now probably too late for that alone. In managing this sea change, National Treasury may have no choice but to consider more fundamental policy responses and structural solutions to stop Eskoms finances from turning into a financial tsunami. A survey confirms that doing business on the African continent is still arduous, with tax remaining the second-most significant threat for companies, after political instability. According to PwCs latest Africa Tax Survey. Nigeria, Angola and South Africa were identified as the countries that pose the greatest tax challenges in Africa. Nigeria and Angola also doubled as the most problematic from general business and regulatory perspectives, with the addition of the DRC. Alan Seccombe, partner in charge of PwCs Africa Coordination Centre says: The most significant challenges relate to obtaining certainty around the application of legislation and dealing with the tax authorities. This is a unique obstacle, since decision-making should ideally be informed by business considerations, with tax matters being a mere formality. The demanding tax environment is probably one of the reasons for the relatively high appetite for tax planning. The findings mirror that of our 2013 survey. Respondents A total of 48 respondents completed the survey, which was made up of questions about tax, business and regulatory challenges facing companies operating in Africa. Most respondents companies have been operating on the continent for more than five years; while over half have been active there for more than 10 years. The aim of the survey is to provide organisations and other stakeholders with a comprehensive overview of the main challenges faced by multinational companies doing business in Africa. In the 2013 survey, South Africa was ranked by 33% of respondents as presenting the greatest business and regulatory challenges. In spite of the tough economic climate, including slowing growth and rising labour unrest, the countrys overall business and regulatory ranking has dropped to 19% of respondents this year. However, exchange controls remain an issue in South Africa and the recent immigration laws regarding visa applications and work permits have created a challenging business environment. Transfer pricing, thin capitalisation and withholding taxes were ranked as the three most challenging tax areas in Africa. Since the 2013 tax survey, transfer pricing has overtaken withholding taxes as being the biggest tax area of concern for most multinational companies in Africa. This is not surprising. With the increasing focus on transfer pricing globally and legislation in Africa coming up to speed with global standards, transfer pricing features as a key challenge for companies across Africa. Immigration regulations and customs and excise obligations also appeared to be challenging from a compliance perspective, with over 40% of respondents indicating that these are not easy. It is encouraging to note that payroll taxes for local nationals seem to [be] the least difficult to comply with. However, tax compliance for expatriates is still an area of concern as the individuals concerned still have obligations to meet in both their home and host countries. Political instability remains the most significant threat to business growth in Africa however, the ranking has reduced from 33% to 23% of respondents. The other two threats identified were the huge tax burden (17%) and a shortage of skilled personnel (13%). The tax burden issue is mostly prevalent in jurisdictions that have multiple tax collection authorities. In addition, cross-border transactions have proved to be extremely challenging, in particular with regard to the application of tax treaties, where we continue to see a total disregard to tax treaties in some jurisdictions. The third top-most threat of skilled personnel remains a problem for business growth in Africa, especially for industries that require human resources, like the oil and gas industry. This challenge is likely to continue as upskilling may take some time and immigration rules continue to be very challenging, adds Seccombe. It is not uncommon for sellers to receive more than one Offer to Purchase (OTP) on their property at a time, especially if the home is situated in a sought-after area. While it might be tempting to simply accept the highest offer, this isn't always the best offer and it is important to look at all offers in their own merits, paying particular attention to the clauses of each contract. The sellers real estate agent will be able to provide some valuable insight when going through each offer to determine which one is the most beneficial. In terms of the mandate given to the agent, the agent must act in the best interest of the homeowner to ensure that the optimum outcome is achieved during the property transaction. The highest value offer might seem as though it is the obvious choice from the outset and achieving the highest possible sales price is ultimately the end goal, however, there are other aspects that need to be considered before making a final decision. Before sellers think about accepting an offer, the following should be in place: Copies of any council-approved plans on the property, as well as checking all other documentation is up-to-date and correct. This will expedite the time it takes for the property to be transferred, ensuring the process goes more smoothly. Ensure that the contract is easy to understand and covers all aspects that are to be agreed upon by both parties. This should include factors such as which items will be regarded as fixtures and fittings. Having these aspects in a written document will reduce any chance of a misunderstanding or disagreement in the future. When a seller is reviewing each OTP there are a few critical elements that they should pay particular attention to, as this will help them to differentiate between the various offers. Here are a few basic points to consider: Is the offer conditional? The majority of offers in todays market are subject to certain suspensive conditions that need to be satisfied before the transaction can come to fruition. These could include the buyer first having to sell their current home before they can purchase the sellers property. While not entirely out of the ordinary for an OTP to be void of any suspensive conditions, it is important for the seller to consider that the property will be off the market while the terms and conditions are waiting to be met, should they choose to accept the offer. Does the buyer have a deposit? Most buyers will be required by the bank to have at least 10% of the purchase price of the property as a deposit, however, in certain instances, a buyer may be asked to provide as much as 30% of the purchase price. The more money the buyer has available to put down as a deposit, the greater the chance the buyer will have of obtaining the required finance to purchase the home. Often deposit is also a good indication of the buyers financial position and how serious they are about buying the home. Is it a cash deal or financed? Ideally, the fewer complications involved in the financing of the purchase, the better, as it means that less can go wrong further down the line. Cash is king, but only a small percentage of transactions are completely cash deals. The majority of buyers will require a bond, but banks are far more willing to approve a bond if the buyer requires less than 80% of the purchase price of the home. Although generally not an issue, it is advisable to be cautious of buyers that require third parties to sign a surety on their behalf. The date of occupation In the perfect scenario the occupational date and the transfer date would coincide. To a large degree, this will mitigate the amount of stress and complications in the event that the deal does not materialise. If the offer contains any suspensive conditions, the seller should not allow occupation of the home until these conditions are met and all documentation has been signed by both the buyer and seller at the conveyancing attorney. Once a seller has perused all aspects of each offer and is satisfied, then they can consider the price that the buyer is offering. There are instances where the seller could find that the lower offer is actually the right one for them, depending on their needs and the conditions of the offer. South African Tourism has entered into a partnership with the National Stokvel Association of SA (Nasasa) to boost domestic leisure travel and make it more accessible to the country's millions of stokvel members. Recent studies show there are more than 11.4-million individual stokvel members belonging to more than 811,000 groups. Collectively, stokvels are said to save R44bn per year. South African Tourism says it will soon be interacting with key stokvel leaders in the hope of encouraging their members to invest in domestic travel. "Domestic tourism is very critical for the economy and GDP but we are facing difficult economic times and the perception is that travelling locally is expensive "We hope the partnership with the stokvel association will help," Debbie Damant, country manager for South African Tourism, said on Monday. SA's domestic tourism was growing relatively steadily from a global perspective, she said. It generated R8.8bn in revenue in the first quarter of 2016. The target for the year was R24.6bn, said Damant. Nasasa chief operating officer Mizi Mtshali said: "To many of our members, the prospect of travel is intimidating as it is seen to be reserved for the elite. "This partnership [with South African Tourism] aims to challenge this perception and encourage domestic travel among stokvel groups. "By dissecting various group packages, we are able to determine what each member's monthly contribution would be towards that travel opportunity." The Department of Tourism's domestic tourism growth strategy for 2012 to 2020 states that the biggest inhibiting factor to domestic tourism is the perception that travel is not affordable. The department said in 2015 that about 48% of the adult population could not afford to travel. Local trips declined from 25.4-million in 2012 to 19.8-million trips in 2014. Revenue dropped from R21.8bn in 2012 to R18.5bn in 2014. In 2016, the department allocated R110m to South African Tourism to promote domestic tourism. Among several other initiatives, a series of television adverts have been produced, telling the stories of South Africans travelling the country for the first time. Source: Business Day SAN FRANCISCO: Oracle on Monday announced it is buying Dyn, a web traffic management firm recently hit with a cyber attack that closed off the internet to millions of users. King of Hearts via Wikimedia Business software and hardware titan Oracle did not disclose financial terms of the deal to acquire US-based Dynamic Network Services Inc, or Dyn. Oracle planned to enhance its own offerings with Dyn's expertise in monitoring, controlling, and optimising cloud-based internet applications and managing online traffic. "Dyn's immensely scalable and global DNS is a critical core component and a natural extension to our cloud computing platform," Oracle product development president Thomas Kurian said in a release. Dyn was the target of cyber attacks that pounded the underpinnings of the internet in October, crippling Twitter, Netflix and other major websites with the help of once-dumb devices made smart with online connections. The onslaught incapacitated a crucial piece of internet infrastructure, taking aim at a service entrusted to guide online traffic to the right places by turning website names people know into addresses computers understand. The hacker was probably a disgruntled gamer, an expert whose company closely monitored the attack said last week. Dale Drew, chief security officer for Level 3 Communications, which mapped out how the 21 October attack took place, told a Congressional panel that the person had rented time on a botnet a network of web-connected machines that can be manipulated with malware to level the attack. Using a powerful malicious program known as Mirai, the attacker harnessed some 150,000 'Internet of Things' (IoT) devices such as cameras, lightbulbs and appliances to overwhelm Dyn systems, according to Drew. Dyn has more than 3,500 customers including Netflix, Twitter, and CNBC, making tens of billions of online traffic optimising decisions daily, according to Oracle. Source: AFP Record results from its motor trading division helped Barloworld grow revenue 6% to R66.5bn and aftertax profit 30% to R2bn in its financial year to-end September. Gjermund Alsos via 123RF Motor trading, housed within its automotive and logistics division, contributed a third of the group's total revenue. It grew sales 8.3% to R21.8bn and operating profit 15% to R558m, Barloworld said in its results statement on Monday. "New vehicle sales volumes declined by 6.4% against a total market decline of 9.5% during the financial year under review. The overall result was supported by an improved used vehicle and aftersales performance. The acquisitions of two Mercedes-Benz dealerships and a majority stake in salvage management and disposal contributed to the result." Barloworld splits itself into two main segments: automotive and logistics, which contributed 56% of the group's revenue, and equipment and handling, which contributed 44%. Its car rental business grew revenue 14.7% to R5.97bn and operating profit 14% to R536m Loss of a Lesotho government contract saw its Avis Fleet business report a small drop in revenue to R3.6bn from the matching period's R3.4bn. Growth in Russia and Spain helped its equipment division report an overall 1.4% growth in revenue to R27.9bn despite its Southern African businesses suffering an 8.7% sales decline to R18.5bn. "The slowdown in mining activity and the reluctance of mines to incur both replacement and greenfields capital expenditure resulted in mining unit sales dropping to their lowest level since 2010," CEO Clive Thomson said in the results statement. "While most of our major mining customers have maintained production levels we have seen selective production curtailment in certain regions, including the iron ore mines in Northern Cape, which had some impact on aftersales demand." Barloworld's Russian equipment division grew sales 43% to R4.8bn thanks to increased mining machine demand from opencast gold miners. "Activity levels in Spain remained under pressure as a result of extensive delays in forming a government following two inconclusive general election results," Thomson said. "Revenue to September of R4.5bn was R680m adrift of last year with activity levels in Portugal 25% below the previous year with reduced export sales to Angola and Mozambique." Barloworld declared a final dividend of R2.30, taking its total for the year to R3.45 - the same as the previous year. Source: BDpro The South African Communication Association (SACOMM) has issued a statement noting its concern about the ongoing intimidation, harassment and abuse of both professional and student journalists. SACOMM is the professional representative association, which represents academics and scholars in South Africa, working within the fields of the communication sciences, including media studies, journalism, film, corporate communication and communication in general. As the collective of academics who are responsible for the training, mentoring and education of many of our countrys journalists, communications practitioners and media workers, we are deeply concerned. Police, private security intimidation Most recently, two SAPS officers visited University of Johannesburg (UJ) student journalist, Magnificent Ndebele (20) in the early hours of 10 November 2016. According to Ndebele, the officers confiscated his equipment, including his cellular phone and laptop, without providing a warrant. Ndebele was on the scene earlier this month when private security officials shot fellow student, Kelvin Baloyi, at point-blank range. Baloyi died on the scene. Ndebele recorded images during this incident. Brian Odwar via Pixabay Disturbingly, this is not the first time that Ndebele has been subject to police intimidation. During his reporting on the student protests at UJ in recent months, he has been threatened with violence and with his life, from both private security officials as well as SAPS officers on various occasions. Ndebele is not alone. Journalists have frequently reported being barred from UJ campuses by private security officials or bouncers. This also follows a deplorable incident in September, when UJ private security guards attacked a group of journalists who had identified themselves as media workers, beating them with batons and pepper-spraying them, while the journalists sat on the ground. Video footage reveals how UJ private security guards violently assaulted filmmaker Sipho Singiswa without provocation. After the September attack on journalists at UJs Doornkloof and Kingsway campuses, the association wrote to Ihron Rensburg, vice-chancellor and principal, University of Johannesburg, endorsing Sanefs statement on the incident. Violation of the Constitution At this time, and as per the collective SACOMM position on the crisis in higher education, we are deeply concerned about this ongoing infringement on freedom of expression and media freedom rights. This is unacceptable in a democracy, and is a violation of Section 16 of the Constitution. We also remind SAPS that your own rules prohibit you from treating the media with disrespect or with violence. SAPS Standing Order 156 instructs you to treat all media representatives with respect, courtesy and dignity even when provoked. You may not delete a journalists photographs or footage, and you may not confiscate equipment without a warrant this is against the law. Anyone, in any open public space, is allowed to photograph you or any incident, which may be occurring on the scene, and you may not stop him or her. As journalism and media educators, we deplore the actions of SAPS in their unlawful confiscation of a student journalists equipment and what is clearly targeted harassment of the student journalist after he captured scenes of a crime. This is a blatant infringement of the students personal rights, and media freedom rights in general. It is crucial to our country that the media sector is allowed to do its work and perform its duties without fear or intimidation. For more information, click here. Ericsson has signed an exclusive multi-year feature film licensing deal with 20th Century Fox Television Distribution for its subscription video on demand (SVOD) service, Nuvu. The exclusive second pay output deal covers territories across sub-Saharan Africa and multiple languages, with titles including 20th Century Fox feature films and global film franchises. Prasit Rodphan via 123RF Titles include The Maze Runner, The Devil Wears Prada, Rio 2, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Fault in Our Stars, The Monuments Men and Kingsman: The Secret Service, as well as film franchises such as Die Hard and X-Men. Thorsten Sauer, head of broadcast and media services, Ericsson, says, This feature film content deal with 20th Century Fox Television Distribution is a major milestone for Ericsson, as we look to expand our new SVOD service, Nuvu. Through this partnership, Nuvu subscribers will have access to some of Hollywoods hottest films as part of their package, localised on a market-by-market basis. Working hand in hand with some of Africas leading mobile phone operators, we believe Nuvu can offer a unique content and technology solution that meets the demands of consumers across sub-Saharan Africa. Nuvu is a complete end-to-end subscription VOD service developed by Ericsson for mobile operators in emerging markets, which spans both the technology platform and the content licensing. It leverages the companys extensive over-the top capabilities based on Ericsson Managed Player and components of MediaFirst TV Platform, its scalable modular technology platforms used by broadcasters and telco service providers to distribute video content efficiently to connected devices. For a monthly fee, subscribers have unlimited access to an initial 3,000 local and international premium titles across a wide variety of genres including Hollywood and Nollywood movies, TV series, kids, music, gospel and education. The built-in ability to distribute content to consumers during off-peak periods is a core feature of the service. This minimises data costs for both operator and consumer, addressing the key cost challenge that has so far been an obstacle for VOD uptake in Africa. The platform also integrates fully into the operators customer relationship management and payment systems. For more information, go to www.ericsson.com. Social media managers have it tough. In the space of a few seconds, things can go haywire. Tweeting from the wrong business account, or not responding fast enough to complaints on Facebook before they spread far and wide can doom your business brand. Luckily help is at hand with Cerebra's Social Media Crisis Handbook. Mike Oelschig Earlier this month, Cerebra launched its The Social Media Crisis Handbook based on research into SA businesses' ability to respond to a social media crisis. Cerebras head of advisory and insights Mike Oelschig shares that Cerebra is renowned for being at the forefront of social business thinking, and takes walking the talk very seriously in terms of sharing information. Crisis communications seemed the obvious choice for their next published piece as its highly topical, with a new business in trouble for something every week, as well as a shocking lack of practical tools and information out there to help business navigate the space. They wanted to fill that gap. But its not just for those that focus on managing social media for others. Craig Rodney, managing director at Cerebra, explains that the handbook is aimed at organisations that have any kind of online presence and is based upon the understanding that it is no longer a question of if you will experience a social media crisis, its a case of when. Here Oelschig, who co-wrote the book with Rodney, sets the context for doing business in the social media space and what to do when things dont go to plan 1. What does it mean to be a social business in todays super-connected world? Oelschig: I could talk for days about this question, but Ill do my best to be succinct. No one can deny that social media has had a profoundly disruptive effect on the relationship between businesses and their customers. The world customers now live in, as a result of social media a world of connection, sharing, collaboration and open and authentic conversations across all pre-existing barriers is fundamentally disparate from the way industrial-age businesses have been run for hundreds of years. Organisations cannot carry on living an industrial-age existence in an information-age reality. An incredible 69% of companies have absolutely no social #CrisisComms plan. Its time you got one: https://t.co/0M0zXTGKY9 pic.twitter.com/249yu4PN0C cerebra (@cerebra) November 10, 2016 Being a social business means embracing this new world. It means creating an organisation that is optimised to the benefit of all its stakeholders, from customers to employees, owners and partners, by breaking down physical and metaphorical silos and instilling a culture of collaboration, information-sharing and openness. 2. Tell us more about the recent Social Media Crisis Edition 27dinner and why its worrying that 71% of organisations have never audited their social media risk. Oelschig: This edition of the 27dinner revolved primarily around the launch of Cerebras newest editorial release, The Social Media Crisis Handbook. As part of the release, we surveyed 100 businesses in South Africa around this issue of crisis communication and the results were eye-opening to say the least - specifically to the stat you raised, which was probably the most worrying outtake. Every single one of the businesses we surveyed has a social media presence, yet over two-thirds have never audited their risk. Its actually astounding. No business on the planet is immune to something going wrong at some point and social media shines a giant spotlight on those shortcomings. The fact that so many businesses havent given themselves foresight on what could potentially go wrong is baffling. I think the issue is that many businesses have an it wont happen to me attitude. Until it does and theyre left scrambling! 3. How does a communication crisis on social media differ from one that takes place off-screen? Oelschig: Traditionally in a crisis type situation a business only had to take a PR approach. They released a statement or two and engaged with key media people to get their message out there. They had time and space to manoeuvre on their side. Now, a business also has to engage with their customers one-on-one, in real time. And those customers can be in the hundreds of thousands, all throwing shade at you at the same time and all expecting a reply in rapid time. So the big difference is the sheer scope and speed of the required communication. 4. Scary. Share a few ways companies can better prepare for that inevitable social media crisis. Oelschig: In the handbook we break down preparing for a crisis into a few key sections. Without going into too much detail, this involves firstly auditing where you are vulnerable. Identify where things could potentially go wrong from a business perspective, a marketing perspective and an employee saying something reckless perspective and how youd you react to each. Secondly, having the right tools and resources in place to identify very early on when a potential crisis is brewing. Then having a triage system based on levels of risk and associated communication strategies in place to very quickly identify what level of crisis youre dealing with and whos responsible for driving the response. And finally, having reporting processes, templates and structures already in place so that in the midst of a crisis you can keep the relevant people informed at all stages. The idea is to get as close to a paint-by-numbers system as possible. You dont want to be thinking about any of this during a crisis, trust me! 5. When the worst happens, how can a business recover from a social media crisis? Oelschig: In the book we refer to closing the loop. Basically, you need to ensure that all the lessons learnt have been incorporated back into the business so that the same thing doesnt happen again. And more importantly, people need to see you do this. Apologies only go so far, making actual material and meaningful changes to your business practices is really the only thing that will get people back on your side. Team Cerebra expands on all this and more in the handbook. Click here to purchase the handbook, here to download the crisis management survey results and other eBooks from Cerebra, and be sure to follow them on Twitter to stay up-to-date. Ad:Tech is a global meeting place for forward-thinking brands, agencies and media owners with events held throughout the year in different countries. Neil Clarence, COO of location-based advertising specialists Vicinity Media, provides feedback from day one at the New York event. The big digital topics globally are the same that we see in South Africa: programmatic, big data, video, location and attribution. One major issue being covered here that hasnt had as big an impact in SA is ad blocking - Ive seen at least 10 companies with solutions to beat the block. Throughout the majority of day one, exhibitors dealt with programmatic tech plug-ins to improve performance. The commoditisation of digital inventory is scary in the first world. Just like at home I wonder if publishers realise theyre hurting themselves in the race for the elusive 100% fill rate? Tech start ups need to be focusing less on clever ways to beat each other programmatically and focus on creating premium ad units that generate more revenue for publisher partners. The model is too agency and brand centric, publishers and the consumer experience dont feature in the thinking of most of the companies on show. From what I heard, no one has got beacon technology and distribution right anywhere globally. The most progress has been in the East where they dont use a branded app model per advertiser but rather a single consumer app that talks to all, or a network of apps. For example, your banking app, Shazaam and your news app all allow beacons to engage their apps for each others products creating mass reach, instead of relying on the consumer to download a branded app. Foursquares Michael Rosen warned media buyers to be sure that they can trust the location whenever third party vendors are involved. This immediately resonated with me because part of Vicinity Medias reason for being was to build tech that would elicit real location without involvement from third parties (as much as possible). Other findings from Foursquares location-based session included the fact that 32% less females had visited Trump properties and hotels in the last month! Reaching the Chinese consumer was the topic of an entire keynote address and break away session. Key note speaker Richard Tobaccowala, chief strategist at the Publicis Group also mentioned that in 20 years, Africa will be as represented within Ad:Tech as China is now. On that note I havent heard another 'Saffer' or even African accent here all day. The quote of the day, again from Richard Tobaccowala has to be: "Big data is like sex, everyone talks about but no one has it! Connect and engage with Neil on moc.aidem-ytiniciv@lien About Vicinity Media Established in (2014), Vicinity Media was the first to launch location based mobile advertising in South Africa and continues to rapidly innovate in this space and respond to client needs. The company boasts clients in the motor, food and grocery, petroleum, retail and telecoms industries and works with the countrys largest publishers including IOL, Times Media, Mail & Guardian to name a few. Nielsen Admosphere is to conduct a robust project of cross-platform audience measurement for the Czech Association of TV Organizations (ATO) from 2018-2022. Starting from 2018, TV meter measurement will be supplemented by online video content measurement. An option for combining live and time-shifted TV audiences with online video audience data is also included in the proposal. The project submitted to the competitive tendering consisted of four parts required by the contract owner: TV audience measurement, video content measurement, the combination of these, and a range of extension options. Hongqi Zhang via 123RF A larger sample Establishment Survey is included in the price of the basic TV audience measurement, alongside the measurement of 100 TV channels, real-time audience reporting (from the whole panel) and extensions of Adwind Kite Lite software for processing other data sources. For the digital part of the project, Nielsen Admosphere will provide video content census measurement. Selected Nielsen technologies present not only in the US, but also in many European countries and worldwide will be used for this purpose. Its other measurement technologies stand ready if the ATO exercises its contractual options for additional services. Data users can thus be assured of internationally comparable metrics of cross-platform consumption, across TV and digital video content. We have combined Czech technology, tailored to local conditions, with products of digital measurement used by Nielsen all over the world, offering services for the Czech market that exceed the requirements of the contract owner, while remaining effective and economical. The proposal has been worked on with energy and intensity for almost three months and worked out in such detail that ATO can be sure that what we promise we can implement, says chairwoman of the board of Nielsen Admosphere Tereza Simeckova. According to Michal Jordan, deputy chairman, this project is the most extensive in the history of Czech measurement and promises to be an effective and robust solution for the Czech market. Apart from measurement devices (so-called peoplemeters placed in all households of the TV panel) Nielsen SDK site-centric online video content measurement technology will be used, installed on the servers of all broadcasters. David Satransky, the director of the Electronic Research Section adds, The extension of the project through digital content measurement matches current technological diversity in the options for video content distribution. The most essential innovation, from 2018, will be the extension of TV audience measurement beyond TV screens, so on PCs, smartphones and tablets (both in browsers and apps). In the case of television sets, the HbbTV on Smart TVs will be measured as well. The new project will not only be demanding in terms of technology, but also in terms of mathematical and statistical methods. To meet all the requirements of the contract owner with regard to statistical modelling has been quite a challenge, says Tomas Hanzak, chief analyst of Nielsen Admosphere, who adds that he is looking forward to the implementation of the project. Angola Cables has announced that it has selected Etix Everywhere as its partner to build its critical infrastructure globally as part of an ambitious project to offer a lower latency route between the USA and Africa. The first element of the deal includes the construction of a landing station in Fortaleza (Brazil) and a data centre in Brazil for Angola Cables' new South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) and Monet submarine cable networks, which will link the Americas and Africa. Image by 123RF According to Antonio Nunes, CEO of Angola Cables This partnership will help us to quickly develop and operate state-of-the-art data centres as we continue to build digital bridges to connect continents and the world. Data will no longer have to pass through Europe, offering lower latency and better bandwidth quality between Africa and South America, and therefore the USA. Closer access Currently, when data travels from Africa to Latin America, it is transmitted through Europe. Angola Cables new submarine cables - Monet and SACS - will dramatically reduce the latency between the USA, Latin America and Africa. The Monet submarine cable, a partnership between Angola Cables, Google, Antel and Algar Telecom, is scheduled to be ready for service mid-2017, linking Miami, Florida to Fortaleza and Sao Paulo, Brazil. This route will offer resilient connectivity and better latency between the two continents. Latin America is a booming market, and the internet penetration in this area is tremendous. The SACS submarine cable, currently being deployed by Angola Cables, will be a direct connection between Latin America and Africa. "With these projects, Angola Cables is transforming the face of African IT infrastructure, explained Nunes. "Africa has been home to the worlds fastest-growing telecoms sector in the last five years. By offering better connectivity, Angola Cables is making way for a new era of economic growth." Resilient architecture The cable landing station and the data centre will be flagship infrastructure projects for Etix Everywhere. These projects will follow the companys innovative architecture design model, encompassing three scalable power sources and world-class equipment. Each of them will offer 500 kVA of hosting capacity, with the ambition of reaching a PUE lower than 1.5 on a Tier III design. "Considering the extreme weather conditions in Fortaleza, this PUE is a challenging goal, declared Benoit Parisse, CTO of Etix Everywhere. "However, Etix Everywhere has extensive experience in terms of operating in extreme weather conditions. We are confident in our ability to reach this goal." The second challenge for Etix Everywhere is to deliver these projects in six months in a city known for being a difficult environment in terms of construction work. The cable landing station and the data centre will be delivered mid-2017, in time to be connected with the new submarine cables. Innovation Angola Cables chose Etix Everywhere from among 11 competing companies due to its culture of innovation, exemplified by the latest software and hardware technologies developed by Etix Labs, Etix Everywheres R&D cluster, observed Nunes. "50% of our workforce is dedicated to creating smart data centres," said Antoine Boniface, managing director of Etix Everywhere. "The mission of Etix Everywhere is to provide fully automated data centres, using automation and artificial intelligence to improve facility operations and create a better user experience." Can be used for meetings, hearings, workshops, discussions, training, workspace, events, presentations, demonstrations, brainstorming, strategic planning, Cape Town based space, etc. Cost full-day: R 1,095 for eight hours. Half-day: R 765 for four hours. -Seats 18 comfortably around three round tables of six each -Room configuration is flexible -Can hire, if additional chairs if required -Air-conditioning -Flat screen monitor -Data projector available to rent (extra) -Wi-Fi -Flip chart stands and rails -Variable lighting -Comfortable, modern, stylish seating -Standard set-up: round tables; other options available, i.e. school room or board room -Monday to Friday from 07.00 till 18.00 (not open on weekends or evenings) -Conveniently located on MyCiTi bus route - close to bus stops for a number of routes -No parking available on premises -Street parking available in area and Kloof Lifestyle Centre is two blocks away with undercover pay parking Catering -Standard package - R20 per person. Arrival, morning and afternoon refreshments which includes: water/tea/coffee/biscuits -Treat package - R40 to R50 per person. Arrival, morning and afternoon refreshments which includes: water/tea/coffee/juice/biscuits/pastries/muffins/table sweets -Lunch package - R25 per person. Standard package plus in-room lunch, including ordering take aways, cutlery, crockery and cleaning (actual take away food order cost not included). er cost not included) Li Yong, director general of the Vienna-based United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) joins the special guests from member states and the international community marking the 50th anniversary of UNIDO at its headquarters on Monday. [FU JING/CHINA DAILY] Africa needs help not only from China but also from the United States, Japan and the rest of the international community to reduce poverty and help its economies, a senior UN official said on Monday. To achieve industrialization in Africa, China is the one to play a vital role, but the help from other countries and the rest of the international community is also urgently needed, said Li Yong, director general of the Vienna-based United Nations Industrial Development Organization(UNIDO) said on Monday. Li made the comment on the sidelines of the weeklong celebration of the 50th anniversary of UNIDO at its headquarters. Africas industrialization was highlighted on Mondays agenda. For decades, China has been benefiting from UNIDOs knowledge transfers and experience in modernization and industrialization. Now as Chinas presence in Africa and other developing countries is on the rise, Li has said that his agency is welcoming Chinas active participation and looks forward to more cooperation between China and UNIDO in African development. Li said his agency is also now actively engaging Japan and other member states to help Africa achieve the 2030 targets listed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Li said the targets of leave no one behind in terms of achieving shared prosperity in the world are so challenging that another 50 years are not even enough. We are ready to open the door to all the members (of the United Nations), said Li, who is among a handful of Chinese nationals serving in high positions in international institutions since 2013. Responding to China Daily, Li said that his agency, now with more than 170 member countries, will be open to the United States, which dropped its membership within Lis agency 20 years ago due to arrears. The US was among the top contributors to UNIDO before leaving. Despite that, Li said that the American private sector has been actively engaged with his agency. But he said it is for the American side to answer whether the Donald Trump administration will rejoin the UN agency or not. I am not clear how the president-elect thinks about this, and it is better for the American mission here (in Vienna) to answer, Li said. Justin Lin, former chief economist of the World Bank and now a professor at Peking University, said that he is a big believer that industrialization will help Africas development, and it is time for the international community to take urgent action. We have said many, many times about the African development, and it is now time to take action, said Lin, urging UNIDO to work as a platform between China and Africa. I am a team member (pushing) forward these actions. Starting from his position as World Bank chief economist from 2008-2012, Lin has been helping African countries design road maps for industrialization and economic development. Lin said that Chinas shift of industrial capacity and capital could match up with Africas cheap labor and other advantages. More importantly, Chinas fresh experiences in the previous decades could offer references, he said. Jin Liqun, president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), has also indicated his commitment to work with Lis agency to deliver the 2030 UN sustainable development goals. Since last year, he said some European countries, Canada and other AIIB members have put their trust in the new financial institution, which will be hosting up to 100 members by year-end. In todays world, the development paradigm must be a new one, said Jin. And the to-do list is long and challenging to achieve peace and shared prosperity, and we would like to cooperate with UNIDO and other partners to realize the targets. Tian Guoli, chairman of the Bank of China, has pledged to work with UNIDO to offer financial support for other countries to realize economic take-off through the banks worldwide branches. We are ready to offer financing help, especially green credit, Tian said at the opening of Mondays plenary meeting. And we can also work as matchmakers for small and medium-sized companies worldwide to help them spot suitable projects, he said. An official from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) Brigade 6 told K.N.G. that on 17 November the two KIO offices were surrounded by over 50 Chinese Army troops, police and border security forces. They said that the Chinese Government had ordered the closure of the offices and they then gave the staff two hours to vacate the offices, meaning that they did not have time to take everything from the offices with them. The Chinese Government had given the KIO permission to open the offices in Mang Shi three years ago and five permanent staff members manned each office. When 49 young Kachin men entered China from KIO held territory last month they were arrested by the Chinese police and handed over to the Burmese Government. Translated by Thida Linn Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI Three members of a Rakhine family along with their four cows were killed and three houses also got damaged by the shelling of Junta forces last night... The four militias Arakan Army (AA), Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) have launched a joint military operation against Burmese government forces in the area. Our ethnic people are requested to stop travelling in northern Shan State because of the dangers posed by military activities, said the statement. Local people are also advised to take precautions, and to support this inevitable joint military exercise for the protection of all ethnic peoples. The groups attacked Burmese military outposts and a police station in the Muse Township villages of 105 Mile, Mong Koe and Parng Zai, as well as Namkham and Kutkai areas in the early morning yesterday. The Burmese armed forces have been launching offensives in the ethnic territories of Kachin, Kokang, Taang, Arakan and Shan for a long time, read the statement. The military pressures have been mounting increasingly. The Burmese armed forces have also intensified their assaults. They are not only using 105-120mm heavy artillery to target innocent civilians, but are also arresting, torturing and killing indigenous people. For decades, Burmas government forces have launched offensives and operations against ethnic armed groups. Col. Tar Pong Kyaw, the secretary of TNLA, told The Irrawaddy on Sunday that Ethnic groups cannot hide in the jungle any morethe time has come to fight in the towns. Mondays statement also noted that the Burmese armed forces continue to attack ethnic armed groups including those that signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement with the government in October 2015. The AA, MNDAA, TNLA were excluded from signing the accord. Yesterday, it was reported that four policeman and an unknown number of civilians had been killed or wounded in the clashes. According to a resident in the 105 Mile: At least four police officers were shot dead. Meanwhile, Nang Khin Tar Yi, an MP from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) representing Hsenwi Township, said, A bomb exploded on the highway between Hsenwi and Muse townships, causing injuries to three people. They are currently being treated at a local hospital. Local sources also told Shan Herald that they had eye-witnessed militarys jets, trucks and troops heading into Muse. Since yesterday, villagers in close proximity to the hostilities have been fleeing their homes and seeking shelter in Muse town or across the border in China. According to a report in this mornings state-run press, the four ethnic armed groups also attempted to blow up three bridges into the town. Yesterday, the Chinese embassy in Burma issued a warning to its citizens, advising against travel to the conflict areas. The Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar has been watching the situation closely, urging all parties in the conflicts to exercise restraint by taking concrete and effective measures for an immediate ceasefire so as to resume peace in the China-Myanmar border area as soon as possible, the statement said. The Embassy reminds the Chinese citizens in Myanmar to watch out for their own safety by avoiding going to those conflict areas, it added. The consulate confirmed that many Burmese civilians had escaped the conflict by fleeing onto Chinese territory, and that the Chinese authorities have taken in those who have crossed the border, and sent the injured ones to hospitals for medical treatment. By Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) People Who Died & Were Found Years Later Life oi-Syeda Farah Can you imagine yourself lying dead for years and people not bothering to give you a proper funeral? There are so many people who die every second, but they are given a proper cremation before they fade away from the minds of their respective friends and family. But what if a person has been lying dead for years together, and that too unattended? Also Read: Chilling Murders + Suicide That Shook The World There are so many such cases of dead people who were found years after their death. This makes us wonder as to what type of world we live in, where a person gets to know about the death of their friends or family members only years later, and this is no joke! Check out the stories of these sad people who had to literally wait for years before they were finally discovered. What's more saddening is that fact that it was not their relatives who found them, but the officials who were doing their job! Hedviga Golik Can you beat this! She was found 42 years after she had died. As the picture looks like a movie scene, it turns to be more creepy. The woman was reported missing in 1966 and since then, nobody ever discovered her. She was found dead with her remains sitting on a chair facing the black and white TV while her cup of tea was next to her! Woah! An Elderly Man Found After 15 Years! He was discovered 15 years later by a health safety inspector who visited a house to inspect it. They found a skeleton still in pajamas. According to the authorities, no missing person was reported and hence, it was concluded that he had no friends or family. Also Read: Why Indian Currency Has Gandhiji's Picture? German Found After 7 Years Of His Death! Similar to the previous case, a 54-year-old German was found dead in his flat for 7 long years and had cigarettes and other food items around his body. The autopsy report suggested that he had died of natural causes. The strangest part is though the man's flat was at one of the busiest places, nobody found out about his death. Woman Found After 8 Years! The skeletal remains of an Australian woman was found by the authorities when they broke open into a home. The woman was apparently receiving government benefits and it was untouched. She had died of natural causes. David Walker Was Found 4 Years Later! David had many friends and a beautiful family. One fine day, he lied to them and told them that he was moving to a different state. But, apparently he shot himself and the authorities found his dead body only 4 years later! BEIJING (PTI): Indian Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag on Monday began his four-day China visit during which he will hold talks with the top PLA leadership and visit key military installations to deepen bilateral cooperation and mutual trust. Gen Singh, who is accompanied by a high-level military delegation, is scheduled to meet a number of high-ranking dignitaries of Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) and Central Military Commission (CMC) during his visit from November 21-24. CMC is the overall high command of the Chinese military and is headed by President Xi Jinping. "This visit is an opportunity to re-engage PLA in field of defence cooperation and build upon existing mutual cooperation and trust between the two nations," a statement by the Indian Army said. The delegation will also be visiting military installations including Infantry Division and Army Air Defence Brigades, it said. The visit aims at engaging China on subjects of mutual concern and shared interest, which include terrorism, humanitarian assistance and peace keeping training, the Indian Army said. The visit comes amidst growing stronger economic and military ties between the Asian giants and follows high-level diplomatic and military exchanges between the two neighbours. The visit also coincides with a joint military exercise (Exercise Hand in Hand), between two armies which is underway in Pune and will be followed by the visit of General Zhao Zongqi, Commander, Western Theatre Command of PLA in the second week of next month. While issues relating to the Line of Actual Control continue to exist, the northern borders have remained calm. However, India is in the process of beefing up its borders with China through raising of a mountain brigade, deployment of modern artillery and tanks besides creating greater airfield infrastructure among others. Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas. A PTI photo. NEW DELHI (PTI): The government has said that indigenous content of the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas is 59.7 per cent by value and 75.5 per cent by numbers. In a written reply to Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre said on Friday that several parts of Tejas is of foreign origin. Out of total 344 LRUs (Line Replaceable Units) involved in the system level of LCA, a total of 210 LRUs have been produced indigenously and balance 134 LRUs are being imported from foreign companies, he said. "Indigenous content of the LCA Tejas Aircraft is 59.7% by value and 75.5% by numbers," he added. To reduce dependence on foreign companies, out of the 134 imported LRUs, the indigenisation of 42 units is under progress. Further efforts are being made by way of indigenisation with the objective to reduce the import content progressively, he said. Consolidation of technical specification of imported units have been carried out and they are being projected for indigenisation by private companies, DRDO labs and HAL divisions. In a few cases, HAL has entered into repair agreements for a number of items to locally repair the items and for balance, they are in the process of entering into Long Term Repair and Maintenance Agreement (LTRMA). In a separate reply, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said government proposes to export the Tejas to other countries. In this connection preliminary discussions have been held with a few friendly countries. Presently, HAL has established facilities for manufacturing and delivery of 8 LCA per annum. There is a plan to ramp up the production rate from 8 to 16 Aircraft per annum progressively by 2019-20. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Terry Burgess had a list of expectations going into the Manitoba throne speech on Monday. After the early afternoon delivery by Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon, the Brandon Chamber of Commerce president reflected on a speech that saw most, but not all, of these expectations checked off his list. Even so, it left Burgess feeling optimistic that more items would be checked off his list in the future. I think, overall, this would have been what we would have expected in terms of a throne speech from the government direction for 2017, Burgess said. The whole concept of reducing the deficit and reducing debt, I think is paramount to what this government was going to be about. One area in which he believes the speech was lacking was in its presenting of strategic investments. Those things that will ultimately generate economic development. Equally lacking was mention of a regional economic development initiative for Westman. While the Manitobas Look North job creation effort cited in the speech for northern Manitoba is a positive, it was also be nice to see one developed for the Brandon area, he said. Even so, theres enough reading between the lines to maintain an optimism that these Westman gaps might be filled in the coming months, Burgess suggested, pointing to the documents repeated promises of the government maintaining an open dialogue with groups and individuals throughout the province as being a positive. The role of this government, I think, needs to be making sure were paying down our deficit (and) doing things to create economic activity, Burgess concluded directives Brandons two MLAs maintain the throne speech sets their government up to accomplish. The atmosphere in Winnipeg on Monday was very high-spirited, Brandon East Progressive Conservative MLA Len Isleifson described. We have the ability going forward of really changing the atmosphere of Manitobans and the atmosphere in Brandon, because we have a government that is listening to Manitobans, Isleifson said. In addition to repeated references to reducing red tape, the document expresses support for private-public partnerships a means of funding and managing public infrastructure projects though partnerships with the private sector. Given the governments current financial limitations, such funding partnerships might prove useful in the coming months, Brandon West Progressive Conservative MLA Reg Helwer said. Weve got quite a few discussions with many people, many groups in Brandon, so well see how this all works out. The Manitoba NDP havent left us much to work with, he added. While both of Brandons MLAs declined comment on specific city projects and initiatives they expect to see come up during the coming months, Isleifson and Helwer both point to the governments ongoing public consultation process as a means of hashing out priorities for Westman, presented within the scope of the entire province. We need to hear from people, Isleifson said. We need to work with people so we all have a positive outcome for our province. Reflecting on a throne speech that speaks for all Manitobans, not just the select few, Helwer said that hes pleased to see it promote a renewed sense of hope. Through email correspondence on Monday, Manitoba NDP interim leader Flor Marcelino offered comments of a less hopeful nature, stressing that the throne speech had nothing in it for Brandon or Westman. Parents hoping for a new school in Brandon will have to continue waiting, and there was no news of upgrades for (Assiniboine Community College), Marcelinos statement reads. The Progressive Conservatives promotion of public-private partnerships will strip such initiatives of legislation that ensures transparency and public accountability, Marcelino said, cautioning that the Official Opposition is deeply concerned that this will lead to the privatization of our public infrastructure. Marcelino noted that there was nothing in the throne speech about keeping tuition affordable, changing the minimum wage or anything beyond lip service to reconciliation with Manitobas indigenous people. As well, the government needs to be much clearer about removing regulations that protect Manitobans and Manitoba businesses. tclarke@brandonsun.com Twitter: @TylerClarkePA Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A Brandon city councillor wants to hear less talk from the provincial government about building relationships and more effort in actually building infrastructure. Coun. Jan Chaboyer (Green Acres) weighed in on Premier Brian Pallisters throne speech, delivered by Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon on Monday. In the speech from the throne there was a repeated message of building relationships as a priority. I think they have had a long enough time for that. Now lets see some action, Chaboyer said. David Lipnowski/The Canadian Press Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon, centre, alongside Premier Brian Pallister, walks down the steps in the Manitoba legislature prior to delivering the throne speech on Monday. Specifically, Chaboyer would like to see the province act on a number of Brandon projects that are currently in limbo since the election: a new school in Brandons south end, seniors housing on Brandon Avenue and Brandon University student housing, to name a few. I look forward to hearing any of their plans they have on job creation that ensures good-paying jobs, and more child-care spaces so young people and their families will stay in our great city, Chaboyer said. I will continue to wait in anticipation on what our local MLAs can do for our city in the new year. The throne speech stated that the government is committed to ensuring value for money as they rebuild provincial infrastructure highways, bridges, water management infrastructure, as well as social and cultural projects. We have expedited the release of our list of planned strategic investments for the 2017-18 season, allowing the construction industry to plan for another season of building, grading, paving, repairing and improving our roads and highways, Filmon said. Mayor Rick Chrest was at the Manitoba legislature for the throne speech, and said the infrastructure focus is a key point for the City of Brandon. Chrest said the No. 1 priority continues to be the major upgrade needed at the citys water treatment plant. Its a very large project and yet a very mission critical project, he said. Our water treatment plant is fine now, but its older, and certainly is going to need the upgrades to keep us sustainable for a long time into the future. Chrest is optimistic the $60-million project will come together through the federal Building Canada program, working with the two senior levels of government. Keystone Centre general manager Neil Thomson is still waiting to hear if the province a funding partner for the facility will match the citys commitment of $500,000 for its capital plan. We look forward to continue working with the provincial government in exploring alternatives in trying to access the funding required for the Keystone Centres five-year capital plan, Thomson said. We certainly believe that this is a worthy investment in a facility that generates over $62 million in economic activity here in the Province of Manitoba. The Manitoba government announced several cost-cutting steps in the throne speech, including a plan to control wage increases in the public sector. The province aims to eliminate dozens of provincial boards and commissions as well in an effort to bring down the deficit. The Progressive Conservatives will introduce legislation to ensure that the provinces public-sector costs do not exceed Manitobans ability to sustain the services they receive in return, Filmon said. Premier Brian Pallister revealed few details, but confirmed the proposed law is aimed at capping wage increases inside government and among public institutions such as hospitals and universities. The City of Brandon deals with several collective agreements, a few of which are subject to an arbitration process (the Brandon Professional Firefighter/Paramedics Association, for example). The city has recently faced criticism for rising labour costs, but as Chrest previously stated, the citys hands are tied when it goes to arbitration. Chrest said hes interested to see more details about the provinces cost-cutting plan. Im not sure where that will go, if thats going to implicate the municipal sector or if theyre just talking the provincial sector, he said. The throne speech also reiterated an election promise to bring in a law that would require a referendum before major tax increases. Chrest believed this would be welcomed by most Manitobans. They get to elect their government, but if theres going to be a fundamental change to taxation structure, then Manitobans would likely want to have a say in the matter, he said. Filmon also mentioned the Red Tape Reduction Task Force in the throne speech, a group that will work to identify regulatory barriers and develop options to eliminate them. Chrest said red tape reduction has been an area of focus for Brandon, and is pleased to see the province working toward that same goal. I would say at times were limited on how much red tape we can reduce because a lot of the processes that are in place with respect to planning and zoning are delegated to us by the province, Chrest said. Hopefully well have an opportunity to consult with them and find ways of smoothing the process. jaustin@brandonsun.com, with files from The Canadian Press Twitter: @jillianaustin At MSC, we want to continue to improve towage service efficiency and expand Rimorchiatori Mediterranei, building on the impressive work of the Genoese families that have developed the company the past 100 years, MSC CEO Soren Toft said. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Progressive Conservatives are focusing on improving early year education and financial aid for post-secondary students, according to the governments second speech from the throne on Monday. Our provinces greatest asset is its people. Hard-working and innovative, the only limits to what Manitobans may accomplish lie in the education and training they are able to access to prepare them for their future economic success., said Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon, who read the throne speech in Winnipeg. Poor performance by Manitoba students in recent provincial, pan-Canadian and international assessments has highlighted the need for all educational partners to focus on improving student achievement. The government pledged to develop a comprehensive, long-term literacy and numeracy strategy, investing in professional development for educators and improving the curriculum to meet measurable targets. David Lipnowski/The Canadian Press Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon inspects the guard prior to delivering the throne speech at the legislature on Monday. In the speech, the Progressive Conservative government pledged to develop a long-term literacy and numeracy strategy, which is expected to be in place for the fall of 2017. Although specific details are vague, Education Minister Ian Wishart said they want everything in place for the fall of 2017. In terms of timing, well be looking to make sure were ready to roll that out for the next school year its pretty ambitious, Wishart said. We have a long-term desire for better results in the K to 12 system in the area of literacy and numeracy Its a pretty big undertaking but they are very important things for us to try and work on. There were no details about future funding for additional schools or other infrastructure projects in the province. However, Wishart said he recognizes there is a need in Brandon for additional schools to be built. We continue to work with the Brandon School Division. I know their numbers have been very convincing on the growing need out there, and if Brandon continues to do what its been doing in terms of growth, I dont think theres much doubt that there will be an announcement in the future, Wishart said. Assiniboine Community College and Brandon University are also both still awaiting word on funding for their own infrastructure projects. The previous NDP government promised funding for both ACCs plan to develop the Centre for Health, Energy and Environment in the Parkland Building on the North Hill campus and BUs new student housing complex, but both were put on hold pending a PC government review. ACC president Mark Frison said he isnt surprised they have yet to hear a decision regarding funding. I wouldnt expect that wed hear anything in the immediate term until the government has completed its fiscal review, Frison said. While we are certainly anxious and keen to move forward, we understand theres a sequence of events here. The government did commit to improving financial aid for post-secondary students by increasing the amount of provincial support overall, which will be coupled with more private funding. It also pledged to convert the Manitoba bursary program into a new student grant for indigenous and lower-income students. Were certainly supportive of whats going to happen. The government is going to put in more money, but theyre going to expect us to raise more money to match their resources, and I think thats fair, Frison said. Overall, it will be good for students. Early last month, the PCs hinted they were considering a post-secondary tuition hike, but Frison said he doesnt see changes to the bursary program as a stepping stone to a tuition increase. Certainly the government signalled that theyre open to looking at doing something different regarding tuition fees, so I would expect regardless of the scholarship and bursary initiative that well see something in that direction, Frison said. I dont know if there will be any direct correlation, theyre very different items. But certainly theres no question that increasing scholarships and bursaries is not unhelpful considering that tuitions may need to rise. edebooy@brandonsun.com Twitter: @erindebooy Already have an account? Log in here Brandon police arrested an intoxicated male youth Saturday morning who was trying to conceal a weapon. We need your support! Local journalism needs your support! As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed. Now, more than ever, we need your support. Starting at $4.99/month you can access your Brandon Sun online and full access to all content as it appears on our website. or call circulation directly at (204) 727-0527. Your pledge helps to ensure we provide the news that matters most to your community! Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 22/11/2016 (2171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. WINNIPEG If you are a thoroughly ignoble person in this life, you might well be reincarnated as an electoral reformer in Canada and thus be consigned to a life of frustration. Consider the last decade, which has seen a veritable golden age of electoral-reform disappointment. In British Columbia, a referendum on electoral reform was held in 2005 following extensive consultation and deliberation by the B.C. Citizens Assembly. The proposed system received a majority of votes cast (58 per cent), but missed the 60 per cent mark required to pass. A second referendum was held in 2009, but support for electoral reform declined to 39 per cent. Meanwhile, a citizens assembly was also convened in Ontario, and electoral reform was put to a referendum in 2007. Here, too, electors rejected electoral reform, with only 37 per cent voting to make the change. And a 2005 referendum in Prince Edward Island saw voters there reject electoral reform with only 36 per cent of voters approving such a change. After all that, electoral reformers were due for some good news. And, a few weeks ago, they got it: in a non-binding plebiscite, residents of P.E.I. voted by a substantial margin to throw out the first-past-the-post system used everywhere else in Canada to elect representatives and replace it with a mixed-member proportional-representation electoral system. Ultimately, 52 per cent of voters approved the new system, whereas only 43 per cent voted for the current first-past-the-post system. At last, electoral reformers in Canada had a foothold, and in the unlikeliest of places, too. P.E.I. promised to be the home of Anne of Green Gables, P.E.I. spuds and homegrown electoral reform. But it was not to be. Shortly after the results were announced, Premier Wade MacLauchlan turned up to rain on electoral reformers parade. MacLauchlan argued that it is doubtful whether these results can be said to constitute a clear expression of the will of Prince Edward Islanders. This was largely because of seemingly low participation in the plebiscite: only 36 per cent of Islanders cast their ballots. As a result, MacLauchlan referred the question of electoral reform to the provincial legislature and has refused to commit to respecting the results of the plebiscite. Heartbroken electoral reformers were naturally critical of MacLauchlan. But other more impartial observers were similarly critical of the premier. Political scientist Don Desserud surmised Islanders would wonder what the heck was (the plebiscite) all about if youre not serious about following through on the results? A headline in the Journal Pioneer newspaper blared, Premier Wade MacLauchlan talks change but doesnt act on it. Most damaging, a poll commissioned after MacLauchlans pronouncements found a majority of Islanders expected the premier to respect the result of the plebiscite. There is something to these criticisms: MacLauchlan explicitly refused to specify a minimum threshold of voter turnout ahead of time. Despite this, he dictated after the referendum that 36 per cent turnout was too low to necessarily take the result seriously. MacLauchlans attitude toward this exercise in direct democracy is cavalier, to say the least. There are also important implications here for the electoral-reform debate currently unfolding at the federal level. Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus Liberals promised electoral reform in the 2015 campaign, and Trudeau has pledged to introduce changes following consultations. The government, however, has come under intense pressure to hold a referendum on any proposed reform to Canadas electoral system. MacLauchlans actions suggest we should be suspicious of how politicians will respond to such referendums. Each time the public rejected electoral reform in referendums over the past decade, politicians threw their hands in the air and pronounced that the people had spoken. Their hands were tied by the wishes of the masses, and Canadas first-past-the-post electoral system would accordingly remain in place. But the result in P.E.I., in which a Canadian electorate approved electoral reform, produced a very different response from the politicians in power there. Electoral reformers should take careful note of these differing responses. Politicians without question accept public rejection of electoral reform. Public rejection of the existing electoral system, in contrast, is met with skepticism and obfuscation by those in power. This discussion is reminiscent of suspicion over the thresholds set for electoral reform to pass in B.C. and Ontario. Politicians in these referendums arbitrarily set a threshold of 60 per cent. Not surprisingly, this proved to be a difficult target to meet. The suspicion is that politicians set these high thresholds so any referendum is destined to fail. Ultimately, recent events in P.E.I. remind us of how difficult any sort of institutional reform is to achieve in Canada. Reformers are destined to be frustrated by the Constitution, the courts and, as MacLauchlans action reminds us, by politicians themselves. Royce Koop is an associate professor and head of the department of political studies at the University of Manitoba. His column was also recently published by the Winnipeg Free Press. 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. The EU is planning to introduce new rules for foreign banks in a move which could add to financial firms' Brexit worries. The European Commission is set to unveil proposals tomorrow which are similar to the "intermediate holding company" rules introduced in the US, according to The Financial Times. Krystle, Dublins only open-air nightclub, is set to reopen in spectacular fashion this weekend following a 1.1 million refurbishment. The premier Harcourt Street venue, which has undergone a complete transformation in recent months, invites customers to explore the Krystle experience this Friday 25th November, with a free bar in the club from 9pm 12.30am. Customers can look forward to soaking up the carnival atmosphere in the club, marvelling at the vibrant decor or treating themselves to a private table around the new central revolving DJ booth. Krystle Co-Owner, Eileen Wright commented; Service will be at the core of the Krystle experience. We have invested a great deal of time and effort into recruiting a talented new team, all of whom have been trained to the highest standards. "Our aim is to ensure that each and every customer is made to feel special from the moment they arrive and we look forward to welcoming both old and new faces to Krystle this Friday. The Penthouse and the Suite, the nightclubs renowned VIP areas, have also undergone a full renovation. These exclusive areas offer a safe haven for those who wish to relax and unwind behind closed doors, whilst those seeking complete privacy may indulge in a new luxurious private room, which has been created in the Penthouse. This deluxe new suite will accommodate groups of up to twelve and boasts a dedicated service bell and private en-suite. Sneak peak of the new decor. The iconic Dublin venue, which celebrates its 10th birthday at the end of the month, has enjoyed phenomenal success over the years, becoming a regular haunt for famous faces when visiting the capital including sports stars, actors, singers and even royalty. Such is the excitement surrounding this weeks launch, a number of International sports teams have already made reservations for the Christmas period. Krystle Co-Owner, Rangan Arulchelva commented; This 1.1 million investment marks our continued commitment to providing a unique and superior quality entertainment product in Dublin. "Krystle has set the standard for premier nightclubs in the city centre for the last ten years and, by investing in both our people and our premises, we will continue to set the standard for the next ten. Krystles opening night preview party will take place this Friday 25th November 2016. Customers are invited to avail of a free bar in the club from 9pm- 12.30am. Whilst the Penthouse and Suite will be invitation only on Friday 25th November, they will be open for bookings and reservations from Saturday 26th November 2016. Connect with Kyrstle on Facebook www.facebook.com/KrystleDublin. A mother of two charged in connection with the fatal stabbing of her boyfriend last Sunday, told gardai she "acted in self defence", a court heard Tuesday, writes David Raleigh. Igna Ozolina, (45), originally from Latvia, but with an address at 2 The Malthouse, Roscrea, was charged at Thurles District Court, with assault causing harm, to Audrius Pukas, (40), at their apartment in Roscrea, last Sunday. Detective Garda Stuart Beattie, Nenagh Garda Station, told the court he charged Ms Ozolina at 6.12pm, Monday, in the presence of an interpreter. Dtc Gda Beattie said Ms Ozolina replied after caution: "I disagree with this charge. I didn't assault this man. We did have a fight. I acted in self defence." Ms Ozolina, who wore a navy tracksuit top and jeans, wept throughout the court hearing. Sergeant Michael Keating, Nenagh, said the Director of Public Prosecutions had directed a trial on indictment, but that "there may be more serious charges to follow". Dtc Gda Stuart Beattie, objecting to bail, said he believed the accused "may be a flight risk". Gardai also objected to bail given the "seriousness" of the charge. Under cross examination, during the bail hearing, Dtc Gda Beattie agreed with solicitor John Spencer, that Ms Ozolina had been resident in Ireland for the past 11 years and that she was employed in a shop in Roscrea for that time. "She considers herself well settled and a member of the community. She has no desire to leave Ireland," Mr Spencer told the court. The accused has two young daughters, one aged 22 and one aged 24, who live abroad, the court heard. Mr Spencer said the courts would at a later stage hear "harrowing" details in the case. He said Ms Ozolina "has the support of her employers". "She faces a (financial) risk of loss. Her employment is vital to her, and she will be devastated if that is taken from her now," he said. "She's in gross shock," Mr Spencer added. Judge Elizabeth MacGrath noted "gardai are concerned (Ms Ozolina) might go back to Latvia." Mr Spencer said his client had readily agreed to surrender her passport, and he claimed she was "denied permission to contact her daughters" whilst in custody. "The last thing in the world she wants is to bring all this on her daughters. She came here to work 11 years ago and she has been working ever since, in the same shop. She is very settled here and happy here," he said. Judge MacGrath said she was satisfied the accused was settled in Ireland. Edgars Krievs told the court he was prepared to provide an independent surety on behalf of the accused. Mr Krievs, from Mountrath, furnished the court with personal bank statements showing a balance of 4,000, as proof he could provide surety towards a bail bond. Judge McGrath fixed bail on the accused's own bond of 1,000, which is to be lodged in court, and an independent surety of 5,000, off which 2,000 is to be lodged. She also ordered that Ms Ozolina surrender her passport; not apply for further travel documentation; reside at her home address; not leave the Republic of Ireland; sign on three times a week at Roscrea Garda Station between 9am-9pm; and not make any contact with witnesses or the family of the deceased. Ms Ozolina was remanded on bail to appear before Nenagh District Court on December 22 and for a Russian interpreter to be made available to the accused on that date. The Coast Guard have rescued an injured fisherman from a fishing trawler nearly 300 kilometres off the west coast. The Shannon based Irish Coast Guard helicopter, Rescue 115, started a three-hour mission just before 9am in "challenging" conditions with winds of more than 30 Knots or 56 km/h. The barrister for a man accused of murdering a father-of-two outside a Dublin takeaway has urged the jury to return a manslaughter verdict. Donal Colgan of Killarney Court, Killarney Street in Dublin 1 claims he lost complete control when he stabbed David Sheridan to death in 2014. In his closing speech, defence barrister Patrick Marrinan rebutted the prosecutions claim that Donal Colgan was deliberately deceitful. And he challenged the proposition that hes cunning describing him instead as a stupid man who was confused and out of his depth. Yesterday, Mr. Colgan told the jury that David Sheridan and his friend beat him outside Luigis Takeaway on North Strand Rd on Aug 17th 2014. The 65-year-old said he got a knife from his home and returned to the chipper where he claimed Mr. Sheridan attacked him again. He said he lost complete control of himself but didnt think hed done much damage and couldnt believe it when he heard he was dead. Mr. Marrinan told the jurors the real issue is whether hes guilty of murder or the lesser charge of manslaughter he said he believed the latter to be the just verdict The jury will begin deliberating after hearing from the trial judge tomorrow. Let Me Tell You is a new bespoke podcast series from Hosts Daniel McConnell and Paul Hosford take a look back at some of the most dramatic moments in recent Irish political history from the unique perspective of one of the key players involved. Independent MEP Marian Harkin has said that she is "horrified" that the Dail is not debating the proposed EU-Canada trade deal known as CETA. The European Parliament will vote this week on a resolution on whether or not to refer the deal to the European Court of Justice. Nama made an "eejit" out of internationally renowned deal-brokers involved in the controversial 1.2bn sale of its Northern Ireland property loans, a parliamentary committee has been told. Patrick Long, a managing director at financial advisers Lazard, led an outside team asked by the Republic's toxic assets agency to manage the sale of its so-called Project Eagle portfolio, bought by US investors Cerberus in April 2014. Before a parliamentary committee in Dublin probing the controversial transaction, Mr Long said Nama did not tell him another US company Pimco, a leading bidder, pulled out weeks earlier because it was asked for a fixer payment of 16m for three parties behind the scenes. The money was to be shared equally by Belfast businessman Frank Cushnahan, US law firm Brown Rudnick and Ian Coulter, a managing partner of Belfast solicitors Tughans, Pimco previously told the committee. Mr Cushnahan was formerly a Nama adviser on Northern Ireland, on the recommendation of the Democratic Unionists. All parties have denied any wrongdoing. Cross-examining Mr Long, Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said Lazard seems to have "spectacularly lacked insights" in the entire affair and "therefore your judgments were compromised." "They kept you in the dark," she told Mr Long. "Do you know the expression eejit? A patsy? They made an eejit of you." Mr Long responded: "I don't think it is my place to be angry with Nama or second guess why they didn't inform us about the circumstances of Pimco's withdrawal." But he added if Lazard had been fully informed then its advice would have been different. "It is our client's prerogative what they tell us and don't tell us," he told the hearing. "It is up to Nama, and I have acknowledged our advice would have been different if we were aware of those precise circumstances. "We gave the best advice we could with the knowledge we had at the time." Nama paid Lazard 4.32m for getting the sale over the line, in a no deal, no pay basis. Mr Long agreed it was unusual there was no open tender for the job from a State agency. "There were quite a lot of unusual features," he said, pointing out there was only one round of bidding, there were few bidders involved for what was the largest property deal in Northern Ireland's history and it was over a relatively short time frame. Mr Long also told the Public Accounts Committee in Dublin that one of the first things Nama told Lazard was for the need to keep the sale "confidential". "They viewed this transaction as politically sensitive," he said. He told the committee he was surprised to learn Brown Rudnick, Tughans and Mr Cushnahan were working together as far back as April 2013. Asked was he concerned about that, he replied : "Sure, given Mr Cushnahan's role in the Niac (Nama's Northern Ireland advisory committee), sure." Mr Long said he was further concerned about Mr Cushnahan's relationship with debtors whose property loans were in the portfolio being sold. Brown Rudnick and Tughans also advised Cerberus on the successful deal. Mr Long said the process was competitive and that he had seen no evidence the property portfolio could have been sold for a higher price at the time. The Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) has said Nama lost taxpayers up to 190m on the Project Eagle sale. The spending watchdog said the agency undervalued loans associated with the 800 properties in the portfolio. Fan Changlong(L), vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission meets Tanzanian President John Magufuli(R).[Photo/Xinhua] China is willing to work with Tanzania to consistently deepen military cooperation and develop bilateral military ties to new heights, said Fan Changlong, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission on Monday. Fan made this remark during his three-day visit to Tanzania, which started Nov 19. He met with Tanzanian President John Magufuli, Defense and National Service Minister Hussein Ali Hassan Mwinyi and visited Tanzanian troops and the military academy, according to China's Defense Ministry. China-Tanzania relations were elevated to an all-around cooperation partnership after President Xi Jinping's visit in 2013, Fan said. Fan added his visit was to implement the consensus reached by the state leaders of both sides and further enhance bilateral relations. Fan said he appreciated Tanzania's achievements in national and military construction. He pointed out that China has maintained long-term and close military exchanges with Tanzania as good friends and will carry forward the friendship. Magufuli expressed gratitude for China's tremendous support and selfless assistance to Tanzania over the years, saying the Tanzania-China friendship is Tanzania's precious treasure. Tanzania is willing to conduct all-round exchanges and cooperation with China in political, economic, military and other fields to benefit the peoples of the two countries, he said. Two masked thieves have stopped a car carrying two tourists in Paris, sprayed them with tear gas and stolen belongings worth as much as 5m (4.2 million). A police official said the two Qatari women were targeted on the A1 highway as they headed to Paris's high-end 16th arrondissement after arriving on Monday night at Le Bourget Airport. Boko Haram fighters are overrunning villages near the Nigerian town of Chibok, forcing hundreds of people to flee as they loot and burn in the area, local leaders have said. "Chibok is now under Boko Haram siege," the chairman of the Chibok local government area, Yaga Yarkawa, told journalists in Maiduguri, the birthplace of Nigeria's homegrown Islamic extremist group, 80 miles to the north east. The accounts of Boko Haram violence around Chibok - where nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped in 2014 - along with multiple suicide bombings in Maiduguri city and attacks on army outposts in the area, raise doubts about claims by the military and government that the seven-year insurgency is nearly defeated. Instead, the insurgents have stepped up attacks as the rainy season draws to an end, making them more mobile. Nine villages within 16 miles of Chibok town have been razed in the past two weeks, with the last attack at Thlaimaklama village at the weekend, Mr Yarkawa said. Boko Haram is employing scorched earth tactics, rustling livestock, looting crops ready to harvest, and burning homes and what crops they cannot carry, he added. "Contrary to claims by government and security operatives, Chibok is not safe." It is not known if anyone has been killed because people are too scared to go to the deserted villages, civilian defence fighter Bulama Abogu said. No soldiers have intervened, he added. Many of the villages fringe the Sambisa Forest, where Nigerian security forces have been carrying out near-daily air bombardments and ground attacks and freed thousands of Boko Haram captives and cut food supplies. The forest stronghold was where Boko Haram initially took 276 schoolgirls kidnapped from a government high school at Chibok on April 14 2014. Nigeria's government last month secured the first negotiated release of 21 Chibok girls. Another girl escaped captivity in May and one was rescued in an army raid earlier this month. The government says it is conducting negotiations with Boko Haram for the freedom of nearly 200 Chibok girls who remain missing. The chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, last week said "the terrorists have been defeated" and the army is conducting "mop-up operations aimed at ensuring that we clear the rest of them". That is disputed by former Nigerian vice president Atiku Abubakar, who said at the weekend: "The insurgents still occupy a specific geographical space. They still retain the capacity for occasional deadly attacks. Many citizens in the zone still remain vulnerable and live in fear." A 20-year-old woman said to live a chaotic lifestyle should be given a chance to mother her baby son, a High Court judge in England has told social workers. Mr Justice Holman has ruled that the woman and her new baby should be placed together in a specialist foster home. He said social workers must not separate the little boy from his mother without making an application to a judge - unless there was an emergency. Detail of the case has emerged in a ruling by Mr Justice Holman following a private family court hearing in Preston, Lancashire, in the north-west of England. No-one involved has been identified but the judge said social service bosses at Warrington Borough Council had asked him to make decisions about the baby's future. Social workers said the woman lived a chaotic lifestyle and had raised concerns about the baby's safety. The little boy had been the subject of two family court hearings within four days of being born. Mr Justice Holman said he understood social workers' concerns - and said the child should be placed under the council's care umbrella. But he said the woman should be given a chance to bring up her baby. "Although I perfectly understand the range of concerns ... in relation to this baby and the parenting he may receive, it does not seem to me that there is anything in the recent history so serious or significant that it should immediately preclude or rule out a sincere and genuine attempt to enable a baby to be mothered and brought up by his mother," he said. "Save in an emergency, and if there is an immediate risk of danger to the child, the local authority must not remove or separate him from the mother without further application ... to the court." The judge said social services bosses had "made it plain" that they were willing to organise and fund a specialist foster placement for mother and baby. Nigel Farage said he is "very flattered" by Donald Trump's calls for him to become Britain's next ambassador to the United States. In a highly unusual intervention, the president-elect said the interim Ukip leader would do a "great job" and that "many people" wanted to see him as the UK's senior diplomat in Washington. A heavily pregnant woman and her six-year-old daughter have been held at knifepoint by robbers in the UK. The 36-year-old woman was at home in Oldham with her four children at about 7.15pm on Friday when they heard a knock at the door. The woman's eight-year-old son opened the door and two men stormed into the house, dragging the six-year-old girl upstairs where they held a knife to her throat. One of the men pointed the blade at the woman's stomach while the second searched the home. The robbers, who stole a new space grey-coloured iPhone 5s, then ran out of the house and across the road down an alleyway. The first man is described as white, more than 6ft, of heavy build, and was wearing a black wool balaclava, dark baseball cap, with the hood of his jacket up. He wore a sleeveless black quilted jacket and a dark top, full length black wool gloves, dark blue jeans, and spoke with a local accent. The second man is described as white, 5ft 5in, about 25 years old, with light-coloured eyes, an oval-shaped face, short patchy ginger beard, of medium build, and he spoke with a local accent. He was wearing a black wool hat pulled down to just above his eyebrows, with the hood from his red jumper over the hat, a black sleeveless quilted coat, black gloves and brown chinos. Detectives have released CCTV footage of two men approaching the house, on Kew Road, in a bid to identify them. Detective Inspector Kenny Blain, from Oldham CID, said: "This was an atrocious attack on an innocent family in their own home. "The mum is due to give birth any day and the stress this would have caused her could have potentially threatened the life of her unborn child. "How anyone could hold a knife to the throat of a six-year-old is beyond comprehension. "These men need to be found and we will do everything in our power to catch them. "They are more than likely trying to get rid of the iPhone and it is likely they have tried to sell it to someone. "If you have been approached by anyone selling a similar phone to the one stolen or have any information about this robbery, then please call police. "Anyone who recognises the men in the CCTV or thinks they may have seen them that evening, I would urge you also get in touch." Anyone with information should call police on 101, quoting incident number 1871 18/11/16, or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. Thailand's military government has approved a one-time payout for low-income people in an effort to stimulate the country's weak economy. People who make less than 30,000 baht (680) a year will receive 3,000 baht (68), while people who make up to 100,000 baht (2,267) a year will receive 1,500 baht (34). The measure was approved at the weekly cabinet meeting, but no date was set for its implementation. The payments are earmarked for 5.8 million people, excluding rice farmers, who will instead benefit from a recently approved multimillion-pound government subsidy paying them to temporarily store their rice so supplies and prices remain stable. The cash handout will be used alongside other measures to help low-income people, such as free public transport. "Don't think the government is just giving out free money," prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said. "This is a way to support those of low-income in professions other than farmers, because I care for people of all professions." The rice subsidy has been criticised because it resembles a programme for which former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra is being tried on grounds of corruption, which she denies. She has also been ordered to pay 35.7 billion baht (800 million) to compensate the government for its alleged losses. Critics of the junta, which came to power by staging a coup against Yingluck's Pheu Thai Party-led government in May 2014, say it is simply emulating populist policies for which it had criticised civilian politicians. Economic growth has stagnated under the junta. Mr Prayuth said he hopes the cash handouts will be spent and will help boost the economy. Consumer spending has dropped since King Bhumibol Adulyadej died on October 13, initiating a year of mourning for the government and curtailing public entertainment events in the month since his death. Mr Prayuth also said the minimum wage would rise next year. Donald Trump is to meet with reporters from The New York Times this evening. Mr Trump was supposed to meet with journalists and columnists from the paper earlier today, but cancelled at the last minute due to what he says was an attempt by the paper to change the arrangement. Thirty-three people were evacuated from a drilling rig in the Norwegian Sea on Tuesday after a fire broke out in the engine room, oil and gas company Statoil said. The fire was reported at 4.30pm (Irish time) on board the Scarabeo 5 rig in the Njord oil field. LAHORE: The Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industrys Businessmen Panel (BMP) has stressed the... LAHORE: With less than a month remaining to the start of the historic Test Series between Pakistan and England, the... Answers Africa is one of a kind platform created for Africans both locally and in the diaspora and those seeking for more in-depth information about Africa. We have always focused on creating the highest quality informational contents right from the beginning. We share the most relevant information on the latest and trending news, events, people, and places in Africa. 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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 ... 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Nayyera Haqs Bio What To Know About Her Husband, Parents And Family Nayyera Haq can take anyone on political debates as well as discussions on social issues affecting many. Her ability to masterfully deliver her stance on every issue or political debate has made her a regular face in morning and evening news media platforms. This is not a common feat especially for someone from her kind ... Inside Guy Fieris Family With Wife, Kids and Sister Who Died of Cancer Over the years we have seen men dominate the kitchen and churn out amazing delicacies from it. Some do it way better than their female counterparts and one of such men is Guy Ramsay Fieri an American TV host, celebrity chef, restaurant owner, bestselling author of four culinary books, and game show host. His ... Meet Phil Mudd of CNN The Former CIA and FBI Exec, Is He Married, Who Is The Wife? When it comes to discussing issues surrounding terrorism, American Counterterrorism and National Security Expert, Phil Mudd, occupies a globally significant position. He has voiced his interest in the fight against terrorism and insecurity on many popular media platforms, both print and broadcast, such as CNN, BBC, CBS, MSNBC, al-Jazeera, ABC, NBC, Fox, The New York Times, ... Jim Hoffer: Biography, Wife Mika Brzezinski, Children and Net Worth Jim Hoffer is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who works as an investigative reporter for Eyewitness News, New York City. In his over two decades of investigative journalism, Hoffer has been at the front lines of several crucial stories from the 9/11 attack to the crash of American Flight 587 to the 2003 Blackout. On top of ... The Ups and Downs of Erin Mcpikes Journalism Career and Other Facts About Her Personal Life Erin McPike is a journalist working for the Independent Journal Review (IJR) as a White House Correspondent but she gained widespread recognition for her coverage of general news. Whether its breaking news or some mainstream story, McPike has a reputation of baring the facts. As a journalist, her work as a White House Correspondent for Independent ... Bert Kreischer Is Married To LeeAnn Kreischer With 2 Kids Meet His Family Those familiar with Bert Kreischer mainly have the image of a large-bellied party man whose college life inspired the National Lampoon film, Van Wilder. It is an image that one would not naturally associate with a wholesome family. The standup comedian still maintains his wild party animal image on stage. But, back at home, he is ... How Brendan Greene Became a Game Designer to Look Out For and Facts About His Failed Marriage The name Brendan Greene may not easily ring a bell in the larger society but for gaming enthusiasts, he is considered a god and this is because of his invention of the video game, Player Unknowns Battlegrounds, also called PUBG. Based on the popular last-man-standing/battle royale concept, Greenes creation has taken the gaming world by ... WFAAs Sonia Azad Bio Does The Reporter Have A Husband Or Boyfriend? Emmy Award-winning journalist and Health & Wellness reporter Sonia Azad is on the news segment News 8 Daybreak for the television station WFAA-TV in Dallas, Texas, a channel which she joined in October of 2015. Besides her time on the news, Azad is also a marathon runner and a certified yoga instructor. She has covered major news ... This Is Everything You Should Know About Caroline Heldman, Her Career Portfolio and Other Facts Love it or hate it, there is no escaping the fact that feminism has come to stay in our world. The movement has continued to garner momentum over the years and this is due to the sustained push by several women, and even men, including the likes of Caroline Heldman. A Professor of Politics at ... Understanding The Enigma That Is Gavin McInnes, The Controversies He Has Stirred and All About His Wife Gavin McInnes is a polemical English-born writer and TV personality, who is best known for his racist and fascist ideologies, as well as his co-ownership of Vice Media and Vice Magazine. He is also an actor a LONDON: Russian naval forces repelled a drone attack in the Bay of Sevastopol, where the Black Sea Fleet in... It's a long way from O'Connor to Malibu but four young Canberrans took the trip last month to draw on LA beach vibes for their brand new album. Canberra alternative band House of Strangers has just returned from 10 days in Los Angeles where they worked in the studio of ex-Canberra music veteran Ric Markmann. Ric is an Emmy award-winning composer, musician and producer who has played with some of the biggest acts in the United States including Chris Cornell, Eleven and early 90s sensation Heart. House of Strangers is back from LA and launching the first single from their new album on Friday. House of Strangers is made up of siblings Liam and Chloe Sinclair, and friends Evan Marshalsey and Angus Ogborne. The foursome met at Lyneham High School and have been playing together for three years under the (now quite apt) name After Hollywood. They launched as House of Strangers earlier this year and have since been signed by Canberra label Modem Music. "LA was just an incredible experience," guitarist Liam Sinclair said. It appears ACT drivers may be more courteous than your average Australian motorist, but more at risk of hitting an animal. The latest AAMI Crash Index report found while nose-to-tail crashes were the most common on ACT roads, Canberra drivers were below the national average for accidents caused by failing to give way. Canberra drivers are involved in more than double the number of crashes involving animals Almost one in three - 31.4 per cent - of incidents across the region were a result of drivers creashing into the back of another vehicle. More than one in 10 involved hitting an animal - double the national figure. For Matthew, the tipping point came in 2011 when he woke up in police custody with no memory of the night before. He was told he had been involved in a series of collisions with motorists, with marijuana, ecstasy and cocaine found in his system. The crisis landed him in jail, a place he never expected to be, but where he finally received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and was given the help and medication he needed. Matthew shares his story of mental health crisis at the opening of the new secure mental health unit in Mugga Lane. Credit:Elesa Kurtz Matthew, 35, who asked for his last name not to be published, shared his story at the opening of Canberra's first secure mental health unit in Mugga Lane on Tuesday, where the first two patients will arrive on Wednesday - most from jail or the mental health unit at the hospital. Matthew, who is now with the ACT Mental Health Consumer Network, said the opening of the secure unit, after a decade in the planning, was "fantastic". A lack of accountability and a "few bad apples" mindset is plaguing Australia's largest corporations and is behind the mishandling of scandals and widespread misconduct in the financial services sector. Australia's corporate regulator chief, Greg Medcraft, said every time the watchdog scratched the surface, "whether it be in insurance, or lending or advice, it doesn't come up good". Speaking at a seminar on banking and culture in Melbourne on Tuesday, he said the failure of banks and other companies to recognise systemic problems within their organisation was one of the biggest issues facing the regulator. "I still find that some very large organisations still think it's a case of a few bad apples," he said. More parents are guaranteeing their children's home loans to help them enter the property market, two major banks say, as rising prices prompt first home buyers to take on bigger debts. In a phenomenon dubbed the "bank of mum and dad", fast-rising prices in Sydney and Melbourne especially are causing more first home buyers to depend on parental help through loan guarantees or cash transfers. Confirming anecdotal evidence, figures from National Australia Bank and Westpac suggest loans guaranteed by family members are growing more quickly than the broader market. While parents are urged to be wary about guaranteeing the debts of their children, it is a market where banks see significant potential. The industry is marketing products that limit the risk to parents if their child is unable to repay their loan. It has been a very good day for one of Australia's wealthiest fund managers, Hamish Douglass, who lifted his net worth by more than $227 million as the sun rose on Tuesday. The bonanza was delivered via restricted stock that converted into 10.2 million common shares in the investment group he co-founded, the Magellan Financial Group. The shares are currently trading upwards of $22 each. It has been a long wait for Douglass. He received the restricted shares in the lead-up to the financial crisis in 2008. The former chairman of Sydney-based technology company TZ Limited has been found guilty of defrauding the company of $9 million after a month-long jury trial. On Tuesday a Supreme Court jury found Andrew Sigalla guilty of 24 counts of fraud. Andrew Sigalla (right) leaves the Supreme Court during his trial. Credit:Jessica Hromas His bail was revoked by Justice Christine Adamson and Sigalla will face a sentencing hearing on February 2. The court heard Sigalla transferred funds from TZ Ltd to his own companies and his personal bank account between December 2006 and March 2009. More than 1600 jobs at kids retailer Pumpkin Patch will go by February after the retailer's receiver failed to secure a buyer for the chain and announced the immediate loss of more than 60 head office jobs in Auckland. Pumpkin Patch prices will be slashed immediately as receiver Korda Mentha works to claw back as much as it can from the brand's inventory before the shutters start to come down from December. The fire sale will run until February in some stores, however, Korda Mentha said it was too early to say when individual stores would close across Australia and New Zealand. Receiver Brendon Gibson said all stores would remain open until the end of December but the restructuring of Pumpkin Patch's head office would occur immediately, resulting in the loss of 63 jobs this week. The a2 Milk Company will launch its first "adult nutrition" products next year as the high-profile dairy group pushes ahead with plans to harness the lucrative wellness trend and expand its brands profile in the US and the UK. Speaking at its annual meeting, chief executive Geoff Babidge said a2 had about four new products in the pipeline and expected to roll out the first of these lines as early as next calendar year. a2 won't reveal any details about the new product lines, except to say that its infant formula would remain the biggest contributor to revenue in the short term. "The reality is we see a further platform of growth that will start to come through in respect to these adult nutrition products," Mr Babidge said. In late 2005, Andrew Binetter, the then chief executive of Australian juice business Nudie, described to officers working at Israel Discount Bank (IDB) how the family venture had taken off. Binetter, who was a co-founder and appointed CEO of Nudie in 2005, told the bank: "We are getting a lot of good financial press in the Australian business media." Nudie juice was started by the Binetter family. Credit:Natalie Boog "We have even been in discussion with a Richard Branson company with a view to acquiring it," according to an affidavit produced by Binetter during a subsequent tax appeal against the ATO. He went on to explain how private equity business CHAMP had invested in Nudie, taking its valuation at the time to $29 million. Sure, the fire at Nudie's factory in May 2004 had hurt, Binetter said, "but we are rebounding from this setback". Year 12 students should be given the opportunity to complete an apprenticeship and the Higher School Certificate at TAFE to help stem a decline in trades training at a time when construction is booming, says the NSW peak business group. "Our apprenticeship system is in crisis. The flow of young, job ready, skilled workers is at a drip when we need it to be a flood," said NSW Business Chamber chief executive, Stephen Cartwright. Parents and teachers are discouraging young people from entering apprenticeships despite 85.5 per cent of apprentices getting full-time jobs six months after completing their training. That rate compares with 68 per cent of university graduates who find work within six months. "One of the biggest problems plaguing participation in apprenticeships is a perception issue," Mr Cartwright said. The series on the future of Sydney ("Sydney 2026", November 22) and in particular the "housing revolution" certainly makes for interesting reading. But I have to wonder: are towering, high-density apartments instead of suburban houses; mystical "community green spaces" instead of backyards, and "improved public transport options" instead of a carport or garage what people actually want? Or is this sad new reality being foisted upon us all thanks to the ability of speculators to reduce existing supply by snapping up established housing stock using nothing but positive equity (while claiming tax deductions for net annual losses) and new developments being marketed to cashed-up overseas investors before even hitting the shelves locally and governments seemingly more than happy for this cycle to continue? Since when was the main purpose of building new dwellings to provide new investment opportunities for self-managed super funds and portfolio growth for speculators rather than housing for people to buy for a reasonable and manageable cost and actually live in? Why should it cost more than $1 million to simply buy a house in which to raise a family if you want to be within 25 kilometres of the CBD, where a lot of people still actually work? Daniel Kell Mascot Jacob Saulwick's article on the future of Sydney is worrying in its revelation of the glaring dysfunction of the current state government. It is a pity that David Pitchford's assurance that "by 2026 Sydney will have crossed over that magical Australian barrier of the love affair with the motor car" was not passed onto senior RMS bureaucrats who, not content with squandering $18 billion on WestConnex, are intent on wasting billons more in a game of demented, uncontrollable road building that will force Sydneysiders to use their cars, love them or not. John Adamson Dulwich Hill Government planners are hoping Sydney's love affair with the car will be replaced by a crush on the metro. Doug Walker Baulkham Hills The call for action ("Baird told affordable housing target too low", November 22) to have at least 15 per cent of new housing in Sydney as affordable is surprisingly supported by the development industry. There is a difference, however. The group calling for 15 per cent see it as a levy on the remaining 85 per cent of new homes, which must go up in price to subsidise the affordable homes. The Urban Taskforce, representing the development industry, has proposed a more robust figure of 20 per cent based on the government's own Affordable Rental Housing SEPP, which supports an uplift in floor space to provide affordable rental housing for a 10-year period. This could provide 40,000 new affordable homes over 10 years. The only way to get large numbers of affordable homes is for it to be feasible for developers to do this. Another excessive levy will only slow down new housing development as it will not be economically viable. Chris Johnson chief executive Urban Taskforce Political arguments struggle in stagnant rivers of gold Yes, as baby boomers we did pay 17 per cent interest, but within two years it fell by 4 per cent; and yes, we did not have the level of family benefit of today. However, what Mr Triggs (Letters, November 22) fails to acknowledge is: wage growth was typically 8 per cent, so each year the mortgage became easier to service, while today wage growth is stagnant; employment was much more stable, none of the churn typical in today's labour market; and in 1989 you could buy a five-bedroom house with a pool in a harbourside suburb for $425,000. Stop bleating about the fleeting 17 per cent and acknowledge that it is far more difficult for the generations beneath us to get into their own home, and that they bear an unfair burden of tax, while we are exempt even from the Medicare levy. Annette Kent Hunters Hill Jessica Irvine's article ("Young paying for seniors tax breaks", November 21) is in danger of appearing as a rerun of the Grattan's Institute's report titled Age of entitlement: age-based tax breaks. A well versed friend of mine was similarly critical, saying issues of intergenerational equity are interminable political arguments on which there will be no agreement as politicians seek to win votes from various interest groups. That past governments gave away far too much in tax breaks to many groups not just the ageing but also families during the mining boom when there were rivers of gold is a fact. This money was used to buy votes. Now the Turnbull government is trying to get that money back. Better than just targeting the oldies it would have been a less skewed piece if the author had just said there are three certainties in "life ... death, taxes and fights over sharing the cake". William Tuck Mosman Turnbull in muddle on Dutton, Triggs Our Prime Minister must have had a major brain muddle during the hustle and bustle of parliamentary debate on immigration and refugees (Dutton a "thoughtful, compassionate immigration minister", smh.com.au Live Blog, November 22). Surely he meant to say that Gillian Triggs, not Peter Dutton, is "thoughtful, considered and compassionate", and that she is also very competent and a class act for others to follow. Or is the Prime Minister incapable of acknowledging publicly such qualities in those who would not appeal to One Nation? Sue Dyer Downer (ACT) Peter Dutton argues that a tight little group of people, 22 according to him, have caused so much concern among his immigration portfolio that we should somehow use their shared ethnicity as grounds for a major rethink of immigration in Australia ("Peter Dutton names Lebanese Muslims", November 22). However, those 22 people are not the only criminals in this country. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, "In the June quarter 2016, the average daily number of full-time prisoners in Australia was 38,685." By Dutton's "logic" we should do an ethnicity test of all 38,685 prisoners and ban all of those ethnicities from further immigration and seek punitive action against the rest in order to protect "society". Problem is, that would amount to banning our entire society in order to protect our society. Simeon Glasson Elizabeth Bay Perhaps Peter Dutton's remarks regarding Lebanese Muslims are more a sad indicator of how far to the right the federal Liberal Party will swing in its desperation to win over the Hansonite voter base it now covets, rather than his own personal prejudices. Mohsen Saleh Punchbowl Substitute Mexican for Lebanese, and Minister Dutton's outburst in question time copies too closely a Trump diatribe. Liz James Mittagong Top marks for Piccoli While it is refreshing, even rare, to see the NSW education sector's unanimous support for Education Minister Adrian Piccoli, it is naive to think that competency in his ministerial role would be sufficient reason for him to keep his job ("Support for Piccoli as job under threat", November 22). Politics has ceased to be about service delivery to the electorate. Julian Hare Penshurst I know a school principal. Like Phil Seymour, she says that Adrian Piccoli "gets it". She says he is one of the best education ministers she has seen in her more than 40 years of teaching. "He understands and is very approachable." Michael O'Brien Newtown Trade no panacea Peter Hartcher states in his article ("The moment China overtook the US", November 22): "An open, global trading and investment system has allowed poor countries to trade their way to prosperity. And it allows rich countries to grow richer." The second statement is correct and indisputable. The first is part of the myth of international trade and development. The reality in poor countries is quite different. The "road to prosperity" has more often been a road to impoverishment. Hartcher perpetuates the myth that "The historic significance [of global free trade] is that America has provided a global public good for the past 70 years". No, it hasn't. What it has done is to create a First World in Third World countries and a Third World in First World countries. The existing global trade and investment regime has served an elitist, corporate class everywhere at the expense of the common people. Rajend Naidu Glenfield Horror story of cruelty I read with dismay yet another article discussing the devastating effects of detention on asylum seekers ("Mental illness of detainees among 'highest recorded' ", November 22). We listen every day to politicians sanctimoniously telling us how they have saved these people from drowning. Saved them for what? Years languishing in disgraceful conditions that have been deemed illegal by PNG's Supreme Court. The results of this treatment read like a horror story of unbelievable cruelty, "88 per cent suffering from depression or anxiety ... a number from very serious psychiatric disorders". And the chilling statistics go on and on. We have all known about this for a long time and yet we accept this. We know what politicians are like but what does it say about us? Susan Lynch Bateau Bay Tax war ignores real issue While our major resource extractors get away with providing a return to Australia's governments (ie, Australian citizens) of less than 1.5 per cent, Malaysia, Indonesia and Nigeria receive 3 per cent or more ("Nigeria reaping more in oil, gas revenue than Australia", November 22). Malaysia collected over $20 billion in oil and gas revenues in 2014. We collected $7.3 billion. If it used our tax system it would have collected less than $9.5 billion. If we used its we would have collected more than $15 billion. And that's not to mention the insane comparisons with Qatar. In 2021, only five years away, it will collect $21 billion, and poor little Australia will collect less than 5 per cent of that. Yet we turn on each other like rats on a sinking ship in this nonsense argument about baby boomers v millennials (Letters, November 22). Yes, let's review tax and try to make it fair. But please, let's keep our eye on the real world ball. This intergenerational whingeing is way off the mark. Tom Mangan Woy Woy Bay One Nation senator escapes The Castle Is One Nation senator Rod Culleton a character in the next instalment of The Castle or is this really our new reality? (" 'I've already won,' says Culleton as court rejects bid to delay hearing", November 22.) Representing himself in the High Court, you would have thought Dennis Denuto could have been available. Surely it is the vibe of the thing. Paul Townsend Narara Branding Brandis with mediocrity While Senator George Brandis has referred to his state party colleagues as "very, very mediocre", perhaps the same could be said of him as our Attorney-General ("Yes, it's switched on now", November 22). Carolyn Wills Cremorne George Brandis' opinion can be trusted. He would know about these things. He is a well-read man. He has an enormous taxpayer-funded library. Dimitris Langadinos Concord West Sweet surrender Will Faf du Plessis have to turn to after-dinner mints for the inaugural day/night Test? ("Airport dust-up as journo asks question of du Plessis", November 22.) John Tuckfield Moorebank 1. Trump doesn't want to 'lock her up' They say a week is a long time in politics. In Trump world make that a few hours! Earlier on Tuesday morning, 6am local time, Trump was once again tweeting about The New York Times. This time he was tweeting about cancelling his meeting with the media outlet claiming they had changed the conditions of their meeting. The NYT said it had not changed any conditions and didn't know about the cancellation until Trump's tweet. [Sydney Ember/New York Times] But a few hours later, he announced the meeting was back on and that he will "look forward to it!" Before midday US time, Trump had clocked up four tweets about the NYT and three about his administration. "What is in a smile?" That was the question posed in a Sydney courtroom after a Supreme Court judge was urged to discharge a young female juror for allegedly flirting with three gang members on trial. In two decisions canvassing a range of allegedly flirtatious behaviour in courtrooms, including smiling and hair flicking, Justice Peter Hamill considered applications for the juror to be discharged from a lengthy trial involving senior Brothers for Life members. The prosecution raised concerns the juror had been smiling at Farhad Qaumi, 34, and his brothers Mumtaz, 31, and Jamil, 24, who were accused of conspiring in 2013 to murder Bankstown chapter leader Mohammed Hamzy. Washington: Donald Trump's grandfather Friedrich Trump tried his best to have an expulsion order for avoiding military service as a teenager revoked by authorities in southern Germany. But his plea, it seems, proved unsuccessful, and Trump had to settle for a life across the Atlantic. The revelations came from a letter publicised this week by the German tabloid Bild. According to the Associated Press, the letter was penned in 1905 and addressed to Prince Luitpold of Bavaria, a monarch who presided over a realm within the united German empire. Friedrich Trump, Donald Trump's grandfather, was deported when he tried to resettle in Germany in 1905. Credit:Commons Trump beseeches the "well-loved, noble, wise and just" Bavarian royal not to deport him. Luitpold apparently decided to reject what Trump offered as a "most subservient request". The document was recently identified by a local historian in a state archive. The Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia has appointed three directors to its board, following the nomination and election process: new director Scott Bolton, and two re-elected directors Donna Beazley and Tim Donahoo.Bolton has more than 10 years experience in the industry, and has been a director of his own company for 25 years. He was an MFAA NSW/ACT Counsellor from 2009-14. Currently, he serves as franchise principal for Aussie Home Loans and president for the local ACT business network group.As a mortgage broker, Beazley was involved in NSW/ACT State Forums for many years prior to her directorship. She is also part of the Farm and Aggregator Committees, and serves as credit advisor at Oxygen Home Loans. She has more than 20 years experience in the finance industry.Donahoo joined Mortgage Choice in 1999, and now serves as head of compliance. He has been an MFAA member since 2002, and was elected to the Board in 2014. He is part of the Finance and Risk Management Committee and acts as liaison director for the Forum of State Presidents and the Compliance Forum.Were delighted to welcome Scott to the Board. Having run his own businesses, as well as franchise operations for Wizard and Aussie, he has a breadth and depth of experience that will add significant capability as a director, said MFAA chairman Cynthia Grisbrook.She continued: As directors, [Donna and Tim] provide us more than 50 years combined experience. They will be a critical part of the sustained success of the MFAA and our industry in the future.The announcement of the new board members came a day before the association stated that Chairman Grisbrook had conducted a second in-depth briefing with Hon. Michael McCormack MP, Minister for Small Business. The subject of the second meeting was the current key issues in the mortgage industry as well as the support provided to Australian small businesses by MFAA members. Local Riverina MFAA member Ian Robinson was also part of the meeting.In a statement to the MFAAs members, Grisbrook said she discussed the industrys role in supporting small businesses in rural and regional Australia, which has been crucial given the contraction of retail banking in these areas. She also promised MFAAs continuing collaboration with ASIC to address industry issues, and stated that changes to remuneration models may threaten the viability of small broking businesses and the numerous small businesses dependent on them.Following the meeting, the Minister promised to consider attending an MFAA event in 2017 to meet other members and continue the discussion. I don't know how many young women come to this blog or how many are parents of teenage or young adult women, but here are some safety tips from Kelsey's Army: T I P S 1. Trust your instincts - If something feels wrong then something probably is wrong.2. Know your surroundings - know who and what is around you.3. Always have a plan for where you would go and what you would do if a situation arises.4. Be willing to make a scene in order to be noticed.5. Let someone know where you are going and when you will be back.Remember the acronym TIPS:ake Chargenform others of your whereaboutsrepare for any situationurvival Mentality (role play situations so you will respond should they happen)For more information, go to Kelsey's Army Yardley Friends Meeting at 65 N. Main Street in Yardley will host the documentary Organic Roots on Friday, November 18 at 7 p.m. Join director Al Johnson for a showing of this film followed by a discussion of the last 50 years of this movement. Organic foods are part of our life today and a tool in our concern for... In this episode of Gotham, Mad City: Time Bomb, Barbara searches for Butch and Tabitha, who are being held captive by Nygma; Mario becomes the target of hitmen, and Gordon is certain that the apple may not have fallen far from the tree; and Bruce learns more about the Court of Owls. On the eve of Mario and Lees rehearsal dinner, somebody tries to kill Carmine Falcone by putting a bomb underneath his car. But its some poor schmuck who gets blown to bits instead of the former crime boss. Gotham Recap: Ivy Returns and Gordon Suspects Barnes of Murder >>> Old Grudges or New Enemies? Gordon questions Falcone, wondering if he has any idea who would come after him now. Falcone has a long list of enemies and believes someone is trying to send a message on this, the eve of his sons rehearsal dinner. Gordon has a different theory. He thinks someone may be worried that Carmine is coming out of retirement. Falcone swears he isnt, but hes also not going to sit by and do nothing. With Captain Barnes in Arkham, the last thing James need is Falcone and his men running around Gotham and hell-bent on revenge. Gordon promises to get to the bottom of it, and Falcone gives him one day. Tit for Tat With the cat away, the mice will play. Penguin meets with the head of the five families. With all of Gothams residents so vulnerable, he suggests an increase in protection fees. His meeting is interrupted by Barb waving a gun, demanding to know where Butch and Tabitha are. It seems the Tigress and Butch are an item again, and Tabitha has been holed up with her boyfriend, keeping him safe. But she failed to check in, and Barbara thinks Penguin is to blame. Penguin denies any involvement and threatens to kill Barbara for her insubordination. She backs off, and because of their history, Penguin lets her off with a warning. Penguin calls Nygma, who happens to be holding Butch and Tabitha captive. He warns his pal to wrap up his unfinished business, but Nygma is in no hurry, telling his boss that hes working through his grief. Nygma found the twosome thanks to Butchs love of eggplant parmesan from a certain restaurant in town whose delivery boy he bribed for Butchs whereabouts. Of course, Butch has no idea what Nygma is talking about when his captor accuses him of killing Isabella, which gives Ed the excuse to torture the former henchman. The Sins of the Father? Bullock is serving as the captain until Barnes can be cured. Mr. Fox informs them that the bomb was comprised of some pretty high-grade elements for your standard mob hit. It was designed by someone who didnt want to leave anything behind. Bullock knows of only one guy with that kind of expertise, an ex-military man who goes by the name of Fuse. Bullock and Gordon arrive at Fuses apartment, only to find him dead. Whoever hired him didnt want any loose ends. A packed suitcase is on the bed, leading Bullock and Gordon to surmise that Fuse didnt exactly trust his employer. Gordon finds a file stuffed under Fuses mattress and figures out that Carmine wasnt the intended target; his son was. They make it to the hospital just as another attempt is being made on Marios life by two figures clad in black, swinging a ninja sword and riding a motorcycle. Gordon arrives and intervenes, and the hitmen take off. The Whisper Gang Ivy and Selina are still hiding out at Wayne Manor. Despite the four-star accommodations, Selina is getting restless and wants to leave, but Bruce and Alfred are determined to make her stay put. Things are also tense between the two lovebirds. Ivy picked up on the fact that there was something going on between Selina and Bruce, an accusation Selina vehemently denied, leaving Bruce to feel a tad heartbroken. Mario claims to have no enemies and no idea who would want to kill him. Gordon suggests that the doctor keep a low profile, but with his wedding 24 hours away, Mario doesnt see how thats possible. Gordon thinks that postponing the nuptials might be a good idea, and Mario questions Gordons motives. James says Mario has no choice but to trust him. Whoever is behind this is going to keep coming until they get the job done. And as long as Mario has a target on his back, so does Lee. While Bruce combs through books looking for information about the key, Selina decides to try a different approach. She uses vinegar and baking soda to clean the key, hoping there will be something on the key that they couldnt see because a hundred years of crud was covering it up. Theres an engraving of an owl on the key. This is bad news for Brucie. Him even being in possession of the key could be viewed as breaking his agreement with Kathryn, the woman who represents the people in the owl masks. Bruce wants to contact them and make them understand that Ivy didnt know what she was stealing. Speaking of Ivy, shes disappeared. She used one of her magical perfumes on Alfred to convince him to give her the houses alarm code. Selina doesnt see the big deal. Ivy will return when she gets hungry. But Alfred gets a call from a man named Volk, who says he has Ivy, and hes willing to exchange her for the key. Selina, Bruce and Alfred arrive at the designated meeting place. Along with Ivy, Volk and some nefarious-looking fellows are also present. Bruce asks to speak to Kathryn, and he wont return the key until he does. Bruce wants reassurance that his friends lives will no longer be in danger. Volk explains that any promises from Kathryn will be lies because the people Bruce is talking about have no honor. Volk would know because they betrayed him. This guy doesnt work for the powerful secret society; hes working to destroy them. And at long last, Bruce learns the name of this mystery denizen of Gotham: the Court of Owls. Volk and his brothers, Dmitry and Jacob, comprise the Whisper Gang, Gothams most notorious smugglers. They used to number in the hundreds. Seeing their growing strength, the Court of Owls offered them a partnership, only to betray them. Many escaped back to Ukraine, but a few stayed hoping to enact revenge. The key opens a safe that is in one of the Courts buildings. Inside, there is a device that Volk believes can destroy them. Volk doesnt know if its a weapon, only that the Court fears it falling into the hands of its enemies. There were originally two keys, and the Court has possession of the other. They had no idea the other copy was still in play. Volk plans to use it, and Bruce wants in. Quiz: Who is Your TV Boss? >>> A Shocking Confession Barbara decides to bribe Penguins maid in an effort to find Tabitha and Butch. The maid isnt a fan of Nygmas but is a fan of bling, so Barbara gets the information shes looking for. Babs also gets a bonus when the maid spills that Penguin has romantic feelings for Ed. Nygma continues to torture Butch, sending agonizing amounts of electrical currents into his brain. But that isnt enough, so he turns his attention to Tabitha. Instead of an eye-for-an-eye, Nygma is going to take a hand. Hes constructed a device that will enable Tigress to save one of her claws, but shell have to kill Butch in return. Nygma promises that if Tabitha sacrifices her hand for Butch, hell let them go. The bad news for Butch is that Tabitha isnt really in a love place right now. Nygma figured as much, which is why he made the offer. Butch has a few final words, and he tells Tabitha that its okay she doesnt love him because he loves her and thats enough. Then he confesses to killing Isabella; he claims to have shot her, which we all know isnt how she died. Tabitha is overcome by Butchs sweetness and saves his life. As Tabitha starts to bleed out, Nygma has to wrap his head around the fact that Butch is innocent. Barbara arrives to save the day. A dazed Nygma tells her to get Tabithas hand on ice and walks away. Barbara Sees an Opportunity, Carmine Threatens Kathryn Gordon is convinced that either Carmine or Mario is holding back information, but both ascertain that Mario is a stand-up guy. Hes so good that he walks out of the GCPD so he can lure the killers away from Lee and keep the target firmly on himself. Gordon tracks Mario down picking up wedding rings at the jeweler, but the men are under attack before they can head for safer ground. Mario is able to best one of his attackers and questions why theyre coming after him. Hes got the man in a chokehold, but his last words are You know why. Mario finishes the job, and all we know is Dr. Wonderful may not be Lees Prince Charming after all. Gordon is able to arrest on of the assassins, but hes not talking. Hes also a pro, so his prints dont bring up a match in the system. Bullock informs Gordon that the guy is being transferred to a federal facility upstate. Gordon wonders why the Feds want him, and Carmine suspects that somebody wants him out of the precinct. Lee shows up, and Gordon warns Mario that if he doesnt tell his fiance whats going on, he will. In the meantime, Carmine lets himself into the interrogation room and uses his own tactics to get the guy to talk. He learns that the assassin works for a former associate of Carmine, and he tells Gordon and Bullock hell take care of it his way. Falcone warns Gordon to stay out of it. Volks plan to join forces with Bruce and take down the Court hits a snag. Both Dmitry and Volk are killed by a lethal member of the Court. Butch is hell-bent on getting revenge, and Barbara has enough pieces of the puzzle to see the big picture. She knows that Penguin killed Isabella, and she knows why. And she plans to use the information to her advantage. Carmine meets with Kathryn, demanding to know why shes trying to kill his son. Shell only say there are things hes not privy to. Carmine promises to come after Kathryn with everything he has if she hurts his son. She promises that he wont win, but Carmine says if Mario dies that wont be the point. Gotham will burn. Kathryn insists that the city is on the brink of chaos, and only the Court can save it. She expects his assistance until called upon, and Mario will be safe until that time, at least from them. Lee stops by for one last goodbye with Gordon. Nothing dirty, just a kiss. But Mario sees her leaving his place, and his reaction is unexpected. He flies into a very Tetch-like rage and beats the crap out of two muggers. It should make for an interesting wedding. Will Lee tie the knot? Will Nygma figure out the truth about Penguin? Can Bruce and Selina take down the Court of Owls? Let us know what you think in the comments section below. Gotham season 3 airs Mondays at 8/7c on FOX. Want more news? Visit our Gotham Facebook page. (Image courtesy of FOX) latest news October 31, 2022 Buddy TV In November, there are hundreds of new and returning TV showsit can be overwhelming to try and choose what to watch. That's why we've selected some of the best options... Reengineered ear cleaning machine, the Earigator, finds an eager market From left to right, Brij M. Bansal, vice president of operations, and CEO Joseph L. Priest, both of Nupur Technologies LLC. Credit: Douglas Levere, University at Buffalo. Irwin Ginsbergs original device has been improved and made less expensive Coming into a place like this UB incubator allowed us to concentrate on our product and on selling. BUFFALO, N.Y. Removing ear wax may sound humorous, unless you need it done. Then it can be a personal emergency that can hinder hearing and cause pain. The need is more prevalent among older people. A company called Nupur Technologies LLC in the University at Buffalo business incubator is building and selling an elegant device that doctors, nurses, audiologists and others can use to dislodge the wax, called cerumen. The machine uses the lavage technique which involves pumping warm water into the ear at variable pressure. You can scrape it out, or use suction, but historically lavage has been the preferred technique, said Joseph L. Priest, the companys CEO. Its not painful or dangerous. The device, called the Earigator, is an updated version of a machine invented and marketed by the late Irwin Ginsberg, MD, founder of the Buffalo Otolaryngology Group and a clinical professor at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB. The machine was reengineered by Rohan Bansal, PhD, a mechanical engineer and chief technology officer at Nupur, who sourced parts in Western New York, did the software programming and made the circuit boards. From soup to nuts, he totally redesigned it, Priest said. We got a lot of cost out of it. We cut the cost by about two-thirds. The device, which sells with a custom designed stainless steel rolling cart for about $2,100, has several features to make it effective and safe to use. Warm, pressure-controlled water First, the water is heated to body temperature before the machine will operate. Blasting cold water into someones ear can cause serious vertigo, Priest said, and water that is too hot can scald. Next, the pressure at which the water comes out is variable up to 12 pounds per square inch (psi). Experiments showed that the ear drum can withstand 24 psi, and the inventor cut that in half for safety while maintaining effectiveness. When dormant for a few minutes, the Earigator powers down to save energy while keeping the water warm. This keeps it available for frequent use in busy offices, Priest said. The machine is now sold to ear doctors, emergency clinics and hearing aid stores, among others, and Priest hopes to find a welcome market among general practice doctors and pediatricians. Being accepted into the START-UP NY program has made it possible for the young company to grow, Priest said. Coming into a place like this UB incubator allowed us to concentrate on our product and on selling, he said. I started a previous business, AirSep, and you cant beat the simplification of coming into a place like this. We pay one fee a month and we get everything we need. In addition, the proximity to the university has helped in finding talent. Our first employee was a UB mechanical engineering graduate. Were negotiating to do a development with a large company, and we will likely be getting involved with more UB graduates. Locally-sourced parts Most of the parts of the device are made in Western New York, said Brij M. Bansal, vice president of operations. The machines are built and shipped from the business incubator. We have a contract manufacturer who makes the kettle, we have a company in Lockport that makes the circuit boards. A local sheet metal company makes some of the insides, and plastic comes from a local supplier, he said. The machine hit the market in February, and about 200 have been sold in the U.S. and abroad, including Great Britain, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, India, China and soon Colombia. Busy machines Stephen R. Sobie, MD, an otolaryngologist, has two of the machines in his Buffalo Medical Group office. We use them all the time, every day. Half the people who come into our office need to have their ears cleaned, he said. Ear wax buildup is not uncommon, and it tends to be more prevalent in older people, possibly due to drying skin, Sobie said. Cerumen is formed by cerumen glands in the ear canal and is usually shed along with the skin cells which normally migrate outwards. Occasionally the system doesn't work and the cerumen builds up. Some people have to have it removed every few months, Sobie said. Doctors commonly use a big metal syringe to dislodge cerumen. Most practices still use them, Sobie said. But using a syringe is not pressure or temperature controlled. And most likely not as effective. Im surprised every ENT practice in the country doesnt have one, he said. And it could make sense for general practitioners and other practices. I think it could be used in a more widespread manner. Campus News UB among top universities hosting international students International students at UB hail from 115 different countries, with the largest numbers coming from China, India, South Korea, Canada, Malaysia and Iran. Photo: Douglas Levere By MICHAEL ANDREI While the election season has raised questions about Americas commitment to diversity, UB recognizes the many benefits we derive from a diverse faculty and student body. Our international students contribute to that diversity in a vital, impactful way. The 2016 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, released yesterday in Washington, D.C., by the Institute of International Education (IIE), announced that for the 14th straight year, UB is among the top 25 U.S. institutions hosting international students. UBs total of 7,026 international students for the 2015-16 academic year is a 2.5 percent increase over 2014-15 and places the university 21st among the approximately 3,000 accredited U.S. institutions surveyed. UB ranks third in New York State behind only New York University and Columbia and ahead of all other SUNY institutions. UB has a total enrollment of about 29,000 students. International students at UB hail from 115 different countries. The largest numbers come to the university from China, India, South Korea, Canada, Malaysia and Iran. While the election season has raised questions about Americas commitment to diversity, UB recognizes the many benefits we derive from a diverse faculty and student body. Our international students contribute to that diversity in a vital, impactful way, said Stephen Dunnett, vice provost for international education. New York State, with a total international enrollment of 114,316 students, is second among the 50 states for international student enrollment, according to the report. The figure represents an increase of 7.1 percent over last year. In 2015-16, the number of international students enrolled in U.S higher education also increased by 7.1 percent, to 1,043,839, topping 1 million for the first time. International students now represent just over 5 percent of the more than 20,000,000 students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities. An increasing number of students are crossing the globe to gain practical, international experience that they can apply in their careers and life in a global society, Dunnett said. For example, Devashish Agarwal is in his junior year at UB, majoring in computer science with a business minor. From Agra, India, Agarwal chose UB for dual reasons: I wanted a school that offered scholarships and is very well-rated in the major rankings, he said. UBs size has allowed me to go out of my comfort zone, meeting people from around the world. That should be helpful in a career in technology management. Ling Zhai, a graduate student from China whos studying foreign and second language education, was attracted to UBs size and language programs. I wanted an opportunity to do research, she said. I am involved in a project that is about growing multilingualism in early childhood 3 and 4-year olds. I am finding UBs diversity to be a perfect fit in that area, she said. You can hear many different languages just walking down the halls. Its like a small United Nations. Diversity was also high on Jin Kims list. I heard about UB from my uncle, said Kim, a senior chemical engineering major from Seoul, South Korea. Then when I was attending a community college in Washington State, a friend of mine came here. I was looking for a big university, one that was very diverse. One of my favorite things to do at UB is to go to one of the churches in the community, with a large group of people all from different countries. It is wonderful. The Association of International Educators (NAFSA) has stated that the economic contributions of international students are in addition to the cross-cultural benefits to classrooms, campus life and communities that can be seen and felt each day. Some of these contributions include: Increasing global experience at U.S. colleges and universities, something now increasingly crucial to success in all fields. Contributing billions of dollars in economic impact, along with making invaluable academic and cultural contributions. Supporting U.S. innovation through science and engineering coursework, making it possible for U.S. colleges and universities to offer these courses to U.S. students. Creation and support of jobs by international students spending in higher education plus sectors such as accommodation, dining, retail, transportation and telecommunications. According to the Open Doors report, the numbers of international students at institutions across the U.S. relying on personal and family resources as their primary source of funding rose to 66.5 percent a slight increase over 2014-15. U.S. colleges and universities also remained a primary source of funding for international students, at 17 percent, followed by 7.4 percent from a foreign government or university. The Open Doors Report is published annually by the IIE in partnership with the U.S. State Departments Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. For more data, infographics and resources on the 2016 report, visit the Open Doors website. The 2016 Open Doors report was released on the occasion of the 17th annual celebration of International Education Week, a joint initiative of the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Education. Campus News Anxiety over election results prompts support across campus By CHARLES ANZALONE Anxiety over the outcome of the presidential election has brought out a surge of university support for students worried about the election and its effect on their lives. The gestures, communications, meetings and counseling sessions both big and small are aimed at encouraging dialogue and reassuring students upset and worried about the aftermath of the election. Over the past two weeks, university leaders, faculty and staff have responded to concerned students wondering whether a new presidential administration will affect their ability to study at UB, threaten their families or endanger their personal safety. As a university community we must come together during these uncertain times to affirm our core values, President Satish K. Tripathi said. We must remain committed to fostering a welcoming, safe and inclusive campus climate where all feel respected and valued. In a university-wide message in the first days after the election, Tripathi encouraged members of the university community to engage in robust discussions about the political process and the direction of the country. We uphold the right of all to be able to express their viewpoints in a peaceful and respectful way, Tripathi wrote. Given the tone and rhetoric of this election season, I believe it is more important than ever for all of us to listen closely to one another especially when we have divergent points of views and experiences and try to understand each other and learn from one another. Tripathi also was among the Association of American Universities presidents signing a letter in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA), citing the benefits of the program to undocumented immigrant students and the positive impacts on universities and communities. Signing the statement of support for our DACA students, is another way to express how we at UB strongly uphold the value of being a diverse university, Tripathi said. Our mandate as a public research university is to contribute to an educated citizenry. This mandate is critical to a robust democracy. All of our students including our DACA students here at UB and across our nation should have the opportunity to pursue their educational goals and their professional aspirations; and that, we support. At UB, expressions of support for students have included an email message from Stephen C. Dunnett, professor and vice provost for international education, that was sent to international students to reassure all of our students, and all those considering UB, that our university remains a welcoming and supportive one for students from all parts of the world, regardless of race, religion and culture. Dunnett timed his message to coincide with International Education Week, calling the universitys diversity a source of great strength. A similar message was sent by Raechele Pope and colleagues to students enrolled in the higher education administration program in the Graduate School of Education. The letter, said Pope, associate professor of educational leadership and policy, was intended to comfort Muslims, immigrants, undocumented people, women, people of color, people with disabilities and others whose fears may be heightened because the election results have become not merely political; they are very personal. Dunnetts and Popes messages are examples of expressions conveyed or organized by several university units, including the Graduate School of Education, the School of Law and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The messages supporting UBs core values of diversity and inclusiveness, freedom of expression and mutual respect have bolstered the small group discussions and one-on-one counseling taking place throughout the university. Sharon Mitchell directs UBs Counseling Center and is president-elect of the Association for University and College Counseling Centers. She says the anxiety level over the election at universities across the country is very high. UBs Counseling Services office has met with several students. Part of peoples concern is about policy, but its also because they feel there might be some immediate and drastic negative changes to their lives, Mitchell said. Many students of color and international students feel a Trump administration could be a personal threat to them or their families, she said. She noted that feelings of anxiety also are being expressed by students who support or voted for Republican Donald Trump because many feel unable to celebrate their candidates victory, fearing others will unfairly label them as racists. To help students cope, Mitchell and UBs Intercultural & Diversity Center last week offered a program during which they discussed how to manage election stress. Mitchell and her team have reached out to students to offer their support to anyone struggling with the personal impact of the election and the tone of the national discussions. Sensing anxiety in the days immediately following the election, many faculty members have encouraged dialogue among students in the classroom. Sometimes the classroom encounters were unexpected and moving. Rudolph Hammoud, a sophomore studying journalism in the Department of English, raised his hand during class after another student declared his support for Trump. Hammoud and the rest of the class listened to the student declare he voted for Trump after several students expressed their concern over the election and Trumps pre-election comments. Hammoud, who was born in Lebanon and whose family was granted asylum in the U.S., wrote his midterm article about how his family fled its home in Lebanon in the middle of the night during the countrys civil war. I just wanted to say that we shouldnt negatively judge Connor (the student expressing his support for Trump) because he said that he supports Trump, Hammoud wrote when recalling the incident. I noticed some tension and bickering when he said that, and I just dont think its right. He is a human being with his own beliefs, and we should respect him. Just because Trump may have said some things that offended you, that doesnt mean that Connor deserves to be harassed for it. Im not oblivious to the fact that there are some hateful people out there, but we cant make blanket statements about everyone. I supported Hillary, but I always engaged in intellectual conversations with Trump supporters. People all over the country are in pain and if we dont take the time to engage each other, we will all lose. We must work together and try to relate to each others problems. Its time to heal and move forward. Sometimes the actions have been more understated, but equally well-intentioned and heartfelt. Its a small thing, read the simple sign on the counter in 306 Clemens, home of the English departments undergraduate offices. But wear a safety pin if you want people to know that you are a safe refuge in these times of strife. The small pile of safety pins rested in a paper plate so visitors could grab one on their way out. The School of Law will hold a community forum on Election 2016 at 4 p.m. Nov. 28 in 106 OBrian Hall. The forum is designed to encourage dialogue about the meaning of the election, personal responses to the results and the role of law. James Gardner, SUNY Distinguished Professor and interim dean of the law school, sent an email on Monday to law school students, faculty and staff announcing the forum and addressing concerns within the school. The recent presidential campaign and subsequent election have raised strong feelings. Many are struggling, sometimes profoundly, to make sense of these events, Gardner wrote. Many students have turned to faculty and staff for guidance, which is appropriate and understandable, but students need to know that even faculty and staff are not immune from these struggles. Many of us have been trying, just as you have, to come to grips with intense feelings that are difficult to process and articulate. I, therefore, look forward to our upcoming forum. All members of the university community are invited to attend. Over the weekend, Gov. Andrew Cuomo also sent a letter to all SUNY students affirming the states commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, and to upholding the states strict laws against hate crimes and discrimination. As long as you are here, you are New Yorkers. You are members of our community and we will stand up for you, Cuomos message said. We cherish our diversity. We find strength in our differences. Whether you are gay or straight, Muslim or Christian or Jewish or Buddhist, rich or poor, black or white or Latino or Asian, man or woman, cisgender or transgender, we respect all people in the State of New York. The Statue of Liberty is a proud symbol of American values and she stands in our harbor. We feel a special responsibility to make her offer of refuge and hope a reality every day. Delaware River water treatment plant upgrades to remove contaminant New Jersey American Water is spending $2.5 million to remove a potentially harmful chemical from Delaware River water processed by its Delran plant YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Chairman of the Parliament of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Ashot Ghoulyan says for the state that lives in conditions of unrecognized status and undeclared war, much depends on effectively functioning public administration system, that requires periodic updates. He said in case of Karabakh it can be done only through constitutional regulations. Ashot Ghoulyan gave an interview to Armenpress over the necessity, reasons of the constitutional reforms and the proposed major changes in the NKR. -Mr. Ghoulyan, the specialized commission of constitutional reforms under the NKR President published the draft Constitution. What is the necessity to change the Constitution at this stage, what are the reasons for that? -The idea of conducting constitutional changes is not new in Nagorno Karabakh. It is another issue that the topic has been discussed widely within the political parties. When the process of constitutional reforms was launched in the Republic of Armenia in 2013, the discussions on this topic were postponed for a certain period in the NKR with very normal and understandable reasons. We were following at what direction that process would move forward in the Motherland and what developments it can hint to the NKR to initiate such work in the country. Like every society, we as well start to speak more about constitutional reforms when the searches for raising the quality of public life become leading in the public opinion. For the country, which lives in unrecognized status and undeclared war, much depends on the effectively functioning public administration system, which requires regular updates. In our case, all these can be done only through constitutional regulations. Another important motive is the security environment, which, in case, is directly linked to the countrys governance model and capacities to mobilize the resources, to values and ideological basis, from which the countrys population will is formed to reach the international recognition of the declared independence. These are the major two directions from which the scope of issues were formed that serve the basis of the constitutional reforms. -What are the major goals to change the Constitution, what issues will be solved according to the proposed changes of the new draft Constitution? Please, specify several fundamental approaches that underline the new Constitution. -The goals on changing the Constitution, improving the constitutional regulations derive from the grounds that we have already talked about. If we need to improve the public administration system, to clarify the powers of our state institutions that form the security system, if we need to define more modern settings for fundamental rights and freedoms of person and citizen, stand in front of the judiciary, strengthening the autonomy and independence of local self-government system and our goal to build a society free of internal turmoil, I think, these basis already hint what issues will be solved under the new Constitution. In this regard, perhaps not coincidentally, the choice of the specialized commission is in favor of strong and centralized government system which the NKR people see in the presidential model. Nevertheless, it is very important to maintain the balance between the branches of power by the constitutional reforms in the country. -Mr. Ghoulyan, the draft Constitution proposes a shift from semi-presidential system to presidential system. What is the reason of such decision, whether it means that the semi-presidential system was not effective and was not justified? -Here we must take into account the period during which we are carrying out the constitutional reforms. Due to todays military-political realities, the idea of having a centralized government system is leading among our society, and it proves that the time factor is not secondary concerning this kind of issues. Today time is working in favor of concrete and sustainable government systems which suppose a shift to parliamentary or presidential systems. -Unlike the classic presidential governance model, the new draft Constitution of the NKR enshrines the Presidents political accountability before the Parliament. Usually, the President bears political accountability before the Parliament in the parliamentary system. What is the reason that it was decided to make a shift to such government model? -In the parliamentary system, the President sometimes takes the role of arbiter on keeping the balance between the branches of power. By giving a preference to the presidential system, we have included the issue into the agenda what mechanisms and checks and balances there are going to be in order not to violate the balance of the branches of power. In the draft Constitution the proposed solutions even somehow are beyond the regulations typical of the presidential model, by involving interesting components from other government systems. The draft proposes to hold the elections of the President and the Parliament the same day of the same year. Unlike the classic presidential model, the draft proposes that the Parliament can express distrust towards the President, and the President can dissolve the Parliament. -Are there any new provisions related to the human rights protection, freedom of speech and fundamental freedoms in the draft Constitution? If yes, what are the proposed changes on strengthening the democratic principles in the country? -The new draft Basic Law is known for numerous changes and amendments, and even the slight comparison makes obvious that differences. The current Constitution is comprised of 12 chapters and 142 articles, whereas in the new one, the number of chapters is the same, but that of the articles has been added by 31. Among those three dozen new articles, the 20 are exclusively about fundamental human and civil rights and freedoms. Such articles are aimed at complementing the series of constitutional regulations designed to ensure the normal functioning of the democratic system and the human rights protection. -When the discussions on the draft Constitution will be over and what times it will be put to a referendum? -The discussions on the draft Constitution are comprised of several stages. At this stage we are completing the public discussions, and then the revised version of the draft will be submitted to the President. Most likely, the President will propose additional discussion format for the political and public circles. At the next stage, the draft Constitution will be sent to the Parliament, and probably, until the end of this year, the draft discussions will be held in the Parliament. I think in January, 2017 we will know when the Constitutional referendum will be held. Interview by Shant Klghatyan Ltd has awarded projects worth Rs 6,480 crore to BGR Energy Systems and Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. The company has issued LOA to BGR Enery System, Chennai for the Balance of Plant Plackage (GA3 package) of Ghatampur Power Project (3X660 Mw) of Neyveli Uttar Pradesh Power Ltd (NUPPL), a subsidiary of Ltd to a value of Rs 2,788.60 crore. Also NLCI has placed orders for the Bithnok Thermal Power Project (1X250 Mw) and Barsingsar Thermal Power station Extension Project (1X250 Mw) at Rajasthan on EPC basis. The LOA for the above work was issued to Reliance Infrastructure Ltd, Mumbai for an order value of Rs 3,691.51 crore. The project is expected to be completed within 40 months from November 21, 2016. NLCI established a mine with a capacity of 2.1 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) cum lignite based Thermal Power station with a generating capacity of 250 MW (Mw) at Barsingsar, Rajasthan in 2003. The company jointly with Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd is setting up a 1980 MW coal based Super Critical Thermal Power in Uttar Pradesh through its subsidiary company NUPPl. Further NLCI is also implementing a 250 MW thermal power project with a linked mine of 2.2.5 MTPA capacity at Bithnodk and 250 MW Barsingsar Thermal Power Station Extension Project. NLCI has proposed to enhance its lignite mining capacity from 30.6 to 56.9 MTPA and power generation to 20151 MW by 2025. Biscuit major Britannia Industries Ltd has witnessed sales of its biscuits and other products drop after the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes as legal tender by the government, which could see earnings dip in the third quarter in December. The biscuit making company says that they are expecting to be hit by 15 to 20% in the next 45 days due to the . The boards of Tata Steel and Tata Power were reportedly against one-sided transport contracts for M Pallonji and Company, triggering a conflict between Ratan Tata, current interim chairman of Tata Sons, and Cyrus Mistry, the ousted chairman. Pranab Kumar Choudhury, former chairman and group CEO, Limited, passed away on Tuesday in Kolkata. Choudhury, 68, suffered a cardiac arrest during a board meeting of Peerless Financial Services, where he had joined as chairman after retiring from in 2015. Leading steel across the globe are showing interest in buying the Nagarnaar steel plant of the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), which is coming up in Chhattisgarhs Bastar district. Unlock 30+ premium stories daily hand-picked by our editors, across devices on browser and app. Full access to our intuitive epaper - clip, save, share articles from any device; newspaper archives from 2006. Curated newsletters on markets, personal finance, policy & politics, start-ups, technology, and more. Pick your 5 favourite companies, get a daily email with all news updates on them. 26 years of website archives. YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Every year the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade organizes Anticounterfeiting Forum. This year the Forum is being held in Yerevan. Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov gave an interview to Armenpress on this topic. Armenpress presents his full interview: -Every year the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade organizes Anticounterfeiting Forum. This year the Forum is being held in Yerevan. What results do you expect? Whether the Russian side has developed decisions which will be possible to implement within the EAEU common economic space? -The major goal of the Forum is contribute to reducing the volumes of illegal circulation of industrial goods and the negative consequences for the market. The emphasis on reducing the illegal circulation is not a coincidence. From my perspective, by building countering systems, it is necessary to maintain a reasonable balance between the state regulation and business development: it is not easy. Our analysis shows that the state tough policy, the installation of additional requirements and the restrictions for business sometimes are the reasons for increasing illegal circulation and suspending the activity of small and medium business subjects. At the same time, a number of methods are used by unfair participants of the market, which are considered as violations of customs and tax legislations, requirements of intellectual property rights, technical regulations. And those methods are constantly improved. The development of a common policy on solving common problems is a necessity. The smuggling is an urgent issue which seriously harms our countries. First of all, we see on that a potential risk to the life and health of citizens of our states, and also a significant damage caused to the economy. Taking into account the absence of borders and the free trade movement, the Unions every participant is the guarantee of that common market. Thats why we need to form a common counteraction system which will work within the entire EAEU territory. As a first step for creating it, we must clarify the national bodies who will control that work. In Russia the President tasked this issue the State Commission, and a number of measures on countering frauds are reflected in the draft strategy on illegal circulation of industrial goods until 2020 which will be adopted this year. We are ready to share our analysis with our partners and to jointly think about preparing similar document within the EAEU and creating national system for recording the data on illegal circulation. Another important precondition for reducing illegal production is the use of common technical regulations and international standards within the entire EAEU territory. In the last two years with the direct participation of the Eurasian Economic Commission we have moved on that path, and currently there are 35 regulations due to which in our countries, in general, thousand certification bodies and almost 2.5 thousand test laboratories are being conducted. I would like to state that the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council approved the EAEU draft Customs Code which considers the interests of the business and will enable to run more transparent and effective policy in the Unions border. The EAEU Council has also paid attention to the necessity on passing to the common regulation of the drug market. It is an important issue the solution of which will allow to facilitate the fight against illegal circulation, optimize the production. It, of course, will have a positive impact on consumer environment. We see that the scope of discussed issues is being more expanded, and I hope the Forum will lead to making relevant decisions which can be implemented within the EAEU common economic space. The discussions on sections, round-tables, resolutions will be directed to all EAEU states. -As far as we know, during your visit You plan to meet the Ministers of the Eurasian Commission. -Yes, such meeting is scheduled, it will be held with the participation of EAEU three Ministers, under whose jurisdiction are industrial, trade, economic and financial policy issues. It is obvious that protecting the national markets from illegal circulation of industrial goods is possible only through joint efforts of the EAEU all states, and of course, the Eurasian Economic Commission must take the role of coordinating them. I want to state that our Union is a bridge between Europe and Asia, as well as it is a common market with more than 182 million financially stable population. The total GDP of our countries is almost 3 trillion USD. We are going to discuss the industrial cooperation development, the mechanisms on creating conditions for increasing the industrial production and issues of mutual supplies, assistance to exports. I am confident those efforts will enable to more effectively utilize the potential of the common market and to achieve synergetic results. For instance, the day before the Forum we held a joint consultation with the leadership of the Industry Ministry of Belarus and the EAEU. As a result, we have outlined the implementation of joint projects in machine-tool industry sector and discussed the steps on expanding the mutually beneficial cooperation between the machine-tool enterprises of Russia and Belarus. We have also agreed to hold practical consultations on developing stances agreed within the frames of Russias Ministry of Industry and Trade. As for our Armenian partners, I want to say there are plans to create platforms within the framework of which the Russian and Armenian companies will be able to find and make joint projects. One of such platforms can become our major international industrial exhibition called Innoprom. -As of today, how do you assess the bilateral trade-economic relations and inter-regional cooperation between Armenia and Russia? -Many decades of allied partnership connect Armenia and Russia. I want to state that Russia is ranked first in the structure of trade turnover countries of Armenia. Despite the mutual trade system decline with all states in 2015 and 2016, we see a positive sign on improving the situation with Armenia in 2016. I would like to stress the importance of cooperation development at inter-regional level. Within the framework of the working visit it is expected to sign a 2016-2018 action plan on trade-economic, scientific-technical, social and cultural cooperation between Ulyanovsk region government and Shirak province administration. I want to state that the strengthening and development of regional ties, as well as between small and medium enterprises, is one of our top priorities. And I am happy to say that approaches of cooperation of our countries, as diplomats say, are closer or coincide. And it is due to concrete work, work at technical level. We are in constant contact and are consulting on state and regional issues. As we consider each other close allies, therefore, we always listen to the partners, consider each others interests. Ousted chairman of Tata Sons Cyrus Mistry on Tuesday said several decisions by his predecessor Ratan Tata were taken primarily to satisfy his ego and this resulted in huge financial losses for the Tata group. Mistry also said Ratan Tata had planned to sell the groups current cash cow and India's largest software exporter TCS to IBM in its initial years but his proposal was rejected by JRD Tata on advice from FC Kohli, who helped set up the company. Its 2:00 am, the latest Coldplay single blares in the conference room, while the top team of Vijay Shekhar Sharma (pictured), the chief executive officer of Paytm, is thrashing out the next move to reach users in rural India over several rounds of Chinese tea. Sitting in the middle, humming A Sky Full of Stars, Sharma finally tells his team the next plan of action. It has been a similar drill for the top boss of Paytm, Indias largest mobile wallet, for the past two weeks ever since demonetisation took off. For digital wallets in India, the last 15 days have done what 10 years of being around could not. The Modi governments move to withdraw Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes from circulation has pumped new life into the slowly unfolding digital money revolution, and are busy upgrading their sales projections. So, sleep is a casualty and Sharma, whose wallet company Paytm has a user base of close to 150 million, is working 20 hours a day, according to people who know him. He has been on an overdrive to make all possible transactions digital and channelled via his wallet. The NIA and state security agencies have so far arrested 68 supporters of dreaded terror outfit in various parts of the country, Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday. "The Investigation Agency and state security agencies have so far arrested 68 supporters/sympathisers," Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir said replying to a written question. The Minister said a total of 50 people have been arrested by security agencies during current year of whom 11 belonged to Maharashtra, 11 belonged to Telangana, 7 belonged to Karnataka, 4 from Uttarakhand, 6 from Kerala, 1 from Delhi, 2 from West Bengal, 1 from Rajasthan, 2 from Uttar Pradesh, 1 from Madhya Pradesh, 1 from Jammu and Kashmir, 1 from Bihar and 2 from Tamil Nadu. Ahir said is using various platforms to propagate its ideology and to attract recruits from across the world. "The intelligence and security agencies maintain a close watch to identify those engaged in such anti- activities and persons or preachers misguiding the youth and action is initiated against such persons under the relevant laws," he said. Income tax department on Monday conducted surveys on at least 10 locations of event management firms that worked for the lavish wedding of daughter of G Janardhana Reddy, Karnataka's former Bharatiya Janata Party minister. The India Innovation Lab for Green Finance, a public-private initiative, funded by Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Oak Foundation, and the UK Government, and supported by Climate Policy Initiative and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, completed one year of its inception. In an interview with Jyoti Mukul, Gireesh Shrimali, director, Climate Policy Initiative, that acts as the secretariat for India Lab, gives details about the three financing instruments adopted by it for green projects. Edited Excerpts: The Finance Ministry is unlikely to hold its annual Delhi (DEC) this calendar year, as hosting the event would eat into the governments preparations for the union Budget 2017-18 scheduled for February 1. The Delhi High Court today fixed December 8 for hearing the pleas against which questioned the government allowing certain public utilities including hospitals and petrol pumps to use the old notes. A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice V K Rao said that it will take up the matter in December as the Supreme Court is seized with the petition of Centre seeking a stay on proceedings before various high courts and other courts against government's November 8 decision to demonetise high-value currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. "We will defer the matter for December 8 and wait for the apex court's direction on the Centre's petition," the court said. It was, however, opposed by the petitioner's counsel who has also sought discontinuation of the new Rs 2,000 currency note, terming the move as "unconstitutional and bad in law". The Centre had told the Supreme Court that proceedings in various courts except the apex court on the issue will create a lot of confusion. Petitioner Pooja Mahajan, running a designer showroom, through her counsel A Maitri urged the high court that the issue should be heard prior to December 8 on the ground that not only she but others are also being deprived of earning livelihood and their fundamental rights are being infringed. To which the bench said, "If you feel urgency, you can come prior to the date fixed and request to prepone the date but first let the Supreme Court decide the transfer petition of the Centre." Mahajan in her plea also accused the government of taking a dual stand saying on one hand it was encouraging people to deposit old notes in bank accounts and on the other hand, it was threatening them of prosecution for depositing over Rs 2.5 lakh. Besides Mahajan, another plea by Birender Sangwan was today filed seeking direction to the Centre to ensure that all the ATMs are dispensing cash and people do not suffer. Mahajan, in her petition, has urged the court to quash various notifications with regard to issued on and after November 8, saying they are in contravention of the Constitution of India and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Act. Section 24 of RBI Act deals with denomination of notes which empowers the RBI and Centre to issue bank notes for various denominations as mentioned in section 24 (1) and (2) of the Act, the plea said. "Till date, government has not issued any notification under section 24 (2) of the RBI Act for discontinuing currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000," it claimed. It further said that Rs 2,000 notes are being circulated by the government against mandate of section 24(1) of the Act. Seeking direction to Ministry of Finance, the petitioner said the government's decision is "arbitrary and unconstitutional" as on one hand it has cancelled the currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 but simultaneously circulated high denomination notes of Rs 2,000 without the mandate of RBI Act. The petitioner also alleged that "on the pretext of exchange of notes, government cannot prosecute and misuse the provisions of Income Tax Act by treating the cash deposit for exchange as unaccounted money". As per Section 24 (1) of the RBI Act, bank notes shall be of denominational value to Rs 2, Rs 5, Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 50, Rs 100, Rs 500, Rs 1,000, Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 or of such other denominational values, not exceeding Rs 10,000 as the Central Government may, on the recommendation of the Central Board, specify in this behalf. Section 24 (2) of the Act says the Centre may, on the recommendation of the Central Board, direct the non-issue or the discontinuance of issue of bank notes of such denominational values as it may specify in this behalf. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on November 8 announced the of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes with effect from midnight, making these notes invalid in a major assault on black money, fake currency and corruption. Delhi Police has seized over Rs 3.5 crore in high value demonetised currency notes from three persons in north Delhi's Kashmere Gate area this evening. Police received a tip-off about three men carrying Rs 3.68 crore in a Honda City car and the special staff of north district detained them, said a senior police officer. Prima facie, it has been revealed that the three men allegedly used to charge 15-20 per cent commission for depositing black money in different bank accounts, he said. One of the persons detained is a jeweller while the other is a chartered accountant and the third person is his assistant, the officer added. Police has passed on the information to IT department. On November 20, a man was detained on west Delhi's Tikri border while he was driving towards Haryana in a SUV with a bag containing Rs 49,96,000. On November 18, Nazer-e-Alam, a resident of Gorakhpur, was arrested with Rs 96 lakh in old currency notes of Rs 1,000 denominations. He was carrying a bag with Rs 96 lakh and couldn't offer any satisfactory explanation for possessing such a huge amount of cash. On November 17, police had seized 500 demonetised notes of Rs 1,000 denominations from an employee of a West Bengal-based firm, onboard Sealdah-Delhi Rajdhani train. Police had detained a paediatrician with Rs 69,86,000 in Rs 100 denominations in central Delhi's Paharganj area on November 16. The post of director in as many as 13 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), including Bangalore and Nagpur, are lying vacant, the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday. The other IIMs where such post is lying vacant are Kozhikode, Amritsar, Sirmaur, Rohtak, Bodh Gaya, Ranchi, Sambalpur, Raipur, Udaipur, Visakhapatnam and Tiruchirappalli. "However, the Directors of the mentor IIMs are looking after the six new IIMs (Amritsar, Sirmaur, Bodh Gaya, Sambalpur, Nagpur and Visakhapatnam) till the appointment of regular Director," Minister of State for Human Resource Development (HRD) Mahendra Nath Pandey said in a written reply. For other IIMs, the tenure of the outgoing director has been extended or the senior most Professor of the Institute has been given additional charge of the post, he added. For Kozhikode and Udaipur advertisement for the posts has been issued, he said, adding that for others Search-cum-Selection Committee has recommended a panel of names. Since hosting his daughter's lavish wedding, in which he apparently splurged Rs 500 crore, Bellary mining baron Gali has been on the income-tax radar. The I-T department on Monday raided Reddy's Obulapuram mining company in Bellary. YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Today, on November 22, the Bankers Day is celebrated in Armenia, as well as the 23rd anniversary of introducing the Armenian dram the monetary unit of Armenia. The Central Bank told ARMENPRESS 11 thousand people are currently employed in the banking system of Armenia. November 22 has a symbolic place in history, because it was on this day back in 1993 when the national currency of the newly independent Armenia was introduced. On 22 November 1993, banknotes of 10, 25, 50, 100, 200 and 500 dram were issued. The Visitor Center of the Central Bank exhibits the currency history of Armenia, starting from Armenian drams coins of Sophene, Commagene and Artashes dynasty, up to modern banknotes, coins, commemorative notes and medals. The center presents the entire history of money beginning from the pre-dram period up to present day. The exhibition starts from Athenian coins of 5th century B.C. All exhibits are the originals which have been discovered during excavations on the territory of Armenia. He first Armenian coins date back to the Armenian Kingdoms of Tsopk (Sophene) and Commagene 3rd century B.C., Head of the Central Banks visitors center Zaurhi Barseghyan told ARMENPRESS. The word "dram" translates into English as "money" and is cognate with the Greek drachma. The first series of the Armenian dram were issues on November 22, 1993, followed by the second series which are still used. Armenian dram banknotes portray cultural figures. Barseghyan says there is growing interest towards the CB center. This year an estimated 8000 people will visit the center in Yerevan, meanwhile in Stepanakert (NKR) a mobile exhibition has been organized and 3000 people visited it. Pollutants from China and India, are not only increasing in quantity but are also being pumped to greater heights in the atmosphere, thanks to the South Asian summer monsoon system, scientists have discovered. Prithvi II's twin trial successfully test fired: 10 key points about India's indigenous missile Prithvi-II, an indigenously developed nuclear-capable missile was successfully test fired twice in quick succession from Chandipur in Odisha on Monday. With constant efforts of the DRDO scientists, the range and precision of this missile has been to enhance the country's nuclear arsenal. Nuclear tests are carried out by choosing missiles from India's military arsenal to pilot the country's emergency preparations if a war-like situation ever arises. Through this, a nation can also check its progress. The success of India's indigenous missile tests now strengthens Indias position in the exclusive Ballistic Missile Defence club of the US, Russia and Israel. Last time when India test fired Prithvi-II missile, Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Minister Sartaj Aziz threatened to raise the matter at the International arena. Here are 10 key points about Prithvi-II missiles 1. Prithvi-II is the first missile to be developed by the DRDO under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme 2. is a series of short range ballistic missiles launched to combat opponents in war-like situations. 3. The first test fire of this missile was carried out in 1996 and its development stage was completed in the year 2004. 4. It was inducted into Indian armed forces in 2003 by the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) 5. Prithvi-II missile has a strike range of 350 km 6. It is capable of carrying 500-1000 kg of warheads 7. Prithvi-II is thrusted by liquid propulsion twin engines. It is 9 metres tall. 8. It uses advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory to hit its target. Its route was tracked by the DRDO radars, electro-optical tracking systems and telemetry stations 9. Launch activities are carried out by the specially formed strategic force command (SFC) and monitored by the scientists of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) 10. In a similar trial, India test fired as a part of a users trial in May. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who boasts the booze ban in the state as his government's top achievement, has indicated that his government may introduce some amendments in the harsh penal provisions of the prohibition law. The state government called an all-party meeting on Tuesday over the new law. In the meeting, Kumar indicated about the possible amendment in the prohibition law. He, however, categorically stated that there would be no roll back on prohibition. On November 8, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi stunned the nation by stating that the existing Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes will no longer enjoy the legal tender status, members of a small advocacy group Artha Kranti Pratisthan in Pune rejoiced. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has reduced the 10-year ban duration imposed so far on defence equipment manufacturers found involved in corrupt practices to a five-year period. The new ban period was announced by the ministry on Monday under its 'Guidelines of the Ministry of Defence for Penalties in Business Dealings with Entities'. Under it, the government has said that ban on serious defaulters will be for a minimum of five years. The maximum duration of such a ban was not listed. A spate of black listings in past years, which left prominent global defence equipment manufacturers unable to compete in Indian defence acquisition programmes, has reportedly stymied modernisation programmes being undertaken by the Indian armed forces. In fact, blacklisting one firm or subsidiary has in some cases had a cascading effect on the country's defence preparedness. The new policy moves away from blanket blacklisting and employs a mixture of heavy fines and graded banning. Review all cases Aside from reducing the ban period for serious defaulters, under the new policy, the Defence Ministry will review all cases of blacklisted firms as it prepares a new list of such entities. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday said that the director general (acquisition) will draw up a list as required under the new policy and hence old cases will also be looked into. "That does not mean they will be taken out. Don't interpret... They will be examined. What is the status, how many years they have been blacklisted for and why they were blacklisted," Parrikar told PTI on the sidelines of a seminar in the capital. He said that under the new policy, there would be a new list. "So the list will have to be re-ascertained," Parrikar said. The review will include about a dozen firms that came under blanket blacklisting in the previous UPA government. "An updated list of entities with which business dealings have been suspended or banned by the competent authority and/or against which financial penalties have been imposed shall be maintained on the official website of the Ministry of Defence," the policy read. Defence expert Ajai Shukla explained how the policy of blanket blacklisting could hamper the forces' preparedness ( Read more ). Even as India's first Scorpene submarine was undocked last year, the navy was battling the possibility of seeing its new cutting-edge submarines patrolling the waters without torpedos. Back then, Shukla had explained that the Black Shark torpedo meant for the Scorpene had been blocked by a MoD ban on Whitehead Alenia Sistemi Subacquel (WASS) of Italy. WASS is a subsidiary of defence giant Finmeccanica, which the MoD proscribed after another subsidiary, AgustaWestland, came under investigation the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scandal. India is open for business Under its new liberalised blacklisting policy for arms companies, India will now be open to doing business even with a banned firm if there is no alternative available to its weapon system or equipment in the market. This can be done on the grounds of national security, operational military readiness and export obligations, after the vice-chief of the armed service concerned, the chief of the integrated defence staff or the additional secretary (defence production) signs a certificate to that effect and gets permission from the "competent authority", who is the defence minister. Reasons why companies can get banned The new policy lists out the reasons for which companies can get banned: Violating the integrity pact would be treated seriously under the new policy Indulging in corrupt practices would similarly be treated seriously under the new policy Endangering the national security of India would also be treated most seriously Non-performance by the defence company would invite a less harsh penalty, and in such cases the duration of the ban would not exceed three years. The new policy says that orders of banning business dealings with an entity may be extended to its allied firms by specific order of the competent authority. It also makes it clear that the period of suspension of business dealing with an arms company shall not ordinarily exceed one year pending a probe into the corruption allegations. A review of the suspension order will be undertaken every six months. The suspension time can, however, be extended for additional six months. "The total period of suspension of business dealings with an entity shall not exceed the maximum period of banning of business dealing with an entity for the same cause of action," the policy read. It also calls for banning of agents or employees of a company who are convicted for any act of impropriety. Who were the men and women Prime Minister Narendra Modi consulted before banning the big notes? The answer to that question is hard to find but Business Standard spoke to bureaucrats and politicians to piece together what went behind the decision of November 8. Reserve Bank of India said on Monday that people can withdraw up to Rs 250,000 for wedding related expenses, provided they submit adequate proof and the wedding is on or before Dec. 30. In a big step towards fighting black money stashed overseas, Switzerland on Tuesday agreed to automatic sharing of information with India on of Indians as of September 2018 and onwards. They will not share details about accounts held prior to that period, while the first such exchange will happen in September 2019. The 'Joint Declaration' for implementation of AEOI signed on Tuesday between India and Switzerland provides that both countries will start collecting data in accordance with the global standards in 2018 and exchange it from 2019 onwards. While Switzerland has conformed to the global standards on automatic exchange of information with the signing of the declaration, India, on its part, has promised to safeguard the confidentiality of the data. "It will now be possible for India to receive from September, 2019 onwards, the financial information of accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland for 2018 and subsequent years, on an automatic basis," said a Finance Ministry statement. Describing the signing of declaration as a "big step", Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia tweeted: "The income tax department will be able to obtain information from accounts of all Indians stashed in Switzerland from 2018 onwards." The Swiss Federal Department of Finance said in a statement that the signing of the joint declaration with India confirms Switzerland's international commitment to implementing the automatic exchange of Information (AEOI) standard. "Switzerland is thus strengthening its network of AEOI partner states. India meets in particular the high demands in terms of adherence to the principle of speciality and the safeguarding of confidentiality for the data delivered, which are prerequisites for the introduction of the AEOI," it said. Switzerland, which has always been at the centre of the debate on black money allegedly stashed by Indians abroad, used to be known for very strong secrecy walls till a few years ago around its banking practices. A huge global pressure has resulted in Switzerland relenting on the tough secrecy clauses its local laws gave to the banks. Several information requests on details about Indians who had accounts in Swiss banks are still pending. Today's declaration, however, does not talk about exchange of information based on stolen data or pending requests from India. Following the government's demonetisation of high value currency notes earlier this month as a crack down on domestic black money, some opposition parties have been demanding that the government take action to bring back the unaccounted Indian money stashed abroad, particularly in Swiss banks. The Switzerland Department of Finance said the automatic exchange of information with India will be implemented based on the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (MCAA). The MCAA is based on the international standard for the exchange of information developed by the OECD. The Swiss Federal Council has authorised the Federal Department of Finance to conduct a consultation for the introduction of the AEOI with India and other countries. "It will be initiated soon. Thereafter, the corresponding federal decrees will be submitted to Parliament for approval," it added. In a significant step in the continuing global efforts to crackdown on illicit fund flows in the system and do away with banking secrecy practices, Switzerland had in September ratified the multilateral convention on administrative assistance in taxation matters. The Indian Finance Ministry's statement said fighting the menace of black money stashed in offshore accounts has been a key priority area for the present government. The Joint Declaration for implementing AEOI was signed today by CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra and Deputy Chief of Mission of Swiss Embassy Gilles Roduit here in India. On June 6, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann at Geneva and discussed the need for expeditious exchange of information for combating tax evasion together with an early start to negotiations on the Agreement for Automatic Exchange of Information. As a follow up, Adhia and Switzerland's State Secretary for International Financial Matters Jacques de Watteville met on June 15 and agreed to move towards an early agreement for the implementation of AEOI between the two countries. YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian media lacks professional approach on adequately covering the topic of suicides, Aida Taroyan - Psychological Support Unit Instructor of the National Center for Crisis Management of Emergency Situations Ministry, Rescue Service senior lieutenant, told Armenpress. Today, the non-adequate coverage of the suicides by the media can have an impact on people with mental health. Presenting the details of the suicide is especially unacceptable. In other words, when they are presenting how a citizen committed the suicide. Moreover, attention must be paid on the photos related to the report, she said. She said such publications must have a positive emphasis, such as try to show ways how to overcome such psychological issues. People must understand the idea that asking for help is not a sign of weakness, rather it is a positive step towards other changes. They must be explained that the difficulties result in abilities to overcome them. From this perspective, 911 service stands together with people, Aida Taroyan said. As for applying to the psychologist, she said that culture is gradually being formed within the Armenian public. She said people start trusting more that specialists. Concerning the statistical data on suicides, according to the sources of the Emergency Situations Ministry, the number of suicides has been increased in Armenia. Aida Taroyan said this tendency is realized in numerous countries of the world. 155 suicide cases were registered in Armenia in 2014, whereas in 2015 it was 195, and according to the November 17, 2016 data, that number was 170. The same tendency is realized in case of suicide attempts. According to analysis, mainly men make suicide attempts, rather than women. She said this is due to women being emotional. Women more frequently express their emotions. As for the reasons, she said the impact factors are different. It is not right to say that definitely the financial or social issues are the main reasons. These factors can have an impact, however, they are not the main reasons since there are many who are in critical social condition, however, they do not commit suicides. There can be internal issues, Aida Taroyan said. In 2012, the became the first non-US military to field the Boeing P-8 Poseidon, paying $2.1 billion for eight of these cutting-edge multi-mission maritime aircraft that patrol vast stretches of ocean to detect and destroy enemy submarines and warships. The Telangana government has issued the necessary orders for the creation of a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the development of the Hyderabad Pharma City project on 12,500 acres. The facility is expected to provide the entire ecosystem required for the pharmaceutical industry. Through the SPV, the government would also try to tap private investments for the development of basic infrastructure. In the backdrop of the Uttar Pradesh government announcing a hike of Rs 25/quintal in cane price for the 2016-17 crushing season, the value of sugarcane procurement by mills is likely to exceed Rs 22,500 crore. The BRICS-created New Development Bank (NDB) on Tuesday approved $350 million loan for India for Madhya Pradesh Major District Roads Project besides a $290 million loan for a offshore wind project in China. The NDB announced that its Board of Directors (BoD) has approved two loans for projects in China and India - Putian Pinghai Bay Offshore Wind Power Project (RMB 2 billion) and Madhya Pradesh Major District Roads Project ($350 million). The appraised projects were presented at the seventh BoD Meeting held in Shanghai, a press release from the bank said. "The two projects approved today, together with the first set of projects approved by the Board earlier this year, are aimed at meeting infrastructure needs of our members," said K V Kamath, the President of the Bank. "All these projects are in line with the Bank's mission of mobilising resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in our member countries," he said. "With the approval of the two new projects, the total approvals for the first full year of Bank's operations now stands at seven projects involving financial assistance of over $1.5 billion. Currently, the NDB is working on further development of a robust and dynamic project pipeline in all member countries," Kamath said. Under the framework of Putian Pinghai Bay Offshore Wind Power Project, the NDB will provide China with a sovereign project loan of RMB 2 billion for Phase 2 (250 MW) of an offshore wind power project proposed to be set up in the Pinghai Bay in Putian, Fujian Province. The project has one of the largest installed capacities among projects with similar design in China. It is estimated to generate 873 million kWh of electricity every year and to avoid 869,900 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission annually. Under the framework of Madhya Pradesh Major District Roads Project, the NDB will provide India with a sovereign project facility of $350 million for upgrading approximately 1,500 km of major district roads in Madhya Pradesh with a focus on all-weather road availability, improved road maintenance and asset management. The modalities of the two loans are different based on project specific features and borrower preferences. Also, the BoD discussed and approved the Bank's plans for the next year, including the Funding Plan for 2017 to support lending of $2.5 billion and the NDB Budget for 2017. The NDB was created with a vision to support and foster infrastructure and sustainable development initiatives in emerging economies. The Bank will complement the efforts of other existing financial institutions to realise the common goal of global growth. The founding members of the NDB - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) - have paid in capital of $1.5 billion thus far as capital contributions. Complaints over OROP A Judicial Committee headed by Justice L. Narasimha Reddy, retired Chief Justice of Patna High Court was appointed to look into the anomalies of implementation of OROP. The Committee has submitted its report on 26.10.2016 which is under examination. Out of 20,63,529 pensioner beneficiaries, 1429 complaints have been received from Ex-Servicemen and the Family Pensioners with regard to OROP benefits. Public Grievance Cell in the Department is receiving grievances of the pensioners / family pensioners and taking up the matters with the concerned Departments for redressal of their grievances. Disposal of grievances is monitored at the highest level in the Government. This information was given by Minister of State for Defence Dr. Subhash Bhamre in a written reply to Shri PL Punia and Shri Pramod Tiwari in Rajya Sabha today. NAMPI/RAJ Import value of Defence related Equipments During 2015-16, 17 contracts with value of Rs. 29171.75 crore have been signed with foreign vendors including those from USA, Russia, Israel, Sweden, UK and Germany for Capital procurement of Defence equipment such as rockets, simulators, aircraft, helicopters, ammunition and radars. During the current financial year (upto October, 2016), 15 contracts with value of Rs. 71953.60 crore have been signed with foreign vendors including those from France, USA, Russia, Israel, UK, and Germany for Capital procurement of various Defence equipment including aircraft, missiles and ammunition. This information was given by Minister of State for Defence Dr. Subhash Bhamre in a written reply to Shri Vayalar Ravi in Rajya Sabha today. NAMPI/RAJ ? Levy for Regional Air Connectivity Fund The Central Government has decided to impose a levy on scheduled flights operated within India to fund Regional Air Connectivity Fund, in the following manner: i) Rs. 7,500 with stage length upto 1,000km. ii) Rs. 8,000 with stage length more than 1,000 km to 1,500 km, and iii) Rs. 8,500 with stage length above 1,500 km. However, following flights shall be exempted from the said levy: i) Flights operated on CAT II/ CAT IIA routes as specified in Route Dispersal Guidelines issued under Rule 134 (1A). ii) Flights operated on Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) routes. iii) Flights operated with aircraft having maximum certified take off mass not exceeding 40,000 kg. As provided in National Civil Aviation Policy - 2016, payment of Viability Gap Funding (VGF) will be made to the selected airline operators from the Regional Connectivity Fund and the State Governments will be asked to reimburse the applicable share (20% for States other than for North-Eastern States and Union Territories of India, where the ratio will be 10%) towards VGF for respective RCS routes. This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Civil Aviation Shri Jayant Sinha in written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Princess of Thailand calls on President Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand called on the President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan yesterday (November 21, 2016). Welcoming the Princess to India, the President said India looks upon her as a special friend of India. The President expressed his condolences on the sad demise of HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej and said that King Bhumibol will be remembered fondly for his compassion, foresight and commitment to the welfare of his people. The President congratulated Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn on receiving the first World Sanskrit Award and said India lauds her efforts to promote Sanskrit language and her keen interest in our literature, art and culture. The President said India attaches high priority to its relations with Thailand. We would like to see the strengthening of our engagement in all fields, including political, security, commercial and connectivity. The Princess warmly reciprocated the Presidents words and thanked him for his condolences. She said the former King had a special place in his heart for India. Regional Connectivity Fund created for Udan Scheme The Ministry of Civil Aviation launched Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS)-UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) scheme on 21st October, 2016 for providing connectivity to un-served and under-served airports of the country. The primary objective of RCS is to facilitate and stimulate regional air connectivity by making it affordable. Promoting affordability of Regional air connectivity is envisioned under RCS by supporting airline operators through (i) concessions by Central Government, State Governments and airport operators to reduce the cost of airline operations on regional routes and (ii) financial support (viability gap funding or VGF) to meet the gap, if any, between the cost of airline operations and expected revenues on such routes. RCS-UDAN is a demand-driven scheme, where airline operators undertake assessment of demand on particular routes. A Regional Connectivity Fund (RCF) has been created under powers conferred under Rule 88-B of the Aircraft Rules, 1937 to provide the VGF requirements under the scheme. The Central Government has decided to impose a levy on the scheduled flights being operated within India to fund the Regional Connectivity Fund. However, following flights has been exempted from the above mentioned levy: i) Flights operated on CAT II/ CAT IIA routes as specified in Route Dispersal Guidelines issued under Rule 134 (1A). ii) Flights operated on RCS routes. iii) Flights operated with aircraft having maximum certified take off mass not exceeding 40,000 kg. The payment of VGF will be made to selected airline operators from the RCF. Selection of airlines will be done through transparent bidding process and the RCS flight is expected to start from January, 2017 onwards This information was given by the Minister of State for Civil Aviation Shri Jayant Sinha in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today. YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Daily monitoring of the healthcare ministry suggests activation of acute respiratory viruses these days is especially observed among minors, which in its turn is the reason of overloaded childrens hospitals in Armenia. It is noteworthy though that there are no patients with post-influenza/pneumonia complications. The healthcare ministry is working to facilitate the overload of hospitals. The ministry told ARMENPRESS a prevention program is underway to avoid further spread of influenza and respiratory diseases in pre-schools and schools. The programs purpose is prohibiting children with influenza-like symptoms from attending school. On November 21 alone, circa 1800 children with flu symptoms were sent home from schools across Armenia, with clinics and medical facilities being notified. During the last one month, the H3 subtype of Influenza A and other respiratory virus agents are circulating in Armenia, Europe, as well as Georgia, Russia, Ukraine. Stationing of Army Personnel in Foreign Countries Indian Army personnel are deployed in United Nations Peacekeeping Missions as part of our national commitment to United Nations. Indian army personnel are also deployed as part of Indian Army Training Teams / Indian Military Training Teams in friendly foreign countries for the purpose of providing military training including training related to IT, Telecommunication, English Language, etc. Further, to enhance defence cooperation, Indian Army personnel are also stationed on deputation in various countries as Military / Defence Attaches, etc., to Defence Wings of our Embassies / High Commissions. Presently over 8,000 army personnel are deployed for above purposes in various countries. This information was given by Minister of State for Defence Dr. Subhash Bhamre in a written reply to Dr. KVP Ramachandra Rao in Rajya Sabha today. NAMPI/RAJ Steps taken by SBI against cyber frauds State Bank of India (SBI) has informed that they have blocked about 6 lakh cards. SBI has also informed that 73 cardholders have complained about claims aggregating to Rs. 39.18 lakhs upto 04.11.2016. SBI has informed that its systems are robust and its Debit Cards are not at risk. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has informed that independent investigation by a forensic auditor approved under Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) framework is under process. RBI has set up a Cyber Security and IT Examination (CSITE) Cell within its Department of Banking Supervision in 2015. The Bank issued a comprehensive circular on Cyber Security Framework in Banks on June 2, 2016 covering best practices pertaining to various aspects of cyber security. The circular requires banks to have among other things, a cyber-security policy, cyber crisis management plan, a gap assessment vis-a-vis the baseline requirements indicated in the circular, monitoring certain risk indicators in this area, report unusual cyber security incidents within 2 to 6 hours. RBI has been carrying out IT Examination of banks from last year. RBI has also set up a Cyber Crisis Management Group to address any major incidents reported including suggesting ways to respond and recover to/from the incidents. Department of Banking Supervision also conducts cyber security preparedness testing among banks on the basis of hypothetical scenarios with the help of CERT-In. RBI has also set up an IT Subsidiary, which would focus, among other things, on cyber security within RBI as well as in regulated entities. This was stated by Shri Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance in written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today. is putting the Americas at the heart of the turnaround plan for its core brand, pinning its hopes on new higher-margin SUVs and electric cars to rebuild its image following the diesel emissions cheating scandal. The normal pattern of earnings projections is disrupted by the . Every India-focused business will see revenue contraction as consumers tighten their belts in what was expected to be a high-spend season (post-Diwali, with decent monsoon and weddings). Revenue contractions will hit perennial industries such as FMCG and pharmaceuticals since people are cutting down on essentials and small items like chocolates and shampoo sachets are affected by lack of change. Patients are also postponing non-emergency procedures and tests. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) will debate an oil output cut of 4.0-4.5% for all of its members except Libya and Nigeria next week but the deal's success hinges on an agreement from Iraq and Iran, which are far from certain to give full backing. Three Opec sources told Reuters a gathering of experts from the oil producer group in Vienna had decided on Tuesday to recommend that a ministerial meeting on November 30 debate a proposal from member Algeria to reduce output by that amount. Such a cut would bring Opec's current output down by more ... Asserting that the Centre has made a string of announcements and statements since it unleashed the radical scheme of demonetisation, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Tuesday emphasised that this was exactly the opposite of the government's assertion of 'perfect planning'. "It has been 15 days now and the Finance Minister has assured that this was 100% perfect planning. If the planning was that perfect, then why has the Centre made 17 different announcements which are all to do with tinkering," TMC spokesperson Derek O'Brien said. Calling on all factions within the society to speak up against demonetisation, he further said that this was not just about politicians fighting for the poor people but a much larger issue as the economy at the moment was a complete mess. "Everyone needs to speak up including civil society and student. We as politicians are doing everything we can, but the corporate India needs to speak up because the economy is in a complete mess and this is a financial emergency," O'Brien said. Alleging that the Indian economy has already lost Rs. 3, 50,000 crore of GDP, he further said that demonetisation will affect each and every citizen within the nation. Meanwhile, the Opposition is set to go all out against the Centre in its battle against demonetisation by taking their case to President Pranab Mukherjee. The decision was made today in the meeting called by all Opposition parties and a time and date for the meeting with the President was sought. This new assault plan comes after the Opposition announced that it will protest on Wednesday outside the Parliament in front of the Gandhi statue. "Opposition parties jointly decided that around 200 MPs will hold dharna in front of Gandhi statue on Wednesday," O'Brien said. Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today chaired the crucial Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Parliamentary meeting, where a resolution was passed in favour of demonetisation. In the meeting, the Prime Minister Modi was lauded for the scheme and he asserted that his government had come in power for the service of the poor. The opposition has been clamouring for the Prime Minister's presence in the Parliament, saying that he has a moral obligation to answer the common man whose life has been thrown in turmoil because of demonetisation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP parliamentary party on Tuesday passed a unanimous resolution backing demonetisation and hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for this "historic announcement". Union Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu expressed confidence that this initiative would ensure that terrorist and extremist organisations no more enjoy financial support besides addressing the problem of counterfeit currency and checking unaccounted money in the system. "The parliamentary party hailed the historic, revolutionary move by the Prime Minister. It welcomes the historic announcement made by the Prime Minister with regard to the legal tender. The BJP acknowledges this as a project of cleansing the system of great significance that will result in behavioral attitudal change, encouraging honesty in person, public, in particular the political life of the country," he added. Naidu asserted that this move would benefit the poor and the common man in several ways. "The BJP parliamentary party compliments the government for its pro-active response. Over the last 70 years, the common man has grudgingly accepted the foul ways of those in power," said Naidu. "During the last 12 days, the poor and the common man of the country and the honest people have made the most profound statement ever made in India's history in recent times. They are queuing for better India," he added. Naidu alleged some minority dishonest people are exploiting the system to the detriment of the common man and poor. "Every major transformation initiative will result in some temporary inconvenience to start with. The initial pain leads to substantial gain. The BJP is grateful to the people of the country for their support to the government. It also compliments the employees of the banks for the hard work they are doing," he added. He further stated that the BJP condemns the malicious efforts by some political parties, desperate to provoke violence and chaos, having been rattled by the widespread support of the people to the government's initiative and bent upon disturbing the proceedings of Parliament. "At this crucial juncture, the political parties have to choose whether they would stand by the government and the people of India or protect the interest of the black money hoarders," he added. The Union Minister expressed hope that all the political parties would deliberate measures to eliminate the black money menace. "Then only the nation's interest will be served. The BJP parliamentary party congratulates the Prime Minister for his historic, pro-poor decision in the interest of the nation and calls upon for other measures to clean up the entire system," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today suspended Superintendent of Police and Station House Officer of Kishunpur Police Station after police resorted to lathi charge on farmers standing in queues for currency exchange at State Bank of India (SBI) in Kishanpur village of Fatehpur district in Uttar Pradesh. SBI branch manager Mahendar Kumar told ANI, "The law and order situation in the district has completely disrupted after the demonetisation move. The situation has become worse as the farmers, who were standing in queues for the exchange of currency, are being lathi charged by police, who were deployed for their safety." "The farmers were standing in queues, and the police resorted to lathi charge, which led to stampede, injuring three people," he added. Police officials remained tight-lipped in the matter so far. Meanwhile, a case has been registered against home guard Gulab Yadav. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Coming down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's emotional speech to the BJP lawmakers on demonetisation, the Congress on Tuesday said the former can't fool the nation by shedding crocodile tears, adding that he needs to start dealing with governance and stop selling dreams. Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told ANI it is high time that the Prime Minister must answer to the concerns of the nation post demonetisation. "The Prime Minister mocks at people of India in Japan. The Prime Minister makes fun of people whose daughters are getting married in Japan. From a chaiwala in Rajasthan, to a headmaster in Cooch Behar, all have died waiting in lines to withdraw money for their daughter's marriage," Surjewala said. "Now, the Prime Minister by shedding crocodile tears cannot fool this country. Modi ji needs to start dealing with governance. He should stop only selling dreams," he added. Surjewala asserted that platitudes and resorting to imponderables, rhetoric and sloganeering, jingoism and self back slapping is not the way forward. "The people of this country want simple answers to simple questions. 70 people have died in thirteen days on account of demonetisation decision. Will the Prime Minister apologise to those families as also to 125 crore people of India? You have withdrawn currency worth about 15-16 lakh crore. 2,300 crore notes will take seven months to print. Why did you not print in advance new notes before taking such a drastic decision of demonetisation?" he added. The Congress spokesperson further stated that Prime Minister Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley regrettably do not even know when the Rabi sowing season begins. "They are giving lectures today that Rabi season is about to begin. For heaven's sake, Prime Minister and Jaitley ji you must know Rabi season started 25 days ago. The sowing season is about to get over. A country where the Prime Minister and Finance Minister do not even know when is the wheat crop grown, how will that country tackle this crisis and how will agri-economy prosper?" he added. "As the entire country is up in arms on account of the abject failure in implementing demonetisation on the ground, there is a cozy club of back slapping and praising each other which is a handful of people like Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi and some of their crony capitalists. But this country will not be run by them," Surjewala stated. "Has Finance Minister ever gone to a field and understood the problem of a common agriculturist? I want to ask Arun Jaitley have you ever seen a farm labourer except payment in cheque or swiping debit cards? The truth is we have a Finance Minister who has no comprehension or knowledge about the diversity of this country. He only sits in air-conditioned rooms and in a make-believe world and give sermons to people of this country just like Modi j," he added. Escalating his attack, Surjewala said both the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister should come down from the high pedestal that they are sitting on and should really start understanding as to how the common Indian is suffering irreparably on account of economic emergency heaped upon them by unwitting decision of demonetisation. "It is like putting the cart before the horse. Modi ji if you needed suggestions on demonetisation 70 people would not have died. If you had taken valid suggestions on demonetisation, you would have gone to Dr. Manmohan Singh who did demonetisation, withdrew every 500 and 1,000 rupee note before 2005 and made sure that 3,61,000 crore of black money was taken off the ground but nobody even came to know about it," he added. Asserting that the Modi government is devising escape routes as now it has realized that it can neither go back nor go forward on demonetisation, Surjewala said escapism will not do rather real governance is the only solution. Earlier today, Prime Minister Modi asserted that the demonetization of high value currency is just a beginning of his government's deep and continuous struggle against black money. Addressing the BJP parliamentary party meeting here, the Prime Minister said the decision is in the interest of poor and middle class, adding that his government is dedicated to eradicate the evils of black money and corruption which have affected people in the last 70 years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Europe is also to blame for the escalation of the situation in the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact, Swedish MEP Soraya Post said in an interview with Armenpress. I did not expect this escalation at all and almost felt it was a very bad Aprils Fools joke when fighting broke out on April 1. Of course, the initial shock that made this eruption of violence so hard to believe very soon gave way for a sense of utter tragedy when a little Armenian boy was killed the next day and other children were wounded. But this tells us just how dangerous it is to have unresolved conflicts for more than 20 years. Obviously the situation was and is explosive with internal economic difficulties in Azerbaijan, an authoritarian and divisive Russia and a very similar development in Turkey. The EU peacemaking effort has not been successful in Nagorno Karabakh, she said. To the view whether it wasnt important to reveal who has started the attack, the MEP said it is more important to find a solution to the conflict. I do hope that the citizens of both countries take more control of political events and that democracy and human rights is fully implemented in the region. That is the only sustainable way to build peace, by ensuring freedom for all citizens in the region. The alternative to a political solution is a violent solution with military means. That is not an alternative for me. But I believe a political solution has to emanate from the parties and the citizens of both countries, it cannot be pushed through from the outside. I wish I knew the solution of this conflict, but as Ive said I think the solution needs to be brought to the table by the people involved. The citizens of Armenia and of Azerbaijan and the people of Nagorno Karabakh hold their own faith in their hands, she stated. To our question, what must be done to bring the guilty side to bear responsibility on atrocities committed against the NKR civilians, especially the elderly people, as well as the Defense Army soldiers during the April war, the MEP said. All crimes against human rights and atrocities of war should be brought to the International Court of Justice and the suspects should be tried. Interview by Syuzi Muradyan U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has unveiled plans for his first 100 days in office, promising as a first step to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, cancel environmental restrictions put in place by President Barack Obama, have the Labor Department investigate federal worker visas and impose broad new bans on lobbying by government employees. The six items that president elect unveiled are to some extent easy to go with as they require only Trump's signature and do not need Congressional approval. Some of the biggest promises made by Trump during his campaign including promises to build a wall along the Mexican border, establish a "deportation force," place new restrictions on immigration from some majority Muslim countries, repeal Obamacare and spend USD 1 trillion on infrastructure, were left out by him while announcing his plans. Republican measures could struggle in the Senate as Democrats will hold 48 seats next year, enough to block the measures. Trump has emphasized that his measures are completely focused on American workers. "Whether it's producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland: America -- creating wealth and jobs for American workers," CNN quoted President-elect Trump, as saying in the two-and-a-half-minute video statement. "As part of this plan, I've asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day one to restore our laws and bring back our jobs," he added. Trump said among his first actions would be to "issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Transpacific Partnership" and replace it with negotiating "fair bilateral trade deals." President- elect promised to "investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia in Mumbai in continuation to conduct various activities to developing bilateral relations and co-operation between Indonesia and India with the aim to promote the Trade, Tourism and Investment opportunities recently organized a Solo Exhibition entitled "EXPO INDONESIA 2016" at World Trade Centre (WTC), Mumbai on 11th and 12thNovember, 2016. Expo Indonesia 2016 was inaugurated by Subhash Desai, Minister of Industries, Government of Maharashtra and Saut Siringoringo - The Consul General of the Republic of Indonesia, Mumbai. The inaugural ceremony also had the presence of Indian Trade and Tourism Associations, leading Entrepreneurs and Indonesian Companies investing in India along with Indonesian communities residing under the jurisdiction of this mission. While addressing the gathering at Expo Mr. Desai said "Our Government will strive hard to strengthen and cultural relationships between Maharashtra state and Indonesia". 35 Indonesian companies took part in Expo Indonesia 2016, as exhibitors, featuring various products such as - Furniture, Paper, Health-Care Products, Food, Home-Care Products, Batik and Handicraft Products such as Handbags, Accessories etc. During Expo a series of events also were held such as Seminar on Trade and Investment, "Enhancing Trade and Investment Relations between Indonesia and India", Seminar on Tourism, "Experience Travel and Tourism in Wonderful Indonesia - An Endless Destination" , Launching of a book "Ganga to Mekong - A Cultural Voyage through Textiles" by Mrs. Hema Devare, wife of Mr. Sudhir Devare, Former Indian Ambassador to Indonesia, B2B Meetings for Trade and Investments, Table Top Meetings for Travel and Tourism Industry, Batik Painting Demo and Indonesian Food vendors. While speaking to media at Expo Mr. Saut Siringoringo said "Expo Indonesia 2016 is the second exhibition being organized by this mission after the last such event was organized in year 2007 in Mumbai. The Expo Indonesia 2016 is the continued efforts of the recent success leading a delegation of 130 business delegates from India attending the "Trade Expo Indonesia 2016", October 12-16, 2016 in Jakarta, Indonesia which was organized by the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Indonesia. The event resulted into a significant transaction of US $ 84 million, resulting into a 100 % increase compared to the year 2015." He further added "Indonesia and India enjoy a high level mutual beneficial relations. Implementation of ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA) has contributed a lot to increase the trade relations between the two countries. The average value of bilateral trade between Indonesia and India in last five years have been reaching to around US $16 billion." Indonesia Expo 2016 is also expected to further boost Indian tourists to Indonesia beyond Bali. An important note, at the first semester of 2016, the increased number of Indian tourists to Bali was 68%. The absence of direct flight from Indonesia to India since 1998 has considerably discouraged the increase of Indian tourist to visit Indonesia and vice versa. The number of Indonesian tourists coming to India and vice versa is very low. The connectivity between the two countries through opening direct flights will certainly increase tourism sector and people to people contacts. Indonesian National carrier 'Garuda Indonesia' has expressed interest to begin its flights on India routes by end of this year. India is one of the most important engines of the world's economic growth. The "Make in India" move is considered as a breakthrough to open the country's economy for investment. Indonesian companies are expected to invest in India to strengthen ties between both countries. The business partnership in sectors such as financing, automotive and textile must be increased and strengthened as both countries have such huge markets in those sectors. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that the Afghan government should develop a security plan to better protect minority Shia during high-profile public events. At least 32 worshippers, including children were killed and 50 others injured by a suicide bomber at a Shia mosque in Kabul during observance of the religious ceremony of Arbaein. Since July, a wave of sectarian suicide attacks has injured or killed more than 500 members of the Shia community. Insurgents who affiliate themselves with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for this attack, their fourth on gatherings by Afghanistan's Shia community since July 2016. The group also said they carried out two attacks during the Shia ceremony of Ashura on October 11, in Kabul, and on October 12, in the northern province of Balkh, that altogether killed at least 32 people. The group also claimed a July 23 attack against a demonstration by mainly Hazara Shia in Kabul, killing at least 85 and injuring 413, the deadliest attack in Afghanistan on civilians since 2002. "ISIS has stepped up its horrific and unlawful attacks on Shia public gatherings, making no place safe," said Patricia Gossman, senior Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The government, Shia leaders and civil society groups should work together to develop appropriate ways to improve security during vulnerable public and religious gatherings so that Shia community members can exercise their basic rights," he said. The security environment is worsening for all Afghans in the face of an intensifying insurgency, claiming high levels of civilian casualties as fighting increasingly happens in densely populated areas, Human Rights Watch said. However, the wave of targeted attacks on Shia Hazaras is largely attributable to the emergence of insurgent groups affiliated with ISIS, underscoring the increasing vulnerability of the Shia community beyond active battlefields and in urban areas under government control. The plight of Hazara Shia in neighboring Pakistan highlights the dangers of unhindered escalation of sectarian violence, Human Rights Watch said. Pakistan's besieged Hazara communities have faced targeted mass attacks by the extremist anti-Shia militant group Lashkar-e Jhangvi for more than a decade. Lashkar-e Jhangvi has already conducted attacks on large religious ceremonies in Afghanistan in 2011, when an attack on an Ashura gathering killed more than 60 people. Since then, other groups have adopted similar tactics in Afghanistan, including seeking out Hazara bus passengers and executing them, and attacking Shia places of worship. "Insurgents who are responsible for atrocities targeting a specific ethnic or religious community as part of an attack on a civilian population are committing crimes against humanity," Gossman said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Security forces neutralised two terrorists in an encounter on Tuesday in Bandipora, Jammu and Kashmir. The Army and the police in a joint operation had cordoned off the area to smoke out the two terrorists who were holed up and had opened fire, thus engaging in a heavy gunbattle early in the morning. A combing operation is underway to ensure no untoward elements are still present in the area. Earlier, a BSF head constable was killed and three other army men were injured in the early hours of Monday after Pakistani Army resorted to heavy cross-border firing in Rajouri sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Since the surgical strike on terrorist launch pads in PoK on September 29, there have been a staggering 286 incidents of firing and shelling along the LoC and the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistani troops, which have resulted in the death of 26 people, including 14 security personnel. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Connecting portal that enables women on a professional break to restart their careers and achieve full potential JobsForHer has announced a comprehensive mentorship programme 'Speed Mentoring Roadshow' to equip women with proper industry guidance before they re-launch their career. The event will begin from November 28th, 2016 and will be held on six consecutive days in six different cities. JobsForHer is partnering with BackToTheFront and ExtraMile. Each event will witness participation from key industry leaders from diverse fields like IT, FMCG, Education, E-commerce, Media, etc. Additionally, it will be an excellent networking opportunity for women on a professional break as they re-launch their career in an informed manner. This is a combined outreach and talent-hunt initiative for companies who care about strengthening their workforce in more ways than one. "While studying hiring trends in India, we observed that most companies find it difficult to recruit experienced, qualified, and diverse talent within the female workforce. One of the biggest reasons for this scenario is the fact that most women in our country are forced to sacrifice a promising career to take up other responsibilities that are limited to their family and household," said Co-Founder JobsForHer, Neha Bagaria. "These days, many individuals seek out mentors in the corporate world, who can give them a sense of purpose, direction, and inspiration in their careers. Inspired by such facts, we decided to provide women re-launchers with a one-of-a-kind mentorship opportunity in partnership with JobsForHer and ExtraMile, which can benefit them in the long run. It is a unique symbiosis of giving/receiving knowledge and self-fulfillment for working people, in what is otherwise a selfish, rat-race world," said Founder and Director BackToTheFront, Anjali Gulati. Recognized and respected industry leaders like Anuja Kishore (Director-Human resources) TeachForIndia, Jaya Virwani, D&I Head, EY Global Delivery Services, and many more will address groups of up to 10 women for 15 minutes each, before moving on to the next set, at the venue. In those 15 minutes, participants attending the event will receive insights and advice on how to pursue and achieve their career goals after coming off of a break, and will also get to ask the mentors questions about their personal career paths. Furthermore, mentors from various industries will get to spot talent during these speed mentoring sessions as well as contribute to mobilizing the country's latent workforce in a drive to boost India's economy like never before. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Looks like the long wait will soon be over for the fans of Kim Kardashian, who has been pictured flying out of Los Angeles ahead of her first public appearance since her robbery ordeal. The 36-year-old star and mother-of-two, who was held at gunpoint in her apartment during 'Paris Fashion Week', is set to walk the red carpet at Denise Rich's 'Angel Ball' in New York, reports mirror.co.uk. "She is expected to appear," an insider disclosed. Another source added that last week people were working on "convincing" her to come. "She would join the family on stage to accept the award, but who knows if she will speak for the family," the source informed. Pictures published by the Daily Mail show the 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians' star climbing onboard a flight in California, just hours after her husband Kanye West cancelled a concert in LA following an onstage meltdown. West has since scrapped a number of dates on his 'Saint Pablo' tour. Reportedly, Kardashian will join her brother Rob Kardashian and sisters Kourtney Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian, along with their mother Kris Jenner at the event, where the family will honour her late father, Robert Kardashian. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Mental Healthcare Bill, 2016 will come up for consideration and passage in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, where Union Health Minister JP Nadda will move the Bill to provide for mental healthcare and services for persons with mental illness and protect, promote and fulfill the rights of such persons during delivery of mental healthcare and services. In the Rajya Sabha, The Employee's Compensation (Amendment) Bill, 2016 will come up for consideration and passage. The Bill, seeking to amend the Employee's Compensation Act, 1923 has been passed by the Lok Sabha. The HIV and AIDS (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2014 is also scheduled to be tabled in the Rajya Sabha. Nadda will move the Bill to provide for the prevention and control of the spread of HIV and AIDS. It will also protect the human rights of persons affected by the virus. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday accused the opposition parties of creating unwarranted ruckus in Parliament and alleged that those opposing the demonetisation drive don't have anything concrete against the move. Prasad said that people, who are avoiding the debate on demonetisation, are those running away from truth. "We expect the opposition to participate in the debate. But I would like to ask that we did have a debate on the 16th, it went on for the whole day. But it was stalled why? After that all started speaking, Ghulam Nabi Azad spoke, Anand Sharma spoke, Mayawati spoke, Sitaram Yechury spoke but the next day the debate did not take place," said Prasad. "They started asking for the Prime Minister, they began demanding for a JPC. I would like to assert that they don't have any statement to make, they don't have answers and that is why they are running away from a debate," he added. The Union Minister further said avoiding debate means avoiding the truth. "I would like to appeal to the opposition to debate on any topic in Parliament. We are ready to answer all questions. We are ready to face criticism," he added. The Lok Sabha earlier today witnessed tumultuous scenes as a united opposition stuck to its demand to discuss the demonetisation issue under rules entailing voting. As soon as the House assembled, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge reiterated that the Question Hour should be suspended to start the discussion. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, however, did not allow the suspension. Opposition members belonging to the Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Samajwadi Party trooped into the well of the House raising slogans against the government. Amid the din, the Speaker adjourned the House till noon. Similar scenes were witnessed in the Rajya with the opposition demanding the Prime Minister's presence in the House and payment of compensation to those who died of trauma while queuing up before banks and ATMs following demonetisation of high value currency notes. The House was adjourned twice till noon as Opposition repeatedly trooped into the well. Earlier today, Prime Minister Modi asserted that the demonetization of high value currency is just a beginning of his government's deep and continuous struggle against black money. Addressing the BJP parliamentary party meeting here, the Prime Minister said the decision is in the interest of poor and middle class, adding that his government is dedicated to eradicate the evils of black money and corruption which have affected people in the last 70 years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Afghan Security Forces have arrested the explosives expert of the Taliban militant group in the eastern Nangarhar province. The Nangarhar police said that the security forces confiscated a suicide bombing vest and various other types of explosives from the house of the detained militant, reports the Khaama Press. The police said that the detained Taliban expert has been identified as Ghulam Akbar who is originally a resident of Rodat distrit of Nangarhar. The official statement said that Akbar was previously wounded in a premature explosion and resumed his operations to manufacture improvised explosive devices after he recovered. He is currently in the custody of the security forces and an investigation is underway. The Taliban has not commented regarding the report so far. The Taliban militants and insurgents belong to other militant groups frequently use homemade improvised explosive devices to target the security forces and government officials and employees. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vedanta Limited On Tuesday in a listing with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) announced the appointment of Chief Financial Officer, Arun Kumar GR as a Director of the company and Bhumika Sood as Company Secretary and Key Management Personnel (KMP) with effect 23 November 2016. "The appointments reflect the focus of Vedanta towards empowering our professionals and developing in-house talent. We adhere to global best practices in people management with effectively giving opportunities to learn, lead and evolve as a professional," said CEO Vedanta Limited, Tom Albanese. Arun was appointed Chief Financial Officer on September 30th, 2016 from his role of Executive Vice President Finance and Deputy CFO. Arun joined Vedanta in 2013 as CFO for the company's Aluminum and Power . He has over 21 years of experience at global companies. Bhumika is currently Deputy Company Secretary and Compliance Officer. She has over 12 years of experience in multi-disciplinary areas of core secretarial, regulatory and compliance function. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani caviar diplomacy became a criminally punishable act for the first time. The Italian Rai TV Channel published a report on Italian MP Luca Volontes pro-Azerbaijani activity and bribery, reports Armenpress The report says the Milan Police and Prosecution launched a criminal case against Luca Volonte in February, 2016, who is a former MP of the Christian-Democratic Party and is the former Chairman of the EPP faction at PACE. Volonte is accused of taking a bribe of 2.4 million Euros from Azerbaijan in 2012-2013. Instead, he was being used by official Baku in the Italian Parliament and the PACE. Head of the Azerbaijani delegation at PACE Elkhan Suleymanov transferred the money to Volonte, and the coordination works were carried out by the Brussels-based Azerbaijani lobbying organization. The criminal case launched against Volonte is comprised of two parts: Bribery and money laundering. It is important to state that Volonte keeps silent and refuses to talk with the investigators. The report prepared by the Italian Rai TV Channel includes a wide geography, being shot in Rome, Milan, Strasbourg, Brussels, Nagorno Karabakh, as well as in Yerevan. The shooting crew was not allowed to enter Baku. The Azerbaijani leadership explained their such decision with a reason that in 1992 editor-in-chief of a shooting program was making a report in Nagorno Karabakh bringing facts about bombarding the civilian targets by Azerbaijan. Although the shooting crew was unable to enter Baku, they used in the report the interviews with the former Azerbaijani political prisoners, including also the interview with Khadija Ismayilova. A group of Italian MPs also have speeches in the report with explosive content. Head of Italy-Azerbaijan friendship group was also interviewed. He ends the interview by stating that if journalists are jailed in Italy for several months, the large part of their issues will be considered as solved. In the report there are also references to the Four-day war in April, 2016. The report says this is the first criminal case in the PACE countries under the topic of caviar diplomacy. Volonte has not been re-elected in the 2013 October elections, thereafter, the Azerbaijani side has changed its caviar target. A2Z Green Waste Management to settle debt obligation aggregating Rs 416.18 crore A2Z Infra Engineering announced that the Company's subsidiary Company A2Z Green Waste Management (previously known as A2Z Infrastructure) ("A2Z Green"), has on 19 November 2016, agreed to a framework with one of its lenders for a settlement of its various debt obligation aggregating to INR 416.18 crore. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Minister of Civil Aviation, Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati, remarked that with new civil aviation policy in place and other associated reforms accompanying it, the civil aviation sector would emerge to serve the un-served at affordable pace. Minister of Civil Aviation, Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati reassured the Indian civil aviation industry, emphasizing that the government of the day is exploring all possibilities for capacity expansion of leading airports in the country as well doing its best to make sure that the regional air connectivity is accomplished as per its UDAAN initiative. The Minister also stressed that though the domestic civil aviation industry has been growing at a rate of more than 20% in the last few years, admitting that higher passenger growth in civil aviation sector is still a challenge for the government which could be won with addition of capacities in India's leading airports. Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati also emphasized that the cargo sector of Indian civil aviation though has developed but needed further expansion and development since the industry as such has been growing over 20% per annum and hoped that this growth rate would even exceed in times to come in view of India's economic potential with its high appetite for higher growth. Minister of State, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Mr. Jayant Sinha asked civil aviation industry to grow in such a manner so that its passenger traffic, currently estimated at about 150 million for domestic and overseas sector multiplies manifold and catches on pace with the air traffic of China which presently is calculated at 500 million per annum. In order to achieve this objective, the ministry has been adopting three pronged strategy under its UDAAN commitment which includes expansion of airports capacities, ensure regional connectivity and equip the air passenger with better level of satisfaction and experience under its Air Sewa initiative, emphasized the minister adding that the government would do all possible to transform the civil aviation sector. Secretary, Civil Aviation, Rajiv Nayan Choubey, reiterated the government commitment for higher growth of civil aviation sector with all possible government's initiatives in partnership spirit, adding that by December 2016 dozen of schedule commercial operations could begin to connect small towns in the country under its regional connectivity drive. Minister, Government of Ireland, Pat Breen emphasized that India and Ireland should have stronger partnership to expand India's civil aviation sector as his country is one of the global leaders in this sector, particularly on leasing out operations in which Ireland has already established its hegemony. Chairman Civil Aviation Committee, PHD Chamber, K Narayana Rao proposed to the government to bring in civil aviation sector under priority lending scheme of the government, especially for acquiring smaller air crafts for enhanced regional air connectivity. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) AXIS Bank rose 0.86% to Rs 469.85 at 9:24 IST on BSE after the bank said it proposes to raise upto Rs 1800 crore through unsecured redeemable non-convertible subordinated debentures. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 21 November 2016. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 232.51 points, or 0.90%, to 25,997.65. On BSE, so far 25,000 shares were traded in the counter, compared with average daily volume of 7.01 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 471 and a low of Rs 467.90 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 638 on 7 September 2016. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 366.65 on 18 January 2016. The stock had underperformed the market over the past 30 days till 21 November 2016, falling 11.54% compared with the 8.23% decline in the Sensex. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 20% as against Sensex's 7.95% decline. The large-cap private sector bank has equity capital of Rs 478.17 crore. Face value per share is Rs 2. AXIS Bank said it proposes to raise funds by issuing unsecured redeemable non-convertible subordinated debentures (Basel- III compliant Tier II debentures) (Series - 25) of the face value of Rs 10 lakh each for cash at par aggregating to Rs 1800 crore. The board of directors of the bank will consider the proposal to issue and allot the above securities through circular resolution. Axis Bank's net profit declined 83.3% to Rs 319.08 crore on 14.1% growth in operating income to Rs 13698.77 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. Axis Bank is one of the biggest private sector banks in India. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bliss GVS Healthcare wins three year contract from Aon Kenya Insurance Brokers Bliss GVS Healthcare, the Kenyan step down subsidiary of Bliss GVS Pharma has won a three year contract worth Rs 111.40 million from Aon Kenya Insurance Brokers for provision of Medical Healthcare Services in Kenya. This contract covers outpatient services for over 304,060 members. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In association with France's premier design school - ECV Mukta Arts announced that its subsidiary, Whistling Woods International has launched its latest venture Whistling Woods International School of Design in association with ECV, a leading school of Design in France. The School will offer India's first full time Degree program in Visual and Communication Design in association with Tata Institute of Social Science. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shoppers Stop rose 1.44% to Rs 298.60 at 13:51 IST on BSE after the company informed that it has opened one MAC door at Inorbit Mall, Malad, Mumbai. The announcement was made during market hours today, 22 November 2016. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 64.18 points or 0.25% at 25,829.32 Meanwhile, a bulk deal of 3 lakh shares was executed on the counter at Rs 295 per share at 09:51 IST on BSE. Bulk deal boosted volume on the Shoppers Stop scrip. On BSE, so far 3.42 lakh shares were traded in the counter as against average daily volume of 933 shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 301 and a low of Rs 292 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 422 on 23 December 2015. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 290.15 on 21 November 2016. The stock had underperformed the market over the past 30 days till 21 November 2016, sliding 19.59% compared with the 8.23% decline in the Sensex. The scrip also underperformed the market in past one quarter, declining 19.54% as against Sensex's 7.95% decline. The small-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 41.75 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5. With the opening of the latest store, the company has now 41 MAC doors under its operations, Shoppers Stop said. MAC stands for Make-up Art Cosmetics. MAC is a leading brand of professional cosmetics, created in Toronto, Canada in 1984 to support the special needs of professional makeup artists - a collection of colors, products and tools that meet the demanding lighting and studio conditions under which the pros work. Shoppers Stop's net profit fell 11.06% to Rs 10.69 crore on 7.14% growth in net sales to Rs 939.53 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. Shoppers Stop runs department stores that sell apparel, cosmetics and fashion accessories. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vedanta rose 3.07% to Rs 203.10 at 10:31 IST on BSE ahead of the company's board meeting later today, 22 November 2016, to consider raising Rs 300 crore by issuing rated secured redeemable non-convertible debentures. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 119.70 points, or 0.46%, to 25,884.84. On BSE, so far 4.06 lakh shares were traded in the counter, compared with average daily volume of 11.33 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 204.85 and a low of Rs 199.10 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 233.65 on 10 November 2016. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 58.10 on 12 February 2016. The stock had outperformed the market over the past 30 days till 21 November 2016, falling 3.10% compared with the 8.23% decline in the Sensex. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 13.15% as against Sensex's 7.95% decline. The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 296.47 crore. Face value per share is Re 1. On a consolidated basis, Vedanta's net profit rose 17.14% to Rs 1252.13 crore on 4.13% decline in net sales to Rs 15665.64 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. Vedanta is a diversified natural resources company, whose business primarily involves producing oil & gas, zinc - lead - silver, copper, iron ore, aluminium and commercial power. The company has a presence across India, South Africa, Namibia, Australia and Ireland. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vedanta rose 4.26% to Rs 205.45 at 14:23 IST on BSE after the company said that it has received board's approval to raise Rs 300 crore through issue of non-convertible debentures. The announcement was made during market hours today, 22 November 2016. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 154.12 points, or 0.60%, to 25,919.26. On BSE, so far 8.18 lakh shares were traded in the counter, compared with average daily volume of 11.33 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 206.20 and a low of Rs 199.10 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 233.65 on 10 November 2016. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 58.10 on 12 February 2016. The stock had outperformed the market over the past 30 days till 21 November 2016, falling 3.10% compared with the 8.23% decline in the Sensex. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 13.15% as against Sensex's 7.95% decline. The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 296.47 crore. Face value per share is Re 1. Vedanta announced that it has received board's approval to raise Rs 300 crore through issue of 3,000 secured redeemable non-cumulative non-convertible debentures (NCDs) of face value of Rs 10 lakh each. The tenure of the NCDs is three years and five months from the date of allotment, while date of maturity is 22 April 2020. Crisil has assigned 'AA-/Stable' rating to the said instrument. In a separate announcement today, 22 November 2016, the company said that the board has approved the appointment of chief financial officer Arjun Kumar GR as a whole-time director of the company and Bhumika Sood as company secretary. The appointments reflect the focus of Vedanta towards empowering its professionals and developing in-house talent, said, Tom Albanese, CEO, Vedanta. On a consolidated basis, Vedanta's net profit rose 17.14% to Rs 1252.13 crore on 4.13% decline in net sales to Rs 15665.64 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. Vedanta is a diversified natural resources company, whose business primarily involves producing oil & gas, zinc - lead - silver, copper, iron ore, aluminium and commercial power. The company has a presence across India, South Africa, Namibia, Australia and Ireland. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 244 people were killed in the past one week in attacks in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, a British war monitor said on Tuesday. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 25 people have died in the past 24 hours, EFE news reported. At least 228 people were killed in airstrikes carried out by military planes and helicopters in the eastern districts of Aleppo, as regime forces closed in on opposition rebel fighters. Among those killed in the city's east, at least 141 were civilians, 87 were fighters and another 16 remain to be identified. Meanwhile, at least 16 people died in west Aleppo, including 10 school children, in attacks on areas controlled by government forces. The monitor said the number of victims could increase taking into account the many injured. The NGO pointed out the lack of medical supplies and staff in east Aleppo, where four hospitals were out of operation between Friday and Saturday due to damages. There were some health centres open in east Aleppo, according to the observatory, after the World Health Organisation and Aleppo health directorate declared the closure of all hospitals in the area over the weekend. The WHO said over 250,000 civilians lacked access to healthcare, though some small clinics were attending patients. After a three-week cease-fire, attacks resumed on November 15 in the eastern part of the city. --IANS py/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chinese archaeologists have found molecular evidence of the protein keratin in a bird fossil from the Cretaceous Period 130 million years ago, which may provide clues about the colour of feathered dinosaurs and early birds. The research paper by experts with the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology was published by America's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported. Pan Yanhong, a leading researcher with the programme, said they discovered the molecular structure of a protein that determines feather colour in the bird fossil. According to the study, these molecular structures are preserved in fossils and are consistent with modern feathers. Researchers hope the study will lead to hypotheses about dinosaur colour, behaviour, habitat and physiology. It was the oldest molecular evidence found in bird fossils. Previously, the molecular structure of the protein had only been found in fossils dating back some 80 million years. The bird that experts used in the research is one of the earliest fossils found in China. The Cretaceous bird, named Eoconfuciusornis, was discovered in north China's Hebei province in 2008. --IANS py/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Talks around the Armenia-EU framework agreement are proceeding quite successful. The next stage of the negotiations are set to be held in December, Ambassador of Germany to Armenia H.E. Matthias Kiesler said. An active process is observed after a somewhat passive summer stage of talks. In terms of when it will be singed I cant say, however there is a signal from the Armenian side that the agreement most probably will be signed in spring of next year. Just the fact that such an agreement will be signed is already a success. It is a signal from Armenia to Europe that it wants to go by the path of modernization, reforms, and that the EU is an important partner on that path. I am convinced that the EU, as well as separate member states are even more interested in making new signals for this cooperation, this to-be-signed agreement, the Ambassador said. The Ambassador underscored that it is this kind of news that can contribute to European businessmen to realize their projects in Armenia. Regarding visa free regime with the EU, the Ambassador said he accepts the desire of Armenian citizens to travel to Europe without procedures, however its not yet clear when the dialogue will start with Europe. As an advice, relying on previous experience, I can say that several pre-conditions exist for facilitating visa procedures. Meaning prior to launching official dialogue on visa facilitation the given country can take several steps. It will ease the process of passing to official path, he added. Asked about the expansion of the capacities of OSCE Personal Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk, and introduction of investigative mechanisms (NKR), the Ambassador said: The subject is important not only for the German chairmanship of OSCE, but also personally for Steinmeier. The German chairmanship will use the remaining time for finding complete solutions of this issue. More than 50 AAP leaders including Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia were on Tuesday detained here by police after a protest march against demonetisation. Sisodia was later released. Aam Aadmi Party leader Dilip Pandey said "52 to 53" party leaders including ministers and MLAs were detained at the Parliament Street police station in the heart of the city. The detention took place after some 400 to 500 AAP leaders and activists marched from near the Jantar Mantar monument towards Parliament, shouting slogans including "Note nahin, PM badlo" (Not currency, change the PM). As they reached the police barricades outside the police station, about a kilometre ahead of Parliament, Sisodia gave a speech hurling corruption allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said the November 8 demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes had caused misery to the common people while, he alleged, pleasing the friends of the Prime Minister. Among those detained were ministers Gopal Rai and Satyendar Jain as well as many AAP members of the Delhi assembly. "Sisodia has been detained along with some AAP leaders and supporters," Deputy Commissioner of Police Jatin Narwal earlier told IANS. The AAP has come out strongly against demonetisation, saying the currency spike was a scam aimed at bailing out corporate houses that had borrowed heavily from banks. --IANS vv/mr/sar (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Egyptian court on Tuesday overturned the life sentence of former President Mohamed Morsi in the Hamas espionage case and ordered a retrial, the media reported. The Court of Cassation, the highest degree court in Egypt, has ordered that Morsi and 21 co-defendants, including the supreme guide of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie, will also be retried, Xinhua news agency reported. Morsi was sentenced to life imprisonment for 25 years in June last year for allegedly delivering secret documents to Palestinian group Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah group and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The court last week overturned the only death sentence against Morsi in a jailbreak case. Morsi no longer faces execution. Morsi, the first democratically elected President after the 2011 revolution, was overthrown by the army in response to mass protests against his one year rule in July 2013. The ousted President has received several jail sentences in other cases related to spying and espionage, against which he has appealed. --IANS py/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi Police has arrested eight persons, including two women, allegedly for theft, including pickpocketing, in the ongoing exhibition at India International Trade Fair grounds here, police said on Tuesday. In one of the incidents reported on Sunday, two women were arrested while they were trying to take out things from the bag of a Smriti Thakur, wife of Rear Admiral Kapil Tikku, police said. "The accused women Asha (40) and Sanjana (35) were arrested under sections 379, 511 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code at the IITF police station and will be presented in court," Deputy Commissioner of Police Trade Fair Kumar Gyanesh said. Separately, an inter-state gang of pickpockets was busted and three persons were arrested. The gang members travelled all the way from Punjab to rob visitors at the fair. The accused persons were identified as Vishwanath (40), Kunal (20) and Kailash (45). As a preventive measure, police staff has been deployed in civil dress at IITF. --IANS sp/lok/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's selection for White House chief strategist, on Sunday said that he was an "economic nationalist" and he rejects racist and anti-Semitic elements of the nationalist alt-right movement. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bannon, cast himself as a strident opponent of "globalism" -- including free trade deals that Trump has bemoaned, CNN reported. "I'm an economic nationalist. I am an America first guy," Bannon was quoted as saying. "And I have admired nationalist movements throughout the world, have said repeatedly strong nations make great neighbours. I have also said repeatedly that the ethno-nationalist movement, prominent in Europe, will change over time. I've never been a supporter of ethno-nationalism," he added. Bannon said that "the black working and middle class and the Hispanic working and middle class, just like whites, have been severely hurt by the policies of globalism." He noted that he had urged Trump to reach out to minority communities on the campaign trail. "I was the one who said we are going to Flint, Michigan, we are going to black churches in Cleveland, because the thrust of this movement is that we are going to bring capitalism to the inner cities," Bannon said in the interview. --IANS sku/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day on Tuesday as the opposition noisily protested against the demonetisation, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of behaving like a dictator and pushing ordinary people into hardship. The House witnessed uproarious scene as a united opposition reiterated its demand to discuss the demonetisation issue under the rule which entails voting. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge reiterated the demand to suspend Question Hour and start the discussion but Speaker Sumitra Mahajan did not permit it. She urged them not to disturb the Question Hour but the opposition parties continued their protest. A miffed Mahajan said it was not fair to disrupt the House and urged the slogan-shouting opposition leaders to take their seats and let the Question Hour continue. As Minister of State for Home Affair Kiren Rijiju rose to reply questions related to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, opposition members led by the Congress and Trinamool Congress rushed towards the Speaker's podium demanding an adjournment motion. "Don't disturb the minister. You cannot disturb the minister. It is not the proper way to raise the issue concerning the common people," Mahajan said. But the opposition did not relent and continued shouting slogans: "Modi sarkar hosh me aao" and "Modi teri tanashahi nahi chalegi, nahi chalegi". Mahajan then adjourned the House till 12 and said: "It pains when elected representatives behave like this." When the House at 12 noon, opposition members including from the Congress, TMC, Samajwadi party and Nationalist Congress Party trooped towards the Speaker shouting slogans. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the people of the country were with the November 8 demonetisation decision. "Go and see the sense outside. People are with the government over demonetisation. We are ready to discuss the matter. As and when the chair orders, we are ready to discuss the matter," Kumar said. Kharge countered and said the opposition too was ready for a debate. He sought Modi's presence in the House. "We want a discussion because the poor, farmers, labourers are dying. Marriages are breaking up. Lives are being spoiled," Kharge said. TMC leader Sudip Bandopadhyay urged the chair to rise on the occasion and allow the discussion under the rule which entails voting. "What is the harm in discussing under voting provisions? Why is the government shying away? If House is not running, the ruling party is also responsible for it," he said. Kumar rose to respond and reiterated that the government was always ready to discuss the issue -- in Parliament and outside. "We have won the Shahdol and Lakhimpur Lok Sabha constituency seats. What is the signal? People's voice is clear. They are against black money and corruption," he said. As the opposition parties didn't relent and continued their protests, the Speaker adjourned the House for the day. --IANS bns/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, addressing the inauguration of an International Defence Exhibition and Seminar here on Tuesday, reiterated Pakistan's commitment to discourage an arms race in the region. "We pursue the motive of 'Arms for peace', which is the tagline of IDEAS," Nawaz Sharif said at the Karachi Expo Centre. The International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) is being participated by 418 firms from 34 countries. It is a biennially held defence exhibition which brings together the defence industry's players across the globe to showcase latest technological innovations. The defence industries of Turkey, China, Russia, North America, South America, Europe and Asia will have a significant presence at the exhibition, which has 157 Pakistani firms participating. "This time 9 more countries are visiting and participating in IDEAS. These include Luxembourg, Denmark, Belarus, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belgium, Romania and Nigeria," a statement said. Nawaz Sharif jointly inaugurated the exhibition, which is set to run from Nov 22-25, alongside outgoing Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif. "Pakistan's ever growing defence industry is in quest for seeking international alliances to meet the requirements of its armed forces and growing needs of the regional defence forces," a statement posted on the IDEAS website explains why it was held in Pakistan. "Pakistan's own defence products present a perfect mix of indigenous and foreign technologies thus offering an ideal platform for defence collaboration." Besides showcasing of products, there will be several high-level meetings among foreign delegates, key government officials and participants on the sidelines of the four-day IDEAS for forging alliances in defence production. An important international defence seminar will be held at a hotel on Nov 22. Although Chinese and Turkish defence industries will have a significant presence, Russia is participating in the event this time in a big way. --IANS ahm/rn (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Marking a complete U-turn in their stance on demonetisation, a delegation of Shiv Sena MPs on Tuesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and lauded the move as "a bold and historic decision" and assured of their full support. The MPs, who called on the Prime Minister in his Parliament House office, stated that they are with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). "Our MPs had a good meeting with the Prime Minister. The delegation assured him that we are all in the NDA," a senior party leader told IANS here. "Nothing much or politically significant should be read in the Sena participating in the march to Rashtrapati Bhavan with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee," he added. However, the delegation led by the party's floor leader in Rajya Sabha, Sanjay Raut, urged the Prime Minister "to make judicious use of the dense network of cooperative banks and allow them to participate in the demonetisation drive". According to sources, during the meeting, Modi also recalled the BJP's long association with the Shiv Sena. In fact the Shiv Sena, once a regional outfit in Maharashtra, has been the first ally of BJP since the late 1980s. The two-page memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister, however, said that the "on-ground situation" in the last 13 days -- since the announcement to ban high denomination currencies -- has become "alarming". The letter signed, among others, by Sanjay Raut and party MPs like Anandrao Adsul (deputy leader of Sena in Lok Sabha), Chandrakant Khaire and Arvind Sawat, pointed out that as per the government directives, the rural and cooperative banks and credit societies are not eligible to handle currency exchange transactions. "A large section of our population, who don't have accounts in nationalised banks, has been put in a precarious situation after this move," the letter said. The Sena also demanded that the banned notes collected by various institutions in the cooperative sector in Maharashtra since demonetisation "be accepted by the nationalised banks". --IANS nd/nir/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indonesian police on Tuesday questioned Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama as suspect in blasphemy case over his comments against verses in the Quran in September. Basuki did not talk to the media shortly after his arrival at police headquarters for the questioning, Xinhua news agency reported. Basuki was not detained after being named suspect, but the police slapped a travel ban on him. Under Indonesia's law, Basuki may get up to six years' imprisonment and fine of one billion rupiah (about $74,493), should he be found guilty. Indonesian Police Headquarters Spokesperson Boy Rafly Amar said earlier that dossier over the case would be ready within one week of the suspect status slapped against Basuki. The dossier would later on be conveyed to the prosecutor office before the trial is conducted. Muslim hardliner groups are planning to deploy thousands of followers to hold more demonstrations to demand the detention of Basuki. Police Chief General Tito Karnavian has issued a warning that police would ban the demonstrations under safety concerns. Previous demonstrations demanding legal process against Basuki ended up in violence and vandalism that took one civilian life and injured dozens of others. --IANS py/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The ruling CPI-M-led Left Front on Tuesday wrested one assembly seat from the Congress and retained another in Tripura, increasing its tally in the 60-member assembly to 51. According to election department officials, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) wrested the Scheduled Caste Reserved Barjala seat and retained the Khowai assembly constituency, defeating their nearest rivals Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) respectively, in the by-polls held on November 19. In Barjala constituency CPI-M's youth leader Jhumu Sarkar defeated BJP's Shista Mohan Das, a former bureaucrat, by a margin of 3,374 Votes. Sarkar got 15,769 votes and Das secured 12,395 votes in the seat, an election department official said. The official said that in Khowai seat, CPI-M's Biswajit Datta trounced TMC's Manoj Das, a former Left leader, by a margin of 16,094 votes. Datta bagged 24,810 votes and Das managed 8,716 votes. Erstwhile, main opposition party in Left ruled Tripura, Congress candidates in both Barjala and Khowai secured distant fourth positions. The Barjala seat fell vacant after Congress legislator Jitendra Sarkar resigned on June 6 following an internal feud within the party while the Khowai seat has been vacant since the death of veteran CPI-M legislator Samir Deb Sarkar. Five candidates each contested from the two constituencies. Elections were held on Saturday with over 91 per cent of the 78,400 electorate casting their votes in the two politically important assembly constituencies. Once Tripura's main opposition party Congress' nominee and former Tripura government senior official Rajendra Kumar Das got only 1,063 votes in Barjala and the party's candidate Pranab Biswas secured a mere 696 votes in Khowai. In 2013 general assembly elections, defeating the Congress nominee, CPI-M candidate Samir Deb Sarkar had won the Khowai by a margin of 8,833 votes while Congress nominee Jitendra Sarkar had succeeded in Barjala defeating the CPI-M candidate by a margin of 261 votes. The CPI-M, a dominant partner of the ruling Left Front, secured the Khowai seat five consecutive times while the Left party intermittently won the Barjala seat several times. A former CPI-M legislator, Sarkar, who served as Speaker of the Tripura assembly twice in the past joined the Congress in March 2010 and won the seat in 2013 defeating the CPI-M nominee, resigned from the assembly membership a few months back. After internal feud in the Congress, he rejoined the CPI-M on June 6 this year after resigning from the assembly membership. Political analyst Sanjib Deb said the BJP has become an emerging political force in Tripura. "Due to split in main opposition Congress, the TMC has also become a significant political force in Left ruled Tripura," Deb told IANS. --IANS sc/rn (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russia on Tuesday accused the United Nations of sabotaging peace negotiations between the Syrian regime and rebels. Addressing a press conference in Minsk, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura had been sabotaging Resolution 2254, which stipulates the organisation of peace talks, Efe news agency reported. He said this left the Syrian government no choice but to accept the patriotic opposition's initiative and organise Syrian dialogue itself. According to Lavrov, Moscow would support the celebration of such talks in Damascus and opposition groups both in Syria and in exile were seriously studying the possibility. He said even the groups closest to Saudi Arabia were aware that refusing to negotiate until the beleaguered Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stepped down, was a dead end. At the end of April, the High Negotiation Committee -- the main Syrian opposition representative in Geneva -- abandoned the peace talks until Moscow and Damascus ceased all military operations in Aleppo. Russian aviation suspended its aerial attacks against Aleppo over a month ago, but last week launched a mass attack against Islamist positions in Syria. --IANS vgu/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. There are no reports of cyber attacks in Armenias banking system. The Central Bank confirmed this as result of additional surveys. The CB announced it has introduced the best international experience and technologies in providing safety and security in all systems under its jurisdiction and service. The CB systems are highly protected. For security reasons, the Central Bank recommends card holders to once again review safety regulations of ATM use. To avoid possible fraud, the CB urges to maintain basic safety rules. Particularly, the CB urges to avoid entering the PIN code in ATMs in the presence of strangers, refrain from using ATMs in case of malfunction or absence of bank logo on the screen, as well as when an additional layer is present on the keyboard. The CB also urges not to leave the card unattended when making a payment, and always check the bill. The Supreme Court has dismissed the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by the Income Tax department against Reliance Communications (RCOM) on taxing of the proceeds of Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds (FCCBs), treating it as 'unexplained cash credit, a company statement said here on Tuesday. The Supreme Court decision came on Monday. A Supreme Court bench of Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman passed the order dismissing the I-T department's SLP, in relation to the taxing of the FCCB proceeds, interest and derivatives income or loss thereon. "During financial year 2006-07, Reliance Communications had issued FCCBs, as per the extant guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India and applicable laws, aggregating $1.5 billion (Rs 6,485 crore). The Income-Tax department took the view to assessing the FCCB proceeds as 'unexplained cash credits' and had raised tax demands thereon," the company statement said. "The Supreme Court order has quashed contingent tax liability of for about Rs 4,800 crore. Earlier, the Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal and the Bombay High Court had also upheld RCOM's appeal against the order of the Income-Tax department," it added. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said that although there was potential for a peace treaty between Japan and Russia in the future, but given their World War II rift, the path forward would not be easy. Abe said this to the press in Buenos Aires late on Monday during an official visit to Argentina, Efe reported on Tuesday. He was discussing his recent meetings with other heads of state at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima. According to Abe, the two leaders -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and himself -- had reiterated their willingness earlier to talk to advance the signing of a peace treaty. "For 70 years, we have been unable to have a peace treaty. A way to concluding a peace treaty is coming into sight. But we must make one step at a time. It is not easy to take a big step ahead," said Abe. He said he looked forward to the Russian premier's next visit to Yamaguchi province in Japan, as well as creating a specific eight-section roadmap for economic cooperation. Japan hopes that a bilateral accord would resolve the dispute over the Northern Territories, four islands in the Kuril archipelago annexed by Moscow at the end of World War II in 1945 but claimed by Tokyo. "There has been no change to our existing position on the Northern Territories. The peace treaty issue cannot be solved with just one leaders' summit," he said. Abe insisted that developing trust would be key to any reconciliation with Russia. "I will be directly communicating with President Putin and make progress one solid step at a time," he said. On his meeting with US President Barack Obama, Abe said he valued the American leader's visit to Hiroshima, as it expressed powerful support for a global future free of nuclear weapons. The Japanese Prime Minister had also met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at APEC, a meeting that he said was brief but nevertheless improved bilateral relations. Abe, however, did not elaborate on the November 16 meeting in New York with US President-elect Donald Trump. He although had appealed for a "free and open" economy among countries and the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a US-driven initiative Trump vowed to scrap. "I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country," Trump said. --IANS in/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Several European stakeholders made their bids and shared views on how to make rural Indian youth more employable and increase their competence, on the second day of EU-India Skill Development Summit here on Tuesday. Speaking on the behalf of Rudoph Strahm, author of "Why They are So Poor: A Work Book for Development and Underdevelopment in the South", Nandini Nagar, a learning specialist in Switzerland, gave her insight into the reasons behind the economic and educational success there. "It's certainly not because of the banks," she said at the event. "They (banks) constitute only 5.8 per cent of the total GDP of the country. It's the vocational educational system of Switzerland, which allows youth to be well-trained before he hits the job market, which makes the country special," said Nagar, adding 80 per cent of Swiss youth goes to vocational training institutes under its VET (Vocational Education and Training) system, and only 20 per cent opt for universities after schooling. She also emphasized that lack of professional training is "the biggest poverty risk". "In India going to vocational colleges is considered a stigmaa electrician and plumbing are not the only vocational courses... we have vocational courses like mechanical engineering as well, among many others," she added. Another official from a major bank in Europe clarified that giving vocational training to young people by the industries should not be considered charity, but the most practical thing to do. "Everything involves a cost, so does the training of young people. But it has emerged that benefits outweigh the costs and make economic sense when we train people in the initial phase," said Clemens Weiland, Senior Project Manager, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany. Ajoy Kumar Singh, a Secretary to the Jharkhand Government, gave a run-down of the state's progress in recent years and made a bid to the training institutes to come and train people there. "From being ranked at 29th spot, we are ranked seventh now in terms of ease of doing business according to a survey done by World Bank. "In the coming few years we will be training 25 lakh individuals. We have decided to build 25 Mega-Skill Centres and bids are open for this. You won't have to make the capital investment, it will be done by the state," he added, wooing the entrepreneurs in training field. Organised in collaboration with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), the summit is a brainchild of the EIFE (Europe-India Foundation for Excellence), a Belgium-based foundation which has adopted Skill India as its own mission. The Summit was kick-started Monday with EIFE Chairperson Count Christopher de Breza had said: announcing that they "have identified the partners in the European Union who can contributea and we have brought them to New Delhi, face to face with their Indian counterparts who are looking for help in exactly these areas". --IANS vn/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Contrary to the claims of Tata Sons, the operations of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) were not on auto-pilot but were overseen by Cyrus Mistry, the ousted Chairman's office said on Tuesday. For the first time, Mistry, without naming any individual, said it was ego that had caused the Tata Group to suffer a huge unnecessary premia on the purchase of Corus Steel. "The Tata Sons statement of 10th November 2016 insinuated that Cyrus Mistry had made no 'material contributions' to the success of TCS and JLR, which the statement implied were a manifestation of Ratan Tata's personal vision and efforts," the five-page statement from Mistry's office said. "Ideally, a leader must not need to quote such data in defence. Yet, it is important to set the record straight since insinuations and leaks are being made explicitly to create an illusion that Mistry was a 'hands off' Chairman and TCS/JLR were on 'auto-pilot' during his leadership." "While Tata Sons, under the leadership of Ratan Tata, is busy apportioning credit and blame for the performance of operating companies, Mistry wishes to place on record his appreciation for the hard work done by the leadership teams of those companies, who in Tata's opinion have shown less than stellar performance -- the 'hotspots'," the statement said. According to the statement, Mistry as the non-executive Chairman of TCS, was primarily involved in 'future-proofing' the company's strategy. "The high dependence on TCS in the Tata Sons portfolio is a well-known fact. This was repeatedly flagged in strategy presentations to the Tata Sons Board by Mistry. Apart from strengthening other group companies, Mistry maintained that keeping TCS strong and relevant is critical," the statement said. The statement mentioned that TCS's joint venture in Japan and industry leading growth in Europe are all part of a longer term strategy to ensure resilience. "The board and the management explored cyber security, health, bio informatics and deep learning. Acquisition of companies with capabilities in these spaces and others required TCS to have available a reservoir of cash," the statement from Mistry's office said. "Hence, one of the first items for Mr. Mistry on his joining the TCS Board was to focus the management on reducing the gap between profits and cash." On JLR, the statement elaborated that the company's strategy under Mistry's Chairmanship was to achieve scale as well as minimise currency and supply chain risks by investing in new facilities. "Its lack of scale required it to invest disproportionately compared to the industry in new technologies that will help meet the regulatory requirements and differentiate its products. This has been done without leveraging the balance sheet and retaining adequate liquidity," the statement said. "The result is a stronger company that will reward the shareholders more consistently in the future." Mistry's office further said that the Tata Gourp's ousted Chairman was closely associated with JLR, its strategy meetings and design reviews. "Between 2012-16, Mistry spent over 120 days including 38 days on JLR design review, 56 days on offsite strategy meetings as well as market visits to dealers in China, USA, and India. The above does not include the time devoted to board and budget meetings." The statement from Mistry's office observed that ego issues had caused the Tata Group to suffer a huge unnecessary premia on the purchase of Corus Steel. "It is common knowledge that the decision to acquire Corus for over USD 12 billion, when only a year earlier it was available at less than half that price, was based on one man's ego and against the reservations of some board members and senior executives," the statement said. "The overpayment made it harder to invest in the acquired assets which had been neglected, and thereby, placed many jobs at risk." The statement also recalled a similar incident in which CDMA (code division multiple access) system was chosen as the platform for the group's telecom business. "Similarly, in November 2003, Mr. Tata, against the advice of many of his own team members, decided to back CDMA as the platform for the group's telecom business," the statement said. "This 'strategic' decision has led to a series of consequences that currently leave the company structurally challenged. Once again, one person's judgment adversely affected the jobs of thousands." Mistry's office recounted that TCS, the industrial conglomerate's IT bellwether, had a 'near death experience' at the hands of Ratan Tata. "When one talks about vision and near death experiences, it is worth recounting a little known fact. Midway during the TCS journey to date, F.C. Kohli was suffering from a cardiac condition. Ratan Tata was then heading Tata Industries' joint venture with IBM and approached JRD Tata with a proposal from IBM to buyout TCS," Mistry's office said. "JRD Tata refused to discuss the deal because F.C. Kohli was still recovering in the hospital from his setback. On his return, Kohli assured JRD that TCS had a bright future and the group should not sell the company." "JRD Tata turned down the offer, demonstrating true vision. But, it was also a near-death experience for TCS at the hands of Ratan Tata." --IANS ap-rv/dg (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The counting of votes of the by-elections to the Barjala and Khowai assembly seats in Tripura began on Tuesday, an official said. Polling for the two scheduled caste reserved seats in Tripura took place on Saturday amidst tight security. The Barjala seat fell vacant after Congress legislator Jitendra Sarkar resigned on June 6 following an internal feud within the party while the Khowai seat turned vacant following the death of veteran CPI-M legislator Samir Deb Sarkar. Five candidates each contested from the two constituencies. Both by-polls were four-cornered contests. --IANS sc/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uber, the US online taxi hailing company, on Tuesday launched its operation in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. "The world's largest on-demand mobility platform will be available in Dhaka (from Tuesday) to offer safe, reliable and affordable rides at the push of a button while opening up flexible, economic opportunities for driver-partners," the company said in a statement. "As we roll out our services in Dhaka, we are excited to partner with Bangladesh's leading telecom partner Grameenphone with their most powerful 3G network that will elevate the experience for our riders and drivers," Xinhua news agency cited the statement as saying. "Uber has a simple goal to use technology to make our cities more accessible while reducing congestion and pollution. In line with the government's vision of Digital Bangladesh, we are thrilled to be in Dhaka to harness technology for the benefit of riders, drivers and the city," said Amit Jain, president, Uber India and South Asia. Uber allows consumers with smartphones to submit a trip request, which the software programme then automatically sends to the Uber driver nearest to the consumer, alerting the driver to the location of the customer. According to statistics as of August 2016, the Uber service was available in over 66 countries and 507 cities worldwide. --IANS py/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Apropos the article Resolving the Tata imbroglio (November 22) by Percy S Mistry. The article could not have been written at a more appropriate time. The unprecedented corporate battle has reached a gigantic proportion that really could compromise the interests of various stakeholders. Your paper on Tuesday mentions Nusli Wadia has joined the battle. While shareholders are meant to share the risk and responsibilities of ownership of the company, the most vulnerable of the lot remains the creditors to the group which Mistry has touched upon in detail. The bypoll results came as a morale booster for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Northeast. Out of the five seats that went to polls on November 19, three have been won by the BJP and the rest two went to Communist Party of India (Marxist) kitty. Fresh revelations on former energy and petrochemicals minister Saurabh Patel's investments in eight oil and gas blocks through a web of companies was discussed by Gujarat government during its meetings on Tuesday. However, the state administration is yet to take a call on question of conflict of interest raised by a report in Indian Express. According to state government sources, the topic was discussed in several meetings at the 'Swarnim Sankul', the chief minister's block in the state secretariat. Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad on Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to stop addressing public meetings and be present in Parliament to address the concerns of the Opposition and the 130 crore Indian citizens. "The Prime Minister comes to Parliament, sits in his chamber, but doesn't attend either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha, which is a matter of concern not just for the Opposition, but also for the 130 crore people of this country. After all, we want to know the reason why the Prime Minister does want to come to both Houses, but feels free in giving speeches outside Parliament," Azad said. "We said the Opposition is ready for a discussion, but a Prime Minister who is addressing public rallies on daily basis, should at least be present in the House," he added. Azad further said, "The Prime Minister should have cancelled his public meeting after he got news of the Kanpur train tragedy. He should have thought that such a big accident had taken place and rescue operations to save passengers' lives were still on. But, the Prime Minister commenced his meeting as he was more worried about abusing the Opposition, rather than saving passengers." Shifting his focus on the Centre's policy, he said, "Around 60 lives have been lost since the government brought into force the policy. Children, women, elderly, farmers, and poor queue up for long time to get money. As all these lives were lost due to the wrong policy of the government, we demanded that the House should also pay tribute to them, along with the passengers who were killed in the rail mishap, but they refused." When his response was sought on the government's claim that its drive got mass support, Azad shot back: "If they are getting support of the people, then why he (PM) is shying away from making this statement in the House. Our complaint with the Prime Minister is that he visits abroad, addresses public meetings in Goa, Agra and other places; now Parliament is in session, but he is not attending." "The Prime Minister has taken such a big decision of when Parliament was not in session and that is why it becomes his prime responsibility that when Parliament started functioning, he should have made statements in both the Houses on the very first day," he added. Meanwhile, leaders of opposition parties will meet in Parliament at 9.30 am on Tuesday. YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan on November 22 received the Russian delegation led by Minister of Trade and Industry Denis Manturov, press service of the Government told Armenpress. The delegation has arrived in Armenia to take part in Anticounterfeiting 2016 4th International Forum. The Forum is being held under the auspices of the Armenian Government, the Eurasian Economic Commission, the Russian Ministry of Trade and Industry, and is dedicated to the issues of protection of intellectual property, countering illegal circulation of industrial goods within the EAEU member states. PM Karapetyan welcomed the initiative of holding such Forum, stating that it is important and necessary platform for defining understandable game rules for the business, as well as for the dialogue between the leadership, business sector, the academic circles in the EAEU member states. The Russian Minister thanked the Armenian PM for assisting to hold such Forum and presented the course of works. He said the Forum is a productive initiative to discuss the issues of protecting the intellectual property rights and the civilized markets from illegal circulation of industrial goods, and this year representatives of the EAEU member states, as well as a number of companies, that are interested in organizing a competitive and high-quality products, are taking part in the Forum. The sides also discussed issues related to expanding the trade-economic ties of the two states. The PM said there is a great potential for the development of Armenian-Russian strong allied relations, and it is necessary to utilize all platforms and opportunities to fully realizing it. They exchanged views on the supply of agricultural machinery, the cooperation prospects on mining industry, tourism and other sectors. They also attached importance to boosting the business environment and the steps towards the cooperation within the frames of free economic zones. In this context, Karen Karapetyan presented the details of establishing investments funds proposed by the Governments program aimed at boosting the business. The PM instructed the Minister of Economic Development and Investments to actively work with the Russian partners on a number of issues and programs of mutual interest. AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to unearth the "ill-gotten" wealth of the Badals in two-months time, failing which AAP would do so after forming the government in . "We give two-months time to Modi to unveil the black money stashed by the Badals in and abroad, failing which AAP will not let them go scot-free once it forms the next government in Punjab," he said at a rally here. The Delhi Chief Minister, who is on an 11-day tour of the poll-bound state, said if Modi was serious to bring out the "ill-gotten" money amassed by bigwig politicians and business tycoons, then he "must let loose his agencies on the Badal family". "Badals during the last 10 years of misrule amassed huge wealth due to their control on almost all businesses, including transport, cable, mining, liquor etc," he said. Kejriwal said the time was ripe for Modi to prove his credentials that he was actually after the "black sheeps", instead of harassing the common man through demonetisation. Promising a "better future" for that goes to polls in 2017, he said contracts of mining and bus permits, which Badals obtained through "misuse of power", would be taken back and distributed to unemployed youth, once AAP was voted to power. The AAP leader also asked Modi to "go after Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh and his family, who have opened bank accounts in Swiss bank to stash away their black money." Kejriwal also criticised both SAD-BJP and Congress for not doing enough to improve the health infrastructure of the state. "During the last 15 years, be it SAD-BJP or Congress, none of them actually worked to improve the health system in the state, which has not only been deteriorated but of late been completely collapsed. "I have learnt that there is lack of medical facilities for cancer patients in the state, especially those in Malwa region, who have to go all the way to Bikaner to get treatment," he said. Kejriwal promised opening of a Cancer Hospital in the region, so that people do not have to travel to other states for treatment, adding that the AAP government would provide free and fair cancer treatment in the state. Kejriwal also ridiculed the Congress' plan to roll out free smart phones for the youth of the state. "Captain Amarinder Singh has no right to bribe people of Punjab in its bid to come to power. We will make a drug free society and provide employment to the youth, who can buy hundreds of such smart phones with their hard earned money," he said. The AAP leader was reacting to Amarinder's recent announcement of giving 50 lakh smart phones with one year of free data and calling to the youth in the state, once Congress came to power. He said Congress was giving "false hopes" to the people by promising to fight drugs menace and corruption in the state. "The Manmohan Singh government was at the Centre for 10 years with simultaneous rule of Badals in Punjab, but Congress never acted against then Cabinet minister Bikram Majithia, who has been operating multi-crore drug racket in the state," he said. Kejriwal added that after forming the government in Punjab, AAP would break the supply chain of drugs within one month, and drug-addicted youth would be rehabilitated by opening rehabilitation centres at a war-footing within six months and giving them employment. (Reopens DES 53) Kejriwal while addressing another gathering at Barnala said those behind the desecration of Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib would be handed out exemplary punishment, once AAP formed the government in Punjab. "It was indeed deeply painful to learn about such series of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib, which is sacred to not only Sikhs, but to the people of other religions, including Hindus, Muslims and Christians," he said. Kejriwal said that it was very unfortunate that the SAD-BJP government, which claimed to be 'panthic', "failed" to arrest the real culprits. Detailing his plans for better health facilities for the state, the Delhi Chief Minister, "In Delhi, we have set up more than 100 Mohalla clinics, where free treatment including medicines and tests are being provided to people. "On the same pattern, AAP will set up small clinics in every village to provide free treatment including medicines and tests to people," he said. Commenting on the use of money power by political parties in elections, Kejriwal alleged, "Akalis and Congress will offer you lot of money, that too in new currency. You accept the money, but when you go for voting, press the button of broom (AAP party symbol). A united Opposition is trying to corner the Narendra Modi-led government over the issue of of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes -- both outside and inside Parliament. It has termed the government move 'economic anarchy'. 1,500 companies of paramilitary forces would be required for deployment at all 22,600 polling stations in Punjab during the next year Assembly polls, according to an assessment by state election office here. The assessment comes close on the heels of political parties seeking deployment of paramilitary forces at all polling booths. "Two proposals have been sent to the Election Commission of India (ECI) regarding deployment of central forces. In the first, if central forces are deployed at all the polling stations, then we will require 1,500 companies (60 security personnel per company)," a senior official said today. "In the second proposal, a requirement of 845 paramilitary forces companies to cover vulnerable and critical polling stations, he said, adding till October, 6,000 polling stations were identified as vulnerable and 150 as critical. "The proposals will be presented before the EC for consideration in a meeting of the chief electoral officers on November 25. Following which it will take a call on deployment of central forces in Punjab," he said. Last month, when a nine-member ECI team had reviewed preparations for the assembly polls, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi had assured that the commission will provide adequate paramilitary forces to Punjab and "not allow any nexus at the local level to influence the elections". Political parties had told the ECI team that police officials were generally under the "control" of local politicians who could "influence the election process". Therefore, paramilitary forces should be deployed at polling stations instead of local police, the parties had demanded. Besides guarding polling stations, the central forces will also be required to support law enforcement agencies the Narcotics Control Bureau, and quick response and static surveillance teams, the official said. During the 2012 Assembly polls, Punjab was provided 225 companies of central forces against the demand of 450 companies. Meanwhile, the state election office has also asked the state police to nab all proclaimed offenders (POs), gangsters and bail jumpers as early as possible, official said. In an action plan submitted to the state election office for nabbing criminals, the state police has said it was taking several steps including review against gangsters, POs at the police station levels. The police is also collecting and generating intelligence to arrest criminals, checking money flow to gangs operating in the state, taking action with regard to disposing of 'benami' properties of gangsters, avoiding parole to criminals till elections, the official said, adding there are 30 gangs in Punjab comprising 500 members and most of them were in jail. To prevent supply and misuse of drugs during polls, the Narcotics Control Bureau in its action plan to the state election office has proposed to have check posts at inter-state borders, share information and intelligence with bordering states and freeze properties of drug smugglers, the official said. The Punjab Assembly polls early next year will see AAP making its electoral debut making it a triangular contest between Congress, SAD-BJP alliance and the party for political supremacy. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 18 people, all retired employees, were killed and 20 others injured today when a bus they were travelling in fell into a 70-metre deep gorge in northern Thailand, the latest accident in a country known for its dangerous roads. The Bangkok-bound tour bus, carrying 36 retirees of a telecom company returning from holiday along with the bus driver and a bus assistant, was travelling from Phrae when it ran off the winding downhill road and fell into the deep ravine at tambon Ban. The bus, operated by state-run Transport Company, was hired to take the 36 retirees on a holiday in the northern province of Uttradit. Rescuers used ropes to lift the injured and dead from the wreckage, Bangkok post reported. The driver, who was apparently not familiar with the road, is believed to have jumped from the bus before it plunged off the road into the ravine, police said. According to the World Health Organization's 2015 report, Thailand has the world's second most dangerous roads in terms of per capita deaths, second only to Libya. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government is hopeful that the first phase of the proposed National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) would be operational by March next year, a senior official said here today. "The next major initiative that the Government of India is taking is setting up of the National Cyber Coordination Centre which will enable real-time, proactive, predictive reporting of any kind of possible cyber threats that may arise in our country. "Presently, the tender process for setting up of NCCC is going on. We hope that the first phase of NCCC will be operational by March, 2017," said Ajay Kumar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY). Addressing the SCSC Cyber Security Conclave 2.0, Kumar said the government expects the proposed 'botnet cleanings and malware analysis centre' to be operational within a month. "One such initiative which is now ready for implementation is the botnet cleanings and malware analysis centre. This is a facility which will enable citizens to know proactively if there is a bot which is sitting in their system and trying to take control. It will also help them to clean that type of bot from their system. We expect that this facility will be operational within a month," he said. Botnet is a network of private computers infected with malicious software and controlled as a group without the owners' knowledge. The government is in the process of upgrading the Standardisation, Testing and Quality Certification labs in Delhi and others. A STQC lab is already functional in Kolkata. "One of the major challenges that comes in cyber security is with respect to malware which is embedded into the hardware when it is deployed. This is something which can lead to big security gaps. India has become one of the few countries in the world which has been given common criteria testing, and STQC lab in Kolkata is already providing testing facilities for hardware under the common criteria. "We are also in process of upgrading STQC labs in Delhi and Bengaluru or Mumbai, where also common testing facility would be available," Kumar said. Observing that the country is witnessing a huge growth in digital sector, the officer stressed that massive efforts are needed to beef up cyber security. India has about 500 million internet users and it is one of the fastest growing countries in terms of data traffic, he said. "Our digital economy is highly mobile phone centric. With 270 million smart phones, likely to go to 800 million by 2025, we have already the world's fourth largest in terms of app downloads anywhere in the world," the bureaucrat said. Union Government has written to all major sectors including banking, power and petroleum, besides state governments and Central ministries, to have a dedicated chief information security officer (CISO) in each organisation, he said. "A lot of people have been recognised and have already appointed CISOs. All those organisations who are extensively using IT must have a CISO in their respective organisation," Kumar said. The government has embarked on a major programme of imparting education and awareness on cyber security, he said. "We have the information security, education and awareness programme which is being implemented through 51 leading IITs, NITs and engineering colleges across the country. "It is training over one lakh people over the next three to four years. I think this is still a drop in the ocean. In this country, we need over 10 lakh people trained in cyber security. I think this is again possible only with partnership with industry," Kumar said. The government has set up a venture capital fund which would fund start ups in the cyber security area, the officer said. "GOI has set up a mother fund, fund of funds, which is available for funding venture capital funds in the area of cyber security. The venture capital industry in the country need to come forward to set up venture funds dedicated to cyber security which will give a tremendous boost to the start up industry in the cyber security area. We will be happy to participate," he said. The government is also in the favour of teaching cyber security right from high school level as children in the country are using smart phones in a big way, Kumar said. Observing that an efficient Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERT) is already in place, Kumar said it is the responsibility of the organisations to report any cyber incident in their IT infrastructure to CERT. Favouring coordination among same sector companies on cyber security issues, he suggested that such an initiative has already begun in the banking sector. He also sought adequate attention on securing the ever-increasing public Wi-Fi facilities, the growing mirco ATMs and the use of biometric identification in Aadhaar system. (Reopens BES 34) Observing that Telangana is the first state to come up with a cyber security policy, Telangana IT Minister K T Rama Rao said the state government would like to build on the policy. The T-Hub, the start-up incubator initiative of the state government, would focus on cyber security by encouraging innovations and others, he said. The state government is keen on establishing a pool of "cyber warriors" as the area has large employment potential, he said. The government would also like to collaborate with those who did commendable work in cyber security and encourage institutional dialogue to achieve better results, Rao added. Over 20 journalists were killed in Nepal in the last two decades during the brutal civil war, according to a new study on press freedom in the country. Releasing the study report, general secretary of Freedom Forum, Dharmendra Jha said that as those involved in crimes of murder and enforced disappearances against journalists were not brought to book, the impunity had hit local media hard. According to the study, which focuses on the period from 1996 to 2016, 23 journalists were murdered while three had gone missing. Nepal was hit by a civil war from 1996 to 2006 that killed over 15,000 people, after which the country passed through a prolonged transitional period. Among 26 incidents that took place over the period of two decades, more than two-thirds were not investigated. Political pressure and threats were the main reasons behind victims not filing cases against perpetrators, claimed the report. The report further stated that the government, despite forming an investigation committee, did not make public the report on the murders of journalists Prakash Singh Thakuri and Jamim Shah. Authorities avoided investigation of crimes against journalists due to the Comprehensive Peace Accord which was inked by the government and then militant CPN-Maoist, a decade ago. The accord said that any incident of a political nature would be handled by a separate entity - the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the Commission on Investigation of Enforced Disappeared Persons. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 26,903 Brus belonging to 4,568 families in five Tripura relief camps have been identified as bona fide residents of Mizoram till last evening, Additional Secretary for Mizoram's home department Lalbiakzama today said. Lalbiakzama said that the identification process was completed in four relief camps - Kaskau, Hamsapara, Khakchangpara and Asapara. The repatriation process, which commenced from Tuesday last at Naisingpara, the largest relief camp, was scheduled to be completed on Friday, however, remained incomplete. Mizoram-Tripura border Mamit district Deputy Commissioner Lalbiaksangi said that the officials conducting the identification at Naisingpara relief camp expressed the hope that the process would be completed by this evening. Lalbiaksangi said that the identification would began at Hazacherra relief camp, the last camp to be covered from tomorrow, if the process is completed today. While the entire identification process was scheduled to be completed yesterday in accordance with the Road Map-V for Bru Repatriation, the physical repatriation was scheduled to commence from November. State home department officials opined that the physical repatriation might be deferred. Meeting of the Joint Monitoring Group comprising of officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Mizoram and Tripura state governments and representatives of the Bru refugees in the six relief camps on Thursday in Delhi is likely to finalise the proposed repatriation schedule. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka government today said there were 283 illegal Bangladeshi migrants in the state and process was on to deport them, but the opposition rejected these figures claiming that they were in thousands. Home Minister G Parameshwara in reply to a question raised by Sunil Kumar V (BJP) said there were 748 Bangaladeshi's in the state out of which 283 are illegally here as per Foreigners Act, 1946. To detect illegal migrants, special task force had been constituted at district and city levels, and local police asked to maintain a vigil and find out about such migrants in their respective jurisdictional area, he said. A total of 283 illegal Bangladeshi migrants are in the state, they include 16 in Mandya, one in Dakshina Kannada, three in KGF, 11 in Ramanagara, 13 in Mysuru district, one in Chikkamagaluru, 14 in Bengaluru district, 25 in Mysuru urban, 197 in Bengaluru urban and two in Shivamogga. Rejecting these numbers, Kumar said it looks like government was trying to protect illegal migrants. Asking government to consider this issue as a matter of internal security as most of them were involved in "anti social activities", he said it should take action against them. On which, Parameshwara said there were about 25 cases under which these Bangladeshi nationals have been punished for involvement in some kind of offence. He said 52 of them have been deported and there are also some cases that are in courts and under investigation. Noting that the state government is in no way supporting illegal Bangladeshi migrants, the Home Minister also said to stop this problem, "We have to protect our borders with Bangladesh and the central government should be doing it." He said the government was also checking coffee plantations in Chikkamagaluru and Kodagu districts where the reports suggest a large number of illegal Bangladeshi migrants have been employed as contract labours. Intervening, Opposition BJP Leader Jagadish Shettar questioned as to why those identified as illegal migrants were not being deported and added they were thousands in numbers in the state. Senior BJP MLA K G Bopaiah said there should be one lakh of them in Kodagu district alone and they were even taking benefits of government schemes, while Kumar alleged that ration cards and voting cards have been issued to them. In reply, Parameshwara said the state government considers illegal Bangladeshi migrants issue as a matter of internal security and is not taking it lightly. "We are with utmost seriousness checking about their presence in the state. Whatever their number may be, we will deport them," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court mandated Oversight Committee (OC) on Medical Council of India (MCI) has approved the establishment of 34 new private medical colleges for the current session with certain conditions, Rajya Sabha was told today. The Oversight Committee also approved seven colleges each for private and government, for increase in seats or starting of Super Speciality Courses, Minister of State for Health Faggan Singh Kulaste said in a written reply. "The government issued necessary permission/ notification as approved by the OC," he said. He was asked whether the OC headed by Justice (retd) R M Lodha had given clearances to many private medical colleges which were put in abeyance by MCI inspectors that found glaring deficiencies. "The Supreme Court mandated oversight Committee (OC) on MCI approved following schemes or proposals of the applicant medical colleges for the year 2016-17 with certain conditions. "Establishment of New Medical Colleges - - 34 private, 0 government; Increase of intake capacity - -7 private colleges, one government; renewal of permission - 30 private and O for government," the Minister said. In August, the panel had slammed the medical education regulator MCI, saying it "disregarded" its directives by not conducting fresh inspection of medical colleges. The Oversight Committee (OC) said it had resolved in its meeting held on June 13 that all applicant medical colleges, which were not given an opportunity to present their compliance to deficiencies communicated by MCI, be given an opportunity to do so by June 22. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As many as 5,59,264 were issued this year by authorities for unauthorised parking in the capital, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday. Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said this in a written reply to a question on some roads in New Delhi area which have been "turned into parking lots". "Delhi Police has reported that regular action is taken by them against improper/obstructive/unauthorised parking of motor vehicles. Cranes are effectively utilised to tow away such vehicles which are found hampering the smooth movement of traffic," he said. "5,59,264 were issued in 2016 till November 15 for obstructive or improper parking of motor vehicles, while 1,43,220 vehicles were towed away, and 29,119 vehicles were clamped," Ahir said in the reply. With reference to Chelmsford Road, the Minister said the "Delhi Police has reported that 7,675 have been issued, 682 vehicles have been towed away, and 124 notices have been pasted against obstructive/improper parking of motor vehicles," during the same period. To a question on whether the government has undertaken any study on the problems and impact on the drivers due to such encroachment, he said, "All the three municipal corporations of Delhi and the New Delhi Municipal Council have informed that as per available record, no study on the problems and impact on the drivers due to encroachment have been carried out by them. "Ministry of Defence has informed that Defence Forces have not forcibly occupied any road in DIZ Area and converted into vehicular parking lot," he said in reply to another question. The minister in reply to a question relating to toll-free helpline of lodging civic complaints related to areas falling in NDMC and SDMC jurisdictions, said, the Delhi government has "further informed that no complaints relating to instances of misuse of power and negligence on the part of the government officials/staff is received on the above toll-free number". Assyrian Forces Retake Ancient Monastery From ISIS, Vow to Rebuild Fighters with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) stormed the Saint Behnam monastery in 2014, located 30 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Mosul. ( AP) After ousting IS militants from towns near Mosul, Iraq, Christian militias have reported of the devastation the group left behind, including the destruction of precious icons and ancient texts in the 4th-century monastery of Mar Behnam. According to the Jerusalem Post, Iraq's largest monastery, located in the Christian-dominated town of Bakhdida, just 20 miles southeast of Mosul, was turned into a headquarters for ISIS police - those responsible for handing out draconian punishments to those who didn't adhere to the group's particular brand of Islam. After overtaking the monastery, militants used explosives to destroy part of the ancient building, removed the site's crosses, and turned the monk's bedrooms into jail cells. Carvings in Syriac, the language spoken by Jesus, were scraped off the walls, and any mention of Behnam - the son of a repentant Assyrian king who built the monastery after killing both his children because they converted to Christianity - was removed. Islamic State also graffiti covers the monastery's walls, including the group's motto: "Remaining and expanding." "Their fundamental goal was to destroy Christian history and civilization in the Nineveh plains," Duraid Elias, commander of the Babylon Brigades, a Christian militia that helped retake the site, told Reuters during a visit on Monday. Mar Behnam monastery was captured by ISIS in July of 2015 along with vast swathes of northern Iraq. At the time, the group issued an ultimatum to Christians: Convert to Islam, pay a hefty tax, or die. Those who lived in the ancient building were subsequently forced to leave and flee to nearby Christian villages. "You have no place here anymore, you have to leave immediately," the militants were quoted as telling the monastery's residents by a member of the Syriac clergy. Over the weekend, the Christian soldiers - all members of the Baghdad-backed Babylon Brigades - re-erected crosses and the recapture of Bar Behnam was celebrated widely on social media. Elias, the commander, said his unit had fought alongside the Iraqi army to retake the monastery and the surrounding village. He emphasized that his men - all part of a population of Arab Christians across the Middle East - are determined to rebuild their cities. "We are proving to the world that Christians are not weak. We are stronger than they imagined," said Elias. He added that his men have destroyed several homes belonging to IS fighters - and they will keep going. "There are others. We are going one by one: for every Christian house they blew up, we blow up a house next to it," he said from atop the monastery, pointing out one such pair of buildings. "This is war. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. The Italian Corriere TV presented new details on the scandal around the investigative journalism about Caviar Diplomacy in Azerbaijan. The report shows how Italys former MP Luca Volonte took several million Euros from Azerbaijanis for creating a political backup for them in PACE. In 2013, Volonte had to direct votes against the report on Azerbaijani prisoners, authored by MP Christophe Strasser. In a program based on results of investigative journalist, Christoph Strasser reveals how the official Baku denied entry visa to him. Azerbaijan didnt give me entry visa. It was the first time when a lawmaker who was going on such assignment didnt receive entry visa, he said. The report later shows former Azerbaijani political prisoner Khadija Ismayilova speaking via Skype, who says there are circa 100 oppositionists and reporters in Azerbaijani prisons. Within the framework of the report, Italian reporters visited Armenia and spoke with lawmaker Naira Karapetyan. She told about the experience in PACE, saying: People came, whom I saw for the first time. They didnt even know how to press the button. We never saw them again since then. Founding chairman of the European Stability Initiative Mr. Gerald Knaus author of the Caviar Diplomacy How Azerbaijan silenced the Council of Europe report, says: Three years ago, when Azerbaijani reporters were being arrested, the CoE was always speaking positively about Azerbaijan, and it raised suspicions. Many CoE employees told how delegations which were departing to Azerbaijan are initially offered prostitutes, followed by money and gifts, carpets, then the famous caviar. Accusing the Centre of overlooking the "misery" of common people caused by demonetisation, six Left parties, today decided to launch week-long joint nationwide protests to highlight "continued agony" of people. Speaking to press persons after the meeting of the Left parties here, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the parties are also working towards organising Protest Day along with other opposition parties against demonetisation. Among other, Yechury accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "disrupting" Parliament by allegedly not answering queries raised by MPs in both the Houses and said the Left parties are "seriously" considering bringing contempt motion against the latter over the issue. "We have decided to stage joint all India protests against the continued agony suffered by vast sections of people over the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes by this government. We have decided to mobilise people against the move between November 24 to November 30," Yechury, accompanied by other Left leaders, told reporters. At the same time, Yechury added the Left parties -- including CPI, CPI(ML)-Liberation, SUCI(C), Revolutionary Socialist Party and All India Forward Bloc -- are working towards organising a 'Protest Day' against demonetisation along with other opposition parties. "The actual (date) Day will be worked out along with other opposition parties, hopefully at the earliest," Yechury said. In their statement issued after the meeting, the Left parties appealed to "all those opposed to the decision to join these actions". When asked by a reporter if they are also appealing to arch rival TMC, which too has opposed demonetisation, Yechury said, the "protests are by Left parties". "As far as others (opposition parties) are concerned, at the level of Parliament, the protests are happening separately. We as the Left parties have given this call for the protest," he added. Seeking to pick holes in the demonetisation move, Yechury said the government made it "sans adequate preparations" and demanded it to compensate adequately those who have died "as a result of demonetisation" and whose life has been ruined by the decision. He said that there is a "complete paralysis" in rural India following demonetisation and claimed it will take more than six months to replace the notes being withdrawn from circulation. Currently, only 10 per cent of the alternate notes have reached to banks, he said. (REOPENS DEL 105) "We demand the government to compensate adequately all those who have lost their lives during last two weeks as a result of this move. More than 70 have reported to have lost lives so far. And (compensate) also those whose livelihood has been ruined. Complete paralysis in rural areas," Yechury said. The Marxist leader reiterated the decision will not help achieve the stated objectives of combating black money, corruption and terror funding. Instead, he said, the government should recover money to the tune of Rs 11 lakh crore from non performing assets (NPAs) and also make public names of those who have illegal money stashed in banks abroad and in tax havens. Besides Yechury, his CPI counterpart S Sudhakar Reddy, CPI(ML)-Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, CPI national secretary D Raja and others took part in the meeting. At least eight people died and an unknown number were missing as a new series of Mediterranean boat dramas left Italy on the verge of a record number of migrant arrivals. Confirming the latest fatalities in what is already a record year for migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Italy's coastguard told AFP that 1,400 people had been saved in 12 separate operations between yesterday evening and today afternoon. The rescues will take the number of migrants to have arrived in Italy by sea this year to almost 170,000, a whisker short of the previous record set in 2014. A coastguard boat recovered seven bodies and oversaw the rescue of 182 people from a stricken rubber dinghy in waters off Libya. The other confirmed victim, a man, died on the Topaz Responder, a boat operated by Malta-based charity MOAS with a Red Cross medical team onboard. MOAS said survivors' accounts suggested that "many" people were unaccounted for, including the mother of two children who survived. The organisation said it had help rescue some 600 people in four difficult operations, including 117 from one sinking dinghy. The vessel of choice for people traffickers operating out of Libya, such dinghies typically have between 120 and 150 migrants crammed onto them. "The doctors managed to revive several people with hypothermia but it was too late for one of them," MOAS spokeswoman Maria Teresa Sette told AFP. Among the survivors were two in a critical state awaiting evacuation to the outlying Italian island of Lampedusa. The coastguard said the 12 stricken boats assisted in the latest rescues included one larger wooden vessel that was was carrying 450-500 people, six smaller wooden boats with a few dozen people on board and five dinghies. Unusually, the survivors included "many families" from Syria, according to MOAS, as well as people from the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Sudan. Of late, migrants leaving Libya have been overwhelmingly from sub-Saharan or East Africa with a much-anticipated surge in the numbers of refugees from Syria's war having failed to materialise following the de facto closure of the Turkey-Greece migrant route earlier this year. The latest victims will add to a total of 4,655 migrants confirmed to have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean so far this year, according to counts by the International Organisation for Migration and the UN refugee agency. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Afghan national was apprehended today at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here for allegedly trying to smuggle out US dollars worth over Rs 28.38 lakh. Officials said the incident was reported at about 13:30 PM from the terminal-III of the airport when CISF officials detected the suspicious activity of the man, identified as F S Ahmad, who was travelling to Kabul. They said he was made to undergo a thorough frisking which led to the recovery of a total of USD 41,500 (approximately Rs 28.38 lakh) and few Afghani and Indian currency from his person and baggage. "He was later handed over to Customs authorities for further probe," they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag today left for the Chinese city of Nanjing where he is due to visit the PLA's eastern theatre command as well as army command college that trains senior officers. Gen Suhag, who held talks with China's Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice Chairman General Xu Qiliang and head of China's ground forces Gen Li Zuocheng, wrapped up his visit to Beijing and left for field visits, officials told PTI here. At Nanjing he is also scheduled to interact with General Liu Yuejun, Commander of the Eastern Theatre Command of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). He will also visit military installations including an infantry division and army air defence brigades. He is scheduled to go to Xian before returning home on November 24. Gen Suhag is visiting China at the invitation of General Fan Changlong, another Vice Chairman, CMC who is currently visiting Tanzania. During Gen Suhag's meeting with Xu yesterday, both the generals "reiterated their desire to keep up the momentum of defence exchanges and the need to keep the borders tranquil and peaceful," an Indian Embassy statement said. In a press release on yesterday's talks between Gen Suhag and Gen Xu, the Chinese Defence Ministry quoted Xu as saying that the militaries of the two countries should serve as the booster and stabiliser in the development of relations between China and India. Xu said that China and India have a long history of friendship, and the Chinese side attaches great importance to developing relations between with India. Referring to nine meetings between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi he said both the leaders reached important consensuses on upgrading bilateral ties. The military-to-military relations between the two countries have generally maintained the good momentum of development, and the two militaries should resolutely implement the consensuses reached by the leaders of the two countries, strengthen pragmatic exchange and cooperation, deepen strategic mutual trust and serve as the booster and stabiliser in development of bilateral relations, Xu said. Xu wished that the armies of the two countries would further strengthen border management and control and enhance border defence cooperation, so as to maintain the peace and tranquillity in the border areas, the statement said. During the visit, General Suhag is expected to discuss a host of issues including efficacy of mechanism put in place to deal with transgressions of troops aggressively patrolling the areas claimed by both the countries. Several such transgressions by Chinese troops specially in the Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh sectors in the recent past resulted in long standoffs between troops on both sides. While relations between the two militaries improved with visits by high-level officials including Defence Ministers, officials say the relations remained tenuous with steady increase of Pakistan-related issues affecting their growth. General Suhag's visit also comes at a time when relations between the two countries were stressed by issues like the USD 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), China blocking India's membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and move to impose a UN ban on JeM Chief Masood Azhar. However, officials on both sides say despite contentious issues, both sides managed to keep up the dialogue at the highest level going, ensuring peace and tranquillity along the 3,488 km long Line of Actual Control (LAC). Besides the constant interactions under the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) to address ground level issues, the two sides also held 19 rounds of talks to resolve the border dispute. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said it would be "inappropriate" to ask who was the more barbarous out of Israel and Hitler, in comments likely to put renewed strain on ties with the Jewish state. The comments come less than a week after Turkey appointed a foreign policy advisor to the prime minister as ambassador to Israel, sealing the normalisation of diplomatic relations after a six-year partial rupture. "I don't approve of what Hitler did, and neither do I approve of what Israel has done. When it's a question of so many people dying, it's inappropriate to ask who was the more barbarous," Erdogan said in an interview with Israeli television yesterday night. The relationship between the two countries plunged to an all time low after an Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound ship in 2010 that killed 10 Turks, prompting Ankara to expel the Israeli ambassador and freeze all defence ties. But the two sides have been working to bring cooperation back to former levels and are holding talks on building an ambitious pipeline project to pump Israeli gas to Turkey and Europe. Nevertheless, considerable tensions remain with Erdogan presenting himself as a champion of the Palestinians and regularly meeting with Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal. Israel, the United States and the European Union all view Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, as a terrorist organisation. It is not the first time that Erdogan has referred to the World War II Nazi leader when dealing with Israel. After the 2010 raid, he accused Israel of "keeping Hitler's spirit alive". And during the 2014 Gaza War, in which 2,251 Palestinians were killed, according to the UN, he said Israelis "have no conscience, no honour, no pride. They curse Hitler day and night, but they have surpassed Hitler in barbarism". He has accused the Jewish state of carrying out "genocide" on the Palestinians. In yesterday's comments to Israel's Channel 2 television, Erdogan said he was "well aware" of the sensitivities associated with Hitler, blamed for the deaths of some six million Jews. But he said he found it "impossible to forget the hundreds, the thousands of people who died when (the Israeli military) struck Gaza". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Assam imports fish from other states like Andhra Pradesh despite having huge potential for fish farming, Parliament was informed today. The state imported 14,835 tonnes in 2015-16, higher than 12,531 tonnes in the year-ago period. "Assam imports fish from other states though the state has huge potential for fish farming in water resources such as ponds, tanks, beel, oxbow lake, swamps, low lying (areas) and reservoirs," Minister of State for Agriculture Sudarshan Bhagat said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. During the last three years, Assam has imported fish, mainly from Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, he said. To a query whether the Centre has formulated any special scheme to promote fish farming in the state, Bhagat said the the Centre has restructured the existing schemes under the umbrella of central plan scheme called 'Blue Revolution: Integrated Development and Management of Fisheries'. The scheme focuses mainly on increasing fisheries production and productivity from aquaculture and fisheries resources. Besides, the state government is implementing schemes for development of fisheries, he added. To promote fishery sector, the minister said the Centre is providing financial assistance to coastal states for setting up of fishing harbours based on the techno-economic feasibility reports. Many states namely Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal have shown interest, he said replying to a separate query. That apart, the central share for fishermen under the saving-cum-relief scheme has been enhanced to Rs 1,500 per fisherman, from Rs 900, effective this financial year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least five children were killed when a US school bus carrying up to 35 students smashed into a tree, officials said. Children between the ages of five and 11 were aboard the bus, which flipped onto its side and slammed roof-first into the tree in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Five youngsters are known to have died, with 24 more rushed to hospital, city police chief Fred Fletcher said. "This is an absolute nightmare for this community," he said. Local media reported how dazed children lay on stretchers at the scene of the crash, near Woodmore Elementary School, waiting for ambulances to take them to hospital. Bus driver Johnthony Walker, 24, has been arrested, the police chief said. He was charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. "Certainly speed is being investigated very, very strongly as a factor in this crash," Fletcher said. "It was clear and dry... There did not appear to be any roadway conditions. But it is a complicated ... Scene, it covers a significant area," he added. Fletcher described the incident as "every public safety official's worst nightmare." "But that is nothing in comparison to the nightmare that families, friends and our community is going through with this tragic loss." Police do not have a list of all students who were on the bus, but at least 24 students were taken to area hospitals, Fletcher said. The families of the five children confirmed dead had been notified. Information on the conditions of the nearly two dozen children at area hospitals was unavailable, Fletcher said. "I hope as deeply and passionately as I can that there are no more, but I do not know the status of those kids," he said. Amy Katcher, spokeswoman for Hamilton County Schools, told AFP that "this is the worst tragedy we have had to deal with." "Heartbreaking school bus crash in Chattanooga," tweeted US Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee. "My thoughts and prayers are with the children, families and first responders." Fletcher said a warrant was issued to remove the black box from the bus to review evidence. The National Transportation Safety Board said on Twitter it would deploy a team Tuesday morning to investigate the crash. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court has said it was the personal responsibility of authorities(joint commissioner of police (traffic) South Zone and assistant commissioner Zone 9, Myalpore) to ensure that "there are no violations for vending/hawking" on Luz Church Street, and action is taken on day-to-day basis to ensure that pedestrians are not inconvenienced and chaos is not created. A PIL had sought a direction to the Chennai Corporation to remove hawkers, food vendors and encroachers in Luz Church road. When it came up recently, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R.Mahadevan said "We are conscious of the fact that the one time clearance drive, as undertaken by the authorities, cannot solve this problem, as persons who are habituated to remain in that area will not easily relent. This is apparent from the past experience of endeavouring to get the pedestrians' area cleared of obstructions." The bench also observed that the Chennai Corporation had filed an affidavit on raids conducted in the area. The notification issued by the government dated October 5, 2016 had permitted setting up of 15 Town Vending Committees with one each at zonal level in greater Chennai as per rules under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act. Appointments had been made to the Town Vending Committees. Thus, the mechanism has been put in force, the bench added. According to the affidavit, 154 hawkers, who were enumerated and tokens and identity cards issued, would be entitled for allotment at an alternate place. "Suffice to say that as per the decision of the hawking committee, the shifting of hawkers has to take place and in continuing location, there is no right to hawk once an alternate place is made available," the bench said. However, the bench made it clear that cooking and setting kitchens on the pavements could not be allowed under any circumstance. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Have an innovative idea for a device that could provide solution to a medical issue? Then you stand to win a grant of Rs 15 lakh! To promote cost-effective innovations in the field of medicine and biotechnology, a government collaboration is awarding several grants worth 15 lakh rupees each to young innovators who can come with solutions to many day-to-day problems. Students from school level up to the doctoral level and grass-root innovators can apply for SRISTI-BIRAC GYTI awards by December 30, 2016. Winners will be awarded at the 'Festival of Innovations' at Rashtrapati Bhavan in March, 2017. The competition is being organised by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a government of India enterprise, and Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI) to promote frugal innovations in the field of medicine and biotechnology. "Fifteen students will get a grant of 15 lakh rupees each for development of the idea or a prototype related to medical or biotechnology field," Professor Anil K Gupta, President Sristi, told PTI. "In addition to this, 100 grass-root innovators will get one lakh rupees each for value addition at different labs," Gupta said. Terming lab innovations and grass-root innovations equally important to create a healthy nation, Dr Renu Swarup, Managing Director, BIRAC said, "India, being a developing nation has problems, which are specific to our country." "Solutions that work pretty well in other parts of the world may not always be the best for us. Medical innovation is expected to come up with feasible solutions for such Indian problems," Swarup said. "Devices, Diagnostics, drugs and vaccines, all require medical innovation equally," she said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid Shiv Sena's growing criticism of Centre's demonetisation move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today told the party MPs had former party patriarch Bal Thackeray been alive, he would have supported the move. Modi said this while interacting with Shiv Sena MPs, who met him in the national capital urging him to allow co- operative banks, district central co-operative banks (DCCBs) and credit co-operative societies to exchange notes. "Prime Minister told the visiting MPs that had late Sena supremo Bal Thackeray been alive, he would have supported the decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes," a Sena source said. Responding to Modi's invocation of former Sena supremo, party president Uddhav Thackeray said he was happy that PM had respect for Balasaheb in his heart. "But right now, Modi needs to answer the people who are looking up to him with questions. If people get the answers they seek and their lives are made easier, Balasaheb would be happier," Thackeray said. Centre's demonetisation move seems to have brought more bitterness in the already-strained ties between the two ruling allies -- BJP and Sena-- as the Uddhav Thackeray-led party has been consistently slamming Modi over the decision. In an embarrassment for the BJP, Shiv Sena had taken part in the protest march led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in New Delhi last week against demonetisation. MPs Chandrakant Khaire and Gajanan Kirtikar of Shiv Sena had taken part in the march. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Minister of finance of Armenia Armen Hayrapetyan and Johannes Dopffel head of the south Caucasus region of Germanys Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development signed on November 22 the protocol on the results of bilateral intergovernmental consultations on development policy cooperation, the Embassy of Germany told ARMENPRESS. In opening remarks, Ambassador of Germany to Armenia H.E. Matthias Kiesler praised the productive cooperation between Armenia and Germany. One of the peculiarities of Germanys development policy is deciding over partners. It is also for this reason that our projects are so effective, he said. An agreement on a 54.4 million Euro loan and financial assistance has been achieved within the framework of the ongoing bilateral financial cooperation. With these resources, the German government will finance programs aimed at stable economic development (36.1 million), which are implemented by the German-Armenian Fund (GAF), and will support introduction of economic insurance system in Armenia (5.3 million). 8.3 million Euros will be provided in the community infrastructure field in Lori for waste management, 2 million for water supply development, 2.7 million for comprehensive management of water reserves of Akhuryan River. In addition, the German government plans to provide 22 million Euros for its Caucasus Initiative regional program. The regional programs of GIZ aimed at stable economic development, energy and nature preservation, community development, establishment of democracy continues. On Bangladesh Armed Forces Day, tributes were paid here to war heroes of the country's liberation war of 1971, with its envoy Syed Muazzem Ali expressing gratitude to India for its decisive support in it. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval hailed Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for being the inspiration behind the movement for independence from Pakistan. At an event organised by Bangladesh High Commission here yesterday, tributes were paid to the war heroes "who laid down their lives for the liberation of Bangladesh in a nine-month war against the occupation forces of Pakistan", a release issue by the Mission said today. Doval, the Chief Guest, praised the Bangladesh Armed Forces as a professional force and recalled its contribution in the 1971 War of Liberation, the release said. He said this force was born through a just war for the independence of nation, inspired by a "revered leader of the sub-continent Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman", it added. He paid his tributes to Bangabandhu. The Bangladesh High Commissioner expressed gratitude to India for its decisive support in Bangladesh's successful liberation war. He described the Armed Forces Day as "a great day" in the history of Bangladesh and said Bangladesh force has the distinction of being formed during the liberation war and leading the 'Mukti Bahini' (revolutionary force). A documentary on how Bangladesh Armed Forces were born and how they fought valiantly for the country's liberation was screened. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi today expressed deep condolences at the demise of Former Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav. "I am deeply grieved to learn about the sad demise of Ram Naresh Yadav, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and former Governor of Madhya Pradesh," Tripathi said in his message issued from Raj Bhawan this evening. "He served as a parliamentarian in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. A law graduate of prestigious BHU, he practiced law at Azamgarh court," the message read. Former Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav passed away on Tuesday at a hospital in Lucknow after prolonged illness. Yadav (90) breathed his last at PGI Lucknow this morning. "I had the good fortune of working with him as a minister of UP. He worked for the upliftment of the backward classes of the society and felt concerned for the welfare of the poor and the deprived. His death is not only a irreparable loss to the country but also my personal loss," Tripathi said. "I convey my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family and his numerous followers," the message said. Yadav served as the Madhya Pradesh Governor from August 26, 2011 to September 7, 2016. The veteran Congress leader was also Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister from 1977-79. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The European Parliament's Brexit negotiator warned his British counterpart today that there is an "intense" window of just 15 months to complete talks for the country's exit from the EU. Guy Verhofstadt said he had also told Brexit minister David Davis that European lawmakers would not accept Britain trying to keep access to the single market while limiting freedom of movement for EU citizens. Former Belgian prime minister and leading European federalist Verhofstadt had tweeted that it would be a "hell of a meeting" after Davis jokingly compared him to Satan earlier this year. "We agreed on some things, on the need for this process to start as early as possible and need to be finished in any case before the next European elections" in May 2019, Verhofstadt said after the talks in Strasbourg, France. "So the window for the negotiations is more or less 14, 15 months," he added. "It's going to be a period that is very intense." He said if Britain triggers the two-year divorce process in March 2017 as Prime Minister Theresa May has promised, then formal negotiations are unlikely to start until May 2017. MEPs must then formally give their consent for any deal and that would take several months from late 2018, he said. Verhofstadt added that it was "impossible to find solutions where we destroy the so-called four freedoms" including the freedom of movement. May has said she wanted to cut EU migrant numbers and retain access for British businesses to Europe's single market, but EU leaders insist the two are incompatible. The head of the European Parliament's largest group, Manfred Weber, said he had "heard nothing new" when he also met Davis at the parliament in Strasbourg. "Unfortunately I haven't heard anything new from David Davis today. For us it's clear: The four fundamental freedoms are not negotiable," said Weber, head of the centre-right European People's Party. "Brexit means Brexit so we're going to have to cut back on our relationships, it's not a cherry-picking situation at all," he warned. "We need a clear position from the UK government, so please make things clearer." The talks came a day after Davis met the European Commission's top negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels for a "courtesy coffee". The pair both insisted the meeting did not mark a formal start to negotiations, saying that would have to wait until Britain formally triggers the exit process. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bakery and dairy products major Britannia Industries Ltd, which is aiming to double its turnover in next four to five years, would expand offshore presence as it aspires to become a global company. Britannia, which would primarily target the developing countries, is expecting that exports would contribute around 14-15 per cent of its turnover in next 4-5 years. Besides this, the company would invest a capex of Rs 300-350 crore every year for the next 3-4 years to ramp up its capacity and roll out new categories which would be funded internally. "In the next 5 years, I would see this going from eight per cent to 14-15 per cent," said Britannia Industries Managing Director Varun Berry. Asked about the region which would lead growth, Berry said: "It would all be developing countries. We are not going to developed countries as it does not make sense." Presently, export contributes eight per cent to the turnover of the company. Part of the strategy would be expanding to countries which have similar business environment as India. It may also go for acquisitions if it gets the right candidate. Britannia, which is currently limited to bakery and dairy segment, would venture into new categories to be a complete food company. "Our first step would be the countries, which has environment similar to ours. The strategy would be to seed in our products in these countries, establish a little bit of space and then start to think of a manufacturing facility there. In the meantime, if some good opportunities (acquisitions) comes up in some countries, then we would look at that as well," Berry said. He further added: "Today, we are not a food company. We are broadly a bakery company only which also does dairy. We truly want to be a food company as we go forward. Its our vision to make Britannia not just an Indian food company but a global food company. We want our footprint across the globe and made some move in that direction and a lot more would be coming in future." Britannia clocked a revenue of Rs 7,947.90 crore in FY 2015-16 and plans to double it in next 4-5 years with growth in current business and new categories in which it plans to enter. "We would like to double the turnover in next 4-5 years... Bulk of the growth would come from the current categories and all the new categories would add to the growth as well," said Berry. He further added: "We are working on multiple categories. We are establishing our right to succeed and we are testing with consumers". The company has capex plans to ramp up production capacity. "I would think of Rs 300-350 crore every year in capex for next 3-4 years," said Berry adding, "If there is a return then we have got the money to fund it. The critical thing would be that the project should be giving us right returns and should be paying off in certain period of time. If it fulfils that, then money is sitting in the bank and we have enough money to invest." As part of growth strategy, Britannia Industries would have a mix of in-house and contract manufacturing. "Presently, it is 60:40 for in-house and contract manufacturing," he said adding, "It could be 70:30 in next two years". Britannia is currently present in 70 countries across the globe but its manufacturing facilities are only in India and the Middle East. The company is putting up a facility in the exports zone in Gujarat, which would be ready soon. Britannia today inaugurated its Rs 200 crore R&D centre at Bengaluru, adjacent to its manufacturing facility in Bidadi. The new facility would channelise the innovations from the R&D centre to markets across the country. Presently, it will employ 800 people, which could be later increased to 1,350 when it reaches full capacity. A suspected Pakistani militant guide was shot dead by BSF troops today near the International Border in Jammu, foiling an infiltration bid possibly by two ultras. Pakistani currency notes, Pakistani cigarette packets, eatables, two knifes, a cutter, some Urdu newspapers, visiting card of Sialkote, a booklet and diary in Chinese language, and a leaflet of a Chinese newspaper etc were recovered from the possession of the intruder whose identify could not be established immediately, a senior BSF officer said. "Early this morning at 0418 hours, it was observed that one person from Pakistan side suspiciously crossed the IB and moved ahead taking advantage of dead ground, thick growth, dark hours and fog," the officer said. On observing the suspicious movement close to forward BSF sentry post ahead of fence, the alert BSF sentry challenged the intruder, he said. "Instead of surrendering, the intruder tried to rush towards one of the culverts under the fence. As the intruder had covered his face and body with a shawl, the sentry got suspicious and shot at him dead," the officer said. He said "at the same time, a suspicious movement of two more persons was observed in the rear on Pakistani Bundh waiting for some signal from the intruder. Immediately after the intruder being fired by BSF sentry, both persons waiting in the rear side were seen hiding themselves behind Pakistani side bundh." The officer said the intruder seemed to be operating as a guide to the militants waiting for the signal. "The area was immediately kept under cover of fire and observation and search was started after the day break," he said. "Identification of intruder could not be established. Efforts are on to hand over the dead body to Pakistani Rangers if they accept," he added. D K Upadhyaya, IG BSF, Jammu Frontier, B S Kasana, DIG, Dharmendra Pareek, DIG (G) Bhagwant Singh Comdt BSF visited the site to take a stock of the situation. IG BSF appreciated the action and alertness of the troops giving special acknowledgement to the sentry performing the said action. Addressing the troops, the IG said "national security is our paramount concern and nobody can be permitted to obviate with it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Following are the business highlights as on 1900 hours today: New Delhi: As many as 82,500 ATMs, which account for about 40 per cent of cash vending machines in the country, have been recalibrated to dispense new high security currency notes of 500 and 2,000 rupees. (DEL 38) New Delhi: CAG has pulled up DoT for paying front-loaded subsidy to Tata Teleservices without conducting any checks, saying deficiencies found in verification were indicative of weak monitoring mechanism. (DEL 31) New Delhi: As many as 73 cardholders of the country's largest bank SBI had reported fraudulent withdrawals aggregating Rs 39.18 lakh till November 4 following data breach that hit millions of debit/ATMs. (DCM 36) New Delhi: National capital's upscale Khan Market has slipped two position to world's 28th most expensive retail location, even as it continues to be the costliest place to hire a shop in the country, says Cushman & Wakefield.(DCM 40) Mumbai: Fitch Ratings today said the demonetisation of old Rs 500, 1,000 notes will raise revenue for the government but warned that the positive effects of the move are unlikely to be strong and long-lasting to support credit profiles.(DCM 42) New Delhi: Maldivian Vice President Abdulla Jihad, who is on a visit to India, today said the country will sign its first free trade agreement early next year to boost trade and cooperation with other countries. (DCM 47) New Delhi: CAG has pulled up the Income Tax department for giving benefit of Rs 1,767 crore to the port and terminal arm of Reliance Industries by allowing deductions meant for public facilities to the company's captive jetties. (DCM 51) New Delhi: Sowing of rabi crops like wheat, pulses and oilseeds has not been affected due to banning of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh today said, ruing that politics is being played in the name of farmers. (DCM 69) New Delhi: Banks are integrating their information technology system with RBI and GST Network as they prepare to handle tax deposits under the new indirect tax regime, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today. (DCM 70) New Delhi: Telecom operators will make short code messages used for banking services free till December 31, a move aimed at fuelling cashless transactions following the government move to scrap high value notes of Rs 1000/500. (DEL 53) New Delhi: In a big step towards fighting black money stashed overseas, Switzerland today agreed to automatic sharing of information with India on Swiss bank accounts of Indians as of September 2018 and onwards. (DEL 58) Mumbai: Sensex snapped its six-day losing streak by rebounding 196 points today on fresh buying in metal, realty, auto and energy counters and short covering ahead of November-series expiry amid improving global cues.(DEL 43) Mumbai: The rupee remained in a tight spot and continued to slide against the US dollar, with the domestic currency ending lower by 9 paise at 68.25 -- its lowest level in nine months -- on heightened capital outflows. (DEL 60). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hailing the mandate for Trinamool Congress in the by-elections in the state as "people's revolt" against demonetisation, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "failing" to bring back black money from abroad. "The by-election result is a befitting reply against the anti-people by the Centre. It's a people's revolt, rather than a mass revolt against the Centre. BJP should take lessons from this mandate," she told newsmen before leaving for New Delhi to join the protest rally by the Opposition. "BJP will be nowhere after the elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. The Narendra Modi government has failed to bring back the black money from abroad, as he had promised during 2014 Lok Sabha polls. As he has failed to keep his promise, common people are being harassed. The hard earned money of the common people is being taken away," Banerjee said. Banerjee's Trianmool Congress on Tuesday registered a massive victory in by election to two Lok Sabha seats and one Assembly segment. TMC candidate Dibyendu Adhikari today won Tamluk Lok Sabha seat defeating his nearest CPI(M) rival Mandira Panda by 4.97 lakh votes. Another TMC candidate Saikat Panja registered a massive victory in Monteswar Assembly bypoll by defeating his nearest CPIM rival Md Osman Gani Sarkar by 1,27,127 votes. TMC's Parthapratim Roy has taken a lead of over 3.2 lakh votes over his nearest rival of BJP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi today thanked people for expressing "continued faith" in BJP and its "unwavering focus on development and good governance" after the party scored victories in bypolls in Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh besides doing well in West Bengal and Tripura. "I thank people for the continued faith in BJP & in the BJP's unwavering focus on development and good governance," Modi tweeted after the results of bypolls to Lok Sabha and Assembly seats came in. "I congratulate all BJP Karyakartas & leaders for the impressive victories in Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh," he said. In Madhya Pradesh, BJP won Shahdol Lok Sabha seat and bagged the Nepanagar Assembly seat, where it increased its winning margin to 42,198 votes as against 22,178 previously. BJP also won the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat in Assam, vacated by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, by a margin of 1,90,219 votes. In Arunachal Pradesh, BJP's North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) candidate Dasanglu Pul won Hayuliang assembly by-poll. Pul is the youngest of the three wives of former Chief Minister Kalikho Pul. The bypoll was necessitated by his suicide. "I appreciate @BJP4Bengal for the spirited performance. BJP is fully committed to diligently serving the wonderful people of West Bengal," Modi said in another tweet. In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress swept Tamluk and Coochbehar Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal by a whopping margin of over 4.9 lakh votes, almost doubling the gap from 2014 polls. The ruling party of the state also won the Monteswar assembly seat with candidates of CPI(M), Congress and BJP losing their deposits. "Congrats to Tripura BJP Karyakartas for an impressive performance in the bypolls. Good to see BJP expanding its base in the Northeast," the Prime Minister added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP and Trinamool Congress shared the honours by winning two Lok Sabha seats each, claiming it was a vindication of their stand on demonetisation, as ruling parties in six states and Puducherry held sway in byelections, retaining most of the 10 Assembly seats up for grabs. In the Assembly bypolls held on November 19, results of which were declared today, BJP and AIADMK won three seats each, CPI(M) got two while Congress and Trinamool bagged one each. BJP won the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat in Assam, vacated by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, by a margin of 1,90,219 votes and Shahdol Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh, both ruled by the party. Trinamool Congress swept Tamluk and Coochbehar Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal by a whopping margin of over 4.9 lakh votes, almost doubling the gap from 2014 polls. Trinamool also won the Monteswar assembly seat with candidates of CPI(M), Congress and BJP losing their deposits. In Madhya Pradesh, BJP's victory margin in Shahdol Lok Sabha came down to 60,000 from 2,41,301 in the 2014 general elections. It bagged the Nepanagar Assembly seat, where it increased its winning margin to 42,198 votes as against 22,178. In Tamil Nadu, AIADMK, whose supremo Jayalalithaa is hospitalised for two months, retained Thanjavur and Thirupparankundram Assembly seats and wrested Aravakkurichi seat from DMK by margins ranging from 20,000 votes to 42,000. The ruling CPI(M) in Tripura wrested Barjala (SC) seat from Congress and retained Khowai. Senior Congress leader and Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy won the bypoll to Nellithope Assembly seat defeating AIADMK's Om Sakthi Segar by a margin of 11,144 votes. North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) candidate Dasanglu Pul of BJP won Hayuliang assembly by-poll in Arunachal Pradesh defeating her lone rival Yompi Kri, an independent candidate, by 942 votes. Pul is the youngest of the three wives of former chief minister Kalikho Pul. The bypoll was necessitated by his suicide. Union Minister Ananth Kumar and Sonowal said the BJP's win in the bypolls showed that people have endorsed the government's decision against black money and corruption. "BJP's victory in by-polls is a clear indication that people are fully supporting the decision to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes. It is people's mandate for the Prime Minister's decision of demonetisation," Sonowal told reporters. West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, however, termed the byelection result as a mandate against the Centre's decision of demonetisation. "The by-election result is a befitting reply against the anti-people demonetisation by the Centre. It's a people's revolt, rather a mass revolt against the Centre. BJP should take lessons from this mandate," she told newsmen in Kolkata before leaving for New Delhi to join the protest by the Opposition. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Defense Minister of Armenia Vigen Sargsyan received on November 22 Minister of Trade and Industry of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov. As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Defense Ministry of Armenia, the sides highly assessed the activities of the Armenian-Russian inter-governmental commission, the creation of joint ventures and accredited service centers for the restoration and technical support of military products. Vigen Sargsyan expressed satisfaction with the activities of Kamaz-Armenia joint venture, as well as pointed out the involvement of 25 Russian businessmen in the implementation of the agreement signed in the sidelines of the state export loan. At the end of the meeting the Armenian Defense Minister expressed readiness for cooperation with the Russian side in the sidelines of the industrial cooperation. has pulled up DoT for paying a front-loaded subsidy to Tata Teleservices without conducting any checks, saying deficiencies found in verification were indicative of weak monitoring mechanism. In its report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, said Department of Telecom's (DoT) unit was to pay a front-loaded subsidy to telecom companies for expanding telephone connectivity in rural areas. The subsidy amount is payable at the end of the quarter in which the connection is installed and made functional. said the Controller of Communication Accounts (CCA), Rajasthan Telecom circle which is a unit of Department of Telecom "allowed front loaded subsidy of Rs 71.49 crore on the basis of claims submitted by Tata Teleservices (TTSL) during 2008-2010, without conducting any check regarding genuineness of customer application forms before disbursement of subsidy". DoT had issued instructions in January 2008 to TTSL to furnish a hard/soft copy of the customer application form or CAF in support of claims for each number for which front-loaded subsidy had been sought. "During test check of records at office of the CCA of Rajasthan telecom circle (September 2013) it was observed that in most of the cases, either there were no soft/hard copies of CAF or those were related to mobile subscribers instead of RDELs or Rural Household Direct Exchange Lines (landlines)," said the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The ministry's reply in June this year said that hard copies of the customer forms from April 2007 to March 2008 were available. However, CDs relating to the financial year 2009-10 were burnt in a fire incident. "Further, there was no instruction to check the CAFs before or after payment of subsidy claims. It was further stated that during the physical verification of RDELs, all the RDELs were not found installed at their original locations as per claims and original CAFs and hence were adjudged ineligible," the report said. A demand notice of Rs 137.99 crore (including interest) for the subsidy paid during 2007-08 to 2009-10 was issued to TTSL in June 2014, the report said adding that the matter is presently disputed before the sole arbitrator. "Reply of the Ministry confirms deficiencies in certification and payment mechanism for RDEL subsidies. It is also indicative of weak monitoring mechanism on the part of DoT in verification of subsidy claims," CAG said. (Reopens DEL 31) CAG also said that CCA units at Odisha and Kerala circles paid subsidy on duplicate claims amounting to Rs 0.82 crore to BSNL and Reliance Communication Ltd. The report also pointed to imprudent action on the part of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd in the procurement of 'Digital Cross Connect System equipment' which resulted in idling of interface cards and blocking of funds amounting to Rs 22.80 crore in two project circles. It further said that BSNL signed an 'Addenda to Interconnect Agreement' for Interconnect Usage Charge (IUC) for SMS with three telecom service providers viz. Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone "without technical arrangement for billing of SMS termination charges". "Due to the non preservation of SMS data, non-verification, and non-reconciliation of Bills (claims) received from Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, BSNL was exposed to one-sided liability," it said. The Centre today asked the Jammu and Kashmir government to ensure security of banks, ATMs and cash carrying vans in the wake of the day-light robbery of a bank in the state. In a communication, the Home Ministry asked the Jammu and Kashmir to provide security to banks - both in urban and rural areas - which have seen rush in the wake of demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes. Adequate security should be provided to cash carrying vans and ATMs, the Home Ministry conveyed, official sources said. Security officials suspect that some of the sleeper cells had helped the terrorists to loot a bank in Jammu and Kashmir's Budgam district where terrorists decamped with nearly Rs 13 lakh cash yesterday. The Home Ministry also asked the state government to send a detailed report about the bank loot, sources said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan today held the NCP responsible for letting the ruling BJP-Sena alliance bag an additional seat each in the biennial elections to the state Legislative Council. Chavan, while reacting to the election results declared today, said instead of fighting six seats together in a 3:3 ratio, NCP stitched up an "unholy alliance" with Sena-BJP only to deny Congress two additional seats. NCP supported Shiv Sena in Yavatmal and BJP in Jalgaon by withdrawing its candidates. Similarly, Shiv Sena supported NCP in Pune. Even in Nanded, NCP joined Sena-BJP to support an independent against Congress' Amar Rajurkar, state Congress spokesman Sachin Sawant said. He said Congress withdrew its candidate in Jalgaon after BJP-NCP joined hands since the party did not have the numbers. Chavan said if NCP had agreed to the 3:3 formula leaving Yavatmal and Sangli-Satara for Congress, both parties would have easily won all the six seats. He hoped the NCP would learn its lesson and ensure its future actions do not support the Sena-BJP combine. NCP party could win only one of the four seats it held during the biennial elections to the six local bodies constituencies in the state Legislative Council. The party retained only Pune local bodies seat while the Congress retained Nanded and wrested Sangli-Satara local bodies constituency from NCP. The BJP retained the Jalgaon local bodies seat. The Sharad Pawar-led party lost Bhandara-Gondia to BJP and Yavatmal to Shiv Sena. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Colombian opposition has rejected the latest version of a peace agreement between FARC guerrillas and the country's government, following a six-hour meeting with government delegates. Right-wing senator and opposition leader Alvaro Uribe met Monday with Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos to review the revised accord. Colombian voters unexpectedly rejected an earlier version of the government's peace deal with the FARC in an October 2 referendum. "We insisted on the introduction of amendments to the agreement prepared by the government and the FARC, and the government opposed these changes on substantial subjects," Uribe told journalists. Opponents reiterated that if some of their demands were not definitively included in the new deal, it would be a mere "reworking of the agreement rejected by the citizens." "We are totally willing to engage in dialogue with the government and the guerrillas concerning these changes," Uribe said. The conservative leader said the opposition was proposing to meet guerrilla delegates who had arrived Monday in Bogota to prepare for the signing of the peace agreement. According to the government, the new accord includes amendments pertaining to 56 of the 57 points raised by the opposition. Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, said the deal would be presented to Congress Wednesday for discussion. The armed conflict that has endured for more than half a century has left more than 260,000 dead, more than 60,000 missing and 6.9 million displaced. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A couple wanted in connection with a Rs 6 crore cheating case here have been arrested from the Andamans, police said today. Shahjahan and his wife Najima Banu, directors of a private company, were held at Andaman on November 19 by a special team, they said. The case relates to a complaint by a city resident that four directors of the company had received Rs 6 crore from him, promising to build a multi-storeyed apartment. The houses were neither constructed nor the amount was repaid, police said. Two of the four directors, identified as Khaleel and his wife Shakeela, have already been arrested and the special team received a tip-off that Shahjahan and Banu were hiding in Andaman. The two were brought to Chennai and remanded to custody yesterday, police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) CPI(M) is seeking legal opinion on moving a contempt notice against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for announcing policy matters like demonetisation outside Parliament but not coming to the House to explain them. "If the Prime Minister makes a major policy announcement outside Parliament, particularly when it has been summoned by the President, it is incumbent that he comes to both Houses to explain the issue. This has not been done," party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told a press conference here. "We are examining the issue and we would like to move contempt notice against PM after discussing with other Opposition parties," Yechury said, criticising Modi for his "arrogancy and obduracy" in not facing Parliament. He posed whether the Prime Minister can make a policy statement outside Parliament when the House has already been summoned by the President. "According to us, he cannot. But that has been done." Yechury said the Prime Minister was making statements after statements outside Parliament when it was in session but not inside and this "amounts to utter contempt of Parliament. We are examining the possibility of moving contempt proceedings against him and are seeking legal opinion. We will hold consultations with all opposition parties." In a democracy, people are supreme as they elect representatives to Parliament and the government is answerable to Parliament. "Since the PM is not coming to Parliament, it is a breakdown of the parliamentary system," he said. He also asked why the government was not giving out the names of bank defaulters, alleging that over Rs 11 lakh crore have been siphoned off from the banks and termed non- performing assets as "the biggest scam". On the demonetisation issue Yechury said people are facing serious problems and till date about 74 have died due to problems faced fot the demonetisation move and the government refusing to condole their deaths in the House. He also chided the media for "not seeming to recognise that there is an Opposition in the country and carrying only what the ruling party says. Myth is being generated that the people are hailing the (demonetisation) move." "It is an abnormal situation where the people cannot use their own money. It is violation of their fundamental right to property. How can you deny me from using my own property," the CPI(M) leader said, adding that now "new routes to exchange old currency" have been provided via Nepal, Bhutan, Dubai and Singapore. He said all Opposition parties will meet tomorrow to chart out the future course of action amid the logjam in Parliament. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India must create space for the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in its legislative institutions and help internationalise the matter, a leader from the region has said as he met BJP general-secretary Ram Madhav in the US. During the meeting, Madhav and Senge Sering, director of Gilgit-Baltistan National Congress, discussed issues related to the "chronic Kashmir dilemma" with focus on the ongoing political development in the region. "People of Gilgit-Baltistan continue to suffer due to absence of constitutional rights and Pakistan lacks the legal capacity to grant the locals citizenship. India therefore must create space for the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in its legislative institutions and help internationalise the matter," Sering said after meeting Madhav. BJP's proposal to elect parliamentarians from Pakistan- occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan also came up during the discussion. Sering said India claims the people of Gilgit-Baltistan as its citizens and it is, therefore, incumbent upon the Indian government to treat the people of Gilgit-Baltistan at par with those living in Ladakh or Jammu and Kashmir. At the moment, 24 seats are vacant in the Kashmir Assembly which are reserved for the people of PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan. Sering spoke on the need to revive dialogue with Pakistan to discuss confidence-building measures related to movement of people across the Line-of-Control. Currently, there are over 15,000 people living in Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan who belong to separated families and await a decision by both the countries to open Skardo Kargil and Gangche-Nubra roads to facilitate meetings and reunions, he said. The two leaders shared views on opening Indian educational and health institutions for the people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. Thousands of Pakistani citizens travel to India to benefit from its health and educational facilities. However, this option is not available to the residents of PoK-GB, a media release on the meeting said. They also discussed the on-going violations of religious freedom and rights in Gilgit-Baltistan as the Pakistan government recently charged hundreds of people with terrorism for peacefully commemorating Imam Hussain Day in educational institutions. Talking about jailed political activists, many of whom face a life sentence, Sering explained how abrogation of State Subject Rule has enabled Pakistan to illegally change the socio-economic demography affecting the local culture. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid rising Indo-Pak tensions, Pakistan today said "credible minimum deterrence" was needed for regional stability and warned that instability has consequences with "far more dangers". Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said the imperative of strategic stability was an important dimension of Pakistan-India relations. "There is need for credible minimum deterrence as instability has consequences with far more dangers," he said while addressing an international conference on 'Strengthening Peace and Cooperation in South Asia: Incentives and Constraints' organised by Islamabad Policy Research Institute. Aziz claimed that Pakistan is maintaining "minimum nuclear deterrence" for peace and stability in the region and called upon the international community to desist from policies and actions that undermine strategic stability in South Asia. He stated that supply of weapon systems widens the existing conventional capabilities in the region. Aziz regretted that the world has not fully recognised the dangers posed to the peace and stability in the region. On the Kashmir issue, Aziz was quoted as saying by Radio Pakistan that, "India was responding to indigenous struggle of Kashmiris for their right of self-determination by denial and illusion." He criticised India for terming the "Kashmiri struggle" as terrorism and declaring Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part. "India must understand ground realities and recognise the indigenous nature of right to self-determination movement" in Kashmir, he was quoted as saying. Aziz said during negotiations with India, Pakistan would continue to seek normalisation of relationship and promoting steps that would pave the way for settlement of all lingering disputes including the core dispute of Jammu and Kashmir. On the NSG issue, Aziz called for criteria-based and non-discriminatory approach for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), asserting that otherwise it will affect the strategic stability in the region. He said Pakistan's application for NSG membership should be evaluated on the basis of fair criterion. (Reopens FGN 27) Aziz regretted India's opposition to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor project, saying it is based on "no apparent reason". Aziz alleged that India is doing so to obstruct Pakistan's path towards progress and development. He claimed that the "Indian hegemonic temptations" and aggressive posture undermine regional cooperation. Aziz said Pakistan believes in peaceful co-existence based on mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity but at the same time it cannot remain aloof from the prevailing situation in the region. He accused India of "sponsoring and fomenting" terrorism in Pakistan. Aziz also alleged that India had increased violations along the Line of Control to put constraints on Pakistan's ability to deploy more troops on the western border. People of Andhra Pradesh will have to endure the "currency woes" for some time to come as the state government has given up hope of either getting more cash from the RBI into the banks or introducing cashless transactions on a massive scale in the near future. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who for the past few days has been constantly reviewing the situation with bankers and state government officials, told the State Level Bankers Committee that "I have no hope that we will get more currency notes of smaller denominations". After two letters from the Chief Minister, the RBI dispatched Rs 2,000 crore worth currency notes to the state two days ago. Of this, the new Rs 2,000 notes amounted to Rs 1,500 crore, new Rs 500 notes amounted to Rs 90 crore, Rs 100 notes Rs 400 crore and the rest of other smaller denominations. "I have sought another Rs 5,000 crore, mostly in Rs 100s. But I have no hope we will get the money," Chandrababu remarked at the five-hour meeting with bankers and state officials last night. At the same time, he wanted to introduce Point of Sale (PoS) swiping machines to enable cashless transactions, using credit and debit cards, but the companies which supply these machines told the Chief Minister that it would take more time to make the gadgets available as per demand. Besides, the Chief Minister wanted the 14 per cent service tax and 1.25 to 2.25 per cent service charge on card and mobile transactions waived so that people could go for cashless transactions. Now either the merchants or consumers were bearing the service charges which was proving a "disincentive", he noted. The CM also wanted the Centre to supply PoS machines at a subsidy of 80 per cent to merchant establishments. "The costs involved in printing and distributing the currency and also the wear and tear are very high compared to the benefits of cashless transactions. So the RBI should compensate in this form," Chandrababu pointed out. But, there was no firm assurance from the banks on the service charge, while the service tax has to be waived by the Central government. The state government wants to introduce PoS machines in certain departments that involve currency transactions with the public. The State Road Transport Corporation requires 2,500 PoS machines, rythu bazaars 80, tourism department 100 and Mee Seva centres 5,540. Besides, 16,452 swiping machines are required for as many villages to ensure transition to a cashless economy, according to Finance Secretary K Sunita. Verizon, one of the companies that manufactures and sells PoS machines to banks, said it could supply 1.20 lakh gadgets by the end of December. Ingenico, another company in the same business, too was ready to supply those many machines by December end. But they have to cater to a pan-India market. With RBI coming out with fresh guidelines that the PoS machines have an integrated biometric scanning system, deployment of these gadgets may get further delayed. However, the Chief Minister set bankers a 40-day deadline for rolling out cashless transactions "to the extent possible", even as he said that all government transactions would be made online from December 1. German luxury car giant has apologised and fired its top executive in China after he allegedly made insulting remarks against Chinese people during an altercation over car parking here. The case had drawn huge attention on social media and provoked anger among Chinese. The truck and bus company released a statement saying it has decided to part ways with Rainer Gartner, President and CEO at Trucks and Buses China Limited, following the incident. The manner in which Gartner had conducted himself during the dispute was "detrimental to the standing of our company, unbecoming of a manager of our brand and prejudicial to our good name", the company said. "Such an incident reflects in no way the values of AG, and we sincerely apologise for the concerns raised by this matter," state-run People's Daily quoted the firm as saying. The daily report said Gartner has made a disparaging comment on Chinese people, saying "I have been in China one year already; the first thing I learned here is: All you Chinese are bastards". His gaffe came after a parking row with a Chinese driver at a residential community in Beijing's northeastern Shunyi district. It was alleged that the Chinese driver was reversing into a parking space, when a black Mercedes-Benz suddenly clinched the spot. The quarrel drew passersby to come and defend the Chinese, but they were pepper sprayed by the German executive. The entire scene was posted on social media, drawing anger and discussions among Chinese netizens. YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Trade and Industry of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov discussed issues of bilateral and multilateral cooperation with high level Armenian officials. After meeting with President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, the Russian Minister told the reporters that the main topic of the talks was about deepening industrial and economic cooperation in all directions in the sidelines of the EAEU. We must utilize the potentials of each member state so as they are able not only to realize their products in the EAEU market, but also beyond its borders, Armenpress reports Manturov saying. He added that during the conference in Armenia they introduced to their Armenian, Belarusian and Kazakh partners the industrial opportunities that Egypt gives to the EAEU member states. Particularly, Egypt has created an industrial zone in Port Said and offers us to establish our own production there. There are already some Russians wishing to do that and now we invite our Armenian, Belarusian and Kazakh partners to establish there their productions, the Minister said. Manturov also stated that they attach great importance to the production of agricultural machines, noting that there is already an agreement with Armenian partners to create joint technical parks including in it all the Russian and Belarusian enterprises engaged in agricultural machine production. We have reache3d an agreement to implement a pilot project in which the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture will participate. We will also utilize the entire potential of Belarus and Russia in agricultural machine production in order to make that project economically beneficial, Denis Manturov stated. The Russian Minister also noted that there is a necessity to use the potentials of Armenia. He mentioned that since the Soviet times the Armenian cooperatives have been serious competitor for Russian enterprises. Denis Manturov added that he has discussed issues of military technical cooperation with Armenian Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan. Minister of Trade and Industry of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov has held meetings in Yerevan with President Serzh Sargsyan, Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan, Minister of Economic Development and Investments Suren Karayan and Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan. A dedicated office has been opened by international company VFS Global in South Africa's biggest city Johannesburg for the Indian High Commission to make visa applications for tourists and business travellers a quick and simple process. "What is most impressive is that the target is to not let anyone wait more than 20 minutes, with no additional hidden costs," said Indian High Commissioner Ruchi Ghanashyam at the official opening of the office last evening. "Our job here is to give the best service that we can in an atmosphere that is clean and enjoyable quickly and to send back anyone who comes here for our service happy and satisfied," Ghanashyam said, adding that her office has a zero-tolerance approach for any complaints. "As part of the mandate from the Indian High Commission in South Africa, we are required to set up offices in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, which have all been open since October 3," said Satyajit Roy, Deputy General Manager Operations for Southern Africa at VFS. "As a company in South Africa we work for 17 client governments, including a number of Schengen country governments and the South African Department of Home Affairs, but this office is exclusively for Indian visa and Consular services. "Indian visas are issued free of charge and result from a bilateral agreement between the governments of India and South Africa, but there is a service fee of R117 for each application," Roy said. A number of South African travel agents specialising in trips to India expressed their satisfaction at the high security and technological facilities at the office to ensure smooth service for their clients. "The long wait for visas is definitely now a thing of the past as India expands its plans to welcome both business and tourist visitors," said Hema Naik, director of RC Naik Travel. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today failed to get relief from the Supreme Court which dismissed his plea for a stay on proceedings in a criminal defamation case filed by Union Minister Arun Jaitley against him. His counsel Ram Jethmalani tried to give a political colour to the matter by saying the case is a result of a fight between a "powerful minister" and the chief minister of a small state. Jethmalani's arguments, including his attempt to rake up the issue of differences between judiciary and Centre over appointment of judges, did not cut ice with the apex court which refused to interfere with the judgement of the Delhi High Court giving the go ahead to the trial court in the criminal defamation against Kejriwal. "We have seen the judgements of Delhi High Court and trial court. We can't interfere with the judgements. In the facts and circumstances of the case, the petition is dismissed," a bench of Justices P C Ghose and U U Lalit said. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, who was present in the courtroom, did not make any submission to counter the arguments of Jethmalani. Jethmalani sought a stay on the trial court proceedings in the case till the civil proceedings in the Delhi High Court continued. The bench brushed aside Jethmalani's arguments that "appointment of judges in the High Court is being interfered. This is a fact known to every child in the country." "Sir, we must please confine ourselves to the facts of the matter," the bench told Jethmalani. Failing to persuade the bench, Jethmalani sought protection for Kejriwal by again saying that it is the fight between a person who is the finance minister of the country and a chief minister of a state. "This is a fight between a finance minister of the country and a Chief Minister of a small state. Please protect the Chief Minister. You know what things are going on these days," the senior advocate said. To this the bench again said, "We must not look beyond the records of the matter." Jethmalani said that the decision or view of the High Court, where civil proceedings are going on, will be binding on the subordinate court, where criminal proceedings on the similar facts and circumstances of the case are pending. The court reminded the senior lawyer that in the appeal there is challenge to the order of a magistrate who has refused to quash the criminal proceedings against Kejriwal. "The challenge is to the order of the magistrate who has refused to quash the proceedings, but you have not challenged that the allegations do not constitute the offence. Had you challenged that the allegations do not constitute a criminal offence, then it would have been different matter," the bench said. Jethmalani again tried to convince the bench saying that people have great confidence in the high court, but there was interference in the collegium decision on appointment of judges. "Sorry sir, we are not in the collegium," the bench again observed asking the counsel to stick to the facts of the case. Jethmalani said that there is no specific law of the Supreme Court that both civil and criminal proceedings can continue parallely and the court should lay down the law. "There is no specific law of the Supreme Court with regard to the matter. The principle is that criminal case should be stayed and civil proceedings on same facts and circumstances should be allowed to continue," he said. To this, the bench said that under the Evidence Act, it is clearly stated that a judgement on civil matter is not applicable to the criminal proceedings. It, however, said that though it theoretically accepted that on the same facts and circumstances both civil and criminal proceedings cannot continue, but there were no legal provisions with regard to this. The high court had on October 19 dismissed Kejriwal's plea seeking stay of trial court proceedings in a criminal defamation case, saying there was no "illegality" in continuing it simultaneously with a civil defamation suit in the high court. The high court had said there was "no prejudice" on account of a pending civil suit and there was no "double jeopardy" and as such Kejriwal's plea was "devoid of merit". It had said the criminal and civil defamation cases were "different in nature". Besides a civil defamation suit in the high court, Jaitley had also filed a criminal defamation complaint in a lower court alleging Kejriwal and five AAP leaders -- Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai -- had defamed him in the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) controversy. (Reopens LGD21) The trial court had earlier granted bail to Kejriwal and others in the case after they had appeared before it. Jaitley had on December 21, 2015 filed the criminal defamation case against the AAP leaders and sought their prosecution for offences that entail a punishment of up to two years in jail. Jaitley, in his civil defamation suit in the high court, has sought Rs 10 crore in damages from Kejriwal and the five AAP leaders for issuing allegedly false and defamatory statements against him and his family in connection with alleged irregularities in DDCA when he was its president. Defamation proceedings cannot be used as an instrument by the mighty to scuttle citizens' freedom of speech and right to access justice, a Delhi court has said. The observation was made by the court as it dismissed a defamation suit filed by Frankfinn Aviation Services Pvt Ltd against a student for allegedly defaming the institute. "Defamation proceedings cannot become instruments of the mighty to browbeat the citizens and scuttle their freedom of free speech and right of access to legal remedies and redressal of their grievances," Additional District Judge Kamini Lau said. The court said the institute was not entitled to a relief of Rs 3.01 lakh damages, perpetual injunction by restraining the student and his father from allegedly defaming it and mandatory injunction directing them to apologise it. It passed the verdict in a suit filed by the institute against Pune resident Haresh Bhatia whose son, a student of Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training had filed a cheating case against it in Pune. It said that the argument of the Bhatia's counsel that the attempt of the "mighty" institution in filing numerous litigations in Delhi was only to harass him by booking him in multiple cases to compel him for a compromise. Otherwise there was no point of filing defamation suit in Delhi. This "cannot be brushed aside as such a possibility cannot be ruled out". The institute alleged that Bhatia's purpose was to spoil its reputation in public and before courts and he had purportedly defamed the organisation in the presence of its officials in a court premise in 2014 by making derogatory remarks. Bhatia, in his reply, said his son Rahul had taken admission in Level 5 BTEC Higher National Certificate (HNC) in Aviation Hospitality and Travel Management course at the institute and was issued a completion certificate in May 2008. In February 2009 Exdecel Ltd, UK, also issued its certificate but the one issued by Frankfinn was "bogus and fake and the course mentioned in the certificate was not even authorised by any educational institute of India" after which he filed a cheating case against it, Bhatia had said. Regarding the alleged defamatory remarks made against the institute in court premises, the judge said, "I am sure, in case such an incident would have happened, the plaintiff (institute) would have certainly pointed it out to the presiding officer". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Cases of sexual offences against children are getting delayed in trial courts allegedly due to AAP government's failure to provide basic facilities like forensic reports and vulnerable witnesses' rooms, Delhi High Court was told today. The submission was made before a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice V Kameswar Rao which said the two PILs before it for time-bound trial and disposal of cases relating to offences against children, would be heard by the regular bench and listed the petitions for hearing on December 22. Apart from Delhi government's alleged failure to provide forensic reports on time or more vulnerable witnesses rooms, one of the petitioners listed out other alleged deficiencies in implementation of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act leading to delay in trial of such matters. The shortcomings also include absence of a list of qualified experts like translator, interpreter, special educator or person familiar with communication mannerism of a child, whose assistance could be taken by the POCSO courts, petitioner Gaurav Kumar Bansal claimed in his additional affidavit. He further claimed that as POCSO courts also dealt with matters related to Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, SEBI and Drugs and Cosmetics, the pendency was "heavy" and the victims also get exposed to the accused in such cases. Earlier, the Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) had told the High Court that the rate of conviction in cases of sexual offences against children was alarming. DSLSA had said that conviction rates in POCSO matters for 2014 was 16.33 per cent, 19.65 per cent for 2015 and 18.49 per cent till July 31, 2016. In order to improve the justice delivery system in cases of sexual offences under POCSO, a new software and computerisation of records is proposed to be introduced in District Courts, the authority had told the court. Apart from Bansal, NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan has also sought time-bound trial and disposal of POCSO cases in the trial courts. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi BJP MLAs today met President Pranab Mukherjee and urged him to annul the "unconstitutional" resolution passed by AAP dominated Delhi Assembly "condemning" Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the demonetisation of high value currency notes. A delegation of three BJP legislators, including Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Vijender Gupta handed over a memorandum to the President in connection with a resolution passed by Assembly on November 15. The AAP MLAs, led by the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, had slammed Modi over demonetisation of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes citing problems faced by poor people during the one day emergency session. The House had also paid condolences to those who allegedly died while waiting in queues outside the banks and ATMs for exchange and withdrawal of money. "The resolution violates Rule 93 of Delhi Vidhan Sabha which stipulates that a resolution shall not contain defamatory statements. The Rule 264 is binding to extent that resolution shall not refer to the officials by name. Therefore, the resolution deserves to be annulled for violations," said the MLAs. Gupta pointed out to the President that the Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goyal and Deputy CM Manish Sisodia had met and submitted the resolution to him on November 19, while also seeking action against Chief Minister Kejriwal for alleged "misuse" of privileged House of Vidhan Sabha. BJP legislators OP Sharma and Jagdish Pradhan were part of the delegation led by Gupta. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gujarat Congress today said it would launch a state-wide agitation from tomorrow to highlight "problems" faced by common people in procuring new currency notes following the Centre's decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki made this announcement here today. "Narendra Modi-led government's move to scrap the notes is anti-people and it has led to rise in unemployment," he said. "The situation is getting out of control. People are going home empty-handed despite standing in queues outside banks for hours. Every section of society, be it farmers, students, labourers, youths, women and tribals, are facing tremendous problems in getting new notes," Solanki said in a press conference. "Unemployment is increasing day-by-day due to cash crunch. Small traders and shopkeepers are not getting any business. To highlight these issues, Congress has decided to launch a state-wide agitation from tomorrow. Apart from staging protests in various parts of state, our workers will also help people in filling up forms outside banks," Solanki said. While talking to reporters, senior Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela alleged that BJP has misused the cooperative banks to turn their black money into white. "BJP helped their near and dear ones to turn their black money into white through cooperative banks. Many such banks were kept open during night to facilitate such illegal transactions. People want to know who was behind it and who came there to deposit their money," said Vaghela, who is the Leader of Opposition in Gujarat Assembly. "I want the government to provide three days of CCTV footage of all these banks to find out who actually exchanged their notes after office hours. I also want the PM to apologise for failing to handle the situation following demonetisation," added Vaghela. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Cash worth over Rs 2.22 crores of demonetised currency was seized from two vehicles at a checking point in Palwal district's Hodal area, police said today. "An amount of Rs 2.22 crores in the now-scrapped denomination of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes were seized from two multi utility vehicles, which were intercepted at a 'nakka' point here yesterday," Rahul Sharma, SP Palwal, said. Those driving the vehicles stopped just short of the checking point and managed to escape under the cover of darkness, he said. "We have registered an FIR under sections 379 and 411 of the IPC. We also informed the Income Tax authorities. The teams from the IT department are investigating the matter along with us. Further action will depend after gauging whether the cash was illegal or legal," Sharma said. He said the vehicles used in the crime were registered in the name of a realty firm. "The vehicles were registered on a Faridabad address. The Income Tax teams are also questioning the vehicle owners," Sharma added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Railways today suspended five senior officials and transferred Jhansi Divisional Manager (DRM) as the probe into the Indore-Patna Express accident gained momentum, with blood samples of the two drivers sent for alcohol test. The death toll in Sunday's mishap rose to 150, making it the deadliest train accident in the last 17 years with four more persons, including a 12-year-old boy, succumbing to their injuries. Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer (Carriage and wagon) Navaid Talib, Divisional Engineer M K Mishra, Senior Section Engineer Ambika Ojha, Section Engineer Iswar Das and Senior Section Engineer Sushil Kumar Gupta were suspended for dereliction of duty while DRM of Jhansi Division S K Aggarwal was transferred. While Jhansi DRM was transferred to Ranchi, the five officials were suspended pending inquiry. "It was very necessary to take action to fix responsibility. Suspension and transfer order was issued pending inquiry being conducted by the Commissioner Railway Safety (CRS)," said a senior Railway Ministry official. Meanwhile, Railway Safety Commissioner P K Acharya said blood samples of the two drivers of the train have been sent to a lab to ascertain if they were in an inebriated condition that could have caused the deadly derailment. "Blood samples of both the drivers have been sent to a laboratory for tests. I can make further comments once the laboratory sends the reports," he said replying to questions on whether the drivers were under the influence of alcohol. Acharya, who is probing the accident and had inspected the site yesterday, said it may take about two-three days to complete the inquiry and the report will be submitted to the government in a month's time. The statements of the driver, the assistant driver, a police inspector and a few other people have been recorded, he said, adding that this is first round of questioning and there will be more rounds. He said samples of the broken railway track have been brought to Kanpur and are being sent for examination to the Research Designs and Standards Organisation's (RDSO) laboratory. A 12-member team of Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel has also been formed to investigate the derailment. On being told that the GRP had registered FIRs against unknown people and is also investigating the matter, Acharya said he had nothing to do with the GRP's probe. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) AAP volunteers rounded up along with deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia during their protest against demonetisation today made good use of their time in detention as they queued up to withdraw cash from an ATM machine in the police station. Apart from Sisodia and Delhi Culture Minister Kapil Mishra, police detained 48 AAP MLAs, and 400 to 500 party volunteers protesting at Jantar Mantar against the demonetisation drive. They were all taken to the Parliament Street Police station. While Sisodia, Mishra and the MLAs were taken to an official's room, the remaining volunteers stayed put in an open area within the police station. There they raised slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for demonetising high value notes, sang, and queued up outside an Axis Bank ATM. Unlike other ATMs in the surrounding areas, this particular cash vend is little known as it is located deep inside the Parliament Street police station, a typical colonial edifice, and is often used by police personnel. "I am making good use of my time. At other places one has to queue up for a long time," said Jagar Khan, party volunteer and a businessman from Mustafabad. Jamal Ansari, another party volunteer from Kalkaji, said the ATM was only dispensing Rs 2000 notes and the battle ahead for him was to find change for such a high denomination note Even policemen were seen queueing up for withdrawing money from the ATM. "People have been facing a lot of hardships due to the decision. At other ATMs, people have to wait for a long time, but here it is taking only a few minutes," said Naresh Rajasthani, a businessman and a party volunteer from Rohini Sector 22. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Egyptian appeals court today quashed one of the two life sentences handed down to ex-president Mohamed Morsi and ordered a retrial in connection with an espionage case. The court also quashed life sentence of 15 other Muslim Brotherhood leaders. The defendants were accused of spying with foriegn organisations, including the Palestinian military movement Hamas, funding terrorism and disclosing national security. The court also cancelled death sentences against 16 defendants, including leaders Khyrat el-Shater, Mohamed el-Beltagy Ahmed Abdel Aty. Thirteen of the 16 were sentenced in absentia. Last week, Egyptian court quashed the death sentences given to 65-year-old Morsi and Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie and 25 other Brotherhood leaders. The court also cancelled life sentences for 21 others in the same case. Last month, an Egyptian Court confirmed a 20-year prison sentence against ex-president Mohamed Morsi for taking part inciting violence near Ittihadeya presidential palace in 2012, juridical sources said. Morsi was sentenced to life in prison in two other trials. He was convicted of spying for Iran, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. Morsi is still in prison in other cases, including spying and handing documents of national security importance to Qatari intelligence through a channel. Morsi came to power after Egypt's long-time President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011. He was toppled by the current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi following mass street protests. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Germany to Armenia Matthias Kiesler thinks it would be good to make another attempt of reconciliation of Armenian-Turkish relations. In a meeting with reporters the Ambassador noted that practical steps are necessary for the reconciliation of the two peoples and states. The existing difficult situation should not hamper seeking new solutions for the normalization of the relations. There were talks about opening of the border last time. Today I cannot say how realistic it is, but the border can be partially open for some particular groups, for example, international tourists, the German Ambassador said, adding that the German side creates opportunities for civil societies of the two countries to interact with each other. The German Ambassador referred to the issue of including the Armenian Genocide theme in German school text books. He mentioned that educational and cultural policy in Germany is implemented on the level of federal states. Therefore the ministries of the federal states are responsible for school subjects. As you may know Saxony-Anhalt state has published a handbook for pedagogues on how to teach the Armenian Genocide theme in the sidelines of history subject. This means that one state has already done that. We should wait for the response of other states, the Ambassador added. Turkey closed the border with Armenia unilaterally in 1993. Armenia has announced many times about its readiness to normalize relations without preconditions. Hospitality major EIH Ltd that runs hotels and resorts under Oberoi and Trident brands today said it plans to delist its global depository receipts from the London Stock Exchange in February 2017. In this regard, the company has issued a notice to Bank of New York Mellon, the depository of the GDRs, saying the deposit agreement dated October 7, 1994, between them will be terminated. Concurrently, with termination of the deposit agreement and the resulting termination of the GDR facility, the company will delist the GDRs form the London Stock Exchange, EIH said in a filing to the BSE. "The termination of the deposit agreement is expected to occur on or about February 23, 2017, and the listing and admission to the trading of GDRs on the London Stock Exchange will be cancelled with effect from the same date," EIH said. Following the termination of the deposit agreement, the GDR holders will have time until at least February 23 next year to decide whether they would like to retain their interest in the shares of the company or not. According to the filing, in case the holders do not surrender the GDRs and request delivery of underlying equity shares, they will lose the right to receive those shares. In such a scenario, they will be entitled, upon subsequent surrender of the GDRs, to receiving the net proceeds of the sale of those shares, it added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actors Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling will be honoured with Outstanding Performer of the Year awards at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The actors will be feted for their roles in new movie "La La Land" at Santa Barbara's Arlington Theatre in February next year, reported Deadline. Stone has never been honoured by festival organisers before, but Gosling received the first Cinema Vanguard Award in 2008. "Ryan and Emma's luminous performances in La La Land remind us of the transformative and magical role of cinema," a statement from SBIFF's executive director Roger Durling read. "We are so proud to celebrate them and this incredible film and its nod to the classic love stories of Old Hollywood with a contemporary twist." Previous recipients of the Performer of the Year trophy include Jennifer Lawrence, Viola Davis, James Franco, Angelina Jolie, Helen Mirren, and Heath Ledger. "La La Land" is set for release next month and has already garnered amazing reviews and multiple film festival awards, including the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada, while Stone picked up the Volpi Cup Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival in Italy for her role. Stone and Gosling will join previously announced honourees Warren Beatty, Aaron Taylor Johnson, and Ruth Negga at the festival. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The EU will require big foreign banks operating in Europe to set aside billions in reserve funds in a tit-for-tat move against the United States that could also affect post-Brexit Britain, according to a draft proposal seen by AFP. The European Commission, the executive body of the 28-nation European Union, will tomorrow announce a series of new banking regulations that will include the new requirement. "We are actually mirroring what the US has already done," a European source said in advance of the announcement of the new capital requirements. The US in 2014 angered Brussels when it suddenly required major European banks -- such as Germany's Deutsche Bank -- to park billions in the United States in case problems at their subsidiaries threatened to involve the US taxpayer. The EU warned at the time that these extra costs risked sparking a protectionist reaction in Europe. If approved into EU law, the new measure would require major US banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to set aside extra capital so that their operations in Europe could be wound up separately if needed. The Financial Times, which first reported the proposal, said that this would force the banks to raise billions of euros to keep operating in Europe. The rules could also pose a threat to the city of London after the UK completes its Brexit divorce from the EU. A person familiar with the thinking of US banks said the proposal would result in a "more onerous process to do business in the EU", as well as some additional capital set-asides. One of the questions is "how this broader trend of this tit-for-tat between national jurisdictions will play out", said this person. "This could be the first of many similar issues." "The national jurisdictions are pushing back against much of the international process right now," said the person familiar with US banks. "Definitely the national governments are heavily involved in protecting their institutions." Large US banks have based their European headquarters in London and could be forced to relocate key operations to other European cities due to Brexit. Depending on how the Brussels capital requirements rule is set, banks could be forced to establish holding companies in one or more European countries and then to hold capital for each of these entities. The measure by the EU comes amid spats with the US over Apple and Deutsche Bank and squabbles about Airbus and Boeing and will exacerbate further the strains in US-European economic relations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In an unprecedented move, President-elect Donald Trump today caused diplomatic ripples when he indicated that he would like to have far-right leader Nigel Farage, the figurehead of the Brexit movement, as the next British Ambassador to the US. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!" Trump said in a tweet today. Trump and Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), have very good relationship. Farage was often seen by Trump's side during the election campaign and was among the first to fly out to the US to meet the President-elect after the election. It is one of the rarest occasion that a foreign leader has indicated his favourite picture of a diplomatic envoy from other country. While Farage said he was "very flattered", Downing Street in London issued a statement dismissing any such possibility. "There is no vacancy. We have an excellent ambassador to the US," the statement said in reference to Sir Kim Darroch. Darroch, formerly the UK's national security adviser and permanent representative to the European Union, took over the role in January. Farage said he had not been expecting Trump's tweet, but described it as a signal that Downing Street needed to change its thinking about him. "I can still scarcely believe that he did that, though speaking to a couple of his longtime friends perhaps I am a little less surprised," he wrote in a piece this morning for right-wing site 'Breitbart'. "They all say the same thing: that Trump is a very loyal man and supports those that stand by him," he said. Repeating his offer of help, which had been rejected by Downing Street on multiple occasions, Farage said: "The world has changed and it's time that Downing Street did too." The British leader is likely to attend the January 20 inauguration of Trump as the 45th President of the US. The role of UK ambassador to the US is among the most prestigious in the diplomatic service. It is unprecedented for an incoming US President to ask a world leader to appoint an opposing party leader as ambassador, and Trump's tweet would put British Prime Minister Theresa May in a slightly difficult position. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The civil aviation regulator, DGCA has suspened the flying licence of the grounded regional carrier Air Pegasus after the Bengaluru-based carrier failed to give assurance on resumption of its operations. The order for suspension of the Air Operator Permit (AOP) or flying licence of Air Pegasus was issued on November 8, 2016, according to the DGCA. Air Pegasus has not been operating its services since July 27 following huge losses and its failure to pay lease rentals to the aircraft lessors. Earlier on October 5, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had issued a show cause notice to Air Pegasus, asking why its AOP should not be suspended for its failure to carry out operations. As per Section 15(2)(b) of Schedule XI of the Aircraft Rules 1937, DGCA may cancel or suspend permit of an airline for such period as it thinks fit, if it is satisfied that the holder of the permit has failed to establish a safe, efficient and reliable service. The regulator had given 15 days time to the regional carrier to respond to its notice. Before suspending operations for an indefinite period, the carrier flew from Bengaluru to at least seven destinations in southern India. "Capability to operate services is one of the conditions to secure flying permit. However, all three aircraft of Air Pegasus are grounded and its capability (to run the services) has degraded," the official said. Air Pegasus had started operations in April 2015. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress, which has challenged a Delhi High Court verdict holding it and BJP prima facie guilty of violating the law on foreign funding, on Tuesday sought time from the Supreme Court to clarify the effect of the amendment brought this year to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 2010 in their matter. "The counsel for petitioner (Congress party) has sought adjournment to seek instructions about the effect of amendment to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act in their matter. The prayer is allowed," a three-judge bench headed by Justice J S Khehar said. The bench, also comprising Justices Arun Mishra and A M Khanwilkar, fixed the matter for hearing on November 29 after senior advocate Mohan Parasaran, representing Congress, said he would argue the matter after seeking instructions. Congress told the bench that the amendment introduced in February this year has retrospective effect and their appeal against the Delhi High Court judgement has become infructuous. To this, the bench asked whether the party wants to argue the matter or simply say that their petition has become infructuous, then it will dispose it of. The amendment brought in the 2010 Act is aimed at easing the flow of donations from foreign companies in the name of corporate social responsibility. The high court, in its judgement pronounced on March 28, 2014, had said that by receiving donations from UK-based Vedanta Resources' subsidiaries, the two mainstream political parties had violated the law concerned. It had also directed the Centre and Election Commission to take appropriate action against them within six months. During the hearing today, the bench asked Parasaran, "If you are saying that amendment has made the petition infructuous, then its over. If you will ask us the determine the issue, we will hear it." To this, Parasaran said, "We will argue this matter. Challenging the judgement, Congress had contended that the high court had erred in interpreting the law and "there is no concealment or suppression of such contribution which were duly reflected in the returns submitted to the Election Commission". It had contended that Vedanta was owned by an Indian citizen, Anil Aggarwal, and its subsidiaries were incorporated here. Hence, they were not foreign sources. "The prohibition to make any contribution to a candidate or a political party or office-bearers thereof relates to foreign citizens and Indian entities, if more than one half of the nominal value of share capital of such entities are held either singly or in the aggregate by citizens of a foreign country," the petition had said. The high court had held that Vedanta was a foreign company as per the Companies Act and therefore, the Anil Aggarwal-owned firm and its subsidiaries, Sterlite and Sesa, were foreign sources as per the . The verdict was delivered on a PIL by a NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms and E A S Sarma, a former Secretary in the government, who had alleged that the two parties had violated the Representation of the People Act and by taking donations from government companies and foreign sources. Snapdeal-owned FreeCharge today said it has ramped up its efforts to now on-board one million merchants in the next 12 months. As part of the efforts, it has rolled out "on the go pin" feature that allows users to complete a transaction even when there is no internet or phone coverage. This feature has been developed specially for India and FreeCharge has applied for a patent for the same, FreeCharge said. In the light of scrapping of old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, FreeCharge has seen a sustained 10X surge in the number of retail merchant sign-ups, especially after FreeCharge announced a zero commission offer for new merchants. * * * * * eBay India partners Oxigen Services Digital payment solution provider Oxigen Services has partnered with eBay India to help expand the former's reach. "This association will help Oxigen Services customers access over 100 million product listings on www.Ebay.In. Under this association, Oxigen brings a unique O2O solution (Online to Offline) which integrates customer on boarding for eBay India with Mobile Wallet Payments solution," Oxigen said in a statement. * * * * * Vodafone offers 2GB data to users upgrading to 4G SIM Telecom major Vodafone today said it will offer 2GB data to its existing customers in Delhi-NCR when they upgrade to 4G SIM. "All existing Vodafone customers opting to upgrade to Vodafone SuperNet 4G can enjoy 2GB of data free on 4G enabled smartphones," Vodafone India said in a statement. The Vodafone 4G SIMs are available at all Vodafone Stores, Vodafone Mini Stores and more than 40,000 multi brand outlets located across the circle, it added. * * * * * Telenor India deploys Teradata's analytics platform Analytics solutions company Teradata today said telecom operator Telenor will deploy its platform, aimed at delivering improved user experience and efficiencies. "Telenor was looking to utilise analytics effectively in order to create operational and cost efficiencies, lower call center costs, reduce churn and offer better incentives for retailers," Teradata said in a statement. In order to meet the challenges of an ever-changing digital business environment, Telenor chose to deploy Teradata data warehousing analytics platform, it added. No financial details were disclosed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu lawmaker in the US Congress, has met President-elect Donald Trump and discussed with him the fight against terrorism and other foreign policy issues amidst speculation that she is being considered as the American envoy to the UN. Gabbard, 35, who was re-elected for her third consecutive term on November 8, was among the first politicians to meet Trump, who is a Republican, in New York yesterday. She has been a vocal critic of President Barack Obama on confronting the radical Islamic terrorism. "President-elect Trump asked me to meet with him about our current policies regarding Syria, our fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face," she said hours after meeting Trump here. Amidst speculation that she is being considered for the position of US Ambassador to the UN, Gabbard defended the meeting as in favour of national interest. "Let me be clear, I will never allow partisanship to undermine our national security when the lives of countless people lay in the balance," said the Congresswoman from Hawaii. The presidential transition team confirmed the meeting, but it did not respond to questions on her being a potential candidate for a senior position in the Trump administration. "Wouldn't want to qualify specifically any potential administration positions, other than this is an opportunity for the president- and vice president-elect to get together with the congresswoman and receive her input on several different ideas," Jason Miller, communication director for Trump transition team told reporters during a conference call. "She obviously has a very distinguished track record. But it would be a little premature to start putting out specific potential administration positions," Miller said. Gabbard said she felt it was "important to take the opportunity to meet with the president-elect now before the drumbeats of war, that neocons have been beating, drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government - a war which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families." "While the rules of political expediency would say I should have refused to meet with President-elect Trump, I never have and never will play politics with American and Syrian lives," she said, adding that Americans cannot allow continued divisiveness to destroy the country. (Reopens FGN 12) Gabbard, who had been a strong supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders during the Democratic presidential primary nomination, said she had a frank and positive conversation in which they discussed a variety of foreign policy issues. "I shared with him my grave concerns that escalating the war in Syria by implementing a so-called no fly/safe zone would be disastrous for the Syrian people, our country, and the world," she said. "It would lead to more death and suffering, exacerbate the refugee crisis, strengthen ISIS and al-Qaeda, and bring us into a direct conflict with Russia which could result in a nuclear war," Gabbard said. They discussed her bill to end America's "illegal war" to overthrow the Syrian government, and on defeating al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups who pose a threat to the American people, she said. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday met president Uddhav Thackeray at his residence in suburban Bandra here. Gadkari met Thackeray to extend his daughter's wedding invitation, the Sena chief's media advisor Harshal Pradhan said. The meeting assumes significance after a series of telephonic talks between top BJP leaders and Thackeray over the Sena's stand on demonetisation. Earlier, Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Venkaiah Naidu and Rajnath Singh had called up Thackeray to allay his apprehensions over demonetisation. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had last week spoken to Thackeray and is believed to have conveyed BJP's unhappiness over Sena participating in a march against demonetisation. However, the NDA ally had stuck to its criticism, saying the demonetisation decision could have been implemented in a better way. The Shiv Sena, the oldest ally of BJP and part of the governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra, had last week joined a march to Rashtrapati Bhavan led by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and participated by AAP and National Conference against the Centre's demonetisation move. A graphic designer was arrested today for allegedly stealing and uploading a six-minute clipping of the upcoming film 'Baahubali 2' on YouTube, police said. The producer of 'Baahubali 2' lodged a complaint with cyber crime wing of Hyderabad police today stating that last night he saw some leaked clips of the movie and asked his team to verify. "The film had been given for graphic designing at Annapurna Studio here. The producer's team found that one Krishna Dayanand Chowdary, a trainee graphic designer, accessed the server of Annapura Studio and stole the film's clipping," Assistant Commissioner of Police (Cyber Crimes) Raghuveer said. The team located Chowdary's house at Tolichowki and checked his laptop, where they find the stolen video. It was also revealed that he had also forwarded the clipping to two of his friends at Vijayawada through his phone. However, his phone was found formatted, the officer said. Chowdary was subsequently handed over to police who registered a case under relevant sections of IT and Copy Right Acts after quizzing him. "We will write to YouTube authorities asking them to delete the clippings," the ACP told PTI. The exact nature of the video and other related factors are under investigation. "Baahubali 2" is the sequel to "Baahubali: The Beginning". The film is slated to be released in April next year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Secretary of the CIS Defense Ministers Council Major-General Yuri Dashkin arrived in Armenia on November 22. In the sidelines of his 2-day working visit, Yuri Dashkin was received at the administrative complex of the Defense Ministry of Armenia by Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, General-Lieutenant Movses Hakobyan. Issues of regional and international security were the topics of the discussions. As Armenpress was informed from the pres service of the Defense Ministry of Armenia, the Secretary of the CIS Defense Ministers highlighted the events to be held in 2017 celebrating the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Council. Joint events to be held in 2017, the sessions of the coordinating committees, the jubilee events celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War, as well as other issues were touched upon. Gujarat will continue in its efforts of ease of doing business and attract more investment in defence, biotech, agro processing, port development and auto sectors, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said today. "We have assured the country's top industrialists and business leaders that the state will continue to lay emphasis on ease of doing business, proactive investor facilitation and promoting investment in manufacturing sector," Rupani told PTI on sidelines of a road show here for the 8th edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2017. "India Inc is happy with the government's policies and looking at more investment in the state's growth plans," the BJP leader said. Rupani stressed on defence and aerospace as key sectors of growth, with intention of setting up manufacturing facilities. Marine, ship-building, agro-food processing, textiles and diamonds are some of the other focus sectors, he said. Rupani also announced that policies for biotech, healthcare, defence and aerospace will be finalised in the coming week. The summit will be held between January 10-13 next year in Gandhinagar. Rupani said he met industrialists and business leaders Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Ratan Tata, Ajay Piramal, Harsh Goenka, Niranjan Hiranandani, Rana Kapoor and NSE's Chitra Ramakrishna and discussed business prospects today. These leaders will not only partner and attend the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, but also take advantage of the myriad business opportunities that the state has to offer. The event here received an overwhelming participation of over 450 businessmen representing top companies, the chief minister claimed. He also highlighted the opportunity for the industry to invest in Gujarat International Finance Tec City (GIFT-City), Mandal Becharaji SIR, Dahej, PCPIR and Dholera Special Investment Region, one of the biggest investment zones on the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor. Gujarat is emerging as one of Asia's largest automobile and auto component hubs, he added. Gujarat is fast emerging as a manufacturing and an R&D hub, with major private players like Tata, Ford, Honda two wheelers and Suzuki setting up or being in the process of setting up their plants in the state, said Rupani. The state has a sound base of 30 clusters comprising castings, brass parts, oil engines and electric motors, bearings, auto-ancillaries, he added. The GIFT City will be the country's first multi-functional SEZ which will be a hub for the share market, capital markets and the banking sector. Spread over more than 102 sq km, Mandal Becharaji Special Investment Region (MBSIR) is new industrial hub being planned in Gujarat near Ahmedabad. Envisaged by the Gujarat government, MBSIR is one of its kind industrial hub and will compromise automobile, manufacturing and auxiliary industries. Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India, Maruti Suzuki India have plants located in MBSIR. The summit will also witness the first ever Nobel Laureates Exhibition and Symposium. The Department of Science and Technology has received 11 confirmations from Nobel Laureates, including the likes of Harold E Varmus, William E Moerner, Randy Schekman, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Ada Yonath and David Gross. Nearly, 11 countries and 4 partner organisations have already signed up to partner Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2017. Armed gunmen stormed a school today in a Kenyan province bordering Somalia, spraying bullets but not injuring anyone, official sources said, without confirming whether they were Shabaab group militants. The gunmen stormed a room where secondary school students were taking an exam and exchanged fire with police officers guarding the campus before fleeing, they said. "Students scampered for safety when the gunmen stormed the school and fired shots," a senior police officer from Wajir told AFP. Six policemen were guarding the examination centre at the time, regional governor Mohamud Saleh said. It was not immediately clear if the shooting was linked to the Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab group, which regularly carries out attacks in Kenya, including a massacre at Garissa University in April 2015 in which 148 people were killed. But the area where today's incident occurred is also the scene of regular inter-clan violence related to border disputes between Wajir and Garissa counties. Saleh did not immediately comment on who was behind the attack, saying that an investigation was underway and that officials had "intensified security in the area". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Haryana Technical Education Department today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) to set up a Technology Centre at Neemka in Faridabad district. The MoU was signed by the NSIC Chairman-cum-Managing Director Ravindra Nath and Haryana Technical Education Department Principal Secretary Anil Malik in the presence of Union MSME Secretary K K Jalan and Haryana Chief Secretary D S Dhesi. Jalan said the Centre at Neemka would be able to commence operations by April, 2017. He said 18 such centres are functional across the country and 15 new centres are being set up. Training was being provided to about 2,000-5,000 persons in these centres and 98 per cent of the trainees get employment, he added. Describing the day as significant for MSME sector of Haryana, Chief Secretary Dhesi said an approval was also given today for setting up of Project Management Unit (PMU) in Directorate of Industries for promotion of industries in the state. Dhesi said that the construction work of Technology Centre at Rohtak was under progress and it would soon be completed. NSIC's Ravindra Nath said Andhra Pradesh government has also approached the agency for setting up such centres in their state. Principal Secretary, Haryana Technical Education Department, Anil Malik said the new centre would give boost to industrial development in NCR, especially Faridabad. He said that about 2,000 students would be trained in the first year of the centre and this strength would rise with time. This centre will be the eighth centre by NSIC in the country. He said that such centres would also be set up in PPP mode in Gurugram. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bombay High Court today permitted the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) to carry out the widening project of Mithi river here to ensure smooth flow of water to the sea. A division bench headed by Justice V M Kanade said in public interest the widening project will have to be allowed so that the water flow is smooth and there would not be an increase in air and water-borne diseases due to accumulation of sewage water in the river. The bench was hearing an application filed by the civic body seeking permission to go ahead with the project, as the State Environment Impact Assessment Society had said the corporation would have to seek court's nod because of certain directions passed by high court in the past on the issue. According to the civic body, the water flow in the Mithi river has reduced due to narrow bridges, mainly at suburban Mahim, which is resulting in accumulation of water and in turn increase in diseases. MCGM's counsel S U Kamdar argued that the water accumulation is also posing a hazard to the two pipelines (Vaitarna and Tansa) that supply drinking water to the entire city. The court, while accepting the civic body's contention, said, "We are of the view that if God forbid something goes wrong and the two main water pipelines are damaged, the entire city of Mumbai would be without drinking water and it would result in a chaotic situation." "We, therefore, are of the view that in public interest permission needs to be granted to the civic body," it said. The court noted that the corporation proposal is not to widen the Mithi river but to only widen the flow of water below the two pipelines. The bench further took note of a report submitted by a state government committee, which observed that accumulation of raw sewage water in Mithi river has resulted in water and air borne diseases and that smooth flow of water should be there. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court today ordered suspension of sentence and released on bail five of the convicts in a case relating to the Kumbakonam school fire tragedy in 2004, which claimed lives of 94 children, taking into consideration their age and on the ground that they had already completed most of their five-year jail terms. A division bench of the court's Madurai bench ordered the suspension of sentence of Santhalakshmi, Balaji, Sivaprakasam, Thandavan and Durairaj and enlarged them on bail. The bench, comprising justices M Sathyanarayana and V M Velumani, asked them to execute surety bond before the Thanjavur judicial magistrate to his satisfaction, and sign before the judicial magistrate at Kumbakonam on every first working day every month till further orders. The petitioners submitted that the trial court had failed to consider that there was no material evidence produced by the prosecution that the appellants had active role in the management of the school and noon meal centre. The judgement and conviction were contrary to law, weight of evidence and probabilities of the case. The court posted the plea of four others seeking the same relief to November 29 for further hearing. The bench asked officials to submit the medical documents of 86-year-old Pulavar Palanisamy who sought suspension of sentence and bail on health grounds, regarding his health. The Principal District and Sessions Court at Thanjavur had convicted 10 people and acquitted 11 others in the case. School administrator Saraswathy died recently at the Tiruchirappalli prison where she had been lodged. Palaniswamy is the school owner. Ninety-four children were charred to death in Sri Krishna aided primary School and Saraswathi Primary School at Kumbakonam in the fire mishap on July 16, 2004. Some children were grievously injured and others suffered minor injuries. Police had named 21 people in a charge sheet under various IPC sections, including 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) read with 120-B (conspiracy). They had also charged them under Section 23 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 46 and 47 of Tamil Nadu Recognised Private Schools (Regulation) Act, 1973 and section 320 of the Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court today sought clarification from the government over the Devanagari form of numeral printed in the new Rs 2000 currency on a PIL petition seeking to declare it invalid on the ground that the use of the script was against the Official Languages Act. When the petition came up for hearing, Assistant Solicitor General G R Swaminathan submitted that the Devanagari form of numerals printed in the note was just a design. However, justices S Nagamuthu and M V Muralidharan, who were apparently not convinced with the argument, asked if the numerals did not convey the value of the currency and in that case "is it (Devanagari script numerals) language or design?" The judges asked the ASG to get clarifications from the government and posted the matter to November 28 for further hearing. Earlier, the ASG also informed the court that the Reserve Bank of India's Central Board had approved the design of Rs 2000 currency note as per the Reserve Bank of India Act Sec 25. The PIL, filed by local DMK functionary K P T Ganesan, also claimed that under the Reserve Bank of India Act, there was no provision to print notes of Rs 2,000 denomination without the recommendation of the Central Board. The petitioner submitted that the printing of the numerals on the note in Devanagiri was against the Official Languages Act, 1963. He contended that the Constitution allows the use of international form of Indian numerals for any official purpose of the Union. Though there was a provision that Parliament may pass a law to use Devanagari form of numerals on currency notes, such an act had not been passed, he argued. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on November 8 announced demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, making them invalid. He had also announced introduction of Rs 2,000 notes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hiring activity witnessed an 8 per cent decline in October, mainly due to the festive season, but the outlook for the coming months looks bullish, says a report. The Naukri Job Speak Index for October 2016 stood at 1,580, recording a decrease of 8 per cent in hiring activity over the same period last year. This dip was primarily because of the festive season. Hiring activity generally tends to slow down around festivals as recruiters go slow on hiring plans and job seekers also temporarily suspend their job hunt. "In October, we saw a dip in new jobs due to the impact of the festive season which saw three major festivals falling in October. However, we are confident that this is a temporary phenomenon and in the coming month, jobs growth will start improving," Sumeet Singh, Chief Marketing Officer, Infoedge India said. After seeing consistent growth so far in the financial year, IT - Software/Software Services as well as ITES/BPO saw a year-on-year dip of 11 per cent and 8 per cent respectively while IT - hardware sector also saw jobs decrease 24 per cent. Meanwhile, banking/financial services saw jobs increasing by 6 per cent in October 2016 as compared to last year. Insurance sector jobs grew by an impressive 21 per cent in the same duration. The report further said that, software and ITES/BPO/KPO saw 9 per cent and 6 per cent decline, respectively, in jobs during October this year as against last year. IT - Hardware jobs also fell by 11 per cent in the same time period. The decline in jobs caused by the festive season was reflected broadly across locations. All metropolitan cities saw a year-on-year decline in jobs. Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore saw jobs drop by 17 per cent, 35 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively, in October this year as against last year. Jobs in Hyderabad were flat while Chennai, Pune and Kolkata also saw jobs decline by 39 per cent, 34 per cent and 29 per cent, respectively, the report said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hundreds of Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in neighbouring Myanmar, community leaders said today, many with horrific tales of troops killing and burning villages. Bangladesh says it has prevented hundreds more from crossing into the country, despite pleas from the United Nations to open its border after up to 30,000 Rohingya were displaced by violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state. Bangladeshi troops have intensified patrols along the 237-kilometre (147-mile) border, but Rohingya community leaders estimate that 1,000 people have still managed to get in over the last week. Most are hiding out in camps for the 32,000 legally registered already living in southeast Bangladesh, fearing repatriation if they are found by authorities. Mohammad Amin, 17, said he and 15 others fled their homes in Rakhine five days ago and reached Bangladesh by swimming across the Naf river that divides the two countries. "The (Myanmar) army killed my father and elder brother. I hid on a hill and then walked and swam across the river, and took refuge at a mosque (in Bangladesh)," he told AFP by phone from Cox's Bazar near the border. "Where I looked I saw only burnt houses. I don't know what happened to my mother and sister." Zohra Khatun, 25, arrived late Monday with her seven children after their village was burned to the ground, and has been helped by a relative already living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. "I waited two days before I had the chance to cross the river to come here," Khatun told AFP by phone. The relative, who asked not to be named, said that at least 100 families had arrived at the camp from Myanmar in the last two days. Another community leader said 500 people had taken shelter near two other Rohingya refugee camps in the area. Commanders of the Border Guard Bangladesh said their troops had blocked nearly 300 Rohingya from crossing the border overnight, the highest number since the crisis began last month. "We're preventing them on the zero line, especially those who were trying to cross the barbed-wire fences erected by Myanmar," said Imran Ullah Sarker. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India today strongly protested to Pakistan the killing of its soldiers and the mutilation of the body of one of them when its Deputy High Commissioner was summoned by the Foreign Office here to condemn "unprovoked ceasefire violations". Indian Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh, who was called in by Director General (South Asia and SAARC) Mohammad Faisal, also conveyed that Pakistani troops were deliberately targeting the civilian areas, resulting in heavy casualties. Singh lodged a strong protest over the killing of Indian soldiers with the body of one of them being mutilated in second such incident in less than a month. Three soldiers were killed today in an ambush on army patrol which took place in Machhil sector of Kashmir following which the Indian army vowed heavy "retribution". Singh also protested yesterday's killing of two Indian soldiers. Sources said he also took up the issue of repeated ceasefire violations by Pakistani forces as well as their usage of artillery and 120 mm heavy mortars. Pakistani forces were giving cover fire to infiltrators and there was increased activity of terrorists near the Pakistani posts, Singh told the Pakistani side. Faisal, on his part, strongly condemned the "unprovoked ceasefire violations on 21 November 2016", by the Indian forces on the LoC in Jandrot, Nikial, Karela and Baroh sectors, resulting in the death of four civilians and injuries to 10 others. The Director General also condemned the alleged violation of Pakistan's Maritime Exclusive Economic Zone by the Indian Naval Submarine on November 14, 2016, in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a Pakistan Foreign Office statement said. Faisal urged the Indian side to respect the 2003 ceasefire understanding and UNCLOS, "investigate the continued incidents of violations and instruct the Indian forces/authorities to respect the ceasefire and international borders, in letter and spirit," it added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seeking investments from UAE, India today said huge opportunities exists for businesses of both the sides in areas like infrastructure and R&D to strengthen economic ties. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said the government is taking several steps in improving ease of doing business and relaxing FDI policy to attract investments. "There is a huge opportunity for industries in UAE to come and invest in India," he said here at a function organised by the industry body CII. He was addressing business leaders from the two countries. The UAE delegation is here to invite India to participate in the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (GMIS) to be held in Abu Dhabi in March 2017. Abhishek said both the sides can increase cooperation and collaboration in areas like services sector, startups, R&D and design. "We welcome UAE industries top explore potential in India," he said adding Indian companies should also look at opportunities in UAE and participate in the summit. "The summit is a great opportunity for Indian companies to explore possibilities of investments in UAE," he added. Speaking at the event, UAE Ambassador to India Ahmed Al Banna invited Indian firms to participate in the summit. He said that UAE is participating in smart city project of India. India has received USD 4.38 billion FDI from UAE during April 2000 and September 2016. CII and GMIS also inked an MoU to increase cooperation on the summit. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. The Russian Orthodox Church has always advocated fraternity between the peoples of Armenia and Russia, Armenpress reports, citing TASS, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill announced in a meeting with Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II. The Patriarch stated that both religious and state authorities have always supported the friendship between the two peoples. The Armenian Diaspora is an organic part of the Russian society. They are very active people and often assume important posts. This is the nature of our Russian state here everybody can work in safety, create a career and earn money, Patriarch Kirill said. His Holiness Karekin II congratulated the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill on the 70th anniversary and noted that the participation of the representatives of all the Orthodox Churches in the festive events document the great love towards Patriarch Kirill and appreciation towards his works. I am happy the relations between our states develop and include new aspects, Karekin II stated. Calling for a rethink of its submarine building programme, Defence Minister on Tuesday said India should look for greater numbers than the existing plan of constructing 24 such vessels. Referring to the existing 30-year submarine building plan that envisages construction of 24 submarines, including both nuclear and conventional, Parrikar said India needed a longer term plan till 2050. He also said that the strategic partnership model is in the last stage and once brought out, the ministry will fast- track the P75 India project under which six more conventional submarines are to be built. He rued that unlike the ongoing nuclear submarine project, the indigenisation on the Scorpene projects is very low (30-40 per cent). Parrikar emphasised on the need to retain skill and skilled people engaged in submarine construction and said the focus should also be on maintenance. "We need to rethink about the real requirement based on our projection. We also need to assure that the skilled manpower and the skills developed need to be retained," he said. The minister noted that prime contractors are chosen through stringent criteria and are nurtured by awarding contracts on a sustained basis so as to retain the industrial base skills, capabilities and technology. He said that Russia has built 595 submarines till date, while the United States has constructed 285 submarines. On strategic partnership, he said, "It has already been approved and the drafting of chapters is underway. Approval is needed by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) and probably by the Cabinet as well as it has financial implications," he said. Parrikar also called for a higher level of indigenisation in submarine-building. "Indigenisation in Scorpenes is not up to the mark, but in the advanced technology vessel programme it is over 70 per cent," he said. A team of doctors lead by an Indian in the UAE has helped a woman successfully deliver a premature 'miracle baby' girl, weighing lighter than an iPad just 631 gram. The baby girl was only 26.5 weeks old when she was delivered in Abu Dhabi, Khaleej Times reported today. "Timely intervention and delivery of the baby was important as the mother who had a high risk pregnancy, came to us displaying symptoms of sever preeclampsia which is a pregnancy-related complication that is accompanied by high blood pressure and potential damage to organs," Dr Govinda Shenoy, head of the Neonatology Unit of Medeor24x7 Hospital said. The mother, who wanted to remain anonymous, was carrying a growth-retarded fetus with oligo-hydramnios, which creates lack of amniotic fluid around the foetus, and absent end diastolic flow, which is a condition that increases the risk of foetal and neonatal mortality, Shenoy said. "The baby was successfully delivered by a Lower Segment Caesarean Section (LSCS) procedure, after which both the mother and the infant were kept under careful observation. The baby was placed under the care of the expert neonatology team in the state-of-the-art neonatal unit," he was quoted as saying by the report. The care of pre-term babies was critical especially for infants as young as 26 weeks and weighing under 1,000 gram, as these factors could pose several serious health risks for the child, Shenoy said. Dr Mary Roberts, senior obstetrician at the hospital, said the mother and 'miracle baby' have so far made an extraordinary recovery. "The mother and child have shown a remarkable recovery, with the baby's weight increasing to 2,050gm. The baby is doing really well and her parents are very grateful to the team for saving her life," Roberts said, adding that the parents consider her a miracle baby. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The West Bengal CID today claimed to have busted an international child trafficking racket and arrested eights persons, including two women, for their alleged involvement with it. Acting on a tip-off, the CID conducted a raid yesterday at Baduria in North 24 Parganas district and arrested two women Najma Bibi, Utpala Byapari, a quack Amirul Biswas, owner of a local nursing home Asadur Jaman, one NGO activist Satyajit Sinha, a clinic-owner Bakbul Baidya and a lawyer Prabhat Sarkar along with his associate Jhantu Biswas. The six were arrested for their alleged involvement in the trafficking racket, a senior officer of the CID said. Three babies, kept inside biscuit boxes were recovered from the spot, he said, adding that several documents and papers were also seized from the place. Police were also looking for a doctor formerly associated with the RG Kar hospital and another local physician from Baduria for their alleged role into the business, he added. "We had an information about this child trafficking racket where doctors are involved. This gang was targetting women who used to come there mainly to abort," the officer said. Also couples coming to the nursing home for deliveries were told that the baby was born dead. "Then the accused persons used to win over sympathy of the couples and convince them that there was no need to take the dead babies with them. And there are cases when they had paid the women sums ranging between Rs 20,000-Rs 30,000 to take away the unwanted baby," the officer said. As per the prima facie probe, Najma Bidi, wife of Makbul Baidya running a local clinic was the main trafficker while the other woman Utpala Byapari used to be the mediator between the NGO and the nursing home. The babies were smuggled to other states inside card board boxes meant for biscuit packaging, the officer said. "A male child used to fetch them Rs two lakh while for a female child the rate was Rs one lakh. This business was operating for past three years and the demand for the babies were from Delhi, Bihar and Mumbai and even overseas," the official added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The fifth edition of International Tourism Mart will begin in Imphal tomorrow, which is expected to bring together tourism business fraternity from overseas as well as all northeastern states and West Bengal. The Union Tourism Ministry, in association with the northeastern states and West Bengal, is organising the three-day event in the capital of Manipur which will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, an official release said today. "The event has been planned and scheduled to facilitate interaction between buyers, sellers, media, government agencies and other stakeholders," it said. As many as 57 buyers and delegates from ASEAN countries, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Russia, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, Brazil, South Africa, the UK and the US, among others are likely to participate in the event, the release said. The International Tourism Mart is organised in the northeastern states on rotation basis. The earlier editions of the mart were held in Guwahati, Tawang, Shillong and Gangtok. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Iraqi troops moved today to retake another neighbourhood in the eastern sector of the northern city of Mosul but were facing stiff resistance from Islamic State militants, according to a top Iraqi commander. A new analysis, meanwhile, has found that there was high risk that IS would deploy chemical weapons against Mosul civilians or Iraqi troops fighting to retake the city. According to IHS Markit, the extremist group has used chemical weapons at least 52 times in Iraq and Syria since its fighters swept across much of the two countries in 2014, including 19 times in the Mosul area alone. Brigadier General Haider Fadhil of the Iraqi special forces told The Associated Press that IS fighters were targeting his forces with rockets and mortars as they slowly advanced in the densely populated Zohour neighbourhood. "We are cautiously advancing. There are too many civilians still living there," he said. Iraqi troops began their siege of Zohour on Sunday as they fortified their positions in neighbourhoods they had already retaken in eastern Mosul. Suicide bombings, sniper fire and concerns over the safety of civilians - there are 1 million still in Mosul - have combined to slow down progress in the campaign to liberate the city, which began on October 17. Mosul, captured by IS in the summer of 2014, is Iraq's second-largest city and the last major IS urban bastion in the country. Most gains in the campaign so far have been made by the special forces operating east of the Tigris River. Other forces, including the Kurdish peshmerga troops and volunteer Sunni militiamen, are advancing on the city from different directions, and the US-led coalition is providing airstrikes and other support. An airstrike by the US-led coalition yesterday destroyed a major bridge over the Tigris in the southern part of the city, a move that appears designed to limit the IS capacity to reinforce or resupply fighters on the east bank of the Tigris, where most of the fighting is taking place. It was the third of the city's five bridges on the Tigris to be targeted by coalition airstrikes. Two Iraqi officers said the remaining two bridges will also likely be hit. The officers spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media. The Iraqi military is known to have received US-made pontoon bridges, which Iraqi troops would use as a substitute for the destroyed bridges. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) NIA, probing funding and other activities of Zakir Naik-led Islamic Research Foundation, today claimed ISIS recruit Abu Anas received Rs 80,000 from the foundation as scholarship in October 2015. Anas, a resident of Tonk in Rajasthan, had quit as an engineer in a Hyderabad-based company when he was arrested by the NIA in January for allegedly planning to carry out a terror strike ahead of Republic Day. The NIA claimed the probe into the IRF funding and distribution of money showed that Anas, who was among 16 people arrested at that time, had received Rs 80,000 from the proscribed IRF as scholarship in October 2015. Anas, named in a charge sheet in June, and is at present at Tihar Jail, had planned to go to Syria, the NIA alleged. The NIA has been conducting searches since November 19 and have raided at least 20 premises in Mumbai which are connected to the proscribed IRF or its trustees. During the search operations, video tapes and DVDs of Naik's public speeches, documents related to property and investment, financial transactions, foreign and domestic funding of the proscribed IRF as well as its associated companies, and electronic storage devices have been recovered by the NIA, it said. The NIA alleged that IRF, which was banned by the Union Cabinet last week under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), had close connections with some companies dealing in media, perfumes and solution. The documents seized during the searches pertain to inflow and outflow of foreign and domestic funding were being scrutinised. The NIA also blocked the website of IRF, which was allegedly promoting "hate speeches" of Naik. If the Islamic preacher fails to respond to the NIA summon, a red corner notice will be issued against him through Interpol by it. The NIA is still trying to block Naik's Facebook page, Twitter account and YouTube videos that contain alleged "objectionable" material and may seek help from authorities in the US where the servers of Internet giants like Google and Yahoo are located. Naik has been booked along with unnamed IRF officials under section 153-A of IPC (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) beside various sections of UAPA. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Israel today jailed an elderly ultra-Orthodox rabbi for 18 months after he confessed to sexually assaulting three women, the justice ministry said. Rabbi Eliezer Berland was convicted of sexually assaulting the women, kissing them against their will and rubbing himself against them, the ministry said in a statement. Berland, 78, initially denied culpability but later accepted a plea bargain giving him the 18-month sentence. He told the court today he "regrets his actions from the bottom of his heart", Israeli media reported. "For such acts, the Bible would have pronounced the punishment of stoning," he supposedly added, promising to have no more contact with women. Berland is a spiritual leader in the Breslov Hasidic sect, a strand of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, who respect ancient Jewish laws in all aspects of everyday life. Many of the faithful remain convinced of his innocence despite his arrest at the end of a highly publicised manhunt. The rabbi, who has a long white beard and wears a black outfit characteristic of ultra-Orthodox Jews, fled Israel in 2013 after several women laid charges of indecent assault against him. He evaded capture in the United States, Switzerland, Morocco and Zimbabwe. He was finally arrested in South Africa this year. Berland rose to prominence in the 1980s for organising clandestine pilgrimages to the tomb of his movement's founder in Ukraine. The pilgrimage has become popular since the fall of the communist regime. His Facebook page, followed by more than 17,000 people, asked his supporters to continue to back him. Sara Markovitz, a lawyer for one of the complainants, denounced the agreement and criticised the absence of a full trial. "The message to female victims of harassment is that filing a complaint is useless," she said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The 'City of Joy' is set to become part of a global fund-raising effort when five high-end hotels will be channelising the money raised from the sale of every plate of pasta named after Amatrice, to rebuild the Italian town that was devastated by an earthquake on August 24 this year. Amatrice is globally famous for its signature Spaghetti All'Amatriciana, a pasta dish with tomato-based sauce flavoured with guanciale, or cured pork cheek. Italian Consul General Damiano Francovigh told PTI at the launch of a seven-day food festival here last evening, "In solidarity with quake-hit Amatrice, Spaghetti All'Amatriciana, the iconic Roman pasta dish associated with the town, will be served in five high-end Kolkata hotels. "A significant part of the money raised from the sale of the pasta, each priced at Rs 150, will be channelised to rebuild Amatrice which was almost wiped out," Francovigh said. Fried crispy pork cheek, garnished with fresh tomato sauce and onions, served with Spaghetti will be among 18 Italian delicacies, conjured by chefs from different parts of the country to be served at the food fest. The Italian town was getting ready for its 50th annual food festival, Sagra, celebrating its famous pasta dish, when the earthquake of 6.2 magnitude had struck on August 24 this year. A 13th-century clock tower with its hands frozen exactly at that moment was one of the very few structures that had survived the devastating earthquake. Coordinated by the Italian Embassy and the consulate office, the event is aimed at promoting Italy's gastronomic culture in India which enjoys immense popularity and has gone up several notches in last few years, Francovigh said. Mauro Ferrari, one of the five Italian chefs attending the meet, said, "This time there will be six starters, six types of pastas and six main course items in the festival, all bearing the distinct style, flavour and taste of Italian cuisine. "We are amazed at the knowledge about Italian cuisine among Indians which has been increasing. This can't simply be attributed to Googling for info, but only due to more initiation into our cuisine," he said. To a question, the Consul General remained optimistic that the demonetisation move won't affect the celebrations of Italian food here. Francovigh further said he was in favour of culinary exchanges between the two nations in the coming years. Taj Bengal, Hyatt Regency, The Park Kolkata, The Oberoi Grand and ITC Hotel, are part of the initiative where five celebrity Italian chefs will be supervising the preparations of Italian cuisine. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Kumar Singh today expressed anguish over the killing of three soldiers in Machhil sector along the Line of Control (LoC). In a cross-LoC attack by suspected Pakistani terrorists, three Indian soldiers were today killed, with body of one of them being mutilated in second such incident in less than a month. The ambush took place in Machhil sector of Kashmir, following which the Indian army vowed heavy "retribution". Reacting strongly over the killings of soldiers, Singh termed it as a "cowardly act" and the incident reflected the "barbaric attitude" of the forces on the other side. The Deputy Chief Minister prayed for peace to the departed souls and conveyed his condolence to the bereaved families. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jaipur is rapidly emerging as a hub of performing arts with popular events being held in the Pink city, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has said. She said that events like Jairangam, Jaipur Literature Festival, Sufi Festival and World Music Festival have made the city a hub of art and culture. Raje made the remarks while addressing the opening of Jairangam, a week-long theater festival here last night. "The theatre festival is presenting to the Jaipur audience 33 plays and 200 street plays along with various seminars and workshops and is indeed a fitting embellishment to Rajasthan's cultural scape," she said. She also gave the Jairangam National Award for Life Time Contribution in Theater to Bollywood veteran Paresh Rawal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Last Inhabitant by filmmaker Jivan Avetisyan has been submitted for the 74th Golden Globe. J. Avetisyan told panorama.am that they had submitted an application on 21 October. November 22, 2016, 10:55 Jivan Avetisyans The Last Inhabitant submitted for the Golden Globe STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 22, ARTSAKHPRESS: Pursuant to the rules of the Golden Globe, they have organized the film screening in Los Angeles which has been attended by the members of Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Whether the film will be nominated for the 74th Golden Globe depends on their votes. The director added that 65 films have been submitted for Foreign Language Film category, only 5 of them will be nominated and eventually one will be awarded with the Golden Globe. The Last Inhabitant is a co-production of 5 countries. Actors from Iran, Lithuania, Greece, USA, Russia and Armenia have been shot in the film. It is based on the story Gyurjevans Last Inhabitant by Tsovinar Khachatryan. The film tells the story of a man who refuses to abandon his homeland, lives by himself in a bordering village of Artsakh. The movie featuring a simple destiny of one person reflects the whole charm and tragedy of war and peace. In an Armenian village deported in the result of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, in a hostile ring that has been shrinking day by day, Abgar lives with his mentally ill daughter. Abgar makes to serve his carpenters craft to secure his and his daughters safety. But after the Azeri plunders enter the village and after the rape attempt of Abgars daughter by one of those Azeries, he has no other choice but to break through enemy ring and leave the village together with his daughter. 74th Golden Globe will be held on 8 January, 2017. The proposed norms for flight duty time are "ill-conceived" and "potentially disastrous" for air safety, Air India and Jet Airways' pilot unions today said, wondering on whose behest the rules were made. Coming out strongly against the draft Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) issued by aviation regulator DGCA in this regard, the groupings alleged that the proposals were not based on scientific principles. Earlier this month, DGCA came out with draft CAR on Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) proposing strict action against pilots reporting late for duty as well as falsely claiming to be sick despite being rostered. Response to the CAR has been jointly submitted by Air India pilots' bodies -- Indian Pilots' Guild, Indian Commercial Pilots' Association -- along with Jet Airways' pilots union, National Aviator's Guild. The groupings have submitted a strongly-worded six-page letter to the regulator, Civil Aviation Ministry and the Ministers, among others. The deadline for stakeholders' comments on the CAR ends tomorrow. While mentioning that they were "utterly astonished and dismayed" with the draft CAR, the groupings said the proposals would greatly imperil air safety. "We are also deeply concerned that such an ill-conceived and potentially disastrous set of regulations may have a very negative impact on India's global image and create adverse international regulatory and consumer opinion," it added. It alleged that irregular and last minute rostering have become the norm, especially for short haul flights. "We would have expected the DGCA as the national regulatory body for the industry to have acted against this rampant practice of the airlines, in public interest, rather than proposing changes which will pressurise pilots who are in fact, not fit to risk flying," it said. According to the groupings, the draft proposals that seek to force a pilot to be available any time the dynamic roster permits, is not based on any scientific principles and would degrade and impair a crews' level of alertness. "This sudden 'decree' of the DGCA that pilots shall undertake flight duties as per the 'dynamic roster' would greatly compromise passenger safety and in fact, be a danger to public safety, and we again have to ask at whose behest this is being proposed?," it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) K Sera Sera Digital Cinema, a business vertical under KSS Ltd, set foot in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana with a lab processing unit at Rama Naidu Studio here as the core operational centre, targeting presence of 100 cinemas across the two States by this fiscal-end. "With an initial presence boasting 30 cinemas in the two states, the company is bullish with its plans of expanding its reach to 100 cinemas by the end of FY17," the company said in a statement. The company, among the country's largest distributors of Indian cinema via its SkyCinex technology IP, claimed support from Telugu Film Chamber Of Commerce and noted producer Suresh Babu. It aimed to set up 'digital technology' focused presence in 500 cinemas across the two states by FY18. Rahul Kanani, Group CEO of KSS Ltd annd CEO of KSS Digital Cinema, said, "In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, we will be launching our new playback servers which are fully secured content encryption as per the guidelines of Motion Pictures Solutions (MPS). "This will help us in procuring the Hollywood content for the Indian market. MPS is an association representing the DCI group for all the content mastered in DCP format for release in India and overseas. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kerala Education minister Prof C Raveedranath today called for 'comprehensive education' that goes beyond just building professionally competent students. He was speaking after launching HLL Lifecare Ltd's 'Manasa Plus' as part of eight innovative projects that the Kerala government is set to introduce in the education sector. Under the Manasa Plus project, Central Government-owned HLL Lifecare Ltd (HLL) is partnering with Thiruvananthapuram District Panchayat to install sanitary napkin vending machines VENDIGO and napkin incinerators in 150 government and aided schools in Thiruvananthapuram district. "Education should touch on every aspect of human life so that we help children build a positive aspect of society and have empathy for others," the minister said. The newly-installed VENDIGO machines will enable girl students access sanitary napkins at their schools at the touch of a button. The machine dispenses 'Happy Days' sanitary napkins, manufactured by HLL at its Kanagala factory in Belgaum. Additionally, napkin incinerators will enable safe and environment-friendly disposal of used napkins. District Panchayat President V K Madhu said VENDIGO machines and incinerators would be installed at polytechnics and teacher training colleges in the district. HLL Managing Director Babu Thomas said the company has installed 4,500 vending machines and 2,500 incinerators across the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kerala today condoled the passing away of noted Carnatic musician M Balamuralikrishna at Chennai. In his message, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said Balamuralikrishna was 'an incomparable personality in contemporary Carnatic music' and his death was an 'irreparable loss' to the music world. Kerala also joined the nation in mourning the death of one of the great musicians of the country, he said. The state is indebted to him for bringing into the limelight the various krities of Swati Tirunal, the erstwhile Maharajah of Travancore, by including them in his concerts and making them popular, he said. Balamuralikrishna had been awarded the prestigious Swati Puraskaram, the state's highest honour for musicians instituted by the Kerala government in 2012. He rendered songs in various languages, including Telegu, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi and Punjabi, Vijayan said in a Facebook post. State culture minister A K Balan and Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala, also condoled his death. (Reopens MDS20) Meanwhile, Kerala GovernorP Sathasivam condoled the death of Balamuralikrishna. In a message, he said the sad demise of the "great musical genius" was "a loss beyond words to the world of music." "His greatness went beyond the realm of performing to the heights of scholarship which he shared with innumerable followers across the world. The musical pilgrimage of this genius who created over 25 ragas and performed in eight languages will continue forever through his contributions," he said. Kin of some deceased government staff held a demonstration and some of them attempted to set themselves on fire in front of minister Debi Prasad Mishra's official residence here today for "proper" implementation of Orissa Civil Service (Rehabilitation Scheme) Rules. At least 20 protesters were held as they attempted self-immolation by pouring kerosene in front of the state School & Mass Education minister's official residence, police said. According to the provisions of Odisha Civil Service (Rehabilitation Scheme) Rules, 1990, family members of any state government employee possessing similar educational qualification as that of the staff will get government job if the employee dies during the period of his service. The School and Mass Education Department in 2013 had sent the names of 595 persons to the state government for approval regarding their rehabilitation appointment. "The rehabilitation rule promised to provide regular appointments in Group C and D posts. However, we were provided contractual jobs," claimed one of the agitators. "Although being a deserving candidate we have been running from pillar to post for our legitimate right for the last 15 years. Our file moves to District Education Office and the officials there only give assurance of posting. We have already reached the age of 45 years," claimed Santosh Bal, a protester. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An opposition leader in ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan today announced a bid to impeach President Almazbek Atambayev as the politically volatile Central Asian state prepares for a controversial referendum on constitutional changes. Omurbek Tekebayev, the leader of the opposition Ata-Meken parliamentary party, told journalists he was gathering signatures to show public support and would seek to put a bill on Atambayev's impeachment to the vote by MPs early next year. "We will gather the necessary facts and documents presented in the form of a legal document and begin the impeachment process before March," said Tekebayev, a political veteran whose party has 11 seats in the 120-member parliament. Tekebayev has accused former oppositionist Atambayev of "usurping power" in the country and controlling the work of the parliament and the judiciary. The Ata-Meken leader also opposes a December 11 referendum which Atambayev's critics believe will benefit the president and his ruling Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan. Tekebayev argued that Atambayev could be impeached initially on the grounds that he "participates in the activities" of the ruling party, while the constitution says the president should not be involved in a party. Tekebayev also said he expected that if impeached, Atambayev "could lose both his (presidential) status and his freedom." A parliamentary majority of two-thirds would be required to achieve Atambayev's impeachment, which could open him up to prosecution. Kyrgyzstan formed a new government this month after Atambayev's party quit a ruling coalition over the opposition to the referendum of two parties, including Ata-Meken. Tekebayev and two party colleagues have been targeted by a state agency under Atambayev's control in a probe linking them to offshore activities in the Central American country of Belize. The MPs have claimed the probe is politically motivated and the result of their opposition to the constitutional changes proposed in the referendum. A "yes" vote in the referendum would strengthen the position of the ruling party, which has 38 seats in the legislature, because it would introduce supermajority requirements for votes of no confidence in the government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In yet another directive that would help safeguard the city's vanishing wetlands, the Madras High Court today ordered the registration department to issue orders prohibiting registration of any document involving the Pallikaranai marshlands here. Justice N Kirubakaran directed the Inspector General of Registration of Chennai Zone to issue orders to all jurisdictional registrars not to register any document related to Pallikaranai marshlands in any form. He gave the direction on a petition which submitted that marshlands in Pallikaranai, the city's strained freshwater body, were being alienated illegally. Such fraudulent transfer of property involving the marshland was allegedly being done by unknown persons/land grabbers with the help of some influential officials and persons with muscle and money power, the petitioner alleged. In the previous hearing of the petition, the judge had suo motu impleaded 20 government officials, including government secretaries for Revenue, Rural Development and, Commercial Taxes and Registration. When the case came up for hearing today, Justice Kirubakaran directed the IG Registration also to furnish details of documents registered from 1990 in vis-a-vis marshlands within 12 weeks. He also directed the Joint Registrar, South Chennai, Registration office, not to register any documents relating to Pallikaranai marshlands. The authorities were also further directed to prohibit constructions of any kind in marshlands. The government was directed to publish advertisements in newspapers informing the public about the prohibition with regard to registration of any documents of marshlands. The judge also directed the authorities to verify whether pattas have already been changed in respect of marshlands in favour of private parties. Last year, Justice Kirubakaran had expressed shock at the shrinking of Pallikaranai marshland and directed the Tamil Nadu government to furnish details on encroachment, dumping and burning of garbage and measures for its protection. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Some farmers in western Maharashtra have devised a novel way to get around the problem many others in the country are facing -- that is shortage of small denomination notes and the long queues outside banks and ATMs. At the annual Yashwantrao Chavan agricultural expo, underway at Karad in Satara district, all one needs to buy anything at around 400 stalls is a 'Yashwant Chalan' -- a 'currency' note bearing the image of late Maharashtra Chief Minister Y B Chavan. "This Yashwant Chalan is in the denomination of Rs 100 and is valid at all the stalls in the expo. Farmers get 20 of these 'notes' after depositing the new Rs 2000 note. It will help them buy anything at any of the stalls," a member of the expo committee said. "When the farmer is all done with his shopping, he will be able to exchange the Yashwant Chalan with the genuine Indian currency notes," he said. "We also accept debit cards and give 'Yashwant Chalan' for that amount to the cardholder," he said. This idea has evoked a good response as farmers are battling acute shortage of small denomination notes as the bank and ATM network in rural areas is not as robust as that in urban areas, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A person has been arrested for allegedly being involved in extorting money from betting operators to help his jailed gang-members, police said today. Sahil (26), an active member of southwest Delhi's Saddam gang was recently nabbed near Suraj Vihar bus stop following a tip-off, said Ravindra Yadav, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch). The accused is involved in 19 cases. He was currently involved in extorting money from betting operators in west and southwest Delhi to financially help his associates, including gang leader Saddam Gauri, who is lodged in Rohini jail and facing trials, the police officer said. The gang is associated with the dreaded Neeraj Bawana- Amit Bhura gang. They were also involved in planning the escape of Amit Bhura from police custody in Uttarakhand, Yadav added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An eight-year-old girl who was kidnapped eight months back has been traced in Nallasopara area of the district and her alleged abductor arrested, police said today. The 15-year-old girl was kidnapped from her house in Tulinj locality in Vasai in February. According to police, the girl was spotted with a man this morning, following which he was arrested. He has been identified as Hemraj Mehra (26). Police said a case under section 302 (punishment for murder) and dacoity under IPC has been pending against Mehra with Karad police station in western Maharashtra. He was also booked by Maharashtra ATS under Arms Act and a case in this regard has been pending with Nagpada police station in Mumbai since 2011, a release said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 22, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: I did not expect this escalation at all and almost felt it was a very bad Aprils Fools joke when fighting broke out on April 1. Of course, the initial shock that made this eruption of violence so hard to believe very soon gave way for a sense of utter tragedy when a little Armenian boy was killed the next day and other children were wounded. But this tells us just how dangerous it is to have unresolved conflicts for more than 20 years. Obviously the situation was and is explosive with internal economic difficulties in Azerbaijan, an authoritarian and divisive Russia and a very similar development in Turkey. The EU peacemaking effort has not been successful in Nagorno Karabakh, she said. To the view whether it wasnt important to reveal who has started the attack, the MEP said it is more important to find a solution to the conflict. I do hope that the citizens of both countries take more control of political events and that democracy and human rights is fully implemented in the region. That is the only sustainable way to build peace, by ensuring freedom for all citizens in the region. The alternative to a political solution is a violent solution with military means. That is not an alternative for me. But I believe a political solution has to emanate from the parties and the citizens of both countries, it cannot be pushed through from the outside. I wish I knew the solution of this conflict, but as Ive said I think the solution needs to be brought to the table by the people involved. The citizens of Armenia and of Azerbaijan and the people of Nagorno Karabakh hold their own faith in their hands, she stated. To our question, what must be done to bring the guilty side to bear responsibility on atrocities committed against the NKR civilians, especially the elderly people, as well as the Defense Army soldiers during the April war, the MEP said. All crimes against human rights and atrocities of war should be brought to the International Court of Justice and the suspects should be tried. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti today stressed on further strengthening of wildlife sanctuaries and reserves in the State so that the rare wildlife species, for which the state is known world over, are protected adequately and these places become good attractions for adventure lovers. Chairing the fourth meeting of Jammu and Kashmir State Board for Wildlife here, the Chief Minister underscored the need for protection and conservation of world famed Hangul, Markhor, Musk Deer and other rare species which have given the state a place of pride not only in India but also in the world. She said the biodiversity of the state is so rich that almost half of the mountain fauna of the world is found in Jammu and Kashmir only and asked the Department for taking concrete steps for the conservation and protection of the same. Mehbooba also stressed on ensuring a natural environment in these sanctuaries and reserves rather than pushing the modern day necessities deep inside to provide the wild animals an ambience in which they don't feel scared or threatened. She said nowadays we see more and more human-animal conflicts and the reason for that is that we have interfered in the life cycle and food chain of wild animals. She appreciated the decision of the Forest Minister to plant 30 per cent fruit trees in forest areas so that the wild animals don't have to come down to civilian areas in search of food. Asking the experts to ponder over these issues, the Chief Minister, who is also the chairperson of the board, said what is required is that the human intervention in the life of wild animals should be minimised to a possible extent. She said where ever required the wild environment at these protected reserves be given further stabilisation in its own way rather than using the modern day concrete methods for that. Mehbooba complimented the Department for bagging the top slot in a survey conducted by a national media house and hoped the officers and activists together would work for conservation of flora and fauna in the State. On the occasion, the Chief Minister also released Census Report for Hangul in the State. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Welfare Minister M Kandasamy was admitted to JIPMER hospital here today after he complained of giddiness while participating in a Congress procession to celebrate the victory of Chief Minister V Narayanasamy in the by poll in Nellithope today. Sources at the premier health institute told PTI that his condition was normal and he would be discharged tomorrow. Workers of ruling Congress had taken out a rally in the town to celebrate the victory of Narayanasamy, in which all Ministers and party legislators participated. Kandasamy became exhausted and complained of giddiness, following which he was rushed to JIPMER. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A three-and-a-half-year-old girl was abducted, raped and dumped into a pit by a man after he presumed her to be dead in north Delhi's Sarai Rohilla area, police said today. Birbal (35), was arrested on the intervening night of November 21 and 22 after the victim's elder sister told police that she had seen a man giving chocolate to her, they said. When the accused was arrested, he was in a highly inebriated state. On becoming a little sober around 6 AM today, he confessed that he had abducted the minor, raped her and then dumped her in a pit near Sarai Rohilla railway station on thinking that she had died, a police officer said. He was taken to the spot in the morning where the girl was found lying motionless in the pit. She was rushed to Bara Hindu Rao hospital and her condition is stated to be out of danger, police said. Birbal even strangulated the kid before dumping her into the pit but she survived, a senior police officer said. Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal visited the girl's family at the hospital. "3.5 year old girl raped by 35 year old in Sarai Rohilla. He attempted her murder, was left unconscious in bushes. Critical, m visiting her," Maliwal tweeted before visiting the girl. The girl was playing with her elder sister near her house in Anand Parbat when the accused reportedly offered them chocolate. He then diverted the elder sister's attention and took the victim away and allegedly raped her. "The girl was missing since 7 PM yesterday. Her parents and neighbours searched for her for two hours before informing the police," a senior police officer said. A case under sections 363 (kidnapping), 307 (attempt to murder), 376(rape) of IPC and other relevant sections of the POCSO has been registered against the accused, the officer said. A four-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted on Sunday before she was killed in northwest Delhi's Keshavpuram area. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Fighting the cash-crunch caused by demonetisation, the government today said its focus would now be on rural areas and more measures would be announced for farmers, as situation was normalising in urban areas. "The situation is normalising in the urban areas. In the next few days, the focus will be on the rural areas so that farmers have enough funds because it is rabi sowing season. Few decisions were taken yesterday night which will be made public today," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said while addressing the BJP MPs in a parliamentary party meeting here. The Minister said the credit flow from banks would also go up for various activities including agriculture as huge amount of cash due to demonetisation was deposited in the banking system. Emphasising that demonetisation had a direct relation with the poor, with poverty and with poverty alleviation, Jaitley said this move (of demonetisation) could result in huge jump of public spending in rural areas especially for poverty alleviation. Assuring that once this remonetisation or the process to provide alternative currency reaches reasonable level, he said the government would ease all restrictions but till then there would be difficulty for some time. The Minister said the currency cannot be released all of a sudden, it will be done in a calibrated way and for that the focus was primarily on rural areas. "The remonetisation is being done in a calibrated way for coming weeks. The focus is only on rural areas," he added. Yesterday, the Finance Ministry had permitted the farmers to use old Rs 500 notes for purchasing seeds from any state or central government outlets and agri universities. The government has already permitted the farmers to draw up to Rs 25,000 per week from their KYC compliant accounts subject to the normal loan limits and conditions apart from the other facilities announced last week. Besides, the government had already extended the deadline for payment of crop insurance premium by 15 days and permitted APMC-registered traders to withdraw up to Rs 50,000 per week. Meanwhile, Jaitley said that India was working on a framework to check flow of illicit money routed through Singapore. He said that after revising the tax treaty with Mauritius and Cyprus to check flow of illicit cash, India was in talks with Singapore also. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) More than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria have been killed in the conflict, the head of Iran's veterans' affairs office said today. "The number of martyrs from our country defending the shrines has now passed 1,000," Tasnim agency quoted Mohammad Ali Shahidi Mahalati, the head of Iran's Foundation of Martyrs' and Veterans' Affairs, as saying. Iran has sent military advisers, as well as fighters recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to work with Assad's forces. They are known in Iran as "defenders of the shrines" in reference to Shiite holy sites in Syria. Shahidi did not specify the nationalities of those killed. Shiite Iran is a staunch supporter of Assad and provides both financial and military support for his regime. The Fatemiyoun Division of Afghan recruits organised by Iran comprises the majority of volunteers sent from Iran to fight in Syria and Iraq. Iran says they are sent to fight against Sunni extremists such as the Islamic State (IS) group. The Islamic republic denies having any boots on the ground in Syria, and insists its commanders and generals of the elite Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations wing act as "military advisers" both there and in Iraq. Iranian media regularly report on the death of Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani "martyrs" in Syria, whose bodies are buried in Iran. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's dream Agra-Lucknow expressway was inaugurated, Union minister and BJP leader Manoj Sinha raised questions over the cost incurred in the project. Addressing BJP's 'parivartan rally' here, the MoS for Railways alleged the Samajwadi Party government spent disproportionate amount of money in the road project. "While the central government gets 1 km national highway constructed at a cost of Rs 18 crores, the Akhilesh Yadav government has made 1 km of the expressway at the cost of Rs 30.78 crores," Sinha said. He also hit out at state government for "prevailing goonda raj and corruption" in UP and said only BJP can provide good governance to people of the state. The state goes to poll next year. "It has been over two years of the BJP-led government at the Centre and there has not been a single corruption case either on the government or on its ministers," he said, adding that unlike the SP and BSP, even a common party worker can achieve high position in the BJP. He attacked Congress party also saying a number of scams took place during its rule like the CWG scam, which brought bad name to the country. He praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the "will power" he showed in taking steps like surgical strikes and demonetisation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The results of the Legislative Council elections in which the NCP has lost three seats showed the extent of "resentment" against leadership of that party across the state, senior Congress leader and former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said here today. "We were aware of the ground realities regarding resentment against the NCP leadership. We won despite being in deficit of 130 votes. We won 65 votes more than NCP. Because of the adamant stand of its leaders the NCP lost three seats Whereas BJP, Shiv Sena and Congress won additional seat each," Chavan told PTI. The Sharad Pawar-led party suffered a setback in the polls held on Saturday for six seats in the Legislative Council from as many local bodies. The results were declared today. Chavan said Congress had told NCP to keep Pune and give Sangli-Satara seat from western Maharashtra to us. "We had proposed that NCP should give Yavatmal and keep Bhandara-Gondia, but they refused," he said. "I urged (Congress vice-president) Rahul Gandhi to prevail upon our state unit chief AShok Chavan that Congress should accept alliance only if we get to contest three seats. Finally, decisions are made in Delhi. Rahul too said that Congress should go alone if the demand for three seats is not accepted," the ex-CM said. In a blow, NCP could win only one of the four seats it held earlier during the biennial elections. The NCP retained only Pune local bodies seat while Congress retained Nanded and wrested Sangli-Satara local bodies constituency from NCP. The Sharad Pawar-led party lost Bhandara-Gondia to BJP and Yavatmal to Shiv Sena. The BJP retained Jalgaon local bodies seat. The loss in Sangli-Satara is a huge blow to NCP as it had earlier refused to yield to Congress's demand for 3:3 formula of seat-sharing for the six seats. The break-up of results for six seats is: NCP 1, Congress 2, BJP 2, and Sena 1. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : A sexagenarian businessman from Maldives, two thirds of whose left lung was destroyed due to ailments caused by chain smoking, got a new lease of life through complicated surgery at a hospital here. 62-year-old Manik Ali had been undergoing treatment at the Kims hospital here for the last two years. During these couple of years, Ali used to be extremely breathless and could barely walk a few steps without gasping, a hospital spokesperson said. Of these hospital stays, at least 10 of them were in the ICU with his breathing being supported by the ventilator. Ali had frequent lung infections and very low oxygen levels. "Finally, Ali walked out of the hospital on October 10 as a completely different man - he was no longer breathless and had normal oxygen levels. He no longer had the fear of getting readmitted to hospitals," the spokesperson said. Being exposed to the strain from vagaries of the weather and the sea, Ali began smoking 20 cigarettes a day even at a very young age. His lung condition was diagnosed as COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) with Bronchiectasis of the left lung. COPD is a condition where the lung becomes weak with increasing age and is most commonly caused by smoking as well as by pollution or chemical exposure. Bronchiectasis is destruction of the lung leading to sacs of pus. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The National Green Tribunal today rapped the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) over "inaccurate" data on various kinds of waste generated in the national capital daily. A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar took strong exception over the data submitted by SDMC which said that Delhi generates nearly 10,000 tonnes municipal solid waste (MSW) per day besides other kinds of waste, which is processed at different plants. The municipal corporation told the bench that apart from MSW, it also collects construction and debris (C&D) waste, flyash and silt from drains which is taken to waste-to-energy plants at Okhla, Ghazipur and Bawana for disposal. However, when the bench enquired about the mechanism to segregate construction debris from solid waste, SDMC said it was being done by waste-to-energy plants at Ghazipur and Bawana and 3900 tonnes of C&D was separately taken there. While noting that there was a difference in figures of collected C&D material and the quantity disposed of by three waste-to-energy plants, the green panel asked the corporation to clarify the issue by tomorrow. "What is the use of submitting incorrect and false data. You never realise your duty and that is why no problem is solved in the courts. Instead of giving clear figures, you always try to mislead the tribunal. How did you come to the figure you have submitted to us. We are not interested in your impressive reports," the bench said. The hearing remained inconclusive and will continue tomorrow. Concerned over delay in the operationalising the waste- to-energy plants in capital, the tribunal had earlier constituted a "high-powered team" to inspect the plants at Okhla, Ghazipur and Bawana. The tribunal was hearing a plea filed by Sukhdev Vihar Residents Welfare Association praying for closure of waste-to- energy plant alleging that it uses illegal mass burning technology, causing air pollution. In its application, the association had also told NGT that as per observations of National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, mass burning technology should be stopped immediately. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bihar Opposition today came out against the stringent provision of imprisoning all adult members of a family in case of recovery of liquor from a house at the all-party meeting convened by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on prohibition. The CM, who chaired the meeting, heard patiently the suggestions and objections raised by the leaders. A total of 15 out of 22 representatives of various political parties spoke at the meeting, Parliamentary Affairs minister Shrwan Kumar told reporters. RJD leader and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, RJD leader and Finance Minister Abdul Bari Siddiqui, Congress chief and state Education Minister Ashok Choudhary, BJP leaders Prem Kumar and Mangal Pandey, former chief minister and HAM(S) president Jitan Ram Manjhi, LJP MLA Raju Tiwari, CPI MLC Kedar Pandey and others attended the meeting. Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, Director General of Police P K Thakur and Registration, Excise and Prohibition Department's Principal Secretary Amir Subhani were present along with Principal Additional Advocate General Lalit Kishore. After holding the 'Lok Samvad' with 40 representatives from different walks of lives, the CM had convened the all-party meeting on prohibition. The CM said the meeting was called as the Opposition had often termed the liquor law as "draconian" and "Talibani", so he wished to hear their suggestions on how to make the law "non-draconian" and "non-Talibani". Speaking at the meeting, the CM said, "If we all remain united it would give strength to the campaign (prohibition). Difference of opinion would boost wrongdoers." According to an official statement, the CM said many suggestions were put forward in the meeting. "The government would take legal opinion on suggestions made at the all-party meeting and also at Lok Samvad. The proposal would be brought to the House," he said. The two Houses of Bihar Legislature is all set to hold the Winter session from November 25. After hearing different opinions on the issue, Kumar said that all parties were in favour of prohibition. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shrawan Kumar told reporters that the provision of putting all adults of a family behind bars if a liquor bottle was found from the premises, was debated in the meeting. BJP, the principal opposition party, has been in support of the liquor law from day one but it was opposed to some of the draconian and 'Talibani' provisions of the law, its state unit chief Mangal Pandey told reporters. The party raised serious objections on imposition of collective fine, Pandey said while suggesting that action must be taken against the erring person, but the entire village cannot be held guilty for the fault committed by some. Similarly, the quantum of punishment must be in conformity with the crime, he said, adding that liquor law has provisions which are even harsher than the crime for murder and rape. Sending entire family to the jail in the event of recovery of an empty bottle besides seizure of the premises are also harsher provisions which must be done away with, Pandey said. On exporting liquor to other states, he wondered "on the one hand, there is prohibition, but on the other, 13 beer and wine factories are running in Bihar." "CM assured that the government would bring appropriate amendments after taking legal opinion in this regard in the next session (winter) of the Assembly. Let us see what amendments the government brings in," Pandey said. The BJP leader, however, claimed that the government was preparing to defend itself in the Supreme Court by bringing amendments to the existing law in order to avoid any kind of embarrassment in the apex court. In the amendments, the state government has challenged the old liquor law by having more and stringent penal provisions, which was rejected by the Patna High Court. Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) of Armenia, Arman Tatoyan, on Monday met with Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) Chief of Operations, Barbara Bernath, in Geneva, Switzerland. November 22, 2016, 13:25 Armenias Ombudsman holds meetings in Geneva STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 22, ARTSAKHPRESS: They discussed the main domains of cooperation in the fight against torture, Office of the Human Rights Defender informed. Tatoyan also met with Secretary General of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Gerald Staberock. The interlocutors focused especially on the practical implementation of joint projects and cooperation. In addition, Arman Tatoyan drew Mr Staberocks attention to Azerbaijan-committed atrocities during the four-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh. No Hindus will be left in 30 years from now if the current rate of "exodus" continues as on an average 632 people from the minority community leave the Muslim-majority country each day, according to an eminent economist. "The rate of exodus over the past 49 years points to that direction," Dhaka Tribune quoted Dr Abul Barkat, a Dhaka university professor, as saying. There will be no Hindus left in the country three decades from now, Barkat said in his book 'Political economy of reforming agriculture-land-water bodies in Bangladesh' which was published on November 19, the paper said. From 1964 to 2013, around 11.3 million Hindus left due to religious persecution and discrimination which means on an average 632 Hindus left the country each day and 2,30,612 annually, he said at the book launch ceremony at the Dhaka University (DU). From his 30-year-long research, Barkat said he found that the exodus mostly took place during military governments after independence in 1971, it said. Before the Liberation War, the daily rate of migration was 705. Migration rate stood at 512 between 1971 and 1981, while in the following decade it was decreased to 438. The number increased to 767 persons each day during 1991-2001, while around 774 persons left the country during 2001-2012, the book states. DU professor Ajoy Roy said the government grabbed the properties of the Hindus during the Pakistan regime describing them as enemy property and the same properties were taken by the government after independence as vested property, the report said. According to the book, these two measures made 60 per cent of the Hindus landless. Retired Justice Kazi Ebadul Haque said the minorities and the poor were deprived of their land rights. DU professor Farid Uddin Ahmed said the government has to ensure that the indigenous people would not be affected or harmed, the report said. Former National Human Rights Commission chairman, Mizanur Rahman, said there was no accurate estimation of the indigenous people living in . Bangladesh Adivasi Forum President Santu Larma said, "We need a people-oriented government. But the reality of state mechanism does not allow this to happen". Larma, also the chairman of the CHT Regional Council, claimed that over 50 indigenous groups were on the verge of extinction, but they want to live with dignity with the remaining indigenous groups. Barkat dedicated the book to his childhood friends who belonged to the 'Buno' indigenous group, but now remain traceless. District Central Co-operative Banks (DCCBs) of Gujarat today called for a "united fight" against the RBI for not allowing them to carry out exchange or deposit of defunct notes or withdrawal of cash by customers and hit out at the central bank for its "discriminatory" move. "Board members of the Gujarat State Co-operative Bank, which has 18 DCCBs associated with it, today met to discuss the problems faced by account holders of these banks," said BJP leader Dilip Sanghani, who is Chairman of National Federation of State Cooperative Banks (NAF-SCOB). "Over one crore account holders of these banks in the state are facing problem because of the RBI's move, majority of them being farmers and rural populace. During the meeting, the board members called for a united fight against the RBI's decision," Sanghani told PTI. After the meeting, Gujarat State Co-operative Bank Chairman Ajay Patel said the board wants the NAF-SCOB to meet the RBI and discuss difficulties being faced by the account holders of these banks and come up with a solution. "We want the NAF-SCOB to convey our concerns to the RBI and discuss problems being faced by our account holders, most of whom are farmers, farm labourers and rural populace. The RBI should come out with a solution as soon as possible, before the December 30 deadline (of accepting scrapped notes by banks)," Patel said. A board member said the RBI's "discriminatory approach" should be investigated. "DCCBs operate under RBI rules and guideline, like any other banks, and it is a matter of investigation as to why they were asked not to exchange or withdraw currency notes. We want to know why the Government is silent on this discriminatory approach of RBI," said Nanu Vaghani, a board member and Chairman of Bhavnagar District Co-operative Bank. Post-demonetisation, the apex bank has barred DCCBs from accepting defunct notes and also withdrawal of valid currencies unlike their private and public sector counterparts. The move has triggered protests by farmers in different pockets in the State. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Himachal Pradesh chief minister P K Dhumal today hit out at those opposing demonetisation, saying people in general are in its favour and only some "vested interests with political motives" are opposing it. "The decision of the government to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes has proved that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has political will and courage to take bold decision whether it is surgical strike against Pakistan based terrorists or black money," Dhumal said in a statement here. "The demonetisation was an attack on terrorists, drug mafia and extremists,... And also a warning for politicians winning the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections with the help of black money," the leader of the opposition claimed. Dhumal said the "unease of some politicians, who had piles of black money," was understandable as the huge money had turned into black money overnight. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Metascape by contemporary Indian artist Akbar Padamsee will go under the hammer at Saffronart's upcoming online South Asian Art Auction. Titled, 'The Ties That Bind: South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art', the sale will focus on artists who have redefined the art scene in their countries. Padamsee's work that will lead the auction, consists of richly textured areas of mixed colour juxtaposed against smaller, flat colour planes, rendering it a mesmerising luminosity. The painting is estimated at Rs 3.5 - 4.5 crore. The sale will also have a section dedicated to iconic painter M F Husain, with lots 56 - 84 comprising artworks reflective of the range and depth of his artistic vision. Husain scripted a remarkable career that saw the creation of movie posters and murals, not just on canvas and notebooks but also on cars and on people's front doors when they were not at home! Works by Sri Lankan artists like George Keyt, Pala Pothupitiye and Senaka Senanayake are among other highlights. The sale will feature two lots by Keyt, one of the most celebrated 20th century artists from Sri Lanka, who draws inspiration from different aspects of Buddhist literature and temple architecture, as well as Puranic narratives and Indian erotic iconography. "The sale reflects the inspiration and exchange of ideas across South Asia, from the early years of Independence to the present. "A fresh mix and approach to selecting the most creative art across South Asian nations presents many exciting discoveries and highlights their common ground," says Hugo Weihe, CEO of Saffronart. Colombo-based contemporary artist Pothupitiye is part of the '90s Trend', an art revolution in Sri Lanka that emerged in response to the civil war that affected the nation for more than two decades. His 'Chavakachcheri Map', estimated at Rs 2 - 3 lakhs highlights the political dynamics of neo-colonial Sri Lanka in transition, and the uncertainty it imposes on the common man. Senanayake's art is dominated by the forests of the souther neighbour. His 1980 canvas, estimated at Rs 8 - 10 lakhs seeks to create awareness about the rapidly depleting green cover in the country. Other Indian artists at the sale will include Krishen Khanna, S H Raza, F N Souza, G R Iranna, Atul Dodiya among others. The auction on saffronart.Com which begins on November 30, will be preceeded by viewings in New Delhi, New York and Mumbai. It will come to a close on December 1. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan discourages any arms race in the region today, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said, underlining that the country is exploring the way forward for peace and stability in South Asia. Addressing at the inauguration of the ninth International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) here, Sharif said Pakistan was committed to discouraging arms race and promoting "the motto of arms for peace, which has always been the tagline of IDEAS". He expressed Pakistan's commitment to regional peace, saying that, "we will explore the way forward for peace and stability in the world in general and our region in particular". Sharif said the environment for foreign investment was encouraging in the country in view of improved law and order situation, besides power projects being completed on time. The Prime Minister said Pakistan had achieved self-reliance in defence production and mentioned that IDEAS-2016 was a demonstration of the collaboration of local and foreign technologies. He said over 2,000 weapons system and equipment on display at the exhibition reflected broad-based participation of the country's public and private sector in defence production, supported by research and development. The Prime Minister said the country's defence products were state-of-the-art and stood fully tested by its armed forces. "Our defence products have made their mark in many countries of the world," he said, adding there still existed many opportunities for further growth and exploration of new markets. He said Pakistan was fast emerging producer of quality defence products. The Prime Minister invited foreign companies to expand their business linkages with Pakistan in the field of defence production. Later, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated the exhibition, flanked by Defence Minister Khwaja Asif, Army Chief General Raheel Sharif, Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Admiral Mohammad Zakaullah and Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman. 34 countries and a total of 418 companies are participating in IDEAS 2016, including 261 foreign and 157 Pakistani companies. The exhibition will continue till November 25. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A private company in Pakistan has developed an advanced aircraft that can remain in the air for up to 15 hours and be utilised for surveillance of development projects among other uses. The Arrow drone, which was on display at the defence weapons exhibition IDEAS 2016 that started today, can be operated via remote control. Karachi-based Integrated Dynamics which designed and produced the country's first called 'Buraq' had produced the new aircraft, which can also be used for surveillance of both defence development projects, the Express Tribune said. "The best civilian application of the long range aerial surveillance aircraft {Arrow} is that it is capable of monitoring and making secure trade via the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)," said Raja Sabri Khan, Chief Executive at Integrated Dynamics. Sabri said the surveillance system can be operated via remote in the range of 250 kilometers. "If you operate it on a satellite system then its range becomes unlimited. You can operate it in any part of the world while sitting in Karachi," he said. He said the unique feature of the aircraft is that it can fly non-stop for up to 15 hours. "The feature is not available in any other such system at this economic cost. Its price is not more than a valued 4X4 jeep," he said. It can be used to pinpoint leakages of oil and gas from long-laid pipelines and it can be used to monitor and secure sensitive sites. The system can also be used by geologists and agriculturalists for collecting required data on earth or farms. It can fly even at nighttime. "You just feed the data regarding the route you want the to take and sit back," he said. Besides, the aircraft is also capable of carrying military weapons and equipment. "It can fly with a payload of 100-150 kilogrammes," he said. "Arrow is a revolutionary new concept in aerial surveillance using optionally piloted vehicle converted ultra-light aircraft," he said. With field portability and a one-hour assembly time on site with the wing-fold system, "it is a great armament, payload delivery, and stands-off surveillance platform," he said. "It can be packed in a standard truck-mounted 20-foot container," he added. Pakistan today rejected as "false" and "baseless" the charges that the body of an Indian soldier, who was among the three killed by suspected Pakistani terrorists, was mutilated in a cross LoC-attack. Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Nafees Zakaria in a series of tweets said the reports about the mutilation were aimed at maligning Palistan. "Pakistan strongly rejects the false & baseless Indian media reports regarding the alleged mutilation of an Indian solider on the LoC. These reports are a fabrication and a blatant attempt to malign Pakistan," he said. Zakaria said as a professional force, Pakistan Army isn't involved in any such "unethical & non-professional" activity. He said the Pakistan Army never supported any such action. However, he said, Pakistan is fully prepared and ready to respond to any misadventure across the LoC, Working Boundary or the International Border. Earlier today, the Indian Army said three soldiers were killed in an ambush on army patrol in Machhil sector of Kashmir. "Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act," it said through a tweet. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A petition has been filed in Pakistan's Supreme Court challenging a lower court's decision to dismiss a plea seeking directives to elevate army chief General Raheel Sharif to the rank of Field Marshal ahead of his retirement next week. Terming the extension or conferring of the title as greatest national interest, the appellant yesterday requested the court to set aside the Islamabad High Court's order. Appellant Adnan Mazari, who is a Rawalpindi Bar Association (RBA) member, made Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the government and the Defence Ministry as respondents. Raheel, 60, will rertire on November 29. He contended that the IHC's order is illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional without taking into consideration the merit of the said post which is globally recognised and Pakistan is no exception. "That the exemplary, outstanding and professional performance during peace and war time with total dedication and devotion by attaining the highest standards and mastery in battlefield our present COAS (Chief of Army Staff) needs national appreciation, award and recognition; and in our constitution of Pakistan no tenure/period of COAS is enshrined anywhere," the appellant contended. The appeal stated that Pakistan recorded a substantial decrease in terrorism last year, with 45 per cent less attacks and 38 per cent less deaths reported in the year than the previous year, according to the report of the 'Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2016. He added that this is the second consecutive year in which Pakistan has seen reduction in terrorism. General Raheel, 60, is expected to pass on the baton of command of the army to the next army chief at a ceremony by the end of this month. Raheel in January had declared he would not seek extension. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Palestinian was shot dead at a West Bank checkpoint today after walking towards guards wielding a knife, Israeli police said. "A Palestinian attempted to cross the checkpoint using the vehicle lane and approached security guards brandishing a knife," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement. "The terrorist was neutralised," she added, later confirming he had been killed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Taking a swipe at political rivals targeting him over demonetisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said people in public life are brazenly supporting corruption and black money. "Values in public life are eroding... I see that people in public life are giving speeches in support of corruption and black money. They are brazenly out in open doing so. In any country, erosion in values is the biggest crisis," he said. "Coming generations will not forgive those who are betraying the values," he said. He was speaking at the release of a book published in memory of late party veteran Kedarnath Sahni, who was a prominent leader in Jan Sangh and then in BJP in Delhi. One should be spotless in public life, Modi said, citing Sahni as an example. There is need to stand against this mindset to compromise with loss in values, he said, adding it is one thing if some people do not have strength to fight it and totally another to carry aloft the "flag of evils". He recalled that Sahni gave shelter to numerous Sikh families at his home and mobilised party workers and others to help them during the riots in the wake of Indira Gandhi's assassination. All are aware of the attitude of the then government, he said targeting the then Congress government, and alleged that "human slaughter" happened at that time and families of Sikhs were butchered. Award-winning author Connie Willis talks about and signs her first full-length book in six years. AWARD-WINNING COLORADO SCI-FI AUTHOR TALKS NOV 22 AT PAGE ONE Connie Willis, the most decorated science-fiction author alive today, returns to Page One Books 6:30 pm Tuesday, November 22, to talk about and sign her new novel, "Crosstalk," her first full-length book in six years. The book is described as such: "In the not-too-distant future, a simple outpatient procedure to increase empathy between romantic partners has become all the rage. And Briddey Flannigan is delighted when her boyfriend, Trent, suggests undergoing the operation prior to a marriage proposalto enjoy better emotional connection and a perfect relationship with complete communication and understanding. But things dont quite work out as planned, and Briddey finds herself connected to someone else entirelyin a way far beyond what she signed up for. It is almost more than she can handleespecially when the stress of managing her all-too-eager-to-communicate-at-all-times family is already burdening her brain. But thats only the beginning. As things go from bad to worse, she begins to see the dark side of too much information, and to realize that loveand communicationare far more complicated than she ever imagined." Willis won a 2014 Locus Award for Best Collection for "The Best of Connie Willis." The 10 stories in this collection range from a near future mourning the extinction of dogs to an alternate history in which invading aliens were defeated by none other than Emily Dickinson; from a madcap convention of bumbling quantum physicists in Hollywood to a London whose Underground has become a storehouse of intangible memories both foul and fair. Willis also had a novelette in the 2014 "Rogues" anthology, edited by George RR Martin and Gardner Dozois. In Spring 2012, Willis was awarded the title of Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is an award given by the SFWA to a living author for lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy. Officially, it is not a Nebula Award though it is awarded at the Nebula ceremony. It was originally known as the Grand Master Award, but in 2002 it was renamed in honor of the late Damon Knight, a founder of the SFWA. In 2011, Willis' two-part novel "Blackout" and "All Clear" won the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award (at the World Science Fiction Convention) and the Locus Award. In all, she has received 11 Hugo Awards and seven Nebulas; and was inducted into the Science Fiction Museum and Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009. Willis lives in lives in Greeley, CO, with her husband Courtney Willis, a former professor of physics at the University of Northern Colorado. They have one daughter, Cordelia. Page One Books is located at 5850 Eubank Blvd NE, Suite B-41, in Albuquerque's Mountain Run Shopping Center (southeast corner of Eubank and Juan Tabo). The Willis event is free and open to the public. For more information, please call 294-2026 or visitwww.page1book.com. ------------------------- Connie Willis website: http://www.sftv.org/cw The Papua New Guinean governments decision in the lead up to 2007 to end the monopoly of state-owned telecommunications provider Telikom resulted in rapid increases in mobile coverage and subscriber numbers, and sharp decreases in costs to consumers. THIS report by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) examines the effects of the deregulation of Papua New Guineas mobile telecommunications sector, a process which began in 2007. Case Study on the Role of Services Trade in Global Value Chains : Telecommunications in Papua New Guinea, APEC Policy Support Unit, September 2016. Read the full report here: Download 'Telecommunications in Papua New Guinea' The improved availability and affordability of mobile phones in PNG since 2007 has brought significant social and economic changes. Hundreds of thousands of people now have access to telecommunications for the first time, and can keep in touch with friends and family. Health benefits have also followed, as people are better able to access emergency advice and assistance. Farmers and entrepreneurs can now access new economic opportunities and face reduced information costs. Companies now benefit from significantly lower communication costs, helping to spur economic growth and promote integration into global value chains. Alongside these benefits, the advent of widely available mobile phones has also triggered concerns. Some believe that mobile phones could encourage marital infidelity, and consumption of pornography. There is also a common perception that criminal gangs may use mobile phones to coordinate robberies. On balance, however, most agree that access to mobile phones has largely represented a positive development in PNG. Mobile telecommunications operators (Digicel, bmobile-vodafone and any future entrants) should continue to address network black spots, and progressively upgrade rural networks to provide internet access. Improved services will increase opportunities for economic connectivity and drive better health outcomes. Government policy settings should be optimised to encourage and enable this process. The government should ensure healthy competition in the mobile telecommunications sector. This may involve reducing barriers to entry for additional operators. New entrants may be able to reach agreement with incumbent network operators on renting bandwidth, rather than building a parallel mobile network. The recently announced PNG Data Co a state-owned enterprise that will be responsible for PNGs international submarine cables and overall telecommunications infrastructure is considering policies that may promote cooperation between telecommunications operators, and reduce network duplication. The government should also prioritise electrification projects in remote parts of PNG. International donors including the World Bank could support these efforts, as the benefits of electrification go further than just the ability to recharge mobile phones. Donors should also consider technical assistance initiatives to support the capacities of PNG government officials to effectively promote and enable the mobile telecommunications sector. Equally important if PNG industries are to gain the full benefits of improved communication capabilities is continued investment in transport infrastructure. A peripheral recommendation for the national government and specifically for the Bank of PNG that has been identified during the writing of this report is to increase the publication of official economic data. Better data coverage will enable useful comparisons with other economies at a similar stage of development, and will allow the government to identify initiatives that have the best chance of contributing to positive change A businessman today moved Delhi High Court seeking direction to the government to remove the cap on withdrawal of money deposited in banks before the November 8 decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. The plea for urgent listing was mentioned before a bench of Justices B D Ahmed and Jayant Nath, which allowed the matter to be listed for hearing before the appropriate bench tomorrow. The petitioner, a resident of Delhi, urged the court to quash the notification which also imposes conditions on withdrawal of money from bank accounts, besides banning the use of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from November 9 onwards. "A bare reading of the notification shows that clause 2 (vi) was intended for cash deposits which were to be tendered for the period November 9, 2016, to December 30, 2016. This clause as well as the notification has no connection with the bank deposits which were made prior to November 8, 2016," the plea by Ashok Sharma said. The petitioner while seeking direction to the Ministry of Finance and Reserve Bank of India (RBI), said that "on account of the notification, there is no normal banking transaction available, so he is unable to carry out his business and consequently clause 2(vi) of the notification has affected his right to livelihood". Under the older clause 2(vi) of the notification, the weekly withdrawal limit from the banks was Rs 20,000, while the daily limit was of Rs 10,000. Thereafter, the weekly limit was increased to Rs 24,000 and the daily limit scrapped. While seeking to declare clause 2(vi) of the notification as illegal, the plea stated that under Banking Regulation Act, deposits with banks are "payable on demand" and under no set of circumstances could the government have imposed such conditions on normal banking transactions (bank deposits) which were with the bank on November 8. The plea, filed through advocate A Maitri, alleged that the government's action was "arbitrary and unconstitutional" as on one hand it cancelled the currency notes, on the other it simultaneously banned normal banking. The plea said that the money, which is lying with the banks prior to demonetisation, has no connection with the legal tender of bank notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. Therefore, the government should restrain itself from interfering into the normal banking transactions, it said. The petitioner claimed that the government's decision is not applicable to bank deposits prior to November 8 and "its enforcement is unconstitutional as the same is against the mandate of section 26 of the RBI Act". "Section 26 of the Act never empowered the government to immobilise banking transactions and at the most the government could have imposed conditions on the cash deposits which were to be made post demonetisation," the plea said. The Orissa High Court today issued notices to the Chief Secretary, Health Secretary, DG of fire services and Khurda district collector to file respective counters to a PIL pertaining to gross violation of fire safety norms in the state's private hospitals. Issuing notices to the respondents, a division bench headed by Chief Justice Vineet Saran posted the matter for hearing on December 15. The petition was filed by advocate Shivshankar Mohanty in the backdrop of the September fire tragedy at SUM Hospital in Bhubaneswar. It claimed that several private hospitals and nursing homes in the state were not adhering to the provisions of Orissa Fire Services Act of 1993 and the Orissa Clinical Establishment (Control and Regulation) Act of 1990. Citing the specific example of 2014 fire mishap in Kalinga Institute of Medical Science (KIMS) under KIIT University in Bhubaneswar, the petitioner maintained that the same teaching hospital is running without a valid certificate of registration from the district magistrate as per the requirement of Clinical Establishment Act of 1990. Annexing various letters of communication between him with that of the district collector, DMET and DG of fire services in his petition, the petitioner urged the high court for an immediate intervention and direction to the authorities concerned to seal all those private hospitals and nursing homes that are running without proper fire safety measures in place. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) City unit Congress president Sanjay Nirupam today demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi be held responsible for the deaths of "70 people" that are reportedly linked to the demonetisation move. "Seventy deaths happened since November 8 due to chaos following the cash crunch (in the aftermath of demonetisation decision)," Nirupam claimed at a street corner meeting at Byculla in South Mumbai. The meeting was the part of a Congress' awareness programme "Money ki Baat" in the wake of scrapping of Rs 500 and 1000 notes, and its implications. "People died while standing in queues to withdraw their own money, due to inability to get medicines, due to (financial) hurdles in marriages of their daughters and the shortage of money to get medical attention. "Modi should be held responsible for the crisis and the deaths. He should apologise to nation for hardships caused to people," the Congress leader said. Amid the hardships faced by people in the form of cash crunch and long queues outside banks, Nirupam demanded that printing of currency should be expedited to meet the shortage of money. "People have deposited Rs 5.45 lakh crore in their bank accounts (post demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes) but withdrawals are only Rs 1.36 lakh crore," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan today attributed the BJP's victory in bypolls on two seats in the state to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development policies. Describing the saffron party's victory in the Shahdol Lok Sabha and Nepanagar Assembly seats as "unprecedented", he said Opposition Congress tried very hard to snatch the two constituencies but failed to do so, thanks to support the ruling party got from the voters. "I consider this victory as unprecedented as Congress was confident of wresting these two seats from BJP and they tried all tricks in their armoury to achieve their goal," an elated Chouhan told reporters at the state BJP headquarters here, where party workers were also present. "The victory shows people have full faith in Modiji's policies and therefore they have voted for his development initiatives," he said. "I dedicate this victory to the party workers, the people of Nepanagar and Shahdol and to Modiji," Chouhan said in the presence of jubilant party workers. Chouhan said since former Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav today passed away in Lucknow, the party has decided not to celebrate the by-poll victory in traditional manner. Instead, the party leaders and workers will garland the statues of BJP leaders like Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, Kushabhau Thakre and Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia. State BJP President Nandkumar Singh Chouhan and Public Relations Minister Narottam Mishra, among others, were present on the occasion. The bypolls in Shahdol and Nepanagar were seen as the first electoral test for BJP after the demonetisation of high values notes announced by Modi on November 8. Chouhan, however, made no mention about the anti-black money measure during interaction with the media post-victory. (Reopens BOM31) Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh Congress President Arun Yadav sought to downplay his party's defeat in the bypolls and said BJP won because of its "election management". However, he said the Opposition party has accepted its defeat and will do an introspection to ascertain the reasons. The Kremlin said today that President Vladimir Putin enjoys good relations with Francois Fillon, the surprise winner of the first round of France's rightwing presidential primary. "They established relations when Putin was still head of government, they had quite extensive exchanges," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "They do indeed maintain quite good relations." Peskov added that Moscow was following the French presidential primaries with "great attention." "France is our partner, a country with which Russia maintains good relations and with which the scope of cooperation could be much larger than it is now," Peskov added. Former prime minister Fillon, an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, pulled off a stunning upset on Sunday, knocking his former boss Nicolas Sarkozy out of the race and beating the favourite, fellow ex-premier Alain Juppe. Russian media this week portrayed Fillon as a "friend of Moscow" capable of mending relations that soured over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and its support of a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Business daily Vedomosti wrote Fillon was France's "pro-Russian" presidential candidate, while online portal Gazeta.Ru said he was a "French remake of Donald Trump." Fillon has called for closer ties with Russia and voiced support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Fillon will go head-to-head with Juppe in a run-off Sunday that is widely expected to decide France's next leader after a prospective duel next year with far-right leader Marine Le Pen. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sowing of rabi crops like wheat, pulses and oilseeds has not been affected due to banning of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh today said, ruing that politics is being played in the name of farmers. "The decision to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes was taken to curb blackmoney and corruption. This is going to directly benefit farmers and poor people. This decision is being opposed saying it is affecting farmers and would impact rabi sowing. But the truth is the move is being opposed for personal interest," Singh said in a statement. Stating that some people are playing politics in the name of farmers, the minister said sowing area of wheat, pulses and oilseeds has been higher till November 18 of this rabi season compared with the year-ago period. Wheat has been sown in 79.40 lakh hectares till November 18 of this ongoing rabi season, higher than 78.83 lakh hectares in the year-ago period, he said. Similarly, area sown to pulses has increased to 74.55 lakh hectares from 69.98 lakh hectares while oilseeds acreage has gone up to 56.16 lakh hectares from 48.74 lakh hectares in the said period. Wheat, pulses and oilseeds are main rabi crops. Sowing started from October and harvesting will begin from April. Without naming any political leaders from West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, the Union agriculture minister said the sowing area is higher in these two states as well. In West Bengal, rabi crops have been sown in 2.39 lakh hectares till November 18 of this rabi season, as against 2.25 lakh hectares in the year-ago period. In Uttar Pradesh, rabi crops have been sown in 33.79 lakh hectares, much higher than 25.91 lakh hectares a year ago. UP farmers have sown wheat in 14.82 lakh hectares till November 18 of this rabi season, as against 14.38 lakh hectare a year earlier. Pulse acreage has increased to 8.52 lakh hectares from 2.68 lakh hectares while oilseeds area has gone up to 10.08 lakh hectares from 8.63 lakh hectares in the said period in Uttar Pradesh, he said. Highlighting various steps taken to ease cash flow to farmers, the minister said farmers are allowed to buy seeds with old Rs 500 notes at government outlets as well as from agri varsities. Farmers have also been allowed to withdraw up to Rs 25,000 from banks and the steps are being taken to open bank accounts of farmers at mandis, he said, adding that farmers can avail of funds via kisan credit cards. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Uttarakhand High Court today permitted yoga guru Ramdev's close aide Acharya Balkrishna to visit Nepal. Justice U C Dhyani granted Balkrishna permission to visit Nepal for seven days. He got the reprieve after he moved a petition before the high court today seeking its permission to visit the neighbouring country from November 23 to November 30. However, the court has directed him to report his presence to CBI on his return from Nepal. Balkrishna, who is accused of obtaining an Indian passport on the basis of fake documents, had been ordered not to leave the country by the court while being granted bail in a forgery case earlier. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court today again came to the rescue to expelled AIADMK MP L Sasikala Pushpa by granting her anticipatory bail in connection with alleged ransacking of the house of a lawyer representing her two women domestic aides in a sexual harassment matter against her and her family members. A bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao said the Rajya Sabha member be "released on bail in the event of her arrest on furnishing of a bail bond of Rs 50,000 and two sureties of like amount". The Madras High Court had on November 18 denied anticipatory bail to the MP by rejecting her contention that the instant case was registered due to political reasons and had said that her custodial interrogation was necessary. The high court, however, had granted conditional bail to her husband Lingeswara Tilagan and son Pradeep Raja, saying that there was no material evidence against them in the case. The apex court, which has earlier protected the MP against arrest in two other criminal cases, today agreed prima facie with the submission of senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for Sasikala, that she is being targeted due to political reasons and deserved the protection. The present case has been registered on a complaint by a woman advocate seeking action against a gang which "ransacked" her house at Tirunelveli in her absence on September 11. The woman lawyer had also sought protection for herself and her clients, two former women domestic aides of the MP who are the complainants in the sexual harassment case. Police, so far, have arrested three supporters of the MP -- Harinadar, Ramalingam and Chitrakumar -- in connection with the attack on the house. The ransacking case is the third against Sasikala. Besides the sexual harassment case, she is also facing another case for allegedly forging documents for filing an anticipatory bail application in the high court earlier. Sasikala was expelled from AIADMK in August this year after an alleged altercation with DMK MP Tiruchi Siva at the Delhi airport. Since then she has been alleging that she was being threatened to resign as MP. (Reopens LGD29) Earlier, the apex court had protected Sasikala from arrest in two criminal cases of alleged sexual harassment of her family maids and forging of documents in her anticipatory bail petition lodged by the Tamil Nadu police respectively. It, however, had asked the MP to join the police probe of the two cases. Taking note of the submission of her counsel that there was threat to her life, the bench had directed Tamil Nadu police to ensure full protection to her so that no harm is caused when she appears before the investigating agencies. Sasikala had approached the apex court against the order of the Madras High Court rejecting her plea for anticipatory bail in the sexual harassment case and registration of the case on the order of the high court for allegedly forging documents while filing anticipatory bail plea. Acting on directions of high court bench, police had registered cases against expelled AIADMK member and her two family members for allegedly submitting forged documents while filing anticipatory bail petitions in the case pertaining to ill-treatment and sexual abuse of two women domestic aides respectively. Police had registered cases under IPC Sections 193 (punishment for false evidence), 466 (forgery of record of court or of public register), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged {document or electronic record). The cases were registered against Pushpa, her husband R Lingeswara Thilagam and son Pradeep Raja. On September 14, court had dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of Sasikala Pushpa and her three family members, including her mother, on a complaint filed by the two women domestic aides. They are facing charges under various IPC sections and also POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act for allegedly sexually harassing the domestic women aides. Demonetised currency notes worth Rs 31 lakh were today recovered from the residence of the brother of a sitting BJP corporator in the city, police said. The accused, Vaikunth Pavar alias 'Dabangg', has been detained after the recovery of cash in old currency notes, Joint Commissioner of Police D J Patel told PTI. "We had reliable information that Pawar has kept the cash at his residence. Based on the tip-off, action was taken," the officer said. "The detained person is the brother of Vijay Pawar, BJP corporator in Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC)," Patel added. Further investigation into the case is being carried out by the Crime Branch, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Catholic Church in Rwanda has again asked for forgiveness "for all Christians" implicated in the 1994 genocide that killed around 800,000, the head of the country's bishops commission said today. A letter of apology signed by the bishops representing the nine dioceses in Rwanda, a copy of which AFP received, had been read in all churches yesterday, marking the end of the Holy Year of Mercy declared by Pope Francis. "We ask for forgiveness for all Christians who were involved in the genocide," said the bishops commission president, Philippe Rukamba, recalling that the Church had already called for understanding in 2000. The bishop added, however, that the Church was seeking forgiveness for individuals and not for the institution as such. "The Church did not participate in the genocide," he said. That comment came after Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said on Twitter late yesterday: "The Catholic Church of Rwanda apologises for its role in the 1994 genocide, 22 years later! Better late than never!" Since the genocide, whose victims were mostly from the Tutsi minority, the Catholic Church has been accused of being close to the Hutu extremist regime in power in 1994 and some of its priests and other clergy were implicated in the massacres. A number of churches became scenes of mass killings as the Hutu militiamen found people seeking refuge there, sometimes turned over by the priests, with no way out. Several Catholic priests as well as nuns and brothers were charged with participating in the genocide and tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and by a Belgian court, leading to some convictions while others were acquitted of the charges. The highest ranking Church official to be tried for genocide was the late bishop, Augustin Misago, who was acquitted and freed from prison in June, 2000. During the 20th anniversary commemorations in April 2014, Rwandan President Paul Kagame accused the Catholic Church of having "participated fully" in establishing the colonial ideology that created the divide between Hutus and Tutsis which he claimed led to the genocide. Around half of Rwandans are Catholic, but since the genocide, many of them have turned to pentecostal churches. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Warning: May contain traces of soy, wheat, lecithin and tree nuts. That you are here strongly suggests that you are either omnivorous, or a glutton. And that you might like cheese-doodles. Please form a caseophilic line to the right. Thank you. The Supreme Court today agreed to hear on November 25 a plea seeking constitution of an SIT to investigate into the "incriminating" evidence and details of "unaccounted" cash recovered allegedly during the raids by the Income Tax and CBI in two companies two years ago. A bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur said this after senior advocate Shanti Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner NGO Common Cause, mentioned the matter before the apex court. The plea sought a direction to the CBI, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to "produce the records and the seized material recovered in the raids" before the apex court. It also sought a direction to the "authorities not to return the seized documents to the business groups concerned". The application, filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan, claimed that "actionable evidence" gathered during the raids on both the groups was given a "quiet burial" by Income Tax Department and CBI. It said that CBI had conducted raids in 2013 at various premises of one of the groups' company during its probe into the coal block allocation scam case. "The documents seized by the CBI in its search operation in Mumbai reportedly revealed massive bribery of politicians and officials of various ministries over several years," it alleged. Referring to media reports, it said IT department had raided the other group's offices in Delhi and Noida in November 2014 and during which "incriminating documents and cash" were reportedly seized. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Police arrested a Chattanooga school bus driver on charges including vehicular homicide after a bus crash killed five students. Calling the yesterday afternoon crash "every public safety professional's worst nightmare," Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher told an overnight conference that 24-year-old bus driver Johnthony Walker was charged with five counts of vehicular homicide. Walker was also charged with reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Investigators were looking at speed "very, very strongly" as a factor in the crash, Fletcher said earlier. An arrest affidavit posted online by Chattanooga station WTVC says Walker was driving well above the posted 30 mph speed limit on a narrow, winding road. His bond was set at USD 107,500, according to the affidavit. Police said overnight that five children were killed in the crash. Earlier yesterday, Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston told outlets the crash killed six. The Associated Press was not immediately able to reach officials today morning to explain the discrepancy. Thirty-five students from kindergarten through fifth grade were on board when the bus flipped onto its side and wrapped around a tree. The bus was the only vehicle involved in the crash, but Fletcher said the scene was complicated and covered a significant area. He also said a warrant had been issued to remove the bus' black box, which contains data about the vehicle's movement. Bloodied Woodmore Elementary School students lay on stretchers, while others walked away dazed with their parents after the crash, local outlets reported. More than 20 children went to hospitals for their injuries, according to Fletcher. Emergency responders needed almost two hours to get all the children off the bus. Television cameras showed emergency vehicles still there late into the night, and the National Transportation Safety Board tweeted that a team would be heading to Chattanooga today morning to investigate. Craig Harris, a parent of two children who were on the bus, told ABC's "Good Morning America" today morning he thought the bus driver sometimes drove too fast. "There has been times where I've seen him going a little faster than he probably should be going," Harris said. Harris said his daughter and stepson were in shock and pain after the crash but were doing better today morning. Television stations reported that people lined up to donate blood and some donors were asked to make appointments for today. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a setback to the opposition NCP in Maharashtra, the party could win only one of the four seats it held during the biennial elections held for six local bodies constituencies in the state Legislative Council. The voting was held on Saturday and the counting of votes took place today. The NCP retained only Pune local bodies seat while Congress retained Nanded and wrested Sangli-Satara local bodies constituency from NCP. The BJP retained the Jalgaon local bodies seat. The Sharad Pawar-led party lost Bhandara-Gondia to BJP and Yavatmal to Shiv Sena. The loss in Sangli-Satara is a huge blow to NCP as it had earlier refused to yield to Congress's demand for 3:3 formula of seat-sharing for the six seats. The NCP leadership had earlier lambasted former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan for sticking to the demand that his party get Sangli-Satara constituency in the seat-sharing. State NCP chief Sunil Tatkare had earlier alleged the alliance fell through because of Chavan's adamant attitude. He had also questioned how Congress could demand the seat when NCP had more numbers. The NCP backed an independent in Nanded, the stronghold of state Congress president Ashok Chavan. As per the figures given by state electoral office, Amar Rajurkar (Congress) polled 251 as against 208 votes received by independent Shyamsunder Shinde. Congress's Mohan Kadam bagged 309 votes as against 246 by Shekhar Gore(NCP) in Sangli-Satara. In Yavatmal, Tanaji Sawant of Shiv Sena defeated Congress's Shankar Bade. Sawant polled 348 votes as against 78 of Bade. Notably, the NCP had backed Sawant. In Pune, Anil Bhosale of NCP bagged 440 votes as against 133 of Ashok Yenpure (BJP). Congress candidate Sanjay Jagtap finished a poor third with 71 votes. In Jalgaon, Chandulal Patel (BJP) polled 421 votes. Independent Vijay Patil polled 90 votes while remaining six independents drew a blank. In Bhandara-Gondia, Parinay Phuke of BJP trounced NCP's Rajendra Jain, who polled 137 votes and Praful Agrawal of Congress who got 112 votes. In the 78-member Upper House, Congress now has 20 members, the NCP tally has been reduced to 23, while BJP has 18, and Shiv Sena has nine members. However, NCP continues to be the single largest party in the House. The biennial polls to five seats from teachers and graduates constituencies are also scheduled for which dates will be announced soon, an election official said. The elections to Nashik graduates constituency held by Congress, Aurangabad teachers held by NCP, Amravati graduates held by BJP and Konkan teachers and Nagpur teachers constituencies held by independents will be held soon as their term also ends on December 5. (REOPENS BES11) The loss in Bhandara-Gondia is seen as setback to the NCP especially for senior leader Praful Patel, who hails from the region. Patel's trusted lieutenant and sitting MLC Rajendra Jain lost to first timer Parinay Phuke who is considered close to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Another candidate Praful Agarwal, son of sitting Congress MLA Gopaldas Agarwal, finished third with 113 votes. The Congress and NCP fought independently in the MLC elections held on November 20. Fadnavis had earlier expressed confidence about winning the Bhandara-Gondia poll. A two-term MLC Jain was trying his fortune for the third successive time. In the first term, Jain was an NCP candidate while when he contested for the second time, he was candidate of the Congress-NCP alliance. Phuke was presently a corporator in BJP-ruled Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC). He gained confidence of Fadnavis and is said to move closer to him. He could be seen around the Chief Minister, sources said. Meanwhile, a Congress leader on condition of anonymity told BJP President Amit Shah today hit out at the opposition parties protesting demonetisation, saying the discomfort is evident on the face of the leaders opposing the move, which should worry only those who possess blackmoney. "Those who don't have any black money in their homes, do they have any reason to worry? Do you see any worries on the faces of our leaders? Now have a look at the face of Rahul baba (Gandhi) and see if can notice discomfort or not," Shah said addressing a public meeting here. He also targeted other parties asking the crowd if they could see worry on the faces of SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, BSP chief Mayawati or AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, as the audience answered back saying "yes". "All of them are worried," he said. Underlining the effects of the government's move to demonetise high currency notes, Shah said that through blackmoney terrorism, naxalite movement, drug mafia and counterfeiters operate and "(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi ji, with one stroke of the pen, has turned this blackmoney into scrap". "On November 7, they said, Modi ji what did you do on the issue of blackmoney. Now they say, Modi ji why did you do it. The what has turned into why. They are concerned who have millions and billions stashed in their bungalows," Shah said, taking another jibe at opposition party leaders. The BJP President said that if the human body has an ailment, doctors have to conduct an operation and similarly, demonetisation will have a positive effect. "The way demonetisation is being opposed, I believe, these people are siding with blackmoney and corruption," he added. Shah claimed that BJP was sensitive to the problems being faced by people queuing up outside the banks and ATMs but said they must realise that the step had hurt "those sleeping over hoardes of blackmoney three thousand times more than the people on the streets". Addressing a huge gathering on the occasion of Parivartan Yatra in the Kumaun University SSJ Campus, Shah said that people have to make a decision in the upcoming assembly elections in Uttarakhand - whether they want a state which is developed or not - as he sought votes to bring change in the state, presently ruled by a Congress government. "We will work to combat Chinese insurgency at the border, control generation of electricity, and work for industrial progress for the benefit of Uttarakhand people," he said as he appealed to the people to vote for BJP, which "will give you a strong, fear-free and corruption-free government" and then Uttarakhand will be the strongest state in the country. Accusing the Harish Rawat government of doing nothing without taking commission, Shah said having a BJP government both in the state and at the Centre will serve the interests of Uttarakhand better as it would help the benefits of the central schemes and funds percolate to the ground level. He claimed that Uttarakhand could not progress under the Congress as he accused the party of carrying out corruption to the tune of Rs 12 crore. He appealed to the people to 'save the state' by putting an end to the current regime. Targeting Rahul Gandhi, he said the Congress vice president had no right to shed "crocodile tears" over One Rank One Pension (OROP) as three generations of party leadership had failed to address the issue which Modi did within two years of coming to power. "Modi fulfilled the vexed demand when Rahul Gandhi had disappeared for six months with no one having any clue of his whereabouts. Perhaps he is not aware of what happened during his disappearance," he alleged. "Modi has fulfilled an age-old demand. There may be some small outstanding issues which are being looked into by a commission," Shah told the gathering that included former chief ministers and other top most leaders of Uttarakhand BJP who also made speeches before the party president. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia today met family members of the man who died while waiting in a queue outside a bank in Najafgarh and hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the deaths due to . 49-year-old Satish Kumar, a resident of Uttam Nagar who sold vegetables in Keshopur Mandi, collapsed outside the Oriental Bank of Commerce branch on Najafgarh Road, while he was standing in a queue to deposit Rs 50,000. Sisodia said the wife of the deceased told him that they did not have any money on them for the past 10-12 days. Kumar was distressed and talked of returing to his native village. The Deputy Chief Minister claimed that Satish fainted after standing in the queue for six hours. Attacking the Prime Minister, he tweeted, "Modiji, after how many deaths will you realise that poor people and not the rich are dying due to your surgical strike (sic)," he tweeted. Later, Sisodia also led a march of AAP at Jantar Mantar against . NDA constituent, Shiv Sena today met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought change in the demonetisation policy to allow cooperative banks, credit societies and district banks to carry out transactions of old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination, saying the situation on the ground was become alarming. Sena, which currently shares an uneasy relationship with the BJP and is also critical of the demonetisation drive. "In smaller towns and villages, it is the District Central cooperative banks, cooperative urban banks and cooperative credit societies which have taken banking to the masses. "We urge you to make judicious use of this dense network of cooperative and urban banks by allowing them to participate in the demonitisation drive. "Accepting loan installments in old currencies would give a big relief to the rural population. Necessary changes in the policy by allowing cooperative banks and credit cooperative societies to handle transactions of exchanging old currency notes in lieu of new legal tender will also give people some relief," a delegation of Shivsena MPs told Modi. Maharashtra, known to the birthplace of cooperative movement in the country, has nearly 500 such banks that constitute nearly one-third of cooperative banks in India. "We are not against the demonitisation drive, but the way it has been implemented. Even during our march against the drive along with the West Bengal anti-demonitisation drive with (West Bengal chief minister) Mamata Banerjee, we have maintained that we oppose the way it has been implemented, but not the decision," Shivsena MPGajanan Kiritikar said. The Shivsena MP from Northwest Mumbai said the delegation also told the Prime Minister that all financial institutions should be given permission to accept demonitised notes as an installment in borrowers loan accounts. "The banned notes collected from such financial institutions in cooperative sector should be accepted by nationalised banks," the delegation said. Kiritkar said the PM has assured the delegation that he will discuss the matter with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The delegation said Maharashtra has some 503 co-cooperative banks with 6000 plus branches and 2800 plus ATMs. It also has 33 district co-operative banks with more than 3000 branches. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An attack by Nigeria's Boko Haram jihadists against a Lake Chad army base manned by an anti-insurgent regional force has left six Cameroonian soldiers dead, a military source said today. "Boko Haram attacked a base of the Mixed Multinational Force on the island of Darak (on Lake Chad) at around 2200 (2100 GMT)" yesterday, said the source, who asked not to be named. He said six soldiers had been killed. Boko Haram frequently travel around the many islands of Lake Chad, which borders northeast Nigeria, the far north of Cameroon, Niger and Chad. A civilian from a vigilante group working with security forces to combat Boko Haram incursions was also killed, another security source said. The jihadist group, which is seeking to impose strict Islamic Sharia law in Nigeria's mainly-Muslim north, has killed at least 20,000 people and left more than 2.6 million homeless in its six-year insurgency. Cameroon has battled the extremist group since 2014 and has joined Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Benin in setting up a joint force against Boko Haram. The regional counter-offensive has helped the Nigerian military retake swathes of territory from the insurgents, but the jihadist group still poses a security threat to civilians. Also, yesterday evening, a would-be suicide bomber was shot dead before detonating her device as she sped on a motorbike towards a military roadblock near the Cameroonian border town of Kolofata. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after attending a function commemorating the birth centenary of Indira Gandhi here, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her daughter Priyanka Vadra met local party leaders, enjoyed a stroll at the sprawling Anand Bhavan premises and visited the Kamla Nehru Hospital before returning to New Delhi. "This was the first occasion in more than a decade when Sonia and Priyanka were together at the Swaraj Bhavan. The last time they had spent the night at their ancestral house was during the campaign for 2002 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh," UPCC spokesman Kishore Varshney said. Yesterday, they were joined by Rahul Gandhi during the inauguration of the photo exhibition organised by the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust. The party vice-president left last night. "For Congress supporters, yesterday was a memorable occasion as it was for the first time when mother, son and daughter were together at their ancestral house," Varshney said. He, however, added that they (Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka) had also come to Anand Bhavan way back in 1991 when they were carrying the ashes of Rajiv Gandhi. "However, that was an occasion marked by grief and hence we do not wish to count that." This morning, Sonia and Priyanka went to the Kamla Nehru Hospital -- which is governed by a trust headed by the Congress president herself. Sonia inaugurated a blood bank there and interacted with a group of nurses who had completed their training recently. "Thereafter, they returned to Anand Bhavan, enjoyed a stroll on its sprawling lawns and interacted with the staff there," Varshney said. Later, a group of local party leaders led by the divisional election campaign committee chief Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi called on them. "Sonia and Priyanka heard their grievances and offered advice besides exhorting them to work hard for improving the party's position in the upcoming assembly elections in the state," the UPCC spokesman said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Syrian monitoring group has alleged that rebels are preventing dozens of families from fleeing eastern Aleppo as Russian-backed government forces intensify their bombardment of the besieged quarter. Such claims are difficult to verify and often distorted owing to the propaganda value of the matter. Syrian and Russian state media maintain that rebels are holding the enclave's 275,000 remaining inhabitants hostage to use as human shields, even as the government's air force pounds the east's hospitals and first responder groups. Opposition outlets on the other hand want to show that civilians will never accept returning to the government's heavy-handed rule. Russia has backed Syrian President Bashar Assad with vast military support as he fights to put down an uprising that is approaching its sixth year. Over 300,000 people have been killed in the raging war. A resident of Aleppo's frontline Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood corroborated the report by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, which maintains a network of contacts among both government and anti-government institutions. Hajj Mohammed al-Jasim told The Associated Press his uncles' families were trying to cross from the Bustan al-Basha neighborhood in the east to the predominantly Kurdish enclave of Sheikh Maqsoud. "They've wanted to cross for a while because the circumstances have become very difficult," said al-Jasim, who confirmed his location near the al-Riz crossing via phone location services. He said his relatives told him they were prepared to cross during the day but were advised by three rebel groups to wait until dark. "Then in the evening, (the rebels) began to fire at the crossing" to prevent passage, al-Jasim said. He said about fifty families were waiting to cross. The autonomous Kurdish defense forces, the YPG, have promised housing in Sheikh Maqsoud to any families who cross, or secure passage on to opposition-held Azaz or Kurdish-held Afrin, two towns north of Aleppo, according to the al-Jasim. The Observatory reported 100 families are waiting to cross, while Ahmad Hiso Araj, a political official for the YPG-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces, said 250 civilians were prepared to go. He said they were communicating with their relatives in Sheikh Maqsoud to evacuate Bustan al-Basha. The government has recently stepped up its bombardment of eastern Aleppo, and by Sunday it had knocked out every hospital in the quarter, according to the World Health Organization. The Observatory says at least 140 civilians, including 18 children, have been killed. The UN's chief humanitarian official Stephen O'Brien said Monday the conditions had gone "from terrible to terrifying and now barely survivable." UN humanitarian official Jan Egeland warned two weeks ago that the east was running out of food. The area has been under siege by pro-government forces since August. The government's air assault has been accompanied by pro-government troops pushing their way into neighborhoods on the edges of eastern Aleppo. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Israel's Taro Pharmaceutical Industries, a subsidiary of Sun Pharma, has appointed Uday Baldota its chief executive officer (CEO). Baldota, who has also been nominated to Taro's board of directors, is expected to begin his role as CEO on or about April 1, 2017, and will focus solely on the Taro business. Currently, he is the chief financial officer (CFO) of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries. In a regulatory filing, Sun Pharma said Baldota would be tendering his resignation as the CFO of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries to be effective in and around April 2017 due to his shifting to the US to look after the business of Taro Pharmaceutical Industries, a subsidiary of company, as its CEO. In a statement, Taro said Baldota has been nominated to Taro's board and will focus solely on the company's business. Baldota has over 20 years of management experience, a significant portion of which has been with Sun Pharma. In addition to holding various leadership positions, he has been an integral part of Sun's worldwide growth - including leading several important acquisitions and integrations, most recently that of Ranbaxy. Sun Pharma MD and Chairman of the Taro board Dilip Shanghvi said: "I am confident that Uday's experience, vision and leadership will enable Taro to continue its growth path and deliver superior stakeholder value." He further said: "I expect to announce, in the near future, the appointment of an interim CEO to manage Taro's business during the three month period from Kal Sundaram's departure at the end of this year until Uday's arrival in April 2017." Certain terms of Baldota's appointment as CEO and nomination to the Taro Board are subject to the approval of Taro's shareholders, which will be voted on at the annual shareholder meeting in December 2016. In addition to Baldota's nomination to the Taro Board, Abhay Gandhi, Kal Sundaram's successor as the CEO of Sun North America, is also being nominated to the board and is expected to be proposed as Vice Chairman after the 2016 shareholder meeting, Taro said. Baldota's appointment comes at a time when the US Department of Justice has sent summons to Taro and its two senior executives seeking information on generic drug pricing. Taro Pharmaceutical Industries develops, manufactures and markets generic and branded prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) pharmaceutical products. In 2010, Sun Pharma ending a three-year-long battle had acquired a controlling stake in Taro, pursuant to entering an agreement with then promoters of Taro led by then Chairman Barrie Levitt in 2007. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Abid Rasool Khan, chairman of the Minorities Commission serving Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, today said that his email IDs were hacked by unknown persons who have sought immediate financial assistance from his contact list. Khan has lodged a complaint with cyber crime wing of Hyderabad Police seeking necessary action. The hackers who impersonated Khan sent emails to his contact list seeking financial assistance from the recipients claiming that his brother had a terrible car accident and that Khan is currently travelling and asking them to transfer/deposit amount in the bank accounts provided. Some of the emails also mentioned that Khan's brother is undergoing treatment at a hospital in Istanbul, Turkey and that the amount can be sent in his cousin's name, who is at the hospital. "From today morning, I started receiving calls from people who received such emails in my name seeking financial assistance fraudulently. I have taken steps to inform all my contacts and also filed police complaint," Khan added. Police said they are probing the matter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Telecom operators today agreed to make mobile short code messages -- used mainly for banking services -- free till December 31, 2016, in an attempt to promote mobile banking and cashless transactions following the scrapping of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. The development came soon after telecom regulator Trai cut the charges to 50 paise, down from Rs 1.50. This means that after December 31, these messages used for availing of mobile banking services such as checking balance, withdrawals, deposits and peer-to-peer-transfer can be charged at a maximum of 50 paise. The development comes at a time when the government is aggressively pushing consumers to digital payment and cashless transactions to tide over the ongoing liquid cash crunch. The move is expected to nudge low-end feature phone users -- forming a significant chunk of the Indian market - towards mobile based banking and payment services. "At present, a charge is being levied by telecom operators for mobile banking, which is commonly known as USSD charge," Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said in a tweet. To facilitate use of electronic banking facility and reduce difficulty for the common man, telecom operators have decided to waive charges for mobile banking services till December 31, 2016, the minister pointed out. "This move will help people with feature phones to access electronic banking facility without incurring any additional cost till December 31, 2016," he said. Airtel and Vodafone India said the move would accelerate India's progress into a less-cash economy and urged customers to avail of the mobile banking services. While smartphones users typically avail banking services through apps, short code message or USSD is prevalent among consumers with feature phones who do not have Internet connectivity for basic banking services. However, adoption of USSD for mobile based banking transactions has not taken off as expected, given the steep rates. "At present in India, as much as 65 per cent of the market is feature phones, which is a significant number... The reduction in tariff will encourage digital financial transactions," Trai Chairman R S Sharma said. Trai, which had issued a consultation paper on USSD in August this year, has also increased the number of dialogues that can be initiated in each session to 8 from 5, to pack in more enquiries into one short code message session. Sharma said Trai has also favoured using these mobile short codes for services like e-commerce to pay merchant/sellers as and when the framework and platform for the same are developed. "We are saying these should not be limited to bank accounts, so as and when infrastructure and platforms develop, it can be used for payment transactions including merchant payments or paying for services delivered," Sharma said. According to Trai, only 37 lakh transaction attempts over USSD channel reached National Payment Corporation of India (platform used for interbank transactions) in May 2016. Of this, only 54 per cent were successful. Sharma said NPCI has agreed to set up a taskforce to examine the reason for failure of the transactions. He hoped that the latest initiatives will lead to a "huge scaling up of financial transactions". "I believe it can be ten times the current levels," Sharma pointed out. An Airtel spokesperson said the waiver is aimed at supporting customers "during the ongoing demonetisation exercise" and that it would encourage customers to leverage this benefit for their convenience. Sunil Sood, MD and CEO of Vodafone India, said, "As several million customers use feature phones, we are hopeful that this free access to mobile banking will encourage them to adopt it as their preferred and convenient mode for banking. A 19-year-old boy and two juveniles have been nabbed for murdering a man and his wife in southwest Delhi's Bijwasan area over a property dispute, police said today. Sahil and the two juveniles were nabbed from Najafgarh yesterday, they said. On November 14, two boys came to their house and sought to meet Sanjay Rana as they wanted rooms on rent. When Rana, who was suffering from paralysis, came out of the house with the assistance of his wife, they shot at the couple, said DCP (Southwest) Surender Kumar. The accused then fled on two scooties along with two accomplices who were waiting outside the house, the officer said. The couple were rushed to a hospital where Rana was declared brought dead, while his wife died during treatment, police said. "During investigation, it was found that Rana had some dispute with a few people, including with some of his family members over the property where he was staying," Kumar said. "Rana also owed one Rakesh Rs 20 lakh which he had not paid. A civil litigation is pending over this," he said, adding Rakesh is currently lodged in Tihar jail and was involved in two murder cases. "Rakesh wanted to settle scores with Rana, who had neither handed him over the property they had agreed upon nor paid back Rs 20 lakh," Kumar said. "Earlier, Rana didn't want to pay Rakesh. But, after demonetisation, he offered to pay him back the amount in demonetised banknotes. However, Rakesh insisted that Rana should pay him in new currency notes," another officer said. "During questioning, Sahil and the two juveniles said Rakesh, who is the father of one of the juveniles, had masterminded the double murder from the jail and even helped the assailants procure firearms," Kumar said. Sahil has studied up to class XII from a reputed school and was a national-level badminton player in the junior category, police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Centre's demonetisation of high-value currency has come as a blow for Rajasthan's tourism industry as it has coincided with the peak tourist season in the state. Industry stakeholders, who are bracing for poor business this time, say hotels, restaurants, taxi operators and vendors have all taken a hit following the move to scrap 1,000 and 500 rupee notes. The flow of tourists coming under organised packagesand groups, however, has not been affected, but many of those who do not plan their stay in advance have cancelled their trips. Those touring the state, especially foreigners, also complain of difficulties in getting their currency exchanged. While hotel room bookings have seen some cancellations over the last few days, the number of individual travellers have declined by 30 to 40 per cent. "A 30 to 40 per cent decline in the flow of visitors has been recorded in the last few days. A large number of casual travellers, mainly from Delhi and Gurgaon, come to Jaipur over the weekend but this time the number has been low,"Amit Kothari, Operations Manager, Comfort Inn Safari, told PTI. He said that besides tourists, people who come from different states for business purposes have also postponed their visits. "The currency crisis has hit the tourism season hard. The number of travellers in organised trips has not been affected much because their hotels and taxis are booked in advance. However, they are short of valid notes to pay for tips and shopping of local products, besides day-to-day needs," a tour operator said. "Foreigners are also facing a crisis of valid notes and they need separate counters for currency exchange. They have limited cash," he said, adding that the number of casual travellers has been low this time. "The decision of demonetisation has directly and indirectly hit the tourism industry. Occupancy of hotel rooms have come down and the impact is visible on taxi operators, small vendors and others," Sameer Gupta, Front Office Manager of Hotel Om Tower said. An American tourist visiting Jaisalmer, told US president-elect Donald Trump today scrapped a scheduled meeting with The New York Times and within hours reversed his decision and rescheduled it, after chastising the "failing" daily for changing the terms and conditions of the interview and for being "not nice" to him. Trump in a series of early morning tweets informed that he had backed out of the interview he had called with The Times. "I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice," Trump said in a tweet about the newspaper he has repeatedly clashed for what he alleges was its unfair coverage of him. "Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!," he said in another tweet. "The failing @nytimes just announced that complaints about them are at a 15-year high. I can fully understand that - but why announce?" he said in his third tweet of the day. In another tweet, Trump said, "Great meetings will take place today at Trump Tower concerning the formation of the people who will run" his government for the next eight years. But later a Trump spokeswoman said: "The meeting is taking place as planned." The Times also released a statement saying Trump's staff informed them that his "meeting with The Times is on again." "He will meet with our publisher off-the-record and that session will be followed by an on-the-record meeting with our journalists and editorial columnists," its spokesman Eileen Murphy said. Later, Trump again tweeted confirming his meeting with The Times. "The meeting with the @nytimes is back on at 12:30 today. Look forward to it!" The apparent U-turn came a day after Trump berated media chiefs at Trump Tower for their "unfair" election coverage. During the campaign, the New York billionaire often railed at the coverage of The Times, which had endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, as biased against him. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President-elect Donald Trump today created a frenzy in UK political circles by indicating that he would like to have far-right leader Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit movement, as the next British Ambassador to the US. "Many people would like to see [@Nigel_Farage] represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job," Trump tweeted last evening. While the UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader said he was "very flattered", Downing Street issued a statement dismissing any such possibility. "There is no vacancy. We have an excellent ambassador to the US," a Downing Street statement said in reference to Sir Kim Darroch. Farage, who was often seen by Trump's side during the election campaign and was among the first to fly out to the US to meet the President-elect after the election, said he had not been expecting Trump's tweet, but teremd it as a signal that Downing Street needed to change its thinking about him. "I can still scarcely believe that he did that, though speaking to a couple of his longtime friends perhaps I am a little less surprised," he wrote in a piece this morning for right-wing site 'Breitbart'. "They all say the same thing: that Trump is a very loyal man and supports those that stand by him," he said. Repeating his offer of help, which had been rejected by Downing Street on multiple occasions, Farage said: "The world has changed and it's time that Downing Street did too." The role of UK ambassador to the US is among the most prestigious in the diplomatic service. It is unprecedented for an incoming US President to ask a world leader to appoint an opposing party leader as ambassador, and Trump's tweet would put British Prime Minister Theresa May in a slightly difficult position. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President-elect Donald Trump seems to have a friendly perspective towards India, a senior BJP leader has said and expressed hope that he would bring "fresh ideas" to combat terrorism and establish the rule of law. Summarising the current state of Indo-US relationship, Ram Madhav, the general-secretary of the ruling party, said the ties reached a new peak under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama. The relationship is likely to march ahead under the Trump administration, he said. "Going by his pre-election statements towards India, the president-elect seems to have a friendly perspective towards India. He does not seems to be a run-of-the-mill politician, hence we expect him to bring fresh ideas to counter-terrorism, and establish the rule of law," he said. Madhav is the first senior leader of the ruling party to have addressed on India-US relationship after the election of Trump as the 45th president of the United States. Trump during his election campaign had released a video in which he spoke in Hindi in an attempt to appeal to Indian- American voters. "We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism," he had said in the video which showed a picture of the November 2008 terror attack in Mumbai. "The Indian and Hindu community will have a true friend in the White House," Trump had said. The ad finished with Trump saying "We love the Hindus, we love India." Madhav said India has earned a tremendous trust from its neighbours in the significantly important Indo-Asia Pacific region. At an event organised by the Federation of India and Indian Diaspora Studies, Madhav said India assumes the responsibilities - along with its neighbours - to establish peace and "law and order" in the region. But, he said, India expects the US to continue its pivotal role in the region instead of slowing trade and military engagement in the region. "The regional powers will have to take a leading role with America playing a supportive role. That is perhaps the way forward," he said at the event on Friday in the suburbs of Washington DC. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two persons were arrested with demonetised high-value currency notes of Rs 1,000 worth Rs 8 lakh at Kota railway station. The two were arrested last night from the Jaipur-Mysore Express train they had boarded. They were today produced in a court after the GRP informed the Income-Tax department of the seized cash. Mohammed Gose (32) and Sheikh Abdul Wahid (40), both residents of Hyderabad, were carrying old currency notes of Rs 1,000 worth Rs 8 lakh, SHO, GRP station, Kota, Ganja Sahaya said. The duo boarded the train from Kota railway station for Hyderabad around 11 PM yesterday. They could put forth a satisfactory reply when asked about the currency, he said. The two were booked under Section 102 (power of police officer to seize certain property) of CrPC. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The British government is set to approve a new elite armed police force to guard sensitive sites across the UK against possible terror attacks, a media report said today. The new force would merge existing bodies including the British Transport Police, Civil Nuclear Constabulary and Ministry of Defence Police, The Times quoted senior government sources as saying. "It is not always clear who should deal with a suspect package in a station for instance. The need for a clear line of command has been obvious for many years but is more pressing, given the threats we are seeing now," one source told the newspaper. Protocol usually grants overall control of the response to an incident to the first force that arrives. In one model under consideration, the new force would be split between an unarmed and an armed unit, with about 6,000 in the former and 4,000 guarding the most sensitive sites and providing a rapid response unit. Under that model, the armed officers would include the British Transport Police but not, as originally intended, Highways England's enforcement arm. As well as airports and key sea ports the new force would oversee the rail network and some roads. An alternative model would create two separate forces, one dealing with nuclear and military assets and the other focused on transport hubs. The UK Cabinet Office is examining the costs of each model and a meeting of the most senior civil servants in the Department for Transport, Home Office, Ministry of Defence and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is due within weeks to decide which will be recommended to ministers. British Prime Minster Theresa May is expected to take a final decision on the new force by early next year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court today assured the victims' association of 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy that it would soon set up a bench to hear the pleas seeking review of its 2015 verdict, under which real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal were required to serve two years jail term, if they failed to pay Rs 30 crore each as fine in the matter. The matter was mentioned before a bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur who said a new bench would be constituted to hear the review petitions filed by the CBI and Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT). Senior advocate KTS Tulsi, who appeared for AVUT, told the bench also comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao that the matter was pending since January this year. AVUT requested the court to list the matter for hearing before the bench, which would be constituted, before the winter vacation of the apex court starting mid-December. Earlier this year, a bench headed by Justice A R Dave had decided to hear in open court the petitions filed by the CBI and AVUT seeking review of the 2015 verdict. Following the judgement, the Ansals had deposited the amount. However, Justice Dave, who headed the three-judge bench which had heard the matters in the Uphaar case, retired on November 18. 59 people had died of asphyxia when a fire broke out during the screening of Bollywood movie 'Border' in Uphaar theatre in Green Park area of South Delhi on June 13, 1997. Over 100 were also injured in the subsequent stampede. In its review plea AVUT had said the apex court judgements "bestow an unwarranted leniency on convicts whose conviction in the most heinous of offences has been upheld by all courts including this court and sentences imposed on them have been substituted with fine without assigning any reason or basis." "The sentences of the convicts have been reduced to the period undergone without taking into account the gravity of their offence," it had said. The CBI, in its review plea, had said the apex court did not give it time to put its views forth which has resulted in "miscarriage of justice". The agency has said, "Due to the paucity of time on the day on which this case was heard, the prosecution could not adequately put across the reasons why this court should not substitute a monetary fine in place of a jail sentence. "This petition also seeks to raise issue of an apparent error of law in the judgement and order of this court which has occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice," it said. CBI had also claimed that "callousness" of Ansal brothers led to 59 people being trapped and suffocated to death in the theatre. The apex court had, on August 19, 2015 sent Ansal brothers to two-year rigorous jail term if they failed to pay Rs 30 crore each within three months. In a judgement on September 23, 2015, the bench had said the "magnitude" of the case "calls for a higher sentence" but the court has to limit itself to the choice available under the law. Earlier, a two-judge bench of justices T S Thakur and Gyan Sudha Misra (since retired) had in a March 5, 2014 order differed on the quantum of sentence for Ansal brothers -- Sushil, 76, and Gopal, 67. While Justice Thakur had retained the one-year jail term awarded by Delhi High Court in 2008, Justice Misra had awarded the maximum punishment of two years with a rider that it can be reduced to the period already undergone behind bars on payment of Rs 100 crore as fine collectively by them. After this, the matter was referred to a three-judge bench headed by Justice Dave (since retired) which enhanced the sentence to the maximum period of two years under section 304-A (causing death by negligence) of IPC if they failed to pay the fine amount. While Sushil has spent over five months in prison, Gopal was in jail for over four months soon after the accident. The three-judge bench had also said that on the principle of parity, the case of Gopal will stand on the same footing as that of Sushil. Four companies are partnering with New York state to provide Thanksgiving meals to more than 35,000 people. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday that The Coca-Cola Company, FreshDirect, Wal-Mart and Wegmans have each made contributions to ensure the food is delivered to New Yorkers. Coca-Cola donated more than 3,000 beverages that will be included with the meal packages. FreshDirect provided boxes for the meals. Wal-Mart and Wegmans donated food, including turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes, vegetables and pumpkin pie. "Thanksgiving provides the opportunity both to reflect on what we are grateful for and to give back to our fellow New Yorkers," Cuomo said in a statement. "This partnership will provide families throughout the state with a warm meal to enjoy with loved ones." Cuomo's office noted that Wal-Mart has already made a significant contribution to provide meals to New Yorkers throughout the year. The company, through the Wal-Mart Foundation, has donated more than 7.5 million meals to New Yorkers during the 2016-17 fiscal year. "There are far too many people in our country that go to bed hungry or unsure where their next meal is coming from," said Jason Klipa, director of public affairs for Wal-Mart in New York. "As the nation's largest grocer, we're strongly committed to being a part of the solution in the fight against hunger in New York and across the nation." The United States has accused 13 Syrian commanders and prison officials of responsibility for attacks on cities, residential areas and civilian infrastructure as well as acts of torture. US Ambassador Samantha Power yesterday read out the names of Maj Gen Adib Salameh, Brig Gen Adnan Aboud Hilweh, Maj Gen Jawdat Salbi Mawas, Col Suhail Hassan, and Maj General Tahir Hamid Khalil at a Security Council meeting, saying the international community is watching "and one day they will be held accountable." The detailed allegations appeared to be aimed at laying the groundwork for future war crimes prosecutions and marked an 11th hour attempt by the Obama administration to hold the Syrian government accountable for alleged atrocities. Power accused President Bashar Assad's regime and close ally Russia of continuing their "starve, get bombed, or surrender" strategy in rebel-held eastern Aleppo and stressed that this was not an isolated case. "Across Syria, Russia and the Assad regime are waging a campaign that includes sieges, the blocking of humanitarian aid, the indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas, and the use of barrel bombs," she said. The United States also knows where torture allegedly takes place in Syria, she said, citing four military intelligence branches, the Air Force Intelligence Investigation Branch in Mezzeh military airport, and the Tishreen and Harasta military hospitals. Power named eight commanding officers and prison officials who work at these facilities saying the United States "will continue fighting to hold them accountable for their hateful crimes." She identified them as Maj Gen Jamil Hassan, Brig Gen Abdul Salam Fajr Mahmoud, Brig Gen Ibrahim Ma'la, Col Qusai Mihoub, Brig Gen Salah Hamad, Brig Gen Sha'afiq Masa, Maj Gen Rafiq Shihadeh, and Hafiz Makhlouf. The US Mission said Makhlouf, Hassan and Mihoub are already subject to US sanctions. "I know right now, today, with wind at their backs, these individuals feel impunity," Power said, but she reminded them that others who felt that way including Bosnian Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian president Charles Taylor were eventually arrested and brought before the International Criminal Court. Power said the United States recognizes that opposition groups and Islamic State extremists have also committed abuses, but she didn't identify any individuals. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shares of Vedanta Ltd today ended with gains of nearly 6 per cent after the mining conglomerate said it will raise up to Rs 300 crore through private placement of non-convertible debentures (NCDs). A committee constituted by Vedanta's Board today approved offering for subscription, on a private placement basis, up to 3,000 secured, rated, listed, redeemable, NCDs of face value Rs 10 lakh each aggregating up to Rs 300 crore. The NCDs will be listed on the BSE and will mature on April 22, 2020. Reacting to the development, shares of the company surged 5.30 per cent to touch an intra-day high of Rs 207.50. At the end of today's trading session, the shares lost some ground and was trading at Rs 206.70, up 4.90 per cent on BSE. Following the uptick in the counter, the market capitalisation of the company improved by Rs 2,860 crore to Rs 61,280.23 crore. Similar movement was seen on NSE as well, where the stock touched an intra-day high of Rs 208.15 and finally settled for the day at Rs 207.95, up 5.69 per cent. Market experts said that besides the fund raising plans, the positive broader market trend also helped the stock. The 30-share benchmark index Sensex today closed at 25,960.78, up 195.64 points. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mining conglomerate Vedanta Ltd today said it will raise up to Rs 300 crore through private placement of non-convertible debentures (NCDs). A committee constituted by Vedanta's Board today approved offering for subscription, on a private placement basis, up to 3,000 secured, rated, listed, redeemable, NCDs of face value Rs 10 lakh each aggregating up to Rs 300 crore, it said in a regulatory filing. The NCDs will be listed on the BSE and will mature on April 22, 2020, it added. In a separate filing, the company said its CFO GR Arun Kumar has been appointed whole-time director (Additional Director) on the Board for a period of three years with effect from November 22, 2016, subject to approval of the members at the next general meeting. Kumar was elevated as the Chief Financial Officer on September 30, 2016 from his role of Executive Vice President Finance and Deputy CFO. He joined Vedanta in 2013 as CFO for the company's aluminium and power business. It also announced the appointment of Bhumika Sood, Compliance Officer, as the Company Secretary and Key Management Personnel (KMP) of the firm with effect from November 22, 2016. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vietnam Defence Minister Gen Ngo Xuan Lich will arrive here next month on a four-day visit during which he will meet with the top leadership. Defence sources said that Gen Lich will arrive on December 3 and will hold talks with his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar. He will also call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the sources said. One of the issue that is likely to come up for discussion is the possible sale of BrahMos missiles. Vietnam, which is involved in a territorial dispute with China, is keen to get it hands on the super sonic missiles that an be fired land, water and under water. India has in principle agreed to sell the missiles to them but negotiations are still on. Russia, which is a partner of India in development of BrahMos missiles is also ok with the deal. Other issues that are likely to come up include the much delayed project to train Vietnamese pilots on the Su 30, sources said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Expectant parents may soon be able to watch their unborn baby grow and even listen to its heartbeat using a 3D virtual reality device, say scientists who have developed a new technology that creates a realistic model of the foetus using MRI and ultrasound data. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides high-resolution foetal and placental imaging with excellent contrast. It is generally used in foetal evaluation when ultrasound cannot provide sufficiently high-quality images. Researchers created virtual reality 3D models based on foetal MRI results. Sequentially-mounted MRI slices are used to begin construction of the model. A segmentation process follows in which the physician selects the body parts to be reconstructed in 3D. Once an accurate 3D model is created - including the womb, umbilical cord, placenta and foetus - the virtual reality device can be programmed to incorporate the model. "The 3D foetal models combined with virtual reality immersive technologies may improve our understanding of foetal anatomical characteristics and can be used for educational purposes and as a method for parents to visualise their unborn baby," said Heron Werner from the Clinica de Diagnostico por Imagem in Brazil. The virtual reality foetal 3D models are remarkably similar to the postnatal appearance of the newborn baby. They recreate the entire internal structure of the foetus, including a detailed view of the respiratory tract, which can aid doctors in assessing abnormalities. For the virtual reality device, researchers used the latest-generation Oculus Rift 2 headset. Oculus Rift 2 places the user in an immersive environment, complete with heartbeat sounds derived from the ultrasound of the foetus. Users can study the 3D foetal anatomy simply by moving their head. The technology has numerous potential applications, including assessment of foetal airway patency. Airway patency, or the state of airways being open and unblocked, is an important issue for a developing foetus. For example, if ultrasound showed an abnormal mass near the foetal airway, physicians could use the 3D images and the headset to assess the entire length of the airway and make better informed decisions about delivery. "The physicians can have access to an immersive experience on the clinical case that they are working on, having the whole internal structure of the foetus in 3D in order to better visualise and share the morphological information," Werner said. "We believe that these images will help facilitate a multidisciplinary discussion about some pathologies in addition to bringing a new experience for parents when following the development of their unborn child," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Facing intense competition from Reliance Jio, the second-largest telecom operator Vodafone today launched a data offer for its existing customers in Mumbai to upgrade to a 4G SIM with 2 GB free data. "All existing Vodafone customers who upgrade to Vodafone SuperNetTM 4G will enjoy 2GB of data free on 4G enabled smartphones. 4G SIMs are available at all Vodafone Stores, Vodafone Mini Stores and multi-brand outlets located across the megapolis," Vodafone said in a statement. A foreign brokerage report recently said Vodafone may face the maximum brunt of the price war after Reliance Jio came out with cheaper data offer than the market leaders Airtel and Vodafone. The free 2G data, however, is only for 10 days for prepaid customers while the postpaid customers can avail the benefit till their next billing date, the company said. Pushpinder Singh Gujral, Business Head at Vodafone Mumbai, said the company serves over 8.5 million customers in the megapolis. Vodafone offers 4G services in Kerala, Kolkata, Karnataka, Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (East) and Bengal. By the end of this fiscal, the company will offer 4G services in 2,400 more towns across 17 circles, including Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Goa, Assam and North-East, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh (West). Meanwhile, Vodafone also welcomed the government initiative to encourage mobile banking and said it has decided to waive the USSD charges till the end of next month. Welcoming the government move to a less-cash economy, MD and CEO Sunil Sood said: "To ease the burden of the masses, we are waiving off all USSD charges presently levied for mobile banking till December 31." He added: "As several million customers use feature phones, we are hopeful that this free access to mobile banking will encourage them to adopt it as their preferred and convenient mode for banking. Further, with Vodafone M-Pesa, we are leveraging the reach of mobile technology to drive financial inclusion and offer the convenience of a digital wallet for easy transactions. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The National Green Tribunal today asked tanneries located on the banks of Ganga at Kanpur why they be not shifted to a "planned industrial complex" with complete infrastructure to prevent carcinogenic chromium from being discharged into the river. Chromium is used as tanning agent to harden animal hides in leather industries. The green panel also sought total number of leather units operating at the tannery hub at Jajmau in Kanpur including closed ones in order to ascertain their functioning and quantity of effluent discharged. "We direct tanneries to take clear instructions as to why they be not asked to shift to a planned industrial complex with complete infrastructure and also inform the tribunal how many tanneries are there in Jajmau in Kanpur and how many are lying closed. "Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) shall also take clear instructions how many tanneries have installed online monitoring systems. Ministry of Environment and Forests shall also take instructions on the issue of zero liquid discharge and online monitoring systems," the bench said. During the proceedings, Vinod Tare, a professor of IIT Kanpur, was present who told the bench that the first report on Ganga was submitted in 2010 by a consortium of the seven Indian Institutes of Technology of Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Guwahati and Roorkee. He said consortium of the seven IITs had concluded that failure of Ganga Action Plan-I was due to multiplicity of authorities and lack of data collection. UPPCB told the bench that there are a total of 400 tanneries in Kanpur, out of which 233 are operational while 128 units are lying closed. The tribunal has now fixed the matter for hearing on December 1. The tribunal had earlier slammed the Uttar Pradesh government over the issue of shifting of tanneries located on the banks of Ganga in Kanpur to some other place to stop discharge of effluents, saying, "it can't behave like a king". On November 15, the tribunal had stopped the government from spending "a single penny" for Ganga rejuvenation work between Haridwar and Unnao, saying a whopping Rs 20,000 crore was being spent on the entire national project by officials who did not even know about the river. The green panel has divided the work of cleaning the river in different segments -- Gomukh to Haridwar (Phase-I), Haridwar to Unnao (termed as segment B of Phase-I), Unnao to border of Uttar Pradesh, border of Uttar Pradesh to border of Jharkhand and border of Jharkhand to Bay of Bengal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President-elect Donald Trump today vowed to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the world's largest trade deal, and investigate abuses of work visa programmes as he outlined his policy plans for the first 100 days in office. 70-year-old Trump, in his first video-message after being elected as the President of the US, described the TPP as a "potential disaster" for America and said he will quit the deal on the first day in office. He also highlighted concrete steps that he will take to "Drain the Swamp" in Washington DC and put America first by focusing on the issues of trade, energy, regulation, national security, immigration and ethics reform. "My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America first. Whether it's producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland: America - creating wealth and jobs for American workers," Trump said. "As part of this plan, I've asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day oneto restore our laws and bring back our jobs. It's about time," he said listing out some of the key steps that he would take. "On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores," Trump said. The TPP is the largest trade pact in world history, involving 12 countries across the Asia Pacific region. During the US election campaign, Trump had been vocal about his opposition to the trade deal. Hours before Trump's announcement, Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, warned that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be "meaningless" without US participation. Trump also promised to direct the Labour Department to investigate abuses of visa programmes for immigrant workers. "On immigration,I will direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker," Trump said. Foreigners working in the IT sector may face tough scrutiny under Trump and his proposed attorney general Jeff Sessions, a longtime critic of H-1B programme. During his campaign, Trump had emphasised tightening immigration and criticised companies that ship jobs overseas to countries like India and China. According to a leading anti-immigration campaigner, Trump is likely to crack down on the use of skilled-worker visas or H-1B issued to Indian outsourcing firms. Trump's stance on H-1B permits has changed over time. Early in the year policy statements on his campaign website said the numbers of such visas should not be increased. In a March debate, however, he said he supported highly skilled immigration. But after the debate, he issued a statement vowing to "end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labour programme. On energy,Trump said he will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy - including shale energy and clean coal - creating many millions of high-paying jobs. On ethics reform,as part of his plan to "Drain the Swamp", Trump said, he will impose a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the Administration - and a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. This was Trump's first video message after being elected as the president of the US on November 8. He would be sworn in as the 45th president of the country on January 20, 2017. Trump said his transition team is working very smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. "Truly great and talented men and women, patriots indeed are being brought in and many will soon be a part of our government, helping us to Make America Great Again," he said. US President-elect Donald Trump today vowed to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the world's largest trade deal, on his first day in office and investigate "abuses" of work visa programmes that undercut American workers as he outlined his policy plans for the first 100 days in the White House. Trump, in his first video-message after being elected as the President of the US to succeed Barack Obama, described the TPP as a "potential disaster" for America and said he will quit the deal on the first day in office on January 20. He also highlighted concrete steps that he will take to "Drain the Swamp" in Washington DC and put America first by focusing on the issues of trade, energy, regulation, national security, immigration and ethics reform. "My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America first. Whether it's producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland: America - creating wealth and jobs for American workers," Trump said. "As part of this plan, I've asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day oneto restore our laws and bring back our jobs. It's about time," he said listing out some of the key steps that he would take. "On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores," Trump said. The TPP is the largest trade pact in world history, involving 12 countries across the Asia Pacific region. The massive trade deal was agreed in 2015 by nations including the US, Japan, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico, but is not yet ratified by the individual countries. Its aim was to deepen economic ties and boost growth, including by reducing tariffs. There were also measures to enforce labour and environmental standards, copyrights, patents and other legal protections. During the high-voltage US election campaign, Trump had been vocal about his opposition to the trade deal. Hours before Trump's announcement, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned that the Trans-Pacific Partnership would be "meaningless" without US participation. Trump also promised to direct the Labour Department to investigate abuses of visa programmes for immigrant workers. "On immigration,I will direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of visa programmes that undercut the American worker," Trump said. Foreigners working in the IT sector may face tough scrutiny under Trump and his proposed attorney general Jeff Sessions, a longtime critic of H-1B programme. During his campaign, Trump had emphasised tightening immigration and criticised companies that ship jobs overseas to countries like India and China. According to a leading anti-immigration campaigner, Trump is likely to crack down on the use of skilled-worker visas or H-1B issued to Indian outsourcing firms. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) (In paragraph 8, corrects date of TransAsia's 2014 crash to July, from June) By Faith Hung TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's TransAsia Airways Corp, a struggling airline with a poor safety record, said on Tuesday its board had approved a move to wind down the company and that all flights would be suspended. The move by Taiwan's third-largest carrier has come as a shock to the island's airline and tourism industries as well as the government. "This is a very painful choice for the company," Chief Executive Daniel Liu told a briefing. "Our communications with investors have not been successful," he said, adding that six to seven options had been discussed including restructuring and raising more capital. TransAsia has reported losses in each of the previous six quarters up to the end of September, hurt by a downturn in business after two plane crashes in 2014 and 2015. The carrier also said it would not be able to pay back a convertible bond due later this month due to lack of capital. Details on the bond or how much debt TransAsia has were not immediately available. Early this year, Taiwan's aviation safety agency urged TransAsia to review its safety protocols, pilot training programme and hiring practices so as to cut "imminent risks". Those recommendations were among 10 made by the Aviation Safety Council following its investigation into a July 2014 crash of TransAsia's flight GE222 which killed 48 of the 58 passengers and crew. Less than a year later, another flight crashed into a river shortly after taking off from Taipei's Songshan airport. (Reporting by Faith Hung; Editing by Edwina Gibbs) (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Emily Parisi wasn't sure what to expect when she signed up to visit Cuba. The 20-year-old Auburn native had learned much about the country's culture and history through her class on Cuban politics and society at Niagara University. It wasn't until May this year, when she stepped off the plane at Havana International Airport an airport, she said, that was smaller than her elementary school that the pieces of what she had learned came together. "It was amazing," she said. "It was unique because we were some of the first Americans to get to go over to Cuba since they reopened relations. Getting to be some of the first Americans, and seeing the authentic Cuba before it's a travel destination, was really awesome." Cuba and the United States restored diplomatic relations last summer after a more than 50-year travel ban between the two countries. Since then the United States and Cuba have restored approximately 110 flights per day, according to the White House. On this class trip, Parisi saw the Cuba of her textbooks come to life. There were classic cars traveling the streets of Old Havana and, Parisi said, the Caribbean waters were an incredible blue. A few hours outside the city center, Parisi saw the country's rural hills and valleys, and got to pick bananas off trees and pineapples out of the ground. Their taste and color were like no fruit she'd ever had at home, she said. While there was much beauty and culture to enjoy, Parisi said Cuba is a developing nation, and that was very apparent. She toured the headquarters of Cuba's disaster management with the approximately 20 other students on the trip. Describing it as a "tiny room with a few posters on the wall and these really rickety chairs," Parisi said she was amazed at how few resources the department had. Despite appearances, Parisi said she learned that in the last 10 years, the casualties for natural disasters, like hurricanes, have been surprisingly minimal. And while their health care facilities also looked "bare," the country's universal health care was inspiring to see in action, Parisi said. "It's eye-opening to see how much a different world it is," Parisi said. "I hope that people go there for the right reasons. Because it's in the Caribbean, I hope they don't go there just to go and have some luxurious vacation, because it's not set up that way. But I hope people will go over there to get a better understanding." And that's what Parisi got through her two weeks there. The people, she said, were just as curious about the Americans walking through the streets as she and her classmates were of the place that they'd been banned from visiting since 1961. They were welcomed, she said, by locals eager to show visitors their home. "They were so overjoyed that we were there," she said. "They were extremely friendly, and they wanted to just share with us everything. They wanted to share with us their day-to-day life and what they do." The class and locals even exchanged gifts. Parisi said she was given a beautiful Cuban dancer doll. In return, the class brought two suitcases of gifts that included glow sticks, bubbles, coloring books and crayons. They exchanged currency with some of the locals, too. The generosity of the people hit Parisi. She said it was "super humbling" to be so welcomed and accepted. Besides tours and lectures, Parisi spent time volunteering at a community center where artists gathered. There was music, paintings, photography and traditional dancing. The only part that residents were hesitant to share, Parisi said, was how they felt about their government. Lead by Fidel and then Raul Castro, Cuba's government is much different from the United States, Parisi found. She said there are some questions residents did not feel comfortable answering because "there could be repercussions." "They are hesitant to give any feelings one way or the other, but for the most part, that's the government they know," she said. Now that she's back in New York, Parisi has caught the travel bug. Cuba was the first place internationally that she has ever gone, and she hopes to return again someday. One of the best parts, she added, was making new friendships with her classmates back at home. It was an unexpected part of the journey, but a part that has made school even more enjoyable. "When you're in a foreign country, and you don't know the language, and everything is so different, and you're trying to figure your way out, it was awesome to see how we all came together," she said. "It was amazing. It really was." Scrap gold supplies in India, the world's second-biggest consumer of bullion, are likely to halve this quarter as the cash crunch and falling prices make it difficult for consumers to liquidate their holdings. Lower scrap supplies could force the south Asian country to raise imports, which will support global prices that are near their lowest level in 5-1/2 months. "In the December quarter, scrap supply could fall by 50 to 60 due to a shortage of hard cash and falling prices," said Sudheesh Nambiath, a senior analyst at metals consultancy GFMS, a division of Thomson Reuters. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed some larger bank notes to crack down on corruption. The move hit scrap gold buyers as most sellers prefer payments in cash. Just a few weeks back, customers use to queue outside Jitendra Jain's tiny scrap gold shop in Mumbai. The shop has been deserted since the government got rid of the high-value notes. "Business has been affected badly due to the cash crunch. We are able to buy gold only from customers that are accepting payment by cheque," said Jain, who used to buy around 2 kilograms of gold every day, but now manages to buy just 100 to 200 grams. "But very few customers prefer cheque payments. Most people insist immediate payment in cash." Most shops of scrap gold buyers were deserted in Mumbai's Zaveri bazaar, the country's biggest bullion market. In the quarter ending in September, the scrap supply hit a record high of 58.8 tonnes as local prices jumped to their highest level in nearly three years in July, according to GFMS. Local prices have corrected 10 percent from the July peak. "People sell gold when they badly need cash. Right now they are not getting cash even after liquidating gold," said another scrap gold dealer based in Mumbai, who asked not to be identified. Like scrap dealers, the shortage of currency notes has also been hitting jewellers. "Demand is very weak. Consumers are postponing purchases," said Bachhraj Bamalwa, director at All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation. Last week gold premiums in India jumped to the highest in two years, but on Monday gold dealers were offering at a discount up to $5 an ounce. "People are not able to make gold purchases even for the wedding in rural areas. For next few weeks demand will remain subdued," said a Chennai-based jeweller, who asked not to be identified. (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG's diesel vehicles would not make a return to the U.S. market after the emissions scandal is settled, German daily Handelsblatt reported, citing the automaker's car division chief, Herbert Diess. (http://bit.ly/2fo824J) Europe's largest carmaker in September 2015 admitted using sophisticated secret software in its cars to cheat exhaust emissions tests, with millions of vehicles worldwide affected. The cheating allowed Volkswagen's U.S. vehicles sold since 2009 to emit up to 40 times legally allowable pollution levels. The German automaker will pay more than $15 billion to settle claims by nearly 500,000 U.S. customers and government regulators over the emissions scandal. (Reporting by Divya Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel) (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The business has been gathering momentum in India, with global and local players expanding their focus on the countrys market. Today, the question that enterprises have been asking is not why they should migrate to cloud, but which workload they could shift to cloud. According to players like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, and Google, Indian companies are at the forefront of adopting cloud technologies. yrus Upping the ante, Tata Sons accused estranged chairman Cyrus Mistry of causing "enormous harm" toTata Consultancy Services (TCS) by his conduct and sought his removal from thecompany's board. In a notice to shareholders seeking his removal, circulated byIndia's largest software exporter, its main promoter Tata Sons said Mistry has"lost confidence". Tata Sons, also a holding company of the USD103-billion Tata Group, cited benefits accruing to TCS from use of 'Tata' brandby Ratan Tata-led Tata Sons to back its recommendation for Mistry's removal. Within weeks of Ratan Tata replacing Mistry as Chairman of the holding companyof the group, Tata Sons by virtue of its commanding 73.26 per cent stake in TCSremoved him as the chairman. It also asked the company to convene anextraordinary general meeting (EGM) of shareholders to consider removing him asa director on the board. At its board meeting last week, which was not attendedby Mistry, TCS decided to call an EGM on December 13. The notice said,"Subsequent to his replacement as Executive Chairman of Tata Sons Ltd(TSL), Mistry has made certain unsubstantiated allegations, which castaspersions not only on TSL and its board of directors, but also on the Tatagroup as a whole, of which TCS is an integral part." Stating that thecommunication marked as confidential "was made public", it added,"Mistry's conduct has caused enormous harm to the Tata Group, TCS and itsstakeholders, including employees and shareholders." The move by Tata Sonsto replace Mistry with group veteran Ishaat Hussain as chairman of TCS was seenas an attempt by Ratan Tata-led promoter group to tighten grip over the salt-to-software conglomerate. "The board of directors of the company is inagreement with... the removal of Cyrus P Mistry as director of the company, asthe same would be in the best interests of the company," the notice said. "The board of directors of Tata Sons, the holding company of the TataGroup, has "lost confidence in Cyrus P Mistry to lead Tata Sons for acombination of several factors," it said, adding that Tata Sons on October24 decided to replace him as the removal "was absolutely necessary for thefuture success of the Tata Group". Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to demonetise Rs 500and Rs 1000 notes came as a shock to many political parties who seem to bedivided on the move but have been highly critical of the poor execution. The decision was bound to create some disruptions as old Rs500 and Rs 1000 notes together accounted for Rs 14.2 lakh crore, which was 86.4percent of the total value as of 31 March 2016. Demonetisation of high value currencies brought almost allsmaller economic activities to a halt as it took off 86 per cent currency outof the economic system in one go. Political parties have questioned the abrupt move and askedthe government to bring back black money stashed in foreign countries insteadof harassing poor people here in India. The central government has so far not responded to thedemands of opposition on black money stashed in foreign countries or Swissbank. However, senior BJP leader Dr Subramanian Swamy has given ahint of the ways through which the Prime Minster could bring back black moneyfrom foreign countries. Dr Swamy was speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club inHong Kong where he talked about 'four ways'. During the speech, Dr Swamy firstexplained the 'fourth way' which he also called 'legalistic' way and three more'known ways' that will help India bring back black money. If we go by Swamy's assurance, Prime Minister will furthercrackdown on black money with at least four options available to him. Prime Minister's options in his further crackdown on blackmoney Legalistic way: "The fourth way is the legalistic way. And that is the2005 UN resolution which says that if a country passes a law saying that insecret banking countries, which is about 17 in number, all accounts by Indiancitizens are nationalised, then the UN will assist to get all these accountscredited to India. It is a process, so we have to pass that law. This issomething which has attracted the Prime Minister's attention. I have talked tohim and I am expecting that this he will do," Dr Swamy explained. He further said: "It may take a couple of years becausethere will be a lot of litigation. We will have a proviso that if any of theaccount holders have proof that they have opened their account legally andmoney there was accountable, then they would be returned." Three other known ways 1- Bilateral agreements "With Switzerland, we (India) have mutual assistancepact. But then we have to specify the details of the account and who owns it.And, have a case registered in India. But that's a painful process," DrSwamy Said. 2- The German and the French way Dr Swamy explained how German Chancellor secured black moneyhoarders name from a top Liechtenstein bank officials. "When ChancellorMerkel (of Germany) found that Lichenstein Bank had many Germans havingaccounts, she asked the governors of Liechtenstein to give the list. Theydeclined saying 'no this is our business and we will be finished. So, secrecyis important.' The German government then bribed the senior most official ofthe Liechtenstein bank. They gave him half-a-billion dollars, a US citizenshipand passport and plastic surgery to change his face. And he is now living inthe US with a new face and he downloaded the whole list, even Indian names arein it," Dr Swamy said. "After Supreme Court of India asked the government toget those names, those names have arrived. They are still in the sealedenvelope. The French repeated this in the Hongkong-Shanghai Bank in Geneva.That gave us 887 names. Germans gave us only 24 names. Hongkong-Shanghai Bank's887 names have not been prosecuted vigorously. But given the new mood of thePM, this will also be pursued," Dr Swamy assured. 3- The American way Explaining the American way Dr Swamy said: "When they(the US government) found that the Americans had bank accounts with CreditSuisse and Union Bank of Switzerland, they arrested the Branch officials of thebanks in Washington and the next day, they gave the entire list of names." One could expect some action on these names as well. ALSO READ: Rs 2,000 notes recovered from terrorists killed in Kashmir Two men who helped rescue an injured 8-year-old girl and her father from a boating accident in Skaneateles are among the American Red Cross of Central New York's 2016 Real Heroes honorees. David Goetzmann and Eric Marcinkowski were awarded the Adult Good Samaritan award for their efforts July 6. Hearing the screams of Kaelynne and Christopher Driscoll on Skaneateles Lake, the two men boated to the scene and rescued the girl, who'd been struck by a propeller, from the water. Marcinkowski, who works in a medical operating room, wrapped her in towels to control the bleeding. "When I saw something traumatic, I just kind of reacted," Marcinkowski told The Citizen in September. The two men also lifted Christopher from the water and drove the Driscolls to the lake's boat launch, where emergency responders were waiting. For their efforts, the two men were presented Sheriff's Office Civilian Recognition Awards by the Onondaga County Sheriff in September. The 18th annual Real Heroes Breakfast will honor the two men along with others from Cortland, Madison, Onondaga and Oswego counties from 7:30 to 9 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7, at the Oncenter in Syracuse. For more information, or for tickets, call (315) 234-2225. The main US visa program for technology workers could face renewed scrutiny under President-elect Donald Trump and his proposed Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions, a long-time critic of the skilled-worker program. H-1B visas admit 65,000 workers and another 20,000 graduate student workers each year. The tech industry, which has lobbied to expand the program, may now have to fight a rear-guard action to protect it, immigration attorneys and lobbyists said. Trump sent mixed signals on the campaign trail, sometimes criticizing the visas but other times calling them an important way to retain foreign talent. Sessions, however, has long sought to curtail the program and introduced legislation last year aiming to make the visas less available to large outsourcing companies such as Infosys. Such firms, by far the largest users of H-1B visas, provide foreign contractors to US companies looking to slash information technology costs. "Thousands of US workers are being replaced by foreign labor," Sessions said at a February hearing. WHAT IS H-1B VISA? A spokesperson for Sessions did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Trump transition team spokesperson declined to comment. The H-1B visa is intended for specialty occupations that typically require a college education. Companies use them in two main ways to hire technology workers. Tech firms such as Microsoft and Google typically hire highly skilled, well-paid foreign workers that are in short supply. They help many of them secure so-called green cards that allow them to work in the US permanently. By contrast, firms such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, both based in India, use the visas to deploy lower-paid contractors that critics say rarely end up with green cards. Infosys did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Tata spokesman declined to comment. LABOR LOTTERY H-1B visas are assigned through a lottery once a year by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This year, companies filed 236,000 petitions for the 85,000 available visas, a cap set in US law. They are awarded to employers - not employees - and tied to specific positions. Both Democratic and Republican critics have argued that companies such as Walt Disney Co and Southern California Edison Co, a utility, have used the program to terminate in-house IT employees and replace them with cheaper contractors. Sessions last year urged then-Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate Southern California Edison's use of H-1B visas in a letter than was also signed by Democratic Sens. Bernie Sanders, Richard Durbin and Sherrod Brown. Disney and Edison did not immediately respond to requests for comment but have said previously that they paid foreign contractors comparably with local staffers. The Justice Department in 2013 settled a visa fraud case with Infosys for $34 million. Federal investigators accused Infosys of using easier-to-obtain business travel visas to import foreign workers who were required to have H-1B visas. Investigators also alleged that Infosys told foreign workers to lie to US officials about the cities where they would work. In the settlement, Infosys denied the allegations but agreed to retain a third-party auditor for two years and to provide the government with detailed descriptions of what its visa holders were supposed to be doing in the US. CALLS FOR CHANGE Several constituencies have called for program reforms, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, that industry's largest trade group. It wants the lottery ditched in favor of a system that would award visas to companies offering the highest-paying jobs, said Russ Harrison, director of government relations. That could potentially shut out employers looking to mine the program for cheap foreign labor. Sessions included a similar measure in his 2015 bill. Tech industry groups also want changes. FWD.us - the immigration lobbying group backed by Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg - supports setting higher minimum wages and giving priority to companies that sponsor H-1B workers for green cards. "We're going to advocate for expanding the program, but we're also going to advocate for reforming the program," FWD.us President Todd Shulte said in an interview. The current program mainly benefits big companies at the expense of both U.S. and immigrant workers, said Gaurav Mehta, a 32-year-old H-1B holder from New Delhi who works for a cybersecurity firm in San Francisco. H-1B workers struggle to switch jobs without risking deportation, he said, which allows employers to pay them less. "The current system is not working for Americans, and it's not working for immigrants," he said. 'AMAZING PEOPLE' Some Trump allies expect him to keep the program mostly intact, including Shalabh "Shalli" Kumar - an Indian-born Chicago businessman who donated $900,000 to his campaign. "He has said to us that these are amazing people and it would be crazy to let them go," Kumar said in an interview. But Kumar has urged Trump to eliminate country-by-country quotas that create long waits for Indian and Chinese nationals to get green cards. John Miano, an attorney with the Immigration Reform Law Institute - a conservative group that has been aligned with Trump - also supports prioritizing H-1B applications from companies offering higher pay. Such a change would hit the outsourcing firms hard. The top 10 recipients of H-1B visas in 2015 were all outsourcing firms, according to government data compiled by the IEEE. Tata Consultancy Services topped the list by securing 8,333 H-1B visas. Amazon, by contrast, ranked number 12 and was awarded just 826 H-1B visas. Google and Microsoft ranked No. 14 and 15, with Facebook at No. 24 and Apple at No. 34. Some H-1B visa holders aren't waiting. Sofie Graham - a marketer at the San Francisco startup BuildZoom.com and a dual Irish and British citizen - secured her H-1B visa last year. Although she could have worked for six years on the visa, she and the company decided to apply for a green card. "Everywhere I looked, people were saying we should have fewer H-1Bs," she said. "I just wanted to get a green card as soon as possible." US President-elect Donald Trump has lashed out at top electronic media executives and journalists, terming them "dishonest" and "deceitful liars" after he invited them for a private meeting of minds. "Instead of striking a harmonious tone to build rapport following the election, Trump was combative," The Washington Post quoted participants as saying. "In a calm and deliberate voice, he told the group sitting around a conference table that they had failed to provide their viewers with fair and accurate coverage, and told them they failed to understand him or his appeal to millions of Americans," The Washington Post reported. According to the daily, 70-year-old Trump repeatedly used the words "unfair" and "dishonest" to describe the coverage during Monday's meeting in New York with television journalists and executives. Prominent among news anchors were ABC News anchors George Stephanopoulos and David Muir; CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett; ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz. Among the network news executives were CNN Worldwide Chairman Jeff Zucker, NBC News President Deborah Turness, MSNBC President Phil Griffin, ABC News President James Goldston, and the four top executives from Fox News, Bill Shine, Jack Abernethy, Jay Wallace and Suzanne Scott. Trump is scheduled to meet 'The New York Times' reporters and executives on Tuesday. "It was like a f---ing firing squad," The New York Post reported based on information obtained from those inside the meeting. "Trump started with [CNN chief] Jeff Zucker and said 'I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed', " the report said quoting a source. "The meeting was a total disaster. The TV execs and anchors went in there thinking they would be discussing the access they would get to the Trump administration, but instead they got a Trump-style dressing down," the source added. Trump kept saying 'We're in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong.' "He addressed everyone in the room calling the media dishonest, deceitful liars. He called out Zucker by name and said everyone at CNN was a liar, and CNN was [a] network of liars," the report said. Kellyanne Conway, chairman of the Trump Campaign, however, disputed such reports. "No, that's not true at all. I sat right to his left. He did not explode in anger. By the way, it's an off-the-record meeting so whoever said that and mischaracterised it should think twice," she said on Bloomberg Poetics. Conway along with the incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus were present in the meeting along with the Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon. "There was no need to mend fences. It was very cordial, very genial. But it was very candid and very honest. From my own perspective, it's great to hit the reset button," Conway said. Anand Desai was working with Tata Consultancy Services in Bangalore when he thought about enrolling in a management programme. He applied for Common Admission Test and Graduate Management Admission Test. His first preference was Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB) but he got the option of only the five new Indian Institutes of Management or IIMs. He was not very excited about this. Till a decade ago, IIMs were the most sought-after B-schools. In 2009, things began to change with the opening of several new IIMs, starting with IIM-Rohtak, and followed by more, in Ranchi, Raipur, Trichy, Kashipur, Udaipur, Nagpur and six other cities. While this means that the aspirants have a greater chance of getting admission, the value of brand IIM has been eroded in the process. The new IIMs have not been able to match the standards of the older ones on several parameters, including the quality of faculty/students, infrastructure, as well as ability to attract top recruiters. Desai opted for IIM-Udaipur as he found it the best among the new ones in terms of global exposure and focus on entrepreneurship. He says the new IIMs are not attracting quality recruiters. At the time of placement, Desai opted out and later started his logistics venture, Tempawala.com. "With so many IIMs competing for placements, it has become a fish market. The same set of recruiters is being pitched by all IIMs," he says. Recruiters' Dilemma: Apart from quality education and research work of students and faculty, the older IIMs had been valued mainly for the high-paying jobs their students got. This led to high expectations from the newer IIMs too. The reality has turned out to be different. "Our job gets done by going to the top three IIMs where we pay Rs 15-18 lakh per annum. For other jobs, we go to Tier-II and Tier-III institutes" Typically, companies hire management graduates for two roles - strategic and functional. Most students from the top three IIMs - IIM-A, B & C - get strategic roles, considered a notch above functional roles such as sales, marketing, supply chain, operations and customer service. High-paying jobs in financial services, including investment banking, hedge funds and private equity firms, too, are mostly bagged by students from these top three IIMs. People in strategic roles are typically paid more, and that's where the new IIMs have not been able to make a mark. Hitesh Oberoi, MD and CEO of Info Edge, an internet company with properties such as naukri.com and 99acres.com, says they require product and marketing managers. "Our job gets done by going to the top three IIMs where we pay Rs 15-18 lakh per annum. For other jobs, we go to Tier-II and Tier-III institutes where we pay around Rs 3.5 lakh per annum. If I were to go to the new IIMs, I suppose I would have to pay Rs 8-10 lakh per annum. We don't have such requirements," he says. In some ways, the new IIMs have created a space between the older IIMs and lower-rung B-schools. The situation is similar in Mahindra & Mahindra, or M&M, which hires from top 12 B-schools for group-level requirements and goes to lower-rung institutes such as Balaji Institute of Modern Management (Pune) and KIIT School of Management (Bhubaneswar) for other requirements. "Expectations of students at these institutes are realistic, unlike those of students from the new IIMs who compare themselves with students of the older IIMs. The quality of students passing out of the new IIMs is nowhere close to that from the top IIMs. We find issues with their ability to communicate, think strategically, and apply concepts in real-life situations. We just keep contact with these new institutes," says Prince Augustin, EVP (Group Human Capital and Leadership Development), M&M. "They compare themselves with IIM-A, B, and C students, which causes dissatisfaction. Instead of IIMs, these institutes should have been called regional management schools," he says. M&M hires some 35 students each year from the top 12 B-schools and over 70 from Tier-II and III management colleges. Some recruiters, however, say the new IIMs are expected to fill a gap. Maruti Suzuki Chairman R.C. Bhargava says there's now a much larger availability of good MBA graduates. "When there are fewer MBAs, they prefer joining consultancy and financial services firms. Few want to come to the manufacturing sector. The graduates from the new IIMs have to look beyond the traditional preferences," he says. In 2008, a committee headed by Bhargava had submitted a report to the HRD ministry on the governance structure of IIMs. Apples & Oranges: The new IIMs say it is unfair to compare them to the older ones. They say their growth has been much faster. Gautam Sinha, Director, IIM Kashipur, says it took the older IIMs 50 years to have 500 seats for their flagship programme - the post-graduate programme, or PGP, in management. "They had 120-130 seats for years. Look at the new IIMs. They are already nudging towards 200 seats," he says. IIM Kashipur has 34 full-time faculty members. The visiting faculty numbers over 45. With strength of 310 (for PGP), the faculty-student ratio is 1:9, slightly lower than the 1:10 stipulated by the HRD ministry. IIM Ranchi, established in 2010, says scaling up class and faculty strength is a challenge due of shortage of infrastructure. At present, IIM Ranchi doesn't have its own campus and is operating out of two floors of the Jharkhand government's Suchana Bhawan. It started with 44 students six years ago. It has 120 students in the PGDBM course and another 50 in the PGDHRM programme. It has been allotted a 60-acre plot. But the construction work has hit a hurdle. Anindaya Sen, director, says they are facing protests from local residents at the construction site. The institute plans to rent more space within the two-three km distance of the existing campus to shift some administrative staff there and increase the student intake in the PGDBM course to 180-240. "The number of faculty members sanctioned is dependent on the number of students. We have 17 faculty members. The institute has permission to hire additional staff,"says Sen. Started in 2009, IIM Rohtak is facing a similar problem. "Our campus is being built. We will move academics to the new campus next year. We faced delays in getting land and environmental clearances from the state government. We will grow much faster when we move to the new campus," says Atanu Rakshit, Director, IIM Rohtak. Faculty Shortage: Though faculty shortage is affecting almost every B-school, the situation is worse in the new IIMs, partly due to their location. The fact that the new IIMs were opened in a span of just six years has made matters worse. "If the institute is not in a good location, it will always find it difficult to find faculty," says Ajit Rangnekar, former dean, ISB. "As such the salaries of IIM professors are low compared to, say, what ISB and institutes in Singapore pay. The institute has to take care of everything - water, electricity, security, family, and remuneration, in order to attract faculty," he says. "Few want to come to the manufacturing sector. The graduates from the new IIMs have to look beyond the traditional preferences" IIM Kashipur's Sinha says the quality of faculty is their biggest concern. "I advertised for 15 seats. I got 900 applications. Half were not even worth toilet paper. Finally, we hired six people. Hiring is always open," he says. In order to compensate for low salaries, the new IIMs, just like the older ones, are helping faculty members earn in other ways. Many have started short-term courses for professionals to generate revenues. Also, the faculty can write for international journals and do consulting work for companies. The HRD ministry will support these institutes financially for just seven years. After that, it will give money only for physical infrastructure. "Building a sufficient corpus is challenging. PGPs don't make money for IIMs," says Sinha, adding, "having good faculty is more important in case of supplementary courses; a professionals spending Rs 25,000 for a three-day MDP course wants maximum bang for the buck." The stiff competition is also prompting the new IIMs to find niches. IIM Rohtak and Udaipur, for instance, are focusing on entrepreneurship, whereas IIM Kashipur is laying emphasis on industry connect. Experts say that changing the mindset of recruiters and students is a long process. It will take years to build the legacy that the older IIMs have. (Additional reporting by Dipak Mondal and Chanchal Pal Chauhan) The demonetisation of high denomination currency notes by scrapping 500 and 1,000 rupee notes by the Central government is widely seen as a masterstroke in an attempt to combat the menace of unaccounted money in India and to weed out counterfeited high denomination notes. With individuals and other taxpayers now depositing cash (representing the old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes) in their bank accounts, it is important to take note of recent press statement issued by the Revenue Secretary. It has been reported that all cash deposits over and above Rs 2.5 lakh, between November 10th and December 30th, will be monitored by the Income Tax Department and will be matched by the past income tax returns of such depositors. It has also been clarified that in case of cash deposits above Rs 10 lakh, which are disproportionate or do not match with the depositor's tax returns, such deposits may be treated as 'tax evasion' and could, besides being subject to normal tax under the IT Act, attract a huge penalty of 200 per cent of the tax under the penal provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961 ("IT Act"). It is important to note that although the IT Act does not provide any statutory threshold of Rs 2.5 lakh or Rs 10 lakh, for immunity from taxation in case of cash deposits; this should be seen as essentially a policy decision by the government to target only the large cash deposits and spare the sundry ones from scrutiny. In the above context, some of the relevant provisions of the IT Act, such as those dealing with preventing tax evasion on account of unaccounted wealth, including penalty and prosecution may be relevant to note, which are briefly discussed in this article. Section 68 of the IT Act prescribes that an item of receipt in the taxpayer's books of accounts, the nature and source of which cannot be explained by the taxpayer, is deemed to be the income of the taxpayer for such financial year. Section 69A of the IT Act contains similar 'anti-tax evasion' provisions and prescribes that any taxpayer who is found to be in the possession of any money, bullion, jewellery etc., which is unaccounted and the taxpayer is not able to justify the nature and source of the same, then such money or value of such bullion or jewellery etc. may be treated as the income of the taxpayer for such financial year. In the above cases, the income on account of the unexplained item of receipt or unaccounted money, jewellery etc, is taxed at a flat rate of 30 per cent (plus applicable surcharge and cess) under section 115BBE of the IT Act, with no deduction, whatsoever, of any expenditure or allowance or loss. Besides tax, the tax defaulter may also be liable for penalty in terms of section 270A of the IT Act. Penalty in case of underreporting of income, which could be understood as the difference between returned and assessed income, is prescribed at the rate of 50 per cent of the tax payable on such underreported income. However, if the underreporting of income is on account of (a) misrepresentation or suppression of facts, or (b) failure to record investments in the books of accounts, or (c) failure to record any income receipt in the books of accounts, or (d) recording false entry in the books of accounts etc, the same is classified as 'misreporting of income', in which case, the penalty is prescribed at the rate of 200 per cent of the tax payable on such underreported income. In addition, the tax defaulter could also be prosecuted under section 276C of the IT Act for 'wilful attempt to evade tax', with imprisonment of 3 months to seven years (depending on the quantum of tax default) with fine. Having analysed the legal position under the IT Act, the taxpayers/individuals planning to deposit large amount of cash in their bank accounts may be called upon to offer plausible explanations, supported by documentation/evidence, as to the nature and source of the income. If the cash, which is deposited, is sought to be in the nature of current year's/prior years' drawings/savings, then the depositor should be able to substantiate the same with reference to current year's/past year's withdrawals. For other depositors, which would claim that the cash deposits represent their income from sales or professional receipts of the current financial year, they should be able to substantiate the same with reference to their tax returns, duly supported by adequate evidence such as maintenance of invoices, entries in stock register, details of vendors/customers, PAN details of the customers where it is statutorily required such as in the case of sale of goods or services exceeding Rs 2 lakh or payment to a hotel or restaurant exceeding Rs 50,000 etc. The maintenance of above mentioned documentation is only indicative and while this will not mitigate tax exposure, it may certainly mitigate the penalty and prosecution exposure in respect of misreported income of prior years. Inability to justify may lead to the conclusion that the income pertains to prior years, following which additions may be made to the returned income of prior years, and subject to penalty levy of 200 per cent of the tax besides prosecution proceedings, in which case the total tax, penalty and interest under section 234B of the IT Act (at the rate of 1 per cent for every month on the default up to the date of assessment) could well exceed the total cash deposited by the depositor. Amit Singhania is Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co. Rahul Yadav, Senior Associate, also contributed to the article. Views expressed are personal Bajaj Auto sees a significant downside in the sales of two-wheelers in the near future, the firm's president of motorcycle business told CNBC TV 18. The decline was approximately 50 per cent in rural India and 25 percent in urban India, Eric Vas said. There was an 80 percent fall in enquiries on counters for 2 wheelers across the country but in the last four days enquiries have recovered by 30 percent. It's difficult to predict the impact of demonetisation on the company but a rise in enquiries indicate return of liquidity in the market, Vas said. Most customers who buy two wheelers do downpayments in cash. The company expects a 25 percent fall in sales on a year-on-year basis. The currency ban will not affect new launches of the company, Vas added. At 1331 hours, the stock was trading 2.23 percent or 56 points higher at Rs 2584 level. The government today gave the green signal for 18 new airports in the country. The greenfield airports, cleared by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), are likely to ease the growing congestion at airports, especially in metro cities. The growing passenger traffic and inability of airports to expand has led to severe delays and poor on-time performance of airlines in the past two years. Mumbai is likely to be the key benefactor as a new airport at Navi Mumbai has been given approval. In terms of number of new airports proposed, Karnataka will be the biggest beneficiary followed by Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Surprisingly, the list has no names for projects proposed in Delhi NCR - Jewar and Hisar. The ministry, however, has given 'site clearance' approval to Bhiwadi project (in Rajasthan). "As per the Greenfield Airports Policy-2008, MoCA accords two stages clearances - 'site clearance' followed by 'in-principle' approval for greenfield airports. MoCA has granted 'in principle' approval for setting up of 18 greenfield airports across the country," says a ministry statement. While the airport project at Sikkim belongs to AAI (Airports Authority of India), the three projects at Durgapur, Gwalior and Karaikal will be developed by private developers. The remaining 14 airports were proposed by respective state governments. The combined cost of these project is estimated to be Rs 31,376.45 crore, out of which over 53 per cent (Rs 16,704 crore) will go into building the Navi Mumbai airport. As per the MoCA, the airport projects at Durgapur and Kannur have been completed. The new airport locations include Pakyong (in Sikkim), Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra), Sindhudurg (Maharashtra), Shirdi (Maharashtra), Mopa (Goa), Bijapur (Karnataka), Gulbarga (Karnataka), Hasan (Karntaka), Shimoga (Karnataka), Kannur (Kerala), Kushinagar (UP), Dholera (Gujarat), Dagadarthi (AP), Bhogapuram (AP), Oravakallu (AP), Durgapur (West Bengal), Gwalior (MP), and Karaikal (in Puducherry). In the past two years, the ministry has received 14 proposals to set up airports. Out of these proposals, the ministry has given 'in-principle' approval to three projects while airport projects at Bhiwadi and Kothagudem are given 'site clearance' approval. The inadequate infrastructure has particularly affected passengers in Delhi and Mumbai. For example, Delhi has just three runways. The airlines have been demanding one more airport for a long time. It is expected that the fourth runway will be ready by 2020. The situation in Mumbai is worse, as per DGCA data. For instance, one in every three IndiGo flights in Mumbai were delayed. The situation is almost similar for most other carriers. The proposal to build an airport in Navi Mumbai is pending since 1997. In general, flight delays are getting common. In October, for instance, Air India's flight delays of more than two hours affected 27,284 passengers - over two in every 100 it flew last month. The key reason of delays was reactionary (63 per cent). A reactionary delay is when an aircraft delays one flight, it delays all other flights on that particular day. The most telling problem is inadequate infrastructure. The farm succession partnership has been launched today by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed. This partnership proposal was announced in last years budget. Farm families who avail of the partnership will receive a 25,000 tax credit over 5 years with the transfer of the farm having to be completed within 10 years of putting the succession plan in place. Speaking at the launch today, Macra na Feirme National President, Sean Finan said, "We warmly welcome the launch of the succession partnership. This is another very positive development in the areas of generational renewal and land mobility in this country. This succession partnership will result in planned farm succession rather than succession on inheritance which happens in most cases on Irish farms." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us US insurer AIG may move its European headquarters from London to another European Union country because of Britain's vote to leave the EU, the head of the AIG's European and UK operations said at an industry conference on Tuesday. AIG joins a growing list of finance industry companies that have said they may have to shift operations to continental Europe to maintain links to customers after Brexit. Speaking at the same conference, trade minister Mark Garnier said the government was listening to the financial industry's concerns over Brexit. "We will aim to limit uncertainty surrounding business," Garnier said. "The government fully understands the implications of Brexit for the financial services industry," Garnier told insurance trade body ABI's annual conference. Banks, insurers and asset managers in Britain fear losing access to the EU's single market, and a damaging "cliff edge" effect of leaving the bloc if there are no transitional arrangements ahead of any new trading terms agreed with the EU. Anthony Baldwin, chief executive of AIG's European and UK arms, said the group might decide in the coming year to move its European head office from London to an EU country after Brexit, though it would still maintain a big London hub. AIG has around 2,500 staff in Britain. Baldwin told reporters on the sidelines of the conference he was looking at half a dozen locations, including Dublin, though the impact on staffing would not be material if the headquarters moved out of London. "At a certain point in time you have to pull the trigger in the absence of any clarity on where negotiations are going with the transition period," Baldwin told the conference. "We will always continue to have a big London hub but we might have a European headquarters elsewhere," he said. The Lloyd's of London insurance market, underwriters Hiscox and Beazley, and motor insurer Admiral have also said they might shift operations from London to centers like Dublin. Huw Evans, director general of the ABI, said the insurance industry should not moan about the Brexit vote, but instead engage with politicians to find a way forward and minimize risks to the sector. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will start formal divorce talks with the EU by the end of March. "That timetable has not changed," Garnier said. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) have today expressed disappointment in Unions for not backing their campaign to reduce the cost of living for workers. The ISME warns that pay rise demands by private sector unions are totally out of sync with economic reality and will further undermine job creation among SMEs. They have called on the Government to focus on cost competitiveness while tackling SME business costs. Furthermore, they have stressed that the tax and social welfare system should be used to encourage employment. ISME CEO, Neil McDonnell says, "Unjustified pay demands and ultimatums to government are not the right approach to take. The uncertainty around Brexit is creating a climate of caution and unease. The pay rise demands by private sector unions are totally out of sync with economic reality and will further undermine job creation among SMEs." He added, "There is another way of putting more money back into workers pockets; by reducing state controlled costs in transport, childcare, health, education and insurance, workers would have a greater disposable income which would off-set the need for pay hikes." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us AIB have today released figures which show that they approved over 300 million in loans to the hotel sector this year. AIB is one of the sponsors of the National Tourism Forum taking place in the Muckross Park Hotel, Killarney on Friday. The conference chaired by RTE TV and radio broadcast journalist, Miriam OCallaghan will examine international tourism trends, the future of tourism in Ireland, the impact of Brexit on tourism and how to spread tourism wealth around the country. The MHL Hotel Collection is among the 30 hotels backed by AIB this year. AIB has supported the growth and expansion of the business over the last number of years both in Dublin and regionally across Ireland. During 2016, AIB has supported the 66 bedroom extension to MHL's Trinity City hotel, the acquisition of the InterContinental hotel and most recently, MHL's acquisition of the Lifestyle Hotels portfolio which includes The Beacon, The Morgan and The Spencer hotels and creates the second largest hotel group in Dublin by number of city centre bedrooms. Speaking ahead of this weekends National Tourism Forum in Killarney, AIB's Head of Hospitality, Owen Travers said, "AIB has a long history of supporting the Irish hospitality industry which is a vital sector for the Irish economy. Our customers' hard work has been one of the key driving forces behind employment growth and the Irish economic recovery." He added, "AIB continues to back all aspects of our customers' businesses from acquisition and business expansion to capital reinvestment and select new hotel development. We have been in a position to support successive generations of Irish hoteliers across the country to realise their ambitions." Source: www.businessworld.ie The Cayuga County Agriculture & Farmland Protection Board will host an informational meeting for landowners and farmers on the New York State Farmland Protection Program, including available funding to permanently protect agricultural lands. The meeting will be held 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1 at Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES, 1879 West Genesee St. Road, Aurelius. Participants must register for the free event by 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 30. The meeting will cover what participation in the program entails, requirements and expectations, the timeline for the next round of funding, when pre-applications are due and how the process will work. To register or for more information contact the county Planning Department at (315) 253-1276 or visit cayugacounty.us/Departments/Planning-and-Economic-Development/Agricultural-Farmland-Protection/Purchase-of-Development-Rights. Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) said on Monday it was trying to ascertain if Yahoo! Inc's decision to scan clients' email accounts at the behest of the U.S. authorities last year broke European law. Sources have told Reuters that Yahoo used a software program to sift through millions of emails for specific information related to national security. At the time last month, the DPC said it was seeking more information from Yahoo. Now it has begun actively investigating the case, it said on Monday. "We are in regular contact with Yahoo! EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) in clarifying certain facts of this case and will then proceed to take appropriate next steps," a DPC spokeswoman said in a statement. Yahoo did not respond to a request for comment. Last month, it declined to confirm whether Europeans' emails were intercepted as part of the program. Yahoo said it complied with the laws of the United States. Lawyers said mass surveillance of EU citizens email would be against incoming European Union data rules. The DPC, the lead European regulator on privacy issues for Yahoo because its European headquarters are in Dublin, is trying to ascertain what exactly Yahoo did and whether it breached the privacy rules that prevailed last year. "We are receiving active and engaged responses to our queries," the spokeswoman said. Analysts said the email scanning could prompt Verizon Communications to rethink the terms of a planned $4.8 billion takeover of Yahoo. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie About us TEAM, a new 4 million research and training network focused on developing new technologies to support the provision of mental health services for young people was announced today at University College Dublin (UCD). TEAM (Technology Enabled Mental Health for Young People), a 4-year Innovation Training Network (ITN), is being funded by the European Unions Horizon 2020 programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions initiative. The overall objective of the TEAM network is to train this new generation of researchers who can help to deliver more effective, affordable and accessible mental health services for young people. The network will also focus on the design, development and evaluation of new technology enabled mental health services. TEAM, which brings together a multi-disciplinary network of mental health experts, computer scientists, designers and policy experts from five countries, (Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Spain and the UK) will provide a unique doctoral training and research platform for 15 PhD students. Numerous international studies conclude that many people experiencing mental health difficulties do not have access to appropriate support. Young people have been identified as being particularly vulnerable and requiring specific attention. Research suggests that 50% of mental disorders emerge by 14 years of age. Untreated difficulties at a young age also triple the likelihood of further difficulties in later life. The TEAM research programme is built around four key themes: assessment, prevention, treatment and policy. It aims to deliver new technologies that can support rapid, early and large-scale assessment, prevention and treatment of mental health difficulties in young people. To help realise the potential of technology in this area, whilst also addressing the potential risks, TEAM will also investigate policy directions and guidelines for technologies designed to support youth mental health. TEAM, led by University College Dublin, involves nine partners; four universities (Technical University of Denmark, Technical University Vienna, University of Glasgow and UCD); two university hospitals (Medical University Vienna, Psychiatric Centre Copenhagen (Region Hovedstaden), two not-for-profit organisations (The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, ReachOut Ireland Ltd); and one industry research laboratory (Telefonica Alpha). TEAM will also collaborate closely with additional partners including national mental health charities and innovative technology companies. TEAM Project Co-ordinator and a Researcher in human computer interaction at UCDs School of Computer Science, Dr David Coyle said, "We are not going to address all of the challenges in youth mental health in just four years. But we do aim to train a new generation of researchers, with a unique combination of skills, who will be at the forefront of this challenge in the coming decades." He added, "Technology can play an important role in improving mental health services, but only if we get the details right. It was critical that TEAM had an appropriate balance of mental health experts, computer scientists and designers. Throughout the project we will work in close partnership with mental health services and with people with experiences of mental health difficulties." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us The Diwali Festival of Lights is a Hindu tradition that celebrates goods triumph over evil. The celebration takes place in autumn and lasts for five days. Everyone gives treats and paints the sidewalks bright colors. They also display lights on their houses and temples. One student at Utah State University described it as Christmas with fireworks. Every year the Indian Student Association at USU puts on their own festival of lights during International Education week. The students band together with alumni from the Indian Student Association from the last 10-20 years, and invite other families from India in the valley to join their performances. It is an event they prepare for all year, practicing various musical acts and dances. The Indian Student Association definitely brought the feeling of the festival to life. With their beautiful traditional dress, and an amazing Indian meal provided by Utah State Catering. Their performances were spectacular, making everyone want to join in and dance in the celebration of good. Many families in the valley attend this event also dressed in traditional Indian clothes to enjoy the festival even more. The Indian Student Association wants everyone in the valley to come join their celebration. After a year of studies, they love getting together and celebrating their home with their family and friends and sharing their favorite time of the year with everyone who comes. LOGAN A judge has rejected part of a plea deal and sentenced a 22-year-old Logan man, accused of running from police several times, to one-year in jail and fifteen-years probation. First District Court Judge Thomas Willmore told Erasmo Junior Garcia, he was a danger to society. Garcia appeared in court Monday afternoon, accepting a plea deal, pleading guilty to failing to stop at the command of law enforcement, possession or use of a controlled substance and theft by receiving stolen property, all third-degree felonies. He also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of reckless driving. As part of the plea, prosecutors agreed to recommend Garcia only be sentenced to one-year in jail and then released without probation. Judge Willmore said he didnt care about the recommendation and felt the State was not protecting society. He told the defendant, every time you run, you put police officers and the public at risk. That is how people die. State attorney Aaron Josie said, Garcia repeatedly fled from officers after a warrant was issued for his arrest in October, for failing to comply with conditions of his probation. He was arrested in Brigham City. Public defender Michael McGinnis told the court that his client had dug himself into a hole. Garcia apologized, saying he didnt follow probation because he was addicted to drugs.

will@cvradio.com Two Cayuga County motorists were involved in a crash Monday on State Route 318 in the town of Tyre, Seneca County. According to the Seneca County Sheriff's Office, deputies responded to a two-car accident at approximately 1:20 p.m. A vehicle driven by Phillip Seaton, 29, of 1737 Davies Road, Port Byron, was heading eastbound on State Route 318. Seaton lost control of the vehicle due to hazardous road conditions. Seaton's car crossed into the westbound lane and collided with a vehicle driven by Joseph Beniamino, 49, of Auburn. Following the head-on collision, Beniamino was transported to Geneva General Hospital after complaining of neck pain. Seaton reported having back pain, but declined treatment. Seaton was ticketed for driving at a speed not reasonable and prudent, authorities said. New Europe 100: Looking to the East for encouragement Published on November 22, 2016 Story by Lara Bullens en pl it es fr de In light of recent events, the division of a potentially utopist Europe seems more possible than ever. Thanks to new research, though, we have found a way to lift your spirits. Presenting our selection of the best of the New Europe 100: a group of individuals in Central and Eastern Europe that are going to change the world. From fighting misinformation about Ukraine through social platforms, to creating digitally interactive English textbooks, it seems there is something great boiling beneath the surface of Eastern Europe. This is the third time that Res Publica, the Visegrad Fund, Google and the Financial Times have joined forces to publish a list of exceptional innovators dotted around the East of the Old Continent. These personalities have kick-started initiatives in social, political, media, cultural, scientific and business domains. The motivation is simple: to raise awareness of these individuals and build a network for them (and us) in which to collaborate. Wojciech Przybylski, president of the Res Publica foundation, explained the project as follows: "We want to tell a story of inspiring, creative and socially engaged innovators from Central and Eastern Europe. Our region can be proud of developers, business owners, scientists and cultural managers, who are now the driving force behind the innovation for the future." Augmented reality political campaign (via Youtube) An example of what an innovative project looks like would be Overly, an app created by Ainars Klavins in collaboration with IR magazine. Using the political cartoons published in the magazine, along with augmented reality technology, it is possible to "hack" any political advertisement in the Baltic states. Not only does this allow for public social critique, but allows the consumer to interact with advertisements in general. Instead of falling into the popular discourse of doomsday politics, which seems to be the norm at the moment, it is important to remember that change is possible. Sometimes, all it takes is a little motivation from those who are one step ahead. Cafebabel has picked 10 outstanding examples from 10 different countries, from the Czech Republic and ending in Armenia: --- Discover the full project here: www.ne100.org Story by Lara Bullens English editor at Cafebabel and freelance journalist. Paris, France Last week, members of Our Revolution Cayuga County joined Gratitude to Water Catholic Workers and others at the Army Corps of Engineers Field Office in Auburn on this National Day of Action against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Our event was one of hundreds taking place across the country today. We banged a drum, chanted, carried signs, and delivered our message to the ACE do not issue any permits that would facilitate the construction of the DAPL, which would carry filthy Bakken oil under the Missouri River and across four states on its eventual way to Mexico. Thousands of Native Americans and allies have been gathered at Standing Rock, North Dakota, since summer, peacefully and prayerfully doing all they can to prevent the pipeline from being placed under the river on disputed treaty land less than a mile from their reservation. More than 300 tribes, many centuries-old enemies, and including folks from the Onondaga and Seneca tribes, have come together in historic and unprecedented unity. All pipelines leak eventually; this one puts the water source for 17-plus million people at risk. Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline company, has rushed to dig up graves and sacred sites before a full environmental and cultural assessment can be done, pushing on with the work even without the necessary permits from the Army Corps of Engineers. Hired mercenaries working as security guards have unleashed attack dogs on unarmed women and children. Water protectors have been beaten, maced, blasted with ear-damaging sound cannons, arrested on trumped up charges later dismissed, strip-searched for minor infractions, left naked and without medical care overnight in cells and dog kennels, hooded (an act of torture), and had their clothing and other belongings permanently misplaced. Journalists covering the story have had their First Amendment rights violated, been arrested for reporting the news, and had their cameras illegally confiscated. Images coming out of the area show militarized police in full riot gear and automatic weapons, with heavy armored vehicles and helicopters, committing human rights abuses against unarmed, peaceful protectors singing and praying it is hard to conceive that this is the United States of America in the 21st Century. Anyone wishing to help the thousands of peaceful protectors continue their front line fight through the cold Dakota winter can contribute money or supplies to the Standing Rock tribe: (http://standingrock.org/news/standing-rock-sioux-tribe-dakota-access-pipeline-donation-fund/) or the Sacred Stone legal fund: (https://fundrazr.com/sacredstone?ref=ab_61hjz2) We Stand with Standing Rock. Karin Wikoff Genoa When the federal and Ontario governments transferred $14.5 billion in taxpayer cash to GM and Chrysler in 2009, they likely did so with the best of intentions - to preserve jobs, though no doubt southern Ontario votes also figured heavily into the equation. But in a recent analysis from Dennis DesRosier, the automotive analyst noticed that employment in the Canadian automotive sector, despite the bailout and economic recovery, continues to fall. DesRosier's numbers show employment in that industry at 127,352 jobs as of September (the latest month available). That's down 875 from one year ago (and the sector lost over 36,000 jobs between 2008 and 2009); that's the lowest it's been in the 20 years measured by DesRosier. At its peak, in 2001, Canada's automotive sector employed 198,098 people. That figure was roughly constant until 2005 when it began a steady decline. That such employment would fall is not surprising, given that automotive sales in North America are down from their pre-recession peaks. What's noteworthy is the long-term secular decline of some companies and the rise of others, including who produces what in Canada; the trends predate the recession. GM's in-Canada production dropped to just 243,580 units in 2009; that's massively down from its best year in 2000 when the company made almost one million cars and trucks. As a percentage of Canada's total automobile production, GM's share was 32.5 per cent in 2000 and just 16.4 per cent nine years later. Chrysler's fall was similar but not as dramatic. At the turn of the millennium, it produced 704,081 cars and trucks in Canada, but that dropped to 314,504 by 2009, or 21.1 per cent of all Canadian production Ford, the other pillar in what used to be the Big Three, produced 629,646 cars and trucks in Canada in 2000 - its best year for Canadian production; it's lowest year was 2006 with just 196,374 units. Ford rebounded in 2007 and 2008, dropped in 2009 (to 243,580 cars and trucks) but still manufactured more cars and trucks than it did at its mid-decade low. As a percentage, Ford's biggest "chunk" of all Canadian production was in 2000 at 21.3 per cent; in 2009, Ford accounted for 16 per cent of all automotive production in the country. Of course, automobile production roughly mirrors sales, at least insofar as automobile companies have some plants in the countries in which they sell. As recently as 1997, the "Detroit Three" captured more than 70 per cent of all automotive sales in North America, with "import" nameplates at less than 30 per cent. Since then, the positions have almost reversed completely. By 2009, the Detroit Three's share of North American sales was less than 40 per cent with import nameplates at over 60 per cent. And that might explain why as weak as auto production employment numbers are in Canada, they would be even worse without "foreign" automakers in the picture. In 2000, Toyota's share of total Canadian automotive production was just 6.2 per cent; Honda's portion was 11 per cent. In 2009, Toyota's share was a record both in percentages and units (21.5 per cent and 319,547 respectively). Over at Honda, its total Canadian production was down from its mid-decade highs but as a percentage of Canada's total production in 2009, its 17.5 per cent share was the second highest Honda has ever recorded. Or look at this another way: In terms of Canadian automobile production, GM and Chrysler, the two recipients of $14.5 billion in subsidies, accounted for 56.3 per cent of all automobiles built in Canada at the beginning of the decade. Nine years later, those two companies produced just 37.5 per cent of all Canadian-made vehicles. In contrast, the three companies that did not take taxpayer money in 2009, Ford (in an upswing before the recession), along with Toyota and Honda, accounted for 38.5 per cent of Canadian production in 2000, but a whopping 54.9 per cent by 2009. Defenders of the bailouts to GM and Chrysler long claimed economic Armageddon would arrive had taxpayers not handed over $14.5 billion to two automobile companies. That was a future impossible to foresee; what we do know is that others such as Ford, Toyota and Honda exist, invest in Canada, have significant production and employees here, were either consistently ramping it up (Toyota) or had recovered from previous production lows (Ford). All could have hired more employees and built more automobiles in the event GM or Chrysler ceased to exist. Insufficient electricity production, obsolete transport infrastructure, drop in Sanaga River... need emergency solutions for incessant darkness to be history. ADS Installed electricity capacity in Cameroon is in the neighbourhood of 1,299 megawatts with Eneo, the outfit in charge of the generation, transmission and distribution of the produce, having a lions share of 997 megawatts. Statistics show that independent producers like the Dibamba Power Development Company (DPDC) and Kribi Power Development Company (KDPC) complete the rest with 86 MW and 216 MW productions respectively. This overall production comprises 732 MW from hydro sources (57 per cent), 281 MW from thermal fuel (22 per cent) and 266 MW from thermal gas (21 per cent). Target is to hit 3,000 MW by 2020. As good as this may sound, people are increasingly looming in the dark for want of the produce in quality and quantity. National demand of the produce, authorities say, has moved from averagely 6 per cent in 2001 to 7.5 per cent since 2010. Records show that the electrification rate in the country is around 50 per cent with over 90 per cent of the population still using traditional heating tools like firewood and charcoal. What is rather disturbing is the fact that even where electricity exists, subscribers cannot determine when and how to use the produce owing to what is now commonly known in the country as epileptic power supply. Obsolete Transport Infrastructure Electricity generation is as important as transmission and distribution to those in need. This seems to be the missing link in the countrys electricity chain. Transformers blowing here and there and electricity poles falling like a pack of cards is no longer a novelty here. Authorities themselves confirmed that the main problem plaguing the countrys electricity sector is old equipment - wooden poles, cables, overloaded and outdated transformers. According to John Sanyi, new Regional Director of Eneo Cameroon SA for the East Region, over 500,000 wooden poles have to be replaced to the tune of FCFA 37.2 billion. The outfit, he said, is carrying out the replacement at a speed of 40,000 poles or more a year. Basic arithmetic here shows that at this pace, the pressing problem can at best get a definite solution in not less than twelve and a half years. Even if the poles were to be replaced at short notice, skeptics still doubt the quality of what the distributor is using today to replace what has worn out. Old treated poles had a lifespan of 20 years but what is being used today appears not to be going through the same hitherto treatment procedure and may not stand the test of time. This raises more fears than hopes given that in the over 12 years that the replacement will span, other poles would have outlived their usefulness and other problems resurfaced. This even casts a dark cloud on the much-heralded giant hydroelectricity dams under construction. They will at term obviously augment national production but the final consumer risks not journeying out of darkness for want of means to move the produce from the national grid to industries and households for use. Drop in Water Flow Another reason advanced for the current shortfall in supply is the drop in the flow of River Sanaga, the lowest in 30 years. Between May 14 and June 3, 2015, the river witnessed a sharp drop making it difficult for effective electricity generation like before. There is therefore need for urgent measures to be drafted and fully implemented to salvage the growing energy problems starring the country in the face so as to give the population convenient access to the rather basic commodity. Where there is light, there is life! ADS | BY Lynchy | Awarded Perth creative director Dav Tabeshfar has unveiled his new agency brand, &Partners. Tabeshfar said the philosophy of the agency embodied in the name is to work collaboratively with teams built around specific projects: We take a look at a clients advertising challenge and put together a team of proven pros. When the teams work is done, they go off and do other things; things that the client doesnt have to pay for. Its a bit like one of those heist movies where George Clooney puts a team of specialists together to rob a casino without the robbing, the casino or George Clooney. Over a twenty year career, most recently as creative director of J Walter Thompson in Perth, Tabeshfar has created and directed campaigns for a wide range of clients. For &Partners, he has developed a roster of designers, art directors, developers and project managers that he knows can deliver. He said exactly who is involved depends on the particular brief. We wont put a team together until weve had a good look at the brand and project. It might just need a Creative Director to partner with a clients own marketing, social or digital people. Or they might want a whole virtual team. Whoever and whatever a project requires, clients can be sure of two things: our partners are very good at what they do, and theyre nice people who are fun to work with. | BY Ricki Green | Chris West (left), Verbal Identity jury president at LIA 2016 and founder of Verbal Identity Inc, on Americas way with language and branding Visiting Las Vegas is like taking a 72-hour, fully-immersive MBA. According to a recent Economist report, the city is enjoying record tourism and fast employment growth. Its easy to see why. Any ops director will be impressed by a 7am walk around the gaming floors. A dustless, smiling efficiency 24 hours a day isnt only possible, its an absolute necessity when you want people to spend money with you 24 hours a day. If you want to know how to convert passive observers into active consumers, take a seat at Vegass entry-level product innovation, Casino War. There are tables at each corner where the walkway hits the gaming floor. Playing it is as simple as playing a game of Snap. And if youre a 52-year-old man, crumpled and dehydrated after a 12-hour flight, stepping into a hotel and being greeted with, Hey, hot stuff!, its a reminder that good marketing is as much about the feeling youre promising as the product youre offering. My excuse for visiting Vegas was to be the president of the first ever advertising awards jury to judge verbal branding: endlines, product naming and product copy. We were presented with the best examples of how marketing and advertising businesses around the world had used language in 2015. It was as much of an eye-opener as the rest of the town. American business has a way with words because American business has a way with thinking. Unabashed, focussed. It successfully applies a poetry of bluntness to writing. The country which invented Have a nice day! and You do the math also invented Snickers line, Youre not you when youre hungry. Its not hard to work out what the Tuff Shed company sells. What was most interesting was how advanced American business is at product naming. In Britain, naming is often done for free, thrown in by the designers who are doing the packaging. In America, its a standalone business. Quite simply, you dont plan a business, invest heavily in the R & D for a new product and then launch it without investing in the R & D for its name. I was delighted, as a business owner who has invested in linguistic skills on the team, to see that American business owners understand the importance of linguistics in crafting a name. Despite the bluntness in other areas of language, they make sure that subtle nuances of sound and meaning are incorporated into names. There is also an awareness of the different styles of names: Definitive (think British Airways or, ahem, Verbal Identity), Suggestive (Impossible Foods), and Esoteric (Talix). The fee for creating a memorable, trade-markable name in America apparently has a lot of 0s on the end of it and as a jury, we talked a lot about how language has an accountable, financial value. We were joined on the panel by a Wall Street journalist whose column is dedicated to the verbal assets of businesses and he explained the story behind Googles naming of its new phone, the Pixel. The final reminder of the value of the business of naming came on the journey back. Currently, the TSA (Americas airports safety authority) is doing a good job at reminding everyone how important it is to invest in creating distinct and different names for different product ranges. | BY Ricki Green | Australasian production company, Robbers Dog, has announced the signing of award-winning director, Matt Smukler, to its growing roster. An expert at delivering heartfelt films with a universal resonance, Smukler has directed ads for household names such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Oreo, and Reebok. Smuklers films demonstrate his flair for masterfully combining storytelling, naturalistic performances, and a charming, effortless sense of humour. His short film The Hiccup also earned him Best Comedy Short Film at the San Diego International Film Festival and finalist positions at Woodstock International Film Festival and Soho Rushes Short Film Festival and countless others. After beginning his career as an art director, Smuklers subsequent transition into copywriting led him to work at some of the best advertising agencies in the U.S., including a five-year stint at Goodby Silverstein and Partners. Leaving the agency to direct full time in 2003, Smukler went on to direct a host of commercials. Their recognition at award shows such as One Show, D&AD and Creative Arts have confirmed his natural talent behind the camera. Matt was recently nominated for best director at the 2016 AICP awards for his award winning commercial Duck for Iams. Says Smukler: I was looking to join a company that was small and nimble, yet still focused on doing amazing work. Robbers Dog seemed to be just that. Their hands-on mentality and spirit of working closely together with directors really chimed with my ideals. Alongside his commercial work Smukler is about to lock picture on his latest feature, I Dont Cry. The longform film is a documentary about 18-year-old track and field star from Henderson, Nevada, grappling with the usual task of raising her mentally disabled parents. Says Smukler: After learning of the familys situation, I was compelled to find out more. Her situation was so profoundly moving that I wanted to use this film as an opportunity to help further her education. She is an honour student but has very little time to focus on the college application process nor the funds necessary to pay for a four year university. Im hoping this film will serve as a contribution to her college application essay. Up until now, Ive been mainly focused on the US market so this signing is a great opportunity to expand my reach. Im looking forward to an exciting year. Smukler is also represented by Community Films in USA and Sonny London in the UK. Below, Smukler discusses his new feature documentary, why hes working in Australasia and what an ex-creative can bring to commercial directing You started your career on the agency side as an art director and copywriter. What made you decide to get behind the camera and become a director? MS: For as long as I can remember, Ive been interested in film and curious about how to bring stories to life. I was an English and film major in college and an actor when I was younger, so directing felt like a natural fit for me. Do you find that your agency experience comes in handy as a commercial director? MS: Having agency experience has definitely given me an advantage in terms of understanding the entire commercial production process. I look at a film from its conception. I consider everything from selling the idea through to the client, to collaborating with everyone and ultimately bringing the concept to life. I know how hard this can be, so I am always in awe when a great idea runs the gauntlet. Your films are often touching without coming off as too heavy-handed or cheesy, thanks to the subtle direction and naturalistic performances. Whats your method for capturing these intimate and convincing performances on camera? MS: I dont think there is a silver bullet but I will say I like to have fun. I try and create an environment where everyone is laughing and feels comfortable and okay with failing. To get those real authentic-feeling performances its so important to have a relaxed atmosphere that allows people to feel comfortable experimenting and often times making mistakes. With kids, I tend to cover the performances in a way that can feel spontaneous and free. If Im having fun and am relaxed I find that it can be infectious. Many of your commercials have a strong musical element. What techniques do you employ to tell a story without using any dialogue? MS: It all depends on the idea but I love music-driven pieces. If a film has no dialogue sometimes I will bring a certain music track that feels right and play it while we are shooting. I find it often gets people in the right mindset. There have been occasions when the track I play makes it into the final edit. Your films for Cheerios (Gracie) and Deutsche Bahn (Fan) have attracted praise for their progressive outlook in featuring an interracial family and a gay couple, respectively. What attracted you to these projects? MS: I love clients are who bold and willing to take chances. Its so hard these days to break through the clutter. When something comes along that is honest and true and relevant Im going to do my very best to not fuck it up! How would you define your style / what inspires you? MS: Im not sure I have a particular style. I will say Im inspired by smart, funny work, as well as evocative and thought-provoking ideas. I just try and bring stuff to life in a way that best suits the idea. The Hiccup won Best Comedy Short Film at the San Diego International Film Festival. What inspired the story and the style? MS: A lot of the short films I had seen were either too heady, trying too hard or just plain boring. I wanted to make a short film that was the opposite of this. Can you tell us a bit about your latest feature? MS: Its a feature length documentary called, I Dont Cry and its about an 18-year-old track and field star and incredible student named Christina, who is essentially raising her mentally disabled parents. After learning of the familys situation, I was compelled to find out more. Shes an honour student, a track star and shes raising her parents. I was hooked. This film actually has a dual purpose. Her situation was so profoundly moving that I wanted to use this as an opportunity to help further her education. I thought this film could help contribute towards her college application. Only 15% of the people at her public high school go onto four year universities. I thought this could be an amazing piece to showcase who she is in a much deeper way than any essay ever could. What was this experience like as a director, compared to your previous work? MS: It was very freeing. You can just walk into a situation and start shooting. We were a tiny three-person crew. Ultimately this was about capturing life as it unfolds. It blew my mind at times. I think that my background working with kids was very helpful in this situation. I wanted it to be as natural as possible and tell the authentic story of Christina, her friends and track team in the most invisible way. Everyone felt comfortable enough to be themselves in front of the cameras which was amazing. How did you learn about Robbers Dog and what made you choose it as your rep in Australasia? MS: I had heard great things about George [Mackenzie executive producer] from several people. We had some mutual friends through Peter Martin and they were on my radar. I wanted to join a company that was small and nimble, yet still focused on doing great work. I think that the whole process of commercial filmmaking is so collaborative. Being able to collaborate with the ad agency, as well as the production company was important to me. When production companies are really big, youre just one of many, and sometimes you lose some of that collaboration. What I like about Robbers Dog is that its a more hands on mentality. They work together with the directors to come up with the best possible solution from a production standpoint. They understand how important ideas are. What type of work are you looking for in Australasia? MS: Im looking for the same thing Im always looking for. Great ideas and working with fun, talented people. The type of comedy I see coming out of Australasia is right up my alley. For the most part its based in truth with understated performances. This reality-based comedy is something that I love, both as a viewer and someone who makes films. In the past few years, Ive been more focused more on narrative storytelling, but I miss comedy and Id love to get back to that. Monday, November 21, 2016 at 6:08PM The announcement hasnt officially been made in public but it seems Apple is ready to say goodbye to one product division: its wireless router business. Bloomberg reports that Apple has been working over the past year to shutter its internet networking division so it can focus on the products the generate most of its revenue. According to unnamed sources, these join other product development groups that have been shut down, like the group handling the Apple TV. Engineers who are working on these products are reportedly being moved to other teams. Apple current has three wireless routers the AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Time capsule. But it hasnt refreshed this line of products since 2013. These existing products are still currently on sale but the company has reportedly started pulling it out of retail stores and some of the devices are available online at discounted prices. Apple has yet to comment on the report. Source: CNET Kerlin commented on Cheyne's post: "Thank you thank you thank you Tara! There's a delicious irony with your selection of site. Malcolm Fraser was a Liberal Party leader who went on to become a true liberal, and one of our nation's foremost social justice campaigners, often against the actions of his old party." "We travel through time from a 1796 playbill [advertising a melodrama to be performed in Sydney] right through to 1988. The exhibition starts in black and white then becomes a technicolored journey ... It's a very visual exhibition with lots to enjoy. It's a banquet, I think. There are some unexpected things. The exhibition looks at the sorts of tools, for example celebrity endorsement, [as in Paul 'Hoges' Hogan's famous endorsements of Winfield cigarettes and Leah McCartney's endorsement of the Holeproof company's 'Gay Deceiver' sheer nylons] that have been used by advertisers to persuade and inform Australian customers." "It's just the peculiar mix of doctors who decided to set up in Canberra; this is a pattern that's gone on for more than 30 years, and it's pleasing it has gone up in the past 10 years, but it still has a long way to go before people will be able to get reasonable access." South China Morning Post - Three months after a territorial dispute led rioters to vandalise Japanese cars in China, carmakers from Toyota Motor Corp to Nissan Motor are luring back buyers with discounts and guarantees. But dealers like William Chen may need more persuasion to invest in the brands. "Sales of Japanese brands plunged about a third at my outlets," said Chen, whose family owns about 30 showrooms selling Nissan and nine other brands in the eastern city of Taizhou. "I would prefer safer brands over Japanese ones in the future." More distributors than ever are considering quitting Japanese car brands, even as showroom traffic and orders begin to rebound, according to the China Automobile Dealers Association. Failing to sign up enough new dealers will hurt Japanese carmakers, benefiting General Motors, Volkswagen and Hyundai Motor as they compete to expand in smaller Chinese cities where the bulk of future demand lies. "It's definitely going to affect the Japanese automakers' expansion," said Ivo Naumann, Shanghai-based managing director at AlixPartners, which advises companies on strategy. "If dealers had to choose between, say Toyota and Volkswagen, why would they choose a Japanese brand if they have to deal with this every two or three years?" About 1,800 Toyota, Nissan and Honda-branded cars were damaged during anti-Japanese protests in September, according to Guangzhou Automobile Group, which operates joint ventures with Toyota and Honda Motor. German, American and South Korean brands gained market share in October at the expense of Japanese marques, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said. Nationwide demonstrations erupted in China in September after Japan's government nationalised a group of uninhabited islands that China also claims. A Toyota and a Honda dealership were set on fire in the eastern port city of Qingdao in September during the protests. The owner, Wang Chongwei, suffered losses of as much as 80 million yuan (HK$99 million), Netease.com reported in October. Wang did not answer calls and text messages to his mobile phone. An employee who answered the phone at the Toyota dealership said they are focusing on fixing cars for customers. Though Wang's case is an extreme one, other dealers selling Japanese brand cars throughout the country have also been struggling with declining sales. The ensuing consumer backlash sent sales of Japanese car brands plunging 59 per cent in October, dragging their collective market share to a record low of 7.6 per cent, from 19 per cent in the first eight months of the year before the dispute escalated. "Investors look to maximise their profits and if sales tank, they will have to switch to other brands," said Liu Qingjun, general manager of Goldenport Holdings, which builds and operates multi-showroom sites. A Toyota dealership at its Beijing compound stopped selling cars last month after the islands dispute and the owner is now looking to sign up with non-Japanese brands, Liu said. "I have never seen so many dealers desert the Japanese brands," said Luo Lei, deputy secretary general of the state-backed car dealers association. "The psychological impact on buyers and dealers is unparalleled. Automakers have to figure out a way to address it, otherwise it will do long-term harm." A small number of Honda dealerships have stopped operations "out of their own considerations", said Zhu Linjie, Beijing spokesman for the company. GAC Toyota Motor, a Toyota joint venture, has pledged to waive punitive measures imposed on dealerships for failing to meet sales targets. Carmakers typically give bonuses or levy fines on dealers depending on whether they meet annual sales targets. "If dealers are worried about their survival, we will take measures to help them become more confident about their future income," said Feng Xingya, executive vice-president of GAC Toyota, at the Guangzhou car show last month. Feng said a dealer in Beijing had stopped taking cars from GAC Toyota. The company is sticking to its target of increasing its outlets in China to 600 by 2015 from the current 350, he said. Your digital subscription includes access to content from all our websites in your region. Access unlimited news content and The Canberra Times app. Premium subscribers also enjoy interactive puzzles and access to the digital version of our print edition - Today's Paper. Even in that short time, the number of casual nursing staff who deal with patients like grandma has increased dramatically. Australia has the second highest rate of casualisation within the OECD. Casualisation can be an excellent solution for those who want very flexible working arrangements. But it can be a real struggle for patients when they deal with one nurse after another; and it can be a struggle for those casual nurses to be brought into what might be called the communication loop. How does this hospital deal with challenges, compared with other hospitals? What's the handover like, the moment when one shift tells the next shift what's been going on? PHOENIX -- Gov. Doug Ducey agreed Monday to allow full-scale gambling at the Tohono O'odham casino in Glendale in exchange for a promise the tribe won't seek additional gaming sites in the Phoenix area. The deal officially is between the state and all of the tribes. It offers them some additional gaming opportunities -- more poker tables and keno games now and possible additional casinos after 2026 -- if they, too, will limit gaming to existing reservations until then. "It's about keeping Arizona money in Arizona,'' said Navajo Tribal President Russell Begaye. He said more gaming opportunities in state, including more table games and possibly more casinos after 2026, means fewer people going to Las Vegas or Laughlin. That aids not only the tribes but also the state which has a revenue-sharing agreement that now brings in about $100 million a year. All that could help compensate them for revenues they may lose to the Glendale casino they have until now opposed. "The time has come to allow each tribe more freedom in their gaming operations and give every nation the opportunity to have a seat at the table,'' Ducey said Monday at an orchestrated mass signing of the deal by 10 tribes. Notably absent was anyone from the Tohono O'odham Nation whose West Valley Desert Diamond casino in Glendale created the legal dispute in the first place. Chairman Edward Manuel would say only that the tribe is reviewing the proposal which it has had now for only a week. Kirk Adams, chief of staff to Gov. Doug Ducey, said this deal to "modernize'' the gaming compacts first authorized by voters in 2002 has been in the works for some time. But it comes just days before U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell is to hear arguments in the latest dispute between the state and the Tohono O'odham over whether the tribe has the legal right to operate a full-scale casino in Glendale, complete with slot machines and table games. The Tohono O'odham sued after the state denied the permits for Class III gaming after claiming the tribe engaged in fraud in 2002 by hiding its plans for the Glendale casino even as state officials and voters were told there would be no new casinos in the Phoenix area. In the interim, the tribe has opened the casino with Class II slot machines, essentially interconnected instant bingo operations. The tribe wants not only true slot machines but also table games like poker and blackjack. Federal courts have sided with the tribe in previous lawsuits over the issue. Gubernatorial legal counsel Michael Liburdi said he was "very confident'' the state would win the current lawsuit. Still, he said, it makes sense to settle. "As the governor has said, he's interested in doing the business of the state with as little legal activity as possible,'' Liburdi explained. "The way we view this is the Tohono O'odham Nation gets what they want: the casino in Glendale,'' he continued. "Allow them to have what they want and let's move forward with a new compact where all sides in the state could benefit.'' That benefit is financial. Mesa Mayor John Giles cheered the deal because of what it means to his community. He said the original 2002 deal included what voters believed was a promise that casinos would be limited to existing reservations. But that premise was undermined by the fact the Tohono O'odham took advantage of a little-known provision in that pact to buy land near Glendale, have it made part of its reservation and construct a casino there. "It settles some uncertainty a lot of the communities have felt in watching the events in Glendale,'' Giles said. "There's some nervousness that we might see casinos unexpectedly appear in other parts of the Valley.'' That fear also exists for other tribes in the Phoenix area, who compete for the same gaming dollars and who have fought the Tohono O'odham casino in court and in Congress for years. The deal allows the Glendale casino to remain, with an assurance there won't be more, at least not before 2026. While it appears to give the Tohono O'odham what it wants, the tribe remains leery after years of legal spats. Manuel, in his prepared response, specifically noted that Ducey's office did not notify tribal officials of the proposal until last week. "The lack of communication on this important issue is a concern,'' Manuel said. But he said the tribe "stands ready to consider compact amendment language that would resolve the outstanding litigation.'' And that specifically includes the right to full-blown Class III gaming. Representatives of 10 other tribes, including those who have been involved in prior litigation with the Tohono O'odham, showed up Monday to sign the deal and apparently are willing to settle. One sweetener includes an extra five gaming tables for poker or blackjack on top of the 100 already permitted for tribes in the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas; those in rural areas remain limited to just 75. And there are the two additional keno games per casino, double the existing number. But the real benefit could be long term. Now 16 tribes operate 23 casinos, each with a limited number of devices. What Ducey essentially is offering is the possibility of more sites -- and more revenue-generating machines and tables -- in the future. That was enough to get the support of the Gila River Indian Community which, with the closest casino to West Valley Desert Diamond, has been its biggest foe. Tribal Gov. Stephen Lewis called the offer offer of expanded gaming "the opportunity to see a substantial return for having kept our promise to Arizona's voters and leaders.'' Even non-gaming tribes might benefit: Hualapai Chairman Damon Clarke noted the law allows his tribe to make money by selling its rights to its gaming machines to other tribes. Still, there are other issues remaining, including the delays by the state in acting on the Tohono O'odham request for a liquor license at the Glendale facility. Adams said that remains under review. The battle traces its roots to the 1960 construction of the Painted Rock Dam on the Gila River, near what had been the San Lucy District of the Tohono O'odham Reservation. A series of floods from the dam made the nearly 10,000 acres economically unusable. In 1986 Congress gave the tribe $30 million to buy replacement land in Pima, Pinal or Maricopa counties, with the option of having it become part of the reservation. Then, in 2002, voters approved an initiative which gave tribes the exclusive right to conduct casino gaming in Arizona. It was promoted with promises gaming would be limited to existing reservations and specific limits on the number of casinos each tribe could have. Campbell has previously ruled that the language of the 2002 compact specifically allows tribes to operate casinos on reservation land acquired in this way. 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. BSE Institute Ltd and IDC Herzliya have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to offer collaborative programs, research initiatives, and student exchange programs. The MoU was signed in Delhi between Ambarish Datta, MD and CEO, BSE Institute Ltd and Prof. Uriel Reichman, President and Founder of IDC Herzliya, in the presence of Reuven Rivlin, President of the State of Israel, and HRD Minister of India Prakash Javadekar. "Israel has been a global leader in innovation and technology for many years. This tie up with IDC Herzliya is an excellent opportunity to develop Indian students in the domain of Innovation, technology and startups. This collaboration also helps us develop research based projects in the area of Cyber Security, Big Data, amongst other things. Along with IDC Herzliya, I am sure we will be able to prepare our students to face the challenges of the 21st century - today" said Ambarish Datta. "We are looking forward to this exciting chapter in our collaboration, jointly educating the youth of our countries to the challenges of the 21st century and the possibilities to develop entrepreneurial leadership, technological innovation, and joint commercial and social ventures." said Uriel Reichman. Both BSE Institute and Israel's IDC Herzliya aim to provide world-class education to the students through collaborative programs, research initiatives and student exchange initiatives. In addition, the MoU provides opportunities to students from both the countries who aspire to study abroad and exchange innovative ideas. BSE Institute Limited (BIL) is a wholly owned subsidiary of BSE Limited. BIL inherits from BSE the knowledge and insights into the capital markets industry, garnered over the past 140 years. IDC Herzliya is a university with 7000 students, consisting 1800 students from 86 different countries, brings a distinctive, interdisciplinary experience to Israeli academia. HAL & IISc Sign MoU To Start Skill Development Centre New Delhi: Sheffield Hallam University, one of the UK's largest universities with a reputation for focusing on your personal and professional development, is inviting applications for admission to more than 50 postgraduate courses for its January 2017 intake. As well, the university is offering Vice-Chancellor's Award on a 3,000 tuition fee discount for as many as 15 postgraduate courses starting in January 2017. The courses included in the scheme are in the areas of Business and Management, Biosciences and Chemistry, Computing, Engineering, Geography and Sociology and politics. Anna Toyne, regional manager for South Asia at Sheffield Hallam University, said: "We work closely with employers and professional organizations to ensure our courses are developing the skills which are required in business and industry. We hope Indian students take advantage of our Vice-Chancellor's Award to join our friendly, vibrant community of students and staff from more than 120 countries." "We are highly experienced at supporting Indian students who wish to study in the UK. We have an established office in New Delhi who can offer support and guidance on every aspect of studying with us, from completing your application form to booking our free airport pick-up service." She added. When to apply? There is no formal deadline for application to postgraduate courses but we recommend applying as soon as possible. How to apply? The application form for postgraduate courses for the University's January 2017 intake can be downloaded from Sheffield Hallam's website www.shu.ac.uk/international/how-to-apply or By contacting the University's office in Delhi on india@shu.ac.uk. Sheffield Hallam University's Vice-Chancellor's Award This discount scheme offers a 3,000 discount for international-fee paying students applying to a selection of full-time taught postgraduate courses. Full terms and conditions apply. Find out more at www.shu.ac.uk/vcawardjanuary2017 About Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield Hallam University is one of the UK's largest universities and has a rich and proud history which dates back to 1843. Sheffield Hallam has a friendly and multicultural community with more than 35,000 students including over 4,000 international students from 100 countries. Sheffield Hallam offers about 700 courses, many of which are designed in conjunction with business and employers. For further information, visit www.shu.ac.uk Sometimes its good to be reminded of just how good a car is by giving it go once more. In the case of the Mitsubishi Xpander, its the smal... The city of Flagstaff is asking the public for help in controlling impacts from the continuing influx of high occupancy apartment complexes. City staff held two open houses last week to provide information to and collect suggestions from the public on the subject. High occupancy apartment complexes, such as The Hub and The Standard, are typically leased by the bedroom and are usually geared toward college students. They range between 400 and 600 bedrooms per complex. City staff gave short presentations at the meetings on the citys zoning code, water resources, parking permit plans, property management, traffic, transit and what other cities in a situation similar to Flagstaff are doing. Residents who attended the meeting were asked to rate and make comments on a series of ideas that staff gathered from open housing meetings held in the summer. Some of the ideas included: limiting building height in commercial services and community commercial zones; adopting standards for the reuse of buildings; modifying the parking reduction incentives in transect zoning; better definitions of building types; increasing the off-street parking standards for transect zoning; and limiting how many parcels a developer can combine into one parcel or how large that parcel can be. Residents were also encouraged to put up their own suggestions for people to rate and make comments on. Student parking continues to be an issue with neighboring residents -- there are 21,000 students and 5,500 have bought on-campus parking permits, leaving many students to park on side streets and in lots near campus. Some ideas has been generated at previous meetings, including requiring Northern Arizona University students to buy university parking permits and to live on campus, with all high occupancy housing projects built only on campus. Residents also posted newer ideas such as expanding student bus passes to include the downtown area, requiring a conditional use permit for mixed use developments that have more than 29 units, and limiting the size of new development to the existing water and sewer infrastructure. A lot of the questions and suggestions centered on controlling high occupancy housing by changing the citys zoning code. Neala Kruger and Joseph Bogart, two interns in the citys planning department, described how six other cities that were similar in size to Flagstaff and had a similar-sized college or university dealt with the same types of development problems. For example Corvallis, Ore., created a university neighborhood overlay for their zoning code, Kruger said. The overlay protects the character of the neighborhoods near the university by limiting the scale of new development to the size of the lot. Boulder, Colo., which is also facing an affordable housing crunch, has required since 1999 that at least 20 percent of all new residential development to be permanently affordable for low- and moderate-income households, Bogart said. Ames, Iowa, home to Iowa State University, limits high occupancy housing to an area across the street from the campus. However, changing or tweaking Flagstaffs zoning code may not be an option. City Comprehensive Planning Manager Sara Dechter and City Zoning Code Manager Brian Kulina explained that under Arizona Revised Statute 12-1134, a property owner could sue the city if he or she felt that a new zoning law decreased the value of their property. Something as simple as reducing the building height allowed in a specific zone could trigger a lawsuit and require the city to compensate the property owner for the loss in value. One possible solution might be to create a list of incentives for builders to voluntarily do some of the things the community wants, such as lowering the height of building or adding more parking. Brian Kulina said one option might be to remove the citys cap on the number of residential units allowed in mixed-use projects. The city currently caps mixed use development at 29 units. The idea is to provide dwelling units that are close to the places that people shop and work and hopefully limit the use of cars in the area. Incentives could also be used to increase the amount of affordable housing in the city, he said. The question is how to balance the incentives developers want with what the public is willing to give up. City staff plans to hold the next meetings on high occupancy housing in the new year. Please Donate In order to maintain this blog I have to pay for its upkeep including a hosting company, support services, virus and other malicious hackers. If you appreciate what I write please make a donation. Racist PayPal Tries to Close Down My Blog As you can see from this article PayPal have removed my blog. I would therefore ask people to make any future donations to the following: Name of Account: Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre Account No: 04094107 Sort Code: 09-01-50 Reference: Web donations Doughnut brand Krispy Kreme has opened a store at Glasgow International airport. The doughnut shop will offer 15 different varieties and will be open seven days a week from 4am until the last flight. Judith Denby, chief marketing officer at Krispy Kreme, said she was delighted to open the site. There has been such a fantastic buzz after the launch and it is so lovely to see some of our newest guests getting their first experience of Krispy Kreme, she said. Krispy Kremes latest limited-edition doughnuts the Bonfire Toffee, Gingerbread Ring and Smores doughnuts - will all be on sale until 4 December. After sadly missing out on the fiery 2015 Honda Civic Type R, the U.S. will soon receive the next-generation model, due to launch next year. Although the model has only been revealed in Prototype guise so far, a tester was recently spied on the streets of California near Hondas American headquarters without any camouflage, looking ready for the production line. As with the previous Type R, this new model adopts aggressive and bold styling which makes even the Ford Focus RS look restrained. Of course, it will divide opinion and looks set to be a love-it or hate-it car. Beyond its looks, Honda is determined to make the Civic Type R the best handling front-wheel drive vehicle on the market. Although power outputs have yet to be confirmed, the turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder VTEC engine is tipped to offer up around 340 hp funneled through a six-speed manual transmission. Despite the Focus RS successfully shifting from front-wheel drive to all-wheel drive, the Japanese marque is remaining defiant of sending power through the fronts alone. Will it pay off? Only time will tell. VIDEO Through October, sales of the Colorado were up 29 percent compared to the same period in 2015 and, this year, deliveries will surpass the 100,000 mark for the first time in a decade. Thus, Chevrolet has every right to feel vindicated about its decision to bring back the nameplate, as it has proved naysayers wrong. The midsize segment was dead, you said. It would cannibalize the Silverado, you said, GM North America president Alan Batey told journalists last week at the launch of the range-topping ZR2 in LA last week, as reported by Autonews. Im pleased to announce that you were wrong. Having improved its retail market share in both midsize and full-size pickup trucks in 2016, Batey has every right to be jubilant. Moreover, with more than 50 percent of them being conquest customers in a market thats known for its brand loyalty is no mean feat, either. During an event where it demonstrated the off-road capabilities of the ZR2, GM execs pointed out that, due to its more compact size, it can fit into tighter spaces more easily than the Ford Raptor. Its amazing what a difference a foot of width makes off road, Chevrolets exec director of performance variants, performance parts and motorsport engineering Mark Dickens commented. The smaller size of the Colorado is a huge enabler for taking the ZR2 more places and getting through tighter spots than you would access with a full-size truck. Chevy is proud of the work that has gone into the most hardcore version of the Colorado and asserts it was part of its plan ever since it re-introduced the nameplate in 2014. The icing on the cake is the two vehicles that are traded in the most for it are the Toyota Tacoma, whose TRD variant is not, GM claims, as capable off road as the ZR2, and the Raptor. Photo Gallery Lamborghini is apparently planning to launch a revised version of the Aventador. This according to a trademark application uncovered by our compatriots over at AutoGuide. Filed just the other day with the European Unions Intellectual Property Office is an application is for the name Aventador S. The name would suggest not another version of the twelve-cylinder supercar to sit alongside the existing ones, but rather a facelifted model to replace it. Expect revised bodywork, an upgraded cockpit, revised electronics, and perhaps most enticing of all, a bump in output which AutoGuide suggests should amount to an extra 20-40 horsepower. Wed likely, then, be looking at about 720-740 metric horses, bringing the base model up to the output of the LP720-4 50th anniversary edition or even approaching that of the LP750-4 SuperVeloce or the 770-ps Centenario special. With the Paris show already behind us, we could be looking at a debut for the Aventador S at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show next spring. After that, we can expect an updated roadster to follow, and maybe an even more potent SV flagship. The update to the Aventador introduced in 2011 would give the model a new lease on life for another few years. The preceding Murcielago remained in production for over nine years, the Diablo before it for eleven, and the Countach for nearly sixteen years. Photo Gallery London Mayor Sadiq Khan claims that because of the Dieselgate scandal, VW now owes his city 2.5 million in missed Congestion Charge payments due. In a letter sent to the German automaker, Khan asked Volkswagen to fully compensate the city of London the previously mentioned sum of 2.5m, on behalf of vehicles claiming a discount they werent entitled to. According to congestion charge guidelines, any car which pollutes below 75g/CO2 and also meets the EU5 standard of air quality is to be exempt from paying the 11.50 Congestion Charge. Now, while VWs defeat device resulted in higher nitrogen oxide emissions rather than CO2 emissions, it still failed to comply with said Euro 5 legislation, as reported by Auto Express. As if VW wasnt feeling enough pressure already, Mayor Khan stated that he plans on using the 2.5m to fund a new schools air quality program that will raise awareness to the importance of clean air quality among London students. Out of the 500,000 VW cars estimated to be registered in London, up to 80,000 could contain the defeat device that initially enabled them to cheat their way into an Euro 5 rating during lab tests. In his letter to VW, Khan wrote: There is no excuse for the utter lack of action VW has taken in London since the dieselgate scandal came to life. I want to see a proper commitment from them to fully compensate the thousands of Londoners who bought VW cars in good faith, but whose diesel engines are now contributing to Londons killer air. I also urge them to reimburse TfL (Transport For London) the 2.5 million lost in Congestion Charge revenue, which I will use to fund a new schools air quality program that will reduce the exposure and raise the awareness of schoolchildren in London attending schools in the most polluted areas. PHOTO GALLERY Almost two years after Mercedes-Benz first suggested the possibility of a Maybach SUV, the companys global sales chief says that such a model is still on the cards. Speaking with Top Gear at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Matthias Luhrs confirmed the news but was eager to point out that no final decision has been given. We are looking at all sorts of options. A [Maybach] SUV is still one of themno decision has been made yet, he said. If the brand down bite the bullet and finally bring a Maybach SUV to fruition, it would be pitted against a range of rivals in the emerging market, including the Bentley Bentayga, Rolls-Royce Cullinan and even the Lamborghini Urus. Theres a potential that Mercedes is waiting for Rolls-Royce to release its SUV in order to gauge just how prosperous this market could prove. If the car is given the go-ahead, it will inevitably be based around the Mercedes-Benz GLS which in standard form, combines the luxury of the S-Class with the versatility and off-road prowess of an SUV. PHOTO GALLERY Photo: The Canadian Press One of Canada's most popular national parks is getting more positive publicity. National Geographic Traveler magazine has named Banff National Park in Alberta as one of the best destinations in the world to visit next year. The magazine likes Banff so much it put a picture of iconic Moraine Lake in the park on the cover of its Best of the World issue. The Rocky Mountain park is the only Canadian destination included on the list. Tourism officials say they hope the attention will draw more visitors to the park. The federal government is offering free admission to all national parks in 2017 to help mark Canada's 150th anniversary. Photo: Canadian Forces Industry sources expect the Liberal government to decide as early as Tuesday whether to purchase a new fighter jet without a competition. Federal cabinet ministers are reportedly considering three options for replacing Canada's CF-18s, one of which they are expected to pick during their weekly closed-door meeting on Parliament Hill. The options include holding a competition, buying a new warplane without a competition, or purchasing an "interim" aircraft as a stop-gap measure until a future competition. The government was eyeing the third option in the spring, with the intention of buying Boeing Super Hornets, until an outcry from industry and the opposition forced them back to the drawing board. But while Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan held consultations with different industry players in the summer, industry sources say the interim option is back as the preferred choice. Sajjan's office refused to comment on Monday, with a spokeswoman saying only that a decision still has not been made. Part of the problem for the Liberals is that while they promised an open competition, they also promised not to buy the F-35 stealth fighter. But the government has been struggling with how to fulfil that promise for fear any attempt to exclude the stealth fighter from a competition would result in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau nonetheless made his views of the F-35 known in June, when he panned the stealth fighter as a plane that "does not work and is far from working." The Liberals have emphasized the need for speed since Sajjan warned in the spring that Canada did not have enough CF-18s to meet its commitments to NATO and North American defence. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation Efforts to remove a sunken tug from the waters off British Columbia's central coast have wrapped up, but crews continue to clean up and survey the damage left behind. The latest situation report on the Nathan E. Stewart says a barge hauling the damaged vessel arrived in Surrey Saturday and the salvage operation is now considered complete. Protective booms in the Seaforth Channel, near Bella Bella, where the boat ran aground and sank last month have been removed, though teams continue to sample water, sediment, vegetation and tissue in the area. The report says results of the sampling will be released to the public in January or early February unless results show that immediate notification is necessary. The vessel was loaded with 237,262 litres of diesel fuel when it hit the reef on Oct. 13, spilling 107,552 litres of fuel and 2,240 litres of lubricants. Leaders with the Heiltsuk Nation have said there is still a lot of clean-up work to be done, and they have called on the provincial and federal governments to make sure the community is taken care of, both in the short and long terms. "The Heiltsuk people have lost the most in this disaster,'' Heiltsuk Chief Councillor Marilyn Slett said in a statement. "Our governments have the responsibility to work with us to ensure our people's needs are met.'' Photo: Flickr/BC Gov't The National Aboriginal Economic Development Board says Canada's GDP would get an annual boost of $27.7 billion if barriers were removed to ensure indigenous people can participate in the economy. The group's latest report, to be released Tuesday, says equal economic opportunity for indigenous peoples would help Canada address ongoing economic challenges caused by low productivity and demographic pressure from an aging population. It also notes the productivity of Canada's Aboriginal Peoples would match that of their non-indigenous counterparts if they received the same level of education and training. The report says an additional $8.5 billion in income could be earned every year by the indigenous workforce if education and training gaps are closed. For example, it suggests B.C. could stand to benefit to the tune of $1.4 billion a year in additional income earned by more than 125,000 workers, while Ontario could bring in an additional $2 billion through more than 169,000 workers. The board says the indigenous labour force is underutilized, despite the fact the indigenous population is young and growing fast. Dawn Madahbee Leach, the board's interim chair, says economic development can also assist in reconciliation efforts. "I can tell you first-hand, when somebody is provided with a job, they are able to provide for their families with regards to basic needs like shelter and food and then they become a role model for their children," she said. "This report deals ... with helping our people to help themselves through employment, through education and training." EasyCoffee is aiming to disrupt the coffee shop market in the next two years by opening 200 stores selling hot drinks at 1 a cup. Brand director Nick Paterson-Jones described the franchise company as the new kids on the block who would challenge everyone on price. Greggs and Starbucks will be key rivals of the business, which is backed by easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou. Launched in the UK in January, easyCoffee currently has three sites - two in London and one in Southend - but has been receiving interest from potential franchisees across the UK, particularly in Northern Ireland. Ideally we want to open sites in big shopping centres and travel hubs, places where there is a lot of footfall, Paterson-Jones told British Baker. The ideal store size would be 500 to 1,000sq ft, with limited seating. EasyCoffee aims to undercut rivals by selling cups of Lavazza coffee or tea for 1, with a 16oz cup at 1.60. Its food range is priced more in line with competitors, with a bacon, egg and cheese bap at 2.40; porridge at 1.95; smoothies at 2.80; and a cheese and ham toastie at 3.20. The company is expected to grow organically from its London base in the next year but may offer regional master franchises across the UK, covering areas such as Bristol or Manchester, Paterson-Jones said. New easyCoffee sites in locations including in Croydon, Uxbridge, Wembley, High Wycombe, Slough and Brighton are to open in the next six months. Plans are also in hand to launch vending machines for offices, shops, stations and airports. Paterson-Jones said the business had looked at acquiring existing chains to fuel its expansion. It would possibly go down the acquisition route in the future, but was not proactively doing anything on that front at the moment, he said. Currently the company is supplied by wholesalers including Brakes and JJ Food Service, he added. The easyCoffee chain is a partnership between Sir Stelios easyGroup and businessman Nathan Lowry, who has licensed the global easy brand. Photo: Thinkstock.com The Trudeau government intends to use its new infrastructure bank to finance a "nation-building effort" to build clean electricity systems between provinces and territories. But does that mean the decades-old dream of a pan-Canadian power grid is finally about to become a reality? Not likely. Sergio Marchi, president of the Canadian Electricity Association, says the technological know-how to transmit electricity for vast distances across the country doesn't yet exist and, even if it did, would be prohibitively expensive. More likely, Marchi believes the bank could be used to develop regional energy "interties" connections between two electricity systems between provinces. For instance, he said it could finance the infrastructure needed for British Columbia to transmit its abundant hydro power to Alberta, which is trying to shift off coal-fired electricity, or for Manitoba to transmit its hydro to Saskatchewan, which gets more than 40 per cent of its energy from coal-fired power plants. Similarly, he said more of Quebec's hydro could be transmitted to Ontario or to the Atlantic provinces. "I think regionally and picking our spots, I think that's very doable," Marchi, a former federal cabinet minister, said in an interview. "And so we already think that the federal and provincial governments on some of these interties are looking at that very thing and we're expecting the budget to unveil that." Creating a national energy grid, enabling some provinces' surplus hydro power to be transmitted across the country instead of south to the United States, has long been touted as a nation-building project, a way to strengthen east-west ties that bind Canada together and to counteract the pull of north-south ties. The government is planning to launch the bank next year, with $15 billion in direct federal investments and another $20 billion in repayable contributions, loans and loan guarantees. It hopes to leverage up to $5 in private investment for every $1 in government funding. Photo: file photo The trial for three people with ties to a fundamentalist polygamous sect in southeastern British Columbia begins today. Brandon Blackmore, Emily Crossfield and James Oler are accused of unlawfully removing a child from Canada with the intention of a sexual purpose. The 14-day trial will take place in Cranbrook, not far from the small community of Bountiful, where it's alleged some residents practice plural marriage. Blackmore, Crossfield and Oler are each accused of taking a person under the age of 16 into the United States for illegal purposes in 2004. None of the charges have been proven in court. Oler and Winston Blackmore, another leader in the divided community, will later face a separate trial on polygamy charges. Photo: The Canadian Press Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott had an emotional meeting Monday with some indigenous men from northern Manitoba who were switched at birth more than 40 years ago and only recently found out. "It was a moving conversation, hearing the stories of these men and the impact this has had upon their lives," Philpott said following the more-than-three hour meeting which also included relatives and indigenous leaders. "They spoke about how difficult this has been and also about their very sincere need and desire to heal from the trauma they have endured from this." The meeting stems from the discovery last year, through DNA testing, that Luke Monias and Norman Barkman ended up with each other's parents after being born at the Norway House Indian Hospital in 1975. This summer, DNA tests revealed a similar mix-up involving two other men born at the same hospital in the same year Leon Swanson and David Tait Jr. Philpott has called the mix-ups appalling and has launched an external review of what happened. The RCMP is also investigating. Only three of the men involved were able to make it to Monday's meeting. They did not speak with the media afterward. Gilbert Fredette, deputy chief of the Norway House Cree Nation, said Philpott's words were appreciated. "The families are happy with the steps moving forward," he said. Eric Robinson, a former Manitoba deputy premier, called what happened a crime and said the four men are contemplating legal action. He also called on the federal government to formally apologize in the House of Commons. Photo: Contributed A new report says employment in Canada's retail sector will hit a multi-year low in 2016 as companies adopt technology and trim costs in response to a weak growth in consumer spending. The Conference Board of Canada says the total number of jobs in grocery, clothing, department, home improvement, furniture and appliance stores will reach a multi-year low of 1.26 million in 2016, a decrease of 2.6 per cent from 2015. The Ottawa-based think-tank says the growth of online shopping and self-checkout terminals is helping retailers reduce labour costs. A gradual pickup over the next few years is expected to raise employment by 2021 to the level of 2013, according to the report released Tuesday. The Conference Board says fragile consumer confidence weighed down by record levels of consumer debt will continue to weigh on household budgets and curtail spending over the next couple of years. While debt will have a bigger effect on major purchases such as houses and vehicles, it says some consumers will remain more sensitive to prices when buying groceries, making it harder for retailers to pass on cost increases to consumers. Photo: Facebook A Newfoundland motorist is sharing a dramatic video of a wrong-way driver's near-crash with his own vehicle, in hopes of finding the man he says nearly killed them both. "It was so close," Michael Newhook told VOCM radio about the close call Monday morning, as a pickup truck attempted to pass a car on Peacekeepers Way in Conception Bay South near St. John's. In a Facebook post about the near-crash, Newhook encouraged people to share the video in an effort to "publicly shame" the driver. "He nearly killed us both today ... what a moron," Newhook said in the Facebook post. "If I didn't need a paycheque so bad I would have turned around and chased him." The video has been viewed 220,000 times and shared more than 5,300 times. It shows Newhook rounding a long curve to see a pickup truck in his lane. He utters a curse, lays on the horn and moves quickly to the shoulder as the truck misses his vehicle by perhaps a few feet. The car being passed seems unaware of the drama, making no obvious effort to get out of the way. "Wow!" Newhook says on the video. "Whooo!" Newhook said the whole thing seemed to go in slow motion and he says he could tell the driver was simply determined to pass the car. Photo: BC Ferries A brand new BC Ferry has embarked on a transatlantic journey, leaving Poland on Tuesday to start a 10,440-nautical-mile trip to British Columbia. The Salish Orca is the first of three new Salish-class vessels powered by natural gas. The 45-55 day journey will see the ship stop for refueling in Santa Cruz, Canary Islands and Panama City. After crew orientation and a series of public open houses in Powell River and Comox, the ferry will start sailing between those communities in spring 2017. This is an exciting day for BC Ferries as our newest ship, Salish Orca, is one step closer to joining our fleet, said Mike Corrigan, BC Ferries president and CEO. We look forward to introducing a new ship into service for our passengers on the Northern Sunshine Coast, which will improve reliability and customer service for years to come. BC Ferries will take final acceptance and ownership of Salish Orca after a final inspection once it arrives in B.C. Those interested, can track the ship's journey below: Photo: The Canadian Press The federal Liberal government says it will "explore the acquisition" of 18 new Boeing-made Super Hornet jets on an interim basis until it can decide on a permanent replacement for Canada's aging fleet of fighter planes. The government plans to meet with the U.S. and Boeing to purchase the 18 planes "at a cost, time, level of capability and economic value that is acceptable to Canada" in order to fill a "capability gap" in the country's air defences. The decision marks what will surely be another controversial turning point in the long, protracted effort to replace the air force's workhorse CF-18s, which Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says are long past due for replacement. "The government will launch, in its current mandate, a wide-open and transparent competition to replace the CF-18 fleet," Sajjan told a news conference Tuesday. In addition, we will enter into discussions immediately with Boeing on the acquisition of 18 Super Hornets to address the capability gap." Sajjan said the military will implement a range of new measures including recruitment and training in order to extend the range of service of the existing CF-18 fleet. "All of these actions, taken together, are necessary to address the situation this government has inherited." This past spring, the government had been eyeing the Super Hornets as a stop-gap option until an outcry from industry and the opposition forced them back to the drawing board. During last year's election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised not to purchase Lockheed Martin's F-35 stealth fighter, long the preferred option of the previous Conservative government. The government has been struggling with how to fulfil that promise for fear any attempt to exclude the stealth fighter from a competition would result in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit. Canada will remain a member of the multinational Joint Strike Fighter program, which gave rise to the F-35, Sajjan added. Photo: The Canadian Press A massive underwater turbine started generating electricity from the world's highest tides in the Bay of Fundy on Tuesday, a test project the Nova Scotia government says marks a turning point for Canada's renewable energy sector. North America's first in-stream tidal turbine was officially linked to the province's electricity grid around noon, said Cape Sharp Tidal, the consortium behind the ambitious project. The turbine is producing enough energy to power 500 Nova Scotia homes. "This is a proud and historic moment in Nova Scotia's global leadership in the responsible development of a renewable energy source," Nova Scotia Energy Minister Michel Samson said in a statement. "As we make the first in-stream tidal energy connection to the Canadian grid, we are ushering in a new era in marine renewable energy." The partnership behind the project includes Halifax-based Emera Inc. and OpenHydro, a French conglomerate that specializes in naval defence and energy. Its two-megawatt turbine was lowered to the bottom of the bay two weeks ago. The 1,000-tonne machine is about five storeys tall, but it is only a test model. It is anchored on the seabed at the eastern end of the bay in the Minas Passage, a five-kilometre-wide channel near Parrsboro, N.S. The powerful tides there left a smaller test turbine badly damaged in 2009. A second test turbine will be installed next year. The completed four-megawatt demonstration project will use a fraction of the 7,000 megawatt potential of the Minas Passage, the government said. Still, the renewable energy project will displace the need to burn about 2,000 tonnes of coal, the province said. That will eliminate about 6,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions the equivalent of taking 1,000 cars off the road each year. "This is a huge achievement," said Thierry Kalanquin, chairman of OpenHydro and a senior vice-president with DCNS. The province says more than 300 people have been employed on the project. "It's a promising economic driver and an important local source of clean energy with benefits for the whole province," said Nancy Tower, chief corporate development officer of Emera Inc., which also owns the province's electric utility, Nova Scotia Power Inc. Photo: WestJet A WestJet plane has landed safely in Prince George after an emergency forced it to divert from its original flight plan. Airline spokeswoman Lauren Stewart says the crew aboard WestJet Encore flight 3105 declared an emergency around 10:30 a.m. after experiencing a problem with the aircraft's front landing gear. The flight left Vancouver Tuesday morning bound for Terrace, but touched down instead in Prince George about 11:45 a.m. Stewart says the plane landed normally, and no one was injured. There were 40 people and four crew on board the Bombardier Q400. The Prince George Airport Authority activated its emergency operations centre and a spokeswoman says police, firefighters and paramedics are on scene. Photo: Contributed Vancouver police are warning drug users to be cautious after the seizure of an opioid believed to be 100 times more powerful than fentanyl. Police say two samples of a seized drug were sent to Health Canada for analysis in September and have been confirmed to contain trace amounts of carfentanil. The drug was believed to be heroin when it was confiscated from a man reported to be carrying a firearm in the city's Downtown Eastside. Police say early signs of an opioid overdose include severe sleepiness, slow heartbeat, cold, clammy skin, and trouble breathing, walking or talking. Anyone who observes such signs in someone who has taken illicit drugs is urged to call 911 immediately. Carfentanil has been detected recently in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta. Photo: Flickr- B.C. gov't Premier Christy Clark is promising to build almost 2,900 affordable housing units across British Columbia in an effort to increase the supply of rental options. The 68-project program was announced today at the site of a 40-unit housing development in Surrey for single mothers who have children with special needs. The government is spending $516 million on projects for adults with disabilities, seniors, youth, aboriginal people and single women with children. Housing Minister Rich Coleman says the funding largely comes from revenue collected through taxes on property transfers and foreign buyers. Coleman says he expects the housing projects to be built within two years, and some have already been slated to start construction. The projects will include: 22 in the Lower Mainland/Fraser Valley with 1,441 units, 18 on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands with 774 units; eight projects on the North and Sunshine Coast with 172 units; nine projects in the Thompson-Okanagan with 256 units; five in the Kootenays with 86 units; two in the Cariboo with 68 units; and two in the North with 31 units. Details of additional projects totalling 69 units in Kamloops and Prince George will be announced within the next week. Cambodia: new plant proposal 22 November 2016 A meeting between Chinese-owned Cambodia Capital Mineral Resources Co (CCMRC) and the Ministry of Mines and Energy saw Li Xiao Ming, CCMRC president, put forward the idea of building a cement processing plant to boost supply for the countrys construction industry. The meeting between CCMRC and the Ministry intended to seek government support before any feasibility studies begin. Minister Suy Sem implied that the project will receive government approval. Meng Saktheara, secretary of state at the ministry, said: It is good for us because although presently we can produce cement, it cannot meet demand so we still need to import. If they can set up the factory it will not only supply the market but they can also make exports to our neighbouring countries as well. The ministry estimates that cement demand in Cambodia will reach 5Mta next year. Investment in new and existing plants has also increased. CITIC Heavy Industries is set to build a US$262m 5000tpd plant in Kampot province while Siam Cement group has invested US$120m in a second production line at the same location. This second line will increase capacity to 0.9Mta. Published under 1. Boston Herald 7.85000liar, liar, pants on fire. :-) http://www.bostonherald.com/opinion/editorials/2016/11/editorial_scandal_free_obama I am very proud of the fact that we will knock on wood leave this administration without significant scandal. President Obama at his Nov. 14 news conference. Ah, the lie oft repeated . . . Define scandal. Or perhaps significant scandal. Well, lets start with the IRS scandal or is there another word for what happens when public officials in one of governments most sensitive departments make decisions based on ideology. Lets see, how about when any organization with the words tea party in its name applies for tax-exempt status? Lois Lerner, who headed the tax exempt division resigned. But guess thats only a significant scandal for those groups still waiting to hear back from the IRS. And what about the billions of tax dollars wasted on the Healthcare.gov website that had to be completely redone? Or the outright lies being told about waiting lists by Veterans Administration personnel and the vets who suffered as a result? Weve made mistakes, there have been screw-ups, Obama said, but I will put the ethics of this administration and our track record in terms of just abiding by the rules and norms, and keeping trust with the American people I will put this administration against any administration in history. Tell that to the family of a vet who died while on some fictitious waiting list. And how about the Solyndra scandal or is there a nicer word for what happened when the company lost more than $500 million in taxpayer dollars? Even the Obama-friendly Washington Post reported Obamas green-technology program was infused with politics at every level. An electric battery company that went belly up cost taxpayers another $280 million. There was the Secret Service prostitution scandal, which caused the resignation of the head of the Secret Service. The White House intruder incident in 2014 caused yet another resignation at the top. But our personal favorite was the scandal involving U.S. General Services Administration regional commissioner Jeffrey Neely if only because of the unforgettable photo of Neely in a bathtub, wine glass at the ready during a $822,751 conference he organized that the GSA Inspector General called excessive and wasteful. That resulted in five firings, including Neely, and the resignation of the head of the agency. But as Obama said, We had a strong Ethics Office. We had people in every agency whose job it was to remind people, this is how youre supposed to do things. It doesnt mean everybody always did everything exactly the way its supposed to . . . No scandal here, folks. Just move along. 2. Newmax: Barack Obama Scandal: 7 Controversies That Have Marred Obama's Presidency? http://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/barack-obama-scandal-fast-and-furious-obamacare/2014/12/22/id/613216/ It's nearly impossible to not find a Barack Obama scandal or controversy. The list can change almost daily. Here's a list of seven controversies that have become constant reminders of the ongoing dishonesty of the Obama presidency: Vote Now: Do You Approve or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? 1. The "Fast and Furious" operation under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) began as a way to allow firearms dealers in Arizona to sell weapons to illegal buyers in Mexico in the hope they could catch top dealers in the Mexican drug cartels. It didn't work out that way, and led to the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Obama resorted to the tired excuse of blaming former President George W. Bush for starting the operation, but it actually began in the fall of 2009, correspondent Jake Tapper informed White House press secretary Jay Carney, who had tried to repeat Obama's claim and couldn't respond during a press conference. 2. Obama's misinformation about the Affordable Care Act may have led to millions of Americans having no health insurance because of higher costs. After the bill that overhauled the entire medical industry was quickly passed through a super majority of Democrats in 2010, constant revisions to the plan haven't helped. The people who were told their health insurance premiums would go down saw them skyrocketing. Hundreds of thousands of people discovered their policies were canceled because of new regulations. 3. Former Obama associates have severely criticized the president's indecisive actions in the Middle East, particularly Syria and Iraq. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Obama "doesn't believe in his own strategy" and Leon Panetta, another former secretary of defense, admitted the terrorist threat has increased in the Middle East because of the president's policies. Urgent: What Do You Think of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now 4. The mistreatment of vets and mismanagement of care at the Veterans Administration has been detailed by the Government Accountability Office, with countless service members put on long waiting lists with no care for months or years. Obama promised consequences, but nothing came of it. 5. The IRS scandal broke after Obama's re-election and Obama said the press reports were the first he had heard about it. The IRS had been targeting conservative and tea party groups to exclude their tax-exempt status as the presidential campaign had been gearing up. Two years' worth of emails from the IRS commissioner at the time, Lois Lerner, mysteriously disappeared during an investigation. 6. Benghazi remains a controversy that won't go away, despite a House committee's seeming exoneration of the Obama administration, although certain matters weren't addressed and further investigations continue. The administration first tried to blame the murder of three Americans at the Libyan embassy on an anti-Muslim video, but it was soon clear it had been a well-orchestrated terrorist attack. The Obama administration failed to protect the embassy despite pleas from U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who died in the attack. 7. Even the press doesn't escape Barack Obama scandal controversies. The Obama administration's Justice Department snooped into the phone records of Associated Press reporters to find out about a leak. James Rosen, a Fox News reporter, was accused of criminal activity by the department as an excuse to pry into his phone calls and emails. Vote Now: How Do You Rate Obama Compared to Other Presidents? []*ST: 20161122 16:00:54 Wafangdian Bearing Company Limited Announcement of receiving government grants The Company, all the members of the Board of Directors and top management hereby guarantee the truth, accuracy and completeness of the information disclosure, no any false records, misleading statements and major missing contents. The Company has received government grants with the amount of 2,966,033.57 Yuan on November 18, 2016. This Steady post subsidy was paid by Unemployment insurance fund of Dalian Employment Management Center. According to the Notice about the issue of unemployment insurance support enterprise on post steady made by Dalian Bureau of human resources and social security. For the enterprise taking effective measures to no layoffs, fewer jobs and stable jobs, the unemployment insurance fund will give a stable job subsidies. Due to the company meet the rules both in 2014 and 2015 year, thus can enjoy the subsidy. The government grant will affect to the annual profits and losses of 2016 with amount of 2,966,033.57 Yuan. Specially announcement Board of Directors of Wafangdian Bearing Company Limited November 22, 2016 Wafangdian Bearing Company LimitedAnnouncement of receiving government grantsThe Company, all the members of the Board of Directors and top management hereby guarantee the truth,accuracy and completeness of the information disclosure, no any false records, misleading statements and majormissing contents.The Company has received government grants with the amount of 2,966,033.57 Yuan on November 18,2016. This Steady post subsidy was paid by Unemployment insurance fund of Dalian EmploymentManagement Center.According to the Notice about the issue of unemployment insurance support enterprise on post steadymade by Dalian Bureau of human resources and social security. For the enterprise taking effective measuresto no layoffs, fewer jobs and stable jobs, the unemployment insurance fund will give a stable job subsidies.Due to the company meet the rules both in 2014 and 2015 year, thus can enjoy the subsidy.The government grant will affect to the annual profits and losses of 2016 with amount of 2,966,033.57Yuan.Specially announcementBoard of Directors ofWafangdian Bearing Company LimitedNovember 22, 2016 When Beatrice City Council member Joe Billesbach arrived at Monday's meeting at 7 p.m. he assumed his Salsa Warbird bicycle was secure on the bike rack of his vehicle, but when he left the meeting an hour later, it was gone. "Yesterday was one of the few times I didn't put a lock on it, but I was in a hurry," he said. He said that he had reason not to worry. The meeting was held in the Beatrice Public Schools Administration Building with Beatrice Police Chief in attendance, and the council members were in session for less than an hour. It was during that hour that a perpetrator stole the bright neon yellow bicycle off of Billesbach's vehicle. The theft has been reported to the Beatrice Police Department and Billesbach has posted pictures of the bike onto multiple outlets via Facebook. He estimates with all the accessories the bike is worth around $2,500. "Hopefully it's not somebody retaliaiting over how I voted," he joked. Anybody who sees the bright neon yellow Salsa Warbird should contact Billesbach directly at 402-239-3208 or the Beatrice Police Department at 402-223-4080. A reward is being offered. Neapco is keeping a holiday tradition alive this year with the Beatrice manufacturing companys annual turkey donation. In addition to giving each employee a turkey, totaling more than 300, for the last few years the company has also donated turkeys, other food and funds to the Community Food Pantry and Emergency Services. Neapco delivered most of the turkeys Tuesday morning, as well as a sizable donation of other food provided by Neapco workers. A $500 donation is also being made to the pantry. Kristi Rahe of Neapco said the company looks forward to supporting the pantry each year. Its a community service project that we like to support to help the community out, she said. There are people who are less fortunate than those of us that are working. Karen Mains, who has been the coordinator of the pantry for more than three years, said the pantry ran out of turkeys on Monday, and she appreciated the donation. She added that this years food drive was successful, and the pantry is well stocked with most items. Were really stocked right now, she said. Our shelves are full. I was very impressed with all the help. We had 119 volunteers here on that Saturday when the food came in that went to pick up the food. While many items are in high supply, she added broth, ketchup, jelly, oil, flower and sugar are things the pantry could use more of. Mains said the pantry provides assistance to more than 5,000 people annually, and the biggest need for donations comes in the summer, when kids are out of school and need meals at home. There is a need for the children, she said. I have a soft spot for children and a lot of those children need food. I got started and it just grows on you. You just want to stay here. You want to help people in need. Those wishing to donate or receive help can visit the food pantry, located inside the St. John Lutheran Church on North Sixth Street in Beatrice. Private Benjamin Howard, 18, of Wymore, graduated from United States Marine Corps boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego on Nov. 4, 2016. Private Howard successfully completed 13 weeks of intensive basic training at MCRD San Diego as one of 85 recruits in Training Platoon 1073. While in recruit training, Private Howard accomplished/achieved the following: Rifle Expert. Following his ten days home on leave, he reported to Camp Pendleton for one month at Military Combat Training and then will report to his Military Occupational Specialty school. Private Howard previously graduated from Beatrice High School and is the son of Andrea Welch and step-son of Wymore Police Chief Jay Welch. University of Michigan researcher reports that crops used to produce biofuels don't remove enough carbon dioxide from atmosphere to offset lost food crop production Motor vehicle "biofuels" like ethanol made from corn and soybeans may cause more carbon emissions than gasoline, based on a new study from John DeCicco, a professor and researcher at the University of Michigan Energy Institute, challenging claims by environmentalists that vehicles using biofuels are better for the environment than cars and trucks running on traditional gasoline and diesel fuel made from crude oil.The research, which measures absorption of carbon dioxide by crops during the farming phase of biofuel production, was published not long after the North Carolina General Assembly gave a green energy tax credit "carve-out" to Biochemtex, a Wilmington-based global technology company. The action exempted Biochemtex from a law that ends the state's renewable tax credits on Jan. 1, 2017. While the tax credit will expire, Biochemtex will receive an additional $50 million in tax credits for use in a Sampson County biofuel plant building project to be completed by 2020.DeCicco, who for the past nine years has studied the impacts of biofuels on the environment, said that taxpayer-subsidized "green energy" projects are problematic nationwide.DeCicco told Carolina Journal.But given his findings, DeCicco said he believes that government investment in biofuels and other renewable energy sources mismanages taxpayer dollars.DeCicco said.Biofuel production often fails to balance the effects of CO2 emissions, since corn or soybean crops that otherwise would be grown for food instead are grown to produce biofuels, including biodiesel fuel, DeCicco added.he said.Though DeCicco's research looks specifically at corn and soybean production, rather than experimental crops such as those that Biochemtex is likely to use to produce its biofuels, he said the environmental effects are likely to be the same, since it is probable that the experimental crops will displace food crops.The study's conclusion flies in the face of state and federal subsidies that support projects like Biochemtex's commercial-scale biofuel plant, he concluded.The Biochemtex subsidy exemption was passed this June as part of the N.C. Farm Act of 2016, a move that led to some disagreement among state House members.Rep. Chris Millis, R-Pender, who supported a full sunset of renewable tax credits, introduced an amendment during the House floor debate that would have denied Biochemtex its exemption from state law. That amendment ultimately failed.Millis told CJ.Supporters of the exemption cited job development as a reason to extend Biochemtex's access to renewable tax credits.Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, said during the June House debate.Millis, who said he supports renewable energy projects that don't depend on government funding, added he hopes that research such as DeCicco's will erode support among lawmakers for public subsidies to renewable energy industries.Millis said.Millis said the state law is "riddled with carve outs for the [renewable] industry, above any other type of industry in the state," he added. All told, he said,DeCicco's study has stirred criticism because it was funded by the industry-backed American Petroleum Institute. But the research proposal was written before API agreed to fund the study, and the study itself was open to public scrutiny - and the findings not subjected to any "gag orders" from the institute, DeCicco said.he said.Biochemtex representatives had not responded to numerous telephone calls and emails requesting comments for this story at press time. Dollar did not return phone calls seeking comment. With the 2022 midterms just around the corner, Democrat lawmakers have formed the "United States House Select Committee to Investigate Who Did All Those Lockdowns and Vaccine Mandates" in hopes of finding out just who was behind all of those school closures, mask mandates, arrests North Carolina parents are asking for more education options for their children. Currently one of the most popular options is vouchers (Opportunity Scholarships and Special Needs Scholarships). Two states - Arizona and Florida - have pioneered the use of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). ESAs are parent-controlled accounts intended to pay approved educational expenses. Three other states have approved ESA legislation, while a number of other states - including North Carolina - have introduced ESA legislation.What follows is a brief FAQ on vouchers and ESAs in North Carolina.Unlike a voucher, which usually has a specified purpose, such as tuition in a private school, an Education Savings Account gives parents the freedom to choose how they want to spend the funds in their account. Arizona, which passed the nation's first ESA in 2011, allows parents to use money for tuition, online courses, textbooks, tutoring, and a variety of other approved education products and services.As a result, ESAs give parents more control over what their children will learn and how they learn it. In addition, because ESAs put parents in charge for how funds are spent, ESAs provide an incentive for parents to economize, a value that is largely absent from any discussion of vouchers. The accounts' ability to shape a child's education, direct educational spending, and incentivize spending are reasons why many believe ESAs are the future of school choice.Special needs students in North Carolina are eligible to receive up to $8,000 per year for tuition, required fees and certain other expenses related to educating a child with a disability. If the school participates in the Disabilities Grant Program, the program will mail tuition directly to the school [i] While the Disabilities Grant Program is certainly helpful in meeting the educational needs of special needs students, the varied nature of these needs highlights the program's limitations. For example, parents who would like to purchase special education therapies, related services, educational technology or attend a school that is not in the Disabilities Grant Program will have to provide all costs up front and be reimbursed later. Such an arrangement is helpful for those who have the financial wherewithal to front the costs, but offers no assistance to families that don't have the resources to pay the costs upfront.Critics of ESA/voucher programs claim that school choice programs drain resources from the public schools. Let's remember that if a child leaves the public school system using an ESA or a voucher the school is relieved of its obligation to educate the child. That's true whether the child enrolls in a private school or a public school.When revenue follows the student and a student goes elsewhere, schools think they have less money. Several factors are at work to suggest that isn't always the case. First, many states, including North Carolina, have formulas that work to moderate the impacts of steep increases or decreases in enrollment. The effect is to provide schools with actually more money than warranted under strict enrollment formulas. Secondly, if students leave the system, total monies may be less but per pupil support may actually increase, since there are fewer students. This will vary depending on long-term and short-term marginal costs.Finally, state and local governments frequently increase per student spending following creation of a school choice program. After implementing a school choice program in 19XX the Milwaukee Public Schools, , per student spending increased 58 percent from 1992-2011. Similarly, per student spending in the Cleveland Public Schools increased 62 percent from 1997 to 2011 [ii] after the onset of their school choice program.School choice critics call ESAs unconstitutional because they will fund religious schools. However, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002 [iii] ), the United States Supreme Court upheld a Cleveland, Ohio voucher program that allowed children to use public tax dollars to attend religious schools. The court ruled the program was constitutional because it was neutral between religious and nonreligious alternatives and because the decision to attend a schools was made not by the state but by the parent who could choose from both secular and sectarian options.That ruling said vouchers for private schools do not violate the US Constitution. But what about state constitutions? Many states adopted Blaine amendments to prohibit the flow of state aid to sectarian schools.North Carolina, however, has no Blaine amendment. In July 2015, the North Carolina Supreme Court said Opportunity Scholarship vouchers do not violate the North Carolina State Constitution [iv] . The court wrote that the constitution doesn't prohibit lawmakers from appropriating "general revenue to support other educational initiatives." Secondly, in response to the plaintiff's claim that there is no public purpose served allowing scholarship recipients to attend a private school, the court held that the legislation still served a public purpose sinceSuch a statement incorrectly assumes that private schools should be the same as public schools and that accountability should look the same. Accountability is important. However, it is also important that the type of accountability fits the school.Schools that accept vouchers and ESAs are accountable to their students in a variety of ways. Private schools are already required to comply with various health, safety and nondiscriminatory regulations. Academic quality is maintained through membership in accrediting associations as well as having students participate in nationally-recognized standardized tests. Fiscal health is maintained by requiring schools to administer financial audits.While these steps are helpful, ESAs and vouchers already include the ultimate source of accountability - parents. Since private schools derive the overwhelming majority of their revenue from tuition, these schools have a built-in incentive to be receptive to the concerns of parents, or else risk closing. If parents are dissatisfied with the education their child is receiving, they can remove the child from the school. In the vast majority of public schools, no such option exists. In November, the Paris Climate Agreement goes into effect to reduce global carbon emissions. To achieve the set targets, experts say capturing and storing carbon must be part of the solution. Several projects throughout the world are trying to make that happen. Now, a study on one of those endeavors has found that within two years, carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) injected into basalt transformed into solid rock. Lab studies on basalt have shown that the rock, which formed from lava millions of years ago and is found throughout the world, can rapidly convert CO 2 into stable carbonate minerals. This evidence suggests that if CO 2 could be locked into this solid form, it would be stowed away for good, unable to escape into the atmosphere. But what happens in the lab doesn't always reflect what happens in the field. One field project in Iceland injected CO 2 pre-dissolved in water into a basalt formation, where it was successfully stored. And starting in 2009, researchers with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Montana-based Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership undertook a pilot project in eastern Washington to inject 1,000 tons of pressurized liquid CO 2 into a basalt formation. Bottles of Pepsi in a cooler at a convenience store in July 2015 in San Francisco. Pepsico is a client of ItemMaster. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) ItemMaster, which creates product information tools for food brands and retailers, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding, its investors announced Tuesday. New Jersey-based Edison Partners led the round. Chicago Ventures, which led ItemMaster's seed funding, also participated. Advertisement The company will use the funding to nearly double its staff and invest in its technology, said CEO Michael Murray. ItemMaster was incubated inside Skokie-based grocery delivery company Peapod since 2009, before spinning off as an independent company this past March. ItemMaster and Peapod still share the same Skokie address, but Murray said neither Peapod nor its parent company, Ahold Delhaize, owns a part of ItemMaster. Advertisement ItemMaster offers tools for food brands to create detailed and accurate product labels. It also offers a platform through which food brands can update product information online, so that retailers can better categorize products. It integrates with retailers including Peapod, Walmart and Instacart, Murray said. He said ItemMaster uses structured data to better categorize items that fall into specialty categories such as paleo, gluten-free and low-sodium. "The content we build for the digital shelf is also fantastically backwards-compatible, so we power (the retailer's) environment and provide information into planning, marketing and merchandising," Murray said. ItemMaster works with 1,700 manufacturers and 85,000 products, Murray said. The company's website lists brands including General Mills, Unilever and Pepsico among its clients. Through 2017, ItemMaster will focus on the "packaged goods" market in the United States, which includes items found in most grocery stores, such as manufactured foods, dry goods and health and beauty products, Murray said. He hopes to expand into over-the-counter pharmacy and pet products, as well as international markets, in the future. Murray said the company has about 50 employees and plans to add another 40 to 50 in technology, customer success, product and innovation in the next 12 to 18 months. ItemMaster will also move its headquarters to downtown Chicago in early 2017, he said, though the company has not settled on an office location yet. It will maintain a "brand activation" center in Skokie, and will open others across the country, he said. aelahi@tribpub.com Twitter @aminamania "I am writing to request a 60-day extension of the public comment period on the draft Director's Order #100. As you know, this proposed directive has far-reaching implications for park management. As such, it is inappropriate for the Park Service to provide the taxpaying public, who stand to be most affected by these changes, with only 30 days to review and comment. That is particularly true when that 30 days coincided with the height of the electoral season, where the public's attention was rightly focused on the choices they faced in the voting booth at the national, state and local level. I also write in strong support of the comments filed by Todd Roessler on behalf of Fight for Cape Lookout - a coalition of small business owners, fishermen and citizens concerned about public access at Cape Lookout National Seashore. I have attached a copy of those comments for your review. Mr. Roessler spells out how the draft directive is inconsistent with the laws passed by Congress that govern park management, as well as the Park Service's own policies. Furthermore, the directive is likely to be used to impose significant restrictions on taxpaying Americans' access to the national parks they pay for and enjoy. That is unacceptable, particularly when done by administrative fiat. I urge you to give these comments every consideration, and I join Mr. Roessler in calling for the directive to be rescinded." WASHINGTON, DC Today, Congressmen Walter B. Jones (NC-03) joined local citizens' group 'Fight For Cape Lookout' in pushing back on the National Park Service's draft Director's Order #100, a proposal that could have far-reaching implications for park management in Eastern North Carolina and across the country. In a letter sent to Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis, Jones requested a 60-day extension of the public comment period on the proposed draft; consideration of Fight for Cape Lookout's comments on the draft; and ultimately, a recension of the Director's Order #100. The Park Service's original 30-day comment period on the order is scheduled to close today.Text of Congressman Jones' letter to Director Jarvis follows below:Click for the letters from Congressman Jones and Fight for Cape Lookout Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital has agreed to pay $20 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a former Chicago attorney who suffered brain damage after he was allegedly misdiagnosed. Christopher Zinski, of Wheaton, went to Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield late one night four years ago complaining of a headache, neck pain, vomiting and disorientation. The then-50-year-old man was given pain medication and sent home, said his attorney, Kevin G. Burke of Burke Wise Morrissey & Kaveny. Advertisement Two days later, Zinski collapsed at his desk at law firm Schiff Hardin, where he was a partner. He had suffered a stroke, according to the suit filed in Cook County Circuit Court in 2013. He sustained serious damage to his short-term memory and can't remember any new information for more than about a half hour, Burke said. "He's never going to have a normal life again," Burke said. "He's never going to have the career he could have finished with. He's never going to have the friendships he enjoyed." Advertisement Judge Thomas Lyons signed an order approving the settlement Monday. A trial in the case started Oct. 28. Northwestern Memorial HealthCare spokesman Christopher King said in a statement that Northwestern's mission each day is to provide patients with high-quality, compassionate care. "While we believe the care provided at that time was appropriate, we hope this settlement brings closure to the patient and his family," King said in the statement. At the time Zinski visited the hospital, it was part of Cadence Health, which Northwestern Memorial HealthCare acquired in 2014. Zinski and his wife, Pattie Zinski, alleged the hospital was medically negligent. Those who treated Zinski should have ordered a CT scan and consulted with a neurologist, they alleged. A CT scan would have revealed the problem, Burke said. At that point, doctors could have performed a procedure to stop a recurrence of the bleeding in Zinski's brain, preventing the damage he ultimately suffered, Burke said. In an email, Pattie Zinski called brain injury a devastating tragedy for many families. She said she hopes her family's story sparks change in hospital policy so other families don't have to experience what her family has endured. The Zinskis have four children. "The person Chris Zinski was when he left for work on Sept. 17, 2012, at Schiff Hardin and the person he is today are two separate people," Pattie Zinski said. "We will always miss the father and husband that Chris was but we will always care for him and treasure the rest of the time we have with him." lschencker@chicagotribune.com Advertisement Twitter @lschencker William Terlato, President and CEO of Terlato Wine Group in Lake Bluff, does a final tasting of a line of 2014 cabernets and shares the companys thinking after losing the Santa Margherita brand of pinot grigio. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune) To chart its course into the future, Lake Bluff-based Terlato Wine Group first had to let go of a significant part of its history and, at least temporarily, a whole lot of money. When Terlato parted ways with its flagship Santa Margherita pinot grigio last year, it bid farewell to almost one-third of its business. Terlato and Santa Margherita couldn't come to terms, ending a long-running arrangement in which Terlato marketed and imported the Italian wine. Terlato is widely credited with creating demand for pinot grigio in the U.S., beginning when Tony Terlato introduced Santa Margherita to the U.S. in 1979. Advertisement How to move on from that kind of loss? It helps to sell one of the fastest-growing wines in the U.S. in The Federalist, a millennial-targeted wine cleverly marketed in conjunction with "Hamilton," the wildly popular Broadway musical. Together with Seven Daughters, another wine marketed toward young drinkers, the two upstart brands have helped Terlato make up the lost Santa Margherita business and then some, executives say. The Terlato Wine Group has enjoyed success with The Federalist wines, which are marketed in conjunction with Hamilton, the wildly popular Broadway musical. (Terlato Wines) Terlato, a privately held company, doesn't disclose revenue or profit figures. But Bill Terlato, president of the company and Tony Terlato's son, said the business is on pace for a record sales year, even after moving on from its top-selling wine. Advertisement "I can tell you, in retrospect, that even though it was not pleasant and kind of an emotional decision for us, especially for my dad who created the category and the brand, in retrospect it was the best thing that ever happened for us," Terlato said. "Being able to shift that energy and attention over a broad basket of brands has allowed some of those brands to explode," he said. None more so than The Federalist, a brand paying homage to the Founding Fathers that's served at "Hamilton" productions in New York and Chicago. In the past five years, The Federalist brand has gone from zero to 200,000 cases in sales volume, Terlato said, with accelerating growth in the past 18 months as three new wines were introduced: Lodi Cabernet Sauvignon, Lodi Zinfandel and Honest Red Blend. Bill Terlato, president of Terlato Wine Group, does a personal tasting Nov. 18, 2016, at the company's Lake Bluff headquarters, a final test before six wines are shipped. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune) The Federalist retail sales have more than tripled in the 12-month period ending Oct. 31, up to about $8.4 million from about $2.5 million the same period a year ago, according to data from Chicago-based market research firm IRI, whose figures do not include Costco, liquor and convenience stores. The brand's intended to target millennial men, said Terlato, who said he believed some of its success had to do with a pining for the Founding Fathers' integrity in politically divisive times. But the "Hamilton" musical's success was a stroke of sheer luck, he admitted. This new generation is experimental. ... You have to be willing to explore and try new things, otherwise you'll be on the wrong side of that consumer. Bill Terlato "The better you plan and the harder you work, the luckier you get," Terlato said. Seven Daughters, a brand marketed toward millennial women, is also available in cans another indication that Terlato, a company that traces its roots back to 1938, is turning toward youth. The company's vast portfolio still includes upper-end wines like Gaja Barbaresco, which can easily sell for more than $200 a bottle. But much of Terlato's volume growth is occurring in wine priced in the $15 to $20 range, positioned for a younger audience. Advertisement "This new generation is experimental. ... You have to be willing to explore and try new things, otherwise you'll be on the wrong side of that consumer," Terlato said. Though the baby boomer generation still consumes the largest volume of wine, the millennials are quickly closing the gap, according to research from the Wine Market Council, an industry trade group. Increasingly, winemakers are paying attention to the younger demographic of drinkers, said Emily Pennington, managing editor of Wine & Spirits Daily, a trade publication. In recent years, consumers may have noticed brands like Menage a Trois and Little Black Dress, marketed toward millennial women. Bill Terlato, president of Terlato Wine Group, observes wines' color during a personal tasting Nov. 18, 2016, at the company's Lake Bluff headquarters. Terlato sells one of the fastest-growing wines in the U.S., The Federalist, which is marketed in conjunction with the Broadway musical "Hamilton." (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune) Lately there's been an uprising of brands targeting millennial men, wines with bold, swashbuckling names and masculine labels, such as The Federalist, 19 Crimes and Ravage, Pennington said. "In my opinion, they're trying to capture market share from craft beer," Pennington said. Now before the next economic recession hits is the time for wine companies to appeal to millennials, who have shown a willingness to pay more for quality than other generations, said Bob Smiley, director of Wine Industry Studies at the Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Davis. Advertisement "Millennials are seeking variety. ... It's much easier than it used to be to build a new brand," said Smiley, who's also dean and professor emeritus of management. And yes, Smiley admitted, that even means wine in a can, a la Seven Daughters. "I'm a traditionalist. I find it hard to believe it will work, but the evidence says it's working," Smiley said. Terlato's success can't all be attributed to the emergence of its younger brands. The company also recently made new arrangements to import and market other brands, such as Piper-Heidsieck champagne, which sells for about $49 per bottle and is a big seller over the holidays. And the company's in talks to acquire two more vineyards, one in Oregon and the other in Washington, Terlato said, declining to give any more specifics. About half of Terlato's wines are agency brands, like Piper-Heidsieck, which means Terlato exclusively markets and manages the selling of the wine. Brands owned by Terlato, like Rutherford Hill, constitute the other half. Last year, Terlato also merged its spirits business with that of South Africa-based Distell Group, creating a new joint venture that's operated as Terlato's spirits division, which represents about 7 percent of the business another area of potential future growth, Terlato said. Advertisement While Terlato hasn't given up pinot grigio, it represents a smaller portion of the business these days. Last year, Terlato sold about 600,000 cases of Santa Margherita before the partnership ended. This year, Terlato said he expects to sell about 40,000 cases of its Terlato Pinot Grigio Friuli, a relatively new brand the Terlato family created in conjunction with Italian winemakers in the Friuli region of Italy. Bill Terlato said that in the final days of the partnership with Santa Margherita, he and his father and brother, John, had tough conversations on the company's future before presenting a final offer. Ultimately, Santa Margherita opted to go its own way, establishing a Miami-based marketing arm to import its flagship pinot grigio and other Italian wines. There seem to be no regrets lingering in the restored Armour family mansion in Lake Bluff that serves as Terlato headquarters. "That's in our rearview mirror now. We're focused forward. We can't worry about the past," Terlato said. gtrotter@chicagotribune.com Twitter @GregTrotterTrib Most of the press was preoccupied last week with a New York theater audience's spontaneous decision to tell Vice President-elect Mike Pence what it thought of his record as a crusader against women's reproductive and LGBT rights. But the real news about the incoming administration was being made in court. That's where lawyers for President-elect Donald Trump reached a $25-million settlement of three lawsuits over Trump University. Trump depicted the settlement on Twitter as a victory. Advertisement "I settled the Trump University lawsuit for a small fraction of the potential award because as President I have to focus on our country," he wrote Saturday morning. More than 5,000 people across the country who paid Donald Trump $40 million to teach them his hard sell tactics got a hard lesson in bait-and-switch. New York Atty. Gen. Eric Schneiderman New York Atty. Gen. Eric Schneiderman, who brought one of the lawsuits, would disagree that the settlement is "a small fraction of the potential award." New York estimated that Trump University defrauded thousands of customers of a total $40 million, and that Trump may personally have pocketed $5 million in profit. So the settlement comes to 62.5% of the total collected in the alleged scam and five times Trump's own alleged take. Nuisance lawsuits typically are settled for small potatoes, but a settlement of nearly two-thirds of the claim doesn't fit into that category. It's a sign that Trump faced genuine liability in these cases. Advertisement Schneiderman, in a statement announcing the deal, called it a "stunning reversal" by Trump, who had "fought us every step of the way, filing baseless charges and fruitless appeals and refusing to settle for even modest amounts of compensation for the victims of his phony university." Phony is right; one pillar of Schneiderman's lawsuit was that Trump had not even bothered to get his "university" licensed by New York state as a bona fide educational institution. "More than 5,000 people across the country who paid Donald Trump $40 million to teach them his hard sell tactics got a hard lesson in bait-and-switch," Schneiderman said when he filed his lawsuit in August 2013. It is true, as Trump asserts, that the settlement was designed to put the Trump University case behind him. The settlement doesn't include an admission of guilt. But the evidence assembled by Schneiderman and plaintiffs who brought two class-action lawsuits in California federal court painted a compelling picture. Before it all vanishes into our collective memory hole, we should take note of how the Trump University affair reflects on how Trump conducted his presidential campaign and what it tells us about whether to believe anything he says going forward. It's also proper to note, as does legal scholar Christopher Peterson of the University of Utah, that a finding against Trump on fraud or racketeering charges at trial might very well expose him to the risk of impeachment. Trump University, it will be recalled, was pitched to the unwary as an opportunity to learn "the Trump process for investing in today's once-in-a-lifetime real estate market" from a cadre of Trump's "hand-picked" instructors. Schneiderman alleged that this was false. Of the instructors, "not a single one was 'handpicked' by Donald Trump." Some had little real-estate experience at all, and some actually had gone bankrupt in the business. What they had been trained to do was "sell, sell, sell," according to a Trump University "playbook" made public via court proceedings. What they were selling was an array of increasingly expensive generic seminars topping out at $35,000 developed not by Trump but by a company specializing in "motivational speakers and seminars and timeshare rental companies." The playbook was heavily devoted to marketing the program, not teaching the particulars of the Trump Way. Employees were instructed in hard-sell methods and equipped with pre-masticated rebuttals of their potential customers' objections. Let one say, "I need to think about it," and the answer would be, "You've already been thinking about this too long It's time to commit to yourself and learn the TRUMP way to invest." A former sales manager testified that he was reprimanded for advising a prospect couple against signing up for the $35,000 "elite" program, because they would have to use the husband's disability income and drain equity in their apartment. Another salesman completed the sale instead. Advertisement Trump himself testified that he reviewed all the marketing materials indeed, that was the basis of a ruling in August by San Diego Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel rejecting Trump's motion for summary judgment against the class-action plaintiffs. There was enough evidence that Trump personally "participated in the operation or management of the enterprise," Curiel ruled, to bring a racketeering charge against him before a jury. As a candidate, Trump made Curiel, an Indiana-born jurist of Mexican descent, into a punching bag for his anti-immigrant campaign plank, claiming the judge had been unfair to him even though Curiel had been sedulously fair. As the Nov. 28 trial date for one of the lawsuits drew near, his lawyers asked the judge to exclude all of his intemperate comments about the case and the judge from the trial, on grounds that they were merely irrelevant campaign persiflage. He also pledged not to settle. Much more was at stake in the Trump University lawsuits than inconvenience. Utah's Peterson observes that offenses as serious as fraud and racketeering, even if committed before a president's assumption of office and aired in civil, not criminal, court, might qualify among the "high crimes and misdemeanors" for which the Constitution reserves impeachment. "The most plain reading of the phrase," he concludes, "is simply that impeachable behavior 'is only that which would subject an ordinary person to criminal indictment and prosecution." But there's no "clear legal hurdle" that would bar impeachment of Trump "simply because the cases arose in civil court." So this was no trivial threat, and the settlement not an effort merely to dodge a nuisance. The Trump University cases cast a major shadow over his presidency. Now that they're settled, however, there's no reason to forget them. They've already told us much about Trump that we should remember, every time he makes us another promise. Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com. Advertisement Return to Michael Hiltzik's blog. "Friendsgiving is the new, 'millennial' treatment of Thanksgiving," says Miss Alex White, guitarist and frontwoman of local rock duo White Mystery. "So it kind of goes beyond your family, but also your friends and your community." Along with her brother and drummer Francis, White Mystery will play alongside other local rock acts Flesh Panthers and The Safes at their Friendsgiving show Nov. 23 at Chop Shop in Wicker Park. Chicago comedian Bill Bullock will MC and provide the laughs. Advertisement "So you're not trapped with your Trump-supporting uncle, you can hang out with artists who you f--- with super heavy." Bullock jokes. Not only is the event aiming to bring folks together under the power of rock 'n' roll, heartfelt laughter and complimentary brews from Goose Island Brewery (while supplies last), but also to celebrate charitable giving. Advertisement "We are donating a $2,000 sponsorship to the Children's Tumor Foundation through the show, through our community support we have." White explains. The Children's Tumor Foundation is an organization combating Neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder commonly known as NF, through research and clinical drug development to better understand and therefore advance care for the NF community. According to CTF, the disorder affects 1 in every 3,000 people and is typically diagnosed in childhood. Of the three types of NF, type 1 or NF1 is the most common with the propensity to affect everything from one's learning ability to bone and nerve growth and tumor development. MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR "We were thinking about the people around the holidays who could really use a pick-me-up," Alex White continues. "We were handed a check for $2,000 and after doing some exploration, realized that the Children's Tumor Foundation needed exactly $2,000 to send a kid to their NF camp." The NF camp, which is celebrating its 20 year anniversary, aims to strengthen the sense community in teens and young adults with NF1, NF2, and Schwannomatosis. It gives campers the opportunity to, not only speak freely about living with NF and their experiences, but just be kids away from the MRI and doctor's appointments. White Mystery's contribution covers the 'Adopt-A-Camper' sponsorship, which covers all expenses including travel, food, and activities. For the White's, this charity and its mission hits home. Not only do they have a cousin who attended the NF camp, but it was important for Francis White to help at least one of these kids around the holidays. Advertisement "I actually have a large mass of tumors currently located in my pelvis and I've dealt with it my whole life," he says. "When I first learned about the diagnosis, after my first MRI, it was Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, right around the holidays and I was 14. That was like a ... sort of a sucker-punch when it was like 'You have a tumor for Christmas.' So being able to help a kid get out around the holidays when they're probably feeling pretty low meant a lot to me because I've gone through so much with that specific condition." Almost every act slated to play Friendsgiving has used its platform to give back to the community. The Safes, who have been playing Friendsgiving shows for the past 13 years, played shows to raise funds for ovarian cancer research five years in a row, while Bullock performs at and hosts events for non-profits that focus on mental health. "We've all played a lot of shows where there wasn't this unified front," The Safes' Frankie O'Malley says. "Doing a show with a purpose with a theme and a positive outcome is cool." "I feel super lucky just to be involved in the scene and I think it's nice to be able to have the platform to do something good," adds Flesh Panthers' guitarist and frontman Ryan Palshis. Aside from great Chicago talent in full-on celebration, Doc Martens will be holding a $150 gift certificate raffle and local record label Maximum Pelt will have a table boasting new releases from Flesh Panthers and others. "Good vibes are contagious,' Alex White says, "so if we can plant that seed of happiness that carries people through the winter in Chicago and through the holidays and hopefully throughout the year, you are trying to inspire greatness in your community and in your city and open it up and inspire people with music and of course making people laugh, hello!" Advertisement When: Nov. 23, doors 9 p.m., show 9:30 p.m. Where: 1st Ward at Chop Shop, 2033 W. North Ave. Tickets: $10 adv/$12 doors, www.1stwardevents.com RELATED STORIES: Louis the Child is on a roller coaster of fame Bittersweet Drive, a duo born of kismet Watch the latest movie trailers. 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 Village of Mokena recently announced a "tax neutral" levy increase at a village board meeting after an independent auditing firm declared the villages financial status as "strong." "The Village of Mokena can be very proud of its financial strength as a village," Bill Hanley of the Tinely Park firm, Wipfli, LLP, told the village board Nov. 14. Advertisement Wipfli conducted the independent audit for the village 2015 fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2016, he said. The village has almost $22 million in unrestricted fund balances, which includes $12 million earmarked for future water and sewer activity, he said. Also within the $22 million is $4.2 million in the general fund, which he called "very good." That represents about 42 percent, or five months of yearly expenditures, he said. Advertisement The enterprise funds, which are those that sell services, including water, sewer and parking, have "revenues are for the most part being covered by fees an that's what you want to see," Hanley said. In the area of bonds, he said the Standard and Poors rating for the village is AA+, telling the board "we see no problems there," and "you can be very proud." Although the pensions remain a liability, totaling $4.3 million for the Illinois Mutual Retirement Fund, and $4.9 million for police, the village made an additional $600,000 contribution to the police pension fund to offset the future liability. Hanley called the payment "positive, good steps." "That money came from surplus income and we chose to pay down the pension," Trustee John Mazzorana said. "We're not kicking the can somewhere." Mazzorana also said that the Illinois Department of Insurance biennial report ranks Mokena eighth best of funding levels out of 352 agencies. Following Hanely's audit, Mokena Finance Director Barbara Damron announced a 2.44 percent increase in the 2016 tax levy, which will bring the total to $1,899,793, which is $45,326 up from 2015, she said. Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday > "The impact to Mokena homeowners will be minimal, or in most cases tax neutral," Damron said. The 2016 tax is expected to be .2522 per equalized assessed value, which is down from the .2597 rate in 2015, she said. This is due, in part, to the average $300,000 home increasing about 3 percent to $309,000 in 2016 from the year before. Advertisement Damron said that factoring the tax rate for an average $300,000 home means about a 7-cent increase, she said, making the levy increase "tax neutral." Over the past decade, the village's tax levy increase averaged $69,521 per year, which is 4.85 percent. The 2016 increase is below the ten-year average. Funds for the increased tax levy will go toward pensions and retirement obligations, she said. The tax levy is scheduled for a board vote at the Dec. 12 village board meeting. Erin Gallagher is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown. So much for having famous parents. Actress Gabrielle Union said the boys she's raising in Chicago with Bulls guard Dwyane Wade have had difficulty "pulling chicks." Advertisement Wade has two sons, 14-year-old Zaire and 9-year-old Zion, with his high school sweetheart Siohvaughn Funches. He had a third son from a different relationship, Xavier, in 2013. He is also raising his teenage nephew, Dahveon Morris. Wade, 34, and Union, 44, wed in 2014. Union told Harper's Bazaar in an article posted online Monday that she empathizes with her older boys' desire to fit in at school and to be seen as "raceless and truly judged by their character, not for the skin they are wearing." Advertisement "So much of their issues with skin color have to do with who girls choose," Union said. "And if you're going to a school where there aren't that many black girls, A) you're already further down on the totem pole, and they're like, 'We've got two famous parents, this should really be helping us pull chicks! But nope? Nothin'? Nobody?'" Union said their popular female classmates in Chicago are choosing "Bieber looking" boys. The article did not reveal which schools the boys attend. The Wade family toured Mount Carmel High School, an all-male school, in Woodlawn in July, just weeks after Wade announced he was leaving the Miami Heat to join the Bulls. Union's interview coincides with her new film "Almost Christmas," which hit theaters this month. RELATED STORIES: BET holds its ground in response to Gabrielle Union lawsuit 'Birth of a Nation' actress Gabrielle Union: I was raped. I cannot take Parker rape allegations lightly Wade family tours Mount Carmel while checking out schools for Zaire Watch the latest movie trailers. 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) I dove into the world of podcasting a few minutes after 11 p.m. on Saturday on the stage inside the Vittum Theater, when I was asked by a charming woman named Sarah Thyre to explain why the end of the movie "Spartacus" makes me cry. I was being interviewed in front of a live audience of a few dozen people for her podcast called "Crybabies." She is an actor and writer who normally tapes the show in Los Angeles. Its usual co-host is Susan Orlean, the New Yorker writer and author of such best-selling books as "The Orchid Thief" and "Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend." Filling in for Orlean here was the actor/teacher/writer and all-around delightful Susan Messing. She's the one who asked me to participate. Advertisement "Crybabies" can be found at www.earwolf.com/show/crybabies, Earwolf being a leading podcast network founded in 2010. The site features dozens of podcasts from dozens of people on a wide range of subjects. "Crybabies" is there with 54 shows and counting, featuring such guests as Christopher Guest, Amy Poehler and R.L. Stine. And that is just the tip of the podcasting audio iceberg. A podcast is, simply put, a digital audio or video file or recording, usually part of a themed series, that can be downloaded from a website to a media player or computer. They are products of the internet age and their number grows every month. They are usually free to listeners and can often be created for little to no cost. Conventional radio is understandably nervous about all of the activity that is happening on this new frontier. Advertisement Some podcasts have been very successful, among them "This American Life," "The Adam Carolla Show," "Stuff You Missed in History Class," "Serial" and "The Nerdist." Some come from National Public Radio but most are independent ventures. And for great majority of podcasters the payoff is less financial than personal, offering a means to express passions, exercise creative urges or explore, well, anything at all. MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR "Crybabies," described by its creators as "a deeply funny, often intimate, and surprisingly moving podcast about the things that make us cry," was one of the 35-some offerings at the first Chicago Podcast Festival, an ambitious venture held last weekend across the city as such venues as the Atheneum Theatre, Steppenwolf's 1700 Theatre, Schubas, the Promontory and Vittum. It was organized primarily by Jonathan Pitts, a longtime fixture in the Chicago improv/theater scene and founder and the current executive director of Chicago Improv Productions, and Tyler Greene, who produces live events and podcasts for WBEZ and Vocalo as well as performing. When it was all over, the two were quite pleased. Said Greene: "After three straight days of performances, I can safely say that it was an overwhelming artistic success. "On a large scale, we had two sold-out, 1,000-seat audiences. In large and small spaces, we discovered a key element for our festival: human connection between artist and audience. Communities are building up around these individual shows and I now see it as part of our festival's duty to create even more fun spaces and opportunities for podcast groups to engage. "I'm thrilled that we were able to take this journey and I can't wait to keep building the thing for years to come. We'd like to be able to add more shows in other parts of town: Pilsen, Bridgeport, Humboldt Park, Logan Square and more. Over time, we aim for the festival to be a space that gives a platform to the people who live in these neighborhoods, but also on a national level by bringing great podcasts to some of our more vibrant neighborhoods." Advertisement Said Pitts, "We had a very enthusiastic turnout from both hard-core podcast fans to brand newbies trying out their first ever live podcast taping. Our podcasters ranged from emerging local artists to established masters. Our shows made audiences laugh, cry, sigh, as the wonderful and powerful element of human connection experienced and shared by both podcasters and audience was both live and alive. "If overall attendance is an indicator of strength, then this year women were our most powerful voices at the festival. "When I introduced Tyler to introduce 'My Favorite Murder,' I said to the audience that we are going to do the Chicago Podcast Festival again next year, and 985 people cheered. That felt really good. We hit some home runs and we made some small mistakes, but we learned a lot in our first year and I'm looking forward to applying it next year. I'm also looking forward to listening to all the podcasts at CPF that I wasn't able to watch." I have started doing that and you can too, by being led to what you missed, at chicagopodcastfestival.org. And you can further explore the fascinating podcasting universe by, as Pitts recommends, "Just doing a computer search for any subject that interests you, adding 'podcast' to that search and there you go." My "Crybabies segment will be available in a few weeks. In addition to talking about the end of "Spartacus," I spoke about the ending of the book/movie "A River Runs Through It" and the song "Hello in There" by John Prine. Did they make me cry? You'll just have to listen to find out. rkogan@chicagotribune.com Advertisement MORE FROM RICK KOGAN: Chicago restaurant king Billy Dec thinks he ought to be in movies As Lights Festival celebrates 25th year, a plug for those who started it Watch the latest movie trailers. 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) Times change, and while it's a stretch to say Warren Beatty has changed with them, the writer, producer, director and star who upended Hollywood with "Bonnie and Clyde" 49 years ago and hasn't directed a movie since "Bulworth" in 1998 is giving it a shot. The 79-year-old Beatty came through Chicago recently ("I'm pumpin' a movie!" he reminds me, with a grin) as part of a promotional tour, the likes of which Beatty might've sneered at years ago. He is Old Hollywood enough to remember when Hollywood was an utterly different business; when moviegoing came in a single basic shape, size and experience; and when an eccentric, medium-budget picture without bankable stars wasn't a rare bird. Advertisement Beatty produced, wrote, directed and co-stars in "Rules Don't Apply." Inspired by his own memories of arriving in Hollywood in the late 1950s, the film is the Howard Hughes biopic Beatty has been noodling for decades. But he's the first to point out that it's not really a Hughes biopic, even though Hughes (whom he plays) is the dominant presence and narrative string-puller. The fictional central couple is played by Alden Ehrenreich and Lily Collins. Ehrenreich's character, Frank Forbes of Fresno, Calif., has been hired by the reclusive Hughes as a chauffeur; Collins, portraying Marla Mabrey, a virginal small-town Virginia Baptist with starry aspirations, is a fresh LA arrival, one in a stable of RKO studio contract hopefuls under Hughes' obsessive control. Advertisement Stardom knocked on the Virginia-born Baptist Beatty's door early, with his feature film debut in director Elia Kazan's feverish 1961 drama of adolescent sexual angst, "Splendor in the Grass." Much of "Rules Don't Apply" takes place in and around the rooms and bungalows of the Beverly Hills Hotel, and there's a story there. MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR "I never met him," Beatty tells me in between bites of fresh fruit, "but I like to say I feel like I met everyone who ever met him. People did not dislike him, but they had kind of ridiculous difficulties with all kinds of things, like scheduling, or his need to hide, let's say, which was better described as his need to control how he was seen. Which I would compare to Greta Garbo. Whom I also never met." So there's Beatty, in Hollywood, hot off "Splendor in the Grass." "I was staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I got lucky early. First movie I made with Kazan was a hit, so I didn't have to do movie after movie, and I had a tendency then to sit back and experience this little thing we call life." Many dates with many women, among other pursuits. "And I had what I think was a sensible paranoia about the tabloids. I felt the tabloids were following me, spying on me, at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "So I called the desk and I said, 'I just wanted to say how disappointed I am that you allow the tabloids to spy on me.' And the man on the phone says: 'Could you hold on a second?' He comes back and says: 'Mr. Beatty, could we ask you to keep something in confidence?' I said yes. 'Those people are not with the tabloids. They are with Mr. Hughes.' You mean Howard Hughes? Are you telling me Howard Hughes is in the next suite? 'Well, we don't know.' What are you telling me? 'Well he has seven suites.' Seven suites? 'And confidentially, please, he also has five bungalows.' "And I thought, well, there's a movie in that." Aviator, movie mogul, pathetic hermit with a Baskin-Robbins fetish in his later years, Hughes was a deeply improbable American figure. "So many stories were told about him," Beatty says. "And at the time, when I was new in Hollywood, stories were being told about me that had nothing to do with the truth. In my own particular brand of narcissism, I probably wanted to control how I was seen." The parallels are there for the picking, though Beatty seems unlikely to enter a pathetic hermit phase. He has a lot in his life beyond his latest movie, chiefly his marriage to actress Annette Bening (who's in "Rules Don't Apply") and their children. Advertisement I ask him about movie stars he fell for when he was a kid. "Paulette Goddard," he says after a "Reds"-length pause, dreamily. "I had a difficult time getting over her. Katharine Hepburn, I remained in love with her from the time I was a boy until she made her last picture, with me and Annette ("Love Affair"). I was very enthusiastic about Abbott and Costello. Also the Marx Brothers." A different generation of Americans saw "Bonnie and Clyde" at an impressionable age. It opened in August 1967 to wildly mixed reviews. "It was panned viciously by certain older critics, and then something interesting happened. Joe Morgenstern at Newsweek, who'd panned the hell out of it, the following week he took it back and said it was really good. I called him, and I said: 'May I ask you what happened?' And he said: "My wife, (the actress) Piper Laurie, said I was wrong. She said it was a good movie, and that I should see it again.' September, October, November 1967, the movie becomes widely popular in Europe, particularly in the UK, and by December Time magazine put it on the cover, and said that it had changed moviemaking. And then the picture made most of its money in January and February 1968, when it came back to the same theaters it originally did OK in." Such a timeline no longer is possible in theatrical exhibition. "Now we're dealing with these," he says, pointing to his iPhone, parked on the table next to the fruit. "We can have what we want, when we want it, and we can have it at home. My kids, for instance. I'll say: 'Let's go out to a great restaurant! You'll love it!' And their response is: 'Dad, couldn't we just order in? Pizza?' Having to go out to see a movie " Here Beatty pauses again. "You want to know what you're going to get when you go out, I guess. With all areas of life. Movies, food, everything. You want to go back to that place you liked." So where does that leave a movie like "Rules Don't Apply"? Beatty answers that one by not quite answering it. "It's always been difficult to get something new made. The midpriced picture now is a gamble. And the studios think of themselves more as distributors than financiers. So putting together the finance can be a lot of work. It almost always is. If you're doing an independent movie, it's probably not a sequel, it's not a tentpole. It's an unknown." "Rules Don't Apply" opens Wednesday. Advertisement Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic. mjphillips@chicagotribune.com Twitter @phillipstribune RELATED STORIES: 'Rules Don't Apply' review: Warren Beatty's screen return is a chaotic mess 'Allied' review: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard team up for gorgeous, empty WWII spy thriller Advertisement 'Moana' review: With songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda, Dwayne Johnson sails into another Disney hit Watch the latest movie trailers. Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 126 Woody introduces the gang to a homemade spork toy with self-esteem issues in "Toy Story 4." Read the review. (Pixar / AP) Composer Mischa Zupko, shown playing in his Edgewater apartment, says Chicago has provided him with a nurturing cultural environment and numerous wellsprings of musical inspiration. (Kristan Lieb / Chicago Tribune) Well before last month's Ear Taxi Festival put Chicago at what festival co-curator Stephen Burns called "the nexus of international art music," local classical composers were reveling in their freedom to be anything they wished to be, to say anything they wished to say, through their music. It's as if the city's distinctive diversity gives them permission to march to the beats of hundreds of different drummers themselves. Advertisement Mischa Zupko likens the multiplicity of creative stimuli available to his fellow Chicago composers to a restaurant menu that affords hundreds of dining options. It's what in 2004 drew the gifted musician back to his hometown of Chicago from Indiana University in Bloomington, where he and his wife, Minkyoo Shin, had pursued graduate degrees in music. Chicago, Zupko says, has provided him with a nurturing cultural environment and numerous wellsprings of musical inspiration. And what composer wouldn't want that? Advertisement The son of another prominent Chicago classical composer, Ramon Zupko, Mischa is fast making waves of his own. Not only does he have a new album in release, he's also writing a violin concerto on commission from his alma mater, Indiana University, that is due for premiere there this spring. Also in the works is a music theater piece about the Everleigh sisters, those notorious, early-20th-century Chicago brothel hostesses. All that, in addition to teaching at the Music Institute of Chicago where he serves as composer in residence and sharing with his wife the music directorship of Lutheran Church of the Ascension in Northfield. At 45, Zupko is in his creative and performing prime, an admired force on the city's teeming classical new music scene. MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR "I was always a city boy at heart, and Chicago has always been a haven for me," says Zupko. "To me it has always seemed both culturally rich and intimate, a place where you can have these really engaging and fulfilling conversations, because Midwesterners tend to be welcoming." Chicago's big-shouldered ethnic and cultural diversity is, in his view, at once a strength and a weakness. "A weakness, because sometimes it causes us to divide ourselves by streets and blocks. At the same time, there is so much connection across the very lines that tend to divide us, especially in the arts community, where I don't think those dividing lines really exist." Advertisement Asked what motivates him, Zupko zigzags around the subject by declaring that writing music is as essential to him as "eating and breathing" but that when he finds himself battling writer's block, pouring his thoughts, emotions and dreams into what he calls his "morning pages" daily 30-minute writing exercises helps to get him back on musical track. Don't ask him to put his music in any stylistic pigeonhole his works are too chameleonic of means and expression for that. "I can't really be put into a single genre," Zupko says. "My music really is about what resonates with me at a given moment, what I am feeling at that particular time also what is honest for me." Fair enough. What resonates in the Zupko chamber works that make up his newly released album, "Eclipse," on Chicago's Cedille label, is the mysterious music of the spheres. The title track treats the instruments of violinist Sang Mee Lee and cellist Wendy Warner as heavenly bodies that coalesce luminously before they split apart to travel their separate paths. "Shades of Grey," for violin and piano, performed by Lee and Zupko, evokes the complex dynamic of personal relationships in music often charged with eruptive intensity. These exceptional recorded performances mark Zupko as a composer with fresh and arresting things to say. (You can hear more of his music at his website, www.mischazupko.com.) Zupko was only 6 weeks old when his father, Ramon, landed a teaching job at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, causing the family to move there from Chicago. One of Mischa's earliest memories was listening to his dad practicing selections from Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" as a warmup exercise before going off to teach. Sharing the music that was important to him with his only child was important. Advertisement From age 7 until his midteens, Mischa was taking three-hour piano lessons every Sunday with his father. Later he would commute to Chicago on weekends to study piano with the late Emilio del Rosario at the Music Institute of Chicago. After a year and a half as a piano major at WMU he transferred to Northwestern University, where he continued his keyboard studies. Zupko didn't imagine himself composing music until, following his dad's encouragement, he started writing short pieces and submitting them to a contest for grade school composers sponsored by the Michigan Music Teachers Association. Once he entered high school, however, building his skills as a pianist took precedence over composition. It wasn't until after he had bummed around Europe for a couple of years with a musician friend that Zupko by then a 6-footer with a shock of unkempt dark hair got fired up with the urge to create his own music. Mezzo-soprano Mignon Dunn, for whom Zupko worked during his time at Northwestern, put him in touch with composer John Corigliano to help the young man advance his technique. Athough Corigliano wasn't able to accept Zupko as a pupil, he suggested that Zupko apply to Indiana University's School of Music to learn about craftsmanship. The professors looked at his work and gave him a graduate fellowship on the spot to study composition. Zupko was 24 at the time, rather late in the day for someone bent on pursuing composition as a career. But his overriding passion for writing music sped up his learning curve. The job offer from Ascension church in Northfield gave Zupko and his wife the opportunity they desperately sought to begin a new life together, outside academia. In 2004 the couple settled in their current home, a high-rise apartment in Chicago's Edgewater area. They've never looked back. Now that their son Leo has turned 9 years old, the question arises: Will he take up writing music, just like his dad and granddad before him? Advertisement "Right now," Mischa says with a laugh, "he just wants to be a professional skateboarder who does a little acting and plays violin on the side." He turns serious and thoughtful in his parting observations: "Speaking as an artist who creates, it sometimes is very difficult to understand where your place is in society," Zupko says. "When I lack faith, I go back to the fact that art, if it's any good, has enduring value. What we do as artists, and what we encourage in young people who want to be artists, is incredibly important to who we are, and how we continue to evolve, as a civilization." Chicago Chorale sings Russian rarity The Chicago Chorale's Midwest premiere of Maximilian Steinberg's "Passion Week" (1923) over the weekend brought local audiences a long-lost choral masterpiece that represents one of the last important links to the Russian Orthodox sacred music tradition. Like its predecessor, Rachmaninov's great "All-Night Vigil," "Passion Week" consists of original settings of medieval church chants, dressed up in richly colorful textures and sometimes daring harmonies. The Lithuanian-born Steinberg was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's favorite pupil and later became his son-in-law. It's unclear why Steinberg would want to compose music so at odds with the anti-church stance of the Bolshevik Revolution. Advertisement In any case, the well-prepared amateur chorus of 60 mixed voices under Bruce Tammen's direction made a fervent case for a score that was not heard anywhere until 2014, when it was premiered at roughly the same time in Portland and New York. The first-ever performances in Russia followed only a month ago, by New York's Clarion Choir, which released its reading on a new Naxos disc. Like its performances of the Rachmaninov work in March, the Chicago Chorale's reading of the Steinberg, and of miscellaneous chant settings by his contemporaries, were marked by careful attention to quality of tone, blend, expressivity and enunciation of the Church Slavonic texts. The crucial low male voices provided a firm harmonic foundation. You came away from the concert at Hyde Park Union Church feeling as if you had experienced an occasion at once solemn and joyful, cathartic and inspiring. John von Rhein is a Tribune critic. jvonrhein@chicagotribune.com Twitter @jvonrhein RELATED STORIES: Advertisement Another don, another impossible dream, another Gallic hit for Lyric Opera A tale of two Chicago chamber groups, one in fine shape, the other less so Lyric triumphs with its first-ever take on Berlioz's 'Trojans' Krivine's French touch with CSO produces mixed results Watch the latest movie trailers. 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) Contact: The Pat McCrory Committee The Pat McCrory Committee media@patmccrory.com Raleigh, N.C. The Pat McCrory Committee issued the following statement in response to Roy Cooper's desperate press conferences attacking Governor McCrory:- Ricky Diaz, Governor McCrory's campaign spokesmanThe State Board of Elections discovered over 339 convicted felons who voted early or absentee. This total does not include numbers from Election Day.Over 90 counties have yet to complete their county canvases and finalize their vote totals.Protests are being filed in over 50 counties to challenge fraudulent absentee ballots and votes by felons, double and dead voters.( Charlotte Observer , 11/17/2016)The State Board of Elections agreed to take up the Bladen County protest involving hundreds of potentially fraudulent absentee ballots - all apparently including votes for Cooper. ( The Associated Press , 11/21/2016) The New York cast of "Hamilton" was not only justified in politely but directly addressing Mike Pence, the courteous vice president-elect, from the stage Friday night, it had a moral, artistic, political and even a business obligation to do so. And what happened at "Hamilton" in Chicago on Saturday night a disorderly audience member interrupting the performance with profanity and intimidating the other paying customers was not its equivalent from the other side of the increasingly agitating political divide in which we all find ourselves. On the contrary, it was an abomination. Advertisement So, for that matter, were the Twitter attacks on "Hamilton" from President-elect Donald Trump, for one very important reason which is not ideological and therefore should not be politicized, as forlorn as that hope may be. In actuality, they are as anti-business, for "Hamilton" is a very successful all-American cultural business, as they are antithetical to a great, advanced democracy. Trump's ill-advised communications about "Hamilton" indicate a lack of understanding of, and a lack of respect for, freedom of speech. And, quite possibly, a similar disregard for freedom of assembly. Moreover, they undermine the role of the arts in any advanced, free, democratic society and they fail to understand the proven benefits of civic discourse. Especially as a tool of teaching our young. Advertisement This whole incredible Trump-"Hamilton" feud really is as simple as that. Those tweets provide prima facia evidence of the need for immediate wise council for Trump on this subject, ideally from a friendly source, lest Americans of all stripes suffer. Neither he as president nor his vice president can operate with an expectation that citizens will not express their point of view, whether in a theater or anywhere else. Nor can they reasonably expect them to apologize for doing so, and this would be a sorry country if either side felt such an obligation. What they can reasonably expect is a modicum of civility in that expression although public servants at the most powerful levels need thicker skins than most and a few ill-advised boos comes with the territory and respect for their offices. They can also absolutely expect their constituents to respect their right to be heard, which was not a privilege afforded to some of the audience members at "Hamilton" who came into contact with the disruptive Chicago patron. Nor to the actors. Moreover, those tweets undermine the crucial role of the arts in any advanced, free, democratic society, and they fail to understand the benefits of civic discourse. Our incoming President Trump has a moral obligation to promote exposure to history and the humanities, especially for young people. What he does not seem to appreciate is that his job will be all the easier if he does so. If history is the guide, he will develop an understanding of how without empathy for our fellow humans, we are all nothing. "Hamilton" is not some trivial satirical enterprise. The artists involved therein are serious; they are not mere "entertainers" who should stay in their corners and not ruffle any feathers. They would be out of business if they did so. The show not only is an exploration of the creation of a young democracy but a work with an awareness of human mortality and the limits of any political ambition. It is, to a large extent, a piece about work-life balance and, at its core, a call for personal humility, to which the president-elect would be well advised to listen. He should go. He should close his ears to the boos. He should be welcomed there. Political engagement not only is at the core of the art this is, after all, a show about political debate that wrestles with the messiness of governance but an extension of the billion-dollar brand. The cast of "Hamilton" is selling political ideas as surely and profitably as the baristas at Starbucks are selling coffee. Vice President-elect Pence knew that when he secured his ticket. His public presence there at a show about the interplay of new presidents, vice presidents and citizens was a tacit acknowledgment of his willingness to enter into debate. To ignore him would have been to ignore the elephant in the room. Pence's gutsy presence at "Hamilton," and his thoughtful reaction to the ensuing debate, were a credit to him, although, given his publicly expressed point of view on the role of gay Americans in this nation, he can hardly argue that it was unreasonable for a cast with many such Americans among its number to express its views to him. The cast members did so respectfully. They did so after preserving the completeness of their artistic statement. The man speaking was an actor, a profession that usually is obliged to speak the words of others. In this case, these engaged artists grabbed agency for themselves. The moment was, in many ways, a beautifully American piece of communication, a reflection of hope, especially since it took place in the context of history. Advertisement Until Trump took to Twitter to make some history of his own. There is no question that the Alexander Hamilton of "Hamilton" is at variance with the historical model. There is a strong argument that he was in actuality a good deal less progressive than the show imagines. There is a good argument to be made that he and our president-elect might have shared some views. That variance from history is the privilege of Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of an artistic work. Had Trump decided to tweet about that instead, it would have been his privilege. And we might have all benefited from the debate. Trump was right when he said the theater should be a safe place, if he meant a place where we can be sure we can leave the way we entered with no one barring our way, telling us we are not welcome because we voted for Donald J. Trump or interfering with our right to take our business elsewhere. But even though those on the left also often fail to appreciate it, the conversations therein should sometimes be comforting, sometimes serious, sometimes intellectually or emotionally uncomfortable, ideally enlightening and, hopefully, always frank. What matters most, though, is that we all are free to have them. Heck, we need far more of them to better understand one another. Chris Jones is a Tribune critic. Advertisement cjones5@chicagotribune.com Twitter@ChrisJonesTrib Chicago's public schools are seemingly in a near-constant state of turmoil these days, but in his new novel, "Hey, Liberal!" (Chicago Review Press), Chicago author Shawn Shiflett an associate professor of creative writing at Columbia College reminds us that CPS' problems are part of a continuum that reaches back at least half a century. Set in the summer of 1969 in Lincoln Park (not yet the chic boutique central we know today) just after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the subsequent riots in Chicago "Hey, Liberal!" follows 13-year-old Simon Fleming, a white student whose progressive parents send him to a predominantly black school. Advertisement There, in the course of a plot inspired by events from the author's own youth, Simon is forced to navigate gangs, drugs and violence, a student boycott and race riots. Along the way, he bounces between three powerful figures: Clyde, a former gang member who has become a political militant; Clark, a corrupt cop who tries to recruit Simon to his racist cause; and John, a biology teacher whose leftist leanings give Simon a new perspective on the unrest. "It's definitely inspired by true events, but it's not a memoir," Shiflett, 61, said. "I tend to get bored by memoirs, because they're largely woe-is-me all the time. Instead, I wanted to write a book with humor, characters, a plot. Maybe I'm crazy, because a memoir is a more salable book than a novel." Advertisement Shiflett's own stint at Lincoln Park High then largely black and Hispanic, now largely white is closely mirrored in the novel, and it isn't a lovefest. "It was right after the King assassination, and it was just a very angry time," he says. "You were on the run a lot." Award nominees The Chicago Writers Association has announced the finalists for its Book of the Year Awards for 2016. The awards, in their sixth year, are open to Chicago-area authors with books published between July 1, 2015, and June 30, 2016. The finalists are vying for four awards to be presented Jan. 14. The finalists are: Traditional Fiction: "The Fugue" by Gint Aras; "The Mirror Thief" by Martin Seay; and "Swarm Theory" by Christine Maul Rice. Nontraditional fiction: (defined as self-published, print-on-demand or hybrid): "A Bitter Pill to Swallow" by Tiffany Gholar; and "The Color of Character" by Glen Shuld. Traditional nonfiction: "The Defender" by Ethan Michaeli; "Exoneree Diaries" by Alison Flowers; "The Last Voyageurs" by Lorraine Boissoneault; "My Sister's Mother" by Donna Solecka Urbikas; and "The Telling" by Zoe Zolbrod. Nontraditional nonfiction: "Citizen Surgeon" by Paul Roach; and "Hugh Hefner's First Funeral" by Pat Colander. The winners, to be announced on or before Dec. 1, will be selected by last year's winning authors Peter Ferry, Dean Jobb and James Finn Garner and publisher George Rawlinson. The awards ceremony will be at 7 p.m. Jan. 14 at the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square. It's free and open to the public. Advertisement This year's ceremony will also include the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring an individual who has made significant contributions to the Chicago literary community. Dear Answer Angel Ellen: I was astounded when I was shopping recently to see all these shoulder-baring (open shoulder) clothes for sale. I'm not talking about the off-the-shoulder fashions I saw a lot of women wearing this summer. I mean dresses, sweaters, tops that look normal except where you'd expect the sleeve to be attached to the rest of the sweater there's this bare shoulder look. Is this a trend? Is it worth investing in? Barb E. Advertisement Dear Barb: The open shoulder (or cold shoulder, as some call it) is a cooler-weather version of the off-the-shoulder look that got a lot of attention this summer. So, yes, since clothing designers are always encouraging women to spend money on styles not currently in their closets, it is a trend. To me, it's kind of a strange look. But, that's not your question. This is not an investment piece. It's an of-the-moment look that will be out of fashion within the next year. That said, this is not the first rodeo for this little fashion item. In 1993, then-first lady Hillary Clinton caused quite a stir when she wore a black Donna Karan version to a fancy White House event. (The dress is in the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., if you're in the neighborhood.) "Donna (Karan) always says that no matter your age, your size, your shoulders always look good," Clinton explained in a September interview with "Girls" creator and star Lena Dunham. Incidentally, Clinton told Dunham it was one of her favorite dresses. Advertisement Karan is right that the female shoulder always is a reliable body part to show off. But since I and many other women are constantly freezing, thanks to cold offices, movie theaters etc., I have trouble figuring when I'd wear a garment (especially a sweater) that leaves my shoulders uncovered. Dear Answer Angel Ellen: My 40-year-old daughter has thin hair and is starting to lose it all around. She is embarrassed to the point of becoming anti-social. She is somewhat overweight after having two kids, and I believe she is fighting hormone issues too. This may be the cause of the hair loss. What type of doctor should she see? Should she see a dermatologist? Thanks for your reply. Just a Concerned Father Dear Concerned Father: How wonderful that you're trying to help. There's a wide array of conditions, hormonal changes and medications that can cause hair loss. In addition, genetics can play a role. Your daughter is not alone. I receive many emails from women alarmed by hair loss they didn't expect and don't know how to cope with (Tina, Carmella C., Thelma and Carolyn B., among others). Balding is not just for men! Your daughter's first stop is a dermatologist, and the sooner, the better since some diseases can cause permanent damage to the hair follicle (It won't grow back!) unless treated early and aggressively. (The dermatologist might recommend an endocrinologist or other specialist.) Often Rogaine (over the counter) will help regrowth. A wig is not an ideal solution, but it can make a huge difference and truly can be undetectable. If the loss is confined to one area (not your daughter's situation), an attachable hairpiece to cover the thin spot might be the answer. If your daughter wants to explore a wig, a call to the American Cancer Society will turn up recommended places to shop. Also www.wigsupport.com is an excellent resource, but you have to register first. Your daughter will see on that site that many women have the same problem she does, which might be comforting. One more thing: Reader Joan P. wrote me to recommend the American Cancer Society's Look Good Feel Betterprogram: www.lookgoodfeelbetter.org. There are plenty of tips on hair care and coping with hair loss (including wigs) that apply to all of us, not just those who are enduring the devastating results of chemo. I highly recommend you take a look. Advertisement Dear Answer Angel ElIen: I'm not sure if this is a rant or a question or both. I am becoming frustrated at the frequency with which my favorite cosmetics companies discontinue products I love. First it was my go-to shade of lipstick. Now it is the tinted moisturizer I have come to count on for its lightweight feel. The cosmetics salesperson recommended a different foundation product, but it is just too matte and heavy for me. Can you recommend any extremely lightweight tinted moisturizers or foundations? Mary R. Dear Mary: Discontinued products are among the complaints I hear most often from readers, and my favorites also seem to be on the hit list way too frequently. The internet needs a site that lists all products that are on the discontinue list and a warning to stockpile now! As to your quest for lightweight coverage, you definitely will want to try BB and CC creams from the drugstore. Those are just other names for tinted moisturizer, and they're not matte or heavy just the coverage you want. I like both Maybelline and L'Oreal. To track down your discontinued favorites, I have a few tips: Contact the manufacturer, and see if it has any stock still on hand. Advertisement Vendors on www.amazon.com sometimes still have what you're looking for in stock even if it has been discontinued and you can't find it in stores. Same goes for www.ebay.com although those prices are often ridiculously high. The sites www.buymebeauty.com and www.overstockcosmetics.com carry discontinued cosmetics; www.temptalia.com maintains a "dupe list" of good substitutes for some brand-name cosmetics. Now it's your turn Send your questions, rants, tips, favorite finds on style, shopping, makeup, fashion and beauty to answerangelellen@gmail.com. RELATED STORIES: How fashion is drawing political battle lines after the Trump election Catching up with iconic designer Diane von Furstenberg Advertisement Fashion guru Ikram Goldman sings on Pink Martini's new album President-elect Donald Trump's selection of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for national security adviser has added to a growing sense of fear that Trump's administration could implement a database to keep tabs on Muslims in America, a campaign promise made by Trump last fall. In February, Flynn tweeted a link to a YouTube video with the message: "Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL: Please forward a link to this video so that people may learn the BASICS of Islam." Coupled with Trump's campaign talk of "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," the selection has many concerned that our nation will abandon some of its core values, including freedom of religion. Advertisement George Takei penned a powerful op-ed this week about his family's experience being forced into a Japanese internment camp when he was 5. "'National security' must never again be permitted to justify wholesale denial of constitutional rights and protections," Takei writes. "If it is freedom and our way of life that we fight for, our first obligation is to ensure that our own government adheres to those principles." But how do we go about ensuring that? Advertisement On social media, I frequently see non-Muslims pledging to register themselves on a hypothetical Muslim database in a show of solidarity. Is that feasible? Is that enough? I called a couple of experts to get their take. "While the sentiment behind the pledge (to register) is appreciated and welcomed, the unintended effect may be to legitimize the concept of registering Americans of a particular faith," Tabassum Haleem, executive director of the Council of Islamic Organization of Greater Chicago, told me. "If the pushback against these types of nefarious initiatives is part of a larger, united campaign against the erosion of civil liberties of all Americans, it would send a loud and unequivocal message to President-elect Trump that he cannot divide and conquer the American people. That we are, indeed, stronger together." Corey Saylor is director of the department to monitor and combat Islamophobia at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Saylor says a Muslim database would most likely mean a reinstatement of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, a controversial program launched after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that collected information, fingerprints and photographs of noncitizens entering the United States from certain (mostly majority Muslim) countries and monitored their status and movement once they arrived. It was canceled in 2011. If a broader Muslim database is implemented for U.S. citizens, however, Saylor said his group welcomes the idea of non-Muslims adding their names. "People being willing to register themselves if an all-inclusive Muslim registry comes up is greatly appreciated," Saylor said. "When the constitution is being challenged, it's important that everyone be willing to stand up and not just talk about it with their friends, but do something useful. Registering would be one way to do that." We don't need to wait for a database to push back against anti-Muslim rhetoric, though. Muslims make up less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, but Americans of all faiths are welcome to attend open mosque days and educate themselves about the faith and its practitioners. Advertisement The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago organizes regional open-mosque days, Haleem said, and churches often hold interfaith events. "DuPage United, a community organizing group made of churches, mosques and synagogues, started a Solidarity With Muslims campaign earlier this year with standing-room-only events," Haleem said. "The evening of Nov. 17th, nearly 650 people of all faiths gathered at the Islamic Center of Naperville. DuPage United leaders presented the work being done by their member institutions on establishing mental health crises centers, organizing resources for refugees and combating Islamophobia. Police chiefs pledged to continue to protect their citizens, regardless of their race or religion. School districts around the country are affirming policies to protect American Muslim students and other minorities against bullying." Saylor recommends signing up to receive emails from groups that fight against religious persecution, particularly CAIR, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Amnesty International. "These groups will ask you do things that are usually pretty simple and straightforward," Saylor said. "That takes individuals and merges them into a movement. You want to magnify your own impact by joining an organization." Monthly donations to one or more of those organizations can help them staff lawyers for an organized pushback in the event that Americans' constitutional rights are being threatened, he said. "We ask people to find a group that you feel is doing good work and make sure you're supporting them," Saylor said. "Not just by reading the emails, but by contributing, by showing up at meetings, by taking action." Advertisement hstevens@chicagotribune.com Twitter @heidistevens13 RELATED STORIES: Refugee women find friendship, income in making scarves for Chicagoans Can 60 million acts of kindness change the world? It might be all change in Washington D.C., but one Chicago Democratic Party megadonor has ensured he'll retain his prestigious presidential appointment through the first term of Donald Trump's presidency. Fred Eychaner a key Hillary Clinton supporter who funneled $32 million to liberal causes during the 2016 election cycle will be reappointed to a second six year stint on the board of the Kennedy Center before President Barack Obama leaves office, the White House says. Advertisement It's a reward for the reclusive 71-year-old's stalwart backing of Clinton. Only three donors in the nation gave more this cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Eychaner in October hosted Obama at a fundraiser at his North Side home, where the president predicted that a Democratic takeover of the House was possible. Eychaner, who made his estimated $500 million-plus fortune in printing, TV and radio through his business Newsweb Corp, has a long history of dodging reporters and hates being photographed despite a degree in journalism from Northwestern University. He didn't respond to requests for comment Tuesday. Advertisement But he'll rejoin a board loaded with current and former Chicagoans, including Chicago Cubs co-owner and fellow prominent Clinton fundraiser Laura Ricketts, Michelle Obama's former chief of staff Susan Sher, former Boeing chairman Jim McNerney, Jr., Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes, GeoCities pioneer David Bohnett, Crown Family Philanthropies chairman Barbara Goodman Manilow, Ophthalmologist Dr. Bryan Traubert, Chairman of The Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation, TV journalist Giselle Fernandez and financier David Rubenstein. Even if the White House invites dry up once Trump is sworn in, Eychaner will also be able to rub elbows with his fellow swells on the board of the Joffrey Ballet and the Art Institute, and he's likely to always be welcome at Obama's presidential library, whose architects he helped select. His own home, a 5,600-square-foot glass and concrete Lincoln Park landmark designed by prominent Japanese architect Tadao Ando, is said to be the only visible luxury he allows himself beyond his plum board seats. kjanssen@chicagotribune.com Twitter @kimjnews Authorities in Brookfield announced charges against three men who allegedly conspired to murder a state's witness. Nov. 21, 2016. (CBS Chicago) Three men have been charged in connection with the January killing of a 33-year-old Brookfield man who was supposed to testify in a criminal case against one of the men, Brookfield police said Monday. Michael Smith was fatally shot in his car about noon Jan. 27 in front of his home in the 3700 block of Forest Avenue after making a court appearance at the Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago as a potential witness, police said. Advertisement His wife and 3-year-old son were inside the house waiting to have lunch with him. The victim's wife heard gunshots and ran outside to discover that her husband had been shot, police said. Those charged in his killing are Comfort K. Robinson, 39, of Broadview; Jermaine Douglas, 25, of Chicago; and DeJuyon M. Johnican, 29, of Cicero. Douglas allegedly fired the shots that killed Smith, police said, and the other men conspired to kill him. All are being held at Cook County Jail. Douglas is being held without bail. Bail for Robinson and Johnican was set at $250,000 each. Advertisement DeJuyon M. Johnican, from left, Jermaine E. Douglas and Comfort K. Robinson. (Brookfield Police Department ) Smith was to be a witness in a case against Robinson, police said. In March 2015, Smith was working security at the now-closed Shrine nightclub, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. in Chicago. Robinson was involved in a disturbance at the club when security intervened. Brookfield police Chief James Episcopo said that Robinson was in possession of a handgun at the time. Chicago police charged Robinson with several felonies after the disturbance, including the charges of armed habitual criminal and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon. Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > As Robinson's trial date approached, Smith was scheduled to testify as a witness and was in court Jan. 27. After a continuance was granted, Smith left the courthouse and was followed home. Smith parked in front of his Brookfield home and before getting out of his car, Douglas pulled up, fired several gunshots at him at point-blank range and fled, police said. Episcopo said Johnican and Robinson conspired with Douglas in planning the shooting and met at different locations before and after the shooting. Chicago police arrested Douglas on Nov. 15 after a car chase that led to a crash at 87th Street and Ashland Avenue in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood. A loaded handgun was recovered at the scene. Michael Smith was fatally shot outside his Brookfield home in 2016. (Brookfield Police Department \ Handout) Johnican was arrested without incident near his Cicero home the same day. Robinson had been in custody for several months on a separate felony charge. Authorities took him into custody immediately upon his release from the Danville Correctional Center on Friday. Advertisement "Michael Smith was a good man," Episcopo said in a statement. "(He was) a model citizen and hardworking family man who was killed in the prime of his life just for doing his job." Joseph Ruzich is a freelance reporter. Former Ald. Edward Vrdolyak pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that he obstructed the IRS and evaded taxes. Nov. 22, 2016. (CBS Chicago) Former Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges alleging he obstructed an IRS investigation into a secret deal he cut in the 1990s to pocket millions of dollars from the massive tobacco lawsuit settlement without doing any work. Dressed in a sharp gray suit, Vrdolyak, who turns 79 next month, shuffled slowly up to the lectern when the case was called before U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve. Advertisement Vrdolyak, his gray hair thinning, kept his hands folded in front of him during the 10-minute hearing, answering, "Yes, your honor," when the judge asked him if he understood the charges and the conditions of his bond. At one point, when St. Eve held up a document and asked Vrdolyak if it was his signature at the bottom, the former alderman squinted and reached for his glasses. The two-count indictment charged Vrdolyak with obstructing the Internal Revenue Service and evading taxes. The more serious charge carries a maximum of five years in prison if convicted. Advertisement Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu told the judge that prosecutors intended to turn over more than 150,000 pages of discovery in the coming weeks, including information about tax returns filed by Vrdolyak, his wife and his law firm, the Vrdolyak Law Group. Vrdolyak was freed on a $20,000 recognizance bond. After the hearing, Vrdolyak's lawyer, Michael Monico, said he intended to "vigorously" contest the charges. He said Vrdolyak had been holding hundreds of thousands of dollars in escrow while awaiting word from the IRS on what he owed, but instead the government "for whatever reason, they still saw fit to indict." "It's disturbing, but Mr. Vrdolyak is a strong man, and he's going to fight this," Monico told reporters in the lobby of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. He said it was very sad that "a man of his age is going to have to go through this." The indictment made public last week marked the second time in the past decade that Vrdolyak was alleged to use his insider status to cut a big money deal despite doing little or no work. Vrdolyak, who earned the nickname "Fast Eddie" for his ability to work the political angles to his own benefit, is accused this time of muscling in on one of the biggest bonanzas of them all the record $9.2 billion settlement with the tobacco companies from the late 1990s. The charges alleged Vrdolyak worked out a secret deal with other attorneys to collect as much as $65 million even though he'd done no work on the tobacco case. The indictment did not make clear how much the former alderman actually pocketed. The $9.2 billion settlement in Illinois' suit sparked controversy after it was revealed that then-Attorney General Jim Ryan had negotiated a contingency arrangement promising 10 percent of the payout to four law firms that handled the litigation. That figure was dramatically reduced after years of court arbitration, but in the end, Ryan agreed to pay a total of $188.5 million to several law firms. Advertisement One of those firms was Seattle-based Hagens Berman, which was headed by attorney Steve Berman. According to the indictment, Berman, identified only as Individual B, entered into a secret agreement in 1996 to pay Vrdolyak and another Chicago attorney, Daniel Soso, fees from the settlement and hide the payments from the attorney general and tobacco companies. The firm has denied any attempt to conceal payments, and Berman has not been charged with wrongdoing. Soso, a former Chicago police officer who once ran for alderman with Vrdolyak's backing, was originally charged alone in May 2015 with failing to pay about $780,000 in taxes related to the settlement money. Vrdolyak was added as a defendant to a superseding indictment filed earlier this month in Soso's case. According to the charges, in 2005, while investigating Soso for failure to pay income taxes, the IRS learned that he had been receiving large payments from Vrdolyak and failed to report the income, the charges alleged. The IRS then served Vrdolyak with a levy notice requiring him to pay the IRS instead of Soso because of all the back taxes owed. That November, Vrdolyak sent a fax to an IRS investigator claiming that he was no longer paying Soso and therefore he owed no money. The fax stated that if there were any payments made in the future he "intended to honor the 2005 levy served on him" and remit the funds to the IRS, according to the charges. But according to the indictment, money again began changing hands two years later, with Soso hiding funds paid to him by Berman and Vrdolyak in accounts used by his relatives and girlfriend. Advertisement In 2011, Vrdolyak sent payments totaling $170,000 to Soso, including checks that a Vrdolyak relative wrote, the indictment alleged. Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > Despite Vrdolyak's reputation for skirting criminal probes, the case marks the second time in less than a decade that the onetime political powerhouse faced criminal charges. In 2010, Vrdolyak was sentenced to 10 months in prison for his role in a $1.5 million real estate kickback scheme that had links to the federal probe that felled then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich. In that case, Vrdolyak pleaded guilty to helping rig a Gold Coast real estate deal so he could secretly split a $1.5 million finder's fee with corrupt insider Stuart Levine, a close friend who later wore a wire on Vrdolyak. In 2009, U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur spurned prosecution calls for prison and sentenced Vrdolyak to probation. But prosecutors appealed, and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later ordered that a different judge resentence Vrdolyak, calling Shadur's punishment a "slap on the wrist" that ignored Vrdolyak's status as one of Chicago's most influential insiders. The appeals court also held that Shadur gave too much weight to dozens of letters including one from then-Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher attesting to his acts of generosity. In October 2010, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly sentenced Vrdolyak to 10 months in prison as well as five months in a work-release center and an additional five months in home confinement. Advertisement jmeisner@chicagotribune.com Twitter @jmetr22b An 18-year-old Evanston Township High School student was arrested Wednesday after police said he brought an unloaded gun to school. School officials found an unloaded Walther P38 semi-automatic handgun in 18-year-old Martez R. Hills backpack Wednesday morning, according to a news release from Evanston police. The schools resource officer took Hill into custody and brought him to Evanston police. The Bogdanov family's journey from Eastern Europe to Chicago's North Shore in some ways is the classic American immigrant story. The parents, Branko and Lela Bogdanov, came here decades ago without a penny to their name. Though they spoke no English, they worked hard to make something of themselves. Eventually, they earned enough money to buy a house in well-to-do Northbrook, drive nice cars and raise five children. Advertisement There was only one problem, federal prosecutors say: Virtually everything the Bogdanovs ever got, they stole. On Monday, the couple were sentenced to federal prison for orchestrating a decadelong nationwide shoplifting scheme that netted millions of dollars of merchandise that they later sold on eBay. Advertisement Prosecutors alleged the family stole with startling efficiency from toy stores, booksellers and coffee shops from Maryland to Texas, with Lela often wearing a bulky black dress outfitted with compartments for stuffing large items. In asking for sentences of up to four years in prison for the couple, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Havey noted that each of them had multiple theft convictions going back decades but only now did they find themselves facing significant prison time. Describing Branko as the ringleader, Havey said that although he'd pleaded guilty, he never really expressed remorse. U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood sentenced Branko, 60, to four years in prison and his wife, whose exact age is not known, to three years. In her remarks, the judge agreed that while they each apologized for their actions, she felt they were mostly sorry that they got caught. In addition to the prison time, the judge ordered the couple to forfeit $2.8 million in ill-gotten gains and pay another $13,000 in restitution to Toys R Us and Barnes & Noble. Their $1.4 million five-bedroom home seized by federal authorities will go to pay down the forfeiture order, records show. The couple's eldest daughter, Julia Bogdanov, is serving a 15-month prison term after pleading guilty to her role in the scheme. The Bogdanov family's roots go back to Eastern Europe, although neither Branko or Lela is a citizen of any particular country. Once they complete their sentences, they likely won't be deported because they do not have a home country to send them back to, prosecutors have said. In court Monday, Lela's attorney, Michael Goode, described his client as "two feet out of the Stone Age." She was born "in a wagon" and given away to another family as teen, Goode said. She has no birth certificate, can't read or write and has never had a driver's license, bank account or job. Goode said she essentially stole at the behest of her husband but never helped sell any of the items she stole on the internet. "She wouldn't know how to operate a computer if you put a gun to her head," Goode said as Lela, who has been treated for cancer and heart disease since her arrest, listened to the proceedings through a Romani interpreter. Advertisement The Bogdanovs were arrested in March 2014 after federal authorities followed the family on a four-day, cross-country spree in their gray Honda minivan. Agents watched as the Bogdanovs entered stores in Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana, then exited with Lela Bogdanov's dress seemingly bursting at the seams, according to a criminal complaint unsealed after their arrest. Lego blocks, expensive dolls, electronics, cosmetics even bags of coffee from Starbucks were concealed under clothing and slipped out of the stores. Many of the items, such as American Girl dolls, Furby robotic toys and Nanoblock building blocks, were sold in bulk and in their original packaging by a "fence," authorities said. In one stop at a Toys R Us outside New Orleans, agents noticed that Lela Bogdanov's "stomach appeared more square or rectangular than usual, and it appeared that she was holding something against her stomach with her right arm," the complaint alleged. Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > As she walked to the van, a gust of wind blew the mother's dress open, revealing a package contained in a blue lining "that appeared to be some kind of carrying device," the complaint alleged. The couple pleaded guilty last year to two counts each of transporting stolen goods across state lines, court records show. They admitted in a plea agreement to stealing as much as $9.5 million in merchandise dating to 2004, although prosecutors said the true amount will never be known. Asked Monday if he wanted to say anything before he was sentenced, Branko apologized to the judge but then added that, as usual, his family had been "treated like garbage" by the authorities. Advertisement "Bring me one witness here to say that I been stealing anything," he said in broken English. "They treat me like I'm not human, like I'm just looking for an excuse to steal." At her hearing, which was held immediately after her husband's, Lela said her life was "no good" because of her actions. She also made a promise to the judge: "I no more-a steal nothing!" she cried. jmeisner@chicagotribune.com Twitter @jmetr22b The lawyer for a man charged with disrupting a Chicago performance of the musical "Hamilton" blamed the incident on a "hostile" and "partisan" audience and said his client does not owe theatergoers an apology. Attorney Jonathan Feldman took issue with several witnesses who said John Palmer, 56, appeared intoxicated Saturday night as he yelled obscenities at the people around him and at the actors on stage after they sang the line, "Immigrants / We get the job done," among the most political references in the show. Witnesses described Palmer as stumbling down the steps, spilling wine from a plastic cup and clenching his fists, threatening to fight people around him. Feldman insisted Palmer was incited by an audience that was clearly against President-elect Donald Trump, whom Palmer supports. He said the "biased audience" seemed whipped up by comments made by the cast of the Broadway production last week as Vice President-elect Mike Pence was leaving the theater. Brandon Victor Dixon, who portrayed Aaron Burr in the New York show, pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and read a message to Pence: "We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir." Trump called the remarks "harassment" and has demanded an apology. Feldman said the incident in New York City helped create "a hostile, partisan and biased environment in the theater" in Chicago. "It is unfortunate that I have to say that it seems as if the only party responsible for creating a hostile, partisan and biased audience ... might very well have been the cast and production of 'Hamilton' itself," Feldman told reporters outside the East Bank Club. " 'Hamilton' has created an audience environment that is very against our president-elect and it is unfortunate someone who supports the president-elect cannot feel welcome attending theater with his family," the lawyer added. Palmer, CEO of a company based in Iowa, was charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass after he was arrested around 9:30 p.m. at the PrivateBank Theatre in downtown Chicago. Mary Patchell, of Chicago, said Palmer showed up late with his party and was talking loudly. After getting up shortly after being seated, Palmer tripped, fell and spilled red wine on a child seated behind him, as well as on her arm, she said. "He got to his seat, then turned around to apologize to the kid," Patchell said. "They accepted his apology, and that should have been that. But then he continued apologizing in an extremely aggressive manner, and his volume kept increasing. "Shortly after that was the line in 'Yorktown' of 'Immigrants / We get the job done.' The crowd cheered at that, and that is when he started speaking at full volume," Patchell said. "I immediately shot him a look of disapproval as we had just asked him to stop disrupting the show." Patchell said Palmer shouted obscenities and mentioned Democrats, then "pulled his hands into tight fists ... attempting to initiate a physical fight at the edge of the balcony during the show." Jeff Griger, who was visiting from Orlando, Fla., said he shot video showing a man going on a profanity-laced tirade in the theater hallway and threatening to punch a security guard who was detaining him. Feldman refused to comment on the video and told reporters that "Mr. Palmer denies any wrongdoing on the date and time of the incidence." Feldman called into question the charge of criminal trespass since Palmer paid for his ticket. In fact, Palmer paid for his entire party of seven to attend the show. Attempts to reach Palmer were unsuccessful. Feldman said Palmer is "an otherwise very good person who has done nothing wrong. "He's a good man, he's a family man, he's a individual who runs a successful company," Feldman said. "Mr. Palmer regrets what should have been an enjoyable evening at the theater with his family becoming anything more." Several witnesses complained that Palmer had ruined the evening for them as well. "We missed 'Yorktown' (one of my absolute favorite numbers) through the end of Act I because of this incident," Patchell said. "And although he was gone, the smell of his spilled wine lingered through the rest of the show. ... This began simply as a request for decent theater etiquette and turned into something completely different." But Feldman seemed to dismiss such complaints. "I'm not sure anyone else's family was affected besides Mr. Palmer's family," Feldman said. "It's my understanding that prior to Mr. Palmer defending himself in the audience, other members of the audience had adequately antagonized and provoked a political viewpoint that was not in defense of our president-elect." Kick Off Your Holiday Shopping with the Perfect Gift Book Book Signings November 26 at Southern Comforts Consignment, Dunwoody December 17 at Angela Michael Skincare & Spa, Dunwoody ATLANTA Columnist and blogger Kathy Manos Penn celebrates her 5 year anniversary as weekly columnist for the Dunwoody Crier by publishing a collection of her favorite columns.Are you looking for a distraction from the nightly news or the stress of work? Could you use a peaceful moment to recharge? This little book is just the ticket.Tucked within the pages of The Ink Penn, you'll find gentle humor and the occasional insight in columns covering a range of topics-pets, holidays, family, patriotism, and the changing seasons.Consider The Ink Penn your looking glass, where you too can catch a glimpse of the magic in life's everyday moments.Kathy Manos PennBorn in New York City and transplanted to the South in high school, Kathy Manos Penn lives with her husband and her four-legged office staff in Dunwoody, Georgia. She taught high school English before embarking on a three-decade career in banking, where, it seemed, she always ended up writing.While still working in the corporate world, she began a side job as a columnist for the local newspaper. She is now happily retired from banking but has no plans to retire from the joyful job of writing.Find her columns for the Dunwoody Crier, the Highlands Newspaper and Beaufort County Now plus her blog online at theinkpenn.com. A former Arlington Heights man whose wife died after he battered her told a judge Tuesday that he was "responsible" and then was sentenced to nine years in prison. "She should be safe and healthy, and I failed her terribly," Edward Hartgraves said of his wife, Carol, during his sentencing hearing in McHenry County court. "I love and miss Carol very much. She should be alive today to enjoy her grandchildren." Advertisement Police were called to the couple's Huntley home last year after Edward Hartgraves told a 911 dispatcher that he had pushed his wife down, that her chin was bleeding and "the bleeding will not stop." Aggravated domestic battery charges against him were upgraded to first-degree murder after Carol died three days later. Edward Hartgraves later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, but his lawyer argued for leniency, in part because, according to a pathologist hired by the defense, Carol Hartgraves died of cirrhosis of the liver caused by alcoholism, not of her injuries. Advertisement The couple's son also asked for leniency, saying his father was "a victim of his own addiction" to alcohol. In sentencing Edward Hartgraves, Judge Sharon Prather said Tuesday that Carol Hartgraves' medical problems did appear to contribute to her death. Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > "This was a totally dysfunctional relationship fueled by alcohol," Prather said of the couple. Edward Hartgraves had an earlier conviction for simple battery in another case involving his wife from when the couple lived in Schaumburg. He had also been charged with violating an order of protection granted to his wife. With time served and day-for-day credit, Hartgraves, 66, could be out of prison within 2 1/2 years, his lawyer said. In his statement to the court, Hartgraves said: "I am so very ashamed and angry with myself ... I still feel tremendous pain, grief, hopelessness and guilt. "My irresponsible actions took Carol away from her children, grandchildren and sister," he continued. "Someday I hope they will forgive. This is asking a lot, and I don't think I will ever forgive myself." After the hearing, his attorney, Albert Wysocki, said: "I think the judge was very much impressed with the support he had from his family. They were both very sick people." Advertisement Mark Shuman is a freelance reporter. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is racing the clock in President Barack Obama's final days in office to secure $1.1 billion in federal grants to revamp the CTA's Red and Purple lines, an effort that involves creating a special taxing district that straddles the "L" tracks between North and Devon avenues. The new tax increment financing district would raise about $850 million for the project between next year and 2033, city and CTA officials said Tuesday during a City Council Finance Committee meeting. The committee is scheduled to vote on the plan next week. Advertisement If approved, the plan goes to the full council next Wednesday. And if the council gives its OK, the city would have just enough time to send notice to Washington, D.C., and meet deadlines for approval of the grants before President-elect Donald Trump's Jan. 20 inaugural, city officials said. Ald. Patrick O'Connor, 40th, said Emanuel was in Washington "about 10 days ago discussing this matter and working towards trying to help move the financing mechanism along." Advertisement All but about $28 million of the $850 million in TIF money would be used to pay off the principal and interest on a $622 million low-interest federal loan that the CTA hopes to secure. That loan, plus $428 million that the CTA plans to borrow through a bond issue, would be used to match the $1.1 billion in federal grants. The entire package would provide more than $2.1 billion in funding for the extensive project, which involves reconstructing century-old tracks and bridges between Lawrence and Bryn Mawr avenues and creating a controversial "flyover" a bypass that would run Brown Line tracks above the Red and Purple line tracks where they intersect north of the Belmont Avenue station. TIF districts have been around for decades and now pepper the city. They're intended to spur economic development in blighted areas or other locations where it has been determined that without TIF funding, development would not take place. Critics say the city has not always hewed to those guidelines and has instead used the districts as slush funds for pet projects. In a traditional TIF district, the property values used to determine real estate tax collections by Chicago Public Schools, city, county and other taxing agencies are frozen for up to 23 years. As property values rise, the difference between those frozen levels and the actual values the increment generates tax revenue that's put into a fund to pay for projects and programs designed to spur development and job creation. But the type of TIF that would be created for the CTA work is new to Illinois, after being authorized by the state last summer, and is structured differently. CPS continues to collect taxes based on actual property values in the TIF. The property values for the other taxing agencies are frozen, but those agencies get 20 percent of the additional taxes resulting from higher actual property values. And, instead of lasting for 23 years, the so-called transit TIFs last for 35. The TIF boundaries would extend a half-mile on either side of the "L" tracks but would exclude areas already in existing TIF districts. Other transit TIFs could be proposed in the future, as the state legislation allows for such districts along 46 miles of "L" tracks and within a half-mile of the center Union Station. hdardick@chicagotribune.com Twitter @ReporterHal A Northern California man was arrested on suspicion of drowning his 4-year-old daughter in a baptismal pool in a church and then carrying her body to a nearby police station, authorities said Monday. Gerardo Mendoza, 42, of Healdsburg, stood naked in the station's back parking lot Sunday night and yelled for help as he held his fully clothed, soaking wet daughter. His partially clothed, 9-year-old son stood next to him, said Healdsburg Police Chief Kevin Burke. The three had just been at Healdsburg's St. John the Baptist Catholic Church before heading to the police station, Healdsburg Lt. Matt Jenkins said. The child was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy has been scheduled to determine the cause of death, but investigators believe she drowned, he said. Authorities said the church is routinely left unlocked and has a sanctuary pool that is at least a foot deep. "Sunday night there was tragedy in the church; a little girl lost her life," Fr. Sean Rogers, pastor of the church, said on a statement posted on the Santa Rosa Diocese's website. "When police finish the investigation we will know more. In the meantime, please pray for the family, and the parish community." Crime scene investigators with the state department of justice were called to help evaluate the scene for Healdsburg police because of staffing limitations, Healdsburg Police Chief Kevin Burke said. "It's a very complicated investigation. We've had staffing up all night," Burke said. "It's a very challenging and tragic case." Associated Press Authorities in Ohio said Tuesday that they would make another attempt at trying a former police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black man during a traffic stop in Cincinnati last year. A judge had declared a mistrial earlier this month in the first prosecution of former University of Cincinnati officer Raymond Tensing, saying that the jury was deadlocked after deliberations. Hamilton County prosecutor Joseph Deters, who was sharply critical of Tensing when the officer was charged with murder and manslaughter last year, said Tuesday that he had made the decision to retry Tensing for the death of Samuel DuBose. "This decision was made after review of the trial transcript, discussion with some of the jurors, and consultation with my staff," Deters said in a statement. "I am hopeful that a second jury will be able to reach a decision to bring justice in this case for the victim's family and our community." After the mistrial was declared earlier this month, Deters said that jurors were leaning toward convicting Tensing of voluntary manslaughter, a lesser charge, and acquitting him on the murder charge. Ultimately, the jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the case. A spokeswoman for Deters confirmed to The Washington Post that he intended to prosecute Tensing again on the murder and manslaughter charges. If convicted, Tensing could face up to life in prison. An attorney for Tensing did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. He had previously told the Cincinnati Enquirer he hoped the case did not go to a second trial, saying that if it did, "you probably end up with a similar result." Tensing had stopped DuBose during an off-campus traffic stop in July 2015 for failing to display his front license plate. Tensing had said he was forced to shoot DuBose during the encounter because he was being dragged by the car, according to the initial police report. But video footage captured by the officer's body camera showed that Tensing appeared to thrust the gun into the car and fire after DuBose had started the engine but while the car was still standing still. Deters had assailed Tensing for the killing, describing it as a "senseless, asinine shooting" during a news conference on the day the officer was charged. "It was so unnecessary for this to occur," Deters said at the news conference. His office had reviewed more than 100 police shootings by that point, Deters said, and the DuBose killing was "the first time that we've thought, 'This is without question a murder.'" DuBose was one of 991 people fatally shot by police last year, according to The Washington Post's database tracking these shootings. Officers who shoot people in the line of duty are rarely charged, but that number has increased in recent years during intense nationwide scrutiny on how police officers use force. Video footage has increasingly been a factor in shootings that lead to charges. Between 2005 and 2014, 48 officers were charged for shootings, according to Philip M. Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who studies arrests of officers. Tensing is one of 30 officers who have been charged with murder or manslaughter for an on-duty shooting since the beginning of 2015. During the trial, prosecutors revealed that during the shooting, Tensing, a white police officer, was wearing a T-shirt with a Confederate battle flag on it. Cincinnati had been the site of riots, looting and protests after a white officer killed an unarmed black man in 2001, which prompted a Justice Department review of the city's police force and a series of reforms. The University of Cincinnati said earlier this year it would pay $4.85 million to DuBose's family in a settlement. Last week, prosecutors in Minnesota said they were charging a police officer in a Twin Cities suburb with second-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting a man during a July traffic stop there. The prosecutor who announced the charges said he opted for second-degree manslaughter, rather than a first-degree or murder charge, because he believed it was "the highest, most provable offense." Argentine President Mauricio Macri speaks during a meeting with the Argentine Industrial Union in Buenos Aires on Dec. 14. (Victor R. Caivano / Associated Press) On his popular Sunday night program "Periodismo para Todos" (Journalism for All), the muckraking Argentine reporter Jorge Lanata and his guests delivered an explosive claim: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump asked the country's leader for help getting permits for a stalled Trump tower project in Buenos Aires. The story spread wildly across social media Monday morning, especially in the United States, as it played into worries that the new U.S. president will use the Oval Office like an advertising agency for the Trump global brand. Advertisement That Trump would use a congratulatory call from the Argentine president, Mauricio Macri, to promote his personal business interests in such a tawdry, crass way seemed to confirm the worst fears of his critics about the potential abuse of executive power. But the Trump-favor-seeking story may end up fitting better into another narrative of post-election U.S. politics: the easy spread of thinly sourced or even fake news. Advertisement Ivan Pavlovsky, a spokesman for Macri who was present in the room during their call, said the claims were false and that "nothing like that ever happened." "They didn't talk about any investments or any tower," said Pavlovsky, reached by phone in Buenos Aires. "They talked about good relations between Argentina and the United States and the time they first met each other, more than 20 years ago" in New York City, said Pavlovsky. Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller also denied the report in an email to USA Today. The allegation that caught fire on social media Monday started on the previous evening's broadcast of "Journalism for All." Lanata, best known in Argentina as a fierce and irreverent critic of former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, said during the show's opening monologue that he had a story about Trump that was "half joking, half serious." "Macri called him," Lanata told his audience. "Trump asked him to approve a tower he's building in Buenos Aires. It wasn't only a conversation about geopolitics." It wasn't clear whether Lanata meant the allegations were "half serious" or whether the story so defied credulity as to seem like a joke. Nor did he reveal the sources for his claim. During the segment about the alleged conversation, one of Lanata's guests, journalist Romina Manguel, said Trump had, years earlier, joined a group of investors who had purchased a parking garage with the intention of building a tower. Advertisement The $100 million project was held up by red tape and currency controls imposed by then-president Kirchner, a leftist, and the permits for the 35-story tower had since expired, according to Argentina's La Nacion. Pavlovsky adamantly denied that the project came up during the brief conversation between Trump and Macri. "They talked about maintaining good relations between the two countries," he said. While officials denied any impropriety, one unusual aspect of the call was confirmed: Trump's daughter Ivanka joined the conversation with the Argentine leader. Macri told a Japanese newspaper reporter in an interview published Monday that he had met Donald Trump years earlier, when the politicians were both businessmen. "In the call [on Nov. 14], I also talked with his daughter," Macri said, according to the newspaper Asahi Shimbun. "I have known her since her infant days." He did not provide details. Ivanka Trump stirred an outcry by attending her father's meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last Thursday. Ivanka and her two brothers are planning to run their father's businesses while he is in the White House, an arrangement that has been criticized for potential conflicts of interest. U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard met Monday with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York, at a time when Trump has been vetting potential candidates for positions in his administration. Gabbard, a Democrat, said in a statement the meeting was about the nation's policies regarding Syria, fighting terrorism and other foreign policy challenges. She did not say whether they talked about a position for her in his administration. Asked why the President-elect would meet with a minority member of Congress to talk about foreign policy when he's putting a cabinet together, Gabbard spokeswoman Emily Latimer reiterated that the meeting was about foreign policy and Syria. "President-elect Trump asked me to meet with him about our current policies regarding Syria, our fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face," Gabbard said in statement. She added: "I felt it important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect now before the drumbeats of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government_a war which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families." Gabbard, who has frequently criticized President Barack Obama on military issues, had resigned her position as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee to support U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. "Where I disagree with President-elect Trump on issues, I will not hesitate to express that disagreement," Gabbard said in the statement. "However, I believe we can disagree, even strongly, but still come together on issues that matter to the American people." Some Hawaii Democrats have questioned why Gabbard has not joined with other members of Hawaii's all-Democrat congressional delegation in criticizing Trump's recent appointment decisions, including Stephen Bannon as his chief of staff. Bannon joined Trump's campaign as CEO in August after serving as head of Breitbart News, a far-right outlet condemned by critics as racist, sexist and anti-Semitic. Jewish groups and a long list of Democratic leaders have denounced Bannon's hiring and asked Trump to reconsider. "Every member of our congressional delegation has spoken up on those issues when they came up," said Shay Chan Hodges, a Democrat who ran against Gabbard in the primary election. "If she's not going to disagree now, she's certainly not going to disagree when she's part of the administration," Hodges added. Associated Press Donald Trump participates in a roundtable discussion on national security in his offices in Trump Tower in New York, with Ret. Army Gen. Mike Flynn, left, Ret. Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, on Aug. 17, 2016. (Gerald Herbert, AP) The election of Donald Trump and Republican majorities in both houses of Congress have terrified environmentalists and climate campaigners, who have declared that the next four years will be a "disaster." Fear is understandable. We have much to learn about the new administration's plans. But what little we know offers some cause for hope. Advertisement It should not need to be restated in 2016 that climate change is real and mostly man-made. It is hard to know whether Trump will acknowledge this. He has called global warming a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese, but stated that this was a joke; he denied the existence of climate change during the campaign, but supported global warming action as recently as 2009. What really matters is not rhetoric but policy. So far, we know that a President Trump will likely drop the Paris climate change treaty. This is far from the world-ending event that some suggest and offers an opportunity for a smarter approach. Advertisement Even ardent supporters acknowledge that the Paris treaty by itself will do little to rein in global warming. The United Nations estimates that if every country were to make every single promised carbon cut between 2016 and 2030 to the fullest extent and there was no cheating, carbon dioxide emissions would still be cut by only one-hundredth of what is needed to keep temperature rises below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The Paris treaty's 2016-2030 pledges would reduce temperature rises around 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. If maintained throughout the rest of the century, temperature rises would be cut by 0.31 degrees Fahrenheit. At the same time, these promises will be costly. Trying to cut carbon dioxide, even with an efficient tax, makes cheap energy more expensive and this slows economic growth. My calculations using the best peer-reviewed economic models show the cost of the Paris promises through slower gross domestic product growth from higher energy costs would reach $1 trillion to $2 trillion every year from 2030. U.S. vows alone to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 would reduce GDP by more than $150 billion annually. So Trump's promise to dump Paris will matter very little to temperature rises, and it will stop the pursuit of an expensive dead end. Paris was a well-meaning if flawed attempt to address a genuine global issue. With no international climate policies at all, it is probable that we would see a temperature rise of perhaps 7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. The United States needs to find a smarter solution. Climate economists have found that green energy R&D investment would be a much more efficient approach. This is very much in line with Trump's campaign promise of "investment in research and development across the broad landscape of academia" and with its suggestion that we could develop "energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels." This investment in U.S. ingenuity could help innovate the price of green energy down below fossil fuels. Only then will we truly be able to stop climate change. Statements by Trump's campaign also indicate that the next administration will create a global development and aid policy that recognizes that climate is one problem among many. Advertisement Asked about global warming, the campaign responded, "Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water. Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria. Perhaps we should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population." This would be a big change. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development analyzed almost all aid from the United States and other rich nations and found that about one-third is climate-related aid. This is immoral when 2 billion people suffer from malnutrition, around 700 million live in extreme poverty and 2.4 billion are without clean drinking water and sanitation. These problems can be tackled effectively today, helping many more people more dramatically than "climate aid" could. Despite its length, and for all of its heat and bluster, the election campaign left many unanswered questions and understandable concerns about the president-elect's positions on climate change, aid and development. But, surprisingly, there is now an opportunity. To seize it, the Trump administration needs to go beyond just dumping the ineffective Paris agreement, to an innovation-based green energy approach that will harness U.S. ingenuity. Such a policy could mean a real solution to climate change and help the world's worst-off more effectively. Washignton Post Advertisement Bjorn Lomborg is president and founder of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and a visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School. A newly released video shows some people in a group doing the Hitler salute and yelling "Hail Trump!" after listening to a speech about white nationalism given by Richar Spencer in Washington D.C. Spencer runs the National Policy Institute, a self-described "alt-right" think tank. Nov. 21, 2016. (CBS Miami) I'm afraid I missed the conference of white supremacists in Washington this weekend. I was hosting my daughter's bat mitzvah. Advertisement But I have a pretty good picture of what happened, because luckily for me, if not for them several other journalists attended Saturday's gathering of alt-right leader Richard Spencer's National Policy Institute at the Ronald Reagan federal building. Attendees shouted "heil" and "Lugenpresse," a Nazi term that means "lying press." Some of the few hundred attendees applauded mention of the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website. Reality TV personality Tila Tequila tweeted an image of herself and others giving a Nazi salute and the misspelled words "Seig heil!" Advertisement White nationalists and counter-demonstrators clashed violently in the street outside the gathering in downtown Washington, and, as The Washington Post's John Woodrow Cox reported, inside and outside a family restaurant, Maggiano's, in northwest Washington. The scenes seemed as if from another time and another place, but in Donald Trump's America, they are here and now. And if Trump doesn't do something more forceful to disown his neo-Nazi hangers-on, they will continue their brazen march into the mainstream. The New York Times quoted Spencer at the conference saying that "we have a psychic connection, or you can say a deeper connection, with Donald Trump in a way that we simply do not have with most Republicans." "We've crossed the Rubicon in terms of recognition," Spencer said, arguing that "America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us." Politico quoted Spencer saying the alt-right was "a head without a body" and "the Trump movement was a body without a head." Now, "I think, moving forward, the alt-right can, as an intellectual vanguard, complete Trump." The Los Angeles Times quoted Spencer saying Trump's election was an "awakening" and that "we're not quite the establishment now, but I think we should start acting like it." The white nationalists are emboldened by Trump's selection of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Stephen K. Bannon to top jobs in his administration. Bannon, who boasted that the Breitbart News outlet he ran was "the platform for the alt-right," was praised lavishly by Spencer. And The Post's David Weigel quoted Spencer saying Sessions tapped to be attorney general is "eye-to-eye with us" on immigration. (Sessions has tried to restrict legal immigration.) Advertisement Shortly after the election, Trump said his supporters who were harassing Muslims and Latinos should "stop it." But they aren't stopping. In the past few days, a city park in Brooklyn was defaced with swastikas and the message "Go Trump!" while an Arab American Uber driver in Queens filmed another driver shouting at him: "Trump is president so you can kiss your expletive visa goodbye, scumbag ... They'll deport you soon." While the white nationalists were meeting in Washington and clashing with protesters, Trump was engaged in a Twitter fight with the cast of the Broadway musical "Hamilton." Trump demanded the actors apologize for urging Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who attended the show, "to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us." Rather than quarrel with that unobjectionable message, perhaps Trump could listen to the George Washington character in "Hamilton" sing "One Last Time": "Like the scripture says: Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree Advertisement And no one shall make them afraid." This passage, from Micah 4:4, is in Washington's letter to the Jews of Newport, R.I., in 1790. The rabbi recalled these words during my daughter's bat mitzvah this weekend. "Happily," Washington wrote, "the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support." Continued the first president: "May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid." Please read Washington's words, Mr. President-elect, and repeat them to Richard Spencer and his ilk as you brush off the white nationalists riding on your coattails. There is room for cooperation on much of Trump's agenda. But cooperation is difficult, if not impossible, when a president gives sanction to bigotry. Advertisement Washington Post Writers Group Dana Milbank is a Washington Post columnist. Twitter @Milbank President-elect Donald Trump waves as he arrives at Trump International Golf Club for a day of meetings, Nov. 20, 2016, in Bedminster Township, N.J. (Drew Angerer, Getty Images) With his measured, conciliatory acceptance speech on election night, it appeared that Donald Trump was finally going to act presidential. However, the following weeks have indicated otherwise as the president-elect has again taken to Twitter. Here are some likely future tweets from the soon-to-be President Trump: Jan. 20, 2017 Advertisement It's Inauguration Day. Proud to be your new president. Don't see what the big fuss was about me adding the words "if I feel like it" at the end of the oath of office. Jan. 21, 2017 Advertisement White House is small, cramped and drafty. Couldn't sleep last night. Will be living in Trump Tower until renovations completed to my specifications. Jan. 22, 2017 Last night's SNL totally rude and disgusting. Will not be watching future shows. Nor will anyone else once my good friend AG Jeff Sessions is done with them. Jan. 25, 2017 Glad to welcome Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka to my White House team. Since all three appointments are informal, there are no conflict of interest concerns. Jan. 30, 2017 Will be meeting today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This shows how inclusive I am since it's obvious she's not even a 4. Feb. 2, 2017 Advertisement Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pa., my new favorite red state. No matter what the little fella sees, there'll be at least 1,448 more days in my presidency. Feb. 5, 2017 Concrete poured for new border wall. As a signal of my ability to compromise, I have agreed to lower the height to 30 feet. Feb. 14, 2017 Happy Valentine's Day to all my faithful supporters! Thank you for all the love! Thanks to Melania, too, for her profession of love. Feb. 17, 2017 Advertisement Proud to announce the appointment of my fantastic daughter, Tiffany, as secretary of style. She'll help make America look great again. March 15, 2017 FBI says today is Ides of March and the agency offers to act as my Praetorian Guard. I think that's a typo. They must mean Ideas of March of which I have many, many great ones. April 1, 2017 Told my opponent I won't be prosecuting her for email scandal. Then again, it is April Fool's Day. See you in Gitmo, Hillary! David Martin lives in Ottawa, Ontario. He is the author of "Screams & Whispers," a humor collection. Mitchell T. Harris, Sr. Born: November 19, 1937, Died: November 20, 2016 Mr. Mitchell Thorne Harris, Sr. age 79, a resident of 102 Bath Circle, Washington, NC died Sunday evening November 20, 2016. A funeral service will be held 11:00 AM Wednesday November 23, 2016 at First Church of Christ in Washington. Burial will follow in Oakdale Cemetery. The family will receive friends 6:30-8:30 PM on Tuesday November 22, 2016 at First Church of Christ Family Life Center in Washington and other times at the home. Complete arrangements will be announced by Paul Funeral Home & Crematory in Washington. I once picked on the Democratic Vice President Al Gore in a column because he claps like a child, so be assured theres nothing partisan in my attack today on Republican President-elect Donald Trump for wearing his neckties like a little boy. When we are young and small and compelled by social circumstance to dress up, standard-issue ties are too long for us and so they hang like leashes down our shirtfronts. We cant help it. But as we get older and a bit bigger, we learn to knot our ties so the point extends right to the belt buckle no more, no less, as sartorial expert John T. Malloy put it in his seminal 1976 guidebook Dress for Success ." "There is little that looks worse on a man that a time that is either too long or too short." Trump, however, still knots his ties so that they hang well below his belt buckle often several mortifying inches, a fashion dont so egregious that GQ recently used it as the subject of a photo spread headlined, " The one style lesson you can actually learn from Donald Trump ." The now-defunct men's fashion magazine Details once asked, "What in the name of Macy's clearance aisle is the deal with his tie?" In a column headlined " Donald Trump constantly makes one of the most offensive mistakes in men's suiting ," Business Insiders senior finance correspondent Linette Lopez referred to Trumps dangling neckwear as a tragic mistake and noted that too-long ties are often used for comic effect, and unless your name is Krusty and you work at the Big Top, they are generally frowned upon in the workplace. Surely more than one adviser has told Trump this, perhaps while gently reproving him for his 1970s-game-show-host coiffure. And, just as surely, the conclusion that he is prone to ignoring sound advice is more disquieting than how he wears his ties. WASHINGTON, DC Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced its final approval of the state's application to designate U.S. Highway 264 between Zebulon and Greenville, North Carolina as Future Interstate 587. Congressmen Walter B. Jones (NC-03) and G. K. Butterfield (NC-01) applauded the approval of the North Carolina Department of Transportation's (NCDOT) application to transform the highway into an interstate.said Congressman Jones.said Congressman Butterfield.This announcement follows Jones and Butterfield's letter to U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Anthony Foxx calling for the FHWA to approve NCDOT's request to designate portions of U.S. Highway 264 as a Future Interstate.The request made by the state closely follows the Eastern North Carolina Gateway Act of 2016, which was introduced in the House of Representatives by Jones and Butterfield as H.R. 6105, and in the Senate by Senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis as S. 3378. The bill would help better connect Eastern North Carolina with Interstate 95 and the entire Eastern Seaboard.Greenville is the 10th largest city in North Carolina, and the largest city in North Carolina without an interstate highway. The approval of NCDOT's application would designate the U.S. Highway 264/64 split from Zebulon to Greenville as a High Priority Corridor and Future Interstate. Many portions of U.S. Highway 264 are already built to interstate standards. NCDOT has committed to completing the Future Interstate within 25 years.Click for the letter of approval from the DOT and original request letter to Secretary Foxx Compass Box Great King Street Glasgow Blend (Scotland, $45, 43 percent). With a friendly, round texture, this full-bodied blend of single grain and single malt whiskies tastes of baked apples and spices, an affordable sipper or great host gift. (Great King Street) Draw a large circle, and label it "whiskey." Inside, draw five smaller circles making sure they don't intersect label these American, Irish, Scotch, Canadian and Japanese. In American, you can draw one more circle, labeled Bourbon. This is the simplest explanation of whiskey. An oversimplification, to be sure, but when navigating shelves of the stuff, all the options can be confusing. Whiskey is a world unto itself. It's easy to get lost, so it's best to have a map. Advertisement First, some 101. Whiskey describes any spirit created from grain. Look at your whiskey circles each region has specific grains, distillation methods, aging requirements and laws that ultimately provide a general flavor profile neophytes can reference. From there, you're on your own, as distillers experiment and tinker with their recipes, crafting unique bottles that have us followers returning again and again. Want to get into whiskey? Here's a quick-fire primer on that chest-warming global tipple. Our first tip, though, is to get to know the spirits buyer at your local shop for the most part, they know what's on their shelves and in the bottle. Advertisement Scotch whisky What to expect: Smoky, complex, serve neat or, in the case of blended scotch, mixed in drinks What in the world is "single malt," and why do so many people drool over it? Considered the height of Scotland's whisky production (spelled with an "e" for American and Irish whiskey; all other countries drop it), single malt scotch must be aged a minimum of three years in oak, produced at a single distillery (get it?) in copper pot stills and made with malted barley. The result is a wide-ranging, deeply flavored whisky, expressing the singular flavor sought after by the distiller that's why they're so coveted by collectors. Different areas of Scotland from the coast and islands to the Highlands to Speyside yield distinct profiles, ranging from briny to spicy to smoky. Whereas single malts are expensive and coveted, blended scotch is, by far, more available but no less special. As the name suggests, the style is a blend of single malts and standard whisky, creating a smoother, lighter-flavored products but at a more accessible price point. American whiskey and bourbon What to expect: Caramel, vanilla and peppery flavors. Rye is a great mixer. Mention American whiskey, and people will assume you're talking about bourbon. Strict requirements govern the production and labeling of bourbon: At least 51 percent of the mash (the mixture of grains used to distill alcohol) must be corn, distilled no higher than 160-proof (80 percent) or put into barrel at 62 percent alcohol by volume, with no additives. It must also be aged in new, charred oak barrels. Straight rye or straight wheat whiskeys must meet the same requirements, subbing in for the corn in the mash but they are not bourbon. Rye whiskey is currently having a moment, thanks to its spicy, zesty profile, making a robust addition to cocktails. Wheated whiskey is softer, plusher and smoother, yielding a friendly, easygoing sipper. Advertisement Irish whiskey What to expect: Smooth, easy-to-drink range, great over ice or in cocktails Irish whiskey is often generalized as lighter in flavor than scotch, and that's more or less true. The industry is much less regulated than in Scotland, so there is a diverse range of styles available. For the most part, Irish whiskey is distilled three times (compared with twice, in scotch's case), creating subtle and smooth flavors. A style unique to Ireland is the "single pot still" variation of whiskey, created from a blend of malted and unmalted barley. The Irish whiskey industry is growing, and there is a lot of experimentation when it comes to aging and grain blends. Canadian and Japanese whisky: What to expect: A lot like scotch, with less smoke; subtler flavors like citrus and grass Perhaps it's unfair to lump these two whisky styles together, but because the industries are growing, with more bottles appearing on shelves year after year, they're worth noting as rising categories. Advertisement Most Canadian whisky making it stateside is the mellow, inexpensive variety the kind of bottles you find being mixed into cheap well drinks at dive bars and the like. Canadian craft distillers, however, are looking to change their country's reputation with small-batch offerings, taking a page out of the American bourbon and whiskey playbook more attention is being paid to innovation and distilling bolder, richer flavors. Meanwhile, in Japan, whisky has a history dating to 1899, with dedicated whisky production started in the 1930s. Closer in style and method to scotch than American whiskey, Japanese whiskies are easy-to-drink, smooth like crushed velvet with faint hints of smoke and wood. For now, they are a touch more expensive than their international counterparts, but more bottles are finding their way onto shelves and are worth seeking out. RELATED STORIES: Thanksgiving inspiration: 20 trendy dining rooms How to buy a humidifier Creative ways to display your photos Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 11 The Lolla Bootie from Sorel for women is crafted with waterproof leather (for light rain) and stylized with cutouts and a two-tone stacked heel, providing comfort and style for spring and summer and obviously for Lollapalooza, it's in the name), $160 www.sorel.com (Sorel) Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 9 A West Loop condo situated at 659 Randolph St. Unit 614 is currently on the market for $462,900. (Rick Knoell / VHT Studios) Prosecutors and the attorney for Michael Luciano laid out their plans as he returned to a Kane County courtroom Monday for resentencing in a 1990 murder. Assistant State's Attorney Kelly Orland made it clear that Luciano deserves to remain in prison for life for his role in two murders as a teenager a quarter century ago. She suggested the variety of Latin Kings' tattoos he still bears illuminate the idea Luciano isn't someone who went through a gangbanger phase in his younger years. Advertisement Luciano's attorney, however, began painting a different picture of 43-year-old Luciano. He was a victim of the environment of his youth growing up with a violent gang culture as a way of life. Yet, attorney Viviana Ramirez said Luciano overcame those odds to become a devoted family man with many skills, from a "talented roofer" to fisherman and artist. For that, he deserves only the minimum 20 years, she said. A 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling is the reason Luciano faces sentencing for the second time in the Halloween 1990 killing of Albert "Psycho" Gonzalez. Found guilty in 2008 for his part in Gonzalez's death, Luciano earned a mandatory life term in prison under Illinois law which made such punishment automatic for anyone convicted of two murders. However, the Supreme Court decision deemed that portion of the law unconstitutional in cases involving juveniles. Luciano was only 16 when he shot Willie Arce, a fellow gang member, to death in June 1989. He was just 26 days away from his 18th birthday when Gonzalez was killed on orders from Luciano. Advertisement The Second District Appellate Court later cited the Supreme Court ruling in its decision to vacate Luciano's sentence tied to Gonzalez's death, although he continues to serve a 38-year prison term for the Arce murder. Although the appellate decision granted Luciano a new sentencing hearing, Judge Linda Abrahamson could still send him to prison for the rest of his life. Orland and Ramirez indicated they would provide Abrahamson with comprehensive views to support their respective sentencing recommendations. "You're not sentencing a juvenile. You're sentencing an adult man," Orland said, noting how Abrahamson would hear details of both murders and other aspects of Luciano's criminal life. Ramirez countered by saying Luciano's case was on point with what the Supreme Court intended to fix. Luciano built a business to support his family over an 11-year span prior to his 2007 indictment for the murders as part of the Operation First Degree Burn sweep that involved multiple arrests of gang members in cold case killings. Luciano's crimes as a teen do not reflect irreparable corruption of his life, Ramirez explained, referring back to his upbringing as a factor. "The greatest influences in his life (were) his father and the members of the Latin Kings," she said, adding Luciano sat "humbly" in court on Monday. Ramirez plans to call as witnesses "people who actually know Michael as a person" and a psychologist to present mitigating evidence during the hearing which is expected to last at least through Tuesday. Orland began the state's presentation by calling former Aurora police officers to recount details of the two killings based on their readings of thousands of pages of trial transcripts. The witnesses also offered something of a short history of gangs in Aurora in the late 1980s and early 1990s. "Gangs had really taken off around that time," said David Johnston, who spent 26 years with Aurora police before retiring in 2014. Advertisement Gonzalez's brother is expected to read a victim impact statement Tuesday. Dan Campana is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News Phyllis Kramer of Aurora works at the Butterball turkey call center in Naperville to help people with problems making a holiday meal. (Al Benson / Handout) You shouldn't thaw the Thanksgiving turkey in a hot tub or in the dishwasher for that matter. Such is the advice Aurora resident Phyllis Kramer has dispensed working for the Butterball turkey call center in Naperville during the holiday season. This will be the 14th year she has helped handle the phone calls to the help line. Advertisement "The most common questions I get are how long it takes to thaw the turkey, how long to cook it, and how much to buy," she said. "When it comes to thawing, people forget. It's like muscle memory and it's been too long since they did it last. With a fridge, you need 24 hours for every four pounds. But people have called and come up with some very creative ideas." Kramer recalls a call from California which got her attention. Advertisement "The person called and said some people were sitting around outside in the Jacuzzi and would it be OK to thaw the turkey in there," Kramer said laughing. "Another person once asked about doing it in the dishwasher and insisting they wouldn't use soap. And another wondered if wrapping the turkey in an electric blanket would work." Kramer said she also remembers a carving issue from someone who was ready to serve the turkey, only to find there was no meat on it. "I said to the person, 'turn the bird over' and lo and behold they had roasted the turkey upside down and were trying to carve the backbone," she said. "The phone was on speaker and you just hear people screaming in the background they were so happy." Kramer insists cooks want to have a perfect turkey and that for her, ease and simplicity are the keys. She adds that we live in an era of too much information, from websites to cooking shows, and every year, there are new methods being touted for the holiday bird. "I had a guy who wanted to brine, smoke, and grill a turkey because he'd seen shows on all three," she said. "The extra information we have today is both good and bad." Keeping things simple, Kramer said, makes the holiday more fun for everyone. "People think for a holiday, you have to do something special, but the less you do to the turkey, the better," she said. "Old cookbooks used to give you minutes per pound but these are young turkeys that don't need to cook all day. "My role is trying to help people relax and have a stress-free holiday, so that their traditions can continue," she said. "If the cook is a mess and stressed in the kitchen, that energy goes to the whole family." Advertisement Some folks prefer not to talk, Kramer said, and will actually send a text while shopping at the grocery store. But there is also a personal side to working the Talk Line since, at least for a short time, those taking calls become part of a family. "People get so confused with all the new methods and I'll say - let's think this through and see what you're thinking and what I'm thinking," she said. "People are so gracious for the help, you cannot imagine. For a short time you are part of somebody's family. They're making grandmother's stuffing but now she's not here, and they'll ask 'do you think she'd do this or that?' It's a connection even though you'll never see that person again." Kramer's decision to become a professional turkey guru came years ago while she was still teaching home economics classes at West Aurora High School. "While I was teaching, they had these summer internships for teachers where you could go and work with a business and make sure the curriculum was on target," Kramer explained. "ConAgra Foods, which used to own Butterball, had an internship and we did recipe development and learned about getting products ready for market. I found out about the Talk Line and I thought hmm, when I retire, that's what I'm going to do." Beyond teaching home economics, Kramer's has worked at Robert Morris, where she supervised chef interns, and also taught cooking classes in Geneva at the Persimmon Tree and at Prisco's Family Market in Aurora. The Talk Line operates every day through Christmas Eve, and not surprisingly, Thanksgiving is the busiest day. And thanks to social media connecting with experts has exploded. Advertisement "I don't know what the call totals are leading up to Christmas, but I can tell you we receive about 10,000 live calls on Thanksgiving, and that's in addition to all the live chats, emails, and this year we're adding 24/7 text messaging," Kramer said. "We also have the website where we have updated all the videos. We also are on all the social media and posting responses on Facebook and Twitter. When it comes to Thanksgiving let's face it the turkey is important." David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News Turkey Talk Line The Butterball Talk Line hours are Nov. 23, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Nov. 24: 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Nov. 25 to Dec. 23: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Dec. 17 and 18: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and Dec. 24: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The number is 800-288-8372. Roof construction started a fire at a disposable food packaging corporation's St. Charles facility Monday evening, according to St. Charles fire officials. At 7:29 p.m. Monday, firefighters responded to a report of smoke in a Pactiv Corporation building on the 300 block of South Kirk Road, according to a news release from St. Charles Fire Chief Joe Schelstreet. Advertisement A company supervisor who called 911 evacuated employees from the building, according to the fire department. When firefighters arrived three minutes later, they found smoke in the main office area, according to the fire department. Advertisement Roofers had been working during the day, fire officials said. Upon investigation, firefighters found a small fire in the built-up section of the roof. Firefighters cut away the roof to expose the fire so they could put it out, according to the department. The fire was contained to the corner where it started, officials said. The fire department attributed the cause of the fire to the roofing operation. Officials estimate the fire damage at about $10,000. No injuries were reported to employees or firefighters. Kirk Road was detoured while firefighters used a fire hydrant on the opposite side of the road from the building to fight the fire. All fire units left the scene by 9:57 p.m., officials said. West Chicago, Geneva, Batavia and Elburn fire departments assisted the St. Charles firefighters. A voice mail seeking comment from Pactiv was not immediately returned Tuesday. hleone@tribpub.com Twitter @hannahmleone Steve McMichael gets his arms around the legs of Packers quarterback Jim Zorn during a game Nov 3, 1985, in Lambeau Field in Green Bay. McMichael, a member of the Chicago Bears Super Bowl champion team, will make an appearance at the Pop Culture Convention in St. Charles. (Ed Wagner Jr. / Chicago Tribune) Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles will host the Chicago Pop Culture Show and Sale Saturday and Sunday. The weekend features comics, toys, gaming, science fiction, anime, superheroes and more, organizers said. Advertisement Featured guests include Steve "Mongo" McMichael from the 1985 Chicago Bears Super Bowl champion squad, TV horror host Svengoolie, actor Deep Roy and actor, director and athlete Fred Williamson. Vendors will sell everything from comic books to games to records. Advertisement Tickets are $10 for one-day admission and $15 for two-day admission and can be purchased at chicagopopculturecon.com. The Chicago Pop Culture Convention is from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at Pheasant Run Resort, 4051 E. Main St., St. Charles. Joy Davis is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News West Aurora School District may offer a tax break to a developer who wants to build a three-story hotel in North Aurora. N.A. Lodging I, LLC has concept plans for a 7.8-acre parcel in Randall Highlands, a mixed use development at Randall and Orchard roads. Advertisement The developer is asking the school district for a five-year property tax abatement to help fund the infrastructure of the hotel. The proposal also includes a spot for a restaurant south of the existing Turf Room restaurant, as well as an area for 40 townhouses. Angie Smith, assistant superintendent of operations for West Aurora, said the value of the tax break would be approximately $590,000. She said the district would still realize $170,000 in property taxes over the five years, which is still more than the $40,000 the district would receive if the land remained vacant. Advertisement The developer said the annual tax revenue to the district would increase to more than $457,000 a year after the tax break is over. The developer said there is a potential for the district to gain more than $10 million in new tax revenue over the next 20 years. N.A. Lodging Partner Ed Roberts said "there is no risk" to the school district and they are not asking for a "handout." The developer said they are asking the district to "participate in a plan to grow." Roberts said the group was originally in discussions with Best Western for a four-story hotel. "It ended up being too expensive," he told the school board. He said they are talking with "two flagships" in the hotel industry to run the hotel. He said the project cannot move forward without the district's support because costs are too high. "We would receive 100 percent of the property tax revenues from the townhouses and restaurant. We are only going to abate taxes on the hotel," Smith told the school board. "We have spoken with the village and they are supportive of the concept. They believe in addition to the tax revenue there will be significant jobs created in the community." Smith said the district would not expect a large influx of students from the proposed townhouses. Advertisement She said the developer has agreed to make a $10,000 contribution to the A+ Foundation for high school band uniforms. "It shows investment in the community and a good faith effort on their part to give back to the community," Smith said. She said there would be no "net loss" to the district. "We believe it is a win-win," she said. "There are people who will argue that if taxes are not abated the district would receive 100 percent every year. The developer has told us they can't afford to do the project without it." The developer also pitched the plans at the North Aurora Village Board Committee-of-the-Whole meeting Monday night. Village Administrator Steve Bosco said the project has undergone several revisions. It began solely with townhouses. A village memo says the developer is now discussing a hotel with My Place Hotels of America, a company that operates nationally. The plan is for a three-story, 64-room hotel. Advertisement Bosco said the developer has no immediate plans to develop the restaurant portion of the proposal. "At this point the Village Board is OK with the concept," Bosco said Tuesday. Bosco said the project will require going through the village's approval process. "The land has been sitting vacant for years and there had been lots of changeovers with different concepts being suggested. For the first time in more than three years we have seen a concept for a hotel and townhomes that has actually stuck," Bosco said. "When developers bring a hotel to a village you would expect there would be favorable opinions. Hotels can be economic engines." Bosco said village trustees have not discussed any potential reduction in impact fees for the project. "We have not formally sat down with the developer to discuss their requests from the village. We believe they will ask for some concessions from the village," Bosco said. Advertisement Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News Contact: Crystal Feldman Crystal Feldman govpress@nc.gov Raleigh, N.C. Governor Pat McCrory is applauding the bravery and courageous efforts by firefighters to protect homes and turn the tide of the Party Rock Fire, despite high winds and continued dry conditions.said Governor McCrory.Over the weekend, western North Carolina experienced wind gusts of up to 45 miles per hour and continued dry conditions. The firefighters built a containment line near the Henderson-Rutherford County line clearing all combustible material forming a barrier to keep the fire from growing. Firefighters worked tirelessly the hold the line and as a result, all structures were protected and containment of the fire increased to 45 percent.At noon today, the public was allowed to return to Chimney Rock Village and the pre-evacuation notice issued this weekend for areas Northeast, East and Southeast of the fire was cancelled.Several roads have also reopened. The main route to and through Chimney Rock Village and Lake Lure is now available to all motorists, as U.S. 64/74A opened at noon today. The eight-mile stretch of the highway between Bat Cave and N.C. 9 closed on Friday, November 11, because of safety concerns from wildfires. Today's opening, as well as the opening of N.C. 9 near Bat Cave over the weekend, means traffic has resumed standard patterns on roads which had been closed due to the Party Rock Fire in Henderson and McDowell counties.Commercial vehicles delivering food and other supplies were allowed through the area early this morning, and school busses also resumed their normal routes.Despite the improvements, dangers still exist in the area including burned trees, smoldering stumps and cured trees which could fall. Motorists are reminded to use extreme caution through the area, follow posted signs, and remain alert for all hazards including emergency vehicles and personnel. December 2014: Energy Transfer Partners LP applies to build a 1,172-mile, 570,000 barrel-per-day pipeline to deliver crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken shale fields to Patoka, Ill., crossing South Dakota and Iowa to the North Dakota Public Service Commission, kicking off a year of public hearings in the state. January 2016: North Dakota regulators approve the pipeline unanimously April 29: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers holds a hearing for Native Americans on the pipeline. There was near unanimous opposition to the project, according to local media reports. July 25: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved three easements for water crossings for the pipeline at Sakakawea, the Mississippi River and Lake Oahe. Lake Oahe is an ancestral site for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. July 27: The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sues the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia in connection with the pipeline, citing violation of multiple federal statutes that authorize the pipeline's construction and operation, and seeks an emergency order to halt construction. The tribe also alleges the pipeline threatens their environmental and economic well-being and would damage and destroy sites of historic, religious and cultural significance. The Sioux Tribe say that because the pipeline goes underneath Lake Oahe, approximately half a mile upstream of the tribe's reservation, leaks from the pipeline would be directly in the tribe's ancestral lands. Aug. 24: Celebrities including Susan Sarandon, Riley Keough and Shailene Woodley joined members of the tribe outside a courthouse in Washington, D.C., to protest the pipeline saying that it could pollute water and desecrate sacred land. Sept. 3: Private security guards hired by Energy Transfer Partners used attack dogs and mace after violence erupted at a private construction site along the pipeline route. Six people were reportedly bitten by dogs, a scene that was captured on video and broadcast widely. Sept. 6: Brian Cladoosby, president of the National Congress of American Indians, which represents more than 500 tribes, spoke to nearly a dozen of President Barack Obama's Cabinet-level advisers at a meeting of the White House's three-year-old Native American Affairs Council. Cladoosby delivered an impassioned request to his audience: stand with Native Americans who have united with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and block construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Sept. 9: U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington rejected a broad request from Native Americans to block the project. He, however, rules that no construction activity on the Dakota Access may take place between Highway 1806 and 20 miles to the east of Lake Oahe. Construction activity to the west of Highway 1806 may proceed. The tribe appeals the decision. Sept. 9: Less than an hour after Boasberg's decision, the U.S. Justice and Interior Departments and Army made an unprecedented move and ordered a stop to construction near Lake Oahe until the Army Corps of Engineers reviews its previous decisions and decides if it needs to conduct a fuller environmental and cultural review. Sept. 13: Energy Transfer Partners told employees in a letter, provided to media, that the company was committed to completing the project. The midstream operator cited that the pipeline was 60 percent complete, and that it had already spent $1.6 billion so far on equipment, materials and the workforce. Oct. 9: The U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit said that an administrative injunction related to the emergency motion of the Standing Rock Tribe would be dissolved, citing that Dakota Access has rights to construct on private land up to Lake Oahe. Oct. 11: Environmental activists across four states disrupted the flow of millions of barrels of crude from Canada into the United States in a rare, coordinate action that targeted several key pipelines simultaneously. The protest group, the Climate Direct Action, said their move was in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. As a safety precaution, companies operating the pipelines shut off sections of the lines for several hours while they investigated. Earlier in the day, Energy Transfer Partners said it looked forward to prompt resumption of construction activities east and west of Lake Oahe on private land. Oct. 25: Government-to-government tribal consultations began across six regions on how federal government decision-making on infrastructure projects could better include tribal concerns. Nov. 8: Energy Transfer Partners says it has built the pipe to the edge of Lake Oahe and reiterates its intentions to complete the project. Nov. 9: Following the surprise victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election, climate activists and the Standing Rock Sioux say they still hope President Obama will be able to kill the pipeline definitively. Analysts say the line is more than likely to go through. Nov. 14: The U.S. government, in a joint notice issued by the Department of the Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers, delayed a final decision on permitting. They said the permit had followed all legal requirements, but said more consultation with Native American tribes was needed. Nov. 18: Energy Transfer Partners' CEO Kelcy Warren told the Associated Press that the pipeline would not be re-routed. The statement came as protests grew more heated. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Satisfy your cravings With our weekly newsletter packed with the latest in everything food. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy Aerial photo taken on Dec. 29, 2015 shows a general view of Zhangjiang High-tech Park in Shanghai, east China. [Xinhua] China's economic growth may continue to slow in 2017 to 6.5 percent before possibly bottoming out in 2018, a new report showed Monday. As China's economy showed signs of stabilization in the first three quarters with a growth rate of 6.7 percent, the rate for the whole year may also register the same pace, according to a report by Renmin University of China (RUC) national academy of development and strategy. "The year 2017 will be a year when China's economy continues the bottoming process," Mao Zhenhua, co-chair of the RUC institute of economic research, said while delivering the report, which forecast that growth in 2017 may further decline to 6.5 percent before possibly rebounding in 2018. In the medium to long term, the bonuses from globalization, industrialization and a large population sustained growth for more than three decades, but they have been dwindling to different extents, Mao said. Mao added that external demand will not recover substantially in the short term due to uncertainty in the United States and the effect of Brexit. The government has set a target growth range of 6.5-7 percent for 2016. In 2016-2020, China must realize average annual growth of at least 6.5 percent to meet the goal of doubling 2010 residential income and GDP. The website of Aixtron. [File photo] Concerns over China gaining access to the secrets of producing a little known material used in military equipment appear to be behind the US block on a 670-million-euro (US$713 million) Chinese bid for German chip equipment maker Aixtron. Gallium nitride, a powdery yellow compound used in light-emitting diodes, radar, antennas and lasers, is grown using Aixtron-manufactured technology, which has in the past been sold to US military equipment maker Northrop Grumman. Aixtron said on Friday that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States would recommend that its takeover by China's Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund be blocked. CFIUS never gives reasons for its decisions. But sources previously said it blocked the US$3.3 billion sale of Philips' lighting business, Lumileds, to a consortium of Chinese investors in January over gallium nitride concerns. Experts suggest the US would want to stop China and Russia getting hold of gallium nitride technology, which can boost the power and sensitivity of weapons systems while reducing their cost as it requires less electricity. The technology is being used to upgrade the radars of both US and foreign-owned Patriot missile defense systems which are key to defeating air and missile attacks by enemy countries. Colin Humphreys, a physics professor at Cambridge University, said the technology enabled military radars to operate at much higher frequencies and are used in jammers that allow fighter jets and other aircraft to fly undetected. In order to sense such radar waves, Russia or China would have to have access to military technology using gallium nitride, he said. "I'm not aware that the Chinese or the Russians have such weapons systems at the moment, said Humphreys, an expert on gallium nitride. Another European expert, who did not wish to be named, said he believed fewer than 10 countries had access to the technology, including the US, Germany, France, Britain and Japan. The global gallium nitride market is expected to grow to US$1.1 billion in 2020 from an estimated US$518 million last year, according to research firm Technavio. The US resistance to the Aixtron deal shows concern is rife in Washington about a leading manufacturer of the gallium nitride technology coming under Chinese ownership. "The Americans' big problem is not Moscow, but Beijing -- in economic terms and maybe also in military terms, the European expert said, adding that he would expect US President-elect Donald Trump to significantly raise export restrictions for the technology. A German economy ministry spokeswoman said its review of the Aixtron deal was ongoing and independent of the US. The German government withdrew its approval for Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund LP, a Chinese investment fund controlled by businessman Liu Zhendong, to take over Aixtron last month, citing security concerns. Aixtron yesterday defied calls to scrap the sale, saying it had "objective arguments to overcome US and German concerns about it being bought by Fujian, without elaborating. "We are in close contact with the authorities in the USA and Germany, a spokesman confirmed. He added that it was up to customers to decide to what use they would put Aixtron equipment. Aixtron's decision to stick to the plan marks the first time that companies involved in such a takeover have tried to press ahead with a planned merger despite CFIUS objections. After concerns were raised over the Lumileds sale, the parties walked away from that deal. Aixtron is seen as having a bleak future as a standalone company as it struggles with overcapacity in a market dominated by Chinese buyers. The decision will now be referred to US President Barack Obama, who must block or allow the transaction within 15 days. China and New Zealand have agreed to start first round talks to upgrade their bilateral free trade agreement in the first half of 2017, adding service trade, e-commerce and agricultural cooperation, the Ministry of Commerce said on Monday. Other issues including market competition policies, trade technical barriers, customs procedures, trade facilitation measures and rules of origin will also be negotiated next year, the ministry said in an online statement. Eager to further diversify their trade categories, the governments of China and New Zealand established a joint evaluation mechanism in March 2015 to upgrade the current free trade deal. The bilateral trade agreement was signed in 2008. It focused on liberalizing trade, and relatively little attention was paid to services, improving infrastructure facilities and investment, and details of trade policy. Upgrading the agreement will help develop a modern service sector and increase financial cooperation between the two countries, said Zhang Jianping, director of the International Economic Cooperation Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission. China is now New Zealand's top trading partner. Bilateral trade was worth $12.82 billion in 2015, up 1.2 percent on a year-on-year basis, according to the General Administration of Customs. Unlike free trade agreements between China and Australia and China and South Korea signed in 2015, Zhang said the existing China-New Zealand FTA lacks "advanced articles" on services and investment. In addition, exports from New Zealand account for 70 percent of China's dairy imports, and China now stands to benefit from the China-Australia free trade agreement by getting cheaper products in the same category. "Australia's agricultural goods, such as beef, rice, wheat, wool and cotton, will not be levied with tariffs by Chinese customs. This has fueled New Zealand's enthusiasm to upgrade its agreement with China," said Zhang. Liu Chenyang, a researcher at the APEC Study Center at Nankai University in Tianjin, said New Zealand, therefore, is keen to talk about dairy products as part of the upgrade, and there are a number of issues both sides will work through together. Tourism is another key area of competition between New Zealand and Australia. One million Chinese people traveled to Australia as tourists in 2015, and 400,000 traveled to New Zealand, 42 percent more than the year before, the China National Tourism Administration said. "Structural changes similar to those being made in China are also taking place in New Zealand, as well as globally," said Liu. You are here: Home Three men in Wuhu, a city in East China's Anhui province, have been handed suspended prison sentences for killing a Yangtze alligator. The reptile was one of 92 alligators raised on a farm that escaped when heavy floods hit the area in July. While local authorities and farmworkers were busy recapturing the escaped alligators, which are an endangered species, the three men surnamed Wei, Liu and Wang found one in some farmland nearby. Instead of reporting their find to local police, as required in an emergency notice released after the escape, the men bludgeoned the alligator to death with sticks and brought it to a local restaurant. At the restaurant, a friend of the three men filmed them butchering the alligator, broadcasting their actions live on social media. Using the video evidence, local police launched an investigation and the men were subsequently detained. A local court has now sentenced Wei to three years imprisonment and Liu and Wang to two years, suspended for four, three and two years, respectively. German auto giant Daimler has dismissed Rainer Gartner, its senior executive in China, from his current post, over an insulting remark, the company said yesterday. Rainer Gartner, president and CEO at Daimler Trucks & Buses China Ltd., made a disparaging comment against Chinese people, saying that "I am in China one year already. The first thing I learned here is: All you Chinese are bastard!" What he said and did has caused negative social impact, which is also against the companys corporate culture and brand concept, according to Daimlers statement. Rainer Gartner, president and CEO at Daimler Trucks & Buses China Ltd., made a disparaging comment against Chinese people, saying that "I am in China one year already. The first thing I learned here is: All you Chinese are bastard!" His gaffe came after a parking row with a Chinese driver at a residential community in Beijing's northeastern Shunyi District. The quarrel drew passersby to come and defend the Chinese, but they were pepper sprayed by the German executive. His conduct went against the values of equality and mutual-respect that Daimler has been long upheld, and we are deeply sorry for the case which has drawn huge public attention and concern, the company said. The local police in the district revealed that the dispute between the two sides has already been settled through mediation. Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama in Lima, Peru, Nov. 19, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] Chinese President Xi Jinping is now visiting Latin America and has already attended the APEC Summit in Lima, the capital of Peru. The ongoing rise of China and its influential political and economic role in the Asia-Pacific region add special importance to this visit. This time, especially, several experts on China's affairs see it as an opportunity for the country to boost its influence. Some Western media even foresee that the Beijing administration could take the lead from the U.S. In particular, the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election has generated a debate over what it could entail for American economic and foreign policy and how potential changes could impact China. Before discussing developments at the APEC level, a reference to Latin America is required. Latin America did not largely attract the attention of Trump during the pre-election campaign. He almost exclusively focused on the U.S. relationship with Mexico, promising to toughen measures in order to stop immigration with the construction of a wall. Also, his stance on Obama's reconciliation with Cuba is not clear. In reality, although Trump has targeted Hispanics in some of his public comments, he is personally interested in Latin America, as his business empire has been flourishing there for years. A recent article published by The Independent reveals that he has massively invested in the construction and the development sectors of many Latin American countries. That being said, the prediction by American organizations such as the Atlantic Council that Latin America will not be Trump's priority has been challenged. Mitt Romney, for instance, who could perhaps be the new Secretary of State after his meeting with Trump, called the region "a huge opportunity" in his presidential campaign in 2012, because its economy "is as big a China's." And the foundation of the Pacific Alliance by Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru has created additional opportunities for U.S. companies. Subsequently, China should not necessarily expect the U.S. President elect to abandon Latin America. By contrast, it continues its systematic policy of expanding ties and increasing business opportunities. According to its Ministry of Commerce, for example, Chinese direct investment in Latin American grew from $3.68 billion in 2008 to $12.61 billion in 2015. This is what can guarantee the expansion of China's presence and the establishment of a stronghold in the region, and not the expectation of inertia by the U.S. If the latter is followed by practice in 2017, then Beijing will explore how it might benefit. With reference to APEC, the Chinese administration is also taking a careful stance. Two years ago, President Xi proposed in Beijing the building of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). This year he reiterated the same call in his speech in Lima. For the time being, it seems that the Chinese vehicle for a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is gaining ground to this end. This is because the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) project has lost momentum. There is no chance any longer for it to be voted in by a lame duck Congress session while Trump strongly opposes it. Some analysts and media tend to draw premature conclusions. China is currently benefiting by its standard positions as opposed to the general confusion about Trump's trade policies. The new U.S. President elect might soon see American companies seeking to establish offshore bases in Asia. He could also see his country's TPP partners finding alternatives. Whether he will resist the trauma remains to be examined. It will thus be wise for the Chinese administration to be prepared for all scenarios. George N. Tzogopoulos is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/GeorgeNTzogopoulos.htm Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. Flash China is willing to work together with Tanzania to constantly deepen bilateral military cooperation and boost their military ties, said Fan Changlong, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, on Monday. Fan made this remark when he wrapped up his three-day official visit to Tanzania, where he met with Tanzanian President John Magufuli and Defense and National Service Minister Hussein Ali Hassan Mwinyi, and visited Tanzanian troops and academy. Fan appreciated Tanzania's achievements in national and military construction, saying his visit to the country is aimed at implementing the consensus reached by the heads of state of the two countries and further advance relations between the two countries. Fan also said that China has maintained long-term and close military exchanges with Tanzania as good friends and will carry forward the friendship. Magufuli expressed thanks for China's tremendous support and selfless assistance to Tanzania over the years, saying the Tanzania-China friendship is Tanzania's precious treasure. Tanzania is willing to conduct all-round exchanges and cooperation with China in political, economic, military and other fields to benefit the peoples of the two countries, he said. You are here: Home Flash Fighter jets from Saudi-led coalition struck a military base in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Monday morning, residents said, hours before the end of the 48-hour ceasefire brokered by the U.S. and agreed by the coalition and Houthis. The strike hit the Military Engineering Base in Sawan quarter east of the capital, about 500 meters east of the U.S. embassy. The truce went on effect on Saturday noon local time (0900 GMT) between Saudi-led coalition and Yemeni dominant Shiite Houthi group controlling most part of north Yemen, including the capital Sanaa. Similar previous truce had collapsed after both sides exchanged fire and traded accusations of breaching the truce. The war began in March 2015, when Saudi Arabia intervened in military air campaign to restore to power internationally recognized president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after he was ousted and forced to flee into exile in Saudi capital, Riyadh. Houthis, backed by forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, overthrew Hadi and his government over alleged corruption accusations. The airstrikes and ground battles have since killed over 10,000 Yemenis, mostly children and women. Flash More than 3,000 people from Myanmar have arrived at temporary shelters in Chinese border towns including Wanding, Yunnan province, after fleeing conflict along their country's border, said Pan Xuesong, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Myanmar. China gives shelter to 3,000 people fleeing Myanmar. [Photo/Blue Sky Rescue] The injured, all Myanmar nationals, were taken to hospitals for medical treatment, Pan said on Monday. "The Chinese authority has responded swiftly and handled the situation appropriately," Pan added. The conflict between ethnic militant forces and the Myanmar military near the border towns of Muse and Kutkai, Myanmar, on Sunday also injured one Chinese national, who was treated at a hospital after being injured by shellfire that strayed across the border. In response, China will strengthen control along the China-Myanmar border to protect the lives and property of Chinese citizens there, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday. China has been closely monitoring the situation, urging all parties in the conflict to exercise restraint, immediately halt military operations and restore peace to avoid escalation, the ministry said. The Chinese military was placed on high alert and will take necessary measures to maintain security, the Defense Ministry said on Sunday. Eight people, all Myanmar nationals, were killed one soldier, three police officers, one militia fighter and three civilians and 29 wounded in the conflict between 2 am and 3 pm on Sunday, according to Myanmar's State Counsellor Office. Residents in Wanding reported stray shells falling across the border, and one villager's rooftop solar water heater was hit, according to China Central Television. Authorities in Wanding deployed more armed police along the border to maintain order. Three out of the four ethnic militant groups involved in the fighting had not joined a cease-fire agreement signed between Myanmar's government and eight rebel groups in October last year, according to Xinhua News Agency. The recent attack, which targeted economic infrastructure like bridges and shops in government-controlled border trade zones, was a way for non-signatory rebel groups to "declare their existence" and drag China into the situation, said Xu Liping, a researcher at the Institute of Asian Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Flash Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said on Monday that his country will not accept that other states interfered in Iraq's internal affair after a conversation with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Visiting Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari attends a press conference with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier after their meeting in Berlin, capital of Germany, on Nov. 21, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] Steinmeier received his Iraq counterpart at Germany's Federal Foreign Office on Monday to talk about the liberation of Mosul, the last major city still occupied by Islamic State (IS) militants, as well as regional conflicts in Yemen and Syria. Steinmeier stressed that no Shiite militias should be allowed to penetrate into the "core city" during the battle for Mosul. Al-Jaafari said that he could not name a concrete date for the complete reconquest of Mosul, adding that the army proceed very cautiously out of consideration for civilians. According to Steinmeier, a joint Stabilization Council for Mosul is already on its way to specify the priorities for the period after the liberation. With regard to situation in Yemen, Steinmeier regretted the fact that the ceasefire has already become increasingly fragile. Even in Syria, no major steps towards a political solution were to be expected during the government change in the United States, he added. Flash At least seven civilians were killed Monday by a Turkish airstrike on a town in northern Syria, state news agency SANA reported. The Turkish airstrike targeted the town of Sheikh Naser in the city of al-Bab, which is held by the Islamic State (IS) group in the northern countryside of Aleppo province, near Turkey. The Turkish air force has been backing the rebels' Free Syrian Army (FSA) in their push to take al-Baab from IS. Turkish officials recently said that the Ankara-backed FSA are closing in on al-Baab, adding that the city will soon fail. The Syrian government has for long accused Turkey of supporting the rebels in northern Syria. Ankara is now supporting the FSA to take areas from IS and to cut the road before the advance of the Kurdish-backed militant groups in northern Syria, near the Turkish borders. Earlier in the day, SANA said at least 10 civilians were killed by a U.S.-led airstrike on the country's northern province of al-Raqqah, the de facto capital of IS. The airstrike targeted a cotton mill in the village of Salhiyeh in the northern countryside of al-Raqqah, killing three workers and a displaced family of six as well as another person from the village. Last month, SANA said the U.S. coalition carried out two "massacres" in the countryside of the northern province of Aleppo, killing tens of people. In July, the coalition airstrikes on the countryside of Aleppo had killed 165 civilians and wounded tens of others, SANA added. The U.S. coalition has been striking the IS positions in al-Raqqah, the main bastion of the group, and other IS-held areas in Aleppo since late 2014. The U.S. administration had previously admitted the falling of civilian victims in the course of striking IS-held territory in Syria. Flash At least 10 civilians were killed on Monday by a U.S.-led airstrike on the country's northern province of al-Raqqah, the de facto capital of the Islamic State (IS) group, state news agency SANA reported. The airstrike targeted a cotton mill in the village of Salhiyeh in the northern countryside of al-Raqqah, killing three workers and a displaced family of six as well as another person from the village. Children were among those killed, SANA said, noting that the killing is another massacre by the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition. SANA said huge property losses were caused by the airstrike. Last month, SANA said the U.S. coalition carried out two "massacres" in the countryside of the northern province of Aleppo, killing tens of people. In July, the coalition airstrikes on the countryside of Aleppo killed 165 civilians and wounded tens of others, SANA added. The U.S. coalition has been striking the IS positions in al-Raqqah, the main bastion of the group, and other IS-held areas in Aleppo since late 2014. The U.S. administration had previously admitted the falling of civilian victims in the course of striking IS-held territory in Syria. Flash Iraqi security forces on Monday recaptured six villages in southeast and north of the city of Mosul, while special forces continued heavy clashes with the Islamic State (IS) militants to clear the districts freed earlier from the extremist militants in the eastern part of the city, a security source said. An Iraqi refugee girl waits with her parents to buy food from a local vendor behind the fence of the Khazir refugee camp near the Kurdish checkpoint of Aski Kalak, 40 km West of Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on November 21, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] The army's 9th armored Division continued their advance toward Mosul and managed to free the three villages of al-Salamiyah, al-Hmeirah and Twajnah al-Jadida, which are located some 20 km southeast of Mosul, after sporadic clashes with IS militants, said a statement from the Joint Operations Command (JOC). In north of Mosul, the army's 16th Division and allied Sunni paramilitary units freed the villages of al-Abbasiyah, Ortta-Kharab and al-Salam after heavy clashes with IS militants, bringing the troops closer to the northern edge of Mosul, the JOC statement said. The security forces have been fighting to push deeper into the eastern side of the city, locally known as left bank of the Tigris River, but met resistance of the militants, who are fighting in small groups who frequently infiltrated behind the advanced CTS forces using tunnels or sneaking through dozens of houses and buildings. The troops and explosive experts also defuse dozens of booby-traps planted earlier by the extremist militants in the freed districts, it said. After more than a month of military operations against IS militants inside Mosul, almost 65,000 civilians have fled their homes and the number went up every day, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displaced. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Oct. 17 announced 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. Early in the month, hundreds of the CTS commandos and Iraqi army made a significant progress at the eastern side of Mosul and managed to recapture more than 10 districts out of about 60 districts on both sides of the city. Mosul, some 400 km north of Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under the 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. Flash Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called on China and Latin American countries to strengthen dialogue on global issues and boost cooperation on domestic development, in a bid to better build their community of common destiny on a new starting point in history. Xi made the remarks while addressing the Peruvian Congress on his first state visit to the country after attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima. Xi proposed that China and Latin America and the Caribbean hold high the banner of peaceful development and cooperation, seek synergy between their development strategies, speed up and upgrade practical cooperation and bring benefits to both peoples. In his address, the president also elaborated on China-Peru relations, China's stance on international order and China's economic development. NEW COURSE FOR CHINA-LATAM TIES "We will strengthen strategic communication and dialogue on global issues and strive for greater representation and voice of emerging markets and developing countries," the Chinese president said. He noted that China will firmly support Latin American countries in seeking development paths suited to their national conditions, gaining greater strength and prosperity through unity, and playing a bigger role in regional and international affairs. Xi called for synergizing development strategies between China and Latin American and Caribbean states, and developing their relationship in the context of international and regional development through active participation in trade and investment arrangements and innovative development in the Asia-Pacific. He highlighted the role of trade, investment, finance, industry and other sectors in scaling up their bilateral practical cooperation and urged the two sides to promote the development of the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Forum. "We need to make sure that our people are the ones who promote, conduct and benefit from our cooperation," the president said. He announced that in the next three years, China will increase the number of training opportunities of various kinds for Latin America and the Caribbean to 10,000. A center for press exchange will be set up in China and journalists from Latin America and the Caribbean will be invited to study or work in China, he said. In addition, China would like to suggest a roundtable on environment and development policies be held in Beijing next year and looks forward to having active participation from LatAm countries, he said. The Chinese president arrived in Peru Friday, the second stop of his ongoing three-nation Latin American tour. He had visited Ecuador and will also travel to Chile. It is Xi's third visit to Latin America as president since he took office in 2013. In his address, Xi also reviewed the friendly relations and exchanges between China and Peru, and between China and Latin American countries over the past years. Before the speech, Xi was awarded the Grand-Cross Medal of Honor of the Peruvian Congress by Luz Salgado, president of the Congress. During Xi's second Latin American visit in July 2014, he and leaders from the region held a summit meeting and the two sides agreed to establish a comprehensive cooperative partnership featuring equality, mutual benefit and common development. The China-CELAC Forum was also set up during the visit to steer cooperation between China and the 33-member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Chinese official statistics showed that China has become the second largest trading partner of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the latter is a major destination for outbound Chinese investment, second only to Asia. Alfonso Miranda, president of the National Society of Industries' (SNI) Fisheries Committee, said that China is Peru's top trading partner and the deepening of ties is crucial to the economic growth of this country in the years to come. "The bilateral relations are linked to the aspirations of Peruvian producers to enter the Chinese market, considered to be one of the largest in the world, which would allow us to boost exports," he said. Carlos Aquino, an economics professor at the National University of San Marcos in Lima, said that one of the most important parts of the Chinese president's speech was his call for intensifying cooperation, and boosting investment and socio-economic development in Latin America in order to improve the quality of life of its people. "One initiative that is also highly relevant was his desire to see both sides work together, at all levels, to exchange experience, especially China's solid experience in technological development, innovation, education and sustainable development," he said. NEW MODEL OF INT'L RELATIONS In his address, Xi urged the international community to push for a new model of international relations featuring win-win cooperation, and foster a community of common destiny for mankind. China has maintained that countries around the world should make joint efforts to foster a partnership of equality, consultation and mutual accommodation, and a security architecture of fairness and justice that is built and shared by all, he said. "All countries are equal members of the international community. The big, strong and rich must not bully the small, weak and poor. And the right of every country to independently choose its social system and development path should be upheld," Xi said, adding that all forms of Cold War mentality should be rejected. As the leader of the world's second largest economy, Xi promised that China will continue to build international peace, contribute to global development and maintain international order. "Committed to a path of peaceful development, we will never seek hegemony, expansion or sphere of influence, no matter how the international situation may evolve and how much development we can achieve," he said. China will stay committed to the path of common development, the win-win strategy of opening-up and the balanced approach to friendship and interests, the president said. "China will share its development experience and opportunities with the rest of the world and welcome other countries on board the express train of its development, so that we can all develop together," he said. He also pledged that China will continue to stand together with other developing countries and firmly support greater representation and say of developing countries in the international governance system. On China's development, Xi said it can bring opportunities to the rest of the world, citing that in the next five years, China is expected to import 8 trillion dollars of goods, use 600 billion dollars of foreign investment and invest 750 billion dollars overseas, and Chinese tourists will make 700 million outbound visits. "All this will present an even bigger market, more capital, a greater variety of products and more valuable cooperation opportunities to countries around the world, including Latin American and Caribbean countries," he added. Aquino, the economics professor, spoke positively about Xi's remarks on international relations. "With respect to China's stance on world peace, sustainable development and mutual respect between nations, I think this reflects the humanitarian spirit which has arisen in China and it must fulfill a leading role in global development and stability," he said. You are here: Home Flash An Egyptian court overturned on Tuesday a life sentence against former president Mohamed Morsi in Hamas espionage case, and ordered retrial, state-run Ahram newspaper reported on its website. The Court of Cassation, the highest degree court in Egypt has ordered that Morsi and 21 co-defendants, including the supreme guide of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, will also be retried. Morsi was sentenced to life sentence of 25 years in Egypt in June 2015 in connection with delivering secret documents to Palestinian group Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah group and Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The court last week overturned the only death sentence against Morsi in a jailbreak case. Morsi no longer faces execution. Morsi, the first democratically elected president after 2011 revolution was overthrown by the army in response to mass protests against his one year rule in July 2013. The Islamist ousted president has received several jail sentences in other cases related to spying and espionage, in which he appealed. Flash Donald Trump [Xinhua file photo] China's role in the global free trade process is believed to be uncertain after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump vowed to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a global trade pact, earlier today. Trump delivered a video revealing actions he would take on his first day in the White House next year, including withdrawing the U.S. from the TPP. The massive trade pact was agreed upon last year by 12 Asia-Pacific countries, including Japan and Australia. China was excluded from the pact, which proposed another trade agreement in the area, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Zhao Minghao, a researcher with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University, said the "potential death" of the TPP would have a "double-edge effect" on China. "On the one hand, many (Chinese) people would be happy to see the RCEP gain more momentum. But on the other hand, we have to be aware of the potential danger or risks of the trade agreement environment in this region," he said during a seminar titled "The Shifting Global Economic and Political Landscape: Integration or Fragmentation," hosted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. During the ongoing Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru, China has reaffirmed its pledge to uphold free trade and renewed calls for building a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific. Ian Bremmer, a famous U.S. political scientist, told China.org.cn after the seminar on Tuesday that it was "sad" that the pact failed. He also said that the overall U.S. "Pivot to Asia" strategy is "basically dead with a Trump presidency; it was already getting weaker towards the end of the Obama administration." "Pivot to Asia" is a broad-based U.S. strategy in Asia proposed by the Obama administration, including various fronts such as trade and security. "American ability to project influence and inspire confidence within its allies is taking a very significant hit over the course of the past decade or decade and a half, and this election in particular is going to do very significant damage to that," he added. Some experts have called for China to take a leadership role in the global free trade process, which Bremmer believed will be difficult to materialize. "China will increase its role in building out some road architecture most regionally, and also build some infrastructure, but China as a major power is really narrowly economic in the way it's projecting itself," he said, adding that China is not the biggest power in military, diplomatic or soft power, and that the country has a lot to deal with within its own borders. Where is Trump's China policy headed? This is the third week after Trump's win in the U.S. presidential election, the meaning of which has yet to sink in. China experts and pundits are debating what Trump's policy will be towards the world's second largest economy, as he has said during his campaign that he would name China a currency manipulator and impose a 45 percent tax on Chinese exports to the U.S. Bremmer said that relations between U.S. and China are "uncertain" and can go "either-way." "The biggest risk is if Trump decides to actually villanize China," Bremmer said. "If an intemperate, inexperienced Trump decides he wants to use China as an enemy, that could be dangerous for the relation between the two countries." Bremmer said that there is recognition that China and the U.S. need each other economically, but "there can be pressure on industrial espionage, on intellectual property, and many other things. Commenting on Trump's potential isolationist stance in global affairs and China's increasing involvement in the world, Bremmer said, "One of the pieces of optimism is that China is becoming more of a status quo-esque power, and I believe that over the medium-term that role and willingness of China to become a responsible stakeholder as it defines itself is actually a quite constructive one, and one that the U.S. and Europe will be increasingly able to work with." Flash A New Zealand study has found that bacteria can boost their immune systems by "talking" to each other, providing a new insight into how they survive infections. Research by microbiologists provided new insight into how groups of bacteria collectively defend against viral threats. "As humans, we have evolved sophisticated immune systems that enable our bodies to fight the viral infections that render us ill," Associate Professor Peter Fineran said in a statement Tuesday. "Amazingly, bacteria although single-celled organisms often possess similar adaptive immunity called CRISPR-Cas systems. But the way that these CRISPR-Cas systems function is very much different to our own immune systems," he said. Bacteria, like people, lived in communities, but living in close quarters made them more vulnerable to the spread of viruses. The researchers discovered that the ability of bacteria to gauge the number of cells in their communities enabled them to boost the power of their CRISPR-Cas immune systems to prevent viral outbreaks. The bacteria sense the population density by "talking" to each other using a form of chemical communication known as quorum sensing. "The higher the population density, the stronger the communication between cells becomes, which results in greater coordination of immune defenses," said Fineran. Researcher Adrian Patterson said the study showed that bacterial cells preemptively elevated their immunity when they were most at risk of a virus spreading through the population. "They both increase their ability to generate new immune memories and strengthen existing immunity by up to 500-fold," Patterson said in the statement. The role of CRISPR-Cas in providing bacteria with viral immunity was only discovered in the past decade. The systems created genetic memories of specific past viral infections by taking snippets of the viruses' DNA and storing them in memory banks to aid in recognizing and destroying future infections. One of the least understood aspects of the CRISPR-Cas field was how bacteria controlled the activity of these systems too much activity could result in an autoimmune-like disease, killing the host cell, but too little activity might allow viruses to wipe out entire bacterial communities. The research showed that by openly communicating with each other, bacteria strike the right balance between these two outcomes. A Facebook comment targeting American Indians sparked controversy across the state Monday. Ryan Carter, 39, posted a photo of a gun and a comment threatening American Indians on Sunday after he read an article about the pipeline standoff in North Dakota on property bordering the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. "Indians! Come at me! There is still a law in Montana, if more than three of you do, it's considered a war party and I can defend myself!" he posted. Carter's Facebook page stated that he worked at Tire-Rama, and at least one reader of Carter's post responded by listing the telephone numbers of three Billings-area Tire-Rama shops and saying, "Let's make this person famous." Carter and Tire-Rama received threats on Monday. Tire-Rama Sales and Marketing Manager Glen Korf said Carter was employed by the company more than a year ago, but worked less than three months. Montana tribes are important customers for Tire-Rama, Korf said, which has contracts with tribes for the repair and supply of government vehicle tires. "The racist remarks, threatening remarks, those aren't remarks shared by Tire-Rama," Korf said. The company responded to more than 20 angry calls from people as far away as Spokane, Wash., and Texas, Korf said. Tribal representatives from Browning also contacted the company. In a conversation with The Gazette, Carter apologized for anger being directed at the company. He said he had just gotten his wisdom teeth pulled and was still under the influence of anesthesia when he made the comments. Carter said he does believe protests should be peaceful, and only meant that people have a right to defend themselves against violence. He apologized to American Indians and to anyone taking offense to his comment. "The tribes have their right to stand up for their water," Carter said. "I really was not clear in the head." The police contacted Carter on Monday to ensure he had deleted the post, which he had. Carter wasn't sure where he got the idea Montana law stated three Indians together was a war party. Montana Department of Justice Spokesperson Eric Sell said he is not aware of any such law. There may be antiquated laws on the books, Sell said, but the State Legislature attempts to repeal them when they're discovered. Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, said he does not have specific examples of Montana state law that discriminate against Indians. But there are certain state landmarks and monuments that could better reflect Indian history in the state, he said. He pointed to a proposed law that was killed in draft during the 2013 Legislature that requested state agencies remove the term "half breed" from signage and geological features in Montana. The history of Montana does not take into account the viewpoints of Native Americans, Windy Boy said. He said when he travels the state, he sometimes stops to read the signs posted at historic sites. Most do not reflect the history of the tribes. "The ones memorializing wars between Indians and the U.S. government call the wars the U.S.-won victories," Windy Boy said. "And the ones the Indians won, massacres. One word really changes the whole dynamic." The U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has proposed a bill to repeal obsolete laws relating to Indians. Some of the outdated laws include the banning of federal funds going to Indian tribes holding white hostages and the banning of federal funds going to "Indians while they are under the influence of any description of intoxicating liquor." The bill, called the Respect Act, was proposed by Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D. Laws discriminating against American Indians began to concern Rounds while he was governor of South Dakota. The bill still needs to be voted on by the Senate. It is symbolic in nature, but still worth doing, Rounds said. Some things shouldnt be found in federal law, Rounds said. He called the bill a small step forward, but an important one. You are here: Home Flash Turkey on Tuesday dismissed more than 10,000 personnel with the military, police and other public institutions in ongoing investigations over a failed coup in July, according to the website of the official gazette. The suspects are allegedly linked to the Fetullah Gulen Movement, which is accused of orchestrating the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey. Under the latest decree, 1,259 personnel from the Land Forces Command, 391 from the Naval Forces Command, and 338 from the Air Force Command have been sacked from the army. A total of 403 people have been also dismissed from the Gendarmerie General Command while 7,586 police officers have been fired from the Security General Directorate. Other 157 public officials who had been dismissed as part of the terror probe have returned to their posts. Also, at least 550 non-governmental organizations, 19 private health institutions and nine press organizations have been shut down. The move comes under a state of emergency, which was imposed following the failed coup attempt and extended for another three months until January. Meanwhile, warrants were issued early Tuesday for 60 air force staff, including pilots, in the anti-terror investigation, Anadolu Agency reported. Flash U.S. President-elect Donald Trump Monday unveiled his first 100-day plan in office, which is topped by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and creating jobs. "I'm going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country," Trump said. Trump made the remarks in a short video less than three minutes long, in which he outlined specific policies for his tenure for the first time since his victory in the presidential election earlier this month. "Instead, we'll negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry onto American shores," he added. The TPP, a free trade pact between 12 Asia-Pacific countries, has been signed but not yet ratified by U.S. lawmakers. During his election campaign, Trump had said he strongly opposed the deal. Rebuilding the middle class in the United States is a priority of his new policies, Trump said. Other initiatives boosting job numbers include loosening regulations on the energy sector. "I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the productions of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs," Trump said. A probe into visa abuses headed by the labor department would also be conducted, in order to stop illegal immigrants from undercutting U.S. laborers, Trump said. Political reform is also high on the agenda, as Trump pledged to "drain the swamp" in Washington. Specific plans include imposing a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the administration, and a lifetime ban on their lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. Also to cut red tape, Trump said for every new regulation being implemented, the government will cut two old ones. The 100-day plan also touched on national security, outlining a "comprehensive plan to protect America's vital infrastructure from cyber attacks and all other form of attacks." Notably missing from the plan are the president-elect's previous promises to build a wall along the Mexican border and to amend Obamacare, two highly controversial issues that have won him as much criticism as praise. Reception of Trump's plan is mixed, with many applauding him for the courage to make changes, while others are alarmed by the environmental impact of his energy plans. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week, health care reform was the top issue U.S. citizens want to see addressed in Trump's first 100 presidential days. Jobs and immigration came in second and third. The plan was released amid a flurry of meetings Trump is conducting with potential candidates for unfilled government positions, the more important of which include the defense secretary and the secretary of state. Trump said his transitioning team is working "smoothly, efficiently and effectively," and is bringing in "talented" people. Trump clinched the presidency earlier this month after beating Democrat Hillary Clinton. He is now in the process of forming his administration and preparing to officially take over the White House on Jan. 20 next year. Flash The Iraqi paramilitary units of Hashd Shaabi on Tuesday launched an operation to encircle the town of Tal Afar before storming it to drive out the Islamic State (IS) militants, a military statement said. The predominantly Hashd Shaabi units advanced in the morning to isolate and encircle Tal Afar in preparation for the next stage to free it from the IS militants, the statement quoted the Hashd Shaabi spokesman Ahmed al-Asadi as saying. Later in the day, the Hashd Shaabi units liberated the village of Kharabat Jheish in west of Tal Afar from the IS militants as they advanced to the town, another Hashd Shaabi statement said. On Nov. 16, the paramilitary troops recaptured a strategic airbase near Tal Afar, some 70 km west of the IS-held city of Mosul. Tal Afar, held by the IS since June 2014, has majority of both Sunni and Shiite Turkoman people, as well as other minorities of Kurds and Arabs. The advance of the pre-dominantly Shiite paramilitary units in the ethnically mixed region, where Sunni Muslims form a majority, could spark sectarian tension with Sunni Arabs and neighboring Sunni state of Turkey. The recapture of Tal Afar would cut off the IS supply route between Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa, the capital of IS self-declared caliphate. Moreover, the presence of the Hashd Shaabi in west of Mosul would secure the border areas between Iraq and neighboring Syria. The advance to Tal Afar is part of a massive offensive to dislodge the IS extremist militants from the city of Mosul, which represents their last major stronghold in Iraq. 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. 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. Flash Chinese and Malaysian armed forces began a joint exercise on Tuesday in Paya Indah, a wetlands park in the state of Selangor, as the two countries aim to forge closer military ties and safety and security cooperation. "Aman Youyi 2016," or "Peace Friendship 2016," is a joint exercise on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, involving 410 participants from the Malaysian Armed Forces and 195 from the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Observers from the Royal Thai Armed Forces will also witness the exercise. Launching the opening ceremony of the exercise, Fang Fenghui, a member of China's Central Military Commission (CMC) and chief of the Joint Staff Department under the CMC, expressed the hope that the two sides can take this opportunity to make continuous joint efforts in combating terrorism and addressing maritime threats. "We've always believed that nothing is more important than the all-round growth of the friendly relations between the two countries and the two militaries as well as jointly safeguarding peace and stability in the region including the South China Sea," said Fang. He also reiterated China's stance on the South China Sea and pointed out that China always opposes outside interference in the South China Sea issue. Zulkifeli Bin Mohd Zin, chief of the Malaysian defense force, said multinational initiatives such as "Aman Youyi" would afford greater synchronization and stronger awareness in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. After the opening ceremony, Chinese special forces performed close quarters combat skills while commanding officers from the two sides conducted a Table Top Exercise. China and Malaysia have seen closer military ties in recent years. It is the third time that China and Malaysia have conducted such joint exercises. Last month, a Chinese naval fleet paid a friendly visit to the Malaysian port of Klang. Flash Some Thai nationals are suspected to have secretly supported the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group in Syria, said a police general on Tuesday. Deputy Police chief Pol. Gen. Srivarah Rangsipramanakul said the Australian police had alerted the Thai police that a number of Thai nationals had secretly supported the ISIS, but declined to give names or tell how many people might be so suspected. Srivarah quoted the Australian police as alleging that the pro-ISIS Thais had visited the terrorist group's website for over 100,000 times so far this year. Some of the alleged terrorist supporters had expressed verbal support while others had visited Syria and donated some money to the terrorist group, the deputy police chief said. He made no comment on allegations that those unidentified Thais had been involved in bombings and other terrorist acts in southern Thailand earlier this year. The Special Branch police and provincial police units have been assigned to track down on the unidentified suspected ISIS supporters, he said. Flash Amid a rising tide of worries over protectionism and anti-globalization sentiment, Chinese President Xi Jinping's substantial backing for free trade and economic globalization, demonstrated during a five-day trip to Peru, has injected much-needed confidence into the world. Xi attended the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting on Saturday and Sunday in Peru's capital Lima, and later paid his first state visit to the Latin American country since 2013. "REAL STAR" AT APEC ON OPEN ECONOMY Speaking at the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting on Sunday, Xi highlighted the APEC's role as a pioneer, leader and trailblazer of economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific and the world at large, and called on APEC members to leverage the Asia-Pacific's role as a growth engine and work for an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy. At the high-level gathering of APEC economic leaders, Xi urged the APEC economies to stay committed to pushing economic globalization forward, increasing openness in the Asia-Pacific economy, breaking bottlenecks in regional connectivity and blazing new trails in reform and innovation. Citing the blueprint for strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive world economic growth produced by the G20 Hangzhou Summit in September, the Chinese president said it embodies the spirit of partnership to jointly rise to challenges as well as the commitment to common development. "Instead of coming to a stop because of the temporary difficulties, we need to continue our involvement in economic globalization. What is important is to combine it with our respective development practices, strive to ensure equity and justice, and steer it towards a more inclusive and mutually beneficial direction," he said. On the building of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), which was launched at the 2014 APEC meeting in Beijing, Xi hailed the smooth completion of the collective strategic study this year, saying it marked a new phase in FTAAP development. "We need to stick to our agenda and take more effective actions to realize the FTAAP at an early date, thus bringing about an Asia-Pacific economy with greater openness," said the Chinese president. Calling on APEC members to take more collective and individual actions to implement the Connectivity Blueprint for 2015-2025 adopted in Beijing and promote connectivity in infrastructure, institutions and personnel flows, Xi underlined the need for a multi-dimensional connectivity network and a well-connected Asia-Pacific community. China is making progress with the Belt and Road Initiative. Featuring extensive consultation, joint participation and shared benefits among partners in the region, Xi said the initiative will contribute to enhancing connectivity in the Asia-Pacific, and pledged to seek synergy in development strategies and cooperation initiatives with relevant parties. The APEC economic leaders agreed to build an open economy in the region, oppose protectionism, advance the FTAAP process and boost connectivity, thus injecting new impetus into the Asia-Pacific and global growth. Xi's resolution was warmly received by observers. Financial Times described the Chinese president as "the real star at this year's Lima summit." Mario Mongilardi, president of the Lima Chamber of Commerce, believed Xi sent an encouraging message to the business communities of the APEC members. In a keynote speech at the APEC CEO Summit on Saturday, Xi reassured global business leaders on China's economic growth and opening-up strategy, saying that the country will carry out supply-side structural reform, accelerate the shifting of growth model, promote innovation-driven development, and replace old growth drivers with new ones. China will also boost high-standard, two-way opening-up to deliver win-win outcomes, and push for shared and green development to make life better for its people, he said. The president cited that in the next five years China will import 8 trillion U.S. dollars of goods, introduce 600 billion dollars of foreign investment and invest 750 billion dollars overseas, and Chinese tourists will make over 700 million outbound visits. "All this means a bigger market, more capital, a greater variety of products and more valuable cooperation opportunities for countries around the world," Xi said. DEEPEN CHINA-PERU COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP During his state visit, Xi and his Peruvian counterpart, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, agreed to promote better and faster development of the two countries' comprehensive strategic partnership. The consensus was reached on Monday during in-depth talks between the two heads of state after a red-carpet welcoming ceremony hosted by Kuczynski in front of the presidential palace. Recalling Kuczynski's visit to China in September, the Peruvian president's first foreign visit since he was sworn in on July 28, Xi said they held fruitful talks and agreed to push forward bilateral relations into a new phase. The coming five years are significant for national development of both countries, the Chinese president said, urging the two sides to weigh top-level design and overall planning for bilateral ties, run their cooperation mechanisms well, fully implement their joint action plan for cooperation in 2016-2021, and strengthen synergy of development strategies so as to score real results of their consensuses. He stressed that both countries should treat industrial capacity cooperation as a new engine for their economic ties and strive for early harvest of major projects. The two sides can also further reinforce cooperation in mining industry, energy and infrastructure construction, as well as explore new cooperation fields such as environmental protection, clean energy and information connectivity. Calling on both countries to upgrade their free trade agreement signed in 2009 in a bid to inject new vitality into two-way trade, Xi said the Chinese government will continue to encourage Chinese enterprises to invest in the Latin American country. Hailing the sustained growth of bilateral relations, Kuczynski said Peru is looking forward to further enhancing ties with China since both share similar historical experiences, same aspiration for national development, and huge potential for cooperation in the economic and cultural fields. Following their talks, Xi and Kuczynski witnessed a signing ceremony of cooperation documents, including an inter-governmental joint action plan for cooperation in 2016-2021, and deals in trade and economy, mining industry, industrial parks, information connectivity, economic technology, quality inspection, environment and other fields. Xi was later awarded the Grand-Cross Medal of Honor of the Peruvian Congress by Luz Salgado, president of the Congress. Later in the day, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan, warmly welcomed by Kuczynski and his wife Nancy Lange, attended the closing ceremony of a China-Latin America culture exchange year at the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History in Lima. The China-Latin America and Caribbean 2016 Year of Culture Exchange, a climax of their cultural diplomacy, was proposed by Xi during his visit to the continent in July, 2014, and was widely welcomed by governments and peoples in the region. Speaking at the ceremony, Xi called on China and Latin American countries to comprehensively learn from each other's cultural achievements, so as to make the cultural exchanges between China and Latin America and Caribbean a model for the harmonious coexistence and mutual promotion among different civilizations, and contribute to the world's cultural diversity. Kuczynski, for his part, hailed the thousands-year-old civilizations of Peru and China, their mutual learning in the long history and closer cultural exchanges over the recent years. After the ceremony, the two heads of state and their wives viewed an exhibition of 121 selected pieces of Chinese treasures spanning over its 5,000 years of civilization. STRONGER CHINA-LATAM COOPERATION FOR SHARED DESTINY Xi called on China and Latin American countries to strengthen dialogue on global issues and boost cooperation on domestic development, in a bid to better build their community of common destiny on a new starting point in history. Xi made the remarks while addressing the Peruvian Congress. He also elaborated on China-Peru relations, China's stance on international order and China's economic development. In his speech, Xi used a sweet potato as an example to illustrate China's commitment to contribute to the development and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific. Diana Gomez, a professor at National University of Colombia, said that using the sweet potato as an example was very impressive. Gomez said Xi's speech shows that "China deepens its opening-up while retaining its own characteristics. Chile, Mexico and Peru set good examples for Latin American countries to learn how to cooperate with China." President Xi also highlighted the role of trade, investment, finance, industry and other sectors in scaling up their bilateral practical cooperation and urged the two sides to promote the development of the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Forum. "We need to make sure that our peoples are the ones who promote, conduct and benefit from our cooperation," the president said. He announced that in the next three years, China will increase the number of training opportunities of various kinds for Latin America and the Caribbean to 10,000. A center for press exchange will be set up in China and journalists from Latin America and the Caribbean will be invited to study or work in China, he said. In addition, China would like to suggest a roundtable on environment and development policies to be held in Beijing next year and looks forward to active participation from LatAm countries, he said. It is Xi's third visit to Latin America as president since he took office in 2013. Luis Delgado, a professor of social studies at the state University of Carabobo in northern Venezuela, hailed China's commitment to the development in Latin America. "With Latin America's potential and the support of the Chinese government, I think it is possible for the region to overcome difficulties and to reactivate the world economy," Delgado said. You are here: Home Flash Hamas movement hailed on Tuesday an Egyptian court ruling that decided jailed former Islamic President Mohamed Morsi is not guilty in the case of communicating with the movement. Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman, said in an emailed press statement that the Egyptian court ruling "certifies that Egypt still concerned about the Palestinian cause and stands to the side of all Palestinian powers and parties." The Egyptian Court of Cassation ruled earlier in the day former President Mohamed Morsi and 21 others will be retried. According to Egypt's Middle East News Agency, Morsi and the 21 leaders, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, were earlier accused of collaborating with Hamas. Flash The Philippine and U.S. militaries agreed on Tuesday to scale down their joint military exercises, reduce deployment of U.S. forces in the Philippines and focus more on humanitarian activities. A Philippine military official said the agreement was forged here during a meeting attended by Gen. Ricardo Visaya, the Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff and Adm. Harry Harris, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command. The official said even the number of U.S. troops, military aircraft and equipment will also be reduced. A statement issued at the end of the annual Mutual Defense Board - Security Engagement Board (MDB-SEB) meeting said both sides reaffirmed the "robust" military relations between the two allies. The statement said the meeting "highlights the enduring commitment of both countries to the U.S.-Philippines alliance." "The successful completion of the MDB-SEB (meeting) ensures continued, robust relations between the U.S. and the Philippine militaries," the statement said. Both sides said they "look forward to continued, close cooperation in areas central to both our national and security interests including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, counterterrorism, cyber-security, and maritime security." The high-level security meeting traditionally discusses the details of the joint exercises that both militaries plan to conduct next year. But the statement did not mention the details of next year's joint military activities. Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla and Col. Edgard Arevalo, spokesmen for the Philippine military, did not give details on the scale of joint exercises that both sides plan to conduct next year. Arevalo said Harris and Visaya signed a list of activities for next year, but did not elaborate. He added he could not say yet if the number of joint war games was trimmed down. The Philippine defense department had said earlier that it wants the number of joint exercises to be reduced from the current 13 to about six or seven. It added that the Philippines would prefer that these trainings focus on humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and counter-terrorism. The defense department had also indicated that it wants to scrap the annual joint exercises like the Amphibious Landing Exercises codenamed PHIBLEX and the Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training or CARAT naval exercises, and just push through with the Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) Exercises. Padilla said the two sides also discussed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that Washington and Manila signed in 2014. The 10-year renewable EDCA allows the increased presence of U.S. forces, ships, aircraft and equipment in the Philippines and greater access to Philippine military bases. Under the new defense accord, U.S. military personnel in the Philippines are to be deployed on a rotational basis. After an elementary and high school levy failed last school year, School District 2 trustees are starting to consider asking taxpayers for a new tax increase. Officials were optimistic that results could be different this spring. "We barely failed two of them last time," said SD2 Superintendent Terry Bouck. "That's not a lot of votes." About 51.4 percent of voters rejected an elementary levy, and about 52.2 percent shot down a high school levy. Bouck emphasized growth this year in Advanced Placement and Dual Credit courses, which can earn students college credit. He said expanding those options is a district priority. "We're really maxed out there because of teachers and staff," he said. "In order to move forward with additional classes next year, we'll need additional staff." He also circled back to several other areas that last year's levy would have bolstered mental health support, gifted and talented programs and textbook replacement. Trustees took no action on a potential levy. Last year, trustees signed off on levies in January, though figures weren't available until February. Spring school elections are held in May. "I think it's something that we need to keep at the forefront of our discussion," said board chairwoman Greta Besch Moen. Projections Trustees signed off on updating enrollment projections last tweaked in 2014. Cropper GIS, an Ohio-based firm that also led SD2's redistricting process, will update grade-by-grade enrollment projections and location-based projections that help school officials plan for upcoming school years. The update would have a $40,000 price tag and be completed within six to eight weeks. District officials said the projections aid them when submitting projected enrollment to the state to maximize per-student funding, and that new school boundaries and shifting sixth-graders to middle schools mean that "we almost have to redo it," Bouck said. Other news Trustees authorized the district to get quotes on an update to the SD2's facilities master plan, which helps determine district infrastructure priorities. Bouck, citing confidential preliminary state data, said "we will be smiling when our graduation rates come out in January." Skyview High business teacher Molly Barta was recognized for being named Montana Business Education Association Outstanding Teacher of the Year. China Aviation Daily | Nov. 22, 2016 Airbus has announced world's first A350-1000 prototype will commence its maiden flight on Thursday, November 24 in Toulouse, France. The larger variant of A350 airliner MSN59 (F-WMIL), powered by two Rolls Royce Trent XWB-97 engines, is scheduled to take off at 10:30 a.m. local time from Toulouse Blagnac Airport, subject to weather conditions, Airbus said in a statement. One Trent XWB-97 is currently engaged in icing tests in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as it is installed on the left inboard station of the A380 flying testbed. Airbus plans to deliver the first A350-1000 to launch customer Qatar Airways by the end of 2017. So far, Airbus has collected a total of 195 firm orders for the A350-1000 aircraft, compared to 599 for the smaller -900 and a remaining 16 for the -800. Related News: Airbus A380 Arrives in Milwaukee for Icing Tests on A350-1000 Engine Photos: First Airbus A350-1000 Rolls Out from Paint Shop Airbus Starts A350-1000 Final Assembly China Aviation Daily | Nov. 22, 2016 Later this month, Boeing Co. will hand over a brand new 787-9 Dreamliner to Air France, which also marks the 500th Dreamliner to be delivered. The 787-9 Dreamliner, Registration F-HRBA, is scheduled to arrive at Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport on December 2, before operating commercial international flights from Paris to Cairo on January 9. In addition, Air France announced that there will be four "Welcome Flights" around France on January 7-8. From the delivery of parts to their assembly, from painting the aircraft to its first take-off, check the following clip to discover all the different stages of the construction of Air France's first Boeing 787 in the workshops in Everett in the United States, before its arrival at Paris-CDG on December 2. Related News: First Boeing 787 Dreamliner for Air France Takes into Skies Photos: Boeing's 500th 787 Dreamliner Rolls Out of Paint Shop in Air France Livery DHAKA - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) have again joined hands to co-finance a mega energy project in Bangladesh. ADB on Monday approved a $167 million loan to promote sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty in Bangladesh by improving production efficiency at a key gas field north of the capital Dhaka and by expanding transmission infrastructure. AIIB is expected to lend an additional $60 million which will be subject to board approval and be managed by ADB, said the Manila-based lender. It is the second project to be co-financed by ADB and AIIB, a China-proposed international financial institution that aims to support the building of infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region and which was formally established in December last year. In June this year, AIIB approved $165 million in loans for a Bangladesh project - the first batch of loan for the country from the China-proposed development bank. The bank's board of directors had then approved its first four loans totaling $509 million to finance four projects including the one in Bangladesh. ADB on Monday said that Bangladesh's economy is growing fast; however, domestic natural gas supplies cannot keep pace with soaring demand for energy, resulting in rising dependence on oil and diesel-based power generation. "The project will help the government address the country's energy crisis by making available additional clean energy, particularly imported natural gas, through the transmission network," said Hongwei Zhang, finance specialist (energy) in ADB's South Asia Department. "By addressing gas supply constraints and transmission bottlenecks, the project will increase the energy sector's contribution to sustainable economic growth in Bangladesh," the specialist said. According to ADB, the project will boost gas transmission by building a 181 kilometers of transmission pipeline from Chittagong to Bakhrabad southeast of Dhaka. The project will also install seven wellhead gas compressors to increase pumping pressure and ensure steady extraction at the Titas gas field, Bangladesh's largest field, it said. The $453 million project is expected to be completed in late 2021. It will substitute the use of other fossil fuels, thereby reducing over 700,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year over the ensuing 10 years, ADB said, The Bangladesh government will provide $226 million for the project, it said. China and Peru on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding in Lima to conduct a feasibility study on upgrading the China-Peru Free Trade Agreement, the Ministry of Commerce said today. Eager to further diversify their trade categories, the governments of China and Peru sealed the FTA deal in 2009. Bilateral trade between the two countries amounted to $16.02 billion in 2015, double that of the year before they signed the FTA, the ministry said in an online statement. China has already become Peru's biggest trade partner and export market by goods volume. Peru is China's fifth largest trade partner in Latin America. The ministry said upgrading the agreement will help develop a modern service sector and increase financial cooperation between the two countries. Humanities Montana awarded $51,578.50 to organizations and communities throughout Montana for programs focused on bringing the humanities to Montanans. Locally, a $1,000 grant was awarded to Rocky Mountain College to fund Agricultural History of Hops and Craft Beer, two lectures given by Dr. Peter Kopp. One will take place at Rocky Mountain College at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 6. The other will be a public lecture hosted at Carters Brewing at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 7. Also, the Huntley Project Museum of Irrigated Agriculture was awarded $2,000 to digitize and print historical photograph negatives taken during the construction of the Huntley Irrigation Project circa 1906-1907. Many of the Huntley Irrigation homesteaders immigrated from Sweden, Germany and Russia, and these records will give a glimpse into their history. Humanities Montana is the states independent, nonprofit state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The next grant deadline is Tuesday, Dec. 20. For more information, go to humanitiesmontana.org. The cover of the Financial Times newspaper is seen with other papers at a news stand in New York, Nov 9, 2016. [Photo / Agencies] The Financial Times is in talks to buy companies that strengthen its digital subscription business as the newspaper capitalizes on greater financial support from its new owner, Japan's Nikkei Inc, FT Chief Executive Officer John Ridding said. The publisher is hunting for companies that can "support and accelerate our growth in quality content and, in particular, are based on digital subscriptions," Ridding said in an interview in New York. The company is also interested in technology firms that bolster its data analyticsvaluable for targeting readers with advertising and subscriber offers, he said. "We have a number of opportunities in the acquisition zone on the radar," Ridding said. The newspaper declined to comment on which companies it was talking with. "There are some irons in the fire." Nikkei bought the London-based Financial Times a year ago for $1.3 billion after a bidding war with Germany's Axel Springer SE. Prior to that, the financial newspaper was owned for 58 years by Pearson Plc, which had focused resources on turning around its education business. "That left the FT needing support in particular areas of development," Ridding said. "Nikkei has been very supportive of the investments we need to make." With Nikkei's backing, the FT bought a controlling stake in London-based Alpha Grid in June to make more branded content, such as creating videos for advertisers. The Financial Times is getting help from Nikkei by combining their ad sales teams in Asia to offset headwinds in the advertising market, Ridding said. While the outlook for print newspapers in Japan is better than other parts of the world, Nikkei, which publishes the country's leading business daily, is learning from the FT how to adapt to a digital world. Bloomberg Job seekers attend a recruitment fair especially arranged for companies in the Optical Valley in Wuhan, Hubei province. Sun Chen / For China Daily Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province, is using targeted projects to attracting overseas expertise, both Chinese and foreigners, according to a top official of the city. "We used to have a lot of talent recruitment programs overseas. But, the results were not so good. Now we have changed our strategy to use specific projects to lure talented people," said Wan Yong, mayor of the city. Wuhan, located in central China, is gearing up to build itself into a high-tech base. It launched a program called "Wuhan City Partner" in 2015. Its goal is to draw talent from home and abroad, mainly for three industries: information, bioscience and intelligent manufacturing. The recruited city partners will be entitled to a "green card one-stop service" that helps them to get settled down in the city more easily - helping them find housing, schools for their children and medical services. Their pay will range from 500,000 yuan ($72,000) to 2 million yuan. Yang Daichang, chairman of Wuhan Healthgen Biotechnology Corp, was among the first 60 Wuhan City Partners. He came back in 2005 after working six years in the United States. His company has developed genetic technology to draw, from rice, serum protein, a key substance for the treatment of burns and blood loss. The technology is now being reviewed for approval by relevant government departments. In 2009, Wuhan introduced a "3551" program that aims to recruit leading international staff in five pillar industries (opto-electronics information, bioscience, environment, high-end equipment and high-tech services) in the city's Optical Valley. As of May, 2015, the program had recruited 772 people, among whom more than 70 percent had worked or been educated overseas. More than a quarter were foreigners. Marco Banfi, an Italian engineer and two other Italian engineers, came to work for Wuhan Hirun Engineering Equipment CoLtd, a manufacturer of bridge bearings and seismic isolation products three years ago. Banfi, the technical director of Hirun, has decided to sign another three-year contract with the company, as he plans to get married and settle down in the city. He has seen his team grow from a couple of staff members to more than 20 people in the past three years. "The work was tough in the beginning as we tried to match our technology with the local situation. But, we have successfully built the seismic test machine from scratch," said Banfi. Wuhan Hirun Engineering Equipment Co Ltd said it is aiming to export more bridge and anti-seismic products, after building its first high-performance seismic testing machine earlier this year to simulate earthquake effects. Hirun, a manufacturer of bridge bearings and seismic isolation products, is a wholly owned unit of Wuhan Marine Machinery Plant Co Ltd, a major ship equipment supplier in China. "We are upgrading our core technologies as China strives toward the goal of innovative manufacturing," said WMMP Chairman Ma Juyong. "The development of the seismic test machine marked the first time that we hired highly experienced foreign experts to join the company to introduce technology," he added. Anti-seismic devices are installed in buildings or engineering projects to neutralize vibrations caused by seismic events. The seismic test machine was developed by a joint lab, newly established by the company and Tongji University, a leading engineering university in Shanghai. "The capacity of the lab is on par with top seismic experiment labs in the world, such as the SRMD lab of California University in the United States and the European Center for Training and Research in Earthquake Engineering's TREES lab," said Hirun's President Peng Shengli. With a maximum vertical load of 75,000 kilo newtons, the machine can simulate real seismic conditions on isolation devices, through the application of big forces and high speeds. It is able to test the reliability of seismic isolation devices, in order to provide detailed comprehensive dynamic monitoring data for product design. "China was not able to carry out high-speed dynamic load tests for seismic isolation devices in accordance with the most advanced international standards," Peng said. "But the completion of the test machine has changed the situation." In order to develop the machine, Hirun invited three Italian experts to guide the research three years ago. "We did that to transfer technology. The test machine was constructed in order to satisfy European standards, which are the highest in the world for seismic products," said Agostino Marioni, a vice-president at Hirun. "It is nearly impossible for any other country to develop such a complicated machine in such a short time," said senior engineer Roberto Dalpedri. "The fast mobilization of business know-how, technology, investment and people can only be realized in China." Marco Banfi, technical director at Hirun, said that Chinese products still faced difficulties in building a good name in the international market. "Overseas customers usually feel unsure when it comes to made-in-China products. But, in fact, many Chinese companies have become first class in the world. This needs to be known worldwide," he said. The company said it had won a bid to supply seismic isolation products to the $4.4 billion Padma Bridge Rail Link Project in Bangladesh, which is being built by China Railway Construction Corp Ltd. It is China's biggest bridge construction project being built overseas so far. Hirun now exports to 15 countries and regions, including India, Turkey, the Middle East, Russia, Japan and Italy. A Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed intercity train pulls out of the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station in Shanghai, Oct 26, 2010. [Photo/VCG] BEIJING - China's railway network is expanding steadily, with more than 3,200 kilometers of tracks expected to go into operation this year, according to the China Railway Corporation. The new lines, totaling 57 projects, will help boost passenger capacity by 7.5 percent during the coming Spring Festival peak travel period, the corporation predicted. China has a vast and efficient railway network, but construction has lagged behind in the less developed western regions. As the economy falters, the government is looking to boost infrastructure investment in needy areas to support economic growth. The efforts have taken effect to some extent, with fixed-asset investment in the sector reaching 542.3 billion yuan ($80 billion) in the first three quarters, up 10.3 percent year on year, according to official data. Visitors at a stand of Alibaba Cloud at an expo in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province, Sep 2, 2016. [Photo/VCG] Firm aims to take on dominant role of Microsoft, Amazon Alibaba Cloud said on Monday it would open four new data centers outside China by the end of this month, its latest effort to make inroads in a global cloud computing market dominated by Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc. The four new facilitieslocated in Europe, the Middle East, Japan and Australiawill bring the company's total data centers worldwide to 14, including two in the United States, the cloud computing arm of e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd announced in Dubai. "As the infrastructure of the new economy, cloud computing is used by more and more industries in regions across the world," said Hu Xiaoming, president of Alibaba Cloud in a statement. He added that with the expansion of its global footprint, Alibaba Cloud will be able to empower businesses, big or small, in the world with computing capacity, big data and artificial intelligence technologies. The opening of the four new centers will make Alibaba Cloud the first Chinese company that is able to provide cloud computing services in major internet markets in the world. An engineer examines ari valves at a digital center of Alibaba in Zhangbei county, North China's Hebei province, Sep 11, 2016. [He Guang / For China Daily] Analysts said that Alibaba Cloud's growing momentum in global expansion is in line with Alibaba Group's business ambition in regions outside China. The e-commerce giant has made globalization one of its top priorities with specific goals to serve 2 billion consumers and tens of millions of enterprises worldwide in the coming 10 years. "Alibaba Cloud is a critical backbone to support its (Alibaba Group's) business strategy, and Alibaba Cloud itself is becoming an increasingly important business for Alibaba, as what AWS (Amazon Web Services) is for Amazon," said Charlie Dai, principal analyst at Forrester Research. As the e-commerce giant's fastest-growing division, Alibaba Cloud has been growing at triple-digit rates due to the rising demand of enterprises, which see cloud computing as the foundation in modern commerce. According to estimates compiled by Bloomberg, Alibaba Cloud probably helped power 53 percent growth in Alibaba Group revenue to 33.9 billion yuan ($5 billion) last quarter. It ranked the top in China's public cloud market with 31 percent of the market share in 2015. But in the world, it ranked the fifth, with Microsoft and Amazon, the top two players, taking the lion's share of the market, according to IDC. Actress Angelababy attends a smartphone launch ceremony of Meitu Inc, a developer of photo touch-up apps, in Xiamen, Fujian province. CHEN LIJIE / FOR CHINA DAILY Chinese mainland mobile developer Meitu Inc said it started testing demand for a proposed Hong Kong initial public offering worth about $750 million, which could be the city's biggest technology listing in nearly a decade. The Xiamen-based company, which makes apps used to touch up selfie photos, will gauge interest from potential investors from Monday through Dec 2, according to terms for the offering obtained by Bloomberg. Meitu plans to use about 35 percent of the IPO proceeds to expand its smart hardware business, while around 25 percent will go toward strategic investments and acquisitions. Meitu hasn't set a target listing date or decided when it will begin taking orders for the share sale, the terms show. The stock offering from Meitu could become a test case for mainland technology companies seeking to list in Hong Kong. A government crackdown on backdoor listings has made it tougher for businesses to raise money in the Chinese mainland, while some entrepreneurs believe US exchanges don't offer high enough valuations for their businesses. At $750 million, the Meitu listing would be the biggest Hong Kong first-time share sale by a technology company since Alibaba.com Ltd's $1.7 billion offering in 2007, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Meitu plans to gauge demand this week from investors in Hong Kong, London, New York and Boston and will conduct calls with Singapore money managers, according to Monday's terms. The company will meet select Asian investors next week, before starting a formal management roadshow at a later date. It plans to earmark about 15 percent of the IPO proceeds for sales and marketing, the terms show. Meitu will also use some of the money to expand its internet service and fund research and development. Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse Group AG and China Merchants Securities Co are joint sponsors of the offering. Bloomberg People sit next to an advertisement for Alipay, operated by Ant Financial Services Group, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, outside a Bonjour Holdings Ltd store in Hong Kong. [Photo / Agencies] Slumping, hesitant businesses ponder ways to extend offline advantages to online channels This Singles Day (Nov 11), Chinese mainland online marketplaces such as Taobao and Tmall did something unusual: they extended their popular annual shopping festival to Hong Kong's consumers. That's just as well, said retail industry expertsbecause, cross-border e-commerce is, for all practical purposes, a lifeline the drowning local retail sector can clutch to stay afloat. The sector has been slumping for the last 19 months, forcing desperate industry operators, especially small and medium-sized retailers, to search for new business opportunities. To be sure, the Hong Kong retail sector's sales have been falling. But, Anson Bailey, head of consumer markets at KPMG in Hong Kong, doesn't believe mainland shoppers, for long the mainstay of local retail sales, have lost interest in Hong Kong. But he does admit they now have more destinations outside the mainland as alternative shopping options. Agreed Joseph Yuen, chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of E-Commerce. Cross-border e-commerce, he said, also provides mainland shoppers more shopping options. Yet, Hong Kong has something going for it. That is, much of goods sold by the mainland's major cross-border e-commerce platforms are sourced from Hong Kong, he said. So, he believes local retailers should be able to generate new demand via e-commerce, especially from second- and third-tier cities on the Chinese mainland. It is a view that Thomson Cheng Wai-hun, chairman of the Hong Kong Retail Management Association, concurs with. Cross-border e-commerce is the new opportunity for small- and medium-sized retailers in Hong Kong to reach outside markets, he said. More so because sales growth has been either slowing or falling in recent years. Despite such perceived opportunities online, most retailers in Hong Kong are a hesitant lot these days, said Vincent Lau, assistant manager of Shiu Heung Yuen Bakery, a local food chain store. Sensing huge potential, Lau has been considering opening an online store for mainland consumers, especially after discovering that some Daigou (overseas shopping agents) are already selling his products on Taobao. However, he is holding back due to high investment required to make a new online shop successful. For example, opening a store of nuts and snacks on Taobao is free of charge; but it takes a fee of 100,000 yuan ($14,513) for such a shop to be recognized as a "flagship store", a label that indicates to shoppers that it is an authentic or authorized store for a brand. Without such a label, online business becomes a dicey proposition, he said. That's not the only fee. Online stores need to shell out 30,000 yuan toward technology fee and 2 percent of sales as service fee to Taobao. The corresponding figures for other non-Alibaba platforms such as JD.com, Suning and Gome are comparable. But all these fees are worth their cost as Hong Kong brands generally enjoy high equity in sellers' minds, said a retail expert. Aiming to help small retailers to exploit Hong Kong's advantage in this regard, GS1 Hong Kong, a nonprofit standards organization, this month started to provide a special service. It will authenticate products and verify information for retailers on Hongkong Post's e-commerce platform ShopThruPost. Hong Kong brands, merchants and SMEs that join the program will be given a logo on their online shop for consumers to recognize. The annual cost of this service is HK$50 ($6.45) per item and a commission on each product sold. Jessie Ting Yip Yin-mei, Hong Kong's postmaster-general, said the plan could help SMEs and startups to extend their sales to e-commerce channels with minimum upfront investment. GS1 said it also plans to cooperate with other online platforms in future. The Hong Kong Retail Management Association also will launch a "qualified e-shop verification" service for local retailers with authentic products in offline channels, so as to help them to exploit their strengths and succeed online as well. Eddie Zhao, vice president of BaishanCloud, delivers a keynote speech on Nov 18, 2016 at the World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] A Chinese startup has established an integrated solution to help traditional industries fly above the clouds. BaishanCloud (BSC), a domestic cloud management services provider, introduced a "cloud linkage service" at the third World Internet Conference, which wrapped up in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province. The company said it was the first to unveil such a concept of its kind in the industry. By leveraging its cloud delivery and cloud storage network, the company is aiming to provide a cloud management platform, which is able to operate data storage, integration, acceleration and analytics services to fulfill the needs of enterprise customers. Eddie Zhao, vice president of BSC, told chinadaily.com.cn: "We're targeting a market in the post-cloud era, where the frontiers and application programming interfaces (APIs) of public cloud platforms, including Microsoft's Azure, Alibaba's Aliyun, Tencent's Qcloud and Amazon Web Services, need to be connected and integrated to fuel more cloud demand from traditional industries." Founded in April 2015, the company completed three rounds of private equity financing by July. "We're expecting a 70 percent compound annual growth rate in the next three years and to become profitable and have a positive cash flow by the end of 2016," Zhao said. Zhao said the company has contracted over 200 customers by now. He noted that there is a rising demand for cloud services in the traditional sectors, such as the financing, manufacturing and trading industries, most of which are lacking experience in building cloud systems. According to Zhao, the needs for cloud services by traditional enterprises are more complicated than that of many technology and internet companies because they lag behind in IT infrastructures and applications. "Companies like BSC are familiar with the requirements and pain points of traditional enterprises, and we are able to support them in providing customized cloud services to ensure their data resource exchanges and interactions,", Zhao said. According to Zhao, currently there are more than 100 employees working for the cloud start-up and over 60 percent of them are R&D staff. "We've set up two domestic R&D centers based in Xiamen, East China's Fujian province and Guian, Southwest China's Guizhou province and our Seattle subsidiary is serving as an overseas innovation and operation center to attract local talent and be competitive in the industry," Zhao said. The company received the top cloud industry award -- "Cloud China 2016" -- administered by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) at the Fourth China International Forum for Cloud Computing Technology and Applications. The authorities established the award last year, expecting to advance cloud development in China and to recognize the outstanding organizations and individuals who have contributed to this development. As Chinese market becomes increasingly important in European enterprises' global expansion strategy, two Polish high-tech firms have sought to tap into the sector by attending China Hi-tech Fair 2016, believing that participation in the technology show would make the process easier. "We came here to forge new partnership with mobile phone operators and hardware providers and seek opportunities with other high-tech companies via networking," said Mikoaj Maaczynski, chief executive officer of Legimi, a Poland-based company offering ebook library on mobile devices for subscribers. "In addition to that, we are open to search for opportunities to pitch to venture capital organizations, because we have very strong expansion plan." The company, which has already been offering services in Poland and Germany, plans to launch a Chinese version of its product next year. The executive described his attendance of CHTF as "fruitful". "It's a very vibrant show, which presents what's next and what is the state of the art. We have seen many dynamically developing companies with unique products. I would be glad to cooperate with some of them in the future," he said. CHTF, known as the country's biggest and most influential technology show, has more and more become a channel for foreign enterprises to reach the Chinese market and find Chinese partners. More than 3,000 exhibitors from 37 countries and regions attended this year's event, which wrapped up Monday. A motivated group of young people from Montana Youth Challenge Academy chipped in Monday to help get groceries home for the Thanksgiving holiday. The Billings Food Bank began distributing supplies for more than 2,000 Thanksgiving dinners Monday. The demand ahead of the holiday means more food and more volunteer help is needed. While food drives and initiatives from Billings businesses and organizations provided all the fixings for citywide feasts, 10 cadets volunteered at the Billings Food Bank for four hours during their only trip home. Montana Youth Challenge is one of 32 academies across the country affiliated with the National Guard. Although described as quasi-military, the academy does not require any commitment to military service and is not used as a recruiting tool. The cadets who volunteered are enrolled in the 22-week residency program based in Dillon. Cadets are at-risk youth ages 16 to 18 who may have fallen behind in school or need help with self-confidence and discipline. Their help couldnt have come at a better time, said Sheryle Shandy, Billings Food Banks executive director. Shandy said on the busiest days of the year the food bank serves 300 to 400 people. But ahead of Thanksgiving it will distribute groceries to about 2,200 people. Well see about 700 people a day through Wednesday, she said. Whats really helpful is to have kids who can lift, help people to their car and bring the cart back. Raquel Hernandez is a 16-year-old cadet from Billings who helped food bank patrons get groceries to their cars on Monday. She plans on returning to high school after MYC graduation and wants to join the United States Air Force after receiving her diploma. Hernandez said she didnt notice changes in herself since starting the program in July, but in the past month others have started to comment on her transformation. She earned a home pass for the week of Thanksgiving, and it will be her first exposure to an old environment since July. People are all the same here, and Ive changed a lot, she said. I have more motivation than I did before the program. Hernandez said she was happy to work at the Billings Food Bank for the day. She found gratification in thinking of others and serving her community. This is the first official Montana Youth Challenge Academy service project to take place in Billings despite a large number of cadets hailing from Yellowstone County, said Michelle Nelson, MYC post-residential supervisor. In addition to physical and academic challenges, the program requires cadets complete 40 hours of community service. Most cadets volunteer even more, averaging 53 hours. The community of Dillon loves us. They really do because we do a ton of community service, Nelson said. The cadets are also required to find placement after graduating with their high school equivalency certificate. That means either returning to high school to receive a diploma, applying to college, getting a job or joining the military. Cadets use volunteer experiences to build their work skills and their resumes to help in their transition. So many folks dont know this program exists as a resource if they need a different form of education, and its free, Nelson said. An additional 1,000 meals are being prepared this week at the food bank by Chefs and Cooks of Montana and ladies enrolled in the culinary program at Passages Womens Prerelease Program. The food will be served on Thanksgiving Day at Montana Rescue Mission. Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Leung Chun-ying, chief executive of China's Hong Kong special administrative region, in Lima, capital of Peru, Nov 20, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] LIMA - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday said the central government fully acknowledges the work of the chief executive and government of the Hong Kong special administrative region (HKSAR). Xi made the remarks when meeting with HKSAR Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting. After hearing the report made by Leung on the recent situation in Hong Kong and the work done by the HKSAR government, Xi expressed the central government's acknowledgement of the work of the HKSAR chief executive and government. The president asked Leung to lead the HKSAR government to build broad social consensus and focus on boosting economic development and improving people's well-being. He also urged Leung to lead the HKSAR government to resolutely safeguard national unity and maintain social and political stability. President Xi Jinping (fifth from left in front row) joins the other participants in the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, Peru, for a group photo on Sunday. [Photo/Xinhua] Xi says FTAAP will promote economy of Asia-Pacific region to a new level Leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific economies ended their annual meeting with a joint pledge to resist protectionism amid signs of increased free-trade skepticism. The meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation organization, which accounts for 57 percent of the world economy, led to a joint statement on Sunday that asked to work toward adoption of the broader Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, a 21-economy pact that is favored by China. "We reaffirm our commitment to keep our markets open and to fight against all forms of protectionism," the leaders of the APEC economies said in the joint statement. US president-elect Donald Trump, who will take office in January, has vowed not to honor the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, a trade deal pursued by President Barack Obama. Trump has called the agreement a "disaster" for jobs. China is not part of the TPP and has been pushing an alternative vision of free trade in Asia under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. The idea of creating the broader FTAAP was launched at the Beijing APEC Summit in 2014. President Xi Jinping, while addressing the meeting, called for the early establishment of the FTAAP, saying the free trade area would promote the economy of the Asia-Pacific region to a new level. "We need to make it clear to the world with action that the commitment of the Asia-Pacific to economic globalization is unchanged and its confidence undiminished," he added. Tan Jian, a senior member of China's delegation at the leaders meeting, said that more countries, including Peru and Chile, are seeking to join the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade group, and current members want to reach a deal as soon as possible to counter rising protectionism. Canada, a member of the TPP but not the RCEP, is keeping its options open on future trade deals, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. Australia said it was pursuing various opportunities, including the RCEP. "As I've indicated previously, Australia doesn't have all its eggs in one basket," Trade Minister Steven Ciobo told reporters. Liu Chenyang, director of the APEC Study Center at Nankai University in Tianjin, said: "The TPP will lead to vicious competition. Once the FTAAP becomes reality, it will help address problems arising from a mass of intertwined free trade agreements and push forward the integration of a regional economy." Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this story. The actions of dog lovers who used their cars to stop a truck on an expressway that was carrying 320 dogs has sparked heated public debate. The dog lovers, who drove three vehicles, stopped the truck on its way to Jilin province on Saturday and then fought with the truck driver, according to traffic police in Langfang, Hebei province. The incident caused traffic congestion on the expressway and left three dog lovers with minor injuries. The dogs on the truck were pets that were stolen to be sold illegally, according to a report published by Beijing Times. A dog owner, surnamed Zhang, who said her dog was on the truck, traveled from Tianjin to claim her dog back, the report said. All dogs on the truck were put into temporary kennels by the police as an investigation into the incident is ongoing. While calling on people to protect dogs, some netizens condemned the dog lovers' behavior, saying it was extreme and that they should be punished. "They were lucky that the incident didn't cause casualties or other traffic accidents on the expressway," said Zhang Feng, a media commentator. Zhang said the dog lovers' feelings deserved respect, but that the tactics they employed to rescue the dogs were irrational and illegal. However, Pofenghundong, a micro-blogger, said their extremism was caused by the inaction of governments and police. "The dog lovers felt helpless, so they had to take action themselves," the netizen said. According to Zhai Yu, who works at a law firm in Shijiazhuang, there are no specific laws to protect pets in China - there are only laws to protect rare animal species. More than 3 million trips to the United States are to be made by Chinese tourists this year, directly creating about 45,000 jobs and indirect creating 230,000 jobs in the US, as revealed during the closing ceremony of the 2016 China-US Tourism Year on Sunday. Last year, 2.59 million trips were made to the US by Chinese tourists, with total spending estimated at $30.1billion. In the first three quarters of this year, the number of Chinese travelers to the US surged by 14.7 percent compared with the same period last year, while the number of US travelers to China rose by 7.3 percent. The total number of two-way Chinese and US travelers is expected to exceed 5million this year. The China-US Tourism Year was announced by President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama in September last year during Xi's state visit to the US. "I hope the two sides will build on the success of the China-US Tourism Year to sustain the momentum of people-to-people and cultural exchanges and enhance mutual understanding and friendship between our two peoples," Xi said in a letter read by Vice-Premier Wang Yang,who led a Chinese delegation to attend the closing ceremony. In a letter read by US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Obama said: "A future of peace, prosperity and friendship depends on our efforts to understand each other. "That is why the US will continue to welcome the Chinese people to our shores, whether to hike in our national parks, dine in our vibrant cities, or learn more about our rich history. I also encourage Americans to discover all China has to offer," Obama said. Xi and Obama met on Saturday in Lima, capital of Peru, on the sidelines of the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting. Shanghai Declaration calls for strong action by authorities to protect people's well-being More than 1,000 participants endorsed a declaration highlighting government responsibility in health promotion, which was released on Monday, the opening day of a global health conference in Shanghai. The Shanghai Declaration on Health Promotion calls for strong, bold approaches to health promotion. "We commit to apply fully the mechanisms available to government to protect health and promote well-being," the declaration reads. The Ninth Global Conference on Health Promotion, which includes more than 100 mayors from around the world, runs from Monday to Thursday. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO, said: "Health is an endpoint that reflects the success of multiple other goals. Because the determinants of health are so broad, progress in improving health is a reliable indicator of progress in implementing the overall agenda." Wang Longde, chairman of the China Preventive Medicine Association, said governments must pay attention to health targets while setting development goals. Innovation and an open attitude should guide the process, he added. For instance, China's ongoing healthcare reform is shifting more focus from treatment to prevention. Liu Yuanli, dean of the School of Public Health at Peking Union Medical College, said that the human resources and social security authorities, which run the public health insurance programs for hundreds of millions of people, "act only as a cashier handling medical bills, but that's far from enough". They should also play a role helping people stay healthy, he said. "Cover effective prevention in addition to treatment." He suggested that health promotion should be considered while evaluating officials' performances, and that governments at all levels set up health promotion committees to put forward measures and policies enhancing people's health. Siddika Mithani, president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, said health challenges today, such as epidemic chronic diseases, need cross-department collaboration. The Shanghai Declaration comes at a crucial time to guide future practice, she said. "We call on all mayors and urban leaders, regardless of whether their cities are big or small, rich or poor, to join this movement of making bold political choices for health," reads the consensus. The mayors promised to prioritize policies that combine health and other city policies, and develop partnership-based urban planning. Patricia Chase Green, mayor of Georgetown, capital of Guyana, said that although the development of cities varies, the key challenges are similar. "As mayors, we are key players and driving forces in creating conditions and settings for our citizens to live healthy lives and creating healthy cities for our citizens," she said. Shin Young-soo, regional director of WHO Western Pacific Region, said: "Mayors can make a difference. They are on the front line of creating healthy cities and they're responsible for enabling their citizens have access to safe water, sanitation and health services." Leonid Pechatnikov, vice-mayor of Moscow, shared the city's practice of opening 100 free parks and adding lanes for bicycles and pedestrians. Technicians assess the reentry capsule of Shenzhou XI which landed in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Friday, bringing home two astronauts from China's longest manned space mission.Ren Junchuan / Xinhua Chinese scientist combines extraterrestrial insights with a deep love of beauty. Yu Fei reports for China Features at Xinhua News Agency. Astrophysicist Zhang Shuangnan likes traditional Chinese deep-fried dough sticks and Western coffee for breakfast before he gets down to work, studying why black holes get "angry." Sometimes he finds time to ponder why a person is attractive, or to write poems about gravitational waves or quantum entanglement. "All these things are fun," said the 54-year-old director of the Key Laboratory of Particle Astrophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Zhang's field involves examining neutron stars, black holes, galaxies and the evolution of the universe through astronomical observation and theoretical calculation. In his working life, he develops astronomical instruments, but in his free time, he tries to explain science from the perspective of beauty and studies aesthetics from a scientific viewpoint. Zhang is in charge of two important projects: a probe on Tiangong II, China's latest space lab, to detect the polarization of bursts of gamma rays; and a space telescope, the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope, which is scheduled for launch soon. More than 30 Chinese online game companies have been fined following a two-month investigation by the Culture Ministry, it was announced on Monday. Of the 36 companies involved, the majority had broken existing internet regulations by promoting gambling, or pornographic or violent content, according to Liu Qiang, deputy director of the ministrys cultural market department. The ministry randomly selected about 200 online games companies to scrutinize, accounting for 13 percent of the industry, Liu said. Investigations will be conducted on a regular basis from now on and extended to online music and live broadcasts, said Chen Tong, director of the cultural market department. According to data from China Internet Network Information Center, there were 380 million online games players in China by the end of June 2015. BEIJING -- A red alert, the most serious level, will be issued for air pollution in Beijing if the city's Air Quality Index (AQI) reaches 500, local authorities said on Monday. The information office of the municipal government released an updated emergency response plan for severe air pollution, aiming to better address air pollution with minimal disturbance to people's lives. According to the new plan, which will become effective on Dec 15, more gas-burning vehicles will be pulled off the streets when an alert is issued. Li Kunsheng from the city environmental protection department said Beijing had about 5.7 million registered vehicles, which emit 500,000 tonnes of pollutants every year, contributing over 30 percent of the hazardous PM2.5 accumulated locally. Schools and factories will be suspended or closed based on more detailed and flexible standards. Besides, as part of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration effort, the air pollution alert system in the three adjacent municipalities and province will be synchronized as per the new version. China has a four-tier warning system for severe weather, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue. Beijing issued its first air pollution alert plan in 2012. The plan has played an effective role in alleviating pollution accumulation and protecting the public's health, said Fang Li, deputy director of the environmental protection department. People visit Chengdu Liberary in the capital city of Sichuan province. [Photo/Chengdu Liberary] CHENGDU -- Foreign residents are now entitled to borrow and return books without charge at any public library in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, the first arrangement of its kind in the country. From November, after passport registration foreign residents can freely use the unified loan and return system, which links all 21 public libraries in the city. They can also have free access to the libraries' remote digital resources. The unified loan and return system in Chengdu was rolled out in 2014 and gives local residents free access to all public library resources at all branches. It is the first time an entire public library system covers foreign residents. Previously, foreign residents could only return books to the library branch where the books were loaned out. "Chengdu has welcomed a growing number of foreigners in recent years. As public libraries we should provide services for all residents in the city, including foreign residents," said Xiao Ping, deputy chief librarian in Chengdu. Over 14,000 foreigners live in Chengdu as of October this year, according to the Chengdu Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. Park County officials have identified a man who died last week in an apparent hunting accident as 37-year-old Gavin Peck of Clyde Park. On Nov. 15 at about 6:40 p.m., the Park County Sheriffs Office was notified after Peck failed to call his children. At 11:10 p.m. his body was discovered near his vehicle about two miles up Daisy Dean Road, northeast of Wilsall, said Sheriff Scott Hamilton. Hamilton said Park County Coroner Al Jenkins had not made an official ruling on the death but it appeared Peck died hunting alone. Investigators suspect the mans rifle discharged while he attempted to cross a fence. Jenkins will likely release the cause of death after the Montana State Crime Lab completes testing on the rifle, Hamilton said. People visit the Beijing Zoo wholesale market on Dec 30, 2015. [Photo/IC] BEIJING - Zhang Yue has been a wholesaler in Beijing for nearly a decade. But if he wants to continue his business, he now has to resettle in a strange, new place. Zhang, 40, from eastern China's Anhui Province, started his clothing wholesale chain at the Beijing Zoo wholesale market 10 years ago. Starting last year, major wholesale markets in Beijing have been relocated one after another. "Many wholesalers and I have visited Yongqing County for several times, and, probably, my family are going to move there next year," Zhang said. Yongqing county, an hour's drive south of Beijing, is located in neighboring Hebei province. With an investment of 60 billion yuan (8.7 billion U.S. dollars), a new market is being built there to provide new work and homes to those displaced from Beijing. RELOCATION AND POPULATION "Some wholesalers have already moved to Baigou, Baoding city in Hebei, a two-hour drive from Beijing," Zhang said. According to the latest municipal development plan, Beijing plans to cap its population at 23 million by 2020, reducing the population in six core districts to 15 percent lower than 2014 levels. Non-capital functions, including manufacturing, logistics, wholesale markets, and partial functions of public service, are gradually being phased out to ease Beijing's "urban disease," the municipal government said in July last year. Built in the mid-1980s, Beijing Zoo wholesale market became a hit with young people wanting to look fashionable on a budget. The relocation of the market started in 2014 and is expected to be completed by the end of the year. So far, over 300 wholesale markets have closed or relocated in the past three years in an effort to reduce traffic congestion and curtail population density in Beijing. "As businesses are moved away, so are the people who work in them," said Ren Luyan, director at the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform. According to the commission, the annual growth of Beijing's population in 2014 and 2015 decreased by 231,000, down 1.3 percentage points, compared with the former three years of the 12th Five-year Plan (2011-2015) period. Beijing was home to 21.7 million permanent residents by the end of 2015, 189,000 more people than 2014, registering a 0.9 percentage point decrease in its growth rate. The dual decrease of Beijing's population net increase and growth rate has shown some progress in the city's population control, an official with the commission said. "I will try my luck in Yongqing. If my business does not work there, I will consider switching to another line of work, or going back to my hometown." According to Zhang, the new site in Yongqing is not as advantageous as the Beijing Zoo market and is desolate for now. "But I want to continue my clothing wholesale business, which is what I am familiar with. I hope the government can do more to help us attract customers in Yongqing," Zhang said. Wu Jianping works at an education company in Beijing on May 9, 2015. [Photo/VCG] A housing loan application submitted by a man in Zhengzhou, Henan province was recently rejected - a not altogether unusual occurence. However, what sets this man's case apart is the reason his loan was denied: because Wu Jianping has no arms, creditors claimed they could not give him a loan since he was unable to be fingerprinted. The 25-year-old Wu lost both his arms after receiving a severe electric shock at the age of 5. He manages to write his signature by holding a pen in his mouth. However, he was rejected by several banks when applying for a loan in Zhengzhou on Nov 14 because he could not provide fingerprints. Bank employees argued that without fingerprint, a mere signature would not be legally binding. "[Fingerprinting is a common practice because signatures can be imitated, but there is no way to copy a fingerprint," one employee was quoted as saying by local media. The incident has triggered widespread criticism online, with many netizens pointing out that it is unreasonable to demand fingerprints given the circumstances. In response, several banks to which Wu applied reversed their previous decisions. At the same time, Zhengzhou's housing management bureau which also often requires fingerprints stated that a special path for those with special needs is available to help people like Wu, Thepaper.cn reported. Parents of children whose mouths were taped shut by a Russian teacher at a private school in Shanghai are demanding the tuition fees they paid be refunded. K & H International School's Changning branch earlier issued a statement apologizing for the incident on Nov 15, when the female teacher used double-sided adhesive tape to seal the mouths of a number of children who were being disruptive. The district education department subsequently ordered the branch to cease all of its activities. "It is very clear that they did something wrong, but until now they've not offered a solution, not even a face-to-face apology," said Yang Huijun, the father of a 4-year-old boy who had tape put on his mouth. "They keep citing cultural differences and saying the teacher was doing it playfully, but the incident made me feel horrible because there are so many parents who have sent their children to the school." Another point of contention was that the school had employed a Russian national to teach American English, instead of a US expatriate as it had claimed, Yang said. The school declined to comment on Tuesday, but in a written statement sent over the weekend, it said an apology had been issued to all parents on behalf of the management and the teacher involved had been dismissed. "But we won't give in to unfair demands," it said, adding that someone had distributed a list of its Chinese employees' private telephone numbers, leading to a number of harassing calls and texts. With the written statement, the school included examples of positive comments from other parents, lauding its performance as a training institute and criticizing the "irrational parents" who were making the complaints. A further meeting between the school and representatives of the parents concerned has been scheduled for Tuesday night. In an unrelated story, the people's procuratorate of Shanghais Jing'an district said on Monday that a Spanish man, working as an English language teacher at another training institute in the city, had been detained for drug trafficking. The 28-year-old, identified only as Anthony, flew from Spain to China on Oct 14 with 277.1 grams of marijuana in his stomach, in 24 separate packages. He later visited a hospital in the city's downtown complaining of severe stomachache, after he was unable to excrete the drugs naturally. Hospital officials alerted the police and the man was prepped for surgery, but he passed the drugs naturally on Oct 21. Fang Aiqing contributed to this story. Hong Kong police are hunting five suspects in connection with a robbery of gold bars worth nearly 20 million Hong Kong dollars (about $2.8 million). Local press reported that five robbers in two cars, committed the crime when a minivan carrying 60 gold bars arrived at a gold processing workshop. Two of them wielded blades and another used pepper spray to control the minivan driver before taking away the gold bars, each of which is priced at 300,000 Hong Kong dollars. The driver of the minivan is being treated at hospital after getting pepper sprayed. NANJING -- A garment workshop foreman has been detained for hiring child laborers in eastern China's Jiangsu Province, according to local authorities Tuesday. The foreman, Feng, 40, was running the workshop without licenses in Changshu city, according to a statement by the city's publicity department. The workshop appeared in a video showing child laborers working overtime in Changshu, which was released Monday by Pearvideo, an online video platform. It quickly went viral. The local government carried out an inspection of 1,797 workshops and 163 shops and enterprises, finding eight suspected child laborers. The children are taking classes at a vocational school on Tuesday until the case is settled, when they will be paid wages owed and sent home. Changshu has one of the largest garment industries in China. Since 2012 there have been a total of 107 child labor cases found in Changshu, involving 211 children. Students order food at an English-only counter in the canteen of the Chongqing No 8 Middle School. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn] "Diced Chinese bacon and garlic bolts, please," Wang Yanzhe, a junior middle school student said to the canteen staff in English. He walked away proudly with his food and a gift coupon from the canteen. "It is so much fun and I love practicing my English in this way," he said. Last week, to encourage students to practice the foreign language at school, Chongqing No 8 Middle School canteen set up an English only counter and put an English menu outside to introduce the food. A post outside the canteen advertizes the English-only counter. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn] Students were intrigued by this and gathered around the counter to see how it worked. "Some students didn't want to leave the counter and want to talk more with me," said Shi Tianhao, 24, the canteen staffer who is in charge of this project. Shi went to college in the United States majoring in economics and international relations. After graduation, he joined a food company in Chongqing, which provides canteen service to the middle school. A menu shows correct translations of Chinese dishes. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn] "The English only counter is so popular that some students suggest we set up a few more," he said. Shi said translating the Chinese food into proper English is a challenge of the project. Shi Tiantao is in charge of the project. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn] For instance, the famous dish "fish-flavored shredded pork" should be translated to "sweet and sour pork, Chongqing style", he said. The canteen plans to introduce some foreign food to students, such as pizza, pasta, Mexican food, sushi and Arabian style barbecue. Although Zika virus only survives for a few days in the blood of infected persons, the virus can persist in the semen of male patients, causing testis injuries and infertility, new research suggests. Scientists from China Agricultural University and the Institute of Microbiology, affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, conducted a study on the damage that Zika can cause to the male reproductive system. They found that the virus can lead to inflammation of the testis and epididymis - a tube that carries and stores sperm - of infected male mice. There was noticeable tissue atrophy on the eighth day of infection, massive die-off of sperm cells on the 16th day, destruction of tubes inside the testis within one month and complete shrinkage of the testis within two months. The scientific journal Cell reported this research on Nov 22. "The Zika virus is one pathogen in which we do not have a thorough understanding of the danger it can pose. It was discovered in 1947, but did not attract much attention until the latest outbreak in Brazil during 2015, mainly due to worries about the association of virus infection with brain damage in babies," said Gao Fu, an academician and professor at the Institute of Microbiology and deputy director of China CDC, who is a corresponding author of this study. "China is a country with a large population, and the government just adopted the universal second-child policy. As a result, the challenge that Zika virus poses to China is much more severe than that from other viruses, like Ebola and bird flu," he said. Moreover, the study finds that while Zika virus infects the testis and epididymis, it does not spread to the prostate or seminal vesicle, which is another part of the male reproductive system. "This discovery may suggest that only certain types of cells are vulnerable to virus infection, and these cells may be the potential repositories for Zika virus," said Li Xiangdong, a professor with the China Agricultural University and a corresponding author of the research. "The persistence of Zika virus in cells is a warning of the potential risks the virus poses to male reproductive health. Sperm banks may need to be re-inspected for Zika virus infections to ensure safety of their products," she said. In February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US confirmed a case of sexually-transmitted Zika virus infection. "This is the starting point of our research. As the virus disappears quickly from the blood of infected persons, they must persist somewhere else in the person, so that it could be transmitted by sexual activity," said Gao. Earlier this month, a study conducted by a team from Washington University and was published in Nature had reported similar conclusions. However, the Chinese team's study was more comprehensive. "First, we studied the entire reproductive system, but the study from Washington University focused mainly on the testis and epididymis. Second, we used a humanized antibody to track the exact location of Zika virus in the cell, which provides a better clue for further studies into the pathogenic mechanism(s) of the virus," he said. By Nov 10, 72 countries and regions had reported cases of the Zika virus infection in humans. HARBIN -- A court in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province Tuesday sentenced Chen Tiexin, a former senior political advisor in Liaoning Province, to 13 years and nine months in prison for taking bribes. Chen, former vice chairman of the Liaoning Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, will have personal property worth two million yuan ($290,613.19) confiscated, according to the Harbin City Intermediate People's Court in Heilongjiang. From 2008 to 2013, Chen took bribes of cash and goods worth a total of 21.95 million yuan when he was Communist Party chief of Chaoyang City. He helped the companies or individuals that offered the bribes with construction projects, bank loans and promotions, it said. According to the court, Chen repented, confessed and returned his illegal gains "in an active manner," all of which are grounds for leniency. The traditional Chinese lunar calendar divides the year into 24 solar terms. Minor Snow, (Chinese: ), the 20th solar term of the year, begins this year on Nov 22 and ends on Dec 6. Minor Snow refers to the time when it starts to snow, mostly in China's northern areas, and the temperature continues to drop. Here are seven things you should know about Minor Snow. Lightly snowy winter An ancient Chinese book about plants explains that "in Minor Snow, the weather is cold and it is going to snow; while the earth is not frozen enough and the snow is light." The temperature of most areas in the north drops to zero degrees and below. While in the lower and middle reaches of the Yellow River, the average time of the first snow is in the Minor Snow solar term. The snow is light and frozen at night, but melts quickly during the day. Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. License for publishing multimedia online 0108263 Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 MISSOULA Time is of the essence for the University of Montana to stave off its enrollment decline and ensure its budget is lined up with its priorities. At the Montana Board of Regents meeting last week, regents quizzed UM officials on its enrollment, strategic plan, and financial needs. Again and again, regents asked UM for its timeline for changing its program spending priorities, for starters. "This is not a broken campus," Regent Bob Nystuen said. "It's one that clearly needs some additional direction and attention and messaging to continue to restore it to where it really belongs." The higher education officials also talked about "changing the narrative" for UM. UM vice president of enrollment and student affairs Tom Crady, for instance, said he sees it as part of his job to help spread the good word about the university's world-class faculty and academics. Last week, Crady said, he started to hear a different tone on campus. He said people are excited about the changes that are taking place across Missoula. "For the first time, I heard people say we feel differently about where we are right now, and I'm hearing that in town," Crady said. UM President Royce Engstrom opened and closed the report from campus officials, but he took a back seat during some of the discussion. He said Monday the regents had requested to hear details from specific people on campus working on areas of enrollment the provost, finance vice president, enrollment vice president, and a dean overseeing UM's strategic plan update. At one point, Nystuen asked a question answered by vice president of finance Mike Reid, and the regent requested the president weigh in on the matter as well. Nystuen had wondered if the budget cuts on campus had limited UM's ability to invest in programs seeing enrollment increases and needing more resources. He named computer science as one possibility. While UM cut its budget last year, the Commissioner's Office has noted that it's also receiving more money than it has in the past, and it's spending a record amount of money per student this school year. Reid said the priority on campus is stabilizing enrollment, and UM does not have resources to do everything it would like to do. After Reid commented, Nystuen asked Engstrom to share his point of view. In response, Engstrom said he and his team appreciate the need to put money into growing areas as well as the need to move quickly. "We have a tremendous sense of urgency about this, but at the same time, I don't have the ability to write a blank check to computer science or anybody else to all of a sudden ramp up," Engstrom said. Roughly a year and a half ago, he said, UM underwent an "Academic Alignment and Innovation" process to identify growing areas. As a result, he said, UM has tried to protect business, health and computer science as it makes funding decisions. But he said UM still is in the process of identifying the places it will take resources from in order to shift them into growing programs. "I wish we could do that overnight, but the fact is we have to move the money to do that, and that doesn't happen overnight," Engstrom said. Regent Bill Johnstone suggested the Montana Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education see if it can help UM with immediate resources, and Regent Fran Albrecht agreed. In response, Commissioner Clayton Christian said a couple other campuses have similar issues, and he would look into the options. At the same time, he said the pool of funds is finite. *** In his report, Reid said UM's budget is aligned with its enrollment, and it's projected to get $1 million more than it budgeted. At the same time, he said UM is spending 82.5 percent on personnel, and that number needs to be closer to 70 percent. The amount of money going to salaries and benefits is stifling UM's flexibility to invest in other areas, Reid said. "We have to reduce our personnel," he said. Monday, Engstrom said the figures Reid reported were to illustrate UM is "personnel heavy" and show that it still needs to make adjustments, but the numbers shouldn't be taken too literally. One year ago in a budget forum announcing cuts, Engstrom said UM's goal was to be at an 18 to 1 student-to-faculty ratio. After public outcry, UM didn't make the reductions in faculty to get to that figure, and with another enrollment drop this fall, the campus didn't move the dial much from its 16 to 1 ratio. In a brief telephone conversation, Engstrom said UM doesn't have a deadline to hit the target ratio, but it needs to move in that direction. He also said the cuts UM made last year resulted in some progress. "We know that that's the direction that we need to head, and that's what we will do as we move forward," Engstrom said. *** During the update, Nystuen said the enrollment decline at UM affects vendors at the mall and downtown. As such, he wanted to be certain the university was communicating its positive momentum and "controlling the message" itself. Crady said he sees it as part of his job to help change the narrative, and it takes help from the community to "turn the enrollment ship around." He gives an interview just about every other day, he said, and he's become more recognizable in Missoula than he's ever wanted to be. But his many conversations with community members and media interviews give him the chance to share UM's successes with a broader audience. He estimates enrollment will go up 3 percent next fall, but he said that's a low estimate. In his opening remarks to the enrollment update, Engstrom said UM's academic quality remains excellent, and its priority is bringing in more students. "We have a laser beam focus on this issue, and we are going after it with a multifaceted approach," Engstrom said. Photos featuring items designed by Lei Kuiyuan are on display at China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou.WANG KAIHAO/CHINA DAILY In 1929, the West Lake Expo was held in Hangzhou, and it helped the local economy of the capital of East China's Zhejiang province, which until then had been struggling due to war and social turmoil. Decades later, models of the expo's pavilions are on display at an ongoing exhibition organized by Hangzhou-based China Academy of Arts. The show tells the story of how the pavilions were designed mixing Chinese and Western styles. Design Road, China Academy of Arts, which opened on Saturday, advocates Eastern design and reviews China's design history from the founding of the academy in 1928. The show offers a wide spectrum of exhibits from architecture to fashion and articles of daily use, all from the institute's own collection. "The mixing of Chinese and Western styles was revealed by the expo pavilions, and has been inherited by the school," says Xu Jiang, president of the academy."Today's definition of design has greatly changed, but we don't want the original simple styles, which are closer to nature, to be harmed by the wave of globalization. "The exhibition is to let us know better where we come from and remain conscious like our ancestors." The academy is China's first national higher-education institution for the arts, with an early design school in place. The exhibition took one year to prepare on the basis of in-depth studies of China's design history in general and the school's evolution. And, this is only a part of a series of projects the academy has initiated to showcase the beauty of Chinese designs. While Western designs have expanded to Chinese people's daily lives, ranging from houses to furniture, scholars attending the exhibition feel it is time for a resurrection of Eastern design. The academy has invited many Western designers to give lectures to students about experiences in their home countries, says Wu Haiyan, head of the academy's design school. "After more than 30 years of reform and opening-up, China has formed its own experiences," she says. "What is needed now is to establish an academic system to combine them." In her opinion, functionality, ancient philosophy, a creative mindset, technology and financing can jointly offer a new "Eastern design" form odern society. Earlier this year, the first annual Design Intelligence Awards were given by the academy. The prize of 1 million yuan($147,000) for the winner makes it one of the top industrial design awards in the world. Lu Xiaobo, principal of the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University, says an Eastern design does not necessarily have to explicitly show traditional Chinese cultural elements. "China now should have the confidence to showcase modern designs," he says. "But we should not just pursue it as a fad. In ancient China, people advocated that the biggest philosophies are expressed in simple shapes." Some pioneering Chinese designers, who were long neglected by the public, are in the spotlight now. Lei Kuiyuan: The Master of Modern Design in China, an exhibition showcasing Lei's blueprints in various fields such as indoor decorations, pottery and stage design, opened a day earlier than Design Road at the academy. Lei led the academy's design school in its early days. The displayed items do not feel out-of-date though many were designed in the 1940s. "If China had to have a father of modern design, Lei would be a candidate," says Hang Jian, vice-president of the academy, who launched the exhibition on Lei. Lei not only thought the field helped the economy, but also saw it as an aesthetic education for the public. "We now advocate care for local cultures and seek to return to traditional patterns, but this is something Lei promoted more than 80 years ago," Hang says. If you go Design Road, China Academy of Arts 9 am-5 pm (Mondays closed); through Dec 6. Art Museum, China Academy of Arts, 218 Nanshan Road, Shangcheng district, Hangzhou. Lei Kuiyuan: The Master of Modern Design in China 9 am-5 pm (Mondays closed); through Dec 15. Folk Crafts Museum, China Academy of Arts, 352 Xiangshan Road, Xihu district, Hangzhou. wangkaihao@chinadaily.com.cn The show Anselm Kiefer in China comes into media spotlight even before its opening on Saturday, because the German artist whose works are on show, accused the organizers of excluding him from the process. CHEN YAN/CHINA DAILY German artist Anselm Kiefer protests over the holding of his first show in China - and the organizers say they are within their rights to do so, Deng Zhangyu reports. Despite German artist Anselm Kiefer's protest, the first large-scale show of his works in China opened to the public at the Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum in Beijing on Saturday. The artist said he wasn't involved with the ongoing exhibition titled Anselm Kiefer in China. The show, which is being held at the art museum of the academy, displays more than 80 pieces by Kiefer, a leading figure in German neo-expressionism movement since the 1960s, covering sculptures, paintings, installations and photos. Songtsen Gyalzur (second from left), CEO and founder of Shangri-La Beer, at the award ceremony in Germany. [Photo provided to China Daily] Brewed with highland barley and black caramel malts, Shangri-La Brewery's Black Yak is a dark beer with a hint of chocolate and roasted coffee beans. The intriguing name and robust taste have drawn crowds at beer festivals around China, and more recently won a top accolade in Europe. Black Yak won the silver medal in the Bohemian-Style Schwarzbiercategory at the recent European Beer Star 2016, the company announced last week in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. The brewery is run by an ethnic Tibetan team and a German brewmaster in Yunnan's Shangri-La. Mixing traditional recipes with a 21st-century craft twist, the beers are made with Tibetan highland barley, pure Himalayan mineral water, fine German hops and Belgian malts. Songtsen Gyalzur, CEO and founder of Shangri-La Beer, attended the Nov 9 award ceremony at BrauBeviale in Nuremberg, Germany. He says that Shangri-La Beer is very proud of the award as "it is the aim of every ambitious master brewer to win a medal at the European Beer Star". He launched the company after returning from abroad in 2015, eager to put his education to work for his community. He had developed an affinity for local craft beers while in Europe, and realized that there was nothing like that in his home region. Big data will soon be reshaping our daily lives and social interactions on a large scale, said experts at the 2016 Global Big Data Applications & Research Forum in Qingdao, Shandong province on Nov 17. The 2016 Global Big Data Applications & Research Forum opens in Huangdao District, Qingdao on Nov 17. [Photo/news.bandao.cn] Focusing on the theme "big data creating value and wisdom leading the future", the three-day event attracted more than 600 experts and industry leaders from home and abroad, such as Kirk Borne, a global top 25 big data scientist, and John Margaglione, global vice-president of systems engineering at the Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) Big Data Platform. Jointly organized by Shandong provincial government, Qingdao municipal government and HPE, the forum was the first of its kind held in Qingdao. The organizers intend the forum to become a platform for discussion among the world's leading big data companies, and ultimately for the promotion of the integration of the big data industry, the optimization of its industrial structure, and innovation in its industrial organization. Zhang Wufeng, vice-governor of Shandong province, Zhang Xinqi, mayor of Qingdao, and HPE's Asia-Pacific President Tim Moylan attended the opening ceremony. Zhang Wufeng said that information technology has been advancing rapidly and the application of big data has broad market prospects. Shandong province will focus on innovation and development, giving impetus to industrial transformation and upgrading, and the implementation of the big data strategy laid out in its 13th Five-Year Plan. According to the vice-governor, several big data innovation centers and bases will be constructed in the Shandong cities of Jinan and Qingdao, with the goals of finding solutions to major technical difficulties and cultivating a batch of well-known brands and leading enterprises. These centers will also be used to promote the integration of the province's manufacturing sector with Internet technologies, and to propel the adjustment and upgrading of industry in the province more widely. Huangdao district in Qingdao will also be developed into a national comprehensive experimental zone for big data research, development and application. Zhang Xinqi said that the forum is a great event in the history of informationization in Qingdao, for it offers a crucial supporting platform and great opportunities for the development of the city's big data industry. The mayor introduced that Qingdao has been vigorously implementing China's national strategies of "Internet Plus", "Internationalization Plus" and "Marine Plus". The city is striving to become a national innovation center, an advanced manufacturing industry base and an ocean technology center with a competitive edge over the rest of China's eastern regions. Qingdao has made good progress in this regard, standing out from the crowd in this year's assessment on the development of the big data industry in each region. Tim Moylan said that HPE's cooperation with Shandong signals that his company has transformed into a full-service IT, technology and enterprise products and solutions provider. HPE's Asia-Pacific President Tim Moylan delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of t he 2016 Global Big Data Applications & Research Forum in Huangdao District, Qingdao on Nov 17. [Photo/Sdchina.com] The Qingdao-HPE Software Global Big Data Global Research and Industrial Foundation, currently under construction in the Qingdao New Coast New Area, will serve as a prototype for future smart cities driven by big data. The Qingdao-HPE Software Global Big Data Global Research and Industrial Foundation signed a series of cooperation agreements with local companies during the opening ceremony of the forum. It will work with Future Point of View, a digital consulting firm based in Oklahoma, USA, to build China's manufacturing and industrial 4.0 big data innovation center. A cloud computing and big data value-added service center will also be jointly built by HPE and a Chinese Internet company. Five big data scientists gave keynote speeches on big data after the opening ceremony, including Kirk Borne, John Margaglione, Wang Bohua, CEO and chief technology officer of Inspur Group, one of the world's largest global data centers and cloud computing solutions providers, and Mark van Rijmenam, a well-known international big data strategist. Four sub-forums also took place to discuss big data-related issues. The Qingdao New Coast New Area was designated by the Shandong provincial government to build a comprehensive experiment demonstration base of big data in October. In October 2014, Qingdao-HPE Software Global Big Data Global Research and Industrial Foundation started construction with a total investment of more than 22 billion yuan ($3.2 billion). A girl from Chengdu of Southwest China's Sichuan province, talks with a doctor about her cosmetic surgery at a local hospital, Aug 24, 2016. Her friend live broadcasts her cosmetic surgery on the Internet using a cell phone at the hospital. [Photo/China News Service] Kuaishou,a live broadcast app, recently announced it was permanently deleting 21 registered accounts, as the owners were involved in a charity fraud in which they broadcast videos of themselves giving money to poor people, but after the filming took the money back. Their fraudulent deeds deserve legal punishments, not only the deletion of their Kuaishou accounts, says Southern Metropolis Daily: Those making money in this way first make themselves known for charitable donations to attract followers, then they solicit commercial advertisements or donations from their followers. Currently, the account owners only get their accounts deleted, but they should be investigated to see if they have broken the law. The money made in this way is, doubtlessly, illegal, because the Charity Law unambiguously prohibits any cheating in the name of charity. Charity fraud arouses the mistrust not only of donors, but also of the recipients. To quote one villager who was cheated in this way: "We do not dare to trust anybody from the outside anymore." The live broadcast platforms have also been harmed by the cheats. Increasingly more people can make live broadcasts on their smartphones, and the industry has grown quickly. However, its success has also attracted fraudsters, who are damaging the whole industry. That's why Kuaishou has permanently deleted the accounts of these users. But the live broadcast platforms and the judiciary should work together to strengthen regulation and supervision so as to prevent the live broadcasts being a means for fraud. The provisions of the Charity Law state that charitable acts should respect the personal dignity of the beneficiaries. However, those who gave the money to the villagers under false pretenses did not respect their dignity. Reportedly the video team went as far as putting dirt on the faces of some of the poor children to make them look more pitiful, in order to push the audience to send more money. Technology has no doubt improved people's lives in many ways, but as the webcasts show it can also be used in ways that undermine the values of society. The biggest sin in this case is the destruction of the social environment for charitable giving. Allowing such a sin to spread will damage the trust of people who want to offer help to those in need. To curb such online frauds and other illegal content, a law regulating the fast-growing live-streaming industry in China is due to come into effect on Dec 1, the Chinese Cyberspace Administration announced on its website on Friday. An online shop owner arranges goods at a logistics park in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, Oct 31, 2016. [Photo / VCG] Some 240 vocational school sophomores majoring in transportation management in Xi'an in Northwest China's Shaanxi province were reportedly sent to a local express company as interns, but all they did was sort packages. Southern Metropolis Daily commented on Monday: Assigning students to work for an express delivery company for 10 hours per day for whatever reason violates their legal rights. Needless to say their daily wage was very low, just 10 yuan ($1.45). It is not hard to guess that the express company was overburdened by the Singles Day shopping gala on Nov 11. According to relevant regulations on the internship of vocational school students, they are entitled to at least 80 percent of the pay they would get during probation. The Xi'an sophomores deserve much more than 1 yuan an hour. And it is likely that the school grabbed a notable share of the interns' wage and thus forced them to get only 1 yuan an hour. That the students can be exploited in this way, to some extent, reveals a dark side of China's flourishing e-commerce industry. Most delivery workers are underpaid. It is estimated that the monthly wage of over half of the couriers is between 2,000 yuan and 4,000 yuan, and only very few of them can make 8,000 yuan or above. In other words, the prosperous e-commerce business is partly built on low labor costs, which cannot last long. Recruiting student interns to sort or deliver parcels is nothing more than a makeshift solution to the foreseeable struggle of the delivery companies in the face of rising labor costs. The use of cheap student workers is a life-saving clutching at straw for some companies. But while it may help the continued survival of these enterprises, it does not benefit the economy in the long-run as it is trying to bring an end to the over-reliance on the low-end labor business model. Whether or not the Unites States and the European Union will honor the commitment they had made when China acceded to the World Trade Organization 15 years ago will become a touchstone for the US and the EU leaderships' credibility. In Section 15 of the Accession Protocol of China to the WTO, signed by all members including the US and China in December 2001, they agreed a 15 years' transition period to allow investigating authorities in other WTO members to use the analogue country method in their anti-dumping investigations against imports from China. Under the analogue country method, investigators don't use the product price in the exporting country as a basis when determining whether to impose tariffs, and instead use third-country reference prices. As a result, more Chinese products are investigated, and in most cases they have to pay higher anti-dumping duties even though there are problematic issues related to price estimation in China. There are two options for the 15-year transition period. First, if Chinese producers can prove market economy conditions prevail in their respective industries, such as in the production and sales of the goods, importing WTO members would need to use Chinese prices or costs in their investigations. Second, if those producers cannot demonstrate such market economy conditions, other WTO members can use prices and costs of a third analogue country. From a strictly legal perspective, the Accession Protocol does not explicitly say that other WTO members should grant China market economy status and it does not set a deadline by which this must happen. In addition, the WTO itself does not have a definition of what exactly is a market economy. Domestic trade laws have created the concept of market economy status and the criteria to grant it. But the protocol does say that "in any event" WTO members may not use the analogue country method against Chinese exports beyond the 15-year transition period. This means that after Dec 11, 2016, the US should treat Chinese exports like those from other WTO members, unless it renegotiates an agreement to prolong the transition period with China, which Beijing would not agree. So, whether or not the US confirms China's market economy status, from Dec 11 it will have to stop using the analogue country method against Chinese products. Experts like Bernard O'Connor argue that other provisions of Section 15 imply that even after Dec 11, China will need to meet the market economy criteria of importing countries to stop other countries from using the analogue country method. This logic has two major flaws. First, if China still needs to prove it qualifies as a market economy after Dec 11, as O'Connor argues, then the expiry date in the protocol is meaningless. Second, the most likely intention of the negotiators writing this specific text was to allow for a 15-year transition period for both China and other members, during which China accepted discriminatory treatment in anti-dumping investigations. More importantly, we are witnessing a degree of hypocrisy here from EU and US officials, who apply criteria to other countries that they themselves do not meet. No government intervention in productions and sales? There are numerous cases where WTO panels have ruled against the EU and the US for their government interventions, including billions of dollars of subsidies to domestic civil aircraft manufacturing as well as cotton subsidies. CNN Money tracker shows the US government pledged $11 trillion and actually spent $3 trillion to rescue its financial institutions from 2008 to 2009, and the EU spent at least $1 trillion to bail out its banks. Yes, China is still far from being a smooth-functioning market economy, although it has made steady progress in that direction. And it ought to continue improving its market institutions for the good of its own development. But the fact that China falls short of a perfect market economy according to the US should not be an excuse for Washington to not respect the letter and spirit of the negotiated agreement of a 15-year transition period for the analogue country method. Appropriate solutions to the issue could be an opportunity for US leaders to show that Washington remains credibly committed to standing by a rule-based, non-discriminatory multilateral trading system. The author is managing director of ICTSD China. US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at election night rally in Manhattan, New York, US, November 9, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton brought the curtain down on the chaotic US presidential election. Before the votes were counted, however, many American scholars, former officials and mainstream media said, and a majority of polls showed, Clinton had an edge over Trump. That's why many refer to the final result as another "Brexit". Although the presidential election is over, its impact on the US is just beginning to unfold. As the "Trump-Sanders phenomenon" revealed, US society is seriously divided over many social issues, which could have negative social and political consequences. Trump's victory reflects the strong political support he enjoys. And instead of signifying that the United States faces a gloomy future, it indicates American domestic politics faces a new round of adjustment and reform. But before launching any reform at home, Trump has to deal with severe challenges both on the domestic and diplomatic fronts. One challenge is how to deal with anti-globalization sentiments among Americans, a trend evident in many other developed countries, and which resulted in Brexit in June and Trump's election as US president. For years a majority of the people across the world, especially those in the West, supported globalization because they believed it was good for them, but the US presidential election showed many Americans now oppose it. Globalization has improved the lives of millions of people worldwide, but not all have benefited from it. It is not the panacea for all the ills plaguing humankind, as some people took it to be. The chaos in the Middle East has made people realize the limitations of globalization in resolving religious and ethnic issues, and the 2008 global financial crisis showed globalization doesn't mean stable economic growth forever either. But Trump has to realize that de-globalization is not the answer to the problem. The wide gap between the rich and the poor in the US, if not narrowed, however, will continue to fuel public anger against globalization. The data released by the US Census Bureau in September are stark: the overall income of the richest 5 percent is 17 times the income of the lowest-income group. Making matters worse is the remarkable shrinking of the middle-class population as wealth gets rapidly accumulated in the hands of the richest group. This means the US has lost its olive-shaped social structure with a huge middle class. People are wondering what Trump, as president, will do as the representative of de-globalization and de-traditional politics to solve America's problems. Diplomacy is not Trump's strongest point. He doesn't have any political or diplomatic experience, and hasn't worked out a foreign policy. Therefore, he may devote his first and second years in office to resolve domestic affairs, in order to narrow the differences between Republicans and Democrats, as well as in US society as a whole. Trump's slogan on the campaign trail, "Making America Great Again", was focused mainly on administration of domestic affairs. He did say during his campaign that NATO was "past tense" and that he wanted US allies such as Japan and the Republic of Korea to take more responsibilities and contribute more for self-defense. No one yet knows what Trump's foreign policy and diplomatic team will look like. As to his policy toward China, Trump has said nothing except that he would take a tough stance on economic and trade matters. The US' China policy may not be Trump's top priority immediately after assuming office on Jan 20 next year, but it is a significant issue that he has to carefully consider. The uncertainty that comes with Trump in the White House is both a challenge and opportunity for China. The challenge is that China knows little about Trump, and the opportunity is that he is known to be pragmatic and flexible. The author is an assistant research fellow at the Institute of American Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. The possibility of a policy U-turn by Washington to embrace the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank following Donald Trump's win in the US presidential election is to be welcomed, since it would be in the interests of the United States and Asia at large. I have to admit it: as a Democrat, I was crestfallen by Donald Trumps election win. There is, however, much wisdom in the venerable old adage "every cloud has a silver lining" but this time I think that a a cooperation unimaginably scarcely a fortnight ago is now lined with gold: - Sino-US partnering in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). A number of planets are aligning in the US, China and the international economic sphere to make this long-shot a real win-win possibility. Just as it took a rabid Cold Warrior, President Richard Nixon, to establish relations between our two countries, President-elect Donald Trump may well surprise us, and be instrumental in putting both our countries on course to build a new model of great power relations. Trump advisor Admiral James Woolsey fired the opening salvo two days after the astonishing election results were confirmed when he wrote in an editorial that the Obama Administrations rejection of the China-led AIIB was "a strategic mistake". Chinas positive response came quickly. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang welcomed Woolseys comments saying that if the US joined AIIB "it is not a bad thing". AIIB President Jin Liqun noted that US membership in the bank cannot be ruled out and humorously said, "the letter 'A' in AIIB can stand for Asia, Africa or America. Ironically, despite fierce US pressure against allies joining AIIB, the US and Japan were the only two G7 nations not to become members. China saw this as an American attempt to deter Chinas rise. Now that Obamas Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead in the water, the US can ill afford to leave a power vacuum to be filled by China in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Moreover, if the US were to join AIIB, they would, at the very least, have a say in which infrastructure projects are funded. And given the USs large say over funding by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, projects can could be highly coordinated and funds better targeted. Now with a new US team about to take the field, change is in the air. Since even AIIBs generous funding reserves fall far short of the capital needed to fund infrastructure projects it is mandated to finance in Asia and beyond, there is a real chance to have a strategic Sino-US coordination, if not outright collaboration. I cant think of a better and more productive confidence-building measure than this. Win-win constructive engagement can soften the sometimes adversarial model of the Obama years. And instead of campaign vitriol spewing forth from both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump, since actions speak much louder than electioneering rhetoric, US participation in AIIB would definitely be a concrete sign of the US not only extending an olive branch to China but putting its money where its mouth is. That seemed like an impossible dream at the time, but in light of the election and Admiral Woolseys comments, it may be right on the mark! Maybe every cloud does indeed have a golden lining! The author is advisor to Tsinghua University and a senior featured contributor to China Daily website. President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at Peru's congress.[Photo/Xinhua] President Xi Jinping arrived in Lima, Peru, this past weekend, for the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting. His presence at the APEC 2016 Peru Summit marks a watershed, a historic milestone not just in terms of China's rise as a great power, but, of equal importance, as a palpable manifestation of its new status as Asia Pacific's preeminent leader in promoting globalization, trade liberalization, and regional economic integration. The foremost topic on the APEC 2016 Peru Summit agenda was Asia Pacific regional economic integration through the creation of a new trading bloc: the Free Trade Area of Asia Pacific (FTAAP). The historic nature of the Peru Summit stems from the confluence of two major events: US President-Elect Donald Trump's campaign pronouncements that the cornerstone of America's pivot to Asia, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), is unworthy of support and should be scrapped and, by stark contrast, Chinese President Xi Jinping's steadfast adherence to globalization, opposition to protectionism, and his proposal that Asia Pacific should move to the next level by adopting a larger model for Asia Pacific economic integration, namely, FTAAP. In advance of the APEC Summit, China spearheaded a seminal FTAAP feasibility study, the Collective Strategic Study on Issues Related to the Realization of the FTAAP. The Collective Strategic Study was first authorized during the APEC Beijing Summit in 2014 at China's insistence - also known as the Beijing Roadmap. The Study formed the basis for APEC's ringing endorsement of FTAAP implementation at the Peru Summit over the weekend, in particular, the 2016 Leaders' Declaration and, even more definitively, the Lima Declaration on FTAAP (Annex A. to the Declaration.) In the Lima FTAAP Declaration, the APEC leadership formally recognized FTAAP as a major instrument to realize APEC's goals of Asia Pacific regional economic integration. They also made clear that FTAAP would encompass all 21 APEC economies, including China, the United States, and Russia. Notwithstanding the considerable uncertainty surrounding TPP, APEC continues to maintain that there are essentially two "pathways to FTAAP" TPP and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the latter being strongly supported by China. The APEC leadership further announced that all APEC economies should immediately begin a stock-take on how regional trade and investment issues, including RTAs and FTAs as well as differential levels of economic development amongst APEC Members, should be tackled within the FTAAP framework. APEC is also likely to embark on concrete work programs to actualize FTAAP. Such work programs will include: i) improved market access and reciprocal tariff reductions; ii) elimination of NTMs (non-tariff measures); iii) liberalization of trade in services; iv) investment convergence and liberalization; and v) harmonized preferential rules of origin (ROOs). Although TPP is mentioned as a FTAAP "pathway" in the Lima FTAAP Declaration, its future is in serious doubt in light of Trump's anti-trade campaign rhetoric. At present, the more viable "pathway" to achieve FTAAP is through RCEP, which has been championed by China and is characterized by so-called ASEAN Centrality (RCEP is also known as ASEAN +6). It is worth observing that, at present, seven of the 12 TPP countries are also RCEP participants - Brunei, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand. Moreover, 12 of the 16 RCEP countries are APEC members. These overlapping memberships make it easier for RCEP to become the primary "pathway" for the formation of FTAAP. There have been reports circulating in Lima that certain TPP countries, which are also RCEP members, such as Australia, Japan, and Malaysia, may now be seriously considering focusing more vigorously on RCEP, rather than TPP. This renewed emphasis on RCEP - especially by such influential, trade-savvy TPP countries - could result in a much higher quality agreement, which in turn, would make RCEP more attractive as the APEC-preferred vehicle to achieve FTAAP. Such further refinements would also presumably open RCEP to a larger membership in the future, including APEC countries from Latin America. At present, however, RCEP constitutes a more modest, significantly less ambitious RTA when compared to TPP. The current RCEP negotiations, of which there have been 15 rounds to date, cover, among others, trade in goods, trade in services, investment, economic and technical co-operation, intellectual property, competition, e-commerce, and dispute settlement. There has been a strong emphasis placed on market access and tariff concessions to facilitate global supply chains, rather than on non-tariff barriers. Unlike TPP, the RCEP does not include provisions on environmental, labor, and food safety standards, has less coverage of cyber/internet issues, and does not address the treatment of state-owned enterprises. Nonetheless, through more active intervention by concurrent TPP-RCEP member countries, we could potentially see a melding of more advanced TPP provisions into the fabric of RCEP. Alternately, TPP elements could percolate into the APEC-driven FTAAP negotiations, particularly if the US decides to take an active role, as it should, in the just-announced Lima FTAAP Declaration work programs. President Xi's resounding success in Lima in pushing forward with FTAAP, and gaining adherents to RCEP as the primary "pathway" to achieve FTAAP, represents a monumental "double-win" for China of truly historic proportions. This coupled with the apparent demise of TPP constitutes a massive blow to US standing and credibility in Asia Pacific, the consequences of which are still unclear, but are likely to be far-reaching. China appears at this juncture to have assumed the mantle of Asia Pacific trade and economic torchbearer. It remains to be seen how Trump will respond. Donald J. Lewis, Director, Centre for International Economic Law, Trade & Development, London Centre of International Law Practice During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump embraced a protectionist stance on trade issues and called the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a "disaster". More recently, he has pledged that the US will quit the TPP on his first day in the White House. Last weekend, the members of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which accounts for almost 60 percent of global economy, made it clear that they would move forward with trade pacts with or without the US. After years of cumbersome, secret and contested TPP talks, China is redefining the terms of free trade in Asia Pacific in a matter of days. Since 2010, the Obama administration led talks for a significantly expanded TPP, which would reflect US alliances in Asia and Latin America but exclude China. These TPP talks were an integral part of Obama's "pivot to Asia". After the US election, some TPP partners including Japan and Mexico have sought to push a revised TPP without the US, before Trump can tear up the agreement. Still others are taking another look at the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which reflects the interests of emerging ASEAN, but has a slower implementation schedule and humbler goals. It includes the ASEAN member states, and their FTA partners (Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and New Zealand). Toward free trade in Asia Pacific While US pivot to Asia has stressed military aspects, China's approach focuses on economic development. Since 2013, President Xi has been promoting commercial ties with Latin America during trips to Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela. Aside from Peru, he has now visited Chile and Ecuador, which are both TPP parties. Since 2007, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has prioritized closer relations with Beijing, while Chilean Foreign Relations Minister Heraldo Munoz has said that "protectionism, disbanding and isolation are not solutions to the unrest of citizens." China's quest is also seconded by Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski who would support an Asia-Pacific trade accord that includes China and Russia if the US pulls out. Even Australia has now thrown its weight behind China's effort to pursue new trade deals in Asia Pacific. Trade minister Steven Ciobo says Canberra would support the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). Beijing's push for an Asia-Pacific free trade area has been more active since fall 2014 when I predicted that, as a more inclusive and open plan, it had potential to achieve real free trade in the region. The Obama Administration rejected the FTAAP for the geopolitical TPP, which would have imposed an Iron Curtain scenario on Asia Pacific. In contrast, the FTAAP would better serve as a foundation for regional talks. Ironically, the failure of the exclusive TPP may pave way for truly inclusive free trade in Asia Pacific. Dr Steinbock is the founder of the Difference Group and has served as the research director at the India, China, and America Institute (USA) and a visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and don't represent views of China Daily website. A screenshot of a CNN video shows Miao people in traditional costume perform bamboo drifting. [Photo provided to China Daily] A video posted online caused a stir recently, revealing the little-known Guizhou art of bamboo drifting. In just under a dozen hours after appearing on social media behemoth Facebook the video had received 170,000 views and 4,600 likes. The fascinating video, entitled Dancing on Water: The Chinese Art of Bamboo Drifting, was posted by Great Big Story, a video series created by CNN (Cable News Network). The video shows people in Miao ethnic dress balancing on thin poles of bamboo, bobbing along the Chishui River in Guizhou province. However, not only do these people balance on these precarious poles, they also dance, perform, and play sports. "When I first saw it, I felt it was so unique," says Kang Xiaobing, in the video. The 74-year-old is the president of the Zunyi Single Bamboo Drifting Association. "Standing on a piece of bamboo on the ground is already not easy not to mention doing it on water," Kang says. "So I went out to try it and fell in love with it." Bamboo drifting maybe be an oddity to the outside world, but to Guizhou province's Miao ethnic group and others it has been a unique, useful, and entertaining part of their culture for a more than a thousand years. During the Qin dynasty (221 BC206 BC), Bozhou district of Zunyi city was famous for its production of Nan wood, the most precious and expensive wood at the time, thanks to its warm olive-brown color and fine quality. As such it was in great demand by the royal court more than 2,000 kilometers north, in then capital Xianyang city in Shaanxi province. Logistically this presented a bit of a problem. There were no viable means of transportation along the Chishui River, the first part of the journey from the Nan wood forest in Bozhou so no way to transport the wood. This brought about a creative and crafty solution. For a handsome reward, Guizhou locals were tasked with bringing a log each down the Chishui the catch? They had to each stand upon their log as it drifted down the river, guiding it to its next stop, the Yangtze. From there the logs could be loaded onto boats and sailed north to the capital. BEIJING - China has lodged representations to Myanmar after a Chinese citizen was hit by a stray bullet when Myanmar government forces and local ethnic armed groups exchanged fire, said a Foreign Ministry spokesman on Monday. Military conflicts broke out in the border area in northern Myanmar's Shan state early on Sunday morning with an alliance of three ethnic armed groups launching simultaneous and surprise attacks on government military outposts and police stations in Muse and Kutkai townships as well as a border trade center there. Geng Shuang, the spokesman, said China has taken measures to enhance border control in a bid to protect the safety and property of Chinese border residents. The Chinese Embassy in Myanmar issued a statement Sunday night reminding Chinese citizens in Myanmar to watch out for their own safety by avoiding conflict areas. China will continue to follow the development of the situation and maintain communication with Myanmar, Geng said at a daily press briefing. "We strongly hope the parties in the conflict will exercise restraint and immediately halt military operations to avoid escalation of the situation," he said. He also called on them to take concrete measures to restore peace in the China-Myanmar border area and prevent harm to China's sovereignty as well as the lives and property of border residents. Students protest against a military intelligence pact between South Korea and Japan, Nov 22, 2016. [Photo/IC] SEOUL - South Korea and Japan is set to formally sign a military intelligence pact in the middle of this week despite parliamentary and public objections here, local media reports showed on Monday. The bilateral pact to directly exchange military intelligence on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) would be referred to a cabinet meeting on Tuesday for approval, according to Seoul's defense ministry. With the presidential ratification, South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo and Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine would formally sign the deal in Seoul as early as Wednesday. It will go into effect immediately after the signing of the accord, dubbed the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). If realized, the two countries would reach an agreement less than a month after resuming talks on the military pact. The attempt to sign the deal in 2012 was botched at the last minute amid public outcry. South Korea, which is grappling with a scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and her longtime friend, has hurriedly pushed the pact as part of efforts to find a breakthrough by regaining support from conservative voters sensitive to security issues. Seoul and Tokyo held the first working-level dialogue earlier this month and initialed the pact a week ago. The pact was approved here at vice ministers' meeting three days later. South Korea's three main opposition parties have opposed the hurried, unilateral push, saying they will propose the impeachment of the defense minister if it is signed. Public objections are strong in South Korea. According to a Gallup Korea poll released on Friday, 59 percent opposed the deal with Japan unrepentant of its brutalities during World War II. The Korean Peninsula was colonized by the Imperial Japan from 1910 to 1945. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May addresses the Confederation of British Industry's (CBI) annual conference in London, November 21, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] LONDON - Prime Minister Theresa May told the country's business leaders Monday she planned to invest billions of pounds in research and innovation. In a keynote speech to the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), May set down her ambition to "make Britain the go-to place for innovators and investors." Her package of measures includes increases in government investment worth two billion pounds a year (2.5 billion US dollars) by 2020. This will ensure British business remains at the cutting edge of scientific and technological discovery, she said. May is also planning a new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to back priority technologies, such as robotics and biotechnology. There will also be a review of current research and development (R&D) tax incentives to ensure the global competitiveness of Britain as a home for scientists, innovators and tech investors. In her speech, May made it clear to the world of commerce that post-Brexit Britain remained open for business. She described her measures as the first steps in a modern, ambitious industrial strategy which will build on Britain's strengths and address long-term structural challenges. May said her government will "step up to the task and get the economy firing on all cylinders." Referring to the June 23 referendum vote, May told CBI delegates: "I know leaving the European Union creates uncertainty for business. Some are unsure about the road ahead or what your future operating environment will look like. And there will certainly be challenges, a negotiation like the one on which we are about to embark cannot be done quickly, or without give and take on both sides." May spoke of opportunities "to get out into the world and do new business with old allies and new partners," adding, "my aim is not simply for the UK to have the lowest corporate tax rate in the G20, but also a tax system that is profoundly pro-innovation." The prime minister announced measures to turn bright start-ups into successful scale-ups by backing them for the long-term, and also more help for smaller businesses to thrive. "This amounts to a big and ambitious agenda, but the times we are living through demand nothing less. For change is in the air, and when people demand change it is the job of politicians to respond," May concluded. A man carrying blankets walks in the Khazir Camp for Internal Displaced Person, about 30 km east of Mosul in northern Iraq, on Nov 21, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] UNITED NATIONS - The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that as of Sunday, the United Nations has registered more than 68,500 people as displaced by the military operations to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Monday. This is a jump from nearly 60,000 people just three days earlier, Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here. "A health assessment carried out in Zelikan Camp, northeast of Mosul, showed the urgent and widespread need for psychosocial assistance among displaced families, with nearly three-quarters of those interviewed expressing a strong level of distress," Dujarric said. On Nov 14-20, psychosocial support has been provided to more than 1,000 women and more than 160 men affected by the Mosul conflict, he said. Nearly 1,200 boys and nearly 1,100 girls received psychological first aid in child-friendly spaces, the spokesman added. Humanitarian partners are also seeking funding for the 2016 Iraq Humanitarian Response Plan, which was launched in January. The plan requests 861 million US dollars to support 7.3 million vulnerable Iraqis across the country. To date, 69 percent of this requirement has been received, Haq said. On Oct 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces, announced the start of a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city, in a bid to liberate the northern Iraqi city, the last major Islamic State (IS) stronghold in Iraq. 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. Fan Changlong(L), vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission meets with Tanzanian President John Magufuli(R) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Monday.[Photo/Xinhua] China is willing to work with Tanzania to consistently deepen military cooperation and develop bilateral military ties to new heights, said Fan Changlong, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission on Monday. Fan made this remark during his three-day visit to Tanzania, which started Nov 19. He met with Tanzanian President John Magufuli, Defense and National Service Minister Hussein Ali Hassan Mwinyi and visited Tanzanian troops and the military academy, according to China's Defense Ministry. China-Tanzania relations were elevated to an all-around cooperation partnership after President Xi Jinping's visit in 2013, Fan said. Fan added his visit was to implement the consensus reached by the state leaders of both sides and further enhance bilateral relations. Fan said he appreciated Tanzania's achievements in national and military construction. He pointed out that China has maintained long-term and close military exchanges with Tanzania as good friends and will carry forward the friendship. Magufuli expressed gratitude for China's tremendous support and selfless assistance to Tanzania over the years, saying the Tanzania-China friendship is Tanzania's precious treasure. Tanzania is willing to conduct all-round exchanges and cooperation with China in political, economic, military and other fields to benefit the peoples of the two countries, he said. Dynamic International Airways' new flight schedules shed lights on its ambition in Chinese market while it adds more charter flights to serve the lines between Chinese cities and US islands in the Pacific Ocean. The airline recently announced it will expand its charter flight networks between mainland cities to Saipan and Guam in 2017. Three cities of Ningbo in Zhejiang province, Wuxi in Jiangsu province and Qingdao in Shandong province will be offered the services during the first quarter of 2017, in addition to current 12 cities in China. The airline anticipated the US Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean will welcome more than 5,000 Chinese visits during the Chinese New Year holidays, which starts from Jan 27 to Feb 2 in 2017. The Northern Mariana Islands in the northwestern Pacific Ocean is a commonwealth of the United States made up of 15 islands including notable island of Saipan, its capital. Since 2009, tourists from China are allowed visa-free entry to the Commonwealth, which help boost the Chinese tourist number in the region. Dynamic International Airways inaugurated charter flight services from China to Saipan and Guam in 2016, operated with Boeing 767-300ER. In addition to charter flights, the airline also launched flight from Anchorage of the US to Nanchang, Jiangxi province in 2016 October. Dynamic International Airways, headquartered in North Carolina, is a privately owned US certificated airline, founded in 2010. Recently the company has added "International" in its official name as reflection of its transition into international long haul carrier. Chinese direct investment in the US has come a long way since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. From left: Sha Zhu, vice president of Greater Washington China Investment Center (GWCIC), Jim Coleman, president and CEO of Prince George Countys Economic Development Corporation, Zhao Zhenge, general representative of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) USA, and Bill Black, president of GWCIC, at the Business Dialogues on Invest in America in Washington on Monday. Dong Leshuo/China Daily During the first 20 years after the establishment of Sino-US diplomatic relations in 1979, Chinese investment in the US was almost negligible compared to US investment in China, according to Zhao Zhenge, general representative of the China Council of Promotion for International Trade (CPPIT) USA. "But in recent years, there has been considerable attention to a new wave of Chinese direct investment entering the United States." Zhao spoke as Chinese delegates to the Sino-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) gathered at the Business Dialogue on Investment in America conference on Monday in Washington. "China is entering a new era emphasizing the role of foreign trade," Zhao said. "We hope to serve as a window or a platform to establish the business ties between the two countries." CPPIT, along with the China Chamber of International Commerce and Greater Washington China Investment Center, hosted the conference to provide information about US regulations, law enforcement, investment risks and offered a few case studies for potential investors to think through before putting their money into the US market. The aggregate Chinese investment in the US bypassed the US investment in China for the first time in 2013. By the end of 2015, Chinese investment reached $46.6 billion and created more than 100,000 jobs in the US, Zhao said. "And according to the forecast, Chinese investment in the US will exceed $30 billion by the end of 2016," he said. "More and more Chinese companies are now looking forward to making investments here in the US, including the delegation we have here with us today." Case studies of Tranlin Inc, known as Vastly in the US market, and JD.com were presented during the second panel, themed Success Stories and Outlook. Tranlin Inc, a paper-manufacturing company based in East China's Shandong province, broke ground on its first US operation, a $2 billion plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia, last year. The company plans to employ about 2,000 people by the end of 2020. "We came up with our internationalization strategy after more than a half year's research and decided to make the US our first overseas stop," said Jerry Peng, CEO of Vastly. "The logic is simple: The US is the world's largest consumer market. It's a better choice in terms of both market size and profit margin." The lower energy and land costs in the US also appeal to Chinese investors, especially for a manufacturing company like Vastly, Peng said. Zhao Zhenge, general representative of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) USA, gives opening remarks at the Business Dialogues on Invest in America in Washington on Monday. Yuan Yuan / For China Daily "I believe Select USA is not only about coming to the US to invest, but also about selecting US products and services and bringing them back to China," said Jianrong Ma, global vice-president of JD.com. Ma said the company hopes to open a channel for US brands to enter the Chinese market, he said. "Business activities between the United States and China, the two largest economies in the world, influence trade patterns and economic activity across the globe and constitute a major component of global activity," Zhao said. "The US is a rather big country," said US Department of Commerce SelectUSA Program Officer John McKiel, "which makes the investment environment complicated for the investors especially foreign investors". "We are here to help you understand the US before making any investments here. Since the laws, regulations and policies vary from state to state, we offer you representatives specialized in different states whom you may contact," he said. Brian Whisler from the Baker & McKenzie LLP law firm discussed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which was passed in the 1970s but had only been used extensively for the past few years. He also touched on aspects of compliance risk for investors. "There's no doubt that investment allocation is the concern to you as investors. Once you make the investment, you then need to think about how to make distributions," said John P. Lin, CEO of CapStar Commercial Realty. Investors need to first decide which city and what industry they want to invest in. After making that decision, they need a professional team to handle legal, risk assessment, marketing and other issues, he said. Yuan Yuan in Washington contributed to the story. WASHINGTON - US space agency NASA on Monday ignited a fire inside the private Cygnus cargo spaceship in order to learn more about how flames spread in microgravity. Cygnus, operated by US space firm Orbital ATK, departed from the International Space Station early in the day, completing a 29-day stay at the orbiting laboratory. Under normal circumstances, the resupply craft, packed with tons of trash from the space station, will soon re-enter the Earth's atmosphere for a fiery destruction over the Pacific Ocean. But this time, ground engineers set nine materials inside the spacecraft on fire through remote control. "We've received confirmation that the first Saffire-II test sample has been ignited," NASA said in an update at 7:14 pm EST (0014 GMT). "We're lighting a fire in space ... on purpose! We want to learn how fire burns in space in order to prevent them," the space agency added via Twitter. The materials involved included "flame retardant fabrics used for astronaut clothing, station Plexiglas window samples with edge variations and structures used for storage containers and silicone composites," said NASA. Each sample is two by 11 inches (five by 28 centimeters), the size sample NASA uses to screen materials on Earth before they are used on a spacecraft, the space agency said. This is the second time Cygnus has been used as a platform for fire experiments in space by NASA and Orbital ATK. NASA has planned altogether three Saffire experiments, deemed critical for the safety of astronauts who live and work in space. Besides the fire experiment, Cygnus will release four small satellites called CubeSats from an external deployer on Friday, sending them to join a remote sensing satellite constellation that provides global ship tracking and weather monitoring. The spacecraft will remain in orbit until Nov 27, when it will reenter Earth's atmosphere and burn up over the Pacific Ocean. Cygnus was launched on Oct 17 on an Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, for Orbital ATK's sixth NASA-contracted commercial resupply mission. File photo shows Brazilian Minister Chief of the Secretary Office of Government Geddel Vieira Lima (L) speaks with Brazil's interim President Michel Temer (R) during a meeting with leaders of the Chamber of Deputies and Federal Senate, at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil June 15, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazilian President Michel Temer said on Monday that although government secretary Geddel Vieira Lima is being investigated for alleged influence peddling, he will not be fired. The Brazilian presidency's ethics committee decided on Monday to start the probe against Lima, who has been accused of influence peddling by former Culture Minister Marcelo Calero. Calero, who resigned last week, accused Lima of trying to push his department to authorize a million-dollar real estate investment in the historical center of Salvador, Bahia state, in which Lima had personal interests. Lima denied putting pressure on Calero about the matter, but confirmed that he discussed it with the culture minister. Salvador, one of the oldest cities in Brazil, served as the country's first capital. The real estate project in question had been embargoed by the Brazilian historical preservation agency Iphan, which is part of the Culture Ministry. The United States' expected withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership may provide "great opportunities" for China to work out a wider trade agreement as a better alternative, experts said on Tuesday. US president-elect Donald Trump released a video message on social media on Monday giving his plans for the first 100 days of his presidency. These included withdrawing from the trade deal on his first day in office as one of six immediate steps aimed at "putting America first". China should seize this opportunity to start the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific to include countries and regions that have joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, said Wang Huiyao, director of the Center for China and Globalization. The Beijing center is an independent, non-profit think tank that conducts research on world affairs, economic issues and globalization. China should invite the US to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to enter more global markets together, Wang said. Even though the US was absent, the 11 other Trans-Pacific Partnership member countries, including Australia, Canada, Chile, Malaysia and Mexico, discussed in Lima, Peru, the possibility of keeping the trade deal. Japan's lower house of parliament approved the deal earlier this month. "Their moves show that the 11 countries that signed a basic agreement on the (TPP) in October are keen to facilitate free trade moves," said Wang, who added that China should talk with Japan and South Korea to promote the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific during the China-Japan-South Korea leaders' meeting in Tokyo next month. "Since the FTAAP is able to combine the TPP and RCEP and benefit regional trade development, it can put an end to the economic fragmentation in the Asia-Pacific region that undermines economic integration," said Tu Xinquan, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a news conference on Tuesday that China welcomes all free trade measures that can improve economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region. Member economies at the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima have agreed to continue advancing the FTAAP process, and the signal this sends will be helpful to stimulate both regional and global trade activities, Geng said. President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at Peru's congress.[Photo/Xinhua] President Xi Jinping announced several measures on Monday to share China's development opportunities with Latin American countries during his third visit to the region as China's head of state. In a speech delivered at Peru's congress, Xi said that China will enhance technology transfer to Latin American countries and boost human resources cooperation with the region. In the next three years, China will raise the number of training quota from the current level to 10,000 for Latin America people and invite Latin American journalists to work and study in China, Xi said, adding that China proposed to have round-table discussion over environment protection with Latin American countries in next year. The Chinese president is paying state visits to three countries - Ecuador, Peru and Chile - starting from Thursday. He will fly to Chile - the last station of the Latin America trip - on Tuesday. In his speech, Xi urged Chinese investors to respect the local traditions, abide by the laws and shoulder their social responsibilities in promoting employment when the companies expand overseas. Speaking that China's development will provide more opportunities for developing countries, Xi said that China firmly supports developing countries to increase their rights to have their voices heard under the global governance system. He called on the Latin American countries to proactively participate in the free trade arrangements in Asia and Pacific and oppose all forms of protectionism. Before delivering the speech, Xi met with Peru's Congress President Luz Salgado and received an honorary medal from the congress. Peru would like to enhance cooperation with China in areas including legislature, trade, investment and infrastructure, Salgado told Xi. It is Xi's third visit to Latin America as president since he took office in 2013. Contact the writer at anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn Xi says FTAAP will promote economy of Asia-Pacific region to a new level Leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific economies ended their annual meeting with a joint pledge to resist protectionism amid signs of increased free-trade skepticism. The meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation organization, which accounts for 57 percent of the world economy, led to a joint statement on Sunday that asked to work toward adoption of the broader Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, a 21-economy pact that is favored by China. "We reaffirm our commitment to keep our markets open and to fight against all forms of protectionism," the leaders of the APEC economies said in the joint statement. US president-elect Donald Trump, who will take office in January, has vowed not to honor the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, a trade deal pursued by President Barack Obama. Trump has called the agreement a "disaster" for jobs. China is not part of the TPP and has been pushing an alternative vision of free trade in Asia under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. The idea of creating the broader FTAAP was launched at the Beijing APEC Summit in 2014. President Xi Jinping, while addressing the meeting, called for the early establishment of the FTAAP, saying the free trade area would promote the economy of the Asia-Pacific region to a new level. "We need to make it clear to the world with action that the commitment of the Asia-Pacific to economic globalization is unchanged and its confidence undiminished," he added. Tan Jian, a senior member of China's delegation at the leaders meeting, said that more countries, including Peru and Chile, are seeking to join the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade group, and current members want to reach a deal as soon as possible to counter rising protectionism. Canada, a member of the TPP but not the RCEP, is keeping its options open on future trade deals, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. Australia said it was pursuing various opportunities, including the RCEP. "As I've indicated previously, Australia doesn't have all its eggs in one basket," Trade Minister Steven Ciobo told reporters. Liu Chenyang, director of the APEC Study Center at Nankai University in Tianjin, said: "The TPP will lead to vicious competition. Once the FTAAP becomes reality, it will help address problems arising from a mass of intertwined free trade agreements and push forward the integration of a regional economy." Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this story. anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn President Xi Jinping and first lady Peng Liyuan join Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and first lady Nancy Lange outside the presidential palace in Lima, Peru, on Monday. GUADALUPE PARDO / REUTERS Technology transfers and training in region will be enhanced, Xi says President Xi Jinping announced several measures on Monday to share China's development opportunities with Latin American countries. In a speech to Peru's Congress, Xi, who is on his third visit to Latin America as head of state, said China will enhance technology transfers to Latin American countries and boost human resource cooperation with the region. In the next three years, China will train more Latin Americans in various fields and invite Latin American journalists to work and study in China, Xi said. The president added that China has proposed a roundtable discussion about environmental protection with Latin American countries next year. Xi is making state visits to Ecuador, Peru and Chile during his visit, which started on Thursday. He was to fly to Chile, the last stop of the visit, on Tuesday. In his speech, Xi urged Chinese investors to respect local traditions, abide by laws and shoulder their social responsibilities in promoting employment when companies expand overseas. China will provide more opportunities for developing countries and firmly supports a stronger voice for developing countries in global governance, the president said. He called on Latin American countries to participate in free trade arrangements in the Asia-Pacific region and to oppose all forms of protectionism. Before giving the speech, Xi met with Luz Salgado, president of Peru's Congress, and was given the Medal of Honor by Congress. Peru would like to enhance cooperation with China in areas including trade, investment and infrastructure, Salgado told Xi. Bilateral trade volume between China and Latin America rose more than twentyfold during the past decade to reach $236.5 billion last year. China is now the second-largest trade partner and third-largest investment source for Latin America, while Latin America is China's seventh-largest trade partner. Xi's state visits to Ecuador, Peru and Chile show that China is eager to strengthen ties with Latin America, Venezuelan political analyst Vladimir Adrianza told Xinhua News Agency. China represents both an excellent development model for countries in the region and an attractive incentive, said Adrianza, who teaches at Bolivarian Military University of Venezuela in Caracas. "A growing China-Latin America relationship can help promote multilateral and global development," he said. Su Xiaohui, a researcher of international strategy at the China Institute of International Studies, said Xi's three trips to Latin America show that China will never forget its friends in developing countries. China is active in providing public services and products for developing countries, which will bring prosperity to these countries, she added. (Photo : FionaGoodall/GettyImages) China and New Zealand have given their consent to start formal discussions to boost their free trade agreement (FTA). Advertisement China and New Zealand have given their consent to start formal discussions to boost their free trade agreement (FTA), the New Zealand prime minister made this announcement through an email sent on Monday. He said that the upgrade of the agreement will be based on the other FTAs formed by China. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement China and New Zealand have entered into a free trade agreement in 2008. New Zealand was the first western country to form such an alliance with China. This year, New Zealand saw a $12.2 billion worth of goods exported from New Zealand to China as of June. China is currently the largest export market for New Zealand. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said that the upgrade will ensure that the agreement between the two countries is on par with other free trade agreements signed by China since 2008. Key is currently in Lima, Peru, to attend APEC summit. Addressing a gathering of world leaders and business executives, Key said that China is likely to become the leader of free trade, if the US backs out. The prime minister stated that if US president-elect Donald Trump is not willing to be part of the pacific free trade, then China can fill the void. Key said, "We have to have a strong message that what we are doing here works, we believe in it. We hope he's part of the program, but if he's not, we're going to carry on doing this." However, he also expressed his optimism that the US administration will change its stance to be more receptive to free trade. Advertisement Tagschina, new zealand, free trade, John Key (Photo : Getty Images) HTC announced that it will build a new research center in China and set up a fund to develop the country's VR industry. Advertisement HTC announced that it will build a new research center in China, with the collaboration from the Shenzhen Municipal Government. The company will also set up a $1.5 billion Shenzhen VR Investment Fund to promote virtual reality (VR) industry in China. HTC has taken a number of steps in the recent past to enhance development of new technologies. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The new $1.5 billion fund has been set up by the joint efforts of HTC and the Shenzhen Industry Guiding Fund. The Shenzhen VR Investment Fund will work towards promoting the VR industry in China and to help boost the R&D activities in Shenzhen. Cher Wang, chairwoman of HTC, said: "We are dedicated to exploring the world of VR, and hope to usher in a new era together with Shenzhen." HTC has recently worked with the Shenzhen Municipal Science and Technology Innovation Committee for creating an action plan for the promotion of technological innovation and industry application in the VR industry of Shenzhen. Under the new strategic partnership agreement, the Shenzhen Municipal Government will also collaborate with HTC for the formation of China VR Research Institute. The institute will strive to develop new technologies in the fields of graphics, displays, data visualization, and sensors. The project will involve the partnership of various other institutes such as universities and research centers. The collaboration will also look for new areas for the implementation of the technologies. These industries may include manufacturing, military, and health care. HTC has also established its global Vive X Accelerator program earlier this year. The program, aimed at developing VR industry, started its first round in different cities including Shenzhen and Beijing. Advertisement TagsHTC, Shenzhen VR Investment Fund, China VR Research Institute (Photo : Getty Images) Canada PM Justin Trudeau with Alibaba CEO Jack Ma during his recent visit to China. Advertisement The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has warned that Russian and Chinee hackers are working hard trying to steal state secrets. The report prepared for the service director Michael Coulombe said that in addition to the country grappling with the threat of radical Jihadi-extremists, espionage from foreign countries is also a worrying issue. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement "Russia and China in particular, continue to target Canada's classified information and advanced technology, as well as government officials and agencies," the report said. The report was obtained by the Canadian press through the Access to Information Law. When quizzed by the media, CSIS spokeswoman Tahera Mufti declined to reveal specific aspects of the investigation. She, however, emphasized the spy service's growing concerns. "Canada remains a target for the traditional espionage activities of a number of foreign of states," she said, adding that the said foreign hackers continue to gather political, economic, and military information in Canada through crooked means. According to Mufti, state-backed hackers and other entities will try to pursue their political, economic, and territorial interests by using a wide range of means. "Some will do so through espionage and interference, targeting the Canadian economy, strategic interests and assets, societal institutions and members of the Diaspora," she noted. Three years ago, Julian Delisle, a junior Canadian naval officer, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to passing classified intelligence to Russia in exchange for money. The United States has also accused Russia of hacking and releasing Democratic Party emails which proved damaging to the party's presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. However, Russia has denied the accusations. Two years ago, Canada accused a Chinese state-sponsored actor of intruding into its National Research Council's networks, resulting in a shut-down of the agency's IT section. Beijing denied responsibility for the attack, accusing Canada of making unfounded allegations. Advertisement Tagseconomic espionage, china, Russia (Photo : Indian Navy) INS Chennai at dock. Advertisement INS Chennai (D65), a Kolkata-class stealth guided missile destroyer also armed with BrahMos land attack and anti-ship cruise missiles, was commissioned into the Indian Navy after 10 years of building. She is the third and last of the three ship Kolkata-class commissioned into the Navy. Her sister ships are the INS Kolkata (D63) commissioned in 2014 and the INS Kochi (D64) commissioned in 2015. The three warships, the most modern in the IN and superior to most destroyers in other navies, were all built under a program called Project 15A at Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL). Like Us on Facebook Advertisement As for weapons, Chennai is armed with a vertical launch system (VLS) outfitted with 32 surface-to-air (SAM) missiles and 16 cells for the BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles with a range close to 300 km. She also carries one 76 mm gun and four AK-630 close-in weapon system (CIWS) turrets for anti-aircraft and anti-missile use. Each turret mounts a six barreled 30 mm autocannon capable of firing up to 10,000 rounds per minute. China's equivalent of the Kolkata-class are her Type 052D guided missile destroyers, of which four are have been commissioned out of a planned fleet of 12. These warships operated by the People's Liberation Army Navy Surface Force each carry a 130 mm deck gun and 64 VLS cells with a mix of SAM, cruise missiles, anti-submarine missiles and anti-ship missiles. A Type 052D also carries 24 HHQ-10 short range SAMs (the equivalent of the U.S. Navy's RAM or Rolling Airframe Missile system) and one H/PJ-12 CIWS with a seven-barreled 30 mm autocannon. INS Chennai was commissioned into the Indian Navy on Nov. 21 in the presence of Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar. "It is a very historic day. Very important for maritime security," said Parrikar. "The induction of INS Chennai is an important milestone. It sets new bench mark for our ship making." He said Mazagon Dock Limited is delivering very good products to the Indian Navy. "The shipyard is going to make 75 submarines and we have a very long way to go to achieve complete self-reliance. Ship building and shipyard is part of infrastructure. We need to ensure development and research are done at right time." "I wish the officers the very best of luck and set course in nation building and nation stands behind you." The INS Chennai has been assigned to the Western Naval Command based in Mumbai whose flagship is the aircraft carrier, INS Viraat. Advertisement TagsINS Chennai, Indian Navy, Kolkata-class stealth guided missile destroyer, INS Kolkata, INS Kochi, Manohar Parrikar, Western Naval Command (Photo : Defense Research and Development Organization ) Rustom-II UAV. Advertisement India reports a successful first flight for its indigenous Rustom-II medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), an aerial drone roughly the equivalent of the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator operated by the U.S. Air Force and the CIA. India's Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) said the flight the Aeronautical Test Range in Chitradurga in the southern state of Karnataka accomplished the main objectives of proving Rustom-11's capabilities, including take-off, banking and level flight. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement With an endurance of 24 hours, Rustom-11 was developed to carry out persistent Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) for the Indian Army, the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force. The armed services plan to first use Rustom-II for reconnaissance and surveillance, target acquisition, target designation, communications relay, battle damage assessment and signal intelligence. Future iterations of Rustom-11, however, will see the drone armed with air-to-ground missiles and smart bombs, taking on a role mostly associated with the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper hunter-killer drone employed by the U.S. in its war on terror worldwide. Once fully operational, Rustom-II will replace the Israeli Heron UAVs used by the Indian Air Force and Navy. Rustom-11 can carry different payload combinations such as Medium Range Electro Optic (MREO); Long Range Electro Optic (LREO); Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR); Electronic Intelligence (ELINT); Communication Intelligence (COMINT) and Situational Awareness Payloads (SAP) to perform missions during day and night. DRDO said Rustom-II will need at least a dozen successful flight trials before it enters operational service with the Indian Armed Forces. Succeeding trials will validate the UAV's design parameters, before going for user validation trials. Last week's flight test covered less than 100 kilometers. Rustom-II weighs 1,600 kg and can loft a payload of 350 kilograms. Rustom-II is named after former Indian Institute of Science professor Rustom Damania, who pioneered aviation research in the 1980s. Problems associated with the heavy weight of Rustom-11 have pushed back production schedules so that production has been delayed from 2016 to 2018 at the earliest. Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and Bharat Electronics Ltd are partnering DRDO in the development of Rustom-II. Advertisement TagsRustom-II, medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, India, Defense Research and Development Organization, General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, Heron UAV (Photo : Getty Images) At least 17 people have been killed after 56 vehicles collided in China's Beijing-Kunming Express Highway. Advertisement Rescue operations are still ongoing at the Beijing-Kunming Express Highway after 56 vehicles were involved in a grisly accident that killed more than 17 people and injured around 37 on Monday morning. According to China Daily, the incident was a caused by a massive snow and weather condition. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Firefighters and local officials were among the earliest to arrive at the scene in a quest to save as many lives as they could. Xinhua news agency said that investigations are still ongoing and that most of the individuals who had been injured in the incident are currently in a stable condition. Images from the scene showed lorries that had been completely damaged. According to a report by the BBC news, one truck fell on the vehicles that were in front of it after it made contact with another lorry, which threw it through the air. Other lorries were, however, lucky to have secured a safe landing at the whole scene. Cranes are among other rescue equipment that had been brought on site to assist in the rescue operations. Highway accidents are common in China mostly because of the high speed and failure to observe road discipline. Statistics presented by the World Health Organization place China's highway deaths to stand at 250,000 people annually. The government statistics, however, defer to this by nearly half the number. Highway safety was among the government's many initiatives for this year. They recently adopted a new policy that hinders trucks from carrying excess luggage. Advertisement Tagschina, Beijing-Kunming Express Highway, Highway Accident (Photo : Getty Images) Philippine lawmakers are proposing a law to lower the age of criminality in the country to nine years old to prevent syndicates from using minirs on drug mulls. Advertisement A proposed law in the Phillipines could see children as young as nine years old sentenced to jail. The new law is backed by President Rodrigo Duterte who won the elections in May after vowing to reduce crime and kill tens of thousands of drug dealers. He has proposed that the age of criminality be reduced to discourage criminals from using minors as drug mules. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement In Duterte's view, the age when youngsters can be jailed should be reduced from 15 to 12. His allies are, however, pushing for it to be reduced to nine. "Adult criminals knowingly and purposely make use of youth below 15 years of age to commit crimes such as drug trafficking," said Pantaleon Alvarez, one of the law's proponents. The United Nations has condemned the plan, saying the country will be breaking international laws meant to protect children. Manila is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that criminal responsibility below the age of 12 is not acceptable. "Jail is no place for a child. It is alarming for children to be institutionalized. It will be retrogression on the part of the Philippines government," a statement from UNICEF said. Meanwhile, a campaign called #childrennotcriminals has been launched by rights organizations in an effort to convince the government to reconsider the law. Plan International is one of the said groups, and it says that children who find themselves in trouble with the law are often the victims of criminal gangs. "It is unfair that it is always the children that are getting blamed," said Ernesto Almocera of Plan International. He added that jailing children will only serve to make them hardened criminals. Approximately 2000 people have been killed in police operations since Duterte took office. His government has been accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings, but Duterte has dismissed the allegations. Advertisement TagsRodrigo Duterte, Philippines Will our new governor hold true to budget concerns and help to halt this costly and unneeded project? There are many reasons to question it. Like tax burden. The Red River Project will soak up easily $1 billion likely bundles more just as North Dakota will be pinching pennies to keep basic services. It will pipe water from wells near Washburn on the Missouri to the Red River Valley to guard against some possible future droughts there. Really? How about too much water there? Fargo led this project originally but expanded it to include more communities and make it more appealing politically. But what about droughts here on the Missouri River? Who decides who gets water when things go dry in both valleys? What about when the Red River is flooding? Who decides when to turn that Missouri spigot off? Will it be pumped eastward forever and 24/7 or just when needed to cover a drought? (Photo : Getty Images) Taiwan said that it will hold rescue drills near its sole territorial holding in the disputed South China Sea, Itu Aba, by end of this month. Advertisement Taiwan has announced that its plans to conduct rescue drills near its sole territorial holding in the disputed South China Sea by end of this month. The operation would be first big operation by Taipei in the disputed maritime territory since the pro-independent leader Tsai Ing-wen assumed office earlier this year. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Taiwan insisted that the operation near Itu Aba, also known as Taiping Island, would be humanitarian and non-military in nature. However, it did not rule out the role of navy in the drills. "Currently the navy regularly patrols near Taiping Island. We don't rule out the navy playing a supporting role in future humanitarian rescue drills being held near Taiping," Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration said in statement. The statement that was posted on its official website further said that the exercise would focus on rescuing shipwrecked personnel, while adding that further details about the drills would be released later. The operation comes months after the international tribunal court's historic ruling on the South China Sea in July. The verdict, which ruled out China's historical claim over the disputed maritime territory, referred Itu Aba as "rock" and "not an island," thereby making it ineligible for Taiwan to own a greater economic zone of resources off its coast. China and Taiwan subsequently rejected the verdict, with Beijing calling it as a major ploy by western forces to undermine its control over the disputed maritime territory. Beijing has so far not issued any statement on Taipei's plan to conduct a drill. The exercise, however, is unlikely to cause any fresh tension in the region, given that the drill has been described as a "rescue operation" and also the US as well as main claimants are not participating in the drill. South China Sea frequently witnesses military operations mostly carried out by several claimants. China and the US have been at the forefront of carrying such operations, mainly to assert their claim over the disputed maritime territory. Although the US is not a party to the dispute, it has been carrying out the "freedom of navigation" operation for over a year on behalf of China's rival claimants, including Taiwan and other smaller countries in the region. Advertisement TagsTaiwan, South China Sea Dispute, Itu Aba, China and Taiwan (Photo : Getty Images) Outgoing US President Barack Obama has called on Chinese President Xi Jinping to support new sanctions against North Korea Advertisement Outgoing US President Barack Obama has urged China to strictly enforce international sanctions and implement new embargoes against North Korea during his meeting with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in Lima, Peru over the weekend. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Obama made the request to President Xi following the two sides' agreement that Washington and Beijing would immediately act on future North Korean provocations including ballistic missile and nuclear tests. According to Japan's Jiji Press, the two leaders held talks during a bilateral meeting between the two world's superpowers on Saturday in which Xi pointed out that current US-China relations is at a "hinge moment" apparently referring to the election victory of US President-elect Donald Trump. Differences Despite the two leaders' differences on several issues one of which is the disputed South China Sea, the two sides nonetheless agreed once again to cooperate and work together to rein in Pyongyang and rid the country of nuclear weapons. The United Nations has imposed sanctions against North Korea with the cooperation of Beijing following Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test in January this year. However, a new and tougher resolution is yet to be adopted as punishment for the North's fifth and latest nuclear test launched in September. Last meeting In his last meeting with Xi before he steps down as US president in January, Obama called on the Chinese leader to cooperate fully in taking measures to punish Pyongyang and heed the call of the global community to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. Jiji reported that the two world leaders also discussed the progress been made by both sides during Obama's term such as their joint efforts to address climate change. Meanwhile, a top South Korean official told reporters in Seoul on Sunday that he has conferred with Trump's top defense advisers on the North Korean nuclear issue and that he expects a tougher policy on the Korean peninsula under the incoming administration. China has long denounced the US' plans to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to Korean soil to counter the North's nuclear tests saying it would destabilize the security in the region and it might be used against China later on. The Obama administration has repeatedly sought to allay China's fears by explaining that the anti-missile system will be used solely to deter Pyongyang's provocations. Advertisement Tags24th APEC meeting, President Xi Jinping, President Barack Obama, North Korea, Nuclear Tests, china (Photo : Getty Images) China claims that it has given shelter to 3,000 refugees from Myanmar after ethnic violence broke out in the border areas last weekend. Advertisement China is facing a huge refugee crisis near its border towns after fighting broke out in Myanmar's town of Muse and Kutkai last weekend, leaving scores of people homeless and injured. Beijing claims that it has currently provided shelter to nearly 3,000 Myanmar refugees, many of whom have been taken to hospitals for medical treatment. Most of these refugees have taken shelter in the south-western province of Yunnan, which shares a long porous border with Burma. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement In a strong statement issued by China's foreign ministry, Beijing's desperation for normalcy to return in Burma's border areas was clearly visible. "We strongly hope that both sides (insurgent groups) involved in the clash exercise restraint," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a news briefing. "China is willing to keep playing a constructive role in Myanmar's internal peace process, in according with Myanmar's wishes." Geng also confirmed that only one Chinese citizen has been injured and violence in border areas has already subsided. The ethnic violence on China-Myanmar border could not have come at a worse time, given that Aung San Suu Kyi's government is already grappling with sudden escalation of violence against Rohingya Muslims in north-western state of Rakhine. The sudden violence has forced hordes of Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh, while thousands from Rohingya community have taken to streets to raise their voice against the government. The issues of insurgency in border areas and violence against Rohingya Muslims have been posing grave challenge to Myanmar for several decades. Incidentally, Myanmar's ethnic violence was one of the main talking points during Aung San Suu Kyi's historic visit to China in August. Advertisement TagsMyanmar, China and Myanmar, Ethnic Violence in Myanmar, burma Anti-abortion bill would eradicate abortion completely 22 November, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , | INDIANAPOLIS (Christian Examiner) An anti-abortion group and pro-life legislator in Indiana are preparing to introduce what they call the "strongest pro-life bill ever" one that offers protection for the unborn child from the point of conception. Hoosiers for Life and Rep. Curt Nisly [R-District 22] plan to push the bill to committee as soon as the 2017 session opens. They believe they have a chance to obtain a hearing because the bill uses current Indiana Code as its basis. This can be the generation that stops abortion that stops regulating murder and just stops murder. Constitutionally, morally, ethically, scientifically, medically, the argument is over. All that's missing is our courage as a people to do the right thing. Indiana Code 16-34-2-1.1 requires doctors performing an abortion to first conduct an ultrasound, allow the mother to listen to the child's heartbeat, and explain to the mother that "human physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm," or from the point of conception. To drive the point home, Hoosiers for Life has enlisted the aid of pro-life speaker Peter Heck. Heck, a radio host and pro-life advocate, appears in the group's new video, as does Nisly. In the video, Nisly says it is time "to bring the Roe v. Wade era to its logical conclusion" and to begin to "treat unborn babies like other human beings." Nisly said his goal is to "deregulate abortion right out of existence in Indiana." Heck claims the new bill could be successful because it uses the U.S. Supreme Court's own words about personhood. During the landmark Rowe case in 1973, Justice Potter Stewart said during oral arguments that if a fetus could be defined as human under the law, its Fourteenth Amendment protections would come into play and, therefore, nullify all other arguments a fact admitted by Sarah Weddington, who argued the case for pro-abortion advocates. Heck also said Roe v. Wade was built on "faulty scientific understanding of when life begins," and the decision is "predicated on the false idea that what is conceived is not human life." "What if I told you all that was necessary to save these living babies is for the Indiana legislature to merely protect the life it already acknowledged has begun," Heck said, referencing Indiana's legal code. Amy Schlichter, executive director of Hoosiers for Life, also appears in the video. She calls on legislators to support the bill and says all that is necessary for them to protect life is to enforce current law. "The code is there, but Indiana has failed to use it to stop abortion," Schlichter said in the video. "Instead, they regulate it, which causes approximately 22 Hoosier babies to die every day." Heck said the bill could be the hope of a generation that the killing will stop. "This can be the generation that stops abortion that stops regulating murder and just stops murder. Constitutionally, morally, ethically, scientifically, medically, the argument is over. All that's missing is our courage as a people to do the right thing," Heck said. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky (PPINK) has already responded to the video posted by Hoosiers for Life. In its response, the abortion provider said it would "step up the fight" in the 2017 legislative session to combat the new bill. "Family planning is not a social issue, it is an economic issue that has a financial impact on the state of Indiana and the nation," Betty Cockrum, president and CEO of PPINK said in a statement. "Lawmakers who continue to bury their heads in the sand on these reproductive issues are hurting those they pledged to serve." Cockrum said Planned Parenthood would mobilize an army of "reproductive justice supporters" to hold Indiana lawmakers accountable for their actions. She did not address any substantive position in the video. UN approves first LGBT 'protector' despite nations' objections 22 November, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , | NEW YORK (Christian Examiner) An effort to delay the appointment of an independent expert to research crimes against LGBT persons worldwide for the United Nations has failed, in spite of heavy opposition from traditionally conservative countries in Africa. Lifesite News reports that late Monday, the Latin American and Caribbean contingent pushed forward a measure to override the delay proposed by 54 African nations, which wanted the UN to slow down and consider the impact of the appointment on countries where homosexuality is still seen as taboo. We are even more disturbed at the attempt to focus on certain persons on the grounds of their sexual interests and behaviors, while ignoring that intolerance and discrimination regrettably exists in various parts of the world, be it on the basis of color, race, sex or religion, to mention only a few. They also did not believe the UN had the authority to appoint such a position to weigh in on how countries operate internally with respect to their cultural values and ideas related to "sexual interests and behaviors." "The African Group is strongly concerned by the attempts to introduce and impose new notions and concepts that are not internationally agreed upon," Charles Ntwaagae, ambassador from Botswana, said November 4. "We are even more disturbed at the attempt to focus on certain persons on the grounds of their sexual interests and behaviors, while ignoring that intolerance and discrimination regrettably exists in various parts of the world, be it on the basis of color, race, sex or religion, to mention only a few." In the end, however, protests from the Africana countries did not matter. The Human Rights Council at the UN voted 84-77 to adopt the Latin American-Caribbean proposal. Twelve countries abstained. The council's report recommending the new LGBT administrator was then approved 94-3. Eighty countries nearly half of those on the council abstained from the vote to pass the report on to the General Assembly. Opponents of the LGBT agenda see the position of the LGBT investigator as an effort to drive a wedge between the rest of the world and the countries that do not support the LGBT movement. And this is only the latest effort to promote the LGBT agenda at the UN, where 76 member states including Russia still outlaw homosexuality. In March, for example, the UN Postal Administration (UNPA) gave approval to the worldwide lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement through its release of six commemorative stamps promoting the UN "Free & Equal" campaign. The initiative, overseen the by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, featured stamps showing gay men and women embracing, gay men with an adopted child, a "transgender butterfly" and a figure coming out of the darkness of a closet. The set featured two stamps in German, two in French and two in English. When the stamps were issued, Nigeria's ambassador, Usman Sarki, said many of the African states tied either to European mainline denominations or the Catholic Church oppose same-sex relationships strongly. Sarki and others want the stamps recalled. "We wish to remind the UN to limit itself strictly to activities mandated by member states and especially to promote issues that are beneficial to mankind rather than lend itself as tool to promote aberrant behavior under the guise of promoting human rights," Sarki said. "The UN should not take unilateral decisions on such sensitive matters that offend the sensibilities of the majority of its member states, and contradict their religious beliefs, cultures, traditions and laws." The UNPA refused to recall the stamps. The call for the LGBT investigator was approved by the council in July. When it was, representatives from Nigeria could be heard shouting, "No! No! No!" The Nigerian delegation also said the process had been hijacked by other states and used to promote "offensive attitudes." In addition to Africa, a number of countries in the Middle East, along with China and Russia, also oppose the advance of LGBT activities on the part of the UN. Thailand's Vitit Muntarbhorn, a professor of law at the University of Bangkok, will serve as the first "UN Independent Expert on Protection against Violence and Discrimination based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity." The UN yesterday called on "all States to recognize their responsibility to preserve the human rights system and ensure that the Independent Expert is able to continue fulfilling his mandate without hindrance and with the full cooperation of all States and other stakeholders." Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the first Christian governor in Indonesia, has been named as a suspect in a blasphemy investigation. The governor, who is known as Ahok, was appointed to serve the nations capital city, Jakarta, in 2014 and is currently running for re-election. Christianity Today reports Ahok is under fire for the way he used a verse in the Koran while speaking to a group in September. He said, Do not believe everything that people say because often you are deceived by using 51st of Surah Al Maidah (the fifth chapter of the Quran). Some interpret the verse to mean that Muslims should not vote for those of other religions. In response to Ahoks speech, 100,000 people signed a petition calling for legal action against the governor. Additionally, thousands of civilians protested, some clashing with police and setting cars on fire. Ahok apologized for his words, but the fervor has continued. Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama has called on Indonesian civilians to refrain from protesting and forgive the governor. Publication date: November 22, 2016 GRAFTON Tom Campbell planted his first potato crop when he was just out of high school. But Campbell, 57, has never seen a year as strange and challenging for area potato growers as 2016. Its been one for the record books. But well put it behind us and never look back, the Grafton producer said . Freezing temperatures over the weekend appear to have effectively ended the harvest for northwest Minnesota and northeast North Dakota potato growers. The harvest which lasted as much as two months longer than usual for some growers brought heavy rains, soggy fields, rising prices and exceptionally warm temperatures in late October and the the first half of November. The crop year also brought wide variation in yields and profits. Growers who enjoyed average or slightly-below-average yields, and who didnt contract to sell their potatoes earlier this year at low prices, will be able to take advantage of higher prices and do relatively well financially. Growers with poor crops, or who contracted their potatoes previously at lower prices, wont do so well, officials say. The Red River Valley of eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota where the two states potato production is concentrated is the nations leading producer of red potatoes and the only region that produces in volume for all of the chip, fresh, seed and process markets. North Dakota is the nations fourth-leading potato producer, with Minnesota ranking seventh. The Red River Valleys combined potato production ranks third, behind Washington and Idaho. But heavy rains in northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota some fields in North Dakotas Pembina and Walsh countries received more than 40 inches of rain this growing season, twice the average amount will cut sharply into the areas potato production. Severe hail also hurt some potato fields in the area, officials say. By some estimates, the areas potato production will fall 35 percent this year, said Chuck Gunnerson, president of the Northern Plains Potato Growers Association, based in East Grand Forks, Minn. Because the Red River Valley is such an important source of potatoes especially for reds its reduced output has pushed up potato prices. Red potatoes now go for about $20 per hundredweight, roughly twice what they were year ago. The true law of supply and demand is kicking in, Campbell said, adding that potatoes, even at the higher prices, are still a good deal for consumers. Potatoes are planted on far fewer acres than crops such as wheat, corn and soybeans and consequently dont get as much attention as those crops. But potatoes are exceptionally productive per acre, so the crop is important, both regionally and globally, said Andrew Robinson, the Fargo-based potato specialist with the North Dakota State University and University of Minnesota extension services. Mixed bag Chipping potatoes, or ones grown for chip processing, typically are grown under contract, so farmers who raise them didnt benefit from the rising prices, Gunnerson said. But higher prices on the open market will help to offset poorer yields for other potato farmers, he said. Highly variable yields cloud assessments of who will benefit from higher prices, however. Some producers have been hit very, very hard, while their neighbors havent had it as bad and may have reasonable yields, Gunnerson said. Its such a mixed bag. Some growers harvested only 40 percent of an average crop, with others harvesting as much as 90 percent, Campbell estimates. If you can harvest two-thirds of a crop or even half a crop, you can still come out (financially, because of the higher prices), he said. The quality of some potatoes was hurt because they were in fields so long, and those will be sold for a greatly reduced price on the secondary market, Campbell said. He also said crop insurance will ease part of the sting for some growers. Unharvested acres Potato industry officials wonder how many acres of their crop went unharvested this year. As much as 35 percent to 50 percent of potatoes acres in some areas were too wet to harvest, according to some unofficial estimates. The official estimate, from the U.S. Department of Agricultures National Agricultural Statistics Service, is that 64,000 of 80,000 potato acres planted in North Dakota this year will be harvested. NASS is sticking with that number for now, but will consider revising it, if warranted, early next year, said Darin Jantzi, North Dakota state statistician. Coming up with an accurate estimate is difficult because some area potato farmers were able to harvest most of their potatoes, while other growers were hit hard, growers and others say. The weathers effect on yields varies so much from farm to farm and even field to field, Robinson said. That reflects how spotty rainfall totals can be: A weather system that dumped, say, 4 inches of precipitation on one potato field and that drowned out part of the field and hurt yields in the rest might have left only a fraction of that on another potato field a short distance away. Heavy, frequent rains continued into harvest, further challenging producers. Farmers battled constantly soggy fields, picking away at unharvested potatoes when and where they could. That stressed both harvest equipment and the people operating it. But the unwelcome fall moisture was accompanied by unusually warm temperatures, which allowed growers to continue harvesting or at least try to harvest their potatoes longer than normal, Robinson said. The prolonged far-below-freezing temperatures over the weekend froze most, if not all, of the remaining potatoes, so theres no point in trying to harvest more, officials say. Though potato growers welcomed the prolonged harvest, theyre not unhappy to see the crop season end. Talking with the old-timers who have seen many, many crops, they say this year has been the worst, Gunnerson said. But we will deal with it. We have some financially strong producers in that area, and theyll be planting again next year, he said. A pastor in southwestern China, jailed for nearly a year on fabricated charges and suffering a liver disease, focuses on trusting God in a letter of encouragement to his wife, according to China Aid. Authorities took pastor Li Guozhi, better known as Yang Hua, into custody after a raid on his church in central Guizhou Province on Dec. 9, 2015. In a Nov. 8 letter to his wife, Wang Hongwu, Pastor Yang encourages her to focus more on God than on the noise of humanity, according to the Texas-based advocacy organization. Our wonderful God, our Lord forever, he writes. Who can guess His wisdom and mystery? Our faith is built on His words (He never changes and never does wrong; this is the unchangeable maxim). Sometimes, somebody will decide something by guessing and then [testing their theory], but we dont. We listen more to God and less to human beings. After describing how doctors applying sulfur ointment were able to heal the scabies he had suffered all over his body, he tells her not to worry about his health. The fatty liver disease was diagnosed in prison, he writes. The suffering is bearable. The Lord has grace. The canker sore has not returned since May of this year. Thank God. Pastor Yang was initially arrested for obstructing justice and gathering a crowd to disturb public order after he tried to stop authorities from confiscating his computer hard drive, according to China Aid. He was sentenced to two consecutive, five-day administrative detention sentences for each charge, but on Dec. 20, 2015, when he was supposed to be released, his wife saw authorities forcing the blindfolded pastor into an unlicensed vehicle, the advocacy group said. She subsequently learned that Pastor Yangs charge had been changed to illegally possessing state secrets, and that he was being transferred to another center to serve a criminal detention sentence, according to China Aid. After a month of no word about her husband, who had disappeared into official custody, Wang received a notice on Jan. 22 announcing her husbands formal arrest for divulging state secrets, a press statement from China Aid read. Initially, officials refused to allow Chen Jiangang and Zhao Yonglin, Yangs lawyers, to meet with requests to meet with their client, and Wang was also kept from seeing her husband. Eventually, however, Chen and Zhao received permission to confer with their client, and Wang was able to correspond with her husband via letter. In the letter, Pastor Yang encourages Wang and the church to encourage and give hope to each other. Never be dejected and despondent, always look up at our Lord, and always keep the spiritual life above the chaos of the real environment, he writes. Rest in Gods arms. Some rely on chariots, some on horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord. Be upright and take care. Be prepared for the rest of the road. I will go with you. If the Lord doesnt allow it, not a single hair [from your head] will drop to the floor. Pastor Stripped of License In Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, a pastor who had been jailed and released lost his position when state-run agencies revoked his license to preach and expelled him from leadership, Christian Aid reported. The Zhejiang Provincial China Christian Council and the Zhejiang Provincial Three-Self Patriotic Movement enacted the orders against Zhang Chongzhu on Oct. 29, outraging area Christians who suspected the government terminated him to keep people from attending unregistered house churches, the group reported. Zhang had been placed under residential surveillance in a designated location, otherwise known as a black jail, last September [2015], China Aid reported. On Feb. 5, he was criminally detained for stealing, spying, buying, or illegally providing state secrets or intelligence to entities outside China. He was formally arrested on March 9 under the charges but was released on May 9, the group reported. In Chinas restive Xinjiang Province, three Christians were detained on Nov. 11 for spreading religion illegally and gathering a mob to disturb public order after police dispersed a meeting they had organized, according to China Aid. Police on Nov. 11 dispersed a group of Han and Uyghur Christians who had gathered for Bible training at Xinfeng Church, and the events planners Li Rong, Liu Peijin, Wang Yubiao, Wang Encheng, Wang Hailong, David, and Gu Li were taken into police custody. Li, Liu, and a Christian identified only as Wang were handed 15-day administrative detention sentences, while the others were released, China Aid reported. In the past two months, the group said in a press statement, Xinjiang authorities detained or arrested dozens of Christians for holding house church gatherings, including three Christians in Wensu County, two people from Xinhe County, three people from Baicheng County, seven people from Akesu, two Christians in Yanqi County, two individuals in Hejing County, and 16 people in the Kuerle region, 13 of whom were also physically attacked. Courtesy: Morning Star News Publication date: November 22, 2016 A parents worst nightmare happened yesterday just before 3:30 p.m. in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Thirty-five students, from grades kindergarten through fifth, were in a tragic bus accident leaving 6 dead and many others injured. Reports say that speed may have been the major factor leading to the crash, which caused the bus to be flipped on its side and wrapped around a tree. Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher said the scene was complicated and covered a large area. It was the only vehicle involved in the accident and emergency personnel needed almost two hours to get all the children off the bus. Fox News reports, ...Fletcher said that 24-year-old Johnthony Walker was charged with five counts of vehicular homicide. Walker was also charged with reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Reports indicate that of the students involved in the crash, there have now been six confirmed fatalities, six more admitted to hospitals but not critically injured, and 20 others treated and released by local hospitals. Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam commented about the accident, Were going to do everything we can to assist in any way. Its a sad situation anytime theres a school bus with children involved, which there is in this case. We will do everything we can to assist in what I think is going to be a very sad situation. The National Transportation Safety Board has launched an investigation into the crash. Hamilton County school officials confirmed that schools will be open today and extra personnel would be on staff to help children deal with this tragic situation. Police Chief Fletcher shared on behalf of city and county officials, "Our hearts go out, as well as the hearts of all the people around me, to the family, the neighborhood, the school and all the people involved in this. We assure you we're doing everything we can to help everybody be as safe as they can, get the care they need and get the support they need." May we all keep these families in our prayers and thoughts during this sad and tragic loss. Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com Publication date: November 22, 2016 Islamic State (IS) jihadists hung Karlus, a 29-year-old cook, from the ceiling of the jail he was held in, by a rope attached to his left foot. As blood poured from his foot, they beat and kicked him, rubbing salt into his wounds. He was sexually abused in prison by three women wearing niqabs. He was told he would be shot dead; but for reasons he still does not understand, on the day his execution was due to take place, 26 September 2014, he was released. When IS seized control of Iraqi territory in the summer of 2014, they gave Christians, as People of the Book, four options: leave, convert to Islam, pay a protection tax (jiyza) or be killed. The vast majority fled an estimated 120,000 in a few short weeks that summer. But those left behind were subjected to torture, forced conversion, sexual slavery and even crucifixion, according to testimonies collected from Iraqi refugees in Jordan by the religious freedom charity ADF International. Karlus told its researchers he had been unable to flee his home in Batnaya, a village outside Mosul, because he was looking after his disabled father. When the terrorists came to his house, they destroyed a cross and a picture of Jesus. They even destroyed a piece from the Quran that was given to me by a friend, he said. Karlus was taken to a police station unconscious after retaliating when one of the jihadists hit him in the face. There began his seven-week ordeal at the hands of IS, after which he fled to Kurdistan, was treated in Spain for the injuries to his leg, and sought asylum in Jordan. Unknown to Karlus, his father had meantime managed to travel to Baghdad, but died there in August 2015. Esam, a father-of-three from outside the town of Qaraqosh, said two of his wifes relatives had not managed to flee Qaraqosh before IS arrived. They were abducted; the husband has not been heard of since and the wife now lives with one of the Daesh [IS] amirs. While reports have focused on Yezidi women being taken into sex slavery, Esams account suggests that Christian women and girls may have been targeted as well. We heard of 12 Christian girls who are with Daesh. They may be more. Our bishop told people not to tell if they lose their girls: it is a shame on the family, he said. Karlus and Esam are among the thousands of Iraqi Christians who have sought refuge in neighbouring Jordan. While Iraqi and Kurdish forces and militias, with US and UK air support, are embroiled in the push to liberate Mosul from IS, many Christians from the city and its surrounding villages are too traumatised by their experiences to countenance returning. Some say they feel betrayed by neighbours who supported IS, and are no longer sure whom they can trust. Instead, many have applied for asylum in Western countries such as Sweden, Canada and Australia. One family recovering in Sweden is that of Esams brother-in-law. My wifes brother was crucified by Daesh, Esam said. He was crucified and tortured in front of his wife and children, who were forced to watch. They told him that if he loved Jesus that much, he would die like Jesus. Esam said the fighters tortured his relative from 6pm until 11pm; they cut his stomach open and shot him before leaving him hanging, crucified. A Swedish organisation helped his wife and the children; they are now in Sweden. He added: His wife has cancer. In the ongoing instability in Iraq, Christians are not necessarily safe even if they escape areas held by IS. Baghdad has been home to the countrys largest Christian community for decades, but numbers have plummeted as sectarian militia violence sporadically ripped the capital apart and targeted non-Muslims in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion. Twice in 2014, Alaa, a father-of-two living in the city, received death threats. The first was by phone; the second time, someone wrote on our door, Your day is coming to die, you infidels. Alaa knew these were no empty threats. My wifes cousin was killed in 2010, in an explosion at a church. Another family member was abducted in 2009, he said. The family left Iraq in November 2014 and flew to Jordan to register as refugees. Amid the ongoing violence and political instability in Iraq, Alaa sees little future for his family. It is impossible to go back to Baghdad, he said. It is not possible to go back to Iraq. I cant build a life there. I hope to go to Australia, but any country that will accept me, I will go there. I want to build a life and a future for my children. Some of the damage done by IS has already begun to be reversed. Esam said friends of his who escaped Mosul after being forcibly converted to Islam had been baptised back to Christianity. Other aspects will take far longer. Iraqi Christians who end up returning to Iraq know they return to a country whose sectarian fault-lines have been activated to lethal levels. Aid workers have warned that extensive reconciliation work will be vital if Iraqs many different faith and ethnic communities are to cohere again, especially as levels of trauma among all sectors of the population are thought to be extremely high. In Jordan, Karlus reflects on his ordeal at the hands of IS members in Mosul. He concludes: What happened is not easy, but in the end we must forgive. This is my destiny; maybe God is planning something for me. Courtesy: World Watch Monitor Publication date: November 22, 2016 Those Millennials are so dang selfish. All they care about is their preference of worship style and their grungy clothes. An older gentleman in a church made that statement to me. I did not make it up. Sadly, he said each of those words. I disagree. For certain, there are exceptions within any group. But among the Christian Millennials, I find a group truly seeking to reach out in their communities; truly trying to invite peers to church; and truly willing to sacrifice for the sake of the gospel. The Millennials (born between 1980 and 2000) are Americas largest generation ever, over 78 million strong. But only about 15 to 20 percent of this generation is Christian. Based on our research thus far, however, the Millennial Christians may be the most potent missional generation we have ever known in America. Okay, back to the issue of attire worn on Sundays (or whatever the worship day may be). Why is that issue important to Millennials? I recently had the opportunity to interview a number of these Christian young adults. Their responses may surprise you. 1. They want their unchurched friends to feel comfortable if they come to their churches. Personally, I would wear a tux to church if that helped get my friends here, one young Millennial male told me. But my friends dont wear tuxedos and they dont dress like the rest of the people in my church. They would really feel out of place here. 2. Their friends have told them that properly dressed churchgoers have looked down on them when they came to church. A female Millennial told me, I was so embarrassed for my friend. I finally got her to go with me to church. She had no idea what we mean by Sunday dress. You should have seen the condescending looks she got wearing her jeans. She wont be back. Ill probably find another church too. 3. There is confusion about giving your best to God. Yep, Ive heard that phrase a few times. For some of our older members, giving your best means wearing their subjective definition of best. I was listening to the same female Millennial I quoted above. Did you know the tie that men wear had its origins in the early 17th century? Is that giving your best to God? I think giving our best is a matter of the heart, not the whitewashed tombs of what we wear on the outside. Ouch. 4. Tattoos, tatters, and piercings are not welcome here. That quote came from a 31-year old Christian Millennial male. He went on to say, Most of my friends have one or more of those in their appearance. I know they will not be welcomed in my church. What am I supposed to do? Christian Millennials as a whole care deeply about reaching their peers. But many of them dont feel their friends would be welcomed or comfortable in their own churches. As one young lady asked me, What are our options? Good question. Let me hear your thoughts. This article was originally published at ThomRainer.com on November 16, 2016. Thom S. Rainer serves as president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources. Among his greatest joys are his family: his wife Nellie Jo; three sons, Sam, Art, and Jess; and nine grandchildren. Dr. Rainer can be found on Twitter @ThomRainer and at facebook.com/Thom.S.Rainer. The Taiwanese government is set to pass a bill legalizing gay marriage which is being opposed by many residents of the capital city Taipei, according to media reports. Thousands of demonstrators protested against the bill in front of the Legislative Yuan last week. They held signs with messages that urged the government to let the people determine the legitimacy of the institution of marriage and family. The China Post reported that protesters had put large stickers on their clothes which read "Marriage and family, let the people decide." Many young children were seen standing in the rally with their parents who had gathered there since early morning. In the afternoon, about 60 demonstrators forced their way into the gate of the Legislative Yuan complex and sat outside the assembly hall in protest after the lawmakers declined to allow a public hearing to discuss the matter. Later they were removed from the complex and the gate was cordoned off. The officials relented and will hold two public meetings before voting proceeds in the legislature. The Alliance of Taiwan Religious Groups for Protection of Family had organized the rally. Many of the protest leaders spoke to the crowd from a temporary stage at the site. One of the leaders was heard as saying: "All children have the right to a mother and a father." The group supported some of the rights such as emergency visitation and inheritance rights for same-sex partners, but said that marriage should be between a man and woman only. "Now they want to amend the law to do away with the 'father' and 'mother' altogether," David Tseng, rally spokesperson told AFP. "We are different from the West. In Eastern culture, we place great importance on filial piety to one's father and mother. This is a virtue we must keep," he added. The conservative Kuomintang (KMT) party had dominated the country's politics for years before Democratic Progressive Party came in power in May this year. President Tsai Ing-wen backs gay marriage, and said she would stand by the outcome of voting in the legislature. If this bill is passed, Taiwan would become the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage. Gay pride rallies are an annual event in Taipei and the one in October was attended by tens of thousands of people. Long live the crescent and the cross! shouted Egypts parliament in joy. All 39 Christian members joined the two-thirds majority to vote to end a 160-year practice instituted by the Ottomans requiring Christians to get permission from the countrys leader before building churches. The long-awaited reform was promised by the 2014 constitution after the overthrow of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi. The new law shifts authority into the hands of the governor, who must issue a decision within four months of an application and give detailed reasons for refusals. The law also established a process to retroactively license hundreds of churches erected without a presidential permit. It is a good step, said Andrea Zaki, president of the Protestant Churches of Egypt, who helped negotiate the draft law with government officials. If we wanted an agreement to include everything and please everyone, it would have taken 100 years. This is the best we can get right now. But even as they celebrated, Christians debated if they failed to fully seize a unique opportunity to pursue equal citizenship. Some wanted a unified law for both churches and mosques. Others noted the presence of loopholes that may impede church construction. For example, the need for a new church is tied to population growth. And local officials or police may be able to encumber the process if Muslims object. The law is a legalized perpetuation of the status quo, said Ishak Ibrahim, religion officer with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). It does not address the roots of sectarian tension and shows [that] the state prefers adherents of one religion over ... 1 You have reached the end of this Article Preview You have reached the end of this Article Preview To continue reading, subscribe now. Subscribers have full digital access. Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here. 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. Worse than what missing the mark does to our soul is what it does to our neighbors. 'With Gladness: A Christmas Story Collection' by Sarah Kay Bierle Presents Heartwarming Historical Holiday Fiction Contact: Sarah Kay Bierle, TEMECULA, Calif., Nov. 22, 2016 / Bierle's book, released earlier in November, highlights the theme "Christmas comes in every year in every era, reminding us to hope, trust, and have faith." Published as historical fiction, Bierle describes her stories as "tales in which the main characters are fictional, but are surrounded by and interacting with real historical figures, settings, and events in a way that accurately reflects the societal norms of the era." As a historian, Bierle works to achieve historical accuracy in her stories. She explains her idea for this Christmas collection, "I've always wanted to read stories about Christmas in different eras of American history. There's something so special about the holiday season, the traditions, and the historical events which occurred in December. When I couldn't find the book I wanted to read, I decided I had to write it." Her new book introduces ten different historical eras: Colonial, Revolutionary War, Trail of Tears, California Ranchos, Civil War, Gilded Age, The Dust Bowl, World War II, Vietnam Conflict, and Modern Era. Sarah Kay Bierle is a historian, writer, and assistant blog editor for Emerging Civil War. Her first book, "Blue, Gray & Crimson" was published in July 2015 and won an award for Young Adult Fiction. Bierle was homeschooled from kindergarten through high school, completed an accelerated distance learning program for college, and graduated from Thomas Edison State University with a BA in History. When asked what inspired "With Gladness," Bierle responded, "the search for Christmas meaning as people in every era have tried to reconcile their struggles with a message of joy and peace. It's an easy-to-read, inspirational book. I hope readers will connect with the characters and conflicts to find their own Christmas happiness." "With Gladness: A Christmas Story Collection" is available online at the author's website Share Tweet Contact: Sarah Kay Bierle, Gazette665 , 951-238-7480, sarah.bierle@gmail.com TEMECULA, Calif., Nov. 22, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Sarah Kay Bierle's newest book, "With Gladness: A Christmas Story Collection" entertains and inspires individuals and families as it features holidays in America's past.Bierle's book, released earlier in November, highlights the theme "Christmas comes in every year in every era, reminding us to hope, trust, and have faith." Published as historical fiction, Bierle describes her stories as "tales in which the main characters are fictional, but are surrounded by and interacting with real historical figures, settings, and events in a way that accurately reflects the societal norms of the era."As a historian, Bierle works to achieve historical accuracy in her stories. She explains her idea for this Christmas collection, "I've always wanted to read stories about Christmas in different eras of American history. There's something so special about the holiday season, the traditions, and the historical events which occurred in December. When I couldn't find the book I wanted to read, I decided I had to write it." Her new book introduces ten different historical eras: Colonial, Revolutionary War, Trail of Tears, California Ranchos, Civil War, Gilded Age, The Dust Bowl, World War II, Vietnam Conflict, and Modern Era.Sarah Kay Bierle is a historian, writer, and assistant blog editor for Emerging Civil War. Her first book, "Blue, Gray & Crimson" was published in July 2015 and won an award for Young Adult Fiction. Bierle was homeschooled from kindergarten through high school, completed an accelerated distance learning program for college, and graduated from Thomas Edison State University with a BA in History.When asked what inspired "With Gladness," Bierle responded, "the search for Christmas meaning as people in every era have tried to reconcile their struggles with a message of joy and peace. It's an easy-to-read, inspirational book. I hope readers will connect with the characters and conflicts to find their own Christmas happiness.""With Gladness: A Christmas Story Collection" is available online at the author's website Gazette665 or Amazon Dramatic 'Confessions of St. Augustine' Audio CD Released by Actor Leonardo Defilippis VANCOUVER, Wash., Nov. 21, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Actor and director Leonardo Defilippis captures the passion and poetry of "The Confessions of St. Augustine" in a new audio dramatization of this famous spiritual classic. Audiences experience in this riveting production a personal encounter with one of the most influential saints in Christian history. Photo: Hi-resolution version available upon request. Defilippis' performance is accessible, relevant, and deeply moving in his portrayal of St. Augustine, who struggled with promiscuity, fathered a child out of wedlock, and dabbled in a "new age" style cult. His relentless pursuit of truth was extraordinary and deeply encouraged by the prayerful perseverance of his faithful mother, St. Monica. "As I explored this text, I discovered a completely modern story about a man absorbed in a decadent existence of sexual indulgence and intellectual arrogance," explains Defilippis. "The drama is about his early life with his mistress and his dramatic conversion to Christianity. Because of the emotional ground covered by the story, I found that Augustine revealed something very personal that our modern world could relate to." Audience member Dr. Lisa Fulgenzi praised "The Confessions" this way: "What a beautiful and brilliant performance! I found myself praying for Augustine's conversion, as you presented such a real character, and then from that, the conversion of all of the souls of the people in the audience, and that of all of the people who would hear about it from them." Leonardo Defilippis founded Saint Luke Productions in 1980. By bringing the lives of the saints to modern audiences, Saint Luke Productions actively participates in the "New Evangelization" of our culture and fosters religious vocations. Leonardo's high quality media productions, including the popular feature film "Therese," have experienced an overwhelmingly positive response worldwide. MINNEAPOLIS -- Jacob Wetterlings younger sister Carmen is afraid of helicopters, cant stand to be alone and struggles to answer the question: How many brothers and sisters do you have? When older sister Amy closes her eyes at night, she sees an innocent young boy, cold and afraid, in those last moments of his life. Aaron Larson felt so much guilt about what happened on the night of Oct. 22, 1989, the night that Danny Heinrich abducted, molested and killed his best friend Jacob, that he left the state and later left the country. I just wanted to be gone, he said. For nearly 45 minutes on Monday morning, Danny Heinrichs victims approached the podium in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis and spoke of the sorrow, anguish and pain he inflicted on them. It caused me to push people away, to be scared, to cry, Larson told the packed courtroom. I lived every day thinking I was the monster that night. I was the coward that left my friend, I was the coward that ran away. Every day, I lived with believing that me running away was a choice. During all these years, every decision I made in life revolved around Jacob, and the guilt I felt because I was still here. I was the last person who cared about Jacob to see him, to be right next to him, and I just left him. I hated it. I hated how I left him. Heinrich was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Monday, two months after confessing to abducting, molesting and killing 11-year-old Jacob nearly three decades ago in central Minnesota. For years, the case attracted national attention and dominated headlines. Authorities last year took another look at the case and were led to Heinrich, a man who had been questioned at the time of Jacobs kidnapping. When Heinrich, 53, of Annandale was arrested in October 2015 on charges of child pornography, law enforcement officials called him a person of interest in Jacobs kidnapping. He confessed to the crime in September. In court on Monday, Patty Wetterling cried as she described the magnitude of pain Heinrich inflicted on her and her family every day of their lives. He hurt my heart, my soul and every fiber of my being when he murdered our son Jacob a child that I carried for nine months and nurtured for 11 years, eight months and five days, Patty Wetterling said. Jacob was a boy with many gifts that the world will never realize because of this cruel and unnecessary murder. She said she misses her sons touch, smell, smile, laughter, jokes, questions and zest for life. In killing Jacob, Heinrich took away a wonderful human being who cared deeply for family and friends and sports and music and theater and jokes, hugs and kisses, football and piggyback rides, she said. Patty Wetterling then turned to Heinrich and addressed him directly: You didnt need to kill him, she said. He did nothing wrong. He just wanted to go home. You planned to hurt someone that night. You didnt just bring a gun to scare the boys; you brought bullets. Why would you bring bullets if not to use them? The Wetterlings said the fact that Heinrich kept his crimes a secret for 27 years was particularly heinous. Losing Jacob was hard enough, but for this man to hold this secret for almost 27 years and continue to be free is, as Jacob would say, entirely not fair, said younger brother Trevor Wetterling. Added sister Amy: The worst part is that for nearly 27 years he let us believe that we would someday be able to see Jacob again. For nearly 27 years, he let me hold onto the image I had in my mind and in my dreams of Jacob running up the driveway back into our home to a huge group hug, with all of the people who loved him so much. All the times our parents went on TV begging and pleading for answers, and he just watched. He watched us suffer through anniversary after anniversary. Twenty-seven years is a long time. Heinrich was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for one count of receiving child pornography. Under a plea agreement approved by the Wetterlings, Heinrich confessed to Jacobs kidnapping, sexual assault and shooting and agreed to lead authorities to the boys body. In return, Heinrich will not be prosecuted for murder, which has no statute of limitations, and 24 other counts of pornography have been dropped. Heinrich also had to confess in court to kidnapping and sexually assaulting 12-year-old Jared Scheierl in Cold Spring on Jan. 13, 1989, nine months before he abducted and killed Jacob. The words that he had spoke to me on that evening haunted me for years, Scheierl said. I would just simply like to say to him: There is nothing uncommon about common sense. I just wish you had more common sense. Saying he didnt want to hear anything Heinrich had to say, Scheierl, sitting in the front row next to the Wetterling family, left the courtroom when Heinrich approached the podium to address the court. Heinrich said he was truly sorry for my evil acts that I have committed against the victims and their families and the shame that I caused, brought onto myself and my family. Mr. and Mrs. Wetterling, the heinous acts, the selfishness are unforgivable for what I have taken away from you. I dont know what else to say. Im so sorry, he said. To Jared Scheierl, the innocence I have taken away of not just him, but from other victims, the emotional, the psychological trauma that I have caused him and his family and others, Im sorry. Heinrich, dressed in a light-brown sweater and dark pants, said he kept his crimes a secret to spare himself and his family any humiliation. There is no more, Your Honor. There is no more. I cant do it. Heinrichs acts constituted one of the most truly horrible crimes that I have ever seen, Chief U.S. District Judge John Tunheim said. We wont pretend today that this crime and sentence is about child pornography. Its about taking a childhood away from Jared Scheierl and taking a lifetime away from Jacob Wetterling, Tunheim said. It is also about changing the lives of so many children and parents, who prayed for Jacobs return and lived in the fear that someone like you someone evil would come out of the darkness, out of the woods, out of the bushes, from around the corner, abuse them and take them away, never to be seen again. Every child knows the story of Jacob Wetterling. You stole the innocence of childrens lives in the small towns, in the rural areas and the cities in Minnesota and beyond. Heinrich will spend at least 17 years in prison at a location that wont be made public until after he arrives there; all federal prisoners must spend a minimum of 85 percent of their sentences behind bars before being eligible for release. There is no parole in the federal system. After he finishes serving his criminal sentence, Heinrich is expected to be civilly committed as a sex offender because what he did was so heinous and so brutal and awful that its unlikely that society will let (him) go free, Tunheim said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Allyn called Heinrich a cold, calculated predator of children whose crimes were reprehensible. If the defendant had one ounce of remorse ever, he would have ended the anguish for so many people so long ago, but he did not, Allyn said. He only ended anything now, with his confession, because he was caught, and he only pled guilty because the numbers were good for him. Danny Heinrich only does what is good for Danny Heinrich. During a search of Heinrichs home in July 2015, investigators found videos that included news reports about Jacob and anniversary specials that showed the Wetterlings looking at the camera and begging and pleading for some answers, Allyn said. Heinrich would have seen that, and he would have just turned off the TV and went about his life and he did this year after year, Allyn said. It is beyond horrible to molest children and to have murdered a little child, but the unsolved nature of this crime he let become a tragic force that ripped through these families and these communities. The defendant, is a cruel narcissist. This family died a death of a thousand cuts, and this man let that happen, year after year. He caused unparalleled anguish for so many people. His crimes were reprehensible and his silence devastating. Jacob, the second of the Wetterlings four children, was in the sixth grade in October 1989. He was riding his bicycle with his friend Aaron and brother Trevor about 9:15 p.m. Oct. 22, 1989, when Heinrich, masked and armed, abducted him from a rural road near the Wetterling home in St. Joseph. The kidnapping took place on a Sunday night. The kids didnt have school the next day. Patty and Jerry Wetterling at the last minute decided to go to a party in Clearwater. Amy, their oldest child, was at a sleepover, so the couple asked Jacob if he would mind baby-sitting Trevor, 10, and Carmen, 8. He asked if Aaron could come over. Trevor later called his parents at the party and asked if the boys could bike and scooter up to the Tom Thumb convenience store to rent a video. Carmen didnt want to go, so the kids with the Wetterlings OK arranged for a neighbor girl, Rochelle Jerzak, to come over and baby-sit while they made the trip. When Heinrich stepped out of the woods, he asked the boys their ages and then ordered Larson and Trevor Wetterling to run to the woods and not look back. Trevor Wetterling said he has felt tremendous guilt since that night since he was the one who pushed the boys to go out that night. No matter how much you tell yourself it wasnt your fault, it is always in the back of your mind, Trevor Wetterling said. It is not normal for a 10-year-old to sleep on the floor of their parents room. It is not normal to miss so much school in the fourth grade to have to hire a tutor to catch you up to speed and have your parents lobby to the teacher not to hold you back. It is not normal for your entire identity to be stolen away and to be transformed into being Jacobs brother. Before he read his statement, Jerry Wetterling thanked Heinrich for coming forward and showing authorities where Jacob was buried. Wetterling, a chiropractor, said his business suffered after his sons abduction. Many people were pointing the finger at me as responsible for Jacobs kidnapping because I didnt show enough emotion during many media interviews, he said. So not only was I in high emotional distress missing Jacob, I was looked at by many as being responsible. He said he and Patty spent thousands of dollars hiring psychics and private investigators and that their marriage suffered. We were both hurting so deeply that we couldnt be there for each other as we normally would, he said. Thus, we looked to other people for support, which didnt help our relationship with each other. We survived that, but not without faith, great heartache and financial and time expenditures for counseling. Wetterling said he misses all the things he didnt get to experience with his son laugh-filled fishing outings, pride-filled school events, such as music concerts, plays, sporting events, graduation, April Fools pranks, watching games together on TV possibly going off to college. After their son was abducted, the Wetterlings founded the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center, which works to help communities and families prevent child exploitation, and Patty Wetterling became a national advocate for children. The crime also spurred new federal laws requiring states to create sex-offender registries. Concluded Tunheim: No one is ever going to forget October 22nd of 1989, but we will move forward, and I know that were in a better place as a society because of the commitment that the Wetterling family has made to Jacob and to protecting other children. The St. Paul Pioneer Press is a news partner with Forum News Service. Pastor Rick Warren and Bishop Robert Barron Join Forces to Raise Awareness About Dangers of Assisted Suicide Laws Contact: Alexandra Snyder, NAPA, Calif., Nov. 22, 2016 / Pastor Rick Warren is the head Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, which attracts over 20,000 weekly attendees to its 18 campuses worldwide. Bishop Robert Barron serves as auxiliary archbishop to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which is the largest archdiocese in the United States with over 5 million professing members. The two met for the first time last week. They discussed their concerns about assisted suicide and the problems inherent in legislation that allows doctors to kill their patients. Pastor Warren talked about his son's death by suicide in 2013 and how his personal tragedy helped shape his opposition to assisted suicide. "The fact is, we belong to God. Theologically, we are not our own I didn't choose when I came into the world and I don't get to choose when I go out of the world. It's appointed by GodIt's not a political issue for me; it's a moral issue. And of course it's a practical issue, having had a son who took his life by suicide. I care very deeply about this." Bishop Barron explained the philosophical underpinnings of Catholic theology and then called for Christians of all faith traditions to minister to those who are suffering with untreatable illness. "One way the Catholic tradition deals with this more philosophically is this idea of the inviolable dignity of the individual so that it's intrinsic evil ever to take a human life from the moment of conception to natural deathmeaning there's no motive, there's no circumstance, no consequence that would ever justify such a moveBut it's not just an abstract moral issueIt's a summons to the Christian community now to engage in good ministry." Their conversation was moderated by author, attorney and radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt. Hewitt's law partner, Stephen Larson, is co-counsel in Life Legal's lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California's End of Life Option Act. That case is currently being litigated in state court in Riverside, California. "We are grateful for the leadership of Bishop Barron and Pastor Warren in sounding the alarm about assisted suicide laws," said Alexandra Snyder, Executive Director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation. "We have a moral and philosophical obligation to protect vulnerable human life by engaging in thoughtful and articulate opposition to assisted suicideand by showing up to help those who are hurting." The conversation between Pastor Warren and Bishop Barren is available at About Life Legal Defense Foundation Life Legal Defense Foundation was established in 1989, and is a nonprofit organization composed of attorneys and other concerned citizens committed to giving helpless and innocent human beings of any age, and their advocates, a trained and committed voice in the courtrooms of our nation. For more information about the Life Legal Defense Foundation, visit Share Tweet Contact: Alexandra Snyder, Life Legal Defense Foundation , 202-717-7371NAPA, Calif., Nov. 22, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Life Legal hosted a conversation about life and death between two of the nation's most prominent faith leaders to discuss problems with assisted suicide laws.Pastor Rick Warren is the head Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, which attracts over 20,000 weekly attendees to its 18 campuses worldwide. Bishop Robert Barron serves as auxiliary archbishop to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which is the largest archdiocese in the United States with over 5 million professing members.The two met for the first time last week. They discussed their concerns about assisted suicide and the problems inherent in legislation that allows doctors to kill their patients.Pastor Warren talked about his son's death by suicide in 2013 and how his personal tragedy helped shape his opposition to assisted suicide. "The fact is, we belong to God. Theologically, we are not our own I didn't choose when I came into the world and I don't get to choose when I go out of the world. It's appointed by GodIt's not a political issue for me; it's a moral issue. And of course it's a practical issue, having had a son who took his life by suicide. I care very deeply about this."Bishop Barron explained the philosophical underpinnings of Catholic theology and then called for Christians of all faith traditions to minister to those who are suffering with untreatable illness. "One way the Catholic tradition deals with this more philosophically is this idea of the inviolable dignity of the individual so that it's intrinsic evil ever to take a human life from the moment of conception to natural deathmeaning there's no motive, there's no circumstance, no consequence that would ever justify such a moveBut it's not just an abstract moral issueIt's a summons to the Christian community now to engage in good ministry."Their conversation was moderated by author, attorney and radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt. Hewitt's law partner, Stephen Larson, is co-counsel in Life Legal's lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California's End of Life Option Act. That case is currently being litigated in state court in Riverside, California."We are grateful for the leadership of Bishop Barron and Pastor Warren in sounding the alarm about assisted suicide laws," said Alexandra Snyder, Executive Director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation. "We have a moral and philosophical obligation to protect vulnerable human life by engaging in thoughtful and articulate opposition to assisted suicideand by showing up to help those who are hurting."The conversation between Pastor Warren and Bishop Barren is available at lifelegaldefense.org About Life Legal Defense FoundationLife Legal Defense Foundation was established in 1989, and is a nonprofit organization composed of attorneys and other concerned citizens committed to giving helpless and innocent human beings of any age, and their advocates, a trained and committed voice in the courtrooms of our nation. For more information about the Life Legal Defense Foundation, visit www.lldf.org 11 Christian Television Stations Shut Down in Pakistan; 6 Operators Arrested Eleven Christian television stations were recently shut down by authorities in Pakistan, shocking Christians in the Muslim-majority country where they remain religious minorities. According to a report by UCANews, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) sent notices to all regional general managers late last month asking them to "stop transmitting 11 illegal TV channels immediately." The government body, which regulates television content in Pakistan, prohibits the airing of Christian programmes and others relating to religion, except occasional messages for Christmas and Easter. The PEMRA decided to launch a major crackdown this month on Christian stations, most of which have been operating in the Muslim-majority nation for more than two and a half decades now. As a result of this crackdown, six people were arrested when government agents raided cable TV operators broadcasting Indian Christian channels. Staffers of the closed television stations have also been rendered jobless. Among those that have been banned were Isaac TV, Pakistan's oldest Christian satellite broadcaster, and Catholic TV, a station ran by the archdiocese in Lahore, the second biggest city in the nation. Father Morris Jalal, founder and executive director of Catholic TV, expressed concern about the shutdown of Christian television networks in Pakistan, saying it will affect the growth of the church in the area. He also maintained that Christians still have the right to practice their religion in Pakistan, despite the fact that they are minorities. "What is the future of church media in Pakistan? It is a very difficult time for us. We were just trying to reach our own community who are generally ignored by other TV channels," Jalal told UCANews. It is also worth noting that while Christian broadcasting stations are being shut down, Islamic networks even those promoting war still continue to air in Pakistan. For instance, the station "Peace TV" is still on air, despite accusations that it is promoting jihad. Ancient Christian Monastery Recaptured From ISIS The fourth century Mar Benham monastery has survived Islamist atrocities before and the signs are it will survive again. On Sunday, Christian and Muslim fighters liberated the Syriac Orthodox monastery from Islamic State. Soldiers who then went in yesterday to inspect the damage found it had not been totally destroyed, as had been feared. But the Islamic State soldiers, who have occupied the monastery for the last two years after expelling the monks and blowing up St Benham's tomb, had also burned ancient Syriac manuscripts and destroyed sculptures. The monastery was built by a repentant King Senchareb after he murdered his two children, Benham and Sarah, because they had converted to Christianity. It has suffered and survived previous Islamist depradations. It was badly damaged by Persia's 18th century Muslim ruler Nader Shah when he went to war against the Christians of the Nineveh plains. "Their fundamental goal was to destroy Christian history and civilization in the Nineveh plains," Duraid Elias, commander of the Christian militia Babylon Brigades, told Reuters. The Islamists removed the crosses and tried to erase all trace of Benham. Kalin describes how the sitting room was turned into a medical clinic and the monks' bedrooms used as prison cells. One corner was filled with satellite dishes confiscated from homes in Mosul and Islamic State graffiti was scrawled on the walles including the jihadist motto: "Remaining and expanding". This is Christian Iraq posted a video of the cross being re-erected at the monastery: The soldiers re-erected crosses and the recapture of Bar Behnam was celebrated widely on social media. But the destruction wrought by Islamic State was also mourned: Glad to share this good news: Christian units within #Iraq's Hashd liberated the Mar Behnam (Syriac Catholic) monastery near #Mosul. pic.twitter.com/hAjZfJOJwq Haidar Sumeri (@IraqiSecurity) November 21, 2016 Now free Mar Behnam monastery outside #Mosul had both its Assyrian and Christian roots destroyed by #ISIS occupiers https://t.co/luV6KJkVwu Christians of Iraq (@iraqichristian) November 22, 2016 Elias, who led troops wearing Jesus and Virgin Mary headbands and with large wooden crosses in the backs of trucks to re-erect on desecrated sites, told Reuters: "We are proving to the world that Christians are not weak. We are stronger than they imagined." He described the revenge being taken by soldiers as they recaptured towns and villages from Islamic State. "There are others. We are going one by one: for every Christian house they blew up, we blow up a house next to it," he said from atop the monastery, pointing out one such pair of buildings. "This is war. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." As Winter Sets In, A Humanitarian Crisis Is Looming In Northern Iraq There are warnings that more than a million people could be displaced as the battle intensifies to drive so-called Islamic State out of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. With winter on the way, which in Northern Iraq can mean sub-zero temperatures, a humanitarian crisis is looming. But it is often forgotten that there are already more than three million internally displaced people, or IDPs, in the country. When ISIS swept across Northern Iraq and seized Mosul two years ago, many of those forced to flee their homes found sanctuary in the Kurdish north-east. Mostly Christians or Yazidis, they were welcomed by the Kurdish regional government. The majority of those escaping Mosul are Sunni Muslim Arabs. Authorities' plans so far is to house the IDPs from Mosul in camps. There are only 60,000 places ready for those coming from Mosul, however, and the most optimistic projection by the UN is for 200,000 people escaping the battle. Now that another assault has begun on ISIS' stronghold of Raqqa, across the border in Syria, many more could be displaced than the UN expects. If you want to see what could result from Mosul, look at Fallujah, another mainly Sunni Arab city where ISIS was pushed out earlier this year. Very few families were able to return to their homes even after the city was liberated. They ended up in no man's land: that's why they need the most help. There are 100,000 people in the desert between Fallujah and Baghdad, living in informal settlements without basic services like water, sanitation, or proper shelter. Some have been in this situation for more than two years, and if the worst comes to the worst in Mosul, the problem could be 10 times larger. The reality is that of the 3.4 million IDPs in Iraq, more than 80 per cent are living outside the camps. That is where my organisation Catholic Relief Services (CRS) works, alongside Caritas Iraq and supported by the UK aid agency CAFOD, other donors and Caritas Internationalis members. We've built hundreds of shelters, latrines, and water points, and are recruiting more aid workers to cope with an influx from Mosul. We are also repairing and improving unfinished buildings that have become homes for those displaced by violence. So far we have helped more than 150,000 people. This work is vital, because winter is almost upon us, and there will not be time to build camps for everyone forced from their home. Being a displaced person in such harsh weather is very hard, and we must scale up our work to deal with their needs. But one advantage we have as CRS and Caritas is that the Catholic Church has been in Iraq throughout history. Despite being a minority in numbers, Catholics are still a very active and engaged population. The Church was there before the conflict and will remain after it people know that. Hani El Mahdi is the Catholic Relief Services country representative for Iraq. Atheist Group Wants Wisconsin Lawmaker to Stop Offering Weekly Bible Study A Christian lawmaker from Wisconsin is being asked by an atheist group to stop the weekly Bible study he is offering at the state capitol building. The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) sent a letter to Wisconsin Rep. Paul Tittl last week, asking him to move the Bible study out of the government building or discontinue the meeting altogether, Christian News reported. Tittl, who describes himself as a follower of the Evangelical Free denomination, conducts Bible study every Wednesday in his office at the capitol building, where he invites other state workers to attend. In an interview with CBN News, the Wisconsin lawmaker insisted that practicing one's faith does not have to be restricted to certain places. "Faith is a huge part of my life," Tittl said. "It doesn't stop because I come to the state Capitol." The atheist group, led by co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor, argued however that Tittl should not use government property for his religious activities. "There are several churches within a few blocks of that Capitol that we are confident would be willing to host your religious event," Gaylor said in his letter to the lawmaker, as quoted by Christian News. "If, on the other hand, you now wish to alter your argument and claim that these Bible studies are in fact state work, that raises serious constitutional concerns," she added. Gaylor further reminded Tittl that he serves "a population that consists of not only Bible believers, but also atheists, agnostics, Muslims, and Hindus among others." Tittl's colleagues, however, do not find anything wrong or offensive about the Wisconsin lawmaker's weekly Bible study. For instance, Democratic Rep. Jonathan Brostoff, who is Jewish, said he even attends the Bible study to understand the Christian faith more. Brostoff also said that Tittl does not favour any particular religion with his Bible study, and even provides an opportunity for state capitol workers to get to know each other even more. Catholic Priest Thanks Protestant Clergy Who Reached Out To Him After 'Hate Crime' Attack A elderly priest who has made it his life's work to defend civil rights in Northern Ireland has thanked Protestant clergy who reached out to him after his home was victim of a sectarian attack. Fr Joseph McVeigh was at a wake for his cousin who died on Remembrance Sunday when attackers smashed windows in his presbytery, Tattygar House in Lisbellaw. Police are investigating the attack as a hate crime. Fr Joe told parishioners at Michael's Church in Enniskillen that he had thought those days were over, and was shocked and saddened. "This has been upsetting for me and for many in the parish of all persuasions," he told parishioners, according to Irish News. "I have had messages of support from all sections of the community. The Church of Ireland Bishop and the Church of Ireland Dean here and the Church of Ireland clergywoman in Lisbellaw all expressed their concern and support." Fr Joe admitted he had always been outspoken and had never been afraid to stand up to civil or clerical authorities. He has recently been vocal in his opposition to Brexit. "Recently, I have expressed my views about Brexit and these may not go down well with certain people but it is no excuse to attack my house," he said. "I hope that goodwill come out of it that it will make those in our community who want a better future more determined to work for peace and justice. I am most grateful for the support I have received from many good people, from both traditions in the parish and from people outside the parish." He wrote eloquently about the attack in a blog for broadcaster Jude Collins titled Intimidation. "It is not the first time that this house has been targeted by loyalists. It happened many years ago when another priest lived here. Sadly, there is a small element in this area who are intent on causing tension and division." He had been living in the house for just over three years. "I find most of the people to be friendly. I am not sure why I have been targeted. It was Remembrance Sunday and perhaps emotions were running high. I am also thinking the attack may be related in some way to my public stance against Brexit which has been well reported in the local press." He added: "I thought we had moved on. I thought it was now possible to express an opinion without being targeted by those who disagree. "While I know that the decent people in the Unionist community are totally opposed to this kind of activity there are a few who still think it is necessary to intimidate and target some people. 'Hate' is a strong word. Hatred is a reality in our society. It has been a reality in many parts of the world and it drives people to carry out the most violent of acts." He refered to hatred shown to Irish people who emigrated to England and were refused accommodation. "Hatred and prejudice and intimidation go together." Fr Joe, who grew up in the 1940s in Fermanagh, said he has lived with intimidation all his life as a priest, until the Belfast Agreement in 1998, including by the British army and by anonymous letters and phone calls. But it never deterred him from speaking his mind. "I am not going to be deterred from speaking or writing about issues that I think are important. The people who intimidate do not like peace and they have no time for equality. I will continue to work for peace and justice and equality for all." In a memoir, Taking A Stand, published in 2008, Fr Joe wrote of the violence and bloodshed of the troubles: "I suppose one of the big lessons I learned in my life as a Catholic is that Christianity is a reminder that you cannot sit on the fence that is, if you care about the way your sisters and brothers are treated and if you care about what is happening to the planet earth." Christian Church in Australia Agrees to Be Place of Worship for Muslims An Anglican church in Western Australia has opened its doors to serve as venue for Muslims to pray once a week. The St. Paul's Anglican Church in Beaconsfield in the port city of Fremantle hosts Muslims for prayers every Friday at its community hall, the Australian television network SBS reported. The unusual joining of the two religious groups began when Faizel Chothia, a Muslim religious leader or "imam," decided to knock on the door of the church while looking for a place where it will be convenient for Muslim workers in the area to pray. "I thought to myself that it would be wonderful to pray in this beautiful church," Chothia told SBS. "It certainly has the aura of the sanctity associated with prayer. It certainly is a symbol of the divine and it's the most appropriate place." The Muslim faith leader said he was not sure how his request would be received and was surprised by the warm welcome given by Rev. Peter Humphris, who heads the St. Paul's Anglican Church. Humphris shared that he was very eager to welcome more members of the community in the church. "My sense, and the sense of the parish here, is that we continue to seek both the fullness of humanity and the fullness that's revealed in the divine," Humphris told SBS. "We haven't got it, we continue to seek it and anyone, and everyone, who wants to join in that search can only help," he added. The Christian faith leader further expressed hopes that this sharing of a place of worship will lead to a full recognition of diversity of religion. "The prayer is that we will honour each other and discover that it's in that diversity that we've got life," Humphris said. Chothia, for his part, said this is an opportunity for both Christians and Muslims to learn more about each other's religion, especially their similarities. "There's a shared empathy and a common experience," he said. "I think this is where we have the opportunity of benefiting from the wisdom of the other." Christian Convert Sentenced To Death In Sudan Secretly Read Bible In Prison The Christian convert from Islam who was sentenced to death for apostasy in Sudan and gave birth to her second child in prison has described how she secretly read the Bible while she was behind bars. Another inmate who was a Muslim helped to keep her secret, hiding her Bible from the guards. Meriam Ibraheem was freed by a Sudanese court in 2014 after she was jailed and sentenced to death for converting to Christianity and marrying a Christian man. She had been told that she would not be freed unless she renounced her faith but she refused to do this. Her son Martin, just 20 months old at the time, was jailed with her and her daughter Maya was born while she was in prison. Speaking to the Christian Post during an annual prayer night for the Persecuted Church held in Washington on Saturday, Ibraheem said it had been difficult to sleep at nights in prison. She would try and use her blanket to create a "soft place" for her son to sleep, and also stay awake to protect him from harm. During the night, while awake, she would read her Bible. She had to hide it in the day. "I have to hide it with someone else, with one of the women I know." She had been sentenced to 100 lashes and to death, but it was a Muslim who helped her in prison. The woman would also watch over her son for her when she went to the bathroom. The Bible was smuggled into prison by a guard who she paid to bring it in. The woman had asked her why she looked so peaceful when she read the Bible. Ibraheem told her: "This is the Bible. This is why I am in prison, because I believe what is in this book." This woman was later released also, and has now herself become a Christian. Ibraheem was told that she could have been released for reciting the Muslim statement of faith, but she refused. "I didn't want to say that," she said. "I am not going to lie. My kids are not going to respect their mom if I did something like that." A nurse helped her give birth while she was in chains. It was a challenging task because of the danger the baby would hit her head on the metal. "God blessed me with a good woman, the nurse, who was with me when I was delivering her. She had to take the chance and stay closer to my body because there was a chance that the shackle could hit [Maya's] head and she had to pull her up like that. It's hard." Her daughter is in good health today, despite initial fears she would not be. Ibraheem said this was down to Pope Francis, who prayed over the little girl when she was just six weeks old. "After we met with the Pope and he blessed and touched her leg, a lot of change happened with her. At the time, her head looked big and her legs were small and not growing, I had to cover them," she recalled. Ibraheem is now a human rights and religious freedom advocate in the US and has and launched her own charity, the Mariam Ibraheem Charitable Foundation, which raises awareness of persecution and helps women. Crucifixion, Torture And Sex Slavery: The Cost Of Being A Christian Under Islamic State Horrific stories have emerged from Iraq of how Christians have been treated under the rule of Islamic State. After ISIS seized control of Iraqi territory in 2014 and Iraqi resistance collapsed, Christians were told they should leave, convert to Islam or pay a special tax. Most fled, but according to testimonies collected from refugees in Jordan by religious freedom charity ADF International, those left behind were subjected to torture, forced conversion, sexual slavery and even crucifixion. World Watch Monitor tells the story of Karlus, a 29-year-old cook who was unable to leave his home in Batnaya, a village outside Mosul, because he had to care for his disabled father. When terrorists came to his house, they destroyed a cross and a picture of Jesus. "They even destroyed a piece from the Quran that was given to me by a friend," he said. He was taken to a police station unconscious and held there for seven weeks after retaliating when one of the jihadists hit him in the face. During his detention he was was hung from the ceiling by a rope attached to his left foot. He was beaten and kicked and had salt rubbed into his wounds. He says he was also sexually abused by three women. Karlus was told he would be shot dead but on the day his execution was due to take place he was released. He fled to Kurdistan, was treated in Spain for the injuries to his leg, and sought asylum in Jordan. Another Christian victim of ISIS, Esam, a father-of-three from outside the Christian-majority town of Qaraqosh, said two of his wife's relatives had not managed to flee before the jihadis arrived. They were abducted; the husband has not been heard of since and the wife "now lives with one of the Daesh [ISIS] amirs". Reports have emerged of thousands of Yazidi women being taken into sex slavery after ISIS overran the Sinjar region in August 2014, but Esam's account suggests Christian women and girls may have been targeted as well. "We heard of 12 Christian girls who are with Daesh," he said. "They may be more. Our bishop told people not to tell if they lose their girls: it is a shame on the family." Despite the progress made against ISIS in Mosul and its inevitable recapture, many refugees are too traumatised to contemplate returning to the region. Those who are able have applied for asylum in Western countries, among them the family of Esam's brother-in-law, recovering in Sweden. "My wife's brother was crucified by Daesh," Esam said. "He was crucified and tortured in front of his wife and children, who were forced to watch. They told him that if he loved Jesus that much, he would die like Jesus." Esam said the fighters tortured his relative for five hours; cutting his his stomach open and shooting him before hanging him on a cross. Another refugee in Jordan, Alaa, who had fled with his family after receiving death threats, said it was "impossible to go back to Baghdad" after what had happened. "It is not possible to go back to Iraq. I can't build a life there. I hope to go to Australia, but any country that will accept me, I will go there," he said. "I want to build a life and a future for my children." The refugees' stories indicate the scale of the challenge facing Iraq after the defeat of ISIS, with not only the vast cost of restoring shattered infrastructure to deal with, but the legacy of terrible hatred. Iraqi Christian Teen Recreates Ancient Art Bulldozed By ISIS A 17-year-old Assyrian Christian is painstakingly recreating sculptures destroyed by Islamic State. The Iraqi teen, Nenous Thabit, is recreating the sculptures of Nimrud, the ancient settlement 20 years south of Mosul which had its heyday more than a thousand years before the birth of Christ. Nimrud's priceless archaeological remains were bombed and bulldozed by Islamic State last year because they were deemend "unIslamic". IS said they were "idols" and that people should only worship Allah. Thabit, who is the son of a sculptor, was devastated to see these ancient artefacts being destroyed and pledged to try his best to recreate as many of them as possible. He's already remade 18 sculptures in just 12 months. His work was reported by Mic.com, which promotes exceptional achievements by young people around the world and made this video of his work: Thabit now lives in Irbil in Turkey with his family, where he told Mic he is recreating the sculptures because he wants to respect the wishes of his Assyrian ancestors. He hopes to go to art school next year. The United Nations described the destruction of Nimrud as a "war crime". The director general of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, said last year: "I condemn in the strongest possible manner the destruction of the archaeological site of Nimrud site in Iraq. This is yet another attack against the Iraqi people, reminding us that nothing is safe from the cultural cleansing under way in the country: it targets human lives, minorities, and is marked by the systematic destruction of humanity's ancient heritage." Is The Church Of England Finally About To Make A Decision On Gay Marriage? Is the Church of England finally about to make a decision about same-sex marriage? It seems unlikely. But one of the Church's most senior bodies the House of Bishops has a climax meeting this week in London. It comes amid a long and drawn out process and will certainly not be the last key moment. Arguments have raged for decades over the Church's teaching and practice on gay relationships. Things reached a head when several conservative Anglican leaders formed a splinter group ahead of the 2008 Lambeth Conference of senior bishops from across the world. Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) was set up in protest that the US Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada had been welcomed despite promoting a "false gospel" over same-sex relationships. In light of this increasing division the Pilling Report was commissioned in 2011 to make recommendations to the CofE over the issue. When published it recommended that priests should be free "to offer appropriate services to mark a faithful same sex relationship". It did not propose a change in teaching or a new official liturgy but suggested some form of "pastoral accommodation". It also recommended that in light of "deeply entrenched views", the issue "would best be addressed by facilitated conversations". That was in 2013. Since then the Church of England has undergone two years of "shared conversations" where all levels of Church hierarchy took part in facilitated talks with other Anglicans in an effort to understand concerns on both sides of the debate. The process of behind-closed-doors talks and a two-year grace period for the Church has now ended. In July, the entire General Synod took part in the talks and it is now down to senior bishops to collate the results and come up with a recommendation of what to do next. To do so they have formed a reflection group and the bishops are expected to bring a suggestion to the CofE's General Synod which will meet next in February. It had been thought the Church was heading towards some form of acceptance or welcome service for gay couples, as Pilling recommended. But the reflection group, when announced, contained a number of "entrenched" conservatives, as the report put it. None of the members have previously advocated for a change in Church teaching. And it featured two prominent conservative evangelicals Rt Rev Julian Henderson, Bishop of Blackburn and president of the Church of England Evangelical Council, and Rt Revd Rod Thomas, Bishop of Maidstone and former chair of the conservative Reform group. As a result even Colin Coward, a long-time LGBT activist within the Church, thinks any change in teaching or practice is now unlikely. "Unless there is a dramatic change in heart and mind in the members of this group I can't imagine there being any change," he told Christian Today. "They would either betray their GAFCON colleagues or they will betray the people of this country." What is clear for both sides is that this marks a breaking point. If there is some form of change to welcome or bless gay couples in the Church, conservatives have vowed to leave. John Dunnett, chair of the Evangelical Group on General Synod, has told Christian Today many "will have no option than to reconsider their position in the CofE" if the bishops suggest anything that even gives the perception the Church may change its teaching. "It is important that whatever the bishops propose it does not sow confusion about the teaching of the Church," he said. But without a change Coward warned LGBT people would continue to feel alienated by the CofE. "More and more people I know are simply leaving the Church to find other paths for their faith," he said. "A quiet change is taking place that is extremely damaging." Whatever the outcome of the bishops' meeting in the coming days, the Church is edging towards a decision. The question remains if it will be definitive, or if it will leave the door open to years more argument and division over sexuality. Jesus Christ Has Officially Been Declared The King Of Poland Jesus has been declared King of Poland in a ceremony attended by the country's president Andrzej Duda. The ceremony was held at the Church of Divine Mercy in Krakow on Saturday and the liturgy was repeated in churches across the country the following day. According to the Conference of Polish Bishops, it was timed to coincide with the end of the Catholic Church's Jubilee Year of Mercy and 1050th anniversary of Polish Christianity. The ceremony included the prayer: "In our hearts, rule us, Christ! In our families, rule us, Christ! ... In our schools and universities, rule us, Christ! ... Through the Polish nation, rule us, Christ! ... We pledge to defend your holy worship and preach Thy royal glory, Christ our King, we promise!" It continued: "We entrust the Polish people and Polish leaders to you. Make them exercise their power fairly and in accordance with your laws. ... rule us, Christ! Reign in our homeland and reign in every nation for the greater glory of the Most Holy Trinity and the salvation of mankind." The initial impetus for the move came from Polish nurse Rosalia Zelkova, who in the early 20th century claimed to have received a divine revelation that Jesus should become king. A previous attempt by right-wing MPs in 2006 failed, with the Church itself opposed to it. Monsignor Tadeusz Pieronek, a member of Poland's episcopate and rector at Krakow's Papal Academy of Theology, said then: "Christ doesn't need a parliamentary resolution to be the king of our hearts." A previous King of Poland, John Casimir, declared Mary honorary queen of the country more than 350 years ago. According to the Conference of Polish Bishops, the act was "not the culmination, but the beginning of the work of enthronement of Jesus Christ in Poland and the Polish nation". The bishops stressed that the rule of Jesus was not coercive and that the 'enthronement' was not intended to add to Jesus' honour or power but was a national recognition of his sovereignty over the universe. After the ceremony, Bishop Andrzej Czaja said: "It is not a declaration of Christ the King, because he is king. It is not a declaration of Christ the King of Poland. His kingdom is not of this earth, and his dominion is over the whole universe," adding that we should recognise Christ's reign over the whole world and submit to his law and his will. Patriarch Kirill: Multiculturalism Puts Christianity At Risk The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has hit out at multiculturalism saying it has "no future". In an interview with RT, he said it "implies different cultures mixing, different cultures and religions poured together and shaken vigorously to create a kind of cocktail. "That would be impossible because of deep-rooted traditions." Kirill continued: "If multiculturalism implies weakening people's connection to their religion and traditions, it automatically makes them victims of discrimination and forces them to be defensive; so this very approach contains a dangerous source of division, and I mean the fundamental division of the brother-against-brother kind." He criticised attempts to limit Christians' freedom to practise their faith, saying: "For example, why should we use 'X-mas' instead of 'Christmas'? The answer we got to this question is that we shouldn't hurt the feelings of non-Christians. "So we asked Muslims if they were offended by the word 'Christmas', and they said 'no'. We asked if they were offended by decorated Christmas trees in the streets, and they said 'no'. "So if Muslims are okay with that, whose feelings are we hurting here? It's likely it's no one's." He said the Church was "very wary when, under the guise of political correctness and universal rights and liberties, we glimpse signs of discrimination against the people who want to be open about their Christian convictions". Kirill said that Russia was an example for the rest of the world to follow. "Russia is a multiethnic country, but the idea of multiculturalism has never been promoted. "This approach, which allows people to express their ethnic and religious identity freely, has especially flourished recently, in modern Russia. "We're not talking about any mixture or cocktail we say that every person should stay who they are. But we all live in the same country, so all of us must observe the law and be nice to each other." The Russian Orthodox Church, which works closely with President Vladimir Putin, is highly influential in the country. Russia has recently passed the 'Yarovaya Law' imposing draconian restrictions on Protestant evangelistic activities; several pastors have already been fined. Kirill also praised US President-elect Donald Trump, who has expressed admiration for Putin. He said: "Based on what Mr Trump said in the course of the election campaign, we can see that he does have the intention to establish a dialogue with Russia, including first and foremost when it comes to combating terrorism." Trump And The Evangelicals: Will He Drop Them Now He's Won? White evangelicals, at least, voted in massive numbers for Donald Trump. Many of them were genuine churchgoers, though it's not always appreciated that 'evangelical' in the US is a social identifier like 'Church of England' used to be in the UK; it doesn't mean they go to church or even believe in God. Evangelicals have had reason to wonder, though, whether they were just being used for their votes by someone who had every reason to tell them what they wanted to hear. Trump has already backtracked on some of the key commitments he made during the campaign a register of Muslims, the total repeal of Obamacare and a wall on the US-Mexico border. But would he keep in with the evangelicals? It seems so. One of the members of Trump's evangelical advisory board formed during the campaign has told his congregation he is still speaking weekly to Trump. As Warren Throckmorton reports, Gateway Church's pastor Robert Morris said: "I did not share this with you before the election but I have been serving on a Spiritual Advisory Council to now President-elect Trump, for about three months. And we, for the past three months, every Monday morning we have a conference call. And my understanding is I don't know about the weekly conference call but he does want to continue with the Spiritual Advisory Council throughout his Presidency so I am grateful for that." Others on the Spiritual Advisory Council, Morris says, are Dr Ben Carson, former senator Michele Bachmann, televangelist James Robison, Samuel Rodriguez, head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, and megachurch pastor Jack Graham, a two-time former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. It isn't entirely clear whether the Spiritual Advisory Council is the same as the Evangelical Executive Advisory Board (EEAB) announced in June. Some of the names are the same, but not all Rodriguez is missing, and the June list is much longer. One name on the EEAB, however, is causing deep alarm in educational circles. Jerry Falwell Jr, President of Liberty University, is being touted as a potential Trump pick to head the Department of Education. He met with Trump and Mike Pence, his Vice-President Elect, last week and told the Richmond Times-Dispatch: "I let them know one of my passions is reforming higher education and education in general. "I told them I'd be willing I have a lot of responsibilities here but I'd be willing to serve in some capacity that sort of brings education back to some form of sanity." He added: "I just want to do whatever I can to get the overbearing bureaucracy of the Department of Education off the backs of colleges and universities. "I do have a lot of concerns about the way the Department of Education is operating." Liberty University teaches creationism, the view that the world is only a few thousand years old. At present creationism cannot be taught as science in US public schools as it is held to be a religious belief; however, creationists have challenged this interpretation and Falwell would be expected to sympathise with them. Conservative Christians have also clashed with the education system over issues around transgenderism and homosexuality, setting the scene for further battles if Falwell is appointed. Falwell appears an unlikely appointment. However, while Trump is at an early stage in terms of picking his team, he has so far shown little sign of compromising on his choice of sometimes extreme right-wingers. Among these is Steve Bannon as head of strategy, formerly head of Breitbart News, who was described by President Obama's former faith adviser Michael Weir to Christian Today as "corrosive to our politics and whose views on various communities in America are a disgrace". Trump's personal faith was an issue on the campaign trail, with the President-Elect taken to task for saying he had never asked for forgiveness and for his evident unfamiliarity with Scripture. Evangelical leader James Dobson described him as a "baby Christian who doesn't have a clue about how believers think, talk and act". However, many commentators have noted that Trump, who has no political experience and is unfamiliar with government, appears to reward loyalty; and against all reasonable expectations, evangelicals have been very loyal to him. Whether Falwell is appointed or not, the signs are that they will continue to have his ear. Up To One Million People Fleeing Boko Haram Have Been Cut Off From Humanitarian Aid Up to a million people around West Africa's Lake Chad are cut off from humanitarian aid by Boko Haram despite a regional military offensive against the Islamist militants, a UN official said today. Boko Haram violence has uprooted more than 100,000 people across the swamplands of Lake Chad, where the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria meet, and disrupted the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of others, according to aid agencies. Security sources say a regional task force is wrestling back control of the lake where Boko Haram controls part of the fishing industry in a labyrinth of waterways with hundreds of militants having surrendered in the past month. Yet many areas are impossible to reach amid the insecurity, said Toby Lanzer, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel. "We believe that there are up to a million people in the areas and villages we haven't been able to reach," he said. Boko Haram has been active since 2009 and militants have killed an estimated 20,000 people over the past seven years. More than 910 schools have been targeted by the group, whose name means "Western [or non-Islamic] education is a sin". At least 611 teachers have been deliberately killed and another 19,000 forced to flee. At least 1,500 schools have closed. Last week, the UN warned that 75,000 children are at risk of dying within "a few months" due to a famine caused by Boko Haram's insurgency. Some territory has been reclaimed from the group, but an estimated 2.6 million people remain displaced. Upon his election last year, President Muhammadu Buhari pledged to stamp out the militants but has as yet failed to do so. Additional reporting by Reuters. Welby Defies Officials To Visit Persecuted Christians In Pakistan The Archbishop of Canterbury rejected foreign office advice not to visit persecuted Christians in Pakistan over the weekend. Justin Welby met with terror victims in Lahore and Islamabad to pray after 72 were killed in a suicide attack aimed at Christians on Easter Sunday. It is the first time any Archbishop of Canterbury has visited Pakistan more than once. Welby urged Pakistan to step up security for persecuted Christians. On Saturday he met with the Prime Minister's foreign advisor to discuss religious freedom and protections for religious minorities. "Freedom of religion and belief and the persecution of Christians and other minorities must lead to our support for those affected in every way," a statement from Lambeth Palace read. Welby was invited on the trip by Bishop Samuel Azariah, moderator of the Church of Pakistan, who said the Archbishop had defied official advice in order to attend. "The archbishop [came] contrary to the advice of his own Foreign Ministry [and] contrary to the advice of the British High Commission and took a very major and drastic decision that in spite of all the negativities which was being given to him to postpone this visit, he said he would still go there," said Bishop Azariah according to ACNS. "He was determined to visit Pakistan. He was advised not to attend the church in Islamabad but he said that he would go there and as an Archbishop visiting a province how could he not go to the church and not meet his people. "So we want to thank him from the depth of our heart. We are grateful to the Communion for thinking of us and praying for us, for a church which is struggling, for a church which is marginalised, for a church which comes under suffering, but a church which lives with hope with hope in God's great grace." Welby's priority was to visit victims of terror, said Azariah. On Saturday he spoke at St Thomas Church in Islamabad, in a service attended by families and victims of the suicide bombings at All Saints Peshawar in September 2013. Then on Sunday he led an Ecumenical Sunday service at the Central Cathedral of Praying Hands in Lahore, with the bishops of the Church of Pakistan. Although Christianity is technically legal, "Christians experience more violence in Pakistan than almost anywhere else," according to the persecution charity Open Doors. Religious minorities are frequently targeted using the "infamous blasphemy laws" which Open Doors says are "abused to settle personal scores". Last Easter Jamaatul Ahrar, a splinter group from the Taliban, killed 72 and wounded hundreds more in a suicide attack on a children's play area. Why Are The Houses Of Parliament Being Floodlit Red? The Palace of Westminster will be lit up red on Wednesday evening to remember those persecuted for their beliefs. The move is part of the Red Wednesday campaign by Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) "to honour those who have suffered because of their religion". A Parliamentary spokesman told Christian Today "parliament fully endorses the aims of this important campaign" and the lighting of the Palace was "in order to demonstrate Parliament's support". The move announced on Monday means the Palace which contains the UK's two Houses of Parliament will join Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral and dozens of other churches, synagogues and mosques being lit up red on Wednesday. The campaign aims to highlight the fact that current levels of religious persecution have never been so widespread or severe. Up to 76 per cent of the world's population live in countries with high or very high levels on restrictions on religious freedom, according to the US State Department. The latest annual International Religious Freedom Report found a quarter of all countries, making up three-quarters of the global population, curtail religious liberty through "government policies or the hostile acts of individuals, organizations, or societal groups." It went on to find roughly a quarter of countries have blasphemy laws of some form and more than one in 10 penalise those abandoning or changing their religion. The US religious freedom ambassador, David Saperstein, said: "The existence of these laws has been used by governments in too many cases to intimidate, repress religious minorities, and governments have too often failed to take appropriate steps to prevent societal violence sparked by accusations of blasphemy and apostasy." As well as cut backs on wider religious freedoms, the Open Doors annual World Watch report this year found that current persecution against Christians was worse than it had ever been in history. "The persecution of Christians is getting worse, in every region in which we work and it's getting worse fast," said Lisa Pearce, the charity's CEO. "The trend is stark, as are the consequences for real people we should not expect that to change unless we are part of changing the situation." Recent debates in Parliament have highlighted MPs' concern over religious persecution. Last week Chris Green MP warned Christianity is in danger of being eradicated in the Middle East. "There were thought to be 1.5 million Christians in Iraq before the invasion in 2003, however that number is now reported to have fallen to 230,000," Green, the Conservative MP for Bolton West, told MPs. "Whilst many people have been persecuted and have fled from the region, this figure shows the targeted nature of the persecution." The Red Wednesday campaign comes the day before ACN's report into religious freedom is launched in Parliament. Australias Impressionists: Artists worthy of a place in the sun Curator Christopher Riopelle discusses the National Gallerys new exhibition, which focuses on the dazzling, light-drenched works of John Russell, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Charles Conder This winter the National Gallery in London is providing sunshine indoors, albeit through the medium of glowing pigment rather than rays of light. Australia's Impressionists, the first British show on the subject, highlights a group of four pioneering 19th-century artists John Russell (1858-1930), Tom Roberts (1856-1931), Arthur Streeton(1867-1943) and Charles Conder (1868-1909) who took inspiration from Europe's avant-garde, adopting Impressionisms revolutionary practice to describe their own homelands singular landscapes. We caught up with curator Christopher Riopelle to discuss the show. Open a larger version of this image John Russell, Cruach en Mahr, Matin, Belle-Ile en Mer, about 1905. Oil on canvas. 60.4 x 73.5 cm. Private Collection courtesy of Nevill Keating Pictures Private Collection courtesy of Nevill Keating Pictures These names will be unfamiliar to many people. What makes them worthy of interest? Christopher Riopelle: They are very talented and interesting in themselves, but for us it is exciting to see these artists although they came from far away, they picked up very quickly what this new, looser, more improvisational kind of painting could do for them. Why focus on these four painters? CR: This was a small group, but they were very closely allied. For Roberts, who was the mentor, and Conder and Streeton, it was very much about friendship and a shared sense that they were doing something interesting and original. They painted together, lived together and went on camps together. They shared their progress on an almost daily basis. Open a larger version of this image Tom Roberts, Allegro con Brio, Bourke Street West, about 1885-6, reworked 1890. Oil on canvas mounted on composition board. 51.2 76.7 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the National Library of Australia, Canberra. Purchased 1920 by the Parliamentary Library Committee National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the National Library of Australia, Canberra Also, in exhibitions that introduce new schools, groups of artists or national movements, it's the kiss of death to introduce too many artists. People get lost if all of a sudden they have 75 names to learn. There have been disputes in the past about calling these artists Impressionists. Why have you chosen this title for the exhibition? CR: Impressionism is a free-floating concept; these works dont look like Monets so if thats your definition, then they arent Impressionists. But thats beside the point. These artists observed what was going on in France, and also in England in the circles around Whistler. Freeing themselves from the academies allowed them to describe their own landscape without that traditional structure, seeing it up close and direct. And its a word they themselves used. The first exhibition they organised in Melbourne in 1889 was called the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition, the word having a meaning not necessarily the same as today they were painting impressions of outdoor scenes. What links did these artists have with Impressionism in Europe? CR: Conder and Roberts were born in England, with the latter spending time here and in France, while Russell spent almost his entire artistic career in Europe. He isnt normally associated with this particular group, but through his correspondence [especially with Roberts] he provided a direct link with the French avant-garde, sending back word about what was going on. Open a larger version of this image Arthur Streeton, Blue Pacific, 1890. Oil on canvas. 91.4 50.8 cm. Private collection Courtesy of the owner How were they linked stylistically? The exhibition catalogue refers to them capturing the glare of the Australian sky. CR: The light of Australia is something very specific its very direct, very immediate and doesnt look like European light in any way. For Conder, Streeton and Roberts, what they were doing was for the first time finding a way of getting that down on canvas. There were wonderful earlier artists Eugene Von Guerard and John Glover, for example who painted the right kind of trees, but it still looked like Germany or Switzerland, rather than a unique landscape. That developing national self-consciousness is very much tied in here. Federation would come to Australia in 1901, but in the 1880s Australians were already understanding that they werent just a group of separate colonies dotted around this enormous island, but shared certain characteristics and interests. Nationhood was inevitable, and very much to be desired. It's Thanksgiving week, and surely the last thing you want to think about are roaches, rodents, and coliforms. But we delivering the results of the report anyways, and they are not all gravy. A sandwich shop located at 9770 Bissonnet, Houston, TX 77036, received the most demerits totaling 53, for failure to provide enough potable water for the needs of the operation of the food establishment. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Society for the Performing Arts catered to Houston's foodie community for the third annual Taste of SPA shindig. Chefs from Cordua Restaurants, Ashley Cakes, and Drexel House spoke briefly in between light bites and libations from B&B Butchers, Izakaya, Phoenicia, Uchi, Nothing Bundt Cakes, and more. Pet-lovers channeled their inner flappers for Citizens for Animal Protection's "Paw-ty with the Great Gatsby." Chairmen Marian and Austin Cornelius and Patricia and Sig Cornelius brought in more than $600,000 thanks in part to the festive 2016 honorees and Celebrity Pet of the Year Award winner. The Buffalo Bayou Partnership's 30th anniversary "Leafing through the Years" gala was equal parts birthday celebration and fundraiser. Some 550 guests kicked off the evening with tours of the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, dined on A Fare Extraordinaire's catered feast on the Brown Foundation Lawn, and sang The Beatles "Birthday" after raising more than $580,000 - the ultimate gift. Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast celebrated its sold-out gala and half-million raised with a timely "Hand in Hand, Generation to Generation" themed soiree at the Omni Houston Hotel. This year, the agency's parent Federation of America toasts a centennial anniversary representing 100 years of health care advocacy. More than 30 notable Houstonians led thought-provoking discussions at The Junior of League of Houston for City Artworks's annual "Art of Conversation" luncheon chaired by gallery-owner Deborah Colton. Panelists including the Chronicle's own Lisa Falkenberg, Gina Gaston Elie, Shellye Arnold, Bradley Epley, and more spoke during the event honoring Sybil Roos. Judy Nyquist welcomed a privy group of 100 Levy Park Conservancy supporters to the sixth floor of One Grove Street for a special sneak peek of the under-construction under park. The six-acre green space is slated to debut with a proper grand opening in early January 2017. Who says that men hate dressing up? The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's gentlemen-only "One Great Night in November" proved that the tuxedo-wearers can fundraise with the best of them. Some 275 patrons garnered a commendable $850,000 including $361,000 in art purchased the museum's collection. Star of Hope brought out the big guns for the 2016 Trees of Hope gala. With honorary chair Lynn Wyatt on board, the homeless agency was on track for a record-breaking evening; final numbers tallied at more than $600,000 leading to the organization's most successful fundraiser to date. Co-chairs Donna Grehn and Sharon Schwartz helped raised nearly $100,000 in paddles-up donations alone. One week before election day, politico Peggy Noonan dazzled Houston Baptist University's "Spirit of Excellence" gala-goers at the Royal Sonesta Houston hotel. The learning institution, which is currently undergoing a $66 million capital campaign, raised more than $715,000 thanks to support from Chuck Norris, Janice and Robert McNair, and Pinky Pampell. Talk about a family affair. This year, The Living Bank tapped Ileana Trevino and her daughters, Mari Trevino and Margot Trevino Rosson, to chair the non-profit's annual dinner. The Junior League of Houston soiree honored Nora's Home executive director and kidney transplant Kayla Lehmann. Talbot Cooley Interiors celebrated the opening of Talbot Cooley Home with a stylish cocktail receptions attended by 100 design-lovers. Leslie Sinclair of Segreto Finishes signed books under an open tent erected just outside the boutique. Indoors, guests indulged in specialty cocktails and mini bites from YourTable Mobile Catering Kitchen. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Every holiday season we see reports of waiters receiving massively generous tips and Houston's first of this season has arrived. Houston-resident Taryn Keith shared a photo of a receipt her boyfriend received from a very generous customer Saturday night. "Hopefully, this can get you back to Ireland for the holidays. [signed] Jeffery," the receipt reads with an arrow pointing back to the $750 tip. Whomever Jeffery is, bravo for your generosity. COMMON KNOWLEDGE: The basic rules of tipping that everyone should know about Keith, 21, is a mom-to-be and her boyfriend, Ben Millar, is trying to get her and their soon-to-be newborn baby boy back home to meet his family in Ireland after their son, Killian, is born. "He's from Ireland and is trying to take us back there once Killian is born so we can meet his family," Keith wrote on her Facebook post. "Thought I would share to to show everyone that's there is not only hate out there. Truly blessed." Keith told Chron.com that the $750 gift will go to a ticket back to Ireland. "We haven't looked up tickets yet, but when he flew down here awhile ago, it was around $800 to $900, I think," Keith said. "Just for one ticket, so the generous tip will go to one ticket then we just have to save up for the other because babies fly free." Keith went on to say the two of them were in total shock and disbelief at the generosity of one person. "We're happy that everyone finds it amazing as we do, and we just plan on working until we can get to Ireland in July," Keith said. Commenters flooded Keith's post with congratulations and praise for the customer's generosity. News of the tip going viral and reaching parts of the world, like Ireland and Holland, also was shared in the comments. If you're wondering about what tip amounts you should give the people helping you, click through the gallery above. The Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector has sent out more than 900,000 tax bills to county residents. Property taxes are due January 31, said County Tax Assessor-Collector Mike Sullivan. After that, the taxes become delinquent and the county adds a penalty. Two holidays are getting new names in an Indiana city as part of an effort to promote inclusiveness. Fox 59, WXIN-TV, reports that Columbus Day will now be known as Fall Holiday, and Good Friday will be called Spring Holiday in Bloomington. The change is part of an effort from Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton to "better reflect cultural sensitivity in the workplace," the news station reports. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A group of peaceful protesters on the side of the road were struck by a car, leaving dozens injured and nine dead. Among the wounded was a woman who recently returned from a trip to Sierra Leone, Africa, and moments after being taken to triage started exhibiting signs of the flu - or maybe Ebola as some of the infectious disease specialists worried. But just as first responders sent off the last patients to area hospitals and mended the last broken arm, shots rang out from overhead causing a near panic among the remaining crowd. Immediately a voice shouted, "Active shooter, active shooter! Get down, take cover - take cover!" It seemed like an eternity before the next shots were fired, but only a few minutes after that, five Houston Police Department SWAT team officers ascended the tower and diffused the shooter. The next words spoken were heard from someone's walkie-talkie speaker on the ground: "Shooter is down," the voice said. The stunned group assembled behind picnic tables and crowded behind shady trees slowly emerged and put away their cell phones they had been recording the episode with. They laughed with each other about their fear of the unexpected blast. The reason they could laugh it off is because the whole scenario was a simulation at the Houston Fire Department Val Jahnke Training Facility near Hobby Airport in southeast Houston. But this simulation on Friday was bigger, and involved more agencies than ever before. HFD volunteered their facility and support in setting up the structures of the scene and about 100 students from Houston Community College, Wharton County Junior College, University of Houston and University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston got hands-on "incident command" training for mass casualty scenes. There were fire trucks, ambulances, three tents representing fake hospitals - "Ben Hur Trauma Center" saw a lot of action - and train cars on rails where the car that set off the disaster was stuck after jumping the curb, injuring volunteer victims and "killing" nine mannequins (medical professionals don't use humans to represent dead bodies in trainings because laying in one position for too long can cause injury to some). On a grassy opening in the training yard lay three large mats, color-coded; a triage system where they separated the "walking wounded", the injured but not serious; the seriously injured; the critically injured; and those found dead on the scene. Emergency Management Services students and HFD cadets and volunteers assessed patients who were dressed up with various wounds and given instructions on what signs and symptoms to present. The mats were strewn with bodies and stretchers, care-givers crouched over patients wrapping wounds. Every so often an EMS team hauled off a serious patient on a stretcher and into an ambulance. Journalism students from UH hovered over their shoulders, trying to get a glimpse of the patients and chasing EMS students with questions, pen and paper in hand. The "victims" know what they've got, but the students have no idea, and they had no idea a shooter would appear on the scene, or that one of the patients would reveal her Ebola symptoms, a fact that doctoral candidates with UTHealth School of Public Health had to deduce from their assessment. Once they figured it out, the patient was quarantined and the Ph.D. students pulled on their infectious disease suits, the white jump-suites with hoods and masks that were so ubiquitous on TV screens a year ago because of the outbreak in Africa. That's just how Dr. Elda Ramirez with UTHealth School of Nursing intended for the simulation to run. This whole production is her baby borne from a grant by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board a year ago. The mass casualty scene, the second one put on by Ramirez, is larger than the first one ran by the school in May of 2015. Ramirez said UTHealth has done simulations in the past for students earning their Nurse Practitioner Masters' at UTHealth who have to complete emergency training before they can be licensed, but never anything of this scale until a few years ago when one of her students told her about her previous fire department training and their life-size drills. "There are so many mass casualty incidents in other parts of the world" said Ramirez. "How many people are prepared for something like that?" And the experts on hand from UTHealth, there to guide the would-be scene commanders, have the real-world experience to back it up. Dr. Richard Bradley, the "at-large, observer-controller" of the scene, does disaster planning at UTHealth, is a professor in the Department of Emergency Management in Emergency Medicine, has provided life-saving surgery on wounded soldiers on international flights out of combat zones and has worked with federal disaster response teams in just about every major disaster in the U.S. over the last 10 years. He was on the ground in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and was one the first officials to witness the deteriorating circumstances there. He was responsible for some of the first reports from the area that the rest of the country had yet to hear. "We want a sense of urgency and students who don't forget the basics we taught them," said Bradley of the type of response he and other instructors are looking for in the simulation. He also stressed the importance of "closed-loop communication". With this many agencies coming together, as they would in any real-life version of these events, he said communication is key or nothing will get done - a theme that came up time and again among the students. Both EMS students from HCC and Wharton Junior College talked about how they never realized the role effective communication played in getting so many patients treated at once. One HCC student, Anthony Bomar said he thinks the more hands-on training he gets like this, the better he'll get at responding to emergencies. "Your mind slows down, you slow down and you get calmer," he said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 1 of 5 BENOIT DOPPAGNE/AFP/Getty Images Show More Show Less 2 of 5 Kingdom of Belgium/Contributed photo Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Kingdom of Belgium/Contributed photo Show More Show Less 5 of 5 Belgian logistics and distribution company Katoen Natie will inaugurate its new terminal during a December visit from Princess Astrid of Belgium. The princess will lead a Belgian economic mission of about 200 government and business leaders including Didier Reynders, Belgium's foreign affairs minister and deputy prime minister, according to a news release from Belgium. The nation of Spain is prosecuting 37 people including former officials in the ruling center-Right party for steering government contracts to their politically connected friends. It will not help the defense that the suspects gave themselves audacious, Godfather-inspired nicknames like Don Vito and The Little Meatball. While a disturbing example in itself, a series of studies show that corruption is becoming a growing threat in the EU and the larger the government, the greater the level of perfidy. The number of single-bid contracts in the European Union nearly doubled between 2006 and 2015, and the number of bidders per contract fell by 40 percent during the same period. The penchant for cronyism in such arrangements is obvious. As government officials award contracts based on favoritism, citizens must resort to bribery in order to procure the services their taxes already funded. Transparency International found that, [o]n average, one in six households in Europe and Central Asia paid a bribe when they accessed public services. EU bribery rates which range from zero percent in the UK to 42 percent in Moldova generally track with the Heritage Foundations Index of Economic Freedom, where the UK ranks only behind Switzerland, and Moldova ranks a dismal 117. Interestingly, in Western EU nations, the most likely bribe recipients were part of the government-run healthcare systems. The fiscal costs of this arrangement are pronounced. A study by Rand calculated that the annual increase in contract costs due to corruption in the EU was $5 billion, The Economist reports. Would-be entrepreneurs are locked out of the market, and customers are denied the innovations they invented. However, the greatest damage is not measurable in economic terms. Cronyism vitiates the equality and impartiality that lies at the heart of the rule of law. The Torah warns rulers, Thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift; and the Psalmist contrasts the righteous man with one whose right hand is full of bribes. Denying the rule of law arbitrarily stratifies society based on status and ability to curry favor with the powers-that-be. Government officials role in doling out funds to their favored constituencies further strains our political discourse, as well. When graft afflicts a private enterprise, defrauded shareholders call for prosecuting the guilty parties and recovering their pilfered funds. Government favoritism begets political polarization and an ensuing fight-to-the-death over the right to distribute the spoils. There is an innocent explanation of some of these no-bid contracts: Larger orders require a firm with adequate capacity to fulfill them, unduly favoring Big Business. Small is beautiful advocates must first set their sights on government. But the size, scope, and distance of the government financing the contract in question increases the likelihood of its corruption in another way. The Economist notes: Worse, the contracts most susceptible to corruption are those backed with EU funds, which make up about 15% of the total. A [Corruption Research Centre Budapest] study in Hungary and Czech Republic found that they are significantly more likely to be abused. Governments seem less worried about misspending money from Brussels than that of their own taxpayers. European integration was intended to promote public integrity and competition. In some cases, it seems to be doing the opposite. Government procurement which makes up one-fifth of the total GDP of EU member nations ($2.02 trillion U.S.) makes a tempting pot for the morally challenged. Compounding this with the indifference of spending money furnished by a faraway bureaucracy, extracted from anonymous foreigners, wears down self-restraint to the breaking point. To paraphrase Lord Actons most famous dictum: More government corrupts and larger, more remote government corrupts to a higher degree. The University of Houston System has closed on a deal to purchase 46 acres for a new campus that is expected to open in the fall of 2019 on the northeast corner of Interstate 10 and Texas 99. The UH System bought the land from Houston-based Parkside Capital for an estimated $14 million at a site that will eventually be surrounded by retail and living space. The deal, which has been in the works for years, officially marks the beginning of a larger UH presence in Katy as the system attempts to increasingly influence suburban areas in Houston. "The impact of the university on a community is of course broad and economic," said Richard Phillips, associate provost for outreach and community engagement at UH. "It creates jobs, so you've got that kind of an impact and the social impact of adding thousands of student." The land will initially house an 80,000-square-foot building that is scheduled to be constructed beginning in August 2017 before other campus buildings are added. The campus is expected to house about 2,000 students at first but will eventually include 8,000 to 10,000 students. The new campus will replace a 36,000-square-foot UH System location at Cinco Ranch, which opened in 1998 and served about 1,500 students per year before closing this year. The university is in the process of selling the site, and its students are attending a 43,000-square-foot temporary location north of I-10 and 99 until the new campus opens. In 2015, the Texas Legislature approved $46.8 million for UH's purchase of the new campus' land, as well as construction costs for its first building. The system's board of regents approved the land purchase in May. The new campus will serve both UH students and UH-Victoria students. It will include a range of classes in business, education, the sciences and other courses. Tuition costs will range depending on if a student is a UH main-campus student or a UH-Victoria student, with tuition costs per semester for in-state students being about $5,000 for UH-Victoria and roughly $7,000 for UH's main campus. Parkside Capital is also in the process of selling land to various developers that will build a 300-unit apartment complex just north of the campus, as well as 150,000 square feet of retail space directly south of the campus. There's also space for restaurants, hotels and offices. Construction for the retail space could start sometime next year after the land is sold followed by the building of the apartment complex, according to John Moody, chief executive officer of Parkside Capital. He said the university and its surrounding features, which will be called University Center, will be "where the student enhancements occur." The UH system has an option to purchase about 15 more acres for other campus developments, Phillips said, but it is unknown when that purchase might happen. UH made the commitment to the Katy area because of its fast-growth and because it is trying to establish a wider footprint in Houston's suburban areas, Phillips also said. According to the Katy Area Economic Development Council, which helped recruit the campus to Katy, the population of the area is expected to increase from 317,000 residents to 550,000 within the next 20 years. UH also pulled its Sugar Land teaching center under its flagship, and it has also begun to teach some engineering courses at the Houston Community College Katy Campus. "I think the biggest benefit is that students have an opportunity of having a quality education without leaving their community," Phillips said. "A lot of communities suffer from the brain drain of students moving to other universities. The percentage of students that will remain in Katy (because of the university) will have an impact, and it will also be a cost savings to parents." State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, (R-Houston), introduced three Senate bills to the Legislature on Monday, Nov. 14, the first day lawmakers were able to propose measures for the upcoming 85th legislative session. Senate bills 151 and 152 target pension and retirement systems at the state level, Bettencourt said Monday. Bill 151 seeks to require voter approval for pension fund obligations in the municipality that issues the pension. Bettencourt said it's imperative that the public be informed and involved in the mechanisms of pension funding. He said if this type of measure was already in place, the outcome of the recent deal struck between Mayor Turner and the three pension systems in the city may have been different. "We're talking about $1 billion in funds that the public had no involvement in," Bettencourt said. Senate Bill 152 calls for municipal control of retirement systems that sponsor them. The bill reads, "... a municipality that is the sponsoring authority of a public retirement system that was created under a state statue, but is not a part of a statewide public retirement system, may adopt by ordinance or resolution ... provisions that supplement or supersede the operative provisions of the public retirement system." That means that provisions to any of the three public retirement systems in Houston for firefighters, police officers and city employees would no longer need to reviewed by state lawmakers after a deal is struck between the city and the retirement boards. Bettencourt said bringing these systems back under control of the city's government makes more sense that than sending the deals to Austin for approval. James Quintero is the director of the center for local governance with Texas Public Policy, a nonprofit research institution, and said his organization educates lawmakers of all political stripes and that the group has brought this issue up to legislatures in the past, and that Bettnecourt and a few other representatives thought it was important enough to bring before the Senate. He agrees with Bettencourt's tack in removing Austin from the equation when it comes to managing local pensions. "What that means is, if you're just a regular person, if you're living in big city, you cannot make changes to plans through city council. You have to go through the legislative process," he said. Some of the functions that would be affected in the change are benefits structure, contribution rate and composition of the board. But Max Patterson, executive director of Texas Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems, a state-wide voluntary nonprofit that provides education and advisory services to employees and administrators of pensions, said that the legislative process adds important oversight to city governments and acts as the checks-and-balances party to ensure there is no abuse of power. 'No funny games' "By oversight of the state, you make sure there's no funny games being played," said Patterson. "For example, with local control, people complain unions will make large donations to campaigns, and city council members are more inclined to give unions what they want." There is also the Pension Review Board, which reviews all provisions to pensions to make sure they're fiscally sound, and then passes them to the next phase of approval by the state. He said that with state oversight pensioners can avoid the "see-saw effect", when council members can be swayed toward one administration, and then back the other way when a new administration comes in. Historically, he said, state legislatures have only approved provisions to pensions when both local parties have agreed to the terms. Patterson said the "local control" argument is misleading to the public. "When you have the pension system and the city, and everyone is on board with it, wouldn't you call that local control?" But Bettencourt thinks there is significant public support for the action, as well as support at the state level. He wouldn't name names, but he said he expects to have the backing of at least a few other lawmakers on the measure. He expects his third bill introduced Monday will be more easily passed. S.N. No. 153, which provides an I.D. loophole for voters ages 70 and older, will glide through because he said, "it's a recognition of the obvious and it's the right thing to do." The provision would allow seniors to vote using expired forms of approved identification, if otherwise valid. He introduced the same bill last year, but it didn't pass. These are just the first senate bills Bettencourt's office has proposed ahead of the January 2017 session, and he said there will be more coming. Submitted Richard Schmidt, president and CEO of Freudenberg Oil & Gas Technologies in Houston, recently discovered Making It Better, a non-profit organization that strives to improve literacy and teach leadership and life skills for underserved elementary students. The e2 initiative provides financial support to local non-profits operating in communities where Freudenberg business units are located. After a lengthy meeting with Executive Director Jacque Daughtry, Schmidt submitted a proposal to the e2 committee in Germany for consideration and Making It Better was approved as an e2 non-profit in Houston. A crowd of more than 75 gathered at Tootsies for a special announcement and the chance to meet the newest member of the Harris County Sheriff's Office K9 Unit. This past June longtime Houston fashion retailer Mickey Rosmarin suddenly passed away. His longtime friend and K9s4COPs Founder Kristi Schiller came up with the idea to name a soon-to-be granted K9 after him. After months of training, the time came to present K9 Mickey to the community he will serve. Executive Director Roseann Rogers talked about the Houston-based national nonprofit that has granted almost 130 K9s to 24 states and internationally in Paris. Since 2011, its granted K9s have taken more than $125 million worth of contraband off the streets. Rogers introduced several board members including Vice President Laurie Krohn, Preston Hall, Holly Thompson, Sara Kinney, Dave Deleon and Dr. Aashish Shah. Then, welcomed Sgt. Chris Moore with the Harris County Sheriff's Department and a K9s4COPs advisory board member to make the announcement and introduce K9 Mickey. Susie Rosmarin, Mickey's sister, addressed the crowd on how honored she and she knew Mickey would be, too. K9 Mickey (Electronic Storage Device Dog) is a German Short-haired pointer who is trained to locate electronic storage devices including cellphones. His handler is Deputy Jeremy Sanchez and together they will be a team. K9 Mickey will be used in numerous correctional facilities and detention center as well as county infrastructure. "Many people think the job is complete when the criminal is caught," said Moore. "The truth is that there is a lot of contraband that is smuggled into the detention system that creates unsafe environment for both detention officers and inmates housed there. K9 Mickey will be used to locate these ES devices to include cell phones and to ensure the safety and security of facilities," said Moore. The crowd included John Schiller, Tracy Krohn, Brian and Jennifer Caswell, Sonia Soto, Lara and Brent Milam, Deborah Elias, Roxanne DeLeon, Emily Capps, Gail Wood, Lt. Giasile Goudeau, Sgt. Mike Thomas, Lt. Tommy Shelton, Sgt. David Cruzan, Diana and Adrian Shapiro, William Heartsill, Megha Tejpal and Lloyd Rude and Fadila Kibsgaard. Submitted People gathered for the 2016 Scenic Houston Annual Dinner at Houston Country Club in late October, to honor the organization's 2016 "Scenic Visionary" Larry D. Johnson, president and chief executive officer of Johnson Development Corp. Guests began the evening with an outdoor cocktail reception followed by a seated dinner in the club ballroom. The Scenic Visionary Award recognizes a community leader who has played a vital role to enhance the appearance and quality of life of the Houston region, particularly its streetscapes, public spaces and neighborhoods. The event raised more than $390,000 to support the work of Scenic Houston. Nov. 11 An officer was dispatched to the 6300 block of Rutgers to meet with a resident concerning a possible swindling where the victim was scammed over the phone by an individual claiming to be associated with Microsoft who wanted to assist in removing viruses off of the victim's computer. The officer met with the victim obtaining required information. Nov. 12 An officer was dispatch to a minor accident/FSGI involving a parked vehicle that had occurred around 1:30 p.m. in the 4000 block of Bellaire Blvd. Nov. 14 An officer observed a vehicle in the 4200 block of Bissonnet traveling westbound with expired temporary license plate. The officer initiated a traffic stop and upon further investigation, it was discovered the driver was driving while license invalid. The driver was subsequently arrested for the offense of driving while license invalid. Nov. 15 An officer observed a vehicle speeding westbound in the 4000 block of Bissonnet. A stop was conducted and contact was made with the vehicle's occupants in the 4100 block of Bissonnet. During the contact the officer could smell an odor of marijuana emanating from within the vehicle. The officer searched the vehicle and drug paraphernalia was found. The passenger was cited for the possession of drug paraphernalia. Nov. 16 An officer was dispatch to a minor accident/FSGI involving a parked vehicle located in the 3700 block of University Boulevard. The complainant's vehicle was unoccupied at time of impact. No injuries were involved. Nov. 17 An officer was patrolling the 3200 block of Duke when he observed two individuals walking in the roadway where a sidewalk was provided. A stop and contact was made and after further investigation, it was discovered that both individuals possessed stolen property that had been taken out of a motor vehicle without permission. Both individuals were placed into custody for Burglary of a Motor Vehicle. An officer was dispatched to a residence located in the 3100 block of University Boulevard in regard to a report of identity theft. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate By next December, residents of the New Territory and Greatwood master-planned communities will be full-fledged residents of Sugar Land. The Sugar Land City Council unanimously approved an ordinance on Nov. 15 to annex both developments. The approval added another 30,000 residents and 3,860 acres of land to the fast-growing city of 88,000, according to Census Bureau estimates. The additional 30,000 residents would push Sugar Land from the 41st largest city in Texas into the top 30, according to current Census Bureau numbers, between Beaumont and Round Rock. "Welcome to New Territory, welcome to Greatwood," Sugar Land Mayor Joe Zimmerman said. "We look forward to having you a part of our community." The annexation comes at a time of development for Sugar Land as a whole. Just down U.S. Highway 90A from New Territory, the former Imperial Sugar plant is being transformed into a mixed-use development, complete with a new visitors' center and Sugar Land heritage museum. At the intersection of U.S. 59 and University Boulevard, construction is finishing up on the city's new 6,400-seat performing arts venue, which will be the anchor of an office and retail-centric development. It will take a year for the annexation ordinance passed last week to take full effect. Now, Sugar Land's staff is beginning a changeover of services. The city will increase its staff by about 10 percent to provide municipal services - including police and firefighting - to both districts. The effective annexation date of both communities will be Dec. 12, 2017. New Territory and Greatwood will also be placed into temporary city council Districts 2 and 4, respectively. District 2's council member is Bridget Yeung; District 4's is Harish Jajoo. A long time coming The annexation of both communities has been nine years in the making. In 2007, Sugar Land signed agreements with both communities, committing to annex them at a future date. In 2015, city council established 2017 as a target annexation date. The annexation will be net neutral to Sugar Land. The costs of switching to city services will be covered by existing funds, established under the 2007 agreements. The city's staff will increase by about 10 percent to serve the new residents. That actually lowers the number of city staff employees per resident, city manager Allen Bogard said. Already a part of Sugar Land New Territory and Greatwood's suburban homes, tree-lined streets and diverse populations already resemble today's Sugar Land. The switch to being an official part of the city should be relatively seamless, Bogard said. "These communities are very much like Sugar Land today," Bogard said. "In the demographics of the residents, the quality of the development that has occurred there, the condition of the infrastructure is outstanding." Needville voters face finance issue on ballot Now that the presidential election is over, Needville ISD patrons can focus on the upcoming tax ratification election on Dec. 17. Early voting begins Nov. 30 at the Fort Bend County Road and Bridge Department, 3743 School St. Ballots may be cast: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, Nov. 30 - Dec. 2; 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, Dec. 5-9; 7 a.m. to noon Saturday, Dec. 10; and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 12-13. In addition, a special early voting event will take place from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 11, at the high school auditorium in conjunction with the annual fall band concert. On Election Day, Saturday, Dec. 17, ballots will be cast from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Needville ISD trustees set the election last month in hopes that voters will approve the TRE, which Superintendent Curtis Rhodes said is basically a "tax swap" that will net the district some $2 million per year without costing taxpayers a cent. The net gain is a result of the high value of the pennies on the M&O side vs. the lesser value of the pennies on the I&S side of the formula. Rhodes said the TRE will allow the district to take .13 cents from the interest and sinking (I&S) portion of NISD's tax rate and move it to the maintenance and operations (M&O) portion. The property tax rate will remain the same at $1.54 per $100 valuation, but rather than dedicating $1.04 for M&O and .50 cents for I&S, $1.17 will go for M&O and .37 cents for I&S. This past August, trustees dropped the tax rate by three cents per $100 valuation, bringing the total lowering of the tax rate during the past three years to 11 cents. Rhodes said a vote for the TRE is a vote to maintain the current $1.54 tax rate and receive an additional $2 million per year in state funding; a vote against the TRE is a vote to maintain the current $1.54 tax rate and not receive any additional funds from the state. Rhodes said the funds will allow the district to add much-needed classrooms at the middle school and junior high at a total cost of about $7.5 million. Visit www.needvilleisd.com to view a video explaining the TRE. New schools to impact attendance boundaries As construction of Fort Bend ISD campuses continues, the district will host two community forum meetings to discuss the attendance boundary process and gain community feedback on possible changes. While the entire community is invited to attend the Nov. 29-30 meetings, the attendance boundary planning process is limited to 19 schools, which could be impacted by the opening of new schools or the increased capacity created by classroom additions included in the 2014 Bond Program. FBISD administration, in collaboration with the consulting firm DeJong-Richter, is engaging with focus groups specific to the areas that may be impacted by a boundary change. Discussions from these focus groups will inform the boundary options that will be presented during the forums. The board could act in January on the boundaries. The Nov. 29 meeting will be at Travis High School, 11111 Harlem Road, Richmond. The Nov. 30 meeting will be at Ridge Point High School, 500 Water Lakes Blvd., Missouri City. Elementary Schools 48, 49, and 50, which were all funded by the 2014 Bond Program, will open in August 2017, while Middle School 15, which was part of an earlier bond program, will open in August 2018. All four campuses are located in areas of high-growth: Elementary Schools 49 and 50 are located on the Grand Parkway corridor on the district's west side, while Elementary 48 and Middle School 15 are located in Sienna Plantation, in the southeast area of the district. YIP project focuseson autism safety Hope For Three and a group of Youth In Philanthropy students, once again partnered to expand its Autism Awareness reach in the community. During a day-long gathering at the University of Houston Sugar Land, YIP students learned about autism, the many facets of the Hope for Three organization and received their assignment, which focused on autism safety as it relates to various business establishments. Leading the project with the students were Samantha Katchy, Hope For Three executive director, and Stephanie Burns, Hope for Three board member. "I have been in education in varying roles for quite some time and it gives me great joy to witness youth eagerly helping other youth, especially those with unique abilities," said Burns. "The students were indeed worker bees and enthusiastic about the project." The project yielded a number of informative hands-on tools in the form of PowerPoint, brochures, storybooks and recommendations that will assist local businesses with autism safety measures. Hope For Three will share these tools and additional autism awareness information beginning January 2017. Hope For Three, Autism Advocates is a local nonprofit whose mission is to reach one child, one family, one community by creating awareness and providing support to families living with an autism spectrum disorder.Call 281-245-0640 or visit www.hopeforthree.org for more information. Dulles Orchestra will attend Midwest Clinic Dulles High School and Dulles Middle School orchestras will participate in the 2016 Midwest Clinic in Chicago in December. According to Sally Kirk, DMS orchestra director, the invitation is one of the greatest honors a program can receive and provides a higher standard for the students to work toward. She hopes that students will develop a deeper appreciation for music and of their time rehearsing and performing together. "I am extremely thankful and humbled by our invitation to perform in Chicago and very proud of how devoted our students are to preparing for this big event," said Kirk. "There is a bond that exists between the students at the two campuses largely because the students and teachers stay involved in each others' program." The Dulles High students often come to the middle school to help the younger students rehearse during after-school rehearsals. Michael Isadore, the DHS orchestra director, said the closeness of the programs is so evident that they are often referred to as the "Dulles Orchestra" together, leaving out the middle and high school distinctions. A performance at the Midwest Clinic is also an honor because the conference participants are mostly professional musicians, music educators and music students. According to both directors, it is rare that two programs from the same district are chosen to participate in this conference. The trip is also significant because of a special history connecting the directors. "Mrs. Kirk also happens to be a former student of mine from Dulles which makes her honor that much more special to me as well," said Isadore. Visit https://www.midwestclinic.org/ for more information. In honor of Native American Heritage Month, we would like to highlight a field book that documents Native American knowledge of natural resources. The field book was created by William J. Fisher, who lived in southern Alaska from 1879 until his death in 1903. Fishers notebook documents his final years collecting and looks at the relationship between the Alutiiq (Aleut) and their plants by recording medicinal and food uses for 48 specimens. Only a handful of the specimen entries include the taxonomic names of plants; instead, entries focus on recording the Russian and Sugpiat/Alutiiq names of plants, how the plants were used, and plant distribution. Detail varies, as seen below in entries three and forty-seven. Entry three describes Fritullaria kamschathensis [Fritillaria camschatcensis], also known as the Kamchatka Fritillary, and lists general use and preparation: Used as an article of food by natives. The bulbs are boiled mashed and after a liberal supply of seal or whale oil has been thoroughly mixed therewith, it is put away for winters use. Specimen entry three from Notes accompanying collection of useful plants made by W. J. Fisher at [Kodiak] in 1899, Smithsonian Institution Archives, SIA Acc. 12-038. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/46428854. Digitized by Smithsonian Institution Archives. Image of Fritillaria camschatcensis from Encyclopedia of Life, provided by Biopix. http://eol.org/data_objects/19162439. Entry forty-seven for Ledum palustre [Rhododendron tomentosum], also known as Northern Labrador Tea (also pictured below), takes up an entire page describing the plants habitat, the appearance of its flowers, and multiple local medicinal applications: (1) As a tea it is freely drunk in alleviating the hacking cough of consumptives. (2) As a gargle in sore throat. (3) Administered as tea it is efficacious in relieving asthmatic complaints. Specimen entry forty-seven, from Notes accompanying collection of useful plants made by W. J. Fisher at [Kodiak] in 1899, Smithsonian Institution Archives, SIA Acc. 12-038. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/46428831. Digitized by Smithsonian Institution Archives. Image of Rhododendron tomentosum (Northern Labrador Tea), from Encyclopedia of Life. Image by Biopix. http://eol.org/data_objects/19183248. Fishers ethnographic focus while collecting plants is clear. The field book provides detailed information regarding local names and knowledge, but leaves out basic information often found in botany field books like date and detailed locality information. This lack of information may relate to a note Fisher wrote on the title page: dried plants with Mr. Kearney, alcoholics in seed collection. Mr. Kearney was Thomas Henry Kearney (1874-1956), a botanist with the Bureau of Plant Industry at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Kearney was in Alaska to work with Frederick Coville from April 1898 August 1899, and along the Northwest Coast from Puget Sound to the Bering Strait in 1899. He then served as a member of the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899. It is unclear how the two men became acquainted. Fisher had a relationship with the Smithsonian Institution; Coville as a USDA employee worked with Smithsonian, and perhaps he introduced the two. Whatever the reason, Kearneys field notes for his work in Alaska are also available on BHL through the Smithsonian Field Book Project, and they provide a tantalizing overlap in content and geographical coverage. A field book at the end of a collecting career Fishers field book is also interesting because it documents his collecting focus and interests as they evolved over a lifetime. Fishers initial scientific interest was in marine biology. During the 1870s he was a curator of conchology at the California Academy of Sciences and served as a marine biologist for the U.S. Fish Commission on several cruises in the Pacific headed by William Healey Dall. In 1879, Fisher accepted a position as tidal recorder in St. Paul, now known as the city of Kodiak, Alaska. After accepting the position, he wrote to Dall, who was affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, and offered to collect natural history specimens. The offer was accepted, and Fisher was instructed that the museum was also interested in ethnographic artifacts from the region. The town of St. Paul where Fisher settled was originally established by the Russians as a center for fur trading. By the time Fisher arrived, it was a town of approximately 500 residents, primarily of Russian and Native Alaskan heritage. According to an article in Arctic Anthropology (no. 1, 1992) the community was still significantly mixed regarding the adoption of European culture in terms of religion, language, and beliefs. Fisher initially focused on collecting natural history specimens, but as he began to correspond with Smithsonians Secretary Spencer Baird, his interest and collecting shifted to ethnography. He even began to commission works by Native Alaskans. Fishers main source of income was his position as tidal recorder; Smithsonian was frequently unable to finance his work. This lack of funding apparently did not dim Fishers enthusiasm, but it did lead to financial hardship. During an extended collecting trip to Bristol Bay in the summer of 1885, his assistant successfully petitioned for Fishers job. Fishers collecting came to an end by the 1890s; the ethnobotany field notes document the end of his work with the Smithsonian Institution. Interested in learning more? We encourage you to learn about the William J. Fisher collection at the National Museum of Natural History, which was highlighted as part of a book Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People, in the online exhibit featuring artifacts created by the Alutiiq people and collected by Fisher during his years in Alaska. Other resources include: Aron L. Crowell, 1992, Postcontact Koniag Ceremonialism on Kodiak Island and the Alaska Peninsula: Evidence from the Fisher Collection. Arctic Anthropology 29(1):18-37. Retrieved on November 16, 2016 from https://www.jstor.org/stable/40316240?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents Highlights of the William J. Fisher collection at the National Museum of Natural History: http://naturalhistory.si.edu/arctic/features/fisher/collect.html The field books of William Healey Dall, available on Biodiversity Heritage Library: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/search?searchTerm=Dall+%22field+notes%22#/titles Field Book Project blog post by Sonoe Nakasone: http://nmnh.typepad.com/fieldbooks/2012/02/sharing-culture-through-plants.html GALVESTON The University of Texas Medical Branch has paid $33,000 to a federal agency to settle complaints about its treatment of monkeys for research, UTMB said in a statement Monday. The payment was the result of investigations by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which enforces federal animal-welfare laws, and the federal Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare that began in 2015 following an audit. USDA officials were not immediately available for comment. The audit report found that eight of 12 monkeys suffered painful deaths after being infected with Marburg, a rare virus found in Africa that is as deadly as Ebola, because researchers allegedly failed to follow proper procedures. "It is unknown how long these animals might have suffered before dying," said the audit by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The UTMB statement said that the medical school, which operates the National Laboratory where deadly diseases are studied, did not dispute findings that UTMB "did not handle animals as carefully as possible, did not properly communicate with UTMB's internal animal care committee before making changes in a study and that updated information was not provided to the former attending veterinarian." After Brian Gordon's firing as attending veterinarian, he filed a complaint with the USDA about animal handling and then brought a lawsuit alleging that he was wrongfully dismissed because he tried to bring improper practices to the attention of UTMB officials. "The problem is the administration there," Gordon said. "They think the way to handle things is to cover it up rather than admit it's true." Complaints were also filed by the group Stop Animal Exploitation Now! "A $33,000 fine is grossly inadequate in terms of punishment to UTMB for the Animal Welfare Act violations they had," SAEN spokesman Michael Budkie said. "This doesn't even cover the market value of the monkeys they killed." The Animal Welfare Act requires that "minimum standards of care and treatment be provided for certain animals bred for commercial sale, used in research, transported commercially, or exhibited to the public," according to the Agriculture Department. The UTMB statement says that it has improved its animal handling by hiring four new veterinarians, changing the leadership of its animal care program, increasing staff training, enhancing oversight and improving policies and procedures. "Our scientists, veterinarians and animal care employees are dedicated and devoted to caring for the animals while, at the same time, understanding that the animals' involvement in research may lead to the next scientific breakthrough and improvement to the quality of life," the statement said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A young woman is recovering after she was shot in the head three times and viciously beaten in her Fort Worth home. Evelyn Bunte, 18, was also stabbed and beaten in the Nov. 5 attack, according to CBSDFW. The news station reports the attack left Bunte blind and partially paralyzed. She is recovering in a rehabilitation hospital in North Texas ATTACKED: Fort Worth woman attacked in her home while asleep on her couch Bunte's family started a GoFundMe page to help cover expenses for her medical costs. As of Monday, $6,735 of the $10,000 goal had been raised. "She was shot in the back of the head, side of the head and face," cousin Megan Trotsky wrote on the page. "She had to undergo brain surgery as well as surgery to remove metal fragments from her mouth. She is currently recovering in ICU, and is expected to need long-term rehabilitation following her hospital stay." MAN VS. SNAKE: Fort Worth police take on rattlesnake in video Her father Victor Raga told CBSDFW that someone or a group of people broke into his daughter's home and attacked her while she was sleeping. Raga said detectives found glass in her head after the attack. Raga said his daughter was attacked so severely that she doesn't remember what happened during the attack. Bunte recently moved to Fort Worth from Chicago and had plans to attend college next semester. TRAGEDY: Mother learns her little girl killed in robbery CBSDFW reports that Fort Worth police do not think the attack was random. Police have not determined a motive or made an arrest so far. Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers in Fort Worth at 817-469-8477. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A city contractor disturbed a car-sized segment of the historic bricks along Andrews Street, built by freed slaves, drawing the ire of Fourth Ward officials and Mayor Sylvester Turner. Houston Public Works spokeswoman Alanna Reed confirmed the contractor was removing a concrete slab as part of ongoing sewer work at Andrews and Genessee, just east of Carnegie Vanguard High School. When he tried to remove the slab with a backhoe, some of the bricks came up, Reed said. City officials said they were still assessing the scope and exact cause of the disruption. Visiting Mexico City, Turner voiced his strong displeasure over Twitter. The contractor should preserve any and all bricks removed from Andrew St, Turner wrote. No one should have touched Andrew St w/o my specific authorization. He vowed to address the situation on his return from Mexico City. Meanwhile, Ben Hall, lawyer for the Freedmen's Town Preservation Coalition, said Monday afternoon he would seek an injunction blocking the contractor from touching the bricks. Local community leaders were also looking into the incident, with many unaware of Mondays mishap. Samuel Smith, pastor of nearby Mount Horeb Missionary Baptist Church, said officials had made their feelings clear that bricks were not to be disturbed. Somebody has to stay on top of it, Smith said, in response to what the community can do to make sure the construction doesnt compromise the streets. Especially as Fourth Ward and Freedmen's Town have gentrified with new townhomes and shops, black community leaders have rallied to protect the bricks. From 1916 to 1924, as blacks sought to have the city improve their little community, Houston leaders refused. So former slaves and their adult sons likely laid the brick streets themselves. A man was shot Monday night as he reportedly sat in a car on a street in southeast Houston. The gunfire erupted about 10 p.m. on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near Bellfort, according to the Houston Police Department. Among the dead infants in Breckenridge Cemetery in north Texas, more than two dozen are effectively nameless. Their families buried them, but for reasons unknown, never came back to put in a permanent marker of a young loved one who passed. But, soon the children of the cemetery's newest "Babyland" shall be nameless no more. HISTORIC GRAVES: Notable people buried in Houston and where you can visit them John Trigg, a caretaker at the cemetery, told his story to former New Mexico police officer Flint Knight, the wholesale accounts manager at Sterling Monument Company in Eastland. Together, they managed to get permanent markers featuring a name and date of death made for the 26 graves that had either no headstone or a flimsy metal crosses that have been damaged over the years. We didnt do this for the publicity, we did it for the babies, Trigg told Abilene Reporter-News. The new headstones solve only part of the sad problem, though. A TRIBUTE: Texas sculptor debuts veterans statue There are two other "Babyland" sections in the cemetery, which dates it's oldest grave back to 1872 in a community of about 5,700 in Stephens County. Trigg told the newspaper there are no records still on hand for some of those graves. It makes for a tragic circumstance Trigg is unable to help or fix. Theres a lot over here in these other Babylands; we know somebody is buried there but we dont have any idea who, Trigg told the newspaper, before pausing. I dont know, babies are just in my heart." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate As the manhunt for the suspect involved in killing San Antonio Det. Benjamin Marconi continued Monday, dozens gathered outside police headquarters, leaving notes and gifts in honor of the slain officer. Marconi, 50, was shot and killed Sunday while issuing a traffic citation outside of the departments downtown headquarters, 315 South Santa Rosa. During the stop, a person in a black vehicle parked behind Marconis patrol car. The suspect proceeded to ambush the detective, firing two shots through the passenger window of Marconis cruiser. RELATED: SAPD: Suspect entered police HQ hours before ambush killing of officer, 'uniform was the target' Marconi was taken to San Antonio Military Medical Center, where he later died. Marconi's family released a statement Monday asking for privacy. "At this time, the Marconi family would like to give thanks from the bottom of our hearts for the outpouring of support, prayers and love we have received. At this time, we would appreciate privacy to mourn the loss of a wonderful father, brother, grandfather, friend and last, but not least, a peace officer," the family said, thanking the San Antonio community and the support they received from the country. The family asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the detective's memorial fund or any of the following organizations: Community members honored the detective's memory leaving candles, balloons, and thank you notes outside of police headquarters Monday. RELATED: 13 things to know about the fatal shooting of SAPD Det. Benjamin Marconi SAPD Chief William McManus told reporters Monday that the uniform was the target in Marconis death. The suspect is thought to be a dark-skinned male, 5 feet 7 inches to 6 feet tall, who was seen pacing outside of police headquarters early Sunday morning, McManus said. He said the suspect entered police headquarters around 7:45 a.m. and briefly spoke to a clerk inside. RELATED: SAPD officer shot, killed near police HQ downtown We consider this suspect to be extremely dangerous to the police and the public, McManus said Monday. Staff writers Tyler White, Emilie Eaton, Chirs Quinn, Kolten Parker, Silvia Foster-Frau and news researched Mike Knoop contributed to this report. kbradshaw@express-news.net Twitter: @kbrad5 Most Americans who are alive today hadn't been born when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas. Tuesday marks the 53rd anniversary of the seminal event that some people refuse to believe was the work of lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Gerardo Mendoza Ordaz, 42, is accused of drowning his 4-year-old daughter in a baptismal font at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Healdsburg, Calif. Officers told local news agency The Press Democrat that Ordaz arrived to the Healdsburg Police Department Sunday evening completely nude, holding the lifeless body of his daughter and asking for help. His 9-year-old son, partially clothed, stood next to him and appeared to be unharmed. The girl was rushed to the hospital but did not survive. Healdsburg Police Chief Kevin Burke said that the church, unlocked Sundays, was empty except for the family. "We do believe she was drowned intentionally," Lt. Matt Jenkins said in a press conference. Ordaz is suspected to have submerged his daughter in the one- to two-feet-deep pool. His son appears to be the only witness. (Story continues below.) "Sunday night there was tragedy in the church; a little girl lost her life," Fr. Sean Rogers, Pastor of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, said in a statement released on the church's website. "When police finish the investigation we will know more. In the meantime, please pray for the family, and the parish community." "So senseless and tragic," a post on the Healdsburg Police Department's Facebook page reads. "Please keep the family and all those involved in your thoughts and prayers." SENTENCED: Alabama man sentenced to 40 years after murdering man who sexually abused his daughter Ordaz reportedly sat for an interview that revealed enough information to book him at the Sonoma County Jail with no bail. The details of his statement or a potential motive have not yet been released. Officers say the boy is safe at home with his mother and two siblings. Two new names have emerged as possible candidates for Department of Homeland Security secretary under President-elect Donald Trump, including a retired Marine general who clashed with the Obama administration over women in combat and plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, people familiar with the selection process said Monday. Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, who retired this year as chief of U.S. Southern Command, is under consideration for the critical homeland security post, the people said. Also under consideration is Frances Townsend, a top homeland security and counter-terrorism official in the George W. Bush administration, they said. Kelly, a widely respected military officer who served for more than 40 years, opposed the administration's failed plans to close Guantanamo and has strongly defended how the military treats detainees, telling The Washington Post in 2014 that criticism of their treatment by human rights groups and others was "foolishness.'' He also publicly expressed concerns over the Pentagon's order in December that for the first time opened all jobs in combat units to women, including the most elite forces such as the Navy SEALs. "They're saying we are not going to change any standards," Kelly told reporters at the Pentagon, according to the Marine Corps Times, a weekly newspaper. "There will be great pressure, whether it's 12 months from now, four years from now, because the question will be asked whether we've let women into these other roles, why aren't they staying in those other roles?'' Kelly, whose son died in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, met with Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Sunday. A statement from Trump's transition team said the three "had a frank discussion about the global national security situation,'' along with Kelly's experience running the Southern Command. People familiar with the selection process said Trump's team is interested in Kelly's experience with the Southern border, where Trump wants to build his controversial wall to keep out illegal immigrants. Townsend, who served as assistant to Bush for homeland security and counter-terrorism, also held senior positions during 13 years at the Justice Department, including counsel to the attorney general for intelligence policy. If selected for DHS, she could also help Trump counter allegations that his Cabinet picks so far have lacked diversity. Kelly and Townsend join a variety of names reported to be under consideration for DHS secretary, a crucial position whose occupant would oversee Trump's proposed crackdown on illegal immigration. DHS, the third-largest Cabinet department with more than 240,000 employees who do everything from fighting terrorism to protecting the president and enforcing the nation's immigration laws. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is also a top contender for the post, people familiar with the transition process have said. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's name has been floated, though Christie was recently removed from his high-profile role leading Trump's transition team. Also in the mix but considered less likely to be nominated, sources said, are ousted Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and Milwaukee county sheriff David Clarke. Both are vocal Trump supporters whose strong views have caused controversy. Clarke, who is black, has compared the Black Lives Matter movement to the Islamic State while Arpaio, who just lost his bid for re-election, is known for forcing inmates to wear pink underwear and has long been accused of anti-Hispanic bias. Additionally, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach appeared to be carrying a written plan for DHS into a meeting with Trump on Sunday. According to one page of the plan photographed by the Associated Press, it focused in part on questioning "high-risk" immigrants over their alleged support for sharia law. Kobach entered the national spotlight several years ago when he advised Mitt Romney on the idea of "self-deportation" for illegal immigrants during the 2012 presidential campaign. A former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, Kobach also wrote Arizona's strict immigration law, and he has helped lead the fight against President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration. It is unclear how seriously Kobach is under consideration for DHS, but he is a strong Trump supporter who helped influence the president-elect's views on immigration. But a readout from the transition team suggested the Kansan was discussing "border security, international terrorism, and reforming federal bureaucracy" with the president-elect. Trump has pledged a crackdown on illegal immigration that would require an exorbitantly expensive - and logistically difficult - operation to remove millions from the country. Overseeing it all would be DHS, which was created after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks primarily to coordinate the battle against terrorism but is now perhaps equally known for its immigration role. A beefed-up U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a DHS component, will be instrumental if Trump follows through on rounding up far more undocumented immigrants. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, also part of DHS, would come under increased pressure to better secure the southwest border. Perhaps the DHS's secretary's most controversial role would be to help oversee the building of Trump's wall along that border. The wall is the president-elect's signature proposal, and he told The Washington Post in an interview last year that "building a wall is easy. . .It's not even a difficult project if you know what you're doing.'' But experts say the structure would face numerous obstacles, such as environmental and engineering problems and fights with ranchers and others who would resist giving up their land. --- Dan Lamothe contributed to this report. 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. We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- On Friday, the Pascagoula Police Department issued a BOLO for missing 71-year-old Pascagoula man, Frazier "Denver" Breazeale. The Mississippi Press reported that Breazeale was found based on reports from the police department, who sent out an email Friday night cancelling the BOLO, but did not disclose Breazeale's condition. The Mississippi Press has now learned Breazeale was found deceased at the at the Mississippi Welcome Center near the Franklin Creek exit off Interstate 10 on Friday, according to Jackson County Chief Deputy Coroner Jason Moody. Moody said at this time, the cause of Breazeale's death is under investigation. According to Moody, Breazeale had been reportedly missing since Tuesday and was located around 7 p.m. Friday night. Breazeale's wife Peggy reported him missing and told police he left home to run some errands, and as of 4:27 p.m. Friday afternoon, had yet to return. The missing person's report posted by Pascagoula police noted that Breazeale was diabetic and did not have his medication with him at the time that he went missing. Jeffrey Belk (left), CEO Kevin Holland (center), and Don Ba.jpg Singing River Health System Board of Trustees President Jeffrey Belk, Singing Rive CEO Kevin Holland, and Board of Trustees member, Don Barron. (file photo) (Tyler Carter) PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Monday's Board of Supervisors meeting saw patients of Dr. Terry Millette, former neurologist with the Singing River Health System come together in his defense to urge supervisors to look into his removal from the health system. Because of the wide-ranging stories expressed on Monday by patients' of Millette's and residents of the community who say they are tired of seeing homegrown doctors ran off from the community they grew up in, District 5 Supervisor Randy Bosarge made a strong statement after hearing the pleas of those who want Millette's job to reinstated. Bosarge openly called for SRHS CEO Kevin Holland's resignation on Monday, citing his displeasure with the hospital's current course of direction. "Kevin Holland (CEO) and I have had a conversation months ago and I'm not scared to tell you that I told Kevin that I wasn't happy with the direction in which the hospital is going and that I wasn't happy with his leadership. I'm here to tell you today that I am publicly asking that Kevin Holland resign as CEO of Singing River Hospital System and I will not allow anymore travesty to happen at Singing River Hospital as long as I am a member of this community and this board." Monday evening, SRHS Board of Trustees president Jeffrey Belk released the following statement in support of Holland: The Board of Trustees is publicly expressing our ongoing support for Chief Executive Officer Kevin Holland and the entire leadership team of Singing River Health System. Mr. Holland and this leadership team have had to face many challenges over the past three years, and we are in a stronger position today as a healthcare system as a result. In all cases, the health and safety of our patients and community, as well as the Mission of SRHS, have been at the forefront of every decision. Over the past few weeks, the Board of Trustees has been briefed extensively about the serious clinical concerns at the Neurology Associates Clinic, and has concurred with the decisions and processes of the medical and administrative leadership. Throughout this process, our priority has remained the health and safety of our patients and our community, and we have complete confidence that all decisions are in support of that goal. We continue to support our hospital leadership and medical staff as they provide our Neurology Associates clinic patients, and all patients at SRHS, with all the care and support they will need in the days ahead. Following Belk's response, CEO Kevin Holland released a statement detailing the efforts the hospital is taking to ensure neurology patients will be taken care of. "The health and safety of our patients and our community has been, and remains our highest priority with every decision we make at Singing river Health System, including this one. This was not a business decision, but rather one based on the well-being of our patients. We understood that this change would be unexpected and of great concern to our patients, which is why we created a patient care line to discuss their individual needs and most importantly, get them the medical care they need when they need it. Our plan is and always has been to ensure we care for all patients involved. We are actively placing patients in appointments with regional and national neurologists who have generously offered to see those with immediate needs. Even today, Neurology Associates patients are being seen throughout the region. In addition, we anticipate having a new provider at the Neurology Associates clinic in the next week to provide additional care. We are focused on those with the most immediate appointments and prescription needs, and will continue to provide transition of care assistance until every single patient has received individual assistance from our team. We want to reassure our Neurology Clinic patients that we have and will continue to take all necessary steps to help them transition their care. All of our actions will continue to be taken based on the best interests of our patients' health and safety. Our team of caregivers is actively engaging with the patients impacted, helping them obtain new appointments, treatments, prescriptions, medical files and referrals, as appropriate by their individual need. We encourage any patient with questions to call our Neurology Associates care line, which is being staffed 6:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m. seven days a week. When a patient contacts us at 228-809-2000 they are connected to a SRHS employee who can answer their questions, help them identify and transition to a new doctor, obtain medical files, and address prescription refills." While Holland's statement addressed the system's commitment to helping patients' transition to a new doctor, it did not respond to Bosarge's call to resign, nor did it offer a resolution as to if Millette could be reinstated at SRHS. Supervisors Ken Taylor and Troy Ross said they were not alerted to the hospital's intentions prior to the firing of Millette at Monday's supervisors meeting, but said the hospital owes the public an explanation. "We are clueless as to what is going on and no one spoke to us in advance," Taylor said. "We had no knowledge that this was going to happen until after the fact, but we will look into Dr. Millette's dismissal." "I agree with Ken that the employer and employee relationship between Dr. Millette and the hospital is generally not one we would interfere or ask questions about unless something is done wrong, but at a bare minimum, any public body that makes a decision of this gravity at least owes the public an explanation as to why and I don't think that's a lot to ask of anybody," Ross said. The Mississippi Press will continue to follow this story. One of the journalists I admire most is Roger Cohen, who weaves elevated ideas into on-the-ground reporting and clarifying common sense with a magisterial effortlessness. Cohen was, in many ways, one of the few people to see a Trump presidency coming. Yet a phrase in a column he wrote in The New York Times the day after Trumps victory jumped out for me as an example of one of the limitations on the established medias view of the world. In the course of a typically sharp reflection on the forces that propelled Trump into the White House, Cohen wrote: For some Americansand this is painful to admita woman following a black man into the White House was simply too much to swallow. It was the phrase this is painful to admit that stood out. Why was it painful to admit? No knock against Cohen, but it seems like the most obvious insight in the world. Elsewhere in the same column Cohen keenly noted that not every American loves choose-your-gender bathrooms. For men who have lost their jobs, and their place in society, for men whose familiar terrain has become something like a moonscape, the election of a woman who also happened to epitomize liberal detachment and privilege would, it goes without saying, be too much to swallow. So why was it painful to say so? One of the establishment medias fatal flaws is the fear that describing things as they are will make the describer complicit with what he is describing. That fear is not unfounded. If you suggested eight years ago, amid all the jubilation, that the election of a black president, in a country that was slipping away from the white working class and much of the white middle class, would cause a reactionary backlash in politics unique in modern American history, you might well have been called a racist. Why are journalists, who are experts at poking, prodding and sometimes exploding pieties, the complacent prisoners of so many pieties themselves? I think it is the nature of an exclusive club to require adherence to refined pieties. For too long now, journalists whose sense of themselves as heroes is contradicted by the helplessness induced in them when in the presence of real power, have gravitated toward the empowering shared pieties of an exclusive club. Like many people, not since 9/11 have I felt as threatened, for myself, my family and my country, as I do now that Trump has been elected president. American journalists cover and read about sudden historical turns for the worst in other places; we are not supposed to be caught up in them here, in protected America. I feel the same dread and apprehension as everyone else who is in the segment of the countrydivided right down its soggy middle, like a cake left out in the rainthat voted either for Clinton or against Trump. Yet I also have a very contrary feeling, the same sense of liberation and even hopefulness that has seized that other segment of the country that put Donald J. Trump in the White House. Journalism, which has for so long been trapped in a gilded, insulated, shuttered room, can now throw open the windows and let the rest of the country pour in. Sign up for CJR 's daily email For decades now, journalists have relished being guests in the rarefied realms of power. Now they have learned, with the force of a sobering slap in the face, that you cannot find the pulse of your moment in the still-young century while you are spending months lobbying to get into the Century Club. You cannot both step on toes and step around them. Recently, as journalism and politics have both seemed to disintegrate together, Ive been staying up late watching, as a kind of escape, old movies about journalism. Whats struck me about so many of these flicks was that, on the surface, journalists were portrayed as amoral, dishonest, cynical and driven only by the desire to find the most sensational story. The Front Page, Ace in the Hole, Nothing Sacred, Meet John Doe. Their protagonists, mostly comic, are paragons of sleaze. They also exist on the social margins, are drawn toward outsiders and the dispossessed, are indifferent to social norms, and are thorough pains in powers behind. Behind the inglorious portrayal of journalists was a subtle celebration of their glorious aloofness from convention. Many of these movies were written by former journalists, after all. What especially captured my attention was that, among all the different motives driving their pursuit of the most attention-getting story, attaining high social status was not one of them. It is not insignificant that in the wake of American journalisms apotheosis, the publication of the Pentagon papers and the Watergate revelations, the journalists outsider status evolved from a comic or comi-tragic irritant to a fatal vulnerability. At the end of Three Days of the Condor, the hero Robert Redfords threat to expose the bad CIA guy to The New York Times is greeted by the latters knowing smilethe paper of record is powerless to bring him to justice. At the end of The Parallax View, the fearless, amoral outsider journalist, Warren Beatty, is murdered by the shady quasi-official agency he is trying to expose. It was as if these movies were suggesting that journalisms triumph over abusive power made journalists ever more conscious of how exceptional such triumph was, and how impregnable power often is. Perhaps it was that experience of feeling humbled in the shadow of their own victories that eventually led journalists to capitalize on their cachet, and to court power as therapy for undergoing, in the course of doing their job, the humiliating experience of being brushed aside by power. It is long past time for establishment journalists to change the way they do business, to follow their moral imaginations down into the muckinto which even the most decent people stumble from time to timerather than pursuing their social instincts and censoring themselves to maintain their comfortable professional and social status. Journalists as prestigious social actors themselveshigh-conforming professionals, you might sayis so yesterday, so pre-Trump. There is, inevitably, a lot of breast-beating among liberal journalists going on right now. Much it is well-deserved, of course, but some of it is excessive. The comparison between 9/11 and 11/9 that has been rippling through social media strikes me as apt. Trumps election is a frightening visitation of history upon the heads of Americans who thought themselves exempt from historys calamities. No one can foresee momentous historical change like that. If it were able to be predicted, there would be no such thing as history. Then, too, our environment, increasingly protected and regulated by rapidly advancing science and technology, certain didnt help us try to imagine the dark forces outside it. The charge that journalists missed or were not interested in the struggles of white working class and middle class America, though accurate, is also complicated. Plenty of the followers of the European demagogues in the 1930s were also hard-pressed and ignored by their countries elites. Sensitive press coverage of the grievances of Germanys brown shirts would hardly have appeased them, or avoided the impending catastrophes. Yet, as least for now, we live in less perilous times, and the blindness of the so-called coastal elitesthere are liberal elites in the heartland, by the wayproved fatal. And it was not just the blindness to the way the rest of the country was living, or trying to live. Journalists who have traveled the straight and narrow path from prep school to the Ivy League to exclusive clubs and fancy dinner parties are instinctively averse to anyone, whatever her politics, who steps out of line. As Trump stoked the rising fires of populist anger and discontent, it was agonizing to see the mainstream press slowly turn against Bernie Sanders. Powerful columnists who had made their deservedly distinguished reputations exposing the falsehoods of right-wing economics arrogantly dismissed Sanders left-leaning economic policies as unworkable and even dangerous. Liberal newspapers famous for the exposures of venality and corruption had nary a comment on the way the Clintons and the Democratic National Committee were riggingTrump was right about thatthe primary elections against Sanders. It was, on the part of the liberal media establishment, an inability to tolerate a democratic socialist from Vermont who defied its well-bred resistance to breaking rules and dismantling hierarchies. Their rejection of Sanders blurred into their haughty, and fatal, dismissal of Trump. That was the moment when the industrial Midwest, a bastion of Sanders supporters, was lost to Clinton, who did not deign to spend more than a few hours in Michigan or Wisconsin. Journalists could have burst the Clinton bubble by reminding her that cultural issues sway political choices, and that some battles, though morally right, can be postponed to fight the more consequential ones. But much of the liberal establishment media happily dines out in the same bubble. What I wouldnt give to be a journalist in my twenties or thirties just starting out at this moment. I dont want to belabor the 9/11 analogy, but that tragic event was the catalyst behind some of the finest American journalism ever done. It opened the door to forces in the world and parts of the world that until then had been mostly undiscovered and obscure. It allowed a generation of journalists to define themselves as journalists, and to expand the boundaries of journalism itself. The advent of Donald Trump has also revealed an American that had been, with the exceptions of some prescient and illuminating reportingGeorge Packer immediately comes to mind undiscovered and obscure. And it will also have the effect of allowing young journalists to define themselves, and to push journalism into ever more creative forms. Just as journalists took on different aspects of the post-9/11 worldthe war on terror, the nature of terrorism, civil liberties, the lives of people in Afghanistan and the Middle Eastthey now have, if this is not too perverse a term to use in the current context, a feast of subjects lying before them. How to approach President Donald J. Trump? You can observe him with clinical detachment and document his every move. You can ferret out and make certain to broadcast every inevitable betrayal of the promises he made to his supporters. You can write in-depth profiles of the people who stand behind the people who stand behind the people he brings in to serve in his administration. You can measure the extent to which he will find himself in over his head, revert to his business model, and serve simply as the branded figurehead of government. You can pursue the good, old-fashioned method of following the money, more of which will flow into the coffers of this administration and its cronies than any presidency in the history of the country. My own feeling is that Trump will delegate most of his responsibilities as president to the improbable figures he is gathering around him and spend the majority of his time seizing unique new business opportunities and watching himself on CNN. Seeing the names of people like Gingrich, Palin and Guliani popping up as possible cabinet figures, I recall Marxs caustic definition of the lumpenproletariat as the rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society. Now theres a story to tell. And the new journalists about to start cutting their teeth as I write can turn the attention to the media itself, curbing its most excessive instinctsreferring to Trumps circle as the lumpenproletariat might be one example and cooling its most extravagant fears, some of which are justified, some of which smack of an attempt to create yet more liberal pieties that will add to the foundation of the liberal medias sense of its own moral superiority. Whatever tack the new journalists take, the clouds that formerly obscured Americas fragmented social realities have parted. There are entire new worlds to write about. This too shall pass. Until then, a phrase once popular among Trotskyites keeps echoing in my head: The worse, the better. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Lee Siegel , a widely published writer on culture and politics, is the author of six books and the recipient of a National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism. The 2016 presidential election took a heavy toll on the vast army of journalists assigned to cover it, grinding down shoe leather, fingertips, and nerve-endings in equal measure. But for one reporter, Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star, the race for the White House was singularly burdensome, turning him into a night owl. At the end of each long day on the campaign trail, he would take a deep breath and launch into his second job: fact-checking the lies of Donald Trump. The work would begin late, often at 2 am, when all was quiet and he could sink himself undisturbed into a hot bath of outrageous falsehood. Hed start by watching recordings of the rallies the Republican candidate had addressed that day, scouring his words for deceits that ranged from the whopping (I opposed the Iraq invasion, the election is rigged) to the trivial (the only way to pronounce Nevada is Nev-AHH-da, when in fact most people say Nev-ADD-a.) Then the reporter would scuttle through Trumps Twitter feed, followed by news outlets and search engines in the hope of catching every statement he made and testing them all for accuracy. As the election approached, Trumps untruths began to multiply, and with them Dales nocturnal hours, until he was at it virtually all night. After each of the three televised debates between Trump and Hillary Clinton, and in the final frantic days of the campaign, he pulled all-nighters before going straight back to his day job. Towards the end it was crazy, Dale says. The only thing that made it easier was that Trump repeated himself: we called him out for lying but he was so unresponsive he just kept saying the same things. From mid September until Election Day, Dale recorded a total of 560 false Trump statements, an average of about 20 a day. As the sleep-deprived reporter staggered into the election, he reflected that if his night-time activities had reached even a small percentage of the American electorate, and helped them understand the fundamental mendacity of a candidate seeking the most powerful job on the planet, then it would have been worth it. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Then came election night. I was as shocked as many other journalists, Dale says, recalling Trumps steady march towards the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Despite his own extraordinary late-night efforts, despite the similarly Herculean efforts of The New York Times, which dedicated 18 journalists to fact-checking the TV debates in real-time, or of NPR, which turned over 30 staffers to a similar endeavor, despite the Guardians Lyin Trump column and so much more, some 61 million Americans were unfazed enough by the idea of a serial liar in the Oval Office to vote for him. Fact-checking wasnt the only journalistic tool that was deployed in 2016 with what now appears to be limited effectiveness. Many observers assumed The Washington Posts thundering scoop of Trumps hot-mic remarks in which he boasted about grabbing women by the pussy, together with Megyn Kellys astonishing opening question at the first TV debate in which she reminded the candidate that he had called women fat pigs and dogs, would hand female voters, and thus the presidency, to Clinton. They didnt53 percent of white women voted for Trump, according to exit polls. Jorge Ramos, the lead news anchor at Univision, predicted on Election Day that Trump would lose because he had turned his back on the Spanish-language media. Didnt happenalmost one in three Hispanics backed him, to Ramos bafflement. Newspaper endorsements, those most portentous of journalistic institutions, also seemed to have little purchase on the outcome of this convention-shattering election. The Nieman Lab counted 360 titles that backed Clinton, including The Dallas Morning News, which sided with a Democratic candidate for the first time since 1940, and USA Today, that endorsed the first presidential candidate, period, in its 36-year history. By contrast, Trump drew a paltry 11 endorsements. Such overwhelming consensus from the nations press, but was anybody listening? Put all these indicators together, and you start to wonder whether Donald Trumps unlikely victory has sounded the death knell for the influence and authority of what he and his supporters scathingly call the mainstream media. Did MSM, in particular cable TV which broadcast his every cough and spittle with almost obsessive dedication, help put him in the White House? Conversely, did the press go too far in abandoning its traditional even-handedness and unrestrainedly attacking Trump, as right-wing pundits are now suggesting? Looking forward, what will be the role of the established media as we head into the chilly waters of a choppy new era? Related: The goal is not to fear Trump, but for Trump to fear you Those are just some of the glaring questions left hanging at the end of an epically weird election season. To begin poking some of those issues, the Guardian has teamed up with the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), a leading source of media criticism. It has compiled a unique oral history of the 2016 election through the eyes of 40 of the top TV and press editors, reporters, and columnists who helped shape and define the public perception of this years race. The narrative runs to 11,000 words, with the Guardian publishing an edited version of it. One of the first big questions that CJRs oral history, in tandem with the Guardians own exploration of the subject, raises is the role of blanket TV coverage in the rise, fall and rise again of president-elect Trump. Ben Smith, Editor in Chief of BuzzFeed, was quick to spot earlier this year that Trumps Twitter feed acted not only as a powerful megaphone channeling his voice directly to his followers (he had 13 million of them on Twitter on election day, as well as 12 million on Facebook), it also served as a news script for the cable channels. Trump would tweet out his latest offensive or aggressive tweet, often in the early hours of the morning, and TV news editors arriving at their desks would pick it up and turn it into ratings-friendly headlines that would then go on to dominate the rest of the 24-hour news cycle. What typically drives TV is great reporting by newspapers. Instead, Trump used his tweets as an alternative route to great journalism, and that turned out to have been a very big deal, Smith told the Guardian. The TV channels feasted on tweeted Trumpisms with an alacrity that many observers found disturbing. According to a study by mediaQuant, Trump benefited from the equivalent of $5.2 billion-worth of free airtime from earned media, a quantity that the firms analysts said was almost surreal in sheer magnitude. In return, cable channels enjoyed a massive ratings spike. During the primaries, cable newsin particular CNN and Fox, and to some extent MSNBCgave Trump unhealthily generous, inflated coverage. That helped make him, says Margaret Sullivan, media columnist of The Washington Post. It takes someone with the on-the-ground experience of John Weaver, chief strategist to Trumps rival John Kasich during the Republican primaries, to spell out the full impact of this media binge on the election. He believes it actively distorted the process, and even now, six months after Kasich dropped out of the race, you can still hear the fury in Weavers voice. I hope theres some deep introspection at the networks and cable channels over the billions of dollars of free coverage they gave to Donald Trump, often without holding him accountable for his bizarre claims. He is judged by such a low standard by many of the news media, its troubling to me. The sense that the media allowed itself to be taken for a ride by the Trump campaign in exchange for stellar ratings came to a crunch on September 16. By now enshrined as Republican nominee, Trump lured the pack of political reporters to a press conference by promising to make a statementan apology, it was assumedabout his long-held and oft-repeated birther lie about President Obama having been born outside the US. The location for the event happened to be the Old Post Office in Pennsylvania Avenue that Trump had just renovated into a luxury hotel. For 26 minutes he subjected the media, and through them the American people, to a succession of unctuous speeches by retired military leaders singing the candidates praises. Then, when Trump finally got round to issuing a 21-word rebuttal of his own false birther theory, he prefaced it with yet another lie that Hillary Clinton was responsible for having started the toxic rumor in the first place. It was vintage Trump. Almost half-an-hour of free advertisingnot only for his presidential campaign but also for his new hotelhanded to him on a plate by the cable networks in exchange for a 30-second non-apology that made false accusations against his opponent. Nothing new there then. What was new was the response of the assembled media crowd who had been forced to sit through the ordeal, cameras rolling, keyboards rattling, as though they were so many of Trumps dutiful playthings. It was a political Rick-roll fumed CNNs Jake Tapper, referring to the Rick Astley internet meme, while John King on the same channel lamented: We got played again. Jay Rosen, who teaches journalism at New York University and whose blog PressThink.org has been a widely-cited resource on the fraught relationship between Trump and the press in 2016, sees the DC hotel debacle as a seminal moment. Thats when people in the campaign press corp got disgusted not just with Trumps mendacity and manipulation but at themselves for playing along with it. That turned the worm. The response from The New York Times was decisive and swift. As its political editor Carolyn Ryan related to a recent CJR roundtable of media executives, she immediately approached the papers executive editor. I went to Dean Baquet and I said, Can we call this the unwinding of a lie? He understood the potency of coming out very directly and saying that, and that what Trump had donea willful deceitwas far more egregious than some of the fabrications and stretching of the truth that we usually see in politics. So he was firmly behind us. The resulting piece by Michael Barbaro marked in itself a seminal moment for the Times newsroom, which as Ryan pointed out is a fairly traditional institution that until recently struggled with the idea of calling a lie a lie. Yet in this case the editorial decision to do just thatabandoning any attachment to the on the one hand this, but on the other hand that school of journalismcame quickly and easily. We decided in about 40 minutes, Ryan said. There has been a lot of discussion this election cycle about how Trumps insurgent campaign, its asymmetry as Rosen has put it, has shaken up many of the time-honored rituals and false equivalencies of political journalism. Adam Moss, New York magazines editor in chief, makes clear that his magazine consciously decided to ditch the journalistic habits of a lifetime: We dont pretend to objectivity, but we do, as a rule over the years, try to maintain some kind of even-handedness. We abandoned that because we felt the threat of his candidacy and presidency was too great. The counterpoint to that is that several of the contributors to the CJR oral history express regret that, at least at the outset, the coverage of real estate businessman was seriously flawed, as Jorge Ramos puts it. The billionaire was underestimated as a candidate, and as a result treated initially as a bit of a joke. Laura McGann, a politics editor for Vox, bravely admits feeling guilty that she assigned a deep dive into Trump soon after he launched his campaign in June 2015 to a (very good) intern, adding: I regret not taking him more seriously a year ago than I did. But BuzzFeeds Ben Smith makes the point that, important though such post-election soul-searching is, it should not obscure the fact that there was plenty of hard-hitting reporting done even early on. The Washingon Post, New York Times, we at BuzzFeed, Politico, the Guardian and many more, gave a thoroughly detailed account of him. Anyone who was surprised by the person who emerged during the campaign really wasnt paying attention. You only have to credit a tiny portion of the highlights of the coverage this cycle to see how impressive much of it was: McKay Coppins seminal romp with Trump all the way back in 2014; Susanne Craigs Heaven-sent package in her Times mailbox containing the billionaires leaked tax returns; David Fahrenthold of the Posts work on the Trump Foundation and his groping scoop; Ari Berman of The Nations probe into the real rigging of the election; Guardian columnist Lucia Graves interviews with women alleging the candidate sexually assaulted them. So what happened to all this solid work, why did it appear to go up in a puff of smoke on election night? There is a separate and febrile debate over whether or not opinion polls were in part to blame for giving the impression that the White House was in the bag for Clinton, but many other theories are circulating. One prevalent idea, as Hadas Gold of Politico tells CJR, is that the media did its job but the public just did not care.The New York Times political reporter Jonathan Martin offers an opposite conclusion: that the coverage did hit home with voters, as reflected in Trumps historically bad popularity ratings. To which it might be added that Hillary Clinton is still winning in the popular vote. A third line of inquiry that is likely to run and run is whether the media, in its coastal bubble, failed to get to grips with the anger that was brewing right under its nose in the American heartlands. A flick of that argument was given in the missive sent by Arthur Sulzberger and Baquet, publisher and executive editor of The New York Times, to their readers soon after the election. Did Donald Trumps sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters? Answering his own question, Baquet told the Guardian that the Times did in fact write extensively about anger in America in the run-up to the election, but adds that its a good idea as an editor to be humble enough to ask oneself what questions should have been asked during the campaign. Nobody, including the Trump campaign itself, quite understood the forces that would lead to Donald Trump being elected in what everybody agrees was a surprise. A big part of my job now is to explain that in the coming months, to go out in the country, talk to people who feel anxious about the future of the country, dont caricature them, let them speak. Just let them talk. A more disturbing thought is that while many news outlets took great efforts to chronicle the plight of the white working-classes in middle America, their dispatches didnt register with millions of voters for the simple reason that those voters werent reading any of us. Amid the on-going muscle of Drudge, the new transcendence of Breitbart, not to mention the proliferation of fake news sites, conservative Americans are increasingly able to receive information from within their own alternative bubble where their opinions are reinforced without being challenged by the loathed Mainstream Media. One of the more despairing expressions of this theory was given by New York magazines Adam Moss to CJR: The media as it used to be thought of is just not that important anymore. It doesnt matter that some people were doing good work because were just talking to ourselves and people who already agree with us. Since Trumps victory, another theory has been aired increasingly by right-of-center pundits such as Howard Kurtz of Fox News that flips the argument that the media did too little too late to expose Trump on its head. In this iteration, major outlets did too much, were too eager to go after him. The editor of The Wall Street Journal, Gerard Baker, tells CJR that some reporters saw it as their role to stop this man from becoming president, they put themselves in the role of partisans. It fell to Piers Morgan of Mail Online, as it often does, to put the case most stridently: The NYTs ludicrously biased anti-Trump barrage of bile helped him get elected. Thats ridiculous, ripostes the Timess Dean Baquet. We didnt cover Donald Trump any more aggressively than we covered Hillary Clinton. People forget that we broke the story of Clintons emails. If both sides think you were tough on them, maybe that means you were fair. Of all the Mainstream Media bashing that has been unleashed since November 8, one source of it stands head and shoulders above the rest: Donald Trump himself. Which is not surprising, given his track record during the campaign. Reporters deemed to be producing unfavorable copy were punished by Trump: Jorge Ramos was ejected from a press conference after the Univision anchor dared to ask an awkward question; Coppins was turned away from Trump rallies as comeuppance for his caustic 2014 profile; a lengthening list of other media outlets were banned by the campaign; individual journalists were targeted for bullying such as NBC News Katy Tur; supporters at campaign stops were enabled to turn in anger against camera operators just doing their jobs, screaming: CNN sucks! CNN sucks! CNN sucks! Since Trumps metamorphosis into president-elect, the tendency to target the media has only got worse. Now he routinely gives the press pool the slip, showing contempt for both transparency and tradition. Back on his Android phone, Trump is on the failing New York Times war path, displaying a sort of frenzied disdain that hardly bodes well for the relationship between soon-to-be president and the countrys paper of record. Ive never seen anything quite like this, says Baquet, who as former editor of The Los Angeles Times and Washington bureau chief of the Times has seen more than most. I dont think weve ever had a president-elect tweeting about us, thats for sure. As Inauguration Day and the start of his presidency bears down upon us, much of the media will enter the Trump era carrying with them a profound sense of trepidation. This is a moment of high danger for the press, were heading into a dark period for American democracy and American journalism, says Jay Rosen of NYU. Jorge Ramos tells CJR: I think well remember this election as unique and very concerning for the future of the press because if this becomes the norm, we are in serious trouble. Its not just the lack of access, mocking and bullying that can be anticipated from President Trump. Theres also the internal danger that the media will normalize his time in office under the cloak of traditional reverence for the presidency. Contributors to the CJRs account of 2016 point out that a pattern of normalization was established even on the campaign trail, when media outlets appeared to be willing Trump on to elevate himself from his startlingly unconventional approach to a proper presidential mode. In the memorable description of Tommy Craggs, Slates politics editor, the candidate could have gone up there and danced the hoochie coochie and they would have said, This is a welcome change in tone from Donald Trump. Post-election, that trend has thickened, some believe. John Weaver, the former chief strategist for Trumps Republican rival John Kasich, says he is outraged by media references to Steve Bannon, the Breitbart chairman who Trump has appointed his senior counselor in the White House, as a controversial figure or an aggressive conservative. No, no, thats sugar-coating. He was the publisher of the news site that he said was home to the alt-right, and that is code for racism and sexism and fascism. So what will be the role of the Mainstream Media as it embarks, somewhat battered but still standing, into Trumps America? Will it be to document the new administration with a detached and objective eye, as traditional newsroom canons dictate, or will it pursue that other burning function of the fourth estate, holding power to account? We will cover him fairly and aggressively, and we will not let his criticism of us sway us or keep us from doing what we have to do, says Dean Baquet of the Times. In my mind our mission is clearer than its ever been: we have to cover the giant story of this extraordinary White House, which is going to change American politics and policy for years to come, as aggressively, truthfully, and honestly as we can. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Ed Pilkington is chief reporter of the Guardian in the US. He is former international and home news editor of the news organization. Dear friends in American journalism, Ordinarily, it is you who offer the rest of the world advice about press freedom, and the accountability architecture of democratic societies, so I understand that it may be strange to hear it coming back at you, but this will not be the last inversion that the election of Donald Trump delivers. You have some deep resources to draw on for the battle that is closing around you. For starters there is your Constitution, which offers stronger protections than just about any comparable legal framework. And your money, greatly diminished, and unevenly distributed to be sure, but orders of magnitude more plentiful than what your counterparts elsewhere have to call upon. You also have reserves of talent, creativity, and commitment far larger than you are given credit for by your critics, and right now by angry, bewildered, and wounded friends. But one thing you dont have, is experience of what to do when things start to get genuinely bad. Your free press is a beautiful, important thing, even when it is besieged and bedraggled. Perhaps especially then. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Take it from those of us who have worked in places where the institutional fabric is thinner, the legal protections less absolute, and the social license to operate less secure. Not outright dictatorships, but majoritarian democracies where big menand they are usually menpolish their image in the mirror of state media or social media, while slowly squeezing the life out of independent institutions. When Donald Trump ditched his press pool twice within days of being elected, and launched a series of Twitter attacks on The New York Times, a lot of you sounded surprised. As if you expected him to become a different person once the anointing oil of the Electoral College had touched his brow. Of course there was nothing surprising about his conduct. Rule number 1 of surviving autocracy, as Masha Gessen reminds us, is Believe the Autocrat. Related: Journalisms moment of reckoning has arrived When Mr. Trump threatened during the campaign to review Americas libel law framework, he was setting out his stall, not bluffing. When he threatened to sue, when he mocked a disabled reporter, when he made clear his affinity for Vladimir Putin and Peter Thiel, he was issuing a warning. Of course, not being surprised doesnt mean you shouldnt be outraged. As Gessen also wrote, to survive autocracy, you have to preserve outrage, and your free press is a beautiful, important thing, even when it is besieged and bedraggled. Perhaps especially then. The rest of us get irritated with you at times, in the manner of less privileged relatives, but you have given the rest of us a good deal over the years, standards to aspire to, innovation to build on, voices of great clarity. Here is some advice in return, mostly from India and South Africa, where an ostensibly free press is confronted with regulatory, economic, and political pressures that come with majoritarianism. 1. Get used to the end of access as you know it. The president-elect loves to see himself on magazine covers. Dont kid yourself that this means you will enjoy meaningful access to his administration on the terms you are familiar with. There will be a lot less trading of micro-scoops for favorable coverage, the transactional stock-in trade of capital city reporting everywhere. In India for example, after Narendra Modi took power, journalists were banned from government offices they had once wandered freely. They were kicked off the presidential plane. Modi granted no interviews to the domestic press for over a year. His ministers and senior officials whispered privately that they had been ordered not to speak to the press. Losing this kind of access isnt all bad. It reminds you that your job is to hold power to account, rather than to join its club. Outsider status can be bracing. But it comes with the choking off of other kinds. Twitter and Instagram posts substitute for the tough back-and-forth of press conferences, officials stonewall legitimate queries, and you wait to publish, because right of reply matters, accuracy matters to you. Not to them. So you take to the law. But freedom of information filings will be slowed-walked to death or irrelevance, as they increasingly are in India, and other countries where the first flush of enthusiasm over FOIA legislation has replaced with a deepening chill. In one case I was involved in in South Africa three presidents fought us over seven years and two trips to the constitutional court before we won. By then it was too late to do anything but prove a point. So you have to cultivate other ways to get the data that you need and the democratic process demands. There are going to be a plenty of officials who are deeply uncomfortable with the direction of the administration. Some of them are your sources already, no doubt. But you will need them much more. Especially the awkward squad. The mid-level career bureaucrats, the ones deep down the cc list, the ones who may not have the secretarys ear, or the inside scoop on how many almonds the president eats at night. And you are going to need a knowledge of strong encryption if you are going to keep them safe under a regime that has the most sophisticated surveillance capabilities ever imagined, and a president-elect with history of vindictiveness. You might think the worst of access culture is already over in Washington. Weve seen the videos from the White House correspondents dinner. It really isnt. So it will feel strange, this new world. It cuts to your sense of who you are, the proximity to power and the capacity for actual influence that makes up for your shitty paycheck and the trolls all over your timeline, but on balance, it is a more honest place, and it is the only one available. Related: 10 photos that capture dawning reality of a new Trump era 2. Get used to spending more time in court. You are going to need to litigate to get access to information, but you are also going to have to defend, a lot. Some of the attacks will come from proxies suing over your reporting on corruption, conflicts of interest, and general sleaze. We never lost a suit like that during my time in South Africa, and there were plenty, but we burned countless hours and money we really didnt have, both of which would have been better spent on more reporting. In India, where the protections are weaker, obscure activists in country towns launch suits against reporters, editors, and proprietors routinely, seeking immense damages in the overburdened and sometimes compromised provincial courts. Anyone who has worked in an Indian newsroom can describe for you what the words chilling effect really mean. You obviously cant back down in the face of these efforts, but you can use them as crusading opportunities, both spreading the story and popularizing your sense of mission. You should be quite unembarrassed about this. You should probably also think about some kind of pooled legal defence fund for smaller outlets. It will feel strange, this new world. It cuts to your sense of who you are, the proximity to power and the capacity for actual influence that makes up for your shitty paycheck and the trolls all over your timeline, but on balance, it is a more honest place. Much more frightening, of course, are the moments when the proxies step aside, and the full might of the security establishment is brought to bear. Your Espionage Act is a truly terrible piece of legislation. Some kind of elite consensus has spared reporters and editors its full force since 1917, but word is the elite consensus is over. Being fingerprinted for journalism is a very strange experience, you dont want it to become a normal one. Related: Covering Trump: An oral history of an unforgettable campaign 3. Get used to being stigmatized as opposition. Mr Trump was quick out of the blocks on this one with his professional protesters incited by the media tweet. His subsequent attacks on the Times fit a familiar pattern: call out one prominent enemy pour encourager les autres, and let the trolls do the rest. This will escalate. The basic idea is simple: to delegitimize accountability journalism by framing it as partisan. In South Africa linking the press with the opposition was a routine trope, on really bad days ruling party figures would add the CIA or foreign capitalists. A member of parliament once asked me, during hearings on a draconian new intelligence law that the national editors body objected to tell me, are you still South African when you go home at night? Narendra Modi, on the other hand, never names his enemies, but the liberal-leaning NDTV carries the brunt of his ire, with one of its channels recently ordered to go off air for a day as punishment for allegedly compromising security with its coverage of a militant attack. And his ardent social media fans do much of the work for him. Steel yourself and take a look at Barkha Dutts mentions sometime to see the Indian version of Steven Bannons white nationalist horde. Paid media, presstitutes, Lutyens journalists (the equivalent of Beltway insiders) are all routine slurs from Indias ruling party, meant to associate the press with the old, corrupt elite and the opposition Congress Party. The frustrating thing about this approach is that it works quite well, and it is going to work REALLY well in America next year. Why should anyone care about your investigation of the presidents conflicts of interest, or his tax bills, if they emanate from the political opposition? The scariest thing about fake news is that all news becomes fake. Yours too. The challenge is to maintain a tough, independent, journalistic politics, a politics of accountability, equity and the rule of law without straightforwardly aligning with the partisan opposition. In places like Venezuela, where private media have been forced into a purely oppositional stance, the result has been a shrinking of real spaces for dissent and accountability. This is a tough line to walk, because people on both sides of the political divide actually want you to fail at it. But it is among your most important tasks. Related: The goal is not to fear Trump, but for Trump to fear you 4. When they cant regulate you away, they will try to buy you out or suck up your oxygen. Congressional funding for public broadcasting is limited here, as is its audience, so one avenue of media capture is foreclosed. But crony billionaires will be lurking all around the fringes of a distressed industry, happy to tolerate losses in return for a voice. India has hundreds of loss-making TV channels and newspapers. In South Africa, the main English language daily group has been bought out by a presidential crony, and gutted. But you can look closer to home for examples, perhaps to Las Vegas. Some media owners, already ensconced, will tack to the prevailing wind. Gently at first, so you hardly notice it. Completely in the end. And where that doesnt work, the presidents people will start, or boost, their own alternatives, and seek to route around you. Breitbart is just beginning. Organizing journalists is a great deal worse than herding cats. We have egos that are at once giant, and fragile. We like to own the story, all of it. We are rubbish at management. But some among you have these skills. 5. You are going to have to get organized. My sense is that American journalists arent much for formal structures that reach across the profession and represent its interests. The protection of the First Amendment, and your establishment credentials have been enough, by and large. You dont have a press council, or a meaningful editors body, or strong unions. In the new world, journalism Twitter isnt going to be an adequate safeguard. You need to band together around positive principlesindependence, accountability, ethical standards, and the defence of your rights, which must be fought for both in the broad constitutional brushstrokes and the narrow detail of regulation and practice. Judging by the recent barrage of anti-semitic and racist threats to journalists, you will also need to address both the climate of hate and specific concerns around safety. Organizing journalists is a great deal worse than herding cats. We have egos that are at once giant, and fragile. We like to own the story, all of it. We are rubbish at management. But some among you have these skills. Get it together to push them forward. Also, find some allies outside of your usual circles. In South Africa, for example, our campaigns for freedom of information were vastly more credible when they were undertaken in partnership with organizations with their roots poor communities who could speak to the importance of transparency in ensuring access to clean water, safe streets, and healthcare. Im sorry to lecture. But I am worried. We all are. In the countries where Ive spent my working life, the press still matters, but there is less of it, and the whole accountability ecosystem has become unbalanced. For all its real and urgent problems, US journalism is still the City on a Hill. The fading of its light will be disastrous not just for Americans, but for all of us. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Nic Dawes is the former editor in chief of South Africas Mail & Guardian and was until recently Chief Content Officer at Indias Hindustan Times. He now heads media at Human Rights Watch in New York. A white Chevy Suburban with Railroad Commission of Texas emblazoned on its side rolled north on Interstate 35. Behind the wheel sat Milton Rister, the commissions director. Trim and balding, Rister was a veteran political operator who had held influential positions in the Texas Republican Party for decades. He could smell political disaster from miles away and this one reeked. As he neared the town of Azle, northwest of Dallas, Rister said to himself: Please let there be only 50 people there. For weeks, telephones at commission headquarters in Austin had been ringing about earthquakes hitting Azle, which had never felt a quake before. Suddenly, ground was shaking under hayfields and homes, rattling windows, knocking pictures off shelves, and sending frightened children into their parents beds at night. One woman said her hens had quit laying eggs. With more than 20 tremors in two months, locals wanted to know: were oil and gas operations causing this? What was the states energy regulator, the inaptly named Railroad Commission, going to do about it? As the Suburban pulled in front of Azle High School, Rister surveyed the scene with dread. He had arrived an hour early for a public meeting on the quakes, but cars already filled the parking lot. A line of news trucks pointed their satellite dishes skyward. Not good, Rister thought. His agency had no answers for the nearly 900 people packing the auditorium. After an hour and a half of hostile questions, the sole railroad commissioner present disappeared down a back hallway. In damage-control mode, Rister stood before reporters. Obviously these folks have experienced traumatic events, and we recognize that, Rister, then 62, said in his mild Central Texas accent. Were going to go back and take what we learned tonight from these people, work with the experts that are doing studies, and see if we can come up with the next step. In the end, thats not what happened. The meeting in Azle, on Jan. 2, 2014, pitched the Railroad Commission into a political crisis that would intensify over the next two years as more earthquakes rumbled across North Texas. Top scientists, meanwhile, piled up evidence that the quakes were triggered by a byproduct of oil and gas production. Wildcatters had discovered they could pump millions of gallons of chemically treated water and sand into natural gas wells at extreme pressure to fracture rock and let gas escape. They combined that technique fracking with other technological advances to turn the U.S. into one of the worlds top energy producers. But the process also produced toxic wastewater that was hard to get rid of, especially without threatening drinking-water supplies. So drillers opened wells in pastures across the countryside to bury the byproduct thousands of feet underground. It was no coincidence, academic experts said, that the shaking occurred as wastewater disposal in North Texas soared from a few hundred thousand barrels in 2005 to more than 200 million barrels a year by 2013. Some experts have estimated that most of this fluid was from the fracking process itself. The federal government weighed in, finding that earthquake rates had spiked in a half-dozen energy producing states including Texas and that those earthquakes were primarily man-made. But even today, the Railroad Commission has yet to publicly accept that finding as more than a possibility. The commission, while calling for sound science, has disregarded, downplayed and at times disparaged the scientists work. Historically, the three elected commissioners have moved in step with oil and gas companies. Industry contributions fill their campaign war chests and industry operations fund most of their agencys budget. The commissioner who has shaped much of the agencys response to the earthquakes is Ryan Sitton, an energy executive with political ambitions. He has collected more than $700,000 in campaign contributions since taking office in 2015, mostly from executives of oil and gas companies. One of them lent Sitton his private jet. In one instance, Sitton accepted $20,000 from the CEO of a company just as commissioners weighed whether to hold it responsible for North Texas quakes. The notion that those dollars would influence me to do anything other than what I thought was the right thing to do is somewhat preposterous, Sitton said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. As for the link between quakes and disposal wells in Texas, he said, Unfortunately in the world of science and research, we very rarely have things that we consider to be conclusive. So far, he added, theres been a large amount of assumptions, simplistic analysis and hypothesis in place of real data. The commission says it has addressed the possibility of future earthquakes by imposing new regulations on disposal wells in quake-prone areas. And the agencys staff has negotiated with companies to curb the volume of wastewater at certain wells, and reduce the depth of two others. For most of his adult life, Brian Stump had studied the shaking created by underground explosions. From his office at Southern Methodist University, he used a global array of seismometers to monitor nuclear tests like those set off by North Korea. When tremors first started troubling North Texas in 2008, he began to investigate. Hed grown up in California and was used to feeling the earth shake. But not in Texas. Scientists had known for decades that pumping fluid deep into the earth could disturb geologic faults. Stump and other researchers began collecting data that linked two clusters of quakes in North Texas to disposal wells nearby. In both cases, the operator shut the wells down. After Azle, Stump, then 62, began putting together a team to study those quakes. Among the SMU faculty he sought help from was Heather DeShon, 36, a seismologist who had been fascinated by earthquakes and volcanoes since childhood and had studied them in the U.S., Costa Rica, Indonesia and with the help of a satellite even on Venus. Another team member was Matt Hornbach, a 38-year-old geophysicist who grew up around Dallas. Specializing in how fluids and heat move through the earth, Hornbach spent months at a time at sea studying pressure changes beneath the ocean floor. They wanted this study to be different. Until then, quakes in Texas had been linked to disposal wells mainly by proximity and timing. This time, the SMU team also wanted to understand how much pressure was building underground near the bottom of the disposal wells and in the surrounding rock. Was it enough to trigger movement along a fault? Post Azle, Rister and the commissioners decided they needed to hire a seismologist. They settled on Craig Pearson, a 55-year-old from West Texas who had worked for Halliburton, a drilling company. Pearson also had ties to the SMU scientists. He had earned a doctorate at the university under Stump and the pair had done seismic research together. The commission touted Pearsons hiring as evidence that it would embrace science. He explained to legislators how underground pressure from disposal wells can cause faults to slip. But he stopped short of conceding that had ever happened in Texas. He helped create new rules allowing the commission to shut down wells suspected of causing earthquakes though it has not permanently closed any wells. Inside his office at SMU, Hornbach considered the forces that could disturb a fault. Natural earthquakes were unlikely given the Azle area had never felt them before. But to understand the pressure changes caused by the disposal wells, Hornbach needed data from energy companies. How much wastewater were they injecting? How fast? At what pressure? Railroad Commission regulations require companies to release only the barest information about their disposal activities and only once a year. Hornbach and his colleagues zeroed in on two wastewater wells closest to the epicenters of the Azle quakes. One was operated by EnerVest and the other by XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil. XTO started providing data, sharing daily injection pressures and volumes and helping the scientists map the fault that had shifted beneath Azle. Sitting at his computer, Hornbach could watch his model come to life on screen. He clicked his mouse on a birds eye view of the two wastewater wells. A small red dot a point of high pressure appeared below the XTO well. As time passed, the dot grew and spread out like a drop of water on a napkin. Soon, a second dot appeared below the EnerVest well. Finally, before the quakes started in November 2013, the two dots merged into a giant crimson blob. Hornbach ran the model dozens of different ways and found that, in every case, pressure built to a high point soon before earthquakes first struck Azle. Based on previous studies, he knew the pressure change was great enough to activate a fault. The model bolstered the conclusion that oil and gas activity had most likely triggered the quakes. Hornbach, DeShon, Stump and eight other researchers at three institutions SMU, the University of Texas and the U.S. Geological Survey submitted their study to a journal, Nature Communications. If the paper survived a peer review by independent experts, it would be published. But Hornbach didnt foresee the pushback that would come from the Railroad Commission and its newly elected member, Sitton. At 39, Sitton had short blond hair, a photogenic smile and an air of unlimited self-confidence. Hed worked in energy since earning an engineering degree in 1998 from Texas A&M. In 2006, he and his wife had started PinnacleAIS, a company that helped refineries ensure that pumps, tanks and other equipment stayed reliable. After an unsuccessful bid for the statehouse, Sitton jump-started his Railroad Commission campaign by lending it $1 million. Then he began repaying himself with contributions from oil and gas executives. This included $10,000 from EnerVests CEO and equally handsome sums from a long list of others. During his campaign, he told a reporter he hadnt seen any research to suggest disposal wells were related to earthquakes. When you consider the volume of earth that is affected in a disposal well and in a frack job and the pressures that we are talking about, Sitton said, it seems highly unlikely that those are having a direct impact on seismic activity. On Jan. 6, 2015, the day after Sitton was sworn in, a magnitude 3.5 earthquake struck North Texas. This time, buildings in downtown Dallas trembled, startling a city that had never felt a quake. The quake was followed four hours later by another, slightly stronger one and then several smaller tremors. Hundreds of residents later packed Irving City Hall for a meeting about the quakes. Members of the SMU team said it was too early to know what caused them _ the nearest disposal well appeared to be about 10 miles away. Still, previous studies showed wells could trigger tremors from such large distances. The Railroad Commissions new seismologist, however, said he had an answer: The evidence points to no injection well being a likely cause of these earthquakes, Pearson told the crowd, while acknowledging he did not conduct research like the SMU scientists. On April 21, 2015, the Oklahoma Geological Survey acknowledged that a surge in earthquakes in that state was probably tied to the proliferation of disposal wells. At 10 a.m. that same day, Nature Communications released the scientists paper concluding that energy activity had most likely caused the quakes in Azle. A media strategist for the oil and gas lobby had already begun emailing reporters. Before noon, he posted a column on a website sponsored by the Independent Petroleum Association of America. Railroad Commission officials were far from admitting that disposal wells in Texas were causing quakes. But with the Nature Communications paper out, they knew they had to do something. Inside a conference room at commission headquarters, Rister huddled with several top staffers to figure out the next step. By the end of the day, two commissioners Christi Craddick and David Porter had agreed to call formal show cause hearings. The oil companies operating disposal wells near Azle XTO and EnerVest would be summoned to testify about why their wells shouldnt be shut down. Commissioner Sitton didnt believe these hearings were necessary. He wanted instead to hold a less formal meeting at which the companies and the scientists could discuss the findings. Though it was two against one, Sitton decided to move forward with the informal meeting on his own. So the divided agency set in motion both his meeting and the show-cause hearings. On a Friday morning in early June 2015, the SMU scientists walked two blocks from a Hampton Inn to the government high-rise where the Railroad Commission has its headquarters to attend Sittons less formal gathering. Inside a meeting room on the 12th Floor, they took seats along a wooden conference table. Seated around them were Sitton, three EnerVest executives and others. After asking everyone to introduce themselves, Sitton opened the conversation with an acknowledgement that fluid disposal was known to have triggered quakes decades ago in Colorado. He said the meeting was part of his effort to make sure anything that we do here is going to be based on good, sound science. SMUs DeShon, one of the papers lead authors, began clicking through PowerPoint slides. The presentation featured seven questions to ask in determining whether earthquakes were man-made. Had there been quakes in the area before? (No.) Is there a clear correlation between injection and seismicity? (Yes.) Are pressure changes at well bottoms enough to encourage seismicity? (Yes.) And so forth. One disagreement quickly emerged. Hill and EnerVest argued that the initial quakes in Azle occurred far deeper underground than the injection wells reached. To them, that showed the wells werent to blame. The papers authors had heard this argument before. But EnerVests analysis had not been peer-reviewed, which to the SMU researchers meant it was unvetted. And in any case, they knew that scientists elsewhere had shown that pressure could migrate deep below a well, possibly through faults and fissures. Much of the four-hour discussion was cordial but tense. The papers authors had hoped to discuss how best to address the quakes, which might involve decreasing certain wells wastewater volumes. Instead, the talks were mired in debate over the quakes cause. EnerVest, meanwhile, had much at stake. Its only injection well in North Texas faced the threat of a shut-down. Trucking all that wastewater elsewhere would cost between $2,100 and $4,200 a day, the company estimated. At one point in the meeting Hornbach and an EnerVest executive began talking over one another about pressure measurements. Pearson, the commissions seismologist, broke it up. Im going to step in here and say this is enough, he said. The meeting soon ended, with each camp pledging future collaboration. Before leaving, Pearson spoke to a reporter, saying he disagreed with the scientists. I have not reached the conclusion that oil and gas activity is the causal factor, he said. Pearson said he planned to respond in detail in a letter to Nature Communications. He never did. Rister decided it was time to make a deal. The Railroad Commission did not want to look like it was doing nothing, and the companies didnt want to shut down disposal wells important to their business. Nor did they want to become vulnerable to lawsuits from homeowners blaming them for foundation cracks and other quake damage. Together they came up with a plan, Rister says. Without admitting fault, but out of an abundance of caution, the companies would cut their disposal volumes by half. By this time, XTO, which owned the highest-volume well, had already reduced its injection anyway because it was handling less wastewater, according to the company. The quakes in Azle had subsided. Over time, if the earth stayed quiet, the companies could slowly turn the volumes back up, under the proposed deal. After several meetings with XTO and EnerVest lawyers, Rister took the idea to his bosses who quickly vetoed it. Rister called his contacts at the oil companies: Looks like youre going to the formal show-cause hearing. Get ready. The Railroad Commissions hearing room in Austin is laid out like a courtroom. Two de facto judges commission hearing examiners dressed in dark suits, sit in high-backed leather chairs behind a long, wood-paneled desk. A commission seal hangs on the wall behind them. Across from them is a long table for the lawyers. On June 10, 2015, it was lined with XTO lawyers and their oil-executive witnesses. The table was filled with legal pads and presentations and accordion folders full of exhibits. At the tables far end sat a lone lawyer for the commission. If this were a criminal trial, he would be the prosecutor. He sat by himself, with no witnesses and only one exhibit the wells permit file. He passed up the opportunity to make an opening statement. Pearson says he wasnt invited. The Azle study authors received a hearing notice but didnt feel it was their role to get involved in a regulatory agencys legal proceedings. They believed their paper stood on its own. So one of XTOs lawyers began. He spent 10 minutes previewing his arguments, giving a summary of the dozens of slides, exhibits and witness testimonials coming during the next seven hours. At one point the lawyer called a company executive to address the scientists paper in Nature Communications. After sharing a laugh, they began, lawyer and oil executive, tearing the paper apart point by point. In an email to The News recently, an XTO spokeswoman said the company continues to believe the scientists Azle paper was flawed and that regulatory permitting decisions should be based on science and not on a study that hypothesizes causation with a high degree of uncertainty. Commissioner Craddick, in an emailed statement, defended the process and cited the commissions rules on disposal wells as evidence the agency is working to keep our citizens and resources safe. Reflecting on the events, SMUs Stump said the Railroad Commission and the oil companies set a high bar for linking the earthquakes to disposal wells. The fluids went down Hillcrest and took a right on Lovers Lane and that the pressures arrived at 12:07 on this part of the fault were never going to be able to do that, he said. After heated disagreements with his bosses, Rister retired as the commissions director. One of his big disappointments, he says, is that the episode that began in Azle ended without anybody looking like we cared about the public. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Wild animals in private hands are frequently subjected to grossly substandard conditions, including the lack of basic necessities and companionship of their own species. Photo by Kathy Milani/The HSUS 205 shares Earlier this month, a woman on the run from authorities in Texas fled to Nevada with her collection of tigers, monkeys, a fox, and a skunk and her 14-year-old daughter who was living under the same roof as the wild animals. A California couple, whose escaped pet tiger prowled neighborhoods for weeks before finally being shot and killed by authorities, quickly moved with the rest of their big cats to the Silver State, where they were found living in filthy conditions. State and local Nevada agencies investigated and confiscated the animals from the former Texas and California residents. Investigative reporter Darcy Spears with KTNV has been on top of these issues with her reporting. There was a good reason why, in both these cases, the individuals headed for Nevada: its one of only five states (the others are Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin) with no statewide laws restricting private possession of dangerous wild animals. In Nevada, its the Wild West when it comes to exotic pet ownership. Its just common sense not to let private citizens have tigers and chimps and other powerful animals. Captive, dangerous wild animals require substantial space, knowledgeable and experienced handlers, escape-proof housing, and specialized and costly care during life spans that can stretch decades. Keeping exotic animals in substandard environments not only poses a public safety risk, it places animals in miserable living spaces for years. Private citizens simply dont have the expertise and resources needed to house and care for the complex social and physical needs of animals like tigers, lions, chimpanzees, and alligators. Even when born in captivity and hand-raised, wild animals retain their predatory instincts. They can (and do) injure and kill people, as evidenced by hundreds of incidents in the United States in the last two decades alone, and take every opportunity to escape. Every day, law enforcement personnel and other first responders are put in harms way, when forced to face something as extraordinary as an escaped tiger or chimpanzee. And ultimately, taxpayers, as well as the sanctuary community, are footing the bill to deal with the problems that inevitably arise. In Zanesville, Ohio, in October 2011, a man set loose his menagerie of tigers, lions, bears, macaque monkeys, and wolves, and then shot himself, leaving it up to police officers armed with little more than shotguns to take down close to 50 large, swift, and deadly predators. Few of us can shake the memory of the Connecticut woman, Charla Nash, who lost her face and hands in a chimpanzee attack. After the Zanesville incident, Ohio passed a tough and highly successful law that restricts the private possession of dangerous animals. Connecticut, which already had a law banning the possession of most wild animals except primates, added primates to the list after the Charla Nash incident. Ohio should have enacted a similar law years before; its a shame it took a tragedy like the Zanesville incident to trigger action. Nevada has plenty of reasons not to wait for more tragedy to befall the state. In July 2012, two chimpanzees escaped from a backyard cage in a residential Las Vegas neighborhood after a male chimpanzee ripped the cage from the concrete and broke through a padlocked gate. The chimpanzees ran amok, climbed into cars, pounded on vehicles, and banged on windows of homes before one was shot and killed by police when he darted toward a crowd of onlookers. Nevada residents support regulating possession of dangerous wild animals. In 2013, a statewide survey conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research found that Nevada voters, by more than a three-to-one margin, strongly supported legislation to prohibit private citizens from acquiring exotic and dangerous wild animals, such as lions, tigers, bears, primates, wolves and crocodiles. Last year, we succeeded in getting an ordinance passed in Clark Countywith nearly one million residentswhere commissioners voted unanimously to ban future private possession of tigers, bears, and chimpanzees. The HSUS is now working with lawmakers to introduce a bill at the next state legislative session that would close the gaps in the rest of the state and ban the possession of dangerous animals as pets. The federal government should also act to protect animal welfare and public safety and to promote the conservation of endangered species by enacting the Big Cat Public Safety Act that would prohibit unqualified individuals from possessing and breeding big cats, bolster weak state laws, and fill any gaps in state oversight. It is time for Nevada to stop dragging its feet on a common sense law that will ensure that only knowledgeable and experienced facilities with the necessary resources to provide superior, safe, and long-term care are allowed to possess wild, unpredictable, and especially dangerous animals. Until the state takes action, it will continue to be a haven and a magnet for people with no business having these animals. Thats a prescription for more suffering human and animal alike. AKRON, Ohio - Akron Community Foundation's Bath Community Fund and Gay Community Endowment Fund recently awarded 22 grants for area nonprofit organizations and programs - totaling more than $57,000. Bath Community Fund The Bath Community Fund awarded $14,500 in grants to five nonprofit organizations serving Bath Township. The fund, which was created in 2014 by a group of committed Bath residents, is a permanent endowment dedicated to strengthening the Bath community for current and future generations by providing leadership, fostering collaboration and creating a legacy of charitable giving. Grants awarded by the Bath Community Fund, include: Bath Township, to support the second phase of the Heritage Corridors of Bath Wayside Exhibit, which will complete the trail that leads visitors around the picturesque property and add landscaping with native flowers and wildflower beds, $500 Bath Township Community Development Corporation Inc., for the construction of an additional restroom near the Regal Beagle at the Bath Nature Preserve, $5,000 Crown Point Ecology Center, to build an environmentally friendly cob oven out of mud, sand, water and straw that will be used for workshops and events, $5,000 Victory Gallop Inc., to support the 2017 horse shows, where children with special needs and life-threatening illnesses can demonstrate their riding skills, receive recognition for their accomplishments, and practice good sportsmanship, $1,000 Western Reserve Playhouse, to upgrade the historic facility's air conditioning system and provide a comfortable atmosphere for patrons, $3,000 Gay Community Endowment Fund Akron Community Foundation's Gay Community Endowment Fund awarded 17 grants totaling $42,850 for programs that positively impact the local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Several grants were awarded to programs that support LGBT youth, including a $5,000 grant to Community AIDS Network/Akron Pride Initiative to address the epidemic of LGBT youth homelessness in Greater Akron. The grant will provide security deposits and essential household supplies to emancipated LGBTQ youth and young adults ages 18-24 who do not have stable housing. Once housing has been secured, program staff will help these young adults identify any potential barriers to maintaining permanent housing and connect them with related community resources. "LGBTQ individuals face social stigma, discrimination and often rejection by their families, which adds to the physical and mental strains with which all homeless persons struggle," said Rebecca Callahan, executive director of the Community AIDS Network/Akron Pride Initiative. "They are also often at a heightened risk of violence, abuse and exploitation, including human trafficking, compared with their heterosexual peers. This program will address these challenges, elevating the overall health of Summit County's LGBT communities." Grants awarded by the Gay Community Endowment Fund, include: LORAIN, Ohio -- A Lorain woman faces felonious assault and other charges after she stabbed her boyfriend and later lied to investigators, according to a police report. Caroline Raider, 45, told police that an unidentified man stabbed her boyfriend about 11 p.m. Saturday in a West 11th Street home. Police later learned that Raider stabbed the man, a police report says. She also faces charges of domestic violence and obstructing official business. The man was treated at the scene and his injuries were not considered life threatening. Raider's boyfriend didn't cooperate with investigators, and she was arrested based on other evidence police found at the scene, according to police reports. Police found evidence of a fight. Items were knocked off the shelves and end tables. Police also found a ceramic bowl that was broken into several pieces. Raider told police that shortly after 11 p.m. they heard their dog barking outside. When the victim went to look out the back door, he was stabbed by an unknown man who ran away. When police asked the victim to describe the man, he said the man was wearing a winter hat. He indicated he had nothing more to say and would not cooperate with police, police said. Officers went through the home to make sure the suspect wasn't hiding somewhere inside. Police said there was blood on the hallway floor, on towels, and on a shirt. Investigators recovered a bloody knife that looked like someone tried to clean it, according to police reports. All of the bloody items were taken into evidence. Raider is scheduled for a preliminary hearing at 1:05 p.m. Nov. 30 in Lorain Municipal Court Judge Mark Mihok's courtroom. She posted bond Tuesday, according to the Lorain County Sheriff's Office. To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments section. 22DARCY-SESSIONS1.jpg Donald Trump has chosen Jeff Sessions to be attorney general, despite Congress in 1986 refusing to confirm him as a federal judge over allegations of racism. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- President-elect Donald Trump has said repeatedly he wants to unite the country. After vowing to be the president for all Americans, Trump as thrown white nationalists another bone by nominating Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General. In 1986, a Republican-led Senate voted not to confirm Sessions, then a U.S. attorney, for a federal judgeship after allegations of racism were made by fellow U.S. attorneys working in the Department of Justice. Here are some of the allegations made against Sessions in the 1986 confirmation hearings: Sessions allegedly used the n-word. He also called a black U.S. attorney 'boy' and had admonished him to "be careful what you say to white folks." Sessions once said he thought the KKK were OK until he found out they smoked marijuana. While working on civil rights cases in Alabama, in a fit of anger, Sessions said he wished he could just throw away all the civil rights cases. According to two attorneys, Sessions said the NAACP was "un-American", "Communist inspired" and "teaching anti-American values." With Sessions as attorney general, the DOJ civil rights division might as well take the next four years off. Sessions called the 1965 Voting Rights Act a "piece of intrusive legislation." He more often pursued voter fraud allegations than voter suppression cases. Sessions not only opposes a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, he also opposes legal immigration in its current form. Yet he has opposed every immigration reform plan proposed. He opposes the bipartisan federal criminal-justice reform effort. He supports more mandatory-minimum sentencing and even harsher sentences for low-level drug offenders. Sessions was one of the first members of Congress to support Trump. He's advised Trump on just about every major policy issue. Sessions speech writer began writing speeches for Trump. Trump's penchant for rewarding loyalty, Sessions early support and positions on immigration, are three main reasons he was named attorney general. But there are far too many reasons why Trump should have chosen someone else. Chris Christie would have been a better choice. At his worst, Christie blocks a bridge. Sessions blocks civil rights enforcement and justice. Even Rudy Giuliani would have been a better choice than Sessions. The attorney general works for the people of the United States, not the president. There can be little confidence that Sessions will enforce the civil rights laws of this country. There is equally little confidence he will police conflicts of interests involving Trump's business or that of his children. The Republican-led Senate was right not to confirm Sessions for a judgeship in 1986. For the same reasons, the Senate should not confirm Sessions as the nation's chief law enforcement official now. trichospitality.jpg A scholarships fundraising dinner, prepared by chefs who graduated from Tri-C, will be held in December at the school. (Cuyahoga Community College) CLEVELAND, Ohio - Chefs who graduated from Cuyahoga Community College's Hospitality Management Center will prepare a five-course dinner at the center to raise money for student scholarships. The Winter Festavous will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8. The gathering includes cocktails, hors d'oeuvres and dinner. Each course includes a beer or wine pairing. Tri-C students will host the event and assist the alumni chefs. The chefs are Reggie Bathurst of 56 Kitchen in Solon, Haksoon Kim of SASA from Cleveland's Shaker Square, Jennifer Horvath of Toast from Cleveland's Gordon Square, Chris Kafcak and Kyle Nagy of Deagan's Kitchen & Bar in Lakewood and Stephanie Robles of Cake Royale at Cleveland's West Side Market. "This is an incredible collection of culinary talent with shared Tri-C roots," Ky-Wai Wong, an assistant professor who teaches the banquet class, said in a statement. "Their return to the school gives our students the chance to work with some of Cleveland's top chefs." Tickets are $40 and can be purchased at winterfestavous.eventbrite.com. Proceeds will go to Tri-C's Hospitality Management Club, which offers scholarships and provides funds for student events. Tri-C's Hospitality Management Center is located at 180 Euclid Ave. on Cleveland's Public Square. Renaissance Cleveland Hotel could be sold The American Judges Association will hold its 2017 annual conference at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel Sept. 11-15. (Lonnie Timmons III / The Plain Dealer) CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The American Judges Association is expected hold its 2017 annual conference in Cleveland next year, and bail reform -- something courts in Cuyahoga County are considering -- is a potential theme. As many as 200 North American judges are scheduled to gather at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel from Sept. 11 to 15 for workshops, speeches and networking. The association, which holds conferences in locations from Hawaii to Toronto, chose Cleveland because the association has a strong membership base from Ohio, association spokeswoman Shelley Rockwell said. Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Joseph J. Zone, who serves on the association's board of governors, and other local judges also lobbied for the conference. Rockwell said court fines, fees and bail practices are a likely theme for the event, a national topic of discussion. Cleveland.com has spent the past year writing about bail reform as part of a series, Impact 2016: Justice For All. Justice For All: The personal stories of people who couldn't afford bail MarketJosh.jpg Cleveland's historic West Side Market has offered its patrons free parking for years. That will change after the city hires an outside contractor to manage the newly renovated lot that serves the patrons of the Ohio City business district. (Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com) CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland City Council on Monday authorized the administration to hire a contractor to manage and maintain the parking lot behind the city's historic West Side Market. The three-year contract would include basic maintenance, such as re-striping and snow-removal, and 24-hour security and service for patrons of all Ohio City businesses who use the lot, Public Works Director Michael Cox told members of Council's Finance Committee Monday. Paid parking also is in the lot's future - a long-held point of contention with market vendors, who say requiring shoppers to pay to park will deter them from visiting the market at all. Cox said the cost of parking is yet to be determined, but city officials have met several times with business owners and market tenants to discuss possible rates. Most likely, patrons will get one hour of free parking then will have to pay $1 or $2 for every subsequent hour, up to a $10 maximum, Cox said. The ordinance comes after months of construction at the lot, which created an additional 128 parking spaces but left market vendors angry over what they say was a loss of revenue during construction. Councilman Michael Polensek said at a committee meeting last week that vendors have circulated a petition demanding that the city reduce their rent to compensate for their losses. He expressed concern over the market's future well-being. "With this 100-year-old institution, we've got to be careful that we take [vendors'] concerns seriously," Polensek said. "We need a viable market and quality merchants. We can't make it more miserable for them than they already are." Vendors have wrangled with the city on the parking issue numerous times in recent years. Members of the United West Side Market Tenants Association said in 2014 that they were fed up with employees and patrons of nearby businesses parking in the lot that market vendors paid thousands of dollars each month to maintain under a lease agreement. Earlier, the vendors had passed out flyers warning those entering the lot that their cars would be towed if they exceeded a two-hour limit. But the city told the vendors that they did not have the authority to tow vehicles. City officials have maintained that charging customers would increase turnover in the lot, solving many of the parking problems in the popular and growing neighborhood. In a conversation after a recent council committee meeting, Cox noted that, although the city cares about the market vendors, their lease on the lot expired in 2014, which means they can stake no claim to the exclusive use of the lot. Hateful attitudes toward wolves should be overcome by clear-headed thinking about the role they play in ecology and also their value in rural communities. Photo by Alamy 1.8K shares Nobody eats wolves. If youre a meat eater, its one thing to hunt deer or some other wild animals and consume them. Its another matter to go on a head-hunting exercise, or just kill for the thrill of it. In the lame-duck session of Congress, there is a big move afoot to eliminate federal protections for wolves in four states that, for the most part, have a terrible record of caring for their small populations of that species. If Congress subverts the federal courts, and selectively removes wolves from the list of threatened and endangered species in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, it will only serve to enable people to kill wolves for no good reason. U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., recently came out with a statement urging Congress to strip federal protections for wolves, even though a series of federal judges have said that theres no legitimate legal or scientific basis for delisting. Advocates of wolf killing have appealed the latest ruling affirming the need for federal protection, so an end-around the courts amounts to a subversion of judicial review. If federal lawmakers go down this road, where does it end? To score political points with a favored constituency, or to try to neutralize or win over a problematic constituency, lawmakers will start removing species from the ark willy-nilly. It sets an awful precedent, and Sen. Baldwin should know better. She would do well to recall the words in fact, all of us would do well to recall them of another Wisconsinite about our relationship with wolves. In his essay, Thinking Like a Mountain, part of A Sand County Almanac, naturalist and hunter Aldo Leopold recalled a hunting experience in which his party killed a she-wolf at a time when almost all conservationists believed that the killing of predators was necessary. We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes, Leopold wrote. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes something known only to her and to the mountain. Hateful attitudes toward wolves should be overcome by clear-headed thinking about the role they play in ecology and also their value in rural communities. People trek to wolf-inhabited forests precisely because these animals are there, boosting tourism-related commerce. Wolves also limit deer and moose populations, depressing crop depredation, and shrinking the number of collisions between these animals and cars. Wolves kill weak, sick, and older deer and moose, beavers, and other animals, making the herds healthier, which has a broad, balancing, and beneficial impact on ecosystems. Wolves are a bulwark against the spread of chronic wasting disease, because they kill deer and other hooved animals that show the symptoms of the brain-wasting prion. A maneuver to delist wolves is a bit of a cover-up and a bait-and-switch for poor oversight over domesticated dogs and farm animals. Ive run across countless examples, from Wisconsin, Michigan, and other states, where wolves take the blame when a farmer doesnt provide proper use of non-lethal controls or shows off poor animal husbandry that puts cattle or sheep at risk. Wolves often get the blame for animals they didnt kill too, because no agency bothers to verify livestock losses that farmers and ranchers claim. An overwhelming majority of Americans 90 percent according to a June 2015 poll support the Endangered Species Act, and it is the most important law our nation has ever passed to protect species at risk of extinction. Michigan voters took up two wolf hunting referendums in 2014 the only state to have popular votes on the issue and voters rejected wolf hunting and trapping in landslide votes. Last year, more than 50 world-renowned wildlife biologists and scientists, many of whom have devoted their entire professional careers toward understanding the social and biological issues surrounding wolves in North America, sent a letter to Congress urging members to oppose any efforts to strip federal protections for wolves in the contiguous 48 states. If Congress were to take this adverse action, according to these scientists, it would upend two recent federal court rulings, which criticized the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for distorting the plain meaning of the standards of the ESA and admonished several state wildlife agencies for conducting overreaching and dangerous trophy-hunting and trapping programs upon federal delisting. Sen. Baldwin, please reconsider your ill-advised recommendation to Congress to delist wolves and subject them not only to trophy hunting, but to being ensnared by steel-jawed leghold traps and being chased and savaged by packs of dogs. This is trophy hunting and trapping masquerading as wildlife management. Its most definitely not proper stewardship of Gods creatures. And its not decent or humane. Let Sen. Baldwin know youre unhappy with her stance by calling her at 202-224-5653, and please contact your members of Congress at 202-224-3121 and ask them to oppose this plan. Rapid riders adjust to changes Track repairs require use of new entrance While it replaced Track 8 in Tower City, RTA rerouted passengers to Track 7 - an unused track with an alternate platform and access route. (Lynn Ischay / The Plain Dealer) CLEVELAND, Ohio - Since July 31, westbound RTA passengers have been rerouted through Tower City to get on the train. Starting Monday, that will no longer be the case. The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority is nearing completion of its work on Tower City's westbound track - referred to as Track 8 - and will be returning westbound service to it starting Monday. Riders no longer will have to use the temporary platform that accesses Track 7, which carried westbound traffic during the construction period, and instead will be able to head west of the city from the Tower City Rotunda. "I think that the temporary station we built has been working masterfully. We never anticipated having to use that station for the World Series and major, major events that we have had, but it has worked," RTA CEO Joe Calabrese said. RTA this week has been running test trains and making final adjustments to the new Track 8. "There's a very high level of confidence that everything will be fine," Calabrese said. In opening up Track 7, which is hidden behind a concrete wall at the Tower City station, RTA was able to continue operating the busy Tower City hub without a reduction in service. And RTA will be able to use Track 7 again when it gets funding to fix the other tracks in need of repair - Tracks 10 and 13. RTA is in the design phase for Tracks 10 (the middle track) and 13 (the Eastbound track). But when those additional repairs at the system's central transit hub occur will be a matter of funding. Calabrese said those projects aren't in the budget in 2017 or 2018 but said RTA will try to secure grant funding. "We'll hunt for money, and hopefully get that done as soon as possible," Calabrese said. To prepare Track 7, RTA refurbished the tracks at both ends of Tower City, set up accessible platforms and ticketing stations and completed work on the pedestrian access route to the tracks. The entire project - for repairs on both sets of tracks and for platform construction - cost about $8 million. To thank riders for dealing with the inconvenience of using the temporary platform, RTA will be giving out free Chick-fil-A sandwiches in the Tower City Rotunda starting at 6:30 a.m. Monday. "We're thanking our customers for their patronage," said Linda Krecic, RTA spokeswoman. "We appreciated their patience while we rebuilt Track 8." Rerouting riders to Track 7, which is located between Darrio Fashion Group and Victoria's Secret on the Public Square level, was certainly not without problems for RTA. As soon as the temporary platform opened this summer, its elevator was plagued with issues - often out of service and subject to a number of repairs - and passengers unable to climb the stairs had to use other RTA stations to get off the train or take Eastbound trains back to Tower City. During the World Series, passengers reported waiting more than an hour to get on a train after Game 1, which was held on the same night as the Cavs home opener. While RTA was transporting people as fast as they could - a maximum of 7,000 to 10,000 people per hour - on the rail lines, part of the problem was confusion about where there were delays. Passengers waiting for the better-flowing Blue and Green Lines were caught in the same bottleneck in the walkway as those waiting for the Red line, which was at capacity. North Royalton Schools Offices 1.JPG North Royalton school officials will decide what course to take after its proposed tax increase failed on the Nov. 8 ballot. (Bob Sandrick, special to cleveland.com) NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio - The North Royalton City Schools - after seeing its fifth straight property-tax-increase proposal fail at the polls two weeks ago - has not yet decided how to pay for badly needed building improvements. On Nov. 8, voters defeated a combined bond issue-levy that would have raised $88 million for a new elementary school, a new North Royalton High School wing and a North Royalton Middle School renovation. The school board will discuss the election results, and what steps to take next, at its Dec. 8 and Dec. 12 meetings. Schools Superintendent Greg Gurka said the district will analyze election results once the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections releases information on voter demographics. "What I know is our needs are not getting any better, they are getting worse," Gurka said. "And the building needs must be addressed, either by bond issues or current operating dollars, and that would affect our programs and services." Of the 10 school districts that placed tax increases on the Nov. 8 ballot, North Royalton's was the only one that failed. Property-tax increases were approved in the Bay Village, Berea, Cleveland Heights-University Heights, Euclid, Fairview Park, Mayfield, Olmsted Falls, Polaris Joint Vocational and Westlake school districts. According to unofficial results from the elections board, the North Royalton schools' tax failed 9,855 to 8,685, or 53 percent to 47 percent. Parts of Broadview Heights are in the North Royalton school district. The new tax would have added a maximum of $18.08 a month to the property tax bill of a resident with a $200,000 home. Now, that resident pays $212.50 a month, or $2,550 a year, in property taxes to the district, according to school officials. Previously, voters defeated bond issues and-or operating levies for the North Royalton schools in November 2014, November 2013, May 2014 and November 2012. Gurka was certain it would be different this time. Previous bond issues would have paid only for building repairs. This latest one would take the future of education, and buildings needed to provide that education, into account. And that's the direction residents wanted, according to a lengthy research process that began in February 2015 - three months after the November 2014 bond-issue defeat - with the formation of a Community Engagement Task Force, consisting of community members. Gurka said the committee worked with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission to weigh whether the district should renovate existing schools or build new ones. The answer was build new, Gurka said. Under the district's plan, unveiled in September, the district would close Valley Vista, Royal View and Albion elementary schools and replace them with one state-of-the-art elementary school on 23 district-owned acres at the southwest corner of State Road and Valley Parkway. Also, the district would build a new high school wing, about half the size of the existing high school, that would have replaced original sections of the building, built in the 1950's and 1960's. Finally, the district would upgrade 20-year-old North Royalton Middle School. "I know this was a good plan developed from a great process," Gurka said. "Our community engagement task force talked to the community for over a year to develop the plan and it's the right plan for our district." The plan's main purpose, Gurka said, was to address future building and educational needs of 21st-century students. In addition, existing buildings are deteriorating, and need electrical repairs. Schools lack air conditioning, and security concerns prohibit the opening of doors and windows. As a result, classroom temperatures can reach 90 degrees in the summer. "We as adults wouldn't tolerate that," Gurka said. "Yet we say it's OK for our kids, because that's the way it was when we went to school. That's not the right answer for our children." University Heights Police.jpg An armed man pistol-whipped a Dunkin' Donuts employee during an armed robbery in University Heights, police said. (File photo) UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio - No arrests have been made after an unidentified man pistol-whipped a Dunkin' Donuts employee during an armed robbery in University Heights. Detectives are reviewing surveillance video in an attempt to identify the man involved in the Wednesday incident at a business on Cedar Road at Vernon Road, police said. Detectives declined to release a copy of the video in the ongoing investigation. The employee suffered minor injuries during the robbery but declined medical attention, according to a police report. The armed man knocked on a back door just after 2 a.m. The employee opened the door because he believed it might have been a delivery driver bringing doughnuts to the business. The man hit the employee in the face with a pistol and forced him into a back room. The man took an unknown amount of cash before he ran from the store, according to the report. The robber wore dark clothes, covered his face with a hooded sweatshirt and might have been wearing a mask, the employee told police. Officers searched the area but could not find someone matching that description. If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Monday's crime and courts comments section. U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. has called on states to stop allowing schools to use corporal punishment to discipline students , arguing that it is a harmful practice. In his letter to governors and chief state school officers dated Tuesday, King pointed out that the corporal punishment practiced in some states schools could also be classified as criminal assault or battery under separate laws in those same states. Corporal punishment is often used disproportionately on certain groups of students, such as students of color, King said. And he argued that the practice undermines efforts to teach students nonviolent methods of resolving conflicts and negatively impacts their long-term behavior and academic outcomes. The use of corporal punishment can hinder the creation of a positive school climate by focusing on punitive measures to address student misbehavior rather than positive behavioral interventions and supports, King wrote. Corporal punishment also teaches students that physical force is an acceptable means of solving problems, undermining efforts to promote nonviolent techniques for conflict resolution. In a call with reporters Monday, King stressed that schools are entrusted with providing a safe learning environment for students, and that it has no place in the schools of a modern nation. The continued use of corporal punishment in schools across the country violates that trust, King said, adding that a variety of groups, including teachers unions and parent organizations, oppose the practice. (The letter provides no legal guidance on the issue, the secretary noted.) When asked the biggest obstacle to changing the practice, King cited the adherence to tradition in some states and concerns about how schools can ensure safe and orderly environments. On the same call, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten called ending corporal punishment a moral matter that transcends party politics. She also said a strong alliance of parents and educators would be especially important in efforts to end the practice in schools. It should have been banned in all 50 states years ago, Weingarten said. Kings recommendation comes a few months after Education Week published the results of an investigation into corporal punishment in American schools . Our investigation into corporal punishment found, for example, that it is used in 21 states. And we also looked at the deep roots of paddling in schools , as well as the long-term consequences of an eighth-grade students paddling . You can watch Education Weeks coverage for the PBS Newshour (an Education Week partner) about the issue, featuring the projects lead reporter Sarah D. Sparks, at the top of this blog post. Michelle Rhee and Donald Trump Weingarten was also asked about the possibility of former D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee serving as President-elect Donald Trumps education secretary . (The AFT has long been critical of Rhees approach to teacher policy.) She said it was an unexpected development because, in Weingartens view, Rhee is a big adherent to things he said he didnt like. Im very surprised that he would be speaking to Michelle Rhee, Weingarten said. She was very much a creature of wanting more tests and common-core based upon tests, and the kind of top-down accountability that the country has walked away from. Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 . There are said to be two certainties in life: death and taxes. The latter has apparently become a cash cow for all sorts of thieves, including sophisticated criminal enterprises. Tax-related scams tend to peak during filing season, but they are a pervasive and constantly evolving threat, cheating individuals and the federal government out of millions of dollars each year. Many are designed to get taxpayers to fork over personal information or to infect their computers with malware, enabling crooks to access sensitive data or track keyboard strokes. Getty Images Not surprisingly, one of the best ways to guard against tax scams is to stay informed, which is why the Internal Revenue Service has made it a priority to alert the public of emerging threats. Below is a rundown of some of the latest scams, including those that landed on the IRS's most recent Dirty Dozen list of common scams. Identity-theft refund fraud. The scam, which topped this year's Dirty Dozen list, typically works like this: Crooks use stolen information, including victims' names and Social Security numbers, to submit tax returns (at the state and/or federal levels) early in the filing season and claim fraudulent refunds. "Crooks have found that this is easier, relatively speaking, than other criminal enterprises, such as running drugs," said Kay Bell, a tax analyst for Bankrate.com. "It's the organized crime of the 21st century." The rise in refund fraud has coincided with the spike in hacks of companies and government agencies that hold sensitive consumer data. In the last couple years, upward of 120 million Social Security numbers, representing more than one-third of the U.S. population, were exposed in just four breaches, according to Adam Levin, chairman of consulting firm IDT911. The breaches included hacks of Anthem, Premera Blue Cross, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. According to a Government Accountability Office report, there was an estimated $25.6 billion in attempted identity-theft refund fraud in 2014. The IRS managed to recover or prevent the payout of $22.5 billion of that. But it paid out $3.1 billion in refunds to thieves posing as tax filers, according to the report, which cites IRS data. "Refund fraud has been taking place for some time, but two years ago it spiked, particularly at the state level," said David Williams, chief tax officer for tax-prep software company Intuit, which is taking part in a public-private partnership, formed in 2015, to combat the rampant problem. The IRS has made some inroads through enhanced information-sharing with its Security Summit partners, which include state tax agencies and large tax-prep companies, and through other initiatives. Choose your tax-return preparer carefully, because you entrust them with your private financial information that needs to be protected John Koskinen Internal Revenue Service commissioner "The goal here is to tighten every vulnerable point in the tax ecosystem," explained Williams. Phone scams and phishing emails. Many Americans have been on the receiving end of disturbing phone scams and phishing emails, which ranked second and third, respectively, on this year's Dirty Dozen list. Threatening phone calls by crooks impersonating IRS agents have become a national epidemic. The imposters who often alter caller ID numbers to make it appear as though they are calling from the IRS or another agency may demand payment for a bogus tax bill, conning scared victims into sending cash, usually through prepaid debit cards or wire transfers. They often threaten to arrest, deport or revoke the driver's licenses of those who don't cooperate. In some cases, robo-callers leave "urgent" call-back requests or try to get potential victims to unknowingly respond to phishing emails. The official-looking emails may contain links that infect computers with malware or direct victims to bogus websites. Since October 2013, consumers have reported nearly 900,000 phone contacts by scammers to the office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. During the same time period, more than 5,000 victims of phone scams have collectively paid more than $26.5 million to crooks. More from Investor Toolkit: 10 good reasons to stop panicking about interest rates Inflation expectations 'soar' after election 5 tips to avoid IRS tax scams Phone scams and phishing emails, according to the IRS, tend to peak when crooks spot prime opportunities to strike. During this year's back-to-school season, for instance, the IRS issued a warning about phone scammers targeting students and their parents by demanding payment for a bogus "federal student tax." Scammers who got pushback threatened to have students arrested. In September the IRS warned consumers and tax professionals of another doozy a wave of phishing emails supposedly containing Obamacare-related tax bills. Many of the emails have an attachment, a fake CP2000 notice. The notice is used by the IRS to inform tax filers that it has received information from a third party that doesn't match the income numbers reported on their returns. The notice is always sent by mail, never by email. Phone scams and phishing emails "are designed to do three things: Put malware on your computer, get you to go to a clone website where you give up too much personal information or just get you to pay by scaring you," said Levin of consulting firm IDT911. "What you need to remember is that the IRS never calls, emails or yells at you," said Levin, author of "Swiped: How to Protect Yourself in a World Full of Scammers, Phishers and Identity Thieves." "They certainly don't ask you to put money on an iTunes gift card or to run out and wire money." Political uncertainty has gripped most of Asia, marking new areas of global concern even as attention is fixed on measures proposed by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. The domestic events unfolding across the regionfrom the potential exit of South Korea's president to fresh protests in Indonesia and Malaysiaare now at boiling point following weeks of steady simmering. In addition to hurting long-term political stability, the unrest could also spell trouble for the region's economic outlook, which is already looking shaky amid a potential radical twist in U.S. foreign and trade policy, thanks to Trump's shock election victory. Here's a breakdown of the tumult and its implications in each country. South Korea Protesters hold up banners calling for the resignation of South Korea's President Park Geun-Hye during an anti-government rally in central Seoul on November 19, 2016. Jung Yeon-Je | AFP | Getty Images In the latest chapter of President Park Geun-hye's corruption scandal, the nation's two major opposition parties announced on Monday that they will begin amassing signatures to remove the president from office and review procedures for the impeachment process. For nearly a month now, President Park has been under pressure for allowing a close friend, Choi Soon-Sil, to interfere in state affairs. Choi, 60, is also accused of embezzlement, forcing conglomerates to make massive donations to nonprofits, and getting preferential treatment from banks for loans. Monday's impeachment news comes a day after local prosecutors said the president acted as a criminal accomplice in Choi's extortion. Massive protests have gripped the country and despite Park's attempts at mitigating the crisis, including a cabinet reshuffle, she may have no other choice except to quit. "There's a 70 percent probability the president will resign, with Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn assuming her duties until a new president is chosen in an election held within 60 days of Park's resignation," according to Eurasia. But whether she quits or is impeached, strategists widely believe the crisis will create a political power vacuum and potentially paralyze the government for months to come. Malaysia Tens of thousands took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak over his alleged involvement in a grand corruption case, resulting in a fresh clampdown on anti-government critics. Led by Bersih, a coalition of non-governmental organisations, it was the fifth mass protest since 2007. At least 15 activists and members of the political opposition were arrested, drawing criticism from human rights groups who say the arrests were a silencing measure on Najib's part and impinged on the freedom of peaceful assembly. watch now But Najib won't resign anytime soon, Oh Ei Sun, Najib's former political secretary from 2009-2011 and current senior fellow at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, told CNBC on Monday. The country's ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), has been in power since 1963 so it will be difficult to dislodge Najib as long he retains UMNO's support, Oh explained. Indonesia Southeast Asia's largest economy also witnessed a massive rally over the weekend as citizens called for national unity amid deepening religious divisions. An investigation focusing on Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama is underway after the 50-year old Christian cited a Koranic verse during a Sept. 27 speech. The verse suggests Muslims should not take Jews or Christian as their allies or leaders and in his remarks, Ahok said Indonesians should not be deceived by opponents who use the verse to influence the election. Blasphemy is a criminal offense in Indonesia and conservative Muslims demanded for Ahok's arrest during a massive riot earlier this month, in which dozens were injured and one person was killed. "Ahok assumed his current position when former governor Joko Widodo was elected president. And while the two have been political allies in the past, the blasphemy investigation may strain ties between them and project an image of Indonesia as a nation of religious intolerance," the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) said in a recent note. Myanmar The country's western Rakhine state, home to 1.1 million people who identify themselves as Rohingya Muslims, has witnessed mounting brutality since coming under security lockdown in early October. November 21, 2016: A Rohingya man in Indonesia shows photos of the violence experienced by Rohingyas in Myanmar. Junaidi Hanafiah / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images Following attacks on three police border posts, which the government believes was the work of a jihadist organization, military troops armed with attack helicopters were sent into the region last month. "Over 130 people have died and 234 have been arrested in the heaviest wave of violence in the region since 2012," according to the CFR, who noted the additional issues of scarce food, rape and looting by soldiers. The United Nations (UN) has criticized the lockdown and urged the government, led by de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, to allow aid organizations into the area and conduct investigations into military abuse. Last week, former UN chief Kofi Annan warned that the recent violence was "plunging the state into renewed instability and creating new displacement." Hong Kong Beijing's historic interference in a domestic Hong Kong legal case has sparked renewed trouble in the special administrative territory (SAR). Chinese President Xi Jinping urged Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to "uphold national unity and maintain social and political stability" on Monday after a Beijing court banned two elected Hong Kong lawmakers from taking office earlier this month. Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-chingwho insulted the mainland during their oath ceremoniesfiled to appeal the ruling last week, which was criticized for undermining the city's judiciary. Under the "One Country, Two Systems" formula, Hong Kong enjoys high levels of autonomy from China, but the recent ruling sparked fears of growing Chinese encroachment and pressure on pro-democracy advocates. watch now Thailand While President-elect Donald Trump has talked tough on trade, it's unlikely he'll be able to renegotiate or withdraw from deals, a trade expert told CNBC on Monday. Throughout the campaign, Trump promised to end what he called unfair trade practices and has threatened to pull out of established deals. One of his targets is the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. Another is the United States' World Trade Organization obligations to China. "Donald Trump is not going to be able to do any of the things that he's promised to do," said Matt Gold, a former deputy assistant U.S. trade representative for North America. "We are tightly locked in by our trade obligations, so there's nothing he can do to create leverage except threaten to violate trade treaty obligations or threaten to withdraw from trade treaties and lift those obligations off of our shoulders. And neither threat is really credible," he told CNBC's "Closing Bell." Gold said the U.S. Trade Representative's Office is the "best of the best" and therefore the trade deals aren't going to get any better than they already are. Trump has also attacked the now-suspended Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was designed to expand U.S. exports with 11 Pacific Rim trading partners. President Barack Obama's trade office has backed off of its effort to pass the deal before Trump takes office. Reuters contributed to this report. Tokyo Electric Power's (Tepco) Fukushima power plants were thrust back into the spotlight on Tuesday, after an earthquake hit the region, reviving memories of 2011's tragic nuclear disaster. A 7.4 magnitude quake shook the coast of Fukushima at about 6 a.m. local time, producing a tsunami with 3-meter high waves on the northern Pacific coast, Japan's Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. American quake monitoring agency USGS later downgraded the magnitude to 6.9, from its initial measure of 7.3, and tsunami warnings were lifted by 12.50 p.m. local time. Tuesday's quake was actually an aftershock of the 9.1 magnitude earthquake in 2011 that hit the same region, according to the JMA. Back then, the deadly quake and subsequent tsunami destroyed the cooling system at Tepco's Daiichi nuclear plant, resulting in a massive meltdown and the release of radioactive material that continues to contaminate the area. Following Tuesday's quake, Tepco's Daini plantseparate from the Daiichi unitsaid that a system designed to keep atomic fuel cool at one reactor was halted. But after around 90 minutes, Tepco announced that it had restarted the cooling system. Even when plants are shut, fuel needs to be kept cool to prevent overheating, which could lead to meltdown, as occurred in 2011. Experts were quick to praise the firm's quick technical response and communication. "Tecpco did much better this time than in 2011...As someone who is chairing their reform committee, I always want them to improve but they did well today," remarked Dale Klein, associate vice chancellor for research at the University of Texas System. For the past five years, all of Tepco's plants in Fukushima have remained shut since and no problems were announced at other plants on Tuesday. Kanyea West gestures as he makes an appearance in Paris, France. Kanye West was under observation at a Los Angeles area hospital late Monday after the remaining dates of his national tour were abruptly canceled, multiple authorities familiar with the case told NBC News. The admission followed a week of bizarre incidents during which the provocative rapper publicly railed against fellow music stars Beyonce and Jay Z and retroactively endorsed President-elect Donald Trump. A source familiar with the case said Los Angeles police responded to a medical welfare call about 1:20 p.m. (4:20 p.m. ET). No criminal activity was involved; the decision to hospitalize West was for his own health and safety, the sources said. West's concert promoter, Live Nation, said earlier in the day that the remaining dates of his Saint Pablo Tour had been called off. No reason was given. More from NBC News: For Trump, Just Another Turbulent, Free-Wheeling Weekend Dakota Pipeline: Protesters Soaked With Water in Freezing Temperatures Mike Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Mike Pompeo: Meet Trump's Latest Top Picks A representative for West didn't immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment. The cancellation of West's tour comes on the heels of a rough week for the rapper, who has made controversial statements and feuds with fellow celebrities a centerpiece of his art and persona. On Thursday, West announced at a concert in San Jose, California, that he hadn't voted in the 2016 presidential election but that he would have supported Trump"if I voted." The statement was met with boos. Ariana Lindquist | Bloomberg | Getty Images In times of uncertainty, it's said "better the devil you know than the devil you don't." Since the election, the prevailing sentiment in the drug industry has been just the opposite. The reversal of the old adage explains the industry's reaction to Donald Trump's election: a rally of almost 10 percent since Nov 8. "It was not so much of an issue of, 'Well, we know what we're getting on both sides, and we prefer a Trump administration,'" said Ron Cohen, CEO of Acorda Therapeutics and executive committee chair of the industry group BIO. "It's that we're not exactly sure what we're getting with a Trump administration, and it's fairly clear what the implications would be of a Clinton administration." What the drug industry expected under a President Hillary Clinton: a continued focus on drug prices, with potential legislative changes in the offing. The slide in biotech stocks, after a five-year runup, can be traced to Clinton's focus on what she called predatory pricing practices in the industry, including a September 2015 tweet in which she vowed to lay out a plan to take the drug industry on. Tweet "The narrative during the election about biotech and pharma I think created what markets and many of us perceived as a political overhang on the value of our stocks and the value of innovation," said Jeff Jonas, CEO of Sage Therapeutics . "We all saw it had a very negative effect on the valuations of all of our companies." Trump focused on Obamacare "What's apparent to me as an observer is the lack of indiscriminate rhetoric about the industry," Jonas said. "Which gives me hope that the approach to drug development and the management of pricing will reflect sound business and economic principles, not political ideology." Trump's plans for the drug industry are still distinctly unclear; his health-care policy outlines have focused more on the Affordable Care Act than on pharmaceuticals. And investors have seized on that lack of focus on drug prices, as well as Trump's tax positions, viewed as favorable to the industry. watch now Priorities specific to the drug industry, as laid out on Trump's presidential transition website, GreatAgain.gov, include to "advance research and development in healthcare," and "reform the Food and Drug Administration, to put greater focus on the need of patients for new and innovative medical products." What does that mean exactly? "The answer is: I don't know," Acorda's Cohen said in a Nov. 17 telephone interview. But with a Republican Congress as well, he said, "the industry is less urgently concerned about major new restrictive legislation that would amount to price controls, which is the main thing that has been concerning." This is where Trump's position becomes potentially less industry-friendly, though no less murky. Though he hasn't mentioned it recently, in January, Trump appeared to advocate for Medicare negotiating drug prices, something he suggested could save $300 billion. And a position paper on his campaign website, DonaldJTrump.com, includes as his seventh and final point on health-care reform, to "remove barriers to entry into free markets for drug providers that offer safe, reliable and cheaper products." Pro reimportation of drugs? Specifically: drug reimportation from countries where they're cheaper. This is a tenet most closely associated with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, possibly the only person considered less friendly to the drug industry than Hillary Clinton. "Reimporting drugs is importation of other countries' price controls on drugs," said Cohen. "It's essentially saying that the U.S. is really the last bastion of more or less free markets in biopharmaceuticals and we're going to abolish that and import Germany and Canada's price controls." Or, more frankly, he continued, "you're going to take the last bastion of major investment in future drug innovation and you're going to crush it." So, the policy implications of Trump's presidency on the drug industry specifically are unclear. A tax holiday boost Another area investors have focused on is taxes, particularly the suggestion that a tax holiday may be on the horizon. That would allow companies with lots of cash stashed overseas to bring it back to the U.S. at a lower tax rate. And this, in the eyes of biotech investors, means M&A. "A repatriation holiday would increase large-cap company flexibility and could facilitate U.S. small/mid-cap biotech acquisitions," Jefferies analyst Brian Abrahams wrote to clients the day after the election. And Evercore ISI's John Scotti promptly distributed data on the amount of cash held overseas by the industry's largest U.S. companies: $34 billion by Amgen , $25 billion by Gilead , $21 billion by Merck and $10 billion by Pfizer . "The potential for repatriation will change the complexion of the small- and mid-cap biotech industry significantly," Sage's Jonas said last week. "We all recognize there's been a paucity of innovation in many areas in large pharmaceutical companies and the repatriation of cash from overseas will open the door to much more M&A activity." This, plus the removal of the "political overhang" of the election, Jonas suggested, means general investors will return to the space, further boosting valuations. Candidate Trump vs President Trump So if the drug industry is flying high on the election results, what about the broader scientific community much of which provides the foundational research supporting the medicines drug companies develop and bring to market? "You could see a further de-emphasis on basic science, which is critical to support translational research," said Joel Dudley, an associate professor of genetics and genomic sciences and director of biomedical informatics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "If I'm speaking from my world of translational medicine" part of the field that aims to turn discoveries into applications "I'm not too worried." But many scientists are. Much has been made of both Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence's anti-science statements Trump has suggested climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese, while Pence claimed smoking doesn't kill in a 15-year-old op-ed. Trump Tweet A potential rift over the future of the world's biggest military alliance could pose problems for the relationship between President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. NATO, the Western military alliance founded in Washington in 1949, has been key in pursuing a military defense system sited along Russia's western border. Last week on Russian television, Putin was applauded when he said Russia could "choke" NATO if it continued to expand toward Russian territory. Now Russia has said it plans to deploy air missile systems to the Russian outpost of Kaliningrad, a move described by the U.S. State Department as "destabilizing to European security." Professor Malcolm Chalmers of the Royal United Services Institute said despite Russian saber-rattling the new U.S. president won't withdraw far from the current position on NATO and European security. "Trump will try again a reset with Russia, and remain, like Obama, reluctant to get involved with Ukraine. But I don't think NATO security guarantees will weaken, and Putin would be foolish to test this," Chalmers told CNBC via email. However Tate Nurkin Senior Director of Aerospace, Defense & Security at IHS Markit believes any lack of commitment by the U.S. to the alliance will see Russia testing the water. "If the U.S. under Trump is overly friendly to Russia or wavers in its commitment to the alliance in general and to its Eastern and Baltic allies then we should expect Russia to push and push very hard to test NATO's resolve," he said in an email to CNBC Tuesday. Nurkin warned that Russia is well skilled at unsettling weaker neighbors as was recently witnessed in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. "So, more bullying and coercive diplomacy, which creatively leverages Russian military strength, cyber warfare, creation of narratives to weaken target states and societies and mobilize Russian nationalist communities," Nurkin said. Viewership exceeded the previous record-breaking debut which was called "The Man in the High Castle", Amazon said without revealing exact figures. On the day that "The Grand Tour" debuted, total new Prime membership signups exceeded all previous days, apart from on its annual shopping event Prime Day. "Millions of Prime members" streamed the first episode of "The Grand Tour" over the opening weekend in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Austria, and Japan, the company said in a press release on Monday. The first episode of the reincarnation of the hit TV series "Top Gear" has become the biggest show premiere on Amazon's streaming service. Amazon Prime is the e-commerce giant's $99-a-year subscription service that gives users access to same-day deliveries, music and video streaming services. Prime Video is the name of Amazon's movie and TV streaming service included with the yearly subscription. The spike in Prime memberships was helped by the fact that Amazon cut its Prime membership price down to $79 over the debut weekend of "The Grand Tour". Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May star in "The Grand Tour" which follows the trio's car adventures across the world. Amazon signed the group up last year after their show on the BBC called "Top Gear" was axed following a "fracas" involving Clarkson. "The guys are back, doing what they do best - the chemistry between Jeremy, Richard and James is what makes 'The Grand Tour' so entertaining," Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon, said in a press release. Previous reports suggested that Amazon paid around $160 million to acquire the show. But, rival Netflix's Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said this number is likely to be low. "That's an under-reported number," said Sarandos. "It was about a quarter of a billion dollars. We'll be able to figure out later what it was that made the show the show. It'll be interesting with 'Grand Tour' to see how much of that is the players, who in many cases are big personalities, but what elements of Top Gear will people miss?" Sarandos told The Telegraph in an interview on Monday. The Netflix executive said that the streaming service also "made a play" for the show. Both streaming services are on a spending drive to make original content. Netflix forecast that it will spend $6 billion on content in 2016 with 1,000 hours of new originally produced shows. In July, Amazon said it will double its video content spend in the second half of 2016, and triple its spending on original content. Deutsche Bank analyst Sherri Scribner warned investors Apple may be among the hardest hit technology stocks from President-elect Donald Trump's policy agenda. "The surprise outcome of the recent U.S. Presidential election has brought uncertainty to tech stocks ... Changes in trade policies would be negative, particularly with China, given a significant portion of technology products are manufactured there," Scribner wrote in a note to clients Monday. "If Trump follows through on his campaign rhetoric to heavily tax manufactured products that come into the U.S., Apple and EMS companies are the most likely to be negatively impacted." One tech stock may actually benefit from Trump, the analyst added. Scribner cited how Apple generates roughly one-quarter of its sales in China and the "vast majority of its products" are manufactured outside the U.S. "Apple would also be highly exposed to changes in trade agreements between the U.S. and China ... If the U.S. enacted a large tariff on Chinese manufactured products, China might retaliate, potentially limiting the supply of U.S. products that could be sold in China," she wrote. "However, a more significant challenge to Apple would be the introduction of tariffs on products manufactured in China and sold into the U.S. Apple relies heavily on the Asian supply chain to produce its almost 300M units of products each year." Scribner reiterated her hold rating on the Apple shares. On the flip side, she reiterated her buy rating on CDW as a big beneficiary of Trump's corporate tax cuts. CDW is a leading technology hardware, software and services provider to corporations with annual revenue of approximately $14 billion. "CDW is best positioned for a likely lower U.S. tax rate," she wrote. Scribner said CDW generates more than 90 percent of its sales domestically. A Trump corporate tax reduction to 25 percent from the company's current 38 percent level would add 75 cents of earning per share to the company's 2018 fiscal year EPS, according to the analyst. As a result, she raised her CDW price target to $58 from $48, representing 12 percent upside from Monday's close. "CDW is also largely insulated from trade issues with foreign countries like China and Mexico, given most of its sales are recognized in the U.S," she added. Donald Trump Ian MacNicol | Getty Images By Alyson Klein and Andrew Ujifusa President-elect Donald Trump hasnt picked an education secretary yet, and he didnt talk a great deal about schools on the campaign trail. But his triumph in the election already has radically altered the prospects for various K-12 groups in the next several years, both inside Washington and out. So with the dust still settling after the Nov. 8 results, who looks set to prosper under the Trump presidency, and whos going to be tempted to put on sackcloth and ashes for a while? Weve provided a list belowlet us know if you think any group is missing or miscategorized. Teachers Pets The American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation: Two of the bigger and more influential right-leaning think tanks in Washington when it comes to public school policy, AEI and Heritage look well-positioned to serve as an external brain trust for a Trump Education Department (assuming there is one). They are big fans of school choice, the one public school policy area where Trump has discussed details of what hed like to do, and are consistently skeptical of the federal governments role in education. And AEIs Gerard Robinson has also, separate from his role with the organization, served as a Trump transition team adviser on education. Thats not to say everyone at those two organizations has professed unyielding support for Trump on K-12. Andy Smarick, the president of the Maryland state school board who recently joined AEI, highlighted Trumps inattention to policy earlier this year . And his AEI colleague Nat Malkus said in an interview before the election that entrusting Trump with education policy was like giving a teenager a 12-pack and the keys to your car. Other Beltway groups that could do well include the American Principles Project , which has vigorously opposed the Common Core State Standards (more on that below), and the Cato Institute . School Choice Advocates: This includes AEI and Heritage, but also the constellation of groups that support charter schools, vouchers, and education savings accounts around the country. Think of the American Federation for Children and the Foundation for Excellence in Education, as well as more state-specific groups like the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, as examples. Many charter school advocates will look to advance their cause under Trump. However, those that support charters but not vouchers and ESAs might have a more complicated outlook depending on what happens. In fact, some Democrats who back school choice are very nervous about the prospect about one of their own working in a Trump administration. Hoosiers: Lets start with the fact that not only will Indiana Gov. Mike Pence serve as vice president, but he could become Trumps point man for education policy. Then theres GOP Rep. Luke Messer, whose proposal last year to make Title I funds for disadvantaged children portable to public and private schools could be revived in some form by Trump. Messer said recently hed be honored to serve as Trumps education secretary , although he added he hasnt been contacted about the position yet. Former Indiana superintendent Tony Bennett has also come up in discussions about possible Education Department leaders in a Trump administration. And dont forget that GOP Rep. Todd Rokita, also of Indiana, is on the House education committeehe currently leads that panels K-12 subcommittee. States Ready to Push the ESSA Envelope: Peer reviewers picked by the Education Department are slated to review state plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act starting in March 2017. It seems unlikely that peer reviewers picked by a Trump administration would be particularly prescriptive or heavy-handed when it comes to these plans, compared to how a Hillary Clinton administration might have handled the situation. Thats for several reasons, including the fact that GOP leaders in Congress want to see states (and districts) given lots of freedom when it comes to handling issues like school turnarounds and identifying underperforming subgroups of students. Enemies of the Common Core: A Trump administration cant get rid of the Common Core State Standards unless it signs a bill banning them outright. Absent that, the administration will be handcuffed when it comes to getting states to drop the standards , thanks to ESSA. And the majority of the states that originally adopted the standards have kept them . However, common-core foes will certainly be pleased any time Trump or his education secretary uses the megaphone of the presidency to blast the standards. And its possible that such a push against the standards could cause some states on their own to reconsider their use of the common core. A variety of groups have come out against the proposed rules for accountability and the requirement for federal money to supplement state and local school spending. However, the latter has probably attracted more, and more vociferous, critics. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the leader of the Senate education committee, had encouraged lawsuits against the Obama administration over its approach to ESSA before Trumps victory. And what is Alexander saying now about the Obama draft regulations? Says w/ Trumps election, #ESSA will now be implemented as written & this administrations rules/regulations on the law will be overturned Sen. Lamar Alexander (@SenAlexander) November 11, 2016 Stuck in Detention Teachers Unions: The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have had a tough row to hoe for almost two decades. First, they tangled with the administration of GOP President George W. Bush on things like standardized testing. Then, they had to fight the Democrats when President Barack Obama pushed through policies, like teacher evaluation through test scores, that the unions really, really didnt like . Recently though, things were finally looking up. The unions had successfully worked with Republicans to enact the Every Student Succeeds Act, which seeks to scale back the federal role in accountability. And they endorsed the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, early on in her competitive primary , earning themselves a prime seat at her policymaking table . The AFT and NEA poured millions of dollars and hours and hours of manpower into trying to send Clinton to the White House, and came up short . Now, instead of new money for priorities like early-childhood education and school construction, theyre stuck having to fight school vouchers and try to keep Congress from cutting education funding. And they arent likely to have the ear of the White House. Maybe even worse than all that for the unions? Trump will get to appoint a Supreme Court justice to fill the late Justice Antonin Scalias seat. That new, likely conservative judge, could be on the bench if and when the court decides to revisit the issue of whether unions can collect mandatory service fees from nonmembers. The question was temporarily settled in the unions favor earlier this year when the justices split 4-4, failing to overturn a lower courts decision in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association , but it could resurface now . Losing the ability to collect those fees in 25 states and the District of Columbia could mean a major decrease in revenue for the unions. Theres one silver lining in the unions dark cloud: The new administration is almost certain to toss or tweak regulations for the Every Student Succeeds Act that NEA and AFT didnt like. These groups had a friend in Obama and Education Secretary John B. King Jr., who made equity the centerpiece of his agenda. Now theyre facing a president who got elected despite rhetoric and policy proposals deeply offensive to many blacks, Latinos, Muslims, those with disabilities, and others. Civil rights groups could face a huge battle on immigration. And on education, the incoming Trump administration could rein in the Education Departments office for civil rights , which seeks to blow the whistle on school districts that arent meeting the needs of English-language learners, students in special education, and other historically overlooked groups of students. Whats more, some fear Trump and Company may not put the pedal to the metal when it comes to enforcing the parts of ESSA that the civil rights community fought hard for , including protections for subgroups of students. Democratic Education Reformers": Groups pushing for a particular basket of what they call reform strategies had a great run through the first six years of the Obama administration. The education secretary, Arne Duncan, loved to challenge the K-12 status quo. He used unprecedented sums of federal money to push ideas like teacher evaluation through student outcomes, dramatic school turnarounds, changes to teacher preparation, and more. Then, of course, there was a huge backlash , and these groups found many of their favorite priorities scaled back, or totally tossed in ESSA. Behind the scenes, in the run up to the election, many were wary that an incoming Clinton administration would be far more sympathetic to teachers unions than to their cause. Still, they would have had some influence with her administration, and its not clear how much Trump will listen to them. Adding insult to injury: Two ballot measures such groups loved went down to defeat on Election Night, including a push to lift the charter cap in Massachusetts and an effort to create a state-run school turnaround district in Georgia. One consolation for these folks: Most Democratic reformers support charters. So does Trump . The Center for American Progress: The think tank, which does a lot of work on education, was incredibly influential during the Obama administration and was poised provide an incoming Clinton administration with legions of staff and reams of policy proposals. Now more of its energy may be directed at pointing out the pitfalls in Trumps education ideas, or coming up with proposals for congressional Democrats, who dont have control of either chamber of Congress right now. That doesnt sound nearly as satisfying as helping to lay out an education roadmap for a new president. One bright spot: CAP can still seek to support state education agencies or school districts as they roll out ESSA. Education Department Employees: These folks spent months setting up (and sitting through) negotiated rulemakings, crafting regulations for ESSA , and sifting through more than 20,000 public comments on a proposed accountability regulation alone. Now all that work may go up in smoke, if Trump and Company withdraw some or all of the Obama administrations regulatory proposals , as most folks expect. Whats more, Trump has said he wants to downsize or even scrap the department. Even though it would be very, very hard to get rid of the department and most of its programs , it cant be the most fun talking point to hear if you work at 400 Maryland Ave. At a minimum, the agency probably cant expect mega-spending increases or tons of new hires under Trump. Speaking of which ... Education Funding Advocates: For years, these groups have been trying to stave off cuts to education and other domestic programs . And now thats going to be a lot harder, particularly for folks advocating for smaller programs. Now that the same party is in control of both chambers, Congress may actually come up with a budget deal to get rid of across-the-board cuts to military and domestic programs. And domestic programs are likely to end up on the losing side of that equation. Programs closely associated with the Obama administration, like the Education Innovation and Research Fund, the successor to Investing in Innovation, could be first to the chopping block. One (maybe) bright spot: funding for special education and Impact Aid, something Republicans can usually get behind. Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia: Scott, an ESSA architect, was at the top of the list to replace Clintons running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in the Senate if he had become vice-president. Now, hell be returning as the top Democrat on the House education committee. Scott was able make his mark on ESSA, and was a driving force behind protections for subgroups of students added to the law in conference. But with a Republican now in the White House, hes likely to have less influence next year. Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 . Photos from top: President-elect Donald Trump, right, and Vice President-elect Mike Pence; Rep. Luke Messer, R-Ind. Bernie Ecclestone appeared to have changed his mind on 2017 being the last year that Singapore will host the Formula 1 Grand Prix, the Straits Times reported. In an interview with the Singapore broadsheet published Tuesday, Ecclestone said he was hopeful that negotiations between Singapore Grand Prix and the Formula 1 body would continue. "F1's stand is to hopefully continue in Singapore. Everybody is happy to be in Singapore and (we) don't want to lose Singapore," he told the newspaper. Ecclestone's comments come after he reportedly told Germany's Auto Motor Und Sport on Sunday that the city-state would not extend a deal to host the motorsports race that is due to expire after the 2017 race. He told the German outlet there was "little gratitude" in the Formula 1 realm, with organizers leaving the franchise once they've reaped its rewards, adding that the city-state was known as little more than an air-transit hub before hosting the F1. When asked by the Straits Times on those comments, Ecclestone said that he had been misinterpreted. "My words were taken in a funny way. What I said was simple - no decision has been taken yet," he said. To read the full Straits Times report, click here. Singapore GP told CNBC on Monday that it did not comment on ongoing commercial negotiations. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. "So long as the mainstream media is free and open, online rumors would do no harm in the big picture isn't that the consistent argument from the West?" the Times asked, pointing out what it sees as a contradiction in the West's criticism at the time that Beijing's crackdown limited freedom of speech. It said the U.S. "can no longer play this card." In an editorial entitled "Western Media's Crusade Against Facebook", Communist Party paper The Global Times drew parallels with China's fight a few years ago to clamp down on what Beijing at the time called "rumors" but what many in the West worried was political dissent. The Chinese state media is weighing in on the fake news debate in the U.S., saying the controversy and its possible impact on the election outcome only serves to bolster Beijing's case when it comes to controlling the internet. The paper suggested that U.S. internet companies like Facebook , Google , and Twitter - all currently blocked in China - heightened "unpredictable" political risks. In the U.S., Google, Facebook and Twitter have come under fire over the role they played in the U.S. presidential election and the spread of false and often malicious information that might have persuaded voters to pick Donald Trump. The paper concluded that China is correct in pursuing its own online vision -- one where censors keep radical views in check and where tech companies, including American ones, should assist Chinese authorities in matters Beijing deems as national security concerns. "China is also right in demanding that US internet companies, including Google and Facebook, abide by Chinese laws and be subject to supervision if they want to enter China market," it reads. Beijing ramped up efforts to promote this vision at its third annual World Internet Conference last week. Many international businesses though have been wary of the greater Internet restrictions including the recent passage of a cybersecurity law. Separately, some on Chinese social media cheered the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's dressing down of American TV network executives and journalists at his New York offices this week. On Weibo, China's version of Twitter, user Niurentucai writes, "Trump was spot on!", saying U.S. media outlets such as CNN "continuously promote anti-China sentiment from the West." Many others, though, joke that Trump's treatment of the US media is eerily familiar, describing it as an American version of a Communist Party propaganda meeting meant to lecture the media on delivering party ideology. "Comrade Trump incisively pointed out the current problems and deficiencies [of the media]," UsAmericaHopeTrump writes. He continued that Trump called on the media to "self-consciously keep a high-level of consistency to the White House with Comrade Trump as 'core'." This was referring to the new title of President Xi Jinping as the "core leader" of the Chinese Communist Party. watch now Tax reform will be a top priority for the Trump administration. Though nobody knows exactly how presidential and congressional proposals will play out, financial advisors are recommending clients take steps now to prepare for any tax changes that may lie ahead. "We think this a policy shift of enormous magnitude. If Reagan was a Richter 8, this is a Richter 9," said Leon LaBrecque, a certified public accountant and a certified financial planner as well as managing partner and CEO of LJPR Financial Advisors. Given what we know about these proposals, the tax advice is "very simple," said Roger Stinnett, a CFP, CPA and director of financial planning at Westmount Asset Management. "Defer income and accelerate deductions. Rates will likely go down," he said. Proposals by President-elect Donald Trump and House Republicans have many similarities. Both plans call for simplifying the personal income tax code from seven to three brackets: 12, 25 and 33 percent. The tax plans also want to more than double the standard deduction from $6,300 to $15,000 for single filers and from 12,600 to $30,000 for married couples filing jointly. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center has estimated how much taxpayers would save annually based on their income under tax plans from Trump and the House GOP. (See chart below.) The trade-off for taxpayers is that deductions are capped at $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for married couples filing jointly under Trump's proposal. "This could be a problem for those that have a big mortgage, property taxes and big state taxes," Stinnett said. However, the lower overall tax rate may reduce the financial effect of losing the deductions, he said. Here are some tax moves advisors are telling their clients to make before the Trump administration begins: Alternative minimum tax The alternative minimum tax would be repealed under the Trump and the House GOP tax plans. The AMT repeal would benefit people who have large property taxes and large state income taxes, such as those who live in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. Many upper-middle-class households are hit by the AMT. Last year, about 27 percent of households with incomes between $200,000 and $500,000 were affected by the AMT, according to estimates from the Tax Policy Center. "This might be the most beneficial item to many of our clients," Stinnett said. However, the size of the benefit depends on how lawmakers limit itemized deductions. Charitable deductions High-income people who regularly contribute to charity should plan for a possible limit on deductions by creating a donor-advised fund at a public foundation this year if they haven't done so already, said Thomas O'Connor, a CFP, CPA and a financial planner at WorthPointe. A donor-advised fund allows you to make a charitable contribution, receive an immediate tax benefit and then recommend grants from the fund over time. More from Investor Toolkit: Overplanning an estate can really hurt Inflation expectations 'soar' after election 10 good reasons to stop panicking about interest rates Community foundations run a number of these funds, but investment managers such as Fidelity, Vanguard and Schwab have some of the largest donor-advised funds by assets. Such a fund "avoids future deduction limits and offsets today's 39.6 percent federal tax rate [for the top bracket] instead of the proposed 33 percent rate," O'Connor said. Estate taxes Trump has proposed ending the estate tax while taxing capital gains on assets upon the owner's death, with a $5 million exemption for single filers and a $10 million exemption for married couples filing jointly. "It's way too early know if the estate tax will be abolished," said Adrienne Penta, an estate lawyer and executive director of Brown Brothers Harriman's Center for Women & Wealth. Most high-net-worth clients already have estate plans in place and should stick with those until the Trump administration and lawmakers work out more details about what a repeal of the estate tax would look like, Penta said. If lawmakers decide to end the estate tax through the budget reconciliation process in the Senate, which only requires a simple majority instead of 60 votes to prevent a filibuster, the ban could be easily overturned in the future. "We are not putting a hold on clients' wealth transfer plans unless it involves paying gift tax currently," said Brian King, a CPA, CFP and director of financial planning at Plancorp. Tax plans from Trump and the House GOP have proposed eliminating the gift tax. Net investment income tax A container is unloaded from the Hanjin Gdynia cargo ship berthed at the Port of Long Beach in Long Beach, California. Tim Rue | Bloomberg | Getty Images The future of trade may be more in the hands of the people than government leaders expect. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump represents the latest effort by a major economy to bring jobs back home, especially in manufacturing. But analysts and executives see growth coming from a different kind of trade, one driven by technology and which should continue regardless of what politicians from the global powers are saying. "Market forces will drive trade regardless of what politicians do," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit. "Politicians and policymakers can get in the way, as they (have) in the past." This week Beijing pounced on news that Trump will withdraw from a U.S.-led Asia-Pacific trade deal, effectively killing it. China's President Xi Jinping wants China to take over leadership of Asia-Pacific commerce as the United States retreats. But "the structure of trade is changing," Behravesh said. Global trade opponents' "big gripe has to do with manufacturing, which, oddly enough, is diminishing in its employment power ... not because of trade, but because of technology." And the digital age increasingly looks like an era when more transactions between smaller parties are taking place over the internet, and it looks like a marketplace that makes more deals in data and information than in tangible goods. The next 'revolution' The internet's launch supported the growth of online marketplaces, first with eBay and Amazon.com in the United States, then with Alibaba in China and Flipkart in India. As such sites broker more and more deals directly between businesses and from businesses to consumers, they likely will become the main international trade channels of the future. The rise of e-commerce, especially between countries, will be the next "revolution," Ken Allen, CEO of DHL Express, said in a phone interview. "I think it's a wave. It's a wave not making a splash at the moment," Allen said. "Just like it took a while for people to use these services domestically, it's going to take them a while to use them internationally." According to a June report from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. e-commerce shipments rose 8.1 percent in 2014 to $3.58 trillion. Total U.S. trade shipments, including e-commerce and other sales channels, grew 1.2 percent to $5.88 trillion. Shipments from e-commerce accounted for 60.9 percent of all manufacturing shipments in 2014, the report said. Meanwhile, well over 10 percent of global goods trade already occurs through international e-commerce and is expected to more than double in the next few years, according to a March report from the McKinsey Global Institute. Source: McKinsey Global Institute. Note: Numbers may not sum due to rounding. Shipments between sellers and buyers connected through the internet tend to be smaller and are less subject to major changes in international trade agreements. For example, DHL said a men's suit merchant in Canada could work with a tailor in Hong Kong who would ship the finished product directly to a customer in the United States. "E-commerce makes the supply chain of a company a lot more complicated. It creates opportunities for logistics companies to come in and take over the supply chain," said Amit Mehrotra, director, U.S. transportation and shipping, at Deutsche Bank in New York. He initiated coverage of FedEx with a buy rating and UPS with a hold rating in November. Global online retail sales will rise to $1.91 trillion in 2016, up from $1.55 trillion last year, according to an estimate from eMarketer. Mehrotra said that even though 2016 U.S. online retail sales have grown more than 20 percent year over year, express delivery companies still face near-term challenges with sending all kinds of products to many addresses in a cost-effective way. "This is a massive undertaking, trying to get to every entrepreneur in the world, but I don't see anything on the global horizon that can kick-start growth like this can," DHL's Allen said. "The future is all going to be about small and medium-sized enterprises," he said. "Some will grow into massive businesses." Information, information, information Trade is also increasingly less about physical goods and more about information exchange. Emails and online signature programs largely eliminated the need for paper delivery, and IHS' Nariman expects digital transfer of code to allow businesses to reproduce the same item locally using a 3-D printer or similar device. "The tech revolution is in some sense far more powerful than the trade side," Nariman said, referring to data transmission, trade in intellectual property and the availability of "jobs in high-end businesses, services, consulting." Those trends make intellectual property, such as copyrights, patents and trademarks, a major part of the future of trade. Such data flows also increase overall growth, according to McKinsey analysis. In the same March report, researchers said global flows of goods, foreign direct investment and data added about 10 percent to global gross domestic product, or about $7.8 trillion in 2014. Of that global GDP growth, data flows accounted for $2.8 trillion, according to the McKinsey report. The analysis also showed cross-border data flows have grown 45 times since 2005 and are projected to grow another nine times in the next five years. watch now Companies also increasingly use patents and specialized knowledge in a business model that relies on local partners for global presence. "I believe that President-elect Trump will closely observe GE and other large U.S. defense and infrastructure firms that have done well in overseas markets and incorporate those (lessons) into his trade policies," said David Pratt, managing director at MCAM-International, which maintains an archive of documents related to patents, trademarks, copyrights and other intangible assets from 160 countries. Dow component GE is part of the CNBC iQ 100 Index, which was built using MCAM research. The company analyzed GE's device patents when the company won a contract with China's Three Gorges Dam project in 2005, and China's State Council demanded ownership of those patents, Pratt said. watch now In 2011 GE announced the formation of a joint venture company with China's state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China, or AVIC. As a result of joint patents on airframe manufacturing and some jet engine technologies, Pratt said China's State Council has given GE "very favorable access" to other parts of the Chinese market such as turbines and electric grid infrastructure. A Trump spokeswoman did not respond to a CNBC.com request for comment. GE did not respond to a request for comment on its China business, and said it had no comment on Trump's potential trade policy other than GE CEO and Chairman Jeffrey Immelt's recent remarks on CNBC. In that interview last Tuesday, Immelt said on CNBC that the business world has evolved past dependency on free trade deals. "For someone like us that's an exporter, really we make and sell things around the world, we can navigate the world on our own," he said. GE has locations in 170 countries, according to its website. Why trade deals still matter for now Italy's upcoming referendum on constitutional reform is not only "very important," but also has the potential to catalyze repercussions Europe-wide, according to the chief executive of Italy's biggest utility. "If Italy votes 'yes' then all of a sudden Europe will say, 'OK, Italy is indeed progressing on the reform path.' Therefore the pressure (may move) to another country that will go into the electoral cycle next," Enel's CEO Francesco Starace said on CNBC Conversation. The baton of change would likely be passed onto France, with this country's presidential election due to take place in April next year, he added. Italy's referendum for constitutional reform is due to take place on December 4, and proposes streamlining the legislative process by decreasing the power of the country's second chamber, its senate. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has staked his political reputation on the vote, having vowed to resign if the electorate rejects his proposal. For Starace, the issue of reducing the senate's power "needs to be addressed." He asserted that, "if you reform the senate then the legislative process becomes more nimble and more direct, and therefore other reforms have a better chance to go through without being changed so much that they are basically useless. "The big deal is that they (Senate) are the largest slowing factor ... in the Italian reforming system," Starace told CNBC. He added that the appetite for change had been part of several preceding governments, but this had been unsuccessful. The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has announced that the number of plastic carrier bags found on U.K. beaches has fallen by almost half in only one year thanks to a supermarket surcharge. In a news release on Tuesday the MCS said the numbers represented the lowest in more than a decade and were "fantastic news for marine wildlife." The MCS said that a 5 pence (6 cent) levy had been a major factor in the drop. The figures are based on surveys carried out in September 2016. "In the last decade, our Great British Beach Clean volunteers have found an average of 10 single-use carrier bags for every 100 meters of coastline cleaned," Lauren Eyles, the MCS' Beachwatch manager, said in a statement. "This year, for the first time since the charges were introduced, we've seen a significant drop in the number and that can only be as a result of the 5p charge which is now in place in all the home nations," Eyles added. "It vindicates the charge, which we predicted would be good news for the marine environment." The environmental impact of plastic bags is significant. The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) says that animals can both mistake them for food and get tangled up in them. This can cause a range of problems, including infections, strangulation and in serious cases death. While the plastic bag drop is good news, the MCS said that its volunteers had still "picked up a huge amount of rubbish", with 268,384 individual pieces being removed from beaches. There was also an "astonishing" hike in toy balloon and sky lantern-related litter, a 53.5 percent increase compared to 2015. If oil prices are going to rebound, a few countries that have spent two years trying to edge each other out of crude markets will have to learn to cooperate. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have suffered serious economic pain as oil prices have languished over the last two years. But OPEC's largest producers Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran as well as nonmember Russia have all pumped their way through the rout, seeking to capture more business to offset the falling value of their lifeblood product. Their prolific pumping has pushed OPEC's production to all-time highs ahead of a meeting next week, where Saudi Arabia will try to impose output limits on the group's member countries. The record output has some analysts questioning whether OPEC can cut deeply enough to balance an oversupplied global market especially given its members' poor history of sticking to quotas. Many observers see OPEC's ability to deliver a serious deal as a referendum on the group's continuing relevance. That test comes at a time of profound change in the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia, an ambitious young prince is spearheading the kingdom's efforts to diversify its economy by selling off a share of the state oil giant Saudi Aramco in order to create a $2 trillion investment fund. Many OPEC watchers believe that creates an incentive to boost oil prices so that Saudi Aramco's IPO looks more attractive. Meanwhile, Iran is rebuilding its foreign oil trade after international powers lifted sanctions on Tehran in January, and Iraq is fighting to oust Islamic State militants from their Iraqi stronghold in Mosul. Keeping oil revenue flowing is central to those endeavors. It's little surprise, then, that all three countries have been grabbing for more foreign business with both hands. Iraq's October crude oil exports grew 15.1 percent from a year ago, while Saudi Arabia's jumped 6.8 percent. In the same period, tanker loadings from Iran have more than doubled, according to data from tanker-tracking firm ClipperData. Tehran has made inroads in particular with India, which will be the largest driver of crude oil demand growth in the coming decades, according to the International Energy Agency. In October, Iran overtook Saudi Arabia as India's top supplier of crude oil. "They're clawing some of that market share from others, but they're also helping to fill that gap of increasing demand," said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData. India purchased much of Iran's crude oil before the international community imposed sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program. Iran is now winning back that business, in no small part because its crude is well-suited to India's refineries, according to John Kilduff, founding partner at investment management firm Again Capital. Reading the data out of China is more difficult, because Beijing sources its massive crude imports from a wider array of oil-producing nations. But as erratic as the data are, they tell an important tale about the nature of the global crude markets today. The first part of that story boils down to China's ability to dictate pricing. A country's crude exports may swing widely from month to month in part because China is able to shop around for the best price. ClipperData's figures for the last two years illustrate this: Here, the big three OPEC players have to undercut not just one another, but Latin American and West African players, as well. In a price downturn where oil producers are scrambling for business, that works in China's favor. "You think that prices dictate flows, but when it comes to China, it's such a large part of the market, it's the other way around. Their demand dictates prices," Smith said. Historically, the Saudis primarily pursued long-term contracts, but they have recently been playing the spot market, selling from month to month to try to capture some of China's short-term demand, Kilduff said. "They're getting sharper elbows," he said. "This price crash has really changed the landscape in so many ways." Competition has only heated up since Russia pivoted to China and boosted trade ties with Beijing after the European Union and United States slapped the Kremlin with sanctions over its meddling in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. But while it's carving out more share in China, Russia's dominance in the shrinking European Union market for crude oil is being challenged by Iran. Tehran has quickly ramped up its exports to the EU, and Moscow must now also contend with Libyan oil after the war-wracked nation resumed exports from key ports this year. UPDATED Antwan Wilson, the superintendent in Oakland, Calif., was named Tuesday as District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowsers choice to lead the citys public schools, according to news reports. Wilson, who has been schools chief in Oakland for just over two years, will succeed Kaya Henderson, who stepped down from the job in September. Under Henderson, the District of Columbia school system made important academic strides, with a growing number of students reaching proficiency in reading and math on both the citys annual exams and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. But achievement gaps between white and non-white students have been stubbornly persistent. During her tenure, enrollment in the district has also been on the upswing after decades of decline. Mayor Bowser took to Twitter Tuesday morning before the announcement to tout the districts upward trajectory. Join us at 10:30 for an update on the state of public education in DC. https://t.co/UcjyVY83u8 pic.twitter.com/fVwWaZg7zH Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) November 22, 2016 Wilson, who was a high-level district administrator in Denver before moving to Oakland, will be tasked with building on that growth, but also tackling the gaps in academic achievement for different groups of students. As superintendent in Oakland, Wilson joined a group of big-city leaders committed to social-emotional learning and serves on a national commission of education leaders, researchers, state leaders, and others who are working on a multiyear endeavor to help schools figure out how to better teach social and emotional skills to students alongside traditional academic subjects. The District of Columbia city council will have to approve Bowsers pick. In a letter to his staff in Oakland, Wilson wrote that he had accepted the job as chancellor and that he will leave his current job in February, the East Bay Times reported. Leading through an equity agenda aimed at increasing student achievement and elevating academic social emotional learning in our nations capital is more important now than ever because of the challenges our nation is facing, he wrote. My work with you, the talented educators of Oakland, has prepared me well for this new role. Wilson said Oakland schools are now better positioned to be successful than in recent years. Before moving to Oakland in 2014, Wilson served as the assistant superintendent for Post-Secondary Readiness in Denver, where he received praise for his turnaround efforts. Graduation rates increased, while dropout declined in the schools under Wilsons purview. Wilson is a 2014 graduate of the Broad Academy, which trains leaders to run urban school systems. He was among a group of school district superintendents who joined Chiefs for Change last year. Education Secretary John King said he was encouraged by Bowsers choice. Antwan has a reputation for using a comprehensive equity agenda to help increase student achievement and elevate social emotional learning, a focus I am hopeful he will bring to DCPS as the district works to close achievement gaps. He is also known for promoting collaboration between traditional and charter schools and partnerships with city government, businesses, and community organizationsrelationships critical to success in any education setting. His compelling life storycrediting schools with saving his life"professional training, and educational experience position him well to lead DCPS students, educators, and schools to greater heights. Chiefs for Change CEO Mike Magee also congratulated Wilson on his nomination. Antwans time as a classroom teacher has shaped his vision for serving children, not just with academic excellence, but as whole human beings, Magee said in a statement. Thanks to his leadership, Oakland students are more likely to graduate, better prepared for college, and less likely to become part of the school-to-prison pipeline. This is a great move for DC. Photo: Jennifer Niles, left, the deputy mayor for education in the District of Columbia, incoming schools chancellor Antwan Wilson, and District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser arrive for a news conference at Eastern High School in Washington on Nov. 22 to announce Wilson in his new role. (Andrew Harnik/AP) The Remington Arms booth stands on the exhibition floor of the 144th National Rifle Association (NRA) Annual Meetings and Exhibits at the Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., on Saturday, April 11, 2015. "Clearly, the not so subtle message is that 'your gun is safe; don't waste your time or part with your gun for purposes of this meritless defect claim by greedy lawyers'," the filing said. Notices sent to gun owners thus far "not only downplayed the potential danger, but undermined any sense of urgency to take action and repair their rifle," according to an objection filed on behalf of Lewis Frost of Harahan, Louisiana, and Richard Denney of Norman, Oklahoma, who each own three Model 700 rifles. Remington has steadfastly denied the allegations, even though it has agreed to replace the triggers free of charge on most of the guns. Under language in the proposed settlement, the company continues to maintain that the guns are safe and free of defects. That provision of the deal is particularly irksome to critics, who say it is designed to convince owners not to submit their guns for repair, reducing the cost to Remington. The tentative agreement reached nearly two years ago but still stalled in court covers some 7.5 million guns, including the popular Model 700 rifle and a dozen other firearms with similar designs. CNBC first reported in a 2010 documentary about allegations that for decades the company covered up a design defect that allows the guns to fire without the trigger being pulled. Lawsuits have linked the alleged defect to at least two-dozen deaths and hundreds of injuries. A proposed class action settlement aimed at fixing millions of allegedly defective Remington rifles is "fatally flawed" and "a dysfunctional sham," critics say, addressing only a small number of guns while leaving millions more in the public's hands. In court filings, the critics, all of whom own various firearms covered under the settlement, are urging a federal judge to reject the deal. Attorneys for Remington and class action plaintiffs did not respond to emails seeking a comment. The plaintiffs' lawyers stand to collect $12.5 million in fees if the settlement is approved. The U.S. District Judge overseeing the class action case, Ortrie D. Smith of Kansas City, Missouri, has already expressed skepticism about the deal. Last December, hours after a CNBC follow-up investigation uncovered more internal Remington documents discussing the alleged defect, Smith ordered the parties to come up with a more effective plan to notify the public about the trigger replacement offer. In response, the parties added nationwide radio ads and a social media component to the campaign. As of August, before the enhanced push began, only about 6,500 claims out of 7.5 million guns had been filed, according to court filings. The parties have not provided any updates on the response rate since then. In an affidavit filed as part of Frost and Denney's objection, Philadelphia-based consultant Todd Hilsee an expert in class action claims notices argues that even with the enhanced campaign, 95 percent of the guns in question will not be repaired. Also criticizing the settlement his first formal objection to the deal is Richard Barber, a Montana man whose nine-year-old son was killed in 2000 when he says a Remington Model 700 fired unexpectedly during a family hunting trip. The Barber family reached a wrongful death settlement with Remington in 2002, and Barber initially served as a paid consultant to the plaintiffs in the class action case. But he said he resigned in 2014 after the plaintiffs joined Remington in asking Judge Smith to seal the very documents Barber had uncovered to bolster their case. "This alleged maneuver would render me and my research useless and would forever protect Remington's darkest secrets from ever being exposed," Barber wrote in a 40-page letter filed with the court on Friday. Smith ultimately denied the joint request for a so-called protective order. Last week, the advocacy group Public Justice published thousands of the documents in an online database. Of particular concern to Barber is a class of discontinued Remington guns that are also covered under the class action settlement but are ineligible for a trigger replacement. Some 250,000 of the guns are still on the market, including models 600, 660, Mohawk 600, and the XP-100 bolt-action pistol. Remington claims the guns, produced between 1962 and 1982, are too old to be retrofitted, and is instead offering owners a $12.50 product voucher. Barber said the provision ignores the fact that Remington previously recalled the guns in 1978 over the same safety issues, and remains obligated to fix them. He alleged Remington and the plaintiffs in the class action case deliberately hid that information from Judge Smith, and said Remington should face penalties as a result. "I am requesting this court to sanction Remington and its counsel for their willful disregard for the integrity of the courts generally and to attempt to defile your court to secure the proposed settlement by use of alleged fraudulent statements," Barber wrote. Remington and plaintiffs lawyers have not yet responded to Barber's allegations. The parties have until Jan. 17 to submit any proposed changes to the settlement agreement. Judge Smith has scheduled a hearing Feb. 14 to consider final approval. Customers interested in taking advantage of the trigger replacement offer can learn more about how to file a claim by visiting a special website run by a third-party claims administrator. The tentative settlement involves Remington Models 700, Seven, Sportsman 78, 673, 710, 715, 770, 600, 660, XP-100, 721, 722, and 725.\ CORRECTION This report has been updated to reflect that the Public Justice database includes many but not all of Remington's internal documents concerning allegedly defective guns. "We call on Russia to refrain from words or deeds that are inconsistent with the goal of promoting security and stability," he added. "Russia has made threats to move its Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad for the past decade in response to a variety of developments in Europe, none of which demand such a military response," State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters. Russia's deployment of its S-400 air missile defense system and ballistic Iskander missile in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad "is destabilizing to European security," the U.S. State Department said on Monday in response to reports citing the head of the defense committee in Russia's upper house of parliament. A man walks past a Russian surface-to-air missile system S-400 displayed on Suvorovskaya square in central Moscow on December 8, 2014 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Air Defence Forces. Moscow will deploy S-400 surface-to-air missiles and nuclear-capable Iskander systems in the exclave of Kaliningrad in retaliation for NATO deployments, a senior pro-Kremlin lawmaker was quoted as saying on Monday. Russia has previously said it periodically sends Iskanders to Kaliningrad, but until now it has said these were routine drills. Moscow has not linked the moves explicitly with what it says is a NATO military build-up on Russia's western borders. Kaliningrad is a Russian province between Poland and Lithuania. After the election as U.S. president of Donald Trump, who has said he wants closer ties with the Kremlin and has , some analysts predict an emboldened Moscow could become more assertive in eastern Europe. Viktor Ozerov, chairman of the defense committee in the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, said in remarks reported by RIA news agency that Russia was forced to react to the planned U.S. missile shield in eastern Europe. "As response measures to such threats we will have... to deploy additional forces... This reinforcement includes deployment of S-400 and Iskander systems in Kaliningrad," the agency quoted Ozerov as saying. The defense ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Ozerov's remarks. Also on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted talking about how Russia has to respond to what it perceives as a threat from U.S.-led forces in eastern Europe. "Why are we reacting to NATO expansion so emotionally? We are concerned by NATO's decision making," RIA quoted him as saying in an interview for a documentary that will be broadcast by Russian TV later on Monday. "What should we do? We have, therefore, to take countermeasures, which means to target with our missile systems the facilities, that, in our opinion, start posing a threat to us," Putin said. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. Protesters hold placards against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during a rally on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Lima on November 18, 2016. Rodrigo Buendia | AFP | Getty Images President-elect Donald Trump took to YouTube late Monday to announce his intention make the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a priority for his 100 first days in office. The announcement raised concerns in Japan, Canada and Mexico, but made Chinese officials hopeful. CNBC takes a look at some of the big issues surrounding the announcement. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a trade deal between 12 Pacific countries, including the U.S., Japan, Mexico, Canada and Australia. They concluded negotiations about a year ago and were supposed to ratify it by February of 2018. The announcement of President-elect on Monday means that the deal will not be implemented. "It basically means that TPP is dead," Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, told CNBC via email. "It was an initiative to coordinate all the existing U.S. Free Trade Agreements, and then with new additions like Japan. The entire economic rationale for TPP falls flat without the U.S. as participant," he added. What does this mean for U.S.-foreign relations? Apart from withdrawing from TPP, President-elect Trump wants to renegotiate the terms of a trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, which is already in implementation. The so-called (North American Free Trade Agreement) has led to a four-fold increase in U.S. trade volume with Canada and Mexico since it was implemented in 1994. "A Trump presidency looks set to anger a lot of countries in the world with its trade policy. There are no one-way gains in trade and good trade deals need to advance benefits for all sides. Trump's America first rhetoric is profoundly incompatible with good trade deals," Erixon added. TPP was also the base for a trade deal which has been negotiated between the U.S. and the EU, the so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership ( ). However, without TPP, the deal with the EU is going nowhere. "TTIP is not going to happen," Alicia Garcia-Herrero, senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank told CNBC over the phone. She added that this will in turn make Europe more receptive to trade proposals from China to avoid being isolated. Could a US-China deal be in the making? Chinese officials have recently proposed their economy as the best replacement opportunity for the U.S. as it withdraws from TPP. "China will not shut the door to the outside world but will open it even wider," President Xi Jinping of China told business leaders at an Asian-Pacific summit last weekend, the Financial Times reported. "I hope the two sides will work together to focus on co-operation, manage our differences, and make sure there is a smooth transition in the relationship and that it will continue to grow," he added regarding the future relationship with the U.S. According to Stephen Orlins, from the National Committee on United States-China Relations, it is easy to see how a trade deal with China could be an option for President-elect Donald Trump. "I think what happens is bilateral negotiations between the United States and China," Orlins told CNBC. He added that the potential appointment of Wilbur Ross "who is an investor in the steel industry" as secretary of commerce, would make steel "a very important part of U.S. China negotiations on the trade level." What about Canada? The past few weeks haven't given much good news to trade officials in Canada. Its trade deal with the European Union was perilously close to failure. The U.S. wants to withdraw from TPP and renegotiate NAFTA. This leads Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with few options. "Canada has to stay close to the US because it is its biggest market. But then it should accelerate its policy to diversify its trade with other parts the world, including China," Erixon added. Dr. Ben Carson delivers remarks during a Trump campaign event at the DoubleTree by Hilton November 1, 2016 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he is considering former presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development. @realdonaldtrump: I am seriously considering Dr. Ben Carson as the head of HUD. I've gotten to know him well--he's a greatly talented person who loves people! Just last week, the neurosurgeon's business manager and close friend, Armstrong Williams, told The Hill.com that Carson would not join the incoming Trump administration and would only serve as an unofficial adviser. "Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency," Williams told the publication. "The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency." Carson endorsed Trump almost immediately after dropping out of the Republican presidential race in March. At the time, he praised Trump's "guts" and "energy," calling the then-candidate very "cerebral." Today, Linda Kantor Swerdlow , author of the new book, Global Activism in an American School from Empathy to Action , shares an example of how students can take action and use their own agency to make a difference in the world. I first met seventh grade English teacher Ron Adams and two of his students, Kristin and Tom, from Broad Meadows Middle School in Quincy, Massachusetts when they presented at a two-day seminar on Global Child Labor for educators, that included noble prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi and the top curriculum writers in the field. The middle school students captured our hearts by their passionate appeal to end child labor. They had a strong sense of social justicesomething unusual for most middle school students. A History of Global Activism Ron shared with me the story of global activism at his school. When twelve-year-old Iqbal Masih , a former bonded child laborer turned anti child labor activist from Pakistan, came to Boston in 1994 to receive Reeboks Youth in Action Award, he asked to meet youth his own age. Reebok award organizers selected Broad Meadows Middle School because of its human rights curriculum and history of student activism. Iqbals inspirational visit and untimely murder five months later on his return to Pakistan inspired the Broad Meadows students to take action and build a school in his memory. The middle school students started a grassroots activist movement called The Kids Campaign to Build a School for Iqbal. The campaigns success led to Broad Meadows selection as a pilot school for Operation Days Work-USA (ODW-USA), an American adaptation of Norways popular youth global social action program. ODW has been operating as a highly successful afterschool program at Broad Meadows since 1996. A Student-Centered Program Operation Days Work-USA is a student-centered, global education afterschool program based on the idea of youth helping youth. Its aim is to help participants develop global understanding and democratic practice. Each year, all seven of the member middle and high schools solicit proposals from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provide services for youth in the developing world. US students research the issues and learn how to assess the proposals. After considerable discussion and debate, each school votes and the students develop a year-long educational and funding campaign for the program that receives the most votes. The campaign ends with the students either working for a day to make a contribution of that days pay or by developing a community service project and finding sponsors who pledge to contribute for each hour of community service the students perform. At Broad Meadows, the educational campaign has a dual focus: self-education and community education. Each year before the proposals arrive, Ron provides incoming students with a general understanding of global inequality through a series of hands-on simulations and research activities. The returning students take on the role of mentor and teaching assistants. Once the proposals have been evaluated and the vote is in, the students need to develop education programs to accompany their fundraising efforts in both the school and the community. They must develop an understanding of the country, the culture(s) of its inhabitants, and the problem the NGO is attempting to address. Over the years, the middle school students have worked to fund a wide range of programs. They have partnered with Goodweave to provide education and healthcare for rescued child laborers in Nepal and India; Partners in Health to provide vaccinations and scholarships for children in rural Haiti; and Selamta Family Project to build group homes from AIDs orphans in Ethiopia. The list goes on and on. Global Partnerships One of the unique aspects of ODW is the educational role played by the NGO partners. Students learn about the organizations activities through in-person and Skype meetings with agency officials. They have the opportunity to speak with their peers overseas who are beneficiaries of these programs. The fundraising and educational campaigns are student-run according to student-generated rules that enforce democratic practice. After the proposals are in, Ron gradually transfers the leadership roles to the veteranseighth graders who have been in the program for one or two years. As program facilitator, he encourages democratic practice and decision-making but will jump in to assist when needed, especially with tasks that require academic guidance. Outcomes for Students The student-run nature of the program allows students to experiment with adult work roles and exposes them to career options they might not otherwise have known about. They also develop a wide range of real-world skills, including research, writing, public speaking, critical thinking, ability to work collaboratively, fundraising, publicity, and the ability to facilitate meetings and make professional presentations. Most importantly, participation in ODW enhances students awareness and understanding of the global community. This is essential if we want American students to solve complex global problems and to succeed in the increasingly globalized economy of the 21st century. As Ron Adams notes, Each campaign is an attempt to provide students with real-world experiences, meaningful to the students and to apply skills learned in class. Ironically, application, a true sense of learning is not measured by high stakes state testing nor by teacher evaluations. Still it is the right thing to do. As teachers, we need to always save room for student voice. If you are a middle or high school teacher interested in starting an ODW chapter at your school, please contact: RonaldAdams222@gmail.com . Connect with Heather and the Center for Global Education on Twitter. Image courtesy of Ron Adams. watch now President-elect Donald Trump faces an uphill battle fulfilling his promises to revive the U.S. coal industry. The battlefield became even more pitched when Canada said it would speed up its effort to reduce its coal consumption. America's neighbor to the north was the fifth-largest market for U.S. coal in 2015. Its pledge on Monday to get off coal sooner than expected will only pile more pressure on a U.S. industry that has seen nearly half of its production fall into bankruptcy due to falling demand, lower prices and a global oversupply of coal. To be sure, Canada's appetite for U.S. coal was already declining. The chart above also shows India's growing consumption offset the decline in exports to Canada. But among the top five U.S. coal export markets, only India and the Netherlands purchased more supplies last year. And imports through the first six months of 2016 fell in each of those top destinations, except Brazil. Large year-to-date declines in the Netherlands, South Korea and India have dwarfed the Brazil bump. U.S. coal exports fell 24 percent overall in 2015 and have fallen another 32 percent through the first half of 2016. Trump is vowing to put coal miners back to work by rolling back regulations, offering tax breaks to invest in infrastructure and ending a moratorium on mining on federal land enforced by President Barack Obama. He would also cancel Obama's Clean Energy Plan, which would force power plants to capture more greenhouse gases. However, those changes would not address the core problem faced by the U.S. coal industry, which is that it can't compete on price with surging U.S. natural gas production. Angela Merkel's decision to run for a fourth term as German chancellor coincided with the release of a poll showing that 55 percent of the electorate support this decision, with stability seen as the key attribute the long-standing leader would bring to a renewed stint in office. Proponents of the existing liberal order in Europe are looking to Merkel's experience and perceived strength as a crucial ballast in the face of the rising tide of populism sweeping Western democracies and seen as posing a challenge to long-standing political structures and certain values underpinning them. According to Josef Janning, senior policy fellow and head of the European Council on Foreign Relations' Berlin office, "A fourth Merkel term will signal continuity above everything else." "In fact, Merkel will become even more active internationally - all German chancellors have followed that pattern in the later years of their time in office," he explained in emailed comments to CNBC. Yet the outcome of a pair of upcoming votes will be critical in determining how much support she has from other core European Union (EU) leaders. Italy is set to decide on December 4 whether to back its incumbent Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who in seeking power to make constitutional reforms has staked his leadership on a referendum. If Renzi is compelled to step aside, the door opens more widely for the anti-establishment Five Star Movement to potentially assume power at the next election. Meanwhile in France, pollsters expect next May's presidential election to come down to a run-off between the center-right's Francois Fillon and Marine Le Pen for France's far-right National Front. According to Stephen Szabo, executive director of the Transatlantic Academy, these outcomes are crucial for Merkel. "The prospect of a Fillon presidency clearly is welcome in Berlin. If Le Pen loses and Renzi survives, Merkel will have a chance to shape European responses to Brexit, the refugee situation, the problems with the euro and Russia," he said via emailed comments to CNBC. The U.S. Department of Education is in the midst of auditing whether California and Alabama are accurately reporting how many of the states students graduate high school in four years. The audits goal, according to the Office of Inspector Generals Annual Plan for 2017 , is to determine whether selected [state education agencies] have implemented systems of internal control over calculating and reporting graduation rates that are sufficient to ensure that reported graduation rates are accurate and reliable. A spokeswoman for the Office Inspector General confirmed that the education department is auditing several state education agencies calculation and reporting of graduation rates. The spokeswoman said that the office couldnt comment further on the focus of the audits, why California and Alabama had been singled out, or the findings so far in order to preserve the integrity of the audit. But in Alabama, at least, local media has linked the audit to dramatic increases in the states graduation rate in recent years. The states graduation rate has increased by 17 percentage points since 2011. The OIG has audited states graduation-rate reporting before. A 2006 audit of Washington States education department found, among other things, that various school-level errors meant that the state was likely overreporting its graduation report by nearly 6 percentage points and that the state was using the wrong definition of dropout. An audit of South Dakota that same year found that the states approach to reporting graduation rates didnt meet federal requirements under No Child Left Behind. Questions About Collection State education departments have been required to report whats known as the Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate, or ACGR, since 2011. The ACGR captures what portion of high schoolers who start 9th grade in a given year graduate four years later. The goal was to have a set of data about high school graduation rates that allowed for comparisons across states. Before 2011, states used a variety of formulas to report graduation rates: Some might calculate a rate based on how many students who began the year as seniors graduated later that year, while others might include those who graduated in five or six years in their tallies, and some might not include alternative diplomas granted to students with special needs. (You can find more on the change in graduation rates in this Education Week article from 2011 .) But in the summer of 2015, NPR, among others, raised concerns about how states and schools were going about increasing graduation rates. Reporters found that 21 states offer easy paths to diplomas. Some schools offer credit-recovery programs in which students can make up years of coursework in weeks or days; others mislabel students status. In November 2015, the Data Quality Campaign released a report highlighting differences in states practices for reporting graduation rates that might prevent rates from being comparable, despite the introduction of the ACGR. The reports writers suggest that policymakers implement regular audits, ensure that all students are included in 9th grade cohorts, and train teachers and schools in data collection, among other actions. An interesting fact from that report: Iowa, the state with the highest reported graduation rate, is also the only state that does not audit graduation-rate-reporting practices. States respond The class of 2015 in Alabama had the third highest graduation rate in the country, with some 89 percent of high schoolers graduating on time. Thats 17.3 percentage points higher than the number reported in 2011. At the same time, however, the states high school students lag behind most of the country on other measures, such as the ACT and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. Andrew Yerbey, a senior policy counsel at the Alabama Policy Institute, published two essays raising concerns about Alabamas sudden increase in graduation rates earlier this year. In March, Yerbey wrote that then-outgoing state Superintendent Tommy Bices pride in the states increasing graduation rate was misplaced. Despite the skyrocketing graduation rates, Yerbey writes, Alabama has seen nothing remotely similar occur with regard to scholastic achievement, which remains dismalamong the worst of the worst in the United States. Alabama ranked 48th in the country on the NAEP. And, Yerbey writes , 40 high schools in the state graduated classes of seniors in which none were college-ready as defined by their ACT scores. The states education department replied to Trisha Powell Crain , an Al.com reporter who wrote about Yerbeys concerns and the states graduation rate: Our goal is to make sure every student graduates and that every graduate is prepared for life after high school. That is, having the ability to enter a two- or four-year institution without the need for remedial courses and/or possessing an industry-recognized certification or credential to enter into the workforce. Although the hard work of our teachers and students is reflected in our increasing graduation rate, there is still much to do as we continue toward realizing the other half of that goal. The Alabama Department of Education had not replied to Education Weeks request for a comment about the OIG audit by the end of the day on Monday. Al.com reported last week that state Superintendent Michael Sentance had said that it was premature to comment on the review since it is currently incomplete. Al.com reports that the state has had some conditions placed on federal funding if regulations havent been followed, though its unclear what consequences this audit might have. In California, where the graduation rate has grown by 7.6 percentage points since 2010, Peter Tira, a spokesman for the state education department, wrote in an email that the state attributes its sixth consecutive year of increased graduation rates to new, more rigorous academic state standards; additional revenue flowing into our schools as a result of Proposition 30, and an improved economy; the return of relevant and engaging classes in art, music, and career technical education that were cut during the recession to cite a few reasons. Image from Diplomas Count 2016 Related stories: 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. This is a guest blog post from an amazing veteran educator who is planting new roots in education and life. Read more about Stephanie at the end of her post. Its fall in northern Maine and I am reminded of just how beautiful New England becomes this time of year. I am also thinking, perhaps for the first time ever, that this incredible beauty comes as the leaves are beginning the task of letting go. They are letting go of the tree that displayed their brilliant greens, nourished them from the inside out, and held them high all year. What beauty results from this certain death! How easily we accept the circle of life when we are only aware of it as a gift rather than a loss. Until today, that is exactly how I have looked upon the mighty oaks and stately maples. It is how I have thought of the gnarled apple trees and the swaying birches. I have been looking at the vibrant colors that serve to decorate the landscape around me. I have marveled at the brilliant reds and yellows, the muted rusts and soft oranges that splash across the horizon and blanket the mountains. But, I have never really considered the loss until now. You see, now I am here in the northern most county in Maine, mourning the separation from my figurative tree. In this case my tree was the learning community of Norwich, Vermont. I left my teaching position to follow my husband to his new job here. I imagined a grand adventure, a chance to see the more remote parts of New England, and the chance to teach in a whole new place. It wasnt until I realized teaching jobs are scarce here, family and friends are hours away, and my last days of summer werent being spent shopping for and preparing my classroom for the year ahead, that I realized what a loss I was experiencing. Like a spring and summer leaf, I had held tight to that little village in Vermont. I grew and tilted my head towards the sunlight that shone down, disguised as a collection of dedicated colleagues, students, and families. I had taken it for granted. In retrospect, I see clearly all the times I was nourished, held high, and encouraged to show my brilliant greens. It began right away, when I accepted the last minute teaching position that had been made possible only by the late summer growing numbers of the 3rd grade classes. And it continued through my very last day, as I boxed up my classroom and closed the door behind me. The kindness and generosity of the community as a whole was remarkable. In my first year teaching 3rd grade, so many colleagues supported me in so many ways. Some mentored me, some gently encouraged, some left healthy treats in my mailbox. The custodians went above and beyond the call of duty to furnish my classroom at the last minute, in spite of all the regular scheduled cleaning and maintenance that comes with getting an entire building ready for the first day of school. That first autumn, my fellow 3rd grade teachers knew just when to do what was needed. For example, a longstanding tradition is for the entire 3rd grade class to climb Mt. Cube. The children were excited, as many of them could recall older siblings talking about their own climb. Parents were generous with their time and patience as they joined us for the day of hiking. And, my fellow teachers graciously joined together to gather my own class with theirs because my presence was required, one-on-one, with a student new to our school. He had never summited a mountain, had never even been hiking. His slow and careful climbing style made it necessary for me to hang back with him. You see, my colleagues instinctively knew it was so much more important for this little boy to feel the success of making his first summit, to go at his own pace and feel pleased with his accomplishment, than it was for me to rush him along and keep him at the same pace with his more experienced classmates. When we finally reached the summit, the other students were packing their backpacks, ready to make the journey down. It might have taken him considerably longer, but he made it. He was able to stand on top of that mountain, gazing at the beauty of what lay out before him, and maybe most importantly, acknowledge the beauty of the courage and tenacity the lay within him. As I watched him gaze out over that mountaintop, my heart nearly burst with pride and gratitude. Knowing our pace on the way down would never match the rest of the group, my fellow teachers led the other students down the mountain, for the simple reason that it is what my student needed. Two of the parents who had joined us all that day offered to make the descent with us and give us a ride back to school. It was just one of a hundred days I would come to see a village truly raising a child. It came together to lift that child up high enough so that he could see his own potential, feel his own accomplishment, and believe in his own ability. The years went on and I was fortunate enough to teach other grades, team with other teachers, serve on various committees, and benefit from the help and dedication of many families. I found myself, again and again, counting my lucky stars to be part of this amazing learning community. When my father died, it was this job that saved me. My students deserved my full presence and attention when I was there. I could not allow myself to fall into a puddle of grief and detach from them. I, too, depended on my students, and their families, to keep me grounded in this profession I love so much. Their kind words, thoughtful cards, and simple presence truly made my classroom a place to heal. And, in a bittersweet twist, I remembered that it had been my dad who had handed me a check for one hundred dollars (for school supplies, he said) when I got that first teaching job. He had been making an investment in not only that first room, but in all of my future classrooms. I could not, in good conscience, let him down, waste the hard earned money that he had trusted would foster an environment of learning and support, creativity and discovery. Losing a loved one can trick us into thinking that nothing beautiful and good will ever break the surface again. Grief can paralyze us in ways not fully understood until we experience it. But, beauty and hope canand doeslift the veil of sadness and misery. Perhaps the most poignant moment came several months after losing my father. A former kindergarten student of mine played her violin during an all school assembly. That simple song played with reverence, by a little girl who was brave enough to stand in front of her entire school, made me believe that there was indeed beauty left in this world. In that moment, in that place, I began to heal. Teaching at that little school was simply a collection of thousands of moments just like that. Outdoor learning, with second graders knee deep in the stream, making real discoveries, and then following that very same stream from its source on the mountaintop to the mouth of the Connecticut River. Time honored traditions like Mayfest, holiday concerts, and stone soup; author visits, community service, and open houses; visits to the State House, River Day, and magnificent student art workthese moments celebrate the students, show the strength and perseverance of both children and adults, showcase the kindness of my colleagues, reveal the investment of the parents, and make visible the genuine sense of community that can be found in that little Vermont town. It is those moments I miss as I look out upon the mountains and hills here in northern Maine. I am reminded of the ways my dad provided me with roots, Marion Cross School gave me the sturdiness of a strong trunk, and a million moments in and out of the classroom became the bright green buds and leaves that clung tightly to the tree until they were ready to let go. As I contemplate letting go, I am also counting my blessings. Thank you, Marion Cross School, and all of the branches of your magnificent tree. I have grown with my face toward the sunlight, rested in your shade, been nourished by your kindness, and supported by the limbs and twigs that continue to grow. May you never tire from this truly powerful and necessary work you do, giving so many a great start and helping them to let go when the time comes. It has truly been an honor to have been but a single leaf on your tree. Stephanie Ferland is currently the GEAR UP Maine Scholar Coordinator. Stephanie grew up in a rural mill town in New Hampshire, the daughter of a logger dad who taught her love and respect for the natural world, and a stay-at-home mom, who taught her to read. She has been in love with school since her very first day of kindergarten. Her dream to spend the rest of her life in school, in some capacity or another, continues to be realized every day. She has a BA in Writing & Literature, Teacher Certification for K-8 regular classroom and middle school English, and is finishing her MATL at Mt. Holyoke College. She brings experience in both traditional and non-traditional classroom settings, ranging from kindergarten to high school, and believes everybody deserves a chance to learn as much as possible, for as long as possible. Stephanie lives in Portage and continues to marvel at the beauty of both nature and books. Follow Stephanie: @vtteachergirl Photo courtesy of Reilly Butler, Paul VanDerWerf, and Nicholas Ritenour. Things to See and Do in and Around Columbus in November Nepotism Laws: Can Trump Appoint His Son-In-Law? There have been major concerns regarding the intermingling of President-elect Donald Trump's business and family relationships, and how those might change once he takes office. When Rudy Giuliani addressed these recently, he said that taking the Trump businesses away from the Trump children "would be putting them out of work," highlighting that "they can't work in the government because of the government rule against nepotism." The rule might be especially important when it comes to Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law who acted as a close advisor during the presidential campaign and who Trump is rumored to have tabbed for a senior spot in his White House. So what is the federal law against nepotism say? And does it apply to Kushner's possible appointment? Employment Eligibility A federal statute on the employment of relatives states: "A public official may not appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official." The same statute defines a "public official" as an officer, "including the President," and "relative" as "an individual who is related to the public official as ... son-in-law" (among other familial relationships). The law was passed in 1967 after John F. Kennedy appointed his brother Robert F. Kennedy as attorney general, and has been cited to bar an internship for then-President Jimmy Carter's son. Skirting the Statute While the statute plainly prohibits Trump from giving Kushner an official role in the White House, some have speculated that the president-elect would still allow his son-in-law to have some advisory role on a volunteer basis. But, as the New York Times notes, another federal statute makes it a crime for government employees, of which Trump would be one, to accept voluntary services not authorized by law. In any case, Trump would have to question whether Kushner's appointment would be worth the political backlash and possible investigations, something the soon-to-be president will have to grapple with concerning many of his familial and business relationships. Related Resources: President-elect Donald Trump on Monday sent out the strongest signal yet that the H-1B visa program is going get real scrutiny once he takes office. Trump listed five executive actions he plans to take on his first day in office. They include asking the Department of Labor to investigate "all abuses of the visa programs that undercut the American worker." [ To comment on this story, go to Computerworld's Facebook page. ] Trump did not get into details and didn't specifically mention the H-1B visa, but his intent is clear. During the campaign, he was critical of the H-1B visa program and invited displaced IT workers from Disney to speak at his rallies. He said the visa is being used to undercut workers. "Companies are importing low-wage workers on H-1B visas to take jobs from young college-trained Americans," Trump said at a rally last month in Ohio directed at millennial-age voters. He called the outsourcing of jobs a tremendous threat. Trump detailed his executive plan in a video posted on his Facebook page. He said he asked his transition team for executive actions he can take on day one "to restore our jobs and bring back our jobs -- it's about time." The Labor Department has been asked before to investigate the visa program to no success. In 2015, 10 senators, including Trump's attorney general pick, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), asked the department to look at the layoffs of IT workers at Southern California Edison, but the department said it couldn't because it lacked a formal complaint. Edison workers subsequently did file complaints with the department; it investigated "though half-heartedly," and found no wrongdoing, said Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at Howard University, who has testified multiple times before Congress on the visa's use. The same thing happened with complaints from displaced IT workers at other firms, he said. "I believe that the [Labor Department] had much more authority and discretion in its ability to investigate and penalize wrongdoing," Hira said. "Even more importantly, it had an obligation to point out how it was handcuffed by Congress in ensuring that the spirit of the law was upheld." Hira said the agency "was negligent in its duty to ensure that the U.S. labor market is fair -- this is something that is in the mission statement of the organization." The Trump administration can investigate the H-1B program, expose fraud, enforce existing rules, expose flaws and make recommendations, including new regulations for fixing it, said Hira. Trump's other first-day actions include withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), removing "job-killing restrictions" on energy production and new limits on lobbying for former government officials. Another day-one action involves cybersecurity. Trump said he will direct the Defense Department "to develop a comprehensive plan to protect America's vital infrastructure from cyberattacks and all other form of attacks." 2017 Commencement speaker Colson Whitehead wins National Book Award New York Times best-selling novelist Colson Whitehead. Photo by Madeline Whitehead. New York Times best-selling novelist Colson Whitehead, who will deliver the keynote address at Connecticut Colleges 99th Commencement in May, is the winner of the 2016 National Book Award for fiction. Whitehead was honored Nov. 16 for his most recent novel, The Underground Railroad, which chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. The work, which was named No. 1 novel of 2016 by Time magazine, has been praised as a brave and necessary book that uses the power of fiction to explore unspeakable truths about slavery and oppression. Established in 1950, the National Book Award is an American literary prize administered by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization. Previous winners of the award include William Faulkner, Marianne Moore, Philip Roth, John Updike, Katherine Anne Porter, Saul Bellow and Flannery OConnor. A 1991 graduate of Harvard College, Whitehead began his career at the Village Voice, where he wrote reviews of television, books and music. His first novel, The Intuitionist, was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and a winner of the Quality Paperback Book Club's New Voices Award. His 2001 novel, John Henry Days, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Zone One, his 2011 novel about post-apocalyptic New York City, was a New York Times Best Seller. In addition to penning seven novels and two works of nonfiction, Whitehead has written for the Village Voice, The New Yorker Magazine, The New York Times and Granta magazine. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur genius Fellowship, the Dos Passos Prize and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He has taught at the University of Houston, Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, New York University, Princeton University and Wesleyan University, and been a Writer-in-Residence at Vassar College, the University of Richmond and the University of Wyoming. Whitehead was chosen to speak at Conn's Commencement because his creative and courageous examination of race, identity and the slave experience has demonstrated a concern for humanity that resonates deeply with the Colleges commitment to social justice. The Underground Railroad recently stimulated a rich discussion among students, faculty and staff in the Colleges new American Studies colloquium, led by History Professor James Downs. At the Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 21, 2017, the College will confer on Whitehead an honorary degree. President Katherine Bergeron said the award reflects not only Whiteheads achievements as an author, but also his dedication to values that animate this community: academic excellence, personal integrity and a commitment to social justice." Connecticut College has a tradition of inspired and inspiring commencement speakers. In 2014, National Public Radio did a feature of the 300 best commencement speeches of all time, and 19 of them had been delivered at Connecticut College, the largest number of any institution on the list November 22, 2016 Maybe next presidential election, it would behoove pollsters to check in with flagmakers of Yiwu, China's main manufacturing center for flags exported to America. One manufacturer told a Chinese video site he knew Trump would win because they were exporting so many more Trump flags. Via Mashable: In an interview with Digger, a Chinese video site, Yao Dan Dan, who runs a small factory making flags for export to U.S. retailers, said there were far more Trump flags ordered compared with those for Hillary Clinton. After a couple of early orders for Clinton flags, some of Yao's American customers stopped commissioning those altogether, as fewer people were buying them, he said. It's not clear if that includes the Confederate flag variants they offer. The Chinese city that makes the world's flags knew Trump would win (Mashable) John Bald is a former Ofsted inspector and has written two books on the teaching of reading and spelling. My pupil call him George has had German on his school timetable for five years, but he has not been learning German. Instead, he has been exposed to German he doesnt understand, with no explanation of the structures of the language, leaving him with no idea of how to say or write anything whatsoever in German. For his GCSE controlled assessment, he writes down German words, in something like the order they would appear in English, and emails them to his teacher. She rewrites them in German, including accurate verbs and word endings, and returns his email, in sections, for him to learn by heart the German he has not been taught, and reproduce it in his school-based examination, with the help of thirty words written on a cue card. Ive seen a whole class in the midlands mistaught German using the same method and a London teacher, at the Austrian Embassys recent open day, told me she was required to correct and rewrite controlled assessments no fewer than five times. One result is that the assessment does not in any way reflect these pupils knowledge of the language. Another is that they know that they have learned nothing, and want nothing further to do with languages, whatever fake grade they happen to receive. Thanks to Michael Goves examination reforms, this scam will no longer be possible from next year, but we also need, urgently, to replace the errors in teaching that have led to it. The All Party Parliamentary Group for Languages received a warning last month from Richard Hardie, former Chairman of UBS, that we had an acute shortage of linguists with the levels of skill needed to draw up contracts and deal with foreign regulators. Other business leaders identified a particular problem with German. As Germany is our largest trading partner, and as German has suffered greater decline than any other major language, the implications following the referendum are obvious. Enter the Teaching Schools Council, a body set up to co-ordinate school-based teacher training, but until now not widely known outside its own membership. At the request of Nick Gibb, the Council has set up a working party, chaired by Ian Bauckham, a German specialist, Executive Headteacher of the Bennett Memorial Diocesan School and a Trustee of the National Foundation for Educational Research. Its members included two former presidents of the Association for Language Learning, the Professor of German at Oxford University, and Dr Emma Marsden, of York University, whose thesis provided important evidence of the effectiveness of teaching grammar. It investigated widely, with an external review of research, round-tables with specialists and school leaders, and visits to successful schools including Michaela Free School, Comberton Village College and two Harris academies. I was a member of the group, whose report was launched at the British Council on Thursday, and presented to the APPG on Monday last week. The report recommends systematic teaching of vocabulary, grammar, and the sound-letter correspondences of the new language, informed by the brain research of the Medical Research Council. At the launch, Ian Bauckham recommended that pupils be grouped according to their learning needs, and the report stresses the need to bring out the talents of the most able pupils, to equip them for work at A level and beyond. It is the antithesis of the mixed-ability policies produced by Labour quangos over the last half-century, and still prevalent in university-based teacher training. This gives it an importance that extends beyond language learning. With some important and honourable exceptions, Michael Gove and Chris Woodhead were right about the Blob, which still controls too much of teacher training and research, even in the academic elements of Teach First. The academic clout behind this report gives the Teaching Schools Council the means to develop a fresh approach, fully informed by research. One of our members, Dr Rachel Hawkes, has written good textbooks for Spanish and German. And it is not too late to help George. The reports teaching techniques are easy to understand and to use. Last summer, they enabled a GCSE pupil to move from a borderline C to an A grade in a matter of weeks, and this year they helped an A level candidate who had A* in other subjects to secure an A after a six months, both in French. George has learned the basic structures of German, beginning with common verbs and the linguistic features the teacher had inserted into his work, and is beginning to enjoy some elements of German usage based on his personal experience. The British George, my other pupils, and myself included are not bad at languages. We simply need to teach them properly. This report shows how. California's perma-drought has led to the death of more that 102 million trees in the last six years. From SF Gate: Scientists blame five-plus years of drought on the increasing tree deaths tree "fatalities" increased by 100 percent in 2016 but the rate of their demise has been much faster than expected, increasing the risk of ecologically damaging erosion and wildfires even bigger than the largest blazes the state's seen this year. "It's not beyond the pale to suggest that this is a pretty unprecedented event in at least recent history," said Adrian Das, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1954, a London taxi driver named George King received an extraterrestrial mental telegram informing him that he's been deemed the voice of the Interplanetary Parliament. Motivated by his new cosmic position, he launched the Aetherius Society to spread the spiritual teachings of extraterrestrial gurus like Buddha, Sri Krishna, Confucius, and Jesus. Sure, why not. King died in 1997 but the Aetherius Society lives on. MEL Magazine's Jonathan Parks-Ramage paid them a visit: "The biggest reason why the Aetherius Society is here, why the Cosmic Masters came to earth, is because the Mother Earth has to change," Keneipp says. "She'd held herself back for hundreds of thousands of years because she's providing mankind a home to evolve. She's been told by the karmic lords that she can no longer hold herself back. And so the big push by the Cosmic Masters is to raise as many people up so that they will be able to get to a point where they will enter a new age here on earth." Essentially, the Society's goal is to lift Mother Earth's burden with love and prayer, a task helped by descended Cosmic Masters like Jesus and Buddha. Inspired by his new religion, Keneipp soon abandoned the pre-med program at SIU, deciding instead to moved to Los Angeles in 1978. Keneipp devoted his life to the church, working directly with George King as he expanded his religion. I ask Keneipp what it was like to work for King during those formative years. His response surprises me. "[King] could be very hard, as you would hear other masters of yoga would be in India. They weren't politically correct and gooey and friendly. They could be extremely harsh and hard and pull you up. [King] expected you to give the best all the time." ANTI-UNION AGENDA More attacks promised The Turnbull government looks set to bring the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) and the Registered Organisations bills before the Senate this week. The ABCC bill and an accompanying Building Code are central to the governments plans to destroy the Construction Division of the CFMEU and rid the industry of militant trade unions. The two bills were the triggers for the double dissolution election on July 2 after the Senate had twice failed to pass them. It has taken the government more than three months to feel confident it may have negotiated the necessary deals with cross-benchers to get the bills through the Senate. Ever since Abbott came to office in 2013, the Coalition government has set out to deregulate the labour market, slash wages and roll back working conditions. Impatient employer organisations have been putting the pressure on a desperate government to get on with the job. ABCC The federal government aims to bankrupt the CFMEU with massive fines, criminalise legitimate trade union activity, hound and intimidate workers and exclude trade union officials from construction sites. The bill before the Senate goes much further in removing basic rights than the Howard governments original legislation. It outlaws pickets, including community pickets for the first time ever. The definition of protected industrial action is narrowed, fines are increased and the Commissions draconian powers are strengthened. (See Guardian # 1728, 27-04-2016, The Australian Building and Construction Commission Mark II: Gestapo industrial relations laws.) If anyone is wondering why the CFMEU is the immediate target, it has nothing to do with corrupt or thuggish behaviour as the government would have us believe. They need only look at what the union has been achieving for its members. Militant union In a climate where wages growth has declined markedly in recent years, the Construction Division of the CFMEU has been able to win real wage rises. For example, the union has just signed off on an agreement with Lendlease for an annual five percent wage increase over the next four years a total of 20 percent during the life of the EBA. The new agreement with the giant property developer also gives workers a 36-hour working week, paid domestic violence leave of ten days a year and 12 days of paid personal leave in the first year of employment. The 5 percent per annum cost increase and other terms leaves Lendleases agreement in line with the agreements established by the rest of the industry over the past two years, with additional productivity measures negotiated including a tightened application of entitlements, clearer consultation provisions and better safety arrangements, a Lendlease spokesperson said. In other industries, wages are being increased by smaller amounts and less often. Feeling emboldened with the Abbott/Turnbull Coalition in office, employers are digging their heels in, prolonging bargaining periods around new agreements and holding back on making concessions. Many workers have seen their income stagnate or even decline. The rise in casual employment is one of the factors behind this situation. Another is the decline in the rate of unionisation in some sectors of the economy. Wages in decline The decline in wages growth and actual decrease in wages paid are not confined to the mining sector where the end of the boom strengthened the hand of resources companies. It is across the board, in particular where workplaces are not unionised or trade union representation is industrially weak. The proportion of wage rises above four percent per annum fell from just under 30 percent in 2012 to seven percent in 2016 Abbott was elected in 2013. (ABS figures) Women have also fallen further behind under the conservative government. Full-time average earnings of women are now $261.10 per week less than their male counterparts a gap of 16.2 percent. For total average weekly earnings including full-time, part-time and casual workers the gap is 33 percent. (ABS) Nurses, aged care workers, public sector workers, hospitality industry employees, shop assistants and hotel workers are amongst the lowest paid. In the case of the nursing profession, where the union is well organised and fighting back, nurses are in the difficult position that industrial action such as strikes only hurts their patients and saves their employer money. Yellow union A 15-month study by Fairfax media revealed how deals being negotiated by the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees Association (SDA) with major retailers including Coles, Woolworths and McDonalds were leaving staff worse off. The study found that 250,000 workers were paid less than the award rate, saving big business more than an estimated $300 million per annum. The SDA had negotiated reduced penalty rates with Coles and Woolworths and at McDonalds staff were not paid penalty rates on weekends. When the Coles and Woolworths agreements were challenged in the Fair Work Commission they were rejected as not meeting the better-off-overall test when compared with the award. The award itself is minimal. Not surprisingly, the government is not pursuing the SDA and its right-wing leadership but it does have plans to replace the better-off-overall test with a weaker provision. The SDA is not the only union appearing to sell its members short and undermining confidence in the union movement amongst workers. The ABC national public broadcaster and Fairfax media have revealed a number of other corporate rip-offs. Neither the Fair Work Commission (FWC) nor Fair Work Building and Construction (FWBC) Labors version of the ABCC) are scratching the surface of corporate rorting of the labour market. The massively funded and staffed FWBC is obsessed with hounding trade unionists and the FWC is largely focused on individual or small group cases. For example, illegal sham contracts where workers are employed as contractors and denied their legal entitlements such as superannuation, workers compensation cover, paid leave, etc, are rife yet pass under the radar of these outfits. This is not limited to the building and construction industry. Visa workers are left to the mercy of unscrupulous employers who treat them like slaves and threaten worker who objects or complains with deportation. Federal public service In the federal public service, workers in most agencies have not had a wage rise during the past three years or so. The agreements being put to agency staff seek to remove a host of long-held conditions in some instances amounting to a 75 percent reduction in the content of existing agreements. The Coalition government has forbidden back pay and placed strict limits on enhancements to workplace entitlements in the public service. Then there were the young workers at Grilld being ripped off under the guise of traineeships that never end. Carlton and United Breweries workers are still fighting to get their jobs back after being sacked and offered their jobs back at 65 percent less pay. The list of scandalous breaches of the Fair Work Act and dirty tricks by employers grows by the day. The governments response is to try to wipe out the one force that is prepared to stand up to such employers and protect workers militant trade unions. Build the union movement There is only one force that can halt this decline in wages, working conditions and deunionisation that is taking place. That is the trade union movement itself, with the support of the broader community. It requires strong militant, independent trade unions that are prepared to put the interests of their members first. This includes education of unionists to raise the level of class consciousness, to develop organising and recruiting skills and knowledge of the principles of trade unionism which have been dulled over recent decades. The Communist Party of Australia is committed to the interests of the working class and to providing whatever support it can to this task. This includes active support on pickets, education programs, using the Guardian to support struggles and promote activities. Use Your Power rally Fighting privatisation in WA On a hot November lunchtime (Thursday 15) the Australian Services Union (ASU) and the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) held a Use Your Power rally outside the state Parliament in Perth. The rally was well organised by the two unions to demonstrate to the Liberal government of Colin Barnett their strong opposition to the proposed sale of the state electricity utility Western Power. Unions WA Secretary Meredith Hammat chaired the rally of close to a thousand workers from a wide range of unions and their supporters. They were united in solidarity with the Western Power workers who was made redundant as the government moved to reduce the organisations debt by cutting jobs. In an unexpected move Premier Barnett decided to front the angry protesters at the rally and defend the privatisation of Western Power. It is not the first time that Premier Barnett whose arrogance has earned him a reputation as an emperor, has fronted a community rally at Parliament House. I was close enough to see that he gets some perverse joy from stirring up the working class. His decision to front the rally should also be seen as a sign that the union movements well organised and hard-hitting campaign had clearly rattled the Liberal state Premier. Barnett claimed that no decision had been made and that the final decision on the sale of Western Power would not be made before the March 11, 2017 election. Barnett further vacillated by speculating whether it would be a full or partial sale of the utility. He said it would not be sold to a foreign entity and instead offered to an Australian superannuation fund. He also noted that the utility is a natural monopoly it just remains to see whether it would be state or privately owned. The rally did not buy Barnetts reassurances as they had heard it all before with other privatisations most notably the recent Alinta gas privatisation which was bought by Singapore Power International, Singapores largest utility company. ALP state Opposition Leader Mark McGowan addressed the rally, promising a government of his would not sell Western Power as it was an important piece of infrastructure and a natural monopoly. He said that if it were kept in public hands, it would help maximise its potential service delivery. Western Power delivered a net profit of over $500 million to the state for the 2015-16 financial year according to its latest financial report. McGowan also stated the utility had provided not only jobs but apprenticeships. This year, as part of the governments bid to strip down costs and help dress up the entity for privatisation, the intake of apprentices was reduced to zero. ETU state secretary Les McLaughlin was the next speaker. He began by saying if Western Power goes it will not come back to state ownership. McLaughlin likened the privatisation to a grab for cash, which made no economic sense, and likened it to selling your house to pay off your mortgage but then not having anywhere to live. The privatisation of Western Power would also lead to cuts in the workforce and to maintenance as the private owner sought to maximise returns on its investment. In Victoria, the privatisation of the electricity utility led to maintenance cuts on poles and wires which significantly contributed to the states recent deadly bushfires. McLaughlin finished his speech by reporting the pleas from fellow unions in Victoria and South Australia following their states disastrous experiments with privatisation. These have led to significantly increased electricity prices for consumers, loss of jobs and safety issues. Do whatever you can to stop the governments privatisation plans! McLaughlin concluded. The next speaker was Christine, a union member from a rural town in the south west of WA who said the price of power was expensive enough now, not only for her but for the families of her children who were finding it hard to make ends meet. Christine, like many ordinary West Australian workers, is worried about what they will sell off next and the impact this will have on the cost of living schools, ports, roads, hospitals and once they are gone they will never come back. The final speaker was ASU (the principal union representing Western Power workers) state secretary Wayne Wood who posed the question following the Premiers brazen appeal to the rally, Are we going to be hoodwinked by the Premier who said he had no plans to sell Western Power. Wood also reminded the rally that the government has a big debt which is of its own making from financial and economic mismanagement and that it was time to deliver a strong message to the government from the voters at the next state election. The Communist Party of Australia supports the union and community campaign to keep essential public infrastructure such as Western Power in public hands power in the hands of the people which will save jobs, ensure proper maintenance is carried out and provide quality, power generation and distribution including renewable energy safely, cost effectively and at prices which are affordable to all. Taking Issue Rob Gowland The Fascist in the White House In the words of shocked American writer and broadcaster John Knefel, writing in the progressive journal Truthout, The unimaginable has happened. The Nightmare Scenario, that thing that seemed impossible, has come to pass. The United States has played Russian roulette with itself and lost. It is difficult to find the words to capture just how profoundly awful this outcome is. Trump ran on a promise of deporting 15 million people and banning Muslims from entering the country ... This country now has a white supremacist as its president. ... There is no question who Trump is, and there never has been. To his accidental credit, Trump was incapable of hiding his sexist, racist, xenophobic impulses. He showed them to America, and the country said yes. ... He ran on an ethno-chauvinist platform that always intentionally excluded people of colour from the basic promises of society, by definition. ... A vast number of the people who populate the United States want to be led by a white supremacist. Trump is not just a white supremacist. As I have said before, Trump is undeniably a fascist. That does not mean, however, that the USA will become a fascist state when he moves into the White House at least, not immediately. Fascism as a system is the open, terroristic dictatorship of finance capital and the biggest corporate interests. It is a system capitalism resorts to if, and only if, it believes itself to be in grave danger from possible Red revolution. Fascism requires capitalism to drop its genteel mask of upholding democratic rights and the rule of law. Mass imprisonment, torture and judicial murder become the order of the day. But the very act of trying to crush the peoples resistance to tyranny generates more resistance. Productivity declines and the economy inevitably lurches towards war. Capitalism has no problem with war but finds coping with the disruption, resistance, and sabotage that accompanies a fascist police state an expensive inconvenience. Western democracy suits its purpose much better under normal circumstances, giving people the illusion that they actually decide who runs the country. In fact, the ruling class usually provides a choice between two parties in Australia, Labor and Liberal, in the USA Democrats and Republicans that vie with each other to serve ruling class interests. Labor and the Democrats try to be more humane than their opponents, never threatening the system but tinkering with the edges. Even this tinkering arouses the ire of the extreme right-wing. Obamacare, the very tentative health insurance scheme that President Obama was able to get past the US Congress, has been roundly condemned by numerous right-wing groups and commentators in America as the dreaded Socialism! And Socialism, as everybody knows, must be a very bad thing. In the minds of a great many Americans certainly all those who voted for Trump Socialism is a system that stifles individual initiative, in which private enterprise is actually prohibited, and everyone is told what to do by an all-powerful and remote government. Most importantly, they know that it doesnt work. That it cant work, in fact. Curiously, they are at the same time afraid of it. And yet, they have only to look around them to see that capitalism very definitely isnt working. In the so-called rust belt, the former manufacturing states of the American mid-west, states that hitherto were strongholds of the Democratic Party under the influence of organised labour, have seen their industries move to low-wage countries, their towns and cities fall into decay, joblessness and homelessness grow exponentially. Bernie Sanders campaigned for the Democratic Partys nomination on a platform variously defined as Socialism or Democratic Socialism, offering everyone a living wage, free education and free and universal health care. The Sanders campaign pledged never to wage wars of aggression in foreign parts or to outsource jobs to Third World kleptocracies. Sanders and his team also promised to reverse privatisation, not to allow cops to wage war on the poor, not to use prisons as for profit slave labour and not to allow monopolies. Bernie Sanders is a social democrat, and his program did not threaten the fundamentals of capitalism in the USA. Nevertheless, in the American political scene, this was a very radical even revolutionary program and it resonated with millions of Democrat members and supporters, especially with the youth. Not quite enough, however, to win the partys nomination in a very unfairly weighted ballot. Hillary Clinton, who had the backing of the big business establishment, won the nomination over Sanders. Clinton had nothing to offer the people of the rust belt states. They had always voted Democrat and apparently the Clinton team assumed they always would. This time they didnt. With nothing on offer from Clinton, they turned to her rival, a demagogue proudly posing as a maverick, a rabble-rouser offering vague promises to make America great again. The industries that had gone off-shore would in some unspecified way be brought back; the people who had no work would be given work. The jobs that had disappeared because bosses could make more money sending their jobs to low wage countries were now deemed to have disappeared because illegal (undocumented) immigrants had taken them! Trump promised to deport 15 million undocumented immigrants. However, as I said at the beginning of this article, Trumps election does not mean that the USA will impose fascism immediately, or ever in fact. Comparisons have been drawn between Trump and Hitler, with good reason. Hitler too was elected to power in 1933 we should remember. Hitler also promised to make Germany great again, to restore all the jobs that had been lost in the Great Depression, to rid the country of non-Germans who were somehow taking their jobs. But Germany in 1933 had a large and powerful Communist Party, which really did threaten the continued rule of capitalism in the country. The alarmed capitalist ruling class turned to fascism to save them from Communism, and the Nazi rabble-rouser Hitler was the means they chose. Bernie Sanders poses no threat to capitalism in the USA (to some individual capitalists, perhaps, but not to the system itself). The ruling class in the USA can continue to rely on bourgeois democracy to exert its class rule. It has no need of fascism. Despite that, however, with a fascist in the White House, Americans can confidently expect various anti-democratic and anti-people phenomena to suddenly become more commonplace. Expect assaults by police on popular demonstrations to increase greatly, especially demonstrations by Black or Hispanic Americans. As progressive commentator William Rivers Pitt observed in Truthout, Mr Trump moulded his entire campaign around hate, vengeance and violence. In doing so, he unleashed a monstrous tide. The people who pummelled protesters and elderly women wearing oxygen tanks, who screamed Lock her up while wearing shirts that read Grab her by the pussy at rallies, and who menaced people of colour who were trying to vote they are his true master now. Nobody fears the Brownshirts more than their leader, because he is all too aware of what they are capable of doing. If Donald Trump does not follow his oft-repeated program to the letter, if he does not attempt to imprison Hillary Clinton for daring to challenge him, work to obliterate the Affordable Care Act, move to de-fund Planned Parenthood, strive to revoke the hard-won rights of LGBTQ Americans, try to build a wall along the Mexican border, attempt to deport more than 10 million people, try to ban all Muslims from entering the country, advocate for imposing even more surveillance and policing on Black communities, punish women for having an abortion, torture the innocent if he does not do these things, its entirely possible that the dogs he let slip from the leash will turn on him ... and he knows it. Pitt also noted: To see the harm a true fanatic can do, one need look no further than the George W Bush administration. Torture and any number of other cruelties were carried out in the name of protecting freedom. That the population at large never reckoned with these policies was just a side benefit. Trump, for his part, has promised to bring back waterboarding and worse. He has also pledged to kill the families of suspected terrorists. Trump is a staunch denier (or derider) of climate change. He has promised to revive the coal industry and will gut or even shut down the Environmental Protection Agency. Expect to see a rush to expand drilling for oil in the Arctic and the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, at the time of writing, the most likely appointee for Secretary of the Interior (the Administration person responsible for things like the environment) is an oil company executive! Trump will not solve any of the problems that afflict the American people. He will not make America great again. He will no doubt expand its aggressiveness even further however, in pursuit of that illusive greatness. Progressive American opinion is rightly appalled by the prospect of what is in store for them and their country. In the words of Brooklyn-based writer and broadcaster John Knefel, Americans are confronted now with the real issue of resistance. We have to resist. We have also already seen signs of a very welcome resistance to the potential Trump agenda. There were even protests rejecting Trump as President outside the White House the day after the election by young people, in the main. That resistance points the way to the future in the USA. Bangladesh Where next for the left? Bangladesh is a country of growing international significance. Its population of 171 million is now the worlds seventh biggest, its current growth rate is the worlds second highest, and it stands strategically between India and China. There has been large-scale rural depopulation and a massive growth in urban populations available for very cheap labour production above all, in textiles where Bangladesh is now the second-biggest global producer. It is also a country with strong revolutionary traditions some very recent. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Bengal (the area covered by the Ganges-Brahmaputra river delta system, including Bangladesh and the West Bengal region of India today) was the centre of resistance to the British Raj which led to intensifying attempts by the British to divide Bengal on religious lines between Hindus and Muslims. This ultimately led to partition and the incorporation of East Bengal into Pakistan in 1947. Bangladesh was created in 1972 in response to Pakistans sectarian and dictatorial politics. The liberation war to defend the Bengali language and Bengals secular and progressive traditions faced genocidal levels of repression. Support came from India and the Soviet Union and resulted in the creation of the new state. The first Bangladesh government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman represented a broad political coalition, including socialists, and was committed to high levels of public ownership and nationalisation. In 1975, it was overthrown in a military coup and the president assassinated. Thereafter there was a succession of military-backed governments, most committed to the development of a neo-liberal economy and some also to the promotion of Muslim fundamentalism. These governments encountered high levels of popular resistance led by the left and rooted particularly among the rural poor and the growing trade union movement. In some areas rural labourers seized land and successfully developed co-operative production. In 1991, in the face of this growing movement, democracy was finally restored. Since then power has alternated between the centrist Awami League, which has a tendency to compromise with the right, and the reactionary right-wing Bangladesh National Party that also gives cover to religious fundamentalism. While economic growth has been fast and levels of poverty have decreased, inequality has also soared. There has been large-scale rural depopulation and a massive growth in urban populations available for very cheap labour production above all, in textiles where Bangladesh is now the second-biggest global producer. This is the background to the recent Congress of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, the main organised force to the left of the current Awami League government. Starting with a mass rally of 10,000 supporters, the Congress debated a program committed to developing a left democratic alternative. The objective of this program is to shift the balance of power away from the current governing elite and end the neo-liberal policies that are still further increasing inequality and social polarisation. As Professor MM Akash of Dhaka Universitys school of economics explained to international guests, it is not an immediately revolutionary program. It aims to build an alliance between workers in industry, the rural poor, and small producers against a system that is wasteful, corrupt, and denies social justice. Akash has direct experience of this political corruption. After the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, in which 1,100 textile workers were killed, he was commissioned by the judicial authorities to provide an economic assessment of the compensation due to the families. His findings required an average of US$25,000 to be paid to each bereaved family for lifelong loss of earnings. His report was delivered within weeks. Three years later not a penny has been paid. The Employers Association refused to sign. The government has failed to intervene. Akash noted that 30 members of the Bangladesh parliament have financial interests in textile factories. This, he said, is just one particularly shocking example of how the current system operates. State welfare programs are systematically robbed. Across most of the textile industry, the government has colluded in the banning of trade unions, and the wealth extracted is increasingly invested abroad. Basic infrastructure needs, such as reliable energy supplies, health, and education, are starved of funds. The great danger, Akash stressed, is that this provides the social context for the re-emergence of religious fundamentalism. This was used politically by the dictatorial regimes of the 1980s in a period when large numbers of labourers sought work in Saudi Arabia and brought back fundamentalist beliefs. In recent years there has been growing intolerance of any form of sexual liberation and sporadic terrorist violence. In 2013 the Communist Partys headquarters were bombed. The Communist Partys immediate objective is to create a popular alliance directed against a very small, very wealthy elite that can unite workers, rural producers and increasingly marginalised small businesses. Its economic program demands the development of co-operative production, particularly in high-yielding areas of agriculture, and strong state investment in infrastructure, education, and welfare. Akash emphasised the importance of co-operative production. It is essential, especially in rural areas, to start reversing the pernicious individualising effects of bank lending schemes such as that by the Grameen Bank. These have benefited only a small minority and are creating a mass base for neo-liberal ideas. Instead we need to build on the experience of cooperative production to develop political commitment to further socialist advance. The underlying economic fundamentals of the Bangladesh economy are very strong. So also are our peoples commitment to Bengals traditions of secularism and social justice. The political resolution adopted at the Congress concluded by emphasising that along with the basic task of building the left-democratic alternative, it is important to fight the rising danger of fascist communal forces, defeating them, protecting democracy, and expanding democratic rights. It notes the importance of strengthening vigilance against those elements in Bangladesh that still oppose its liberation struggle and for ensuring the prosecution of those guilty of war crimes in 1972. It ends by calling for the mobilisation of a mass alliance to secure these ends without in any way compromising the independent position of the Communist Party. Morning Star Nim Ajpu: Indigenous lawyers changing the face of Guatemala An indigenous legal organisation in Guatemala aims not only to protect Indigenous rights but to decolonise themselves and the law. Manuela Picq* explains. Nim Ajpu is a name thats known to all Quiche Maya peoples. A nahual or spirit that accompanies and protects us in the Maya cosmovision, Nim Ajpu was the twin brother of Ixbalamkej who together defeated the death gods and who went on numerous adventures that forever changed the face of existence. The story of these hero twins is told at length in the Popol Wuj, the famous text that accounts for the cosmologies, origins and spiritual histories of the Maya Quiche. Maya lawyers pose for a picture during their annual Congress. (Photo: Jose Agry Sian) Nim Ajpu is also the name of the Association of Maya Lawyers and Notaries in Guatemala. The association supports the individual and collective rights of Indigenous Peoples through strategic litigation. Because the Maya represent over 60% of the population which is largely discriminated against by state institutions Nim Ajpu is unable to defend all Maya peoples in court, so it chooses instead to take strategic cases that can help set legal precedents. Their goal is to advance Indigenous rights in the legal and political system, eventually taking cases to the Inter-American system of human rights when domestic resolutions reiterate racist patterns. Legal practice with Maya awareness In 2004, a group of about 20 Maya lawyers gathered to find ways to better defend Indigenous communities through their legal practice. They were aware of what it entails to advocate from Indigenous experiences in the state judicial system. Stirred up by the enthusiasm of Amilcar Pop the first Maya politician in Guatemalas Congress they envisioned a legal organisation related to Maya communities and founded Nim Ajpu. The organisation expanded in membership and strategies. It now counts over 100 members supported by councils and board members. Members include a vast array of law professionals, from lawyers to judges, public defenders and notaries; most lawyers have only supported cases of the association occasionally. The core engine of Nim Ajpu are five full-time lawyers who lead the strategic litigation Juan Castro, Cristian Otzin, Edgar de Leon, Mellina Salvador and Claudia Chopen. They rely on the support of a small administrative team of eight people in an office in the capital. There are more affiliated lawyers from various nations across Guatemala who contribute on a voluntary basis, such as Rosa Ixcol (Maya Kiche) and Ixquik Poz (Maya Licue). In addition to litigation, Nim Ajpu works on political incidence, research and training. The Maya lawyers also challenge new laws presented in Congress and discuss policy in media venues. They play a crucial role in shaping ideas, whether it is by contesting government attempts to regulate prior consultation (2012) or to pass laws privatising corn seeds (2015). They train judges in legal pluralism, familiarising them with Indigenous concepts of law and justice. They teach university students, including at the Maya University. And every December, Nim Ajpu organises a two-day congress that brings together about 70 Indigenous lawyers to brainstorm current challenges. Emblematic cases Most cases tackle self-determination, whether it is to recover lands stolen by the state or to establish the authority of Indigenous systems of justice. Dozens of cases have already set important precedents for Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala. For instance, a major win in 2004 established the autonomy of Indigenous justice in the Supreme Court. Maya lawyers defended Juan Zapeta, a Maya authority accused of administering justice in Santa Cruz de Quiche. It was one of the first cases in which Guatemalan courts recognised the rights of Maya communities to exercise their own forms of justice. In 2010, Maya lawyers recovered communal land illegitimately appropriated by the state. The state had granted Indigenous land to telephone companies during the armed conflict (1973) in an act that ignored the prior existence of an Indigenous municipality. The recovery of land in the case of Chichicastenango set an important precedent in recognising Indigenous forms of government and accreditation mechanisms. That same year, Maya lawyers set a precedent for rights to prior consultation. When the mayor of San Juan de Sacatepequez cancelled a consultation on the construction of a cement company, protests erupted and a militarisation of the area followed. Maya lawyers took the case, pushing courts to make a first sentence on Indigenous rights to prior, free and informed consultation and to declare the ILO Convention 169 (Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention) for part of the constitutional corpus. Most recently, Maya lawyers defended ancestral authorities criminalised for defending rivers against extractive industries. Private companies, many of them hydroelectric projects, corrupt judges and accuse community leaders of fabricated crimes to keep them behind bars without due process. The use of legal warfare kept Maya authorities in preventive prison for months or years, and these highly political cases were taken by Maya lawyers. In 2015, a team of Maya lawyers freed ancestral authorities accused of a crime they did not commit in Santa Cruz Barrias, near the border with Chiapas. In July 2016, they freed seven political prisoners accused of fabricated crimes, including Rigoberto Juarez and Domingo Baltazar. In August, Maya lawyers took the defence of Oscar Sanchez, the 11th authority of a Maya Mam community sentenced without evidence to the preventive jail of Quetzaltenango. In addition, two emblematic cases have already set precedents this year. One case secured bilingual education as courts recognised the rights of Maya communities to receive education in their own languages. Another was a hard battle over a case of rape that had been judged and sentenced by Indigenous justice. Feminists joined right-wing sectors in contesting the capacity of Maya authorities. Ultimately the Constitutional Court, which stands above the Supreme Court, recognised the authority of Indigenous justice. Among many other cases, Nim Ajpu is presently involved in the ongoing effort to rewrite Guatemalas civil war constitution to add concepts of self-determination and explicit language defining Guatemala as a plurinational state. Maya lawyers have been recognised or hated depending on context and perspective. Private companies and even the president decried lawyers like Amilcar Pop as terrorists who arm Maya communities, especially when they defend Indigenous rights to consultation against extractive industries. Overall, however, Maya lawyers have become a referent in Guatemala. Communities consider them their lawyers. Nim Ajpu is now the entity that positions collective rights in Guatemala; both government and society expect its opinion on new legislation. Decolonial litigation One of the greatest strengths of Nim Ajpu lies in its functioning. First, there are no fees. All legal support is provided free of charge, ad honorem. Communities do not pay for the legal services, though they may offer food to lawyers on the ground. Lawyers are not paid by case or by hours; they receive some form of recognition for their work depending on donations from international organisations, like the small funding provided by the Association of Lawyers of Norway. Second, Maya authorities are the ones to bring forward the cases, and Maya lawyers lend legal support to ancestral authorities. This implies long-term relationships beyond the moment of litigation. The various Maya lawyers accompany ancestral authorities in their practices of autonomous government and administration of justice. Nim Ajpu relates to broad Maya networks like the Great Council of Indigenous authorities of Iximulew, lending support to their political consolidation. Some are long-recognised Indigenous municipalities that have existed in official registries since the colonial era. Chichicastenango (consisting of 83 Indigenous communities each with its autonomous political authorities) defended its autonomy from the Spanish Crown in 1635. The municipality of Solol (71 communities) had Indigenous mayors registered in colonial records since 1557. The lasting authority of the 48 Cantones (48 communities) is still recognised today in presidential speeches. Yet other organisations are less known, and their invisibility makes them vulnerable to state entities eager to appropriate their lands. In such cases, Maya lawyers play key roles in consolidating Indigenous authority, first among networks of Maya authorities, then through collective land titles. Maya communities are not civil associations authorised by state organs: they are accredited under Maya ancestral mechanisms without having to ask permission from state bodies. Third, Maya lawyers try to break away from the logic of the Western state system. They try to decolonise themselves by escaping the logic of state law, paying attention to the struggles of Maya communities, listening rather than telling. Their litigation is a strategic struggle against a legal system that posits itself as sovereign authority. They do not defend clients but stand by brothers and sisters. Many Indigenous lawyers around the world seek to decolonise themselves and the law; the singularity of Nim Ajpu is to have taken this effort to an institutional level. Academics are also joining in Nim Ajpus political, historical and cultural commitment. Lawyer Mellina Salvador says that historians, linguists and anthropologists channel their knowledge through expert reports, feeling part of the association. Maya litigation reaches well beyond law, engaging scholarly insights for historical contextualisation. The essence of Nim Ajpu is best summarised by lawyer Juan Castro: Our Maya identity is a political one, we defend our territories, we speak Indigenous languages and understand Maya cosmovision. A Maya lawyer is a political identity, one that challenges conventional legalities and quietly redefines state authority. * Manuela Lavinas Picq is a Professor of International Relations at Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), Ecuador, and former Research Fellow at desiguALdades.net, Freie Universitat Berlin. This article is reproduced from IC Magazine, a publication of the Center for World Indigenous Studies. * Third World Resurgence No. 312/313, Aug/Sept 2016, pp 52-53 Culture & Life Islamophobia animates Trump picks President-elect Donald Trumps words may be telling his supporters not to attack Muslims, but as he hires leaders of various white nationalist hate groups and Islamophobic war hawks to the White House staff, his actions appear to be saying otherwise. The Washington-based Muslim civil rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is monitoring a troubling spike in anti-Muslim and racist incidents since last Tuesdays election. Additionally, Buzzfeed has a constantly-updated list of anti-Muslim, anti-Black racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant crimes and incidents. Most recently Trump named Stephen Bannon, anti-Muslim conspiracist and leader of white nationalist and Islamophobic movements, on November 13 as a top adviser to his White House. The appointment of Stephen Bannon as a top Trump administration strategist sends the disturbing message that anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and White nationalist ideology will be welcome in the White House, said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. We urge President-elect Trump to reconsider this ill-advised appointment if he truly seeks to unite Americans. Fears of Muslim conspiracies and terrorist threats in the United States are overblown according to the data on such threats, and in contrast to the much greater numbers of terror incidents being perpetrated by white nationalists and white militia groups. Nonetheless, as scholar and observer of right-wing white nationalist groups Naomi Braine wrote in The Public Eye in 2015, such fears have real and dire consequences for Muslims living in the US. Mainstream conservative politicians and media personalities protest depictions of right-wing militants as anything more than troubled but patriotic Americans, while Muslim men particularly young men are constantly monitored as intrinsic security risks. In the process, Muslims lose Constitutional protections for belief, speech, and association forced to inhabit an ambiguous territory as un-American and presumptively foreign. Trump has spoken out in support of such fear-driven anti-Muslim tactics, and has promised to either ban the religion or to force all Muslims to register as part of his administration. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who early on hoped to become Trumps running mate and now is reportedly being considered for a high level position in the administration, has done perhaps more than anyone in the conservative movement to stoke Islamophobia among right-wing leaders. Gingrich gave an interview with Fox News following the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, France: Western civilisation is in a war, Mr Gingrich said. We should frankly test every person here who is of a Muslim background, and if they believe in Sharia, they should be deported. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sharply denounced such religious tests and bans as unconstitutional. According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell, who is heading up Trumps domestic policy team, is also a senior member of the secretive right-wing policy group Council on National Policy (CNP). The CNP is especially remarkable because its membership has included a large number of extremists, people who regularly defame LGBT people with utter falsehoods, attack Muslims as dangerous enemies of freedom, engage in the kind of wild-eyed conspiracy theorising for which the John Birch Society is famous, and even suggest that certain people should be stoned to death in line with Old Testament law. Anti-immigrant xenophobia and racism also characterise Trumps picks. Kris Kobach, the most well-known of Trumps anti-Islam and anti-immigrant White House hires, advises the SPLC-designated hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and has been the architect of voter suppression strategies in Kansas and already is promising to carry out Trumps threat to build a wall along the US-Mexican border. Indeed, Trumps hires, combined with his campaign pledges that would endanger American Muslims and their extended families both here and abroad, has the Muslim community reportedly feeling frightened and unsure of what to do next. Especially hard hit are families with young children, some of whom report that their kids friends at school have already begun ostracising them. Muslim community members who believe their rights have been violated are being asked to contact local police and CAIRs Civil Rights Department. Peoples World Which is good, because just about anything the radio does is done better somewhere else. We've got like a billion better options for listening to music now, whether it's via streaming apps or iTunes or Youtube. Traffic reports are much more usable when you can see a map on a screen. And news radio doesn't compare very favorably to the Internet. CASEZY/iStock Continue Reading Below Advertisement Also, the crunchy granola discussions on public radio are all done better by podcasts now. But all those things require your full attention, right? You can't navigate YouTube or the AP News Wire while trying to keep from steering into a bridge abutment and hurtling your passengers through the windshield and into the next world. A radio does all the work for you with minimal input required, which is why it's stuck around for so long. But with self driving cars, that need to be read to goes away. You can hand control over to your robot chauffeur and kick back with an iPad, which will probably mean the end of Top 40 radio and morning zoo shows. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, there's something else to consider -- now that your hands are free from the burden of holding the steering wheel, what's to keep you from typing up a few reports or emails for your boss during your commute? Continue Reading Below Advertisement When Blackberrys first hit the work force, one thing almost everyone complained about was the intrusiveness of the device. By making emails so accessible, it created an expectation that people could and would respond to work emails at any hour of the day, extending work hours into well beyond what they were being paid for. If you have a smartphone connected at all to your job, you've probably sprung out of bed to take care of some urgent message you just received from your boss more than once. It's like leaping into action after getting a late night text from an ex, only without the expectation of sex at the end of the rainbow. ...hang the dj is the headquarters for my old radio show Time Warp, which aired on 89X until March 2017. Headquarters for all the content from the previous site cristinarocks.com I currently host an independent, internet-based/streaming Classic Alternative show. Episodes debut Sunday mornings around 9am ET. Stream the archives here or here ...hang the dj is a music blog serving as a complement to my streaming program and features old school and classic alternative bands. Occasionally new music from, andgenres will be featured. If you have a project, feel free to submit music via email.Pleasepress releases, music submissions, comments/questions/etc here: hangthedjmag (at) gmail.comSocial: News How One Company Saw the Light on Digital Marketing Susan Andersen for Shoregroup Share this Three years ago, our company realized we needed a change. ShoreGroup is a managed services company headquartered in New York City. We deliver solutions to customers in multiple sectors, from financial services to manufacturing to healthcare. Since our founding in 1999, we've seen truly remarkable success. But we're operating in the most competitive market in the world, and that can be tough. Three years ago, the company realized that if we wanted to keep growing, we needed to take a new approach to marketing. That's when I started here. One of the biggest things I set out to do was to build up our digital marketing practice. Today, on all the measurements that matterfrom click-throughs and website visits to lead generation and brand awarenessthat practice is thriving. As a result, our digital marketing efforts are now pretty highly valued by the entire company. But looking back just three years, a lot of people in our organization didn't really see the point. Which isn't so unusual, actually. Like many companies, ShoreGroup at the time did not treat marketing as an integral or important part of the organization. Yes, there were newsletters. There were data sheets. Above all, there were eventshere in New York City and also in other parts of the country where we have sales offices. Now, here's the thing about events. Events can be great. We still do eventsjust not as many. Because what was becoming clear, to everyone involved, was that events just weren't the best way to reach our customers anymore. Here we were trying to persuade prospects to get in their cars or get on the subway and come to a specific place at a specific timeand they weren't showing up. Instead, where were they? They were online, doing their own research on their own time. And when they went online, they weren't finding us there. So what we set out to do is meet them there. Online. It was a big step, and it took a pretty big re-orientation as a company. But it was the right thing to doand it paid off. You can get a good idea of what we were trying to do from this short video. The challenge, initially, was that a lot of people in the organization were skeptical that digital marketing could deliver real value. What difference would click-throughs make for actual sales? Who cares if we show up on social? So while we were given a green light to start down the digital road, it's not like the whole company was rallying behind us with baited breath and throwing us marketing funds. The sales team especially was not convinced. And I understand that. We needed to prove ourselves first. But we didn't have a whole lot of resources to do it. That's where Cisco made a big difference. With Partner Marketing Central, I discovered that we had access to an array of very rich digital marketing programs that were just waiting for us to take advantage of them. Pay-per-click ads especially, at the beginningbut there was lots more there, and we took advantage of it. And what happened, as we carried out these initiatives, is that gradually we were able to rack up the metrics that got past the skepticism. We were filling the pipeline. Our email campaigns were generating good leads, qualified leads, and the sales people saw that. They started looking at us differently. Now, three years in, a lot has changed. The sales team sees us as a necessary part of the company. We're in this together, side-by-side, working on a common strategy, fully aligned on which customers to target, which industries, with what focus. Pipeline is up. Sales are up. And everyone understands, digital marketing is a big part of that. Digital marketing is fundamental to how we reach our customersand how they find us. Additional Cisco Resources: Digital Transformation Solutions Partner with Cisco Susan Andersen is Director of Marketing at Shoregroup. With more than 25 years of marketing and business experience, including as co-founder of Vitel Software, Product and Channel Marketing at CA and Empirix, she brings an enthusiastic and creative approach to marketing challenges. Channel programs News The Deal That Almost Wasn't: How Insight Cut the Datalink Purchase Price By $17M And Nearly Walked Away Michael Novinson Share this Datalink could have sold the company for $17 million more, but its lackluster financial results scared one prospective suitor away and prompted Insight Enterprises to cut its offer price. Tempe, Ariz.-based Insight, No. 15 on the CRN Solution Provider 500, made Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Datalink, No. 43 on the CRN SP 500, work hard for a deal. Insight cut the transaction amount by $17 million and required what Datalink considered to be unusually high levels of financial transparency, according to SEC filings. Datalink nonetheless decided to move forward with a $258 million sale due to the uncertainties of remaining an independent public company and the lack of a better offer, despite soliciting as many as 27 potential suitors, according to a proxy statement filed late Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). [RELATED: 10 Things To Know About The Insight Enterprises-Datalink Deal] Datalink had received an unsolicited acquisition proposal in late March from a strategic party for at least $10.30 per share, but decided not to move forward due to the low offer price and lack of committed financing. Eight months and many hours later, Datalink would end up selling the company for just $22 million more than the initially rejected offer. Those unsolicited conversations, though, prompted Datalink to consider whether challenges in the industry and competitive landscape made it a good time to sell the 29-year-old company. Datalink's Board of Directors sat down in late May with Raymond James, the company's financial advisor, to discuss the systems integrator landscape, focusing on the pressures traditional IT companies face from next-generation technology and the ongoing erosion of industry profit margins. "Our board discussed whether the challenges in the industry and competitive landscape for the company made this a good time to consider a potential sale of the company," Datalink wrote in the 204-page filing. "At the conclusion of our meeting, our board directed [CEO] Mr. [Paul] Lidsky to instruct Raymond James to prepare for a sale process." In early June, Raymond James contacted 13 strategic acquirers (including Insight) and 14 financial sponsors to gauge their interest in a potential acquisition. Four strategic parties and five financial sponsors indicated early interest, the filing stated, and Datalink's board instructed management to proceed with the five parties (including Insight) proposing the highest purchase price. But only three of those entities submitted acquisition proposals by the end of August - Insight, another strategic party (Party B) and a financial sponsor (Party C). Insight offered a price of $11.75 per share, but would require the continued employment of certain individuals at Datalink, among other conditions. In response, Raymond James asked Insight to increase the acquisition price from $11.75 to $12 per share and remove the condition relating to continued employment. Insight agreed. Datalink CEO Paul Lidsky, CFO Greg Barnum and Executive Vice President of Human Resources Patty Hamm will all leave the company following the Insight acquisition. On Sept. 2, Datalink's board directed its management to grant Insight a 30-day exclusivity period, during which time Datalink could talk only with Insight and not with Party B or Party C. Then the deal-making began. Insight CEO Ken Lamneck and CFO Glynis Bryan said the company wouldn't go through with the acquisition unless Datalink provided several additional measures of financial transparency. The requested measures included adjusting Datalink's historical financial statements to align with Insight's reporting requirements, consenting to include Insight's audit of Datalink's financial statements in an SEC filing, submitting certain management representation letters and disclosing Insight's adjustments to Datalink's projected revenue upon signing of the deal. But Datalink's legal counsel said these tasks don't typically occur until after closing, and briefed the company's board on the risks and considerations related to moving those tasks to before closing. Ultimately, Datalink's board decided to let Insight's exclusivity period expire on Sept. 30 and approach Party B and Party C about a deal. Lidsky contacted Lamneck on Sept. 29 and said his board wasn't willing to accept Insight's financial transparency requests but was willing to discuss further. Lamneck responded that the requests were a requirement to move forward, according to the filing. The other two suitors were, in theory, interested in re-engaging, but many roadblocks remained. Party B said it had entered into another transaction over the past month that it would need to complete before fully considering the Datalink deal. Party C didn't offer to raise its purchase price above $11.25 per share. That left Insight as Datalink's best bet. As a result, Lidsky reached out to Lamneck Oct. 4 to continue discussions about an Insight-Datalink deal. But Insight wasn't clamoring to resume negotiations. The company's legal counsel said Insight wouldn't resume negotiations unless Datalink agreed to its financial transparency requirements and provided Insight with a new period of exclusivity, according to the SEC filing. Despite the additional hurdles, Datalink was willing to play ball. On Oct. 13, Lidsky informed Insight's general counsel and Insight's CFO for North America that Datalink would capitulate to the financial statement adjustment Insight was looking to make. As a result, the deal was still on. The problems, though, were far from over. On Oct. 20, Datalink made its third quarter financials statement and fourth quarter expectations available to Insight and Party B. Datalink struggled in the quarter, with revenue falling by 7 percent to $184 million and earnings dropping by 58 percent to just $546,000, or 3 cents per diluted share. Based in part on those sluggish third quarter results, Party B withdrew its offer four days later. At least initially, though, Insight didn't appear rattled. Insight confirmed to Lidsky and a Raymond James representative on Oct. 26 that it was still willing to purchase Datalink for $12 per share. As a result, Datalink extended its period of exclusive negotiations with Insight until the morning of Nov. 7. Insight, however, wasn't able to fully turn its attention to Datalink's third quarter financials until the solution provider reported its financial results on the afternoon of Oct. 27. The next day, Insight CFO Glynis Bryan contacted Lidsky and said Insight had concerns about Datalink's performance and asked for additional documentation so that it could conduct a more thorough financial review. On Nov. 1, when Lamneck and Bryan called Lidsky and informed him that Insight was reducing its offer price to $11 per share due to Datalink's gross margin erosion in the third quarter. Datalink's GAAP operating margin had fallen to 0.3 percent from 1.3 percent the year prior, while its non-GAAP operating margin had sunk to 2.2 percent from 2.9 percent last year. The next day, Lidsky contacted Lamneck and asked if Insight could compromise on a price of $11.25 per share, which Lamneck was willing to do. The renegotiated deal reduced the size of the overall transaction by roughly $17 million from $275 million to $258 million. "[Based on] the board's belief that further negotiations with Insight or the other interested parties would not result in a proposal superior to the proposal offered by Insight, the trends and uncertainties affecting our business as an independent public company and the greater certainty offered by the Insight proposal, our board directed our management to proceed to finalize the documentation for the sale of the company to Insight at $11.25 per share," the SEC filing stated. All that remained from there was getting the deal approved by Datalink's board, which came via a telephone conference on the afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 7. The deal was formally signed that evening. Datalink's sale was announced on Monday, Nov. 7 via a joint press release. The Networking Switches Market Netgear and Cisco remained the dominant forces in networking switches sold through distributors during the third quarter of 2016, according to new data from The NPD Group, Port Washington, N.Y. The research firm compiles data in its DistributorTrack sales database from leading distributors in the U.S. Global Technology Distribution Council. The total number of switching units sold during the quarter was 602,004, down 4.2 percent year over year, with many of the top companies showing double-digit percentage declines including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, D-Link and Juniper Networks. Here are the top eight leaders by brand who sold the most switching units from July to September in 2016. On November 18, 2016, Port Tampa Bay officials welcomed the captain and crew of Holland American Lines MS Oosterdam, which will call Tampa home for the 2016-2017 winter cruise season, according to a prepared statement. Holland America Line initiated home port service at Port Tampa Bay in 1982, and has been a staple in the Tampa Bay market ever since. This year, Holland America Line will offer cruise passengers a Friday departure for the first time. The 82,000-ton Oosterdam replaces the smaller Ryndam. Holland America Line will offer a variety of cruises including 7-day, 14-day and 21-day itineraries to the Western and Southern Caribbean. We are extremely happy to welcome the beautiful MS Oosterdam into Port Tampa Bay, which has long been a home port to this fantastic cruise line, Paul Anderson, port president and CEO, said. For nearly 35 years, we have enjoyed a stellar relationship with Holland America Line, and it is gratifying to us that our cruise partners continue to show faith and enthusiasm in the strength our market. We look forward to many more years of sailings, he said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate DANBURY Puerto Vallarta has joined the Danbury restaurant scene. Founded in 1999 by Esaul Rodriguez, Puerto Vallarta now has six restaurants in Connecticut. Serving authentic Mexican fare, the latest Puerto Vallarta is located at 98 Newtown Road in a busy shopping area of Danbury. I like the demographics of the city and nearby suburbs and theres always a need for real Mexican food, Rodriguez said. Theres a good-sized population to support a restaurant. This location is close to the highway as well as other towns and even New York. Rodriguez said his restaurant brand has been successful because it offers a bona fide Mexican experience, especially in regards to its food. We have fresh, high-quality food and its very authentic, he said. People come here because they know we have authentic Mexican food. Other Puerto Vallarta locations are in Orange, Avon, Newington, Southington and Middletown. The Danbury location was formerly a Bertuccis. Its nice to see a great location and restaurant pad like that be reconditioned for what is arguably the most popular type of food in the U.S. now, Stephen Bull, president of the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce, said. Its a beautiful restaurant and very well situated. You cant get a better spot. Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton helped to officially open the restaurant at a ceremony last week. Its his sixth restaurant in Connecticut and were honored he chose Danbury to open his next Puerto Vallarta, Boughton said. The place was mobbed when we went so obviously the food is good. We wish him well here. Rodriguez knows how to offer a true Mexican experience as he was born in Union de Tula, a small village in the state of Jalisco in Mexico. Wanting more than the farming and ranching lifestyle of his village, Rodriguez left Mexico at the age of 16 and went to Seattle to work at his uncles restaurant. He started as bus boy and moved up the ladder to waiter, cook and then manager. At the age of 21, he opened a restaurant with his brother in Oregon. He saved some money with the intention of relocating back to Mexico, but he moved to Connecticut instead with a goal of sharing the culture and warmth of his native country. His vision encompassed the smells, tastes, sounds, colors, flavors and beauty of Mexico, according his restaurants website. He opened his first restaurant in Connecticut in 1999, followed by expansions in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2012. He plans to open more in the state, he said. To reach Puerto Vallarta in Danbury, call 203-826-9884. cbosak@hearstmediact.com; 203-731-3338 This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate BRIDGEPORT Police Lt. Lonnie Blackwell, the head of the Bridgeport Police Departments minority officers organization who was accused of conspiring to distribute a phony racist letter within the department, was demoted to sergeant on Tuesday. His immediate supervisor, Capt. Robert Sapiro, was demoted to lieutenant for violating the department rules of supervisor accountability. Police Chief Armando Perez imposed the demotions following a meeting with the two officers. This is a travesty, said Blackwells lawyer, Thomas Bucci, who vowed an appeal. I think the department is trying to save face for keeping Blackwell out for a year. There is no evidence to support it. And in fact Perez, in a memorandum accompaning his decision said there is no credible evidence that Blackwell directed the writing of the phony letter but rather violated department rules for the way the letter was reported to authorities. Blackwell, the president of the Guardians and the supervisor of the departments police academy, was placed on administrative duty by former Police Chief Joseph Gaudett. That action followed a report by the citys Office of Internal Affairs that Blackwell conspired with former officer Clive Higgins to disseminate a racist hate letter in the Police Department. On Feb. 9, 2015, Higgins reported finding a racist letter in his mailbox in the police department. The letter, which was also disseminated around the department, was typed on city letterhead and made negative comments about African-American officers and complained that Higgins, who is black, didnt belong on the police force. The discovery sparked calls for an investigation by the NAACP and national organizations of African-American police officers. The city called in the State Police to investigate. State police said Higgins admitted he wrote the letter after they presented him with surveillance video that showed him typing the letter in the Police Department. Higgins looked at the photographs and began rubbing and shaking his head. Higgins then admitted that it was in fact the hate letter he claimed to have found in his mailbox, state police said. State police said Higgins told them he was ordered to write the letter by Blackwell to Bring attention to the department with respect to ongoing racial complaints. Higgins was arrested by state police and charged with second-degree falsely reporting an incident for filing a police report regarding the letter which police said he typed himself in the police department. Higgins was later granted accelerated rehabilitation, a pretrial probation program for nonviolent offenders. Blackwell has denied giving such an order. No criminal charges have been lodged against him. This is a classic case of he said, he said, Perez wrote. As fact finder I found myself unable to definitely determine the issue of their respective credibility. Perez then points out that instead of immediately reporting the letter to the police chief and OIA as required by department rules, Higgins notified Blackwell who was not his supervisor in the chain of command. Blackwell then told Higgins to leave his post and bring the letter to the academy. On hearing about the letter, Sapiro reported it to a deputy chief and at the deputy chiefs order accompanied Higgins and the letter to the OIA commander. This is Illustrative of a pattern of improper and inadequate supervision by Captain Sapiro of Lt. Blackwell at the training academy as well as direct evidence of Lt. Blackwell acting outside the scope of his employment and performing unauthorized actions while on official duty, Perez stated. During the OIA investigation of the letter Perez said Blackwell was Not fully forthright and forthcoming to the investigators; rather he provided certain evasive, deceptive and misleading responses. Blackwell, who has been a city police officer since November 2000, claims in a federal discrimination lawsuit that as a result of his leadership of The Guardians combatting discriminatory employment practices in the Police Department he Has been subjected to harassment, ridicule and unfavorable employment practices. These practices he claims include being the subject of two anonymous racist-themed letters that were sent to then-Chief Joseph Gaudett in 2012 and being subjected to an internal investigation for allegedly planning to harm a white officer. Ron Bailey, a retired police lieutenant and former president of the Guardians, told the citys Office of Internal Affairs that several weeks before he retired from the police department in October 2013, Blackwell asked him to write report claiming then-Assistant Chief James Nardozzi was a racist. He wanted me to make up some things about Nardozzi making him out as a racist, he kept after me to do it but I refused, Bailey said. Instead, he told Nardozzi what Blackwell was trying to do. I knew what he (Blackwell) wanted me to do was not the right thing to do and he kept after me and after me to do it, Bailey said. At the time Nardozzi demanded then-Police Chief Joseph Gaudett fire Blackwell but Gaudett delayed taking any action against Blackwell and the situation was passed on to Perez when he became chief. Twenty-seven years ago, Trooper Jorge Agosto was working with a traffic squad on I-95 in Greenwich to help handle heavy Thanksgiving holiday traffic. Although he was assigned to the Troop L barracks in Litchfield, the two-year veteran was assigned that day to patrol I-95, a stretch of highway with so many accident its often called Connecticuts Devils Highway. Agosto had pulled his cruiser behind another troopers Crown Victoria to assist in a motor vehicle stop. While Agosto was walking along the shoulder of the highway, a motorist veered off the road and struck him from behind. Agosto died on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 1989 - the day before Thanksgiving. An investigation determined that the driver of the car that struck him had a diabetic seizure at the time of the accident. The driver was found to be suffering from hypoglycemia, a condition brought on by low blood sugar that caused dizziness, confusion and blackouts. Agosto, who was 27, would have been 54 years old today. Agostos death would affect scores of people for many years to come. John Rodia, the trooper who was working with Agosto at the time would later face his own demons. He developed an addiction to OxyContin after seeing Agosto killed and later getting into a bad car accident. In December 1996, Rodia, a former Trumbull police officer, left the state police. After graduating from the Columbia University School of Law in 1998, he would face more troubles 13 years later. In 2011, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for stealing more than $800,000 from 11 clients. One of then was a Stamford man, who hired him to handle the mortgage refinancing on his condominium, but Rodia kept the $360,000 intended to pay off the old mortgage. Today, Rodia, now 53, remains behind bars at the Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center in Uncasville. Last summer in Litchfield, a ceremony honored three Troop L barracks troopers killed in the line of duty. The troopers included Agosto, Lt. Thomas Carney and Trooper First Class James Savage. On the day before the busiest travel day on I-95, state police paused to rememberd Agosto and the six other Connecticut troopers killed in the line of duty over the years at motor vehicle stops. On their Facebook page Tuesday, State Police posted, Trooper Agostos death demonstrated the vulnerability of all troopers on the highway. Last November, there was nearly another tragedy involving state troopers on I-95 after a Bridgeport driver traveling at speeds as high as 85 mph came within inches of hitting four people, including two state troopers, on the shoulder of I-95 in Fairfield. Trooper Kelly Grant described that incident as a hair-raising experience, that troopers often face on Connecticuts busy highways. Runners from around the country will test their limits Thursday at the Commodore Hull Thanksgiving Day 5K Road Race, which was created to bring attention to the development of downtown Shelton and Derby. Commodore Hull 5K committee member and U.S. Navy veteran Glenn Gaetano said the great fire that devastated much of downtown Shelton in 1975 which was a result of arson, necessitated major downtown renovation projects. Now this place is spectacular, Gaetano said. Now they have concerts down there; its a great place. Another member of the race committee, Tom Wilson, said downtown Derby has improved a lot, particularly with the Derby Greenway. Now, on the Derby side, you can also see right up Elizabeth Street since some of the abandoned buildings have been demolished downtown. The race, which will begin at the Farmers market on Canal Street in Shelton at 8 a.m. Thanksgiving Day, has raised over $17,500 for the Boys and Girls Club of Lower Naugatuck Valley since it was created in 2002. The race was named in honor of the naval commander of the USS Constitution during the war of 1812, Commodore Isaac Hull, who lived in both Derby and Shelton. The American flag marks the border of the two towns in the middle of the Housatonic River, which the runners run over when they cross the Commodore Isaac Hull Memorial bridge during the race. Carl Sylvester, a longtime committee member, will be the honorary starter of the race, which begins with the firing of a flare. The registration fee for the race is $25 for adults and $10 for kids thanks to underwriting from the races sponsors like Greco & Haines. Gaetano, who has been racing since 1977, grew up in Derby and traveled the world after joining the Navy. He lived in Vermont for a while before moving back to Connecticut and settling in Shelton. We just want to put on the best event we can, said Gaetano. First of all, its a beautiful setting. Where we do the race must be the most beautiful site in the Valley. The number of runners has grown steadily over the years, appealing to several age groups. We started with 300 runners and now 750 will sell out each year well before the race date, Wilson said. Weve gotten a lot of youngsters involved. The Derby middle school, they really have an active program. The race has a limit of 750 runners. Gaetano said 22 percent of those, or 171 runners, are of high school age this year. The youngest registered runner is 6 years old and the oldest is 82. Its a nice, healthy family activity, and its a sign of accomplishment to run a 5K and have high school and college runners in our race, Wilson said. They can run with their grandfather or the top athlete of the area, and get to have a sense of pride in Derby and Shelton, Wilson said. Gaetano said one Commodore Hull runner used to bring her son along in a jogging stroller when she first started, and now hes running in the race himself. We have a wonderful community; everyone has a piece of this race, Gaetano said. Thats what you want; you want the community involved. We want the 5K to stand for something the community. Wilson said a highlight for him are the families that share in the experience of the race each year. For some kids, all theyve known is getting up (on Thanksgiving Day) and coming to race, he said. I see runners coming back year after year, and its been really fun. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Brown paper bags lined the hallway filled with apple sauce, stuffing and other seasonal favorites. The simple brown bags contained basic items off the shelves of any local grocery store. But for hundreds of residents of Trumbull receiving assistance from the food pantry in town, those brown paper bags represent a real meal for Thanksgiving. The Trumbull community is just so generous, Food Pantry coordinator Jane Horton said. For residents that fit the financial requirements in order to receive assistance from the pantry - about 200 throughout the year - the Thanksgiving Basket program provides the opportunity for families to enjoy the holiday season with help from donations received from the community. Financial criteria is based on state numbers for public assistance and is determined by the towns Department of Social Services. The food pantry serves families of all sizes in town, Horton said. In order to qualify, annual income and expenses have to be about $23,540 for a family of one up to $90,000 for a family of nine. But most of them are way below that, Horton said. Along with being financially eligible, those looking for public assistance through the pantry are expected to meet several other requirements, including proof of residency in Trumbull. After an appointment with the Department of Social Services, residents that qualify can then schedule a time to come pick up supplies from the pantry once a month. There are some families that come a handful of times a year, but there are some regulars that use the pantry monthly, Horton said. While Trumbull has continued to help residents with supports from donations, the neighboring Monroe Food Pantry is having a difficult time this year. With Thanksgiving just about here, the Monroe pantry is still struggling because donations are down 30 percent from last year, said Director Wendy Jolls. Im hoping we can make it between now and January; I dont want this to impact my families, she said. The Monroe pantry provides service to over 274 families in town, including many seniors, Jolls said. Residents of Monroe qualify for the food pantry as long as they are able to receive food stamps. But Jolls said the holiday season is always a busy time of the year and getting those supplies is crucial. These people need the pantry. Its going to be tough, she said. Last year, 42.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households without reliable access to sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food, according Feeding America, the nations largest domestic hunger-relief organization. The organization works with food banks across the country and can be reached at http://www.feedingamerica.org/ In Connecticut about 13.1 percent of residents are food insecure, according to the Connecticut Food Bank. In Trumbull, the pantry was bolstered t combined efforts with the town library, local Stop & Shop, and the police league for donations. It was through an effort from other organizations and volunteers in Trumbull that the Thanksgiving Basket program was able to give out supplies to residents for another year, Horton said. Were getting turkeys from the police league and the basket brigade, she said. Weve got some turkeys here and there. 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Police say Wilson Cabez also used his own photo on the IDs in an attempt to buy the phones using the other persons account. Sunday 20 November 2016 A The Family, the Australian doomsday cult she founded in the 1960s, she claimed to be Jesus reborn as a woman. Much of her power, say her former followers, lay in her grey-blue eyes. In ancient times we hear about enchantresses who could enslave people with one glance, says ex-acolyte Fran Parker. She had eyes that looked through your soul. Hamilton-Byrnes ultimate tool of enslavement, however, was something she pinpointed herself in a rare radio interview after the cults devastating abuses were exposed. It was love. Just love. nne Hamilton-Byrne wore pearls and Chanel perfume. She played the harp and sang soprano. She had blonde hair, styled in waves that caught the light. As leader ofThe Family, the Australian doomsday cult she founded in the 1960s, she claimed to be Jesus reborn as a woman. Much of her power, say her former followers, lay in her grey-blue eyes. In ancient times we hear about enchantresses who could enslave people with one glance, says ex-acolyte Fran Parker. She had eyes that looked through your soul. Hamilton-Byrnes ultimate tool of enslavement, however, was something she pinpointed herself in a rare radio interview after the cults devastating abuses were exposed. It was love. Just love. One of the few female cult leaders in history and apparently one of the cruellest Hamilton-Byrne operated in almost total secrecy over two decades. Hidden away in the countryside outside Melbourne, The Familys motto was Unseen, unknown, unheard. The police, acting on information from two child escapees, raided the cult in 1987. It emerged that over the years Hamilton-Byrne had collected 28 children through bogus adoptions and gifts from followers, dressing them in identical clothes and bleaching their hair platinum. To keep her eerie brood under her control, they say she subjected them to vicious beatings, starvation and emotional torture. Anne wasnt giving love, says Parker, whose young son was one of Hamilton-Byrnes victims. She was offering it and then taking it back. She broke peoples spirit. The glamorous guru used the same tactic on her adult followers, handpicking them from Melbournes wealthy professional elite with promises of spiritual fulfilment in the 1960s and 70s when new age seeking was all the rage. Ive been waiting for you, shed say on first meeting a potential recruit. You are special. Mother dearest: members of The Family were given this photograph of Anne and one of her 28 children to place on the altars in each of their rooms. Preaching a mishmash of Christianity, eastern mysticism and apocalyptic prophecy, she allegedly forced followers, including children, to take dangerous amounts of LSD and other hallucinogenics as part of prolonged initiation rites. Once they had submitted, shed dictate every aspect of their lives. There was only one rule: do absolutely everything she said, says David Whitaker, a former child survivor. That included what to think, what to wear, what to eat, who to marry, who not to marry. Total obedience. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had grown up in The Family. His hair colour didnt help nor, possibly, his personality. Assange admitted that a man who was his mothers boyfriend in the late 1970s had been a member of the cult. The man had been a sinister presence who sought to have a certain psychological power over his family, Assange said, and they eventually went on the run from him. But he said he never met Hamilton-Byrne or had any direct contact with the group as a whole. A few years ago speculation emerged thatWikileaksfounderJulian Assangehad grown up in The Family. His hair colour didnt help nor, possibly, his personality. Assange admitted that a man who was his mothers boyfriend in the late 1970s had been a member of the cult. The man had been a sinister presence who sought to have a certain psychological power over his family, Assange said, and they eventually went on the run from him. But he said he never met Hamilton-Byrne or had any direct contact with the group as a whole. By the time of the police raid, Hamilton-Byrne had broken up families, destroyed marriages and left her child victims with lifelong psychological scars. A number of followers tried to kill themselves, either during their time in The Family or after they escaped. Tragically, some succeeded. The cult leader amassed an estimated AU$150m (90m) through property, land and cash donated by followers. She hid overseas and was eventually arrested in 1993 on relatively minor fraud charges. Together with her second husband, businessman Bill Byrne, whom one ex-follower described as a handsome, rich, compliant handbag, she received an AU$5,000 fine, but no jail time. She has never been held to account for the appalling child abuse or long list of other crimes of which she was accused when the cults inner workings were exposed. A handsome, rich, compliant handbag: Bill Byrne with Anne and Adam. He remained loyal to them into adulthood. The Age , and Rosie Jones, a documentary filmmaker. Johnston and Jones first met two years ago when they realised they were working separately on stories about The Family, both aware that its once all-powerful leader was nearing death. I was mostly writing stories about what was happening to the cults remaining assets and structure, and Rosie was already two years into making a film about the experiences of the survivors and their long-term emotional trauma, says Johnston. Now 96, Hamilton-Byrne has advanced dementia and has lived in a Melbourne nursing home for the past 12 years. But her story, and those of her victims, wont go untold, thanks to the efforts of Chris Johnston, a journalist with Melbourne-based newspaper, and Rosie Jones, a documentary filmmaker. Johnston and Jones first met two years ago when they realised they were working separately on stories about The Family, both aware that its once all-powerful leader was nearing death. I was mostly writing stories about what was happening to the cults remaining assets and structure, and Rosie was already two years intomaking a filmabout the experiences of the survivors and their long-term emotional trauma, says Johnston. feature documentary, both titled The Family , are released in the UK this month. Both New Zealanders, they discovered in a further coincidence that they came from the same home town. They decided to collaborate. Their co-authored book and Jonessfeature documentary, both titled, are released in the UK this month. Through one of the few followers who remains devoted, Johnston and Jones were able to visit Hamilton-Byrne at the nursing home. Her inability to give consent as a result of her dementia meant it was impossible to interview or film her. It was an extraordinary encounter all the same, says Jones. She was dressed beautifully in blue and still had long silver hair. Her hairline, however, was on the top of her head because of the numerous facelifts she had during her reign to maintain the illusion of youth and immortality. Her speech was mostly incoherent, but she sat there nursing a plastic baby doll. She held the doll so tenderly, so gently. I found it incredibly powerful to witness, says Jones. Jim Jones, David Koresh or Japans Shoko Asahara. The closest is Houston-born Bonnie Lou Nettles, who co-founded the so-called UFO cult known as Heavens Gate with Marshall Applewhite in the 1970s. Like Hamilton-Byrne, Nettles believed she was on a divine mission, but she died of cancer 12 years before Applewhite and 38 other members committed mass suicide in 1997. There have been a handful of female cult leaders in modern history, but none to rival the destructive notoriety of men likeJim Jones,David Koreshor JapansShoko Asahara. The closest is Houston-bornBonnie Lou Nettles, who co-founded the so-called UFO cult known as Heavens Gate withMarshall Applewhitein the 1970s. Like Hamilton-Byrne, Nettles believed she was on a divine mission, but she died of cancer 12 years before Applewhite and 38 other members committed mass suicide in 1997. She had eyes that looked through your soul: Anne Hamilton-Byrne, age 72, arrives at County Court, Melbourne, November 1993. Photograph: John Woudstra/The Age Aimee Semple McPherson, who founded the Foursquare religion in Los Angeles in the 1920s, or New Jersey-born Elizabeth Clare Prophet who launched the Church Universal and Triumphant in 1975 and encouraged her followers to build fallout shelters to prepare for imminent nuclear war. Most women founders are associated with so-called new religions, such asAimee Semple McPherson, who founded theFoursquare religionin Los Angeles in the 1920s, or New Jersey-bornElizabeth Clare Prophetwho launched the Church Universal and Triumphant in 1975 and encouraged her followers to build fallout shelters to prepare for imminent nuclear war. Helena Blavatsky, a Russian-born medium who co-founded the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875. Madame Blavatsky, as she was known, was a champion of Tibetan esoteric wisdom. She described Theosophy as the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy and was instrumental in introducing Hinduism and Buddhism to the west. According to Johnston, one of Hamilton-Byrnes inspirations wasHelena Blavatsky, a Russian-born medium who co-founded theTheosophical Societyin New York in 1875. Madame Blavatsky, as she was known, was a champion of Tibetan esoteric wisdom. She described Theosophy as the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy and was instrumental in introducing Hinduism and Buddhism to the west. Hamilton-Byrne first became attracted to eastern religions and mysticism when she took up yoga in her mid-30s in the late 1950s. Born Evelyn Edwards in 1921, she grew up in a one-road farming settlement two hours east of Melbourne. Her mother Florence was originally from Wandsworth in south London. Florence was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after setting her hair alight in the street, and spent 27 years in a psychiatric asylum until she died. Hamilton-Byrnes father was an itinerant worker and she spent time in orphanages as a child. Anne married her first husband when she was about 20, but he died in a car accident, says Jones. Its quite tragic, really. They had one daughter together and there have been rumours that she suffered a number of miscarriages after that. Its only recently come to light that she and her husband were arranging to adopt a baby right before he died. Yoga became the young widows salvation. The practice was just emerging in the west, and Hamilton-Byrne started teaching it in the early 1960s, mostly to middle-aged women in Melbournes well-heeled suburbs. Anne was apparently a wonderful teacher, and these women became her first devotees, says Johnston. She was clever and intuitive. She knew how to find the chinks in peoples armour. Often these wives were in unhappy marriages, their children had grown up, they were looking for new meaning. Feminism was on the horizon, too. It was a whole confluence of factors. Divorce was still not accepted, but she would encourage the women to leave their husbands to join her, says Johnston. She also attracted gay male followers, offering them refuge from Australias laws against homosexuality at the time. . He even went one better and declared her to be the new Messiah. After experimenting with LSD purely in the interests of scientific research, he claimed he recorded in his diary that her face became divinely beautiful with sublime authority. Later, he wrote that she was unquestionably the wisest, the serenest and most gracious and generous soul I have ever met. Hamilton-Byrnes masterstroke, however, was to recruit an eminent physicist from Leeds, Dr Raynor Johnson, who was Master of Queens College at Melbourne University. Spiritualism was gaining popularity in scientific circles and Johnson, nearing retirement, was eager to explore unconventional territory. He became besotted with the beguiling woman who claimed to have extrasensory perception . He even went one better and declared her to be the new Messiah. After experimenting with LSD purely in the interests of scientific research, he claimed he recorded in his diary that her face became divinely beautiful with sublime authority. Later, he wrote that she was unquestionably the wisest, the serenest and most gracious and generous soul I have ever met. Johnson and his wife bought a house in Ferny Creek, the hamlet where Hamilton-Byrne lived. The Family was born. The intellectual respectability Johnson brought to the mission enabled him and his high priestess to recruit many more wealthy, new age-seeking professionals, including doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers, nurses and social workers. They held weekly meditation sessions, and Hamilton-Byrne started giving sermons, or discourses as she called them, from a purple throne in a specially built lodge funded by donations. The first children arrived in the early 1970s. Adoption was poorly regulated in Australia, and unmarried motherhood still carried social stigma. Through her network of followers, Hamilton-Byrne found it easy to procure infants. You had babies born in cult hospitals, delivered by cult midwives, handed over to cult social workers, says Lex de Man, one of only two senior detectives in the Victoria police force to try to bring charges against Hamilton-Byrne and her collaborators after the 1987 police raid. Cult lawyers would falsify the adoption paperwork. The attitude of his colleagues at the time, Man says, was that cases involving kids were Welfare matters, not real policing. Hamilton-Byrne told most of the children whom she adopted fraudulently that she was their birth mother she faked numerous pregnancies by wearing homemade smocks. She said they would survive the end of the world to become a new master race. Everything [we wore] had to be polished and looking the same, says Adam, a survivor in his 40s interviewed in Joness film, who was adopted into the cult as a baby. Naturally fair, his hair was dyed white-blond to match the others. That was to implant in us that we were all brothers and sisters. Yet the children knew nothing of Hamilton-Byrnes real background until the cult hit the headlines in the late 1980s. In addition to being Jesus, she told them she came from royalty and owned castles in Europe. They not only worshipped her, they adored her, too. We believed she was beyond the Queen of England, says Adam. Hamilton-Byrne housed the children in a sprawling wooden lodge at Lake Eildon, two hours away from The Familys main base. The area was beautiful but isolated. Once a flood plain, the lake was filled with partially submerged trees jutting out of the water in dark, spiky formations. The children, whose numbers eventually grew to 28 and included a few babies born to sect members, were home schooled. Hamilton-Byrne wanted to be the perfect mother figure to a perfect brood, but she seemed to have no interest in raising them. If she was there when any of the children stepped out of line, they say she would often beat them herself her weapon of choice was a stiletto shoe. But mostly she left it to the aunties, a number of middle-aged female followers, who feared for their own precarious place in her affections if they didnt enforce punishments. As well as horrific beatings that make many of the cults now-adult survivors weep as they recall either witnessing or receiving them, the children were often starved for days for minor transgressions, such as getting their clothes dirty or forgetting to switch off a light. Denial of food was a very large component of control, says one survivor, who remembers being so hungry she raided bins and ate leaves. Its better to keep your victims weak so they have less ability to fight back. The survivors recall being given daily doses of Mogadon and Valium as children to keep them docile. Then, usually when they reached the age of 14, they underwent formal initiation into the cult by being given huge, relentless doses of LSD in trips that often lasted several days, says Chris Johnston. LSD was part of the cults fabric. The prolonged doses were harrowing, even for adult followers. The effects were catastrophic on some of the young teenagers, who suffered depression, personality changes, nightmares and social withdrawal, sometimes for months afterwards. And that was on top of all their other childhood traumas. Rosie Jones says the longlasting nature of the emotional and psychological trauma experienced by the cults survivors shocked her the most during the making of her documentary. It made me realise the critical importance of love in a childs background. For most of the children, Hamilton-Byrne was the only mother they had. In a police interview shortly after the 1987 raid, one rescued teenager tried to explain how she felt. Its hard to say how devoted we were to her; how we hung off her every look and every thought she had about us. We wanted so much for her to love us, but I dont think she ever really did. Extraordinarily wealthy, with overseas properties in Kent and upstate New York, Hamilton-Byrne managed to hide her whereabouts for two years preceding her capture. She was eventually extradited to Australia from the US to face charges of conspiracy to defraud over fake birth certificates the only charges dogged detective Lex de Man felt would stick, and his best hope of forcing her to face any sort of justice. Now she has dementia, her victims have had to come to terms with the fact that she will never be brought to account fully for her bizarre and unusual cruelty. Its probably little consolation that all she has left to torment is a plastic doll. by Chris Johnston and Rosie Jones is published on 24 November by Scribe at 14.99. The documentary of the same name is on BBC 4s Storyville from 29 November The Family Somerset County Treasurer will 'do what it takes' for best returns News / National by Stephen Jakes An MDC-T supporter Esau M'Zambia Milanzi has claimed that his party was tricked into backing a Zanu PF Clown Temba Mliswa who fielded himself as an independent candidate yet he still belongs to the ruling party.He said to those brothers and sisters who are asking him whether they were sold a dummy in the Norton parliamentary election debacle across the Mighty Zambezi River, the answer is "YES, MDC-T was.""If you are one of those persons whose mind is not conditioned to go deeper than the surface and "NO, of course not" if you understand that sometimes it takes little sacrifices here and there to prove a point and drive it home," he said."The Goat Herder will explain himself: you see, the "lad" we backed during that election was, as at that time, ex-ZanuPf. We have always held this belief that the tag "ex" did not apply to him and that we are yet to find one single person who is alleged to be "ex-ZanuPf" who is truly ex-ZanuPf. Given what the "lad" is saying, our hypothesis is correct, anybody from ZanuPf can either be let loose to feign a well-choreographed "separation" to hoodwink the electorate with a view to hoodwink some of the gullible electorate across the Mighty River.""You must also remember that we were under severe "public opinion" to join forces with persons who are said to be "opposition" including those carrying the "ex" tag I have just spoken about. So now, when we say MDCT is not as daft as most shortsighted individuals think we mean it."He said they 24/7 had all those mosquitoes dropping sorties on them for nothing...."We strategise, we expose, we carry out "test cases" and we move on. A better Zimbabwe is close at hand and it can only be through an MDCT- driven government that espouses equal rights and dignity for all," he said.The remarks came after Mliswa blasted MDC-T leader and his party over their suspicion that he was still Zanu PF after photos of him with Zanu PF national Commissar Saviour Kasukuwere went viral on social media sparking suspicions that he was working with the ruling party. News / National by Stephen Jakes Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) has condemned victimisation, intimidation of voters and partisan food distribution in Chimanimani West ahead of the national assembly by election to be held on 26 November 2016.ZPP and other concerned civic organisations are gravely worried about the risk of citizens in the constituency being victimised and disenfranchised."It is alleged that Zanu PF, through village heads, has been intimidating villagers by making announcements to the effect that Zanu PF supporters are the only ones who should vote at the by-election. Zanu PF Provincial Youth Chairperson, Mbuso Chingono is also allegedly threatening known opposition activists that on election day there will be people ready to vote on their behalf. ZPP is therefore imploring the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to be strict about who qualifies to be an assisted voter," ZPP said in a statement."It is also reported that at Nhedziwa Secondary School in ward 4 there was distribution of rice and sugar a few days back but only Zanu PF supporters and villagers who produced voter registration slips benefited. It is alleged that Zanu PF local leadership turned away beneficiaries that have not been attending the party's meetings."The organisation said in Nyanyadzi (ward 8) at Rufaro business centre Zondai Mutezo and Gladman Mutezo tore *Lucky Reke's t-shirt for distributing fliers with information on one of the election candidates, Edmore Mtetwa. Chingono, in the company of state security agents, has also been accused of visiting campaigners of contesting candidates and ordering them to stop their campaigns."Uniformed forces like members of the Zimbabwean National Army and Zimbabwe Republic Police have also been spotted driving around Chimanimani West. Over the last two weeks, the sudden increase of army and police presence in the constituency is intimidating and curtails the activities of contesting candidates as their meetings are disrupted," ZPP said."Mtetwa, the independent candidate, will be contesting against Nokuthula Matsikenyere of Zanu PF, National Constitutional Assembly candidate Pesanai Musakaruka and Peter Gugyanga of the Renewal Democrats of Zimbabwe. The Chimanimani West seat fell vacant after Munacho Mutezo was fired from Zanu PF over his association with Joice Mujuru, leader of Zimbabwe People First.*The names of victims have been changed to protect their identities." News / National by Simbarashe Sithole Mvurwi Residents Association has denounced the town council and ZINWA for violating their human rights, at a constitutional awareness meeting on Socio Economic Rights at Salvation Army church in Mvurwi today (Tuesday).Speaking to Bulawayo24.com the community engagement officer Ruben Akili said citizens raised concern over the violation of human rights by the two local authorities and there is need to engage them so as to curb such trend."Mvurwi residents are demanding transparency and accountability in the running of Mvurwi town council on issues such as the gender procumbent process they said there should be the procumbent list as recommended by the auditor general in the report of 2014," said Akili.Citizens castigated ZINWA for violating their right to water by charging exorbitant prices around $7 fixed charge more than that of the Capital city of Harare.According to Akili Harare Municipality is charging $4 fixed water charges in high density suburbs unlike in Mvurwi ZINWA is charging $7 fixed charge.Mvurwi residents representative Emmanuel Nkambala chaired the meeting and said council was invited but they paid a deaf ear since they label them as an opposition tool to the ruling ZANU PF. A right royal wobble over a blancmange, imagined by Craig Brown Sir, Watching the new series The Crown, I was horrified to spot a major mistake. While Sir Winston Churchill was arm-wrestling Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, I noticed a footman in the background whose hair was quite clearly parted on the right-hand side. Yet I am reliably informed that any footman caught parting his hair on the right would have faced detention. Furthermore, he would have forfeited a weeks pay if he repeated the offence. One can only hope that before they show this scene again, the producers will have the common decency to re-shoot it, with the error corrected. J. T., Berks. Sir, Further to the previous letter pointing out an historical inaccuracy in The Crown, may I point out another? The scene in which Prince Philip lost his temper and hurled the Queens favourite crown out of a Buckingham Palace window onto the head of a passing policeman was, I will admit, beautifully filmed. However, Prince Philip is right-handed, and he was clearly seen hurling the crown with his left hand. What a howler! And another thing. When the Queen Mother entered the room just as Philip was storming out, she would never have just raised her eyebrows and sighed. Given the circumstances, a decent scriptwriter would have had her say So whats up wiv im, then? in the broad Cockney accent she employed behind closed doors. M. K., Boreham, Essex. The cast of The Crown, on Netflix, with its faux pas imagined in detail by Craig Brown Sir, Further to the two previous letters, I found fault with the scene in The Crown set in 1954 when, in a jealous rage, Princess Margaret thrusts the Queens face into a strawberry blancmange and screams: If you dont let me have a go on that bloody throne, therell be worse to come, you toffee-nosed scrubber! Make no mistake, this scene was beautifully filmed, superbly acted and brilliantly researched. I have never seen anything quite so realistic. I have one major quibble, though. Just before the Queens face landed in the strawberry blancmange, my husband freeze-framed our television. At this point, he spotted a circle of Cadburys Buttons on top of the blancmange. Clanger alert! It is a well-known fact that Cadburys Buttons were not manufactured until 1960! The moment he pointed out this historical inaccuracy, I lost all confidence in the show and turned over in disgust to watch David Attenboroughs Planet Earth II on the other side. K. P., Wittering, Cambs. Sir, Further to your previous correspondent, I was surprised by the clip on Planet Earth II in which a hawk was seen catching a mouse and eating it with its bare claws. Anyone who has studied hawks for as long as I have will know that they are well-bred birds who prefer to use a knife and fork to eat, particularly if they know they are being filmed. P. T., Much Hadham, Herts. Sir, Further to your previous correspondent, in the scene on Planet Earth II in which the two male snow leopards fought one another while the female looked on, it was clear by the way they kept looking round that someone was directing them off-camera. This suspicion was confirmed when a split-second from the end, I saw the three leopards all stop for a cigarette and a bit of a laugh, and the female leopard congratulated the two male leopards on their terrific performances. I. M., Barking. Queen Elizabeth (Claire Foy) Lord Porchester and Princess Margaret enjoy the races while an unhappy Prince Phillip looks on, in The Crown on Netflix Sir, Further to your previous correspondent, I remember a scene in Life On Earth in which a python swallowed a frog. At the time, I was totally convinced, but someone who knows someone who was there told me that the moment they stopped filming, the python let the frog out of his mouth and the two of them went off for a drink together. Apparently, they are seasoned professionals, available to hire as a duo from pythonandfrog.com, and have been enacting the same scene in various documentaries for the past ten years. They have also won many international awards for their performances, including the prestigious One Animal Swallowing Another statuette at the Golden Globes. L. M., Giggleswick, N. Yorks. Sir, Further to your previous correspondent, I was shocked to the core by the decision by Netflix to screen footage of the Duke of Edinburgh swallowing Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on prime-time television. To be perfectly honest, I missed that particular episode, so it is just possible that I have got the wrong end of the stick. A popular joke in California is that while they may not have voted for Donald Trump, they can at least spend the four years of his presidency stoned out of their minds. On the same day the U.S. delivered the White House to Trump, voters in California legalised marijuana for recreational use. Three other states did the same, bringing the total to eight. That political meddler Nick Clegg is leading the charge to force the legalisation of cannabis on Britain, too. His cross-party cabal of MPs have cited what they say is the success of the law change in parts of the U.S., along with a claim that legal marijuana in Britain could be worth 1 billion to HM Treasury every year in tax revenue and savings in the criminal justice system because cannabis users no longer count as criminals and drug-dealing gangs are put out of business. On the same day the U.S. delivered the White House to Trump, voters in California legalised marijuana for recreational use Police forces in some areas of Britain have admitted they have virtually given up on enforcing the laws against cannabis use. Yet before Clegg and friends become too light-headed about a pot-puffing nirvana, they might like to read the bleak warning from Mitchell Morrissey, the District Attorney of Denver, Colorado, to anti-legislation campaigners in California two months ago about the dangers of legalised cannabis. In what was a dispatch from the marijuana front line Denver is the biggest city in the first state to legalise it Morrissey warned that Californian voters were being seriously misled by claims that legalisation would see a drop in the crime rate. He produced an array of statistics that should give anyone who thinks legal cannabis is a good idea serious pause for thought. Since marijuana became readily available in Colorado which largely legalised pot in January 2014 crime had gone up, not down. Traffic-related deaths have increased 48 per cent; marijuana-linked emergency visits to hospitals by 49 per cent; and marijuana-related calls to the states poison centre by 100 per cent. The state-wide murder rate in 2015 rose nearly 15 per cent on the previous year. In some towns it more than doubled in a year. Robberies, thefts (especially from cars) and even sexual assaults had risen. In Denver, the number of crimes has grown by 44 per cent since legalisation. Police forces in some areas of Britain have admitted they have virtually given up on enforcing the laws against cannabis use Morrissey stressed he was not saying these shocking statistical spikes are all down to marijuana, he was simply anxious to highlight the disturbing figures that ran contrary to the impression that legalisation has been a glittering success in Colorado. (In August, the respected research group factcheck.org confirmed the tenor of Morrisseys message, saying pot-related traffic deaths, hospital visits and school suspensions in Colorado had increased substantially since legalisation). California voters, Morrissey added, were also being told a lie about how legalising cannabis would free up police to go after other criminals. Marijuana can only be taxed and policed if it is regulated with licensed producers and retailers. However, determining what is legally produced marijuana and what isnt has proved a nightmare for Colorado police. While Clegg airily claims the legalisation of marijuana will finally take back control from the criminal gangs, the reality in Denver is that the criminals are profiting more than ever. Police in the city have had to deal with a huge increase in their marijuana-related workload, including coping with a 99 per cent increase in illegal distribution, Morrissey revealed. The quantity of illegal pot seized by police has risen on average by 3,424 per cent per criminal case, the total no longer measured in pounds but in tons. Denver police, said Morrissey, are busier enforcing marijuana laws and investigating crimes directly related to marijuana, including murders, robberies and home invasions, than at any time in the citys history. That political meddler Nick Clegg is leading the charge to force the legalisation of cannabis on Britain, too Morrisseys devastating letter predictably caused a storm in Colorado. Financially at least, the state has been doing very nicely out of becoming Americas pot capital so much so that few in authority want anyone to rock the boat. With drug tourists flocking in from across the world to get stoned, the states marijuana industry is worth $1 billion annually. Last year it produced $163 million in taxes from marijuana sales, though critics note it imposes so much tax on legal pot that it has encouraged a soaring black market in untaxed marijuana. But thats a problem for the long-suffering local police to sort out. That and various other issues that Morrissey didnt specifically mention in his letter. Drug-driving in Colorado is proving a nightmare to deal with because there is no quick, reliable check to see if drivers are too stoned to drive safely, as there is for blood alcohol levels. As for Mr Cleggs demand it is time in Britain for ministers to start writing the rules for this legal market, including age limits and health warnings, he might like to see how little these supposed restraints matter in Colorado, where the biggest market is in cannabis-laced sweets that look and taste just like the traditional variety. Coloradans should be 21 to buy marijuana, but doctors have seen a significant rise in admissions from children who have fallen ill after eating marijuana-infused food, including chocolate, cakes or sweets laced with THC, the psycho-active ingredient of cannabis. Just last week, the American Surgeon General issued a report on drugs that highlighted how marijuana use can lead to mental health problems Even if children dont get their hands on the drug, state officials admit they are worried about how cannabis is being normalised for youngsters. What happens to people over the long term, especially kids, as they see marijuana normalised, as they see people advertising for marijuana, and as accessibility becomes greater and greater? asks Andrew Freedman, director of the state governors Office of Marijuana Co-ordination. Kids who are right now saying, No thanks will that change over time? Misty-eyed nostalgics in Britain some of whom may be in the House of Commons who remember getting gently stoned in their youth will get a sharp reality check if they were to visit a Colorado pot dispensary. There they will be pressed to try scientifically engineered marijuana that is many times more powerful than the weed of the Sixties and Seventies. Indeed, everything has changed. As an opponent of legalisation ruefully observes, there is a consumer market worth tens of billions that could be tapped by ruthless firms waiting to exploit the legalisation of cannabis in America. As soon as the federal government declares recreational marijuana legal nationwide, its said that tobacco giants such as Philip Morris could flood the market, employing the same cynical marketing tactics, slick advertising and dodging of regulations that they managed for years with cigarettes. It would be impossible to stop them employing the same tactics in the UK if marijuana were made legal. The scientifically engineered marijuana is many times more powerful than the weed of the Sixties and Seventies For all the claims of Mr Clegg and his allies, the U.S. is not nearly so smitten by legal pot as he likes to make out. Just last week, the American Surgeon General issued a report on drugs that highlighted how marijuana use can lead to mental health problems, permanent loss of IQ, stunted intelligence in younger users, increased risk of traffic accidents and schizophrenia, as well as increased addiction in states that are legally selling the stronger strains of the drug. Even Vermont, clogged with hippies and one of Americas most liberal states, rejected legalising pot after its health department released a damning report about its health dangers. More than half of U.S. states allow marijuana for medical purposes, encouraging a popular perception that it is actually good for you. But while its medical benefits are largely unproven, there is growing concern about marijuanas long-term effects, especially on the developing brains of young people. If you want to know the sort of person who is investing in legalised cannabis, its not some harmless flower child, but Roger Jenkins, the man once described as Britains richest banker. He is backing a fund that has bought huge swathes of California land to set up a marijuana-growing empire, which means the decision this month to legalise it must have been music to his ears. She says you shouldn't compare someone's highlights to your everyday In the past, she has also posted other comparison shots online Ms Puhto wrote: 'Butts can't ALWAYS look that big from every angle' She said she wanted to reveal the reality as there are so many snaps online The 20-year-old said it's all about posture and how you stand for a photo Fitness blogger, Sara Puhto, has exposed the reality behind 'booty pics' While the reality behind the perfect #fitspo photo has been well-documented by the likes of Gold Coast fitness supremo, Emily Skye, the truth to those frequent 'booty' shots you see on Instagram is a bit more unclear. Bar implants and squatting for 19 hours a day, just how do so many women get their bums to look so, well, perky? Thankfully, Finnish fitness blogger and 20-year-old social media star, Sara Puhto, has stepped in to explain the illusion. And, once again, it's all down to posture. Reality: Finnish fitness blogger, Sara Puhto (pictured), 20, uploaded a stark Instagram photo in which she showed the reality of simply standing straight and doing a 'booty pop position' Posture: The blogger regularly takes to the photo-sharing platform to illustrate how it's all about posture (pictured) 'Since it's #humpday I thought it would be appropriate to post a booty pic,' Ms Puhto began her Instagram post. I thought I'd show my booty from its normal straight leg standing position vs a posed booty pop position 'I thought I'd show my booty from its normal straight leg standing position vs a posed booty pop position. 'Cause [sic] in a world where the Kardashians bootys [sic] are so glorified, we need to remember that the photos we see of them and others aren't always reality. 'Their butts can't ALWAYS look that big from every angle.' Bootylicious: Constant photos of celebrities with overly large bums appear on Instagram (pictured: Kylie Jenner) Honest: The 20-year-old said: 'Cause [sic] in a world where the Kardashians bootys [sic] are so glorified, we need to remember the photos we see of them and others aren't always reality' The 20-year-old concluded her candid post by saying that other women shouldn't compare themselves. 'Don't think you can't because you're comparing a posed photo of a body to your everyday body,' she said. You shouldn't compare your everyday self to someone's highlights on Instagram 'Use them as motivation but don't get too caught up on them [sic].' Since Ms Puhto shared her illuminating post on her Instagram profile last week, it has resonated with thousands of her fans. This isn't the first time that the popular fitness blogger has called out deceptive shots posted on social media, either. Earlier in the week, Ms Puhto posted a stark, seconds-apart comparison photo, captioning it: 'Usually when I take photos I honestly take about a hundred and will pick one or two of the best ones to post where I think I look good... 'I'll delete the ones where I'm not ready (tummy relaxed, non smiling, mid posing photos). 'You shouldn't compare your everyday self to someone's highlights on Instagram,' she said. Advice: The popular blogger offered some advice for people looking at photos on social media: 'You shouldn't compare your everyday self to someone's highlights on Instagram' Ms Puhto is one of a number of bloggers who are getting increasingly real on the photo-sharing platform. While it is easy to assume that a photo is simply a regular shot capturing a single moment, Sara Puhto urges women to realise that often these photos are the result of hours of carefully-constructed, well-thought-out preparation. Thank goodness for that. Struggling to breast feed her second child was one of the first signs that something was wrong for worried mother Kate Yau. Kate, from Hereford, became desperate for answers when, even at several months old - and despite hitting developmental milestones like crawling and smiling - her son Cohen simply wasn't growing at the same rate as other children. Now four, Cohen is the height of an 18-month-old toddler, and baffled doctors say injecting him with synthetic growth hormones is the only way to help him grow in a new episode of Channel 5's Medical Mysteries. Four-year-old Cohen Yau (second right) is 25cm shorter than his school peers of the same age as his growth became stunted at an early age Doctors have been left baffled over Cohen's condition and still haven't found an answer after years of tests with experts in growth Father Kevin, holding Cohen, with his seven-year-old brother Jett, sat on his mother Kate's lap. They are concerned about what to do to help Cohen I was horrified at the thought of having to inject my child twice a day. They also said he would have to be treated like a diabetic because the medication is insulin based. That kind of frightens me,' Kate says on the show, which sees her and her husband learn of the risk of seizures and low blood sugar as a result of such injections. Cohen's father is equally worried: Its really our choice, but were not 100 percent sure if we want to do that to our child. 'Would it be better not to take the treatment altogether and fingers crossed people would accept him as he is, thats quite a hard choice for us to make at the moment.' At 81 centimetres tall, Cohen is 25 centimetres shorter than his peers and the same height as an 18-month-old toddler. Cohen started school this year but will be shorter than his classmates At just a few days old Cohen was moved to a special care unit to be fitted with a feeding tube, after three weeks he was allowed home but several months later Kate and Kevin realised things were not improving. 'Thats when he started to really lose weight. He was being sick quite a lot. And because he was being sick quite a lot he didnt want to feed and it was like a vicious circle. ' Cohen was constantly in and out of the hospital but to his parents it was obvious he was different to other children: ' He was still a really small baby, when we were taking him to see our friends. It was noticeable that he was a lot smaller than children of a similar age. So that is when we started to think that something wasnt quite right.' Doctors believed that Cohen may have had digestive problems but the tests came back negative, he was then referred to a specialist endocrinologist who specialises in growth hormones. Cohen is four and a half years old but only measures 81cm tall, the same height as an 18-month-old toddler As a young baby Cohen reached all the correct milestones, smiling and crawling, but it wasn't long before his parents realised he was smaller than other children his age After a straightforward pregnancy and a caesarean birth, Kate felt something wasn't quite right when Cohen struggled to breastfeed We were all devastated. Having a diagnosis is the only thing in the world that I could want, I dont want anything else,' Kate said before meeting Doctor Hogler. For Cohen and his family they would spend the next three years going through a barrage of tests to figure out what was behind his lack of height. Dr Hogler - consultant paediatric endocrinologist - explains: 'When I first met Cohen, I recognised immediately there was something not quite right. 'Kids with growth hormone deficiency they are fairly short, but Cohen was shorter. Cohen is a puzzle, I immediately thought I had a diagnostic challenge ahead of me.' A skeletal check proved Cohen was normal but the doctors questioned whether he had a lack of growth hormones that have a direct effect on height. The family were left devastated once again when doctors couldn't find any evidence that Cohen was suffering from a rare genetic disorder linked to a lack of growth hormones. Cohen's parents are concerned that he will be bullied throughout his life if they don't find a way to help him grow The key hormones travel from the pituitary gland to the liver which stimulates another growth hormone IGF-1 Insulin-like Growth Factor-One - without which our bones wont grow. Just 350 people worldwide are thought to have Laron Syndrome, but Cohen wasn't one of them, instead he is still something of a medical mystery. 'I just burst into tears and my heart sank,' Kate explained. We were pretty shocked. It not being Larons means we have no sure answer what it is and that really affects us, we want to know how to cure what Cohen has got.' The happy and smiley school child has only one option left to him, to try synthetic growth hormones. But it has left his parents wrestling with the dilemma of whether to administer the drug twice daily to help him grow. He would have to take the drug until he reaches puberty, but it could potentially add up to 30 centimetres to his height. Meeting a child who has Laron Syndrome and has been taking the synthetic drug for ten years does little to calm the fears of Cohen's parents, who learn of side effects can include seizures and low blood sugar. Kevin and Kate Yau are left with one option to help Cohen, a synthetic growth hormone that could help kickstart a growth spurt but it means having to inject him twice a day His parents are worried that his mysterious condition will affect his life if they can't find a solution, and as he starts his first year in school father Kevin shares his concerns. 'Obviously when he goes to school he is going to realise that he is very short compared to the children in his class.' He adds: I do get worried about the bullying. Even like going to the toilet, he knows how to go to the toilet on his own, problem is those toilets at school are a lot bigger or they are non-reachable if you dont have a stool or someone to help you.' For now, the parents are hoping that eventually they will find a solution for Cohen, who might not reach the height of his older brother Jett, who at seven is already three foot nine inches tall. 'Even though we dont have a diagnosis yet we will keep fighting, and I know one day we will get that diagnosis we have been after and we can just move on. 'Hes happy and hes healthy and he seems to take everything in his stride. Hes got such a personality that I dont think anything is going to stop him really.' The post resonated with the bloggers thousands of followers quickly She went on to explain that five out of seven days, she doesn't look glam Ms Cachia, from Melbourne, said: 'I feel like I deceived you all' This prompted the mummy blogger to post a very honest pregnancy shot She saw comments from women who said they wished they looked like her Many pregnant women would be forgiven for feeling a little jealous and insecure when they saw the mummy blogger, Sophie Cachia's, glamorous selfie posted on Instagram several days ago. Sporting a little black dress, tan, aviator-style sunglasses, a blow dry and berry-stained lips, she looked every inch the starlet, albeit heavily pregnant. But the 26-year-old from Melbourne felt guilty after she uploaded the stylish shot, thanks to a stream of comments reading: 'I wish I could look like you when pregnant'. And so, taking matters into her own hands, Ms Cachia posted another four-way photo showing off her real pregnancy body, warts and all. Scroll down for video Glamorous: Several days ago, the Melbourne-based mummy blogger, Sophie Cachia (pictured), uploaded this glamorous pregnancy shot with her tan, make-up and hair done Reality: However, after the 26-year-old received a string of comments saying: 'I wish I looked like you when pregnant', she decided to upload the reality of her day-to-day life (pictured) 'I feel like I deceived you all,' Ms Cachia began the lengthy accompanying Instagram caption. The ones that really didn't sit well with me were the 'I wish I could look like you when pregnant' 'I uploaded a photo of me looking pretty darn glamorous. 'And although I like that photo of myself, and I did put in effort to go out in the city looking "nice" that day to perk myself up a bit - I feel like a lot of you misinterpreted me as a person. 'You see, there were a lot... and I mean A LOT of comments... saying "wow you looking amazing" [sic] and "how do you look so good". 'But the ones that really didn't sit well with me were the "I wish I could look like you when pregnant".' 'I feel like I deceived you all': The mummy blogger accompanied her realistic photo with an honest caption that said her followers need to 'listen up' as the glam selfie wasn't reality Effort: Ms Cachia went on to say that in the glamorous photo, she had a spray tan, her hair curled, her 'glam make-up' on and 'somehow looked thinner' The popular blogger went on to tell her followers to 'listen up' as the glam selfie wasn't in fact reality. THAT IS NOT ME EVERYDAY!!!! I can ASSURE you that 5/7 days a week, THIS IS ME She said that in the first photo, she had had a spray tan (which 'has now gone manky'), her hair curled as opposed to it being 'sweat-infested in a knotty bun', and her 'glam make-up' was applied to her face. 'I also SOMEHOW looked thinner, especially than how I feel, but I think it was just the angles and #instahubby worked some magic that day by nailing it,' she continued. Ms Cachia concluded her post by saying that she does sometimes put a lot of effort into presentation, but said: 'THAT IS NOT ME EVERYDAY!!!! I can ASSURE you that 5/7 days a week, THIS IS ME. 'I'm a 33-week pregnant extremely uncomfortable woman, one with furry teeth, I have a bikini line that I haven't seen for over a month assumably [sic] in desperate need of a good wax, and owner to a smell of sweat that I can't quite figure out where it's coming from [sic].' Mix: Ms Cachia concluded her post by saying that she does put a lot of effort into presentation, but: 'THAT IS NOT ME EVERYDAY!!!! I can ASSURE you that 5/7 days a week, THIS IS ME' Difference: In the past, Ms Cachia has uploaded other photos which show the difference between natural and fully made up for the camera (pictured) Viral: Many of the blogger's posts resonate with her followers - amassing thousands of likes and hundreds of comments online The photo, she said, showed her doing her 'third load of washing' in a 'bathers top & undies around the house'. 'This is what Jaryd deals with on a daily basis and is somehow still trying to bang me every single day,' Ms Cachia said. Since the mum-of-one uploaded the candid snap, it has resonated with her loyal followers. Despite your dentist asking every time you see them, recently there has been much debate about how necessary flossing really is. Investigations showed that flossing hasn't been proven to make a difference to decay or dental health. But before you throw out your floss, Choice has investigated if it is still useful as part of your morning and nightly routine. Recent studies have said that flossing may not be as effective at improving dental health as many people think The Australian dental floss market is currently worth $26.4m, according to Retail World and despite recent claims casting doubt on the need for flossing, two significant groups, the Australian Dental Association (ADA) and Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), still support people flossing daily. The Head of the Bachelor of Oral Health at Sydney University, Dr Kimberly Coulton, told Choice she also supports flossing, although with come caveats. She said that interdental cleaning, which is cleaning between the teeth, is important, but that flossing isn't necessarily how you should do that. Dr Kimberly Coulton said that inter-dental cleaning is important, but you should ask your doctor if floss is the best thing for you WHAT IS AN ALTERNATIVE TO DENTAL FLOSS? There are several alternatives to dental floss available on the market, including interdental brushes which work best if you have larger gaps between your teeth. Other products include 'air flossers' which claim to help remove plaque by using targeted bursts of water droplets and air in the mouth. Talk to your dentist about what's right for you. Advertisement However flossing the wrong way or too hard can cause gum damage, and leave your mouth worse off than before. 'It's important to use something. I wouldn't say don't use anything interdentally,' the doctor explained. Other tools you can use include interdental cleaners, and Dr Coulton advises talking to your own dentist about what is best for you. Australia's National Oral Health plan has 11 recommendations for how you can care for your teeth, but flossing isn't included. Australia's oral health plan recommends people brush their teeth twice a day with fluoride toothpaste but doesn't mention flossing The plan recommends brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste, using fluoride mouthwash, and limiting the amount of sugary drinks you consume. These things appear to be more important than flossing, but as Dr Coulton says, generally if your dentist tells you to floss, you should. However, many have become more creative with where they go to cheat According to Mr Athens, people used to opt for hotel rooms and cars The PI has also discovered another couple in a car in Bunnings car park According to Mr Athens, he has caught one couple inside a bread truck Here, he talks to FEMAIL about the strangest places where people cheat Luke Athens, from Sydney, has been a Private Investigator for 21 years In the past 21 years, private investigator Luke Athens, from Sydney, has caught a lot of people cheating. But the main thing he has noticed is that people are getting increasingly creative when it comes to illicit locations. Speaking to FEMAIL, Mr Athens revealed the weirdest places he has witnessed people cheat... some of which might surprise you. Infidelity: In the past 21 years, private investigator Luke Athens, from Sydney, has caught a lot of people cheating (pictured: Ruth Wilson and Dominic West in the film The Affair) Creative: The main thing Mr Athens has noticed is that people are getting more adventurous in where they go to cheat (stock photo) INSIDE A BREAD DELIVERY TRUCK With regard to the strangest occurrence of infidelity, Mr Athens of Heartbreakers, said one instance topped the lot. From what we could see, the guy had his pants down, while the woman still had her skirt on 'The couple who opted for a bread truck as the location for their dangerous liaison was definitely one of the most unusual,' the experienced PI told Daily Mail Australia. 'There was this bread truck parked on the side of the road, the back was open and I saw this couple jump out of their car and disappear inside. 'From what we could see, the guy had his pants down, while the woman still had her skirt on. 'The funniest part of it all was that by the time they came out, she still had all of these breadcrumbs on her skirt.' Wild: When it comes to busy cheats, Mr Athens said it's important to look at all aspects of someone's timetable - he followed one man on his run to discover him cheating (stock photo) WHERE DO PEOPLE GO TO CHEAT? * According to Luke Athens, in the 80s and 90s, the majority of people cheated in hotel rooms and cars. * However, in the past five years, there has been more of an explosion of people seeking adventure in a public place. * While he said the boss's office, cars and cheap hotel rooms are still popular, Mr Athens has also witnessed infidelity in public swimming pools and someone's driveway. Advertisement IN THE BUSHLAND When it comes to the busiest of cheats, it's important to look at every aspect of someone's day-to-day timetable. According to Mr Athens, one man was investigated for months, and Mr Athens was starting to think the client who had hired them was paranoid, until he finally found out where the man was going to meet up with his mistress. 'It was a massive job, we'd spent months on it and I just kept looking at his schedule and thinking: "This guy has no time for an affair!",' Mr Athens said. 'Then, one day, as a last-ditch attempt, we followed him on a run in the morning and noticed he met up with a female a few blocks away, before they continued to jog together. 'After a while, they reached a dense area full of trees, and remained in the bushes for 15-20 minutes. 'They then emerged together, left the bushland and continued to jog home, eventually separating.' After placing several hidden cameras in the bushland the following day, the client's suspicions were confirmed. He was cheating. Bizarre: In one case of an affair between a husband and his sister in law, Mr Athens discovered one couple cheating in the Bunnings car park on a 30 degrees Celsius day (stock photo) IN A BUNNINGS CAR PARK 'This one was pretty full on,' Mr Athens said. 'It was an affair between a husband and his sister in law. 'We caught them together on a really hot day, about 30 degrees Celsius, when they decided to get it on in the Bunnings car park. 'I filmed the whole thing and could see the guy, who was in his 50s, wiping sweat from his forehead - maybe they were just looking for something different.' Commonplace: According to Mr Athens, public bathrooms are quite common as locations for cheating men and women - they're covered and safe, but also spontaneous (stock photo) PUBLIC BATHROOMS Public bathrooms are a common place for cheating men and women to frequent, Mr Athens told Daily Mail Australia. 'They're covered, and so safe, but also have a bit of the spontaneous exciting component,' Mr Athens said. Opinion / Columnist Prophet Bushiri is a man well ahead of his time. In his ministry, in his businesses, and as a human being. Having risen from barren land, armed with a dream, the man from Malawi now stands at the foot of the world. Bushiri Buzz is available on Play Store and on the Apple App Store Many Christians love to fish in the pond. They like to preach the gospel to converts. This is not, and should not be the case. The Prophet can smash records at his rate because he is relevant. He is able to preach the gospel to a Hip-hop loving youth, and bring them to Christ. It certainly rings true. The Catholic Church, and most of the protestant churches have seen a more than steady decline in numbers. In Europe and America, Christians have decreased in numbers by the millions. As the world changes, they have failed to change with it. Anachronism has condemned them to a hammer blow by Pentecost movements. The only protestant church able to keep up is the Reformed Church (Dutch), easily because it has allowed itself to reform over time. In that regard, Prophet Bushiri is a man ahead of his time. A game changer in the mold of John Whistle. A loyal disciple, who dares to go into uncharted territory to preach the gospel. And it goes beyond that as well. His Virtual Mobile Network is a blueprint for black people seeking empowerment at low cost and sensible returns. His investment network, which runs across all continents now, is testament to how genius the man is. This last week, he uploaded a picture of himself from a few years back, and stated that, But deeper than the meteoric rise of the man, is the path he has opened. Not the thousands of people employed in Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Sudan, Dubai, UK, USA, and others. Deeper than that is the fact that Shepherd Bushiri is a prototype that invention, genius and dedication will lead to success. Prophet Bushiri at the launch of his mobile network He is a phenomenal prototype whose billions must inspire billions of people to follow suit. His business empire is proof that no matter how much people, media, and enemies fight you, if you work hard enough behind closed doors, eventually your success speaks for itself. Over the next few months, you will read of various ventures, launched all over Africa and the world. Of lives changed, lives empowered. While that may startle then, it is quite clear that the truth should not startle. Prophet Bushiri is a man well ahead of his time. In his ministry, in his businesses, and as a human being. Having risen from barren land, armed with a dream, the man from Malawi now stands at the foot of the world. Signing off after our interview last month, where I echoed the same thing, his words were, "Don't be intimidated, be inspired" ----------- Maynard Manyowa is a journalist and contributing editor of Khuluma Afrika. -----------Maynard Manyowa is a journalist and contributing editor of Khuluma Afrika. Source - khulumaafrika.com All articles and letters published on Bulawayo24 have been independently written by members of Bulawayo24's community. The views of users published on Bulawayo24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Bulawayo24. Bulawayo24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received. Comments It certainly rings true. The Catholic Church, and most of the protestant churches have seen a more than steady decline in numbers. In Europe and America, Christians have decreased in numbers by the millions.As the world changes, they have failed to change with it. Anachronism has condemned them to a hammer blow by Pentecost movements. The only protestant church able to keep up is the Reformed Church (Dutch), easily because it has allowed itself to reform over time.In that regard, Prophet Bushiri is a man ahead of his time. A game changer in the mold of John Whistle. A loyal disciple, who dares to go into uncharted territory to preach the gospel.And it goes beyond that as well. His Virtual Mobile Network is a blueprint for black people seeking empowerment at low cost and sensible returns. His investment network, which runs across all continents now, is testament to how genius the man is.This last week, he uploaded a picture of himself from a few years back, and stated that,But deeper than the meteoric rise of the man, is the path he has opened. Not the thousands of people employed in Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Sudan, Dubai, UK, USA, and others. Deeper than that is the fact that Shepherd Bushiri is a prototype that invention, genius and dedication will lead to success.Prophet Bushiri at the launch of his mobile networkHe is a phenomenal prototype whose billions must inspire billions of people to follow suit. His business empire is proof that no matter how much people, media, and enemies fight you, if you work hard enough behind closed doors, eventually your success speaks for itself.Over the next few months, you will read of various ventures, launched all over Africa and the world. Of lives changed, lives empowered. While that may startle then, it is quite clear that the truth should not startle.Prophet Bushiri is a man well ahead of his time. In his ministry, in his businesses, and as a human being. Having risen from barren land, armed with a dream, the man from Malawi now stands at the foot of the world.Signing off after our interview last month, where I echoed the same thing, his words were, Malawian born cleric, celebrity gospel billionaire preacher Shepherd Bushiri released a Hip-Hop song this last week. It was widely downloaded, receiving nearly a whopping 100,000 direct and referral downloads in Malawi alone.He did this, in a country whose rural electrification is 9% and the lowest in the world: Its mobile penetration rate is among the lowest in Africa, with fewer than 20% having access to internet. Less than 1 in 10 people have access to electricity, while in rural Malawi only 1 in 100 people have access to it. Those numbers are proof that anyone with electricity and a cellphone with data downloaded the song. It could easily mean everyone in Malawi did.Statistics for Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, Europe and the America's are still being compiled, but the numbers seem set to venture into double digit millions.This comes on the back of the Prophet launching a mobile network in South Africa. Something which is very rare, when you consider the man is black in a country where capital is dominated by the contrasting colour.Just a day after launch, Prophet Bushiri's mobile cell phone network (PSB Network) was already going beyond 100,000 subscribers. The network also follows the launch of the prophet's developing application, an instant messaging solution like Whatsapp and WeChat, but arguably better in terms of user-friendliness.After the launch of PSB Network, I among several other journalists were fortunate to receive accreditation to attend a one-on-one session at the cleric's business headquarters Shepherd Bushiri Investments in Sandton.It was there, for the first time, that the prophet opened-up on his various business. It was there I learnt of the Shepherded Bushiri University, his first-class private charter airline business, his multi-million-dollar consultancy business, his mining ventures all around Africa.Rich men are loud, while wealthy men are modest. The adage was laid bare before our eyes. But that is not the subject matter of today. The subject matter today is, Shepherd Bushiri, a man seemingly ahead of his time, and ahead of contemporary gospel.Speaking to me exclusively, Kelvin Sulugwe, the Public Relations Officer to the prophet said, She took herself to wellness retreat in Himalayan foothills, where she says the fog started to clear Mother-of-four suggests it may be because she's grown to resent the fact she's expected to put everyone else first Our romantic weekend away had been planned for weeks. My husband Keith was due to be in Dubai on business and had suggested I fly out and meet him there. Three days in a luxurious five-star hotel with sun, sea and shopping. What wasnt to like? Except, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that the only part of this marital getaway I was actually looking forward to was sitting on a plane alone for six hours. The thought of a romantic mini-break with my husband stirred nothing in me. And I mean nothing. All I wanted was to be left alone ideally at 37,000 feet so nobody could reach me and if the cabin crew handed out those miniature gin and tonics then so much the better. Shona Sibary, 45, (pictured with children from left Dolly, Monty, Annie and Flo when they were younger) has been hit by a sense of overwhelming apathy. The mother-of-four suggests that it may be because she's grown to resent the fact she's been expected to put everyone else first At least my life, in Economy and at cruising altitude, would be temporarily suspended. I know, as a woman with four lovely children, a beautiful home by the sea, a successful career and a husband of 17 years whom I still love, this was not how I was supposed to feel. Although Ive never been a leaping out of bed in the morning type, I had increasingly found myself waking with nothing but a sigh of resignation that the day ahead has to be faced. Without the pressing need to get children off to school (Flo, 18, has flown the nest but Annie, 15, Monty, 14, and Dolly, seven, are still at home) there is no doubt in my mind that I would not have bothered to climb out of bed at all. Was this depression? Ive been tempted, for months now, to go to my GP and try to explain how I feel. The problem is, I dont feel depressed. I just dont really feel anything at all. Nothing any more, gives me a high or a low. Its like Ive flat-lined, but yet, somehow, Im still breathing. Even the sight of my Dolly cantering on a pony for the first time a few weeks ago her face lit up with a mixture of pride and exhilaration utterly failed to move me. Psychologists talk about a U-bend of happiness and how, when we hit middle-age, we somehow find ourselves slumped somewhere at the bottom trying desperately to summon up the energy to crawl up the other side. She says she increasingly found herself waking with nothing but a sigh of resignation that the day ahead has to be faced And this is exactly how I would describe the overwhelming apathy that has taken me hostage. When I explained to other women in person and on social media how I was feeling, the response, particularly from friends of my own age, was overwhelming. One, a highly successful author, who, like me, is in her mid-40s, blamed it on impending mortality creeping up on us, and the underlying awareness that this is it. We cant take risks any more. When it comes to our lifestyles, relationships, careers and so on, we have to find a way to make what we have work. Even though we appear to have everything we want -and often, much more - we are unable actually to feel happy Another put it much more bluntly. Middle-class women like me have been utterly spoilt. Kept in comfort by our successful, solvent other halves (mine also happens to be faithful, dependable and kind) weve been in the fortunate position of being able to put our careers on the backburner so we can concentrate on our families. And weve done that. But somewhere along the line weve grown to resent the fact weve been expected to put everyone else first. And call women like me self-indulgent, but it has made us feel numb. Even though we appear to have everything we want and often, much more we are unable actually to feel happy. And, yes, that makes us selfish. Take my friend who feels so bored by her life that when her husband suggested a family holiday to France over the summer, she actually faked an illness because she couldnt be bothered with the effort of travelling. So what is wrong with us all? You may think we are over-indulged princesses who need to pull ourselves together. But psychologists agree that mid-life apathy can exist independently of depression. Shona decided to take herself off to a wellness retreat in the Himalayan foothills for two weeks (file photo) Meanwhile, more women than ever before are popping antidepressants. One in three now take them at some point in their lives while for men its one in ten. It makes me wonder how many of these women, like me, are suffering this middle-class malaise. Not depressed just beyond caring. Im now wondering if, deprived of any real problems for two decades, and having had no real structure or routine to my daily life (Im a freelance writer), my sensors have simply shut down. Maybe Ive been robotically serving everyone elses needs and forgotten how to be happy. Luckily, Keith works from home, because this has forced me to keep up appearances. The kitchen is always tidied, the laundry done and the dog walked. If he pops his head around my office door hell see me working at my computer. Usually, unless someone is screaming at me to meet a deadline, this will be a pretence. What Im actually doing is Googling holidays Ill never go on, houses on Rightmove Ill never live in anything to escape the sheer effort of actually facing reality. But there is nothing wrong with my reality. Sure, my four children cause me a fair share of stress, but isnt that the same for any mother? And, yes, Keith and I have our ups and downs, but we remain steadfastly together. Yet I find myself at the age of 45 having fallen out of love with life. She says she is climbing, day by day, out of her apathy because she wants to appreciate the fact that she has got what so many other women wish for I keep a pillow in our Ford Galaxy, for Gods sake, so that in the afternoons I can drive to a supermarket car park, away from my husband, lie down in the back, and go to sleep. Whether its my mothers sudden death a year ago something Ive struggled to process or just long-term residual exhaustion from being the only person in the house who has picked anything up off the floor in the past 18 years, Im at a complete loss as to explain just what on earth is wrong with me. So, a few weeks ago I decided to try to find out. I found a website called Healing Holidays, which for some reason triggered the first spark of interest Ive felt in anything for ages. A holiday without the family might be just the thing I needed, I decided. The problem with family holidays, after all, when youre the one in charge of preparation, is that they are never relaxing. But a holiday that heals? Weve all heard of Eat, Pray, Love the Elizabeth Gilbert book in which a middle-aged woman sets off an odyssey of self discovery. But the protagonist was single and childless. Ive got a family who rely on my daily input no matter how catatonic I might be feeling. So, nearly two months ago, just before we were about to go on that romantic weekend, I sat Keith down and told him there was going to be no weekend of passion in a luxurious hotel. Instead, I was off to find myself and figure out how to be a better wife and mother. In the meantime could he please juggle his highly demanding job with looking after our four children not forgetting to occasionally swill bleach around the loo? Im now wondering if, deprived of any real problems for two decades, and having had no real structure or routine to my daily life, my sensors have simply shut down And, do you know what? He took it quite well. Why? Obviously its in his interests to have me firing on all cylinders, practically and emotionally. And he had noticed Id been struggling. I thought it might just be hormonal . . . he said, sounding relieved. I didnt have the heart to tell him that when my mother had just been going through the menopause at around the age I am now she lost the plot so severely that she walked away from marriage to my father. I took a deep breath and told Keith I was going to the Himalayan foothills for two weeks at a wellness retreat called Vana costing 1,900, and I wasnt to be disturbed because they were going to put me back together. And at least he had the sense to say nothing except: What day do the bin men come? Id like to say it was hard to drop everything and leave, but it wasnt. I simply didnt care. Vana, popular with many celebrity clients, has been described as the most life-changing retreat in the world. Its an extraordinarily luxurious refuge, cocooned deep in a lychee forest, which offers a programme of treatments and activities to help harmonise you mentally, physically and emotionally. Combining ancient philosophies from Chinese, Tibetan and Indian medicines you are given an initial thorough assessment before a bespoke treatment package is designed to help you achieve the aims of your stay whether it be to detox, de-stress, lose weight or heal emotionally. When I arrived, I discovered everyone else on the retreat was just like me; middle-aged, middle-class and apathetic. Some had horrible divorces behind them, problems with alcohol or work burn-out. All of them, like me, had lives that looked privileged on the outside, but were actually riddled with discontent. On my arrival, my Indian doctor tried to rationalise everything by explaining that all the cells in our bodies have DNA and therefore, obviously, memory. Id never looked at it this way before, but bad behaviour patterns (drinking, smoking, eating processed food) not to mention emotional stress, grief and exhaustion are all stored up in our cells, resulting, eventually, in the body struggling to cope. So you put on weight, feel sluggish and complain, as I have for months, that every day is like wading through treacle. And all because, guess what? Our cells dont forgive and forget. They hold bloody great grudges and if youre not going to dedicate the time to figure out what makes you wake up every morning with enthusiastic rigour then, eventually, theyll give up trying to tell you. Im not sure whether I wholly bought into this philosophy, but the thought of being given time to work out what was making me miserable was undeniably appealing. There were no phones, no books, no TV or distractions. I would have time to think in a way I hadnt been able to for a very long time. I was assigned two in-depth treatments a day to fit in around Vanas extra curricular offerings such as yoga, meditation, nature hikes and cookery lessons. One, a traditional Ayurvedic (ancient Indian) procedure which involved wearing nothing but a loin cloth and being slathered in some kind of herbal oil for 90 minutes a day by two long-suffering girls from Kerala. God it was awkward and, I couldnt help feeling, pointless. But then, on Day Four, something started to happen. I woke up feeling somehow unblocked. I cried a lot. It felt stupid but I just couldnt stop. I cried, for the first time, about my mother dying. I cried about my failings as a wife and mother. I even cried, for heavens sake, about not saying a proper goodbye to the dog. The next morning I felt more energised than I have in years. Of course, you could argue that if youre having oil rubbed into your body every day for ten days and have no dishwasher to unload, youre going to feel better. But something else was definitely going on here and it was important to me that I surrendered properly to the process. We all talk about finding ourselves and it is such a cliche. But its easy when youre a middle-aged woman to forget who you are. Certainly, I have never had ten days in my adult life to think about nothing else but myself. I remembered, for instance, thanks to Vanas fairly rigid schedule, that I actually like, and thrive, on routine and structure. Id forgotten that in recent years and have allowed my days to become shapeless and changeable for fear of being bored. In those ten days, of waking up early, going to bed early, eating organic, wholesome food at set menu times, and following my daily schedule, I started to feel focused. Not like I was blundering through my days, trying to make the most of them, but actually enjoying them. I felt lighter. The fog started to clear and I began to feel again. And I needed to feel homesick. I needed to look at my family from afar and properly miss the demands they make on me rather than constantly resenting my role as a wife and mother. When I walked out of Vana, I felt a pull towards home and family that was palpable and travelled to the airport with a smile on my face. Then, on the plane home, I actually felt the stirrings of something long buried. I longed to hug my husband and feel his familiar, bear-like arms around me. I longed for the smell of my childrens hair. I actually felt almost excited about living that life again. On returning home, my children, Keith (and the dog) welcomed me home like never before. And, believe it or not, none of them have condemned me for being selfish. Im not quite back to my usual self yet, but my trip away has given me is a very definite leg up. Im making a conscious effort (not just idly tapping my computer) to find structured work again. The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is one of the most highly-anticipated and elaborate runway shows on the fashion calendar. On November 30, a number of the world's most renowned models will join the 14 official angels to storm the runway in Paris alongside musical guests Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars and The Weeknd. With just eight days to go, New Zealand-born model Georgia Fowler, 24, has revealed her excitement at being cast in the show and what it was like to compete against some of the most beautiful women in the world for the spot. Thrilled: New Zealand-born model Georgia Fowler, 24, has revealed her excitement at being cast in the 2016 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Disbelief: 'It's such a pinch me moment, there were definitely tears and I had to call Mum straight away,' Ms Fowler said 'It's such a pinch me moment, there were definitely tears and I had to call Mum straight away,' Ms Fowler told Today Extra on Tuesday. 'We were both screaming and crying and that kind of went on for the next 72 hours or so. 'It's so exciting, I still can't believe it. I can't wait.' Determined: Ms Fowler revealed she has been going to castings for the past five years in the hopes of walking in the show alongside the likes of Adriana Lima and Lily Aldridge Getting ready: Ms Fowler is pictured attending fittings for the show in New York Leading into the show it is a lot more toning and making sure you're feeling psychologically perfect. Ms Fowler revealed she has been going to castings for the past five years in the hopes of walking in the show alongside the likes of Adriana Lima and Lily Aldridge. 'There are so many beautiful girls out there and everybody has been trying so hard for it. It is intimidating because everyone deserves it,' Ms Fowler said. 'I have done the casting for the past five years and worked really hard towards it so you just have to go in with your biggest confidence and try and do all you can and hope for the best.' Natural beauty: 'There are so many beautiful girls out there and everybody has been trying so hard for it. It is intimidating because everyone deserves it,' Ms Fowler said Positive: 'I have done the casting for the past five years and worked really hard towards it so you just have to go in with your biggest confidence and try and do all you can,' she said Ms Fowler, who has been modelling since the age of 12, revealed the exciting news on Instagram and shared a number of snaps of herself heading into her official fittings. 'I can't contain my excitement any longer! I am confirmed for Victoria Secret Fashion Show! Thank you for making my dream come true,' she wrote. 'Going in for my @VictoriasSecret Fitting. I'm still pinching myself! There were a few tears shed inside I am just so excited for you to see what I'm wearing!' She added. 'It is a lot more toning and making sure you're feeling psychologically perfect': Ms Fowler, who has been modelling since the age of 12, hasn't changed her fitness routine too much Australian models: Ms Fowler will join Australian models Kelly Gale (left), who walked in 2013 and 2014, and Bridget Malcolm (right), who walked in 2015, on the runway WHAT IS THE 2016 FANTASY BRA? Excited Victoria's Secret model Jasmine Tookes will wear the 2016 bra - a Bright Night Fantasy Bra. It took 700 hours to make and was hand crafted. It is 450 carots, stamped with diamonds and costs $3 million. See the bra here Advertisement Ms Fowler will join Australian models Kelly Gale, who walked in 2013 and 2014, and Bridget Malcolm, who walked in 2015, on the runway. Speaking to Harper's Bazaar on Monday, the stunning brunette said walking in the show alongside the Angels would be surreal. 'These are the girls who were on the cover of my diary when I was at high school and now I'm going to be doing it with them. I still can't really believe it, it's such a dream,' she said. Stunning: The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is one of the most highly-anticipated and elaborate runway shows on the fashion calendar Alumni: Australian models Miranda Kerr (pictured left in 2012) and Shanina Shaik (pictured right in 2015) have also walked in the renowned show Ms Fowler also shared her daily routine and said that while the show is coming up, she hasn't changed her workout regime. 'It's important not to change [my body] too much because Victoria's Secret cast me at how I looked at that certain point, so I don't need to do anything more than that. But I have stepped it up little bit,' she said. 'Obviously you're more aware that you want to be in you best form, but it's my job to look good year round... leading into the show it is a lot more toning and making sure you're feeling psychologically perfect.' She learned new skills and took time to focus on what makes her happy In between time spent abroad she would spend time at home in Melbourne to Uganda and Cambodia, before working as a tour guide In the past year Diane Squires has volunteered in Uganda, travelled through Italy and witnessed the marvel of Alaska. She started to learn French, spent time on her writing and leaned a number of new skills. At 43 years old, Ms Squires has taken a gap year. The experience is one that allowed her to refocus on the things that made her happy, and she told Daily Mail Australia it made her understand more about who she was as a person. Melbourne woman Diane Squires, 43, has left her corporate career behind to take a gap year She travelled to Uganda with her sister Julie Lancaster (pictured) where she volunteered in a school The time off work allowed her to refocus on the things that made her happy She spent time with the children in Uganda, taking photographs and spending a day in their life 'When I left work I realised that I was very defined by my job title, Ms Squires, who previously worked as a communications specialist, told Daily Mail Australia. And suddenly, when you dont have a title, you start to look at who you are as a person. 'I knew I needed to take some time out, to quit the rat race, even if just for a while,' she told the Huffington Post. 'I wasn't sick, wasn't taking maternity leave, didn't need to take carers leave. But one thing had led to another and I found myself somewhat broken, mentally and emotionally, and needed to give myself time to heal.' 'When I left work I realised that I was very defined by my job title, Ms Squires said Pictured is a woman in Kashmir, India, washing her clothes in the lake while on a boat A Masai village at the Masai Mara in Kenya where they were invited into the peoples' homes to learn more about local culture The Melbourne resident opted for what she called an unconventional gap year, choosing to spend time both at home and abroad, and documented her travels with the Instagram page All Abroad AU. Her first trip took her to Uganda, where she volunteered at the Amari Community Development School with her sister, Julie Lancaster. We got to spend time with the kids, photographing them, and we did a day in the life of the students,' she said. We went to the villages and it was really amazing, one of the things I learned is that we dont need so much stuff. We can live a lot more freely without this stuff trying us back. She travelled to Yoho National Park, Canada as part of her job as an international tour guide Her travels took her to Italy where they rode on gondolas in the Venice canals After three weeks in Uganda she travelled to Cambodia, before landing a job as an international tour host for the company Twos A Crowd. The tours took her to Venice, Tuscany, Rome, Canada and Alaska. Ms Squires started an Instagram page with her husband, Adrian Duncan, where they shared incredible photos from times abroad. Two leopards spotted on safari in Kenya. She said travelling helped her reconnect with who she was While she took the gap year on her own, she started an Instagram page with her husband Adrian Duncan She also started blogging, and found the experience provided her with more skills to assist her when she returns to the workforce - something she feels more confident about doing. 'When I took stock I felt empowered. I felt confident,' she told Huffington Post. 'I realised I did some things very well and some things not so well... but overall I was happy with where I was career-wise. 'This realisation and growing confidence brought me contentment and I made the internal promise to be a little easier on myself in future.' People initially thought that I wouldnt be able to take 12 months off, they thought after three months I would get bored, she said She cruised through the Inside Passage in Alaska as part of her Gap Year People initially thought that I wouldnt be able to take 12 months off, they thought after three months I would get bored, she said. Ms Squires encouraged other people to give it a go. It doesnt have to be a big overseas trip, although that is amazing, she said. A First Dates contestant has left viewers horrified after peeling a banana with her feet. Chelsea, from London, showcased her unusual party trick while appearing on Monday's night's episode of the Channel 4 reality show. She was paired with Alex, 25, from Hertfordshire who coincidentally claimed to be a foot model and said he was desperate to find The One after never having a girlfriend before. The DNA forensics analyst stunned viewers when she made short work of a banana, peeling it underneath the table in a matter of seconds using just her feet. She held the fruit in place with her left foot while peeling the skin with her right; it later ended up on her plate. Stunned viewers took to Twitter to express their distaste, with Jay Z(ea) blasting: 'Why would you even think about opening a banana with your foot on a first date.' Aidan Monk added: 'Peeling a banana with the foot is simply not acceptable on a first date! Cmon people!!!' DNA forensics analyst Chelsea, 24 from London, showcased her unusual party trick while appearing on Monday's night's episode of the Channel 4 dating show Chelsea held the fruit in place with her left foot while peeling the skin with her right; it later ended up on her plate. Her date however, was clearly impressed and agreed to a second date Earlier in the show, Chelsea had revealed to bartender Merlin she had been up since 5am with work and told how her job was not as glamorous as it sounded Natalie Lue tweeted: 'There is something so wrong about peeling a banana with one's feet,' while Baxter claimed he had 'just cringed' after watching the scene. Fellow viewer Eddie Rowland commented, 'Oi think it's home time mate.' Another claimed Chelsea was a 'numpty' while Emm questioned whether her stunt was really 'the best party trick to pull on a first date with a complete stranger'. Meanwhile Kayla Chantel wrote, 'That banana thing was just nasty.' 'Nothing says girlfriend material like opening a banana with your feet on a first date,' added Michael. Stunned viewers took to Twitter to express their distaste, with Jay Z(ea) blasting: 'Why would you even think about opening a banana with your foot on a first date' Others were apparently incredulous that Chelsea, who earlier in the show had described herself as 'reserved', had managed to score a second date. The 24-year-old's stunned date said afterwards: 'You're such a lady!' However her stunt didn't appear to put him off as he later admitted he'd like to see her again. While Chelsea replied: 'You were quite funny. I liked how honest you were.' Earlier in the programme, Chelsea told bartender Merlin she had been up since 5am with work and insisted her job was not as glamorous as it sounded. Alex, right, said afterwards: 'You're such a lady!' However her stunt didn't appear to put him off as he later admitted he'd like to go on a second date with the forensics analyst Others were simply incredulous that Chelsea, who earlier in the programme described herself as 'reserved', had managed to land a second date with Alex at all after the 'nasty' stunt 'Boys expect a typical scienece nerd - glasses, lab coat, that kind of thing,' she said. 'We don't walk in in a suit and sunglasses - it's not like the TV at all. I wish it was, though.' She revealed she was looking for a guy who was tall with 'dark hair, trendy'. She added: 'I quite like facial hair. Someone who can make me giggle'. Luckily for her, half-Italian Alex ticked all of those boxes - despite the pair getting off to a rocky start when he suggested she wouldn't know what 'CC' meant during a conversation about motorbikes. Queen Mathilde of Belgian looked ready to embrace the festive season as she read to primary schoolchildren today. The glamorous Belgian royal donned a stylish grey jumper adorned with shimmering sequins as she told youngsters a story to celebrate Read Aloud Week. Mathilde, 43, looked animated as she read the wildlife-themed story to the pupils in the town of Asse. Queen Mathilde of Belgium looks animated as she reads aloud a children's story book at a primary school in the town of Asse Crowds of well-wishers gathered to meet the queen, handing her a pretty bouquet of pink flowers Mathilde matched her winter-themed jumper with a pair of light grey wide trousers and weighty drop earrings. Her highlighted hair was worn loosely for the informal occasion. She appeared to enjoy the session at the primary school, which encourages children to read aloud on their own and to others. Her storytime session involved reading a book about a little boy, which looked to captivate those listening. It's been a busy time for the Belgian royal, having recently returned from a visit to Jordan to see how the Syrian refugee crisis is affecting the Middle Eastern country. Last month, Queen Rania hosted the humanitarian visit which saw Mathilde visiting Jordan's biggest refugee camp Al Zaatari in Mafraq near the Syrian border, which is home to 80,000 displaced people. Very seasonal! Queen Mathilde's shimmering grey jumper offered a nod to winter fashion Happy to chat: The 43-year-old Belgian royal spent time chatting to well-wishers outside the primary school The Reading Aloud week is a nationwide initiative that encourages youngsters to read their favourite books out aloud. Mathilde looked expressive as she participated in the storytime reading session Last month, the queen visited Jordan, where she toured Syrian refugee camps on a humanitarian visit at the invitation of Queen Rania Get reading! The queen was flanked by posters telling children to read out loud Next week, the queen will join husband King Philippe on an official state visit to the Netherlands, at the invitation of King Willem-Alexander. Statuesque Aly Stosz turns heads wherever she goes - and standing at 6ft 9in tall, she is almost impossible to miss. The 27-year-old - who has size 16 feet (UK women's size 14) - dwarfed all of her friends throughout her school years, and by the time she was 12 she already measured 6ft 3in. Today Aly, a former model from New York, says she has learned to embrace her stature - although she was bullied while growing up for being different. Aly, who has size 16 feet, dwarfed all of her friends throughout school and by the time she was 12 she measured an impressive 6ft 3in (pictured during her stint as an 'Amazon' model The 27-year-old former model says she has learned to embrace her stature - although when she was younger she was bullied for being different and called names by her classmates Cruel classmates would call her 'Godzilla' and a 'monster', which led to years of anxiety and self-consciousness. Aly, who works as an artist, said: 'I feel strong and I feel beautiful. I don't worry as much of what people think about me when I am walking down the street. 'In the past other people would make me feel really bad about my height - for being different. 'All the negative comments and all the bullying piled up over years and really gave me an intense anxiety. I felt hurt. I felt belittled, but ultimately it made me a stronger person.' Aly's biggest fan is her 6'4 personal trainer boyfriend Sean Webb, pictured. He was captivated by Aly's height when he spotted her in a pizza shop and the pair immediately hit it off Aly with a friend. Aly, who works as an artist, said: 'I feel strong and I feel beautiful. I don't worry as much of what people think about me when I am walking down the street' Despite struggles in her younger years, there were many who admired Aly's height and in her early twenties she found success as an 'Amazon model'. Aly made a living from posing with and lifting small men for fetish photography - but she felt the shoots 'lacked in creativity', leaving her feeling dissatisfied. During one shoot, she was lifting a small man when she took a tumble, breaking her ankle and ending her career for good. Aly said: 'A lot of tall women go into an industry of fetish photography which is called Amazon. Aly as a little girl. Growing up, cruel classmates would call her 'Godzilla' and a 'monster', which led to years of anxiety and self-consciousness By the time Aly was 12, she measured an impressive 6ft 3in. Aly, who now has size 16 feet (UK women's size 14) - dwarfed all of her friends throughout her school years Aly today. She said of her time growing up: 'In the past other people would make me feel really bad about my height - for being different' Aly today. Despite struggles in her younger years, there were many who admired Aly's height and in her early twenties she found success as an 'Amazon model' Aly embracing her figure. These days, the artist enjoys plenty of advantages of being a tall woman, but says her height it is not without its disadvantages 'I did theme shoots, where I would do things like pick up guys that were small or I would stand next to them and show how short they were. 'I made some good money and I had some interesting experiences. Ultimately it was not creatively fulfilling for me at all. It became very boring. It's all the same thing.' She recalled: 'I was lifting a guy who was 190 pounds and I was wearing heels that were very unstable and we slipped and I broke my ankle really badly. I decided at that point it was the time to completely stop it. ' These days, Aly's biggest fan is her 6'4 personal trainer boyfriend Sean Webb. Aly Stosz wearing a corset for a fetish shoot when she was an 'Amazon' model. During one shoot, she was lifting a small man when she broke her ankle, ending her career for good Aly made 'good money' from her modelling career. She explained: 'I would do things like pick up guys that were small or I would stand next to them and show how short they were' Aly poses in a leather corset dress and stockings. After breaking her ankle while lifting a man, her modelling career came to an abrupt halt and she is now focusing on her work as an artist Throughout her twenties, Aly made a living from posing with and lifting small men for fetish photography - but she felt the shoots 'lacked in creativity', leaving her feeling dissatisfied Aly shows off her figure. She says having size 16 (UK 14) feet is a 'nightmare' adding: 'If I go to outlet stores there are usually large size sneakers that are in like really weird styles' Sean was immediately captivated by Aly's height when he spotted her in a pizza shop and the pair immediately hit it off. He said: 'I am 6'4', so I'm about five inches shorter than Aly. We get a lot of attention when we walk around but it's good attention from my perspective. 'I love to be with her because of the person she is. The height is a wonderful thing and it's attractive to me. But to know who she is is a whole other thing that's bigger than her size.' Aly enjoys plenty of advantages of being a tall woman, but says her height it is not without its disadvantages. 'I love many things about being tall,' she said. 'I am strong. I can lift heavy things and I can reach up high. Sean, pictured, says of his relationship with Aly: 'I love to be with her because of the person she is. The height is a wonderful thing and it's attractive to me' Sean added: 'To know who [Aly] is is a whole other thing that's bigger than her size' - admitting that they get a lot of attention when they are out together, but he feels it's 'good attention' 'I think a lot about how I embody a space, how I move through space so, that informs my work as an artist a lot. 'When I go shoe shopping, however, it's a nightmare. I wear a US shoe size 16 in women's and 14 in men's (UK women's size 14 and UK men's size 13.5). 'If I go to outlet stores there are usually large size sneakers that are in like really weird styles. 'Dresses are great because I can wear them as shirts. Pants I have to special order. If I find pants that are long enough in the store, it's literally like a miracle.' Yet regardless of shopping problems, Aly is happier than ever with her height and she is now encouraging other women to embrace their differences. Aly working out. She says of her unusual height: 'I love many things about being tall. I am strong. I can lift heavy things and I can reach up high' Aly, who works as an artist, says her height affects her work as well: 'I think a lot about how I embody a space, how I move through space so, that informs my work as an artist a lot' Aly towering above a friend. She says she is now happier than ever with her height - and she is now encouraging other women to embrace their differences Aly, pictured with a friend, urges other women: 'Your value is not based on your appearance. Try not to let that feeling of not feeling beautiful enough affect you, because it's not true' She said: 'I've never met anybody as tall as me but I know that they are out there. I just haven't met them yet. No matter what, anywhere I go, I stand out and I feel blessed to have that. 'I would say to other women that don't feel confident in their appearance to try not to care what other people think. 'Your value is not based on your appearance. Try not to let that feeling of not feeling beautiful enough affect you, because it's not true.' Advertisement The Duchess of Cambridge displayed a pair of gym-honed arms in a striking black cocktail dress by Preen tonight. Hours after attending a tea party in honour of the Natural History Museum's iconic Dippy the Diplodocus, Kate, 34, was back on duty at the Place2Be Wellbeing in Schools Awards at Mansion House in London, in her role as patron of the charity. The Duchess wore a wasp-waisted, flared black dress, which looked virtually identical to a red number by the same British design duo that she wore on her tour of Canada in September. The Duchess wore a black cocktail dress by Preen with a bejewelled belt and vertiginous black Prada heels in London tonight The Duchess looked radiant in the black cocktail dress by Preen, which she wore with a sparkly Temperley belt She added a bejewelled black belt by Temperley and vertiginous black heels by Prada to Preen's 995 Finella frock. She first attended a reception to meet the finalists in each category before taking part in the ceremony, presenting the Child Champion and Young Person Champion Awards. The Awards honour those who have shown a remarkable commitment to championing children and young peoples mental health. Place2Be is the UK's leading children's mental health charity providing in-school support and expert training to improve the emotional wellbeing of pupils, families, teachers and school staff. It works directly with more than 282 primary and secondary schools across Wales, Scotland and England, reaching a school population of over 116,000 pupils. The Duchess has been Patron of Place2Be since 2013, reflecting her interest in child mental health and the importance of early intervention. The Duchess of Cambridge, who is a patron of the children's mental health charity, mingled with families at a reception in London ahead of the ceremony The dress she chose for the awards ceremony appeared to be a match for another Preen dress she wore in Canada in September - that time in red The Duchess of Cambridge wore an elegant black cocktail dress by the British label Preen to an awards ceremony tonight The Duchess was seen chatting to people involved with the Place2Be charity at a reception ahead of the ceremony Place2Be is the UK's leading children's mental health charity providing in-school support and expert training to improve the emotional wellbeing of pupils, families, teachers and school staff. It works directly with more than 282 primary and secondary schools across Wales, Scotland and England, reaching a school population of over 116,000 pupils. The Duchess has been Patron of Place2Be since 2013, reflecting her interest in child mental health and the importance of early intervention. The Duchess looked elegant in the black midi-length cocktail dress, which she teamed with simple Prada heels The Duchess was smiling as she arrived at the awards ceremony at Mansion House tonight, where she was due to present awards to children who have overcome challenges with the help of the Place2Be charity Despite Storm Angus blowing a gale across the UK the Duchess of Cambridge stepped out in a floaty LK Bennett dress as she arrived at the National History Museum this afternoon Earlier today the Duchess looked elegant in a printed tea dress as she stepped out in South Kensington this afternoon to say a very special goodbye to one of the area's oldest residents. Despite the Storm Angus blowing a gale Kate, 34, wore a light dress costing 375 from British brand LK Bennett as she arrived at the Natural History Museum on Tuesday . The Duchess was visiting the museum to give a Dippy, The Natural History Museums world famous Diplodocus, a royal send off. After 40 years standing guard at the entrance to the London landmark, the dinosaur is being evicted in January, but not before a series of parties to celebrate his iconic status. This afternoon Kate, who is Patron of the Natural History Museum, joined a tea party to mark Dippys last few weeks on show before he embarks on a nationwide two-year tour one of two engagements today for Prince Williams wife. She arrived in high spirits this afternoon clearly delighted to be joining in the day's festivities. The royal appeared to have cut her thumb as she was spotted wearing a plaster on her thumb, but did not let that put a dampener on her day. The museum had invited Oakington Manor Primary School in Wembley, which is working with one of the Duchess's charities Place2Be, to join her for the party. Kate, who is patron of the world famous museum, seemed to be in high spirits upon her arrival despite the fact she appeared to have cut her thumb and was wearing a plaster What do you think? Kate decorates a dinosaur egg at the museum where she is attending a tea party to celebrate Dippy the Diplodocus's final months in the building Fun and games: The royal is well known for her love of the art world so it is unsurprising that she took every opportunity to join in with the crafts this afternoon One of the Kids: Youngsters from the school - and the Duchess - took part in activities including dino-inspired crafts and a mini fossil dig from the Museums Dino Scene Investigation schools activity Any advice? The Duchess and her primary school pal swap art tips during this afternoon's craft session I like your thinking! A young school girl watches as Kate adds decorations to her dinosaur egg on Tuesday Youngsters from the school took part in activities including dino-inspired crafts and a mini fossil dig from the Museums Dino Scene Investigation schools activity. The charming royal could be seen chatting with members of the primary school as they coloured in cardboard versions of the famous dinosaur. Kate, who has been a patron of the museum since 2013, told the children: 'George loves the T Rex because it's the noisiest and the scariest.' Pupil Elizabeth, 10, said the duchess told her that the young prince 'likes dinosaurs and volcanoes', while Anastazja, 10, added: 'She said he was learning about that in school.' The duchess could also be heard asking the children if they had seen the films Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, which she thought were 'brilliant' and that she remembered seeing the original film as a little girl and that she 'really enjoyed it'. She did not seem phased by the fact that there was plenty of paint at hand to spoil her pricey frock and was happy to get stuck in. They then joined join Museum Director Sir Michael Dixon and the Duchess to cut a celebratory cake before a final good luck photo with the Diplodocus. The students were barely able to contain their excitement as the posed with the Duchess, all dressed up in white lab coats and sporting a Place2Be badge in honour of the occasion. Dippy first arrived at the museum more than a century ago - in 1905, to be precise - and for the last four decades has been one of the first attractions seen by visitors as they walk into Hintze Hall. Who's hungry? The Duchess slices into an enormous Diplodocus cake served to her and the children of Oakington Manor at the Natural History Museum this afternoon Both the Duchess and the children looked eager to tuck into a slice of cake in hour of Dippy's departure The Duchess and the children were joined by Museum Director Sir Michael Dixon as they cut the cake this afternoon Get digging! The Duchess joins the school children for a mini fossil dig during this afternoon's activities What did you find? The Duchess quizzes young archaeologists over their findings after their mini fossil dig Feeling maternal? The mother-of-two appeared to enjoy the children's company immensely this afternoon The Duchess of Cambridge visited the Natural History Museum this afternoon to join Oakington Manor school (pictured) for a special tea party to say goodbye to Dippy, The Natural History Museums world famous Diplodocus before it is moved in January The Duchess and the school took one last final good luck photo with the Diplodocus before it is sent on its tour in January Earlier this year, however, it emerged that despite his iconic status, bosses at the London institution had decided the 83ft long exhibit was no longer relevant enough to take pride of place in their great entrance hall. From summer 2017, Dippy will be replaced by the 83ft long real skeleton of a blue whale, suspended in a diving motion from the ceiling. The whale, previously the centrepiece of the Mammal Hall, and a resident of the museum since 1891, is seen as a more realistic symbol of environmental destruction and hope. Despite the fact more than 32,000 people signed a petition calling on the museum to change its mind, Dippy's last day on will be January 4, 2017. From early 2018 the Diplodocus, who, in fact is a model made up of 356 plaster cast bones, will be travelling the length and breadth of the country on a mission to inspire those who might not ever visit a traditional museum. Getting crafty: The charming royal could be seen chatting to the students of Oakington Manor as they took part in dino-orientated activities Need a hand? The Duchess seemed keen to get involved in this afternoon's activities - unphased by the fact she was wearing a 375 dress How interesting: Kate leans forward to listen as a museum helper teaches the children more about dinosaurs The Duchess of Cambridge is Patron of Place2Be, the UK's leading children's mental health charity providing in-school support and expert training to improve the emotional wellbeing of pupils, families, teachers and school staff. The charity works in 282 primary and secondary schools across Wales, Scotland and England, reaching a school population of over 116,000 pupils. A spot of car trouble did nothing to dampen the spirits of Queen Maxima as she stepped out in top to toe leopard print in the Netherlands today. The Dutch Queen's driver appeared to have to ask for a jump start in Enschede today, where the 45-year-old was visiting a Google Netherlands event. But the royal's smile remained firmly in place as she waved to onlookers. Queen Maxima was at Hangar 11 of Airport Twente in Enschede today for a Google event The Queen's entourage appeared to run into some car trouble, but that didn't dim her smile It appeared the royal's driver needed a jump start at the event in Enschede this afternoon Royals are often accused of playing it too safe when it comes to fashion. The same cannot be said of Queen Maxima, who accessorised her flamboyant outfit with neutral heels and co-ordinating clutch. The royal was in the east of the country to visit the Digitial Workshop, a two-day initiative staged by Google Netherlands. She wore her blonde hair swept into a low bun, and finished her outfit with a pair of statement earrings. Her eye-catching suit was made up of a flowing knee-length skirt and co-ordinating cardigan, topped off with a matching belted jacket. Dutch Queen Maxima chose a bold leopard print suit for a visit to the Digital Workshop Peep-toe heels and a clutch in neutral shades completed the Dutch Queen's outfit The Argentinian-born mother-of-three is known for having fun with fashion - and for her signature radiant smile. She chose a more sombre, all-grey outfit for a visit to a butchery demonstration in a Dutch village last week, but took a more flamboyant approach to today's engagement. Perhaps the Queen was hoping to add a little colour to what appeared to be a grey day in the Netherlands. The radiant Queen stepped out in an all leopard print ensemble for a day of engagements Queen Maxima beamed as she arrived, brightening up a dreary day in a leopard print suit The Queen was in Enschede to visit the Digital Workshop, a two-day initiative staged by Google Netherlands The Queen carried a neutral clutch bag and a shawl to keep off the winter chill She kept things simple in the hair department, choosing a sleek and sophisticated bun Queen Maxima is seen smiling at the event in Enschede in Twente today The Queen's suit was made up of a flowing, knee-length skirt, co-ordinating cardi and jacket The Queen was also at Roessingh, the largest rehabilitation centre in the Netherlands, today the 50th anniversary of the Synod of Spanish bishops She's one of the few European royals to favour trousers over skirts but Queen Letizia has been neglecting her signature style of late. However, fans of the Spanish queen's tailored look will be pleased to see that Letizia was back in pants today as she conducted an engagement in Madrid. The mother-of-two showcased her slender frame in a pair of slim pleated black trousers as she attended a ceremony in the Spanish capital. Queen Letizia was pretty in plum today as she stepped out in the Spanish capital of Madrid The former journalist added plum coloured accents to her outfit in the form of a fitted tweed jacket and an elegant purple clutch. Always a stickler for coordination the royal further married in her choice of colour by wearing a complementary shade of purple lipstick this afternoon. The Queen of Spain was joined by her husband King Felipe VI and opted for stilletto heels to give her extra height next to her towering spouse. The 44-year-old royal stuck with the straighter hair style that she has been seen favouring of late on Tuesday afternoon. She joined her husband King Felipe VI for the Spanish Episcopal Conference at the Plenary Assembly The former journalist added plum coloured accents to her outfit in the form of a fitted tweed jacket and an elegant purple clutch The Queen of Spain opted for stilletto heels to give her height next to her towering spouse She and her husband attended the Spanish Episcopal Conference at the Plenary Assembly in the country's capital. While there the queen sat by the king as he spoke during a ceremony held on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Synod of Spanish bishops. Upon arriving this afternoon, a charming Letizia was seen greeting the bishops one by one. Charming Letizia was seen greeting the bishops one by one as she arrived this afternoon While there the queen sat by the king as he spoke during a ceremony held on the occassion of the 50th anniversary of the Synod of Spanish bishops This is the first royal visit to the Plenary Assembly in 15 years with the last visit performed by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia in 2001. As part of their visit the King and Queen will be presented with two separate institutional gifts at the Episcopal Conference. One of the gifts was a bust of John Paul II, a reproduction of one that stands in the Episcopal Conference Chapel. The second gift the new edition of the Roman Missall, a liturgical book, in Spanish. A woman got a nasty surprise as she posed for a video wearing a reptilian Snapchat filter when she was suddenly bitten in the face by a dog. Sofia Alanis, from Nuevo Leon, Mexico, was nodding in front of the camera with lizard-like eyes with her friend Katya Silva when she was pounced by the pet, called Roger. A video posted on Imgur shows the two friends relaxing on a bed when suddenly the dog went for its owner Sofia's face. Just chilling: Sofia Alanis, pictured in the background, from Mexico, was nodding in front of the camera with lizard-like eyes with her friend Katya Silva, pictured in the foreground Katya wrote in Spanish on Facebook: 'Everything was going well when suddenly..' The footage has been watched more than a million times and attracted hundreds of comments - including some from concerned viewers. 'The aggressive dog was more disturbing to me than funny. Is there more information about what happened?' wrote 'jaykaylol68'. Shock: But she was suddenly pounced by dog Roger who was standing next to them On record: A video, watched more than one million times, captured the shocking moment when the dog suddenly went for her face 'So what happened to the girl? Will she be okay? Does anyone know?' said 'Mama1'. Others took a more light-hearted approach. 'See even dogs hate those stupid snapchat face filters,' wrote 123456Tevin89. Sofia said she was not hurt in the attack, telling concerned viewers she covered her face. A Massachusetts college student had clearly already downed a few drinks when she tried to get into a local bar last week. At least, that's the only way she could have possibly thought a slice of pizza would serve as sufficient ID to get in. The young woman was trying to enter the bar in Amherst in the early hours on Thursday morning when the doorman asked for some form of ID to prove her age. Rather than fishing in her bag for her license, however, the young woman merely held of a slice of pizza she had with her. Disorderly conduct: A young woman was arrested outside of a bar in Massachusetts last week Pepperoni face: The 21-year-old tried to use a slice of pizza as ID and slapped the doorman when he refused to let her in Interestingly, the woman is actually 21, and could have legally entered the bar had she provided proper identification instead of the delicious, greasy late-night snack. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the doorman at Monkey Bar informed her that her pizza was 'not a valid means of gaining entry into the establishment', after which things went downhill. She reportedly slapped the doorman, then interfered with police officers who were already on the scene. She was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct and also issued a trespass notice to stay away from the bar in the future. The disorderly conduct charge was later dismissed in court. Though a name was initially assigned to the woman in the newspaper, the Gazette's website has been updated to remove it. Won't be back: She was ordered to stay away from the premises of Monkey Bar Whoops! The story has gone viral on social media where most people find it hilarious While the arrest itself is no doubt a bit embarrassing for the young woman, the unusual way that it came about has made her a bit of a hero and joke on social media. 'Okay, maybe I'm behind, but WHEN did a slice of pizza cease being a valid form of identification?' tweeted @pbockelman. Advertisement The Duchess of Cambridge flung her arms around a sobbing mother at a charity awards ceremony tonight and told her: 'I just had to do that as a mum'. Kate, 34, comforted Ceri Knapton who was overcome with emotion as her son, Ethan, 13, told the royal about his battle with autism and Asperger syndrome at an awards ceremony for the children's mental health charity Place2Be. Ceri, from Preston, said after her encounter with Kate in London tonight: 'The Duchess just leant over and said to me "I've got to give you a hug as a mum". I couldn't believe it, it was such a kind gesture.' Scroll down for video The Duchess placed a comforting arm around the shoulder of mother Ceri Knapton, who was overcome with emotion as her son Ethan told the Royal about his struggles with autism and Asperger syndrome at the Place2Be charity awards tonight Mother Ceri, from Preston in Lancashire, said after her encounter with Kate, 34, 'it was such a kind gesture' The Duchess wore a black cocktail dress by Preen with a bejewelled belt and vertiginous black Prada heels in London tonight Kate was attending the Place2Be Wellbeing in Schools Awards at Mansion House tonight in her role as patron of the charity. The Duchess wore a wasp-waisted, flared black cocktail dress by the British label Preen, which looked virtually identical to a red number by the same design duo that she wore on her tour of Canada in September. Ceri's son Ethan, a pupil at Fulwood Academy, was only diagnosed three years ago but has used his experiences to hold school assemblies about how it affects him. The teenager told the Duchess how he was bullied mercilessly at primary school because of his undiagnosed conditions, which can lead to problems with concentration and tics that cause him to shout without him even being aware of it. The Lancashire mum, seen with her son Ethan who attends Forward Academy, was comforted by Kate at tonight's event He said: 'It was a very difficult time but my diagnosis helped me to cope with what I was experiencing. 'I decided that I wanted to speak out about it.There is no point in sitting back. I'd rather stand up and make a difference.' His mother told Kate: 'It's not been an easy few years but he makes me feel so proud. His autism and Asperger's aren't labels, but an explanation of what makes Ethan the boy he is. The fact that he wants to use that to benefit others less able to speak out is just amazing. ' 'No matter how invincible we seem on the surface, all of us need help from time to time,' the Duchess said in a speech tonight Mother-of-two Kate, 34, looked radiant in black as she mingled with guests ahead of the Place2Be awards in London tonight The Duchess mingled happily with guests at the Place2Be Wellbeing in Schools Awards at Mansion House. She said in a speech she was a firm believer in confronting problems early to avoid greater issues later in life Kate praised the 'inspiring' people involved with Place2Be and its 'remarkable' work in tackling children's mental health issues in a speech at tonight's ceremony Kate listened intently as Ethan, who works closely with staff at his mainstream school to develop ideas to help other students, told her that he has even founded a computer games club to offer them a place to relax. The teenager, who was nominated for a Young Person Champion Award, said: 'My confidence was low. I was bullied. But Place2Be has helped me with counselling and coming to terms with things. And now I just want to help others.' The Duchess also spoke to Abdul Elashhab, eight, a pupil at Claremont Primary School in Manchester, who was awarded the Judges' Special Award. The Duchess of Cambridge said in a speech to people involved with Place2Be: 'It is because of so many of you, that in their time of need, children have the help, care and attention that will get them through tough times in their lives' 'As you all recognise through your support of Place2Be, even the luckiest people can face great challenges,' Kate said The Duchess appeared emotional as she spoke to the crowd at the Place2Be awards ceremony, and told how she is a firm believer in confronting problems early on The mother-of-two is a patron of Place2Be, one of the UK's leading children's mental health charities It recognised the way in which the youngster pulled himself through a difficult time in his life and now mentors other children. He said: 'I was so shocked to be invited to meet her. It's a real honour.' In a speech at the ceremony the Duchess praised the inspiring finalists and the 'remarkable' work being done by Place2Be in support of children's mental health. 'Without many of the inspiring people gathered here this evening, countless children would not receive such transformational support in their schools,' she said. 'It is because of so many of you, that in their time of need, children have the help, care and attention that will get them through tough times in their lives.' The mother-of-two told the crowd she believed firmly in the importance of confronting problems early on, to prevent them from escalating into 'even greater issues later in life'. 'As you all recognise through your support of Place2Be, even the luckiest people can face great challenges,' the Duchess said. 'No matter how invincible we seem on the surface, all of us need help from time to time.' The Duchess of Cambridge wore an elegant black cocktail dress by the British label Preen to an awards ceremony tonight The Duchess was seen chatting to people involved with the Place2Be charity at a reception ahead of the ceremony Place2Be is the UK's leading children's mental health charity providing in-school support and expert training to improve the emotional wellbeing of pupils, families, teachers and school staff. It works directly with more than 282 primary and secondary schools across Wales, Scotland and England, reaching a school population of over 116,000 pupils. The Duchess has been Patron of Place2Be since 2013, reflecting her interest in child mental health and the importance of early intervention. The Duchess looked elegant in the black midi-length cocktail dress, which she teamed with simple Prada heels The Duchess was smiling as she arrived at the awards ceremony at Mansion House tonight, where she was due to present awards to children who have overcome challenges with the help of the Place2Be charity The dress she chose for the awards ceremony appeared to be a match for another Preen dress she wore in Canada in September - that time in red The Duchess' attendance at the awards ceremony tonight followed a visit to the National History Museum earlier today, where she bid a special farewell to one of its best-loved residents. Despite the Storm Angus blowing a gale Kate wore a light dress that costs 375 from British brand LK Bennett as she arrived at the Natural History Museum on Tuesday. The Duchess was visiting the museum to give a Dippy, The Natural History Museums world famous Diplodocus, a royal send off. Despite Storm Angus blowing a gale across the UK the Duchess of Cambridge stepped out in a floaty LK Bennett dress as she arrived at the National History Museum this afternoon After 40 years standing guard at the entrance to the London landmark, the dinosaur is being evicted in January, but not before a series of parties to celebrate his iconic status. This afternoon Kate, who is Patron of the Natural History Museum, joined a tea party to mark Dippys last few weeks on show before he embarks on a nationwide two-year tour one of two engagements today for Prince Williams wife. She arrived in high spirits this afternoon clearly delighted to be joining in the day's festivities. The royal appeared to have cut her thumb as she was spotted wearing a plaster on her thumb, but did not let that put a dampener on her day. The museum had invited Oakington Manor Primary School in Wembley, which is working with one of the Duchess's charities Place2Be, to join her for the party. Kate, who is patron of the world famous museum, seemed to be in high spirits upon her arrival despite the fact she appeared to have cut her thumb and was wearing a plaster What do you think? Kate decorates a dinosaur egg at the museum where she is attending a tea party to celebrate Dippy the Diplodocus's final months in the building Fun and games: The royal is well known for her love of the art world so it is unsurprising that she took every opportunity to join in with the crafts this afternoon One of the Kids: Youngsters from the school - and the Duchess - took part in activities including dino-inspired crafts and a mini fossil dig from the Museums Dino Scene Investigation schools activity Any advice? The Duchess and her primary school pal swap art tips during this afternoon's craft session I like your thinking! A young school girl watches as Kate adds decorations to her dinosaur egg on Tuesday Youngsters from the school took part in activities including dino-inspired crafts and a mini fossil dig from the Museums Dino Scene Investigation schools activity. The charming royal could be seen chatting with members of the primary school as they coloured in cardboard versions of the famous dinosaur. Kate, who has been a patron of the museum since 2013, told the children: 'George loves the T Rex because it's the noisiest and the scariest.' Pupil Elizabeth, 10, said the duchess told her that the young prince 'likes dinosaurs and volcanoes', while Anastazja, 10, added: 'She said he was learning about that in school.' The duchess could also be heard asking the children if they had seen the films Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, which she thought were 'brilliant' and that she remembered seeing the original film as a little girl and that she 'really enjoyed it'. She did not seem phased by the fact that there was plenty of paint at hand to spoil her pricey frock and was happy to get stuck in. They then joined join Museum Director Sir Michael Dixon and the Duchess to cut a celebratory cake before a final good luck photo with the Diplodocus. The students were barely able to contain their excitement as the posed with the Duchess, all dressed up in white lab coats and sporting a Place2Be badge in honour of the occasion. Dippy first arrived at the museum more than a century ago - in 1905, to be precise - and for the last four decades has been one of the first attractions seen by visitors as they walk into Hintze Hall. Who's hungry? The Duchess slices into an enormous Diplodocus cake served to her and the children of Oakington Manor at the Natural History Museum this afternoon Both the Duchess and the children looked eager to tuck into a slice of cake in hour of Dippy's departure The Duchess and the children were joined by Museum Director Sir Michael Dixon as they cut the cake this afternoon Get digging! The Duchess joins the school children for a mini fossil dig during this afternoon's activities What did you find? The Duchess quizzes young archaeologists over their findings after their mini fossil dig Feeling maternal? The mother-of-two appeared to enjoy the children's company immensely this afternoon The Duchess of Cambridge visited the Natural History Museum this afternoon to join Oakington Manor school (pictured) for a special tea party to say goodbye to Dippy, The Natural History Museums world famous Diplodocus before it is moved in January The Duchess and the school took one last final good luck photo with the Diplodocus before it is sent on its tour in January Earlier this year, however, it emerged that despite his iconic status, bosses at the London institution had decided the 83ft long exhibit was no longer relevant enough to take pride of place in their great entrance hall. From summer 2017, Dippy will be replaced by the 83ft long real skeleton of a blue whale, suspended in a diving motion from the ceiling. The whale, previously the centrepiece of the Mammal Hall, and a resident of the museum since 1891, is seen as a more realistic symbol of environmental destruction and hope. Despite the fact more than 32,000 people signed a petition calling on the museum to change its mind, Dippy's last day on will be January 4, 2017. From early 2018 the Diplodocus, who, in fact is a model made up of 356 plaster cast bones, will be travelling the length and breadth of the country on a mission to inspire those who might not ever visit a traditional museum. Getting crafty: The charming royal could be seen chatting to the students of Oakington Manor as they took part in dino-orientated activities Need a hand? The Duchess seemed keen to get involved in this afternoon's activities - unphased by the fact she was wearing a 375 dress How interesting: Kate leans forward to listen as a museum helper teaches the children more about dinosaurs The Duchess of Cambridge is Patron of Place2Be, the UK's leading children's mental health charity providing in-school support and expert training to improve the emotional wellbeing of pupils, families, teachers and school staff. The charity works in 282 primary and secondary schools across Wales, Scotland and England, reaching a school population of over 116,000 pupils. He plans to expand using franchise system, and has already had 200 bids All hot coffees are 1 at easyCoffee shops in London and Southend-On-Sea A coffee price war is brewing after the founder of easyJet announced plans to open 200 new outlets of his discount coffee shops. You can buy cups of coffee, tea and mochas for just 1 at easyCoffee shops in London and Southend-on-Sea - less than half the price of similar drinks at Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Caffe Nero. Now easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou wants to open up even more branches to become a major high street coffee shop player alongside the UK's biggest chains: Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Caffe Nero. easyCoffee could rival major high street players such as Starbucks and Costa after it was announced that 200 more branches would open All hot coffees are 1 at easyCoffee shops - less than half the price at Starbucks or Costa - but other menu items are not quite as cheap Sir Stelios' business partner, Nathan Lowry, said: 'The gap in the market is in pricing. The coffee is great. We use the same machines that all the big guys use, all our staff are highly trained up to barista level.' He said the company aimed to expand the chain across 'regular high street locations', adding: 'We genuinely feel that people are paying too much for their coffee in the UK.' But questions remain over how the coffee chain can really sell the same quality coffee as other major high street players for such a low price. It is not only selling filter coffees for 1, but cappuccinos, mochas, flat whites and americanos for the same low price too. All are made with Lavazza beans. The business partner of easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou said he believes coffee sold on the high street is overpriced easyCoffee is not only selling filter coffees for 1, but cappuccinos, mochas, flat whites and americanos for the same low price too. All are made with Lavazza beans A dozen more easyCoffee sites are due to open in the next few months, and there have already been more than 200 franchise bids A clue lies in easyCoffee's extensive coffee shop menu. WHAT'S ON THE MENU AT AN EASYCOFFEE SHOP? Espresso - 1 Flat white - 1 Mocha - 1 Tea - 1 Coke/Diet Coke/Sprite - 1.65 Innocent juice - 1.80 Bacon and cheese ciabatta - 3.95 Croissant - 1.15 Soup - 2.40 Americano - 1 Latte - 1 Cappuccino - 1 Hot chocolate - 1.50 Cheese rocket and tomato baguette - 3.25 Pizza baguette - 2.50 Pain au raisin - 1.20 Ham and cheese toastie - 3.20 Advertisement While the one-size hot coffees are all sold at the same 1 price, the cafe's other items are much closer in cost to other high street coffee chains. The cafe is selling baguettes for 3.25, bottles of water for 1.20, frappes for 2.60, and ciabattas for up to 3.90. The business model seems to rely on customers picking up more than just a 1 coffee on their visit to one of the discount cafes. Sir Stelios started easyCoffee earlier this year and the business expanded to two sites in London and one in Southend-on-Sea in Essex. But he has now announced plans to open more than 200 branches through a franchise system with potential investors. The chain is a partnership between easyGroup - which owns easyJet and other easy brands - and businessman Nathan Lowry, who has licensed the 'easy' brand from Sir Stelios. easyCoffee currently has two sites in London and one in Southend-On-Sea. Pictured: an easyCoffee branch The plan is to open a dozen more sites owned by easyCoffee in the next six months, including sites in Croydon and Wembley in London, and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. Lawry said easyCoffee has also received about 200 bids to start franchises. Sir Stelios has number of businesses since stepping down from the board of easyJet, which he founded 21 years ago and is now a FTSE 100 company. He has a host of business interests, ranging from hotels and gyms to pizza delivery and in February he trialled a budget grocery shop. South-west welcome their guests in with warming cup of mulled wine Study reveals favourite festive tipples and how we like to drink them Where you live can reveal a lot about your drinking habits, if a new study is anything to go by. A map reveals our favourite festive tipples and exactly how we like to drink them based on where we all live in the UK - but are these regional drinking stereotypes right? The Northern Irish like to drink their liqueurs neat with ice, and the West Midlands enjoy boozy hot chocolates, according to the map published by Sainsbury's today. A new map published today by Sainsbury's reveals our favourite tipples and exactly how we like to drink them based on where we all live in the UK The Northern Irish like to drink their liqueurs neat with ice (left), while the home counties and the south-east spend more on sparkling wine than anywhere else in the UK at Christmas (right) Londoners are more likely to buy a bottle of Champagne as a gift (left), while the West Midlands enjoy boozy hot chocolates (right) Meanwhile, Londoners are living up to their affluent reputations as they are more likely to buy a bottle of Champagne as a gift than anywhere else, says the study. The home counties and the south-east spend more on sparkling wine than anywhere else in the UK at Christmas, it's claimed - that's 43 per cent of regional customers compared to the national average of 35 per cent. Folk from the East Midlands are most likely to to buy beer or cider as a gift than in any other region, says the study - 23 per cent of them compared to the national average of 9 per cent. The Welsh and people from Yorkshire are most likely to enjoy a Buck's Fizz with their Christmas breakfast, according to the map. A total of 18 per cent of them admitted to the morning tipple compared with 15 per cent nationwide. East Anglians are red wine drinkers at Christmas (left), while folk from the East Midlands are most likely to to buy beer or cider as a gift than in any other region (right) Those from the south-west welcome guests into their home with a mulled wine (left), while the north-west are most likely to buy an expensive bottle of wine to impress dinner party guests with at Christmas (right) Those from the south-west welcome guests into their home with a mulled wine, while the north-west are most likely to buy an expensive bottle of wine to impress dinner party guests with at Christmas, says the map. East Anglians are red wine drinkers at Christmas, according to the study, with 30 per cent of them splashing out on bottles compared to 24 per cent of people across the whole of the UK. Scots are the most considerate, and tend to ask their guests what wine they would like with their festive food before buying bottles in. Twenty-seven per cent asked for preferences in Scotland compared to 19 per cent nationwide. More than half of those in the north-east will give a premium spirit as a gift over a cheaper bottle, compared with just 37 per cent nationwide. The map was published today as part of Sainsbury's annual drinks report called Christmas Uncorked, which gives a snapshot of the UK's alcohol shopping habits. Elizabeth Newman, Sainsbury's category manager for beers, wines and spirits said: 'It's fascinating to see which regions have held on to traditional favourites, such as mulled wine in the south west, and where new trends are impacting on our traditional festive spread, like those in the East Midlands gifting craft beers. 'I'll be joining those in the south east this year with a delicious glass of Cremant de Loire - a great sparkling wine alternative to Champagne.' The Welsh and people from Yorkshire are most likely to enjoy a Buck's Fizz with their Christmas breakfast (left), while more than half of those in the north-east will give a premium spirit as a gift over a cheaper bottle (right) Scots are the most considerate, and tend to ask their guests what wine they would like with their festive food before buying bottles in, according to the map I was due to have a banding procedure for piles recently but, while I was on the operating table, I was told they were too big. Im now on the waiting list for a haemorrhoidectomy, which Im dreading because of the pain and the general anaesthetic (I am 80 and have breathing problems, kidney disease and low platelets). Im considering a new laser procedure, which is approved by NICE, but not available on the NHS. Name and address supplied. An enhanced version of a hemorrhoidectomy involves using a laser to destroy the connected artery. Deprived of a blood supply, the haemorrhoid shrivels up and heals There are several new and effective techniques for treating haemorrhoids. First, I should explain more about the problem itself to help you understand how these new approaches work. Haemorrhoids or piles could be described as varicose veins in the lining of the rectum. They are a problem common to all upright animals, including chimps and apes, because of the pressure this puts on blood flow in the pelvis. Any condition that further raises the pressure in the abdomen such as pregnancy, chronic cough or straining due to constipation, for example can make their formation more likely. The mildest type are called first-degree haemorrhoids. These may bleed, but cannot be seen or felt outside the anus. Second-degree haemorrhoids can prolapse, for example when you go to the loo, but will spontaneously retract. Third-degree haemorrhoids have to be pushed inside; while grade four haemorrhoids are permanently prolapsed. First to third-degree piles are usually treated by injection of a liquid that causes them to shrivel and scar (injection sclerotherapy). A haemorrhoidectomy involves a degree of post-operative pain, but most specialists agree that skilfully cutting away the piles is the best way to minimise the chance of recurrence For prolapsing piles, procedures include banding, where a tight elastic band is applied to the haemorrhoid, causing the tissue to shrivel and drop away. The same effect can be achieved with a stapling procedure. Why you would have been refused this is unclear. It may be that, when you were first booked in, your piles were small enough to be treated in this way, but grew as you waited. Another option is surgery to cut away the piles: a haemorrhoidectomy. Write to Dr Scurr To contact Dr Scurr with a health query, write to him at Good Health Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email drmartin@dailymail.co.uk - including contact details. Dr Scurr cannot enter into personal correspondence. His replies cannot apply to individual cases and should be taken in a general context. Always consult your own GP with any health worries. Advertisement This involves a degree of post-operative pain, but most surgeons who specialise in this area agree that skilfully cutting away the piles is the best way to minimise the chance of recurrence. This is always a potential issue, as the original anatomy is unchanged. After the operation, small, remaining veins can enlarge to form new haemorrhoids. But there are newer techniques that enable the surgeon to identify the artery supplying each haemorrhoid, so they can then tie it off. An enhanced version of this the option youre considering involves using a laser to destroy the artery. Deprived of a blood supply, the haemorrhoid shrivels up and heals. These options are effective, but there is said to be a slightly higher recurrence than with traditional surgery. The advantage is there is little or no post-operative pain. Id also expect it is less hazardous as, in a patient with a low blood platelet count like yourself, the chance of post-operative bleeding is far lower. Can you give me some information on fibromyalgia? What are the symptoms, and is it treatable? David James, Newport, Gwent. Fibromyalgia, a condition that causes pain through the body, was only recently discovered and wasnt given its name until the late Seventies Fibromyalgia, a condition that causes pain through the body, was only recently discovered and wasnt given its name until the late Seventies. It was certainly not on the radar in 1973 when I graduated and took my first post as a junior doctor on a rheumatology firm the speciality that deals with such conditions. The consultant who headed the team was the renowned specialist Frank Dudley Hart, responsible for many papers on subjects relating to rheumatic disorders, such as rheumatoid disease and lupus. Back then, we didnt understand the cause of these conditions. It was soon revealed to be a problem with the immune system, with antibodies damaging the tissue. While fibromyalgia was then unheard of, many of the patients we saw had the widespread musculoskeletal pain we now associate with the disorder, with no obvious cause (all blood tests and X-rays proved normal). These patients were said to have fibrositis. Little could be offered, other than treating symptoms with mild painkillers and, on occasion, physiotherapy. Symptoms of fibromyalgia may include tingling, weakness, heart palpitations, difficulty concentrating, low mood, irritability and anxiety and bowel and bladder symptoms And, to some extent, they were dismissed. Then, in the late Seventies, it was recognised that, in fact, they had a distinct condition, with the widespread chronic pain combined with fatigue and disturbed sleep patterns. Between 2 and 8 per cent of the population are thought to be affected. Symptoms may include tingling, weakness, heart palpitations, difficulty concentrating, low mood, irritability and anxiety and bowel and bladder symptoms. Diagnosing fibromyalgia is difficult there are no tests and it is therefore based on symptoms (a clinical diagnosis). Under international guidelines set out in 1990, a patient must have had widespread musculoskeletal pain for longer than three months, along with particular sensitivity to pressure applied at 18 trigger points (such as where the base of the skull meets the neck). With a healthy person, nothing would happen, but patients with fibromyalgia jump, shout, or at least complain that it hurts. A small proportion of fibromyalgia patients find relief from antidepressant drugs, such as amitriptyline and duloxetine In 2010, the criteria were revised and now there is less reliance on the testing for tender points: the emphasis is on a recent history of pain in a number of body areas; we also score patients on fatigue, sleep disturbance and cognitive symptoms. There is no universally accepted treatment, so its about managing the symptoms. A small proportion of patients find relief from antidepressant drugs, such as amitriptyline and duloxetine. Its thought these interfere with pain signals in the peripheral nervous system or in an area of the brain where pain is processed. Anti-seizure medications may also make a difference gabapentin, for example, helps in 30 per cent of patients (possibly by reducing the irritability in nerve cells firing off faulty pain signals). Exhausted but ecstatic after giving birth, 48-year-old Megan Barker clutches little baby Gus. She is older than most mothers in the maternity ward in Chico, California. But there is something even more unique about Megan's situation: Gus is not her son - he is her grandson. Megan's daughter Maddie was just 14 when she was diagnosed with a cervical condition called Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser Syndrome. It meant her cervix and uterus did not fully develop, meaning she cannot carry children. As they left the appointment at Stanford Hospital in tears, Megan promised Maddie she would carry her child when she eventually wanted to start a family. And true to her word, 10 years later on October 22 this year, Megan delivered Maddie's first child with husband Tyler Coleman, conceived through IVF. Family support: Megan Barker carried a baby for her daughter Maddie (pictured together, left, before the birth). Gus (right) is biologically Maddie's son with husband Tyler Coleman (right) Megan told Maddie 10 years ago that she would carry her baby if she wanted a family Gus was born weighing 7lb 7oz on October 22 Speaking to People, Maddie said she thought it was 'totally weird' when her mom suggested the idea years ago. But in 2015, when she was 23 years old, engaged to Tyler, Maddie's doctor discovered a benign tumor where her uterus should be. Before operating to remove it, the doctor suggested retrieving her eggs. And suddenly Megan's offer did not seem so radical. 'From the start, I knew it was the right thing,' Coleman, who now lives in nearby Orland, told The Chicoer earlier this year. 'She's my mom, and she's my best friend. I think it's amazing that a mother would do this for her child.' At first, they looked into other options, primarily surrogacy. But it was far more expensive - upwards of $75,000. Labor of love! Megan Barker pictured with her grandson Gus after giving birth to him Family: Maddie and Tyler Coleman with their son Gus. They needed Megan to carry the baby after Maddie was diagnosed with a condition that meant she cannot carry children Gus was created via IVF, fertilizing Maddie's eggs with Tyler's sperm, before implant the embryos into Megan So the family immediately embarked on IVF, to fertilize Maddie's eggs with Tyler's sperm, then implant them into Megan. To their astonishment, it was a success the first time round. Megan told The Chicoer: 'I told Maddie that it's not that she would never have a biological baby, just that she would not be able to carry the baby. 'She is physically and medically unable, and I made the decision nine years ago that if Maddie couldn't become pregnant, I would help her.' They had to sit down Megan's two daughters, aged 11 and 13, to explain the unusual situation. But they insist everyone was incredibly supportive. As the due date neared, Maddie admitted she was being very hands-on with her mother. The mother and daughter say they have grown even closer. Maddie (right) said she texted her mom every day, multiple times, to check the baby was ok during the pregnancy Now, Maddie and Tyler do all the parenting, while Megan helps out like any other grandmother - though she also provides breastmilk 'I text my mom every day, more than once. I want to be sure she's taking care of herself and eating right,' she told the Chicoer. Gus was born weighing 7lb 7oz on October 22. Now, Maddie and Tyler do all the parenting, while Megan helps out like any other grandmother - though she also provides breastmilk. Beaming in an interview with WAFB, Megan insisted she was more than happy to let Gus go. 'The attachment for me was not an issue as people have predicted, because in my mind it was biologically their baby,' she said. 'I was just a deluxe Easy-Bake Oven.' Dressed in a pristine lab coat, the scientist snaps on a pair of surgical gloves and purposefully approaches the young man sitting in front of him. He puts a quick squirt of spray up the volunteers nostril and his work is done. Now all there is to do is watch and wait. It might not sound cutting edge, but it is. For in this slightly shabby Victorian building in Paddington, London, researchers could be on the cusp of a breakthrough. The innocuous looking liquid being sprayed up the young mans nose is a potential vaccine to prevent the common cold. A cure for the common cold is one of medicines holy grails. Its something that has eluded scientists for decades, partly because there isnt just one virus that can cause colds It has been shown to work in mice and rats, stopping them becoming infected with the common cold and its being tested in humans. A cure for the common cold is one of medicines holy grails. Its something that has eluded scientists for decades, partly because there isnt just one virus that can cause colds. In fact, there are around 200, though most colds are caused by three: the rhinovirus, coronavirus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which are responsible for 80 per cent of colds. That makes it very hard to find a vaccine that would work against them all or a treatment that could work for them all, says Peter Openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, who has spent the past 30 years researching colds and flu. But I think we are on the verge of it, I really do. Professor Openshaw heads a team that is testing the new nasal spray vaccine SynGEM, produced by Mucosis, a Dutch biotechnology company. They are waiting to see if the 36 volunteers they are testing it on produce antibodies immune cells that kill the cold virus when it enters the body. This will be the sign that the vaccine works. Its a nerve-racking time for the team as it has taken many years and a great deal of hard work to get to this point. The stakes are high. COLDS CAN KILL THE VULNERABLE Its easy to forget that what can be just a cold for many of us can have a devastating impact on others. Colds can and do kill, says Professor Openshaw. Every year, there are many winter deaths, some of which are due to flu, but others are due to common cold viruses that can be fatal to the weak and the vulnerable. Normally this is through complications such as pneumonia (inflammation of the lung), but some forms of cold can prove particularly dangerous to babies. Professor Openshaw (pictured) heads a team that is testing the new nasal spray vaccine SynGEM, produced by a Dutch biotechnology company More infants are hospitalised by a cold than by any other illness. And even if a cold is not life-threatening, it can be life-changing, says Dr Christopher Chiu, a senior lecturer and honorary consultant in infectious diseases at Imperial. If an elderly person with pre-existing lung disease who is frail and only just coping at home gets a cold, this might be the thing that leads to a deterioration of their condition. It not only leads to them being hospitalised, but also to their not being able to return home to their independent life. So the hunt for a cure is no idle one, and in their cold labs, the scientists at Imperial one of the leading cold research centres in the UK have investigated everything from the number of anti-bodies we produce when we catch a sniffle to the amount of nasal mucus we release at the peak of infection. Measuring mucus might sound like schoolboy antics, yet this research is important as mucus is crucial to the way the virus spreads. Under lab conditions, cold viruses are hard to transmit, but in nature they travel excellently, says Professor Openshaw. It may be that something in the mucus synergises with the virus to help it travel. Its easy to forget that what can be just a cold for many of us can have a devastating impact on others. Some forms of cold can prove particularly dangerous to babies Further down the corridor from the wards where the volunteers are receiving their nasal vaccines, Dr Fiona Culley, a lecturer in respiratory infections, is investigating why older people react to a cold so badly. She is instructing a PhD student in the fiddly job of giving a mouse a cold. Mice seem to age in a similar way to humans, she says. They go grey, they lose their hair, they put on fat around their middle, they can go a bit deaf and we think their lungs age in the same way ours do, too. A mouse thats 18 months old is the equivalent of 65 to 70 years in human terms, and we study them to see how they react when they have the cold virus. Everyone on the team is aware of the impact a cold can have, and they take no chances. While they dont wear the biohazard suits they would if they were handling Ebola or SARS (another highly infectious virus), they wear coats, gloves and goggles. It may just be the cold virus, but it is kept safely at arms length. All of the infectious material is kept in flow hoods cabinets designed to create a flow pattern of air that keeps you away from the cultures, says Professor Openshaw, pointing at what looks like a kitchen extractor fan. While they dont wear the biohazard suits, the scientists wear coats, gloves and goggles. It may just be the cold virus, but it is kept safely at arms length When you work with these viruses you learn to treat them with respect, says Dr Culley. They have so many tricks to help them evade our immune system you really have to admire them. Professor Openshaw, who is president of the British Society for Immunology, adds: Their strategy is to cause a rapid illness and then move on. They use humans as a parasite would to find someone else to infect. DANGERS OF A BEDSIDE TABLE Cold viruses enter the body as infected droplets sneezed out by another person. They are inhaled or picked up from infected surfaces. Touch your face, nose or eye, and the virus can find its way down a tear duct to settle in the moist nasal passages where it invades the nasal cells and starts to replicate. A cold virus can survive for hours on a surface, depending on the temperature and the amount of UV light, says Profesor Openshaw. Winter viruses in particular dont like UV light. Cold viruses are either inhaled or picked up from infected surfaces, and can survive for hours depending on the temperature and the amount of UV light They find clothing favourable and bedside tables are an issue, especially in hospitals probably because people leave dirty tissues on them. Knowing what I know, I always wash my hands when I have been on public transport or anywhere where people are sneezing. Indeed, all the team are diligent about hand-washing at work and home, especially after mixing with large groups of people. NASAL SPRAY MAY HIT THE SPOT Each cold virus has its preferred environment in your body. Some have more of a focus on the nose and throat, partly because they prefer the lower temperature there, which is 32c, says Professor Openshaw. Thats why some colds tend to cause more nasal-type symptoms, such as a runny nose and pain behind the sinuses. Others prefer a warmer temperature 37c found in the lungs. 'Influenza, for example, which is a form of common cold virus, prefers this kind of environment and tends to cause fewer nasal symptoms and more shivers and aches. Many of the symptoms are the immune systems reaction to the virus. Mucus, for example, is produced to try to capture the virus and stop it infiltrating the bodys cells. The Imperial scientists hope their study of work with the nasal spray volunteers could also help them understand the cold The blocked nose is due to immune cells racing to the area but in doing so they cause inflammation in the nasal passages. The aches are the result of the cytokine storm the flood of immune cells produced to combat the infection, but which also cause inflammation in muscles and joints. But the Imperial team hope the new vaccine could halt the cold before its begun. Previous studies for a new vaccine looked at immune cells, or antibodies, in the blood to see how people reacted to cold infections, says Dr Chiu. However, we have found that when antibodies get to the lung or nose, they look totally different and not like their counterparts in the blood. Most vaccines are given by injection into the muscle, so the cells that are activated are mainly in the blood. The new understanding about these antibodies in the lungs and nose means scientists have to re-think where the vaccine is given. Now it is clear that if you want to fight (respiratory) infections, the vaccine needs to be nearer to the site of the infection, says Dr Chui. And that, he says, means giving it as a nasal spray. This will make antibodies in the nose, so they can kill the virus before it starts to replicate. One plan is that the new vaccine designed to halt RSV would be targeted at older people or school-age children, who are responsible for much of the spread of infection. Severe chest infections in babies especially, but also in the elderly, are more frequently caused by RSV than most other cold viruses, says Dr Chiu. If the initial tests prove that the vaccine does stimulate the production of antibodies, they will start vaccinating and then infecting volunteers with RSV early next year. If successful, the vaccine could be available in around five years. HOW COLDS LEAD TO INFECTIONS As we talk, Dr Chiu explains one of the apparent contradictions of a cold: how is it that when you first go to the GP with symptoms, youre told its just a virus and you dont need antibiotics? Then you go back a week later, feeling worse, and are told you do need antibiotics because its now a bacterial infection. In fact, its simple, says Dr Chiu: Cold viruses, once established in the nose, may in some people then disperse to the lungs. The virus may destroy some of the cells in the airway and affect the immune system. Illustration of a bacterial infaction. Some bacteria, like RSV, can re-infect people several times over. Thats because it is able to trigger a kind of amnesia in the immune system After the damage done by the virus, bacteria are able to easily follow, he says. Thats why severe lung infections can follow a cold. Some cold viruses RSV in particular are more likely to travel to the lungs. Anyone with impaired immunity, such as those with poorly controlled diabetes (high blood sugar suppresses the immune system) or taking medications such as steroids or chemotherapy (which suppress the immune system), are vulnerable to lung complications after a cold, as are smokers and asthmatics. The Imperial scientists hope their study of work with the nasal spray volunteers could also help them understand another conundrum about the cold. With many cold viruses, your body has an antibody to it once you have been infected and you are protected, says Professor Openshaw. However, RSV is able to re-infect people several times over. Thats because it is able to trigger a kind of amnesia in the immune system, so its unable to make antibodies the next time a virus strikes. It means you are re-infected throughout your lifetime on average, once every three to five years, says Professor Openshaw. The problem is that RSV causes a particularly unpleasant cold for babies, which is why Dr Culley is working alongside colleagues who take mucus samples from babies noses while theyre on the ward. Palivizumab is given as monthly injections from October to March to protect at-risk infants, such as premature babies, with under-developed lungs against RSV We have a paediatric care unit that every winter becomes full of babies who were born healthy, but have caught a cold virus and became very ill. As yet we dont know why, she says. THE CURE THAT ALREADY EXISTS Yet, remarkably, there is already a treatment. It is given to at-risk babies to help prevent RSV. Its been around for a few years, though you are unlikely to have heard of it. Palivizumab is given as monthly injections from October to March to protect at-risk infants, such as premature babies, with under-developed lungs against RSV. It is a form of antibody that stops the virus from entering the childs cells and it can reduce the risk of hospitalisation by as much as 45 per cent, according to UK studies. Over 2,000 babies in England receive Palivizumab each year. However, it is very expensive so it is only given to high-risk children, says Dr Culley. Palivizumab is given as monthly injections from October to March to protect at-risk infants, such as premature babies, with under-developed lungs against RSV A 50mg vial costs in the region of 300 and though arguably some adults would be prepared to pay this to avoid a cold, they are unlikely to benefit as much because RSV does not pose such a threat to them. Given that colds can be so dangerous for babies, it might sound counter-intuitive to limit its use. But at Imperial and elsewhere, they are also investigating whether having colds in early childhood may actually lead to stronger lungs. The key is the type of cold. It has to be a non-wheezy cold and this seems to be associated with better lung health in later life, says Professor Openshaw. But the cold remains something of a poor relation in the research world, he says, not commanding the investment or the interest of other more exciting conditions. This was the scene outside Wales' largest hospital as more than a dozen ambulances queued to offload patients into A&E. The video, shot by a member of the Welsh Ambulance Service, captures the vehicles parked up outside the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. Ambulances are unable to move until the patients are discharged from their care. The crew member who recorded the footage said he waited more than four hours to transfer his patient into A&E. Scroll down for video The video, shot by a member of the Welsh Ambulance Service, captures the vehicles parked up outside the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff He said: 'This has driven me to the edge and I fully intend to seek alternative employment as I am mentally beaten. 'This is not a one-off or an unusually busy day, this is a serious matter that needs to be highlighted so there is pressure put on the hospital and the current Welsh Government. 'I fear for the members of the community who may be waiting for an ambulance for a significant time resulting in loss of life as there is no resource to send.' A spokesman for the hospital said the number of patients requiring emergency care on Sunday was a 'third higher' than the previous day. But this problem is expected to get even worse during winter when demands on emergency services typically increase, experts say. The increase came despite thousands of people descending on the Welsh capital on Saturday to watch Wales play rugby against Japan. A spokesman for the hospital said the number of patients requiring emergency care on Sunday was a 'third higher' than the previous day Steve Curry, the interim chief operating officer for Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, said Sunday was a particularly busy day for the emergency unit. 'The numbers of patients attending University Hospital of Wales' Emergency Unit on Sunday was a third higher than attendances on the previous day,' he said. 'This resulted in delays within the emergency department throughout Sunday afternoon and evening. The health board regrets the impact that this would have had on patients.' He said 'escalation measures' were deployed by the health board to address the difficulties throughout Sunday evening and that actions were taken yesterday to manage the high demand. The ambulance crew member who recorded the footage said he waited more than four hours to transfer his patient into A&E. He said: 'This has driven me to the edge and I fully intend to seek alternative employment as I am mentally beaten' He added: 'The health board is sorry for the delays caused to patients and their families and ask that the public only use its emergency unit for emergencies. 'Please choose well and make use of all local health services such as pharmacists and optometrists who can help with a variety of issues.' In October, there were 11,474 A&E attendances, with 2,340 of them spending four hours or more in the department. Across Wales there was an average of more than 2,800 daily attendances across Wales' emergency departments. Research earlier this year found patients are routinely being forced to wait in ambulances outside hospitals for more than an hour before being admitted. Crews spent more than 400,000 hours waiting longer than the national target of 15 minutes for a patient to be taken into hospital, ITV's Good Morning Britain revealed. Hundreds of other concerned parents have reported serious side effects after taking a children's medicine following one mother's Facebook warning. Alison Smith took to social media to raise her concerns when her four-month-old son Jensen lost consciousness after taking 2.5ml of Galhparm's Junior Ibuprofen. Medical staff spent 45 minutes fighting to bring him round. After reporting it to Tesco, where she bought the product, they immediately removed the batch from sale to conduct tests. But they concluded it was completely safe and it is now back on sale. And now, the official regulatory body have revealed they were contacted seven times over the weekend regarding the product. However, they say they are still receiving fresh reports and the true figure could be much higher. Alison Smith's four-month-old son Jensen (pictured together, left) became unresponsive and lost consciousness after taking just 2.5ml of the baby medicine (shown right) A spokesman for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said: 'As of yesterday, we have received seven reports over the weekend of Galpharm Junior Ibuprofen Suspension use associated with a burning or tingling sensation and we are now following these up as a matter of priority. 'Parents who have given this to their children should not be concerned as there is currently no evidence that this product on the UK market is unsafe. 'Anyone who has any questions or concerns should speak to a healthcare professional. 'We encourage anyone who suspects a side effect as a result of taking this medicine to report it to us via the Yellow Card scheme. 'When reports are received it is not necessarily proof of a side effect occurring, but merely a suspicion by the reporter that the medicine may have caused a side effect. 'Reports may also include coincidental medical events that would have occurred anyway in the absence of treatment. 'All medicines have the potential for side effects and no effective medicine is without risk.' Her post has so far been shared more than 27,000 times with numerous parents speaking out about similar experiences. Jensen became unresponsive and lost conciousness after taking just 2.5ml of the baby medicine - the advised dosage. Hundreds of other concerned parents have reported serious side effects after taking a children's medicine following Ms Smith's Facebook post. One asked her friend to immediately bin the product while another asked her loved ones to check if they didn't have any Ms Smith formed a Facebook campaign to advise other mothers about the product - after dozens of others came forward to complain about the medicine. She said she has been contacted by scores of parents since she posted on Facebook who have told her their children have had similar reactions to the product. She previously said: 'Jensen had been ill so we gave him the medicine. 'We put it on his lips but he was was chucking his arms about and wouldn't take any of it so of course we force fed it to him. 'I then tasted a bit and my mouth went completely numb, while my partner Adrian got a blister on his tongue.' She added: 'At this point we thought "we have just given our child 2.5ml of this, we need to do something". Jensen was drifting off to sleep so we phoned the 111 NHS service. Doctors at Maidstone Hospital spent an agonising 45 minutes working on the infant (pictured) before he finally came round 'While on the phone he went floppy, we were banging and clapping and he just wasn't responding. The operator told us to get him to A&E as soon as possible. 'We took him to Maidstone Hospital where a medical team finally got him to wake up. He was very grumpy and disorientated but has since made a full recovery.' She added that none of her family are allergic to ibuprofen and Galpharm initially told her no one else had informed it of similar reactions. Ms Smith previously contacted Tesco at Larkfield where she had bought the product and producer Galpharm, which is owned by Perrigo. The batch number of the ibuprofen that Alison Smith gave her son Jensen Tesco immediately removed the batch - which includes 80,000 bottles in total - from its shelves nationwide and also contacted the company. However, it has since reinstated it to its shelves. But Ms Smith said the pharmaceutical company only provided her with some limited test results on Friday - more than four weeks after her initial complaint. They eventually told her there were a number of complaints on file. A Perrigo spokesman said before: 'Galpharm Junior Ibuprofen meets all regulatory quality and safety standards required for a licensed medicinal product to be sold in the UK. 'The company employs rigorous product safety and quality processes and any adverse event is evaluated with utmost importance and thorough assessment and analysis. 'After comprehensively testing the batch of the Galpharm Junior Ibuprofen in question, no identified concerns or issues with the product were found. 'We are very pleased to read that baby Jensen is doing well.' The municipal elections will take place early next year The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has claimed that it has been contacted by 11 Congress councillors wanting to defect to the party ahead of the upcoming civic polls. Of the number, it's alleged that five are from the municipal corporation in South Delhi, three from the city's east division and a further three from the north. No decision on accepting them has been taken yet as the party says thorough background checks will need to be carried out first, sources said. Sources say that 11 Congress councillors are looking to defect to the AAP ahead of next year's municipal polls But the claims give the AAP hope that it will make a huge dent in the BJP and Congress vote bank in the Municipal election scheduled early next year. A senior party leader, requesting anonymity, told Mail Today: 'In the past month, five Congress councillors have approached us from SDMC (South Delhi Municipal Corporation). 'There are three corporators from East and North Delhi Municipal Corporation each, who are speaking to us and are willing to join the party.' However, Congress has dismissed the claims as 'rumours' and hit out at AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, questioning why his party was willing to take new recruits from rival parties He added that the first six councillors had come forward last week, while five others approached the party over the weekend. The municipal election is still six months away and talks of political leaders changing sides will become more rampant as the deadline approaches. In the past, several politicians have joined AAP during the Assembly elections in 2014 and 2015. The list includes Imran Hussain, Kartar Singh Tanwar, Raghuvinder Shokeen, Naresh Balyan and Rakesh Kumar among others. MUNICIPAL WARDS IN DELHI The Municipal Corporation has three divisions - North, South and East North and South corporations have 104 wards each while East has 64 wards Municipal bypolls for 13 vacant seats was held in May this year Of the 13 wards, BJP finished a close second with eight wards and an overall vote share of 34.1 per cent Debutant AAP managed to bag close to 29 per cent of total votes Congress won in Jhilmil, Khichripur, Qamaruddin Nagar and Munirka Advertisement However Congress dismissed the claims of new defectors as a rumour and took a swipe at AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, asking why the party is willing to take on politicians from rival parties which it has labeled 'corrupt'. Congress also challenged the AAP to make the names of these councillors public if they are ready to switch to the party. But AAP sources claimed that the announcement will be made once the party gives the go ahead to accept them, which will happen only after background verification. 'The party is seriously considering the interest shown from the opposition. Not all those who apply from other parties will be taken but AAP may accept at least three of those who are ready to shift,' the senior party source added. Any moves to the AAP may indicate the party's popularity but how it will impact the BJP in all the three municipal corporations remains to be seen. The departure of sitting councillors from the party will serve as a major blow to the Congress, which has been riding high on the success of the municipal by-polls on 13 seats in May. What Does Your Girlfriend's Expensive Gift Mean? So She Bought You An Expensive Gift - Here's What It Really Means The Dating Nerd is a shadowy figure whose whereabouts and identifying details remain unknown. What we do know is that he is really, really good at dating. He's been on more dates than you can shake a lengthy bar tab at, and he's here to help the average guy step his dating game up a notch - or several. Need his help? Email [email protected]. The Question Hi Dating Nerd, My girlfriend bought me a watch. Its super nice, but I dont know what this means and I feel under pressure to do something in return. What do I do? - A lucky boyfriend The Answer Well, clearly, the first thing you do is humblebrag about it on the Internet by writing an open letter to an advice column about your shiny new luxury timekeeping device. Dear Dating Nerd, what do I do about the fact that my hot girlfriend just put a thousand bucks worth of finely tuned Swiss bling on my wrist? Very concerned about the fact that this might mean Im a great boyfriend / amazing in the sack, RSVP. But seriously, its a fair question that is, unless the watch was purchased by your girlfriends personal assistant, who constantly struggles to hear your girlfriends words over the sound of a money faucet loudly spewing money all over the place. If buying you a gift doesnt represent any particular financial effort, giving it to you probably isnt a form of significant personal effort. Enjoy making out with your expensively exfoliated partners face without stress. Lets assume, however, that your girlfriend is not Lindsay Lohan, desperately purchasing affection with the remains of a massive fortune. Lets assume that buying you a watch was a significant dent in her checking account that it represents hours of labor, during which she dutifully suffered idiots so she could get the sweet sweet ducats she spent on you. Well, then, heres what you shouldnt do. Firstly, dont immediately Google the watch, find out exactly how much it cost, then buy her a necklace of equivalent price. First of all, she didnt buy you a watch so she could earn credits at the Guilty Boyfriend Store. Secondly, unless youre a woman, you basically need a supercomputer to calculate the subtleties of taste involved in buying womens jewelry. Whatever you buy her, shell either think its tacky or not tacky enough. You will screw this up. Secondly, do consider what her motives are. And, honestly, this seems obvious. Probably she bought you that watch because she likes you a lot, or flat-out loves you, and she thinks, or hopes, that your relationship is real. By real, I dont mean physically manifest or most likely continuing until next week. What I mean is, are you bullshitting? Is your plan stay together until someone better comes along? Are you constantly having ambiguous Facebook conversations with attractive female acquaintances? Are you in this, to the point where you would take a bullet, or, worse, take a baby shower? Dont feel bad if the answer to that last question is no. For most people, in most relationships, the answer is no. Most people are dating out of convenience just kind of clinging onto someone pretty who provides better company than a mirror or a Twitter feed. And theres nothing wrong with that. Were social animals. But do feel bad if youre getting increasingly clear signs that shes telling her mom that shes really found someone great this time, that youre not like all the other guys, when you are, in fact, exactly like the other guys when you like having her around okay, but you will absolutely leave her for a shot at cuter or younger at the very first opportunity. A gift like this is a sign that those meaningful mom conversations are taking place. Its not a legally binding contract its not explicitly a test but it is a strong signal that shes Into It, that shes Chosen You. See, the great thing about money is that you cant fake it. If youre a reasonably confident person, you can fake affection, at the cost of the modest caloric output required to give a back rub. Giving thoughtful compliments only requires a modicum of brainpower. Making a woman handmade pasta is a lovely gesture, but shes probably dimly aware that youve pulled this exact move on someone before. But you cant pretend buy somebody their favorite Premier Cru burgundy, or pretend book them a flight to Peru. This isnt a make-believe gesture so, in her mind, this isnt a make-believe relationship. If you agree with her, congratulations. Im glad youre on the same page. The first thing you should do is Instagram the fuck out of your new timepiece. Seriously. The most touching compliment you can give someone youre dating in this age where every single person is constantly projecting their sexual viability with social media is being a total dork about your relationship in public as much as possible. Im talking nauseating couple selfies, status updates about how lucky you are, whatever. Maybe you dont treasure this idea maybe your social media brand is unsentimental status updates about how society is falling apart, combined with occasional YouTube videos of Radiohead. I dont care. This isnt for you, its for her. Then, just treat your relationship like anything you really care about. Take pains. Actually listen when she talks. Dont whine if youre horny but shes not in the mood. And while, again, you shouldnt immediately buy her a random present just to prove that you, too, can operate a credit card, you also shouldnt rule out buying her gifts as well. If youre passing by a florist and she says something about how she loves their bouquets, shes dropping a hint, stupid. If, however, you are bullshitting, take this watch as a warning. Get out now. And give her the watch back. Dont offer to give her the watch back mail it back to her, in a nice box, with an apology. Because if you dont break up now, you might find yourself breaking up with her at your sisters wedding, or after Thanksgiving dinner, or on the night of her birthday, which shes spending alone with you at one of your favorite restaurants because theres nobody shed rather hang out with. That would be sad. I assume that youre better than that. So is she. Less than a week after his daughter's ostentatious wedding made headlines, Income Tax sleuths have reportedly raided the offices of former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy's mining firm. Sources alleged a number of documents were found at the the Obulapuram Mining Company site in Bellary, 300 km from Bengaluru, on Monday that are now being examined. His residence is also likely to be raided, sources claimed. The alleged income tax raid comes five days after the lavish wedding of the mining baron's daughter raised eyebrows for its pomp and grandeur - held at a time when millions of Indian people were queueing up outside banks and ATMs. Scroll down for video The lavish 59million wedding of mining tycoon Gali Janardhan Reddy's daughter rocked the India as millions forced to queue up at banks, struggling with the affects of demonitsation Within days of the lavish event, Reddy's business was allegedly raided by tax officials Reddy, a former BJP minister and one of the richest politicians in Karnataka, is one of the main accused in the Bellary illegal mining scam. He is on bail after languishing for 40 months in jail for his alleged involvement in the multi-crore mining scam that rocked the southern state in 2010-11. Though Reddy was maintaining low profile after his release in January 2015 on conditional bail by the Supreme Court, an expensive marriage invitation sent out with an LCD screen playing a pre-wedding video raised eyebrows and brought him back into limelight. Video footage obtained by MailOnline shows dozens of dancers on stage moving to booming music during the wedding Billed as one of the most expensive marriages in the sub-continent, the five-day grand event drew all-round flak and envy. Reddy had hired the royal palace for five days starting November 12, invited several film stars from Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai, along with other celebrities for the reception. He had also got a replica of the Vijayanagara empire built at the venue and flown in cultural troupes from abroad, including Brazilian dancers. Ex-state minister G Janardhana Reddy is estimated to have spent 5bn rupees on his daughter's wedding - which is equivalent to 59million or $74million Guests were invited to daughter Brahmani's wedding with gold-plated invitations, while Bollywood stars were believed to have performed Ahead of the wedding, Reddy told reporters on November 10 at his home town, Bellary, that he would give marriage expenditure account to the income tax department in a month. However, he had declined to share its estimate with the local media. While an embarrassed BJP instructed its leaders to stay away from the Bengaluru wedding, a host of partymen including state president BS Yeddyurappa attended the blockbuster event. Cartoonist Satish Acharya reflected public outcry over the wedding in this drawing Except for a local news channel, funded by Reddy, the media was barred from covering the wedding. Other local media had criticised the extravagance at a time when many Indians are struggling to find the cash to eat after the government's shock move to pull high-value notes out of circulation in a bid to tackle tax evasion. Vigilante groups had taken matters into their own hands after claiming the street canines were a menace and that dog attacks had increased Vigilante groups in Kerala have been ordered to stop culling stray dogs in a ruling by the Supreme Court. There have recently been a spate of mass dog slaughters in the state after locals claimed street hounds were out of control and responsible for a number of attacks. Activist Jose Maveli, supported by some politicians in the state, has been at the forefront of a campaign promoting street dogs culls for a number of years, encouraging locals to take matters into their own hands. Photographs of stray dogs being killed and pilled on top of each other in the street have emerged following claims a 90-year-old man was killed in a dog attack Shocking photos emerged in September showing slayed dogs piled on top of each other in the street and their bodies then paraded with their legs tied to a poll. The Kottayam district protest was thought to be linked to the youth wing of a local party. The images divided Kerala and angered many, with animal welfare groups throughout India calling for intervention. Now, the Supreme Court has stepped in and ordered those responsible for dog culls to stop, with further investigations set to take place before another hearing. The Supreme Court has now stepped in and ordered vigilante groups to stop the culls Online news site Mathrubhumi quoted the judges as saying: 'Let not an impression go out that human life is of lesser value than that of dogs. Human life is divine.' Animal welfare charities have slammed the recent dog killings in Kerala as 'barbaric' and insist the culls are futile in reducing the number of stray canines on the streets. One organisation even claimed that figures on dog bites in the state and the number of the animals roaming its streets have been 'manufactured' by activists, with another suggesting culling dogs could also 'increase the risk of rabies'. In one of the more shocking images, their bodies were tied to a poll and hung along the street Maveli, who founded a home for street children in the state, told the Washington Post recently: 'We want Kerala's streets to be free of stray dogs. Look at the western countries, are there dogs roaming so freely on the street? Every day, young children and elderly people are getting bitten.' But Neha Singh Banyal, of Animal Aid Unlimited, a charity working to save, sterilise and vaccinate street dogs in Udaipur, Rajasthan, strongly condemns the cruel and illegal killing of community dogs in Kerala. She told MailOnline that neutering and vaccination programmes, alongside waste management, was the 'only scientifically proven method' in reducing the stray dog population and eradicating rabies. Anti stray-dog activist, Jose Maveli says growing numbers of the animals are putting people in danger and promoting the spread of disease, but welfare charities have condemned the culls 'Killing dogs is not only barbaric and cruel, it is ineffective for controlling population unless dogs are killed continuously,' she said. 'Street dogs are what are called 'scavengers' which means they survive off of human leftovers. Dogs have been coexisting with humans in the form of 'community' or 'street dogs' for over 10,000 years. 'Dogs populate the urban areas in proportion to the amount of food available. Although many street dogs in India are fed, if sporadically, by one or often several families, most survive by eating garbage. India's waste management is poor and garbage is generally abundant and easy for dogs to access. 'When dogs from a particular location are killed or otherwise removed a void is created which is quickly filled by dogs from nearby areas. The dogs from neighbouring areas come to the empty territory as soon as they become aware of the available food. Street dogs are commonplace in Kerala - here, they can be seen sunbathing alongside tourists at Varkala beach 'Because there are no walls around neighborhoods or cities, killing street dogs is only a very temporary and horribly cruel 'solution,' and it may heighten the danger of rabies. 'Where dogs are killed, dogs in a stable population who have been inoculated against rabies by NGOs and government organisations are replaced by new dogs -dogs who have not been inoculated against rabies. In a country which mandates compassion for all living beings in its constitution, there is zero place for dog killing. Neha Singh Banyal, Animal Aid Unlimited 'Neutering in combination with rabies vaccinations is effective. They don't give birth to litters but also, they guard the neighbourhood against new dogs coming in from nearby areas, in order to protect their food source and their territory. 'The new, possibly unvaccinated dogs are likely to fight with each other to gain control of the new territory and they are also not acquainted with the people living in that area, and hence dog-human conflict can increase.' She added: 'The more the killing of any species is done without conscience, the greater the cultural habit of killing other animals becomes. 'Social scientists have correlated violence against animals with violence against people. In a country which mandates compassion for all living beings in its constitution, there is zero place for dog killing.' Maveli reportedly pays for 10 dog catchers who killed 300 of the animals last year, and he has claimed that there are an estimated 2.70 lakh strays 'endangering' public safety and damaging the economy. But a spokesman for the charity People for Animals, India, said the figures had been vastly exaggerated, on both the number of animals roaming the streets and the number of people who have been bitten. 'The situation in Kerala is manufactured. There is no evidence that the stray dogs are biting unless massively provoked. However the bite figures are not only exaggerated vastly, there is no count,' the spokesman said. 'What is the source of this figure? Maveli and his mobs have been killing since 2010. How come the figure remains static, unfounded and nicely rounded at 2.70 lakh?' The charity even questioned the veracity of a recently reported fatal dog bite case involving a 90-year-old man was allegedly mauled to death in the village of Varkala, Thiruvananthapuram. The spokesman said: 'The old man who was claimed to have been killed recently - there is no visual sighting of any pack of dogs, no one has seen them. 'One would have thought that a pack would have made a lot of noise and been a sight to see. But there are no witnesses and this is not dog behaviour. 'Feral dogs, and all animals, avoid people. If challenged, their instinct is to run away. Only in grave provocation some, not all, dogs attack.' The spokesman added: 'Since the last 100,000 years dogs have lived alongside humans. Until Maveli and his mobs there was no issue. 'The only solution is to sterilise and vaccinate the dogs. Over the last 16 years, when the rest of India started doing this, Kerala refused. They were repeatedly given money, their vets were trained, NGOs were set up. They continued to kill. 'Over 50,000 dogs are killed in Kerala annually and they do not seem to understand that they are killing only the friendly alpha dogs, creating a situation in which the remaining dogs breed faster and more but increasingly are shy of human beings.' According to the Hindustan Times, Maveli, 66, has eight police cases pending against him under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, but remains undeterred. Maveli has been contacted for comment by Mail Online but is yet to respond. The highly-anticipated civil nuclear agreement between India and Japan was the most important outcome of the November 11 Shinzo Abe-Narendra Modi summit. Even with Abe favouring a nuclear accord with India, building a national consensus within Japan around it has taken time. The December 2015 India-Japan summit saw progress in reaching understandings on the text of the agreement but signing had to be deferred till after the results of the July 2016 parliamentary elections in Japan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe bow to national flags If despite LDP's (Abe's party) election success, this month's summit too had failed to conclude the agreement, a shadow would have fallen on the India-Japan strategic partnership. Already China is opposing India's NSG membership, using Delhi's non-NPT status as an excuse. If Japan too baulked at signing a nuclear accord with India for similar reasons, it would have meant, rather ironically, that both China and Japan were one in maintaining pressure on India on the non-proliferation front. China has reason to deny India political equality on nuclear issues in order to stall its rise as a power, but not Japan whose interest lies in freeing India from its nuclear chains so that it can counter China's hegemonic ambitions in Asia more effectively. Agreement Along with the nuclear agreement, a separate Note on Views and Understandings has been signed by the two sides. India's position all along has been that it cannot go beyond the template of the nuclear accords it has signed with the US and others, or the statement made by the then External Affairs Minister (EAM) on the eve of the NSG meeting in September 2008 affirming India's credentials on disarmament and non-proliferation and committing the country to a voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing. Japan, however has sought some additional gesture by India, especially on the test ban treaty, to facilitate domestic endorsement for a nuclear deal. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is welcomed by his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe upon his arrival for their meeting In the separate Note the Japanese side affirms that EAM's September 5, 2008 statement constitutes for it an essential basis for cooperation and that in case of any departure from it Japan will exercise its rights under the main agreement to seek suspension of reprocessing of nuclear material by India, besides reserving the right to contest any consequent Indian claim for damages. The Indian representative has merely reaffirmed the September 5 statement in the Note. The Japanese side can claim the Note as an addition, in that the commitment India gave to a group of 48 NSG countries that included Japan, has now been obtained by Japan in its own capacity. India, however, can legitimately maintain that it has made no additional legal commitment, as the Note merely says that what it records 'is an accurate reflection of the views of the two sides'. The controversy whether the Note was legally binding or not, with the Japanese side saying it was and the Indian side stating that while the agreement was binding, the Note was not, was unnecessary. The agreement has to be ratified by the Japanese parliament and such contention is unhelpful. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirm the civil nuclear agreement Context In the context of China's imperious rejection of the UNCLOS arbitral award against its conduct and actions in the South China Sea, its open opposition to India's NSG membership and repeated blocking of India's move in the UN Security Council Committee to have JeM chief Masood Azhar designated as an international terrorist, there was speculation about what India and Japan would say in their joint statement on the maritime issues in the region involving China. The joint statement emphasises the importance of UNCLOS by mentioning it four times in the relevant paragraph, including in the context of resolving disputes in the South China Sea. China's claim of being Asia's leader now for development purposes and its Belt and Road Initiative that seeks to build its hegemony in Asia provide the context for references in the joint statement to the synergy between India's 'Act East Policy' and Japan's 'Free and Open Indo- Pacific Strategy' as well its 'Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure' for better regional integration and improved connectivity. The proposed cooperation in Iran and Afghanistan, including in the development of infrastructure and connectivity for Chabahar, can be seen in this context too. Platforms The two paragraphs on defence cooperation stress the role of India and Japan for stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. They outline several agreements, dialogue mechanisms and exercises pertaining to defence. Modi has conveyed his appreciation for Japan's readiness to provide its state-of-the-art defence platforms such as US-2 amphibian aircraft, though no decision on its acquisition was announced. It was rightly stated that this symbolises the distance that Japan and India have covered in advancing their bilateral defence exchanges. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe toast each other during a banquet hosted by Abe at his official residence in Tokyo On terrorism, the other geopolitical issue on which India is facing difficulties, the formulations in the joint statement cover the required ground, including a call for stopping cross-border terrorism. Omitting to mention LeT and JeM in the statement, and especially the designation of Masood Azhar as a terrorist by the UN Security Council Committee, is surprising. Kidney failure: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj He's the definition of a dead man walking. On paper for the last ten years Santosh Moorat Singh, 35, has been registered 'dead'. Now he wants to change that for good by donating a kidney to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. In return for this noble gesture, Singh wants to be certified as 'a living human being'. His story is rather strange: Singh once worked as a cook for veteran actor Nana Patekar. But because of his inter-caste marriage, Singh's relatives allegedly got him declared as 'dead' and usurped his ancestral property. After he had moved to Mumbai with Patekar, Singh married a Maharashtrian Dalit woman in 2003. Santosh Moorat Singh was declared dead around 10 years ago,and hopes that if he can donate his kidney to Sushma she will see he is finally certified alive for his noble gesture Hundreds of Twitter users offered their support - and kidneys - to the Minister When he returned to his native village in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, his relatives abused him physically and threw him out of the house. 'Six months later after being turned away, I went back to Mumbai... I found out that my last rites were performed and a death certificate was issued. 'It's been a futile struggle ever since to prove to the authorities that I am still alive. All documents that could prove me right were destroyed too,' alleged Singh. 'I returned to my village and sought help from the police but nobody came forward. When I went to the lawyers, they asked for money which I did not have. Twitter users found Swaraj's kidney quest yet another opportunity to poke fun at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal 'I approached the President, the prime minister and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, petitioning them earnestly. But so far no one has come to my rescue,' Singh told Mail Today. After Swaraj tweeted about her health, there was a flood of messages from politicians and people from across the country Former employer: Actor Nana Pateka Singh, who has been protesting for the last four years at Jantar Mantar, said that several influential people had promised to help him, but that up until this date he doesn't have any proof of his identity. He claimed that once UP CM Akhilesh Yadav had intervened and got an FIR lodged at Hazratganj police station, but the case fizzled out. 'Today, I have no option but to sit at Jantar Mantar. I am hoping to get back my right to life and dignity. Those yearning to see the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election being fought in the name of Ram Temple in Ayodhya are likely to be disappointed. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will not be making the Ayodhya-Babri Mosque controversy an 'electoral plank' in the elections. While the right-wing are presenting a mixed message on the issue, Mail Today has learnt that the temple will not figure in the list of 'deliverables' in the upcoming party manifesto. The proposed Ramayana Museum is slated to come up within 15km from the disputed Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi site On the contrary, the party is said to be interested in keeping the issue alive and its stand on it, ambiguous. On being asked if the party would finally catapult to pressure from the radical elements in the Sangh Parivar, a top BJP leader summed up the stand thus: 'Not a step forward, not a step back.' The Ramayana is one of the largest ancient epics in world literature Even the radical Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), while maintaining its firm stand that a temple be made at Ayodhya - the outfit's general secretary Champat Rai declared in May this year that construction would commence before December 31 - is said to be of the opinion that the issue not be lent to the BJP as a poll plank. People took to Twitter to discuss the temple issue 'The Uttar Pradesh election should be fought on the issues of development and not Ayodhya,' said a top VHP leader. Sources also told Mail Today that even the RSS meet in Hyderabad had brainstormed on the matter. Meanwhile the Sangh Parivar has been speaking in different voices. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had declared during the Ujjain 'Vichar Mahakumbh' that the construction of the temple would be in the interest of the country. A temple dedicated to the god Rama in Ayodhya The brainstorming session had been organised in the wake of the Simhasta Kumbh mela on the banks of Kshipra river. At the conclusion of the national executive meeting in Hyderabad, while RSS's second-in-command Suresh Bhayyaji Joshi had said that the 'Hindu Samaj' desired that there should be a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, he had also cited that the matter had been pending before the Supreme Court. Clash of opinions RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had declared during the Ujjain 'Vichar Mahakumbh' that the contruction of the temple would be in the interest of the country At the conclusion of the national executive meeting in Hyderabad, the RSS's second-in-command Suresh Bhayyaji Joshi said that the 'Hindu Samaj' desired that there should be a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya However, BJP leaders including Home Minister Rajnath Singh, and Union minister Uma Bharti had declared that the issue was only a matter of faith and not a political issue Advertisement However, he urged that the legal problems be sorted to start the construction. Even BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had said that the temple will be built soon. He had said that while the apex court's verdict was awaited, he was confident of a favourable judgment and in that case the construction was expected to begin by the year end. But at the same time BJP leaders - including Union home minister Rajnath Singh, party's UP unit president Keshav Prasad Maurya and Union minister Uma Bharti - had declared categorically that the issue was only a matter of faith and not a political issue. Even Union ministers Venkaiah Naidu and Ravi Shankar Prasad have said much the same thing. Recently, party leader Vinay Katiyar had called the proposed Ramayana Museum as a mere 'lollipops' in the name of the temple. But terrorists were already hiding, ready to launch an ambush the border was tipped off about an Terrorists allegedly backed by the Pakistan Army killed three Indian soldiers in the Machhil sector and beheaded one of them on Tuesday. India's Army Vice Chief Lt Gen Bipin Rawat has already briefed Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, vowing to retaliate over the killings and mutilations, it's claimed. The encounter started at 10am when the Rashtriya Rifles battalion deployed along the Line of Control in the Machhil sector in Jammu and Kashmir was alerted that the terrorists would try to infiltrate. Terrorists - allegedly backed by the Pakistan Army - killed three Indian soldiers in the Machhil sector and beheaded one of them on Tuesday. A security officer keeps guard along the Line of Control in Jammu on Monday Soon after, a patrol of around 15 soldiers marched towards the suspected area of infiltration for laying an ambush. The terrorists were already hiding there under cover and started firing at the troops. The Army troops from the RR unit also retaliated after they lied down on slightly higher ground and the gunfire exchange continued for some time between them. As soon as the encounter between the two parties begun, the Pakistan Army posts from across the LoC also started firing in that direction to prevent the Indian Army from sending any reinforcements, sources told Mail Today. Tensions across the long-disputed border between India and Pakistan have recently reached dangerous levels STR (AFP/File) During the firing, the Indian troops realised that three of their comrades had been hit by the initial spray of bullets and had slipped down from the small ridge towards the side where the terrorists were hiding, sources said. By the time, the soldiers tried to retract the bodies, the terrorists had beheaded one of them and fled with with the body towards Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. When the last reports came in, the battle was still taking place with the Pakistan Army allegedly fully supporting the infiltration bid using weapons such as mortars and rockets. The Indian Army was also retaliating in an equal manner, sources said. Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale was recently asked to go to Pakistan to discuss the killing of some of its soldiers by Indian troops on the LoC In the evening, Director General Military Operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh was expected to call up his Pakistani counterpart to register Indian protest against the unprovoked attack and the beheading of the Indian soldier. Sources claimed this was the second incident of beheading by Pakistani troops in this very area in the last one month as sepoy Mandeep Singh of the Sikh regiment was also killed and his body mutilated in a similar fashion on October 27. The sources said Pakistanis were trying to avenge the loss of face and destruction of terror camps in the September 29 surgical strikes in Machhil and Poonch sectors on the LoC as they have the altitude advantage in both of these places. Tense situation: A Pakistan Ranger on the India border (file pic) 'Their posts are located on higher ground than our posts in these two areas and that is why they are trying to attack us here,' sources in the defence establishment said. Sources said after the first beheading on October 27, the Indian Army - in massive cross-border firing - had destroyed Pakistani posts and killed seven of their soldiers which was later publicly accepted and announced by the Pakistan Army itself. It's claimed the Pakistan Army - in response to rival fire - has modified its posts on the LoC and built underground structures inside the existing bunkers protected by heavy concrete to avoid casualties in case of heavy firing aimed at them. 'This new tactic by the Pakistan Army has made our attack strategy a bit ineffective as we would fire at them using our 105mm artillery guns and rocket launchers directly at them but now these posts are getting destroyed, though they are avoiding casualties,' sources stated. It's been alleged that Tuesday's attack was totally unprovoked as the Indian side had tried to reduce the tensions on the boundary as Pakistanis were directly targeting civilians in cross-border exchanges. 'The government has also been informed that the Army is planning to launch a major strike on the Pakistan Army and terrorist infrastructure to teach Pakistan a lesson in its own language,' sources added. With the death of 12 Indian soldiers in last two months after the surgical strikes, the Army leadership feels that the time is ripe for a major action to cause heavy damage to the Pakistan Army. On September 29, the Army deployed the troops of 4 and 9 Para (Special Forces) and launched a multi-pronged attack on terror launch pads across the LoC, killing several terrorists and Pakistan Army personnel in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Controversial televangelist Zakir Naik's now-outlawed Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) awarded alleged ISIS recruit Abu Anas a Rs 80,000 scholarship last year, a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe has revealed. The finding is likely to prompt further government action against the preacher who has been accused of spreading enmity among religions and is being investigated by the NIA. The 50-year-old came under the scanner of Indian authorities after Bangladesh authorities accused him of making speeches that possibly inspired some of the terrorists who attacked a Dhaka cafe in July, killing 20 people. The Islamic Research Foundation, whick Zahir Naik is behind, allegedly awarded Rs 80,000 to Abu Anas last year Naik, who is said to be in Saudi Arabia, has refused to return to India. Anas, a software engineer and resident of Rajasthan's Tonk district, apparently wanted to flee to Syria and fight along with ISIS. He was arrested by the NIA in January 2016 for allegedly planning to carry out a terror strike ahead of Republic Day. He told sleuths that he had 'applied for a personal loan with Axis Bank' and had plans to defraud it. Dr Naik has been booked under various sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act The NIA will now also probe whether Anas intended to use the scholarship money given by Naik's NGO either for fleeing or other terrorist activities. The government banned the IRF for five years this month and reportedly asked law enforcement agencies to keep a close watch on its activities. Many ISIS accused have allegedly told the NIA about being influenced by Naik. The agency has so far conducted searches at 20 locations in Mumbai which are connected to the IRF or its trustees since November 19. During the raids, documents pertaining to inflow and outflow of foreign and domestic funding have been seized and are being examined. Also, video tapes and DVDs of Naik's public speeches, documents related to property and investment, financial transactions, foreign and domestic funding of the IRF as well as its associated companies, and electronic storage devices have been recovered. Sources say the investigation has revealed that the Islamic Research Foundation has close connections with Harmony Media Private Limited, Longlast Constructions Private Limited, Right Property Solutions Private Limited, Majestic Perfumes Private Limited and Alpha Lubricants Private Limited. When 85-year old Joan Stracey wrote out a cheque for 1,500 last month to two strange men who had just jet-washed her driveway, she thought she'd got a good deal. The men had banged on her Twickenham bungalow's front door and suggested she owed them 2,500 for the service, which she had not requested and didn't need. After paying them, Joan told her daughter Sammi that she'd haggled the men down before getting out her cheque book, but the look on Sammi's face told her perhaps it wasn't such a good deal as she'd thought. Joan Stracey is stuck in her home, where she is preyed on by scam artists, after taking a Bank of Scotland shared appreciation mortgage that left her owing 380,000 for a 35,000 loan Sadly, this is not the first time Joan has been stung financially by unscrupulous people chancing their luck on her trusting nature. Her daughter Sammi MacQueen says that Joan has become a target for conmen and would like to move from the house in which she lives alone. But the burden of a 35,000 shared appreciation mortgage she took out almost 20 years ago, means that Joan owes Bank of Scotland almost 400,000 and cannot afford to move. 'She is stuck in that house,' says Sammi. 'I go there as often as I can but I can't be there all the time and these scam-artists keep coming back to the house to harass my mum. It's a nightmare. 'But when I asked the Bank of Scotland to consider how we could help her move to more appropriate accommodation, they suggested paying for a handrail in her bathroom. It's quite frankly insulting.' In 1997, Joan agreed to take out a 35,000 shared appreciation mortgage with Bank of Scotland. Now, if she wants to sell her home and move to escape the scam-artists plaguing her, she will have to repay the bank a dizzying 380,000 - a sum she just cannot afford. After losing her husband unexpectedly to cancer in 1994, Joan was unused to managing her own finances and for peace of mind, wanted some spare cash in the bank to pay for bills and unexpected expenses. She had been approached at her husband's funeral by an Allied Dunbar financial adviser who was a former friend of his, and in 1997 he recommended that she take a 35,000 shared appreciation loan against her home, then worth 140,000. He told her there would be no interest due each month and when she was ready to sell the house, she could pay back the original 35,000 loan plus 75 per cent of any uplift in the value of the house. House prices at the time hadn't been rising much, he claimed, and Joan, worried about the bills and not wishing to worry her children, signed the contract under his watchful eye. But house prices didn't stay flat and as a result of taking the loan, Joan has become trapped in her home, alone and unable to afford to move to more suitable accommodation near her family and friends. Daughter Sammi MacQueen says that her mother thought she was getting an ordinary loan from the bank and that documents say they were witnessed by her - but she didn't do this Sammi, 62, is now semi-retired herself but still lectures in psychology in Richmond, London and at the Thames Valley University. She got in touch with This is Money after reading the accounts of several other people in situations just like her mum's. 'It is so upsetting - my brothers and I would have gladly given her the money if we had known that she felt she needed it - we are all professionals and could have afforded it,' she says. She thought she was getting an ordinary mortgage from the bank and she trusted the bank and the Allied Dunbar adviser 'I am so angry that this so-called adviser got her to borrow money in this way - presumably for his commission. She can't remember being offered any alternatives. 'We really feel she was scammed by him but she is of that generation which doesn't like to complain, she thought she was getting an ordinary mortgage from the bank and she trusted the bank and him.' How do shared appreciation mortgages work? Thousands of people took shared appreciation mortgages in the late 1990s from both Barclays and Bank of Scotland. The products were sold directly to borrowers and allowed them to release a cash sum worth up to 25 per cent of the value of their home, often interest-free. The catch was that when the property was sold, the loan would have to be repaid in full plus up to 75 per cent of any uplift in value of the property. If property prices remained flat or fell, that would leave borrowers better off. If on the other hand, as proved to be the case, house prices rose significantly, it left borrowers owing their bank hundreds of thousands of pounds. And since 1997, prices have risen by an average of 270 per cent across the UK. The banks say they had no way of knowing house prices would experience such strong rises over the past two decades, although Nationwide's house price index shows house prices rose between 8 and 12.5 per cent annually in every quarter in 1997 - the year Joan took her mortgage. Bank of Scotland charged some shared appreciation mortgage borrowers around 6 per cent interest a year for the lifetime of the mortgage on top of 75 per cent of any uplift in value Being given advice and understanding advice are different things Sammi acknowledges that her mother had advice to take the shared appreciation mortgage from a financial adviser and from a solicitor, whom that adviser recommended. But she says Joan trusted this advice without understanding what she was doing because it came from someone she thought was a friend of her late husband. 'She was not aware of the implications of this mortgage or of alternatives available to her at that time as she was still grieving my fathers death after a very unexpected and distressing cancer,' says Sammi. Sammi is also doubly concerned that her mother was potentially defrauded as the contract Joan signed was witnessed by 'her'. 'When I found out about the loan, years later, the witness signature was a business name I used to use when teaching and by which the financial adviser knew me at the time. 'That name is not the one I use to sign legal documents, so I know it is not my signature,' she says. There is little she can do though, as the adviser in question has since died and Allied Dunbar, the firm he worked for, no longer exists as a standalone company. It was, however, fined 750,000 by the City watchdog in the early 2000s for 'serious flaws' in its procedures for handling mortgage endowment complaints, which exposed a large number of its customers to potential loss. SHOULD BANKS HELP THOSE STUCK WITH DEBTS Poll Should the banks compromise on shared appreciation mortgages and let borrowers pay a bit less? Yes No Should the banks compromise on shared appreciation mortgages and let borrowers pay a bit less? Yes 1462 votes No 1052 votes Now share your opinion In a This is Money poll, more than 1,100 readers voted exactly 50:50 over whether the banks should compromise on shared appreciation mortgages and let borrowers who took them, pay a bit less than they owe. It has proved a highly emotive subject, dividing readers down the middle. Many sympathise with the now elderly pensioners who borrowed fairly small sums - typically between 10,000 and 60,000 - but now find they owe their lender hundreds of thousands of pounds. Others have little to no patience with their stories of regret at taking the deals, claiming, they signed the contract, took the money and should now live with the consequences. Stuck in her home without care This leaves Sammi with the Bank of Scotland to go to for justice. Based on recent sales of similar houses on Joan's street, Sammi estimates her mother's home is now valued at least 600,000. Were Joan to sell and redeem the mortgage now, she would owe Bank of Scotland a massive 380,000 in total, leaving her with 220,000 minus costs. This is no inconsiderable sum, acknowledges Sammi, but her mother lives in Twickenham in south London, near all of her friends and near her daughter. At 85 years old, understandably, she doesn't want to move too far away. Sheltered accommodation near her current home - where her friends now live and where she would be looked after - ranges from 350,000 to 400,000. 'She is too old to get a conventional mortgage and she doesn't have enough left over to buy anywhere near here outright.' That has left Joan stuck in her bungalow, says Sammi, while Bank of Scotland refuses to give ground on a debt that has rocketed from 35,000 to 380,000 meaning it would rake in an almost 1,000 per cent return on the money it originally lent out. Twickenham in south-west London has seen house prices rise considerably since the 1990s What can Joan do now? HAVE YOU BEEN AFFECTED? Bank of Scotland has provided the following information. Call on 08000 964 518 or write to: Shared Appreciation Mortgages Regulatory Response Team Lloyds Banking Group Pendeford Business Park Wolverhampton WV9 5HZ This is Money contacted Bank of Scotland in relation to Joan's mortgage and the points Sammi has raised and was issued with the following statement. 'In 2013 we offered to carry out a questionnaire to assess if we could assist Mrs Stracey, but this was not something they wished to pursue at the time. 'Of course, if Mrs Stracey feels that her circumstances have changed, we can re-open the claim of financial hardship to determine if we can assist. We actively encourage customers that feel they are in financial hardship to contact us and would be happy to review Mrs Straceys file, if this is something she wants.' But Sammi believes that the bank should do more. 'This matter has played on my mother's mind and affected her health,' she says. 'She feels stupid, depressed and let down by the bank and by the government and we cannot help her feel otherwise. 'The bank may be covered by all the legal jargon but I do not see how they can morally justify taking what will in effect be money we need for my mothers health care in her old age - particularly now with the cuts in social services.' It's not about the money. It's about my mother having a choice about how to live the rest of her life Sammi is also keen to defend her anger and frustration with Bank of Scotland, arguing against accusations often levelled at the children of many older borrowers who took these loans without their knowledge. 'I think some people assume that the reason children care so much that their parents have taken these mortgages is because it affects their inheritance,' she says. 'I'm sorry but that is just so insulting. 'I love my mum and I want her to be okay - if there was any way the Bank of Scotland could even just leave her with a reasonable amount so we can make sure she is comfortable and safe we wouldn't care if that left the children with nothing. It's not about the money. It's about my mother having a choice about how to live the rest of her life.' Their love was star-crossed from its beginning two and a half years ago - but after a boating accident left them both hospitalized, Michael Capponi fears his girlfriend Brooke Biederman doesn't remember who he is. Capponi and Biederman were the only passengers on the speed boat when it crashed into a sea wall at a US Coast Guard station in Miami Beach on a morning in March 2015. Since the accident Capponi has had no contact with Brooke. She has returned to New York City to be with her parents - who had no idea their now-24-year-old daughter was dating a man 20 years her senior - while Capponi, 44, has remained in Florida, where he's reminded daily of his former love. Capponi has spent the last year trying to reach out to Brooke and remind her of their relationship, through a Facebook page where he writes her public letters and shares photos of them together. He claims, however, that his young love's parents have intercepted his every attempt to contact her. 'She is my soulmate,' Capponi tells DailyMail.com in his first interview since the accident, 'and she called me hers. Now, I made it my mission in life to let Brooke know the truth about our relationship and love.' After a 2015 boating accident left the couple hospitalized, Michael Capponi is afraid his girlfriend Brooke Biederman doesn't remember who he is On March 20, 2015, the couple were cruising in Capponi's classic 25-foot Chris-Craft motorboat to watch the sun rise on their favorite sandbar when Capponi passed out at the wheel and drove straight into a sea wall After the accident left her in a coma for months, Biederman returned to New York City where her parents live. According to public records, she lost much of her short-term memory Capponi suffered seven broken ribs, punctured both lungs, fractured a shoulder, broke his nose and fractured his skull Brooke Biederman, a product of New York's Jewish Ivy League intelligentsia, was 22 and just graduated from Princeton when she met Michael Capponi in May 2014. The one-time undisputed nightlife king of Miami Beach, Florida, he carried a large amount of baggage - the sort of things that prove nothing good ever happens after midnight in beach-side nightclubs. Their worlds were as different as could be, yet love bloomed. She moved in with him in a tenth-floor love-nest in Key Biscayne, right across the bay from Miami. Sensing her relationship with Capponi would spell trouble with her family, Brooke kept the living arrangements secret from her parents, high-profile New York urban planner Dan Biederman and fine arts lawyer Susan Biederman. Though the couple knew their daughter worked as a copy writer at Island Company Resort Wear in West Palm Beach, they thought she was renting a condo in Palm Beach. Dan and Susan Biederman had no idea Brooke lived with Capponi 80 miles south, and talked about marrying him. Then, inadvertently, they made international news. On March 20, 2015, they were cruising in Capponi's classic 25-foot Chris-Craft motorboat to watch the sun rise on their favorite sandbar. On the return ride Capponi, who morphed from a heroin-addicted night crawler to a businessman and philanthropist 20 years ago, said he suddenly passed out while at the helm. But despite her progress, Capponi believes Biederman's is still missing her memories of life with him and their coterie of friends in Miami. They're pictured together above with friends in February 2015, a month before the crash Biederan and Capponi (pictured right with friends) met in May 2014, soon after Biederman had graduated from Princeton The boat headed straight for a retaining wall at the local Coast Guard station and crashed at high speed. One of the station's surveillance cameras captured the accident, and the hair-raising footage has been played millions of times on social media throughout the world. Sources said at the time that Capponi apparently 'blacked out' at the wheel, but no drugs or alcohol were involved, and investigations suggest that neither passenger was under the influence of any substance. Investigators cleared both Capponi and Biederman from any wrongdoing in the crash. And then, their love story took a Hollywood turn, but without a happy ending. It was obvious to anyone who'd seen the crash video that Capponi and Biederman would be lucky to be alive. Capponi suffered seven broken ribs, punctured both lungs, fractured a shoulder, broke his nose and fractured his skull. He remained at the hospital for seven days before being released to months of physical therapy. Brooke sustained the most harrowing wounds, including brain injuries that kept her in a coma for three weeks. According to public records, she lost much of her short-term memory. Capponi has spent the last year trying to remind Biederman of their relationship, through a Facebook page where he writes her public letters and shares photos of them together. He's posted their text messages to one another on the page as well Soon after they got together, Biederman moved in with Capponi, but sensing the relationship with him would spell trouble with her family, she kept the living arrangements secret from her parents Her mother said in a deposition in a post-crash insurance lawsuit that Brooke can't remember anything between her Princeton graduation and waking up in the hospital, despite months at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston to learn how to walk and talk again. By all accounts, she has almost fully recovered by now. She's been spotted at New York City restaurants by friends. And she worked as an assistant to the executive producer of Collateral Beauty, a big-screen Christmas release with Will Smith and Kate Winslet. But despite her progress, Capponi believes Brooke is still missing her memories of life with him and their coterie of friends in Miami. Capponi is certain she forgot about first meeting him outside the Fontainebleau Miami Beach resort May 24, 2014. She was a tourist, and a mutual friend suggested she meet him to ask him about the cool things to do in the area. Maybe, she also forgot about their falling in love on a dock in the Florida Keys a day later. She may also have forgotten about their charity trips to Haiti on behalf of Capponi's Global Empowerment Mission, and their holding hands while watching Haitian children opening Christmas presents they brought from Miami in December 2014. Capponi believes Brooke can't remember a thing partly because she has not responded to two dozen often-lyrical love letters. Despite keeping the relationship a secret, Brooke traveled with Capponi, including a trip to Haiti (pictured) and a trip to London Capponi says that he and Biederman were madly in love and even talked about getting married one day. She even called herself his 'lil soulmate' He says her family hasn't allowed him to see or speak with Brooke since they were pulled from the wreckage 20 months ago. To keep his own memories of Biederman fresh, Capponi drives monthly to the dock in Islamorada, 90 miles south in The Florida Keys, where he says they fell in love. There, on the 25th of each month, the day of their anniversary, Capponi says he lights a candle and looks out at the Atlantic and meditates. Often, he cries. 'There is no harder test in life than to have the love of your life in a coma and face a family that doesn't allow me to hold her hand,' he tells DailyMail.com. 'Since then, she has run into people she knew when she was with me and she looks at them with a blank stare. 'It's pretty obvious she doesn't remember anything from that time of her life.' Through occasional contacts between Susan Biederman and Capponi's lawyer in Miami, Capponi believes the family blames him for the crash and took advantage of their daughter's state to erase all evidence of his existence. He says they have intercepted every attempt to contact her. And Brooke's mother, he says, has threatened to get authorities involved if he tried to contact her. Miami business development director Linda Uribe, who befriended Brooke after she started dating Capponi, described them as 'perfectly in love'. Friends of Biederman and Capponi said that for the year they were together, they were 'perfectly in love'. Many said, however, that they have been unable to reach her since she returned to New York 'I was at the hospital hours after the crash,' Uribe said. 'And it was obvious they were very much in love for the months before the accident. 'Brooke always worried how her parents would react when they'd find out about them, which they did at the hospital. 'Michael is a lot older and he is very open about his heroin past. There's no doubt in my mind that Brooke's parents have removed her completely simply because they don't approve of him.' Even Biederman's boss at Island Company, CEO Spencer Antle, described how he and some of her former co-workers have been unable to contact his former copy writer. 'She sat with me at my desk, a foot and a half away from me, for months,' he said. 'I was the first in the ICU to see her. But as soon as she left Miami, I have been unable to communicate with her. 'She and Michael were inseparable, and I know this because we all hung out socially.' So Capponi recently decided to fight back. He has taken to Facebook to publish for anyone to see excerpts of his 24 unanswered letters to Brooke. His hope is that she will eventually see them and, possibly, remember what they had together. Capponi says he 'will not rest' until he is able to speak with Biederman again, despite her family threatening legal action Capponi says he regularly drives to the dock on the Florida Keys where he says he and Biederman fell in love. On the 25th of each month, the day of their anniversary, Capponi says he lights a candle and stares at the Caribbean Sea in meditation On October 25, he wrote: 'Darling, I promised you that I will always be by your side no matter what. I have given your family 20 months and 200 pages of letters and facts. 'Instead of honoring you, they chose to conceal everything and feed you endless lies in your fragile state. 'I will not rest until we can talk face to face and you know the truth. Everything you have been told is a lie. You were always terrified of them and what they were capable of.' And on May 25, their two-year anniversary: 'To love someone is to know the song in their heart and sing it to them when they have forgotten it. 'People belong in your life or out of your life by natural vibration not by forced will or expectation by a controlling group. Some souls just fully understand each other upon their first connection, they didn't even have to say much.' Brooke's family was contacted for comment for this story. The family hired New York public relations firm owner Joe Carella to return the call. He eventually issued a statement he claims came directly from Brooke: 'This terrible accident is in the past, and with the tremendous support of my medical team, family, friends and professional colleagues, I have moved on with my life.' Carella refused to make her available for an interview. As for Capponi, he says he just wants peace with the Biedermans. The lawyer for a man charged with disrupting a Chicago performance of the musical Hamilton blamed the incident on a 'hostile' and 'partisan' audience. Attorney Jonathan Feldman says 56-year-old John Palmer was not intoxicated Saturday night as witnesses described him. Witnesses also said Palmer yelled obscenities at the people around him and at the actors on stage after they sang the line, 'Immigrants - we get the job done.' Scroll down for video Witnesses said that John Palmer, who was charged with misdemeanor criminal trespassing, was shouting 'Our side won!' and 'F*** anyone who didn't vote for Trump - you don't belong here!' The Saturday evening performance of Hamilton was briefly interrupted as a man was wrestled out of the audience by security after he allegedly began hurling insults at audience members Palmer's lawyer, Jonathan Feldman, blamed the Hamilton cast for the man's bizarre behavior - but it's unclear if he meant the Chicago cast or the New York cast, who read a statement to Vice President-Elect Mike Pence about 'diverse America' Chicago police say Palmer of Chicago is charged with one misdemeanor count of criminal trespass in the incident. Feldman said Monday that Palmer was incited by an audience that was clearly against President-elect Donald Trump, whom Palmer supports. He said the 'biased audience' seemed whipped up by comments made by the cast of the Broadway production last week to Vice President-elect Mike Pence. The New York Hamilton cast, led by Brandon Victor Dixon (above) confronted audience member Mike Pence last week Palmer was charged with criminal trespassing after he reportedly refused to leave the production, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Witnesses on Twitter described Palmer as ranting and raving in the audience. Video taken by one audience member showed him swearing as he was held up against a wall by security, according to the outlet. The video-taker, Jeff Grider, said that Palmer was yelling 'Our side won!' and 'F*** anyone who didn't vote for Trump - you don't belong here!' Hamilton has been a magnet for controversy lately, after cast members in New York confronted Vice President-Elect Mike Pence about his record on gay and women's rights In the video, in which security holds Grider up against a wall outside the theater, he is heard yelling, 'You pu*** piece of s**t' over and over. Trump was widely criticized for being caught on hot mic saying 'grab them by the p****' of women. In his account on Facebook, Grider said that Palmer 'proceeded to make derogatory statements to several women in the audience, and uttered many ethnic and homophobic slurs.' He said he had to comfort a sobbing woman in the audience who asked, 'It's not going to be okay, is it? This is what it's going to be like for the next four years, isn't it?' Palmer was at the show with seven members of his family, including his children, according to his lawyer. His lawyer blamed the 'cast and production of Hamilton itself' for the man's behavior, saying it created a 'hostile, partisan, and biased' environment. It is unclear if the lawyer meant the New York cast or the Chicago cast - and what the cast may have done to create a 'hostile' atmosphere. Palmer is due in court January 9. Last week, the cast of Hamilton in New York made waves when audience members booed Vice President-Elect Mike Pence, who had come to see the show. Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, read a statement to the Indiana governor, asking him to 'uphold the American values' of a 'diverse America' who are 'alarmed and anxious' over the Trump/Pence administration. An ultra-rare Pokemon card featuring the character Pikachu has sold at auction for a record breaking $55,000. The 'Pikachu Illustrator' card was snapped up by an unidentified collector from Hong Kong at the sale in Beverly Hills on Saturday. The auction was being run by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions, who said the card was one of just 39 that were ever made. Scroll down for video An ultra-rare Pokemon card featuring the character Pikachu, pictured, has sold at auction for a record breaking $55,000 Michael Halperin, a spokesman for Heritage Auctions explained: 'The Pikachu Illustrator card was given in January 1998 to winners of the CoroCoro Comic Illustration Contest.' He added that only 10 of the cards are known to be in mint condition and it is unclear how many are still privately owned. The 'Pikachu Illustrator' first sold in the early 2000s for around $23,000, mr Halperin said. The card, considered the most valuable and iconic Pokemon card among collectors, was designed by Atsuko Nishida, one of the chief graphic illustrators of the series. It depicts the fan-favorite yellow rodent Pikachu, holding what appear to be drawing utensils. The card was put up for auction by a private collector in the United States in the wake of the popularity surrounding the Pokemon Go app, pictured It was put up for auction by a private collector in the United States in the wake of the popularity surrounding the Pokemon Go app, which has more than 20 million active users. Mr Halperin said the seller, who is in his mid-20s and did not wish to be identified, had begun collecting Pokemon cards in his teens. Forty young offenders who destroyed the youth facility they were being detained in by setting fires in it and vandalising the building may now avoid being sent to infamous Barwon Prison in Geelong as it contravened their human rights. Tactical police in riot gear were called to Melbourne's Parkville Youth Justice Centre on Monday, November 14, where it took two days to subdue the rioting young detainees. Chaotic scenes erupted at the troubled juvenile prison when about a dozen young offenders barricaded themselves inside a unit and started fires everywhere. The Victoria government then made the decision for the 40 inmates to be kept separate from adult prisoners in the maximum-security Barwon jail, and to remain there until the damaged Parkville facility is fixed. Scroll down for video Tactical police in riot gear were called to Melbourne's Parkville Youth Justice Centre on Monday, November 14, where rioting extensively damaged the facility However, the Human Rights Law Centre has launched a legal bid to have this decision overturned in court, and made an application for an interim injunction against the move that was heard in the Supreme Court's Practice Court on Monday night. The centre's executive director Hugh de Kretser believed that the relocation of young offenders would be 'completely counterproductive', The Age reports. 'Time and time again, reviews of riots show that good, proactive management could have preventing events unfolding. The youth justice system has to be able to manage this appropriately. Transferring kids to adult prisons will only make things worse,' Mr de Kretser said. Greg Barns of the Australian Lawyers Alliance was in agreement, and said that it was a violation of international law for any decision to 'arbitrarily' put children in adult prisons. 'This is a breach of our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which explicitly prohibits housing children and adults in prison together,' he said. Mr Barns also maintained there was a great threat of physical and sexual assault at the hands of older prisoners. He also believed the experience could have the opposite affect and turn them into hardened criminals. A decision is expected to be made on the injunction next week, but the government is adamant that it is standing by its plan to temporarily house the teenage offenders in the wing of the adult prison. The first group of juvenile detainees have already been transferred to a segregated wing of the maximum-security prison, with a second group of detainees is set to be transferred soon. After signing off on the proposal, last Thursday the government took over a secure unit at the prison as a youth remand centre and a youth justice custodial centre. The government made the decision to send 40 young offenders to Barwon Prison while Parkville was being fixed, but a court injunction by the Human Rights Law Centre may stop the move Barwon Prison houses notorious criminals including murderer Matthew Johnson (pictured) Johnson killed gangland boss Carl Williams (pictured) by bashing him with a metal bar from an exercise bike at the jail in 2010 Barwon Prison houses notorious criminals including murderer Matthew Johnson. Johnson killed gangland boss Carl Williams by bashing him with a metal bar from an exercise bike at the jail in 2010, and is now serving a life sentence behind bars. He was found guilty of murdering Williams in 2011 and sentenced to a minimum of 32 years in prison, after committing the cold-blooded murder with full knowledge that the entire attack would be captured on CCTV footage. Johnson's criminal history includes 119 prior convictions for serious offences, having served ten previous terms of imprisonment. CCTV footage captured Johnson (left) bludgeon Williams (seated) to death with a metal bar taken from an exercise bike in the maximum security prison The government announced 40 young offenders will be sent to Barwon Prison from Parkville Youth Justice Centre, while it's being fixed up after the riots He has also notched up 76 separate incidents within prison, including multiple assaults on prisoners and prison staff, starting a fire, and possession of contraband - all prior to the murder case in 2010. Known in prison circles as 'The General' - Johnson is reported to be the leader of a powerful and feared gang within Victoria's correctional system named the 'Prisoners of War (POW)'. A report by a Victorian Ombudsman in 2012 revealed that POW members were 'responsible for a series of violent assaults on prisoners and prison', including an assault on a prisoner who was allegedly acting as a police informant. HM Prison Barwon or informally known as Barwon Prison, is located 6km from Lara, near Geelong. A two-year-old Virginia girl whose parents went to court to block a hospital from performing a brain death test on the child has died, the hospital said Monday. Mirranda Grace Lawson passed away November 1, said Michael Porter, a spokesman for Virginia Commonwealth University Health System. Lawson had been on life support at VCU Medical Center since May, when she choked on a piece of popcorn and went into cardiac arrest at her parent's home. Mirranda Grace Lawson lies in her hospital bed at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical College of Virginia in Richmond in May The little girl, above, tragically choked on a piece of popcorn at her mom's birthday party Lawson's doctors had said they were certain she wouldn't recover and wanted to perform an apnea test, which involves taking someone off a ventilator briefly to see if her brain tries to tell the body to breathe on its own. But Lawson's parents refused to allow the test, saying they worried it would harm her. The Richmond Circuit Court ruled against the Lawsons in June, but allowed them to pay a $30,000 bond that blocked the hospital from conducting the test while the family appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court. Mirranda had been on life support since May and doctors had declared she was most likely brain dead but wanted to do a test that would determine whether the brain would send her a signal to breath without life support In July, the Supreme Court denied the hospital's request to immediately perform the test, but hadn't yet decided whether it would consider the Lawson's appeal. A phone number for Lawson's parents wasn't working Monday and they didn't immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press. An attorney for Lawson's parents did not immediately return a message left at his office. Porter, the health system spokesman, said it extends its deepest sympathies to Lawson's family. Video courtesy of WRIC Mirranda's father, Patrick Lawson, and his wife, Alison, were battling the hospital, where doctors wanted to conduct a test that would involve taking Mirranda (pictured before the incident) off the ventilator briefly to see if she can breathe on her own 'During the several months Mirranda was at our hospital, we saw the Lawson's enduring love and support of their daughter in dealing with the tragedy,' he said in a statement. 'Mirranda's medical team demonstrated the highest levels of quality and compassionate care for her and her family.' One of Lawson's doctors said in court that it would be 'astounding' if she were able to breathe without the machine. And the health system argued that the brain death test would not be dangerous, even if Lawson was not brain dead. They said caring for her was taking up valuable resources, noting that it was costing nearly $10,000 a day. Her father, Patrick Lawson (pictured), performed CPR until paramedics arrived and intubated the child 'Having one of the PICU beds and all the human resources that entails, occupied by Mirranda, who has likely been dead for weeks, jeopardizes the care of critically ill children that VCU Health System is being forced to turn away,' a health system attorney wrote. Such cases are exceedingly rare, said Arthur Caplan, of the division of medical ethics at New York University's School of Medicine. But legal fights over children on life support have erupted in other states as far off as California. Hospitals typically don't even ask before performing such routine tests, Caplan said. 'You'd have chaos if doctors were asking permission to do every test relative to the determination of death,' he said. But Mirranda's parents expressed opposition to the test in a handwritten note to the doctors. They cited their Christian faith and said removing her from life support would be 'murder'. 'We feel that God has told us that it's his will that she is going to awaken,' Mirranda's father, Patrick Lawson, said. 'She has something to do in this world.' Lawson and the family feared the brain death test could harm her and fought the hospital to keep them from performing it Mirranda's father, Patrick Lawson, said in an interview with the AP in July that the girl choked after she got into a bag of popcorn the family was sharing on his wife's birthday at their Fauquier County home on May 11. The father performed CPR until paramedics arrived and intubated the child. Support for Labor remains at highest level since Turnbull Australias confidence in Malcolm Turnbull as preferred prime minister to manage the economy has fallen to just 48 per cent as support for Labor remains strong. Voter support for federal Labor has remained at its highest level since Tony Abbott was replaced as prime minister by Malcolm Turnbull, the latest Newspoll shows. Of the 1,738 voters surveyed, only 43 per cent think Mr Turnbull makes a better prime minister, compared to opposition leader Bill Shorten's 33 per cent reading. Scroll down for video Australias confidence in Malcolm Turnbull (pictured) as preferred Prime Minister to manage the economy has plummeted below 50 percent as support for Labor remains strong Of the 1738 voters surveyed, only 43 per cent think Mr Turnbull makes a better prime minister, compared to opposition leader Bill Shorten's 33 per cent reading (Bill Shorten pictured) Voter confidence in Malcolm Turnbull's handling of the economy has slipped to 48 percent. It has fallen 10 points from where it was in February. On a two-party preferred basis Labor remained at 53 per cent to the government's 47 per cent- the same record level it was the previous fortnight, The Australian reported. The Coalition's primary vote has declined to 38 per cent, tied with Labor's reading. Support for independents is up at 14 per cent and the Greens are static at 10 per cent. Voter satisfaction in Mr Turnbulls performance as prime minister remains below 50 per cent. Only 34 per cent of those surveyed were satisfied with the way Mr Turnbull is doing his job as PM. Although it has eased four points since the last survey, 54 per cent of voters are dissatisfied with Mr Turnbulls performance. The Newspoll was taken from last Thursday to Sunday. Advertisement Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has claimed allowing Lebanese-Muslim refugees into Australia was a 'mistake'. Last week Mr Dutton stated that the Fraser government 'did make mistakes by bringing some people in' to the country during the 1970s. When pressed on who he was referring to during question time on Monday, Mr Dutton pointed the finger at Lebanese-Muslim immigrants. The exchange caused Australia's first female Muslim MP Anne Aly to erupt, while Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has slammed the comments as 'disgraceful'. Scroll down for video Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has been slammed for his comments about Lebanese-Muslim immigrants Australia's first female Muslim MP Anne Aly (left) was on Monday photographed gesturing furiously at George Christensen after Peter Dutton said he would call out extremism if he saw it 'The advice I have is that out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 of those people are from second and third generation Lebanese-Muslim background,' the Immigration Minister told the House of Representatives on Monday. His comments come after an interview with Sky News last week in which Mr Dutton claimed former prime minister Malcolm Fraser's immigration policy was flawed. 'The reality is Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1970s and we're seeing that today,' Mr Dutton told the program. 'We need to be honest in having that discussion. There was a mistake made. 'Lessons from past migrant programs should be learnt for people settling in Australia today,' he added. In a press conference on Tuesday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addressed the controversy, saying Mr Dutton was doing an 'outstanding' job and adding he was 'entitled' to reflect on past policies. 'There is no question that there are lessons to be learned from previous immigration policies and the minister was reflecting on, you know, on policies many years ago,' Mr Turnbull said. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addressed the controversy on Tuesday, saying Mr Dutton was doing an 'outstanding' job as Immigration Minister Mr Turnbull added that Mr Dutton was 'entitled' to reflect on past immigration policies 'He's entitled to do that. But the critical thing is - I'm not making any comment on his remarks other than to say that it's fairly fair for all of us to reflect on past policies and how effective they were or not and seek to improve, in the light of that, to improve what we're doing now.' The Prime Minister also said earlier in the press conference that Australia is 'really admired around the world for the success of our immigration program.' The Immigration Minister's comments have drawn strong criticism, especially from his political opponents but support from his colleagues. Liberal MP Michael Sukkar, who comes from a Lebanese Christian background, is understood to have backed the minister in the party room, Australian Associated Press reports. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten described the remarks as 'disgraceful' and 'shameful' The Member for Cowan (pictured) reacted angrily to the Immigration Minister's comments during a parliamentary debate on Monday in the House of Representatives Opposition Leader Bill Shorten described the remarks as 'disgraceful', and called for Mr Turnbull to intervene and force Mr Dutton to apologise. 'Enough is enough,' Mr Shorten said. 'Our hardworking migrant communities shouldnt have to tolerate this kind of ignorant stupidity and he needs to immediately apologise.' Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young went further during parliamentary question time, lashing out at Mr Dutton as a 'racist biggot' before begrudgingly withdrawing the 'unparliamentary' comment. 'I stand by it. I think Peter Dutton is a racist bigot,' she said. 'It is my opinion. I will withdraw it for the sake of the chamber but honestly, I believe it.' Labor MP Time Watts took to social media to express his outrage, calling the comments 'extraordinary'. 'The Minister for Immigration seems to think that criminal behaviour by 'second and third generation migrants' (AKA 'Australians', AKA the grandchildren of migrants) is attributable to immigration policy,' Mr Watts wrote on Facebook. Liberal Nationals MP George Christensen (pictured) is known for his hardline stance on immigration, previously saying that Australia should restrict immigration from countries with violent extremism North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman told Tuesday's Coalition party room meeting the recent commentary on Muslim immigration had been 'unhelpful', but did not go as far as to name Mr Dutton. Mr Zimmerman said he was concerned about undoing good relationships that had been formed with migrant communities, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. However Victorian Liberal MP Michael Sukkar, who has a Lebanese background, dismissed Mr Zimmerman's comments instead throwing his support behind Mr Dutton. Also on Monday when the argument started, Australia's first female Muslim MP Anne Aly clashed with Liberal Party's George Christensen after Mr Dutton said he would call out extremism if he saw it. The Member for Cowan reacted angrily to the Immigration Minister's comments during a parliamentary debate on Monday in the House of Representatives. Ms Aly is pictured here delivering her maiden speech to the House of Representatives on September 12 It was during the debate Mr Dutton made the comments about Mr Fraser making 'mistakes'. When Opposition Leader Bill Shorten asked Mr Dutton which communities he was referring to, Mr Dutton said he was bullying him and said he would stand up for himself. 'I won't be bullied by this great fraud of Australian politics... Where I see extremism I will call it out.' Ms Aly then gestured so angrily towards Liberal National MP George Christensen, that her leather jacket fell off her shoulders. Scientists have recovered a freshly fallen meteorite believed to be 4.56 billion years old from a farm several hundred kilometres north-east of Perth, making it older than the Earth. Members of Curtin University's Desert Fireball Network team tracked the 1.15kg meteorite, which fell to earth near Morawa just after 8pm on Halloween, using tip from the public and their network of digital cameras set up in the outback. The squashed brick-shaped meteorite was found within a week of it landing after swift reports to the Fireballs in the Sky citizen science app. A meteorite that fell on a farm in Morawa, several hundred kilometres north-east of Perth, is believed to be 4.56 billion years old, making it older than the Earth (pictured) DFN founder Phil Bland said the fireball was picked up by four cameras in Perenjori, Northam, Badgingarra and Hyden, which helped the team find where the meteorite hit the ground. 'Our team was able to track the fall line and calculate its landing spot to within 200 metres of where it was subsequently found,' Professor Bland said. The meteorite is predicted to have been 50 to 100 times bigger than its current size before it it fell through the atmosphere. Martin Towner from the Department of Applied Geology described the rock as a pristine, unweathered, fresh sample. Dr Towner said there was no visible impact on the ground where it was found. Members of Curtin University's Desert Fireball Network team tracked the 1.15kg meteorite, which fell to earth just after 8pm on Halloween, using tip from the public and their network of digital cameras (pictured) Prof Bland said of the 50,000 meteorites that have been discovered, the origins of only 20-30 are known. 'Meteorites tell us pretty much everything we want to know about the solar system...but unless we know where they came from, there's a really big piece of that puzzle left,' he said. Meteorites have decelerated to a free-fall velocity by the time they hit the earth, travelling at the same speed as a rock thrown from a tall building. Under federal government law, the meteorite belongs to the state, and the trustees of the WA Museum will become the custodians. A Perth teenager has revealed how drug dealers aided his $10,000-a-week meth habit by paying him with drugs to work as a courier for them. Gary, a recovering meth-addict, was just 15-years-old when he became dangerously addicted to methamphetamine after using it for the first time with a friend. 'I remember a mate said, "do you want to get (some meth)" and I had a puff of the pipe and that was pretty much me hooked after that,' he said. 'It just grabs you. You feel great and you want that feeling every day of your life. I couldn't stop from that one point on.' Scroll down for video. Gary was just 15-years-old when he became dangerously addicted to methamphetamine (stock) Within a year of that first hit, Gary said he graduated from smoking the drug to injecting it six to eight times a day, Yahoo reports. Now 17-years-old, Gary said meth had become his master and he was motivated to do just about anything to get his hands on another hit. Gary, whose real name has been withheld, said he was 16-years-old when he started trafficking large amounts of cash and drugs to fund his $10,000-a-week habit. He said he was at the mercy of his drug bosses who took advantage of his habit to manipulate him into doing their bidding. He said his bosses would pass him shopping lists filled with items he was required to steal, including cars and guns. He said he found himself committing crimes and doing downright dangerous things he never thought he would. The teenager said he transported drugs, committed burglaries and robberies,to get his hands on another hit of the drug meth Gary said he had no choice but to submit to every request because he was constantly in his bosses' debt. If he didn't, he said he faced violent retribution. The teenager said he transported drugs, committed burglaries and robberies, and saw himself as a servant. 'You no longer control yourself, the drug controls you,' he said. Gary said his habit and debt to the drug lords, lead him to start stealing from his own family breaking into their home and bleeding them dry of possessions. 'You no longer control yourself, the drug controls you,' Gary said Gary revealed he was also exposed to gruesome violence to test his loyalty to the Perth based drug bosses. He said he was forced to watch a man as two of his fingers were taken off with wire cutters after failing to pay a debt he owed. Gary said he saw this as a warning - if he ever disobeyed orders, he risked the same. The 17-year-old has detailed his horrific experience in the grips of drug addiction after getting clean, with the help of a recovery program. With the help of Dr George O'Neil's Fresh Start Recovery Program, Gary will soon celebrate six months since he last took the drug. Young addicts can score hits of the dangerous drug for as little as $5 in parts of Australia. As a result, young addicts are flooding rehabilitation services and forcing terrified parents to form self-help groups to tackle the meth epidemic, The Daily Telegraph reports. This election has been one of the most controversial and divisive in American history. So it's hardly surprising that politics has become an unwanted guest at Thanksgiving this year. And for some families, the issue has been so great that relatives are being uninvited to the holiday. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton voters alike have taken to Twitter to complain that they have lost their place at the Thanksgiving festivities this year due to differences over how they voted. Some families are uninviting their relatives to Thanksgiving over the recent election Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton voters alike have taken to Twitter to complain that they have lost their place at the Thanksgiving festivities this year due to differences over how they voted Caroline Bryant tweeted that her own family had uninvited her after she voted for Clinton, with the hashtag #sorrynotsorry. Meghan Mcginnis said that her entire family had lost their place at the Thanksgiving table of their pro-Trump relatives from Wyoming. 'This is a dream come true,' she said. 'My grandma called me today, chewed me out, and uninvited me to Thanksgiving because I voted for Hillary. You are blessed,' Matt Dunn added on Twitter. Meanwhile another Twitter user wrote that his niece's in-laws had uninvited her and her family because they had voted for Trump. One unfortunate Twitter user said that his grandmother had 'chewed him out' and uninvited him to Thanksgiving because he voted for Hillary Clinton Nina Morse said she'd overheard someone say 'she uninvited all the people who voted for Trump to Thanksgiving. 'That's the level of petty I wanna be,' she added. Even those who haven't been uninvited over the election seem to be bracing for a tough Thanksgiving this year. CNN contributor Ana Navarro, from Miami, advised avoiding any potentially controversial subjects if you hoped to get through the holidays in one piece. 'Thanksgiving Survival Tips; if ur family was sharply split on POTUS election: 1) NO tacos 2) NO hummus 3) NO sharp utensils 4) Lots of booze,' she tweeted. Voters for both Donald Trump (left) and Hillary Clinton (right) have been shunned by their families this Thanksgiving following the election Even those who haven't been uninvited over the election seem to be bracing for a tough Thanksgiving this year While comedian Will Presti suggested stoking the political fire as an excuse to escape the chaos. His #SurvivalGuideToThanksgiving included: ' 1. Arrive at table. 2. Say, "So, who'd everybody vote for?"3. Spend day eating in another room unnoticed.' Some enterprising Thanksgiving hosts even viewed the election as a blessing in disguise. 'Needed to reduce the family members coming for Thanksgiving so just started talking about the election on Facebook,' one Twitter user joked. Advertisement Two people have died and at least 500 are in hospital after an outbreak of 'thunderstorm asthma' swept across Melbourne overnight, with the Australian Medical Association describing the spike in respiratory illnesses as 'unprecedented'. The death toll so far includes a 20-year-old man, who was forced to wait half an hour for an ambulance, as a huge storm hit around 6pm, causing widespread chaos. Hospitals declared a 'major disaster' after receiving more than 1,900 triple-0 calls and almost depleting their Ventolin supplies, as the disaster followed sweltering heat. The AMA's federal vice-president Tony Bartone, a general practitioner based in Melbourne's west, said he had never seen Victorian hospital resources so stretched in his 30-year medical career. 'I would describe it as extremely unusual as it's been a long time since we've seen anything like this in terms of presentation of patients with asthma on the one day,' Dr Bartone told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday afternoon. A sand storm at St Kilda in Melbourne during the thunderstorm on Monday night which saw an unprecedented spike in asthma problems across the Victorian capital A man breathing in Ventolin as thunderstorms across Melbourne stretched hospital and ambulance resources Dr Bartone said every ambulance was on call, with emergency departments preparing to set up makeshift wards in hospital foyers. 'Completely unprecedented,' he said. 'Even patients who haven't had asthma for a fair time have found the need to present today. 'We've never had the occasion to predict such a volume overload.' On Tuesday morning, Ambulance Victoria's Mick Stephenson confirmed two men from Melbourne's west had died. 'The hospitals are all at breaking point,' a Melbourne doctor, who chose to remain unnamed, told The Age. 'A number of hospitals came very close to running out of Ventolin altogether.' Emergency services were also tied up with 400 calls to the State Emergency Service after roof tiles were ripped off houses, cars were damaged and trees came crashing down. About 600 of the 1,900 calls to hospital were asthma-related and came from residents in Melbourne's west. Scroll down for video About 400 calls were made to the SES overnight after roof tiles were ripped off homes and garage doors were destroyed from flying debris (pictured) The enormous storm caused damage to homes in Melbourne's west, including this car, and left thousands without power Dust was seen shrouding North Melbourne (pictured) by 6pm on Monday and asthma sufferers quickly declined 'We essentially had a day's workload within five hours,' Ambulance Victoria's Executive Director Emergency Operations Mick Stephenson said. WHAT IS 'THUNDERSTORM ASTHMA'? - 'Thunderstorm asthma' is caused when a large storm sweeps pollen and irritants into the atmosphere. - The irritants cause asthma sufferers to have an attack. - Rain and humidity can also stir irritants that affect asthma. -The elderly and young children are the most vulnerable. Source: Allergy Society Australia Advertisement 'Whether or not they (the deaths) are related to this phenomenon we just don't know ... we will have to review each incident,' Mr Stephenson told reporters on Tuesday morning. At St Vincent's hospital alone, 216 people turned up in their emergency department - almost 100 more than on a normal night, 9News reported. Mr Stephenson said most of the calls for help came from residents in Melbourne's west. 'This includes 200 cases for asthma, and we were seeing asthma in people who had not experienced breathing issues before,' he said. 'In the 15 minutes from 7pm when we would expect about 30 triple zero calls for ambulance there were 200 calls that's a call every 4.5 seconds. 'This was an extraordinary and unpredictable increase in demand in a very short period of time'. A major clean-up began on Tuesday morning and hospitals were warned to remain on 'disaster alert'. About 13,000 homes were left without power overnight. Police checked on 12 people who called for an ambulance, but we unable to be reached and Metropolitan Fire Brigade officers responded to 11 cases. The head of Victoria's health services said he'd never seen an incident like it in more than 40 years as a paramedic. 'Every ambulance and ambulance manager was recalled,' Paul Holman said. 'It was an unprecedented night. 'I have never seen the computer dispatch of Melbourne look like it. It was what we call a sea of red.' On Monday afternoon, people were seen fleeing Melbourne's iconic St Kilda Beach as the unexpected wind caused a huge sandstorm Pete James snapped this photo in the southwest of incredible lightning strikes overnight Emergency services were also tied up with 400 calls for assistance to the SES after roof tiles were ripped off houses, cars were damaged and trees came crashing down (pictured) On Tuesday morning, Ambulance Victoria's Mick Stephenson (pictured) confirmed a man, whose age is unknown, and a 20-year-old, both from Melbourne's west, had died A major clean-up commenced on Tuesday morning and hospitals were warned to remain on 'disaster alert' following the storm Roof tiles were ripped of house and the SES commenced a major clean-up on Tuesday morning A massive thunderstorm has caused an outbreak of asthma so severe emergency services in Melbourne ran out of ambulances to help those in need Dust was seen flying off the roof of homes across the state, causing asthma sufferers to struggle The enormous storm, which hit at around 6pm on Monday, is believed to have led to a large occurrence of 'thunderstorm asthma' - where irritants are thrown into the air by the storm At one stage a reported 190 people were waiting from assistance from emergency services. In addition to widespread sickness, the wild weather also left a trail of destruction across Victoria with some residents reporting tornado-like conditions. Thousands of homes in Melbourne's west were left without power, while homes were damaged and roads were closed because of fallen trees. The hot weather proved dangerous earlier on Monday, with firefighters having to flee their truck while fighting a 320 hectare grass fire near Swan Hill. The crew suffered smoke inhalation and dehydration and were taken to hospital, but their injuries were minor. The last time Melbourne experienced an outbreak of thunderstorm asthma was in 2010. After a sizzling Monday where temperatures reached 35 degrees, Melbourne should have cool to mild days for the rest of the week, with a top of 17C on Tuesday and 18C on Wednesday. Tuesday will be wet, with rain persisting for most of the day, the bureau predicts. Across the rest of the country, Sydney is expecting the mercury to hit 31C on Tuesday before showers sweep across the city on Wednesday and both Brisbane and Perth are bracing for temperatures over 30C for the next few days. Tuesday will be wet in Melbourne, with rain persisting for most of the day, the bureau predicts A sandstorm engulfed St Kilda beach in Melbourne's south and people were seen running from the water's edge A massive thunderstorm has caused an outbreak of asthma so severe emergency services in Melbourne ran out of ambulances to help those in need Police have made an appeal to the public for help in identifying two people in relation to a deadly assault. A 48-year-old man died last Saturday as a result of head injuries he suffered after being viciously attacked in an altercation with several people at a unit block in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern in October. The man was able to flee the scene but was found unconscious the following day at a unit nearby. NSW Police are searching for a man (right) and a woman (left) who may be able to help them determine what happened to a 48-year-old man who died after being assaulted in Redfern The occupant of the unit called paramedics who took the man to hospital where he underwent surgery for brain injuries. Police said in a media release that they were hoping that 'the two people depicted in the images would be able to clarify the situation'. Police described the woman as being of 'Pacific Islander/Maori appearance, 160-165cm tall, aged between 35-40 years, with dyed blonde short-clipped hair and with a thin build'. While the man is described as being of 'Pacific Islander/Maori appearance, 180-185cm tall, with a medium build, aged between 35-40 years with a shaved head'. Police are urging anyone who may know the people depicted to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or use the Crime Stoppers online reporting page. Police described the woman as being of 'Pacific Islander/Maori appearance, 160-165cm tall, aged between 35-40 years, with dyed blonde short-clipped hair and with a thin build' If you weep at the thought of a White House without Barack Obama, take comfort in Netflix's new original biopic about the future POTUS as a 20-year-old college student. 'Barry' follows the young ambitious Barack - called Barry by his pals - as he navigates the gritty, crime-ridden New York City of the early 1980s. Barry, played by Australian actor Devon Terrell, arrives in the city as a junior at Columbia University. Scroll down for video Australian actor Devon Terrell plays the young Columbia student and future POTUS Terrell is a newcomer who also stars in HBO's 'Codes of Conduct' The trailer highlights Obama's sense of displacement as a child of a white mother from rural Kansas and a black father from Kenya. It also shows him indulging in a few things we don't normally associate with the buttoned-up POTUS: dancing sensuously at a nightclub with a young lady who is not Michelle Obama, hanging out on graffiti-scarred street corners and inside smoky tenement hallways, and lounging shirtless in bed with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Ashley Judd (left) plays Barack's mom, Ann Dunham. Right, Anya Taylor-Joy plays his college sweetie, Charlotte, based on real-life college girlfriend Genevieve Cook and other girlfriends The Barack we don't normally see - shirtless in bed, puffing on a cigarette Barack straddled the worlds between Caucasian and African-American, sometimes feeling left out of both The real life Barack Obama, above, as he appeared while at Harvard University - he bears quite a resemblance to the actor who portrays his younger self, Devon Terrell Throughout the trailer, the theme of Obama's 'otherness' from his classmates is clear - he's of mixed race, he's not into the club scene, and he probably studies just a bit harder than most of them. 'What is your scene?' a young woman asks the doe-eyed Barry. 'I'm trying to figure that out,' he says. When he tells a man that he is part Kansas, part Kenyan, the man says: 'That makes you American.' Actors Devon Terrell (left) and Anya Taylor-Joy star in 'Barry,' about the young Barack Obama, and his then-girlfriend, Charlotte (who wasn't real) And there are flashes of the idealism that would propel the Democrat to the highest political office in the world: 'I believe people create change,' he says. It might be a shock for some to see Barack sans Michelle - at this stage of life, his girlfriend is Charlotte, a wealthy young lady from Connecticut, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, a composite of Obama's college girlfriends, including Genevieve Cook. The movie is directed by Vikram Gandhi and was written by Adam Mansbach. David Sellu, who served a jail sentence over the death of a patient at a private hospital Patients will be denied life-saving operations if the police and prosecutors continue to hound doctors doing their best, the NHSs most senior clinical adviser warns today. Professor Sir Norman Williams said prosecutors were now being more energetic in trying to secure convictions against surgeons whose patients suffer harm. And he warned that, as a result, the fear of police knocking on a doctors door was having a chilling effect on patient care. In the worst-case scenario, people may not be given a pioneering treatment because the doctor does not believe it is worth the risk of being thrown behind bars. It follows the case of David Sellu, a surgeon, who at the age of 66 was locked up in a top-security prison after a patient died under his care. In an exclusive Daily Mail article, below, Sir Norman, senior clinical adviser to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, writes: Every day doctors and nurses have to make decisions, often in an atmosphere of high intensity and under considerable pressure. If they get these wrong they have the propensity to harm patients. Such decisions can always be criticised and at times acts of omission or commission might constitute negligence, which is normally resolved by civil proceedings. Until recently it was unusual for a criminal case to be brought before a court of law and it was even rarer for a prosecution to be successful. Such cases are now being pursued more commonly and the bar for conviction may have been lowered. In what will be considered a controversial intervention, Sir Norman adds: We all want to see a safer system but is the energetic pursuit of criminal prosecution the right way to proceed? David Sellu with his wife Catherine after his conviction for manslaughter was overturned by the court of appeal The ex-president of the Royal College of Surgeons said that, while blatant criminal activity by doctors should be punished, such cases were rare. There have been only 12 successful convictions in the past 15 years. He adds: For every charge of gross negligence manslaughter brought against clinicians there will be a significant number that are investigated. One can only imagine the anguish that the individual innocent practitioner and his or her family will endure whilst undergoing such an investigation not to mention the inevitable professional damage. This will not produce a change in culture. On the contrary, it is likely to result in a climate of fear encouraging defensive medicine and a reluctance to take on high risk cases which might benefit from medical intervention. His warning comes after Mr Sellu had a manslaughter conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal last week. The surgeon, who is 70 today, served 15 months of a two-and-a-half-year prison term for manslaughter by gross negligence some of it spent in high-security HMP Belmarsh in south London alongside Islamist terrorists. James Hughes, 66, was under Mr Sellus care when he died at the Clementine Churchill Hospital in Harrow, north-west London James Hughes, 66, was under Mr Sellus care when he died at the Clementine Churchill Hospital in Harrow, north-west London, in 2010. The Court of Appeal ruled that his November 2013 conviction over the patients death was not safe. The original case against Mr Sellu, of Hillingdon, west London, was based on the standard of his care. Mr Hughes became ill after a routine knee replacement carried out by another surgeon. Mr Sellu later carried out surgery to repair a perforated bowel, but there had been delays in performing that operation. Mr Hughes died two days later. The surgeon said he knew Mr Hughes needed an urgent operation but an anaesthetist was not available for several hours and it was not safe to move the patient to the nearby hospital. The Crown Prosecution Service said it would not appeal against the Court of Appeal ruling. Climate of fear doesn't help NHS or patients by Professor Sir Norman Williams, senior clinical adviser to health secretary On November 5, 2013 Mr David Sellu, a 66-year-old consultant surgeon, with a previously unblemished record, was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter for failing to provide the care expected of a clinician of his standing. He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail. The case was complex but pivoted around Mr Sellus 28-hour delay in operating on a patient who was found to have peritonitis as a result of a perforated bowel following routine knee surgery and who sadly subsequently died. Professor Sir Norman Williams, senior clinical adviser to health secretary and former president of the Royal College of Surgeons I was President of the Royal College of Surgeons at the time and had mixed emotions. I felt huge compassion for the patient and his family. Seeing a loved one who appeared relatively healthy pass away as result of a perceived serious error must have been unbearable. Nevertheless the verdict and sentence made me uneasy. I received countless communications from surgeons around the country expressing the same sentiment: There but for the grace of God go I. We all knew that no doctor is above the law but believed that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred in the case of Mr Sellu, who had given excellent and unstinted surgical care to his local community. A dedicated group of clinicians and lawyers, therefore, supported him in his appeal against the judgment and last week three Appeal Court judges quashed the conviction. Although there is a degree of relief in the clinical community, there remains significant concern about the prevailing atmosphere of blame and retribution around healthcare errors. Every day doctors and nurses have to make decisions, often in an atmosphere of high intensity and under considerable pressure. If they get these wrong they have the propensity to harm patients. Such decisions can always be criticised and, at times, acts of omission or commission might constitute negligence, which is normally resolved by civil proceedings. Until recently it was unusual for a criminal case to be brought before a court of law and it was even rarer for a prosecution to be successful. Such cases are now being pursued more commonly and the bar for conviction may have been lowered. Professor Sir Williams now advises the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, above It is estimated that 3.6 per cent of all deaths in the NHS i.e. 9,000 annually are avoidable. We all want to see a safer system but is the energetic pursuit of criminal prosecution the right way to proceed? Of course, blatant criminal activity by healthcare workers should be pursued and punished accordingly but such behaviour is rare. Gross negligence manslaughter and other serious incidents are very unlikely to be the result of one individuals poor performance. Many factors may come into play which are outside the influence of the clinician. For every charge of gross negligence manslaughter brought against clinicians there will be a significant number that are investigated. One can only imagine the anguish that the individual innocent practitioner will endure whilst undergoing such an investigation. This will not produce a change in culture. On the contrary, it is likely to result in a climate of fear encouraging defensive medicine and a reluctance to take on high-risk cases which might otherwise benefit from medical intervention. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt wishes to develop a learning as opposed to a blame culture. Only by providing a safe space environment akin to that which exists for investigations by the Air Accident Investigation Branch will staff feel uninhibited in admitting mistakes so lessons can be learnt. After a 21-month legal battle, Mr Croawell had the charge dismissed Mr Croawell believed the speed camera was set up incorrectly on the road He was charged for driving 61km/h in a 50km/h zone in New Zealand A 63-year-old man who spent over $1,000 in flight costs and lost thousands more by missing work to fight an $80 speeding ticket has succeeded in his quest for justice. John Croawell was charged for driving 61km/h in a 50km/h zone on Brighton Road, in south-west Dunedin, on New Zealand's South Island, in February 2014. He believed the speed camera was not set up correctly causing the speedometer to have an invalid reading, the Otago Daily Times reported. John Croawell, 63, spent over $1,000 in flight costs and lost thousands more by missing work after he received and $80 speeding fine 'It was mounted in a line of cars and there was potential for bounce-back on the radar beam,' he said. On Monday, Mr Croawell no longer had to fly from Whangarei to Dunedin after the 21-month legal battle came to an end at the Dunedin District Court. 'There's a broad principle in life called justice,' he said. 'If you roll over you're making it easier for those trusted with authority to hammer the s*** out of your fellow man.' The police had asked for the case to be adjourned for the third time this year when Judge Kevin Phillips put an end to the case. The charge was finally dismissed as the police were unable to offer evidence. Mr Croawell believes police were failing to supply any data because it would prove how inaccurate their cameras were. The charge which he received for driving 61km/h in a 50km/h zone on Brighton road, southwest Dunedin, New Zealand, in February 2014 was dismissed on Monday A convicted felon has been accused of pretending to be a lawyer and representing clients for years, police say. Reginald Taylor, 40, will appear in court again - this time instead of prosecuting a case, he'll be a defendant. He has been charged with forgery and practicing law without a license. His previous convictions, which stem back as far as 1999, include fraud, forgery, drug possession and auto theft. Taylor does not have a law degree, according to the Kansas City Star, yet framed one in his name and went to court to defend clients. Reginald Taylor (pictured), 40, a convicted felon has been accused of pretending to be a lawyer and representing clients while working out of an office for years, police say Suspicions over Taylor's legitimacy were raised by court clerks after he bounced a check while paying a client's fine, the paper reported. He had successfully negotiated a client's drug paraphernalia charge down to a $229 fine for littering. After that check bounced last November an investigation began. The city prosecutor told the Kansas City Star he meets with dozens of attorneys every day and doesn't check the Missouri bar results for each one. 'He came in dressed in a suit and represented himself as a lawyer. It was the clerks who dug into it, they pointed him out,' Grandview prosecutor Roger Potter told the paper. A court supervisor said she tried to call Taylor to report the check had bounced but instead reached a lawn care business. Suspicions over Taylor's legitimacy were raised by court clerks after he bounced a check while paying a client's fine, according to the Kansas City Star Taylor even had a Facebook page, which he advertised his services as 'Taylor & Associaties [sic], LLP' and says that his firm covers 'Personal Injury, Construction accidents, Contracts, Traffic DUI/DWI' cases The woman who answered the phone turned out to be Taylor's mother. Later, when Taylor was finally reached, he denied being in court. Then, when he was told he only needed to come back and give the clerks a valid check, he agreed that he had been in court. It was then discovered that the Missouri bar number he had given to the court actually belonged to an attorney in Columbia. As the investigation continued, Taylor's long rap sheet was discovered. His roommate said that he had represented him and other clients he had seen at the office Taylor ran out of the home. Taylor even had a Facebook page, which he advertised his services as 'Taylor & Associaties [sic], LLP' and says that his firm covers 'Personal Injury, Construction accidents, Contracts, Traffic DUI/DWI' cases. The Facebook page has been active since 2013 and has two reviews - one five-star and one three-star. His roommate said that he had represented him and other clients he had seen at the office Taylor ran out of the home. This image appears on Taylor's Facebook page, but it is unclear where this library is The page shows a shirt with the logo of the allegedly fake attorney's office and another post reads: 'We just increased productivity and the size of our support staff. Were fortunate enough to be able to purchase some up-to-date office equipment from Micro Center.' Phone numbers on the page are now out of service. But it's unclear how many times Taylor allegedly appeared in court as a phony lawyer. There is a record of him appearing one time in Grandview Municipal Court and no record of him ever appearing in Kansas City Municipal Court. The court in Blue Springs said they didn't have a record of Taylor representing anyone. In Belton, a court official said that Taylor attempted to sign in as a lawyer last year but he wasn't in the court's record and that's when the clerks grew suspicious and police jumped into action. Was that a Ukip moth that kept divebombing Theresa May at the CBI conference? While the PM made her speech to big businesss assembled snoots and stodges in the ballroom of Mayfairs Grosvenor House hotel, some lepidopteran kept flying round her head and shoulders. Moth? Butterfly? An ingenious Russian drone? Who knows? It certainly stole the show. Maybe it was the bright lights of the stage that proved an irresistible attraction. Or maybe this was a moth with a Farage-iste sense of how to upstage a top Tory. Theresa May was divebombed by a moth at the CBI conference held at Mayfairs Grosvenor House hotel For about five minutes, while Mrs May was speaking from the central lectern on a wide and shiny stage, the creature did lots of little loop-the-loops, steep descents, take-offs and general fluttering. It was a fat specimen, easily visible to all. The CBIs director-general, Carolyn Fairbairn, was sitting just to Mrs Mays left and quickly noticed what was going on. She shot the moth a filthy look. The moth ignored it and did a little backwards somersault, as if to say Im free, Im self-employed and there is nothing you can do to me, ha-ha. Had there been a can of Zeroin poison to hand, I swear Ms Fairbairn would have given that moth a long, hard squirt while snarling die, sucker! CBI delegates are serious bods but from the halls media seats there came a distinct sniggering as the moth nearly landed on the Prime Ministers hairdo. There was speculation that maybe it had flown out of Mrs Mays wallet. We had just heard a speech from CBI president Paul Drechsler, a heavy-set fellow with one of those faintly international accents (part-Irish, part translatlantic) so many CBI speakers have. Maybe this was a moth with a Farage-iste sense of how to upstage a top Tory, writes Quentin Letts Mr Drechsler and hoity-toity Ms Fairbairn have been seen as obdurate anti-Brexit voices. Yesterday he, at least, said that CBI firms were 100 per cent committed to making the best of Brexit. Then he started shroud-waving, asking what happens on the day after Brexit, when the clock strikes midnight and our two years negotiating time is up? He spoke of a cliff-edge scenario and a regulatory no-mans land. Realistic corporate planning or an echo of Project Fear? Some Remainers predicted the same sort of cliff-edge for the day after the EU referendum vote. Mrs May tried to assure the conference yesterday that the Government understood such concerns and might seek transitional arrangements. Mrs May backed away from Cameron-era talk about forcing businesses directly to appoint trade unionists to their boards, at the summit Part of yesterdays political choreographing, plainly, was that both Mrs May and the CBI would do some chest-baring about corporate abuses. Mr Drechsler accepted that there had been unacceptable transgressions by some corporations (he presumably meant on tax avoidance and executive greed but was too delicate to go into details). Mrs May vented some pre-baked words about how the public distrusted business people. Yet she backed away from Cameron-era talk about forcing businesses directly to appoint trade unionists to their boards. Her stuff about the transitional arrangements people dont want a cliff edge, they want to know with some certainty how things are going to go forwards came during questions afterwards. By now the moth had disappeared. Mrs May had started coughing. She seemed to have something caught in her throat. Perhaps she had eaten the poor moth. Or was it hard-Brexit purity that she had swallowed? We were later treated to a deliciously absurd speech from a British Facebook executive, Nicola Mendelsohn, who walked around the stage in a robotic manner while spouting new-technology jargon about unicorns and thinking like disruptors. CBI President Paul Drechsler said CBI firms were 100 per cent committed to making the best of Brexit In a voice part Silicon Valley, part soggy Manchester, she fixed a simpering smile to her chops and said she believed in hard conversations. Had we had a hard conversation in the past week? If not, said Lady Mendelsohn (as she is, being married to a Labour peer), we should jolly well do so. Lauri Love with father Alexander Love and mother Sirkka. He faces trial in three US states over hacking charges Aspergers sufferer Lauri Love is the only one of more than 29 Britons accused of hacking US government websites to face extradition to America, it has emerged. Every other accused person, many of whom were charged with more serious crimes than the vicars son, has been prosecuted and sentenced in Britain over the past 20 years. The revelation raises the question of why the student is being singled out for extradition in what his lawyers refer to as punitive treatment. Mr Love, 31, faces trial in three US states and a 99-year prison sentence if convicted of hacking US government sites including the Defence Department, the US Army, Nasa and the FBI. Independent medical experts and Mr Loves family have warned that the vulnerable and mentally unwell student would not survive the US prison system and would kill himself. He is appealing against a court decision two months ago to confirm his extradition, which was approved by Home Secretary Amber Rudd last week. It has also emerged that Mr Love was linked to another alleged hacker whose extradition has not been sought by the US. Justin Soyke faced trial in his native Australia last November for hacking government sites in the US and Australia. THE LEGAL HURDLE LAURI MUST LEAP After intervening to stop the extradition of Gary McKinnon, Theresa May introduced a forum bar to prevent a repeat of his ordeal. This allows the courts to refuse extradition in cases where a substantial amount of the alleged crime has taken place in the UK and it can be prosecuted in Britain. Before the bar was introduced in 2013, the Home Secretary could refuse extradition on various grounds, including human rights. But since then the power has transferred to the courts, and the Home Secretary can no longer intervene except on very specific points, which do not apply in Mr Loves case. The forum bar was brought in after a number of high profile extradition requests from the US, including for Mr McKinnon, another Aspergers sufferer accused of hacking into US government computers. He was spared extradition by Mrs May, the then Home Secretary, after a Daily Mail campaign. To use the bar, a judge needs to consider various factors, including where the most harm was committed and the accused persons connections to the UK. Mr Loves lawyers plan to appeal against his extradition on the grounds that the judge did not apply the bar in his case its first substantive test. Advertisement He was sentenced to three years, but was told he would serve just one before possible parole, it has been reported. It is not clear why the US is seeking Mr Loves extradition but not Soykes, given that a link was reportedly discovered between their activities. Among the accused Britons who have not been extradited to the US in the past 20 years are members of the LulzSec hacking group who infiltrated the CIA and Sony Pictures. They were all indicted, or charged, by the US but none was extradited. Instead the US government allowed them to be prosecuted in Britain. In May 2013, Jake Davis, one of the founder members, was sentenced to 24 months in prison. Another member, Ryan Cleary, who hacked into the US Air Forces computers, was sentenced to 32 months. Other members include Ryan Ackroyd, who was given 30 months, and Mustafa Al-Bassam ,who received 20 months suspended for two years with 200 hours unpaid work. In 1997, Richard Pryce, who the US considered to be a huge threat for hacking the Pentagon and US defence and missile systems, was not extradited and was instead fined 1,200 by a British court. Aaron Caffrey, an Aspergers sufferer, was acquitted of breaking into IT systems for the Port of Houston in Texas. Mr Loves solicitor, Karen Todner, criticised the Crown Prosecution Services approach to hacking cases. Its a totally inconsistent charging approach by the CPS, she said. When the US make requests, they sometimes roll over or they prosecute here. Lauris case can be dealt with perfectly appropriately by the UK justice system. He faces a disproportionate sentence abroad. Extraditing him is punitive and is not in the interests of justice. Lauri Love leaving his extradition hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court in September 2016. Home Secretary Amber Rudd agreed with a judge's ruling that he should face trial in America At his appeal hearing, his lawyers plan to argue that he would commit suicide if he exhausts all legal avenues to prevent his extradition. They say that only in Britain will he get a fair trial, and that the crimes he is accused of were committed in his home near Newmarket, Suffolk where he lives with mother, Sirkka, and father, the Rev Alexander Love and so took place largely in the UK. Local police are required to protect president and family when he's home Mayor Bill de Blasio said city has never dealt with anything of this scope The cost of police protecting the first family could cost $1 million a day Trump said he'll be home frequently and even more while Melania is there Melania and Barron will stay in NYC until at least the end of the school year New York City could be footing a steep bill for the president-elect while his wife Melania and ten-year-old son Barron stay in the Big Apple. And those costs aren't guaranteed to drop even after they move to DC once the school year ends. The new First Lady and Barron will stay in their midtown Manhattan apartment in Trump Tower at least until Donald Trump's youngest son finished this year of school. But Trump has made it clear he plans to be in New York City regularly and will make even more frequent visits while Melania and Barron are there. While the president-elect will be protected by Secret Service, the local police are always called on to help assist them. New York City could be paying $1 million per day for Donald Trump and his family to be protected by NYPD The president-elect's wife Melania and ten-year-old son Barron will be staying in the city at least until Barron finishes the school year Police have been assigned to Trump's adult children and grandchildren in addition to Secret Service, John Miller, NYPD's deputy commissioner of intelligence & counterterrorism, told WCBS Monday. Trump's entire family lives in New York City and will be entitled to the security detail. 'The number one imperative here is safety and security. We owe that to the president elect, his family and his team. 'This is a very substantial undertaking. It will take substantial resources. 'We will begin the conversation with the federal government shortly on reimbursement for the NYPD for some of the costs that we are incurring,' New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference on Friday. He said the city will need help with the cost of overtime officers will be working to keep the first family safe. NYPD's primary responsibility will be controlling the movement of the general public, according to CNN Money. Presidents are required to have local police protecting them when they return to their homes but because Trump lives in the most densely populated neighborhood in the biggest city in the U.S., this is a massive task. 'We have never had a situation where a POTUS would be here on such a regular basis. 'The details of his future plans are unknown, but we certainly know over these next 65 days [until the inauguration] he will be here regularly. 'The NYPD is up to the challenge and the city of New York is up to the challenge, I have no doubt about that,' de Blasio said. Trump's entire family lives in New York City and will be entitled to the security detail - much of which New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is hoping will be reimbursed by the federal government Presidents are required to have local police protecting them when they return to their homes but because Trump lives in the most densely populated neighborhood in the biggest city in the U.S., this is a massive task De Blasio has asked for reimbursements for protecting leaders in the past. When the United Nations heads of state visit the city, they are often times reimbursed for protection from the federal government. One UN visit saw the city reimbursed for $26 million in reimbursements or about $500,000 per week in 12 months. 'This makes (previous protection efforts) look quite small obviously. We'll have to establish a new set of ground rules,' de Blasio said. Barricades have been erected around Trump Tower and the block has been closed to traffic, with the exception of Fifth Avenue. Belgiums migration secretary Theo Francken said it was no longer safe for his staff to help process asylum applications Rioting migrants have forced border officials to leave Greek islands because of fears over their safety. Overcrowded camps have been set ablaze as the inhabitants grow frustrated that they are being stopped from continuing to Europe. Belgium has repatriated asylum staff deployed to help Greece after they were aggressively targeted by those seeking refuge. In the latest chaos, a camp on the island of Chios was torched after police accused migrants of stealing fireworks and alcohol from local shops. Since March, new arrivals from Turkey have been stopped from crossing to the Greek mainland from the popular holiday destinations such as Lesbos and Kos. Belgiums migration secretary Theo Francken said it was no longer safe for his staff to help process asylum applications and conduct interviews there because of growing hostility. At one time the country had several dozen experts assisting the Greek authorities on the islands. He told Belgian newspaper De Standaard: The security situation has worsened. The atmosphere is particularly grim because asylum seekers, often single men, are stuck there and realise they cannot journey on to Germany or Belgium. Some express their frustrations in a particularly aggressive fashion. In recent days asylum agency staff have been targeted. The Secretary of State repatriated his staff and said he was unwilling to take more risks to the safety of his staff Mr Francken said he was unwilling to take any more risks: We would like to show our solidarity with the people of Greece, but the safety of our staff is our priority. The Greek authorities must take action. I warned them several months ago. They have done too little. Greek police detained 37 migrants during unrest on Chios last week. The trouble is reported to have started when migrants looted two stores and set off stolen fireworks near a camp. Officers claimed around 100 migrants then blocked a nearby road before throwing rocks and fireworks at police. However, aid workers claim the migrants had been goaded into causing trouble by far-right extremists. Riot officers were then sent to restore order in the camp that has had riots and fires three times in the past month. Thousands of migrants and refugees walk through the port of Piraeus after arriving from the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios in February this year On the island of Lesbos the office of the European asylum agency has also been torched. More than 51,000 migrants are currently stranded in Greece, according to figures from the UNs refugee agency. Around 16,000 are stuck on the islands, even though there is only accommodation for around 8,000 in migrant camps. Chios currently has 4,143 migrants despite having just 1,100 places for them. Lesbos has 6,142 even though its capacity is 3,500. Arrivals on the Greek islands have fallen sharply since the EU signed a 5billion deal with Turkey in March to curb the influx. Under the agreement, Turkey is supposed to take back any newcomers to the islands, however, there are concerns that it could collapse. MEPs will vote on Thursday whether to suspend talks on Turkey becoming an EU member, which could lead to the deal falling apart. A 24-year-old South Dakota man strangled his mother and a 7-year-old boy in a mobile home before slitting their throats, according to prosecutors. Heath Otto, of Sioux Falls, appeared in Minnehaha County court Monday on two counts of first-degree murder. Otto is accused of killing his mother, 48-year-old Carol Simon, and the boy. Scroll down for video Heath Otto is escorted to court in the Minnehaha County Jail on Monday, Sioux Falls, S.D. Prosecutors say he strangled his mother and a 7-year-old boy in a mobile home Otto is accused of killing his mother, 48-year-old Carol Simon, and the boy Authorities say Otto set off an alarm just before 1pm Sunday and was standing outside the home where he also lives when deputies arrived. Minnehaha Co. Sheriff Mike Milstead told KDLT: 'The individual made some comments that, to the officer, were concerning so the officer immediately detained the individual until he could get additional units on the scene.' Deputies found the bodies of the woman and boy inside. Minnehaha Co. Sheriff's Capt. Jason Gearman told the TV station: 'The two were obviously deceased and there's was evidence of possible strangulation and knife wounds.' Video from KSFY Authorities say Otto set off an alarm just before 1pm Sunday and was standing outside the home where he also lives when deputies arrived. Deputies found the bodies of the woman and boy inside Prosecutors say Otto slit the victims' throats to make sure they were dead, The Argus Leader reports. Otto got a steak knife to slit their throats and 'finish the job', Minnehaha County State's Attorney Aaron McGowan said in court, according to KDLT. Authorities have not disclosed the relationship of the boy to the others. Prosecutors say Otto slit the victims' throats to make sure they were dead Gearman told the Argus Leader: 'In a case like this, motive I think is not our priority right now. Further down the road, we may be able to develop something like that.' Both Otto and the victims' families were crying in court on Monday, KSFY reports. Both men were born overseas but were New Zealand how the two male hikers, aged 32 and 39, died It is not yet known Two hikers found dead in Tararua Forest Park, New Two hikers have died in mysterious circumstances in a New Zealand national park over the weekend. Mystery surrounds the death of two men, aged 32 and 39, who were found dead in Tararua Forest Park, north of Wellington, on Monday. A member of the public found the first body at about 10.25am and emergency services discovered the second body nearby at 1pm, the New Zealand Herald reported. Two hikers have died in mysterious circumstances in a New Zealand national park over the weekend (Tararua Forest Park pictured) The pair had headed out on an overnight tramp to Alpha Hut (pictured) from the Waiohine Gorge campsite on Saturday morning, and were due back on Sunday evening The pair had headed out on an overnight trek on Saturday morning, and were due back on Sunday evening, but never returned. Some have speculated that 1080 poison (an air-dropped poison used to control possums and other pests) may have played a part in their deaths, however this has been dispelled by the Department of Conservation. Operations manager for the department Kathy Houkamau said the deaths came as freezing cold temperatures hit the national park. 'I understand that overnight on Saturday it was very cold with the temperatures dropping several degrees below zero,' she told the New Zealand Herald. She said the department had not yet dropped 1080 in the area. Police confirmed the deaths on Monday. 'The men were reported overdue last night at around 7.00pm by a family member,' police said in a statement. Mystery surrounds the death of two men, aged 32 and 39, who were found dead in Tararua Forest Park, north of Wellington, on Monday (stock image) 'The pair had headed out on an overnight tramp to Alpha Hut from the Waiohine Gorge campsite on Saturday morning, and were due back on Sunday evening. 'While weather conditions in the Tararuas were generally good over the weekend, temperatures did fall overnight and police are working to establish what experience the pair had.' Both men were born overseas but were residents of New Zealand. Their family overseas has been notified. shut down after playing just two songs in 15 minutes American hip hop trio De La Soul have come under fire from fans for ending a Sydney show just 15 minutes after taking the stage more than an hour late. The group wrapped up their 2016 Australian tour over the weekend, playing their second-last gig at Sydney's famous Greenwood Hotel on Friday night. But fans were left fuming after the trio, who were scheduled to start performing at 10.30pm, took the stage at 11.45pm and then left at midnight after just two songs. An Instagram video shared by a fan showed a heated dispute erupted between group memeber Maseo and a man presumably responsibly for shutting down the gig as security guards intervened. Promoters have since offered all gig-goers a full refund for the disastrous 15-minute show due - which had to end early to meet council curfew regulations linked to Sydney's controversial lock-out laws. Scroll down for videos American hip hop trio De La Soul (pictured) has come under fire after the group hit the stage more than an hour late before being shut down in just 15 minutes An Instagram video shared by a fan showed a heated dispute erupted between Maseo and a man (left) presumably responsible for shutting down the gig as security guards intervened Daily Mail Australia has contacted Greenwood Hotel for comment. Angry patrons took to social media to vent their frustration at the late start to the gig, especially after many people travelled long distances to be there. 'I came up from Hobart, spend hundreds on airfares for nothing but absolute bulls***,' Isabella Sansom said. 'Sure, ticket refund is nice but how about people in my situation that forked out so much more just to get there. Furious and extremely disappointed.' Luke Whitington posted: 'Any explanation of what happened guys? I travelled two hours to see you, arranged babysitting etc.' 'Blacksmith wrote: 'Been at 2 separate events this last week where @WeAreDeLaSoul were supposed to be headlining - they cancelled both... very disappointing.' And Clare Theophane tweeted: 'In 25 years of gigs, bands, clubbing and festivals I've never been so disappointed in a music event. Unbelievably s***.' Angry fans took to social media to vent their frustration after the gig was shut after 15 minutes De La Soul performing live on stage at Dismaland on September 25 last year in England The venue has issued an apology, confirming a full refund for fans after a disastrous show Many fans have also claimed the night quickly turned violent, with outraged fans hurling chairs and pot plants across the room. 'Unbelievable, gig just got shut down for curfew mid song, tried to complain to manager and got forcibly removed by security guards,' Pearlroy wrote on Instagram. '20 cops who chucked my phone on the ground and threatened to arrest me. Incredibly disproportionate response when we only wanted to boogie. 'Nothing but shame for Greenwood and North Sydney cops for aggressively treating us like crims - oh and big shout out to the lockout laws.' And Peter Davies said on Facebook: 'You may also want to replace the few pot plants that narrowly missed my head.' The group's gig just minutes before it was abruptly shut down due to the venue's curfew laws Kelvin Mercer and David Jude Jolicoeur of De La Soul at a Los Angeles festival in August Kylie C was lucky to see the trio perform in Queensland - a day before the failed gig in Sydney Some defended the performers, as they shifted the blame on the controversial curfew laws that caused the last-minute cancellation. 'They cut the sound at midnight, the venue's curfew,' Ste _4m tweeted. 'Yep, started at 11.47pm, cut off at 12. Not de la. soul's fault,' Luke Whitington said. Stefan Solanki wrote: 'Gig supposed to start at 8:30. Starts at 11:45. Ends at 12:00 because of curfew laws.' '@WeAreDeLaSoul understand it wasn't ur [sic] fault tonight, still gutted I didn't get to see you full flow,' Seb Bown posted. And Kylie C, who managed to see the gig in Queensland, wrote: 'Sounds like we were lucky to have the awesome @WeAreDeLaSoul experience in Brisbane on Thursday night. Sucks to be Sydney.' Some shifted the blame on the venue, claiming the curfew laws were the cause for the delay Greenwood Hotel has since issued an apology, saying they were 'disappointed' by the delays that were out of the venue and its management's control. 'To the many disappointed de la soul fans (us included), we have spoken with the event organisers PSV Touring and Red Bull Music Academy who have assured us that a full refund will be made available. 'Greenwood Hotel also sincerely apologizes. The delays that occurred tonight were in the hands of the promoters. 'However, this reflects poorly on our business, our reputation as a venue and our relationship with our customers and for that we sincerely apologise again.' The promoters have also apologised, claiming the trio's flight was delayed up to five hours due to adverse weather conditions, which led to the failed gig. Advertisement Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, is having her time in the spotlight being mobbed by the press - and public who want selfies with her at Trump Tower. While her boss stayed in his penthouse home at his 664-foot glass tower on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, downstairs was a full-on political carnival as journalists, supporters and wide-eyed gawkers gathered to watch Conway - the first woman to ever run a Republican presidential campaign - held a press conference in the gold plated lobby. Now a Trump transition senior adviser, Conway took it all in her stride as she told the crowd that the billionaire will be a president 'to all of America.' Scroll down for video Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, had time in the spotlight on Monday when she was mobbed again by the press and public at the Trump building Conway, a senior advisor to President-Elect Donald Trump posed for selfies at Trump Tower on November 21 The 49-year-old, who is also the president and CEO of the Polling Company, has been credited with helping the real estate mogul appeal to women despite several setbacks in the form of multiple sexual misconduct allegations against the candidate. While she was passed over for Trump's White House chief of staff, for Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Conway has gained fans for her work in helping get Trump elected. On Monday, in what has become a daily occurrence, she was photographed being mobbed by supporters and pestered for selfies during the event at Trump Tower - and seemed to be loving every minute of the attention. Conway was also there to do what she has done since joining Trump's campaign; to defend him to the press. She told the gathered journalists that concerns that his children will be involved in his business interests, while still advising their father, were unfounded. 'They're going to support their father as president of the United States the way they've always supported his presidential candidacy, and they'll continue to be supportive at the same time,' Conway, who served as Trump's campaign manager, told assembled reporters. 'They'll continue to be wildly successful in the business world.' Conway was named Trump's campaign manager on August 17 - making her the first woman to ever run a Republican presidential campaign The 49-year-old, who is also the president and CEO of the Polling Company, has been credited with helping the real estate mogul appeal to women despite several setbacks in the form of multiple sexual misconduct allegations against the candidate Kellyanne Conway, the former director of President-Elect Donald Trump's campaign, at Trump Tower in Manhattan on November 21, 2016 Conway also spoke out against the reaction to the president-elect's proposals for a Muslim registry. She insists that the plans had been covered unfairly and that Trump's main concern is ensuring there is a solid system in place to vet immigrants from 'countries that tend to train and export and harbor terrorists,' NPR reports. In between her interviews, a grinning Conway was more than happy to pose for pictures with Trump supporters at the tower. While his adviser faced the press, Trump reportedly used his secret meeting with executives from the major television networks and their top on-air talent on Monday to criticize and attack those in attendance. The New York Post spoke with a source who said that the meeting felt 'like a f***ing firing squad,' and described the hour-long discussion as a 'total disaster.' Some of those in attendance also got a 'Trump-style dressing down' according to the source, most notably CNN president Jeff Zucker and ABC's chief global correspondent Martha Raddatz. President-elect Donald Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway poses with tourists for photographs in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York Trump has largely been ensconced in his penthouse home at his 664-foot glass Trump Tower on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue since his win but But downstairs it was a full-on political carnival with crowds of journalists, supporters and wide-eyed gawkers Kellyanne Conway, (C) senior adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump's transition team is surrounded by Trump supporters after talking with the media at Trump Tower on another day of meetings scheduled for the president-elect A second source, who confirmed that there was an encounter between Trump and Zucker, said: 'Trump kept saying, 'We're in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong.' 'He addressed everyone in the room calling the media dishonest, deceitful liars.' This account differs wildly from the one Conway gave to members of the press after she left the meeting, which she said was 'very cordial, very productive, very congenial.' She went on to say that Trump was 'very candid and honest' in the meeting, and said that, on a personal note, it was 'great to hit the reset button' after a 'long, hard-fought campaign.' Conway, who has spent the last three decades advising Republicans on how to appeal to female voters, responded to the story in the Post on Monday evening by saying that Trump did not 'explode in anger,' but did not comment beyond that. Early on Monday, Conway defended her boss' use of Twitter to go after the cast members of Hamilton, who publicly addressed vice president-elect Mike Pence, asking that he 'work on behalf of all of us.' 'But why do you care?' Conway pushed back when CNN's Chris Cuomo asked her this morning if this is how Trump planned to spend his presidency dueling on Twitter. 'In other words, who's to say that he can't do that, make a comment, spend five minutes on a tweet making a comment?' Conway continued. Today Conway, now a Trump transition senior adviser, held a press conference at Trump tower where she insisted that the billionaire will be a president 'to all of America' She also defended the president-elect's handling of his business interests following concerns that his children will be involved in his business interests while still advising their father Conway, who has spoken on behalf of Trump throughout his campaign, also spoke out against the reaction to the president-elect's proposals for a Muslim registry The top aide says the president-elect will continue to use his Twitter account to 'cut through the nonsense' and draw attention to his plan for the country. Trump tweeted nine times this weekend, twice about his transition plans. The other tweets complained about a skit on 'Saturday Night Live,' Sen. Harry Reid and his fraud case with Trump University. President-elect Trump and his transition team are currently in the process of filling cabinet and other high level positions for the new administration. The Republican has been criticized for his failure to hold a press conference after winning the election. Trump hasn't held a news conference since July 27 and has waited longer than any president since Jimmy Carter to hold one after becoming president-elect. Trump released a video today where he laid out his early governing priorities. But he is still relying on advisers such as Conway to field reporters' questions. Conway, a former beauty pageant winner and mother-of-four, first met Trump in 2006, when she was living in one of his buildings and even served on the condo board of the Trump World Tower in Manhattan, the Washington Post reports. In the run up to the latest election, Conway ran a Ted Cruz super PAC, Keep the Promise 1 to raise money in support of the candidate. The PAC later rebranded as Defeat Crooked Hillary. Heavily pregnant women who sleep lying on their backs could be at higher risk of having a stillbirth. Researchers found the position puts more stress on the unborn baby, causing it to reduce its oxygen consumption. The findings could shed more light on why some babies are lost late on in pregnancy around one in 227 births in the UK end in stillbirth. Earlier studies have shown the position mothers lie in affects their babys health but did not reveal how or why. Heavily pregnant women who sleep lying on their backs could be at higher risk of having a stillbirth (file image) Lead researcher Professor Peter Stone, of the University of Auckland, said: Our controlled study found that lying on your back can add extra stress to the baby, contributing to the risk of stillbirth. The risk is likely to be increased further in women with underlying conditions. For the latest research, scientists examined 29 healthy pregnant women in the third trimester and their unborn children. All the women were between 35 and 38 weeks pregnant and were at low risk of complications. Each woman was asked to lie in one of four positions lying flat, lying on their back but propped up by 30 degrees and lying on the left or right side in a randomly allocated order. She remained in each position with one pillow under her head for 30 minutes while researchers monitored heart rates and the activity level of the foetus. Researchers found that when women lay flat on their backs, it caused physiological stress to the baby. In response, it switched to a sleep-like state of lower activity where it consumed less oxygen. Its heart rate was also affected. Babies in the womb were five times more likely to be in this state when mothers were lying flat than when they were lying on their left. Prolonged lack of oxygen could cause health problems or even be fatal for babies, especially those with underlying complications. The studys authors said: Maternal position has a significant relationship with both foetal behavioural state as determined by features of foetal heart rate and its variability The supine position (lying face up) maybe disadvantageous for foetal wellbeing and in compromised pregnancies may be a sufficient stressor to contribute to foetal demise. All the women involved in the study went on to give birth to healthy babies. Prof Stone added: We have only looked at the effect of maternal positions for a short period of time while the mother is awake. Further research is needed to see the effect of staying in certain maternal sleeping positions overnight. The Royal College of Midwives said the research showed position is important for women in their third trimester. Louise Silverton, the RCMs director for midwifery, said: We have known for a long time that blood pressure is reduced where a woman is lying on her back. Many women will say that they dont lie on their backs as they feel funny when they do. Women are advised not to sleep on their backs. Also, it is known that, when in labour, moving a woman to her left hand side may improve the foetal heart rate trace. Louise Silverton, the RCMs director for midwifery, said: We have known for a long time that blood pressure is reduced where a woman is lying on her back' What this study shows that is different is, that even in the healthiest of women with a foetus with no known risk factors, position is important. There is a lesson here for midwives in that we must ensure that we advise women on the best positions for sleep as well as for lying on a sofa. Hannah Knight, from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), said: It is important that women are not unnecessarily alarmed by the results of this small study of 29 women, none of whom had a stillbirth. Instead, it measures the incidence of babies in a sleep-like state, which has little evidence of any association with hypoxia, brain damage or stillbirth. The beleaguered child abuse inquiry faced a new secrecy row last night as it was accused of gagging lawyers from talking to MPs about why they have quit. The Home Affairs Select Committee has requested written evidence from seven lawyers who have resigned from Britains biggest public inquiry. But the Mail has learnt that the barristers have been prevented from speaking out under contractual rules. The inquiry has refused to waive legal privilege, which prevents all communications between a lawyer and their client from being disclosed without the permission of the client, which in this case is the inquiry. The Home Affairs Select Committee has requested written evidence from seven lawyers who have resigned from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. Pictured is Professor Alexis Jay, chair of the inquiry, giving evidence to MPs According to a source, three out of four lawyers who have responded to the committee so far, say they cannot talk about their time there in detail due to legal privilege rules. But one senior barrister Hugh Davies, QC, is said to be so frustrated that he has written a strongly-worded critique of its conduct and his views on how complaints by staff should have been handled. Mr Davies was deputy lead counsel to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse until his resignation in December last year. The committee of MPs is now due to meet later today and is seeking legal advice on the issue which is likely to delay the publication of the crucial evidence until Thursday. Victims groups have reacted with anger to the development, saying they deserve to know the truth after a series of resignations in the wake of toxic allegations of racism, bullying and sexual assault at the inquiry. Andrew Lavery of Whiteflowers Alba said: This is outrageous, we live in a democracy. These lawyers have a duty to victims of sexual violence to tell the truth. Labour MP Lisa Nandy accused the Government of ducking responsibility and using the independence of the inquiry as a smokescreen' This inquiry is rotten to the core. It is anything but open and transparent. It just seems like a black hole swallowing up justice. Yesterday MPs accused the Government of ducking responsibility for a series of scandals engulfing the inquiry, using its independence as a smokescreen. Labour MP Lisa Nandy told the Commons: They have lost seven senior lawyers, three chairs and several survivors groups and it is now impossible to see this inquiry is still effectively operating. This may be the last chance that the Prime Minister and her Home Secretary have to rescue the inquiry that she set up, from collapse. Will she now stop hiding behind the smokescreen of independence (and) recognise that she has responsibility for this inquirys success and get a grip on it? But Home Office minister Sarah Newton insisted the inquirys fourth chair Professor Alexis Jay was the right person for the job, and denied the Government was using the independence of the inquiry as a means to deflect criticism. The future of the 100million probe has been plunged into turmoil after the biggest victims group, the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association (SOSA) announced it was boycotting the inquiry last week, branding it an unpalatable circus and other victims groups have also expressed no faith in Professor Jay. Senior Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who has also called for the chair to be removed, suggested that the 600 victims abused at Shirley Oaks Childrens Home in Lambeth had been treated more like criminals by the inquiry as it claimed victims should be compelled to give evidence. Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott also waded into the row, demanding to know what was the Home Offices involvement in the monitoring and supervision of Lambeth childrens homes during the period when the historic child abuse occurred. She went on: Ministers cannot let this inquiry just run into the sand. The public expects better, this House expects better and the survivors expect better. Miss Newton replied: I can absolutely assure you and every other member in this House that we will absolutely not let this inquiry run into the sand. She said 80 claims of child sexual abuse were being referred to police a week and more than 500 people have come forward to give to the so-called Truth Project, whose accounts are not being verified in any way. Children as young as six are reportedly being paid just 22p an hour to make the toys which are inside Kinder chocolate eggs (pictured) Children as young as six are reportedly being paid just 22p an hour to make the toys for Kinder Eggs. Poor families in Romania are working for 13 hours a day inside their home carefully assembling the tiny fun-size plastic ornaments. According to an investigation by The Sun, a father whose children work to create the toys said it was 'slave labour'. For every 1,000 finished eggs that one family makes, they are reportedly paid 20 Romanian Leu - which equates to just 3.77. The products - made for confectionery giant Ferrero - are then transported to a factory in Carei, northwestern Romania, and sold for 80p. A Kinder whistleblower told Nick Parker at the newspaper: 'If the bosses at Ferrero knew what was going on in Romania they would have a heart attack. 'Ferrero may not be getting what they pay for and middle men somewhere must be making a killing off the back of people being treated like slaves.' The Jurj family is involved in the process. Timea Jurj, 30, her husband Christian, 41, and their children Patrick, 11, and six-year-old Hannah all contribute. Mr Jurj told the paper: 'It's slave labour but what else can you do when you have no choice. When you see the way we live here you must understand why it it is our dream to come to the UK.' A firm called Prolegis - a sub-contractor for Romexa SA - reportedly supply the family with the eggs and plastic parts. Daniel Muresan, area manager for Romexa SA, told the paper he had no idea work was being outsourced. Ferrero said in a statement that it banned the use of children in factories and guaranteed workers the minimum wage. A father from Romania, whose children help make the toys (stock photo) said it was like 'slave labour' It claimed suppliers Romexa and Prolegis passed a strict inspection earlier this year. A spokesman told The Sun: 'We will investigate these new allegations fully in order to ensure that our Code of Conduct is being strictly observed.' The Kinder chocolate eggs originated in 1974 in Italy and they are currently sold all over the world. Lord Neuberger has warned his fellow justices against stepping out of line when the court rules on major cases The President of the Supreme Court has warned his fellow justices against stepping out of line when the court rules on major cases. He delivered the dont break ranks message in advance of the historic hearing next month in which all 11 judges of the court will decide whether the Government must secure Parliamentary approval before triggering Article 50 to leave the EU. Lord Neuberger, who will lead the judges in the case which threatens to prevent Theresa May from freely beginning Britains withdrawal from the EU, told colleagues who may disagree with the court majority that they should keep their views to themselves. He said that rather than making their dissent public, they should go along with the majority opinion. The pressure on colleagues from Lord Neuberger who announced last night that he will stand down from his job next summer provoked fresh concern among MPs worried that the judiciary is openly intervening in political decisions that should remain a matter for elected politicians. Lord Neubergers intervention is the second sensitive public statement to be made by a senior Supreme Court judge in the run-up to the Article 50 hearing next month. It followed a speech made by the courts Deputy President Lady Hale earlier this month, in which she said that a comprehensive reform of EU law may be needed, rather that a short and simple single act of Parliament, before Article 50 can be triggered. Lord Neubergers advice to fellow judges was given two days after Lady Hales speech in a lecture delivered in Edinburgh which did not attract public attention. Lord Neuberger said that rather than making their dissent public, the judges should go along with the majority opinion He spoke about dissenting judgments judicial opinions about court decisions which differ from those of the majority of judges in any case. While some judges may take the rather purist view that it conflicts with their judicial oath, I think there is much to be said for the view that, in some cases where a judge does not feel strongly and where a dissent would add nothing useful, he should go along with the majority opinion. Lord Neuberger said published dissent could damage the reputation of the court. EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE TO RULE ON BREXIT The European Court of Justice is likely to end up ruling on Brexit, its president predicts. Koen Lenaerts told the Financial Times there were many, many different ways Britains departure from the EU could end up before his court. But Mr Lenaerts declined to comment on the specifics of Brexit or speculate how exactly Britains withdrawal could end up before the European Court. Advertisement Tory MP Julian Brazier said: This can be interpreted as a worrying attack on the minority of judges who still see the role of the courts principally as interpreting Parliaments wishes. The Article 50 case next month will be the first in the seven-year history of the Supreme Court to be heard by all the courts judges. There are currently 11, which means the judges cannot be evenly split over their decision. Lord Neubergers decision to stand down opens the way for Lady Hale to become chief of the countrys most powerful court. Advertisement Tech giant Dropbox has redesigned its Sydney headquarters to look like an Australian living room so employees feel like their job is an extension of their home. The restyled office in Martin Place has been fitted with several plants, rugs, comfortable orange lounges, and bookshelves so employees feel cosy in the large, open rooms overlooking the city. It also features an in-house barrister, a chef who caters breakfast and lunch, and a full-stocked bar where employees can enjoy a drink while brainstorming or meeting with a client, according to The Courier Mail. Tech giant Dropbox has redesigned its Sydney headquarters to look and feel like a living room so employees and customers can feel like their job is an extension of their home (pictured) The restyled office in Martin Place has been fitted with several plants, rugs, comfortable orange lounges, and bookshelves so employees feel cosy in the large, open rooms overlooking the city (pictured) It also features an in-house barrister, a chef who caters breakfast and lunch, and a full-stocked bar where employees can enjoy a drink while brainstorming or meeting with a client (pictured) A ping-pong table and television sit in a common area where employees can work or blow off steam (pictured) Staff come into the office in the morning, order a coffee and sit with each other as they eat breakfast, head of Marketing APAC and Japan Deeps De Silva said. 'When people come in to work in the morning, they traditionally go straight to their desk, but everyone comes here and has breakfast together. It's a nice starting point,' Mr De Silva said. They later meet for lunch and enjoy a drink with each other at the end of the day. Friends and family members are often invited to join them on 'whisky Fridays.' Gensler architecture firm designed the office with many open areas for staff to meet up, and private rooms for meetings or calls (pictured) A surf board, yoga mats and large pieces of art depicting Bondi Beach hang on the walls (pictured) Employees can gather to brainstorm in the indoor courtyard, which overlooks Sydney (pictured) 'It's very like an Australian living room,' Mr De Silva said of the inspiration for the office's new design (pictured) 'The hours you spend in the office are significant, and we wanted an environment people feel comfortable in. It's an extension of a home to our customers and our users as well,' Mr De Silva said (pictured) 'It's very like an Australian living room,' he said, according to the Courier Mail. 'The hours you spend in the office are significant, and we wanted an environment people feel comfortable in. It's an extension of a home to our customers and our users as well.' Gensler architecture firm designed the office with many open areas for staff to meet up, and private rooms for meetings or calls. There are also soundproofed chairs in the common areas for privacy if needed. A surf board, yoga mats and large pieces of art depicting Bondi Beach hang on the walls and couches surround two TVs and a PlayStation. Canva, a graphic design software program, was voted best tech company in the country last week by JobAdvisor because of its office culture, which includes trips to Europe for the entire staff, flexible hours, a mediation room, a full-time chef and multiple amenities. A beach scene decorates the top of the office's ping-pong table (pictured) Couches surround two TVs and a PlayStation in a common area near the bar (pictured) There are also soundproofed chairs in the common areas for privacy if needed (pictured) A Perth teenager on a Schoolies trip in Bali has been found with a small bag of white powder at a nightclub. Dramatic footage shows Jamie Murphy, 18, being manhandled by security after he was searched upon entering the Sky Garden nightclub in Kuta on Monday night. The former Ellenbrook Secondary College student could face up to 12 years behind bars and an $800,000 fine if he is convicted for possessing an illicit drug, Denpasar Police said. Police said that he would be held at Denpasar police station for at least three days while forensic and narcotic tests were performed on both him and the substance he was arrested with. Scroll down for video A Perth teenager is forcibly detained by security after he was found with a bag of white powder The school leaver could face up to 12 years behind bars and an $800,000 fine after he was searched entering the club Dramatic footage shows the 18-year-old being manhandled by security at the popular nightspot Inside his bumbag, the club's security allegedly found white powder within a plastic satchel, along with an ATM card and hotel keys. Security were told to bring the teenager to a Kuta police station where he was held in a cell overnight. Police say the teenager was uncooperative and allegedly resisted arrest. As he was was taken to Denpasar Police station for forensic testing he asked: 'What is the fuss?' The man can be heard arguing in the footage 'It's not mine.. what are you doing? It is not mine,' 'This is a f***ing show. I don't do this sh**, I only drink.' However News Corp are reporting the teenager admitted to buying the white powder. Kuta Police Chief Commissioner Wayan Sumara said they have yet to confirm what the white crystal substance is. 'The evidence is still being tested,' he told reporters, saying it may be another three to four days until they know whether they are drugs. Despite this, he said the teenager will remain 'locked up' until any confirmation is received. Police said that he would be held at Denpasar police station for at least three days while forensic and narcotic tests were performed Inside his bumbag, the club's security allegedly found white powder within a plastic satchel The 18-year-old will also undergo urine and blood tests to determine whether he consumed any of it The young man was allegedly caught with the drug after being searched as he entered the Sky Garden nightclub in Kuta 'He (the Australian) said he got it from one of the people on the street,' Chief Sumara told reporters, adding that police suspect it is cocaine or heroin. The 18-year-old will also undergo urine and blood tests to determine whether he consumed any of it. 'We will check with his group whether he is part of schoolies or not.' It's believed the teenager was staying at The One hotel in Legian. Murphy's brother, Liam, told Daily Mail Australia he declined to comment as the family has 'enough to deal with.' A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia they were providing consular assistance to the man. 'The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance to an Australian man arrested in Bali, in accordance with the Consular Services Charter. Due to privacy obligations we are unable to provide further information.' The 18-year-old will also undergo urine and blood tests to determine whether he consumed any of it The man is believed to be on a schoolies trip from Perth and was at a nightclub in Kuta at the time Jamie Murphy was found with a small white bag of powder inside his waist bag Murphy is a member of the Bayswater City Soccer Club, whose president told News Corp Murphy had a number of trials with Perth Glory. 'He's well and truely an athlete,' he Gerry Maio said. Another Nine News video shows local police in Bali conducting regular drug searches on the streets in a bid to clean up the party town of Kuta. The vision shows police pulling over people entering the partying district to do thorough searches of their bags and bodies. A woman on high-range drink driving charges has allegedly plowed into a backyard swing set and kept going with it wedged to the roof of her car. Residents of Logan, south of Brisbane, stopped the driver after noticing the children's playground equipment wedged to the roof of her Honda CR-V early on Saturday morning. The witnesses have told police the 38-year-old driver had lost control of her four-wheel drive and rammed into the swing set about 3am. This Honda CR-V four-wheel drive had a swing set wedged to the roof after a woman allegedly ploughed into a backyard under the influence of alcohol She had a blood alcohol reading of 0.188, which is almost four times the legal limit of 0.05, police allege. Residents stopped her at the corner of Victoria Street and Station Road in the Logan suburb of Woodridge. Sergeant Paul Lehfeldt, the chief inspector of Springwood police station, said it could have been a lot worse. 'Its a confronting picture and one could only imagine what could have happened if it was 3pm with kids playing on the swings instead of 3am,' he said. The Woodridge woman was charged with driving under the influence of liquor and will appear in Beenleigh Magistrates Court on December 6. Sergeant Lehfeldt said police would step up random breath tests in Logan in the lead-up to Christmas. The corner of Victoria Street and Station Road in Woodridge, where residents stopped the female motorist, charged with high-range drink driving on Saturday Dr Alex Wodak (pictured) says alcohol has more of an effect on women than men, which means their blood alcohol concentration rises faster and reaches higher peak levels Dr Alex Wodak, an emeritus consultant at Sydney's St Vincent Hospital, said drink driving women on Australian roads was a problem. 'Yes, it's a matter of real concern,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'Women are more sensitive to alcohol because their body weight is smaller and also women tend to have a higher proportion of their bodies made up of fat... so their blood alcohol concentration rises faster and reaches higher peak levels.' The sister of Salim Mehajer has taken to social media to announce her pregnancy just months after tying the knot in a lavish wedding ceremony. Khadijeh 'Kat' Mehajer married Ibrahim Sakalaki in a spectacular reception at one of Sydney's exclusive venues, surrounded by hundreds of family and friends in August. And this week, the newlyweds couldn't contain their excitement as they revealed on Instagram they are expecting their first child together. '1 + 1 = 3. We are pleased to announce Baby IKS2017,' Mrs Sakalaki wrote on Sunday, along with a loving photograph. Gazing at her husband, Kat appeared to show no signs of a baby bump as Mr Sakalaki placed his hand gently over her stomach. Scroll down for video Kat Mehjarer and her husband Ibrahim Sakalaki announced they are expecting their first child The pair took to social media to announce theyr pregnancy just months after tying the knot The glamorous couple looked more loved up than ever as they smiled for the photo. The pair have received messages of congratulations, with excited loved ones sharing their delight at welcoming a little member into their family. 'Beyond excited. I think this child will have to be my favourite nephew/niece,' Kat's sister Aiisha Mehajer said. Also gushing about the baby was Constance Siaf, who attended the couple's wedding as Salim's rumoured loved interest at the time. 'Omg [oh my god] cannot WAIT,' she wrote on Mr Ibrahim's Instagram page. The controversial former Auburn deputy mayor told Daily Mail Australia he was 'delighted by the news'. 'I know that Kat, as the lovely, smart and confident woman she is, will have no issue handling the challenges that come with being a new mother,' he said. 'I am proud of all her achievement she has completed so far and wish her, her husband and my future niece or nephew all the good graces imaginable.' Salim Mehajer celebrating his sister and brother-in-law's extravagant wedding in August The glamorous couple looked more loved up than ever as they announced the exciting news The pair got married in a spectacular wedding reception at one of Sydney's exclusive venues The newlyweds couldn't contain their excitement when they announced their happy news Mr Mehajer is yet to congratulate the pair publicly on social media but posted a video of himself with a baby just two days ago. 'A child reminds us of three things: To be happy for no reason, To always be busy with something, Get what they want when they want...' he wrote. The baby announcement comes just three months after the pair exchanged their vows in an extravagant ceremony at Sydney's luxurious Doltone House. The nuptials saw Kat dazzle in a $10,000 gown, with an intricately designed wedding cake, showing pink and white roses on each tier. The wedding festivities, which reportedly cost $1 million, kicked off with a fleet of expensive super cars, 20 drummers and two doves entertaining 100 guests. A raging fire fueled by strong winds wiped out an entire block in Trenton, New Jersey early Monday morning, destroying nine row homes and injuring two people. Authorities are unclear how the fire started, but once it did, the fierce morning winds swiftly whipped the flames from one house to another about 3am, until nine were completely destroyed, according to NJ.com. 'This is devastating. The whole street is gone,' resident Anna Budnik, who owned three homes on the block, told the outlet. She is trying to help her renters, one of whom is her sister. The fire started about 3am on Monday but as yet firefighters don't know how it started Because of the wind, the flames spread quickly along the block of row homes Firefighters had to wait until power was cut off because of downed electrical lines Three of the homes on Weinberg Place collapsed. The American Red Cross was helping 28 displaced people from nine families. The six-alarm fire brought firefighters from the surrounding towns as well. It took four hours to bring the blaze under control, reported UPI. It isn't known the extent of the injuries of the two people brought to the hospital, though one had asthma, said the outlet. One resident, Emily Morris, told ABC 6 that it was her nose that first warned her of the blaze. Twenty-eight people from nine families are homeless in the wake of the devastating blaze The block looks bombed out as three homes completely collapsed on Weinberg Place 'I went back to bed, I keep smelling something and when I looked to the window it was my neighbor's house was on fire,' she said. Irina Mikolaenko said she was alerted to the fire when her boyfriend screamed 'Wake up!' and she looked outside and saw a wall of flames. The couple jumped over a fence outside to escape the blaze, causing her to cut her wrist. The driving wind made the fire spread more easily through a crawl space along the roofs of the homes, and more difficult to put out. One woman lost three homes on the block, and she had to help her renters Local businesses have begun collecting food, clothes, and other items for those who lost everything The neighborhood is mostly made up of Polish, Russian, and Eastern European immigrants Additionally, when fire trucks first arrived, there was a delay in responding with the hoses because electrical wires were downed in the street. 'Electricity and water don't mix, so because of that from a safety perspective we had to pull our firefighters back until PSE&G got here to make sure the scene was safe,' Deputy Fire Chief Leonard Carmichael told the outlet. Resident Erini Szatko was just glad his family was alive: 'I good, my life is good. My son, my husband is OK. Nobody, no people, no die.' Neighbors said that there were squatters living in an abandoned home on the block but it is unclear if that had anything to do with the fire. One woman whose home was destroyed, Erini Szatko, said: 'I lost everything. I good - my life is good. My son, my husband is OK. Nobody, no people no die.' The neighborhood is mostly Polish, Russian, and Eastern European immigrants. Officials say a Virginia man, his wife and their two daughters died from gunshot wounds to the head in what has been described as a murder-suicide. The Stafford County Sheriff's Office said 35-year-old Lance Calvin Buckley; 30-year-old Amy Buckley; five-year-old Claire Buckley; and 17-month-old Abigail Buckley were found dead in their Stafford County home last week. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner released the cause of death to local news organizations on Monday. Amy and Lance Buckley were found dead with their two young daughters Claire, five, and Abigail, 17 months, on Thursday in a suspected murder suicide. The family is seen above on Halloween Police discovered the family's bodies on Thursday morning. Mrs Buckley, 30, gave birth to the couple's second child, Abigail, last April Authorities say Lance, his wife, Amy, their 5-year-old daughter, and 17-month-old daughter were found dead inside of a home on Thursday The sheriff's office said in a statement that a man who identified himself as Lance Buckley called 911 Thursday morning and said he wanted to report three murders and a suicide. He then hung up the phone. The sheriff's office said that when deputies arrived at the scene they found the four bodies in the lower level of the home. Mr and Mrs Buckley were living with his parents at their rural home of Stafford with their daughters. His parents were too distraught to speak on Thursday night as were neighbors on the quiet suburban street. Mr Buckley (above last year with his daughters) went missing 11 days after the birth of his second daughter but was found safe and unharmed more than a week later The young family were living with Mr Buckley's parents who were too distraught to speak about their deaths on Thursday Mr and Mrs Buckley welcomed their second child Abigail in April last year, eleven days before Mr Buckley vanished from home. He became the subject of a missing person's appeal after vanishing while on his way to Howard University where he was studying a PhD in microbiology. At the time his wife pleaded for his return, describing him as the 'love of her life'. He was missing for more than a week before being found safely in Maryland. Police would not give details of how the couple and their children died on Thursday afternoon. Mr Buckley, 35, was studying a PhD at Howard University when he disappeared last May. His wife appealed for his return (above) at the time The family were all found dead with their children at the Buckley's family home on Thursday On Friday, Claire Buckley's kindergarten class at Rockhill Elementary School worked on a memorial book dedicated to their former classmate, schools spokeswoman Sherrie Johnson said to Richmond.com. She said the book included drawings and photos, calling it a 'proactive way for them to express their feelings and also to remember her at the same time.' but she appears to still be interested in improving schools She has said repeatedly she doesn't want a role in her father's Ivanka Trump appears to be looking at ways she can help improve schools in the U.S. now that her father is in place to take over the White House. Donald Trump's oldest daughter posted a picture of herself at the Success Academy in Harlem on Instagram Monday night after visiting dozens of schools for her father while on the campaign trail. The picture shows Ivanka wearing a white shirt while talking with children at a table who appear to be coloring. Donald Trump's oldest daughter posted a picture of herself at the Success Academy in Harlem on Instagram Monday night Ivanka visited the school on Friday for a tour with the charter school's leader Eva Moskowitz. On Monday, she wrote this caption asking how her followers think schools could be improved Moskowitz (pictured) was in the running to be the U.S. Secretary of Education but removed herself from the running the day before she gave Ivanka the tour 'I am continuing to learn from great teachers, parents and students about what's working in our school system and classrooms and what's not. 'I visited Success Academy in Harlem last week and am grateful for the many people I met who shared their stories and perspectives. 'I'd love to hear yours, too. What do you think we can improve upon in our schools?' Ivanka wrote. Ivanka visited the school on Friday for a tour with the charter school's leader Eva Moskowitz. Ivanka began touring charter and public schools while her father was still campaigning for the presidency (pictured in New Hampshire earlier this month) At the time she was helping to promote his vision for improved education in the U.S. (pictured in Florida in October) Moskowitz was in the running to be the U.S. Secretary of Education but removed herself from the running the day before she gave Ivanka the tour, according to the New York Post. The charter school leader said she was against Trump and voted for Clinton, but said his pro-charter school stance has helped her relax a bit. Ivanka began touring charter and public schools while her father was still campaigning for the presidency. At the time she was helping to promote his vision for improved education in the U.S. 'For me, one of the great experiences Ive had through this process is an ability to learn. Its been incredibly mind-expanding. Im deeply passionate about education as a parent, but [also] as a citizen,' she told Breitbart News. At the time she toured schools in Massachusetts, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and New Hampshire. Ivanka has said she will not be involved in Trump's administration and will instead run the business mogul's empire but was pictured in a meeting with her father and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe (pictured) Her husband, Jared Kushner, who was also in the meeting, consulted Trump during his campaign and is exploring the idea of being a formal but unpaid adviser in his White House It's not clear why Ivanka chose to visit the school the day after Moskowitz turned down the job in the Trump administration. Ivanka has said she will not be involved in Trump's administration and will instead run the business mogul's empire. However, a picture of Ivanka sitting in on a meeting between her father and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, shows she might be more involved than the family initially let on. Her husband, Jared Kushner, who was also in the meeting, consulted Trump during his campaign and is exploring the idea of being a formal but unpaid adviser in his White House, according to the New York Times. As Ivanka continues to visit schools and ask Americans ways she can help better the education system, it seems she might have some ideas to bring to her father. It's unclear if Ivanka plans to start her own project, if she wants her father's administration to look into reforming schools or if she simply decided to stop by the school to learn more about elementary education (pictured, Monday) More than 1,000 people responded with suggestions to do away with Common Core or recommending a change in the school day schedules. 'Common core and teacher unions need to go away,' one person wrote to Ivanka. Another said: 'Put funding back in the classroom. Trust seasoned teachers to do what they do best. 'Return to supporting teachers by starting in the home. Increase teacher salary to promote seasoned teachers to stay.' Thousands jumped at the chance to give Ivanka their thoughts on how to improve schools in the U.S. Others told Ivanka to study countries like Finland, while another said to abolish standardized testing. A naked man covered head to toe in blood and grime was pepper sprayed by police after he lunged at officers in Melbourne. Victoria Police were called to a street in Clayton, in Melbourne's south-east on Sunday night about 8pm where they found the 30-year-old man. 'On arrival, they found a 30-year-old Bentleigh East man who had severe lacerations to his arms,' a police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia. A naked bloodied man was pepper sprayed by police on a Melbourne street on Sunday Shocking photographs published by Yahoo7 show the unidentified man crouched on the pavement covered in blood. According to the publication the man got out of a car stark naked outside the Boundary Hotel in Bentleigh East. Police said they found him on Cooke and Dunstan Streets in Clayton, where he lunged at officers. Police said they found him on Cooke and Dunstan Streets in Clayton, in the city's south-east, where he lunged at officers 'The man confronted the police members and rushed at them,' the spokeswoman said. He had to be pepper sprayed and was taken to hospital a short time later. The stepfather charged with killing toddler Mason Jet Lee has been denied bail, after a court heard he sent text messages threatening to shoot people with a shotgun. William Andrew O'Sullivan, 36, is accused of inflicting a fatal blow to the Queensland boy's abdomen that ruptured his small intestine, and leaving him to die over several days. O'Sullivan, a former labourer, appeared in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Tuesday charged with the boy's manslaughter. He was denied bail. In rejecting O'Sullivan's bail application, Justice Peter Flanagan said he was concerned about text messages allegedly found on the accused's mobile phone which 'revealed he has threatened to shoot people with a shotgun', the Courier Mail reported. Scroll down for video William Andrew O'Sullivan, 36 (pictured), has been charged with manslaughter over the death of toddler Mason Jet Lee Caboolture, Queensland toddler Mason Jet Lee (pictured) died on June 10, 2016 Justice Flanagan said there was a strong case against O'Sullivan and that he posed a potential risk to witnesses in the case. O'Sullivan's co-accused, Ann Maree Lee - Mason's mother - and Ryan Hodson also face a manslaughter charge on the basis that they failed to get Mason lifesaving medical treatment. The 22-month-old died on June 10 but was not found until a day later 'cold and stiff' at a Caboolture home, north of Brisbane. It is believed the toddler suffered the fatal blow to his stomach between two and four days before he died. It is believed Mason suffered a fatal blow to his stomach between two and four days before he died on June 10, 2016 In the Brisbane Supreme Court (pictured) on Tuesday, O'Sullivan was denied bail Mason had been under his stepfather's care for at least three days to give his mother a break, the court heard. 'On the crown's case it would have been obvious to any caregiver that the deceased would have been in need of medical treatment soon after the injury,' Justice Flanagan said. 'The injury was survivable with suitable medical treatment.' There is allegedly evidence that several people saw Mason looking ill in the days before he died and told O'Sullivan to get him to a hospital. He replied that Mason had puked all over him and that he had 'rubbed his f***ing face in the vomit, he will learn', the court heard. Ambulance and police were called to O'Sullivan's house after a visitor rang triple-zero on June 11, the court was told. Paramedics discovered the tiny boy 'cold and stiff' and concluded he had been dead for some time. Nappies full of blood were also found at the house, the court was told. O'Sullivan, who has a history of offending and drug abuse, was arrested on July 29 and has been in custody since. Chinese nationals, aged 38 and 34, have been charged and refused bail The shipment from Italy was packages in a bid to avoid x-ray detection The drugs were enclosed in lead-lined cylinders and wrapped in aluminium It was found in Port Botany inside a shipment of aluminium sheeting More than 500kg of MDMA, around $60 million, was seized in October More than half a tonne of crystal MDMA worth about $60 million has been seized by police. Two men have been charged after an 'extremely sophisticated' attempt to smuggle the drug into Sydney, police say. More than 500kg of the drug, which equates to about 1.7 million ecstasy tablets, was discovered at Port Botany in October hidden inside a shipment of aluminium sheeting from Italy. In a bid to avoid X-ray detection the drugs were enclosed in lead-lined cylinders inside tightly wrapped rolls of aluminium, Australian Border Force NSW regional commander Tim Fitzgerald said on Tuesday. Some of the 500kg of crystal MDMA was discovered at Port Botany in October More than 500kg of the drug, which equates to around 1.7 million ecstasy tablets and is worth around $60 million was found in the shipment from Italy 'This is a complex concealment and this is an importation that has been organised by international crime syndicates,' Mr Fitzgerald said. After the discovery, Australian Federal Police organised a controlled delivery, which led them to arrest two Chinese nationals and raid several premises including a storage facility in Miranda on Sunday. The men, aged 38 and 34, were a 'significant part' of an importation syndicate and further arrests are expected, AFP acting commander Brett James said. The haul is the fifth largest MDMA seizure in Australia and one of the largest this year, Mr James said. The drugs were tightly wrapped in aluminium and enclosed in lead-lined cylinders to avoid x-ray detection The Australian Federal Police organised a controlled delivery following the discovery which led to the arrest two Chinese nationals 'A significant seizure such as this has a huge impact on the supply of MDMA,' he said. The rise in large-scale drug importation is an ongoing trend and in the past two years police had intercepted 12.5 tonnes of narcotics, Mr Fitzgerald said. 'We are seeing large amounts of drugs attempting to be imported into this country,' he said. Both men have been refused bail and will face Sydney Central Local Court in February. The haul is the fifth largest MDMA seizure in Australia and the largest find this year Matthew Wilkins (pictured) has died after he was struck down with the deadly meningococcal disease An 18-year-old high school student has tragically died after he was struck down with the deadly meningococcal disease. Matthew Wilkins was rushed to Austin Hospital in Melbourne on Saturday morning after contracting the life-threatening illness. But the Year 12 student from Marcellin College died that night after he suffered a range of symptoms, including a severe headache, abdominal pain and vomiting. On Monday, hundreds of fellow students at the boys' Catholic school gathered in the playground to pay tribute to the teenager in an emotional assembly. School principal Mark Murphy said in a statement the staff and students have been saddened by Matthew's sudden death. 'We keep in our prayers Matthew's family, his younger brother James and his many friends,' he said. 'We also keep in our prayers all members of the Marcellin family as they come to terms with the loss of Matthew. In our time of grief and sorrow our community will come together in loving support for each other. Hundreds of fellow students at the boys' Catholic school gathered in the playground to pay tribute to the teenager in an emotional assembly on Monday He described Matthew, who had just finished his final exams two weeks ago, as a 'much loved and respected member of the Marcellin College family'. WHAT IS MENINGOCOCCAL DISEASE? Meningococcal disease is an acute bacterial infection that can cause death within hours if not recognised and treated in time. There are many different forms of meningitis - fungal, viral and bacterial. Bacterial meningitis, also called meningococcal disease, is the most serious form. Symptoms may include a severe headache, fever, fatigue, stiff or painful neck, sensitivity to light or convulsions. Source: Meningococcal Australia Advertisement 'Matthew was a young man who will be remembered by his teachers and classmates as calm and mature,' Mr Murphy said. 'He had a smile for all those he encountered. Matthew was a very diligent student who achieved many academic awards and who always gave of his best to all aspects of his studies. 'He was a person of great humility who never sought the limelight for his achievements and who loved being a student of Marcellin College.' Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services believed Matthew died from meningococcal meningitis as the school is assured there is no risk to students. She told the hairdresser she wanted her hair dyed lighter on the end The social worker said she visited the west Sydney salon on Monday A mother has slammed a hair salon for giving her 'the trailer trash look' after she paid $200 and waited for five hours for a hairstyle she didn't want. Nina Mather, a social worker, took to social media on Monday to complain about a trip to the hair salon that she said went horribly wrong. Ms Mather said she told a hairdresser at a western Sydney salon she wanted a balayage dye technique applied to her hair, which means her hair gradually becomes blonde at the end like it has been bleached by the sun. Nina Mather, a social worker and mum, has slammed a west Sydney salon for giving her 'the trailer trash look' after a cut and colour went terribly wrong (pictured left is the style she requested, right is the outcome) But when she realised the hairdresser's work didn't look like the image she had asked for, and her hair was now brittle and starting to break, Ms Mather said she became upset and refused to pay the $200 bill. An image posted on Facebook shows a distinct blonde dye line around in a circle around the crown of her head. 'I asked for balayage and showed them a photo, then expected to walk out with the finished result,' she wrote on Facebook. 'I complained and said I wouldn't pay, so they tried to fix it with more bleach until I was so upset they called security and the cops.' Ms Mather said she was so embarrassed by the hairstyle she wore a beanie (pictured) to work on Tuesday Ms Mather said she told the hairdresser on Monday she wanted a balayage dye technique applied to her hair Ms Mather said at this point she was 'extremely upset' but the security officers and police were 'very nice and tried to compromise with the owner and manager'. The salon said they would remove $60 from the price but Ms Mather continued to refuse to pay the remaining $200 tally. She said police told her she legally had to pay the bill but could file for a refund to NSW Fair Trading. 'Love the trailer trash look! $200 bucks worth of bottle bleach!' she said on Facebook. 'Worst customer service doesn't even begin. R.I.P my awesome hair.' But when she realised the hairdresser's work (pictured) didn't look like the image she had asked for, Ms Mather said she became upset and refused to pay the $260 bill - but was forced to pay $200 By the time she was finished speaking with police, Ms Mather said she had been at the salon for five hours. 'I have had a consultation with another hairdresser and have been told that my hair needs extensive repair work. The first step of treatment begins tomorrow,' she said. Ms Mather said she was so embarrassed by the ordeal her son offered her his colourful Jamaican beanie to wear to work on Tuesday. 'I was so distressed yesterday, and even this morning, having to display my horrible hair at work. I was crying and my 10-year-old son gave me his favourite Jamaican beanie to make me feel better,' she said. The married father-of-four is being held in jail without bail over the death Investigators believe that the youngster was ' Police found Gerardo Mendoza Ordaz, 42, of Healdsburg, California, standing naked in a police station parking lot, clutching the young girl in his arms A father-of-four has been accused of drowning his four-year-old daughter in a church's baptismal pool. Police found Gerardo Mendoza Ordaz, 42, of Healdsburg, California, standing naked in a police station parking lot, clutching the young girl in his arms. Mendoza's partially-clothed, nine-year-old son, was standing next to him. The distraught father was screaming 'help' and 'police' when officers arrived at around 8.30pm on Sunday. Investigators believe that Ordaz drowned his daughter in the sanctuary pool at Healdsburg's St. John the Baptist Catholic Church before carrying the soaking wet little girl to the local police station. The youngster was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy has been scheduled to determine the cause of death, but investigators believe she was 'intentionally drowned'. Authorities said the church is routinely left unlocked and has a sanctuary pool that is at least a foot deep. Healdsburg Police Department Chief Kevin Burke said police had taken statements from both Ordaz - who lives with his wife and their children - and the suspect's son who were the only people in the church at the time. 'We cannot disclose a motive at this time, but we determined it was not accidental,' Burke told Kron 4. Police also searched the family's home but say they have no records of any domestic violence calls from the address. Investigators believe that Ordaz drowned his daughter in the sanctuary pool at Healdsburg's St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (pictured) before carrying the soaking wet little girl to the local police station Authorities said the church is routinely left unlocked and has a sanctuary pool that is at least a foot deep 'Sunday night there was tragedy in the church; a little girl lost her life,' Fr. Sean Rogers, pastor of the church, said on a statement posted on the Santa Rosa Diocese's website. 'When police finish the investigation we will know more. In the meantime, please pray for the family, and the parish community.' Crime scene investigators with the state department of justice were called to help evaluate the scene for Healdsburg police because of staffing limitations, Healdsburg Police Chief Kevin Burke said. 'It's a very complicated investigation. We've had staffing up all night,' Burke said. 'It's a very challenging and tragic case.' Ordaz was arrested on suspicion of murder and booked Monday morning into the Sonoma County Jail without bail. No mass was held at the church on Monday in the wake of Sunday's tragedy. Either you're somebody, or you ain't nobody,' he wrote online Other inscriptions included LOST ANGEL and 'The world is mine' The word 'MALAVITA' - Italian for 'the bad life' - was inked around his neck Daily Mail Australia has obtained extraordinary pictures of his body art Pasquale Barbaro was last week gunned down in suburban Sydney The blinged-up gangster gunned down on a Sydney street last week called himself the 'Lost Angel' and had the words 'the world is mine' etched across his buttock. Extraordinary new pictures show how Versace-wearing mafia man Pasquale Barbaro covered his body in intricate tattoos in the lead-up to his bloody death. The 35-year-old recently had dollar signs, coins, prison bars and angel feathers inked across his body. His neck was ringed by the Italian word 'MALAVITA' - which literally means 'the evil life'. But, in the end, the evil life caught up with Barbaro. The crime figure was ruthlessly gunned down out about 8.40pm last Monday while leaving the home of a prominent Sydney underworld identity. Scroll down for video Dripping with bling and coated with ink: Intimate pictures obtained by Daily Mail Australia speak volumes about the life Pasquale Barbaro was living before he was gunned down The gangster had the words 'LOST ANGEL' etched across his back and 'MALAVITA' - Italian for 'the bad life' or 'the evil life' ringed around his neck Intricate artwork of prison bars and a devillish-looking man covered the right side of his chest Meantime, the left featured angel feathers, a woman with sumptuous lips and metal barricades Flash clothing: Barbaro is pictured here in a revealing high-end silk shirt with two friends Barbaro tried to run in vain for his life before a hooded gunman executed him with a shot to the head about 9.40pm. Before his death, Barbaro would proudly show off his latest inkings on social media - sometimes suggestively posting shots of his muscular body to impress women. 'See, you are what you are in this world,' he wrote on Instagram. 'Either you're somebody, or you ain't nobody.' In pictures, he was seen partying at strip clubs and dressing himself up in garish gold bling and silk clothing. He has this week been mourned by friends - including his girlfriend who told Daily Mail Australia: 'I am grieving... I'm really sad for his family too'. Barbaro and his family have long been dogged by death. His neck was ringed with the word 'MALAVITA' - Italian for 'the bad life' or 'the evil life' 'THE WORLD IS MINE' was tattooed across his right buttock, photographs show Gold coins, dollar signs and the words 'Lucky You' were splayed across one of his thighs Almost a year before he was killed, he walked away unscathed from a hail of bullets in Leichhardt. Two other men who share Barbaros name - his grandfather and his cousin - suffered the same bloody fate as the heavily-tattooed criminal. Pasquale Peter Barbaro, 58, was stabbed and shot in 1990 as his new wife begged for his life in Brisbane. More than a decade later, Pasquale Little Pat Barbaro was gunned down in a van in 2003 as his children cried in the back seat. NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione has formed Strike Force Osprey to examine eight fatal shootings across Sydney in the past eighteen months. The Education Secretary has made a last-minute plea to governors and school leaders in states that allow student paddling to end the practice. John B. King Jr released a letter today asking leaders to replace corporal punishment with less punitive disciplinary methods that he said work better against bad behavior. He said also said the disciplinary technique would be considered 'criminal assault or battery' against an adult. More than 110,000 students, including disproportionate numbers of black and disabled students, were subjected to paddling or a similar punishment in the 2013-14 school year, said King Education Secretary John B. King Jr released a letter November 22 asking leaders to replace corporal punishment with less punitive, more supportive disciplinary practices that he said work better against bad behavior Corporal punishment is legal in 22 states. 'The practice has been clearly and repeatedly linked to negative health and academic outcomes for students,' King said during a conference call with reporters. 'It is opposed by parent organizations, teachers unions, medical and mental health professionals and civil rights advocates as a wholly inappropriate means of school discipline.' Coming toward the end of Barack Obama's term, the push to end corporal punishment builds on the administration's 'Rethink Discipline' campaign to create safe and supportive school climates, King said. It also lines up with Obama's 'My Brother's Keeper' initiative, meant to address persistent opportunity gaps facing boys and young men of color, he added. Paddles like this are used in 22 states across the US to discipline students for minor infractions Eighty organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, NAACP, Association of University Centers on Disabilities and American Federation of Teachers, signed an open letter released by the National Women's Law Center supporting an end to the practice. Students are regularly paddled for minor or subjective infractions like dress code violations, cellphone use or disrespecting staff, the letter said. 'Corporal punishment of adults has been banned in prisons and in military training facilities, and it's time we do the same for our nation's schoolchildren,' said Fatima Goss Graves of the Women's Law Center. Although its use has been diminishing, there are parts of the country where corporal punishment remains deeply woven into culture and tradition. School administrators say it has broad support from parents and preserves learning time that would be lost to a suspension. President Barack Obama seen here with president-elect Donald Trump. Secretary John B. King Jr wants to outlaw paddling before Obama's term in the White House is up Fifteen states expressly permit corporal punishment: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. In seven states, there is no state law prohibiting it. They are: Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire and South Dakota. 'There are better, smarter ways to achieve safe and supportive school environment,' King said, adding that the education law passed late last year supports using funding for positive intervention and supports. President-elect Donald Trump has not yet announced his choice for education secretary. He met last week with Michelle Rhee, a former chancellor of the District of Columbia schools. George P. Bush III shot a St. Louis police sergeant in the face Sunday night. Bush was killed by police as they converged on him early Monday morning. Bush had been wanted for questioning for several recent crimes Police in St. Louis believe a man who shot a police sergeant in the face was also possibly wanted for murder. Authorities identified the suspect who was killed by officers hours after he fired twice at a sergeant as 19-year-old George P. Bush III. According to the Daily News Bush was afraid of being recognized after being wanted for a string of car-jackings, robberies and possibly a murder. 'We believe he knew he was good for those crimes and that we were looking for him,' Police Chief Sam Dotson said. 'That's why he aggressively attacked a police officer.' The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said sources believe either Bush or associates of his are suspected of having been involved in a number of crimes on Saturday including a car-jacking. After the car-jacking, when a woman's car was found, she had to summon a locksmith. The locksmith was later found burning inside his van after being shot, and set on fire around mid-morning on Saturday. Later that night, the owner of a Ford Focus was shot and wounded in a second car-jacking. It has also emerged Bush was facing charges of resisting arrest when he fled during a traffic stop last year. Bush shot at a 46-year-old officer on Sunday night when his vehicle pulled alongside his SUV. Bush fired two shots that struck him in the face. Chief Dotson called it an 'ambush.' Officers worked through Sunday night and tracked Bush down. A St Louis police sergeant is hospitalized in critical condition after being shot in what police are calling an 'ambush' Police say Bush then began shooting at them after they converged on him around 12.30am Monday. A St. Louis officer and an FBI Task Force officer returned fire, killing the suspect. No officers were hurt in that exchange. Court records show Bush had one previous case on file. He was charged with resisting arrest and creating a substantial risk of serious injury or death in October 2015. But Dotson says he was wanted for questioning for a number of recent violent crimes, including a homicide. Meanwhile the officer who was shot has been released from the hospital. His name has not been released but police say he is a veteran of nearly 20 years with the department and a married father of three. Police say the officer was in his marked police SUV Sunday night, waiting at a red light, when a vehicle pulled alongside and Bush opened fire. After initially fleeing, as police approached the him early Monday, he shot at them. A St. Louis officer and an FBI Task Force officer returned fire, killing Bush. The officer, who has not been identified, was shot twice in the face but was conscious and able to talk after the brutal shooting During the shooting incident, the officer had his window down and said he thought the other car was pulling alongside him to ask a question. St Louis mayor Francis Slay said: 'He was targeted because he was a police officer. He didn't deserve this. It looks like he's going to survive. He's going to be OK. But this is traumatic. It's traumatic for him, his family. It's traumatic for the city of St. Louis. He was just doing his job.' Police Chief Sam Dotson says the 46-year-old officer had been with the force for about 20 years and is a married father-of-three. Authorities say a car drove alongside the officer's marked vehicle before firing at him through his window He said: 'Fortunately for the blessing of God the officer's going to survive.' Dotson said the officer was not involved in a call or a traffic stop but was sitting in traffic when the shooting happened. The sergeant was able to call for help using his radio and was still in his car when backup arrived. The officer told police he heard at least two shots. He never removed his gun from its holster. 'He didn't have time to react to this threat,' Dotson said. Dotson said all officers will be riding in two-person groups for now and they have called in additional resources. The officer has now been released from hospital after being treated for gunshot wounds and is expected to survive Advertisement There was no shortage of laughs as the third day of Schoolies 2016 got into full swing on the Gold Coast. Social media was rife with photographs of teenagers enjoying themselves in a variety of ways as they continued to live it up in Queensland's party central on Tuesday. As usual there were no shortage of beers on show as pictures of the teenagers enjoying themselves flooded the Internet, but it was all good fun as the schoolies let their hair down in style. Scroll down for video Revellers were pictured posing in front of the mirror with friends or drinking poolside in the sunshine With the sun shinning on the Gold Coast many have taken to social media to show off their bikini or tiny but colourful budgie smugglers. Some didn't bother wearing anything at all as the party started to kick in. But the majority of the party-goers showed in their photographs that you could still have a good time without even leaving the comfort of your own room. Some took to their Instagram looking like extras in popular zombie TV series The Waking Dead as a few days partying looked to have taken their toll, but the party was only getting started. Other Schoolies were pictured getting running repairs - not that it was going to stop them making the most of their time together on the Gold Coast. Many schoolies took to social media to share pictures of themselves drinking and enjoying themselves Revellers made the most of their time together to have a laugh and enjoy their time together Some took to their Instagram dressed like extras from popular zombie TV series The Waking Dead to get into the swing of things At one stage it looked like some schoolies had to get running repairs - not that it was going to stop them enjoying themselves There's no doubt that Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast was the place to relax this week Everyone were enjoying the scorching weather and the sunshine in their own way as the week went on Thousands of Australian school leavers woke up on Tuesday with heavy heads and upset stomachs Everyone was enjoying the scorching weather, although some would have needed to put plenty of sun screen on considering the lack of clothes being worn, but it was all good fun. Others were content busking for spare change to afford beer, swigging from goon sacks and cooking fish fingers to soak up the alcohol. Thousands of Australian school leavers woke up on Tuesday with heavy heads and upset stomachs but that has not stopped them continuing to party into Tuesday morning. Some shared images of themselves drinking cheap bagged wine straight from the sack. A young blonde teenager shared an image of herself getting a schoolies tattoo as two young men wearing dark shades took a knee around the oven as they cooked some fish fingers. Police said they were 'generally pleased' with the young revellers behaviour, but there was illegal activity that did not go unnoticed. Officers arrested 11 schoolies on 17 offences, eight of which were relating to drug possession. Seven received liquor infringements notices. With the sun shinning on the Gold Coast Schoolies revellers, many have taken to social media to show off their bikini or tiny but colourful budgie smugglers Thousands of Australian school leavers have woken on day three of Schoolies 2016 with heavy heads and upset stomachs but that has not stopped them continuing the party A man with a boot load full of alcohol gives the thumbs up as he appears to prepare for another big night on the drink A young man flaunts his Southern Cross tattoo in a man-kini that leaves very little to the imagination Another young school leaver whose friends spent almost $600 on alcohol shows off the invoices on social media Four young women pose in front of a picturesque skyline during Schoolies celebrations on the Gold Coast Another shows off her figure in a swimsuit before she has even purchased it - capturing a happy snap in the change room Two young school leavers in dark sunglasses pose with drinks around the oven as they cook some fish fingers A young man faces out at his view of the Gold Coast and holds his arms in the air while showcasing his colourful speedos A man in a colourful floral shirt shows off his 'shot face' and recommends others having a chaser A young blonde woman in denim shorts lays on a black leather seat and flashes a 'shakkas' hand signal as she gets a tattoo Many schoolies groups shared backlit photographs on social media showcasing their silhouettes against a turquoise ocean One young man tucked his shirt in his shorts before striking a pose in front of his view of the Gold Coast from his apartment A group of grinning school leavers pose alongside two cooperative police officers during Schoolies 2016 Two young school leavers pose in front of a police car with the licence plate 'HEAT' at about 2am Another school leaver had a creative idea to make some extra cash to fund his nights out during Schoolies 2016 A couple stroll arm in arm through chaotic scenes on the Gold Coast as thousands of schoolies celebrate the commencement of their studies A young man spruiks the need for safe sex as he holds up a box of condoms during his schoolies celebrations Two scantily clad young women celebrate Schoolies 2016 as one takes a knee and appears to drink from a beer bong A young man wore a sign that states 'the end is near' as revellers started to fill the main strip of Surfers Paradise One group from school leavers posted a table full of empty bottles to social media on day three of Schoolies 2016 A woman not involved in Schoolies posted a friendly note to advise young revellers who keep ringing her door bell One man balances a mate on his shoulders as he takes a swig from a bottle of Jagermeister Two young women use flotation devices in the pool as they have a drink and relax following the commencement of their studies Crowds flocked to the beach to soak up the sun in Byron Bay, New South Wales, amid schoolies celebrations Several young women kneel as they pose for a group photograph in the mirror while they wait for the elevator But it was not just school leavers blowing off steam who faced arrest, with 23 people not involved in the formal celebrations detained. The majority of the 23 arrested faces charges relating to being a public nuisance and drug possession. This comes after a Schoolies reveller risked her life by walking across a ledge on a high rise building. A Snapchat of a young girl who appears to have climbed over her balcony onto a ledge on the high rise Beachcomber building on the Gold Coast emerged online. The stomach-churning video shows a female schoolie in a dress on a ledge, clearly more than five stories up, with her friends filming the action. Some took to social media to share the humorous moments - including one person who found a lone shoe on the main strip of Surfers Paradise following night two of celebrations Young woman on a ledge at The Beachcomber was filmed on Snapchat One of her friends very calmly said, 'This isn't going to be funny when she falls' One of her friends very calmly said, 'This isn't going to be funny when she falls.' Police were aware of the incident but no further action was taken. The dangerous thrill seeking did not impress Dimoty Short from Red Frog. 'There's always going to be that sort of risk taking behavior,' she told 7 News. 'We encourage them as much as possible to keep them locked, they're definitely not a place to muck around on.' The dangerous stunt comes as schoolies kicked-off on Saturday with 13 arrested on the Gold Coast. Police were aware of the incident but no further action was taken Schoolies kicked-off on Saturday with 13 arrested on the Gold Coast Three girls celebrating Schoolies on the Gold Coast on the weekend Schoolie patrons talk across balconies as the celebrations kicked-off on the weekend The son undertook mandatory testing as police launch an investigation The incident occurred on a rural road south east of Dubbo, NSW Emergency services were called but the woman died at the scene A 45-year-old mother was killed after she was struck by her son's vehicle A mother has died after being run over by her son's car. The pair had stopped on the side of the road in Dripstone, south east of Dubbo, NSW, at 7.10am on Monday, when the fatal incident occurred. The 45-year-old woman was standing outside her vehicle when her 25-year-old son's car when hit her. A 45-year-old mother has been killed after she was struck by her 25-year-old son's car on the side of the road in Dripstone, south east of Dubbo, NSW Emergency services were called but the woman died at the scene and n o one else was injured during the incident. It is not yet known whether the son was behind the wheel of his car or standing outside the vehicle at the time of the accident. Officers from Orana Local Area Command attended and commenced an investigation. The driver of the second vehicle was taken to hospital for mandatory testing. The circumstances surrounding the accident are still unknown and the son's vehicle has been seized for examination. A report will be prepared for the Coroner. Yesenia Sesmas, 34 (pictured), of Dallas has been charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping for allegedly killing an acquaintance and abducting her newborn baby The woman accused of killing a Kansas woman and stealing her baby says in a jailhouse interview that the woman had agreed to give her the child but backed out of the deal at the last moment. In a television interview in Spanish, Yesenia Sesmas told KUVN-TV of Dallas-Fort Worth that Laura Abarca-Nogueda had agreed to turn over her newborn daughter to her but reneged on the agreement. In the interview in the Dallas County jail, the 34-year-old Dallas woman admitted that she killed Abarca-Nogueda but said she did not mean to. She said she threatened Abarca-Nogueda with a gun when it discharged accidentally. Police in Wichita, Kansas, say Sesmas faked being pregnant for months and had been a longtime acquaintance of the 27-year-old mother, who was found dead Thursday at her home in Wichita. Sesmas was jailed in Dallas on a Kansas warrant, with first-degree murder and kidnapping charges pending, and Kansas authorities are seeking her extradition. The baby, named Sophia, who was six days old at the time of her disappearance, was reunited with family members in Kansas on Saturday. Police say 34-year-old Sesmas faked a pregnancy for months and then traveled to Wichita on Thursday to murder Abarca-Nogueda, 27. She then stole the woman's one-week old daughter and took her back to Texas to pass as her own. Police tracked down Sesmas and arrested her early Saturday morning at the Dallas home she shares with her boyfriend, son and niece. The baby was there too, unharmed. Police believe the other people in the home were unaware of Sesmas' alleged plans. She was booked in jail and is expected to be charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping. Police say that Sesmas knew her victim, 27-year-old Laura Abarca-Nogueda (pictured with her baby girl), for years Baby Sophia is now in the care of her family members, after being found safe at Sesmas' Dallas residence Sesmas had known the baby's mother for years and had spent some time in Wichita before returning to Texas to live several months ago, Wichita police Lt. Todd Ojile said. However, he did not elaborate on their relationship. Sesmas was from Texas, but had lived in Wichita for a while. The FBI joined in the investigation with 25 agents working on the case, Ojile said. Late Friday night investigators identified a suspect in the case, leading them to a house in Dallas where the baby was found unharmed after a swat team executed a search warrant at 4.30am Saturday. Law enforcement received a tip about 4.30am Saturday that Sophia (pictured) was in Dallas and served a search warrant, Ramsay said The products are scored based on their appearance, texture and taste Group of journalists and consumers score food at Aldi warehouse Sydney Aldi scores higher in three out of four arenas including wine and cheese Aldi has put its products to the test, in an attempt to prove it has what it takes to beat Australia's supermarket big boys Coles, Woolworths, IGA and other competitors. Aldi lined up a selection of its products and pit them against market leading brands on Tuesday to be sampled by journalists based on appearance, texture and taste. Daily Mail Australia was invited to participate in the blind taste test at Aldi's testing facilities to understand how the company decides what stays and what goes. Aldi products were cheaper and overwhelmingly beat competitor products from competitor supermarkets - scoring better results in three out of four arenas. It's wine, pre-prepared meals, cheese and crackers all scored well above competitor products, but its desserts failed to impress, scoring below competitor products. Scroll down for video Aldi has put its products to the test, in a brave attempt to prove it has what it takes to beat the big boys, Coles, Woolworths, IGA and more Daily Mail agreed Aldi's Cheddar cheese boasted a richer flavour, and its flat bread a better texture While testers were not physically blindfolded, products were presented without their packaging or any identifying features to ensure the process was not in any way biased. Without brand names leading testers astray and muddying the waters, the results showed the German supermarket far ahead of the pack. Aldi products emerged as the clear winners in the first of the four; the cheese and cracker table. Aldi blitzed the competition, taking the lead in five out of the six products including cheddar cheese Aldi's flatbread (left) took out the win when compared to the brand leader: Woolworths Tuckers Caramelised Onion Lavosh Crackers (right) Cheese and crackers: Cheddar Cheese Aldi product: Emporium Selection Aged Cheddar $3.99 Brand leader: Cracker Barrel Extra Sharp 20 Month $6.50, sold at Woolworths What group found: Aldi 1st, competitor 2nd What Daily Mail Australia found: Daily Mail found Aldi's Cheddar cheese boasted a richer flavour. Daily Mail Australia reporter Kate Darvall thought Aldi's flat bread product scored higher than its competitor Camembert Cheese Aldi product: Emporium Selection Camembert $2.79 Brand leaders: Tasmanian Heritage Camembert $5 sold at Coles, Unicorn Camembert Brie Cheese $4 sold at Woolworths What group found: Unicorn 1st, Aldi 2nd, Tasmanian Heritage 3rd What Daily Mail Australia found: Unicorn Camembert Brie Cheese sold at Woolworths boasted a more mature flavour than the Aldi product. Appearance was not factored in because they all looked similar. Feta Cheese Aldi product: Emporium Selection Persian Feta $3.99 Brand leader: Yarra Valley Persian Fetta $7.99 sold at Coles, South Cape Classic Persian Fetta $9.30 sold at Woolworths What group found: Aldi 1st, South Cape Classic Persian Fetta 2nd, Yarra Valley Persian Fetta 3rd What Daily Mail Australia found: The South Cape Classic Persian Fetta, which was bought from Woolworths, scored best in our books. The peppercorn, which Aldi did not feature in its product, gave its competitor a greater depth of flavour - and spicy aftertaste. Guacamole Aldi product: Deli Originals Guacamole Dip $1.89 Brand leader: Black Swan Guacamole Dip $4, sold at Woolworths What group found: Aldi 1st, competitor 2nd What Daily Mail Australia found: Daily Mail Australia found Aldi offered a far better product, with more ingredients, less preservatives and a more natural taste. Aldi claimed the only reason their camembert product came second was due to the cheese sample's age Aldi's product had not reached the maturity the Unicorn product had Flat bread Aldi product: Specially Selected Lavosh Flatbread $2.99 Brand leader: Tuckers Caramelised Onion Lavosh Crackers $3.99, sold at Woolworths What group found: Aldi 1st, competitor 2nd What Daily Mail Australia found: It was a clean victory, Aldi's product offered a richer taste, and a better looking flat bread compared to its competitor. Water crackers Aldi product: Damora Fine Wafer Cracker Natural $1.79 Brand leader: Water Thins Fine Wafer Cracker Natural $3.19, sold at Woolworths What group found: Aldi 1st, competitor 2nd What Daily Mail Australia found: Both water crackers looked the same neither offered much in the way of taste either. Therefore it was difficult to compare the two products. Both water crackers looked the same neither offered much in the way of taste either. Therefore it was difficult to compare the two products Cheese and crackers overview: Aldi blitzed the competition, taking the lead in five out of the six products, only losing out in the Camembert cheese blind taste test. But the company claimed the only reason their Camembert cheese product came in second was due to the cheese sample's age Aldi's product had not reached the maturity the winning product had. Market leading products Moet (left) and Duperret (right) both scored higher than Aldi's Monsigny (centre) Champagne, red and white wine: Chapagne: Aldi product: Monsigny Champagne $29.99 Brand leaders: Moet & Chandon Brut Champagne Non Vintage $40 sold at First Choice Liquor, Duperrey Premier $35 sold at Dan Murphy's What group found: Duperrey Premier 1st, Moet & Chandon 2nd, Aldi 3rd What Daily Mail Australia found: The Moet was by far the best out of the three products. The taste was smoother, lighter and lingered nicely. The Moet was by far the best out of the three products. The taste was smoother, lighter and lingered nicely Red: Aldi product: Blackstone Paddock 'The Player' Barossa Shiraz $12.99 Brand leaders: Pepperjack Barossa Shiraz $17 sold at First Choice Liquor, Jacobs Creek $17.80 sold at Dan Murphy's What group found: Aldi 1st, Pepperjack Barossa Shiraz 2nd, Jacobs Creek 3rd What Daily Mail Australia found: The Jacobs Creek took the lead out of the three products. The Aldi Shiraz was rich and beautifully strong, but also a little harsh. It still wouldn't dissuade me from choosing it to pair with a nice meal. The Aldi Shiraz was rich and beautifully strong, but a little harsh also. It wouldn't dissuade me from choosing it to pair with a nice meal though Riesling: Aldi product: Peter Mertes Mosel $7.99 Brand leaders: Dr Loosen $22 sold at First Choice Liquor, Dr Loosen Blue Slate $18.99 sold at Dan Murphy's What group found: Aldi 1st, Dr Loosen Blue Slate 2nd, Dr Loosen 3rd What Daily Mail Australia found: Found Aldi's Peter Mertes Mosel boasted a crisp and unique taste. Aldi's Shiraz at $12.99 beat Jacobs Creek at $17, and Pepper Jack also at $17 Wine overview: It wasn't hard to persuade the group away from the cheese table and towards the wine. While some sipped the wines and spat them back out, Daily Mail Australia thought the aftertaste of a good wine was just as important as the initial taste and went against the grain. And the decision to swallow the wine well and truly aided in the wine tasting experience. With three champagnes on the table, Aldi quickly fell from its pedestal, ranking third out of the three. Unbeknownst to the testers at the time, the three products were Moet at $55, Duperrey at $35 and Aldi's own Monsigny at $29.99. WHICH PRODUCTS WON IN THE BLIND TASTE TESTING? Winning Aldi products Emporium Selection Persian Feta Emporium Selection Aged Cheddar Deli Originals Guacamole Dip Specially Selected Lavosh Flatbread Damora Fine Wafer Cracker Natural Farmwood Chicken Breast Tenders Ocean Royale Frozen Salmon Fillets Blackstone Paddock Barossa Shiraz Peter Mertes Mosel Riesling Moser Roth Dark chocolate Winning products from Aldi's competitors ... Winning products which were bought at Coles: La Fournee Doree Marble Choc Brioche Winning products which were bought from Woolworths: Unicorn Camembert Brie Cheese Gippsland Organic Vanilla Yoghurt Winning products bought from Dan Murphy's: Duperrey Premier Cru Brut Champagne Non Vintage Advertisement The Jacobs Creek took the lead out of the three products, according to Daily Mail Australia Moet ranked number one, followed by Duperrey and Aldi's own champagne came in in last place Moet ranked number one, followed by Duperrey, and Aldi's own champagne which came in last place, which Aldi said was a surprise based on previous blind taste test results. 'Typically Aldi comes in first or in even with the others,' a spokesman said. But Aldi climbed its way back up the ladder with its Riesling and Shiraz products, taking out first place in both categories, based on appearance, texture and taste. Aldi's Riesling and Shiraz were voted best in their class, despite the fact they were the cheapest by far. Aldi's white wine cost just $7.99 but beat out its comparison products priced at $19 and $22 respectively. Similarly, Aldi's Shiraz at $12.99 beat Jacobs Creek at $17, and Pepper Jack also at $17. And with some prices skating in under $10, Aldi's products mean Christmas need not break the budget. Aldi's chicken product beat market leaders Inghams and Steggles, products which also boasted a much higher price tag Pre-prepared meals: Chicken: Aldi: Farmwood Frozen Chicken Breast $3.69 Brand leader: Inghams Tenders $7.99 and Steggles Tenders $7.80 sold at Woolworths What group found: Aldi 1st, Steggles 2nd, Inghams Tenders 3rd What Daily Mail Australia found: All pre-prepared chicken meals tasted very similar, but Aldi's was not as packed with preservatives as the others, and that definitely gives it a leg up. Salmon: Aldi: Ocean Royale Premium Frozen Salmon Fillets $6.49 Brand leader: Bird's Eye Salmon $9.99 What group found: Aldi 1st, Bird's Eye 2nd What Daily Mail Australia found: Aldi's product offered a richer taste and a fuller piece of salmon. Price was another focus Aldi implored its testers to consider, even though price didn't factor into the test results Aldi once again found it difficult to hold its lead when the test moved away from the wine and onto the pre-prepared meal; chicken and salmon in a box Pre-prepared meal overview: Aldi bounced back into first place when the testing moved onto the pre-prepared meal table. Aldi's chicken product beat market leaders Inghams and Steggles, products which also boasted a much higher price tag. Aldi's product at $3.69 scored higher than Ingam at $7.99 and Steggles at $7.80 a box. Price was another focus Aldi implored its testers to consider, even though price didn't factor into the test results. After Aldi won the blind taste test, a spokeswoman said the product also offered legitimate chicken pieces as opposed to its competitors which offered chicken formed with proteins to fill out the product. The taste test included three dark chocolates from Cadbury (left), Lindt (centre) and Aldi (right) The products were very similar, but the Brioche differed slightly - testers were asked to compare chocolate with vanilla flavoured products The texture, and thickness of the chocolate pieces made all the difference Desserts: Yoghurt: Aldi product: Just Organic Vanilla Bean Yoghurt $5.49 Brand leaders: Five: AM Organic Vanilla Bean Yoghurt $7 sold at Coles, Gippsland Organic Vanilla Yoghurt $6.99 sold at Woolworths What group found: Gippsland Organic Vanilla Yoghurt 1st, Five: AM Organic Vanilla Bean Yoghurt 2nd, Aldi 3rd What Daily Mail Australia found: Aldi's was the tastiest, but wasn't as thick and creamy in texture when pitted against its competitors. Aldi's yoghurt was the tastiest, but wasn't as thick and creamy in texture when pitted against its competitors Brioche Aldi product: Bon Appetite French Marble Brioche $4.49 Brand leader: La Fournee Doree Marble Choc Brioche $6.99, bought from Coles for the blind taste test What group found: La Fournee Doree Marble Choc Brioche 1st, Aldi 2nd What Daily Mail Australia found: Aldi's product took the cake. It was lighter, tasted fresher, and offered a richer overall flavour compared to its competitor. Dark chocolate: Aldi product: Moser Roth Dark $2.79 Brand leaders: Lindt Dark $4.25 bought from Coles, Cadbury Old Gold $5 bought from Woolworths What group found: Aldi 1st, Lindt 2nd, Cadbury 3rd What Daily Mail Australia found: The Cadbury product won this round for me. But the texture, and thickness of the chocolate made all the difference and helped to crush its thinner-cut competitors. The Cadbury chocolate was far thicker than its Aldi and Lindt counterparts Dessert overview: Aldi's scores again plummeted when the test moved across to the dessert table but picked up again soon after. Aldi's vanilla yoghurt came dead last after its product counterparts. And Aldi's brioche also paled in comparison to the brioche bought at Coles in the group results. But Aldi said the results were potentially bias due to the differing flavours the competitor's being chocolate and Aldi's being vanilla. But Aldi finished on a high note when it brought out its dark chocolate product. Aldi's dark chocolate beat out some of the biggest competitors in the market, scoring higher than both Lindt and Cadbury. Aldi's blind taste testing was conducted at its facility in western Sydney on Tuesday Conclusion: Regardless of the results, positive or not, a spokesman for Aldi Australia said the company prided itself on its blind taste testing procedures. He said the process wiped out consumer affiliation with leading brands and allowed them to make decisions based on quality and taste. 'Sometimes consumers focus on brand names and affiliation rather than quality,' a spokesman said. And while Tuesday's blind test results largely favoured Aldi products, it must also be taken into account that the testing was hosted by Aldi, in an Aldi facility, and all results were compiled by Aldi staff based on information handed to them by reporters. The procedure was also condensed, highlighting only about 14 of the company's 1400 core range products. A bill that would have could have seen child-sex convictions overturned if rapists married their victims has been withdrawn following a huge public backlash. The proposed law in Turkey would allowed convicted sex attackers to be freed from prison. Large huge crowds took to the streets in capital Ankara to protest the bill, which critics said would legitimise rape. The bill, which would have seen sex offenders freed if they married their victims, was withdrawn following a huge public backlash in Turkey The country's Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, said today that the bill was being withdrawn following the outcry. If the bill had passed, it would have permitted the release from prison of men guilty of assaulting a minor if the act was committed without 'force, threat, or any other restriction on consent' and if the aggressor 'marries the victim'. Yildirim said at a news conference in Istanbul: 'We are taking this bill in the parliament back to the commission in order to allow for the broad consensus the president requested, and to give time for the opposition parties to develop their proposals. Campaigners took to the streets to protest the controversial measure, proposed by the Turkish government 'This commission will evaluate and take into account all sides and surely a solution will be found.' President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called for a compromise to be found on the bill, which was expected to be put in front of parliament today after it was approved at an initial reading on Thursday. Opposition parties from across the political spectrum had heavily criticised the bill. The bill has been heavily criticised across the political spectrum, with activists saying it would be difficult to prove what constituted consent Thousands of people called for the bill to be withdrawn in angry protests over the weekend, and the withdrawal of the bill marks a rare concession to popular opposition by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) had called for the bill to be withdrawn, and has vowed to go to the constitutional court to block it. But the Turkish government has insisted it was trying to help families in which the men involved were not rapists or sexual aggressors, and who were unaware of the law. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim (centre) announced today that the bill - which was expected to be discussed in parliament today - had been withdrawn The legal age of consent in Turkey is 18, but child marriage is widespread, especially in the southeast. Yildirim today insisted that the proposals sought to rectify the situation for 3,800 families who 'are forced to grow up without the love of their father' - usually because they are in prison - and 'paying for the mistakes of their mothers and fathers'. As well as opposition activists, the bill had also met with criticism from the pro-government Women's and Democracy Association (KADEM), whose deputy chairman is Erdogan's younger daughter Sumeyye Erdogan Bayraktar. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called for a compromise to be found on the bill, which was expected to be put in front of parliament today after it was approved at an initial reading on Thursday It said in a statement on Friday that one of the bill's biggest problems would be proving legally what constituted force or consent. Campaigners have long accused the government of failing to do enough to stamp out child marriage and of paying more attention to pushing up the birth rate. Erdogan in June this year urged women to have at least three children and once described birth control as treason. The Prime Minister had said on Friday: 'There are those who got married under age. They don't know the law, then they have kids, the father goes to jail and the children are alone with their mother.' He said this left families 'broken'. 'If there would be marriages like this from now on, they will in no way be tolerated,' he said, adding an estimated 3,000 families would be affected by the proposal and that the legislation would only be applied retrospectively. But the Turkish government has insisted it was trying to help families (file photo of car adorned in the red banner of the far-right Great Unity Party) Opponents to the proposal including lawmakers, dozens of rights groups, women's associations and child NGOs swiftly condemned the legislation, saying it was a normalisation of underage marriage. 'Sexual abuse is a crime and there is no consent in it. This is what the AK Party fails to understand,' Ozgur Ozel, a senior lawmaker with the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) told a press conference. 'Seeking the consent of a child is something that universal law does not provide for.' A group of Islamists did not break the law when they formed 'sharia police' street patrols, telling people to stop drinking, gambling and listening to music, a German court has ruled. The ultra-conservative group, formed by German convert Sven Lau, sparked outrage in 2014 when it held patrols in the western city of Wuppertal in 2014. They wore orange vests bearing the words 'Sharia Police'. Islamist preacher Sven Lau led the ultra-conservative group, which wore orange vests wearing the words Sharia Police But prosecutors at the city's district court could not prove that seven accused members had broken the law. A ban on political uniforms would only be breached if the outfits worn were 'suggestively militant or intimidating' - but court officials ruled they were not threatening, and that one witness thought the men were part of a batchelor party. The same court had already thrown out the case last year, but was overruled on appeal by a higher court, which agreed with prosecutors that the ban on uniforms could be applied in this case. The court ruled the vests, like the one shown in this image, did not break laws governing wearing political uniforms Monday's verdict is not yet final and may still be appealed. The 'sharia police' members walked the streets of Wuppertal in September 2014, telling nightclub-goers to refrain from drinking alcohol and listening to music, and arcade customers not to play games for money. Lau, the organiser, is one of Germany's most controversial and best known Islamist preachers. He is currently on trial in a separate case on charges of backing 'a terrorist group' fighting in Syria. Footage was filmed two years ago and the father is still emotional had got injured in an accident and her health had deteriorated They say dogs are a man's best friend. What would you do when you have to bid farewell to them? This video captures the heart-breaking moment when a five-year-old boy had to say goodbye to his beloved pet before she was going to be put down. The family, from Taiwan, came to the painful decision after their 17-year-old dog, named Baobao, had got seriously injured during a traffic accident and had suffered from poor health. Five-year-old JD, from Taiwan, had to bid farewell to his pet before she was to be put down The five year-old sat next to his pet Baobao at the vet before the dog received euthanasia The video was uploaded by the boy's father, who prefers to be known as M13, to YouTube in July 2014, and it became popular again on the Chinese media this week. On its YouTube page, the video has gathered 1,145,472 clicks as of writing. According to the father's descriptions on YouTube, he enjoyed taking Baobao on scooter rides. The pair had travelled some 200,000 km (124,274 miles) together. However, their journey came to a sudden end when Baobao got wounded after falling off the scooter by accident in July 2014. A passing vehicle ran over the dog's back, leaving her injured in the pelvis. JD, who was five years old at the time, cried helplessly on the floor upon hearing the sad news The father said JD still cried seeing Baobao's photo in the first few weeks after her passing away The family took Baobao to the veterinarian for a physical check-up. They were told that the dog had to receive extensive surgery. However, the doctors could not guarantee that she would be able to walk again. The man, who is Canadian and runs a bike store in Taiwan, wrote in his post that Baobao's health had already been deteriorating prior to the accident. The dog suffered from a substantial loss in her hearing and vision, in addition to bladder control problems. Given Baobao's poor health and living conditions, the family had made a painful decision to euthanise their long-term pet. The boy's father had decided to put down their pet to prevent her from suffering further The child was devastated upon hearing the news and burst into tears at the clinic in Taiwan The boy, named JD, grew up with Baobao. He was devastated to hearing the news and burst into tears at the clinic. The video shows JD, who was five years old at the time, crying helplessly on the floor. The teary-eyed boy then asked his father: 'Do you know what I said to Baobao?' 'What?' The father replied. 'I said goodbye,' the boy raised his right hand as if he was waving. He kept weeping while patting on the head of Baobao. Baobao was lying on the floor quietly. The father went on to explain Baobao's situation and the reasons to euthanise her to JD. He said: 'If she undergoes surgery, she will hurt. She will, everyday, hurt. And maybe she can't walk.' The boy nodded his head in understanding. The father also patted on his injured dog, who had been run over by a vehicle and got injured The clip became popular on Chinese social media platforms this week after Chinese subtitles had been added to the footage. It attracted 8.6 million clicks in one day on China's video-sharing platform Miaopai. Thousands of Chinese people expressed their opinions on the family's decision to put down the animals. One user said: 'It was 17 years old, such an old dog. Euthanasia was indeed a good option.' Another one argued: 'Maybe the dog wanted to live longer. She could still accompany the child even if she could not walk.' A third user pointed out: 'There were also tears in the dog's eyes. She understood the situation.' A forth one wrote: 'I don't dare to keep dogs after watching this video.' JD's father told MailOnline today: 'My son bounced back rather quickly. He cried a few weeks later when he saw a photo [of Baobao]. 'I cried every day for a couple of weeks. I rode my scooter with her ashes and talked to her for a day after receiving the ashes.' More than two years on, the man was still emotional at the thought of his late pet. He added: 'I just re-watched the video now and I cried' He recently uploaded a video of him saying goodbye to Baobao to YouTube. Prior to the accident, the dog had suffered from a substantial loss in her hearing and vision The pure friendship between JD and Baobao, as displayed in the video, has also moved staff from animal welfare groups. Wendy Higgins from Humane Society International told MailOnline: ' Children have a very honest relationship with animals, especially those animals such as dogs and cats with whom they share their homes. 'They tend to be far less inhibited about expressing their love and compassion for animals, something that sadly we often lose touch with as we grow older.' Ms Higgins added: 'Saying goodbye to a family companion is one of the hardest things imaginable, whatever the circumstances, and it's clear from the video that the grief and loss this little boy felt was very raw.' Considering Baobao's suffering, the family had made a painful decision to put her down. The dog was later cremated and her ashes was sent to the family Elisa Allen, Director at PETA UK, told MailOnline: 'This dog was fortunate to be surrounded by a loving family, who helped him to pass peacefully and painlessly when there was only suffering ahead of him. ' PETA UK also urged people who were moved by the video to think about the equally lovable animals languishing in shelters waiting to be enthanised 'not because they're sick but because there aren't enough homes for them'. Estonian who authored report says it is NOT setting up a parallel EU army Urmas Paet says Putin's aggression plays up to 'Soviet nostalgia' in Russia MEP behind report says Donald Trump 'absolutely right' on Nato funding Britain WOULD be able to opt out of the project and not pay towards it The European Parliament has voted in favour of plans which would cut through red tape and allow NATO forces to be deployed quicker in the event of a crisis and bolster defences against Russian aggression in eastern Europe. A resolution which was debated in Strasbourg last night would also allow for the EU to 'act where NATO is unwilling to do so'. It was passed today with 369 votes in favour and 255 against, with 70 abstentions. The debate in Strasbourg comes in the wake of Donald Trump's election as US President and amid fears among European leaders that the President-Elect will reach an agreement with Vladimir Putin which could leave some EU countries vulnerable. Trump has also said other Nato countries need to pay more for their own defence. Scroll down for video A Finnish Army Scorpion armoured vehicle carries the EU flag on it during exercises on Salisbury Plain in Britain earlier this year. The EU Battle Group was formed in 2007 but has never been deployed But Urmas Paet, the Estonian MEP who put together the resolution said it did not recommend an 'EU Army' and insisted it was not a 'parallel structure' to NATO. He told Mail Online: 'Trump is right. At the moment 75 percent of Nato expenses are paid by the US. It needs to be absolutely fair. Europe must do much more for its own defence.' Putin is encouraging Russian nationalism and Soviet nostalgia Urmas Paet MEP His draft resolution said: 'The EU should tackle deteriorating security in and around Europe by helping its armed forces to work together better, as a first step in building a common defence policy.' Mr Paet, whose country has a sizeable ethnic Russian minority, said Putin's aggression stemmed from his desire to regain the influence in eastern Europe which the Soviet Union had up until the early 1990s. He said: 'Putin is encouraging Russian nationalism and Soviet nostalgia.' Urmas Paet (pictured, left, greeting President Obama in Estonia in 2014) says Donald Trump is right when he says other countries need to stump up more money to support Nato Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, is said to want to create a European 'superpower'. But Mr Paet said: 'This is not about creating an EU Army. That is wrong. It's impossible. It would need changes to the Lisbon Treaty. The idea of an EU Army is floated by those who don't want any co-operation. It's not a European Army. It's about giving added value to NATO.' The resolution recommends radically overhauling the EU's Common Security and Defence policy to assert the EUs 'strategic autonomy'. But a European Parliament spokesman pointed out: 'The resolution stresses that NATO must continue to be the backbone of collective defence in Europe and that any defence union must be agreed to by all EU countries.' Donald Trump (pictured) has pledged to cut spending on Nato and his isolationist approach to foreign policy has got many European leaders worried He went on to say: 'This is about pooling resources and joint defense procurement, rather than about setting up a European army.' In a separate development MEPs want a joint defence research programme with an annual budget of 500 million euros (420million), starting from 2021. The EU Battle Group, or rapid reaction force, has been operational since 2007, but has never been used. It could only be deployed with the unanimous agreement of all 28 EU member states. A soldier of the European Union Force in the Central African Republic patrols a street in Bangui in 2014. Mr Paet said there were some occasions when it was better for soldiers to operate under a EU flag than under NATO Mr Paet said there are occasions when armed forces might want to fly the EU flag, rather than the NATO standard. He pointed out recent French-led operations in the Central African Republic and Mali. But his report was criticised by Sabine Losing, from the Left-wing Die Linke party in Germany, and Takis Hadjigeorgiou, of Akel, the former communist party in Cyprus. They argued the EU should not be allocating any of its budget towards defence spending. A source in Strasbourg told Mail Online: 'This agenda is being pushed by Poland and the Baltic states but the French and German governments are in the driving seat. 'Britain, and especially the Tories, had always blocked EU co-operation on defence but now, with Brexit, that brake is going and they are pushing this forward.' The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured) said Mr Trump's pledge to cut spending on Nato gave Europe no choice but to strengthen its commons security and defence structures Earlier this month Mr Juncker said Mr Trump's pledge to cut spending on Nato and his isolationist approach to foreign policy gives Europe no choice but to strengthen its commons security and defence structures. Mr Juncker said: 'The Americans, to whom we owe much ... will not ensure the security of the Europeans in the long term. We have to do this ourselves. 'That is why we need a new start in the field of European defence, up to the goal of setting up a European army.' A mother feared for her sight after her Poundland false eyelashes allegedly caused a horrific allergic reaction - forcing her to spend four hours in A&E. Marg Docwra, from Worthing, West Sussex, bought the lashes from her local store ahead of a fancy dress party which saw her dress up as a French maid. The 55-year-old youth support worker wore the lashes - manufactured under Poundlands Allura brand - for five hours on November 12 and noticed no issues. Fears: Marg Docwra bought the lashes from Poundland ahead of a party which saw her dress up as a French maid (left), but two days later her eyes became itchy, swollen and sore (right) Concerns: Ms Docwra said doctors told her the reaction may have been caused by the glue with the eyelashes - manufactured under Poundlands Allura brand But just two days later she said her eyes began to become itchy, swollen and sore and she tried to treat them with moisturisers after visiting the chemist. However Ms Docwra was then taken to Worthing Hospital by her 22-year-old daughter Keila when her eyes turned pink and began constantly streaming. Fancy dress: The 55-year-old youth support worker wore the lashes for five hours She said doctors told her the reaction may have been caused by the glue that came with the eyelashes. Poundland said it takes customer safety seriously and is in touch with her. Ms Docwra said: I had absolutely no problem with them on the evening and it was only on the Monday when I noticed the pink lines on my eyes. It got worse as the week went on and they were really itchy and painful and it was really uncomfortable. I went to the chemist and was given E45 moisturising cream and that helped a bit, but I could just about see enough to drive myself home 'But as soon as I got home on Thursday my daughter took one look at me and my eyes were constantly streaming so she took me straight to the hospital. Ive never had a reaction like this before and the doctors said it was down to the glue - we were in A&E for four hours. I didnt fear being blinded but it did cross my mind that it could damage my eyes in some way that wouldnt be reversed because they are still very sore now. Ms Docwra claimed colleagues confused her swollen eyes with make-up while she was recovering, and it took a week for her eyes to finally return back to normal. She added: I looked like I had been crying all the time and people were asking me if I was wearing make-up at work because of how I looked when I wasnt wearing any. WHY DID MS DOCWRA HAVE AN ALLERGIC REACTION? The skin around Ms Docwra's eyes could have reacted to any of the glue's ingredients, which include sodium polyacrylate, aqua, xanthan gum, ammonium sulfate and methylparaben. The product's information advises customers that they should apply the glue on a small inconspicuous area of skin first, and it may cause skin irritation for those with sensitive skin. Poundland advises those who find skin irritation persists to seek medical help. Advertisement My eyes are on the mend now but it is not the first time that I have worn fake eyelashes from lots of other places and I certainly will not be wearing these ones ever again. A Poundland spokesman said: Poundland is a responsible retailer. We take customer safety very seriously and are currently in contact with the customer. Dr David Orton of the British Association of Dermatologists told MailOnline that he has heard of similar reactions to glue used for false eyelashes in the past. The expert said: Unfortunately any chemical known to man you're going to find somebody in the world allergic to it. But if you put chemicals in rank order, then the acrylate chemicals come fairly near the top. Nobodys going to know about it until they have a reaction. The problem is when you have a reaction it can have devastating consequences. Dr Orton added: I wouldn't say to people don't use them, but I think companies should explain that you can become allergic and get reactions. A schoolgirl was hauled out of class and put into isolation for wearing Pudsey Bear yellow socks to school in aid of Children In Need. Nikita Childs, 13, was told to 'take off the socks or go home' because they breached Hartford High School's uniform policy and put in a room on her own, her father said. Martin Childs, 52, said the school contacted him to say she must wear the shoes without socks or leave so he felt forced to go and collect her. Nikita Childs, 13, was told to 'take off the socks or go home' because they breached Hartford High School's uniform policy and put in a room on her own, her father said Martin Childs, 52, said the school contacted him to say she must wear the shoes without socks or leave so he felt forced to go and collect her The school, in Hartford, Cheshire, said it is not their policy to send children home but that the yellow socks fell short of their 'very high uniform standards'. Mr Childs, from Northwich, Cheshire, said: 'We bought the socks because Nikita was really looking forward to Children in Need and we have donated to the charity. 'She asked me if she could wear them and I didn't see why not as it was Children in Need that day. 'It is not like they are disruptive to her education, wearing no socks with your shoes is surely just as bad? The school, in Hartford, Cheshire, said it is not their policy to send children home but that the yellow socks fell short of their 'very high uniform standards' 'When the school called me at 8.50am and said she would have to go home, I said "no way is she taking them off" and put the phone down. 'I rang back shortly after and asked them to send her home from school. She wore the socks in aid of Children In Need 'It's ridiculous because she just wanted to support the charity and she was there and in full uniform ready to go to school and then she was punished for it.' Schools up and down the country regularly run events and initiatives to raise funds for Children in Need with 46 million raised on Friday alone, according to the BBC. And charitable Nikita said she was 'appalled' by her school's stance on the yellow socks. Nikita said: 'I'm really passionate about Children in Need and I've done plenty of things in the past to support them. 'I think it absolutely appalling that I wasn't allowed to wear my socks when there are other schools doing things to raise money for Children in Need. 'I'm not sure whether I want to go back into school, I'm in the middle about what to do at the moment.' A spokesman for Cheshire West and Chester Council, speaking on behalf of Hartford High School, said: 'All students and parents are aware of the very high standards we set regarding uniform at Hartford CE High School and we are acting accordingly. Advertisement Australia's biggest brothel has fetched an eye-watering $8.85 million after the company went bankrupt. The Daily Planet, themed after the newspaper in comic book strip Superman, but will now be used as a mixed-use apartment development after four months on the market, reports AFR. The infamous 18-room bordello in Elsternwick, Melbourne, boasts spa baths, mirrored walls, pool tables and Grecian statues. The former owners say they will be jetting their call-girls to Fiji for a long holiday to celebrate the sale, which was well above expectations. Melbourne's infamous Daily Planet brothel has been snapped up for an eye-watering $8.85 million after the company went bankrupt The Daily Planet, themed after the newspaper in comic book strip Superman, but will now be used as a mixed-use apartment development The unnamed buyer had offshore ties and numerous other development projects in Melbourne. The buyer also snapped up three adjoining buildings, giving him a 1239 square metre potential development opportunity. The business, voted the Best Brothel in Australia 18 times at the Australian Adult Industry Awards, was pioneered in 1975. A raid in 2009 revealed that 20 extra beds for sex workers were illegally installed into the building next door and a wall smashed to link the two buildings, according to the Herald Sun. John Trimble, the nephew of a Calabrian mafia boss, Robert Trimbole, bought the building next door and had applied for a liquor licence, hoping to open a bar there. Trimbole, who is at the centre of the TV series 'Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities', was allegedly involved in the 1977 disappearance of anti-marijuana campaigner Donald Mackay in Griffith, NSW. The infamous 18-room bordello in Elsternwick, Melbourne, boasts spa baths, mirrored walls, pool tables and Grecian statues The business, voted the Best Brothel in Australia 18 times at the Australian Adult Industry Awards, was pioneered in 1975 The 18-room luxury brothel has spa baths, mirrored walls, pool tables (pictured) and Grecian statues promising to meet client's 'deepest and most sought-after desires' The brothel was billed as being able to meet client's 'deepest and most sought-after desires, according to the official website. The 'Standard Service' offered by the ladies includes, sensual massage, protected oral sex on gentleman and protected intercourse with the lady of choice. They added that clients will be offered a 'truly erotic experience' and customers should 'spoil' themselves. The former owners say they will be jetting their call-girls to Fiji for a long holiday to celebrate the sale, which was well above expectations The brothel was billed as being able to meet client's 'deepest and most sought-after desires, according to the official website According to the brothels website the 'Standard Service' offered by the ladies includes, sensual massage, protected oral sex on gentleman and protected intercourse with the lady of choice A raid in 2009 revealed that 20 extra beds for sex workers were illegally installed into the building next door and a wall smashed to link the two buildings Two Qatari women have been robbed in a 5 million euro heist on a Paris motorway, it has emerged. The two victims, in their 60s, were being driven from Le Bourget airport in a Bentley when they were targeted in a lay-by on the A1, north east of the capital. Robbers then attacked the driver and two terrified tourists with pepper spray before forcing open the boot of the luxury vehicle. Two Qatari women have been robbed in a 5 million euro heist on a Paris motorway, police have revealed (file picture) The two victims, in their 60s, were being driven from Le Bourget airport (pictured) in a Bentley when two men in a car ordered them to park at a petrol station on the A1, north east of the capital They seized jewellery, clothes and leather goods in a haul valued at 5million euros. The incident unfolded at about 9pm last night shortly after the women had been landed in their private jet. The identity of the victims is not yet known and an investigation is underway. It is the latest in a long line of high-value robberies to hit France and comes just weeks after reality TV star Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in a Paris flat. Ms Kardashian was attacked by a gang of five robbers who got away with millions of pounds worth of jewels on October 3. Robbers are then said to have attacked the driver and two tourists with pepper spray before opening the boot of the luxury vehicle. The incident happened on the A1 autoroute (pictured) She and a security guard had guns pointed at their heads and were tied up by the gang, who are still at large. Weeks later Bollywood beauty and international model Mallika Sherawat was tear gassed and beaten up by three masked intruders in her own Paris apartment block, police revealed today. In the wake of the two attacks security consultants revealed that wealthy tourists are increasingly avoiding Paris as a holiday destination while many are asking for extra bodyguard protection. Business is said to be booming for security firms that provide bodyguards. The director of International Protection Services Bodyguard, Laurent Dequatremard, blamed poor policing, unemployment and even the increase of 'undocumented' illegal immigrants in central Paris. Actress Mallika Sherawat (left) was attacked outside her apartment in Paris, at an apartment neighbouring the scene where Kim Kardashian (right) was robbed at gunpoint He told the website: 'We have a lot of clients in Paris asking for security services as they dont feel safe. We recommend to have protection with you during the day and guards at night if your building/residence is not secure.' In August 2014, the convoy of a Saudi Prince was also held up as it made its way to Le Bourget. Up to eight robbers driving BMWs hijacked the first vehicle in the convoy and sped off with its three occupants before letting them go. In March last year robbers launched an audacious raid on two armoured trucks on a busy motorway in a crime linked to a notorious gang known as the Pink Panthers. Jewels worth at least 7million were stolen by armed robbers who struck at a toll booth on the route linking Paris to the South of France. The daring raid took place just after midnight as the security trucks approached the toll at Avallon in Burgundy, 125 miles south-east of Paris on the A6. Thieves used gas sprays to knock out the two armed guards in each lorry. The guards were pulled from their cabs and dumped by the toll booth. The methods used in the robbery immediately led to speculation that the Pink Panthers a notorious gang of criminals from Eastern Europe had struck again. Advertisement A 20-year-old law student is one of at least two people who died as a result of a freak 'asthma thunderstorm' that swept across Melbourne overnight - overwhelming emergency services and leaving over 500 people hospitalised. Hope Carnevali, a lifelong sufferer of asthma, died in the arms of her devastated family as they desperately attempted CPR on her front lawn while waiting over half an hour for an ambulance to arrive. Her acute asthma attack was triggered by the intense storm system, which combined with a high pollen count and high temperatures to cause severe respiratory problems for thousands of people with allergies to grass pollen. Hospitals declared a 'major disaster' after receiving more than 1,900 triple-0 calls and almost depleting their Ventolin supplies from 6pm on Monday night, with police and fire brigades pitching in to help transport patients. Scroll down for videos Hope Carnevali, a 20-year-old law student, is one of at least two people who died as a result of a freak 'asthma thunderstorm' Ms Carnevali, a lifelong sufferer of asthma, was one of thousands of people across Melbourne triggered by the rare storm A massive thunderstorm has caused an outbreak of asthma so severe emergency services in Melbourne ran out of ambulances to help those in need Hope's auntie and uncle Melissa and John told 7 News it was hard to swallow the loss of their niece knowing that a quicker ambulance response time may have been the difference between life or death. 'J ust knowing that if they had of got there a little bit earlier the situation might be different is very hard to deal with,' Ms Carnevali said. 'Maybe they can let you know how long they might be, just an idea and maybe it will save some lives,' Mr Carnevali added. '(Hope) was just so kind-hearted.' Friends and family lamented the loss of a 'beautiful angel' online, remembering Hope for her 'infectious smile' and 'kind heart'. A fundraising page to assist with funeral costs raised almost $8,000 in just three hours. A spokesman for Ambulance Victoria told Daily Mail Australia it was aware of two cases 'where patients with respiratory symptoms were unable to be revived by paramedic crews'. He said ambulances arrived to the patients in 31 minutes and 15 minutes respectively, but paramedics were unable to save their lives. At least 30 people, including two children, remain in intensive care on Tuesday evening and one anonymous intensive care paramedic told Fairfax he suspected 'a lot more than two people died.' A sand storm at St Kilda in Melbourne during the thunderstorm on Monday night which saw an unprecedented spike in asthma problems across the Victorian capital Hope's auntie and uncle Melissa and John (pictured) told 7 News it was hard to swallow the loss of their niece knowing that a quicker ambulance response time may have been the difference between life or death A fundraising page to assist with Hope's funeral costs raised almost $8,000 in just three hours Hospitals declared a 'major disaster' after receiving more than 1,900 triple-0 calls and almost depleting their Ventolin supplies from 6pm The Australian Medical Association described the spike in respiratory illnesses during the storm 'unprecedented'. The AMA's federal vice-president Tony Bartone, a general practitioner based in Melbourne's west, said he had never seen Victorian hospital resources so stretched in his 30-year medical career. 'I would describe it as extremely unusual as it's been a long time since we've seen anything like this in terms of presentation of patients with asthma on the one day,' Dr Bartone told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday afternoon. Dr Bartone said every ambulance was on call, with emergency departments preparing to set up makeshift wards in hospital foyers. 'Completely unprecedented,' he said. 'Even patients who haven't had asthma for a fair time have found the need to present today. 'We've never had the occasion to predict such a volume overload.' A man breathing in Ventolin as thunderstorms across Melbourne stretched hospital and ambulance resources About 400 calls were made to the SES overnight after roof tiles were ripped off homes and garage doors were destroyed from flying debris (pictured) 'The hospitals are all at breaking point,' a Melbourne doctor, who chose to remain unnamed, told The Age. 'A number of hospitals came very close to running out of Ventolin altogether.' Emergency services were also tied up with 400 calls to the State Emergency Service after roof tiles were ripped off houses, cars were damaged and trees came crashing down. About 600 of the 1,900 calls to hospital were asthma-related and came from residents in Melbourne's west. 'We essentially had a day's workload within five hours,' Ambulance Victoria's Executive Director Emergency Operations Mick Stephenson said. 'Whether or not they (the deaths) are related to this phenomenon we just don't know ... we will have to review each incident,' Mr Stephenson told reporters on Tuesday morning. The enormous storm caused damage to homes in Melbourne's west, including this car, and left thousands without power Dust was seen shrouding North Melbourne (pictured) by 6pm on Monday and asthma sufferers quickly declined At St Vincent's hospital alone, 216 people turned up in their emergency department - almost 100 more than on a normal night, 9News reported. WHAT IS 'THUNDERSTORM ASTHMA'? - 'Thunderstorm asthma' is caused when a large storm sweeps pollen and irritants into the atmosphere. - The irritants cause asthma sufferers to have an attack. - Rain and humidity can also stir irritants that affect asthma. -The elderly and young children are the most vulnerable. Source: Allergy Society Australia Advertisement Mr Stephenson said most of the calls for help came from residents in Melbourne's west. 'This includes 200 cases for asthma, and we were seeing asthma in people who had not experienced breathing issues before,' he said. 'In the 15 minutes from 7pm when we would expect about 30 triple zero calls for ambulance there were 200 calls that's a call every 4.5 seconds. 'This was an extraordinary and unpredictable increase in demand in a very short period of time'. A major clean-up began on Tuesday morning and hospitals were warned to remain on 'disaster alert'. About 13,000 homes were left without power overnight. Police checked on 12 people who called for an ambulance, but we unable to be reached and Metropolitan Fire Brigade officers responded to 11 cases. The head of Victoria's health services said he'd never seen an incident like it in more than 40 years as a paramedic. 'Every ambulance and ambulance manager was recalled,' Paul Holman said. 'It was an unprecedented night. 'I have never seen the computer dispatch of Melbourne look like it. It was what we call a sea of red.' On Monday afternoon, people were seen fleeing Melbourne's iconic St Kilda Beach as the unexpected wind caused a huge sandstorm Pete James snapped this photo in the southwest of incredible lightning strikes overnight Emergency services were also tied up with 400 calls for assistance to the SES after roof tiles were ripped off houses, cars were damaged and trees came crashing down (pictured) On Tuesday morning, Ambulance Victoria's Mick Stephenson (pictured) confirmed a man, whose age is unknown, and a 20-year-old, both from Melbourne's west, had died A major clean-up commenced on Tuesday morning and hospitals were warned to remain on 'disaster alert' following the storm Roof tiles were ripped of house and the SES commenced a major clean-up on Tuesday morning A massive thunderstorm caused an outbreak of asthma so severe emergency services in Melbourne ran out of ambulances to help those in need Dust was seen flying off the roof of homes across the state, causing asthma sufferers to struggle The enormous storm, which hit at around 6pm on Monday, is believed to have led to a large occurrence of 'thunderstorm asthma' - where irritants are thrown into the air by the storm At one stage a reported 190 people were waiting from assistance from emergency services. In addition to widespread sickness, the wild weather also left a trail of destruction across Victoria with some residents reporting tornado-like conditions. Thousands of homes in Melbourne's west were left without power, while homes were damaged and roads were closed because of fallen trees. The hot weather proved dangerous earlier on Monday, with firefighters having to flee their truck while fighting a 320 hectare grass fire near Swan Hill. The crew suffered smoke inhalation and dehydration and were taken to hospital, but their injuries were minor. The last time Melbourne experienced an outbreak of thunderstorm asthma was in 2010. After a sizzling Monday where temperatures reached 35 degrees, Melbourne should have cool to mild days for the rest of the week, with a top of 17C on Tuesday and 18C on Wednesday. Tuesday will be wet, with rain persisting for most of the day, the bureau predicts. Across the rest of the country, Sydney is expecting the mercury to hit 31C on Tuesday before showers sweep across the city on Wednesday and both Brisbane and Perth are bracing for temperatures over 30C for the next few days. Tuesday will be wet in Melbourne, with rain persisting for most of the day, the bureau predicts A sandstorm engulfed St Kilda beach in Melbourne's south and people were seen running from the water's edge Stepan Ivanovich Karagodin was shot in the Siberian city of Tomsk in 1938 after being falsely accused of spying A Russian man whose grandfather was executed after being falsely accused of spying is taking posthumous action against former Russian dictator Josef Stalin. Denis Karagodin holds Stalin and around 20 others responsible for his grandfather's death. The 34-year-old's grandfather, Stepan Ivanovich Karagodin, was shot in the Siberian city of Tomsk after being arrested in December 1937. Karagodin, a father of six, was taken from his family at the age of 55 and convicted on trumped up charges of being a Japanese spy. He was shot seven weeks later but it took half a century for his family to hear he had been falsely accused of spying against his motherland and shot. His grandosn said he was finishing a job started by his ancestors in seeking to establish the truth about his great grandfather's fate, and it led to the discovery in usually secret archives that he was shot dead by NKVD executioner Nikolay Ivanovich Zyryanov. He has since been in touch with the executioner's descendants, and received an emotional letter from Zyryanov's granddaughter begging for forgiveness. Denis Karagodin intends to launch a posthumous legal claim against Stalin and 20-plus others who he holds as responsible for murdering his ancestor Karagodin has accepted her moving apology but intends to launch a posthumous legal claim against Stalin and 20-plus others who he holds as responsible for murdering his ancestor. His carefully documented research uploaded on his website was seen by the killer's granddaughter Yulia, who said she endured 'sleepless nights' before writing to confront the agonising truth about her own family of which she had no previous knowledge. 'It is incredibly hard and painful to realise it,' she wrote of the sudden discovery that her grandfather was a secret police marksman who shot innocent political detainees. 'But I will never deny my family's history.' Executioner: Nikolay Zyryanov killed Stepan Ivanovich Karagodin, and his granddaughter said she has ensured 'sleepless nights' after finding out what he had done She told him: 'I understand with my mind that I am not guilty, but my feelings simply cannot be described.... 'Now I know about such a shameful page of my history, and I am completely on your side... 'Nothing will change in our society unless we uncover the truth.' She revealed, too, that while her grandfather was an NKVD executioner, she also a had great-grandfather who was purged by Stalin and never seen again. She had 'executioners and victims within the same family', she explained. Stepan Karagodin with his wife Anna and one of their children before he was killed after being wrongly accused of spying 'I feel very bitter that I cannot change anything,' she said, vowing to pray for his great grandfather in church. 'Thank you for your incredible work, for this hard-to-swallow truth,' she wrote. 'I would like to write so many other things, but I have said the main thing. I am incredibly ashamed of everything, I am physically in pain.' Karagodin praised her 'brave' letter, stressing: 'You won't find an enemy or - someone taking offence - in me, but a person who wants once and forever to nullify this endless Russian blood bath. Denis's grandfather Stepan Karagodin (centre) with five out of of his six children 'It has to stop forever. And I think this is in our power to do it. 'I extend to you the hand of reconciliation, however hard it is for me to do it knowing and remembering everything.' He told her he wanted to 'abolish' the past. 'With your letter you did the main thing - you were sincere and this is more than enough.' he said. The house of Karagodin's family in Volkovo village, in the Amur region 'Live peacefully. Neither myself, nor anyone from my family will ever blame you. You are an amazing person.' Karagodin told how his great grandmother toured prison camps desperation looking for her lost husband - not knowing her was long dead, reported The Siberian Times. 'Every generation of our family did everything possible to clear the blanks in our family history,' he said. Denis Karagodin says he wants justice for his ancestor, who was killed after being accused of spying for Japan 'And now it was my turn.' He was told many times that his task was impossible but carried on regardless. Now he says: 'Our investigation is over, and that's the most important thing. Denis said he plans to prosecute around 20 people for the killing of his grandfather, including late former Russia dictator Josef Stalin 'We found out what several generations of our family wanted to know - names of all the murderers.' 'The second part of the project is the prosecution of all the persons who are guilty in the murder of Stepan Karagodin,' he said. This will start with Stalin, but include others notably Nikolay Zyryanov among 20 or so, he said. The UK government has 'no idea' what Brexit means and has no plan for the 'intense' negotiations to come, top MEPs claimed as they dismissed an initial meeting with David Davis. A deal to stay in the single market while curbing free movement - said by the MEPs to be the current demand - will never get past the European Parliament, the Brexit Secretary was told. After the talks Manfred Weber, chairman of the centre-right European People's Party, claimed that Mr Davis had nothing 'new' to say. Guy Verhofstadt opened the talks by telling Mr Davis 'welcome to hell' - highlighting the Brexit Secretary's own quip in September that his Eurocrat rival was 'Satan'. David Davis, pictured right facing Guy Verhofstadt at today's talks, met senior MEPs to lay the ground work for the official Brexit talks but was dismissed as having little to say Mr Weber said there was 'there is no idea what Brexit really means' in Brussels. Mr Davis was mocked ahead of his meeting by the EU's chief negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt. The meeting was intended to lay the groundwork for formal Brexit talks beginning in the spring. But Mr Weber slammed the way the UK was handling the Brexit process. He said: 'What we really expect are clear proposals. 'Today, in my talk with David Davis, unfortunately I have not heard anything new. 'I have not heard much as to how the British Government wants to tackle Brexit and what Brexit really means. BREXIT IS BOUND TO END UP IN THE EU COURT, TOP JUDGE WARNS The EU's top judge has warned Brexit is bound to end up before his court. Koen Lenaerts, the President of the European Court of Justice, said he could not forecast what form the case would come. But he said there were 'many, many ways' a case could be brought. Mr Lenaerts told the FT: 'I can't even start intellectually beginning, imagining how and where and from which angle it might come.' He said Article 50, the EU's divorce procedure, was subject to judicial interpretation like all other clauses. The judge said it was not clear whether triggering Brexit was irreversible, as is commonly thought. Advertisement 'I have not received any new information, quite the opposite is true. 'Today I have been told that the British Government, as far as the economy is concerned, it wants to stay in the single market - but the British Government would also like to continue and have very close co-operation in legal issues.' But he added: 'Brexit means Brexit, so we are going to have to cut back on our relationships. 'It is not a cherry picking situation at all.' Asked if Mr Davis had directly told him the UK wants to remain in the single market, Mr Weber said: 'I think the economic dimension is clear for Great Britain, they have a strong interest to keep a kind of relationship to the single market, to keep strong ties to the single market. 'About the form, how they want to do this, I think that is still open because what Guy (Verhofstadt) said, and what I also experienced in the meeting with David Davis, was that there is a structure at the moment, that they are discussing amongst them, but there is no idea what Brexit really means.' German MEP Manfred Weber (pictured in the European Parliament in June) warned David Davis of 'intense' Brexit talks but said he had learned nothing new from his talks today Mr Weber tweeted after his talks that the 'four fundamental freedoms' are 'not negotiable' and admitted he had heard 'nothing new' from the Brexit Secretary Mr Verhofstadt said Brexit could not mean enjoying the benefits of EU membership but imposing curbs on migration. 'It is impossible to find solutions where we destroy the so-called four freedoms. These four freedoms are key, they are a basic element of the European Union - the freedom of movement of goods, of services, of capital and of people.' He said MEPs 'will certainly never accept' any deal where those four freedoms were put at risk. Mr Davis said his talks with arch-federalist Mr Verhofstadt had been useful and 'great fun', describing the former Belgian prime minister as a 'very nice man' who races classic British cars. Although formal negotiations cannot begin until the Article 50 notification, which Theresa May has pledged will happen before the end of March, Mr Davis said the pair had discussed the structure of the process. He added: 'My view is that we can get an outcome here which would be in the interests of the European Union and in the interests of Britain and will meet the requirements of the referendum.' Guy Verhofstadt (file picture), who will lead for the European parliament in the looming Brexit negotiations, said after meeting with Mr Davis that Brexit could not mean enjoying the benefits of EU membership but imposing curbs on migration Responding to Mr Weber's suggestion that Mr Davis had indicated the UK wants to stay in the single market, a Downing Street spokesman said: 'The Government's position hasn't changed on this. 'We are very clear that what we want is a trading relationship that allows UK companies to trade both with and within the single market and lets European businesses do the same.' Number 10's spokesman declined to respond to repeated questions over whether the relationship the Government is seeking would require single market membership. Ahead of today's meeting, Mr Verhofstadt gleefully pre-empted the encounter by referring to the way the Cabinet minister responded when asked a question about him during a select committee meeting. Mr Davis said in September: 'Satan, get thee behind me.' Aides later tried to play down the row by insisting he had been joking about the MPs tempting him to criticise Mr Verhofstadt. Mr Verhofstadt retaliated at the start of today's talks by quipping 'welcome to hell'. The former Belgian PM tweeted that he was 'looking forward to a hell of a conversation' with Mr Davis. Theresa May continued her own diplomatic efforts in No 10 today, holding talks with Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel Mrs May ignored questions from waiting reporters as she greeted Mr Michel on the steps of No 10 Downing Street He is the latest senior EU figure to gloat about how they are giving Mr Davis the cold shoulder on his first visit to Brussels since taking the role. The European Commission's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier agreed to meet Mr Davis over coffee at the EU's headquarters. But as soon as they sat down, the Frenchman told Mr Davis he was not willing to hold talks on Britain's exit from the EU until Theresa May began the two-year formal exit process. Mr Barnier, who has been dubbed 'no friend of Britain', delighted in his snub. In a twee the 27 EU member states that will remain after Brexit. He wrote: 'This morning's courtesy visit from David Davis (was) at his request. No negotiation without notification. My work is now focused on EU27.' A Government source played down claims that Mr Barnier had snubbed Mr Davis. He said: 'We agree negotiation cannot start before we notify. We've been saying the same all day. 'That was not the purpose of the meeting it was to lay the ground for a constructive relationship.' This is the moment a motorist and a County Sheriff were left stunned after a 'dead' deer came back to life in a man's truck and fled back to the woods. An unnamed 59-year-old in Wisconsin accidentally struck the beast in the early evening and loaded the animal into the back of his trunk - apparently to take it home to eat. He then called the Adams County Sheriff's Department to report the deceased deer at 7.25pm on Thursday, and Deputy Brian Loewenhagen was sent to inspect the scene. Dashcam footage from Loewenhagen's car shows the two men talking for about a minute before going to the trunk of the car for the Deputy to take the deer away and 'put it down.' The motorist gingerly opened the door and poked the apparently lifeless animal before slinging it to the ground on the side of the road. Loewenhagen took note of its mangled leg as it was prized from the vehicle - however, in a flash the deer steadied itself and bounded off back into the woods as the two men looked on dumbstruck. Deputy Brian Loewenhagen arrives at the scene to put the animal down but is left stunned by what happens next The Deputy asked the beast 'Are you OK?' before it disappeared into the dark night. The Adams County Sheriff's Department posted about the incident the next morning on its Facebook page with a photo of actors Chris Farley and David Spade in a car in a scene from the movie Tommy Boy with a deer in their back seat. 'So this happened last night... Caller states he hit a deer earlier and thought it was deceased. He states he put the deer into the back of his vehicle, but once he arrived home the deer was alive and kicking... (The deer refused to give a statement and ran into the woods.)' The motorist drags the deer out of the car before it miraculously 'rises from the dead' and runs back into the woods The department later posted the video with a caption that said Deputy Loewenhagen always gets the most interesting assignments. It said he was the Deputy who arrested an intoxicated driver who claimed a beer-battered fish dinner made him drunk. This is the horrific moment that a little boy was sent somersaulting through the air when he was hit by a car on a pedestrian crossing. The boy, who was still conscious following the crash, was seen desperately reaching out for his mother as he lay prone in the road. He had been holding her hand as he walked over the crossing in the Ukrainian city of Simferopol on the Crimean peninsula, but broke away from her as he neared the other side. The boy then began to run and moved straight into the path of a black vehicle, which immediately stopped after the collision. The horror crash happened after the boy broke away from his mother on a pedestrian crossing in Ukraine, pictured, and ran towards the pavement A black vehicle is then seen coming from off-screen and collides with the child, who is sent somersaulting through the air The little boy, who was still conscious, was then seen desperately reaching up for his mother, pictured, as she ran over to him The boy flipped through the air and one of his shoes was sent flying across the other side of the road as his mother ran after him. She threw her bags to the ground as she rushed over to her son, who was still conscious and reaching out for his mother. The driver of the car also rushed up to offer his help after bringing the vehicle to a halt. According to local reports, he took both mother and son to hospital in his car after the woman was said to have fainted at the scene. The driver of the vehicle, right, got out to help and is reported to have driven both mother and son to a local hospital The accident was captured on the dashcam of another vehicle and the footage quickly went viral after it was uploaded to video-sharing websites. Police are reportedly looking into the accident but have declined to comment pending the outcome of their investigations. Kirsty McKinnon Bryceland wrote: 'Ur guns are getting bigger! Well Done!' Prison officer's wife commented on an illegally taken and semi-nude selfie The wife of a prison officer complimented a murderer's Facebook selfie - which was taken illegally on a mobile phone behind bars - and said his 'guns are getting bigger'. Killer Jack Cramb, 24, uses an illegal mobile phone to regularly post topless selfies from his prison cell at at Shotts prison in Lanarkshire where he is serving a life sentence for the murder of Barry Bradley in 2010. His boastful Facebook pictures have garnered him something of a female fan base - and now a prison officer's wife has joined in and complimented one of the pictures. Killer Jack Cramb, 24, uses an illegal mobile phone to regularly post topless selfies from his prison cell at at Shotts prison in Lanarkshire where he is serving a life sentence for murder The Daily Record reports that Kirsty McKinnon Bryceland whose husband Jamie, 37, works as a rehab and support officer at Greenock prison sent an admiring comment to the convicted murderer. Mrs McKinnon Bryceland, 37, who works as a Madonna tribute act, messaged the prisoner and said: 'Ur guns are getting bigger! Well Done! #gainz.' Cramb then replied: 'Thanks Kirsty x.' Yesterday she told the Record: 'I comment on hundreds of things every day. It must just be a coincidence that a picture must have popped up in my news feed. Kirsty McKinnon Bryceland (pictured) whose husband Jamie, 37, works as a rehab and support officer at Greenock prison sent an admiring comment to the convicted murderer Cramb's boastful Facebook pictures have garnered him something of a female fan base 'I don't comment on anyone who is in custody or anyone to do with Jamie's work.' Cramb created the Facebook account under the name 'Maximus Payet' in 2013 and has been posting saucy pictures of himself online ever since. He is serving a minimum of 16 years for the brutal street attack of Mr Bradley in Alva, Clackmannanshire in July 2010. The 19-year-old was the grandson of the notorious Mags Haney who was jailed for 12 years in 2003 for ruling a large scale heroin dealing with four other family members. According to the Daily Record Mr Bradley's twin sister discovered the page and recognised his killer straight away. At the trial in April 2011 Cramb was found guilty of murder after a jury heard he slashed Mr Bradley's neck with a piece of broken glass, cutting his carotid artery and jugular vein before leaving him to bleed to death. Cramb is using an illegal mobile phone from his cell to communicate with the outside world A regular Facebook user, in one online conversation with another inmate he posted a picture of a pair of scissors and wrote: 'I'm go kick f*** outta you.' And in March he boasted of his violence to a female friend who asked him why he had uploaded a photograph of himself holding plastic cutlery. He told her: 'Coz I'm dangerous.' Earlier this month Cramb posted a selfie on his Facebook page and told one woman, a nurse: 'That's my come to bed eyes.' Showing of some prison plastic cutlery he jokes in his social media posts that he is 'dangerous' In other posts Crambs moans about his cell being 'freezing' and his semi-naked pictures continue to spark comments from female admirers including one woman who said in January last year: 'Perfect body babe! (can't wait to get my hands on it)... Lucky girl me.' A spokesman from the Scottish Prison Service said that internet access is not allowed from prisons but they do not have the power to close profiles. He reiterated that it is a criminal offence to have a mobile phone in prison and said: 'Upon identification of a profile for a prisoner, we request removal from the site. The SPS only has the ability to request removal of Facebook accounts that are proven to be accessed while a prisoner is in our care. 'The possession of a mobile phone in prison is a criminal offence. If we receive information to suggest prisoners are in possession of devices, we will take appropriate action and report it to the relevant authorities.' A young couple were driving along a motorway at night when their car was shunted by a speeding truck, sending them skidding forwards. With its headlights beaming, the silver pick-up truck slammed into their rear, scattering shards of debris onto the tarmac. The callous driver then fled, leaving a terrified Toon Moon, 34, and his wife, Dee, 28, to pull into a petrol station near Bangkok, Thailand, to check for damage. Toon Moon, 34, and his wife, Dee, 28, were driving along a motorway near Bangkok, Thailand, when they saw the car approaching Mr Moon wants to be compensated for the money they have spent on repairs, but no witnesses have come forward to identity the driver. He said: 'The car that crashed into us is not entirely clear from the video. There were no eye witnesses that stopped to tell us more details. 'The driver of the car fled. He simply carried on driving and didn't look back.' Mr Moon said he was worried the driver would keep driving in a reckless manner unless he is stopped. With its headlights beaming, the silver pick-up truck slammed into the back of their car, sending shards of debris showering over the tarmac The callous driver then fled, leaving the terrified couple to pull into a petrol station and check for damage He added: 'We had to pull over to a fuel station to check the damage and we've since paid quite a lot to get it all repaired. A father who manhandled his misbehaving sevenyear-old son outside a chocolate shop has become the first to commit a crime on holy Caldey Island. The 45-year-old man was on a day trip from Dudley in the West Midlands when he became agitated with the youngster who has ADHD and is on the autistic spectrum. He was seen shouting at the boy before lifting him up with an outstretched arm by the throat, before putting him down and slapping him on the head before frogmarching him away. The father, who is not named, admitted assaulting his son after witnesses called the police. It means that tiny Caldey Island off the Pembrokeshire coast in South West Wales which is home to a population of 40, including an order of Cistercian monks, has caught its first criminal after a century of quietly living in peace. Monastery: Police were called to the assault on Caldey Island off the Pembrokeshire coast, which has a population of just 40 and is home to an order of monks who follow a vow of silence The monks were described as concerned by the assault at St Illtyds church on their idyllic island - and at becoming a criminal statistic for the first time. The island is so remote that police had to be carried by RNLI lifeboat two miles to the island to arrest the visitor on a day trip from Dudley, West Midlands. The Caldey crime of the century was revealed when the man appeared in court on the mainland to admit assault on the island, which attracts 3,000 visitors a year. The historic holy island has a monastery for 18 monks and a handful of farmers working the land - but with no criminal convicted in living memory. Island: The assault means that tiny Caldey Island off the Pembrokeshire coast in South West Wales has caught its first criminal this century after decades of quietly living in peace Visitors can take a boat ride from April to October to sample the prized home-made chocolate, perfume and shortbread made by the strict Cistercian monks. Island manager John Cattini, 65, said: This is the first crime I can recall and Ive been here more than 40 years. Im glad to say I didnt witness it but Im sorry to say I was told about it. It is very sad. Dedicated: The monks on the islands take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and observe a rule of silence between 7pm to 7am We are happy to say we live here very peacefully. This person was a visitor and is a sign of the modern world, I expect. The island, which is a mile and a half long, has been a religious retreat since the first monastery was set up there 1,500 years ago. The monks take vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability - and observe a rule of silence between 7pm to 7am. Official crime statistics have recorded a zero for Caldey Island for anti-social behaviour, theft, burglary, arson, drugs, public order, vehicle crime, robbery and possession of offensive weapons. Traffic offences are also at zero, with the island only having 300 yards of roads. But, for the first time in September, it recorded one single crime of violence - and led to the father appearing at Haverfordwest Magistrates' Court on the mainland to admit assault. Dennis Davies, prosecuting, said other shocked visitors told police how the father attacked the boy as they stood outside the chocolate factory on the island. He said: The man was said to be shouting at the boy before lifting him up with an outstretched arm by the throat, before putting him down, slapping him on the back of the head and frogmarching him away. Remote community: Visitors can take a boat ride from April to October to sample the prized home-made chocolate, perfume and shortbread made by the strict Cistercian monks The court heard another visitor shouted: Thats child abuse towards the father. Police were called to the island to arrest the 45-year-old dad. He told police his son was being naughty and wouldnt listen - and almost fell down the steps at the chocolate factory. Mr Davies said: He told police that in no way did he intend to hurt him, but accepted that he had been unreasonable. He explained that his son had ADHD and was on the autistic spectrum. Mike Kelleher, defending, said: The boy doesnt like crowds and queuing, and doesnt see danger as others do. The father said his son was misbehaving and running up and down the steps, and he was concerned that he would hurt himself or others. Caldey: The historic holy island has a monastery for 18 monks (above) and a handful of farmers working the land - but with no criminal convicted in living memory The boy said that his daddy hadnt put his hands around his throat and that he was really good to him. The father is deeply upset and didnt want to hurt his son. There is now something in place to help the parents. Its strange that an incident seemingly so nasty, can bring out some good. The father was released on bail until next month for reports. After the hearing, a Dyfed-Powys Police spokesman said: We acknowledge that the crime rate on Caldey Island is very low, but we take all reports of crime seriously and as such investigate them thoroughly. In February 2015 two American tourists became stranded on Tenby beach nearby after setting their satnav to Caldey - because they required a ferry to get there. The two men from Texas followed their GPS so closely that they became stuck in the sand on the beach, half a mile away from their intended destination. A teenager with depression and autism has been charged with making hoax calls to aircraft and air traffic control at Melbourne and Avalon airports. Paul Sant, from Melbourne's Rockbank, was arrested by Australian Federal Police on Monday before being charged on Tuesday and remanded until next week, reports The Age. The 19-year-old allegedly made 16 unauthorised radio transmissions between September 5 and November 3, in which he allegedly communicated directly with pilots and control towers. Paul Sant is arrested by Australian Federal Police before he was charged with making hoax calls to aircraft Mr Sant was charged on Tuesday with four counts of endangering the safety of aircraft and one count of interference likely to endanger safety or cause loss or damage. He faces up to 20 years' jail. Mr Sant's defence lawyer Pern Chaya told Melbourne Magistrates Court his client suffered from depression and autism and had not been taking medication. 'He's 19, so he's a young prisoner,' Ms Chaya said. It is alleged he posed as an air traffic controller and instructed pilots to circle the area before landing, with one alleged call forcing a Virgin plane to abort its landing. Australian Federal Police's head of crime operations, Acting Assistant Commissioner Chris Sheehan, said the matter was being treated with utmost importance. 'The current security measures in place for the airline industry are robust, and the travelling public should be reassured we are treating this matter appropriately,' he said. Mr Sant is charged with making hoax calls to aircraft and air traffic control at Melbourne (pictured) and Avalon airports The 19-year-old allegedly made 16 unauthorised radio transmissions, in which he posed as an air traffic controller Airservices Australia says there is no current threat to the safety and security of the travelling public as a result of these alleged transmissions. Mr Sant is remanded until Monday, when he is expected to make an application for bail. He will face Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday afternoon. Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott has claimed it would not be 'appropriate' for President-elect Donald Trump to speak in the historic Westminster Hall Senior Labour MPs have warned against Donald Trump's expected speech to both Houses of Parliament. The President-elect is set to be invited to Britain for a state visit next summer, just months after he is sworn in as the new leader of the free world. As part of the pomp and circumstance of visiting Britain, heads of state almost always make a major speech in the Palace of Westminster to MPs and Peers. Barack Obama was the last US President to do so, speaking in the historic Westminster Hall in May 2011. But shadow home secretary Diane Abbott has claimed in the Evening Standard it would not be 'appropriate' for the speech to take place there. Many speakers in Westminster Hall have their remarks commemorated with a plaque and some date back hundreds of year. Andy Slaughter, Shadow Justice Minister, said: 'My view is he is going to be a disaster and I certainly would not turn up for it.' Mr Slaughter said the usual protocol should be followed to invite Mr Trump but said he would have no part in it. Downing Street yesterday confirmed reports a state visit invitation to Mr Trump was being considered. The President-elect will be sworn into office in January, at which point the Queen will send an official congratulatory message. Theresa May's official spokeswoman yesterday said: 'An invitation for a state visit is one of the things under consideration following the election of the US president.' President-elect Donald Trump, pictured at his New Jersey golf club on Sunday, is currently appointing thousands of people to his administration. He is expected to be invited for a state visit next summer Mr Trump made his latest intervention on UK politics today with a shock endorsement for Nigel Farage to be Britain's ambassador in Washington Mr Trump made a shock intervention on UK politics today by endorsing Nigel Farage for the role of Britain's ambassador in Washington. The post - currently held by Sir Kim Darroch - is not determined by Mr Trump. But he tweeted: 'Many people would like to see Nigel Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. 'He would do a great job!' Theresa May, pictured yesterday visiting the Genome Campus in Cambridge, is considering plans to invite Mr Trump for a state visit as soon as next summer No10 insisted there is 'no vacancy' for the key post after the president-elect tweeted that the Ukip leader would do a 'great job' as the UK's man in Washington. Trump's intervention will infuriate Theresa May and raises more doubts about the prospects for the Special Relationship after he takes charge of the White House. Mr Farage said today: 'I'm very flattered and I have said since I met the president-elect that I would like to do anything I can to act in a positive way to help relationships between our two countries.' Mr Trump is likely to be invited to make a major speech to both House of Parliament when he makes a state visit to Britain. Pictured is Barack Obama as he concluded his speech to MPs and Peers in Westminster Hall in May 2011 A 62-year-old man was hospitalized after he opened a package bomb that exploded inside his downtown Philadelphia apartment, police said. The manila envelope, which was addressed to the victim, appeared on the steps of his building on Monday, according to multiple reports. It was not delivered by the postal service, police said. The man, who works as a caterer, opened it at 4am on Tuesday thinking it contained an inhaler or other medication, police said. The 'target specific' package was meant to injure, but the police did not consider it an act of terrorism, according to Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross. Scroll down for video A 62-year-old man opened a manila envelope that exploded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Police said the package was 'target specific' and contained a 'device' meant to harm The victim was transported to Jefferson Hospital with injuries to his face, hands and chest, but his condition has since stabilized. The 62-year-old, who regularly receives medication in the mail, opened the package near the stove in his apartment. Police initially thought an inhaler got too close to the heat and set off an accidental explosion. But investigators later said the package was addressed to the victim and contained an 'actual device' meant to cause harm. According to CBS, the package had a bar code on the exterior, with a power source and loop switch inside. The blast was activated by the man who opened the envelope, rather than set off remotely, police said. The apartment also smelled of sulfur after the explosion, CBS reported. The man lives with his partner and a 36-year-old roommate on the 1800 block of Pine Street. They were not injured in the explosion. It wasn't immediately clear if police know or suspect who sent the package, or why. Other details about the device were not immediately available. 'There's some broken glass, there's some damage to the range where you would cook, there's some blood, but there's not a lot of structural damage at all inside the property,' Inspector Scott Small said. The package, which was not delivered by the postal service, appeared on Monday evening and the man opened it around 4am Tuesday thinking it contained his medication The victim was transported to Jefferson Hospital with injuries to his hands and chest, but his condition has since stabilized. An investigation is ongoing Residents in the surrounding apartments were evacuated and allowed to return to their homes after police inspected other packages. Small said there was no threat of any other explosions. Aly King and Brian Muldoon, who live two doors down from the townhouse where the blast happened, said they didn't hear anything, but their dog woke up around 3.45 a.m. When King let her dog out into the backyard, she heard firefighters in the alley and saw emergency vehicles filling the street. Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are working with U.S. Postal Inspectors and the city bomb squad. Ministers have killed off George Osbornes policy to force families on modest incomes to pay higher council house rents. Under a law announced by the then-Chancellor two years ago, households with incomes above 40,000 in London and 30,000 outside the capital would have seen sharp increases in their rent bill. But last night Housing Minister Gavin Barwell said the plan would have hurt ordinary working class families and would not have saved much money. He said the government would use other measures to ensure social housing goes to those who need it most. Housing Minister Gavin Barwell (file picture) said the plan would have hurt ordinary working class families and would not have saved much money But he added: We need to do so in a way that supports those ordinary working class families who can struggle to get by, and in a way which delivers real savings to the taxpayer. The move kills off another Osborne policy designed to create political dividing lines with Labour and is a further sign of Theresa Mays determination to help families who are just about managing. Announced in 2014, ministers said it was described as blatantly unfair that some households in council or social housing enjoyed subsidised rents despite earning enough to rent in the private sector. It is estimated that around 86,000 families living in social income have household incomes of between 40,000 and 50,000 a year. Last year, following a backlash, the policy was watered down so rents would not rise sharply for any household earning above 30,000. It introduced a tapering system so rents only went up sharply for homes earning 50,000 or more. But yesterday Mr Barwell killed the policy off altogether. In a statement to Parliament he said social housing has a crucial role to play in supporting those in most housing need. He said ministers had reviewed the income based rents policy and listened carefully to the views of tenants, local authorities and others. It is estimated that around 86,000 families living in social homes have household incomes of between 40,000 and 50,000 a year. Pictured: Council flats in Brompton Cross, Knightsbridge As a result, we have decided not to proceed with a compulsory approach. Local authorities and housing associations will continue to have local discretion, the minister said. The Government remains committed to delivering its objective of ensuring social housing is occupied by those who need it most. But we need to do so in a way that supports those ordinary working class families who can struggle to get by, and in a way which delivers real savings to the taxpayer. The policy as previously envisaged did not meet those aims. Councils will, however, be forced to bring in fixed term tenancies for all new council house tenants and reviews to assess tenants still need a council house. Mr Barwell said ministers were committed to ensuring social housing goes to those who need it most. Seven people have been arrested in Sydney's far south-west on Tuesday as part of a police operation targeting the supply of ecstasy in the region. Operation Treweeke III, formed by police from the Camden Local Area Command, arrested six men and one woman following five simultaneous search warrants. Police seized over 680 grams of MDMA, almost a kilogram of cannabis, vials of steroids and cocaine, over $10,000 in cash and eight pairs of knuckle dusters. Seven people have been arrested (one pictured) in Sydney's far south-west on Tuesday as part of a police operation targeting the supply of ecstasy Think Big: A man wearing a black singlet had both of his arms tied behind his back by officers Tactical officers wearing bulletproof vests were seen standing outside of a red-bricked home after one of five simultaneous search warrants Tactical officers wearing bulletproof vests were photographed standing outside of a red-bricked home after executing one of the searches just after 6am. A uniformed policeman was seen using power tools to cut into a metal storage box. The search warrants were in Woodbine, Pleasure Point, Leumeah, Sefton, and Bradbury - suburbs in the outer south-west of Sydney. Police arrested two 22-year-old men, a 21-year-old woman, a 24-year-old man, a 27-year-old man, and a 32-year-old man, during the course of the warrants. Police also later arrested a 25-year old man in nearby Macquarie Fields. One of the 22-year-old men, as well as the 21-year-old man, the 24-year-old man, the 27-year-old and the 25-year-old man were taken to Narellan Police Station where they are assisting with inquiries. The other 22-year-old man has been taken to Campbelltown Police Station and the 32-year-old man has been taken to Bankstown Police Station where they are assisting with inquiries. A uniformed policeman was seen using power tools to cut into a metal storage box Police seized over 680 grams of MDMA, almost a kilogram of cannabis, vials of steroids and cocaine, over $10,000 in cash and eight pairs of knuckle dusters Police arrested six men and one woman following five simultaneous search warrants A hall which was being used as a refugee centre was burned down because angry migrants were furious about the lack of Nutella and gummibears, it has been claimed. The building was completely destroyed in the fire, which caused an estimated 10 million in damage. Two men have been charged with setting fire to the centre in Dusseldorf on June 7, prompting an emergency which left 26 people injured. It is claimed that the fire was started as migrants reacted furiously to not having chocolate spread and sweets German newspaper Das Bild has revealed that groups were angry when chocolate spread and confectionery were not available after dark, despite it being available during the day. Meals at the centre had been cancelled because of Ramadan, when Muslims do not eat during daylight hours. Protesters shouted: 'There isn't enough Nutella, Gummibears and chocolate', the newspaper reports. The large fire ripped through the centre - home to 280 refugees - in an exhibition hall in the western German city of Dusseldorf Olaf Lehne, district head of the German Red Cross, said migrants set fire to the hall in anger. The two men charged have been named as Algerian Adel D, who is accused of aggravated arson and dangerous bodily harm, and Moroccan Mohammed B. He allegedly called on others to start fires, and acted as an accomplice. More than a hundred refugees were evacuated from the centre as the blaze started to take hold The large fire ripped through the centre - home to 280 refugees - completely levelling the hall. Emergency crews treated 25 people for smoke poisoning, and it is believed a mattress was sprayed with lighter fluid then torched. Since the start of the year, police had been called 89 times to the 65,000 sq ft hall, which was formerly part of the city's congress centre. TV footage of the blaze showed plumes of black smoke billowing into the air at the facility on the site of the city's trade fair. Four friends were killed instantly on their way home from a vegan festival after their car swerved into the wrong side of the road and crashed into another vehicle. Brogan Warren, 21, Sam Kay, 26, Nicoletta Tocco, 25, and Sam Jones, 23, all died instantly when their Citroen Saxo collided with a Mercedes travelling in the opposite direction in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire. The group were travelling back from Bristol festival VegFest at the time of the crash, on May 22. All four in the Citroen were pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. Brogan Warren, Sam Kay, Nicoletta Tocco and Sam Jones (all pictured) spent the day at Bristol's VegFest event for vegans before travelling back through Oxfordshire The two cars collided in the central reservation. Mr Jones was found to have cannabis and alcohol in his blood, but they were below the illegal level. The inquest heard Mr Jones, a welder, crossed over into the wrong side of the road and into the opposite lane of traffic towards the Mercedes being driven by Jean-Paul Gashema. Mr Gashema tried to swerve out of the way in a bid to avoid a crash. However when Mr Jones tried to do the same they collided in the central reservation resulting in the fatal crash. Mental health care worker Mr Kay and Ms Tocco, an administrative clerk were cut free from the wreckage by paramedics but were pronounced dead at the scene. Mr Jones and Ms Warren were also pronounced dead shortly after the crash after suffering multiple injuries. The inquest heard evidence from investigators which suggests Ms Warren was not wearing a seatbelt. Brogan Warren (right), Sam Kay, Nicoletta Tocco (left) and Krop Jones all died instantly when their Citroen Saxo collided with a Mercedes travelling in the opposite direction Mr Gashema was travelling with wife Cabren and their three-year-old son in the Mercedes B-Class and were also injured in the devastating crash, which left Mr Jones' Saxo on its roof. The Gashema family were driving to their home in Swindon from Abingdon when they noticed a car being driven at high speed towards them. In a statement read during the inquest in Oxford, Mr Gashema said: 'The journey went well until after the McDonald's roundabout - three or four minutes later the accident happened. 'The road is straight but slightly uphill and there is a slight dip in the road where it used to flood all the time. Ahead I saw another car on my side of the road and I saw the lights. They seemed to be bouncing around. 'The other car was on my side and coming straight at us. 'I had time to think to myself what are they doing, are they foreign and on the wrong side. The car was going fast. I think the speed limit was 50mph and they were going much faster than that. 'I kept hoping it would go onto its correct side and in the end I had to do something and slowed down. The only option was for me to go to the right to avoid it. Mr Jones was among those to be killed in the horror smash on the A420 in Shrivenham 'I moved towards the lane on the right and suddenly the other driver must have realised what he was doing and we met in the middle of the road. 'The other car went in the air and upside down and I gripped the steering wheel to control the car. 'Even if they had had time they would never have been able to control that car. There was absolutely no-one else about and there was no movement from the other car.' A collision forensic investigator said he had no reason to believe the Saxo had been travelling in excess of the 60mph speed limit. PC James Henderson said: 'The vehicle had sustained catastrophic damage and the most significant damage was to the front offside corner. 'I examined each of the four seat belts. The rear offside seatbelt was in a stored position and I couldn't find any webbing. I don't believe this seatbelt was being warn at the time of the collision. 'I don't believe wearing the seatbelt would have made any difference in this case.' Recording a conclusion of road traffic collision, Senior Coroner for Oxfordshire Darren Salter said it is impossible to know the reason behind the cause of the crash. He said: 'PC Henderson refers to a couple of potential causes which are driver fatigue and driver distraction. Sam Kay was also killed when the friends' Saxo collided with a black Mercedes on the A420 'It seems likely, having discounted other causes, that these are the most likely potential causes. 'Alcohol was below the legal limits and is not something that contributed to the accident.' Mr Salter, having heard that THC, the active chemical in cannabis, was not present dismissed suggestions the drug could have affected Mr Jones' driving leading up to the crash. He added: 'I couldn't say that alcohol or cannabis caused or contributed to this collision because the evidence isn't there for it. 'That leads us back to fatigue, perhaps nodding off at the wheel, or some kind of distraction inside or outside the vehicle. 'There was a near head-on collision between two cars on the A420 in Oxfordshire. The car in which Samuel Jones, Sam Kay, Nicolleta Tocco and Brogan Warren were travelling in had been on the wrong side of the carriageway. I couldn't say that alcohol or cannabis caused or contributed to this collision because the evidence isn't there for it. That leads us back to fatigue, perhaps nodding off at the wheel, or some kind of distraction inside or outside the vehicle - Senior Coroner Darren Salter 'All four died at the scene from multiple injuries.' Friends paid tribute to the group of friends on social media at the time of the crash and said the single-carriageway road between Swindon and Oxford has been dangerous for years. Keith Alex said: 'Very tragic. The Road To Hell claims four more lives. 'It was labelled way back in the 1960s and it still claims lives as so little has been done to improve it. Condolences to the families affected.' Susan Hedges added: 'I HATE that road. Always seems to be accidents along it. RIP.' Peter Hughes said: 'Its a b***** dangerous road, you can just imagine what happened.' Elle Moore added: 'So sad. I used to drive on this road when I come back to Northampton and was very close to where I had my crash. 'Brogan was the happiest and sweetest girl and it's such a shame.' A university professor claims Tesco is discriminating against state school children by making them queue outside - while private school pupils walk right in. Prof Neil Pollock claimed his son and other pupils at the council school in Edinburgh are forced to stand behind a barrier and admitted in small groups. But the academic alleges that children from 11,577-a-year George Watson's College, easily identifiable by their maroon blazers, are allowed straight in to the Bruntsfield Metro store. Tesco replied on Twitter that their store manager 'said the private school normally have a lesser amount of children which is quicker and easier for the store' Professor Pollock, head of innovation and social informatics at Edinburgh University, sends his son to Boroughmuir High, the Scottish state school of the year in 2012. The 49-year-old last week posted a series of tweets complaining about alleged discrimination by Tesco. The first said: 'Tesco makes one set of school kids queue outside, whilst another school walks in. One is state, the other private. Which one has to queue?' Tesco replied on Twitter that their store manager 'said the private school normally have a lesser amount of children which is quicker and easier for the store'. Prof Pollock wrote back: 'It may be easier for the store but it is discrimination. Everybody should queue or nobody should queue.' Prof Neil Pollock claimed his son and other pupils at the council school in Edinburgh are forced to stand behind a barrier and admitted in small groups Others backed the professor up, included one who tweeted: 'I have seen just as many Watson's kids as Boroughmuir kids.' Another suggested: 'Another reason to boycott @Tesco.' Prof Pollock said today: 'I've been complaining to the store for around six months after my son said what was happening, and nothing was changing. 'So I decided to also send a tweet to the store. 'My son actually tried to join on to the back of a group of George Watson kids who were walking in to the store but he was removed and told he had to queue.' 'They're a very creative store. 'I'm sure they could have come up with a better way of stopping large groups entering the shop. 'It is perhaps a form of incompetence from the management at the store. 'There is no good reason for them to held outside. I mean if they were shoplifting or something like that then I could perhaps understand.' Despite earlier tweeting an apparent admission, Tesco's today denied discriminating. A spokesman said: 'This is completely untrue - there has never been any discrimination between state and private school children at this store.' Professor Pollock, head of innovation and social informatics at Edinburgh University, sends his son to Boroughmuir High (pictured), the Scottish state school of the year in 2012 Donald Trump finally sat down with The New York Times on Tuesday afternoon for a showdown meeting after he cancelled and then un-cancelled the meeting over the course of a few hours earlier in the day. And the President-elect wasted no time in getting down to business, using the first four minutes of his audience with Times staff to criticize the paper for it coverage of him during the election. Trump's remarks on a range of issues - including Hillary Clinton, his businesses, the Middle East, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his chief strategist Steve Bannon and the alt-right movement - were shared by members of the Times staff on a Twitter live feed. 'I have great respect for the New York Times. I have tremendous respect. I think I've been treated very rough,' said Trump, who was seated next to the paper's publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. On his way out of the building, Trump made a point of shaking hands with the security guards in the building before making his way into his car and back to Trump Tower. Scroll down for videos Donald Trump (above) met with reporters from The New York Times on Tuesday afternoon. He is pictured waving to onlookers in the lobby while leaving Trump met with New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger (above) for discussions that were both on and off the record He went on to say their coverage was 'the roughest of all' and said of his campaign: 'It's been 18 months of brutality in a true sense.' Trump also made it clear that he wanted to have a good relationship with the Times, noting that it would make his job easier. At one point he even directly addressed the Times' publisher, saying: 'If you see something or you get something where you feel that Im wrong, I'd love to hear it. You can call me. Arthur can call me.' He also admitted to being a fan of the Times, joking at one point: 'I do read it. Unfortunately. Id live about 20 years longer if I didnt.' His final words to the group were that the Times was 'a world jewel.' He then added: 'I hope we can all get along.' But his relationship with the Times was just one of the issues raised during the wide-ranging 75-minute conversation. He was asked a number of questions, including whether or not he planned on appointing a special prosecutor to go after Hillary Clinton for her private email servers. After being pressed on the matter, Trump said: 'I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways.' He then added about bringing charges against her: 'Its just not something that I feel very strongly about.' 'My inclination would be for whatever power I have on the matter is to say let's go forward.This has been looked at for so long, ad nauseum' When asked about the Clinton Foundation, he said it has done some 'good work' according to Times reporter Maggie Haberman. The Times reported just before the meeting that three sources claim Trump's chief of staff gave him false information hoping he would not go A man carries a framed New York Times front page of President-elect Donald Trump's victory after his meeting Trump's adviser Kellyanne Conway (above) was seen closely watching her computer during the meeting, which was being live tweeted by members of the Times staff Later asked about what he hoped to accomplish during his presidency, Trump said: 'I would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians, that would be such a great achievement.' He said that he believes his son-in-law Jared Kushner could help make peace between the two countries, and when asked what kind of role he might see for Kushner, Trump said it would be one involving the Middle East. Trump also disavowed the alt-right, defended his chief strategist Steve Bannon against claims that he is racist, and once again raved about how much he likes President Obama. 'I didn't know if Id like him. I probably thought that maybe I wouldnt, but I did. I really enjoyed him a lot,' said Trump. When asked about potential conflicts of interest between his business interests and role as president, he said: ' The law's totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest.' 'My company's so unimportant to me relative to what I'm doing.' And he added: 'If it were up to some people, I would never, ever see my daughter Ivanka again.' When asked about Bannon, he said: 'If I thought he was a racist or alt-right or any of the things, the terms we could use, I wouldn't even think about hiring him.' Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus also defended Bannon. When asked about so-called alt-right white supremacists who are aligning themselves with Trump, he offered a strong rejection. I dont want to energize the group, and I disavow the group. And the president-elect was also asked about The First Amendment and libel laws. He said that one friend at one pint said to him about loosening libel laws: 'You know, YOU might be sued a lot more. I said, You know, I hadnt thought of that.' The meeting lasted 75 minutes in total, and as Trump left one woman yelled out: 'We love you!' That was then drowned out by some loud booing in the lobby. Trump was joined at the meeting by his chief of staff Rience Priebus, senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, spokesperson Hope Hicks and top aide Stephen Miller. Shortly before the meeting on Tuesday, the Times reported that it was Priebus who wanted him to cancel 'because he would face questions he might not be prepared to answer.' Three people with knowledge of Trump's decision said that Priebus 'erroneously' told Trump that the paper had changed their conditions 'believing it would result in a cancellation.' Hicks told reporters at Trump Tower on Tuesday morning that he would be meeting with reporters from the paper and that part of the session would be on the record. That announcement came a little over three hours after Trump said the meeting was off. Times spokesperson Eillen Murphy confirmed that the meeting was back on, saying: 'Mr. Trump's staff has told us that the President Elect's meeting with The Times is on again. 'He will meet with our publisher off-the-record and that session will be followed by an on-the-record meeting with our journalists and editorial columnists.' Trump himself made it clear he was back on board for the meeting on Tuesday as well, tweeting: 'The meeting with the @nytimes is back on at 12:30 today. Look forward to it!' Trump said during the meeting that he does not 'feel strongly' about prosecuting Hillary, stating: 'I dont want to hurt the Clintons' The President-elect said that he 'would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians' The President-elect had accused the Times earlier in the day of trying to change the ground rules for their session, and cited that as his reason for cancelling the planned meeting. 'I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice,' Trump wrote on Twitter at 6:15am Tuesday morning. The Times however was quick to respond to Trump's claims, revealing that they did not change any terms of the meeting but did refuse to speak with him off the record, a last second request that was made by Trump's team. The original terms stated that Trump would speak off the record at the start of the meeting, and that would be followed by a lengthy on-the-record discussion with reporters and columnists. Ms. Murphy had revealed earlier on Tuesday morning that the paper was not informed by Trump or any member of his camp about the meeting being cancelled, and that they only learned about his change of heart when he announced his decision on Twitter. 'We were unaware that the meeting was canceled until we saw the president-elects tweet this morning. We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to,' said Murphy. 'They tried to yesterday - asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to. 'In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record session with reporters and columnists.' Reince Priebus wanted Trump to cancel 'because he would face questions he might not be prepared to answer' Donald Trump let his Twitter followers know his meeting with the New York Times was back on Tuesday Trump had previously announced at 6:15am on Twitter that he had cancelled his meeting with the Times Trump meanwhile set about listing his grievances with the Times on Twitter after announcing he was cancelling the meeting early Tuesday. 'Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!,' wrote Trump 15 minutes after stating that the meeting was off on Tuesday. NY TIMES STATEMENT 'We were unaware that the meeting was canceled until we saw the president-elects tweet this morning. 'We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to. 'They tried to yesterday - asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to. 'In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record session with reporters and columnists.' Advertisement On Tuesday, three of the four stories above the fold on the cover of the Times were about Trump. One was about his desire to hire members of the military and generals for top jobs in his administration and another was about the YouTube video he released which provided an update on his policy plans for his first 100 days in office. The third story meanwhile focused on how Trump's business would run once he took office, and ran under the headline: 'Donald Trumps Business Dealings Test a Constitutional Limit.' Their story provided a laundry list of companies that are controlled by foreign governments or people with ties to them that do business with Trump's companies. Trump has 'multimillion-dollar real estate arrangements' in which he is the 'full owner' or 'branding partner' in Ireland and Uruguay reports the paper, and the Bank of China is a tenant in Trump Tower. 'Experts in legal ethics say those kinds of arrangements could easily run afoul of the Emoluments Clause if they continue after Mr. Trump takes office,' read the story in the Times. The Emoluments Clause is a provision in the Constitution that prohibits any individual holding office from accepting 'any present, emolument, office or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince or foreign state.' Trump's spokeswomen Hope Hicks (above on Tuesday) told reporters thee hours after her boss' tweet that the meeting was on, and that part of it would be on the record Trump followed up his initial tweet 15 minutes later with one announcing that the Times covers his with 'a nasty tone' Trump later questioned why the Times chose to reveal that 'complaints about them are at a 15 year high' Trump seemed to have moved on 30 minutes later, announcing that he had a busy day ahead of him at Trump Tower Trump's tweet about the Times coverage of him was followed seconds later by the president-elect writing: 'The failing New York Times just announced that complaints about them are at a 15 year high. I can fully understand that - but why announce?' The Times addressed that tweet on Tuesday, saying that Trump appeared to be referencing a story published by the paper over the weekend in which the paper's public editor revealed that the number of letters to the editor that they were receiving in the wake of the recent presidential election was similar to the number received after the 9/11 attacks. Trump then waited another 15 minutes before writing on Twitter: 'Great meetings will take place today at Trump Tower concerning the formation of the people who will run our government for the next 8 years.' The president-elect will then be leaving New York City at the end of the day and heading down to his Palm Beach estate Mar-a-Lago to spend Thanksgiving with his family. The meeting with the New York Times follows the discussion he had with executives from the major television networks and their top on-air talent on Monday which ended up playing out 'like a f***ing firing squad' a source later told theNew York Post. Trump criticized and attacked those in attendance claimed another source, and kicked things off by telling the group: 'We're in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong . Some of those in attendance also got a 'Trump-style dressing down' according to the source, most notably CNN president Jeff Zucker and ABC's chief global correspondent Martha Raddatz. Trump kicked things off by going after Zucker, according to the source, who claimed that the President-elect told the CNN president, 'I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed.' He later turned his attention to two of the women who had been covering the election said the second source. 'Trump didn't say Katy Tur by name, but talked about an NBC female correspondent who got it wrong, then he referred to a horrible network correspondent who cried when Hillary lost who hosted a debate which was Martha Raddatz who was also in the room,' claims the source. Tur was not present at the meeting on Monday. A source claimed after the meeting that Trump went after CNN president Jeff Zucker (above on Monday) during the meeting Gayle King and her CBS This Morning co-host Norah O'Donnell (above) were among those in attendance on Monday Fox News co-president Bill Shine was one of four executives from the cable news network present at the meeting That account differed wildly from the one Kellyanne Conway gave to members of the press after she left the meeting, which she said was 'very cordial, very productive, very congenial.' She went on to say that Trump was 'very candid and honest' in the meeting, and on a personal note stated that it was 'great to hit the reset button' after a 'long, hard-fought campaign.' Conway responded to the story in the Post on Monday evening by saying that Trump did not 'explode in anger,' but did not comment beyond that. Representatives from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Fox Business Network, NBC, ABC, and CBS were present at the meeting on Monday, which lasted an hour. ABC was represented by president James Goldston and anchors George Stephanopoulos, David Muir, and Martha Raddatz. Nightly News host Lester Holt and Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd were on hand for NBC , along with president Deborah Turness. And rounding out the broadcast network presence at the meeting was Face the Nation host John Dickerson and the entire CBS This Morning team of Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Norah O'Donnell along with Washington Bureau Chief Chris Isham. On the cable television side, CNN president Jeff Zucker attended on behalf of his network with on-air talent Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett. Fox News had a handful of executives present at the meeting, including co-presidents Bill Shine and Abernethy, vice president of news and editorial Jay Wallace and Suzanne Scott, the vice president of programming and development at the network. MSNBC president Phil Griffin was there for his network and Brian Jones attended for Fox Business Network. Members of Trump's team present at the event included chief of staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Stephen Bannon, spokesman Jason Miller, communications director Sean Spicer and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, a source told Politico. A car dealership tycoon allegedly punched and kicked his ex-wife after she found she found a text message from his 19-year-old Thai mistress, a court had heard. Brian Hilton, 82, has denied allegations that he attacked his then wife Cathleen Rosalie Alexander in April 2006 over an argument over the alleged affair. It was argued in court by the businessman's legal team that Ms Alexander was attempting to ruin Mr Hilton's reputation nearly a decade after the alleged assault, The Daily Telegraph reports. Mr Hilton pleaded not guilty as he appeared at Gosford Local Court last week. Car dealership tycoon, Brian Hilton, 82, has denied allegations made in court that he attacked his then-wife after she claimed she found a text message from his 19-year-old Thai mistress During the three-day hearing Ms Alexander claimed to have discovered a text message on his phone from Mr Hilton's 19-year-old Thai mistress named 'Wichuta' whom he met overseas. 'I approached him about the fact he didn't buy me a present and he said words to the effect ... 'I hate you, I wish I had never got mixed up with you, I wish you would kill yourself'.' Mr Hilton allegedly began swearing at Ms Alexander before punching her in the face twice and 'a powerful punch' to the top of her left arm. The court heard she further claims the businessman kicked her in the thigh after she fell to the ground. Ms Alexander was questioned why she took nearly 10 years to report the alleged assault. 'I was afraid he would follow through with his threats,' Ms Alexander said. 'He threatened to kill me and he threatened to kill my dog.' The magistrate is yet to rule on the allegations and matter was adjourned until December 22. Cathleen Rosalie Alexander was allegedly punched twice and then kicked by Mr Hilton, a court had heard A British great granddad has been killed by a hit-and-run driver in the desert as he returned from a dream trip to see Tutankhamun's tomb. Tragedy struck in the Valley of the Kings as John Traynor, 64, and his girlfriend were being driven back to their hotel in a hire car. A lorry on a desert highway ploughed into the side of the vehicle where Mr Traynor was sitting as his partner slept beside him. Mr Traynor, a former Labour councillor in Blackpool, died as a result of his injuries. A hunt is now underway for the driver who sped off, leaving the couple and their driver and guide injured in the wreckage. British great granddad John Traynor, from Blackpool, died as a result of his injuries after the car he was in was hit by a lorry in Egypt Doctors battled to save the life of the pensioner, who bore the brunt of the impact, after the accident on Friday but he died in hospital. The accident happened just a week after civil servant and former councillor Mr Traynor flew out to Egypt with long term partner Julie Galbraith. After booking into the beach resort of Hurghada for a two-week break, the couple, from Blackpool, hired a car, driver and guide for the 190 mile journey to the Pyramids. Tragedy struck in the Valley of the Kings as John Traynor, 64, and his girlfriend were being driven back to their hotel in a hire car Heartbroken son Damien said they had just set off on the drive back through the desert when a lorry smashed into Mr Traynor's passenger seat. He added: 'Julie was asleep. All she heard was my dad shouting "We are going to crash".' All four people inside the car were taken to Luxor International Hospital. Damien said: 'They operated on my dad and I got a call saying he was stable in the intensive care unit. 'But then I got another call later from Julie saying he had died. We still don't know the official cause of death.' The driver and the guide were also badly hurt, while Julie, who is now recovering at home, escaped with minor injuries. The former Labour councillor has been described as a 'proud socialist who wore his heart on his sleeve' Damien said: 'He was there for everybody. If you needed him, he would be there. 'I probably took him for granted a bit. I never realised how much he did until he is no longer here. He was my mate more than my dad.' Mr Traynor, from Cleveleys, Blackpool, was a dad of two, grandfather of six, and great grandad of one. His remains are due to be flown home tomorrow. A statement from Thornton Cleveleys Labour said: 'It is with deepest regret that Thornton Cleveleys Labour have to report the death of our friend and comrade, John Traynor. 'John, our Deputy Chair, was an active member of the Branch over many many years, and a Cleveleys Park Councillor for a number of years. Edward became king in 1936, but abdicated due to his Advertisement These black and white images unearthed after 80 years give a fascinating insight into one of the most scandalous weddings in British history that changed the monarchy forever. Edward VIII's wedding to his divorcee lover Wallis Simpson on June 3, 1937 in a remote French chateau sparked a constitutional crisis. He had become king in 1936 and was on the throne for only 11 months before abdicating because of his relationship with the American socialite. The pictures of their modest wedding was taken on a 'rogue' camera brought into the ceremony by guest Alexandra Metcalfe, who was one of only a handful of people to attend the low-key wedding. Scroll down for video Previously unseen pictures of Edward VIII's (pictured centre) marriage to American socialite Wallis Simpson have come to light 80 years after he sparked a constitutional crisis Guests at the wedding included Randolph Churchill (right), the son of Winston Churchill, and Baron Eugene Rothschild (left) in the understated ceremony attended by only a handful of people Lady Metcalfe, wife of Edward's best man Major Edward 'Fruity' Metcalfe, assumed the role of unofficial photographer at the simple ceremony. Although the Metcalfes were never part of the Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson circle - 'Fruity' and Wallis disliked each other - they remained loyal at the time of the abdication when fairweather friends abandoned him. Metcalfe - an officer in the British Indian Army - first met Edward VIII when, as Prince of Wales, was touring India. Edward was impressed with Metcalfe's knowledge of horses and made him a member of his personal staff and the two became close friends. Edward had started his relationship with the socialite when she was still married to her second husband, shipbroker Ernest Simpson, and her illicit relationship with the British monarch was not publicly known. Months after their return, the King announced he wanted to marry her - leading to his abdication. He was succeeded by his younger brother, George VI. With a reign of 326 days, Edward was one of the shortest-reigning monarchs in British history. The private pictures were distributed in a secret album to the small number of guests, numbering only eight or nine. Pictured are the flowers at the wedding, arranged by Constance Fry as a gift to Wallis The private pictures were distributed in a secret album to the small number of guests, numbering only eight or nine. The set of 17 photos was given to W. Cunningham Graham, the British consul at Nantes at the time. The current owner acquired them years ago from another collector of Royal memorabilia. They are being sold next week at Bellmans Auctioneers of Billingshurst, West Sussex, for 6,000. Lady Metcalfe's pictures include one of the room where the understated ceremony took place, the head table for the wedding breakfast which included a seven tier cake and guests milling around on the balcony of Chateau de Cande. Another image showed Charles and Fern Bedaux, the owners of the the chateau. Charles, a millionaire, was a Nazi collaborator and later committed suicide when he was arrested at the end of the Second World War. Other guests photographed include Randolph Churchill, the son of Winston Churchill, Baron Eugene Rothschild, Herman Rogers, who gave Wallis away, and Walter Monckton, the Duke's confidant. Denise Kelly, from the auction house, said: 'These photographs are of the greatest rarity, not least because of the use of a "rogue" camera at such an event. 'Until quite recently, guests at most social events would have been happy with the pictures provided by an "official" photographer'. 'It is unusual to receive consignments of any such private Royal photographs, but having 17 of them in one lot, which represent the King who gave away his Empire for the woman he loved, is extraordinary. 'One wonders about the quiet, remote Chateau de Cande and how it must have been a far cry from a packed Westminster Abbey, with members of the Royal Family, heads of state and dignitaries from around the world in attendance. In many of the photos Edward was seen looking pensive - he was hoping his younger brother, George, would attend Edward, pictured with his wife Wallis Simpson and next to Winston Churchill's son, Randolph (on his right) There were only a handful of guests at the wedding that led to his abdication which was the biggest constitutional crisis in modern Royal history This picture shows the library where the ceremony in the French chateau took place, in June 1937 This image shows Charles and Fern Bedaux, the owners of the the chateau. Charles, a millionaire, was a Nazi collaborator and later committed suicide when he was arrested at the end of the Second World War 'These photographs instead portray an event lacking in the pomp and circumstance usually associated with a royal wedding, and reflect the storm of controversy, disapproval and strong opposition to this love affair. 'Here is a couple being married far from home, very quietly in the company of so few guests. 'It is difficult to look at these sometimes sad and lonely images of Edward knowing that right up until the morning of the wedding he had hoped that at the very least his brother would attend. 'During our research of the guests in the photographs, and their relationships with Edward and Wallis, we found their pasts and futures were fascinating stories in their own right. 'The image of only a handful of empty chairs in front of the make-shift altar, tells its own story of the day Edward was finally able to marry "the woman I love"'. The auction will take place on November 30. Best man Major Edward 'Fruity' Metcalfe (pictured second left) helps oversee the wedding breakfast Cecil Beaton, the official photographer at the understated ceremony - now 'rogue' pictures of the wedding have come to light The set of 17 photos was given to W. Cunningham Graham (pictured), the British consul at Nantes at the time Police say he was part of trio arrested on Melbourne's West Gate Bridge A teenager accused of getting involved in a car chase with violent Apex gang members was a 'highly respected' pupil, a court has heard. The 17-year-old boy was one of three youths arrested on Melbourne's West Gate Bridge last week after a robbery spree and a high-speed car chase, police say. But it has now emerged that the student was extremely well regarded by his teachers and was once in the running to be school captain. A 17-year-old boy who police say was involved in a series of violent Apex gang raids before leading officers on a high-speed chase last week was a 'highly respected' student (file image) A court was shown letters of praise from the boy's deputy principal as it was revealed he was once in the running to become school captain (pictured, the car he is accused of riding in) At a bail hearing on Tuesday a magistrate was presented with letters of recommendation from the school's vice principal on behalf of the boy. She said: 'Really, [your crimes are] incredibly serious and what I've got here is one of the most impressive letters I've read from a deputy principal. 'I'm struggling to understand how you can be the two people I've heard about.' The boy's lawyer added that his client 'has a lot going for him', adding that he is 'clearly highly respected at the school', according to The Herald Sun. The investigating detective shared a similar sense of disbelief, saying that the boy's motivation was 'inexplicable', adding: 'His sole purpose is purely for enjoyment.' The suspect was denied bail and must remain in Victoria until his charges have been finalized. He is due to be charged with armed robbery, car theft and trespass. Officers say the 17-year-old and two accomplices, aged 17 and 18, took part in three armed raids (pictured) before speeding away in a stolen car Police say the boy and two accomplices tried to force their way into a jewellery store at around 1.45pm last Monday, before ransacking another jeweller while armed with crowbars around 15 minutes later. At 2.45pm the same group are accused of attempting to rob from a tobacconist before the stolen vehicle was picked up by officers. Officers deployed stop sticks, and eventually the car was forced to stop on the West Gate bridge. Police were forced to break the windows after the occupants locked themselves inside, before they were arrested. An 18-year-old has since been jailed for 20 months after pleaded guilty to two counts of armed robbery and two of car theft that occurred over the course of a two-day crime spree in November last year. Another 17-year-old is still passing through children's court where he is facing eight charges including armed robbery, burglary, theft of motor vehicle and reckless conduct. The boy is now charged with armed robbery, car theft and trespass and has been ordered to stay in Victoria until the charges are finalised That boy is believed to be an Apex gang member and has taken part in a string of violent crimes, according to reports. Back in April he beat two students with a hammer and demanded they perform sex acts on each other as he tried to film the incident on his phone, the Herald Sun reported. One of the victims - a Chinese international student - said he feared for his life during the terrifying ordeal and thought he wouldn't return to his family. On the same day as the hammer attack, the boy was also involved in a violent home invasion in which a father was injured while trying to stop them stealing his car after being dragged along the road. Donald Trump signaled Tuesday that he would not sic federal investigators on Hillary Clinton once he's in the White House. 'Its just not something that I feel very strongly about,' he told the New York Times. 'I think it would be very very divisive for the country.' Trump told the news organization's reporters and editors that he doesn't 'want to hurt' his general election opponent, who he said had 'suffered enough,' or her husband, Bill, a former U.S. president. He didn't rule out a future prosecution, yet said, 'My inclination would be, for whatever power I have on the matter, is to say let's go forward. This has been looked at for so long, ad nauseum.' Trump's team teased the announcement - that is sure to shock his supporters - Tuesday morning. Kellyanne Conway, a senior official on the Republican's presidential campaign and now his transition team, told MSNBC the president-elect has a lot on his mind and 'things that sound like the campaign aren't among them.' 'I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don't find her to be honest or trustworthy, but if Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that's a good thing,' Conway said. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Donald Trump signaled Tuesday that he would not sic federal investigators on Hillary Clinton once he's in the White House Clinton has rarely been seen in public since her her electoral defeat two weeks ago. This above photo is from Sunday, at a bookstore in Rhode Island Kellyanne Conway, a senior official on the Republican's presidential campaign and now his transition team, told Morning Joe the president-elect has a lot on his mind and 'things that sound like the campaign aren't among them' Trump told the New York Times he doesn't 'want to hurt' his general election opponent, who he said had 'suffered enough,' or her husband, Bill, a former U.S. president. He's pictured leaving the new organization's headquarters this afternoon Trump threatened Hillary with jail time at a debate and promised to appoint a special prosecutor to look into her deleted emails. He likewise alleged that the former secretary of state and her husband used their charity, the Clinton Foundation, for 'criminal enterprise.' 'Lock her up!' became a rallying cry for Trump supporters attending his events. He told DailyMail.com in April that he'd 'have to' request a re-do in her email case. 'You have to take a second look,' he said. 'It would have to be very, very fair and very, very above board.' The president-elect's inner circle had doubted publicly since the election that Trump would follow through, though, and the incoming president said himself in a 60 Minutes interview that he didn't want to 'hurt' Bill and Hillary. 'They're good people,' he said. Trump similarly told the Times today, 'I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways.' The Clinton Foundation has been said to have done some 'good work,' he said of complaints against the non-profit that continued to accept foreign donations while Hillary worked for the White House. Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough had reported earlier on Tuesday that the president-elect would not pursue charges against his former White House opponent for her emails or the pay-for-play schemes he accused her of on the campaign trail. A source with 'direct knowledge' of Trump's plans shared the information, Brzezinski said on the program early Tuesday am. Trump feels Clinton has been 'through enough,' the source told the program. Scarborough referenced Gerald Ford's pardoning of Richard Nixon at the beginning of his term for charges associated with Watergate and observed that Trump 'could say there are echos of 1974.' 'But at the same time I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of members of the Trump base that are gonna be angry that he did this,' he said. The MSNBC host said: 'You don't want to go into a new year chasing somebody out of public life....It's just not good for the country.' Trump told the Times later on Tuesday he expects his supporters will understand why he's giving Clinton a pass. 'I don't think they will be disappointed,' he said, according to Times reporter Maggie Haberman, Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski reported on Tuesday that the president-elect will not pursue charges against his former White House opponent for her emails or the pay-for-play schemes he accused her of on the campaign trail MORNING JOE MENDS FENCES WITH TRUMP Donald Trump and Morning Joe host Scarborough have had a roller coaster year. Trump was a regular guest on Scarborough's MSNBC show during the primaries and is said to have offered him behind-the-scenes advice. 'You guys have been supporters, and I really appreciate it,' Trump told Scarborough and his co-host Mika Brzezinski in February. 'Not necessarily supporters, but at least believers.' Then, Scarborough claimed that Chris Christie and Bernie Sanders drew higher ratings. By May, their relationship had deteriorated so much that Scarborough said he wouldn't be voting for him. Trump repeatedly attacked the show's hosts on Twitter. 'I don't watch or do @Morning_Joe anymore. Small audience, low ratings! I hear Mika has gone wild with hate. Joe is Joe. They lost their way!' he said in a June tweet. Trump alleged in August that two were dating. 'Some day, when things calm down, I'll tell the real story of@JoeNBC and his very insecure long-time girlfriend,@morningmika. Two clowns!' he said. A couple weeks later the MSNBC hosts visited Trump to bury the hatchet. Advertisement The White House said Tuesday afternoon that a new investigation into Clinton's email account is unnecessary. 'This decision was already reached,' press secretary Josh Earnest said. Clinton has rarely been seen in public since her electoral defeat two weeks ago. A hiker spotted the Democrat near her home, walking her dogs, in Chappaqua, New York. On Sunday bookseller posted a photograph of Clinton in Westerly, Rhode Island. Clinton was there with her husband, daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren, the woman said. Clinton delivered a speech last Wednesday in Washington, D.C. before the Children's Defense Fund, the first organization she worked at after college. Conway confirmed to Scarborough this morning, on air, that Trump would not add injury to insult and work to put Clinton behind bars. Republicans on Capitol Hill said they would spend 'years' investigating her after the election. 'I think they were looking toward a Clinton administration,' Brzezinski said Tuesday. Conway said she expects them to back down, too. 'I think when the president-elect, who's also the head of your party now, Joe, tells you before he's even inaugurated he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content, to the members,' Conway told Scarborough. Trump threatened Clinton with jail time on the campaign trail and promised to appoint a special prosecutor to look into her deleted emails. He likewise alleged Clinton and her husband Bill used their charity for 'criminal enterprise' She indicated that Trump was changing tack because he has more pressing matters to deal with. 'I think he's thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the President of the United Stats and things that sound like the campaign aren't among them,' she stated. Rudy Giuliani, a vice chairman of Trump's transition, told reporters this morning as he exited Trump Tower, that he'd seen the news but had no additional information. If Trump did reach that conclusion, he said, 'I would be supportive of it. 'Id also be supportive of continuing the investigation. I think the president-elect had a tough choice there - you could go either way,' Giuliani said. 'If he made the choice to unite the nation, I think all those people who didnt vote against him, maybe, could take another look at him.' Giuliani said Tuesday, as he's said before, 'Theres a tradition in American politics that after you win an election, you sort of put things behind you. 'And if thats the decision he reached, thats perfectly consistent with sort of a historical pattern of things come up,' he stated today. 'You say a lot of things, even some bad things might happen, and then you can sort of put it behind you in order to unite the nation.' President Barack Obama could pardon Clinton himself before leaving office as added protection. The White House hasn't specifically ruled that out. Obama's spokesman said Tuesday that the current White House has gone to 'great lengths' to avoid even the appearance of Oval Office interference in Justice Department investigations. That includes the Clinton email case, he said, encouraging the Trump administration to abide by 'precedent' set by the Obama White House. But he also said, 'There was an investigation. The investigation was led by independent officials at the Department of Justice that included director of the FBI. Advertisement A second generation Lebanese Christian MP has agreed with Immigration Minister Peter Dutton's claim that allowing Lebanese Muslim refugees into Australia in the 1970s was a 'mistake'. Michael Sukkar, MP for Deakin in Victoria, backed Mr Dutton after he came under fire last week for suggesting the Fraser government 'did make mistakes by bringing some people in' to the country during the 1970s. When pressed on who he was referring to during question time on Monday, Mr Dutton pointed the finger at Lebanese-Muslim immigrants, stating they were responsible for 66 per cent of Australia's latest terror offences. According to The Australian Financial Review, Mr Sukkar told the party room that Mr Dutton's comments were 'spot on' and stressed that voters in his diverse electorate had no tolerance for terrorism. Another conservative Liberal MP reportedly agreed with Mr Sukkar, saying: 'We can't just wish away the issue.' Scroll down for video Second-generation Lebanese Christian MP Michael Sukkar (left) has agreed with Immigration Minister Peter Dutton's (right) claim that allowing Lebanese Muslim refugees into Australia in the 1970s was a 'mistake' Mr Sukkar, (pictured with wife) Liberal MP for Deakin in Victoria, reportedly said Mr Dutton was 'spot on' when he claimed that 66 per cent of Australia's last 33 terrror offences were committed by 2nd and 3rd generation Lebanese Muslims The exchange caused Australia's first female Muslim MP Anne Aly to erupt in anger on Monday (pictured during Question Time in the House of Representatives on Tuesday) North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman told Tuesday's Coalition party room meeting the recent commentary on Muslim immigration had been 'unhelpful', but did not go as far as to name Mr Dutton. Mr Zimmerman said he was concerned about undoing good relationships that had been formed with migrant communities, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. However Mr Sukkar, whose father was born in Lebanon, dismissed Mr Zimmerman's comments, instead throwing his support behind Mr Dutton. Another MP said Sukkar 'smashed' the North Sydney MP on the topic, adding that Zimmerman had 'completely misread the mood of the party room.' The exchange caused Australia's first female Muslim MP Anne Aly to erupt in anger on Monday, while Opposition Leader Bill Shorten slammed the comments as 'disgraceful'. Outside of the Senate, community representatives for Lebanese Australians expressed equal amounts of outrage at Mr Dutton's 'baseless' and 'divisive' comments. 'Mr Dutton's comments are baseless, unfounded and uninformed,' association president for the Lebanese Muslim Association Samier Dandan said in a statement. 'The Australian Lebanese community is not political fodder. Mr Dutton is accountable for his divisive rhetoric and we would remind him that he and his government's responsibility is to preserve our successful multicultural country.' Randa Kattan, CEO of the Arab Council Australia, said the minister's comments were 'divisive' and 'outrageous' Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has been slammed for his comments about Lebanese-Muslim immigrants The Australian National Imams Council also released a statement slamming Mr Dutton for his 'outrageous' and 'racist' comments. 'No community deserves to be tarnished by the actions of a very small minority,' the ANIC statement said. 'The ploy of shifting blame exposes the government's abdication of its responsibility to deal effectively with the threat of terrorism. It also confirms the base strategy of pandering to the extreme right within its party.' Randa Kattan, CEO of the Arab Council Australia, told The Guardian that the minister's comments were divisive. 'It's outrageous that he would go out of his way to tarnish an entire community in that fashion,' she said. 'I think what Peter Dutton said embodies the problem of modern politics, which seems to identify problems without any solutions.' Linda Burney, Shadow Minister for Human Services, tweeted a photo of a personal letter addressed to Mr Dutton. 'I was extremely disappointed to hear our community denigrated in what I hope is the result of ignorance, but which I fear may have been in malice,' she wrote. 'A written response with your apology to the community in Barton or a clearer explanation of your comments would be much appreciated.' Twitter was flooded with messages of condemnation directed at Mr Dutton. 'I immigrated to Australia from Lebanon when Mr Fraser was PM. I'm not a 'mistake.' I'm a proud Australian Lebanese Muslim. Shame on you, Peter Dutton,' wrote Sam Bazzi. 'As a Lebanese Australian, I find Peter Dutton's comments insulting and degrading,' tweeted Mina. Linda Burney, Shadow Minister for Human Services, wrote a scathing personal letter addressed to Mr Dutton Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addressed the controversy on Tuesday, saying Mr Dutton was doing an 'outstanding' job as Immigration Minister Mr Turnbull added that Mr Dutton was 'entitled' to reflect on past immigration policies In a press conference on Tuesday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addressed the controversy, saying Mr Dutton was doing an 'outstanding' job and adding he was 'entitled' to reflect on past policies. 'There is no question that there are lessons to be learned from previous immigration policies and the minister was reflecting on, you know, on policies many years ago,' Mr Turnbull said. 'He's entitled to do that. But the critical thing is - I'm not making any comment on his remarks other than to say that it's fairly fair for all of us to reflect on past policies and how effective they were or not and seek to improve, in the light of that, to improve what we're doing now.' The Prime Minister also said earlier in the press conference that Australia is 'really admired around the world for the success of our immigration program.' The Immigration Minister's comments have drawn strong criticism, especially from his political opponents but support from his colleagues. Australia's first female Muslim MP Anne Aly (left) was on Monday photographed gesturing furiously at George Christensen after Peter Dutton said he would call out extremism if he saw it Opposition Leader Bill Shorten described the remarks as 'disgraceful' and 'shameful' Opposition Leader Bill Shorten described the remarks as 'disgraceful', and called for Mr Turnbull to intervene and force Mr Dutton to apologise. 'Enough is enough,' Mr Shorten said. 'Our hardworking migrant communities shouldn't have to tolerate this kind of ignorant stupidity and he needs to immediately apologise.' Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young went further during parliamentary question time, lashing out at Mr Dutton as a 'racist bigot' before begrudgingly withdrawing the 'unparliamentary' comment. 'I stand by it. I think Peter Dutton is a racist bigot,' she said. 'It is my opinion. I will withdraw it for the sake of the chamber but honestly, I believe it.' Labor MP Time Watts took to social media to express his outrage, calling the comments 'extraordinary'. 'The Minister for Immigration seems to think that criminal behaviour by 'second and third generation migrants' (AKA 'Australians', AKA the grandchildren of migrants) is attributable to immigration policy,' Mr Watts wrote on Facebook. Ms Aly is pictured here delivering her maiden speech to the House of Representatives on September 12 It was during the debate Mr Dutton made the comments about Mr Fraser making 'mistakes'. When Opposition Leader Bill Shorten asked Mr Dutton which communities he was referring to, Mr Dutton said he was bullying him and said he would stand up for himself. 'I won't be bullied by this great fraud of Australian politics... Where I see extremism I will call it out.' Ms Aly then gestured so angrily towards Liberal National MP George Christensen, that her leather jacket fell off her shoulders. Many fans missed out after realising their payments were refunded Fans claimed they bought tickets to Adele only for transaction to fail Sydney man Jay Bradshaw was one of the hundreds of customers left furious after purchasing tickets to Adele's hotly anticipated 2017 tour only to find out their tickets had vanished. Tickets went on sale for Adele's 2017 tour to Sydney and Adelaide on Monday but the excitement soon turned into utter frustration for dedicated fans. Social media was set alight with anger after fans purchased tickets - only for the Ticketek website to freeze upon payment due to high amounts of traffic to the site. Leaving Adele's followers even more enraged was the fact that many of them saw money for the tickets taken out of their bank accounts - only to be refunded again. Scroll down of video 33-year-old Jay Bradshaw (left) was planning on purchasing the tickets for his girlfriend (right) as a Christmas present Mr Bradshaw ended up losing his tickets after he appeared to have paid for them and his bank statement showing a pending transaction, but upon calling Ticketek finding out they had no history of his payment Mr Bradshaw took to social media in an honest attempt to find out what had happened to his tickets Many fans said the payment was pending when they called their bank or checked statements, but could not find the tickets in their Ticketek transaction history. With tickets selling in record-breaking fashion, fans reached out to Ticketek via Twitter or their back-logged call centre to work out if they had purchased the tickets - in order not to double up. However, many were left dumbfounded when they found out the money had been put back in their account and they had lost the tickets. Jay Bradshaw, 33, was 'extremely disappointed' when he jumped online 30 minutes early to purchase tickets for his girlfriend for a surprise Christmas present. Tickets went on sale for Adele's 2017 tour to Sydney and Adelaide on Monday (Stock Image) 'I hopped on the computer at quarter to 12pm before tickets went on sale. I got some decent seats and I was already logged in and I was punching in the credit card details and paid and the screen froze,' Mr Bradshaw said. 'It said go back, so I tried to flick back and check out, but I couldn't get back onto the page.' Wanting to make sure he had purchased the tickets to surprise his girlfriend Julie, Mr Bradshaw quickly checked his banking transaction. 'So I checked my online banking and it said my money had gone. I was also charged twice and both were pending but nothing was in my [Ticketek] transaction history.' Fans of Adele were left dumbfounded when they claimed tickets vanished from their transaction history Tickets for Adele's 2017 tour were selling for more than $200 for the Sydney event held at ANZ stadium (Stock Image) After waiting on the phone for more than 30 minutes to Ticketek, Mr Bradshaw was told he had no history of purchasing the tickets despite the bank pending the transaction. After the money appearing back in his account any chance of him regaining his tickets had vanished. Mr Bradshaw was puzzled with the troubles fans experienced when purchasing tickets and he also took to social media. 'In all honesty, as a big company, you would be expecting the traffic and they should have had provisions in place,' he said. 'We have bought Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift tickets for our daughter with no dramas. 'Knowing what they were up against they should have handled it a lot better.' Tickets for Adele's 2017 tour were selling for more than $200 for the Sydney event held at ANZ stadium. One consumer was angry to find out her ticket purchase didn't go through but claimed money was stil lwithdrawn from her account, so she had to buy tickets and order a refund Social media was flooded with other fans bewildered they had lost tickets and great seats. One fan said she was furious after claiming to have purchased 'A reserve' tickets only to be notified four hours later she had lost them, despite money leaving her account. Fans were quick to snap up tickets with the Melbourne concert selling out in around 35 minutes. Unfortunate fans will have to hold out for a second show after the global superstar announced extra concerts in Brisbane and Melbourne due to the demand. Owner of the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant James Alefantis, who has been bombarded with online threats A Washington pizzeria has been bombarded with threats from online trolls following bizarre rumors on fake news sites that Hillary Clinton abused children there. Staff at the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in the capital have been receiving messages on social media and even via text messages with some threatening to kill them. The owner of the restaurant James Alefantis was at first at a loss as to why him and his workers were receiving abusive messages and why some even saw pictures of their children stolen from social media accounts. And eventually he discovered several fake news articles that were being shared on social media, alleging that his restaurant was the base for a child abuse ring led by Mrs Clinton and her campaign manager John Podesta. Some of the fake rumors even claimed that kidnapped and trafficked children were being kept in the venue's back rooms, where they were molested. It is believe the restaurant was targeted as Mr Alefantis was once in a relationship with outspoken Clinton supporter David Brock. Meanwhile it is also thought that in several emails sent by Podesta, and leaked by Wikileaks, the campaign manager's love of Italian food was revealed fuelling the rumors. And now Mr Alefantis says he has been forced to report all of the abuse to the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, who are monitoring the situation after he caught one supporter of the rumor try to shoot a live video from within the restaurant. Washington pizza restaurant Comet Ping Pong, which has been bombarded with threats from online trolls following bizarre rumors on fake news sites about Hillary Clinton The restaurant owner told the New York Times: 'From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, weve come under constant assault. 'I've done nothing for days but try to clean this up and protect my staff and friends from being terrorized.' Meanwhile Bryce Reh, the venue's general manager says his wife has begged him to leave his job due to the threats they have been receiving. The rumours concerning Hillary Clinton allege that she and her campaign manager used the restaurant as a place to abuse children He also told the newspaper: 'Its like trying to shoot a swarm of bees with one gun.' Mrs Clinton and Mr Podesta are yet to comment on the online rumors however, a former Clinton campaign official said Wikileaks had spawned several untrue conspiracy theories. The rumors come amid online firms such as Facebook and Google coming under fire for not cracking down on fake news sites being shared on their networks. Last week both Google and Facebook announced plans to fight the spread of fake news by placing tighter restrictions on how such sites make money from advertising. Google has revealed it is working on a policy change to its AdSense online advertising network that will prevent websites with misleading content from using it to earn money, while Facebook has said it is updating its advertising policy to restrict adverts appearing alongside 'misleading or deceptive' content. A shocking video has emerged of a dinghy packed with migrants sinking in the Mediterranean after they mistook a Tunisian trawler for a coastguard ship. The footage appeared on the internet today and comes as the Italian coastguard warned that eight people had died and many more were missing after another migrant boat went down in the Mediterranean. It is not clear if the footage is from this week or from the summer but it clearly shows the large white dinghy aiming itself at the ship. The large white dinghy, powered by an outboard motor, can be seen heading straight for the ship (pictured, left). Seconds later, as it comes alongside, people try to climb up the side It comes alongside the trawler and, as the migrants desperately try to climb up the side of the fishing vessel, the dinghy capsizes and dozens are thrown into the sea. Many of the migrants clearly cannot swim and only a handful are wearing lifebelts. As a man onboard the trawler's deck shouts in Italian: 'Calma (Stay calm)' the situation gets worse and eventually the bodies of people who have clearly drowned can be seen floating on the surface. The dinghy is packed with African migrants (left) and when it capsizes they are thrown into the sea (right) The video was uploaded onto Youtube, where a commentator says: 'The crew were reluctant to help since letting them on board would have been a serious security risk as it would have them outnumbered 10 to 1. 'The only way to help would be individuals of the crew rappelling down to to the sea line, which would most likely result in their own death as the immigrants would drag them down.' The Italian coastguard has a policy of escorting to shore any migrants it finds at sea and it is thought those on the migrant boat thought they would be rescued and taken to Italy if their boat capsized next to the ship. They were unaware it was just a fishing vessel operating out of a Tunisian port. The final scenes of the video show people clinging to the upturned dinghy (left) and others in the sea, including the bodies of people who have clearly drowned (right) The shocking video comes as Malta-based charity MOAS and the Red Cross reported another tragedy involving another migrant boat. Red Cross Team Coordinator Abdelfetah Mohamed said today: 'There may be many missing, many dead.' 'The doctors managed to revive several people with hypothermia but it was too late for one of them,' said MOAS spokeswoman Maria Teresa Sette. The Italian coastguard said today 1,200 people on 11 boats had been rescued during operations overnight. One wooden vessel was carrying almost 500 people. There were also two smaller wooden boats as well as the usual overcrowded inflatable dinghies. The Red Cross said the survivors included migrants from Syria, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and sub-Saharan Africa. before the incident and said he was 'concerned by what I saw' He says he was with Kanye's wife Kim Kardashian Kanye West's close friend and fellow musician John Legend has voiced his concerns for the Fade rapper the morning after he was hospitalized for a psychotic break. In an interview with CBS This Morning on Tuesday, Legend revealed that he was with West's wife Kim Kardashian right before he was taken to UCLA Medical Center late Monday. 'We were with Kim actually, you know, right before all of that. 'I was concerned by what I saw, so hopefully he's getting some rest and some time to figure things out,' Legend said. Scroll down for video John Legend said he was 'concerned' about Kanye West's health before his hospitalization on Monday John Legend spoke with @CBSThisMorning about his concern for Kanye West pic.twitter.com/EP8OHbAEzH CBS News (@CBSNews) November 22, 2016 Kardashian was in New York on Monday when her husband was hospitalized for his own safety after suffering a psychotic breakdown. She immediately fly back to L.A., deciding to skip the Angel Ball she planned to attend with her sisters Khloe and Kourtney. Legend has been friends with West for about as long as he has been in the music business. The two met in 2001, when Legend was introduced to West and hired to sing the hooks on some of West's tracks. He later was signed to West's label. Their wives are also incredibly close. When Kardashian said she was looking into surrogacy for a possible third pregnancy, because of a health condition, Teigen immediately volunteered to carry her friend's baby. West was admitted to UCLA Medical Center for his own safety late Monday after allegedly experiencing a psychotic break. He's pictured above with his close-friend Legend in August 2015 'I would be her surrogate in a second,' the model and cookbook author told Access Hollywood. 'I really enjoyed the pregnancy process - I loved it. Yes. In a heartbeat.' The two women have also posted extensively on Snapchat and Instagram about each other, from Kim's baby shower for Chrissy to double dates at Waffle House. After Teigen gave birth to her and Legend's first child together earlier this year, the couple met up with Kardashian and West to show off the new baby. Teigen referred to Kardashian as 'Auntie Kim' in a picture posted to Snapchat of Kim cooing over baby Luna. The two men's wives, Kim Kardashian (second left) and Chrissy Teigen (second right), are also quite close. Teigen recently made a public offering to be a surrogate if Kim and Kanye have a third child. Pictured above in January 2015 In May, Legend and Teigen introduced their baby Luna to West and Kardashian at brunch The two couples went on a double date to a Waffle House in February 2015 The rest of West's Saint Pablo tour has been cancelled in the wake of his hospitalization. TMZ reports that the star is 'spiraling out of control' while friends told DailyMail.com that the 'breakdown' was triggered by problems in his marriage, paranoia over his rift with Jay Z and his seething jealousy of Beyonce. Paramedics were called to Kanye's home at around 1:20pm on Monday when the rapper was suffering 'severe sleep deprivation', and decided he needed to be admitted. Law enforcement sources confirmed he was hospitalized for his own health and safety. Sources close to Kanye say he tried to resist being transported to the L.A. hospital and had to be handcuffed to a gurney in transit. Kim had been due to make an appearance at an East Coast event yesterday but jumped back on a plane to Los Angeles after the shock news of her husband's hospitalization. She was later spotted disembarking a jet at the Van Nuys Airport, in Los Angeles, late Monday night and climbing into a car - presumably waiting to take her to UCLA so she could be at her husband's side. Concerned fans have already begun tweeting with the hashtag #PrayForKanye in the wake of the news. 'PRAY FOR KANYE': CELEBRITIES RESPOND TO KANYE WEST'S 'MENTAL BREAK' Advertisement Earlier today, Kanye's concert promoter, Live Nation, had announced he was axing the remaining 22 gigs on his national tour without giving a reason. The announcement came just two days after the 39-year-old music artist had walked off stage 30 minutes into his performance following an incoherent political and personal rant. West took aim at Hillary Clinton, close friends Beyonce and Jay Z and Mark Zuckerberg in the bizarre outburst while on stage in Sacramento on Saturday. Now friends say the rant is more than just another dramatic tantrum from the rapper known for his outspoken opinions - and even his famous wife has had enough. 'Kim is fed up,' a close friend tells DailyMail.com. 'They've been bickering constantly - she didn't want Kanye to do the tour in the first place. She wanted him by her side as she recovered from her traumatic robbery 'She lost days with him while he's touring and then he made a rash decision to end the concert after ten minutes and go on a rant. The incident, which the councilman described as a 'suicide bomber' attack comes a month after he demanded a crackdown on urban squirrels that ate their way through trash cans Had surgery and got out of hospital last week with more procedures to follow as he makes a recovery Brookins was launched over his handle bars; lost several teeth and had two fractures Squirrel jumped in front of his bike and lodged itself in the spokes Alderman Howard Brookins Jr. had unfortunate encounter with a squirrel earlier this month as he cycled a trail Alderman Howard Brookins (pictured), who represents Chicago's 21st ward, suffered a fractured skull and a broken nose after a violent encounter with a squirrel earlier this month A politician who demanded a crackdown on 'aggressive' urban squirrels landed in the OR with a fractured skull after a 'suicide bomber' revenge attack - from a squirrel. Alderman Howard Brookins Jr, who represents Chicago's 21st ward, was biking a trail when a squirrel jumped out in front of him, got caught in the spokes of his bicycle and sent him flying over the handle bars. He was hospitalized for four days after suffering a fractured skull and broken nose. He also lost several teeth. The incident seemed like a rather violent coincidence - coming just a month after Brookins raged against the city's 'aggressive' squirrels during a city council meeting, lambasting them for eating their way through Chicago's trash cans. 'I can think of no other reason for this squirrel's actions than that it was like a suicide bomber, getting revenge,' Brookins told the Chicago Tribune Monday. The squirrel died jammed in the spokes of the councilman's front wheel. Brookins was biking on a trail when a squirrel jumped in front of him, getting stuck in the front wheel and sending the councilman flying over the handle bars. The squirrel is pictured after the incident, still stuck in the wheel Brookins, who didn't see the rodent coming at him, ended up lying on the trail with five or six teeth missing. A Good Samaritan stopped and called 911. Despite being released from hospital on Thursday, he will need several months as well as additional surgeries to fully recover from the deadly encounter and his political life - and campaign against the menace of the urban squirrel - remains disrupted because he will not be able to attend official functions for a while. 'I am sorry to report that I will be unable to attend any ward or neighborhood events for the near future as I was seriously injured in a freak bicycle accident,' he said in a Facebook post Monday. His message included a photo of his bike with the squirrel still in the front wheel. 'First, I am okay and I have been recovering in the hospital since the accident. I will, however, require multiple surgeries to recover from damage to my face and upper body,' Brookins added. 'Please excuse my inability to attend the events I had promised, as my recovery will take some time. 'Although I am happy to correspond by phone and email for pressing matters, I cannot travel to and from events and provide you with the service you deserve until my treatment is complete and I have sufficiently recovered.' Brookins, who believes his violent fall was his closest encounter with death, told the Chicago Tribune that if any squirrels show up at his home in the coming weeks, he would call animal control. Milo Yiannopoulos was banned from talking at a school in a case of outright censorship I have just spent an entertaining twenty minutes acting as understudy for Milo Yiannopoulos, poster boy for young Team Trump and self-styled 'most fabulous super-villain on the internet'. I was speaking on his behalf because, once again, Milo - now a major name in the US - has been censored from speaking here in the UK at his old school, the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys. Outraged at the prospect of a right-winger speaking freely at a state-funded school, the Department for Education's counter-extremism unit stuck on its full riot gear announcing Milo posed a threat to both the security and reputation of the school. Rather than let the 220 pupils who had signed up to hear him speak, listen, challenge him and make up their own minds, it was decided that exposing pupils to anything other than a liberal viewpoint could be damaging. It is a curious thing. Milo has been banned from Twitter for being on the wrong side of their curated feed. Banned from speaking in our schools, for failing to buy wholesale into the feminist struggle. And no-platformed at college campuses across the USA and UK for being insufficiently adoring of Islam. As far as I can make out, his biggest actual crime is providing a young and attractive face of Conservative politics which runs contrary to the liberal mantra that all conservatives are fat, old, straight, rich, white men. A group of people they sneer at with disdain. Milo is a gay Catholic. And not a shy one. He is deliberately provocative. He says the only response to a culture of outrage on campus is to be outrageous. And he is true to his word. Yiannopoulos started a college scholarship fund exclusively for white men, initially as a joke, 'something that would wind up social-justice warriors,' he acknowledged. It is very real now, however. The Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant has $125,000 in funds, collected from private donors, which will be disbursed in $2,500 grants in 20172018 exclusively to 'white men who wish to pursue their post-secondary education on equal footing with their female, queer and ethnic-minority classmates'. He is trying to rebalance a system that is heavily weighted in favor of those who seek to classify themselves as minorities or 'special' or 'different'. College campuses now lean far to the left and to the politically correct. Kids' heads are shoved in a liberal echo-chamber listening to the sound of left wing propaganda. Here are Brown University students protesting Trump last week The same champions of diversity who will not tolerate diversity of thought or opinion. College campuses now lean so far to the left and to the politically correct that there is a real danger those on the right can no longer even clamber on board. And it is not the case that kids inevitably become more liberal as they become increasingly intelligent and 'enlightened'. It is simply the result of having their heads shoved in a liberal echo-chamber listening to the sound of left wing propaganda. According to the Washington Post, over the past quarter-century professors have swerved towards the far-left. In 1990 42 percent of professors identified as 'liberal' or 'far-left.' By 2014, that number had jumped to 60 percent. Over the same period, the number of academics identifying as 'moderate' fell by 13 percentage points, and the share of 'conservative' and 'far-right' professors dropped nearly six points. Young people are educated almost exclusively by lefties who outnumber conservatives on campus by roughly 5 to 1. Yet conservatives are resurgent among the wider population, as the 'surprise' victory of Brexit and Trump have evidenced Young people are educated almost exclusively by liberals or the far left who outnumber conservatives on campus by roughly 5 to 1. Among the wider population, on the other hand, conservatives are resurgent, as the 'surprise' victory of Brexit and Trump have evidenced. The divide between college-educated and non-college-educated people has never been greater. Which is part of the reason the media never saw Trump coming. Most of them don't know anyone without a college degree, let alone understand them. In the real world, small-business owners in the US are anxious the cost of healthcare premiums will be greater than they can afford to pay On the campus of California's State University kids were given 'healing spaces' to cope with the pain caused by a political speech delivered three months earlier. The most difficult decision a typical student faces is which gender they want to assign themselves for the morning. Or whether to blog about their struggle with depression last Sunday after they finished a box set of Peaky Blinders. Meanwhile real families are struggling to get their kids to school on time and wondering if their contract at work will be renewed. A generation who grew up understanding the hard-fought battles that protect our sovereignty and freedom, who lost relatives in the fight, proud of our culture, now face being lectured to by a new generation of liberals released from university having studied no history at all. The overwhelming majority of America's most prestigious institutions do not require even the students who major in history to take a single course on United States history or government. Instead, the University of California, Santa Barbara, uses 'feminist methodologies' to understand how Girl Scout cookie sales 'reproduce hegemonic gender roles'. The journal GeoHumanities explores how pumpkins reveal 'racial and class coding of rural versus urban places'. One-third of students can't place the Civil War in a correct 20-year timespan or identify Franklin Roosevelt as the architect of the New Deal. In the UK the picture is surprisingly similar. Jago Pearson wrote this about his experience learning history at a top British university: 'I arrived on campus, a mere 18 years old, excited to be studying a history joint honours degree at a university recently ranked in the UK's top-five for doing just that. 'We studied Asian development through the centuries as a means of attacking brutal British imperialism (incidentally taught via the medium of contemporary novels). We learnt about the European Union, painted as the great continental peacemaker. We learnt about Barack Obama's remarkable grassroots fundraising efforts to beat the idiotic American Republicans and Tea Party crew. 'And we listened to attack after attack on right-wing organisations, such as the Cato and Adam Smith Institute, from bitter and biased professors. 'Looking back now, it is all the more extraordinary. Both what was taught and the way it was conveyed was so incredibly partisan.' Higher Education colleges have become the shock-troops of the liberal establishment. This year's laughably PC stunt in Universities becomes next year's government policy and enshrined in your company's HR handbook the next. We have allowed ourselves to become a two-tier society. Students are ingrained with an extreme liberal bias and then go on to work in media, showbiz and the civil service, thereby joining the Establishment and the elite who spread their cripplingly PC worldview into every sector of life. Why do you think it is the left has always been so keen on expanding the student population? The goal for 50% of kids, no matter how stupid, to attend university was established by Blair in the UK to fulfil a left-wing agenda to monopolise thought. Ordinary working-class voters are not deeply moved by the plight of transvestites or raging feminists and their vagendas. They are focused on jobs, migration, family, law and order. Trump enjoyed massive support from people without college degrees and Brexit did, too What the left does not understand, cannot understand, is that ordinary working-class voters are not deeply moved by the plight of transvestites or raging feminists and their vagendas. They are focussed on jobs, migration, family, law and order. They place their faith with anyone who does not belong to the liberal elite these next-gen naives yearn to be part of. Trump enjoyed massive support from people without college degrees. Brexit did, too. The big question is how can the right make use of this window to re-balance the politics of higher education before demography takes its course and it's too late? We need to stop the censorship and seize the moment. This is the best chance we are likely to get. Because, contrary to what the left thinks, uneducated does not mean stupid. A private hospital manager and his wife were jailed for a total of more than four years today for sending cash to their ISIS fighter nephew. Mohammed and Nazimabee Golamaully, from Streatham, south London, wired money to Zafirr Golamaully, who is believed to be fighting on the front line for the terror group in Syria. Zafirr is thought to have travelled from Mauritius to Syria where he attended an ISIS training camp and was on 'guard duty' patrolling the Turkish border as he battled the Kurdish rebel group PKK. Mohammed (left) and Nazimabee Golamaully (right) have been jailed for sending money to their nephew, who is understood to be fighting for ISIS in Syria Mauritian national Zafirr ran jihadi social media accounts using the Twitter handle 'Palidinofjihad'. He used the accounts to spout hate as well as giving tips for would-be jihadis travelling to Syria, and he appeared to have prior knowledge about the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. Just days before the atrocity that claimed 12 victims last January, he posted: 'Snail-eating people', followed by an emoticon of a sad face. Days later Golamaully, who is in his twenties, claimed: 'You heard it here first. #SnailEaters ate lead. #DustNeverSettledDown.' On the instruction of her husband, the jihadist's aunt had wired 219 for Zafirr by Western Union to ISIS courier Mohamed Alhmidan in August 2014. Mohammed, 48, a manager at the private Huntercombe Psychiatric Hospital in Roehampton, and his IT consultant wife, 45, admitted providing funding for the purposes of terrorism. The court heard the couple were aware of their nephew's links to extremism and ISIS Prosecutor Daniel Pawson-Pounds explained: 'This case arises out of sending money to Zafirr Golamaully, who is known to be fighting for Isis in Syria. He was fighting for Islamic State, a fact known to this defendant. 'The Crown say whether the money was intended or thought to be intended for material in terms of military purposes or subsistence is irrelevant.' Jailing Mohammed, Judge Anuja Dhir QC said: 'It's a worrying feature of this case that you are a hard working family man, who was regarded as a good friend and neighbour, conscientious work colleague and a loving parent could behave in this way and hold the views you undoubtedly held. 'At the time of this offence and in the months that followed you were a committed extremist.' Jailing Nazimabee, Judge Dhir said: 'You made the payment at the insistance of your husband at a time when you had no direct contact with Zafirr Golamaully.' Zafirr ran a social media page which appeared to predict the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks The judge added: 'Your actions have to be viewed in light of the relationship with your husband - I agree that your culpability is lower than your husband's, but given the communication you were having with Zaffir Golamaully's mother I do not regard it as significantly lower. 'It's a worrying feature that a law abiding citizen, born and brought up in the UK, a trained IT consultant who gave up work to look after her children, could behave in the way that you have done.' A 20-year-old man stabbed his father in the neck because he was upset he might be circumcised, a police report stated. Alex Fultz, of Miami, Florida, was arrested Sunday on a charge of attempted murder after he attacked his father and told police what he did, ABC reported. His father was airlifted to Jackson South Community Hospital, although his condition is unknown. Alex Fultz, of Miami, Florida, was arrested Sunday (left, mugshot) on a charge of attempted murder after he stabbed his father in the neck (pictured right, Fultz in 2014 mugshot) Fultz approached his father while he was sleeping on a sofa in his bedroom, and stabbed him in the neck, according to a police report cited by ABC. The man dropped the knife and left, later approaching police officers with his arms in the air, saying, 'Don't shoot. I'm the one who stabbed my dad,' according to the police report. Fultz told police his father wanted to circumcise him, and that he was scared the procedure would hurt, the police report said. The 20-year-old became angry that his father would not listen to him or take him to a urologist, according to the report. Fultz, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism, was arrested in 2014 for aggravated assault. He is being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. Trevor Timon, 31, pictured, denies murdering former Coutts banker Oliver Dearlove, 30 A man accused of killing a former Coutts banker with a single punch has denied murder. Trevor Timon, 31, allegedly attacked Oliver Dearlove, 30, during a row after a night out in Blackheath village, south east London, on August 27. He is said to have approached Mr Dearlove and his friend, Andrew Cook, after he saw them speaking to a group of young women whom he had spoken to earlier. Timon allegedly punched Mr Cook in the face before turning on Mr Dearlove. Mr Dearlove died in hospital almost 24 hours later. Timon appeared at the Old Bailey today via video link where he denied one count of murder. His trial date has been listed for 13 February next year. At an earlier hearing, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson said: 'Mr Dearlove was with a number of friends in the Blackheath area. Mr Dearlove, pictured with girlfriend Claire, died after he was attacked on a night out 'Just coming up to half past midnight, in the early hours, he and his friends were walking towards Tranquil Vale by the Heath. 'They spoke to a group of young ladies who were in the area and who earlier in the evening had been seen speaking to the defendant in a wine bar by Black Heath.' Timon, of Plumstead, south east London, denies murder. The heartbroken mother of three children who were victims in a school bus crash has spoken out about her attempts to report the bus driver for reckless driving. Jasmine Mateen said that since the school year started in August, her children have come home each day complaining about their bus driver. 'I have been calling complaining about this bus driver since August,' she told NBC News. Mateen said she called the Board of Education and Woodmore Elementary School and even wrote letters to the school and to the bus driver, Johnthony Walker. Walker has been arrested and charged with five counts of vehicular homicide after the bus crashed and killed five children and injured 23 more on Monday afternoon. One of those victims was Mateen's six-year-old daughter, who has not been identified. Scroll down for video Jasmine Mateen (pictured), the heartbroken mother-of three children, who were victims in the bus crash, has spoken out about her attempts to report the driver for reckless driving. Mateen said that since the school year started, her children have complained about their driver Mateen said she wrote letters to the school and to the bus driver. She said that her letter was about Walker 'slamming on breaks on purpose' and making the kids hit their head. Mourners gathered at a church (left and right)with balloons on Tuesday Mateen told NBC that the school's ' principal read the letter to the bus driver two weeks ago', when she wrote the letter. 'She read the letter out loud in front of all the kids and after she got done with the letter he said "so, I'd do it again."' Mateen said her letter was about Walker 'slamming on breaks on purpose' and 'making all of the kids hit their head'. She said her children would tell her horror stories about how Walker would drink 'every day on the bus', 'always cuss at them' and 'was always speeding'. Mateen told NBC that the Board of Education called her about her children, two of which are still in the hospital being treated for their injuries. She said she told them 'y'all doing what y'all supposed to be doing now that it's too late'. Mateen broke down crying as she talked about her deceased six--year-old daughter Zyanna Harris (pictured) was identified by family members as one of the five Woodmore Elementary students who died in Monday afternoon's crash in Chattanooga 'Y'all doing what y'all supposed to be doing but my baby laying in a cold freezer,' Mateen said as she broke down into tears. Earlier on Tuesday, Mateen said that the last words Walker said to the children before he sped around a curb and crashed the bus, were reportedly: 'Are y'all ready to die?' 'My daughter said, right before the bus flipped, that he was speeding around the curb, and asked them, "are y'all ready to die?"' Mateen told CBS News Radio. Walker's mother Gwenevere Cook claims that her son is a responsible father and called her immediately after the fatal crash to tell her what happened as he helped rescue the children from the wreck. 'Mama, I love you. I have been in a drastic accident,' Cook told CNN she recalled her son saying. 'He texted me minutes later saying the kids are dead. He was trying to get [the children] off the bus - all the bodies were limp.' Two other victims, called Cordayja Jones (right) and Zoey (left), were identified on social media by family members as having died in the crash Bus driver Johnthony Walker (above, with his family) faces five counts of vehicular homicide She also revealed that Walker, who has a three-year-old son, had been working two jobs for the past two years. 'He's never been in trouble before. He is a respected young man, grew up in Chattanooga and is liked by everyone,' she said. But the Chattanooga Police Department confirmed that Walker was involved in an accident involving a school bus in September, the Tennessean reports. However, details about the incident remain unclear. Cook said that she's grieving for the young lives lost, but also urges people to have compassion for her son, who has no known criminal record. On Tuesday, Zyanna Harris, 10, Cordayja Jones, nine, and a girl called Zoey were identified by family members as three of the five Woodmore Elementary students who died in Monday. Zyanna loved to dance and had a good heart, her stepfather told WREG. DaQuesha Jermichael, who identified herself as Zoey's sister, said the crash also left her brother Zack in intensive care with a collapsed lung and a broken arm in a post on a GoFundMe page to raise funds for funeral and medical expenses,. 'She was a strong baby girl. She's watching over her family and her strength is within my baby brother. He's a fighter,' she said. Zoey's uncle Twon McClain shared a picture of himself with his niece on Facebook, asking followers to pray for his family. Dayja's mother LaTesha Ballard updated her Facebook profile picture to a collage of her daughter in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Zoey (right) died but her brother Zack remains in intensive care with a collapsed lung and a broken arm, according to their sister, DaQuesha Jermichael The school bus is seen being carried away from the site where it crashed on Monday afternoon Friends left messages of condolences, including one who said: 'So sorry for your loss, I'm praying for you and your family. Your daughter was so very beautiful. Rest In Heaven Princess Dayja!!' Walker was driving well above the 30mph speed limit when the bus carrying students flipped onto its side and wrapped around a tree, according to an arrest affidavit. Five children died and 23 other injured students were taken to hospital with injuries. Six students remain in intensive care on Tuesday morning and six others are also still hospitalized. Craig Harris, whose daughter and stepson were both on the bus, told ABC's Good Morning America that he doesn't know Walker, but has seen him drive faster than he should on numerous occasions. Craig Harris (left), whose daughter and stepson were hurt in the crash, said he's seen the driver, Johnthony Walker (right), being reckless before 'There has been times where I've seen him going a little faster than he probably should be going,' Harris said. 'That's the reason why I tried to be there in the mornings when he's pulling up.' Harris added that he also tried to be around in the afternoons as Walker would sometimes drop his children off at different spots on his street. 'I kind of figured that wasn't something he was supposed to be doing,' he said. Harris said he almost 'lost it' after he heard about the crash, adding: 'It's something I never want to face again.' He added that his daughter and stepson were in shock and pain after the crash but were doing better on Tuesday morning. Harris's niece was also on the bus and her injuries were so severe that she was at risk of losing an arm because she had torn a vein that needed to be replaced. The school bus was towed away from the scene of the crash in Chattanooga on Tuesday The driver was going well above the 30mph speed limit when the bus carrying students flipped onto its side and wrapped around a tree, according to an arrest affidavit The arrest affidavit says the bus was going at high speed when it left the narrow, winding road and eventually struck a tree Walker was driving well above the 30mph speed limit when the bus carrying 35 Woodmore Elementary students flipped onto its side and wrapped around a tree However, she is now in recovery after surgery although doctors are still keeping a close eye. 'She's looking at a long road of recovery and a lot more surgeries, but she's here,' Harris said. Interim superintendent for Hamilton County Schools Kirk Kelly, said on Tuesday that four of the five dead were girls. Three of the children were in fourth-grade, one was in first-grade and the other was in kindergarten. Kelly added that classes would be held on Tuesday with counselors available for students and staff. He said: 'I understand if parents feel it necessary to keep their students home from Woodmore Elementary today but want to once again remind everyone that extra trained personnel will be there to counsel and aid anyone seeking assistance in dealing with this horrible tragedy. 'Our next step as a school system in the coming days, weeks, and months is to work to heal as a community.' The arrest affidavit, which was posted online by Chattanooga station WTVC, says driver Walker was driving well above the posted speed limit of 30 mph when the bus left the narrow, winding road and eventually struck a tree. A woman is seen escorting three children who were on the bus at the time of the crash. The children all had cuts, bruises and scratches on them as they were taken away from the scene Students from kindergarten through fifth grade were on board when the bus flipped onto its side and wrapped around a tree at 313 Talley Road at around 3.20pm It says the charges were brought against Walker because of the reckless nature of his driving combined with his high rate of speed. He was jailed on $107,500 bail for a court appearance on November 29. Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher called the crash 'every public safety professional's worst nightmare' during an Fletcher said the families of the children who died had been notified but police would not release their names because they were juveniles. 'Our hearts go out, as well as the hearts of all these people behind me, to the families, the neighborhood, the school, for all the people involved in this, we assure you we are doing everything we can,' Fletcher said. On Tuesday morning, the heap of mangled metal that used to be a bus was loaded on a trailer and taken away. A small memorial of flowers and stuffed toy monkeys lay in front of an area cordoned off with crime-scene tape and guarded by police. Investigators were looking at speed 'very, very strongly' as a factor in the crash, Fletcher said earlier. A neighbor living on Talley Road near the crash said that the children were escaping from the roof hatch of the bus. Above, two children are pictured on the ground in front of a home with authorities and first-responders Parents received text message notifying them of the crash. The message said that 'extra counselors and support staff' would be coming in from all over the state to help students process the tragedy Police said overnight that five children were killed in the crash and 23 others were sent to area hospitals. But earlier Monday, Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston told news outlets the crash killed six. Students from kindergarten through fifth grade were on board when the bus flipped onto its side and wrapped around a tree at 313 Talley Road at around 3.20pm. The bus was the only vehicle involved in the crash, but Fletcher said the scene was complicated and covered a significant area. He also said a warrant had been issued to remove the bus' black box, which contains data about the vehicle's movement. Emergency responders needed almost two hours to get all the children off the bus The students on board ranged from kindergarten through fifth grade. Above, emergency personnel are pictured working the scene of the crash Bloodied Woodmore Elementary School students lay on stretchers, while others walked away dazed with their parents after the crash, local news outlets reported. Emergency responders needed almost two hours to get all the children off the bus. Television cameras showed emergency vehicles still there late into the night. National Transportation Safety Board chairman Christopher A. Hart said investigators will focus first on gathering witness accounts and other evidence. He said investigators would also check on whether the bus had cameras. Federal records show that the private company that owned the bus inv David A. Duke, the CEO of bus company Durham School Services, issued a statement on Twitter saying the company was 'devastated' by the accident and is working with police and school officials to investigate. Federal records show the private company has had 142 crashes resulting in injuries - and three deaths - in the past two years, according to the Tennessean. Overall, Durham has been involved in 346 crashes, 201 of which were towaway wrecks, in the past 24 months. On Monday night, hundreds of people lined up to donate blood at hospitals and some donors were asked to make appointments for Tuesday. At the state Capitol in Nashville, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam called the crash 'a tragic event' and offered assistance. 'We're going to do everything we can to assist in any way,' Haslam said. 'It's a sad situation anytime there's a school bus with children involved, which there is in this case.' Blood Assurance released a statement calling for the community to donate blood, above, residents in the area are pictured standing in line to donate blood Road safety is not the most amusing of subjects, so it's not hard to see why campaigners might jazz up their message with an eccentric spokesperson. But the Motor Accident Commission landed themselves in hot water for their 'hairy fairy' campaign featuring a man dressed in a tutu. Protesters believe the campaign is offensive to 'gender-diverse' individuals and Christians, as well as discriminating against facial hair and men. The Motor Accident Commission of South Australia has been criticised over its 'hairy fairy' rad safety campaign which some believe is discriminatory The Advertising Standards Board received a complaint saying the commercial 'was against men by only depicting males as bad drivers, against religion by depicting a man who looks like Jesus in a tutu, and against people with a lot of body hair by suggesting that being hairy is a bad thing.' The clip was also on the receiving end of criticism online, where it was blasted for being 'an insult to Jesus and Christianity.' One commentor wrote: 'What an absolute disgrace of am advertisement, Jesus does not wear a tutu. The campaign was investigated by the Advertising Standards Board after people complained it was offensive to 'gender-diverse' people, men, those with facial hair and Christians Despite hundreds of complaints online blasting the advert as 'shameful' and a 'waste of money', it was not found to have breached any rules 'This commercial is an insult to Jesus and Christianity, poor taste. I will be writing to the board to complain about this. 'This ad will become the fairytale, mixed gender identity you are trying to portray, imbeciles.' Others took issue with the advert's message, saying it was a 'waste of money', and accused its creators of 'trying to justify revenue raising' from speeding fines. Dave Obscura wrote: 'Can you guys maybe start focusing on things that are an actual problem, instead of fining people hundreds of dollars for going 3 or 4km over the limit?' A spokesman for the ASB said it investigated the advert and found that no part of it breached the advertising ethics code. German car colossus Daimler has sacked a top executive of its trucks and buses unit in China after he said his host nation was full of 'b*****ds'. Rainer Gartner, president and CEO of Daimler Trucks & Buses China, got into an argument with a local driver after seizing the parking spot he wanted and fumed: 'I have been in China one year already, the first thing I learned here is all you Chinese are b*****ds'. The comments went viral on the Internet and made in the pages of the People's Daily, the Communist Party's official organ. Dr Rainer Gartner (pictured, right) during a visit to Inchon airport in South Korea earlier this year, when he met the airport's director Jae-Sun Ryu (left) The paper went on to say that he attacked locals with pepper spray when they came to the defence of the driver he abused. China has become one of Mercedes Benz owner Daimler's biggest markets and the company moved swiftly to get rid of Gartner. 'The manager in question had been immediately relieved of his position,' it said, adding that it apologised for what had happened. 'It was detrimental to the standing of our company, unbecoming of a manager of our brand and prejudicial to our good name', Daimler Greater China added. Gartner's comments were not the first controversial remarks about Chinese people by a German in recent weeks. EU Commissioner Gunther Oettinger, while addressing a German business audience, used the words 'slitty eyes' and 'chisellers' to refer to Chinese people. She said the teen laid on top of her 'like a pile of bricks' and continued assaulting her despite her repeated pleas to stop and call 911 After stealing a bag full of clothes, Robert allegedly ordered the woman back in the bedroom, where he proceeded to rape her how Robert, then 18, put a knife to her neck, pushed her onto her bed and demanded money Rape suspect: Asa Robert, now aged 20, is on trial after he allegedly broke into the Brooklyn home of an 83-year-old widow and raped her An 83-year-old Brooklyn woman came face-to-face with her suspected rapist in court on Monday, recounting for the jury in harrowing detail how the teen broke into her home, put a knife to her neck and proceeded to sexually assault her. Asa Robert, who was 18 years old at the time, was arrested in July 2015 on a slew of charges stemming from the attack targeting the octogenarian, including rape, robbery, assault, burglary, predatory sexual assault and unlawful imprisonment. The incident took place on the morning of July 13, 2015, when police said Robert slipped into the woman's home in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn while she was sweeping her front yard and laid in wait for her with a knife in his hands. On Monday, the 4-foot-5, 90-pound victim, who has been using a wheelchair since the day of the brutal attack, recounted for the jury how Robert pounced on her when she went to lay down, grabbed her by the neck, pushed her onto her bed and threatened her with the knife. 'He started to yell, "Gimme the money,"' she recalled, according to a report by the New York Daily News. 'I said, "I'm a poor old lady, my family handles all my money."' The widow, who is not being named because she is believed to be the victim of a sexual assault, said Robert proceeded to ransack her home, shoving clothes into a bag. He also reportedly pilfered an umbrella. Scroll down for video Cuffed: Robert was arrested in Bedford-Stuyvesant in mid-July 2015, just a few days after the alleged rape and home invasion Merciless: The octogenarian testified in court that Robert (pictured) sexually assaulted and sodomized her for a long time, despite her repeated pleas to stop and call 911 The victim even offered the teen her late husbands Hawaiian shirt in the hope that he would leave without harming her, reported the New York Post. As Robert was making his way toward the door, the widow told the court he suddenly turned around and ordered her back into the bedroom, where he proceeded to rape, sodomize and suffocate the octogenarian, despite her repeated pleas to stop and call 911. This was the most disgusting thing that has ever happened to me, she told jurors of the attack. He was on top of me like a pile of bricks. It felt like he was trying to crush me to death.' The woman said Robert stayed on her for a long time and continued assaulting her 'no matter what I said.' After he finally got off the woman, she said Robert brought her a bottle of water and her medical alert button. When he left her home, the victim called her son-in-law for help and he summoned police to her home. However, it was not until a week later that she told her daughter about the rape. Life of crime: Robert's past criminal record included at least eight arrests, including for robbery, gang assault and resisting arrest Police used surveillance video to identify Asa Robert as a suspect, and he was picked up in Bedford Stuyvesant just a few days later. PIX11 reported that his past criminal record included at least eight arrests, including for robbery, gang assault and resisting arrest. During the victims testimony, Robert sat sullenly at the defense table and was reportedly overheard telling his lawyer that the witness 'is just an old woman.' Daughter of Bart Cummings will submit her DNA to prove The daughter of legendary horse trainer Bart Cummings says two sisters who claim to be his biological grandchildren have 'the Cummings look'. Kim, 29, and Julia Mander, 27, requested DNA samples from the Cummings family to confirm their relationship to the late racing identity - and Sharon Robinson, (nee Cummings) has volunteered her own. 'I would be happy to meet them and introduce them to some of their second cousins and give a DNA sample,' Mrs Robinson told The Advertiser. 'However, on looks alone, I see they appear to be have a striking family resemblance.' Kim Mander, 29 (pictured) and her sister, Julia, 27, have come forward claiming to be the biological grandchildren of legendary horse trainer Bart Cummings Kim (left) and her sister Julia have distinct 'Cummings look' according to Bart Cummings daughter. Pictured right is James Cummings, grandson of the horse trainer Ms Robinson says there is also a strong Cummings family resemblance in the girl's father Peter Mander, who died aged 54 in 2006 of a brain tumour. 'Peter looks just like my uncle Pat (Bart's eldest brother) and both girls have the distinct 'Cummings look'.' The sisters believe their father, was the secret biological child of Bart from a relationship with their grandmother before he was married. They said they were blown away when they heard of Ms Robinson's offer and never thought the day would come after a number of previous requests were unsuccessful. The duo have requested DNA samples from Cummings' (pictured) family so they can confirm the relationship with Cummings Bart Cummings daughter Anne- Marie Casey (left) and son Anthony Cummings (right) are part of the Cummings family that has a 'striking resemblance' to the Mander sisters The pair told The Advertiser that they would sign legal documents which would forfeit any financial claims against Cummings' $30million estate Anthony Cummings, the son of Bart Cummings (left) with family members at a public memorial service for the trainer who died in his sleep in August last year aged 87 Kim and Julia made a public appeal and hired a lawyer over their claim and said they sign legal documents which would forfeit any financial claims against Cummings' $30million estate. 'We will sign any document that this is not about money,' Kim said. They said they simply wish to gain their medical records and to confirm any potential biological heritage for their future children. 'It makes no difference for us if our grandfather was Bart Cummings or the milkman but it's vitally important to get some clarity. We would like the DNA as it's our genes, too,' Kim told The Advertiser. Kim is a specialist in brain cancer research with the Neurosurgical Research Foundation at the University of Adelaide. The rumour over the identity of Peters father reportedly began to circulate in 1996 when a family friend told him that he was Cummings' son. Peter reportedly spent the final decade of his life trying to reconcile with Bart. The sisters have reportedly collected convincing evidence to support their claims including birth certificates, letters, photographs and statutory declarations. Their case is being mediated by former appeal court judge Keith Mason, QC, on November 30 and will return to court on December 16. Legendary horse trainer Bart Cummings was born in Glenelg in 1927 and trained 12 Melbourne Cup winners. He died in his sleep in August last year aged 87 in his north western Sydney homestead. His wife Valmae and children Margaret, Anthony, Sharon and Anne-Marie, are locked in a bitter legal battle over his estate in the NSW courts. The sisters believe their father, Peter Mander, was the secret biological child of Bart (pictured) from a relationship with their grandmother before he was married But Cummings' son, Anthony, said he was not surprised by the duo's claims and does not remember the name Peter Mander (Pictured: Hugh Bowman with Bart Cummings) The two men in the brawl were supposed to be An inmate is clinging to life after he was bashed with a pool ball, on the same day another prisoner was stabbed in the neck with a shiv. The inmate, 20, is in a critical condition after being brutally beaten by another man wielding a pool ball in the separation unit of Victoria's maximum security Port Phillip Prison at 6.30pm on Tuesday. The prisoner, who is of Middle Eastern descent, was taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital, where he remains in a critical condition, reports Herald Sun. An inmate is clinging to life after he was bashed with a pool ball inside Port Phillip Prison A prison source said the two men knew each other and were supposed to be separated at the time of the opportunistic attack. 'The prisoner responsible for the attack wasn't supposed to be out when the victim was outBut he was, so he saw it as an opportunity,' the source said. On the same day prisoners believed to belong to the Comanchero outlaw bikie gang were assaulted by members of another gang in another Victorian Prison. A prisoner was taken to St Vincent's Hospital with neck injuries after he was stabbed with an improvised shiv. It is unclear what prison the attack took place inside. In July a Port Phillip Prison inmate died after overdosing on methamphetamine. The prisoner, who is of Middle Eastern descent, was bludgeoned with a pool ball inside the separation unit Hardison came out of a pioneering 26-hour procedure with a new face Lost his ears, lips, most of his nose and almost all of his eyelid tissue Hardison's life changed when he was trapped in a house fire in 2001 Was seen hugging firefighter Pat Hardison in new video released Tuesday A mother had a chance to see her late son's face again - as she met for the first time the formerly disfigured firefighter who was saved by a pioneering skin and tissue transplant. Nancy Millar, of Columbus, Ohio, also met three people whose lives changed thanks to her son: two children with new kidneys and a woman with a new heart. Millar dropped to her knees and shed happy tears as 10-year-old Antonio Concepcion Jr, 17-year-old Nicholas Darling, 58-year-old Yanez McGriff and 42-year-old Pat Hardison appeared before her. Hardison, a firefighter, had on his forehead the very same chicken pox scar that Millar would kiss every time she said goodbye to her son, David Rodebaugh. Rodebaugh, a talented BMX rider who died aged 26 in a bike crash last year, was an organ donor. His face and scalp, including the muscle, nerves and outer skin, went to Hardison, who needed them badly after losing most of his face in a house fire. Scroll down for video Nancy Millar (right) met Pat Hardison (left) for the first time since Hardison received a face transplant from her son. She is pictured kissing the tiny chicken pox scar they have in common Antonio Concepcion Jr (pictured), 10, who received a right kidney from Millar's son, also met her for the first time. Millar dropped to her knees to pull the little boy in a tight hug More than a year after Rodebaugh's death, Millar got to lay eyes for the first time on the man who received her son's face. A visibly emotional Millar hugged Hardison and whispered: 'Oh, Patrick', as seen in a video recorded by ABC News. 'Thank you for being so strong and so healthy. Thank you for risking your life to do this,' she told him. 'When I knew you were a firefighter I knew you had the strength to go through this. I had no hesitation.' Nicholas Darling (left), 17, who received a left kidney, and Yanez McGriff (right), 58, who received a new heart, also met Millar, who listened to her son's heart through a stethoscope She looked at Patrick's face and said: 'You are beautiful. How do you feel?' Hardison told her he felt great and showed her that he and Rodebaugh both had the same tiny chicken pox scar on their forehead. 'May I kiss your forehead?' Millar asked. Hardison agreed and they both thanked each other. Rodebaugh, Millar told ABC News, 'used to always just bend over and kiss me on the forehead and so we'd reciprocate it. 'As soon as he'd leave that'd be the last thing I do. I'd hug him and kiss him on the forehead. We did it since he was little, since he had chicken pox.' Millar asked Hardison whether he'd mind if she took a closer look at his face. 'I don't mind at all. I'm used to that, I promise you,' Hardison, who had 71 operations before his 26-hour face transplant, told her. That day, Millar also met the two children and the woman that her son helped save. David Rodebaugh (pictured), Millar's son, died in July last year after suffering a head injury in a bike crash in Brooklyn. He spent three weeks in the hospital and was declared brain-dead Hardison, a former firefighter, responded to a house fire in September 2001 and most of his face was burnt. He is pictured in August, a year after the face transplant She dropped to her knees when 10-year-old Antonio entered the room. The little boy received Rodebaugh's right kidney. 'You know I love you and you don't even know me,' she told him. Millar also said 'I love you' to 17-year-old Nicholas, who received Rodebaugh's left kidney. 'I love you too,' he said while holding Millar in a tight hug. McGriff, who received Rodebaugh's heart, walked in with open arms. She sat down with Millar, who told her: 'I would love to hear your heart.' She listened with a stethoscope as McGriff's heart to McGriff's heart, the same one that kept her son alive for 26 years. 'So strong,' Millar said as she held the stethoscope on McGriff's chest. 'The best day of my life was the day David was born. This is the second best day of my life,' Millar said. 'David's reborn to me. He's back. He's here. I knew he was here.' Rodebaugh died in July last year while riding his bike without a helmet in Brooklyn, a year after winning a BMX competition. He suffered a head injury and was declared brain-dead in the hospital. Hardison's life had taken a turn 14 years prior, when he responded to a house fire in Senatobia, Mississippi. It was September 2001 and Hardison was 27 years old. He was inside the home, searching for a woman who was said to be trapped inside. The ceiling collapsed on top of him, making it impossible for Hardison to get out. The heat melted his protective mask and his hose disintegrated. Hardison pulled off the mask, closed his eyes and, holding his breath, ran in a frantic bid to escape. The fire left Hardison without ears and destroyed his eyelids, nose and lips. He is pictured left after 71 operations and before the transplant, center about four months after the transplant, and right a year after the transplant But he suffered horrific injuries and burns to his face. His colleagues saw charred flesh falling down as Hardison emerged from the burning home. Doctors took flesh from his thighs and repaired his face as much as possible at the time. He was left without ears, lips, nose or eyelids. Hardison spent 63 days in the hospital. When he came out, his three young children, then 6, 2 and 3, didn't recognize him and had become afraid of their father. He had 71 surgeries in the years that followed, struggling with depression and a divorce that ended his 10-year marriage. A friend from church told Hardison about Dr Eduardo Rodriguez, who had performed a face transplant in 2012. Hardison joined the donor list in 2014 and waited for a donor matching his skin color, hair color and blood type, as well as skeletal structure. Rodebaugh matched these criteria. More than 100 surgeons, nurses and assistants worked on Hardison's face transplant. Hardison only had a 50 per cent chance of surviving the procedure. He has now become the first face transplant recipient to make it through a year without rejection. Advertisement Life in the Italian town of Apice can be particularly slow. For more than three decades, the streets have been empty and buildings have been left to crumble. Amazingly, its thousands of residents fled after a huge earthquake, never to return. Located in the province of Benevento, it was built during the days of Imperial Rome, and dates back to the eight century. A deserted alley in the ghost town of Apice, which has been empty since a devastating earthquake struck back in 1980 Eerie: The streets have been empty for more than three decades after the population fled in terror Buildings have been left to crumble in the Italian town, which was hit by the infamous Irpinia earthquake 36 years ago But the once-busy beauty spot became a ghost town after the infamous Irpinia earthquake 36 years ago, which killed at least 2,500 people and injured thousands more. Quarter of a million people were left homeless after the natural disaster, and safety fears led to Apice being abandoned. Only now has the town slowly started repopulating, but these pictures show the eerie scenes that greet visitors. The town, which is close to Naples, has not been populated since the earthquake in November 1980 Signs remain in place, but Apice has been empty for more than 35 years after its residents fled following the natural disaster Located in the province of Benevento, it was built during the days of Imperial Rome, and dates back to the eight century The once-busy town gives clues about the life people lived there more than 35 years ago, after the population fled in terror THE PLACE THAT TIME FORGOT: THE EERIE STREETS OF APICE BELIE THE RICH HISTORY OF A ROMAN TOWN The town received its name from a Roman nobleman and a popular gastronomer Marcus Gavius Apicius, author of the first Roman cookbook. He was commissioned by the Senate to give this estate as a gift to a squad of legionaries to reward them for their services and loyalty in battle against Romes enemies. The village is an open-air museum, a Roman city frozen in time. There are ruins of villas, taverns and bridges, while statues of lictor fasces and tombs litter the landscape. Advertisement Only now has the town slowly started repopulating, but these pictures show the eerie scenes that greet visitors But the once-busy beauty spot became a ghost town after the infamous Irpinia earthquake 36 years ago, which killed at least 2,500 people and injured thousands more Quarter of a million people were left homeless after the natural disaster, and safety fears led to Apice being abandoned The spooky-looking town has been empty for years after its population fled in terror following the earthquake An old rusting television sits on a table in a dusty room in a home which has been left to crumple after Apice was abandoned The town dates back to the eighth century, and was named after Roman nobleman and a popular gastronomer Marcus Gavius Apicius, author of the first Roman cookbook Buildings are crumbling and the streets have become overgrown after years of neglect Republican operatives were so afraid they would be blackballed by the party elite if they backed Donald Trump during the primaries that some insisted they would only work for him if they were guaranteed privacy, the president-elects son-in-law has revealed. I hired a great tax-policy expert who joined under two conditions: We couldnt tell anybody he worked for the campaign, and he was going to charge us double, Jared Kushner said. Kushner, 35, who is married to Trumps elder daughter Ivanka, spoke out in a rare interview with Forbes magazine. The man who became Trumps closest advisor during the lengthy campaign also denied that a feud between him and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie prevented them from working together to get the real estate mogul into the White House. Scroll down for video Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner ran the billionaire's campaign like a Silicon Valley start-up, using voter data to make nearly every decision 'Jared brings a youthful perspective, an innovative mind-set' to the political business said his wife, future first daughter Ivanka Trump (right) Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner (left), walking in the Trump Tower lobby with wife Ivanka Trump (center) is widely credited with running Donald Trump's successful campaign He said he managed to bring people into the campaign at a time when Trump was turning off establishment figures due to the way he insulted other GOP candidates. I helped facilitate a lot of relationships that wouldnt have happened otherwise, Kushner told Forbes journalist Steven Bertoni. FAST FACTS ABOUT JARED KUSHNER Born: January 10, 1981 Parents: Charles Kushner and Seryl Stadtmauer Siblings: Nicole, Dara and Josh (who dates model Karlie Kloss) Alma Maters: Harvard University, New York University Businesses: Kushner Properties, the New York Observer Spouse: Ivanka Trump Advertisement People were being told in Washington that if they did any work for the Trump campaign, they would never be able to work in Republican politics again. A real estate investor like the president-elect, Kushner sought advice from his friends in Silicon Valley on how to run a lean, but highly-targeted campaign. 'We played Moneyball, asking ourselves which states will get the best ROI for the electoral vote,' Kushner told Forbes. 'I asked, "How can we get Trump's message to that consumer for the least amount of cost?"' Kushner also addressed rumors that suggested he was the one responsible for getting Christie booted from the top of Trump's transition team. Eleven years ago, Christie, then a federal prosecutor, was instrumental in getting Kushner's father Charles jailed for two year for making illegal contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. Trump's son-in-law said the two men had buried the hatchet. 'Six months ago Governor Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together,' Kushner said. 'The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I don't talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing out him or his people,' Kushner added. He was behind his father-in-law's tech-savvy campaign strategy. 'It's hard to overstate and hard to summarize Jared's role in the campaign,' said billionaire investor Peter Thiel, the only significant Silicon Valley figure to publicly back Trump. 'If Trump was the CEO, Jared was effectively the chief operating officer.' Kushner, married to Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka, started off the campaign by merely researching policy positions on tax and trade. Soon, though, Kushner was seen as a sort of Trump whisperer, a 'trusted conduit to an erratic candidate,' as Forbes put it. Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner (right) meets Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (left) last week at Trump Tower in New York Jared Kushner (left) met with President Barack Obama's chief of staff Denis McDonough (right) at the White House two days after Donald Trump won the presidential election 'I helped facilitate a lot of relationships that wouldn't have happened otherwise,' Kushner told the business publication. 'People were being told in Washington that if they did any work for the Trump campaign, they would never be able to work in Republican politics again.' 'I hired a great tax-policy expert who joined under two conditions: We couldn't tell anybody he worked for the campaign, and he was going to charge us double,' Kushner revealed. The 35-year-old real estate investor soon found himself turning the campaign into a business, assembling a speech and policy team, managing his father-in-law's schedule and the campaign's finance. 'Donald kept saying, "I don't want people getting rich off the campaign, and I want to make sure we are watching every dollar just like we would do in business,"' Kushner said. Over McDonalds Filet-O-Fish sandwiches Trump and Kushner came to the realization that the campaign was under utilizing social media. 'I called some of my friends from Silicon Valley, some of the best digital marketers in the world, and asked how you scale this stuff,' Kushner said. 'They gave me their subcontractors.' He then turned to Facebook. 'I called somebody who works for one of the technology companies that I work with, and I had them give me a tutorial on how to use Facebook micro-targeting,' Kushner explained. Trump's quick-and-sharable messaging 'Make America Great Again' was perfect for the social medium and the Trump campaign went from selling $8,000 worth of hats each day to $80,000. Kushner spent $160,000 of the campaign's money on quick and sharable policy videos and those generated 74 million views, Forbes reported. Twitter and Facebook would go on to fuel the campaign and give Kushner and his team an idea of who Trump's supporters were and how they were feeling about certain issues in real time. 'We weren't afraid to make changes. We weren't afraid to fail. We tried to do things very cheaply, very quickly. And if it wasn't working, we would kill it quickly,' Kushner said. 'It meant making quick decisions, fixing things that were broken and scaling things that worked.' Some credit has to be given to the Republican National Committee, which once Trump had secured the nomination handed over its voter data. Kushner's team also hired partners including Cambridge Analytica to perform tests like which part of Trump's platform resonated the most with voters is it immigration, trade or simply the fact that The Donald represented 'change?' For television advertising, which is often a political campaign's heftiest expense, Kushner used tools like Deep Root that showed which shows were popular with specific voting blocs such as NCIS for voters who disliked Obamacare and The Walking Dead for those who were in line with Trump's view on immigration. The young entrepreneur even built a geo-location tool that plotted the location density of 20 different voter types, using Google Maps. The data began to drive the campaign's every move. Where Trump traveled and gave his rallies was based on where the campaign had discovered Trump voters lived. Speeches on different topics were delivered to the voters where they might resonate the most. 'He put all the different pieces together,' Trump's digital director Brad Parscale told Forbes. 'And what's funny is the outside world was so obsessed about this little piece or that, they didn't pick up that it was all being orchestrated as well.' Trump's rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, ran a much more traditional campaign and many focused on what looked to be her superior ground game. As Election Day grew closer, Kushner's system showed that voters in Pennsylvania, a state that Trump won, and Michigan, a state Trump will likely win once all the votes are counted, were moving the Republican's way. So Kushner bought targeted television ads in those states, The Donald held last-minute rallies and the campaign unleashed volunteers to do the more traditional duties of making phone calls and knocking on doors. Asked about her husband's winning role, Ivanka Trump put it this way. 'Jared brings a youthful perspective, an innovative mind-set, to a very traditional industry that's comprised of predominantly 70-year-old men,' the proud wife and future first daughter said. Other inscriptions included LOST ANGEL and 'The world is mine' The word 'MALAVITA' - Italian for 'the bad life' - was inked around his neck Daily Mail Australia has obtained extraordinary pictures of his body art He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was taking medication Earlier this year he assaulted his estranged wife and spat in her face Pasquale Barbaro was last week gunned down in suburban Sydney Slain Sydney underworld figure was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and grabbed his wife by the throat and spat in her face during a heated argument earlier this year. CCTV footage helped police arrest gangster Pasquale Barbaro when he assaulted his estranged wife in a six minute attack in Leichhardt, according to The Daily Telegraph. Court documents seen by the publication claim Barbaro was meeting up with his distant wife Melinda at the Italian Forum because he owed her money before the couple exchanged heated words. The tattoo clad figure then 'moved towards (Melinda's) head using his right hand' and proceeded to push her and she fell inside an elevator. Scroll down for video Dripping with bling and coated with ink: Intimate pictures obtained by Daily Mail Australia speak volumes about the life Pasquale Barbaro was living before he was gunned down The gangster had the words 'LOST ANGEL' etched across his back and 'MALAVITA' - Italian for 'the bad life' or 'the evil life' ringed around his neck The large man then used his foot to hold Melinda against the wall, which he then berated her and spat at her three times over two minutes. The six minute attack ended after Barbaro grabbed Melinda by the throat with his right hand. CCTV footage helped Glebe police arrest Barbaro the next day after Melinda reported the attack. Remarkably Barbaro only received 150 hours of community service, despite being on bail for a drug manufacturing charge from four years earlier. It was revealed Barbaro was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was taking medication, claims the publication. The blinged-up gangster gunned down on a Sydney street last week called himself the 'Lost Angel' and had the words 'the world is mine' etched across his buttock. Intricate artwork of prison bars and a devillish-looking man covered the right side of his chest Extraordinary new pictures show how Versace-wearing mafia man Pasquale Barbaro covered his body in intricate tattoos in the lead-up to his bloody death. The 35-year-old recently had dollar signs, coins, prison bars and angel feathers inked across his body. His neck was ringed by the Italian word 'MALAVITA' - which literally means 'the evil life'. But, in the end, the evil life caught up with Barbaro. The crime figure was ruthlessly gunned down out about 8.40pm last Monday while leaving the home of a prominent Sydney underworld identity. Meantime, the left featured angel feathers, a woman with sumptuous lips and metal barricades Flash clothing: Barbaro is pictured here in a revealing high-end silk shirt with two friends Barbaro tried to run in vain for his life before a hooded gunman executed him with a shot to the head about 9.40pm. Before his death, Barbaro would proudly show off his latest inkings on social media - sometimes suggestively posting shots of his muscular body to impress women. 'See, you are what you are in this world,' he wrote on Instagram. 'Either you're somebody, or you ain't nobody.' In pictures, he was seen partying at strip clubs and dressing himself up in garish gold bling and silk clothing. He has this week been mourned by friends - including his girlfriend who told Daily Mail Australia: 'I am grieving... I'm really sad for his family too'. Barbaro and his family have long been dogged by death. His neck was ringed with the word 'MALAVITA' - Italian for 'the bad life' or 'the evil life' 'THE WORLD IS MINE' was tattooed across his right buttock, photographs show Gold coins, dollar signs and the words 'Lucky You' were splayed across one of his thighs Almost a year before he was killed, he walked away unscathed from a hail of bullets in Leichhardt. Two other men who share Barbaros name - his grandfather and his cousin - suffered the same bloody fate as the heavily-tattooed criminal. Pasquale Peter Barbaro, 58, was stabbed and shot in 1990 as his new wife begged for his life in Brisbane. More than a decade later, Pasquale Little Pat Barbaro was gunned down in a van in 2003 as his children cried in the back seat. NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione has formed Strike Force Osprey to examine eight fatal shootings across Sydney in the past eighteen months. Savage ending: Barbaro was killed by a single shot to the head about 9.40pm last Monday Harpreet Kaur Hallaith, 18, had started to get stressed about her exams earlier this year A talented grammar school pupil jumped to her death on A-Level results day after she failed to get into her first choice university, an inquest heard today. Harpreet Kaur Hallaith, 18, attended the prestigious Wolverhampton Girls High School but had started to get stressed about her exams earlier this year. The high-achieving girl needed two A* grades and one A from her subjects in order to get a place studying Russian and history at Durham University. But an inquest heard she was left disappointed after finding out she had got one A and two Bs in Russian, Latin and History on results day on August 18. The teenager had been told by email her grades were good enough to get into her second choice of Edinburgh University. However Hallaith left her family home in Wightwick, Wolverhampton, a few hours later at about 2.30pm for a walk. Her worried parents Tersem, 48, and Avtar Hallaith, 50, reported her missing when she did not return hours later. Police found some of Miss Hallaiths possessions 11 miles away at the top of a beauty spot in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, along with a note. It was a place Miss Hallaith liked to go to think. Miss Hallaith attended Wolverhampton Girls High School and needed two A* grades and one A from her subjects in order to get a place studying Russian and history at Durham University Her lifeless body was then discovered at the bottom of the cliff face at 10.10am the next morning on August 19. Coroners officer Michael Homden read a statement from her mother who said the teenager was understandably disappointed by her A-Level results. In the statement, social worker Mrs Hallaith added: Harpreet seemed a bit stressed and low about her coursework and upcoming A-Levels. On August 18 it was the day of Harpreets A-Level results and I took her to the school. When she got her results she achieved one A and two Bs. Durham required two A*s and an A. Harpreet was understandably disappointed. She received an email from Edinburgh saying she had been accepted for the course. Harpreet was upset at the results and we talked about it for a while and she was relieved to have been offered her second choice. Harpreet decided to go to her room for a while, we all kept checking on her. Unhappy: An inquest heard Miss Hallaith (pictured) was left disappointed after finding out she had got one A and two Bs in Russian, Latin and History on results day on August 18 At around 2.30pm Harpreet said she was going out for a walk. She had only been gone a matter of 10 minutes when she returned. She said she had forgotten her phone and she also need some change. After 15 minutes I heard her go again. Later I decided to call her on her phone and it went to voicemail. As time went on I became more concerned where she was. After a while it started to go straight to voicemail. Concerned, I contacted police to report her missing. Some of her belongings had been found in Bridgnorth. Upon thinking about it I made the connection that she liked to go to the area. This was a spot she liked to visit to think about things. The following day I made my way to Bridgnorth to help with the search. A police officer arrived at the car park, he informed me that a body had been found. I cant think what Harpreet was thinking that day but I cant think she really intended to take her own life. The inquest, held at Shropshire Coroners Court, was told Miss Hallaith had almost overdosed on paracetamol in February this year. Bright student: Miss Hallaith passed the entrance exam to get into Wolverhampton Girls High School where she studied from Year 7 until her A-Levels. In her statement, Mrs Hallaith also said the student liked to go to Bridgnorth and had a real fondness for the picturesque town. She added: Growing up Harpreet was a happy child. Harpreet loved school and had lots of friends. She developed a keen interest in languages as well as history. Harpreet was always very popular. One of Harpreets closest friends from school was Beth who lives in Bridgnorth. This is an area we have visited and Harpreet found she had a real fondness for the area. On occasion Harpreet would catch the bus from where we live and go visit there. At the start of 2016 Harpreet seemed to be having some low moods. She had gone through all the usual teenage mood swings previously, nothing unusual just the regular things. At the end of February one morning Harpreet told me that she had taken too many paracetamol for a headache the previous night. As a precaution I took her to Wolverhampton Hospital. They said she hadnt taken enough to harm herself and it would work its way through her system. Student: She was described as a 'high achieving female who attended Wolverhampton Girls High School' The inquest heard Miss Hallaith wrote a letter confirming an intention to take her life which was found next to her jacket and phone at the top of the beauty spot. Giving evidence, PC David Ziola, from West Mercia Police, said the schoolgirl had put herself under a lot of pressure at school. He added: Harpreet was a high achieving female who attended Wolverhampton Girls High School. She had recently received her A-Level results. Police were called after Jamie Wood and Tom Vaughan located a black jacket, a mobile phone and a letter on the top of a cliff. The letter indicated an intention to potentially take her own life. Searches were ongoing through the evening. At 10.10am on October 19 a dog handler located a female body which matched Harpreets description. Officers could not find a pulse on the body. The body was located at the bottom of the cliff face. There were graze marks visible on the limbs. At 1.12pm the body was pronounced dead by a doctor. Harpreet had put herself under a lot of pressure to get good A-Level results. She confirmed to her best friend via text message that she was disappointed by her results. The inquest heard Miss Hallaith attended Birminghams Edgbaston High School for Girls, a highly sought after private school, from the age of five until the end of Year 6. She then passed the entrance exam to get into Wolverhampton Girls High School where she studied from Year 7 until her A-Levels. The teenager lived with her parents, her 15-year-old and 10-year-old siblings, her grandparents, her aunt and uncle and their three children. Senior Coroner for Shropshire John Ellery recorded a conclusion of suicide and said the medical cause of death was multiple injuries. He added: I have seen the note which Harpreet wrote and left at the top of the rock. It does include an intention to take her own life. I have to reach a conclusion. To record a verdict of suicide the coroner must be sure of two things. First of all the deceased did the act which led to his or her death and that he or she did so with the intention to kill themselves. I have to be sure on both beyond a reasonable doubt and I am. Harpreet went to the top of [a beauty spot], wrote a note and tragically she killed herself when she impacted with the ground below her.In these circumstances I record a conclusion of suicide. Mr Hallaith and a younger female relative attended the inquest but were too upset to speak afterwards. North Korea has sent a nine-page letter to the US demanding it stops the 'hostile nuclear threats' towards the hermit state and its young leader Kim Jong-un. The missive describes what it wants from the US and President-elect Donald Trump who once vowed to take out the country's supreme leader in an interview leading up to his election. The statement, released by the state run Korea Central News Agency, said Barack Obama's administration tried to 'overthrow' Kim Jong-un and plant a new government. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un pictured in the centre laughs with two party officials The memo also accused the outgoing President of constantly heaping malicious slander and criticism on the DPRK and said his government pursued an 'aggressive and heinous 'strategic suffocation' policy'. The despotic Kim Jong-un assumed power of the secretive country after his father and former leader Kim Jong-il passed away in 2011. And the letter claims the North Korea was forced to adapt confrontational tactics with the US and South Korea, such as continuing its much maligned nuclear program, to protect itself. They claim nuclear threats from Washington have increased over the past five years. 'The anachronistic hostile policy and nuclear threat that the US has enforced with unprecedented recklessness against the DPRK (North Korea) have only provoked its just and righteous countermeasures for self-defense', the memorandum read. This year the communist country, which is still technically at war with the South, has carried out two controversial nuclear weapons tests and made constant 'war' threats to its neighbour South Korea and the West. A missile fired during a drill by Hwasong artillery units of the Strategic Force of the Korean People's Army. North Korea on August 3, 2016 test-fired a ballistic missile towards the Sea of Japan Korea Central News Agency said the US has tried to scare the North with its military manoeuvres in the South and perceived pre-emptive nuclear attacks over the past few years. It also claims US-led sanctions have deprived it of the 'legitimate right to peaceful development of outer space and its build up of self-defensive nuclear deterrence'. 'The US is running amok to impose unilateral sanctions', it said, adding that its believes 'the root cause of escalated tension on the Korean peninsula lies with the US hostile policy and nuclear threats against the DPRK'. Will the US' new president spark change in North Korea? Donald Trump vowed to take out Kim Jong-un during the race to the White House The South Korean island of Yeonpyeong was put on high alert for an attack from the North after Kim Jong-Un made a rare visit to artillery batteries on nearby border islands this week. A handful of network executives and anchors who were among those invited to attend Donald Trump's media summit on Monday are lashing out at the president-elect and his behavior during the off-the-record discussion. Four of those present spoke with the New Yorker about what happened behind closed doors in Trump Tower, saying that the first 20 minutes of the hour-long meeting involved Trump attacking many of those present and their network coverage of him during the race. 'I have to tell you, I am emotionally f***ing pissed,' said one of those present at the meeting. That individual said that after being summoned to the meeting they were prepared to give Trump 'the benefit of the doubt,' until he began his attack on those present. 'After the meeting today, though - and I am being human with you here - I think, F*** him!' added the attendee. 'I know I am being emotional about it. And I know I will get over it in a couple of days after Thanksgiving. But I really am offended. This was unprecedented. Outrageous!' Another individual who was in attendance said of Trump's behavior during the summit: 'He is the same kind of blustering, bluffing blowhard as he was during the campaign.' Trump reportedly called many of the reporters 'liars' and criticized their negative coverage of his campaign during the election, saying to CNN that he 'hates' their channel. Scroll down for video Four of the individuals who attended Trump's media summit on Monday are speaking about what happened during the off-the-record sit down (MSNBC president Phil Griffin, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer and NBC Nightly News host Lester Holt, who attended on Monday but have at no point spoken on the record about the session) Trump (above on Sunday) reportedly spent the first 20 minutes of the meeting telling those present that they were 'liars' and 'dishonest' The third attendee seemed to echo the feelings of the other two members of the media who were present on Monday, describing Trump's behavior as 'totally inappropriate' and 'f***ing outrageous.' And the fourth participant simply said of the meeting: 'It was all Trump.' That individual went on to say that Trump did not really yell despite what some other reports are claiming, and was instead even toned as he went about his attacks. 'He is like this all the time. Hell freeze you out and then be nice and humble and sort of want you to like him,' said the participant. That person later suggested that Trump's media attacks may also involve his difficulty grasping the Constitution. But he truly doesnt seem to understand the First Amendment. He doesnt,' said the participant. TRUMP TEAM AT MONDAY MEETING -Kellyanne Conway (senior adviser) -Reince Priebus (chief of staff) -Steve Bannon (chief strategist) -Jason Miller (spokesman) -Sean Spicer (comm. director) -Jared Kushner (son-in-law) -Melania Trump (wife) Advertisement 'He thinks we are supposed to say what he says and thats it.' Trump also met with reporters from The New York Times on Tuesday. His visit began with a lunch session, and Trump used the first four minutes to criticize the Times for their coverage of him during the election. Trump's remarks were shared by members of the Times staff on a Twitter live feed. 'I have great respect for the New York Times. I have tremendous respect. think I've been treated very rough,' said Trump, who was seated next to the paper's publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. He went on to say their coverage was 'the roughest of all' and said of his campaign: 'It's been 18 months of brutality in a true sense.' Trump also made it clear that he wanted to have a good relationship with the Times, noting that it would make his job easier. At one point he even directly addressed the Times' publisher, saying: 'If you see something or you get something where you feel that Im wrong, I'd love to hear it. You can call me. Arthur can call me.' He also admitted to being a fan of the Times, joking at one point: 'I do read it. Unfortunately. Id live about 20 years longer if I didnt.' Trump was joined at that meeting by his chief of staff Rience Priebus, senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, spokesperson Hope Hicks and top aide Stephen Miller. NBC News president Deborah Turness departs on Monday with Kellyanne Conway, who soon after gave her first brief interview about the off-the-record meeting with members of the press Conway then made a appearance on Megyn Kelly's The Kelly File, where she spoke about the meeting for the second time On Tuesday morning, Conway gave her third interview in less than 24 hours about the meeting on Morning Joe (above) Details about what happened during Trump's media summit on Monday began to be revealed early that same evening, with one source telling the New York Post that the session played our 'like a f***ing firing squad.' Trump criticized and attacked those in attendance claimed another source, and kicked things off by telling the group: 'We're in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong . Some of those in attendance also got a 'Trump-style dressing down' according to the source, most notably CNN president Jeff Zucker and ABC's chief global correspondent Martha Raddatz. Trump kicked things off by going after Zucker, according to the source, who claimed that the President-elect told the CNN president, 'I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed.' He later turned his attention to two of the women who had been covering the election said the second source. TRUMP'S MEDIA GUESTS AT MONDAY MEETING ABC -James Goldston (ABC News president) -George Stephanopoulos (GMA host) -Martha Raddatz (World News reporter) -David Muir (World News anchor) CBS - Chris Isham (DC Bureau Chief) -Charlie Rose (This Morning host) -Gayle King (This Morning host) -Norah O'Donnell (This Morning host) CNN -Jeff Zucker (president) -Wolf Blitzer (Situation Room host) -Erin Burnett (OutFront host) Fox News -Bill Shine (co-president) -Jack Abernethy (co-president) -Jay Wallace (VP news and editorial) -Suzanne Scott (VP programming) Fox Business Network -Brian Jones (co-president) MSNBC -Phil Griffin (president) NBC -Deborah Turness (News president) -Lester Holt (Nightly News anchor) -Chuck Todd (Meet the Press host) Advertisement 'Trump didn't say Katy Tur by name, but talked about an NBC female correspondent who got it wrong, then he referred to a horrible network correspondent who cried when Hillary lost who hosted a debate which was Martha Raddatz who was also in the room,' claims the source. Tur was not present at the meeting on Monday. That account differed wildly from the one Kellyanne Conway gave to members of the press after she left the meeting, which she said was 'very cordial, very productive, very congenial.' She went on to say that Trump was 'very candid and honest' in the meeting, and on a personal note stated that it was 'great to hit the reset button' after a 'long, hard-fought campaign.' As for the story in the Post on Monday, Conway simply said that Trump did not 'explode in anger' and would did not comment beyond that. She spoke about the meeting later that nigth when she appeared on Megyn Kelly's The Kelly File as well, reitersating her comments from earlier by describing the meeting as 'extremely cordial, very genial.' Conway then spoke about the off-the-record meeting for a third time Tuesday morning while appearing on Morning Joe. She said that Trump's chief strategist Stephen Bannon was particularly popular among the guests, and that there was a 'receiving line' to meet the man who formerly headed up the alt-right website Breitbart. 'Many people wanted to meet him and talk to him, make some eye contact, exchange some business cards with him. That's just a fact,' said Conway. She also seemed to suggest that Trump and Zucker have a fantastic relationship despite almost every report from the meeting singling out the CNN president as the main target of Trump's anger. Conway even said the two men spent time together after the meeting to discuss a network special that was in the works. 'Nobody left there in a huff,' said Conway. 'Nobody has called me and complained that they felt that they had been bamboozled.' She later added: 'I believe Donald Trump received an unprecedented deluge of criticism and in some places unfair coverage. But he is the president and they are the press and they have to find a way to mutually assure, I would say, non-destruction.' Good Morning America anchor and This Week host George Stephanopoulos (above) leaving the meeting on Monday Gayle King (above) was seen exiting Trump Tower after meeting with the President-elect and other members of the media on Monday Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN, was also on hand for the meeting, which Trump transition team members would not give any information about Representatives from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Fox Business Network, NBC, ABC, and CBS were present at the meeting on Monday, which lasted an hour. ABC was represented by president James Goldston and anchors George Stephanopoulos, David Muir, and Martha Raddatz. Nightly News host Lester Holt and Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd were on hand for NBC , along with president Deborah Turness. And rounding out the broadcast network presence at the meeting was Face the Nation host John Dickerson and the entire CBS This Morning team of Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Norah O'Donnell along with Washington Bureau Chief Chris Isham. On the cable television side, CNN president Jeff Zucker attended on behalf of his network with on-air talent Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett. Fox News had a handful of executives present at the meeting, including co-presidents Bill Shine and Abernethy, vice president of news and editorial Jay Wallace and Suzanne Scott, the vice president of programming and development at the network. MSNBC president Phil Griffin was there for his network and Brian Jones attended for Fox Business Network. Trump's wife Melania also reportedly made a brief cameo during the sit down. Members of Trump's team present at the event included chief of staff Reince Priebus, spokesman Jason Miller, communications director Sean Spicer and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, a source toldPolitico. That source said that Trump took some time to praise President Obama during the meeting, and revealed that the men had spoken on the phone twice since meeting at the White House for the first time just 10 days ago. He spoke about his cabinet too with those present according to the source, saying Mitt Romney 'really wants' to be secretary of state, and that he really wants a member of the military as his secretary of defense. Trump also went after NBC News president Deborah Turness at the start of the meeting for posting photos of him that he believes to be unflattering said the source. Turness reportedly tried to deflect the criticism by saying that a 'very nice' Trump picture was on their website at that very moment. Police in Washington DC say a woman was critically injured after her wig accidentally caught fire early Tuesday morning. The unnamed victim was discovered suffering from severe burns in the 1100 block of Holbrook Street in northeast Washington at around 3.30am. The woman was rushed to Medstar Hospital in critical condition, having suffered burns to her face and upper body, according to NBC Washington. Scroll down for video Scorched: Black burns marks are seen on a sidewalk in Washington DC on Tuesday after a woman's wig somehow caught fire The accident ook place in the 1100 block of Holbrook Street in the Trinidad section of the nation's capital Video courtesy of WJLA: Officials said the culprit was the womans hairpiece, which somehow became engulfed in flames, although the circumstances of the incident remain unclear. Police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said detectives were reviewing surveillance camera footage to piece together what exactly happened, but as of now it appears 'the burns were sustained accidentally.' A newspaper deliveryman discovered the victim lying on the sidewalk in the Trinidad section of the capital and called for help. After the woman had been removed from the scene by first responders, police investigating the incident found black burn marks and charred articles of clothing and the spot where she had collapsed, reported the station WJLA. A newspaper deliveryman discovered the victim lying on the street covered in burns Police are hunting a man who posed as an officer and tried to force a woman out of her car. The bogus officer used a blue flashing light on the front of his BMW car to signal to the woman to pull over as she drove on Leslie Road, close to the Fettykil Fox restaurant, in Glenrothes, Fife, at around 12.20am last Monday. When Calise Maclean stopped, the fake officer told her to get out of the car. When she asked what for, he insisted she get into his vehicle for 'follow-up questions'. However she refused and drove-off before contacting police. Caslie Maclean has warned others to beware of people dressing up as police officers In a warning to others Miss Maclean, 25, who is engaged, described her ordeal on Facebook. She wrote: 'I was stopped by what I thought was an unmarked police car, it was a black three series BMW. 'When the person approached my window and asked for my licence, I realised they were not wearing the correct outfit. 'Instead they had only black trousers and a t-shirt that had police written on the arm. 'I asked what I was stopped for and they hesitated and insisted I get in their car for follow-up questions. 'I refused and he asked me to wait a few minutes, I then noticed two gentlemen getting out either side of the car and walk towards mine. 'At this point I drove away home.' The 25-year-old, who works at the Bank of Scotland, added: 'Police were involved and confirmed tonight it was not police who stopped me. 'Who knows what these people wanted and I dread to think what could have happened if I got in their car.' The man posing as an officer was described as tall and thin with a tanned complexion. He was dressed in dark clothing similar to a police officer. The bogus officer used a blue flashing light on the front of his BMW car to signal to the woman to pull over as she drove on Leslie Road, close to the Fettykil Fox restaurant, in Glenrothes, Fife The incident follows similar reports in South Lanarkshire in recent weeks when two men posing as officers stole a car. A grey Volkswagen Passat fitted with blue flashing lights stopped a black Audi A1 in Mavor Avenue, East Kilbride, on October 30 and two bogus police officers, dressed in dark uniform, persuaded the Audi driver to get out of his car before one of the suspects drove off with the vehicle. The other suspect left in the Passat. In two other cases in East Kilbride and Hamilton, drivers who were pulled over refused to leave their vehicles and the suspects fled. Speaking about the Glenrothes incident, Inspector Joanne McEwan said: 'The driver did the right thing by acting on her suspicions, not getting out of her car and contacting police. 'This seems to have been an isolated incident and we have not had any similar reports locally, however we are keen to hear from anyone who can help us with our inquiries.' Wreckage was recovered but the pilot ejected and is in a safe condition It was circling the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier while it was waiting for the runway to be repaired A Russian jet which crashed into the sea after a reconnaissance mission in Aleppo ran out of fuel, according to reports. The MiG 29 was forced to circle the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier after an emergency affected two planes in front of it and the runway had to be repaired. While it was in the holding area waiting to land, both the plane's engines cut out, and it plummeted into the Mediterranean on November 13. The pilot, who has been described as experienced, had to use his ejector seat to escape. The wreckage was later recovered from the sea. The MiG 29 fighter came down close to the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier yesterday afternoon after suffering mechanical problems (file picture of a Russian MiG 29) USNI News reports: 'While in the holding area, both of the fighters engines shut down. 'A preliminary explanation is that they were no longer receiving fuel. 'ln such situations, a fighter falls like a rock, and the pilot has only one option to eject.' Now The War Zone concludes that both engines are 'very unlikely' to have failed, and stated: 'It sounds like the third MiG simply ran out of gas, a totally unnecessary loss considering Russias master air base near the central Syrian coast and airfields in Cyprus would have been at max just 50 miles away.' According to Fox News, two US intelligence officials said that a rescue helicopter then picked up a parachute and the pilot, who the Russian defence ministry confirmed is safe after he ejected and was taken aboard the carrier. It is believed that the jet had technical problems and attempted to land on the Admiral Kuznetsov, pictured, but was unable to and instead plunged into the water The crash dealt a significant blow to the Russians, who planned to launch airstrikes against rebel-held areas of Aleppo in Syria from the aircraft carrier. It happened just days after a flotilla of Russian warships sailed to the eastern Mediterranean off the Syrian coast after being sent to back up a bombing campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad. The commander of Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, Sergei Artamonov, said last week via videolink that the ships are now in the 'designated zone... in the eastern Mediterranean' and 'are now jointly carrying out tasks, manoeuvering to the west of the Syrian coast'. The battle group has travelled from the North Sea through the English Channel in the biggest such naval deployment in recent years as part of Russia's military intervention in Syria. Russia has been flying a bombing campaign in Syria for the past year in support of President Assad and has deployed a naval contingent to back up its operation. The naval task force has been monitored closely by NATO, whose chief Jens Stoltenberg voiced concern the ships would be used to support the Russian military operation in Syria and 'increase human and civilian suffering.' Armtamonov confirmed days ago that aircraft are already taking off from the ship's deck to view the conflict zone. 'Flights are being carried out from the deck... they are working on coordination with the shore port,' he said. Fame and power are the objects of all men, said the former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life. I thought of this quote when I heard that Kanye West had collapsed, suffering from severe exhaustion. I cant say I was entirely surprised by the news. Like many, Ive become severely exhausted myself just trying to keep up with him. For the past 18 months, the rap superstar has behaved in an increasingly erratic and bizarre manner. I cant say I was entirely surprised by news Kanye was hospitalized. For the past 18 months, the rap superstar has behaved in an increasingly erratic and bizarre manner Of course, Kanyes always been a bit weird. Thats been part of his appeal. He doesnt play by conventional rules, he plays by Kanye West rules. Hes always been provocative, too. Back in 2005, he infamously used a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina relief to say that President George W. Bush doesnt care about black people. And we all remember where we were when he charged the stage at the 2009 VMAs to express his fury that Taylor Swift had won the Best Female Video award, and not his friend Beyonce. A crass move that prompted President Obama to brand him a jackass. But Kanyes recently strayed into a whole new territory of outrage. He appears to have been on some kind of rampant, relentless shock-a-thon, devoting his every waking moment (so most of the time, judging by the reports of his chronic insomnia) to working out new ways to grab headlines. He inexplicably tweeted: BILL COSBY IS INNOCENT!!!! He got in a vicious public war with rival rapper Wiz Khalifa, branding his estranged wife Amber Rose a stripper and disgracefully sneering about their two-year-old son: You wouldnt have a child if it wasnt for me. I own your child!!! He targeted Taylor Swift by including this revolting line in his song Famous: I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. I made that b*tch famous. He then shot a sickening video for Famous comprised of naked hi-tech waxwork models of a number of celebrities including Swift, Cosby, Donald Trump and Chris Brown - all lying in bed together in some kind of post-orgy stupor. He targeted Taylor Swift in his song Famous: I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. I made that b*tch famous and shot this sickening video for Famous comprised of naked wax models of a number of celebrities including Swift, Cosby, Donald Trump and Chris Brown After cutting short Saturday's show after just half an hour, he cancelled the rest of his tour And all the while hes kept up a constant stream of self-aggrandising nonsense on social media reaffirming his own greatness. Then came this latest week of mayhem. First, Kanye declared to a stunned audience in San Jose that hed have voted Trump if hed been bothered to vote at all, and he said black people should stop talking about race so much. On Sunday, he speed-posted 99 blurry images of clothes and shoes on his Instagram Two days later, he used a gig in Sacramento to embark on a wild, foul-mouthed rant about Beyonce and Jay-Z, screaming: F**k winning! F**k looking cool! F**k all that! Then, after suggesting Jay-Z may send people to kill him, he cut short the show after just two songs. On Sunday, he speed-posted 99 blurry images of clothes and shoes on his Instagram. Finally, yesterday afternoon, it was suddenly announced that the rest of his tour was cancelled. A few hours afterwards, news broke that Kanye had been taken to hospital. He was said to be in a state of psychotic breakdown and had to be handcuffed in the gurney during transit for his own safety. Family and friends swiftly briefed that he was suffering from exhaustion, the habitual cover story for all manner of celebrity ailments. Perhaps he is. But I suspect the truth is that hes suffering from a far more dangerous health hazard: fame addiction. Kanye is a celebrity junkie who set out to seduce and marry Kim Kardashian, thus deliberately implanting himself right into the heart of their 24/7 reality television goldfish bowl Kanye West is a celebrity junkie. Not content with being one of the worlds most famous entertainers, he set out to seduce and marry Kim Kardashian, thus deliberately implanting himself right into the heart of a 24/7 reality television goldfish bowl. Theres no escape from such a fatuous, fickle world. Its an unstoppable, deeply cynical beast that needs constant feeding. There can never be enough drama, attention-seeking antics, showing off, bling-blasting, and transparently fake look at my perfect universe bulls**t. Nobody can actually Keep Up With The Kardashians because the commercial machine of self-invasive, privacy-whoring chaos never gets turned off. Its a vapid, soulless, money-grabbing hellhole Nobody can actually Keep Up With The Kardashians because the commercial machine of self-invasive, privacy-whoring chaos never gets turned off. Its a vapid, soulless, money-grabbing hellhole from which no semblance of dignity can be preserved. Kanye West had no need to be part of it. Hes a wondrously talented musician who already had a great career. But he couldnt stop himself, because in Kim Kardashian and her family he identified a bunch of people just as fame-hungry as him. Together, they could all conquer the planet! Theres just one problem with that game-plan: nobody, in the end, ever conquers the planet. Instead, the planet eventually conquers all of us. Were here until we die, and then were just a footnote in history, albeit of varying size. It doesnt matter if youre Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, Abraham Lincoln or Kanye West; no amount of fame or infamy can save any of us from the Grim Reaper or the yellowing, frayed pages of old newspaper obituaries. One of the most shocking aspects of Kanyes breakdown is how un-shocked everyone seemed by it. Even worse, many on social media refused to even believe it, assuming this was just another made-for-TV scam from a family with Self-Publicity injected into their DNA. We saw the same reaction when his wife Kim was robbed at gunpoint in Paris two months ago. It was a horrific incident but one which caused many to laugh in mockery and suspicion. In Kim and her family he identified a bunch of people just as fame-hungry as him. But by his weekend show in Sacramento he was so far gone he suggested Jay-Z (with the Wests in 2012) may send people to kill him. Appear on reality TV too much and nothing appears real This is what happens when you sell your life to reality television. Eventually, nothing appears real any more. People stop taking you seriously. As public interest inevitably wanes, so the fame addicts desperation to titillate the public grows ever more desperate. Kanyes stupendous ego wrote a cheque so large this week that even his perfect body and talent couldnt cash it. He became a parody of himself and hit the wall that every fame addict hits in the end: a wall of harsh reality. In his case, one that left him hyperventilating in handcuffs in a hospital room. As with Kim after Paris, this is your wake-up call, Kanye. Life isnt about creating yet another headline to prove how famous and successful you are, its about what you do behind the headlines, away from the cameras and public gaze. I will go down as the voice of this generation, you once said. I will be the loudest voice. Right now, Kanye, youre just the loudest noise and were all getting bored with you. A former beauty queen has proven she has the brawn to match after being captured on camera doing squats while lifting a 13st man. Katarina Konow, who represented Sweden at the 2012 Miss International pageant, was filmed doing the impressive exercises in Miami, Florida, earlier this year. Miss Konow, who weighs 10st, appears to have no trouble either lifting her friend or showing off her strength. Former Miss International Sweden 2012 Katarina Konow showed off her impressive strength by doing squats while lifting a 13st man, pictured The video was filmed in Miami earlier this year and the footage actually begins with the man carrying Miss Konow, pictured The footage actually begins with the man carrying her, before she quickly convinces him to swap roles. She lifts his whole body onto her shoulders and then starts the squats, while the man makes light of the situation by feigning sleep. Since her time as Miss International Sweden 2012, Miss Konow has been working as a fitness model. The 24-year-old splits her time between homes in Miami, the Bahamas and Sweden. Since the pageant in 2012, Miss Konow has been working as a fitness model and personal trainer, and has proven she has the skills needed, pictured The man even made light of the situation by feigning sleep and giving a thumbs up to the camera, pictured She has recorded similar displays of strength on her Instagram and Facebook accounts, including lifting various weights in the gym and performing the squats stunt with a female friend. Miss Konow is also a former equestrian having attended a special horseriding school at the age of 15. She joined a modelling agency in New York aged 18 and has previously spoken about how she became inspired to get 'fit and healthy' after seeing other 'strong girls' in the gym. A Massachusetts college has announced it will no longer fly any flags on campus after protesters angry with the election of Donald Trump burned the Stars and Stripes. Hampshire College president Jonathan Lash confirmed the flying of flags would be banned for the time being following the incident earlier this month on Veterans Day. A college official says members of the community campus initially lowered the flag to half-staff after the election on November 8, which was won by Trump. Scroll down for video Hampshire College, pictured, has announced it will no longer fly any flags on campus after protesters angry with the election of Donald Trump burned the Stars and Stripes Courtesy WWLP But this is thought to have offended some members of the community and veterans, who did not agree with the gesture. Then the day before Veterans Day, the same flag was stolen and later found to have been burned. It was replaced and flown again at half-staff but it has now been removed following the decision to ban the flying of all flags. In a statement on the college Facebook page, Mr Lash said: 'Some months ago, the Hampshire College Board of Trustees adopted a policy of periodically flying the flag at half-staff to mourn deaths from violence around the world. 'Last week, in the current environment of escalating hate-based violence, we made the decision to fly Hampshire's U.S. flag at half-staff for a time while the community delved deeper into the meaning of the flag and its presence on our campus. 'This was meant as an expression of grief over the violent deaths being suffered in this country and globally, including the many U.S. service members who have lost their lives. Our intention was to create the space for meaningful and respectful dialogue across the many perspectives represented in our community. Hampshire College president Jonathan Lash confirmed the flying of flags would be banned for the time being following the incident earlier this month on Veterans Day 'Unfortunately, our efforts to inclusively convey respect and sorrow have had the opposite effect. We have heard from many on our campus as well as from neighbors in the region that, by flying the flag at half-staff, we were actually causing hurt, distress, and insult. 'Our decision has been seen as disrespectful of the traditional expression of national mourning, and has been especially painful to our Hampshire campus colleagues who are veterans or families of veterans' Mr Lash also added that it was not their intention to reflect on the results of the presidential election and as a result no flags would be flown in the near future. He added: 'We hope this will enable us in the near term to instead focus our efforts on addressing racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and behaviors. 'I ask our campus to join me in a commitment to living up to the ideals of our mission: to insist on diversity, inclusion, and equity from our leaders and in our communities; to constructively resist those who are opposing these values; and to actively and passionately work toward justice and positive change at Hampshire and in the world.' Hampshire College is described as a private liberal arts college in Amherst, western Massachusetts and was opened in the 1970s. With plans to head to Mar-a-Lago later this afternoon, President-elect Donald Trump had a slightly lighter load of meetings with potential cabinet picks. Early this morning, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was spotted entering Trump Tower, along with billionaire investor Peter Thiel, the only Silicon Valley bigwig to publicly endorse the Manhattan billionaire. On the transition team call this morning, spokesmen Jason Miller and Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump would be meeting with Dr. Seema Verna, the architect of Vice President-elect Mike Pence's healthcare plan. After, that Trump plans to meet with Rep. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, along with Dr. Ben Carson, who was one of the president-elect's surrogates during the campaign. Scroll down for video Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was spotted in the Trump Tower lobby early this morning. He's being considered for a number of government positions Dr. Ben Carson (pictured) may end up taking a cabinet position after all, with Donald Trump suggesting he'd be a good fit for housing and urban development Donald Trump will meet with his Vice President-elect Mike Pence today before they head to different parts of the country for the Thanksgiving holiday Donald Trump's campaign press secretary Hope Hicks was also spied at Trump Tower this morning for The Donald's final day of meetings before Thanksgiving Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel is seen getting into the elevator at Trump Tower today. He was the only tech bigwig to embrace Donald Trump during the Republican's run Seema Verma, the president and founder of SVC Inc. and a health care adviser to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, arrived at a meeting with Donald Trump today Then, Trump will head to The New York Times for an on-again and off-the-record meeting with the paper's publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. And then an on-the-record session with reporters and columnists. Tweeting this morning, Trump said: 'I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice.' He later tweeted about it being back on. Trump will also hold a meeting with Pence, his running mate and transition team leader, before the two split up for the Thanksgiving holiday. While Trump will travel to Florida, Pence will be in Mississippi where his son is stationed. Giuliani was the first potential future cabinet member to be seen in Trump Tower today and he wouldn't add to the speculation that he's being scouted for Director of National Intelligence, a post recently vacated by James Clapper. TODAY AT TRUMP TOWER: The president-elect will be meeting with Rep. Cynthia Lummis (left), Ben Carson (center) and Seema Verma (right) AND ACROSS TOWN: Donald Trump will participate in an off-the-record meeting with New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. (pictured) and an on-the-record conversation with the newpaper's reporters and columnists Donald Trump dashed off a tweet today, suggesting the role that Dr. Ben Carson may play in his forthcoming administration 'Im not commenting on anything that went on upstairs. I was really here more in my capacity as vice chairman of the transition committee than I was on my behalf,' he told reporters in the lobby. 'It had more to do with other candidates and other issues.' 'Anything having to do with them, having to do with me, is between me, the transition team and the president elect,' the former New York City mayor added. Giuliani is also reportedly in the running for the position of secretary of state, competing for the gig against Mitt Romney, one of Trump's nemeses during the campaign, but who met with the president-elect on Saturday. Other names floated to head the State Department include: Former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, Senate Foreign Relations head Bob Corker and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Before leaving for the New York Times, Trump dashed off a tweet hinting where Carson may play a role in his administration. 'I am seriously considering Dr. Ben Carson as the head of HUD. I've gotten to know him well--he's a greatly talented person who loves people!' Carson had previously taken himself out of the running for a cabinet post, but revised his comments on Sunday. Meeting with Trump this afternoon, Lummis, according to the Casper Star-Tribune, is being considered for the role of secretary of the interior, a position that Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin interviewed for yesterday. Doctors have saved the sight of an eight-year-old boy whose eye socket was pierced by a metal door handle in a horrific freak accident. Ryno van der Westhuizen was playing at home in the town of Alberton in South Africa's Gauteng province when he fell against a door. The handle pierced his left eye socket and broke off leaving him with a five-centimetre (two-inch) long piece of metal lodged below his left eye. Puncture. Ryno was left with a nasty gash under his eye after the freak accident He was rushed to a nearby hospital where a CT scan revealed that it had missed his brain by millimetres and, incredibly, had not damaged the nerves of his eye. Consultant neurosurgeon Dr Van der Meulen said: 'You would expect catastrophic damage to the eye or the brain, but miraculously, scans showed no permanent damage to either. He is a very lucky young boy.' Dr Van der Meulen and his colleagues agreed the handle had to be removed to minimise the risk of infection or further complications. Sharp. The metal door knob entered the boy's face but missed his brain and eye nerve endings by millimetres The procedure took place at a catheterisation laboratory which is normally used to diagnose intricate cardiovascular conditions with minimally invasive procedures. Doctors performed an angiogram and used a coloured dye to see blood and lymph vessels in order to plot the safest route to remove the door handle. An X-ray of the handle lodged in his face. Miraculously the boy escaped without any serious problems to his eyesight or brain Dr Van der Meulen said: 'If we had to take out the piece of metal from his eye without the aid of this type of equipment, there would have been a high risk of profuse bleeding, which could have caused irreparable damage.' Ryno is now back at school and has not had any complications since the surgery. A Connecticut couple were arrested after police say they were caught having sex in a parked car with a 6-year-old boy in the backseat outside a McDonalds. According to a press release from the Town of Orange Police Department, the incident took place just before 9.40pm on November 15 outside the fast-foot eatery at 57 Boston Post Road in Orange. A pair of McDonald's employees were leaving the restaurant at the end of their shifts when they spotted two people engaged in sexual activity in the front seats of a car sitting in the parking lot. Get a room! Kimberly Onorato (left), 28, and Rory Clark (right), 27, were arrested on November 15 after allegedly getting caught having sex in front of a child in a McDonald's parking lot Busted: Two McDonald's employees at this location on Boston Post Road in Orange, Connecticut, caught the amorous duo in the act They say the small boy was in the back seat, awake and alert. According to the news release, the six-year-old was watching what the adults were doing in front of him. When officers responded to the scene, they found 28-year-old Kimberly Onorato partially undressed. When questioned by police, Onorato and her male companion, 27-year-old Rory Clark, claimed they had only been cuddling after having dinner at the eatery earlier. The amorous pair have been charged with second-degree impairing morals of a minor and breach of peace. Protestations of innocence: When police arrived on the scene, Onorato and Clark (pictured) claimed they only had been 'cuddling' The six-year-old boy was turned over to a relative and police also notified the Department of Children and Families about the incident. Investigators have not commented on the nature of Onorato and Clark's relationship to the child. High on LSD: Luke Smith, 15, was shot dead by a cop early Saturday in Santa Cruz A 15-year-old boy was high on LSD when he stabbed his father and uncle and was fatally shot by a California deputy early on Saturday, police said. Luke Smith appears to have had an adverse reaction to the drug that he took with a friend late on Friday night in Santa Cruz. Investigators said he became aggressive toward the friend, who left his house, right before Smith used a 9-inch knife to stab his father and uncle. Both men survived. The uncle called 911 and police arrived at the house, however Smith refused to drop weapon. Body camera footage shows a deputy using a Taser, sponge rounds and a K9 officer on the teenager before finally opening fire, killing Smith. According to the video, police spent at least 13 minutes trying to talk to Smith and de-escalate the situation, but to no avail, KTVU reported. Standoff: This is the moment in the body cam footage that police try to get Luke Smith to drop the knife he allegedly used to stab his father and uncle with Police initially tasered Smith, and set a K9 officer upon him. However they said both failed to subdue him, and one officer opened fire Officials said Smith raised his arm that was holding the knife when the deputy fired a single shot, killing him At one point he appeared to place down the knife, only to pick it back up again moments later. Police said that Smith threatened the officers. The footage shows him holding the knife in his right hand while fighting with a police K9. The shot was then fired by Deputy Chris Vigil. Smith received aid from paramedics, but he was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. An autopsy showed Luke died from a gunshot wound to the chest, according to Hart. Smith's family say that he bought a bad batch of LSD. The friend that was with him before the stabbings said he took a smaller dose of the drug than Smith. Smith was shot once in the chest by a deputy and received aid from paramedics, who pronounced him dead at the scene The sheriff's narcotics team was able to track down the people they believe to be responsible for selling the LSD and made four arrests - Taylor Filson, 28, Bradley Hodge, 24, Thomas Negron, 20, and Nathaniel Trecaso, 28. The suspected dealer, Trecaso, was found unconscious at his home, possibly from a drug overdose, and taken to a hospital where he remains today in a coma, according to police. 'This was a very unique, difficult and extremely challenging and upsetting situation,' Sheriff Jim Hart told KTVU. Vigil, the cop that shot Smith, has been placed in administrative leave, as per routine. He is a county resident who has nine years of experience in law enforcement, Hart said. Deputies who responded to a reported stabbing in the 800 block of Amesti Road just before 3am Saturday found two victims The deputy has more than 100 hours of training in various techniques including crisis negotiation, CPR and 21st Century policing concepts, Hart added. A GoFundMe page for a memorial fund benefiting Smith's family has raised $3,965 of its $15,000 goal as of this morning. 'The family of beloved teen Luke Smith wants us to remember him fondly,' said the fundraiser organizer. 'He was a bright, shining soul whose life was cut short too soon. Please help help the family by contributing to this memorial fund. Help spread the word!' Ralph the boxer dog (pictured) has been given less than six months to live after vets diagnosed him with a cancerous tumour A beloved pet dog suffering from cancer has been given a series of treats after his owners compiled a bucket list of experiences for him to enjoy before he dies. Owner Stephanie Malia, 24, compiled the heart-warming list after being told her dog Ralph had a cancerous tumour four months ago. Ms Malia and her family decided to bring some happiness to the four-year-old Boxer's last days when they learnt he had less than six months to live. They drew up 50 items on their bucket list, and have already seen Ralph swim in the sea, eat his favourite burger and get pampered at a doggy salon. He has also learnt a new trick, enjoyed pizza on the beach and a night in a hotel and even had his portrait painted by a Russian artist. And the family managed to tick off their tenth last Saturday when Ralph sat in a fire engine at Wellington Fire Station in Telford. Ms Malia owns Ralph with her parents Julie, 56 and Edd Malia, 47, who are the licensees of The Wickets Inn pub in Wellington, Telford. Ralph's family created a 'bucket list' for their beloved pet containing all the things he would want to do before he died. The list includes Ralph learning a new trick, swimming in the sea and visiting a fire station (pictured) Ralph ticked off the tenth item on his bucket list last Saturday when he sat in a fire engine at Wellington Fire Station in Telford The family drew up 50 items for the bucket list, and have already seen Ralph dressed and ready to swim in the sea (pictured left), eat his favourite burger (pictured right) She said the dog, who looks just like Buster the Boxer from this year's John Lewis Christmas advert, 'just loves' fire engines. Ms Malia, who also works at the pub, added: 'He got to sit in the driver's seat of the fire engine. 'He was a little bit shy but the firefighters were really good with him. I would like to thank them. 'We got Ralph last year from a rescue centre. We fell in love with him. 'It was four months ago when we found out he had a tumour. One of the 50 items on Ralph's bucket list was to be pampered at a doggy salon (pictured) Stephanie Malia owns Ralph with her parents Julie, 56 and Edd Malia, 47, who are the licensees of The Wickets Inn pub in Wellington, Telford Ralph who looks just like Buster the Boxer from this year's John Lewis Christmas advert, 'just loves' fire engines, according to Ms Malia The boxer has ticked ten items off his list, including swimming in the sea and eating pizza on the beach. Ralph still has to play in the snow, eat an ice cream and watch a sunrise and sunset 'We thought it was a little wart on his leg. It started to grow. We took him to the vet to find out it was a tumour. 'We got him back in for surgery. He had the tumour removed from his leg but it had spread, it was quite an aggressive one. 'He was given four to six months to live. We were devastated. 'We decided we would try to keep him as happy as possible and started this bucket list. 'He can now do high-fives with both paws.' Ralph is the seventh Boxer in 30 years owned by the Malia family who decided to make his life 'as full as possible' after getting the devastating news he had cancer Wellington Fire Station white watch manager John Pritchard added: 'We are more than happy to help. Ralph is a great dog.' Ralph also ticket another item off his list yesterday (Tue) when he visited Wellington Police Station. Adorable pictures show the Boxer sitting in the back of a police car with a helmet on his head. Ralph is the seventh Boxer in 30 years owned by the Malia family who decided to make his life 'as full as possible' after getting the devastating news he had cancer. Owner Julie said: 'After breaking our hearts on hearing the news from the vets we decided that we wanted to make his life as full as possible and we began the bucket list and people have been adding to it.' Ralph still has to play in the snow, eat an ice cream and watch a sunrise and sunset as part of his bucket list. The family also want him to wear a Christmas jumper to celebrate the festive season and star in a calendar for 2017. A police force has been accused of discriminating against white straight people after appealing for new recruits from ethnic minorities and the gay community. Nottinghamshire Police tweeted on Sunday: 'Nott's Police are recruiting PCs Jan 2017. If you're from a BME/LGBT+ group and want to join us, call or text Jo: 07595008494 for more info.' The force has been branded 'racist' and 'disgraceful' by outrage internet users, after the force tweeted about the recruitment drive, which takes place in January next year. The force tweeted on Sunday that they were looking to recruit people from BME/LGBT+ groups Nottinghamshire Police, whose headquarters in the East Midlands are pictured above, has since been branded 'racist' and 'disgraceful' by Twitter users after publicising its recruitment drive Twitter user Lord John Slade 52% replied: 'I'm a white English bloke, do I qualify?' Leigho posted: 'Why not just pick the best candidates regardless of skin colour, orientation etc? Does PC stand for Politically Correct now?' Katabasis said: 'I'm a white straight British male and therefore a minority where I live. Can I apply?' Joe Lennon added: 'Wow racist police.' Lee Waters, who stood for UKIP in Gedling, Nottinghamshire last year, wrote: 'Disgraceful. 'By definition no discrimination is positive! You should employ people on ability - regardless of colour or who they sleep with!' Lord John Slade responded to the Tweet saying: 'I'm a white English bloke, do I qualify?' Katabasis asked a similar question to Lord John Slade and said: 'I'm a white straight British male and therefore a minority where I live. Can I apply?' Leigho also wrote to the force and said: 'Why not just pick the best candidates regardless of skin colour, orientation etc? Does PC stand for Politically Correct now?' In response to Lee Water, a former UKIP candidate, Nottingham Police said they were proud to use #PositiveAction Mr Waters then said Nottinghamshire Police was 'disgraceful' after they responded to his initial Tweet NottsPolice Quality responded, saying: 'Notts Police are PROUD to use #PositiveAction initiatives as per Section 158 Equality Act 2010 and we will continue to.' A few users supported police, with C. Seaforth Finch tweeting: 'Ignore the haters - THANK YOU for being welcoming to minorities!' Superintendent Ted Antill, responsible for equality on the force, said: 'We are actively striving to better represent the communities we are serving. 'We know we are under-represented and that does frustrate our attempts to engage with certain communities.' He said the force wanted more applications from ethnic minorities and LGBT communities, but officers would only be appointed on merit. However, some users praised the Police's efforts, with C. Seaforth Finch tweeting: 'Ignore the haters - THANK YOU for being welcoming to minorities!' Superintendent Ted Antill said that Nottinghamshire Police was 'actively striving to better represent the communities' they serve Under section 158 of the Equality Act 2010, employers can take positive action to 'enable or encourage' people with a 'protected characteristic' (such as race, religion and sexual orientation) to overcome disadvantages associated with that characteristic. The College of Police say this allows specific groups to be targeted 'before or at the application stage' but not that they will be employed because of their background. Section 159 of the act does allow someone to be employed because of their protected characteristic, but only when they Section 159 states you can only be employed because of a protected status if you are 'as qualified as or of equal merit' to an individual who does not have that status. could be linked to improving water in the area, due to environmental regulations A humpback whale that was spotted swimming near the Statue of Liberty last week made two more appearances over the weekend, in a rare case that experts say could be tied to improving water quality. After making a splash near Lady Liberty on Wednesday, the humpback whale ventured north up the Hudson River where it breached near the George Washington Bridge. On Sunday, the whale had journeyed back down the river, where it played in the waters off Hell's Kitchen - near the Holland Tunnel. Scroll down for video A humpback whale that was spotted near the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor last week has stuck around. On Sunday, it was pictured splashing around in the Hudson River between 48th Street and 60th Street (above) Some experts say the whale's appearance could be linked to improving water in the area, due to environmental regulations. Above, the whale on Sunday The U.S. Coast Guard said it has received dozens of calls reporting Hudson sightings since last Wednesday. The Hudson originates upstate in the Adirondack Mountains and flows down through the Hudson Valley, continues between New York City and Jersey City, New Jersey, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Whale experts say they've seen increased numbers of mostly humpback whales in the New York area in recent years but it's rare to have one travel up the Hudson, with this one spotted about 20 miles north approaching suburban Westchester County. Although most experts agree water conditions have improved in the river in the 35 years since the passage of the Clean Water Act, they weren't willing to say that the visit from the humpback had a direct correlation. Whale experts say they've seen increased numbers of whales in the New York area in recent years, but it's rare to have one travel up the Hudson. Above, the whale on Sunday The whale is likely hunting for Menhaden, or bunker fish, that swam up the Hudson. Above, the whale on Sunday On Friday, the whale swam all the way up the Hudson River to the George Washington Bridge Dennis Suszkowski, science director of the Hudson River Foundation, and Howard Rosenbaum, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Ocean Giants program, said it appears the humpback may merely have been chasing after Menhaden, or bunker fish, that swam up the Hudson. 'Oftentimes in the past when we have seen these animals in and around these waters we become concerned that they are sick or injured because they are not typically found here,' Rosenbaum said. 'So far with the images we have seen we don't have reason to believe that.' Paul Sieswerda, president of a group called Gotham Whale, said the efforts to clean the Hudson have improved conditions but added, 'what those conditions are precisely is difficult to say.' He suggested that legislation that reduced fishing limits for Menhaden make them more prevalent and therefore available to the humpbacks to hunt. The whale is seen above near the State of Liberty in an Instagram video from user Daniel Gallagher The Coast Guard put out an advisory telling mariners to watch out and avoid contact with the whale Scientists have been accelerating their study of whales in the region in recent years. Last summer, the Wildlife Conservation Society, in collaboration with the New York Aquarium, teamed with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts to deploy a high-tech buoy 22 miles off the coast of Fire Island to monitor several species of great whales. In the past month, the buoy has detected three North Atlantic right whales, one of the world's highly endangered whale species. Sieswerda, a retired curator of the New England and New York aquariums, leads whale watching expeditions off the coasts of New York and New Jersey and said the number of whale sightings has soared since 2011. He said this year there have been 106 sightings, mostly of humpbacks, in an area called western New York Bight, a vast ocean region stretching from Montauk Point on eastern Long Island to Point Pleasant, New Jersey. President Barack Obama surpassed the 1,000 mark for commutations granted during his presidency on Tuesday after shortening sentences for 79 people. Obama has been granting commutations at rapid-fire pace in his final months in office. All told, he's commuted more sentences than the past 11 presidents combined, the White House said. Most of those who have received clemency are nonviolent drug offenders, though many were also convicted of firearms violations related to drug crimes. A significant portion had been serving life sentences. Scroll down for video President Barack Obama surpassed the 1,000 mark for commutations granted during his presidency on Tuesday after shortening sentences for 79 people. He has now commuted more prison sentences than his last 11 predecessors combined A graph released by the White House shows the staggering difference in the number of sentences Obama has shortened in comparison to past presidents 'It makes no sense for a nonviolent drug offender to be serving decades, or sometimes life, in prison,' Obama wrote in a Facebook post. 'That's not serving taxpayers, and it's not serving the public safety.' Yet Obama's call for clemency has run into opposition from some corners, including from President-elect Donald Trump. Though Obama is expected to grant more commutations in his final weeks, officials acknowledged a large number of applications will be pending when Obama leaves office. That means it will be up to Trump's administration to decide whether to grant or reject them, said Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Trump, during the campaign, warned Americans that their safety could be at risk because of Obama's move to set prisoners free ahead of schedule. That critique fits into Trump's broader call for restoring 'law and order' in the U.S. and cracking down on crime. 'Some of these people are bad dudes,' Trump said in October after another batch of Obama commutations. He said those individuals were out 'walking the streets,' and added, 'Sleep tight, folks.' Not all of those receiving commutations will be set free right away. Some will see their sentences end in 2017 or 2018 long after Obama leaves office and in some cases on the condition they participate in drug treatment programs. Shauna Barry-Scott of Ohio said her experience of having her sentence shortened in 2015 was surreal. She described her initial reaction as 'shock, overwhelming joy, fear of the unknown.' 'I had to pinch myself,' said Norman Brown, a Maryland man whose life sentence for cocaine distribution Obama commuted last year. He said after lawyers informed him of the decision, he sat speechless for three minutes as he absorbed what it would mean to have a second chance. Obama's bid to lessen the burden on nonviolent offenders reflects his long-stated view that decades of onerous sentencing requirements put tens of thousands behind bars for far too long. He has used the aggressive pace of his commutations to increase pressure on Congress to pass a broader fix while using his executive powers to address individual cases where possible. Though both parties in Congress have called for a criminal justice overhaul, momentum has petered out, creating dim prospects for a legislative breakthrough in the near future. Obama has been calling for years for phasing out strict sentences for drug offenses, arguing they lead to excessive punishment and incarceration rates unseen in other developed countries. With his support, the Justice Department in recent years directed prosecutors to rein in the use of harsh mandatory minimums. Wind likely did not play a part in the incident, which seemed instead to result from a rigging failure, investigators said Unstable beam bumped into a building and fell, according to a city official Two construction workers died Tuesday after a 6,500-pound beam fell from a crane on top of them. The beam fell around 12:10 pm in Briarwood, at the intersection of 82nd Avenue and 134th Street, killing the two workers aged 43 and 47. They were pronounced dead at the scene. The crane was lifting the beam when the balance shifted, causing the unstable crane to bump into the building and fall onto the workers, according to a city official. Wind likely did not play a part in the incident, which seemed instead to result from a rigging failure, the Department Of Buildings said. Two construction workers died in Queens Tuesday around 12.10pm after a beam fell on top of a crane (pictured), officials and witnesses said The beam fell the Briarwood neighborhood, killing two crane workers aged 43 and 47. Pictured, the FDNY and police responded to the scene on Tuesday Wind likely did not play a part in the incident, which seemed instead to result from a rigging failure, the Department Of Buildings said. The crane is pictured during the investigation The crane had passed an annual inspection in June 2016, the Department Of Buildings said. 'This was a tragic accident - two people will not be going home to see their families tonight,' NYC Buildings Commissioner Rick Chandler said in a statement. 'Today's accident is a stark reminder of the dangers inherent in construction work.' The investigation was still underway as of Tuesday afternoon. Authorities didn't immediately identify the two workers. 'Based upon an immediate assessment of the evidence, it is unlikely that wind played a role in the incident,' Chandler said. 'At this time, it appears that there was likely a rigging failure that resulted in the beam coming loose and falling to the ground. However, we have not made any final determinations.' The Medical Examiner will determine the workers' cause of death. One of the workers was the crane operator in the cab and the other one, aged 43, was a flag man guiding the beam, police told the New York Daily News. The investigation was still underway early Tuesday afternoon. Pictured, men work on the crane following the incident that killed two workers The crane (pictured left and right) was lifting the beam when it bumped into the building and fell onto the workers, according to a city official The FDNY, the NYPD and the Department Of Buildings responded at the scene and the medical examiner will determine the worker's cause of death. Pictured is the scene Tuesday Responders and witnesses gathered at the construction site following the deadly incident. Workers were building an extension to an existing building Police officers were seen with hard hats inspecting the crane on Tuesday afternoon as the investigation continued. Officials continued to look into the case in the evening The construction site was at 81-10 135th Street, which seems to be a six-story residential building. Workers were adding a horizontal enlargement on the building. 'We just lost two of our own. We put our lives on the line every day to feed our family. This is what we do,' a worker at the site told the New York Post. The worker said a wire snapped before the beam fell. The FDNY, the NYPD and the Department Of Buildings responded at the scene. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo both sent messages of support to the workers' families Tuesday. 'Our thoughts are with the families of the two construction workers killed in today's tragic crane accident in Queens,' the mayor's office tweeted. 'Saddened to hear about the deaths of two construction workers in Queens after a crane collapse. My heart goes out to their families,' Cuomo wrote. Mayor Bill de Blasio's office sent a message a support to the two workers' families on Twitter Saturday evening, after the two died in the incident Advertisement A 20-year-old law student is one of at least two people who died as a result of a freak 'asthma thunderstorm' that swept across Melbourne overnight - overwhelming emergency services and leaving more than 500 people hospitalised. Hope Carnevali, a lifelong sufferer of asthma, died in the arms of her devastated family as they desperately attempted CPR on her front lawn while waiting over half an hour for an ambulance to arrive. Her acute asthma attack was triggered by the intense storm system, which combined with a high pollen count and high temperatures to cause severe respiratory problems for thousands of people with allergies to grass pollen. The second victim of the freak weather event was Omar Moujalled, 18, who had just finished his year 12 exams and was preparing to start university next year. On Monday hospitals declared a 'major disaster' after receiving more than 1,900 triple-0 calls and almost depleting their Ventolin supplies from 6pm on Monday night, with police and fire brigades pitching in to help transport patients. Scroll down for videos Hope Carnevali, a 20-year-old law student, is one of at least two people who died as a result of a freak 'asthma thunderstorm' Ms Carnevali, a lifelong sufferer of asthma, was one of thousands of people across Melbourne triggered by the rare storm Omar Moujalled, 18, who had just finished his year 12 exams, was the second victim of the freak 'asthma thunderstorm' A massive thunderstorm has caused an outbreak of asthma so severe emergency services in Melbourne ran out of ambulances to help those in need Hope's auntie and uncle Melissa and John told 7 News it was hard to swallow the loss of their niece knowing that a quicker ambulance response time may have been the difference between life or death. 'J ust knowing that if they had of got there a little bit earlier the situation might be different is very hard to deal with,' Ms Carnevali said. 'Maybe they can let you know how long they might be, just an idea and maybe it will save some lives,' Mr Carnevali added. '(Hope) was just so kind-hearted.' Friends and family lamented the loss of a 'beautiful angel' online, remembering Hope for her 'infectious smile' and 'kind heart'. A fundraising page to assist with funeral costs raised almost $8,000 in just three hours. Omar's school, the Australian International Academy - MSC, announced his untimely death on Tuesday, asking people to 'remember him in your thoughts and prayers'. 'Omar was an exemplary student, role-model and principled, who was previously part of the captaincy team and a much loved, respected student.' The teenager's close friend, Shubaru Talic, remembered his mate's 'positive character',' goofy laugh', and described him as 'my rock'. 'He spent the entire year nervous about exams, cracking jokes about our eventual ATAR results ...then as soon as we were done he was taken from this world,' Shubaru said. 'We were planning road trips, outings, gaming sesh's (sessions) on that very day - yet when he stopped reading messages, and the news slowly poured in, our hearts all sunk.' A sand storm at St Kilda in Melbourne during the thunderstorm on Monday night which saw an unprecedented spike in asthma problems across the Victorian capital Hope's auntie and uncle Melissa and John (pictured) told 7 News it was hard to swallow the loss of their niece knowing that a quicker ambulance response time may have been the difference between life or death A fundraising page to assist with Hope's funeral costs raised almost $8,000 in just three hours Hospitals declared a 'major disaster' after receiving more than 1,900 triple-0 calls and almost depleting their Ventolin supplies from 6pm Earlier, a spokesman for Ambulance Victoria told Daily Mail Australia it was aware of two cases 'where patients with respiratory symptoms were unable to be revived by paramedic crews'. He said ambulances arrived to the patients in 31 minutes and 15 minutes respectively, but paramedics were unable to save their lives. At least 30 people, including two children, remain in intensive care on Tuesday evening and one anonymous intensive care paramedic told Fairfax he suspected 'a lot more than two people died.' The Australian Medical Association described the spike in respiratory illnesses during the storm 'unprecedented'. The AMA's federal vice-president Tony Bartone, a general practitioner based in Melbourne's west, said he had never seen Victorian hospital resources so stretched in his 30-year medical career. 'I would describe it as extremely unusual as it's been a long time since we've seen anything like this in terms of presentation of patients with asthma on the one day,' Dr Bartone told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday afternoon. Dr Bartone said every ambulance was on call, with emergency departments preparing to set up makeshift wards in hospital foyers. 'Completely unprecedented,' he said. 'Even patients who haven't had asthma for a fair time have found the need to present today. 'We've never had the occasion to predict such a volume overload.' A man breathing in Ventolin as thunderstorms across Melbourne stretched hospital and ambulance resources About 400 calls were made to the SES overnight after roof tiles were ripped off homes and garage doors were destroyed from flying debris (pictured) 'The hospitals are all at breaking point,' a Melbourne doctor, who chose to remain unnamed, told The Age. 'A number of hospitals came very close to running out of Ventolin altogether.' Emergency services were also tied up with 400 calls to the State Emergency Service after roof tiles were ripped off houses, cars were damaged and trees came crashing down. About 600 of the 1,900 calls to hospital were asthma-related and came from residents in Melbourne's west. 'We essentially had a day's workload within five hours,' Ambulance Victoria's Executive Director Emergency Operations Mick Stephenson said. 'Whether or not they (the deaths) are related to this phenomenon we just don't know ... we will have to review each incident,' Mr Stephenson told reporters on Tuesday morning. The enormous storm caused damage to homes in Melbourne's west, including this car, and left thousands without power Dust was seen shrouding North Melbourne (pictured) by 6pm on Monday and asthma sufferers quickly declined At St Vincent's hospital alone, 216 people turned up in their emergency department - almost 100 more than on a normal night, 9News reported. WHAT IS 'THUNDERSTORM ASTHMA'? - 'Thunderstorm asthma' is caused when a large storm sweeps pollen and irritants into the atmosphere. - The irritants cause asthma sufferers to have an attack. - Rain and humidity can also stir irritants that affect asthma. -The elderly and young children are the most vulnerable. Source: Allergy Society Australia Advertisement Mr Stephenson said most of the calls for help came from residents in Melbourne's west. 'This includes 200 cases for asthma, and we were seeing asthma in people who had not experienced breathing issues before,' he said. 'In the 15 minutes from 7pm when we would expect about 30 triple zero calls for ambulance there were 200 calls that's a call every 4.5 seconds. 'This was an extraordinary and unpredictable increase in demand in a very short period of time'. A major clean-up began on Tuesday morning and hospitals were warned to remain on 'disaster alert'. About 13,000 homes were left without power overnight. Police checked on 12 people who called for an ambulance, but we unable to be reached and Metropolitan Fire Brigade officers responded to 11 cases. The head of Victoria's health services said he'd never seen an incident like it in more than 40 years as a paramedic. 'Every ambulance and ambulance manager was recalled,' Paul Holman said. 'It was an unprecedented night. 'I have never seen the computer dispatch of Melbourne look like it. It was what we call a sea of red.' On Monday afternoon, people were seen fleeing Melbourne's iconic St Kilda Beach as the unexpected wind caused a huge sandstorm Pete James snapped this photo in the southwest of incredible lightning strikes overnight Emergency services were also tied up with 400 calls for assistance to the SES after roof tiles were ripped off houses, cars were damaged and trees came crashing down (pictured) On Tuesday morning, Ambulance Victoria's Mick Stephenson (pictured) confirmed a man, whose age is unknown, and a 20-year-old, both from Melbourne's west, had died A major clean-up commenced on Tuesday morning and hospitals were warned to remain on 'disaster alert' following the storm Roof tiles were ripped of house and the SES commenced a major clean-up on Tuesday morning A massive thunderstorm caused an outbreak of asthma so severe emergency services in Melbourne ran out of ambulances to help those in need Dust was seen flying off the roof of homes across the state, causing asthma sufferers to struggle The enormous storm, which hit at around 6pm on Monday, is believed to have led to a large occurrence of 'thunderstorm asthma' - where irritants are thrown into the air by the storm At one stage a reported 190 people were waiting from assistance from emergency services. In addition to widespread sickness, the wild weather also left a trail of destruction across Victoria with some residents reporting tornado-like conditions. Thousands of homes in Melbourne's west were left without power, while homes were damaged and roads were closed because of fallen trees. The hot weather proved dangerous earlier on Monday, with firefighters having to flee their truck while fighting a 320 hectare grass fire near Swan Hill. The crew suffered smoke inhalation and dehydration and were taken to hospital, but their injuries were minor. The last time Melbourne experienced an outbreak of thunderstorm asthma was in 2010. After a sizzling Monday where temperatures reached 35 degrees, Melbourne should have cool to mild days for the rest of the week, with a top of 17C on Tuesday and 18C on Wednesday. Tuesday will be wet, with rain persisting for most of the day, the bureau predicts. Across the rest of the country, Sydney is expecting the mercury to hit 31C on Tuesday before showers sweep across the city on Wednesday and both Brisbane and Perth are bracing for temperatures over 30C for the next few days. Tuesday will be wet in Melbourne, with rain persisting for most of the day, the bureau predicts A sandstorm engulfed St Kilda beach in Melbourne's south and people were seen running from the water's edge At least six Democratic electors have signed an agreement to try to block Donald Trump from securing the presidency with 270 Electoral College votes. While it would be unlikely to convince 37 Republican electors to change their votes - the number needed to erase Trump's lead among the 538 total electors - an unusually large number of 'faithless electors' who refuse to vote for Trump could undermine the institution itself. In the U.S., presidents are elected by the Electoral College - not by popular vote in which Hillary Clinton is 1.7million votes ahead of Trump. In most states, electors must cast a vote for the winner of their state's popular vote. But some states like Arizona, Idaho, Michigan and Georgia don't have a rule against electors going rogue, and phone calls from across the country have been pouring in to try to sway them against voting for Trump. Scroll down for video At least six Democratic electors have signed an agreement to try to block Donald Trump from securing the presidency with 270 Electoral College votes Votes are still being tallied, but Clinton has more than 1.7million votes ahead of president-elect Donald Trump, even though she only received 232 electoral votes to Trump's 290 (pictured) Michael Baca is an elector from Colorado trying to block Trump from 270 votes. Even if they fail, a large number of faithless electors could threaten the Electoral College itself There have been 157 faithless electors over 228 years, 71 of whom changed their votes because a candidate died, according to Fairvote.org. Even if the electors manage to block Trump from receiving 270 of the 538 votes, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would likely vote Trump into the White House anyway. Michael Baca is one member of the Electoral College from Colorado trying to convince others to band together to avoid a Trump presidency when electors cast their votes on December 19. Baca said: 'I'm a former U.S. Marine and the core values are honor, courage, commitment. I don't believe Donald Trump has that.' Pictured left, Miriam Vincent, staff attorney at the Office of the Federal Register, responds to emails from citizens inquiring about the electoral college. Right, a protest sign in Pennsylvania While Baca is a registered Democrat and supported Bernie Sanders, he is considering rallying behind Mitt Romney or John Kasich if that means garnering more support from other electors. Even if he is unsuccessful in his efforts, Baca said: 'I do think that a byproduct would be a serious look into Electoral College reform.' Washington state elector, P. Bret Chiafalo, has also joined Baca in the attempt to block a Trump presidency. Another elector who did not want to be identified said: 'If it gets into the House, the controversy and the uncertainty that would immediately blow up into a political firestorm in the U.S. would cause enough people my hope is to look at the whole concept of the Electoral College.' It remains unclear just how many faithless electors there will be, but political science professor George Edwards III told Politico: 'If you could get eight or 10 Trump electors to vote for someone else...then that would probably get people's attention.' While a faithless elector's vote is void in Michigan, Mike Banerian disagreed with the idea and told the Detroit News: 'Even if I could, I wouldn't be remotely interested in changing my vote. HOW DOES THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK? The electoral college is made up of 538 voters - 435 Representatives and 100 Senators, plus three electors for the District of Colombia. A candidate needs to win a majority of 270 electoral college votes to become President. This voters' college are supposed to make their pick based on which candidate receives a majority of votes in their corresponding states. That candidate receives all that state's electoral college votes. It is possible to win the electoral college vote and lose the popular vote - as with George W Bush in 2000. The creators of the Constitution set up the system as a limit on direct democracy - or in Alexander Hamilton's words, as a way of preserving 'the sense of the people' - in other words to avoid a malicious majority forming. An electoral college coup is unlikely, particularly as it's improbable that any Republican elector would vote for Clinton - but protest votes would be possible. That could lead to another Republican taking the presidency. According to a CNN study, around 10 per cent of electors in the past three cycles have considered going against the grain. The electors cast their votes anonymously on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December (this year, December 19) and are counted in Congress on January 6. The new President is then sworn in on January 20. Advertisement 'The people of Michigan spoke, and it's our job to deliver that message.' Hillary Clinton's loss is the second time in five elections a Democrat has won the popular vote without securing a majority in the Electoral College. Votes are still being tallied, but she stands at more than 1.7million votes ahead of president-elect Donald Trump, even though she only received 232 electoral votes to Trump's 290. Michigan's 16 electoral votes have still not been officially called, although they are expected to go to Trump. In Arizona, electors have been hit with a barrage of emails and phone calls from unhappy citizens - most of them from out of state. 'It is total harassment,' Robert Graham, an elector and chairman of the state Republican Party, told the Arizona Republic. 'It started about a week ago. Now? 'Bam!' It's hardcore.' Arizona elector Saron Geise estimates that she has received as many as 8,000 calls and says she has stopped picking up altogether. It's a similar story just in Idaho, Michigan and Georgia. California senator Barbara Boxer has already introduced a bill in an attempt to abolish the 'outdated, undemocratic' structure. The founding fathers created the Electoral College thinking the small group would act as a buffer against the people. A World War II-era patrol torpedo boat that survived dozens of combat operations in Europe as returned home to New Orleans, the city where it was manufactured. The PT-305, a fast attack craft armed with torpedos, is back in New Orleans after a painstaking restoration by the National World War II Museum, according to Fox News. By spring, visitors and history buffs will have the only opportunity to hop aboard a naval craft that saw action in 77 offensive patrols and operations and sank three German ships during its 14-month deployment off the coast of southern France and northern Italy. The boat was traveling atop a barge that was expected to arrive at the Industrial Canal near Lake Pontchartrain by midday Tuesday. Scroll down for video The PT-305 (above) is placed on a 64-wheel barge and rolled through the streets of New Orleans on Monday, returning to its home city after more than 70 years The restoration is considered a triumph for the museum, which devoted extensive resources to rehabilitating the old vessel. 'This is a big deal for all of us, but especially for the men and women for the last ten years who put blood, sweat and tears into the restorations,' Stephen Watson, the museum executive vice president, told Fox News. 'The restoration of PT-305, like all museum restoration projects, is aimed at making history accessible to today's audiences in as detailed and authentic a way possible,' Watson said. The PT-305 was built in 1943 by Higgins Industries in New Orleans. The boat was restored in painstaking fashion by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, which adopted it in 2007 The ship will eventually make its way to Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana by mid-day Tuesday Museum officials hope to have the ship ready and open to the public by April The PT class of ships were used in operations against Japanese armored landing barges as well as German Flak lighters, which were heavily armed vessels that were used to move men and material in coastal areas. In November 1943, the PT-305 was one of a number of boats that were dispatched to the Mediterranean Sea. The PT-305 sank Italian and German ships during dozens of Allied operations in the Mediterranean in 1944-45 During the invasion of Elba in June 1944, a US naval squadron which included the PT-305 helped the Free French forces to defeat the Nazis on the Italian island. HISTORY OF THE PT-305 1943 - Built by Higgins Industries in New Orleans November 1943 - PT-305 joins other ships that were dispatched to the Mediterranean Sea June 1944 - PT-305 takes active role in helping Free French forces oust Nazi Germany from the Italian island of Elba August 1944 - PT-305 takes part in invasion of southern France, which is code-named Operation Dragoon April 1945 - PT-305 sinks Italian MAS boat November 1945 - With the war over, the PT-305 is decommissioned by the military 1948 - PT-305 is sold and later converted into a civilian vessel used for oyster fishing 2001 - Boat is acquired by the Defenders of America Naval Museum 2007 - PT-305 is then adopted by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, which undertakes massive restoration Advertisement The PT-305 was also in the squadron that that participated in the invasion of southern France on August 15, 1944. The squadron landed French commandos on the coast of France to prepare for Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France in August 1944. The PT-305 sank an Italian MAS boat on April 24, 1945, helping the Allies consolidate their hold on southern Europe. The squadron was then reassigned for redeployment in the Pacific, but the war had ended. In November the boat was decommissioned by the military and converted into a civilian vessel used for oyster fishing in Chesapeake Bay. To tailor it for civilian use, the vessel had its engines replaced and its structure renovated. Part of the boat was even removed in order to meet Coast Guard regulations. In 2001, the Defenders of America Naval Museum in Galveston, Texas, acquired the boat. It then contacted the National World War II Museum in New Orleans to see whether a restoration of the vessel was possible. Insisted he didn't want to defend Trump, who said 'stupid stuff' Said Hollywood didn't like Trump because he was a bully - but 'if you had any kind of inkling that you were for Trump, you got bullied for doing that' Comedian Tim Allen has slammed Hollywood stars for bullying Donald Trump's supporters - after criticizing the president-elect for doing just that. He spoke on Megyn Kelly's The Kelly File Monday night, insisting he didn't want to defend the president-elect, but saying he didn't like anyone telling him what to do, or how to think. Allen plays a conservative in 'Last Man Standing', but told Kelly the show was written by liberals. He later compared Trump to a new talent comedian with 'terrible' comedy timing. 'What I find odd in Hollywood is that they didn't like Trump because he was a bully,' Allen told Kelly. 'But if you had any kind of inkling that you were for Trump, you got bullied for doing that. And it gets a little bit hypocritical to me.' Scroll down for video Comedian Tim Allen slammed Hollywood stars for bullying Donald Trump's supporters - after criticizing the president-elect for doing just that, in a Kelly File interview Monday (pictured) Kelly had begun the discussion by asking Allen about Gigi Hadid's impression of Melania Trump Sunday night at the American Music Awards, which many branded as racist. 'Gigi Hadid mocking our next first lady... Appropriate or not?' Kelly asked. 'I don't think it's appropriate in that venue,' Allen responded, clarifying that he was not a 'spokesman for Hollywood', but a comedian. Allen has said in the past that his political opinions are somewhere in the center right - although he finds himself leaning towards both the left and right. The conversation moved onto the 'Hollywood conservative underground', which according to Kelly is composed of dozens of secretly right-leaning actors who don't want to out themselves as conservatives for fear of backlash. Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Allen insisted that he didn't want to defend Trump, who 'said stupid stuff' - but valued above all his liberty to think and act as he pleases. 'I'm an anarchist. I don't like anybody telling me what to do, period,' he said. Allen also compared Trump to a 'new talent comedian'. 'These are guys that have great material that have very bad comedy timing,' he said. 'And he's got terrible timing.' Rightous Garnett was jailed for three years and three months after admitting burglary A serial burglar who swiped more than 360,000 worth of diamonds during a raid on an Indian tycoons 14.5m Mayfair mansion was jailed for more than three years today. Rightous Garnett, 49, was caught with bracelets, rings, earrings and watches worth tens of thousands of pounds that were snatched during a burglary at the five bedroom townhouse on Chesterfield Street. Garnett was jailed for three years and three months after he admitted taking the jewels in a burglary at the mansion on November 1, 2014. Southwark Crown Court heard the house belonged to Neeraj Kanwar, the managing director of Indian manufacturing giants Apollo Tyres Ltd, which had a revenue of more than 1.2 billion in 2011. Prosecutor Greg Unwin said: Two males had gone into that property when there were staff present who had heard the door slam but didnt see them. They had found their way to an upstairs room and stole a very substantial amount of jewellery from the owner, which was kept in a pouch. Police recovered 160,000 worth of Mr Kanwars diamonds when they searched Garnetts house in Maida Vale, west London, following his arrest on November 17 last year. He had been identified by security staff after breaking into another Mayfair mansion just after 9pm. CCTV later revealed the crook had sneaked into the same house in Culcross Street - where properties are valued at more than 18m - during an attempted burglary nine days earlier. The raids were the latest in a long line of burglaries by the strapping 63 personal trainer from St Lucia. Garnett tricked his way into the home of Lady Delia Pilcher in 1998 and assaulted her 62-year-old butler before he eventually fled empty-handed. He was jailed for five years after admitting burglary and assault at Southwark Crown Court. Garnett was jailed again for a succession of burglaries in 2002 and served seven months for a raid in 2012. He admitted burglary, attempted burglary and handling stolen goods today. The house belonged to Neeraj Kanwar, the managing director of Indian manufacturing giants Apollo Tyres Ltd, which had a revenue of more than 1.2 billion in 2011 Jailing him for three years and three months, Judge Anthony Leonard said: You have pleaded guilty to a burglary and an attempted burglary at the same property. It was clearly a property you targeted because you knew that there would be valuable items to steal. Your offending shows that you are persistent and professional. Referring to Garnetts handling of Mr Kanwars stolen diamonds the judge said: The handling of jewellery from a burglary in the same area shows you are an experienced and trusted member of the criminal fraternity. You were in possession of items valued at 160,000. It seems to me that you had set about those stones and had taken steps to grade these stones and to price them up for onward transmission. I have no doubt that Im dealing with a highly professional burglar and a highly professional offence. Garnett, of Portnall Road, Maida Vale, was jailed for three years and three months after he admitted burglary, attempted burglary, and handling stolen goods. A Florida woman gave CDs of nude photos of her ex-husband to his employer and his parents, police say. Eva Gaitan, 32, was booked into the Pinellas County Jail on Monday afternoon for misdemeanor stalking, online records show. Police said in a document obtained by The Smoking Gun that she 'hand delivered packages of CDs containing the victim's nude photographs to the victim's employer. 'The CDs were labeled "Requires immediate attention." Eva Gaitan gave CDs of nude photos of her ex-husband to his employer and his parents, police say 'The defendant also mailed a CD of the nude images to her ex-husband's parents. 'The defendant retrieved these photographs from her ex-husband's flash drive.' Authorities said that Gaitan 'admitted to burning the images to discs and bringing them to the victim's employer, as well as sending them to her ex-husband's parents'. Police arrested her at the home she and her husband used to share, The Smoking Gun reported. Gaitan has bonded out of jail, online records show. Pictured is the Pinellas County Jail Gaitan has bonded out of jail, online records show. A 101-year-old veteran has died a month after he was reunited by chance with the plane he flew during World War II. Francis Robert 'Frank' Royal had been dropping by Westpac Restorations regularly, as the team there rebuilt every part of the P-38 Lockheed Lightning he flew in combat over Papua New Guinea. His family say he appeared to try to keep his strength so long as he could see the plane return to flying condition. Scroll down for video Frank Royal died at the age of 101 on Saturday in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Last month, he visited the plane he flew during World War II Royal's Lockheed Lightening was completely restored to flying condition (pictured above) Video courtesy of FOX 31: That happened last month, when he visited the National Museum of World War II Aviation in Colorado Springs. Royal was taken up in a small Cessna airplane so that he could see another pilot take his plane for a spin for the first time in years. 'They won't let me fly this one, for some reason,' Royal joked to Fox 31/CW2, once back on the ground. Video of the flight shows Royal beaming in wonder as he sees his plane in action once again. Royal flew the Lightning in battles with the Japanese in Papua New Guinea during World War II. A younger Royal pictured above Royal was taken up in a Cessna to watch another flight get behind the controls of his old Lightening On the ground, Royal revealed that the flight would be his last, since he was dying and being transferred to Hospice care 'It was quite a thrill,' he said. On the ground, Royal revealed that the flight would be his last, since he was dying and being transferred to Hospice care. 'I'm going on my last flight. As of last week I've been put in hospice,' he said. He passed away on Saturday, about a month later, holding his son Randy's hand. 'He's back there with all his old pilot buddies swapping stories and talking about lost times,' Randy said. Royal settled in Colorado Springs after serving 30 years in the military. He and his wife Noreen, who preceded him in death, raised five children together. A new app will give Catholics to confess their sins with the help of their smartphones. The Catholic App, developed by Musemantik, is being launched in Scotland aiming to boost Mass attendance and Confession numbers by plotting interactive maps and showing users where their nearest church is located for a quick trip. It is already being dubbed 'Sindr' in a play on the dating application Tinder and the user's ability to scroll through parishes in their area. Scroll down for video The Catholic App, developed by Musemantik, is being launched in Scotland aiming to boost Mass attendance and Confession numbers by plotting interactive maps and showing users where their nearest church is located for a quick trip A new app will give Catholics to confess their sins with the help of their smartphones It is already being dubbed 'Sindr' in a play on the dating application Tinder and the user's ability to scroll through parishes in their area Listed on a website dedicated to the app, which is set to be launched in early 2017, the benefits to users include finding their nearest Holy Mass and Confession at the tap of a button Dr Maciej Zurawski, founder Musemantik, said: 'Websites are losing popularity. 'What is needed to engage with the mobile generation is an app that is smart and personal, an app that is like a companion, a friend that takes the initiative to inspire you that's the vision behind The Catholic App.' Listed on a website dedicated to the app, which is set to be launched in early 2017, the benefits to users include finding their nearest Holy Mass and Confession at the tap of a button. Parishes are all plotted on an interactive map and users are even given weekly spiritual inspirations delivered directly to their phone or tablet. Parishes are all plotted on an interactive map and users are even given weekly spiritual inspirations delivered directly to their phone or tablet Among the weekly inspiration quotes are: 'Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.' The app also claims to be of benefit to dioceses by increasing the number of Catholics attending churches. Developers say it will help younger Catholics particularly in the age group 18 to 55 to be more engaged in dioceses, as they most utilize smartphones and tablets as well as saving on printing costs. Meghan Markle, above, in New York in 2016. She's written for Elle about the struggles of juggling humanitarian work and fame She has the eyes of the world upon her as she has captured the heart of Britain's most eligible bachelor. But Meghan Markle says she wants to focus on pushing through glass ceilings, not a princess' glass slippers. The Suits actress has written for women's magazine Elle about the personal difficulties she has faced reconciling her work abroad with the UN with the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. She wrote that she struggled to put on her heels and dress as she came back from Rwanda and straight into an awards show. Markle wrote: 'My brain, heart and spirit couldn't shift gears that quickly, from the purpose-driven work I had been doing all week in Rwanda to the polished glamour of an awards show. 'I've never wanted to be a lady who lunches; I've always wanted to be a woman who works. 'With fame comes opportunity, but it also includes responsibility to advocate and share, to focus less on glass slippers and more on pushing through glass ceilings.' The actress has often credited her upbringing and her hard-working parents with her global outlook and early commitment to feminist principles. Markle is becoming well-known for her humanitarian work and has been on several field missions for the UN and spoken at a UN Women event for International Women's Day. Markle, 35, talks with a young child in Rwanda in a video filmed for World Vision during one of her field missions The star has said it is hard for her to juggle the two sides of her work, going from humanitarian projects to the red carpet at the drop of a hat She broke her social media silence after the news of her relationship broke with a Gandhi quote and thank you messages to several friends Markle, known for her role in Suits which is now in its sixth series, said she didn't want to be a lady who lunches, but a women who works She set up a website called TheTig.com, which she says she hopes will impart something of value through articles about self-empowerment and inspirational women. While many would be starstruck meeting her, she says she is only left in awe by political bigwigs, crediting Madeline Albright and Ban-Ki Moon as her heroes. In a similar piece she wrote for her website a month ago, she said: 'My life shifts from refugee camps to red carpets, I choose them both because these worlds can, in fact, coexist.' During her week long visit in February Markle visited clean water projects, helped build a well and met many Rwandans who have had a lasting impact on her life. The actress does admit that balancing a life of luxury to one where she witnesses people denied of the most basic needs can be challenging. She adds: 'Guiding my heart though the swinging pendulum from excess to lack of access is sometimes challenging.' Markle, 35, has forged a successful career in both acting and modelling and says that her charity work is an extension of her desire to play an active role in society. Since news of the Hollywood's star's relationship with Prince Harry, 32, broke, the actress has been pictured in Kensington but not with her new boyfriend. Harry also said he was considering paying for round-the-clock security for the 35-year-old, possibly using a retired member of Scotland Yard's royal protection squad. Markle is said to think Harry's idea is 'charming', but unnecessary. Prince Harry is said to be prepared to pay for round the clock security for his girlfriend amid the interest in her life In an unprecedented public statement earlier this month, Prince Harry criticised the coverage their relationship was receiving. The glamorous American actress has become the centre of attention on both sides of the Atlantic since the prince announced their relationship. The New York Times has been accused of causing a woman to suffer a stroke after it published an article she claims portrayed her as a cruel and abusive mother who abandoned her daughter to a life of drugs and prostitution, according to court papers obtained by DailyMail.com. Deidre Chapman filed a lawsuit against the Times and John Otis, the journalist who wrote the article, in New York last Friday. She is suing over the piece entitled After Homelessness and Jail, a Harlem Woman Finds Stability Working Construction, which was published on December 2, 2015 in the Neediest Cases section of the newspaper. The article tells the story of her daughter Milan Chapman who ended up on the streets when, she said, her mother kicked her out of the family home in New Jersey in 2012 after years of abusive behavior. Deidre Chapman (left) has filed a lawsuit against the Times over the piece entitled in the Neediest Cases section telling of her daughter Milan Chapman (right) Milan, then 22, told the Times: I was so naive, oblivious to life When she kicked me out, I felt relieved that I didnt have to deal with her misery. Desperate and alone, the teen, whose father died from multiple sclerosis in 2013, lived rough in parks. She was forced to do sexual favors for men who gave her temporary shelter and turned to drugs and alcohol to cope, the article revealed. She stole food and sold drugs to survive and in May 2014, she was sentenced to ten months in the Rikers Island prison for burglary. After prison, she turned her life around with the help of several non-profit organizations including The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund from which the newspapers section takes its name. Deidre Chapman filed a lawsuit against the Times and John Otis (above), the journalist who wrote the article, in New York last Friday. The Times stands by its story At the time the article was published, Milan was working in construction and living in housing provided by a non-profit in Harlem. She told the Times that she had been estranged from her mother for three years and had no contact with her 18-year-old brother. Her mother, Deidre Chapman, is not mentioned by name in the article. Deidre Chapman claims in her lawsuit that the devastating article is false and defamatory and is seeking $10 million in damages to her health and reputation. The New York Times told DailyMail.com: We stand by our story and intend to fight the case in court. Chapman blames the article for causing her to suffer an ischemic stroke and seizure which happened after the article was published, leaving her with medical expenses. She also claims that the piece destroyed her reputation in her community and her business because, although she was not named, her identity was easily revealed by the articles information, including her hometown of Bergen, New Jersey. Her son suffered abusive behavior and threats following the article, the suit claims, adding: The article is false in its overall defamatory portrayal of Deidre Chapman as a cruel and abusive mother who ejected her child from her home and rendered her homeless and destitute. Instead, Deidre Chapman insists that she is a loving, attentive and caring mother to both Milan and her son, Sifiso Chapman. Diedre Chapman blames the article for causing her to suffer an ischemic stroke and seizure, leaving her with medical expenses The article told the story of Milan Chapman who ended up on the streets when she says her mother kicked her out of the family home in New Jersey in 2012 after years of abusive behavior She claims that the New York Times did not seek comment from her prior to the article being published and did not contact any other relatives, teachers or authorities to verify the facts of Milans story. John Otis and The New York Times deliberately avoided the truth, the lawsuit claims. Deidre Chapman claims she contacted the Times on December 14, 2015 with the true facts but says newspaper refused to correct or retract the article. Her lawsuit lays out a conflicting version of events: Instead of being kicked out by her mother, Milan ran away from home aged 14 after stealing $10,000 from her parents bank account. The suit claims that Deidre Chapman worked tirelessly with the Bloomfield Police Department to find her daughter. DailyMail.com reached out to the detective named in the lawsuit, Steve Gherhauser, for comment. The lawsuit claims that when police did find the teen, she was living in a very compromising situation with an older man who was later convicted of child abuse. At this point, the mother claims her daughter returned home to live with her. The suit details Milans privileged upbringing, claiming she was chauffeur-driven to expensive private schools and never wanted for anything while living in the lap of luxury. She attended the Harvey School in upstate New York, at a cost of $48,000 a year, and Storm King School, one of the oldest boarding schools in New York, the suit claims. Milan was constantly and repeatedly in disciplinary and academic trouble at school and allegedly had an affair with a man and contracted Herpes while at school. Deidre Chapman insists that she is a loving, attentive and caring mother to both Milan and her son, Sifiso Chapman Milan threatened to burn down the Harvey Boarding School and was expelled, the suit claims. In an effort to help her daughter, Deidre Chapman reportedly supported Milans attempt to make it in the music industry with singing and drum lessons, and introductions to Missy Elliots Camp, and Wyclefs Studio, and entertainers Puffy and BadBoy. These were not the only connections that Deidre Chapman claims she gave her daughter. Deidre Chapman was able to introduce her daughter Milan to highly successful people for inspiration as role models, including Condoleeza Rice and Nelson Mandela, according to the suit. Milan was then allegedly expelled from Storm King for stalking, threatening and bullying another student. The mother also claims that she bought a lingerie franchise, MyplusLingerie, in 2012 at a cost of $65,000 to set her daughter up in business. At this time, Deidre Chapman says she was nursing her dying husband and coping with her own multitude of health problems, including battling Lupus which often left her bedridden. The last straw was when Milan continued to steal from her mother and she eventually asked her move out aged 19. The suit denies the teen was heartlessly ejected but able to leave of her own accord and move in with a friend. Deidre claims that the New York Times did not seek comment from her prior to the article being published and did not contact any other relatives, teachers or authorities to verify the facts of Milans story Milan was happy to escape from the normal and reasonable restrictions her mother Deidre Chapman had placed on a recalcitrant and defiant daughter. Nevertheless, the mother claims she begged her daughter to return home but their relationship deteriorated. The lawsuit also claims that Milan refused to take up the opportunity to live with her father in upstate New York. The suit claims that during her homeless period, Milan remained on her mothers health insurance to buy prescription drugs, dropped out of two colleges and racked up driving citations. Attempts to reach Deidre Chapman and Milan Chapman were unsuccessful. Deidre Chapmans lawyer, Rodney Smolla refused to comment on the case when contacted by DailyMail.com. Sir Philip Green's 100million super yacht could be seized to help pay the pensions of thousands of workers at collapsed high street chain BHS. Furious MPs have asked if 'assets other than cash' can be used to plug the black hole in the BHS pension fund. This could include the tycoon's super yacht Lionheart, which was branded 'BHS Destroyer' over the summer following the demise of the 88-year-old retail giant. But regulators told MPs today that the decision to seize Sir Philip's assets would ultimately lie in court. The tycoon's super yacht Lionhear was branded 'BHS Destroyer' over the summer, following the demise of the 88-year-old retail giant There are also calls to go after the assets of Sir Philip's wife Lady Tina Green, who owns a near-2billion stake in the family retail empire. Today the head of the Pensions Regulator told the Commons Work and Pensions committee that despite lacking the power to seize their assets, the watchdog would 'relentlessly' pursue the best outcome in order to plug the 571million pensions black hole. Lesley Titcomb, the chief executive, said the process of pursuing funds from Sir Philip was still at an early stage. Sir Philip told MPs over the summer that he would 'sort' the pensions crisis Asked what can be seized from Sir Philip to plug the gap, Ms Titcomb told MPs: 'If we are talking about a contribution notice that creates a normal legally enforceable debt to the scheme, it would be then the scheme trustees of the Pension Protection Fund, with our full support in any way, shape or form that we could offer, would seek to recover that debt through the courts and the court would determine how that would be achieved.' She told a committee of MPs that the watchdog's determinations panel will decide if it is appropriate to issue a contribution notice on the billionaire. This would convert the retailer's mammoth pension liability into debt, after which a court would decide if Sir Philip's assets can be seized to help pay it off. But she said the watchdog did not have the power to freeze assets. Labour MP Frank Field, chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, which has investigated the black hole in the BHS retirement scheme, wrote to The Pensions Regulator to find out what can be seized to plug the gap. Any move to seize his super yacht would lead to further embarrassment for Sir Philip who has been dubbed 'Sir Shifty' and has faced calls to be stripped of his knighthood. Lesley Titcomb, chief executive of the Pensions Regulator, told MPs on the Work an Pensions Committee today that the process of pursuing funds from Sir Philip was still at an early stage Labour MP Frank Field, chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, asked if 'assets other than cash' can be seized from Sir Philip Green to help plug the 571million BHS pensions black hole Labour MP Frank Field, chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, published a letter asking the Pensions Regulator to find out what assets could be seized. He said: 'There is now nothing beyond limits as we understand it. Of course the yacht could be targeted. 'I hope The Pensions Regulator will make clear to Sir Philip Green that nothing is off limits in its search for justice for the BHS pensioners even if it takes the seizure of yachts and private jets to deliver that justice.' A spokesman for Sir Philip declined to comment. Sir Philip, who has been branded 'the unacceptable face of capitalism' by MPs, sold BHS for a pound to three times bankrupt former racing driver Dominic Chappell in March last year. It collapsed just 13 months later with the loss of 11,000 jobs and a 571million black hole in its pension fund threatening the retirement of 20,000 former workers. Sir Philip told MPs over the summer that he would 'sort' the pensions crisis. But earlier this month The Pensions Regulator claimed he had failed to make a 'sufficiently credible and comprehensive offer'. In an incredibly rare move, it then issued an enforcement notice to compel Sir Philip to strike a deal and warned that it could go after the assets of the businessman and Lady Green. Labour MP Frank Field, chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee has written to The Pensions Regulator to find out what assets can be seized to plug the gap The Greens, who are thought to be worth 3.2billion, spent the summer on their luxury yacht Lionheart cruising the Mediterranean as the final BHS stores closed. During this time, Sir Philip claimed he was working as the Pensions Regulator tried to thrash a deal to fund the black hole in BHS pensions. However, last month it was revealed he had failed to put any formal offer on the table. Days later MPs branded the tycoon a 'billionaire spiv' and voted to strip Sir Philip of his knighthood, although the decision can only be made by a special committee. In last night's letter, Mr Field asked for further information about what action the regulator can take to recoup money from the Green family and its businesses. He asked The Pensions Regulator if they it pursue a resident 'overseas', a company 'offshore', and if it can 'acquire assets other than cash from a person or company from which payment is being sought'. It is thought that the Greens, many of whose assets are based offshore, have three yachts worth a total of 144million. Sir Philip's wife Lady Tina Green owns a near-2billion stake in the family retail empire Sir Philip also has a Gulfstream private jet and a helicopter, although it is not clear whether he actually owns them. Lesley Titcomb, chief executive of The Pensions Regulator, is due to appear before MPs on the Work and Pensions Committee today [weds] to answer further questions about the debacle at BHS. MPs want to know how the watchdog's regulatory powers 'can and should be used to avoid another BHS pension fund disaster without penalising properly run businesses'. The hearing is likely to heap further embarrassment on Sir Philip and his role in the collapse of the high street giant. Theresa May last month launched a thinly veiled attack on Sir Philip as she took a pop at 'a director who takes out massive dividends while knowing the company pension is about to go bust'. She hit out at 'people in positions of power have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road, the people they employ, the people they pass on the street'. Sir Philip and his wife took more than 400million of dividends from BHS between 2002 and 2004, before the huge deficit was allowed to build up. The Pensions Regulator yesterday also confirmed that it had used its powers to probe more deeply into Sir Philip's retail empire by demanding information about the retirement scheme at Arcadia, which owns high street brands such as Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Burton. Lady Shifty's stake in Arcadia which itself has a chunky pension fund deficit pegged at 151million in its latest accounts - is estimated to be worth just under 2billion. The popular car-sharing service Uber will soon offer former prostitutes and other low-level, non-violent offenders the chance to drive for the company in select areas. The car-hailing app has already revised its screening standards in California to accommodate would-be drivers who have been convicted of minor crimes. Now, Uber is preparing to expand this new initiative to Connecticut and Rhode Island. Change: Uber will soon offer former prostitutes and other low-level, non-violent criminal offenders the chance to drive for the company in three states Travis Kalanick, founder and CEO of Uber, made the announcement on his Facebook page last week Travis Kalanick, founder and CEO of Uber, made the announcement on his Facebook page last week, saying his company was proud to give drivers with criminal records a chance 'to get work and rebuild their lives.' 'Millions of Americans have served their time and want to earn an honest living,' Kalanick wrote on November 17. 'To break the cycle of recidivism, we need to give them a second chance.' Uber's overhauled screening standards for drivers will take effect in Connecticut beginning on January 1, 2017. As part of the move, former sex workers, as well as people convicted of such offenses as harassment, petty theft, passing bad checks, resisting arrest and causing minor property damage will be allowed to join the ranks of Uber drivers, reported the Santa Monica Observer. In the past, aspiring Uber drivers with rap sheets that included misdemeanor offenses were automatically disqualified by the company if the crimes took place within the past seven years. According to Uber, the ride-sharing service will continue turning down applicants with felony convictions within the past seven years, along with people who have been convicted of violent offenses, sex crimes and serious motor vehicle violations. Second chance: Ex-sex workers and people convicted of harassment, petty theft, resisting arrest and causing minor property damage will be allowed to drive for Uber Kalanick himself was charged last year with operating illegal taxi services in South Korea, Business Insider reported at the time. Uber's decision to open its company to people who have committed relatively minor transgressions has been applauded by human rights advocates and local officials in Connecticut. David McGuire, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, told the Hartford Courant the initiative strikes a balance between maintaining public safety and allowing people with rap sheets to find gainful employment. It's good for everybody and it's good for public safety too, said McGuire. When people with a criminal record are able to get employment, it stabilizes their lives...and they're less likely to offend again. The same day that Uber unveils its amended standards for drivers in Connecticut, a new law goes into effect that bars employers in the state from asking prospective hires about prior arrests, criminal charges or convictions on their initial employment applications. The man tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be his national security adviser once said that Islamism is a 'vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7billion people' and it needed to be 'excised,' it was learned on Tuesday. Video of the comments by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, which he made during an appearance before a Massachusetts synagogue this past August, was unearthed by CNN. 'We are facing another "Ism," just like we faced Nazism, and fascism, and imperialism and communism,' Flynn said. 'This is Islamism, it is a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people on this planet and it has to be excised.' Flynn has made controversial remarks in the past about Muslims and Islam. Scroll down for video Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn gave a speech to a Massachusetts synagogue (above) in August in which he called Islamism 'a cancer in the body of' Muslims that 'needed to be excised' Flynn has made statements in the past saying that Islam was 'like a cancer' and warning that Muslims wanted to enslave 80 per cent of humanity In his 2016 book, The Field of Fight, Flynn said that the American battle against terrorism was 'a world war against a messianic mass movement of evil people.' He also called Islam a 'cancer' and 'a political ideology,' according to The Intercept. 'It definitely hides behind this notion of it being a religion,' he said. Muslim Advocates, a civil rights group based in California, said in a statement that Flynn's appointment 'signals support for anti-Muslim policies and sentiment that will undermine our nation's security and exacerbate an already unsafe climate for Muslims and all Americans.' In July, after the terrorist attack in Nice, France, Flynn tweeted: 'In next 24 hours, I dare Arab & Persian world 'leaders' to step up to the plate and declare their Islamic ideology sick and must B healed.' This past February, he tweeted: 'Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL: please forward this to others: the truth fears no questions.' The tweet contained a link to a video claiming that Islam wanted to enslave or kill 80 per cent of humanity. Flynn has been known to endorse positions and viewpoints that were later proven to have no basis in fact. In the August speech at the synagogue, Flynn had claimed that Democratic members of the Florida state legislature were trying to impose shariah law an austere legal system practiced in Islam at the state and local levels. Flynn (right) was tapped by President-elect Donald Trump (left) to serve as his national security adviser Flynn was repeating an assertion that had been circulated by conservative bloggers, though nonpartisan fact-checking organizations have refuted the claim. On social media, Flynn has also retweeted conspiracy theories implicating Democrats and Muslims, CNN reported. On November 2, he retweeted an article propagated by a site called True Pundit which claimed that Hillary Clinton was involved in crimes ranging from money laundering to 'sex crimes with children.' George Galloway has been 'glitterbombed' by protestors at the University of Aberdeen George Galloway has been attacked by a 'mystery substance' as he spoke to students at the University of Aberdeen. Video footage has emerged of a meeting in the Scottish university where the controversial politician was addressing students and ended up with a strange substance, thought to have been glitter, thrown on him. He tweeted: 'Someone calling themselves 'Trans' and an 'anarchist' led a five person attack on me on the platform at Aberdeen University. I continued. 'I know have an unknown substance in my eyes and lungs and feel a little unwell. But the struggle continues.' The shaky video footage shows the former MP setting up before the talk is stormed by a group shouting and waving placards. According to the Mirror, the protestors hurled gold and green substances over the politician before being removed from the room. Ryan Houghton told the Press and Journal: 'Basically we had six individuals who were sat at the front row after having security checks done. The video footage begins with Galloway opening his talk and thanking the students for their invitation to the university He pauses and looks at something off camera, which appears to be the group of students ready to protest his speech The video footage then becomes somewhat chaotic with shouting and shaking as the camera moves around. It is thought as many as five people lobbed three jars of glitter over him The last clip of the video, which was streamed through Periscope, appears to show the former MP covered in glitter 'But as George started speaking they stood up and lobbed three jars of glitter over him. 'He was covered, and students intervened. 'He just continue as normal, dusted off the glitter and kept going. 'He's taking questions and stuff. He got a round of applause when someone apologised on behalf of the students.' The politician has spent the evening retweeting the messages of support he has received since the strange attack. George Galloway later tweeted to say he was left feeling unwell by the substance which had got into his eyes and lungs One read: ' Embarrassed and shocked that George Galloway was assaulted at our university.' Another said: 'Cowardly attack not only on him,but free speech. Glad he shrugged it off and continued.' A spokeswoman told the Mirror: 'George Galloway has contacted the police regarding the incident. President-elect Donald Trump has acknowledged 'some connectivity' between humans and climate change and isn't ruling out keeping the U.S. membership in a global climate pact meant to drive down harmful emissions. The unexpected pronouncements came during a sit-down with reporters and editors of the New York Times, where Trump also defended his personal finances and reflected on the Middle East and other issue areas. 'I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much,' Trump responded, when asked about any connection between human actions and climate change, a connection that is nearly universally accepted by climate scientists. President-elect Donald Trump said he had an 'open mind' when asked whether he would withdraw the United States from pacts intended to lower the risks of climate change Trump has previously called climate change a 'hoax,' and tweeted in 2012, 'The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.' Trump later said the tweet was a 'joke.' During his campaign he has called repeatedly for extracting more coal, oil and energy resources. Trump also got asked by Times columnist Thomas Friedman whether he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate pact. 'I'm looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it,' he said. Trump said he was thinking about how the issue 'will cost our companies.' Trump said he was thinking about 'how much it will cost our companies' when asked about efforts to reduce climate change IT DEPENDS: Trump said there is 'some connectivity' between humans and climate change Trump made his comments about climate during a meeting with staff of the New York Times on Tuesday The UN agreement was negotiated among 195 countries, and commits nations to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. After painstaking talks and U.S.-pressure, China was brought into the agreement. Different countries must submit their own reduction plans, although developing countries are allowed more flexibility on reducing their emissions. The pact took effect this month. Trump has previously called for pulling out of the agreement. In May, he called for working with 'environmentalists whose only agenda is protecting nature' and said he would 'focus on real environmental challenges, not the phony ones.' Trump mocked climate change as a hoax in a 2012 tweet WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS: Secretary of State John Kerry helped negotiate the Paris climate agreement among UN nations Trump wasn't clear on whether he believes there is a direct link between humans and climate change Heading up Trump's transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency is Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Ebell has slammed 'global warming alarmists.' He told Business Insider in August: ''I think that the global warming movement has three parts,' he said. 'One is to exaggerate the rate of warming, one is to exaggerate the potential impacts of warming and how soon they may occur, and the third is to underestimate wildly the costs of reducing our emissions by the magical amount that they have picked.' Trump said in 2015 of climate change: 'It's a hoax.' When Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders brought up his tweet blaming the Chinese for climate change, Trump said had been joking and explained his statement. Nigel Farage would only represent himself and not the interests of Britain were he made ambassador to the US, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has warned. Mr Duncan Smith dismissed calls for the interim Ukip leader, who was the first British politician to meet the President-elect, to be officially made the link man with the new administration. Mr Farage has urged Theresa May to get over her objections to play a role after Mr Trump personally endorsed his friend for the post. Diplomatic sources have also urged the Prime Minister to push harder for ties with the next President, even if it means flying to Washington in person. Ministers were left reeling yesterday after Donald Trump and Nigel Farage launched an orchestrated plot to oust our man in Washington Downing Street yesterday slapped down Mr Trump, insisting there was no vacancy and the UK's current ambassador Sir Kim Darroch would serve another four years. Mr Duncan Smith told the Today programme: 'I think the main reason why you wouldn't necessarily use Nigel Farage is that Nigel Farage has become himself, rather than a nation - in other words you want somebody over in Washington who represents seamlessly the interests of your nation and doesn't themselves become the story. 'I fancy that if you were to appoint Mr Farage, whatever his merits may or may not be, I think the story would be Mr Farage representing Mr Farage to Mr Trump, not the United Kingdom. 'And our job is to have someone who represents the United Kingdom without fear or favour.' Mr Trump's highly unusual intervention triggered bitter Tory recriminations over how Mrs May had allowed Mr Farage the diplomatic space to get into the circle of the incoming commander-in-chief. Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith today dismissed the idea of Nigel Farage becoming ambassador to the US Boris Johnson is understood to be irritated at Sir Kims failure to forge stronger links with Mr Trump during the presidential race. A source said he had left the door open for Mr Farage. One diplomatic source said Mrs May, who criticised Mr Trump last year, needed to do more herself to foster good relations. She needs to get on the phone or, better still, get on a plane and go and see him, rather than leave the field clear for Farage, he said. Privately, Whitehall insiders admitted Sir Kims stint as US ambassador would quickly become untenable if Mr Trump refuses to deal with him. Sources told the Daily Mail the Trump camp believes Sir Kim should be replaced. The US tycoon is thought to have been angered by a leaked memo from Sir Kim which suggested he was an inexperienced operator who would be open to outside influence. But ministers fear Mr Trump has also been influenced by Mr Farage, who described Sir Kim this month as a fanatical Europhile and called for him to be sacked. One well-placed source said it was clear there was an orchestrated plot to unseat the British ambassador. In an extraordinary intervention, the US President-elect took to Twitter in the early hours to suggest the acting Ukip leader should replace existing British ambassador Sir Kim Darroch Mr Farage yesterday insisted he had been astonished by Mr Trumps intervention, adding: It was like a bolt from the blue. But sources close to the Ukip leader say Mr Trumps explosive tweet was pre-planned, with Mr Farage standing ready to answer his phone in the early hours when contacted by the BBC for comment. The key link man is understood to be is Steve Bannon, the publisher of the Right-wing Breitbart news website who is now the president-elects chief strategist. Mr Bannon has been close to Mr Farage for more than two years. The Ukip MEPs ex-chief of staff and friend Raheem Kassam runs Breitbart in the UK. Writing on the Breitbart website yesterday, Mr Farage attacked the cesspit of mainstream politics and hit out at politicians who were openly abusive about Trump [but] now pretend to be his friend. He said Mr Trumps suggestion he could be ambassador reflected the fact that the president-elect is a very loyal man and supports those that stand by him. He added: It is called trust and it is how the whole world of business operates. Sadly, the cesspit that is career politics understands nothing of this. The unprecedented call forced Theresa May to throw a protective arm around Sir Kim (pictured here with Barack Obama), a career diplomat due to remain in post until at least 2020 Downing Street insisted Britain would not be pushed around by Mr Trump. A spokesman for the Prime Minister said that as a basic principle, we appoint our ambassadors, adding that there is no vacancy in Washington. He said Mrs May regards Sir Kim, who spent years as Britains representative in Brussels, as an excellent ambassador who is doing a fantastic job. The PM is also thought to have discussed the diplomatic crisis with Sir Kim at a pre-arranged meeting in Downing Street yesterday. No 10 faced embarrassment last week when Mr Farage became the first senior UK politician to meet Mr Trump since his election. Photos showed the two men laughing and joking outside the gold doors of the tycoons headquarters in Trump Tower, New York. Mr Farage yesterday told the Daily Mail that Sir Kims position was untenable. His views are diametrically opposed to Donald Trumps it cannot work, he said. Boris Johnson is understood to be irritated at Sir Kims failure to forge stronger links with Mr Trump during the presidential race The PM is also thought to have discussed the diplomatic crisis with Sir Kim at a pre-arranged meeting in Downing Street yesterday He accused Downing Street of putting its dislike for him ahead of the national interest, saying it was time for Mrs May to recognise that the world has changed. If No 10 think I am of no use to them, and no use to Britain, then they are not facing the new reality, he said. I know many of the Trump team and have done for years, and I would like to do anything I can to help the relationship with the UK. I think I could help advance the negotiations on trade and jobs and strengthen our negotiating hand in Brussels. Millionaire Ukip donor Arron Banks, who joined Mr Farage on his visit to Trump Tower, said bluntly that the MEP would be 'better than existing one who spent his whole time greasing up to Hillary (Clinton)'. TOP EURO JUDGE BACKS THE MAIL The EUs top judge has said justices should be able to take criticism after a British High Court ruling sparked press outrage. The judges ruled Parliament had the final say on Brexit, which drew flak from newspapers including the Daily Mail, as it restricted Theresa Mays ability to trigger Brexit in accordance with the publics will, clearly expressed in a referendum. Remain supporters complained after newspapers scolded the three out-of-touch judges who ruled the Government could not trigger Article 51 straight away. The Lord Chief Justice and two senior colleagues were accused of putting Britain on course for a full-blown constitutional crisis. Critical front-page headlines about their decision included the Daily Mails Enemies Of The People. But yesterday the president of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg refused to criticise the coverage. Koen Lenaerts said he could not speak specifically about the case but as a broader point added: I can say that judges are always vulnerable to outside criticism and if you cant stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. The Prime Minister has appealed against the High Court judgement and the case will be heard in the Supreme Court next month. Mrs May has also defended the medias rights, saying: I believe in and value the independence of our judiciary, I also value the freedom of the press. Advertisement Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson publicly backed Sir Kim, telling MPs: We have a first rate ambassador in Washington doing a very good job of relating both with the present administration and with the administration to be, and there is no vacancy for that position. Mr Johnson also made it clear he wants to foster much closer relations with Mr Trump. He told MPs that its vital that we are as positive as we can possibly be about the new administration-elect. Sir Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador to Washington, said Mr Trumps backing for Mr Farage was damned awkward for the Government Sir Kim, whose annual salary is between 180,000 and 185,000, has a zoology degree from Durham University and is a rock fan whose favourite acts include The Eagles, Bob Dylan and The Who. He and his teacher wife Vanessa have two grown-up children, and own a four-bedroom detached house in Kew, South-West London, worth around 2.2million. Tory ministers were privately raging at the conduct of Mr Farage. A senior Conservative Party source said: I seem to remember that, when Obama was telling us to stay inside the EU, Farage attacked him for meddling. Whats different now? Sir Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador to Washington, said Mr Trumps backing for Mr Farage was damned awkward for the Government. But he warned that Mr Farage was totally unsuitable for the role because his closeness to Mr Trump left him with divided loyalties. Downing Street pointed out that Mrs May had enjoyed a warm phone call with Mr Trump the day after he was elected. But some insiders fear the PM herself may have damaged relations last year when she condemned Mr Trumps controversial call for Muslims to be banned from the US as divisive, unhelpful and wrong. Madonna's teenage son Rocco Ritchie has been arrested in a drugs bust. Rocco was caught in possession of cannabis after neighbours reportedly called police on the troubled teen. The 16-year-old, whose father is director Guy Ritchie, was seen 'smoking or doing drugs' near his Primrose Hill home in North London. Rocco Ritchie, 16, was caught with cannabis after neighbours called police on the troubled teen The teenager and girlfriend Kim Turnbull were pictured together earlier this week socialising with Brooklyn Beckham. Rocco was arrested for possession of cannabis on September 28. He was bailed and dealt with by Camden borough's Youth Offending Team Sources told the Sun that Rocco was seen tossing something away as police approached him in Steeles Mews North, Camden. When officers noticed traces of cannabis on his clothes they searched him and found a small quantity of the drug. He was arrested on September 28, taken to a north London police station and later bailed. Madonna broke her silence on the teenager's arrest on Wednesday night. The musician released a statement to The Associated Press calling his legal problems 'a family matter.' She said: 'I love my son very much. I will do whatever I can to give him the support that he needs, and I ask that you respect our privacy at this time.' Ritchie has not yet made a statement. A police spokesman said: 'A 16-year-old youth has been arrested for possession of cannabis. 'The arrest follows a stop and search by officers from Camden borough at around 5.15pm on Wednesday, September 28 at Steeles Mews North. 'The youth was taken to a north London police station. He was subsequently bailed and dealt with by Camden borough's Youth Offending Team. Rocco Ritchie was spotted smoking a and drinking what looks to be an alcoholic drink with friends under a bridge in central London in April 'He was dealt with by way of Triage, which uses multiple strands to engage and educate young people in order to prevent re-offending.' Earlier this year the teenage was at the centre of a bitter custody dispute between his director father and pop icon mother. The disagreement began in December 2015 during a falling out between Rocco and his musician mother when he abandoned her Rebel Hearts tour. The teenage has been at the centre of a bitter custody dispute between his director father and pop icon mother He refused to travel with Madonna and she launched legal action in the US and UK demanding custody of her son. Website TMZ claimed that Madonna thought Guy 'had poisoned her son against her' and, 'as the disciplinarian [parent], she felt guy was way too permissive He refused to travel with his mother and she launched legal action in the US and UK demanding custody of her son. Guy Richie's lawyers argued Rocco was settled in school in London and, in September, he won the bitter nine month battle over where their son should live. The Sherlock Holmes director reached a settlement with the pop star hours before they were due in court in New York and it was agreed the teenager would continue to live in London. Website TMZ claimed that Madonna thought Guy 'had poisoned her son against her' and, 'as the disciplinarian [parent], she felt guy was way too permissive'. The hotel's owner is serving a sentence for perverting the course of justice Guests were left stranded when inspectors closed it down on the spot Fiorenzo Cazari Hotel in Rhyl was shut down amid safety and fire fears Guests were left stranded after a hotel dubbed 'the worst in Britain', 'a slum' and 'beyond my worst nightmare' was shut down on the spot over fears guests could be killed there. Fire chiefs and council inspectors were worried people could be electrocuted or a fire could break out due to dangerous electrics at the Fiorenzo Cazari Hotel on East Parade in Rhyl, North Wales. Guests will not be able to stay at the hotel - formerly known as the Morville - until safety work has been carried out in the latest blow to its credentials. In September, owner John Washington was jailed for eight months for perverting the course of justice for trying to persuade a woman to drop a sex offence charge against his brother and it has received mass criticism on TripAdvisor. Guests were left stranded after a hotel dubbed 'the worst in Britain', 'a slum' and 'beyond my worst nightmare' was shut down on the spot over fears guests could be killed there Fire chiefs and council inspectors were worried people could be electrocuted or a fire could break out due to dangerous electrics at the Fiorenzo Cazari Hotel on East Parade in Rhyl, North Wales Guests will not be able to stay at the hotel - formerly known as the Morville - until safety work has been carried out in the latest blow to its credentials The closure caused chaos for some guests who were left stranded overnight after the inspection on Friday. They were only allowed back in to grab their belongings before a sign was put up warning people there was 'risk of electrocution, receiving an electric shock or fire'. The shutdown is the latest blow for the hotel, which has had appalling TripAdvisor ratings which dubbed it 'the worst in Britain'. In September, hotel owner John Washington, a lawyer, was jailed for eight months for perverting the course of justice after asking a female member of staff to take a woman out for a drink and try to persuade her to drop a sex charge against his brother. The staff member recorded the conversation with a mobile phone hidden in her bra. Washington, who came to the UK from Afghanistan as a refugee, was granted asylum and is now a British citizen who has lived in the UK for 20 years. He was described in court as an industrious man with no previous convictions who had done a number of jobs before buying the hotel. In September, hotel owner John Washington, a lawyer, was jailed for eight months for perverting the course of justice after asking a female member of staff to take a woman out for a drink and try to persuade her to drop a sex charge against his brother Washington's hotel has 79 reviews on TripAdvisor - 65 of them with a 'terrible' rating. One reviewer said: 'This is hardly a hotel more like a slum booked it through hotels.com could not sleep here as absolutely filthy. 'I am well travelled and this has to win hands down for being the worst hotel I have ever entered. 'If it was free for the night I would rather sleep in a doorway.' People who have left scathing feedback and described it variously as 'beyond my worst nightmare', 'worst place I've ever seen', 'disgusting beyond belief' and 'the worst hotel in Britain'. One reviewer described it as a 'slum' but, surprisingly, three reviewers described it as 'excellent' and four as 'very good'. Other customers described heaters and TV brackets falling off walls and 'dodgy electrics'. One particularly unsatisfied customer called the hotel a a 'disgrace to Rhyl', adding: 'This pile of dung cannot possibly be called a hotel. I wished I had slept under a bridge or in my car, in which case I wouldn't be flee bitten.' Another, who appeared to have a similar stay, wrote: 'If you want to live like a tramp, stay here. 'It's small, it's dirty, the staff are ignorant, there was no washing facilities, no taps, bath and shower just trickled out and we had to buy a fragrance candle because of the smell.' One reviewer said: 'If it was free for the night I would rather sleep in a doorway.' Another, who appeared to have a similar stay, wrote: 'If you want to live like a tramp, stay here.' The shutdown is the latest blow for the hotel, which has had appalling TripAdvisor ratings which dubbed it 'the worst in Britain' One particularly unsatisfied customer called the hotel a a 'disgrace to Rhyl', adding: 'This pile of dung cannot possibly be called a hotel. I wished I had slept under a bridge or in my car, in which case I wouldn't be flee bitten.' A spokesman for Denbighshire council said: 'A council health and safety inspector has served on the Fiorenzo Cazari hotel in Rhyl, a prohibition notice under the Health and Safety at Work Act due to an unsafe electrical installation. 'This notice prohibits the use of the premises indefinitely until work is done to satisfy that the electrical installation does not pose a risk of serious injury or fire.' Dave Roberts, business fire safety compliance manager for Conwy and Denbighshire, North Wales Fire and Rescue Service, said: 'When business owners put their staff and guests at risk of harm from fire and fail to improve their safety standards, it is our duty to work with partners to intervene to ensure the highest levels of safety for the public. 'At this property, we found significant fire risk and served a prohibition notice preventing the use of two of the spaces in the property. 'Denbighshire County Council served a prohibition notice preventing the use of the property as a whole. The transport link is billed as the world's first new-energy suspension railway by Chinese media Suspended at 16 feet high, the trains zip along the elevated monorail at speeds up to 37mph The black-and-white carriages are inspired by panda, an Advertisement China has launched its first suspension railway with carriages that looks like pandas. The futuristic trains went into service on November 21 in Chengdu, Sichuan province, the home of previous giant pandas. The 'Sky Train' carriages, powered by lithium batteries instead of electricity, zip along the elevated monorail at speeds up to 60kmph (37mph), according to People's Daily Online. All aboard the panda train! The Chinese city of Chengdu has launched the country's first suspension railway The world's fastest moving panda? Each of the trains, formed of two carriages, are designed to look like the precious bear The futuristic trains went into service on November 21 in Chengdu, Sichuan province, the home of giant pandas The 'Sky Train' carriages, powered by lithium batteries instead of electricity, can travel as fast as 37mph The transport link has been billed as the world's first new-energy suspension railway by the Chinese media. After a month test run, the black-and-white train, formed by two carriages, has started its official operation on a 1.4-kilometre-long track (0.8 miles) near the Chengdu Shuangliu Airport. The cutting-edge locomotive is hitched to the monorail at five metres high (16.4 feet) and can carry a maximum of 230 passengers at one time. Sky Train is the brainchild of Zhongtang Sky Train Group, a company based in Sichuan specialised in suspension railway technologies. It is co-developed by seven Chinese state-run firms and is considered to be a key project by the Sichuan government. Revolutionary: The transport link has been billed as the world's first new-energy suspension railway by the Chinese media With a blue interior, the train can carry a maximum of 230 passengers at one time to serve the city of 14 million Sky Train has started its official operation on a 1.4-kilometre-long track (0.8 miles) near the Chengdu Shuangliu Airport Before that, the suspension rail system had been going through test runs for about a month in Chengdu Sky Train is the brainchild of Zhongtang Sky Train Group, a Chinese company specialised in suspension railway technologies Tang Dong, the chairman of Zhong Tang Sky Train Group, told China's Dragon TV during an interview that they operate the trains during the day and charge them during the night in order to avoid using energy during peak hours. Zhai Wanming, the chief engineer of Sky Train, told Dragon TV: 'We use large volume lithium batteries as the source of our energy. This is revolutionary. The suspension monorails in Germany and Japan use traditional power supply modes.' When fully charged, a sky train can run for four hours non-stop. Zhai said the cutting-edge energy technology had saved them a lot of money. According to Zhai, the construction cost of Sky Train is just one-fifth to one-eight of a subway's construction cost. At the moment, it costs about 100 million yuan (11.7 million) to build one kilometre (0.6 mile) of Sky Train rail. Sky Train is set to be commercialised in China after it finishes 10,000 kilometres (6,213 miles) of train operation. Tang Dong, the chairman of Zhong Tang, said they operate the trains during the day and charge them during the night According to the train's chief engineer, the construction cost of Sky Train is one-fifth to one-eight of a subway's building cost A Chinese fast food chain has been ordered to change its name and menu after they were deemed vulgar. The Shanghai-based fried chicken brand, 'Call a Chick', sells dishes such as 'chick with no sex life' and 'chick and booty calls', according to People's Daily Online. In Chinese, 'chick' is a slang word for a female prostitute. The Chinese fried chicken brand, 'Call a Chick', has been ordered to change its name and menu. Pictured above are the company's takeaway box and carrier bag On November 19, the fast food chain issued a statement on their Weibo account (pictured) The company, which has branches across China, referred to its telephone ordering service as 'a hotline for calling chicks.' Its advertisement even claimed that its fried chickens 'will satisfy every ounce of your fantasy for a chick.' The company's various branches have been boycotted by customers, who criticise the brand's marketing as 'erotic and disturbing'. On November 19, the fast food chain issued a statement on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, promising its customers that it will change its brand name, advertising slogan and the content of its menu in all its branches. MailOnline discovered that the name 'Call a Chick' can still be seen on its website and social media account on Weibo. The 'Call a Chick' branches in Chengdu, Shanghai and Hangzhou have been ordered to suspend operations by local authorities. The official explanation revealed by the officials was that the brand had not received permission to use the brand name. The brand sells dishes such as 'chick with no sex life' and 'chick and booty calls' (file photo) Meanwhile, authorities in Shanghai, where the company is based, suggested that the brand name may have violated China's advertisement law, which forbids obscene content from being used in advertisements, according to Shanghai Morning Post. Chinese social media users criticised the company for its negative impact on children. One Weibo user wrote: 'My five-year-old son keeps asking me the meaning of the dish names. 'It's disturbing enoughto see a menu with so much sexual connotation, let alone figuring out a way to stop my child from asking me about the filthy content.' However, some web users said the authorities had overreacted. They said that the officials 'were killing creativity'. One such person said: 'KFC has used the slogan "We do chicken right." If you over-analyse this [slogan], it can also mean something dirty. Cyber criminals have remotely attacked cash machines in more than a dozen countries across Europe this year, The cyber criminals are using malicious software that forces machines to spit out cash, according to Russian cyber security firm Group IB. The newly disclosed heists across Europe follow the hacking of ATMs in Taiwan and Thailand that were widely reported over the summer. Cyber criminals have remotely attacked cash machines in more than a dozen countries across Europe this year, using malicious software that forces machines to spit out cash, according to Russian cyber security firm Group IB. Stock image WHO IS AFFECTED? Cyber criminals have remotely attacked cash machines in more than a dozen countries across Europe this year. Group IB declined to name banks that were 'jackpotted,' a term used to describe forcing ATMs to spit out cash. But the group said the victims were located in Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Britain and Malaysia. The newly disclosed heists across Europe follow the hacking of ATMs in Taiwan and Thailand that were widely reported over the summer. A February attack on servers at Bangladesh's central bank that controlled access to the SWIFT messaging system yielded more than $81 million (64.95 million) in one of the biggest digital heists on record. Russian banks lost over $28 million (22.5 million) in a series of wire-fraud cases that were identified earlier this year. Advertisement Diebold Nixdorf and NCR Corp, the world's two largest ATM makers, said they were aware of the attacks and have been working with customers to mitigate the threat. Although cyber criminals have been attacking cash machines for at least five years, the early campaigns mostly involved small numbers of ATMs because hackers needed to have physical access to cash out machines. The recent heists in Europe and Asia were run from central, remote command centres, enabling criminals to target large numbers of machines in 'smash and grab' operations that seek to drain large amounts of cash before banks uncover the hacks. 'They are taking this to the next level in being able to attack a large number of machines at once,' said Nicholas Billett, Diebold Nixdorf's senior director of core software and ATM Security. 'They know they will be caught fairly quickly, so they stage it in such a way that they can get cash from as many ATMs as they can before they get shut down.' Group IB declined to name banks that were 'jackpotted,' a term used to describe forcing ATMs to spit out cash, but said the victims were located in Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Britain and Malaysia. Dmitry Volkov, head of threat intelligence with Group IB, told Reuters he expects more heists on ATMs. Hackers have moved from stealing payment card numbers and online banking credentials to more lucrative hacks on bank networks, giving them access not only to ATM machines, but also to electronic payment networks. A February attack on servers at Bangladesh's central bank that controlled access to the SWIFT messaging system yielded more than $81 million (64.95 million) in one of the biggest digital heists on record. Hackers have moved from stealing payment card numbers and online banking credentials to more lucrative hacks on bank networks, giving them access not only to ATM machines, but also to electronic payment networks. Stock image THE INCREASE IN CYBER ATTACKS ON ATMS Although cyber criminals have been attacking cash machines for at least five years, the early campaigns mostly involved small numbers of ATMs because hackers needed to have physical access to cash out machines. The recent heists in Europe and Asia were run from central, remote command centres, enabling criminals to target large numbers of machines in 'smash and grab' operations that seek to drain large amounts of cash before banks uncover the hacks. Hackers have now moved from stealing payment card numbers and online banking credentials to more lucrative hacks on bank networks. This gives them access not only to ATM machines, but also to electronic payment networks. Advertisement Russian banks lost over $28 million (22.5 million) in a series of wire-fraud cases that were identified earlier this year. 'What we are seeing demonstrated is the new model of organised crime,' said Shane Shook, an independent security consultant who helps banks and governments investigate cyber attacks and reviewed Group IB's findings. Diebold Nixdorf and NCR both said they had provided banks with information on how to thwart the new types of attacks. 'We have been working actively with customers, including those who have been impacted, as well as developing proactive security solutions and strategies to help prevent and minimize the impact of these attacks,' said Owen Wild, NCR's global marketing director for enterprise fraud and security. Disclosure of the campaign follows two ATM hacks in July: $2.5 million (2 million) was stolen from Taiwan's First Bank and $350,000 (280,000) from Thailand's state-run Government Savings Bank. Hackers remotely infected ATMs at both banks, forcing them to spit out cash that was collected by teams of 'money mules,' who authorities say traveled to Asia from Eastern Europe. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this month sent a private alert to American banks, warning them to be on the lookout for attacks on ATMs following the heists in Taiwan and Thailand, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the attacks in Europe. Group IB released a report describing its findings late on Monday, saying it believed the attacks across Europe were conducted by a single criminal group which it dubbed Cobalt. It named them after a security-testing tool known as Cobalt Strike, which the perpetrators used in the heists to help them move from computers in the bank network that were infected with tainted emails to specialized servers that control ATMs. Group IB believes that Cobalt is linked to a well-known cyber crime gang dubbed Buhtrap, which stole 1.8 billion rubles ($28 million/22.45 million) from Russian banks from August 2015 to January 2016, because the two groups use similar tools and techniques. Buhtrap stole money through fraudulent wire transfers, not ATM jackpotting. The ATM Security Association declined to comment on Group IB's findings. Members of the group, which works to improve ATM security, include ATM maker Diebold Nixdorf as well as banks ABN Amro, Bank of America Corp, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Wells Fargo & Co.. Representatives of Europol, which coordinates investigations of cyber crimes across Europe, had no immediate comment. Suggests people would have to promise not to reproduce as a trade-off Woods says sending our dead into the future only adds to the population false hope that it will actually work When in reality this gives A dying 14-year-old child recently won the right to be cryogenically frozen after her death following a UK court battle. In a letter to the judge, the child wrote: I think being cryo-preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up, even in hundreds of years' time. I don't want to be buried underground I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they might find a cure for my cancer and wake me up. Scroll down for videos A dying 14-year-old recently won the right to be cryogenically frozen after her death following a UK court battle. There are no laws which ban the practice outright but there may be legal difficulties for cryonics because most countries specify how a dead body must be disposed of COULD IT ACTUALLY WORK? Human and other animal tissues can of course be preserved. The corpses of mammoths, preserved in the permafrost, have been shown to have viable fragments of DNA after thousands of years. More to the point, human sperm and embryos can also be preserved for several years and still retain the capacity for life. If this technique were to ever work, perhaps a condition of future resurrection should be an agreement not to reproduce during one's current lifetime as a trade-off against a growing population. If it could work then cryogenics might be construed as a caring option particularly in the light of a dying child's plea. Advertisement The premature death of a young person is a particular tragedy and one cannot but be moved by the letter. According to newspaper reports, several children, some as young as seven, have also signed up to be frozen after their deaths. Accurate figures of how many people have been cryogenically preserved are difficult to obtain because there is no system of recording this information. There are probably several hundred in the US and Russia where facilities are known to exist. There are no laws which ban the practice outright but there may be legal difficulties for cryonics because most countries specify how a dead body must be disposed of and exclude long-term storage of this kind. But what are the deeper moral and ethical issues of allowing the practice? And what would the consequences be if cryopreservation became mainstream? Cryonics is a process of deep cooling the body with the aim of preserving the tissues at very low temperatures. In effect, it is a form of cold mummification. People who turn to cryogenics are usually captivated by the possibility of having their body preserved until some indeterminate future time when it is imagined that science and technology will be capable of curing any cause of death, repairing damaged tissues and, most importantly, bringing them back to life. But is such a thing plausible? DYING GIRL'S INCREDIBLE LETTER BEGGING TO BE FROZEN The British girl now frozen in America met the judge to prove she was capable of making decisions about her body and wrote him a letter explaining her reasons. Mr Justice Jackson said: 'I am only 14-years-old and I don't want to die but I know I am going to die.' 'I think being cryo-preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up - even in hundreds of years' time.' 'I don't want to be buried underground.' 'I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they may find a cure for my cancer and wake me up.' 'I want to have this chance. This is my wish.' Justice Jackson said that she died peacefully knowing she would be frozen and discussed the arrangements before on the day she died. Advertisement Human and other animal tissues can of course be preserved. The corpses of mammoths, preserved in the permafrost, have been shown to have viable fragments of DNA after thousands of years. More to the point, human sperm and embryos can also be preserved for several years and still retain the capacity for life. Process: Bodies are drained of blood on a table packed with ice(left) and then frozen slowly over several weeks before reaching -196 C and being kept in a regulated cylinder (right) GIRL IS STORED AT CENTRE SET UP BY LOVER OF SCI-FI The British girl is in one of America's two main cryo-facilities - the Cryonics Institute near Detroit - where its founder Robert Ettinger was frozen with two of his wives when he died aged 92. Landmark case: The girl has been frozen at become the first British child to be cryogenically frozen and in the Cryonics Institute in Detroit The former American physics teacher called Robert Ettinger, inspired by early science fiction writers, began the cryonics movement by writing a highly controversial book, The Prospect Of Immortality, which predicted that death might be reversible. The 1964 thesis sparked such acclaim and outrage that the U.S. authorities feared thousands would opt to be frozen in time - and when he died he chose to do it himself, as did his family. Packed in dry ice, the British girl arrived at The Cryonics Institute, based in Clinton Township, Michigan. There she was placed in a 'cryostat' a cold storage chamber. Her arrival at the institute, based in the outskirts of Detroit, may have been held up by paperwork issues, as it took eight days to get her to the US. The case notes detailed the arrival of 'patient 143a 14-year-old female from London.' Advertisement Although most scientists are extremely sceptical about the possibility of ever reanimating a corpse that has been cryogenically frozen, it only takes one person claiming 'never-say-never' to inspire some individuals to latch on to a promissory future featuring a techno-science fix for human mortality. The existential tussle with human mortality has been a feature of culture for as long as thoughts have been recordable in art or the written word. People turned to religion in the hope of resurrection and immortality in the same way that some are now turning to science. When the Roman philosopher Epicurus tried to persuade us that 'death should be nothing to us' he failed to assuage the deep human anxiety in the face of mortality. So, given that it is so natural for humans to seek immortality, is cryopreservation, purchased by well-informed individuals who have the personal wealth to afford it, really wrong? WHAT IS IT, HOW MUCH IS IT AND HOW DOES IT WORK? Process: The girl will have been treated within minutes of death - flown to America and then slowly frozen to an ultra-low temperature in the hope, one day, she'll be woken up again. Evperts wonder if she will be treated as a patient rather than a curiosity in the future WHAT IS CRYOPRESERVATION? The deep freezing of a body to - 196C (-321F). Anti-freeze compounds are injected into the corpse to stop cells being damaged. The hope is that medical science will advance enough to bring the patient back to life. Two main US organisations carry out 'cryonics' Alcor, in Arizona, and Cryonics Institute, Michigan. HOW IS IT MEANT TO WORK? The process can only take place once the body is legally dead. Ideally, it begins within two minutes of the heart stopping and no more than 15. The body must be packed in ice and injected with chemicals to reduce blood clotting. At the cryonics facility, it is cooled to just above OC and the blood is replaced with a solution to preserve organs. The body is injected with another solution to stop ice crystals forming in organs and tissues, then cooled to - 130C. The final step is to place the body into a container which is lowered into a tank of liquid nitrogen at - 196C. WHAT'S THE CHANCE OF SUCCESS? Many experts say there is none. Organs such as the heart and kidneys have never been successfully frozen and thawed, so it is even less likely a whole body and the brain could be without irreversible damage. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? Charges at the Cryonics Institute, where the girl has been stored, start at around $35,000 (28,000) to 'members' for whole-body cryopreservation. The girl was charged 37,000, which may include costs such as transportation. Rival group Alcor charges $200,000 (161,000) for whole-body preservation. HOW LONG BEFORE PEOPLE CAN BE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE? Cryonics organisations claim it could be decades or even centuries. However Medical experts say once cells are damaged during freezing and turned to 'mush' they cannot be converted back to living tissue, any more than you can turn a scrambled egg back into a raw egg. Advertisement Looked at from this perspective one could say that it is merely an expression of a libertarian freedom which tolerates the spending of personal resources on wasteful luxuries although many might regard this as inherently unfair and claim that access to these services should be made more equitable, perhaps even provided as part of routine healthcare. The problem with the current debate is that advocates of cryonics combine science fiction with science fact which, for some, amounts to a persuasive hype. But for such claims to be sustained, there needs to be much stronger evidence that restoration following cryogenics was more than a fantasy. And there are even more profound issues than this. Cryonics, after all, has the potential to be deeply exploitative of those at an especially vulnerable time in their lives, in particular those facing the premature death of a young family member. Cryogenic preservation features in several science fiction films, including Forever Young staring Mel Gibson (pictured). What's more, the world's population is expanding rapidly and sending our dead into the future would only add to that Although companies offering the service are at one level candid about the procedure, they also subtly promise more. The language used in their advertising is that of medical care, the deceased is referred to as a 'patient' and the procedure described as a boundary-breaking treatment extending into the future. This certainly has the potential to offer false hope. The legal status of such organisations is untested in the UK, but it is unlikely that they would conform to the requirements of the Human Tissue Act 2004. More specific regulation may force such organisations to be more candid in their literature and less likely to prey on the vulnerable. HOW GIRL, 14, IS PATIENT 143 IN DETROIT CRYOGENICS CENTRE - BUT WAS HER BODY HELD UP BY PAPERWORK? Robert Ettinger, 92, pictured in the 1960s, has been frozen in the Cryonics Institute he founded after his death By Colin Fernandez, Science Correspondent On the website of the organisation freezing her body, she was simply described as 'patient 143'. Case notes that read like science fiction detail how, packed in dry ice, she arrived at The Cryonics Institute, based in Clinton Township, Michigan. There she was placed in a 'cryostat' a cold storage chamber. Her arrival at the institute, based in the outskirts of Detroit, may have been held up by paperwork issues, as it took eight days to get her to the US. The case notes detailed the arrival of 'patient 143a 14-year-old female from London.' The significance of the number 143 is the number of human bodies held at the facility. The notes said the girl's family had contracted Cryonics UK to 'provide standby, cooling and transportation of the patient'. The UK group also carried out perfusion the injection of 'anti-freeze' compounds in the body to stop ice forming. It said a 'case report' from Cryonics UK will be made available when it is received. It took eight days for the body to arrive in the US a delay that may have been caused 'while the necessary paperwork was obtained for transportation'. The report said: 'The patient arrived at the CI facility, packed in dry ice, at 5:00pm on the 25th of October, approximately 8 days after death. 'The patient was then placed in the computer controlled cooling chamber to cool to liquid nitrogen temperature. 'The human cooling program from dry ice was selected and the time needed to cool the patient to liquid nitrogen temperature was 24 hours. 'The patient was then placed in a cryostat for longterm cryonic storage.' Dry ice has a temperature of minus 78c. (109.3f) Liquid nitrogen is much colder at minus 196c (-321F) The institute said at the time of her death October 17, 2016 she was a member of the institute. Membership which costs $120 a year, with an initial charge of $75 allows cryopreservation at a reduced cost - $35,000. After the 14-year-old arrived, two further bodies have arrived at the cold store. Patient 144 was a 56 year old woman who arrived at Michigan by private jet, and patient 145 was a 78-year-old female from Michigan who arrived much sooner within two hours after death. Advertisement There is also the question about resources. Isn't it a form of hubris to say to future generations that 'you should devote your resources to saving and restoring me'. What reason would future generations have for treating me as a patient rather than a curiosity a strange ice-mummy from the 21st century? What's more, the world's population is expanding rapidly. Sending our dead into the future would only add to that. So, if this technique were to ever work, perhaps a condition of future resurrection should be an agreement not to reproduce during one's current lifetime as a trade-off against a growing population. If it could work then cryogenics might be construed as a caring option particularly in the light of a dying child's plea. However, what form of care would it be to send a child, alone, into some indeterminate future no family, no friends, no resources? It is in circumstances like these that the words of Dylan Thomas are often quoted as a defiant response to death: 'Do not go gentle into that good night.' Google has revealed a new feature that could be the answer to every bar hopper and shopper's dreams. Called popular times, it uses real time data to you how busy a location is. It uses anonymised real time data to predict the number of people inside - and even makes a guess at how long they are likely to stay. Popular Times has been part of Googles Search engine since last year, but the new addition has real-time capabilities. You can search any location by name and the Popular Times section will appear in Google or Google Maps, displaying the number of visitors inside HOW DOES IT WORK? Popular Times was added to Google Search last year, but now it has real-time capabilities. The technology lets you see how many people it estimates will be there any day of the week and updates to let customers know if the establishment will be closed. You can search any location by name and the Popular Times section will appear in Google or Google Maps, displaying the number of visitors inside. Included in this real-time feature is the ability to know how long people are hanging out in the place at a time Advertisement 'Since introducing the Popular Times feature in Google Search and Maps last year, youve been able to check how busy a place typically is at different times of the week,' said Google. 'Just in time for the Black Friday swarms, we're adding a real-time look at how crowded a place is right now, to help you decide where and when to go. 'The feature has been part of Googles Search engine since last year, but the new addition has real-time capabilities. You can search any location by name and the Popular Times section will appear in Google or Google Maps, displaying the number of visitors inside the firm is using anonymized data and searchers to estimate how many people are inside. Included in this real-time feature is the ability to know how long people are hanging out in the place at a time it could be one hour, three hours or more. 'If youre playing host for the day, you can also check and see how long people typically stay at a given location,' Google says. 'That way you can plan your itinerary to the minute.' The feature uses anonymised real time data to predict the number of people inside - and even makes a guess at how long they are likely to stay. Google will also tell you if the line for a book signing is long, which means you know if you will have time to grab a coffee on the way. The technology also lets you see how many people it estimates will be there any day of the week and updates to let you know if the establishment will be closed - Google is also using search history to formulate its calculations. Google says it knows more than it probably should about its human users. Earlier this year, the firm released a separate feature that collects all the data that Google has generated by watching its as they move around the web. If users have not configured their settings to avoid it, the data could include a list of all the website they have visited and what they have used their phone to do. Included in this real-time feature is the ability to know how long people are hanging out in the place at a time.The technology also lets you see how many people it estimates will be there any day of the week and updates to let you know if the establishment will be closed Called, My Activity Tool, this feature also lets users to delete records of their online search requests and videos watched on YouTube in a single location instead of having to visit different websites or apps. When users first sign into the service it greets them with a series of messages explaining why the 'My Activity' feature is beneficial. 'Rediscover the things you've searched for, visited and watched on Google services,' it says. 'You can easily delete specific items or entire topics. You can also change your settings and decide what data gets associated with your account,' the welcoming message says. The page shows a catalogue of pages visited, things searched and other activity, grouped by time. It also lets people look at the same timeline through filters looking at specific dates, and specific products like Google search and YouTube. The company is trying to make it easier for users to manage the vast pool of information that it collects about their online activities across phones, computers and other devices. Advertisement A new satellite in orbit around the Earth will drastically improve everything from storm forecasts to the prediction of turbulence for pilots. The difference between current weather satellites and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) new GOES-R orbiter, launched on Saturday, has been revealed in a stunning animation. Comparing the real-time rates of cloud cover rolling over landmasses, it shows how the 'most advanced weather satellite ever built' will pick up on subtle changes in speed and direction, to provide more accurate predictions. Scroll down for video The images come from a video produced by NOAA in 2014, showing the primary instrument aboard the satellite, the Advanced Baseline Imager. It describes how the new satellite will have five times faster coverage rate and four times better spatial resolution compared with previous GOES imagers. The narrator says: Faster means improving real time forecasting capabilities. The satellite ever was launched into space on Saturday night, as part of an $11 billion (8.91 billion) effort to revolutionise forecasting and save lives. This new GOES-R spacecraft will track US weather as never before, according to Nasa. It will monitor hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, volcanic ash clouds, wildfires, lightning storms, and even solar flares and relay crucial information to forecasters so they can issue space weather alerts and warnings. Nasa launched the mission this month, which will see a further three next generation weather satellites launched, keeping the GOES network operational until 2036. The GOES-R satellite will produce clearer images with faster real time tracking (pictured left) compared with current technology (pictured right) Comparing the real time rates of cloud cover rolling over landmasses, it shows how the 'most advanced weather satellite ever built' will pick up on subtle changes in speed and direction (pictured left), enabling meteorologists to make more accurate predictions than currently available (pictured right) THE INSTRUMENTS The new GOES-R spacecraft will track US weather as never before. It will monitor hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, volcanic ash clouds, wildfires, lightning storms, and even solar flares. GOES-R's premier imager, one of six science instruments, will offer three times as many channels as the existing system, four times the resolution and five times the scan speed. It will churn out full images of the Western Hemisphere every 15 minutes and the continental United States every five minutes. Specific storm regions will be updated every 30 seconds. Advertisement The first in a series of four high-tech satellites, GOES-R hitched a ride on an unmanned Atlas V rocket, after being delayed an hour by rocket and other problems. 'The launch of GOES-R represents a major step forward in terms of our ability to provide more timely and accurate information that is critical for life-saving weather forecasts and warnings,' said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for Nasa's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NOAA teamed up with Nasa for the mission. About 50 TV meteorologists from around the country converged on the launch site on Saturday, including NBC's Al Roker, along with 8,000 space program workers and guests. 'What's so exciting is that we're going to be getting more data, more often, much more detailed, higher resolution,' Roker said. In the case of tornadoes, 'if we can give people another 10, 15, 20 minutes, we're talking about lives being saved.' The new satellite is the equivalent of a super high-definition TV, where previous satellites are the equivalent of black and white screens. 'Really a quantum leap above any satellite NOAA has ever flown,' said Stephen Volz, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's director of satellites. 'For the American public, that will mean faster, more accurate weather forecasts and warnings,' Volz said. The most advanced weather satellite ever built rocketed into space on Saturday night from Nasa's at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida (pictured). The satellite is part of an $11 billion (8.91bn) effort to revolutionize forecasting and save lives Typically, it will churn out full images of the Western Hemisphere every 15 minutes and the continental United States every five minutes. Specific storm regions will be updated every 30 seconds. Improved space weather sensors on GOES-R will monitor the sun and relay crucial information to forecasters so they can issue space weather alerts and warnings 'That also will mean more lives saved and better environmental intelligence' for government officials responsible for hurricane and other evacuations. Airline passengers also stand to benefit, as do rocket launch teams. Improved forecasting will help pilots avoid bad weather and help rocket scientists know when to call off a launch. Nasa declared success 3.5 hours after lift-off, following separation from the upper stage. The first in a series of four high-tech satellites, GOES-R hitched a ride on an unmanned Atlas V rocket, delayed an hour by rocket and other problems. The new satellite is the equivalent of a super high-definition TV, where previous satellites are the equivalent of black and white screens The satellite, valued by NOAA at $1 billion (8.91 billion), is aiming for a 22,300-mile-high equatorial orbit. There, it will join three ageing spacecraft with 40-year-old technology, and become known as GOES-16. After months of testing, this newest satellite will take over for one of the older ones Forecasters will use the lightning mapper to hone in on storms that bring the greatest threats. Satellites primary instrument, the Advanced Baseline Imager, will provide images of Earths weather, oceans and environment with 16 different spectral bands, including two visible channels, four near-infrared channels, and 10 infrared channels. Artist's impression of GOES-R THE NEXT STEPS The new satellite will become operational within a year, after undergoing a checkout and validation of its six new instruments, including the first operational lightning mapper in geostationary orbit. Beyond weather forecasting, GOES-R also will be part of the Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) System, an international satellite-based search and rescue network operated by NOAA. The satellite is carrying a special transponder that can detect distress signals from emergency beacons. There are four satellites in the GOES-R series: R, S, T and U, which will extend NOAAs geostationary coverage through to 2036. Advertisement The satellite, valued by NOAA at $1 billion (8.91 billion), is aiming for a 22,300-mile-high equatorial orbit. There, it will join three ageing spacecraft with 40-year-old technology, and become known as GOES-16. After months of testing, this newest satellite will take over for one of the older ones. The second satellite in the series will follow in 2018. All told, the series should stretch to 2036. GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. The first was launched in 1975. GOES-R's premier imager, one of six science instruments, will offer three times as many channels as the existing system, four times the resolution and five times the scan speed, said NOAA program director Greg Mandt. A similar imager is also flying on a Japanese weather satellite. Typically, it will churn out full images of the Western Hemisphere every 15 minutes and the continental United States every five minutes. Specific storm regions will be updated every 30 seconds. Improved space weather sensors on GOES-R will monitor the sun and relay crucial information to forecasters so they can issue space weather alerts and warnings. In all, data from GOES-R will result in 34 new or improved meteorological, solar and space weather products. Forecasters will get pictures 'like they've never seen before,' Mandt promised. A first-of-its-kind lightning mapper, meanwhile, will take 500 snapshots a second. GOES-R's premier imager, one of six science instruments, will offer three times as many channels as the existing system, four times the resolution and five times the scan speed, said NOAA program director Greg Mandt This next-generation GOES program includes four satellites, an extensive land system of satellite dishes and other equipment, and new methods for crunching the massive, non-stop stream of expected data. Hurricane Matthew, interestingly enough, delayed the launch by a couple weeks. As the hurricane bore down on Florida in early October, launch preps were put on hold. Matthew stayed far enough offshore to cause minimal damage to Cape Canaveral, despite some early forecasts that suggested a direct strike. 'NOAA and NASA have partnered for decades on successful environmental satellite missions,' said Sandra Smalley, director of Nasa's Joint Agency Satellite Division at the agency's Headquarters in Washington, which worked with NOAA to manage the development and launch of GOES-R. 'Today's launch continues that partnership and provides the basis for future collaboration in developing advanced weather satellites.' Beyond weather forecasting, GOES-R also will be part of the Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) System, an international satellite-based search and rescue network operated by NOAA. Advertisement Hyperloop, a futuristic transit system that allows travellers to reach their destinations at near-supersonic speeds, is coming a step closer to reality. Los Angeles-based start-up Hyperloop One has started construction on a development that could potentially become the world's first Hyperloop transport system. The first tube of 'DevLoop', which looks set to become the first full Hyperloop system, has been successfully installed in a desert in North Las Vegas. Scroll down for video Hyperloop, a futuristic transit system that allows travellers to reach their destinations at near-supersonic speeds, is coming a step closer to reality thanks to Los Angeles based start-up Hyperloop One, who has started construction on a development that could potentially become the world's first hyperloop transport system WHAT IS DEVLOOP? The 'DevLoop' project, short for 'development Hyperloop', will test both track and pod systems. If the company completes this DevLoop, it will be the first full-scale Hyperloop system and the world will see a whole new mode of transportation. The 1.8 mile (3 km) full-scale and full speed enclosed prototype is taking shape in the desert in North Las Vegas in Nevada. Advertisement If the companies complete this DevLoop, it will be the first full-scale Hyperloop system and the world will see a whole new mode of transportation. The 1.8 mile (3 km) full-scale and full speed enclosed prototype is taking shape in the desert in North Las Vegas in Nevada. 'Our co-founder was out at our test&dev site today to congratulate the team on our big week w/1st tube!' the company tweeted last week. Hyperloop is essentially a long tube that has had the air removed to create a vacuum. The tube is suspended off the ground to protect against weather and earthquakes. The DevLoop tube will contain a low-pressure environment to achieve speeds of more than 700 mph (1126 km/h) with pods full transporting people or cargo. The 'DevLoop' project, short for 'development Hyperloop', will test both track and pod systems. Passengers would sit in either individual or group pods, which would be accelerated with magnets. Hyperloop One has raised a total of $160 million (128 million) to date in order to make DevLoop a reality. The first tube of 'DevLoop', which looks set to become the first full hyperloop system, has been successfully installed in a desert in North Las Vegas (pictured) If the companies complete this DevLoop, it will be the first full-scale hyperloop system and the world will see a whole new mode of transportation 'Our co-founder was out at our test&dev site today to congratulate the team on our big week w/1st tube!' the company tweeted last week Hyperloop is essentially a long tube that has had the air removed to create a vacuum. The tube is suspended off the ground to protect against weather and earthquakes The DevLoop tube will contain a low-pressure environment to achieve speeds of up to 700 mph (1126 km/h) with pods full transporting people or cargo Hyperloop One has raised a total of $160 million (128 million) to date in order to make DevLoop a reality. The company hopes to reach speeds of 700 mph (1126 km/h) with DevLoop in early 2017 HYPERLOOP IN EUROPE Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) met with Slovakian government officials earlier this year to finalise and sign an agreement. They are looking to build a local Hyperloop system, with the vision of creating future routes connecting Bratislava with Vienna, Austria and Budapest, Hungary. They wants the first stage to be complete by 2020. But the company has not secured funding yet, and the project is expected to cost $200-300 million (141 211 million). Hyperloop One is working with FS-Links AB on a Hyperloop system that will operate between Finland, Sweden and Estonia. Advertisement The company hopes to reach speeds of 700 mph (1126 km/h) with DevLoop in early 2017. The first public test of the Hyperloop system went off without a hitch earlier this year, also in the Nevada desert. The seconds-long, outdoor demonstration featured a sled of metal gliding across a 3,280 foot (1,000 metre) track. The sled accelerated at 2.5G and reached a top speed of 116mph in two seconds before disappearing into a cloud against the desert landscape. But engineers still have a long way to go before building the full-scale system envisioned by Elon Musk. The demonstration focused on only one piece of a very challenging design, and was run on traditional rail tracks rather than in semi-vacuum tube to reduce air resistance. 'This is about validating the hardware and software,' said Hyperloop One co-founder and chief technology officer Brogan BamBrogan, at the time. 'By the end of the year hopefully we'll have a full test, with the sled in a tube accelerating with our custom propulsion.' The sled bracketed to the rail was slung into motion using magnetic force generated by engines referred to as 'stators' set in a line at the start of the track. Hyperloop is a proposed method of travel that would transport people at 740mph (1,200km/h) between distant locations The idea behind hyperloop was unveiled by Elon Musk in 2013, who said it could take passengers the 380 miles (610km) from LA to San Francisco in 30 minutes - half the time it takes a plane Passengers would sit in either individual or group pods, which would then be accelerated with magnets Capsules carrying six to eight people would depart every 30 seconds, with tickets costing around $20 (13) each way. The cost of building a line from LA to San Francisco has been estimated at $16 billion (10 billion) - although critics say it would be nearer $100 billion (65 billion) The first public test of the Hyperloop system went off without a hitch earlier this year, also in the Nevada desert. The Hyperloop One test track is shown Earlier this month Dubai officials announced a deal with Hyperloop One to study the potential for building a line linking it to the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi within the next five years. The announcement of the deal took place atop the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, with the panorama view of the skyline of this futuristic city-state serving as both a backdrop and a sign of Dubai's desire to be the first to rush toward the future. Danish architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and Hyperloop One are working along with engineering and architecture firms AECOM and Arup to introduce the world's first Hyperloop in Dubai. Hyperloop One estimates the Hyperloop would cut the two-hour trip from Dubai to Abu Dhabi down to 12 minutes. This is significantly down from the hour-plus journey it now takes by car between the two cities. BIG revealed its designs for the world's first Hyperloop transportation system earlier in November, featuring sleek, glass-walled cubic pods just large enough for six passengers to relax in. The system could later be expanded to link the UAE with neighbouring Gulf countries so that a trip between Dubai and Saudi capital Riyadh - currently two hours by plane - could be completed in under 50 minutes. A spokesman from Hyperloop One told MailOnline the company plans to build the system within five years. 'Technology is evolving and transforming how we live, yet we lack real innovation in mass transportation and the current system has stagnated,' said Shervin Pishevar, Executive Chairman of Hyperloop One. 'Hyperloop One is focused on transport that's far more efficient, fast and clean. It will change the dynamics of how we move goods and people. Slide me How the tubes will work: Two two tubes will be used to allow trains to travel both ways on the system The futuristic city-state of Dubai announced a deal with Los Angeles-based Hyperloop One, to study the potential for building a line linking it to the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi. Artist's impression of the Hyperloop with Dubai in the background, pictured Pods would also be able to operate autonomously away from the pressurized tubes, meaning they could travel on regular roads. Inside a pod: Different interior environments and seating arrangements offer passengers a travel experience tailored to their needs, whether travelling solo or in groups, for business meetings or casual trips 'Dubai makes perfect sense for Hyperloop One because this is the 21st century's global transport hub and its leaders understand that Hyperloop One is ushering in the next era of transportation.' Hyperloop One is working with McKinsey & Co. and the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) on a detailed feasibility study. According to BIG, the design of the scheme is based on a study of 'how an urban and inter-city transport network should integrate with existing infrastructure.' They describe it as autonomous, point-to-point and able to vastly simplify the experience of 'getting from front-door to final destination.' HOW DUBAI'S HYPERLOOP WILL WORK The stations are called portals. All departure gates are immediately visible upon entering the portal, and a simple numbering system allows passengers to quickly identify them. Passengers will travel in pods that have room for 6 people. Hyperloop's control room: The study revealed how the system would work and be controlled from a central location The pods are contained within a transporter, a pressure vessel attached to a chassis for levitation and propulsion that can accelerate the transporter to 1,100km/h.' 'Passengers board the next pod that is available, which moves onto a transporter to their final destination. All departure gates are immediately visible upon entering the portal, and a simple numbering system allows passengers to quickly identify them. The relatively small unit-size of the pods paired with a high arrival and departure-rate allows for on-demand travel. Different interior environments and seating arrangements offer passengers a travel experience tailored to their needs, whether travelling solo or in groups, for business meetings or casual trips.' Passengers will travel in pods that have room for 6 people. The pods are contained within a transporter, a pressure vessel attached to a chassis for levitation and propulsion that can accelerate the transporter to 1,100km/h. Different interior environments and seating arrangements offer passengers a travel experience tailored to their needs Advertisement The locations of the initial route in the UAE were selected by passenger density and proximity to existing or planned transportation hubs. The designers said that 'all of the portals have been designed as individual answers to different contexts, yet appear similar and easily recognizable.' According to the designers, 'all elements of the travel experience are designed to increase convenience and reduce interruptions. The main objective of the design is to eliminate waiting from the passenger experience. Hence, the stations are called portals. All departure gates are immediately visible upon entering the portal, and a simple numbering system allows passengers to quickly identify them. The announcement of the deal took place atop the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, with the panorama view of the skyline of this futuristic city-state serving as both a backdrop and a sign of Dubai's desire to be the first to rush toward the future. Rob Lloyd, the CEO of Hyperloop One, left, shows a model to Emirati officials including Mattar al-Tayer, the director-general and chairman of Dubai's Roads & Transport Authority, third left, in Dubai. Passengers will travel in pods that have room for 6 people. The pods are contained within a transporter, a pressure vessel attached to a chassis for levitation and propulsion that can accelerate the transporter to 1,100km/h.' 'Passengers board the next pod that is available, which moves onto a transporter to their final destination. The relatively small unit-size of the pods paired with a high arrival and departure-rate allows for on-demand travel. Different interior environments and seating arrangements offer passengers a travel experience tailored to their needs, whether travelling solo or in groups, for business meetings or casual trips.' The Hyperloop station design for the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. The two designs will fit into the existing city infrastructure, the designers claim 'The pods operate autonomously from the transporter, which means they are not limited to the portal area and can move on regular roads and pick up passengers at any point. 'At portals, pods are loaded onto the transporter and hyperjump to another portal, where they merge onto the street and drop passengers off at their final destination.' No financial terms were immediately discussed and the technology itself remains under testing. 'This is an opportunity to help transform the UAE from a technology consumer to a technology creator, incubating expertise for a new global industry, in line with the UAE's Vision 2021,' Chairman of the RTA, His Excellency Mattar Al Tayer, commented on the agreement. There would be several stations throughout Dubai connecting the hyperloop system to Abu Dhabi. The amin station there is pictured here. At portals, pods are loaded onto the transporter and hyperjump to another portal, where they merge onto the street and drop passengers off at their final destination. An Emirati takes a photograph of the Hyperloop One logo with his mobile phone in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016. The futuristic city-state of Dubai announced a deal on Tuesday with Los Angeles-based Hyperloop One to study the potential for building a line linking it to the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi. 'With Hyperloop One, we will create a new means of transportation, keeping our region at the forefront of transportation technology and innovation.' There would be several stations throughout Dubai connecting the Hyperloop system to Abu Dhabi. The pods would then be able to carry passengers and cargo between the cities. Already, government-backed port operator DP World has signed an agreement with Hyperloop One to explore the feasibility of the using the technology at Dubai's sprawling, man-made Jebel Ali Port. 'With Hyperloop One we have given form to a mobility ecosystem of pods and portals, where the waiting hall has vanished along with waiting itself,' says Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG. 'Collective commuting with individual freedom at near supersonic speed. 'We are heading for a future where our mental map of the city is completely reconfigured, as our habitual understanding of distance and proximity time and space is warped by this virgin form of travel.' Hyperloop One will work with McKinsey & Co. and the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) on a detailed feasibility study 'The momentum is global and accelerating,' adds Hyperloop One CEO Rob Lloyd. 'The world will see the test of the first full-scale Hyperloop system in early 2017 at our Test and Safety Site in Nevada and we will have multiple operational Hyperloop systems within five years.' In October, Dubai hosted a competition to design a Hyperloop track. In that 48-hour project, designers presented ideas for a possible track between Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central, Dubai International Airport and Fujairah International Airport. Under their plans, the Hyperloop trip of some 90 miles (145km) over a mountain range would be 10 minutes or less, compared to the current hour and 20 minutes by road. There would be several stations throughout Dubai connecting the hyperloop system to Abu Dhabi. The pods would then be able to carry passengers and cargo between the cities. Artist's impression of the pods pictured The hyperloop is essentially a long tube that has had the air removed to create a vacuum. The tube is suspended off the ground to protect against weather and earthquakes say this can improve the efficiency of the stroke by up to 5% It may seem illogical, but letting the water flow between your fingers is the most effective way to swim. In what experts admit seems to go against common sense, spreading the fingers was found to be up to five per cent more efficient than keeping the fingers together. What scientists call the rake style is more efficient than the paddle or closed approach. Scientists believe they have cracked the secret to the perfect swimming stroke. By opening the fingers and raking the water, swimmers can increase their efficiency by up to 5 per cent (stock image) Scientists from the Eindhoven University of Technology and colleagues found that spreading fingers increases the drag of the hand through the water. The greater the drag, the better the hand is at generating thrust in the water and the swimmer must minimise drag on the body. Although the increase in efficiency is relatively small, the researchers say that in competitive swimming, it could be the difference between winning and losing. The research was presented at the American Physical Society meeting yesterday in Portland Oregon. The findings, presented at a fluid dynamics conference in the US this week, come from a group measuring the closed hand and a variety of spreads ranging from 5 degrees to a maximum of 20 degrees, and the forces acting on the hand (pictured) THE PHYSICS OF SWIMMING Physicists believe they have cracked the secret of the perfect swimming stroke. For front crawl, swimmers are advised to open their fingers, raking the water can improve efficiency overall. While making a hand into a closed-finger blade shape cuts through the water, splaying the fingers as the hands are drawn back increases resistance. Although the increase in efficiency is relatively small, the researchers say that in competitive swimming, it could be the difference between winning and losing. Advertisement Josje van Houwelingen, a doctoral student of the When you are a top swimmer, this very small effect, only a few percent, can make the difference between a gold medal and no medal at all. Researchers measured five different conditions of finger spread in which the thumb remained in a fixed position. They measured the closed hand with all fingers pressed together like a paddle and a variety of spreads ranging from 5 degrees to a maximum of 20 degrees. The most efficient spread was 10 degrees. To reach this result they printed a 3D model of a hand and fitted it with force sensors to see how much drag was being created when the wind blew at it in a wind tunnel experiments. They then combined their data with computer based simulations of how water flows. The researchers said they used a wind tunnel because air and water both behave as fluids. Although the increase in efficiency is relatively small, the researchers say that in competitive swimming, it could be the difference between winning and losing (stock image used) She added that Compared to a closed paddle hand position, even the smallest spread-finger hand position of 5 degrees enhanced the drag coefficient by 2 percent in the numerical simulation, and by 5 percent in the wind tunnel experiment. While the day-to-day practical effects may be small, given the few swimmers who swim well enough to benefit, the team sees a wider philosophical and aspirational benefit to this finding. She said: It may inspire other swimmers who are not Olympic-calibre to think about fluid dynamics, and contemplate the fluctuating forces which their hand and fingers experience while doing those boring laps. At first glance you might mistake this shadowy animal for a dog, with black fur, pointed ears and a fluffy tail. But the mysterious creature is in fact an incredibly rare black fox. The stunning animal, which gets its unusual colouring from a rare genetic defect, was photographed in a quarry on Portland in Dorset. At first glance you might mistake this shadowy animal as a dog, with black fur, pointed ears and a fluffy tail. But the mysterious creature is no dog - it is an incredibly rare black fox DO BLACK FOXES BRING BAD LUCK? In Gaelic tradition, black foxes are bringers of bad luck. Rural communities used to tell of a fox as 'black as night, so that it could live in a man's shadow and never be seen.' Centuries-old superstitions are often found attached to black animals, such as black dogs and black cats. It is thought to originate from when the black dog was said to bring disaster and doom to whoever saw the animal. In Medieval times, villages were very afraid of the sighting of a black fox and considered it to predict trouble or bad luck. Advertisement Paul Stevens, 67, couldn't believe his eyes when he snapped the jet black creature. Black foxes are unheard of in Britain and there have only been a handful of sightings in recent years. Mr Stevens' wife Lorraine spotted the fox from her bedroom room window on Saturday and the retired engineer went to grab his camera. By the time he was outside, the fox had disappeared - but luckily Mr Stevens guessed its direction of travel and managed to get a photo. Mr Stevens said: 'It was Saturday morning and my wife suddenly shouted out "look". 'We live quite close to one of the quarries and she had spotted the fox from the bedroom window. 'I ran up two flights of stairs to get my camera and ran out after it. 'The fox had run off so I had to take a gamble which way to go. Fortunately, I guessed right. 'It had been rooting around and then it stared at me - deciding whether to stay or run. 'The fox was very wary and cautious. I got off a couple of shots before it ran off. I've never seen one before. Black foxes get their unusual colouring from a rare genetic defect and are practically unheard of in Britain - there have only been a handful of sightings in recent years The rare animal was spotted in a quarry in Portland, which is the most southern point of Dorset 'It looked identical to a red fox apart from the fact it was black and white. 'It was really quite a shock to the system to see one because I didn't know they existed.' Rather than being a species, black foxes are actually versions of the red fox. 'Red fox' is the species name rather than the colour description and they can come in colours all the way from red to black. The unusual colouring is normally seen on growing cubs before the fox develops its dark chestnut coat, however some red foxes remain black due to a rare genetic flaw, which dates back hundreds of years. The unusual colouring is normally seen on growing cubs before the fox develops its dark chestnut coat, however some red foxes remain black due to a rare genetic flaw, which dates back hundreds of years OTHER STRANGELY COLOURED CREATURES Cuckoo bees have bright blue and black striped bodies, rather than the typical yellow and black colouring. A new species of silver snake was spotted on a remote island in the Bahamas earlier this year. Halloween crabs are nicknamed so because of their brilliant colours - their upper shell is black, their legs are blood-orange and they have purple claws. The red slug is a species of land slug that lives in northwestern Europe. The rosy maple moth has pink legs and antennae, a yellow body and hindwings, and pink forewings with a triangular yellow band across the middle. Advertisement Trevor Williams, of charity The Fox Project said: 'Photos I've seen in the past have sometimes subsequently turned out to be a seriously mangy fox that's lost all the fur and the resulting grey skin looks black. 'They can occur naturally, as can many other shades of red fox.' According to Gaelic tradition, black foxes are bringers of bad luck to anyone who sees them. Rural communities used to tell of a fox as 'black as night, so that it could live in a man's shadow and never be seen.' Centuries-old superstitions are often found attached to black animals, such as black dogs and black cats. And the black fox has been associated with the devil. In Medieval times, villages were very afraid of the sighting of a black fox and considered it to predict trouble or bad luck. Apple has been granted a patent for a folding phone for the second time in a month. The patents have led to rumours that the Cupertino brand's upcoming iPhone 8 could be influenced by 1990s flip phones, made popular by Motorola. The new patent illustration shows a hinge in the middle of the handset's display that would enable it to bend in half. The new patent illustration shows a hinge in the middle of the handset's display that would enable it to bend in half. The patent document suggests a flexible nitinol, a nickel and titanium alloy for the handset's support structure on one of several variations listed in the patent. One version of the design leaves the screen hidden when the phone is folded in two, similar to clamshell phones of the past. Another, leaves the screen visible, but reduced to half its size. The new design represents one of 39 patents that Apple has been granted today by the US Patent and Trademark Office, reports Patently Apple. The patents have led to rumours that Apple could be taking inspiration from 'clamshell' design phones that were popular in the 1990s. Pictured is the Motorola StarTAC handset, which was first released in 1996 The patents have led to rumours that the Cupertino brand's upcoming iPhone 8 could be influenced by 90s flip phones, made popular by Motorola. The patent document suggests a flexible nitinol, a nickel and titanium alloy for the handset's support structure on one of several variations listed in the patent When it was launched in 1996, the pocket-sized StarTAC, at just 93g (3.1 ounces), was the world's smallest phone and the first to operate continuously with dual detachable batteries Earlier this month, it emerged that Apple had been awarded a new patent for a foldable iPhone concept. Apple first began researching this technology in 2013, but the new patent suggests the firm is still serious about making foldable phones a reality in the future. While the iPhone 7 only came out in September, rumours are already circulating about what Apple could have in store for future devices. Today it has emerged that the firm has been awarded a new patent for a foldable iPhone concept FOLDABLE IPHONES The patent suggests that the future iPhone will be made of glass, ceramic, fibre, aluminium or plastic materials that are all currently used in devices. But the patent also introduces a new material in the form of 'carbon nanotubes', that would allow the device to be folded down the middle. The patent says: 'Conductive carbon nanotube paths can form signal paths that are flexible and resistant to cracking.' The tubes could be used in various parts of an iPhone, including portions of touch sensors, or in the camera. Advertisement The patent was filed on August 28, but was officially awarded to Apple on 2 November. According to Patently Apple, Apple was able to keep the patent a secret by using an engineer's name during the filing process. But the patent itself uses the iPhone name, and shows several images depicting the iconic iPhone design, including the distinctive home button. The patent suggests that the future iPhone will be made of glass, ceramic, fibre, aluminium or plastic materials that are all currently used in devices. But it also introduces a new material in the form of 'carbon nanotubes', that would allow the device to be folded down the middle. The patent says: 'Conductive carbon nanotube paths can form signal paths that are flexible and resistant to cracking.' The tubes could be used in various parts of an iPhone, including portions of touch sensors, or in the camera. It also states that the device 'may have a hinge or other bendable joint.' Samsung one of Apple's biggest rivals has also been looking at foldable phone technology, and has a large number of patents for similar devices. Apple was able to keep the patent a secret by using an engineer's name during the filing process. But the patent itself uses the iPhone name, and shows several images depicting the iconic iPhone design, including the distinctive home button Earlier this month, reports also suggested that future Apple devices will have wireless charging. Foxconn Technology Group in New Taipei City, Taiwan is making wireless charging modules to go with Apple's next iPhone, due for release in 2017, according to an industry source familiar with the matter, Nikkei has reported. 'But whether the feature can eventually make it into Apple's updated devices will depend on whether Foxconn can boost the yield rate to a satisfactory level later on,' the source told Nikkei. It is not clear whether Apple would offer a wireless charging plate, along the same lines as the one made by Samsung for its Galaxy S smartphones. Apple is expected to unveil the most radical redesign ever of its flagship handset for the iPhone's 10th anniversary in 2017. Pictured are two concept drawings Researchers are hoping to use techniques developed to 'cloak' objects and make them appear invisible to protect buildings from earthquakes. They hope to mimic the properties of the cloaking material by planting trees to scatter the seismic waves, which would allow buildings to be protected. Earthquakes travel in waves, much as sound and light do. Scroll down for video Researchers are hoping to use techniques developed to 'cloak' objects and make them appear invisible to protect buildings from earthquakes. HOW IT COULD WORK Trees act as resonators, which osciallate at certain frequencies, even at long wavelengths. In the right arrangement, the interaction of resonating trees can redirect the energy of seismic waves deep into the soil, reducing damage. Advertisement 'Wouldn't it be great if we could surround a historic castle or a nuclear power station with a metamaterial, so that when the seismic waves come at it they are sent around or diverted into the ground,' said Professor Richard Craster, Head of the Department of Mathematics at Imperial, and part of the team looking into this phenomenon. 'The building would remain perfectly still, not damaged. This is what we want to do,' he said. Scientists have previously designed materials with internal structures that interfere with the propagation of sound and light, and now researchers are working on making bigger versions of these structures, which could be used to control the propagation of earthquakes. Scientists have tried this by digging cylindrical pits at regular intervals in the soil. This ordered arrangement of boreholes scatters incoming destructive surface waves, causing them to interfere with each other and cancel out. However, while the ground within the pattern is protected, the reflection of incoming waves causes greater destruction to the surrounding area. In addition, earthquakes produce very long wavelengths - so long that they could bypass the borehole shield without ever interacting with it. Now, mathematicians at Imperial College London, with collaborators in France, are trying a different approach: using trees. Trees act as resonators, which oscillate at certain frequencies, even at long wavelengths. Trees act as resonators, which osciallate at certain frequencies, even at long wavelengths. In the right arrangement, the interaction of resonating trees can redirect the energy of seismic waves deep into the soil, reducing damage, they claim. In the right arrangement, the interaction of resonating trees can redirect the energy of seismic waves deep into the soil, reducing damage, they claim. This approach is based on metamaterials, artificial arrangements of resonators with unusual electromagnetic properties. Metamaterial 'invisibility cloaks' have already been used to make very small objects invisible to the eye by redirecting light waves. Now, large-scale versions could be created to emulate the resonance of trees and make buildings 'invisible' to earthquakes. Earlier this year, Dr Andrea Colombi, also from Imperial, with Professor Craster and collaborators in France, demonstrated that a dense forest behaves as a natural seismic metamaterial. By generating vibrations from a crane and measuring the effects with seismometers, they found that the resonating trees offer local protection against surface waves of certain frequencies. In a natural forest, the researchers noted that the irregular height of trees and of the gaps between them offered protection against a larger range of frequencies than a uniform array would. INVISIBILITY CLOAKS IN THE MOVIES In Harry Potter, Dumbledore returns Harry's father's invisibility cloak to Harry as a Christmas present during his first year at Hogwarts. Harry uses the cloak throughout the series to sneak around the school. In 2002 Bond film Die Another Day, Bond's Aston Martin V12 Vanquish, can become invisible. Its 'adaptive camouflage' cloaking system, allowed Pierce Brosnan to press a button and disappear his speedster, at least to the naked eye. In Harry Potter, Dumbledore returns Harry's father's invisibility cloak to Harry as a Christmas present during his first year at Hogwarts. And, although not technically a cloak, in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings films, after being introduced in The Hobbit the ring of power makes those that wear it invisible. Advertisement If the trees are arranged by decreasing height, they would cover an even wider range of seismic frequencies. Scientists call this a 'metawedge', which could eventually be created with real trees or poles acting as artificial resonators. Metawedges can only deal effectively with waves coming from two directions, but the researchers are hopeful they can find solutions to this. There are also other potential applications for metawedges, for example using them to mask other kinds of vibrational waves that can impact buildings. 'Another thing we care about is, for example, the vibration coming from railway lines,' said Professor Craster. WHAT IS A METAMATERIAL According to the Institute of Physics, metamaterials can bend electromagnetic radiation such as light around an object to give the appearance that it isnt there. To date some researchers have used such properties of metamaterials to create devices that can bend certain forms of radiation such as near-infrared radiation. So far, however, producing the same effect with visible light has proved more of a challenge. Advertisement 'We could put a metamaterial barrier between the train and the houses, so that the waves went down into the Earth or somewhere where we can dampen them.' Seismic metamaterials have attracted the greatest enthusiasm among those looking for solutions to earthquake damage. Researchers in Italy are conducting similar experiments, with the resonators buried in the ground instead of thrusting out of it. Professor Craster and his colleagues are also looking at how a system using boreholes could be made more effective. The team are patenting a version of this system that they claim will work even at seismic wavelengths. 'In some parts of the world there are very small scale but quite regular earthquakes,' he said. 'Over the years this causes cracking in the houses. If you know where the waves typically come from you can condition the soil near those houses by putting down an array of boreholes, and they would simply reflect off into a field somewhere. Researchers plan to share results once they receive enough tests This action is suppose to get rid of the stink that is left on your hands The hack says to rub garlicky hands on something stainless steal How often does someone suggest to you some new hint, tip or hack that will supposedly make your life a whole lot easier? And which ones can you trust? We want to find out by subjecting life-hacks to rigorous scientific testing a sort of 'clinical trial' for the internet's 'top tips'. But we need your help. To be sure of the results, we need citizen scientists from far and wide to carry out our simple experiment and then return their results to us. Scroll down for videos Experts have setup a world experiment to test a common 'old wives' tale' suggests that rubbing garlicky hands on something made from stainless steel, such as a spoon or a kitchen tap, will nullify the whiff A common 'old wives' tale' suggests that rubbing garlicky hands on something made from stainless steel, such as a spoon or a kitchen tap, will nullify the whiff. This idea has even spawned a high-street product stainless steel soap, a chunk of the metal which you can use instead of normal soap. It will, however, set you back a few quid, so is it worth forking out? Garlic is packed with sulfur-containing chemicals, which are responsible for its characteristic taste and odour. Allicin, in particular, is thought to be the culprit most guilty of making your hands (and breath) pong, but it's only created when two chemicals react the enzyme alliinase and a sulfur-containing amino acid called alliin. WHY GARLIC SMELLS Garlic is packed with sulfur-containing chemicals, which are responsible for its characteristic taste and odour. Allicin, in particular, is thought to be the culprit most guilty of making your hands (and breath) pong, but it's only created when two chemicals react the enzyme alliinase and a sulfur-containing amino acid called alliin. Garlic is packed with sulfur-containing chemicals, which are responsible for its characteristic taste and odour. Allicin, in particular, is thought to be the culprit most guilty of making your hands (and breath) pong A bulb of garlic doesn't smell of very much at all, but slice into it and smell again. When cells are crushed, the chemical reaction converting alliinase and alliin into allicin is almost instantaneous. And when allicin degrades, it produces even more smelly sulfurous compounds, including diallyl disulfide. These all contribute to garlic's characteristic aroma. Advertisement These are held in separate portions within the cell walls of the garlic clove and only mix when the garlic is squished. You can try it yourself a bulb of garlic doesn't smell of very much at all, but slice into it and smell again. When cells are crushed, the chemical reaction converting alliinase and alliin into allicin is almost instantaneous. And when allicin degrades, it produces even more smelly sulfurous compounds, including diallyl disulfide. The idea is that the sulfur-containing chemicals left on your hands after chopping garlic may form a chemical bond to the chromium oxide and cling to the surface of the soap, not to your hands, solving the smell problem These all contribute to garlic's characteristic aroma. The scientific data on whether the stainless steel trick actually works to get rid of stinky garlic hands is sketchy although chemistry tells us that it might well work. Stainless steel is an iron alloy with a minimum of 10.5% chromium by mass. This layer of chromium is what makes stainless steel less likely to rust, corrode or stain. Chromium forms an oxide when it is in contact with air and water, making it more durable. It's possible that this oxide layer could help to remove unwanted smells. LIFE HACK FOR PEELING GARLIC As demonstrated in a video by Panasonic Asia, start by putting a whole head of garlic in the microwave, and heating for 10 seconds on high. Use oven mitts to remove the head and check to see if the outer layer is falling away. If not, heat for another 10 seconds, before letting it cool for a few minutes. You should then find you can easily peel the cloves. The video also advises peeling from the tip of the clove to make it even easier to take away the skin. The method is most effective if you require a lot of garlic for your recipe - but if you have any cloves left over, you can store them in an airtight container, advises cooking website Kitchn. They will keep for at least one or two days. The life-changing hack will see an end to frantic clawing at the papery outer layer, leaving you with pungent fingers. And if you're someone who chops off both ends of a clove to slide off the shell, it will mean less garlic wastage. The microwave method isn't the only time-saving trick you can use to peel garlic, however. Advertisement The idea is that the sulfur-containing chemicals left on your hands after chopping garlic may form a chemical bond to the chromium oxide and cling to the surface of the soap, not to your hands, solving the smell problem. But we don't really know. It sounds plausible, but there is very little hard scientific evidence to support this theory. Which is where you can help. We need as many people as possible to perform a simple experiment to test whether stainless steel really is an effective odour remover. You'll need: A clove of garlic. A knife. A blindfold. A plastic spoon and a stainless steel table spoon of about the same size. What to do: 1. Wash and dry your hands (so they don't smell of anything to start with). 2. Slice out a piece of garlic. 3. Rub the freshly cut garlic between your hands for about 10 seconds. 4. Under running water, rub one palm with the back of the stainless steel spoon for about 10 seconds. Experts have included a list of instructions on how to carry out the test. These include rubbing your hands with freshly chopped garlic for 10 seconds, then rubbing them with the back of the stainless steel spoon for about 10 seconds Then rub the other palm with the plastic spoon, again under running water, for 10 seconds (the plastic spoon is our control experiment). Make sure you remember which hand was rubbed with which spoon. 5. Find a willing volunteer. Ask them to close their eyes or put a blindfold on with their eyes closed, they are less likely to notice any signals from you about which hand has had what treatment. 6. Hold a hand under their chin (that way each hand will be the same distance from the test subjects nose) and ask them to smell it. Then do the same with the other hand. 7. Ask them which hand smelt more strongly of garlic. 8. Let us know whether one hand smelt more than the other, or whether they smelt the same using this survey below. We'll need plenty of tests if we are going to be sure of our results, otherwise it's just more anecdote. And we'll get back to you, to let you know whether it's worth forking out for stainless steel soap soon. Its been five years since NASA ended the Spirit rovers mission, but now, researchers say the robot may have discovered traces of life during its Mars investigation. A team of geoscientists has discovered that silica deposits from a region on the red planet dubbed Home Plate closely resemble those that form in Chilean hot springs at El Tatio. On Earth, these complex finger-like structures arise from a combination of biological and non-biological activity, suggesting a similar process may have taken place on Mars. The researchers compared opaline silica structures found at Home Plate (on left) with those from hot spring discharge channels at El Tatio (on right). On Earth, these complex finger-like structures arise from a combination of biological and non-biological activity WHAT THEY FOUND The silica deposits on Mars were discovered after Spirits right front wheel failed in 2007, forcing the robot to drag it across the ground like a plow near Home Plate, an eroded deposit of volcanic ash. Researchers identified the mineral and say it likely had a hot spring origin, as this is commonly found in hot springs and geysers like those at Yellowstone National Park. Now, they've found that the deposits closely resemble those that form in Chilean hot springs at El Tatio. On Earth, these complex finger-like structures arise from a combination of biological and non-biological activity, suggesting a similar process may have taken place on Mars. Advertisement According to the researchers at Arizona State University, the hot springs at El Tatio in the Atacama Desert are among the best Mars analog sites on Earth. In the new study, published to the journal Nature Communications, the team found that deposits at El Tatio are nearly identical to samples discovered eight years ago by the Spirit rover at Home Plate, in the Columbia Hills of Mars Gusev Crater. While biosignatures can be found on Earth in a number of more obvious places, like fossils, they also come in the form of organic molecules in rocks, or as compacted mats of microorganisms called stromatolites. Since fossils have yet to be found on the red planet, scientists are looking for microscopic traces of life instead and the researchers say Home Plate may be an area worth examining. Mars exploration has reached a stage where we can start looking for biosignatures, said lead author Steve Ruff. We went to El Tatio looking for comparisons with the features found by Spirit at Home Plate. The silica deposits on Mars were discovered after Spirits right front wheel failed in 2007, forcing the robot to drag it across the ground like a plow near Home Plate (pictured), an eroded deposit of volcanic ash. Silica outcrops lie next the right edge, near the rover, circled A team of geoscientists has discovered that silica deposits from a region on the red planet dubbed Home Plate closely resemble those that form in Chilean hot springs at El Tatio. A discharge channel at El Tatio is pictured Our results show that the conditions at El Tatio produce silica deposits with characteristics that are among the most Mars-like of any silica deposits on Earth. The fact that microbes play a role in producing the distinctive silica structures at El Tatio raises the possibility that the Martian silica structures formed in a comparable manner in other words with the help of organisms that were alive at the time. The silica deposits on Mars were discovered after Spirits right front wheel failed in 2007, forcing the robot to drag it across the ground like a plow near Home Plate, an eroded deposit of volcanic ash. Researchers identified the mineral and say it likely had a hot spring origin, as this is commonly found in hot springs and geysers like those at Yellowstone National Park. Year later, Ruff learned of the El Tatio hot springs, which are among the highest known active hot springs on Earth. According to the researchers at Arizona State University, the hot springs at El Tatio in the Atacama Desert are among the best Mars analog sites on Earth. Features of the silica samples are compared at the mm-scale, with Home Plate shown on the left, and El Tatio on the right WAS MARTIAN LIFE FOUND 40 YEARS AGO? In a new study published to the journal Astrobiology, researchers examined the results from the 1976 Viking Labeled Release experiment, which at the time was said to have found extant microbial life. The results showed simiarities to responses seen in terrestrial soil, including data from samples collected in California, Alaska, and Antarctica They also evaluated non-biological hypotheses which have suggested that the results were most likely caused by a non-biological soil oxidant. But, no such oxidant that could satisfy all of the findings has ever been identified, and there have been no further metabolic experiments on the red planet. The researchers determined that the findings from the Viking experiments are consistent with a biological explanation, suggesting microorganisms on Mars adapted and evolved to meet harsh environmental conditions. Advertisement They stand at over 14,000 feet, and temperatures at night even during the summer drop down below freezing, with an influx of ultraviolet light coming in through the thin, dry air during the day. These harsh conditions have led scientists to call it the best analog on Earth for ancient Martian hot springs. In 2020, NASA plans to send a new rover to Mars, equipped with more advanced instruments. The researchers suggest future missions return to Columbia Hills and Home Plate, despite interest in exploring new sites, as it may have higher chances for finding traces of ancient life. This is a known hydrothermal deposit, said Ruff. We know exactly where to land and where to go collect samples. And the silica structures found by Spirit meet the definition of a potential biosignature. Frozen beneath a region of cracked and pitted plains on Mars lies about as much water as what's in Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes, researchers have revealed. They used NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter' ground-penetrating Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument to make over 600 passes of the area in the Utopia Planitia region. It confirmed huge deposits of ice mixed with dust and larger rock particles - and experts say the area may once have held life Scroll down for video Researchers used NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter' ground-penetrating Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument to make over 600 passes of the area in the Utopia Planitia region. WHERE IT WAS FOUND The name Utopia Planitia translates loosely as the 'plains of paradise.' It is a basin with a diameter of about 2,050 miles (3,300 kilometers), resulting from a major impact early in Mars' history and subsequently filled. NASA sent the Viking 2 Lander to a site near the center of Utopia in 1976. The portion examined by Stuurman and colleagues lies southwest of that long-silent lander. The newly surveyed ice deposit spans latitudes from 39 to 49 degrees within the plains. It represents less than one percent of all known water ice on Mars, but it more than doubles the volume of thick, buried ice sheets known in the northern plains. Ice deposits close to the surface are being considered as a resource for astronauts. Advertisement Analyses of data from more than 600 overhead passes with the onboard radar instrument reveal a deposit more extensive in area than the state of New Mexico. The deposit ranges in thickness from about 260 feet (80 meters) to about 560 feet (170 meters), with a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, mixed with dust or larger rocky particles, Nasa said. 'This deposit is probably more accessible than most water ice on Mars, because it is at a relatively low latitude and it lies in a flat, smooth area where landing a spacecraft would be easier than at some of the other areas with buried ice,' said Jack Holt of the University of Texas, a co-author of the paper. At the latitude of this deposit - about halfway from the equator to the pole - water ice cannot persist on the surface of Mars today. It sublimes into water vapor in the planet's thin, dry atmosphere. The Utopia deposit is shielded from the atmosphere by a soil covering estimated to be about 3 to 33 feet (1 to 10 meters) thick. 'This deposit probably formed as snowfall accumulating into an ice sheet mixed with dust during a period in Mars history when the planet's axis was more tilted than it is today,' said Cassie Stuurman of the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas, Austin. She is the lead author of a report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Mars today, with an axial tilt of 25 degrees, accumulates large amounts of water ice at the poles. These two images show Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument data from two tracks in a part of Mars' Utopia Planitia region where the orbiting, ground-penetrating radar on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected subsurface deposits rich in water ice.Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Rome/ASI/PSI In cycles lasting about 120,000 years, the tilt varies to nearly twice that much, heating the poles and driving ice to middle latitudes. Climate modeling and previous findings of buried, mid-latitude ice indicate that frozen water accumulates away from the poles during high-tilt periods. The Utopian water is all frozen now. If there were a melted layer - which would be significant for the possibility of life on Mars - it would have been evident in the radar scans. However, some melting can't be ruled out during different climate conditions when the planet's axis was more tilted. 'Where water ice has been around for a long time, we just don't know whether there could have been enough liquid water at some point for supporting microbial life,' Holt said. Use of the Italian-built SHARAD instrument for examining part of Utopia Planitia was prompted by Gordon Osinski at Western University in Ontario, Canada, a co-author of the study. For many years, he and other researchers have been intrigued by ground-surface patterns there such as polygonal cracking and rimless pits called scalloped depressions - 'like someone took an ice-cream scoop to the ground,' said Stuurman, who started this project while a student at Western. In the Canadian Arctic, similar landforms are indicative of ground ice, Osinski noted, 'but there was an outstanding question as to whether any ice was still present at the Martian Utopia or whether it had been lost over the millions of years since the formation of these polygons and depressions.' The large volume of ice detected with SHARAD advances understanding about Mars' history and identifies a possible resource for future use. Diagonal striping on this map of a portion of Mars' Utopia Planitia region indicates the area where a large subsurface deposit rich in water ice was assessed using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The deposit holds about as much water as Lake Superior.Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Rome/ASI/PSI 'It's important to expand what we know about the distribution and quantity of Martian water,' said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Deputy Project Scientist Leslie Tamppari, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. 'We know early Mars had enough liquid water on the surface for rivers and lakes. Where did it go? Much of it left the planet from the top of the atmosphere. 'Other missions have been examining that process. But there's also a large quantity that is now underground ice, and we want to keep learning more about that.' Joe Levy of the University of Texas, a co-author of the new study, said, 'The ice deposits in Utopia Planitia aren't just an exploration resource, they're also one of the most accessible climate change records on Mars. Extraordinary footage has emerged of a Monarch aircraft pitching and tipping dramatically as it comes into land at Gibraltar airport. The clip, uploaded to the internet on Monday, shows the aircraft approaching at a steady angle then violently rocking as it comes closer to the runway. The aircraft then tips forward as heavy gusts batter it. Extraordinary footage has emerged of a Monarch aircraft pitching and tipping dramatically as it comes into land at Gibraltar airport The clip, uploaded to the internet on Monday, shows the aircraft approaching at a steady angle then violently rocking as it comes closer to the runway With just 40 feet or so separating the aircraft from the runway the plane suddenly tips sideways, but the pilot quickly straightens it out and makes a safe landing. One YouTube commenter remarked that the clip shows just how skilled Monarchs pilots are. Yesterday, meanwhile, dramatic footage emerged of an A380 being violently rocked by Storm Angus as it came into land. The gigantic Emirates aircraft the worlds biggest passenger plane was filmed approaching the runway sideways at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. It could be seen moving sideways into the wind as part of a special 'crab' landing technique. One YouTube commenter remarked that the clip shows just how skilled Monarchs pilots are The hair-raising footage was captured on Sunday by Jerry Taha Productions. A crosswind or 'crab' landing sees an aircraft drifting laterally as it approaches the runway in order to track the runway centerline, thereby enabling the pilot to safely bring the plane to the ground. Another video showed a smaller passenger plane trying to land at the airport but aborting at the last minute and taking off again in whats known as a go around procedure. Speaking to MailOnline Travel, Steven Draper, representative of the British Airline Pilots' Association (Balpa) and a former pilot, said of the crab landing method: 'Landing in strong crosswinds or turbulence goes beyond the capabilities of the aeroplane's automatic pilot. Dramatic footage emerged of an A380 being violently rocked by Storm Angus as it comes into land HOW PLANES LAND IN FOG Fog is another hazard pilots have to deal with. Here a serving airline captain explains to MailOnline Travel how planes land in thick mist. 'Most modern airliners have what is called Category 3 Automatic Landing capability - the aircraft, once programmed correctly by the pilots, locks onto the ILS (instrument landing system) beam at the end of the runway and is guided laterally and vertically to the runway by the beam. 'Pilots simply call it "Cat3". The system works in all weathers, although typically with a wind limit of around 25 knots (30mph), which is rarely a problem as fog generally occurs in calm conditions (unless you live in Leeds). 'The minimum visual requirement that the pilot needs is 75 metres - and that is only necessary in order to be able to taxi off the runway after landing. 'It all sounds very simple of course but if the automatic landing fails (due to radio interference, system failure or other external factors) the pilot has to take over at the last moment travelling at 150mph within feet of the ground whilst unable to see any external references - not the easiest of manoeuvres. 'And why does fog cause delays despite this fancy system? Because the aircraft have to be separated when flying down the beam by a much greater distance than is the case on good weather days (to avoid that nasty interference issue) - a bit like closing a lane of the motorway with the same consequent backing up of traffic. ' Advertisement 'A pilot should be alert and free from fatigue when landing, and be given the opportunity to develop excellent handling skills.' Speaking to MailOnline previously, Dai Whittingham, the chief executive of the UK Flight Safety Committee, stated that while crosswinds appear dangerous, they are an everyday occurrence. He said: 'High winds in themselves are not dangerous but they can certainly be inconvenient, especially if the wind direction is across the runway. 'All pilots train to land in high crosswind conditions and will have practiced to the aircraft limits in the simulator. 'When any new aircraft is certified to carry passengers it comes with a published crosswind limit which is the maximum that has been demonstrated by a test pilot during the certification process. 'If the wind is outside that limit the crew will have to take the aircraft to an alternate airport where the wind is within limits (which means a runway that has less of a crosswind component). 'In practice, the wind is rarely aligned fully with the runway so there is always a slight crosswind to deal with, it is just the amount of it that varies.' Whittingham also noted that the public misconceptions about landing in strong winds is probably down to turbulence as the approaches are always bumpy. Additionally, passengers do not have the same forward view as the pilot, which makes the sensation of being buffeted in all directions all the more uncomfortable. He concluded by saying: 'There is a briefing given before all approaches to ensure that both pilots understand the type of approach, what the division of duties are, and any special considerations. 'A strong crosswind (or strong winds in general) would certainly be a briefing topic. 'Both pilots will be monitoring the situation to ensure the wind does not exceed their limits and both will be alert to the possibility that the landing may need to be abandoned. 'The pilots would also remind themselves of the correct techniques and decide on the additional safety factor to be applied to the target approach speed.' The largest aircraft in the Emirates A380 collection can cater for 615 passengers, 557 in standard economy with 58 in flat bed seats. Emirates was the second airline to receive the A380 after Singapore Airlines, and started services between Dubai and New York in August 2008. Storm Angus brought hurricane force winds to southern Britain yesterday - causing flooding and power cuts to thousands of homes. Today the storm has been replaced by a second wet weather front that has wreaked havoc for commuters across the South West. Peta has taken on a new campaign - to stop seafood such as fish and octopuses being served live in restaurants. Restaurants in western countries have increasingly started to serve up live animals to diners, but the animal rights group claims they can feel pain just as strongly as mammals. Watching a live octopus being dismembered in a restaurant kitchen is shocking, but it isn't the only horrifying meal to be served up in the name of gastronomy, read on for our list of some of the worst offenders... Live octopus Restaurants in California and New York have come under fire recently from animal-rights activists for serving octopus to diners while it is still alive and moving Restaurants in California and New York have come under fire recently from animal-rights activists for serving octopus to diners while it is still alive and moving. A video shot by a Peta member inside one of the restaurants shows a chef slicing up a live octopus. In many instances, the octopus has a few legs sliced off and is then left, writhing in pain, until another diner orders the leg dish, when some more are removed. Peta launched the petition earlier this month calling on lawmakers to prohibit restaurants from serving live marine life, alongside a video of an octopus writhing as a chef at T Equals Fish, a Koreatown sushi restaurant in Los Angeles, chops off its tentacles. The organisation claims that octopuses, which are considered to be among the most intelligent invertebrates, can feel pain in the way that mammals do. Live octopus is served at about a dozen restaurants in California and New York, according to Peta and is most commonly used in 'sannakji', a dish made up of moving octopus tentacles. Peta vice president of cruelty investigations Daphna Nachminovitch said in a statement: 'Octopuses have sophisticated nervous systems that are rich with pain receptors, so they suffer immensely for a diner's fleeting taste experience.' T Equals Fish was not immediately available for comment. Live frog In Japan frogs are used in sashimi dishes. The chef stabs, beheads and skins the live frog to serve on ice with soy sauce and a lemon slice Fish and seafood aren't the only animals to be used in sushi in Japan - frogs are also used in sashimi dishes. The frogs are raised by a breeder and then shipped live to restaurant kitchens, where they are kept alive until a customer orders the dish. The chef then stabs, beheads and skins the live frog to serve on ice with soy sauce and a lemon slice. But a video taken a couple of years ago of a chef preparing the dish at a restaurant in Tokyo appeared to show the animal trying to claw its way off the plate after being dismembered. Though the frog is killed instantly by the chefs knife, it can still be seen moving its legs and blinking at the camera. The restaurant in Tokyo's 'Memory Lane' is known for serving unusual dishes such as soft-shelled turtle, pig testicles, snake liquor, grilled salamander, still-beating frog's heart and the live bullfrog sashimi shown in the video. Baby rodents In China, there is an infamous delicacy that involves eating newly-born rodents live In China, there is an infamous delicacy that involves eating newly-born rodents live. The diner would use a skewer to stab the live rodent and then dip it in boiling oil, before eating it. Footage shows a little known speciality in Guangdong, south China, that is called 'San Zhi Er', that has been reported as far back as 1949. The name translates as 'Three squeaks', because of the noises the baby rodents make when eaten alive. The first squeak is said to come when the animal is stabbed, the second when it is dipped in the oil and the third when it goes into the diner's mouth. This video, a composite of two separate clips, shows the mice next to a pot of broth in one shot and being dipped into a plate of sauce in the other. After smothering the still-wriggling creatures in a brown sauce, a diner proceeds to put one in his mouth and appears to chew. Live prawns Live prawns are a popular dish in Asian countries like Japan and Vietnam, but they are also served in western nations like Denmark and London Live prawns are a popular dish in Asian countries like Japan and Vietnam, but they are also served in western nations like Denmark and London, albeit somewhat controversially. Whether eating the prawn live, dipped in butter or flamed-grilled from a barbecue after being skewered live and placed over the fire wriggling, as in the video here, animal rights campaigners are not impressed. In this clip, footage from the Quan Nuong rooftop grill restaurant in Vietnam shows live prawns wriggling on skewers as they are cooked. They are shown still green and raw on a plate as the video begins, before being placed on the barbecue where their heads, legs and bodies wiggle madly. The filmer later wrote online: 'It was a bit odd watching them writhe as they cooked but at least we knew they were fresh.' Peta said of the practice: 'Sea animals are not merely swimming vegetables, and its not OK to carve up their bodies as casually as one would a carrot or a rutabaga.' Live fish In this meal, diners sit around a bucket of live fish, picking them out by hand before dropping them into another bowl of sauce Eating live fish is considered to be a delicacy in many parts of eastern Asia. In one course, diners are advised to down a shot of tiny fish, dousing them in vinegar just beforehand to make them wriggle on the way down to the stomach. In other cases, as in the video below, diners sit around a bucket of live fish, picking them out by hand before dropping them into another bowl of sauce. After they have been adequately seasoned, the animals is plucked from the bowl with chopsticks and eaten alive. Another particular food preparation method that has attracted scorn from animal rights campaigners is 'Yin Yang Fish' - also called dead-and-alive fish. The dish, which originated from Taiwanese cuisine, consists of a deep-fried whole fish, cooked with its head wrapped in a wet cloth in order to keep it breathing. The fish is then covered in sauce and served live on a plate, while still alive. This practice, which remains popular in China, has received condemnation from animal rights groups, who claim it inflicts unnecessary suffering on the animal. This fish served on a dinner plate appeared to come back to life after receiving a shot of alcohol A video that shocked animal lovers in recent years showed a fish served on a dinner plate that appeared to come back to life after receiving a shot of alcohol. The clip, believed to have been captured in China, shows the carp with large slices cut into its back - but it is unclear as to whether it is currently dead. It remains very still as one of the diners pours a shot of alcohol into its mouth and suddenly the fish gulps before returning to a vegetative state. Monkeys are still eaten in parts of Asia, but there is one infamous dish involving the brain of the animals Monkey's brain Monkeys are one of the closest species to humans, which is why many find the practice of eating them so hard to stomach. Monkeys are still eaten in parts of Asia, but there is one infamous dish involving the brain of the animals that continues to shock. The meal involves the monkey being brought to the table live, before the head is caved in and the diner then eats the brains. While there are several reports in legend and some researchers have been told eye-witness accounts, there is no footage of the practice happening apart from one picture in a Hong Kong newspaper in 1998. Drowned bird The ortolan is one of France's most charming little birds, but is is also the main ingredient in one of the nation's cruelest dishes The ortolan is one of France's most charming little birds, but is is also the main ingredient in one of the nation's cruelest dishes. Ortolan hunting has been banned in France since 1999 but it still happens illegally. The animal is tempted towards poachers and traps by the sound of a female who is trapped in a cage. They are then kept in dark tiny cages for a month while being fattened up on millet, grapes and figs until they are so bloated they can't move. Diners eat the Ortolan bird in its entirety, starting with either the head or the rear end, with their head under a napki Once the ortolan has been fattened to bursting point, it is drowned in Armagnac, before being roasted for eight minutes and served sizzling in its pale yellow fat. Diners eat the bird in its entirety, starting with either the head or the rear end. They eat it traditionally, with their head under a napkin, so as to inhale the Armagnac fumes and keep the whole messy ritual hidden from fellow diners. Legend also has it that you are using the napkin to conceal your greed from God - who surely could not approve of such a brutal custom. Baby loach fish boiled alive The Japanese have a dish called Dojo tofu, which is also known as tofu hell The Japanese have a dish called Dojo tofu, which is also known as tofu hell. To make the dish, they boil some water in a pan and once it has reached a considerable heat, they put a block of cold tofu in the bottom, immediately followed by a handful of live baby loach fish. The idea is that the fish will immediately swim down and start to bury themselves in the cold tofu to get away from the boiling water. He only popped the question back in September. But newly-engaged Lacey Turner and her long-term beau Matt Kay have already admitted that they are thinking about expanding their family together. Talking to OK! magazine, the actress and her partner, both 28, admitted that they are beginning to feel broody - having been together for almost 10 years. Scroll down for video The next step: Lacey Turner and fiance Matt Kay, both 28, admitted to OK! that they are ready to have children together Lacey, who is best known for playing Stacey Slater in BBC soap EastEnders, couldn't contain her excitement as she discussed the prospect of having little ones of her own. She said: 'I'm ready for motherhood, and I want four children - Matt wants three!' While her fiance added: Im ready, too. I felt really broody when my nephew was born four years ago. The pair became engaged in September - with the actress' childhood sweetheart taking to his Instagram to announce the exciting news. She said yes! The pair became engaged in September - with the actress' childhood sweetheart taking to his Instagram to announce the exciting news Revealing the news mere minutes after he proposed to the soap star, Matt uploaded a snap in which a visibly stunned Lacey shows off her sparking diamond engagement ring. Captioning the shot, he wrote: 'She said yes ooooosssshhhhhhhh #fiance @laceyturner.' However the happy couple admitted to OK! that the proposal, which occurred in a gondola during their romantic break in Venice, Italy, almost didn't go to plan. Laughing at the memory, Lacey revealed: 'I said yes straight away, of course! Although as we cuddled afterwards the gondola tipped a bit and we nearly fell off!' Gentleman: Matt further admitted he had asked Lacey's parents for her hand prior to the proposal - who were thrilled at the news Despite having known each other since they were 15 years old, the EastEnders actress admits she was still hugely taken-aback by her beau getting down on one knee. Recalling the overwhelming moment, she said: 'I was sobbing after Matt proposed. It was such a shock.' Meanwhile Matt confessed that he had been just as emotional - although being so comfortable with his long-term girl, his nerves did not set in until he was kneeling in front of her. He added: 'I only got nervous about five minutes before I proposed. Although when we watched the video back of the proposal, I was shaking a bit when I was down on one knee!' Long-term: The pair met when they were 15 years old, and have dated intermittently ever since A proper gentleman, the barber also admitted his nerves had been eased by him asking Lacey's parents for her hand prior to the trip - who were more than thrilled for the childhood sweethearts. He said: 'I asked Laceys mum and dad if I could ask Lacey to marry me. Her mum gave me the biggest hug and said: About time! The pair met when they were 15 years old, and have dated intermittently ever since. Their relationship got into full swing after Lacey split with ex-boyfriend Jake Gotlib in 2006, but the notoriously private star was initially coy about discussing her relationship. 'We'd been friends for a few years, which gradually developed into something more, and now he's my boyfriend and I'm very happy,' she told the Daily Mirror at the time. The engagement had capped a successful few weeks for the TV star, whose role as troubled Stacey Fowler helped win her the award for Best Actress at the British Soap Awards. Lacey beat off stiff competition from former Coronation Street star Paula Lane, Hollyoaks' Jennifer Metcalfe and Emmerdale's Lucy Pargeter to take home the accolade. Read the full story in this week's OK! Magazine - out today She's known for her revealing bikini photo shoots. But Australian model Elyse Knowles has now proven that a one piece can be just as sexy in a new Instagram post. In a stunning photo, posted to the social media site on Tuesday, the blonde beauty is pictured wearing a daring black swimsuit. Scroll down for video Revealing look: Australian model and ambassador Elyse Knowles shows off her curves in a sexy black one piece in an Instagram photo on Tuesday With her long blonde locks looking perfectly tousled, Elyse looked every bit the beach babe with her golden tan. The 24-year-old kept her makeup natural with a bronzed finish and barely-there black eyeliner. Accessorising with a khaki green cap, the plunging swimsuit shows off her ample assets. The revealing bathers also accentuated the model's curvaceous waistline as lace-through panels showing plenty of skin on either side of her torso. Trading her trademark bikini: The 24-year-old opted for a one piece swimsuit as opposed to the two piece swimmers she is usually photographed in Flawless: The home-grown beauty is known for her enviable bikini body, which she often flaunts on social media The high-waisted style is reminiscent of swimsuits favoured by Kylie Jenner and the Kardashians. The photo, which appears to have been shot at a studio, was also captioned by Elyse. 'Adventures in California,' she wrote next to the picture. California dreaming: The Billabong model has been travelling around the United States for modelling gigs The sultry new shot comes after Elyse took to Instagram last week to remind her fans that she's just like us, at the best of times. The 24-year-old revealed that she too suffered from stretch marks, posing in just a skimpy bikini that revealed her pert derriere and toned legs. 'Anyone got stretch marks they want to get rid of? I did, yep DID!' Elyse began the caption. 'Head to ELYSEKNOWLES.COM and I'll tell you how I got rid of them!!!' the blonde beauty continued. Social butterfly: Just recently Elyse was seen turning heads at various parties during the Melbourne Cup racing carnival The Billabong model shared on her website that she managed to eliminate stretch marks with the use of laser technology. The Instagram sensation has been travelling through California with her photographer as they work on projects for various brands. The pair have road tripped throughout the state, stopping at hot spots including Palm Springs and Joshua Tree along the way. He's her number one fan. And Rob Kardashian took to Instagram to congratulate his fiancee Blac Chyna on her brand new gig as MAC Ambassador for their new Shade Scents fragrances. Rob, 29, shared the image of the ad and wrote: 'Proud of u booo @blacchyna u look bombbbb' on Monday to his Instagram. Scroll down for video Wow: Showing his support! Rob Kardashian shared a picture of Blac Chyna to his Instagram account on Monday; he gushed about her new gig as ambassador for MAC Cosmetics Chyna, 28, and Rob welcomed their first child together - daughter Dream Kardashian - on November 10 via C-section. She's also mom to four-year-old son King Cairo with ex fiance rapper Tyga. In the photo, Chyna poses with one of the new fragrances from the MAC Cosmetics Shade Scents collection. Hours earlier, she shared the same image to her social media, adding a lengthy caption about the new collection. Rob, 29, shared the image of the ad and wrote: 'Proud of u booo @blacchyna u look bombbbb' on Monday to his Instagram. The six new perfumes were inspired by the company's top lipstick shades, 'with one for every personality.' Blac divulged that her pink signature shade 'has always been @MacCosmetics eye catching Candy Yum Yum.' The model continued, writing that 'Pink is a powerful color women and girls use to embrace their femininity. It's strong and sexy!' Candid: The star shared her excitement as her new gig for the cosmetics company Glowing couple: Chyna, 28, and Rob welcomed their first child together - daughter Dream Kardashian - on November 10 via C-section Chyna added the hashtags '#IAmCandyYumYum' and also '#MACambassador.' The Rob & Chyna star sported silver tresses with a deep center part and waves in the image. For the shoot, the former music video star donned smoky black eye makeup, pinkish nude lipstick and shimmering highlighter on her cheeks. She also showed off her huge diamond engagement ring given to her by Rob. On Sunday, Chyna posted a picture of her flat stomach - just 10 days after giving birth to daughter Dream. Wow: On Sunday, Chyna posted a picture of her flat stomach - just 10 days after giving birth to daughter Dream Happiness: Chyna shared a snap while holding her newborn last week While she still wants to lose 40 pounds to get to her goal weight of 130, Chyna has already slimmed down by 18 pounds since giving birth. On Sunday, the first preview for Rob and Chyna's TV special chronicling the birth of their daughter was aired on E!. The dramatic clip showed a crying Chyna as she says 'I'm freaking.' The Rob & Chyna baby special will air December 18 on E! Getting prepared: On Sunday, the first preview for Rob and Chyna's TV special chronicling the birth of their daughter was aired on E! Tears before: The dramatic clip showed a crying Chyna as she says 'I'm freaking' Kim Kardashian skipped what would have been her first public appearance since her frightening October 3 Paris robbery. No doubt the decision to skip Angel Ball in New York City has to do with the reports that husband Kanye West had been hospitalized. According to sources, the 39-year-old rapper taken under care for his own safety after suffering a psychotic breakdown. The rapper was under 'psychiatric evaluation' at a Los Angeles area hospital late Monday and the rest of his Saint Pablo Tour was cancelled as friends say the star is 'spiraling out of control', TMZ reports. Tough times: Kim Kardashian skipped the Angel Ball on Monday amid reports that Kanye West had been hospitalized, as they are pictured together in August Law enforcement sources say that Los Angeles police had responded to a medical welfare call about 1:20pm local time. He was allegedly being checked for 'severe sleep deprivation' when it was decided he needed to be admitted. Law enforcement sources confirmed he was hospitalized for his own health and safety. Sources close to Kanye say he tried to resist being transported to the L.A. hospital and had to be handcuffed. Tough times: The 39-year-old rapper - pictured last week in LA - has reportedly been taken into care for his own safety after suffering a psychotic breakdown, according to sources The Angel Ball hosted by Gabrielle's Angel Foundation For Cancer Research at Cipriani Wall Street would have been the first time the 36-year-old reality star has made a public appearance since her ordeal in Paris last month as her name was even on the invitation of the event. At the event, the Keeping Up With The Karadashians star's father, the late attorney Robert Kardashian, was being honored. It was a big night as proceeds earmarked toward the Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research. The foundation was set up by Grammy-nominated songwriter and philanthropist, Denise Rich in 1996 after her 27-year-old daughter Gabrielle lost her battle with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Along with Gabrielle's sisters Daniella and Ilona, Denise has created in her memory, Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, that funds the best scientific investigators in the US with the hope that less toxic treatments, and ultimately a cure, might be discovered. Card subject to change: The 36-year-old reality star's name appeared on the invitation of the event Her late father Robert, who died of esophageal cancer in 2003, was honored. Kim was seen boarding a private jet in Van Nuys, California the day before. The mother to North and Saint covered up for her flight, wearing a loose black hoodie as she headed on board. There was no sign of her rapper husband as she arrived for her flight alone. At the event were were Kims mother Kris Jenner, 61, and sisters Kourtney, 37, and Khloe Kardashian, 32; as well as her best friend Jonathan Cheban, 42. Sisterly love: Kim's sisters Khloe and Kourtney did make it to the gala held at the Wall Street branch of upscale restaurant, Cipriani Kims father Robert Kardashian, who died of esophageal cancer in 2003, was honored at the star-studded gala. An annual event, the ball raises money for the Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research and is described, by the charity, as a celebration of life, music and the quest for a cure. Kim has been a near-recluse after she was bound and gagged in Paris on October 3, as part of a shocking heist that resulted in $11m worth of jewels stolen from the couple's apartment. Hours after the robbery: The star seen in New York City after arriving from Paris last month Also on Monday Kanye announced he was cancelling the remainder of his Saint Pablo Tour. He gave no reason. The tour, now in California and with dates through December 31, had future stops in Dallas, Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C., among others. On the same day DailyMail.com reported that he has suffered a psychotic break triggered by problems in his marriage to Kim Kardashian, paranoia over his rift with Jay Z and his seething jealousy of Beyonce. Kim is said to have been left furious after he stopped Saturday nights show after just 10 minutes and instead delivered an expletive-laden rant in which he attacked Beyonce and Jay-Z, as well as defeated presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. Low-key outings: Here the E! queen was seen getting frozen yogurt wit Jonathan Cheban in Beverly Hills in October She is also upset that he has failed to properly support her after she was robbed in Paris on October 3. Kim is fed up, a close friend tells DailyMail.com. Theyve been bickering constantly - she didnt want Kanye to do the tour in the first place. She wanted him by her side as she recovered from her traumatic robbery in Paris. She lost days with him while hes touring and then he made a rash decision to end the concert after ten minutes and go on a rant. He had a psychotic break. Kanye is very hot tempered and hes very reactionary. A lot of times, he speaks before he thinks and hes very sensitive.' She didn't take the main entrance: In late October, Kim was seen heading to Kanye's Pablo concert in LA A source close to West told Us Weekly: 'He's just exhausted. He's been working around the clock on fashion design, both his own line and the Adidas line.' Kim has endured a difficult time of late thanks in no small part to Wests decision to continue his Saint Pablo tour in the wake of the Paris attack. She really has a lot to think about, shes really taking time out, a friend told DailyMail.com. When he made the decision to continue the tour after what happened [in Paris], that was a huge last straw scenario for her. The ring that got away: Before the robbery, the Selfish author flashed this diamond ring Deep down in her heart, she really wanted him to pull the tour and spend time with her to help her recover and get over it. That has hurt her more than the ordeal itself. The ordeal itself was definitely frightening and definitely scary but beyond that, the thing that hurts the most is that Kanye hasnt been by her side. Sure, she has a family but thats his job, as a man, as a husband, to be there for her and support her. Shes going through the hardest time shes every gone through in her life. But its not all because of the incident [the Paris attack]. Its more related to the fact she feels a lack of support from Kanye and that is making her reassess everything her relationship, her career, all of it. DailyMail.com also exclusively revealed that Wests narcissistic behavior has become increasingly difficult for Kim to bear and has infuriated both Kris Jenner and younger sister Khloe. Fashionable flyers: Kanye and Kim pictured together at LAX Airport in Los Angeles back in June Actress Imelda Staunton has had enough of noisy interferences, calling for a total ban on eating and drinking inside theatres Whether it is the rustle of a popcorn bag or a packet of sweets being opened, snacks have a nasty habit of ruining the tensest moment in a play. And actress Imelda Staunton has had enough of noisy interferences, calling for a total ban on eating and drinking inside theatres. The 60-year-old said she cannot understand why people are unable to engage in just one thing, and urged them to focus on what they are watching rather than eating constantly. She said she does not have TV dinners, for the same reason, and will only ever eat ice cream while watching TV as thats not noisy. The prevalence of snacks is even greater in cinemas than theatres. Indeed, cinema foyers have increasingly been taken over by sweet stands and large containers of popcorn, in a bid to tempt people as they go into films. Often the only place to buy a ticket is the food and drinks stand. The tactics used by cinema chains appears to be working, as a YouGov poll last year found that UK cinemagoers spend an average of 7.85 on snacks, on top of the cost of the ticket. However, the noise created by snacks goes totally against the immersive atmosphere created by darkened auditoriums and surround-sound speakers. And almost every cinema-goer will have had a particularly pivotal scene totally ruined by an unnecessarily loud slurp of a fizzy drink or the rustling of a popcorn bucket by someone in the audience. On the trend of people eating meals in front of the TV, Ms Staunton told Radio Times: I dont do TV dinners. There might, at one point in the evening, be a very small, very naughty bowl of ice cream. But thats not noisy. A survey last year found that UK cinemagoers spend an average of 7.85 on snacks, on top of the cost of the ticket Then asked if she would therefore support a ban on eating in theatres, she replied: Definitely. I dont know why people cant engage in just one thing. I dont understand this obsession with having to eat or drink something at every moment of the day. The celebrated actress starred in Gypsy on the West End earlier this year, and will appear in Edward Albees play Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on the West End from February. She is by no means the first star to raise concerns about rude theatregoers making too much noise. Musical theatre stalwart Michael Ball said earlier this year that he wanted to see an improvement in theatre etiquette and would ban mobile phones. He said: Ive shouted at people, had a real go at them before. Its so disrespectful and really winds me up. The whole point of going to a theatre or concert is to experience it and involve yourself in it. We get so cut off these days because of social media that group experiences are becoming rarer. Do people not think we can see the big blue glow lighting them up? He added: It goes beyond technology. I was at the Palladium watching The Sound of Music and as they started up the overture, this bloke across the aisle got out a packed lunch. He literally unwrapped his sandwiches, got out a flask of soup and was chomping away all the way through. Its so rude. Actor Kevin Spacey has previously attacked theatregoers who allow their mobile phones to go off or eat sweets midway through a performance. They are known to be close pals, with the actress often taking her front row seat at the designer's catwalk shows. But Salma Hayek and Stella McCartney joined forces in London on Monday night, as they hosted a VIP charity screening of award-winning documentary Sonita. The 50-year-old actress looked as chic as always in a busty blue frock as she cosied up to friend Stella, 45, and her husband Francois-Henri Pinault, 54 at the bash - which was organised by his company, Kering. Scroll down for video Gal pals: Salma Hayek, 50, and Stella McCartney, 45, joined forces in London on Monday night, as they hosted a VIP charity screening of award-winning documentary Sonita Dreamy: The actress looked chic in a busty blue frock as she cosied up to her husband Francois-Henri Pinault, 54 at the bash - which was organised by his company, Kering The Frida actress, who is known for her bold and trendy fashion sense, dazzled at the event in a form-fitting blue dress, which flowed out into a loose pleated skirt. The dress hugged each and every one of her womanly curves as it clung to her top section, enhancing her ample bust. Featuring a slim oval cut-out at the chest, the frock then gave a subtly saucy flash of her cleavage before cinching in at her womanly waist with a matching chunky belt. Glamorous pair: The brunette beauty happily cuddled up to the British designer at the event, who shielded her outfit in a classic black coat with chic lapels Stylish: The Frida actress, who is known for her bold and trendy fashion sense, dazzled at the event in a form-fitting blue dress, which flowed out into a loose pleated skirt Maintaining this theme throughout, in her usual quirky style, the Mexican actress then accessorised with a sleek silver clutch bag, which was secured by a similar buckled strap. Finishing her look glamorously, Salma teamed the dress with a pair of shining gold stiletto heels, with a pointed toe, and a modern wrist cuff. The brunette beauty happily cuddled up to the British designer at the event, who shielded her outfit in a classic black coat with chic lapels. The little things: The Mexican actress then accessorised with a sleek silver clutch bag, which was secured by a similar buckled strap to her belt The look of love: Salma later posed beside her French businessman husband of seven years, who looked every inch the classic gentleman in a dark grey suit and crisp shirt Doing their bit: The trio joined forces to screen the documentary as part of the Kering Foundation's annual White Ribbon For Women campaign However scraping her hair off her face into a strict bun, the daughter of Beatles rocker Paul McCartney let her bronzed, glowing complexion take centre stage. Salma later posed beside her French businessman husband of seven years, who looked every inch the classic gentleman in a dark grey suit and crisp shirt. The trio had joined forces to screen the documentary, which follows a young Afghan rapper who fights against forced marriages, as part of the Kering Foundation's annual White Ribbon For Women campaign. Charitable: The movement aims to raise awareness of violence against women among Kering employees and the general public Man of the hour: Salma's husband Francois-Henri is the CEO of Kering (previously PPR) - a French luxury goods holding company - and thus founder of the charity Arm in arm: The pair looked closer than ever as they arrived at the event arm in arm, after seven years of marriage The movement aims to raise awareness of violence against women among Kering employees and the general public. Salma's husband Francois-Henri is the CEO of Kering (previously PPR) - a French luxury goods holding company, which is owns brands such as Alexander McQueen, Gucci and Stella McCartney. Through this business connection, the actress and Stella have become firm friends - with Salma attending most of the designer's fashion shows and even bagging an invite to her star-studded Christmas party last year. Salma enjoyed a night off to support her husband of seven years, who she has nine-year-old Valentina with, amidst her recent busy schedule. Geek chic: Salma was later seen leaving the event with her trademark oversized vintage-style glasses That's how its done: The event was also attended by a host of famous faces supporting the cause, including model Eva Herzigova The stunner has recently wrapped promotion for her adult animation Sausage Party, and is anticipating the release of her new comedy Beatriz at Dinner. The event was also attended by a host of famous faces supporting the cause, including model Eva Herzigova. The Czech model, 43, looked as stunning as ever in an all-black ensemble, formed by a slinky black jumpsuit and embroidered dress coat on top. The blonde beauty kept make-up to a minimum, showing off her enviably clear and youthful complexion, and paired the look with sky-high heels to elongate her already statuesque figure. Gorgeous: The blonde beauty kept make-up to a minimum, showing off her enviably clear and youthful complexion Big name: Former chair of British Fashion Council Harold Tillman also showed his support She's the blonde beauty from Ballarat who found fame on The Bachelor. And Steph Dixon stripped down to her bikini as she made a splash at Melbourne's Red Bluff beach for a steamy shoot on Sunday. The 25-year-old put on a sultry display as she flaunted her model physique in a blue-and-white striped bikini. Scroll down for video Sizzling hot! The Bachelor's Steph Dixon showed off her enviable figure in a bikini as she posed for a beach shoot on Sunday Her plunging bikini top revealed a hint of cleavage, while her matching bottoms highlighted her trim pins. The former reality star sported a slightly bronzed complexion for the shoot, and her two-toned blonde locks were worn in beachy wet waves. Despite getting splashed by the water, her makeup remained flawless throughout the shoot. Making a splash: The 25-year-old showed off her toned and tanned body in the nautical-themed striped bikini She wore light brown foundation as well as lashings of mascara, while her pout was kept natural. Steph went from the sand to surf as she worked her best angles, occasionally splashing the water while showing off her toned arms. She was also seen making flirty faces at the camera while turning to the side to display her pert derriere. Beach babe: The blonde beauty wore her locks in natural beach waves, and wasn't afraid to get wet during the shoot Putting her best side forward: The stunner made sure to flaunt her pert derriere in the skimpy swimsuit Smouldering: The former reality star laid on the sand as she gazed sultrily at the camera The full-time model also posed whilst lying down on the sand, letting the waves crash onto her body. With her sculpted abs on display, the slender blonde contorted her body into various positions while gazing sultrily at the camera. Steph later shielded her face from the glaring sun with a wide-brimmed hat as she stood on the beach. Bronzed beauty: Steph sported a slightly golden tan while contorting her body into various poses The Victorian resident hit the spotlight after appearing on The Bachelor as an intruder. Despite being unlucky in love, she did form a close bond with second runner-up Olena Khamula. Steph gushed about her new BFF via social media, writing: 'I have so much appreciation for this girl, she conquered her fears. Fun in the sun: She sported a full face of makeup for the shoot, including foundation, eyeshadow and mascara Pretty as a picture: The Ballarat-born beauty cut a relaxed figure in between takes while sporting a wide-brimmed hat 'Put herself out of her comfort zone to try something new , something extremely challenging ... she did all of this to better herself in the hope of an amazing opportunity but not only did she do it, I did it with her too. 'Im (sic) proud of us @olenakhamula we now share a bond of an experience that know one else will ever understand,' she continued, adding: 'love you bubbles.' Olena's response was swift and simple, with the Ukrainian-born beauty commenting moments later: 'I LOVE YOU SO SO MUCH.' They've spent most of their time in the Australian jungle at each other's throats. But Danny Baker and Martin Roberts decided to kiss and make up again on Monday night's episode of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Having been reduced to tears by the campfire the night before following Danny's aggressive rants at him, Martin woke up to an apology from the man who made him cry himself to sleep. Scroll down for video 'They're so fake': Viewers slam Martin Roberts for 'laughing too hard' at Danny Baker's jokes after his 'cringeworthy' and 'pointless' apology Approaching his hammock, Danny shook Martins hand and said: 'Im a person who dont like confrontation plainly, you seem pretty much the same way - things can brood and go on and on.' Happy to accept the olive branch for the second time in so many days, Martin said: 'I really appreciate you saying something, thanks mate.' 'Sorry its always me saying something; anyway, weve lanced the boil, its all over, its Monday, thats all we know,' concluded Danny. He then went into the Bush Telegraph and said: 'I thought Id go straight over and say "look mate, I might be a volcano in certain respects but I think I was in the right last night by the teams mood worst thing you can do in here is brew."' Burying the hatchet: They've spent most of their time in the Australian jungle at each other's throats. But Danny Baker and Martin Roberts decided to kiss and make up again on Monday night's episode of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Kiss and make up: Danny shook Martins hand and said: 'Im a person who dont like confrontation plainly, you seem pretty much the same way - things can brood and go on and on' Not buying it: Twitter erupted into commentary about the celebs' feud Martin then confided in Lisa about how he was feeling about the altercation, saying: 'I have been beavering away like crazy, gathering wood, collecting water, Ive been to more places than hot dinners, so nobody can say anything.' Martin and Danny were then seen sitting on a log laughing as Danny spun a few showbiz yarns about Tommy Cooper and Morecombe and Wise. Martin found the tales to be hilarious - but perhaps a little too hilarious, some thought. Taking to Twitter, fans began what seems to be becoming a nightly rant about the pair, slamming their constant falling out and making up again. 'I love how every episode starts with an apology from Danny/Martin and then ends with a row between Danny/Martin,' observed one viewer. Frenemies: Martin and Danny were then seen sitting on a log laughing as Danny spun a few showbiz yarns about Tommy Cooper and Morecombe and Wise Emotions running high: Having been reduced to tears by the campfire the night before following Danny's aggressive rants at him, Martin woke up to an apology from the man who made him cry himself to sleep Friends again? Viewers on social media were not impressed with the pair's behaviour 'Are Martin and Danny going to have this apology conversation daily?!' asked another. 'They're like a couple that break up everyday then get back together,' someone else typed. 'The epitome of insincerity from Danny Baker to Martin,' someone else weighed in. 'I give it 10 minutes before it all kicks off again between Danny and Martin,' tweeted a doubtful viewer. Of the men's sudden reconciliation, one puzzled fan of the show tweeted: 'Martin and Danny are literally frenemies.' 'Martin's fake laughing at every word Danny says is incredible,' someone else observed about the pair's log chat. Sincere? Many branded Danny's apology 'pointless' given that the pair would likely fall out again later - but they made it through Monday's show without having another tiff Over the top? 'Martin is over doing the oh Danny your so funny scenario; he basically doesn't wanna get shouted at and cry like a 4yr old again!' came another harsh tweet Time for a rant: Taking to Twitter, fans began what seems to be becoming a nightly rant about the pair, slamming their constant falling out and making up again Another typed: 'Danny and Martin make me CRINGE. HARD. I can barely watch when they're on screen.' 'Martin is over doing the oh Danny your so funny scenario; he basically doesn't wanna get shouted at and cry like a 4yr old again!' came another harsh tweet. 'Martin is so unbelievably fake I can't even watch for cringing!' followed another. Many branded Danny's apology 'pointless' given that the pair would likely fall out again later - but they made it through Monday's show without having another tiff. Weighing in: Larry was also seen in the Bush Telegraph talking about Danny and Martins log laughing antics 'He is an interesting character, it was so funny we were just laughing and laughing. Hes got so many stories,' said Martin in the Bush Telegraph. Joel, however, seemed to pick up on what the tweeters were observing. He said: 'I dont know if it was entirely genuine, more that thing like "morning Martin, morning Danny. Ha ha! Well you look wonderful this morning."' Larry was also seen in the Bush Telegraph talking about Danny and Martins log laughing antics: 'I dont know what it is, whatever it is, their formula seems to work for them. Theyre like an old married couple, a ruck in the evening and in the morning having a leg over.' I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! airs nightly on ITV. She deliberately gained 35lbs for her role in Jason Reitman's upcoming comedy Tully. And on Monday Charlize Theron presented a fuller figure while running errands in Studio City, California. The 41-year-old star went make-up free as she slipped into a long navy frock for her afternoon outing. Movie star method: Charlize Theron presented a fuller figure for her lastest project while running errands in Studio City, California on Monday afternoon The Academy Award-winning actress skipped the cosmetics which allowed her natural beauty and youthful complexion to shine through. She flashed a glimpse of her endless stems and koi fish ankle tattoo in the knee-length garb. A black leather fringed shoulder bag and white sneakers rounded out the Mad Max: Fury Road star's laid-back look. Charlize shielded her emerald green eyes from the southern California rays in a pair of oversized dark movie star shades. Laid-back look: The 41-year-old Oscar winner slipped into a long navy frock after gaining 35lbs for her upcoming film Tully The South African-born stunner - who portrays mother-of-three Marlo in the movie - wrapped filming earlier this month. In the film, her character Marlo is gifted a night nanny named Tully by her brother, and the pair forge a unique bond as the unpredictable and sometimes challenging Tully helps Marlo re-gain control of her life. She stars alongside Ron Livingston, Mackenzie Davis and Mark Duplass in the film which is due in theaters in 2017. In September, sources told People magazine that Charlize had deliberately gained 35lbs for the role. Shaded: The Mad Max: Fury Road star skipped the cosmetics and shielded her green eyes in a pair of oversized dark movie star sunglasses Charlize, a known method actor, previously gained 30lbs for the 2003 film Monster, in which she portrayed serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Her dramatic transformation and stunning performance led her to win 17 awards for the role, including the 2004 Academy Award for Best Actress. In May, she told British GQ that beauty can work against an actress when it comes to landing strong roles. 'Jobs with real gravitas go to people that are physically right for them and thats the end of the story,' she said. 'How many roles are out there for the gorgeous, f**king, gown-wearing eight-foot model? When meaty roles come through, Ive been in the room and pretty people get turned away first.' Jon Voight has made Thanksgiving a little brighter for the staff and youngsters at a nonprofit serving at-risk youth in Louisville, Kentucky. The Oscar-winning actor, 77, was in line at a Walmart on Friday behind Sydney Gholston, who works at the Home Of The Innocents and who was purchasing six turkeys for the holiday meal. After Voight remarked on the number of turkeys she was buying, she explained why and then the Midnight Cowboy star volunteered to pay for the Butterball birds. Generosity: Jon Voight surprised the food director for the Home Of The Innocents in Louisville, Kentucky, by paying for turkeys she was buying for a Thanksgiving meal for at-risk youth The father of Angelina Jolie also gladly posed for a photo with the grateful Gholston and the organization then posted the pic on its Facebook page with a note of thanks. 'Our employee Sydney Gholston went to purchase Thanksgiving turkeys for our kids today. What a treat when she ran into Jon Voight who is in town filming a movie and he asked what the turkeys were for.' 'Jon generously paid for the turkeys to feed our kids next week! We are so thankful for his generosity!' The Oscar-winning actor, 77, was in Kentucky to film a movie and got into a conversation with Sydney Gholston after remarking on the number of turkeys she was buying at Walmart The news of Voight's good deed soon went national after it was picked up by ABC News. The media outlet contacted Gholston directly and she explained she works as the director of food and nutritional services at the home, which provides care to medically-fragile children as well as children who are victims of abuse, abandonment and neglect. 'Very nice guy. He was very interested in what we did at the home. He said that was wonderful,' she said. The turkeys will be cooked and used to feed about 70 children at the home on Thursday. After ABC News posted the story, the Home Of The Innocents wrote on Facebook: 'Wow, ABC News! We're so thankful to everyone who has shared this post and to Jon Voight for his kindness; we love to spread happy news!' The incarcerated son of ex Real Housewives of Orange County star Lauri Peterson has been charged with another felony. Josh Waring 'knowingly and unlawfully' kept Pruno - an alcoholic beverage - while in custody at the Orange County Central Men's jail, and was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance in connection with the incident, Radar Online reports. Earlier this month, Waring was charged with attempted murder in connection with a June 20 incident in which he's accused of shooting a 35-year-old man in his torso, then stealing a BMW SUV to flee the scene. Scroll down for video More problems: Josh Waring 'knowingly and unlawfully' kept an alcoholic beverage while in custody at the Orange County Central Men's jail, police said Family ties: Josh's mother, former RHOC star Lauri Petersen, revealed she adopted his daughter last year amid his ongoing personal problems Penalty: Waring, seen here with his wife Hannah, could have time added onto his jail slate if found guilty of the latest charges In the incident, which took place in Costa Mesa, California at about 2 a.m., eyewitnesses told police that Waring shot a man named Daniel Lopez. Authorities subsequently tracked down Waring with a helicopter, according to authorities with the Orange County Sheriff's Department, and took him into custody at a warehouse in nearby Santa Ana after a pursuit on foot. No firearm was found in the vehicle, officials said, but other evidence linked to the shooting was recovered. He was subsequently taken into custody on suspicion of attempted murder, vehicle theft, felony evading, hit-and-run and assault and battery. Waring, whose bail has been set at $1 million, has pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder charges. Waring told Radar Online in August that while he had been in a fight at the residence where the incident occurred, he didn't shoot at anyone. Out and about: Peterson was snapped at a Bravo bash in Hollywood this past summer Reunited: The former reality star posed for a shot with Bravo linchpin Andy Cohen at the event 'I was using ... I was under the influence, and was chased off the property. It was a mistake of bad timing,' he said. 'Someone came back and shot up the house. Just because I had priors, I was arrested.' He opened up about his daunting list of legal woes in the chat: 'I have four other cases on top of this. One is a trafficking sales case, in which I face a max of 22 years and four months. And for the attempted murder, a 45-year max. I am facing time, which is scary.' If found guilty on the possession charge, Waring could see more time added to his sentence. Better times: Lauri uploaded this family shot of Josh and her daughter Sophie in 2014 Doting: Lauri spends time with Josh's daughter Kennedy, who she's adopted amid his issues Waring's longtime battle with substance abuse was chronicled on the Bravo show's third and fourth seasons. Peterson said she adopted his daughter, Kennedy, amid his issues. She said in an October 2015 interview with the network that she had adopted Josh's daughter Kennedy, her granddaughter, amid his ongoing issues. It Is Easy To Be Dead, Trafalgar Studios 2 Rating: World War One has been extensively mined by playwrights, film-makers and poets. Do we need another play about it? Perhaps not. But Neil McPhersons It Is Easy To Be Dead is well crafted, well staged, well acted. If it touches the heart less than expected that may be down to over-exposure, at this time of year, to 20th century-war grief. It Is Easy To Be Dead is well crafted, well staged, well acted. If it touches the heart less than expected that may be down to over-exposure, at this time of year, to 20th century-war grief Alexander Knox, in a fine central performance, plays British infantry officer Charles Sorley. Charlie sends letters from the Western Front to his parents (Tom Marshall and Jenny Lee) in Cambridge. The play opens, powerfully, with Mr and Mrs Sorley opening the telegram telling them that their boy has been killed in action. In due course they start to re-read his letters and as they do so the words are spoken by Mr Knox. Most engaging he is, too. Captain Sorley was a reluctant warrior. We learn of the time he spent in Germany before the war, when he fell for a married women and for German culture and even German patriotism. I never had an inkling of that feeling for England, he admits. Sorley is an romantic, atheist idealist, as no doubt many became during the misery of war. He takes pride in writing a non-patriotic poem and he wonders how long it will take the pawn to realise he is a pawn. And yet, despite these stirrings of rebellion, he leads his men into battle. Alexander Knox (pictured), in a fine central performance, plays British infantry officer Charles Sorley Playwright McPherson does not gnaw much on that dilemma but that may be because Sorleys writings - on which the play is based glide over it. The show includes handsome period songs, accompanied by live piano. On the back wall we see occasional images of the battlefield and of friends of Sorley, many of them fellow Marlburians, who died in the war. The evening ends with the Sorley poem which gives the play its title. Its pessimistic conclusion is that Great Death has made all his for evermore. She announced her engagement with partner Kieren Jack, last month. And Sydney Swans WAG Charlotte Goodlet will have plenty to prepare on the wedding front, taking to Instagram on Tuesday to reveal she's also a bridesmaid. The 24-year-old blonde beauty is joining the bridal party of fellow AFL couple Jeremy Laidler and Amber Greasley. Scroll down for video Double wedding? Kieren Jack's fiancee Charlotte Goodlet (R), 24, took to Instagram on Tuesday, to reveal she's a bridesmaid to fellow AFL couple Amber Greasley (L) and Jeremy Laidler 'She said yes, then I said yes and now I'm saying yes again!!!' Charlotte began the caption. 'So excited and honoured to be a part of your special day @ambergreasley and @l_laids,' she continued, alongside the hash-tags #bridesmaid, #wedding and #ambersgettinglaid. The snap saw a casual Charlotte, clad in workout gear, beaming for the camera while clutching onto a photo, mini bottle of Moet & Chandon, and a gift tag that read: 'Charlotte, will you be my bridesmaid?' Amber, also sporting active gear, was seen gazing affectionately at Charlotte. Stunning couple: Charlotte announced her engagement with partner and AFL Sydney Swans star Kieren Jack last month. Pictured at this year's AFL Brownlow Medal ceremony in Sydney Wedding bells: Amber is engaged to fellow Sydney Swans star Jeremy Laidler Late October saw Charlotte, a bikini model and producer for Nine News, take to Instagram to share the exciting news that they're set to wed. With her engagement ring on full display, Charlotte share a loved-up snap of the couple with their British bulldog, Nelson, to the social media site. 'I'm so excited to spend the rest of my life with you and our sad looking dog. I love you so, so much,' she gushed. Charlotte added the hash-tag 'engaged' to the photo, which she shared with her 12,000+ followers. 'I'm so excited to spend the rest of my life with you': Late October saw Charlotte, a bikini model and producer for Nine News, take to Instagram to share the exciting news that they're set to wed 'My love for you is never ending': Later, Kieren shared a snap and a heartfelt message of his own Later, Kieren shared a snap and a heartfelt message of his own. 'The emotional moment very shortly after...thank you @charlottegoodlet my love for you is never ending,' the AFL star wrote. Meanwhile, Amber, a former Miss World Australia, announced her engagement with Jeremy in early October. Taking to Instagram the brunette beauty gazed adoringly at her future husband, with a sparkling engagement ring in full view. Amber captioned the snap: 'You're a champion in my eyes, now and always. I love you! An incredible way to end today.' Meanwhile, it remains to be seen if Kieren's parents will be attending their son's wedding, after they were not invited to his 200th AFL game in July. The family dispute reportedly started because Garry and Donna did not approve of Charlotte, believing she is a 'gold digger'. It has also been claimed that Kieren's mother had sent Charlotte, who works for Channel Nine, 'the most appalling' text messages. At a press conference in July, AFL player defended his fiancee, saying: 'She doesn't deserve the treatment she has received. She is strong, she is an independent woman and not just a model. I love her very much and I am very proud of her.' Khloe Kardashian pulled out all the stops for a glamorous charity gala on Monday. The 32-year-old reality star gave fans a sneak peek of her outfit as she headed to the Angel Ball in New York. She is expected to be joined by her sister Kim Kardashian. Here we go! Khloe Kardashian gave fans a sneak peek of her outfit on Snapchat as she headed to the Angel Ball in New York on Monday night Tonights appearance at the Angel Ball is also the first time Kim has been seen on the red carpet since the attack. Momanager Kris Jenner, 61, and Khloe's sister Kourtney, 37, are also expected to attend, as well as a pantheon of celebrities, among them former Real Housewives Of New York star Jill Zarin, 52. Khloe's best friend Jonathan Cheban, 42, was also seen arriving at the ball as was Canadian model, Joscelyn Chew, 20. Inspiration? Khloe's dressed looked similar to one worn by Jennifer Lopez last year Hitching a ride: Kourtney Kardashian posted this Snapchat picture pf herself riding to the venue with Khloe Beautiful brunette: The 37-year-old star showed off her cleavage in a sleeveless black top Kims father Robert Kardashian, who died of esophageal cancer in 2003, is to be honored at the Angel Ball, which is being held at the Wall Street branch of upscale restaurant, Cipriani. It's a big night as proceeds earmarked toward the Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research. The foundation was set up by Grammy-nominated songwriter and philanthropist, Denise Rich in 1996 after her 27-year-old daughter Gabrielle lost her battle with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Along with Gabrielle's sisters Daniella and Ilona, Denise has created in her memory, Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, that funds the best scientific investigators in the US with the hope that less toxic treatments, and ultimately a cure, might be discovered. They suffered an extremely public divorce 11 years ago. And Jennifer Aniston was at risk of an extremely public run-in on Monday evening as she stepped out in London just over a mile away from where her ex-husband Brad Pitt was working. The 47-year-old beauty had just appeared on BBC's The One Show when she vacated the studios in a flirty mini while the actor, 52, was storming the red carpet for the premiere of his new movie Allied. Scroll down for video Low-key in London: Jennifer Aniston was at risk of an extremely public run-in on Monday evening as she stepped out in London just one mile away from where her ex-husband Brad Pitt was working Jennifer, who is now married to actor Justin Theroux, looked phenomenal as she departed the BBC's Broadcasting House, the studio in which the show is filmed in Portland Place, Marylebone. She showed off her incredible legs in the same tweed mini she sported during her appearance earlier on, yet peeled on a sexy pair of glasses. The blonde beauty's appearance on the show was shrouded in controversy after she accidentally said 'sex toys' in front of an audience of disabled children. Despite the pre-watershed gaffe, the Horrible Bosses actress held her head high as she beamed in front of photographers while negotiating her way around the capital. Case of the ex: The 47-year-old beauty had just appeared on BBC's The One Show when she vacated the studios in a flirty mini while the actor, 52, was storming the red carpet for the premiere of his new movie Allied Spec you out! Jennifer showed off her fun choice of eyewear Legs eleven: Jennifer, who is now married to actor Justin Theroux, looked phenomenal as she departed the BBC's Broadcasting House, the studio in which the show is filmed in Portland Place, Marylebone Sexy: She showed off her incredible legs in the same tweed mini she sported during her appearance earlier on, yet transformed into a sexy pair of glasses Jennifer's trademark happy-go-lucky grin appeared to betray the fact that she was unaware of her ex-husband's whereabouts - or in fact unfazed by the proximity. Brad was taking the red carpet by storm as he joined his pregnant co-star Marion Cotillard in unveiling the new movie. The premiere kicked off in Leicester Square - just 1.2miles away from Jennifer's whereabouts in Marylebone. Marion and Brad have been locked at the centre of a media storm after it was announced that Brad was splitting with wife Angelina Jolie - who he is widely considered to have 'left' Jennifer for after falling in love while filming Mr And Mrs Smith. Beaming: Jennifer's trademark happy-go-lucky grin appeared to betray the fact that she was unaware of her ex-husband's whereabouts - or in fact unfazed by the proximity Specs appeal: Jennifer looked sensational for her turn on the show Thigh's the limit: Jennifer's ageless good looks were nothing short of incredible Youthful complexion: Twitter users were in shock over Jennifer's remarkably smooth skin Leggy: The stunning Hollywood star flashed her incredibly legs as she sat in her car Oh dear! Despite the pre-watershed gaffe, the Horrible Bosses actress held her head high as she beamed in front of photographers while negotiating her way around the capital Marion, who is expecting her second child with French actor and director Guillaume Canet, has remained defiant in the face of accusations. During an appearance on the Today Show on Thursday, Marion insisted that she did not hold a grudge when the affair gossip floated around, as she explained: 'I never take anything personally when it doesn't concern me. So I didn't take it personally because I had nothing to do with those rumors or situation.' She was then pressed by interviewer Matt Lauer, who asked if she had let any of the whispers affect the making of the movie. Marion replied: 'No I don't give energy to this and it was a wonderful, wonderful experience working with such a visionary director and amazing actor so that's all that matters.' Pals: Brad was taking the red carpet by storm as he joined his pregnant co-star Marion Cotillard in unveiling the new movie Split: The co-stars have been locked at the centre of a media storm after it was announced that Brad was splitting with Angelina Jolie, who he is widely considered to have 'left' Jennifer for after falling in love while filming Mr And Mrs Smith It's over: Brad's relationship with his second wife Angelina came to a tragic end That was then: Brad and Jennifer met in 1998 after being set up on a blind date by their agents and were soon deemed one of the hottest Hollywood couples. The Fight Club hunk popped the question after two years together (pictured in 2001) Brad and Jennifer met in 1998 after being set up on a blind date by their agents and were soon deemed one of Hollywood's hottest couples. The Fight Club hunk popped the question two years later. The duo married in an idyllic ceremony in Malibu in July 2000. They split in January 2005, shortly after Brad had filmed Mr & Mrs Smith with Angelina. Jennifer filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences and within two months Brad was seen on holiday with Angelina in Kenya with her adopted son Maddox. His divorce from Jennifer was finalised in October and in January 2006, Angelina announced she and Brad were expecting their daughter Shiloh. Young love: The duo married in an idyllic ceremony in Malibu in July 2000. They split in January 2005, shortly after Brad had filmed Mr & Mrs Smith with Angelina (pictured at the 51st Emmy Awards in 1999) Strong and silent: After the devastating split, Jennifer remained a dignified stance, only speaking about the split on a handful of occasions Moving on: Jennifer filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences and within two months Brad was seen on holiday with Angelina in Kenya with her adopted son Maddox After the devastating split, Jennifer remained a dignified stance, only speaking about the split on a handful of occasions. In her tell-all, post-split interview: 'Am I lonely? Yes. Am I upset? Yes. Am I confused? Yes. Do I have my days when Ive thrown a little pity party for myself? Absolutely. But Im also doing really well.' After over ten years as a couple, Brad and Angelina announced their divorce this September, with Angelina also citing irreconcilable differences while seeking full custody of their six children. The couple share six children together Maddox, 15, Pax, 12 Zahara, 11, Shiloh, ten, and eight-year-old twins, Knox and Vivienne. Maddox, Zahara and Pax, who were adopted from orphanages in Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam, respectively. She might be a polished television newsreader based in Sydney, but when it comes to Christmas celebrations Natarsha Belling is all country. The Channel Ten journalist spoke to The Australian Women's Weekly about her plans for the festive season. It involves leaving city life behind and heading to Natarsha's parent's home in Mudgee, central western NSW. Scroll down for video 'It's almost un-Australian not to': Channel Ten newsreader Natarsha Belling explains her family's Christmas plans, saying second helpings of festive food are a must The mother of two boys, Harrison and Hugo, she passes on family traditions through her children. The family will always try and make Christmas Eve mass but the main event falls on Christmas day, with presents only allowed to be opened then. 'Having children, you get to experience it again through the eyes of the child,' she said. Later that day, the family are treated to a cooked meal courtesy of Natarsha's parents, who are 'great cooks'. Natarsha admits the hot food can be 'exhausting in a part of the country where it's often 36C at Christmas'. Glamorous life: The Sydney-based journalist is one of the most recognised faces reading the news but trades it in for the country life at Christmas Presents? Christmas gifts are strictly only allowed to be opened on December 25 But any discomfort is offset by the opportunity to indulge in the delicious food. 'The other thing I love is second servings - it's almost un-Australian not to have second, third and fourth servings on Christmas Day,' the newsreader said. The unveiling of festive plans comes after Natarsha revealed she was asked out by a very famous comedian almost 20 years ago. On Monday night's special episode of Family Feud, she explained that Jerry Seinfeld had invited her to one of his shows while he was touring in Australia in 1998. 'I was a very young journalist and allegedly I think he saw me reading the news and his people called my people, which was me, and I thought it was my uni mate geeing me up and I did not believe it,' the 41-year-old said. Out now: Natarsha divulges her family's Christmas plans in the latest issue of The Australian Women's Weekly 'He invited me to go to his comedy show. 'I said, "Sure, what time do you want me to be there?" thinking that it was my mate ... and then the penny dropped that it was real. 'So I went to his show and met him backstage with heaps of other people and that was it. He was fantastic.' Settled down: Natarsha (right) is married to Glen Sealey (left) and they have two sons together (pictured together in 2004) She is a regular on the red carpet at events around the globe. And on Monday, Deborra-Lee Furness stepped out with her husband Hugh Jackman at the 2016 Angel Ball hosted by Gabrielle's Angel Foundation For Cancer Research. While attending the New York City event, the 60-year-old actress donned her signature choice of attire with sheer knee-length tights and platform heels. Scroll down for video Fine dining: Deborra-Lee Furness stepped out with her husband Hugh Jackman on Monday at the 2016 Angel Ball hosted by Gabrielle's Angel Foundation For Cancer Research The Australian icon matched her usual items with a black straight-cut dress and a matching blazer. She accessorised with a black clutch, silver drop earrings and multiple silver chained necklaces. While she pulled her strawberry blonde locks back into a rough up-do, she showcased her natural beauty through a nude-base makeup. Her usual: At the event, the 60-year-old actress donned her signature choice of attire with sheer knee-length tights and platform heels (left: Nov 2016, right: Jan 2016) Sticking to what she knows: In August, Deborra-Lee was again spotted wearing her usual of sheer tights and peep toed heels during a dinner date with Hugh in Sydney Hugh matched his wife of 20 years on the night as he too opted for an all-black look. The Australian hunk - who is best known for his role as Wolverine - looked dapper as he decked himself out in a black tailored suit. He paired the designer outfit with a simple white button-up shirt and he accessorised with a black silk tie and matching coloured dress shoes. Hugh rocked an unshaven face as he spiked his brown hair back. Matching: Hugh matched his wife at the event on Monday night as he too opted for an all-black look with a tailored suit After celebrating their milestone wedding anniversary in August, Deborra-Lee handed out some simple advice for a lasting relationship. 'Pick the right partner - that's my advice,' she told the Daily Telegraph. While also holding a successful marriage, the pair have also adopted two children; Oscan Maximillian, 16, and Ava Eliot, 11. It was a big night as proceeds earmarked toward the Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research. The foundation was set up by Grammy-nominated songwriter and philanthropist, Denise Rich in 1996 after her 27-year-old daughter Gabrielle lost her battle with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Along with Gabrielle's sisters Daniella and Ilona, Denise has created in her memory, Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, that funds the best scientific investigators in the US with the hope that less toxic treatments, and ultimately a cure, might be discovered. Sofia Richie went shopping in a black crop top that left her tummy exposed on Monday. The petite aspiring model, 18, kept herself warm, though, by donning a Tommy Hilfiger jacket, but naturally left it undone so she could flash some skin. She appeared to be starting to grow out her bleached blonde look as her center hair parting revealed very dark roots. Headed to the stores: Sofia Richie went shopping in West Hollywood on Monday wearing a black crop top that flashed her bare midriff Sofia, whose father is Lionel Richie, wore blue jeans that hugged her hips and were rolled up at the bottoms. She added a pair of bright white Vans shoes. The teen carried a shiny purse as she shopped in trendy boutiques in West Hollywood. Aspiring model: The 18-year-old added blue jeans rolled up at the bottom, white Vans shoes and a Tommy Hilfiger jacket Picture this: Lionel Richie's daughter clearly hoped to garner some attention with her look Loyalty: She also posted this close up of her crop top with the Tommy Hilfiger logo front and center on Instagram. The teen has shot ads for the designer's Spring 2017 denim campaign After getting home with her purchases, the ex-girlfriend of Justin Bieber decided to open up a twitter account. She already had 1.7 million followers on Instagram and use that platform to announce her new Twitter feed. Her first tweet was: 'Just a bit late to the twitter game' followed by a winking smiley face emoji with the tongue stuck out. Within two hours, she'd already logged 2,470 Twitter followers. Home And Away must have amazing insurance coverage if they're letting Pia Miller do her own stunts. The 33-year-old actress was spotted filming scenes for the long-running soap, for which she could be seen throwing herself onto a safety mat. Wearing full police uniform, it looked like her character Katarina Chapman was jumping out of the way of a speeding car. Scroll down for video Watch out! Pia Miller films stunt scenes for Home And Away near Palm Beach Timber! Pia falls to the safety map as she 'dodges' a car in the scene Soft landing: The actress had the benefit of safety mats for the big fall Ouch: Her character Katarina suffers a nasty arm injury from the fall It seems they shot some of the scene with her falling on a couple of safety mats, before getting the reaction shot from a different angle and on the grass. According to reports, the scene shows a drug dealer trying to knock down Katarina near Palm Beach. It looks like she hurts her arm pretty badly as she ends up in the back of an ambulance. Stop! Pia's character tried to stop an unknown drug dealer Tough: Katarina is not one to stand by and let criminals get away New angle: Pia does another take without the mats to get a reaction shot Hurt: She clutches her 'injured' arm as back up arrives Recovered: Another scene sees her in the back of an ambulance It's not the first time that Kat has got into bother with a drug dealer as she was shot by Damo Adams and nearly died. The police officer was saved by James Edmunds (Myles Pollard). History repeating:It's not the first time that Kat has got into bother with a drug dealer as she was shot by Damo Adams and nearly died Fun times: Pia has been on the show since last year after enjoying a modelling career Mum's the word: The actress has two sons, Isiah and Lennox Civilian clothes: Pia arrives on set in her normal attire Pia joined the show last year, having already enjoyed a modelling and presenting career. The mother-of-two's last name comes from her short-lived marriage to AFL player Brad Miller. She's currently in a relationship with Australian film producer, Tyson Mullane. She loves to dazzle in an array of flesh-baring ensembles on the red carpet. And on Monday, Shanina Shaik turned heads as she arrived at the 2016 Angel Ball hosted by Gabrielle's Angel Foundation For Cancer Research in New York City. At the charity event, the 25-year-old Australia model sizzled as she slipped her slender figure into a plunging neckline gown. Scroll down for video Model behaviour: Shanina Shaik stunned in a plunging neckline gown on Monday as she arrived at the 2016 Angel Ball in New York City The figure-hugging ensemble featured a black and white floral pattern all over as well as long straight-cut sleeves. As the garment cropped off at the knees, a matching sheer panel fell over the top, gathering on the ground. To keep the attention on her attire, Shanina wore her short brunette hair out and parted to the left while styled straight. Head-turning: The figure-hugging ensemble featured a black and white floral pattern all over as well as long straight-cut sleeves All eyes on her: To keep the attention on her attire, the Victoria's Secret model wore her short brunette hair out and styled straight, while she opted for a nude-base makeup She also kept her makeup simple with a brown lipstick, gold eye-shadow and a black mascara and eye liner. It was a big night as proceeds earmarked toward the Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research. The foundation was set up by Grammy-nominated songwriter and philanthropist, Denise Rich in 1996 after her 27-year-old daughter Gabrielle lost her battle with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Along with Gabrielle's sisters Daniella and Ilona, Denise has created in her memory, Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, that funds the best scientific investigators in the US with the hope that less toxic treatments, and ultimately a cure, might be discovered. Her red carpet appearance comes after the stunning model enjoyed a trip to the Bahamas. Over the weekend, the Australian beauty was spotted wearing a blue bikini as she carried two huge crabs in both hands during the beach jaunt. Around her waist was a white jumper, which revealed a hint of her pert derriere as she posed on a man made rock wharf which led out to the ocean. Catch of the day! Over the weekend, the Australian beauty was spotted wearing a blue bikini as she carried two huge crabs in both hands Flower power: In a photo posted moments later Shanina appeared traded in her bikini for a flowing yellow dress which had a floral detail printed from the shoulder to the waist Next to the image she wrote, 'Catch of the day!' adding the hash tags 'fyre [Frye] festival', and 'bahamas'. In a photo posted moments later, Shanina traded in her bikini for a flowing yellow dress, which had a floral detail printed from the shoulder to the waist. The summery dress had a long side split which flaunted her trim pins as she posed in front of the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. Jet-setters: Shanina flew to the Bahamas for a trip with fellow model pals via private jet Days earlier, the Victoria's Secret Angel was spotted boarding an aircraft with Chanel Iman, as they jet off to the Bahamas in a private jet. Also joining Shanina and Chanel were fellow IMG-represented models Daniela Lopez Osorio and Nadine Leopold. Shanina is enjoying some time with the girls without her fiance DJ Ruckus. The pair are set to marry soon, after the American musician popped the question last December. She recently alluded to her upcoming wedding in a series of celebratory Instagram snaps. And while Joanna King, 27, remains tight-lipped about when exactly she will marry South Sydney Rabbitohs player George Burgess, 23, an Instagram post about her wedding dress on Tuesday suggested that it could take place within days. The pregnant WAG, who is studying interior design, showed off her burgeoning baby bump in white body con dress after what she described as her 'final fitting.' Scroll down for video Wedding bells: As Joanna King, 27, remains tight-lipped about when exactly she will marry NRL star George Burgess, 23, an Instagram post about her wedding dress on Tuesday suggested that it could take place within days 'Final fitting complete Baby B loved being fussed over - Extra fittings catered just for him,' she captioned. The post comes days after she was pictured enjoying a 'pre-wedding' pamper with her bridesmaids and her future mother-in-law - all wearing matching silk dressing gowns. All of the beauties looked fresh-faced in the photo as they posed closely to one another in front of a table covered in makeup, champagne and cheese and crackers. Celebrating: Joanna previously hinted that their wedding may be fast approaching in a snap of herself and her bridesmaids wearing matching silk dressing gowns on Instagram Joanna captioned the photo: 'Gorgeous pamper night with my bridesmaids and mum to be. 'Thanks to @brownsugarhairandbeauty for organising such a special evening.' George's mother, Julie Burgess, also hinted that the wedding day was around the corner, commenting on the post: 'Lovely pre-wedding pampering...thank you to all the staff for being so thoughtful.' Tuck in: One of Joanna's bridesmaids also shared a close-up photo of their cheese platter and beverages along with the caption: 'When your bestie/bride to be spoils you & the ladies with a pre wedding pamper night' Confirmation: Earlier this year, the beauty salon confirmed on social media that she will be looking after the blonde beauty's hair and makeup for her wedding day One of Joanna's bridesmaids also shared a close-up photo of their cheese platter and beverages along with the caption: 'When your bestie/bride to be spoils you & the ladies with a pre wedding pamper night.' Earlier this year, the beauty salon confirmed on social media that she will be looking after the blonde beauty's hair and makeup for her wedding day. 'The Brown Sugar Hair & Beauty team is honoured to do her hair for her upcoming wedding with our collective crush, George Burgess. Swoon,' they posted back in January. Heading back: Speculation that Joanna and the NRL player may be tying the knot in the coming days comes after he jetted to England to represent the country in 4-Nations competition Baby alert: Last week, Joanna announced she and George were expecting a baby boy on social media as she hit her half-way mark Speculation that Joanna and the NRL player may be tying the knot in coming days comes after he jetted to England to represent the country in the 17-man squad 4-Nations competition against Australia. Last week, Joanna announced she and George were expecting a baby boy on social media. They confirmed in September that they were expecting their first child, eight months after the sportsman dropped to one knee and proposed. As a plus-size model, she's never short of attention. But on Tuesday night's episode of First Dates Australia, 20-year-old Annalise was keen to share her kinky side with 27-year-old Matt. The busty blonde shared to her 'nerdy' date her worst pick-up line ever heard: 'I love every bone in your body....especially mine.' Scroll down for video 'I love every bone in your body...especially MINE': Busty blonde bombshell Annalise, 20, was keen to share her kinky side with 27-year-old Matt on Tuesday night's episode of the dating series For Annalise and Matt, the date started on a very positive note. Matt, a managing director from Victoria, was instantly attracted to the curvaceous model, who flaunted her curves in a skin-tight frock. Having lost 65 kilograms over the past year, Matt's weight loss resulted in a newfound confidence. Appeal: Matt, a managing director from Victoria, was instantly attracted to the curvaceous model, who flaunted her curves in a skin-tight frock Tactics: Matt even shared his dramatic before and after weight loss images with Annalise, hoping to impress the busty blonde Keen to get into the dating scene, Matt revealed to camera that he's 'a serial dater via Tinder [dating app]' and goes on 'two or three dates a week, if not more.' With plenty of banter, Annalise was in the mood to share a few kinky pick-up lines. 'I love every bone in your body....especially mine,' which caused Matt to laugh in mock horror. 'I love every bone in your body....especially mine': With plenty of banter, Annalise was in the mood to share a few kinky pick-up lines Plenty of compliments were also ushered Matt's way, with the stunner revealing that she found her blind date to be 'kind of nerdy, sexy,' and never failing to make her laugh. But despite her admissions, Annalise thought they would be better paired off as mates, leaving Matt heartbroken. Heartbroken Matt: Despite ushering plenty of compliments Matt's way, Annalise thought they would be better paired off as mates 'I don't like the finger up the bottom': Jessica, a 23-year-old doctor, startled Melvin, a 30-year-old banker, with her ultimate pet hate The most awkward of the three dates on the night was between Jessica and Melvin. Jessica, a 23-year-old doctor, startled Melvin, a 30-year-old banker, with her ultimate pet hate. 'I don't like the finger up the bottom,' the petite Asian shared, referring to one of the negative sides of working in the medical field, adding that it makes things 'forever awkward.' Elaborating further, Jessica shared that it's a matter of 'glove on, lube on, and then finger up the bottom.' Melvin's bizarre remark: 'As soon as this date finishes, I'm going to buy that same dress [she was wearing],' causing Jessica to look on in disbelief But the awkward comments were not just from Jessica, with Melvin sharing a rather bizarre remark. 'As soon as this date finishes, I'm going to buy that same dress [she was wearing],' causing Jessica to look on in disbelief. Needless to say, there was no second date initiated, with Jessica simply offering Melvin a handshake. Hitting the wrong note? A second date was also not in the cards for 30-year-old bar manager from Victoria, Bunny, and 30-year-old paramedic from Victoria, Andy A second date was also not in the cards for 30-year-old bar manager from Victoria, Bunny, and 30-year-old paramedic from Victoria, Andy. Despite there being plenty of banter from straight-shooting Bunny and quirky Andy, it appeared that her biggest complaint of being 'friend-zoned' happened once again. When quizzed as to whether long-haired bearded Andy would like to meet with outspoken Bunny, he simply answered: 'probably not.' One date wonder: When quizzed as to whether long-haired bearded Andy would like to meet with outspoken Bunny, he simply answered: 'probably not' The most successful date of the night, albeit a few awkward moments here and there, was between 23-year-old nursing student Sarah from Queensland and 29-year-old electrician from Queensland Reece. There was plenty of flirtation, with Sarah playfully running her hand through her hair, and Reece looking suggestively at the busty brunette. After ordering a mocktail, Reece was sure to playfully tease his date on the selection of a non-alcoholic beverage, to which Sarah took in good humour. It came as no surprise at the end, that both would agree to a second date, locking lips for a long and steamy kiss. Sparks: The most successful date of the night, albeit a few awkward moments here and there, was between 23-year-old nursing student Sarah from Queensland and 29-year-old electrician from Queensland Reece The anti-fur lobby disrupted the arrival of Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian and their mom Kris Jenner at New York's Angel Ball on Monday night. The reality TV family are regularly criticized for their decision to keep wearing animal pelts with the exception being Khloe who chooses only to wear fake fur. Still, the 32-year-old still had to face the barrage as she arrived at Cipriani in Manhattan for the charity event with Kourtney, 37, and Kris, 61. Scroll down for video Protest! The Kardashians had to walk past demonstrators protesting their wearing of fur as they arrived at the Angel Ball in Manhattan on Monday night Protesters held up signs that read: 'Kardashian fur scum,' 'F*** fur' and 'Stop wearing fur! Fur = violence.' It's not the first time the celebrity clan have been targeted by pro-animal activists. Back in May 2015, Kim was swarmed by anti-fur protesters at a book signing for Selfish in a Manhattan bookstore, and in March 2012, she was flour-bombed on the red carpet by a suspected PETA supporter. Kim avoided the lobbyists this time around after deciding to skip the event after her husband Kanye West was hospitalized in Los Angeles. Fur = violence: The anti-fur protesters didn't mince words as they held up signs aimed at the reality TV family Showed skin, not fur: Momager Kris Jenner and daughters Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian weren't wearing fur for the charity event, opting instead for revealing gowns They're dead: Kris, 61, loves to wear fur. She's pictured at Paris Fashion Week on October 2 with animal pelts around her neck Keeps her warm: The momager has a number of fur and fur-trimmed items in her wardrobe Just last month, momager Kris was photographed wearing a fur stole as she arrived for the Givenchy Fashion Show during Paris Fashion Week. Kim Kardashian, 35, is a big fan of fur and wore a long mink coat while out and about in NYC in September 2015 despite having been targeted by protesters in May that year during a book signing for Selfish. She was also flour-bombed on a red carpet back in March 2012 by a suspected PETA supporter. Kim has also dressed up daughter North West, four, in fur and sister Kourtney and her partner Scott Disick have also been photographed wearing fur-trimmed jackets. Khloe, though, has taken a public stand against the use of animal fur for fashion and only wears fake fur. Kim Kardashian, 35, who skipped Monday's event at the last minute due to husband Kanye West's hospitalization in Los Angeles, is a big fan of fur and wore a long mink coat while out and about in NYC in September 2015 Kim also dresses her daughter North West in fur. The tot is pictured with her dad on Valentine's Day Kourtney, 37, and partner Scott Disick are also fur wearers - they're seen here with fur-trimmed coats at LAX in February She's a highly-successful model who has become an international advocate for the transgender community. But in New York on Monday, Andreja Pejic was raising awareness for another cause - cancer research. The 25-year-old attended the 2016 Angel Ball hosted by Gabrielle's Angel Foundation For Cancer. Scroll down for video Stunning: Australian transgender model Andreja Pejic stunned in a form-fitting black evening dress accessorised by a series of elaborate chokers at the 2016 Angel Ball in New York City on Monday The Australian model dazzled in an elaborate glittering choker, proving the old adage true that diamonds are a girl's best friend. The 25-year-old channeled old Hollywood glamour with her long long blonde locks perfectly tousled into movie star waves. The stunning model kept her make up simple with only a hint of yellow eye shadow and nude lipstick. Andreja, who transitioned into a woman in 2014, wasn't shy to accessorise. Old Hollywood: The 25-year-old channeled movie star glamour with her blonde hair slightly tousled Model outfit: The 25-year-old's alabaster complexion was beautifully complemented by the black dress She wore star shaped earrings and an elaborate series of choker necklaces which featured chains and diamonds. Spaghetti straps showed off the model's slender frame and a glittering silver belt accentuated her waist. The velvet evening dress hugged her frame and contrasted beautifully with her alabaster complexion. Top model: Andreja underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2014 Also attending the ball fundraiser was fellow Australian model Shanina Shaik. It was a big night as proceeds earmarked toward the Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research. The foundation was set up by Grammy-nominated songwriter and philanthropist, Denise Rich in 1996 after her 27-year-old daughter Gabrielle lost her battle with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Along with Gabrielle's sisters Daniella and Ilona, Denise has created in her memory, Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, that funds the best scientific investigators in the US with the hope that less toxic treatments, and ultimately a cure, might be discovered. Born in Bosnia, Andreja moved to Melbourne, Australia at eight years of age after her family was granted political asylum. The blonde beauty was discovered while working at McDonald's aged 16. Her androgynous look quickly won over the fashion world and she modelled for a string of big names such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Marc Jacobs and Vogue. Discovered: Andreja was discovered in Melbourne working at a McDonald's at the age of 16 But Andreja faced discrimination in 2011 when FHM magazine referred to her as a 'thing' and 'professional cross-dresser' in an online profile. The magazine apologised after an outcry of disgust over the article. Since undergoing female gender reassignment surgery two years ago, Andreja continues to model. She's the Australian rapper who has admitted she didn't feel a 'home connection' to her native country anymore. But Iggy Azalea's time in Australia supporting and judging X Factor mentees may have changed the way she sees other Australian hopefuls. According to The Daily Telegraph, The 26-year-old reportedly supported two local Sydney artists on Friday before she heads home to the US. Scroll down for video She's so fancy! Iggy Azalea supports local Australian artists as she's spotted splashing out on two unusual works on Friday at M Contemporary Gallery in Sydney's Woollahra for her new American abode, according to Daily Telegraph The blonde musician popped into M Contemporary Gallery in Sydney's Woollahra to view some eccentric artworks by Sydney-based female artists. The publication spoke to the gallery owner, who said Azalea returned to view and purchase the pieces after seeing them in the window as she drove past. 'Shes just bought a new house and said she had been searching for a long time to find something that would work in her place,' the owner said. The Fancy hit-maker bought a painting by emerging artist Jodie Clark called Tigress, Portrait of a Lady unfinished 2016 and an image of a melting ice cream titled Like Ice in the Sunshine by photographer Simone Rosenbauer. Striking! Of her new purchases, she is know the proud owner of a 'quite sexual and empowered' piece of a tiger head attached to a sketch of a detailed, nude female figure (similar to the one pictured by artist Jodi Clark) Both artworks sold to Iggy are estimated to be worth $3,000 to $15,000 each. The painting by Jodie featured a floral background with a tiger head attached to a sketch of a detailed, nude female figure. 'My work is quite sexual and empowered, a lot of people look at the work and run the other way, so I hope that Iggy buying my work will inspire other people to stop and take a second look and see where it is coming from,' the artist said. Pricey! Iggy bought two artworks, estimated to be worth between $3,000 and $15,000 each As an emerging artist, Jodie was extremely pleased to receive a sale from an A-list client, having only opened her first solo exhibition this week. 'I think it bodes very well for me considering this is my first solo show. Especially to have a new collector who is a strong like-minded female like Iggy Azalea and to know she will have my work and will display it at her house, its a great feeling,'she said. The emerging artists Iggy mentored in X Factor may not have taken out the top spots, but it's likely she'll stay in touch throughout their careers. He has just announced he is expecting a child with his ex girlfriend. And Nick Cannon celebrated his exciting news by donning a turban as he attended an interview in New York on Monday. The America's Got Talent host was killing it as he posed up at the SiriusXM Studios thanks to his gently comical choice of headgear. Hell bent for leather: Nick Cannon looked cool in his coat and turban combo in NYC on Monday The 36-year-old beefcake rounded off his look with a branded leather jacket, white T-shirt, trousers and boots. Disc jockey Nick was overjoyed last week when he announced he is having a baby with his beauty queen ex-girlfriend Brittany Bell. The Wild 'n Out host made his happy announcement on several radio shows last Thursday. During an appearance on New York's WWPR-FM, he told the hosts: 'God said be fruitful and multiply. I'm doing the Lord's work.' The turban-ator: The trendy funnyman was killing it thanks to his flamboyant headscarf Daddy cool: The father-to-be's future child will no doubt look back on Nick's unique sense of style with great fondness Signing off: Just when it seemed he could not be any cooler he threw hands signs into the mix Indeed. He also celebrating with a new song, playing a clip of Baby on the Way during an appearance on Elvis Duran and the Morning Show. The thrilling track is included on his new The Gospel of Ike Turn Up mixtape. Nick is already the father of five-year-old twins, Moroccan and Monroe, with ex-wife Mariah Carey. As if he did not already have enough on his plate, the jolly jester is set to host the HALO awards on Nickelodeon on November 27. Getting jiggy with it: Nick dancing with his beauty queen ex Brittany Bell at The Maxim Superbowl Party in January 2015 They're in the final two of Australia's Next Top Model with fans used to seeing them all dolled up on photo shoots. And on Tuesday ahead of the finale, hopefuls Aleyna FitzGerald, 17, and Sabine Jamieson, 17, looked barely recognisable in sweet childhood flashback photos. The images were shared on Instagram on the show's official account, with the girls admitting they've always wanted to be models. Scroll down for video Who will win? On Tuesday ahead of the finale, hopefuls Aleyna FitzGerald, 17, (L) and Sabine Jamieson, 17, (R, seen with host Jennifer Hawkins) looked barely recognisable in sweet childhood flashback photos Ambitious: 'Ever since I was a little girl, I've always wanted to model', Aleyna said in the short clip 'Ever since I was a little girl, I've always wanted to model', Aleyna said in the short clip. 'I'm so proud of myself of how far I've come,' she added, as shots of her childhood flashed, including of her doing dancing and ballet. Sabine meanwhile said in her clip: 'I can't believe how far I've come, I grew up a bit of a hippie, I've always been a little bit quirky.' Adorable: The images were shared on Instagram on the show's official account, with the girls admitting they've always wanted to be models (seen is Aleyna) In the spotlight: 'I'm so proud of myself of how far I've come,' Aleyna added, as shots of her childhood flashed, including of her doing dancing and ballet Cute! Sabine (seen) meanwhile said in her clip: 'I can't believe how far I've come, I grew up a bit of a hippie, I've always been a little bit quirky' Decisions, decisions: Aleyna and Sabine are in the running to be crowned the winner of the tenth series of Australia's Next Top Model Aleyna and Sabine are in the running to be crowned the winner of the tenth series of Australia's Next Top Model. The girls both hail from NSW and made the final two after beating out 11 other contestants on the series. This week, Sabine told The Daily Telegraph about making the final, after winning her spot when the competition was taken to Milan, Italy. She said she hasn't been overly confident and had made it because she focused on staying in the moment. They did it! The girls both hail from NSW and made the final two after beating out 11 other contestants on the series 'I always tried to go through the competition hoping for the best but not expecting too much,' she said. 'I never let myself see the end. I focused on the moment.' Aleyna meanwhile said even if she didn't win sjhe's ready to pave out her modelling career. 'I really want to aim big,' Aleyna said. They're the newlyweds taking a very relaxed low-key honeymoon along the Queensland coastline - right in the middle of Schoolies Week. But Jesinta and Buddy Franklin have managed to dodge the crowds and are continuing to post loved-up snaps from their romantic holiday with friends and family. The happy couple drove up from their idyllic Byron Bay resort this week to catch up with Jesinta's parents beachside, posting a snap to Instagram. Scroll down for video Sharing the love? Jesinta Campbell and Buddy Franklin continue to post loved-up honeymoon snaps to Instagram stories, as they seemingly share the romantic moments with friends and family Australian model Jesinta, 25, and AFL star Buddy, 29, have been staying at Byron Bay's luxury resort Rae's on Wategos after tying the knot two weeks ago. It's believed the couple have been using a rental car to get around in the sunny state, and may have driven to where Jesinta's family reside for a catch up. Buddy wore floral speedos for the family outing, while Jesinta stunned in a white bikini with a blue button-up T-shirt as a shawl. 'Love': Jesinta has been sharing her honeymoon moments to her social media followers in a series of short videos and image uploads to Instagram Adorable! Buddy uploaded the loved-up image to his Instagram story, as he hugged his new wife from behind and gave her a sweet kiss on the cheek Buddy uploaded the loved-up image to his Instagram story, as he hugged his new wife from behind and gave her a sweet kiss on the cheek. Jesinta accessorized her beach luxe look with large circular sunglasses and a double-roped choker. It's believed they shared the heavenly day near the clear blue waters with Jesinta's mother, father and sister. Honeymoon location! The newlyweds have shared they have been staying at Byron Bay's Rae's On Wategos after tying the knot two weeks ago However, it wasn't the first time the couple documented sharing their intimate time away with others. On the weekend, the pair had some of their close friends crash their honeymoon. Buddy took to Instagram on Monday to share a snap of himself with his new wife and West Coast Eagles player Sharrod Wellingham and his partner Tory. 'La mia famiglia': Jesinta Campbell and Buddy Franklin (L) had friends Sharrod Wellingham and his partner Tory crash their Gold Coast honeymoon this week Buddy captioned the happy snap: 'La mia famiglia.' Tory meanwhile shared the same image to her public Instagram account, writing: 'honeymoon crashers.' In the image, Tory holds the camera as Sharrod sits next to her, with Buddy going shirtless and Jesinta wearing a bikini and a white throw over as they sit by the water. Life's a beach! Tory also shared a shot of herself on a main beach on the Gold Coast, having gone for a swim with a fresh-faced Jesinta and her pal Elliot Garnaut The former pageant queen had her locks pulled back into double buns and she covered her face with a dark pair of sunglasses. Tory also shared a shot of herself on a main beach on the Gold Coast, having gone for a swim with a fresh-faced Jesinta and her pal Elliot Garnaut. Elliot also shared to Instagram a shot of himself sunbathing in a modern-style house as Jesinta shows off her flawless bikini body lying near him. In another image, he takes a selfie as Jesinta and Buddy and Sharrod and Tory stand behind them. Basking in the sun: Elliot also shared to Instagram a shot of himself sunbathing in a modern-style house as Jesinta shows off her flawless bikini body lying near him Selfie! In another image, he takes a selfie as Jesinta and Buddy and Sharrod and Tory stand behind them Jesinta and Buddy kept their honeymoon location a secret since getting married in the Blue Mountains earlier this month. But their luxury beach destination was recently revealed as Queensland's Gold Coast. The Sunday Telegraph reported the couple have spent the last 10 days at the tourist hotspot - right in the middle of Schoolies. Jesinta and Buddy's wedding two weeks ago was kept secret from the public and media until after the ceremony. And the couple took an equally low-key approach to the honeymoon by offering fans just a few glimpses of coastline in their Instagram photos. Newlyweds: Jesinta and Buddy kept their honeymoon location a secret since getting married in the Blue Mountains earlier this month But it has now been confirmed they are celebrating their first days as husband and wife in Australia's Schoolies capital. Jesinta and Buddy's holiday destination was revealed after Queensland socialite Judy Brine shared a photo of herself with the couple on Instagram. She notably declined to comment when approached by the News Corp publication about their 'chance' meeting. Meanwhile, a Range Rover dealer in Southport confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph they was using one of their vehicles during the trip. She's a fan! Jesinta and Buddy's holiday destination was revealed after Queensland socialite Judy Brine shared a photo of herself with the couple on Instagram But the Gold Coast may not be the most idyllic of destinations for a newly-married couple this week. Because thousands of teenagers have flown to Queensland to celebrate the end of their final year of high school. The Real Housewives Of Orange County reunion ended with a bang on Monday night with Tamra Judge barking 'shut up old lady' at Vicki Gunvalson. Shannon Beador also stormed out in tears over rumours that Vicki spread accusing her husband David of beating her. Tamra meanwhile was incensed that Vicki had suggested her husband is gay. Strong point: Tamra Judge told Vicki Gunvalson to shut up during the third and final episode on Monday of The Real Housewives Of Orange County reunion Shannon denied that David had ever hit her, but said she once fell over while they were arguing. 'In 2003 I called the police because we had an argument,' admitted Shannon, 52. Adding: 'There was nothing physical, we had a verbal argument, I wanted the argument to end'. Vicki claimed to have 'proof' about David's alleged violent tendencies. Claimed proof: Vicki claimed to have proof that Shannon Beador was abused by her husband David 'What you're doing is so pathetic,' said Shannon, recounting 'the darkest place in her marriage' a night when she got blackout drunk and fell over. 'It was right after I found out about David's affair,' she sobbed. 'You're despicable, I will never, ever speak to you again,' she screamed at Vicki. In the middle: Andy Cohen hosted the RHOC reunion show 'I would never stay in a marriage if I was being beat up,' she continued. 'You are hurting my family,' Shannon bawled, before running out of the room. 'These women are so cruel,' she blubbered to Tamra, who had followed her outside. Stormed out: Shannon stormed out of the show in tear as Tamra followed her Showing support: Tamra encouraged Shannon to get back out there 'Spousal abuse is a very serious allegation,' Shannon told Vicki, after she'd calmed down a notch. Heather Dubrow also screamed at Vicki, demanding that she kiss 'Shannon's a**' and 'beg for forgiveness'. 'She made me out like a con woman and a liar and I didn't lie, and I didn't go on a cancer scam and I'm tired of it,' growled Vicki, 54. Not happy: Heather Dubrow yelled at Vicki for spreading rumours about Shannon On the defense: Vicki growled about being called a con woman last season Kelly Dodd sided with Shannon. 'She did it to herself,' she said, referring to the bruises Shannon had from falling over while drunk that night in 2003. To aggravate tensions further Vicki said she still isn't sure if Tamra's husband Eddie is gay. Sticking together: Kelly Dodd and Vicki presented a mostly united front 'How would I know?' she shrugged. 'Will you shut up old lady,' barked Tamra, 49. 'Stop spreading rumours about people,' scowled the fitness fanatic. Gay rumours: Vicki also was accused of spreading rumours that Tamra's husband is gay Kelly said that Heather had been condescending to her all season. 'Not now, not now that the whole world hates you,' she fumed. 'It's statements like that, that make you unlikeable,' said Heather. Good one: Heather told Kelly that she made unlikeable statements Kelly did apologise for baiting Tamra about her estranged daughter. 'I didn't mean to hurt you,' she regretted. The show had opened with a dissection of the buggy accident that happened on the Imperial Sand Dunes in Glamis, California. Bad accident: Tamra was behind the wheel of the accident in Glamis Vicki was left injured after the crash, but no one visited her in hospital. Meghan King Edmonds had doubted that Vicki was really hurt, saying 'all she's done is lie, lie lie'. The former model also insinuated that Heather had played 'the morality police' on the incident. Morality police: Meghan King Edmonds insinuated that Heather was the 'morality police' 'It was TV Heather, it didn't sound like you,' she shrugged. Adding: 'Vicki exaggerates and makes stuff up'. Tamra piped up by saying that Vicki's own daughter, Briana Culberson, had accused her of faking her injuries. 'She said to me 'my mom is over dramatizing everything, as soon as the cameras go down she takes her neck brace off and she runs around the house and drinks wine',' she squawked. Faking injuries: Heather, Tamra and Shannon talked about Vicki faking her injuries 'I did drink a lot of wine,' admitted Vicki, who said she had played down her injuries so as not to worry her daughter. Shannon called Vicki 'so bossy' but Vicki said she'd 'drive all day' if Shannon was ever in hospital. The post mortem of the women's protracted catfight in Ireland grew equally acrimonious. Ireland trip: Kelly was at the center of the Ireland trip drama 'I felt like Kelly was baited,' said Meghan, 32, who was pregnant with her first child. Shannon insisted that she was not deliberately trying to get Kelly drunk on the trip. 'I never singled Kelly out,' she protested. 'It was 100 percent a set up,' Kelly retorted, calling 'lies' when Shannon said there was 'no ill intent'. The reunion episode with the housewives and Andy doing a shot with the exception of pregnant Meghan. She's preparing for her seventh Victoria's Secret Show in a week's time. And Lily Donaldson certainly showed why she's a favourite of the brand, strutting down the red carpet at Monday night's star-studded Angel Ball in a jaw-dropping dress. The Brit beauty showed off her model credentials in a draped scarlet gown which flashed her endless legs. Work it: Lily Donaldson strutted down the red carpet at Monday night's star-studded Angel Ball in a jaw-dropping dress Arriving at the New York event, Lily, 29, turned heads in her daring choice of dress. The shimmering scarlet number, which also appeared burnt orange under the lights, fitted her stunning figure perfectly. The halter-neck design flashed a hint of sideboob as the model went braless under the flimsy fabric, but much of the focus was on Lily's legs thanks to a daring thigh-high split. Leggy: The Brit beauty showed off her model credentials in a draped scarlet gown which flashed her endless legs Show stopper: Arriving at the New York event, Lily, 29, turned heads in her daring choice of dress She added even more height with a pair of delicate gold strappy heels, while ditching the accessories, save for some simple hoop earrings and a bangle, to keep all the attention on her show-stopping dress. The finishing touches were an effortlessly elegant updo and a dash of makeup to highlight her stunning features. Lily joined a celeb crowd at the ball, which was held at the Wall Street branch of upscale restaurant Cipriani. What a dress! The shimmering scarlet number, which also appeared burnt orange under the lights, fitted her stunning figure perfectly Glam night out: The top model cosied up to her pal Mohammed al Turki for a photo Model behaviour: Lily and Mohammed were joined by beauties Georgia Fowler, Valentina Zelyaeva, Lais Ribero and Jacqueline Jablonski at their table All dressed up: Lily added even more height with a pair of delicate gold strappy heels Glam gown: The beauty ditched the accessories, save for some hoop earrings and delicate bangle to keep all the attention on her show-stopping dress The annual event raises money for the Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research. The foundation was set up by Grammy-nominated songwriter and philanthropist, Denise Rich in 1996 after her 27-year-old daughter Gabrielle lost her battle with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Along with Gabrielle's sisters Daniella and Ilona, Denise has created in her memory, Gabrielles Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, that funds the best scientific investigators in the US with the hope that less toxic treatments, and ultimately a cure, might be discovered. It's been a busy few weeks for Lily, who has been based in NYC to undergo fittings and rehearsals for the upcoming Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, which will be her seventh appearance for the brand. While the rehearsals are taking place in NYC, this year's show is set to shoot in Paris for the first time ever on November 30 and will be broadcast on television on December 5. Let's party! Lily looked in great spirits as she made her way out of the charity bash Putting her best foot forward: Lily's dress flashed even more leg in the breezy NYC weather The female staff of Lisa Vanderpump's Sur restaurant had it in for hostess Lala Kent on Monday's episode of Vanderpump Rules. Kristen Doute called her 'a sociopathic skank' while joining Katie Maloney and Stassi Schroeder in believing Lala was 'dating a married man' who'd been bankrolling her with fancy gifts. 'I prefer to make my money the old fashioned way by putting in the time and the effort, as opposed to putting a d*** in my mouth, like Lala,' complained Katie. Candid conversation: Katie Maloney accused Lala Kent of dating a married man on Monday's episode of Vanderpump Rules Katie, 29, also accused Lala of being 'completely fake'. 'I am in a committed relationship,' protested Lala, who said her mother paid for her phone and all her designer goods. The luxury car that they believed she was gifted, Lala said, was via a $350 lease. During a boozy house party at Katie and Tom Schwartz's place Stassi and Kristen called Lala a c***. Committed relationship: Lala protested that she was in a committed relationship and said her mother pays her bills and buys her designer goods 'Lala is like a sociopathic skank there's no other way around it, you don't date a married man and then deny and lie, she's f***ing insane,' announced Kristen, 33. 'I couldn't even give her a hair flip in a b****y way,' said Stassi, 28. The girls were also annoyed that Scheana Shay was talking with Lala. Common enemy: Stassi Schroeder also said she didn't care about Lala 'I don't care to be friends with her,' said Scheana who told Katie she'd 'shut her down' in future to keep everyone happy. Meanwhile Stassi was going nuts about her on/off relationship with Patrick Meagher. 'Misery loves company but it's really hard to find company when all your friends are so f***ing happy,' she complained. Relationship woes: Brittany Cartwright listened to Stassi talk about her on/off relationship The show opened with Katie and the girls, who were celebrating Katie's engagement to Tom. Ariana and Lala were absent. 'I'm asking if you'll all be my bridesmaids,' beamed Katie. Wedding soon: Katie opened the show asking her friends to be bridesmaids They all bonded with Brittany Cartwright, Jax's sweet-hearted girlfriend from Kentucky. Stassi said: 'I don't even think of Jax as an ex-boyfriend now, I think of him as like, an ape, who has a really cool girlfriend'. Katie later spent $2,775 on the wedding invites alone. Fan favourite: Jax Taylor moved on from his issues with Brittany Blonde beauty: Ariana Madix was getting along with everyone 'Weddings should be crowd funded,' grumbled Tom who wanted to throw the whole wedding for $3,000. Outspoken Brit James Kennedy had recently been put in a headlock by Edmund, Scheana's wedding photographer. Jax was pleased about the incident. British DJ: James Kennedy was put in a headlock by a wedding photographer 'He should have squeezed [James' head] like a pimple,' he laughed. Filled with bravado James explained the scuffle to his boss Lisa. 'People see me winning right now,' he boasted. Thin ice: Lisa Vanderpump warned James that he was on thin ice 'I don't trust you,' Lisa told him, warning that one more slip up would get him fired. 'He's young and stupid,' Lisa told Scheana. The men had a bonding dinner at Tom Schwartz's apartment. Special meal: Tom Schwartz made dinner for Tom Sandoval and Jax They talked prenups and Tom asked them to be his groomsmen. 'They hazed the s*** out of me, whether it was out of love or spite, they hazed me,' said Tom, who had infused their food with 'his own special spice'. After they'd finished eating he showed them photos of his bottom, with the steaks they'd just consumed pressed between his cheeks. 'I'd just run three miles and I didn't shower afterwards,' he giggled. Practical joke: Jax and Tom were served up special steaks by Schwartz Wedding party: Ariana took not being asked to be a bridesmaid by Katie in stride 'A** steaks or no a** steaks, I liked it,' shrugged Jax, who wanted 'transvestites' and 'strippers' for the bachelor party. Lala decided to apologise to Scheana. 'But now she has her head so far up Katie's a**, I'm just hoping that god is with me,' she sighed. Apology tour: Lala decided to apologize to Scheana and Katie for past mean comments 'I feel badly that I've basically been a bully,' Lala told Scheana, who wasn't willing to be friends with her until Katie had forgiven her. 'I'm not good with people who trash my friends,' she barked. Outcasts Lala and James met for a drink while everyone else partied at Tom and Katie's apartment. The outcasts: James and Lala were not invited to Tom and Katie's housewarming party Lala called Katie 'a f***ing bitch' and completely denied dating a married man. James speculated that Tom and Katie's party was 'them being basic as f***, sitting on the couch drinking wine'. 'Jax is on his way to getting lit and Tom and Ariana are wishing they aren't there,' he added perceptively. Vanderpump Rules continues next Monday on Bravo. Tight jeans: Scheana's rear end was deemed to be much smaller by Jax She famously played the vivacious yet deadly Pola Ivanova opposite Roger Moore's James Bond, in a View To A Kill. But Fiona Fullerton gave up her connections to Hollywood when she became a mother, choosing to focus on family instead of work - something she feels strongly about. Speaking about her views on mother's who chose to do both (specifically actresses), the 60-year-old businesswoman exclaimed: 'I don't know how they do it.' Scroll down for video 'I don't know how they do it': Fiona Fullerton gave up her acting career when she became a mother, choosing to focus on family instead of work - something she says is the right choice Talking to the Daily Express, the former Bond Girl explained she felt that working whilst also raising children diluted and weakened the bond between mother and child. 'You can still carry on a career as an actress if you do have children but it means you are not a very good mum because you are never there,' Fiona opined. Speaking about her own experience in the industry, having shot to fame as a Bond Girl and then taken on a succession of roles in TV, the actress decided to give up her career in favour of being a full-time mother. 'it means you are not a very good mum': Talking to the Daily Express, the former Bond Girl explained she felt that working whilst also raising children diluted the maternal bond Explaining her decision to 'move out of the business', the actress said that in 1995 she felt it was best for her to spend time at home with her daughter, Lucy. Expanding on the theme, Fiona said that she felt it was the best thing to do for her daughter, as well as her step-son, James, who had just lost his mother. 'I had to make a decision: either I wanted to be a full-time mum or be a full-time actress,' she said. ' And I decided I wanted to be with my kids and I have two well-adjusted, beautiful children so I am very, very pleased because I definitely made the right decision.' Back then: Fiona (pictured in 1991) quit acting when she gave birth to her first child with husband Neil Shackell 'I wanted to be with my kids': Explaining her decision, the actress said that in 1995 she felt it was best for her to be with daughter, Lucy (pictured with Fiona in 2014), and step-son, James Made the right move? She added: 'I have two well-adjusted, beautiful children so I am very, very pleased because I definitely made the right decision' Fiona has briefly stepped back into the spotlight over the years, but not before her children were grown-up. In 2013 she starred in both Masterchef and Strictly Come Dancing, on which she was partnered with fan-favourite, Anton du Beke - with whom she reached the vaunted Blackpool week. Fiona has Lucy, 21, with her second husband Neil Shackell, and she is step-mother to his son, James, 27. Following her career as an actress Fiona went on to establish a property business. She recently confessed she's beginning to love herself, despite not looking like a 'Victoria's Secret model'. And Ferne McCann practised what she preached as she stepped out in style for a night in London on Monday. The former TOWIE star, 26, turned heads in a figure-hugging LBD, which flaunted her toned legs and teased her busty cleavage with a keyhole neckline. Scroll down for video It's party time: Ferne McCann turned heads in a figure-hugging LBD as she hit the town in London on Monday night The sexy garment cinched in the TV personality's slim waist with a thin black belt, and she teamed her short black dress with towering ankle boots. Ferne kept the winter chill at bay for her night out on the town by wrapping up in a chic patent leather jacket with navy faux-fur detailing. With her locks piled high into a chic up-do, all emphasis was placed on the former I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! star's striking features. Sexy style: The former TOWIE star's sexy garment cinched in her slim waist, and was teamed with towering black shoe boots With her locks piled high into a chic up-do, all emphasis was placed on the former I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! star's striking features Last week, Ferne opened up to MailOnline last week on learning to love herself. She said: 'It's really difficult. Sometimes I spend nights on my Instagram feed and feel really sh** about myself. 'I find myself thinking there's just so many beautiful people out there and I feel rubbish about myself, we all get those ugly days.' In the same breath, the reality TV star went on to say that she's better at praising herself for the little things now, offering advice on combating her 'self-loathing'. 'Yeah, I don't look like a Victoria's Secret model,' she told MailOnline. 'But I [tell myself I] did ace that job interview today. 'I feel rubbish about myself': Ferne told MailOnline last week that she regularly struggles with self-esteem issues Ferne also made the brave decision to undergo cosmetic surgery earlier this year and 'fix' her nose insecurity that had long plagued her. She unveiled the results on ITV's This Morning in August. Though as a public figure, Ferne still faced questions over whether she was advocating surgery to a younger audience, especially given the loyal following of ITVBe's The Only Way Is Essex. Ferne's response was: 'For people thinking that I'm promoting plastic surgery, is just rubbish because you can see what type of girl I am, I'm not that 'surge' looking girl. TV personality: Ferne has been a showbiz presenter on ITV's This Morning since the start of the year after finishing in third place on 2015's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Expert: Ferne has been in her element while discussing this year's contestants Charming: She giggled as she chatted animatedly on This Morning 'It's not like I'm a walking, walking plastic surgery promoter, it was just my one insecurity but I'm still a big believer in learning to love yourself from the inside.' Meanwhile, Ferne, who has been a showbiz presenter on ITV's This Morning since the start of the year, is in her element while discussing this year's contestants on ITV's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here, alongside Holly Willoughby on Tuesday. Ferne competed in the grisly ITV series last year and finished in third place behind winner Vicky Pattison and runner-up George Shelley. Fashionista: On Tuesday morning's appearance, Ferne looked sartorially savvy in rose gold satin trousers and stylish white blouse Hanging on her every word: Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby were deep in conversation with the former TOWIE star She stole the show in a leather miniskirt in Moscow on Monday while promoting her new film Underworld: Blood Wars. And Kate Beckinsale took centre-stage again a day later as she attended a photocall in Berlin, Germany, for the fifth installment of the action horror franchise. The actress, 43, looked incredible as she flaunted her enviably svelte physique in a skintight navy dress, which she teamed with quirky printed stilettos. Scroll down for video Turning heads: Kate Beckinsale took centre-stage once again as she attended a photocall in Berlin, Germany, on Tuesday for the fifth film in the Underworld franchise The brunette beauty looked typically fashion-forward in the knitted second-skin dress, which clung to her every curve, and featured a racy mesh insert at the neckline. Injecting a bolt of colour to her ensemble, Kate rocked a killer pair of multi-print heels in hues of orange and green. The screen star's trademark ombre-hued tresses were styled in thick glossy waves that framed her striking features in a soft middle-parting. Adding a dewy glow to her ivory complexion, the actress boasted a pink blusher and a dusky rose lipstick. Chic: The actress, 43, looked incredible as she flaunted her enviably svelte physique in a skintight navy dress, which she teamed with quirky printed stilettos Elegant: The brunette beauty looked typically fashion-forward in the knitted second-skin dress, which clung to her every curve Striking: Kate's trademark ombre-hued tresses were styled in thick glossy waves Kate has been keeping busy jetting around the globe as she blazes the promo trail for Underworld. On Monday, the actress looked incredible as she flaunted her enviably svelte legs in a black miniskirt while posing for photographs on the roof of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow. The Serendipity star effortlessly flaunted her slim physique in the thigh-grazing skirt, which she lent an 80s edge thanks to a jewel-encrusted heart motif belt. Leading lady: Kate dazzled as she promoted Underworld: Blood Wars on the roof of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow, Russia, on Monday Legs for days! The British actress, 43, flaunted her enviably svelte legs in a black miniskirt and tights as she promoted her latest movie offering in the Russian capital Sticking to a monochrome theme, Kate, who has a 17-year-old daughter Lily with her ex-husband Michael Sheen, rocked a black poloneck jumper. She wore her trademark glossy chestnut locks in tumbling waves that cascaded past her shoulders, and outlined her eyes with a smoky eyeshadow. Finishing off the look with some black stilettos, the Love & Friendship actress didn't seem to have aged at all since the first Underworld film in 2003. Striking: The star wore her trademark glossy chestnut locks in tumbling waves that cascaded past her shoulders, and outlined her eyes with a smoky eyeshadow Monochrome maven: Kate, who has a 17-year-old daughter Lily with her ex husband Michael Sheen, rocked a black poloneck jumper The next installment in the blockbuster franchise follows Vampire death dealer, Selene (Kate) as she fends off brutal attacks from both the Lycan clan and the Vampire faction that betrayed her. With her only allies, David (Theo James) and his father Thomas (Charles Dance), she must stop the eternal war between Lycans and Vampires - at risk of making a huge sacrifice. The film also stars Tobias Menzies, otherwise known as Edmure Tully in Game of Thrones, who plays a mysterious new Lycan leader. Sultry: The Total Recall star wore a nude lipgloss that plumped her full pout Youthful: The Love & Friendship actress didn't seem to have aged at all since the first Underworld film in 2003 Kate, who started out in independent roles, recently revealed the backlash she faced when she was typecast at the start of her career. She told ScreenDaily: 'I started in independent British film-making. When I began working outside of England, what I kept running into was, "She's very British and delicate, she doesn't have much edge."' Originally set for October release, the film's debut has since been pushed back to January 6, 2017. Turning heads: The Serendipity star effortlessly flaunted her slim physique in the thigh-grazing skirt, which she lent an 80s edge thanks to a jewel-encrusted heart motif belt Effortlessly chic: Kate even matched her black nails to her polished monochrome ensemble The actress shot to fame however with blockbuster roles in Underworld, sci-fi thriller Total Recall and vampire horror Van Helsing. Kate revealed she was pigeonholed as a 'female Jackie Chan' in Underworld, which felt like 'an extreme departure from my comfort zone'. She added that she feels the franchise has empowered more female leads to take on ball-busting fiesty roles - like Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games. She said: 'When we were making the first Underworld, the only female action heroes were Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton; there hadn't been one for a while. 'Now you have The Hunger Games etc - I feel like I had a small part in moving that dial.' Taking centre-stage: The actress shot to fame however with blockbuster roles in Underworld, sci-fi thriller Total Recall and vampire horror Van Helsing She's just weeks away from giving birth to her second child at 38 weeks pregnant. And Australian actress Teresa Palmer shared an adorable snap of her kissing her two-year old son Bodhi. The blonde beauty captioned the post shared to Instagram on Monday: 'Big brother time right around the corner! #38weeks' Scroll down for video Australian actress Teresa Palmer shared an adorable snap of her kissing her two-year old son Bodhi. The blonde beauty captioned the post: 'Big brother time right around the corner! #38weeks' She recently gave a very intimate and honest account of her first birthing experience, when she and husband Mark Webber welcomed their son Bodhi. The 30-year-old revealed on her blog Your Zen Mama that her water broke when she and Mark were having 'special time', admitting: 'We were both very shocked!' 'It was around 11:30pm and my waters broke whilstahem having some special time with my husband!,' Teresa wrote in her lengthy post. Not holding back: Australian actress Teresa Palmer gave a very intimate recount of her first birthing experience, revealing her water broke when she and husband Mark Webber were having sex (seen here as they prepared for a water birth) Ready to pop: She's just weeks away from giving birth to her second child (seen in October) The Lights Out star was planning on welcoming Bodhi in a home birth and said they spent 36 hours at their Los Angeles home waiting for his arrival. The Hollywood star revealed she had a premature rupture of membranes and that the labour had to be bought on with the use of acupuncture and castor oil and that she used a birthing ball to help her through small contractions. She and Mark had a midwife, doula and a close friend with them in the room and she eventually gave birth naturally. Getting through the contractions: The Lights Out star was planning on welcoming Bodhi in a home birth and said they spent 36 hours at their Los Angeles home waiting for his arrival All natural: The Hollywood star revealed she had a premature rupture of membranes and that the labor had to be bought on with the use of acupuncture and castor oil Being open about the birth: The blonde beauty said she experienced 'back labour' at home - which consisted of sharp pains during contractions - because Bodhi was in the wrong position The waiting game: At full dilation, her contractions weren't regular and she was transferred to Cedars Sinai Hospital, where various celebrities have given birth Teresa said she experienced 'back labour' at home - which consisted of sharp pains during contractions - because Bodhi was in the wrong position, called posterior, before vomiting. At full dilation, her contractions weren't regular and she was transferred to Cedars Sinai Hospital, where various celebrities have given birth. Recounting the moment she gave birth, she said: 'I pushed HARD and didnt vocalise, instead I just kept everything internal...He immediately breastfed and was looking up in to my eyes so still and calm, its still my favorite memory of meeting him, such a magical and quiet moment between us.' One strong woman: Recounting the moment she gave birth, she said: 'I pushed HARD and didnt vocalise' Extra details: She then said her placenta was taken out using manual extraction and that she swore a lot during the process Her support at home: She and Mark had a midwife, doula and a close friend with them in the room and she eventually gave birth naturally She then said her placenta was taken out using manual extraction and that she swore a lot during the process. She summed up the experience as being 'the most surreal and profound experience in my life' and said it taught her she can't always be in control of a situation. Her account comes as she counts down until she welcomes her second son with Mark. Sweet: She summed up the experience as being 'the most surreal and profound experience in my life' Patience: She said it taught her she can't always be in control of a situation (seen here pregnant with Bodhi) The I Am Number Four actress is 36 weeks pregnant and is in her native Adelaide waiting to give birth. Teresa, Mark, Bodhi and the unborn baby boy will remain in Australia for the Christmas season before returning to LA. The couple have confirmed they're likely to spend three months per year at their new Australian residence, which previously belonged to her father. Countdown is on: The I Am Number Four actress is 36 weeks pregnant and is in her native Adelaide waiting to give birth (seen pregnant with Bodhi) Family: Mark is also father to a son from a previous relationship, Isaac, eight Her little man: She and her clan are based in LA (seen is Bodhi) Mark is also father to a son from a previous relationship, Isaac, eight. This week she spoke about her exhaustion and shared to Instagram a shot of herself sleeping on the couch, in a rather uncomfortable looking position. 'Yup that's me and yup that's how I fell asleep! This preggo had a BIG week,' she captioned the post. He is best known for his portrayal of Doctor Who. But David Tennant, 45, swapped sci-fi for romance as he continued filming the upcoming romcom, You, Me and Him, in the picturesque region of Stratford-upon-Avon on Tuesday morning. The actor was watered down by cast members as he casually sat in a boat which was propped onto the River Avon. Scroll down for video Soaking: David Tennant, 45, continued to film his upcoming romcom, You, Me and Him, in the picturesque region of Stratford-upon-Avon on Tuesday morning Drenched! David debuted his newly bearded face while his soaked clothes clung onto his lithe and lean physique, despite his attempts to dry off with an array of towels Despite being drenched in water, the Scottish star looked in high spirits as he continued the grueling day of shoots. David debuted his newly bearded face while his soaked clothes clung onto his lithe and lean physique, despite his attempts to dry off with an array of towels. The Hamlet actor rocked slim-fit black trousers and an olive-coloured cargo jacket, while accessorising with a layer of pendant necklaces. Earlier this month, the Broachchurch star was seen shooting scenes alongside his co-star Lucy Punch, as they filmed around a lake in Warwickshire. Still smiling: Despite being drenched in water, the Scottish star looked in high spirits as he continued the grueling day of shoots Shower time: The actor was watered down by cast members as he casually sat in a boat which was propped onto the River Avon Dapper dude: The Hamlet actor rocked slim-fit black trousers and an olive-coloured cargo jacket, while accessorising with a layer of pendant necklaces The movie, which is set for release in 2017, follows the lives of two women who fall in love, despite their age difference, and their desire to have a baby. But once they befriend David's character, John, they begin to make some truly disastrous decisions leading to utter mayhem. Speaking about the film, The Doctor Who star said: 'Daisy Aitkens has written a brilliant, funny, surprising and moving script and I am delighted that she has asked me to be in her first feature as she is clearly going to be making many, many more and I want to be in all of them. 'And I am very pleased to be working with Bad Penny again, a company that represents all that is good and exciting in young British filmmaking. Thanks for having me!' Cheerful: The Doctor Who star quickly ran to cast members who held out dry towels Meanwhile, David has been working on multiple other projects, including the upcoming third and final series of Broachchurch. The original cast will be joined by Sir Lenny Henry and Roy Hudd for the latest eight-part installment of the series. In their latest outing the daring duo of David and Olivia Colman will take on a brand new case, following a serious sexual assault. Keeping warm: David wiped down his face as he continued his grueling day of filming Writer of the new series Chris Chinball, said: 'We have one last story to tell, featuring both familiar faces and new characters. 'I hope it's a compelling and emotional farewell to a world and show that means so much to me.' In addition, David has also been signed up to star in the Dean Devlin directed movie Bad Samaritans, as well as wrapping up filming for biopic film Mad To Be Normal, set for release in 2017. Kerri-Anne Kennerley welcomed her husband John home on Tuesday - nine months after the freak accident which left him paralysed. The 63-year-old took to social media to share the good news, posting a snap of the celebrating duo alongside some of their friends. Both Kerri-Anne and John wore big smiles as they posed for a photo at their Woollahra home, with the entertainer giving her spouse a big hug. Scroll down for video Welcome home: Kerri-Anne Kennerley welcomed husband John home on Tuesday after nine months in hospital She captioned the photo: 'John's home. This is the day I've hoping and waiting waiting for since March 6th Thank you to each and everyone one of you. Forever thankful.' Gathered round John's wheelchair, the assembled group appear to be sharing a toast as their friends raise a glass to his return. The 76-year-old had been in Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital since breaking his neck in a fall while at an event in Coffs Harbour in March. 'I hate this new life': Kerri-Anne has spoke candidly about her husband's tragic injury to Channel Seven's Sunday Night Struggling: The popular TV personality has confessed she is struggling to come to terms with his devastating injury While doctors admitted he was lucky to be alive, Kerri-Anne has had to come to terms with her husband of 32 years' injuries - something she admits to struggling with. 'I hate this new life to be quite frank. I just hate it. It's awful,' she revealed to Channel Seven's Sunday Night. 'I think right now, the most difficult thing is not being able to talk to him,' she added. 'It wasn't a particularly big fall,' he told the programme. 'It was only about 800mm, but I just landed on my head and neck - there was a crack. Breaking down: The bubbly blonde broke down as she spoke to the camera about the injuries which hospitalised John in March 'I couldn't move anything': John was left paralysed after a fall earlier this year at an event in Coffs Harbour 'I remember coming to... I couldn't move anything. I couldn't move my arms, I couldn't move my legs. 'And Kerri was with me within a second and I remember saying to her "I think I'm paralysed, I can't move." Soon after that, I fainted.' Kerri-Anne confessed the tragic incident has taken its toll on her, reshaping who she is as a person. 'I think I'm paralysed': The 76-year-old revealed he fainted shortly after he fell and broke his neck 'I want my old life back. And I want my husband back. I have my husband, we're just different now.' She added: 'A whole chunk of me just doesn't exist anymore. There's just a whole big chunk that he used to fill.' John praised the TV presenter for her love and support throughout his recovery. 'I want my old life back': Kerri-Anne acknowledges that while she has her husband back, the couple are 'different' now By his side: John praised his TV presenter wife for her support throughout his recovery at Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital 'She was there when I woke up and she's been with me every day. Every single day,' before adding: 'I have appreciated it. She's never faltered. Never faltered,' he said. When the accident occurred, Kerri-Anne was seen heading to Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital, where she held vigils for her beloved husband. John is now back at the couple's Sydney home after eight months in hospital. Doctors have revealed the 76-year-old is lucky to be alive. Tragic: John broke his neck after an innocuous fall, which doctors say he was lucky to survive She set tongues wagging over the weekend as she appeared to confirm rumours of a romance with Lawrence Fox. But it seems that Vogue Williams was pining for her winter break in Iceland, and not her beau, on Tuesday. Taking to Instagram, the 30-year-old model shared a series of bikini-clad snaps of herself enjoying one of the country's famous hot-water springs. Scroll down for video Take me back! It seems that Vogue Williams was pining for her winter break in Iceland, and not her new rumoured beau, Laurence Fox, on Tuesday Sharing the throwback photos with her 133,000 followers Vogue showcased her peachy posterior as well as the breath-taking landscape. Stood in the shallows of one of the island's famous geothermal spas, the model showed of her enviable figure in a black bikini. Wearing matching strapless top and bikini bottoms, Vogue ensured her figure was firmly on display. With her back to the camera, the blonde beauty also made sure her peachy psoterior was highlighted. A peachy view: Taking to Instagram, the 30-year-old model shared a series of bikini-clad snaps of herself enjoying one of the country's famous hot-water springs All loved up? Vogue - who was previously married to singer Brain McFadden - appeared to go public with the Lewis star, 38, last week In another shot the model can be seen splashing her way through the spa with her blonde locks tied up. Vogue captioned the shots: 'The best Sunday I've had in a long time...spent at the blue lagoon with @icelandtravel,' and 'Take me back to Iceland'. The blonde beauty headed to Iceland over the weekend for a mini break, but instead of taking her rumoured flame Lawrence, she headed off on the short trip with friends. Just for friends: The blonde beauty headed to Iceland over the weekend for a mini break, but instead of taking her rumoured flame Lawrence, she headed off on the short trip with friends Vogue - who is still married to ex Brain McFadden, though the couple seperated in 2015 - appeared to go public with the Lewis star, 38, last week. The duo were seen walking hand-in-hand as they enjoyed a dog walk, accompanied by their two pooches, Sparky and Winston. Vogue wore an orange-and-red patterned jacket, skinny jeans, trainers and a large pair of sunglasses as she walked beside Laurence. Taken? Last month a source close to the model and actor revealed to The Sun: 'Its very early days but both Laurence and Vogue consider themselves an item' Last month a source close to the model and actor revealed to The Sun: 'Its very early days but both Laurence and Vogue consider themselves an item. Theyre enjoying spending time together and have had some great nights out.' Though the Daily Mail's Sebastian Shakespeare reported that just last week she maintained she was unattached, saying: People find it weird that Im enjoying being single, but I am and I plan on staying like that for a while. She regularly tops the best-dressed lists thanks to her stylish outfits. And Emma Stone proved her sartorial worth once again at a special screening of her hotly-tipped romantic musical-drama La La Land in Los Angeles on Monday. The 28-year-old actress stunned as she dressed to impress in a petty paisley-print number alongside the likes of Hollywood heavyweights Bradley Cooper and Laura Dern. Scroll down for video Simply stylish: Emma Stone, 28, looked chic in a whimsical printed dress at a special screening of her hotly-tipped romantic musical La La Land in Los Angeles on Monday The Zombieland star looked every inch the Hollywood star in the printed dress, which featured a demure halter neckline and pleated bodice. Letting the garment take centre-stage, Emma added height with some simple nude courts. She wore her trademark auburn-hued locks in glossy subtle waves that stopped just short of her shoulders, showing off her dress' delicate neckline. The actress allowed her natural beauty to shine as she rocked a nude lipstick and a hint of smokey purple eyeshadow to offset her green eyes. Turning heads: The Zombieland star looked every inch the Hollywood star in the printed dress, which featured a demure halter neckline and pleated bodice Firm friends: Emma cosied up to her pal and co-star in the 2015 film Aloha, Bradley Cooper as they attended the star-studded event What's so funny? The giggly duo shared a chuckle as they posed at the screening Emma Emma has been receiving Oscar buzz for her performance in the musical comedy-drama La La Land. In it, she plays aspiring actress Mia who meets and falls in love with dedicated jazz musician Sebastian (played by Ryan Gosling), who plays in dingy bars in order to scrape by. It is the third film to feature Gosling and Stone as lovers, following Crazy, Stupid, Love and Gangster Squad. Double trouble: Bradley, who hosted the screening, placed an affectionate hand on Emma Keeping good company: The duo posed with Damien Chazelle, who directed La La Land The Damien Chazelle-directed drama also stars John Legend, Rosemarie DeWitt and J. K. Simmons. Emma Stone admitted sweating all over her co-star Ryan Gosling while learning how to ballroom dance with him. The actress spoke about working with Ryan, 36, in their third movie together during an interviewing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Social butterfly! The actress shared a smile with fellow actress Laura Dern Natural beauty: She rocked a nude lipstick and a hint of smokey purple eyeshadow to offset her green eyes Emma said that learning how to ballroom dance with a stranger must be 'terrifying', but was easier for her since she knows Ryan so well. 'And with him I was sweating all over him and felt fine about it,' Emma revealed of her co-star in Crazy, Stupid, Love and Gangster Squad. 'I sweat a lot,' she added. The Birdman star explained that after 'about a minute' of any physical exertion that 'I break into a horrible sweat'. She said it was a 'new problem' that she's had for the past year and a half. All smiles: Emma wrapped an arm around Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin Give her a hand! Badley hosted the evening and introduced Emma onstage 'I'm glad I can talk about it on national television, this is going to help,' she quipped. 'I'm gonna start calling you Emma ''Sweaty'' Stone,' Ellen, 58, joked. She won the best actress award earlier this year at the Venice Film Festival for her portrayal of Mia Dolan in the movie. Emma previously was nominated for an Oscar for her work in the 2014 black-comedy drama Birdman. La La Land is due in theaters on December 9. She made a rare sartorial faux pas by flashing her nipple pasties while exiting BBC's Children In Need earlier this month. But Fearne Cotton was back on fashionista form as she left BBC Radio Studios in London on Tuesday. The 35-year-old TV personality turned heads as she showed off her svelte frame in a bohemian animal print skirt and black leather jacket. Scroll down for video Stylish: Fearne Cotton, 35, turned heads as she showed off her svelte frame in a red animal print skirt and black leather jacket while exiting BBC Radio Studios in London on Tuesday Ferne's eye-catching skirt, which cinched at the waist, effortlessly caught the wind before falling at a stylish midi-level. Taking into consideration the British chill, the radio presenter threw on a cool biker jacket which boasted exposed silver zips and cropped sleeves. Accentuating her striking features with just a hint of make-up, Fearne allowed her long, blonde locks to cascade across her shoulders as she made her way home. The former Xtra Factor host seemed in high spirits as she lined the streets of London while cradling her essentials in a shiny black handbag. Sartorially savvy: Ferne's eye-catching skirt, which cinched in her tiny waist, effortlessly caught the wind before falling at a stylish midi-level Fashionista: Taking into consideration the British chill, the radio presenter threw on a cool biker jacket which boasted exposed silver zips and cropped sleeves While she looked every inch the fashionista, it proved to be a different story a few weeks earlier as she left BBC's Children In Need. Slipping into some comfortable clothing, the beautiful blonde flashed a hint of her nipple pasties as she prepared to head home to her family. She wore a blue jumper and grey tracksuit bottoms but still had a full face of make-up, including a slick of pillarbox lipstick. Fearne had been a fashion hit earlier in the evening with Hollywood curls and a scarlet co-ord that flattered her lithe frame. Beauty: Showing off her naturally striking features with just a slick of make-up, Fearne sauntered forth - allowing her long, blonde locks to flow beside her Leaving the wardrobe blunder behind her, the blonde beauty has been focusing on her radio duties. Fearne made her return to the airwaves in May, almost one year to the day since she had her final, emotional farewell at Radio 1 after 10 years. The bubbly star made her Radio 2 debut alongside Spandeau Ballet's Martin Kemp in July as they filled in for Graham Norton over the summer. The star raises also raises children, son Rex, three, and daughter Honey, 13 months, with musician husband Jesse Wood, the son of Rolling Stones legend Ronnie Wood. And she recently admitted her attitude to work has changed since welcoming her second child into the world. Oops! She made a rare sartorial faux pas by flashing her nipple pasties while exiting BBC's Children In Need earlier this month Red hot: Fearne had been a fashion hit earlier in the evening, with Hollywood curls and a scarlet co-ord that flattered her lithe frame Speaking to HELLO! magazine, Fearne said: 'As I've gotten older what I want out of life has changed massively, and it's less about achieving things and goals and more about general wellbeing and happiness. 'If I'm feeling a bit rubbish, it can be instantly switched up by hanging with my kids, my husband or good friends. 'As I've got older I've realised it really is simple things like that, or yoga or swimming or baking whatever little hobby or ritual you need to kind of click yourself back in.' Paris Hilton is happy that she has never gotten plastic surgery. In the new issue of Galore, the DJ talked going under the knife. 'Yes, I'm very proud that I am all natural and have never had anything done,' the blonde bombshell said. 'I am very happy with myself. But I don't judge others. People should do whatever makes them feel happy. It's just not something I've ever wanted to do.' So 2000: Paris Hilton is the latest celebrity to cover Galore The blonde media personality and hotel heiress graced the cover in a classic 2000's style. She showed off her voluptuous platinum blonde locks and pearly pink lip gloss as she channeled Barbie for the photo shoot. The 35-year-old wore a pale pink spaghetti strap dress and large white fur coat. Old school: She wore a pink fluffy wrap and a bejeweled bralette style one piece as she lay across a pink satin pillow She added a very elaborate and decadent diamond choker style necklace as her hands were also adorned with crystals and jewels. The reality star wore lashings of mascara and a very pink lipgloss as she added a touch of blusher and highlighter to her porcelain skin. In another shot the media star goes for a very over the top style hairdo as she ties half of her tresses into a high ponytail while donning a large fringe. She wore a pink fluffy wrap and a bejeweled bralette style one piece as she lay across a pink satin pillow. Back in the day: She was on The Simple Life from 2003-2007 with Nicole Richie but the former reality star admitted that doing those sorts of shows isn't quite her calling anymore Having been in the spotlight for many years Paris revealed she knows when people are trying to use her to get ahead: 'Over the years I have definitely figured out all the signs of a hungry tiger. 'I can mostly tell when there are paparazzi and I can see the way a person like that reacts. Also, being in this business for so long it's pretty obvious what people's intentions are.' She was on The Simple Life from 2003 until 2007 with Nicole Richie but the former reality star admitted that doing those sorts of shows isn't quite her calling anymore: 'It's not a priority in my life right now. I get calls every day to do different reality shows, but I am very focused on my business and brand. Not true: 'There have been so many weird lies written about me, but one of the weirdest was when they wrote that I dated Michael Jackson' 'However, if I really loved the concept, it is something I would think about.' She says being so well known there are a tonne of rumours but she said there was one in particular which stood out for her. 'There have been so many weird lies written about me, but one of the weirdest was when they wrote that I dated Michael Jackson.' She was photographed by Jason Al-Taan and was under the creative direction of Prince + Jacob, Galore Creative Directors. She was styled by Alexandra Mandelkorn, while her hair was done by Larry McDaniel. Her makeup by Etienne Ortega and the digitial technician/retoucher was Kyle Jackson. The creative directors were inspired by the 2000s, the era they believe the world fell in love with Paris: 'Paris is this blonde bombshell party girl, who we all wanted to just be friends with. She set the trends, whether it was making Juicy Couture hot or blinging out cell phones or being named dropped in rap songs. She's fresh off the heels of a fun birthday weekend with mom Goldie Hawn. But Kate Hudson didn't look like she was up for much celebrating when she was seen leaving Dan Tana's restaurant in West Hollywood, California Monday night. The 37-year-old star put on a decidedly casual display in a low-cut maroon sweater showing a touch of cleavage and matching thigh-high boots. Somber Kate: The usually upbeat actresses had was decidedly less enthusiastic during a late-night outing in West Hollywood, California on Monday She paired the color-coordinated outfit with a pair of tight skinny jeans. The pretty blonde completed her look with a fringe purse and statement dangling earrings which her high top bun allowed her to show off. The How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days star channeled vintage Hawn with her fringe bangs parted down the center, framing her face. Matching: The coordinated star matched her maroon sweater, boots, and lipstick for a 'pulled-together' look Casual updo: Kate's blonde tresses were kept casual with sweeping fringe bangs and a top-bun The stunning star opted for a clean, fresh make-up look, except for her dark lipstick, which matched the rest of her maroon ensemble. Kate's less enthusiastic night comes on the heels of a celebratory weekend for her mom, Goldie. The notoriously close mother-daughter duo spent the weekend together before Goldie turned 71 on Monday. Birthday bash: Kate celebrated Goldie's 71st birthday with a gaggle of girlfriends at West Hollywood hotspot Catch LA on Saturday night Happy birthday Goldie! Goldie looked amazing in a little black dress which boasted an extremely low neckline while celebrating in West Hollywood, California on Saturday Kate helped her mom ring in her big day with a gaggle of girlfriends at West Hollywood hotspot Catch LA on Saturday night. She wasn't spotted arriving with her mom to the festivities, but did manage to share a number of intimate snaps from the bash. She later posted a photo of Goldie and her brothers, Wyatt Russell, 30, Oliver Hudson, 40, on Instagram, captioning it: 'Mama and her boys'. Doting-daughter: Kate shared a sweet snap with Goldie and her brothers, Wyatt Russell, 30, Oliver Hudson, 40, on Instagram, captioning it: 'Mama and her boys'. And now, the close-kit duo are bringing their relationship to the small screen. Sources tell Life & Style magazine that Goldie and Kate are currently pitching a sitcom where they will star as mother and daughter. They have been talking about the idea for some time, but are now ready to put it into action, according to the magazine: In real life, Kate and Goldie are like best friends theres nothing they cant confide in each other. Thats the chemistry that will fuel the series. Leonardo DiCaprio's supermodel ex Kendal Lee Schuler has announced she is expecting her first child with her partner Jake. A representative for the Australian model confirmed exclusively to MailOnline, that she is pregnant after she was spotted unveiling her bump during a topless sunbathing session in her native Sydney on Tuesday. The stunning blonde was determined to show off her changing shape by slipping into a tiny swimsuit before she truly heated things up when she took off her bikini top and proudly displayed her perky assets alongside her bump in all their glory. Scroll down for video A bumpy ride! Leonardo DiCaprio's supermodel ex Kendal Lee Schuler has announced she is expecting her first child Kendal looked phenomenal as she stripped down to her barely-there two-piece which showed off her changing shape - leading to the announcement in which her representative told MailOnline: 'She is pregnant. Due in 2017.' The swimsuit was perfectly designed for her stunning figure, with its tiny shape being the perfect way for the blonde beauty to unveil her bump. Her bikini bottoms perfectly displayed her peachy posterior as they boasted a half-thong shape, which clung perfectly to her hips. Nailing the beach babe look, Kendal pulled on a huge pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses which shielded her eyes from the searing Sydney sun. Wrapping it up: A representative for the Australian model confirmed exclusively to MailOnline, that she is with pregnant after she was spotted unveiling her bump during a topless sunbathing session in her native Sydney on Tuesday Billowing in the wind: Kendal showed off every inch of her figure in the sexy look - particularly her growing, neat bump Wowing the shores: She proved exactly how she snared Leonardo DiCaprio as she stripped down to a barely-there bikini for a sunbathing session Just like that! It seems Kendal bravely showed off all her assets in front of her pals Sizzling: The stunning blonde truly heated things up when she took off her bikini top and proudly displayed her perky assets in all their glory Former flame? Back in late 2011, Kendal was rumoured to be dating Leonardo while he was in Australia filming his blockbuster film, The Great Gatsby Blow me over: With a number of items in her hand, she allowed the wind to blow around her Look at me! The natural beauty cradled her baby bump with pride Running along: Waving to her pal, she jetted along the beach at speed Running into trouble: Kendal's bikini bottoms appeared to be bothering her Adding just a touch of detail to the ensemble, the blonde beauty wore a dainty choker complete with a tiny pendant dangling at the centre. She scraped her tresses into a messy ponytail with the roots appearing wet from the ocean and the sandy colour complementing her golden glow. The esteemed model showed off her naturally stunning looks as she went make-up free for her jaunt on the beach - exhibiting her incredible complexion as she went. Tatted up: Her body was adorned with delicate inkings Look at these! Ensuring she got an all over tan, Kendal stripped down to nothing Caught in the wind? The billowing beach breeze appeared to get the better of Kendal Serious moments: As she splashed about in the water, Kendal kept a straight face Laying it out: Her figure was certainly turning heads on the beach That's it! Her perky assets appeared to be the talk of the beach Back in late 2011, before finding love with her current partner and baby daddy she merely identifies as Jake, Kendal was rumoured to be dating Leonardo while he was in Australia filming his blockbuster film, The Great Gatsby. At the time, the Courier Mail reported the pair had been spotted together at a nightclub in Sydney after meeting in Los Angeles months earlier. According to the Sunday Telegraph, the actor shared a steamy relationship with the then 20-year-old during his time Down Under. What does it say? Her cleavage was adorned with a delicate scribe Drop it like it's squat: Kendal showed off her athletic prowess as she took on some squats on the beach - displaying her toned legs as she went Bend... and snap! Once again showcasing her muscly legs, the stunning model perfectly exhibited her squatting powers Sun-worshipping: Drinking in the warmth, she looked overjoyed to bask in the blissful sun Make-up free: The stunning model is said to count Leo as her ex beau Sunny side up: The searing sun was helping enhance her golden tan A source reportedly told the publication: 'Leo has told her she can visit any time she likes as long as she keeps it low key. She has taken him up on that opportunity already a couple of times. 'But she isn't silly - she knows this isn't serious and she is just enjoying the time with him,' they continued. While adding the genetically-bless pair caught up 'three to four times' during his stay, they explained Leonardo 'told her [Kendal] to be very discreet.' Strutting her stuff: Kendal oozed body confidence in the tiny two-piece as she strutted along the beach Getting ready: Kendal was prepping for the big reveal as she peeled off her top He became a national icon thanks to his portrayal of the heartless, manipulative and bombastic spin-doctor, Malcolm Tucker. But Peter Capaldi's most recent role has seen his star rise to a global level, playing the enigmatic Time Lord, Doctor Who, whom he has brought a new maturity to. And while some have railed against this more adult interpretation of the charismatic hero, the actor, 58, argues that it has helped to capture the imagination of the show's wide-ranging audience. Scroll down for video ' The Doctors I grew up with were not young': Peter Capaldi's most recent role has seen his star rise to a global level, playing Doctor Who, whom he has brought a new maturity to Speaking to The Radio Times, the Scottish star explained that rather than being something off-the-wall, an older Doctor is nothing that's ground-breaking. Asked how it felt to be an 'old' Who after a series of young ones (David Tennant and Matt Smith) Peter responded that The Doctor he grew up with was 'not a young man'. Reflecting on previous actors who have taken on the good Doctor's mantle, the Thick Of It star said: ' The Doctors I grew up with were not young. It's for everyone: Though some have railed against this adult interpretation of the charismatic hero, the actor, 58, argues that it's helped to keep all of the show's wide audience happy 'It covers a huge age range, so you have to entertain little kids and you have to entertain hipsters and students, and middle-aged men who should know better': He explained 'To me, Doctor Who was not a young man. Ironically, Im older than any of those, except for William Hartnell [the first Doctor].' Addressing the assertion that the twelfth reincarnation, which he plays, often panders more to adult fans, he said: Read it here:Fans can read the interview in the Radio Times, on sale from November 22 'The thing about Doctor Who is the constitution of the audience. It covers a huge age range, so you have to entertain little kids and you have to entertain hipsters and students, and middle-aged men who should know better.' Peter expanded on the them, and said that while there is most definitely an adult theme running through Doctor Who, there is always something for children. 'Sometimes there is a kind of metaphysical and intellectual aspect to it, which is more to the fore than other times. But generally we just blow up monsters. 'There are some moments when you feel, thats a little bit silly, or thats a bit mawkish or whatever, but then you realise, thats for children. You would be a fool not to play to them, because its their show.' Peter is the 12th actor to take on the mantle of the last of the Time Lords, and has played the role since 2013. Fans can read the rest of the interview in this weeks Radio Times, on sale from Tuesday November 12. Keira Knightly was in a refreshing mood on Tuesday morning, as she stuck by the side of husband James Righton. The couple were blending in with the East Londoners, looking cool in matching black ensembles at Victoria Park while they enjoyed some stolen time alone. Keira's good mood comes after her stalker Mark Revill appeared in court on Monday accused of bombarding the actress with messages at her home. Cute couple: Keira Knightly and husband James Righton were in-sync as they walked through Victoria Park in East London on Tuesday Now awaiting sentencing in December, Revill, 49, admitted to following the Hollywood star for three months, making repeated trips to their London home. The court heard this week that Revill was finally chased away by the stars husband, musician James. The court heard he also sent her a USB with cat-themed music on it and a picture of three cats winking. Giddy: She was in a decidedly bubbly mood as the pair shared some quality alone time Keira looked surprisingly upbeat during her walk with James though, smiling gleefully when she took off her geeky spectacles. She wore her hands in the pockets of her oversized jacket and left her hair loose with minimal make-up on. It was perhaps an opportunity for the pair to catch up in the absence of their one-year-old daughter Edie. Perfect pair: The couple have brushed off an ongoing court case against Keira's stalker Mark Revill, who appeared in court on Monday It was only last month that Keira told Harper's Bazaar that she's often the target of hurtful comments during days out with her family. She said: 'Yesterday I had two really lovely people come up to me in the street and just say how much they like my work, which almost never happens. '[The angry ones] are very odd... It feels like you're not meant to be walking down the street doing your shopping. Or they just hate your work, in which case they say, "I hate your work". Or they hate your face, in which case they say, "I hate your face". 'But it's more like a kind of jokey, "Oh God, I've always hated you" Or, "I've always found your face so annoying". They're in New York City after attending a charity gala honoring their late father Robert Kardashian. And Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian took advantage of the trip, dropping by the Tommy Hilfiger offices on Tuesday to shop vintage looks with the designer himself. The celebrity siblings were seen browsing Nineties designs as sister Kim Kardashian jetted back to Los Angeles to care for husband Kanye West, who was hospitalized for exhaustion, as reported by People. Scroll down for video 'Somebody's gotta answer the phone' Khloe (center) and Kourtney Kardashian (R) visited Tommy Hilfiger's NYC office with mother Kris Jenner on Tuesday Khloe, 32, shared a photograph of herself and older sister Kourtney, 37, alongside the designer at his New York City Office. And mother Kris Jenner seemed to be along as well, as she shared a similar snap of the girls behind the desk, with Kourtney posing with the phone. She captioned it: 'Somebody's gotta answer the phone. #dayattheoffice #tommyhilfiger @thomasjhilfiger @tommyhilfiger.' Coordinating: The two sisters shared a video to Snapchat of themselves walking hand-in-hand in matching, black dusters, captioning it: 'Ready for business' Enjoying the view: Khloe took advantage of a Manhattan Snapchat filter as she posed in her chic, black ensemble Kourtney and Khloe also took to Snapchat to document the trip, first sharing a video of themselves walking hand-in-hand with coordinating, red coffee cups and black dusters. 'Ready for business,' they each captioned the clip, after sharing that they were in for a morning of meetings. In another clip, Kourtney gushed: 'I'm shopping for some Nineties Tommy Hilfiger, with Tommy!' with Tommy chiming in: 'Very nineties!' Throwback! Another video saw Kourtney browsing Nineties Tommy Hilfiger designs VIP treatment: The designer himself even joined the reality stars as they browsed the vintage looks The trio had jetted to New York City to attend the annual Angel Ball - which raises money for cancer research - the night before, as it was honoring the late Robert Kardashian. Hilfiger had introduced the family at the event, after which they said a few words about the late Kardashian patriarch before presenting the charity with a $250k donation. Meanwhile, Kim ended up skipping the ball - which would have been her first public event since her traumatic Paris robbery on October 3 - to head back to Los Angeles and care for her husband. Tommy! Hilfiger jumped into one of the videos to echo Kourtney's comment on the clothes, sharing: 'Very Nineties!' Getting down to business: The power trio posed in front of the Tommy Hilfiger logo at what looked to be the reception area of the NYC office Kanye had been taken to the hospital on Monday after the Los Angeles police responded to a medical welfare call about 1:20 p.m. A source told People that the hospitalization was a result of the rapper being 'exhausted' and 'dealing with sleep deprivation.' Kris echoed those sentiments at the Angel Ball, responding 'Exhausted!' when an onlooker asked how her son-in-law was. Putting them to work: Kourtney pretended to be answering the phone as she posed for a series of photos behind the desk at Tommy Hilfiger's office She's best known for playing Margaery Tyrell in Game Of Thrones. And Natalie Dormer looked worlds apart from her former alter-ego when she joined A-list actor and director Mel Gibson to film scenes for The Professor And The Madman in Dublin, Ireland over the weekend. The 34-year-old actress was clad in 19th century period costume as she made her way onto the set, while Hollywood star Mel, 60, got to work in a top hat. Scroll down for video Lights, camera, action! Natalie Dormer joined A-list actor and director Mel Gibson to film scenes for The Professor And The Madman in Dublin, Ireland over the weekend In character: Hollywood star Mel, 60, got to work in a top hat as he resumed filming for his pet project about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary Natalie looked a little windswept, covering up her patterned shirt and flowing skirt with a waterproof jacket. She sported a brown suede bag to match her battered, lace-up boots, and carried a script under one arm. Meanwhile, Mel - who acquired the film rights almost two decades ago - appeared animated as he continued work on the drama about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, a pet project of his. Keeping cosy: Natalie looked a little windswept, covering up her patterned shirt and flowing skirt with a waterproof jacket Period costume: She sported a brown suede bag to match her battered, lace-up boots, and carried a script under one arm Grand arrival: The Game Of Thrones actress was getting notes from Mel as she arrived on location in Dublin Gibson was displaying a sizable beard, essential for his portrayal of the 19th century academic. Sean Penn stars as William Chester Minor, a former US army surgeon who contributes more than 10,000 entries to the Oxford English Dictionary while being held at an asylum for the criminally insane. Minor, who passed away in 1920, became a devoted contributor after answering a call for volunteers from Scottish lexicographer Sir James Murray - the dictionary's primary editor (Gibson). Natural look: Natalie sported barely-there make-up and wore her wavy locks in a plait Main man: Mel plays Scottish lexicographer Sir James Murray - the dictionary's primary editor Facial hair: Gibson was displaying a sizable beard, essential for his portrayal of the 19th century academic The Professor and the Madman sees Gibson reunite with writer and director Farhad Safinia, his screenwriting partner on 2006 hit Apocalypto. Other stars to feature in the period project include Ioan Gruffudd and Jeremy Irvine. The film, adapted from Simon Winchester's book the The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, is expected to be released in 2017. Dream team: The Professor and the Madman sees Gibson reunite with writer and director Farhad Safinia, his screenwriting partner on 2006 hit Apocalypto Killer cast: Other stars to feature in the period project include Ioan Gruffudd and Jeremy Irvine Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian jetted back to Los Angeles on Tuesday amid brother-in-law Kanye West's hospitalization. The duo were pictured boarding a private jet with mom Kris Jenner in tow at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, no doubt keen to be back in California and support sister Kim, 36, who flew back a day earlier. The trio were seen cloaked in black as they boarded the plane bound for home. Scroll down for video Heading home: Kourtney, Khloe and Kris Jenner boarded a private jet on Tuesday back to Los Angeles to see Kim and husband Kanye who was hospitalized a day earlier It was a whistle-stop trip to New York for the clan who made an appearance at the 2016 Angel Ball on Monday. Sister Kim Kardashian was scheduled to make her first public appearance since her horrifying robbery, at the cancer research event, but instead flew straight back to Los Angeles to care for husband Kanye, 39 who was hospitalized after suffering a psychotic breakdown, as reported byTMZ. Kanye had been taken to the hospital on Monday after the Los Angeles police responded to a medical welfare call about 1:20 p.m. Take me home: Khloe, 32, was seen boarding the jet in a long black coat Duty calls: Kris, 61, wore a fur coat as she followed her daughters into the plane A source told People that the hospitalization was a result of the rapper being 'exhausted' and 'dealing with sleep deprivation.' The hip-hop star's behaviour has been increasingly erratic in recent weeks with a source telling Entertainment Tonight that it was a culmination of pressures. A source said: 'It was a combination of a lot of issues: stress, anxiety, paranoia. He just broke,' Before heading to the airport on Tuesday Khloe, Kourtney and Kris found time to stop by Tommy Hilfiger's offices to shop vintage looks with the designer himself. The celebrity siblings were seen browsing Nineties designs. By his side: Kim was set to join her sisters at the Angel Ball on Monday, but jetted back to LA after husband Kanye was admitted to the hospital after a 'psychiatric emergency' 'Somebody's gotta answer the phone' Khloe (center) and Kourtney (R) visited Tommy Hilfiger's NYC office with mother Kris Jenner earlier in the day Khloe, 32, shared a photograph of herself and older sister Kourtney, 37, alongside the designer at his Office. And mother Kris seemed to be along as well, as she shared a similar snap of the girls behind the desk, with Kourtney posing with the phone. She captioned it: 'Somebody's gotta answer the phone. #dayattheoffice #tommyhilfiger @thomasjhilfiger @tommyhilfiger.' Enjoying the view: Khloe took advantage of a Manhattan Snapchat filter as she posed in her chic, black ensemble Kourtney and Khloe also took to Snapchat to document the trip, first sharing a video of themselves walking hand-in-hand with coordinating, red coffee cups and black dusters. 'Ready for business,' they each captioned the clip, after sharing that they were in for a morning of meetings. She has not let her pregnancy interrupt her gruelling work schedule. And Marion Cotillard once again was a vision of professionalism as she appeared at the Allied premiere in Madrid on Tuesday evening, joined by her co-star Brad Pitt - just a night after they trod the red carpet at the London launch. The 41-year-old French actress kept her bump under wraps in a plunging black gown with a bow-detail at the chest while Brad looked dashing in a suit with a white shirt and thick scarf. Scroll down for video Co-star pals: Marion Cotillard once again was a vision of professionalism as she appeared at the Allied premiere in Madrid on Tuesday evening, joined by her co-star Brad Pitt - just a night after they trod the red carpet at the London launch Marion, who is expecting her second child with French actor and director Guillaume Canet, dazzled on the red carpet as she joined her superstar colleague in Spain. The professional coupling has courted controversy due to the Brad's marriage split from wife Angelina Jolie, leading to reports of a romance between the co-stars. Her dress was simple in design - allowing her impeccable beauty to speak for itself - as she showed off a hint of cleavage in the deeply plunging dress. The V-neck black dress boasted a huge sparkly knot at the front, which partially shielded her ample cleavage while the cap sleeves gave a hint of her toned arms. A bumpy ride: The 41-year-old French actress kept her bump under wraps in a plunging black gown with a bow-detail at the chest while Brad looked dashing in a suit with a white shirt and thick scarf Plunging number: Marion, who is expecting her second child with French actor and director Guillaume Canet, dazzled on the red carpet as she joined her superstar colleague in Spain Purely professional: The professional coupling has courted controversy due to the Brad's marriage split from wife Angelina Jolie, leading to reports of a romance between the co-stars Marion wore her brunette tresses in a stunning side-swept chignon which was pinned behind her ear with a tendril falling over her eye. Boosting the retro Hollywood glamour of the look, she wore dazzling chandelier shaped diamond earrings. Her make-up was flawlessly applied with minimal application while her glowing complexion was dewy and stunning and her lips dabbed with a light pink matte lipstick. Brad showed off his rugged good looks as he displayed a smattering of salt and pepper facial hair while rocking a three-piece suit with an open neck white shirt. Woman in black: Her dress was simple in design - allowing her impeccable beauty to speak for itself - as she showed off a hint of cleavage in the deeply plunging dress Toned up: The V-neck black dress boasted a huge sparkly knot at the front, which partially shielded her ample cleavage while the cap sleeves gave a hint of her toned arms Dashing: Brad showed off his rugged good looks as he displayed a smattering of salt and pepper facial hair while rocking a three-piece suit with an open neck white shirt Pals: Following Brad's announcement that he had split from wife Angelina, 41, in September, Marion became caught up in rumours of an affair Oh hey there! Brad was waving to the crowd of vying admirers as he beamed Look at my dress! As she swished from side to side, Marion made the most of her long gown Diamond girl: Marion was a picture of elegance and sophistication Following Brad's announcement that he had split from wife Angelina, 41, in September, Marion became caught up in rumours of an affair. The actress spoke out at the time, announcing on Instagram that she was expecting a baby with 'my love, my best friend, the only one that I need,' her partner, Guillaume. The La Vie En Rose star has been with Guillaume since 2007, and the pair have a five-year-old son named Marcel. During an appearance on the Today Show on Thursday, Marion insisted that she did not hold a grudge when the affair gossip floated around. Baby on board! The actress spoke out at the time, announcing on Instagram that she was expecting a baby with 'my love, my best friend, the only one that I need,' her partner, Guillaume Defiant: During an appearance on the Today Show on Thursday, Marion insisted that she did not hold a grudge when the affair gossip floated around She explained: 'I never take anything personally when it doesn't concern me. So I didn't take it personally because I had nothing to do with those rumors or situation.' She was then pressed by interviewer Matt Lauer who asked if she had let any of the whispers affect the making of the movie. Marion replied: 'No I don't give energy to this and it was a wonderful, wonderful experience working with such a visionary director and amazing actor so that's all that matters.' Having been a fixture on the fashion circuit for almost two full decades, Alexa Chung knows a thing or two about stepping out in fine style. And it was business as usual for the 33-year-old beauty on Tuesday afternoon, as she put on yet another casually cool display while strolling the streets of New York City. The Hampshire native, who owns a home in the bustling metropolis, braced the winter chill in style, rocking a black shearling jacket with grey skinny jeans as she walked solo while chatting away on her mobile phone. Scroll down for video Stroll: Alexa Chung was spotted taking a stroll through the streets of New York on Tuesday Alexa, who is dating actor Alexander Skarsgard, kept her head warm with a light grey knitted beanie, from which fell her lustrous chestnut brown locks. Enhancing her beauty with a light dusting of makeup, which included pillar box red lipstick, the star rounded out her ensemble with stylish flat black leather boots. While she turned heads, Alexa was engaged in conversation, chatting away as she meandered through the streets of Manhattan. Hotling bling: The stunning model appeared to be fixated on her phone conversation The IT girl, author and model formed a collaboration with Marks & Spencer in a bid to revive sales earlier this year - and it seems she has the Midas touch. The new Archive by Alexa collection, which went on sale just weeks ago, was dubbed a 'modern interpretation of archive pieces, fusing a rich heritage with contemporary style', and has been a resounding success. Most notably, the 89 black Briggate trench coat (as seen on Alexa during London Fashion Week in September) sold out online in sizes 6 12 on its first day of release. Stylish: She stepped out in style, wearing a black shearling jacket with grey skinny jeans The 27-piece womenswear promised to bring old pieces back to life for the new season using Alexas unique approach to style. The collection is undeniably Alexa, featuring the animal prints and PVC skirts that she often wears on the front row of fashion week. There's also plenty of outerwear for fashion fans to wrap up warm in come winter and Alexa has given hero shapes from across the decades a fresh spin. Alexa Chung has also joined fashion designer pal Henry Holland in supporting the Mayor of Londons new #LondonisOpen campaign, showing that the capital remains a vibrant and lucrative city for business and retail. The unveiling of the new location for The Design Museum drew a star-studded crowd. And Olga Kurylenko and Eva Herzigova were leading the glamorous brigade of VIP guests at the London bash on Tuesday night, as the former Commonwealth Institute opened its doors to the museum. Bond girl Olga looked lovely in a navy lace brocade dress with a floaty skirt and a sheer panel at the bust. Scroll down for video Red carpet showdown: Olga Kurylenko was leading the glamorous brigade of VIP guests at the London bash for the unveiling of the new location for The Design Museum on Tuesday night Masculine chic: Eva Herzigova looked incredible in a navy suit and crisp white shirt The glitter embellished number featured a teardrop cut-out at the back and was set off with some stellar accessories. She completed the ensemble with a funky leather boots, giving a fashionable twist to the outfit. Meanwhile, Eva chose an altogether different look, embracing masculine chic in a tailored suit, worn over a crisp white shirt. Looking good: Bond girl Olga looked lovely in a navy lace brocade dress with a floaty skirt and a sheer panel at the bust Glamorous: The glitter embellished number featured a teardrop cut-out at the back and was set off with some stellar accessories Funky footwear: She completed the ensemble with leather boots, giving a fashionable twist to the outfit The flared navy trousers were set off with a pair of heels and a smart clutch bag, and she pulled her blonde locks back in a bun. The original supermodel exuded confidence as she glided down the red carpet, where she was joined by a wide array of famous faces. Petra Nemcova made a sartorial statement in a glitzy, feather embellished skirt, worn with a pair of thigh-high boots. Power dressing: Eva chose an altogether different look, embracing masculine chic in a tailored suit, worn over a crisp white shirt Elegant: She pulled her blonde locks back in a bun and accessorised with a striking pair of ruby earrings Stylish: Anais Gallagher was clad in a funky rock 'n' roll ensemble Ethereal: Erin O'Connor was the picture of elegance in a floaty, grey lace number Making a statement: Petra Nemcova was rocking a glittery, feathered skirt Legs for days: The model set off her thigh-skimming miniskirt with a pair of leather boots Model pals: Jade Parfitt and Erin cosied up inside the bash She upped the sex appeal with a plunging top and styled her honey blonde hair in loose curls. Erin O'Connor looked sensational in a barely-there sheer dress, showcasing her statuesque model frame in the billowing garment, worn over grey trousers. The British beauty cut a regal figure in her whimsical dress as she made her grand arrival. The likes of Nick Grimshaw were also in attendance for the launch of the Design Museum's new space. The new space is three times larger than the museum's former Shad Thames location and features new galleries, a library and a research centre funded by the Sackler Foundation. Ready carpet ready: Sol Campbell and Fiona Barratt-Campbell attended the event in style Fashionable friends: Jasmine Guinness and Laura Bailey were the picture of sophistication Making an entrance: Nadja Swarovski (L) and Zara Martin (R) exuded confidence Putting in an appearance: Nick Grimshaw mixed his patterns for an edgy look Red riding hood: Poppy Jamie sported a statement scarlet cape He was taken to the hospital on Monday for exhaustion after the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a call for a disturbance. And ahead of the hospitalization, and of cancelling 21 remaining dates for the Saint Pablo Tour, Kanye West gave a strange interview to Surface magazine, which was conducted within the last few weeks. The 39-year-old snapped at the interviewer, went on a rant about his critically panned Yeezy show, and shared his belief that in the future people are 'going to communicate through eye contact, body language, emojis, signs.' Scroll down for video Strange: Kanye West (pictured with wife Kim Kardashian in August) gave an odd interview to Surface magazine ahead of cancelling the rest of his Saint Pablo Tour and being hospitalized He also commented on the fact that, as a rapper, he has 'made a living off of words,' concluding that 'words get in the way of what you really want to say.' 'Or thank God for emojis,' the husband of Kim Kardashian, who created her own app Kimojis, shared. 'So often one emoji goes a long way and lets me get on with my whole day.' Kanye also went off on a rant about his panned Adidas Yeezy Season Four runway show, during which models were fainting because it was so hot and they didn't have water. 'I care about peoples time; it wasnt on purpose. The fact that they can outright Lebron-James-went-to-the-Heat-level burn my jersey after all Id contributed to art, fashion, and culture just in 2016 alone ' he gushed. He's a fan! Kanye, whose wife Kim has successful emoji app Kimojis, said in the interview that he thinks people in the future will not talk, but speak through emojis Frustrated, he continued: 'They said, 'Yes a genius. But in fashion, he doesnt innovate.'' Not having a bunch of colors was an innovation!' He followed the tangent with: 'For some reason, I just wanna say 'Wiz [Khalifa] wears cool pants' right now. He really does. He dresses really good.' And Kanye became frustrated with the interviewer when he said: 'You mentioned that you view yourself as an artist...' 'Words get in the way' The rapper had shocked fans when he cancelled his show - and later the rest of his tour - after an emotional rant at his Sacramento, California date on Saturday 'I didnt mention that I view myself that way. I just am. I never worded it like that. Thats really offensive,' Kanye said, asking: 'Why did you say I view myself like that? Do you not view me as an artist?' The designer also admitted that he's 'really bad at answering questions,' explaining: 'the hard part about interviews, for me, is the idea of two plus two equals four. I always refuse to land at four. Landing at four is hella basic.' Surface posted the interview online just days after a series of strange outbursts onstage, which saw the rapper issuing a post-election endorsement of Donald Trump, as well as calling out friends Beyonce and Jay-Z. And not long after that Kanye cancelled his remaining 21 tour dates, including a New Year's Eve performance at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Then, on Monday the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a call at about 1:20pm for a disturbance, later escorting the father-of-two to the hospital, where he is said to be getting treatment for exhaustion. Emotional: The designer became upset after his interviewer said that he 'viewed himself as an artist,' saying: 'Thats really offensive. Why did you say I view myself like that? Do you not view me as an artist?' 'He is exhausted and currently dealing with sleep deprivation,' a source told People. 'He went to the hospital at will under the advice of his physician. Hes fine.' And another source for the publication revealed that Kanye was struggling following Kim's traumatizing Paris robbery on October 3, since he usually leans on her for support. 'Kim [was] usually the more stable and strong person in the marriage,' a source told People. 'Kanye is used to leaning on her. Since Kim has had her own issues to deal with, the roles have been reversed. Kanye has had to stay strong to support Kim, and its like he cant handle it anymore.' 'Its like Kanye is falling apart now, because Kim hasnt been able to give him her full attention,' they added, sharing that the artist 'is totally wiped out from touring and just cant handle it emotionally.' Quick stop: Kanye stopped for a selfie with a fan in the middle of the road as he made his exit following the cancellation of his Sacramento show Kim had been in New York City on Monday, where she was set to make her first public appearance since the robbery for a charity ball honoring her late father, Robert Kardashian. However, she skipped out on the annual Angel Ball to fly back to Los Angeles and look in on her husband. Speaking of Kanye, a source had said earlier this year that Kim 'has a lot of faith in him that hes going to see his way through whatever kind of conflict hes having internally or externally and that its all going to work out well.' Trump vows to withdraw from TPP 'on day one' Donald Trump said Monday the United States would signal its withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact on his first day in the White House, one of six immediate steps aimed at "putting America first." The Republican billionaire -- who for 10 days has been sounding out cabinet picks at his Trump Tower offices in New York -- made the pledge in a short video message. The 70-year-old property tycoon outlined a list of priorities for his first 100 days and executive actions to be taken "on day one" -- on half a dozen issues from trade to immigration, national security and ethics -- in a push to "reform Washington and rebuild our middle class." President-elect Donald Trump calls the Trans-Pacific Partnership "a potential disaster for our country" Nicholas Kamm (AFP/File) "My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America first," said the president-elect, whose campaign tapped the anger of working-class Americans who feel left behind by globalization. It singled out trade deals such as the TPP as key culprits. "On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country," said Trump, who takes office January 20. "Instead, we will negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores," he said. Both the 12-nation TPP -- signed in February but not yet in force -- and the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement featured heavily in the brutal White House race. Trump said they harmed the US economy and jobs and many see his victory as a repudiation of ever-deeper commercial ties. - Six priorities - Trump's populist election platform called for scuttling the TPP -- President Barack Obama's signature trade initiative which still needs approval from the Republican-dominated Congress -- as well as for renegotiating NAFTA. Asian leaders have been scrambling to save the trade pact. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that "TPP without the United States would be meaningless." The Japanese leader told reporters in Buenos Aires that the 12 TPP leaders who met in Lima on Saturday did not discuss putting the deal into effect without the US. Matthias Helble, a research economist at the Asian Development Bank Institute in Tokyo, said Trump's announcement that bilateral trade deals would replace TPP "comes at a high cost." "The outcome of ten years of hard-fought negotiations has been jettisoned," Helble said. "The only glimmer of hope is that Trump is not fully abandoning the idea of trade opening." Trump's pledge to pull out of the deal was one of six points on which he promised immediate executive action -- which he can take without Congressional approval. Trump said he would direct the Department of Labor to investigate abuses of visa programs "that undercut the American worker." On energy, he pledged to boost the oil and gas sector and bring back coal. Trump also said he would ask defense officials to create plans to protect the US "from cyber-attacks and all other form of attacks." Sticking to his central pledge to cut government red tape, he promised "a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated." Though his own transition team includes several lobbyists, the Republican also promised "a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the administration." - 'Mad Dog' Mattis - There was no mention in the message of some of Trump's biggest campaign promises -- notably his pledge to build a wall along the Mexican border, deport millions of immigrants, restrict Muslim immigration and repeal the Obamacare health care law. The video was issued as the stream of would-be appointees continued at his New York headquarters. The day's talk focused on the possible nomination of retired general James "Mad Dog" Mattis as secretary of defense. Despite the 66-year-old Marine's renowned frankness -- "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet" -- he enjoys warm support in Washington and should sail through confirmation. After Mattis, Trump's other choices may prove more complicated, such as that for secretary of state. This is reportedly between former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, both of whom met Trump over the weekend at his golf club in New Jersey. After meeting potential hires, Trump hosted private talks with a group of top US news anchors and executives -- with whom he repeatedly feuded during the campaign. Trump also suggested that Nigel Farage, the co-founder of the nationalist UK Independence Party, should become Britain's ambassador to the US. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States," the Republican tweeted. "He would do a great job!" Late on Tuesday or early on Wednesday, Trump is to fly to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to take a "brief" Thanksgiving holiday break with his family. Trans-Pacific Partnership Laurence Chu, John Saeki (AFP) US Trade Representative Michael Froman has warned that scrapping the TPP would have "serious" strategic and economic costs Enrique De La Osa (POOL/AFP) President-elect Donald Trump welcomes retired United States Marine Corps general James Mattis before their meeting at Trump International Golf Club, November 19, 2016 Drew Angerer (GETTY/AFP) US President-elect Donald Trump, pictured on November 19, 2016, said, "I will formulate a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated, it's so important" Don Emmert (AFP/File) Facebook in crosshairs as fake news battle heats up Hillary Clinton was about to be indicted, Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump: the battle over fake news is heating up after a White House campaign in which the misinformation industry may have swung the outcome of the vote. Last week, Google and Facebook moved to cut off ad revenue to bogus news sites. But media watchers say more is needed to stamp out a powerful phenomenon seen by some people as a threat to democracy itself. One of those people is President Barack Obama, who has warned that fake news threatens the basic principle of freedom of speech. Last week, Google and Facebook moved to cut off ad revenue to bogus news sites Justin Tallis (AFP) "If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect," Obama said during a visit to Germany. The hoaxes of the 2016 election season were in many cases spectacular -- "Did the Clintons Commit Murder?" -- and created by groups purely out to make money from clicks and ads. And since Trump's victory, reports have exposed the dark underbelly of operations -- run from Macedonia to California -- that boast of making easy money with wholly fabricated stories, under such headlines as "Look At Sick Thing He Just Did To STAB Trump In The Back." An analysis published by BuzzFeed News found that the 20 top-performing bogus stories from hoax websites and extremely partisan blogs generated slightly more than 8.7 million "shares" on Facebook to just 7.4 million from major news websites, in the three months before the election. Now, the outcry over fake news and its apparent role in the election is prompting calls for Facebook to consider itself a media company, with editorial responsibilities, which the social network has repeatedly rejected. - Arbiters of truth? - Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan argued that Facebook "should hire a top-flight executive editor and give that person the resources, power and staff to make sound editorial decisions." For Gabriel Kahn, a former journalist who teaches at the University of Southern California, "they're in the same business as pretty much every media company, which is aggregating audiences and using that to sell advertisements." And Kahn believes that Facebook, by considering itself a "neutral" platform, "allows the media ecosystem to be polluted" with bogus news. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Friday offered additional insight on plans to curb online misinformation while arguing for caution. "The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically," Zuckerberg said in a posting. "We believe in giving people a voice... We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties." Zuckerberg said nonetheless that Facebook would step up efforts to weed out fake news with "stronger detection," an easier process to report hoaxes and "third party verification" from "respected fact checking organizations." Tech entrepreneur Elad Gil said it should not be too difficult for a company like Facebook to apply its technical expertise to determine when a news story is fake. "Intriguingly, a group of undergrads at Princeton were able to build a quick and dirty fake news classifier during a 36-hour hackathon," Gil said in a blog post. - 'Click farms' vs ideology - Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy argued that it is important to differentiate between "click farms" which make money off entirely fake news and politically driven news sites. "I think Facebook could do a lot to crack down on fake news, and I think that's something everybody could agree on, but if they try to go against the ideologically motivated sites it will inevitably get caught up in the culture wars," Kennedy said. The prevalence of ersatz news, analysts note, comes in a context of deep distrust of mainstream media, which is often accused of one-sidedness. Any effort to filter out those voices could "lead to the relitigation of ancient disputes over media bias," said Kennedy. Reason magazine editor Scott Shackleford said it would be hard to draw a line between filtering bogus news and ideological censorship. "So a decision by Facebook to censor 'fake news' would heavily weigh in favor of the more mainstream and 'powerful' traditional media outlets," he wrote. City University of New York journalism professor Jeff Jarvis and startup entrepreneur John Borthwick argued in a blog post that the media and technology industries should work together to help readers establish the credibility of news. "We do not believe that the platforms should be put in the position of judging what is fake or real, true or false as censors for all," they wrote. "The platforms need to give users better information and media need to help them." Even if the online platforms do not turn into media firms, the two wrote in the blog, they should "hire high-level journalists inside their organizations" to "bring a sense of public responsibility to their companies" and "to explain journalism to the technologists and technology to the journalists." NY moves closer to shutting down Indian Point New York state has taken another step toward shutting down the Indian Point nuclear power plant, outside New York city, officials said Monday. The decision of the New York Court of Appeal concerns an application to renew one of the permits required by Entergy to continue operating two pressurized water reactors at the plant, which were put into operation in 1974 and 1976. Contrary to a lower court's ruling, this request must be submitted to the State Department of State of New York state, which should reject it. The Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant sits on the banks of the Hudson River in Buchanan, New York Don Emmert (AFP/File) "The Department of State already concluded that the Indian Point relicensing application is inconsistent with New Yorks long-standing Coastal Management Program requirements and will continue to use this program to protect New York's coastline," Governor Andrew Cuomo said. "Indian Point is antiquated and does not belong on the Hudson River in close proximity to New York City, where it poses a threat not only to the coastal resources and uses of the river, but to millions of New Yorkers living and working in the surrounding community." Since the 2011 Japanese nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Cuomo has pushed for shutting down the plant. Sixty miles outside New York, the densely populated area would be particularly difficult to evacuate in an emergency. Bid to quieten Muslim call to prayer amplifies Israel tensions It is 4:30 am and Mufeed Shawana is rushing to Al-Aqsa Mosque, as the first Muslim call to prayer of the day rings out across the Old City of east Jerusalem. But he stops short when asked how he feels about the prospect that the sound echoing from the minarets could soon be dampened. "It upsets me. The calls to prayer have happened for 1,400 years." The minaret of a mosque and the Dome of the Rock in a Palestinian neighbourhood in east Jerusalem's Old City Ahmad Gharabli (AFP) A bill backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ban mosques around Israel and annexed east Jerusalem from using loudspeakers to amplify late night and early morning azans, or calls to prayers, has been approved by a ministerial committee ahead of a parliamentary debate and voting. It has been temporarily blocked but the government is still confident of pushing it through. Shawana argues that nobody would deny Jews their own religious rituals, which are "their right". "This is our right," he adds, before disappearing inside the mosque. The dispute around high-decibel minarets is not unique to Israel, which argues that other states, including in Europe and North Africa, have similar restrictions to those it is looking to implement. But it has touched a raw nerve in Israel, where many in its minority Arab population -- around 17.5 percent of the whole and overwhelmingly Muslim -- believe Netanyahu's rightwing government is systematically persecuting them. They also worry that their connection to Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam, is under threat. Large numbers of Israeli Jews view the azans as noise pollution, with the bill's sponsor Motti Yogev, of the far-right Jewish Home party, arguing they disturb the peace of hundreds of thousands of people. He has also claimed that in some cases they are used by religious leaders to incite against Israel. In its current draft, the law would prevent the summons to worshippers between 11:00 pm until 6:00 am from being relayed on loudspeakers. Palestinians and Arab Israelis have organised protests against the ban, with an Arab Israeli MP performing the azan in Israel's parliament to the fury of some of his Jewish colleagues. The Arab League called the bill "a very dangerous provocation". Arab Israelis, who largely identify as Palestinians, are the descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. On Tuesday Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported a mosque in the Arab Israeli city of Lod was fined 750 shekels ($193) for playing the call to prayer too loud. - 'Terrible noise' - Beit Safafa in southern Jerusalem is a Palestinian village in east Jerusalem flanked by Israeli neighbourhoods, including the area of Pat, a few hundred metres (yards) away. In a passionate sermon at Beit Safafa's mosque, Najih Bkeirat, a religious leader from Al-Aqsa visiting for the weekly Friday prayers, railed against the Israeli plans. "It is very clear the Israeli occupation with this law, or the attempt at this law, wants to Judaise the city. They don't want to hear Arabic prayers in the city, they don't want to see churches in the city," he later told AFP. "The prayers represent a racket but the Israeli Jewish celebrations, celebrations at night you hear until dawn, they don't represent a racket?" he asked. For Israelis in Pat, turning the volume down is only fair and they accuse the Palestinians of being unreasonable. "We are a Jewish neighbourhood next to an Arab village -- the noise is terrible. I have a little kid who cannot sleep," said Ayelet Sadeh, 42. Just like Bkeirat and Shawana, she sees calculated malice rather than cultural misunderstanding behind the actions of the other side. She points to the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, when life in Israel grinds to a standstill for a day, as an example -- pointing out Muslim prayers continue that day. "Sometimes," she said, "it feels like they are doing (it out of) spite." - 'Forbidden fruit is sweet' - Health Minister Yaakov Litzman of the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism blocked the bill as he was worried it would silence the weekly siren alerting Jews to the start of the Sabbath, or holy day. An Israeli official told AFP the authorities were confident they'd find a way to pass the bill "while protecting religious freedom for all and the right of all to be free from excessive noise". There are more than 400 mosques in the country, including east Jerusalem, according to Israeli government figures, and implementing any law could be tough. "Forbidden fruit is sweet," Bkeirat said, suggesting Muslims would organise loud prayer calls from homes. "If they ban the prayers, every house will become a prayer house -- every house will pray, every person," he said. "Day and night, until the occupation understands they cannot interfere in religious issues." Firas Kazaz, a Palestinian a muezzin -- the person appointed to recite the Muslim call to prayer -- stands in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City Ahmad Gharabli (AFP) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has backed a bill to ban mosques around Israel and annexed east Jerusalem from using loudspeakers to amplify the call to prayer Ahmad Gharabli (AFP) At least five children killed in US school bus crash At least five children were killed when a US school bus carrying up to 35 students smashed into a tree, officials said. Children between the ages of five and 11 were aboard the bus, which flipped onto its side and slammed roof-first into the tree in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Five youngsters are known to have died, with 24 more rushed to hospital, city police chief Fred Fletcher said. At least five children have been killed in a US school bus accident in Tennessee John Moore (GETTY/AFP/File) "This is an absolute nightmare for this community," he said. Local media reported how dazed children lay on stretchers at the scene of the crash, near Woodmore Elementary School, waiting for ambulances to take them to hospital. Bus driver Johnthony Walker, 24, has been arrested, the police chief said. He was charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. "Certainly speed is being investigated very, very strongly as a factor in this crash," Fletcher said. "It was clear and dry... there did not appear to be any roadway conditions. But it is a complicated ... scene, it covers a significant area," he added. Fletcher described the incident as "every public safety official's worst nightmare." "But that is nothing in comparison to the nightmare that families, friends and our community is going through with this tragic loss." Police do not have a list of all students who were on the bus, but at least 24 students were taken to area hospitals, Fletcher said. The families of the five children confirmed dead had been notified. Information on the conditions of the nearly two dozen children at area hospitals was unavailable, Fletcher said. "I hope as deeply and passionately as I can that there are no more, but I do not know the status of those kids," he said. Amy Katcher, spokeswoman for Hamilton County Schools, told AFP that "this is the worst tragedy we have had to deal with." "Heartbreaking school bus crash in Chattanooga," tweeted US Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee. "My thoughts and prayers are with the children, families and first responders." Fletcher said a warrant was issued to remove the black box from the bus to review evidence. Trump backs Brexit leader Farage as UK envoy to US Britain ruled out replacing its ambassador in Washington on Tuesday after US President-elect Donald Trump, in his latest unorthodox intervention, tweeted that Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage "would do a great job". The decision on who is appointed to represent the United Kingdom in Washington is a matter for the British government, but that did not stop the controversial property mogul turned world leader from weighing in on social media. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States," Trump said on his Twitter account. "He would do a great job!" UKIP leader Nigel Farage stands with US President-elect Donald Trump during their meeting at Trump Tower in New York Andy Wigmore (UKIP/AFP/File) Farage, interim leader of the nationalist UK Independence Party which campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union, met recently with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. The British politician -- who has failed repeatedly to be elected to the British parliament -- wrote on right-wing news site Breitbart that Trump's suggestion had come as a "bolt from the blue" and that he would "do anything to help our national interest". "I can still scarcely believe that he did that," he added. But Downing Street and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson both stressed Tuesday that there was "no vacancy". "We have a first rate ambassador in Washington doing a very good job," Johnson told MPs in parliament. Kim Darroch, the UK's former national security adviser, only took over the diplomatic post in January. Trump's suggestion "highlights the current unsettled condition of transatlantic relations," said Richard Whitman, associate fellow of the Europe Programme at Chatham House. - UK hopes to 'shape' Trump policy - During the divisive US presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly compared his presidential bid to the Brexit referendum in which a majority of Britons voted to split from the EU. Trump's call on Twitter is unusual -- ambassadors are appointed by the governments they represent, not by the administration of the country in which they serve. Britain is keen to build bridges with Trump after many of its leading government figures criticised the president-elect during his successful election campaign. "I had a very good conversation with vice president-elect Mike Pence and we see eye-to-eye on a great many matters," Johnson said Tuesday. The government hopes to "shape and influence" Trump's policies on shared defence -- stressing the importance of NATO -- and free trade, he added. London is also interested in sounding out a US trade deal as it plots its departure from the European Union. Queen Elizabeth II could host Trump within months of him becoming president, with the British government confirming Monday that it was considering a state visit next year. Royal officials said the government was responsible for organising state visits, and a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said the proposal was "under consideration". Trump told May that he was a "big fan of the Queen" when the pair spoke by telephone following his victory, and is also reported to have told Farage that his late mother Mary would have been "chuffed to bits when I meet the Queen." Britain will not issue an invitation to a president-elect, but is expected to make its move shortly after Trump's inauguration on January 20. UN base 'targeted' in Central Africa clashes The UN peacekeeping force in Central African Republic (CAR) said Tuesday one of its bases had come under fire during clashes between rival groups, prompting its troops to respond. The violence erupted on Monday between rival factions of the so-called former Seleka Muslim rebel group in the town of Bria, 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Bangui, MINUSCA said in a statement. "The MINUSCA base was targeted by some elements of the FPRC before they were driven out of the area by retaliatory fire," it said. A Moroccan peacekeeper from the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) patrols in Bangui Issouf Sanogo (AFP/File) The FPRC -- the Popular Front for the Renaissance of the Central African Republic -- is a splinter group led by Noureddine Adam, who faces international sanctions for his alleged role in intercommunal killings in 2013 and 2014. The other ex-Seleka faction involved in Monday's fighting was the Union for Peace in Central Africa (UPC), MINUSCA said. The group is led by Ali Ndarass. The statement said the two groups would be "held responsible for the violence, particularly on civilians." It gave no details about any casualties. One of the world's poorest countries, CAR has been struggling to emerge from the aftermath of a civil war which erupted in 2013 following the overthrow of former president Francois Bozize, a Christian, by Muslim rebels from the Seleka coalition. Militias are flourishing, given the weakness of the state. The main groups are factions from the former Seleka and Christian "anti-Balaka" (anti-machete) militias, a reference to the rebels who use machetes. A 28-year-old man died in Japan after choking on a rice ball at a speed-eating contest, an event organiser said Tuesday. The man, whose name was withheld, died on November 16 in hospital three days after choking, said the local farmer's cooperative that sponsored the event in the western city of Hikone. Contestants competed to see how fast they could eat five 'onigiri' balls of locally grown steamed rice, a popular Japanese comfort food. Eating contests are popular events at various regional fairs held in Japan to promote local produce and culture, as in other countries where choking deaths have been reported The man shoved his fifth rice ball into his mouth before passing out and was rushed to a local hospital where he later died, the organiser said. The contest was composed of three sets of five contestants each. 'We had the first and the second sets finished and were watching the third group when this happened,' said the official at the cooperative, who declined to be named. Eating contests are popular events at various regional fairs held in Japan to promote local produce and culture, as in other countries where choking deaths have been reported. Japan's best known competitive eater is Takeru Kobayashi, who won fame as champion of an annual hot dog eating contest in New York. Coalition destroys Mosul bridge to isolate jihadists The US-led coalition bombed a key bridge in Mosul Tuesday to isolate jihadists whose stiff resistance in the east of the city is threatening to bog down Iraqi forces. The number of civilians displaced since last month's start of the offensive against Mosul -- the Islamic State group's last stronghold in Iraq -- rose to 68,000, but most of the city's population remained trapped. A coalition aircraft carried out an air strike on Mosul's "third bridge", leaving a British-era bridge in the centre as the last crossing of the Tigris River running through the city. Smoke billows from Islamic State positions during fighting in the eastern Samah area of Mosul on November 11, 2016 Odd Andersen (AFP/File) Coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said IS fighters has been using the bridges to re-supply the eastern side of the city, "essentially rotating their forces". "We're not going to let that happen," he told AFP. A member of the provincial council for Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital, said the central bridge was the last remaining after four others over the Tigris had been destroyed. IS has put up fierce resistance to defend Mosul, the city where its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a "caliphate" in June 2014. The eastern bank of the Tigris was expected to offer less resistance when tens of thousands of Iraqi forces launched the offensive on October 17 to retake the city. - Trapped civilians - Most of the jihadists' traditional bastions are on the western side of Mosul, as is the old city whose narrow streets will be hard to penetrate for the government forces' armoured vehicles. A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration voiced concern that the lack of bridges could further trap civilians, who IS have routinely used as human shields. "That would deprive a lot of families with an avenue to get away from the fighting," Joel Millman told AFP. Over five weeks, Iraqi forces advancing on several fronts have made considerable progress in the advance, but the fighting in Mosul itself has been tough. Elite forces from the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) -- the best trained units in the country -- have faced a daily barrage of mortar and sniper fire. IS fighters have also launched car bombs driven by a seemingly endless supply of suicide bombers against their positions and convoys in the city. "We're just in the very toughest part of the fight," Dorrian said. Iraqi forces are "up against an enemy where the most likely course of action and the most dangerous course of action are often one and the same," the coalition spokesman said. The intensity of the fighting has made it difficult for the hundreds of thousands of civilians in Mosul to flee to safety in camps erected around the city. - No safe routes - "68,550 people are currently displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance," the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Tuesday. OCHA said the aid response to the offensive was growing in complexity, with varying needs for different categories of civilians. "Humanitarian needs are severe among displaced families in and out of camps, vulnerable residents of retaken communities, and people fleeing the intense fighting in Mosul city," it said. The UN had initially predicted that 200,000 civilians could be forced from their homes in the first few weeks of the offensive, Iraq's biggest military operation in years. Iraqi forces have so far been sending the message to the population of Mosul that they should stay at home and not try to flee through the front lines. Many residents of Mosul have indeed hunkered down homes as Iraqi forces took on IS fighters in fierce street battles. That has restricted both the government forces' ability to use heavier weaponry against the jihadists and aid groups' ability to deliver assistance to civilians in need. "While Mosul is under ongoing heavy attack, there are currently no safe routes out of the city," Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) spokeswoman Becky Bakr Abdulla told AFP. "Civilians are facing an extremely difficult decision of either staying in their homes stuck in the crossfire or risk their lives in an attempt to find their way out of the city," she said. The Battle for Mosul Paz PIZARRO, Thomas SAINT-CRICQ, Iris ROYER DE VERICOURT (AFP/File) Iraqis carry white flags as they flee to an area held by government forces in the Samah neighbourhood of Mosul on November 15, 2016 Odd Andersen (AFP/File) Rights group, families, urge Afghan government to protect Shiites An international rights group and victims' families urged the Afghan government on Tuesday to protect the minority Shiite community after a bloody mosque bombing, the latest in a series of deadly sectarian attacks. A massive suicide blast claimed by the Islamic State group targeted a Shiite congregation in Kabul on Monday, killing at least 27 people and wounding 64. ISIS has stepped up its horrific and unlawful attacks on Shia public gatherings, making no place safe, Patricia Gossman, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement using an alternative acronym for IS. A wounded Afghan man is transferred from an ambulance to hospital after a bombing at a Shiite mosque in Kabul on November 21, 2016 Wakil Kohsar (AFP) The government, Shia leaders, and civil society groups should work together to develop appropriate ways to improve security during vulnerable public and religious gatherings so that Shia community members can exercise their basic rights. she said. Amnesty International, in a statement Monday, said Afghan authorities "have a duty to take effective measures to protect Shia Muslims from attacks and end impunity for previous abuses against the Shia community". The latest attack was mounted as worshippers gathered for the major Shiite ceremony of Arbaeen, marking the end of a 40-day mourning period after Ashura. Ashura itself commemorates the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Angry Shiite mourners on Tuesday accused the government of failing to provide protection as they buried loved ones. "We voted for this government, people's fingers were cut by militants for voting. In return the government should provide us with security," said Ghulam Haydar, a relative of a victim. "I want the the international community to help us get rid of the terrorists and stop them from harming the people." The interior ministry said it had suspended four police officials in connection with the attack and launched a thorough investigation. Last month a powerful blast targeting Shiites during Ashura killed 14 people in northern Afghanistan. It followed twin attacks claimed by IS that also targeted Shiites and killed 18 in Kabul. In July IS jihadists claimed twin explosions that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 85 and wounding more than 400. Those bombings marked the deadliest single attack in the Afghan capital since the Taliban were ousted from power in a 2001 US-led invasion. US-Philippine military ties 'robust' despite Duterte threats Philippine-US military ties are still "robust" despite threats by President Rodrigo Duterte to sever defence relations between the two allies, Manila's military spokesman said Tuesday. Brigadier General Restituto Padilla gave the assurance following the latest meeting of the two countries' senior military officials to discuss defence cooperation up to 2017. Duterte last month announced a "separation" from the United States and has called for the withdrawal of American troops from his country, putting into question Manila's 70-year-old alliance with Washington. President Rodrigo Duterte has announced an end to joint US-Philippine military exercises Ted Aljibe (AFP/File) Duterte has also said he would end joint US-Philippine military exercises and called US President Barack Obama a "son of a whore" in response to criticism of his deadly war on drugs. Despite Duterte's threats, Philippine military chief General Ricardo Visaya and the commander of US forces in the Pacific Admiral Harry Harris met in Manila on Tuesday. "The successful completion of the (meeting) ensures continued robust relations between the US and Philippine militaries," Padilla told reporters. "This highlights the enduring commitment of both countries to the US-Philippine alliance." Padilla said the two militaries looked forward to closer cooperation in disaster relief, counter-terrorism, cybersecurity and maritime security. The two sides also discussed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, an accord signed in 2014 that allows greater rotation of US forces in the Philippines. But Padilla declined to say whether Visaya and Harris discussed Duterte's threats. The new president's fiery rhetoric has caused confusion in military and diplomatic circles with Duterte threatening to cut back on ties with the United States and vowing to create a new alliance with Russia and China. Duterte again criticised the US in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a regional summit in Peru over the weekend. But even with Duterte's anti-American sentiment, Philippine-US joint exercises have continued to take place and Harris said at a Washington event last week: "There has been no change in anything with the Philippines." The Philippine military has said it was awaiting guidelines from Duterte on whether the joint war games would continue to be held next year. The country hosts 28 such exercises annually. Duterte's war on drugs has seen more than 4,700 people killed, with the United Nations, the European Union and rights groups raising concerns about alleged extrajudicial killings and a breakdown in the rule of law. Italy migrant arrivals hit record as eight die in Med At least eight people were confirmed dead Tuesday and many more were missing after a new series of boat tragedies left Italy on the verge of a record year for migrant arrivals. Confirming the latest fatalities in what is already a record year for migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Italy's coastguard said 1,397 people had been saved in 12 operations between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon. The rescues will take the number of migrants to have arrived in Italy by sea this year to almost 170,000, a whisker short of the previous record set in 2014. Migrants wait to be rescued off the coast of Libya on November 5, 2016 Andreas Solaro (AFP/File) A coastguard boat recovered seven bodies and oversaw the rescue of 182 people from a stricken rubber dinghy in waters off Libya. The other confirmed victim, a man, died on the Topaz Responder, a boat operated by Malta-based charity MOAS with a Red Cross medical team onboard. Three others were in a critical condition: a woman who was helicoptered off a coastguard boat after suffering cardiac arrest and two people on the Responder who were transferred to coastguard speedboats suffering from hypothermia. MOAS said survivors' accounts suggested that "many" people were unaccounted for, including the mother of two children who survived. The organisation said it had helped rescue some 600 people in four difficult operations, including 117 from one sinking dinghy. The vessel of choice for people traffickers operating out of Libya, such dinghies typically have between 120 and 150 migrants crammed onto them. "The doctors managed to revive several people with hypothermia but it was too late for one of them," MOAS spokeswoman Maria Teresa Sette told AFP. The coastguard said the 12 stricken boats assisted in the latest rescues included one larger wooden vessel that was was carrying 450-500 people, six smaller wooden boats with a few dozen people on board and five dinghies. - Migrant killed by train - Unusually, the survivors included "many families" from Syria, according to MOAS, as well as people from the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Sudan. Of late, migrants leaving Libya have been overwhelmingly from sub-Saharan or East Africa with a much-anticipated surge in the numbers of refugees from Syria's war having failed to materialise following the de facto closure of the Turkey-Greece migrant route earlier this year. The latest victims will add to a total of 4,655 migrants confirmed to have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean so far this year, according to counts by the International Organisation for Migration and the UN refugee agency. The rescued survivors will add to a total of 168,544 migrants who have been registered at Italian ports in 2016. The highest previous annual total was 170,100, in 2014. The vast majority of the migrants landing in Italy come from Africa and begin their sea crossings from Libya, typically paying traffickers several hundred dollars for the often perilous crossing. With Italy's neighbours having tightened their borders, the numbers being housed in reception facilities spread across the country have risen to an unprecedented total of over 176,000, prompting howls of protest from some local authorities. Many migrants arrive in Italy with the intention of travelling north, often to try and rejoin relatives, with Germany and Sweden among the popular destinations. One such man, thought to be from Eritrea, died overnight while trying to board a freight train travelling from Italy to Austria via the Brenner tunnel through the Alps. The man was hit by a train moving in the opposite direction near the main station in Bolzano, close to the border. Police said the incident was the first of its kind for Bolzano. Recent weeks have seen several migrants killed by cars while trying to cross from Italy into France at their coastal border. Pakistan searches for powerful new army chief Pakistan's popular military chief is expected to stand down this week after winning the hearts of millions with his bruising campaign against Islamic militants, leaving a vacancy for arguably the most powerful job in the country. Whoever steps into General Raheel Sharif's shoes will play an outsize role in national life, offering the armed reassurance against arch-rival India that many Pakistanis see as vital to their identity. With the civilian government largely dismissed as corrupt and inefficient, the military offers a form of stability and steadfastness. Pakistani General Raheel Sharif has served as chief of staff since 2013 "The army is the only institution in Pakistan that is organised," analyst Hassan Askari told AFP. "So the army has an advantage and also plays a role in politics, either openly or pulling strings from behind the scenes." Sharif was the figurehead behind a widely-lauded crackdown against militancy that is credited with pushing Islamist extremists to the margins. Many in Pakistan were so grateful -- the hashtag #ThankYouRaheelSharif went viral -- that some even called for the general to launch a military coup. Critics say rights are being rolled back in the name of defeating terror, pointing to the creation of military courts and the resumption of hangings after a six-year moratorium. But there is no sign of a course correction from military headquarters in Rawalpindi city, and the announcement Monday that Sharif had begun a farewell tour scotched speculation he would extend his three-year tenure, set to end November 29, as previous military chiefs have done. The general's decision won him praise for respecting democracy, even as disappointed Pakistanis swarmed social media to pay tribute. His as-yet un-named successor will face challenges ranging from an increasingly hostile India to the conflict in Afghanistan, growing links between homegrown militants and Islamic State jihadists, and blowback from a Trump presidency. He will also take control of the military's uneasy relationship with the civilian government. The military has been in charge of Pakistan for more than half of its nearly 70-year history. The country is nominally ruled at present by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. But his administration is embroiled in accusations of corruption and waste, and increasingly finds itself playing second fiddle to a military that is already widely seen as controlling foreign policy and defence, leading to accusations it is carrying out a "creeping coup". "General Sharif will be remembered for positing the military as a state within a state more than many of the guys before him," analyst Ayesha Siddiqa told AFP. "The manner in which Sharif pushed the envelope was unbelievable." - The contenders - The power to choose the new military chief lies with Nawaz Sharif, though he is believed to be working off a shortlist supplied by the men in uniform. The highest-ranking contender is the army's Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Zubair Hayat, previously responsible for the safety and security of the country's nuclear programme. Behind Hayat in rank but seen by some analysts as a favourite, is Lieutenant General Ishfaq Nadeem, commander of the important Multan corps. The others in the running are Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa, chief of the army's training and evaluation branch, and Lieutenant General Javed Iqbal Ramdey, respected for an operation to drive out the Pakistani Taliban in northwestern Swat Valley in 2009. Analysts agree there may be little change in tack, especially with regards to Afghanistan, India and China. "The new generals coming up next are all trained by Raheel Sharif," said analyst Ahmed Rashid, though he warned there would be more pressure on the civilian government to perform. Much may depend on the relationship with Washington, which has supplied billions to the military for the fight against extremism since 2002. Sharif helped to improve relations after a furore over the US killing of former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, found hiding in Pakistan. But choppy waters lie ahead. The incoming Trump administration has said little about Pakistan specifically. Moscow accuses UN envoy of 'sabotaging' Syria resolution Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday accused the UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura of "sabotaging" a resolution backing peace talks between the regime and opposition. "The United Nations in the form of its special representative Staffan de Mistura has been sabotaging the resolution for more than six months," Lavrov said in televised remarks while on a visit to Minsk. The resolution calls for "holding inclusive Syrian talks without preconditions," Lavrov said. Staffan de Mistura has been the UN Syria envoy since 2014 Kevin Lamarque (Pool/AFP/File) "It seems there is no other way except for the patriotic opposition and the government to take the initiative into their own hands and organise Syrian dialogue," he said. UN Security Council Resolution 2254 adopted in December 2015 proposed the establishment of a body to head the political transition. But it has been plagued by disagreements over the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom the Syrian opposition does not want to see in any future role. In January and February, de Mistura oversaw indirect talks which were cut short as the opposition denounced the regime's offensive in northern Syria that was bolstered by Russia's forces. Despite efforts to relaunch the talks in April, they eventually collapsed when the opposition announced it would not formally participate as long as government forces bomb civilians. Six soldiers killed in Boko Haram attack in Cameroon An attack by Nigeria's Boko Haram jihadists against a Lake Chad army base manned by an anti-insurgent regional force has left six Cameroonian soldiers dead, a military source said Tuesday. "Boko Haram attacked a base of the Mixed Multinational Force on the island of Darak (on Lake Chad) at around 2200 (2100 GMT)" on Monday, said the source, who asked not to be named. He said six soldiers had been killed. Boko Haram frequently travel around the many islands of Lake Chad, which borders northeast Nigeria, the far north of Cameroon, Niger and Chad. Nigeria has formed a regional military coalition involving Cameroon, Chad and Niger to eradicate Boko Haram Stefan Heunis (AFP/File) A civilian from a vigilante group working with security forces to combat Boko Haram incursions was also killed, another security source said. The jihadist group, which is seeking to impose strict Islamic sharia law in Nigeria's mainly-Muslim north, has killed at least 20,000 people and left more than 2.6 million homeless in its six-year insurgency. Cameroon has battled the extremist group since 2014 and has joined Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Benin in setting up a joint force against Boko Haram. The regional counter-offensive has helped the Nigerian military retake swathes of territory from the insurgents, but the jihadist group still poses a security threat to civilians. More than 1,000 combatants from Iran killed in Syria: official More than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria have been killed in the conflict, the head of Iran's veterans' affairs office said Tuesday. "The number of martyrs from our country defending the shrines has now passed 1,000," Tasnim news agency quoted Mohammad Ali Shahidi Mahalati, the head of Iran's Foundation of Martyrs' and Veterans' Affairs, as saying. Iran has sent military advisers, as well as volunteer fighters recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to work with Assad's forces. They are known in Iran as "defenders of the shrines" in reference to Shiite holy sites in Syria. Syrian pro-government soldiers advance in Aleppo's rebel-held neighbourhood of Bustan al-Basha on October 6, 2016 George Ourfalian (AFP/File) Shahidi did not specify the nationalities of those killed. Shiite Iran is a staunch supporter of Assad and provides both financial and military support for his regime. The Fatemiyoun Division of Afghan recruits organised by Iran comprises the majority of volunteers sent from Iran to fight in Syria and Iraq. Iran says they are sent to fight against Sunni extremists such as the Islamic State group (IS). The Islamic republic denies having any boots on the ground in Syria, and insists its commanders and generals of the elite Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations wing act as "military advisers" both there and in Iraq. Iranian media regularly report on the death in Syria of Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani "martyrs" whose bodies are buried in Iran. The latest death toll is significantly higher than previous tallies, although no overall figures have been officially announced so far. In August, Shahidi said Iran's Foundation of Martyrs' and Veterans' Affairs was caring for 400 people related to fighters killed in action in Syria and Iraq, half of them Afghans. "We immediately cover (the families) that the Quds Force announces to us," he said, according to ILNA news agency, referring to the Guards' foreign operations wing headed by Major General Qassem Suleimani. "We are waiting for the Quds Force to confirm the martyrdom" of more fighters, "so we can cover their families too," he said at the time. Iran in May passed a law allowing the government to grant citizenship to the families of foreigners killed while fighting for the Islamic republic. Americans upbeat about Trump, but not his tweeting: polls Americans are mostly optimistic about the country under the incoming presidency of Donald Trump, though they want him to stop tweeting, national poll results showed Tuesday. Nearly double the number of voters -- 59 percent versus 37 percent pessimistic -- said they are "optimistic about the next four years with Donald Trump as president," the independent Quinnipiac University Poll found. Only 17 percent said that Trump would be a "great" president, while 32 percent said he would be a "good" president. A CNN/ORC poll found that most Americans -- 53 percent -- think that Donald Trump will do a "very good" or "fairly good" job as president Jim Watson (AFP/File) A slightly smaller group viewed him negatively, with 26 percent saying he will be "bad" and 17 percent saying he will be "not so good." A separate CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday found that most Americans -- 53 percent -- think that Trump will do a "very good" or "fairly good" job as president. The results of the polls come two weeks after the Republican billionaire's unexpected win over Democrat Hillary Clinton. His November 8 election, after an extraordinarily nasty campaign, exposed a deeply divided country on values and governance. The beginning of Trump's transition to the White House on January 20 appeared to inspire some confidence in his presidency. The CNN/ORC poll found 48 percent were more confident, while 43 percent were less so. Trump's behavior post-election has made 36 percent of voters say they feel better and 14 percent feel worse, the Quinnipiac poll showed. But Trump's high use of Twitter to communicate to the public drew ire. According to the Quinnipiac poll, 59 percent of American voters say he should shut down his personal Twitter account, and 35 percent disagreed. "Voters tell President-elect Donald Trump, 'You've got the job. Now be a leader not a tweeter,'" said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll, in a statement. "And we're watching to make sure you put the country, not the Trump brand, first." Pentagon softens rules on carrying of firearms in US The Pentagon has softened rules on US troops carrying firearms while at government facilities, an action prompted by a series of deadly attacks on uniformed personnel. Troops already carry weapons as part of certain job functions, but the new rules will allow commanders to authorize the carrying of privately owned handguns, according to a November 18 directive. Commanders may grant permission to Department of Defense "personnel requesting to carry a privately owned firearm (concealed or open carry) on DoD property for a personal protection purpose not related to performance of an official duty or status," the directive states. On November 5, 2009, Major Nidal Hasan, 39, a US Army psychiatrist of Palestinian origin opened fire with a pistol at the Fort Hood base in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding more than 40 before he was arrested Drew Anthony Smith (Getty/AFP/File) In July last year, an attack on a Chattanooga, Tennessee recruitment center and a Navy and Marine Corps reserve center left four marines and one sailor dead at the hands of a lone gunman, who according to the FBI was inspired by radical Islamist propaganda. The rampage prompted Congress to ask President Barack Obama's administration to loosen current regulations on US troops carrying arms. On November 5, 2009, Major Nidal Hasan, 39, a US Army psychiatrist of Palestinian origin opened fire with a pistol at the Fort Hood base in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding more than 40 before he was arrested. UN resumes aid to Syrians stranded on Jordan border The United Nations on Tuesday announced a resumption of aid to some 85,000 Syrian refugees stranded on Jordan's border with war-torn Syria in what Amman has declared a military zone. The kingdom closed the border on June 21, halting aid deliveries to a makeshift camp, after a bombing claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group killed seven Jordanian soldiers. Since then, the kingdom has allowed a single delivery of aid to the refugees, back in August. Syrian refugees wait to cross to the Jordanian side of the Hadalat border crossing, a military zone east of the capital Amman, after arriving from Syria on May 4, 2016 Khalil Mazraawi (AFP/File) In October, Amnesty International said more than 70,000 Syrians were trapped in "hellish conditions" in a remote, arid strip of no-man's land on Syria's side of the desert frontier. "The resumption of assistance comes at the start of the coldest period of the year, when temperatures can drop dangerously low," a UN statement said on Tuesday. It said the aid would include food, hygiene kits, winter clothing, blankets and plastic sheeting. Jordan's government said early last month that it would allow a resumption of aid in coming weeks. The United Nations says there are more than 600,000 refugees from Syria in Jordan, a figure Amman puts at 1.4 million. In August, King Abdullah II said his country was "doing its utmost to help refugees" from Syria. Shell seeks to block Nigeria pollution claims in London court Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell on Tuesday urged a High Court judge in Britain to block pollution claims brought against it by more than 40,000 Nigerians, demanding the case be heard in Nigeria instead. Lawyers for the claimants are demanding action from Shell to clean up oil spills that have devastated their Niger Delta communities for decades. But Royal Dutch Shell lawyer Peter Goldsmith told High Court of England and Wales judge Peter Fraser that the cases concerned "fundamentally Nigerian issues", and shouldn't be heard in London. Royal Dutch Shell lawyer Peter Goldsmith told High Court of England and Wales judge Peter Fraser that ases concerned "fundamentally Nigerian issues" shouldn't be heard in London Jerry Lampen (ANP/AFP/File) "The claims raise issues of Nigerian common law, customary law and legislation," he said during the first day of the three-day hearing. "The events are said to have occurred in Nigeria and the alleged physical damage is all said to be found in Nigeria." Shell pointed out that the case involves its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the government. Goldsmith said the case was aimed at "procuring an 'anchor defendant'" to establish the High Court's jurisdiction over SPDC, opening the door for further claims. Daniel Leader from legal firm Leigh Day, which is representing the claimants, said oil spills from Shell's pipelines had "blighted the lives of the thousands of Nigerians who live in Ogale and Bille" communities. "It is clear to the claimants that Royal Dutch Shell is ultimately responsible for failing to ensure that its Nigerian subsidiary operates without causing environmental devastation," he said in a statement. "At the moment these communities have no choice -- they have to take them to court to get them to act." King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi of the Ogale community told AFP his community had no option but to seek a ruling in London. "Shell is Nigeria and Nigeria is Shell," he said. "You can never, never defeat Shell in a Nigerian court. The truth is that the Nigerian legal system is corrupt." SPDC claims that the main sources of pollution in Ogale and Bille are "crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining." Status of main battle fronts in Iraq and Syria Here is a look at the latest developments on the ground on the main fronts of the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, as of 1700 GMT on Tuesday: IRAQ - Battle for Mosul - A "spotter" of the Hashd Al Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Units), shows to a member of his unit the direction from where an Islamic State group fighter is shooting at them at Iraq's Tal Afar airport on November 20, 2016 Achilleas Zavallis (AFP/File) US-led coalition warplanes bombed a key bridge in the northern city of Mosul to isolate fighters of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in their major stronghold in Iraq, as a relative lull takes hold in fighting on the ground. Since the October 17 start of a broad offensive to retake Mosul, Iraqi forces have already retaken several eastern neighbourhoods despite fierce jihadist resistance. On Tuesday, elite forces from the Counter-Terrorism Service secured most of the Aden neighbourhood. West of Mosul, Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) forces -- a paramilitary umbrella group dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias -- pushed closer to Tal Afar and were less than four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the IS-held city. Iraqi forces are also closing in on Mosul airport south of the city. Northeast of Mosul, Kurdish peshmerga fighters have dug in 10 kilometres (six miles) away after seizing the town of Bashiqa. SYRIA - Raqa - The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance, is advancing in the desert as it tries to push closer to IS's de facto Syrian capital of Raqa. The SDF has been battling the jihadists to drive them from positions some 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of the city. - Battle for Aleppo - Syrian pro-government forces push deeper into rebel-held east Aleppo, forcing civilians to flee as the regime presses an assault to recapture the entire city. A week into the latest round of fighting for the divided city, the regime now controls around a third of a key eastern district, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. At least 143 civilians, including 19 children, have been killed in east Aleppo since the latest assault began on November 15, the Syrian Observatory said. Another 16 civilians, including 10 children, have been killed in rebel fire on western Aleppo, the Britain-based monitoring group said. Iran's veterans' affairs office says more than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad have been killed in Syria's five-year conflict. Russia, another regime ally, announced the launch on November 15 of an air war against jihadists in the northern province of Idlib, which is mainly rebel-held, and in Homs in central Syria. - Other fronts - Syrian rebels backed by Turkish forces inch closer to the IS stronghold of Al-Bab in Aleppo province, as they press Ankara's Operation "Euphrates Shield" to expel IS from the border area. Amnesty slams charges against Palestinian campaigner Amnesty International on Tuesday condemned "baseless charges" against a prominent Palestinian human rights campaigner, a day ahead of his trial. Issa Amro, founder of Youth Against Settlements, a campaign group in the West Bank city of Hebron, is due to appear in an Israeli military court Wednesday facing 18 charges. Among them are previously closed cases and a charge over an assault that took place when Amro was absent as he had already been arrested, Amnesty said. Youth Against Settlements founder Issa Amro, pictured in November 2015, is due to appear in an Israeli military court on 18 charges Hazem Bader (AFP/File) "The deluge of charges against Issa Amro does not stand up to any scrutiny," Amnesty's Magdalena Mughrabi said in a statement. "If he is convicted, we will consider Issa Amro a prisoner of conscience." A military spokesman, in a later statement, said evidence would be presented at the hearing that the accused had "taken part in riots, attacks on soldiers, calls to violence, and prevented security forces from doing their work". Hebron, where hundreds of Israelis live in heavily guarded settlements in the heart of a city of 200,000 Palestinians, is a key site of tension in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. Amro denies ever using violence to oppose the occupation of the West Bank. "On the contrary, I am a person who advocates non-violence," he told AFP Tuesday. The trial "is a political decision from the Israeli right-wing government to target my human rights work," he said. Since October 2015, 240 Palestinians, 36 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in a wave of violence, according to an AFP tally. Watchdog accepts Russia offer to aid Aleppo chemical attacks probe A global watchdog probing chemical arms attacks in Aleppo Tuesday took Russia up on an offer to provide some possible evidence saying it "may be of use" to their investigation. The Russian military said on November 11 that it had evidence of the use of chemical weapons by rebels in Syria's besieged eastern city of Aleppo. The military said in a statement that its experts "have found unexploded artillery ammunition belonging to terrorists which contains toxic substances." The OPCW chief, Ahmet Uzumcu, told AFP last week his organisation had received more than 20 reports of chemical attacks since August 1, 2016 Filippo Monteforte (AFP/File) The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Tuesday it had "recently received an offer from Russian authorities to provide some samples and other material in relation to an incident of alleged use of chemicals as weapons in Aleppo." "These samples and other material may be of use in the ongoing work of the OPCW fact-finding mission," the organisation said in a statement. It said it had "proposed" to the Russian foreign ministry that given the ongoing conflict in Aleppo, it would be better "to receive such material in Damascus or The Hague." "At present, the OPCW is awaiting a response," the statement added. The OPCW, based in The Hague, has launched a fact-finding mission to investigate chemical weapons attacks in Syria. The mission is feeding its reports to a joint UN-OPCW panel, whose mandate has just been extended for a year. The OPCW chief, Ahmet Uzumcu, told AFP last week his organisation had received more than 20 reports of chemical attacks since August 1. Trump steps back from media feud in NY Times sit-down Donald Trump started the day tweeting about the "unfair" news media. He ended it with a polite sit-down with the New York Times where he called the daily a "world jewel." The turnabout may -- or may not -- signal a truce in the bitter war between the US president-elect and the press. Trump unleashed a stream of early morning tweets assailing the "failing" New York daily for continuing to "cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!" US President-elect Donald Trump waves to the crowd after leaving a meeting at the New York Times on November 22, 2016 Timothy A. Clary (AFP) After some confusion over whether his meeting with the paper would even take place, the Republican sat down with its journalists for an interview notable for its lack of rancor. Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted that Trump "says he has been treated unfairly during campaign. Says he'd like to improve relationship, that it would make his job easier." And according to her fellow reporter Julie Davis, the billionaire upon his departure described the daily as "a great great American jewel -- world jewel." The Times' journalists live-tweeted the conversation, which touched on concerns over conflicts of interest involving Trump's business empire, the "alt-right" movement that has cheered his election, and his decision not to push for prosecution of Hillary Clinton. Notably absent was the vitriol seen in a bruising campaign where the candidate dubbed journalists "thieves and crooks" and was himself labeled a "liar" on the news pages. - Closed vs open - The conversation was in sharp contrast to a day earlier, when the Republican billionaire resumed his onslaught in a closed-door session with high-ranking television executives where, despite expectations of fence-mending, he reportedly gave them a dressing-down over their coverage of the 2016 race. New Yorker editor David Remnick, citing sources attending the session, said Trump complained that NBC News used unflattering photos showing his double chin, and asked for "nicer" images. Attendees said they were taken aback at the tone from the president-elect, who repeated claims of insulting and inaccurate coverage. "I really am offended," one of them was quoted as saying. "This was unprecedented. Outrageous!" Far from sobered by his heavy new responsibilities as head of state, one participant was quoted as saying Trump "is the same kind of blustering, bluffing blowhard as he was during the campaign." Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway offered a different version, calling the meeting "cordial" and "productive," adding that "there was no need to mend fences." - Trump-media war - Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan praised the Times for holding Trump to an on-record interview. "The Times played it right," Sullivan wrote. "The paper successfully called Trump's bluff. As much as he professes to despise the Times, he remains in some ways the Queens boy who lusted after Manhattan success and acceptance." But despite the apparent lull, many analysts say they expect the relationship between Trump and the media to remain rocky. US news organizations dug into a host of Trump controversies as he campaigned for the world's most powerful office. These included allegations by women that he had harassed or sexually assaulted them, his past failures as a real estate developer and indications that he avoided paying taxes for years. The Republican pushed back hard -- charging the election was being "rigged by corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies" and colluding to hand victory to Clinton. - 'Foil for Trump's message' - Trump's clashes with the media appear to foreshadow a stormy relationship when he moves into the White House in January. Some groups have already complained Trump has not yet guaranteed "pool" media access, as has been customary, where a small group of journalists accompanies the president-elect on all public events and meetings. "It's not the media that needs this, it's the public," said Lucy Dalglish, dean of journalism at the University of Maryland. "He doesn't seem to understand the role that an independent, freely functioning media plays in a democracy. And not to recognize that role is troubling." Joel Kaplan, associate dean of journalism at Syracuse University, agreed that the media and Trump are in uncharted waters. "Even those (presidents) who didn't have the best relationship going in understood the role of the press and tried to court individual members," Kaplan said. Kaplan noted that Trump's hand is helped by a deepening distrust of the news media by the US public, but claimed that should not be a reason to change coverage of the White House. "The role of the news media is to inform the public," he said. "Once that happens, the public is responsible for what it does with that information." For Leonard Steinhorn, a communications professor at American University, there is good reason to expect more arm-wrestling between Trump and the news business. "There's going to be an adversarial relationship because the media serves as a foil for Donald Trump's message," Steinhorn said. "He will criticize the media if he doesn't like the coverage and it will help him rouse his base." Members of the press await the arrival of US President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on November 10, 2016 Saul Loeb (AFP/File) Kellyanne Conway, senior advisor to US President-elect Donald Trump's transition team, said there was "no need to mend fences" with the media Eduardo Munoz Alvarez (AFP) New York Times employees wait in the lobby for the arrival of President-elect Donald Trump on November 22, 2016 Timothy A. Clary (AFP) 'Senior Al-Qaeda leader' killed in US strike in Syria: Pentagon A US drone strike has killed a senior Al-Qaeda leader in Syria who previously operated in Afghanistan, the Defense Department announced Tuesday. The November 18 strike near Sarmada in northwestern Syria targeted Abu Afghan al-Masri, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said. "He had ties to terrorist groups operating throughout Southwest Asia, including groups responsible for attacking US and coalition forces in Afghanistan and those plotting to attack the West," Cook said. Fighters from Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate are pictured in 2015 near Aleppo Fadi al-Halabi (AMC/AFP/File) Al-Masri was an Egyptian who originally joined Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and later moved to its Syrian affiliate, Cook said. The Pentagon did not immediately provide further information about Masri, only that he had a "senior leadership role" in Al-Qaeda. "This is someone who helped organize Al-Qaeda activities," Cook said. He "has been on our radar for some time." A US-led coalition is striking Islamic State group targets in Syria, but has also hit leaders from other groups including the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which has renamed itself Fatah al-Sham. Trump would 'love' to broker peace between Palestinians, Israel President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he would "love" to clinch a deal to end the intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinians despite the checkered history of US attempts to broker a Middle East peace. "I would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians, that would be such a great achievement," Trump said in an interview with The New York Times. A New York Times reporter tweeted that Trump also suggested that his son-in-law Jared Kushner could help broker the deal. A New York Times reporter tweeted that Donald Trump suggested that his son-in-law Jared Kushner could help broker a Middle East peace deal Ahmad Gharabli (AFP/File) Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, is from an Orthodox Jewish family. The businessman and investor was a close adviser to Trump during the election campaign. After Trump's November 8 win, Kushner reportedly asked for access to the daily White House security briefings given to his father-in-law. Kushner and his wife were present when Trump visited with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on November 17, the president-elect's first meeting with a foreign leader. Trump has raised Palestinian ire by proposing that Jerusalem should be recognized as Israel's capital, an idea contrary to traditional US policy. The Israeli right has expressed particular satisfaction with Trump's election win, viewing it as a sign to resume or accelerate settlement building in the Israel-occupied Palestinian territories, and even the end of the idea of an independent Palestinian state. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman last week said Trump's aides were urging right-wing Israeli politicians to curb their public jubilation at his election, according to Israeli media. Judge urges new citizens to leave US if can't accept Trump SAN ANTONIO (AP) A federal judge in San Antonio finds himself at the center of an uproar after telling newly sworn U.S. citizens that Donald Trump is "your president, and if you don't like that, you need to go to another country." U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primono's comments were reported by KENS-TV in San Antonio, which covered the naturalization ceremony at which 500 immigrants took the oath of U.S. citizenship at the Institutes of Texan Cultures on Thursday. "I can assure you that whether you voted for him or you did not vote for him," the television report quoted him as saying of the president-elect, "if you are a citizen of the United States, he is your president. He will be your president, and if you do not like that, you need to go to another country." He later told the station and the San Antonio Express-News that he meant his words to be unifying and respectful of the president's office, not political, and added that he did not vote for Trump for president. "I wasn't trying to say anything for or against Donald Trump. I was just trying to say something hopeful and unifying, and unfortunately it was taken out of context," he told the Express-News. The television station also reported that Primono was critical at the ceremony of protesters who carried placards saying, "He's not my president," and said he detested the actions of pro athletes who kneel during the playing of the national anthem. Rebel leaders arrive in Bogota to sign new peace deal BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) Leaders of Colombia's biggest rebel group have arrived in the capital to sign a revised peace accord with the government. The new deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia could be signed as soon as this week. Local media say the accord will be signed Tuesday, but there has been no official confirmation. The two sides announced Nov. 12 that they had reached the new deal after their first accord was narrowly rejected by Colombian voters in a plebiscite. Police seize party drug MDMA in Sydney and arrest 2 Chinese SYDNEY (AP) An Australian police operation has seized more than 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of the party drug MDMA in Sydney worth 60 million Australian dollars ($44 million) and arrested two Chinese nationals, officials said Tuesday. The men, aged 38 and 34, appeared in a Sydney court on Monday on drug importation charges, a police statement said. They were denied bail and face potential life prison sentences if convicted. The drug arrived in Sydney last month in a shipment of aluminum rollers. Australian Border Force officers examined the consignment and detected a crystalline substance concealed within the rollers. Kanye West is hospitalized in Los Angeles LOS ANGELES (AP) Kanye West has been hospitalized in Los Angeles after abruptly canceling the last 21 dates of his national tour. E! News, which is part of the E! network that airs the Kardashian family reality show and its spinoffs, reported that West was hospitalized Monday afternoon after his personal doctor called 911. A rep for the E! network said Tuesday that E! cameras were not filming when the 911 call was made and that they are not filming at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where West is being treated. FILE - In this May 2, 2016 file photo, Kanye West arrives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Benefit Gala, celebrating the opening of "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology" in New York. West was taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles on Monday, Nov. 21, for stress and exhaustion. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) A spokeswoman for West's wife, Kim Kardashian, had no comment Tuesday. Los Angeles police told The Associated Press on Monday that they responded to a home in West Hollywood, California, and a person there was taken by ambulance to the hospital and placed on a psychiatric hold. Police did not identify the patient as West. Kardashian had been expected to make her first public appearance Monday night since she was tied up and robbed at gunpoint last month in Paris. It was to come at the Angel Ball, a charity event in New York honoring her late father, Robert Kardashian. But amid the reports about West, she did not show up. Her mother, Kris Jenner, and sisters Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian were on hand. When asked how the couple was doing, Jenner simply smiled and said, "They're good." West had just pulled the plug on his Saint Pablo Tour after days of erratic and angry behavior that made an even hotter topic than usual on social media. On Friday, during a concert in San Jose, California, West said he didn't vote in the presidential election but would have cast a ballot for Donald Trump, praising the president-elect's "method of communication" as "very futuristic." On Saturday in Sacramento, California, he ended his show after just four songs but not before a 10-minute tirade about Beyonce, Jay Z, Hillary Clinton, Mark Zuckerberg, the radio and MTV. Over the weekend, West also flooded his Instagram account with nearly 100 fashion photos, many snaps of photos that were out of focus and poorly cropped. Sunday's show in the Los Angeles area was canceled then West decided to scrap the entire tour. Concert promoter Live Nation said tickets would be fully refunded. The tour was to have made stops through Dec. 31 in Dallas, Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C., among others. ___ This story has been corrected to remove reference to E! Network confirming the details of the E! News report; the network now says they have no direct knowledge of his hospitalization. ___ Philippine, US military chiefs say ties remain robust MANILA, Philippines (AP) The chiefs of the Philippine armed forces and the United States Pacific Command said Tuesday the two countries' military ties remain robust, with both sides committed to their alliance and cooperation on maritime security, counterterrorism and humanitarian aid. The upbeat statement issued at the end of a Mutual Defense Board and Security Engagement Board meeting came after threats by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to reduce military cooperation with Washington and expand security ties with China and Russia. Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., head of the U.S. Pacific Command, co-chaired the meeting with Gen. Ricardo R. Visaya, the Philippine armed forces chief. U.S. Admiral Harry Harris, right, U.S. Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, poses with Philippine Armed Forces Chief Gen. Ricardo Visaya for a photo following their annual Mutual Defense Board meeting at Camp Aguinaldo in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The annual meeting came at a time when Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the scaling down joint military exercises and other activities between the two countries. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) Harris said last week in Washington that there's been no change so far in U.S.-Philippine military cooperation but that there could be a "re-scoping" of some big joint exercises in 2017. The Philippines and the U.S. are longstanding allies who signed a mutual defense treaty in 1951. "The successful completion of the MDB-SEB ensures continued, robust relations between the U.S. and Philippine militaries," the statement said. "This highlights the enduring commitment of both countries to the U.S.-Philippine alliance." It said they look forward to continued cooperation in areas central to both countries' national and security interests, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, counterterrorism, cybersecurity and maritime security. The Philippine defense department earlier said it wants the number of drills reduced from the current 13 to about six or seven and for training to be re-focused on humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and counterterrorism. The department also wants to scrap two naval exercises that include territorial defense training. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana presented the proposal to Duterte earlier this month. Officials said the proposal was to be presented to the Americans during Tuesday's board meeting for concurrence. Padilla said the two sides discussed the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which seeks to establish U.S. military facilities inside Philippine military camps for prepositioning of troops and assets. But he did not elaborate on that or the reduction in exercises, saying more details may be available when the minutes of the meeting are released. Duterte earlier said he wants a review of the 2014 agreement, but Lorenzana later said the Duterte administration would implement previous agreements with the Americans, including that pact. Libyans arrest wife of senior al-Qaida-linked militant BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) Libyan authorities said Tuesday that they have arrested a wife of the one-eyed militant leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, once considered the most dangerous man in the Sahara and a veteran al-Qaida-linked figure. A Libyan anti-terrorism force said that one of Belmokhtar's wives, Asma Kadousi, was arrested Saturday along with a female companion. It said she had recently given birth in the militant stronghold of Darna, in eastern Libya. It said Belmokhtar is believed to be in southern Libya. A witness told The Associated Press earlier this month that he had seen Belmokhtar in the southern town of Sabha, where a drone attack reportedly killed a militant leader linked to Belmokhtar, along with six others, last week. The witness asked not to be named for security concerns, and it was not possible to confirm the report. The Algerian militant, once a top figure in al-Qaida's North African affiliate, is one of the most-wanted militants in the region, with a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. He escaped a U.S. drone strike in eastern Libya last year. Belmokhtar led the January 2013 attack on Algeria's Ain Amenas gas complex, in which at least 35 hostages, including three Americans, were killed. Believed to be 43 years old, he was dubbed "the one-eyed sheikh" after losing an eye in combat. He was later named the leader of the Morabitoon, an al-Qaida-linked group that operates in northern and western Africa, according to the Long War Journal, a blog that monitors jihadi groups. Libya has been plagued by chaos since the 2011 uprising, in which U.S. and European airstrikes helped rebels overthrow the longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Today much of the country is controlled by a patchwork of armed groups, some of which are allied to a U.N.-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, and others allied to authorities based in the country's far east. The U.N.-brokered government on Tuesday condemned the killing of a senior religious official who was abducted in Tripoli a month ago. It was not clear who killed Nader al-Omrani, but he was a member of a religious body that is strongly opposed to Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter, who leads forces allied with the eastern government. ___ Turkey sacks 15,000 more people as part of coup probe ANKARA, Turkey (AP) Turkey's government on Tuesday dismissed a further 15,000 people from the military, police and the civil service as part of an ongoing investigation into the failed military coup in July. The government also shut down some 500 associations, 19 health establishments and nine media outlets within the two government decrees issued Tuesday. Turkey has accused U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen of masterminding the failed July 15 attempt to topple the government and has launched a large-scale crackdown on his followers and institutions said to be run by his movement. Authorities have arrested close to 38,000 people and purged more than 100,000 others from government jobs. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that the civil service was still not entirely purged of Gulen's followers and vowed to take all measures necessary to eradicate the group. "We know that the state is not fully cleared of this treacherous gang. They are still within the Armed Forces, they are still within the police, they are still within the judiciary and they are still within the various sections of the state," Erdogan said. He added: "We won't allow them to destroy this country nor to crush the people. We will do whatever is necessary." Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, has denied involvement in the coup Hong Kong's Disneyland is set to undergo a $1.4billion expansion that includes the company's first themed areas based on the movie Frozen and Marvel superhero characters. The Hong Kong government, which owns a controlling stake in the resort, said Tuesday it signed an agreement with Disney for the expansion, which also calls for renovating the park's castle and adding an attraction based on Disney's new animated film 'Moana.' Work on the 10.9 billion Hong Kong dollar ($1.4billion) expansion is scheduled to run from 2018 to 2023. Scroll down for video A girl poses with Mickey and Minnie Mouse at the Hong Kong Disneyland in Hong Kong Hong Kong is striving to improve its competitiveness as an Asian tourism destination following the June launch of Shanghai Disneyland, a $5.5 billion resort that many had feared would siphon off mainland Chinese visitors to the Hong Kong park. Hong Kong Disneyland lost HK$148 million in its most recent financial year as attendance fell nine per cent, following three years of profit. The park, which opened in 2005, was criticized in its early years for being too small and having too few big-ticket rides. Hong Kong Disneyland (pictured) lost HK$148 million in its most recent financial year as attendance fell nine per cent, following three years of profit New attractions and facilities have been added over the years. An 'Iron Man' land is due to open in January followed by an Explorers Lodge hotel later in the year. Costs will be divided according to ownership, with the Hong Kong government, which owns 53 percent of the park, contributing $748 million. Walt Disney Co. will put in the remaining $658 billion. Turkey issues arrest warrants for Syrian Kurdish leader ANKARA, Turkey (AP) Turkish authorities on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for the leader of a U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish group while President Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed a threat to oust Syrian Kurds from a key town in northern Syria. Prosecutors in Ankara demanded the arrest of 48 Kurdish militants and leaders, including Saleh Muslim, who heads the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. The warrants were issued in connection to a suicide bomb attack in February in Ankara, which killed 29 people and was claimed by a Kurdish militant group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Turkey considers the PYD and its armed wing, known as the YPG, as the extension of the PKK in Syria. All three are designated as terror organizations. In August, Ankara sent ground troops into northern Syria to support Syrian opposition forces clearing a border area of Islamic State group militants and to curb the PYD and YPG's territorial expansion. On Tuesday, Erdogan reiterated that the Turkish-backed fighters were close to capturing the key town of al-Bab from the IS group. Once that is achieved, Erdogan said, the troops would head toward the town of Manbij, currently held by the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. The Kurdish forces drove IS from Manbij earlier this year, but Turkey says it was promised that they would leave after the town's capture and retreat east of the Euphrates river. "Why will we go to Manbij? Not because we are wild about the place but because the PYD and YPG are there," Erdogan said. "They say a number of them have left. But we want the place to be totally emptied of the PYD and YPG." The prosecutors issued the arrest warrants, arguing that the attack which targeted buses carrying military personnel in Ankara was ordered by PKK leaders, including two who are in exile in Europe and two who are believed to be in northern Iraq. Saleh Muslim's alleged role in the attack was not clear. The PKK leaders are already wanted in Turkey but it was the first known warrant for Muslim, who visited Turkey in 2014 and met with Turkish officials. Muslim said the arrest warrants against him and other Kurdish leaders were related to the advances of the Syrian Kurdish forces, backed by the U.S.-led coalition, against IS militants in their Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, repeating a longstanding Kurdish accusation that Ankara supports extremist Islamist groups including IS. He also accused the Turkish government of reacting to the Kurdish forces' expansion in northern Syria, progress that has boosted Kurdish self-administration plans there. "Everyone knows that there is no law or courts or democracy or institutions that follow the law in Turkey. There is a sultan who issues orders. No one will take that seriously," Muslim told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Europe. "Today, there is no law in Turkey and the parliament can't carry out its duties." Muslim also dismissed the Turkish threat against al-Bab and Manbij, saying it would raise tension with Russia, which supports the Syrian government, and would face resistance from Kurdish forces. "This will face stiff resistance," Muslim said. However, Ilham Ahmed, the leader of the U.S-backed Syrian Democratic Forces' political arm, said Ankara was seeking a confrontation with the U.S.-led coalition that backs the SDF, and of which Turkey is a member. "These threats are serious, and he intends to storm Manbij," she told AP in a series of text messages. "We consider this to be opening a battlefront against the coalition forces." U.S. officials said last week that the YPG had pulled out of Manbij. __ Indian railways suffer from inadequate funds, neglect NEW DELHI (AP) It's often described as India's lifeline, transporting 23 million people across the vast South Asian country each day. India's rail network, the world's third largest, operates more than 12,600 trains carrying passengers and cargo along 115,000 kilometers (71,000 miles) of track. With more than 1.4 million employees, it is the country's largest employer. But not all is well with state-owned Indian Railways, as was highlighted Sunday when 14 packed cars on a passenger train skidded off the tracks, killing at least 148 people in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, after two more victims died of their injuries Tuesday. FILE- In this Jan. 13, 2016 file photo, Indians scramble to enter a train in Hyderabad, India. It's often described as India's lifeline, transporting 23 million people across this vast South Asian country each day. For more than 150 years, India's sprawling rail network has helped knit this disparate country together. For years, its been clear that the much-romanticized legacy of British colonial rule, built more than 160 years ago, is badly hobbled by funding shortfalls, aging tracks, outdated signaling and communications systems and a volume of traffic that has pushed these systems beyond their limits. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A, File) For years, it's been clear that the much-romanticized legacy of British colonial rule, built more than 160 years ago, is badly hobbled by funding shortfalls, aging tracks, outdated signaling and communications systems and a traffic volume that has pushed these systems beyond their limits. The weekend's deadly train tragedy, the cause of which is under investigation, has focused attention on how India can restore both efficiency and public confidence in its railways. India's economy has boomed in recent decades, and dozens of private airlines have emerged to serve the growing upper middle class. But for tens of millions of Indians living in the hinterlands or unable to afford air travel, trains are their transportation lifeline. It can be a dangerous lifeline. India's crime records bureau says that in 2014, the latest year for which figures are available, more than 25,000 people died in railway accidents that ranged from travelers falling from the roofs of moving trains to train collisions. In 2012, a government safety committee said about 15,000 people die every year trying to cross train tracks, which it referred to as "a massacre." On Sunday, hours after the accident in northern Uttar Pradesh state, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu announced an investigation and said anyone found guilty would be strictly punished. But blame should also fall on successive governments and railway ministers that have starved the organization of funds, denying it key resources to upgrade critical equipment and pushing it to the brink of bankruptcy, said former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi. Trivedi said the railways need 200 billion to 250 billion rupees ($3 billion to $3.8 billion) simply to replace old equipment. Instead, the government approved a mere 32 billion rupees ($485 million) in the 2016 budget. "Therefore, the much-required replacement of old assets is postponed knowingly compromising safety," Trivedi said. Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who came to power in 2014, say his government has concentrated too much on high-publicity rail plans, like wanting to introduce high-speed "bullet" trains, instead of boring but necessary upgrades and repairs. "When we can barely manage train speeds as they are at present, such talk of building bullet trains on which billions of dollars are to be spent is illogical," said Basudev Acharya, a former lawmaker who headed a parliamentary committee overseeing railway operations. "What needs immediate fixing is to ensure adequate funds for maintenance of the existing stock and, most importantly, filling up vacancies among safety workers," Acharya said. Railway workers say decades of funding crunches have taken their toll. Passenger trains in India run at slow speeds, averaging around 50 kilometers (30 miles) an hour, while freight trains are even slower, averaging half that. "Even at such low speeds we have a high number of deaths in railway accidents. Can you imagine the toll if the speed were any faster?" said N.B. Dutta, a railway locomotive driver and president of the All India Loco Running Staff Association, a train operators' trade union. On Sunday, four children were killed by an intercity express train while crossing the tracks in the northeast state of Assam. Dutta spoke of crucial safety-related positions that remained vacant, placing rail conductors under stress. "We work four to five nights consecutively," though rules say conductors should only work two nights in a row, said Dutta. His colleague, C. Sunish, said the stress can be immense, with drivers trying to catch sleep in railway station waiting rooms after 12- to 14-hour shifts. Sunish said successive governments have failed to implement the recommendations of state-appointed committees on rail safety. "Every time there is an accident, the minister will order an investigation, but the outcome remains the same. No correctional measures are taken," he said. Although the investigation into Sunday's train derailment is still underway, railway experts said it was most likely caused by tracks that had deteriorated over the years. Most railway tracks are checked every day with ultrasonic detectors that can spot changes in track conditions. This is followed by visual inspections, railway managers say. But with many jobs vacant, some lapses in checks should be expected, they warned. Running the railways in India, regulating the budget, ensuring safety and managing rail traffic is done by a government-appointed Railway Board. Several former members of the panel said that although India's rail safety record has improved over the past few years, inadequate resources and political and bureaucratic apathy continue. "Every time there is an accident or a derailment, we can't have a knee-jerk response," said Sunil Kumar, a retired safety adviser of the Railway Board, calling instead for a steady infusion of funds to replace, repair and restore railway infrastructure. In 2015, Modi promised a staggering $137 billion to be invested over five years to revamp the railways. Rail Minister Prabhu said the money would transform Indian Railways. Almost two years later, there's no word on how much of that money has reached the railroad. ___ Follow Nirmala George on Twitter at twitter.com/NirmalaGeorge1 FILE- In this Jan. 22, 2016 file photo, commuters hang out of an overcrowded suburban train as it arrives in Mumbai Central Train Station in Mumbai, India. India's sprawling rail network, the world's third largest, operates more than 12,600 trains carrying passengers and cargo across 115,000 kilometers (71,000 miles) of track. But not all is well with the Indian Railways. For years, its been clear that the much-romanticized legacy of British colonial rule, built more than 160 years ago, is badly hobbled by funding shortfalls, aging tracks, outdated signaling and communications systems and a volume of traffic that has pushed these systems beyond their limits. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade, File) FILE- In this Oct. 28, 2014 file photo, Indian passengers jostle for space inside a train coach, crowded with people trying to reach their homes ahead of Hindu festival Chhath Puja at a railway station in New Delhi. India's sprawling rail network, the world's third largest, operates more than 12,600 trains carrying passengers and cargo across 115,000 kilometers (71,000 miles) of track. But not all is well with the Indian Railways. For years, its been clear that the much-romanticized legacy of British colonial rule, built more than 160 years ago, is badly hobbled by funding shortfalls, aging tracks, outdated signaling and communications systems and a volume of traffic that has pushed these systems beyond their limits. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File) FILE- In this Nov. 20, 2016 file photo, rescuers search in the debris after 14 coaches of an overnight passenger train rolled off the track near Pukhrayan village Kanpur Dehat district, Uttar Pradesh state, India. For more than 150 years, India's sprawling rail network has helped knit this disparate country together. But every year, those trains also kill more than 15,000 people. The Indian rail network lacks modern signaling and communication systems, and is hobbled by poor maintenance and staffing problems.(AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh, File) FILE - In this Nov. 20, 2016 file photo, an injured passenger walks near the site of an accident when 14 coaches of an overnight passenger train rolled off the track near Pukhrayan village Kanpur Dehat district, Uttar Pradesh state, India. For more than 150 years, India's sprawling rail network has helped knit this disparate country together. For years, its been clear that the much-romanticized legacy of British colonial rule, built more than 160 years ago, is badly hobbled by funding shortfalls, aging tracks, outdated signaling and communications systems and a volume of traffic that has pushed these systems beyond their limits. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh, File) Thailand trying to stimulate economy by giving cash to poor BANGKOK (AP) Thailand's military government on Tuesday approved a one-time payout for low-income people in an effort to stimulate the country's weak economy. People who make less than 30,000 baht ($846) a year will receive 3,000 baht ($86), while people who make 30,000 to 100,000 baht ($846 to $2,821) a year will receive 1,500 baht ($42). The measure was approved at the weekly Cabinet meeting, but no date was set for its implementation. The payments are earmarked for 5.8 million people, excluding rice farmers. They will instead benefit from a recently approved $1.5 billion government subsidy paying them to temporarily store their rice so that supplies and prices of the country's staple crop remain stable. The new cash handout plan will be used in accordance with other measures to help low-income people, such as free public transportation services. "Don't think the government is just giving out free money," Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said. "This is a way to support those of low-income in other professions other than farmers because I care for people of all professions." The rice subsidy has been criticized because it resembles a program for which former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is being tried on grounds of corruption, which she denies. She has also been ordered to pay 35.7 billion baht ($1 billion) to compensate the government for its alleged losses. Critics of the junta, which came to power by staging a coup against Yingluck's Pheu Thai Party-led government in May 2014, say it is simply emulating populist policies it had criticized civilian politicians for enacting. Economic growth has stagnated under the junta. Prayuth said he hopes the cash handouts will be spent and will help boost the economy. Consumer spending has dropped since King Bhumibol Adulyadej died on Oct. 13, initiating a year of mourning for the government and curtailing public entertainment events in the month since his death. The Latest: School official: 6 in intensive care after crash CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) The Latest on the deadly school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tennessee (all times local): 9:10 a.m. Kirk Kelly, the interim superintendent of Hamilton County Schools, says there are six students in intensive care Tuesday morning and six others still hospitalized after a school bus crash in Chattanooga that killed five children. A woman escorts three children away from the scene of a fatal school bus wreck in Chattanooga, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 21, 2016. In a news conference Monday, Assistant Chief Tracy Arnold said there were multiple fatalities. (Angela Lewis Foster/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP) Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke says the city is in mourning. The bus driver, 24-year-old Johnthony Walker, was arrested and has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, along with reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Thirty-five students from kindergarten through fifth grade were on board Monday afternoon when the bus flipped onto its side and wrapped around a tree. ___ 8:05 a.m. According to an arrest affidavit, a school bus driver was going at a high speed when the bus crashed, killing five students and injuring more than 20 others. The affidavit, which was posted online by Chattanooga station WTVC, says driver Johnthony Walker was driving well above the posted speed limit of 30 mph Monday afternoon when the bus left the narrow, winding road and eventually struck a tree. Walker was arrested and has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, along with reckless driving and reckless endangerment. The affidavit says the charges were brought against Walker because of the reckless nature of his driving combined with his high rate of speed. Walker's bond was set at $107,500. ___ 7:25 a.m. The parent of two of the children who were on a school bus that crashed in Chattanooga, killing at least five children, says he sometimes saw the bus driver going faster than he should have. In an interview that aired Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America," Craig Harris said his daughter and stepson were on the bus. He says the two children were in pain and in shock after the Monday afternoon crash but were doing better Tuesday morning. The school bus driver, 24-year-old Johnthony Walker, was arrested and has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, along with reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Thirty-five students from kindergarten through fifth grade were on board when the bus flipped onto its side and wrapped around a tree. ___ 3:30 a.m. The driver of an elementary school bus that crashed in Chattanooga, killing at least five children, has been arrested and faces charges including vehicular homicide. Calling the Monday afternoon crash "every public safety professional's worst nightmare," Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher told an overnight news conference that 24-year-old bus driver Johnthony Walker was charged with five counts of vehicular homicide. Walker was also charged with reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Fletcher said earlier that investigators were looking at speed "very, very strongly" as a factor in the crash. Police said overnight that five children were killed in the crash. Earlier in the day, Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston told news outlets the crash killed six. The Associated Press wasn't immediately able to reach officials early Tuesday to clarify the discrepancy. In this undated photo released by the Chattanooga Police Department, Johnthony Walker, 24, poses for a photo. Walker, the driver of a school bus that was filled with elementary students when it crashed, Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, in Chattanooga, killing at least five children, has been arrested and faces charges including vehicular homicide. (Chattanooga Police Department via AP) In this photo provided by the Chattanooga Fire Department via Chattanooga Times Free Press, Chattanooga Fire Department personnel work the scene of a fatal elementary school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 21, 2016. In a news conference Monday, Assistant Chief Tracy Arnold said there were multiple fatalities in the crash. (Bruce Garner/Chattanooga Fire Department via Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP) In this photo provided by the Chattanooga Fire Department via Chattanooga Times Free Press, Chattanooga Fire Department members work the scene of a fatal elementary school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 21, 2016. In a news conference Monday, Assistant Chief Tracy Arnold said there were multiple fatalities in the crash. (Bruce Garner/Chattanooga Fire Department via Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP) Chattanooga police chief Fred Fletcher, center, talks with the media at the scene of a fatal school bus wreck in Chattanooga, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 21, 2016. In a news conference Monday, Assistant Chief Tracy Arnold said there were multiple fatalities. (Angela Lewis Foster/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP) Emergency personnel work at the scene of a fatal school bus wreck in Chattanooga, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 21, 2016. In a news conference Monday, Assistant Chief Tracy Arnold said there were multiple fatalities. (Angela Lewis Foster/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP) A disaster response team bus arrives at the scene of a fatal school bus wreck in Chattanooga, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 21, 2016. In a news conference Monday, Assistant Chief Tracy Arnold said there were multiple fatalities. (Angela Lewis Foster/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP) Suspect in killing of Kansas mom was arrested in July attack WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A Dallas woman accused of killing a Kansas woman and kidnapping her newborn daughter was arrested in July for allegedly threatening another woman with a knife and trying to hold that woman's two daughters for ransom. Adriana Portillo told The Wichita Eagle (http://bit.ly/2fNKWFq ) that she couldn't believe that Yesenia Sesmas had been released after the July arrest. She found out Monday that Sesmas had been arrested in last week's killing of another Wichita woman, Laura Abarca-Nogueda, and the abduction of Abarca-Nogueda's 6-day-old daughter, Sophia. The girl was retrieved safely from Sesmas' Dallas home Saturday during a pre-dawn raid and reunited with family. Sesmas, 34, remained jailed in Texas on Tuesday. The complaint detailing the charges against her in Kansas won't be revealed until she appears in court there. The extradition process could take up to 90 days. Yesenia Sesmas is seen in an undated photo provided by the Dallas County Sheriff's Offic. Sesmas is a suspect in the shooting death of a Wichita, Kans., woman on Friday, Nov. 18 and stealing her baby. She was arrested Saturday in Dallas and the baby was found safe. (Dallas County Sheriffs Office via AP) In a jailhouse interview with Dallas-Fort Worth TV station KUVN, Sesmas admitted that she killed Abarca-Nogueda but said she didn't mean to. She said Abarca-Nogueda had reneged on an agreement to give her her newborn daughter, and that she threatened Abarca-Nogueda with a gun that accidentally discharged, killing her. Sesmas moved from Wichita to Dallas sometime since July. Portillo told the Eagle that she had been friends with Sesmas for years, but knew her as Patricia Hernandez. She said Sesmas offered to give her a TV and some clothing she wasn't taking with her to Dallas, and that she invited her and her daughters, ages 10 and 3, to collect the things from her basement. Portillo, who was eight months pregnant at the time, said things got strange and violent in Sesmas' basement. Portillo said Sesmas had a knife and duct tape and that she took away her cellphone, telling Portillo to tape up her girls. She said Sesmas demanded $10,000 and said she had two cohorts who were friends with Portillo's husband and who thought he could afford to pay that much to get the girls back. Portillo said she told Sesmas they didn't have the money, and that she and Sesmas then began fighting. During the struggle, Portillo's older daughter managed to get her phone back and call police. Portillo said she hit Sesmas in the eye, and that she and her girls ran outside and got into their van. Sesmas ran after them and tried getting in, eventually managing to grab the keys and throw them. Police then arrived and arrested Sesmas. Records show that Sesmas was booked into a Sedgwick County jail in July on suspicion of aggravated battery, aggravated kidnapping and kidnapping. Georgia Webb, office manager for the Sedgwick County district attorney's office, said Sesmas bonded out of jail after that July arrest, but she wouldn't comment when asked whether formal charges were filed at that time. Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter said Thursday that Sesmas didn't show up to an Aug. 9 court appearance and that his office faxed a warrant to authorities in Dallas asking for help in finding her. Melinda Urbina, spokeswoman for the Dallas County sheriff's office, said Sesmas remained jailed there under an immigration hold and the Sedgwick County arrest warrants related to her July arrest. Shirley MacLaine is angelic in 'Heavenly' Hallmark TV movie LOS ANGELES (AP) Shirley MacLaine is direct, funny and down-to-earth no matter how high-flying the topic may be, including the guardian angels and aliens she accepts as givens. In a recent interview, there's also no hint of the diva she easily could be, given her stardom of six decades and counting; five lead-actress Academy Award nominations; and an Oscar for what she cites as her favorite role, Aurora, in 1983's "Terms of Endearment." She long ago traded the big city for New Mexico, but never abandoned acting. MacLaine plays an angel in "A Heavenly Christmas," a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie airing at 8 p.m. EST Saturday on the Hallmark Channel. In a big-screen film set for release next spring, "The Last Word" with Amanda Seyfried, she plays a strong-willed woman intent on crafting her own obituary. In this image released by the Hallmark Channel, actress Shirley MacLaine plays an angel in "A Heavenly Christmas," a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie airing 8 p.m. EST Saturday on the Hallmark Channel. (Chris Helcermanas-Benge/Crown Media United States LLC via AP) That's a "mentoring angel" in the Hallmark project, MacLaine emphasizes, explaining that her character has much to share with a young workaholic (Kristin Davis) who's lost her way. Eric McCormack co-stars. In a phone interview with The Associated Press, MacLaine, 82, said she's healthy, active and a devoted traveler. She shared her views on spirituality, ranch life and, only indirectly, presidential politics. AP: You believe in angels? MacLaine: Of course I do. Are you kidding? I believe in UFOs, I believe in extraterrestrials, and I believe in angels. And maybe they'll protect all of us. AP: What have angels done for you? MacLaine: We don't have time. I lost my dog of 17 years, Terry, and right now she's a little angel who's delivering nice things. ... It is incredible, when you start believing in angels your life becomes a lot smoother. AP: Do you follow any organized religion? MacLaine: No, just tolerance, organized tolerance. Organized patience, which I'm not too good at. Organized understanding of differences, which is really giving me problems now. Organized sense of humor. AP: You've done TV but never a Hallmark movie. Why this one? MacLaine: I just loved the idea. I thought playing an angel would be very good for my image. And they paid me a lot of celestial money, so what the hell. (Laughs.) AP: Does your image need angelic burnishing? MacLaine: Sometimes it does. I'm too direct and too unsparingly impatient. Usually I'm right, by the way so never mind all the other. AP: How do you spend your time in New Mexico? MacLaine: I'm very involved with learning to be self-sufficient. I'm a city girl and I never really lived in the country, so I'm learning about that. I have a ranch here, at Abiquiu, where Georgia O'Keeffe used to paint, and I had to build it up to be self-sufficient because it's really off the grid. AP: Do you have other animals? MacLaine: Altogether about six dogs. And then I've got bear and elk and coyotes in my front yard. It's living with nature. AP: And people company? MacLaine: I have a great life, to tell you the truth. I have a lot of friends who come and stay, and we talk about the world. And of course I travel, (most recently) to Virginia, where I was honored at the University of Virginia and did two and a-half hours onstage answering questions from students. ... That was really fun. AP: How does spirituality fit into the world now? MacLaine: I think materialism has trumped a lot of stuff, but I don't think it has trumped the heart, especially when it comes to (a person's) last thought. It's not going to be about money. It's going to be about who am I, what have I done and where am I going. And of course that gets us into reincarnation, it gets us to are we alone in the universe. ... All of that stuff, which is infinitely interesting to me. AP: You have no doubt when this life ends you will return? MacLaine: I'm not sure I'll come back to this planet. I may come back to another one. (Laughs.) ___ Police are currently probing 50 complaints of abuse against the doctor Nassar pleaded not guilty to three charges of sex abuse in his A former USA Gymnastics doctor pleaded not guilty yesterday to three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in his home with a girl under 13. Larry Nassar, 53, who was arrested Monday while running an errand in a Lansing, Michigan tire store, was arraigned by video from jail. The charges brought against Nassar are the 'tip of the iceberg' according to Michigan's attorney general as authorities investigate roughly 50 sex abuse complaints against him. Larry Nassar appeared in court via video yesterday. He was arrested on Monday in Lansing, Michigan He was released after 10 per cent of a $1million bond was paid, more than two months after two gymnasts - including a member of the 2000 US women's Olympic team - accused him of sexual abuse during medical treatments. Also on Tuesday, a Detroit attorney said he filed a civil lawsuit against Nassar on behalf of a Los Angeles woman who says she was sexually abused about 20 years ago during treatments when she was a 14-year-old gymnast. It is at least the third civil suit filed against Nassar. The woman filing Tuesday's lawsuit is not the girl in Michigan's criminal case. Those alleged assaults against the girl occurred between 1998 and 2005, from the age of sixuntil the girl was 12. She was not a gymnast, patient or family member, said Attorney General Bill Schuette. He said Nassar, a former associate professor of osteopathic medicine at Michigan State University who lives in Holt in suburban Lansing, committed 'predatory, menacing' acts and 'stole this young lady's childhood.' Former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a girl under 13 on Tuesday 'This is the tip of the iceberg,' Schuette said during a news conference Tuesday. 'The guy was a predator... we'll get the conviction,' Schuette said at a news conference. University police chief James Dunlap said his department has received roughly 50 complaints. 'We're dealing with decades of effort to go back and identify witnesses and to compile those for submission to the attorney general's office,' he said. Ingham County 55th District Court Magistrate Mark Blumer ordered Nassar to wear an electronic tether and to surrender his passport. He also was prohibited from being present with anyone under 18, including his children, unless another adult is there. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for December 15. Nassar, who could face life imprisonment if he is convicted, has denied wrongdoing. Shannon Smith, one of his lawyers, said his wife - who was in the courtroom - and 'hundreds of people support him 100 per cent. We have received countless emails and communications from other doctors, physicians, physical therapists, ex-patients, ex-coworkers supporting him.' Assistant state attorney general Angela Povilaitis had asked that bond be denied or, in the alternate, that a very high amount be imposed. 'She has come forward bravely to report this and to cooperate and prosecute this case,' she said. Nassar was fired in September by Michigan State. In October, a former gymnast who was on the national team from 2006 to 2011 filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles, alleging Nassar repeatedly sexually abused her and renowned husband-and-wife coaches Bela and Martha Karolyi turned a blind eye to molestations. Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics, which has been named in two civil lawsuits, said previously that that it cut ties with Nassar after learning of athlete concerns about him in the summer of 2015. 'USA Gymnastics today learned about the charges against Dr. Larry Nassar through a media report,' it said. 'As we previously have made clear, when USA Gymnastics first learned of athlete concerns regarding Dr. Nassar, those concerns were reported to the FBI and Nassar was dismissed from further involvement with USA Gymnastics.' History: Nassar was a respected doctor in gymnastic circles, and has worked on Team USA, but has reportedly received around 50 complaints of sexual abuse since 1996 Detroit attorney Brian McKeen said he filed Tuesday's civil lawsuit in Ingham County. His client lived in East Lansing when she sought treatment for lower back pain in late 1996 and early 1997 from Nassar, McKeen said. 'This doctor used this young girl's innocence and naivete against her,' McKeen said. 'She trusted her doctor's authority when he insisted his treatments were standard procedure, but they were no more than sexual assault and abuse of a child.' Smith, Nassar's lawyer, had not seen the civil lawsuit Tuesday afternoon and declined to comment on it. Allegation: Nassar is accused of three counts of abuse from 1998. In a separate case Rachael Denhollander (right) said Nassar molested her when she was 15, in 2000 The attorney general, who is investigating criminally at the request of the campus police, said his department is in the best position to prosecute instead of the local prosecutor because it is believed that potential crimes crossed into multiple jurisdictions in Michigan and possibly across state lines. He said his office is working with the FBI and federal prosecutors in Michigan. 'We are unable to comment further due to the ongoing FBI investigation and pending litigation,' USA Gymnastics said. In a separate case in August gymnast Rachael Denhollander came forward and said that Nassar had abused her while he was on the faculty of Michigan State University in 200. She claimed that he had abused her five times when she was just 15, touching her genitals and breasts. She had gone to him for treatment after suffering back pains. Her mom was in the room when she abuse took place but Nassar would position himself so that his actions could not be seen, she said. Pelosi promises more influence for junior Democrats WASHINGTON (AP) Nancy Pelosi is responding to a challenge to her position as top House Democrat by proposing to give more influence to junior lawmakers atop congressional committees and within her leadership team. Pelosi, 76, has been the chamber's Democratic leader since 2002. She is being challenged by Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan in the aftermath of elections that were disappointing for Democrats who expected Hillary Clinton to be elected president and their party to make sizable gains in the House. Pelosi appears to be addressing widespread unease among more junior lawmakers who say that opportunities to advance and influence the party's course are lacking so long as the same senior Democrats remain in charge. FILE - In this Nov. 17, 2016 file photo, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Pelosi is responding to a challenge to her position as top House Democrat by proposing a greater role for junior lawmakers in congressional committees and within her leadership team. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) Ryan says he is better able to appeal to Rust Belt and rural areas where Democrats used to perform better. Pelosi points to her successful leadership in the mid-2000s that led the party into the majority for four years. Pelosi's core leadership team has been in place for a decade and octogenarians command the top Democratic posts of several powerful committees, including the Judiciary panel and the powerful Ways and Means Committee, which has sweeping jurisdiction over taxes, trade, health care and Social Security. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., 38, said recently there is "a lot" of frustration among younger Democrats that there are so few paths for advancement in the House. "Young people are voting for Democrats," Moulton said. "People of color are voting for Democrats. We're the party of the future but it doesn't look like that." He said: "We ought to have leadership that reflects the diversity of our caucus. And part of our diversity is our youth." Pelosi is the overwhelming favorite to defeat Ryan and hold onto her post as minority leader. But she's responding to the unease among junior Democrats by proposing that less senior lawmakers be given the No. 2 Democratic spots on committees. She would also immediately create three leadership positions for Democrats who have served fewer than 10 years, and designate the No. 3 leadership post for a lawmaker who has served fewer than three terms. "Making this fight requires all hands on deck," Pelosi wrote to fellow Democrats. Pelosi also has the backing of top party figures starting with President Barack Obama. "She combines strong, progressive values with just extraordinary political skill," Obama said Sunday. "And she does stuff that's tough, not just stuff that's easy." On Tuesday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumpka weighed in on Twitter. "Our agenda is her agenda and that's why we're with her to be the Democratic leader," Trumpka wrote. Ryan, 43, had earlier issued similar proposals designed to give a greater role to more junior Democrats. And he says the party has to expand far beyond its coastal and urban strongholds. "I'm pulling the fire alarm because the house is burning down, and we better get our act together or we're going to cease being a national party," Ryan said Monday on the Fox Business Network. "We're going to be a regional party that fails to get into the majority and fails to do things on behalf of those working class people that were the backbone of the Democratic Party for so long." Pelosi backer Jim McGovern, D-Mass., a 20-year House veteran, said there were much larger forces at work for the disappointing election result for Democrats, who picked up just a half dozen House seats in the election. "This economy is not working for everybody, that's just a fact," McGovern said. "In rural areas or the Midwest that's especially the case, but that's not the fault of our leadership or one person in our leadership." Gigi Hadid apologizes for Melania Trump impression at AMAs LOS ANGELES (AP) Gigi Hadid says her Melania Trump impression during the American Music Awards Sunday "was done in good humor with no bad intent." In a handwritten note posted on Twitter , the supermodel says she believes the future first lady "understands show business and the way shows are written and run." Hadid also apologized in the note to anyone that she offended. Hadid co-hosted the awards with former "Saturday Night Live" impressionist Jay Pharaoh. Host Gigi Hadid impersonates Melania Trump at the American Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater on Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP) Florida sheriff's deputy killed by traffic during foot chase YULEE, Fla. (AP) A Florida sheriff's deputy was fatally struck by a vehicle Tuesday morning as he chased a suspect across a highway near Jacksonville. Deputy Eric Oliver, 32, and another deputy chased after the man, who was one of six people federal agents were interviewing outside a gas station in Yulee around 7:30 a.m., Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said during a news conference. He said he'd just informed Oliver's family of his death. Agents from the U.S. Border Customs and Border Patrol were interviewing six people in a pickup truck when one of the men ran. Two deputies chased after him. The other deputy made it safely to the highway median, said Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Dylan Bryan. His agency is investigating the crash. The suspect remained at large Tuesday morning and a manhunt was underway. The deputies were at the gas station Tuesday morning on an unrelated call and were asked to stay and assist the border patrol agents. Leeper said he spoke to Oliver's wife earlier Tuesday morning. He said Oliver "died doing what he wanted to do," adding that he "dedicated his life to protecting the county." The deputy had a 6-year-old daughter. Leeper called it a "tragic day," adding the department was blessed to have Oliver as a deputy for the past seven years. Fake honors student gets more jail time before deportation HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) A 24-year-old Ukrainian man who lied about his name and age to attend a Pennsylvania high school was sentenced Tuesday to 11 to 23 months in jail for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old classmate and stealing a public school education. A Dauphin County judge on Tuesday also ordered Artur Samarin to repay the Harrisburg School District $44,000 while he spends seven years on probation after his release from jail, Pennlive.com first reported (http://bit.ly/2fZhj1t ). But First Assistant District Attorney Fran Chardo said he doesn't expect either will happen because Samarin has agreed to be deported once his jail term is up. "I don't ever expect to see that money," Chardo said. FILE In this March 24, 2016, file photo, Artur Samarin arrives for a preliminary hearing in Harrisburg, Pa. Samarin, a Ukrainian man accused of faking his name and age while attending a Pennsylvania high school and having sex with an underage girl, was sentenced Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016, to 11 1/2 to 23 months in jail for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old classmate and stealing a public school education. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower, File) A federal judge earlier this month sentenced Samarin to two months in prison for passport fraud and Social Security fraud. Samarin will serve the state court sentence imposed Tuesday first before serving the federal sentence. Samarin was called Asher Potts at John Harris High School. He impressed teachers and community leaders including participating in Junior ROTC and student government before authorities learned his identity and true age. He had legally entered the country before overstaying his expired visa. Defense attorney Adam Klein called a retired Harrisburg teacher, Edith Goodson, to testify on Samarin's behalf. She said Samarin tutored other pupils who sought to learn "while I was trying to control the chaos around them." "Not one penny of that money was wasted on Artur," Goodson said of the district's cost to educate Samarin. "He is a fine young man and he was here for all the right reasons." That angered Chardo, who said Samarin "sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl" when he was 22 by pretending to be considerably younger. "He deserves every minute he serves in prison," Chardo said. Samarin has spent about nine months in jail since his arrest in February, all of which counts toward the sentence imposed Tuesday. He pleaded guilty in September to charges including statutory sexual assault, theft by deception and tampering with public records. The sex assault victim wasn't in court because she "didn't want to have to see him again," Chardo said. Klein blamed Stephanye and Michael Potts, who have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial on federal fraud charges, for acting as Samarin's "adopted parents" and allegedly concocting Samarin's identity scam. Samarin apologized for the trouble he caused. "I made a huge mistake to pursue my American dream," he told the judge. ___ Information from: Pennlive.com, http://www.pennlive.com 1 worker hurt in explosion at Kansas chemical plant NEODESHA, Kan. (AP) Federal safety inspectors are investigating an explosion and fire at a southeast Kansas chemical plant that injured one employee. The explosion occurred about 7 a.m. Tuesday at the Airosol, Inc., plant in Neodesha, a town of about 2,500 residents. It was still not contained early Tuesday afternoon. A 57-year-old male employee was taken to a hospital with burns. Cassandra Edson, spokeswoman for Wilson County Emergency Management, says his injuries were not considered life-threatening. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration says it has begun an investigation. Several blocks around the plant were evacuated and the town's schools closed for the day. Residents also were asked not to drink city water. Rio protesters take to streets against austerity measures RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) More than 1,000 demonstrators are again in the streets of Rio de Janeiro to protest austerity measures planned by the Brazilian state's government. Many are state workers who have been unpaid for weeks. Federal and local policemen have deployed in front of the Rio state legislature to block any attempt by protesters to enter. Military police clashed with protesters at the same place last week. State legislators are struggling to agree on a plan to deal with a deepening financial crisis. Demonstrators shout outside the state of Rio de Janeiro's legislative assembly building where lawmakers are discussing austerity measures in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. State legislators are struggling to agree on a plan to deal with a deepening financial crisis and two former Rio governors have been arrested this week in connection with corruption and vote-buying allegations. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) In addition, two former Rio governors have been arrested this week in connection with corruption and vote-buying allegations. And incumbent Gov. Luiz Fernando Pezao is facing growing pressure to resign. Emotional Kris Jenner pays tribute to late Robert Kardashian NEW YORK (AP) With daughters Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian by her side, an emotional Kris Jenner paid tribute to her late ex-husband Robert Kardashian, saying he taught the family about the importance of philanthropy and that he would be "very proud" of their success. Robert Kardashian, perhaps best known as one of the lawyers on the successful defense team of O.J. Simpson during his murder trial, died in 2003 of esophageal cancer, years before his clan would become famous with the reality show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians." He was posthumously honored Monday night during the annual Angel Ball, which raises money for cancer research. Jenner's voice cracked more than once as she spoke on behalf of the family. She noted that she met Kardashian when she was 17. "He kind of raised me, and we had four kids together." Kris Jenner attends the Angel Ball benefitting Gabrielle's Angel Foundation for Cancer Research at Cipriani Wall Street on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) Jenner said Kardashian taught her and her children about the need to donate some of their wealth to others. "He taught me, and them, that no matter what you do in life and he would have been very proud of us and what you make, you give back, and you do it without saying a word, because that's what the Bible said, and we did," she said, through tears. Jenner also took aim at those who have criticized the family's wealth and said they should be more charitable. "People often say, 'Oh, you know, they do this, they do that, they don't give back' yeah, we do, but we do it for things that don't need a loud voice," she said. "But after hearing so many stories tonight, and so many wonderful outcomes, I'm really glad we can be a voice." The family gave a $250,000 check to Gabrielle's Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, the benefactor of the night's fundraising efforts. The event, which raised nearly $3.7 million, attracted stars such as Hugh Jackman and the Duchess of York. Kim Kardashian had been expected to attend. It would have been her first public outing at a celebrity event since she was tied up and robbed at gunpoint in Paris last month. However, she didn't appear, and there were reports that her husband, Kanye West, had been hospitalized in Los Angeles for stress and exhaustion. When asked how the couple was doing, Jenner simply said, "They're good." ___ Online: gabriellesangels.org Khloe Kardashian, left, and Kourtney Kardashian attend the Angel Ball benefitting Gabrielle's Angel Foundation for Cancer Research at Cipriani Wall Street on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) Red Cross warns of 'desperate' situation in Yemen's Taiz SANAA, Yemen (AP) An international aid group has warned of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Yemen's western city of Taiz, saying that corpses litter the streets and civilians are trapped. "Sniper fire and indiscriminate shelling has trapped civilians. Dead bodies are in the streets and people are unable to attend to their most basic needs. The situation is desperate," said the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen, Alexandre Faite on Tuesday. Fighting in Taiz has escalated in recent days between Shiite rebels and forces loyal to the internationally-recognized government which is backed by a Saudi-led military coalition. The rebels have imposed more than a yearlong siege. Glion Institute offers Indian students on-campus, online study model IANS, New Delhi | Published : 21st November, 2016 Glion Institute of Higher Education, Switzerland, has announced a master programme in a hybrid model which will allow Indian students to study on campus as well as online, the institute said on Monday. For Glion, which is among one of the world's top three institutions of higher education for an international career in hospitality management, India is the second largest market for the growing hospitality and luxury industry, a statement said. "India is one of the largest growing economies in the world and would remain vast of pool of talent to serve the growing hospitality and luxury market. Our specialised courses are very well designed to suit the requirement of Indian market," said Jon-Hans Coetzer, Chief Academic Officer at Glion institute on his recent visit to India. The institute offers the hybrid courses so that students can study part of the programme online and part of it on campus. On campus programme offers exposure to 90 different nationalities and business models that they bring. As part of the programme, the students will have to be in Switzerland for three-six months and the rest of the programme can be studied online. Other than this, Glion also offers online programmes -- MBA in hospitality management which targets busy working professionals and experienced students who are in transitioning phase of their career, Coetzer said. In addition, Glion also offers 25 per cent fee waiver to applicants based on their academic record. Glion also offers excellent placement services to students who at the end of the three and a half years have at least two firm jobs in hand, the statement said. Find it Useful ? Help Others by Sharing Online Comments and Discussions British warship docks in Israel at time of rising tensions HAIFA, Israel (AP) A British warship on Tuesday conducted a joint exercise with the Israeli navy before docking in the port of Haifa for a visit that comes at a time of heightened tensions in the eastern Mediterranean. Both countries described the visit by the HMS Bulwark as routine and a reflection of deepening security ties between the two nations. It is the first British warship to dock in Haifa since 2009. But its arrival comes weeks after Russia's deployment of its aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov to the region, off the coast of Syria. Russia has backed the Syrian government in its civil war, and the Russian ship has been used as a base for airstrikes on rebel targets. The British Royal Navy amphibious assault ship HMS Bulwark is anchored in Haifa port, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The Bulwark is on a mission in the Mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) "The eastern Mediterranean is a pretty dangerous place right now, but that's we are paid to do," said Capt. James Parkin, the ship's commander. "Of course we are in a very high level of preparedness." David Quarrey, Britain's ambassador to Israel, said the ship has been deployed to the region for several months and was stopping in Haifa for a quick break before heading home. "There are many shared challenges that the U.K. and Israel face, and unfortunately many of them come from the region," he said. An Israeli navy official, speaking anonymously under military guidelines, said Israel has seen an increase in visits by allies over the past two years. "It gives us opportunities to cooperate and train with navies that we usually don't have the opportunity to train with," he said. "The area of the east Mediterranean has become very crowded in light of the vast presence of the Russians and the situation in Syria. And Israel presents a safe port for them." While Western countries have grown alarmed by Russia's increased presence in the region, Israel has had a delicate relationship with Moscow. Israel is bitter enemies with both Syria and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside Syrian forces. But Israel has maintained good communications with the Russians to avoid any clashes between the countries' air forces in the skies over Syria. Israel is believed to have carried out a number of airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Syria. Charles Heyman, a former British military officer who edits "The Armed Forces of the United Kingdom" handbook, said the Bulwark's visit was a "political signal" reflecting close military and diplomatic ties with Israel. But he said he did not think the message was aimed at the Russians. "The Russians have known about this deployment for a long time," he said. ___ Associated Press writers Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and Gregory Katz in London contributed to this report. A crew member on board the British Royal Navy amphibious assault ship HMS Bulwark in Haifa port, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The Bulwark is on a mission in the Mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) The crew of the British Royal Navy amphibious assault ship HMS Bulwark work as the ship is anchored in Haifa port, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The Bulwark is on a mission in the Mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) A navy officer climbs inside the British Royal Navy amphibious assault ship HMS Bulwark as the ship is anchored in Haifa port, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The Bulwark is on a mission in the Mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) A crew member of the British Royal Navy amphibious assault ship HMS Bulwark looks ahead as the ship is anchored in Haifa port, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The Bulwark is on a mission in the Mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) Crew members of the British Royal Navy amphibious assault ship HMS Bulwark holds weapons as the ship is anchored in Haifa port, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The Bulwark is on a mission in the Mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) A navy crew member of the British Royal Navy amphibious assault ship HMS Bulwark walks next to military vehicles as the ship is anchored in Haifa port, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The Bulwark is on a mission in the Mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) Crew members of the British Royal Navy amphibious assault ship HMS Bulwark stand in position as the ship is anchored in Haifa port, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The Bulwark is in mission in the Mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) Crew members of the British Royal Navy amphibious assault ship HMS Bulwark holds weapons as the ship is anchored in Haifa port, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The Bulwark is on a mission in the Mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) DA: Philadelphia officer shot son in dispute over family car PHILADELPHIA (AP) A Philadelphia police officer has been charged with shooting his son in the back during a dispute over the use of the family car. Officer Dorion Young has been charged with attempted murder and other counts in the Labor Day shooting. District Attorney Seth Williams says the son had retreated to his bedroom when Young broke the door down and shot the 19-year-old with a personal weapon during a struggle. They say a second bullet bounced off the officer's shoe. Williams says the son had to have his spleen removed and continues to recover from his injuries. Fekitoa gets 1-week ban, Cane cleared for All Blacks LONDON (AP) The All Blacks received mixed news on the disciplinary front on Tuesday ahead of the rugby test against France, with center Malakai Fekitoa banned for the game and flanked Sam Cane cleared to play. Both players were cited for allegedly committing dangerous tackles during New Zealand's 21-9 win over Ireland on Saturday. A disciplinary committee met in London and found that Fekitoa should have been sent off for a high tackle on Ireland winger Simon Zebo. The committee said Fekitoa had "acted recklessly rather than intentionally." New Zealand's Malakai Fekitoa on his way to scoring against Ireland during the Autumn International rugby match at the Aviva Stadium, Dublin, Saturday Nov. 19, 2016. (Brian Lawless/PA via AP) A two-week ban, which is the low-end entry point for the offense, was reduced to a one-week suspension because of various mitigating factors. Cane was cited for a tackle on Robbie Henshaw that left the Ireland center concussed and led to him being carried off on a stretcher. Cane was penalized for the tackle at the time. The committee deemed Cane's "actions had been accidental and that he had not therefore committed an act of foul play," therefore clearing him to resume playing. New Zealand plays France on Saturday in their final autumn test. OPCW says Russian samples may be used in Syria investigation THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) Russia has offered to provide samples linked to alleged chemical weapon use in the Syrian city of Aleppo to the international chemical weapons watchdog, the organization said Tuesday. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said that Russia recently offered it "some samples and other material in relation to an incident of alleged use of chemicals as weapons in Aleppo." The organization said the samples "may be of use in the ongoing work of the OPCW fact-finding mission," which is investigating allegations of chemical attacks in Syria. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said on Nov. 11 that ministry experts found unexploded ordnance and fragments of munitions containing chlorine and white phosphorus on Aleppo's southwestern outskirts. Konashenkov said the discovery proved that militants have used chemical weapons against civilians and Syrian soldiers. The Syrian National Coalition, a main opposition group, denied that rebels used chemical weapons in Aleppo. It says that the shells that were fired are similar to those used by government forces and militias fighting with them. The SNC called on U.N. organizations to open an investigation. The U.S. and its allies have pushed for sanctions on Syria for using chemical weapons. Russia has questioned international investigators' conclusions linking chemical weapons use to its ally, the Syrian government, and pointed at evidence of their use by the militants. The U.N. Security Council has voted to extend the mandate of inspectors working to determine those responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Suspect in party attack wrote lyrics about killing MUKILTEO, Wash. (AP) A young man charged in a mass shooting at a Washington state house party last summer has been writing rap lyrics from jail bragging about killing writings that could influence whether prosecutors decide to seek the death penalty in his case, a newspaper reported. The material included a letter that 20-year-old defendant Allen Ivanov penned to a former Snohomish County jail inmate convicted of murder. It starts with "rap ideas" and the lyrics focus on guns, violence and what Ivanov calls the "murder game," the Daily Herald of Everett reported Tuesday (https://goo.gl/cCPDVQ ), citing records it obtained through a public records request. The lyrics appear to reference the July 30 shooting in Mukilteo that left three people dead and one injured, the newspaper reported. Authorities say Ivanov opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle he had just purchased. The letter was written to Christopher Garcia-Gonzalez, who is serving 20 years after being convicted of murdering a piano teacher after answering the man's online ad for a "hot male housekeeper." "I knew she knew who I was 'cause I saw her face right before I pulled the trigger," Ivanov wrote, the Herald said. Ivanov is charged with aggravated murder in the killings of his ex-girlfriend, Anna Bui, and Jacob Long and Jordan Ebner, all 19. Another man, Will Kramer, then 18, survived after being shot in the back. Investigators said Ivanov was upset that Bui was moving on with her life. The materials also include a six-page, single-spaced letter Ivanov reportedly wrote just before the shooting. At least part of it reached his mother, who turned it over to police. "You know what's funny? The media is going to portray me as some unstable, overly emotional, crazy lunatic," the letter reads. "There's nothing wrong (with) me or the way I think. There's really nothing wrong with me: I have a roof over my head, access to food and resources, a loving family, an amazing job, etc. I'm selfish. That's why I did this." The letter also suggests he knew what he was planning was wrong: "Is this the right thing to do? Of course (expletive) not. Never, ever, ever, ever in a trillion years. Taking lives is insane. This is like my early retirement. I'm giving up on solving things. I'm a loser. I quit," the newspaper reported, citing the documents. Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe is weighing whether to seek the death penalty for Ivanov. The young man's lawyers, Walter Peale and Karen Halverson, have been working to compile information that might persuade him not to. A decision is expected next month. The documents obtained by the newspaper included more than 390 pages of text messages between Ivanov and one of his friends some released previously that indicate Ivanov first started talking about shooting Bui on July 22. Within hours, he was sending his friend links to information about military-style weapons available at gun stores in Lynnwood and Marysville. Ivanov's friend repeatedly pleaded with him to stop talking about hurting people, to get some help and to not obtain a firearm. After Ivanov bought the gun, the friend asked if he really intended to shoot Bui. "I feel like im talking to a future serial killer," the friend wrote. "I'm just stuntin (sic) nothing will happen," Ivanov replied. But in the ensuing days, Ivanov wrote about how much pain he was in. "im gonna do it," Ivanov wrote in one of the messages. ___ Chief: Man fatally shot in struggle with patrolling officers DURHAM, N.C. (AP) A man was shot to death by police patrolling a public housing complex Tuesday after officers said he made a sudden move toward his waistband while being questioned, prompting a struggle, Durham Police Chief C.J. Davis said. Authorities aren't sure why the officers stopped to question the man, how many shots were fired or how many officers used their guns, Davis said. A gun that didn't belong to the officers was found by the man's body, "but I can't say that weapon was fired," Davis said at a news conference. People react near the location of a shooting at McDougald Terrace housing complex in Durham, N.C., Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. A man was shot to death by police patrolling the public housing complex Tuesday after officers said he made a sudden move toward his waistband while being questioned, prompting a struggle, Durham Police Chief C.J. Davis said. (Bernard Thomas/The Herald-Sun via AP) Davis urged anyone with cellphone video of the shooting to call authorities. The shooting, which happened on a sidewalk in front of a duplex and across the street from a larger apartment building, was not captured on any police dashboard cameras, and the Durham City Council only approved money for body cameras for officers Monday. The officers all members of the police department's violent crime team were patrolling the complex because robberies and other violent crimes recently increased by 20 percent in that area, Davis said. The names of the officers and the man killed were not released; nor were their races. The State Bureau of Investigation is taking over the investigation, she said. One officer suffered a minor leg injury but was not shot, the chief said. The shooting happened in McDougald Terrace, which the Durham Housing Authority describes as the city's largest conventional public housing community, with 360 apartments. The community is several blocks from an entrance to North Carolina Central University, a historically black college. The officers had been patrolling McDougald Terrace in an unmarked car but were wearing their uniforms. They were familiar with the area and had been spending time reaching out to community leaders to address the rise in crime, Davis said. Davis went to the shooting scene to talk to people before her news conference and said she hopes the department's efforts to be a positive presence would prevent any protests. "The relationship we are attempting to build in Durham is one that is collaborative, inclusive and transparent," Davis said. Wilma Harris, a retired housekeeper, said police and the Durham City Council need to do more to keep the neighborhood safe. She said neither is trying to help the residents. "The law enforcement don't care," said Harris, 57. "They could stop these young men, stop them from sitting around, standing around, and most of them don't even live over here. The majority of the time, it's not the residents." By sunset, a police officer was seen taking down some of the crime scene tape. Groups of people had been standing in various locations throughout the housing project. As they stood, young children got off school buses to be met by parents who guided them underneath the crime scene tape and toward their respective homes. In September 2015, community activists in Durham were angered when officers negotiating with a suicidal man for 30 minutes shot and killed him when he pointed an air gun that resembled a handgun at police. And in November 2013, a 17-year-old man shot himself in the face while handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser. Authorities ruled the death a suicide and no one was charged. ___ Associated Press writer Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report. People react near the location of a shooting at McDougald Terrace housing complex in Durham, N.C., Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. A man was shot to death by police patrolling the public housing complex Tuesday after officers said he made a sudden move toward his waistband while being questioned, prompting a struggle, Durham Police Chief C.J. Davis said. (Bernard Thomas/The Herald-Sun via AP) People react near the location of a shooting at McDougald Terrace housing complex in Durham, N.C., Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. A man was shot to death by police patrolling the public housing complex Tuesday after officers said he made a sudden move toward his waistband while being questioned, prompting a struggle, Durham Police Chief C.J. Davis said. (Bernard Thomas/The Herald-Sun via AP) A police officer removes crime scene tape from the McDougald Terrace housing project on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016, in Durham, N.C. A man was shot and killed by a Durham police officer on Tuesday following a struggle at the housing project. (AP Photo/Skip Foreman) People gather in a parking lot after a fatal police shooing in Durham, N.C., Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. Police have begun taking down crime scene tape at a housing project in Durham, where a man was shot to death by a police officer. (AP Photo/Skip Foreman) Ohio sheriff pleads guilty to drug charges, theft in office FREMONT, Ohio (AP) A jailed sheriff accused of stealing prescription drugs and deceiving doctors into giving him painkillers pleaded guilty on Tuesday and will be stripped of his badge. Sandusky County Sheriff Kyle Overmyer pleaded guilty to 13 felony counts, including theft in office and altering records. He faces a maximum of just over 14 years in prison when he's sentenced next month. He also could receive probation, but he no longer can have a law enforcement certificate or carry a gun. Overmyer, 42, agreed to a plea deal after denying the charges for months and saying the investigation against him was politically motivated. He did not speak during the hearing or when he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. A special prosecutor in August accused the two-term sheriff of stealing medications from drug disposal boxes and misusing office funds. Overmyer was suspended but kept his title. He later was jailed after a judge decided he had violated terms of his bond, and then he lost his re-election bid this month. Turkish Cypriot leader: 2016 peace deal still possible NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) The leader of the breakaway Turkish side says he's hopeful a deal reunifying ethnically divided Cyprus can still be achieved this year, despite a failure to agree on how much territory Greek and Turkish Cypriots will control in an envisioned federation. Mustafa Akinci accused negotiators from the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot side of making unfair demands for territory from the Turkish Cypriots. Akinci said Tuesday he respects the rights of the Greek Cypriots, but that he didn't go to Switzerland to surrender the rights of Turkish Cypriots. Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, left, speaks with Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, right, next to Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide, 2nd right, and Elizabeth Spehar, Deputy to the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Cyprus, 2nd left, during the Cyprus Talks, in Mont Pelerin, Switzerland Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP) Two days intensive talks at the Swiss resort of Mont Pelerin ended in deadlock late Monday. No date for the resumption of talks has been set. New York governor's ex-aide indicted in federal fraud case NEW YORK (AP) A former top adviser for Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (KWOH'-moh) and seven other people have been indicted in their federal corruption case. The indictment was unsealed Tuesday in New York City. It charges Joseph Percoco and his co-defendants with crimes including fraud conspiracy, bribery and extortion. The case's most serious allegations are against Percoco, formerly Cuomo's executive deputy secretary and one of his most loyal advisers. A criminal complaint from September alleges Percoco took more than $315,000 in bribes from 2012 through 2016 from Syracuse-based COR Development and Competitive Power Ventures, an energy company looking to build a power plant in New York's Hudson Valley. Percoco's attorney says the case is "a real turkey." No arraignment date has been set. Defendants Alain Kaloyeros, Peter Galbraith Kelly Jr., Steve Aiello, Joseph Gerardi, Louis Ciminelli, Michael Laipple and Kevin Schuler also have denied the charges. US airstrikes top 1,000 against IS in Iraq and Syria USS EISENHOWER, Persian Gulf (AP) One after another, fighter jets catapult from the flight deck of the USS Eisenhower, a thousand-foot (305-meter) American aircraft carrier, afterburners glowing amber above the blue Persian Gulf, on their way northwest to join the fight in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State. The fighter jets refuel on the way before receiving from coalition partners targets like convoys, hideouts and mortar positions in IS-controlled territories such as Mosul and Raqqa, said Rear Adm. James Malloy, commander of the Eisenhower carrier strike group. From his office aboard the USS Eisenhower, Malloy described coalition success around Mosul while cautioning that victory is close at hand. In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, U.S. Navy sailor works out in a gym at the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) "Mosul is the last large city in Iraq that is held by Daesh, but Daesh is by no means finished in Iraq, so our mission in Iraq won't end as Mosul falls," he said, using the Arabic acronym for IS. While inter-coalition coordination was "seamless," communication with Russia was limited to "deconfliction," Malloy said. "There's no coordination there because the goals are not the same," the admiral said. The carrier's captain Paul Spedero said sorties from the Eisenhower have dropped nearly 1,100 bombs on IS targets since June when the ship entered the Persian Gulf after launching strikes from the eastern Mediterranean. The ship's 5,200 sailors arm, repair, launch and recover 7-20 Super Hornet F18 fighter jets every day that drop on average 10 bombs each or reconnoiter in support of anti-IS coalition forces. The crew catapults the jets from the ship at 145mph, and they use a hook and cable to rapidly catch the fighter jets on the 500-foot long carrier deck. "For a catapult shot, if you think about a Porsche 911, zero to sixty in about 2.5 seconds, these aircraft will go from 0 to 145 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds," said commander Jeremy Rifas, the carrier's air boss, from inside the ship's control tower overlooking launches. The fighters on these sorties head north by northwest for an hour before refueling midair and then approaching coalition ground forces that provide the pilots with targets for airstrikes or reconnaissance. "They go into harm's way every single time, every single mission. I don't really close my eyes until 2300 when the last one comes back," admiral Malloy said. The U.S.-led coalition has flown more than 125,000 sorties in Iraq and Syria since Operation Inherent Resolve began in Aug. 8, 2014, according to the US Department of Defense. U.S. Navy sailors conduct a drill exercise inside the hangar bay of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, a U.S. Navy sailor looks at his computer inside the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, U.S. Navy sailor walks through a hallway inside the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, a U.S. Navy sailor works out in a gym at the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, U.S. Navy helicopter takes off the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) U.S. Navy sailors conduct a drill exercise inside the hangar bay of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, U.S. Navy sailors push ammunition across the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) U.S. Navy sailors conduct a drill exercise inside the hangar bay of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016, U.S. Navy fighter jet takes off t. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) CORRECTS NAME OF SHIP - In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, a U.S. Navy fighter jet takes off from the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, U.S. Navy sailors maintain fighter jets inside the hangar bay of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, a U.S. Navy fighter jet takes off from the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) CORRECTS NAME OF SHIP - In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, a U.S. Navy fighter jet lands on the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, U.S. Navy fighter jet takes off from the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) U.S. Navy sailors conduct a drill exercise inside the hangar bay of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, U.S. Navy takes off from the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) CORRECTS NAME OF SHIP - U.S. Navy sailors rest on the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016, U.S. Navy fighter jet takes off t. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, Captain Paul C. Spedero Jr. sits in his chair on the bridge of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) CORRECTS NAME OF SHIP - A U.S. Navy sailor gestures after a jet took off from the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016, U.S. Navy fighter jet takes off t. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) In this picture taken on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, a U.S. Navy fighter jet lands on the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) CORRECTS NAME OF SHIP - U.S. Navy sailors stand on the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016, U.S. Navy fighter jet takes off t. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) A U.S. Navy sailor maintains a fighter jet on the deck of the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. The carrier is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the military operation against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) Court of Appeals of New York. IN RE: ENTERGY NUCLEAR OPERATIONS, INC., et al., Respondents, v. NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF STATE et al., Appellants. Decided: November 21, 2016 Barbara D. Underwood, for appellants. Kathleen M. Sullivan, for respondents. Riverkeeper, Inc. et al.; African American Environmentalist Association et al.; Nuclear Energy Institute; Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America et al.; Emily Hammond; Kevin S. Parker et al., amici curiae. The issue presented is whether Entergy's pending application to renew its federal operating licenses for the Indian Point nuclear reactors on the Hudson River in Westchester County, for an additional 20 years, is subject to review by the New York State Department of State for consistency with the policies of New York's Coastal Management Program (CMP). The Department of State, interpreting the CMP, which it authored, concluded that the renewal application did not fit within the CMP's grandfather exemptions and that Entergy's application is therefore subject to review. An agency's interpretation of its own plan or regulation is deferentially reviewed by the courts to determine whether there is a rational basis for the decision and, if so, [the agency's] conclusion must be upheld (Matter of Terrace Court, LLC v. NYS DHCR, 18 NY3d 446, 454 [2012] ). We conclude that the Department of State's determination is rational, and accordingly, the Appellate Division order holding that Indian Point is exempt from review should be reversed. I. Background Entergy's Indian Point nuclear facility has two active nuclear reactors, Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, issued 40year operating licenses for Indian Point 2 in 1973 and Indian Point 3 in 1975, when Consolidated Edison owned all three reactors. The agency now known as the New York Power Authority acquired the licensed and partially-completed Indian Point 3 from Consolidated Edison in 1975. Entergy bought Indian Point 3 from the Power Authority in 2000 and acquired Indian Point 2 in 2001. Entergy continues to operate the reactors under the original 40year licenses in accordance with federal law (see 5 USC 558; 10 CFR 2.109). Federal law limits the term of a initial operating license to a maximum of 40 years (see 42 USC 2133[c] ). In 1995, the NRC adopted its current Part 54 regulations, authorizing the re-licensing of nuclear reactors for up to 20 years beyond the original term (see 10 CFR 54.31[b] ). A renewed operating license supersedes the original license (see 10 CFR 54.31[c] ). An application for a license to operate a nuclear facility requires the NRC to produce a final environmental impact statement, and an application for a re-license requires a supplemental site-specific environmental impact statement, which is in addition to the 2013 Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants (see 10 CFR 51.20[b][2]; Pt 5, Subpt A, App B). The applicant is required to submit an environmental report to the NRC and to identify other necessary environmental permits and approvals (10 CFR 51.45, 51.53[c] ). Congress adopted the Coastal Zone Management Act (the Act) in 1972, to encourage the states to protect their coastal resources, with an aim to preserve, protect, develop, and where possible, to restore or enhance, the resources of the Nation's coastal zone for this and succeeding generations (16 USC 1452[1] ). The Act states that [t]he key to more effective protection and use of the land and water resources of the coastal zone is to encourage the states to exercise their full authority over coastal lands and waters by adopting coastal management programs of their own. It provides that a coastal state can choose to draft a CMP, which is a comprehensive statement setting forth objectives, policies, and standards to guide public and private uses of lands and waters in the coastal zone (16 USC 1453 [12] ). Upon completion, the state then submits the CMP to the United States Secretary of Commerce for authorization (see 16 USC 1454). The Act mandates that once the Secretary has approved a state's management program, any applicant for a required [f]ederal license affecting any land or water use or natural resource of the coastal zone of that state shall provide in the application to the licensing agency a certification that the proposed activity complies with the enforceable policies of the state's approved program and that such activity will be conducted in a manner consistent with the program (16 USC 1456[c][3][A] ). Within six months of submission, the affected state must concur or object to the certification. Further, the Act provides that [n]o license or permit shall be granted by the [relevant] federal agency until the state or its designated agency has concurred with the certification, is deemed to have done so, or the Secretary overrides the State's objection (16 USC 1456[c][3][A] ). Federal regulations under the Act require consistency review of renewal applications for federal licenses that affect any coastal use or resource where the activities were not previously reviewed by the designated state agency, where the activities are subject to new management changes, or where the renewal will cause an effect substantially different from those the state agency originally reviewed (see 15 CFR 930.51[b][1]-[3] ). The Act does not grant any exemptions or exceptions to the consistency requirement. In 1982, New York adopted a CMP. The Department of State took the lead in preparing the CMP and administers it. The United States Secretary of Commerce approved the CMP and it became effective on September 30, 1982 (see 47 Fed Reg 4705602 [1982] ). The CMP sets forth 44 enforceable statewide policies relating to coastal activities against which federal license renewals and other federal actions affecting coastal resources must be assessed. State actions are also subject to review, but that review is not conducted by the Department of State but by the state agency proposing to take the action in accordance with the regulations promulgated by the Department (see 19 NYCRR 600.21. 600.3, 600.4; Executive Law 919). The CMP's statewide policies include protecting fish and wildlife resources; preventing or minimizing damage from flooding or erosion; meeting public energy needs in an environmentally safe manner; and controlling air and water pollution. New York has designated its Department of State to review federal agency actions to ensure consistency with the 44 coastal policies set forth in the CMP. The Department conducts a federal consistency review of a proposed federal license application pursuant to the federally approved CMP (see 15 CFR 930.11[h] ). The CMP lists the issuance of an operating license for a nuclear facility as a reviewable activity that requires the applicant to submit a federal consistency certification to the Department. This requirement also expressly applies to renewals of federal licenses. Certain projects are exempt from the CMP's consistency requirement: The projects which meet one of the following two criteria have been determined to [b]e projects for which a substantial amount of time, money and effort have been expended, and will not be subject to New York State's [CMP] and therefore will not be subject to review pursuant to the Federal consistency procedures of the Federal Zone Management Act of 1972, as amended: (1) those projects identified as grandfathered pursuant to [the] State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) at the time of its enactment in 1976; and (2) those projects for which a final Environmental Impact Statement has been prepared prior to the effective date of the Department of State Part 600 regulations [see Appendix A, DOS Consistency Regulations, NYCRR Title 19, Part 600, 6600.3(4) ]. If an applicant needs assistance to determine if its proposed action meets one of these two criteria, the applicant should contact the Department of State (CMP, Section 9).4 The license for Indian Point 2 expired in September 2013 and the license for Indian Point 3 expired in December 2015. In 2007, Entergy applied to the NRC for a 20year renewal of both operating licenses, and initially took the position with the NRC that its application was subject to the Department of State's federal consistency review under the CMP. However, in 2012, Entergy changed its position and sought a ruling from the NRC that its re-licensing application was not subject to the Department's review for consistency with the CMP. The State of New York opposed Entergy's request and cross-moved for a declaratory ruling that consistency review was required. The NRC staff recommended that Entergy's motion be denied because consistency review issues should be resolved by the Department of State in the first instance. On June 12, 2013, the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruled that Entergy's motion and New York's cross-motion were premature because the New York Department of State and the NRC staff had not yet consulted. Entergy subsequently sought a declaratory ruling from the Department of State as to whether its license renewal application was exempt from the CMP's consistency requirement. It argued that the license renewals were not subject to consistency review because, with respect to the first exemption, Indian Point 2 and 3 were grandfathered under SEQRA (see ECL art 8; ECL 80111[5] [a] ) at the time of its enactment in 1976, and with respect to the second exemption, the facilities' final environmental impact statements were adopted before the effective date of the Department of State regulations referenced in that exemption. The Department of State determined that Entergy's application to extend its operating licenses for 20 years was not exempt from consistency review under the CMP. Entergy then commenced this hybrid CPLR article 78 proceeding/declaratory judgment action seeking to annul the Department's determination and requesting a declaratory judgment that the Indian Point nuclear reactors are not subject to the CMP. Supreme Court, among other things, upheld as rational the Department's determination that neither exemption in the CMP applied, and dismissed the proceeding (42 Misc.3d 897 [2013][Sup Ct, Albany County] ). The Appellate Division reversed, holding that Indian Point fit within the second of the two exemptions listed in the CMP (125 AD3d 21 [3d Dept 2014] ). The Appellate Division did not address whether Indian Point had also met the criteria of the first listed exemption. We granted the Department of State appellants' motion for leave to appeal (25 NY3d 908 [2015] ). II. The Exemptions In considering the Department of State's interpretation of the exemptions set forth in the CMP, we are mindful of well-established principles that we recently reiterated and applied in Matter of Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. New York State Dept. of Envtl. Conservation (25 NY3d 373 [2015] ). [T]he construction given statutes and regulations by the agency responsible for their administration, if not irrational or unreasonable, should be upheld and this Court treads gently in second-guessing the experience and expertise of state agencies charged with administering statutes and regulations (id. at 397 [internal citations and quotation marks omitted] ). While the CMP is not a statute or regulation, it is a program authored and administered by the Department of State, and approved by the United States Secretary of Commerce, that sets forth enforceable statewide policies. As such, the Department's interpretation of that program is entitled to deference. Regarding the first exemption, for those projects identified as grandfathered pursuant to State Environmental Quality Review Act [SEQRA] at the time of its enactment in 1976, Entergy contended before the Department of State that Indian Point 2 and 3 were identified as grandfathered pursuant to SEQRA at the time of its enactment. In response, the Department reasoned that the exemption was not automatic, that the relevant agency had to expressly identify the specific project as being exempt from SEQRA, and that the exemption from consistency was not coextensive with the SEQRA grandfathering provision. It looked to the grandfathered projects lists, established pursuant to SEQRA, in which each state agency provided the director of the budget [with] a list of projects such agency deem[ed] to have been approved for the purposes of exempting those projects from SEQRA, even though the project was approved prior to SEQRA's effective date (see L 1976, ch 228, 5). Indian Point 2 was never on such a list. Thus, the Department concluded that it did not qualify for the first exemption. Regarding Indian Point 3, the Department noted that, in 1978, the New York Power Authority had included Indian Point 3 on such a list. Nevertheless, the Department concluded that this listing did not exempt the current re-licensing application as the 1978 listing was limited to construction of certain facilities and acquisition of certain real property and easements, none of which referred to the operation of Indian Point 3. Supreme Court correctly determined that the Department of State's interpretation of the first exemption is rational and should be upheld. The Department takes the position that the phrase identified as grandfathered must have some meaning beyond simply referencing SEQRA, or the exemption would have just said grandfathered under SEQRA. The word identified is reasonably interpreted by the Department as implying an affirmative step, such as the placing on a list. Furthermore, the CMP exemption refers to SEQRA legislation that was enacted in 1976, and as noted by the Department, the 1976 SEQRA legislation specifically directed state agencies to create a list of projects deemed approved and not subject to SEQRA (see L 1976, ch 228, 5), whereas the more general grandfathering provision that Entergy would have us apply was adopted in the original SEQRA legislation in 1975 (see L 1975, ch 621). Thus, the Department of State's interpretation of the first exemptionunlike Entergy'sgives effect to the plain language of the exemption, and we uphold the Department's conclusion that the first exemption is inapplicable to Indian Point. The second exemption applies to those projects for which a final environmental impact statement has been prepared prior to the effective date of the Department of State part 600 regulations, with a reference to Part 600 and Part 600.3(d). The Department determined that this exemption must be understood as exempting projects for which a SEQRA environmental impact statement had been prepared, and projects which pre-existed, but would have otherwise been subject to, the part 600 regulations on their effective date. Context is important when considering this exemption. The Part 600 regulations referenced in the bracketed language of the second exemption relate only to state agencies' consistency review of their own actions and apply only to actions undertaken by state agencies. Thus, because the licensing of Indian Point did not involve a state agency reviewing its own actions, the Department of State rationally concluded that this exemption does not apply. Additionally, the Department reasoned that the second CMP exemption directly references, and must be read in the context of 19 NYCRR 600.3(4), which expressly references final environmental impact statements prepared pursuant to SEQRA. The Department explains that when it created the exemption, it was solving a transition problem. State actions are subject to review for consistency with the CMP, but that reviewknown as state consistency reviewis conducted not by the Department of State but by the state agency proposing to take the action, in accordance with regulations promulgated by the Department. The exemption ensured that projects on which state agencies had invested time, effort, and resources in the preparation of a state environmental impact statement would not thereafter be required to undergo a consistency review. Stated differently, it exempted from consistency review only projects that had been subject to review under SEQRA but had not been subject to review for consistency with the state's coastal policies because the Part 600 regulations had not taken effect. There is no exemption for projects subject to federal environmental impact statements. Indeed, the plain language of the exemption implies that the reason for the second exemption was that the Part 600 regulations were not yet available for use. In light of this language, it was rational for the Department of State to reject Entergy's argument that final environmental impact statements pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) would satisfy this exemption, and that statements prepared under SEQRA are not required. In this appeal, Entergy, citing 6 NYCRR part 617, points out that SEQRA permits the use of final environmental impact statements prepared under NEPA. However, the Department of State rationally concluded that a federal environmental impact statement issued under NEPA before 1976 is not contemplated by the second exemption because the purpose of the exemption was to ensure that projects on which state agencies had invested time, effort, and resources in the preparation of a state environmental impact statement would not thereafter be required to undergo a consistency review. The Appellate Division rejected as irrational the Department of State's position that the final environmental impact statements must have been prepared pursuant to SEQRA. The court was persuaded by Entergy's argument that SEQRA permits the use of final environmental impact statements prepared under NEPA and that there is no indication that the final environmental impact statements prepared for Indian Point 2 and 3 would not have complied with SEQRA. But the fact that SEQRA permits the use of a statement prepared under NEPA misses the point. The Department's interpretation is rational given the references to the Part 600 regulations in the bracketed language of the second exemption and the explained purpose of the exemption; those regulations relate only to state agencies' review of their own actions and apply only to actions undertaken by State agencies. In other words, it is the context of Part 600, and not the definition of an environmental impact statement in Part 617, that matters. When considered in context, the language of the exemption is tied to the Department's intent in drafting the exemption. Entergy also argues that, if the second exemption is interpreted as the Department of State contends, then the exemption never applied to anything, and is essentially a null set. However, the exemption did apply to something, but it only applied to projects by state agencies that were in progress as of the effective date of the CMP regulations and that, without the exemption, would have been subject to CMP review. Finally, aside from Department of State's interpretation of the specific language of the exemptions, it is plain that these narrow exemptions for projects that had final environmental impact statements completed prior to the adoption of the CMP do not apply to re-licensing. Entergy's current application for a license to operate the Indian Point nuclear reactors for an additional 20 years is a new federal action, involving a new project, with different impacts and concerns than were present when the initial environmental impact statements were issued over 40 years ago. Thus, just as renewal of a license to operate a nuclear power plant triggers the requirement that the NRC produce a supplemental environmental impact statement (see 10 CFR 51.20), both the Coastal Zone Management Act and the CMP require consistency review for re-licensing of nuclear facilities. The Department's position that the Indian Point reactors are not forever exempt from consistency review under the CMP, is reasonable. In sum, the Department of State's interpretation of the exemptions in the Coastal Management Program, and its conclusion that Entergy's application to re-license the nuclear reactors at Indian Point is subject to consistency review are rational, and must be sustained. Accordingly, the Appellate Division order should be reversed, with costs, the petition denied, and judgment granted in favor of the Department of State appellants in accordance with this opinion. Order reversed, with costs, petition denied, and judgment granted in favor of appellants in accordance with the opinion herein. FOOTNOTES . Indian Point 1 ceased generating electricity in 1974. . Reactor License Renewal http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/overview. html, accessed Oct. 31, 2016. . New York State Coastal Management Program and Final Environmental Impact Statement http://www.dos.ny.gov/opd/programs/pdfs/NY_CMP.pdf, accessed Oct. 25, 2016. . As noted by the Appellate Division, the provision contains a typographical error in the original text, and the parties concur that the reference to section 6600.3(4) is intended to refer to 19 NYCRR 600.3(4), which is now codified at 19 NYCRR 600.3(d). . See State of New York Response to Entergy's Request to The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board for a Declaratory Order Concerning Coastal Zone Management Act Issues and Cross-motion for Declaratory Order http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1309/ML13095A481.pdf, accessed Oct. 25, 2016. . See In the Matter of Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. (Indian Point Nuclear Generating Units 2 and 3) http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1316/ML13163A233.pdf. accessed Oct. 25, 2016. . By determination dated November 6, 2015, the Department of State completed its consistency review and objected to Entergy's certification of consistency with the CMP. That determination is not before us. . It is also worth noting that a federal environmental impact statement does not necessarily or automatically satisfy SEQRA, as the regulation obviates the need for a SEQRA environmental impact statement only insofar as a federal environmental impact statement is sufficient to make findings under the SEQRA regulations (6 NYCRR 617.15). . The Department has informed this Court that in September 2016, it submitted to the National Oceanic Atmosphere Administration's Office of Ocean and Coastal Resources Management a routine program change to the CMP that would eliminate certain provisions that the Department has concluded are obsolete, including the exemptions at issue in this appeal. . As noted by the Department, it has previously conducted federal consistency reviews of NRC license renewal applications for three other aged nuclear power plants located in New Yorkthe James A. Patrick power plant, the R.E. Ginna nuclear plant, and the Nine Mile Point Unit 1 plant. ABDUSSALAAM, J. Chief Judge DiFIORE and Judges PIGOTT, RIVERA, STEIN, FAHEY and GARCIA concur. Bull flees slaughterhouse, stops highway traffic PHILADELPHIA (AP) A bull on the loose stopped traffic on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia during a brief taste of freedom before meeting its demise, but not as planned. The bull made a break for it early Tuesday afternoon as it was being unloaded at a slaughterhouse. It wandered onto two highways and through parts of a couple of neighborhoods before getting off a ramp and being confronted by a state game officer with a 12-gauge shotgun. Wildlife Conservation Officer Jerry Czech told The Philadelphia Inquirer he fired three shots to bring down the 2,000-pound bull after it hid in some bushes. Prince Harry cleans fish during official visit to Barbuda CODRINGTON, Barbuda (AP) Prince Harry showed off his fish-cleaning skills during a visit to the Caribbean island of Barbuda as part of a 14-day tour of the region. The prince helped agricultural science students at their request during a high school tour Tuesday. He also visited a primary school where he was serenaded by a steel band and a choir that sang traditional folk songs. Harry previously visited Barbuda with his brother and mother as a young boy. He is visiting the Caribbean representing his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, in the year of her 90th birthday. This year also is the 35th anniversary of independence for Antigua and Barbuda and the 50th anniversary for Barbados and for Guyana. Dortmund beats Legia 8-4 to break Champions League record DORTMUND, Germany (AP) Borussia Dortmund beat Legia Warsaw in a pulsating 8-4 victory on Tuesday that broke the record for goals scored in a Champions League match. The record was set in injury time when Marco Reus, who had earlier scored twice, unleashed a shot that was deflected into the net by Legia captain Jakub Rzezniczak. The 12 goals were one more than the total when Monaco beat Deportivo La Coruna 8-3 on Nov. 5, 2003. Shinji Kagawa scored twice for Dortmund, while Aleksandar Prijovic also got two for Legia. Dortmund's Felix Passlack, left, celebrates after scoring his side's 7th goal during the Champions League Group F soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and Legia Warsaw in Dortmund, Germany, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) In the two matches against the Polish side, Dortmund scored a total of 14 goals, having won the first leg 6-0. The winner of Group F will be decided in the final round when Dortmund visits Real Madrid. Both teams are through to the round of 16. Dortmund has 13 points and Real Madrid 11. Sporting, which lost 2-1 to Real Madrid, has three points and Legia one. The scoring bonanza included a four-minute spell in the first half with three Dortmund goals, two of them from Kagawa. Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel made nine changes to the side that beat Bayern Munich over the weekend. Reus, the captain for the match, played his first game since a groin injury in May. "That's how you imagine a comeback after a long time. I'm fine now, it's great that I could play from the start," Reus said. "But it was tough. I've been out for a long time." Dortmund's final goal came from a pass by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the club's top scorer, who came on with 20 minutes left. He did not score, although he hit the post. Aubameyang passed across the penalty area and Reus hit a low shot that struck Rzezniczak and slipped through the legs of Legia goalkeeper Radoslaw Cierzniak. "It's fantastic for Reus, I am really pleased," Tuchel said. "I've never had such a game, though, so I don't really know how to analyze it. We scored a clear victory, but I really don't know what to say." Dortmund's reshuffled defense was caught out in the 10th minute, when Vadis Odjidja crossed into the area. Prijovic controlled the ball and then curled it inside the far post with the outside of his right boot. Dortmund replied quickly. Kagawa stooped at the far post for a rare header off a cross from Ousmane Dembele in the 17th. One minute later, Kagawa and Dembele swapped passes before Kagawa drilled in with his left foot. And in the 20th, Cierzniak tried to punch out a free kick, only for the ball to hit Nuri Sahin and bounce into the net. The action never stopped and in the 24th Prijovic got his second, shooting through the legs of a defender. Prijovic nearly had a hat trick, but hit the crossbar from point-blank range. The ball soon ended up in Dortmund's possession and Sahin fed Reus, who set up Dembele. Dembele fooled two defenders before shooting under Cierzniak in the 29th. Reus then completed the seven-goal scoring fest in the first half by tapping in a low cross from Kagawa. Reus got his second in the 52nd, again from close range from a Dembele pass, to make it 6-2. Michal Kucharczyk pulled one back for Legia, before Felix Passlack scored after a great run by Christian Pulisic, who crossed for Andre Schuerrle. His shot was blocked, but Passlack headed the rebound into the net. Nemanja Nikolic scored Legia's fourth, before Rzezniczak's own-goal completed the win. A small group of Legia supporters made it into the stadium although UEFA had imposed a ban after Polish fans had created disturbances in the match at Real Madrid. Dortmund's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, front, plays the ball during the Champions League Group F soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and Legia Warsaw in Dortmund, Germany, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Dortmund's scorer Marco Reus, center, and his teammates celebrate their side's 6th goal during the Champions League Group F soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and Legia Warsaw in Dortmund, Germany, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Dortmund's Marco Reus, right, celebrates after scoring his side's 6th goal during the Champions League Group F soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and Legia Warsaw in Dortmund, Germany, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Dortmund's scorer Marco Reus, left, and his teammate Dortmund's Ousmane Dembele, right, celebrate their side's 6th goal during the Champions League Group F soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and Legia Warsaw in Dortmund, Germany, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Supporters of Warsaw attend the Champions League Group F soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and Legia Warsaw in Dortmund, Germany, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Dortmund's Ousmane Dembele, left, and Legia's Michal Kopczynski, right, challenge for the ball during the Champions League Group F soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and Legia Warsaw in Dortmund, Germany, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Car found in swollen river search for man as flood risk still high in places A 39-year-old woman has died and the search for a missing pensioner has been called off as parts of the UK faced further disruption caused by heavy rain and strong winds. Russell Sherwood, 69, of Neath, South Wales, went missing on Monday and on Tuesday evening police found a vehicle in the swollen River Ogmore which is believed to be his. Officers have been unable to search the vehicle, which is upside down, because of the "treacherous" conditions, a South Wales Police spokesman said. The clean up begins in Whitchurch Lane, Bristol A force statement added: "Due to the location of the vehicle, the continuing treacherous conditions and the fading light, the search has been stood down for the evening." They added: "A police presence will remain at the scene throughout the night. A recovery operation will begin at first light tomorrow. Mr Sherwood's family have been kept fully informed of the developments and are being supported by specially trained officers." In Kent, a 39-year-old woman died "despite efforts from emergency services to save her", a Kent police spokesman said. She was spotted by a helicopter crew in the sea at Folkestone but the many rocks in the area and the lashing waves meant a lifeboat crew could not get close to her. Footage shows her being airlifted by a helicopter before being taken to a local hospital, where she later died. Robert Bendhiaf, of the Dover RNLI lifeboat, who described the conditions as "pretty bad", said: "This is a tragic outcome and we are all very sad that she did not survive. "As with many of our launches, we do not yet know the reasons why this woman was in the sea, but needless to say it is an awful outcome and the crews thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of this young lady." The Environment Agency has 16 flood warnings and 103 flood alerts in place and warned of a continuing flood risk in Dorset and York as rain causes the rivers to gradually rise. Clare Dinnis, the Environment Agency's national flood duty manager, said: "After heavy rain over the last three days and showers forecast today, people in the South West and North East need to be aware of the potential for further flooding. "The weather is due to improve later this week, but we want to remind people not to risk driving through flood water, walking near large waves or near swollen rivers." But Storm Angus, which had brought gusts of around 50mph over higher ground and coastal areas in the South East, is becoming more settled. Met Office forecaster Emma Sharples said showers are expected in many places but the "intensity of recent days will disappear". Bands of rain may hit the North East and South West. The South West will still have to contend with 15-20mm of rainfall. Network Rail (NR) warned of "major disruption" on some routes, particularly in the South West and urged passengers to check online updates. A Stena Link ferry which had been stranded in Cardigan Bay for more than 24 hours, with nearly 150 passengers and crew on board, has now docked at Fishguard. Flood damage at a property in Millbrook near Stalybridge in Greater Manchester Electricity workers outside a property that was flooded in Millbrook near Stalybridge in Greater Manchester Workers repairing the promenade at Southsea, Hampshire, which saw huge paving slabs ripped up and deposited several metres away by the storm The P and O Pride of Canterbury ferry arrives at the Port of Dover in Kent, as heavy rain, strong winds and flash flooding have brought widespread disruption across the country Flood damage at a property in Millbrook near Stalybridge in Greater Manchester Residents look at a blocked drain as the clean up begins in Whitchurch Lane, Bristol A British Airways plane battles the high winds to land safely at London City Airport A flooded area in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire after heavy rain overnight Flooding on Huddersfield Road in Stalybridge, Greater Manchester, as heavy rain has fallen in the region Philip Hammond's measures to help low-paid workers and fund affordable housing Measures to help low-paid workers and invest in affordable housing will be at the heart of Philip Hammond's first Autumn Statement as Chancellor. Mr Hammond will announce a 4% rise in the minimum wage for over-25s - known by ministers as the National Living Wage - to 7.50 an hour from April 2017. And he will help an estimated three million families with changes to the "taper rate" for Universal Credit, which will allow low-paid workers to keep an additional 2p of every extra pound they earn. Chancellor Philip Hammond will deliver his Autumn Statement on Wednesday Meanwhile, a 1.4 billion injection into affordable housing will help build an estimated 40,000 new homes, while Mr Hammond will introduce a ban on letting agency fees to stop 4.3 million families in private rentals being hit by upfront charges running into hundreds of pounds. The announcements form part of a statement expected to be dominated by the costs of Brexit, with reports suggesting that the hit to public finances from withdrawal from the EU could reach 100 billion over five years. Mr Hammond got an eve-of-statement boost as official figures showed the Government had borrowed a less-than-expected 4.8 billion last month. But he has little room for manoeuvre in his efforts to help those families who are "just about managing" - known in Whitehall as the "Jams" - who Prime Minister Theresa May has identified as her main priority for support. The Treasury said Mr Hammond's package was designed to "improve the living standards of ordinary working class people and their families", in line with the ambitions set out by Mrs May in her keynote speech to the Conservative conference last month. But the Universal Credit reform is unlikely to appease critics who have been calling on the Government to reverse changes introduced by the Chancellor's predecessor George Osborne, which will drastically reduce the amount workers can earn before losing benefits. Mr Osborne cut the "work allowance" threshold at which Universal Credit begins to be withdrawn from 222 per month for a couple with children and 263 for a single parent to 192, as part of a package designed to save 3 billion in welfare payments. Now Mr Hammond is easing the pain by reducing the rate at which benefits are withdrawn from 65% to 63%, meaning that workers will lose 63p, rather than 65p, of their welfare for every pound they earn above their work allowance. The first annual increase in the National Living Wage, which was introduced in April at 7.20 an hour for workers aged 25 and over, brings it closer to the Government's 2020 target of 9 an hour, but leaves it well below the independently-calculated Living Wage of 8.45 across the UK and 9.75 in London. An additional 4.3 million a year will be committed to enforcing the payment of statutory minimum wage levels. The Chancellor is expected to say that providing economic stability, restoring the public finances and boosting productivity are the single best methods to improve living standards, which last year grew at their fastest rate in 14 years. But he will also offer a range of measures to help family finances go further, including: :: The ban on letting agency fees, which cost householders an average 337, according to Citizens Advice; :: A crackdown on whiplash claims, designed to allow insurers to reduce premiums by 40 a year; :: Relaxation of restrictions on schemes like affordable rent, shared ownership and rent-to-buy, to help people in different housing circumstances, including renters struggling to save for a deposit. Mr Hammond will also confirm previously-announced investments of 1.3 billion on roads and 1 billion on broadband and digital infrastructure, as well as committing billions more to research and development projects designed to support high-skill jobs. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said Mr Hammond had failed to provide support for people on low and middle incomes. "If as reported, all the Chancellor is offering is a 2% change in the taper rate, then it will be too little, too late for those working families who have had to bear the brunt of six wasted years of failed Tory economic policies," he said. David Davis warned UK cannot cherry pick single market when it leaves EU Brexit Secretary David Davis has been warned that negotiations for leaving the European Union will be "tough" and "intense" as MEPs stressed that the UK would not be able to remain in the single market without accepting free movement of people. Mr Davis insisted it would be possible to get an outcome which would be in the interests of both the UK and the EU but Euro MPs warned that there could be no "cherry picking" of elements such as single market membership. T he Cabinet minister held talks with the European Parliament's Brexit chief Guy Verhofstadt and other senior MEPs in Strasbourg, but there was frustration in Strasbourg over the lack of clear information coming from the Government. Guy Verhofstadt has met Brexit Secretary David Davis for crunch talks German MEP Manfred Weber, chairman of the centre-right European People's Party, suggested that the UK Government wanted to remain in the single market but had "no idea what Brexit really means". And the leader of the socialist group Italian MEP Gianni Pittella said Mr Davis had cancelled their meeting, adding: "He is the one losing out, not us." Mr Verhofstadt said the negotiations would have to be concluded within around 14 or 15 months after triggering Article 50 in order for MEPs to have time to give their consent to any deal. He said it would be a "tough period, very intense". The Belgian MEP, who leads the liberal group in the European Parliament, said Brexit could not mean enjoying the benefits of EU membership while imposing curbs on migration. "It is impossible to find solutions where we destroy the so-called four freedoms. These four freedoms are key, they are a basic element of the European Union - the freedom of movement of goods, of services, of capital and of people." Mr Davis confirmed the Government expected to trigger Article 50 before the end of March and explained "ho w the British Parliament will be involved with the bill", Mr Verhofstadt said. MPs are only likely to be given a say on triggering Article 50 if the Government loses its Supreme Court challenge on whether the Prime Minister alone has the authority to fire the starting gun on the Brexit process. Mr Weber said: " I have not heard anything new, I have not heard much as to how the British Government wants to tackle Brexit and what Brexit really means. I have not received any new information, quite the opposite is true. "Today I have been told that the British Government, as far as the economy is concerned, it wants to stay in the single market - but the British Government would also like to continue and have very close co-operation in legal issues." But he added: "Brexit means Brexit, so we are going to have to cut back on our relationships. It is not a cherry picking situation at all." Asked if Mr Davis had directly told him the UK wants to remain in the single market, Mr Weber said: "I think the economic dimension is clear for Great Britain, they have a strong interest to keep a kind of relationship to the single market, to keep strong ties to the single market. "About the form, how they want to do this, I think that is still open because what Guy said, and what I also experienced in the meeting with David Davis, was that there is a structure at the moment, that they are discussing amongst them, but there is no idea what Brexit really means." Responding to Mr Weber's suggestion that Mr Davis had indicated the UK wants to stay in the single market, a Downing Street spokesman said: "The Government's position hasn't changed on this. "We are very clear that what we want is a trading relationship that allows UK companies to trade both with and within the single market and lets European businesses do the same." Speaking at a Westminster media briefing, the Number 10 spokesman declined to respond to repeated questions over whether the relationship the Government is seeking would require single market membership. Mr Davis said his talks with arch-federalist Mr Verhofstadt had been useful and "great fun", describing the former Belgian prime minister as a "very nice man" who races classic British cars. Although formal negotiations cannot begin until the Article 50 notification, which Theresa May has pledged will happen before the end of March, Mr Davis said the pair had discussed the structure of the process. He added: "My view is that we can get an outcome here which would be in the interests of the European Union and in the interests of Britain and will meet the requirements of the referendum." Nigel Farage vented his rage at the 'cesspit' establishment today after Downing Street dismissed Donald Trump's extraordinary call for him to become Britain's ambassador to the US. No10 insisted the key post will not be vacant for at least four years after the president-elect tweeted that the Ukip leader would do a 'great job' as the UK's man in Washington. Trump's intervention on behalf of his friend left ministers scrambling for a response, and raises more doubts about the prospects for a Special Relationship with Theresa May after he takes charge of the White House. Mr Farage - who has blasted current ambassador Sir Kim Darroch as a 'fanatical Europhile' and warned his views will be unacceptable to the incoming commander-in-chief - said Trump was 'a very loyal man'. 'It is called trust and it is how the whole world of business operates,' he said. 'The world has changed. It's time that Downing Street did too... 'Sadly, the cesspit that is career politics understands nothing of this. In their world the concept of trust is transitory.' Nigel Farage would do a great job as the UK's ambassador in Whashington, Donald Trump said The president-elect said that 'many people' wanted to see the interim Ukip leader as the UK's senior diplomat in Washington. However, the Prime Minister's spokesman said there was 'no vacancy' and praised Sir Kim for doing 'very good' work building links on the other side of the Atlantic. 'There is no vacancy. We already have an excellent ambassador to the US,' the spokesman said. The spokesman pointed out that Sir Kim had only taken up his post in January this year. 'Traditionally US ambassadors have done four years or even longer stints... we have chosen our ambassador,' they added. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told the House of Commons that Sir Kim was 'first rate' and reiterated that there is 'no vacancy'. Theresa May, pictured in Downing St today, has indicated she hopes to have a Reagan-Thatcher style relationship with Trump The ambassador was in London today to brief the government's National Security Council, and had a meeting Mrs May. The PM's spokesman declined to give details of their discussions, but said her view remained that Sir Kim was doing a 'fantastic job'. The president-elect's endorsement is a fresh embarrassment for the Prime Minister, who had to be content with a short telephone call from Mr Trump when, in contrast, Farage was given a personal tour of the new leader of the free world's lavish New York home. Brits on Twitter reacted with sheer disbelief - suggesting that the president-elect was 'trolling the entire UK'. Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker also waded into the row by suggesting that Mr Trump was a 'parody' and 'Nigel the diplomat' was cockney rhyming slang. Last week Mrs May stamped on calls for Nigel Farage to help build bridges with Donald Trump as she accelerated her own plans to meet the president-elect. The Prime Minister said there was no role for the interim Ukip leader as the 'third person' in a relationship with Mr Trump, which will be modelled on the Thatcher-Reagan era. Officials are investigating whether Mrs May and Mr Trump can meet before his inauguration on January 20. Writing on the Breitbart website - whose former executive chairman Stephen Bannon has been appointed Mr Trump's chief strategist - Mr Farage said: 'The political revolution of 2016 now sees a new order in charge of Washington. In the United Kingdom the people have spoken but the players at the top have, I am afraid, stayed the same. Twitter users reacted with disbelief to the president-elect's intervention, suggesting he was 'trolling the entire UK' 'Those who supported Remain now hold senior positions. Worst still, those who were openly abusive about Trump now pretend to be his friend. It is career politics at its worst and it is now getting in the way of the national interest. 'At every stage I am greeted by negative comments coming out of Downing Street. The dislike of me, Ukip and the referendum result is more important to them than what could be good for our country.' Such is the worry in Whitehall about the special relationship that Theresa May is set to use the Queen as her 'secret weapon' to win over Donald Trump by asking Her Majesty to invite the President-elect to Windsor Castle. Mrs May upset the president elect last year after she criticised him publicly for his comments on a 'total shutdown' of Muslim into the US, however, she did reject calls for him to be banned from the UK. But Mr Trump's latest tweet about his friend will pile on more pressure for Mrs May to put aside their differences and ask Mr Farage for help. Friends: Farage came to the US to support Trump on the campaign trail and the president elect said that America had been inspired by the Brexit campaign Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker also waded into the row, suggesting that Mr Trump was running a 'parody' Twitter account Farage and Trump have become firm friends after he helped his campaign in the US. After successfully campaigning for Britain to leave the EU Mr Farage joined Mr Trump at a rally in Jackson, Mississippi, where he was lauded as 'the man behind Brexit'. Following a campaign run on similar anti-establishment lines to the Leave campaign, the Republican described a victory as 'Brexit plus plus plus' on the eve of the vote. Days after the win the pair appeared together in a golden lift following a private meeting at the president-elect's New York residence, Trump Tower. WHO IS SIR KIM DARROCH, OUR MAN IN WASHINGTON? Sir Kim Darroch is a true Westminster insider - having spent three decades in the civil service. The 62-year-old was chosen to succeed Sir Peter Westmacott at the beginning of this year, when David Cameron was still PM. Prior to that he had been Mr Cameron's adviser on national security for four years. And from 2007 to 2011 he was the UK's permanent representative to the EU - sparking claims that he was too committed to keeping us in the bloc. Downing Street has dismissed criticism that Sir Kim failed to prepare for the possibility of a Trump victory in the US elections. Sir Kim faced embarrassment following the result when a leaked memo revealed his belief that the president-elect will be 'open to outside influence'. Advertisement By comparison Mrs May had only spoken to Mr Trump over the phone, after reportedly waiting for a string of other leaders to congratulate the winner. No 10 later rejected suggestions Mr Farage could be the 'third person' in the relationship between the PM and her US counterpart and insisted that the Government had 'well-established' channels of communication. In the immediate wake of Mr Trump's election a leaked memo reportedly sent by Britain's incumbent ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, sought to reassure the Government that UK diplomats were 'well placed' to capitalise on change at the White House. However Mr Farage said it was 'obvious' that Sir Kim, who took over in January, should resign as he was part of the 'old regime'. 'His world view, and the world view of the Trump team are going to be diametrically opposed and I would have thought it would be sensible to put someone there who was likely to get on with Team Trump,' he told Sky News. 'I don't think I will be the ambassadorial type. Whatever talents or flaws I have got I don't think diplomacy is at the top of my list of skills.' Trump's intervention marks an extraordinary fortnight for Mr Farage. Theresa May had to be content with a mere telephone call from Trump on the day after he won. In contrast, Farage was given a tour of new leader of the free world's New York home with its floor-to-ceiling marble, gilded columns and pilasters, its gaudy crystal chandeliers dripping with gilt, and a huge fresco depicting the Greek god Apollo crossing the heavens in his chariot. Farage and four of his close allies from the referendum campaign were mesmerised by the lavish surroundings they found themselves in a Renoir on the wall was 'magnificent', commented one of them, while the bronze classical statue of Eros and Psyche was 'striking' and the views overlooking Central Park were the best in New York. Trump enlisted Farage's help during the campaign because, like him, Farage was a political outsider and had stunned the political establishment over Brexit. Farage spoke at a political rally in Mississippi for Trump in August, and Trump had famously issued that clarion cry: 'It's gonna be Brexit plus, plus, plus!' The invitation for Farage to join Trump in New York came in the early hours of Wednesday when it was clear Hillary Clinton was heading for a shock defeat. It was offered by Steve Bannon, chief executive of the Trump campaign, who has been hotly tipped to play a key role at the White House. Farage whipped the crowd into a frenzy when he said Trump could and would win. 'You can beat the pollsters in this presidential race. We did it with Brexit. You can do the same' Mr Farage hinted that he was ready to take on the key role as ambassador to the US Farage and his party's visit coincided with an anti-Trump protest of 30,000 people outside Trump Tower and a nervous US Secret Service ordered the building to be 'locked down'. No one was allowed in or out for four-and-a-half hours. At one point, Farage and his team ventured on to a 21st-floor balcony for a cigarette, looking down on the milling mob of protesters. Security ordered them in, fearing they could be a target for snipers. Trump's intervention is a snub to Theresa May and current ambassador Sir Kim Darroch, pictured behind Tony Blair in 2007 when he was a European policy advisor It came after Mr Farage tore up his pledge to quit frontline politics, saying he would stand for Parliament if there is a by-election in the seat where he has run previously. The acting Ukip leader, 50, vowed to use his relationship with the President-elect Donald Trump to finally win a seat as an MP. He said he would 'have to' stand again for South Thanet in Kent if corruption claims against the Tories lead to a New Year re-run of the vote. Mr Farage's comeback bid came days after he flew to New York and became the first British politician to meet Mr Trump since he won the US presidential election. Police are investigating whether the Tories broke spending rules in the Kent seat at the last general election, when the Conservatives successfully fought off a challenge by the Ukip leader. The inquiry could lead to the result being declared void and a re-run taking place. Mr Farage who was furious after Theresa May rejected his offer to help the UK build a better relationship with Mr Trump - said the Tories had 'cheated' in South Thanet. He told the Mail on Sunday: 'I suspect one of the reasons Downing Street is being so vile about me just when I can play a positive role with Trump is because they are worried this may come back to bite them.' When asked if he would stand if there were a re-run, Mr Farage answered: 'I'd have to.' If a by-election in Thanet takes place, it will be the Ukip leader's eighth bid to become an MP. THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP: HOW FARAGE AND TRUMP BECAME FRIENDS AFTER UKIP MEP HELPED HIS US CAMPAIGN Nigel Farage (pictured centre with Donald Trump) met the president-elect in his Trump Tower penthouse with Ukip donor Arron Banks (second from left), Leave.EU communications chief Andy Wigmore (second from right) and former Ukip aide Raheem Kassam (right). Mr Trump's pollster Gerry Gunster (pictured left) helped with the Brexit campaign and also joined the gathering on Saturday night in New York As is common for Nigel Farage, his path to friendship with Trump all began with a few drinks. After the Republican Convention in July, when Trump was endorsed as candidate, the hard-drinking Leave.EU communications chief Andy Wigmore and Nigel Farage were celebrating in a bar in Ohio late at night. Wigmore introduced Farage to staff of Mississippi governor Phil Bryant, one of the few Republicans publicly backing Trump. They got on so well they were invited to meet Bryant the following month. Four weeks later Farage, Businessman Arron Banks, 50, and Wigmore met at Heathrow to fly to the US. They downed three 'cappuccino martinis', one of Farage's favourite drinks. On the plane they got through four bottles of red wine. They were picked up in a blacked-out limousine with security staff and whisked off to meet Bryant and his wife Deborah at their colonial-style mansion. In the car an aide of the governor talked Farage through the schedule, which included an interview on Mississippi's main radio station, a visit to the Mississippi government headquarters, lunch with supporters and a speech at a private fundraising event with Trump and his backers. It was to be billed 'Mr Brexit meets Mr Trump'. In his book The Bad Boys Of Brexit, Banks reveals Farage dominated the fundraiser. 'The guests could not get enough of Nigel's 25-year battle against the EU and victory in the referendum.' Farage's speech was given a standing ovation. Banks' book says: 'Trump called Farage back on stage and showered him with plaudits and drew parallels between the Brexit campaign and his own.' Trump then got Farage to speak at an event in front of a crowd of 15,000 people later that same day. Trump dropped the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who had initially been scheduled to make the speech. Farage duly whipped the crowd into a frenzy when he said Trump could and would win. 'You can beat the pollsters in this presidential race. We did it with Brexit. You can do the same. 'If I was an American citizen I wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton if you paid me. In fact, I wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton if she paid me.' The crowd went wild. Trump loved it. After the speech, as Trump was heading to his private jet for the next leg of his exhausting election tour, he saw Farage, Banks and Wigmore and said: 'Those boys look like trouble.' Back in Britain, Farage was publicly criticised by senior Ukip figures for embracing Trump. They feared that it would damage the Ukip brand and they criticised him for becoming involved in an overseas election. Farage told me last night: 'Anyone who knows Donald Trump says he is very loyal to people who have been loyal to him. Trump knew members of my own party turned against me. 'He appreciated what I had done. Meeting with us on Saturday was payback. 'As for my own role, I would say that some of the noises about Trump coming out from the children advising Theresa May are so juvenile. Downing Street should be having a constructive conversation. If I can help that I will.' Advertisement You have Farage we'll take Clinton! MPs mock Trump over ambassador call MPs have mocked Donald Trump's call for Nigel Farage to be the UK's ambassador to the US - retorting that Hillary Clinton should be America's top diplomat in London. The jokey suggestion came as Downing Street scrambled to work out how to handle the tweet by the president-elect. No10 has insisted there is 'no vacancy' and Sir Kim Darroch will stay in the key post for at least four years. Speaking at Foreign Office questions in the Commons, Tory MP Sir Simon Burns - a big supporter of defeated Democrat Mrs Clinton - poked fun at the tycoon's 'extremely generous' advice. Tory MP Sir Simon Burns suggested an exchange, with Nigel Farage becoming ambassador to the US and Hillary Clinton becoming the top US diplomat in London 'Although there is no vacancy, would the Foreign Secretary think this is extremely generous of Donald Trump to suggest who should be our ambassador in the United States?' he said. 'And in that measure of fraternity, might he suggest that the best person to fill the vacancy of the ambassador to the United Kingdom next year would be Hillary Rodham Clinton?' Keith Simpson, the Tory MP for Broadland, said: 'I think we are all relieved that the Foreign Secretary has ruled out Mr Farage. 'In this post-truth world, we might have assumed that he might have been sympathetic given they had campaigned together so remarkably on Brexit. 'But can the Foreign Secretary perhaps outline to the House his thinking in terms of what he is going to say when he visits the United States of America about our future relations - given that we have always been the conduit between Europe and the United States of America?' Child abuse inquiry has 'crumbled', Michael Mansfield says The troubled child sex abuse inquiry has "crumbled" after successive failures by the Government to choose the right leader for the probe, an eminent barrister has warned. Michael Mansfield QC said there had been a "dismal failure" to work with survivors groups when picking candidates to lead the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA), leaving some fearing an ulterior motive was behind the doomed appointments. His criticism comes amid calls for the inquiry's current chairwoman, Professor Alexis Jay, to be removed after one survivors' group withdrew from the probe branding it an "unpalatable circus". Michael Mansfield said there had been a dismal failure to work with survivors' groups The Government backed Prof Jay, the IICSA's fourth chairwoman, as it faced allegations of dodging responsibility behind a "smokescreen of independence" from Labour. Mr Mansfield said the inquiry looked "extremely bad" following the departure of the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association (Sosa), which described Prof Jay an "uninspiring leader". "We've got to a stage now where, down the line, it's crumbled. There's no other word for it, it's crumbled," the barrister told the BBC's Newsnight. "What has gone seriously wrong here is a dismal failure to consult with the survivors' groups from the beginning, about appointments and about the substantive materials that have to be assembled. "Secondly, the actual appointments of the chair have been inappropriate, one after another. Just how many mistakes can you make? And of course some of the groups are saying: Have these mistakes been made on purpose?" The IICSA has been plagued by problems since it was set up by then home secretary Theresa May in 2014 to investigate the handling of abuse by public bodies. As well as criticism over its leadership concerns have been raised over its scale, leading to calls for it to be broken up. Sosa represents victims affected by abuse at children's homes run by Lambeth Council in south London, which form part of one of 13 separate investigations within the inquiry's remit. "We get our assurances that it's going to be alright on the night. Well, I'm afraid I don't accept that, I want to get in and see exactly how bad it is," said Mr Mansfield, who represented victims' families at the recent inquest into the Hillsborough disaster. "It looks extremely bad from the outside and I can't see how ploughing on without the main actor [will be alright] - this is Hamlet without Hamlet." On Monday Home Office Minister Sarah Newton told the Commons that the Government was "confident" in the ability of Prof Jay to lead the inquiry. However Labour MP Lisa Nandy said it was "impossible" to see how the inquiry was effectively working and criticised Home Secretary Amber Rudd for not answering her urgent question in person. "This may be the last chance that the Prime Minister and her Home Secretary have to rescue the inquiry that she set up, from collapse. "Will she now stop hiding behind the smokescreen of independence (and) recognise that she has responsibility for this inquiry's success and get a grip on it?" Our man in Washington meets May after Trump backed Farage as ambassador Britain's ambassador to Washington has met Theresa May for talks, after the Prime Minister rejected Donald Trump's call for him to be replaced by Nigel Farage. Downing Street refused to comment on the content of Sir Kim Darroch's conversation with Mrs May, but made clear she regards him as "an excellent ambassador who is doing a fantastic job". The US president-elect shocked Westminster with a late-night tweet declaring that Mr Farage would do a "great job" and that "many people" wanted to see him as the UK's senior diplomat in Washington. Sir Kim Darroch is in London for talks with Theresa May. But Downing Street stressed that "as a basic principle, we appoint our ambassadors", while Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that the UK already had a "first rate" envoy in Washington. Mr Johnson praised veteran diplomat Sir Kim - who met Mrs May during a previously-planned visit to London - telling MPs: "We have a first rate ambassador in Washington doing a very good job of relating both with the present administration and with the administration to be, and there is no vacancy for that position." Interim Ukip leader Mr Farage accused Downing Street of putting its dislike for him ahead of the national interest, saying it was time for Mrs May to recognise that "the world has changed", as he claimed he was "in a good position, with the president-elect's support, to help". Mr Farage told the Press Association he was "very flattered" by Mr Trump's suggestion and was ready "to do anything I can to act in a positive way to help relationships between our two countries". The property tycoon's highly unusual endorsement was a fresh embarrassment for Mrs May, who was beaten to meeting the future president in person by Mr Farage. In a sign of the Government's efforts to forge links with the US president-elect, Downing Street revealed on Monday that an invitation for a state visit to the UK is under consideration. And Mr Johnson told MPs that "it's vital that we are as positive as we can possibly be about the new administration-elect" as he hit out at Labour for being" premature" in making "hostile judgments" about the next occupant of the White House. But writing on the website Breitbart - whose former executive chairman Stephen Bannon has been appointed Mr Trump's chief strategist - Mr Farage denounced "career politicians" who were pretending to be Mr Trump's friend after previously criticising him. "The political revolution of 2016 now sees a new order in charge of Washington. In the United Kingdom the people have spoken but the players at the top have, I am afraid, stayed the same," he said. "Those who supported Remain now hold senior positions. Worst still, those who were openly abusive about Trump now pretend to be his friend. It is career politics at its worst and it is now getting in the way of the national interest. "I have said since the now famous photograph with Donald Trump 10 days ago that I would do anything to help our national interest and to help cement ties with the incoming Anglophile administration. "At every stage I am greeted by negative comments coming out of Downing Street. The dislike of me, Ukip and the referendum result is more important to them than what could be good for our country. "I have known several of the Trump team for years and I am in a good position with the president-elect's support to help. The world has changed and its time that Downing Street did too." Mr Farage's comments may be seen as a reference to Mrs May's previous description of Mr Trump's remarks about Muslims as "divisive, stupid and wrong" at a time when he was seeking nomination as the Republican candidate for president. Ukip investigated by Electoral Commission over party funding claims Ukip is being investigated by Britain's elections watchdog over claims it breached party funding laws. The European Parliament Bureau has already ruled the grouping Ukip belongs to, the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE), will have to repay 172,655 euro (146,696), and will no longer be given a grant of 248,345 euro (211,000) previously allocated to it after finding it misused EU funding. The Electoral Commission has now opened its own investigation into whether Ukip accepted "impermissible donations" from the ADDE and its affiliated foundation, the Initiative for Direct Democracy in Europe (IDDE). Ukip belongs to the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe An audit found that ADDE financed polling in the UK between February and December last year, including pre-election surveys in Thanet South, where Nigel Farage unsuccessfully stood for Parliament, and Ukip target seats Great Grimsby, Thurrock, Rochester & Strood and Cardiff South & Penarth. Nine opinion polls ahead of the 2015 election and 2016 EU referendum were found to have breached the rules on European party financing. Expenditure linked to the services of three consultants was also considered non-eligible by an external auditor and by the Parliament's administration. In a statement the Electoral Commission said: "ADDE and its affiliate IDDE, as with other European political parties and foundations, can receive grant funding from the European Union (EU). "This funding can cover up to 85% of the parties' eligible expenditure and be used for a range of activity, from administrative functions through to the campaign costs connected to European elections. "It cannot, however, be used for a range of other specified purposes, including for the direct or indirect funding of national parties, election candidates and political foundations at either the national or European level." The European Parliament had advised the commission that "it has formally concluded that ADDE and IDDE used EU grant funding for the benefit of Ukip in breach of its rules and therefore, these expenses were declared as non-eligible for the financing". The statement said: "The commission has now opened its own investigation into Ukip to look at whether there has been any breach of UK election law. This includes whether any impermissible donations have been accepted by the party." Commission officials have already met with representatives of the European Parliament and inspected material gathered as part of the audit. United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit. JOHNNY BENNETT, Petitioner - Appellee, v. BRYAN P. STIRLING, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of Corrections; JOSEPH MCFADDEN, Warden, Lieber Correctional Institution, Respondents - Appellants. No. 16-3 Decided: November 21, 2016 Before WILKINSON, KING, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges. ARGUED: Alphonso Simon, Jr., OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF SOUTH CAROLINA, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellants. John Henry Blume, III, CORNELL LAW SCHOOL, Ithaca, New York, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Alan Wilson, Attorney General, John W. McIntosh, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Donald J. Zelenka, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF SOUTH CAROLINA, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellants. Lindsey S. Vann, JUSTICE 360, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. Petitioner Johnny Bennett challenges the imposition of a capital sentence in the South Carolina courts. While recognizing full well the deferential standard of review under AEDPA, we nonetheless agree with the district court that the sentencing was suffused with racially coded references to a degree that made a fair proceeding impossible. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court granting habeas relief. I. Bennett, a black man, was convicted in 1995 for murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, and larceny in a South Carolina trial court. In a separate penalty proceeding, the state, with Solicitor Donald Myers at the helm, emphasized the size difference between Bennett (6'6 and 300 pounds) and the victim Benton Smith, a black man with a slight build (5'7 and 135 pounds). A mixed-race jury sentenced Bennett to death for the murder. On appeal, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld Bennett's convictions but reversed his death sentence, ordering the trial court to conduct a new sentencing. State v. Bennett, 493 S.E.2d 845 (S.C. 1997) (Bennett I). The second sentencing proceeding was held in 2000. As in the first trial, Myers led the prosecution and the jury sentenced Bennett to death. But this time, the jury was composed of white jurors only. And before this all-white jury, Myers chose to use racially charged language from the first sentence of his opening argument to his final soliloquy, casting aside the race-neutral presentation he had employed with the mixed-race jury. The most egregious appeals to racial prejudice came in his closing argument, in which he referred to Bennett using a slew of derogatory terms. Myers admonished the jury, Meeting [Bennett] again will be like meeting King Kong on a bad day. J.A. 1443. He also labeled Bennett a caveman, a mountain man, a monster, a big old tiger, and [t]he beast of burden. J.A. 1420-44. In addition, Myers intentionally elicited irrelevant, inflammatory testimony from one of the state's witnesses, who recounted a dream in which he was chased by murderous, black Indians. While cross-examining a defense witness, Myers alluded to Bennett's sexual partner as the blonde-headed lady, J.A. 1343-44, alerting the jury to the interracial nature of the relationship. Bennett moved for a new trial, but the trial court denied his request. The court found that the King Kong comment was not an appeal to racial prejudice and was an invited response to the defense's portrayal of Bennett as a peaceful and helpful prison citizen. J.A. 1628-29. As a result, the court concluded, the reference did not result in a denial of due process. The court analyzed the caveman comment separately and arrived at the same conclusions. The South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence, holding that the comments did not improperly inject racial issues into the trial. State v. Bennett, 632 S.E.2d 281, 289 (S.C. 2006) (Bennett II). The court observed that the King Kong label could have racial connotations but found that Myers's use of the term was not an appeal to the passions or prejudices of the jury. Id. at 288. Instead, the reference conveyed Bennett's size and strength as they related to his past crimes and was an invited response. Id. at 288-89. The court found the caveman comment merely descriptive of testimony that Bennett had twice pulled someone else by the hair. Id. at 289. The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Bennett v. South Carolina, 549 U.S. 1061 (2006) (mem.). In 2008, Bennett sought post-conviction relief (PCR) in state court, arguing that the seating of a racially biased juror violated his right to an impartial jury under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. While preparing for the PCR proceeding, Bennett's counsel interviewed a former juror and asked why the juror thought Bennett committed the murder. The juror responded, Because he was just a dumb nigger. J.A. 1846. After hearing testimony from the juror, the PCR court denied relief on the grounds that the juror was not racially biased at the time of the actual sentencing. The South Carolina Supreme Court denied certiorari. Bennett filed the instant petition for federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254 in 2014. He raised seven grounds for relief, including prosecutorial misconduct and juror bias. After a hearing, the district court granted relief independently on both grounds, vacated Bennett's death sentence, and return[ed] the matter to the Lexington County Court of General Sessions for resentencing within 180 days of [the] order. Bennett v. Stirling, 170 F. Supp. 3d 851, 855 (D.S.C. 2016). According to the district court, the state courts unreasonably determined that the King Kong comment, black Indians testimony, and blonde-headed lady remark were not intentional appeals to racial prejudice. Id. at 861-67. The district court also found unreasonable the PCR court's determination that the juror was not racially biased at the time of the sentencing. Id. at 867-72. The respondents now appeal. II. We review de novo the district court's decision to grant habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. Winston v. Pearson, 683 F.3d 489, 503-04 (4th Cir. 2012). A. Under Section 2254(d), as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), a federal court may not grant a state prisoner's habeas petition unless the state court's adjudication of the prisoner's claim was legally or factually unreasonable. See 28 U.S.C. 2254(d); Pub. L. No. 104-132, 104, 110 Stat. 1214, 1218-19 (codified at 28 U.S.C. 2254). More precisely, Section 2254(d)(1) allows relief if the state court's decision was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court. 2254(d)(1). Circuit precedent cannot form the basis for habeas relief. Parker v. Matthews, 132 S. Ct. 2148, 2155 (2012). In addition, [t]he more general the [federal] rule, the more leeway [state] courts have in reaching outcomes in case-by-case determinations. Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004). Section 2254(d)(2), in turn, permits relief where the state court's decision was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding. 2254(d)(2). A state court's factual determinations are presumed correct, and the petitioner must rebut this presumption by clear and convincing evidence. 2254(e)(1). Federal courts thus owe state tribunals significant deference. In the words of the Supreme Court, A state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as fairminded jurists could disagree on the correctness of the state court's decision. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011) (quoting Yarborough, 541 U.S. at 664). Section 2254 thus imposes a high yet not insurmountable hurdle to relief. The statute reflects the view that habeas corpus is a guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems, not a substitute for ordinary error correction. Id. at 102-03 (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 332 n.5 (1979) (Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment)). Federal habeas review may not be used to second-guess the reasonable decisions of state courts. Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 779 (2010). But AEDPA deference is not unlimited. It does not by definition preclude relief and does not imply abandonment or abdication of judicial review. Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 340 (2003). B. Bennett alleges that the prosecutor appealed to racial prejudice in his capital sentencing proceeding. Accordingly, the clearly established Federal law that governs our analysis is the Supreme Court's decision in Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168 (1986). Darden held that a prosecutor's improper comments offend the Constitution if they so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process. Id. at 181 (quoting Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 643 (1974)); see Parker, 132 S. Ct. at 2153. Under this standard, it is not enough that the prosecutors' remarks were undesirable or even universally condemned. Darden, 477 U.S. at 180-81. Courts must conduct a fact-specific inquiry and examine the challenged comments in the context of the whole record. United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 11-12 (1985). Prosecutors, moreover, retain substantial latitude to present their case as they see fit. That latitude is not to be casually abridged. The Supreme Court has cautioned that [t]he line separating acceptable from improper advocacy is not easily drawn. Id. at 7. Accordingly, courts should not lightly infer that a prosecutor intends an ambiguous remark to have its most damaging meaning or that a jury will draw that meaning from the plethora of less damaging interpretations. Donnelly, 416 U.S. at 647. But while a prosecutor may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935). It is beyond dispute that [t]he Constitution prohibits racially biased prosecutorial arguments. McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 309 n.30 (1987). Racial prejudice, odious in all aspects, is especially pernicious in the administration of justice. Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U.S. 545, 555 (1979). For this reason, the Supreme Court has engaged in unceasing efforts' to eradicate racial prejudice from our criminal justice system. McCleskey, 481 U.S. at 309 (quoting Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 85 (1986)). Finally, we remain sensitive to the Court's judgment that the qualitative difference of death from all other punishments requires a correspondingly greater degree of scrutiny of the capital sentencing determination. California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 998-99 (1983). Courts cannot avert their eyes from the risk that racial prejudice infect[ed] a capital sentencing proceeding in light of the complete finality of the death sentence. Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28, 35 (1986) (plurality opinion). For the reasons that follow, the prosecutor's argument here exceeded all permissible bounds. III. The state courts unreasonably determined that the prosecutor's references to Bennett during closing argument were not appeals to racial prejudice. Drawing on this flawed factual finding, the courts unreasonably concluded that Bennett's right to due process was not violated. A. We understand that closing arguments can be florid. Vivid expression and exaggeration for effect are many an attorney's stock-in-trade. But the remarks challenged here were unmistakably calculated to inflame racial fears and apprehensions on the part of the jury. Just before the jury left the courtroom to decide whether Bennett would receive a capital sentence, Myers delivered a final summation in which he alternated between characterizing Bennett as a primitive, subhuman species and a wild, vicious animal. Myers labeled Bennett an old caveman, a mountain man (twice), a monster, and a big old tiger. J.A. 1420-34. Referring to the murder and then to Bennett, the prosecutor remarked, Painful, vile, cruel, inhuman, everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. The beast of burden. J.A. 1444. The coup de grace in this sad story arrived when Myers warned the jury what would result if it did not impose the death penalty: You give him life, the real Johnny will come back. You give him life and he'll come back out. Meeting him again will be like meeting King Kong on a bad day. Vile Johnny. Mean Johnny. Manipulating Johnny. Murderous Johnny. J.A. 1443. The state courts, most notably the South Carolina Supreme Court, found that the King Kong comment was not an appeal to the passions or prejudices of the jury. Bennett II, 632 S.E.2d at 288. The state supreme court explained: [T]he trial court properly determined that [Bennett's] size and strength were probative of the aggravating circumstance of physical torture, which the [trial] court charged to the jury. In this regard, the Solicitor's use of the term King Kong was not suggestive of a giant black gorilla who abducts a white woman, but rather, descriptive of [Bennett's] size and strength as they related to his past crimes. Id. The court also found that the caveman comment was merely descriptive of two of [Bennett's] past violent incidents because the prosecutor made the remark while mentioning how Bennett pulled two individuals by their hair. Id. at 289. With all respect, these were unreasonable findings of fact. The prosecutor's comments were poorly disguised appeals to racial prejudice. It is impossible to divorce the prosecutor's King Kong remark, caveman label, and other descriptions of a black capital defendant from their odious historical context. And in context, the prosecutor's comments mined a vein of historical prejudice against African-Americans, who have been appallingly disparaged as primates or members of a subhuman species in some lesser state of evolution. We are mindful that courts should not lightly infer that a prosecutor intends an ambiguous remark to have its most damaging meaning. Donnelly, 416 U.S. at 647. But here, the prosecutor's remarks were quite focused, unambiguous, and strong. Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 340 (1985). The comments plugged into potent symbols of racial prejudice, encouraging the jury to fear Bennett or regard him as less human on account of his race. The King Kong comment especially drew on longtime staples of racial denigration. That comment was not just humiliating, but degrading and humiliating in the extreme. Boyer-Liberto v. Fontainebleau Corp., 786 F.3d 264, 285 (4th Cir. 2015) (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted). Likening Bennett to King Kong in particular stoked race-based fears by conjuring the image of a gargantuan, black ape who goes on a killing spree and proceeds to swing the frail, white, blonde Fay Wray at the top of the Empire State Building. Petitioner is right to note that the film is regarded by many critics as a racist cautionary tale about interracial romance. Br. of Appellee at 40 (quoting Phillip Goff et al., Not Yet Human: Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization, and Contemporary Consequences, 94 J. Personality & Soc. Psychol. 292, 293 (2008)). In addition to the content of the remarks, the particular circumstances of this case do not leave any doubt that the challenged comments were appeals to racial prejudice, not innocent descriptions of Bennett's size and strength. The prosecutor easily could have highlighted Bennett's physical attributes in a race-neutral manner. There was no impediment to the prosecutor's ability to note repeated examples of [Bennett's] proclivity to viciously and savagely attack others defenseless to someone of his size. Reply Br. of Appellants at 2. Indeed, the prosecutor did so in a race-neutral manner before the earlier mixed-race jury. In addition, the state used cardboard figures without objection in the second sentencing to convey the size disparity between Bennett and his victim. See Br. of Appellants at 38. And of course, the jury could see Bennett and assess his size as he sat in the courtroom. See Br. of Appellee at 50. The prosecutor's references then were not only gratuitous but were, as the district court explained, a not so subtle dog whistle on race that this Court cannot and will not ignore. Bennett, 170 F. Supp. 3d at 866. B. The South Carolina Supreme Court's factual determinations with respect to Myers's close led to its erroneous legal conclusion that Bennett's due process rights were not violated. It is important to consider the procedural distortion wrought by the challenged remarks. The capital sentencing determination requires the individual jurors to focus their collective judgment on the unique characteristics of a particular criminal defendant. McCleskey, 481 U.S. at 311. Impairing the jury's ability to confront and examine the individuality of the defendant would be particularly devastating to any argument for consideration of [those] compassionate or mitigating factors stemming from the diverse frailties of humankind. Caldwell, 472 U.S. at 330 (quoting Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304 (1976) (plurality opinion)). The prosecutor's closing comments here risked reducing Bennett to his race and damaged the jury's ability to consider objectively, and individually, whether mercy was warranted. We must also evaluate the challenged remarks in the context of the record as a whole. See Young, 470 U.S. at 11-12. The prosecutor's opening statement began, Ladies and gentlemen, you all have seen the defendant, Johnny Bennett; huge, giant man, six-six, six-seven, brutal monster size. J.A. 273. In the next breath, Myers branded Bennett a big old brute. Id. Drawing to a close, Myers called Bennett a big old bear of a fellow, J.A. 277, with a [b]ig old bear of a fist, J.A. 280. The animal imagery was shortly reinforced by racial imagery from one of the state's witnesses. The witness, Shannon Gilbert, was white and had been assaulted by Bennett several years earlier. The prosecutor asked Gilbert, Do you have any consciousness about being in a hospital; do you know of any dreams or anything? J.A. 393. Gilbert began to testify that he remembered only one dream from his stay at the hospital, but the defense objected on relevance grounds. Myers, who plainly knew what Gilbert would say, responded that Gilbert would bring out the relevance. Id. Gilbert proceeded to describe his dream: Indians were chasing me trying to kill me, and the thing that I thought was they were black. [T]here might have been a link. You know, that I was remembering something about trying to get away from someone. J.A. 394. At the district court hearing, the respondents conceded that Myers elicited the testimony and that they could not articulate a purpose for the testimony other than invoking racial fears. Myers also made certain that the jury knew that Bennett had a sexual relationship with a white prison guard. Byron Collins, a defense witness, testified that Bennett helped him recover from depression while in prison. Myers's initial cross-examination consisted of a series of inquiries about whether Bennett had encouraged Collins to be disruptive or to break prison rules; Collins answered each question in the negative. The defense briefly built on this line of questioning on redirect. On recross, Myers swerved in a different direction and asked, There was one guard that loved Johnny Bennett and that was Judie Hardee, you remember her? J.A. 1343. Collins responded, The real big lady? Id. Myers answered, Judie Hardee, you remember her, the blonde-headed lady? J.A. 1343-44. Collins said he didn't remember, and the prosecution rested. During his closing argument, Myers reminded the jury that Bennett was having sex with the female guard no fewer than seven times. J.A. 1441. While the state argues that it is extremely common today for people to color their hair, Br. of Appellants at 46, the district court rightly noted that almost all women with blonde hair are white, Bennett, 170 F. Supp. 3d at 864. As the district court found, The Solicitor's carefully choreographed questioning alerted [Bennett's] all-white jury that his prison guard lover was a white woman. Id. at 863. There was therefore nothing isolated about the prosecutor's racially-charged references to Bennett during closing argument. In Donnelly, the Supreme Court found that a habeas petitioner's due process rights were not violated in part because the prosecutor's remark was but one moment in an extended trial. Donnelly, 416 U.S. at 645. Here, in contrast, we do not have a case where the misconduct of the prosecuting attorney was slight or confined to a single instance, but one where such misconduct was pronounced and persistent, with a probable cumulative effect upon the jury which cannot be disregarded as inconsequential. Berger, 295 U.S. at 89. Whether the black Indians testimony or the blonde-headed lady comment would independently merit reversal is not a question we need answer. Suffice it to say that those comments do nothing to dispel our misgivings about what transpired here. Race was a recurrent theme throughout the capital sentencing proceeding, a theme designed to implant both racial fears and prejudices in the mind of the jury by playing upon ancient staples of racial disparagement and discrimination. Our ruling does nothing to drain the adversary process of its spontaneity or to suppress the free-wheeling style that some of the finest advocates employ. The proceeding here hardly needed to be run this way. We note once again that in front of the mixed-race jury at the first sentencing, Myers managed to respect the Constitution's prohibition on appeals to racial prejudice. His closing argument was race-neutral, and he did not elicit testimony on the black Indians dream. When arguing before an all-white jury, however, the prosecutor suddenly and tellingly took a different, race-oriented approach. And though it should not have been necessary by the year 2000, the defense's repeated objections put Myers on notice that he had come dangerously close to crossing the constitutional line even before his closing argument began. Immediately after Myers referred to Bennett's sexual partner as the blonde-headed lady, the defense moved for a mistrial on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct. Renewing the motion after the jury exited the courtroom, the defense argued that it had repeatedly alerted the court to the Solicitor's attempt[s] to insert race into this case and that the blonde-headed lady comment was one of the most despicable performances [the defense had] ever seen. J.A. 1377. There can be no fair claim that the prosecutor's tactics were invited. The state conceded before the district court that there was no improper conduct by the defense; the defense's witnesses merely portrayed Bennett as a non-violent peacemaker and a model citizen in the prison community. The prosecution had every right, of course, to paint a dramatically different picture, but through evidence that pointed to the actions of the man, not the happenstance of his race. Finally, no curative instructions were given. Unlike the trial judge in Donnelly, who directed the jury to ignore the challenged remark, 416 U.S. at 644, the state trial court here never instructed the jury on particular comments, such as the King Kong and caveman references, the blonde-headed lady remark, or the black Indians testimony. Whether curative instructions would have cured the problem or simply served to reinforce the racial references is a question we need not address, for the jury retired from the courtroom unadmonished and its deliberations reached the prosecution's desired result. IV. Even apart from the deference due them under AEDPA, we emphasize our respect for the efforts of our colleagues in state courts. We stress once again that prosecutors are entitled to significant latitude in pressing their closing arguments. There is no presumption of prejudice from a simple untoward remark; many challenged prosecutorial comments will amount to little more than fleeting remarks whose impact is negligible in the context of an entire trial. But the prosecutor's conduct here so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting [sentence] a denial of due process. Darden, 477 U.S. at 181 (quoting Donnelly, 416 U.S. at 643).* The record here tells the story. There is no need for elaboration on our part. The criminal justice system must win the trust of all Americans by delivering justice without regard to the race or ethnicity of those who come before it. The many instances where the system performs its duties admirably help to build the trust of the people. A proceeding like this one threatens to tear that trust apart. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment is affirmed. AFFIRMED FOOTNOTES . Our ruling on the prosecutor's comments makes it unnecessary to consider Bennett's claim that the seating of a racially biased juror violated his right to an impartial jury. WILKINSON, Circuit Judge: Jo Cox's killing brought 'two extremes of humanity face to face', jury hears The two extremes of humanity came face to face when far right fanatic Thomas Mair brutally killed MP Jo Cox, jurors have been told. Mair, 53, allegedly shot and stabbed the mother-of-two as she arrived at Birstall library in West Yorkshire for a surgery on June 16, a week before the EU referendum. The defendant, who allegedly shouted "Britain first", had a stash of neo-Nazi material at his home and had collected a dossier on his 41-year-old Remain campaigning MP, the Old Bailey heard. Thomas Mair opted not to give evidence at his Old Bailey trial At the conclusion of the prosecution case, his lawyer Simon Russell Flint, QC, called no evidence on behalf of Mair, of Lowood Lane, Birstall. In his closing speech, prosecutor Richard Whittam QC told jurors: "At 13.48 on the 16th of June in Market Street outside the public library in Birstall, the democratically-elected MP for Batley and Spen, Jo Cox, was murdered as she carried out her duties on behalf of her electorate. "Constituents were waiting to speak to her in the library. "The sheer brutality of her murder and the utter cowardice of her murderer bring the two extremities of humanity face to face." Mrs Cox was a hard-working MP and mother of two young children. Mr Whittam said her attack "brought out the best of the people who were with her" - the two members of staff and Birstall residents who came to her aid. They came from all walks of life, he said, including a taxi driver and a 77-year-old man who was wounded as he tried to intervene. Mr Whittam had suggested in his opening address that Mair's assault was "cowardly". He told jurors: "Now you have heard the evidence you may have no doubt that it was." Despite having the "element of surprise", Mair failed in his first attempt and came back to shoot and stab Mrs Cox again, the court heard. Mr Whittam said: "Perhaps he underestimated Jo Cox's tenacity and courage." He said that all the evidence "compellingly establishes Thomas Mair was her murderer". Mr Whittam went on to say it was fitting that the case had been held before another woman - whose statue holding the scales of justice adorns the Old Bailey. At the conclusion of the evidence, the scales were "weighted only one way", he said. Mr Whittam said there was a "comprehensive" catalogue of evidence against Mair, including CCTV footage, the testimony of eyewitnesses, DNA and gunshot residue, ballistics and physical evidence. He told jurors: "The comprehensive nature of the evidence does not mean the defence case is bereft of points to make. "We submit to you that those points have no sufficient substance to cause any dent to the prosecution case." Defending Mair, Simon Russell Flint QC said the killing of Mrs Cox as she carried out her "public duties" had been "truly shocking and appalling". He told the court: "She was brutally and callously murdered and there is no issue or dispute about that." Mr Russell Flint said: "Mrs Cox's death, you know, has touched many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, some who knew her and knew her well - her parents, her sibling, her husband, her children, not forgetting her friends and her colleagues who will forever be scarred by what happened to her in the street of that small West Yorkshire town on that June afternoon and will forever mourn her passing." Addressing the jury, he said: "It is you and you alone who have been charged with the responsibility of determining what are the true verdicts on each of the counts on the indictment." He added: "You and you alone will determine whether Thomas Mair can return to his quiet and solitary existence or will be forever remembered as the man who assassinated Jo Cox." Mair denies Mrs Cox's murder, possession of a firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence and possession of an offensive weapon - a dagger. He also pleads not guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent to pensioner Bernard Kenny when he tried to stop the attack on Mrs Cox. The judge, Mr Justice Wilkie, said he would sum up the case for the jury this afternoon. Senior judge calls for 'tough community penalties' to tackle prison population More criminals could be punished without being jailed, a senior judge has suggested. The Lord Chief Justice warned the prison population is "very, very high" and there are concerns that it could rise further still. Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd told MPs more could be done to explore non-custodial options for some offenders. Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd told MPs more could be done to explore non-custodial options for some offenders His comments come as prisons in England and Wales endure a hugely turbulent period. Earlier this month thousands of officers stopped work amid claims the system was "in meltdown" following a rise in violence and self-harm behind bars. Campaigners have repeatedly warned about overcrowding - while last week, former justice secretary Michael Gove warned that too many people are being sent to prison. Mr Gove said the Government should be working "overtime" to reduce the size of the jail population, which stands at just over 85,000. Appearing at the Commons Justice Committee, Lord Thomas said there is an "awful lot we can do to avoid sending certain people to prison". He said: " I think there's a lot more we should be doing to explore non-custodial options. "The prison population is very, very high at the moment. Whether it will continue to rise is always difficult to tell but there are worries that it will. "I'm not sure that at the end of the day we can't dispose of more by really tough, and I do mean tough, community penalties." Last week, up to 10,000 prison officers stopped work in protest after talks with the Government over health and safety concerns broke down. The Prison Officers Association directed members t o take action amid surging numbers of assaults on staff, as well as high-profile incidents such as the escape of two inmates who were later recaptured. And fresh controversy erupted when photos emerged apparently showing inmates eating steaks and takeaways. In a speech last week, Mr Gove said effective rehabilitation was impossible as long as prisons remained overcrowded and underfunded. He said: "The problem - in a nutshell - is that we have a system operating at practically full capacity with nowhere near enough flexibility to devote the time, care and attention needed to secure successful rehabilitation. "It is an inconvenient truth - which I swerved to an extent while in office - that we send too many people to prison. Luckless jockey Chris Meehan facing another leg operation Jockey Chris Meehan admitted he was "heartbroken" after breaking his leg again in a trampoline accident. The conditional rider from County Down hit the headlines in July when the ambulance sent to treat him - after a fall at Merano racecourse in Italy - reversed over his leg. Meehan was knocked unconscious in the fall and needed 27 stitches to a gash along his jaw, but those injuries paled into insignificance when the ambulance's manoeuvre broke his leg. Jockey Chris Meehan hit the headlines in July when an ambulance sent to treat him reversed over his leg The rider - whose father has worked in the ambulance service in Northern Ireland for 30 years - has spent the summer recovering from those injuries and was aiming to return to action on the Flat, spending the last few weeks riding out again. However, a misstep on a trampoline being used as part of his training regime has seen Meehan break his leg again, with surgery now being required. He said: "I was just doing a bit of circuit fitness work and landed on the wrong leg and it snapped in exactly the same place as before. "When I got out of the cast two months ago, they (doctors) told me if I break my leg again it would be a straight operation. "I'm going on Thursday morning to have X-rays and to get my cast changed over, so I'll know a lot more then. Boris Johnson urges Russia to use influence to halt Aleppo assault Boris Johnson has urged his Russian counterpart to take action to halt the assault on Aleppo. The Foreign Secretary spoke to Sergei Lavrov and called on Moscow to use its influence to halt the bombardment and allow vital aid supplies in to the besieged Syrian city. The telephone conversation came after Mr Johnson told MPs that Britain and its allies must "reach out to the Russians" to persuade Vladimir Putin's administration to deliver a ceasefire. Boris Johnson spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about the situation in Aleppo A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "The Foreign Secretary spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this afternoon. "The Foreign Secretary reiterated the UK's concern about the grave humanitarian situation in Syria, and urged Russia to use its influence with the Syrian regime to stop the assault on Aleppo and allow aid into the city. "The Foreign Secretary also expressed concern about the deteriorating security situation in Ukraine, and continued Russian support for the separatists. "Both ministers agreed on the need for ongoing dialogue on key international and bilateral issues." Earlier, Mr Johnson told MPs: "We're working hand in glove with the United States to try to bring a ceasefire in Aleppo. "I last had a conversation with (US Secretary of State) John Kerry on this matter very recently. "Alas, it has proved impossible so far to persuade the Russians to drop their support for their Syrian client, but they have the opportunity to do just that. "We need to reach out to the Russians and show it's up to them now to show the leadership the world expects to call for a ceasefire in Aleppo, to deliver a ceasefire in Aleppo, to let the humanitarian aid get through and to prevent a catastrophe for the people of that city over the winter months." Theresa May last week raised the possibility of sanctions if Moscow was found to have broken humanitarian laws in Syria. Sevilla condemn violence allegedly involving their supporters and Juventus fans Sevilla have condemned Monday night's violence allegedly involving their supporters and fans of Juventus and say they are working with police to determine if any of the Andalusian club's members were involved in the trouble. According to media reports, at least three people were injured following a fight in the city centre of Seville at around 11pm local time on Monday. The incident was said to have involved supporters of Sevilla and Juventus, who face each other in the Champions League on Tuesday night, and the high-flying LaLiga club have issued a statement denouncing the trouble. Sevilla play Juventus at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan on Tuesday night They said: "Following reports in the media, Sevilla want to show their emphatic revulsion and condemnation of the shameful incidents on Monday night involving alleged Sevilla fans taking part in a serious fight with the supporters of Juventus in the Avenida Reyes Catolicos, and at the same time make themselves available to the police authorities to help with anything that might be needed to determine the facts. "The club want to make clear that these alleged Sevilla fans in no way represent the club's values of tolerance and respect." Sevilla, who have won the last three Europa Leagues, also say they have asked the authorities to pass on any relevant information so they can take action if any of the guilty parties is a member of the club. Kate embraces tearful mother at mental health awareness awards The Duchess of Cambridge hugged a tearful mother as she attended an awards ceremony honouring the "remarkable" work of those aiming to increase awareness of mental health. Place2Be's Wellbeing in Schools Awards were held at the City of London's Mansion House on Tuesday to celebrate the ambassadors of positive mental health, where Kate gave a speech and presented the Child Champion and Young Person Champion awards. As the UK's leading children's mental health charity, Place2Be works with schools and provides support and expert training to improve the emotional wellbeing of pupils, families, teachers and school staff. The Duchess of Cambridge comforts Ceri Knapton at the Place2Be Wellbeing in Schools Awards. Kate who has been a patron of the charity since 2013, wore a black cocktail dress by Preen and met with finalists in the reception area of the grand building ahead of the second biennial ceremony. She could be seen hugging the mother of Ethan Knapton, who despite his Asperger syndrome has raised awareness of the condition and has even delivered assemblies in a bid to reduce bullying and inform others of how it affects him. The 13-year-old who was a young person champion award finalist told Kate how he was bullied in primary school and that Place2Be helped him to build up his confidence - mum Ceri could be seen welling up as she listened to her son speak to the royal. "It was just hearing him talk," she said of her tears and pride towards her son who attends Fulwood Academy in Preston, Lancashire. Also receiving a hug off Princess Diana when she was younger, Ceri who was crying and embraced by Kate, said: "She just said to me 'I have got to give you a hug - as a mum' - it was really lovely actually." As the awards got under way Kate took to the stage to address the 350 guests who had packed out the ornate room. The duchess said it was "a great honour" to be at the event to celebrate their "remarkable work". She said: "Without many of the inspiring people gathered here this evening, countless children would not receive the transformational support in their schools. "It is because of so many of you, that in their time of need, children have the help, care and attention that will get them through tough times in their lives. "I am a firm believer that it is absolutely crucial to confront problems as early as possible, to prevent them from escalating into even greater issues later in life. This is why Place2Be's work - prioritising children's emotional wellbeing from the outset - is so important." Describing the six Young Champion finalists as "extraordinary", Kate praised their resilience and said in their willingness to have open conversations have all become "mental health pioneers". She added: "Well done to you all. I cannot tell you how moved I was to be here this evening." Cerys Kenny was awarded the Child Champion Award by the duchess after she developed the 'Kenny Approach' at her school Longwood Primary Academy in Harlow, Essex. The 11-year-old said after suffering with anger issues herself, she created a booklet that helps others cope with the same problem - developing the resource which includes breathing exercises and other useful tips. "It has helped out my whole primary school, it has become a thing now which is being used," she said. "It is about four or five pages - but it is really helpful. I was just sitting at home one day and I came up with a couple of bits here and there." Kaii Bailey won the young person champion award for overcoming her own challenges and demonstrating resilience after turning her life around, which was also handed to her by Kate. The 16-year-old said she "went off the rails" and was on the verge of being kicked out of school, but in Year 11 following a wake up call in the form of a final warning a couple of months before her exams, she said something "kicked" in her to make a change. "I started working harder, a lot harder, and I managed to pull through and pass all my exams," the former Ark Walworth Academy pupil said. Kaii said she mentored younger children before she left to go to college and wants to go back on a voluntary basis to help others struggling with experiences similar to what she went through. Mental Health is an important priority for the duchess - along with the duke and Prince Harry they set up the Heads Together campaign which aims to challenge the stigma around talking about mental health. The awards are open exclusively to Place2Be partner schools, who were invited to nominate inspiring ambassadors who have shown a remarkable commitment to championing children and young people's mental health. They recognise the work of school leaders, teachers, support staff, parent champions, child champions and Place2Be colleagues who go above and beyond to enhance the life of the school community. Portugal's judicial makeover: the reform that flattered to deceive? By Andrei Khalip LISBON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - When international creditors released Portugal from onerous loan conditions two years ago, they hailed the nation for some major reform achievements - not least, an overhaul of the judiciary. The International Monetary Fund applauded Lisbon for reforming a dysfunctional court system which had been a brake on the economy. And with the European Union, it approved Portugal's exit from a 78 billion euro ($83 billion) bailout programme which had begun in 2011. But judges and entrepreneurs say the system was never really fixed and a deeper analysis of case-load data shows it has improved less than the official statistics suggest. It remains a bottleneck in an economy still staggering under bad debts. Almost 900,000 disputes over bad loans, unpaid bills and mortgages are pending in the courts, restricting new bank lending to companies and families and weighing on investment. These so-called "enforcement of payments" cases, which experts say are likely to be worth tens of billions of euros, are down by a quarter from their 2012 peak. However, judges attribute this reduction in large part to a 2013 decree that swept the oldest, most hopeless cases from the system. Cases where creditors have a better chance of recovering a borrower's assets still inch their way through the courts. The decree eliminated three quarters of all cases processed in 2013, justice ministry data shows. No data exists for later years, but one judge says the space this created to work on more promising claims was largely filled by new, hopeless cases. As they cleared futile claims, where creditors have almost no chance of recovering debts, more such cases arrived, largely from banks that would rather park them in the judiciary than take hard decisions to write them off, experts and judges say. "Most of the cases end with zero debt recovery ... In that aspect the reform was inefficient and dysfunctional," said Joao Raposo, a judge in the district court of Sintra, near Lisbon, who is also deputy head of the Portuguese Judges Association. "The statistics look good, but it's a bit of an illusion that the bailout lenders were happy to accept," said Raposo. The IMF, which had lauded Portugal for "one of the most successful reforms" ever undertaken in the judiciary, denied it had exaggerated those achievements in order to show to anti-austerity campaigners that the bail-out programme was a success. In an email to Reuters, it cited a drop in pending enforcement cases, faster processing times and a boost in loan recoveries from a new electronic system for seizing cash from overdue debtors' bank accounts. This new system, though, has not made a major dent in total debts stuck in courts, judges say. Portugal's backlog of pending non-criminal cases - mostly debt-related - remains by far the largest in the European Union when adjusted for population, EU data shows. Though it fell to some 11,000 cases per 100,000 people in 2015 from a 2012 peak of over 14,400, the backlog is still almost double that of runner-up Italy with 7,500. Neighbouring Spain has fewer than 2,000 cases per 100,000 people. 'WE'VE GOT NOTHING' Portugal's main business lobby says courts still offer little hope for creditors seeking to recover debts. "The judicial reform for the economy has failed," said Antonio Saraiva, head of the Portuguese Business Confederation, calling the courts slow, costly and unpredictable. "Court delays cause unbearable constraints on companies cash flow, generate a sense of impunity and make up one of the main obstacles to investment in the country." Virgilio Valadas, director of building firm Construcoes Monsaraz, is suing several of his customers for unpaid bills totalling 2 million euros ($2.1 million), equal to nearly half its annual turnover. One case has been pending for six years. He said courts appeared faster to set hearing dates, "but in terms of recovering debts, we've got nothing so far". "Where it hurts the most is when it comes to investment decisions," said Valadas, 43, whose firm employs 70 people and builds housing and hotels in the Alentejo region and in Lisbon. He said he planned to use any funds recovered through the courts to take advantage of a pick-up in property prices and revive several frozen real-estate projects. Unlike many construction firms, Valadas's Construcoes Monsaraz survived the recession and financial crisis that had triggered the EU-IMF bailout in 2011 and gave rise to many of the bad debts that he is still seeking to recover. "The reform's nature was cosmetic to show to the troika (of EU-IMF lenders) that Portugal was taking action," said Professor Joao Paulo Dias, a judicial expert at Coimbra University. BANKS STACKING THE COURTS? The IMF, judges and experts agree on one thing, however: that banks need to take a much more aggressive approach to the problem of bad debts rather than use the courts as a way of parking them and avoiding the need to write them off. "It will take years to change the mindset of creditors, banks mainly, who prefer to flood the justice system with often hopeless claims rather than acknowledge bad loans and write them down or off," said Raposo, of the judges association. Portuguese banks must provision for bad loans but do not need to write them off if they are pursuing repayment in courts. Non-performing loans are still rising two years after the nation exited its bailout programme: they totalled 17.8 billion euros in September, double their 2010 levels, Bank of Portugal data show. Bad loans represent a fifth of all loans outstanding, more than three times the EU average, the European Banking Authority data show. This is restricting bank lending. Even as euro zone lending grows, Portugal's banks wrote about 3 percent fewer loans in September than a year ago. Portugal's banking association denies banks contribute to the problem and says it is working with the government on plans to remove legal and judicial bottlenecks. Instead, it blames slow justice for bad loans remaining on their balance sheets for four to six years, the EU average of two years. Raposo's court in Sintra near Lisbon has 60,000 cases pending, worth an estimated 2 billion euros in enforcement claims. It has been at this level for a few years, says Raposo who alone has a personal case-load of 20,000 enforcement cases. The 2013 decree eased his court's backlog, but he said it remained overwhelmed. Despite being assigned back-up judges, he added, his court needed double its three permanent judges. There is no data on the overall value of the roughly 900,000 enforcement cases still choking up Portuguese courts. But if Raposo's district court were a representative sample, they could amount to more than 30 billion euros, or 17 percent of GDP. The government has said it is working on a solution to rid banks of bad loans, but details are still scarce. The court system has been streamlined under bailout reforms: more than 200 district courts have been closed, with their cases transferred to larger courts, and enforcement cases are now handled by one judge rather than a panel of three previously. The courts have installed a single computer network and appeal fees have been raised to discourage excessive litigation. However, these efficiencies were accompanied by a cut in the judicial budget, which is down 14 percent since 2011. Judges complain of a lack of qualified assistants and equipment. "The reform was done hurriedly and cheaply, which means more costs in the longer run," said Coimbra University's Dias. The Justice Ministry counters that the case-clearance rate has risen for 15 straight quarters, saying the removal of hopeless cases had helped to unclog the system. "One cannot affirm that there are no effects in terms of debt recovery," the ministry said in a written reply to Reuters. INVESTMENT SUFFERS The business confederation's Saraiva said a recent survey showed companies rated slowness of courts as their main concern weighing on investment. The Justice Ministry said judicial spending would rise 6.5 percent next year. At 1.8 percent of total state spending, the judicial budget is similar to France and Norway, it added. However, Joao Costa, director of metal-parts manufacturer Arpial, is not convinced. He has been trying without success to collect unpaid bills through the courts for four years. "Justice works terribly, never has worked and I doubt it ever will. Nothing has improved for us since the reform," Costa said. "Who's going to invest here if there's no way you can recover a client's debt?" ($1 = 0.9347 euros) Mauritian bank SBM says to acquire Kenya's Fidelity Bank NAIROBI, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Mauritian bank group SBM Holdings will acquire full ownership of Kenya's Fidelity Bank, a small lender, in a deal valued at 100 shillings ($0.98), SBM said on Tuesday. SBM said in a filing with the Mauritian bourse that it would inject 1.45 billion shillings of fresh capital into Fidelity, once the deal gets all the required regulatory approval. "The acquisition is in line with SBMH's regional expansion strategy into East Africa," SBM said in the filing. The Kenyan central bank said the deal was expected to be completed by the end of this year. "SBM Group will bring its experience and expertise from Mauritius and other markets, to enhance competitiveness and the resilience of Kenya's banking sector," the central bank said. Fidelity, which started operating as a commercial bank 20 years ago, has 14 branches in Kenya and is ranked 31 out of 41 Kenyan lenders by market share, with 0.39 percent, the central bank said. SBM Group, which operates one of the Indian Ocean island nation's leading commercial banks, SBM Bank, had assets of $4.2 billion as of September. It also operates in India and Madagascar. Analysts say rising bad debts, the capping of commercial lending rates and weaknesses in corporate governance exposed by the collapse of two lenders in the past year and a half, have made the Kenyan banking sector ripe for consolidation. "CBK (Central Bank of Kenya) welcomes the interest of foreign banks that will contribute to the emergence of a world-class financial sector," the central bank said. Belgium's TVH Group offers to buy Lavendon for 348 mln stg Nov 22 (Reuters) - Belgian industrial equipment supplier TVH Group NV on Tuesday proposed to buy Lavendon Group Plc, a British aerial work platform rental firm, in a potential deal worth 348 million pounds ($434.2 million). The 205 pence-per-share offer implies a premium of 47.5 percent to Lavendon stock's close on Monday. Lavendon said separately that it was unable to proceed with a recommended offer, citing concerns over execution risk and potential disruption to its business. Lavendon said it had received an unsolicited approach from TVH after its half-year results in August. Indonesia cocoa industry expects to process less beans this year By Bernadette Christina Munthe JAKARTA, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Indonesia's cocoa industry expects to process 360,000 tonnes of beans in both 2015 and 2016, down around 10 percent from last year due to a declining local crop and restrictions on imports. Cocoa processors in the world's No.3 producer of the chocolate ingredient have in recent years relied on imports of beans from West Africa to meet shortfalls in domestic output. But government regulations issued in February stipulate that imported cocoa beans must be checked in laboratories in their countries of origin before shipment to ensure they are not contaminated. "The industry couldn't import for the first half of this year," said Sindra Widjaja, executive director of the Indonesia Cocoa Industry Association, adding that there was a shortage of facilities overseas that met the standards of Indonesia's quarantine body. Indonesia's cocoa bean imports are expected to decline 10 percent this year from around 50,000 tonnes in 2015, Widjaja said. He said that imports on restrictions did not need to be so strict as beans go through "lengthy and sterile" preparation processes in Indonesia. Widjaja also noted that Indonesia charges a total of 17.5 percent in taxes and duties on cocoa bean imports, compared to nothing in its neighbours Singapore and Malaysia. Indonesia has struggled to increase cocoa production in recent years as yields decline from ageing trees vulnerable to disease, and as farmers switch to more profitable and less labour intensive crops like palm oil. The country's 2016 cocoa bean crop was expected to remain near a record low of 320,000 tonnes hit in 2015. United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. MAMADOU JALLOW, Defendant - Appellant. No. 16-4241 Decided: November 21, 2016 Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and MOTZ and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges. Elliot Sol Abrams, CHESHIRE PARKER SCHNEIDER & BRYAN, PLLC, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. John Stuart Bruce, United States Attorney, Jennifer P. May-Parker, Kristine L. Fritz, Assistant United States Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. Mamadou Jallow appeals the district court's judgment revoking his supervised release and sentencing him to the authorized statutory maximum term of 24 months' imprisonment. On appeal, Jallow challenges the district court's rationale for imposing the statutory maximum term of imprisonment, asserting that the selected sentence runs afoul of United States v. Webb, 738 F.3d 638 (4th Cir. 2013). We affirm. We have routinely recognized that, in the context of a supervised release revocation, the sentencing court retains broad discretion to impose a term of imprisonment up to the statutory maximum. United States v. Padgett, 788 F.3d 370, 373 (4th Cir.) (ellipsis and internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 494 (2015). We will not disturb a district court's revocation sentence unless it falls outside the statutory maximum or is otherwise plainly unreasonable. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). In reviewing a revocation sentence, we utilize the familiar procedural and substantive considerations employed for evaluating the reasonableness of an original criminal sentence, but we strike a more deferential appellate posture than we do when reviewing original sentences. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). A revocation sentence is procedurally reasonable if the district court considered the advisory policy statement range and the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) (2012) factors applicable to supervised release revocation. Id.; United States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d 433, 43840 (4th Cir. 2006). A sentence is substantively reasonable if the district court sufficiently stated a proper basis for the selected sentence, up to the statutory maximum. Crudup, 461 F.3d at 440. Only if we determine that a revocation sentence is unreasonable need we consider whether it is plainly so. Padgett, 788 F.3d at 373. In exercising its sentencing discretion, the district court should sanction primarily the defendant's breach of trust, while taking into account, to a limited degree, the seriousness of the underlying violation and the criminal history of the violator. Webb, 738 F.3d at 641. In determining the length of a sentence imposed upon revocation of supervised release, 18 U.S.C. 3583(e) (2012) requires a sentencing court to consider all but two of the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. 3553(a). The record confirms that the district court faithfully followed this process in sentencing Jallow. After properly calculating Jallow's policy statement range, hearing argument from both attorneys, and allowing Jallow to allocute, the court announced several bases for imposing on Jallow the statutory maximum term of imprisonment. The most significant of these reasons was that Jallow egregiously breached the court's trust when, while on supervised release, he repeatedly engaged in the same criminal conduct for which he was initially convicted and sentenced. The severity of the breach was exacerbated by the fact that Jallow's supervised release had previously been revoked for committing a similar crime. These facts established Jallow's staunch refusal to abide by the terms and conditions of his supervised release, as well as his determination to flout the court's authority. We thus readily uphold the revocation sentence as reasonable. See Crudup, 461 F.3d at 440 (holding that imposition of statutory maximum term of imprisonment was substantively reasonable, given that the district court expressly relied on defendant's admitted pattern of violating numerous conditions of his supervised release, despite several extensions of leniency by the district court). Against this backdrop, we consider Jallow's argument that the district court erred, under Webb, in imposing the statutory maximum term of imprisonment available in this case. In Webb, the defendant received a 32-month revocation sentence after being found to have committed a Grade A supervised release violation. 738 F.3d at 640. This was near the bottom of Webb's policy statement range and thus presumptively reasonable. Id. at 642. The primary issue in Webb was whether a district court's reference to 3553(a) sentencing factors not identified in 3583(e) renders a sentence per se plainly procedurally unreasonable, and we rejected this contention. Id. at 641-42 (holding that [the] mere reference to such considerations does not render a revocation sentence procedurally unreasonable when those factors are relevant to, and considered in conjunction with, the enumerated 3553(a) factors). Jallow seeks to demonstrate the unreasonableness of his sentence by comparing the conduct leading to the revocation of his term of supervised release to that at issue in Webb. But this argument fails to appreciate the considerable discretion judges have in selecting a revocation sentence and overemphasizes the significance of the court's use of the word felonious in its explanation for the selected sentence. Thus, we are not persuaded by this assignment of error. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's judgment. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. AFFIRMED PER CURIAM: Britain to Trump: "No vacancy" for Farage as ambassador By Guy Faulconbridge LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Britain on Tuesday dismissed U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's unprecedented expression of support for Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage to be made British ambassador to Washington, saying pointedly that there is no vacancy for the job. Trump, who after his election victory met Farage before any EU leaders, said on Twitter that "many people" would like to see the former metals trader turned politician as Britain's ambassador. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!" Trump said. Prime Minister Theresa May, who congratulated Trump on his victory, was swift to reject such an undiplomatic proposal, with a spokesman saying Britain already had an excellent ambassador to Washington and that London would appoint its own envoys. "We have first rate ambassador in Washington," Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who campaigned for Brexit, told the British parliament. "There is no vacancy for that position." It is highly unusual in the modern era for leaders to publicly suggest to foreign nations whom they would like to see as ambassador, though during strained relations they sometimes reject or expel envoys. Trump's suggestion provoked anger, support and even hilarity in Britain, with one lawmaker, Conservative Simon Burns, joking that perhaps Britain should suggest Hillary Clinton as its preferred choice as ambassador to London. But the apparent public suggestion about who to appoint as ambassador by the man who will lead Britain's most powerful ally puts Prime Minister May in a difficult position just as she tries to build ties with Washington ahead of leaving the EU. London is trying to gauge whether Trump would support a special trade deal with Britain as it negotiates a divorce from the EU. Britain also places great store on what it calls its "special relationship" with the United States. "MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS" Farage, who spent decades campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union and helped force former Prime Minister David Cameron to call the June referendum that brought the Brexit vote, spoke at a Trump rally during the U.S. campaign and visited the president-elect after his victory. As leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and one of the key figures of the successful Brexit campaign, Farage has repeatedly angered EU leaders by predicting the collapse of the EU, which he says is run by an out-of-touch elite of "idiots". Farage said Trump's suggestion that he serve as ambassador had come "like a bolt from the blue" but Trump understood loyalty in a way that those in the "cesspit" of career politics did not. "I am in a good position with the President-elect's support to help. The world has changed and it's time that Downing Street did too," Farage said in an article written for the Breitbart news website. "I would do anything to help our national interest and to help cement ties with the incoming Anglophile administration," Farage said. A photograph of Trump greeting Farage in front of a gilded elevator shortly after the U.S. election caused consternation in EU capitals, many of whom view Trump with a mixture of fear and puzzlement. His suggestion of Farage also provoked anger among some British lawmakers. "Many people think you should mind your own business and talk about pussy-grabbing less, but hey, life is a constant disappointment," Jess Phillips, a lawmaker for the opposition Labour Party, said on Twitter in a reference to Trump's previous vulgar comments about groping women. "NO VACANCY" Accused by his critics of being a racist and a bigot, Farage peppers his speeches with jokes and the odd expletive while railing against what he calls the doomed European superstate and immigration into Britain. He is a member of the European parliament but has failed in his efforts to win election to the British parliament. Farage said Trump would be a great president after "the political revolution" that brought Brexit in Britain and Trump to power in the United States. "In the United Kingdom the people have spoken but the players at the top have, I am afraid, stayed the same," Farage, 52, said. "Those who supported Remain now hold senior positions. Worst still, those who were openly abusive about Trump now pretend to be his friend," said Farage. Farage has urged May to build ties with Trump, who provoked criticism in Britain with his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Queen Elizabeth might invite Trump for a state visit to Britain next year. Farage made light of allegations of sexual assault against Trump during the U.S. campaign by encouraging him to "come and schmooze" May but adding "don't touch her for goodness sake". When U.S. President Barack Obama said before the referendum that Britain would be at the back of the queue for a trade deal, Farage said it was disgraceful to intervene in the sovereign affairs of Britain. In a radio interview after the U.S. election, Farage described the U.S. president as: "That Obama creature - a loathsome individual who couldn't stand our country." The way ambassadors are chosen in the United States and Europe differ significantly. It is common practice for the United States to appoint celebrities or campaign donors as envoys, for example when Richard Nixon appointed Shirley Temple as his envoy to Ghana in 1974. European states mostly appoint career diplomats or officials with long experience as ambassadors. PRESS DIGEST - RUSSIA - Nov 22 Nov 22 (Reuters) - The following are some stories in Russia's newspapers on Tuesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. VEDOMOSTI www.vedomosti.ru Volkswagen Group launched a serial production of a new Tiguan model at its factory in the town of Kaluga. The new model could support sales of Volkswagen Group in Russia in 2017, the newspaper said. Gett taxi, an online taxi service, starts working in 29 more cities and towns across Russia from Nov. 22, overtaking its rival Yandex.Taxi by the area where it provides taxi services, the daily said. KOMMERSANT www.kommersant.ru While Moscow is slow with appointing a new economy minister to replace Alexei Ulyukayev, such appointment may bring reforms to Russia's entire economic bloc, the newspaper said. The newspaper runs an interview with the head of Federal Taxation Service Mikhail Mishustin. Global supplies of liquefied natural gas to Asia have been on the rise in the past few months. This situation is favourable for pipeline gas suppliers to Europe where demand is still high. Thus Gazprom is now acting as nearly the sole supplier of gas to North-Western Europe and is on track to cope with a record 33 percent of EU's total gas consumption. A soft Brexit is best for Norway, trade minister says By Stine Jacobsen OSLO, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Britain should stay as closely connected to Europe's single market as it can after it leaves the European Union, the trade minister of non-EU member Norway said on Tuesday. The Nordic country, which pays hundreds of millions of euros to access the European internal market from outside the bloc, has been held up by some, especially Brexit supporters, as a potential model for post-Brexit Britain to follow. "Britain is perhaps our most important economic partner. We want the future cooperation and trade conditions to be as good as today," Trade and Industry Minister Monica Maeland said in a statement. "The best for Norway is a 'soft Brexit', which would keep Britain as closely tied to the common market as possible," she added. Maeland's comments came after a meeting on Monday of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which includes Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Switzerland's president said on Monday his country would consider letting Britain join the association after Brexit. . But Maeland told Reuters that the association had not discussed the idea at a meeting on Monday as Britain had not asked to join. "Britain has not given any signal that it wishes to become a member of EFTA or that it wants to be part of the EEA agreement," Maeland said in an emailed statement, referring to the European Economic Area, which includes the EU countries as well as Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. "Should Britain wish to apply, this would of course be discussed by EFTA. Any state can apply for membership but it requires consensus from the member-states." Syria tells Russia it needs fuel and wheat, wants more trade BEIRUT, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Syria needs wheat and fuel to alleviate shortages and suffering caused by its civil war and wants to expand trade ties with Russia, the Syrian government told a high-level Russian delegation on Tuesday. An ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia launched air strikes to support his forces against anti-government rebels last September. The conflict, which is in its sixth year, has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and caused food and fuel shortages in many areas. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told the economic and defence delegation to Damascus that Syria needed economic support in the form of wheat and fuel to ease shortages caused by the conflict and to "alleviate Syrians' suffering", state news agency SANA reported. Syria would offer Russian companies priority in reconstruction contracts, Moualem also said. The delegation was headed by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, the most senior Russian official to visit Syria since Rogozin's own visit a year ago. The group also met Assad, SANA reported, citing Syrian Prime Minister Emad Khamis as saying Syria also wanted also to step up political ties with Moscow. The Syrian government has been unable to procure enough wheat from domestic farmers to satisfy the needs of the people living in its territory as wheat crops decline and conflict hinders state access to grown wheat. Last month Syria's state grain buying agency Hoboob struck a deal to purchase one million tonnes of wheat from political ally Russia, covering the needs of government-controlled areas for a year. Turkey's AK Party withdraws controversial bill on sexual abuse for review By Gulsen Solaker and Humeyra Pamuk ANKARA, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Turkey's ruling party has withdrawn for review a proposed bill allowing men accused of sexual abuse to avoid sentence, but a public uproar has persisted, with opposition parties and civil society groups calling for it to be canceled entirely. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the draft will be withdrawn from the parliament's general assembly and sent back to a commission for review and to seek the opinion of the opposition and civil society, in line with a call from President Tayyip Erdogan for a wider consensus. The proposal, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, would have allowed sentencing to be indefinitely postponed in cases of sexual abuse committed "without force, threat or deception" before Nov. 16, 2016, if the perpetrator married the victim. "This issue will be reviewed in commission, and if there is a proposal we will review and amend it," Yildirim said at a news conference in Ankara. "If not, we will solve the issue by taking into consideration the recommendations from the people and NGOs." The ruling AK Party's bill drew condemnation from many, who said it would provide a legal basis for sexual abuse under the pretext of under-age marriages. Among the critics were a women's association seen as close to Erdogan. The government said the bill would remedy the situation of men who were sent to jail after they married girls under the age of 18, in religious ceremonies and with the consent of their family. It rejected suggestions that the plan amounted to an "amnesty for rape". Several thousand people, some carrying banners saying 'Rape can not be acquitted', 'There is no such thing as child brides, only pervert men' demonstrated outside the parliament to demand the immediate cancellation of the bill. Police fired pepper spray on one of the groups. "As thousands of demonstrators have shown, women's rights are not negotiable," Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International's deputy director for Europe, said in a written statement. "The government should help these families with concrete measures rather than disturbingly linking suspending sentences to marriage in any way. These proposals should be rejected once and for all," she said. The opposition and civil society groups said the step back by the ruling AK Party on the bill was not enough and called for the proposal to be entirely dropped. "No matter what everyone else says, this proposal promises an amnesty for rapists," Devlet Bahceli, the leader of Turkey's Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) said in a speech at the parliament. "I call on the AKP: Do not settle with pulling this proposal back to the commission. Drop it entirely." Civil marriage under the age of 18 is illegal in Turkey, but marriage between men and underage girls in religious ceremonies is not uncommon, particularly in rural areas. Some argued that such marriages were not abusive and the couples were simply unaware of the civil law. South African opposition says police promise to look into Zuma JOHANNESBURG, Nov 22 (Reuters) - South Africa's main opposition party said on Tuesday that police had promised to look into its accusations of corruption against President Jacob Zuma. The Democratic Alliance (DA) filed a criminal complaint against Zuma last week after an anti-corruption agency published a report listing allegations of influence-peddling in Zuma's government. The DA said an investigation would be conducted by the Hawks, a priority unit within the South African Police Service that handles serious crimes, including corruption. "I can confirm today that the Hawks will be investigating the DA's corruption charges against Zuma relating to his role in State Capture," DA leader Mmusi Maimane said in an emailed statement. A spokesman for the Hawks, Hangwani Mulaudzi, said the case had been referred to the division for "further investigation", but it was too early to say what the investigation would focus on. The anti-graft agency's report, released on Nov. 2 and entitled "State of Capture", stopped short of reaching conclusive findings against the president, some of his ministers and heads of state-owned companies. But it has plunged Zuma into the latest crisis. Spain arrests man suspected of being "mastermind" in Petrobras case MADRID, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Spanish police have arrested a man suspected of being a "financial mastermind" in a corruption network at Brazil's semi-public oil company Petrobras , the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday. The man, 43, is of dual Brazilian and Spanish nationality and had been on the run from Brazil since April, the ministry said, travelling first to the United States and then Spain. Identified only as "RTD", he has been under investigation in Brazil for money-laundering and diverting more than 14 million euros ($15 million) to political parties, it said. He was detained under an international arrest warrant. "The Civil Guard, in a joint investigation with Interpol, Spain, has detained in Madrid the financial mastermind of a Petrobras corruption case being sought by Brazilian authorities," the ministry statement said. "The detained man is accused of paying commissions in the awarding of private and public works in Brazil and abroad." "Operation Carwash" is Brazil's biggest ever corruption case and has implicated dozens of politicians and businessmen amid allegations of bribes and political kickbacks, triggering protests across the country. Russia's VEB says it could lend over $2 bln to stalled projects in next 2 years MOSCOW, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Russian development bank Vnesheconombank could resume financing for over 20 stalled projects in the next two years, spending around 150 billion roubles ($2.4 billion), its chairman said. The comments are a sign that officials at the state-controlled bank are becoming more confident in its prospects after it was granted 150 billion roubles in bailout money this year. VEB is under Western sanctions over the Ukraine conflict and has been grappling with a mountain of bad debt after financing politically expedient projects such as construction for the Sochi Winter Olympics. Sergei Gorkov said at a meeting with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev that VEB was considering restarting financing for projects in the pharmaceutical, energy and metallurgical sectors, among others, according to a statement from VEB on Tuesday. The investment could contribute around 0.2-0.3 percentage points to Russia's gross domestic product, he said, adding that funding to the projects in question had been stopped mainly due to problems with liquidity and the bank's own difficulties attracting funds. Gorkov said this month that VEB would be able to repay its liabilities next year, when it is due to receive another 150 billion roubles in state support, though he said it would be tough. Portugal makes 2 bln euro early repayment to IMF LISBON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Portugal has made an early repayment of bailout funds to the International Monetary Fund this week of more than 2 billion euros, or over 10 percent of its outstanding debt, to reduce its debt-servicing costs, the Treasury Secretary said on Tuesday. After early reimbursements of 10.4 billion euros of IMF loans last year and in February 2016, Lisbon has now paid back around 43 percent of its bailout loans to the Fund. "Today we concluded the early repayment of two tranches of loans worth around 2 billion euros, more than 10 percent of the outstanding debt with the IMF, which will reduce interest payments in 2017 and borrowing needs in 2018 and 2019," Treasury Secretary Ricardo Mourinho Felix told a conference. In September, the state debt agency IGCP said it had to make 4 billion euros more in planned repayments to the IMF this year, although the government said later its planned injection of 2.7 billion euros into ailing state-owned bank CGD could be financed with money earmarked for the Fund. The IMF provided about a third of the joint EU/IMF 78 billion euro bailout that Portugal received during a debt crisis in 2011. The IMF's portion carries higher interest payments than both the EU's part and current market rates, however, and the country has been repaying the costlier debt early by issuing bonds. The repayment came around the time when Portugal's bond yields spiked in the secondary market to their highest since June along with most other European bonds in the aftermath of Donald Trump's unexpected victory in the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8. EU lawmakers urge halt to Turkish membership talks By Alissa de Carbonnel and Gabriela Baczynska STRASBOURG/BRUSSELS, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Leading members of the European Union's parliament on Tuesday called for a halt to membership talks with Turkey because of its post-coup purges, but the bloc's top diplomat warned against it. "Our message to Turkey is very clear: accession negotiations should be frozen immediately," said Manfred Weber, the head of the largest faction in the European Parliament, the centre-right European People's Party. He was echoed by others, including Guy Verhofstadt of the liberals' alliance: "There is a broad, broad majority in this house to say you have to freeze accession talks for the moment and put a number of conditions to restart them once Turkey is compliant." The EU has turned increasingly critical of Turkey, where more than 110,000 people - including soldiers, academics, judges, journalists and Kurdish leaders - have been suspended from their positions or dismissed over their alleged backing for the plotters of a failed military coup in July. Some 36,000 have been arrested and media outlets shut. Critics accuse President Tayyip Erdogan of using the botched coup as a pretext to go after his critics. "Turkey under Mr Erdogan is more and more drifting towards an authoritarian regime," said Gianni Pitella, the leader of the socialist group, the parliament's second biggest. "Our political message towards Turkey is that human rights, civil rights, democracy are non-negotiable if you want to be part of the EU." EU leaders are due to discuss Turkey again when they meet in Brussels on Dec. 15-16. "LOSE-LOSE" The bloc's top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, urged caution. "I think the best way to strengthen Turkish democracy ... is by engaging with Turkey, keeping channels open," she told the parliament session. "If the accession process came to an end, I believe we would both find ourselves in a lose-lose scenario." Erdogan has said the bloc would have to "live with the consequences" if it stopped the talks and that Ankara could instead join an security alliance run by Russia and China. The EU promised in March to speed up Ankara's accession talks in exchange for its help in keeping migrants away from European shores. Erdogan accuses the EU of failing to understand the gravity of the situation in Turkey and has said he could put the EU talks to a national referendum next year. Turkey still hopes to win visa-free travel to the EU but earlier promises of granting the privilege to Ankara by the end of this year now seem distant. Austria and Luxembourg have led calls to stop Turkey's membership talks. Germany, France and most other EU states for now back continued engagement and fear putting at risk Turkey's collaboration on migration. United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit. RICHARD A. PRESSL; THERESA PRESSL, Plaintiffs - Appellants, v. APPALACHIAN POWER COMPANY, Defendant - Appellee. No. 15-2348 Decided: November 21, 2016 Before MOTZ, TRAXLER, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges. ARGUED: James Frederick Watson, CASKIE & FROST, P.C., Lynchburg, Virginia, for Appellants. Frank Kenneth Friedman, Matthew Patrick Warren Pritts, WOODS ROGERS, PLC, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Pavlina B. Dirom, CASKIE & FROST, P.C., Lynchburg, Virginia, for Appellants. C. Carter Lee, WOODS ROGERS, PLC, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee. Landowners brought this action in state court seeking a declaration of their rights to build a dock on property subject to a flowage easement. After the power company, which owns the easement, removed the case to federal court, the landowners sought to remand the case to state court. The district court denied the motion to remand and then dismissed the landowners' complaint. Because the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction, we must vacate and remand. I. Richard A. Pressl and Theresa Pressl own property adjacent to Smith Mountain Lake in Franklin County, Virginia. They own about two and a half acres of land sitting more than 800 feet above median sea level. The Pressls also own half an acre of adjoining land below the 800-foot elevation contour. They acquired the property subject to a flowage easement that the Pressls' predecessors in interest granted in 1960 to Appalachian Power Company (APCO). The flowage easement recites APCO's intention to construct a dam and operate a hydroelectric power station at Smith Mountain. It provides that the elevation of the impounded waters the dam creates generally would not exceed 800 feet. The easement grants APCO the right to: overflow and/or affect so much of said premises as may be overflowed and/or affected, continuously or from time to time in any manner whatsoever, as the result of the construction, existence, operation and/or maintenance of the aforesaid dam and/or power station, the impounding of the waters of [Roanoke] river and tributaries and/or the varying of the level of the so impounded waters by reason of the operation of said power station, including any pumping as part of such operation. The easement also gives APCO the right to: enter upon said premises at any time and from time to time and, at Appalachian's discretion, to cut, burn and/or remove therefrom any and all buildings, structures, improvements, trees, bushes, driftwood and other objects and debris of any and every kind or description which are or may hereafter be located on the portion of said premises below the contour the elevation of which is 800 feet. The easement provides that the landowners retain the right to possess and use said premises in any manner not inconsistent with APCO's flowage easement, including crossing the land for recreational purposes. After acquiring the property, the Pressls sought to construct a dock below the 800-foot elevation contour. APCO advised the Pressls that, as a condition for building the dock, they had to execute an Occupancy and Use Permit and agree to abide by its restrictions. Balking at this requirement, the Pressls filed suit in Virginia state court, seeking a declaratory judgment that APCO's demands violated the flowage easement. The complaint asks the court to declare that APCO has no regulatory authority over the plaintiffs' property which lies below the 800 foot contour beyond those rights defined by the flowage easement, the contemporaneous expressions of the parties, and vested rights to build and own structures to access Smith Mountain Lake for recreational purposes. It further requests the court to hold that the Pressls be allowed to use their property in any manner not inconsistent with the maintenance of a dam and hydroelectric power generation plant operated by APCO at Smith Mountain. APCO removed the case to the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. APCO asserted that the federal district court had subject matter jurisdiction because the Pressls' property lies within the project boundary for APCO's Smith Mountain hydroelectric project, which APCO operates under a license issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The district court agreed. It concluded that it had jurisdiction under both 28 U.S.C. 1331 and 16 U.S.C. 825p. The court then granted APCO's motion to dismiss, analyzing the easement under Virginia law. The court held that the plain language of the flowage easement gave APCO the right to remove any dock built below the 800-foot elevation contour and that APCO's exercise of that right would be in furtherance of the original purpose of the easement -- to allow APCO to operate its hydroelectric project. The district court also held that the Pressls needed to raise any complaints about APCO's actions with FERC prior to filing suit. The Pressls timely noted this appeal. Before us, the Pressls renew their argument that the federal district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. We review questions as to subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Dixon v. Coburg Dairy, Inc., 369 F.3d 811, 815-16 (4th Cir. 2004) (en banc). The party seeking to remove a case to federal court has the burden of demonstrating federal jurisdiction. Id. at 816. If federal jurisdiction is doubtful, a remand is necessary. Mulcahey v. Columbia Organic Chems. Co., Inc., 29 F.3d 148, 151 (4th Cir. 1994). APCO argues that jurisdiction lies under 18 U.S.C. 1331 and 16 U.S.C. 825p. We consider each statute in turn. II. To determine whether a case arises under federal law for the purposes of establishing federal question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1331, we follow the well-pleaded complaint rule. Jurisdiction exists only when a federal question is presented on the face of the plaintiff's properly pleaded complaint. Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 392 (1987). It is not enough that there may be a defense grounded in federal law or that the complaint anticipates and rebuts such a defense. Id. at 392-93. In an action for declaratory judgment, however, the federal right litigated may belong to the declaratory judgment defendant rather than the declaratory judgment plaintiff. Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. v. Drain, 237 F.3d 366, 370 (4th Cir. 2001). Under this coercive action doctrine, although the declaratory judgment plaintiff does not assert a claim arising under federal law, federal question jurisdiction exists if the complaint alleges a claim arising under federal law that the declaratory judgment defendant could affirmatively bring against the declaratory judgment plaintiff. Id. See generally 13D Charles Alan Wright, et al., Federal Practice and Procedure 3566 (3d ed.), Westlaw (database updated April 2016). In this case, the Pressls seek a declaratory judgment that APCO does not possess rights under the flowage easement to prevent or regulate construction of a dock on their property. APCO maintains that federal question jurisdiction lies because its hypothetical coercive suit, seeking a declaration as to its rights to prevent or regulate construction or an injunction to enforce those rights, would arise under federal law. [T]he vast majority of cases arising under federal law are those in which federal law creates the cause of action. Merrell Dow Pharm. Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U.S. 804, 808 (1986). Cases may also arise under federal law, however, when the vindication of a right under state law necessarily turn[s] on some construction of federal law. Id. (quoting Franchise Tax Bd. v. Constr. Laborers Vacation Tr., 463 U.S. 1, 9 (1983)). APCO admits that neither the Pressls' complaint nor APCO's hypothetical coercive suit alleges a federal cause of action. APCO contends that federal jurisdiction nonetheless exists because its rights under state law necessarily turn on the construction of its federal license. For a federal court to have jurisdiction in these circumstances, the federal issue must be (1) necessarily raised, (2) actually disputed, (3) substantial, and (4) capable of resolution in federal court without disrupting the federal-state balance approved by Congress. Gunn v. Minton, 133 S. Ct. 1059, 1065 (2013); see also Grable & Sons Metal Prods., Inc. v. Darue Eng'g & Mfg., 545 U.S. 308, 312-14 (2005). Federal jurisdiction will lie only if a case meets all four requirements. Gunn, 133 S. Ct. at 1065. A. i. We first address whether this case necessarily raises a federal question. APCO emphasizes that the property subject to the flowage easement lies within the project boundary for the Smith Mountain Hydroelectric Project that APCO operates. FERC imposes certain duties on APCO for managing development and construction within the project boundary -- including managing the construction of docks. APCO argues that the Pressls' complaint necessarily raises federal issues because it seeks a declaration that APCO does not have authority to regulate construction of a dock. According to APCO, a court must examine APCO's authority under its federal license to adjudicate the issue. Appellee Br. at 13-15, 20-21, 25-26. In proffering this argument, APCO misreads the Pressls' complaint. The Pressls do not challenge APCO's substantial duties to FERC. Nor do they dispute the extent of APCO's authority over the property in the event the flowage easement provides APCO with sufficient property rights. The Pressls maintain only that APCO has not acquired the property right to constrain the Pressls' construction of a dock. Because neither the Federal Power Act nor APCO's FERC license provides APCO with the property rights necessary to operate the hydroelectric project, see, e.g., Appalachian Power Co., 153 FERC 61299, at 29 (Dec. 17, 2015), APCO must acquire these rights either through condemnation or contract. APCO has not (yet) condemned any of the Pressls' land, and the Pressls maintain that the contract provision at issue here -- the flowage easement -- does not provide APCO with sufficient property rights. In accord with this theory, the Pressls' complaint asserts that the controversy between the parties regard[s] the rights granted pursuant to the flowage easement and aver[s] that the flowage easement does not give APCO the right to regulate any use which [the Pressls] may make of their property. This controversy does not necessarily raise a federal question. ii. Alternatively, APCO maintains that a federal question necessarily arises in interpreting the scope of the flowage easement. It argues that its right to prevent the Pressls from building a dock derives from two easement provisions: the provision allowing APCO to overflow and/or affect the property by reason of the operation of [the Smith Mountain] power station and the provision allowing APCO to remove any and all structures. APCO asserts that, under Virginia law, a reasonableness inquiry based on the original purpose of the easement limits these broad powers. Because the purpose of the easement was to allow it to construct and operate a dam and power station, APCO contends that a court must interpret its FERC license to determine the reasonable limit of its rights under the easement. Appellee Br. at 21-22. But a claim necessarily depends on a question of federal law only when every legal theory supporting the claim requires the resolution of a federal issue. Flying Pigs, LLC v. RRAJ Franchising, LLC, 757 F.3d 177, 182 (4th Cir. 2014)(quoting Dixon, 369 F.3d at 816). Accordingly, if even one theory for interpreting the flowage easement does not involve interpretation of federal law, the claim does not arise under federal law. Dixon, 369 F.3d at 817. Because of this requirement, we have rejected a similar contention that interpretation of an easement necessarily depends on a question of federal law. See Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. v. Drain, 191 F.3d 552, 559 (4th Cir. 1999). There, a company regulated by FERC under the Natural Gas Act brought an action in federal court to enforce an easement for operation of a gas line. Id. at 554. Because the easement did not explicitly specify the width of the right of way, the court needed to determine what width was reasonably necessary under state law. Id. at 557. We explained that the determination of that question is often reached without reference to federal law or regulations. Id. at 558. Accordingly, we held that the state law easement claim did not necessarily raise issues of federal law. Id. at 559; see also Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC v. Singh, 707 F.3d 583, 589-90 (6th Cir. 2013)(holding that interpretation of an easement owned by an entity subject to FERC regulation did not necessarily raise a federal question because the obligation created by the federal regulation was just one of many factors considered in the state law inquiry). The same analysis applies in this case. Under Virginia law, the most important factor in interpreting an easement is the language of the easement itself. Pyramid Dev., L.L.C. v. D&J Assocs., 553 S.E.2d 725, 728 (Va. 2001) ([W]hen the language of a deed is clear, unambiguous, and explicit, a court interpreting it should look no further than the four corners of the instrument under review. (quoting Langman v. Alumni Ass'n of Univ. of Virginia, 442 S.E.2d 669, 674 (Va. 1994)). Indeed, in holding that the easement at issue here gave APCO the right to remove any structure below the 800-foot elevation contour, the district court relied primarily on the easement's text. It did not need to analyze the meaning of APCO's license to determine the reasonable limits of the easement. The court simply noted that the original purpose of the easement was to allow APCO to operate a hydroelectric project regulated by FERC. Such tangential reference to federal law does not suffice to create arising under jurisdiction. In sum, this case does not necessarily raise any federal issue. B. Moreover, no federal question in this case is actually disputed. There is no dispute over the validity of APCO's federal license. Nor is there any dispute as to APCO's obligations to FERC. The Pressls challenge only whether the flowage easement by its terms allows APCO to prevent them from building a dock. This seems a simple enough dispute, which the district court may well have properly resolved -- had it arisen under federal law. But, of course, it did not. Rather, this case presents solely a dispute as to state property law. C. Finally, we believe that any federal interest in interpreting the flowage easement is not substantial and that asserting federal jurisdiction over cases like this would disrupt the congressionally approved federal-state balance. State courts are just as able (perhaps more able) to interpret and enforce the property rights conveyed through instruments governed by state law. Undoubtedly, there is a federal interest in ensuring the effective operation of hydroelectric projects. But resolving property disputes in state court does not undermine that interest. After all, if a state court ultimately holds that APCO did not acquire all of the property rights it needs to operate the project in compliance with its license, APCO can obtain those rights through contract or through eminent domain. 16 U.S.C. 814. Thus, a ruling against APCO in this case could not substantially affect federal interests. The interpretation of a state conveyance is a quintessential question of state property law, and Congress has limited our jurisdiction over such cases. Accordingly, we conclude that 28 U.S.C. 1331 provides no basis for federal jurisdiction over this case. III. Finally, we turn to the question of whether the exclusive jurisdiction provision in the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. 825p, provides a basis for jurisdiction. Section 825p grants federal district courts exclusive jurisdiction over all suits in equity and actions at law brought to enforce any liability or duty created by, or to enjoin any violation of, [the Federal Power Act] or any rule, regulation, or order thereunder. 16 U.S.C. 825p. Neither the Pressls' suit seeking to define the scope of the flowage easement nor APCO's hypothetical coercive action would be brought to enjoin any violation of the Federal Power Act. As discussed above, the Pressls seek only to determine APCO's property rights. They do not allege that APCO violated its license or its duties to FERC. And, since FERC regulates only APCO, the Pressls themselves could not violate the Federal Power Act by constructing a dock. APCO nevertheless maintains that 825p provides a basis for federal jurisdiction here. APCO notes that it has a duty under the Federal Power Act to manage property within the project boundary in compliance with its license. The company contends that its hypothetical suit seeking a declaratory judgment that APCO has sufficient property rights to meet its federal obligations -- or a suit to enjoin the Pressls from constructing a dock -- would thus be brought to enforce [a] liability or duty created by the Federal Power Act. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Manning, 136 S. Ct. 1562 (2016), dooms this argument. In Merrill Lynch, the Court interpreted the nearly identical brought to enforce language in the exclusive jurisdiction provision of 27 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The Court held that the jurisdictional test established by 27 of the Exchange Act is the same as the one used to decide if a case arises under a federal law under 28 U.S.C. 1331. Id. at 1566. In doing so, the Court rejected the argument that the brought to enforce language provides broad jurisdiction over complaints that simply mention a duty established by the federal law. Id. at 1568-69. Rather, claims are brought to enforce such a duty only if their very success depends on giving effect to a federal requirement. Id. at 1570. The Court further explained that this interpretation of the brought to enforce language best comports with its precedents, preserves the balance between federal and state courts, and provides a judicially administrable rule. Id. at 1567-68; see also Pan Am. Petroleum Corp. v. Superior Court of Del. In & For New Castle Cty., 366 U.S. 656, 664 (1961). Of particular import here, the Merrill Lynch Court expressly noted that the brought to enforce language in the statute before it -- 27 of the Exchange Act -- was materially indistinguishable from 825p in the Federal Power Act, the statute on which APCO relies. The Supreme Court specifically identified 825p as a provision with [m]uch the same wording as 27 of the Exchange Act and suggested that the two provisions should be interpreted in the same way. See Merrill Lynch, 136 S. Ct. at 1568 & n.3, 1572, 1575. Because we have held that this case does not arise under federal law for purposes of federal question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1331, we must also hold that there is no basis for exclusive jurisdiction under 16 U.S.C. 825p. IV. For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the judgment of the district court and remand the case. VACATED AND REMANDED FOOTNOTES . The Pressls also challenge the district court's dismissal of their complaint on the merits. Because we hold that the court did not have subject matter jurisdiction, we do not reach that contention. . VA Timberline, L.L.C. v. Appalachian Power Co., 343 F. App'x 915 (4th Cir. 2009) (per curiam), an unpublished opinion on which APCO relies, offers the company little assistance. There we upheld the grant of summary judgment to APCO on a claim involving an easement owner's right to build a dock. But the conveyances at issue in Timberline were explicitly made subject to APCO's FERC license and any amendments thereof or supplements thereto. Id. at 916. Because the plaintiff's easement only gave it the right to construct docks that complied with APCO's license, interpreting the license was necessary to resolve the case. DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge: Nigeria's Skye Bank may sell subsidiaries to boost capital By Chijioke Ohuocha LAGOS, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Nigeria's Skye Bank may sell some or all of its local and foreign subsidiaries as part of a review aimed at streamlining operations and boosting its capital adequacy, its chief financial officer said. The Nigerian central bank shored up Skye Bank in July with a more than 100 billion naira ($329 million) capital injection, after sacking its top management for failing to meet minimum capital requirements. It then appointed a new management team. Skye's CFO Pius Olaoye said on Tuesday that the bank would sell subsidiaries if the pricing was right and has appointed advisers to help find buyers. Skye, which holds an international bank license, has three subsidiaries in West Africa and 10 non-bank subsidiaries. "We're looking at the various outlets that we have and some of those foreign subsidiaries are part of it. If we get good offers we will consider selling them off," Olaoye told Reuters in a phone interview. "If we get good offers then we'll go ahead and spin off all of them, if not it will be selective." Skye's problems started after it used short-term funds to acquire local lender Mainstreet Bank in 2014 and failed to raise fresh funds. It was in talks with shareholders and new investors last year to raise 30 billion naira but had to suspend the plans due to weak capital markets and the exit of foreign investors as the slide in oil prices hit Nigeria's economy and currency. Skye shares have been hammered due to the capital failures, plunging 68 percent this year to hit a nominal value of 0.50 naira, after sliding 41 percent last year. Olaoye said the sale of subsidiaries will boost the bank's capital adequacy, which stood at 10.4 percent last year, compared with an industry average of 16 percent. In addition, half of Skye's loan book is in dollars and made to an oil industry hit by low crude prices. The fall in oil prices since mid-2014 has forced Nigerian lenders, which have long focused on loans to the energy sector, to adapt their business models at short notice. Oil producing Nigeria is facing its worst recession in 25 years, brought on by the oil slump. The central bank designated Skye as one of Nigeria's systemically important banks due to the size of total deposits it holds after it acquired Mainstreet Bank. This means it has to increase its capital ratio to 16 percent, the industry average. Olaoye said the new management was focused on growing the bank's retail business, cutting costs and improving asset quality. Eurozone FinMins to meet in Berlin Friday on Greece -Sueddeutsche BERLIN, Nov 22 (Reuters) - The finance ministers of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands plan to meet in Berlin on Friday with officials from the International Monetary Fund to discuss Greece's debt crisis, Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported. Greek officials said earlier that Athens would continue talks with international creditors on fiscal and labour reforms, aiming to wrap up the second review of its bailout programme by early next month ahead of a euro zone finance ministers' meeting. Netanyahu vouches for integrity of embattled personal lawyer By Ori Lewis JERUSALEM, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood by his personal attorney on Tuesday following media allegations about the lawyer's links to a multi-million dollar government submarine contract with Germany. The deal to buy three submarines has come under public scrutiny in Israel since it was discovered that Netanyahu's lawyer David Shimron also represents the local agent of the German conglomerate set to build the vessels. Both Netanyahu and Shimron have denied any impropriety and the shipbuilder, ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, said it had no contractual connection with Shimron. "Netanyahu has been acquainted with advocate David Shimron for many years and knows him to be a man of integrity who is as straight as a ruler, who goes beyond what is required to abide by the law and follow statutes and as a lawyer of the first order," a statement from the Israeli leader's office said. Opposition legislators have called for a parliamentary inquiry and the Justice Ministry said this week that the attorney-general was examining whether there had been any conflict of interest, but no probe has been ordered. Shimron represents Miki Ganor, an Israeli businessman described by the Kiel-based shipyards as its sales partner. A Shimron spokesman told Army Radio on Monday that the lawyer did not discuss the submarine purchase with Netanyahu and looks after a wide range of Ganor's legal interests. Israeli Channel 10 news said that, contrary to Shimron's original statement that he had not discussed buying German vessels with any state officials, he subsequently said that he had lodged a query with the Defence Ministry that was permitted and did not constitute a conflict of interest. The three submarines, costing about $1.5 billion, are due to replace ageing vessels, and will be delivered only in about another 10 years. Israel currently has a fleet of five German submarines, with a sixth due to go in service around 2018. With the Israeli media largely focused on Shimron and the ethics of his representing both Netanyahu and Ganor, the prime minister, now in his fourth term, did not appear to be in any immediate political danger. Nor has there been any indication that the deal itself, which Netanyahu, 67, defended in public remarks to his cabinet on Sunday, is in any jeopardy. The submarines are widely believed to be capable of carrying missiles with nuclear warheads and serve as a second-strike deterrent against Iran, should it ever build atomic weapons. Iran has denied ever seeking nuclear arms and Israel has never acknowledged that it has any of its own. First elected to Israel's top office two decades ago, Netanyahu has weathered several scandals, including a police investigation and state audits into his family's spending. Saipem rig catches fire off Norway, no injuries reported -Statoil OSLO, Nov 22 (Reuters) - A fire broke out in an engine room on Saipem's Scarabeo 5 drilling rig in the Norwegian Sea on Tuesday, Norwegian oil company Statoil said in a statement. All 106 crew were accounted for, and there were no reports of injuries, Statoil said. "We have reports that no flames are visible, but there is smoke," a Statoil spokeswoman said, adding that efforts to extinguish the fire were still ongoing. "33 crew have been moved onshore or to nearby installations," she said. The rig was working for Statoil on the Njord field in the Norwegian Sea when the fire broke out. Obama's not-so-secret admirer: Donald Trump WASHINGTON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has a new fan: Donald Trump. After lambasting Obama for months as a failed leader unfit to be president, the Republican president-elect found kinder words on Tuesday for the man he will succeed in the White House on Jan. 20 "I didn't know if I'd like him. I probably thought that maybe I wouldn't, but I did. I really enjoyed him a lot," Trump said in an interview with the New York Times. Obama, a Democrat, met with Trump at the Oval Office on Nov. 10, two days after the presidential election. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said earlier on Tuesday the two had spoken again since then, citing Obama's commitment to a smooth transfer of power, but offered no other details. "I had a great meeting with President Obama," Trump told the Times. "I really liked him a lot." Obama, who had his own harsh words for Trump as he campaigned for Democrat Hillary Clinton, has made clear he would put the bitterness of the campaign aside to ensure a smooth transition of power and protect a pillar of American democracy. Trump told the newspaper that Obama talked to him about what he considered the country's biggest problems, one problem in particular that the president-elect did not mention, according to Twitter posts by Times reporters. Trump, who has vowed to undo a number of initiatives Obama holds dear, appeared conciliatory toward the president whose U.S. citizenship he had long questioned. Fekitoa suspended for All Blacks against France LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - New Zealand centre Malakai Fekitoa will miss Saturday's clash with France in Paris after receiving a one-week suspension following a dangerous tackle against Ireland last weekend. Flanker Sam Cane was cleared of foul play in the same game although he is out of the France match because of injury. Fekitoa, who scored two tries in the All Blacks' 21-9 win in Dublin, was cited following a high tackle on Simon Zebo. A World Rugby statement on Tuesday said an independent disciplinary hearing found Fekitoa's tackle was reckless rather than intentional, although it would have merited a red card. The standard two-week suspension was halved in view of Fekitoa's previously good disciplinary record and his acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Cane was cited for a high tackle on Robbie Henshaw, who left the field with his neck in a brace. A disciplinary hearing concluded that Cane's actions had been accidental. A young man died and seven others were seriously injured in a collision of a van, a double cab and a motorcycle near Kegalle Ballika Maha Vidyalaya on the Kegalle Kandy road last evening. The deceased Akila Sehan Rupasinghe (19) of Hakurukumbura in Mirigama was the pillion rider of the motorcycle. The rider who received serious injuries was admitted to the Kegalle Hospital and transferred in a critical condition to the Kandy General Hospital. The others injured, including four school children and the drivers of the van and the double cab, were admitted to the Kegalle Hospital. Investigations revealed that the van had entered the main road from a by-road and collided with the double cab, and the motorcycle running in the same direction had hit the rear of the double cab. The Joint Opposition yesterday said the government had concealed the actual amount of budget allocation for the education sector in the Budget 2017 and that they had misled the whole nation by doing so. Addressing a media briefing, its MP Bandula Gunawardana said the government had curtailed the budgetary allocation for the education sector by Rs. 175 billion in the Appropriation Bill 2017 for the first time . In the Main Estimates of Budget 2017, it has mentioned that Rs. 10,000 million has been allocated to develop 3,577 primary schools. In the same time, adding a technical note it was added that only Rs. 6,500 million was allocated for 2017 targeting 500 primary schools, Mr. Gunawardana said. He said it had also mentioned in the Main Estimates of Budget 2017 that Rs. 15,000 million was allocated to develop 10,000 secondary schools and added that the government had deceived the people by adding a technical note to mention only Rs. 7,170 million was allocated for 2017 targeting 250 secondary schools. He said the Finance Minister had deceived the Education Minister through this conceal; A huge amount of funds were allocated to education sector in the budget from its surface. But the government had attached technical notes in order to conceal the actual amount of funds allocated, he added. He said when the Yahapalana Government was coming to power they had continuously stressed out to the people that they would allocate 6 per cent from the Gross National Product (GNP) to the education sector. At present they have failed to keep up their promises. Rs. 800 billion should be allocated to match up with a 6 per cent from the GNP for the education sector according to their claims. There is not even a tax income in Sri Lanka which is compatible to that amount. It is impossible, he added. (Kalathma Jayawardhane) The Condominium Developers Association of Sri Lanka, an affiliated trade body of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, which represents the condominium developers in the country, hailed the budget proposals presented to parliament by Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake. The budget contained a number of progressive proposals to stimulate demand from a new market segment to help absorb the increasing supply pipeline. An association spokesman stated that currently there are over 8,000 luxury apartments being constructed in the city of Colombo. It is important to attract foreigners/Sri Lankan diaspora to purchase apartments to absorb this supply. An oversupply situation can be catastrophic to the property sector in particular and the economy in general. In the budget speech, the finance minister identified the significant potential for real estate investment trusts (REIT) and agreed to facilitate the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in introducing amendments to the Unit Trust Code. Further, the Land Alienation Law was relaxed by removing the restrictions on foreign-controlled listed entities and now public quoted companies with foreign ownership exceeding 50 percent could purchase property and land in Sri Lanka. This supports the countrys development plans including the governments Megapolis development initiative. It is essential to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) into the property development sector via freehold land ownership. Furthermore, the public quoted companies, whose shares are freely transferable with no control over the extent of foreign ownership, now could acquire property, stated the association representative. Earlier, in October 2016, the VAT Amendment Act exempted the supply of condominiums from value-added tax (VAT), thereby making apartments more affordable and creating an even playing field among different categories of condominium developments and developers who were earlier subjected to different VAT regimes. Farmers have been severely affected by various natural calamities - floods, droughts and excessive rainfalls, during the recent years. At macro level, the decrease in paddy production due to unfavourable weather conditions including droughts was 27 percent in 2014, when compared to the production statistics of the previous year. Important, weather-related risks are merely one component when it comes to overall risks and uncertainties faced by farmers, which include price risks, market risks, etc., too. The recent unexpected changes in climate patterns have worsened the situation. When affected by a natural calamity, farmers face numerous additional issues in farming as well as in their household economy. A farmer from Nachchaduwa, who was severely affected by the floods in 2014, said, Everything was washed away. Not only rice but our maize cultivations were also destroyed. Floods and droughts are widespread disasters, which have area-wide implications. We did not have any other income. We, farmers, tend to work as agricultural labourers in others fields when we face difficulties. But when everyones cultivations are destroyed, where can we go? he added, highlighting their struggle in coping with such events. To this end, promoting effective risk management among farmers is important. In facing the impacts of a natural disaster, there are several ways of risk management, namely: avoiding risks, reducing risks and sharing risks. Risk-sharing has been gaining a lot of consideration which comes in the form of insurance. Insurance Crop insurance was introduced to Sri Lanka several decades ago. It was first introduced as a pilot project. Later, the Crop Insurance Act (No 13 of 1961) was passed in 1961 to provide the required legal framework for the operation of regular crop insurance. The Agricultural Insurance Law No. 27 of 1973 came into operation in 1974 to make provisions for a more comprehensive scheme. The Agriculture and Agrarian Insurance Board (AAIB) was established in 1999, which is the responsible government agency for undertaking the government crop insurance programme now. A private insurance company entered the crop insurance business in 1993 and it is primarily being conducted as a welfare programme along with its other financial services. Both insurance programmes are voluntary and indemnity-based where insurance payout is based on the crop damage. According to the Central Bank annual report 2015, when just these two voluntary insurance programmes are taken together, only less than 4 percent of the paddy cultivated area (on average) was insured during 2003-2015. In most of the cases, crop insurance is obtained as a requirement in getting agricultural loans. A survey of 750 farmers, conducted as part of a research study by the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS) last year, in selected sites in the Anuradhapura District, revealed that the demand for the existing insurance schemes is considerably low. Over 31 percent of the farmers interviewed during the survey mentioned that they are not aware of how crop insurance works. Another 23 percent of farmers have doubts regarding the process of crop insurance. Most farmers during the discussions highlighted that they do not understand the real benefits that crop insurance bring in for small-scale farmers like them. Farmer unawareness seems to be a major barrier for taking up insurance in the rural areas. There was a compulsory crop insurance programme introduced in 2013 by the government, which was bundled with the existing fertilizer subsidy programme. A mark-up was added to cover the insurance premium when obtaining fertilizer at a subsidized price. Due to the compulsory nature of the programme, the area percentage insured recorded 72 and 90 during 2014/15 Maha and 2015 Yala, respectively. However, lack of awareness of its intended benefits is also an issue with regard to this scheme. Innovations in crop insurance Index-based crop or weather insurance has been receiving much popularity particularly in developing countries (such as in India, Kenya Ethiopia), as a way out for certain inefficiencies of indemnity-based crop insurance. In index-based weather insurance, the payout is based on a certain weather index, for instance, rainfall. The weather index is correlated with the crop yield. Index insurance is characterized by low transaction costs, as it does not require crop damage assessments in the field. In addition, it lacks moral hazard and adverse selection problems, which are associated with traditional indemnity-based insurance products. Sri Lanka has a very short history in this regard. It is vital to implement an effective awareness creation programme to educate farmers on the benefits of index-based crop insurance. However, the discussions with key stakeholders reveal that there are several technical challenges in implementing index-based insurance in Sri Lanka. The absence of required rainfall and yield data are significant in this regard. Lack of weather stations and delays in getting data on a frequent basis are attributed to the unavailability of rainfall data in most cases. What works for Sri Lanka? As of now, crop insurance is not a popular tool for climate risk management, although both public and private crop insurance schemes have been in place in Sri Lanka for several decades. Given the recent variations in climate patterns, it is important to identify gaps with regard to crop insurance take-up as a risk management strategy. In particular, the aspects of crop insurance demanded by farmers have to be researched in the case of Sri Lanka. The IPS is currently conducting a comprehensive research to study risk management strategies of farmers and demand for climate insurance amidst a changing weather pattern. The study aims to bring in suitable policy recommendations to help farmers better manage climate risks and improve adaptation. (This article is based on an IPS research study titled Risk Management Strategies and Demand for Climate Insurance by Dry Zone Farmers in Sri Lanka, funded by the Global Development Network (GDN). The research proposal submitted by Kanchana Wickramasinghe won First Prize for the Japanese Award for Outstanding Research on Development in the Global Development Awards and Medals Competition of the GDN in 2014. Kanchana Wickramasinghe is a Research Economist at the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS). To view the article online and comment, visit the IPS blog Talking Economics www.ips.lk/talkingeconomics) Disclosing on his blog that he was reluctantly voting for Hillary Clinton and explaining why, Richard Falk, Prof Emeritus of International Law at Princeton and former UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territories, noted with characteristic lucidity that the global Left was divided between those outside the USA, who were primarily anti-Clinton and those within the USA, who were primarily anti-Trump. Among the examples he gave for those leftists outside the US who saw Hillary as the main danger were philosopher Slavoj Zizek, WikiLeaks head Julian Assange and veteran journalist and author John Pilger. We may add Prof. Jean Bricmont, theoretical physicist, philosopher of science and author of a book exposing Humanitarian Imperialism. In a post-election essay Prof. Falk returned to the theme, noting that the overwhelming bulk of his progressive friends outside the USA (and he underscored that they were authentic progressives) were more or less relieved that Hillary lost, while those within the USA were of quite the contrary view. Samir Amin was fond of quoting Stalins heretically dialectical remark (1925) that objectively the Emir of Afghanistan is more progressive than the British Labour Party. This is true of Trump too. The Left outside the USA remembered that the US assault on sovereign national states did not begin with the Republicans: Gulf War I, code-named Desert Storm (1991),did not call into question state borders and was fought ostensibly to restore them by rolling back Saddams invasion of Kuwait. The destruction of countries began with the 1999 war on Yugoslavia under Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright. George W Bush and his neoconservative Republicans took it to the next level with Iraq. President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defence Bob Gates were reluctantly pushed into military intervention in Libya by the liberal interventionist regime change Furies, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Long time opponents and critics of US imperialism all over the world including Europe and the UK, knew that Hillarys slogan of a no-fly zone in Syria would lead to confrontation with Russia, and that her co-thinkers had pushed the Obama administration into a policy of confrontation with Russia and subversion of Russian interests in Eastern Europe even in the post-Soviet space, such as the regime change coup with neo-fascist participation, in Ukraine. Trump rejected the regime change doctrine, criticized the invasions and destruction of states beginning with Iraq, recognized terrorist movements as the main enemy, and came across as more of an anti-war candidate than Hillary, the Mother of Foreign Wars. An alliance of neo-conservatives and interventionist liberals endorsed Clinton, not Trump. A win for her would have meant a return to the Cold War with Russia but would be more aggressive and dangerous than the Cold War because those Russo-phobes advocating regime change even in Moscow itself were in the Clinton camp. Instead, in an Engelsian irony of History we now have regime change in Washington DC! At the level of economics, the liberal Democrat Clinton camp as well as the conservative right-wing Republican elite (which opposed Trump) represented the Washington Consensus, a doctrine of neo-liberal globalization that held that the more open the economy and the greater the number of free trade agreements, the better. The economic pain and marginalization of communities that this doctrine created, generated a social backlash. When the Democrats failed to nominate Bernie Sanders, it was inevitable that the backlash would benefit a populist of the Alternative Right, Donald Trump. At a conceptual or theoretical level the American outcome validates the progressive communitarians such as Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre, as opposed to the liberal individualists. At the level of economic philosophy it proves the warnings of the responsible economic nationalists such as Jeffrey Sachs and ex-Bill Clinton Cabinet member and progressive Prof. Robert Reich, more correct than the neo-liberal globalizers. At the level of the philosophy of history, it proves Samuel P. Huntingtons hypothesis of the Clash of Civilizations more correct than Francis Fukuyamas The End of History and the triumph of liberal values. Liberal ideology and values have been successfully challenged in their home and most powerful redoubt itself: the Anglo-American space, the USA and Britain (counting Brexit). What underlies the riddle of the Trump-Putin entente is a commonality of Christian civilization (Evangelicals and Russian Orthodox) against that of Islamism, as Huntington predicted. The Trump triumph is quite clearly part of a global trend: Putin, Modi, Syria (2015), Erdogan, Brexit (Farage), the Colombian referendum (Uribe), Duterte, Ortega and Trump. It is a march of Populist NationalismThe Economist (London) calls it New Nationalism-- with populism and nationalism each comprising a leg of the phenomenon. Populism and nationalism are notoriously protean in character and therefore the current wave has Right (Modi, Trump), Left (Ortega) and Centrist (Putin, Erdogan, Duterte) manifestations, often with a religious component in the configuration.Populist nationalism is also pronouncedly statist and suspicious of international law as well as extra-national institutions. Antonio Gramsci had returned to Machiavelli and elaborately theorized a cardinal point in the 1930s. Crudely paraphrased, the point was that if the Left did not infiltrate, occupy and rework the terrain of nationalism, statism and populism, the Right wolud, and wolud win (as did Mussolini). Gramscis Comintern comrades Togliatti and Dmitrov made much the same point with the Popular Front formula. The assimilation and application of these ideas by the left intellectuals of the 1970s and 80s led to a progressive global shift to the left or the centre-left in the next two decades. These ideas were forgotten by the postmodernist liberal-progressive intelligentsia, and dismissed as so very 20th century. In place of state, nation, sovereignty classes, masses, people and army came ethnic minorities, anti-nationalism, difference, gender, LGBTIQ rainbows, ecology, human rights, international law, beyond borders and anti-statism. An exception was the progressive thinker Regis Debray who wrote In Praise of Borders. Now Gramsci has been re-validated. The Trump victory will revive a progressive-left protest movement in the USA, and that is a good counterweight. Trump will either work with Russia against terrorism or be railroaded by right-wing hawks into fresh military adventures, but he cannot get away with external adventurism in the ideologically hegemonic manner that Hillary Clinton would have. A USA polarized within and preoccupied domestically will be a hamstrung hegemon.This contributes to global multi-polarity. No small island can escape a powerful global trend, still less a change in the global ideological balance and overall environment.Absurdly, Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera is in no mood to leverage the Trump win to extricate Sri Lanka from the Geneva resolution trap, because he doesnt see it as a trap and is indiscreetly negative about the shift in the US: Of course, I mean, to be frank, as a person who has fought for liberal values throughout my political career, I would like to have seen a different result personally. But, as I said, now that the American people have decided, and we would certainly work with President Trump and his administration to further strengthen our bilateral relations over the coming years Meanwhile, he has also unmoored Sri Lanka from its traditional bipartisan foreign policy doctrine of Nonalignment by outrageously declaring that non-alignment is irrelevant today. (http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Will-strengthen-relations-with-U-S-under-Trump-Mangala-119126.html#sthash.LSdj8WUz.dpuf) The Ranil-CBK-Mangala holdout project of Liberal Cosmopolitan Minoritarianism in One Country is unsustainable. Like the MEP/SLFP bloc of 1956, todays JO/SLPP bloc has the rare advantage of representing the full spectrum of populist nationalisms of right, left and centre, containing within it the Trump and Bernie Sanders slogans and elements. 2016 (Trump) was the USAs equivalent of Sri Lankas 1956 (MEP/Sinhala only). 2017 may witness Sri Lankas equivalent of Greeces 2015 and the UKs and Colombias 2016 referenda. 2020 will be Sri Lankas equivalent of the USAs 2016. National Co-existence, Dialogue and Official Languages Minister Mano Ganesan said today that people in the North could celebrate Maaveerar Naal (Heroes Day) without mentioning the name of the LTTE, as it was a proscribed organisation. Minister Ganesan said it was a human right for people to be able to celebrate their late loved ones, but added that it was wrong to do it with a political motive. He said the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) also celebrate Il Maha Viru Samaruwa in the South to commemorate their heroes. They can do so as they are not a proscribed organisation anymore. But People in the North cannot use the name of the LTTE to commemorate their loved ones as it is a proscribed organisation, he said. (Ajith Sriwardana and Indika Sri Aravinda) Video by Indika Sri Aravinda Government Spokesman and Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe yesterday debunked the claims made by MP Dinesh Gunawardana that there was a possibility of the military launching a coup. He told journalists that President Maithripala Sirisena, who as the Commander-in-Chief was fully confident of the three armed forces. The minister said the MP had spoken of a imaginary conspiracy out of malice and ill feeling with the government. He said no reports of any conspiracy had been received by the intelligence units of the three armed forces and the police. Politically and socially bankrupt politicians make this kind of irresponsible and antisocial statements hoping they can destabilize the country and incite communal clashes. They imagine they could grab power by damaging the Government's reconciliation and development process through such malicious and baseless propaganda. They should be aware that the unity government is on a sound footing with the blessings of the local and international community. Therefore, there is no room for a military conspiracy against the government. It is purely a figment of their imagination as they are uncertain of their political future, the minister said. "These bankrupt politicians claim that disabled soldiers are disappointed about the clashes that took place during a protest recently. It is public knowledge that the clashes were staged by a few Bhikkus and joint opposition members even after knowing very well that President Sirisena had by then granted their demand for full pension benefits after retirement," he said. While condemning any suggestion of a military conspiracy, the people in Sri Lanka and abroad would never condone such betrayal under any circumstances. "In the local front, the government has taken action against those engaged in money laundering, embezzlement and other financial misappropriation under the Rajapaksa regime. The price of essential commodities including fuel and gas had been reduced. Salaries of armed forces and police, pensions of retired public servants, armed forces personnel and disabled soldiers have been increased. Therefore, it is the wishful thinking of these daydreaming politicians to suggest this conspiracy theory, the minister said. (Sandun A Jayasekera) Video by Buddhi Residents of coastal areas in northeastern Japan are evacuating to higher ground following a powerful earthquake that hit Fukushima Prefecture on Tuesday morning. The Japan Meteorological Agency says the magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture around 6 AM. It occurred at a depth of 25 kilometers. The agency issued warnings for tsunami waves of up to 3 meters for Fukushima Prefecture and neighboring Miyagi Prefecture. Tsunami advisories have been issued for other prefectures along the Pacific Ocean. A tsunami measuring 1.4 meters was observed at Sendai Port in Miyagi. Municipal authorities in prefectures in the region issued evacuation orders or advisories to residents. There have been a couple of reports of minor injuries. The Tokyo Electric Power Company says it has restored a cooling system at the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant that briefly stopped after the quake. Firefighting officials in the city of Iwaki in Fukushima said a fire broke out at a petrochemical complex in the district of Nishikimachi, but was extinguished at around 6:40 AM. The central government set up a task force at the Prime Minister's office to gather information about the quake. The Tohoku Shinkansen bullet train services were suspended but later resumed. Operations of some other Shinkansen lines are still suspended or delayed. (Source: nhk.or.jp) State Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene, Army Commander Crishantha de Silva, Air Force Commander Air Marshal Kapila Jayampathi and Chief of Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Kolitha Gunatilleke attended an event held in Colombo to mark the 45th Bangladesh Armed Forces Day. The Defence Ministry said the Bangladesh Armed Forces celebrate the Armed Forces day on November 21 each year. Bangladesh Armed Forces Day preserves immense implication in the history of Bangladesh Liberation War. Defence Adviser of Bangladesh High Commission Commodore S Aslam Parvez said arranged the reception to mark the occasion. Bangladesh Armed Forces observe the day each year with great festivity, enthusiasm and renewed promise for safeguarding the independence and sovereignty of the beloved motherland. During the Liberation War in 1971, on this day, the brave members of Bangladesh Army, Navy and Air Force along with the freedom fighters from all walks of life, organized under the joint operational command and launched an all-out attack on the occupation force. The decisive attacks from all fronts brought in a great tactical as well as strategic advantage in the war theatre and ultimately resulted in the victory on 16 December 1971. Hence Bangladesh emerged as an independent and sovereign state in the world atlas. Western, Eastern and Northern coastal areas are duly protected from the possible effects of any nuclear accidents that may occur in the atomic power plant in India, Deputy Minister of Power and Renewable Energy Ajith P Perera informed Parliament today. Responding to an oral question raised by MP Chandima Gamage in the House yesterday the Deputy Minister said Sri Lanka will be able to receive information on any nuclear accident from the International Atomic Agency on time as it is a signatory of the international convention on atomic safety. He said Sri Lanka is equipped with warning centers of radiation disasters in Colombo, Puttalam, Mannar, Delft Island, KKS, Galle, Trincomalee, and Kandy.(Yohan Perera) Sri Lanka has not changed or reversed its stand on Palestine and will uphold the policies maintained by former governments, Foreign Affairs Minister Mangala Samaraweera told Parliament today. He said this in response to a question asked by MP Dinesh Gunawardane in the House on an earlier date. Sri Lanka stands firm in its support to Palestine and will work in solidarity with that nation," the minister said adding that divisions among the members of the UNESCO executive board on a resolution which contained controversial and contentious elements led to Sri Lanka abstaining from voting when the resolution was taken up. On October 13, 2016 seven nations including Algeria, Morocco. Oman, Lebanon, Egypt, Qatar and Sudan brought a resolution pertaining to Al-Askar Mosque, Al Halam, which contained controversial and contentious elements on which 58 members of the UNESCO executive board could reach a consensus. We were aware that in this question taken by Palestine there were concerns on the language used. The sites used in the resolution were referred to only by Arabic names. This caused divisions in the executive board. The Director General of UNESCO was of the opinion that Jerusalem is a city of major monastic religions -- Jewish, Christian and Islam. Denying Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions will undermine the integrity of the site. Sri Lankan people knew the destruction and pain caused by the conflict. Just as much as it strives to ensure such violence won't reccur in our country we want to give the world the same message," he said citing the reason for Sri Lanka abstaining from voting for the resolution. The minister said he had already assured Palestine Prime Minister of Sri Lanka's firm support. He said Sri Lanka would also maintain bilateral ties with Israel from which country Sri Lanka had sought technological assistance for sectors such as agriculture. The minister also said a considerable number of Sri Lankans were working in Israel. (Yohan Perera) One of the main objectives of SLIM is to turn marketers into business leaders,by being strategic and maintaining a holistic view of their specific businesses and brands. This will help them gain entry into the boardroom oneday.Further, SLIM Brand excellence is a platform, which encourages marketers to think like business leaders, as their branding efforts need to have brought in the numbers in order to win an award at SLIM Brand Excellence,stated Mr. Upul Adikari, the President of SLIM in a recent interview. It is important that there is a strong link between a brand and its respective companies. A brand should be in the forefront, driving the objectives of the organizationand the people who stand behind it should drive this synergy. SLIM Brand Excellence is a national platform, which recognizes these efforts by respective brand custodians.This nationally acclaimed initiative by SLIM Brand excellence has continued to grow in quality and popularity, and today this serves as a representation of the power and influence of the countrys marketing industry. As the apex body of marketing and aleading institute of education, our first and foremost priority is to ensure the development of the profession of marketing in Sri Lanka in order to meet the international benchmark. Proficiency is a vital quality in a leading marketing professional; therefore SLIM is dedicated towards producing a caliber of business leaders who will not be the conventional marketers, but talented, pioneering and highly sophisticated professionals who will take the lead in forming a better future for the marketing industry of Sri Lanka. Today the skills of many marketing professionals are limited to just communication andpromotion. While an essential but often neglected component of the business sector is the accumulation of revenue and the drive to build a successful and sustainable business. We at SLIM are well aware of the fact that the Sri Lankan marketing industry is in desperate need of professionals who are proficient and have a wide range of knowledge of local and global marketing trends. Thus we have made it our goal to do all in our power to fill this breach and bridge the gap between Sri Lanka and the global marketing community. As the national body for marketing we have been the driving force behind the inclusion of marketing studies in schools as a means of ensuring that students are familiar with the concepts of marketing upon leaving school and beginning their higher education. This initiative is gradually leading to the development of a generation of young professionals who are well versed in the practices of marketing, customer service and sales, whilst also imbedding in them an understanding of the importance of self-development and the representation of the values of their organization through their behavior. All of these efforts by SLIM is for the sole purpose of making a significant contribution towards the economic progress of Sri Lanka, stated Mr. Adikari. Speaking about the recently completed SLIM Brand Excellence Awards program, the President of the organization had this to say, Brand Excellence began with the objective of recognizing the efforts by the brand custodians driving their brands towards excellence. Through Brand Excellence we provide them a platform to gain recognition and rewards for their hard work, by sharing their story with an esteemed panel of judges. In this the custodians are expected to convince the highly qualified judging panel, that their story is better than the other applicants and worthy of an award. The panel will then make its decision. This process ensures that only the best of the best will be chosen. Further this program provides marketers the opportunity to experience and familiarize themselves with a clear and effective process of brand building,which will ultimately help bring in revenue to their respective companies. After all revenue is one of the primary reasons of a brands existence. Through briefings and workshops we ensured that the participants were able to gain a clear understanding of the process and the evaluation criteria. The excellence of a brand does not depend solely upon communication but also on the entire process of the brands journey. On the development and role of this years theme Excellence is an Obsession, Mr. Adikari stated: As our purpose lies in building business leaders we were in search of a theme, which covers the full spectrum of the birth of a brand, its development and the process by which revenue was achieved. During this process we realized that in order for a brand to achieve the status of excellence the people behind the brand should be obsessed with the achievement of it and thus we selected Excellence is an Obsession. I believe that the theme of this years helped get the attention of a wider audience of brand custodians, which enabled us attract the highest number of entries ever recorded in Brand Excellence history. Modis so-called surgical strike against black money has turned out to be a carpet bombing on the lower middle class and poor families in India. On November 8, 2016, at 8pm, in the name of curbing the black money menace in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that from midnight currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination will not be legal tender. While announcing this surprise decision, he forewarned of some hardships but called upon the people of India to ignore the inconvenience in the name of the larger national good - in the country's history, there comes a moment when people will want to participate in nation-building and reconstruction". However, this so-called bold move has not only caused minor inconvenience, but has turned out to be nightmare for millions of Indians. More than 70 people have died already in the aftermath of Modis announcement. Several of these people reportedly died standing in the never-ending queues in front of banks, while some others died because hospitals and drugstores refused to accept their old notes. The abrupt demonetisation has caused a huge cash crunch in the country. The government has completely failed to adequately prepare for the impact. It has not printed new notes nor fixed ATMs in advance. Modis so-called surgical strike against black money has turned out to be a carpet bombing on the lower middle class and poor families in India. Demonetisation has virtually ruined the countrys informal economy and has thrown small farmers and agricultural workers into a survival crisis. Rural and semi-urban areas with poor access to banking have been particularly hit the hardest. Mocking at the continuing hardship of the poorer section of society standing in long queues to exchange their hard earned money, the rich and powerful have devised various ways to legalise their black money by converting to shares, gold and real estate. Since Modis declaration of demonetisation, most of India is struggling to meet day-to-day needs. Anger has intensified as banks regularly fail to meet demands for cash. A large part of India's rural economy runs on cash transactions and very few people have bank accounts. Even in peri-urban areas, ATMs are not operating. Due to lack of cash, supply chains at small as well big companies are fast breaking down. Industrial production has gone down, and consumption has also been badly affected. In the year to March 2017, demonetisation is estimated to bring down India's gross domestic product (GDP) growth from last year's 7.6 per cent by as much as 4.1 percentage points. Due to Modis shock therapy to the countrys economy, India is on the verge of a serious social-political crisis. Narendra Modis so-called surgical strike against black money has turned out to be a carpet bombing on the lower middle class and poor families in India. (Photo: Reuters) On November 17, British newspaper the Guardian in its editorial warned that the scarcity of cash and lack of adequate preparation to meet such a huge challenge might lead to revolt in the country. While supporters of Modi mounted a vicious attack on the newspaper branding it as a "foreign fantasy", the Supreme Court the very next day also warned the government that there could be riots in the country. The ongoing chaos over the currency crisis has already caused law and order issues in some parts of the country. However, overall, the country has not witnessed yet a large-scale revolt against the government, which the Guardian and even the countrys Supreme Court have already predicted. The Opposition accuses the government of unleashing economic anarchy in the country, but the law and order situation is yet under government control. India is yet to rebel against Modi, but apprehension of it is not unfounded. Research points out that the type of political system sharply affects the nature of protest in a state. Democracies are supposed to have more orderly but less violent protest than authoritarian countries. The structure and ethos of democratic regimes are such that they are adjusted to respond to opposition in a conciliatory way, which reinforces the utility of peaceful protest over violent rebellion. However, under Modi, Indian democracy has almost lost its liberal character and has turned into a "semi-authoritarian" form of government. Decision-making has become extremely centralised, curtailing the role of other relevant institutions of the state. A semi-authoritarian framework for India under Modi combines rhetorical acceptance of liberal democracy, the existence of some formal democratic institutions, and respect for a limited sphere of civil and political liberties with essentially illiberal and authoritarian traits. Under Modi, India maintains the appearance of a democracy but restricts any opposition and free competition that a democratic society entails under the garb of greater national interest. The decline of Indian democracy raises the increasing utility of violent form of protests in the country. In spite of large-scale suffering due to demonetisation, still a sizeable section of the middle class irrationally tends to believe their pain will convert to a lot of gain for the country and its economy. The envisioning of long-term benefit will soon prove to be futile as this demonetisation gamble of Modi, while on the one hand will not be able to address the black money problem of the country as almost all economists predict, on the other its adverse effect on the countrys economy will be devastating. This creates a perfect scenario for what Ted Robert Gurrhas described as "progressive deprivation" in his classic Why Men Rebel. Poverty does not create collective violence, but relative deprivation "perceived discrepancy between value expectations and value capabilities" of population does. In simple terms, relative deprivation occurs when there is a serious friction between a persons actual situation and what s/he feels that s/he should have achieved. The gratuitous demonetisation policy and its certain failure to achieve its desired objective will soon generate progressive deprivation in the country, with growing popular expectation and lowering of state capability. The long-a-coming civil nuclear agreement between India and Japan was the most important outcome of the November 11 Shinzo Abe-Narendra Modi summit. Even with Abe favouring a nuclear accord with India, building a national consensus within Japan around it has taken time. The December 2015 India-Japan summit saw progress in reaching understandings on the text of the agreement but signing had to be deferred till after the results of the July 2016 parliamentary elections in Japan. If despite LDP's (Abe's party) election success, this month's summit too had failed to conclude the agreement, a shadow would have fallen on the India-Japan strategic partnership. Already China is opposing India's NSG membership, using Delhi's non-NPT status as an excuse. If Japan too baulked at signing a nuclear accord with India for similar reasons, it would have meant, rather ironically, that both China and Japan were one in maintaining pressure on India on the non-proliferation front. China has reason to deny India political equality on nuclear issues in order to stall its rise as a power, but not Japan whose interest lies in freeing India from its nuclear chains so that it can counter China's hegemonic ambitions in Asia more effectively. Agreement Along with the nuclear agreement, a separate Note on Views and Understandings has been signed by the two sides. India's position all along has been that it cannot go beyond the template of the nuclear accords it has signed with the US and others, or the statement made by the then external affairs minister (EAM) on the eve of the NSG meeting in September 2008 affirming India's credentials on disarmament and non-proliferation and committing the country to a voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing. Japan, however, has sought some additional gesture by India, especially on the test ban treaty, to facilitate domestic endorsement for a nuclear deal. In the separate Note, the Japanese side affirms that EAM's September 5, 2008 statement constitutes for it an essential basis for cooperation and that in case of any departure from it Japan will exercise its rights under the main agreement to seek suspension of reprocessing of nuclear material by India, besides reserving the right to contest any consequent Indian claim for damages. PM Modi with Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Photo credit: Reuters) The Indian representative has merely reaffirmed the September 5 statement in the Note. The Japanese side can claim the Note as an additionality, in that the commitment India gave to a group of 48 NSG countries that included Japan, has now been obtained by Japan in its own capacity. India, however, can legitimately maintain that it has made no additional legal commitment, as the Note merely says that what it records "is an accurate reflection of the views of the two sides". The controversy whether the Note was legally binding or not, with the Japanese side saying it was and the Indian side stating that while the agreement was binding, the Note was not, was unnecessary. The agreement has to be ratified by the Japanese parliament and such contention is unhelpful. Context In the context of China's imperious rejection of the UNCLOS arbitral award against its conduct and actions in the South China Sea, its open opposition to India's NSG membership and repeated blocking of India's move in the UN Security Council committee to have JeM chief Masood Azhar designated as an international terrorist, there was speculation about what India and Japan would say in their joint statement on the maritime issues in the region involving China. The joint statement emphasises the importance of UNCLOS by mentioning it four times in the relevant paragraph, including in the context of resolving disputes in the South China Sea. China's claim of being Asia's leader now for development purposes and its Belt and Road Initiative that seeks to build its hegemony in Asia provide the context for references in the joint statement to the synergy between India's "Act East Policy" and Japan's "Free and Open India-Pacific Strategy" as well its "Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure" for better regional integration and improved connectivity. The proposed cooperation in Iran and Afghanistan, including in the development of infrastructure and connectivity for Chabahar, can be seen in this context too. Platforms The two paragraphs on defence cooperation stress the role of India and Japan for stability and prosperity in the India-Pacific region. They outline several agreements, dialogue mechanisms and exercises pertaining to defence. Modi has conveyed his appreciation for Japan's readiness to provide its state-of-the-art defence platforms such as US-2 amphibian aircraft, though no decision on its acquisition was announced. It was rightly stated that this symbolises the distance that Japan and India have covered in advancing their bilateral defence exchanges. On terrorism, the other geopolitical issue on which India is facing difficulties, the formulations in the joint statement cover the required ground, including a call for stopping cross-border terrorism. Omitting to mention LeT and JeM in the statement, and especially the designation of Masood Azhar as a terrorist by the UN Security Council Committee, is surprising. The last should have been done if only to highlight China's obstructive attitude. For the rest, Donald Trump's election and the uncertainty that this has created about the US pivot towards Asia, policy towards China and US defence commitments in the region, will place a higher burden on India and Japan to together meet the challenges ahead. Thanksgiving travelers will not be delayed by construction on Tennessee roads during the travel holiday. TDOT will halt all lane closure activity on interstates and state highways in anticipation of higher traffic volumes across the state. All construction related lane closures will be stopped beginning at noon on Wednesday through 6 a.m. Monday, Nov. 28. "Over a million travelers in Tennessee are expected to drive to their holiday destinations this year, said TDOT Commissioner John Schroer. This is the most traveled holiday of the year. Halting road work during this busy time will provide maximum capacity on our roadways and help alleviate congestion, especially during the predicted peak travel days of Wednesday and Sunday. While all lane closure activity will be stopped, workers may be on site in some construction zones. Long-term lane closures will also remain in place on some construction projects for motorists safety. Motorists are reminded to drive safely and obey the posted speeds, especially in work zones. Drivers convicted of speeding in work zones where workers are present face a fine of up to $500, plus court fees and possible increased insurance premiums. The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security and TDOT are partnering with law enforcement across the state for the I-40 Challenge, with the goal of having zero fatalities on the 455 miles of I-40 in Tennessee. On the peak travel days of Wednesday and Sunday, the Tennessee Highway Patrol will have troopers stationed every 20 miles on I-40, along with increased law enforcement on all highways. AAA predicts 48.7 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more during the Thanksgiving holiday, an increase of 1 million travelers over last year. Driving remains the most popular mode of travel for the holiday. An estimated 1,086,352 people are expected to travel by automobile in Tennessee. Nationwide, more than 89 percent of all travelers will drive to their destinations. From your desktop or mobile device, get the latest construction activity and live streaming SmartWay traffic cameras at www.TNSmartWay.com/Traffic. Travelers can also dial 511 from any land-line or cellular phone for travel information, or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TN511 for statewide travel. As always, drivers are reminded to use all motorist information tools wisely and Know Before You Go! by checking travel conditions before leaving for your destination. Drivers should never tweet, text or talk on a cell phone while behind the wheel. Cardinal Health, Inc. operates as an integrated healthcare services and products company in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and internationally. It provides customized solutions for hospitals, healthcare systems, pharmacies, ambulatory surgery centers, clinical laboratories, physician offices, and patients in the home. The company operates in two segments, Pharmaceutical and Medical. The Pharmaceutical segment distributes branded and generic pharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical, and over-the-counter healthcare and consumer products. The segment also provides services to pharmaceutical manufacturers and healthcare providers for specialty pharmaceutical products; operates nuclear pharmacies and radiopharmaceutical manufacturing facilities; repackages generic pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter healthcare products; and offers medication therapy management and patient outcomes services to hospitals, other healthcare providers, and payers, as well as provides pharmacy management services to hospitals. The Medical segment manufactures, sources, and distributes Cardinal Health branded medical, surgical, and laboratory products and devices that include exam and surgical gloves; needles, syringe, and sharps disposals; compressions; incontinences; nutritional delivery products; wound care products; single-use surgical drapes, gowns, and apparels; fluid suction and collection systems; urology products; operating room supply products; and electrode product lines. The segment also distributes a range of national brand products, including medical, surgical, and laboratory products; provides supply chain services and solutions to hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, clinical laboratories, and other healthcare providers; and assembles and sells sterile, and non-sterile procedure kits. The company was incorporated in 1979 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ohio. S&P 500 3,856.10 DOW 32,653.20 QQQ 275.11 Nomad Foods: A Defensive Stock on the Move The 9 Essential Pages Your Ecommerce Website Must Include Strong Q3 Driving Growth At S&P 500 Component Citizens Financial Its Still Not Too Late To Get Into Energy Stocks Online Lender SoFi Jumps 14% On Better-Than-Expected Q3 Results Why American Water Works May Not Want a Fed Pivot GameStop Corp. is a specialty retailer founded in 1999 and headquartered in Grapevine, Texas. The company was originally known as GSC Holdings Corp. but later changed its name following its IPO. Originally a brand of then dominant Babbages, Gamestop altered the way video games were distributed and it is now the world's largest retailer of video games and video game accessories. The company went public in 2004 and operated 4,573 stores at the start of 2022. Brands under the company umbrella include Gamestop, EB Games, and Micromania as well as 50 pop-culture-themed Zing Pop locations. Gamestop Corp. provides video games and entertainment products through its global network of e-commerce properties and stores. The company sells new and pre-owned gaming platforms and accessories like controllers, headsets, memory cards, and gaming software as well as in-game products like digital currency, downloadable content, and games. The company also sells new and used memorabilia and collectibles. Genres include TV, movie, comic book, and game characters as well as many other items from pop culture. GameStop Corp. also operates Game Informer, a magazine and website dedicated to the gaming industry including reviews, updates, and new developments in technologies. Game enthusiasts enjoy two primary benefits of using Gamestop. The first is access to the full range of games and gaming accessories. The second is the ability to sell or trade their old equipment and games for fair prices. All old equipment is refurbished to a like-new state before resale. In 2021 Gamestop announced it was entering the world of cryptocurrency. The company revealed plans to build an NFT (non-fungible token) platform for listing, selling, and holding digital or digitized artwork and collectibles. The beta version launched in 2022 and has so far seen great success with an average daily volume exceeding $1 million. The NFT marketplace also featured Web3.0 games in which characters and in-game items are held forever on the blockchain. As of September 2022, the most successful retailer on the NFT marketplace was Gamestop Presents, a collaboration of cover art from Game Informer Magazine. Sales at the time were just under 168 ETH or about $221,500.00. GameStop began a slide in 2016 following a series of bad investments that included a foray into the world of mobile phones. The slide came to an end in late 2021 when shareholders using the Reddit thread Wallstreet Bets orchestrated a short-squeeze and brought on the age of meme stocks. ICL Group Ltd, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a specialty minerals and chemicals company worldwide. It operates in four segments: Industrial Products, Potash, Phosphate Solutions, and Innovative Ag Solutions (IAS). The Industrial Products segment produces bromine out of a solution that is a by-product of the potash production process, as well as bromine-based compounds; produces various grades of potash, salt, magnesium chloride, and magnesia products; and produces and markets phosphorous-based flame retardants and other phosphorus-based products. The Potash segment extracts potash from the Dead Sea; mines and produces potash and salt; produces Polysulphate; produces, markets, and sells magnesium and magnesium alloys, as well as related by-products, including chlorine and sylvinite; and sells salt. The Phosphate Solutions segment uses phosphate commodity products to produce specialty products; produces and markets phosphate-based fertilizers, as well as sulphuric acid, green phosphoric acid, and phosphate fertilizers; and manufactures thermal phosphoric acid for various industrial end markets, such as oral care, cleaning products, paints and coatings, water treatment, asphalt modification, construction, and metal treatment. It also develops and produces functional food ingredients and phosphate additives for use in the processed meat, poultry, seafood, dairy, beverage, and baked goods markets; and produces milk and whey proteins for the food ingredients industry. The IAS segment develops, manufactures, markets, and sells fertilizers based primarily on nitrogen, potash, and phosphate, including water soluble specialty, liquid, soluble, and controlled-release fertilizers. It sells its products through marketing companies, agents, and distributors. The company was formerly known as Israel Chemicals Ltd. and changed its name to ICL Group Ltd in May 2020. The company was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. A Cleveland, Tn., man died in a hunting accident in Sequatchie County over the weekend. Authorities went searching for 44-year-old Steve Wilson after his family became worried that he was not responding to calls or text messages. Deputies found him at the bottom of a tree stand on Lewis Chapel Mountain. Authorities said he fell from the tree stand, but it was unclear that was the cause of his death. An autopsy was being performed. 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. Read More 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. The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen France SAS, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Suzhou Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel Ireland Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Brooks Instrument LLC, Brooks Instrument Shanghai Co. Ltd, Buell Industries Inc., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS Australia Pty Limited, CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures Australasia S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Coeur, Coeur Asia Limited, Coeur Holding Company, Coeur Inc., Coeur Shanghai Medical Appliance Trading Co. Ltd, Compagnie Hobart, Compagnie de Materiel et d'Equipements Techniques-Comet, Constructions Isothermiques Bontami C.I.B., Crane Carrier Company, Denison Mayes Group Limited, Despatch Industries, Diagraph Corporation Sdn. Bhd, Diagraph ITW Mexico S. de R.L. De C.V., Diagraph Mexico S.A. DE C.V., Dongguan Ark-Les Electric Components Co. Ltd., Dongguan CK Branding Co. Ltd., Duo Fast de Espana S.A.U., Duo-Fast Korea Co. Ltd., Duo-Fast LLC, E.C.S. d.o.o., E2M Production B.V.., E2M Technologies B.V.., E2M Technologies Inc.., ECS Cable Protection Sp. Zoo, ELRO Grosskuchen GmbH, ELRO Holding AG, ELRO-WERKE AG, Elro Group, Eltex-Elektrostatik-Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Envases Multipac S.A. de C.V., Eurotec Srl, Exhibit 21, FEG Investments L.L.C., Filtertek De Mexico Holding Inc., Filtertek De Mexico S.A. de C.V., Filtertek SAS, GC Financement SA, Gamko B.V., Gun Hwa Platech Taicang Co. Ltd., HOBART Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Hartness International, Hobart Andina S.A.S., Hobart Belgium B.V., Hobart Brothers International Chile Limitada, Hobart Brothers LLC, Hobart Dayton Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Hobart Food Equipment Co. Ltd., Hobart International Singapore Pte. Ltd., Hobart Japan K.K., Hobart Korea LLC, Hobart LLC, Hobart Nederland B.V., Hobart Sales & Service Inc., Hobart Scandinavia ApS, Hobart Techniek B.V., Horis, ILC Investments Holdings Inc., ITW AEP LLC, ITW AOC LLC, ITW Aircraft Investments Inc., ITW Ampang Industries Philippines Inc., ITW Appliance Components EOOD, ITW Appliance Components S.A. de C.V., ITW Appliance Components S.r.l.a, ITW Appliance Components d.o.o., ITW Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, ITW Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd., ITW Australia Pty Ltd, ITW Automotive Components Chongqing Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Components Langfang Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Japan K.K., ITW Automotive Korea LLC, ITW Automotive Parts Shanghai Co. Ltd, ITW Automotive Products GmbH, ITW Automotive Products Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Bailly Comte, ITW Befestigungssysteme GmbH, ITW Belgium B.V., ITW Brazilian Nominee L.L.C., ITW Building Components Group Inc., ITW CER, ITW CP Distribution Center Holland BV, ITW CS UK Ltd., ITW Canada Inc., ITW Celeste Inc., ITW Chemical Products Ltda, ITW Chemical Products Scandinavia ApS, ITW China Investment Company Limited, ITW Colombia S.A.S., ITW Construction Products AB, ITW Construction Products AS, ITW Construction Products ApS, ITW Construction Products CZ s.r.o., ITW Construction Products Italy Srl, ITW Construction Products OU, ITW Construction Products OY, ITW Construction Products Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Construction Products Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW Construction Services Manila Inc., ITW Contamination Control B.V., ITW Contamination Control Wujiang Co. Ltd., ITW Covid Security Group Inc., ITW DS Investments Inc., ITW DelFast do Brasil Ltda., ITW Denmark ApS, ITW Deutschland GmbH, ITW Diagraph GmbH, ITW Dynatec, ITW Dynatec Adhesive Equipment Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Dynatec GmbH, ITW Dynatec Kabushiki Kaisha, ITW EAE B.V., ITW EAE Mexico S de RL de CV, ITW EF&C France SAS, ITW EF&C Selb GmbH, ITW EU Holdings Ltd., ITW Electronic Business Asia Co. Limited, ITW Electronic Components/Products Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Electronics Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Epsilon Sarl, ITW Espana S.L., ITW European Finance Co. Ltd., ITW European Finance II Co. Ltd., ITW European Finance III Co. Ltd., ITW FEG Hong Kong Limited, ITW FEG do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW Fastener Products GmbH, ITW Fluids and Hygiene Solutions Ltda., ITW Food Equipment Group LLC, ITW GH LLC, ITW GSE ApS, ITW GSE Inc., ITW Gamma Sarl, ITW German Management LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings Y Compania Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones, ITW Global Investments Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Europe GmbH, ITW Global Tire Repair Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Japan K.K., ITW Graphics Asia Limited, ITW Graphics Thailand Ltd., ITW Great Britain Investment & Licensing Holding Company, ITW Group France Luxembourg S.ar.l., ITW HLP Thailand Co. Ltd., ITW Holding Quimica B.C. S.L. Sole Shareholder Company, ITW Holdings Australia L.P., ITW Holdings I Limited, ITW Holdings II Limited, ITW Holdings III Limited, ITW Holdings IV Limited, ITW Holdings IX Limited, ITW Holdings Inc., ITW Holdings V Limited, ITW Holdings VI Limited, ITW Holdings VII Limited, ITW Holdings VIII Limited, ITW Holdings X Limited, ITW Holdings XI Limited, ITW ILC Holdings I Inc., ITW IPG Investments LLC, ITW Imaden Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW India Private Limited, ITW International Holdings LLC, ITW Invest Holding GmbH, ITW Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, ITW Ireland Unlimited Company, ITW Italy Holding Srl, ITW Japan Ltd., ITW Korea LLC, ITW LLC & Co. KG, ITW Limited, ITW Lys Fusion S.r.l., ITW Materials Technology Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Meritex Sdn. Bhd., ITW Metal Fasteners S.L., ITW Mexico Holding Company S. De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Administration BV, ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Ningbo Components & Fastenings Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Packaging Technology China Co. Ltd., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers Wujiang Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion Shenzhen Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment Shanghai Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK Finance Zeta Ltd., ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Illinois Tool Works Chile Limitada, Illinois Tool Works ITW Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Inc., Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, Instron Shanghai Ltd., Instron Thailand Limited, International Leasing Company LLC, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., Itw Spraytec, KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft S.L., Loma Systems, Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems Canada Inc., Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, MTS 2 LLC., MTS 3 LLC., MTS China Holdings LLC, MTS Europe Holdings LLC, MTS Holdings France S.a.r.l., MTS Japan Ltd.., MTS Korea Inc.., MTS Systems China Co. Ltd., MTS Systems Corporation, MTS Systems Danmark ApS., MTS Systems Europe B.V., MTS Systems Finance C.V.., MTS Systems Germany GmbH, MTS Systems Holding B.V.., MTS Systems Hong Kong Incorporated, MTS Systems Limited, MTS Systems Norden Aktiebolag, MTS Systems S.r.l, MTS Systems., MTS Systems.., MTS Sytems Do Brazil, MTS Testing Solutions India Private Limited., MTS Testing Systems Canada Ltd., Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology Suzhou Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited Enping, Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners Shanghai Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., R&D Engineering A/S., R&D Prague s.r.o., R&D Steel ApS., R&D Test Systems A/S., R&D Tools and Structures A/S., RDGDK Engineering Private Limited, Ramset Fasteners Hong Kong Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco Japan Inc., Simco Nederland B.V., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tapes B.V., Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Hong Kong Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Shanghai Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stokvis Tapes Taiwan Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes Tianjin Co. Ltd., Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Subsidiaries, Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek China Limited, Teknek Japan Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Kunshan Co. Ltd., Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta Global Limited, Vesta Guangzhou Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wynn Oil South Africa Pty Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, and Zip-Pak International B.V.. Read More ALLETE, Inc. operates as an energy company. The company operates through Regulated Operations, ALLETE Clean Energy, and Corporate and Other segments. It generates electricity from coal-fired, biomass co-fired / natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, and solar. The company provides regulated utility electric services in northwestern Wisconsin to approximately 15,000 electric customers, 13,000 natural gas customers, and 10,000 water customers, as well as regulated utility electric services in northeastern Minnesota to approximately 145,000 retail customers and 15 non-affiliated municipal customers. It also owns and maintains electric transmission assets in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois. In addition, the company focuses on developing, acquiring, and operating clean and renewable energy projects; and owns and operates approximately 1,000 megawatts of wind energy generation facility. Further, it is involved in the coal mining operations in North Dakota; and real estate investment activities in Florida. The company owns and operates 158 substations with a total capacity of 10,066 megavolt amperes. It serves taconite mining, paper, pulp and secondary wood products, pipeline, and other industries. The company was formerly known as Minnesota Power, Inc. and changed its name to ALLETE, Inc. in May 2001. ALLETE, Inc. was incorporated in 1906 and is headquartered in Duluth, Minnesota. Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, partners with Chili's Restaurant will hold its annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. (or until the food runs out.) at Chilis Restaurant, 408 Market St, Chattanooga, Tn. 37402, 423 265-1511. Minister Alan Coker , Antioch Church men's ministry director said, We do this every year, as a way to bless Chattanoogas homeless, needy and anyone in need of a meal." BlackRock, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to institutional, intermediary, and individual investors including corporate, public, union, and industry pension plans, insurance companies, third-party mutual funds, endowments, public institutions, governments, foundations, charities, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, official institutions, and banks. It also provides global risk management and advisory services. The firm manages separate client-focused equity, fixed income, and balanced portfolios. It also launches and manages open-end and closed-end mutual funds, offshore funds, unit trusts, and alternative investment vehicles including structured funds. The firm launches equity, fixed income, balanced, and real estate mutual funds. It also launches equity, fixed income, balanced, currency, commodity, and multi-asset exchange traded funds. The firm also launches and manages hedge funds. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, real estate, currency, commodity, and alternative markets across the globe. The firm primarily invests in growth and value stocks of small-cap, mid-cap, SMID-cap, large-cap, and multi-cap companies. It also invests in dividend-paying equity securities. The firm invests in investment grade municipal securities, government securities including securities issued or guaranteed by a government or a government agency or instrumentality, corporate bonds, and asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities. It employs fundamental and quantitative analysis with a focus on bottom-up and top-down approach to make its investments. The firm employs liquidity, asset allocation, balanced, real estate, and alternative strategies to make its investments. In real estate sector, it seeks to invest in Poland and Germany. The firm benchmarks the performance of its portfolios against various S&P, Russell, Barclays, MSCI, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch indices. BlackRock, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is based in New York City with additional offices in Boston, Massachusetts; London, United Kingdom; Gurgaon, India; Hong Kong; Greenwich, Connecticut; Princeton, New Jersey; Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Sydney, Australia; Taipei, Taiwan; Singapore; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Washington, District of Columbia; Toronto, Canada; Wilmington, Delaware; and San Francisco, California. Genesee & Wyoming Inc. owns and leases freight railroads. It operates through three segments: North American Operations, Australian Operations, and U.K./European Operations. The company transports various commodities, including agricultural products, autos and auto parts, chemicals and plastics, coal and coke, food and kindred products, lumber and forest products, metallic ores, metals, minerals and stone, petroleum products, pulp and paper, waste, and other commodities. It owns or leases 122 freight railroads, including 105 short line railroads and 2 regional freight railroads located in the United States, 8 short line railroads located in Canada, 3 railroads located in Australia, 1 railroad located in the United Kingdom, 1 railroad in Poland and Germany, and 2 railroads in the Netherlands with a total of approximately 16,200 miles of track. The company also operates 6,200 additional miles of track that is owned or leased by others. In addition, it operates deep sea maritime containers and provides bulk haulage, including coal, aggregates, cement, and infrastructure services. Further, the company provides rail service at approximately 40 ports; rail-ferry service in North America, Australia, and Europe; and contract coal loading and railcar switching for industrial customers. Genesee & Wyoming Inc. was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Darien, Connecticut. Randy King has joined XMC, Inc. as an area production solutions specialist focused on the Chattanooga, Cleveland, Alabama and North Georgia markets. Mr. King will also assist with strategic account growth and development for XMC.Mr. King comes to XMC after 31 years with Xerox Corporation, having spent the last 20 years supporting Chattanooga and the East Tennessee area as well as Central and West Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. He has held numerous sales and leadership positions with Xerox Corporation, such as region sales manager, technical support manager, production sales specialist and IGEN/Production Inkjet Solutions specialist.I am excited for the opportunity to put my years of experience with Xerox and its products to work in a new way, said Mr.King. I have admired XMC for many years and am looking forward to what we can accomplish together."Mr. King has a long and consistent record of high achievement including multiple national and regional top performer awards, multiple Xerox Corporation Presidents Club and Par Club awards and a high level of demonstrated success assisting businesses across all industries," officials said.Mr. King is a 20 year resident of Signal Mountain. He has been married to Judy King for 27 years. Their two daughters are graduates of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Mississippi State University. The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum hosted an event Saturday to officially loan its prized Steam Engine 349 to the Childrens Hospital at Erlanger. The engine should move to its new location sometime in 2017. The event was a festive one that kicked off with a barbershop quartet singing "Santa Clause is Coming to Town." Tim Andrews, president of TVRM, and Bruce K. Komiske, MHA, vice president New Hospital Design and Construction, both spoke at the event about the importance of inspiring children and encouraging the healing process. Then came the main event: Erlangers Miracle Kids PJ-Fox, Joel, Mia, Maximus, Ellie, Bailey, Roman, Joy, Tynece, Madiso, Adrian, and Anna unwrapped the gift tag stating that TVRM is loaning the steam engine to the new Childrens Hospital. Also attending was Amelia Sullivan, president of the Erlanger Auxiliary, the group responsible for raising the funds to relocate and build the housing facility for the steam engine. Trains are such a big part of childrens lives, and to put this in an institution that takes care of children and tries to make their life better, I think its just an incredible partnership, Mr. Andrews said. Gillian Welch is performing in Chattanooga on Friday, Dec. 30, 8 p.m. at the Tivoli Theatre. Review for Gillian Welch: Gillian is releasing Boots No 1: The Official Revival Bootleg (out on Nov. 25 on Acony Records) which commemorates the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking album Revival, and features eight previously unreleased songs, 21 outtakes, the alternate versions, and demos from the making of the album. Tickets are $29-35 and available here. Ascencion Lutheran Church announces the following Advent schedule: Sunday Nov. 22: Sunday School 10:00 am Cloud: The Divine Presence Worship with Communion 11:00am Lighting the Candle of Hope Sunday Dec.4: Sunday School 10:00 am Bulldozer: Road Building in The Heart Worship with Communion 11:00am Peace: The Freedom from Fear Sunday Dec. 11: Sunday School 10:00 am Fire: Purifying Blaze Worship with Communion 11:00am Repent and Rejoice Sunday Dec. 18: Sunday School 10:00 am Hands: Gladly Receiving Worship with Communion 11:00am The World is About to Turn Christmas Eve Saturday Dec. 24: Candlelight Service with Communion 7:00pm Hes Here! Christmas Day Sunday Dec. 25: Worship with Communion 11:00am And Dwelt Among Us Second Sunday of Christmas Sunday Jan. 1 Service of Lessons and Carols 11:00am Ascension Lutheran Church is a 102 year old congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located at 720 S. Germantown Road in East Ridge, convenient to I-24. For further information, call the church office @ 423-698-5047. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Catch the latest in Opinion Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy Even with all of the turbulence, political strife and various wars, we still have many things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving family, friends, abundance of food and, most of all, freedom. Many throughout the world are not that lucky. What was that first Thanksgiving like? Historians generally agree that there are only two accounts of the first Thanksgiving one by Edward Winslow and the other by William Bradford in his History of the Plymouth Plantation. The latter was written some 20 years after the fact. Both accounts relate that corn was plentiful, but the barley did not do too well. Peas were sown late in the spring. They blossomed, but the blossoms were parched under the sun. After the harvest was brought in, the governor sent men out fowling. They brought back much meat, including deer, but primarily turkey. Not only did turkey, the wild type, quickly become popular in the colonies, including Massachusetts and Virginia, but it also became popular in Europe as a domesticated fowl. We do not know who sent or carried the first turkey to Europe. It was certainly not Columbus, who, as far as we know, never saw a turkey. There werent any in the Caribbean islands because the turkey, a heavy bird, is not a long-distance flier. It can stay in the air for about a mile and then has to touch ground. Thus, the Spanish did not encounter a turkey until they reached the mainland. The earliest written date about turkeys seems to be around 1511. That was when the Spanish bishop of Valencia instructed some Spanish explorers headed for America to bring back some big birds (turkeys), which he had heard about. The explorers returned with 10 birds. Ponce de Leon, who landed in 1513 in Florida, where turkeys were plentiful, also could have returned with some turkeys. However, there was no recorded that he did. He was not looking for food. He was looking for gold. Little did he realize that food was probably more important for survival. Francisco de Cordoba saw turkeys in Yucatan in 1517, as Cortez did in Mexico in 1519. Either could have sent turkeys to Spain. However, Coronado was chasing his mirage the Seven Cities of Gold. He did not see turkeys until 1540, in the Indian pueblos. By then, they were already gracing the tables of Europe. Cortez would have been a likely dispatcher of turkeys to Europe, as he was familiar with them. He reported that pre-prepared turkey dishes could be bought in Mexican markets (a forerunner of takeout). These prepared turkey dishes included the chocolate mole sauce, which is still popular today. Roast turkey was one of the most important Aztec foods at the time. Turkeys were cooked daily for Emperor Montezumas table. Not long after turkeys reached Spain, they also reached France. The French took a great liking to turkey, as it was similar to peacock, which became a popular domestic fowl in the 16th century. At that time, turkeys, like peacocks, were roasted with their feathers on and brought to the table with great fanfare as a piece de resistance. When strange foods from the New World reached Europe (like the potato and tomato), they were received with great suspicion. But not the turkey. As soon as it arrived, it became a favorite food. In France, turkeys became so popular in the 1600 and 1700s that a little-known profession in Paris at the time was a varnisher of turkey legs. The age of a turkey can be determined easily by the condition of its legs. Young birds have smooth and black legs. As the turkeys age, their legs become white and peeled. Thus, to deceive the buying public, turkey legs of the older birds were varnished black. In the 18th century, France was swept by a wave of turkeymania. Intensified by the American Revolution, Frenchmen sympathetic to the American cause ate turkey as a symbol of solidarity. A favorite stuffing for the roasted bird was truffles at least a dozen or two. The truffles were left in the body cavity of the turkey overnight to impart their fragrance to the bird and then were thrown away before cooking. At todays prices of truffles, it would be more economical to throw away the turkey and eat the truffles. The Pilgrims had no hesitation about eating turkey. The bird was not strange for them, as it had reached Europe a century earlier and was already a common dish. In the New World turkeys were plentiful and easy to hunt. New settlers in New England hunted the turkey so vigorously that by 1672, a half-century after the Pilgrims arrival, New Englanders were complaining that tis very rare to meet with a wild turkie in the woods. By the early 1700s, some of the New England colonies restricted hunting of turkeys, and turkeys became domesticated. In the early 1800s, Vermont farmers drove their turkeys to the Boston market. At the time, the state was growing more turkeys than could be consumed by the local population. Since the turkeys were too bulky and perishable to cram into wagons, the farmers literally walked the birds to market, 10,000 at a time. They employed a team of 100 drovers to keep them together on the 200-mile journey. That may have been the original turkey trot. In the South, the first colonists found the land teeming with turkeys. The bird was so popular that the Natchez Indians named the eighth month of their 13-month calendar the Moon of the Turkey. Capt. John Smith told of the Indians bringing him turkeys when he first arrived at Jamestown. William Bryd wrote in 1737 that a large fat turkey-hen which weighs from thirty to forty and even more pounds could be had in Virginia for 24 to 30 pence. For a considerable time after the colonists arrived in the East, all the turkeys were wild. The Indians had never bothered to domesticate the bird, as it was easily harvested with a bow and arrow. In the Southwest, on the other hand, the turkey was domesticated by the Indians, who were not as nomadic as the eastern and Plains Indians. The Southwest Indians lived mostly in pueblo villages. For several years after independence, Benjamin Franklin advocated that the turkey become our national bird instead of the eagle. I wish the eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country, he wrote to his daughter Sarah Bache in 1784. He is a bird of bad moral character. Like those among men who live by sharpening and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America. Although turkeys were used for food, it was the production of feathers, rather than meat, that led to domesticating the turkey. Several Indian tribes long had raised turkeys for their plumes, which were used in headdresses and clothing ornamentation. Even until the mid-1900s, turkeys were judged at agricultural fairs for their plumage. Only about 60 years ago did the meat of the turkey became the dominant factor in turkey breeding. Today, it is not the wonderful roasted meat of the turkey that catches everyones attention, but the type of dressing or stuffing that accompanies the bird. The former is baked in a separate pan, and the latter is stuffed into the cavity of the bird. Either way, regardless of the stuffings ingredients, it is as traditional as the roasted bird itself. Happy Thanksgiving and lets not forget to give thanks for what we have in this great country. Church of the Highlands was holding a prayer gathering on Monday night for those involved in the horrific bus crash in the community. Beginning at 8:45 p.m., at Facebook.com/DrJeremyRoberts, lead pastor, will go through a process of leading the greater Tennessee Valley in prayer for the families of the six children who were killed plus many more who are in the hospital. All in the community and around the world are invited to join in on the prayer gathering on Facebook. After announcing last week its plans to purchase the site and improve parking downtown, the Charlottesville City Council has officially adopted a $2.85 million purchase agreement to acquire a nearly half-acre parcel on Market Street. The parcel, which envelops 801 and 805 Market Street, includes the Guadalajara Mexican Restaurant and the Lucky Seven convenience store. According to online property records, the parcel is owned by PJB Market LLC and assessed for $1,443,700. At a press conference last week, Councilor Bob Fenwick said other parties had been interested in the site, and that market forces dictated the price. Asked about the difference between the assessed value and purchase price, Councilor Kathy Galvin said assessed property values tend to lag behind market values by about three years. At Mondays meeting, City Attorney Craig Brown said the purchase price was the result of good faith negotiations that included a series of offers and counter-offers. The city will draw from a $4 million capital improvement plan contingency fund for the acquisition. Officials said last week they hope to develop the site to expand public parking downtown, preferably by a few hundred spaces enough to also accommodate the potential expansion of the Albemarle County court system. The county is still considering whether it should move its court system to the county to boost economic development elsewhere. Until a plan is finalized for the soon-to-be acquired site, both businesses next year will pay an annual rent of slightly more than $126,000, according to a city staff report, which says the city anticipates a positive revenue flow from the properties. Based on the current appraisal, Brown said the real property tax for both locations in 2016 is estimated to be $13,700. Last week, City Manager Maurice Jones said it could be three to five years before the redevelopment process begins. Brown said the city will need to honor the businesses existing leases, which run through 2021. Per the city staff report, a public-private mixed-use development is a possible option for site. The development could incorporate an adjacent surface parking lot which the city and county co-own. At one point, the site had been studied for a potential parking facility. The two parcels cover about an acre of downtown real estate. Saying that the city had partnered with the county to buy the surface lot almost a decade ago, Brown commended City Council for having the hindsight to identify opportunities that give the city flexibility and options. Brown said that all options are on the table at this point, whether that be the development of a public utility or a public-private project that includes the city-county property. He added that the existing businesses could be invited to remain at the location in a new development. In any case, Fenwick said that the employees of both businesses will not be impacted. They will not lose a job. The development is far in its future, he said. This gives the city a lot of leverage and say in how that property will be used which the workers would have not had if a private developer came and bought it. The city is expecting to close the acquisition deal in January. *** Before finalizing the acquisition deal, the council held two public hearings tying up loose ends of the now-completed U.S. 250 Bypass project. Almost two years after the new bypass opened to traffic, the city will refund the Virginia Department of Transportation $1.6 million, which it had provided the city for water and sewer utility betterment projects. According to city spokeswoman Miriam Dickler, the city made improvements to sewer and water infrastructure after state contractors broke ground on the approximately $30 million road project. However, staff recently found that betterment projects are not eligible for reimbursement. Before the council Monday evening, Tony Edwards, the citys development services manager, said the city would have done the work whether or not the state would have provided the funding as part of the road project. It was my understanding that these were going to be eligible for reimbursement. And the state thought so too, Edwards said. We identified it and brought it to their attention, he said about the overpayment. He said the refund will not have an impact on the city budget because the city had not officially appropriated the state funding. A public hearing on that issue and an appropriation of $715,000 from the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority were held. The funding from the authority is expected to offset part of what the city now owes to VDOT, according to a staff report. More than 3,000 acres of woods and meadow are burning in Central Virginia, pitting firefighters against nature in Nelson and Amherst counties and creating hazy, smoky air conditions in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. As of Wednesday afternoon, nearly 500 acres were ablaze near Lovingston and 2,700 acres on fire in Amherst County, officials said. The U.S. Forest Service joined the Virginia Department of Forestry on Tuesday in hopes of containing a wildfire burning in the George Washington National Forest and private lands around the Mount Pleasant National Scenic Area in Amherst County. The Forest Service sent a team of fire management experts from Montana to help plan an extended attack and ongoing tactics to get the fire under control. The fire was discovered on Saturday evening and grew to about 2,700 acres by Tuesday afternoon after Sundays strong winds and continued low humidity fed the fires spread. Firefighters continued on Tuesday to create fire lines using hand tools and bulldozers. Helicopters also dropped water on the fire and additional ground firefighters were sent to the fire command post in Buena Vista. The fires cause is under investigation. The Mount Pleasant National Scenic Area is closed to public entry while the fire is being fought. By noon Tuesday, a brush fire that began Sunday night in Lovingston had spread to 450 acres, according to Nelson County Emergency Services Coordinator Jaime Miller. Miller said the fire was about 20 percent contained and was not threatening structures. Fire managers were confident no residents in the vicinity needed to be evacuated, Miller said. Miller said a couple of residences nearby were threatened by the fire for a short period Sunday evening, but that threat passed. The cause of the fire has not been released. There is currently a fire ban in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests and building, maintaining, or using a fire, campfire or stove fire is prohibited. Nelson County on Monday declared a local emergency and issued a ban on all open-air outdoor burning, including burning of any brush, grass, leaves, or other vegetation. The ban went into effect at 2 p.m. Monday and will remain in effect until the area receives a significant rainfall that decreases fire risk. In addition to the ban in Nelson, burn bans currently are in effect in a number of locations throughout the state. The Blue Ridge Parkway, which includes Nelson and Amherst counties, also recently issued a burn ban due to extremely dry conditions until further notice. Shenandoah National Park issued a ban on Monday due to exceptionally dry conditions and the potential for extreme fire behavior The Albemarle County Fire Marshals Office is also asking that people refrain from open burning until safer conditions prevail. Del. Rob Bell has ended his campaign to become Virginias next attorney general, saying in a statement Monday that he needed to turn his focus back to his family. Bell, R-Albemarle, posted on his campaign site Monday that as the father of two young children, one of whom has special needs, the current school year has brought significant new challenges that require his personal and immediate attention. Despite my best efforts, it has become clear to me that I cant possibly fulfill my responsibilities as a father while making a statewide run, Bell, 49, wrote. Bell could not be reached by phone Monday. In the post, Bell said he intends to return donations submitted to his campaign, and that he will continue his work in the House of Delegates, where he has served since 2002. He added that he looks forward to strongly supporting the Republican ticket, especially against [incumbent Attorney General] Mark Herring, a Democrat. With Bells decision, only two Republicans remain in the race for the GOP nomination Virginia Beach attorney Chuck Smith and Richmond attorney John Adams. In a posting on Facebook, Smith stated that he admired Bells decision to put his family first and foremost. I have seen him as a formidable opponent and admire his determination and hard work, not just in his campaign, but over the years of service in representing Virginians in the General Assembly, Smith wrote. I am certain that Rob will continue his fight against the derision of American and Virginian principles and values, and will continue his tireless work for all of us. I salute you Rob Bell. Adams similarly praised Bell for having fought tirelessly for conservative causes in his work as a delegate. I have gotten to know him well out on the trail, and my respect for him has only continued to grow, Adams wrote in a news release. He is a superb public servant, and a fine man. Echoing Bells own sentiments about ousting Herring, Adams wrote that he will draw on the example Rob has set as a tenacious and relentless fighter in the battle to win back the attorney generals office and seek Bells advice and counsel in his own campaign. The states Republican Party chairman, John Whitbeck, weighed in on the development Monday, saying in a statement that he was saddened that Virginians will not be able to back Bell for attorney general, but said he was heartened by the deep bench of candidates still available. A tireless public servant. A champion for liberty. A great litigator, Whitbeck said. All of these are accurate descriptions of Del. Rob Bell, but none fit quite as well as this: a fantastic human being whom Im glad to know and call a friend. Speaking for the Albemarle County Republican Committee, Chairman Elliott Harding also expressed sympathy for Bells decision. Rob has always been a wonderful representative for Albemarle County, and were happy and pleased and proud to continue having him serve us in the General Assembly, he said. We look forward to still having him in that role, and fundamentally support and respect his decisions and choices. Looking forward, Harding said the local Republican committee will stand behind whoever grabs the GOP nomination, be Smith or Adams two very strong individuals with great records, he said or someone else. Whoever we end up choosing as our nominee we look forward to coming out with the best candidate and beating Herring in 2017, he said. Bell won his seat as the 58th Districts delegate in 2001, beating out Democrat Charles S. Martin by a 20-point margin, and retained it in the seven elections that followed, five of which were uncontested. In December 2011, Bell announced his bid to become the 2013 Republican nominee for Virginias attorney general, but lost the nomination to state Sen. Mark Obenshain, who won by a 55 to 45 margin at a statewide convention. Bell currently chairs the Virginia State Crime Commission, of which Obenshain is vice chairman. Albemarle County authorities have charged three people in a robbery that occurred early Sunday morning. Arun Turay, 19, and Kalton Payne, 18, both of Albemarle, and Djimon Spann, 18, of Thomasville, North Carolina, have been charged with armed robbery and using a firearm while committing a felony. Turay and Spann were arrested by county police Sunday night, while Payne was taken into custody early Monday by Danville police officers. The charges were filed following an investigation into the report of an armed robbery that occurred between 2 and 3 a.m. Sunday in the 4300 block of Ivy Road. Police said the robbery was an isolated incident that involved a male victim who was injured and taken to Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital for treatment. The trio also is connected to a larceny from a Woodbrook-area business and a series of car break-ins in the Forest Lakes community, police said. Those larcenies are still under investigation. Anyone with information about the crimes is asked to call county police at (434) 296-5807 or Crime Stoppers at (434) 977-4000. Forest Lakes residents also are encouraged to call the county police if they discover their vehicles were rummaged through. The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office offers the following tips to make "Black Friday" enjoyable and safe for everyone. Remember, during the upcoming Holidays, especially Black Friday, thousands of people will converge on our local shopping venues. It is important to protect yourself from unnecessary thefts and safety incidents. Driving Precautions 1. For those who will be driving to various shopping venues, especially those who will begin shopping in the early hours of the night, please do not drive intoxicated. 2. Drive safely and be prepared for traffic delays, especially in and around areas where shopping malls are located. 3. Do not run red-lights at storefront intersections and watch out for pedestrian crosswalks. 4. Keep children secure in car seats even if just driving across a parking lot from one store to another. Parking Lot Precautions 1. Always lock your vehicle (even while parked at home) 2. Try to shop with a friend or family member especially when shopping at hours late in the night. 3. Do not leave any firearms unattended in your car either at home or while away from your residence. 4. Hold your childs hand and keep them controlled in the parking lot. 5. Check the back seat of your car before getting into your vehicle. 6. If you are concerned with walking to your car if you are alone, always ask store/mall security if they would escort you and your items to your vehicle. 7. Have your keys in your hand when approaching your vehicle. 8. If you know you will have multiple packages in your car while you shop, make arrangements with a friend or family member to collect gifts throughout the day at various points so that your vehicle will remain empty of high value packages. If a friend or family member is not available to pick up your packages, it is always best to take your packages home periodically so as to keep your vehicle empty of packages. 9. For vehicles without tinted windows, always keep high value packages in your trunk. Never leave your packages such as TVs or appliances exposed in your vehicle or the bed of your truck. Shopping Precautions 1. Try to shop online whenever possible to try to avoid large waits and congested stores. 2. Avoid being the recipient of a SCAM - Always know who you are giving money to and avoid online shopping on websites you may be familiar with. Use PayPal whenever possible. 3. Do not flash cash or place your wallet in an unsecure area. 4. Women who are going to be shopping should avoid large and bulky purses. Consider keeping your cash/credit cards in a small, easily concealable wallet. 5. Women who do choose to use purses should consider keeping the strap over one shoulder to avoid snatch and grab opportunities. 6. Men should keep their wallets in zip up pockets or in their front pocket where they can easily feel if a pick-pocket is trying to steal their wallet. 7. Remember to be courteous to other shoppers and do not become confrontational. If you have an issue, please contact store security or contact your local law enforcement agency. 8. Be constantly aware of your surroundings. If you suspect suspicious activity, get your family to safety and report any and all suspicious activity to your local law enforcement agency. 9. Avoid public areas where foot traffic is difficult and exits are few. 10. Keep an eye on your children at all times. Stores can be chaotic and children can get lost quickly. 11. Do not buy more packages than you can safely carry on your own. 12. Keep copies of your online receipts and all in-store receipts. 13. Always double check each time you use your wallet, credit card or check book that it is secure after purchases. Shopping Precautions with Children 1. Do not leave children unattended in any store for any unspecified amount of time. 2. Teach children to know who they can ask in a store for assistance such as mall security and store staff. 3. Give them a card with your contact information. 4. Keep an up to date photograph of your child with you should they get lost. Holiday SCAMS 1. Remember to only give money to legitimate charitable organizations you know and recognize. 2. Never send money to an organization over the phone 3. The IRS nor the HCSO will never contact you via phone asking for money always by mail 4. Do not purchase money orders to send to organizations who claim you have won something or must reserve your prize. 5. Always use PayPal whenever possible to protect your purchases and account information. I believe that the intimidating, unprofessional behavior of the University of Virginia police accused of yelling "Make America great again" to students on Election Night likely stems in part from the deep-seated fear and insecurity of many in America particularly white men. Their fear is a response to what noted demographer William H. Frey calls the "demographic shift in America." In his book Diversity Explosion: How New Demographics are Remaking America, Frey points out that in 2011, for the first time in the history of our country, the number of non-white babies born in the U.S. exceeded the number of white babies born. Following this demographic trend, soon the majority of American children will be Hispanics, blacks, Asian and other nonwhite races; and in about three decades, whites will constitute a minority of all Americans. An irresponsible giddiness seems to have erupted unchecked in the wake of Trump's election. Even our local NBC 29 news station posted an early morning-after Facebook piece showing the newly elected president with the caption Make America White Again. This post was immediately removed with a profuse apology when viewers called it to the attention of the management. Nevertheless, its impact was deeply felt by many who happened to see it before its removal. Any UVa police officer responsible should be seriously disciplined and/or dismissed as should the NBC 29 staff responsible for the offensive Make America White Again Facebook post. [One officer recently took responsibility for the act and resigned, the UVa Police Department reports; two other officers were deemed not responsible.] All those who are guided by a policy of professionalism within their jobs should be strictly held to that standard. Simply put, you act professional on the job. On your own time at home or with your friends you are free to act like a bigot. How can members of a university police department, whose primary responsibility is campus safety, be allowed to harass and mock the very students and employees they are entrusted to protect? M. Rick Turner Charlottesville M. Rick Turner is president of the Albemarle-Charlottesville NAACP. Baker Donelson hosted a Long Term Care Symposium for executives and general counsel in the long term care industry on November 10-11. The Symposium, presented by Baker Donelson's Long Term Care Industry Service Team, examined critical issues facing the long term care industry through a program exclusively designed for industry executives and in-house counsel. Attendees included industry leaders from more than 48 companies. During the Symposium, industry leaders and Baker Donelson attorneys covered a range of topics, including: Post-Election View What the Election Means for Long Term Care Providers What Every Provider Needs to Know About Department of Justice Investigations Under the Elder Justice Task Force Hot Employment Law Issues in Long Term Care Financing Capital Markets, HUD, EB-5 Best Practices for Partnering with Hospice Providers Managing Risk in Today's Challenging Environment Build or Acquire The Working Traps of Each Telemedicine and HIPAA HITECH Critical Bankruptcy Concepts for Owners and Operators The event also included a panel session on trial tactics for long term care providers and another featuring the nation's leading long term care plaintiffs' attorneys discussing how they decide to take a case against a long term care facility. Christy T. Crider, head of the Firm's Long Term Care Industry Service Team, said, "The Symposium is designed to provide long term care operators from across the country with the latest on legal and compliance issues facing their industry. The fact that this event continues to grow each time we host it shows that the long term care industry is focused on implementing best practices for the management of their facilities and the care of their patients." By first Thanksgiving Day, no, I do not mean the harvest thanksgiving meal which the Separatist colonists of New Plymouth shared uncomfortably with their Wampanoag neighbors. Nor do I mean any of the thanksgivings proclaimed on a one-time basis by a U.S. President after that. In this case, the First Thanksgiving Day means the inaugural event of those that have taken place every third or fourth Thursday of November since. At the height of the Civil War, in the aftermath of losses of Chancellorsville and Chickamauga as well as the horrific Union casualties at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that the last Thursday of November would be a day of national thanksgiving every year. Essentially, it was a public relations move to distract a war-weary population. The Confederacy held a similar observance on 21 August of that year for similar reasons. In that case, the observance in Chattanooga was interrupted by the guns of John T. Wilders brigade on Stringers Ridge. * * * * * I first got interested in the battles the day after the big battles on 25 November when Becky Eaves, historian to East Brainerd and to Concord Baptist Church, told me about how her brothers used to gather up minie balls by the bucket-load to sell as fishing weights. They gathered them from all over the farm which their parents had inherited from the Blackwell ancestors. I became even more so after moving to Grays Drive and realizing the Army of Tennessee had probably retreated right through my front yard. * * * * * Little did Lincoln know when he made that proclamation on 3 October 1863 that on the day so designated, 26 November that year, the Confederate Army of Tennessee would be fleeing in desparation and somewhat disarray after its disastrous defeat on Missionary Ridge at the hands of the Union Army of the Cumberland. According to reports in the Official Record of the War Between the States and letters from participating soldiers, there were several engagements fought during the retreat that day. The day before, Hardees Corps of the Army of Tennessee had just been settling down to celebrate Patrick Cleburnes victory at the Battle of Tunnel Hill, Tn. over William T. Sherman at at the northern end of the ridge, when the Confederate line on Missionary Ridge broke in the face of the charge by the Army of the Cumberland against its front and the sudden belated appearance Hookers corps from the Army of the Potomac at Ross Gap. Having saved the day, or so it thought, Cleburnes Division now found itself assigned rearguard for the withdrawal to Chickmauga Station after having fought in heavy battle from 9 am to 4:00 pm against a vastly superior force. In fact, Hardees entire corps had remained intact and held its positions, withdrawing in good order starting at 7:45 pm beginning with Cheathams Division, then Walkers Division, then Stevensons Division, and finally Cleburnes Division. Smiths Brigade of Cleburnes Division, which had born he brunt of the worst of the fighting, did not leave Tunnel Hill until 9:00 pm. * * * * * The first post-Missionary Ridge engagement occurred that evening, between forward elements of Philip Sheridans 2nd Division of the 4th Corps of the Army of the Cumberland and unknown elements of the Army of Tennessee, including artillery. After leaving the ridge, Sheridans division followed the trail over the ridge well past nightfall. In that time, Birds Mill Road followed Talley Road until it veered north, then ran down what is now Old Mission Road (referring to the former Brainerd Mission). At the point where the road ran over Talley Hill, Confederates from the rearguard had set up a number of cannon and a line of infantry, which slowed Sheridans pursuit enough that he and his division had to stop for the night at Birds Mill and the old mission. * * * * * Chickamauga Station, the depot of which stood across the road from the airport terminal, was the designated rendezvous point for the retreating forces after Gen. Braxton Braggs catastrophic loss at Missionary Ridge. From there the next day, the Army of Tennessee began withdrawing in two columns ideally following two separate routes. Maj. Gen. John Breckenridge commanded one column, with Walkers Division (under Brig. Gen. States Rights Gist) as its rear guard, while Lt. Gen. William Hardee commanded the other, with Cleburnes Division as its rear guard. (Col. John W.) Grigsbys Brigade of Kellys Division of (Maj. Gen. Joseph) Wheelers Cavalry Corps divided to protect the two rearguards. (Brig. Gen. Lucius) Polks Brigade of Cleburnes Division and (Brig. Gen. George) Maneys Brigade of Stevensons Division, temporarily detached to Cleburnes Division, were detailed to destroy the vast commissary stores at the depot, but there was too much. (Brig. Gen. Joseph) Lewis Orphan Brigade out of Kentucky, part of Breckenridges Division but also seconded to Cleburne, formed the rear of the rear guard, covering for the other two brigades. * * * * * The vanguard of the Union pursuit was Brig. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis 2nd Division of the 12th Corps of the Army of the Cumberland. Behind him came the 11th Corps of the Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. Oliver Howard (for whom Howard High School and Howard Elementary are named). When he learned from scouts the troops of the Confederate reaguard were the Kentuckians of Lewis Brigade, Davis made his 1st Brigade under James D. Morgan, also Kentuckians, the forward element of his division. The first encounter between the two opposing units of Kentuckians took place at a hill north of Chickamauga Station, the same which Polks Brigade of Cleburnes Division had held the day before. After a brief skirmish, the Confederate Kentuckians withdrew to Chickamauga Station, where soldiers of Maneys and Gists Brigade were vainly attempt to burn everything while stuffing as much food as they could wherever they could. When Morgans Brigade reached the outskirts of Chickamauga around high noon, the Orphan Brigade covered the withdrawal of their in the second encounter of the day. Once Maneys and Gists Brigades were gone, the Orphans withdrew to Milliken Ridge. On two knobs on Milliken Ridge, Dupree Hill to the north and Stein Hill on the south, soldiers of Cleburnes Division had that summer built two redoubts overlooking the station. Here, the Orphans made their third stand against their fellow Kentuckians, then withdrew. The fourth and final stand of the Orphan Brigade that day took place in Hickory Valley, which at that point ran between Milliken Ridge on the west and Concord Ridge to the east. In this, the Orphans held postions on the ridgeside while Morgans troops dug in along Hickory Creek, which the Union commanders dubbed Shepherds Run, after Margaret Shepherd, who came out from Altamede (the Shepherd mansion patterned after James Vanns Diamond Hill) to scold the Union soldiers for ruining her flowerbeds. When the Orphans withdrew again, probably along Igou Road, Davis gave the soldiers of Morgans Brigade a break. * * * * * While this was going on, Howard moved his corps to the left of Davis division to sweep wide and prevent straggling Confederates from escaping. To cover his own left flank, Howard used the 55th Ohio Volunteers (2nd Brigade, 2nd Division) under Capt. Charles B. Gambee. Gambee and his troops encountered the Orphan Brigades 4th Kentucky Infantry under Col. Thomas Thompson at Tyners Station. After a brief encounter from which their opponents swiftly withdrew, the 55th Ohio captured a 1st lieutenant, four privates, and two teamsters. Howard then moved the corps south down the valley roughly along whats now known as Silverdale and Gunbarrel Roads. * * * * * The largest engagement of the day, and one which could definitely be called a proper battle, due to the number of soldiers involved, took place in Concord, or East Brainerd proper. From the descriptions in various letters and reports of the commanders, this battle can only have taken place east of Concord Ridge, near Mackey Branch. Sam Watkins of Co. Aytch in Maneys Brigade refers to the stream as Cat Creek while the Union officers called it Shepherds Run under the mistaken impression or memory it was the same as Hickory Creek. Several references to the encounters proximity to Graysville, Georgia (about a mile) leave no other option. The Union Army Cyclopedia of Battles, in fact, gives its location as Graysville, but it was clearly a bit north of there. Facing their opponents across the creek and fields from a stretch of woods in hastily built ifle pits and breastworks, Maneys Brigade lined up in what they thought was going to be a suicidal last stand facing Davis division. At the last moment before the battle, units of Grigsbys Brigade (its three Kentucky regiments) appeared, and settled down to fight alongside Maneys troops dismounted. They were supported by one of the Mississippi field artillery units, most likely (by process of elimination) Stanfords Mississippi Battery. Seeing the opposition, Davis sent forward his 2nd and 3rd Brigades under Brig. Gen. John Beatty and Col. Daniel McCook respectively. Supporting them from Concord Ridge were guns from Battery I of the 2nd Illinois Light Artillery. Davis kept Morgans Kentuckians in reserve. After the engagement had begun, Howards 11th Corps arrived from the north. Howard sent his 2nd Division under Brig. Gen. Adolph Steinwehr to Davis right and put his 3rd Division under Maj. Gen. Carl Schurz in reserve. The fight lasted but an hour as darkness was falling, and at dusk the Confederates gratefully withdrew. Brig. Gen. Maney was severely wounded in this encounter and remained out of action until returning to command a division under Hardee during the Atlanta Campaign. * * * * * While the above engagements were taking place, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hookers command, including the 12th Corps of the Army of the Potomac under Maj. Gen. Henry Slocum, the 14th Corps of the Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. John Palmer (minus Davis division), and the 1st Division of the 15th Corps of the Army of the Tennessee under Brig. Gen. Peter Osterhaus, proceeded from Ross Gap toward Ringgold down the Old Federal Road hoping to cut off Braggs Confederates. Destroyed bridges and flooded creeks caused serious delays. While Hooker was stalled at Red House Ford while a bridge was built over the flooded West Chickamauga Creek, he sent cavalry across which encountered Liddells Brigade of Cleburnes Division, commanded by Col. Daniel Govan, which easily turned them back. When the road to Graysville divided from that to Ringgold, Palmer took his corps to the former while Hooker maintained his path to the latter. Palmers vanguard was his 1st Division under Brig. Gen. Richard Johnson. Johnson sent his 1st Brigade under Brig. Gen. William Carlin toward Graysville while his 2nd Brigade under Col. William Stoughton went toward Indian Springs, the area around the crossroads of the way to Graysville and the way to Ringgold. In the dark of early evening, Carlins brigade stumbled into Gists Brigade, then attempting to cross Chickamauga River at Graysville. Some fighting ensued, but in the dark no one was hit, and the Confederates were able to escape and ford the river upstream. Meanwhile, Stoughtons brigade surprised pickets from Stewarts Division near the crossroads of the Lafayette and Ringgold roads, capturing some along with their guns, and causing the rest to flee in disarray. As for Hookers column, Brig. Gen. John Gearys 2nd Division of the 12th Corps of the Army of the Potomac encountered Breckenridges rearguard (i.e., Walkers Division), including (Capt. T.B.) Fergusons South Carolina Battery, at Peavine Creek, and a skirmish ensued, resulting in some soldiers and artillery captured. After crossing Peavine Creek and Chickamauga Swamp, Osterhaus division encountered what appeared to be a large body of Confederates encamped and entrenched atop what Geary calls the Pigeon Hills. The two generals formed their troops into lines-of-battle and commenced firing as they advanced. By the time they reached the summit, the camp was deserted. * * * * * Related to the actions of these days was the raid of the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Cavalry Division attached to the Army of the Cumberland, then under Col. Eli Long. On 24 November, Maj. Gen. George Thomas, commander of the Army of the Cumberland, dispatched Col. Long and his troops to raid and destroy along the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad. That day, as reported Lt. Col. Edward Kitchell of the 9th Illinois Mounted Infantry, the unit involved, troops burned two caissons and tore up the rails at several points near Tyner Station (Thomas reported up the chain that they had burned the station and tore up all the tracks). Later in the day, they encountered a wagon train coming out of Ooltewahand destroyed it. On 25 November, while the Battles of Tunnel Hill, Tn., and of Missionary Ridge were being fought to the west, Long and his brigade captured Cleveland, Tennessee. On 26 November, Long sent the 3rd Ohio Cavalry under Lt. Col. Charles Seidel to search and destroy along the railroad to the Hiwassee River, Maj. Thomas Patten and the 1st Ohio Cavalry to do the same along the railroad to Dalton, and Maj. George Dobb and the 4th Ohio Cavalry back toward Chattanooga for the same. At Charleston, Seidel found troops of (Brig. Gen. John H.) Kellys Division of Wheelers Cavalry Corps, which he drove across the Hiwassee River into Calhoun. There, Kellys command, including (Col. William) Wades Brigade and all of the divisions artillery, was firmly entrenched. Knowing when to quit, Seidel withdrew to Cleveland. * * * * * The next day, 27 November, Cleburnes Division held Taylors Gap at Ringgold, Georgia, against Hookers entire command, though the main units involved on the Union side were the divisions of Osterhaus and Geary. While Cleburne and his troops kept Hookers men thus tied up, the rest of the Army of Tennessee retreated from Catoosa Station to Dalton. Cleburne and his men later followed, stopping at Tunnel Hill. The same morning, Kelly attacked Seidels troops at Cleveland, driving out the federals, then withdrew to Dalton the very same day, to join the rest of the Army of Tennessee. Chuck Hamilton Jesse's Messy Mind Show, a "crazy solo show about living with mental illness" will be held Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at Barking Legs Theater. The performance is written, directed and performed by Jessie Knowles. She uses original acoustic music and different characters and voices. This show gives audiences an idea of what it might feel like to look at the world through the lens of a manic episode or a schizophrenic state. For reservations and more information visit Messymindshow.com. Brittney Ikard is confident that when she graduates from Dalton State College she will be prepared to enter the local workforce as an industrial chemist.Chemistry is a big part of the industry in Northwest Georgia, and for years local businesses have had to look elsewhere for college graduates to fill those roles. With the help and input from local industry, Dalton State has created an industrial chemistry program within the chemistry major that focuses on making sure students are job-ready when they graduate.Most of our students who will graduate from here will go to work in or near the Dalton area, saidWoody Mader, who heads the industrial chemistry program at the College.In Dalton the realemployment opportunities are in carpet companies or chemical companies who provide services for the carpet companies. We go into the carpet mills and the companies and show students how this is being done and why chemistry is important in this area.The program allows students to become familiar with the vocabulary needed to enter this profession and allows them to see what they will be doing on the job, while giving the industry a chance to partner with Dalton State to ensure graduates will be ready to enter open positions.I like chemistry, and these classes are showing me how to apply this to my life, Ms. Ikard said. Its interesting seeing all the different parts of the carpet mills and chemical plants around here and how the information goes from being on a board in a classroom to real life. And one of the things I love about this is its not just making carpet. I can work in polymers or water application.The idea to begin an industrial chemistry program for students seeking out a bachelors of science in chemistry came out of meetings with industry professionals, said Randall Griffus, dean of the School of Science, Technology and Mathematics. Two separate groups of professionals, a STEM advisory council for the College and the Floor 360s Alliance for Innovation and Sustainability, have discussed the need for a program geared toward industrial chemistry in the community.We are very pleased to have a relationship with Dalton States industrial chemistry program, said Dave Driggers, vice president of operations for MFG Chemical. Our local floor covering, chemical and other industries engage chemistry every day in their operations. Dalton State is providing a valuable resource for supporting some of the needs for local industry.Phoenix Chemical, ArrowStar and MFG Chemical have given Dalton State financial support to help create the program, Mr. Griffus said.Unique about this program is that students are exposed to chemistry in practical industrialapplications, Mr. Driggers said. Our company periodically hosts plant tours for students to see a chemical manufacturing facility and discuss the roles that chemists and engineers provide in our operations. In addition, we have hired students and graduates to fill positions as process and research chemists and quality control technicians.Dalton State has impressive laboratory facilities with state of the art instrumentation. We are currently working with the staff to provide technical services to our organization while allowing students to utilize some of the instrumentation to provide analyses to support some of our development projects. We are very fortunate to have this program in our community. MFG Chemical is looking forward to developing our working relationship with Dalton State.Mr. Griffus said he hopes other industries come on board and partner with Dalton State. There isopportunity for companies to use the instruments in Peeples Hall - such as the nuclear magneticresonance spectrometer, the gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer and the differential scanning calorimeter - as long as it also benefits students.This is a great opportunity for both our students and our industry, Mr. Griffus said. We hope this program will grow and more industries will see the benefit in having our students in their businesses before they graduate. We want to do anything we can to strengthen our relationship with the community and help better prepare our students to be work ready when they graduate. I cant say enough about Woody and what he has done for this program.Dr. Mader, who holds a doctorate in chemistry, spent many years working for DuPont and retired from MFG Chemical in Dalton.I have been helping and guest lecturing at Dalton State since it was still a junior college, he said. This is a chance to do something that can end with some real benefits for our community. Our students will fit into the industries here and hopefully the industries will look to Dalton State students first when taking applications for a position.Students who finish the industrial chemistry program should be easier to train on the job, Dr. Mader said.The program is only two courses currently. They are upper level electives for chemistry majors.I felt like it would be smart to understand the terminology used in industries, Ms. Ikard said. And I really think industry will be a good first job for me. I hope this program gives me a chance to get my foot in the door and be a good worker when I graduate. The Walker County Chamber of Commerce is hosting the Grand Re-Opening and Ribbon Cutting for the Southern Hanger Boutique on Friday, Dec. 2 at 4 p.m., with ribbon cutting at 4:30 p.m. The new location is at 1113 N. Main St. in LaFayette, in the old Food Lion shopping center behind Arby's. Their products include clothes, shoes, jewelry, children's dresses and accessories, and many boutique items. There will be snacks and door prizes. The Lee University TESOL Honor Society served over 75 pieces of pie as a Thanksgiving treat to English Language Center students. ELC is a program that offers free English language classes to students of the community. It is sponsored by TESOL, a major offered at Lee to prepare students for teaching English as a second language. A veteran Dalton Police Department officer had his promotion to the rank of sergeant confirmed at Tuesday mornings meeting of the Dalton Public Safety Commission. Sergeant Michael D. Houck was confirmed by a unanimous 3-0 vote of the commissioners present at Tuesdays meeting (Carlos Calderin and Kenneth Willis were not in attendance). Sergeant Houck joined the Dalton Police Department in June 2007. The first annual Christmas at the Colonnade will be held on Saturday, Dec. 10 from 10 a.m.-8 p.m. at 264 Catoosa Circle in Ringgold. Craft vendors will be on display from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Visits and photos with Santa will be held from 2-6 p.m. There will be a show, "The Muppet Christmas Carol," from 6-8 p.m. "Come join us for a day of joyous Christmas fun. We will have many craft vendors for those last minute gifts or treat yourself to some of the beautiful items for sale. Bring the kids or grandkids and enjoy our wonderfully funny Christmas movie, The Muppets Christmas Carol in the theatre. Its one that all ages will certainly enjoy," officials said. "Santa will be coming as well. Make sure the kids have their lists ready and a big smile so we can get a picture to remember the occasion." Entrance to the event is free. Admission to the movie is $2. Food will be for sale to bring into the theatre. Registration for spring semester at Cleveland State Community College is currently underway and runs through Thursday, Jan. 12, 2016 for all students. The last day to submit applications for degree seeking students is Thursday, Jan. 6, 2016, and classes for the spring semester will begin on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017. The deadline for submitting financial aid documents is Thursday, Dec. 1. "Cleveland State offers a wide variety of programs including associate of arts, associate of fine arts, associate of science and associate of applied science degree options, as well as over 25 technical certificates. There are a number of different scheduling options for working adults, as well as the Advance program, the TNeCampus, which is an online degree program, and programs for veterans. "In addition to traditional day and evening classes, there are many distance learning options available to Cleveland State students, including online and independent study courses. Another option is block scheduling, a convenient option that allows students to attend classes with the same group of students with a pre-determined class schedule for an entire year," officials said. For a complete list of programs, visit the website at www.clevelandstatecc.edu. First-time students, who are seeking a degree or a certificate, must attend a New Student Orientation, Advising and Registration session held at CSCC in order to register for the spring semester. These sessions are held prior to each fall and spring semester and are designed to familiarize students with the services, resources, and programs available at CSCC. During these sessions, students will be able to speak with their advisor and register for their classes. For more information about spring registration or to view a schedule of classes, visit mycs.cc/registration or contact the Enrollment Services Department at 423-478-6213. Senior Spotlight on Claire Koile of Elkhorn brought to you by United Republic Bank Free Access To read the Senior Spotlight Claire Koile of Elkhorn brought to you by United Republic Bank click the PDF link below. dc_split_014.pdf Antlers rally past Wolves 10-9 ELKHORN The seventh-ranked Elkhorn Antler softball team capped its regular season with a heart-stopping 10-9 home win over Elkhorn North on Sept. 29. The two teams combined for 19... Antlers use big plays to pull away from Wolves ELKHORN The fourth-ranked Elkhorn Antlers were able to outlast rival Elkhorn North in a wild shootout held at Elkhorn High School on Friday night. The two teams combined for... Top-ranked Badgers roll to a 45-7 victory BLAIR The top-ranked Bennington football team stretched its win streak to 19-straight games with a dominating 45-7 road win on Friday night over conference foe Blair. Junior punt returner... South duo hand Wolves first loss ELKHORN The Elkhorn South tennis team was defeated by the top-ranked team in Class B, the Elkhorn North Wolves on a breezy and mild Friday afternoon. The highlight of... After the success of the Datsun redi-Go, Nissan Motor India Pvt. Ltd. wants to clearly provide a distinction between its two brands Nissan and Datsun on the basis of segments. Company MD Arun Malhotra told International Business Times: We are two brands Nissan and Datsun. Nissan will be focusing on the slightly upper-end variant, technology, innovations and style, whereas Datsun will emphasise on the small car segment. Nissan (including Datsun) sold 6,108 units in the previous month against 3,246 vehicles retailed in October last year, registering a remarkable YoY growth of 88 percent. For the April-October 2016 period, the company has posted overall growth of 54 percent with sales of 35,147 units (April-October 2015: 22,180). This positive movement can be attributed largely to the warm customer response to the Datsun redi-GO. It could prove to be just what the doctor ordered for Datsun, given how dismal the sales of the GO and the GO+ have been. But the company believes that it will take time for Indians to warm up to, because it is not the most-known brand in the country, but it will get there soon. Talking about Nissan, it is expected to drive in a number of cars to India by 2020, including some eco-friendly offerings too. We also have electric vehicle in our portfolio, but in terms of infrastructure, cost and taxation, India is still at an early stage. But sometimes the time is not right. Probably we will be the first to bring a hybrid SUV to India by March 2017 the Nissan X-Trail, Malhotra added. Source: CarDekho.com MV Augusta has recently made its official entry into the Indian market with three of its exotic superbikes - the F4, F3 800 and the Brutale 1090. The Italian motorcycle manufacturer MV Agusta has been in a financial crisis for quite some time now. However, this might end soon as the company has found a new Russian investor in the form of the Black Ocean group. The details of the funding aren't out yet, but an official statement is expected soon. Headed by Oliver Ripley and Timur Sardarov, Black Ocean is one of the most well-known investment companies, especially for funding a UK-based jet chartering company, the Ocean Sky. Apart from the restructuring of its Rs 361 crore debt, the new funding will also help MV Agusta in regaining the vigour in its production and R&D operations. Like we said, it is no secret that MV Agusta, one of the most exotic superbikes manufacturers in the world, has a very unstable financial position. The company is at a condition where some of its suppliers are stopping the supply of components, demanding partial payment before restarting the supply. The high-performance wing of Mercedes-Benz, AMG, also has some stakes in the Italian motorcycle brand. However, it's not clear if the new investment will be the end of this partnership or not. The funding from Black Ocean has come up with a new hope for the MV Agusta fans that the brand is not going to shut anytime soon. The company has recently made its official entry into the Indian market with three of its exotic superbikes - the F4, F3 800 and the Brutale 1090. Also, the company has recently announced the availability of its limited edition F3 800 RC race bike replica in the country, while the launch of the new Brutale 800 has been scheduled for early next year. MV Agusta has a strategic partnership with Kinetic Group of India for marketing and sales of its motorcycles in the country via their Motoroyale dealerships. Motoroyale is a chain of high-end motorcycle stores from the Kinetic Group and the company has 3 such showrooms in the country as of now. Source: Bikedekho.com As part of its growth strategy, Britannia Industries would have a mix of both in-house and contract manufacturings. Bengaluru: Bakery and dairy products maker Britannia Industries is aiming to double its turnover in the next four to five years and also planning to expand presence overseas in a big way as part of its growth strategy. The company is looking to expand its business in the countries having similar business environment like that of India and is also open to inorganic growth if it gets a right opportunity. "Our first step would be the countries, which have environment similar to our. The strategy would be to seed in our products in these countries, establish a little bit of space and then start to think of a manufacturing facility there," Britannia Industries Managing Director Varun Berry told reporters here. In the meantime, if some good opportunities for acquisitions come up in some countries, then "we would look that as well", he added. "Today we are not a food company. We are broadly a bakery company only which is also into dairy. We truly want to be a food company as we go forward. It's our vision to make Britannia not just an Indian food company but a global food company. We want our footprint across the globe and have made some move across that direction and a lot more would be coming in future," Berry said. The company, which had a revenue of Rs 7,947.90 crore in FY2015-16, is aiming to double it in next four to five years on back of continued growth in current business and new categories in which it is planning to enter. "We would like to double the turnover in next four to five years... Bulk of the growth would come from the current categories and all the new categories would add to the growth as well," he added. The company is working on multiple categories. The company also has investment plans for this. "I cannot give numbers right now, because it's not the fully honed up plans at this point of time, but there would be investment... There would be substantial investments which we would have to make to get into new categories..." Berry said. As part of its growth strategy, Britannia Industries would have a mix of both in-house and contract manufacturings. "It would be probably 60:40 for in-house and contract manufacturing," he said. Britannia is currently present in 70 countries across the globe but its manufacturing activities are in India and Middle East only. The company is putting a facility in the exports zone in Gujarat, which would be ready soon. The company today inaugurated its new R&D centre at Bengaluru, set up with an investment of Rs 200 crore, which is adjacent to its manufacturing facility in Bidadi. Mumbai: Shares of IRB Infrastructure Developers slumped nearly four per cent today after the company posted a five per cent decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 142.1 crore for the quarter ended September. The company had posted a net profit after tax and minority interest of Rs 149.6 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal, IRB Infrastructure Developers said in a BSE filing. Reacting to the numbers, the stock fell 3.64 per cent to end the day at Rs 182.45 on BSE. On NSE, shares of the company plunged 3.97 per cent to the settle at Rs 182.25. On the volume front, 5.25 lakh shares changed hands on BSE and over 44 lakh shares on NSE. The company is into development of various infrastructure projects in the road sector through several special purpose vehicles. IRB Infrastructure, along with subsidiaries, has built or operated and maintained around 9,295 lane kms of road length so far. New Delhi: Home appliances and consumer electronics company Panasonic India is "on track" to achieve Rs 10,800 crore revenue during 2016-17, a growth of over 20 per cent compared to the previous year. "This year, we have set a revenue target of Rs 10,800 crore against about Rs 8,700 crore last year, so we will be growing at over 20 per cent. "We are almost 60 per cent down the year and on track... Diwali has gone really well for the consumer space," Manish Sharma, President and CEO of Panasonic India, told PTI. He said the growth has been fuelled by robust demand for TVs and ACs -- the two segments that are "engines" of its consumer business. "Televisions have been doing well starting from this financial year. This year, the industry is witnessing a growth of over 125 per cent driven by enablers like economic growth, and consumer finance," he said. ACs saw robust demand during summers, Sharma said adding that against an industry growth rate of 7-8 per cent, the segment grew at 11 per cent for the company. Panasonic India operates across five segments consumer business, industry business, mobile phones, energy business and system solutions business. The revenue target of Rs 10,800 crore for Indian operations this year includes Rs 2,500 crore of Anchor Electricals, part of Panasonic Corporation, Sharma said. "In terms of contribution of individual businesses to the overall India sales, the largest chunk will be consumer business, followed by Anchor Electricals and mobile business running neck-to-neck, then system solutions division, industry business and the energy business, where the momentum is now building up," Sharma pointed out. The consumer business includes ACs, TV, washing machines and microwave ovens and kitchen appliances, while industry business entails devices and solutions for the manufacturing space. As part of System Solutions Division, the company focuses on products for office environment like display signages, high definition videoconferencing system, PBX and projectors. For mobile phone business, the company is eyeing revenue of Rs 2,000 crore this year, up 25 per cent over last year. "Through EMS (electronics manufacturing services) partners we have started to manufacture in India - Noida and Manesar -and are also exporting mobile phones from India," he said. The company has Research and Development units in Vietnam and Japan for development, testing, quality evaluation and compliances related to certification of mobile handsets and is conducting a feasibility study for a development facility in India. It is possible that this positive effect would soon outweigh the drag on revenue collection from lower short-term GDP growth," Fitch said. Mumbai: Fitch Ratings today said the demonetisation of old Rs 500, 1,000 notes will raise revenue for the government but warned that the positive effects of the move are unlikely to be strong and long-lasting to support credit profiles. It said the demonetisation of notes has cause short-term disruption in the economy but if it continues for longer period, there would be impact on the country's GDP growth. "The move has the potential to raise government revenue and encourage bank lending, but we believe the positive effects are unlikely to be strong and sufficiently enduring to support credit profiles," Fitch said in a report. The Centre on November 8 announced to demonetise old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in a fight against black money, fake currency and corruption. It said the withdrawal of bank notes, accounting for 86 per cent of the value of currency in circulation, has created a cash crunch, and seems to be holding back economic activity. "Consumers have not had the cash needed to complete purchases, and there have been reports of supply chains being disrupted and farmers unable to buy seeds and fertilisers for the sowing season. Time spent queueing in banks is also likely to have affected general productivity," Fitch said. The ultimate aim of the note withdrawal was to curb the use of black money, which is in line with the government's broader reform agenda. The informal sector is very large in India, accounting for over 20 per cent of GDP and 80 per cent of employment. "The move could boost government revenue to the extent that demonetisation helps to move economic activity from the informal to the formal sector, as more earnings would be declared. It is possible that this positive effect would soon outweigh the drag on revenue collection from lower short-term GDP growth," Fitch said. Government finances may also benefit from a proportion of high-denomination notes not being traded and India's sovereign credit profile would benefit from an improvement in government finances, which currently stand out as a major weakness. It said with black money not returning to the system, this potentially significant amount would be subtracted from the Reserve Bank's liabilities, and the authorities would have the option to transfer this windfall to the government. Fitch, however, said there are considerable uncertainties over the potential positive effects. Most importantly, demonetisation is a one-off event. "People that operate in the informal sector will still be able to use the new high-denomination bills and other options (like gold) to store their wealth. There are no new incentives for people to avoid cash transactions. The informal sector could soon go back to business as usual," it said. Fitch added that a surge in low-cost funding may remove a constraint on banks that prevented lending rates from keeping pace with the RBI's policy rate cuts in recent years. However, demonetisation could also affect the ability of borrowers in sectors that rely on cash transactions to service their loans, with negative effects on bank asset quality, which is why the RBI has temporarily allowed banks to give small borrowers more time to repay loans before classifying them as non-performing. Furthermore, the positive impact on funding conditions will depend on deposits remaining in banks beyond the next few months. There is nothing to prevent them being withdrawn again, it added. Mumbai: Varun Dhawan and Arjun Kapoor have been friends even before they stormed into Bollywood. And this can be seen very well in their chemistry on Koffee With Karan. Karan Johar, who knows them inside out, didn't miss any chance at getting juicy tidbits and gossip out of them. In a confessions segment, the ace filmmaker promptly asked Varun if he believes he's a bigger star than Arjun. "Yes. And he(Arjun) knows that I believe so," pat came Varun's reply. Karan then asked Arjun if he agrees with that, and the '2 States' actor, without hesitation agreed. "I know he thinks he's the bigger star," he added, as the trio broke out laughing. The two go back a long way, having gone to the same film school. Well this is one unpretentious bonhomie that we have come to love! Mumbai: Mallika Sherawat pining to be in the news constantly, got her wish when she was allegedly attacked at her posh Paris apartment on Tuesday night when she was getting home with her supposed French boyfriend (whom no one has seen). In an interview Mallika gasped to CNN, "It was extremely traumatic. No one should be made to suffer the insecurity of having their home broken into or the physical and mental abuse of such an attack." But, she added, she wont let this experience stop her from living her life the way she wants. She told CNN, "Do I get paranoid, do I get security guards around me? Do I want to do that? I want to have a normal lifeI think for women it's important to get the message out that we are not going to let this scare us or change our lives. I am more empathetic to women who live in this fear because of their circumstances or where they live. It's very humbling." After hearing her impassioned melodramatic outburst, a young actor who had a far-from-pleasant experience working with Mallika commented, She talks about leading a normal life. When has she ever led a normal life? She ran away from home as a teenager, fled from a marriage to become a Bollywood actor and was surrounded by bouncers and security men long before she became what she thought to be a star. She could barely get along with any of her Bollywood co-stars and headed West for what she thought was her real home-turf. Flopping miserably with two straight-to-DVD films (The Republic Of Love and Hiss), she now claims to be in a relationship with a French man. All the best with that one. Mallika also spoke on the attack on Kim Kardarshian in Paris. "I really feel extremely empathetic towards her, she suffered the same emotional, physical and mental trauma that I have." Panaji: 'Newton' starring National Award-winning actor Rajkummar Rao will release mid next-year, director Amit Masurkar has confirmed. Masurkar, who was present at the 10th edition of NFDC Film Bazaar to seek post-production funds for 'Newton', told PTI, "The film's final edits have been done and we're currently working on sound design and music and it would probably be done by January. We're planning to release the film mid next- year." The director, who rose to fame after helming 2014 film 'Sulemani Keeda', believes that only Rajkummar could have done justice to the character. "I thought of Rajkummar because the character was somebody, for which I needed a person, who could pull of a huge range. Plus I needed an actor of his age. The amount of energy he could send to the role I couldn't think of anybody else. "Raj is extremely dedicated guy. He is with you one hundred per cent. And, I would love to work with him in more films," he said. The movie, which also stars Pankaj Tripathi and actress Anjali Patil in the lead roles, is about rookie clerk on election duty in a conflict-ridden jungle of Central India, who tries his best to conduct free and fair voting. Besides the film stars, Masurkar has also taken a lot of local talent in the movie. "There are a lot of non-actors and local actors from Chattisgarh, who have never acted in the films before," he said. The filmmaker believes the movie will be a visual treat for audience as it has been shot in the Naxal area. "Visually the film is going to be extremely special because it is shot in naxalites area. We have never seen anything that close on the big screen before. "It's very difficult to shoot a film which is about one day in a jungle, where you have no control over light. You have to shoot a particular scene exactly at that time. So, you have to maintain continuity." The director says despite all the challenges he has been successful in completing the film because he had a great cast, who supported him throughout. Mumbai: So what if his previous relationship failed? Bhai is not someone who will lose faith in the institution of love and sit home and cry over what is long gone. Rumour factory claims that the very romantic Salman has given in to his persuasive heart that wants a Miss Amy Jackson. According to Mumbai Mirror, Khan and Jackson have developed a special bond of friendship and it is so strong that Bhai had crashed Rajnikanths 2.0 trailer launch for lady love Amy! Amy, who has worked with Sallus brother Sohail Khan in Freaky Ali, was showered with kinds words by none other than Salman Khan. Chances of these two working on his next? Oh, yes! All we can say is heart wants what it wants! The video has already gone viral across social media platforms. Mumbai: All India Bakchod rose to fame with their infamous roast of Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh, but their brand of humour always had a loyal following amongst urban millennials. They collaborated with Alia Bhatt in a hilariously self-deprecating sketch on her supposed lack of general knowledge, making her all the more popular. The likes of Irrfan Khan, Arjun Kapoor, Arnab Goswami, Karan Johar, Anurag Kashyap, collaborate dwith the unit, comprising of Tanmay Bhatt, Gursimran Khamba, Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya, making them the nationally popular unit that they are today. Their latest sketch, however, doesn't spare the frequent 'collaborators', as they take a dig at Bollywood and its insipid promotional campaigns. Bollywood, which has been belting out social media 'challenges' preceding the release of films, as a part of grating promotional campaigns, has been severely ridiculed in the sketch. The hilarity of the satire reaches its zenith when the comedians facetiously kill off every Bollywood star, in a rib-cracking twist. Well, with the sense of humour our Bollywood celebrities claim to have, it remains to be seen if they take this on their stride and in good humour. Watch the video here: Mumbai: One of the most popular reality show, Bigg Boss is finally back with its season 10. Every next episode of the show proves just how difficult it is to be locked inside on house with strangers for weeks. So far, the show's latest season hasn't quite managed to become the talk of the town, as usually it used to. However, Lopamudra Raut's recent dance performance did succeed in leaving a huge mark and get the town talking. During a task where the contestants had to impress Sunny Leone, Lopamudra set the TV screens on fire with her sizzling pole dance, while Rohan Mehra and Manu Punjabi sat there, stunned. Watch Lopamudra's dance performance below: Mumbai: Ram Charan's much awaited action thriller 'Dhruva' has passed off it censor formalities and has been give U/A certification by the board. It's very rare in Tollywood to go for censor, a month before the release and 'Dhruva' team has taken the less travelled path, which shows their confidence on the film. The film's report is already out from its censor screening and the blockbuster reports are giving a new high to the actor's fans. Ram Charan has reportedly done a lot of adventurous action sequences and electrifying dance performances in the film. His shirtless act in the movie stands out. The censor board members are heard to have appreciated the efforts put in by the team and have enjoyed the screening thoroughly. Ram Charan and Arvind Swamy's confrontation scenes during the climax sequence is said to be yet another highlight of the film. Hiphop Tamizha's tunes are currently rocking the chartbusters. Surender Reddy has helmed the project. Dhruva is slated to hit screens on 9th December and these unanimous positive reports on the film are surely a boost. Hyderabad: An unedited version of a battle sequence from S.S. Rajamoulis Baahubali 2 was leaked online, creating a flutter in Tollywood. Within hours of the leak, Hyderabad Cyber Crime team apprehended a trainee video editor at Annapurna Studios for stealing the footage and sharing it on the Net. Police officials said that the suspect, Ainampudi Krishna, who lives in a hostel at Shaikpet, took the footages in a pen drive from the editing suite and shared it with his friends in Vijayawada. Makers of Baahubali 2 approached Hyderabad police after the leaked footage went viral on social media, showing lead actors Anushka Shetty and Prabhas in semi-rendered CG shots. One of the producers, Mr Shobu Yarlagadda, lodged a formal complaint with the Cyber Crime police in the Central Crime Station. He had received a message on WhatsApp from a close associate, informing him of two videos of 2.50 minutes length being circulated in Vijayawada and going viral on the Internet. Police booked a case and with the help of the editing team of Baahubali, identified the suspect. We have arrested the suspect following a probe. We found that he had stolen the video from the video editing lab and shared with his friends Akki Chaitanya and Aishwarya, both from Vijayawada. A mobile phone and computer used by the accused have been seized for analysis. A case has been registered under the Copyrights Act and relevant sections of the IT Act, said Cyber Crimes ACP K.C.S. Raghuvir. Police said that Krishna, who had joined as a trainee video editor a few months ago, confessed to the police that he was excited to share the video with his friends and that he had not sold the video for money. 1 Dead After Men Found In Chinatown With Stab Wounds Monday Night By Rachel Cromidas in News on Nov 22, 2016 3:13PM via Google Earth A Monday night stabbing in Chinatown left one man dead, and police suspect that other area stabbings are connected. Police found a 50-year-old man in the street in the 200 block of West 23rd Street, not far from Chinatown's main shopping and restaurant district, with a stab wound in his back, and he was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Police also found a 23-year-old man nearby with a stab wound in his groin, who was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition. Later that night, a 37-year-old and a 45-year-old man entered Stroger Hospital with stab wounds. They are in stable condition, police told the Tribune, and it's possible the stabbings are connected. Police told ABC7 that they questioned a witness Tuesday morning, but the motive for the attacks was not clear. It's possible some of the men were stabbed inside an apartment, as opposed to on the street where the two were found. A couple from the Netherlands has been able to travel all the way from Kerala to Holland in an ordinary van. Joerik and Pauline, who had come to India last year on a backpacking trip, covered a distance of 13,560 km. (Photo: Facebook) While on their journey, Joerik even proposed to Pauline on the banks of the Ganges. They later got married in a simple ceremony in Bali, Indonesia. (Photo: Facebook) After their six-month-long backpacking trip ended, the duo came back to India to relax in an Ashram in Kerala. Over there they came up with the decision to return to Holland via a van. Their Facebook page serves as an interesting account of their experiences and also helped them crowd-fund their travels. Thiruvananthapuram: Kovalams traditional patronisers, the English, seem to have kept away from the beach destination for yet another tourist season. Russians, Romanians and the French constitute the largest chunk of foeign tourists at the beach. Traditionally, tourism season in Kerala begins when the English escape their autumn by descending on the beaches of Kovalam that the Guardian had a decade ago described as sun-kissed, wave-caressed, and wheat-complexioned and on which "rocks are scattered like polka dots on soft fabric". However, for the last eight years, the Islanders have generally been cold towards Kovalam. This season will be no different. The Guardian, which greatly influences the travel decisions of the British, has not included Kovalam in its list of must-visit destinations this winter too. Kovalam is not even included in the best 10 tropical destinations in Asia. But what will be more damaging for Kovalam is the inclusion of its nearest rivals Goa and Pondicherry, and also its global competitors like Sri Lanka, Cambodia in the Guardians annual Top 10 lists, especially its Top 10 Winter Sun Holidays to Book Now. Goa, Pondicherry and Sri Lanka have been presented as Asias best affordable winter-sun idylls, in other words good-value options. It is a clear hint that Kovalam properties make tourists pay through the nose, said top tourism official. The usual suspects Bali and Thailand, too, have found a place in the list. The emphasis on cost is no surprise as Britain continues to be ravaged economically. A fall in the purchasing power of rand that seems to have prompted the Guardian to pick South Africa, a place normally avoided during winter. The Guardian has been ignoring Kerala for the last seven years, and all this while the big charters that flew in hundreds of English tourists had stopped coming. The tourism industry in Kovalam is aware of the Guardians power as an opinion maker. The papers online offering is the third most widely read in the world. Nowadays people have no choice but to stand in long queues outside banks and ATMs for cash thanks to the recent demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs.1000 currency notes in the country. A Delhi-based start-up promises to change that by letting people hire chotus who will wait in lines for you. BookMyChotu, which calls itself the first on-demand helper booking website, lets you enlist the services of such temporary helpers when youd rather be anywhere else than spend hours trying to get access to hard cash. Here are the rates the firm has fixed for hiring a chotu: Rs 90 for 1 hour Rs 170 for 2 hours Rs 260 for 3 hours Rs 330 for 4 hours Rs 380 for 5 hours Rs 450 for 6 hours Rs 500 for 7 hours Rs 550 for 8 hours Heres an ad by BookMyChotu: Meanwhile the Twitterati were quick to take notice of the ingenious idea: And the Startup of the Week Award goes to Book My Chotu. A real solution for a real problem. Ha Ha Ha :) https://t.co/GA3pGgjFBq Ravi Ranjan (@itsraviranjan) November 22, 2016 #DeMonetisation Blues - "Book My Chotu" service to hire #chotus who can stand in bank queues for you. https://t.co/prqzMiYlKC #NoteBandi News Republic India (@NewsRepublic_IN) November 22, 2016 #IndianJugaad - Book my Chotu' - service where u can hire a person to stand in the bank queue for you. #Demonitization surges employment Zabeen Motorwala (@zabeenmotorwala) November 22, 2016 --- (@) @PMOIndia if people will pay money for standing in atm queue facilitated by startup like #bookmychotu whr poor people will go ? Soniya Soniyo Sonya (@Sssoniyo) November 22, 2016 Ahmedabad: Days after the Centre introduced the Rs 2,000 note after its demonetisation move, a paan shop owner here today claimed that he received a "fake" note of the denomination from an unknown customer. Vansh Barot, who runs the Anand Paan Shop in Bodakdev locality here, went to the RBI regional office, to deposit the note along with an application as directed by bank officials, in order to get rid of the "fake currency" in his possession. Barot said he accepted the note from an unknown customer on either Friday or Saturday as he had to purchase supplies for his shop. "I happily accepted it without doubting its authenticity, especially considering that the note has certain features of original note such as Gandhi watermark and security thread, which makes it resemble like an original note at first glance," he said. "I took the note thinking that there is no possibility of anyone giving me a fake currency at this juncture. The note bore such close resemblance to the original note, that I had little doubt about its authenticity," he added. Barot realised the note was fake when a supplier he went to raised an alarm after examining the note. "When I place it against the original note, I could see the difference very clearly. The paper quality of fake note is poor, and even its size is slightly smaller than the original note," he claimed. "When I took it to two banks to ascertain that it is fake, bankers there did not clearly told me whether the note is fake. Certain that the note is fake, I took it to a branch of another public sector bank where a senior official yesterday confirmed it is a fake," he added. New Delhi: NIA, probing funding and other activities of Zakir Naik-led Islamic Research Foundation, today claimed ISIS recruit Abu Anas received Rs 80,000 from the foundation as scholarship in October 2015. Anas, a resident of Tonk in Rajasthan, had quit as an engineer in a Hyderabad-based company when he was arrested by the NIA in January for allegedly planning to carry out a terror strike ahead of Republic Day. The NIA claimed the probe into the IRF funding and distribution of money showed that Anas, who was among 16 people arrested at that time, had received Rs 80,000 from the proscribed IRF as scholarship in October 2015. Anas, named in a charge sheet in June, and is at present at Tihar Jail, had planned to go to Syria, the NIA alleged. The NIA has been conducting searches since November 19 and have raided at least 20 premises in Mumbai which are connected to the proscribed IRF or its trustees. During the search operations, video tapes and DVDs of Naik's public speeches, documents related to property and investment, financial transactions, foreign and domestic funding of the proscribed IRF as well as its associated companies, and electronic storage devices have been recovered by the NIA, it said. The NIA alleged that IRF, which was banned by the Union Cabinet last week under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), had close connections with some companies dealing in media, perfumes and solution. The documents seized during the searches pertain to inflow and outflow of foreign and domestic funding were being scrutinised. The NIA also blocked the website of IRF, which was allegedly promoting "hate speeches" of Naik. If the Islamic preacher fails to respond to the NIA summon, a red corner notice will be issued against him through Interpol by it. The NIA is still trying to block Naik's Facebook page, Twitter account and YouTube videos that contain alleged "objectionable" material and may seek help from authorities in the US where the servers of Internet giants like Google and Yahoo are located. Naik has been booked along with unnamed IRF officials under section 153-A of IPC (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) beside various sections of UAPA. He used to take the student to an isolated place in the school and assault him. Hyderabad: A school teacher was arrested by the LB Nagar police for allegedly showing porn videos to a boy and molesting him. Saji Dev Varma, 39, who teaches physics at Janapriya Techno School at Nagole, used to take the student to an isolated place in the school and assault him. Parents of the victim told the police that he was assaulting the boy for 20 days. The parents alleged that the teacher showed porn to their son multiple times in the past. We have registered a case against the teacher under The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) 2012 against the offender, said P. Kasi Reddy, Inspector of LB Nagar. CHENNAI: As campaign to bypolls for three constituencies ended on Thursday, the absence of charismatic AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa in the battle field is clearly felt as its arch rival DMK has forced a tough contest in two of the seats, Thanjavur and Aravakurichi, a rare scenario in bypolls in the state since 1999. In the byelections held during the last five years, the AIADMK has won by record margins, crushing the opponents by polling more than double their votes. The one-day campaign of Jayalalithaa in bypolls used to transform the constituency to a festive mood, generating the momentum among voters, especially women who throng her campaign venues. People in Srirangam, Pudukottai, Sankdarankoil and Tiruchy West had responded to Jayalalithaa's appeal for massive victory. But this time despite all ministers and AIADMK functionaries camping in the constituencies and leaving no stone unturned, it does not appear to be a cakewalk for the ruling party in two seats. Several poll surveys see a close finish in Thanjavur, while some of them forecast a DMK win, which could be record in a bypoll after September 1999, when the then opposition AIADMK won the bypoll in Natham in Dindigul district. In Aravakurichi, where the DMK commenced its campaign briskly, the AIADMK candidate and former minister Senthil Balaji has picked up pace in the last phase. But, a huge margin of victory is unlikely for the ruling party as per election surveys. The only seat where the AIADMK is comfortably placed is Thirupparankundram, where the DMK has fielded a new comer to the party and he does not have the full backing of the district leaders in Madurai. Besides, both the BJP and DMDK could take away some opposition votes in the constituency. The most challenging seat for the AIADMK is Thanjavur, a bastion of the DMK, where Stalin's campaign drew huge crowds and good response. Besides, the absence of PWF in the fray is certain to avoid a split in opposition votes in all the three seats. The major advantage for the ruling camp is the voters' reluctance to elect an Opposition nominee to their seat for fear of obstruction in development projects and welfare schemes in the area. The DMK is trying to cross the hurdle by promising a regime change after bypolls. Besides Stalin, DMK principal secretary K. Duraimurugan and former TNCC president E.V.K.S. Elangovan had predicted a change of government after the bypolls. Even if the DMK is unable to surmount the 'vote for ruling party syndrome', the margin of victory is unlikely to be huge as the contest is stiff. New Delhi: A four-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted before she was killed in northwest Delhi's Keshavpuram area. A senior police officer said the incident occurred Sunday night after the girl was abducted while she was playing outside her home at jhuggis near 'Brittania railway lines'. He said the girl's parents informed the police around 8 pm, but she could not be found despite a four-hour search. A missing persons complaint was filed thereafter and efforts were again made to search the girl with her parents and neighbours, he said. Her body was found Monday morning near the railway tracks with injuries which indicated she was sexually assaulted before being strangulated, the officer said. Police said they have identified two accused and they will be arrested soon. "In the CCTV footage that we have found from a factory, we have seen two men taking away the girl. They live in the same area as the girl's family but they have been absconding. Efforts are being made to nab the accused," said the officer. The girl's parents told police the two men who were seen in the CCTV footage were also searching for the girl yesterday. The girl's family had been living in the area for the last 20 years. Her father works as a porter at a godown. The family has six daughters, including the victim. Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief, Swati Maliwal today visited the girl's family. "Met family of the girl. A 4-year-old girl was raped last year in exact same place. Nothing has changed since. The area is very unsafe(sic)," she tweeted. Maliwal also expressed concern about Delhi being unsafe for women. "4-year-old girl raped and murdered by 25-year-old man in Keshavpuram. How low will humanity stoop? Delhi is so unsafe for women and girls. New Delhi: The NIA and state security agencies have so far arrested 68 supporters of dreaded terror outfit ISIS in various parts of the country, Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday. "The National Investigation Agency and state security agencies have so far arrested 68 ISIS supporters/sympathisers," Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir said replying to a written question. The Minister said a total of 50 people have been arrested by security agencies during current year of whom 11 belonged to Maharashtra, 11 belonged to Telangana, 7 belonged to Karnataka, 4 from Uttarakhand, 6 from Kerala, 1 from Delhi, 2 from West Bengal, 1 from Rajasthan, 2 from Uttar Pradesh, 1 from Madhya Pradesh, 1 from Jammu and Kashmir, 1 from Bihar and 2 from Tamil Nadu. Ahir said ISIS is using various platforms to propagate its ideology and to attract recruits from across the world. "The intelligence and security agencies maintain a close watch to identify those engaged in such anti-national activities and persons or preachers misguiding the youth and action is initiated against such persons under the relevant laws," he said. Opposition members protest in the well of the Rajya Sabha during the winter session of Parliament in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Opposition parties on Tuesday joined hands to stall pre-noon proceedings in Rajya Sabha demanding Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of each of the 70 persons who lost their lives post demonetisation and the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the debate on the issue. The rare unity in opposition parties brought Congress and TMC as well as SP and BSP together as their slogan-shouting members trooped into the Well of the House, even as treasury benches countered them demanding resumption of the debate on the issue. Deputy Chairman P J Kurien first adjourned the House till 1130 hours and then till noon. No sooner were the listed papers laid on the table, Sharad Yadav (JD-U) said the government should pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to kin of the 70 persons who lost their lives due to hardships caused by withdrawal of 500 and 1000 rupee notes. Naresh Agarwal (SP) and Mayawati (BSP) said Modi should be called before starting discussion on the demonetisation. "He should come and listen to the pain people have faced because of his decision," Mayawati said. Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad (Cong) said the opposition is ready for discussion on the issue but Prime Minister should come to the House first. As he spoke, members of the BJP moved into the aisles raising slogans. At this point, TMC members carrying placards of "Financial Emergency" trooped into the Well, with Congress members following suit. As they shouted slogans from the Well, Kurien said, "You cannot speak in the Well. Shouting in the Well is of no use. If you go back to your seats, I will give you time (to speak)." He told Azad that he was ready to accept his notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of business. "Mr Azad, I am ready to admit your notice under 267 if only there is order in the House." As BJP members also created a ruckus, an angry Kurien snapped at them. "Why should treasury benches do this? Mr Minister, why should treasury benches to this," he asked Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. With pandemonium continuing, he said this was "blatant indiscipline." "Both sides do not want discussion. Not only the opposition, but treasury benches are also disrupting the proceedings. That is very unfortunate," he said before adjourning the proceedings till 1130 hrs. When the House assembled at 1130 hours, Agarwal (SP) alleged that the Prime Minister does not listen and such a "dictatorial attitude" has never been successful. His remarks led to noisy protests by BJP members. As several BJP members started speaking at same time, the Deputy Chairman again said "I fail to understand why treasury benches were disrupting" the proceedings. To this, Naqvi said government only wants that debate on the demonetisation, which started on November 16, should be resumed. Amid uproar, the Leader of Opposition said 70 people have died due to the "wrong decision" of the Prime Minister. "Opposition is for discussion and debate. (Our) demand for (presence) of the Prime Minister in the House is not anti-national," the senior Congress leader said. Naqvi again sought starting the debate and said replies would be given to all the questions of the Opposition members. Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) demanded that the Prime Minister who announced the demonetisation decision should be present in the House. Kurien said he understood the demand that the Prime Minister should intervene or reply to the debate, but "your demand that he should be here is not possible". Azad again said the entire opposition wanted the discussion on demonetisation to resume, but the Prime Minister should come to the House and listen to the concern of the MPs. "He (Prime Minister) can speak outside, why cannot he speak in the House," Azad asked. In an effort to bring order in the House, Kurien said during the discussion each member can demand for presence of the Prime Minister in the House. Mayawati (BSP) demanded compensation for those who reportedly died following demonetisation. As uproar continued, Kurien said that he can call the Finance Minister in the House as the matter relates to the Finance Ministry, but not the Prime Minister. As Congress, TMC and BSP members trooped into the Well, the Chair was forced to adjourn the House till noon. When the House resumed proceedings at noon, Chairman Hamid Ansari called for Question Hour but the protesting Opposition members kept demanding the presence of the Prime Minister in the House, as TMC members trooped into the Well. With continued ruckus, the House was adjourned for the third time for 30 minutes. When the House met again for Question Hour at 1230 hours, members from opposition including Congress, SP, BSP, JD(U), CPI and CPI(M) rose from their seats shouting slogans over the death toll in the demonetisation drive announced by the government. Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari asked Prem Chand Gupta (RJD) to ask his question on lack of medical services in rural areas, but it could not be heard due to the sloganeering by members. Senior JD(U) leader Sharad raised the issue of death of over 70 people so far in the demonetisation drive and asked who was responsible and what the government was doing about it. Amid constant din in the House, Ansari adjourned the House till 2:00 PM. Uproar continued when the House met again at 2 PM with the opposition insisting on its demand that Modi be present for the discussion on demonetization. Kurien wanted resumption of the debate on demonetisation and called out the names of SP leader Naresh Aggarwal and TMC leader Derek O'Brien to speak on it but both were not present in the House. He then called out the name of CPM leader T K Rangarajan, who said he is willing to speak but wanted Modi to be present. An angry Kurien retorted, "I cannot bring Prime Minister to the House. It is not my job...I can request Finance Minister..." As the opposition continued sloganeering and demanding presence of Modi, Kurien said the behaviour of those shouting was not good and needs to be condemned in the strongest words. He then adjourned the House till tomorrow, less than five minutes after 2 PM. State Bill Would Slap Companies That Build Wall Along Mexican Border By Stephen Gossett in News on Nov 22, 2016 3:59PM U.S.-Mexico border fence / Getty Images / Photo: David McNew An Illinois lawmaker is taking a shot across the bow of the President-elects anti-immigration demagogueryand trying to cajole Gov. Bruce Rauner out of his prevaricating relationship with Trump in the process. State Rep. Will Guzzardi (D-Chicago) will announce on Tuesday a bill that would punish companies that partner in building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The bill, which Guzzardi introduced to the General Assembly last Wednesday, would divest all of Illinois pension funds and investments from companies that build the proposed wall. Any company working to build the wall would land on the state's Prohibited Investment List, which also sanctions companies that boycott Israel, among others. I hope this bill gives the governor an opportunity to show us that he is with the people of Illinois, with the immigrant community and with all of us who support that community and not on these issues of mass deportations, and building walls and scapegoating immigrants, Guzzardi told the Sun-Times. In an email sent to House Democrats on Monday morning, Guzzardi rebuked Rauner, saying its time for Rauner to pick sides. It was revealed last week that Rauner spoke to Trump on the Friday after the election. The governor spent the campaign season on an endless contortionist act in regards to Trump, in the (largely successful) attempt to not dissuade Trump-loving downstate Republican voters who could also advance the governors own state political interests. Guzzardi wasn't too thrilled with that either. Hey @GovRauner since you guys are on such good, positive terms, want to tell him to #FireBannon? Or not feeling like calling your buddy out? pic.twitter.com/yV2QC51tiz Will Guzzardi Y (@WillGuzzardi) November 16, 2016 Guzzardi said in the email, via Capitol Fax: Hes trying to have it both ways. Trying to stay moderate on immigration and other issues while also not alienating his Trump base by actually criticizing the mans rhetoric, his appointments, etc. We cant let him do that. We need to make him decide if hes with Trump and his agenda or if hes with the people of Illinois. Guzzardi will announce the bill in Chicago at 12:30 pm at the Thompson Center. According to the Sun-Times, Guzzardi said he has the support of several House Democrats. He hopes the bill comes to a vote when lawmakers return to the General Assembly next week. Other prominent Illinois politicians have joined in the pushback against Trump's immigration baiting in recent weeks. Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced last week that Chicago would remain a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrantsan admirable move that's been accompanied by perhaps a bit of self-congratulation. And Rep. Luis Gutierrez has blasted Trump's pick of "opponent of legal immigration" Jeff Sessions for Attorney General. The bill can be read here. Indian soldiers guarding near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. (Photo: PTI) Srinagar/Jammu: In a cross-LoC attack by suspected Pakistani terrorists, three Indian soldiers were today killed, with body of one of them being mutilated in second such incident in less than a month, triggering outrage in this country. The ambush on army patrol took place in Machhil sector of Kashmir, following which the Indian army vowed heavy "retribution". "A counter-infiltration patrol party of Indian army was ambushed by terrorists ahead of the fencing along LoC in forest belt in Machhil sector in Kupwara district today," a senior Army officer said. Three soldiers were killed in the attack, he said, adding the body of one of them was mutilated. The three slain soldiers were : 25-year-old Prabhu Singh of Khir Jamkhas village in Shergarh tehsil of Rajasthan, 31- year-old K Kushwah of Daddupur, Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh and 25-year-old Shashank K Singh of Nasirudinpur in Mohamadabad tehsil of Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh. Body of Prabhu Singh was mutilated, army sources said. Earlier, Army's Northern Command spokesman tweeted, "3 soldiers killed in action on LC (Line of Control) in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated." He said the "retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act." A Defence spokesman said heavy cross-Line of Control shelling was going on at four places in Machhil sector from 3.30 pm. "Around 1530 hour, heavy cross-LoC shelling has started from both sides at Dana Machhil, Ashni, Ringsar and Ringsar Payeen in Machhil sector of Kupwara district," he said. He did not give any further details. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was briefed by Vice Chief of Army Lt Gen Bipin Rawat on the killing of three soldiers. Defence Ministry sources said Lt Gen Rawat briefed the Minister in detail. This is the second such incident of mutilation of the body of an Indian soldier in the same sector since October 28. On that day, terrorists, aided by the cover fire by Pakistani Army, had crossed the Line of Control and killed 30-year-old Sepoy Mandeep Singh and mutilated his body in the Macchil sector. One attacker was killed in that incident. In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days. Seventeen soldiers have died in increased ceasefire violations by Pakistan since the surgical strikes. In September, Indian soldiers crossed over the Line of Control and destroyed terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. The strikes were seen as India's response to the Uri attack in which 19 soldiers were killed by terrorists from Pakistan. Jammu: A suspected Pakistani militant guide was shot dead by BSF troops today near the International Border in Jammu, foiling an infiltration bid possibly by two ultras. Pakistani currency notes, Pakistani cigarette packets, eatables, two knifes, a cutter, some Urdu newspapers, visiting card of Sialkote, a booklet and diary in Chinese language, and a leaflet of a Chinese newspaper etc were recovered from the possession of the intruder whose identify could not be established immediately, a senior BSF officer said. "Early this morning at 0418 hours, it was observed that one person from Pakistan side suspiciously crossed the IB and moved ahead taking advantage of dead ground, thick growth, dark hours and fog," the officer said. On observing the suspicious movement close to forward BSF sentry post ahead of fence, the alert BSF sentry challenged the intruder, he said. "Instead of surrendering, the intruder tried to rush towards one of the culverts under the fence. As the intruder had covered his face and body with a shawl, the sentry got suspicious and shot at him dead," the officer said. He said "at the same time, a suspicious movement of two more persons was observed in the rear on Pakistani Bundh waiting for some signal from the intruder. Immediately after the intruder being fired by BSF sentry, both persons waiting in the rear side were seen hiding themselves behind Pakistani side bundh." The officer said the intruder seemed to be operating as a guide to the militants waiting for the signal. "The area was immediately kept under cover of fire and observation and search was started after the day break," he said. "Identification of intruder could not be established. Efforts are on to hand over the dead body to Pakistani Rangers if they accept," he added. D K Upadhyaya, IG BSF, Jammu Frontier, B S Kasana, DIG, Dharmendra Pareek, DIG (G) Bhagwant Singh Comdt BSF visited the site to take a stock of the situation. IG BSF appreciated the action and alertness of the troops giving special acknowledgement to the sentry performing the said action. Addressing the troops, the IG said "national security is our paramount concern and nobody can be permitted to obviate with it." AIADMK senior leaders P Valarmathi and Gokula Indira celebrating their party's victory in Assembly bypolls in front of Apollo Hospital where Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is undergoing treatment, in Chennai. (Photo: PTI) Chennai: Continuing its electoral dominance amid hospitalisation of its supremo and Chief Minister Jayalalitha, the ruling AIADMK today romped home in all three Tamil Nadu assembly segments that went to polls, triggering celebrations by party supporters across the state. AIADMK, on a roll since 2011 winning back-to-back state elections and sweeping the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, wrested the Aravakkurichi seat from DMK and retained Thanjavur and Thiruparankundram by margins ranging from more than 20,000 votes to 42,000, dealing a blow to the Dravidian arch rival. Elections were held to the constituencies on November 19 and the counting of votes was undertaken today. In Aravakurichi and Thanjavur, the elections were held after being cancelled during the May Assembly polls due to alleged corrupt practices, while a bypoll was held in Tiruparankundram to fill a vacancy caused by the death of an AIADMK member. With today's outcome, the AIADMK's tally in the 234-member assembly has risen to 136. The number includes the Speaker. The M Karunanidhi-led DMK had to be content with the runners-up position after harbouring hopes of winning the seats on the claim of "non-functioning" of state government since Jayalalithaa's hospitalisation here on Sept 22 last. AIADMK, which went to the polls highlighting the welfare schemes implemented by Jayalalithaa, garnered an impressive vote share of about 55 per cent, while DMK could manage only 37.8 per cent. Barely a week before the elections, Jayalalithaa, in her first public communication since being admitted to the Apollo Hospitals, had appealed to people to vote for her party. "Have taken rebirth because of your prayers, waiting to resume work soon. Appeal to people to vote for AIADMK in Nov 19 polls," she had said. BJP, which finished third in all the three segments, secured a vote share of 2.5 per cent, pushing regional players like PMK and DMDK further down. PMK contested in Thanjavur and Aravakkurichi alone and did not field candidate in Thirupparankundram and got 0.3 per cent votes. BJP's performance is being seen against the background of the Centre taking a stand against constituting the Cauvery Management Board in the Supreme Court. Actor-turned politician Vijaykant's DMDK, which was the main opposition party during 2011-16, could bag a vote share of just 1.3 per cent after an exodus of several senior party functionaries since last assembly hustings. All parties barring AIADMK and DMK forfeited their deposits. In Aravakkurichi, AIADMK's V Senthil Balaji, a former minister in the previous regime, trounced his nearest DMK rival K C Palanisamy by a margin of 23,661 votes marking his return to the Assembly. Balaji secured 88,068 votes while Palanisamy 64,407 votes. Palanisamy, known as KCP in DMK circles, had won the seat in the 2011 polls. In Thanjavur, the heart of Cauvery delta region and a traditional DMK bastion, AIADMK nominee M Rengasamy retained the seat by a margin of 26,874 votes. He polled 1,01,362 votes. DMK's Anjugham Boopathy got 74,488 out of the total 1,86,444 votes. In Thirupparankundram, AIADMK candidate A K Bose trounced his nearest DMK rival P Saravanan by an impressive margin of 42,670 votes. While Bose secured 1,13,032 votes, Saravanan secured 70,362 votes. At the core of AIADMK's traditional support base in Madurai District, an easy win for the ruling party in Thirupparankundram was on expected lines. AIADMK cadres and supporters broke into celebrations as soon as trends showed an unassailable lead. On Apollo Hospitals premises, where Jayalalithaa is recuperating, they distributed ladoos, hailing the win as a victory for Amma. The run up to the elections also saw the DMK questioning Jayalalithaa affixing her thumb impression from the hospital while endorsing AIADMK candidates in the poll papers. Reacting to the outcome, DMK Treasurer and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly M K Stalin said the party would not be deterred by the loss and would continue to work for people's welfare. He said the votes secured by his party was "quite impressive" and alleged that electoral 'irregularities' were overlooked by authorities. The polls to Thanjavur and Aravakkurichi constituencies in May last were cancelled following allegations of distribution of money and gifts by candidates and parties. Both the AIADMK and DMK had renominated the candidates they had fielded for the cancelled elections, which came in for criticism from various quarters. Thirupparnkundram bypoll was necessitated due to the death of AIADMK MLA-elect S M Seenivel soon after the assembly polls in May. Jayalalithaa thanked the voters for electing her party candidates in three assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu and asserted that it was a victory for her regime's "achievements, welfare measures and visionary schemes." Expressing her "heartfelt thanks" to voters for "giving me consecutive electoral victories," she said the poll win "proved yet again that people are on my side" in a veiled attack on arch rival DMK. She said people voted for AIADMK candidates by a huge margin after considering her regime's "achievements, welfare measures and visionary schemes." In a party release here, she said, "I would like to happily inform you that my work will continue according to your expectations." She said, "The electoral victory has given me, boundless joy and enthusiasm," adding she was now recuperating. Stating that she would never forget people's "great love," for her, she thanked them for it. She said she was aware that people, and her party workers were offering prayers continuously for her recovery and scores of them were also visiting the hospital to enquire about her health. Also, she thanked her party functionaries, cadres and leaders of alliance parties for their election work in the three constituencies. AIADMK cadres celebrating for their party's victory of Assembly bypolls in front of Apollo Hospital where Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is undergoing treatment, in Chennai. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: BJP and Trinamool Congress shared the honours by winning two Lok Sabha seats each, claiming it was a vindication of their stand on demonetisation, as ruling parties in six states and Puducherry held sway in byelections, retaining most of the 10 Assembly seats up for grabs. In the Assembly bypolls held on November 19, results of which were declared today, BJP and AIADMK won three seats each, CPI(M) got two while Congress and Trinamool bagged one each. BJP won the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat in Assam, vacated by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, by a margin of 1,90,219 votes and Shahdol Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh, both ruled by the party. Trinamool Congress swept Tamluk and Coochbehar Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal by a whopping margin of over 4.9 lakh votes, almost doubling the gap from 2014 polls. Trinamool also won the Monteswar assembly seat with candidates of CPI(M), Congress and BJP losing their deposits. In Madhya Pradesh, BJP's victory margin in Shahdol Lok Sabha came down to 60,000 from 2,41,301 in the 2014 general elections. It bagged the Nepanagar Assembly seat, where it increased its winning margin to 42,198 votes as against 22,178. In Tamil Nadu, AIADMK, whose supremo Jayalalithaa is hospitalised for two months, retained Thanjavur and Thirupparankundram Assembly seats and wrested Aravakkurichi seat from DMK by margins ranging from 20,000 votes to 42,000. The ruling CPI(M) in Tripura wrested Barjala (SC) seat from Congress and retained Khowai. Senior Congress leader and Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy won the bypoll to Nellithope Assembly seat defeating AIADMK's Om Sakthi Segar by a margin of 11,144 votes. North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) candidate Dasanglu Pul of BJP won Hayuliang assembly by-poll in Arunachal Pradesh defeating her lone rival Yompi Kri, an independent candidate, by 942 votes. Pul is the youngest of the three wives of former chief minister Kalikho Pul. The bypoll was necessitated by his suicide. Union Minister Ananth Kumar and Sonowal said the BJP's win in the bypolls showed that people have endorsed the government's decision against black money and corruption. "BJP's victory in by-polls is a clear indication that people are fully supporting the decision to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes. It is people's mandate for the Prime Minister's decision of demonetisation," Sonowal told reporters. West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, however, termed the byelection result as a mandate against the Centre's decision of demonetisation. "The by-election result is a befitting reply against the anti-people demonetisation by the Centre. It's a people's revolt, rather a mass revolt against the Centre. BJP should take lessons from this mandate," she told newsmen in Kolkata before leaving for New Delhi to join the protest by the Opposition. TMC candidate Dibyendu Adhikari won Tamluk Lok Sabha seat by defeating his nearest CPI(M) rival Mandira Panda by 4.97 lakh votes. The party won the Coochbehar LS seat with its candidate Parthapratim Roy drubbing his nearest rival BJP's Hemchandra Burman by a margin of 4.9 lakh votes and pushed Forward Bloc, a LF partner to the third position. Roy increased the party's victory margin from 38,000 in 2014 to 4.9 lakh. In Monteswar assembly seat, Saikat Panja of TMC won the seat by a margin of 1.27 lakh votes over his nearest CPI(M) rival Md Osman Gani Sarkar. TMC'S winning margin in the May 2016 assembly polls was a mere 786 votes when Congress and CPI(M) fought unitedly. BJP candidate Pradan Barua won the Lakhaimpur LS in Assam seat by a margin of 1,90,219 votes defeating his nearest rival Congress's Hema Prasanga Pegu by a convincing 1,90,219 votes, the returning officer said. BJP candidate Mansing Rongpi won the Baithalangso Assembly seat. He had earlier won on Congress ticket but resigned from the party to join BJP in July which necessitated the bypoll this year. Rongpi defeated his nearest Congress rival Ruponsing Ronghang by 16,600 votes. In Tripura, CPI(M) candidate Jhumu Sarkar defeated his nearest BJP rival Shistamohan Das by a margin of 3,374 votes in Barjala (SC) constituency. Bypoll in the constituency was necessitated due to the resignation of Congress MLA Jitendra Sarkar in June last. Congress secured only 804 votes, while Trinamool Congress (TMC) 5,629 votes. In Khowai constituency, CPI(M) candidate Biswajit Datta trounced his nearest TMC candidate Manoj Das by a margin of 16,047 votes. The seat fell vacant due to death of CPI(M) MLA Samir Deb Sarkar, a veteran party leader. In Tamil Nadu, Aravakurichi and Thanjavur, elections were held after being cancelled during the May assembly polls due to alleged corrupt practices, while bypoll was held in Tiruparankundram to fill a vacancy caused by the death of an AIADMK member. With today's outcome, the AIADMK's tally in the 234-member assembly has risen to 136, including the Speaker. After two letters from the Chief Minister, the RBI dispatched Rs 2,000 crore worth currency notes to Andhra Pradesh two days ago. (Photo: Representational Image) Amaravati: People of Andhra Pradesh will have to endure the "currency woes" for some time to come as the state government has given up hope of either getting more cash from the RBI into the banks or introducing cashless transactions on a massive scale in the near future. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who for the past few days has been constantly reviewing the situation with bankers and state government officials, told the State Level Bankers Committee that "I have no hope that we will get more currency notes of smaller denominations". After two letters from the Chief Minister, the RBI dispatched Rs 2,000 crore worth currency notes to the state two days ago. Of this, the new Rs 2,000 notes amounted to Rs 1,500 crore, new Rs 500 notes amounted to Rs 90 crore, Rs 100 notes Rs 400 crore and the rest of other smaller denominations. "I have sought another Rs 5,000 crore, mostly in Rs 100s. But I have no hope we will get the money," Chandrababu remarked at the five-hour meeting with bankers and state officials last night. At the same time, he wanted to introduce Point of Sale (PoS) swiping machines to enable cashless transactions, using credit and debit cards, but the companies which supply these machines told the Chief Minister that it would take more time to make the gadgets available as per demand. Besides, the Chief Minister wanted the 14 per cent service tax and 1.25 to 2.25 per cent service charge on card and mobile transactions waived off so that people could go for cashless transactions. Now either the merchants or consumers were bearing the service charges which was proving a "disincentive", he noted. The CM also wanted the Centre to supply PoS machines at a subsidy of 80 per cent to merchant establishments. "The costs involved in printing and distributing the currency and also the wear and tear are very high compared to the benefits of cashless transactions. So the RBI should compensate in this form," Chandrababu pointed out. But, there was no firm assurance from the banks on the service charge, while the service tax has to be waived by the Central government. The state government wants to introduce PoS machines in certain departments that involve currency transactions with the public. The State Road Transport Corporation requires 2,500 PoS machines, rythu bazaars 80, tourism department 100 and Mee Seva centres 5,540. Besides, 16,452 swiping machines are required for as many villages to ensure transition to a cashless economy, according to Finance Secretary K Sunita. Verizon, one of the companies that manufactures and sells PoS machines to banks, said it could supply 1.20 lakh gadgets by the end of December. Ingenico, another company in the same business, too was ready to supply those many machines by December end. But they have to cater to a pan-India market. With RBI coming out with fresh guidelines that the PoS machines have an integrated biometric scanning system, deployment of these gadgets may get further delayed. However, the Chief Minister set bankers a 40-day deadline for rolling out cashless transactions "to the extent possible", even as he said that all government transactions would be made online from December 1. Belagavi: Its the turn of Congress leaders to squirm with embarrassment as small scale industries minister Ramesh Jarkiholi splurged on his son Santoshs wedding at a two-acre wide mantap, shaped like Kolhapurs Mahalakshmi temple, at Gokak town, on Sunday. The entire town was decorated as the sugar baron-turned-politician hosted more than 1.5 lakh guests at the mega buck wedding in the air-conditioned mantap. A helipad was built on the outskirts of the town for the arrival of VVIPs who were later ushered into the venue with much fanfare. Ministers D.K. Shivakumar, H.K. Patil, Rudrappa Lamani and U.T. Khader attended the wedding of Santosh, an engineer, but Chief Minister Siddaramaiah skipped it though he was in this border district. The menu listed only vegetarian delicacies which included a big spread of sweets. Less than a week ago, Congress leaders had targeted former BJP minister and mine baron G Janardhan Reddy for spending about Rs 500 crores on his daughter Brahminis wedding in Bengaluru palace. They had mocked at BJP leaders about such an opulent wedding during a debate in parliament on demonetization of high value currency notes. Candidates can directly appear for JEE (advanced) exam. But, they must have secured at least 75 per cent aggregate marks in class 12 (or equivalent) board examination. Chennai: IIT Joint Admission Board (JAB) released the name of six foreign countries including three SAARC nations where the IIT-JEE (advanced) is to be held in 2017. In the additional information brochure to the foreign candidates, JAB said the exam centres will be set up in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Dubai (UAE), Kathmandu (Nepal) and Singapore. Based on their performance in the exam the students can select IITs for undergrad courses. Earlier, it was expected that the entrance exam to the premier institutions would be conducted for the first time in all SAARC nations except Pakistan. According to sources, the new list was sent by the Ministry of Human Resources Development. The choice of Ethiopia in the list has raised curiosity. Ethiopia was chosen by Ministry of External Affairs as the first country in Africa to host the IIT-JEE (advanced). In Dubai we are already conducting JEE for the students who are studying in the CBSE schools, said Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director, IIT Madras. Candidates can directly appear for JEE (advanced) exam. But, they must have secured at least 75 per cent aggregate marks in class 12 (or equivalent) board examination. To register for JEE exams foreign candidates need to upload the birth certificate, class 12 mark-sheet and certificate for 75 per cent cut-off, identity proof of the candidate, citizenship certificate and passport of both the parents," JAB said. For B.Arch programme, successful candidates are required to come to one of the zonal IITs to write the test. Seats available to foreign nationals would be in addition to the existing seats and will not result in reduction of seats available to Indian students. These seats can't exceed 10 per cent of the total seats in each course offered by the IITs. People stand in a long queue to deposit and exchange their old currency notes. (Photo: PTI) Kollam/Kottayam: An elderly man in Kerala allegedly ended his life fearing he would not be able to withdraw money deposited in a coopertive bank due to demonetistion and another collapsed and died while standing in a queue in a bank, police said on Tuesday. 73-year-old Omanakuttan Pillai from Cheruvillayil in Pamba valley in Kottayam district commited suicide by hanging in his bedroom on Monday, they said. Pillai had deposited Rs five lakh in a service Cooperative bank and following demoetisation he grew apprehensive that he would not be able to withdraw his money, they said. In another incident, Chandrasekharan (68) collapsed and died while he was standing in a queue at a bank in Kollam district. The retired BSNL employee was waiting in the queue at Nallila branch of State Bank of Travancore during a second visit to the branch when he collapsed, police said. He had visited the branch in the morning, but on seeing the long queue, he returned after lunch to withdraw cash from his account. While waiting to collect his token, he is said to have collapsed. Though he was rushed to the hospital, his life could not be saved, they added. On November 11, a 75-year-old man, standing in a queue at a branch of the State Bank of Travancore, collapsed and died, while another died while filling forms to deposit his scrapped high denomination notes in the state. People standing in long queues to exchange their old Rs 500 and 1000 notes and withdraw cash from the ATM. (Representational Image/ PTI) Deoria: A 65-year-old man was trampled to death outside a bank while standing in a queue to withdraw cash, police said on Tuesday. Ramnath Kushwaha, a resident of Gulriha village, was caught in a stampede outside the State Bank of India branch yesterday. He was trampled by a crowd who had gathered to withdraw cash, SP Mohd Imran said. He had gone to withdraw money to make payments to a hospital where his pregnant daughter-in-law has been admitted, the officer said. Kushwaha was rushed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead, the SP said. New Delhi: The BJP on Tuesday passed a unanimous resolution in support of demonetisation at its Parliamentary Party meet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated him for his "great crusade" against black money and corruption. Demonetisation is not the end but beginning of our deep and continuous struggle against blackmoney and corruption, Modi said at the meet. We passed a resolution in favour of demonetisation, it was moved by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, said Venkaiah Naidu after the party meet. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also spoke to the media and reiterated the government's readiness to debate any issue. We are ready for discussion on demonesation, have said it many times. This is a big decision that requires a lot of courage from the govt's part, Jaitley said. Lauding his government, Jaitley said it takes a lot of courage for a someone in power to make a move like demonetisation. "By stopping the 'normal' of last 70 years, PM Modi has created a new 'normal'. The whole country is supporting the move, it is a historic step," Jaitley said. Meanwhile, Opposition parties too held a meet in the Parliament on Tuesday, a day after they resolved to corner the government on demonetisation within and outside Parliament. Finding a common ground on demonetisation which has caused hardship to people, leaders of the Congress, Trinamul, JD(U), BSP, CPM, CPI, NCP, RJD, JMM and the DMK had held a meeting in on Monday too, to forge a common plan of action with an aim of mounting an attack on the government. The Congress has led the Opposition in the demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi must speak in the Rajya Sabha on the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. However, the government had made it clear that Modi will not speak in the Rajya Sabha, where the government is in a minority, and that finance minister Arun Jaitley will answer their questions. Merits and demerits will come out in a debate... Why are they (Opposition parties) running away from a debate?, Jaitley had said. This is clear now that the Opposition is not ready for debate and is coming up with new excuses to disrupt the House, Jaitley added amid slogan shouting by Opposition members who were in the well of the House. Leaders of the 10 parties decided that their MPs will stage a sit-in near Mahatma Gandhis statue in the Parliament complex on Wednesday. This will be followed by a march to Rashtrapati Bhawan, date for which is being worked out, the sources said. Chance The Rapper, Twista Offer Prayers For Hospitalized Kanye West By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 22, 2016 6:11PM Kanye at the album release party for "The Life of Pablo" on Feb. 11 at Madison Square Garden (Getty Images) The latest turn in the strange, sad saga that has been Kanye West over the last 48 hours culminated on Monday afternoon with the now-more-polarizing-than-ever hip-hop icon hospitalized and under psychiatric evaluation. Some reports used the word exhaustion, a word as loaded in these kinds of scenarios as it is ambiguous. And while some very reasonable West backlash has been brewing long before Kanyes most regrettable rantin which he said hed have voted for Donald Trump, if only hed bothered to voteweve seen some ugly digs at what could be, for all we know, some manner of mental-health issue. To that end, a couple of Chicago hip-hop greatsone old school, one newboth offered messages of support on Tuesday. While appearing on BBC Radio 1Xtra on Tuesday morning, Chance the Rapper offered prayers for West and floated the possibility of heading back to visit him. I want to extend a very special prayer to my big brother, Kanye West. I know there's a lot of weird folks out there but you already know that I'm a hundred grand, Chance said, via Pitchfork. I want to just extend this prayer and this love from all the way in Britain. We might come home early to see this man. Happy Thanksgiving." I think everybody goes through it," he added. "And I think right now, probably what he needs more than anything is his real, close friends and family around." And as Fake Shore Drive pointed out, onetime frequent West collaborator and fellow Chicago hip-hop alumnus Twista posted an open letter to Kanye, also asking for prayers: New Delhi: The National Green Tribunal today slammed the UP government over the issue of shifting of tanneries located on the banks of Ganga in Kanpur to some other place to stop discharge of effluents, saying, "it can't behave like a king." "You are a democratic government in a federal structure. You are not a king that you have taken a decision and nobody can question it. You are not in favour of shifting tanneries and term it as your political will. Can a court of law accept a political will. If you say no, you must give proper reasons for it," a bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said. The observations came after the Samajwadi Party government told the green panel that it was not in favour of shifting leather industries outside Kanpur as it was not "economically" viable. The argument did not go well with the tribunal which said that clean environment was fundamental right of citizens and "no government" can run away from its "constitutional" obligation. It said people cannot be allowed to suffer due to operation of leather units, which release high chromium in their effluents, and the government must take a clear view on the issue. "Give us a proper reason, we will judicially scrutinise it. You will say what is the problem if there is chromium, they are hospitals to treat people. According to you, tanneries should have precedence over fundamental rights of citizens of clean air and good health," the bench said. The NGT said that if the state government was ready to give land and provide infrastructure to tannery clusters, there should be no problem in shifting them. The hearing remained inconclusive and will continue tomorrow. On November 15, the tribunal had stopped the government from spending "a single penny" for Ganga rejuvenation work between Haridwar and Unnao, saying a whopping Rs. 20,000 crore was being spent on the entire national project by officials who did not even know about the river. The green panel has divided the work of cleaning the river in different segments - Gomukh to Haridwar (Phase-I), Haridwar to Unnao (termed as segment B of Phase-I), Unnao to border of Uttar Pradesh, border of Uttar Pradesh to border of Jharkhand and border of Jharkhand to Bay of Bengal. Defence Minster Manohar Parrikar and Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba during the commissioning ceremony of INS Chennai in Mumbai on Monday. (Photo: PTI) Mumbai: The central government on Monday said Chandu Chavan, the Indian soldier who was captured by Pakistan after he inadvertently crossed the Line of Control (LoC), is safe and alive and the talks for his safe return were on. Defence minister Manohar Parrikar, while addressing the Mumbai media at the time of commissioning of the Kolkata class destroyer INS Chennai said, Frequent ceasefire violations by Pakistan are calculated moves, and it is completely influenced by Pakistani politics. While our message is clear that we will not be aggressive unnecessarily, we will take action if it is needed. When two neighbourhood countries are friendly it always helps, but we dont want this at the cost of national security, Parrikar said. Replying to a query on National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah claiming that demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 had not made any impact on stone-pelting incidents in Kashmir valley, Parrikar said the series of pelting incidents had stopped. Describing INS Chennai, Parrikar said the ship was the first to have a specially integrated underwater Kavach decoy system that could change the direction of a missile or a torpedo fired at it by an enemy ship. INS Chennai is equipped with the supersonic BrahMos surface-to-surface missile system and Barak-8 Long Range surface-to-air missile system. She also has four AK 630 rapid-fire guns, sensors and stealth features, he said. INS Chennai was constructed at the Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL), Mumbai. Commenting on the indigenous Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Parrikar said both the Indian Air Force and the Army had approved its induction. The whole cost of the project was Rs 50,000 crore, and in the initial stage it would get 15 aircrafts. The Ministry of Defence is also planning to purchase helicopters for the Navy in the next two years, said Parrikar. Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sunil Lanba, was also present on the occasion. INS Chennai will keep Indias rich maritime tradition alive, he said. Rear Admiral R.K. Sherawat (Retd) CMD MDL, while commenting on the commissioning, said, Whatever has been done has been done with the support of the defence minister. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the Global Citizens Festival in Mumbai, via video conferencing, in New Delhi on Saturday. (Source: PTI). (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the demonetisation issue and lamented that the leader had time to address television and pop concerts but not the Parliament. "The Prime Minister can speak on television, at a pop concert, but not to Parliament," Rahul said, referring to Modis address at the recent Global Citizens Festival concert in Mumbai via video-conference, which featured the popular band Coldplay. The Congress has been demanding that Modi make a statement in the Parliament over his governments decision to demonetise Rs 500 and 1000 notes. At a meeting of Opposition parties on Monday, which was also attended by Rahul Gandhi, it was decided that these parties will continue to press for an adjournment motion in Lok Sabha and a debate under a rule which entails voting. Proceedings in the Lower House have already been washed out during the last two working days because of these demands. Rajya Sabha, which saw day-long inconclusive debate on demonetisation on the opening day of the session on November 16, has failed to function as the opposition has been pressing for the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the House before the discussion could be resumed. The government has refused to accept this demand, saying Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been present in the House all through the debate and he will reply to it. New Delhi: Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and his cabinet colleague Kapil Mishra were detained on Tuesday when they tried to march to Parliament from Jantar Mantar protesting the Centre's demonetisation move. Before beginning the march, Sisodia launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation alleging he is making people cry and shedding "crocodile tears". "We don't like Modi for what he has done in his personal and political life. This is not notebandi but note-badli. The terrorists in Kashmir today were found with Rs 2000 notes. From where are terrorists getting them? Either you are unaware of the lapse or are involved in it. "He keeps crying all the time and makes people cry. But he sheds crocodile tears. The demonetisation drive should be rolled back. This is what people want," Sisodia said while addressing the gathering at Jantar Mantar. He was joined by his cabinet colleagues Gopal Rai, Kapil Mishra and Satyendar Jain. "Neither terrorist funding has stopped nor counterfeit notes nor blackmarketeering. The government has no money to give for OROP to soldiers but waives the loans of industrialists," Sisodia added. A day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is presently in Punjab, exhorted people to "change" the Prime Minister instead of the defunct notes, slogans of "note nahi, PM badlo" were raised at the march. "The PM again became emotional... he is not getting any support. Hence, he is crying. The need is to take the fight to the streets," Gopal Rai said. The Prime Minister had on November 8 announced withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. The decision has been drawing criticism from opposition parties. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday thanked people for expressing "continued faith" in BJP and its "unwavering focus on development and good governance" after the party scored victories in bypolls in Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh besides doing well in West Bengal and Tripura. "I thank people for the continued faith in BJP & in the BJP's unwavering focus on development and good governance," Modi tweeted after the results of bypolls to Lok Sabha and Assembly seats came in. "I congratulate all BJP Karyakartas & leaders for the impressive victories in Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh," he said. In Madhya Pradesh, BJP won Shahdol Lok Sabha seat and bagged the Nepanagar Assembly seat, where it increased its winning margin to 42,198 votes as against 22,178 previously. BJP also won the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat in Assam, vacated by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, by a margin of 1,90,219 votes. In Arunachal Pradesh, BJP's North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) candidate Dasanglu Pul won Hayuliang assembly by-poll. Pul is the youngest of the three wives of former Chief Minister Kalikho Pul. The bypoll was necessitated by his suicide. "I appreciate @BJP4Bengal for the spirited performance. BJP is fully committed to diligently serving the wonderful people of West Bengal," Modi said in another tweet. In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress swept Tamluk and Coochbehar Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal by a whopping margin of over 4.9 lakh votes, almost doubling the gap from 2014 polls. The ruling party of the state also won the Monteswar assembly seat with candidates of CPI(M), Congress and BJP losing their deposits. "Congrats to Tripura BJP Karyakartas for an impressive performance in the bypolls. Good to see BJP expanding its base in the Northeast," the Prime Minister added. New Delhi: Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi has issued visas to 81 Hindu pilgrims to visit shrines in Pakistan for the 308th birthday celebrations of Shiv Avtari Satguru Sant Shadaram Saheb. In line with Pakistan's efforts to encourage people to people contacts and promote religious tourism, the High Commission has issued visas to pilgrims under the 1974 bilateral protocol, said Manzoor Ali Memon, Counsellor (Press) in the Pakistan mission. Taking "note of the sentiments and devotion of the various communities in the two countries for the historic and sacred shrines in the other", India and Pakistan have agreed on a set of principles for facilitating visits to such shrines. As per the protocol, such visits from one country to the other shall be allowed without discrimination as to religion or sect and every effort should continue to be made to ensure that places of religious worship mentioned in the agreed list are properly maintained and their sanctity preserved. The estimated cost of Phase1 development is Rs 6,575 crore. Presently, the work on preparing a Detailed Project Report (DPR) is underway. Chennai: With the Union shipping ministry setting into motion the work to establish the Enayam port near Colachel in Kanyakumari district, the first container berth in Phase-I is expected to be operational by December 2020. The estimated cost of Phase1 development is Rs 6,575 crore. Presently, the work on preparing a Detailed Project Report (DPR) is underway. The ministry has proposed to develop the port under the Landlord model. Going by modest estimates, by the time the BJP completes its term in office at Delhi, the saffron party would boast of seeing its poll promise translating into a mega project. The expected income generation will be of the order of Rs 1,149 crore per annum by the year 2020, as per the Techno-Economic Feasibility Report (TEFR). EXIM trade will increase and this would lead to increase in employment and other benefits to the national economy out of this major port project coming up at a cost of Rs 27,570 crores and situated about 11 km from the ancient port town of Colachel. According to sources, private operators are expected to invest about `2,500 crore for developing terminal berths, yard and equipments. Nearly 70 per cent of the remaining amount (Rs 4,075 crore) will be funded through debt and the balance 30 per cent would be equity invested by three major ports of VOC Port Trust, Tuticorin, Chennai Port Trust and Kamarajar Port Limited, respectively, besides few strategic partners. It is said the State government has assured to provide necessary facilitation, cooperation and support for implementing the project, which will be a major gateway container port for Indian cargo presently trans-shipped outside the country and a trans-shipment hub for the global East-West trade route. He submitted that the recent incessant rains across the state damaged the existing roads and this has become a cause of concern for regular commuters. Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday directed the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation to file an affidavit explaining the steps being taken to repair the roads that have been severely damaged in Hyderabad and Secunderabad. A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice A. Shankar Narayana was dealing with a PIL by senior advocate and BJP MLC N. Ramachandra Rao seeking to direct the TS government to take immediate steps to repair the roads. S. Sriram, counsel for the petitioner, brought to the notice of the court that poor road conditions and increase in the number of potholes in the recent past have led to loss of human lives. He submitted that the recent incessant rains across the state damaged the existing roads and this has become a cause of concern for regular commuters. When the bench sought the response from counsel for the GHMC, he replied that so far they have identified 480 roads that needed repairs or re-laying and 83 works are under progress. Counsel said that they need some more time to complete all the works as they can only be carried out at night. He said that so far, the GHMC has spent about Rs 20 crore to improve the condition of the roads. When counsel sought time to file the counter affidavit, the bench granted two weeks time and adjourned the matter. Giving a clear warning to shopkeepers who are occupy footpaths in the city, the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday ordered the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation to immediately seal 106 shops located in Siddiambar Bazaar. A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice A. Shankar Narayana, while dealing with a petition by Laxminivas Agarwal, a resident of Mahbubgunj of the city seeking removal of illegal encroachments, expressed anger at the shopkeepers for violating the assurance given to the court earlier. Earlier, when the court issued notices to the shopkeepers on the petition, they appeared before the court and promised that they will not use to footpath to display their wares in the future. The petitioner recently brought to the notice of the court that the shopkeepers have violated the assurance given to the court. The court has asked the GHMC authorities to verify the fact and submit the report. When the petition came up for hearing, Mahender Reddy, special counsel for TS, placed the report before the bench. After perusing the report, the bench ordered the GHMC to seal the 106 shops. New Delhi: In a major fillip to efforts to stop blackmoney flowing overseas, India will automatically start getting financial information of accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland from 2018 and onwards. However, this information will start flowing to Indian authorities from September 2019. India and Switzerland on Tuesday signed a joint declaration for the implementation of Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) between the two countries. The agreement does not apply to accounts held before 2018. As a result, it will now be possible for India to receive from September, 2019 onwards, the financial information of accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland for 2018 and subsequent years, on an automatic basis, said CBDT. While Switzerland has conformed to the global standards on automatic exchange of information with the signing of the declaration, India, on its part, has promised to safeguard the confidentiality of the data. Revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia said that the signing of the agreement is a big step. The income tax department will be able to obtain information from accounts of all Indians stashed in Switzerland from 2018 onwards, tweeted Mr Adhia. Switzerland had been a favourite destination of dictators, corrupt politicians and businessmen to stash their illegal money due to country's secrecy laws which protects the privacy of bank clients. However, recently Swiss authorities have been under pressure from nations including the US to reveal identity of their nationals stashing blackmoney there. The 15-m-long missile carried a dummy warhead and its flight duration was about 10 minutes. BHUBANESWAR: India on Tuesday successfully test-fired indigenously built nuclear capable Agni-I ballistic missile from an Interim Test Range (ITR) off Odisha coast. The surface-to-surface missile, powered by solid propellants, was test-fired from a mobile launcher at 10.10 am from Launch Pad-4 of the ITR at Abdul Kalam Island (Wheeler Island), defence officials said. The missile was fired under supervision of the scientists of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The trajectory of the trial was tracked by a battery of sophisticated radars, telemetry observation stations, electro- optic instruments and naval ships from its launch till the missile hit the target area with accuracy, DRDO sources. The last trial of the Agni-I missile was successfully carried out on March 14 from the same base. Weighing about 12 tonnes, the 700-km range missile is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead up to one tonne. The 15-metre long missile carried dummy war head and the flight duration was about 10 minutes when the missile landed at its target in the Bay of Bengal. Developed by Advanced Systems Laboratory (ASL), in collaboration with Defence Research Development Laboratory and Research Centre and integrated by Bharat Dynamics Limited, Hyderabad, Agni-I has already been inducted into the Army and has proved worthy in terms of it range and accuracy. Another Massive Protest Planned For Black Friday On Magnificent Mile By Stephen Gossett in News on Nov 22, 2016 7:24PM Photo: Braden Nesin Holiday shoppers and social-justice mobilizers alike, take note. One year after a massive protest blocked foot traffic in and out of stores along the Magnificent Mile on Black Friday, activists are set to return this year the day after Thanksgiving to once again demonstrate against police brutality. The action last year was part of a larger wave of protests that filled Chicago streets immediately following the release of disturbing dashcam footage that captured the fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald. The shooting also prompted a still-ongoing investigation into the Chicago Police Department by the Department of Justice. Police officer Jason Van Dyke faces a criminal charge of first-degree murder in the killing. During last years demonstration, hundreds of protesters shut down traffic on the ritzy, tourist-friendly Michigan Avenue and several blocked storefront entrances to businesses on Black Fridaytraditionally the biggest shopping day of the year, of course. According to a Facebook event page, this years action, which is scheduled to kick off at 10 a.m. at Water Tower, is coordinated by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. The group has acted as reform gadfly for decades, dating back to the 1970s, and has been perhaps the vocal organization in leading the charge for the Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC). The group says that Mayor Rahm Emanuels new police-oversight agency, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), only pays lip service to the idea of civilian-led oversight. CAARPR posted: "The COPA ordinance replaces the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) with a new independent body to deal with police crimes and misconduct. It is just another mayor appointed layer of bureaucracy designed to excuse and justify police crimes. COPA is a cop-out, the system of fake police accountability continues." This corrupt, racist administration has proven that we cannot negotiate with them for justice. We must demand justice and fight for it, the post continues. In the year since the previous Black Friday protest, the issue of police accountability has remained front of mind in Chicago: shootings such as those of Joshua Beal and Paul ONeal have continued to galvanize protest and CPD has reexamined its policy on use of deadly force. Protesters have initiated several massive protests downtown in the wake of Donald Trump's election victory. As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 400 people on Facebook said they were attending the protest. SRINAGAR: In a startling occurrence, new banknotes of Rs 2,000 were found on two militants, believed to be Pakistani nationals, killed by the security forces in a fire fight in Jammu and Kashmirs northern Bandipore district Kashmir on Tuesday. A senior Army officer Vikramajeet Singh told reporters that the duo was in possession of Indian currency including two new banknotes of Rs 2,000. Also found on them were two AK assault rifles with ammunition, Chinese 86p (defensive) grenades and 40mm UBGLs which can be attached to AK-47 rifles and have a 3-point attachment for rigidity, the police and Army officials here said. The recovery of new Rs 2,000 bank notes from two slain militants came on a day when minister of state for home, Kiren Rijiju, told the Parliament, now in its winter session in New Delhi, that funding to terrorists and stone-pelters in Jammu and Kashmir and smuggling of fake Indian currency notes into the country have been badly hit by the demonetisation Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes. Giving the details of the latest clash between the militants and the security forces, the officials said a siege was laid around the Bonikhan locality of the Hajin area of Bandipore following receiving information about the presence of militants there. While the security forces were zeroing on a private house where the militants were hiding, the latter opened fire, triggering the encounter. Hyderabad: The ruling TRS is sailing in two boats as regards the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao maintained that though Prime Minister Narendra Modis decision on demonetisation was good, it put people to untold hardship and the Centre should step in to ease the problems. However, his party MP Seetaram Naik was furious over the PMs move creating havoc in the country. People are suffering while exchanging or withdrawing their own money. Modi cannot avoid Parliament. He has to make a statement and spell out the measures being taken by the Centre to check the monetary crisis in the country, Mr Naik said. On Monday night, Municipal minister K.T. Rama Rao had said in New Delhi: In the bid to kill crocodiles, it (Centre) should not kill small fish. The continuing shortage of currency in banks, and long queues outside the banks and at ATMs, has forced the TRS to be critical of the Central government. The TD, an ally of the BJP, too is turning critical of demonetisation. The partys MP Shiva Prasad made fun of demonetisation. However, TRS MLC Palla Rajeswar Reddy, while backing demonetisation, accused Congress leaders of hoarding black money. Congress leaders have black money. Centres decision will be appreciated if public inconvenience is removed. People are facing problems with Rs 2000 currency notes since no one is willing to provide small change or exchange these notes, the Centre must pump in more Rs 100 notes, he said. Mr Rajeswar Reddy said that Mr Chandrasekhar Rao has brought the problems of people to the notice of the PM. What CMs of 28 states could not do, he has done it. He has proved he is No. 1 CM in the country, he said. SRINAGAR: The Army vowed heavy retribution after Pakistans troops killed three Indian soldiers and mutilated one of the bodies at Machil sector in Kashmirs Kupwara district along the Line of Control (LoC) on Tuesday. The Armys Northern Command tweeted: 3 soldiers killed in action on LoC in Machil. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act. The gory incident, the second of its kind in the same sector in less than a month. sparked heavy shelling. Army sources said the soldier whose body was mutilated was part of a counter-infiltration patrol party that was ambushed by a group of armed intruders, believed to be members of Pakistans Border Action Team (BAT) or terrorists backed by it in the northernmost district. Army says killings typical of Paks Bat The Army briefed defence minister Manohar Parrikar on the killings. It is a numbers game now and it is just a question of a few days when we do what we have to do, said an enraged Army official, adding that the operation is typical of Pakistans BAT which often operates with the terrorists along the LoC. On October 29, infiltrating terrorists had mutilated the body of 30-year-old Sepoy Mandeep Singh, who was killed in a brief firefight with them along the LoC in the same sector. After mutilating the body, the terrorists ran back into Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir, under cover fire provided by Pakistans Army, officials said. In January 2013, the beheading of an Indian soldier and mutilation of anothers body in Mendhar sector of along the LoC in Poonch district had left the two countries teetering on the brink of war. In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistanis BAT) in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days. Meanwhile, a suspected Pakistani terrorist guide was shot dead by BSF troops near the IB in Jammu, foiling an infiltration bid. AAP workers shout slogans during a protest march against demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: AAP volunteers rounded up along with deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia during their protest against demonetisation today made good use of their time in detention as they queued up to withdraw cash from an ATM machine in the police station. Apart from Sisodia and Delhi Culture Minister Kapil Mishra, police detained 48 AAP MLAs, and 400 to 500 party volunteers protesting at Jantar Mantar against the demonetisation drive. They were all taken to the Parliament Street Police station. While Sisodia, Mishra and the MLAs were taken to an official's room, the remaining volunteers stayed put in an open area within the police station. There they raised slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for demonetising high value notes, sang, and queued up outside an Axis Bank ATM. Unlike other ATMs in the surrounding areas, this particular cash vend is little known as it is located deep inside the Parliament Street police station, a typical colonial edifice, and is often used by police personnel. "I am making good use of my time. At other places one has to queue up for a long time," said Jagar Khan, party volunteer and a businessman from Mustafabad. Jamal Ansari, another party volunteer from Kalkaji, said the ATM was only dispensing Rs 2000 notes and the battle ahead for him was to find change for such a high denomination note. Even, policemen were seen queuing up for withdrawing money from the ATM. "People have been facing a lot of hardships due to the decision. At other ATMs, people have to wait for a long time, but here it is taking only a few minutes," said Naresh Rajasthani, a businessman and a party volunteer from Rohini Sector 22. Thrissur: KPCC president VM Sudheeran on Tuesday described the LDF government as the guardian of criminal and mafia gangs. Speaking at a UDF protest in Wadakkanchery against CPM allegedly protecting the party functionaries including councillor P. N. Jayanthan, accused in a gang rape case, he said the LDF was of the belief that they could push to the back all their wrongdoings by focusing on the agitation against demonetization of notes. He also inaugurated the UDF march from Wadakkanchery to Thrissur demanding the arrest of Mr Jayanthan. DCC president P. A. Madhavan, KPCC general secretary Padmaja Venugopal, T. N. Prathapan, M. P. Vincent, Joseph Chalissery and Jose Vallur took part. The UDF councillors also held a sit-in protest at Wadakkanchery Municipality building preventing the LDF members from entering the council hall. The police forcefully removed them. Hyderabad: Telangana IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao on Tuesday said that Cyber Warrior teams are being established to counter cyber-attacks. The rising number of cyber-attacks is posing a big challenge, but Telangana government is prepared to counter it, he said. Mr Rao was the chief guest at a two-day conclave on cyber security which commenced at HICC, Madhapur. Addressing the gathering, the minister pointed out that Telangana was the first state to bring a new policy on cyber security. Online transactions have become the order of the day. Steps should be taken to create more awareness. Even children should be taught about this subject from school days, he said. We are taking help of cyber security experts from Israel and Netherlands, the minister said. Hubballi: Six sugarcane-laden tractors were set on fire on the state highway at Shirol and Mugalkhod cross of Mudhol taluk in Bagalkot district when the police detained nearly hundred farmers who planned to lay siege to Suvarna Soudha in Belagavi demanding a better price for their produce. However, the farmers allege that it was a conspiracy hatched by some miscreants and owners of sugar mills to disrupt the agitation by destroying their unity. A large number of farmers have been growing sugarcane in Mudhol taluk but sugar mills in the taluk have failed to pay the minimum support price fixed by the government for their cane. Therefore, hundreds of farmers have been staging a dharna at Sangolli Rayanna circle in Mudhol town since the last one week to exert pressure on the state government to fulfill their demands. They had also submitted a memorandum to the district administration contending that the price offered by sugar mills is not enough owing to rising cost of cultivation and labour. These farmers were also ready to visit Belagavi to launch an agitation during the Legislative session. But, the police detained the farmers as a precautionary measure. The police action worsened the situation and led to the burning of cane-laden tractors by some miscreants at several places. The price offered by sugar mills cannot meet the expenditure incurred by us for fertilizer and labour for producing sugarcane. The mill owners are paying only Rs 2,200 per tonne as against Rs 3,000 per tonne demanded by us. Therefore, we have been staging a peaceful protest against the failure of the government to fulfill our demands including introduction of State Advisory Price (SAP) and payment of sugarcane dues to farmers. But, the police have harassed the farmers by detaining them, farmer leader Sadashiva Sankeretti said. Mudhol station police inspector Sanjeev Kamble claimed that the burning of cane-laden tractors was a reaction to the arrest of more than 80 farmers. He said the police team has started an investigation to nab the miscreants responsible for burning the tractors. Chennai: The DMK treasurer M.K. Stalin on Monday demanded the convening of a special session of the Assembly to discuss the situation arising out of scanty rainfall during the North East monsoon season and the suicides of farmers. Stalin said the South West monsoon had brought only 40 per cent rains this year and the North East monsoon had not given the expected rainfall, leading to drought in several districts. People are undergoing hardships without water for drinking and irrigation. The income of people had decreased and they are struggling to get money for daily expenses, he said. About 20 of the 89 major dams had turned bone dry and they include Mettur, Bhavani Sagar, Vaigai, Papanasam, Manimutharu and Amaravathy. Most of the 14,000 lakes including major ones like Veeranam had also become dry. Due to lack of water in dams, lakes and water bodies, the ground water level has also gone down. The reservoirs around Chennai, Sholavaram, Puzhal, Chembarambakkam and Poondi do not have even 1 tmc feet of water. In the Cauvery delta districts, kuruvai and samba cultivation had been hit and suicides of farmers are on the rise. Cooperative societies are unable to give crop loans for farmers due to the centres demonetisation move and the AIADMK government is not taking steps to alleviate peoples sufferings, he said. A special session of the Assembly should be convened and a resolution should be passed declaring the state as drought hit, Stalin demanded. Assam, the theatre of independent Indias biggest mass uprising against illegal foreign migrants (read Bangladeshis), has once again been sucked into the vortex of the natives versus aliens discourse. This follows the Narendra Modi governments move to grant citizenship to minority Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan who have been residents in India for six years. As far as Assam is concerned, the worry among various sections is the possibility of an unspecified number of Hindus from Bangladesh gaining citizenship, a move that would amount to violation of the 1971 cut-off date for detection and expulsion of illegal migrants which forms part of the provisions of the historic 1985 Assam Accord that brought the curtain down on the six-year-old anti-foreigner agitation in the 1980s. The BJP-led governments compulsions can be understood with senior leaders like Assams finance, health and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma saying Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and elsewhere have only India to head for to seek refuge in times of crisis whereas Muslims have several places to go. If Hindus flee from countries where they fear religious persecution, India has to protect them and give them shelter. Where will these Hindus, who are minorities in other countries, go if India does not accept them? Muslims and Christians have got several places to go to, Mr Sarma was quoted as saying in September. Whether countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and others would open their borders to let Muslim refugees in during moments of crisis is another matter! Now, groups like the All Assam Students Union (AASU); Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), a peasants group; the Asam Sahitya Sabha, the states apex socio-literary body, and others have questioned whether citizenship can be granted on the basis of religion and whether the move would not violate the provisions of the Assam Accord and make the state a dumping ground for illegal migrants. In fact, the BJP-led government at the Centre and in Assam appears to have embarked on a serious exercise to take a hard look at the issue, perhaps after the response from various quarters on the proposal. In Assams context, the issue has become more complex because Clause 6 of the Assam Accord promises special safeguards for the Assamese people. Nothing has happened so far although 31 years have passed by. An acceptable definition as to who would come under the bracket Assamese people has also not been found yet. The two issues the issue of special safeguards to Assamese people and the move to grant citizenship to Hindu Bangladeshis are actually linked. One argument says it is fine to facilitate the stay of Hindus in India who had to flee countries like Bangladesh due to alleged religious persecution. But there are others who feel granting these people citizenship would have an impact on the linguistic sphere as the number of Bengali-speaking population is bound to rise. What is not known, however, is the extent of the increase because one really doesnt know the number of such people who could be already in Assam. Many are also asking whether such people can be dispersed across the country, and, if not, can they be confined to the Bengali-speaking Barak Valley districts. It may be difficult to restrict people in a particular area, and, therefore, the issue needs to be examined from all angles. Recently, senior BJP leader Ram Madhav, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and Mr Sarma held an interaction with a select group of opinion-makers from Assam on the subject. It was a good attempt at going deep into the matter that is indeed sensitive. Among the many points of view put across by those present was the question whether at least 80 of Assams 126 Assembly seats could be reserved for the indigenous people of the state. Well, it is a good idea and can fulfil the expectation generated 30 years ago with the provision finding a place in Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. But, how to go about it? After all, any move to reserve seats on a community basis must be able to stand legal scrutiny. The exact wording of the much-talked-about Clause 6 of the Assam Accord are as follows: Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as many be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people. Now, the obvious question is: who are the Assamese people? Had the drafters of the accord used the term indigenous people, there would not have been so much of a problem. Now, when ethnic groups have asserted their aspirations to maintain their distinct identity, like the Bodos, Dimasas, Karbis and so on, would they be willing to come under the bracket of Assamese people? One would wait and see how the BJP leadership negotiates through this issue and reach a solution. Again, there seems to be a move in certain quarters to try and have 1951 as the cut-off date for detection and expulsion of illegal migrants, and they have moved the courts in this regard. This will also have a bearing on the Assam Accord because it would amount to pushing back the cut-off date by 20 years. If this happens, one would expect more people to fall under the bracket of illegal migrants. But, what could be the fallout of any such move (if it happens) on the process of updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC)? Already, certain quarters have come out with the discovery that during the chief ministership of Gopinath Bordoloi, around 200,000 illegal migrants had been pushed back to the then East Pakistan. These people were said to have returned after a few years. The same quarters now say that people from this category had submitted their old documents during the NRC update process and that they should now be made to submit proof of continuous residence in Assam. Amid the confusion came a written reply by Union minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju in the Rajya Sabha on November 16 that there are two crore illegal Bangladeshi migrants in India. The basis of this figure is not known but it amounts to a 67 per cent increase over the 1.2 crore estimate given out by the UPA government in 2004 but withdrawn rather quickly. Whether the Assamese people would get their special safeguards is difficult to predict, but the politics of citizenship sure is going to gather steam in the days ahead. Man is a prisoner of his past, but so are institutions. In the ongoing feud between Ratan Tata and Cyrus Mistry, the playbook has gone out of kilter. Dominating the mindscape are the Tata trusts, which get their heft from controlling 66 per cent of Tata Sons. The Tata trusts are of different vintage J.N. Tata Endowment 1892, Sir Ratan Tata Trust 1919, Sir Dorabji Tata Trust 1932, J.R.D. Tata Trust 1944, Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust/Jamsetji Tata Trust 1974 and Tata Education and Development Trust 2008. The most powerful of them are the ones that have substantive shareholding in Tata Sons Sir Dorabji Tata Trust 27.97 per cent, Sir Ratan Tata Trust 23.55 per cent, R.D. Tata Trust 2.18 per cent, J.R.D. Tata Trust 4 per cent and Tata Education Trust 3.73 per cent. The Tata trusts own two-thirds of Tata Sons shareholding, the wealth that accrues from this asset supports an assortment of causes, institutions and individuals in a variety of areas. These are public trusts governed by the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act and are not allowed to hold or invest in shares according to the 1973 amendment. So the shareholding of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust in Tata Sons, settled into charity by the founders of the group, is fully compliant under the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act. The shareholding in Tata Sons held by the trusts is permissible under the I-T Act. There is no misuse of tax exemptions available to charitable trusts by the Tata trusts as tax exemptions have been claimed as per the relevant provisions of the Income-Tax Act 1961 and various judicial precedents supporting the claim. Hence, the trusts have investments in the share capital of Tata Sons. To protect this major asset, the trusts have representation on the board of Tata Sons through professionals of high repute. The trusts act in accordance with the companys articles. This is important as in March 2013 the articles of association of Tata Sons were amended to allow the removal of the chairman by the board. Which is exactly what transpired on October 24 when the dam burst. The trusts hold investments in permissible modes stipulated by the Income-Tax Act, namely, deposits with scheduled banks (like ICICI, State Bank, etc.), government securities, government bonds (8 per cent GOI bonds), deposits with companies giving long-term benefits like housing finance major (HDFC Ltd). It also needs to be mentioned that public trusts are usually barred from holding shares of commercial businesses by the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act 1973 amendment. They are allowed to invest in banks and postal savings accounts and can otherwise lose tax exemptions. Power flows from the barrel of the these trusts and Ratan Tata, by virtue of being a Tata himself, protects the interests of the trusts and the Tata family name through the 66 per cent shareholding in Tata Sons. As principal shareholder, in this case through these trusts, he has the ability to fortify himself by building a moat around himself. This is precisely what he has done, shutting out his once chosen and anointed, now interloper Cyrus Mistry and his former chief counsel Nusli Wadia, who has defected to the other side in this war. Mr Mistry, by virtue of his 18.4 per cent, finds himself marginalised simply because the hammer of Thor (Ratan Tata) controls 66 per cent in Tata Sons. For a $100 billion-plus transnational conglomerate, the Tatas are mono typical and unique for the enterprise is controlled by public trusts. This is a special and notable business model. A singular distinction has to be made from companies run by private trusts. Trust companies run by banks or other corporate entities have long helped rich families in the West preserve their assets for the long term. A couple of years ago, the Wall Street Journal reported: Most states (in US) that allow private family trust companies have minimum capital requirements of $500,000. But when a trust serves only the family and its related interests, and is regulated by a state, it doesnt have to register as an adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This year, Florida became the latest state to allow private family trusts. Others include Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. At the very kernel of the battle between Ratan Tata, representing Tata Sons, a clutch of public charitable trusts engaged in philanthropic work, and Mr Mistry is that the latters management style was not delivering adequate returns or dividends to the holding company. If 50 per cent of all group revenues and 90 per cent of all profits, were coming from two entities TCS and Jaguar Land Rover it was well within their rights to invoke his removal. Blindsiding Mr Mistry was the induction of two new directors on Tata Sons board top industrialists Ajay Piramal and Venu Srinivasan as recently as late August. Ratan Tata, as chairman of Tata Trusts, was protecting not just his investments but ensuring that his companies are run efficiently. His contention is that Mr Mistry failed the mandate given to him, while Mr Mistry protests and challenges this vehemently. To understand the ferocity of Ratan Tatas anger and subsequent assault on Mr Mistry, one had must understand the animal called Tata Trusts, for it is a very different business model as explained earlier. Ratan Tata has ring-fenced himself from the beginning. While he handed over control at reaching the age of 75 in December 2012, his eagle eye was watching over his successor. The fallout has obviously been bitter and both have now taken uncompromising positions. Mr Mistry essaying the role of a whistleblower, an insider, now evicted but deadly dangerous on the outside. Each outburst from him is taking a toll, each broadside damaging and eroding equity, each fulmination debilitating as a body blow. As I write this, the latest missile makes for incredulous hearing, but is extremely caustic and scathing indictment of the Tata way of business. Mr Mistry now claims Ratan Tata had pitched for selling TCS to IBM, a near death experience for the groups crown jewel. Mr Mistrys latest missive says: Midway during the TCS journey to date, F.C. Kohli was suffering from a cardiac condition. Ratan Tata was then heading Tata Industries joint venture with IBM and approached J.R.D. Tata with a proposal from IBM to buy out TCS. J.R.D. Tata refused to discuss the deal because F.C. Kohli was still recovering in hospital. On his return, Mr Kohli assured J.R.D. that TCS had a bright future and the group should not sell the company. J.R.D. Tata turned down the offer, demonstrating true vision. But it was also a near-death experience for TCS at the hands of Mr Ratan Tata. This vilification and character assassination from both sides is only diluting shareholder value. Every snipe will cost the group, its value systems and branding, and with its credibility rocked. The damage to its reputation is immense. Mr Mistry will not go down without a fight, that is clear. Equally, Ratan Tata, as a Tata, will physically evict him from each board. Tata Sons claims it has to safeguard its investments for value creation and resource generation for philanthropic activities. Unlike Ratan Tatas tenure as chairman of Tata Sons, which also saw him heading the Tata Trusts, ensuring consonance and convergence of ideas, Mr Mistry found Ratan Tata ruling the trusts. It also needs to be said that when Mr Mistry took over, a pact was signed between Tata Sons, the holding company, and Tata Trusts clarifying the exact relationship, something Mr Mistry denies now. The interplay between the trusts and Tata Sons has seen a casualty of war: his name is Cyrus Mistry. Mr Tata has the trust of the trusts and he is the Jedi seeking revenge, with his light sabre wreaking havoc. Old Main Post Office Caught Fire Again On Tuesday Morning (Updated) By Stephen Gossett in News on Nov 22, 2016 5:13PM Update, 11:35 a.m.: The Chicago Fire Department reported at around 11:35 a.m. that the fire had been extinguished. No one was injured they said. The 2 11 alarm for fire in the old post office has been struck o ,ut. The associated plan one has been secured. There are no injuries Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) November 22, 2016 An extra-alarm fire broke out yet again at the Old Main Post Office downtown on Tuesday morning, according to the Chicago Fire Department. In what could be a huge traffic headache, Eisenhower Expressway lanes were blocked in both directions at the site as crews battled the blaze. "This is NOT a drill," fire officials Tweeted as crews responded to the call at 404 W. Harrison St. The fire department said around 11 a.m. that no injuries had yet been reported and crews were making progress in ventilating the area. NBC 5 reported that witnesses reported glass falling from the building while the fire spread. Fire. Old post office downtown on Harrison. a 2. 11 alarm Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) November 22, 2016 Alert. A 2 11 alarm fire. fire on multiple floors of old post office. This is NOT a drill Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) November 22, 2016 2-11 on Harrison, update to follow. 4-1-11 pic.twitter.com/iYrbZ4GmGn Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) November 22, 2016 2-11 update: all companies working making progress, ventilation underway. No injuries at this time. pic.twitter.com/veaU0salC0 Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) November 22, 2016 The iconic building has caught fire at least four times in as many years now. 601W Companies, the new developers of the historic Art Deco property, which had stood vacant for some 20 years, started renovations earlier in 2016. The sale of the buildingwhich was predicated by a somewhat controversial invocation of eminent domain by the citycame with stipulations from the Mayor's office for strict renovation deadlines, presumably because the building has been so marred with literal flare ups. The revamp will (eventually) include office space, a three-acre rooftop park, and a publicly accessible riverwalk. This post will be updated. Solitude and simplicity lie at the core of saintliness. One cannot claim to have attained spirituality without modesty. Those who pronounce mystical inclinations without being in this higher state are far away from the purpose. Mysticism actually results from the spiritual solace emanating from the solitude. However, the spiritual solitude in the Sufi view does not imply the asceticism or complete seclusion form the existing world. But rather, it denotes a lifestyle of saints who were completely immersed in the existence of the almighty, while at the same time actively engaged in fulfilling the worldly duties both spiritual and material. This is the code of life, which is described in the Sufi dictionary as fana fillah (total annihilation in the divine existence) and baqa billah (survival within the divine). This is what we learn from the life-long experience of Khwaja Baqi Billah, the first master of the Naqshbandi Sufi order in India. Razi al-Deen Muhammad Baqi, popularly known as Baqi Billah, was born in Kabul in 1563 AD to the prominent saint of his time, Abd-us-Salam Samarqandi. At an early age, Baqi became a seeker of the spiritual path to eternal salvation. In his pursuit for spiritual intellect, he travelled far and wide in the regions of Mesopotamia (Mavara-un-Nahar) where he met a lot many Sufis of his time and acquired great deal of Sufi wisdom from them. It is narrated that Baqi Billah became the disciple of the most renowned saints in the region. But his soul did not get the requisite spiritual solace. It was only after he came into contact with Ameer Abdullah Balkhi, a guiding Sufi master in Bukhara who exhorted him to visit India, the land of mystics, to find the ultimate destination of peace. Khwaja Baqi Billah first visited Lahore, but after he spent a couple of years, he chose to settle in Delhi a citadel of spiritual learning and mystical training at that time. It was in Delhi where Razi al-Din Muhammad transformed himself into baqi billah (survivor within the divine) and fani fillah (completely immersed in the divine existence). Thus, he conceived the spiritual idea that one can develop such a close personal relationship with the divine that s/he can immerse in his existence. However, one cannot reach this high culmination of mysticism unless s/he goes through the various stages of self-annihilation and soul-purification. It requires one to complete the rigorous spiritual training of sabr (patience) and shukr (gratitude). Only then one can be capable enough to annihilate his/her existence in the divine and thus attain the exalted position of Baqi Billah (permanent existence with the divine). Having achieved this lofty epithet from the foremost Sufis of the Indian subcontinent, Khwaja Baqi Billah became an immortal Sufi saint in Delhi. But even after his death, his spiritual lineage Naqshbandi Silsila is flourishing the world over as one of the prime Sufi orders. Nsanje, Malawi: An HIV-positive Malawian man who said he slept with at least 100 girls and women in traditional cleansing rituals was to be sentenced on Tuesday after being convicted of "engaging in harmful practices". Eric Aniva was prosecuted on the orders of President Peter Mutharika after publicly speaking about his role as a "hyena" in a BBC documentary. Custom in some parts of southern Malawi demands that a man, known as a "hyena", is paid to have sex with bereaved widows to exorcise evil spirits and to prevent other deaths occurring. At the request of a girl's parents, the "hyena" is also paid to have sex with adolescent girls to mark their passage to womanhood after their first menstruation. The ritual, which many Malawians say is rarely practised today, is believed to train girls to become good wives and protect them from disease or misfortune that could fall on their families. After an international outcry over the documentary, President Mutharika ordered Aniva's arrest in July. On Friday, in the first case of its kind, Aniva was found guilty on two counts by magistrate Innocent Nebi after a one-day trial in the district of Nsanje. The charges, under the gender equality act, involved the ritual of sex with widows as none of the younger girls would testify, according to reports. At the trial, in front of a packed courtroom, the state produced six witnesses against Aniva, 45, who pleaded not guilty. High HIV rates The magistrate said the court had concluded that "sexual cleansing violates the dignity of widows". State prosecutor Chiyembekezo Banda demanded a long prison sentence for Aniva, saying he was probably responsible for the spread of HIV. Malawi is one of the worst affected countries in the world, with 27,000 deaths from AIDS-related illnesses and nine percent of the adult population infected with HIV. Aniva faces a possible five-year jail term, according to the BBC. Michael Goba Chipeta, Aniva's defence lawyer, told the court his client should not be jailed. Chipeta appealed for Aniva to not be used as "a sacrificial lamb", saying "the publicity he has attracted is punishment enough". Before being led by police to his cell, Aniva said: "I am not worried about being convicted. I think I will be given a suspended sentence." His second wife Sophia, who was in court on Friday, was in tears and declined to speak to the press. Aniva said he had slept with at least 104 women and girls, some as young as 12, in a ritual that lasts three days. He said each family paid him a fee of between $4 and $7. San Antonio: While presiding over a naturalisation ceremony in San Antonio where 500 immigrants took oath of US citizenship, a judge told them to go to another country if they did not like Donald Trump the US President-elect. According to a report in The Washington Post, the immigrants had gathered at Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio on Friday to take oath of allegiance to the United States, when US Magistrate Judge John Primono made the statement. I can assure you that whether you voted for him or you did not vote for him If you are a citizen of the United States, he is your president. He will be your president, and if you do not like that, you need to go to another country, the judge said. Primono had also lashed out American protestors who carried sign boards that stated, Hes not my president. I detest that, because you can protest things that happen in this country; you have every right to. You dont do that by offending national symbols like the national anthem and the flag of the United States, he had said at the ceremony. Primono later said that his comment was not political and that he only meant to be respectful of the presidents office. Clearing the air that he was speaking in favour of the US President-elect, the judge said that he did not vote for Trump in November 8 US presidential election. An arrest affidavit posted online by Chattanooga station WTVC says Walker was driving well above the posted 30 mph speed limit on a narrow, winding road when he lost control of the bus. (Representational Image) Chattanooga: A school bus driver who authorities say was speeding along a narrow, winding Tennessee road when he wrapped his vehicle around a tree was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide in the deaths of five children. Calling the Monday afternoon crash "every public safety professional's worst nightmare," Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher told an overnight news conference that 24-year-old bus driver Johnthony Walker was also charged with reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Investigators were looking at speed "very, very strongly" as a factor in the crash, Fletcher said earlier. An arrest affidavit posted online by Chattanooga station WTVC says Walker was driving well above the posted 30 mph speed limit on a narrow, winding road when he lost control of the bus. His bond was set at $107,500, according to the affidavit. Walker is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 29, the Times Free Press of Chattanooga reported. Police said overnight that five children were killed in the crash. Earlier Monday, Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston told news outlets the crash killed six, but police later said it was five. Kirk Kelly, the interim superintendent of Hamilton County schools, said the bus driver not a school district employee, but employed by bus contactor Durham School Services. Thirty-five students from kindergarten through fifth grade were on board when the bus flipped onto its side and wrapped around a tree. The bus was the only vehicle involved in the crash, but Fletcher said the scene was complicated and covered a significant area. He also said a warrant had been issued to remove the bus' black box, which contains data about the vehicle's movement. Bloodied Woodmore Elementary School students lay on stretchers, while others walked away dazed with their parents after the crash, local news outlets reported. More than 20 children went to hospitals for their injuries, according to Fletcher. Emergency responders needed almost two hours to get all the children off the bus. The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to Chattanooga on Tuesday to investigate. NTSB Chairman Christopher A. Hart said investigators will focus first on getting evidence such as memories from witnesses. He said investigators would also check on whether the bus has cameras and whether its engine has a monitoring chip. He said the NTSB's goal is to determine the cause in order to prevent such tragedies from happening again. Kelly, the interim superintendent, said three of the students killed were in fourth grade, one was in first grade and another in kindergarten. Kelly said six students were still in intensive care Tuesday morning and six others were also hospitalized. Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke said the city was in mourning. "The most unnatural thing in the world is for a parent to mourn the loss of a child," Berke said. "There are no words that can bring comfort to a mother or a father. So today, the city is praying for these families." Craig Harris, a parent of two children who were on the bus, told ABC's "Good Morning America" Tuesday he thought the bus driver sometimes drove too fast. "There has been times where I've seen him going a little faster than he probably should be going," Harris said. Harris said his daughter and stepson were in shock and pain after the crash but were doing better Tuesday. Demetrius Jenkins, 22, was dropping off his first-grade son, Jermaine Bradley, at school the day after his best friend was killed in the crash. He said he hadn't yet told his son his friend had died. "It's sad. He's going to eventually find out," he said. "I know he's going to be full of tears." Television stations reported people lined up to donate blood and some donors were asked to make appointments for Tuesday. Pastor Tavner Smith and a dozen staffers of the Venue Church came to the school to offer support to students and families. "It's devastating," Smith said. "You send your kids to school and think you're going to see them that evening. We're really just praying for all the families right now, for what they're going through." At school, Kelly said classes would be held Tuesday with counselors available for students and staff. Fletcher said the families of the children who died had been notified but police would not release their names because they were juveniles. "Our hearts go out, as well as the hearts of all these people behind me, to the families, the neighborhood, the school, for all the people involved in this, we assure you we are doing everything we can," Fletcher said. At the state Capitol in Nashville, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam called the crash "a tragic event" and offered assistance. "We're going to do everything we can to assist in any way," Haslam said. Duterte has also said he would end joint US-Philippine military exercises and called US President Barack Obama a "son of a whore" in response to criticism of his deadly war on drugs. Manila: Philippine-US military ties are still "robust" despite threats by President Rodrigo Duterte to sever defence relations between the two allies, Manila's military spokesman said on Tuesday. Brigadier General Restituto Padilla gave the assurance following the latest meeting of the two countries' senior military officials to discuss defence cooperation up to 2017. Duterte last month announced a "separation" from the United States and has called for the withdrawal of American troops from his country, putting into question Manila's 70-year-old alliance with Washington. Duterte has also said he would end joint US-Philippine military exercises and called US President Barack Obama a "son of a whore" in response to criticism of his deadly war on drugs. Despite Duterte's threats, Philippine military chief General Ricardo Visaya and the commander of US forces in the Pacific Admiral Harry Harris met in Manila on Tuesday. "The successful completion of the (meeting) ensures continued robust relations between the US and Philippine militaries," Padilla told reporters. "This highlights the enduring commitment of both countries to the US-Philippine alliance." Padilla said the two militaries looked forward to closer cooperation in disaster relief, counter-terrorism, cybersecurity and maritime security. The two sides also discussed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, an accord signed in 2014 that allows greater rotation of US forces in the Philippines. But Padilla declined to say whether Visaya and Harris discussed Duterte's threats. The new president's fiery rhetoric has caused confusion in military and diplomatic circles with Duterte threatening to cut back on ties with the United States and vowing to create a new alliance with Russia and China. Duterte again criticised the US in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a regional summit in Peru over the weekend. But even with Duterte's anti-American sentiment, Philippine-US joint exercises have continued to take place and Harris said at a Washington event last week: "There has been no change in anything with the Philippines." The Philippine military has said it was awaiting guidelines from Duterte on whether the joint war games would continue to be held next year. The country hosts 28 such exercises annually. Duterte's war on drugs has seen more than 4,700 people killed, with the United Nations, the European Union and rights groups raising concerns about alleged extrajudicial killings and a breakdown in the rule of law. Duterte has insisted he is not doing anything illegal, but would be "happy to slaughter" three million drug users. Istanbul: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said it would be "inappropriate" to ask who was the more barbarous out of Israel and Hitler, in comments likely to put renewed strain on ties with the Jewish state. The comments come less than a week after Turkey appointed a foreign policy advisor to the prime minister as ambassador to Israel, sealing the normalisation of diplomatic relations after a six-year partial rupture. "I don't approve of what Hitler did, and neither do I approve of what Israel has done. When it's a question of so many people dying, it's inappropriate to ask who was the more barbarous," Erdogan said in an interview with Israeli television on Monday night. The relationship between the two countries plunged to an all time low after an Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound ship in 2010 that killed 10 Turks, prompting Ankara to expel the Israeli ambassador and freeze all defence ties. But the two sides have been working to bring cooperation back to former levels and are holding talks on building an ambitious pipeline project to pump Israeli gas to Turkey and Europe. Nevertheless, considerable tensions remain with Erdogan presenting himself as a champion of the Palestinians and regularly meeting with Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal. Israel, the United States and the European Union all view Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, as a terrorist organisation. It is not the first time that Erdogan has referred to the World War II Nazi leader when dealing with Israel. After the 2010 raid, he accused Israel of "keeping Hitler's spirit alive". And during the 2014 Gaza War, in which 2,251 Palestinians were killed, according to the UN, he said Israelis "have no conscience, no honour, no pride. They curse Hitler day and night, but they have surpassed Hitler in barbarism". He has accused the Jewish state of carrying out "genocide" on the Palestinians. In Monday's comments to Israel's Channel 2 television, Erdogan said he was "well aware" of the sensitivities associated with Hitler, blamed for the deaths of some six million Jews. But he said he found it "impossible to forget the hundreds, the thousands of people who died when (the Israeli military) struck Gaza". Radhika Menon is the first woman captain of the Indian Merchant Navy to receive a bravery award. (Photo: Twitter) London: India's first female Merchant Navy captain has become the first woman to be awarded by the IMO for her exceptional bravery in the dramatic rescue of seven fishermen from a sinking fishing boat in tumultuous Bay of Bengal waters last year. Captain Radhika Menon received her medal and certificate of commendation at an awards ceremony at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) headquarters here last evening. "I am honoured and humbled with this great honour for me and my team. It is a seafarer's duty to help souls in distress and I did my duty. Seafaring is a noble profession which contributes massively to world trade and economy as well as cultural integration. It does not always get the recognition it deserves," said Menon in her acceptance speech. Menon, who was nominated by the Indian government, became the first woman to receive the IMO Award for Exceptional Bravery at Sea, an annual award established by IMO to provide international recognition for those who, at the risk of losing their own life, perform acts of exceptional bravery. "Seafaring is a gender-neutral profession and if you work hard, like in any other field, you will win appreciation," said the Kerala-born ship captain. Her award related to her successful rescue of all seven fishermen from the fishing boat 'Durgamma', which was adrift following engine failure and loss of anchor in severe weather. Food and water had been washed away and they were surviving on ice from the cold storage. Through wave heights of more than 25 feet, winds of more than 60 knots and heavy rain in June 2015, the 'Sampurna Swarajya' vessel operated by the Shipping Corporation of India Ltd spotted the boat 2.5 kilometres away, off the coast of Gopalpur, Orissa. Menon, who was in charge of the vessel, ordered a rescue operation, utilising the pilot ladder, with life jackets and buoys on standby. It took three arduous attempts in the lashing wind and rain before all seven weak and starving fishermen, aged from 15 to 50 years old, were brought to safety on board the ship. "This act of exceptional bravery and the award will go a long way in raising the profile of this great profession. We will plan a publication to publicise this widely," said Dinesh Patnaik, the Indian Acting High Commissioner to the UK. The IMO Council had also endorsed the recommendation of its panel of judges that out of a total of 23 nominations, received from nine member states and one inter-governmental organisation, four should receive Certificates of Commendation and six should receive Letters of Commendation. Another Indian to receive a commendation during the ceremony in London was B M Das, Uttam Navik, a winch operator and diver of the rescue helicopter CG 822, Indian Coast Guard Air Station Daman. He was also nominated by India for rescuing all 14 crew members of the merchant ship? 'Coastal Pride', which capsized and eventually sank. Iraqi citizens who fled the fighting between Islamic State militants and the Iraqi forces, walk inside a camp for internally displaced people, in Khazer, east of Mosul, Iraq. (Photo: AP) Arbil, Iraq: More than 68,000 people have fled their homes since Iraqi forces launched a huge offensive against the Islamic State group in and around Mosul last month, the UN said on Tuesday. The figure increased significantly over the past week as forces battled deep into the densely populated city, but it falls short of pre-offensive predictions. "68,550 people are currently displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance," the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement. OCHA said the aid response to the offensive launched against the jihadists on October 17 was growing in complexity, with varying needs for different categories of civilians. "Humanitarian needs are severe among displaced families in and out of camps, vulnerable residents of retaken communities, and people fleeing the intense fighting in Mosul city," it said. Million-plus civilians were thought to still live inside Mosul, the country's second city and the jihadists' last major bastion in Iraq, before the operation was launched. The UN had initially predicted that 200,000 civilians could be forced from their homes in the first few weeks of the offensive, Iraq's biggest military operation in years. Aziz said Pakistan believes in peaceful co-existence based on mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity but at the same time it cannot remain aloof from the prevailing situation in the region. (Photo: PTI) Islamabad: Amid rising Indo-Pak tensions, Pakistan on Tuesday said "credible minimum deterrence" was needed for regional stability and warned that instability has consequences with "far more dangers". Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said the imperative of strategic stability was an important dimension of Pakistan-India relations. "There is need for credible minimum deterrence as instability has consequences with far more dangers," he said while addressing an international conference on 'Strengthening Peace and Cooperation in South Asia: Incentives and Constraints' organised by Islamabad Policy Research Institute. Aziz claimed that Pakistan is maintaining "minimum nuclear deterrence" for peace and stability in the region and called upon the international community to desist from policies and actions that undermine strategic stability in South Asia. He stated that supply of weapon systems widens the existing conventional capabilities in the region. Aziz regretted that the world has not fully recognised the dangers posed to the peace and stability in the region. On the Kashmir issue, Aziz was quoted as saying by Radio Pakistan that, "India was responding to indigenous struggle of Kashmiris for their right of self-determination by denial and illusion." He criticised India for terming the "Kashmiri struggle" as terrorism and declaring Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part. "India must understand ground realities and recognise the indigenous nature of right to self-determination movement" in Kashmir, he was quoted as saying. Aziz said during negotiations with India, Pakistan would continue to seek normalisation of relationship and promoting steps that would pave the way for settlement of all lingering disputes including the core dispute of Jammu and Kashmir. On the NSG issue, Aziz called for criteria-based and non-discriminatory approach for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), asserting that otherwise it will affect the strategic stability in the region. He said Pakistan's application for NSG membership should be evaluated on the basis of fair criterion. Aziz regretted India's opposition to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor project, saying it is based on "no apparent reason". Aziz alleged that India is doing so to obstruct Pakistan's path towards progress and development. He claimed that the "Indian hegemonic temptations" and aggressive posture undermine regional cooperation. Aziz said Pakistan believes in peaceful co-existence based on mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity but at the same time it cannot remain aloof from the prevailing situation in the region. He accused India of "sponsoring and fomenting" terrorism in Pakistan. Aziz also alleged that India had increased violations along the Line of Control to put constraints on Pakistan's ability to deploy more troops on the western border. Bangladesh says it has prevented hundreds more from crossing into the country, despite pleas from the United Nations to open its border after up to 30,000 Rohingya were displaced by violence in Myanmars Rakhine state. (Photo: AFP) Dhaka: Hundreds of Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in neighbouring Myanmar, community leaders said on Tuesday, many with horrific tales of troops killing and burning villages. Bangladesh says it has prevented hundreds more from crossing into the country, despite pleas from the United Nations to open its border after up to 30,000 Rohingya were displaced by violence in Myanmars Rakhine state. Bangladeshi troops have intensified patrols along the 237-kilometre (147-mile) border, but Rohingya community leaders estimate that 1,000 people have still managed to get in over the last week. Most are hiding out in camps for the 32,000 legally registered already living in southeast Bangladesh, fearing repatriation if they are found by authorities. Mohammad Amin, 17, said he and 15 others fled their homes in Rakhine five days ago and reached Bangladesh by swimming across the Naf river that divides the two countries. The (Myanmar) army killed my father and elder brother. I hid on a hill and then walked and swam across the river, and took refuge at a mosque (in Bangladesh), he told AFP by phone from Coxs Bazar near the border. Where I looked I saw only burnt houses. I dont know what happened to my mother and sister. Zohra Khatun, 25, arrived late Monday with her seven children after their village was burned to the ground, and has been helped by a relative already living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. I waited two days before I had the chance to cross the river to come here, Khatun told AFP by phone. The relative, who asked not to be named, said that at least 100 families had arrived at the camp from Myanmar in the last two days. Another community leader said 500 people had taken shelter near two other Rohingya refugee camps in the area. Commanders of the Border Guard Bangladesh said their troops had blocked nearly 300 Rohingya from crossing the border overnight, the highest number since the crisis began last month. Were preventing them on the zero line, especially those who were trying to cross the barbed-wire fences erected by Myanmar, said Imran Ullah Sarker. "As Time Goes By," an exhibition to showcase artist Liu Rongfeng's works, is being held in Beijing from Nov. 19 - 30, 2016. [Photo / China.org.cn] Young artist Liu Rongfeng's colorful paintings are being shown at the Shangba Art Gallery in Beijing. The exhibition, titled "As Time Goes By," is sponsored by Onyx Gallery and opened last Saturday. More than 50 paintings were shown, which were created by Liu during the time when he was working as a movie art designer in last two years. He drew inspiration and found creative ideas in the journey as the job demanded him to run around to many places. He then settled down in Beijing this summer and autumn to turn his ideas into reality. "What impresses us most in Liu Rongfeng's paintings, apart from his endless inventiveness in choosing his themes, is his unusual employment of color," art critic Dr. Rasko Radovic said at the opening ceremony. "We know that as a result of the research conducted in the nineteen century by German psychophysicist Helmholtz, the colors shifted, in modern color theory, to rather cooler hues, traditional reds being replaced with magenta, the greens with cyan. These also seem to be Rongfeng's preferred colors. Particularly when offset with the black, they create a feeling of freshness and purity. " He continued, "Another interesting point about Rongfeng's painting is his use of color to create the effect of transparency. Having myself researched the complex and still not fully explained phenomenon of transparency, I am puzzled as to how this painter has managed to create this effect by solely using juxtaposed, flat colored surfaces of pure, unmixed, often contrasted colors in a manner vaguely reminiscent of Vermeer. This is particularly the case with his flower bottles which simultaneously conjure a fluid, watery effect, combined with a mirror like effect that one would associate with quicksilver, the two blending together in a manner most pleasing to the eye." For example, Liu's "reworking" of Seurat's "Bathers at Asnieres" (Picasso's reinterpretations of old masters come to mind) where the myriads of pointillist dots of color have been replaced by flat colored surfaces (and a few other fanciful details added), is, "in a way, highly symbolical of this young painter's catching up with the epoch we live in," Dr. Radovic added. Liu, born in Shandong Province, learned how to paint, paper-cut and draw graffiti from his grandma since a very young age. He had unique perspectives in painting and arts, leaving some magic from the world outside in his artworks. Now he lives in Shanghai. "I love something clean, because life sometimes is messy and terrible," Liu said. "I enjoy fill clean lines and clean colors in the images, and I get used to making the whole picture clean, neat and orderly. I think even though there are no deep and profound thoughts in my paintings, at least they will make your eyeballs comfortable." The exhibition will be held until Nov. 30 at Shangba Art Gallery, Yard 3, Xiadianjia in Chaoyang District, Beijing. Sources said he also took up the issue of repeated ceasefire violations by Pakistani forces as well as their usage of artillery and 120 mm heavy mortars. (Photo: Representational Image) Islamabad: India on Tuesday strongly protested to Pakistan the killing of its soldiers and the mutilation of the body of one of them when its Deputy High Commissioner was summoned by the Foreign Office in Islamabad to condemn "unprovoked ceasefire violations". Indian Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh, who was called in by Director General (South Asia and SAARC) Mohammad Faisal, also conveyed that Pakistani troops were deliberately targeting the civilian areas, resulting in heavy casualties. Singh lodged a strong protest over the killing of Indian soldiers with the body of one of them being mutilated in second such incident in less than a month. Three soldiers were killed today in an ambush on army patrol which took place in Machhil sector of Kashmir following which the Indian army vowed heavy "retribution". Singh also protested yesterday's killing of two Indian soldiers. Sources said he also took up the issue of repeated ceasefire violations by Pakistani forces as well as their usage of artillery and 120 mm heavy mortars. Pakistani forces were giving cover fire to infiltrators and there was increased activity of terrorists near the Pakistani posts, Singh told the Pakistani side. Faisal, on his part, strongly condemned the "unprovoked ceasefire violations on 21 November 2016", by the Indian forces on the LoC in Jandrot, Nikial, Karela and Baroh sectors, resulting in the death of four civilians and injuries to 10 others. The Director General also condemned the alleged violation of Pakistan's Maritime Exclusive Economic Zone by the Indian Naval Submarine on November 14, 2016, in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a Pakistan Foreign Office statement said. Faisal urged the Indian side to respect the 2003 ceasefire understanding and UNCLOS, "investigate the continued incidents of violations and instruct the Indian forces/authorities to respect the ceasefire and international borders, in letter and spirit," it added. The 10 condemned terrorists were given capital punishment by special military courts set-up after the 2014 Peshawar school attack for speedy trial of terrorists. (Representational Image) Islamabad: Ahead of his retirement, Pakistan army chief General Raheel Sharif on Tuesday confirmed death sentence handed down to 10 "hardcore terrorists" by military courts for their involvement in killing four commandos and other heinous offences related to terrorism. The 10 condemned terrorists were given capital punishment by special military courts set-up after the 2014 Peshawar school attack for speedy trial of terrorists. "Today, Chief of Army Staff confirmed death sentences awarded to another 10 hardcore terrorists who were involved in heinous offences related to terrorism, including killing of innocent civilians," army said in a statement. The militants had also slaughtered Special Services Group's four commandos who had been captured and mercilessly killed during Swat operation of 2009. Army said the convicts also planned and executed attacks on Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies of Pakistan which resulted in deaths and injuries to several soldiers. They were also involved in destruction of educational institutions and communication infrastructure. Fire-arms and explosives were also recovered from their possession. The military courts were set up in Pakistan to expedite the trial process for terror-related offences following the December 2014 Taliban's massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar in which over 150 people, mostly school children, were killed. Following the attack, the government had lifted the moratorium on the death penalty and the Parliament passed the 21st amendment which established military courts which was challenged in the Supreme Court. The apex court ruled in favour of setting up of the courts in August last year. It is not known where the trial was held and when the verdict of conviction announced, as the military courts work in secrecy due to fear of backlash by militants. Raheel will end his three-year term as army chief on November 29. Sharif said Pakistan was committed to discouraging arms race and promoting "the motto of arms for peace, which has always been the tagline of IDEAS". (Photo: PTI) Islamabad: Pakistan discourages any arms race in the region on Tuesday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said, underlining that the country is exploring the way forward for peace and stability in South Asia. Addressing at the inauguration of the ninth International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) in Islamabad, Sharif said Pakistan was committed to discouraging arms race and promoting "the motto of arms for peace, which has always been the tagline of IDEAS". He expressed Pakistan's commitment to regional peace, saying that, "we will explore the way forward for peace and stability in the world in general and our region in particular". Sharif said the environment for foreign investment was encouraging in the country in view of improved law and order situation, besides power projects being completed on time. The Prime Minister said Pakistan had achieved self-reliance in defence production and mentioned that IDEAS-2016 was a demonstration of the collaboration of local and foreign technologies. He said over 2,000 weapons system and equipment on display at the exhibition reflected broad-based participation of the country's public and private sector in defence production, supported by research and development. The Prime Minister said the countrys defence products were state-of-the-art and stood fully tested by its armed forces. "Our defence products have made their mark in many countries of the world," he said, adding there still existed many opportunities for further growth and exploration of new markets. He said Pakistan was fast emerging producer of quality defence products. The Prime Minister invited foreign companies to expand their business linkages with Pakistan in the field of defence production. Later, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated the exhibition, flanked by Defence Minister Khwaja Asif, Army Chief General Raheel Sharif, Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Admiral Mohammad Zakaullah and Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman. 34 countries and a total of 418 companies are participating in IDEAS 2016, including 261 foreign and 157 Pakistani companies. The exhibition will continue till November 25. Islamabad: A petition has been filed in Pakistan's Supreme Court challenging a lower court's decision to dismiss a plea seeking directives to elevate army chief General Raheel Sharif to the rank of Field Marshal ahead of his retirement next week. Terming the extension or conferring of the title as greatest national interest, the appellant yesterday requested the court to set aside the Islamabad High Court's order. Appellant Adnan Mazari, who is a Rawalpindi Bar Association (RBA) member, made Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the government and the Defence Ministry as respondents. Raheel, 60, will rertire on November 29. He contended that the IHC's order is illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional without taking into consideration the merit of the said post which is globally recognised and Pakistan is no exception. "That the exemplary, outstanding and professional performance during peace and war time with total dedication and devotion by attaining the highest standards and mastery in battlefield our present COAS (Chief of Army Staff) needs national appreciation, award and recognition; and in our constitution of Pakistan no tenure/period of COAS is enshrined anywhere," the appellant contended. The appeal stated that Pakistan recorded a substantial decrease in terrorism last year, with 45 per cent less attacks and 38 per cent less deaths reported in the year than the previous year, according to the report of the 'Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2016. He added that this is the second consecutive year in which Pakistan has seen reduction in terrorism. General Raheel, 60, is expected to pass on the baton of command of the army to the next army chief at a ceremony by the end of this month. Raheel in January had declared he would not seek extension. The resolution, co-sponsored by 72 countries, was adopted without a vote in the 193-member Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues, Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement. (Photo: AFP) Islamabad: Pakistan on Tuesday said a UN General Assembly committee has unanimously passed a resolution sponsored by it which reaffirms that the universal realisation of the right of peoples to self-determination was a fundamental condition for the guarantee of human rights. The resolution, co-sponsored by 72 countries, was adopted without a vote in the 193-member Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues, Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement. The resolution is expected to come up for General Assembly's endorsement next month. The text of the resolution also declared the 193-member body's firm opposition to acts of foreign military intervention, aggression and occupation, since these have resulted in the suppression of the right of peoples to self-determination and other human rights in certain parts of the world, the Foreign Office statement said. The resolution also called on those states responsible to cease immediately their military intervention and occupation of foreign countries and territories, as well as all acts of repression, discrimination, exploitation and maltreatment, it said. Presenting the draft, Pakistan's UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said the right to self-determination was a fundamental principle of the United Nations Charter and international law, the statement said. "Exercise of this right has enabled millions across the world to emerge from the yolk of colonial and foreign occupation and alien domination," she was quoted as saying. "Many of us, present here today, are proud inheritors of this struggle to achieve a life of dignity and honour, as free citizens of independent states," she said. "Political observers say the resolution, which Pakistan has been tabling since 1981, serves to focus the world's attention on the struggle by peoples for their inalienable right to self-determination, including those in Kashmir and Palestine," the Foreign Office said. In two separate incidents, Odisha Police arrested a youth on charge of circulating fake Rs 2,000 notes and recovered Rs 4.8 lakh stocked in the newly-introduced denomination post the Centre's demonetisation move. Madhusudan Meher of Jharsuguda was arrested while he was trying to use the fake currency at petrol pump in Sunarimunda, a senior police officer said. The petrol outlet staff handed him over to the cops. "The note is a colour photocopy of an original Rs 2,000 currency. A case has been registered at the Jharsuguda police station and investigation is underway," Sub-divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of Jharsuguda, Bijay Nanda said. Meanwhile in Bolangir district, police seized over Rs 12 lakh from the house of a recruitment agent of migrant labourers, popularly known as 'dadan sardar' on charge of stashing huge amount of cash. The police raided the house of Khirasagar Bag, a dadan sardar at Tingra village under Saintala police station limits last night and seized Rs 12,75,900, Bolangir SP Asish Singh said. Singh said though they raided house of Bag on a tip-off about fake notes but the police could not find any. Out of the total amount recovered, Rs 2,000 notes were also stored which totalled upto Rs 4.8 lakh, he said. "The police were investigating as to how Bag could arrange so many Rs 2,000 notes while people stand in lines to get cash from banks and ATMs," Singh said. Police suspected that the man was using local people to get demonetised notes exchanged for new the Rs 2,000 notes in different banks. Bag, however, could not be arrested as he absconded before the raid took place, police said. Controversial meat exporter Moin Qureshi has returned to India and is expected to join today investigations before the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing his role in a money laundering case. Officials said Qureshi arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here last night after which ED sleuths served him a court-issued directive to present himself before the agency today. They said the businessman is expected to depose before the Investigating Officer (IO) of the case, as per directives of the court. The Delhi High court, while hearing a plea filed by Qureshi, had last month directed him to return to India by mid-November and appear before the agency for questioning in this case. The meat exporter is facing probes by ED as well as the I-T department for alleged tax evasion, money laundering among others. The Income Tax department had sometime back issued notices to Qureshi under the new Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 as probe led it to few foreign assets owned or held by the meat exporter and his family in an alleged illegal manner as they were not declared or reported to Indian tax authorities. The case emerged after tax department first carried out searches against Qureshi and his firm AMQ Group on February 15, 2014. The meat exporter had on October 15 left the country from the IGI airport here despite a Look Out Circular issued by the ED against him. The agency had also asked the CBI to probe the role of public servants in allegedly favouring Qureshi in his deals. The Defence Ministry will review all cases of blacklisted firms as it prepares a new list of such entities following the new policy unveiled by it which is a mixture of heavy fines and graded banning. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said that the Director General (Acquisition) will draw up a list as required under the new policy and hence old cases will also be looked into. "That does not mean they will be taken out. Don't interpret... they will be examined. What is the status, how many years they have been blacklisted for and why they were blacklisted," Parrikar told PTI on the sidelines of a seminar here. He said that as per the new policy, there has to be a new list."So the list will have to be re-ascertained," the Minister said.The review will include about a dozen firms that came under blanket blacklisting in the previous regime, a move which the forces were unhappy about as it proved detrimental to their modernisation plans. Some of the firms like Singapore Technologies have approached the courts seeking removal of blacklisting. Singapore Technologies' argument is that it has been wrongly blacklisted since no contract was ever awarded to it and neither is it mentioned in the charge sheet filed by the CBI in connection with a bribery case involving the then Ordinance Factory Board chief. Under its new liberalised blacklisting policy for arms companies, India will now be open to doing business even with a banned firm if there is no alternative available to its weapon system or equipment in the market. This can be done on the grounds of national security, operational military readiness and export obligations, after the vice-chief of the Service concerned, the chief of the integrated defence staff or the additional secretary (defence production) signs a certificate to that effect and gets permission from the "competent authority", who is the Defence Minister. Another key element of the new policy is that unlike the blanket ban of 10 years, the government has said that ban on serious defaulters will be for minimum five years. The policy does not mention the maximum time period for ban. Called the 'Guidelines of the Ministry of Defence for Penalties in Business Dealings with Entities', the policy, which has been in the works for long, aims to ensure probity and transparency in defence deals without affecting the modernisation plans. "An updated list of entities with which business dealings have been suspended or banned by the competent authority and/or against which financial penalties have been imposed shall be maintained on the official website of the Ministry of Defence," the policy read. Listing out six reasons for which companies can get banned, it says that violating the integrity pact, indulging in corrupt practices and endangering national security would be treated most seriously while non-performance and any other grounds would invite a less harsh penalty. Talking about penalties, it said that for the lesser offence of non-performance, the ban would not exceed three years. The new policy says that orders of banning business dealings with an entity may be extended to its allied firms by specific order of the competent authority. It also makes it clear that the period of suspension of business dealing with an arms company shall not ordinarily exceed one year pending a probe into the corruption allegations. A review of the suspension order will be undertaken every six months. The suspension time can, however, be extended for additional six months. "The total period of suspension of business dealings with an entity shall not exceed the maximum period of banning of business dealing with an entity for the same cause of action," the policy read. It also calls for banning of agents or employees of a company who are convicted for any act of impropriety. Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ram Naresh Yadav, whose name had cropped up in the Vyapam scam, passed away here this morning after a prolonged illness. He was 90. Yadav, who served as Madhya Pradesh Governor from 2011-September 2016, breathed his last at Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences here at 9.15 AM, Congress sources said. Yadav's name had figured in the Vyapam scam, a multi-crore scandal in the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board, which involved several high-profile professionals, politicians and bureaucrats. The Madhya Pradesh High Court had later quashed the FIR filed against him in connection with the scam, holding that he enjoyed immunity while in office. His son, Shailesh, whose name had also figured in the scam, was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Lucknow in March last year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Governor Ram Naik expressed grief over the demise of the Congress veteran hailing from Azamgarh. "The Prime Minister has condoled the passing away of former UP CM & MP Governor, Shri Ram Naresh Yadav," the PMO said in a tweet. Naik offered condolences and prayed for peace for the departed soul, whereas Akhilesh said, "Ram Nareshji had always worked for the welfare of the poor and deprived and his death is an irreparable loss,". Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Public Relations Minister Narottam Mishra also expressed grief over his demise. After completing his tenure in Madhya Pradesh, he had not been keeping well and was undergoing treatment at the PGI, sources said. The body will be kept at his residence here for the supporters to pay respects. He is likely to cremated in his hometown, they said. A 65-year-old man was trampled to death outside a bank while standing in a queue to withdraw cash, police said today. Ramnath Kushwaha, a resident of Gulriha village, was caught in a stampede outside the State Bank of India branch yesterday. He was trampled by a crowd who had gathered to withdraw cash, SP Mohd Imran said. He had gone to withdraw money to make payments to a hospital where his pregnant daughter-in-law has been admitted, the officer said. Kushwaha was rushed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead, the SP said. A Spanish drug addict who allegedly flew to Shanghai with about 277 grams of marijuana in his stomach that he ate as a food bar has been arrested for smuggling drugs by prosecutors in Jing'an District. The 28-year-old suspect, identified only as Anthony, is accused of buying marijuana in something resembling a chocolate bar for 1,200 euros (US$1,275) in a Spanish town on October 13. Prosecutors say that later that night, he broke the bar into 24 pieces, wrapped them in transparent sheeting, and swallowed them. He flew to Shanghai, arriving on October 15. He had tried to excrete them, but he failed and developed severe stomach pains and started to vomit. Fearing he was dying, he was admitted to a Shanghai hospital on October 20. An x-ray showed foreign objects in his stomach which he couldnt explain. He said he wanted instead to fly home to Spain for treatment. But doctors called in the police. Prosecutors said Anthony has worked as an English teacher in a Shanghai education institution since 2015. Many Muslim women across the US have turned to self-defence classes amid a spike in 'hijab- grab' incidents following Donald Trump's electoral triumph, according to a media report. In the days following Trump's election, at least three organisations -- the Southern Poverty Law Center, Council of American-Islamic Relations and Anti-Defamation League -- tracked a notable spike in hate-crime incidents, The Washington Post reported. Many Muslim women have posted on social media describing 'hijab grab' attacks. A number of other Muslim women in cities across the country have been organising self-defense classes in response to the post election rhetoric and apparent spike in hate crimes, the report said. Zaineb Abdulla, who has been teaching basic self-defence classes in Chicago to help other women, was quoted as saying that she was about 8-years-old the first time someone spit on her for being Muslim. The 24-year-old -- who wears a hijab and stands just over 5 feet tall -- told the Post that she is used to feeling the need to protect herself. Through her role as vice president of an organisation called 'Deaf Planet Soul' in Chicago, Abdulla has been teaching basic self-defence classes to help other women -- including those who are deaf or who wear a hijab. The morning after Trump won the presidency, a number of Muslim women called Abdulla, asking her for a specific type of self-defence training-- 'What could they do if someone tried to grab them by their headscarves?' That same Wednesday, and in the days that followed, Muslim women in cities across the country reported being targeted for wearing hijabs. Abdulla immediately recruited help from a trainer, Misho Ceko, of Chicago Mixed Martial Arts, to teach women a set of moves to defend themselves in case someone tries to pull on their hijabs. On the Sunday after the election day, Abdulla taught nine mostly Muslim women a two-hour 'hate crime survival seminar', during which they learned how to escape a 'hijab grab', how to identify and report hate crimes, and what steps to follow as a bystander. "It gives us confidence," Abdulla said of the self-defence classes. The classes help women realise that "if someone grabs you, you have the ability and the right to fight back," she said. In Memphis, a Muslim activist named Kalimah Azeez met with local police officials to plan a self-defence course at a local mosque, McClatchy reported. Participants will be able to learn 'escape and evade tactics' and watch video tutorials on how to use an emergency-response app to record an attack and alert the authorities. Other women are seeking out tools to help them feel a sense of security, the report said. Three soldiers were killed in the attack, he said, adding the body of one of them was mutilated. Earlier, Army's Northern Command spokesman tweeted, "3 soldiers killed in action on LC (Line of Control) in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated." He said the "retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act." A Defence spokesman said heavy cross-Line of Control shelling was going on at four places in Machhil sector from 3.30 pm. "Around 1530 hour, heavy cross-LoC shelling has started from both sides at Dana Machhil, Ashni, Ringsar and Ringsar Payeen in Machhil sector of Kupwara district," he said. He did not give any further details. This is the second such incident of mutilation of the body of an Indian soldier in the same sector since October 28. On that day, terrorists, aided by the cover fire by Pakistani Army, had crossed the Line of Control and killed an Indian army jawan and mutilated his body in the Macchil sector. One attacker was killed in that incident. In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days. Meanwhile, a defence spokesman said heavy cross-Line of Control shelling was going on at four places in Machhil sector from 3.30 pm. "Around 1530 hour, heavy cross LoC shelling has started from both sides at Dana Machhil, Ashni, Ringsar and Ringsar Payeen in Machhil sector of Kupwara district," the spokesman said. He did not give any further details. Meanwhile, commenting on the development Maj Gen Ravi Arora (Retd) said, "If it has been done as a deliberate act through a...team or by infiltrators, then it appears that they have not learnt their lessons." He also suggested the incident could be related to scheduled retirement of Pakistan's Army Chief General Raheel Sharif. "Before he goes he wants to show they have inflicted casualties on our troops," he said. Major Gaurav Arya (Retd) termed Pakistani army a "rogue army". "We must realise we are dealing with a rogue army, so in our case where we have the NSA, the Defence Minister or the Home Minister deciding what the future course of action we must take, in Pakistan there is a core commander one-on-one with the Army Chief, so there is no defence or prime minister on the loop so the decision making is much faster." He said, "If you want to teach Pakistan a lesson you can't leave (it to them) that they will attack and then we will decide what to do. If they can send border action team then so can we." He also suggested India should "go much deeper inside Pakistan" and attack people like Hafiz Saeed. "We just need money and we can pay that to a militant group to attack him, even if it is not successful then Hafiz Saeed will get a message that Indian army is hunting him. That is more than sufficient," he said. In a cross-LoC attack by suspected Pakistani terrorists, three Indian soldiers were today killed, with body of one of them being mutilated in second such incident in less than a month, triggering outrage in this country.The ambush on army patrol took place in Machhil sector of Kashmir, following which the Indian army vowed heavy "retribution". "A counter-infiltration patrol party of Indian army was ambushed by terrorists ahead of the fencing along LoC in forest belt in Machhil sector in Kupwara district today," a senior Army officer said. Fighting the cash-crunch caused by demonetisation, the government today said its focus would now be on rural areas and more measures would be announced for farmers, as situation was normalising in urban areas. "The situation is normalising in the urban areas. In the next few days, the focus will be on the rural areas so that farmers have enough funds because it is rabi sowing season. Few decisions were taken yesterday night which will be made public today," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said while addressing the BJP MPs in a parliamentary party meeting here. The Minister said the credit flow from banks would also go up for various activities including agriculture as huge amount of cash due to demonetisation was deposited in the banking system. Emphasising that demonetisation had a direct relation with the poor, with poverty and with poverty alleviation, Jaitley said this move (of demonetisation) could result in huge jump of public spending in rural areas especially for poverty alleviation. Assuring that once this remonetisation or the process to provide alternative currency reaches reasonable level, he said the government would ease all restrictions but till then there would be difficulty for some time. The Minister said the currency cannot be released all of a sudden, it will be done in a calibrated way and for that the focus was primarily on rural areas. "The remonetisation is being done in a calibrated way for coming weeks. The focus is only on rural areas," he added. Yesterday, the Finance Ministry had permitted the farmers to use old Rs 500 notes for purchasing seeds from any state or central government outlets and agri universities. The government has already permitted the farmers to draw up to Rs 25,000 per week from their KYC compliant accounts subject to the normal loan limits and conditions apart from the other facilities announced last week. Besides, the government had already extended the deadline for payment of crop insurance premium by 15 days and permitted APMC-registered traders to withdraw up to Rs 50,000 per week. Meanwhile, Jaitley said that India was working on a framework to check flow of illicit money routed through Singapore. He said that after revising the tax treaty with Mauritius and Cyprus to check flow of illicit cash, India was in talks with Singapore also. The last few generations of humans have enjoyed the biggest life expectancy boost in primate history, a new study of mortality patterns in humans, monkeys and apes suggests. The gains are partly due to advances in medicine and public health that have increased the odds of survival for human infants and reduced the death toll from childhood illness, researchers said. Yet males still lag behind females - not just in humans but across the primate family tree, they said. "The male disadvantage has deep evolutionary roots," said Susan Alberts, biology professor at Duke University in the US. An international team from the US, Germany, Denmark, Kenya and Canada compiled records of births and deaths for more than a million people worldwide, from the 18th century to the present. The data included people in post-industrial societies such as Sweden and Japan, people born in pre-industrial times, and modern hunter-gatherers, who provide a baseline for how long people might have lived before supermarkets and modern medicine. The researchers combined these measurements with similar data for six species of wild primates that have been studied continuously for three to five decades, including Verreaux's sifaka lemurs, muriqui monkeys, capuchins, baboons, chimpanzees and gorillas. The data confirm a growing body of research suggesting that humans are making more rapid and dramatic gains than ever before seen in the primate family tree. For example, in the last 200 years life expectancy in Sweden has jumped from the mid-30s to over 80, meaning that a baby born today can hope to live more than twice as long as one born in the early 19th century. The data show that today's longest-lived human populations have a similar 40- to 50-year advantage over people who live traditional lifestyles, such as the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania and the Ache people of Paraguay. In contrast, these modern hunter-gatherers - the best lens we have into the lives of early humans - live on average just 10 to 20 years longer than wild primates such as muriquis or chimpanzees, from which human ancestors diverged millions of years ago. One indicator of healthcare improvement is infant mortality, which strikes fewer than three in 1000 babies born in Sweden or Japan today. However, it was more than 40 times higher for those born two centuries ago, and is still high among hunter-gatherers and wild primates. The researchers also studied lifespan equality, a measure similar to income equality that indicates whether longevity is distributed evenly across society, or only enjoyed by a few. They found that, for both humans and wild primates, every gain in average lifespan is accompanied by a gain in lifespan equality. Researchers were surprised to find that the longevity of human males has yet to catch up with females, and the improvements in males are not spread as evenly. The life expectancy gender gap is not just true for humans. Females outlived males in almost every wild primate population they looked at. "It's puzzling. If we can make life last so long, why can't we shrink the male-female gap?" Alberts said. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed. Some pin the blame on genetics. Male primates, who carry only one copy of the X chromosome compared with two copies in females, lack a second X chromosome to compensate for any harmful gene variants their single X may have. Another possibility, Alberts said, is that gender differences in risky behaviours like fighting continue to hold males back, even while deaths from infectious and chronic diseases that impact both sexes have declined. If we can identify the culprit and intervene, she said, we might be able to help men catch up.The study was published in the journal PNAS. CBI today examined Congress leader Jagdish Tytler for over four hours in connection with one of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases. CBI sources said that Tytler had appeared before the agency here and was examined on various angles by the investigators for close to four hours. Last month, CBI had sought four months from the Special Court here to wrap up the probe. Tytler has denied any role in the riots. The agency had claimed that their officials had recently spoken to Narinder Singh, son of a prime witness against Tytler in Canada, but he has refused to join the probe. CBI's Superintendent of Police, who is supervising the investigation, had also told the court that they were making all efforts to complete the probe. The court had earlier pulled up CBI for delay in communicating with Canada for help in tracing Narinder. The case pertains to riots at Gurudwara Pulbangash in North Delhi where three people were killed on November 1, 1984, a day after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The court had said it would monitor the probe every two months so that no aspect of the matter was left uninvestigated. CBI had re-investigated the case of killing of Badal Singh, Thakur Singh and Gurcharan Singh near the gurudwara after a court in December 2007 refused to accept its closure report. CBI has filed three closure reports in the case. A suspected Pakistani militant guide was shot dead by BSF troops today near the International Border in Jammu, foiling an infiltration bid possibly by two ultras. Pakistani currency notes, Pakistani cigarette packets, eatables, two knifes, a cutter, some Urdu newspapers, visiting card of Sialkote, a booklet and diary in Chinese language, and a leaflet of a Chinese newspaper etc were recovered from the possession of the intruder whose identify could not be established immediately, a senior BSF officer said. "Early this morning at 0418 hours, it was observed that one person from Pakistan side suspiciously crossed the IB and moved ahead taking advantage of dead ground, thick growth, dark hours and fog," the officer said. On observing the suspicious movement close to forward BSF sentry post ahead of fence, the alert BSF sentry challenged the intruder, he said. "Instead of surrendering, the intruder tried to rush towards one of the culverts under the fence. As the intruder had covered his face and body with a shawl, the sentry got suspicious and shot at him dead," the officer said. He said "at the same time, a suspicious movement of two more persons was observed in the rear on Pakistani Bundh waiting for some signal from the intruder. Immediately after the intruder being fired by BSF sentry, both persons waiting in the rear side were seen hiding themselves behind Pakistani side bundh." The officer said the intruder seemed to be operating as a guide to the militants waiting for the signal. "The area was immediately kept under cover of fire and observation and search was started after the day break," he said. "Identification of intruder could not be established. Efforts are on to hand over the dead body to Pakistani Rangers if they accept," he added. D K Upadhyaya, IG BSF, Jammu Frontier, B S Kasana, DIG, Dharmendra Pareek, DIG (G) Bhagwant Singh Comdt BSF visited the site to take a stock of the situation. IG BSF appreciated the action and alertness of the troops giving special acknowledgement to the sentry performing the said action. Addressing the troops, the IG said "national security is our paramount concern and nobody can be permitted to obviate with it." I chose to travel to Bhutan for the endless mountain ranges there. I had seen the Bhutanese Prime Minister on TEDx talk about his kingdom of happiness, boast about it being the first carbon negative country in the world and speak of Bhutans relentless efforts to make a difference. That is when I knew I had to see Bhutan. I decided to go on a trip with a women-only group. Forty minutes before landing, I was just looking out of the window, when I spotted something tiny pointed white-looking peaks and just then the pilot announced that we were crossing the Himalayan ranges. Soon, we saw the Mount Everest. It was an exhilarating experience. Seeing it for the first time, standing tall and high, I was simply awestruck. Interestingly, there are only eight pilots in the world who have the license to land in Paro and heres why the landing approach in Paro is extremely difficult, through valleys with high mountains and no sight of the runway until the last second, literally. Well, I did feel like a bit of a daredevil on the flight. The airport at Paro looks exceptionally beautiful, surrounded by ranges of mountains. We were driven down from Paro to the capital of Bhutan, Thimphu. It was an absolutely delightful one-and-a-half hour drive with quiet places, greenery, tall mountains and rivers. Our guide was amazing. Throughout the drive, he talked about Bhutans history, religion, culture, kings and myths. It was all very magical. Thimphu is an experience in itself. From walking across Bhutans oldest Iron Bridge made of old iron chains, situated at a great height right over the river to visiting Dzongs and monasteries, we were greeted with a vibrant culture and fascinating stories. The Shakyamuni Buddha statue remains one of my favourites. Made of bronze and gilded with gold, it is 169-feet-tall and looks majestic. Bhutans nightlife is beautiful. Often small bands play some great music and the small pubs have Bollywood-themed nights and karaoke nights as well. One can visit Mojo Park and Viva City for a nice, chilled-out evening. I loved the Bhutanese food, which is generally spicy. One should try the various cheese-based dishes that they serve like the chilli cheese dish and mushroom cheese dish. The butter tea is very refreshing. The place is indeed a haven for pork lovers. A lot of small joints and hotels also serve Indian food. Interestingly, the cuisine does not have the concept of a dessert. We had the local peach wine, which was light yet tasty. Our next stop was Punakha, a place untouched by commercialisation. We trekked to the Fertility Temple (Chimi Lhakhang Temple), amused by the paintings of giant phalluses on house doors and walls and the enchanting story of the fertility god the mad man. It is a short trek between paddy fields and totally worth it. River rafting is a must when you are here. Its adventurous and offers a breathtaking view of the place. Next was Paro, a place where one can indulge in some shopping. We bought souvenirs, handicrafts and yak cheese and also visited the handmade paper-making factory to truly appreciate the hard work. We had a picnic lunch with a Bhutanese family by the river which was the highlight of the trip. These were beautiful moments eating homemade food, dipping our feet in the cold water of the river, surrounded by mountains on all sides. The Tigers Nest is a sacred site, around 10,240 feet over the Paro Valley. Its a dramatic, steep and difficult trek but a must-see for every traveller. The view alone was spectacular and all of us felt a sense of achievement after having completed the trek. Also, the countrys national sport, archery, is something one should try their hand at. Bhutans simplicity and beauty is profound. It will always be close to my heart. Trust me, once youre there, youll never want to come back. How to get there We travelled by DrukAir from Delhi to Paro. The round trip cost for one person was around Rs 16,000. Places to stay * Thimphu Ariya Hotel Rs 9,000 approximately per night for a standard room. * Punakha Drubchu Resort Rs 6,000 approximately per night for a standard room. * Paro Ravens Nest Rs 5,500 approximately per night for a standard room. (The writer can be contacted at shreyashashank@gmail.com) The Supreme Court today assured the victims' association of 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy that it would soon set up a bench to hear the pleas seeking review of its 2015 verdict, under which real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal were required to serve two years jail term, if they failed to pay Rs 30 crore each as fine in the matter. The matter was mentioned before a bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur who said a new bench would be constituted to hear the review petitions filed by the CBI and Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT). Senior advocate KTS Tulsi, who appeared for AVUT, told the bench also comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao that the matter was pending since January this year. AVUT requested the court to list the matter for hearing before the bench, which would be constituted, before the winter vacation of the apex court starting mid-December. Earlier this year, a bench headed by Justice A R Dave had decided to hear in open court the petitions filed by the CBI and AVUT seeking review of the 2015 verdict. Following the judgement, the Ansals had deposited the amount. However, Justice Dave, who headed the three-judge bench which had heard the matters in the Uphaar case, retired on November 18. 59 people had died of asphyxia when a fire broke out during the screening of Bollywood movie 'Border' in Uphaar theatre in Green Park area of South Delhi on June 13, 1997. Over 100 were also injured in the subsequent stampede. In its review plea AVUT had said the apex court judgements "bestow an unwarranted leniency on convicts whose conviction in the most heinous of offences has been upheld by all courts including this court and sentences imposed on them have been substituted with fine without assigning any reason or basis." "The sentences of the convicts have been reduced to the period undergone without taking into account the gravity of their offence," it had said. The CBI, in its review plea, had said the apex court did not give it time to put its views forth which has resulted in "miscarriage of justice". The agency has said, "Due to the paucity of time on the day on which this case was heard, the prosecution could not adequately put across the reasons why this court should not substitute a monetary fine in place of a jail sentence. "This petition also seeks to raise issue of an apparent error of law in the judgement and order of this court which has occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice," it said. CBI had also claimed that "callousness" of Ansal brothers led to 59 people being trapped and suffocated to death in the theatre. The apex court had, on August 19, 2015 sent Ansal brothers to two-year rigorous jail term if they failed to pay Rs 30 crore each within three months. In a judgement on September 23, 2015, the bench had said the "magnitude" of the case "calls for a higher sentence" but the court has to limit itself to the choice available under the law. Earlier, a two-judge bench of justices T S Thakur and Gyan Sudha Misra (since retired) had in a March 5, 2014 order differed on the quantum of sentence for Ansal brothers -- Sushil, 76, and Gopal, 67. While Justice Thakur had retained the one-year jail term awarded by Delhi High Court in 2008, Justice Misra had awarded the maximum punishment of two years with a rider that it can be reduced to the period already undergone behind bars on payment of Rs 100 crore as fine collectively by them. After this, the matter was referred to a three-judge bench headed by Justice Dave (since retired) which enhanced the sentence to the maximum period of two years under section 304-A (causing death by negligence) of IPC if they failed to pay the fine amount. While Sushil has spent over five months in prison, Gopal was in jail for over four months soon after the accident. The three-judge bench had also said that on the principle of parity, the case of Gopal will stand on the same footing as that of Sushil. In a mammoth convention held to conserve Shariat, the members of the Muslim community vehemently opposed the intervention of the Union Government in Shariat by proposing uniform civil code in the country. Addressing the convention organised by Muslim Central Committee, Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts and various other Muslim organisations at Nehru Maidan on Tuesday, B K Abdul Khader Musliyar Khasimi Bambrana dared the Centre to bring in the uniform civil code, which he said, would create more trouble. Musliyar, who also challenged the authoritarian attitude of the Centre in taking up the issue, that only clergymen had the right to discuss the subject. Saying that India is a land of people belonging to different faiths, Musliyar said only Quran has advocated equal share in property for women from the community. Moreover, there are different levels of talaq that eventually leads to triple talaq, he argued saying its not just what meets the eye. Muhammad Kunhi, president of Jamaat-E-Islami, Mangaluru, termed the recent developments as emergence of fascism that is fast pervading the country. The situation is such that fascist- minded people are out to dictate terms on trivial issues apart from interfering in the administration, arts and literature in the country. The attempts to strengthen multicultural society is being construed as an offence, he said. Kunhi also called it as the nefarious intention of members of the Sangh Parivar, who are enforcing their political agenda. Member of Karnataka Samastha Mushavara, Haji Abdul Azeem Darimi, who pooh-poohed the questionnaire of National Law Commission seeking the opinion on uniform civil code, also warned of launching Parliament Chalo on the issue. Darimi chose to remind the Centre that the community members had strongly opposed when the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had raked up an issue related to Muslim women. He said that even the constitution had ensured religious freedom. A farmer named Li Wenhua from Pujiang County in southwestern China's Sichuan province recently found a rare spider while doing farm work at home. (Photo from People's Daily Online) Only six such spiders, whose scientific name is Cyclocosmia ricketti, have been spotted in China since 2000. The spider resembles other ordinary varieties, but its rear end is large and round. Li therefore captured the animal in a plastic bottle and took it home. According to insect expert Zhao Li, the Cyclocosmia ricketti is a very rare species. Zhao said the spiders mainly live in the caves of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. "The spider is of extreme scientific value, and it is definitely a rare species in Sichuan province," Zhao stated, adding that he had failed many times to find it. The spider can survive in temperatures as low as 13 degrees Celsius. However, winter temperatures in Sichuan are often much lower than this, which suggests that its true ability to resist cold may not be in line with previous research. Zhao told Chengdu Economic Daily that the discovery of the Cyclocosmia ricketti in Pujiang might be the northermost discovery site ever recorded. Because of rare spider's mild temperament, many people keep them as pets. They can sell for as much as 12,000 RMB online. Upon learning this, Li has decided to sell the spider. A large number of devotees, priests and nuns took part in the annual diocesan Eucharistic procession organised on the feast of Christ the King coinciding with the Confraternity Sunday of Mother of Sorrows Church in Udupi recently. Udupi diocese Bishop Rev Dr Gerald Isaac Lobo, along with the priests, concelebrated the solemn Eucharistic mass on a specially arranged and florally decorated huge dais. During the Homily Bishop highlighted the importance of Eucharist and its evolution by citing a number of examples and events from both Old and New Testaments. The mass was followed by adoration of the Holy Eucharist led by Rev Fr Royson Fernandes. Soon after the adoration, the solemn Eucharistic procession began. The brass band led the procession followed by Cross and candle bearers and the people holding lighted candles. The Bishop held the Blessed Sacrament that was rested on a pedestal fitted on a decorated vehicle. The procession moved through the lane adjacent to St Marys Kannada Medium School and passed through the Government PU College Road, Ajjarkad Park Road, Jodukatte Circle, Old Taluk Office Road, Court Road, Diana Circle and entered the church premises. The Bishop gave away trophies to the parishes who had highest total collection and highest per head collection on the Mission Sunday. St Lawrence Church-Moodubelle (first), Mother of Sorrows Church-Udupi (second), Our Lady of Lourdes Church-Kanajar (third), St Lawrence Church-Attur, Karkala (fourth), St John the Evangelist Church-Pangala (fifth). The parishes that had maximum per head collections were: St Antony Church-Kuntalnagar (first), Immaculate Heart of Mary Church-Nakre (second), Mother of Sorrows Church-Udupi (third), Our Lady of Lourdes-Kanajar (fourth), St Lawrence Church-Attur, Karkala (fifth). In Mangaluru Mangalore diocese Bishop Rev Dr Aloysius Paul DSouza celebrated the solemn Eucharistic mass as part of the culmination of the Year of Mercy celebrations at Rosario Cathedral. A large number of priests, nuns and the laity took part in the celebrations. Gradeup, a mobile app-based education platform, helps students prepare for 30 different competitive exams. Besides connecting each other, the platform helps students associate with mentors and resources which help them achieve their educational goals. Gradeup co-founder and CEO Shobhit Bhatnagar told DH, Gradeup intends to become the platform of choice for anyone preparing for any competitive exams in India. We are adding more exams to the Gradeup ecosystem as we grow. The app is free of cost and charges the students on its web-based platform for full-length test series. Students can clear doubts, share information and discover content for free. Our intention is to build services on top as our core value to our users. These service can be like - assessments, tutoring etc. Today, we are selling assessment (full-length tests) for some of the exams. The typical ticket size is between Rs 200 and Rs 400. Indias largest test prep community, Gradeup has entered the competitive exam space primarily focusing on banking, SSC (Staff Selection Commission), GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering), and TET (Teachers Eligibility Test) exams, and has recently added engineering and MBA entrance examinations. Our goal is to cover all major competitive exams in India by March 2017. In addition to the current exams we have, we will be adding UPSC (Union Public Service Commission), NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Medical), NDA, CDS CA/CS, and UGC NET, Bhatnagar said, adding, We intend to extend our platform to cater to school education. Referring to the importance of the Karnataka market, he said, Over one lakh students from the state log in every month. There is higher preference for JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) and CAT (Common Admission Test) courses in Bengaluru, while SSC, and Banking Exams are more popular in other parts of the state. The residence of Kannadas first Rastrakavi M Govinda Pai in Manjeshwar has been renovated and a state-of-the-art auditorium Bhavanika has been built under the Gilivindu project. The restored residence and the auditorium are expected to be inaugurated by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan in December. Project Gilivindu, a joint venture by Karnataka and Kerala governments, was chalked out in 2005-06 by Rastrakavi M Govinda Pai Trust, headed by MP M Veerappa Moily along with 17 trustees from both the states. The project included the restoration work of the poets residence which is now Rastrakavi M Govinda Pai Memorial, construction of Bhavanika -- a 12,000 sqft auditorium meant for cultural activities, construction of three houses Ananda, Saketa and Vaishakhi, Nalanda -- a research centre -- and Bodhiranga, an open air theatre. Various development works were initiated on December 23, 2013. Gilivindu project director and former MUDA chairman Tejomaya said that the Karnataka and Kerala governments have contributed Rs 2.5 crore each for work related to Bhavanika. A total of Rs 1.25 crore has been contributed by Bharat Petroleum, Rs 35 lakh by ONGC, New Delhi. The auditorium has been completed at around Rs 5 crore and the work on acoustics is going on. The poets house is being restored at a cost Rs 1 crore. The guest houses were built with Kerala legislators MLA funds of Rs 13.75 lakh each. The construction of the compound wall has been done with a contribution of Rs 6 lakh by P Dayanand Pai. There was earlier a plan to institute the research centre Nalanda, in the residence of Govinda Pai. But, the plan had been dropped as it needs facilities such as air conditioning for palm leaf (thalegari) archives as well as separate electric wiring for computer systems. Hence, it was decided not to disturb the poets old residence. A separate building will be constructed for the study centre. Pais personal articles, which are in possession with his relatives, will be kept at Rastrakavi Manjeshwara Govinda Pai Memorial. The construction of Bodhiranga, open air theatre, has not been taken up due to space constraints. Digitisation of Pais books Poet Govinda Pai was an avid reader and researcher and owned around 4,500 books. After his demise, the books went to the custody of his relatives, as Pai was childless. They had in turn handed over Pais book collection to Manjeshwara Govinda Pai Study Centre at MGM College, Udupi. The Govinda Pai Trust signed a memorandum of understanding with World Konkani Centre towards digitisation of the books. The work started in 2013-14 and the first phase of digitising 300 books has been completed recently. The digitised copies will be part of the study centre in Manjeshwar, Gilivindu project director Tejomaya said. The ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu won the polls to three constituencies Aravakurichi, Thanjavur and Thiruparankundram that were held on November 19. The counting of votes for elections to Aravakurichi and Thanjavur Assembly constituencies, and bypoll to Thiruparankundram segment, were held from Tuesday morning amid tight security with AIADMK candidates leading since the first round of counting. In Aravakurichi, AIADMKs V Senthil Balaji defeated his nearest rival, DMK candidate K C Palanisamy, while the ruling partys M Rengasamy won against Anjugam Bhoopathy in Thanjavur. In Thiruparankundram, AIADMK candidate A K Bose emerged victorious against P Saravanan of the DMK. Interestingly, the five-cornered contest to these elections saw the BJP emerging in third position by pushing actor Vijayakanths DMDK to the fourth spot. By winning three Assembly seats, the AIADMKs strength in the 234-member Assembly rose to 136. As the AIADMK cadres and senior party functionaries across Tamil Nadu erupted in joy and distributed sweets, party supremo J Jayalalithaa, who is in hospital, said her partys victory has given her immense happiness. She claimed that the victory once again proved that people were with her. Meanwhile, Puducherry Union Territory Chief Minister V Narayanasamy has won the Nellithoppu Assembly seat in the byelection, defeating AIADMKs Om Sakthi Sekar. Trinamool maintains winning streak Trinamool Congress kept up its winning streak as it swept the bypolls in two Parliamentary seats and an Assembly seat on Tuesday, DHNS reports from Kolkata. Immediately after the partys landslide victory was announced, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called it a verdict against demonetisation and said that her party will launch agitation at all levels in the state, district, block and panchayat from Wednesday against the Centres black policy of demonetisation. Our victory once again shows that people are being harassed in the name of fighting black money and any move to do that instead of bringing black money stashed away in Swiss bank accounts will lead to adverse public opinion, Mamata said before leaving for Delhi. While she is scheduled to launch a nationwide agitation against demonetisation from Delhi on Wednesday, her party in West Bengal made its hold stronger with massive win margins in all three seats that witnessed by-election. While party candidate Dibyendu Adhikari won the Tamluk parliamentary seat with a margin of more than 4.95 lakh votes, Trinamool also won the Cooch Behar parliamentary seat by more than 2 lakh votes. While the Left managed to reach second position in Tamluk, in the other two seats, it lost the place to the BJP. The toll in Sundays derailment of Indore-Patna Express train near Kanpur rose to 149 with four more passengers succumbing to injuries in hospital on Tuesday. A probe into the accident began with the railway safety commissioner (eastern circle) quizzing the loco pilots of the ill-fated train. According to railway officials, the toll may rise further as some of the injured, being treated at different hospitals, continued to be in critical condition. Train services on the Jhansi-Kanpur section resumed on Tuesday morning after the tracks were repaired and trial runs undertaken, the officials said in Kanpur. Officials said four passengers succumbed to injuries in different hospitals on Tuesday. So far, 135 bodies have been identified, the officials said, adding that around 90 passengers were currently admitted in different hospitals at Akbarpur, the headquarter of Kanpur Dehat district, and Kanpur. A majority of the injured had been discharged. Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Rahul Bhatnagar said here that the injured would be given free medical treatment. The injured passengers were also provided cash assistance to enable them to proceed to their respective destinations after being discharged from the hospitals. Railway Safety Commissioner (eastern circle) P K Acharya on Tuesday quizzed the loco pilots and other technical staff to gather information about the possible cause behind the accident, sources said. DRM transferred, 5 engineers suspended Taking punitive action for suspected lapses leading to the accident of Indore-Patna Express, the Ministry of Railways on Tuesday transferred Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) of Jhansi Division S K Agrawal and suspended five senior officials of engineering section, DHNS reports from New Delhi. Railways turns to Kakodkar report on safety To put in place mechanisms to avoid accidents, the Indian Railways has turned to the Kakodkar Committee report on safety but is finding it difficult to implement the recommendations due to financial constraints, DHNS reports from New Delhi. At the same time, several recommendations could not be implemented because of the changed focus of the ministry, officials said. The High Level Safety Review Committee headed by nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar had submitted its report in February 2012. The Railway Ministry accepted 87 of 106 recommendations made by the panel. Home Minister G Parameshwara on Tuesday informed the Legislative Assembly that illegal migrants from Bangladesh who have been residing in different parts of the state would be deported. Replying to Sunil Kumar V, the minister said that till now the government has deported 53 migrants. There are 748 legal Bangladesh migrants in the state and 283 illegal ones residing in Mandya, Dakshina Kannada, Kolar, Ramanagaram, Mysuru, Chikkamagaluru, Bengaluru Rural, Bengaluru Urban and Shivamogga districts. They are also found to be involved in petty crimes. As many as 53 cases against them are before various courts and eight under investigation. Leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar said there are thousands of illegal migrants from Bangladesh in Bengaluru alone. They should be verified as they are involved in destructive activities, he added. Sunil Kumar expressed concern over illegal migrants getting their names enrolled in voters list and also getting ration cards. K G Bopaiah said illegal Bangladesh migrants claim that they are from Assam. They are spread across the state and their number could be in lakhs. The government should collect information from coffee plantations and act against such migrants without succumbing to any pressure. The government is planning to further relax currency norms for farmers suffering from cash crunch ahead of the rabi season due to demonetisation. It is also contemplating on easing wedding withdrawals after the Reserve Bank of India issued stiff guidelines on Monday. The situation is normalising in urban areas. In the next few days, the focus will be on rural areas so that farmers have enough funds because it is rabi sowing season. A few decisions taken will be made public, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday while addressing BJP MPs at a parliamentary party meeting here. On Monday, the government had permitted farmers to use old Rs 500 currency notes to buy seeds from government authenticated counters. There are some difficulties in transition period after cessation of legal tender was announced on November 8. However, the government is taking steps for smooth demonetisation so that the alternate currency reaches people, especially in rural areas, he said. The government is releasing the currency notes into the market in a calibrated manner because a sudden release may see a few people indulging in black marketing activity, Jaitley said. The minister said, the government will slowly lift banking restrictions after demonetisation process was over. Demonetisation has direct relation with poor, with poverty and with poverty alleviation....Once the replacement of currency reaches a reasonable level, the restrictions will be eased, the finance minister said. Meanwhile, 82,500 out of the 2 lakh ATMs in the country have been re-calibrated to dispense new notes, officials said. On the necessity of demonetisation, Jailtey said in developed countries, currency in use is normally 4% of the GDP but in India it is 12% of the GDP. Therefore, most trade happens in cash and is out of the banking system. As a result, black money, fake currency and non-compliance of tax are attached with it, he said. You are here: Home The 3rd China International Circus Festival opened in southern China's Zhuhai City on Nov. 18. Circus teams from 21 countries met the audience during the opening ceremony, Information Times reported. Edmund Ho Hau-wah, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference also attended the ceremony. Audiences were stunned by shows including Vampire from Russia and Belarus and Freestyle Kings from Australia. The shows were selected from over 400 shows from more than 10 international circuses. During the festival, over 200 performers will perform extreme sports, mid-air acrobatics, acrobatic stage shows, stunts, clown shows and magic shows. The performance, Russia Bar, from China shows the enormous terracotta soldiers reincarnate into brave warriors. With superb skill, they perform highly demanding continuous somersaults and double somersault moves on a bar merely 15mm wide.This performance is one of the most difficult in the festival, said Cai Ronghua, deputy head of the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe. The final results will be unveiled in the closing ceremony which will be held on Nov. 26. A united Opposition was examining the feasibility of moving a contempt motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making public speeches on demonetisation without addressing Parliament on the issue that has vexed crores of people. The Opposition ranks swelled as the AIADMK also pitched in against the initiative. As many as 13 political parties are expected to stage a joint demonstration outside Parliament on Wednesday morning. CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the Opposition parties have gone past the mulling stage on the contempt motion and were examining the rules in this regard. Home Minister G Parameshwara on Tuesday said that a special drive would be launched throughout the state to check the narcotics menace. Responding to a calling attention notice tabled by Ramachandra Gowda (BJP) in the Legislative Council, Parameshwara said that Karnataka is no match to Punjab, which stood first in the country in the number of drug abuse cases recorded. While Karnataka had registered 0.6% of drug abuse cases in the country, Punjab had registered 36% of such cases. However, the statistics furnished by the minister shows an upward trend in the cases recorded in Karnataka. In 2014, while 42 cases were registered, 83 people were arrested; in 2015 as many as 69 cases were registered and 141 people were arrested. This year, till October, 234 persons were arrested in 93 cases. Parameshwara said that special cells had been created in Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Bengaluru, Mangaluru and Belagavi to check the sale of narcotics. The cell had been set up to nab drug peddlers and pharma companies manufacturing narcotics. As many as 45 special police stations had been assigned to check drug trafficking. The minister said that it had come to light that small pharma units have been set up on the outskirts of Bengaluru, where chemical-based drugs were being manufactured, which were being sold to users in other states and also exported. It had also come to fore that chemical-based drugs were sold to youths and schoolchildren in larger numbers, as opposed to plant-based narcotics. V S Ugrappa (Congress) said that drug abuse was highly prevalent in Bengaluru, with localities such as HSR Layout having become havens for drug users. He said that the police were unable to check the menace despite regular patrolling. Ganesh Karnik (BJP) and Ivan DSouza (Congress) also highlighted the prevalence of large-scale drug abuse in professional colleges in coastal Karnataka. Stating that as many as 1,500 African students from Nigeria and Tanzania were overstaying in the state, Parameshwara said that the government is ensuring that they were all being deported. Controversial meat exporter Moin Qureshi, who managed to leave the country last month despite a look out circular (LOC) against him, appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday within hours of his return from Dubai. He returned to India on Monday night after spending more than a month abroad since he left India on October 15. Qureshis appearance before the ED came following Delhi High Court directing him to return to India by mid-November and appear before the agency for questioning in this case. According to sources, Qureshi was served a court directive to appear before the ED on Tuesday soon after his landing. Qureshi had flown to Dubai despite an LOC against him in a money laundering case as immigration officials let him go after he showed them a court order in an Income Tax case. Though he was detained by immigration officials on the basis of EDs LOC, Qureshi flashed the court order obtained in an Income Tax case allowing him to go abroad. This prompted the officials to allow him to fly abroad without due diligence. The agency had slapped fresh charges under PMLA after taking cognisance of the I-T departments charge sheet against Qureshi in a tax evasion case in a local court. The ED was probing this case earlier under forex violation laws after the I-T department first shared documents indicating hawala and contravention of forex laws by him and his business entities based here. The ED had claimed that Qureshi sent huge amount of funds through hawala route to Dubai, London and few other overseas destinations in Europe. Qureshi was in the eye of a storm last year for his links with former CBI Director Ranjit Sinha. He had visited Sinha some 90 times, according to the entries in visitors log. He was also under the scanner of the I-T department for his connections with another former CBI director A P Singh. The telephone calls between Singh and Qureshi showed that their relationship was deep. JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy on Tuesday made a scathing attack against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for his excessive use of helicopters and special flights, at a time when the state was reeling under acute drought. Addressing the media after the party legislature meeting in Belagavi, Kumaraswamy said the government was splurging unnecessarily instead of exercising austerity. The chief minister has been using the helicopter at every given opportunity. A helipad has also been constructed here, so that Siddaramaiah can land right in front of the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha. When there is drought in state, is there need for such indulgences? He also said that though there were 20-odd flights to New Delhi from Bengaluru, Siddaramaiah always chose to fly to the national capital on a special flight. When I was the chief minister, I rarely used the helicopters or special flights. Even during the Grama Vastavya visits, I used to travel by road or by train. The government should cut down on these unnecessary expenditures and divert the funds for drought relief, he added. Kumaraswamy also took a dig at Siddaramaiah for according Cabinet rank to around 110 newly appointed chairpersons of boards and corporations last month. Is the chief minister so insecure of his chair that he has to appease his party workers and legislators by misusing public funds? During my stint as chief minister, I never appointed my party men as chairpersons to boards and corporations. The BJP however did not shy away from doing so, he added. Austerity swept away by helicopter Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who had stayed away from the lavish wedding of Small Scale Industries Minister Ramesh Jarkiholis son on Monday in Gokak, took a helicopter from Belagavi to convey his wishes to the newly married couple in their home town. Siddaramaiah visited their house in Gokak and had breakfast with the Jarkiholi family on Tuesday. To queries from reporters, whether he should have used a helicopter to reach Gokak, which is around 60 km from Belagavi, Siddaramaiah said, Should I not even convey my best wishes to the couple? The legislature session is on and I have to be present during the proceedings. That is the reason why I took the helicopter. Poser to Parameshwara JD(S) state president H D Kumaraswamy demanded that Home Minister G Parameshwara reveal whether he attended G Janardhana Reddys daughters wedding in the city in his personal car or the government car. The Home minister has stated that he attended the wedding in his personal capacity. I want to know if he is a 24/7 home minister or a part-time minister. He should reveal whether he attended the wedding in his personal car or the government car, he added. The Akhila Karnataka Police Maha Sangha (AKPMS) has condemned the state governments decision on the introduction of new allowances to police personnel. In a press release, AKPMS president, Shashidhar said the government has failed to keep its promises. The government had constituted a committee headed by Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Raghavendra Auradkar to look into anomalies in the salary of police personnel and the committee submitted its report. But the government has decided to increase the salary by giving an allowance of Rs 2,000. This is not sufficient and also not satisfactory, he said. It was told that the police will get a weekly off. But it is still not being implemented properly. The government has also stated that it has made it mandatory to pay 13 months, salary to the police personnel. But this rule was implemented in 1994, he said. It is learnt that politicians and ministers are involved in police transfers and this should be stopped immediately. There are several cases in this connection which are before the Supreme Court and Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), he said. Shashidhar also said that around 50,000 police personnel and their families are planning to file a complaint against the chief minister and other ministers who are involved in police transfers and also approach governor in this connection. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said demonetisation was just the beginning of the governments fight against corruption. Addressing the BJP parliamentary party for the first time during the Winter Session of Parliament, Modi described the note ban as part of a long, deep and constant battle against corruption and black money. In an emotional address, he said the ban on high denomination currency was aimed at helping common people, and was here to stay. The party rallied behind Modi, with MPs giving him a standing ovation and passing a resolution hailing his crusade against tainted money. We have come to power not for us or those close to us but for the poor. For 70 years, the poor and the lower and middle classes suffered and have been exploited through black money, corruption and terrorism. Our aim is a deep, long and constant struggle.... This is not the end but only the beginning of our struggle, he said. Meanwhile, the opposition continued to stall the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, as it has done since the winter session began on November 16. Modi expressed his governments resolve to make the economy clean and strong. He cited the income disclosure scheme of 2016 as part of his governments efforts to bring about transparency. The parliamentary partys resolution castigated the opposition parties for opposing demonetisation and sought to know whether they stood by the people or by hoarders of black money. Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters the resolution hailed PM's "great crusade" against corruption. The opposition has been demanding Modis presence in the two Houses to reply to questions about 70 deaths and the inconvenience faced by people in the wake of the note ban. An opposition leader said Modi should come to the House since it was the prime ministers day in Lok Sabha on Wednesday. Union Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation D V Sadananda Gowda on Tuesday sought to settle hospital bills with demonetised notes to get the body of his brother from KMC Hospital here. However, the hospital authorities refused to accept the scrapped currency, which led to heated exchanges between the minister and the hospital staff. Soon after Gowda heard the news of his brother D V Bhaskars demise on Saturday, he arrived at the hospital to settle the bills and take the body. But when he said he would make the payment with the scrapped currency, the hospital staff refused to accept it even as Gowda argued that the government had allowed payments through the demonetised notes at public utilities till November 24. The staff explained to the minister that only government hospitals were allowed to accept the scrapped currency. However, Gowda insisted that the hospital authorities give in writing that they would not accept scrapped notes. The hospital did so promptly. The hospital authorities reportedly told the minister that they would accept Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes provided he convinces the bank manager. They also suggested that he pay the bill through debit / credit card, or deposit the scrapped currency in bank and settle the amount through cheque. District Health Officer Dr Ramakrishna also requested the hospital to accept the scrapped notes, but in vain. Later, the minister paid the bill through cheque and took the body to his native place at Devaragunda in Sullia. The hospital bill came to Rs 13 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh was paid on November 9. Later, the minister told media persons that he wanted to pay the bill amount in cash, but the hospital refused to accept the scrapped notes. In spite of the governments guidelines, the hospital refused to accept the scrapped notes. In such a situation, what would be the condition of the common man? he asked. He said he had asked the hospital authorities to give in writing the reason for refusing the scrapped notes and asked former minister Krishna Palemar and BJP district spokesperson Jithendra Kottary to collect the hospitals letter. Strict action will be initiated after getting the report from the hospital, he said. The rendition in a way only M Balamuralikrishna could have done, of the song Devaru Hoseda Premada Dara, from the award-winning Kannada movie Muthina Haara (1990) has given that number immortality. Though he has rendered other songs in Kannada, Devaru... got the classical status, with his impeccable handling. Recalling his association with Balamuralikrishna, S V Rajendra Singh Babu, director-producer of Muthina Haara told DH, Balamuralikrishna remains alive in the minds and hearts of Kannadigas through the song from Muthina Haara. The lyric compares four seasons of the nature with four phases of the human life. It needed a special voice and those of S P Balasubrahmanyam and K J Yesudas could not match the spirit of the lyric. It was only Balamuralikrishnas voice which could do justice to the song, he said. Babu and Hamsalekha, the lyricist and composer, met Balamuralikrishna in Hyderabad after much difficulty, but he refused to lend his voice to the song. After repeated requests, he decided to sing, on the condition that there is no vulgarity in it. He had promised us that he would call back, but he did not, for two weeks. Finally, he called us, asking us to arrange for the recording, Babu said. The recording took place at Prasad Studio in Chennai. The recording began at 9 pm and concluded at around 3 am the next day. He was not happy with his intonation and wanted to reach perfection. Hence, there were many rehearsals. Myself and Hamsalekha repeatedly listened to the song. We knew then that Balamuralikrishna had converted the lyric into an everlasting masterpiece, he said. The song has been picturised on Vishnuvardhan and Suhasini, after they lose their son in the movie. It runs in the background and Babu chose not to make any of the actors lip-sync. Flash The incoming administration of the U.S. president-elect Donald Trump is unlikely to break the Iranian nuclear deal to harm the interests of the United States, Iran's Foreign Ministry said on Monday. "It is still soon to judge what is going to come about," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said, adding that he believes there is enough rationality within the U.S. society to prevent potential acts from endangering American and international interests. He also said Iran would prepare contingency plans for any possible scenario. "If we feel that the American side is eventually about to take certain unwelcome measures in this regard, Iran will take necessary measures," Qasemi told reporters in his weekly press briefing. The nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is a multilateral agreement endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, according to the spokesman. "I do not think it would be an easy thing for a single party to trample upon the deal or offer to renegotiate it," he said. During his presidential campaign, Trump said that he would renegotiate the deal which, according to him, was not a good one. Iran and the world powers, namely Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany, reached a nuclear deal in July 2015 to end the disputes over Tehran's controversial nuclear program. The deal, which went into effect in January, requires Iran to scrap the bulk of its nuclear activities in return for the ease of international sanctions on the country's energy and financial sectors. Flash South Korea on Tuesday endorsed a bilateral military intelligence pact with Japan at a cabinet meeting despite public and parliamentary opposition. The pact to directly exchange military intelligence on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear and missile programs was approved at the cabinet meeting chaired by Yoo Il-ho, deputy prime minister for economic affairs. The cabinet meeting was initially presided over by President Park Geun-hye, but the president hasn't appeared at the meeting on growing public fury over the scandal involving President Park and her longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil. Prosecutors identified Park as a criminal accomplice to Choi in many of criminal acts when indicting Park's decades-long friend on multiple charges including abuse of power and extortion on Sunday. The signing ceremony of the pact, dubbed the General Security of the Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), is scheduled to be held in Seoul on Wednesday. With the presidential ratification expected later Tuesday, South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo and Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine would formally seal the pact. It will go into effect immediately after the signing. If realized, the two countries would reach an agreement less than a month after resuming talks on the pact. South Korea has hurriedly pushed the accord as part of efforts to find a breakthrough by regaining support from conservative voters sensitive to security issues. Seoul and Tokyo held the first working-level dialogue earlier this month and initialed the pact a week ago. The pact was approved here at vice ministers' meeting three days later. South Korea's three main opposition parties have opposed the hurried, unilateral push, saying they will propose the impeachment of the defense minister if it is signed. Public objections are strong. According to a Gallup Korea poll released on Friday, 59 percent opposed the deal with Japan unrepentant of its brutalities during World War II. The Korean Peninsula was colonized by the Imperial Japan from 1910 to 1945. Is it a bit too little too late? BlackBerry has seen a noticeable loss in consumer interest, and if they are to regain some of it, the DTEK 60 seems to be a good point to begin. Priced at Rs. 46,990, the DTEK 60 doesnt really qualify as a recommendation. Its a good phone, but so is the Moto Z, which offers exactly what this one does, minus the DTEK app. When BlackBerry announced the DTEK 60, there was considerable skepticism surrounding how the phone would fare. All that has been put to rest by a fine smartphone that is built well, looks premium, has a crisp display, stock Android Marshmallow with promised Android Nougat update, dependable performance, a decent camera and stellar in-phone speakers. The only qualm is the lack of a more reliable battery, and otherwise, the BlackBerry DTEK 60 is actually one of the better smartphones around today. BlackBerry DTEK60 detailed review BlackBerry, like Nokia, holds a special place in the hearts of many of us. The Canadian phone maker once had almost half the worlds mobile users as its clientele, ranging from college students to Government institutions. The advent of smartphones with touch interfaces and the simultaneous rise of Android and Apples iOS spelt danger for BB, and moves like switching BB OS to touchscreen devices and opening up BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) to other platforms did not really help the company regain lost ground. Amid much fanfare, the BlackBerry Priv was launched last year. The flagship smartphone promised to fuse the best of BlackBerrys security expertise, stock Android interface and the famed physical keyboard into a slide-out, touchscreen device. However, certain rough edges marred the level of effort that BB put into the device, and recently, it announced that BlackBerry will no longer manufacture its own phones, instead choosing to focus on software. The BlackBerry DTEK 60 here is the first smartphone in India bearing the BlackBerry tag, since the company suspended manufacturing operations. BBs partnership with TCL has seen the DTEK 60 being built on the TCL 950, which itself was manufactured by Alcatel. Along with a clean Android interface, the DTEK 60 houses enhanced security features and all the bells and whistles that you would expect from a present generation flagship smartphone. It also packs in a few neat surprises, making it quite an intriguing smartphone to use. Read on, for our in-depth review of the BlackBerry DTEK 60. Build and Design The BB DTEK 60 has a fairly slim, tall profile built entirely on glass and metal. The slim yet reassuring metal rim that borders the device thickens at the upper and lower edges to accommodate two speakers on the front and two tweeters at the rear. The rear has a glass panel neatly tucked at the edge, while the front is flanked by a 2.5D curved glass panel, and BlackBerry has even tried to add some functionality to the edge. All of this makes for a premium smartphone in terms of build, and at 6.9mm, the DTEK 60 feels plush to hold in hand. Network bands are neatly arranged and do not disturb the flow of design, and in terms of ports, the upper edge has a 3.5mm audio jack and a noise-cancelling microphone, while the bottom edge has a USB-C port and the primary microphone. While all of this feels really seamless, the only matter of concern for me is button arrangement. The upper right edge has the volume rocker, that is placed a tad too high to reach comfortably, and the power button to the top left feels awkwardly placed. Making matters more confusing is the Convenience Key - a multitasking button to which you can assign a specific function as per convenience. It does help slightly in usage, but more than that, confuses users because of its placement. The key is placed at the centre of the right edge, more or less at the point where other companies place it. While you do get used to it after a few days of usage, placing the Convenience key to the left could have avoided this confusion at the first place. The other two points that play against the design are the incredibly large camera hump, and a rather vague fingerprint sensor that is not very well demarcated. The camera hump exposes the lens to the forefront, and placing it hard on the table may even damage the lens. It thankfully did not, but the risk remains. Apart from this, though, the BB DTEK 60 is well-designed, and certainly feels sturdy and premium in hand. It may not be as stunning as the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge or as seamless as the Apple iPhone 7, but there is a neat rhythm of symmetry to the design, proportionately adjusted by the slim profile and curved glasses that aid ergonomics. All of this makes the BlackBerry DTEK 60 a well-built, good looking smartphone. Display and UI The 5.5-inch display uses an AMOLED panel, with screen resolution of 1440x2560 pixels. The display itself has an added touch of warmth that makes it pleasant to view videos on, and while there is a noticeable shift in hue at beyond 60 degree viewing angles, this is usual for most AMOLED panels. OnePlus notably avoided this by using an Optic AMOLED panel, although the non-pentile AMOLED panel BB has relied on does not really suffer from major discrepancies in hue and colour shifts, either. The display also produces pleasant colours with crisp sharpness and vibrancy that makes colours really pop. Touch response is also really fluid and accurate, and we never really encountered ghost touches and swipes. The BB DTEK 60 uses near-stock Android Marshmallow, and as a result, the interface is really clean. This makes the phone feel really fast on overall terms, and there is a neat, no-clutter organisation to the phone that will appeal to many business users. BlackBerrys own optimisations include the DTEK security portal, which we detail in the section below. Also present is the BlackBerry Hub, which envelopes the quick access slide-out shortcuts from the right edge, BBM, notifications and more into one umbrella. The edge is not a ground-breaking addition, although for business users, it is a neat addition to quickly access reminders, contacts, emails and calendar appointments in one place. The speed of the DTEK 60 further helps here, making this an intuitive addition to the phone. BlackBerry has retained the Marshmallow app drawer and included smaller optimisations like a prominent battery percentage indicator, a green LED strip to the right edge that reads present charge and time to full charge, while charging. The DTEK 60 retains Marshmallows Doze feature, reiterating its neat, organised and utilitarian interface. DTEK BlackBerry claims that the DTEK 60 is the most secure Android smartphone right now, and the DTEK mode is pivotal to BBs software optimisations. What the DTEK mode essentially does is to wrap all of the phones security features under a singular umbrella, while adding one very crucial feature of its own. By default, opening the DTEK suite gives you access to installed apps and requested permissions, data encryption status, screen lock access, factory reset protection, list of trusted app sites, and access to developer settings and OS updates. The most important feature here is how the DTEK suite gives you easy access to all your apps, and specific permissions that each app asks for. You can, of course, toggle certain app permissions off as per preference. However, if you suspect that certain apps are using more permissions than necessary, you can choose to be alerted when the app accesses a certain permission, along with the location from where the permission was accessed. The DTEK suite alerts you about any out-of-order feature access, and you can choose to block it if you find the usage suspicious. The best bit is how DTEK notifies you every time an app accesses a permission that youve set on monitor, actually making this one of the more secure smartphones out there right now. There is also a graphic indicator that tells you how safe your device is, based on features and security enhancements that you have chosen. It is this that actually makes a difference in the DTEK 60, and makes it one of the more secure Android smartphones in the market right now. Performance Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC clocked at 2.15GHz and 4GB of RAM, the BlackBerry DTEK 60 is amply fast - for regular apps and hardcore gaming alike. The DTEK 60 is consistently glitch-free and fluid, and app load times are kept to a bare minimal. With Facebook, Gmail, Navigation, YouTube and Asphalt 8 open, the DTEK 60 still managed to switch easily between the apps, reload them without significant wait times and even open up new apps without any noticeable wait. Gaming performance is equally fluid, and gameplay on graphic-intensive games such as Asphalt 8 are fluid and free of stutters. The DTEK 60 does heat up on extensive gaming, though, and the device temperature rises up to 41 degree Celsius at maximum stress, which is slightly higher than optimum. The DTEK 60 does heat up on persistent usage, but does not impose heavy throttling until you really push the limits with an hour of gaming and video playback. Despite this, the software optimisation keeps operations smooth, and even with device heat on slight rise, you can record 4K videos at 30fps, or extensively edit photographs, or even game. The battery drain is considerable, but performance-wise, the BlackBerry DTEK 60 is right up there among the best of 2016s flagship smartphones. The BB DTEK 60 has stable network retention, and data works well. There were no unnatural aberrations in network status, and the DTEK 60 managed to retain 3G connectivity at places where the speed often drops to EDGE. Call quality is decent, too, and the earpiece audio quality is bright and loud, which practically covers all essentials. Camera The DTEK 60 uses an older generation, 21MP Sony IMX230 image sensor paired with an f/2.0 lens. The camera app includes manual controls for focusing, shutter speed, colour temperature (white balance), ISO and exposure compensation in manual mode, along with fast HDR-A shooting. The camera app also includes a number of default filters within the app, and the overall app is responsive. The camera is fast, and shooting instantaneous moments is reasonably easy. Focusing, though, is slower than the best of smartphone cameras for 2016, and so is the saving of a photograph. In comparative terms, the DTEK 60 ranks somewhere between the Galaxy S7 Edge and the Sony Xperia XZ, in terms of speed of shooting and responsiveness. Recording videos also do not lead to interference and frame tearing, keeping the camera a fairly competent unit. In terms of image quality, colours are reasonably close to source, although there is a slight tinge of accentuated contrast that reflects more in the reds and greens. Yellows are well-optimised and blues are pleasant, making the DTEK 60 quite appealing in terms of the colours rendered. Photographs are acceptably sharp, but subjects do not retain definite sharpness in borders. Image noise is kept at bay in brightly lit conditions, although in low light, the level of noise is quite high. Low light performance is not too great, but the availability of manual shooting allows you to better optimise settings and produce acceptable low light photographs. The 8-megapixel front camera is reasonably sharp, too, although like most Android smartphones (barring the Google Pixel), there is a noticeable strain of softness without any enhancement or filter applied. With this camera setup, BlackBerry has put a claim on the list of best Android phones of 2016 - not only focusing on security, but also providing commendable performance, decent photography, appreciable build quality and a good display panel. Battery This is possibly the only area where the DTEK 60 did not excel in our tests. PCMark benchmark data reveals 342 minutes of usage time, and in real life, the 3000mAh battery lasts for 12 hours at best, with moderate usage. The DTEK 60 drains its battery rather fast when you stream videos or play games, and I have even run out of charge in less than 10 hours, albeit with a hefty dose of video streaming and gaming. Another slightly queer nature of the DTEK 60 is its duration of charging. From empty to 100%, the BlackBerry DTEK 60 took a whopping two hours and 31 minutes to charge. This is quite surprising, seeing how many smartphones these days offer fast charging standards of 0-100% in 40 odd minutes. Ensure that you do put it on charge once you are back from work, to wake up with full battery in the morning. Other features: Audio playback, Fingerprint sensor The audio playback quality is yet another pleasant surprise in the BlackBerry DTEK 60. The smartphone has two front-facing speakers and two rear-end tweeters to drive audio, and uses the Waves Maxx audio tuner to let you customise the audio balance to your preference. By default, with the equaliser switched off, the speakers on the DTEK 60 deliver rich audio with clearly discernible bass, mids and highs, and the surround setup is excellent, too. The DTEK 60 actually delivers better surround audio than the Apple iPhone 7 Plus and Sony Xperia XZ, which is saying something. The audio signature can be further enhanced with equalisers, but we left it at its default, as that seemed to be the sweet spot of audio balance. On the contrary, the fingerprint sensor is somewhat vague and annoying. It is almost level with the rear glass panel and is only demarcated with a circular ring that covers very little area. The sensor is also placed a bit too high on the back, which makes it more difficult for people with smaller palms to reach out to it. It is fairly accurate, although setting it up is a bit irksome, as you will have to move your finger around to accommodate multiple areas of the finger being registered, and for a scanner with such a small area, this can get fairly annoying. Bottomline When BlackBerry announced the DTEK 60, there was considerable skepticism surrounding how the phone would fare. All that has been put to rest by a fine smartphone that is built well, looks premium, has a crisp display, stock Android Marshmallow with promised Android Nougat update, dependable performance, a decent camera and stellar in-phone speakers. The only qualm is the lack of a more reliable battery, and otherwise, the BlackBerry DTEK 60 is actually one of the better smartphones around today. Is it a bit too little too late? BlackBerry has seen a noticeable loss in consumer interest, and if they are to regain some of it, the DTEK 60 seems to be a good point to begin. Priced at Rs. 46,990, the DTEK 60 doesnt really qualify as a recommendation. Its a good phone, but so is the Moto Z, which offers exactly what this one does, minus the DTEK app. Both the phones have been spotted on Zauba, and make for mid-range offerings in Samsung's ever-expanding smartphone portfolio. Samsung may be gearing up to launch two new mid-range smartphones in India, under its Galaxy C lineup. Dubbed C5 Pro and C7 Pro, the new smartphones have recently been spotted on import listing site, Zauba. While the Galaxy C7 Pro was spotted in October, the Galaxy C5 Pro appeared on site three days ago, fueling speculations surrounding their imminent launch. Not much, though, have been revealed about Samsungs upcoming mid-range smartphones. A solitary source quoted on Weibo that the Galaxy C5 Pro will be powered by Qualcomms Snapdragon 625 SoC, the Galaxy C7 Pro will use the Snapdragon 626 SoC. The Galaxy C7 Pro is also reported to flaunt a 5.7-inch display, and going by the standard Galaxy C5 and C7 smartphones, we may expect sturdy builds and metal-clad designs on the new Pro devices. Samsung has had a consistent influx of new smartphones across varying price ranges. While the likes of Galaxy On NXT have been introduced in the lower-mid range price brackets, Samsung is possibly aiming the upper-mid range prices with the Galaxy C lineup. The Galaxy A line of smartphones also falls in a similar category, and with new devices en route, it remains how Samsung differentiates multiple devices in its extensive portfolio. The Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro and C7 Pro is expected to be priced upward of Rs. 20,000, and the word on the street is that the new devices will be launched next month, in December 2016. Samsung is also expected to launch its flagship, the Galaxy S8, some time soon. The company is widely expected to pool in all of its resources behind the upcoming flagship, notably to compensate for the exploding Galaxy Note7. Source The Sony Z9D uses the company's Backlight Master Drive technology to provide over 500 dimmable zones on the panel. This makes for a very good television to buy, for those who can afford it. At Rs. 5,04,900, it's not a TV that just anyone can buy, but it's a step into the future of LCD TV panels. Sony Bravia Z9D 4K HDR TV detailed review Weve reviewed a bunch of Sony televisions this year. But it seems the company was saving the best for last. The Sony Z9D sits pretty atop the companys current Indian portfolio, and it has all the features one can hope for, at a whopping Rs. 5,04,900. The price is steep of course, but this TV is about showcasing new technology. Sonys backlight master drive technology, also known as Focused Lightbeam, is a step in auto-dimming. It allows individual control over the LEDs in the backlight array, allowing the TV to have over 500 dimmable zones. Whats the result? We found out in our review. Build and Design Using the backlight master drive has made this TV thicker, but were not complaining. Sony has been really clever with the design. The Sony Z9D 4K HDR TV looks good enough, and has a large presence Theres a thick joint-like line running along the sides of the TV. This also makes it look like the back and front are stuck together. Combined with the grid-like design on the back, it makes for a very unique looking TV. From the side, the TV looks like two pieces are stuck together However, this isnt one of those thin televisions we are used to in the premium range. The backlights rest behind the LCD panel, increasing the overall thickness. Still, we think Sony has been able to create a pretty attractive television and the design looks seamless. Ports, Connectivity and Remote If youve read any Sony TV review before, youll know the company has its own take on the Android TV remote. Youll find the standard remote in the box, with an integrated voice icons, and a dedicated Netflix button (one of the key requirements for a Netflix recommended television). Only the Component ports are facing backwards You also get a Google Play button, and Sony has added a new Discover key, which does exactly what the name suggests. The ports all rest on the back, with the important HDMI and USB ports facing sideways, instead of downwards. You will, however, have to remove one of the panels from the back to reveal three of the HDMI ports and component ports. Most of the ports face sideways, but you have to remove one of the panels from the back to reveal them all HDMI: 4 USB: 3 Composite Video In: 2 Audio Out: 1 Ethernet: 1 Other Connectivity: Google Cast, Screen Mirroring etc. As with the Sony X9350D, the HDMI ports on the Z9D are also HDCP 2.2 compliant. This means your devices also need to be compliant with the same standard. Picture Quality Much like OLEDs, focused lightbeam technology is also meant to improve contrast on your television. The extra dimming zones theoretically improve black levels, while also increasing the white point. With the TV on Standard picture mode, and a reasonably lit room, the contrast ratio comes out to 1110:1 at 50% brightness. This is one of the highest readings weve got so far. In addition, the white point rests at 6300K, which again is very close to ideal. However, the Sony Z9Ds strengths arent in its black levels. Rather, the TV excels in other colours. The colour space is quite wide, and colours look natural, yet punchy and vibrant. Watching Narcos at 1080p, the noise reduction engine kicks in, and presents a very pleasant experience. This will only be enhanced by video that is shot in HDR, since blacks and whites will also be better. To be clear, the Sony Z9D is no slouch in terms of black and white levels. Its just that the colours take your attention away from everything else. Audio Quality Sony has made some advancements in TV audio recently. The Sony X9350D we reviewed recently, is meant specifically for better sound. The Z9D doesnt have the same design, but one wonders whether its thickness couldnt have allowed for even better audio. Nevertheless, the Z9D has two 10W speakers fitted on it, and itll work for most small and medium rooms. You may have to keep the TV on high volume in the larger rooms, but audio is quite clear and dialogues are easy to discern. Its not quite meant for music, though. Android TV That leaves us with the interface, and Sony seems to have made some much needed progress here. Android TV is faster this time, and though theres room for improvement, the entire UI feels much smoother. Youll still have to face long wait times when opening big folders from external devices. Android TV is faster this time, but still needs a lot of work Sony has also added a Discover menu to help you find content to watch easily. Apart from that, theres nothing different here that other Android TV-powered televisions do not offer. Even Sonys own. Bottomline To sum up, the Sony Z9D is the best premium television we reviewed this year. It excels in picture quality, generating natural and vibrant colours, and audio quality is also decent. Sonys Backlight Master Drive technology seems to be the right step forward, and does indeed bring LCDs closer to OLED quality. If you can afford this TV, its definitely one we recommend. You are here: Home Flash File photo taken on July 16, 2016 shows U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a campaign event in New York, the United States. [Photo/Xinhua] U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday that he will withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on his first day in office. "I'm going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country," Trump said. Trump made the remarks in a short video in which he outlined his policy plans for the first 100 days in office. "Instead, we'll negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry onto American shores," he added. Trump said he will cancel "job-killing restrictions on the productions of American energy......creating many millions of high-paying jobs." On ethics reform, government officials will be banned from becoming lobbyists within the first five years after leaving office and will be banned from lobbying on behalf of a foreign government for life. Trump also pledged to draw up a comprehensive national security plan and order a probe into visa program abuses. On regulation, Trump said for every one new regulation, two old ones must be eliminated. The policies are aimed at reforming Washington and rebuilding the American middle class, Trump said. Trump ascended to presidency earlier this month after beating Democrat Hillary Clinton. He is now in the process of forming his administration and preparing for officially taking over the White House on Jan. 20. The TPP, a free trade pact between 12 Asia-Pacific countries, has been signed but not yet ratified by the U.S. lawmakers. During his election campaign, Trump had said he strongly opposed the deal. Inmarsat got a boost as Deutsche Bank initiated coverage of the stock at buy with a 1,030p price target. We acknowledge that the ISAT thesis centres on the concept of inflight communication gaining real traction and at present there are mixed views, but we see scope for ISAT unlocking value given the size of the market. We have carried out bottom-up analysis of the market potential for in-flight communication and about 40% of our target relates to the European aviation opportunity. Given ISAT has underperformed the Telco sector by 16% year-to-date, we see current levels as a good entry to gain exposure to strong growth. DB noted that Inmarsat has underperformed the telco sector by 16% year-to-date, so at current levels it represents a good entry point to gain exposure to strong growth, with an attractive 6.1% dividend yield. The bank argued that the big driver for Inmarsat is the in-flight opportunity, both Global Xpress and the European network, although this is also where uncertainty lies. DB said it was 2% below consensus in terms of group earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation in 2017/18, adding that it is comfortable with its position given the in-flight opex ramp-up. Consensus has progressively moved down in recent months and we think we are towards the end of the earnings downgrade cycle. Furthermore we think that investors recognise the over-optimism from some of our sell side peers. Numis downgraded its stance on Essentra to add from buy and cut the price target to 470p following the companys profit warning on Monday. The brokerage said the profit warning the second this year indicates the scale of the challenges facing new chief executive officer Paul Forman. It said the profit downgrade of around 20m for 2016 is split about 75% Packaging and 25% Filters. Numis cut its 2016 earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation forecast by 14% to 139.3m, which is within management's 137-142m range. It also downgraded 2017 and 2018 EBITA forecasts by 20-25%, reflecting a more cautious view on future revenue and profit progression. Whilst we believe there are few near-term catalysts for a re-rating, we maintain our view on the longer-term attraction of Essentra's packaging and distribution businesses, the opportunity for the new CEO to simplify the group, and note the yield support from the maintained dividend, Numis said. Credit Suisse updated its ratings and initiated on stocks in the European media sector. The Swiss bank upgraded RELX from neutral to outperform and bumped up the price target to 1,600p from 1,370p. It said the companys high-quality assets with market-leading positions have led to improving organic growth which should be sustained. In addition, it pointed to cyclicality, almost no advertising exposure and a pragmatic approach to capital allocation. CS initiated coverage of Sky was at 'outperform' with a price target of 980p. Whilst the analysts acknowledged legitimate concerns over competition from incumbents like BT and over the top players who broadcast their media over the internet, they argued that these threats are overdone. CS said its proprietary survey shows the high degree of complementarity between OTT and Sky. The group is defensive, we see opportunities outside the UK and in mobile and believe being underweight post the recent underperformance and given weaker sterling is unwise. Credit Suisse started WPP at 'outperform' with a 2,000p price target. The bank said it likes the platform agnostic, globally diverse nature of the Global Advertising Agency space and expects low single-digit organic growth with modest margin expansion. However, it highlighted challenges including price pressures from zero-based budgeters, competition from consultants in digital and the industry debate around transparency. The bank reiterated its 'neutral' stance on Daily Mail and General Trust but lifted the price target to 830p from 750p. With uncertainty around the new chief executives strategy, still-challenged end markets and structurally declining print, the analysts reckoned the current valuation looks fair. CS downgraded UBM from outperform to neutral but the price target was raised from 725p to 755p. It said the company is the only pure play asset of scale in the attractive events sub-sector but post a re-rating the valuation is broadly fair given below-peer group growth. The bank initiated Informa at 'neutral' rating with a 700p price target. New management is mid-way through a turnaround focusing on US events and improving performance in its other divisions, however, execution risks mean the valuation fairly reflects its earnings per share growth profile. Credit Suisse downgraded education publisher Pearson from 'neutral to underperform and the price target dropped to 740p from 840p. Whilst consensus is around 11% behind company guidance, multiple headwinds, poor visibility and a history of profit warnings leaves the groups valuation looking too steep. Downing Street has rejected calls, including from president-elect Donald Trump, for former Ukip leader Nigel Farage to become the British ambassador to the United States. Trump tweeted support for the appointment overnight, saying "He would do a great job! But the call has gone unheeded, with current ambassador Sir Kim Darroch only appointed to the post in January 2016. A government spokesperson on Tuesday said: There is no vacancy. We already have an excellent ambassador to the US. Writing on Breitbart, the 'alt-right' news website, Farage said that he could scarcely believe Trump had tweeted his endorsement. Though speaking to a couple of his longtime friends perhaps I am a little less surprised. They all say the same thing: that Trump is a very loyal man and supports those that stand by him. Farage was the first British politician to meet the billionaire property tycoon after his election victory and had briefly helped campaign for him in Mississippi. A leading figure in the Brexit campaign, Farage said with Trump as the incoming president there was a real opportunity to improve trade between Britain and the US. Downing Street had previously said Farge would not become a third person in the relationship between Tump and Prime Minister Theresa May. Brexit Secretary David Davis, told the BBC on Tuesday "People can say what they like. The simple truth is there's no vacancy. This is an ambassador who is very, very good, as we've seen already, and he will be there for years." We are believers in free speech in Britain, but we've got a very good ambassador in Washington, Kim Darroch, and he's going to be there for some years. According to bookmaker Ladbrokes Farage has a 20/1 shot of becoming ambassador. Ladbrokes Jessica Bridge said: Stranger things have happened this year, but it's hard to see Number 10 allowing such a move for Farage." US insurance giant AIG could move its European headquarters out of London to the continent or Ireland should the UK's planned departure from the EU go ahead, a senior executive for the firm has said. Britain voted to leave the European Union in June of this year, and several multinational businesses have expressed concern about the result, potentially threatening to shift operations from the capital. Chief executive of AIG Europe Anthony Baldwin told the Association of British Insurers' conference that there will come a time when the confusion surrounding the Brexit process will have a practical effect on business. "At a certain point in time you have to pull the trigger in the absence of any clarity on where negotiations are going with the transition period," said Baldwin. The executive was then asked about whether AIG might transfer its headquarters in London to somewhere like Dublin, Paris or Frankfurt, he was clear with his answer. "Yes, we might take that decision," he confirmed. AIG moved its European centre to London from Paris five years ago, and Baldwin said that that experience would make the process a lot easier. "We will always continue to have a big London hub but we might have a European headquarters elsewhere," he added. The National Health Service has partnered with US tech giant Google to begin using artificial intelligence to treat patients at a hospital in London. The five-year agreement between the Royal Free and Google's DeepMind operation will see over half a million hours a year of work being handed to the tech system, allowing doctors and nurses to concentrate more on treating patients. More than 1.6m patients per year will have their details shared with a third party as a result of the agreement, and critics have expressed concern about a possible mishandling of data. The technology will allow DeepMind to search the confidential information and send it to doctors almost immediately through a smartphone app. Experts have said that thousands of lives could be saved as a result of utilising the system, which comes into place next year. Currently staff at the Royal Free may spend hours wading through paper files and documents, and the hope from the NHS is that the workload associated with such exercises becomes drastically reduced. "Doctors and nurses currently spend far too much time on paperwork, and we believe this technology could substantially reduce this burden, enabling doctors and nurses to spend more time on what they do best - treating patients," said Royal Free London chief executive David Sloman. Co-founder of DeepMind Mustafa Suleyman said that Google had a unique responsibility to ensure that the data would be kept confidential at all times. "Privacy and trust are paramount, and we're holding ourselves to an unprecedented level of oversight," he said. Crude oil prices continued to gain altitude at a fast clip, helped by the continued positive news-flow surrounding a two-day technical meeting between delegates from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Commenting on the situation, a member of the Nigerian delegation, Ibrahim Waya, told the Wall Street Journal that "it is likely everybody will be on board by the end of the day. Following the first day of the meeting to try and iron-out the details of a combined production freeze to prop up prices reports indicated that progress had been made. According to the Journal delegates had indicated that stoicking points remained, including around discrepancies between the independent data used by the group, members own disclosures and Irans plans to increase output. As of 1050 GMT front month Brent crude futures were rising by 1.73% to $49.76 per barrel on the ICE. Britain and the European Union must begin formal talks soon in order to conclude the Brexit process by mid-2019, according to the latter's designated head for the negotiations, Guy Verhofstadt . The UK has still not invoked Article 50, the mark of the beginning of the process to leave the bloc, and the delay is set to be prolonged even further by the high court ruling that parliament must be consulted before doing so. Verhofstadt said on Tuesday that there was a mutual agreement that negotiations will be concluded within that specific time frame, as the legislative elections to the institution will be taking place that year. "We agreed on the need that this process needs to start as early as possible and needs to finish, in any case, before the next European elections," the MEP told reporters in Strasbourg. The former prime minister of Belgium met with UK Brexit secretary David Davis this week as a precursor to the beginning of formal talks between the two lawmaking bodies. The central argument which has caused roadblock so far in the talks has been the UK's insistence on remaining a part of the free market, but a variety of EU leaders have rubbished these demands, saying that it cannot be granted without free movement of people. Verhofstadt added that anything that puts in danger the EU's four primary freedoms would not be compromised. "These four freedoms are key; they are a basic element of the European Union - the freedom of movement of goods, of services, of capital and of people," he added. "We will certainly never accept whatever development where these four freedoms are put at risk." The Belgian is the leader of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and was chosen to head the bloc's negotiating team due to his hard stance on Euro-scepticism. A technical meeting of OPEC delegates decided to defer a decision regarding output cuts for Iran and Iraq until the cartels next ordinary meeting scheduled for 30 November, in Vienna, Bloomberg reported. US president-elect Donald Trump has laid out his plans for the first 100 days in the Oval Office, promising to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement on his first day. Trump was elected as president after defeating Hillary Clinton on a right-wing populist stance, promising to "Make America Great Again", and in the latest video released by his team he says his main principle will be "putting America first". The Republican will take over from Barack Obama on 20 January and vowed to get to work quickly on implementing his policies. "I'm going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country," Trump said in the video released via his Twitter account. "Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores." .@transition2017 update and policy plans for the first 100 days. pic.twitter.com/HTgPXfPWeJ Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2016 During his campaign earlier this year, the former reality television star referred to the TPP as a "continuing rape" of the US. Amongst the other executive actions to be carried out by his transition team, Trump also focused on the energy industry, saying he hoped to create more jobs in the area for American citizens. "I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs," Trump added. Stopping short of an immigration policy which includes a border wall with Mexico or the deportation of all illegal immigrants, which is what the president-elect promised voters, he said he would instruct his staff to investigate the abuse of Visa programmes. "I will direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of Visa programmes that undercut the American worker," Trump said. The TPP is a trade agreement involving 12 nations, with the United States the only one expressing any lack of desire to ratify it, with the likes of Australia, Japan, Malaysia and Mexico all pushing it. Ashtead has bought some of fellow equipment rental company Hewdens assets and the brand name from its administrators, EY, for 29m. The assets which were purchased by Ashteads UK business, A-Plant include Hewdens powered access and power generation fleet, five on site depots which service major petrochemical customers, the Interlift lifting and materials handling business and the Hewden brand name. Ashtead said that as part of the deal, a number of Hewdens employees will be joining the A-Plant business. A-Plants chief executive Sat Dhaiwal said: This acquisition significantly enhances A-Plant's offering in the industrial sector where we have been keen to develop our capabilities for some time. We are pleased to be taking over a number of important on-site depots at major petrochemical facilities and will ensure that a high level of service is maintained for all customers through the integration process. EY said on Tuesday that it has been appointed as administrators to Hewden following recent press reports that the company was on the brink of collapse. Joint administrator Sam Woodward said: Management has been attempting to operationally reshape the business to focus on higher margin and quicker returning assets and services. However, this has proven challenging with the groups capital structure and the recent trading environment. Management recently undertook a number of initiatives including approaching new funders and potential acquirers to recapitalise the business, but unfortunately these efforts proved unsuccessful. Woodward said EY was now assessing the optimum strategy for maximising value in the remainder of the group following the sale of three divisions to Ashtead. In the meantime, we will continue to work with stakeholders to maintain service levels to customers who have assets on hire. EY said a total of 251 employees were made redundant across the companys depot and on-site locations. Hewden had said in a statement back in October that the group was hit by market uncertainty following the UKs vote to leave European Union. The vote has adversely affected a number of large construction and capital investment projects, it said at the time. At 1222 GMT, Ashtead shares were up 2.4% to 1,454.17p. Alan Milburn, the former Labour health minister and government social mobility tsar, is at the helm of a new group funded in part by Sir Richard Branson to fight Britains exit from the European Union. The aim is to bring together disparate pro-European groups behind an explicit campaign to reverse the referendum decision to leave, probably only after the government has revealed the content of its exit terms and the UK economy has reacted. Brussels is proposing to tighten its grip over overseas banks operating in the EU in a tit-for-tat step against the US that will raise costs for big foreign lenders and potentially hurt the City of London after Brexit. The European Commission will unveil provisions on Wednesday that mirror controversial US intermediate holding company rules that ringfence foreign bank capital. - Financial Times Job security is at a record high with more Britons feeling confident that their employment is here to stay, according to a study from Lloyds Bank. With unemployment at its lowest rate in 11 years and wages growing faster than prices, 82pc of people felt confident in their job security in October, the highest number in the studys five year history. - Telegraph The chancellor will deploy more than 1bn to boost broadband speeds for up two million homes and businesses as part of an infrastructure plan to be outlined in the autumn statement. Responding to calls from business for the government to back the digital economy, Philip Hammond will back a 400m digital infrastructure fund, which the Treasury expects will be matched by private sector investors. - Guardian IBM has committed to a multi-million pound project to build four new data centres in the UK, the latest in a series of UK investments by major US technology groups. Coming as a boost to the Government ahead of the Autumn Statement, the move will treble IBMs capacity for cloud computing in the UK. - Telegraph Exports of branded British food and non-alcoholic drinks shot up by nearly 14 per cent in the third quarter after the steep plunge in the pound since the vote to quit the European Union. The Food and Drink Federation said that its latest export figures represented the biggest quarterly export sales it had recorded and built on the second quarter, which was in turn the largest [increase] up to that point. - The Times Christmas deliveries in the UK could be hampered by a shortage in lorry drivers as the pool of workers shrank to its lowest level since records began in 2005, according to recruiters. A lack of truck drivers has long been an issue for UK businesses as the popularity of the profession has decreased among British workers. - Financial Times The Baltic Dry Index, which is seen by many as a leading indicator of the state of the world economy, has surged to its highest level in almost two years. The index measures shipping costs for commodities including iron ore, copper and steel. It is comprised of three-sub indexes that measure different sizes of merchant ships, and is based on a daily survey of agents all over the world. - Telegraph Train companies will only have to provide slow free Wi-Fi for customers despite a government pledge to introduce fast, cheap internet connections across the rail network. Before the general election, the government announced that all train operators bidding on future franchises and direct contracts in England and Wales would have to include free Wi-Fi as part of their pitches. - Guardian Drinks giant Diageo faces its workers going on strike just four weeks before Christmas after staff voted in favour of industrial action over proposed cuts to their pensions. Members of the GMB Scotland union, which include those working at bottling plants at Leven and Shieldhall and distilleries across the country, backed the walkouts by 63pc and other forms of industrial action by 69.7pc. - Telegraph Hema, the Dutch retail chain referred to as a "posh Poundland" , has said it will not raise prices and press ahead with its UK roll-out, despite concerns in certain quarters about the health of the British high street. The Dutch chain opened its seventh shop in Britain on Monday in London's Euston train station and is plotting to open between 15 and 20 stores over the next two years. - Telegraph Flybe is to end its franchise with Loganair for providing services across Scotland after failing to agree terms on a new contract. The airlines had been talking about extending the contract, under which Loganair aircraft flew routes bearing the Flybe logo, but the partnership will end next August. Flybe said that the decision would not have a material impact on profits. - The Times The new boss of Debenhams must wait at least six months before he is granted any performance share plan awards. The retailers remuneration committee has decided that Sergio Bucher, the former Amazon fashion executive who joined last month, must wait until after first-half results next year before any awards are given. - The Times Flash The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday its experts had confirmed that terrorists had used chlorine and white phosphorus toxic agents in the outskirts of the Syrian city of Aleppo. Rebel fighters from the Jaish al-Fatah (or Army of Conquest) brigades fire mortar shells towards western government-controlled districts on October 30, 2016 at an entrance to Aleppo, in the southwestern frontline neighbourhood of Dahiyet al-Assad, on the third day of a rebel offensive to break a three-month siege of the opposition-held east of Syria's second city. [Photo/Xinhua] Experts of the Scientific Center of the Russian Nuclear, Biological and Chemical protection troops came to this conclusion after conducting a laboratory test of nine samples of shell fragments and soil, the ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in a statement. The presence of chlorine and white phosphorus was preliminarily revealed during an express test of the samples collected earlier this month in the southwestern outskirts of Aleppo. Russian experts have taken biological samples from four Syrians affected by the use of chemical weapons by militants and sent them for a profound analysis in a special laboratory in Russia, Konashenkov said. He added that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has not yet sent its experts to Aleppo in spite of repeated invitations by Russian military. Shares in Lavendon Group soared nearly 40% on Tuesday as the AIM-listed rental company rejected a 348m offer from Belgian industrial equipment supplier TVH Group. The company said that the level of support amongst its shareholders for the take-over was not forthcoming and it was unable to proceed with the offer as there were concerns over the significant execution risk and the potential disruption to the company. TVH had offered to buy the company for 205p per share after the company posted its half year results in August. It reported that interim revenue had increased 13% to 134.2m and that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) had risen 17% to 43.4m. The company maintained that it was in robust health and well positioned across diverse geographic markets It also said that it had strong revenue growth, profits, cash flow and return on capital employed and a clear strategic direction to deliver substantial shareholder value over the medium term. Shares in Lavendon Group were up 37.17% to 190.67p at 1015 GMT. Save my User ID and Password Some subscribers prefer to save their log-in information so they do not have to enter their User ID and Password each time they visit the site. To activate this function, check the 'Save my User ID and Password' box in the log-in section. This will save the password on the computer you're using to access the site. Note: If you choose to use the log-out feature, you will lose your saved information. This means you will be required to log-in the next time you visit our site. 4 takeaways from Fox News town hall with Tim Ryan, J.D. Vance Republican J.D. Vance and Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan participated in a town hall in Columbus hosted by Fox News Tuesday night. Subscriber content preview KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) A nonprofit regional development group is recommending that the Alaska Marine Highway System be managed as a corporation under state ownership. The group wants to get input from lawmakers and the public in 2017 while spending the year drafting legislation and an operating plan, Robert Enables of the Southeast Conference told the Ketchikan Daily News. . . . Subscriber content preview Republicans and industry representatives have criticized the Obama administration's eleventh-hour actions. PRAY, Mont. (AP) U.S. officials on Monday blocked new mining claims outside Yellowstone National Park as the Obama administration races in its last days to keep industry out of natural and environmentally sensitive areas. Mining claims on 30,370 acres north of the nation's first national park would be prohibited for at least two years while a long-term ban is considered, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said during a visit to Montana's scenic Paradise Valley. . . . Switzerland agrees to share bank account info from Sep 2019 In a major step towards bringing transparency in international financial transactions and fighting the menace of money being stashed overseas, India and Switzerland today agreed on automatic sharing of information on banking transactions. As per the 'Joint Declaration' for the implementation of Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) between the two countries, the government of Switzerland will give information on Swiss bank accounts of Indians as of September 2018 and onwards, but not before. They will not share details about accounts held prior to that period, while the first such exchange will happen only in September 2019. Fighting the menace of black money stashed in offshore accounts has been a key priority area for the Narendra Modi government. ''The signing of the agreement will now make it possible for India to receive from September 2019 onwards, the financial information of accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland for 2018 and subsequent years, on an automatic basis,'' an official release stated. While Switzerland has conformed to the global standards on automatic exchange of information with the signing of the declaration, India, on its part, has promised to safeguard the confidentiality of the data. Describing the signing of declaration as a "big step", revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia tweeted: "The income tax department will be able to obtain information from accounts of all Indians stashed in Switzerland from 2018 onwards." The Swiss Federal Department of Finance said in a statement that the signing of the joint declaration with India confirms Switzerland's international commitment to implementing the automatic exchange of Information (AEOI) standard. "Switzerland is thus strengthening its network of AEOI partner states. India meets in particular the high demands in terms of adherence to the principle of speciality and the safeguarding of confidentiality for the data delivered, which are prerequisites for the introduction of the AEOI," it said. Switzerland, which has been the centre for stashing away unaccounted wealth for the world's rich and the Indians' black money, used to be known for very strong secrecy walls till a few years ago around its banking practices. This has now crumbled due to global pressure However, several information requests on details about Indians who have accounts in Swiss banks are still pending and these are unlikely to be revealed. Today's declaration also does not talk about exchange of information based on stolen data or pending requests from India. Following the government's demonetisation of high value currency notes that made it difficult for holders of fake currency to do business, holders of such cash have been demanding that the government also take action to bring back the unaccounted money stashed abroad, particularly in Swiss banks. In a bid to improve financial inclusion, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the country's telecom regulator, has cut rates to a third for USSD-based mobile banking transactions. TRAI has lowered the tariff to a maximum of 50 paise per transaction from the earlier rate of Rs1.50 per session. 'Unstructured supplementary service data' or USSD is a mobile system used to send text between a mobile phone and an application program. USSD uses short codes to make transactions or inquiries such as checking balance talk time or present bill among others. ''This is based on the recommendations of the banks, the Reserve Bank of India, while we also consulted National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI),'' Trai chairman RS Sharma said. More than 65 per cent of India, who own feature phones, use USSD Sharma said, adding, that high price was one of the reasons behind low usage of this medium for making mobile banking transactions. More than 84 lakh transactions were recorded in October itself, he added. The move was welcomed by telecom operators in the country. ''To support customers during the ongoing demonetisation exercise, Bharti Airtel has waived off transaction charges for all USSD-based mobile banking transactions over its network till December 31, 2016. We would encourage customers to leverage this benefit for their convenience,'' an Airtel spokesperson said. Welcoming the government's initiatives to accelerate India's progress into a less cash economy, Sunil Sood, MD & CEO, Vodafone India, said, ''Vodafone India is committed to help actualise the Government's several initiatives designed to make India a digital economy. To ease the burden of masses, we are waiving off all USSD charges presently levied for mobile banking till December 31, 2016. As several million customers use feature phones, we are hopeful that this free access to mobile banking will encourage them to adopt it as their preferred and convenient mode for banking,'' said Sunil Sood, MD & CEO, Vodafone India. ''Further, with Vodafone M-Pesa we are leveraging the reach of mobile technology to drive financial inclusion and offer the convenience of a digital wallet for easy transactions. The unique cash out feature of Vodafone M-Pesa makes it the ideal digital wallet for masses, enabling users to digitise cash, remit it to family and friends, pay bills and/or withdraw it at their convenience from over 120,000 touch points across the country,'' he added. The fourth Letterkenny One Act Drama festival took place in An Grianan Theatre last weekend and audiences were entertained to nine top quality performances. The nine one-act plays came from all four provinces over the three nights in both confined and open sections. Paula Dempsey gave a very positive adjudication of the nine plays and both audiences and participating groups were more than complimentary of her remarks each night. In the open section best play, best director, (Gus Hanley), best actress, (Maura Farrelly) an adjudicator award, (Brian Murphy) and best technical award went to Corn Mill Theatre Company, Leitrim, for their production of Tom Clarkes One True Love, written by group member and actor Killian McGuiness. This group also were winners the Blue Riband Award. Best actor in the open went to George Hogan as Walter in Lucans Subtraction. In the confined section, best director, (Ann C Molloy), best play, best actress, (Niamh Flanagan) and best actor, (Michael Teveran), went to Glenamaddy Players' production of The Problem, by A.R. Gurney. Two other adjudicators awards went to, Gregg Mulcahy as the glue sniffer in the open sections Homeless by Cork group, Tadgh An Astna, and Dee Fox in the confined section for her role in Gunpowders production of Hugh Leonards Pizzazz. The committee would like to thank all their sponsors without whom the festival could not be possible, the staff in An Grianan, and all who supported the festival in any way. Feedback from the past festivals was so positive that Letterkenny has been given the All Ireland One Act Drama finals next year from December 1st to 3rd. This will be a major event bringing hundreds of drama enthusiasts and the cream of one act productions to the town. Early booking is recommended as tickets will be in demand. There are no plans to bench the Chrysler brand in Australia, parent company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles insists. This assurance comes from Steve Zanlunghi, the recently installed local boss of FCA, even though he was given direction to phase out the American nameplate during his previous job as the head of FCA in the United Kingdom. This was, he says, about focussing attention more on the group's other core brands in that market. Sluggish Australian sales of the big four-door 300C and 300C SRT models the only current Chryslers offered here - had led to speculation that the marque may be euthanised in this part of the world, with greater emphasis instead given over to the sister Dodge brand. Zanlunghi has brushed off suggestions that Chrysler has a limited time left here, instead suggesting that he senses opportunities for the 300 and 300 SRT with the Holden Commodore range soon to follow the Ford Falcon out of Australian manufacturing. But for how long? Parent company FCA is currently working to determine the future large-car line-up under its Chrysler and Dodge brands. The Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger sedan and the two-door Challenger, are up for replacements by the end of the decade. However in this era of rationalisation, we can expect one to get the chop. FCA is aiming to reduce sales cannibalisation between its brands so two similar large sedans one selling as a Chrysler and the other as a Dodge does not sound like an ongoing scenario. Probably with the help of an update, the Chrysler 300 will likely stay in production until 2020. Then it looks like game over for the car favoured by those after the gangsta rapper look. Local muscle car enthusiasts have been calling loudly for the Dodge Charger and Challenger to be imported here, and this push will have been helped due to the resounding initial success of the Ford Mustang in Australia. The current Dodges, first introduced in 2008, are not built in right-hand drive. However FCA's next-generation of American large cars is expected to be based around a stretched version of the very versatile "Giorgio" platform (upon which the Alfa Romeo Giulia and coming Stelvio SUV are built). This architecture is engineered to take a right-hand-drive layout, meaning there is the opportunity at least to export these cars to Australia. FCA Asia-Pacific overlord Mike Manley has discussed with Zanlunghi the popularity of the Mustang and whether losing the Commodore and Falcon here will present opportunities to import the next-generation Dodges. But a decision is some years off. "If we make a business case, you might see them in Australia," Manley said. "Helping the cause, it's easier to package these cars in right-hand drive with component sharing and using the next-generation global platform." This would be great news for Dodge fans, especially those keen to see, hear and maybe own the flagship Hellcat model powered by a 527kW supercharged Hemi V8. The popularity of workhorse/lifestyle utes in Australia is also fuelling FCA Australia's argument to secure right-hand drive production of the next-generation of Dodges. This includes the Ram 1500 pick-up as a rival to the likes of the hot-selling Toyota HiLux, Ford Ranger and Mitsubishi Triton. Earlier this year, Zanlunghi's FCA Australia predecessor, Pat Dougherty, indicated to Drive that he wanted to see more Dodge products in Australia, and this included light-duty Ram pick-ups, currently only produced in left-hand drive, but converted and sold locally in a collaboration between American Special Vehicles and Ateco. Zanlunghi has deflected any discussion on whether FCA might want to import factory right-hand-drive Ram products in the future. "Right now we are supporting Ateco with the distribution of the Ram 2500 and 3500 trucks in Australia and New Zealand," he said. From that, we could almost assume the next-generation factory Ram 1500 pick-up, if built in right-hand drive, could be heading our way. A Ravensdale couple are among of group of parents of children with cystic fibrosis who have been invited to give a presentation in the Dail AV room on December 1. Maire and Iain Gallagher, who live in Dulargy, Ravensdale, are the parents of a child with cystic fibrosis. Cathal is 9 years old. Every day he fights for his survival against the deadliest genetic condition in Ireland. We belong to a committee of parents of children with cystic fibrosis, they told the Dundalk Democrat. We have been left with no choice but to fight for our child. Sinn Fein have invited the committee for the parents of children with cystic fibrosis to give a presentation in the AV room in the Dail on December 1st at 9.30. Both Sinn Fein and our committee feel that support for our children be non party political and cross party involvement is vital to obtain Orkambi and stop cystic fibrosis being the death sentence it has always been. As a constituent of Louth I have formally invited for Peter Fitzpatrick, Declan Breathnach, Fergus O'Dowd and Imelda Munster to attend. Ireland needs to stand together for what really matters. Our children's lives. That can begin with our local TDs attendance and involvement. With CF, the body has a defective protein which produces thick mucus that causes numerous lung infections that are serious and can lead to permanent scarring. The thick mucus can block the digestive system and gastric organs. A Person with CF (pwcf) can look so well but their body is tearing itself apart from the insides. Pwcf lose 2-3 % lung function annually from adolescence. We have the largest incidence of CF in the world, this makes CF an Irish problem. Scarily CF gives our children a considerably low life expectancy. Orkambi has been developed by an American drug company called Vertex and is currently available in the US, France and Germany. Cystic Fibrosis Ireland(2016), have described it as a game changer towards saving ours child's life. The drug is presently being reviewed by the HSE with no word on a determination. Finance appears to the major obstacle in its path to be granted despite the life changing and saving differences it will provide to the cystic fibrosis community. In response to this we have provide several of the political parties with a small, "life list," which quantifies the number of people effected by cystic fibrosis that could be treated by Orkambi and the length of time it allows coverage for. Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams met with 14 parents of children with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) in Leinster House on Thursday 3rd November. Teachta Adams hosted the meeting, along with Sinn Fein's spokesperson on health Louise O'Reilly TD, following requests from his constituents and other parents, who believe that the new CF treatment, Orkambi, could significantly improve their children's health and their quality of life. "Orkambi could change their children's lives reducing the amount of drugs they need to take and lowering their number of hospital admissions. They believe that it will significantly extend the life expectancy of their children and give the whole family a chance at a normal life. "Among the group who came to Leinster House was one woman whose son is currently receiving Orkambi as part of a medical trial. In the 3 years since her son has been taking Orkambi his health has vastly improved and he has had no further deterioration in his lung function. If he wasnt already busy enough heading up three manufacturing start-ups, Queenslands Dave Biggars has set his sights on leading the $19 billion-dollar caravan industry out of the bygone era of timber into the era of smart design. Last year, the 32-year-old entrepreneur founded Zone RV, a manufacturer of built-to-order off-road and luxury touring caravans. Nominated for Caravan Worlds Best Aussie Caravan 2016, the company employs processes and materials found in the marine, transport, aircraft and civil composite industries to, Biggars explained, provide end users with a lighter, stronger, smarter and safer caravan. He is also the founder and director of Cure Composites and CL Composites. In addition to manufacturing sandwich panels for the marine and aviation industries, Cure Composites supplies ZONE RV and other caravan manufacturers (such as Winnebago) with high-strength floor panels. Meanwhile, CL Composites supplies wall and roof panels to ZONE RV along with other caravan manufacturers as well as truck body builders and the business is starting to break into housing panel systems. He spoke to Dynamic Business about disrupting the caravan industry and the reality of operating multiple businesses simultaneously. What distinguishes ZONE RV from other caravans? Although its estimated to be worth $19 billion*, the caravan industry is still considered both a cottage industry and a traditional trade. Its ripe for disruption due to the continued use of conventional methods and a reliance on materials such as timber which the aeronautical and marine industries moved away from in the 1960s. Manufacturers have been fairly comfortable with the prevailing building processes and materials despite the emergence of advanced technology and manufacturing standards over the past few decades. Our USP is vans that are 100% timber-less. Our use of modern processes and composite materials (generally, a mix of aluminium, fiberglass, foam and plastics) has resulted in a far less problematic product. A timber caravan, for instance, has imperfections that lead to failure, including weak spots and rotting. Even if a timber caravan has sealed cladding, natural condensation can still get inside the walls and cause the timber to rot in humid or very cold climates. Our caravans are informed by the materials, processes and experience I gained building high-performance catamarans. In fact, its been said that our caravans hold more in common with luxury yachts, than a conventionally-built caravans. Underpinning all our R&D efforts has been a commitment to make a lighter, stronger, smarter and safer product. The modern materials applied in the marine and aeronautical industries wont rot or corrode over time. Consumers today are increasingly savvy, due to the online resources readily available to them, and I truly believe the industry-wide shift has started, with ZONE RV leading the charge. Manufacturers that dont adapt, i.e. dont shift forward to composite technology, will unfortunately get left behind, as caravan buyer increasingly demand a lighter and stronger van. My other businesses supply panels to the caravan industry because I believe its for the greater good of the industry to shift away from timber and aluminium frames. Having said that, the panels supplied to ZONE RV are exclusive to our caravans. We want to be the best and most innovative product in the market and I truly believe, right now, we are. How has the business nurtured a customer base? With Zone RV, we made the conscious decision not to distribute to dealers as we wanted full control of the customer experience. We deal directly from our factory where customers can partake in factory tours and see first-hand the quality of our product, including attention to detail and the technology employed, as well the innovative approach to manufacturing them. Our marketing is heavily digitally-driven, which allows us to be far more targeted and cost-efficient. Our customers live nationally, so were able to reach them with YouTube videos, Google Search ads, social media campaigns, eDMs and online magazines. We do also see value in some traditional marketing methods such as the caravan trade shows and print magazines. Good PR has played a pivotal role in our marketing as well, because we have such an interesting and unique story to tell, as well as the caravan media often being able to deliver great editorial reviews because of our high performing product. Lastly and most importantly, word-of-mouth!! What growth has the business seen since launch? Weve really ramped things up in the last six months at ZONE RV. Our average monthly revenue has increased by 133% from 3Q16 to 1Q17 and our workforce doubled in the same period. We initially set out to have 50 employees by Christmas, but weve already hit that target. To accommodate this rapid growth, were in the process of moving into a new factory with double the factory floor space. We produce one caravan per week, but well be at two per week early 2017. Im fully responsible for the R&D of the ZONE RV product, so Im always looking for new innovations. Theres no shortage of technology and innovation for building stronger and lighter caravans, so I spend my time constantly improving the material design, overall manufacturing processes and systems at the ZONE RV factory. Theres a number of new innovations up our sleeves, set to roll out over the next 12 months, which will keep us at the forefront of the industry. What have been the main challenges along the way? Initially, it was finding the right people. Im fortunate to now have a team of switched-on managers who deal with the day-to-day business, thus allowing me to focus on my strengths namely, manufacturing, design and construction processes. Our CFO Carl Bird came to us from a senior management role at ANZ where he gained extensive finance, business and people management skills over 10 years. We also have Neil Kinsley who was Toyota Australias Production Manager, who helps us optimise manufacturing efficiencies on the factory floor. Critically, many of our factory workers are ex-boat builders who are passionate about streamlined manufacturing. Another key challenge has been cashflow. Our product has a high material percentage (65% of expenses for a caravan is materials and roughly 20% labour) and many of these materials are coming from overseas (Europe and Asia), meaning large sums of money are required upfront to import. To maintain a healthy cashflow, weve implemented a capital investment and the cashflow customer payment plan, where the build materials are aligned with the timing of scheduled payments. A challenge for me personally has been operating three businesses simultaneously. I established Cure Composites seven years ago, CL Composites three years ago and Zone RV last year, so Ive been operating all three for about two years. Having several factories spread up and down the east coast of Australia means I have to be in different states at different times of the week. I spend one week in Melbourne at CL Composites and then one week on the Sunshine Coast, which I consider my true home, splitting my time between ZONE RV and Cure Composites. Its rare that everything is going right at the same time at each of the factories, so time management is something Im always working on it could always be sharper. Balancing social and personal life with work is a juggling act as I usually work 6-7 day weeks, Im always on my phone and fly interstate every week. What inspired you to launch multiple manufacturing start-ups? Im on a completely different career path now, compared to where I started. I initially studied at the Australian Maritime College in Tasmania and worked in the Merchant Navy on oil tankers as a navigator, with the intention of becoming a captain. However, the Merchant Navy didnt afford me the creativity I was hungry for. Manufacturing fit the bill. Growing up, I enjoyed working on projects with my father, who built aeroplanes and cars at home my passion for manufacturing, which I pursued with all three of my manufacturing start-ups, was born out of this. I also share my fathers entrepreneurial drive and, being a sailing enthusiast most of my life, Ive always admired high-performance, lightweight transportation. I began producing bespoke yachts ten years ago but later shifted way from this niche market after recognising an opportunity to enter a high volume industry: caravan manufacturing. Standardised production is far more suitable for the Australian manufacturing industry. With the right ideas, systems, equipment and people, home-grown start-up manufacturers can be just as competitive as businesses operating elsewhere in the world. * Caravan Industry Association of Australias 2016 State of Industry Report Henley show home is highly commended on national stage Hundreds of homeowners have long declared the Henley one of the most stylish designs in Redrows stunning stable and now a Chorley show home has been honoured on the national stage. The Henley show home at Lucas Green, in Whittle-le-Woods, was highly commended in the Interior Design Show Home North West England category of the UK Property Awards. An executive four-bedroom detached home, The Henley is among the most impressive, with a double garage, two en-suite bedrooms and a generously proportioned family, dining and kitchen area, which will inevitably become the heart of the family home. It is important that the show home portrays this property at its best, says Claire Jarvis, sales director for Redrow Homes (Lancashire), and, clearly, the example at Lucas Green has done so admirably. The house is designed very much for todays family and the interior design had to reflect this, with the family living area appealing to a wide range of tastes in terms of style and practicality, as this is where everyone will gather, be happy and have fun. But it was important too that the private areas, both the lounge and bedrooms, were havens for relaxation. The award is a testimony to the talent and hard work of Redrows interior designer team and the company which executed the design, Show Business Interiors. Emma Brindley, Redrows group interior design manager, oversaw the process of designing and dressing the Henley show home at Lucas Green and started from the premise of the family who might live in it and their lifestyle. She explains: Discerning people with a penchant for the finer things in life, the imagined home owners are professional people with teenage children and have worked hard for a good standard of living which their home should reflect. Tasteful and elegant, this would be their final family home, the one which finally acknowledges their achievements, their success in achieving the goals they created at the start of their journey together. They can finally sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labours. Above all, it is cosy and comfortable with a touch of class and, clearly, an abundance of star quality - which the judges could see. The UK Property Awards success is the latest of several honours for Lucas Green. Only last month the Henley was a finalist in two categories of the North West Property Awards - Best House and Show Home of the Year - and the development was a Bronze winner at the 2015 What House awards for Best Landscape. A contributory factor to the earlier landscaping award was the restoration of a rare Grade II listed pill box and gun mounting originally installed to defend the Royal Ordnance Factory at Chorley against attack. The area around the WW2 monument has been landscaped as a central feature of the developments public open space. The much decorated Henley show home promotes the latest phase of Lucas Green, The Royals. Close to some stunning Lancashire countryside, it boasts a collection of four and five-bedroom detached executive homes from Redrows Arts & Crafts inspired Heritage Collection, which combines traditional architecture and craftsmanship with stylish, spacious and modern interiors. Current prices are from 441,995. For more information about Lucas Green, visit redrow.co.uk/lucas. Its bad enough that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is fighting a federal ruling that the state of Michigan supply bottled water to Flint residents still contending with drinking water that is poisoned with the powerful neurotoxin lead. Its actually REALLY bad. But hes found another way to make his contempt for poor people known. In response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of seven Detroit school kids, Gov. Snyder is arguing that children in Michigan do not have a fundamental right to literacy. No, Im not kidding: The State of Michigan wants a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to establish a constitutional right to literacy. The United States Supreme Court and Michigan courts recognize the importance of literacy, state lawyers wrote in a response last week to a suit filed on behalf of Detroit school children. But as important as literacy may be, the United States Supreme Court has unambiguously rejected the claim that public education is a fundamental right under the Constitution. Literacy is a component or particular outcome of education, not a right granted to individuals by the Constitution. [] The lawsuit filed Sept. 13 on behalf of seven Detroit schoolchildren claims the State of Michigan has failed to provide them with basic literacy, a foundation of all education and a precursor to active citizenship. It asks the federal courts to order remedies, including evidence-based literacy reforms, a systemic approach to instruction and intervention as well as fixes to crumbling Detroit schools. The most jaw-dropping part of Snyders response is the contention that the state hasnt actually been running the schools in Detroit, despite the fact that they have had an Emergency Financial Manager or an Emergency Manager for years. They had one from 1999 to 2005 then again from 2009 until now. Hard to understand how Gov. Snyder can contend they havent been running the schools given the fact that they have literally been under the control of a person appointed by the governor himself (and his predecessors) for over two decades. Rochelle Riley at the Detroit Free Press was blunt: Well, sorry to break it to you, but courts have had to oversee schools for decades. So the idea that you are not responsible for our children your children not being able to read, or learn or become better citizens is horse poopie. It flies in the face of just-passed legislation requiring that third-grade students be held back if they cannot read. Oh, but youre not responsible for them learning to read? The State Constitution doesnt guarantee access to education; it guarantees education. Have you read the State Constitution? It says right in Article VIII, Section 2 that The legislature shall maintain and support a system of free public elementary and secondary schools as defined by law. Every school district shall provide for the education of its pupils without discrimination as to religion, creed, race, color or national origin. It doesnt say provide bad buildings and cold classrooms or offer access to the dream of an education. It says: provide an education. One cannot miss that your fight against this lawsuit comes as your administration finally has publicly recognized that Michigan and its largest counties have a problem with functional adult literacy, a problem that is worse in Wayne County than elsewhere and a problem that hampers the ability of Michiganders who want to work to get jobs. It also comes just months after a national report that Michigan is one of only seven states that increased their corrections budgets more than five times as fast as they did their budgets for Pre-K through 12th grade public education. From 1979 to 2013, Michigan increased spending on schools by 18% but increased spending on corrections by 219%. Yes, we know whats happening to our children and it has to stop. Children who cannot read cannot be educated. Children who cannot read cannot be trained for jobs. Children who cannot read may grow up to be people who fill the prisons your administration spends $2 billion on each year. But they wont grow up to be the taxpayers that Mayor Mike Duggan is desperately trying to cultivate. Riley suggests that it may be time for Gov. Snyder to step down. Id contend its time for him to be impeached. That, of course, is not going to happen given that his Republican enablers run the entire state government. Meanwhile, poor kids across the state are paying the heartbreaking price. Disgusting. [Caricature by DonkeyHotey from photos by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog] Conspiracy Theories in the Information Age, Part 1 In the past, heightened rhetoric and propaganda were the tools of choice for those looking to convince an electorate to vote them into office, and conspiracy theories were their bane. This election season has seen the rise of a new form of persuasion, one thats unique to the Information Age. For months, WikiLeaks creator Julian Assange had promised to rain bombshells on the narrowing field of presidential candidates, and he indicated that Hillary Clinton would be the target of the release. Rumors had swirled around the secrets the former secretary of state might have wanted to protect when she deleted more than 30,000 emails from a private server. As the U.S. celebrated Independence Day, WikiLeaks released the first batch of emails, and the fireworks began. Nothing in the emails proved particularly damaging for Clintons presidential aspirations, though. WikiLeaks had released troves of sensitive information in the past, so at first glance its actions represented nothing new. However, that particular series of leaks was about to introduce much of the world to a new form of propaganda. The Tainted Well During the Cold War, authoritarian regimes had their own mouthpieces, along with enough control over the populace to stomp out dissenting voices, noted Mark Fenster, a professor at the University of Florida and author of Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture. They were organs of the state, and they spoke about whatever it was the government wanted to speak about, he told TechNewsWorld. Those were obviously perfect means of distributing propaganda particularly if the government was also able to suppress any other voices from making it to the public. With the rise of the Internet, it became difficult to drown out competing voices. From the delivery of paquetes of digitized American culture in Cuba to hacktivism in China, the Internet has provided tools that make it next to impossible for any government to silence its critics completely, or to screen outside ideas from their view. Weve got an interesting experiment going on right now, Fenster said in an interview conducted prior to last weeks election, if the allegations are true that Russian hackers, ordered by the Russian government, got hold of email documents from [Clinton campaign manager] John Podesta, the DNC and the Clinton campaign, and are releasing them collectively to in order to manipulate the election for their preferred candidate: Donald Trump. The cache of Clinton campaign documents might not have been as devastating as Assange initially indicated, but it undoubtedly added a new dimension to this election season and introduced the public to what might be called the tainted well. This isnt propaganda in the classic since, Fenster said, but it is a way of trying to shape government opinion. Because of the positive adjectives Pressident-Elect Donald Trump used to describe Russian leader Vladimir Putin during the campaign, speculation grew that the leaked emails were intended specifically to damage Clintons chances. However, it is still not clear that Russia even if it did commission the hacks aimed to sway the election toward Trump. Russia might have been trying to prevent either candidate from having a mandate upon taking office, suggested Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, in a conversation prior to the election. I think Russia isnt trying to promote either candidate at the moment, it is operating to ensure that neither of them will be able to actually govern if elected, operating under a broad strategy of discrediting the government and effectively fermenting revolt, he told TechNewsWorld. Please Sir, More Propaganda Whatever the true motives of the leaks and their possible sponsors might have been, its indisputable that the Internet has created a world thats ripe for and receptive to propaganda in many forms from ads many try to avoid, to stories that gain attention through votes cast by mouse clicks and screen taps. Even if unintentional, online news services currently track interests and serve up news based on those interests, noted Enderle. During the latest election cycle, for instance, liberal and conservative voters received very different news streams, he pointed out, so their perceptions of the world were very different. It helped to massively polarize the two views. Just as social media metrics have advanced to help marketers serve up relevant ads at the moment consumers are primed to purchase goods or services, those same tools can be used to dish out fake or heavily biased news, according to Enderle. Confirmation bias already teaches we are very vulnerable to this type of manipulation, and this same methodology is largely used for telephone and Internet scams, he observed. While there are few governments that grip as tightly as North Korea does these days, states still use propaganda for good and bad, according to University of Floridas Fenster. Governments use propaganda all of the time, he said. They do so by publishing information on their websites or releasing information to the press and NGOs to report on, Fenster noted. Oftentimes, governments have their own public relations offices that might not be named as such but work the same. There are times when governments turn to conspiracy theories as a form of propaganda, suggested Richard W. Lachmann, a professor of comparative/historical sociology and political sociology at the University of Albany. Whenever a country is losing a war, there always are conspiracy theories to explain the loss, he told TechNewsWorld. When it comes to propagating propaganda about war, its common for governments to spin webs about traitors, he added. Most famously, there was the stab in the back conspiracy theory in Germany at the end of World War I, when many Germans came to believe that their defeat was due to Jewish traitors in Germany rather than to the manpower and weapons edge of the Allies, Lachmann said. In the Information Age, theres a new way to tell war stories that favor one side over the other. Dip from a tainted well and offer a drink to a world thats thirsty for information. I, Pencil My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read I am a lead pencilthe ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write. * Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; thats all I do. You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mysterymore so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders. I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand meno, thats too much to ask of anyoneif you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher becausewell, because I am seemingly so simple. Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesnt it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year. Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eyetheres some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser. Innumerable Antecedents Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents. But I would like to suggest enough of them to impress upon you the richness and complexity of my background. My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon. Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding. Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls, the cookery and the raising of all the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink! The logs are shipped to a mill in San Leandro, California. Can you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails and railroad engines and who construct and install the communication systems incidental thereto? These legions are among my antecedents. Consider the millwork in San Leandro. The cedar logs are cut into small, pencil-length slats less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. These are kiln dried and then tinted for the same reason women put rouge on their faces. People prefer that I look pretty, not a pallid white. The slats are waxed and kiln dried again. How many skills went into the making of the tint and the kilns, into supplying the heat, the light and power, the belts, motors, and all the other things a mill requires? Sweepers in the mill among my ancestors? Yes, and included are the men who poured the concrete for the dam of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company hydroplant which supplies the mills power! Dont overlook the ancestors present and distant who have a hand in transporting sixty carloads of slats across the nation. Once in the pencil factory$4,000,000 in machinery and building, all capital accumulated by thrifty and saving parents of mineeach slat is given eight grooves by a complex machine, after which another machine lays leads in every other slat, applies glue, and places another slat atopa lead sandwich, so to speak. Seven brothers and I are mechanically carved from this wood-clinched sandwich. My lead itselfit contains no lead at allis complex. The graphite is mined in Ceylon. Consider these miners and those who make their many tools and the makers of the paper sacks in which the graphite is shipped and those who make the string that ties the sacks and those who put them aboard ships and those who make the ships. Even the lighthouse keepers along the way assisted in my birthand the harbor pilots. The graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi in which ammonium hydroxide is used in the refining process. Then wetting agents are added such as sulfonated tallowanimal fats chemically reacted with sulfuric acid. After passing through numerous machines, the mixture finally appears as endless extrusionsas from a sausage grinder-cut to size, dried, and baked for several hours at 1,850 degrees Fahrenheit. To increase their strength and smoothness the leads are then treated with a hot mixture which includes candelilla wax from Mexico, paraffin wax, and hydrogenated natural fats. My cedar receives six coats of lacquer. Do you know all the ingredients of lacquer? Who would think that the growers of castor beans and the refiners of castor oil are a part of it? They are. Why, even the processes by which the lacquer is made a beautiful yellow involve the skills of more persons than one can enumerate! Observe the labeling. Thats a film formed by applying heat to carbon black mixed with resins. How do you make resins and what, pray, is carbon black? My bit of metalthe ferruleis brass. Think of all the persons who mine zinc and copper and those who have the skills to make shiny sheet brass from these products of nature. Those black rings on my ferrule are black nickel. What is black nickel and how is it applied? The complete story of why the center of my ferrule has no black nickel on it would take pages to explain. Then theres my crowning glory, inelegantly referred to in the trade as the plug, the part man uses to erase the errors he makes with me. An ingredient called factice is what does the erasing. It is a rubber-like product made by reacting rape-seed oil from the Dutch East Indies with sulfur chloride. Rubber, contrary to the common notion, is only for binding purposes. Then, too, there are numerous vulcanizing and accelerating agents. The pumice comes from Italy; and the pigment which gives the plug its color is cadmium sulfide. No One Knows Does anyone wish to challenge my earlier assertion that no single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me? Actually, millions of human beings have had a hand in my creation, no one of whom even knows more than a very few of the others. Now, you may say that I go too far in relating the picker of a coffee berry in far off Brazil and food growers elsewhere to my creation; that this is an extreme position. I shall stand by my claim. There isnt a single person in all these millions, including the president of the pencil company, who contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal bit of know-how. From the standpoint of know-how the only difference between the miner of graphite in Ceylon and the logger in Oregon is in the type of know-how. Neither the miner nor the logger can be dispensed with, any more than can the chemist at the factory or the worker in the oil fieldparaffin being a by-product of petroleum. Here is an astounding fact: Neither the worker in the oil field nor the chemist nor the digger of graphite or clay nor any who mans or makes the ships or trains or trucks nor the one who runs the machine that does the knurling on my bit of metal nor the president of the company performs his singular task because he wants me. Each one wants me less, perhaps, than does a child in the first grade. Indeed, there are some among this vast multitude who never saw a pencil nor would they know how to use one. Their motivation is other than me. Perhaps it is something like this: Each of these millions sees that he can thus exchange his tiny know-how for the goods and services he needs or wants. I may or may not be among these items. No Master Mind There is a fact still more astounding: the absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work. This is the mystery to which I earlier referred. It has been said that only God can make a tree. Why do we agree with this? Isnt it because we realize that we ourselves could not make one? Indeed, can we even describe a tree? We cannot, except in superficial terms. We can say, for instance, that a certain molecular configuration manifests itself as a tree. But what mind is there among men that could even record, let alone direct, the constant changes in molecules that transpire in the life span of a tree? Such a feat is utterly unthinkable! I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energiesmillions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human master-minding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree. The above is what I meant when writing, If you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. For, if one is aware that these know-hows will naturally, yes, automatically, arrange themselves into creative and productive patterns in response to human necessity and demandthat is, in the absence of governmental or any other coercive mastermindingthen one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith. Once government has had a monopoly of a creative activity such, for instance, as the delivery of the mails, most individuals will believe that the mails could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely. And here is the reason: Each one acknowledges that he himself doesnt know how to do all the things incident to mail delivery. He also recognizes that no other individual could do it. These assumptions are correct. No individual possesses enough know-how to perform a nations mail delivery any more than any individual possesses enough know-how to make a pencil. Now, in the absence of faith in free peoplein the unawareness that millions of tiny know-hows would naturally and miraculously form and cooperate to satisfy this necessitythe individual cannot help but reach the erroneous conclusion that mail can be delivered only by governmental master-minding. Testimony Galore If I, Pencil, were the only item that could offer testimony on what men and women can accomplish when free to try, then those with little faith would have a fair case. However, there is testimony galore; its all about us and on every hand. Mail delivery is exceedingly simple when compared, for instance, to the making of an automobile or a calculating machine or a grain combine or a milling machine or to tens of thousands of other things. Delivery? Why, in this area where men have been left free to try, they deliver the human voice around the world in less than one second; they deliver an event visually and in motion to any persons home when it is happening; they deliver 150 passengers from Seattle to Baltimore in less than four hours; they deliver gas from Texas to ones range or furnace in New York at unbelievably low rates and without subsidy; they deliver each four pounds of oil from the Persian Gulf to our Eastern Seaboardhalfway around the worldfor less money than the government charges for delivering a one-ounce letter across the street! The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let societys legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth. Leonard E. Read (1898-1983) founded FEE in 1946 and served as its president until his death. I, Pencil, his most famous essay, was first published in the December 1958 issue of The Freeman. Although a few of the manufacturing details and place names have changed over the past forty years, the principles are unchanged. TASHKENT - It has emerged that a German journalist who had been reporting on child labour in Uzbek cotton fields for more than a decade has been arrested, deported and banned from the country for three years. News of the decision to deport Edda Schlager who reportedly had no opportunity for legal defense, or even translation during her trial arrives just a week after the EU trade body, the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament, gave the go-ahead to a textile trade deal with Uzbekistan which would, in theory, see the EU profiting from forced labour in Uzbekistan's cotton industry. According to Radiation Reloaded: Ecological Impacts of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident 5 Years Later, studies have shown: High radiation concentrations in new leaves, and at least in the case of cedar, in pollen; apparent increases in growth mutations of fir trees with rising radiation levels; heritable mutations in pale blue grass butterfly populations and DNA-damaged worms in highly contaminated areas, as well as apparent reduced fertility in barn swallows; decreases in the abundance of 57 bird species with higher radiation levels over a four year study; and high levels of caesium contamination in commercially important freshwater fish; and radiological contamination of one of the most important ecosystemscoastal estuaries. The report comes amid a push by the government of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to resettle contaminated areas and also restart nuclear reactors in Japan that were shut down in the aftermath of the crisis. NEW REPORT: Ecological Impacts of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident 5years Later https://t.co/zfxXCbLFlV pic.twitter.com/mp3QSWtjxy Greenpeace Japan (@gpj_english) March 4, 2016 However, Ulrich said, the Abe government is perpetuating a myth that five years after the start of the nuclear accident the situation is returning to normal. The evidence exposes this as political rhetoric, not scientific fact. And unfortunately for the victims, this means they are being told it is safe to return to environments where radiation levels are often still too high and are surrounded by heavy contamination. According to Greenpeace, its not only the Abe government that holds deeply flawed assumptions about both decontamination and ecosystem risks, but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), too. Indeed, the failures in the methods used by the IAEA to come to the baseless conclusion that there would be no expected ecological impacts from the Fukushima disaster are readily apparent, the report claims. In September, Greenpeace Japan blasted the IAEA for downplaying the continuing environmental and health effects of the nuclear meltdown in order to support the Japanese governments agenda of normalizing the ongoing disaster. Meanwhile, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) charged on Thursday that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has also failed to learn lessons from the Fukushima meltdown. In its report, Preventing an American Fukushima, the group states that five years after the nuclear accident, the NRC has made insufficient progress in improving U.S. nuclear power safety while implementing half-baked reforms. [A]ll too often, UCS said, the agency abdicated its responsibility as the nations nuclear watchdog by allowing the industry to rely on voluntary guidelines, which are, by their very nature, unenforceable. The NRC and the nuclear industry have taken steps to address some of the safety vulnerabilities revealed by the Fukushima disaster, acknowledged report author Edwin Lyman, a UCS senior scientist and co-author of the 2014 book, Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster. But so far, the agency has failed to fully learn the lessons of Fukushima. It needs to go back to the drawing board and reconsider critical safety recommendations that it dismissed without good justification. The health and safety of the more than 100 million Americans living within 50 miles of a nuclear plant hang in the balance. Say NO to nuclear power, and yes to renewables! Sign here >>> https://t.co/1cDswgjmjj pic.twitter.com/mfwIK0g4if Greenpeace (@Greenpeace) March 4, 2016 YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE Sophia Wilansky, a water protector from New York, was seriously injured and could lose her left arm following Sunday evenings standoff with police over the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). According to a GoFundMe page launched on her behalf, the 21-year-old was handing out bottles of water to fellow protestors when she was allegedly shot with a concussion grenade by authorities. This was the response of police and DAPL mercenaries as she and other brave protectors attempted to hold the line against the black snake in service of protecting our water, the GoFundMe description states. Medical Fund for Sophia Wilansky GoFundMe Photos of Wilanskys graphic injury have surfaced on social media. She was one of the hundreds who were injured at the Standing Rock encampments on Sunday. Eyewitnesses say that law enforcement used tear gas, pepper spray, a Long Range Acoustic Device, stinger grenades, rubber bullets and water cannons to blast away pipeline protestors in freezing temperatures. In a statement, the Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council has called Sundays clash a mass casualty incident with approximately 300 injuries identified, triaged, assessed and treated by our physicians, nurses, paramedics and integrative healers working in collaboration with local emergency response. The council says the 300 injuries were the direct result of excessive force by police over the course of 10 hours and at least 26 people were taken to three area hospitals, with many patients needing treatment for hypothermia. According to the council, the injured people include: An elder who lost consciousness and was revived on scene A young man with a grand mal seizure A woman shot in the face by a rubber bullet with subsequent eye injury and compromised vision A young man with internal bleeding who was vomiting blood after a rubber bullet injury to his abdomen A man shot in the back near his spine by a rubber bullet causing blunt force trauma and a severe head laceration Multiple fractures secondary to projectiles fired by police The council has condemned the excessive police violence and has urged law enforcement to cease and desist these nearly lethal actions and specifically the use of water cannons in subfreezing temperatures. But at a press conference on Monday, officials defended their use of fire hoses against a crowd of 400 protesters. Some of the water was used to repel some of the protest activities that were occurring, and it was used at a time where they were aggressive towards the officers, said Morton County sheriff, Kyle Kirchmeier. Wilansky was air lifted to County Medical Center in Minneapolis and underwent extensive surgery from injuries sustained from the blast on Monday. The best-case scenario is no pain and 10-20 percent functionality, Sophias father, Wayne Wilansky, told the Guardian, adding that arteries, medial nerve, muscle and bone in her arm had been blown away. She will require additional surgery and may have to have her arm amputated. Shes devastated. She looks at her arm and she cries, he said. However, spokeswoman Maxine Herr of the Morton County Sheriffs Department denies accusations that local authorities used concussion grenades during the protest. It wasnt from our law enforcement, because we didnt deploy anything that should have caused that type of damage to her arm, Herr told the Los Angeles Times. She said that medics first encountered Wilansky at a casino near the protests and suggested her injury might have been sustained while protesters were rigging up their own explosives to be thrown at police. The only explosion the officers heard was on the protesters side, Herr said. Wilansky is part of the activist groups NYC Shut It Down and Hoods4Justice. She left New York City several weeks ago to join her fellow Water Protectors at Standing Rock, North Dakota. The Standing Rock Sioux and their supporters say the $3.8 billion, 1,100-mile pipeline which crosses the Missouri River and sacred sites threatens their access to clean water and violates Native American treaty rights. Protests against the construction of the pipeline have been ongoingand escalating in violencesince April. Heavily armed authorities from various states have descended upon the protest sites. Online donations have been pouring in following news of Wilanskys horrific injury. Roughly 5,000 people have already donated about $135,000 for her medical funds in 12 hours. The goal is to raise $180,000. Sophia has always been committed to confronting injustice through vigilance and resistance, her GoFundMe page states. Please consider donating to help pay for her treatment. We must to support our comrades when they need us the most. She needs all of us right now. After all she is our family. #StandWithStandingRock #WaterIsLife. In 2011, a powerful earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck the Fukushima prefecture in Japan, leading to a nuclear disaster whose impacts are still being felt globally. Now, a massive 7.4 earthquake hit Fukushima around 6 a.m. local time, and tsunami warnings and advisories are in effect. It was first reported as a 7.3 earthquake but was later revised to 7.4 by the Japan Meteorological Agency. The epicenter of the quake was 67 km northeast of Iwaki, a city on the southern coast of the Fukushima prefecture. Residents along Japans Northeastern coast have been told to evacuate immediately and seek higher ground. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, tsunami waves are expected to hit repeatedly and make landfall imminently. NHK News Japan Their warning stated: Damage due to tsunami waves is expected. Evacuate immediately from coastal regions and riverside areas to a safer place such as high ground or an evacuation building. Tsunami waves are expected to hit repeatedly. Do not leave safe ground until the warning is lifted. NHK News Japan warned those living on the coast to hurry up and run away. Though immediate concern was given to local residents and their safety, attention has quickly turned to TEPCOs nuclear power plant in Fukushima, the site of the 2011 catastrophic meltdown. Five years ago, three of the plants six reactors melted down leading to the largest release of radiation into the ocean in world history. The damaged reactors were never sealed and continue to leak an astounding 300 tons of radioactive wastewater every day. As Japan braces for yet another tsunami, concern is growing regarding the potentially devastating effects that another tsunami could have on the cooling systems of the plants three remaining, intact reactors. Breaking: Magnitude-7.3 earthquake strikes off Fukushima pref, Japan; tsunami warning issued JMA https://t.co/t17fbIlwyj pic.twitter.com/qdhsWGX7oY BuzzFeed Storm (@BuzzFeedStorm) November 21, 2016 According to reports, these fears are not unfounded. In the aftermath of the earthquake, TEPCO confirmed that the cooling system in one of the three intact reactors stopped working, but was successfully restarted 90 minutes after its abrupt shutdown. Though no abnormalities were reported, TEPCO has remained silent as to what caused the shutdown and if the cooling system suffered any damage that could lead to another unexpected shutdown. TEPCO said that the cooling system failure posed no immediate danger even though they admitted that there has been a gradual rise in reactor temperatures. With the tsunami expected to arrive within hours, people around the world will be watching to see if the nuclear reactors will hold or if history will repeat itself in the worst way possible. However, TEPCOs credibility regarding its Fukushima plant is dubious as they lied about the true extent of the 2011 crisis with complicity from the Japanese government. Hopefully, this time they are telling the truth. Reposted with permission from our media associate True Activist. Despite the fact that Donald Trump campaigned against special interests and suggested his primary opponents who begged for Koch cash were puppets, he now seems to be happy to #StaffTheSwamp with Koch operatives. Beyond Myron Ebell and David Schnare on his environment team, news broke Sunday that Trump picked Steven Groves to lead the Department of State landing team. Groves is an international policy wonk at the Koch (and Exxon, and Korean govt) funded Heritage Foundation, and just last week, he wrote an article advocating for a pull-out of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as a way to exit the Paris agreement. As the negotiating framework for the UNs climate efforts and the underlying basis for the Paris agreement, if the U.S. were to leave the UNFCCC, it would remove us from the negotiating table altogether. Not only would this lead to political consequences with our allies, as Groves admitted in a House Science hearing last April, but it would also mean that Trump wouldnt be able to negotiate an amazing new treaty on climate, as the U.S. would no longer be part of the negotiating framework. But contradictory advice is nothing new to the Heritage Foundation, which during the Farm Bill fight in 2013 told the GOP to split the bill into two parts. When Republicans did as they were told, Heritage still wasnt happy. Republican Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina said: Heritage was now scoring against Republicans for doing exactly what Heritage had been espousing only a month before. Because of this stunt, as well as their push for 2013s government shutdown, former House speaker Boehner said: groups like Heritage had lost all credibility. Here's What Happens When You're a Republican and You Defy the Koch Brothers https://t.co/jfiSr3eHlT @DeSmogBlog @KOCHexposed EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) November 13, 2016 Unfortunately, from the top of the Trump administration down, a distinct lack of credibility seems to be the unifying factor. But it is ironic that despite the Koch networks distinct lack of effort to get Trump elected, they are nonetheless filling Trumps administration with their operatives, from VP Mike Pence to CIA chief Mike Pompeo to Ebell, Schnare and Groves. And on the Energy Department front, its been reported by E&E that Thomas Pyle of Koch-funded American Energy Alliance is running the transition, while the Interior is being led by Doug Domenech, of Koch-funded Texas Public Policy Foundation. And according to PoliticoPRO, on the Treasury team are Heritage-affiliated Bill Walton and Curtis Dubay. The question is: Does Trump even know the Kochs are pulling his strings? Or does he really think hes No puppet? Tau, an island in American Samoa, has turned its nose at fossil fuels and is now almost 100 percent powered with solar panels and batteries thanks to technology from the newly combined Tesla and SolarCity. The microgrid is operated by American Samoa Power Authority and was funded by the American Samoa Economic Development Authority, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior. Radio New Zealand reported that the $8 million project will significantly reduce fuel costs for the island, which is located more than 4,000 miles from the west coast of the U.S. Taus 600 residents previously relied on shipments of diesel for power. At times, a shipment could not arrive on the island for months, meaning the island had to power ration and faced reoccurring outages. But the new microgrid replaces this reliance on dirty fuels with more affordable solar energy, as Peter Rive, SolarCity co-founder and CTO, detailed in a blog post about the project, adding that the microgrid is designed to optimize system performance and maximize savings. Factoring in the escalating cost of fuel, along with transporting such mass quantities to the small island, the financial impact is substantial, Rive wrote. He pointed out that the microgrid also eliminates the hazards of power intermittency and makes outages a thing of the past. The microgrid, which only took one year to build, features 1.4 megawatts of solar generation capacity (or 5,328 solar panels) and 6 megawatt hours of battery storage from 60 Tesla Powerpacks. An estimated 109,500 gallons of diesel will be offset per year. Before today, every time we turned on the light, turn on the television, turn on maybe the air conditioner, all of the cash registers in China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia go cha-ching, but not after today, SolarCity market development director Jon Yoshimura told Radio New Zealand. We will keep more of that money here, where it belongs. https://twitter.com/solarcity/statuses/801050994436145152 With the Powerpacks, the island can store solar energy at night, allowing for around-the-clock use. The microgrid allows the island to stay fully powered for three days without sunlight and can recharge to full capacity in only seven hours. A hospital, high school and elementary schools, fire and police stations and businesses will be using the new clean energy source. Its always sunny out here, and harvesting that energy from the sun will make me sleep a lot more comfortably at night, just knowing Ill be able to serve my customers, local resident and business owner Keith Ahsoon told SolarCity. This is part of making history, Ahsoon added. This project will help lessen the carbon footprint of the world. Living on an island, you experience global warming firsthand. Beach erosions and other noticeable changes are a part of life here. Its a serious problem, and this project will hopefully set a good example for everyone else to follow. Tau could be an example for other islands around the globe facing similar problems. Tau is not a postcard from the future, its a snapshot of what is possible right now, Rive wrote. Renewable power is an economical, practical solution for a growing number of locations and energy needs, and islands that have traditionally relied on fossil fuels can easily transition to microgrids powered by solar and storage today. (Apple website)Apple AirPods were supposed to be released in October, but Apple is said to still be working on the product. October has come and gone, yet the market is still waiting for the Apple AirPods to be available. While Apple has not officially announced the release date, a retailer website is said to have indicated a December shipping schedule. Alza, a Czech retailer listing, was noticed by a local publication to have the unit available for pre-order. Although Apple websites still categorize the product as "currently unavailable," it will not be surprising to know if the company has advised their retailers ahead of the release date. The wireless headphones was unveiled during the Apple September event wherein the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus units were also launched. The said mobile phones are the first to feature the wireless headphones technology and it was then made known that the accessory will be out by October. However, the product is not yet ready by then and an Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch that they need more time to work on it. He said, "The early response to AirPods has been incredible. We don't believe in shipping a product before it's ready, and we need a little more time before AirPods are ready for our customers." The representative did not elaborate further and, since then, interested consumers have been waiting for a definite launch date. The Apple AirPods' availability status remains "currently unavailable" on Apple websites, but it provides product description, image, and price. The Apple AirPods box contains a pair of wireless earpiece called the AirPods, a lightning to USB cable, and a charging case. The wireless headphones instantly turns on and connects to the user's iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, or iMac, while the audio turns on when the gadget is placed in the ears. Change in volume, song, and other functions is done by activating Siri. Apple AirPods are priced at $159. (Photo Credit: Serge Serebrok, Vitebsk Popular News)Patriarch Kirill I of Moscow is seen in a photo taken on September 27, 2009. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has hit out at a perceived dangerous rise in Western countries of what he says is the homosexual movement. He says what's happening in Western countries around marriage and the family is producing for the first time in history, legislation at odds with the moral nature of human beings. In a Nov. 21 interview with the Russian government channel RT, Kirill spoke of difficult situations Christians face in the Middle East, the U.S. presidential election, and European multiculturalism. He was asked by RT, originally Russia Today, his opinion on the current state of social institutions that the Church has traditionally upheld, such as marriage and family while historically Christian countries in the West are legalizing same-sex marriage. He said the "moral nature, created by God, served as a foundation for the legislation which is designed. "Laws defined moral values in legal terms, telling us what's good and what's bad. We know that stealing is bad and helping people is good, and laws define what stealing is and what the suitable punishment for it is. "Now, for the first time in human history, the law allows something that doesn't correspond to our moral nature. "The law contradicts it. It's not the same thing, of course, but we could compare this to an extent to the apartheid in Africa or Nazi laws when the law went against inherent moral values, people rebelled." The Russian Orthodox leader said those who made such laws knew theyr were not right. "It was artificial; it was part of some ideology and not in sync with their moral nature. So the Church can never approve of this. "We say that the Church can never redefine good and evil, sin and righteousness, but we don't condemn people who have different sexual preferences." 'IT'S THEIR BUSINESS' Kirill said that was on their conscience "and it's their business", while they should not be discriminated against or punished, as used to happen in some States. He said that the new trends should never be accepted as a social norm that differs from "our moral nature, meaning marriage between a man and wife who create a family and have children. "That's why we believe this new trend poses a significant threat for the existence of the human race. The Church has to address this and say it's a bad thing, but we've seen that authorities in some countries have been trying to silence clergymen." He cited the case of a Protestant pastor jailed for calling same-sex marriage a sin in his sermon. "Again, this is very reminiscent of what was happening under Soviet totalitarianism." He noted that in countries stating a commitment to freedom of speech, "you can get punished for expressing your opinion" "That's a dangerous trend, and I hope it will peter out and the natural order of things will prevail. I don't even want to think about what might happen to us otherwise. Our prayers and our work are so that humanity lives on and follows the principles dictated by our moral nature," asserted Kirill. Considered to be the Ten Best UFO Photos Ever Taken I am sure that we could add more pictures to this list but these are considered ten o... For many students, dropping out of high school isnt the end of the line but a stop out along the path to a diploma, new federal and state data suggest. Of the students who entered high school in 2009, fewer than 3 percent were no longer in school when researchers from the National Center for Education Statistics High School Longitudinal Study checked in 2012. But nearly 7 percent of the 2009 freshmen had stopped outleft school for four weeks or more at some point in grades 9-11, only to have returned by 2012. The federal study found that students in the poorest 20 percent of families nationwide were generally more likely than those from other income groups to both stop out or drop out. They were more than twice as likely to stop school briefly, 12.2 percent versus 4.7 percent who left school permanently. Dropping out is not a final event. ... There is still a lot we can do besides saying, Oh, theyve dropped outits over, said Vanessa Ximenes Barrat, a senior research analyst at the research group WestEd who led a similar new study of dropout and re-engagement rates in Utah. What this shows is we also need to turn an eye to when those dropouts come back to school. Federal Support What Happens to Students Who Leave School? Of the 41,000 Utah students who started high school during the 2007-08 school year, nearly 20 percent left school at some point that year, according to a study by researchers from WestEd. More than 40 percent of those students later re-enrolled in their original school or some other school in the state. The researchers found that the later students stopped out of school, the less likely they were to graduate and the more likely they were to become dropouts. Source: WestEd analysis of Utah State Office of Education data for 2007-08 to 2010-11 The Every Student Succeeds Act did not renew programs in previous iterations of federal education law that were dedicated entirely to high school dropout prevention and re-engagement. But ESSA does require that state plans explain how they will address high dropout rates among migrant, American Indian, and Alaska Native young people, and support or re-engage students from those groups who have left school. The law also created student-support and academic-enrichment grants, which states and districts can use for dropout prevention and re-engagement, among other purposes, although the grants have not yet been funded. Building students academic expectations for themselves early might help. Nationwide, NCES data showed that, among the leavers, the students who had said in 9th grade that they expected to get a college degree were five times more likely to return after dropping out than to stay out permanently. Its not enough to just look at the last six months to understand why a student dropped out; its a cumulative process. When students dropped out, it was really both a conscious choice that you are not coming back, but it is also a gradual process of absenteeism, Ximenes Barrat said. Leaving school was the culmination of years of struggling and missing school and not being able to keep up. And then when you re-enroll, it is even more difficult to catch up. For example, the national data found that returning students were still more likely than students who had never dropped out to miss school frequently. Utah Examined In the Utah study, 19 percent of the more than 41,000 students who entered high school in the 2007-08 school year left school at some point. More than 40 percent of those students later re-enrolled in their original school or another public school in the state. The Utah studys findings mirrored those at the national level. Students in poverty were at higher risk of leaving school, for examplebut they also re-enrolled in school more often than the state average. Black and Pacific Islander students and those still learning to speak English had both higher rates of leaving school and lower rates of returning than the state average. For English-learners, the problem was particularly stark: 45 percent of English-learners in Utah left school, compared with only 17 percent of students who were proficient in English. After leaving, only 17 percent of those ELLs returned, compared with 22 percent of the English-proficient students who stopped out. Moreover, the rate of returning students dropped significantly for those who left school in higher grades. Ximenes Barrat found more than 12 percent of dropouts tried to come back to school repeatedly, only to drop out again. We see those students passing classes, earning creditsjust not enough to graduate, Ximenes Barrat said. Generally, Utah students who left school repeatedly never accumulated more than 10 to 15 creditsroughly what the on-time graduates had accumulated by their sophomore years. Ultimately, fewer than 1 in 3 students who returned to school graduated within six years. Supporting kids when they are back in school is a totally different ballgame than supporting them when they are out, Ximenes Barrat said. They are a struggle for the school system as a whole, but they are here and giving themselves a second chance, so there is an opportunity to support them. To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020. Prom parking and littering to be discussed in Keys Parking on the prom, littering and tax relief for students will all be discussed in the House of Keys this morning. Douglas East MHK Clare Bettison and Onchan MHK Rob Callister are both seeking information about parking on Douglas promenade. Miss Bettison will also ask Education Minister Graham Cregeen whether he'll consider refunding tuition fees through the tax system for students returning to the Island after studying across. Questions about fines for littering, problem gambling and the number of teachers approaching retirement age are also on the agenda. The sitting gets underway from 10am. Tyres damaged on car parked in Douglas Police are appealing for information after a car parked in Douglas had all four tyres damaged. A sharp implement has been used to puncture the tyres on a vehicle parked on Conister Road in Willaston between 8pm on Friday last week and 9am the following morning. The tyres cannot be repaired, leaving the owner unable to use their car and having the replace the tyres. Anyone who can help officers catch the person responsible is asked to contact Police Headquarters on 631212. LG to Give Tesla's PowerWall a Run For Its Money ROY, MI.--( eSolarEnergyNews )--LG Chem Ltd., a global leader in lithium-ion batteries for automotive, stationary and consumer application... Internet of Things Includes the Ocean, and it's Solar Powered SAN DIEGO, CA--(eSolarEnergyNews)--Kyoceras solar panels, tested for long-term deployment in marine and coastal areas, are powering an inno... IKEA Taps Phoenix Solar for Rooftop Solar Project in Singapore SINGAPORE & SULZEMOOS, GERMANY --(eSolarEnergyNews)--Singapores Phoenix Solar Pte Ltd has been awarded a contract by IKEA Southeast Asi... IKEA Installs the Largest Rooftop Solar in Memphis,Tennessee MEMPHIS, TN--( eSolarEnergyNews )--IKEA, the worlds leading home furnishings retailer, today announced that solar panel installation is com... IKEA to Install Washingtons Largest Rooftop Solar Array in Renton, WA RENTON, WA.--(eSolarEnergyNews)--IKEA, the worlds leading home furnishings retailer, today announced plans to install solar panels atop t... Sunnova and PetersenDean Partner to Deliver Integrated Solar Solutions to California Homebuilders HOUSTON, TX--( eSolarEnergyNews )--Sunnova Energy International Inc. (NYSE: NOVA), one of the leading U.S. residential solar and battery sto... Colorado Fires up Latest Solar Power Project WELLINGTON, CO --( eSolarEnergyNew s)-- PSEG Solar Source, Platte River Power Authority and juwi today joined to dedicate the PSEG Rawhide F... Amazon Meets Solar Goals Quicker Than Expected SEATTLE, WA--( eSolarEnergyNews )--Amazon today announced the early completion of its commitment to host 50 solar systems on its fulfill... SolarCraft Completes Rooftop Solar Installation for Appellation Trading Company Novato, CA, December 07, 2021 --( eSolarEnergyNews.com )-- The solar photovoltaic system is roof mounted and consists of 153 high-efficienc... Historian Gerard DeGroot recently published a review of Simon Ings forthcoming book, Stalin and the Scientists. Amazons description of the book includes the following: The Soviet Union had the best-funded scientific establishment in history. Scientists were elevated as popular heroes and lavished with awards and privileges. But if their ideas or their field of study lost favor with the elites, they could be exiled, imprisoned, or murdered. Stalins favorite scientist was agronomist Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976). In the 1930s and 1940s, Lysenko gained Stalins favor with various ill-founded ideas about heredity, and he used his political power ruthlessly to suppress his critics, many of whom lost their jobs and some of whom suffered imprisonment or even death. This is not a review of Ings book (which wont be released until February 2017), but it reminds me that some Darwinists have compared ID to Lysenkoism. Retired physicist and ID critic Mark Perakh has written that the behavior of ID advocates is often redolent of that by the suppressors of biological science in the former USSR. Perakh claimed that the denial of Darwinian biology by ID advocates is similar to the denial of the neo-Darwinian synthesis by the Lysenkoists. And according to philosopher and ID critic Robert T. Pennock: [I]n the former Soviet Union, Darwinian evolution was rejected on ideological grounds. Because the Communist Party denounced the Darwinian view in favor of Lysenkoism, a variant of Lamarckism that was more in line with Party ideology, biological research was set back for a generation. ID-ology could have the same effect in this country, if it succeeds in its lobbying efforts. But Perakh and Pennock have it exactly backwards. Stalin and Soviet Communists embraced Darwinism. They liked its historical approach to human origins and its materialistic rejection of religion. Although Lysenko was not a Marxist, after Isaak Prezent (president of the Society of Marxist Biologists) introduced him to evolutionary theory Lysenko became a devoted Darwinist. In The Origin of Species, Darwin had speculated that new variations might arise through use and disuse, or the inheritance of acquired characteristics (a view generally attributed to Lamarck). But Gregor Mendels theory of inheritance was incompatible with Lamarckism, and in the 1920s and 1930s many biologists considered Mendelism to be incompatible with Darwinism. So Lysenko declared that Mendelian genetics was unacceptable because it contradicted Darwinian evolution. Soviet Minister of Agriculture Jakov Jakovlev supported Lysenko by announcing that Mendelism was inconsistent with true Darwinism. In 1937, Prezent (using typical Communist jargon) praised Lysenko for marching under the banner of reconstruction of biological science on the basis of Darwinism raised to the level of Marxism. Mendelians, by contrast, were portrayed as powers of darkness.1 So Lysenkoism was fueled by the conflict between Darwinism (which had Lamarckian elements) and the new Mendelian genetics. The Soviet Union had the best-funded scientific establishment in history, and it used that establishment to persecute scientists who challenged the official view of Darwinian orthodoxy or defended Mendelian genetics. The tragedy of Lysenkoism was that it used government funding and authority to suppress a scientific idea that contradicted established orthodoxy. The parallel with ID is clear: Scientists and scientific organizations supported by billions of dollars in taxpayer money are being used to suppress a scientific idea that challenges Darwinism. Although the United States, thank God, is very different from the former Soviet Union, and dissident scientists are not being imprisoned or murdered, many have been exiled from their careers because of their views. What we have is American Lysenkoism. Notes: (1) See Nils Roll-Hansen, The Lysenko Effect: The Politics of Science (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2005), pp. 86-89, 218-220; Zhores Medvedev, The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), pp. 46-49. Photo: Trofim Lysenko, by Sovfoto [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Morden Chen, General Manager of Cheetah Mobile's Asia Pacific business, delivered the keynote address on 'Dual Fusion: Achieving Both of Your Brand Awareness and Performance Target Through Mobile Marketing'at the recently held third edition of Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC)-a mobile conference series globally, in Bangalore. At the conference, Cheetah Mobiles also launched 'Libra'( originally: appinsight)- a global Android market analysis platform that uses big data maintained by the company to conduct in-depth data mining and analysis to show the trends of the global mobile marketing industry through analysis reports, data products and case studies. It covers over 50 per cent of global Android users and is based on user behaviour, gain insights into industry advantages. It focuses on helping app developers, advertisers, marketers and publishers understand the history and current situation of mobile internet marketing, in-depth analysis of industry segments and trend predictions and international overview and experience share. In an interview with exchange4media, Chen speaks about the future of mobile marketing in India and the companys long term plans for the region. Excerpts: Tell us about Orion 3.0 ad platform. How is it different from the earlier versions? Previously Orion platform has been focusing on Performance Marketer, Performance Advertiser for a year already. The Orion 1.0 is a closed platform that nobody could use except our internal account managers. The biggest difference from version 1 to 2 that happened one and a half years ago was that we made it to be a self help platform that you could do it yourself, you could go online, swipe your credit card and run your campaign. In version 2.0 we started providing the targeting capabilities, reach estimation in the previous platforms start from 2.0. But for the key accounts we had to go ourselves or partner agencies working together. And gradually we found that the performance based advertisers and branded advertisers were looking for different matrix, different types of tracking tools, inventories and KPIs. The performance advertisers only care about installs, which means you provide me the real users. So, the Orion 2.0 was not good enough for branded marketers. So, with version 3.0, of course we are continuing the capability to do self help, but we now fully support the brand advertisers tracking tools, double click etc. It depends on the different regional markets. You can do a lot more video in version 3.0. We had opened very limited inventories for 2.0. You just have to tell us how many views you need, the targets and the kind of interests, we give it to you. So version 3.0 is one step up to become brand advertisers platform than just a performance advertiser platform. How have the brands in India responded to the Locker ad format across your apps including Locker app, CM Security and Clean Master? The brands in India are happy. They are continuing, after the first placement they want to do it again because I believe we offer some unique value including our branding that we call Roadblock. Its actually pre-social moment. So, as long as you have an impactful ad unit and targeted the right person, you would have a massive reach with lots and lots of Indian based audiences. In the mobile media way it delivers something different, that previously, without technology that couldnt be done. So, they are happy with us and want to do more business with us because its a unique value that previously didnt exist and with technology, yes we can do it. Tell us about WhatsCall. How is it different from existing apps in the ecosystem? WhatsCall provides the capability of not only data-data talking, other companies are offering the service by call from your phone to my phone by the same app and the data pack, WhatsaCall offers calls through VoIP, which means that the receiver doesnt need to have WhatsCall. It allows the user to call to a number instead of another app. So, lots of our users are working abroad and want to call back home. We saw plenty of users in Middle East, Singapore, so our target would be people working or studying abroad. And the result shows that we have successfully targeted those people. Could you throw some light on Live.me? How does it support up and coming talent? Capability wise, most of the live streaming is very similar. But there would be some difference, the User Experience Design, so there is a difference in the product managers idea as in what kind of action they want to do, that is the major difference. In the front end, its about the UI/UX, in the back end its about who made the streaming experience better related to the server to server communication, where is the Data Center set up etc. But the most important part is the content, if the content is not right the rest is irrelevant. We feel that content is the key, we really want to get in touch with the right content generators, they are the grass root celebrities. As long as we have good content and we have the brand in the back end to deliver it to the right person, then everything will work well. The US part is growing bigger and bigger already. In the beginning, we had to go to find someone very famous on YouTube and request them to work with us, because you are nobody. What is happening now is that people are coming to us directly to showcase their special talent. In US it is already popular, we are launching it in Taiwan, and I think it will be very popular in Taiwan as well. How do you see mobile advertising in India and what are your predictions about its future? Video is going to be big for sure, the 4G is getting better and better. The content industry, or the people who generate content, would be very different starting from now. There would be more personalised content that gets produced by a very small team, it doesnt require a big teams anymore. There would be more leveraging of simple devices and their creative ideas to spread out something short and cool. So, a new generation of content creation is coming. And regarding Cheetahs branding and advertising business, among all the APAC countries, India is the biggest contributor to the revenue and it will continue to be so, I believe. What next for Cheetah mobiles in India? We are going to hire more people for sure in the agency management and sales. We want to serve our customers and our agency better so we will have more data insight related platform. We will have more content partnerships, not within my team but I am pretty sure they are working already because I am working very closely with them. So, content acquisition from both sides, content acquisition; work with more legit content source. And the other side is our Cheetah content streaming, SDK that technology will be embedded in many other new forms of manufacture. How has your association been with Ventes Avenues so far? The team is doing well because of the professionalism and the connection to the media and advertising community. I believe the Co-founders of the company have very good knowledge and they carry different kind of specialities. Somebody is very good at data, somebody is very good at customer success, somebody is very good at self development and with the combination-we know our platform and they know the market better, which makes it a very strong team. Read more news about (internet advertising India, internet advertising, advertising India, digital advertising India, media advertising India) British expats are taking advantage of the fall in Sterling since the UK voted to leave the European Union and buying property back home as an investment, research suggests.One lender who specialises in mortgages for British expats has recorded an 80% increase in mortgage applications from people living abroad. They want to buy a property that they can rent out and then potentially use it if they move back to the UK. Skipton International, which launched buy to let mortgages in 2014 as a direct response to the difficulties British expat customers faced obtaining a mortgage on UK investment properties, said the increase has been notable since Brexit.We have seen a massive increase in enquiries from British expats in the months after Brexit, which accelerated notably since the value of the pound dropped substantially. On some days we have seen up to four times the number of queries we were seeing before Brexit, said Nigel Pascoe, Director of Lending, Skipton International.Many British expats are viewing the devaluation of Sterling as a good opportunity to buy properties in the UK, bringing back foreign currency savings. UK property is typically a long term investment for British expats. They can service the mortgage through the rental payments, while enjoying capital growth on a property, he added.For British expats looking for an investment property that they can live in sometime in the future they might like to know that a property by the sea or an island are the most sought after in the country.New research shows that the picturesque Isle of Skye has been named the nations most desired place to live, after almost 24,000 people were asked by Rightmove where they would most like to live in Great Britain.The popular seaside resort of Woolacombe in Devon made second place on the list, with one of the most expensive seaside towns of Salcombe in Devon coming eighth, where average asking prices are just below those in London, at 635,083.Four places in Cornwall were named, the market town of Callington, the surfers seaside town of Newquay, the fishing port of Padstow and holiday favourite St Ives. Flying the flag for the north are Keswick and Ambleside, both in the popular Lake District.Its interesting that none of the areas are in the highest priced regions of Britain, London and the South East, likely because the appeal of some of the big cities is the good job options and transport links rather than moving for the amazing scenery, said Rightmoves Research Manager Abiola Oni.The research also showed that many of the most desirable places to live in Britain have house prices which are relatively cheap compared with the national average. The average asking price for a home on Skye is just under 231,000, according to Rightmove, well under the average price tag of a home generally across England and Wales, at 305,670.Pembroke in Wales was also among the most desirable places to live. And with the average asking price for a home there at 169,969, Pembroke is the least expensive place to live on the list of the most desirable areas. If you're married to a USC, who has been working at least 10 tears, you may be eligible for US SS when you reach 62. You might even qualify for Medicare at 65 if the rules don't change.To get the full UK pension, you need to have worked at least 30 years, paying National Insurance... or paid NI credits.But.... you might be entitled to something, not sure how it works.You can get the information here.... Pick a visa There are basically NINE ways that you can get a visa to live and work in the US: (1) Marriage (or engagement in anticipation of marriage) to a US citizen. (2) You have skills that are in short supply in the US e.g. scientific or medical training. A degree is normally a must. Or you have superior specialist skills with at least 12 years experience. (H visas)applications next received on 1st April in this current year (3) You have an Employer who is willing to transfer you - but even the employer has to make a good case for you - so you have to be a manager unless you fall under category (2) above.(L visas) (4) You may get a Green card in the diversity lottery (UK citizens, except N.Ireland, are not generally eligible unless you, your spouse or parents were born abroad or held a different citizenship. (5)You own or buy business (does not get you permanent resident status i.e. no green card)You must be a national of a qualifying Treaty countries. The business must have a minimum value of around $150k (more the better) bearing in mind you will need somewhere to live and with any startup business you will need at least 2 years living money as back up. So a figure of $350k would be a nearer minimum (E-2 visas) (6)You are an "investor" i.e. you have at least US $1m in assets to bring with you. half of that in a few areas. And your background will be investigated to the hilt. (EB-5 visas) (7)You have a close relative (mother, father, brother, sister and no further) who is an US citizen who would sponsor you, approx time this take 2-25 years? (8.The R1 visa is available to foreign members of religious denominations, having bona fide non-profit religious organizations in the U.S., for entering the U.S. to carry on the activities of a minister or religious worker as a profession, occupation or vocation (9)THE UNUSUAL You are in a position to claim refugee status/political asylum. or You get a member of Congress to sponsor a private bill with legislation that applies just to you. The S visa issued to persons who assist US law enforcement to investigate and prosecute crimes and terrorist activities such as money laundering and organized crime Recruitment agent will not take you seriously if you are not already in the US. Writing for jobs is really a waste of time; likewise US employers have no idea what foreign qualification are or mean (except Degrees) it may pay you to get your qualification translated into a US equivalent, there are Companies that do this (World Education Services - International Credential Evaluation Expertise) .. But if you are getting a visa under (2) above then you need a job offer before you can get the visa. Your Employer will be your sponsor this will cost them upward of $5k. So you can see you have to be offering something really special to get considered They may also have to prove to the Dept of labor that there is no American who can do the job if the position is to be permanent DO NOT USE VISA CONSULTANTS The regulations define a "specialty occupation" as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor including but not limited to biotechnology, chemistry, architecture, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, medicine and health, education, law, accounting, business specialties, theology, and the arts, and requiring the attainment of a bachelors degree or its equivalent as a minimum Hi all, I have previously posted about filing my US taxes (I am a US citizen by birth but never lived there). I live in the UK and am in the process of filing my taxes through the Streamlined Process to catch up. However, I have now - after months of getting documents together - been told that I need a Social Security Number before they can file my taxes. Having never lived in the US, I don't have a SSN. I also don't have a US passport (I had one when I was 2 years old). Has anyone had experience applying for a SSN without a valid passport? Will I need to go through the whole process of applying for a US passport (which I will never use) in order to apply for my SSN in order to file my taxes? It is a whole process of going to London for an interview, showing photos and documents from over the past 30 years (!!!) in order to apply for this passport. I have tried to call the Social Security Association but with no luck, only waiting on the phone for hours. If anyone has any advice or experience with this, I would greatly appreciate it! Many thanks in advance! From: American Evaluation Association (AEA) For Immediate Release: Dateline: Washington , DC Tuesday, November 22, 2016 Tony Fujs, Data Scientist at the World Bank. As many fellow data nerds, I love to visualize the data I have in my hands, but I also like to spend time visualizing data that I dont have: Missing data. Why would I do that? Because bad handling of missing data can seriously bias the results of a statistical analysis. Hot Tip: Removing missing records from a dataset is generally not the right way to handle missing data! For more information about missing data, and techniques to address it, see: Baraldi, Amanda N., and Craig K. Enders. An introduction to modern missing data analyses. Journal of School Psychology 48.1 (2010): 5-37. In this post, I will present a common heatmap variation technique used to visualize missing data, and identify potentially harmful missingness patterns. STEP 1: The data table Here is a dataset containing fake education records. In this dataset, each row represents a unique student, and contains information about the following variables: Gender IQ scores Reading grades Math grades Its relatively easy to spot missing data in this table, but I want to make the missing cells impossible to ignore. Lets color each missing data cell in a bright, easy to spot color! STEP 2: Choose a catchy color to highlight empty cells Now, I really cant ignore these empty cells, but I still cant see at least not easily if there is any interesting pattern in the missing data. Next, I will use some heat map technique to colorize the non-missing cells of this table. STEP 3: Color the non-empty cells according to their values I will use a monochrome color scale. Since I am interested in comparing empty cells with non-empty cells, I want to keep the color scheme as simple as possible to facilitate this comparison. The shades of grey highlight the change in values of the non-empty cells, while maintaining a strong contrast with the red empty cells. Low values are colored in light grey, while high values are colored in dark grey. Since we are only interested in checking missing data patterns, the actual values of the non-empty cells can be hidden. STEP 4: Remove the values Some pattern now seems to emerge. But it is stillnot as obvious as it could be Lets reorder the rows according to the values of the IQ scores columns. STEP 4: Sort columns values It is now hard to miss the pattern of the missing data. Reading grades are missing for the lower half of the IQ score distribution Assuming that a correlation exists between IQ scores and reading grades, removing the empty cells from the table would overestimate the average reading grade for this group of students. Rad Resources: This visualization can be easily produced using the R package VIM: http://www.statistik.tuwien.ac.at/forschung/CS/CS-2008-1complete.pdf It can also be done in Excel using a couple of hacks: http://policyviz.com/create-a-heatmap-in-excel/ The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Data Visualization and Reporting (DVR) Week with our colleagues in the DVR Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from DVR TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the Hello! Im, Data Scientist at the World Bank. As many fellow data nerds, I love to visualize the data I have in my hands, but I also like to spend time visualizing data that I dont have:Why would I do that? Because bad handling of missing data can seriously bias the results of a statistical analysis.In this post, I will present a common heatmap variation technique used to visualize missing data, and identify potentially harmful missingness patterns.Here is a dataset containing fake education records. In this dataset, each row represents a unique student, and contains information about the following variables:Its relatively easy to spot missing data in this table, but I want to make the missing cells impossible to ignore. Lets color each missing data cell in a bright, easy to spot color!Now, I really cant ignore these empty cells, but I still cant see at least not easily if there is any interesting pattern in the missing data.Next, I will use some heat map technique to colorize the non-missing cells of this table.I will use a monochrome color scale. Since I am interested in comparing empty cells with non-empty cells, I want to keep the color scheme as simple as possible to facilitate this comparison. The shades of grey highlight the change in values of the non-empty cells, while maintaining a strong contrast with the red empty cells.Low values are colored in light grey, while high values are colored in dark grey. Since we are only interested in checking missing data patterns, the actual values of the non-empty cells can be hidden.Some pattern now seems to emerge. But it is stillnot as obvious as it could beLets reorder the rows according to the values of the IQ scores columns.It is now hard to miss the pattern of the missing data. Reading grades are missing for the lower half of the IQ score distribution Assuming that a correlation exists between IQ scores and reading grades, removing the empty cells from the table would overestimate the average reading grade for this group of students.The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Data Visualization and Reporting (DVR) Week with our colleagues in the DVR Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from DVR TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Monday, November 21, 2016 Want to avoid political arguments around the table this Thanksgiving? Talk about death and your preferences on end-of-life issues instead. Remembering that we all have a deadline, and rededicating ourselves to making the most of this lifetime before we reach that last day, provides some perspective. Here are sources for great free tools you can download to help get the conversation started: If youd rather watch TV, you can also start a conversation after watching these comedic films or TV programs. Youll laugh, youll learn, and youll be able to start a funeral planning or end-of-life conversation more easily. The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the 1976 seasons hilarious episode 7 Chuckles Bites the Dust will get everyone sharing their funeral stories and preferences at the end of the 30-minute program. (Amazon link) Bernie A true story about a beloved, caring funeral director who befriends the wealthiest widow in a small Texas town and then things go terribly wrong. (Amazon link) A true story about a beloved, caring funeral director who befriends the wealthiest widow in a small Texas town and then things go terribly wrong. (Amazon link) Get Low Another true story about a man in the 1930s who wanted to have his funeral while he was alive and make it a party. (Amazon link) Elizabethtown A romantic comedy with a great sound track that illuminates the similarities between weddings and funerals and differences in family preferences regarding cremation or burial. (Amazon link) Undertaking Betty Another romantic comedy set in Wales that features two funeral directors with very different styles of undertaking. (Amazon link) Checking Out Peter Falk stars as an aging actor who gathers his family for a 90th birthday party by announcing hell be committing suicide afterward. (Amazon link) The Bucket List Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are cancer patients and hospital roommates who take the opportunity to live life to the fullest, discussing their final disposition preferences in the process. (Amazon link) Wishing you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving we have much to be thankful for. Links to recent posts at The Family Plot Blog, upcoming events and a funny quote follow. Please call 505.265.7215 if I can be of assistance! Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death The Family Plot Blog Highlights Click on the titles to read the blog post and see the associated videos. Review all posts on The Family Plot Blog or view just the Death Cartoons posted on the blog! Requiem: A Free and Simple App for Funeral Communications The newly-introduced Requiem app is helping the funeral industry and families simplify the notification process and offers a host of other helpful benefits. How to Get a Natural Burial in New Mexico On the latest A Good Goodbye Radio interview on FuneralRadio.com, host Gail Rubin, CT, interviews Linda Canyon and Donal Key, founders of La Puerta Burial Ground in central New Mexico. How 7 Funeral Pros Are Changing What Families Think About Death Gail Rubin is one of the funeral pros quoted in this FuneralOne blog post! How To Make Christmas Gift Giving a Downsizing Adventure This Christmas, avoid the clutter of unwanted items and make holiday gift giving an opportunity to downsize (featured today at the AAEPA blog!) Upcoming Events and a Funny Quote See the Calendar page for a full listing of events. Sunday, December 4, 3:30 p.m. Speaking and book signing event for KICKING THE BUCKET LIST: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die at Page One Books in the Mountain Run Center, 5850 Eubank Blvd. Suite B-41, Albuquerque, NM. Monday, December 5, 2:30 p.m. Speaking and book signing event for KICKING THE BUCKET LIST: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die at La Vida Llena Community, 10501 Lagrima De Oro Rd NE, Albuquerque, NM. Thursday, December 8, 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Discussion and book signings for KICKING THE BUCKET LIST and other A Good Goodbye products at the Horn Family YMCA, 4901 Indian School Rd NE, Albuquerque, NM. Saturday, December 10, 1:00 p.m. Speaking and book signing event for KICKING THE BUCKET LIST: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die at Treasure House Books, 2012 S Plaza St NW, Albuquerque, NM. Saturday, December 17 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. The next Albuquerque Death Cafe will be held at Gail Rubins home. RSVP for the address. More information at this web page. When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. Mark Twain P.S. You might find this Toastmasters talk I gave the weekend after the election offers some healing thoughts. [embedded content] This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate U.S. bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta said San Antonio attorney Todd Prins accused of fabricating court documents and forging judges signatures probably broke the law if the claims against him are true. If indeed the allegations that he falsified court documents and judicial orders prove to be correct, thats probably a crime, Gargotta said, indicating that Prins law license also could be at risk. In as much as he is a lawyer, if indeed he falsified court documents, he would be at risk for maybe me or someone else making a referral to the (Texas) State Bar. Prins, who filed for bankruptcy in September and was scheduled to testify Monday, failed to appear in court. His attorney, Martin Seidler, couldnt explain why his client missed the hearing, nor did he know Prins whereabouts. All I can relay to the court was he couldnt make it in time, Seidler said. While Prins skipped the hearing, the FBI and the U.S. attorneys office didnt. FBI special agent Jeff Jenson, who was at the hearing with a federal prosecutor, declined to comment. Gargotta said he planned to issue a preliminary injunction freezing a Prins Law Firm trust account that may or may not contain his clients money. Former clients William and Karen Ozer are suing Prins over a $1.6 million settlement he told them his firm received and has been holding in a trust account on their behalf since 2011. Whether Prins actually has the Ozers money is unclear. The Ozers accuse Prins of generating fake court documents as part of an elaborate scheme to conceal from them the actual status of their 2009 case against a local real estate firm, among others. Gargotta said he was troubled by Prins absence Monday. At a Nov. 7 hearing, Gargotta instructed Prinss lawyer, Martin Seidler, that his client needed to be in court. Emphasize to your client this is not a party invitation, Gargotta said at the time. Prins was not at the Nov. 7 hearing because he was vacationing out of the country, Seidler told the court at the time. Prins also missed a creditors meeting on Nov. 1. 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. The Ozers sued real estate firm REOC Partners and others alleging breach of fiduciary duty in managing some of their investments. Prins told the Ozers in 2011 that he received $1.6 million in settlement funds from the case but said the money was frozen in his law firms trust account because of various court appeals, according to a lawsuit the couple filed against Prins in bankruptcy court. The court docket shows the case had been abated, or put on hold, so its unclear why Prins would allegedly say the case was settled. On Oct. 14, two weeks after Prins and his wife filed for Chapter 7 liquidation, Prins signed a $1.6 million promissory note to the Ozers. Gargotta said he wanted the opportunity to ask Prins if he received money that he supposedly negotiated for the Ozers and whether Prins falsified court documents and judges orders. Prins is scheduled to be deposed by the Ozers attorney on Dec. 6. If he fails to appear for the deposition, the Ozers attorneys can file a motion to compel him to appear. If Prins fails to show then, he would be held in contempt of court, Gargotta said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate CHICAGO A strike by hourly workers at OHare International Airport in Chicago will add another dimension to a nationwide day of protests by fast-food employees who have been pushing for a $15 hourly wage and union rights, organizers said Monday. Thousands of workers plan to walk off the job at McDonalds restaurants and other fast-food spots in more than 340 cities on Nov. 29, organizers said in a news release. The planned Day of Disruption will mark the fourth anniversary of the first protests at McDonalds restaurants in New York. The attention-grabbing airport strike is going to cause complete disruption in travel plans for the day and maybe days to come, said Kendall Fells, national organizing director of the Fight for $15 campaign. Four decades ago, airport jobs were jobs you could live off of. Now airport jobs are just like fast-food jobs. Were all standing together. Service Employees International Union Local 1, which announced Monday that hundreds of workers will strike that day at OHare, one of the nations busiest airports, has helped fund and staff the Fight for $15 campaign. OHare is the only airport where workers plan to strike, though organizers are planning protests at airports in 18 other cities, including Boston; Washington, D.C.; Denver; Atlanta; Seattle; and Los Angeles. About 500 OHare workers committed to a strike after a vote last week. They are trying to organize with the unions help. They work for private contractors at the airport and include baggage handlers, cabin cleaners, janitors and wheelchair attendants. Organizers said it will be up to workers to decide whether the strike will last longer than one day. The Chicago Department of Aviation said it doesnt anticipate any disruption in service. Some holiday travelers are nervous, however. Kim Maguire, 40, of Crystal Lake, was at OHare on Monday with her 3-year-old daughter and husband as they headed out for a holiday trip to see relatives in Seattle, with a return flight scheduled on the strike date. I dont want it to impact our travel plans, Maguire said. Especially traveling with a 3-year-old, delays would be difficult. Maguire said she supports the workers and is grateful to those who clean planes, especially reaching into seat-back pockets. I wouldnt want to reach my hand in there, she said. Julio Godoy, 54, an OHare airplane cabin cleaner who makes $10.50 an hour, said he plans to take part in the strike. He said he knows co-workers who have been stuck by the needles of syringes left in seat-back pockets and who then needed to be tested for HIV and hepatitis. He said hes also concerned about being asked to check planes for weapons and explosives without training. There had been concern that the strike would fall during the busiest travel days. In announcing the Nov. 29 strike, the union and workers on Monday portrayed the date as a concession to families. 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. OHare airport workers often cant afford a proper Thanksgiving dinner and know what its like to miss Thanksgiving with our families, said baggage handler Raquel Brito, who announced the strike date. However we respect families traveling to be together and that is why were holding off our strike until after the Thanksgiving holiday. CHICAGO About 500 workers at OHare International Airport in Chicago say theyll strike Nov. 29, after the Thanksgiving holiday. Service Employees International Union Local 1 officials made the announcement Monday morning outside the airport, which is one of the nations busiest. The workers say they want the publics support and wouldnt want to mess up anyones holiday plans. The union is helping the workers, who are seeking union rights and a $15 per hour wage. They work mainly for private contractors at the airport and include baggage handlers, cabin cleaners, janitors, and wheelchair attendants. It isnt clear how such a strike would affect operations at OHare. The Chicago Department of Aviation has said it doesnt anticipate any disruption in service. The following editorial appeared Thursday in The Baltimore Sun: Since Donald Trumps election victory, the rhetoric over his hard line stance on immigration policies hasnt cooled a bit. In a recent interview on 60 Minutes, the president-elect vowed to deport or incarcerate as many a 3 million immigrants. Not to be outdone, some big city mayors from Seattle to New York stepped forward promising to maintain their status as sanctuary cities that will refuse to enforce federal immigration laws. But what if for all the bluster and threats, the posturing and promises, a Trump administration pursues an immigration strategy not all that different from that of President Barack Obama? For a variety of reasons, that might be where hes headed. Heres why. First, often overlooked by Trumps more virulent anti-immigrant supporters is that fact that the Obama administration has already set records for deportations. Since 2008, an estimated 2.7 million people have been deported by the federal government, with an emphasis on the very individuals Trump claims he wants to ship out gang members, felons and other serious criminals. So if hes talking long term, Trumps immigration stand may not be quite as bold as it appears. Indeed, it would be hard to see the numbers add up otherwise there simply arent 3 million undocumented convicted criminals to deport. The number is more likely under 900,000, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Migration Policy Institute estimates, and its probably dropping given that illegal border crossings have fallen in recent years. Second is a simple lack of deportation infrastructure. Ever try to round up millions of people who dont want to be caught? During the campaign, the Republican nominee spoke of a possible deportation force, but Republicans in Congress have already poo-pooed that idea. And its not just a lack of immigration agents detaining suspects and litigating all those cases would pose a considerable challenge to existing resources as well. In fact, theres already a backup in the court system perhaps a half-million or more cases from the Obama administrations ongoing deportation efforts. Trump can vilify the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without documentation all he wants, but the law gives those individuals certain rights among them the right to appeal any deportation order. Given those legal, logistical and resource impediments, its entirely possible Trump is pulling a fast one of his supporters and will simply make more noise about deportation than his predecessors. The building of a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico may prove to be in the same vein many miles of fencing already exist along the California and Arizona borders, barriers that have proven far from impervious. Meanwhile, more than 40 percent of the undocumented arrive legally but then overstay their visas, making a fence, wall or any other barrier moot. Yet even if a President Trump doesnt hire a deportation force, build much of a wall or take any of the draconian measures both his critics and many of his supporters have been anticipating, hes already helped change the American culture for the worse. Anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise. Polls show American attitudes toward immigrants from the Middle East, Latin America and Africa are more negative than positive regardless of legal status. Latinos are more likely to distrust law enforcement and not report crimes or cooperate with criminal investigations. One study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine suggests Latino fear of police and deportation has gotten so bad that they are less likely to call 911 for an ambulance or emergency medical help during a heart attack with potentially fatal consequences. And hate crimes directed toward Mexicans and other Latinos are on the rise as well. More than 400 incidents of harassment and intimidation have been recorded by the Southern Poverty Law Center since Election Day. The leading target? Immigrants, with 136 such cases as of Monday. Meanwhile, Trumps attacks on the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA could lead to a trade war and tariffs that will depress the Mexican economy and motivate more people to enter the U.S. illegally. If all that sounds confusing, bingo, youve got it about right. Mass deportations are unlikely, but mass hysteria over a bogus immigration threat? That may be closer to whats in store for the country. Growing up, Detective Benjamin Marconi was both energetic and introspective. In one moment, he would run through rooms in the house, earning him the nickname the tornado by his grandfather. Alternately, he was quiet and collected, praying for his family on his own accord. When he was 7 or 8 years old, he wanted to be a priest, his aunt said. He was so loving, so caring. Ever since he was a little boy, he would pray for everyone. If he knew somebody was sick or even if they werent, he would pray, for everyone, said Estela Ayala, 67. And now, she said, shes praying for him and the rest of their family. Marconi, a San Antonio police officer and detective in the Special Victims Unit, was shot and killed while writing up a ticket in his patrol car near police headquarters downtown Sunday. On Monday afternoon, authorities announced the arrest of Otis Tyrone McKane, 31, who is accused of pulling up behind Marconis car, approaching the passenger window and shooting the 50-year-old detective in the head. Then he leaned in and shot a second round, authorities said. McKane was taken into custody around 4 p.m. Monday. A motive for the killing was not immediately known. A father, Marconi left behind his adult-age children, Jacy Lewis Marconi and Dane Gregory Marconi. He is the first San Antonio officer to be killed in the line of duty this year. His slaying comes amid heightened concerns for police officers safety across the nation. On Sunday, three other officers were shot in separate shootings: two in Missouri and one in Florida. Marconis immediate family declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation, but he was remembered by aunts and friends as an upbeat protector of the community and anyone in need. I always knew he was going to be something very special, said Elsie McGuire, his aunt and Ayalas sister. He had this beauty about him that was always with people working with people, talking to people. He was always being there. I knew when he became a policeman, it was like thats his calling. To protect others. And thats what he loved. Thats the biggest thing he loved, doing his job. An officer for 20 years, Marconi took protecting the community very seriously on and off duty. Former state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte was a longtime friend of Marconi they met in the late 1990s through mutual friends at a birthday party at a club, she said. Later, during her failed campaign for lieutenant governor, he worked privately for her as a security guard. Always keeping safety in mind, Van de Putte said, Marconi would keep an eye on people at bars whom he deemed unfit to drive. He was always the first one to tell somebody, Im taking your car keys away. Time to stop. He never stopped being the protector, even in a social situation, Van de Putte said. And he tried to pass that on to her grandchildren. He was so good with little ones. He would say, You make good choices, because I have to deal with people that dont make good choices, and then they have to go to the big time-out. You know what the big time-out is, dont you? she said. Marconi was described as a private man. He didnt use Facebook, though two years ago he took up Twitter, where he shared Human Rights Campaign posts, police advocacy notices and LGBT community information. His Twitter profile is a quote from Maya Angelou: The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them. His aunts and his friend Mike Bobo, owner of WD Deli, called Marconi genuine and generous. When they picture him, they see him wearing the expression he wore most: a full-faced, squinty-eyed smile. My nephew Ben was the most lovable person you could think of. He always had a smile on his face, never had any bad feelings or words to say about anybody. Nobody, Ayala said. You come across people in your life that will judge or demean or say things about other people jokingly or not, Bobo said. He would never be that person. Hes just the nicest guy. He was very much a do-the-right-thing kind of guy. Marconi kept in impeccably good shape: His Twitter posts detailed how many miles he ran, for example. Last week, Bobo said he saw him eating healthy at, of all places, Lubys. He was a very health-conscious guy. Like, at Lubys, Im eating mashed potatoes and gravy, and hes eating some meat and vegetables, Bobo said. While Marconi took law enforcement and physical fitness very seriously, he also had a playful side. When Van de Putte was elected president pro tem in the Senate and had to occasionally fill in for the governor, hed text her and ask, Hows the governor? Van de Putte said. And to Ayala, hed sometimes call her auntie dearest, referring to the movie Mommie Dearest, or even auntie dearest without the wire hanger, Ayala said. He used to make faces, he was always trying to be a clown. He was a happy person. He didnt deserve to die the way he died, nobody does. Nobody deserves that, Ayala said. Marconi moved in with his father, who was also a police officer, during his dads final months of life and helped fix one of his aunts roofs, Ayala recalled. When McGuire needed surgery and was disabled, he found a program that would offer her a free caretaker after surgery. Marconi texted his aunts regularly, they said, even if it was just to say he was thinking of them. The last one he sent me was a selfie because I was bragging about him. I mean how could you be in a church gathering and not brag about him? Because he was so handsome, Ayala said. I texted him back and said Well, all these ladies want your number now, she said. Marconis death sent a shock wave of grief throughout his family, the police community and his friends. An outpouring of support followed from local, state and national leaders, including Mayor Ivy Taylor, Gov. Greg Abbott, outgoing Bexar County Sheriff Susan Pamerleau, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and the New York Police Department. I just somehow think that the world is off its axis, Van de Putte said, referring to Marconis death and the other three nationwide. McGuire said she already misses him. She lives alone near Austin, and his texts were a source of love and connection. When I hear my phone give that little one beep, it means its him, McGuire said. And its not going to be him anymore. Im going to miss that. But I know hell still be with me in prayer all the time. He will be. The last time she saw him was last month at the funeral of his uncle Hector Ayala, who had worked as a San Antonio police officer for 37 years. Marconi was playing with his grandson, Mason Marconi, just as proud and happy as can be, McGuire said. I love him so dearly, and I always will, she said. I surely do hope that all the other officers serving us can be safe and never be harmed in any way like this. Ever. The San Antonio Police Officers Association has set up a memorial fund in Marconis name at Generations Federal Credit Union. To donate, go to any bank branch or online at www.mygenfcu.org/MarconiMemorial So far this year, 58 law enforcement officers have been killed by gunfire nationwide, including 18 in Texas. That ties it as the deadliest year for law enforcement officers statewide since 2010, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, a nonprofit organization dedicated to honoring fallen officers. Nationally, the number of officers mortally wounded by gunfire in the past 16 years has fluctuated from a high of 68 in 2011 to a low of 31 in 2013. The data includes officers who were killed by gunfire while actively working on a call, such as pursuing a suspect, and officers who were targeted and seemingly not engaged with an individual or suspect. But the targeted killing of police officers including the slaying of San Antonio Police Detective Benjamin Marconi, who was gunned down in his patrol car as he carried out a traffic stop on another driver near police headquarters Sunday is relatively uncommon, experts say. Police officers come in contact with dangers on a daily basis, and its not rare for police officers to be threatened or to have suspects that threaten their lives, said Alex del Carmen, executive director of the School of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Strategic Studies at Tarleton State University. But to have an officer killed in an ambush setting like this is very rare. Though targeted killings of police officers are relatively uncommon, there has been a significant increase in the number of them this year, del Carmen said. On July 7, five officers were killed and nine were injured when a sniper began shooting at law enforcement officers during a peaceful protest in Dallas. On July 17, three officers were killed in an ambushlike attack in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, several days after officers shot and killed Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, in close range as he was pinned to the ground. And Sunday, the same day Marconi was killed, a St. Louis police officer was shot in an almost identical manner. He was hit twice in the face after a suspect pulled alongside the officers patrol car and fired at him. The sergeant, also with 20 years of service, was in critical but stable condition Sunday night, according to St. Louis police. Two other officers another one in Missouri and one in Florida also were shot Sunday, though not fatally. Both of those cases involved traffic stops. Experts said there could be a number of reasons why police killings are higher this year and targeted killings seem to be, too. The elephant in the room is that weve seen a number of videos of police officers engaging in questionable practices throughout the United States recently, del Carmen said. Most police officers are hardworking, good officers. There are a handful of bad officers in departments, like there is in any industry. But these shootings have angered people, and incited, in some cases, violence. Robert Taylor, a professor of criminology at the University of Texas at Dallas and a former police officer, said he is skeptical of the national narrative that tensions are high between communities nationwide and law enforcement and that there isnt any logical answer for why these shootings are occurring. How can you cold-bloodlessly go up and kill someone, whether they are a police officer or not? Taylor asked. No one has the answer. None of the experts. But Taylor said he also doesnt think its a coincidence that there have been so many officer killings this year. Theres a tremendous divide in our community, as illustrated by the results of our most recent election, Taylor said. People are frustrated, and they take that out on their governments, such as police. Its tragic. He said that kind of divide can lead someone who isnt completely stable to act out against people in positions of authority, such as police officers. Joseph Schafer, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Southern Illinois University, said there needs to be more data that tracks targeted killings of police officers. He said it seems as if targeted killings of police officers have increased, but that could be because awareness is increasing. When awareness increases, it can increase the perception that the crime is increasing, Schafer said. He said tracking data on officers targeted in the line of duty is difficult, as each department classifies an ambush differently. Additionally, he said, its often hard to tell initially after a crime occurs if a police officer is targeted. Schafer said he wouldnt be surprised if experts begin tracking targeted killings of police officers, even going back in history to establish trends, if there are any. Like a lot of other fatalities and shooting incidents, the short answer is we dont have great data on ambush killings, he said. eeaton@express-news.net This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate SAN ANTONIO Seven hours before his arrest in the slaying of a San Antonio police officer, capital murder suspect Otis Tyrone McKane was at the Bexar County Courthouse getting married as he was the subject of a massive manhunt, according to official records obtained by ExpressNews.com. McKane, held in Sunday's ambush slaying of Det. Benjamin Marconi, married Christian Chanel Fields, who owns the white Buick McKane was in at the time of his arrest, after they obtained a magistrate's waiver from the customary 72-hour waiting period after a marriage license is issued. County records indicate the license was issued at 9:27 a.m. Monday. He was arrested at 4:20 p.m. with a woman and 2-year-old child, who police have not yet identified, in the car. Fields, 27, has been arrested on at least two theft charges in Harris County, records show. The 2010 state jail felony was deferred in lieu of a conviction, records show. She was sentenced in the misdemeanor case in May 2011. Fields bought the white Buick in Houston, records show. According to public records, Charlynn Fields is the mother of Christian Chanel Fields. Christian Chanel lists a Charlynn Fields as her mother on her Facebook page, which also shows she has a young daughter. The 'presiding judge' who signed the waiver in the heavily secured Bexar County Courthouse was County Court-at-Law No. 9 Judge Walden Shelton, according to the county clerk's office. He is also performed the marriage ceremony, but refused to comment Tuesday. Marconi, 50, was fatally shot during a traffic stop near SAPD headquarters around 11:45 a.m. Sunday. McKane is accused of pulling up behind Marconi's cruiser while the detective was issuing a traffic citation to someone else and firing twice through the passenger window. McKane, 31, was nabbed Monday afternoon in a different vehicle on Interstate 10 near Ackerman Road, about 28 hours after the officer's slaying. As he was led past camera crews to be booked on a capital murder charge late Monday, McKane said he was upset about a child custody battle that prevented him from seeing his son and "I lashed out at someone who didn't deserve it." "I've been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didn't deserve it," McKane said before he was booked, according to a recording made available by KENS-TV. "I just want to see my son." Fields was born in Houston and is 27 years old, according to the marriage license. Staff writers Madalyn Mendoza and Emilie Eaton and news researcher Misty Harris contributed to this report. jgonzalez@express-news.net Staff writer Emilie Eaton contributed to this report. jgonzalez@express-news.net Billy Calzada /Staff photographer The director of the Cancer Therapy & Research Center in San Antonio will retire from his post at the end of the year to join a competing hospital system. Dr. Ian Thompson Jr., an internationally recognized urologic oncologist who has led the CTRC since 2009, will become president of Christus Santa Rosa Hospital Medical Center. He also will serve as Christus Santa Rosa Health Systems vice president of the market oncology service line. WASHINGTON Rick Perrys hourlong visit Monday to Trump Tower added fresh evidence that the president-elect has put aside bitter primary season rivalries and is considering the former Texas governor for a post in his administration. During the Republican primary season, Perry referred to Trumps candidacy as a barking carnival act, and he was quoted widely after labeling Trump a cancer on conservatism. Nonetheless, Perry, 66, who twice ran for the Republican presidential nomination, is rumored to be a candidate to lead one of several federal agencies, among them the agriculture, energy and commerce departments. He also is on some lists as a potential defense secretary. Perrys selection as energy secretary would offer a measure of irony, given that the department was the federal entity whose name Perry couldnt recall during a presidential candidate debate in 2011 and the agency he would do away with. Perry on Monday joined a parade of potential candidates visiting Trumps Manhattan headquarters, among them former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin. Brown is thought to be a candidate to head the Veterans Affairs Department, while Fallin could be in line to be interior secretary. The Trump transition teams communications office said Perry and the President-elect had an in-depth discussion on homeland security, border control, and illegal immigration. Their conversation also included the bureaucratic challenges facing the Department of Homeland Security and Defense, ISIS, and Americas place in the world. In his unusually public process, Trump has done nothing to discourage speculation, and he teased reporters about who might enter his administration and when he will make his selections known. In a video released Monday evening, Trump offered what he described as an update in his preparation to be sworn in Jan. 20. Our transition team is working very smoothly, efficiently and effectively. Truly great and talented men and women, patriots indeed, are being brought in, and many will soon be a part of our government, helping us to make American great again, Trump said in the video. Perry, who campaigned vigorously for Trump in the run-up to the Nov. 8 election, is the most high-profile Texan who may be in competition for slots in the new administration. U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Austin, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, is being mentioned to head the Homeland Security Department, while U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Dallas, is on media lists to head the Treasury Department. Larry Sabato, a commentator and head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said that in his estimation, the agriculture or energy departments would suit Perry the best. Texas ranks behind only California and Iowa in cash value of farming and is the center for energy production in the nation. Perry got on the Trump train before it arrived at the station, so I suppose that helps, Sabato said. U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, who won re-election this month in a campaign in which Trumps presence on the ticket emerged as a prime issue, was among those offering words of support for Perry. Gov. Perry served the great state of Texas with distinction. He would be a valuable asset to any administration, Hurd said. It never hurts to have more Aggies in positions of leadership, Hurd added, referring to Texas A&M, from which he and Perry both graduated. Dave Carney, who has been a top adviser to Perry, said that for the jobs with which Perry is linked, the Trump administration isnt going to find another candidate who has managed as large a budget, as many people, as Perry has during 14 years as governor. Carney, who spoke with Perry last week, added: Being a Cabinet secretary is more than just giving speeches. Its really managing and putting people in place to manage gigantic bureaucracies, whether its the VA or defense or whatever. Austin Barbour, who headed a super-PAC funding Perry in his most recent campaign, said he believed Perrys reputation as a strong Texas governor for 14 years would appeal to Trump. If youre Trump and youre coming off eight years of one of the most liberal, encroaching administrations ever, you may be thinking you need strong people to lead these agencies, somebody who can get things done, Barbour said. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who headed the president-elects Texas campaign, is among those making the case for Perry to Trump as a Cabinet member or what was described as an administration utility player, said Patrick consultant Allen Blakemore The lieutenant governor has, I believe, expounded publicly as well as privately with the Trump team and Mr. Trump personally, extolling the virtues of Rick Perry and other Texans for significant roles in the Trump administration, Blakemore said. Artemio Muniz, chairman of the Texas Federation of Hispanic Republicans, said: The Trump administration needs more Texas-styled conservatism. Anybody he chooses that represents Texas is a plus for us in Texas. Muniz noted the significant policy debates looming about the North American Free Trade Agreement, immigration and other matters considered vital in Texas. Perry is a former Texas agriculture commissioner, helping to fuel speculation that he could take over the federal Agriculture Department, a $140 billion agency that is responsible for food and forestry policy as well as farm programs. If hes chosen as the energy secretary, his portfolio would include oversight of 17 national laboratories and complexes, among them the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, site of the first Allied effort to create nuclear weapons in World War II. Perry also would have significant responsibility for nuclear weapons, from designing and engineering to manufacturing, testing and warhead assembling, which takes place at the Pantex plant in the Texas Panhandle. Sabato, of the Center for Politics, remarked that it might be awkward for Perry to take over an agency he wanted to abolish. If Perry is selected for a high-profile job, it would mark a triumphant return to public life for a politician who seemed that he might have to settle for appearances on Dancing with the Stars. Perrys selection would point to Trumps willingness to overlook the barbed insults directed his way during the campaign. His meeting Saturday with Mitt Romney, who once blamed Trump for trickle-down bigotry, suggested that Trump may be prepared to forgive. Before ending his candidacy in September 2015, Perry said in one speech that Trump is without substance when one scratches below the surface. He offers a barking carnival act that can be best described as Trumpism. Perry went on to define Trumpism as a toxic mix of demagoguery and mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued. Let no one be mistaken: Donald Trumps candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised and discarded. In May, eight months after he quit his own candidacy and shortly before Trump secured enough delegates for the nomination, Perry offered an endorsement, noting, He is not a perfect man. By July, Perry was speaking at the GOP convention in Cleveland, reciting Trumps trademark make America great again slogan. Carney, the Perry adviser, said that despite a vicious campaign, Perry was on with him early. When it was clear Trump was going to be the nominee, he worked hard for him, did stuff for him, went everywhere they asked him to go and did it with vigor. Ray Sullivan, Perrys former chief of staff, remarked: You look at some of the most bitter rivals over the years. Once those election battles are over, youve seen Republicans be able to work together effectively. bill.lambrecht@hearstdc.com pfikac@express-news.net This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate For Rick Trevino, the road to the City Council would lead straight through Sen. Bernie Sanders. After Sanders lost the Democratic Partys presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton, a loss that now feels all the more ruinous with the ascendance of President-elect Donald Trump, the populist senator released a back-to-basics statement urging supporters to start engaging at the local and state level in an unprecedented way Now we need many of them to start running for school boards, city councils, county commissions, state legislatures and governorships, Sanders said. State and local governments make enormously important decisions, and we cannot allow right-wing Republicans to increasingly control them. After traveling to Philadelphia as a national delegate for Sanders, only to watch the party crown Clinton its nominee, Trevino has heeded the senators call to continue the political revolution: Hes running for an open seat in District 6. This is a continuation of that, Trevino said. I am primarily interested in representing the needs of the poor and the working people of District 6. Trevino, 31, became secretary of the Bexar County Democratic Party this summer, but Monday he pledged to resign, should he win the May election. He moved from District 7 to District 6 this year, he said, in order to run. Trevino will face at least two opponents: Melissa Havrda, a 42-year-old attorney; and Greg Brockhouse, a 44-year-old political consultant. Restricted by term limits, Councilman Ray Lopez is vacating the seat. A high school geography teacher, Trevino is a whip-smart progressive who anchors his idealistic screeds against corporate America with a bookish vocabulary. On Monday, he casually alluded to Aristotelian politics and mediating institutions before bringing his speech back to street level: Oh yeah, man. Im ready to roll. And he leaves no doubt he would take Sanders confrontational stance against the corrupting influence of money with him to City Hall. Im a fearless leader right now, he said. Im going to go up against the power interests of San Antonio and bring it. This is America, he added. You follow the money and you find out where the strings are tied. Theres no one tied to me, man. Trevino was born in Laredo. His mother, an immigrant from Nuevo Laredo, became a U.S. citizen about two years ago. She and his father both work as registered nurses. Trevino moved here at 20 to major in political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio. I actually graduated in the fall of 08, when Lehman (Bros.) was crashing, he said. This was not the economy I thought I would be graduating into. Trevino waited tables in local restaurants before earning a masters degree in educational leadership from Trinity University and finding his current job at Sam Houston High School on the East Side. Last year, his students persuaded the San Antonio Food Bank to open a farmers market at the school, part of a broader effort supported by federal funding to improve a blighted, 22-square-mile section of the East Side designated a Promise Zone. I lucked into working in a Promise neighborhood, Trevino said. Hes proud that the market offers shoppers double the face value of food stamps in fruits and vegetables an idea dubbed double-up food bucks that Trevino advocated for, inspired by a market in Michigan. Income inequality is fueling his foray into politics. To know Im living in the most unequal city in the United States, Ive got to do something about it, Trevino said. Its my responsibility. What this creates is instability in the community. You dont have any shared experience anymore. If this continues, its really going to destabilize the city. Trevino bemoaned the citys disconnect with social welfare groups: Im going to be really active in making those connections. He acknowledged his ambitions to take the political revolution to higher office. But he pledged to serve all his terms on the council. I have to put myself in positions to prove I can be that leader, he said. bchasnoff@express-news.net AUSTIN Empower Texans, the group that loves to hate House Speaker Joe Straus, accused him of pushing Democrat priorities in a tweet that irresistibly begged for its link to be clicked. What might Straus have done? Had he taken some wild stance (for Republicans) on finding a sustainable new revenue source oh, heck, lets imagine a tax to meeting still-gaping transportation needs? Launched a dramatic new search for ways to draw down more federal dollars for health care, a move longed for by local entities that foot big bills for indigent patients? Openly scoffed at Dan Patricks drive to ensure that transgender people use the bathrooms the lieutenant governor thinks they should? None of the above. Instead, Straus was accused of having the temerity to call for civil discourse and bipartisan cooperation. Cover your eyes, children. Though Straus may advocate for it, Texans have little interest in bipartisanship, wrote Cary Cheshire, Capitol correspondent for the Texas Scorecard/Empower Texans, citing the states long record of voting for Republicans for president and statewide office. Empower Texans is a tea party-aligned, free-market group that has consistently targeted Straus, accusing him of not hewing closely enough to the most conservative Republican desires. Texas Scorecard is one of its projects. There is no inherent value to compromise, and if Texans wanted Democrats making state policy decisions, theyd elect them to positions to do so. Rather than make concessions to a political party that lost, Texas lawmakers should enact an aggressive agenda on the items they campaigned on, Cheshire wrote. Opposing bipartisanship is a hard-line stand for hard-line times, but Straus isnt the only one who works across the aisle in the GOP-dominated Legislature. It also happens in the 31-member Senate presided over by Patrick, on issues as big as the state budget. Lawmakers and leaders of both parties praise such cooperation when it occurs, recognizing that a variety of perspectives can strengthen the value of their work. But Patrick also successfully pushed to revise Senate procedures that had given Democrats some leverage, and he champions issues that draw partisan discord. His priorities for the legislative session that begins in January are no exception, drawing praise from groups such as Empower Texans. Patricks top-10 list is peppered with divisive issues such as cracking down on so-called sanctuary cities, the transgender bathroom measure, more abortion restrictions, school choice and another run at photo voter ID. But Patricks top priorities arent solely focused on those issues. They include lawmakers top job, the must-pass state budget, and items that could stir debate but may not be as emotional as others: property tax reform, cracking down on inappropriate teacher-student relationships, a stricter state spending cap and stemming hailstorm-damage lawsuits. Theyre among 30 pieces of legislation that Patrick said hell push, with reforming the system for protecting abused and neglected children among them. Straus in his recent remarks to a luncheon hosted by the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce cited a leaner list of consequential items, topped by writing a balanced and responsible state budget. The speakers priorities include improving the protection of Texas children at risk of abuse or neglect, reforming the school finance system, improving the treatment of mental illness, ensuring the security of online data and networks, and promoting entrepreneurship. Hardly a far-left agenda. Instead, its focused on the basics. Its worth noting that Straus, R-San Antonio, isnt quoted as saying the word bipartisan in the Austin American-Statesman story about the speaker that prompted Empower Texans criticism. The newspapers headline was, however, a fair-enough characterization of his comments. Straus made a pitch for building coalitions and bridging differences while acknowledging that its not a universally admired approach, according to his prepared remarks. There are people who have a lot to gain from divisiveness in the system, Straus said in the remarks. And because Ive had the audacity to actually work with members of both parties, Im no stranger to their wrath. Straus even quoted a Democrat in emphasizing that the budget is our first and largest responsibility. It was former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby, who is credited with framing lawmakers work concisely: The most important thing the Legislature does is write the budget. The rest is just poetry. Recently, at an area high school, a boy told a girl she was going to be deported. Im withholding names to protect the innocent and the guilty. The girl, a fair-skinned blonde who doesnt have the physical features common to Mexican-Americans, is an athlete and was wearing a shirt with her Hispanic last name on it. Thats why she was a target. Thing is, shes an American. She told the boy and, as far as we know, it ended there. Ive been told to go back to Mexico, too, lots of times. I used to smile and say, Im from here, and usually, The Deporters tone would change, imploring me to act, you know, American. But not anymore. The next time Im told to go back to Mexico, heres what Im going to say: MEXICO? Why? Ive never even visited Mexico, beyond the touristy border. Ive never taken a cruise to Cozumel, never followed the monarchs to Oaxaca, never seen the sights in Monterrey. Im a Texas girl. Youre stuck with me and I with you. I dont blame you for being confused, though. A lot of people assume that every Mexican-American is new here. Thats not the case for me. I was born an American. So was my dad. So was his mom. So was her dad. Im not sure about his folks, but thats going back in to the late 1800s. Anyway, you get where Im going. Or rather, where Im NOT going. I also understand your frustration. A lot of immigrants who have found their way to America, speaking a language you dont understand and changing the neighborhoods in ways that make you uncomfortable. Its not the America you grew up in. But you know what else theyre doing? Stuff a lot of Americans dont want to do. Its not that we cant; we just dont want to. We used to do all sorts of stuff for ourselves. My dad used to ride miles on his bike to throw newspapers, and hed summer with his cousins because he could work digging ditches in the big city. My father-in-law tells how he and his family built his brothers house from the ground up. They trimmed their own trees and built their own doghouses and fixed their own plumbing and wired their own floodlights. I fancy myself a DIYer, but I cant do any of that without a lot of help from YouTube, and Im afraid to attempt anything that might result in a trip to the ER. Im not alone. A lot of Americans like myself dont know how to cut a chicken into the eight pieces we get from Colonel Sanders. They dont know how to preserve vegetables picked in the summer to feed children in the winter. A few generations ago, this was Survival 101. But in our changing world, there are people we call to dig ditches and build houses for us, who work in canneries and meat-packing plants, and who feed American children in the winter and the summer and whenever we have to work late, building our careers. Except for the whole scary-immigrant thing, its a win-win. We just have to figure out a way to reform the system so they dont have to break the law to get to the jobs. And theyll keep following the jobs, because being without jobs is really hard right, Rust Belt? Anyway, its a changing world, but that blonde girl and me? Were up for the challenge because we are Americans and, well, weve got nowhere else to go. My guess is that The Deporter probably has no interest in hearing any of this and will have long since walked away. Im hunting for a new definition for being a loyal American. This is what it will be for me: Being American means knowing there are places so very dark that you cannot go even if a whole lot of your fellow Americans have given the green light. Being an American after Nov. 8 necessarily means recognizing the legitimacy of the Donald Trump presidency. It is tempting to say that this recognition should be offered in as precise measure as congressional Republicans and others recognized the legitimacy of the Obama presidency, but there is a difference between obstruction for obstructions sake and being the loyal opposition. If, for instance, President Trump nominates a qualified jurist for the Supreme Court, the Senate, now with more Democrats in it, should give him or her a fair hearing, and if that goes well, followed by confirmation. And if it doesnt go well, not. Nothing should be automatic. All should be negotiated. For the last eight years, there was no negotiation. This election was not a mandate. In fact, the election was indeed rigged by the Constitution, against the popular vote, which Hillary Clinton won. No, not rebellion, as in fisticuffs in the streets, but not precisely kumbaya either. Thats not what loyal opposition means. Reconciliation made more possible after folks concede not just who but what they voted for, even as they continue to insist, Yeah, but thats not me. One candidate spoke in indecent, denigrating, racial and sexist terms about fellow Americans. If youre on the receiving end of that, you try not to take it as a gut punch. Bigotry is as personal as it gets. Being American means fighting for the right things the right way. So, if a President Trump is indeed serious about stripping away the insurance coverage of 20 million Americans who didnt have it before, he must be resisted by any means, legal or parliamentary. He promises repeal and replace. And we should believe that replace part in a form that actually benefits Americans as much as we believe that his tax returns, had they been released, would have revealed him to be an astute businessman. In other words, no repeal unless there is a genuine replacement in place. He is backing off that wall minutely and mass deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants. But, lets be clear: Those stances are why a lot of people voted for him. So, now he promises to deport only 2 million to 3 million the criminals, he says. Sorry, if he goes beyond the folks already in the deportation pipeline, its simply not believable that he wont also ensnare the people he now belatedly says are terrific people apparently not all criminals and rapists after all. Resistance here as well. If Trump brings back torture, the congressional, legal and global reaction must be swift and resounding. If he initiates trade wars, Republican free-traders who couldnt find their values when it came to sexual assault and bigotry should be able to find them when it comes to constituents pocketbooks. If he seeks a ban on Muslim immigration, the legal challenges must be immediate. If his business dealings result in obvious conflicts of interest, if Trump University and the Trump Foundation are indeed revealed as scams, the congressional hearings should be as predictable as if they involved yet another newly found Clinton email. And if a President Trump spews racism and sexism with the same gusto as citizen Trump or candidate Trump, there should be zero tolerance. Zero. There also comes the new definition of being Mexican-American or Latino generally. Being these suddenly feels more fraught than before. How do you forget that rank bigotry against you and yours was rewarded by fellow Americans? Some day we might forgive, but we will never forget. And we shouldnt. Remembering should spark the kind of civic engagement needed in the elections ahead and not just by Latinos. Resistance is not futile. It is, in fact, required of Americans, especially if we are bidden by our president to those dark places. o.ricardo.pimentel@express-news.net Twitter: @oricardopimente Enchilada sauce offers another option for using pumpkin Here's a twist. Try using pumpkin when next time you make sauce for enchiladas. Place Your Advert Register or sign in to advertise your job Arla, the farmer-owned dairy company, is responding to the resurgence of organic in the UK with the launch of its first branded organic product, Arla Organic Farm Milk. The launch will see the farmer-owned business engage consumers in organic produce, through a comprehensive marketing campaign in the New Year. This year's Organic September has helped the organic market celebrate renewed growth over the past year, thanks to promotional and marketing support from the industry. Soil Association Certification, which certifies over 70% of all organic products sold in the UK, is announcing renewed growth beating last years sales data (according to supermarket figures) and further indicating that organic is now a core part of the market. The organic food industry in Western Europe and the US has been experiencing a prolonged period of high single-digit to low double-digit sales growthand, on the back of ongoing health, food safety, environmental and animal welfare concerns, and thinktank Rabobank expects this trend to continue. 'Food producers should increase their focus on organic, through new products and brands, or through the reformulation of existing products to help grow their top lines', the Rabobank report suggests. It states this transition will also help them to position themselves as 'responsible businesses'. 'Our organic story' Tomas Pietrangeli, managing director, Arla Foods UK said: Its a significant milestone in our growth agenda and enables us to start telling and showcasing our organic story. As the category is on the rise, we see lots of potential for us to drive more value into the milk category. Arla is the worlds largest producer of organic dairy products, with its farmers providing around 700 million litres of organic milk each year, including the UK, where it already produces own-label organic milk, cheese and butter. Tomas Pietrangeli continued: I have seen what can be achieved in other markets, such as Denmark, where up to 30 per cent of overall fresh milk sales are organic. The strategy has been focused on making organic more accessible to everyone, new product development and providing choice and availability. Clare McDermott, Business Development Director, from Soil Association Certification, said: We believe its a natural step for the worlds largest organic dairy producer. Organic farming has great benefits for animals, farmers and the environment and we have enjoyed working with Arlas farmer owners and colleagues to ensure the product upholds the highest animal welfare standards that organic brings. Retailer Asda has announced that it will stock Dale Farm Farmers Milk, an initiative which gives its customers the option to pay 25p extra in support of local dairy farmers. The initiative was developed after research revealed that 63% of consumers said they would willingly pay more for dairy products if they were assured the extra money goes back to farmers. The Northern Ireland launch follows on from the success of a similar scheme in the rest of the UK where Asda has partnered with Arla, the farmer-owned dairy co-operative, to supply the give a little back milk which has been well received by customers. Ulster Farmers' Union Deputy President Ivory Ferguson said the launch of Dale Farms Farmers Milk in Asda will provide a 'welcome boost' to local dairy farmers, as they enter the winter months when the cost of production is at its highest. "Asda's decision to commit to offering two litres of milk with 25 pence added to the price, all of which will be returned to farmers through Dale Farm, is a big leap forward in recognising the true value of local dairy products, Mr Ferguson said. Mr Ferguson added that farmers have struggled for almost two years, producing milk below the cost of production: This makes it all the more encouraging to see consumers being given the option to pay more, on the basis that the extra money goes back to farmers. The chancellor will deploy more than 1bn to boost broadband speeds for up to 2 million homes and businesses as part of an infrastructure plan to be outlined in the autumn statement. The current rural broadband roll-out is 'not sufficient' to meet the needs of most farmers, according to a report. The government has said it is committed to making the UK the 'best connected country in the world', but farmers are already being held back by poor connections. The report, published by the NFU, said it was vital for connections to be improved. 850 members responded to the NFU Digital Technology Survey, carried out during the summer of 2015. "I employ four people and in 50% of the farm we cant get in contact with each other over the mobile," said one farmer, "we sometimes have no connection, but on average have between 0.3 and 0.6 Mbps. "Our biggest hurdle is not being able to attract potential tenants to our converted sheds to offices, as the connection is too weak," said another respondent. Responding to calls from business for the government to back the digital economy, Chancellor Philip Hammond will back a 400m digital infrastructure fund, which the Treasury expects will be matched by private sector investors. He will also offer local authorities the chance to bid for a slice of a 740m fund to trial superfast 5G mobile networks, linking them to fibre-optic systems to provide greater wireless capacity. Farmers fear a monthly fee currently being debated by German dairy giant Muller to operate a new farmer board is a cut in their prices 'through the back door'. NFU Scotland milk committee chairman Graeme Kilpatrick was speaking of Muller proposals to introduce new contracts and charging a 10 monthly fee. He told the Scottish Farmer: "Farmers, especially those in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, are deeply concerned that there are more penalties than carrots regarding the proposed new board structure, with some fearing it is a price cut via the backdoor, with penalties for wrong production predictions rather than incentivising accuracy. "Given there is a rising market, and supply and demand is in farmers favour, there are question marks over the advantage of having a paid for board that cant negotiate on price. At the Kilmarnock meeting the current board couldnt tell producers why they should sign new contracts. "Some farmers are afraid to speak out in the forlorn hope of being awarded an aligned contract. Its going to be some time before anything is settled in black and white." Subscription Muller communication director Graeme Jack said their supply base has increased and the proposals seek to represent the increased membership. "Representatives will be nominated by their fellow farmers to serve as a farmer forum member on a one per 100 non-aligned producer basis with further representatives of our aligned group farmers. The forum will be responsible for electing the Muller Milk Group Board who meet the company on a monthly basis. "The subscription is estimated to be in the region of 10 per farmer per month but this would be determined by farmer forum members when this representative structure is put in place. It is important to stress that these funds would be subjected to appropriate accounting, goverance and audit procedures, with this information communicated to the MMG on an annual basis." Farmers in Northern Ireland need a strategy to stop them financially 'falling off the edge of a cliff' once the UK leaves the EU, the assembly has been told. A joint motion tabled by the Ulster Unionists and Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) demanded ministerial action to secure the long-term sustainability of the industry post-Brexit when 70% of EU funding benefits the rural sector in Northern Ireland. SDLP assembly member Patsy McGlone called on Agriculture Minister Michelle McIlveen to prevent farmers and the rural sector entering a situation that, by 2020, will leave them financially 'falling of a cliff.' "That has to be avoided at all costs and, irrespective of what people's views are in relation to Brexit or not to Brexit, we must at all costs avoid that situation." 'Regulated to death' Agriculture minister Michelle McIlveen said Brexit presented a new opportunity to adopt an independent UK agricultural policy But the DUP's Edwin Poots claimed farmers had voted 'overwhelmingly' for Brexit and it offered them opportunities, particularly to cut red tape so they could generate more income of their own. "Northern Ireland farmers voted overwhelmingly to get out of Europe and I think that's something this House needs to reflect upon when they have a debate coming forward on agriculture and rural affairs," he said. "Farmer after farmer after farmer was saying 'we want to get out of Europe' and why did they want to get out of Europe? Because over the period of the 45 years we were in Europe they managed to invent something like 2,800 different regulations affecting farming. "That's one for every week we were actually in Europe. They were regulated to death - farmers couldn't get on with the work they needed to do because they were so busy looking at the regulations, they were in fear of some mandarin coming to their farm as a result of the European regulations." 'Broken system' Agriculture minister Michelle McIlveen said Brexit presented a new opportunity to adopt an independent UK agricultural policy, saying the system already in use in Europe was broken: "My long-term aim for the industry is to promote a sustainable, competitive, high-performing, knowledge-based agri-food sector that is prosperous and compliant. "That means the sector will be more resilient to shocks and challenges, have high standards of animal health and welfare, deliver for the environment and have increased market access for agri-food products. "It's quite clear we are not going to have a system like the one we currently have and why would we copy a system that is broken and not working for many of our farmers? "This creates the opportunity for us to look at a different type of agricultural policy for the UK which will provide the necessary incentives for our farmers moving forward," Miss McIlveen concluded. Sales of antibiotics for use in animals in the UK are at a four-year low, putting the UK on track to meet ambitious targets to tackle antibiotic resistance, according to a government report. The government has published the latest UK-VARSS report revealing antibiotic sales data for 2015, showing the livestock sector is well on course to reach its overall target set for 2018. The headline figure is an overall 9% reduction, to 404 tonnes, in sales of antibiotics sold for use in animals, including companion animals, compared with 2014. This represents a four-year low. The figures show the pig sector played a major part in bringing about that overall reduction. Sales of products licensed for both pigs and poultry were down 23 tonnes to 212 tonnes, a 10% drop. Defra Minister for Rural Affairs and Biosecurity, Lord Gardiner, welcomed the reports findings, saying antibiotic resistance is the 'biggest threat' to modern medicine Sales of products licensed for pigs only were down an even more impressive 24%, a 16 tonne reduction to 50 tonnes, the biggest fall across all the sectors. Overall sales for antibiotic use in food-producing animals dropped 10% from 62 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) to 56mg/kg. This continues a ten-year downward trend and puts the UK on track to reach its 50mg/kg target by 2018. Sector specific targets are due to be agreed next year. The VARSS report also showed a drop in sales of the highest priority antibiotics that are critically important for humans. Sales of these made up just over 1% of all antibiotics sold for use in animals in 2015. UKs Chief Veterinary Officer, Nigel Gibbens, said those who work with animals 'have a key role to play' in the global fight against antibiotic resistance 'Pig sector is pulling its weight' The National Pig Association (NPA) has welcomed the 'encouraging' new data confirming a significant reduction in sales of antibiotics for use on pig farms. NPA chief executive Dr Zoe Davies said: We are encouraged by these figures, which show the pig sector is pulling its weight and is taking the challenge of reducing and refining antibiotic usage seriously. We fully expect to see further reductions in 2016 and are committed to meeting the challenge of new targets that come our way. We will continue to press for these to be workable and proportionate. Meanwhile, we will continue to push forward the key principles of our Antibiotic Stewardship Programme to drive further change. The report also highlighted the work the pig industry is doing to collect on-farm usage data via the electronic eMB-Pigs database. NPA senior policy advisor Dr Georgina Crayford reiterated the need for any farmers who have not yet done so to upload their data. Sales data can only tell us so much. Entering data onto eMB-Pigs is necessary to give us a more detailed understanding of the volume of antibiotics used on farm and how they are used. This, in turn, will help us agree reasonable reduction targets next year. 'ESBL enzymes' - resistant stuff The VARSS report also showed the results of research on resistance in E. coli isolated from pigs in 2015. But the NPA said it is slightly concerned about the findings of extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing E.coli. Bacteria that produce enzymes called ESBLs are resistant to many penicillin and cephalosporin antibiotics and often to other types of antibiotic. However, Dr Crayford added: We are comforted by the fact that ESBL genes found in E.coli from animals have in the past been different to the genes found in ESBL E.coli in human clinical cases, highlighting that the transfer of resistance from animals to humans is not a major concern. We are equally encouraged to see little to no resistance to 3rd and 4th generation cephalosporins and fluoroquinolones, critically important classes of antibiotics for human health, in Salmonella isolated from pigs. Dr Crayford said the VARSS report highlighted progress being made in reducing antibiotic use on pig farms but also contained pointers for the future. When it comes to setting further targets for the pig sector it is important to note that, while were committed to using antibiotics responsibly, reductions in antibiotic use will not necessarily result in a reduction in bacterial resistance. The key is to ensure that further development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) does not happen. We must also ensure that we do not compromise the health and welfare of our livestock, Dr Crayford concluded. Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to human health - experts believe if we do not take action it could be responsible for ten million deaths per year and cost the global economy $100 trillion by 2050. In September, the UK government announced plans to tackle it, including a commitment to significantly reduce antibiotic use in animals. President-elect Donald Trump has made big promises regarding illegal immigration, which was the signature issue of his campaign. From building a wall on the Mexican border to ending municipal sanctuary policies to removing illegal aliens, Trump has given himself a difficult job, laden with complex tactical and political considerations. What first steps can he reasonably take to demonstrate that he is serious about the issue? America is essentially addicted to illegal immigration. In the familiar formula, the Right craves cheap labor and the Left hungers for a large, reliable voting bloc. Like many addicts, the nation is unwilling either to admit the extent of its problem or do anything decisive about it. As a result, weve given millions of people a mixed message about whether theyll be able to stay here, and tacitly encouraged a two-track system of legal and illegal immigration. Trumps election gives America the opportunity to get real about illegal immigration. Therefore, the first thing Trump as president must dobefore laying one brick of the wallis communicate a consistent message of zero tolerance regarding unauthorized entry and residence in the United States. Australia is a good model. Beset by thousands of illegal immigrants from Asia, the Australian government waged an intensive advertising campaign with a clear message to would-be migrants: If you try to enter Australia illegally by boat, you will never be permitted to settle in the country. The island nation made good on its zero-tolerance line by outsourcing the processing of migrants to Papua New Guinea, where the social amenities often lag those of the migrants home countries. As a result, fewer boats have been interdicted, and fewer migrants have died at sea. Sending a clear message to the world that the rules have changed and that illegal immigration to the United States is no longer a viable solution for economic migrants should reduce the number of people willing to gamble on eventual amnesty. Trump has said that targeting criminal aliens for expedited removal is his top priority. There are between 800,000 and 2 million such individuals in the United States already, depending on whether legal permanent residents (green card holders) are included, and depending on what level of crime is considered serious enough to merit immediate deportation. Removing unlawfully present criminals from the homeland would be an obvious place to start. But U.S. immigration policy is so dysfunctional that an estimated 90,000 convicted criminal aliens have been placed in removal proceedings only to have their home countries refuse to take them back (China, Haiti, India, and Cuba are among the nations that have been recalcitrant in this regard). According to U.S. law, the State Department is required to stop issuing visas to such countries, but never does. As a result, these criminal aliens are simply released after a six-month waiting period, often committing additional crimes. It would be a simple matter, and in accordance with the law, for the State Department to issue a demarche to a country, demanding quick acceptance of its citizen, or risk the loss of visa privileges. Even fervent Trump supporters recognize the unlikelihood that the federal government will begin rounding up illegal aliens on the street for deportation. The logistical aspects of expelling millions of people in a humanitarian manner are enormous. Illegal aliens cant be summarily deported; they have the right to face an immigration judge; the current backlog in these cases can be years; and the country doesnt currently have the judicial infrastructure to deal with a much larger caseload. Furthermore, the Left, greatly embittered by Trumps win, is eager for confrontation. Calls for direct action and civil disobedience are circulating well ahead of Trumps inauguration. Discussions of reviving the Bush-era entry-exit registries for visitors from terrorism source-nations have been falsely labeled Muslim registries, and thousands of liberals are swearing that they will demand to sign their names to these imaginary lists. Any effort at deporting non-criminal aliens will be met with calculated resistance. The Trump administration should encourage such people to leave voluntarily. The Trump administration should also focus on employer-based enforcement, rather than targeting illegal-alien workers themselves. Its against the law knowingly to employ non-authorized individuals, and the federal government has made available to all employers a quick and free system to verify that people are legally allowed to work. E-Verify is currently a voluntary system, but the government could encourage its adoption by cracking down on employers who hire illegal workers. After a few such high-profile cases, with serious penalties ranging from heavy fines to jail time for repeat offenders, employers will become loath to hire illegals, who often use stolen identities. Shutting down possibilities for work will make life in America less attractive for them and encourage them to self-deport. The suggestions adumbrated above may seem harsh. But America has cynically established a kind of low-paid underclass, arguably to the detriment of a large, lesser-skilled segment of the citizenry. The election of Donald Trump has virtually ensured that some major policy shifts regarding the status of illegal immigrants are coming. The ones I have outlined are politically feasible and would incur the minimum of human suffering, while promoting the ideals of civic nationalism upon which Trump was elected. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images 'Brexit barrier': Sheep sector slams new rule for meat exports to EU - A strategic priority of Canadas export-dependent meat industry is competitive access to every country in the world, said Canadian Meat Council President Troy Warren. Per capita pork consumption is increasing in Argentina and the restoration of access to that market will represent another concrete step toward the realization of this longstanding and high priority industry objective, added Warren. The final step remaining in the process will be a visit to Canada by Argentinian food safety officials who will conduct an audit of Canadas meat inspection system. It is anticipated that, when achieved, the restoration of pork access to Argentina could result in exports of high quality Canadian cuts valued at approximately $16 million annually. Totaling 115 kilograms per capita, Argentina is one of the highest per capita consumers of animal protein in the world. Traditionally, pork (currently 14-15 kilograms per capita) has represented a comparatively limited proportion of animal protein consumption compared to beef and chicken. Recently, there has been a tendency toward increasing consumption of pork, a trend that the Argentinian Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and the Environment projects will result in a doubling of pork consumption between 2010 and 2020. Canadas meat processing industry includes some 400 federally registered establishments, providing safe, high quality protein for Canadian consumers as well as adding jobs and contributing to economic activity in both rural and urban communities across Canada. With annual sales of $24 billion, exports of $5.7 billion, and 65,000 jobs, the Canadian meat industry is the largest component of this countrys food processing sector. Source: Meatbusiness By Jim Rouse Final results of Iowas Official Variety Trials are now available to the public at www.croptesting.iastate.edu. Iowa Crop Performance Tests manages more than 20,000 plots at 30 locations across the state of Iowa, with more than 35 companies participating in the tests. Online users can view all entrants, the hybrids or varieties entered and the districts and tests in which the entries were placed. Users can also filter the information by district, GMO traits or maturity. All data tables in the reports are also available to download as Microsoft Excel files on the website. The Iowa Crop Performance Tests are the top-ranked provider of unbiased performance data among all Midwestern, self-supported public testing programs for both corn and soybeans. The testing program continues to provide growers information they need to make informed variety selection decisions. Quick access to harvest data is commonly cited as the most appreciated feature of the yield tests. Data reports also include two-year averages when applicable. Published results can be requested from Iowa State University Extension and Outreach county offices, the Iowa Crop Improvement Association, 515-294-6921, and the Extension Store, 515-294-5247. The Iowa Crop Improvement Association conducts the Iowa Crop Performance Tests in cooperation with the Iowa State University Department of Agronomy. The program offers unbiased, third party, on-farm information to Iowa growers. Source:iastate.edu The future of Fauquier Times now depends on community support. Your donation will help us continue to improve our journalism through in-depth local news coverage and expanded reader engagement. Support Audio Transcript Brian Anderson: Two weeks on, a lot of people are still in shock or are scratching their heads about Donald Trump's victory in the presidential race. But not City Journal contributing editor, Aaron Renn. I can personally attest to Aaron's early and astute understanding of the Trump phenomenon. He's with us today on 10 Blocks to talk about what he saw in Donald Trump and his campaign and how he thinks the President-elect might govern. Aaron, thanks for joining me, as always. Aaron Renn: Thank you. Brian Anderson: You said in your City Journal piece, which we posted the day after the election, that the Trump win was, in your words, the "most bravura performance in American electoral history." How did he pull it off? Aaron Renn: Well, he obviously tapped into a seam of anger that had really been going on in America for quite some time. It had been building and building and building and one of the things he was smart enough to do was to sense that this was the year that he could enter. You know, he's been talking about running for president since at least 1988, maybe before that, but he really sensed, I think, the anger out there, in the country. I come from a rural community in Southern Indiana and I was hearing it. I was hearing people who were lifelong Republicans talking about how much they hated the Republican Party and so Trump was able to, in part, tap into that. He also was able to tap into his massive brand recognition. People knew who he was. He was an incredibly media-savvy person. He's someone who has been in the tabloids in New York City, going back to maybe the 1970s, so he was an expert at dealing with the media. He had been building up a massive following on Twitter and was really a master of using social media to get his word out. And so he was able to take advantage of a number of things to basically be like a disruptive entrepreneurial entrant into the political marketplace that he saw was not serving - there was a market that was not being served. Brian Anderson: What role do you think the opioid crisis played in Trump's election? Aaron Renn: The opioid crisis - that's an interesting one. I do think it contributes to the sense of despair in many of these working class communities, where it is a symptom of this social breakdown that has occurred. A lot of these communities, like where I grew up, they were never prosperous communities. I mean, part of what it means to be working class is to have a little bit of a hardscrabble existence. But these communities were very socially intact. They were the kid of places, like where I grew up we literally left our doors unlocked. I mean that's not something that happened in the 50s - it happened in the 80s. We left - people left their keys in their car because someone might need to use it or might need to move it. Well, let's just say that's not happening today. And so there's been a tremendous social breakdown in these communities. It's very complex as to the cause. You could probably write a book trying to figure that out. But certainly that contributes to a feeling that things are out of control and heading the wrong way in these communities. Brian Anderson: Earlier this year you reviewed Hillbilly Elegy for City Journal. This is the book, bestselling book now, written by J.D. Vance, about his somewhat turbulent childhood in Appalachian Southern Ohio. The book was interpreted by many as an attempt to explain the appeal of Trump to people living outside the urban centers of New York or San Francisco and Washington D.C. You had a similar upbringing and you found a lot to appreciate in Hillbilly Elegy. But you're one of the few who didn't completely buy Vance's argument in that book. What did you like about Hillbilly Elegy and what rubbed you the wrong way? Or maybe that's putting it too strongly. Where did you have a difference with Vance? Aaron Renn: Well it's a great book. If you haven't read it - there's a reason it was a New York Times number one bestseller. He's got a very compelling life story growing up in Ohio as the child of Appalachian origins. What I saw in the kind of social breakdowns that he showed, the social and economic uncertainty was really, I think, a quite good way to sum up some of what's happening in these white, working class communities. He came at it - one of the things he did very well is he came at it from a standpoint of affection for these people. He's like these are actually my people. I am a hillbilly. I love my mamaw. I love these people. And yet, he, by virtue of having attended Yale Law School and kind of moved into the upper middle class, he has acquired a certain critical detachment from that community and thus was able to criticize it. And I think he does a good job of recognizing that this community has suffered outside blows that it didn't do anything to deserve, but on the other hand that a lot of its own decision making has been very bad and that you can't control what happens to you, but you do have some agency over how you respond to it. And too often, you know, they responded poorly to bad circumstances. Or, frankly, even to good circumstances, often squandering them. So that was very good. Where I sort of differed was, you know, he comes from an Appalachian background. Appalachia has sort of been a byword for dysfunction, frankly since before the Scots-Irish even arrived in the United States. They have kind of been known for that. And it's very different, like where Robert Putnam, who wrote the book Our Kids, growing up in Port Clinton, Ohio, what I experienced in Southern Indiana, we experienced communities that were, again, previously socially intact. So we have a living memory of successful working class communities, which is something that Vance didn't see. So I think he was maybe a little more inclined to blame his own community than I would be, because he was dealing with a community that had never really known success. Brian Anderson: Looking ahead, do you think that there are other politicians on the horizon who might be able to do what Trump had done, for better or worse, or was he a kind of unique phenomenon in American politics? Aaron Renn: That's a very good question. If you look throughout the Western world, there is a lot of dissatisfaction. Brian Anderson: We are seeing populous upheavals across the Western democratic world. Aaron Renn: Right. Yeah, we're seeing it with Brexit passing in the U.K. and then the rise of these populous politicians intercontinentally. There is a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction out there and can other politicians find a way to tap into that? I think it's possible. You know, Bernie Sanders, I often linked Trump and Sanders. You know, Sanders had a tremendous appeal to educated millennial youth, these sort of left-leaning campus types. I've spent time on college campuses and I would go there every single person was a Bernie supporter. Brian Anderson: I think he wound up getting, in the Democratic primaries, about 80% of the younger Democratic voters. Aaron Renn: Right. So he wasn't as talented, probably, a politician ultimately as Trump was. I mean this is a guy who said I'm not going to talk about Hillary's emails in a debate. I kind of consider the matter closed. He really didn't go on the attack in the ways that he could have. He probably would have been a quite formidable candidate. It'll be interesting to see what candidates do in the future to try to tap into this populous sentiment - if they try to tap into it or if they try a different strategy. Brian Anderson: Trump's success, as you've just noted, was at least significantly driven by his reaching rural voters, people who've felt left out of 21st century globalization. What about Trump and the urban voter or the urban scene? He is, of course, a city product himself, Trump. He's a hugely successful urban entrepreneur and real estate developer. What do you think his impact is going to be on cities and perhaps on the GOP's stance toward cities? Aaron Renn: Yeah, that's another very good question. You know, Trump is the most urban, will be the most urban president in the history of the United States. A lot was made about the fact that Obama was a very urban president, coming out of Chicago, living in Hyde Park. You know Trump was raised in Queens and lives in a skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. Now, he did not get much in the way of an urban vote. It seems that a lot of the progressive mayors and such are going to position themselves as a very strident opposition to him. They've had a lot of very, very strong statements against him, which of course is their right to do. I fully support that. But it might suggest there is going to be a bit of an adversarial relationship. Trump has tended to react pretty strongly to those who criticize him. But there are potential things that he could do for benefitting inner cities or downtown urban areas, the infrastructure plan being one. Here in New York City, for example, there's this Gateway Tunnel that we need to build, the new Amtrak tunnel under the Hudson River. We need a lot of investment in our subway infrastructure. So if urban leaders and Trump can put aside their differences, you know, politically, and work on things where they do agree, like infrastructure, there are certainly some possibilities for beneficial things to come out of it. Brian Anderson: Trump also did somewhat better among black voters than Romney did or George W. Bush did. In fact, I think he got at least, if exit polls are to be believed, twice the percentage of black votes and then a lot of black voters just stayed home, especially in places like Michigan, not terribly enthused about Hillary Clinton. Do you think that Trump might have a chance of expanding GOP support for, or I should say black support, for the GOP? Aaron Renn: Well, blacks have been a reliable Democratic voting block for a long time. It was almost inevitable that Trump was going to do better than Romney did. We had America's first black president, Barack Obama, who is also an exceptionally talented politician in his own right. I mean he came in as the upstart and beat Hillary in 2008, so to some extent it was due for a correction. Certainly black America, if working class white America has been doing poorly, then you know black America has been doing even worse in terms of economic performance. There's been a lot of erosion of black wealth in the housing crisis, particularly in many suburban communities. So I think there's a lot of work to be done. I do think it's very urgent that we try to, try everything we can to include black America, integrate black America into mainstream economic success. Whether that will turn into - even if Trump were successful at that, you know, reversing, you know, that longstanding identification of blacks in the Democratic party. That's not a one-term project, that's something that would require a long time to reverse. Brian Anderson: What do you see as the potential pitfalls going into a Trump administration? What mistakes, in your view, should he aim to avoid, above all? Aaron Renn: Well, I would say he obviously needs to look at the style in terms of his style was extremely effective in the campaign, and so I am not as down on his rough and tumble style as some might have been as a campaigner, because frankly that's what it took for him to win. It was effective and it worked. Governing is a very different matter. So dealing with foreign leaders, being able to work with the you know, opposition in Congress, maybe even people who are stridently criticizing him. Not that he's going to all of a sudden become mister nice guy, but certainly I think the risk is, you know, how does he pivot from the campaign mode into governing mode? His book was called The Art of the Deal, so we'll see what kind of a dealmaker he turns out to be in practice. Brian Anderson: Thanks very much, Aaron. Aaron's work can be found in our regular issues of City Journal and on our website, City-Journal.org. We'd also love to hear your comments about today's episode on Twitter, @CityJournal, with the hashtag #10Blocks. Lastly, if you like our show and want to hear more of it, please leave ratings and reviews on iTunes. Thanks for listening and thank you again, Aaron, for joining us. Aaron Renn: Thank you. Two 14-year-old boys have been charged in connection with having a gun at Unity Reed High School in Manassas this week. The gun was not brandished toward other students and was not part of an High schooler arrested in fatal pedestrian hit-and-run in Fayetteville An 18 year old was charged Monday in the death of Mark E. Morris after she allegedly hit him with her car Oct. 28 and fled the scene. In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome! Since the FCPA Blog started tracking the ten biggest FCPA enforcement actions more than six years ago, most companies appearing on the list have been from outside the United States. Right now, seven of the top ten FCPA cases involve non-U.S. firms. At one time a few years ago, nine of the top ten were foreign companies. The enforcement pattern has stayed the same. Currently on the list of the biggest FCPA cases of all time are Siemens (Germany), Alstom (France), BAE (UK), Total SA (France), VimpelCom (Holland), Snamprogetti Netherlands B.V. / ENI S.p.A (Holland/Italy), and Technip SA (France). Heres the point. When FCPA critics say the law unfairly puts American companies at a disadvantage, theyre wrong. Because theyre missing the huge impact enforcement against foreign companies has had. The modern era of FCPA enforcement started with the $800 million action against Siemens in late 2008. That case shocked the big foreign companies who operated in a culture of systemic bribery. Since then, the parade of big FCPA enforcement actions against foreign companies has continued to erode the complacency. Every year more companies outside the United States adopt real compliance programs, from the global behemoths to the local shops deep in the supply chain. On a national level, the FCPA has led once-recalcitrant countries to enact and enforce their own anti-bribery laws. French companies appear three times on the current FCPA top ten list. This month France adopted legislation against overseas bribery. Holland is on board with big-time enforcement. The UK Bribery Act, just five years old, is impacting international business on a scale similar to the FCPA. The FCPA also works on a personal level. Younger generations of bankers and business people and the professionals who support them dont want to be corrupt. They want to be ethical. Talk to them in Indonesia, Brazil, China, Nigeria, Hungary, Colombia, and so on. The grassroots culture shift from crooked to clean is obvious. The FCPA is the reason. It explodes very publicly the myth that international business has to be dirty and that only bent executives and professionals can prosper. Tom Firestone, who served for eight years as the DOJ resident legal adviser at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, said he watched the emergence of a compliance culture in Russia, of all places. [B]y 2013 Russia had adopted a law essentially requiring companies to have compliance programs. The current Russian-language version of Wikipedia contains an entry on komplayens (in Cyrillic transliteration), which states: Today, compliance with standards (komplayens) is an area of professional activity that has been brought to Russian organizations by major Western companies. Firestone continues, While working at Embassy Moscow, I taught classes on the FCPA for a local law school that offers a U.S. master of laws (LLM) degree. The classes were attended primarily by young Russian lawyers working in Russian companies or law firms, or Russian branches of international companies and law firms. After lectures, students often approached me with questions about the FCPA implications of transactions that they were working on. On several occasions, they told me that they had used what they learned in the course to persuade their clients or employers not to proceed with possibly corrupt transactions. In other words, bribes were not paid because of the FCPA. My experience first as a lawyer and now as editor of the FCPA Blog has mirrored Firestones. Young people from nearly every high-risk country have told me how the FCPA inspired them to believe the fight against graft is worthwhile and winnable. Theyre right. So the next time someone says the FCPA hurts U.S. business, dont believe it. Remember instead how the FCPA is levelling the international playing field for every American who wants to do business in an ethical way. Thats what real winning looks like. _____ Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. Anna Faris has been fined $5,000 after her pet dog was found homeless. Anna Faris' dog Pete (c) Facebook The 39-year-old actress has been dished out the penalty after the Chihuahua - named Pete - she adopted from Kinder4Rescue four years ago was found emaciated wandering the streets in North Hollywood, California, on Friday (18.11.16). Writing on the Kinder4Rescue official Facebook page, Laurel Kinder - who runs the rescue centre - wrote in a since-deleted post: "Calling Anna Faris house bunny The puppy you adopted from us years ago was found starving on the street. Someone brought it into a vet, scanned the microchip, we've been calling you for days no return call did you read your contract about giving our dogs away and the $5,000 fine. "If you were panicking looking for your lost dog you certainly would've contacted us or the microchip company. I'm not sure what you're guilty of this dog ended up in this condition, you signed a four page contract how does this dog end up on the street Anna, being a celebrity does not excuse you from following the rules or respecting the rescue you adopted the dog from, or abiding the contract. This is why people are not allowed to give Kinder4Rescue dogs away they have adopted from us because they become disposable get passed around and end up on the street like this (sic)." Anna and her husband Chris Pratt, with whom she has four-year-old son Jack, are reportedly out of town and arranged for the dog to live elsewhere, although it's not yet known whether that arrangement was permanent or temporary while they were away. Her representative told People: "Anna is thrilled that the dog has been found, and is ensuring all necessary arrangements are made to bring the dog home." However, according to TMZ, Laurel has put the actress on the shelter's do-not-adopt list and is adamant Anna - who signed a lengthy contract when she got the pooch - will have to prove she's been actively looking for the dog before she'll be able to get out of the fine. It's not yet known if the shelter is willing to hand Pete back over to the couple. Georgia Fowler cried for 48 hours "nonstop" when she was asked to model in Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Georgia Fowler The 24-year-old model - who was signed to an Australian modelling agency at 12 years old - has admitted it was a "huge" moment for her when she was told she would be gracing the runway for the lingerie giant's highly anticipated catwalk show in Paris, France, on December 5. Speaking to Australia's Harper's Bazaar website, the brunette beauty said: "It was such a pinch-me moment, I still can't really believe it actually. I cried nonstop for like 48 hours and I'm going to cry now." And the star has revealed her mother couldn't stop the water works either. Speaking about her parents reaction, she said: "She was crying. It was huge - I have been going for it for five years, so it has been a long time coming." However, Georgia has admitted it "sucks" not being around her family all the time, and not being able to have them at home with her when she receives big news. She explained: "It sucks not being around family, especially when you get big news and there isn't really anyone who can come over and share those moments with you. Or on Sunday nights when you don't want to go out or drink and you just want to slump around the house and you don't have your family to be around." Meanwhile, Georgia has revealed it's a "dream" being able to walk alongside fellow models and Victoria's Secret Angels who she has admired since she was a child. She said: "There are going to be so many amazing girls around me. "These are the girls who were on the cover of my diary when I was at high school and now I'm going to be doing it with them. I still can't really believe it, it's such a dream." Amber Heard has had a $10 million lawsuit filed against her by the producers of her film 'London Fields'. Amber Heard The 30-year-old actress - who starred in the crime/thriller drama film as Nicola Six, a promiscuous physic - is facing legal action for allegedly breaching "performance and promotional obligations". Over a year ago, 'London Fields' debuted at the Toronto Film Festival and tongues were sent wagging by the no-show of many of the movie's stars. The movie was then mired in legal action as director Mathew Cullen sued Christopher Hanley's Nicola Six Limited company for fraud, claiming producers hijacked the final cut of the movie changing it from his vision. However, Hanley hit back with counterclaims accusing Cullen of failing to deliver the film - based on British writer Martin Amis' novel of the same name - on budget and on time. On Monday (21.11.16), the new lawsuit was filed against Heard at Los Angeles Superior Court accusing the blonde star of not fulfilling her contracted duties either on set or on the promotional tour and of conspiring with Cullen to violate his contractual agreements. The filed paperwork states: "While the inherent tension between actors and directors (on the one hand) and producers (on the other) is nothing new in Hollywood, the unauthorised and unlawful acts of Heard, Cullen, and others - most notably, their campaign to damage Plaintiff, the Picture, and the Picture's investors - are perhaps unprecedented. Indeed, as a result of their misconduct, which continues to this day, the very promising Picture remains in limbo, hijacked and placed under a cloud by Heard, Cullen, and others." The lawsuit also states that after the movie had been submitted to the Sundance Film Festival in 2014, Heard - whose ex-husband Johnny Depp also appears in the film - got into an argument with Nicola Six Limited over the use of nude scenes in the final cut. The papers state: "In an effort to intimidate Nicola Six, Heard falsely claimed to Nicola Six that she had not contractually agreed to allow the use of nudity in the Picture. Heard also falsely claimed that she had not granted Nicola Six the right to the results and proceeds of her acting services in the Picture. "As a result of Heard's refusal to comply with her contractual obligations - including her improper refusal to act in provocative scenes contained in the pre-approved script - key scenes in the script had to be removed and/or rewritten to accommodate Heard's behaviour." The lawsuit also claims that Heard refused to participate in dialogue replacement and then in mid-2015 she along with her castmates Depp and Billy Bob Thornton allegedly forwarded their correspondence with Hanley to Amis a violation of her agreement not to disclose confidential information about the project. Hanley and the other producers are seeking a minimum of $10 million in compensatory damages. Sarah Shahi has been added to the cast of 'Hangman'. Sarah Shahi The 36-year-old actress, who has starred in 'Fairly Legal', 'Person of Interest' and 'The Sopranos', will join Al Pacino, Karl Urban and Brittany Snow for Johnny Martin's crime thriller, in which she is set to play police Captain Lisa Watson. The film's script, written by Michael Caissie and Charles Huttinger, is centered on a homicide detective, played by Pacino, who joins forces with a criminal profiler (Urban) to catch a serial killer whose crimes are inspired by popular children's game Hangman. Michael Mandelsohn, of Patriot Pictures and Union Patriot Capital Management produces the film alongside Cheyennne Enterprises' Arnold Rifkin. Martin, who helmed 'Vengeance: A Love Story' starring Nicolas Cage and Don Johnson, is directing the movie. Meanwhile, Etchie Stroh, who worked on films 'The Promise' and 'Afterglow' is executive producer and will represent the film for international sales at the American Film Market, with Union Patriot Capital funding the project. In a previous interview discussing the cast, Martin said: "It's every director's dream to work with Al Pacino. Brittany Snow brings a fresh, instinctual presence to the production, while Karl Urban's strength, instinct, and versatility heighten the action and this genre. This film is amazing and will appeal to a wide audience." Shooting for 'Hangman' was scheduled to start on November 17 in Atlanta. Sir Stanley Wells CBE has received his knighthood from Prince Charles. Prince Charles The 86-year-old Shakespearian scholar was honoured with the title by the Prince of Wales, 68, during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on Friday (18.11.16). The knighthood was in recognition of his work for the Shakespearian scholarship. Of the honour, he said: "It was a truly special day and I was very honoured and proud to have received this award from Prince Charles. "I feel most fortunate in having been able to spend so much of life int he company of Shakespeare and those who admire and enjoy his works. "Throughout my career as a teacher and scholar I have enjoyed and benefitted enormously from collaborating with fellow scholars from all over the world." Peter Kyle, the chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, said: "We are delighted to hear that Professor Wells' outstanding services to Shakespeare have been recognised by Her Majesty The Queen in the Birthday Honours List. Stanley's knighthood comes at a particularly wonderful time in the year marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's creative legacy. "We offer him the warmest congratulations on this very prestigious honour." Stanley is a Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham, the editor of Oxford and Penguin editions of Shakespeare's work and maintains various other roles including being the Honorary Emeritus Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company, which Charles is a patron of. Sri Lanka's budget 2017 that focuses on strengthening the country 's economy lists out multiple benefits for the apparel and textile sector. Presenting the budget, finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said that the government has proposed the formation of a textile cluster to include sizing, dyeing and finishing units by the private sector. The government will support the formation of a textile cluster by providing investment relief to businesses that will invest in this venture and will also provide adequate space to save close to $2,000 million per annum. While the apparel and textile industry of Sri Lanka exported products worth $4,800 million in 2015, it imported fabrics worth $2,296 million in the same year. Garment exporters will also be granted permission to import branded products by enterprises for reworking, operating under the commercial hub regulation. These garments will then be exported to countries where there is no preferential treatment, said the government. Sri Lanka's budget 2017 that focuses on strengthening the country's economy lists out multiple benefits for the apparel and textile sector. Presenting the budget, finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said that the government has proposed the formation of a textile cluster to include sizing, dyeing and finishing units by the private sector. # The textile and handloom industry of Sri Lanka has a significant domestic market and will generate employment for many. The Industrial Development Board (IDB) will provide the necessary infrastructure and training. The board has also been requested to increase engagement with the industrialists who require knowledge transfer and upgrade the industrial estates to support the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector. The government has proposed to allocate Rs 500 million towards this sector. The government will also allow apparel companies based in Sri Lanka to invest in overseas entities involved in apparel design and manufacture up to 5 percent of their average export turnover of the preceding three years in any given year. Profits and income of such enterprises established overseas should be received by the investing company in Sri Lanka. As multiple industries including textiles, require thousands of trained workers, the finance minister of the country proposed a significant shift in the policy framework in vocational training, by providing scholarships to anyone who wishes to follow a vocational training programme at a state operated institution. This will enable vocational training in Sri Lanka for all at no cost. A sum of Rs 300 million will be allocated by the government to meet the cost of the scholarships to be provided under this programme. (KD) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India Shahid On Bumping Into Kareena "Yes, I did bump into her, and it was heartwarming to see her fully pregnant, because I've just been through [that experience of] having a baby. I felt happy for her. I asked her when she was due, and she told me it is sometime next month. She also asked about Misha. So, it was very nice," told Shahid. Shahid On His Issues With Ranveer Singh When asked about his much-hyped issues with Ranveer, Shahid told, "Yes, there were some issues, but they've all been sorted out. The right team has come together to make this film and everybody is very excited. And there are no personal issues with anybody." Shahid Admits Being Overprotective Of Baby Misha "Whenever we meet someone who also has a three or four-month-old baby, I go ahead and say, Misha bhaiya ko hello bolo (laughs) [Misha, say hello to your elder brother]'. So I'm quite crappy like that. Mera abhi se chalu ho gaya hai [I have already started being too protective]." Shahid On The Padmavati Trio "I feel Ranveer is the best guy to play Alauddin Khilji, as it's a very demanding character. I think Deepika is the best Padmavati that anybody could have thought of. And I really do think I'm a great cast for Rawal Ratan Singh." Shahid On How Fatherhood Has Changed Him "I don't feel like leaving home, and that's a new feeling for me. I can spend the whole day at home with Misha and Mira, and that in itself is a day well spent. This thought never resonated with my personality before. So that's a big change for me." Shahid On Working With Mr Bhansali "It's a great opportunity. I am excited, nervous and I hope I do what Sanjay sir requires of me. What makes me the happiest is that I am able to rediscover myself as an actor, in terms of the genre and the character." In Star Plus' latest offering, Pardes Mein Hai Mera Dil, Dadi takes an instant liking towards Naina (Drashti Dhami) because of her honesty. Naina backfires Rajiv and Chanchal's plan to trick Veer and loot money from the Mehras. Later, Naina hears Veer talking ill about his Dadi and confronts him regarding the same. Dadi admires Naina's behaviour and appreciates her for teaching her grandchildren a lesson. (Check out the latest spoiler below). Dadi Arrives To Meet Naina In the upcoming episode, Dadi arrives to meet Naina with the 'shagun' and puts forth the marriage proposal. Naina is shocked and refuses to accept the proposal initially, as she is nursing a heartbreak. Raghav Convinces Naina Naina will be convinced by Raghav to accept the proposal, by assuring that Veer will never betray her. After much thought, Naina will say 'yes' for the proposal. Upon hearing this, Dadi will dance in joy. Veer Agrees With Hidden Intentions Surprisingly, Veer who dislikes Naina will agree to marry her. He also wants to show his entire family that Naina works as a waitress in a pub. In reality, he actually intends to go for a contract marriage with Naina. Raghav Arranges For A Date Raghav happily arranges a date for Veer and Naina. Chanchal asks Naina to shed her traditional avatar and makes her wear a short black dress for the date. Veer Ditches Naina As per the latest spoiler, Veer will not turn up for the date. It is Raghav who will give her company for the day. The duo will end up spending good time with each other. New Promo The new promo of the show is out. As per the promo, Veer will hand over the marriage contract papers to Naina and asks her to sign it, by telling that the property in his name belongs to just him, in case there is a trouble in their marriage. Naina Heartbroken Naina will be heartbroken for the second time and refuses to marry Veer. Raghav will turn out to be her support during the tough time. Will love blossom between the two? Wait and watch. In The Last Episode... Dadi gives Naina, a 'shagun' out of affection, but Naina accepts it when Dadi insists her. Raghav tells Dadi that, Naina is a nice girl and was dumped by her fiance. He even tells her that, she is working as a waitress to arrange for her tickets to go back to India. Later, Dadi gets to know that, Naina has given all the shagun money as a donation and is even more impressed with her and admires Naina for the same. On the other hand, Raghav is donating blood in the hospital, but is scared of the injection. Naina arrives to help and diverts his attention elsewhere. Raghav realizes this and thanks her. Chanchal and Rajiv decide to play a trick on Dadi to make some money. Chanchal moves smartly and makes Dadi talk to Naina's mother, Asha. Asha, who is restless upon knowing that Amit has betrayed Naina, is consoled by Dadi. She announces Naina's alliance with her grandson, Veer which makes Asha, happy. The Mehras are not happy with Dadi's decision either. But, Dadi says her decision is final, much to Veer's disappointment. Also read: Arjun Bijlani & Aparna Dixit Clarify Their Link-Up Rumours; Says They Are Just Good Friends! What will happen next? Stay tuned to know... CHICAGO (dpa-AFX) - Boeing (BA) said it appointed Kevin McAllister as president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, succeeding company Vice Chairman Ray Conner in that role. The company also appointed Stanley Deal president and CEO of Boeing Global Services, a new business unit to be formed from the customer services groups within the company's existing commercial airplanes and defense, space and security business units. McAllister joins Boeing from GE Aviation. Deal is a veteran Boeing executive. Conner, 61, will continue to serve as Boeing vice chairman through 2017. He will work closely with McAllister in the months ahead on a purposeful hand-off of customer, supplier, and community and government relationships, and to ensure continuity of operations and customer support. Boeing Global Services is slated to begin fully operating as the company's third major business unit by the third quarter of 2017, with a small core headquarters group based in Dallas, where Aviall currently has a sizeable presence. Deal and McAllister join Caret as business unit leaders reporting directly to Dennis Muilenburg the Chairman, President and CEO of Boeing. They also become members of the company's Executive Council. The appointments are effective today. McAllister, 53, joins Boeing after 27 years with GE Aviation, where he served since 2014 as president and CEO of GE Aviation Services. Before that, as vice president and general manager of global sales and marketing since 2008, he was credited with delivering record backlog growth for the nearly $25 billion GE business. 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. BERLIN, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --(HealthTech Wire / News) - The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and the College of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME) announced a pivotal agreement to jointly partner on all programs and professional communities outside of North America. Through HIMSS-CHIME International, healthcare information technology's (HIT) two most visible and successful non-profit organizations will work collaboratively and strategically to transform healthcare across the globe. HIMSS-CHIME International will offer exclusive HIT executive boot camps, leadership academies, certifications and events. Professional credentials will include the CHIME Certified Healthcare CIO (CHCIO) and the HIMSS Certified Professional in Health Information Management Systems (CPHIMS). The new partnership reflects a growing recognition that health IT leaders are seeking opportunities to grow their careers, and are eager to share best practices as they strive to improve patient care around the world. Since 2006, HIMSS has extended its global reach through the growth of its membership, events, media and analytics through the establishment of offices in the UK, Germany and Singapore. The collaboration announced today leverages the full global infrastructure established by HIMSS to support an enhanced offering of HIT executive content through over 30 major physical events, membership communities and digital content distribution channels. "The establishment of HIMSS-CHIME International demonstrates an absolute commitment by both organizations to engage HIT executives on an unparalleled scale," said H. Stephen Lieber, President and CEO of HIMSS. "CHIME's healthcare executive content perfectly complements the events, communities, analytics and content offerings of HIMSS." Russell Branzell, President and CEO of CHIME added: "The establishment of HIMSS-CHIME International stems from our already successful Healthcare CIO Boot Camps and Executive Leadership Academies that we partnered with HIMSS to produce, beginning in 2015. We look forward to reaching a significantly larger audience by working jointly with HIMSS and our international volunteer ambassadors." HIMSS-CHIME International will be formally unveiled at the HIMSS World of Health IT event which is expected to be one of the most influential and innovative Pan-European eHealth events, and is taking place in Barcelona on 21-22 November 2016. Story Highlights: The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and the College of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME) announced a pivotal agreement to jointly partner on all programs and professional communities outside of North America. HIMSS-CHIME International will offer exclusive HIT executive boot camps, leadership academies, certifications and events. Russell Branzell , President and CEO of CHIME added: "We look forward to reaching a significantly larger audience by working jointly with HIMSS and our international volunteer ambassadors." Source: HealthTech Wire PARIS (dpa-AFX) - Acorda Therapeutics Inc. (ACOR) has decided to discontinue the development of Dalfampridine for treatment of post-stroke walking difficulties, following disappointing results from its trial, dubbed MILESTONE. Although the study indicated there was activity related to walking in people with post-stroke walking difficulties, clinically meaningful efficacy was demonstrated by Dalfampridine to warrant further development. Dalfampridine, under brand name Ampyra, was approved by the FDA in 2010 to improve walking ability in people with multiple sclerosis. The drug garnered net sales of $436 million last year and $128.8 million in the third quarter ended September 30, 2016. The company expects net sales of Ampyra in 2016 to range between $475 million and $485 million. ACOR closed Monday's trading at $20.40, down 4.23%. GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) and Innoviva Inc. (INVA) have filed a New Drug Application in the U.S. for the Closed Triple for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The Closed Triple is a combination of Fluticasone furoate, Umeclidinium and Vilanterol in a single ELLIPTA inhaler. The Closed Triple is also being explored for the treatment of symptomatic asthma. The companies plan to seek approval for the Closed Triple in this indication in 2018. INVA closed Monday's trading at $10.92, up 0.09%. Genmab A/S' (GNMSF.OB) supplemental Biologics License Application for the use of DARZALEX in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone, or bortezomib and dexamethasone, for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma has been greenlighted by the FDA. The decision comes nearly 7 months ahead of the decision date of June 17, 2017. Janssen Biotech Inc. has an exclusive worldwide license to develop, manufacture and commercialize DARZALEX. DARZALEX was initially approved by the FDA in November 2015 for the monotherapy treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least three prior lines of therapy, including a proteasome inhibitor (PI) and an immunomodulatory agent, or who are double-refractory to a PI and immunomodulatory agent. GNMSF.OB closed Monday's trading at $177.50, unchanged from the previous day's close. The FDA has approved Sanofi's (SNY) combo drug Soliqua, known generically as iGlarLixi, for the treatment of adults with type 2 diabetes inadequately controlled on basal insulin or lixisenatide. An FDA panel in May of this year had voted 12 to 2 backing this diabetes combo drug. Soliqua is a fixed-ratio combination of Lantus and lixisenatide, which was approved in the U.S. in July this year under the brand name Adlyxin. Soliqua is expected to be available in U.S. retail pharmacies in January 2017. Earlier in November, the Committee for Medicinal Product for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency recommended approval of iGlarLixi under brand name Suliqua. A formal decision by the European Commission is expected in the coming months. Invented by Zealand Pharma, lixisenatide is licensed to Sanofi, which finances all development, manufacturing and marketing costs for lixisenatide. SNY closed Monday's trading at $40.16, up 0.32%. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de Regulatory News: NextStage (Paris:NEXTS), an investment company that specialises in long-term investments in MSCs1 (Mid-Sized Companies), announces the registration of its document de base with the French Financial Markets Authority ("AMF") under No. I. 16-077 dated 21 November, 2016. The registration of the document de base is the first step towards an initial public offering of NextStage's shares on the regulated market of Euronext Paris, subject to market conditions and to preliminary regulatory requirements, including the AMF's approval of the prospectus to be prepared in respect of the contemplated offering. NextStage specialises in long-term investments in MSCs2 NextStage, which was founded in March 2015, is an investment company and platform that enables entrepreneurs and investors to meet one another. NextStage provides an innovative solution for equity investments in mid-sized companies (MSCs) based in France and Europe. It grants access to a category of assets that is unlisted and hard to access, which offers growth and performance. NextStage invests with no time limit (or "patient capital"), in order to support MSCs over the long-term and provide them with all the equity capital resources necessary from both a strategic and operating standpoint, so that they become the leaders on their market. NextStage identifies and selects talented entrepreneurs at the head of companies with a tried and tested business model, and which have a significant growth potential. The aim is to drive the growth of leading MSCs via boosting their equity capital, on the basis of one or several of the four fundamental cross-sector trends arising from the 3rd Industrial Revolution, e.g. the economy linked to the value of our emotions and to the quality of the customer experience, the industrial Internet, the on-demand and sharing economy3, and positive growth (or green growth). NextStage is a Partnership Limited by Shares (a "Societe en commandite par actions"), where the sole Managing Partner (the "Gerant") is NextStage AM, a Management Company founded in 2002, and authorised by the AMF4. NextStage relies on NextStage AM's know-how, and on the expertise of its Partner Managers, Gregoire Sentilhes, Jean-David Haas, Vincent Bazi, and Nicolas de Saint Etienne. NextStage drives value creation thanks to innovation, internationalisation, external growth, and strengthening the teams from an operating standpoint by relying on a strong entrepreneur-investor culture: NextStage AM's partner managers combine their experience as business founders and equity investors in Europe, as well as in the United States and Asia. NextStage's share capital has been held by major institutional investors since the outset, including Amundi, AXA, advised by Ardian, the French Insurance Management Fund (FGA), and well-known private investors such as Artemis and Tethys, together with NextStage AM's founding partners. These shareholders, who are confident in the company's prospects, have actively supported its development strategy, which is based on MSCs that are part of the 3rd Industrial Revolution, since its foundation. NextStage has opted for the tax status of a venture-capital company ("Societe de capital-risque"), in order to benefit from the favourable tax arrangements attached to that status in the event that profits or capital gains are generated5. It is specified that the tax status attached to venture-capital companies allows for a tax exemption or reduction on certain proceeds and capital gains distributed by the venture-capital company, subject to certain conditions, including a five-year holding period (for further information, please see Section 4.3.4 "Risks relating to the arrangements for venture-capital companies" of the document de base). Furthermore, in view of the Company's specific features and of the tax arrangements applicable to the holding period for its shares, it is likely that the Company's shares will enjoy a low level of liquidity. It is also appropriate to note that the Company's shareholders may be diluted as a result of the issuance or conversion of preferred shares. Lastly, NextStage does not intend to pay dividends over the coming years, in order to reinvest those dividends within the Company. Gregoire Sentilhes, the Chairman of NextStage, made the following comments: "We have built an innovative platform with NextStage, which enables us to support entrepreneurs over the long-term, while offering investors ongoing liquidity. Our approach is in line with an overall and consistent view intended to finance the development, and drive the growth of MSCs that are positioned on the trends of the 3rd Industrial Revolution in France and Europe. It is among these MSCs, which represent between 30% and 40% of European GDP on average, that we find the best performing operators in terms of competitiveness and job creation. However, their main challenge is to finance their growth by boosting their equity capital. We are currently seeing an inflection point in the structure for financing the economy in Europe, and particularly in France; the structure is becoming closer to the US model, which involves fewer intermediaries, more equity, and is more market-driven. This trend is reflected in lower recourse to financing growth via debt, and greater recourse to equity investment. At NextStage, we provide unique strategic and operating value-added, which enables us to create value for both entrepreneurs and investors as part of a virtuous circle". The neglected growth potential of French and European MSCs MSCs are the best performing operators in terms of competitiveness and job creation, thanks to their flexibility from an innovation standpoint, and their ability to penetrate global markets. Accordingly, among the 140,700 MSCs based in the four largest European economies, i.e. Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, around 39,000 MSCs, including 8,800 in France, have a growth rate that is three times higher than their country's economic growth rate6, and have the potential to become leaders on their market. However, these European MSCs lack equity capital. By investing with no time limits ("patient capital" investment), NextStage's role is to provide the entrepreneurs at the companies that it supports over the long-term with the necessary equity capital resources. By remaining systematically represented, and playing an active role in the governance systems of the companies in which it invests7, NextStage also supports these companies from a strategic and operating standpoint, in order to enable them to become the future leaders on their markets. A new approach to equity investment in MSCs, via an entrepreneur-investor strategy NextStage offers a new approach to equity investment in MSCs, thanks to: Unique value creation via "patient capital": investing with no time limits enables the Company to drive growth at MSCs over the long-term, and to maximise value creation for investors; The tried and tested know-how of the NextStage AM teams in terms of selecting, and driving growth at MSCs. The NextStage AM teams have raised 510 million since the management company was founded in 2002, and have made 107 investments in both unlisted and listed companies. The exit multiple for listed investments has been 1.94 times, while the exit multiple for unlisted investments has been 1.85 times since early 2009 8 Over the past 15 years, the NextStage AM team has built a virtuous entrepreneurial ecosystem, which feeds a substantial deal flow, most often without any intermediaries (involving 300 deals on average every year compared with only 5 to 10 investments made every year, following a thorough selection process); Close alignment between the interests of NextStage, entrepreneurs, and investors: a light cost structure with sliding management fees9, dividends and capital gains that are reinvested and capitalised within NextStage, in order to maximise their value, and lastly, a carried interest10, which strengthens the alignment between the investment team and shareholders. A portfolio that already includes 8 investments made in 16 months, and a Net Asset Value of 117.9 million as at 30.09.2016 NextStage has built a portfolio of eight companies in just 16 months. First, NextStage selects talented entrepreneurs at the head of companies where the business model is tried and tested and robust, and which have significant growth potential. The investment consists almost exclusively in equity capital (shares or convertible bonds), while the use of leverage is nil or limited. The amount invested may range between 4 million11 and 40 million. NextStage is systematically represented, and plays an active role in the governance system of the companies in which it invests12 All of the companies in NextStage's portfolio, where an investment has been made on the basis of a weighted average EV/EBITDA13 multiple of less than 6 times, are listed in an Appendix to this press release. These companies generated average revenues of 38.6 million in 2015, and reported an average revenue growth rate of 25.3%. All of the companies offer strong growth potential over the coming years. NextStage's NAV amounted to 117.9 million as at 30 September 2016, i.e. 100.228 per share, including 45.6 million in unlisted investments, and 75.1 million in available cash. An ambitious development plan NextStage is entering a new stage of its development, by strengthening its financial resources with a view to new investments, in order to gradually reach a target equity capital level of 500 million by 2020, and build a portfolio of between 40 and 50 companies, with a target breakdown of 75% in the unlisted sector, and 25% in the listed sector on Euronext or Alternext. The company wishes to become a standard-setting investor in MSCs in France and Europe. APPENDIX: Table showing the companies in the portfolio Company name Underlying trend Business Figures Fountaine Pajot - emotion-led economy positive economy industrial Internet The company, which is based in La Rochelle and employs 450 people, is the third-largest global operator (85% of its revenues are generated abroad) specialising in the design and manufacture of sailing and motorised cruising catamarans, and one of the Top 50 export companies in France. 2015 revenues: 71.0 million Interest held: 36.9% in Compagnie du Catamaran, the holding company for Fountaine Pajot Amount invested: 7.0 million Acorus - on-demand and sharing economy positive economy Acorus has established a solid reputation by adopting a pioneering position as a building services company (which combines integrated expertise in all building trades), and enjoys a high rate of repeat business. 2015 revenues: 95.0 million Interest held: 9.6% Amount invested: 4.1 million BOW (Be Over the World) - on-demand and sharing economy industrial Internet BOW is the standard-setter in the wearables sector, and offers a comprehensive range of smart watches and activity trackers, in the designer, fashion, and affordable categories. BOW operates in Europe (No. 2 in France), the United States, and Asia. 2015 revenues: 15.0 million Interest held: 23.3% Amount invested: 5.3 million Linxea - on-demand and sharing economy Linxea is an independent fintech company, which was founded in 2001 and is a pioneer in the digital distribution of savings and insurance products. The company is positioned as one of the French leaders in the online life insurance distribution market (21,600 customers and 860 million in assets under management). Net inflow: 2015: 132.0 million Interest held: 27.6% Amount invested: 5.1 million Adopt' - emotion-led economy on-demand and sharing economy Adopt' is a unique fragrance and own-brand cosmetics creation, manufacturing, and distribution company, which combines quality and entry-level price points, and is expanding in France and abroad (100 retail outlets and online). 2015 revenues: 22.6 million Interest held: 43.1% Amount invested: 6.1 million Companies Underlying trends Business Figures EFESO - industrial Internet on-demand and sharing economy The Group's business (Franco-Italian entrepreneurs, 450 employees, 300 customers, and 25 countries) is based on three kinds of services: managing change, improving operating performance, and strategy consulting. 2015 revenues: 75.4 million Interest held: 5.7% Amount invested: 3.0 million Glass Partners Solutions (GPS) - on-demand and sharing economy positive economy The Group is one of the independent leaders in the French flat glass distribution market, thanks to its unique model as a distributor and processor of standard and specialty flat glass in France, Spain, and Portugal. 2015 revenues: 34.5 million Interest held: 23.3% Amount invested: 5.66 million Coorpacademy - on-demand and sharing economy The European leader in the corporate MOOC sector, which relies on an innovative technological educational platform, and on a business model with a high rate of repeat business. The company's portfolio includes 40% of customers in the CAC 40 Index and Fortune 500. 2015 revenues: 3.9 million Interest held: 14.2% Amount invested: 4.6 million Availability of the document de base NextStage's document de base, which was registered with the AMF on 21 November, 2016 under number I.16-077, is available free of charge from NextStage (19 avenue George V, 75008 Paris) on request, as well as on the Company's websites (www.nextstage.com/sca and www.nextstage-ipo.com) and from the AMF (www.amf-france.org). The document de base contains a detailed description of NextStage, its business activities, its strategy, its financial position, its results, and the risk factors relating to its business activities. Risk Factors The company draws the public's attention to Section 4 "Risk Factors" of the document de base registered with the AMF. The materialisation of all or some of these risks could have an adverse impact on the company's business activities, reputation, operating income, financial position or future prospects. Readers are specifically invited to familiarise themselves with the following risk factors: risks relating to the business activities (risk of capital loss, and liquidity and valuation risk), to the Company's specific legal (Partnership Limited by Shares) and tax (venture-capital company) features, and to its dividend policy (the Company does not intend to pay dividends). About NextStage NextStage is an investment company that was founded in March 2015 and specialises in Mid-Sized Companies (MSCs); it provides access to a category of unlisted assets that are hard to access, and offer growth and potential. Its investments consist of equity capital with little or no leverage, and with no time limits, alongside visionary entrepreneurs. NextStage relies on the know-how and strength of the NextStage AM management company, which was founded in 2002. NextStage had already made eight investments as at 30 September 2016. It benefits from attractive venture-capital company tax arrangements. The Company's share capital is held by top-tier investors such as Artemis, Thetys, AXA, Amundi, etc. NextStage intends to implement an ambitious plan with a view to driving the growth of leading MSCs, based on four fundamental cross-sector trends arising from the 3rd Industrial Revolution: the economy led by our emotions and the quality of the customer experience, the on-demand and sharing economy, the industrial Internet, and positive growth (or green growth). For further information, please go to www. nextstage-ipo.com or to info-investor@NextStage.com Disclaimer This press release, and the information that it contains, does not amount to an offer for sale or subscription, or to the solicitation of a purchase or subscription order for shares in NextStage (the "Company") in any country. No shares have been or will be offered in France prior to obtaining the French Financial Markets Authority's ("AMF") approval of a prospectus that consists of the pathfinder prospectus that is the subject of this press release, and of an offering circular that will be submitted to the AMF at a later date. This press release does not amount to an offer for sale of transferable securities, or any solicitation of a purchase or subscription order for transferable securities in the United States. Shares or any other transferable securities issued by the Company can only be offered or sold in the United States following registration pursuant to the US Securities Act 1933, as amended, or in the event of an exemption to this registration requirement. The Company's shares have not been, and will not be registered under the US Securities Act 1933, as amended, and the Company does not intend to launch any public offering of its shares in the United States. This press release does not amount to, and cannot be construed as a public offering, or an offer to purchase or subscribe, or as intended to attract interest from the general public with a view to a transaction via a public offering. The dissemination of this press release may be the subject of specific regulations in some countries. Persons in possession of the press release must therefore familiarise themselves with any local restrictions, and comply with them. This press release amounts to a promotional communication and not to a prospectus within the meaning of Directive 2003/71/EC issued by the European Parliament and Council on 4 November 2003 (as specifically amended by Directive 2010/73/EU to the extent that this Directive has been transposed in each Member State of the European Economic Area) (the "Prospectus Directive In the case of European Economic Area Member States that have transposed the Prospectus Directive, no measures have been undertaken or will be undertaken in order to enable a public offering of the transferable securities that are the subject of this press release, and which requires NextStage to publish a prospectus in any Member State other than France. As a result, the Company's shares cannot be offered and will not be offered in any Member State other than France, except in accordance with the exemptions provided for in Article 3(2) of the Prospectus Directive, if such exemptions have been transposed in that Member State, or in other cases that do not require the Company to publish a prospectus under Article 3(2) of the Prospectus Directive, and/or the regulations applicable in that Member State. In the case of the United Kingdom, this press release is only intended for persons who (i) are investment professionals within the meaning of Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (as currently in effect, hereinafter the "Financial Promotion Order"), (ii) are referred to in 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 incentive to engage in investment activities (within the meaning of Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000) as part of the issuance or disposal of any transferable securities may be legally issued, either directly or indirectly (all of these persons are jointly referred to as the "Authorised Persons"). This press release is exclusively intended for Authorised Persons, and cannot be used by any other person than an Authorised Person. Any investment or investment activity relating to this Document is reserved for Authorised Persons and can only be performed by Authorised Persons. This press release contains forward-looking statements. No guarantee is given regarding the realisation of these forward-looking statements, which involve risks, including those described in the pathfinder prospectus registered with the AMF under No. I.16-077 on November 21, 2016, and which depend on changes in the economic conditions, the financial markets, and the sector in which NextStage operates. 1 MSC: Mid-Sized Company: Revenues ranging between 10 million and 500 million 2 Mid-Size Company or MSC: A company that generates revenues of between 10 million and 500 million. 3 On-demand and sharing economy: This is primarily the so-called quaternary sector of the economy, the products of which are neither goods nor services, but new services that include goods, as well as the temporary availability of goods or people. 4 In view of the Company's legal form, NextStage Partners, the General Partner, and NextStage AM, the Managing Partner, have considerable powers compared with those of the other corporate bodies (General Meeting of Limited Partners, and/or Supervisory Board). In addition, it is appropriate to remind you that NextStage's Managing Directors are identical to NextStage AM's Managing Directors. Due to the existence of a Supervisory Board that includes a majority of independent members, and is assisted by specialised committees, the Company nonetheless believes that the Managing Partner and General Partner's control over the Company may not be exercised in an abusive manner. However, the governance system does not provide the same structural and legal guarantees for the protection of the Limited Partners' rights and powers as that provided by other corporate forms. 5 It is specified that the tax status attached to venture-capital companies allows for a tax exemption or reduction on certain proceeds and capital gains distributed by the venture-capital company, subject to certain conditions, including a five-year holding period (for further information, please see Section 4.3.4 "Risks relating to the arrangements for venture-capital companies" in the pathfinder prospectus). 6 Source: GE Capital 2012, Mighty Middle Report 7 Systematically for unlisted investments 8 As at 31.12.2015, according to the figures audited by KPMG on an annual basis 9 Management fees: on a sliding scale of 1.25% up to 300 million, 1% between 300 million and 500 million, and 0.75% above 500 million. 10 Carried interest: a mechanism that offers the teams an equity stake in the performance of their portfolio. This mechanism works as follows: the individuals concerned subscribe to preferred shares that are convertible into ordinary shares on an annual basis at the end of a financial year, where the value created for shareholders over one year, as measured by the increase in market capitalisation (excluding any external capital transactions) plus any dividends paid exceeds 8% of the market capitalisation at the beginning of the financial year. It is worth specifying in this context that the carried interest is not paid in cash, but in shares with a lock-up period of two years. 11 4 million exclusively dedicated to unlisted investments 12 Systematically for unlisted investments 13 The weighted average EV/EBITDA multiple refers to the ratio between the total enterprise value of the eight companies in NextStage's portfolio weighted according to the size of those companies in the overall portfolio, on the one hand, and the total EBITDA weighted by the size of the investments in the eight companies in the portfolio, on the other. THIS PRESS RELEASE MUST NOT BE PUBLISHED, CIRCULATED, OR DISTRIBUTED, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY IN THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, OR JAPAN. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161121006258/en/ Contacts: NextStage Gwenael Hedoux gh@nextstage.com +33 1 53 93 49 40 or Citigate Dewe Rogerson Investor & Analyst Relations Delphine Maillet delphine.maillet@citigate.fr + 33 1 53 32 84 75 or Media Relations Alienor Miens alienor.miens@citigate.fr + 33 6 64 32 81 75 or Nicolas Castex nicolas.castex@citigate.fr + 33 6 66 58 82 45 Metsa Group Press Release 22 November 2016RISI, the leading information provider for the global forest products industry, has presented Kari Jordan, President and CEO of Metsa Group, the 2016 Global CEO of the Year award. The award was presented at PPI Awards 2016 event in Brussels on 21 November 2016. Already earlier this year Mr. Jordan was named RISI's 2016 European CEO of the Year."Metsa Group's transformation which started in 2005 has been massive and successful. This award is a great recognition for all the determined work we have done in Metsa Group. Forest industry products offer solutions for a sustainable future. Metsa Group has a strong role in the future development," comments Jordan.RISI's Global CEO of the Year award is presented annually to one forest industry leader in the world. The awarded individual has delivered an outstandingly strong performance taken into account overall strategy, financial performance and leadership qualities.METSA GROUPFor further information, please contact: Juha Laine, SVP, Communications, Metsa Group, tel. +358 10 465 4541www.metsagroup.comMetsa Group is a forerunner in bioeconomy utilising renewable wood from sustainably managed northern forests. Metsa Group focuses on wood supply and forest services, wood products, pulp, fresh forest fibre paperboards and tissue and cooking papers.Metsa Group's sales totalled EUR 5.0 billion in 2015, and it employs approximately 9,600 people. The Group operates in some 30 countries. Metsaliitto Cooperative is the parent company of Metsa Group and is owned by approximately 116,000 Finnish forest owners.Follow Metsa Group: TwitterLinkedInFacebookYouTubeInstagramSlideshare 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. LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- NewVoiceMedia, a leading global provider of inside sales and contact centre technology that helps businesses sell more, serve better and grow faster, has been selected to join 'Silicon Valley Comes to the UK' (SVC2UK), a tech group of the country's 50 fastest growing businesses, boasting average growth of 47 percent over the past year. The announcement comes as new figures from London and Partners show the extent of tech startups' contribution to the economy over the last decade. Since 2006, there has been a 17 percent rise in the number of jobs created in the sector, compared with seven percent across all sectors. In London alone that growth stands at 77 percent. SVC2UK is a not-for-profit volunteer-led series of events that bring together investors, successful serial entrepreneurs, students and alumni to support the ecosystem for entrepreneurs in the UK. The programme was founded ten years ago by Ellen Levy (investor, advisor and tech company exec), Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) and Sherry Coutu CBE (serial entrepreneur and angel investor). Jonathan Gale, CEO of NewVoiceMedia comments, "To be selected to be part of this initiative is a fantastic achievement and a great privilege. 2016 has been another year of impressive growth for NewVoiceMedia as we continue to drive innovation that is revolutionising the contact centre industry and further increase international adoption of our technology". "With our unrivalled mix of investors, talent and creativity it is hardly surprising that tech businesses and entrepreneurs are clamouring to be part of London's tech story. These latest figures underline that London is the best place to invest in tech and how important this sector is as a driver for the UK economy", said the deputy mayor for business Rajesh Agrawal. NewVoiceMedia's ContactWorld solution is a multi-tenant intelligent communications platform that enables sales and service reps to have more successful conversations with their customers. Core contact centre functionality such as omni-channel contact routing, self-service IVR, automated outbound dialling, screen pops and instantaneous CRM updates are provided with proven 99.999% platform availability. For the full list, visit www.svc2uk.com For more information about NewVoiceMedia, visit www.newvoicemedia.com. About NewVoiceMedia NewVoiceMedia powers customer connections that transform businesses globally. The leading vendor's award-winning cloud customer contact platform revolutionises the way organisations connect with their customers worldwide, enabling them to deliver a personalised and unique customer service experience and drive a more effective sales team. With a true cloud environment and proven 99.999% platform availability, NewVoiceMedia ensures complete flexibility, scalability and reliability. NewVoiceMedia's 600+ customers include PhotoBox, MobileIron, Lumesse, Vax, JustGiving and Canadian Cancer Society. For more information, visit www.newvoicemedia.com or follow NewVoiceMedia on Twitter @NewVoiceMedia. NewVoiceMedia PR contact Nicola Brookes Tel: +44 (0)7500 006 458 Email: Email Contact Passive Optical LAN is based on a single centralized active equipment and a simpler network LONDON, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the local area network (LAN) market, Frost & Sullivan recognises Nokia with the 2016 European Local Area Network New Product Innovation Award. Nokia's Passive Optical LAN (POL) solution provides a more cost-effective way to deploy local area networks (LAN), while delivering significant benefits to organizations like unlimited bandwidth, security, reliability, longevity and energy and space savings. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441870 Passive Optical LAN is based on Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology and involves a single centralized active equipment, a simpler network and thin-client end-point devices, which are centrally managed. Nokia's POL solution can deliver more than 50 percent cost savings over traditional copper-based Ethernet LAN. Nokia's POL solution is based on the centralized access node 7360 ISAM FX, variety of end-user devices and advanced management system. The solution delivers Gigabit speeds to each user or connected device and enables smooth evolution to 20x more capacity, reusing the same cabling and same access node, making it a game changing solution for LAN. Another key benefit of Nokia's POL solution is its management system - the 5571 PCC (POL Command Center) -- a highly intuitive tool for easy configuration, auto-activation, fault reporting, proactive network monitoring and troubleshooting of a LAN. "Nokia's POL solution provides military-grade security and data encryption," said Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Priya Sharma. "And as optical fibres are resistant to electromagnetic interference, POL is ideal for use in sensitive environments such as hospitals, where cameras and machines can interrupt data transmission." Nokia continues to see strong demand for its POL solution worldwide. GPON is a field proven, mature technology, designed for simplicity and efficiency and Nokia's successful fibre projects and partnership programs have helped it cater to companies of all sizes. "Nokia's primary focus is not on delivering the most inexpensive solution to customers but to present value-added solutions at competitive prices," noted Sharma. "Significantly, the Ethernet-based LAN lasts nearly 5 to 7 years, whereas the POL solution lasts at least 50 years, translating to greater lifetime cost savings." For understanding customer needs in the LAN market and for developing a novel product to address those needs, Nokia richly deserves the 2016 European Local Area Network New Product Innovation Award. Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has developed an innovative element in a product by leveraging leading-edge technologies. The award recognises the value-added features/benefits of the product and the higher return on investment (ROI) it offers customers, which in turn improves customer acquisition and overall market penetration potential. Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognise companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry. To learn more about Nokia's POL solution, you can download their free whitepaper titled "Addressing Issues In The Local Area Network" or visit their solution page. About Nokia Nokia is a global leader in the technologies that connect people and things. Powered by the innovation of Nokia Bell Labs and Nokia Technologies, the company is at the forefront of creating and licensing the technologies that are increasingly at the heart of our connected lives. With state-of-the-art software, hardware and services for any type of network, Nokia is uniquely positioned to help communication service providers, governments, and large enterprises deliver on the promise of 5G, the Cloud and the Internet of Things. http://nokia.com About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, collaborates with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that could make or break today's market participants. Frost & Sullivan's Growth Partnership supports clients by addressing these opportunities and incorporating 2 key elements driving visionary innovation: the Integrated Value Proposition and the Partnership Infrastructure. The Integrated Value Proposition provides support to clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation, including research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation, and implementation. provides support to clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation, including research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation, and implementation. The Partnership Infrastructure is entirely unique as it constructs the foundation upon which visionary innovation becomes possible, including 360 degree research, comprehensive industry coverage, and career best practices as well as Frost & Sullivan's global footprint of more than 40 offices. For more than 50 years, Frost & Sullivan has been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector, and the investment community. Is your organisation prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics, and emerging economies? Contact Us: Start the discussion Join Us: Join our community Subscribe: Newsletter on "the next big thing" Register: Gain access to visionary innovation Contact: Chiara Carella P: +44 (0) 207.343.8314 F: 210.348.1003 E: chiara.carella@frost.com VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- 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 announces the launch of the Refer a Friend program for Double Your Dating, a world leader in online education and information products for the dating market. "Double Your Dating is a powerful and unique service that has delivered online dating education and support for over 10 years," said Rob Goehring, Chief Executive Officer of RewardStream. "We are very pleased to be working with the Double Your Dating team to leverage the power of referrals to increase the reach of their online educational tools. Dating is a very personal experience, and we strongly believe that referrals will be a powerful way for satisfied customers to share their success with close friends seeking similar solutions." Double Your Dating delivers a variety of educational products through their online shopping platform. The RewardStream Spark referral marketing platform integrates with their online shopping checkout process to provide a seamless handoff between successful referral and Double Your Dating's marketing automation system. Spark automates the process of making a referral, providing Double Your Dating customers with many options to recommend their products and service, and rewards customers when their friends shop at Double Your Dating. "As world leaders in online dating education, we are excited to help our happy customers share our products with their friends and colleagues," said David DeAngelo, Founder of Double Your Dating. "We are eager to use the power of referrals to reach more customers and continue our mission to make dating easier and more fun." RewardStream allows online consumers to easily 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. Double Your Dating customers can learn more about the Refer a Friend program here. About Double Your Dating Double Your Dating helps men have more success with women and dating. Since 2001, David DeAngelo has helped over 10 million men improve their success with women. His programs teach men how to overcome their fear of rejection, successfully meet and attract women, and become the kind of man who can be in a successful relationship with a high quality, beautiful woman. He is the defacto leader for dating advice for men on the Internet. 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 Itiviti, world-leading technology provider for the capital markets industry, has been recognized by the 2016 Technology Awards, where Itiviti was named Best Capital Markets Technology Provider. Presented by TMT News magazine, the 2016 Technology Awards highlights key players, individuals and innovative firms who have provided the world with new, cutting-edge technologies. "We are very honored to be awarded as Best Capital Markets Technology provider," said Torben Munch, CEO, Itiviti. "This recognition is an acknowledgement not only of business success, but also that our clients name Itiviti as their preferred partner and solution provider." The 2016 Technology Awards winners have been selected by voting, to which TMT News invited its subscriber base of over 82,000 and an additional base of industry specific individuals. "The technology industry is a vital aspect of our lives, and those who work within it are responsible for the livelihoods of thousands, if not millions, of people who depend upon their products for their business and personal lives," said Kaven Cooper, Awards Coordinator. "As such I am proud to recognize our deserving winners, and would like to wish them every success going forward. Itiviti was recently also named a winner of the 2016 Technology Innovator Awards, presented by Corporate Vision (CV) Magazine. Tbricks by Itiviti was then recognized as Best Electronic Trading Technology Solutions Most Innovative Trading Platform. Read the article in TMT News here (http://www2.itiviti.com/TMTTechAwards2016). About Itiviti Itiviti is a world-leading technology provider for the capital markets industry. Trading firms, banks, brokers and institutional clients rely on Itiviti technology, solutions and expertise for streamlining their daily operations, while gaining sustainable competitive edge in global markets. With 13 offices and serving more than 400 customers worldwide, Itiviti was formed by uniting Orc Group, a leader in trading and electronic execution, and CameronTec Group, the global standard in financial messaging infrastructure and connectivity. From its foundation in 2016, Itiviti has a staff of 400 and an estimated annual revenue of SEK 700 million. Itiviti is committed to continuous innovation to deliver trading infrastructure built for today's dynamic markets, offering highly adaptable platforms and solutions, enabling clients to stay ahead of competitive and regulatory challenges. Itiviti is owned by Nordic Capital Fund VII. www.itiviti.com This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005421/en/ Contacts: Itiviti Torben Munch Chief Executive Officer Tel. +46 8 506 477 35 or Christine Blinke Chief Marketing Officer Tel. +46 739 01 02 01 SINGAPORE -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- PSB Academy ("PSBA"), Singapore's leading private education institution, hosted about 100 attendees, including tertiary students, polytechnic students and members from Young NTUC and union group, UWEEI, at its latest CollabX forum focusing on the engineering sector yesterday. The initiative saw thought leaders from PSB Academy's partners engage students and aspiring practitioners about new possibilities that engineering can play in creating the Singapore of tomorrow. These speakers included representatives from The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) Singapore Chapter, Rolls-Royce, Surbana Jurong, and Consistel. Industry-focused Student Chapter for Engineering formed The event kicked off with a Memorandum of Co-operation ("MOC") signed between IET and the Academy, and details a collaboration to provide engineering and technology initiatives and programmes through national and international activities organised by the two parties. As part of the agreement, an IET chapter for PSB Academy students will also be formed to provide the Academy's engineering students access to industry events and initiatives, and serve as a launchpad for students hoping to become fully accredited members of IET as Chartered Engineers. Speakers at yesterday's CollabX Engineering discussed topics which sought to engage aspiring engineers and spur them to think about future trends, technology and techniques that would influence the demand for different skillsets in the industry: 1. Innovators Needed: Make your moves in the engineering world -- Dr Bicky Bhangu, Director Singapore, Rolls-Royce and Chairman of IET Singapore Network 2. Making engineering cool again! -- Mr Aaron Foong, Director of Civil and Structural Engineering, SurbanaJurong 3. Being an Industry ready engineer -- Dr Duncan Campbell, Director - Research and Development, Consistel 4. Engineering Management -- Built to Lead, Mr Nicholas Weeks, Chief of Materials Engineering (Asia Pacific), Rolls-Royce "We are honoured to have such invaluable insights from these leaders in the engineering industry today, who are able to disperse misgivings about working in the industry, and bring to light the tools, skillsets and values that aspiring engineers will need to effectively build our future economy. CollabX will continue to serve as important avenues for aspiring engineers to connect with industry veterans through candid conversations, to prepare students for the changing demands of jobs in specialist sectors," said Derrick Chang, Acting CEO, PSB Academy. CollabX is part of a multi-series event designed to be a platform for creating opportunities through learning, sharing and networking. To find out about future events, please visit: http://www.psb-academy.edu.sg/collabxseries. Image PSB Academy Dean Joao Ponciano and panel of industry speakers Dr Bicky Bhangu, Chairman of IET Singapore Network, Mr Aaron Foong, Director of Civil and Structural Engineering, Surbana Jurong, Dr Duncan Campbell, Director- Research and Development, Consistel, and Mr Nicholas Weeks, Chief of Materials Engineering (Asia Pacific), Rolls-Royce discuss the possibilities of building Singapore's tomorrow at CollabX Engineering. http://release.media-outreach.com/i/Download/6188 Company Logo http://release.media-outreach.com/i/Download/4694 About PSB Academy Productivity is at the heart of PSB Academy. Once known as the Productivity and Standards Board, PSB Academy today ranks as one of Singapore's leading private education institutions. Our full-time and part-time diploma, degree and post-graduate programs focus on what really matters: performance in the real-world. We aim to appeal to millennials looking for an industryready education as well as early to mid-career professionals looking to upgrade themselves. We have over 300 part-time and full-time lecturers delivering lessons to over 11,000 local and international students. PSB Academy is currently situated at two campuses in Singapore: PSBAcademy@Delta and PSBAcademy@MarinaSquare. Learn more at: www.psb-academy.edu.sg. Media contacts Melody Uy Email Contact +65 6213 6997 Abigail Ng Email Contact +65 9093 3787 MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 12/15/16 -- Genius Properties Ltd. (CSE: GNI) ("Genius" or the "Corporation") is pleased to announce the completion of the 2016 IP survey at the Blockhouse Gold Property. Results have confirmed 2 high priority targets for next month's drilling program to test for the presence of 'leg-reef' and 'saddle' type veins on the property. Current exploration at Blockhouse is being partially funded by the Province of Nova Scotia through a 50/50 shared funding grant under the Nova Scotia Mineral Incentive Program (NSMIP). The Department of Natural Resources' Geosciences and Mines Branch evaluated applications and awarded Genius with a grant based on the quality and merit of the work proposed and the potential that the project could lead to a new mineral discovery or significantly be advanced. Property Highlights Historical records on file with the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources indicate that the Prest Vein, on the Blockhouse Property, accounted for 2,043 tons of mill feed between 1896 and 1935, yielding 3,259 ounces of gold for an average grade of 1.59 ounces per ton (49.6 g/t). The width of the Prest Vein within the historically mined shoot is reported to average 0.25 meters (range of 0.15 to 0.61 m) and the wall rock where sampled is reported to average 0.085 ounces per ton (2.9 g/t). There are also three other fissure type veins within the Blockhouse Property, the Thompson Vein, the Centre Vein and the East Vein (aka Laxer vein). Samples of the Thompson and East Veins have reportedly assayed in the order of 0.02 (0.6g) to 0.5 ounces (15.5g) per ton, the Centre Vein has yet to be reported to contain gold. There was no underground work reported on these three veins. The Blockhouse Property is underlain by metasedimentary rocks of the Meguma Series, the Goldenville Group (formerly Formation) is composed of arkosic quartzites and interbedded shales, it in turn is overlain by the Halifax Group (formerly Formation) that consists of a series of slates and shales, with a predominance of quartzite near the base. In April 2016, samples from mine spoils that are present near the old mine opening (shaft) returned results up to 38.6 g/t Au (1.24 ounces/ton). In November 2016, samples assayed from historic drill core, stored at the Province's core library, reported results up to 0.5g/t over 1.5 m in the hanging wall of the Prest vein in DDH BH-1 near the intersection of the Prest vein with the 'favorable horizon'. Historic whole core sampling limited the amount of available core to be sampled. The 2016 IP survey identified this area as one of the high priority targets, it will also be tested in next month's drilling. Jimmy Gravel, the President and CEO of the Corporation stated: "By drilling the anomalous trends, Genius anticipates to validate and confirm the presence of 'saddle' type veins. The next month's drilling program will finalize the exploration on the Blockhouse property for the season in a very satisfying and promising way." The technical components of this press release have been reviewed and approved by Alex Mackay, P.Geo., a Qualified Person pursuant to NI 43-101 technical disclosure and reporting guidelines. About Genius Properties Genius is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on developing projects with some of the world's most critical metals and minerals for use in various industries including in particular, batteries for storing electrical energy and the raw materials essential for Lithium-ion battery production. Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. All information other than historical fact is forward-looking information. Forward-looking information relates to future events or future performance and is based on GNI current internal expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and beliefs. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "expect", "project", "proposed", "intend", "seek", "anticipate", "budget", "plan", "continue", "estimate", "forecast", "may", "will", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "could", "might", "should", "believe" and similar expressions. Although management considers the assumptions and estimates, reflected in forward-looking information, to be reasonable, based on information currently available, there can be no assurance that such information will prove to be correct. As a consequence, actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking information which is inherently uncertain, and subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties (both general and specific) and other factors that contribute to the possibility that the future events or circumstances contemplated by the forward looking information will not occur or that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. These risks include, but are not limited to risks associated with general economic conditions, the actual results of current exploration activities, conclusions of economic evaluations, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, future metal prices, financial risks and substantial capital requirements. Further information regarding certain of these risks (as well as risks relating generally to the Company's business) may be found under the headings "Risks and Uncertainties", "Forward-Looking Information" and "Financial risk factors" in the latest Company's Management's Discussion & Analysis on www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors that may affect future results is not exhaustive. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and GNI does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable law. The forward-looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Contacts: Genius Properties Ltd. Jimmy Gravel President & CEO jgravel@geniusproperties.ca LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Hammerson (HMSO.L) said it has signed an agreement with eleven institutional investors from both the US and the UK for the placement of 400 million pounds of private placement notes with maturities at 7, 9, 11 and 14 years. The fixed rate notes are denominated in Euro (EUR 177 million), British Pound Sterling (50 million) and US Dollar ($232 million) with the US Dollar portion being swapped to fixed Euro (EUR 210 million). The notes were priced on 13 October 2016 with a weighted average coupon at a fixed rate of 1.70%, equivalent nominal value of $488 million (400 million) and weighted average maturity of 9 years. The placement will fund in January 2017 and will repay short term bank facilities used for recent acquisitions in Dublin and Birmingham. The USPP market was attractive in offering competitive pricing, deferred funding and a spread of maturities to assist with management of future refinancing risk. The placement will extend the weighted average debt maturity by approximately 0.8 years (6 years at 30 June 2016) and will increase the proportion of the Group's fixed rate debt by approximately 10% (68% fixed as at 30 June 2016). The Group's hedge of euro-denominated assets will remain around 80%. Barclays, RBS and Santander acted as agents on this transaction. 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. Elanix Biotechnologies AG today announced that the company has entered into a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) with Oxford MEStar Ltd ("MEStar"), an Oxford University spin-out. The LOI contains broad terms of a potential transaction whereby the two companies, together with Tianjin-based UniNova, might establish a Chinese JV. In the first instance this would market Elanix's GynRepair, used for the treatment of vulvodynia, in the domestic market in China (PRC). The transaction is necessarily subject to entering into a definitive agreement between the parties, containing specific signing and closing terms and conditions yet to be finalised, negotiated and agreed up. Professor Zhanfeng Cui, the founder of MEStar, commented: "We look forward to collaborating with Elanix, whose tissue repair products we believe have significant commercial potential". Tomas Svoboda, CEO of Elanix Biotechnologies AG, added: "We are very pleased to find such reputable partners that will accelerate our territorial expansion for our innovative bioactive creams". Tomas Svoboda, CEO About MEStar Oxford MEStar Limited is a spin-out company from the Institute of Biomedical Engineering of Oxford University specializing in translational and regenerative medicine and healthcare. The company is focused on a) developing novel technologies; b) offering bioengineering solutions to clients; and c) technology transfer between Europe and China. For more information, please contact Dr Zoe Li on 01865 784436 or visit www.oxford-mestar.com About UniNova UniNova is the Oxford MEStar sister company, incorporated in Nov 2014 with 80 million RMB private investment and with the support of Tianjin Municipal Government. UniNova's goal is to provide a one-stop solution for SMEs in biotechnology, biomedical and healthcare, so they can land in China smoothly and access the Chinese market in a timely manner. About Elanix Elanix Biotechnologies AG (Frankfurt SX: ELN) develops and commercializes tissue regeneration products for acute wound care, dermatological and gynaecological applications, and provides services in cell technologies. The company was founded in 2013 as a spin-out from the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV), Switzerland, to commercialize a patented progenitor cell technology. Progenitor cells are fully differentiated yet immunologically neutral cells that are very potent inducers of tissue growth and healing. Elanix owns GMP certified Master and Working cell banks with vast quantities of cells of different cell types. The Company is headquartered in Nyon, Switzerland with offices in Potsdam and listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange under the symbol ELN. For more information and updates, visit www.elanix-biotechnologies.com. Disclaimer Forward-looking statements: This communication does not constitute an offer or invitation to subscribe for or purchase any securities of Elanix Biotechnologies AG. This announcement does not contain or constitute an offer of, or the solicitation of an offer to buy or subscribe for, securities to any person in the United States of America (the "United States"), Australia, Canada or Japan or in any jurisdiction to whom or in which such offer or solicitation is unlawful. The securities referred to in this announcement will not be and have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration requirements under the U.S. Securities Act. Subject to certain exceptions, the securities referred to in this announcement may not be offered or sold in Australia, Canada or Japan, or to, or for the account or benefit of, any national, resident or citizen of Australia, Canada or Japan. The offer and sale of the securities referred to in this announcement has not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act or under the applicable securities laws of Australia, Canada or Japan. There will be no public offer of the securities in the United States. This publication may contain certain forward-looking statements concerning the Company and its business. Such statements involve certain risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. Readers should therefore not place undue reliance on these statements, particularly not in connection with any contract or investment decision. The Company disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Language: English Company: Elanix Biotechnologies AG Domstr. 22 14482 Potsdam Germany ISIN: DE000A0WMJQ4 WKN: A0WMJQ Listed: Regulated Market in Frankfurt (General Standard); Regulated Unofficial Market in Berlin, Dusseldorf View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005449/en/ Contacts: Elanix Biotechnologies AG Maria Widowski E-mail: investor.relations@elanix-bt.com Phone number: +49 331 583 945 10 Imperial Minerals Plc ("Imperial", the "Group" or the "Company") Audited Results for the Year Ended 30 June 2016 and Notice of Annual General Meeting Put bluntly, the period has been a challenging one for our Company. Continued weak market sentiment towards smaller, pre revenue natural resources projects coupled with turbulent greater macro investment issues (such as Britain's decision to leave the European Union) have made pathway and funding alternatives for ISDX Growth Market micro-cap companies most difficult. In an attempt to break away from the crowd, Imperial spent much of its time this year looking at more "left field" resource projects and has been far more focused on understanding the likelihood of project fundability before committing precious resources to securing these opportunities. The bulk of Imperial's energies were expended on pursuing a Welsh hydro-electric energy project and resulted in a conditional offer to buy the project. Alas, despite a number of site visits, exhaustive vendor negotiations, positive pre-financing discussions and preliminary legal due diligence, Imperial ultimately could not get comfortable with the veracity of the project's long historical and complex ownership. Yet despite this setback Imperial remains unperturbed and is cautiously optimistic about the future. Our confidence is rooted in rebounding commodity prices which, after many years of stagnation, are again "moving north". There is also an acceptance by project owners and promoters that pricing and structuring norms must change in order for deals to be palatable for the market. Consequently, deals are getting done and they are being supported if priced correctly. Imperial continues to be run leanly with listing costs negotiated to as low as possible. Imperial also holds a small interest in AIM-listed North River Resources (NRR). NRR remains focused on re-opening its Namib lead-zinc mine in Namibia. NRR's greatest short-term value driver remains the securing of a long-awaited mining licence for the Namib project. Imperial also has a historical agreement with Symerton Holdings S.A. ("Symerton") under which it effectively secured an option to investigate an opportunity to invest in a South American gold project. Under this agreement Imperial made a 12% unsecured convertible loan to Symerton of US$150,000 (the "Loan") and has the option to invest further amounts in Symerton subject to certain conditions. To date, work to secure the gold opportunity has made little material advancement. Imperial has subsequently written down the value of its investment to nil as recovery remains doubtful. Symerton's loan from Imperial is still outstanding and Imperial maintains all rights under the agreement. Financial Review The Group currently only has interest revenue and its cash reserves will be used in the short term to cover any consultancy fees, initial due diligence and other costs incidental to the identification and development of acquisition opportunities. The loss for the year was 89,317 (2015: 208,898). Total expenditure during the year was 95,232 (2015: 215,546) which consisted mainly of an impairment of a receivable and loss on disposal of available for sale investment of 42,135 and staff costs of 18,437, with the balance comprising corporate, regulatory and administration expenses. Financial Position The Group's Statement of Financial Position as at 30 June 2016 and comparatives at 30 June 2015 are summarised below: 30 June 2016 30 June 2015 Current assets 57,790 54,058 Non-current assets 53,533 281,533 Total assets 111,323 335,591 Current liabilities 9,913 5,723 Total liabilities 9,913 5,723 Net assets 101,410 329,868 On behalf of the Board, I would like to record our thanks to those who have helped the Company throughout the year. Notice of Annual General Meeting Imperial is pleased to announce that the Annual General Meeting of the Company will be held at the offices of Edwin Coe LLP at 2 Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, London, WC2A 3TH on 16 December 2016 at 10.00 a.m. Notice of the Annual General Meeting has been posted to shareholders and is available on the ICAP Securities & Derivatives Exchange website at the following link: http://www.isdx.com/member'securityid=1024283shareholder James Hamilton Chairman Imperial Minerals Plc 17 November 2016 The Directors of the Company accept responsibility for the content of this announcement. For further information please contact: Imperial Minerals plc Russell Hardwick +61 417 714 292 Peterhouse Corporate Finance Limited Guy Miller and Mark Anwyl Tel: 020 7220 9796 CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME For the year ended 30 June 2016 For the year ended 30 June 2016 For the year ended 30 June 2015 Continuing operations Revenue - - Impairment of receivable and loss on disposal of available for sale investment (42,135) (101,623) Administrative expenses (53,097) (113,923) Loss before taxation (95,232) (215,546) Finance income - interest receivable 5,915 6,648 Income tax - - Loss for the year attributable to the equity shareholders of the parent (89,317) (208,898) Other comprehensive income Items that may be subsequently reclassified to profit or loss Unrealised changes in value of available for sale financial assets (189,141) (49,269) Other comprehensive income for the year, net of tax (189,141) (49,269) Total comprehensive income for the year attributable to the equity shareholders of the parent (278,458) (258,167) Earnings per share Basic and diluted loss per share attributable to the equity shareholders of the parent (pence) (0.378p) (1.100p) The loss for the Company for the year was 79,434 (30 June 2015: 268,693). The Company has elected to take the exemption under Section 408 of the Companies Act 2006 from presenting the Parent Company Statement of Comprehensive Income. STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION As at 30 June 2016 Group Company As at 30 June 2016 As at 30 June 2015 As at 30 June 2016 As at 30 June 2015 ASSETS Non-current assets Investments in subsidiaries - - 10 10 Financial assets - Available for sale 53,533 281,533 53,533 281,533 Total non-current assets 53,533 281,533 53,543 281,543 Current assets Trade and other receivables 14,927 8,221 14,327 7,621 Cash and cash equivalents 42,863 45,837 41,683 34,774 Total current assets 57,790 54,058 56,010 42,395 TOTAL ASSETS 111,323 335,591 109,553 323,938 LIABILITIES Current Liabilities Trade and other payables 9,913 5,723 9,913 5,723 Total current liabilities 9,913 5,723 9,913 5,723 TOTAL LIABILITIES 9,913 5,723 9,913 5,723 NET ASSETS 101,410 329,868 99,640 318,215 EQUITY ATTRIBUTABLE TO OWNERS OF THE COMPANY Share capital 199,950 189,950 199,950 189,950 Share premium 822,408 781,171 822,408 781,171 Other reserve 24,241 25,478 24,241 25,478 Available for sale reserve (329,908) (140,767) (329,908) (140,767) Retained losses (615,281) (525,964) (617,051) (537,617) TOTAL EQUITY 101,410 329,868 99,640 318,215 The financial statements were approved and authorised for issue by the Board of Directors on 17 November 2016 and were signed on its behalf by: Russell Hardwick Director STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN EQUITY For the year ended 30 June 2016 Group Share capital Share premium Shares to be issued under options Retained losses Available for sale reserve Total Equity At 1 July 2014 189,950 753,171 53,478 (317,066) (91,498) 588,035 Loss for the year - - - (208,898) - (208,898) Other comprehensive income for the year - - - - (49,269) (49,269) Total comprehensive income for the year - - - (208,898) (49,269) (258,167) Transfer on expiry of share options - 28,000 (28,000) - - - Balance at 30 June 2015 189,950 781,171 25,478 (525,964) (140,767) 329,868 At 1 July 2015 189,950 781,171 25,478 (525,964) (140,767) 329,868 Loss for the year - - - (89,317) - (89,317) Other comprehensive income for the year - - - - (189,141) (189,141) Total comprehensive income for the year - - - (89,317) (189,141) (278,458) Issue of ordinary shares 10,000 40,000 - - - 50,000 Transfer on expiry of share options - 1,237 (1,237) - - - Balance at 30 June 2016 199,950 822,408 24,241 (615,281) (329,908) 101,410 Company Share capital Share premium Shares to be issued under options Retained losses Available for sale reserve Total Equity At 1 July 2014 189,950 753,171 53,478 (268,924) (91,498) 636,177 Loss for the year - - - (268,693) - (268,693) Other comprehensive income for the year - - - - (49,269) (49,269) Total comprehensive income for the year - - - (268,693) (49,269) (317,962) Expiry of share options - 28,000 (28,000) - - - Balance at 30 June 2015 189,950 781,171 25,478 (537,617) (140,767) 318,215 At 1 July 2015 189,950 781,171 25,478 (537,617) (140,767) 318,215 Loss for the year - - - (79,434) - (79,434) Other comprehensive income for the year - - - - (189,141) (189,141) Total comprehensive income for the year - - - - (189,141) (268,575) Issue of ordinary shares 10,000 40,000 - - - 50,000 Expiry of share options - 1,237 (1,237) - - - Balance at 30 June 2016 199,950 822,408 24,241 (617,051) (329,908) 99,640 STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS For the year ended 30 June 2016 BRUSSELS, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- European Parliament, Brussels, 16 Nov 2016 Over 200 stakeholders attending the FIREARMS UNITED conference hosted by political groups EPP, ECR and ALDE supported the speakers' calls for the outright rejection of the EC proposal. Prompted by the EC's failure to produce an impact assessment, FU founder Katja Triebel tabled her own study and laid bare the EC's inaccurate statistics and wrong conclusions. Sport shooters' and firearm collectors' representatives emphasized the negative impact that the proposal would have on their legitimate activity and on heritage. Expressing their own misgivings, co-chairs Stefano Maullu (EPP), Bernd Kolmel (ECR), Jussi Halla-Aho (ECR) and Dita Charanzova (ALDE) vowed to protect legal owners. The EC's ill-conceived proposal has stirred up anti-EU sentiment among over 200 million legal firearm owners, further adding to the EU's waning popularity in Member States and the Schengen area in general. A speaker who is a deputy in the Swiss Federal parliament stated that his countrymen who live in a country that has one of the world's highest firearm ownership figures and the lowest violent crime rates, will not accept the imposition of additional EU firearm rules. Failing a parliamentary vote to reject the proposal, a binding referendum with a "Swixit" result is highly likely. "The European Commission is pushing to introduce their Directive despite all available data showing conclusively that it will achieve nothing in terms of combating terrorism, lowering the homicide rate or preventing massacres. In reality it will just serve to alienate law-abiding citizens even further and divert important resources away from the fight against illegal arms trafficking," concluded Tomasz StApieA", President of Firearms United. CONTACT: Tomasz Stepien +48-660-792796 tomasz.stepien@firearms-united.com HOUSTON, TX and LA JOLLA, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Brown Technical Media Corp., a division of Panther Biotechnology, Inc. (OTC PINK: PBYA) (Panther), is pleased to announce today that it has completed testing of its new online booking service that allows individuals and companies throughout the United States to choose from over 15 different new courses. Brown utilizes its Houston location for training but is partnered with other facilities throughout the United States to offer rigging, crane and safety training in three different formats. We offer individuals the opportunity to gain their rigging, signal person, crane, OHSA or safety certificate in over 15 different courses online through our website online.browntechnical.org. OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a federal agency that regulates health and safety in the United States under the Department of Labor. Training for riggers, crane operators, and OSHA represents a large market in the United States and Canada. States around the country are making crane operators obtain certification prior to operating their cranes. In 2010 OSHA adopted new crane regulations which require all crane operators to be tested and certified to use the type of crane required for their job. The deadline to comply was November 2014 but has been pushed back to November 10, 2017. The rule also extends to the employer's responsibility to ensure that crane operators are competent to operate a crane safely. "We are ramping up our training capacity throughout the country for this major market opportunity as thousands of companies and individuals in the workforce will be required to comply within the next 12 months," stated Noah Davis, President and Chief Operating Officer of Panther. "We are excited that we will now be able to offer companies throughout the country formats such as online, train the trainer and onsite training." About Brown Technical Media Corp. Brown Technical Media Corp. is a leading online aggregator of compliance, career advancement, and training content for tradesman and technical experts in a wide variety of professions. Brown's mission is to disrupt and defragment the many disparate companies in the eLearning, standards and codes market place, which currently is collectively valued at over $100 billion globally and growing. Brown is changing the landscape for small and medium size businesses by providing consistent, high quality training materials usually only available to enterprise level companies. Brown's strategy is to both grow its current revenue base organically while concurrently acquiring synergistic companies in the multiple industries that Brown is currently servicing. About Panther Biotechnology Inc. Panther Biotechnology, Inc. has been an entity focused on the acquisition and development of enhanced therapeutics for the treatment of neoplastic, autoimmune and antiviral disorders for the last two years. Panther has recently merged with Brown Technical Media Corp. Panther will continue its regulatory effort with the goal of seeking a partner or financing for its anticipated phase 2a study of Transferrin Doxorubicin and will focus its efforts on growing its revenues in the eLearning, standards and codes industries via both organic growth and acquisitions. Contact: Evan Levine Chief Executive Officer 1517 San Jacinto Street Houston, Texas 77002 858-263-2744 VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Cobalt Power Group Inc. (TSX VENTURE: CPO) is pleased to announce the staking of an additional 20 acre (8 hectare) mineral claim located immediately west of the Smith Cobalt Property extensions. Also, further to our successful initial sampling program, (see news release dated November 17, 2016), a technical team is currently on the Smith Cobalt property collecting additional ground samples, clearing access to underground workings, and meeting with a mining engineer to review options for re-opening historical mine shafts. "The late arrival of snow in the Cobalt area allows us to continue with ground exploration work. We are excited to start the process of gaining access to the underground intersections of the veins for further exploration, including direct vein sampling and underground drilling," Dr. Andreas Rompel, President & CEO, comments. "As well, we continue to acquire prospective cobalt targets, adding to our already sizeable land package in the Cobalt, Ontario region." About the Smith Cobalt Properties The Smith Cobalt properties are underlain by a sequence of Archaean volcanics which are uncomformably overlain by Huronian sediments. These formations have been intruded by the Proterozoic-age Nipissing diabase sill. Faulting, on both a regional and local scale, has been found by surface mapping and in drill cores. Polymetallic veining, and especially pinkish-white carbonate veins, has also been reported. Thus, all the necessary geological components of accepted mineralization models for cobalt-silver have been identified on the properties. About Cobalt Power Group Inc. Cobalt Power Group Inc. is a publicly traded Canadian exploration company listed on the TSX-Venture Exchange (TSX VENTURE: CPO) focused on cobalt exploration and development. The Company has made a series of strategic property acquisitions over the past several months, seeking cobalt mineralization near Cobalt, Ontario - a region with a long history of silver and associated cobalt production. Property holdings total 720 ha (1780 acres) in contiguous blocks. There are several historic mining operations on the property that are potentially accessible, including the Smith Cobalt shaft and its underground workings. On behalf of the Board of Directors Dr. Andreas Rompel, President and CEO, Cobalt Power Group Inc. We seek safe harbor. The company's profile may also be viewed on www.sedar.com. The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has in no way passed upon the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. Forward Looking Information The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this News Release. WARNING: The Company relies on litigation protection for "forward looking" statements. Actual results could differ materially from those described in the news release as a result of numerous factors, some of which are outside the control of the Company. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. Contacts: Cobalt Power Group Inc. Daniel Caamano VP Corporate Communications 604.620.7737 Cobalt Power Group Inc. Judy A. McCall Corporate Secretary 604.620.7737 www.cobaltpowergroup.com PUNE, India, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report "Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence Market by Deployment Type (Embedded, and Standalone), Offering (Software, and Services), End-User Industry (Automotive, Oil & Gas, Pharmaceutical, Food & Beverages), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2022", published by MarketsandMarkets, The EMI Market is estimated to be valued at USD 1.53 Billion in 2016 and is expected to register a CAGR of 17.1%, to reach USD 3.95 Billion by 2022. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 ) Browse 68 market data Tables and 69 Figures spread through 165 Pages and in-depth TOC on"Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence Market" http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/enterprise-manufacturing-intelligence-market-32000061.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report. The growth of this market is driven by the tough competition among manufacturing companies, growing need for enhanced operational efficiency, rising supplier complexity, and stringent regulatory framework in the highly regulated industries. "Embedded deployment to hold the largest share of the enterprise manufacturing intelligence market during the forecast period" Embedded deployment type is expected to lead the enterprise manufacturing intelligence market between 2016 and 2022. The growth of the market is expected to be influenced by factors such as ongoing technological advancements, increasing popularity of IoT, and growing demand for sustainable production. "Automotive industry to hold the largest share and grow at the highest rate between 2016 and 2022" The automotive sector witnessed rapid changes in the manufacturing technologies. Original equipment manufacturers in the automotive industry are facing challenges of manufacturing, designing, and upgrading conventional powertrain models to synchronize their manufacturing processes with the emerging technologies for enhanced consumer satisfaction and better experiences. On account of this, EMI software would gain traction during the forecast period. "North America expected to dominate the EMI market between 2016 and 2022" EMI is witnessing a rapid adoption rate across various industries such as oil and gas, automotive, medical devices, chemicals which is expected to support the market growth in North America. Further, the presence of leading market players in this region and increasing government's investments is anticipated to fuel the North American market. Inquiry Before Buying: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=32000061 The major players involved in the Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence market include ABB Ltd. (U.S.), Honeywell International Inc. (U.S.), Rockwell Automation, Inc. (U.S.), Schneider Electric SE (France), Siemens AG (Germany), Emerson Electric Co. (U.S.), General Electric Co. (U.S.), Aspen Technology, Inc. (U.S.), Dassault Systemes (France), Yokogawa Electric Corporation (Japan) and SAP SE (Germany). Browse Related Reports Industrial Control and Factory Automation Market by Technology (SCADA, PAC & RTU, DCS, Safety, MES & MOM, PLM), Component (Industrial Robots, Machine Vision, Control Valves, Enclosures, Cables), Industry (Process, and Discrete) - Global Forecast to 2022 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/factory-industrial-automation-sme-smb-market-541.html Process Automation & Instrumentation Market by Instrument (Pressure, Temperature, Level and Humidity Transmitter), Solutions (PLC, DCS, SCADA, HMI, APC, MES and Safety Automation), Application, and Geography - Global Trend and Forecast to 2020 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/process-automation-market-1172.html Subscribe Reports from Semiconductor Domain @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Knowledgestore.asp About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is the largest market research firm worldwide in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical info graphics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository. Contact: Mr. Rohan MarketsandMarkets 701 Pike Street Suite 2175, Seattle, WA 98101, United States Tel: 1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com Visit MarketsandMarkets Blog@ http://www.marketsandmarketsblog.com/market-reports/electronics-and-semiconductors LinkedIn @ http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- (TSX VENTURE: EMX)(NYSE MKT: EMXX) - Eurasian Minerals Inc. ("Eurasian" or the "Company" is pleased to announce the execution of a definitive agreement with Boreal Metals Corp. ("BMC"), a British Columbia corporation, pursuant to which BMC will acquire two wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Company that control the Gumsberg and Adak exploration assets in Sweden and the Tynset and Burfjord assets in Norway (the "Properties"). Closing is expected to occur on or before December 31, 2016. The sale of the Scandinavian portfolio is another example of Eurasian's execution of its royalty generation business model, resulting in additional organic royalty property growth for Eurasian, as well as establishing a substantial equity position in a new Scandinavian-focused resource company. Commercial Terms Overview: (Note all dollar amounts in USD, unless otherwise noted): -- At closing, Eurasian will transfer to BMC its entire interest in its wholly-owned subsidiary Iekelvare AB, which owns or will own that portion of the Properties located in Sweden, and its entire interest in its wholly-owned subsidiary EMX Exploration Scandinavia AB, which owns that portion of the Properties located in Norway. -- At closing, BMC will issue to Eurasian that number of common shares of BMC that represents a 19.9% equity ownership in BMC; BMC will have the continuing obligation to issue additional shares of BMC to Eurasian to maintain its 19.9% interest in BMC, at no additional cost to Eurasian, until BMC has raised CDN $5,000,000 in equity; thereafter Eurasian will have the right to participate pro-rata in future financings at its own cost to maintain its 19.9% interest in BMC. -- Eurasian will receive an uncapped 3% net smelter return ("NSR") royalty on each of the Properties. Within five years of the closing date, BMC has the right to buy down up to 1% of the royalty owed to Eurasian on any given project (leaving Eurasian with a 2% NSR) by paying Eurasian $2,500,000 in cash and shares of BMC. Such buy down is project specific. -- Eurasian will receive annual advance royalty ("AAR") payments of $20,000 for each of the Properties commencing on the second anniversary of the closing, with each AAR payment increasing by $5,000 per year until reaching $60,000 per year, except that BMC may forgo AAR payments on two of the four Properties in years two and three. Once reaching $60,000, AAR payments will be adjusted each year according to the Consumer Price Index (as published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics). -- Eurasian will receive a 0.5% NSR royalty on any new mineral exploration projects generated by BMC in Sweden or Norway, excluding projects acquired from a third party containing a mineral resource or reserve or an existing mining operation. These royalties are not capped and not subject to a buy down. -- Eurasian will have the right to nominate one seat on the Board of Directors of BMC. Discussion of the Properties. Eurasian acquired the Properties between 2012 and 2015, with each having been the site of historic mining production, but with only limited or no modern exploration. All of the Properties have polymetallic styles of mineralization, and each shows enrichments in multiple metals including copper, zinc, lead, silver and gold. Three of the Properties (Gumsberg and Adak in Sweden and Tynset in Norway) are characterized by Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide ("VMS") styles of mineralization. Burfjord, in Norway, is characterized by Iron-Oxide-Copper-Gold ("IOCG") styles of mineralization. Eurasian's recent exploration programs on the Properties were summarized in the Eurasian news release dated September 8, 2016. Below is a more detailed description of the Properties. Gumsberg VMS Project (Bergslagen district). The Gumsberg project consists of five exploration licenses in the Bergslagen Mining District of southern Sweden totaling over 7,100 hectares, where multiple zones of VMS style mineralization occur. The VMS mineralization at Gumsberg was mined from the 13(th) century through the early 1900's, with over 30 historic mines present on the property. Despite its long lived production history, relatively little modern exploration has taken place on the project. New geologic interpretations, geophysical surveys and reconnaissance drilling by Eurasian have led to the identification of multiple exploration targets, many situated near the historic workings. Adak VMS Project (Skelleftea District). Eurasian's Adak exploration license in the Skelleftea Mining District in Sweden (8,647 hectares) is the site of the historic Adak mine, which operated through the late 1970's, when the mining complex was destroyed by a fire. The mine was never rebuilt or re-opened, but through compilations of historic data and drill information, Eurasian has identified numerous new exploration targets in the vicinity of the historic mines. Eurasian believes that the nearby Storliden VMS deposit, discovered in 1998 and mined from 2002 through 2007, provides an exploration analog for further discoveries at Adak. Tynset VMS project (Roros District). The Tynset project is comprised of 17 exploration licenses totaling 17,000 hectares in the Roros Mining District of central Norway, which hosts a approx. 30 kilometer trend of VMS style mineral occurrences and historic mines, including the Vingelen Mine, which was operated in the 18(th) and 19(th) centuries. Although mining took place elsewhere in the region until the 1970's, little exploration work has been conducted within the licenses of the Tynset project over the past 30-40 years. However, sampling by the Norwegian Geological Survey in the 1990's and Eurasian in the past three years has shown evidence for gold and silver enrichments in several of the historic mines and prospects, and the Company believes that good potential exists for discovery of precious-metal enriched VMS deposits. Burfjord IOCG project (Alta Region, Norway). The Burfjord project is comprised of six exploration licenses totaling 5,500 hectares near Kafjord and Alta, Norway. Copper mineralization was mined in the Burfjord area during the 19(th) century, with over 30 historic mines and prospects developed along the flanks of a prominent 4 x 6 kilometer anticlinal structure comprised of interbedded sediments and volcanic rocks. Many of the rocks in the anticline have been subjected to intense hydrothermal alteration. Mineralization occurs as both high grade Cu-Au lodes that were historically mined at high cutoff grades (greater than 3% Cu), but Eurasian has recognized significant volumes of lower grade Cu-Au mineralization developed in stockwork vein arrays through the property position. Veins in the area are dominated by carbonate and iron-oxide minerals (magnetite and hematite), but also contain chalcopyrite, bornite and chalcocite in addition to cobalt-rich pyrite. Only limited exploration has taken place in the modern era. About Eurasian Minerals: Eurasian Minerals leverages asset ownership and exploration insight into partnerships that advance our mineral properties, with Eurasian retaining royalty interests. Eurasian complements its generative business with strategic investment and third party royalty acquisition. Dr. Eric P. Jensen, CPG, is a Qualified Person under NI 43-101 and employee of the Company. Dr. Jensen has reviewed, verified and approved disclosure of the technical information contained in this news release. Neither the 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. Forward-Looking Statements This news release may contain "forward looking statements" that reflect the Company's current expectations and projections about its future results. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding perceived merit of properties, exploration results and budgets, mineral reserves and resource estimates, work programs, capital expenditures, timelines, strategic plans, market prices for precious and base metal, or other statements that are not statements of fact. When used in this news release, words such as "estimate," "intend," "expect," "anticipate," "will," "believe," "potential" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, which, by their very nature, are not guarantees of the Company's future operational or financial performance, and are subject to risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause Eurasian's actual results, performance, prospects or opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and factors may include, but are not limited to: unavailability of financing, failure to identify commercially viable mineral reserves, fluctuations in the market valuation for commodities, difficulties in obtaining required approvals for the development of a mineral project, increased regulatory compliance costs, expectations of project funding by joint venture partners and other factors. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release or as of the date otherwise specifically indicated herein. Due to risks and uncertainties, including the risks and uncertainties identified in this news release, and other risk factors and forward-looking statements listed in the Company's MD&A for the nine-month period ended September 30, 2016 (the "MD&A"), and the most recently filed Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2015, actual events may differ materially from current expectations. More information about the Company, including the MD&A, the 20-F and financial statements of the Company, is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the SEC's EDGAR website at www.sec.gov. Contacts: Eurasian Minerals Inc. David M. Cole President and Chief Executive Officer (303) 979-6666 Dave@EurasianMinerals.com Eurasian Minerals Inc. Scott Close Director of Investor Relations (303) 973-8585 SClose@EurasianMinerals.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. (DPS) announced an agreement to acquire Bai Brands, LLC and its portfolio of premium antioxidant infused beverages. The company said the cash purchase price of $1.7 billion includes a tax benefit of approximately $400 million on a net present value basis. Dr Pepper Snapple Group expects Bai will generate approximately $425 million in net sales in 2017 and add an incremental $132 million to current net sales expectation for 2017. The transaction is expected to be approximately $0.03 dilutive to reported EPS in 2017. The transaction is expected to be accretive to reported EPS in 2018. Bai was founded by beverage industry veteran Ben Weiss in 2009 and has grown rapidly with its products now distributed by Dr Pepper Snapple Group among others. Bai will operate within the Packaged Beverages segment and continue to be led by founder Ben Weiss. Dr Pepper Snapple Group noted that it has no plans to change its existing shareholder dividends and share repurchase distributions. 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. PRINCETON, NJ -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Over 54,000 neck lifts were performed in 2015, according to recent statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. This popular cosmetic procedure is designed to rejuvenate the appearance of the neck and jawline; however, it is not the only treatment available. Central New Jersey facial plastic surgeon Eugenie Brunner, MD says that there is a wide range of surgical and non-surgical options for patients seeking to address visible signs of aging in this area. The right approach, Dr. Brunner explains, will depend on several factors unique to the patient. She says individuals who have mild to moderate skin laxity, fine lines and wrinkles, and sun damage are often better suited to non-surgical treatments. At her Princeton practice, Dr. Brunner routinely performs Fractora treatments, Thermage treatments, cosmetic injections, and laser skin resurfacing to address these issues. Dr. Brunner indicates that more advanced treatment options for an aging neck can be appropriate in certain circumstances. If a patient has significant excess skin, fatty tissue, and/or loose muscles, she says surgery typically will offer better results. Dr. Brunner says a neck lift can tighten the platysmal muscles that are responsible for the "turkey wattle" effect and reduce excess skin. During this procedure, she says liposuction techniques, such as SmartLipo, can be used to remove excess fat and contour the jawline. Emphasizing the importance of selecting a qualified and experienced surgeon, Dr. Brunner says patients can benefit from choosing a facial plastic surgeon who offers a wide array of treatment methods. Her well-equipped practice splits its focus between non-surgical, laser, and surgical techniques, an approach Dr. Brunner explains provides her patients with the greatest variety of options. About Eugenie Brunner, MD, FACS Dr. Eugenie Brunner is a fellowship-trained facial plastic surgeon who is double-board certified by the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the American Board of Otolaryngology. A graduate of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Dr. Brunner is also a seven-time recipient of the Castle Connolly Top Doctor Award and an active member of the American Society for Laser Medicine & Surgery. She is available for interview upon request. For more information about Dr. Brunner and her practice, please visit brunnermd.com and facebook.com/BrunnerMD. To view the original source of this press release, click here: https://www.brunnermd.com/news-room/princeton-facial-plastic-surgeon-compares-neck-rejuvenation-treatments Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3083350 Cosmetic Facial Plastic Surgery and Skin Rejuvenation Laser Center Woodlands Professional Building 256 Bunn Dr., Ste. 4 Princeton, NJ 08540 (609) 921-9497 Rosemont Media (858) 200-0044 www.rosemontmedia.com TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- An pdf document is available at the following address: http://bit.ly/2fkEIMB CanadianManufacturing.com, a national media brand, is releasing its inaugural Export Insights report at the Ontario Export Awards in Toronto today. Developed in partnership with sponsors SYSPRO Canada and Grant Thornton LLP, the report highlights data from a national survey of more than 500 Canadian industrial executives, conducted by Bramm Research; and a roundtable discussion among Canadian exporters. The project benchmarks manufacturers' current exporting business, and illuminates their plans for growth in overseas markets. "Throughout the report we outline more than the strategies of successful exporting firms," said Michael Ouellette, editor of CanadianManufacturing.com and moderator of the roundtable discussion. "We identify some of the common risks a new exporter will face, regardless of where they plan to export; and some of the proven methods of mitigating those risks. Opening new markets is not easy. And it's certainly not cheap. But for Canadian companies, it is a vital source of new revenue-the national market simply is not large enough for most companies to focus solely on home turf." Among the findings from the Export Insights report: -- Go-to-market approach: Direct sales is the top strategy used by Canadian exporters penetrating new markets, with 70 per cent of respondents going that route. Establishing a joint venture was second at 28 per cent. -- Growth on the horizon: 80 per cent of respondents are confident their exports will grow within the next 12 months. -- Value-added: 40 per cent are exporting highly engineered or custom-made products. -- New markets: 25 per cent of respondents are planning to enter a new market within the year; Western Europe is by far the top target market for these companies, at 40 per cent. -- Getting started: 48 per cent of respondents said they began exporting due to demand from an existing customer; 41 per cent started exporting to grow sales. -- Challenges: Currency fluctuation was cited as the top hurdle to exporting (33 per cent), followed by competition in export markets, foreign regulations and tariffs, lack of internal resources, among other challenges. The full report may be viewed at www.canadianmanufacturing.com or via the link above. About the report Export Insights was produced by CanadianManufacturing.com and sponsored by SYSPRO Canada and Grant Thornton LLP. The survey was conducted by Bramm Research, a third-party research firm in Oakville, Ont. @CMO_Frasers Contacts: CanadianManufacturing.com Lisa Wichmann Publisher (416) 510-5142 lwichmann@canadianmanufacturing.com TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Lydian International Limited (TSX: LYD) ("Lydian" or "the Company") is pleased to announce that it, through its wholly owned Armenian operating subsidiary, has entered into a US$24 million secured credit facility ("Facility") with Ameriabank CJSC ("Ameriabank"). Proceeds of the Facility will be used for equipment purchases at Lydian's 100%-owned Amulsar Gold Project in Armenia. Construction at Amulsar started in October 2016; first gold production is expected during the first quarter of 2018. Howard Stevenson, Lydian's President and CEO, commented: "We are extremely pleased to put in place this portion of the financing for Amulsar with Ameriabank. Lydian is now within US$50 million of its total Amulsar financing plan of at least US$420 million. We expect to fill this remaining amount with other equipment financing facilities, which are well advanced at this time. Ameriabank is the largest bank in Armenia, and will be among our most valued in-country partners." "Ameriabank is proud to support this exciting development in the mining sector in Armenia, which will be a boosting factor for the mining sector and Armenian economy in general. We are looking forward to a long relationship with the Lydian team," said Gagik Sahakyan, Director, Corporate Banking. The Ameriabank Facility is available in multiple tranches; an initial advance of US$10 million is expected to be drawn as early as December 2016. Each tranche will be repayable over a 10-year period from the date of advance, including an initial principal grace period of one year. The Facility bears an interest at Libor plus 8.75%. A commitment fee of 2% will apply to any undrawn portion of the Facility. The principle security consists of specific equipment financed by Ameriabank. In addition, Lydian has provided an unsecured guarantee in favour of Ameriabank. All advances under the Facility are subject to satisfaction of certain conditions. Endeavour Financial is acting as financial advisor to Lydian. About Ameriabank CJSC Ameriabank CJSC is one of the leading universal banks in Armenia offering corporate, retail and investment banking services in a comprehensive package of banking solutions. Founded as investment and corporate bank, Ameriabank has become the leader of corporate lending of the Armenian economy since 2010. It is also the largest taxpayer among Armenian banks. Ameriabank has been topping the banking system of Armenia by key financial indicators, among them total capital (since 2015), assets (since Q1 2013), liabilities to customers (since Q1 2013), and loans (since 2014). Ameriabank is the first bank in Armenia that has exceeded the threshold US$1 billion in assets since the formation of modern banking system of independent Armenia in 1992. (www.ameriabank.am) About Lydian International Limited Lydian is a gold developer, focusing on construction at its 100%-owned Amulsar Gold Project, located in south-central Armenia. Amulsar presents an opportunity for a large scale, low cost operation with production expected to begin in 2018. Open pit mining and conventional heap leach processing contribute to excellent scale and economic potential. Amulsar will be Armenia's largest gold mine, with estimated mineral resources containing 3 million measured and indicated ounces and 2 million inferred ounces. Gold production is targeted to average greater than 200,000 ounces annually over an initial 10 year mine life. Existing mineral resources and open extensions provide opportunities to improve average annual production and extend the mine life. The Company is committed to good international industry practices in all aspects of its operations including production, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility. For more information and to directly contact us, please visit www.lydianinternational.co.uk. Caution regarding forward-looking information Certain information contained in this news release is "forward looking". All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, that address events, results, outcomes or developments that the Company expects to occur are "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "intends", "anticipates" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "will", "would", "should", or "occur" or the negative or other variations of such terms. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, among others, statements with respect to: the amount and timing of funds available to be drawn under the Facility (including, the initial advance); the satisfaction of conditions, and timing thereof, to make draws under the Facility; the use of funds drawn by the Company under the Facility; the amount and timing of additional financing (including, the US$50 million of equipment financing facilities) being sought by the Company in connection with its current financing plan; the sufficiency of the Company's current financing plan; the Company's partnership with Ameriabank; the scope of Ameriabank's security interests; the realization of mineral resource estimates and the timing of development of the Amulsar Gold Project, including the expected start date of production; the current Amulsar Gold Project construction schedule; results of future exploration and drilling; the commitment to and implementation of good international industry practices; the expected gold production from, and life of mine of, the Amulsar Gold Project; the expected mining methods at the Amulsar Gold Project; and the expected cost of operations at the Amulsar Gold Project. Statements concerning mineral resource estimates may also be deemed to constitute forward-looking information to the extent that they involve estimates of the mineralization that will be encountered when the property is developed. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on estimates and assumptions that are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties and factors include, without limitation: changes in gold and silver prices; adverse general economic, market or business conditions; failure to achieve the objectives of the future exploration and drilling programs; regulatory changes; as well as "Risk Factors" included in the disclosure documents filed on and available at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results and future events could materially differ from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. All of the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are qualified by these cautionary statements. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Contacts: Lydian International Limited Howard Stevenson President and CEO +1 720-307-5080 (d) or +1 775-771-0739 (m) Lydian International Limited Doug Tobler CFO +1 720-307-5087 (d) or +1 303-905-4442 (m) moreinfo@Lydianinternational.co.uk DUBLIN, Nov 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Digital Transformation Market - Global Forecast to 2021" report to their offering. The digital transformation market is projected to grow from USD 148.04 Billion in 2015 to USD 392.15 Billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 18.7% from 2016 to 2021. Digital transformation is gaining a significant importance among organizations due to increasing the demand for internet of things and increased innovation offered by digitalization techniques. In addition, increased number of mobile devices and apps is one of the major growth factors of the market. Digital transformation market, by deployment type includes cloud and on-premises. The cloud deployment type is expected to grow at a higher growth rate during the forecast period. This is due to various advantages provided by cloud digital transformation such as reduction in IT budgets, low financial risks, and increased flexibility. Among business type, the business-to-business (B2B) segment is expected to hold the largest market share during the forecast period. In B2B segment, the adoption of digital transformation solutions is increasing owing to the fact that B2B enterprises believe that it is important to offer their products online. Among end users, the small and medium businesses (SMB) segment is be the fastest-growing market during the forecast period. The need for digital transformation is equally required in all organizations, irrespective of the size, in order to compete with the large organizations. Among verticals, the BFSI segment is expected to hold the largest market share during the forecast period. The BFSI vertical uses high-end digital technology to make banking transactions secure, simple, and error free. There is a high channel migration in banking, which enables customers to rely on digitals channels such as tablets, smartphones, and laptops to meet their banking requirements. Companies Mentioned: Accenture PLC Adobe Systems Apple, Inc. CA Technologies Capgemini Dell EMC Google Inc. Hewlett-Packard (HP) IBM Corporation Microsoft Corporation Oracle Corporation SAP AG Report Structure: 1 Introduction 2 Research Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Premium Insights 5 Market Overview 6 Digital Transformation Market, By Component 7 Digital Transformation Market, By Deployment Type 8 Digital Transformation Market, By End User 9 Digital Transformation Market, By Business Type 10 Digital Transformation Market, By Vertical 11 Digital Transformation Market, By Geography 12 Competitive Landscape 13 Company Profiles 14 Appendix For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8bgtfd/digital Media Contact: 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 DUBLIN, Nov 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Software Defined Radio Market by Application (Defense, Commercial, Homeland Security), Component (Software, Transmitter, Receiver), End User (Military, Transportation), Type (JTRS, Cognitive/Intelligent Radio, TETRA) - Global Forecast to 2021" report to their offering. The software defined radio market is estimated to be USD 16.24 Billion in 2016, and is projected to reach USD 29.12 Billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 12.39% from 2016 to 2021. Software defined radio has also been an increasing focus by the military on including commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) radios. These are the part of software defined radio systems in order to improve command and control of troops stationed in the battlefield, as well as to enhance situational awareness of the battlefield. On the basis of application, the software defined radio market has been segmented into defense, commercial, and homeland security. The commercial segment in the software defined radio market is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This growth is attributed to the increasing adoption of software defined radio, VSATs, and other tactical communication devices in the Middle East, the U.S., and Asia-Pacific. On the basis of component, the software defined radio market has been segmented into software, transmitter, and receiver. The software segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Defense forces are investing heavily on software of communication devices to modernize the communication systems according the advanced requirements of the modern warfare. This is due to the presence of major 82 software companies in the Americas; such as Microsoft Corporation (U.S.), Oracle Corporation (U.S.), and Symantec Corporation (U.S.), among others. On the basis of end user, the software defined radio market has been segmented into military, telecommunication; positioning systems, transportation, and others. The telecommunication segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Companies Mentioned: BAE Systems PLC. Datasoft Corporation Elbit Systems Ltd. Harris Corporation L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. Northrop Grumman Corporation Raytheon Company Rohde & Schwarz Thales Group Viasat, Inc. Report Structure: 1 Introduction 2 Research Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Premium Insights 5 Market Overview 6 Industry Trends 7 Software Defined Radio Market, By Application 8 Software Defined Radio Market, By Component 9 Software Defined Radio Market, By Type 10 Software Defined Radio Market, By End User 11 Regional Analysis 12 Competitive Landscape 13 Company Profiles 14 Appendix For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/3nkwkk/software_defined Media Contact: 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 SEATTLE (dpa-AFX) - Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) announced that Marketplace sellers on Amazon.ca achieved a record-setting one billion in sales in 2016. FBA items shipped worldwide grew more than 50 percent during the holiday season, while Prime members ordered millions of items from sellers in the Seller Fulfilled Prime program offering free two-day or next-day shipping. '2016 was a record-breaking year in sales worldwide for sellers on Amazon. The Amazon Marketplace empowers brand owners and retailers of all sizes, many of them small businesses, to reach customers around the world,' said Peter Faricy, VP for Amazon Marketplace. Amazon noted that Sellers on Amazon.ca achieved a record-setting one billion in sales in 2016. Sellers on Amazon.ca achieved over $350 million in sales during November and December. Sellers on Amazon.ca saw record-setting units sold in a day on Cyber Monday, growing 54 percent year-over-year. FBA sales on Amazon.ca increased 100 percent over Black Friday and Cyber Monday. FBA delivered more than two billion items to customers worldwide. Active sellers worldwide using the FBA service grew more than 70 percent. Outside the U.S., FBA units shipped grew more than 80 percent. Using the FBA service, Amazon sellers from more than 130 different countries around the world fulfilled orders to customers in 185 countries. The Seller Fulfilled Prime program added more than six million new items that are now Prime eligible across the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Japan. Sellers on Amazon that reached $100K sales grew by 30 percent. Sellers worldwide have created more than 600,000 new jobs outside of Amazon. Sellers worldwide received orders for more than 28 million items on Cyber Monday. FBA items shipped worldwide grew more than 50 percent year-over-year during the holiday season.Prime members worldwide ordered millions of items from sellers in the Seller Fulfilled Prime program offering free two-day or next-day shipping. 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. LONDON, 2017-03-06 14:10 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- XM Group (Trading Point Group), a leading FX and CFD Broker, today has officially announced the launch of the MT5 platform with offerings of over 300 CFDs on Single Stocks. Today, 6th of March, XM Group (Trading Point Group) has officially announced that it has successfully launched the MT5 platform, after a series of testing phases which have made sure the additional platform is seamlessly connected to all existing systems. The addition will enable the company to extend its offerings to 6 Asset Classes including CFDs on Single Stocks (Shares) in addition to the existing offerings which include FX, CFDs on Indices, Metals and Energies. Chris Zacharia, Marketing Director of the Group commented: "This day is one of those milestone events, which don't happen to companies every day. "It is something we have been patiently expecting for a long time, and I truly believe it will be a game changer for XM, which is taking its first steps in extending its range of instruments to the Stocks sphere. "XM is currently the biggest MT4 broker* with over 20 MT4 servers available and with over 1,000,000 clients, but with the addition of the MT5 to our platform offerings we are automatically entering into offering a new asset class which up to now was not possible for us, that of CFDs on Single Stocks. "Our plan is to extend our instrument offerings to up to 5000 CFDs on single stocks from companies all across the world listed on various stock exchanges including but not limited to NYSE, Nasdaq, LSE, Frankfurt Stock Exchange to name a few. "The current launch phase, which is officially being announced today, includes a total of 300 instruments and we will populate with more and more offerings as time goes by. "As noted by myself in a previous interview, I feel the predecessor of MT5, the globally acknowledged MT4, is a great platform and has proved itself, but it could only satisfy the needs of a certain audience and that would be FX traders, while MT5 is open to a whole new audience in addition to FX traders. "Only judging from the audience it will serve as a multi asset class platform, I would say it's the platform of choice as we speak. "It's simply a new era." About XM Group XM, the official trading partner of the Fastest Man in the World "Usain Bolt," is an award-winning Forex and CFD Broker serving over 1,000,000 clients. XM is a brand name of Trading Point Holdings Ltd which wholly owns Trading Point of Financial Instruments UK Ltd (XM UK), Trading Point of Financial Instruments Pty Ltd (XM Australia) and Trading Point of Financial Instruments Ltd (XM Cyprus). XM UK is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Reference number: 705428), XM Australia is licensed by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (Reference number: 443670) and XM Cyprus is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (Reference number: 120/10). For more information visit -> http://www.xm.com/ Risk Warning Forex and CFD Trading Involve a significant risk to your invested capital. Please ensure you fully understand the risks and take care to manage your exposure. XM Global Address Book: UK: Citypoint Building 1 Ropemaker Street EC2Y 9HT London, UK AUS: Level 13, 167 Macquarie House, Macquarie Street Sydney 2000, NSW, Australia CY: 12 Richard & Verengaria Street, Araouzos Castle Court, 3rd Floor, 3042 Limassol, Cyprus *Data obtained by Metaquotes Software Corp For Media Enquiries Contact Person: Chris Anthony Zacharia - Marketing Director XM Group Contact Phone: 00 357 25 99 00 Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - November 22, 2016) - Michelle Busa, an industry veteran with over 20 years of data management, team building and project management experience, recently returned to BioBridges as a professional in order to concentrate on the work that inspires her. Ms. Busa decided to return to BioBridges to take advantage of the company's Career Portfolio Management model and its ability to manage her career. Previously she was a client of BioBridges and worked with the company as a professional as well. "I made a conscious choice to return to BioBridges because they can engage me in the work I'm passionate about," said Ms. Busa. "Working with BioBridges I have the opportunity to focus on the work that fulfills me, rather than the administrative duties that usually accompany jobs at my level of experience." BioBridges engages highly skilled professionals and helps them to focus on the work they are passionate about to advance science and produce breakthrough therapies. Because the company provides integrated services to the emerging pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device communities, it attracts high caliber professionals and the programs who need them. Ms. Busa underscored that as one of the main reasons she returned to BioBridges. "BioBridges presents me as a subject matter expert and an industry veteran with many years of experience," she said. "That allows me to impact programs that are a perfect mix of the data management I love to do, while still using the industry knowledge and experience that I possess." "Michelle has been a long time member of our community and we are thrilled to have her return to BioBridges as a professional," said Jason Falchuk, Founding Partner of BioBridges. "BioBridges exists to represent those, like Michelle, who choose to define a career by the work that inspires them. They are leveraging their skills to get the work done, and as a result, growing pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies can achieve their clinical and business goals." About BioBridges Founded by industry veterans, BioBridges helps exceptional life science professionals pursue the work that inspires them. The company's scalable Career Portfolio Management model system allows highly skilled professionals to focus on the work they are passionate about with the companies who need them in order to advance science and produce breakthrough therapies. For more information, please visit www.biobridges.com. Media Contact Amy Steinberg 781.591.4740 asteinberg@biobridges.com TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Arena Minerals Inc., (TSX VENTURE: AN) ("Arena" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that Teck Resources Chile Limitada ("Teck") has informed Arena that it has commenced a further phase of exploration on the Paciencia North project ("Paciencia North"). Following encouraging results from the June-July 2016 drilling and reconnaissance induced polarization ("IP") program in the southern portion of the Paciencia option area, Teck carried out a further 51 km2 of reconnaissance IP and 380 line km of ground magnetics in an area extending to the northern boundary of the license block. This geophysical program led to the identification of a large coherent chargeability anomaly (approx. 2.5 x 3.5 km) beneath shallow gravel cover (approx. 20-100m thick) in the northern part of the Paciencia license block. The chargeability anomaly is coincident with an annular zoned magnetic anomaly with a central high and flanking low. Teck plans to drill test the target with an additional 1,800 metres of reverse circulation (RC) drilling to be completed in December 2016. "The coincident chargeability and magnetic anomaly defined by Teck is a high priority target and we look forward to seeing the initial drill results towards the end of 2016," commented William Randall, President and CEO of Arena. "The target presents classic porphyry geophysical signatures, and being 20 kilometres to the northwest of Spence makes for a truly exciting opportunity." In late 2015, and prior to the definition of the coincident IP and magnetic anomaly, three shallow, wide-spaced drill holes were completed on the periphery of the geophysical anomaly. These holes intersected sericite-chlorite and secondary biotite alteration. Due to their distant location and shallow depth, these holes are not considered to have tested the target. About Arena Minerals Arena Minerals is a prospect generator that has two properties under option covering approximately 70,000 hectares within the Antofagasta region of Chile. The properties are at low altitudes, within producing mining camps in infrastructure rich areas. The Company's flagship asset is the Atacama Copper Property, consisting of 70,0000 hectares, following a contractual land reduction on July 27, 2016, of essentially undrilled ground in the heart of Chile's premier copper mining district. Currently, approximately 40,000 of the Atacama Copper Property is under option to third parties. Pursuant to option agreements entered into between Arena, Japan Oil, Gas and Minerals National Corporation and Teck Resources Chile Limitada, each have the right to earn into 60% of the respective land holdings within the property, by collectively spending over $40 million in exploration expenditures, amongst certain other commitments. The technical and scientific aspects of this news release have been reviewed and approved by Mr. Vernon Arseneau, P.Geo, who is a qualified person pursuant to NI 43-101. As the Vice President of Exploration of the Company, Mr. Arseneau is not considered independent. To view the website, please visit www.arenaminerals.com. In addition to featuring information regarding the Company, its managements and projects, the website also contains the latest corporate news and an email registration allowing subscribers to receive news and updates directly. On behalf of the Board of Directors of Arena Minerals Inc. William Randall, President, and CEO Cautionary Note Regarding Accuracy and Forward-Looking Information: This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements, projections and estimates relating to the future development of any of the Company's properties, the further phase of exploration on the Paciencia North project with Teck, the progress of drill programs, the prospectivity of, and planned work programs on, such properties, the ability to enter into any additional joint venture partnership agreements as proposed, or at all, the ability of any potential partner to accelerate drill programs, increase the development of any of the projects or prospects of the Company, the results of the exploration program, future financial or operating performance of the Company and its subsidiaries and its projects. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", 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". The statements made herein are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors discussed in the management discussion and analysis section of the Company's interim and most recent annual financial statement or other reports and filings with the TSX Venture Exchange and applicable Canadian securities regulations. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, geopolitical and social uncertainties; the actual results of current exploration activities; other risks of the mining industry and the risks described in the annual information form of the Company. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward looking information. Arena Minerals does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Contacts: Arena Minerals Inc. William Randall President, and CEO (416) 309-2697 www.arenaminerals.com HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (TSX VENTURE: UCU)(OTCQX: UURAF) ("Ucore" or the "Company") is pleased to announce recent appointments to the Company's Board of Directors. Patrick Ryan Mr. Patrick Ryan has been appointed as the Chairman of the Board of Directors. He is the founder of Neocon International ("Neocon"), a multi-million dollar OEM design and lean manufacturing company serving international leading automotive enterprises such as Toyota, Nissan and General Motors. From its North American base of operations, Neocon serves as a Tier One automotive supplier, focusing on the development and manufacture of innovative factory-installed vehicle components, using light weight and high strength materials, OEM green initiatives, and patented processes designed to reduce output cycle times and unit cost. Since Neocon's inception in 1993, Mr. Ryan has been the company's strategic architect, responsible for sales growth and capital acquisitions, while directing a team of R&D engineers and promoting stringent production standards. Under Mr. Ryan's direction, Neocon was acquired in 2002 by Exco Technologies, Ltd., a publically traded TSX company. Prior to founding Neocon, Mr. Ryan held positions as V.P. Operations for Plastics Maritime Ltd. and Product Design Engineer for T.S. Simms and Company. He mentors MBA students and graduating design engineers from Dalhousie University from which he holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree. He is the recipient of the APENS Award from the Association of Professional Engineers of Nova Scotia as "the most likely to serve society in an ethical manner". Steven Meister Mr. Steven Meister has been appointed as a member of the Ucore Board of Directors. Mr. Meister is Director of Client Development and Delivery with Williams Engineering Canada Ltd. As a member of the senior leadership team at Williams, his key responsibilities include managing the Northern Canada Operating Region, as well as directing business development and project management. Mr. Meister has over 25 years of management and business development. Since 1995, he has been strategically involved in business initiatives throughout the mining, oil and gas, and utilities industries across northern and western Canada. Previously, Mr. Meister was employed by Stantec (formally Jacques Whitford Stantec AXYS) as Operations Manager for Northern Canada, and Business Development Manager for ARDICOM, an aboriginal partnership between Northern Aboriginal Services Company (NASCo), Arctic Cooperatives Limited (ACL) and Northwestel. He has also worked with numerous communities and key stakeholders, including First Nation businesses and regional organizations. "We're delighted to announce these appointments to the Ucore Board," said Jim McKenzie, President and CEO of Ucore. "Tier One companies are the most technically-capable suppliers in the automotive manufacturing chain. As chief architect of Neocon, Mr. Ryan brings a vast skill set to Ucore as we transition to a revenue business model with energy metal production. The end customers of our Strategic Metals Complex will be tier one, two and three in a sophisticated supply chain, all of which Mr. Ryan is very attuned to serving, including such Global 1000 customers as General Motors, Nissan and Toyota among others. Mr. Meister is a specialist in senior business development, targeting leading companies in the mining, O&G, and utilities sectors. Together, these specialists make for an exceptional complement to Ucore's governance, management and advisory resources." General The Company notes that Mr. Jos De Smedt has resigned from the Board to pursue other business interests, remaining with Ucore in a consulting and advisory capacity for an initial term of 12 months. The Company wishes to thank Mr. De Smedt for his exceptional contribution to the Board over his many years with the Company. The Company additionally reports that 300,000 options have been granted to a Director of the Company, subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The options are exercisable at a price of $0.31 and will expire on November 19, 2021. One third of the options will vest after six months, with one third vesting every six months thereafter until fully vested. Background Ucore Rare Metals, one of PwC Canada's top junior mining companies for 2016, is a development-phase company focused on rare metals resources, extraction and beneficiation technologies with near term potential for production, growth and scalability. On March 3, 2015, Ucore announced the right to acquire a controlling ownership interest in the exclusive rights to IBC SuperLig technology for rare earths and multi-metallic tailings processing applications in North America and associated world markets. The Company has a 100% ownership stake in the Bokan project. On March 31, 2014, Ucore announced the unanimous support of the Alaska State Legislature for the investment of up to USD $145 Million in the Bokan project at the discretion of the Alaska Import Development and Export Agency ("AIDEA"). For further information, please visit http://www.ucore.com. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined by the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Contacts: Ucore Rare Metals Inc. Mr. Jim McKenzie President and Chief Executive Officer +1 (902) 482-5214 www.ucore.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - In an unconventional gesture, US President-elect Donald Trump released a video outlining some of his policy plans for the first 100 days, and his day one executive actions. Trump vowed that the US Government will pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on his first day in office, because it is 'a potential disaster for the country.' The businessman-turned politician is set to become new US President on January 20. Withdrawing from the multi-national trade deal was one of the main measures Trump repeatedly vowed to adopt during the election campaign. Delivering his so-called 'American Economic Independence' speech at a Factory in Pennsylvania in June, Trump had said TPP would be the death blow for American manufacturing. Trump said the United States' trade deficit with the proposed TPP member countries cost the country tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs last year, and warned that many more jobs would be lost if TPP was actually approved. The massive trade deal was signed in 2015 by 12 economic powers, including the United States, Japan, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico, and is yet to be ratified. Trump said that as part of his plan to create wealth and jobs for American workers, he has asked his transition team to develop a list of executive actions that the administration can take on day one 'to restore our laws and bring back our jobs.' 'On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores,' Trump said. Sharing an update on the Presidential Transition, Trump said his transition team is working very smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - November 22, 2016) - Spanish Mountain Gold Ltd. (the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: SPA) is pleased to report on preliminary findings from two targeted programs, currently underway for advancing its Spanish Mountain Gold Project (the "Project") located in central British Columbia, Canada. Alternate Mine Plan As previously indicated in a news release dated Oct. 12, 2016, the Company has engaged Moose Mountain Technical Services to study alternatives in developing a mine plan for a conceptually lower throughput project. The preliminary findings of the study suggest that there are reasonable bases to develop the Company's multi-million ounce resource in two distinct zones. The first zone, located near the south central area of the deposit, comprises of mostly higher grade materials falling under the measured and indicated (M&I) classification of the resource within a conceptual pit. This zone could potentially be processed at approximately 20,000 tonnes per day (tpd) sustaining a standalone mining operation for more than 20 years (1) . In the Project's previous Preliminary Economic Assessment, the mine plan for the entire resource entailed a throughput of 40,000 tpd throughout its mine life of 14 years. The Company expects that a lower throughput scenario will potentially reduce the overall capital expenditure while maintaining a robust production profile at a reasonable unit cost. Furthermore, by focusing on the selected zone for initial development, the Company may (subject to the completion of an updated PEA) proceed with a preliminary feasibility or feasibility study without first conducting a significant infill drilling program resulting in material cost and time savings. The Company also believes that the second zone, which surrounds the first zone within the current resource, and the Phoenix zone, located 2 kilometres west, could potentially enhance the Project's production profile, either concurrently or subsequently. Metallurgical Process A metallurgical test program is underway on core rejects from previous drilling campaigns. Compared to the proposed flowsheet incorporated in the previous PEA, this testwork is being completed without the inclusion of a prefloat step or gravity concentration in order to simplify the overall process flowsheet. Initial testwork has achieved sufficient success to justify the ongoing work presently underway. This testwork will also include additional samples for the purpose of demonstrating consistency in results. The Company will release the final results as they become available. Larry Yau, CEO, commented: "These investigative studies provide us with comfort about our Project's development flexibility and scalable capital requirements. We look forward to reporting the results of the metallurgical evaluation and incorporating all the findings in a subsequent new PEA, which I believe will demonstrate the robust economics of our mineral resource under our new approach." (1) while the study indicates that the first zone within the Project's resource could potentially sustain a lower throughput mine plan on the basis of mineralization and grade distributions, the economic viability of such a plan has not yet been demonstrated with a Preliminary Economic Assessment. Readers are cautioned against assuming otherwise until a PEA is completed for the Project. About Spanish Mountain Gold Spanish Mountain Gold Ltd is focused on advancing its flagship Spanish Mountain gold project in southern central British Columbia. The positive economics of the multi-million ounce Mineral Resource have been demonstrated in a Preliminary Economic Assessment. The Company is currently investigating several opportunities to further improve the Project's economics. Additional information about the Company is available on its website: www.spanishmountaingold.com On Behalf of the Board, SPANISH MOUNTAIN GOLD LTD. Larry Yau, Chief Executive Officer Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulations Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. 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 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. Inquiries: Spanish Mountain Gold Ltd. Phone: (604) 601-3651 E-mail: info@spanishmountaingold.com Website: www.spanishmountaingold.com Coca-Cola European Partners plc (CCEP) (ticker symbol: CCE) will host a conference call with analysts and investors on Thursday, 15 December 2016, at 3:00 p.m. GMT, and 4:00 p.m. CET, 10:00 a.m. EST. John F. Brock, chief executive officer, Damian Gammell, chief operating officer, and Nik Jhangiani, chief financial officer, will provide an update on 2016 business trends and discuss the company's outlook for 2017. CCEP will issue a news release before trading begins on the NYSE on Thursday, 15 December 2016. A conference call discussing these matters will be webcast live through the company's website, www.ccep.com. A replay of the presentation will be available later that day. A copy of the company's news release will be available through the website on the home page and under the Investors section. ABOUT CCEP Coca-Cola European Partners plc (CCEP) is a leading consumer packaged goods company in Europe, producing, distributing and marketing an extensive range of nonalcoholic ready-to-drink beverages and is the world's largest independent Coca-Cola bottler based on revenue. Coca-Cola European Partners serves a consumer population of over 300 million across Western Europe, including Andorra, Belgium, continental France, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. The company is listed on Euronext Amsterdam, the New York Stock Exchange, Euronext London, and on the Spanish stock exchanges, and trades under the symbol CCE. For more information about CCEP, please visit www.ccep.com and follow CCEP on Twitter at @CocaColaEP. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005340/en/ Contacts: Coca-Cola European Partners plc Investor Relations: Thor Erickson, +01-678-260-3110 or Media Relations: Ros Hunt, +44.7528.251.022 PUNE, India, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new market research report "Coagulation/Hemostasis Analyzer Market by Product (Clinical Laboratory & PoCT Analyzers), Consumables, Test (PT, Fibrinogen, APTT, ACT, D Dimer, Platelet Function), Technology (Mechanical, Optical, Electrochemical), End User (PoCT) - Forecast to 2021" published by MarketsandMarkets, the market is projected to reach USD 4.84 Billion by 2021 from USD 2.98 Billion in 2016, at a CAGR of 10.2% from 2016 to 2021. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 ) Browse 96 market data Tables and 57 Figures spread through 167 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Coagulation/Hemostasis Analyzer Market http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/hemostasis-coagulation-analyzer-market-197226392.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report. This report provides a detailed overview of the major drivers, restraints, challenges, opportunities and strategies impacting the Coagulation Analyzers Market along with the estimates and forecasts of the revenue and market share analysis. The major factor driving the growth of this market are increasing prevalence of autoimmune diseases and increasing healthcare expenditure worldwide. The report segments this market based on product, test, technology, end-users, and regions. Among the products, the clinical laboratory analyzers are expected to account for the largest share of the market. The high growth of clinical laboratory analyzers can be attributed increasing rental agreements and increasing prevalence of blood related diseases worldwide. Speak to our research experts: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalyst.asp?id=197226392 On the basis of type of test, the Coagulation Analyzers Market is segmented into nine major test segments, namely, prothrombin time testing, fibrinogen testing, ACT, aPTT, d dimer testing, platelet function test, anti-factor Xa test, heparin & protamine dose response test for ACT and other coagulation tests. The prothrombin time testing is the largest test segment of this market, owing to the increasing incidence of cardiovascular and blood related diseases. Based on technology, the Coagulation Analyzers Market is segmented into mechanical, optical, electrochemical and other technologies. The optical technology segment is expected to account for the largest share of the global Coagulation Analyzers Market in 2016. This can be attributed to better flexibility and accuracy and greater application in coagulation analysis. Based on end-users, the Coagulation Analyzers Market are clinical laboratories, PoC testing and others. The clinical laboratories segment is expected to account for the largest share of the global Coagulation Analyzers Market in 2016. Rise in healthcare spending has resulted in the increasing use of Coagulation Analyzers Market testing products in hospitals. Based on regions, the global Coagulation Analyzers Market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia, and the Rest of the World (RoW). North America is expected to account for the largest share of the market during the forecast period. Growth in this regional segment is driven by factors such as increase in aging population, and increasing diseases due to urbanization in North America. Key players in the Coagulation Analyzers Market include are Siemens AG (Germany), Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (U.S.), Roche Diagnostics (Switzerland), Alere Inc. (U.S.), Sysmex Corporation (Japan), Nihon Kohden Corporation (Japan), Diagnostica Stago (France), Helena Laboratories (U.S.), Instrumentation Laboratory (U.S.), and International Technidyne Corporation (U.S.). Browse Related Reports: Plasma Fractionation Market by Product (Albumin, Immunoglobulin, Factor VIII, Protease Inhibitors), Application (Neurology, Hematology, Rheumatology, Immunology), End User (Hospitals, Clinical Research Laboratories) - Global Forecast to 2021 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/plasma-fractionation-market-93798284.html Hematology Analyzers & Reagents Market by Products (3-& 5- part hematology Analyzers, Point-of-Care, & Fully Automated), Consumables (Reagents & Stains), End Users (Research Institute, Hospital, & Clinical Testing Labs) - Global Forecasts to 2019 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/hematology-analyzers-reagents-market-153222146.html About MarketsandMarkets: MarketsandMarkets is the largest market research firm worldwide in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository. Subscribe Reports from Healthcare Domain @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Knowledgestore.asp Contact: Mr. Rohan MarketsandMarkets 701 Pike Street Suite 2175, Seattle, WA 98101, United States 1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com Visit MarketsandMarkets Blog @ http://mnmblog.org/market-research/healthcare/medical-devices Connect with us on LinkedIn @http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - At a high-level United Nations forum under way in the United Arab Emirates aimed at exploring the role of space in socio-economic and sustainable development, former US astronaut Scott Kelly was named as the UN Champion for Space. Kelly holds the record for the most cumulative number of days spent in space by an American astronaut on board the International Space Station. Over the next two years, Kelly, known for his 'year in space,' will help the UN promote space as a tool for achieving the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 'We are thrilled and honoured to have Mr. Kelly's support as United Nations Champion for Space. In this role, Mr. Kelly will combine his demonstrated passion for making our world a better place with his expertise and experience in space. I look forward to working with Mr. Kelly to bring global attention to the important role that space can play in sustainable development,' said Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). 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. SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- CFN Media Group, the leading creative agency and digital media network dedicated to legal cannabis, announces the publication of an article discussing the growing legal acceptance throughout South and Central America of cannabinoid-based medicines, and the leading role that Medical Marijuana Inc. (OTC PINK: MJNA) plays throughout the region. As slow as the United States might be in realizing the medical benefits of cannabidiol (CBD), companies like Medical Marijuana Inc. have demonstrated they are on the forefront of research, production and distribution of legal cannabis products. Latin American countries have taken a much more progressive stance in endorsing such products and politicians worldwide are quickly realizing that legalizing marijuana could reduce crime and help patients suffering from a variety of conditions. With the global tide turning, this progression will create significant opportunities for companies operating in the burgeoning Latin American cannabis industry. Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay have all recently legalized, or announced the intention to legalize, some form of cannabis use. In February 2016 Mexico's regulatory authority, COFEPRIS, approved the legal import of Real Scientific Hemp Oil-X (MJNA's product) for two young girls suffering from severe epilepsy and the program soon expanded to all qualifying citizens with refractory epilepsy. Currently, the Brazilian government has approved the import of hemp-based CBD oils for epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, and chronic pain, including migraine headaches. Patients with a doctor's prescription and approved import documentation can legally purchase Real Scientific Hemp Oil products from HempMeds Brazil - an affiliate of Medical Marijuana Inc. Medical Marijuana Inc. also provides shareholders with exposure to its other portfolio companies like HempMeds, Dixie Botanicals, Kannaway and CanChew Biotechnologies. Further, the company has invested into two upcoming early-stage biotech enterprises, including AXIM Biotechnologies where MJNA owns a 45% stake. The company looks forward to leveraging this experience in the United States as cannabinoids become more widely accepted. While the FDA doesn't allow specific medical claims to be made, researchers have demonstrated a wide variety of potential benefits for cannabinoids across conditions ranging from Alzheimer's disease to certain types of cancers. The ongoing progress made by researchers could eventually make way for these kinds of claims to be made. Follow the link to read the full article: http://www.cannabisfn.com/latin-america-embraces-hemp-based-cbd-oil/ Learn how to become a CFN Media featured company, brand or entrepreneur: http://www.cannabisfn.com/become-featured-company/ Download the CFN Media iOS mobile app to access the world of cannabis from your smart phone: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cannabisfn/id988009247?ls=1&mt=8 Or visit our homepage and enter your mobile number under the Apple App Store logo to receive a download link text on your iPhone: http://www.cannabisfn.com About CFN Media CFN Media (CannabisFN) is the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis. We help marijuana businesses attract investors, customers (B2B, B2C), capital, and media visibility. Private and public marijuana companies and brands in the US and Canada rely on CFN Media to grow and succeed. About Medical Marijuana Inc. Our mission is to be the premier cannabis and hemp industry innovators, leveraging our team of professionals to source, evaluate and purchase value-added companies and products, while allowing them to keep their integrity and entrepreneurial spirit. We strive to create awareness within our industry, develop environmentally friendly, economically sustainable businesses, while increasing shareholder value. For details on Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s portfolio and investment companies, visit http://www.medicalmarijuanainc.com. To see Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s video statement, click here. Shareholders are also encouraged to visit the Medical Marijuana, Inc. Shop for discounted products. Disclaimer: Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CFN Media and CannabisFN.com, is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority, and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release. Emerging Growth LLC may from time to time have a position in the securities mentioned herein and may increase or decrease such positions without notice. For making specific investment decisions, readers should seek their own advice. Emerging Growth LLC may be compensated for its services in the form of cash-based compensation or equity securities in the companies it writes about, or a combination of the two. For full disclosure please visit: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/. CFN Media Frank Lane 206-369-7050 flane@cannabisfn.com TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Emblem Cannabis Corporation, Canada's most anticipated licensed producer of medical marijuana with plans to go public before the end of the year, is now open for business, opening the door for patients across the country to now register and fulfil orders on its website. For the past several months Emblem has been developing and growing a variety of strains and their phenotypes, with a wide range of cannabinoids and terpenes and that catalogue of strains is expected to grow as cultivation space, and production expand substantially. Based in Paris, Ontario, Emblem is entering the market at a time when legalization is on the political horizon, and the number of medical marijuana patients keeps climbing as the medical community begins to embrace the benefits of cannabis to treat a range of medical conditions. "A growing number of Canadians, including doctors, are beginning to discover the amazing and natural therapeutic benefits of cannabis," says Maxim Zavet, President of Emblem. "At Emblem, we are a group of dedicated growers and inspired enthusiasts committed to growing premium cannabis because we passionately believe in its healing powers." In less than a year, the number of medical marijuana patients in Canada has more than doubled with 91,000 Canadians now registered - a trend that clearly demonstrates that not only is the stigma of cannabis beginning to disappear, but attitudes within the medical community are now shifting. Patients with a medical document signed by their physician can now log on to www.emblemcannabis.com and order from a catalogue of strains, lab tested and free of contaminants that have been grown in the most carefully controlled, state-of-the-art, indoor environment. Some of the conditions that have been identified by the scientific and medical community that respond well to cannabis treatment include chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, seizures, nausea, fibromyalgia and more. "At heart, we are a company that believes that cannabis and a healthy lifestyle are not mutually exclusive," says Zavet. "In fact, the way we see it, when used responsibly, cannabis is really all about better health and better living." In addition to having some of the highest quality, premium strains available, Emblem promises to be relentlessly customer-focused. Unlike other licensed producers, patients will be able to get through immediately on the phone from 7am to 7pm EST to a knowledgeable Cannabis Counsellor who will be able to walk them through any questions they might have, including choosing strains and placing orders. About Emblem Cannabis Corp. Emblem Corp. is a fully integrated Canadian medical marijuana, healthcare and cannabinoid-based pharmaceutical company licensed to carry on business as a producer of medical cannabis by the Government of Canada. Contacts: Jeff Silverstein Sussex Strategy Group 416-879-4353 jsilverstein@sussex-strategy.com VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Javelle Capital Corp. (NEX: JVL.H) (the "Company" or "Javelle"), a capital pool company listed on the NEX Board of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"), is pleased to announce that it has signed an Amalgamation Agreement dated November 18, 2016 (the "Agreement") with Kenadyr Mining Corporation ("KMC"), a private British Columbia corporation, whereby Javelle will acquire all of the outstanding shares of KMC (the "Proposed Transaction") in exchange for common shares of the Company. KMC holds all of the issued and outstanding securities in PIC Ala-Too, a Kyrgyz Republic company that is the 100% legal and beneficial holder of an exploration license related to KMC's mineral project located in Borubai, northern Kyrgyz Republic (the "Borubai Project"). About KMC KMC was incorporated under the provisions of the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) on August 11, 2014 and currently has 79,898,024 common shares issued and outstanding and share purchase warrants outstanding to purchase up to an additional 4,633,044 common shares. KMC's primary business is mineral exploration in the Kyrgyz Republic, specifically gold exploration in Borubai. KMC is at arm's length to Javelle. KMC holds all of the issued and outstanding securities in PIC Ala-Too, a Kyrgyz Republic company registered in Bishkek, which is the 100% legal and beneficial holder of an exploration license related to KMC's Borubai Project. The Borubai Project comprises a 100% owned exploration license covering a contiguous 164 sq km's and is located in northern Kyrgyz Republic. The Borubai Project has been the subject of extensive historic exploration including: drilling (98,200 m in 184 diamond drill holes), trenching (13,800 cu.m.), bulldozer cuts (33,400 cu.m.), geologic mapping at 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 scales, ridge and spur and grid soil geochemistry for multi elements (14,200 samples), rock geochemical sampling (2,320 samples), pan concentrate sampling (790 samples), and 100 meters of adits and 184 meters of underground raises. Additionally, the entire area has been subject to airborne magnetic, radiometric and gravity surveys as well as ground based resistivity and IP surveys. The Borubai Project encircles the Zijin/KyrgyzAltyn newly constructed and operational Taldy-Bulak Levoberejny Mine ("TBL Mine") which was built at a cost of US$296mm. According to a news release published by Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. on August 15, 2011, the national resources table of Kyrgyz Republic stated that the Taldy-Bulak Levoberejny field contains (C1+C2) grades: 8,906,100 tonnes gold ore,the average grade is 7.23g/t, and gold metal is 64,420.5kg, among which, C1 grade (initial mining reserve) 4,949,754 tonnes gold ore,the average grade is 7.02g/t, and gold metal volume is 34,754.6kg. The TBL Mine is designed to produce 125,000 oz. Au/annum. The TBL Mine orebody directly connects to KMC's initial drill target "The South Zone" which was previously drilled by the Soviets. Readers are cautioned that the resource and reserve estimates relating to the TBL Mine do not extend to KMC's Borubai Project. Neither KMC or Javelle has independently verified the information with respect to the TBL Mine provided in this news release and it is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization on the Borubai Project. A qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimates on the TBL Mine as current mineral resources or mineral reserves and neither KMC or Javelle is aware of the resource and reserve categories or the key assumptions, parameters and methods used to prepare the historical estimates on the TBL Mine. The Company is not treating the historical estimates on the TBL Mine as current mineral resources or mineral reserves as defined in NI 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. The Company cautions readers that the historical estimates on the TBL Mine disclosed in this news release should not be relied upon. Technical information in this news release has been approved by Brian Lueck, a director of KMC, and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Financial information related to the significant assets of KMC will be disclosed when available. Summary of the Proposed Transaction The Proposed Transaction will be effected by way of a three-cornered amalgamation without court approval under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia), pursuant to which Javelle will acquire, through the amalgamation of a newly incorporated British Columbia subsidiary of Javelle with KMC, all of the issued and outstanding shares of KMC (the "KMC Shares"), in exchange for common shares of Javelle (each, a "Javelle Share") and KMC will become a subsidiary of Javelle. Prior to the closing of the Proposed Transaction, Javelle will change its name to Kenadyr Mining (Holdings) Corp., or such other name as agreed by the parties, and will complete a consolidation of the Javelle Shares on the basis of one post-consolidation Javelle Share for every two pre-consolidation Javelle Shares. Pursuant to the Proposed Transaction, the shareholders of KMC will receive one post-consolidation Javelle Share for each KMC Share held at a deemed issue price of $0.35 per share. No concurrent financing is anticipated to occur in connection with the Proposed Transaction. KMC holds approximately C$10mm in cash as at the date of this news release. Upon completion of the Proposed Transaction, all of the outstanding share purchase warrants of KMC will cease to represent a right to acquire KMC Shares and will instead provide the right to acquire post-consolidation Javelle Shares, all in accordance with the adjustment provisions provided in the certificates representing the warrants. The Proposed Transaction is subject to, among other things, receipt of the approval of the shareholders of KMC, final approval of the Exchange and standard closing conditions, including the conditions described below. KMC shareholders representing approximately 40% of the issued and outstanding KMC Shares have entered into support agreements pursuant to which they have agreed to vote their KMC Shares in support of the Proposed Transaction. The Proposed Transaction will constitute Javelle's qualifying transaction pursuant to Policy 2.4 - Capital Pool Companies of the Exchange. Upon completion of the Proposed Transaction, Javelle will continue on with the business of KMC and become a Tier 2 mining issuer, with KMC as its operating subsidiary (the Company after the Proposed Transaction being referred to herein as the "Resulting Issuer"). All Javelle Shares issued pursuant to the Proposed Transaction will be subject to voluntary hold periods on the basis that Javelle Shares issued in exchange for KMC Shares originally issued at a price of less than $0.35 will be subject to a four month hold period and Javelle Shares issued in exchange for KMC Shares originally issued at a price of $0.35 or greater will be subject to a two month hold period from the date of closing of the Proposed Transaction. Certain of the Javelle Shares are expected to also be subject to restrictions on resale or escrow under the policies of the Exchange, including the securities to be issued to "Principals" (as defined under Exchange policies), which will subject to the escrow requirements of the Exchange. In connection with the Proposed Transaction, Javelle will issue an aggregate of 500,000 post-consolidation Javelle Shares to certain arm's length third parties as finder's fees in accordance with Exchange policies. None of the securities to be issued pursuant to the Proposed Transaction have been or will be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws, and any securities issued pursuant to the Proposed Transaction are anticipated to be issued in reliance upon available exemptions from such registration requirements. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. Conditions to the Proposed Transaction The completion of the Proposed Transaction remains subject to a number of terms and conditions, including, among other things: -- KMC having received shareholder approval of the Proposed Transaction by a special majority of the KMC shareholders; -- the Proposed Transaction being effective on or prior to April 30, 2017; -- Javelle and KMC obtaining all necessary consents, orders and regulatory approvals, including the conditional approval of the Exchange subject only to customary conditions of closing; -- dissent rights not having been exercised by greater than 5% of the KMC shareholders; -- no material change occurring to the business of Javelle or KMC; -- the satisfaction of obligations under the Amalgamation Agreement relating to each of the parties; and -- the delivery by each of the parties of standard closing documents, including legal opinions. Sponsorship of a Qualifying Transaction of a Capital Pool Company is required by the Exchange unless exempt in accordance with Exchange policies. The parties will be seeking a waiver of any requirement for a sponsor, but in the event a waiver is not available, will seek a sponsorship relationship for this transaction with an Exchange member firm. The shares of the Company were halted effective November 21, 2016 and may remain halted until the completion of the Proposed Transaction. The Resulting Issuer - Summary of Proposed Directors and Officers It is currently anticipated that all of the current officers and directors of Javelle will resign from their respective positions with Javelle. The management of the Resulting Issuer is expected to include each of Alexander Becker (CEO), Bryan Slursarchuk (President), Brian Lueck (COO), and Kevin Ma (CFO) and the board of directors of the Resulting Issuer is expected to consist of Alexander Becker, Bryan Slusarchuk, Brian Lueck, R. Stuart Angus and Douglas J. Kirwin. The following are brief descriptions of the proposed directors, officers, and advisors of the Resulting Issuer: Alex Becker - Chief Executive Officer and Director Dr. Becker has a long and distinguished career in mining including acquiring and targeting the gold potential of the Chaarat Deposit (gold resource 6.5 million oz). He was a director of Perseus Mining, Kentor Gold, Manas Petroleum (CEO & Director), Action Hydrocarbons, Caspian Oil And Gas and V.P. Geology of Apex Asia (a subsidiary of Apex Silver Mines). He started his career during Soviet times as the Chief Geologist of the Geological Mapping Division of North Kyrgyz Geological Expedition. Dr. Becker is one of the world's authorities on the geology of Central Asia and has authored numerous papers in international scientific journals including Geological Society of America; Tectonophysics, Structual Geology; and Geology and International Geology Review. Dr. Becker holds a M.Sc. in Geology and a Ph.D in Structural Geology. Bryan Slusarchuk - President and Director Mr. Slusarchuk has significant international experience structuring, funding and operating companies involved in mineral exploration, development and production. In addition to experience operationally and in the conducting of equity raises, Mr. Slusarchuk has structured complex debt financing transactions in the United States, Canada and Europe with multiple top tier banks. This includes negotiating and securing the first ever funding of a mineral exploration company by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Mr. Slusarchuk is a past TEDx speaker on the topic of capital markets, was a senior advisor at a top tier Canadian brokerage firm, and is a member of multiple mining industry advocacy associations in emerging markets, through which he has regularly advised various governments on the formation of mining policy. He has experience on the Board of and as an officer of multiple publicly traded and private companies in Canada, the United States and Europe. Brian Lueck - Chief Operating Officer and Director Mr. Lueck has over 25 years experience as an officer and director of Canadian and London public companies involved in mineral exploration, resource definition and feasibility studies. He is a practicing member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia and a Member of the Society of Economic Geologists. Mr. Lueck is an advisor to the Board of K92 Mining Inc. R. Stuart Angus - Chairman and Director Mr. Angus is an independent business advisor to the mining industry. For the past 30 years, Mr. Angus has focused on structuring and financing significant international exploration, development and mining ventures. Mr. Angus is the former chairman of the board of B.C. Sugar Refinery Ltd.; he was a director of First Quantum Minerals until June, 2005, a director of Canico Resources Corp. until its takeover by CVRD in 2005, and a director of Bema Gold until its takeover by Kinross Gold in 2007. More recently, he was managing director of mergers and acquisitions for Endeavour Financial, a director of Ventana Gold until its takeover by AUX Canada Acquisition in 2011, and a director of Plutonic Power until its merger with Magma Energy in 2011. He is presently chairman of Nevsun Resources Ltd., which operates one of the highest-grade open-pit copper mines in the world. Douglas J. Kirwin - Director Mr. Kirwin is an independent geologist with 45 years of international exploration experience, including five years in Papua New Guinea. He held senior positions with Anglo American and Amax during the 1970's and was Managing Director of a successful international geological consulting firm during the 1980's and early 1990's. In 1995 he accepted a role as vice president, exploration for Indochina Goldfields and subsequently became the executive vice president for Ivanhoe Mines Limited until 2012 after which Ivanhoe was acquired by Rio Tinto. Mr. Kirwin was also a director of South Gobi Energy, Jinshan Gold and a founding non-executive director of Ivanhoe Australia Ltd. As a member of the joint discovery team for the Hugo Dummett deposit at Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia, he was a co-recipient of the PDAC inaugural Thayer Lindsley medal awarded for the most significant international mineral discovery in 2004. Other mineral discoveries made by Mr. Kirwin's exploration team include the Jelai-Mewet and Seryung epithermal deposits in north east Kalimantan, the Eunsan-Moisan gold mines in South Korea, the Moditaung gold deposits in Myanmar and the Merlin Re-Mo deposit in Australia. Kevin Ma - CFO Mr. Kevin Ma is a senior financial professional specializing in corporate finance, public company reporting and regulatory compliance in Canada and United States, strategic planning, financial management, and capital markets for the past 10 years. Mr. Ma has worked with a broad spectrum of industries in natural resources, software, clean tech, security, and a variety of industrial projects for SME and multi-national companies, both private and public corporate structures. Mr. Ma was a core member of the senior management team at Alexco Resource Corp. that put the Bellekeno Mine into commercial operations in 2011 in the historic Keno Hill Silver District, Yukon Territory, Canada. Mr. Ma is a Chartered Accountant certified by the Institute of Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia, and holds a Diploma in Accounting and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of British Columbia. Mark Eaton - Advisor Mr. Eaton is a graduate from Hull University, England and is an experienced investment professional with over 20 years of experience in equity capital markets specializing in the resource sector. He has held the position of Managing Director of Global Mining Sales, a division of CIBC World Markets of Toronto, and Manager of US Equity Sales for CIBC World Markets. Mr. Eaton is also a former Partner and Director of Loewen Ondaatje McCutcheon Ltd., a Toronto-based investment dealer. Additional to his leadership in institutional mine finance and investment banking, Mr. Eaton has served in management and on the Boards of several public mining companies. Mr. Eaton is the current Executive Chairman and the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Belo Sun Mining Corp. Additional information concerning the Proposed Transaction, Javelle, KMC and the Resulting Issuer will be provided in the Company's Filing Statement to be filed in connection with the Proposed Transaction and which will be available under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. About Javelle The Company is a Capital Pool Company, currently listed on the NEX Board of the Exchange. Management of the Company is actively engaged in assessing possible projects with a view to completing a Qualifying Transaction. Any proposed Qualifying Transaction must be approved by the Exchange. As the Proposed Transaction is an arm's length Qualifying Transaction no shareholder approval is required. Until the completion of a Qualifying Transaction, Javelle will not carry on any business other than the identification and evaluation of businesses or assets with a view to completing a proposed Qualifying Transaction. The Company currently has 7,099,198 common shares issued and outstanding and no outstanding options or share purchase warrants. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Donald Gee, President and Director Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Completion of the Qualifying Transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to, Exchange acceptance and if applicable pursuant to Exchange Requirements, majority of the minority shareholder approval. Where applicable, the Proposed Transaction cannot close until the required shareholder approval is obtained. There can be no assurance that the Qualifying Transaction will be completed as proposed or at all. Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the management information circular or filing statement to be prepared in connection with the Qualifying Transaction, any information released or received with respect to the Proposed Transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of a capital pool company should be considered highly speculative. The Exchange has in no way passed upon the merits of the Proposed Transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. All information contained in this news release with respect to Javelle and KMC was supplied by the parties, respectively, for inclusion herein, and Javelle and its directors and officers have relied on KMC for any information concerning such party. This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the timing and completion of the Proposed Transaction, the future operations of the Company, KMC, and the Resulting Issuer and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Proposed Transaction and the future plans and objectives of the Company, KMC, and the Resulting Issuer are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's, KMC's, and the Resulting Issuer's expectations include the failure to satisfy the conditions to completion of the Proposed Transaction set forth above and other risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Company, KMC, and the Resulting Issuer with securities regulations. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, KMC, and the Resulting Issuer. As a result, the Company, KMC, and the Resulting Issuer cannot guarantee that the Proposed Transaction will be completed on the terms and within the time disclosed herein or at all. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company, KMC, and the Resulting Issuer will update or revise publicly any of the included forward-looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities law. Contacts: Donald Gee (604) 618-3433 RICHMOND, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- An increasing number of Canadian consumers have shifted their holiday spending to take advantage of Black Friday promotions. And this year Canadians can expect to find the best deals locally. The slumping loonie against the U.S. dollar has largely eliminated the appeal of travelling stateside to shop especially since local retailers have adopted the practice of offering deep discounts on Black Friday. Canadian retailer London Drugs is offering some of the lowest prices of the year and door crasher sales on many items, paying close attention to competitor offers in the U.S. and in Canada to ensure it matches or beats popular Black Friday deals. Last year, Statistics Canada reported retail spending in Canada jumped in November attributing part of the increase to Black Friday-related spending. At the same time total travel from the U.S. to Canada rose 11 per cent over the previous year with arrivals by car up almost 15 per cent. Some of the highlights from London Drugs' Black Friday sale include: Tech - LG 55" 4K UHD OLED Smart TV is $2299.99 (regular price is $3,999.98) - DJI Phantom 3 Standard Drone is $549.99 November 25 - November 28 only (regular price is $679.99) - Fitbit Alta is $129.95 (regular price is $169.99) - UNCHARTED 4: A Thief's End PlayStation4 500GB Bundle is $329.99 (regular price is $379.99) - Samsung S27F350FH 27inch LED Monitor with Super Slim Design is $199.99 (regular price is $299.99) Kitchen Appliances - KitchenAid Pro 600 Series 6 Quart Stand Mixer for $295.99 (regular price is $749.99) - Sodastream Jet Mega Pack for $59.99 (regular price is $99.99) - 50% off on a variety of other home appliances from brand names like Black & Decker, Crock-Pot and Oster Health & Beauty - 40% off Webber and Jamieson brand vitamins & supplements - 40% off all Physicians Formula Cosmetics and Beauty 101 gift sets - 50% off Philips Sonicare Flexcare Platinum Rechargeable Sonic Toothbrush (regular price is $199.99) - 50% off select hair dryers and select Bionaire brand humidifier and air purifier London Drugs' Lowest Price of the Year on: - Braun Silk-epil 7 Epilator is $79.99 (regular price is $129.99) - Philips Series 9000 Wet and Dry Electric Shaver is $189.99 (regular price is $269.99) - Nescafe Tasters Choice - Classic - 100g is $3.99 - Ethical Bean Coffee Assorted - 340g is $7.99 (regular price is $14.49) - Hundreds of toys on sale in store and online London Drugs' Black Friday deals run six days starting Friday November 25th until Wednesday November 30th. Customers can shop early online starting November 25th at 12:01am PST with shipping offered anywhere in Canada or shop online and pickup in store within two hours or less during store hours. London Drugs' offers a price match guarantee and will match any Canadian competitor's advertised price on identical products for up to 30 days from the date of purchase. Store staff are equipped with iPads to assist customers with price comparisons. About London Drugs Founded in 1945, London Drugs has 79 stores in more than 35 major markets throughout British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba including its online store www.londondrugs.com London Drugs offers consumers a range of products from digital cameras and cosmetics to computers and televisions. Renowned for its creative approach to retailing, the company employs more than 7000 people with pharmacy and health care services being the heart of its business. Committed to innovation and superior customer service, London Drugs has established itself as a reputable and caring company and continues to position itself for future growth and development. Contacts: For more information or to interview a store employee please contact: Wendy Hartley London Drugs Cell: 604-817-2758 wendy@hartleypr.com Euronext, the leading pan-European exchange in the Eurozone, today announced that it has selected Euronext and Strategic Insight's LiquidMetrix the industry leading solution for best execution, transaction cost analysis (TCA) and surveillance services- as best execution analytics platform for its equity, ETF and derivatives products. Euronext will be using LiquidMetrix to help its clients demonstrate best executionand provide them with valuable insights for their multi-asset trading activity. By choosing LiquidMetrix Euronext wants to address the growing challenges in Europe presented by market fragmentation, increased enforcement of best execution and ongoing regulatory change. Euronext therefore recently established a new Quant Research function, to strengthen its analytical capability and help clients with valuable insights into their trading behavior. Moreover it has introduced Best of Book, Euronext's next generation best execution service, to deliver the benefits of competition to end investors.For all of this Euronext chose the LiquidMetrix solution.The proprietary software includes regulatory reporting capabilities allowing customers to better comply with regulatory mandates such as MiFID II. It offers customers the ability to conduct analysis across a variety of metrics for each trade and provides tools to measure and understand the factors impacting best execution across all venues. "Our clients are facing significant challenges in demonstrating how best execution is achieved in an increasingly complex market environment," said Lee Hodgkinson, Head of Markets and Global Sales at Euronext. "By choosing the LiquidMetrix solution, we can assist market users with meaningful independent research and analysis. LiquidMetrix's expertise in European market structure will play an important role in achieving this goal and we are delighted to be partnering with them." "The signing of Euronext continues LiquidMetrix's ongoing growth as the independent best execution solution for its client base of investment managers, banks, broker-dealers, exchanges, regulators and market makers," Henry Yegerman, LiquidMetrix Global Head of Sales, Strategic Insight, commented. "LiquidMetrix clients are able to distinguish the execution quality of their orders from overall market conditions, which is critical in order to navigate today's complex market structure. We have enhanced our best execution platform to meet all the current and upcoming regulatory and business intelligence requirements of our clients. We look forward to partnering with Euronext to help add value and further transparency of in depth analytics to all members of the financial community." Notes to Editors 1. For more information on LiquidMetrix, please visit: www.liquidmetrix.com 2. For more information on Best of Book please visit: https://www.euronext.com/best-of-book About Strategic Insight Strategic Insight (SI) provides critical and proprietary data, business intelligence, research and marketing services to the global asset management community. SI delivers full service solutions to the asset management sector worldwide, including investment flow data, advisor sales analysis, in-depth research, analytics, editorial content and events for investment managers, asset owners and custodians, plus Transaction Cost Measurement of over 500 million trades per month. Our clients include over 1000 of the most prominent names in the asset management industry, including 83 of the world's 100 largest fund managers. Strategic Insight delivers its products and services through four distinct divisions: SI Data, SI Research, SI Intelligence and SI Interactive. Its portfolio of leading editorial titles includes the well-recognized brands PLANSPONSORPLANADVISER, Chief Investment OfficerGlobal Custodian, and The Trade The company's headquarters are in New York with offices in Boston, Denver, San Diego, San Francisco, Stamford CT; London; Munich; Melbourne; Toronto and Vancouver. Strategic Insight is backed by Genstar Capital. About LiquidMetrix The LiquidMetrix solution from Strategic Insight delivers trade execution, quality analysis and market abuse detection services to Tier 1 banks, brokers, asset managers, exchanges and trading venues. The LiquidMetrix suite of services offers trading firms an independent assessment of best execution, transaction cost analysis and pre-trade cost prediction across fragmented global securities markets. Combined with a surveillance service to detect market abuse and a counterparty profitability measure to identify toxic flow on the other side of a trade, LiquidMetrix provides sell-side and buy-side clients with actionable intelligence to measure and improve trading performance. About Euronext Euronext is the leading pan-European exchange in the Euro zone with more than 1 300 listed issuers worth close to 3.1 trillion in market capitalization as of end October 2016, an unmatched blue chip franchise consisting of 25 issuers in the EURO STOXX 50 benchmark and a strong diverse domestic and international client base. Euronext operates regulated and transparent equity and derivatives markets. Its total product offering includes Equities, Exchange Traded Funds, Warrants Certificates, Bonds, Derivatives, Commodities and Indices. Euronext also leverages its expertise in running markets by providing technology and managed services to third parties. Euronext operates regulated markets, Alternext and the Free Market; in addition it offers EnterNext, which facilitates SMEs' access to capital markets. For the latest news, find us on Twitter (twitter.com/euronext) and LinkedIn (linkedin.com/euronext). Disclaimer This press release is for information purposes only and is not a recommendation to engage in investment activities. This press release is provided "as is" without representation or warranty of any kind. While all reasonable care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the content, Euronext does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. Euronext will not be held liable for any loss or damages of any nature ensuing from using, trusting or acting on information provided. No information set out or referred to in this publication may be regarded as creating any right or obligation. The creation of rights and obligations in respect of financial products that are traded on the exchanges operated by Euronext's subsidiaries shall depend solely on the applicable rules of the market operator. All proprietary rights and interest in or connected with this publication shall vest in Euronext. This press release speaks only as of this date. Euronext refers to Euronext N.V. and its affiliates. Information regarding trademarks and intellectual property rights of Euronext is located at www.euronext.com/terms-use. 2016, Euronext N.V. All rights reserved. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005372/en/ Contacts: Euronext Europe: Pauline Bucaille, +33 1 70 48 24 41 pbucaille@euronext.com or Amsterdam: Alice Jentink, +31 20 721 4488 ajentink@euronext.com or Brussels: Pascal Brabant, +32 2 620 15 50 pbrabant@euronext.com or Lisbon: Sandra Machado, +351 210 600 614 smachado@euronext.com or Paris: Aichata Tandjigora, +33 1 70 48 24 43 atandjigora@euronext.com or Strategic Insight Leonie Alsop +44 (0) 20 7397 3839 +44 (0) 7495 898 352 leonie.alsop@strategic-i.com or Binna Kim, +1-917-765-8720 strategicinsight@fullyvested.com Texas will receive an economic mission from the Kingdom of Belgium in early December. The Belgian Economic Mission will take place December 3-10 and be presided over by HRH Princess Astrid, Representative of His Majesty the King. Nearly 200 business executives, trade representatives and members of the Belgian government will accompany Princess Astrid. Other Belgian official dignitaries include Didier Reynders, Federal Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Affairs and Pieter De Crem, Federal Secretary of State for Foreign Trade. "Texas and Belgium have a great deal in common," said Deputy Prime Minister Reynders. "From being one of the first European countries to recognize Texas' independence in 1836 to 175 years of continuous trade, the time has now come for us to deepen our ties with this important cultural and economic partner. Indeed, Belgium now stands as Texas' 10th largest export trading partner at just over $4.6 billion annually. Our mutual trade investments include logistics and chemical sectors through the ports of Houston and Antwerp as well as advanced R&D in biopharmaceuticals through the Texas Medical Center." The Belgian Economic Mission will visit four cities in Texas. In addition to official events in the presence of Princess Astrid there will be meetings and seminars in which business people from Texan and Belgian business sectors such as energy, cleantech, diamond, chemistry and life sciences will meet each other. Austin (December 3-6): Meeting with Austin Mayor Steve Adler; state dinner with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. San Antonio (December 6): Meeting with San Antonio Mayor Ivy R. Taylor at the San Antonio International Center; tour of the Alamo. College Station (December 7): Meeting with Texas A&M University President Michael K. Young; ribbon cutting and tour of "Texas Aggies Go to War." Houston (December 7-10): Dinner meeting with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner; Texas Medical Center visit; inauguration of Katoen Nastie logistics terminal. The latest news of the Belgian Economic Mission will be shared on Twitter: @BelgiumintheUSA -- BEmissionUSA. NOTE TO PRESS: A list of available events, bio of Princess Astrid, pictures and fact sheet are available here: http://bit.ly/2fiUEeO Press RSVPs encouraged 48 hours in advance. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005385/en/ Contacts: for Kingdom of Belgium Jo Detavernier, 210-803-2097 jo@manzercommunications.com 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. DUBLIN, IRELAND -- (Marketwired) -- 01/03/17 -- SeanieMac International LTD (OTC PINK: BETS) announced that it has formally closed on a $7.5 million revolving credit facility with TCA Global Credit Master Fund, LP. The Company is drawing down an initial tranche of $500,000 immediately and upon consent of the lender may draw down additional amounts on the same terms. Access to additional funds are dependent on the Company's continued financial performance and subject to review by the lender on an ongoing basis. No additional funds will be available for a minimum of 90 days. Access to the credit facility for an acquisition is also subject to the lender's review of the potential acquisition target. A percentage of each month's gross profit will be used to reduce the outstanding loan amount. The Company received permission from the lender to use 20% of the draw down of the LOC for the retirement of outstanding convertible debt. The Company will use the remaining proceeds to fund its growth plans previously announced to shareholders. Shane O'Driscoll said, "We worked hard through the holidays to get this closed in 2016 and we are pleased to be able to begin 2017 with this funding in place. We feel it will have an immediate positive impact on our business." About SeanieMac SeanieMac Limited is an Irish gaming company. It owns and operates www.SeanieMac.com, an online sports and casino wagering web-based platform serving gamblers directly under the brand name SeanieMac.com. Safe Harbor Statement This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If such risks or uncertainties materialize or such assumptions prove incorrect, the results of SeanieMac International, Ltd. and its consolidated subsidiaries could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including but not limited to statements regarding our expectations regarding amounts staked and gross profits and our marketing initiatives. Such risks and uncertainties include, among other things, the uncertainty regarding consumer preferences, a decline in the popularity of our website and competition in the online gambling industry. SeanieMac assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements. A further description of risks and uncertainties can be found in SeanieMac International, Ltd.'s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 and in its reports on Form 10-Q and Form 8-K. SeanieMac International Ltd Shane O'Driscoll investorrealtions@seaniemacinternational.com Nassau, Bahamas--(Newsfile Corp. - June 7, 2017) - Xtra-Gold Resources Corp. (TSX: XTG) (OTCQB: XTGRF) ("Xtra-Gold" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce that its new custom designed diamond drill rig has arrived at the Kwabeng Mine Camp, in Ghana. The Exploration Team has assembled the rig, and is doing the final preparation for the commencement of test drilling. The drill rig was designed and contracted by Odyssey Drill Rigs from North Bay, Ontario. The rig is a modular design that is lightweight and versatile. The rig also offers a low environmental impact ("footprint"), which can reach remote and difficult locations within the Company's Kibi Gold Belt. James Longshore, CEO remarked on site at the Kwabeng Mine Camp: "Xtra-Gold has already discovered its maiden mineral resource, and with this drill rig the Company will test multiple gold targets defined over the last several years, through extensive grassroots exploration. These gold prospects have the potential to add multiple new gold shoots to our current mineral resource." About Xtra-Gold Resources Corp. Xtra-Gold is a gold exploration company with a substantial land position in the Kibi Gold Belt. The Kibi Gold Belt, which exhibits many similar geological features to Ghana's main gold belt, the Ashanti Belt, has been the subject of very limited modern exploration activity targeting lode gold deposits as virtually all past gold mining activity and exploration efforts focused on the extensive alluvial gold occurrences in many river valleys throughout the Kibi area. Xtra-Gold holds 5 Mining Leases totaling approximately 226 sq km (22,600 ha) at the northern extremity of the Kibi Gold Belt. The Company's exploration efforts to date have focused on the Kibi Gold Project located on the Apapam Concession (33.65 sq km), along the eastern flank of the Kibi Gold Belt. The Kibi Gold Project (Zone 2 - Zone 3) maiden mineral resource estimate produced by Xtra-Gold in October 2012 represents first ever NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate generated on a lode gold project within the Kibi Gold Belt. The NI 43-101 Technical Report entitled "Independent Technical Report, Apapam Concession, Kibi Project, Eastern Region, Ghana", prepared by SEMS Explorations and dated October 31, 2012, is filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Contact Information For further information please contact: James Longshore Chief Executive Officer 416-628-2881 E-mail: info@xtragold.com Website: www.xtragold.com REDONDO BEACH, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- SECFilings.com, a leading financial news and information portal offering free real time public company filing alerts, announces publication of an article discussing Hispanica International Delights of America Inc. (OTCQB: HISP), the progress the company has made over the last few months, and the company's roadmap for growth in the ethnic food market. The appetite for ethnic food in the United States is on the rise thanks to the growing diversity of the population and the sophistication levels of palates. Hispanics currently comprise about 18% of the United States' population, and that share is growing. At the same time, 90% of 25 to 34 year olds have prepared ethnic foods at home over the past month compared to 68% of adults over the age of 65, according to Mintel Research. Hispanica International Delights of America, a diversified food and beverage company focused on the Hispanic and ethnic food industry, recently published a shareholders' update outlining its progress during its fiscal first quarter. The company achieved significant revenue growth during the first quarter, as well as dramatically improved its balance sheet through new financing agreements. The company's revenue increased about 400% to $649,411 during the first quarter after it acquired Energy Source Distributors (ESD) and began shipping two proprietary product lines - Gran Nevada and Tropic Max Plantain Chips - from its warehouse in Northern California. Gross margins came in at about 23%, but management plans to expand those in the future by expanding its exclusive brands rather than simply acting as a distributor. On its balance sheet, the company closed on a $7.5 million credit facility with TCA Global Credit Master Fund LP in July 2016. This funding has helped significantly improve the company's balance sheet, which has $115,783 in cash and equivalents and total assets of over $1 million. So far, the company has borrowed only $650,000 from the credit facility, which leaves it with healthy working capital that can be deployed to make additional acquisitions. The company plans to expand its distribution through a second strategic acquisition that will give it a major footprint in one of the five largest U.S. markets. In addition, management plans to bring on industry veterans and consultants to jumpstart organic growth in distribution. The company has already added over 1,400 retailers to its distribution network, while it plans to soon surpass the 2,000 mark on its way to over 5,000 retail locations in the coming months. The company plans to monetize these distribution channels and improve its gross margins by expanding the number of brands that it handles on an exclusive basis. These kinds of agreements have much higher profit margins than distributing generic products since there's less price competition from other distributors. Management hopes that these efforts will help it achieve a positive cash flow in addition to accelerating revenue growth. Follow the link to read the full article: http://analysis.secfilings.com/articles/128-hispanica-delights-hisp-gains-momentum-in-fiscal-q1 About SECFilings.com Founded in 2004, SECFilings.com provides free real time filing alerts to over 600,000 registered members and offers services to help public companies grow their audience of interested investors. Disclaimer: Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns SECFilings.com, is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority, and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release. Emerging Growth LLC may from time to time have a position in the securities mentioned herein and may increase or decrease such positions without notice. For making specific investment decisions, readers should seek their own advice. Emerging Growth LLC may be compensated for its services in the form of cash-based compensation or equity securities in the companies it writes about, or a combination of the two. For full disclosure please visit: http://secfilings.com/Disclaimer.aspx SECFilings.com Paul Archie 406-862-2242 parchie@secfilings.com LONDON (dpa-AFX) - US President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he would prefer Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), to be named Britain's Ambassador to the US. The leader of the Brexit movement is a friend of Trump, and helped him prepare for debate. He met Trump and endorsed the Republican presidential candidate during the election campaign. 'Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!' Trump said on Twitter Monday. Farage welcomed the suggestion by saying he was 'in a good position, with the president-elect's support, to help,' but No 10 Downing Street made its intentions clear. The British media quoted MPs as saying that the interim UKIP leader's inflammatory views ruled him out for a diplomatic post. The Prime Minster's Office said that the UK already has an incredibly strong and enduring relationship with the United States, and Sir Kim Darroch was 'an excellent ambassador who only took up post in January and traditionally they serve four years or even longer'. Darroch's tenure as UK Ambassador in Washington began in January, Speaking in the House of Commons, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Darroch was a 'a first rate ambassador in Washington doing a very good job with the current administration and the administration to be, and there is no vacancy'. 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. HANGZHOU, China, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --On November 11, 2016, Zhejiang Narada Boutique Hotels Co., Ltd. (the "Company"),announced the launchof its new brand, Pagoda Hotels, at the 2ndChina (Shanghai) Hotel Franchise Expo, at which the hotel group showcased the brand's concept model rooms. Pagoda Hotels Makes Inroads Providing High End Services to China's Middle Class Consumer Market The Pagoda brand started in 1922, has reflected the history and culture of its place of origin, Perth, Australia, is the second largest brand in the Company portfolio and is being positioned as a high-end boutique limited service hotel brand that complements the group's older mid-market Narada Boutique Hotel brand. The launch of Pagoda Hotels marks a big step thatthe Companyhas taken towards becoming the leader in terms of product design and innovation across the medium and high end boutique hotel segments in China. The Companyfounder and chairman Wu Qiyuan said: "It is the responsibility of the leaders in China's hotel service sector to provide access to the world. Today the return of the Pagoda Hotels brand will tremendously support the development of the Company in the high end boutique hotel segment and accelerate the expansion of the Company as more families enter China's emerging middle class, a group that is quickly becoming active consumers of high end services." At variance with the mid-market positioning of Narada Boutique Hotel, Pagoda Hotels focuses on the high end business and leisure expectations of the new middle class. By fusing the brand's original Australian elements and the Company's urban aesthetics to create a brand concept that answers the expectations of a hotel guest seeking a high end market experience, Pagoda Hotels embodies the aesthetic traditions and easygoing character that Perth is known for. The group has succeeded in creating a hotel design that reflects the local history, culture and lifestyle A Complementary Set of Middle and High End Brands Whenthe Companywasfoundedin 2007, the group positioned itself as a middle end boutique limited service hotel brand, based on a concept that emphasized an atmosphere of leisure and fashion,the Company has more than 5,000 hotel rooms at 32 hotels, includingproperties currentlyindevelopment. The increasing demand for high end hotels reflects the growth of income and the change in consumption habits among Chinese travelers. A brand needs to have some unique characteristics and differentiate itself from its peers if it expects to survive and flourish in the current competitive environment. Pagoda Hotels entersas a complement to Zhejiang Narada Boutique Hotels' high end brand concept, moving the group one step closer to its goal of becoming the leader in the middle and high end boutique limited service hotel segment in China. About Zhejiang Narada Boutique Hotels Co., Ltd. In 2007, Zhejiang Narada Boutique Hotels Co., Ltd. founder Wu Qiyuan started the hotel brand, Narada Boutique Hotel, based on a brand new boutique service business model.During the nearly ten years since the group was formed Zhejiang Narada Boutique Hotels Co., Ltd. has remained committed to its original corporate philosophy:"Quality Comes First, Customer Experience Is the Priority, Adaptation to the Needs of the Customer," and to delivering a unique yet meticulous quality of service based on traditional Chinese hospitality, in line with the company mission of becoming the leader in the middle and high end boutique limited service hotel segment in China. Logo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20161122/0861611994LOGO BANGALORE, SANTA CLARA, California and DUBAI, UAE, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Trianz, a global consulting and turnkey execution services firm, is recognized as being among '25 Most Recommended Cloud Services Providers' by Enterprise Services Outlook Magazine. ES Outlook is a well-known technology print media in the USA, providing a platform to thinkers, practitioners, strategists and visionaries in the Enterprise Services landscape. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160615/809578 ) Trianz has made significant strides in cloud implementations and migrations with strong industry partnerships and recognition from clients globally. Speaking on this recognition, Vivek Gupta, Worldwide VP, Cloud Services at Trianz said, "We are very happy to get this honor from ES Outlook Magazine. This came at a time when we are creating success stories across public, private and hybrid Cloud deployments. We measure our client success in terms of the business impact we create by helping them leverage the benefits of Cloud." Prashant Bhavaraju, Director, Marketing at Trianz expressed, "Our Cloud credentials comprise of years of innovation and success. I am thrilled at ES Outlook's recognition for Trianz. This adds to the list of accolades we received in the recent past. This is also a great motivation to our team of Cloud experts and consultants. I thank the editorial team at ES Outlook for this recognition." About Trianz Trianz is a dynamic and fast growing firm that helps leaders in client organizations formulate and execute operational strategies to achieve business results from a senior management perspective. Leveraging theCloud,Analytics,Digital, andSecurityparadigms, Trianz brings the best of consulting and technology experiences, execution models and IP to deliver consistent success to clients. With offices in Silicon Valley, Washington DC Metro, New York, Dubai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Chennai and Hyderabad, Trianz serves a wide range of clients fromFortune1000 to emerging companies in high tech, insurance, financial services, retail, manufacturing, life sciences, public sector and logistics industries. Over the past decade, Trianz has developed a reputation forexcellence in execution, enabling global organizations to achieve results envisioned by their senior management. Trianz measures success completely in client terms - the impact created through business execution. Prashant Bhavaraju Director, Marketing +1-408-387-5800 http://www.trianz.com reach@trianz.com STAMFORD, Connecticut and LUCCA, Italy, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sabrina Rosati Wins Female Executive of the Year in Business Products Award; Emanuela Cecchetti Awarded in the Best Website or Blog of the Year Category Tagetik, a leader in global performance management software solutions, today announced winning twoStevie Awards for Women in Business .Sabrina Rosati received a bronze award in the category for Female Executive of the Year in Business Products (11 to 2,500 employees); Emanuela Cecchetti received a bronze award in the Best Website or Blog of the Year category. The 13th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business were revealed on Friday, November 18, during a dinner event attended by more than 500 people at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140625/694014 ) Executive Vice President Sabrina Rosati is Tagetik's managing director for Italy and leads the company's global financial services practice, Tagetik's largest vertical business unit.Over the last decade, she has spearheaded Tagetik's international business development within the financial services industry and, most recently, led the company's Solvency II initiative for the insurance industry. Today, more than 270 of the world's largest insurers rely on Tagetik's Solvency II solution. Emanuela Cecchetti, director of digital marketing and technology for Tagetik, received a bronze award in the category for best website or blog of the year.In 2015, Cecchetti led a project to redesign Tagetik's corporate website. Completed in seven months, below the two-year industry average for similar projects, Tagetik's website is a major lead generating resource for the company and including resources spanning financial best practices, regulatory requirements, and industry trends.Cecchetti's team manages 18 localized websites serving 56 countries. "Both of these women are well deserving of recognition. Sabrina is an important member of the Tagetik executive team. Her work to help us expand globally and gain recognition as a superior solution for banks and insurance companies has been key to our international success," said Manuel Vellutini, Tagetik co-CEO. Additionally, because of Emanuela and her team, Tagetik's web site has become a valuable marketing and information management tool for our company, customers, and partners." "Emanuela and I are honored by these awards," said Rosati. "Our talented and dedicated team members have been instrumental in helping us achieve ambitious goals and significantly increase awareness and market share for Tagetik.We view our Tagetik co-workers as family and we all share in these accomplishments." The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are the world's top honors for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run.All individuals and organizations worldwide are eligible to submit nominations - public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small. The 2016 awards received entries from 31 nations and territories.Winners were selected by more than 160 professionals who participated in the judging process this year. Details about the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the list of Stevie Award winners are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women About the Stevie Awards Stevie Awards are conferred in seven programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 10,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 60 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com About Tagetik Tagetik understands the complex challenges that face the Office of Finance and translates that knowledge into intuitive, enterprise-scale performance management software solutions that drive business results. With Tagetik, companies get the simplicity of the Cloud and the power to unify financial and operational planning; shorten the consolidation and close process; immediately analyze results, model and compare full financial statement impact of business scenarios; adjust strategic plans; seamlessly update rolling forecasts; produce formatted and auditable financial statements and management reports; collaborate on business reviews, and automate disclosure and board reporting. Tagetik has built-in financial intelligence so that CFOs, finance managers, and operations executives can orchestrate multiple or all processes in one software solution. More than 850 customers across 35 countries count on Tagetik to improve efficiency, reduce risk, save money and deliver results. For more information, visit http://www.tagetik.com. We get Finance. You get results. Follow us on social media: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Google+ YouTube Blog Media Contacts: Corporate and EMEA: Linda Galloway insidHR Communications +1 303 863 8620 office +1 203 733 7446 mobile lgalloway@insidhr.com North America: Courtly Stevens Courtly & Company +1 415 640 0188 office cstevens@courtlyandco.com RAD Technology Medical Systems Secures Two International Patents AVENTURA, Florida, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- RAD Technology Medical Systems (RAD) is adding two new patents to its portfolio of modular building technologies for cancer treatment facilities. RAD has received patent approvals for their Temporary Radiotherapy Vault (TRV) from both the Japanese Patent Office and the European Patent Office. These new patents protect the specialized means and methods that RAD uses to construct high energy radiation vaults. RAD was issued two similar patents by the United States Patent Office last year. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161116/440417 "As the demand for radiotherapy continues to grow worldwide, RAD is pleased to be able to bring their patented technology to help cancer patients in Europe and Japan" states RAD's President, John Lefkus. "Hospitals and cancer clinics constantly need to upgrade equipment in order to take full advantage of the latest developments in cancer therapy and provide the best available form of treatment. Our TRV provides a treatment machine in a temporary facility which enables organizations to continue treating patients while modernizing their program with no interruption to patient treatments or business. The temporary facility can arrive onsite and be ready for occupancy in just weeks." The RAD modular methodology is driven by three key values; Time: The facility solutions offered by the RAD PRO can be delivered in one third the time of traditional construction methods. By using offsite construction, we are able to provide an unprecedented approach that is efficient and flexible. This impacts patient accessibility to the latest care and gives institutions a hedge over competitors looking to enter their market. RAD can install its TRV cancer facility and perform a radiation survey with its pre-commissioned linac in just 5 days. The facility solutions offered by the RAD PRO can be delivered in one third the time of traditional construction methods. By using offsite construction, we are able to provide an unprecedented approach that is efficient and flexible. This impacts patient accessibility to the latest care and gives institutions a hedge over competitors looking to enter their market. RAD can install its TRV cancer facility and perform a radiation survey with its pre-commissioned linac in just 5 days. Technology: The modular technology also provides significant value and flexibility. In traditional construction, the shielding solution is cast into the concrete structure or concrete blocks. RAD offers a shielding method that can be modified without the cost and disruption of expensive lead and high density block solutions. And the ultimate flexibility is moving the entire facility to another location at a fractional cost if demand or market conditions change. The modular technology also provides significant value and flexibility. In traditional construction, the shielding solution is cast into the concrete structure or concrete blocks. RAD offers a shielding method that can be modified without the cost and disruption of expensive lead and high density block solutions. And the ultimate flexibility is moving the entire facility to another location at a fractional cost if demand or market conditions change. Unique Financing:One of the most distinctive values is the financing approach RADs solutions offer. The modular system transforms the financing opportunities significantly. A recoverable asset, without destructive demolition, can be treated as equipment or tangible personal property allowing operational leases or service contracts to be structured for large institutions not seeking to deploy capital or wishing to avoid further impairment of their balance sheets with additional debt. RAD continues to implement this "New Normal" in radiotherapy equipment upgrades on the international stage. Cancer centers which were previously paralyzed by the lack of an interim solution will now be free to plan their advancements to the next generation of radiotherapy devices as the technology develops, rather than skipping whole generations of advancements as is now too often the case. As stated by Kenneth Wright, RAD Technology's Director of TRV Services, "Thesimple truth is that cancer centers should not be required tostopproviding radiotherapy services to the community in order toimproveservices to the community." Institutions in Europe are primarily state sponsored and while closing down for several months may not let the competition in, it deprives citizens of timely and perhaps lifesaving cancer treatment. With the NHS England recent announcement to spend 130m over the next couple years to upgrade accelerators, the availability of TRV can assist many centres with that process. RAD has been successful in the United States with the TRV technology and leasing and now looks to continue that success in Japan and Europe. About RAD Technology Medical Systems LLC RAD Technology Medical Systems provides revolutionary modular radiotherapy vaults and cancer care clinics that can be used as temporary, interim, or permanent facilities. These turnkey solutions give patients access to new treatment options in a matter of weeks or months instead of years and are factory-fabricated, eliminating the need for lengthy on-site construction projects. For more information, please visitwww.radtechnology.com or contact RAD at info@radtechnology.com. WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President-elect Donald Trump revealed that he has canceled a planned meeting with reporters and editors from the New York Times, claiming the paper changed the terms and conditions of the meeting. Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday to bash the New York Times, which has been a frequent target for the billionaire-turned-politician. 'I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice,' Trump tweeted. He added, 'Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!' However, the New York Times disputed Trump's claim that it sought to change the terms of the meeting, with a spokesperson saying the paper only refused a request that the meeting be off the record. Eileen M. Murphy, the Times's senior vice president for communications, said the paper was unaware the meeting was canceled until it saw Trump's tweets. 'We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to,' Murphy said. 'They tried to yesterday - asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to.' She added, 'In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record session with reporters and columnists.' (Photo: Gage Skidmore) Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. PUNE, India, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The report"Meat Processing Equipment Marketby Type (Cutting, Blending, Tenderizing, Filling, Dicing, Grinding, Smoking), Meat Type (Beef, Pork, Mutton), and Product Type (Fresh Processed, Raw Cooked, Precooked, Raw Fermented, Cured) - Global Forecast to 2022", published by MarketsandMarkets, the market is projected to reach a value of USD 14.59 Billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 7.03% from 2016. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 ) Browse 67 market data Tables and 36 Figures spread through 134 Pages and in-depth TOC on"Meat Processing Equipment Market" http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/meat-processing-equipment-market-1253.html -Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report. The market is driven by factors such as increase in demand of processed meat, safety regulations generating the need for sophisticated equipment, and widening applicability of meat processing equipment. The cutting equipment segment accounted for the largest market share in 2015 The cutting equipment segment dominated the Meat Processing Equipment Market among other equipment. As meat processing equipment are designed to simplify different process in meat processing. Therefore, cutting equipment are most common food processing equipment, which are used widely in the food industry and is a pre-requisite in every meat processing plant. Make an Inquiry: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=1253 The processed pork segment is projected to be the fastest-growing market during the period 2016-2022 The processed pork segment is the fastest-growing type of meat to be manufactured in this market, this is due to being a rich source of nutrition such as vitamins, minerals, niacin, phosphorus, and iron as well as its availability in different processed products such as ham and bacon. Fresh processed meat accounted for the largest product type segment in the Meat Processing Equipment Market Fresh processed meat accounted for the largest share in the product types of meat processing equipment in 2015. Fresh processed meat products are obtained by mixing various quantities of animal fat with muscle meat. These products are treated with only salt and are processed by adding non-meat ingredients in smaller quantities for improved binding and flavoring. This segment includes products such as sausages, which are made by filling fresh processed meat into bread casings, patties, and kebabs. North American region dominated the Meat Processing Equipment Market in 2015 The North American region was the largest market for meat processing equipment in 2015. Countries such as the U.S. and Canada are prominent users of meat processing equipment for better flavor and texture of different processed meat products. With the increase in demand for ready-to-eat and packaged meat products, there is an increase in the demand for meat processing equipment simultaneously. The Meat Processing Equipment Market report includes a study of marketing and development strategies, along with the product portfolios of the leading companies. It includes the profiles of leading companies such as GEA Group AG (Germany), JBT Corporation (U.S.), Key Technology (U.S.), MAREL (Iceland), Heat and Control, Inc. (U.S.), Illinois Tool Works Inc. (U.S.), Manitowoc (U.S.), The Middleby Corporation (U.S.), Bettcher Industries, Inc. (U.S.), and Equipamientos Carnicos, S.L., Mainca (Spain). Browse related reports: Poultry Processing Equipment Market by Type (Chicken, Turkey, Ducks), Equipment Type (Killing & Defeathering, Evisceration, Cut-ups, Deboning & Skinning, Marinating & Tumbling), Product Type, & by Region - Global Forecast to 2020 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/poultry-processing-equipment-market-1320.html Bakery Processing Equipment Market by Type (Mixers, Ovens & Proofers, Dividers, Sheeters & Molders), Application (Bread, Cookies & Biscuits, Cakes & Pastries, Pizza Crusts), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, RoW) - Forecast to 2020 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/bakery-processing-equipment-market-80040921.html About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is the largest market research firm worldwide in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository. Subscribe Reports from Food and Beverage Domain @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Knowledgestore.asp Contact: Mr. Rohan MarketsandMarkets 701 Pike Street Suite 2175, Seattle WA 98101, United States Tel: 1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com Visit MarketsandMarkets Blog@http://www.marketsandmarketsblog.com/market-reports/food-and-beverage Connect with us on LinkedIn @ http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets PORTLAND, Oregon and PUNE, India, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new report published by Allied Market Research, titled, Travel Insurance Market by Insurance Cover, Distribution Channel, Users, Geography - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2014 - 2022, is expected to generate $28,264 million by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 8.5% during 2016 - 2022. In 2015, Europe lead the travel insurance market, followed by Asia-Pacific. Growth in the region has been supplemented by rise in number of senior citizen travelers, and increase in business travel expenditure. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140911/647229 ) Growth in tourism is the prime factor that drives the travel insurance market. According to UNWTO, international tourist arrivals grew at a rate of 4.4% in 2015 to reach a total of 1,184 million, with North America witnessing the highest inbound travel. With the growing tourist traffic, increased incidences of loss of luggage, important documents, medical emergencies, and natural calamities are being registered. To mitigate the risk associated with such incidences, more number of travelers are opting for travel insurance. Summary of the Travel Insurance Market Report can be accessed on the website at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/travel-insurance-market In addition, there are several countries, where travel insurance is mandatory for obtaining VISA. For instance, to visit countries, such as the U.S., France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Finland, and Poland among others, travel health insurance is a must. In order to analyze the world travel insurance market, it is segmented based on insurance cover, users, distribution channel, and geography. Travel insurance cover is available for single trip, annual multi-trip, and long stay trips. Among the mentioned policies, single trip travel insurance policy dominated the market in 2015, accounting for around 71% of the overall market revenue owing to increase in popularity and affordability of year-round city breaks, increase in family travelers, shopping trips abroad, and winter sun holidays. Annual multi trip travel insurance policies are expected to be the fastest growing policy type during the forecast period. User segment comprises senior citizens, education travelers, family travelers, business travelers, backpackers, and fully independent travelers. In 2015, family travelers occupied a prominent share of the overall market revenue, followed by senior citizens. In addition, business travelers segment is anticipated to grow at the fastest CAGR of 9.7% during the forecast period, owing to increased international trade, overseas business expansion, and increase in business travel expenditure. Travel insurance policies are sold through insurance intermediaries, insurance companies, banks, insurance brokers, insurance aggregators, and others. In 2015, across all regions, traditional channel encompassing insurance intermediaries consisting of tour operators and travel agents accounted for around half of the overall sale of travel insurance policies and is projected to lead the market during the forecast period. Insurance aggregators is anticipated to be the fastest growing channel owing to the widening usage of internet worldwide. The segment is projected to register a CAGR of 11.5% during the forecast period. Though, Europe accounted for the majority of revenue in 2015, its relative share in the global revenue is projected to decrease during the forecast period owing to recent incidence of Brexit. Asia-Pacific travel insurance market would exhibit prominent growth during the forecast period owing to increase in the number of travel insurance users which include backpackers, senior citizens, and business travelers. From a growth perspective, travel insurance market in LAMEA is anticipated to witness the fastest CAGR of over 10% during the forecast period, on account of increase in demand of travel insurance policies from Latin American and Middle East countries. Key Findings of Travel Insurance Market In 2015, Europe was the highest revenue-generating region, followed by Asia-Pacific . was the highest revenue-generating region, followed by . Single trip travel insurance policies would continue to be the major revenue generating segment throughout the analysis period. Family travelers occupied prominent share of the overall market revenue in 2015 and would continue to lead the market over 2016-2022. Insurance intermediaries would be the highest- revenue generating market segment throughout 2014-2022. Key players profiled in this report are CSA Travel Protection, USI Affinity, Seven Corners Inc., Travel Safe, MH Ross, Allianz Global Assistance, Travel Insured International, AIG Travel, and InsureandGo. Read similar market research reports on Banking Financial Services & Insurance Market Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/banking-financial-services-&-insurance-market-report About Us: Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions". AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: Rahul Thakur 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States Direct: +1-503-894-6022 Toll Free: +1 (800) 792-5285 (U.S. & Canada) Fax: +1 (855) 550-5975 E-mail: sales@alliedmarketresearch.com Website: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Beaufield Resources Inc. ("Beaufield") (TSX VENTURE: BFD) is pleased to announce that it has completed the acquisition of the remaining 50% undivided interest in its Hemlo Camp gold Property, pursuant to an agreement with Jiminex Inc. dated October 24, 2016. Beaufield already owned a 50% interest in the property. The Hemlo Camps gold property consists of 95 mining claims located in the Hemlo gold mining area, in Ontario. The property borders on the Barrick Hemlo gold mine property and is located due west of Barrick on the same geological horizon. Beaufield will immediately initiate a detailed study of all previous data that dates back to the 1981 discovery of three Hemlo gold mines that to date have produced over 20 million ounces of gold. The Hemlo area is presently witnessing a renewed exploration focus which we have not seen since the 1980s. Qualified Person This news release has been prepared by Mathieu Stephens, P.Geo., Vice President of Exploration and Corporate Development for Beaufield, the Qualified Person, as defined by National Instrument 43-101. About Beaufield: Beaufield is a well financed mineral exploration company with its exploration activity focused in Quebec and Ontario. Please refer to Beaufield's website to view the company's properties in Urban, Eleonore-Opinaca, Troilus and elsewhere. The Corporation is actively exploring, well financed with approximately $2 million in cash, has no debt and has excess work credits on its properties. The information set forth in this press release includes certain forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on assumptions exposed to major risks and uncertainties. Although Beaufield deems the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements to be reasonable, the Corporation cannot provide any guarantee as to the materialization of the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements. The Corporation 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. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) has reviewed or accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this Release. Contacts: Jens E. Hansen President and CEO 514.842.3443 Mathieu Stephens VP Exploration and Corporate Development 613.721.2919 info@beaufield.com www.beaufield.com Jason Monaco Partner at FCCC 416.566-8894 jmonaco@firstcanadiancapital.com www.firstcanadiancapital.com SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwired - November 22, 2016) - The largest American heater and air conditioning manufacturer in the United States is now producing Anderson brand HVAC Systems, according to Mary Jean Anderson, president of Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air. "We're proud to offer a complete line of high quality, high technology air conditioning and heating equipment made right here in the USA," said Anderson. "By creating our own branded equipment with the top American manufacturer, we're able to offer our clients extraordinary products with full warranties at a reasonable cost," added Anderson. The new Anderson Brand heaters and air conditioners include full warranties including lifetime warranties on major components. Homeowners are often challenged with the question of whether or not to repair an old system or purchase a new system. Generally, if an HVAC system is ten years or older, it is recommended that the homeowner replace the system. The new energy efficient technology of today's systems will save homeowners significantly on their energy bills over their old systems. The experienced team of Comfort Advisors at Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air will advise homeowners on the right system for their home and provide free estimates as well as financing options. Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air has served more than 500,000 San Diego residential and commercial customers since 1978. Services include plumbing, heating and air conditioning, sewer and drains, pipe lining, water filtration, indoor air quality and more including 24-hour emergency service. Visit andersonpha.com for more info. Contact: Mary Jean Anderson mj@andersonpha.com 619.873.1460 MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- On Tuesday, December 6, 2016, Transcontinental Inc. (TSX: TCL.A)(TSX: TCL.B) will release its fiscal 2016 results and host a conference call for the financial community at 4:15 PM. The conference call will be broadcast live (audio only) on the Investors homepage of the Corporation's Internet site at www.tc.tc, and will be archived for 30 days. The financial results will be made public in a press release that will be issued on the newswire prior to the conference call as well as in the Management's Discussion and Analysis that will be posted on the Corporation's website. Fiscal Year 2016 Results Conference Call Date: Tuesday, December 6, 2016 Time: 4:15 PM Dial-in numbers: 1 647 788-4922 or 1 877 223-4471 Live audio webcast: www.tc.tc/investors Conference Recording Playback Availability dates: December 6 (7:15 PM) to December 13 (11:59 PM) Access telephone numbers: 1 416 621-4642 or 1 800 585-8367 Access code: 31614259 The following is the conference call calendar for the 2017 fiscal year, for your information: 2017 Calendar 1st quarter: Friday, March 3 2nd quarter: Thursday, June 8 3rd quarter: Thursday, September 7 4th quarter: Thursday, December 14 Contacts: Shirley Chenny Advisor, Investor Relations 514 954-4166 shirley.chenny@tc.tc OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Over the last several months, housing experts, stakeholders, and Canadians from all walks of life participated in "Let's Talk Housing" consultations and shared their views to help shape a National Housing Strategy (NHS) that will strive to improve the lives of those in greatest need. On the occasion of National Housing Day, the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and Minister Responsible for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), today released a "What We Heard" from Canadians report. This summary report takes stock of the consultations, identifies emerging themes and highlights exciting ideas to help define the future of housing in Canada. The national consultations explored new and innovative ways of responding to persistent housing challenges, including ways to improve housing outcomes for Canadians as a cornerstone for achieving broader socio-economic objectives. QUOTE "Ensuring that Canadians have access to affordable housing, with all of the socio-economic benefits that come with it, is a key priority for the Government of Canada. The input and ideas we received from Canadians will be invaluable in helping to shape a National Housing Strategy that delivers better housing, socio-economic and environmental outcomes for all Canadians." - The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and Minister Responsible for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation QUICK FACTS -- To ensure that we heard from people who have been homeless or are living in subsidized housing, newcomers to Canada and persons with disabilities, among others, focus groups were held across the country. -- The Government of Canada, through CMHC, sought the input of provinces and territories who held their own consultations, and provided their ideas on the future of housing in Canada. CMHC hosted a series of expert roundtables on themes ranging from housing finance and data to social inclusion and sustainability. -- CMHC also sought the advice and input of key national housing stakeholders, and held roundtables on rural, remote and urban Indigenous housing, as well as northern housing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Online NHS Engagement Activities Level of Engagement ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let's Talk Housing NHS Survey 6,351 completed surveys ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Idea Sharing Platform 132 ideas submitted ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Online Written Submission Uploads 478 written submissions ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Social Media Comments - LetsTalkHousing 1905 ideas on social media ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Targeted NHS Engagement Activities Level of Engagement ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let's Talk Housing Expert and Stakeholder 22 roundtables Roundtables ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Focus Groups with Vulnerable Peoples 21 focus groups ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Public Opinion Research 8 focus groups ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MP Townhalls 10 Townhall meetings ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bilateral meetings and forums with Indigenous 15 Bilateral meetings and organizations forums ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has been helping Canadians meet their housing needs for more than 70 years. As Canada's authority on housing, CMHC contributes to the stability of the housing market and financial system, provides support for Canadians in housing need, and offers unbiased housing research and advice to Canadian governments, consumers and the housing industry. For more information, please call 1-800-668-2642, visit www.cmhc.ca or follow us on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook. The "What We Heard" report can be downloaded on LetsTalkHousing.ca. BACKGROUNDER A National Housing Strategy for Canada will set a long-term vision for housing in Canada; establish core policy areas and desired housing outcomes; address gaps in the housing system, especially for those in greatest need; recognize the importance of housing to achieve other social, economic and environmental goals; and include a focus on improving housing outcomes of Indigenous peoples and for those who live in Canada's three territories. What we heard about the vision Based on the feedback, Canadians believe that the NHS vision should be focused on: "Canadians have housing that meets their needs and they can afford. Affordable housing is a cornerstone of sustainable, inclusive communities and a Canadian economy where we can prosper and thrive." What we heard from Canadians was grouped into broad themes. -- Distinct needs of low-income and vulnerable Canadians -- A strong social housing sector -- Housing for Indigenous people, wherever they may reside, including the North -- Affordability and innovative financing -- Sustainable housing and communities The most important housing outcomes for the NHS survey respondents are: -- Affordability: housing must be affordable and meet their needs was the most important housing outcome to them. -- Sustainability: housing needs to financially, socially and environmentally sustainable. -- Inclusivity: housing that helps distinct groups such as homeless, seniors, newcomers, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities. -- Housing supports a better quality of life: housing that supports improving the quality of life. Contacts: For media enquiries: Mathieu Filion, Director of Communications Office of the Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos, P.C., M.P. Minister of Families, Children and Social Development 819-654-5546 mathieu.filion@hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca Jonathan Rotondo Media Relations Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation 613-748-2734 jrotondo@cmhc-schl.gc.ca ALBANY, New York, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Transparency Market Research has published a new report titled "Cryogenic Tanks Market By Product Type (LNG, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Argon), and By Application (Storage and Transportation) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth Trends and Forecast, 2016-2024" According to the report, the global cryogenic tanks market was valued at US$ 740.2 Mn in 2015 and is expected to reach US$ 1,433.0 Mn in 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 7.7% between 2016 and 2024. Cryogenic tanks are double walled tanks. The outer shell of tank is constructed out of carbon steel whereas inner shell of tank is constructed of stainless steel. The space between the walls (shells) is filled with insulation material such as foamed glass on the bottom, expanded perlite on the walls and roof perlite is also used for insulation of these tanks Cryogenic tanks are employed for the storage and transportation of liquefied gases such as nitrogen, liquefied natural gas (LNG), oxygen, and argon among others. These liquefied gases are stored and transported in cryogenic tanks at very low temperatures and specified pressure ratings. Different working pressures are maintained in cryogenic tanks ranging from 3 to 45 bar. Cryogenic tanks are constructed as per certain standards and certified according to European Pressure Equipment Directive (PED), ASME standards, and LITS tanks (Leading International Tank Standard) among others. Cryogenic tanks are constructed in various capacities ranging from 300 liters to 500,000 liters. Browse Latest Research Report with ToC: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/cryogenic-tanks-market.html The global cryogenic tanks market is segmented on the basis of product type and application. On the basis of product type, global cryogenic tanks market is segmented into liquefied natural gas (LNG), nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. On the basis of application, global cryogenic tanks market is segmented into storage and transportation applications. On the basis of product type, LNG is the dominant product type segment which accounted for more than 35% market share in terms of cryogenic tanks sales revenue in 2015. Nitrogen Oxygen and Argon also held significant market share of the global cryogenic tanks market In terms of sales revenue in 2015. Increasing production capacity, consumption rate, and trade volume of LNG are some of the factors likely to boost the demand for cryogenic tanks for LNG product type segment during the forecast period. On the basis of application, storage application dominated the global cryogenic tanks market with more than 80% market share. Cryogenic tanks are utilized for short term as well as long term storage of industrial gases and LNG among others. Increasing on-site production of industrial gases and planned (strategic) storage of LNG are some of the factors which are expected to boost storage application segment during the forecast period. Transportation also had significant share 2015. Cryogenic tanks could be utilized for inland as well as offshore transportation of LNG and liquefied industrial gases. Transportation of liquefied industrial gases and LNG is usually carried out by vessels, ships, tankers, trailers, and containers under strict regulations and safety protocols. Get Industry Research Report Sample for more Professional and Technical Industry Insights:http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2142 In terms of geography, Asia Pacific dominated the demand for cryogenic tanks in terms of volume and revenue in 2015. North America and Europe also had significant demand for cryogenic tanks in 2015 owing the increasing demand for LNG from various industries. In recent years, the cryogenic tanks landscape is witnessing enhanced activities by various market participants, including Cryogas Equipment Private Ltd., VRV S.p.A, Cryoquip Australia, Eden Cryogenics LLC, Cryofab Inc., FNF Gas Technology Products Private Ltd., Gardner Cryogenics, INOX India Pvt. Ltd., Linde AG, and Suretank Group Ltd. among others. Global Cryogenic Tanks Market: Regional Analysis North America The U.S. Canada Europe The U.K. Germany France Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China India Japan Australia Rest of Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa Qatar Oman UAE Egypt Rest of Middle East & Africa Latin America Brazil Mexico Rest of Latin America Global Cryogenic Tanks Market: By Product Type Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Nitrogen Oxygen Argon Global Cryogenic Tanks Market: By Application Storage Transportation Browse Research PR: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/cryogenic-tanks-market.htm Browse Other Research Reports: LPG Tanker Market: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/lpg-tanker-market.html LNG Bunkering Market: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/lng-bunker-fuel-market.html About TMR Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The company's exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend 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. TMR's 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 Transparency Market Research State Tower 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany NY - 12207 United States Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453 Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com Website: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Blog: http://www.tmrblog.com/ TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Pangolin Diamonds Corp. (TSX VENTURE: PAN) (the "Company" or "Pangolin") is pleased to announce that it has filed a 43-101 technical report ("43-101") on its Malatswae Diamond Project. The 43-101 was prepared by iQuest under the supervision of Mr. Ian McGeorge MSc. C.Geol., qualified person. The full report may be viewed at www.sedar.com. The following is a short summary of the work the Company is presently undertaking, or has undertaken, on its various projects. Motloutse Diamond Project Detailed soil sampling has been completed over the "MSD Grid" in the eastern part of the Motloutse Diamond Project. The samples have been processed and the concentrates sorted. A diamond, several kimberlitic garnets and ilmenites were sorted from the concentrates. An extension to the MSD Grid is currently being sampled. It is noted that a diamond was reported from the MSD Grid area in 1996 by MIT Ventures Ltd. Malatswae Diamond Project A semi-detailed sampling programme over Block 333 in the Malatswae project has been completed. A total of 275 samples were collected on a 250m x 250m grid covering 15 square kilometres. The samples are being treated and sorted at present. A diamond has been found in one of the samples. This extends the presence of diamonds as reported from soil samples by Pangolin Diamonds into four geographically different areas of the Malatswae project. A total of 14 diamonds have now been observed in soil samples from the Malatswae Diamond Project. Taking the recommendations of the 43-101 prepared by iQuest into consideration, a detailed soil sampling programme has commenced over an 18 Ha area of the "MTS Grid". Results from this programme are expected in 2017. Regional soil sampling is in progress over areas of the Malatswae Diamond Project area that have not been covered by regional sampling in the past. Moenyenana Diamond Project Aeromagnetic targets selected from public domain aeromagnetic data obtained from the Geological Survey of Botswana are systematically being followed up on the ground with a series of soil samples over individual aeromagnetic targets. The programme will continue into 2017. Jwaneng South Diamond Project A systematic 1 x 1 km soil sampling survey is in progress. The initial regional sampling programme is expected to be completed in 2017. Machaneng South Diamond Project A systematic programme of soil sampling is in progress over aeromagnetic anomalies selected from public domain aeromagnetic survey data obtained from the Geological Survey of Botswana. The programme is expected to continue into 2017. The Company's treasury is fully funded to complete the above described exploration programmes. Quality Control and Quality Assurances Quality assurance procedures, security, transport, storage, and processing protocols conform to chain of custody requirements. The technical disclosure in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Leon Daniels, BSc., BSc. Honours Geology, PhD and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. About Pangolin Diamonds Corp. and Our Social Connections For more information on Pangolin Diamonds Corp., please visit our website at www.pangolindiamonds.com Follow us on Twitter @pangolindiamond and Facebook at Pangolin Diamonds Corp 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: Pangolin Diamonds Corp. Scott Young Investor Relations +1.705.888.2756 syoung@pangolindiamonds.com Pangolin Diamonds Corp. Graham C. Warren Chief Financial Officer +1.416.594.0473 +1.416.594.1630 (FAX) gwarren@pangolindiamonds.com www.pangolindiamonds.com Regulatory News: Pixium Vision (FR0011950641 PIX) (Paris:PIX), a company developing innovative bionic vision systems to allow patients who have lost their sight to lead more independent lives, is proud to announced it was awarded "Janus Healthcare Award", together with the Design branch of the Silamir Group, for the commercial version of IRISII, its first Bionic Vision System (BVS). Pixium Vision's bionic vision system is equipped with a bio-inspired camera and an epi-retinal implant with 150 electrodes, designed to be explantable and upgradeable. It is intended for patients who have lost their sight due to Retinitis Pigmentosa. The integrated and ergonomic design of the IRISII system, comprising a pair of goggles including a mini-neuromorphic-camera and a pocket computer, was a real challenge for the Pixium Vision and Silamir Design Branch teams. For Khalid Ishaque, CEO of Pixium Vision, "This award illustrates our patient-centric approach when it comes to system design and development as we always strive to propose comfort, ergonomics and aesthetics. We are delighted to join the club of recognized companies that use design to enhance the integration of high tech objects in daily lives "This award, recognised in a most prestigious setting, crowns an exciting adventure. We have developed a close collaboration for more than two years with the Research and Development Department of Pixium Vision to achieve the ergonomic and compact design of this pair of connected glasses, also aesthetic and comfortable for its user. We are proud to have taken part in the design of this revolutionary system and thank our partner Pixium Vision for their confidence. We would also like to thank the French Institute of Design for this highly symbolic award said Armand Billard, Head of Innovation at the Silamir Group. Created in 1953 by ministerial decree and placed under the patronage of the Ministers of Industry, Commerce and Foreign Trade, the JANUS label devotes the best achievements in terms of design innovation. It helps promote investment in design and its transformation into competitive advantage. The historical JANUS label for Industry is awarded today in different sectors: Business, Health, City, Service, Future, Living space, Heritage innovation, Furniture, Components Materials, Fashion & well-being, Brand and Student. The diversity of the origins of the members of the Jury makes it possible to integrate different points of view and to balance the "5E's" of design criteria: Economy, Aesthetics, Ergonomics, Ethics, Emotion. About Pixium Vision www.pixium-vision.com@PixiumVisionwww.facebook.com/pixiumvision Pixium Vision develops innovative bionic vision system to enable those who have lost their sight, to lead their lives with greater autonomy. Pixium Vision's bionic vision systems are made of various high technologic components and are associated with a surgical intervention as well as a rehabilitation period. The Company aims to enable patients who have lost their sight to lead more independent lives. The company obtained CE mark for IRISII, its first bionic system, in July 2016. Pixium Vision is, in parallel, developing PRIMA, a sub-retinal miniaturized wireless photovoltaic implant platform for the Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) indication. The company recently completed the pre-clinical study phases and plans to initiate first-in-human trials in Europe by end 2016. The company is EN ISO 13485 certified. Pixium Vision collaborates closely with academic and research partners spanning across the prestigious Vision research institutions including the Institut de la Vision in Paris, the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory at Stanford University, and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. Pixium Vision is listed on Euronext (Compartiment C) in Paris ISIN: FR0011950641; Mnemo: PIX IRIS is a trademark of Pixium-Vision SA Pixium Vision shares are eligible for the French tax incentivized PEA-PME and FCPI investment vehicles. About Silamir www.silamir.com@silamir Silamir's vision transforms user experience, from ideation to the realization of services, digital interfaces and connected or unconnected objects. Silamir, a catalyst for innovation, relies on an unrivaled triple expertise to offer a full-stack experience to its clients: Consulting division, Tech development division, Design division. Present in Paris and Rennes, Silamir brings together a hundred employees and accompanies 200 companies. About French Institute of Design Created in 1951 by Jacques Vienot and joined by 400 industrialists, the French Institute of Design (IFD), as a center of expertise, works to promote professional ethics in a market economy. Because our living environment, a real engine of evolution, is constantly improving, the French Institute of Design (IFD) promotes projects that are part of a sustainable way of living. Through its three centers of expertise, the French Institute of Design, a private and independent organization, works for the promotion of design in France and abroad. Disclaimer: This press release may expressly or implicitly contain forward-looking statements relating to Pixium Vision and its activity. Such statements are related to known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could lead actual results, financial conditions, performance or achievements to differ materially from Vision Pixium results, financial conditions, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. Pixium Vision provides this press release as of the aforementioned date and does not commit to update forward looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. For a description of risks and uncertainties which could lead to discrepancies between actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements and those contained in the forward-looking statements, please refer to Chapter 4 "Risk Factors" of the company's Registration Document filed with the AMF under number R16-033 on April 28, 2016 which can be found on the websites of the AMF AMF (www.amf-france.org) and of Pixium Vision (www.pixium-vision.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005806/en/ Contacts: Pixium Vision Khalid Ishaque, CEO +33 1 76 21 47 68 investors@pixium-vision.com @PixiumVision or Media Relations : Newcap Media Annie-Florence Loyer, +33 1 44 71 00 12 +33 6 88 20 35 59 afloyer@newcap.fr or Daphne Boccara, +33 1 44 71 94 93 dboccara@newcap.fr or Silamir Marie-Laure Houari, 1 75 43 68 68 + 33 6 76 48 17 90 Marketing Communication Manager mlhouari@silamir.com @Silamir Recently FDA cleared Aixplorer to showcase latest innovations and improvements for radiologists Regulatory News: SuperSonic Imagine (Paris:SSI) (Euronext: SSI, FR0010526814), a company specializing in ultrasound medical imaging, today announced that it will feature the new version of Aixplorer at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Annual Meeting at McCormick Place, Chicago, November 27 to December 2. The newly released upgrade to Aixplorer, which was recently FDA approved, has the only UltraFast ultrasound system, enhanced performance, workflow and efficiency, while providing both impeccable image quality and unprecedented ultrasound innovations. Attendees are invited to visit SuperSonic Imagine's booth #8133 at North Hall B during the RSNA Annual Meeting. "We are excited to introduce attendees to Aixplorer's new capabilities such as the new TriVu real-time simultaneous mode with B-mode, ShearWave Elastography (SWE) and color flow imaging, an exclusive feature that combines anatomical imaging with functional imaging," said Jacques Souquet, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of SuperSonic Imagine. "We are also proud to report that 16 abstracts from clinical research studies using SuperSonic Imagine's technology will be presented throughout the conference. It includes for the first time the presentation of the results of the BE3 Breast Multicenter Study* conducted in China and launched two years ago Aixplorer's latest version demonstrates advancements in several respects. The new comprehensive breast package, a combination of new probes designed especially for breast imaging resulting in a substantially improved B-mode image quality and three essential innovations to aid visualization: SWE to improve ultrasound specificity, 3D Ultrasound for a color-coded map of tissue stiffness, and the unique TriVu mode combining breast anatomy, flow information and tissue stiffness in a single acquisition. Aixplorer upgrade allows physicians to now use the Angio PL.U.S. PLanewave UltraSensitiveTM Imaging, feature for abdominal, vascular and gynecologic applications, in addition to its original uses for breast, thyroid and musculoskeletal imaging. Angio PL.U.S. Doppler has advanced color sensitivity and spatial resolution as well as exceptional 2D imaging. The upgraded new research package helps physicians perform pre-clinical or clinical research with exclusive modes such as SWE. SuperSonic Imagine will demonstrate to RSNA attendees its Fusion, Navigation Needle Guidance technology. Aixplorer's new fusion and navigation features enable users to fuse real-time ultrasound images with magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, positron emission tomography and 3D ultrasound, as well as with other exclusive Aixplorer modes such as SWE, Angio PL.U.S. or TriVu. This combined visualization is designed to leverage the simultaneous real-time benefits of multiple modalities for exams in complex cases, as well as for interventional imaging such as biopsy guidance or therapy such as RF ablation. For the first time at RSNA, SuperSonic Imagine will perform live demonstrations with models at the booth. Drs. Xi Lin, Anhua Li and Cai Chang will present the results of the breast study entitled, "Assessment of Shear Wave Elastography in the Ultrasonic Diagnosis of Breast Cancer in Chinese Patients: The BE3 Multicenter Study of 2,262 Masses." 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, Angio PL.U.S Planewave UltraSensitive Imaging and more recently TriVu. 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. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005706/en/ Contacts: SuperSonic Imagine Bernard Doorenbos, +33 6 15 66 64 68 CEO bernard.doorenbos@supersonicimagine.com or SuperSonic Imagine Marketing Communication Emmanuelle Vella, +33 4 86 79 03 27 emmanuelle.vella@supersonicimagine.com or NewCap Investor Relations EU Pierre Laurent Florent Alba, +33144719855 supersonicimagine@newcap.fr or Pascale Communication Media Relations US Amy Phillips, +1 412 327 9499 amy@pascalecommunications.com HONOLULU, HI -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- According to the National Eye Institute, keratoconus, a degenerative eye condition that can lead to blindness, affects approximately one out of every 2,000 Americans. For those diagnosed with keratoconus, Honolulu eye surgeon Alan Faulkner, MD of Aloha Laser Vision now offers corneal crosslinking (CXL). This minimally invasive, FDA-approved treatment can strengthen thin corneas and potentially reverse or prevent advancement of the disease for individuals in the early stages. Dr. Faulkner explains that corneal crosslinking not only offers a way to halt or slow keratoconus, but it can also improve the efficacy and longevity of conventional treatment methods like custom contact lenses, implantable collamer lenses (ICLs), and INTACS. According to Dr. Faulkner, corneal crosslinking offers many advantages to patients with keratoconus, making it an enticing, conservative option for protecting and improving visual acuity. Benefits of the corneal crosslinking procedure include: A high rate of success for patients who are good candidates Minimal potential for complications or procedure failure Quick treatment time, short recovery period, and low cost compared to corneal transplant surgery Long-lasting results Corneal transplants are usually considered the last treatment option for those who have entered the advanced stages of keratoconus, Dr. Faulkner notes. However, with the success of corneal crosslinking treatments, he hopes to reduce the need for keratoconus patients to receive transplants down the line. Many of Dr. Faulkner's patients are curious to know how this relatively simple, revolutionary procedure works. He explains that successful corneal crosslinking treatment creates more covalent bonds between the collagen molecules of the cornea, which is actually a natural biological process that takes place in the cornea as we age. These added bonds reinforce the cornea, ideally preventing it from becoming thinner and changing shape. He goes on to say that, in many cases, it is possible to thicken the cornea and flatten the conical shape to achieve lasting improvement in vision. For individuals diagnosed with keratoconus, Dr. Faulkner strongly suggests seeking out an experienced eye surgeon who performs corneal crosslinking to find out if this kind of treatment is appropriate. He mentions that a thorough eye exam and precise corneal measurements should reveal the severity of the condition, which treatment methods will be most effective, and the degree of improvement patients can expect to achieve. About Alan Faulkner, MD Dr. Faulkner is the lead eye surgeon at Aloha Laser Vision and is board-certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology. He established the practice in 2001 and has worked diligently to expand it into a state-of-the-art laser vision correction center offering a wide variety of premium services, including LASIK, cataract surgery, LASIK alternatives, and aesthetic treatments. Dr. Faulkner received his medical degree at Tulane Medical School, achieving top honors as a member of Alpha Omega Alpha. He went on to complete an internship in Internal Medicine, a residency in Ophthalmology, and a fellowship in Oculoplastics, Ocular Oncology, and Orbital Disease. Before entering into private practice, Dr. Faulkner accepted a full-time position as Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Tulane. He is an active member of several professional organizations, including the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons, and the International Society of Refractive Surgeons. He is available for interview upon request. For more information about Dr. Faulkner and his practice, please visit alohalaservision.com and facebook.com/alohalaservision. To view the original source of this press release, click here: https://www.alohalaservision.com/news-room/honolulu-ophthalmology-practice-offers-corneal-crosslinking-for-treatment-of-keratoconus Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3083327 Aloha Laser Vision 1100 Ward Ave., Ste. 1000 Honolulu, Hawaii 96814 (808) 972-3937 Rosemont Media (858) 200-0044 www.rosemontmedia.com According to the report, Global Chemical Sensors Market (Optical, Electrochemical, Biochemical): Analysis By Type, By Application, By Region, By Country (2016-2021), Global Chemical Sensors market is projected to exhibit a CAGR of 10.15% during 2016-2021. Global Chemical Sensors Market has been segmented on basis of Type (Electrochemical, Optical Chemical, Biochemical and Other); By Application (Medical, Automotive, Environmental Monitoring and Other); By Region (North America, Europe, APAC and ROW) and By Country (U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, China, India, Japan, Brazil and Saudi Arabia). A comprehensive research report created through extensive primary research (inputs from industry experts, companies, stakeholders) and secondary research, the report aims to present the analysis of global Chemical Sensors market on the basis of Type (Electrochemical, Optical Chemical, Biochemical and Other); By Application (Medical, Automotive, Environmental Monitoring and Other); By Region (North America, Europe, APAC and ROW) and By Country (U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, China, India, Japan, Brazil and Saudi Arabia). Although, electrochemical sensors hold the major percentage share in the total chemical sensors market, biochemical sensor is projected to display a faster growth in the future owing to the increasing diabetes prevalence in the population coupled with growing home &point-of-care testing and monitoring tools demand. Among the regions, APAC is predicted to advance at the highest rate, mainly driven by the pouring number of vehicle production, growing healthcare infrastructure and shift of manufacturing facilities in low-cost countries in the region. Companies Mentioned: 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. DUBLIN, Nov 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Electronically Scanned Arrays Market by Type, Platform, Range, Array Geometry, Component, and Region - Global Forecast to 2021" report to their offering. The electronically scanned arrays market is projected to grow from USD 6.24 Billion in 2016 to USD 8.43 Billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 6.20% during the forecast period. Replacement of traditional electronically scanned array systems and integration of active electronically scanned arrays with traditional radar system components are key factors expected to drive the growth of the electronically scanned arrays market. The electronically scanned arrays market has been segmented on the basis of type, platform, range, array geometry, component, and region. The type segment has been further divided into active and passive electronically scanned arrays. Among them, the active segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2016 to 2021. Active electronically scanned arrays encompass individual transmit/receive modules, which offer increased capability to these arrays for detecting numerous objects at a particular point of time. Several defense organizations worldwide have started installing active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars in defense aircraft to enhance tracking capabilities. Based on platform, the electronically scanned arrays market has been segmented into land, naval, and airborne. Among them, the land segment is anticipated to grow at the highest CAGR from 2016 to 2021. Land-based electronically scanned arrays are used to obtain real-time information in warfare situations. Furthermore, land-based systems can also effectively locate unexploded ordinance and tunnels. Based on region, the electronically scanned arrays market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and rest of the world. North America is estimated to lead the electronically scanned arrays market in 2016. High demand for air surveillance systems and increase in the procurement of air & missile defense radars in the U.S. and Canada are factors anticipated to drive the growth of the electronically scanned arrays market in North America. Moreover, due to constant developments in frequency bands, electronically scanned arrays are developing the capability to detect objects in an accurate manner. This has further contributed to the growing demand for electronically scanned arrays. Companies Mentioned: Almaz-Antey Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. Leonardo-Finmeccanica Lockheed Martin Corporation Northrop Grumman Corporation RADA Electronic Industries Ltd. Raytheon Company Reutech Radar Systems Saab AB Thales Group Report Structure: 1 Introduction 2 Research Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Premium Insights 5 Market Overview 6 Industry Trends 7 Electronically Scanned Arrays Market, by Type 8 Electronically Scanned Arrays Market, by Platform 9 Electronically Scanned Arrays Market, by Range 10 Electronically Scanned Arrays Market, by Array Geometry 11 Electronically Scanned Arrays Market, by Component 12 Regional Analysis 13 Competitive Landscape 14 Company Profiles For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/gft9s9/electronically Media Contact: 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 AIX-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- SuperSonic Imagine (EURONEXT PARIS: SSI) (FR0010526814), a company specializing in ultrasound medical imaging, today announced that it will feature the new version of Aixplorer at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Annual Meeting at McCormick Place, Chicago, November 27 to December 2. The newly released upgrade to Aixplorer, which was recently FDA approved, has the only UltraFast ultrasound system, enhanced performance, workflow and efficiency, while providing both impeccable image quality and unprecedented ultrasound innovations. Attendees are invited to visit SuperSonic Imagine's booth #8133 at North Hall B during the RSNA Annual Meeting. "We are excited to introduce attendees to Aixplorer's new capabilities such as the new TriVu real-time simultaneous mode with B-mode, ShearWave Elastography (SWE) and color flow imaging, an exclusive feature that combines anatomical imaging with functional imaging," said Jacques Souquet, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of SuperSonic Imagine. "We are also proud to report that 16 abstracts from clinical research studies using SuperSonic Imagine's technology will be presented throughout the conference. It includes for the first time the presentation of the results of the BE3 Breast Multicenter Study* conducted in China and launched two years ago." Aixplorer's latest version demonstrates advancements in several respects. The new comprehensive breast package, a combination of new probes designed especially for breast imaging resulting in a substantially improved B-mode image quality and three essential innovations to aid visualization: SWE to improve ultrasound specificity, 3D Ultrasound for a color-coded map of tissue stiffness, and the unique TriVu mode combining breast anatomy, flow information and tissue stiffness in a single acquisition. Aixplorer upgrade allows physicians to now use the Angio PL.U.S. - PLanewave UltraSensitive Imaging, feature for abdominal, vascular and gynecologic applications, in addition to its original uses for breast, thyroid and musculoskeletal imaging. Angio PL.U.S. Doppler has advanced color sensitivity and spatial resolution as well as exceptional 2D imaging. The upgraded new research package helps physicians perform pre-clinical or clinical research with exclusive modes such as SWE. SuperSonic Imagine will demonstrate to RSNA attendees its Fusion, Navigation & Needle Guidance technology. Aixplorer's new fusion and navigation features enable users to fuse real-time ultrasound images with magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, positron emission tomography and 3D ultrasound, as well as with other exclusive Aixplorer modes such as SWE, Angio PL.U.S. or TriVu. This combined visualization is designed to leverage the simultaneous real-time benefits of multiple modalities for exams in complex cases, as well as for interventional imaging such as biopsy guidance or therapy such as RF ablation. For the first time at RSNA, SuperSonic Imagine will perform live demonstrations with models at the booth. * Drs. Xi Lin, Anhua Li and Cai Chang will present the results of the breast study entitled, "Assessment of Shear Wave Elastography in the Ultrasonic Diagnosis of Breast Cancer in Chinese Patients: The BE3 Multicenter Study of 2,262 Masses." 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, Angio PL.U.S - Planewave UltraSensitive Imaging and more recently TriVu. 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 Bernard Doorenbos CEO Email Contact +33 6 15 66 64 68 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 HENDERSON, NV -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- mCig Inc., (OTCQB: MCIG), a diversified company servicing the legal cannabis, hemp, and CBD markets, announced today it elected to convert its Convertible Promissory Note into shares of Omni Health, Inc., (OTC PINK: OMHE) as of October 31, 2016. The outstanding balance owed, $98,108, including interest, was converted into just over 17,677,058 shares, increasing its current position to more than 75,177,058 shares. "MCIG had been approached by many companies that wanted VTCQ and we wanted the best deal possible for MCIG and its shareholders. We kept the brands we helped create (Vitacig), kept a sizeable share position, and made a deal with a company that is doing 7 figures in revenue a quarter," said Paul Rosenberg CEO of MCIG, Inc. The significance of the Omni Health, Inc., (OTC PINK: OMHE) deal for MCIG shareholders is the passive investment by MCIG will derive a future cash position for MCIG and MCIG shareholders. At a $0.02 PPS of OMHE, our investment is worth roughly $1.5 million; however the current valuation is based upon the previous VTCQ business and its net losses, while OMHE has just stated a net profit of $1.6M in its first quarter, which will significantly enhance our investment once all information is made public and digested in the market. With $1.6M net profit reported in its first quarter, dividend holders in the old VTCQ now have significantly more revenue stream and profit stream than the previous assets which were taken back into MCIG, mainly the VitaCig product line. As a shareholder of OMHE, MCIG is happy to unlock value for shareholders by developing great streams of revenues and incubating great businesses like Scalable. Each business division has its own time and growth, and MCIG's time now will focus on the other divisions now that VTCQ is in good hands with a strong management team to guide our ownership. OMHE will be engaging in its own public relations program to unlock the value for its shareholders, and operate completely autonomous with MCIG. Michael Hawkins has been leading the transition of power team with OMHE to assist new management in a smooth progression from a private operation for more than 40 years to one of a public entity. Mr. Hawkins will be relinquishing his role as the Chief Executive Officer during this period of transition as it is winding down to new management as a natural progression to autonomy. About mCig, Inc. Headquartered in Henderson, Nevada, mCig Inc. (OTCQB: MCIG) A diversified company servicing the legal cannabis, hemp and CBD markets via its lifestyle brands. MCIG has transitioned from a vaporizer manufacturer to industry leading large scale, full service cannabis cultivation construction company with its Scalable Solutions division currently operating in the rapidly expanding Nevada market. The company looks forward to growing its core competencies to service the Ancillary legal Cannabis, Hemp and CBD markets, with broader expansion to take place once federal laws change. For more information visit www.mcig.org. About Omni Health, Inc. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Omni Health Inc. operates a pharmacy operation in Hialeah, Florida, Malecon Pharmacy. Malecon Pharmacy has been a pillar of the local community since 1974 providing healthcare products, pharmacy operations, prescription drugs, and other services and products in the skin care and anti-aging industry. Safe Harbor Statement Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on current expectations, but are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. The factors that could cause actual future results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties relating to the Company's ability to develop, market and sell products based on its technology; the expected benefits and efficacy of the Company's products and technology; the availability of substantial additional funding for the Company to continue its operations and to conduct research and development, and future product commercialization; and the Company's business, research, product development, regulatory approval, marketing and distribution plans and strategies. This release contains a non-GAAP disclosure, EBIDTA, which consists of net income plus interest expense, net, provision for income taxes and depreciation and amortization. This term, as the Company defines it, may not be comparable to a similarly titled measure used by other companies and is not a measure of performance presented in accordance with GAAP. The Company uses EBIDTA as a measure of operating performance. EBIDTA should not be considered as a substitute for net income. Contact: mCig, Inc. Paul Rosenberg Chief Executive Officer info@mcig.org Technavio's latest report on the global natural colorant and flavor marketprovides an analysis on the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2016-2020. 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/20161122005527/en/ Technavio publishes a new market research report on the global natural colorant and flavor market from 2016-2020. (Photo: Business Wire) Swapnil Tejveer Sharma, a lead analyst from Technavio, specializing in research on bio-chemicals and bio-materials sector, says, "Consumer preference for natural food products generates the demand for natural colorant and flavor. Stringent regulations and guidelines discourage the use of artificial food ingredients in food processing, which further supports the growth of the global natural colorant and flavor market." Request a sample report: http://www.technavio.com/request-a-sample?report=54558 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 natural colorant and flavor market according to Technavio chemicals and materials research analysts are: Increasing number of color shades and flavors Growth of packaged food and beverage industry Increase in the launch of several new food and beverage products Increasing number of color shades and flavors Many products in the natural ingredients segment including natural colorants and flavors are providing the market with a range of variety of colors and flavors for food products. The market offers a wide range of colors for food products such as yellow, blue, pink, red, brown, gray, and black. Among these shades of pink, blue, and red are in high demand. The increasing number of color shades for food products provides more options to food manufacturing companies. Increasing flavor products with different tastes are also helping the growth of the food and beverage market. Growth of packaged food and beverage industry The market for packaged food and beverage products is growing due to the change in lifestyle of consumers. An increase in disposable income of consumers is also contributing to the increasing demand for packaged food products. The shift of packaged food products from synthetic ingredients to natural ingredients has further resulted in market growth. "Consumers prefer packaged food products due to hygiene and food safety issue. Natural colorants and flavors are an essential part of the food industry. Therefore, growth in the packaged food and beverage industry will directly support the growth of global natural colorant and flavor market," says Swapnil. Increase in the launch of several new food and beverage products The market is packed with numerous food products. The increasing demand for natural food products has led manufacturers to use natural colorants and flavors in their products. Many food manufacturing companies are using only natural ingredients in their new food products. Increasing applications in food products, like non-alcoholic beverages, savory snacks, confectionaries, baked goods, dairy products, and meat products, are creating the demand for natural colorants and flavors. Food manufacturing companies prefer natural colorants and flavors for their existing and new product ranges. For instance, many traditional food products are being commercialized and sold as packaged foods. The demand for food and beverage products will directly influence the need for natural colorants and flavors. Browse Related Reports: Food Additives Market in the US 2016-2020 Global Natural Food Colors Market 2015-2019 Global Natural and Synthetic Food Colors Market 2015-2019 Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you. About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies. Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122005527/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 630 333 9501 UK: +44 208 123 1770 www.technavio.com VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- DuSolo Fertilizers Inc. (TSX VENTURE: DSF) ("DuSolo" or "the Company") is very pleased to provide an update on its corporate activities, exploration and permitting status, product development, new management appointments and the re-start of extraction operations at the Santiago Project. The Company has been undergoing a restructuring of its operations in Brazil and Canada, optimizing the value of its assets to create significant value for shareholders. OVERVIEW The Company's assets consist of a number of exploration concessions in Tocantins State (totaling 54,073 hectares) containing phosphate rock (P2O5) deposits, and the Company also owns and operates the Santiago Project, located in Tocantins State, with a crushing / milling / screening plant located near the town of Campos Belos, just south of the Tocantins border in Goias State. The Company produces a Direct Application Natural Fertilizer ("DANF") sold to local farmers and large agricultural companies such as COFCO, Bunge, Jalles Machado and Goiasa, who are among the largest growers of sugar cane, soya beans and corn in Brazil. The Company recently completed delivery of all stockpiled phosphate material at the Campos Belos plant, and given existing sales contracts and customer demand, has re- started extraction operations at the Santiago Project. This material will provide DANF for customer deliveries in 2016 and through to mid-2017. The Company is not basing its production decision on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability, as a result there is increased uncertainty and economic and technical risks of failure associated with its production decision. The Company is currently finalizing a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") of DANF production - please see the section of this release entitled "Technical Reports". The Company continues to focus on cost reduction and completed the consolidation of its management and technical team in the Belo Horizonte office. As at 1st November the Company had c.$2m in cash as it continues to work on the development of its Bonfim Project in Brazil. STOCKPILE SALES The Company has now processed and sold all its stockpiles of both product and run-of- mine ("ROM") material at the Campos Belos Plant. Total sales to November 17, 2016 of both 12% and 15% Phosphate DANF are 27,868 tonnes. The Company currently has signed forward sales contracts to deliver an additional 9,306 tonnes. NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Brazil remains a substantial agricultural market and imports significant quantities of fertilizer including phosphate-based products. The Company is working with Agroconsult, the leading Brazilian consultancy for agriculture and fertilizers, to determine market size potential and pricing ranges for various products to be used in the PEA for the acid granulated product. Two potential products include the granulation of higher grade material (approximately 15% P2O5) with sulphuric acid to improve the agronomic performance, and beneficiation of medium grade material (between 6%-8% P2O5) to produce products such as Single Super Phosphate ("SSP"). RESOURCE DRILLING Exploration work continues at the Company's concessions, with field mapping, auger drilling and sampling. A drilling program for the Bonfim, Amaury and Depasa concessions has been designed with input from various technical consultants, to maximize the information generated including samples for metallurgical testing, whilst minimizing the drilling cost. Drilling will include augering, diamond core and reverse circulation holes. This program will provide data to prepare an updated resource estimate at the Bonfim, Amaury and Depasa concessions, targeting material similar to the existing resources grading between 6%-8% P2O5 and will occur in 2017. Assuming successful exploration results and a positive increase in the resources which are the subject of the Company's existing resource estimate, the Company expects to assess the potential for the production of a high grade phosphate fertilizer, similar to SSP, utilizing the medium grade (6-8% Phosphate) material at the Company's concessions. The Company has focused its exploration efforts during the second half of 2016 to support the re-start of the extraction of phosphate rock, prepare the PEA for DANF production and to help prepare the necessary Exploration Reports for the National Department for Mineral Production ("DNPM") that will allow for Kalunga I & II, Depasa and Bonfim to convert to mining concessions. The Company also intends to relinquish concessions east of the main phosphate bearing structure as these are deemed to have little potential. TECHNICAL REPORTS The Company is in the process of preparing the following two Technical Reports with its independent technical consultant GE21 Consultoria Mineral based in Belo Horizonte: -- A PEA for the production of 12% and 15% Phosphate DANF expected by the end of 2016. This report will include an updated Resource for the Santiago Project and is targeting the extraction and processing of up to 100,000tpa. -- On the back of the PEA report noted above, the Company is working on a second PEA for the production of an Acid Granulated Phosphate Fertilizer combining 15% Phosphate DANF with Sulphuric Acid to improve the agronomic performance of the DANF. The intent of this granulated product is to widen the market available to the Company, and achieve higher selling prices due to improved solubility and agronomic performance. This report is targeted for completion by mid-2017. PERMITTING The Company is currently permitted to extract material from the Santiago Project by a Guia de Utilization ("GUIA") issued by the DNPM, and an Environmental Licence issued by Naturatins, the Tocatins State Environmental Agency. GUIAs are issued under the terms of the exploration concessions, and are replaced by the life of mine licence known as a Portaria de Lavra, issued by the DNPM. The GUIAs are re-issued on an annual basis and are valid until after completion of exploration activities and the issuance of the Portaria de Lavra. A life of mine Environmental Licence is also required, issued by Naturatins. The Company expects to renew its GUIA to permit the extraction of 100,000t per annum in or before April 2017, and its current Environmental Licence is valid until August 2018. After completing the DANF PEA in 2016, the Company will prepare and submit its application for a Portaria de Lavra in early 2017, and expects to receive approval during 2017. In a parallel process the Company will apply for its life of mine Environmental Licence from Naturatins. The Company and its consultants meet regularly with both DNPM and Naturatins and do not anticipate any issues in obtaining its life of mine licences for the DANF operation. As the Company's assessment of an acid granulated product and then a high-grade fertilizer progress, additional applications will be required to obtain amendments to the Company's existing licences. As with any such permitting process it is subject to interaction with State and Federal authorities and there can be no guarantee that the Company will be able to acquire such licences. NEW MANAGEMENT The Company is very pleased to confirm the appointment of Cris Gallina as the Country Manager of DuSolo's Brazilian operations, replacing Sharon Levy. Mr. Gallina is a Mining Engineer and MBA with 16 years of experience in operations, project development, strategic planning and mineral processing in large multinational companies - Rio Tinto and Vale. As a project manager, consolidating the disciplines of geology, mine planning, mineral processing, engineering, logistics, environment among others, Mr. Gallina has been involved with numerous projects from $20 million to $4 billion. Mr Gallina also has considerable experience in management (approx. 350 people) in the areas of mine, plant (crushing, mill, concentration), rail and port operations at projects in Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina and Australia. CONVERTIBLE LOAN The Company continues its discussions with Tembo Capital Mining Fund LP regarding the repayment or potential re-structuring of the Company's convertible debenture in the amount of $750,000 (the "Loan"). As previously announced the Loan has been extended until the 30th November. QUALIFIED PERSONS The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Porfirio Cabaleiro Rodriguez and Mr. Bernardo Viana, both Managing Partners of GE21 Consultoria Mineral, in compliance with the standards of disclosure as set out in NI43-101. Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Viana are "independent qualified persons" for the purposes of NI43- 101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators. On behalf of DuSolo Fertilizers Inc. Giles Baynham, Chief Executive Officer and Director FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS Certain information contained in this press release constitutes "forward-looking information", within the meaning of Canadian legislation. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur", "be achieved" or "has the potential to". Forward looking statements contained in this press release may include statements regarding the future operating or financial performance of DuSolo which involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may not prove to be accurate. Actual results and outcomes may differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in these forward-looking statements. Such statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations. Among those factors which could cause actual results to differ materially are the following: market conditions and other risk factors listed from time to time in our reports filed with Canadian securities regulators on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and DuSolo disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation. For more information please refer to the technical report filed on SEDAR and titled "Bomfim Agro- Mineral Phosphate Project, Technical Report and Initial Resource Estimate Tocabtins and Goias States, Brazil," filed on March 5, 2014, effective December 31, 2013, and amended on February 6, 2015. The resource estimate was signed off by Mr. Porfirio Cabaleiro Rodriguez an Associate Consultant of Coffey Consultoria e Servicos Ltda., and was prepared in compliance with the standards of disclosure as set out in NI43-101. Mr. Rodriguez is an "independent qualified person" for the purposes of NI43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators. Disclosure - The Company's decision to produce DANF, its DANF production targets and cash flow projections were not based on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability. Without a technical report demonstrating economic and technical viability, there is uncertainty as to whether the Company will be able to economically produce DANF in a long run and as to whether the Company will be confronted with any unforeseen technical impediments. Similarly, the Company has not completed a preliminary economic assessment before making production and project expansion decisions. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange Inc.) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. Contacts: DuSolo Fertilizers Inc. (604) 484 7122 ir@dusolo.com EDMONTON, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- A coalition of workers' rights organizations is urging the WCB review panel to make the Workers' Compensation system more human. This fall, the provincial government is conducting a review of Alberta's Workers Compensation Board. In order to ensure that workers are heard during this review process, the Canadian Injured Workers Association of Alberta and the Alberta Federation of Labour have partnered to create the 'Be Human WCB' campaign, which encourages Albertans to share their experiences with the WCB. "We're putting a human face on those who are being chewed up by a system that has become heartless," Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said. "Injured workers are ill- served by a heartless WCB system. They need a system that treats them as humans, not numbers or liabilities." Workers' Compensation exists to help workers who are injured at work. Whenever possible, the system is supposed to get workers healthy enough to return to their jobs. Unfortunately, Alberta's WCB system has not been working as well as it should. "It's not just my experience - I've spoken to worker after worker after worker who has had a terrible time dealing with the WCB," CIWAA executive director Donna Oberik said. "The system doesn't treat workers like people - they get denied legitimate claims and face a bureaucratic nightmare that never gets resolved. The life they knew is over. The system needs to be more human." When WCB turns down a legitimate workplace injury, that individual worker and their family end up paying. But the costs extend beyond that, as these injured workers end up in the public healthcare system costing all of us more money. "Too often, the WCB has treated employers as the client instead of injured workers," McGowan said. "They've focused on denying legitimate claims from injured workers in order to keep employer premiums low. That cannot continue." To learn more about the WCB, or to write an e-mail to the WCB review panel, visit www.BeHumanWCB.ca. Contacts: Olav Rokne Communications Director Alberta Federation of Labour 780.218.4351 (cell) orokne@afl.org SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA--(Marketwired - November 22, 2016) - Cover-More Group Limited, a specialist global travel insurance and medical assistance provider, confirmed the acquisition of 100% of Travelex Insurance Services Inc. The confirmation follows a binding heads of agreement between the two companies for the purchase which was announced by Cover-More on 27 September 2016. Cover-More Group Chief Executive Officer, Mike Emmett, said the acquisition provides Cover-More with accelerated entry into North America and a platform for further expansion in the world's largest travel insurance market. "Travelex Insurance Services is an excellent strategic fit for our business and we expect significant revenue and cost synergies as a result of the acquisition," he said. Travelex Insurance Services, headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the third largest retail travel insurance specialist in the USA. Cover-More, based in Sydney, Australia, provides global travel insurance and medical assistance services through retail travel agency networks, airlines, financial institutions and direct to customers. Cover-More has operations in eight countries: Australia, China, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, United Kingdom and United States. Mike Emmett said Cover-More valued Travelex Insurance Services for the strength of the brand and reputation, the partner relationships and the expertise and talent of the management team. He said the acquisition provides strong strategic benefits to Cover-More as the company expects to unlock substantial incremental value by combining Travelex Insurance Services and Cover-More's operations and capabilities, for example: the removal of duplicated costs in Cover-More's existing USA start-up reduced operating costs to support existing Cover-More customers in North America as Cover-More currently provides travel protection products for Flight Centre Travel Group leveraging Cover-More medical assistance and operations capabilities in other geographies leveraging 'follow-the-sun' cost efficiencies in medical assistance and operations arising from a presence in Australia, India and the USA. Michael Ambrose, President, Travelex Insurance Services, will continue to lead the company as CEO, USA for Cover-More. He said the two companies complement each well. "Combining Travelex's extensive sales and marketing expertise in offering travel insurance with Cover-More's predictive intelligence solutions and global digital commerce platforms will create an organization positioned to provide travelers with innovative tailored insurance products worldwide." "The acquisition presents a great opportunity for Travelex Insurance Services to continue to grow in partnership with a specialist in the travel insurance market, and build on the successes we have delivered over the past 20 years," he said. Travelex Insurance Services will continue to operate as usual maintaining focus on growing distribution, increasing sales, while delivering excellent customer service. There will be no change in existing management and sales teams. Mike Emmett said that Cover-More expected the acquisition to deliver substantial additional revenue sources from: new distribution partnership opportunities leveraging the combined skills and capabilities and geographic scope opportunities to build new partnerships with travel, aviation and financial institutions increased on-line and direct distribution opportunities leveraging the Travelex Insurance Services' name and market profile increased insurance attachment rates in Travelex Insurance Services by deploying IMPULSE technology build-out of medical assistance customers in USA resulting from Travelex Insurance Services' name and reputation providing a platform to expand across North America including in Canada and Mexico. Cover-More funded the acquisition through a combination of debt financing and a fully subscribed entitlement share offer for institutional and retail investors on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). About Travelex Insurance Services Travelex Insurance Services is a leading travel insurance provider in the United States. Established in 1996 the company insures more than 1.3 million American travelers every year. Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, Travelex delivers comprehensive and tailored travel protection plans through travel agencies and tour operators, in major airports and online at www.travelexinsurance.com. About Cover-More Group Cover-More Group Limited is a global specialist and integrated travel insurance, medical assistance and employee assistance provider. The group listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in 2013. Cover-More has the leading market position in Australia -- with an approximate 40% share of the national travel insurance market and a growing footprint in India and China as well as a presence in Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand and the United Kingdom and now the United States. Visit www.covermoregroup.com for more information. Media Contacts: Travelex Insurance Services Christine Buggy VP of Marketing 402.505.7006 chris.buggy@travelexinsurance.com Cover-More Group Peter Brookes +61 407 911 389 WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Donald Trump has frequently utilized Twitter to attack his political opponents and critics, but the results of a new Quinnipiac University poll found that a majority of American voters think the president-elect should stop tweeting. Fifty-nine percent of voters said Trump should shut down his personal Twitter account, while 35 percent think he should be keep his personal account. Trump recently came under fire for using Twitter to attack the cast of the hit Broadway musical 'Hamilton' for delivering a statement directly to Vice President-elect Mike Pence after a recent performance. The billionaire-turned-politician claimed 'Hamilton' is highly overrated and demanded the cast and producers of the musical apologize to Pence. Trump also recently used Twitter to attack the New York Times as a 'failing' publication that has inaccurately covered him with a nasty tone before meeting with reporters and editors from the paper. 'Voters tell President-elect Donald Trump, 'You've got the job. Now be a leader not a tweeter,' said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. The poll also found that voters have mixed views regarding whether Trump will be a 'good' president or a 'bad' president. Seventeen percent of voters said Trump will be a 'great' president and 32 percent said he will be a 'good' president, while 17 percent said he will be 'not so good' and 26 percent said he will be 'bad.' Quinnipiac noted that Trump is also widely seen as a strong and intelligent person with good leadership skills, although most say he is not honest or level-headed. While voters also said Trump will improve the economy and create jobs, they don't expect him to get Mexico to pay for a border wall or take out the terrorist group known as ISIS. The Quinnipiac survey of 1,071 voters was conducted November 17th through 20th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. (Photo: Gage Skidmore) Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de TORONTO, Ontario, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The media are invited to attend the release of the results of the second part of the Independent McLaren Investigation on doping in sport. At the news conference, Richard McLaren will detail the findings of his extended mandate. On 18 May, Professor McLaren was appointed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as the Independent Person to head an investigative team charged with determining the facts with respect to the allegations of manipulation of doping control samples and other allegations made by Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former Director of the WADA-accredited Moscow Laboratory. The investigation was launched to establish what actions must be taken in the best interest of clean sport and clean athletes. The full report will be made available on WADA's website on December 9. WHAT: Release of McLaren Investigation Report Part II WHEN: Friday December 9, 2016 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. (GMT) - Technical Briefing Lock-up (The Exchange) 11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. (GMT) - News Conference (The Gallery) WHERE: St-Pancras Renaissance Hotel Euston Road London, England NW1 2AR Tel: +44-20-7841-3540 Click here for a map of the hotel. TO PARTICIPATE BY AUDIO CONFERENCE CALL To participate by audio conference call, please dial the number below and follow the instructions of the Conference operator: Phone Numbers: +1(888)465-5079 Audience Canada Toll Free - English +1(866)229-4144 Audience Canada Toll Free - French/English +1(514)437-0676 Audience Canada Toll - French/English +1(416)216-4169 Audience Canada Toll - English Copy and paste the following URL into your web browser for a current list of available Audience local and international freephone telephone numbers: https://www.conferenceplus.com/AlternateNumbers/alternatenumbers.aspx?100813&t=A&o=UwZDlucGzGCYdE Audience Passcode: 7572 092# Once joining the call, the conference operator will place you in 'listen-only mode' for the duration of the press conference. At the end of the press conference, the operator will prompt those on line to register to ask questions to Professor McLaren. You will be asked to state your name and your media outlet, followed by your question. ACCREDITATION We would ask Media that wish to attend the news conference - either in person or by conference call - to provide the following details by email to catherine@catherinedoyle.ca by Tuesday December 6, 2016: Name Organization Email address Contact Number Whether you will attend in-person or via audio conference call MEDIA CONTACT Catherine Doyle, Media Consultant to the McLaren Investigation Cell: +1-514-641-3266 Email: catherine@catherinedoyle.ca First and only PD-1 inhibitor approved for a hematologic malignancy in the European Union Approval based on an overall response rate, as demonstrated by data from an integrated analysis of two trials, CheckMate -205 and CheckMate -039 This milestone marks the sixth EU approval for Opdivo in four distinct cancer types in less than two years Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) today announced the European Commission approved Opdivo (nivolumab) for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) after autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) and treatment with brentuximab vedotin. Opdivo is now the first and only PD-1 inhibitor approved for a hematologic malignancy in the European Union (EU). This approval allows for the expanded marketing of Opdivo in relapsed or refractory cHL in all 28 Member States of the EU. The approval is based on an integrated analysis of data from the Phase 2 CheckMate -205 and the Phase 1 CheckMate -039 trials, evaluating patients with relapsed or refractory cHL after ASCT and treatment with brentuximab vedotin. In the subset of patients in the efficacy population (n=95), the primary endpoint of objective response rate (ORR) as assessed by an independent radiologic review committee was 66% (95% CI: 56-76; 63/95 patients). The percentage of patients with a complete response was 6% (95% CI: 2-13; 6/95 patients), and the percentage of patients with a partial response was 60% (95% CI: 49-70; 57/95 patients). At 12 months, the progression-free survival rate was 57% (95% CI: 45-68). Opdivo is associated with warnings and precautions including immune-related: pneumonitis, colitis, hepatitis, nephritis and renal dysfunction, endocrinopathies, rash, and other adverse reactions; infusion reactions, and complications of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in cHL after Opdivo Emmanuel Blin, senior vice president and chief strategy officer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, commented, "We're incredibly proud of this approval for Opdivo and what it means for adult patients with relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma after autologous stem cell transplant and treatment with brentuximab vedotin, as it marks the first and only PD-1 inhibitor approved for a hematologic malignancy in the EU. This also is Bristol-Myers Squibb's second Immuno-Oncology agent approved for a blood cancer in the EU within just six months." "As a practicing hematologist, I have experienced the challenge of managing classical Hodgkin lymphoma and the need among previously treated patients," said Andreas Engert, M.D., lead investigator and professor of Internal Medicine, Hematology and Oncology, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. "It is incredibly exciting that with today's approval of Opdivo for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma after autologous stem cell transplant and treatment with brentuximab vedotin in the EU, we now have an entirely new treatment approach that has shown impressive response rates and durability of response in this difficult-to-treat population." In the integrated analysis of data from CheckMate -205 and CheckMate -039, the median time to response was 2.0 months (range 0.7-11.1), and among responders, the duration of response was maintained over time for a median of 13.1 months (95% CI: 9.5-NE; range 0.0+, 23.1+). Stable disease was observed in 23% of patients. In a post-hoc analysis of the 80 patients in CheckMate -205 cohort B, it was found 37 patients had no response to prior brentuximab vedotin treatment. Among these 37 patients, treatment with Opdivo resulted in an ORR of 59.5% (22/37), and the median duration of response was 13.14 months. The safety of Opdivo in cHL was evaluated in 263 adult patients from CheckMate -205 (n=240) and CheckMate -039 (n=23). Among these patients (total safety population: n=263), serious adverse events (AEs) occurred in 21% of patients. The most common serious AEs (reported in at least 1% of patients) were infusion-related reaction, pneumonia, pleural effusion, pyrexia, rash and pneumonitis. The most common AEs (reported in at least 20% of patients) were fatigue (32%), upper respiratory tract infection (28%), pyrexia (24%), diarrhea (23%), and cough (22%). Twenty-three percent of patients had a dose delay for an AE, and 4.2% of patients discontinued treatment due to AEs. Six out of 40 patients died from complications of allogeneic HSCT after Opdivo, and these 40 patients had a median follow-up from subsequent allogeneic HSCT of 2.9 months (range: 0-22). About Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), also known as Hodgkin disease, is a cancer that starts in white blood cells called lymphocytes, which are part of the body's immune system. In the European Union, about 12,200 new cases and 2,600 deaths occurred in 2012 as a result of HL. The disease is most often diagnosed in early adulthood (ages 20-40) and late adulthood (older than 55 years of age). Classical Hodgkin lymphoma is the most common type of HL, accounting for 95% of cases. Bristol-Myers Squibb: At the Forefront of Immuno-Oncology Science Innovation At Bristol-Myers Squibb, patients are at the center of everything we do. Our vision for the future of cancer care is focused on researching and developing transformational Immuno-Oncology (I-O) medicines that will raise survival expectations in hard-to-treat cancers and will change the way patients live with cancer. We are leading the scientific understanding of I-O through our extensive portfolio of investigational and approved agents, including the first combination of two I-O agents in metastatic melanoma, and our differentiated clinical development program, which is studying broad patient populations across more than 20 types of cancers with 11 clinical-stage molecules designed to target different immune system pathways. Our deep expertise and innovative clinical trial designs uniquely position us to advance the science of combinations across multiple tumors and potentially deliver the next wave of I-O combination regimens with a sense of urgency. We also continue to pioneer research that will help facilitate a deeper understanding of the role of immune biomarkers and inform which patients will benefit most from I-O therapies. We understand making the promise of I-O a reality for the many patients who may benefit from these therapies requires not only innovation on our part but also close collaboration with leading experts in the field. Our partnerships with academia, government, advocacy and biotech companies support our collective goal of providing new treatment options to advance the standards of clinical practice. About Opdivo Opdivo is a programmed death-1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitor that is designed to uniquely harness the body's own immune system to help restore anti-tumor immune response. By harnessing the body's own immune system to fight cancer, Opdivo has become an important treatment option across multiple cancers. Opdivo's leading global development program is based on Bristol-Myers Squibb's scientific expertise in the field of Immuno-Oncology and includes a broad range of clinical trials across all phases, including Phase 3, in a variety of tumor types. To date, the Opdivo clinical development program has enrolled more than 25,000 patients. The Opdivo trials have contributed to gaining a deeper understanding of the potential role of biomarkers in patient care, particularly regarding how patients may benefit from Opdivo across the continuum of PD-L1 expression. In July 2014, Opdivo was the first PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor to receive regulatory approval anywhere in the world. Opdivois currently approved in more than 57 countries, including the United States, the European Union and Japan. In October 2015, the company's Opdivo Yervoy combination was the first Immuno-Oncology combination to receive regulatory approval for the treatment of metastatic melanoma and is currently approved in more than 47 countries, including the United States and the European Union. 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 Bristol-Myers Squibb and Ono Pharmaceutical Collaboration In 2011, through a collaboration agreement with Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd (Ono), 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 23, 2014, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Ono 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. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161122006026/en/ Contacts: Bristol-Myers Squibb Company Media: Audrey Abernathy, 919-605-4521 audrey.abernathy@bms.com or Investor: Tim Power, 609-252-7509 timothy.power@bms.com or Bill Szablewski, 609-252-5894 william.szablewski@bms.com BEVERLY HILLS, CA and PACIFIC PALISADES, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Teles Properties -- one of the fastest-growing luxury residential real estate firms in Southern California -- had the distinct honor of hosting Linkin Park, along with friends and supporters of the band's non-profit organization, Music for Relief, for a star-studded event on Nov. 14 at one of its featured properties in Brentwood, Calif. listed by Teles agents, Ernie Carswell and Oliver Mossi. In celebration of the life-saving Solar Suitcase -- which provides reliable solar lights to health workers in third-world countries -- and Mercedes-AMG's contribution of 50 units to health clinics in Nigeria, the red carpet event aimed to educate guests -- which included Mike D, Kelly Rowland, Eric Roberts and the Mercedes-AMG team -- on the ways in which Solar Suitcases dramatically reduces maternal mortality in addition to other benefits. "Music for Relief is grateful to Teles Properties for its generous support of our Solar Suitcase program bringing light to health clinics in Africa," says COO of Music for Relief, Whitney Showler. "The incredibly beautiful venue was the perfect setting to attract new supporters to our cause." The 130 South Burlingame Ave. property boasts seven bedrooms, 12 bathrooms and sits on a lavish 23,220 sq. ft. lot allowing for a field-size yard, putting green, saltwater pool and lanai. The secure, private estate also features a double living room, music room, library and the highest level of craftsmanship from full home automation to premium brand appliances. Besides hosting the event at this beautiful listing, Teles provided support throughout the evening by overseeing set-up, check-in and demonstration of a virtual reality system. "Having the opportunity to partner with such an inspiring non-profit organization like Music for Relief is a great honor," says Teles co-president, Peter Hernandez. "Our business has always been centered around people -- and it is profound and eye-opening that something as simple as providing adequate lighting can save thousands and thousands of lives." Founded by the band Linkin Park in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Music for Relief organizes benefit concerts, online auctions and events with multi-platinum musicians and celebrities to help rebuild and donate supplies to people in need. For more information about Music for Relief and Solar Suitcases, visit http://musicforrelief.org/programs/power-the-world/. ABOUT TELES PROPERTIES: Teles Properties is a luxury real estate firm in California, ranked and recognized for four consecutive years by the prestigious Inc. 500|5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in America. Leading with intelligence, the brand brings together the state's most elite and successful agents and provides them with an unparalleled technology platform to simplify and elevate every aspect of a real estate transaction. Headquartered in Beverly Hills with strategic offices located in California's most prestigious markets -- from Carmel to Coronado -- Teles is renowned for its profound local market experience as well as a comprehensive global division that links international investors to properties in the U.S. and around the globe. For more information, go to www.telesproperties.com. Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3083867 Leslie Licano Beyond Fifteen Communications, Inc. 949.733.8679 leslie@beyondfifteen.com VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Uniserve Communications Corporation (the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: USS) wishes to announce that the board has agreed to a $500,000 advanced technology upgrade to its data centre. The data centre, located just outside of the downtown core and outside of the city power grid, continues to attract companies for data storage throughout the lower mainland. The Company has been providing managed services for companies, data storage and data backups for the past 18 months, and continues to expand its platform. Uniserve Communications Corporation (TSX VENTURE: USS) is a leader in the integration and delivery of voice and data services over multiple IP networks directly or through wholesale partnerships to businesses and retail consumers throughout Canada. In the B2B sector, Uniserve now offers services ranging from co-location data storage, automatic file backups, a managed service platform, firewalls, security systems, and guaranteed constant internet connectivity, all backed with 24/7 Vancouver based technical support. Learn more at www.uniserve.com or at www.sedar.com. This news release was prepared on behalf of the Board of Directors, which accepts full responsibility for its contents. Michael C. Scholz, Chairman of the Board Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulations Services Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Management has prepared this release and no regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. The statements contained in this news release that are not historical facts are forward looking statements. Such statements are based on management's estimates, assumptions and projections using available information. Uniserve cautions that actual financial results could differ materially from the current expectations due to a number of factors. Contacts: Mr. Mark Stanton 604-395-3908 mark.stanton@uniserveteam.com www.uniserve.com CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Traverse Energy Ltd. (the "Corporation") (TSX VENTURE: TVL) intends to complete a non-brokered private placement (the "Private Placement") of up to of 5,125,000 common shares of the Corporation for total gross proceeds of $2,245,000. Of the total number of common shares to be issued by the Corporation (i) up to 1,875,000 common shares will be issued at $0.40 per share ("Common Shares"); and (ii) up to 3,250,000 common shares will be issued on a "flow-through" basis eligible for the renunciation of Canadian exploration expenses within the meaning of the Income Tax Act (Canada) at $0.46 per share ("Flow-Through Shares"). Completion of the Private Placement is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The Corporation intends to use the proceeds from the issuance of the Flow-Through Shares to fund a portion of its exploration activities in the province of Alberta and from the issuance of the Common Shares for general corporate purposes. About the Corporation The Corporation is a junior oil and natural gas exploration and production company. The common shares of the Corporation are currently listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the trading symbol "TVL". Upon the completion of the Private Placement, there will be 83,769,402 common shares issued and outstanding. Forward-Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward-looking information in this news release includes statements with respect to the Corporation's intention to complete the Private Placement and the use of proceeds from the issuance of the Common Shares and the issuance of the Flow-Through Shares. Material assumptions and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information includes management's ability to raise gross proceeds of $2,245,000 and the failure to obtain final approval from the TSX Venture Exchange. Although the Corporation believes that the material assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur. The Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this release Contacts: Traverse Energy Ltd. Laurie Smith President and Chief Executive Officer (403) 264-9223 WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - GameStop Corp. (GME) released a profit for third quarter that retreated from last year. The company said its earnings totaled $50.8 million, or $0.49 per share. This was down from $57.0 million, or $0.54 per share, in last year's third quarter. Analysts had expected the company to earn $0.47 per share, according figures compiled by Thomson Reuters. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items. The company said revenue for the quarter fell 3.0% to $1.96 billion. This was down from $2.02 billion last year. GameStop Corp. earnings at a glance: -Earnings (Q3): $50.8 Mln. vs. $57.0 Mln. last year. -Earnings Decline (Y-o-Y): -10.9% -EPS (Q3): $0.49 vs. $0.54 last year. -EPS Decline (Y-o-Y): -9.3% -Analysts Estimate: $0.47 -Revenue (Q3): $1.96 Bln vs. $2.02 Bln last year. -Revenue Change (Y-o-Y): -3.0% -Guidance : Next quarter EPS guidance: $2.23 - $2.38 Full year EPS guidance: $3.65 - $3.80 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, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Irving Resources Inc. (CSE: IRV)(CSE: IRV.CN)(CNSX: IRV) ("Irving" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the completion of its final closing of a non-brokered private placement (the "Private Placement"), raising further proceeds of $540,000 by the issuance of 1,350,000 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.40 per Unit. Total gross proceeds raised of $5,856,395 were raised in the Private Placement by the issuance of 14,640,988 Units. Each Unit is comprised of one common share of the Company and one-half of a share purchase warrant (the "Warrants"). Each whole Warrant is exercisable for one common share of the Company at a price of $0.55 per share for a period of three years from the date of issue except that if, after May 22, 2017, the daily high trading price of the Company's common shares is $1.00 or higher for at least 20 consecutive trading days, the Company may give notice to the holders of the Warrants that the Warrants will expire if not exercised within 30 days of that notice. The hold period applicable to the final closing of the Private Placement expires on March 22, 2017. The Company plans to use the net proceeds of the Private Placement to fund potential acquisitions of mineral properties in Japan and for general working capital purposes. About Irving Resources Inc.: Irving is a junior exploration company searching for opportunities in certain countries, including Japan. Irving also holds, through a subsidiary, three Project Venture Agreements with JOGMEC for joint regional exploration programs in the United Republic of Tanzania, the Republic of Malawi and the Republic of Madagascar. JOGMEC is a government organization established under the law of Japan, administrated by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, and is responsible for stable supply of various resources to Japan through the discovery of sizable economic deposits of base, precious and rare metals. Additional information can be found on the Company's website: www.IRVresources.com. Akiko Levinson, President & Director THE CSE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE. Contacts: Irving Resources Inc. (604) 682-3234 or Toll free: 1 (888) 242-3234 (604) 682-0537 (FAX) info@IRVresources.com www.IRVresources.com VANCOUVER, BC -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Fundamental Applications Corp. ("Fundamental" or the "Company") (CSE: FUN) (FSE: 2FA) (OTCQB: FUAPF), a leading developer of innovative smartphone applications targeted toward millennials, announced today it has reached an agreement with Wolfgang Steubing AG Wertpapierdienstleister ("Steubing AG") to be the designated sponsor on the Xetra electronic trading platform ("Xetra") for the company. As part of the deal to expand Fundamental's presence across Europe and Asia, Steubing AG affords additional liquidity for Fundamental to secure new investors and support the company in adhering to the rules and regulations of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The arrangement provides the opportunity for Fundamental to be positioned with one of the most experienced securities trading banks in Germany. As the designated sponsor, Steubing AG will act both for dividend qualifying securities and new shares, as it relates to securities trading on Xetra. Xetra has grown to account for more than 90% of all stock trades on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Ireland, Vienna and Shanghai are some of the numerous stock exchanges across Europe and Asia utilizing the platform. Fundamental's CEO Brad Moore states, "We are pleased to have reached an agreement with Steubing AG, one of the most highly-regarded securities trading banks in Europe. Fundamental receives tremendous value by having Steubing AG operate as our designated sponsor, since the company can now enhance transparency and gain access to new investors." About Fundamental Fundamental Applications Corp. (CSE: FUN) (FSE: 2FA) (OTCQB: FUAPF) designs, develops, markets, and acquires innovative mobile applications targeted at the "Millennials" generation, people born in an age of digital technology, internet access, and smart phones. This demographic is an early adopter of mobile technology, has significant discretionary income, and is lifestyle driven with a willingness to try new things. Fundamental's three leading mobile platforms are Foro, a peer-to-peer mobile ecommerce marketplace; Truth, a one-to-one anonymous messaging app; and Opinit, an app that enables users to create and share emotion driven content. To learn more about Fundamental Applications Corp., please visit www.FunAppCorp.com, or review its company profile on the SEDAR website (www.sedar.com) and on the CSE website (www.thecse.com). Forward-Looking Information: This press release may include forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, concerning the business of Fundamental. Forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the management of Fundamental. Although Fundamental believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because Fundamental can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. Fundamental disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, other than as required by applicable securities laws. Investor Relations Contact: Bradley Moore Chief Executive Officer 514.561.9091 Email Contact www.FunAppCorp.com Media Contact: Richard Krueger TallGrass Public Relations Email Contact VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Further to its news release of November 16, 2016, Parlane Resource Corp. (TSX VENTURE: PPP) (the "Company") announces that it has amended the terms of its non-brokered private placement. The Company will issue up to 2,000,000 non-flow-through units ("NFTs") at a price of $0.25 per NFT for gross proceeds of $500,000, and up to 1,666,666 flow-through units ("FTs") at a price of $0.30 per FT for gross proceeds of $500,000, for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $1,000,000 (the "Offerings"). There is no minimum number of units being offered. Each NFT will be comprised of one common share and one warrant ("Warrant") exercisable at $0.30 for a period of five years from closing except that, if after the expiry of all resale restrictions, the closing price of the Company's shares on the TSX Venture Exchange is $0.60 or greater for a period of 20 consecutive trading days, the Company may give notice of an earlier expiry of the Warrants, in which case they will expire 30 days after the giving of such notice. Each FT will be comprised of one common share and one-half Warrant, with each full warrant exercisable at $0.35 for a period of 24 months from closing. The FT Warrants will not carry an accelerated expiry feature. Shares issued from the exercise of FT Warrants will not be flow-through shares. The Company will pay finders' fees in cash and warrants equal to 8% of subscriptions for NFTs or FTs as may be attributable to such finders. Finders' warrants issued to registered dealers or exempt market dealers will be valid for a period of two years, with each warrant exercisable into one common share of the Company at a price of $0.35 per share for the first year and $0.40 per share for the second year. Closing of the Offerings is subject to receipt of TSX Venture Exchange acceptance. Securities issued under the Offerings will be subject to a hold period which will expire four months and one day from the date of closing. The net proceeds of the private placement will be applied as disclosed in its November 16th news release, with funds budgeted as follows: -- $ 150,000 for working capital and general corporate purposes; -- $ 700,000 to commence drilling on the Company's Big Bear Project and for conducting a work program and further exploration of its Big Bear Project and the recently acquired Nechako Property; and -- $ 150,000 for investigating other opportunities for the Company. There is no material fact or material change about the Company that has not been generally disclosed. Parlane's 273-square kilometre Big Bear mineral claim position is located immediately north of, and adjacent to New Gold Inc.'s Blackwater deposit and east of New Gold's Capoose developed prospect. The Blackwater has proven and probable reserves containing 8.2 million ounces of gold and 60.8 million ounces of silver (www.newgold.com). ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Robert Eadie, President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Contacts: Parlane Resource Corp. Robert Eadie 1-604-602-4935 1-604-602-4936 (FAX) www.parlaneresource.com NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Amber Capital LP, on behalf of Amber Latin America LLC (on behalf of and for the account of Series Three), and Amber Global Opportunities Master Fund Ltd., which are investment funds managed by it (collectively, "Amber") announces that it has acquired beneficial ownership and control over a convertible promissory note (the "Note") issued by Eco Oro Minerals Ltd. ("Eco Oro") and a contingent value rights certificate ("CVR") issued by Eco Oro and entitling Amber to 10.89% of the gross proceeds of Eco Oro's arbitration with the Government of Columbia under the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Columbia. The CVR may be exchanged for common shares of Eco Oro at any time at the election of Eco Oro. Prior to these transactions, Amber beneficially owned and controlled 24,258,470 common shares in the capital of Eco Oro which would represent approximately 22.8% of the outstanding common shares of Eco Oro, based upon the 106,188,435 common shares stated by Eco Oro to be outstanding as of November 10, 2016. Following these transactions, assuming exchange of the CVR in accordance with its terms at the option of Eco Oro and receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, Amber would expect to have beneficial ownership and control over approximately 14% of the outstanding common shares of Eco Oro in addition to those common shares issuable under the Note. The number of common shares issuable under the Note may only be definitively determined based upon the market price of the common shares of Eco Oro at the time of conversion. Amber acquired the Note and CVR for investment purposes. Amber may or may not purchase or sell securities of Eco Oro in the future on the open market or in private transactions, depending on market conditions and other factors material to Amber's investment decisions, and reserves the right to dispose of any or all of its securities in the open market or otherwise, at any time and from time to time, and to engage in any hedging or similar transactions with respect to the securities. Contacts: To obtain a copy of the early warning report filed under securities legislation, please contact Jamie Craver 44-207-079-4774 TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / May 4, 2017 / Canadian Silver Hunter Inc. (TSX-V: AGH.H) ("Canadian Silver Hunter" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that exploration work is set to begin on their 100% owned Keeley - Frontier property. As per the First Cobalt Corp. (TSX-V: FCC) (OTC PINK: FTSSF) press release of May 03, 2017, FCC, "is planning its 2017 exploration program at the former producing Keeley-Frontier mine, near Cobalt, Ont. The $1-million program is fully financed and will commence this week. The program includes over 7,000 metres of surface drilling, including 5,000 metres at Keeley-Frontier and 2,000 metres of regional exploration drilling." For more details about the program, please refer to the First Cobalt press release of May 03, 2017. About Canadian Silver Hunter Inc. Canadian Silver Hunter Inc. is a Canadian exploration company focused on the exploration of silver-cobalt deposits on its flagship South Lorrain Project (formerly the Keeley Frontier Project). For more information, please visit the Canadian Silver Hunter Inc. website at www.canadiansilverhunter.ca. CAUTIONARY STATEMENT: 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. We seek safe Harbor. Canadian Silver Hunter Inc. Jeffrey Hunter President and CEO (416) 707-4230 info@cshi.ca www.canadiansilverhunter.ca SOURCE: Canadian Silver Hunter Inc. ATLANTA, GA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/13/17 -- Medovex Corp. (NASDAQ: MDVX), a developer of medical technology products, today announced that the reimbursement authority in Germany has renewed reimbursement payment coding for the DenerveX System technology for the treatment of the Facet Joint Syndrome for 2017. The renewed reimbursement coding, effective immediately, was released in the Diagnosis- Related Group (DRG) system in 2017 in Germany. This new coding allows for hospitals and outpatient centers to receive reimbursement for the use of the DenerveX System for the treatment of the Facet Joint Syndrome in the spine. According to Manfred Sablowski, Senior Vice President Global Sales & Marketing of Medovex, "The renewal of the reimbursement code for 2017 in Germany will be a significant driver for our European launch preparation for the DenerveX System. Germany is often recognized as a leader in early clinical adoption of new and cost effective technologies, being on the forefront of establishing reimbursement guidelines, and with other countries often following its lead. Reimbursement is perhaps the most foundational element supporting adoption for a medical technology. It's for this reason, amongst others, that we are very pleased to again have successfully secured the codes issuance." Sablowski continued, "We are encouraged that Germany provides reimbursement for our DenerveX System." Germany is ranked as one of the top healthcare systems globally based upon measurements of the overall level and distribution of health, responsiveness, and financial contribution to healthcare services." The Company's patented DenerveX System, is not yet commercially available, is designed to provide longer lasting relief of pain associated with the facet joint. Lower back pain is the second most common cause of disability in the U.S. for adults. Studies indicate that 10% of the U.S. adult population suffers from lower back pain and that 31% of lower back pain is attributed to facet joint pain. The DenerveX System consists of the DenerveX device, a single use device, and the DenerveX Pro-40 Power Generator. The DenerveX system is designed to provide a minimally invasive treatment option which combines two actions into one device. DenerveX is not yet CE marked or FDA cleared. About Medovex: Medovex was formed to acquire and develop a diversified portfolio of potentially ground breaking medical technology products. Criteria for selection include those products with potential for significant improvement in the quality of patient care combined with cost effectiveness. The Company's first pipeline product, the DenerveX device, is intended to provide long lasting relief from pain associated with facet joint syndrome at significantly less cost than currently available options. To learn more about Medovex Corp., visit www.medovex.com. Safe Harbor Statement Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward- looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), not limited to Risk Factors relating to its patent business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. CONTACT INFORMATION Medovex Corp. Jason Assad 470-505-9905 Email Contact VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/22/16 -- Revelo Resources Corp. ("Revelo" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: RVL) is pleased to provide an update relating to its wholly owned Las Pampas project in northern Chile. Given the very large size (approx. 40,000 hectares) of the Las Pampas exploration property, the multiple targets delineated to date, and the presence of different geological, geochemical and geophysical characteristics of key targets, Revelo has decided to split the property into three separate projects that better relate to these different target types, in order to better focus exploration ideas and future exploration investments. To this end, Revelo has created three named project areas out of the original Las Pampas property, each with specific exploration requirements related to the different target models, as follows: -- Las Pampas - retains the original name and is prospective for bonanza- style low-sulfidation epithermal precious metals veins, similar to those found in the El Penon district. -- Cerro Buenos Aires - displays widespread silicification and advanced argillic alteration with potential for both high-sulfidation precious metals mineralisation as well as potential porphyry copper mineralisation. -- Cerro Blanco - displays characteristics of the upper levels of a porphyry copper system. Tim Beale, President and CEO of Revelo, commented: "The division of Las Pampas into three separate project areas makes good geological, exploration and commercial sense. In its current state, the exploration of Las Pampas project area has been affected by the number of targets, and the differing exploration requirements relating to the different target types. With this division, we now have three better focused project areas with clearly defined target types, and the new project areas will now be explored and marketed on an individual basis. We continue to be very excited about these three projects and rank them highly in terms of their geological potential and fantastic access and infrastructural characteristics. We will continue to advance these projects on our own, whilst at the same time exploring the possibilities of securing joint venture partners should attractive deals be in the offering." The new Las Pampas, Cerro Buenos Aires and Cerro Blanco properties are located in the heart of the highly productive Paleocene Mineral Belt in northern Chile that contains several important gold, silver and copper mines and projects. Numerous indications of gold and silver mineralization of both low- and high-sulfidation styles, together with porphyry copper targets, occur on the properties, which are located along trend and about 35 km to the southwest of the El Penon low-sulfidation precious metals mining district (Yamana Gold), and some 200 km south of the Spence (BHP Billiton) and Sierra Gorda (KGHM) porphyry copper mines. Please visit Revelo's updated website and in particular the new Las Pampas, Cerro Buenos Aires and Cerro Blanco project pages for further information, and below for brief summaries of the new projects. LAS PAMPAS (approx. 23,500 hectares) Numerous bonanza-style, low sulfidation epithermal precious metals vein targets occur throughout the Las Pampas property, hosted within Paleocene volcanic sequences. All the targets occur to the east of an important N-S trending fault splay of the Dominador Fault Zone that transects the property. The Dominador Fault is an important controlling structure in the El Penon district to the north. Several rhyodacitic dome complexes have been mapped at surface or intersected in limited historic drill holes. Of particular interest, and of high priority at this time, are: -- Cerros Bayos sinter area - Outcropping chalcedonic silica sinter, approximately 4 km x 1.5 km in aerial extent, and with proven silver sulphide and sulphosalt minerals present. The sinter overlies key linear geophysical resistivity anomalies that may represent mineralised up-flow zones (veins), which remain to be drill tested. -- Cerritos Trend - Major NNW trend of anomalous arsenic and antimony in soil geochemistry, over approximately 9 km x 2 km, with discontinuous rhyodacitic dome complexes, sporadic outcrops of mineralised veins (Cerritos Sur, Cerritos Centro) and highly anomalous historic drill intercepts (Cerritos Sur, Cerritos Norte) in wide spaced drilling. The geology is largely obscured by shallow post-mineral cover. -- Cerro 1868 - Rhyodacitic dome complex with highly anomalous arsenic and antimony geochemistry along the eastern and western slopes of the dome complex. Other targets, with associated geological, geochemical and/or geophysical anomalies typical of low-sulfidation vein systems occur within the property. Several anomalous areas have yet to be followed up. Las Pampas forms an important prospective area located just 10 km west of Revelo's Loro project, where exciting new discoveries of mineralised low-sulfidation veins have recently been made (see news release dated November 15th, 2016). CERRO BUENOS AIRES (approx. 9,000 hectares) Cerro Buenos Aires comprises three separate outcropping areas aligned along a N-S trend over approximately 11 km, of which the largest and southernmost outcrop is represented by the Cerro Buenos Aires hill (5 km x 2 km). All the outcrops display intense and widespread quartz-alunite alteration, including vuggy silica and silicified breccias, together with other advanced argillic minerals including dickite and pyrophyllite, in both outcrop and in limited wide-spaced drill holes. The hydrothermally altered rocks affect a large rhyolitic dome complex intruding and interbedded with an andesitic-dacitic volcanic pile. Intense, zoned, arsenic, antimony, bismuth and tellurium geochemical anomalies, together with sporadic gold and silver anomalies, occur both in outcrop and in the limited drilling. Revelo has identified a potentially mineralised high-sulfidation root zone to the expansive lithocap at Cerro Buenos Aires from a combination of geology, geochemistry and geophysics (HoistEM, CSAMT and magnetics), which remains to be drill tested. Furthermore, certain geophysical and geochemical anomalies suggest possible porphyry copper targets both at depth beneath, and under cover to the side of, the outcropping lithocaps, which also remain to be drill tested. The overall area of hydrothermal alteration is more than 13 km2 in outcrop, and a number of secondary targets can be interpreted from the data acquired to date. CERRO BLANCO (approx. 8,000 hectares) Geophysical and geochemical data suggest that Cerro Blanco is a separate geological domain from the Las Pampas area immediately to the southwest. A large, regional NW-SE trending drainage system coincides with the geophysical and geochemical break, and may represent a deep geological structure. Cerro Blanco is a relatively small hill (approximately 1 km across) surrounded by an extensive, post-mineral gravel-filled pampa. The topographic high is characterised by a small, remnant quartz-alunite altered lithocap above intense advanced argillic alteration within a sequence of clastic and volcaniclastic rocks. Part of the alteration zone displays "wormy" quartz veining within a matrix of pyrophyllite, which may indicate a transitional zone between the high-sulfidation epithermal environment, and the porphyry environment below. Two historic, shallow (approx. 380m max) inclined drill holes on the margins of the topographic high cut advanced argillic alteration transitioning to quartz-sericite alteration, possibly suggesting increasing proximity to a potential porphyry source. Both holes displayed anomalous geochemistry including zinc, lead and silver with minor copper and molybdenum. Terraspec SWIR analyses of drill hole chips indicate a downward increase in the 2,200-nm sericite absorption providing further evidence of a possible vector to the core of the Cerro Blanco porphyry system. Magnetics geophysical anomalies also provide possible clues to a potential hypogene copper target that could exist off the margins of the outcrops, under the gravel-filled pampa, and which remains untested by drilling. Several secondary geophysical targets are apparent in the data. ABOUT REVELO Revelo is a Prospect Generator that has consolidated an outstanding portfolio of 25 projects prospective for gold, copper and silver located along proven mineral belts in one of the world's top mining jurisdictions - Chile. Revelo's total exposure to mineral tenements in northern Chile is around 300,000 hectares, of which about 100,000 hectares (3 projects) are subject to 3rd party exploration expenditures. Several targets are ready for drill testing within the portfolio. Revelo is advancing its projects through low cost exploration and it is actively looking for partners to further develop its portfolio. Revelo is a Canadian company and is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX VENTURE: RVL). For more information, please visit Revelo's website at www.reveloresources.com. Ian Gendall B.Sc. (Hons.), M.Sc. (Pr. Sci. Nat.), an independent and "qualified person" within the definition of that term in NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Timothy J. Beale, President & 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 STATEMENT This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, that address events or developments that Revelo expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential", "indicate" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although Revelo 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 may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. To view the Location of Las Pampas, Cerro Buenos Aires and Cerro Blanco Exploration Projects, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1077522_1.pdf To view the Detail of Las Pampas, Cerro Buenos Aires and Cerro Blanco Project Areas with Geology, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1077522_2.pdf To view the Satellite Image of Las Pampas, Cerro Buenos Aires and Cerro Blanco Project Areas, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1077522_3.pdf Contacts: INVESTOR CONTACT Chiara Orrigoni Investor Relations Manager +1 604 687-5544 info@reveloresources.com www.reveloresources.com (ASX:CPH) Hello Im Carolyn Herbert from the Finance News Network and joining me from newly listed medicinal cannabis and hemp provider, Creso Pharma Limitedis CEO, Dr Miri Halperin Wernli and Chairman, Boaz Wachtel. Boaz, welcome back.Thank you.Can you start by giving us an introduction to Creso Pharma, and tell us what sets your company apart from other medicinal cannabis companies?Were developing nutraceuticals, which is a fusion between pharmaceuticals and food supplements. So we have low regulatory barriers to introduce products into the market. We are working from Switzerland with the leadership of Dr Halperin Wernli. We have acquired Hemp Industries Ltd, which is a company that is already selling and generating revenues in Europe. We have delivered what we promised pre-IPO that we would generate revenues and sign agreements. So we are moving quickly to fulfil our promises and to advance the generation of revenues with Creso.Im now joined by Creso Pharma CEO, Dr Miri Halperin Wernli. Miri, welcome.Dr Miri Halperin Wernli: Thank you.Can you tell us a bit more about your medicinal cannabis products and what stage theyre at in development?Creso is developing cannabis-derived nutraceuticals, which is a special kind of products between pharmaceuticals and nutrition. Nutraceutical is a segment which is developing rapidly and were entering the nutraceutical segment with cannabis. Were developing products for both human and animals. You will ask me why animals? Because animals have chronic diseases, which are poorly treated by human medications. So animals have the same endocannabinoid system as humans, so the same therapeutic rationale goes for the animals.The therapeutic nutraceuticals for humans will be in two medical directions, two medical segments - stress and anxiety and for bone metabolism, which is both osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. Its strengthening and remodeling of the bone, but also treating the pain with bone joints. So these are the two medical directions in the human nutraceuticals. And in the animal nutraceuticals, we are developing specific horse products and dog products, basically for behavioural problems and for anxiety and pain for these animals.Back to you Boaz, now you have hemp production facilities in Slovakia. Can you tell us a little bit about these?We acquired a hemp producing company in Slovakia to extract the CBD. The CBD is a non-psychoactive compound in the hemp product. We extract it and sell it in bottles. Now we have a distribution agreement in the Czech Republic for 10,000 bottles worth 200,000, so that is happening at base. Were developing other products, like hemp-based protein health bars and so forth. So greater revenues are in the pipeline and were very confident that it is a good investment for Creso.Now back to you Miri. Can you give us an update on your commercialisation process and which markets will be first?The products are already in an advanced stage of development. Both animal products will be ready for marketing towards the middle of next year. And we have already signed commercialisation agreements in Europe, starting with Benelux (Belgium, Netherland, Luxemburg) but also Latin America and in the Gulf region, where we can sell the horse products very well. And with the human nutraceutical products, weve already signed a commercialisation agreement with a pharma company in Switzerland, the first time a pharma company in Europe enters the cannabis field.The products will be developed and produced in Switzerland. So Switzerland is the first market and its also the market, where we will register the product. That will be the referencing registration for other countries. We are discussing for Benelux, for Italy, for Spain and also for Latin America, Mexico, Brazil and expanding to the Gulf region also for the human segment. So the commercialisation agreements, some of them have been announced to the market and some are in preparation. But we are expanding globally.So Miri, where and when do you expect the sales to occur?The sales from the Hemp Industries's product, which we acquired have started in Europe in the Czech Republic and they will expand in other parts of Europe. And the sales of the human and animal therapeutic nutraceuticals will occur late in 2017, starting in Switzerland and some key countries in Europe. But expanding from Europe to Latin America and also to the Gulf region.A more general question now Boaz. Can you tell us where medicinal cannabis is allowed and where its likely to be approved, over the next few years?Its already approved by 29 States of United States in America and in Canada, and in Europe. Its expanding rapidly, Germany, Austria and Australia is coming to the fold. We see a rapid expansion almost on a global scale, for people asking for medical cannabis. Creso will provide products to meet the demand with very unique delivery technologies. So were very optimistic that we can serve the growing need of the international market of medical cannabis.Back to you Miri, a final question now. What are the companys goals for the next six to 12 months?I think the goals are both to finish the development of our products, in a turbo way, in the most quick and efficient way, and start commercialisation. With animal products, we will start commercialisation toward the second-half of next year for both products, and for the human products, toward the end of next year. So we really expect the products to be already advanced in our pipeline in the next six months to 12 months, and expand commercialisation and globalisation.Dr Miri Halperin Wernli, thanks for the update on Creso Pharma.You are welcome. AI driven investment bank Euklid has completed its first seed funding. Two unnamed financial industry vetarans made the approx. 375/400k investment in exchange of a 3/4% stake in the company. Following the closing of this seed, which valued the company at 10M, Euklid is to move its Headquarters to London* in order to implement their international strategies. The funds will allow the company to establish a NewCo in the UK and a RAIF fund in Luxembourg. Co-founded in July 2015 in Rome, Italy by CEO Antonio Simeone, Franco Grassi, Francesco di Leva, and Mario Giancola, Euklid is an investment bank which leverages artificial intelligence and blockchain technology to provide clients with banking and investment services in a transparent way, with no hidden fees. Following the opening of the UK NewCo, Euklid Italia will continue to provide bitcoin trading services while Euklid UK will enable clients to trade indexes and stocks via a Luxembourg Reserved Alternative Investment Fund which will raise savings from clients before obtaining the authorization to operate as a financial intermediary across the UK from the FCA. Currently, customers can only invest on cryptoassets. The algotraders are linked to APIs from Bitfinex and Kraken, Ethereum and other digital currencies. In addition, by partnering with a fintech partner, the company will provide clients with traditional banking services as well, including a checking account, debit cards and wire transfer tools. In addition to the funding, the company announced that Paola Bonomo joined the Euklids advisory team. Given her experience and network, Bonomo is expected to help Euklid grow internationally. She joined current advisors including Christopher Pallotta from Raptor Group, Ivan dAvanzo from the Boston Consulting Group and Luca Marseglia from the Quantum Engineering Group at MIT. *Giovanni Contini and Joseph Bradley and as well as Professor Emeritus Paolo Savona (former Chairman of Unicredit Banca di Roma) as Chairman of the Board of the UK NewCo. FinSMEs 22/11/2016 Biomatics Capital Partners, a Seattle, WA-based new life sciences venture capital firm, has raised a $200m fund. According to a regulatory form filed with the SEC, 38 investors participated in the offering of Biomatics Capital Partners, L.P. The document lists Boris Nikolic, a Scientific Advisor to Bill Gates at Bill Gates Catalyst 3 (bgc3) and at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), and and Julie Sunderland, Director, Program Related Investments, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as people related to the funds offering. According to FinSMEs, the firm has already invested in AiCure, a NYC-based AI company connecting patients with a mobile solution to visually confirm medication ingestion, which raised $12.25m in Series A funding at the beginning of 2016. FinSMEs 22/11/2016 San Francisco, CA-based private equity firm Gryphon Investors held a final closing of its fourth fund, at $1.1 billion in aggregate commitments. Gryphon Partners IV, whose original target was $600m, was oversubscribed by a diverse group of domestic and international pension funds, insurance companies, asset managers, foundations and high net worth families. Led by David Andrews, Founder and CEO, and Nick Orum, Co-founder and President, Gryphon IV will continue the firms strategy of investing in North American middle-market businesses operating in business services, consumer products and services, healthcare, and industrial growth industries. With approximately $2.5 billion of cumulative equity commitments, the firm has a track record of equity investments of approximately $35 million to $150 million per portfolio company with sales ranging from approximately $50 million to $500 million. FinSMEs 22/11/2016 Editor's note: Beginning Tuesday, 22 November 2016, Firstpost will carry Rupleena Bose's daily dispatches from the ongoing International Film Festival of India, in Goa A few years ago, I remember being at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and thinking if there was a city I could wish to live in, it would have to be Edinburgh since no other place seemed so alive during those fringe days. My fantastical desire to live forever in Edinburgh was immediately questioned by a local who had grown up in the city. "That is precisely the problem," he had said. "Everyone who comes during this one month in August thinks the Festival is the city. If they lived here the whole year, they will probably be drowned in the quiet existence of this town." I didnt understand what he meant and shrugged off his words. Until now. For 10 days, the International Film Festival of India (Iffi) houses itself in venues across Panjim and transforms parts of Goa. I have been coming to the film festival for many years now when films I have worked on have showed here. But this time the perspective was different since I now live in a quiet village in North Goa and Panjim is almost as exciting as a big city taken over by people bound together by cinema. Today was the first day at Iffi and I braved crowds (a pleasant change from the silence of Goa afternoons) to reach the festival in pursuit of good world cinema. Kerala is known to be the most film literate state of India; personally I too have eavesdropped the local tea-shop evenings full of intense and radical discussions on the contemporary documentary scene or the best representations of Japanese horror. Goa was never that, but this time maybe because of my more receptive status as local resident the queue to buy tickets was an experience in understanding film culture in the state. Mariona and her husband had come from Corona village armed with their delegate passes to buy tickets for the day. As a rule, tickets can only be bought one day at a time, throwing all my grand scheduling plans in disarray. "Instead, this time it has increased availability," Mariona told me. Mariona must be about 60 years old and was found buying tickets for the South Korean horror Office (South Korea being the country in focus at Iffi this year). They had taken changed buses from Mapusa and reached Panjim with their movie list. With them in the queue before me I didnt need to see the schedule. "You must watch the South Korean section," they told me, and I obliged by buying tickets for Tunnel. When I told them I was going to watch Asghar Farhadis The Salesman, they reminded me not to miss Abbas Kiarostamis unusual love story set in Tokyo, Like Someone in Love. Behind us at the queue were a few young students from a media institute in Pune; they had tried to book tickets online but could not complete the process, hence were lining up for the repeat show of Polish great Andrej Wajdas last film AfterImage. They were disappointed to hear that it was sold out and wondered aloud if the films would ever on come Netflix which would ease their hunger for world cinema. They decided to go in search of a cyber cafe so that they could plan their next day and avoid the trip back to Inox where tickets were sold. Mariona and I smiled, we were allies in the big secret, the secret of the elusive internet connection in Goa. We got our tickets and hoped to meet again for one of the films. Mariona and her husband decide to walk the stretch of MG Road with me admiring the endless activity of boards, posters, sidewalk stalls which had sprung up. The sun was about to set and it seemed like a perfect time to have a good old cutlet near the corner shop at Miramar before the show. They were determined to watch Filipino director Lav Diazs 8-hour film A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery which I was still mustering up courage for. Just as we reached Miramar, the stage was getting ready for the open-air screenings. I remembered my neighbour mentioning she wanted to watch Nagraj Manjules popular Marathi film Sairat under the starlit sky by the sea. I had spent a frustrating day trying to find internet speed to upload video stories, but suddenly, in that orange evening light everything seemed perfect: there was a film to watch and there were 10 more days of cinema from all across. Tomorrow would be yet another exciting day with three films to watch and introspect on. Now that the quiet city has gone into hiding, one must admit the sea and cinema make an ideal combination. The writer is Assistant Professor at the department of English at Sri Venkateswara College Telugu star Allu Arjun and his wife Sneha Reddy became parents for the second time, on Monday (21 November 2016). Arjun and Sneha, who married in 2011, have a son called Allu Ayaan, who was born in 2014. In July this year, Arjun had announced that Sneha and he were expecting their second child, on his official social media accounts. Their baby a girl was born at a hospital in Hyderabad and both she and Sneha are doing well. Arjun wrote on Twitter: Blessed with a Baby Girl ! Soooo Happppyyyyyy right now ! One boy & one girl. Could'nt ask for more. Thank you for all the wishes. Lucky me Allu Arjun (@alluarjun) November 21, 2016 The actor is now expected to take a break from the shoot of his film Duvvada Jagannadham (which has a Summer 2017 release date) to spend some time with his family. This year has been a good one for Arjun, who had a major hit with his film Sarainodu. Sarainodu is the second highest-grossing Telugu blockbuster of 2016. Personalities from the Telugu film industry rushed to wish Arjun and Sneha on the addition to their family. After an intensive manhunt spanning nearly six months, film producer S Madhan, allegedly involved in a multi-crore scam in SRM University medical admission in which 123 persons were reportedly cheated, was arrested on Monday, police said. He was arrested in the textile city of Tirupur where he had arrived on Sunday night to meet a woman associate after trying to escape from the law by hiding in several states, including Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Manipur, they said. The managing partner of Vendhar Movies, his arrest brings the curtains down on police's hot pursuit for him that criss-crossed several states and multiple cities. Special police teams on the lookout for him in many cities found he had purchased properties at Roorkee in Uttarkhand and that some of his associates had helped him in his endeavour. It was found a woman was in touch with Madhan and she was questioned. When Madhan came to Tirupur to visit the woman associate, he was arrested, police said. The lid was blown off the medical admission scandal in May 2016 when Madhan disappeared mysteriously, dragging SRM University into the picture. He went into hiding on 28 May after writing an emotional note allegedly claiming that he was going to end his life in Varanasi, "where if a person dies, will have no rebirth". Madhan had also allegedly acknowledged having collected several crore of rupees from parents for their wards aspiring for MBBS seats in SRM varsity. On 1 June this year, soon after Madhan's disappearance, one Dr Jayachandran lodged a complaint with police that he had paid Rs 53 lakh to him for an MBBS seat for his son in SRM varsity. His son didn't get the seat; neither did the complainant receive his money back. The police probe found that Madhan and his associates were allegedly involved in cheating 123 aspirants for under-graduate and post graduate courses in medicine in SRM group of institutions to the tune of Rs 84.27 crore. Even as police began its search for Madan, six of his associates, including Dr TR Pachamuthu, medical wing secretary of IJK, were arrested in connection with the case. Finally, days after Madras High Court questioned police as to why SRM group founder-chairman Pachamuthu had not been interrogated in the case, he was arrested. The SRM chief Pachamuthu-led Indiya Jananayaga Katchi (IJK) is an ally of NDA at the Centre. He was booked under various IPC sections, including Section 420 (cheating). In June this year, Firstpost columnist Sreedhar Pillai had traced the controversies surrounding Madhan in light of his disappearance: Strange case of the missing producer: Post 'suicide note', S Madhan still can't be found "Madhans is a typical rags-to-riches story, the kind that abounds in Kollywood," wrote Pillai, adding: "He started his career as a college admission agent or middleman, working with students to get them admissions into private education institutes under the SRM University umbrella. Madhan initially was very close to the SRM groups chancellor, Dr Pachamuthu (who calls himself Paarivendhar) and also runs a little-known political party Indiya Jananayaga Katchi (IJK), an ally of the BJP in Tamil Nadu. At any event organised by Vendhar Movies, Paarivendhar would be present as the chief guest. In the last five years, Vendhar had produced three films Thillu Mullu, Pulipaarvai, Paayum Puli and distributed in certain Tamil Nadu territories, at least 25 Tamil films including biggies like Rajinikanths Lingaa and Ajiths Aarambam. Madhan himself played hero as the late LTTE leader Prabhakaran in Pulipaarvai. The buzz was that Madhan smitten with the glitz and glamour of Tamil cinema waded into production and distribution, without understanding the trade. He also had borrowed huge sums from financiers, who lent him money thinking that he was being backed by SRM and Pachamuthu." Madhan's disappearance was brought to the police's notice by his wives (reports claim he was wedded to two women, Sindhu and Sumalatha). Pillai also wrote: There is also an opinion that Madhan's samadhi in Kasi suicide letter was merely released to gain public sympathy...there are many cheating cases against Madhan, regarding college admissions, and with him losing heavily in film business, the best course of action was to disappear. In the eyes of the law, he is absconding. With the cops tracing Madhan to Tirupur, has his strange story come to an end? Or are more chapters yet to emerge? Inputs from PTI By Huw Jones | LONDON LONDON Citi has joined JPMorgan at the top of global regulators' list of systemically important banks, replacing HSBC and meaning the U.S. bank will have to hold extra capital from 2019 to help preserve financial stability.The group of 20 economies (G20) agreed after the 2007-09 financial crisis that top banks, whose size and complexity mean a collapse could wreak havoc in markets, should hold extra capital, according to the level of risk they present.Members of the list of 30 lenders will also have to begin holding bonds from 2019 that can be written down to help replenish capital that is burnt through in a crisis.In the annual update of rankings published on Monday by the G20's Financial Stability Board (FSB), Citi has replaced HSBC in the top "bucket" facing a 2.5 percent capital surcharge on top of global minimum requirements.The measure announced by the FSB does not have an impact on any of Citi's binding regulatory metrics, the bank said in an e-mailed statement.No lender joined or dropped out of the top 30 list this year.Lenders on the list typically already meet or exceed the amount of capital they must hold due to pressure from regulators and markets to dispel any doubts about their resilience.HSBC joins BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank in the next category down, with a surcharge of 2 percent. Bank of America rose a category to join them. Barclays dropped a category to the 1.5 percent surcharge group. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Wells Fargo rose a category to join the UK bank.Morgan Stanley fell a category to the 1 percent surcharge group.The FSB is also due to agree a higher leverage ratio for the 30 lenders. The ratio, a broad measure of capital to non-risk-weighted assets, has been set at a minimum of 3 percent for all other banks across the world. The FSB has yet to decide if the 30 should be subject to the same leverage ratio "surcharge" or whether it too should adopt a "bucket" approach. The watchdog also updated its list of nine globally systemically important insurers, which was unchanged from last year.Insurers still on the list in 2017 will be required to comply with tougher "loss absorbency" requirements from January 2019.The list comprises Aegon, Allianz, AIG, Aviva, Axa, MetLife, Ping An, Prudential Financial, and Prudential. The FSB's latest list makes no mention of reinsurers, a category still being considered for inclusion.Global insurance regulators have said they may take into account the activities of insurers when they decide if they are globally systemic, rather than just focusing on size and global reach.MetLife, the biggest U.S. life insurer, was also designated as systemically important by the Financial Stability Oversight Council, made up of the heads of U.S. financial regulators.The insurer successfully challenged the U.S. designation in court, but the U.S. government has appealed with the outcome generally expected sometime in the next few months."MetLife is no longer designated as a systemically important financial institution in the United States, and believe we should not be designated as a global systemically important insurer, either," MetLife said on Monday. (Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Carolyn Cohn and Mark Potter) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Andreas Cremer | WOLFSBURG, Germany WOLFSBURG, Germany Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) said on Tuesday it would drop diesel vehicles in the United States and refocus on sport utility and electric vehicles, as the automaker looks to reboot strategy for its core brand in the Americas in the wake of a damaging diesel emissions cheating scandal.The move, announced by VW brand chief Herbert Diess, breaks with earlier suggestions it could return to the once-popular technology after the emissions scandal fades from memory.The decision to drop diesel vehicles - which formerly made up a quarter of the brand's U.S. sales - is just one element of a strategic overhaul that Diess conceded could take a decade to close the gap with rivals in the United States. Volkswagen has agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines and compensation payouts to U.S. customers since admitting last year to cheating on federal diesel emissions tests. "For years we have been lacking a blueprint for success in the United States, while we are losing ground to rivals in markets like Brazil or India," said Diess, a former BMW executive who joined VW in July 2015. VW had missed "the SUV boom," he said.The brand now plans to have 19 SUV models globally by 2020, up from just 2 now, and including some electric ones. It aims to sell 1 million electric vehicles a year by 2025. "At the moment we assume that we will offer no new diesel vehicles in the U.S," Diess told European business daily Handelsblatt. Volkswagen showcased its Atlas SUV, built expressly for the U.S. market, at the Los Angeles Auto Show last week.Diess said success in the Americas was vital to reviving the core Volkswagen brand that accounted for 59 percent of the German group's auto sales in 2015 but only 16 percent of group underlying operating profit. The CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, Hinrich Woebcken, told reporters last week in Los Angeles that Volkswagen wants to shift from being a "niche" player into a "family-oriented SUV company." Entry into the lucrative SUV segment will help VW reach 60 to 70 percent of the U.S. market, up from an earlier 40 percent, he said. "We not only want to be profitable in Europe and China but are determined to generate positive results in all major markets by 2020," Diess told reporters. Volkswagen last week announced a cost-cutting deal with labour unions that will allow it to axe 30,000 jobs at the VW brand by 2020.On Tuesday, Diess set out a recovery strategy to 2025 and beyond, spanning a wide range of initiatives including SUVs, electric cars, digital services and plans to launch a budget car in China and India by about 2019-2020. The long-term goal, he said, was to lift the VW brand's operating profit margin to 6 percent by 2025, compared with just 2 percent forecast for this year. That would still lag some rivals such as PSA Peugeot Citroen (PEUP.PA), which is aiming to hit 6 percent in 2021."Its good and necessary that VW is tackling those issues, but it will be a long road," said M.M. Warburg analyst Marc-Rene Tonn, referring to plans to fix underperforming markets and lift margins. He has a "hold" rating on Volkswagen shares. Shares in Volkswagen, whose 12 brands range from upmarket Audi and Porsche to the cheaper SEAT and Skoda, rose 0.42 percent to close at 120.45 euros.The stock is still down around a quarter in value from before the emissions scandal. ($1 = 0.9403 euros) (Additional reporting by Alexandria Sage; Writing by Georgina Prodhan and Mark Potter; Editing by Maria Sheahan/Keith Weir/Bill Rigby) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. New Delhi: Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and his cabinet colleague Kapil Mishra were on detained when they tried to march to Parliament from Jantar Mantar protesting the Centre's demonetisation move. Before beginning the march, Sisodia launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation alleging he is making people cry and shedding "crocodile tears". "We don't like Modi for what he has done in his personal and political life. This is not notebandi but note-badli. The terrorists in Kashmir today were found with Rs 2000 notes. From where are terrorists getting them? Either you are unaware of the lapse or are involved in it. "He keeps crying all the time and makes people cry. But he sheds crocodile tears. The demonetisation drive should be rolled back. This is what people want," Sisodia said while addressing the gathering at Jantar Mantar. He was joined by his cabinet colleagues Gopal Rai, Kapil Mishra and Satyendar Jain. "Neither terrorist funding has stopped nor counterfeit notes nor blackmarketeering. The government has no money to give for Orop to soldiers but waives the loans of industrialists," Sisodia added. A day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is presently in Punjab, exhorted people to "change" the Prime Minister instead of the defunct notes, slogans of "note nahi, PM badlo" were raised at the march. "The PM again became emotional... he is not getting any support. Hence, he is crying. The need is to take the fight to the streets," Gopal Rai said. The Prime Minister had on 8 November announced withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. The decision has been drawing criticism from opposition parties. On 14 November, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a notification saying District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCB) will not be allowed to provide any exchange facility against Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. The diktat has caused near-collapse of rural Maharashtra as DCCB are backbone of rural economy. The state has 31 DCCBs with 3746 branches across the state with over 20 lakh customers. Most of the customers are farmers, labourers, teachers, pensioners, self help groups, grampanchayat, development societies, patsanstha, cooperative societies of sugar, and milk, cotton and jaggery among others. Backbone of rural economy DCC banks are backbone of rural economy. PB Chavan, chairman, of Kohlapur DCCB, explaining vast presence of DCC banks, says, KDCCB has accounts of all 27 sugar industries in the district, all 6000 milk cooperative societies, 36,000 self help groups, all 1807 agricultural centres, all 1187 grampanchats, all teachers and beneficiary of Sanjay Gandhi Yojna among others. Thus lakhs of farmers and farm labourers are directly or indirectly connected to above institutions and so with the KDCCB. With this ban, all businesses involving above institutions have come to halt. Out of all our 7.31 lakh accounts, 3.50 lakh accounts are of farmers. By not allowing us to exchange currency is punishment to them. Do you think these farmers can afford to or aware of having accounts in other banks like national or private banks? Sambhaji Patil is one of over 30,000 farmers who supplies sugarcane to Kumbhi Kasari Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana in Karveer Taluka of the district. He says, I harvested 105 tonnes of sugarcane this season. On 2 November, I have sent that harvest to Kumbhi Kasari Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana, Kuditre, in Kohlapur. And the Karkhana has deposited one lakh rupees of sugarcane in KDCCB. Since KDCCB does not have received new currency, it is unable to pay me my due. In turn I could not pay wages to eight labourers who work in my farm. Natha Kumbhar, a labourer in Patils farm, has no money to buy grocery to run his family of four. He says, My wife and I work as labourer to cut sugarcane in at Bele village in Karvir Taluka of Kohlapur. Both of us have not received our weekly wages that are Rs 1200 each. I have nobody to seek help of as I am a migrant from Marathwada. Strong rural presence of DCC banks. DCC banks have strong rural presence against that of national or private banks. For example like Rajesh Tapre, managing director, Pune DCCB, informs, PDCCBs 221 out of all 261 branches are in rural Pune that has over 1800 villages while only 161 national banks branches have presence in rural Pune. With closure of DCCBs, all villagers from these 1800 villages have to travel 20-30 kilometres to reach closest national or private banks out of these 161 banks to exchange money. Their plights are beyond imagination if banks get closed or run out of money. In the process they have to skip their daily job or work causing them days wage or salary. After announcement of demonetisation on 8 November, many customers of these DCC banks deposited all of their notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 in their respective accounts on 10 and 11 November and could get Rs 4000 in return. Now, they do not have money to exchange in national/private banks and they are unable to withdraw money from their own account as DCC banks have limited funds. Besides, DCC banks are given only Rs 2 crore daily. However a DCC bank has to give away at least Rs 20 crores. For example Kohlapur District Central Cooperative Bank (KDCCB) has to give away Rs 22 crore daily while its daily business revolves over Rs 100 crore. Officials of banks are in dilemma how to distribute only Rs 2 crore in its 191 branches. That means one branch would get only Rs one lakh. And banks are instructed to give Rs 25,000 to a family having wedding ceremony. Customers of banks are finding it difficult to get money from their own accounts. Vijay Mhamane, a farmer from Malegoan village of Solapur district, says, I have one bank account that too in Solapur DCC bank. I delayed to deposit amount I got after selling my Kharif harvest to traders at October end and November first week. I have to repay loans of the same bank I had taken for Kharif. Now have to travel to Barshi, nearby Taluka, to exchange notes and repay my loan in SDCCB. Vishwas Utagi, secretary of Bank Employees Association Maharashtra, criticises the decision of RBI, DCCB are run as per RBI norms then why only DCCBs are not allowed to exchange notes. If black money is being converted in white in these banks as suggested by Finance Minister of India Arun Jaitley, then RBI can run an inquiry. To bank exchange of currency is illegal. It is punishment for over 20 lakh customers of these 3746 branches of DCC banks. Representatives of DCC banks of Maharashtra are in process to file public interest litigation (PIL) against RBIs ban. They are also seeking other legal options to oppose the ban. When former prime minister Morarji Desai had demonetised currency notes in January 1978, he was accused of carrying out anti-black money exercise for political reasons. 38 years later, Narendra Modi is facing a similar onslaught from the Opposition about wiping out tainted money from the economy ahead of crucial elections in important states like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab. The Parliament debates of 1978 give an interesting peep into the politics of demonetisation. On 21 March, 1978, Lok Sabha archive accessed by Firstpost reveal, that CN Visvanathan, a member of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) from Tirupattur constituency, had questioned the Morarji government for announcing demonetisation on the eve of elections to six states including Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Visvanathan said while participating in the debate over the 'High Denomination Bank Notes (Denomination) Bill.': People are thinking whether this bill is intended to curb indirectly the funds of some particular political party before the elections in six states were held. So I ask: Why was the step taken before the elections in six states especially Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The Ordinance was promulgated on 16th January 1978, but actually instead of helping the illegal transactions to be stopped, this bill may help to stop the financiers of the political parties from contributing to them, And, the bitter historical fact were the election results Janata Party had to swallow in 1978 after executing demonetisation, which may be a cause of worry for the BJP. The Congress which had become extremely unpopular and was decimated in 1977 made a comeback in the Andhra Pradesh state election, winning a clear majority. In Karnataka too, Janata Party came at a distant second, winning just 59 of 259 assembly seats that went to the polls. The only face saver for Janata Party was Arunachal Pradesh where its state leader Prem Khandu was able to form a government winning 17 seats out of 30 member state assembly and Assam where Golap Borbora, follower of Ram Manohar Lohia and JP became the first non-Congress chief minister of that state. The Janata Party riding high on demonetisation move could win only 99 seats out of 288 assembly constituencies of Maharashtra and had failed to form the government. Is there a lesson for Modi who is exploiting his black money purging decision in his public meetings in Uttar Pradesh to harvest political gains out of demonetisation? The volume may haunt Modi government Team Morarji Desai, who first visualised the idea of curbing the menace of black money through demonetisation, had a much easier task at hand than the team Modi, which embarked on the herculean task to withdrawing 86 percent currency floating in the market. Although, Morarji team comprising of then finance minister Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel and Reserve Bank of India Governor IG Patel was more unsparing, the volume affecting households at that time was confined to just a few rich than the majority of 125 Crore population that Modi and Urjit Patel is facing today. And, the queue outside the banks and ATMs is not getting thinner by the day than the duo had anticipated. With one announcement, Modi rendered Rs 14.2 lakh crore as useless, however, for Morarji the value was just 145.42 crore and the highest denomination note was limited to only 346 people (presuming that nobody had more than one note). Whereas for the present government, the task is to withdraw 633 crore high denomination 1000 rupee notes (Valued 6.3 lakh crore) that constitutes 38.5 percent of currency in circulation and 1,571 crore of 500 notes, constituting 47 percent of the total. The debate that happened on 21 March, 1978 in Parliament gives indication of challenges Modi government could face. Morarjis finance minister, Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel while introducing the High Denomination Bank Notes (Denomination) Bill had told the Parliament that, the total number of high denomination bank notes in circulation as at the close of business on 16th day of January, 1978 was 13,05,899 notes valued at about Rs. 145.42 Crores. These included 12.69 Lakh notes of rupees one thousand denomination, 36,287 notes of rupees five thousand denomination and 346 notes of rupees ten thousand denomination. Morarji government while explaining that the high denomination bank notes were being used extensively for illicit transfer of money for financing transactions harmful to the national economy, only gave 3 days for exchange (January 17, 18, 19th 1978), Modi arguing the similar reasons though adding terrorism and fake currency, gave 50 days to the holders of 500 and 1000 rupee notes to deposit in the bank. Is the comparison between Morarji and Modi government logical? Of course, as both wanted to get rid of black money choking countrys financial health. So, why is the Modi government is facing heat on the issue? Hukmdev Narayan Yadav, the BJP MP from Madhubani who sits in the second right row of the present 16th Lok Sabha, but then a socialist and active member of JP movement, in a discussion on 21 March, 1978, had reminded the lower house that "Demonetisation is not the only solution to tackle black money." Yadav while supporting the move had asked the government to adopt several other measures like covertly initiating a dialogue with big industrialists and businessmen to disclose the amount in cash to the government and that money could be used for setting up new factories and infrastructures to generate employment for youths of this country. Political Purification Yadav had said that day, was still far away while supporting his own government move. And, what Shyamaprasanna Bhattacharyya, a Communist Party member of 6th Lok Sabha from Uluberia constituency, had said on demonetisation in that era still resonates now in political discourse. Bhattacharyya said in the Parliament during the discussion: I have been informed that before our Minister passed the ordinance, the blackmarketeers in Calcutta ( now knows Kolkata) came to know about it and took sufficient precautions to go to various areas and asked the Panwallahs and other poor persons to go the banks and get them changed...and told them: you take something from me and give me the changed money. Thus, they have saved themselves... without the support from the people measures such as this will touch only the fringe of the problem. Team Modi should also read the facts presented in the parliament by DMK member Visvanathan, who had said that out of Rs 140 Crore in higher denomination in 1978, thousand rupee notes worth about Rs 125 Crore ( Presently 6.3 lakh crore), five thousand rupee notes about Rs 13.6 crore and ten thousand rupees notes about 82 lakh were in circulation. The figure shows that only two percent of higher denomination notes were demonetised by Janata Party government in 1978 in comparison with over 86 percent of currency termed as paper by the Modi government. No wonder, the public, which showed miraculous discipline, is now expressing discomfort. Vayalar Ravi, now a sitting Congress member of Rajya Sabha, but was in Lok Sabha in 1978, had said: An amount of Rs 12 lakh was looted from Charar-i-Sharif branch of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank by unidentified gunmen in Budgam district, according to a report by India Today. Rs 12 lakhs looted by four men from a J&K bank branch in Budgam(J&K) (Spot Visuals) pic.twitter.com/PHx8vY9A27 ANI (@ANI_news) November 21, 2016 If they took old 500/1000 notes they are idiots & if they managed to escape with bundles of 100s how the hell did they carry the bags & run? https://t.co/Zavr8IiX6f Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) November 21, 2016 Sources have said that the loot consisted mostly of banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, according to The Indian Express. The bank officials alerted the police after the incident. Further investigations are in progress. An investigation has been launched, and a case has been registered, according to The Kashmir Monitor. The four masked men with guns who broke in and assumed to be terrorists, are also involved in another robbery in Malpora, says a report in The Financial Express. Footage from CCTV cameras are still to be acquired; the bank was uncertain as to whether they were in working condition. These robberies come at a time when the entire country faces a cash crunch over the demonetisation of higher denomination notes, and banks and ATMs witness long queues. Although, where the rest of the country seemed to be in turmoil following the move, an IANS report said that people in Kashmir had accepted the move without any panic. "No common Kashmiri keeps large amounts of cash at home because of the disturbed situation," said Elizabeth Maryam, who teaches economics at Kashmir University. "The salaried class gets monthly wages through bank accounts and they usually space out withdrawals to suit daily needs. The skilled and unskilled workers mostly earn as much as they spend on an average. Big industrialists and businessmen never keep large amounts of cash at home in a conflict area. That is the reason why the demonetisation has little impact in Kashmir," Maryam added. According to Nazir Qazi, an officer of the local Jammu and Kashmir Bank, all the ATMs of the bank are fully stocked (as of 17 November). "For the last eight days there has been no rush on either our branches or at our ATM outlets. Yes, people have been coming in for exchange of the demonetised currency notes or for deposit, but nobody was being hassled," he added. Intelligence officials, meanwhile, believe that using fake currency notes is part of the ongoing militancy and doing the same with the new currency notes would not take long. With inputs from IANS Washington: A leader of Gilgit-Baltistan has met BJP general-secretary Ram Madhav in the US, seeking his help in creating legislative space for the people of this part of Jammu and Kashmir, as the two senior leaders discussed the violation of religious freedom and rights in the region. During the meeting, Madhav and Senge Sering, director of Gilgit-Baltistan National Congress, discussed issues related to the "chronic Kashmir dilemma" with focus on the on-going political development in the region. "People of Gilgit-Baltistan continue to suffer due to absence of constitutional rights and Pakistan lacks the legal capacity to grant the locals citizenship. India therefore must create space for the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in its legislative institutions and help internationalise the matter," Sering said after meeting Madhav. Sering spoke on the need to revive dialogue with Pakistan to discuss confidence-building measures related to cross Line-of-Control movement. Currently, there are over 15,000 people living in Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan who belong to separated families and await a decision by both the countries to open Skardo Kargil and Gangche-Nubra roads to facilitate meetings and reunions, he said. The two leaders shared views on opening Indian educational and health institutions for the people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. Thousands of Pakistani citizens travel to India to benefit from its health and educational facilities. However, this option is not available to the residents of PoK-GB, a media release on the meeting said. They also discussed the on-going violations of religious freedom and rights in Gilgit-Baltistan as the Pakistan government recently charged hundreds of people for terrorism for peacefully commemorating Imam Hussain Day in educational institutions. Talking about jailed political activists, many of whom face a life sentence, Sering explained how abrogation of State Subject Rule has enabled Pakistan to illegally change the socio-economic demography affecting the local culture. BJP's proposal to elect parliamentarians from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan also came up during the discussion. Sering said India claims the people of Gilgit-Baltistan as its citizens and it is, therefore, incumbent upon the Indian government to treat the people of Gilgit-Baltistan at par with those living in Ladakh or Jammu and Kashmir. At the moment, 24 seats are vacant in the Kashmir Assembly which are reserved for the people of PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan. After nearly 10 years, the Maharashtra government appears to have woken up from its slumber to deny its own order of 2007. The cancellation of the government's own decision of 2007 after a lapse of 10 years comes at a time when an IPS officer is on the verge of his final promotion to the rank of Director-General of Police (DGP). Additional Director-General of Police (ADGP), State Home Guard, Sanjay Pandey quit the police force and had taken up a private job. In government parlance, this is called 'dies non', which means that the job record cannot be treated as 'duty' for any purpose. But the same period was considered for Pandey to be promoted to Deputy Inspector-General (DIG) and Inspector-General in 2011. After being regularly humiliated by the government, Pandey is planning to move the High Court against the Government Resolution (GR) by the home department dated 29 October, 2016 that says that his service of two years and eight months is not being considered by the state government. Pandey is 1986 batch IPS officer, known for being clean. During his tenure, he exposed the shoe scam among other scams. Pandey is the senior-most IPS officer after Home Guard director-general Rakesh Maria retires from service on 31 January, 2017 . And so, to avoid appointing Pandey to the post in February 2017, the home department issued a GR saying that his extraordinary leave (12 April, 2000 to 30 June, 2002) is treated as 'dies non'. So Pandeys DG promotion will be delayed by over a year. If Pandey loses the post of DG, then 1987 and 1988 batch IPS officer will be the beneficiaries. Pandey resigned from service on 12 April, 2000. But, the government did not accept his resignation. And it was until 30 June, 2002 that he was on extraordinary leave. But when Pandey rejoined the service in 2011, the state government sanctioned Pandey 'two years and eight months' leave as extraordinary leave, sources told Firstpost. On that sanctioned leave, Pandey would get the DIG and IG promotions along with his batchmates in 2011. But now, the government has revoked its 10-year-old decision, effectively denying Pandey his promotion. A copy of the GR is with Firstpost and it clearly indicates that the earlier decision of a regularising period has been revoked. "The GR of 29 October is full of many mistakes relating to dates and the overlapping of dates. This makes it seem like the GR was issued in a hurry to stop Pandeys promotion which in February 2017 after Maria retires," a senior official told Firstpost. As per the guidelines of the GAD and Central government, the GR said that the period between 12 April, 2000 to 30 June, 2002 was being treated as extraordinary leave and July 2002 to 25 September, 2006 was considered duty period. While the state government maintains that its actions are as per advice from the Centre, the fact is that the Central government has no locus standi in the matter of promotion and leave rules are governed by the state. When contacted, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) KP Bakshi, he said: "This is the rule. He was away for several years and had taken up a private job. Thereafter, he rejoined the service after fighting his case in CAT and courts which is very unusual in All India Service. If this is allowed everybody would like to leave AIS and join private service and again join AIS. Govt of India instructions were received regarding how to promote him.We always follow GoI guidelines. State Home dept never violates MHA and DoPT guidelines." Since Pandey rejoined the force in 2011, he was being repeatedly sidelined for promotions. Within five years of his reinstatement, he was transferred four times before he complete his tenure of three years, said his batch mate of condition of anonymity. Pandey will retired in 2022. So after current DG Satish Mathur retires in 2018, Pandey will be the senior-most officer in line to be DGP. "If everything goes as per seniority, Pandey will be getting more than four years as DGP," he added. When Firstpost contacted Pandey, he refused to comment, only saying, "That matter is in court. I have full faith in the judiciary. Thats all." Ex IPS officer and lawyer YP Singh told Firstpost that the GR is ridiculous. "How can they cancel Pandeys leave after 10 years? It's totally unfair and sets the wrong precedent. Why was he promoted to DIG and IG with that same leave period? Is this the real face of the Devendra Fadnavis government?" asked Singh. NEXT POST Affection is something that can be learned. In fact it is something that must be nurtured at every moment. Without love all words that can express all the knowledge we develop, will only be absurd visions in which entangled. Perhaps you're among the kind of person who has read an amazing amount of self-help books incessantly looking for all types of courses and of different material: Welcome! Now you know you have a deep theoretical knowledge. I discovered long ago. It was at the same time that someone repeated a phrase popular knowledge: What is important is not what you know, but what you do with what you know. As a result, many people use all the mechanisms on how and why are their relationships as they are, but even all this information packed guarantee success in family relationships. Every day contact with people who know why they are so or stop being so, who understand the theory how they should be the relationship with their children, their families and that is because they and their families to behave well. The origin is not far from the same height as the solution. Einstein said it, and many of us often found. If you want to grow your affection to this day, stop reading begins, and act. I can guarantee you that otherwise would not get that desired result. And all life so you think the change is not inside? If you want to advance today, if today you want a present in which to establish a new future, do something different, do not just read ... Now, at this moment, is a unique moment to give a hug, a kiss, a caress on the hair of your son, a nod to your partner or a simple smile coming from acceptance and honesty. Surely that will make you learn much more than any book. Focus on your exercise each day a small gesture and you'll grow your affection and that of your environment. Focus your direction to your small successes and gradually cease to be tiny. Whether its going to be good or bad, when the CPM in Kerala made MM Mani, one of its senior-most grassroots level leaders a minister on Tuesday, it was in fact making a political statement. A statement that the party still stood by the working class. Mani is a veteran 'mass' leader from the 'high-ranges' the eastern hilly areas of the state that mostly come under the present Idukki district who became well known outside the state only recently, that too for the wrong reasons: His 1-2-3 public speech in which he claimed that the CPM had killed its political opponents. The speech was brutal and scary, particularly when the party was in the dock for allegedly authorising the killing of an extremely popular dissident leader TP Chandrasekharan. Mani, a darling of the local people, rose to instant national notoriety. The speech on Youtube went viral and the then Congress-led state government even reopened the old political murder cases that he was referring to. People who knew him said that it was his style loud, sometimes laced with expletives, and in your face and he cannot change. Indeed, he didn't change. Even after all the trouble that the 1-2-3 speech brought him, he continued with his wild ways. Recently, he was yet again caught on camera making near-obscene references to a woman principal of a local polytechnic and abusing a police officer. In a society that has a prude core behind its literate and progressive exterior, a person like Mani is often lampooned and is an unlikely candidate for a minister. In fact, when the CPM made every other MLA who is a state committee member a minister, except him, it didnt surprise many because Mani didnt fit the public imagination of a minister. Even now, he got a chance because the party had to drop the industries minister EP Jayarajan on charges of nepotism. Anyway, now that he is a minister although by chance the supporters of the CPM and his followers are celebrating it as a class victory, as a virtue of a working class party. He is a school drop-out, a real labourer-turned-labour-leader, completely raw and a peoples man. There hasnt been a minister with similar a class-profile in the state for a long time. Its also impossible to find such candidates now because the working class is no longer CPMs catchment area because the conventional working class has more or less disappeared. Theres hardly any farming activity in the state and construction, the only mass employer, is almost entirely dominated by migrant labourers. The people who call themselves working class are actually the white-collar employees both in the government and the private services sector. And its reflected in the partys leadership profile, particularly among the new generation, as well. Whenever they speak class struggle now, it has no context except in retrospect. Despite its posturing, the CPM is yet another bourgeoisie party now. In such a situation, getting a person with Manis profile among the top leaders is rather hard and the CPM, although not by design, has made a brilliant class-example out of him. The million dollar question, however, is if its going work or backfire. The chances are 50:50, not because he is uneducated or untrained in governance, but because his instinctive outbursts often border on lawlessness. If his notorious 1-2-3 speech was an admission of murder, his offensive sexist remarks against the polytechnic principal was a violation of Section 294. In terms of foul and threatening language, he is a serial offender. The biggest challenge before him, therefore, is the need to fit into the profile of a policy-maker who will have to deal with senior bureaucrats, technical experts and government of India. Policy-making will not be a problem because he will be advised by his party and supported by bureaucrats; but the overall package of a minister requires a completely different skills-set. In fact, one of the reasons why EP Jayarajan lost his ministry was because he also lacked in such skills and couldnt check his proclivity to goof up and behave intemperately. But Mani can learn from a rare communist predecessor from his own region KT Jacob, a CPM leader who was instrumental in strengthening the working class movement in the district. Jacob, who incidentally was also called Aashan (a description reflecting endearment and respect that Mani also enjoys) too was a raw, grass-roots leader known for his plain-speak. People close to the CPM recall that C Achutha Menon, former chief minister and a highly sophisticated left leader in the state, had his doubts when Jacob was made a minister. However, he found him to be highly adept in his new role. Mani will soon realise that its far more difficult to be a conformist than being a rebel, but he must not fail because he is rare example that Kerala can be proud of. New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of harbouring in his cabinet a "corrupt" minister for 12 years when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat. Referring to a media report that reveals how Saurabh Patel's family invested in firms dealing in gas and petrochemicals during his 14-year tenure as the state Energy Minister, Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said Modi should come clear on this. "It has come to light how Saurabh Patel and his family-owned companies invested in a Bahamas-based company dealing in energy and petro chemicals sector," Singhvi said. "Out of his 14 years tenure, he worked for 12 years as minister under the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi," he added. A four-time MLA on BJP ticket, Patel was the Energy and Petrochemicals Minister for 14 years till he was dropped from the cabinet on 7 August this year by new Chief Minister Vijay Rupani. Singhvi said the Patels through these companies also took oil blocks from state enterprise Gujarat State Petroleum Corp (GSPC). "Is it just conflict of interest? I think conflict of interest is a light word. This is corruption. The nation and Parliament seek answer from now Prime Minister and the then Gujarat Chief Minister," he said. The Congress spokesperson alleged Athat Patel was given such an important and big ministry by Modi at the behest of "the biggest and most influential industrial family of this country". "This is not the case of daal mein kaala'. Here the entire daal is spoiled. There is graft all around. The Prime Minister is running away on demonetization. Will he also run away on this?" Singhvi asked. There was absolutely no need for the government to demonetise high denomination old currency notes at a time when economy is racing ahead. This has caused a lot of liquidity distress, especially in the rural regions and triggered a steady rise in layoffs and many tragic deaths, development economist Jean Dreze has told The Economic Times in an interview. According to Dreze, the entire demonetisation exercise in a booming economy is like shooting at the tyres of a racing car. The former member of the National Advisory Council during the UPA rule has said the government's statement that the it is a strategy to flush out black money from the system is a mere delusion. The real targets could be political parties who are believed to be cash hoarders that are used during election campaigns, he has said. "Opposition parties may well be the real targets of the demonetisation move. Being in power, the ruling party is less vulnerable. I am all for preventing fraud among political parties, but this is not the best way to go about it," Dreze has told the newspaper. Making the high currency notes invalid has pushed rural economy in tatters already, with mandi arrivals of several non-perishable agriculture commodities like cotton, soyabean crashing sharply, according to a report in Reuters. The report notes that consumer spending makes up 56 percent of India's $2 trillion economy. But with less stock of smaller denomination notes available and the difficulty to get hold of new bills, consumers are holding back expenditure. Supply chains at small, medium and even larger companies are breaking down, underlining just how much corporate India - not just the shadow economy - relies on hard cash. Brokerages have also started revising downwards the growth estimates for the economy. Ambit Capital has said the GDP growth is likely to be 0.5% in the second half of the current fiscal, decelerating from 6.4 percent recorded in the first half of this fiscal. It sees the growth in 2017-18 at 5.8%. The main reason for the demand slowdown is that the country - not just rural areas but even urban - is not yet ready to make a shift to cashless mode. Dreze has noted that India is still several decades away from being a cashless economy, and the government needs to focus on effective banking services in rural areas to achieve its financial inclusion goal. He feels Indian may witness a prolonged economic slowdown in a worst-case scenario once the demonetisation issue fizzles out. Heres proof that Vladimir Putin has never respected President Obama (NationalSecurity.news) They say if looks could kill As reported by the New York Post this morning, President Obama on his final taxpayer-supported close-out tour of the world before leaving office met up with some world leaders in Peru over the weekend. One of them was Russian President Vladimir Putin. In describing the encounter between Obama and Putin, the Post took the long way around to avoid the obvious: Putin has zero respect for Obama and never has had any. To wit: This greeting was as warm as winter in Siberia. President Obama and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, could barely stand to look at each other in Peru on Sunday as they shared a brief and chilly handshake. Both men have good reason to be icy with each other. Obama is likely still smarting from the humiliating ballot-box defeat his party suffered two weeks ago in the presidential election, when Donald Trump an open admirer of Putin pulled off a stunning upset. Obama might also could be miffed that suspected Russian hackers exposed embarrassing confidential e-mails between Democratic bigwigs, which political observers say helped Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. Russia also has angered the Obama administration by taking sides in the Syrian civil war, aiding despot President Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, Putin must still be stewing over the continued US sanctions against his country, which were payback for Moscows incursion into Ukraine and have crippled his nations economy. There is likely some truth to most of this the Russians didnt hack the Democratic Party or the Hillary Clinton campaign but the most obvious answer to Putins behavior is simply that he doesnt respect Obama. Oh, the Russian leader has to respect the military and economic power of the United States. And what world leader wouldnt want the kind of power projection our nation possesses? But in terms of whether or not he believes Obama personally to be a worthy adversary, its crystal clear to any honest observer that Putin doesnt. And he very likely would have had even less respect for Clinton, had she won the election. Worse for America, Putin would have had her over a barrel from the outset because while Russia wasnt the source of the political hacks, even the FBI believes that her home-brew email server was hacked multiple times by foreign powers (which would include the Kremlin). As for his current mutual admiration and respect for Trump, that could vanish in an instant, depending on what foreign policies he will pursue. But already Trump starts on a better footing than Clinton would have, and in a better place than the Obama administration ever had. (Remember the famous Clinton-Russia reset button moment? What great power foreign leader wouldnt have found that stunt juvenile and laughable? They couldnt even get the word right.) In what is likely the last Obama-Putin meeting of the formers presidency, its quite clear what the Russian leader really thinks of Obama not much. More: (c) 2016 USA Features Media. New Delhi: CPI(M) is seeking legal opinion on moving a contempt notice against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for announcing policy matters like demonetisation outside Parliament, but not coming to the House to explain them. "If the Prime Minister makes a major policy announcement outside Parliament, particularly when it has been summoned by the President, it is incumbent that he comes to both Houses to explain the issue. This has not been done," said party general secretary Sitaram Yechury at a press conference. "We are examining the issue and we would like to move contempt notice against the Prime Minister after discussing with other opposition parties," Yechury said, criticising Modi for his "arrogance and obduracy" in not facing Parliament. He posed whether the Prime Minister can make a policy statement outside Parliament when the House has already been summoned by the President. "According to us, he cannot. But that has been done," he said. Yechury said Modi was making statements outside Parliament when it was in session but not inside. "This amounts to utter contempt of Parliament. We are examining the possibility of moving contempt proceedings against him and are seeking legal opinion. We will hold consultations with all opposition parties," he said. In a democracy, people are supreme as they elect representatives to Parliament and the government is answerable to Parliament. "Since the PM is not coming to Parliament, it is a breakdown of the parliamentary system," he said. He also asked why the government was not giving out the names of bank defaulters, alleging that over Rs 11 lakh crore have been siphoned off from the banks and termed non-performing assets as "the biggest scam". On the demonetisation issue, Yechury said people are facing serious problems and about 74 have died due to problems faced for the demonetisation move and the government refusing to condole their deaths in the House. He also chided the media for not seeming to recognise that there is an Opposition in the country and carrying only what the ruling party says. "Myth is being generated that the people are hailing the (demonetisation) move," he said. "It is an abnormal situation where the people cannot use their own money. It is violation of their fundamental right to property. How can you deny me from using my own property," the CPI(M) leader said, adding that now "new routes to exchange old currency" have been provided via Nepal, Bhutan, Dubai and Singapore. He said all Opposition parties will meet tomorrow to chart out the future course of action amid the logjam in Parliament. Mumbai: On Tuesday, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari met Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray at the his residence in suburban Bandra in Mumbai. Gadkari met Thackeray to extend his daughter's wedding invitation, the Sena chief's media advisor Harshal Pradhan said. The meeting assumes significance after a series of telephonic talks between top BJP leaders and Thackeray over the Sena's stand on demonetisation. Earlier, Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Venkaiah Naidu and Rajnath Singh had called up Thackeray to allay his apprehensions over demonetisation. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had last week spoken to Thackeray and is believed to have conveyed BJP's unhappiness over Sena participating in a march against demonetisation. However, the NDA ally had stuck to its criticism, saying the demonetisation decision could have been implemented in a better way. The Shiv Sena, the oldest ally of BJP and part of the governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra, had last week joined a march to Rashtrapati Bhavan led by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and participated by AAP and National Conference against the Centre's demonetisation move. On Tuesday, amid opposition attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the people to directly convey their views to him on demonetisation via his App. He asked the public to participate in a survey where a number of questions have been posed with regard to scrapping of old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes. "I want your first-hand view on the decision taken regarding currency notes. Take part in the survey on the NM App," he said in a tweet. I want your first-hand view on the decision taken regarding currency notes. Take part in the survey on the NM App. https://t.co/TYuxNNJfIf pic.twitter.com/mWv2frGn3R Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 22, 2016 Modi posed questions like, "Do you have any suggestions/ideas or insights you would like to share with PM Narendra Modi?" Some of the other questions asked include, "Do you think black money exists in India. Do you think the evil of corruption and black money need to be fought and eliminated. What do you think of government's move of banning old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes." Modi's move to gauge the views of the people comes at a time when the opposition has escalated its attack on the issue of demonetisation. On Tuesday, Opposition parties joined hands to stall pre-noon proceedings in Rajya Sabha demanding Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of each of the 70 persons who lost their lives post demonetisation and Modi's presence during the debate on the issue. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi also pointed out Modi's absence in the Parliament saying, "PM can speak on TV, pop concert, but why not in the Parliament?" Here are the ten questions he is asking on his app: Do you think that black money exists in India? Do you think the evil of corruption and black money needs to be fought and eliminated? Overall, what do you think about the government's moves to tackle black money? What do you think of the Modi government's efforts against corruption so far? What do you think of the Modi government's move of banning old Rs. 500 & Rs. 1000 notes? Do you think demonetization will help in curbing black money, corruption & terrorism? Demonetization will bring real estate, higher education, healthcare in common man's reach. Did you mind the inconvenience faced in our fight to curb corruption, black money, terrorism and counterfeiting of currency? Do you believe some anti-corruption activists are now actually fighting in support of black money, corruption & terrorism? Do you have any suggestions, ideas or insights you would like to share with PM Narendra Modi? With inputs from PTI Mumbai: In a setback to the opposition NCP in Maharashtra, the party could win only one of the four seats it held during the biennial elections held for six local bodies constituencies in the state Legislative Council. The voting was held on Saturday and the counting of votes took place on Tuesday. The NCP retained only Pune local bodies seat while Congress retained Nanded and wrested Sangli-Satara local bodies constituency from NCP. The BJP retained the Jalgaon local bodies seat. The Sharad Pawar-led party lost Bhandara-Gondia to BJP and Yavatmal to Shiv Sena. The loss in Sangli-Satara is a huge blow to NCP as it had earlier refused to yield to Congress's demand for 3:3 formula of seat-sharing for the six seats. The NCP leadership had earlier lambasted former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan for sticking to the demand that his party get Sangli-Satara constituency in the seat-sharing. State NCP chief Sunil Tatkare had earlier alleged the alliance fell through because of Chavan's adamant attitude. He had also questioned how Congress could demand the seat when NCP had more numbers. The NCP backed an independent in Nanded, the stronghold of state Congress president Ashok Chavan. As per the figures given by state electoral office, Amar Rajurkar (Congress) polled 251 as against 208 votes received by independent Shyamsunder Shinde. Congress's Mohan Kadam bagged 309 votes as against 246 by Shekhar Gore(NCP) in Sangli-Satara. In Yavatmal, Tanaji Sawant of Shiv Sena defeated Congress's Shankar Bade. Sawant polled 348 votes as against 78 of Bade. Notably, the NCP had backed Sawant. In Pune, Anil Bhosale of NCP bagged 440 votes as against 133 of Ashok Yenpure (BJP). Congress candidate Sanjay Jagtap finished a poor third with 71 votes. In Jalgaon, Chandulal Patel (BJP) polled 421 votes. Independent Vijay Patil polled 90 votes while remaining six independents drew a blank. In Bhandara-Gondia, Parinay Phuke of BJP trounced NCP's Rajendra Jain, who polled 137 votes and Praful Agrawal of Congress who got 112 votes. In the 78-member Upper House, Congress now has 20 members, the NCP tally has been reduced to 23, while BJP has 18, and Shiv Sena has nine members. However, NCP continues to be the single largest party in the House. The biennial polls to five seats from teachers and graduates constituencies are also scheduled for which dates will be announced soon, an election official said. The elections to Nashik graduates constituency held by Congress, Aurangabad teachers held by NCP, Amravati graduates held by BJP and Konkan teachers and Nagpur teachers constituencies held by independents will be held soon as their term also ends on 5 December. New Delhi: Opposition parties on Tuesday joined hands to stall pre-noon proceedings in Rajya Sabha, demanding Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of each of the 70 persons who lost their lives post demonetisation and the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the debate on the issue. The rare unity in opposition parties brought Congress and TMC as well as SP and BSP together as their slogan-shouting members trooped into the Well of the House, even as treasury benches countered them demanding resumption of the debate on the issue. Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien first adjourned the House till 11.30 am, then till noon and finally till 2 pm. No sooner were the listed papers laid on the table, Sharad Yadav (JD-U) said the government should pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to kin of the 70 persons who lost their lives due to hardships caused by withdrawal of 500 and 1000 rupee notes. Naresh Agarwal (SP) and Mayawati (BSP) said Modi should be called before starting discussion on the demonetisation. "He should come and listen to the pain people have faced because of his decision," Mayawati said. Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad (Congress) said the opposition is ready for discussion on the issue but prime minister should come to the House first. As he spoke, members of the BJP moved into the aisles raising slogans. At this point, TMC members carrying placards of "Financial Emergency" trooped into the Well, with Congress members following suit. As they shouted slogans from the Well, Kurien said, "You cannot speak in the Well. Shouting in the Well is of no use. If you go back to your seats, I will give you time (to speak)." He told Azad that he was ready to accept his notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of business. "Mr Azad, I am ready to admit your notice under 267 if only there is order in the House." As BJP members also created a ruckus, an angry Kurien snapped at them. "Why should treasury benches do this? Mr Minister, why should treasury benches do this?" he asked Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. With pandemonium continuing, he said this was "blatant indiscipline." "Both sides do not want discussion. Not only the opposition, but treasury benches are also disrupting the proceedings. That is very unfortunate," he said before adjourning the proceedings till 11.30 am. When the House assembled at 11.30 am, Agarwal (SP) alleged that the prime minister does not listen and such a "dictatorial attitude" has never been successful. His remarks led to noisy protests by BJP members. As several BJP members started speaking at same time, the Deputy Chairman again said, "I fail to understand why treasury benches were disrupting" the proceedings. To this, Naqvi said government only wants that debate on the demonetisation, which started on November 16, should be resumed. Amid uproar, the Leader of Opposition said 70 people have died due to the "wrong decision" of the prime minister. "Opposition is for discussion and debate. (Our) demand for (presence) of the prime minister in the House is not anti-national," the senior Congress leader said. Naqvi again sought starting the debate and said replies would be given to all the questions of the Opposition members. Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) demanded that the prime minister who announced the demonetisation decision should be present in the House. Kurien said he understood the demand that the prime minister should intervene or reply to the debate, but "your demand that he should be here is not possible". Azad again said the entire opposition wanted the discussion on demonetisation to resume, but the prime minister should come to the House and listen to the concern of the MPs. "He (prime minister) can speak outside, why cannot he speak in the House?" Azad asked. In an effort to bring order in the House, Kurien said during the discussion each member can demand for presence of the prime minister in the House. Mayawati (BSP) demanded compensation for those who reportedly died following demonetisation. As uproar continued, Kurien said that he can call the finance minister in the House as the matter relates to the Finance Ministry, but not the prime minister. As Congress, TMC and BSP members trooped into the Well, the Chair was forced to adjourn the House till noon. When the House resumed proceedings at noon, Chairman Hamid Ansari called for Question Hour but the protesting Opposition members kept demanding the presence of the prime minister in the House, as TMC members trooped into the Well. With continued ruckus, the House was adjourned for the third time for 30 minutes. Auto refresh feeds "Most of the people eat food in dhabas when they eat outside. Can the government inform us about a dhaba in which a person carries card-swiping machine in his dhoti?" he said. "Many labourers became unemployed today...there are very long lines and crores of people in those lines. But it is not just that," he said. "Does the farmer own black money when he engages in transactions for seeds, fertilisers?" he said. "It is a reality that the farmer is an important part of the economy. That is why India does not have to beg," said a dramatic Anand Sharma in the Rajya Sabha. "What authority do the prime minister and finance minister have so that we have to beg you for our very own money?" thundered Anand Sharma. "You have created a condition in which you told a person that he can exchange Rs 4000...I marvel at your generosity," Anand Sharma said sarcastically in the Rajya Sabha. "After the Uri attack and surgical strikes, we posed various questions about the army....You said we cannot ask questions about the army," said Anand Sharma. "If you are the government, that doesn't mean India belongs to you. You have created such an environment that we cannot ask questions," he said. "If we ask questions, you start asking questions about our nationality," he added. "Who got the benefits of your decisions?" he said. "Your government is only for those people who are your friends. You hurt those people who question you." "If you are trying to give this impression to the country that India started fighting money laundering now, then the prime minister is living on a different planet," said Anand Sharma in Rajya Sabha. After this statement, the Congress MPs began shouting again. Note that Anand Sharma was not interrupted even once when he was talking in the Rajya Sabha. "But I think Anand Sharma does not know much about economics," he said. "If his claim of fight against black money is true, he would not have ignored the fact the entire country has welcomed this move by the Narendra Modi government," he added. "In the future, inflation will be controlled when more people pay taxes," he said. "The central government will also get more resources for the welfare of farmers, labourers, youth, women in the country." "Some people had suggested that this move should have been made public seven days before implementing it. But secrecy is most important in such issues," he said. "The government has taken many steps against corruption. Demonetisation was a historic step against corruption. This was also a warning to the corrupt that the black money they had was useless now," he said. "Finance Minister had informed the House only about the counterfeit money in the economy, not the money which some people have got through corruption," Goyal said in the Rajya Sabha. "Some people just seem to be unhappy that Prime Minister Modi has taken an important step against corruption and black money," he said. "When the government had just come to power in 2014, there was an atmosphere against corruption," Piyush Goyal said in Rajya Sabha. "This is a step after which a person will think twice before engaging in corruption," he said. "The poor labourers will benefit the most," he added. "Please do not hold views which the corrupt can use to free themselves," Goyal added. "You (Congress) talked about surgical strike. We did not mention it. This is good. You have given us a certificate that we conducted precise strikes against corruption," he said. "The country is ready to tolerate a few days of inconvenience," he said. "The entire country is with us," he added. "And even the Election Commission won't be able to notice when someone is carrying the Rs 2000 note in one's pocket," he said. "Several crore vegetables were just thrown away per day from markets," he said. "Who gave you the advice to come up with the Rs 2000 note? Go outside Delhi to the villages of India. Nobody will accept that note," he said. "The farmer is unable to buy fertiliser and seeds," said SP's Ram Gopal Yadav in Rajya Sabha. "Farmers are not able to sell potatoes now. Were these potatoes made using black money?" he said. Who gave you the advice to come up with the Rs 2000 note? SP asks govt in Rajya Sabha "Our party will move adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha," she said, adding that demonetisation was a dictatorial and draconian step by the government. "We told the President that he is the custodian of the Constitution. We told him to talk to the government," Mamata Banerjee said. "Today, people are not getting access to vegetables in the markets. Children are not getting milk. People are dying," she said. "Today, how did the non-performing assets increase in the last six months?" the Bengal chief minister said. "After cancelling notes, there were a lot of notes needed in banks for the huge demand," Mamata Banerjee said after meeting the President. "90 percent of blak money is in tax havens abroad," Yechury further said. "It's like the prime minister is killing the pond to kill the crocodiles, forgetting that the crocodiles can survive on land too." "But where is this black money? All estimates say 6 percent of this black money is in cash," he said. "Black money is in circulation, in real estate...gold imports have surged in the last few days." "We want black money controlled. We want it eliminated. The World Bank says that nearly 21 percent of the Indian economy is in the black economy," Yechury said. "If you stop these Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, you think corruption will stop? Now, corruption will double with the Rs 2000 notes," Yechury said. "After 26/11, we went on debating over a new law to combat terrorism. On many issues, we had agreed over how terror funding needed to stop," Yechury said. "We want to stop counterfeit money. Locate where this is happening. Punish them. We will all support this. But this is not the way to stop it," he said. "By this way, you are killing the poor," he said. "As Anand Sharma said, 0.02 percent of the cash is counterfeit. To take care of that, you needed to do this?" he added. "The point is that black money is not going to go away with this. Black money is not stock, it is a flow," Yechury said in the Rajya Sabha. "For the rest of India, it is Tarasta Bharat," he said. "People can't get their children treated at hospitals." "In our rural population, 80.8 percent of the rural population is not covered by the banks," he said. "What banking does the prime minister want us to go to? There is Shining India with e-wallets for them," he said. "Why are you agonising the Indian people?" Yechury said. "Agonising people is a way to tell people: I control your personal lives," he said, adding that this was a fascist move. "People will say this Tughlaqshahi," he said. "This does not meet the objectives of what the prime minister set out to do." "You have allowed banks to exchange notes. Bulk of Indians today are dealing with rural cooperative banks. You don't allow them to change notes...86 percent of the rural population is dependent on transactions from these banks," Yechury said. "Don't give this exemption to political parties to spend whatever they want," Yechury said. "If you're serious about stopping corruption, stop the supply side of corruption," he added. Laughing at Das, Patel said, "Are you kidding me? How can you allow your EAS to issue such statements. You are making a fool of yourself." Slamming the Narendra Modi government's handling of the issue, Patel gave example of Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das, who during a press conference on Wednesday said: "The new currency notes, just as the old ones, will lose colour if rubbed with a piece of cloth wet because that's the nature of the dye used. If your note does not lose colour, it's one of the signs that it may be fake." "Abolishing black money is a move we all support, and BJP government's intention is great but you are asking people to be hungry for 50 days for a feast on the 51st day. Vo aadmi toh mar ayega, bhoj kya khayega (The person will die on the 51st day, what will he do with the feast)," says Patel. Rajya Sabha erupted after the comment. Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad interrupted Tiwari's speech and said that the statement, which was "atrocious", should not go in record. "No one speaks about the country's prime minister in such an atrocious way. It should not go in record,"Prasad urged the Chair. In a dramatised speech, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari from Uttar Pradesh compared prime minister to former dictators like Gaddafi, Adolf Hitler and Mussolini. "The seat that you (Narendra Modi) occupy, has been occupied by Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru, Shastri ji, Charan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But the way you are working, I am forced to say that it reminds me of dictators like Gaddafi, Hitler and Mussolini." "Modi government marched to victory in 2014 because the country was tired of scams and scandals. That was our poll promise. I request Congress to come out of the dilemma - are you in favour of the people who are hoarders and scamsters or you are in favour of a bold step that eradicates black money from the country. Narendra Modi is capable of taking very strong steps. Temporary pain for long term gain - is the buzz across India. One thing I want to assure - if your money is valid, nothing will happen to it." "You have got a chance to discuss important things on this platform so do not waste it by mud-slinging. When it comes to people and their hatred towards our PM (the way you claim), we saw their hatred in 2014 and we will see it in 2019," Naidu says to a thundering applause. Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu addresses Rajya Sabha and says that people across the nation are watching this Session and they are not interested in a history lesson. As expected, the Opposition targetted the Narendra Modi governmemnt over its "ill-preparedness" and "lack of empathy" for the general public. Senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad at the end of day one requested the prime minister to appear in the House tomorrow and discuss the issue of demonetisation. While the Lok Sabha was adjourned earlier in the day, Rajya Sabha argued and debated on topics till 6 pm on Wednesday. Chairman of Upper House PJ Kurien announced that the House will resume the same discussion (on demonetisation) from 2 pm on Thursday. The first day of Winter Session went as expected, in fact it went better than expected. While the Union ministers and BJP MPs are demanding an apology from Leader of Opposition in the House Ghulam Nabi Azad for his Uri remark, Congress MPs are demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the demonetisation scheme. "The nation wants to know today," he added, reminding of a news anchor famous for shouting at the panellists on his show. "The Opposition has disappointed us and the country," he said. "I want the Congress to clarify on Azad's remark," he said. "Those who ruled over the country for 50 years and ruined the situation of the aam aadmi and those who did not let the Parliament function are now also on the same path," said Naidu. "The prime minister will respond if needed," he said. "They are not strong...they are not on the side of the truth, the people are not with them," Naidu further said. "The government is ready for a discussion. We don't know what has happened with the Congress. Suddenly, they took a U-turn," said Venkaiah Naidu. "There is a need to fix the railway infrastructure. Modiji talked about the bullet train. But there is no focus. How will the aam aadmi benefit and get safety?" said Rahul on the Patna-Indore Express tragedy. "This is one of the biggest economic decisions in India. But the prime minister had not thought about the impact," he said. "This is some other form of the prime minister," he added. "We are ready for a discussion. These days, why does the prime minister need to come to the Parliament? He is on a different level. He does not need to interact with his ministers," said Rahul sarcastically. "People are complaining of deals at the back of long lines to banks. So people are suffering huge losses," he said. "Only 15 or 20 friends of the prime minister will benefit from this move," he added. "People have told me that they are suffering a lot," said Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi outside the Parliament on the issue of demonetisation. The Opposition members raised slogans, even as deputy chairman PJ Kurien threatened to adjourn the House. And... he did. The Rajya Sabha is adjourned till 12 pm. Rajya Sabh and Lok Sabha will resume in a while. Meanwhile, asking his countrymen to tell their views on demonetisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted saying, "I want your first-hand view on the decision taken regarding currency notes. Take part in the survey on the NM App." Speaker of Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan, quite hassled by the way the MPs were behaving, threatened to adjourn the House. "Kyun kar rahe ho?" asks Mahajan very politely as Opposition MPs raised slogans and asked for debate over demonetisation. The protesting MPs also demanded that Modi should come to the House and make a speech. The Lok Sabha is heading for another adjournment as the Opposition escalated their attack on the BJP government over the same issue of demonetisation. By the look of it, the Winter Session of Parliament till now has been a total washout with no constructive debate happening on the floor. After the ruckus got out of hand, a very calm Hamid Ansari stood up and adjourned the Upper House till 2 pm. Members could not keep it together even as the Rajya Sabha resumed proceedings at 12.32 pm. However, an unrelenting opposition continued to raise slogans. The Speaker again appealed to the opposition to participate in the debate saying that the disruption of proceedings would not resolve the problem. "I am really pained. If you are people's representatives, you should stand by them," she said. As pandemonium continued, the Speaker adjourned the House till noon after 20 minutes of proceedings. Ignoring the slogan shouting opposition members, Speaker allowed the Question Hour to continue amidst noise. When some opposition members tried to bring a placard, denouncing the demonetisation move, infront of Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju, who was replying a question related to his Ministry, the Speaker tried to intervene and asked the MPs not to disturb the Minister. "This is not good. Everyone will be shown on TV, but don't disturb the Minister. If you want to discuss something, raise it before the government. People are in pain, tell the government. But this is not the way to highlight people's grievances," Mahajan said asking them to return to their seats. Samjawadi Party, NCP and RJD stood in the aisles in solidarity with the other opposition members. While AIADMK members were also on the aisles raising the issue of Tamil fishermen injured allegedly in firing by Sri Lankan Navy, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was seen busy in his seat in an intimate discussion with AAP MP from Punjab Harinder Singh Khalsa. Opposition disrupted the proceedings of the Lok Sabha for the fourth consecutive day demanding discussion on demonetisation on a rule which entails voting forcing Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to adjourn the House for about 50 minutes soon after it assembled. As soon as the House met, members of Congress, TMC, Left parties and AAP rushed to the Well of the House demanding discussions on the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 under Rule 56, that entails. As BJP members also created a ruckus, an angry Kurien snapped at them. "Why should treasury benches do this? Mr Minister, why should treasury benches to this," he asked Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. He told Azad that he was ready to accept his notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of business. "Mr Azad, I am ready to admit your notice under 267 if only there is order in the House." As they shouted slogans from the Well, Kurien said, "You cannot speak in the Well. Shouting in the Well is of no use. If you go back to your seats, I will give you time (to speak)." At this point, TMC members carrying placards of "Financial Emergency" trooped into the Well, with Congress members following suit. "He should come and listen to the pain people have faced because of his decision," Mayawati said. Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said the opposition is ready for discussion on the issue but Prime Minister should come to the Rajya Sabha first. As he spoke, members of the BJP moved into the aisles raising slogans. No sooner were the listed papers laid on the table in Rajya Sabha, Sharad Yadav of JD(U) said the government should pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to kin of the 70 persons who lost their lives due to hardships caused by withdrawal of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes. Naresh Agarwal (SP) and Mayawati (BSP) said Modi should be called before starting discussion on the demonetisation. "Today they want PM Modi to address Parliament, tomorrow they will be demand a JPC on the demonetisation issue. Trust me, the opposition is just shifting the goalpost. Why are they running away from a debate? Why do they just want prime minister to speak, is the finance minister not competent enough to reply to their questions," asks Prasad. Speaking to CNN-News18, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad attacked the Opposition on their demand of asking Prime Minister Modi to address the House of Parliament and in turn asked, "Why is the Opposition running away from debate?" "Government wants that there should be a long and elaborate discussion so that we can explain to this country the enormous benefits of this move," Singh said. "Congress and other opposition parties are on a self-destructing course." On the other hand, Jitendra Singh said that the Opposition was on a self-destruct course. "Let's keep Opposition and government out of this. Let's think of the people," he further said. "Almost 70 people have died. He must be crying for them. And I respect that," Congress leader Kapil Sibal told Times Now, clearly taking a dig at the prime minister and implying that he could not come to the Parliament because he was crying. Speaking to the media outside Parliament, Rahul alleged that the government and the prime minister are not allowing a debate in the House. "We have filed an adjournment motion in the House and we want Modi to discuss the issue with us," says Rahul Gandhi "Main poochna chahti hoon prime minister se ki agar unhone itna acha kaam kiya hai to vo ghabra kyu rahe hain? (I want to ask PM Modi that if he has taken a decision which is so good why is he scared?) I urge President to summon Modi and ask him to take measures to solve the problems faced by people post demonetisation move," Mayawati told the media after Lok Sabha got its first adjournment of the day. Alleging that it sends a wrong message if prime minister keeps shying away from a debate, BSP chief Mayawati on Wednesday that a debate is a must because otherwise the BJP government looks like it has done something wrong. "Puri daal kali lag rahi hai." Proceedings was continuously disrupted as Opposition leaders raised loud slogans against the BJP government. Senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu urges Speaker Sumitra Mahajan not to adjourn the Lower House. "The debate has begun, madam Speaker. Please let the debate happen. The world is watching what Congress and the Oppostion is doing inside the House," Naidu said. The protesting MPs, for the past half an hour, have continously made noise and tried to disrupt the Lok Sabha proceedings. Speaker Mahajan still holding solid ground. Opposition members are trying their best to disrupt the proceedings, but BJP MPs (MJ Akbar, Jitendra Singh) are holding their ground and not giving in to the awful noise that the protesting MPs are making. Samajwadi Party's Akshay Yadav tore paper and threw it at Speaker Sumitra Mahajan in the Lok Sabha. This is definitely a new low for Opposition parties in the Parliament. "I am very sorry that the RBI has been exposed to this kind of criticism which is fully justified," he added. "It is not good that every day, the banking system comes up with some modifications. That reflects very poorly on the prime minister's office," he said. "The national income can decline by about 2 percentage points...I feel that the prime minister must come up with some constructive proposal," said the former prime minister. "In my opinion, the way demonetisation has been implemented will hurt agriculture, small industries and the people in the informal sector," he said. "I want to know from the prime minister the names of countries where people have deposited their money in banks but are not allowed to withdraw it," he said. "What has been done can weaken and erode our people's confidence in the currency and banking system," said Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha. "I say so with all responsibility that we do not know what will be the full outcome," he said. "50 days is a short period but for those who are poor, even 50 days can bring about disastrous effects. About 60-65 people have lost their lives," he said. "Today, there are no two opinions in the country. It is important to take note of the grievances of the common people who have suffered," said Manmohan Singh. "I do not disagree with the objectives of taking steps against terroism and black money," said former prime minister Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was present in the House. "By the day, the damage to the economy is increasing. Today, reports have come which have said that in three sectors that are biggest in exports, 4 lakh people have lost their jobs in the last one week or so," Sitaram Yechury said. Addressing the Upper House, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said how can the prime minister say something like this? "How can the prime minister allege that Opposition parties are in favour of black money? This is wrong." Within minutes after the Rajya Sabha began today, the opposition members were up in arms protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement that those cirticising the government are not angry with the government's preparedness but the fact that they did not get time to prepare. Slamming the prime minister for his statements on black money hoarders and his veiled attack against the Opposition, the leaders of Congress and SP and BSP created ruckus in the Upper House and demanded that Modi should address the MPs and apologise for his remarks. "I'm sure many of us have read analysis of noted economist Lawrence Summers, former chief economist of the World Bank and advisor to Obama government who concludes that this exercise has "resulted in chaos and loss of trust" and "without new measures, is unlikely to have lasting benefits. Don't you think it is high time and right time to form a committee of our real experts and intellectuals like Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha, Subramanian Swamy and other top economists and intellectuals of our party and veteran Murli Manohar Joshi to help the government in this hour?" In a series of tweets on Friday, BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha, reiterating his faith in PM Modi's intention, said, "However, I have serious concerns about the outcome, fallout and responses of the people of India and the almost united opposition in particular." Seventh day of Winter Session and looks like this week business will take a massive hit due to ongoing protests by the Opposition As Opposition din did not die down even after many requests by the Speaker, Mahajan adjourned the Lok Sabha till Monday (28 November) 11 am. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said that a man Rakesh Singh tried to jump in the Lok Sabha off the audience gallery on Friday after the House was adjourned. "Security officials overpowered him and took him under custody and he has been let off with warning," Mahajan added. Taking the nation by surprise, the Prime Minister had on November 8 announced demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes with effect from midnight. Latching on to media reports, Yechury sought to pick holes in the November 8 decision as he noted that 29 crore out of the 30 crore Rupay card holders have never used their cards in a swipe machine. Referring to a report on surfacing of two variants of Rs 500 currency notes, the Marxist leader also took a dig at Modi, saying it was the "Prime Minister's way" of stopping circulation of fake currency. CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation, dubbing him as 'Tughlaq' who had "gone missing" after issuing a farman (order). "Barely 20-25 percent of cash demand being met in Metros. Rural areas even worse. While Tughlaq goes missing after his firman," Yechury tweeted. Will government's wait-and-watch technique, as far as Opposition's protests are concerned, work out in their favour? Most political observers say no because the government does not have the luxury of time. Meanwhile, Opposition leaders are still not relenting with their demand of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence in Parliament. Opposition leaders met before Parliament session commences for the tenth day. However, the worry again is will the Opposition let the Parliament function? Winter Session will go on for 22 sittings - 50 percent of the sittings are already over - the Upper House and the Lok Sabha have still not been able to table crucial bills. "Why is the BJP government so stubborn? Why is the prime minister not coming to debate?" Mayawati asks. In Samba, security forces killed two militants early on Tuesday when a group of militants tried to sneak in from Pakistan through the International Border near a border outpost in this Jammu district. According to reports, the two militants were killed following a "heavy firing exchange" with the BSF. Even as terrorists infiltrated the International Border and attacked two - Nagrota and Samba - districts of Jammu and Kashmir, there was no talk of that in Parliament. The attack in Nagrota reportedly started around 5.30 am with militants firing at a field regiment camp located in the garrison town of Nagrota near the headquarter's of army's 16 corps in the state. Demonetisation has been the reason for Parliament washouts over ten days now since Winter Session began on 16 November. Interestingly, Parliament has not discussed anything else except note ban imposed by the Narendra Modi government since the Winter Session began. TMC leader slammed the BJP government for deploying Army in West Bengal. Senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu told Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien that the deployment was a routine exercise and casting aspersions on the prime minister is not acceptable. Opposition: Modiji says he wants the poor to build their own homes, but what about those homes which are being broken? If one had to compare, Rajya Sabha gets adjourned way faster and sooner than the Lower House. Unrelenting Speaker Sumitra Mahajan continues to let MPs speak on different issues while a group of MPs continue to try to disrupt Lok Sabha. But since Winter Session has begun (16 November) members who are against the demonetisation drive have tried, and sometimes successfully, to stall Parliament. "These photos on the walls of the Rajya Sabha, from where emanates the power of democracy, often haunt me. It has been particularly difficult these last few days to get past those photos.Till 1 December (15th day since the commencement of the Winter Session) no business has been allowed to occur in the House except on the first day when a good debate took place in the Rajya Sabha over demonetisation. Regular disruptions, chaos and high-pitched slogan shouting have resulted in complete pandemonium in the House. The continuous ruckus usually leads to the suspension of the House proceedings and, sadly, it has become a regular feature. I ask myself: is this the only alternative left to us to address the genuine grievances of the public, the states and the nation?" "Today, the situation is that the withdrawals of the foreigners who come to India are being rationed," he said. "This has globally affected India's image," he added. "Demonetisation created a situation that 86 percent of the currency was invalidated. Now, after one month, tens of millions of Indians are standing in queues...It is wrong to give an impression that the Opposition is opposing the prime minister's crusade against black money," Sharma said. "The government has collective responsibility but the prime minister is the first among the equals," said Congress leader Anand Sharma in Rajya Sabha. "In the 2G debates, we have insisted that the prime minister participates in this discussions but there is no such practice in this House that the prime minister must be here to listen to each and every member," Jaitley said. "What is the stage we are in? Halfway through the debate, you interrupted the debate and are now raising concerns which have never been raised in the House," he told the Opposition. "In this case, we've repeatedly said that the prime minister is going to participate in the debate," Jaitley said. "It's obviously an important issue. The questions have to be answered," he said. "The government and the council of ministers fucntions on a collective responsibility. There is no such principle that a specific person has to answer." "We've gone through this exercise of having a major debate which is incomplete. We have spent seven hours on the debate under rule 167," said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Rajya Sabha. When asked what does the Opposition want, Rahul said, "He should come and debate in Parliament and explain his decision," he said. Targetting the Prime Minister over the issue of note ban, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi slammed the BJP government saying that the decision to scrap high denomination currency was the biggest mistake ever. "It was a bold decision - that's what Modi ji says - but bold decisions are also foolish decisions. Demonetisation was a foolish decision. Our farmers, fishermen and the poor of the society are dying, our Prime Minister does not care for any of that. He (PM Modi) is laughing and having a nice time while the people of the country are suffering. The idea behind cashless economy is that a few people and corporates will get maximum benefits from these transactions. This has damaged the nation." Today, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi launched a full frontal attack on the prime minister and an united Opposition on Thursday observed Black Day to mark one month since the demonetisation scheme kicked in. 8 November was when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. It's been a month since then and the Opposition protests have gone on unabated - both in and outside Parliament. "It is a matter of shame that the government refused to pay tributes to the martyrs," Azad thundered, provoking the ruling party ministers and MPs, who began shouting as if Azad had just thrown something at them. He also said that by protesting in front of the Gandhi statue, the Opposition was the one which paid tributes to the deceased. "We have been saying for a long time that over 100 people have died because of demonetisation," said Ghulam Nabi Azad in Rajya Sabha. "But the government refused to pay tribute to the deceased," he added. President Pranab Mukherjee has accused the Opposition of "gagging majority" in both Houses of Parliament. "Debate, dissension and decision are necessary," Times Now quoted the President as saying. "The Parliament must not be disrupted...this is unacceptable." The Winter Session of Parliament began on 16 November. On 8 December, both the Houses Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha met for the 14th day but within minutes of commencing, both the Houses were adjourned. The deadlock over demonetisation has led to wastage of the Winter Session so far and considering that just one more week is left for the session to wrap up, there is little hope that the Houses will be able to pass, introduce or even debate the Bills that have been listed for consideration. Information and Broadcasting Minister Venakaiah Naidu also termed the 'dharna' by opposition leaders near the Gandhi statue in Parliament premises as a big 'tamasha' and an insult to the Father of the Nation. "Our opponents particularly the Congress I am told are observing a Black Day. I say what they are observing is a 'Black Money Support Day'," Naidu said. Hitting out at the Congress-led Opposition for observing a 'Black Day' against demonetisation decision, government on Thursday said they are actually observing a "Black Money Support Day". According to Times Now, the parliamentary panel has found Mann guilty of security breach after he filmed a video entering Parliament by crossing several security layers and posted it on social media. As if the logjam in Parliament for which President Pranab Mukherjee admonished both Houses was not embarrassing enough for the country, there is now a delegation of parliamentarians from Vietnam who are going to witness what happens in an Indian Parliament. "Govt running from debate, if they allow me to speak then you will see what an earthquake will come," says Rahul Gandhi. Keep in mind that Vietnamese Parliamentarians are in both the Houses to witness this scene. It's hard to decide at this point who is trying to stall Parliament. During zero hour in Lok Sabha, MPs in Lok Sabha kept raising ruckus while Speaker Sumitra Mahajan tries her best to keep the House in session. Rajya Sabha adjourned till 14 December On Friday as the count of members in the Upper House remained 21 despite calls from the Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien, the house was adjourned till Monday. The benches remained empty while BJP and Congress leaders sparred with each other blaming each other for the non-functioning government. According to an NDTV report Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu said that Prime Minister Modi will be present in Parliament for the three remaining days of the Session and can participate in proceedings for either of the House depending on the need. Congress is going to raise the issue of corruption charges against Kiren Rijiju. Rajya Sabha member and senior Congress leader, Anand Sharma has given notice under Rule 267 in Rajya Sabha for discussion on corruption charges against Rijiju. "This is the first time that the government is scheming to make sure Parliament does not function. It usually is the job of Opposition to stand up and protest. However, this government is doing a pretty job of that and making sure that Parliament does not work and no one questions the ruling party's decision. Demonetisation has hurt a lot of people, but Modi government's arrogance is not allowing us to debate it in the House," a TMC member said. BJP was reacting to Congress vice-president's claim that he has information of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's alleged involvement in "personal corruption." Rahul was speaking a joint press briefing of the Opposition after the Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day amid din created by Opposition. Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar said that if Rahul Gandhi had any information, he could have revealed them twenty days ago, ""but till today he wasn't ready to make any earth-shattering revelations." Soon after Rajya Sabha passed the amended The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill (2014) and Kurien congratulated the members over a productive day, Anand Sharma raised the issue of Rijiju and his alleged involvement in the Rs 450-crore scam. Kurien tried to maintain calm in the House by saying, "Allegation without informing the Chair cannot be allowed." As Opposition members raised slogans and ruckus, Kurien said, "What can I do except adjourning. Both sides are indisciplined. The House is adourned till tomorrow (15 December) 11 am." It seemed like the members in the Upper House were just waiting to pass one single Bill this Winter Session. Soon after Kurien praised the members of the Upper House for being disciplined, ruckus over alleged corruption allegations on Kiren Rijiju took the House by storm again. Kurien: "I have given the floor to Leader of Opposition. That's the tradition. Let's follow it. Please sit down." Senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi object to leader of opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad speaking in the Upper House. Kurien asks BJP members to sit down. Amid slogans of "Agusta Agusta" , BJP leaders demanded to know what is the topic of discussion? "I have to adjourn.. what should I do?" asks Kurien. "This is for the first time in history of India that it's the ruling party that's not letting the House to function," says Azad. Sources said that it was also decided in the meeting to raise the plight of farmers and common people in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and demand a loan waiver for farmers. Representatives of Congress, Trinamool Congress, BSP, SP, JD-U, CPI, CPI-M, NCP, DMK and All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) were present in today's meeting. Leaders of various parties said the entire opposition has decided to approach the President to "complain" against the ruling party for not allowing them to speak in Parliament. The leaders said they were elected representatives of the country and had every right to speak in Parliament and it was "unconstitutional" not to allow them to speak in both Houses. Sources said time is being sought from the President till Friday and all opposition parties were ready to raise the issue unitedly before him. Taking their protest on demonetisation to President Pranab Mukherjee's doorsteps, Opposition parties sought a meeting with the president to convey the problems caused by the measure to the common man and "over not being" allowed to speak in Parliament. At a meeting of the opposition held in the chamber of Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, representatives of various parties decided to raise with the President the problems of the common people, including the poor and farmers arising out of demonetisation. Advani also added that "had Atal ji been in Parliament today, he would have been upset." Senior BJP leader LK Advani told Home Minister Rajnath Singh to intervene and stop disruptions in both Houses of Parliament. Expressing his unhappiness, Advani allegedly said that he "feels like resigning". Opposition leaders are scheduled to meet the President and PM Modi to push for a way to break the deadlock. The BJPs Parliamentary Party meeting to discuss the strategy to counter the Oppositions charges against the government is currently underway. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to address the gathering. The last day of the Winter Session of Parliament is setup for a big tussle between the government and the Opposition as both try to break the deadlock. "Regular and continuous disruptions signify this session... The rules about displaying placards and shouting slogans were ignored by all sections of the house," Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari said in his closing statement before adjourning the house. The Rajya Sabha on Friday concluded its winter session after an emotional speech by the Chairman as the house was adjourned sine die. On the eve of Winter Session, two all-party meetings were convened, first by the ruling NDA and the other by Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan. At the all-party meeting Modi requested all parties for cooperation in order to make Parliament session a fruitful one. "I hope that Winter Session will be fruitful. I expect that Winter Session will proceed in a positive way. I hope that Winter Session debate will strengthen democracy. I believe that to take the country ahead this Winter Session debate will be useful, " said Modi as Winter Session sets to begin. "If you will put their husbands in jail, who will provide for them, who will pay for their children," Azad asked as he reiterated that Congress leader Anad Sharma's suggestion to send it to Standing Committee should be taken into consideration. Ghulam Nabi Azad stood up as the bill was taken up for discussion and said that none of the parties are in opposition of the bill in essence. However, he said that the government's bill will "finish Muslim women" instead of saving them. He said that a committee should reflect the nature of the House, which the list of suggestions given by Sharma does not. Sharma's suggestion did not include names from the BJP. Jaitley said that the previous precedents show that any amendments or motions should be introduced with prior notice. He said that the Opposition's demand to send the bill to Select Committee was invalid. He also raised objection on the suggestion on members of Select Committee made by Anand Sharma. Kurien said that the Leader of the House is a very learned advocate himself and all points raised by him are of relevance. The rule he quotes that a prior notice should be given is also correct, he said. "However, the same rule adds that the Chairman has the power to admit such a motion and which is why I cannot overrule it. It is now admitted and hence is the property of the House, only members can amend it," Kurien said on Jaitley's objection over the Opposition motion seeking triple talaq bill be sent to Standing Committee. Roy, responding to Jaitley's objection that the Select Committee suggested by him did not reflect the nature of the House, Roy said that he had included members from all parties who were willing to send the bill to the Standing Committee. However, BJP members were not included because the government was not willing to send the bill to the committee. Roy added that if the BJP is interested in sending the Bill for further scrutiny, he has no objection to ammend the list to include its members too. Govt requests to take up GST bill first as Dy Chairman ruled Triple Talaq bill can't be taken for passage without first building consensus in House "If you will put their husbands in jail, who will provide for them, who will pay for their children," Azad asked as he reiterated that Congress leader Anad Sharma's suggestion to send it to Standing Committee should be taken into consideration. Ghulam Nabi Azad stood up as the bill was taken up for discussion and said that none of the parties are in opposition of the bill in essence. However, he said that the government's bill will "finish Muslim women" instead of saving them. He said that a committee should reflect the nature of the House, which the list of suggestions given by Sharma does not. Sharma's suggestion did not include names from the BJP. Jaitley said that the previous precedents show that any amendments or motions should be introduced with prior notice. He said that the Opposition's demand to send the bill to Select Committee was invalid. He also raised objection on the suggestion on members of Select Committee made by Anand Sharma. Kurien said that the Leader of the House is a very learned advocate himself and all points raised by him are of relevance. The rule he quotes that a prior notice should be given is also correct, he said. "However, the same rule adds that the Chairman has the power to admit such a motion and which is why I cannot overrule it. It is now admitted and hence is the property of the House, only members can amend it," Kurien said on Jaitley's objection over the Opposition motion seeking triple talaq bill be sent to Standing Committee. Roy, responding to Jaitley's objection that the Select Committee suggested by him did not reflect the nature of the House, Roy said that he had included members from all parties who were willing to send the bill to the Standing Committee. However, BJP members were not included because the government was not willing to send the bill to the committee. Roy added that if the BJP is interested in sending the Bill for further scrutiny, he has no objection to ammend the list to include its members too. Govt requests to take up GST bill first as Dy Chairman ruled Triple Talaq bill can't be taken for passage without first building consensus in House The Winter Session of Parliament opened on Wednesday with a united Opposition mounting an assault on the government over demonetisation, saying it had led to "economic anarchy" in the country. The opposition parties also demanded a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the alleged selective leak of information before the official announcement. While Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day after paying tributes to nine leaders, including sitting TMC MP Renuka Sinha, the seven-hour-long debate in Rajya Sabha, however, remained inconclusive. The debate in Rajya Sabha continued till 6 pm on Wednesday before Deputy Chairman of the House PJ Kurien adjourned it till 11 am tomorrow. Kurien said that the discussion on demonetisation will be resumed on Thursday at 2 pm. "From 11am to 12 pm will be the Zero Hour and Question Hour will be from 12-1 pm," said Kurien. There were repeated demands by the opposition members that the Prime Minister should be present in the House to listen to the members. Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said Modi, who did not come to the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, should at least be present tomorrow and possibly intervene. The government rejected as baseless the opposition charge that there was "leakage" of the 8 November decision and said everyone was taken by surprise which is why there are "initial" problems. Joining ranks over the raging issue, parties like Congress, JD(U), RJD, SP, BSP, Trinamool Congress, Left and AIADMK slammed the government, particularly targeting PM Modi, for making Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination notes invalid and said the "ill-timed" and "ill-conceived" step had severely hit the common people, the farmers and the poor. During a discussion on demonetisation, which was taken up after suspension of all business in response to notices given by a host of opposition members, a scathing attack was made on the government which strongly defended the step as one taken in national interest and to end corruption and black money, which it linked to terror activities in the country. Here's a quick recap of what happened today Anand Sharma uses wit and humour to attack Modi Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma on Wednesday demanded a probe into "selective leakage" of the demonetisation move, which he termed a "Nadirshahi farman" (autocratic order). Initiating a debate after listed business was suspended to take up a discussion on the 8 November decision to withdraw old higher denomination currency, Sharma used wit and humour to attack Modi for being insensitive to problems caused to the common man. He asked Modi to state where he got Rs 23,000-24,000 crore, estimated by the International Money Watch Group, for his Lok Sabha elections. He also asked if cheque or credit card payments were made to organise his rally at Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh a few days ago. Alleging that the information on demonetisation was selectively leaked, he said, "Your BJP units have deposited crores (just before the 8 November decision)." Sharma also sought to know from the Prime Minister as to "who wants to kill him", referring to the Prime Minister's speech in Goa where he had said that with demonetisation resulting in "Looting of their 70 year corrupt earnings, they will destroy me, they can kill me". "There should have been an ordinance for demonetization. But no ordinance was brought. This is a Nadirshahi farman (autocratic order)," Sharma said. "The decision to demonetise high currency notes was leaked to a select few. Secrecy was not maintained on this issue. It was published in a Gujarati newspaper long back and even other newspapers wrote about it," said Sharma. "There should be a probe into the selective leakage of information," he said, asking: "What did the government do to prepare for effective implementation of the policy." He also sought to know from the government which law gave it the right to impose limits on withdrawing money from peoples' own accounts. "I condemn Prime Minister's statement in Goa for mocking the people who are standing in queues. He must apologise. Please explain who wants to kill you," said Sharma posing a question to Modi. Congress will not tolerate anyone planning to harm the Prime Minister of the country, he said. "An atmosphere has been created by the government where questioning them has become a parameter to decide one's nationalism," said Sharma. He sought to know from the Prime Minister as to from where the "15 thousand crore rupees spent on your mega election campaign come from". "Did you pay for your recent Ghazipur rally through credit card," Sharma said mocking the government for asking people to use plastic money for day-to-day expenses. Sharma also demanded that Modi must disclose the list of those names, who are holding black money in Swiss banks. "Government has a list of those holding black money in Swiss banks. We demand that the Prime Minister must tell who all are there in the list," said Sharma. He said the government should disclose how much money left India between March and September this year and how many people invested in bullion, bought gold or forex during this period. Sharma took a dig at the government for using the term "surgical strike" in the context of demonetization and the unplanned consequences of the move, saying, "Bina doctori padhe sab surgeon ban gaye (You became a surgeon without training or education)." Quoting media reports, Sharma said State Bank of India the country's largest lender knew of the decision way back in March and a Gujarati newspaper had in April published a report of the move to withdraw Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. He demanded a probe into "how many people bought more than Rs 1 crore of foreign currency and bullion" since April. "This is a serious issue... you never kept secrecy (about the decision)," Sharma said. The "ill-timed" and "ill-conceived" move had unleashed "economic anarchy" in the country and benefited a few, he said, adding that to fight black money created by higher denomination currency, a bigger Rs 2,000 note has been brought which is similar to the paper on which 'churan' is sold and "shed colour" was brought. "Your government is insensitive," he said adding Modi was riding a bullet train in Japan when old, women and common man were queueing up at banks at 3 am in the morning to get currency to buy their daily needs. Sharma said Modi had in his Goa speech had stated that those standing in line at banks were those involved in 2G spectrum and coal scam as well as holding black money. "I condemn the Prime Minister for calling the poor standing in the queue for his Rs 4,000-4,500, black money holders and scamster," he said. Taking a dig at the Modi, he said someone who "changes clothes five times a day", has become Prime Minister and travels around the globe was "calling himself a sanyasi and tapasvi". Sharma demanded that the names of persons holding accounts in Swiss bank and those revealed in the Leichtenstein and HSBC lists should be made public. The names of bank loan defaulters above Rs 5,000 crore should also be made public. While the decision had put the common man to immense hardship by way of having to stand in long queues to lay hands on valid currency to meet daily needs, the information about demonetisation was selectively leaked to the "friends of BJP," Sharma alleged. The move had branded 86 percent of the currency in circulation black money and "everyone a criminal," he said adding when Modi announced the plan it was expected that adequate arrangements would be made for dispensing new notes. "The magnanimous prime minister allowed Rs 4,000 of old currency to be changed... what right does the Constitution give the government to place restrictions on withdrawal of ones hard-earned money," he asked, adding one has to "beg to be allowed to withdraw his own money." He said former RBI Governor IG Patel had written about the government's decision to demonetise currency in 1978 and it would be absurd to think that all ill-gotten money is kept in cash and not invested in real estate, billion, equities or foreign exchange. Moving towards cashless economy was fine but even the most developed economies of US or Europe have not achieved that objective yet. If they had, the US central bank would have stopped printing dollars, European Central Bank won't be printing Euros and UK central banks would have stopped printing pound sterling, he said. Stating that the government had in one stroke declared everyone a criminal, he said the government and the finance minister have stated that terrorists would have benefited if advance information on the decision was given. "Which terrorist goes to RBI with sack full of counterfeit currency to change." After withdrawing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, restrictions were placed even on foreign tourists who could not get their currency changed. The Congress leader said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had informed Parliament in August that fake currency was 0.02 percent of the total currency in circulation. "If 0.02 percent by government admission is counterfeit currency, how can that be made the base to remove 86 percent of currency in circulation," he said. An undeclared emergency has put common people in grave inconvenience, he said while crime money, ill-gotten wealth and that accrued through corruption or tax evasion is blackmoney, Prime Minister should answer if he considered money in the market, or in households, or with farmers, workers and employees was also blackmoney. "This question arises because a message has gone that Indian economy was run on blackmoney... you decide but don't brand the whole country," he said, adding whether the cash the farmers gets for his crop or the one he uses to buy seeds or fertilizer was blackmoney. He said the move had rendered millions of agriculture workers and labourers unemployed. Mayawati calls demonetisation ill-timed As the debate was in progress, BSP chief Mayawati demanded the presence of the Prime Minister in the House to hear out the Opposition parties and address their concerns. Mayawati questioned the government's preparedness for the demonetisation of high-value bank notes, accusing it of spending the last ten months on settling the black money of its people. Participating in a debate in Rajya Sabha on the demonetisation of high-denomination currency notes, she said: "The government has said that they spent ten months preparing for this decision. Ten months was a long time to prepare. If they were serious about it, they would have prepared well for all the problems that people are facing today." "What we are witnessing in India today would not have happened had they prepared," she added. Accusing the government of supporting those close to it in settling their ill-gotten wealth, Mayawati said: "In the last ten months, the BJP government has worked to help the party supporters and big businessmen to settle their black money. "If the government had spent ten months preparing for it, then why do they need another 50 days? There is something fishy." "Masses are in pain. The Prime Minister must be sleeping after taking pills. The move is without preparedness and people will punish BJP in 2019 during general elections. People of five states going for elections including Manipur, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab will punish BJP," she said, adding that the poor and the middle classes were the worst sufferers. "It is an immature decision taken in haste and the whole country feels that is an 'economic emergency'," she said adding that it was like a "Bharatbandi situation." Opposition demands Modi's presence in Rajya Sabha Mayawati said the House should request the Prime Minister to be present and answer the members' concerns. It is "a very serious issue", she said, adding she has been observing Leader of the House and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, appears "sad". Her demand was supported by Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, who said the PM must be present in the House to hear out the concerns of various parties. Earlier, Kurien said he had received as many as 13 notices under rule 267 for suspension of business to take up discussion on inconvience and hardships caused by demonetisation of currency. He said there was a general consensus for discussion and the government too was agreeable, so the list of business as notified stands completely suspended. Azad demanded that the prime minister should at least "hear out the feelings of six-seven main parties, otherwise there is a mismatch. The feelings of opposition members should be heard by PM. I demand that at least he hears them out and sit in the House at least today. We can wait for him to come." This was objected to by DP Tripathi (NCP), who said that as Leader of the Opposition he should not distinguish between the big and small parties. Ram Gopal Yadav (who was expelled from Samajwadi Party) joined Anand Sharma to allege that information on demonetisation was "leaked" and termed it as a scam while demanding a thorough probe into it. "A BJP leader in Punjab had tweeted on 5 November about the new Rs 2,000 note. How did this happen? This is an issue of concern. There is a scam in this. This should definitely be probed," he said, alleging further that 10 percent of the people have 90 per cent of wealth of the country and the remaining 90 per cent do not have anything. The common people, especially the poor and the housewives were put to great hardship through this move and if elections are held today they will teach this government a lesson, he said, adding that majority of women who saved money through household savings were upset with the move. "Elections are not fought with money power. You cannot win elections through money power. No one can win elections like that. Elections are won only by winning the hearts of people," he said. Demonetisation of high denomination currency has created big problems to common people and and law and order situation is being created with police being deployed outside banks to control the queue. "Do not hold elections now. If you meet and ask for votes from housewives in villages, they will beat you up with 'belan' and you will have to embalm your back with turmeric," he said, adding that you might lose elections if you hold early polls. Yadav said the entire House was against corrupt and drug money, but lamented that an impression is being created that those opposing this are against curbing black money which is erroneous. JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav, who also sought a JPC probe into the suspected leak, said the sudden move was akin to "jumping out of a moving train". He said unlike the rich, who the PM said were standing in queue, it was the poor, handicapped and old people who were doing so to get their hands on their hard earned money. He alleged that while loans worth Rs 7,000 crore was written off today by banks including Rs 1,200 crore of Vijay Mallya and said that the prime minister has made the honesty of the country to stand in queues. Yadav also took a dig at Jaitley saying he was sure that the Finance Minister was not part of the decision making on demonetisation, because had he been, Jaitley would have tipped him off. This remark left most members including Jaitley laughing. Yechury renames PM as "Modi Antoinette" CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said that of the 130 crore population in the country, only 2.6 crore have credit cards. He took a dig at Modi and narrated the infamous quote of Queen Marie Antoinette during the French revolution who had said that people can eat cakes when they don't have bread. "We have Modi Antoinette who says 'If you don't have paper, use plastic'". Yechury compared the Prime Minister with a Roman ruler. He said a Senator had remarked about this ruler that: "I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the Coliseum. He'll bring them death - and they will love him for it." Alleging that a BJP unit in Kolkata deposited Rs 1 crore in Indian's Bank Account on 8 November, he said "prove me if I am wrong." He added that Prime Minister was advertising for Paytm while talking about cashless economy. The CPM leader said 1/5th of the economy is black economy and people who kept black money invested it in real estate, gold etc. That is why the imports surged and stated that it was this PM only who had stated that 95 percent of the black money is stashed offshore and is in safe havens. "PM is cleaning a pond to kill crocodiles but big crocodiles have survived and only small fishes are dying." He also demanded that corporate funding of all political parties should stop and there should be a stystem of state funding for elections to which Kurien said "why don't you move a private members bill in this regard." Terming the demonetisation move as "Tughlaq shahi", he said the length of queues before banks and ATMs was ever increasing and asked why the government was agonising the people. He sought an investigation into the move, saying "let there be a joint parliamentary committee" for a proper probe. "We need to know the motive behind the move" as before every parliamentary session there is some gimmick which diverts attention from other major issues. With inputs from agencies Jessica Bartunek, a Butler County native, will be one of the featured entertainers at the St. Marys dinner and variety show on Saturday, Nov. 19, at the Aquinas High School gym in David City. Bartunek, a 2008 Aquinas graduate, is presently at work in Atlanta, Ga., seeking to establish a professional singing career. She has adopted the stage name of Jesca. She is the daughter of Bruce and Jeanie Bartunek of rural Bruno. Her sister is Demi Bartunek of David City, and her brother is Jake Bartunek, a senior at Midland University in Fremont. In an interview conducted via email, Bartunek talked about her experiences pursuing a musical career. Q. Did you participate in music in high school? A. I was in chorus all four years. I had a solo performance my junior year, but I spent most of my extra time dedicated to sports. Q. Do you play any musical instruments? A. I am currently learning to play piano. My performance (for St. Marys) will be just vocal. Q. Does music play a role in your familys history? A. Yes, I come from a very musically inclined family. Mostly from my mothers side. I have vivid memories of my great grandmother calling us to come to the piano and watch her play. She plays by ear, which Ive always admired about her musically. My grandmother also writes and sings her own songs. She has quite a few songs published. I just recently learned after my grandpa Zane passed away that his siblings were also very musically inclined. My great uncle Bud played guitar by ear and my aunt Olive once played piano for the Lawrence Welk band. Q. What have you been doing to pursue a musical career since high school? A. I was offered a record deal at 19, but it wasnt right for me and who I am as an artist. I continued to write and record hooks (chorus) for other local artists, but not fully pursuing my own career in music again until March of this year. After a bad car accident in January, I decided to fully pursue my dream. I wrote and sent a song to my music mentor who is based in Atlanta. He played it for another writer/engineer. They both loved it. I flew out there three days later. At that moment, I didnt realize things would go as well as they had. After how disappointing everything played out with my first experience with the music industry, my perception of the industry was tainted. But it was so encouraging and enlightening to meet people with the same visions and goals as me. It was like a breath of fresh air. Their work ethic, raw talent, and ultimately, their respect and love for music was intriguing. I have been working with both of them, co-writing as a group since. Together, we are currently building a solid sound for me, recording and creating my EP (extended play album) which will consist of six-to-eight records. Q. How would you describe the kind of vocal music that you perform? A. My music will be labeled pop/soul. The song I decided to sing at the St. Mary's performance is actually the first song we recorded the day after I arrived in Atlanta. I chose it because even though lyrically it's just a simple and fun record, I have an emotional attachment to it because it's what set the tone for my music career. I would describe it as a free-spirited song. It has a very simple, settle (sic) and lighthearted sound, definitely a summer vibe. Q. Do you now live in the Atlanta area? A. I travel back and forth between Atlanta and Nebraska as of right now. Since I am in the recording process, the hours that I put in while Im gone for work are very sporadic, but also extremely exhausting. I work mostly every day, and sleep is considered almost a privilege. (Ha-ha.) Stability for my daughter is my number one priority, so moving isnt yet an option. Q. How are you having your music produced? A. I am not with a record company. I am funded, but I would be considered an Indy. I work currently with two other Atlanta based writers that have already made placements with current major artists. With this not being my first time working in the industry, I have a better understanding of how to operate, especially with wanting to be an independent artist. After weighing out my options, I have decided to remain Indy as long as I can. The journey could possibly be a little longer, but much more rewarding. I am very blessed with the position and opportunity I have been given. I am able to create and freely do music while expressing myself. There is always the business aspect to doing music. It is notorious for being a very scandalous and dangerous industry to be in. But when youre working with people you have built a foundation of trust and respect with, it eliminates a lot of those issues and concerns. Q. What contemporary musicians do you draw inspiration from? A. I have a very broad range of music taste. Growing up, I listened to almost every genre. Shania Twain was probably my very first idol. An artist that I feel has impacted me the most musically would be Lauryn Hill. Not only because her vocal range and tone is fitting with mine, but more so lyrically. Her music has always been relatable to me. It has influenced and helped me through personal situations. Q. Why did you offer to come back and perform at St. Mary's variety show? A. After coming back to Nebraska the first time from Atlanta, I kept a lot of what I had going on quiet, because I was worried of what may happen or what would be misconstrued. When things were a little more set in stone, I had informed a few people. I then realized how many people were supporting me and my pursuit of music. I was asked to perform and I felt that with the support I have received, what better way could I show my appreciation than to perform my first song for my hometown? Q. What will you sing for the variety show? A. The song I will be performing is called "Vibin. Q. Is there anything else we need to know about your music career at this time? A. When I know release dates for my music, I will be sure to let everyone know! By Noah Browning | DUBAI DUBAI A U.N. peace plan for Yemen seeks to deprive the country's armed Houthi movement of its missile arsenal which Yemeni security sources say includes scores and maybe even hundreds of Soviet-era ballistic missiles pointed at their foes in Saudi Arabia.But whether the Iran-allied group will abandon the missiles hidden in mountainous ravines which have given them regional clout despite 20 months of punishing war is an open question.The group possesses Scud missiles, shorter-range Tochka and anti-ship missiles, and unguided Grad and Katyusha rockets, the security sources told Reuters. It has even manufactured smaller home-made rockets with names like "Volcano" and "Steadfast".Retaining them could fortify the Houthis in a permanently armed enclave like fellow Iran-allied groups Hamas and Hezbollah - deepening the regional power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran and unnerving key shipping lanes such as the Gulf of Aden through which most of the world's oil is transported.Western and regional powers have long worried that complex internal rivalries and an active al Qaeda branch could push Yemen toward chaos - fears which largely materialised last year.A Saudi-led military coalition has staged thousands of air strikes on the Houthis since the group toppled the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and fanned out across the country in March 2015. While Iran has strongly denied aiding the Houthis, Saudi concerns that the Houthis are the proxies of their regional arch-rival sparked their intervention.FATE OF PLAN IN DOUBT The conflict has now killed 10,000 people while hunger and disease stalk the country which even before the war was awash with guns and plagued by poverty.But the Houthis may feel ceding Yemen's most powerful weapons to neutral officers and becoming a political party as envisioned by the U.N. plan may leave them vulnerable to attack."When the Houthis seized (the capital) Sanaa, they assumed total control of state institutions, key posts in the army and all the missiles," a senior Yemeni security official said, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity."Relinquishing the security apparatus will be the most important step toward what the country needs most - putting the state back together," the official added.A 48-hour ceasefire aimed at paving the way for peace talks and a unity government expired on Monday, the latest in a series of failed truces which leave the fate of the U.N. plan in doubt.Saudi-led bombings have repeatedly struck underground missile silos, sending mushroom clouds exploding over Sanaa. Early in the war, the coalition said it had destroyed 80 percent of the country's stockpile of 300 ballistic missiles. Yet the Houthis have managed to launch dozens of them at pro-government forces inside Yemen and at Saudi Arabia throughout the war, including just outside the holy city of Mecca some 600km (370 miles) north of the country. [nL8N1CY3MH]While Scuds are notoriously inaccurate and most appear to have been shot down by Saudi Patriot missiles acquired from the United States, the projectiles have unnerved Gulf Arab states.SEIZED FROM ARMY STORES Seized by the Houthis from army stores after their takeover, Yemen's missiles were amassed over the course of decades in legal acquisitions from the Soviet Union and North Korea.The Houthis have upgraded some missiles to maximise their range, and their technical savvy in local manufacture of smaller rockets and several deadly launches may suggest foreign help, military analysts say.A Tochka ballistic missile attack last September killed more than 60 Emirati, Saudi and Bahraini troops outside the central city of Marib and another killed the Saudi intelligence chief for Yemen and a senior Emirati officer in the southwest. Speaking to Reuters, an anti-Houthi tribal commander said his scouts spotted what they said were members of the Iranian-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah aiding the Marib strike. "My men reported spotting the missile launcher accompanied by several cars carrying Hezbollah advisers - we referred the information to the coalition but we got no response," the commander said, speaking on condition of anonymity.The spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, said it lacked evidence of a Hezbollah link to those attacks but believed the Houthis receive their help."We have information that there are Lebanese working with the (Houthi) militias belonging to Hezbollah ... We know they are there, we know they help them renew and maintain the missiles," Asseri told Reuters.Yemeni, Western and Iranian officials told Reuters that Iran has stepped up transfers of missiles and other weapons to the group in recent months. [nL1N1CQ0TL]Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman, a spokesman for Yemen's pro-Houthi military, denied in a statement this month that their forces had ever received Iranian aid.Iran and Hezbollah have also strongly denied aiding them.GATE OF TEARS Houthi missiles have also rattled shipping passing through the Bab al-Mandeb strait, Arabic for "Gate of Tears", on the Red Sea. The group fired a conventional ship missile at an Emirati military craft on Oct. 1 and a ballistic missile a week later at pro-government forces on tiny Mayun Island sitting astride the 25.6-km-wide (16-mile) waterway's narrowest point.The United States bombed radar stations along the Houthi-controlled coast after it said a U.S. warship in the strait was unsuccessfully attacked by several land-to-sea missiles - an accusation the Houthis denied."It's an extremely worrying sign, and the technology used from small speed boats to the missiles shows imitation, at the very least, of naval patterns Iran has used in the Gulf," said one diplomat, who declined to be identified.But expanding of the conflict seaward may seek to convince Saudi Arabia and its ally the United States that the Houthis refuse to cede their still-dominant political position inside Yemen despite the drawn-out and bloody conflict."It appears to be their way of saying, 'look over here, we're capable of internationalising this conflict - take our position seriously,'" another diplomat said.POWER STRUGGLE A peace plan hammered out by the United Nations has exiled Hadi effectively resigning in exchange for the Houthis quitting main cities and handing over arms to neutral army units.While Hadi fiercely opposes the scheme, diplomats and Yemeni officials say his coalition backers have tired of the stalemated conflict and could accept his exit, if it removed the Houthi military threat to their borders.The Houthis have accepted the U.N. deal, which would allow its seasoned fighters to retain their light weapons, something that could allow them to retain power in national politics."The Houthis have sought out guarantees that they won't face a sudden attack from within Yemen and that they will retain a major political role," a Yemeni diplomatic source told Reuters.A Houthi official suggested its refusal to demobilise was a patriotic resistance to foreign plots and guaranteed order. "It is important to note here the conspiracy against the missile forces in Yemen," Hamid Rizq wrote on the group's news website al-Masira last month. "(There has been) an American conspiracy to dismantle the Yemeni army through so-called 'restructuring' ... to pave the way for the spread of chaos." (Editing by William Maclean and Peter Millership) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Stephen Kalin | KHIDIR ILYAS, Iraq KHIDIR ILYAS, Iraq The history pages of Iraq's Christian community lie in charred fragments on the floor of a fourth-century monastery near Mosul which Islamic State militants ransacked during a two-year occupation that ended over the weekend.The jihadists at the Mar Behnam monastery burned a collection of books about Christian theology, scraped off inscriptions written in Syriac - the language used by Jesus - and demolished sculptures of the Virgin Mary and the monastery's patron saint.They removed the site's crosses and tried to erase any mention of Behnam, the son of an Assyrian king who, according to popular legend, built the monastery as penance for killing both his children after they converted to Christianity."Their fundamental goal was to destroy Christian history and civilization in the Nineveh plains," Duraid Elias, commander of the Babylon Brigades, a Christian militia that helped retake the site, told Reuters during a visit on Monday.The Nineveh plains, a sprawling region north and east of Mosul, are a mosaic of ethnic and religious communities with roots dating back to ancient Mesopotamia.The Sunni Muslim hardliners of Islamic State have targeted the adherents and religious sites of those minority groups across the area, which it seized in 2014 during a blitz across Iraq and neighbouring Syria.At the time, the group issued an ultimatum to Christians: pay a tax, convert to Islam, or die by the sword. Most fled towards the autonomous Kurdish region, including a few dozen monks who left Mar Behnam with only the clothes on their backs.As a 100,000-strong alliance of Iraqi forces now attempts to oust Islamic State from the city of Mosul, the scale of destruction in nearby Christian areas is gradually being documented.The jihadists had converted Mar Behnam, Iraq's largest monastery, into a headquarters for the Hisba -- morality police, which enforced strict rules against such things as smoking, men shaving their beards and women baring their faces in public, according to Elias. A sitting room had been turned into a medical clinic, and the monks' bedrooms were used to hold transgressors. A remote corner of the complex was filled with dozens of satellite dishes the commander said had been confiscated from residents nearby.Islamic State graffiti covers the monastery's walls, including the group's motto: "Remaining and expanding". Another scrawl includes the date Dec. 24, 2014 - one of two Christmases the jihadists spent in control of the site.Five weeks into Iraq's long-awaited offensive to retake Mosul, which itself once had a sizeable Christian population, the city is nearly surrounded, but government forces have established only a small foothold in a few eastern districts.Fighting has laid waste to entire towns and villages, while Islamic State booby-traps, including in and around the monastery, mean it could be months or even years before some residents can return home. EYE FOR AN EYE The Baghdad-backed Babylon Brigades are the type of force that Iraq's Western allies have pushed to participate in the Mosul campaign in an attempt to secure local support for the expected rollback of Islamic State.The Christian fighters at Mar Behnam monastery on Monday wore an assortment of military uniforms, carried large wooden crosses in their pickup trucks and flew banners including, incongruously, flags used by Iraq's powerful Shi'ite Muslim militias.Many of the gunmen sported black headbands declaring devotion to Jesus or the Virgin Mary, and one had affixed a religious icon to his bulletproof vest, next to a hand grenade and two single bullets. Elias, the commander, said his unit had fought alongside the Iraqi army to retake the monastery and the village of Khidir Ilyas where it is located. But the regular troops had since departed, leaving his men in apparent control of the area.After showing Reuters around the site as gunfire rang out in the distance, he welcomed six new volunteers into the Babylon Brigades, issuing them with uniforms and weapons in exchange for a simple vow to protect the area.His men, part of a dwindling population of Arab Christians across the Middle East, are driven by a desire to keep their community alive after Islamic State threatened to destroy it for good."We are proving to the world that Christians are not weak. We are stronger than they imagined," said Elias.He told Reuters his forces had so far demolished three or four homes thought to belong to Islamic State fighters in Khidir Ilyas to keep them from ever returning."There are others. We are going one by one: for every Christian house they blew up, we blow up a house next to it," he said from atop the monastery, pointing out one such pair of buildings."This is war. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." (Reporting by Stephen Kalin; editing by Giles Elgood) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. BOGOTA The leadership of Colombia's Marxist FARC rebel group arrived in Bogota on Monday for meetings ahead of the signing of a new peace agreement with the government to end a half century of war, the insurgent group said.The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been in talks in Havana, Cuba for the last four years, hammering out a deal to end a conflict that has killed more than 220,000 and displaced millions. The latest accord aims to satisfy objections made by millions of Colombians who voted down the original deal in a referendum last month. It is still not clear how the new accord will be approved, but it seems likely it will be ratified in Congress rather than via another plebiscite.President Juan Manuel Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last month for his efforts to end the war, is expected to sign the new document with FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, but the timing has not yet been announced."National secretariat of the FARC is in the city of Bogota for meetings about the implementation of the definitive accord," Nuevo Colombia, the FARC's press unit, said in a Tweet. It is not known where the rebel commanders will stay while they are in the capital, but security will be extremely tight.Santos said on Saturday that he will allow the new accord to be debated in Congress before it is approved and passed into law. The government last week published the revised deal, which addresses some of the objections to the original text, but leaves unchanged two of the thorniest complaints. The 310-page document clarified private property rights and detailed more fully how the rebels would be confined in rural areas for crimes committed during the war. But it did not include jail terms for rebel leaders or a ban on them holding public office. (Reporting by Helen Murphy; Editing by Jonathan Oatis) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Buenos Aires: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be meaningless without US participation, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday as US President-elect Donald Trump said he would withdraw the United States from the pan-Pacific free trade deal. Abe, who attended a gathering of TPP leaders in Lima on Saturday, said there was no discussion at the meeting that other members should try to put the TPP into effect without the United States, Abe told reporters in BueDonald Trump to end TPP on the first day; Shinzo Abe says trade pact meaningless without USnos Aires. "The TPP would be meaningless without the United States," Abe said. Trump released a video on Monday laying out actions he would take on his first day in office on 20 January, including withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump campaigned for the US presidency on a promise to pull out of the 12-nation trade deal, calling it a job-killing "disaster". He also said he would issue a rule cutting government regulations, direct the Labor Department to investigate abuses of visa programmes and cancel some restrictions on energy production, including shale oil and gas and coal. Abe, who met Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to discuss economic cooperation and a decades-old territorial row, stressed at the Buenos Aires news conference his resolve to put an end to the island dispute under his leadership. "This is the problem that cannot be solved without the relationship of trust between leaders," Abe said. "I will be directly communicating with President Putin and make progress one solid step at a time." The territorial row over the chain of western Pacific islands, seized by Soviet troops at the end of World War II, has upset diplomatic ties ever since, precluding a formal peace treaty between Tokyo and Moscow. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey, was in Pakistan last week at the invitation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and both the leaders were buoyant with the visit as it possibly gave a temporary reprieve to the Pakistani prime minister , currently battling out the khaki and political foes to put his own divided house in order as also to come out of the diplomatic isolation following Uri misadventures. For Erdogan too, it was a token of superficial solace because Turkey is equally facing a slew of problems including halfhearted response to a series of terror attacks and incessant threats to his government's survival in the aftermath of brazen attempts to overthrow his government in league with a section of the military opposed to Erdogan. Pursuing their policy of "I scratch your back, you scratch mine," Erdogan was given the honour of addressing Pakistan's joint session of parliament. It was not, however, Erdogan's maiden address. In the past also, he had tried his oratory on the floor of the Pakistani House. Yet what is striking in Erdogan 's rhetoric is his indiscreet, imprudent and uncalled for remarks on Kashmir. To quote him ad verbatim, "our brothers and sisters in Kashmir are suffering because of the escalating tension along the LoC and Kashmir, which can no longer be ignored. The Kashmir issue needs to find a solution." On Kashmir, Erdogan's outburst doesn't end here. The Turkish leader further added, "when people look for mediators , why don't they talk to me ? I have great mediation skills . Look at how I have effectively dealt with the Kurdish problem." Both the quotes must have been parroted by Erdogan as scripted by the Pakistan side. Obviously, being friendless, such feeble statements are articulated, especially in a joint session of the parliament, to make up for lost grounds happening due to immature diplomacy and myopic policy practised in Islamabad . Notably, the military top brass of Pakistan was also present at the parliament session . It might have required more belligerent 'India bashing' on Kashmir, leading to the second part of the quotation as stated above. It comes as no surprise, then, that to score brownie points, Erdogan offered to mediate, claiming to be possessed with great mediation skills, bragging further to have effectively mediated to deal with the Kurdish problem. This claim is indeed unfounded as Erdogan's unleashing of terror to suppress any Kurdish uprising is securely preserved in the archives with footages. The atrocities perpetrated by Erdogan to stifle Kurdish voice is very much afloat in the international domain . To buttress our argument, let's touch upon the anti-Kurdish violent tirade, sponsored in Cizre, Diyarbakir etc, located 20 km from the Syrian-Kurdish borders. Human rights activists maintain that Erdogan is exterminating Kurds all over Turkey. At least 200 offices of pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party have been recently burned down. Kurdish MP Felekna's Uca, sometime ago, accused the government of killing 150 Kurdish civilians. Mr Erdogan, it does not behove a head of state of your stature to meddle and poke your ugly nose in Kashmir when your own hands are tainted with Kurdish blood stains . Both, Nawaz Sharif and Erdogan are under the shadow of terror. Bahawalpur, Quetta and Balochistan are struck with terror acts at regular intervals. Pakistan looks hapless and clueless. Security sceptics are at a loss as to how Turkey's military and strategic cooperation with Pakistan will help fight terror. Turkey too in the recent past faced the deadliest of terrors attacks involving capital Ankara and other places closer to Islamic State strongholds near Syria. Significantly, vital installations have been effectively targeted, especially Presidential complex, National Assembly and other military infrastructure. Erdogan does not appear to do much to rein in terror, same as Sharif. Also, fierce terror attacks in the Istanbul airport not so long ago exhibits a complete collapse of Turkish security and intelligence apparatus. Some segments of the powerful military have been penetrated and subverted. Turkish excesses in Cyprus, Azerbaijan and Armenia are condoned by Pakistan. As quid pro quo, Turkey is supporting Pakistan for its membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Both the countries have a Free Trade Agreement aiming to raise bilateral trade volume to $10 billion. Further, there are strong defence ties between the two countries which includes joint naval exercises. In a friendless world (China excluded), Pakistan is happy that there is some one holding its hand. But it is a hollowed consolation bereft of any substance. Pakistan is also upbeat on Erdogan's stand in holding a plebiscite under the UN to decide Kashmir's intention to join Pakistan. PoK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider expressed profound gratitude to Erdogan for supporting Pakistan on Kashmir. Haider felt the visiting dignitary's statement is a morale booster for the PoK. Haider must know this excitement and euphoria are short lived and likely to be forgotten very soon. Erdogan and Sharif may continue to host each other, keep warming up airing unjust views in parliament joint sittings and rejoice over a 'successful' visit . The overtures have not worked nor do they have the promise for any fruition, especially on Kashmir. In the next opportunity of such sessions, Erdogan must display some sanity and wisdom by refraining from mentioning Kashmir. He should know that Kashmir is very much an integral part of India and playing ball with Pakistan on this sensitive issue will backfire . Pervez Musharraf had his childhood in Turkey and wanted Pakistan to be modelled on Turkey as envisioned and proved by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Sadly, we did not see any move by Musharraf to modernise Pakistan: It thrived with fundamentalism and fanaticism leading to terrorism of monstrous proportions. Back in Turkey, Erdogan is pursuing regressive policies, making religion the central point. That too is bound to boomerang. Both Pakistani and Turkish leaders must abhor component of religion-linked politics and behave like statesmen rather than petty politicians taking a regressive path, undoing what Kemal Ataturk had achieved. The world is watching Turkey making extra efforts to qualify for the EU membership. However, EU hardliners are in no mood to induct Turkey, considering it as a pariah state now kept at an arm's length by Angela Merkel Hollande and team. At best, EU may, for tactical reasons, use Turkey to deal with IS cadres . Erdogan should also remember that Fetullah Terror Organisation (FeTO) is still a force to reckon with and has the capacity to pinprick Erdogan whenever it wants. The outfit has presence all over the world. It had amply demonstrated its prowess in the not-so-distant past by jolting Erdogan, engineering a powerful coup. Recurrence of such misadventures remain a possibility. Under the circumstances, Turkey and Pakistan need to safeguard their political survival first by neutralising their adversaries who seem to be multiple and they are ensconced within. To harp the old tune on Kashmir is a sheer wastage of time. Sorting out Kurd rebels may be Erdogan's priority. And Nawaz Sharif, on his part, should address the joint session of the Turkish Parliament, touching upon plight of the Kurds for their self determination and dignity. (The writer is a retired IPS officer, a security analyst and columnist. Views are personal.) MISRATA, Libya Libyan forces said they pushed forward on Tuesday into the last sliver of territory held by Islamic State in its former North African stronghold of Sirte, seizing a number of barricaded houses.Hours before the push, the forces published video online showing one of their fighters shouting out messages through a loud hailer urging women and children to leave the area and promising them safe passage.Backed by U.S. air strikes, brigades dominated by fighters from the city of Misrata have been edging forward against militants trapped in an area a few hundred metres wide next to Sirte's Mediterranean coast. "The Islamic State gangs are trying desperately to resist up until their last breath," said Rida Issa, a spokesman for the forces.Their six-month campaign has slowed as they have got closer to fully recapturing Sirte, with militants using sniper positions, sand-filled barricades and tunnels to defend their positions against shelling and air strikes. [nL8N1DL05L] The Misrata-led forces said there were more than 30 militants among the dead since fighting resumed on Monday, and that they had lost at least three of their own men.Overnight, they published video footage of one of their fighters on a rooftop overlooking the area, shouting out: "All women and children leave now if you want to live, don't miss this chance.""Let them go now, there is safe passage, the battle is over," he adds, addressing the militants. Several groups of civilians, including captured sub-Saharan migrants, have either escaped or been released from the area held by Islamic State over recent weeks. It is not clear how many militants or civilians remain.As of Saturday, the U.S. had carried out 398 strikes against Islamic State in Sirte, according to a statement from U.S. Africa Command. Islamic State took full control of Sirte early last year. It expanded its control along about 250 km (155 miles) of Libya's sparsely populated central coastline before local forces began their campaign in May.Losing Sirte will leave Islamic State with no territory in Libya, though some militants are believed to have escaped in the early stages of the battle. (Reporting by Ahmed Elumami; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Andrew Heavens) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Arbil: More than 68,000 people have fled their homes since Iraqi forces launched a huge offensive against the Islamic State group in and around Mosul last month, the UN said Tuesday. The figure increased significantly over the past week as forces battled deep into the densely populated city, but it falls short of pre-offensive predictions. "68,550 people are currently displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance," the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement. OCHA said the aid response to the offensive launched against the jihadists on 17 October was growing in complexity, with varying needs for different categories of civilians. "Humanitarian needs are severe among displaced families in and out of camps, vulnerable residents of retaken communities, and people fleeing the intense fighting in Mosul city," it said. A million-plus civilians were thought to still live inside Mosul, the country's second city and the jihadists' last major bastion in Iraq, before the operation was launched. The UN had initially predicted that 200,000 civilians could be forced from their homes in the first few weeks of the offensive, Iraq's biggest military operation in years. More Myanmar citizens continue to flee into border nations of China and Bangladesh after fighting between ethnic armed groups and government security forces in the north of Myanmar continues. Four ethnic armed groups have attacked security forces in the north of Myanmar, dealing a major blow to leader Aung San Suu Kyi's top goal of reaching peace with ethnic minorities. Myanmar citizens take shelter in China China said that it is giving shelter to more than 3,000 people who have fled Myanmar after fighting between the government and rebels, and stray shells have fallen inside Chinese territory causing minor damage but no deaths, state media said on Tuesday. China, which has been alarmed by the fighting along the porous border, has put its armed forces on high alert and called for all sides to exercise restraint. The official China Daily said injured people among the 3,000 Myanmar citizens have been taken to hospital in the southwestern province of Yunnan, which shares a long border with Myanmar. "The Chinese authority has responded swiftly and handled the situation appropriately," Pan Xuesong, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Myanmar, told the newspaper. Stray shells have fallen in Wanding, an important border crossing, causing some minor damage, state television added. The Global Times newspaper also said a Chinese government building in Wanding had been lightly damaged. China's Foreign Ministry said on Monday that at least one Chinese resident had also been injured. Myanmar citizens take shelter in Bangladesh Over the weekend and on Monday, hundreds of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar crossed the border to Bangladesh, aid workers said, seeking shelter from escalating violence in the north-west that has killed at least 86 people and displaced some 30,000. An official from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations' migration agency, who did not want to be identified, said he had witnessed more than 500 people enter its camps in the hills near the border on Monday. Aid workers from other United Nations agencies and Reuters reporters in the IOM camps also reported seeing Rohingyas who said they had recently fled the fighting in Myanmar. The UN workers did not give specific numbers but expressed concern about a sudden influx of people. The bloodshed is the most serious since hundreds were killed in communal clashes in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine in 2012, and is posing the biggest test yet for the eight-month-old administration of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Soldiers have poured into the area along Myanmar's frontier with Bangladesh, responding to coordinated attacks on three border posts on 9 October that killed nine police officers, Reuters said. Moulavi Aziz Khan, 60, from a village in northern Rakhine, said he left Myanmar last week after the military surrounded his home and set fire to it. "At that time, I fled with my four daughters and three grandsons to a nearby hill ... later, we managed to cross the border," he said. Myanmar's military and the government have rejected allegations by residents and rights groups that soldiers have raped Rohingya women, burnt houses and killed civilians during the military operation in Rakhine. New York-based Human Rights Watch said at the weekend satellite images taken on 10, 17 and 18 November showed 820 destroyed buildings in five villages in northern Rakhine, bringing the total number it says it has documented to 1,250. Checking reports Earlier, Myanmar's government has also rejected previous reports of Rohingya civilians trying to escape to Bangladesh. Zaw Htay, presidential spokesman and a member of the newly-formed information taskforce on Rakhine, said the government continued to investigate such reports but had not so far been able to substantiate any of them. "We checked with the military and police about people fleeing to Bangladesh since 9 October. Some people fled from their villages, but we put them back to their villages," he said. "If something like that happened, we are concerned and we will continue to investigate. We are not rejecting all allegations...our government always checks all the allegations, and some were found to be untrue." Myanmar's army has declared an "operations zone" in mainly Muslim northern Rakhine, where it says it is battling Islamist-inspired Rohingya insurgents, and it is not possible for international reporters to enter the area to verify claims. Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya, viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh by many of the country's majority Buddhists, are denied citizenship and face severe restrictions on their travel. Up to 30,000 people are now estimated to be displaced and thousands more affected by the recent fighting, the UN has said. Humanitarian operations that had been providing food, cash, and nutrition to more than 150,000 people have been suspended for more than 40 days. The UN refugee agency called on the Myanmar government for access to allow it to distribute aid. "The idea is to help them where they are so that they wouldn't be forced to cross over into Bangladesh," Vivian Tan, regional public information officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told Reuters Television. "If they can't get the assistance where they are then if they are forced to cross into another country like Bangladesh, we're really appealing to the Bangladeshi government to honour its long tradition of hospitality and open its borders to these refugees." COLUMBUS An 18-year-old Columbus woman is headed to jail for her involvement in a high-speed chase last spring. Platte County District Court Judge Robert Steinke sentenced Tiffany Yates to 60 days in the Platte County Detention Facility for her role in the May 1 pursuit that in September sent her boyfriend, Garrett Spence, to prison for three to five years. Yates pleaded guilty to attempted aiding the commission of a Class IV felony, which is a Class I misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. The local woman was initially accused of aiding and abetting a Class 2A felony and conspiracy to commit a Class III felony, charges that carried penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment. Steinke gave Yates credit for 11 days served in jail in the case. The judge said Spence was riding a methamphetamine-fueled high that put the lives of others in jeopardy during the pursuit when he sentenced the local man to prison in early September. Spence was convicted of operating a motor vehicle to avoid arrest, possession of a stolen firearm and conspiracy to distribute marijuana. According to court documents, the 20-minute chase began at 10:21 p.m. when Columbus Police Officer Dale Ciboron spotted the vehicle Spence was driving in the 4700 block of Howard Boulevard. The vehicle, which had a taillight that wasn't working, was taken without permission from Yates' mother earlier in the evening, according to court documents. The SUV drove through a couple of residential yards in Columbus before Spence fled northbound on 48th Avenue. The pursuit reached speeds around 80 mph on rain-soaked gravel roads north of the city and back toward Columbus. Police reported the SUV reached speeds of more than 100 mph on paved roads before police successfully deployed a spike strip near 48th Avenue and Lost Creek Parkway, flattening the tires on the vehicle that continued south on the avenue. The vehicle stopped near Cubby's at 48th Avenue and 27th Street, where the suspects were taken into custody. Damascus: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hailed the Russian stance on fighting terror in Syria on Tuesday, saying such a stance proves Moscow's "natural status" as a superpower. "The Russian policies, whether at the international level or the war on terror in Syria, prove Moscow's natural status as a superpower based on its principles, values and adherence to the international law," Xinhua news agency quoted Assad as saying during his meeting with the Russian delegation in Damascus. The president further underlined the importance of Russian support to Syria at all levels, particularly economically as it contributed to alleviating the suffering of the Syrian people, who have been reeling under economic sanctions for years. Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and head of the Russian delegation to Syria Dmitry Rogozin said the main goal behind the military, economic and political support provided to Damascus is to reinforce the Syrian people in the face of terrorism. Russia has been a staunch ally of the Assad administration, shielding the Syrian government in the UN Security Council against many punitive resolutions adopted by the Western powers. Moreover, the Russian army has also stepped into the Syrian conflict, backing the Syrian army with air power and logistic support. By Roberta Rampton | NEW YORK NEW YORK U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was keeping an open mind on whether to pull out of a landmark international accord to fight climate change, in a softening of his stance toward global warming.Trump told the New York Times in an interview that he thinks there is "some connectivity" between human activity and global warming, despite previously describing climate change as a hoax.A source on Trump's transition team told Reuters earlier this month that the New York businessman was seeking quick ways to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement to combat climate change. But asked on Tuesday whether the United States would withdraw from the accord, the Republican said: Im looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it." A U.S. withdrawal from the pact, agreed to by almost 200 countries, would set back international efforts to limit rising temperatures that have been linked to the extinctions of animals and plants, heat waves, floods and rising sea levels. .Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, also said he was thinking about climate change and American competitiveness and "how much it will cost our companies, he said, according to a tweet by a Times reporter in the interview.Two people advising Trumps transition team on energy and environment issues said they were caught off guard by his remarks. A shift on global warming is the latest sign Trump might be backing away from some of his campaign rhetoric as life in the Oval Office approaches.Trump has said he might have to build a fence, rather than a wall, in some areas of the U.S.-Mexican border to stop illegal immigration, tweaking one of his signature campaign promises. Also in Tuesday's interview, he showed little appetite for pressing investigations of his Democratic rival in the presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton.I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways," he told reporters, editors and other newspaper officials at the Times headquarters in Manhattan. But Trump said "no" when asked if he would rule out investigating Clinton over her family's charitable foundation or her use of a private email server while she was U.S. secretary of state during President Barack Obama's first term.If Trump does abandon his campaign vow to appoint a special prosecutor for Clinton, it will be a reversal of a position he mentioned almost daily on the campaign trail, when he dubbed his rival "Crooked Hillary," and crowds at his rallies often chanted: "Lock her up." The FBI investigated Clinton's email practices, concluding in July that her actions were careless but that there were no grounds for bringing charges. The Clinton Foundation charity has also been scrutinized for donations it received, but there has been no evidence that foreign donors obtained favours from the State Department while Clinton headed it.BUSINESSMAN AND PRESIDENT Trump, a real estate developer who has never held public office, brushed off fears over conflicts of interest between his job as president and his family's businesses. "The law's totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest," he told the New York Times. My company's so unimportant to me relative to what I'm doing," Trump said.Trump's businesswoman daughter Ivanka joined her father's telephone call with Argentine President Mauricio Macri earlier this month and attended a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, raising questions of possible conflicts of interest.When asked whether House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans in Congress would consider his trillion-dollar infrastructure plan, Trump boasted he was popular with the party's leaders on Capitol Hill. Right now, theyre in love with me," he said. After lambasting Obama for months as a failed leader unfit to be president, the Republican president-elect found kinder words on Tuesday for the man he will succeed in the White House."I didn't know if I'd like him. I probably thought that maybe I wouldnt, but I did. I really enjoyed him a lot," Trump said in the Times interview. (Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus and Amy Tennery in New York, and Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey and Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Frances Kerry and Peter Cooney) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Saif Hameed and Stephanie Nebehay | BAGHDAD/GENEVA BAGHDAD/GENEVA U.S. forces backing an Iraqi army campaign against Islamic State in Mosul carried out an air strike on a bridge spanning the Tigris river, restricting militant movements between western and eastern parts of the city, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.U.S.-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service forces are pushing deeper into east Mosul, the last major city controlled by the Sunni hard-line group in Iraq, while army and police units, Shi'ite militias and Kurdish fighters surround it to the west, south and north.Militants have steadily retreated into Mosul from outlying areas. The army's early advances have slowed as militants dig in, using the more than 1 million civilians inside the city as a shield, moving through tunnels, and hitting troops with suicide bombers, snipers and mortar fire.Five bridges span the Tigris that runs through Mosul. They have all been mined and boobytrapped by militants who took over the city two years ago as they swept through northern Iraq and declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.Despite planting the mines, Islamic State fighters have so far been able to continue using those bridges which have not yet been destroyed by air strikes. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said on Tuesday an air strike hit the number four bridge, the southernmost, in the past 48 hours."This effort impedes Daesh's freedom of movement in Mosul. It inhibits their ability to resupply or reinforce their fighters throughout the city," he said using an Arabic acronym for the militant group.A month ago, a U.S. air strike destroyed the No. 2 bridge in the centre of the city and two weeks later another strike took out the No. 5 bridge to the north. The United Nations' International Organisation for Migration expressed concern that the destruction of the bridges could obstruct the evacuation of civilians. "That is a concern of IOM because this is going to leave hundreds of thousands without a quick way out of the combat," spokesman Joel Millman told reporters in Geneva. COMMANDERS CAPTURED The battle for Mosul, launched five weeks ago, is turning into the largest military campaign in more than a decade of conflict in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi military estimates around 5,000 Islamic State fighters are in Mosul. A 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government forces, Kurdish fighters and Shi'ite paramilitary units is surrounding the city. Mosul's capture would be a major step towards dismantling the caliphate, and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to have withdrawn to a remote area near the Syrian border, has told his fighters to stay and fight to the end.Counter terrorism units and an army armoured division are the only forces to have breached the city limits from the eastern side. Other army and federal police units have yet to enter the northern and the southern sides.A Kurdish security source said on Tuesday four Islamic State commanders were captured in a U.S. special operation near Baaj, a town close to the Syrian border. Baghdadi was not among them. The coalition did not confirm the operation.Islamic State said it launched an attack on the north-western front of Mosul, seizing a duty free zone and oil depots located a dozen kilometres from the city limits. The army did not confirm the claim.Iranian-backed militias have captured the Tal Afar air base, west of Mosul, part of their campaign to choke off the route between the Syrian and Iraqi parts of the caliphate Islamic State declared in 2014. The number of people displaced by the fighting in and around Mosul has slightly decreased, an indication that some people have began returning home in places retaken by government forces, according to the IOM."68,112 displaced is actually a downtick from couple of days ago," said Millman. It's "worth noting because it indicates that some people are already starting to return to safe areas in the region."The number of registered displaced people was over 68,500 on Monday. The figure does not include the thousands of people rounded up in villages around Mosul and forced to accompany Islamic State fighters to cover their retreat towards the city. An Iranian-backed Shi'ite group taking part in the offensive denied a Human Rights Watch report that it detained and beat 10 shepherds, including a boy, from a village near Mosul on November 3.Human Rights Watch on Tuesday said the League of the Righteous, or Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, also stole the village's entire flock of sheep. "These reports are completely wrong, they aim to stall the operation" against Islamic State, said Asa'ib's military spokesman Jawad al-Talabawi.The Iraqi government has not published an overall death toll for the offensive, whether among military or civilians. The warring sides claim to have killed thousands in enemy ranks. (Writing by Patrick Markey and Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Dominic Evans) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. COLUMBUS The Columbus Area Philanthropy Council recognized the act of giving back Monday evening. The Raimondo Family Foundation and the late Barbara Gerhold were recognized for the work they've done to impact Columbus. Called an extraordinary gift by Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce President K.C. Belitz, the Raimondo Family Foundation has helped support local projects. The foundation and another anonymous family gave $1.2 million for the Columbus Quality of Life Centers, matching the amount pledged by the Omaha-based Sherwood Foundation. During the award presentation at Pinnacle Bank in Village Centre, Belitz said that funding will benefit many organizations and individuals in the community. The Raimondo Family Foundation kick-started an effort to bring outside funding to Columbus for projects such as the STEM academy at the new Columbus High School, library/cultural arts center and relocation of Columbus Family YMCA to the Columbus Wellness Center. Belitz said those gifts will leave a lasting impression on the community. The Raimondo Family Foundation received the Philanthropist of the Year Award for its impact. Accepting the award on the familys behalf was Phil Raimondo. He said his family is trying to do their part to better the community. We couldnt pass this opportunity up as a family. There is no better return on an investment than to put our money into the community with these types of investments, Raimondo said. Receiving the Legacy Award was Gerhold, who passed away in January 2015 and was a big supporter of Catholic education. John Schueth, development director at Scotus Central Catholic, said Gerhold donated more than $500,000 to the schools endowment fund to provide perpetual support for the fund used to balance the budget and establish the William and Barbara Gerhold Family Teacher of the Year award. The annual award provides a $5,000 stipend to a Catholic school teacher in Columbus. Since it was established, 18 teachers have received the award. In the last 18 years, Schueth said the endowed donations have provided nearly $380,000 in support of local Catholic schools. Gerhold also was a supporter of capital campaigns and fundraisers for schools, including the Scotus Gala. She sponsored a student at St. Augustines Indian Mission in Winnebago and supported the education for two Catholic seminarians. She also provided funding for a nursing scholarship at Columbus Community Hospital. Her daughter Anne McCoy, who accepted the award for Gerhold, said her mother attended a private Catholic girls school and a religious-based education remained important to her. McCoy said her mother made it a point to be present when the teacher of the year award was presented. She described her mom as a shy person, someone who would probably be embarrassed to get recognized with an award because she didnt seek the spotlight. Gerhold simply supported the endeavors she and her husband, who passed away 18 years ago, thought were important. They were all the things they thought of together, and she carried that on after dad died, McCoy said. COLUMBUS Maia Velecela is going to be busy stitching quilts. She and a friend will spend the next several weeks creating a special quilt with zippers, Velcro and textured fabrics. Called fidget quilts, the lap-sized blankets will be donated to local assisted-living facilities and given to residents with dementia. I think most people in senior centers, especially ones with different kinds of dementia, kind of feel forgotten and I wanted to do something so they know people are thinking about them, Velecela said. The 12-year-old and her friend plan on making 30 of the quilts to help comfort a person with dementia with the different textures. She is undertaking the project through the Youth Philanthropy Contest, an annual event that provides financial support for the ideas of young people in the community. Velecela's quilts are one of four projects that will receive $1,000 each this year from the Columbus Area Philanthropy Council. All of the projects were on display Monday evening at Pinnacle Bank in the Village Centre during the presentation of the Columbus Area Philanthropy Councils annual awards. The other youth projects are: Recess for Mom and Dad. This project helps support families who struggle to find respite care for high-needs dependents. Hair Care with Flair. The project provides special hair products and training for cancer patients during their treatment period. Improve Girl Scout Park. This project will upgrade the park north of Castners Crossing by Lake Babcock with picnic tables, a fire pit and concrete slab. The project will be completed by Girl Scout Troop 50331. Two partially funded projects include Helping Kids in the Community, which provides comfort/school packages for children served through Center for Survivors, and Birthday in a Box, which gives birthday boxes to low-income children. Five other projects in need of funding also were displayed at the event in hopes of getting financial support. Those projects include providing supplies and training for teen parents, buying pet starter kits for newly adopted animals, collecting cognitive game boards and activities for the YMCA, purchasing drones for the after-school program and financing an Andrew Jackson Higgins Memorial landscaping Eagle Scout project. The times they are a changing and so are user preferences. As the vast number of Chinese entrants condition users to larger sizes and a whole host of features and/or gimmicks usually reserved for much higher end models, established entities like Sony and Samsung face an uphill battle to make a case for their offerings. As we saw in our review of the Sony KD-55X9300D, the industry leaders are bringing out the big guns to show why they might still be the better choice. Design The KD-65Z9D has a no-nonsense design that puts the display front, right and center. Narrow bezels all around lay focus on the minimalist design. The marginal bezel running around is unbroken by speaker grilles and buttons. A Sony logo is placed at the center of the bottom bezel and an LED shines below it indicating the current status of the television. The base stand, should you choose to use it, is a thing of beauty and adopts a wedge like shape that seemingly elevates the entire display panel. Indeed, the panel appears to float above the mount. The 10W bottom firing speakers hence remain unobstructed and prove to be sufficiently loud but well talk about those shortly. At its thickest point, the KD-65Z9D is about 78mm thick, considerably less around the edges though. Gold bezels with an elegant slit runs around the display and adds an extra design flair. The gold bezels gently swell over to the back with a grid like pattern. The rear pattern is something that really wont be visible in most cases but it is nice to see the attention to detail here. Hardware Inputs Most of the commonly used input ports are placed on rear left corner and you can access additional ports placed under a cover. This does however create a problem in the sense that attaching additional HDMI devices will require you to keep the cover removed. Then again, this is at the back of the television which isnt really visible so it shouldnt be a cause for concern. Wed have hoped for a better solution from Sony though. Externally exposed, the television comes equipped with a single HDMI port, composite video input, RF input, ethernet jack, digital audio out, headphone output as well as three USB ports. Under the cover are three more HDMI ports, single hybrid component input. Clearly, the television is well equipped in terms of ways of getting your content onto the display. Theres of course Google Cast support thanks to the Android TV OS as well as built-in WiFi, WiFi Direct and Miracast. Display Quality After a certain threshold, it becomes really hard to find a bad television but when youre investing the kind of money that Sony demands for the KD-65Z9D, you want something truly fantastic. To answer your question, yes the television completely delivers on the promise. Sony has been very vocal about the 4K HDR Processor X1 Extreme and the Backlight Master Drive built into the panel. Marketing jargon aside, the HDR Processor X1 Extreme delivers very effective upscaling of SDR HD content to near 4K HDR visuals. This is particularly important in the Indian market where 4K content and HDR more so is very hard to find. Upscaling in general is quite effective thought theres only that much you can do if you are using standard definition footage. The Triluminos Panel and 4K X-Reality Pro engines particularly shine when viewing native 4K content. We tried some stock 4K footage played over a USB drive as well as 4K content from Netflix to test out the panel and there was little that we could complain about. The large display paired with the pixel perfect rendition makes watching movies and other content an absolute pleasure. Software Like the 55 inch television KD-55X9300D, the KD-65Z9D too run Android TV. Based on Android Marshmallow, this time around the processor is a Mediatek MT5891 which combines 4 Cortex A53 processors with a Mali T860 GPU. Processor specifications shouldnt really matter in a television but theres a point to be made about how much better the Android TV experience is on the 65Z9D. Running on Android TV, you get access to the Play Store as well which gives you access to a whole range of apps and games. Performance is absolutely satisfactory for the most part though occasionally we came across the limitations of having just 2GB of RAM. When playing high-definition content through apps like Kodi, there were a few occasions where we observed frame drops and stutters due to a filled up cache. This is a factor to keep in mind if you plan to watch a lot of offline content through external drives. Talking about hard drives, the television can read FAT, exFAT and NTFS drives with ease. Preinstalled apps include SonyLive, Netflix, SerialAbTak, Sony Select, Opera Browser and shortcut links to download a whole bunch of games. A few of these are useful but a lot arent. You can get rid of most of these. When it comes to games, it is a simple affair to plug in a gamepad or Dualshock 3 controller to enjoy almost console class gaming. Of course it is also possible to play basic games using the television remote control. Finally, while the likes of Hotstar dont have an Android TV application, you can simply use the Chromecast functionality built into the television to view your content on the large screen. Audio Dual 10 watt down firing speakers are built into the screen and prove to be sufficiently loud. For general content like news or sports, the speakers are good enough but they are certainly not becoming of a television like this. Loud music, bass heavy content causes a lot of cracking and for obvious reasons you miss out on immersiveness. Do yourself a favor and get yourself a quality surround sound audio system to make the best of the screen. Remote The TV ships with a pretty large remote that runs off two AAA batteries. n addition to the regular television controls, the remote also has direct shortcuts for Google Play Movies and Netflix. While it is nice to have these shortcuts, wed have preferred it if the controls were programmable instead. Beyond that the, the same remote doubles up as a way to control the Android TV interface. A button near the top activates the built-in microphone allowing you to perform all the voice related functions built into Android TV. Conclusion Theres little doubt about the fact that you should invest in the KD-65Z9D if you are looking at acquiring the absolute cutting edge in display technology. 4K HDR capabilities, absolutely stunning viewing angles as well as pixel perfect color reproduction on a massive 65 inch panel certainly help justify the significant cost of the television. The Sony KD-65Z9D is priced at Rs. 5,04,900 which places it entirely in the enthusiast territory but if you value picture quality, then this is amongst the best that you can get. Between the KD-65Z9D, Samsungs Series 9 SUHD televisions as well as LGs OLED panels, this is a great time for cinephiles looking to build their own home theatre systems. In a bid to compete with Jio, Reliance Communications has launched a new plan that offers unlimited voice calls for Rs. 149 per month. Customers can make unlimited calls to any phone on any telecom network across the country, including STD calls under this new plan. In addition to unlimited voice calls, customers get 300MB data with the plan that is available across the 2G, 3G and 4G technology platforms. The company says there are still hundreds of millions of older 2G handset-owners in India and the newly launched 149 UNLIMITED plan will help migration of these customers to its network, along with 300 MB of data usage. Gurdeep Singh, Co-CEO, Reliance Communications and CEO of RCOMs Consumer Business, said, Our new pioneering yet simple Unlimited Plan has the potential to trigger a paradigm shift in the way Indians recharge their mobile phones, creating a significant shift in the telecom marketas it moves away from the Unit Rate charging regime to a Single Recharge and Unlimited Usage regime. It enables customers with any kind of handset to have unlimited calling time across the country, in addition to data access on all 2G, 3G and 4G handsets. Our Unlimited Plan will see millions of Indians benefit, and help RCOM ramp up its customer base and engage with higher-value customers and greater ARPUs. Last week, Reliance Communications launched RGC India app for international calls starting from Rs. 1.4 per minute. Canadian oil company Baytex Energy (BTEG.F 2.01%) recently reported solid, though unspectacular, third-quarter results. While the company is battling against very harsh operating conditions, it is making progress in several key areas. That is evident by the comments of CEO Jim Bowzer on the company's third-quarter conference call, where he detailed three achievements. 1. Spending money where it matters most One area that Bowzer highlighted was the company's operating results. As he pointed out: Our emphasis on deploying capital efficiently was evident during the third quarter as we continue to curtail our level of capital spending and focus all development activity in the Eagle Ford. In the third quarter, our exploration and development expenditure totaled $40 million as compared to $36 million in the second quarter and $82 million in the first quarter. Bowzer noted that Baytex continues to limit its capital spending to the Eagle Ford shale because that is where it can achieve the best returns. At the current mid-$40 oil price, the company can earn more than 50% drilling returns in the Eagle Ford compared to sub-25% returns at its two heavy oil properties in Canada. However, despite the lucrative returns, Bowzer noted that the company continues to keep a lid on spending to conserve cash given its tight financial situation as well as how volatile oil has been this year. 2. Continuing to capture cost savings One of the reasons the company's returns are so lucrative in the Eagle Ford is due to the cost savings it has achieved over the past two years. Bowzer noted: Costs in the Eagle Ford have continued to decrease with wells now being drilled, completed, and equipped for approximately $5.2 million per well, compared to $8.2 million in late 2014. The prevailing commodity price environment has not supported drilling on our Canadian assets in 2016. However, we continue to actively build on the 20% cost reductions we achieved in 2015 and strengthen the size and quality of our prospect inventory. If not for the $3 million in well costs reductions, it is quite likely that Baytex would not have been able to justify drilling any Eagle Ford wells this year, which has been the fate of its Canadian operations. That said, just because the company cannot justify drilling in Canada doesn't mean that it is not working to get those costs down so that it can resume drilling when conditions improve. However, it is worth noting that some of its rivals have already started to take advantage of the falling costs in Canada to increase heavy oil drilling activity. Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ 0.70%), for example, drilled 85 net heavy oil wells last quarter, reversing its 2014 decision to reduce the primary heavy oil drilling program. The net result is that Canadian Natural Resources' primary heavy oil production was down just 1% sequentially, which puts it closer to reversing a decline that saw production slip 6% sequentially during the second quarter and 18% year over year. 3. Improving liquidity Another reason Canadian Natural Resources could resume heavy oil drilling last quarter is that it has more liquidity than Baytex. The company's leverage is not only well within its target range, but it had $2.35 billion of undrawn capacity on its credit facility. Baytex, on the other hand, has too much debt for the current environment, which is forcing it to take action to improve is liquidity. For 2016, that meant investing within cash flow to minimize borrowing. Those efforts are working, according to Bowzer, who said that during the third quarter: Funds from operations totaled $72 million as compared to capital expenditures of $40 million; and in the first nine months of 2016, our funds from operations totaled $199 million as compared to capital expenditures of $157 million. Because it spent less than it brought in, as well as completed some minor asset sales, Baytex has reduced total debt by $186 million so far this year. That has improved its liquidity by a meaningful amount, including boosting the unutilized capacity of its $575 million credit facility to $464 million. This capital gives it the flexibility to ramp up drilling activities when oil prices improve. Investor takeaway Weak oil prices have made things tough on Baytex Energy. The company, however, has responded by focusing its capital dollars where it can achieve the best returns, which it has enhanced by pushing costs down. Those efforts have enabled the company to do more for less, which has increased its liquidity and put in a better position to capture opportunities that lie ahead once oil prices head higher. What happened Metal mining companies and steel stocks surged Tuesday after analysts at investment bank Goldman Sachs turned bullish on the sector. Leading the way were U.S. Steel (X 1.23%), AK Steel (AKS), Cliffs Natural Resources (CLF 2.77%), Teck Resources (TECK 2.99%), and Vale (VALE 3.79%). So what Goldman Sachs recommended that investors overweight their portfolio to metals and mining companies as well as steel producers in a bet on higher commodity prices. Driving that view is the expectation that manufacturing is expected to pick up around the world. One of the drivers is the proposed infrastructure plan of President-elect Donald Trump, who recently released a video stating that he wanted to increase the country's steel production capacity. These factors have the bank taking its first bullish stance on the sector in more than four years. Further, it raised its iron ore forecast, citing unexpectedly resilient steel usage and increased demand as customers restock steel inventories. That outlook bodes well for producers U.S. Steel and AK Steel, because it suggests that demand could continue to remain healthy, which should lift prices. In fact, steel prices in China are red hot and recently hit the daily trading limit. That is noteworthy because higher steel prices in China could stop that country's producers from dumping cheap steel in the U.S., which has hurt the profits of U.S. Steel and AK Steel in the recent past. Further, rising steel demand should continue to lift the prices of steelmaking materials like coking coal and iron ore, which would benefit miners like Cliffs Natural Resources, Teck Resources, and Vale. In fact, iron ore prices, like steel, hit the daily trading limit in China Monday due to high demand. That said, iron ore prices have recently dipped due to inventory concerns in China, though that decline was off of a 33-month high earlier in the week. Meanwhile, coking coal recently touched a five-year high, which is causing some mine operators to think about reopening shuttered mines. Now what After several tough years, optimism in the metals sector is growing. Not only is global manufacturing improving, especially in places like China, the U.S., and Europe, but it could get even better if Trump pushes through his infrastructure plan. That improvement could keep metal prices rising, which would translate into higher profits for producers. OPEC will debate an oil output cut of 4.0-4.5 percent for all of its members except Libya and Nigeria next week but the deal's success hinges on an agreement from Iraq and Iran, which are far from certain to give full backing. Three OPEC sources told Reuters a gathering of experts from the oil producer group in Vienna had decided on Tuesday to recommend that a ministerial meeting on Nov. 30 debate a proposal from member Algeria to reduce output by that amount. Such a cut would bring OPEC's current output down by more than 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd), according to Reuters calculations based on the group's October production, and is towards the upper end of market expectations. But sources also said the representatives of Iran, Iraq and Indonesia had expressed reservations during talks that continued for 11 hours about their level of participation in what would be the group's first supply-limiting deal since 2008. Brent oil futures were trading slightly up at around $49.2 per barrel at 2010 GMT, having lost most of their earlier gains of around $1 a barrel. In September, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to reduce production to between 32.5 million and 33.0 million bpd - an effort to prop up prices - from OPEC's own latest production estimates of 33.64 million bpd. OPEC's deal faces potential setbacks from Iraq's call for it to be exempt and from Iran, which wants to increase supply because its output has been hit by sanctions. Iraq's foreign minister said on Tuesday in Budapest that OPEC should allow Iraq to continue raising output with no restrictions. BIG BARGAIN Iran and Iraq raised certain conditions for participating in the deal, according to sources, who were not allowed to speak on the record because the experts were meeting behind closed doors. Sources said Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have signaled they were prepared to cut close to 1 million bpd of their output. The Algerian proposal would see all member countries, except Nigeria and Libya, cutting 4-4.5 percent from OPEC's estimates of their October production with the aim of reaching a total output target of 32.5 million bpd, OPEC sources have said. That would mean Saudi Arabia alone could cut up to 500,000 bpd, sources said. OPEC's own estimates, based on what it calls "secondary sources", are usually lower than countries' direct submissions to the organization. Under the Algerian proposal, Iran was asked to cut 4.5 percent from almost 4 million bpd, according to sources. But Tehran has signaled it wants to cut from higher levels of 4.1-4.2 million bpd, one of the sources said. Iraq was asked to cut about 200,000 bpd. Baghdad is also still debating whether it should cut from the levels of OPEC's estimates or its own, higher, production figures. "Eighty-five percent of proposed OPEC cuts are from Gulf countries but Iran is still not in favor," one source said. Non-OPEC producer Russia was also still not agreeing to cut production but favoring a freeze, a senior OPEC delegate said. "This will make it difficult for OPEC alone to rebalance the market and bring prices up," the source said. (Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson/Ruth Pitchford) China will position itself as free trade's new champion at an Asia-Pacific summit this weekend, with the Communist government seeking to project economic leadership as a U.S.-led Pacific Rim trade pact languishes under President-elect Donald Trump. The RCEP and the TPP -- which excludes China -- were viewed as parallel, if competing pathways, to an eventual broader Asia-Pacific free trade zone. But when Beijing hosted the APEC meeting in 2014 and pushed the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) as a framework for liberalizing Pacific Rim trade, the United States saw it as a distraction from TPP. The China-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a rival pact that excludes the United States, has become the front-runner for new free trade deals in the region. On the campaign trail, Trump labeled the TPP, championed by President Barack Obama, a "disaster". Obama last week abandoned efforts to win congressional approval for the TPP before Trump takes office, saying its fate was up to the President-elect and Republican lawmakers. "If the U.S. gives up its leadership here, of course China will take the role," said Tu Xinquan, a trade expert at Beijing's University of International Business and Economics, who has advised China's government on trade issues. Beijing aims to capitalize on the Trump-induced coma of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), with President Xi Jinping selling alternate visions for regional trade at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting this weekend in Peru. Now, the RCEP is likely the main avenue to a future FTAAP, giving China, as the largest economy among the deal's 16 countries, a driving role in the future of Asia-Pacific trade. Obama had argued that the TPP would allow the United States and not China to write the rules of trade for the region. GEOPOLITICAL REALITIES China's efforts to push trade pacts coincide with other soft power initiatives aimed at cementing the country's economic influence, such as Xi's global One Belt, One Road infrastructure plan and the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Claire Reade, senior counsel at U.S. law firm Arnold & Porter and a former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China Affairs, said China would seek to contrast its commitment to the region with U.S. inconstancy. "The geopolitical realities and China's economic diplomacy make it seem unlikely the smaller countries in the region would spurn China's leadership," she said. In a sign of frustration with the United States among some TPP members, Peru's president has said that Pacific-rim countries can forge a new trade deal to replace TPP that includes China and Russia but not the United States. This week, Peru's trade minister said it was engaging China on ways to get involved with RCEP negotiations. If Lima joined the talks, which is unlikely until existing members come to terms, it would be the only participant from the Americas and could encourage other TPP signatories in Latin America to follow suit. Other TPP members, including staunch U.S. ally Australia, have said they will pursue other free trade options in Asia. Malaysia has said it would shift its focus from TPP to RCEP, and Vietnam, which is also party to both deals, will shelve its ratification of TPP due to political changes in Washington. China's Commerce Ministry did not respond to faxed questions on the trade deals, but Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang downplayed Beijing's role. "No matter if it is the RCEP or the FTAAP, neither is being led by China," Geng told a regular press briefing on Friday, adding that China was working together with all parties to advance negotiations. MORE OFF-SHORING Trade experts say that in addition to dealing a blow to U.S. influence, TPP's failure could mean U.S. goods lose out on lower tariffs and market access to RCEP countries, including Japan, China and India. Proposed dates for an agreement have come and gone, but an RCEP deal could be reached as soon as next year. Deborah Elms, who runs the Singapore-based Asian Trade Centre consultancy and advises governments, said the lack of U.S. involvement in future trade deals could spur more off-shoring by U.S. companies. "If you want to take advantage of RCEP, you need to be in Asia to service Asian markets. That means you need to be physically present with at least some part of your operation," Elms said. Governments in the region should take advantage of RCEP momentum, she said. "I would be trumpeting loudly from the rooftops ... Put your whole global operations here to take advantage of the place that is still open for business." The role-reversal on free trade zones and other uncertainties stemming from Trump's election bolsters China's image, Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said at a forum in Beijing on Wednesday. "Withdrawing from trade agreements, talking about shaking up alliances, talking about pulling out of the climate change agreement, talking about pulling out of Iran all of these make China look like the responsible stakeholder," Paal said. (Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Tony Munroe and Bill Tarrant) Image source: Disney. There's a new way to splurge atDisney's (NYSE: DIS)largest and most expensive Florida theme park. Disney's Magic Kingdom -- the only theme park in the planet to have entertained more than 20 million guests last year -- is adding Kingdom Cabanas to its arsenal of upsell products. Theme park blog WDW News Today is reporting that the Magic Kingdom will begin renting in-park cabanas on Sunday. The cabanas are located in the Tomorrowland section of the park, offering private and shaded seating with room for as many as eight guests per cabana. A mini fridge is stocked with complimentary cold beverages, and a lockable storage trunk is available to keep personal belongings secure. A fruit basket and a one-time delivery of ice cream treats are also included, as well as personalized Mickey-eared caps and reserved viewing areas for parades and fireworks. This isn't the kind of pampering that comes cheap. Disney is charging $649 plus tax for the daily cabana rental. That's a lot of money, but the theme park giant probably won't have a problem filling up the tents. With folks paying as much as $124 for a one-day ticket to the park and an average of more than 56,000 guests a day, it's loaded on any given day with patrons who are themselves loaded. Cabana buoy This obviously isn't Disney World's first foray into cabanas. Some of its high-end hotels have poolside cabanas. Disney's two water parks -- and several regional water parks across the country -- offer cabanas that can be reserved at a premium. Disney's Magic Kingdom may be the first high-end theme park to go this route, but it probably won't be the last. It doesn't matter if you think it's a lousy idea. All it takes is roughly 0.2% of the guests attending the park on any given day to be won over by the concept for it to succeed. It's going to be popular with wedding parties, celebrities, and conventioneers. It's going to be popular with well-to-do young families who typically head back to their hotels in the afternoon for a midday break. Disney has been aggressively trying to milk more money out of its guests, something that will naturally peeve visitors but also delight shareholders if tourists keep coming. It costs as much as 18% more for a one-day ticket to a Disney World park this holiday season than it did a year earlier. Annual passes also experienced double-digit increases late last year. Disney began blocking off its best parking lot spaces earlier this year, selling them at a higher markup than regular slots. When Disney World attendance started to dip -- a rare event that the theme park giant experienced during the March and June quarters -- it was easy to wonder if Disney was getting too greedy for its own good. However, Disney surprised investors by revealing that year-over-year attendance inched higher in Florida during the potent summer quarter. With that kind of momentum perhaps serving as validation for the rollout of new VIP experiences, it's safe to say that Kingdom Cabanas won't be the last of the premium add-ons at the world's largest theme park resort. Find out why Walt Disney is one of the 10 best stocks to buy now Motley Fool co-founders Tom and David Gardner have spent more than a decade beating the market. (In fact, the newsletter they run, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market!*) Tom and David just revealed their ten top stock picks for investors to buy right now. Walt Disney is on the list -- but there are nine others you may be overlooking. Click here to get access to the full list! *Stock Advisor returns as of November 7, 2016 Rick Munarriz owns shares of Walt Disney. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Walt Disney. 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. The hot new Focus RS has helped boost Ford's sales of high-profit performance models in Europe. Image source: Ford Motor Company. Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) said that its sales in Europe fell 1.2% from a year ago, as declines in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom offset gains in southern European markets. The key numbers: Ford's market share holds amid market declines Ford sold about 99,900 vehicles in the 20 western and central European markets that it considers its traditional core market in Europe in October. That's down 1.2% from a year ago. But Ford's market share in what it calls the Euro 20 was flat year over year at 7.7%, as the overall markets in Germany and France declined 5.6% and 4%, respectively. Year-to-date through October, Ford has sold 1,144,200 vehicles in the Euro 20, up 6% from a year ago, with an 8% market share. For Europe as a whole, including Russia, Turkey, the former Soviet republics, and the countries of eastern Europe (what Ford calls the Euro 50), Ford sold 116,100 vehicles, roughly equal to what it sold in October 2015. Its Euro 50 market share was also unchanged from a year ago, at 7.5%. Year to date, Ford's sales in the Euro 50 are up 4.8%, and its market share for that period was 7.7%. What worked and didn't for Ford in Europe in October Ford has recently begun emphasizing sales results for its "profit pillars," which in Europe include commercial vehicles, SUVs, performance models, and heavily optioned versions of its mainstream products (what Ford Europe calls "high-specification" models). The results were a mixed bag in October. Sales of Ford's commercial vehicles as a group were up 5% in October. The group includes Ford's Transit and Tourneo lines of commercial vans (the Tourneos are the passenger versions of the Transit models) and the midsize Ranger pickup. The group has done very well in 2016: Year to date, Ford's commercial vehicle sales in the Euro 20 are up 17.2%. as a group were up 5% in October. The group includes Ford's Transit and Tourneo lines of commercial vans (the Tourneos are the passenger versions of the Transit models) and the midsize Ranger pickup. The group has done very well in 2016: Year to date, Ford's commercial vehicle sales in the Euro 20 are up 17.2%. Ford's SUV sales have boomed in Europe this year, up 38% in 2016 through October thanks in large part to the introduction of the midsize Edge to the European market. Sales of the Edge continued to be solid, with 1,200 units sold in the Euro 20 last month. Sales of the compact Kuga (the European version of the Escape) fell 3.3% to 8,700, while sales of the subcompact EcoSport rose 15% to 4,600. sales have boomed in Europe this year, up 38% in 2016 through October thanks in large part to the introduction of the midsize Edge to the European market. Sales of the Edge continued to be solid, with 1,200 units sold in the Euro 20 last month. Sales of the compact Kuga (the European version of the Escape) fell 3.3% to 8,700, while sales of the subcompact EcoSport rose 15% to 4,600. Ford's performance vehicle line in Europe includes the Fiesta and Focus ST models, the Focus RS, and the Mustang. Sales in the Euro 20 totaled 2,927 in October, up 17% from a year ago. Year to date, Ford has sold 37,907 performance models in the Euro 20, up 73% from a year ago. line in Europe includes the Fiesta and Focus ST models, the Focus RS, and the Mustang. Sales in the Euro 20 totaled 2,927 in October, up 17% from a year ago. Year to date, Ford has sold 37,907 performance models in the Euro 20, up 73% from a year ago. Ford Europe's high-specification models include Titanium and Vignale (similar to the U.S.-market Platinum) models and premium versions of the Fiesta and Focus. Ford didn't report October results for the group, but it said that they accounted for "nearly 60%" of its sales year to date, up 1.4 percentage points from the same period in 2015. A weaker fourth quarter to end a good year for Ford in Europe Through the first three quarters, 2016 has been a very good year for Ford in Europe. Its profit of just over $1 billion through September is a huge improvement over its $259 million result for all of 2015. Ford executives continue to be optimistic about the European market. But CEO Mark Fields noted during Ford's third-quarter earnings call that Ford, like rivals, increased their prices in the U.K. in the wake of Britain's decision to leave the European Union in an effort to offset the effects of a weaker British pound. Fields expects that decision to result in weaker sales through the end of the year and into 2017, and he said that Ford would reduce its production accordingly. The upshot is that Ford expects its fourth-quarter result in Europe to be less impressive than what we saw earlier in 2016 -- still profitable, in all likelihood, but close to breakeven. 10 stocks we like better than Ford When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Ford wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. Click here to learn about these picks! *Stock Advisor returns as of November 7, 2016 John Rosevear owns shares of Ford. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford. 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. GameStop Corp. narrowly topped reduced expectations late Tuesday, after issuing a profit warning earlier this month. The retailer reported net income of $50.8 million, or 49 cents a share, compared with $56 million, or 54 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. On Nov. 2, the company warned that both its quarterly and full-year earnings would be weaker than previously forecast. Revenue fell 3% to $1.96 billion from $2.02 billion a year ago, while same-store sales, a key growth metric for retailers, fell 6.5%. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were calling for earnings of 47 cents on sales of $1.98 billion. New hardware sales plummeted 20.6%, which the company blamed on "weaker-than-expected demand during the last few weeks of October." The declines were partially offset by stronger sales in its technology brands and collectibles category, the latter of which was propped up by demand for Pokmon items. The company expects same-store sales to fall between 12% and 7% in the current quarter, and earnings to be in the range of $2.23 to $2.38 a share, compared with the FactSet consensus estimate of $2.36. Shares of GameStop have declined by 23% in the past three months and nearly 40% in the past year. The S&P 500 , by comparison, has risen 1% in the past three months and 5.5% in the past year. Copyright 2016 MarketWatch, Inc. Nebraskans who don't want this state's troopers responding to anti-pipeline protests in North Dakota slid a wad of petition signatures through the Governor's Mansion gates Monday. The two petitions contained names of more than 29,000 people calling for Gov. Pete Ricketts to bring the troopers home, said organizer Joseph Hams, a 21-year-old University of Nebraska-Lincoln student. "At the very least, I hope he recycles them," Hams said of the petitions, joking. He added, "I hope that he's moved by how many people were offended by his actions." Thousands of Nebraskans along with people from other states and countries signed the online petitions, one started by Hams and the other by Bold Nebraska. About two dozen activists watched Monday as Hams passed the papers to a uniformed patrolman on the Governor's Mansion security team, who carried them inside. Nebraska troopers are among the law enforcement officers responding to protests of the Dakota Access pipeline, which would carry North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois. Overnight Sunday, officers used water cannons to stop protesters who tried to push past a long-blocked state highway bridge near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, where the route cuts through the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. With temperatures hovering in the low-20s, "that's like near-lethal force," Hams said. "That's really dangerous." Protesters said officers also used tear gas and rubber bullets, and authorities accused protesters of assaulting officers with rocks and burning logs. It's unclear whether Nebraska troopers were directly involved in the confrontation. Officers who were there didn't show identification or indicate which states they were from, protesters said. In October, the Nebraska State Patrol sent 11 troopers and two people assigned to an aircraft to assist with the response. Those troopers returned home this month following a three-week tour, but the state agreed to send more. On Monday, an official with the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency declined to say how many troopers went this time, but said the state's second response was similar to the first. All expenses are covered by North Dakota, and the patrol says the temporary loss of the troopers hasn't led to any overtime for others. There's a chance those troopers have stared down some fellow Nebraskans in North Dakota. Lucinda Mesteth of Lincoln narrowly missed being in Standing Rock for Sunday's conflict. The 44-year-old Oglala Lakota woman, who works at the Lincoln Indian Center, has made five trips to the protest camp in her eight-passenger van, ferrying supplies and other pipeline opponents. She helped wrangle a charter bus that will carry people from Lincoln, Omaha and the Winnebago and Omaha Indian reservations to Standing Rock next month. The bus is scheduled to leave Dec. 17 and return Dec. 22. Mesteth hopes more bus trips follow as long as the protests continue. She's also raising money for a teepee and other winter supplies Nebraskans might need in North Dakota. "My spirit just calls me to come out, she said. Another group from Lincoln hopes to fill a 5-by-8-foot trailer and three vehicles with supplies they'll take to Standing Rock on Wednesday. Community Crops has already donated produce, and those coordinating the supply run will accept other donations from 2-6 p.m. Tuesday at Cultiva Labs, 2510 Randolph St. Any overflow will go with a supply run leaving Friday, said organizer Stephanie Sterling, 28. "I have been following the protesters' movements for the past few months, and it infuriated me that peaceful protests for basic human rights were met with violence," Sterling said. She decided to go to Standing Rock but "didn't want to go empty-handed." "Honestly, this election made me realize that I haven't done enough," she said. "I haven't helped out in my own community or elsewhere up to this point." You might be surprised to learn that General Electric (NYSE: GE) has something of ahistory with President-elect Donald Trump.The companyowned a stake in NBC Universal during the run of "The Apprentice." "I knew[Trump] a little bit when we owned NBC and did 'The Apprentice,'" CEO Jeff Immelt told Vanity Fair in August."And I always found him to be fun to work with, endearing, competitive, lots of good things." However, in that same interview, Immelt questioned the campaign's rhetoric. For his part,Trump was quite critical of GE during his campaign, accusing the company of closing U.S. plants andshipping jobs to Mexico.So, it's worth taking a look at how GE will fare under a Trump presidency. While it's tough to predict exactly what initiatives Trump will prioritize, his broad agenda as articulated thus far gives some hints that GE investors should be cautiously optimistic about what the future holds. GE's infrastructure and energy businesses could see a boost from Trump's policies. Image source: Getty Images. More than just roads and bridges In the "Infrastructure"section of his campaign website,Trump proposespursuing "an 'America's Infrastructure First' policy that supports investments in transportation, clean water, a modern and reliable electricity grid, telecommunications, security infrastructure, and other pressing domestic infrastructure needs."In a subsequent statement, Trump also listed mass transit and high-speed rail as among his infrastructure priorities. The market certainly seems to think that construction, at least,will benefit from a Trump presidency. Shares of Caterpillar andseveral steel stocks jumpedafter his win.And despite a statement by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that infrastructure would not be a high priority, an infrastructure spending bill is generally seen as having bipartisan support. Given the priority areaslisted by Trump, General Electric would probably stand to benefit quite a bit from such an infrastructure spending package. GE manufactures gas, steam, and wind turbines for power generation,water treatment systems, energy grid systems,and locomotives, all of which would have a place in the infrastructure package Trump outlined. An energetic plan Trump had a lot to say during the campaign about fossil fuels, particularly coal, and his energy plan is dominated by the promotion of oil, natural gas, and coal. On his website, he makes a passing reference to green energy, saying that his plan "includes nuclear, wind and solar energy -- but not to the exclusion of other energy." That might sound concerning for GE, one of the top manufacturers of wind turbines in the world.But in fact, GE would stand to benefit immensely from increased fossil fuel activity. And Trump appears to be proposing just that, stating, "We will become, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy from the OPEC cartel or any nations hostile to our interests." Because of complexities in the global oil market, it's tough to nail down an exact number of barrels produced that would free the U.S. from the need to import from nations "hostile to our interests."Trump is likewise unclear on that point, although he claims his plan will lead to $700 billion in annual economic output over the next 30 years.To achieve this, he says he will -- among other things -- lift moratoriums on energy production in federal areas and "scrap" many energy regulations. Though here, again, details are sparse, increased U.S. oil and gas production can only help GE, which has invested heavily in the sector over the past few years. In October, GE announced it was merging its oil and gas division with Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHI)and would maintain a 62.5% stake in the new entity. This merger would create the second-largest oil services and equipment company in the world (second only to Schlumberger), which would benefit from increased domestic oil and gas production.To a lesser extent, GE would benefit from increased coal production as it sells equipment like generators and drive systems to the mining industry. Investor takeaway There are likely to be big policy shifts once President-elect Trump takes office in January.Two areas in which the shifts are most likely to occur are in infrastructure and energy. Luckily for GE, it has significant business divisions in both of those sectors. Assuming Trump is as good as his word, his tenure is likely to have a positive effect on GE's energy and transportation operations. But GE, for better or for worse, is a massive global conglomerate. Any positive impact Trump policies might have on these two divisions are probably going to be diluted by lesser gains elsewhere in the company, or perhaps offset entirely by weakness in other divisions. Not to mention, more than half of GE's revenue comes from outside the United States, so even major changes by Trump are unlikely to have a substantial effect on the company's bottom line.The flip side, though, is also true: with its huge global footprint, GE is likely to weather any potentially harmful economic effects of Trump's policies better than most. Luckily for investors, GE's business model isn't dependent on any particular course of action by the president-elect. GE investorswill most likely besafe hanging onto their shares. And new investors should keep GE on their radar screens, as the company seems well-poised to succeed under a President Trump. Forget the 2016 election: 10 stocks we like better than General Electric Donald Trump was just elected president, and volatility is up. But here's why you should ignore the election: Investing geniuses Tom and David Gardner have spent a long time beating the market no matter who's in the White House. In fact, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now...and General Electric wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. Click here to learn about these picks! *Stock Advisor returns as of November 7, 2016. John Bromels has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of General Electric. 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. The pharmaceutical industry is breathing a sigh of relief after Donald Trump's insurgent victory earlier this month, thanks to his arguably more favorable stances on prescription drug prices, corporate tax rates, and regulatory reform at the FDA as compared to his former Democratic opponent. Even so, pharma heavyweights like Pfizer(NYSE: PFE) may not want to cheer just yet. Trump, after all, wasn't exactly a champion of this multibillion-dollar industry during his campaign. With this in mind, let's take a deeper look at how a Trump presidency could be both a blessing and a curse for the pharmaceutical industry over the next four years. Image source: Flickr userDisney. The positives Big Pharma has been calling for corporate tax reform inside the U.S. to level the playing field with tax havens such as Ireland. But with Washington repeatedly turning a blind eye to this issue, several large companies, such asAllergan(formerly Actavis), have decided to take the bull by the horns by undergoing so-called "tax inversions." Actavis, for instance, paid $5 billion to acquire Warner Chilcott plc. One major perk of the 2013 deal was that the combined company's headquarters could be moved to Ireland, thus slashing Actavis' tax rate from roughly 37% to 17%.Pfizer also tried to get in on this tax inversion bonanza by gobbling up Allergan earlier this year, but it was thwarted by the U.S. Treasury Department. Trump's proposed tax plan aims to lower rates to a more attractive 15% for corporations. Perhaps even more importantly, Trump wants to cut tax rates on foreign profits to 10%, which can be paid over the course of a decade. Image source: Getty Images. If this proposal comes to fruition, companies like Pfizer that have mountains of cash stored overseas could choose to repatriate these trapped funds to fuel additional acquisitions, special dividend payments, and/or an onslaught of share buybacks. Put simply, Trump's corporate tax plan sounds like an outright win for Big Pharma. Next up, Trump's healthcare platform openly states that a major goal of his administration will be to "reform the Food and Drug Administration, to put greater focus on the need of patients for new and innovative medical products." While this statement lacks specifics, it may indicate that a fundamental change in the regulatory landscape may be coming. In brief, the FDA has been heavily criticized for being too strict when it comes to reviewing new drugs, especially those targeting patient populations with limited treatment options. This current regulatory environment has been blamed, at least in part, for the sky-high cost of developing new drugs; more elaborate requirements from the FDA directly contribute to the sizable amount of clinical data necessary to gain regulatory approval inside the United States. A shift toward smaller, less costly clinical trials would positively impact Big Pharma's bottom line. The negatives Far from being a passive actor on the drug pricing controversy, Trump's proposals to open up the U.S. market to drugs imported from countries with lower prices -- and have Medicare directly negotiate drug prices -- are not welcome ideas within the pharma universe. Adding insult to injury, he plans on withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) right out of the gate -- a deal that could actually export U.S. drug pricing schemes to the rest of the world. Trump's plans to blow open the pharma industry's firewalls against stiffer competition and more uniform pricing schemes could devastate profit margins. The bottom line is that lower profit margins and an inability to hike drug prices would seriously hurt companies like Pfizer that are continuing to struggle with the loss of exclusivity for multiple star drugs. Take-home message At the end of the day, there's no telling which of Trump's proposals will ultimately turn into policy. Corporate tax reform, after all, would require the cooperation of Congress, and the reality is that neither party has shown much interest in this issue over the years. The pharma industry's powerful lobbying presence in D.C. could also help to scuttle any legislation aimed at wholesale changes to drug prices. All told, Trump's potential impact on this cornerstone industry of the American economy is far from clear at this point. After all, most of his proposals will need to be vetted by a Congress that many have argued is beholden to the pharma industry. In other words, Republicans aren't simply going to lie down for Trump on issues that drug companies openly despise -- perhaps setting the stage for more of the status quo. 10 stocks we like better than Pfizer When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now and Pfizer wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. Click here to learn about these picks! *Stock Advisor returns as of November 7, 2016 George Budwell owns shares of Allergan and Pfizer. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 2022 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. FAQ - New Privacy Policy When all the world was crashing down around the commodities market, bankruptcy was being priced into the future of the world's biggest gold miner,Barrick Gold(NYSE: ABX).Having embarked on a decade's worth of massive acquisitions, it was saddled with debt, rising expenses, and falling prices. Its stock price cratered to just $6 per share, and the potential for defaulting on its debt seemed great. Yet Barrick Gold is one of the best in the business, and its all-in sustaining costs of less than $800 per ounce is among the lowest giving it special ability to generate high cash margins. It may have reacted slowly and late to the crisis, but a serious cost-cutting program has allowed it to recover with its stock doubling in value this year. The worst seems to be behind it, so we've asked three of our contributors where they expect Barrick Gold to be tens years from now. Image source: Getty Images. A lean, mean, cash flow-producing machine Matt DiLallo: Barrick Gold spent much of the past decade buying and building its way to the top of the gold market. In fact, itcurrently holds the crown as the world's largest gold producer. However, that ascension came at a steep price, with the company issuing billions of dollars in new shares and debt to grow output. Unfortunately, that growth has done nothing but destroy shareholder value: ABX data by YCharts Clearly, the strategy of growing for the sake of growth did not pay off. That's why Barrick Gold is shifting its focus away from expanding gold output and instead focusing on increasing its free cash flow on a per share basis. To achieve that aim, the company plans to concentrate on three things: owning the best gold assets, operating at the lowest possible costs, and effectivelybecoming debt free. In doing so, the company will be agnostic on the price of gold, allowing it can generate substantial cash flow in any environment. This plan suggests that the Barrick Gold of tomorrow will be a much leaner company that's focused on creating lasting shareholder value. Further, given its free cash flow focus and plans for a pristine balance sheet, Barrick has the potential to bean outstandingdividend stock. Smaller, but better Rich Duprey:Willy-nilly growth is fine when the market is bullish, but a company has to be ready for when the lean times come, too. But BarrickGoldacted as though the good times would never end, and as Matt shows, it hit the miner hard when the cycle reversed. Like many of its peers, Barrick was forced to sell off non-core assets to rein in expenses, but the downturn created a situation that was once unthinkable: also selling off core assets. Others in the industry are now doing it, too, showing just how poorly gold miners planned for the future, but Barrick Gold is considering the sale of its biggest asset, the massive -- but stalled -- Pascua-Lama gold mine in the Andes mountains. Straddling both Argentina and Chile, Pascua-Lama is estimated to have 15.4 million ounces of gold reserves and more than 674 million ounces of contained silver. But the $8.5 billion project has run afoul of environmental concerns and worries of the local indigenous peoples, and sits in mothballs, making it uneconomical to carry. Image source: Getty Images. Barrickis also considering selling Veladero, one of the richest gold mines in Argentina, and indeed all the world, but whose operations have been temporarily suspended, also due to environmental issues. Despite this, Barrick just increased production guidance for 2016 due to stronger projected production from its Goldstrike and Cortez mines, both of which are now expected to produce over 1 million ounces each. What this shows is that Barrick Gold has anembarrassment of riches, a portfolio as deep as it is wide so that even selling off potentially lucrative projectsdoesn't undermine this miner appreciably. And though forecasting gold's price a decade into thefuture with any certainty is impossible, it's certainly easy to think gold will trade at prices much higher than where they are today. Barrick Gold still possesses world-class assets, is the premier miner in the industry, and has undertaken a program to cut costs, reduce debt, and focus on its core strengths. It's safe to say that when looking at the miner's stock price and the value it offers despite its rebound this year, an investor would be hard-pressed to find a precious metals investment that still has as much potential. Watch out for falling rocks Rich Smith: I'm going to throw you all a curveball here -- a real "black swan" event, but one that if you squint hard enough -- you may just be able to make out crossing the horizon: asteroid mining. If you're going to talk about where Barrick Gold will be not next week, next month, or next year -- but 10 years out -- then I think you need to consider the remote possibility that Barrick, and indeed, any company that has tied its fortune to digging up rare rocks from the Earth's crust, could become undone by the discovery that these rocks aren't so rare -- in space. Image source: Deep Space Industries. Sometime in the next decade, NASA intends to send its new Space Launch System out to capture an asteroid and haul it back into lunar orbit to see what it's made of. In the even nearer term, private companies such as Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources plan to send space ships out to capture their own asteroids, and begin mining them for elements that are rare on Earth, or expensive to send up into space. This could include such mundane things as water (for fuel) and oxygen (for breathing) -- but also gold, silver, platinum, and other mineral resources that produce a lot of profit back here on Earth. Planetary Resources launched its first spaceship (an observatory) just last year. Deep Space Industries will send a test vessel up next year, and hopes to begin mining operations in three years. Meanwhile, companies that are even farther along in the process, such as Moon Express, will begin similar operations on Earth's most famous satellite in 2017. Now, what does all of this mean for Barrick Gold? I'm honestly not sure. Could be they'll become a financier of such galactic mining projects. Could be they'll form a space division of their own. Or could be they'll get caught unawares as other companies begin prospecting for gold nuggets among the stars, while Barrick is still busy scavenging for gold dust down here on Earth. That's the thing about black swans. They're uncertain -- and you need to be prepared for all possibilities. 10 stocks we like better than Barrick Gold When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Barrick Gold wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. Click here to learn about these picks! *Stock Advisor returns as of November 7, 2016 Rich Duprey has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 Did your grocery store run out of turkeys? No problem! Outdoor Channel stars Lee and Tiffany Lakosky want to remind you that you can always hunt your own bird for the big Thanksgiving dinner. In fact, Lee said, thanks to the National Wild Turkey Federation reinvigorating the U.S. turkey population, there's plentiful opportunity to bag your own. (Check the rules online for your state) "Turkeys have exploded everywhere," Lee told FOXNews.com. "They're all over, so abundant right now. It's a great time to be a turkey hunter." (Fun fact: there's a huge population in Hawaii). The couple, who have their own Outdoor Channel show "Crush with Lee & Tiffany," mostly bow hunt turkey, with Lee using a Mathews Halon 32 bow and Tiffany a women's Mathews Avail. However, they have used a shotgun, too, wielding a Benelli 12-gauge. HUNTING: Potential world-record nontypical buck taken in Tennessee The Lakoskys have hunted turkey for about 14 years on their own farm in Iowa and also in Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska. They harvest 2 to 5 turkeys a year. Turkey hunting can be done in both spring and fall. Lee noted that hunting turkey is "more fun in the spring because that's their mating season so they're gobbling and strutting and really putting on a show and you can call to them. In the fall, they're gobbling on the roost and just grouped up andyou gotta just see which way they're going" to forage on the ground for food. But the early bird catches the turkeys -- you must start before sunrise. Tiffany said, "They're not easy to hunt. They're pretty wily." HUNTING: Big Buck alert: Missouri 11-year-old tags 178-inch monster on first hunt In the brush, the Lakoskys usually conceal a blind -- a camouflage pop up tent with mesh windows to shoot from. Lee said the next step is to put a couple of plastic decoys on the ground that look like the hens, female turkeys, or jakes, young immature gobblers, to attract the mature male turkeys. They listen for a gobble from the turkey's roost in a tree "and when they fly down, just start calling them and try to get as close as you can," with a special turkey caller with a reed they blow into, Lee said. "Basically their routine is, they fly up, roost at night and in the morning, try to round up their hens" or look for food on the ground, he said. The outdoor TV celebrities pride themselves on being clean and humane hunters. If they aim with a bow, their preferred and more challenging method, they shoot for the turkey's lungs -- and with the shotgun, for the head. RECIPE: Rabbit and Squirrel Gumbo Tiffany said, "We have targets that are in the shape of a turkey. We practice all season long to make sure we have ethical shots and do our best." Also, "turkeys are super mean," Lee revealed. "They fight, have spurs on their feet and try to keep the hens from the other ones. They're super smart and they've got great eyesight. If you blink, basically, they see you and run. There's no curiosity about a turkey. They see something that isn't quite right, they're gone." Tiffany added, "A wild turkey can run as fast as 25 miles per hour and fly up to 55 miles per hour." She said that it's important to obey the hunter's mantra, yes, to be very, very quiet. "For Lee, it's easy," Tiffany laughed. "For me, I have to consciously make an effort to stay quiet and not talk." Afterwards, they pull the guts out and clean the turkey, plucking the feathers and using paraffin wax to remove the feathers if they want to keep the skin on. OFF-ROAD: Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 is the most extreme Chevy truck ever Tiffany, who is pregnant with the couple's second child, due in April, said she's still hunting while expecting and they have even gone turkey hunting with their son Cameron, 1. "He slept through the whole thing," in the blind, she said. For Thanksgiving, they will consume their very own hunted turkey, plus pheasant and duck with relatives visiting from Minnesota. Lee's cooking tips? "Have grandma do it," he said. The pair plans to release a cookbook next fall including recipes from both their moms for various hunted animals and birds they hunt. Tiffany recommends hunting turkey in a group: "It's such a social sport compared to, like, deer hunting. There are times we have five or six people out there turkey hunting together. You just have so much more fun." A recent study published in the journal Nature Medicine reported that eating cheese specifically the aged kind containing the compound spermidine, as found in blue cheese was linked to a longer life in mammals when tested on mice. The mice do not only live longer when we supplement spermidine to the drinking water, but they are also healthier in terms of cardiac function, Frank Madeo, co-author of the study and a professor at the University of Graz in Austria, told Medical Daily. The study observed 800 Italians and found that those who ate more cheese had lower blood pressure, a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and 40 percent lower risk of heart failure. Click for more from the New York Post. Infectious-disease outbreaks not only have the potential to destabilize societies, they pose a threat to international economies, as well. What should public-health officials and businesses be doing to prepare? Physicians Thomas Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Susan Desmond-Hellmann, chief executive of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, sat down with Wall Street Journal Assistant Managing Editor Laura Landro to discuss this issue. Edited excerpts follow. MS. LANDRO: I dont know how many of you have seen the movie Contagion. How close are we to a scenario like that? Something that cant be contained? DR. FRIEDEN: Every year on average we identify one new pathogen. And every day on average, we at CDC start a new investigation that could detect a new pathogen. But frankly, pandemic influenza is what worries us most. Bill Gates has said there are really only two things that could kill 10 million people around the world. Nuclear war and a biological event, either intentional or natural. It has happened beforein 1918 and 1919, 50 million to 100 million people were killed. Even the 1957 influenza pandemic, which most people havent heard of, cost 3% of the worlds gross domestic product. Even SARS, a relatively small outbreak, cost about $30 billion. We dont know when the next one will come, where it will come from or what it will be. But were certain there will be a next one. MS. LANDRO: How does the Gates Foundation see this in terms of the danger to the world? The idea that business will be disrupted, there will be all sorts of social unrest? DR. DESMOND-HELLMANN: What we learned from Ebola is that there are a couple things that are underutilized and not ready. One is governance. Who makes the call when things happen? The second thing is having the right tools, which is why global health research-and-development is a big focus of our foundation. And the last thing is, even though the world is worried about something really super scary like in Contagion, we all saw last summer how something like Zika, which wasnt thought to be a big threat, actually is a particular threat for women who can get pregnant because it causes a catastrophic birth defect. Click for more from the Wall Street Journal. Sudden, unrelenting seizures forced doctors to put 22-year-old Daniel Wong in a medically induced coma. His mother describes the difficulties of dealing with a rare, often-unrecognized disease. Two doctors familiar with the condition, called NORSE, explain how hard it can be to talk with family members about it. By Nora Wong On a cloudless September afternoon, I got the call that every parent fears: My son, Daniel, was in a Boston hospital with incapacitating, out-of-the-blue seizures. What unfolded over the next 11 weeks revealed both the best of American medicine as well as the pervasive lack of communication that can harm patients and leave families bewildered. Three months earlier, Daniel had graduated from Stanford University. He immediately started work at an investment firm for nonprofits in Boston. He was intoxicated with his job, what he called investing with a heart. I had just talked with my healthy son the day before he was hospitalized. My husband and I immediately flew to Boston from our home in New Jersey. We found Daniel in the hospitals intensive care unit. His doctors were mystified by his seizures, which seemed to have no cause. When ever-higher doses of medications failed to stop the seizures, they placed Daniel in a drug-induced coma to protect his brain. We summoned our daughter from New York City and our younger son from his college in New Haven. Daniel is sick, we told them. We dont know whats wrong. Get here as soon as you can. He may not last the night. Three different medical teams cared for Daniel: the intensive care unit team, a neurology team, and an epilepsy team. Like ships passing in the night, each one stopped in to see him at different times. Various specialists helped search for clues to his condition and to battle the complications of treatment. Occasionally, doctors had conflicting opinions, but these differences were never openly discussed. Instead, the focus was on stopping the seizures. No one talked with us about what Daniels future might be once they stopped. We entered a medical twilight zone. No one knew why Daniel was seizing. And no one seemed sure what to do. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. We waited for test results. We waited for decisions about new treatments. We waited for the outcomes of those treatments. Most of all, we waited for Daniel to wake up. But he didnt. Every attempt to lift him from the coma without his seizures returning failed. Once poised to make his mark on the world, Daniel lay silent and still, possessing a strange, immobilized beauty. Without a diagnosis, we submerged our fears and simply hoped. We tried not to panic. If we let loose our emotions, we knew we would become undone and useless to Daniel. So we measured out each day and focused on the effort to keep him alive. One day a doctor told us, We think its time to consider comfort care for Daniel. The doctors had run out of treatments. They could not stop his seizures. And after 78 days in the ICU, Daniels body was failing. We were told that if he did survive, he would probably have minimal brain function. My husband and I were completely caught off guard. The concept of comfort care was the absolute opposite of the fight we had been waging for so long. Our minds reeled. We couldnt ask Daniel, whose quirky brilliance defied definition, to analyze the options and tell us what he would be willing to live without. We could only try to imagine his answer. And even at this point, no one had confirmed a diagnosis of what was afflicting Daniel. In this vacuum we were suddenly asked to make a decision that had no retreat. Parents expect to see their childs first smile and first steps, to have arguments about driving and dating. The results of a final MRI brain scan left us with something no parent ever expects to do: choose whether to end Daniels life, to let him die slowly, or perhaps to have him survive as a wholly different being. The morning after getting the final MRI results, we stopped aggressive treatment and let the medical team switch to providing palliative care. Daniel died within an hour. In a daze, we drove to his apartment and packed his belongings. Numb and defeated, we returned home to New Jersey that night. In the three years since Daniels death, I have tried to process what happened. Because one of Daniels doctors made a gift in his memory to the American Epilepsy Society, we learned that Daniel died from an epilepsy-related condition. The doctors never actually told us that. They probably assumed we knew, since an epilepsy team led his case. Or each doctor may have assumed another one had already informed us. We also learned that Daniel probably had a rare disorder called new-onset refractory status epilepticus (NORSE). One of his ICU doctors had mentioned NORSE to me privately at the beginning of Daniels hospitalization, but never communicated that to the other medical teams or fully discussed it with us. I now know that NORSE is a newly defined, poorly understood disorder. Its devastating consequences have long been known, even as effective treatments remain elusive. A registry of NORSE patients has just been launched to learn more about the condition. I realize now how uninformed we were during Daniels hospitalization. What happened to him may not have been any different if his doctors had spoken candidly with us along the way. And theres no doubt that the discussions would have been hugely upsetting to us. But it was painful not to know what was happening and to battle imagined and boundless fears. I probably added to the miscommunication by asking doctors questions that suggested I had more knowledge than I possessed. I used medical terms for which I had no real understanding. I lacked the basic framework to understand Daniels illness and was too overwhelmed and frightened to ask for the full story. Daniels doctors and nurses were devoted to him even though they had never heard his voice or seen his face lit with wonder. Nurses arrived early and left late because of the extra time needed to communicate to the next shift the complications that had arisen each day. Doctors swung by at the end of brutal shifts to check on him before they left for home. What they didnt do, though, was fully explain what was happening until the very end. Some may not have understood the progression of the illness themselves. Some may have thought the discussion was someone elses responsibility. Others may have found it unbearable to utter the words to us until Daniels death was imminent. But we needed those words to help us conceptualize what was happening, even if no one could predict or control what would happen next. We needed time to think through and plan for Daniels future when his seizures stopped and what we would do if they didnt. Instead, we were left alone to interpret what was happening to our son in the surreal world of a hospital ICU. After his death, we grieved amid unresolved questions about why Daniel died including what had caused his seizures. Im not just a math boy anymore. I want the gray, Daniel once told me after I expressed my dismay that he had dropped out of an advanced math class in high school. He showed me what he meant by focusing his time at Stanford on the inequities in education across the United States. There are few areas as gray as making end-of-life decisions for your child. I feel Daniels hand guiding mine in writing on this topic fraught with moral dilemma, incomplete information, and irrevocable consequences. I sense his stubborn insistence to face the truth no matter how daunting or painful. NORSE can teach us many lessons because the disorder pushes even the finest hospitals, the most dedicated medical teams, and loving parents beyond their limits. Since Daniels death, I have joined with several doctors to form the NORSE Institute. It aims to integrate NORSE research and build a community of doctors, patients, and families. My familys story is likely similar to those of others who have had a child, parent, or sibling suffer from a baffling, life-threatening disease. The endings of these stories include not only death but also the end of life as it had been lived before. They expose the reluctance to speak openly about disability and death, which is shared by both doctors and families alike. As hard as it is to face these endings, they will come, even if they are denied or left unspoken. In NORSE and all cases of life-threatening disorders marked by uncertainty, complete and honest communication among doctors, patients, and families is needed so together they can make the best decisions for the patient. Nora Wong is the executive director of the NORSE Institute. By Teneille Gofton and Sara E. Hocker NORSE is a devastating disease for many reasons. It often appears out of the blue, affecting previously healthy young adults. While a few patients wake up and return to their normal lives, most do not. The majority of survivors develop epilepsy. Those who have poorly controlled seizures for weeks or months, if they survive, tend to do so with severe brain injuries. Others die from the complications of treatment or when all options have been exhausted and life-sustaining treatments are withdrawn. NORSE is an intimidating illness for physicians to encounter and manage. Although there is growing research into NORSE, its causes arent fully understood. That means treatment decisions are based on incomplete scientific knowledge. Medical teams that care for individuals with NORSE often become deeply involved with them and their families. Physicians, nurses, and others interact extensively with the family on a daily basis, sometimes for months. Yet even though we havent met our NORSE patients in a conscious state, we feel as though we know them. We see them every day, often more than once. We see the pictures papering their walls, and hear their stories told and retold. As the weeks go by and repeated attempts to discontinue the medically induced coma without a return of the seizures fail, members of the care team can feel as though they have let down their patients and family members. Some team members may start to question the plan of aggressive treatment, believing that recovery is no longer possible. The elephant in the room with NORSE is the difficulty in discussing openly with the family that the probability of death and significant brain damage is high. Yet we dont know in the beginning who will recover fully and who wont. The chance of a full recovery is low. Even so, no one wants to give up too soon. We dont want to lose the familys trust by alienating them with pessimistic projections. The sad fact is that we really dont know what the outcome will be until it occurs. Families dont always want to know that their loved one might die, or might live with severe brain damage. Some hear it, but the information doesnt really register. Thats a common response to acute illness, one that lets people maintain hope and composure. With some families, it is impossible to frankly discuss the various outcomes because they are able to focus only on the details of daily care. That coping mechanism helps people avoid looking at the big picture, which can be scary and overwhelming. One way to bridge the gap between what the health care team is thinking and what the patients and their families understand is to engage a palliative care team to support regular conversations about the treatment plan, possible outcomes, and the goals of care. All too often, the palliative care team is brought in only when the possibility of a cure has evaporated and death is expected to occur soon. But in situations like NORSE, when disability or death is a likely outcome, palliative care is most beneficial when it is offered early, alongside other medical interventions. A misconception on the part of patients and families not to mention health care teams is that talking about palliative care indicates that doctors have given up all hope and death is imminent. In reality, palliative care can be a vital addition in cases where people survive but undergo a difficult disease course or have ongoing symptoms. We believe that palliative care professionals should be part of the care team early in the hospital stay for anyone with NORSE, or any life-altering or life-threatening medical illness because the stress is high in both the family and the health care team. Palliative care providers can support conversations between the health care team and the family, as well as those within the health care team. For the members of the medical team, such conversations can foster more thorough and open discussions of the case and help build resilience. Among family members, who usually have little or no medical background, palliative care specialists can support and clarify communication with the medical team. They can also help manage the complex physical, cognitive, and emotional challenges when a patient emerges from a coma, or can support both the bereaved family and the distressed health care team if the patient dies. In NORSE and other life-altering and life-threatening conditions, involving the palliative care team early, alongside state-of-the-art medical care, is likely to benefit patients, their loved ones, and the health care team by bridging the communication gap. Teneille Gofton, MD, is assistant professor at Western University, Canada, where she specializes in adult neurocritical care and palliative care for patients living with neurological illnesses. Sara E. Hocker, MD, is associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic, where she directs the neurocritical care fellowship. Both are members of the NORSE Institute Medical Advisory Board. In the aftermath of last weeks elections one thing became crystal clear: Women played a pivotal role in the outcome of not only the race for the White House, but for Congress and State Houses as well. In America today, more women vote than men. They are searching to identify with the party and the candidates that speak to them and for them, so candidates must speak to the issues that are of interest to women and are likely to influence their vote. But it is too easy to get bogged down in social issues that divide women, when the fact is that, like men, we tend to vote with our wallets and out of concern for our familys personal safety and economic security, as well as the well-being of our community. We are concerned about our financial stability, making ends meet at home and the education and health of our children. We want to be there for our friends, our spouses, our kids and our parents. We want to share our values and priorities. We worry about caring for our parents and about what life will look like when we grow old. What our parents wanted for us a safe, sound and secure America we want for our children and theirs. We are concerned with our job opportunities and participation in the marketplace. We expect equal pay, and we must demand equal access to capital and boardroom governance. We also want the peace of mind that comes with quality and affordable health care for ourselves and our families. Sadly, women did not make any gains in Congress this year. According to Fortune.com, The number of women in both chambers will remain unchanged, at 104, and the number of female governors will fall to five from six, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. In the 115th Congress, which will convene January 3, there will be 21 women in the Senate and 83 women in the House. In the previous congressional session, there were 20 women in the Senate and 84 in the House. That means women make up about 19% of Congress overall, a figure that puts the U.S. near the middle of the pack compared to other countries. Before the Tuesday vote, the U.S. ranked 97th out of 193 countries in terms of womens parliamentary representation, according to figures compiled by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Look around. Women are active members in schools, churches and civic organizations, but not in government, where we can influence the policies that affect our lives and our communities. Women who believe accomplishments of human creativity in a free-market economy improve everyones life are not represented in public office in numbers that can shape and implement those policies. Women also deserve access and consideration for running for office and public service. The cost to run for office is high; financial and campaign support are musts. Some very accomplished, powerful, diverse and thoughtful women spoke at the Republican National Convention in July. We heard from U.S Senators Joni Ernst of Iowa and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia; Karen Vaughn, the mother of fallen U.S. Navy Seal Aaron Carson Vaughn; Sharon Day, co-chairman of the Republican National Committee; Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge; retired NASA astronaut Eileen Collins; and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin. The challenge going forward will be to get women more involved. Those who believe in the power of the free-enterprise system, who have the desire to serve and who exhibit the political acumen must be identified, encouraged, supported and mentored to participate in the political process organizationally and to run for office. The party that disregards women does so at its peril. Women are not looking for a handout. We are looking for the same hand that is offered to men. This election has shown that womens primary issues are policies that affect individual freedom, free enterprise and the ability of communities to engage in creating opportunities for everyone. There needs to be a space for those women at the table. It is not enough to ask for our vote. You must earn it. Editor's note: The following essay originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal and is used with permission. Election Day has come and gone, and after one of the most divisive campaigns in memory, healing seems to be the word of the hour. What better time to begin than Thanksgiving, which Benjamin Franklin called a day of public Felicity to give thanks for our full enjoyment of Liberty, civil and religious. Thanksgiving, our nations oldest tradition, is a moment to focus on our blessings as Americans, on what unites us, not on what divides us. Such was the case in 1863, when Abraham Lincoln called for a national Thanksgiving celebration. He did so at the urging of a farsighted magazine editor who believed that a Thanksgiving celebration would have a deep moral influence on the American character, helping to bring together the country, which was divided over the issue of slavery. Lincolns 1863 proclamation was the first in the unbroken string of annual Thanksgiving proclamations by every subsequent president. It is regarded as the beginning of our modern Thanksgiving holiday. Lincolns call for a national Thanksgiving was different from the thanksgivings he or Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, had called in the early years of the Civil War to express gratitude to God for specific Union or Confederate military victories. Rather, in 1863 Lincoln asked Americans to give thanks for the nations general blessings. It was the first time since George Washington led the country that a president proclaimed a day of general Thanksgiving. The opening sentence of Lincolns proclamation set the tone: The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies, he wrote. This was an astonishing way to characterize the year 1863, when death, suffering and grief were ever present. At the Battle of Gettysburg, which had taken place in July, the Union lost 27% of its fighting men and the Confederacy lost 37%. Yet amid this human suffering, Lincoln cataloged the blessings for which Americans could be grateful. Even in the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, he wrote, the nation remained at peace with foreign countries, its borders were expanding, its population was growing, and its farms, industries and mines were producing. Lincoln spoke not as commander in chief of the Union forces but as president of the entire nation, North and South. He made no reference to victories or losses or rebels or enemies. Instead, the president spoke of the whole American people. He called on every American to celebrate Thanksgiving with one heart and one voice. To understand how Lincoln came to believe in the healing power of a national Thanksgiving, it is necessary to examine the remarkable life of the woman who made it happen. She used her position as editor of the most popular magazine of the pre-Civil War era to conduct a decadeslong campaign for a countrywide Thanksgiving holiday. She is often called the godmother of Thanksgiving. Her name was Sarah Josepha Hale. Hales story is a classic American saga of how one enterprising, hardworking individual with a good idea can have an impact in an open, democratic society. In this case, a penniless young widow from New Hampshiresubject to all the limitations attached to such a station in life in the early 19th centuryrose to become the editor of the most widely circulated magazine of her era, Godeys Ladys Book. As editoror editress, as she preferred to be addressedHale set out to publish American authors writing on American themes. This approach contrasted with that of other magazines of the day, which typically reprinted articles pirated from English publications. Hale lined up American writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe. Her interest in culture extended to everyday aspects of American lifefood, fashion, manners, child rearing and running a household. Thanksgiving Day, a homegrown holiday, fit into Hales mission of focusing on Americana. She saw it as a patriotic occasion along with the Fourth of July and Washingtons Birthday. Thanks in part to Hales campaign, by the time the Civil War began nearly every state marked its own Thanksgiving Day on dates ranging from September to December. Her goal was to have it established as a national holiday and observed on a uniform date throughout the country. George Washington had selected the last Thursday in November as the date of the first national Thanksgiving in 1789, so that was the date she chose. Hale helped consolidate popular support for a national Thanksgiving by publishing editorials making the case for the holiday, fiction and poems set around Thanksgiving Day, and recipes for traditional Thanksgiving dishes such as roast turkey and pumpkin pie. Her hope wasnt simply to see Americans feast on the same foods on the same day, but she was shrewd enough to realize that the culinary appeal of Thanksgiving was another selling point for her vision of a shared celebration. Meanwhile, she conducted a letter-writing campaign, soliciting support for her project from presidents, governors, congressmen and other influential Americans. On Sept. 28, 1863, Hale sent a letter to Lincoln. The subject she wished to lay out before the president, she wrote, is to have the day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival. The editor asked the president to appeal to the Governors of all the States to follow suit. Thus the great Union Festival of America would be established. The result, as we know, was Lincolns decision to declare a national day of Thanksgiving. In his 1863 proclamation, Lincoln reminded Americans that the Civil War would eventually end. He asked them to look beyond the current horrors to a better day, when the country is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. Lincolns Thanksgiving proclamation was profoundly hopeful, reminding the American people of the nations capacity for renewal. Its a message that resonates today. Regardless of how we may have voted, most of us were shocked by the results of last weeks presidential election. Yet the most astonishing electoral upset in recent history is a lot less astonishing when considered from the perspective of markets. It becomes clear that Donald Trump won because his party embraced free markets. The Democrats lost because, as usual, they rejected them. Were not talking here about policy, but the yawning chasm that separates how the two parties see the world. Republicans are commonly ridiculed as the suits, buttoned-up defenders of the status quo. Like most media tropes, this is anything but the truth. However conservative they may appear, under those Brooks Brothers suits and dresses iconoclastic hearts beat. Of the two parties, it is the GOP that understands that real creativity and change we can believe in can only come from grassroots forces unleashed by messy, unpredictable markets. In contrast, the Dems are champions of suffocating rules and bureaucracy that reinforce the power of the establishment. As weve learned from the past eight years, from ObamaCare to Dodd Frank to the EPA, theyre the biggest control freaks on the planet. Not only have they sought to control health care and the financial sector, but everything else down to your choice of casual languageand whether your favorite restaurant can have salt on the table. In 2016, this dedication to control and incumbency not only shaped their policies, but also their political strategieswhich proved to be their undoing. In retrospect, the Republicans best move was their widely criticized decision to allow their nominee to be selected from a broad field of 17 candidates in a year-long competition that, like most markets, was a messy, brutal free for all. Trumps victory was typical of the surprises that that can arise from such contests. Free markets frequently confound the experts, who initially fail to catch on to shifts in consumer needs and desiresand whose omniscience is generally overrated. Just the way no one would ever have predicted that we would end up computing on our phones, or that people would spend $5 on branded bottled wateror that a social media website founded by college students would upend the entire world of communication and mediano one ever expected that a political novice, a three-times-married former reality TV star, would ignite GOP excitement not seen in decades. In contrast, there was nothing surprising about the nomination of Hillary Clinton. The Democrats selected her via a top down process which, like their policies, was predicated on central control by authorities presumed to know best about the needs and desires of their constituents. Hillary was anointed by the party leadership. With big names like Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden staying out of the race, she faced a far smaller field of lesser-known candidates. Three of her sparring partners dropped out before the first primary. The fourth, former Maryland governor Martin OMalley, withdrew shortly thereafter, leaving Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as Clintons sole primary opponent. While the populist message of the avowed socialist attracted genuine support from political consumers, the Democrats, as we later learned from WikiLeaks, headed off their partys emerging disrupter. So the two parties ended up with very different products in terms of the political marketplace. Whatever his flaws, Republican Donald Trump was a thoroughly market-tested entity who had gotten more votes than any other GOP primary winner. Democrat Hillary Clinton was imposed on voters despite failing a previous test eight years ago against Barack Obama. That is not to say that Mr. Trump was the ideal pick for many Republicans. Far from it. However, the GOP accepted his primary victory because they understood that, for better or worse, the market had spoken. They embraced their unconventional candidate, even though many did so with no small degree of reluctance. Not only Democrats, but many Republicans were surprised by the outcome of the election. But, looking back, it makes perfect sense. Donald Trumps win is a textbook example of how free markets eventually prevail against bureaucratic hubris and central planning. This is not to imply that, had the Democrats allowed Bernie Sanders to emerge as the nominee, he would necessarily have won. Sanders would still have been the product of a controlled market offering little choice. Any Democrat would also have represented a third Obama term that voters were desperately seeking to escape. Still, Democrats seeking to increase their chances might consider encouraging a broader, Republican-style free market primary in the next presidential election. But my guess is that they wont. Liberal politicians never tire of attempting to impose top-down solutions. Yet such solutions, like ObamaCare, are destined to unravel because politically-motivated elites are rarely correct about the real world needs and desires of people in a market. That was the case with Barack Obamas health care law, which was cobbled together by the Democratic establishment and rammed through Congress. And it is why the presidents chosen successor, Hillary Clinton, was a sure thing who turned out to be anything but. Ever since the election night, the press has been looking for excuses and explanations as to how they got the outcome so wrong and why their anointed candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost. The latest pathetic attempt from the blatantly biased media is to blame President-elect Donald Trump's victory on fake news stories. CNN, MSNBC and NBC all suggested in recent days that Trump won and Clinton lost because voters were tricked by phony online stories. Did the spread of fake news on the Web help elect Donald Trump? CNNs Brian Stelter mused Saturday. We may never know for sure. But researchers are asking the question because made-up false stories are polluting people's Facebook timelines and Twitter streams. HANNITY: FANNING FLAMES INSTEAD OF CALLING FOR CALM IS CLASSIC OBAMA And on NBCs Today show las week, correspondents cited growing concern these fake stories may have had real influence on voters. During the campaign, fake news stories were posted about both candidates, but naturally the all-knowing media suspects it helped Trump, because, apparently, his supporters were more easily duped. This is the same media that was caught colluding with Hillary Clinton's campaign. So what we're seeing here is the mainstream media is either so completely out of touch that they can't see why you, the American people, voted for Donald Trump, or they simply just refuse to tell the truth about what happened. We're also seeing a similar backlash coming from celebrities. Over the weekend, Vice President-elect Mike Pence right here in New York City, he attended the Broadway musical "Hamilton," where he was booed by the crowd and then verbally attacked by the cast from on stage. Trump took to Twitter to defend Pence, and justifiably demanded an apology. But the media only focused on Trump's response and ignored the incredibly rude and disrespectful attacks on Pence. That's not all. At the American Music Awards Sunday, the band Green Day, in what looked like a desperate attempt to try and become relevant again, used their performance to lash out at Trump. No KKK, no Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA! they sang. And at the same awards show, one of the event's co-hosts, model Gigi Hadid, mocked future first lady Melania Trump. These nasty attacks from the alt-radical left are unfortunately just the beginning. Let's face it, there's going to be a continuous onslaught of vile, divisive rhetoric coming from the left. So with that in mind, here's my advice unsolicited for Trump and Pence: Ignore it. Keep focusing on the promises you made to what I call the forgotten men and women in this election. That means repeal and replace ObamaCare, lower taxes, repatriate corporate profits -- especially in inner cities -- build a border wall as promised, appoint originalist justices to the Supreme Court, fix the inner cities, education, energy independence, drain the swamp, identify our enemies for who they really are, say "radical Islam," vet those refugees from countries with values and cultures that contradict our constitutional values, negotiate free and fair trade. Ignore the haters and remember the forgotten men and women. They're the ones who voted. Adapted from Sean Hannitys monologue on Nov. 21 airing of Hannity. After Republican senators introduced legislation last week that would target Chinese interference in Hong Kong, questions linger as to whether Donald Trumps hands-off foreign policy approach will go along with such measures or if his anti-China rhetoric is limited to trade. Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who are on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, introduced legislation last week that would slap sanctions on government officials in Hong Kong and China who restrict human rights and democratic freedoms in the semi-autonomous region. Britain handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997 with the promise that it would keep a great deal of autonomy in terms of its political and economic structures under the principle of one country, two systems. Known as a Special Administrative Region, Hong Kong has its own government and is known for a commitment to free-market principles that has helped turned it into a major financial hub and a favorite of free-market economists, such as the late Nobel economic laureate Milton Friedman. However, China has been increasingly interfering in Hong Kongs autonomy in recent years, cracking down on anti-Beijing activists, intervening in decisions in Hong Kongs legislature, and requiring loyalty oaths ahead of local elections in September. In 2015, five booksellers based in Hong Kong were abducted and held by Chinese authorities for months, triggering a global outcry. Rubio and Cotton both met with pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong last week and took aim at Chinas increasing interference in Hong Kongs affairs. Chinas assault on democratic institutions and human rights is of central importance to the people of Hong Kong and to its status as a free market, economic powerhouse and hub for international trade and investment, Rubio said after the meeting. Rubio and Cotton's bill -- the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act -- requires the president to identify those responsible for the surveillance, abduction, detention, or forced confessions of certain booksellers and journalists in Hong Kong and freeze the U.S. assets of such officials, and deny them entry into the country. The move appears, on the face of it, to be out of step with previous positions held by President-elect Donald Trump who, in 2014, called on President Obama to stay out of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The bill also requires a yearly report from the Secretary of State on conditions in Hong Kong of interest to the United States, including developments related to democratic institutions and to require that the country is sufficiently autonomous before enacting new laws or agreements affording Hong Kong different treatment from China. The United States must lead the world in ensuring that the Chinese government ceases any repressive acts in Hong Kong and abides by its three-decade-old international commitment to respect the autonomy of Hong Kong," Cotton said. Experts say the bill is likely to be effective at giving Hong Kong much-needed support and at nudging a wayward China back into line. Absolutely, all it has to do to be effective is for it to be enacted, because people in Hong Kong are looking for support, Gordon Chang, columnist and author of 'The Coming Collapse of China,' told FoxNews.com. When the U.S. supports them, thats a big deal. Chang argues that the bill does something the U.S. rarely does exercise its leverage against China. It will definitely spook China as it shows political will, Chang said. The U.S. has political leverage over China and we dont use it because were trying to engage the Chinese and dont want to upset them, and we think they have more power over us -- but thats absolutely wrong. While President-elect Trump has repeatedly blasted trade deals that he says benefit China at the expense of the United States, and has threatened to label China a currency manipulator, it remains to be seen if he will extend that tough stance to the issue of human rights and democracy. The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment from FoxNews.com. Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow for the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, said it is difficult to predict what a Trump policy will be toward Hong Kong, but that Hong Kong dissidents have been unhappy with the approach of the Obama administration. We dont know what President Trump is going to do, although he must be aware of Hong Kongs importance as a businessmen and an entrepreneur, he said. We do know what has happened in the last eight years and that has not been a robust defense of human rights in Hong Kong. Top officials in Hong Kong have said they are taking a wait-and-see approach to the incoming Trump administration. I would say that this is still [in the] very early days. The election has just been completed. So we are waiting to see, for example, the appointments to key positions of influence, like the secretary of state, his team, and the Treasury etc., Clement Leung Cheuk-man, Hong Kongs commissioner for economic and trade affairs in the U.S., told the South China Morning Post. With the bill potentially not coming to a vote before Trump takes office, and with Beijing becoming increasingly aggressive in its interference in the region, the question of Hong Kong could be one of the first to face Trump when he takes office. Chang told FoxNews.com that he believes Trump will eventually get on board with defending Hong Kong because the political stakes are ultimately too high to ignore. Once Beijing gets a victory, its not going to stop and that means we have to defend our values, as they have a full assault on us and our values and we have to recognize that they are an adversary, he told FoxNews.com. This is an existential struggle and they are going to carry on until they impose their values on the world. President-elect Donald Trump's campaign manager said Monday that the real estate mogul owed his victory in this month's election in part to what she called an "unprecedented avalanche of critical coverage." Kellyanne Conway spoke to Fox News' Megyn Kelly on "The Kelly File" hours after representatives from five major TV networks, including Fox, met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan. MEDIA BUZZ: SOME IN THE MEDIA DIG IN AGAINST 'NORMALIZING' DONALD TRUMP' "There was a backlash against elites, backlash against those who were telling Americans what was important to them," Conway said. "This statement, this transgression, this issue; whereas if you looked at the [polls], youd see that Americans were very focused on jobs and the economy, healthcare, immigration, terrorism. I mean, the clues to this election were right in front of us the whole time." Conway described the media meeting as "extremely cordial, very genial," but added that some members of the press were still "fighting the last war." WATCH: IS MAINSTREAM MEDIA ROOTING FOR TRUMP FAILURE? "Other people are on TV, a lot of pundits are on TV, frankly everywhere, really just trying to deny him and delegitimize him," said Conway. "The campaign is over and people have spoken and [Trump] busted through a blue wall that no one expected." "I dont expect anyone to cheerlead for him," Conway added. "I expect us to have platforms like this, where we can fairly and effectively and respectfully come in and state the case on his behalf." Incumbent Republican Pat McCrory was urged to concede the still-unresolved North Carolina governors race Monday nearly two weeks after Election Day. McCrorys challenger Democrat state Attorney General Roy Cooper has said repeatedly that he won the race and received big support from Democratic lawmakers who believe theres no way McCrory can win. "By any definition, Roy Cooper has won this election," U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., told reporters in Raleigh, adding that McCrory "is continuing to show his defiance and his stubbornness that he has shown the world over the last four years." Cooper said in a statement that it would be irresponsible to wait any longer to tackle the issues we campaigned on across the state." He also brought online a website for people interested in working for his administration. The latest results from the State Board of Elections late Monday put Cooper ahead of McCrory by about 6,500 votes from nearly 4.7 million cast. That is up from about 5,000 votes on election night two weeks ago. Cooper claims the margin is wider and will be reflected as counties complete their formal tabulating. More than 20 of the 100 counties had performed their canvassing by Monday evening, state board data show. McCrory has shown no signs of giving up the race. His campaign pointed to formal protests in dozens of counties alleging absentee fraud and ineligible. The campaign is supporting formal protests in at least 35 counties that allege potential miscounts, absentee ballot fraud and ineligible votes cast by dead people or convicted felons. A spokesman says Cooper wants to bypass the legal steps for examining votes. "Instead of insulting North Carolina voters, we intend to let the process work as it should to ensure that every legal vote is counted properly," McCrory campaign spokesman Ricky Diaz said in a statement. A few early ballots were put aside because a voter hadnt completed their felony punishment or had died before Election Day. The State Board of Elections revealed Sunday a data search determined more than 300 convicted felons may have voted unlawfully statewide during early voting. The state board also has been investigating allegations that roughly 150 absentee ballots were filled out in Bladen County unlawfully by a handful of people linked to a local PAC. Except for a protest over the counting of 94,000 early votes in Durham County rejected unanimously by the local board the number of ballots at issue in other disclosed protests is less than the race's current margin. Once all 100 counties complete their tabulations, probably by early next week, the trailing candidate can seek a statewide recount if the margin is 10,000 votes or less. On Tuesday, the board will have a hearing to receive opinions from political parties and the McCrory and Cooper campaigns about how it should advise county boards on whether they can throw out ineligible votes that arent subject to formal protests. The Associated Press contributed to this report. It appears the doctor is in. Former Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson is close to accepting the position of secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet, a GOP source with knowledge of the offer told Fox News late Tuesday. The source said Carson would consider Trump's offer over the Thanksgiving holiday before making a final decision. On Tuesday, Carson told Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto" that the HUD position was "one of the offers [from Trump] that is on the table." "Our inner cities are in terrible shape," Carson said. "And they definitely need some real attention. There have been so many promises made over the last several decades and nothing has been done, so it certainly is something that has been a long-term interest of mine." Minutes after Carson left a meeting with Trump at Trump Tower Tuesday, the billionaire mogul tweeted: I am seriously considering Dr. Ben Carson as the head of HUD. Ive gotten to know him wellhes a greatly talented person who loves people! BEN CARSON WOULD GIVE SERIOUS CONSIDERATION TO CABINET POST On Sunday, Carson told Fox Report Weekend he was open to accepting a spot on Trumps White House team. Basically, Ive said my preference is to be outside and to act as an adviser, but if after going through the process they all conclude it would be much better to have me in the Cabinet, I would have to give that very serious consideration, Carson said. The walk-back followed Carson friend and business manager Armstrong Williams comments to The Hill on Nov. 15, during which he said Carson feels he has no government experience, hes never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency. Later that day, Carson tried in a Facebook post to tamp down the embarrassing statement, noting his decision not to seek a Cabinet post has nothing to do with the complexity of the job as is being reported by some news outlets. Its previously been reported that Carson could be considered for a variety of department secretary jobs, including Education, Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs. The HUD position is at first blush a surprising fit for Carson. However, Carson has previously shown an interest in the department. In June 2015, Carson criticized HUD for overreach for forcing the city of Dubuque, Iowa to weigh housing voucher applications from Chicago the same as it did applications from Dubuque residents. This is just an example of what happens when we allow the government to infiltrate every part of our lives, said Carson, then a Republican presidential primary contender and an adversary of Trump. This is what you see in communist countries, where they have so many regulations encircling every aspect of your life that if you dont agree with them, all they have to do is pull the noose. Carson also wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Times in July 2015 on HUDs policies to desegregate housing. There are reasonable ways to use housing policy to enhance the opportunities available to lower-income citizens, Carson wrote, but based on the history of failed socialist experiments in this country, entrusting the government to get it right can prove downright dangerous. Fox News' Serafin Gomez contributed to this report. The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.) after he failed to disclose that a group founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood paid for him to make a pilgrimage to the Islamic holy site of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Top Democrats have considered shifting to the left by electing Ellison party chairman, but critics say his previous association with radical groups should disqualify him from the leadership role. Ellison has associated with the Muslim American Society, a Virginia-based group founded by Muslim Brotherhood members in 1993 to act as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, according to federal prosecutors in 2007. The United Arab Emirates recently added the group to a list of terrorist organizations. In 2008, the society paid for Ellison, a practicing Muslim, to make a 16-day pilgrimage, known as the hajj, to Mecca. He was joined on the trip by Asad Zaman, who sits on the board of the Muslim American Societys Minnesota chapter. Zaman has contributed thousands of dollars to Ellisons congressional runs, both before and after the Mecca trip. Eight months after Ellison returned from the trip, the House Ethics Committee questioned why he did not disclose the amount of money that the Muslim American Society paid for him to take the trip, which qualifies as a gift to a public official. Click for more from The Washington Free Beacon. Vice President-elect Mike Pence Monday outlined the agenda for President-elect Donald Trump's first 100 days in office and explained how Congress could pay for a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. "Theres a lot of ways to get to that trillion dollars," Pence told Fox News' Sean Hannity on "Hannity." "Utilizing public and private partnerships, utilizing bonding authority and enlisting private capital, theres ways that you can do this that are gonna be fiscally responsible, but also give us the resources that we need to rebuild America." HERE'S PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP'S PLAN FOR HIS FIRST 100 DAYS IN OFFICE The Indiana governor said that Trump had already laid out the priorities for his first term in meetings with congressional leaders last week. "Hes already said I want to repeal ObamaCare right out of the gate and I want us to go straight to work on replacing it with free market reforms," Pence said. "Were going to end illegal immigration ... Were going to reform taxes to jumpstart this economy ... Youre going to see this president-elect nominate a strict constructionist to the Supreme Court ... Its going to be a very exciting time." Pence also declined to say whether there would be a place in the Trump administration for 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, but did say that the onetime antagonists had a "very cordial and a very substantive discussion" over the weekend in New Jersey. "What I saw ... was two men who are completely focused on the country," Pence said. "[They were] completely focused on whats in the best interest of the United States and America standing tall in the world and reviving our economy at home. And I was frankly very impressed with the discussion." IBM is opening four new data centers in the U.K., despite some of the gloomy forecasts for the country's economy following its vote to leave the European Union. It's five years since the company began offering cloud services in the U.K., and two years since it opened its second cloud data center there. The new data centers will raise the U.K.'s share of IBM's cloud capacity in Europe from one-sixth to more than one-third. That's an interesting bet on the U.K.'s future outside the E.U. Following June's "Brexit" vote, the U.K. is set to withdraw from the 28-country bloc in a little more than two years, once the U.K. government makes up its mind when and how to leave. After that, it's anybody's guess what role data centers in the U.K. will play in the broader European economy. In May 2018, the EU's General Data Protection Regulation will enter effect, tightening rules on the transfer of citizens' personal information outside the bloc. Unless the U.K. continues to respect EU regulations -- something the popular vote would seem to have rejected -- or negotiates its own equivalent of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, then processing such information in the U.K. will be out of the question. But IBM could still find enough business to fill those data centers in other ways. London continues to thrive as a financial center and even if, post-Brexit, European banks are forced to move some trading activities to Paris or Frankfurt to comply with regulations, the City may be able to reinvent itself as an "offshore" market. Highly regulated industries such as finance are among the opportunities IBM said it is targeting with the new data centers. IBM also plans to support around 150 cloud APIs on its Bluemix development platform from its new U.K. data centers, including access to its Watson artificial intelligence tools and its blockchain technology, something increasingly drawing the attention of the financial industry. The first of the four new data centers will open in Fareham, England, next month. But the company isn't having them all built from the ground up. The second, due to be up and running by the middle of next year, will be in space leased from Ark Data Centers. That same facility already houses the Crown Hosting Framework, a joint venture between Ark and the U.K. government for hosting government data. The other two should also open in 2017, IBM said. Researchers at Florida State University have uncovered evidence that wild turkeys were a common part of Native American life hundreds of years before the first Thanksgiving. The findings, published on Monday in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, state that the new evidence points to the idea that Native Americans actually managed and domesticated the birds sometime around 1200-1400 AD. The first Thanksgiving took place in 1621. SMELL OF PLASTIC MAKES SEABIRDS THINK IT'S A MEAL The researchers said that the ancient bird remains contained more male bones while typical flocks usually have more females. Researchers also noted that the bones were significantly larger than those of modern day wild turkeys, leading to the theory that the birds were cultivated, well fed and cared for. Tanya Peres, associate professor of Anthropology at Florida State University, said in a statement on the unversity's website, that Native Americans appeared to favor the males for their larger bones. They certainly would have favored males for their feathers, added Peres. They tend to be much brighter and more colorful than the female species. Female feathers tend to be a dull grey or brown to blend in to their surroundings since they have to sit on the nest and protect the chicks. ANCIENT 400-POUND SALMON FOUGHT WITH DAGGER-LIKE TEETH Among artifacts recovered from a site in Central Tennessee, researchers found a marine shell pendant that featured two turkeys facing one another, according to the report. An elite team has traveled deep into the Everest region of the Himalayas to smash skydiving world records by jumping out of a helicopter. Will they succeed? Led by former U.S. Navy SEAL Fred Williams, the team is made up of highly accomplished U.S. Marine Corps and Army veterans, together with a handful of experienced civilian parachute jumpers. To smash skydiving world records, the team headed to Nepal, the landlocked country sandwiched between India and China. While it covers only about 50,000 square miles close to the size of Iowa - Nepal eclipses most countries in height. Nepal is home to the Himalayas, the legendary mountain system that stretches for about 1,550 miles and includes some of the highest peaks in the world. More than 100 peaks reach more than 24,000 feet the most notorious of these is Mount Everest, the worlds highest peak at 29,035 feet. DARPA DEVELOPS DIGITAL COPILOT FOR MILITARY AIRCRAFT This is where the team is conducting an expedition fraught with danger. Making the Impossible Possible The team will attempt a series of parachute jumps, endeavoring, at each stage, to push the limits of the possible. They will then move higher and do the same again smashing world records along the way. The team is equipped with gear from Complete Parachute Solutions (CPS) and breathing systems specialist TopOut Aero to support their attempts to break solo and tandem jump records. If successful, the team will push the envelope of what is possible with military high-altitude parachuting. Why take on such an extreme series of challenges? Men that have the courage to push their personal limits through calculated feats truly experience the meaning of life, explained CPS President Fred Williams. Preparation and Jump Training So how did this elite team prepare for such an epic expedition? A NEW COMBAT VEHICLE THAT SWIMS FOR THE MARINE CORPS Undertaking anything in the Himalayas is not a walk in the park - team members undertook intense physical training in the months leading up to departure. For the jumping component, there was intensive preparation. The pre-deployment training zeroed in on helicopter exits at low speeds a key factor in the expedition. In the Himalayas, the team is using an AS 350 B3 Eurocopter Helicopter in a fierce red emblazoned with a dragon. Training also worked on aspects like sub-terminal parachute openings (when the parachute opens before terminal velocity is reached) and how canopy speed and performance would be increased at high elevations. For these sorts of extreme jumps, there is a tendency for the canopy to over-steer, which needs to be countered. The team also worked on the pendulum effect of lowered combat equipment. AUSA: NEW TANKS, STEALTH CHEVY TRUCKS, FLYING RADIOS AND MORE Team members also worked to refine a lower, shorter landing pattern to ensure sticking a landing in very tight landing zones. This is a very different scenario to military jump training that is often conducted in desert conditions where the target is typically surrounded by sand and more sand. In the Himalayas, a miss could mean certain death. Ultimately, the team worked towards landing a parachute at high elevations with increased airspeed and other tough factors such as the extreme, unpredictable winds of the Himalayan terrain. In attempt to replicate the mountain conditions, part of the training took place at the highest airport in the United States at Leadville, Colorado. Zero to 51 Most of the team are extremely experienced parachute jumpers. Team leader Williams for example, has conducted more than 15,000 jumps in his career. One team member with military experience, however, took on the challenge of starting the CPS expedition training as a beginner. Former U.S. Marine Corps sniper and sniper instructor, Caylen Wojcik now works as the director of operations for firearms training specialist Magpul CORE. ARMED MUTTS: SELF-DRIVING VEHICLES COULD BOOST THE MILITARYS ARSENAL CPS is a leader in MFF (Military Free Fall) training and tailors high-level training for military clients to match operational requirements in any environment. But could CPS take a beginner skydiver and train him up to successfully jump in extreme elevations in extreme conditions? Wojcik trained with CPS in advance, and did some preparation on his own. He arrived at some of the toughest landing zones in the world with a mere 50 jumps under his belt. At 50 jumps, most novices have not even tried other drop zones let alone at one of the toughest locations on the planet. The Most Dangerous Airport in the World The Team arrived in Kathmandu and traveled to Lukla dubbed, with good reason, the most dangerous airport in the world. Lukla is perched precariously at 9,200 feet with a tiny, steep runway in the Himalayas. From this point forward, there would be no wheeled vehicles on the expedition and travel in the mountains is limited to helicopter, animal and foot. Travelling by foot, the team followed a river and mastered a 1,700 foot steep ascent to reach Namche, at 11,286 feet. After further acclimatization, the team climbed a further 1,100-foot ascent to Syangboche, which is at an elevation of 12,400 feet. 'STAR WARS'-STYLE SPEEDERS COULD CARRY US TROOPS Parachute operations then began at Syangboche airport - airport being a loose term, given it is a strip of about 100 feet of dirt, grass and rock - a sort of slanted runway on the side of a mountain. At one end, the drop zone ground rises steeply for about 750 feet and drops off at the other end. And this small runway is the only area to land. Stakes are extremely high. The expedition was off to a very strong start with this remarkable achievement. Wojcik jumped alongside highly experienced jumpers on the team with thousands of jumps under their belt and nailed his 51st jump in such a difficult location and under very tough conditions. To come to the Himalayas as a new skydiver is an incredible opportunity, he explained. With the immensity of the location, any jump there is an overwhelming experience. I wouldn't have been able to make such an accomplishment without the purpose-built training I received from some of the best in the military skydiving community at CPS." Caylen's success speaks to the quality of the expedition team members and validates our training programs, Williams added. You can learn more about Wojciks journey and his skydiving training in Magpuls very cool video here. You can meet the team and immerse yourself in the adventure at Tactical Talk available on iTunes. Join the expedition from kick off in Kathmandu through to the Himalayan mountains, flying around in the helo, hanging out at the base camps and breaking world records with the extreme jumps. If Thanksgiving travel leaves you sniffling by the time the stuffing hits the table, youre not alone. No matter how you travel for the big meal, youre likely come into contact with massive amounts of germs, says Dr. Susan Whittier, a microbiologist at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. Theyre impossible to avoid, but you can boost your odds of staying healthy by steering clear of the dirtiest spots in airports, train stations and rental cars. At the airport Touch screens to print boarding passes Think of how many grubby hands have touched that screen before you gross, right? Whittier says high-touch surfaces can harbor potential pathogens like MRSA, Group A strep and the influenza virus. BEHIND THE BALLOONS: SECRETS BEHIND THE MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE Consider using a knuckle instead of a fingertip to avoid catching something. If youre tapping the touch screen with fingertips, youre more likely to inoculate [germs] into your eye or mouth, says Whittier. If your knuckles the point of contact, youre less likely to transfer the bacteria. Security and boarding lines at the gate Jockeying to board as soon as your gate opens? If others in line are coughing or sneezing, its smarter to back away from the crowd. You can avoid most transferable germs likely the ones that cause respiratory viruses by standing at least 2 feet away from the source, says Whittier. If you find yourself stuck by a sneezer in a line you cant get out of, use a scarf or other cloth as a mask. Its not the most effective barrier, says Whittier, but it is a barrier. At the train station Escalator handrails Keep your hands off the escalator handrails as you head to your train: Once the temperature drops, says Dr. Jesse Miller, director of the Applied Research Center at NSF International, an organization that sets public-health standards, most of the time people are coughing into their hands and touching the handrails. Miller says travelers can expect gastrointestinal viruses like norovirus and rotavirus if people are not washing their hands very well plus germs that cause the common cold. STATE DEPARTMENT ISSUES TRAVEL WARNING FOR AMERICANS TRAVELING TO EUROPE In your rental car Steering wheels and radio dials While most rental companies clean cars between customers, its hard to know how many germs are still lingering from the last user. Think of high-touch surfaces, says Whittier. The steering wheel would be the most contaminated with any germs from the previous driver. Arm yourself with antibacterial wipes ahead of time, and use them liberally. Theres nothing wrong with wiping down the steering wheel or radio dial, says Whittier. This story originally appeared on NYPost.com. More than 3.5 million people visit Yellowstonethe jewel in the United States's national park crownevery year. They gawk at the geysers, crisscross the canyons, bond with the bison, and take selfies with the scenery. So far no one, as far as I know, has ever gone to Yellowstone to commit murder, murder most foul. But it's not a bad spot for it! (If you're a murdererand we don't advocate that you become one.) The park actually contains a narrow corridor less than two miles wide where evildoers could do literally anything, and the law couldn't touch them. Beware when you enterthe Yellowstone Murder Zone. Yellowstone is too big for any one state to contain. Yellowstone National Park is a wilderness area the size of Rhode Island, so vast that it's the only national park that includes part of three different states (Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana). The bulk of the park is in Wyoming, and so Congress has given Wyoming's federal court district jurisdiction over the entire park, even the tiny slivers in Idaho and Montana. It's the only court district in America that covers multiple states. How to get away with hiking, and murder. But here's the problem: The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution requires that criminal cases be tried "by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." That's called the vicinage clause, and assembling a local jury is usually no problem. But what if you went on a crime spree in the 50 square miles of Yellowstone that's part of the state of Idaho? Your jury would need to come from both the state (Idaho) and district (Wyoming) where the crime was committed. It turns out there aren't 12 permanent residents of the Idaho wilderness that's part of Yellowstone. In fact, there isn't even one! More from Conde Nast Traveler The 30 Most Terrifying Places on Earth The Friendliest and Unfriendliest Cities Around the World The Best Small Towns in America The Most Beautiful Travel Destinations of All Time Washington refuses to address this lawless No Man's Land. A Michigan State law professor named Brian Kalt discovered this loophole in 2004. He wanted to write a scholarly article about it, but was worried that killers who subscribed to the Georgetown Law Journal would use his research to commit the perfect crime. So Kalt reached out to state and federal attorneys and even Congress before he published. He figured the problem could be solved with a three-sentence legislative fix. But nobody ever even wrote him back. Disclaimer: Please do not use the Yellowstone Murder Zone for actual murders. I'm telling you about the Yellowstone Murder Zone with a clear conscience, because in reality, it would be very hard to get away with murder there. The entire crime would have to be committed in the jurisdiction: You couldn't drive up to Billings, Montana, to buy a gun, or email a hired killer from home, or anything. And anybody testing out the Murder Zone would have to be willing to serve up to six months on lesser charges, since those wouldn't require empaneling a jury. But still, Kalt has refused to enter the Idaho portion of Yellowstone since writing his article. "I'm not going there for a million dollars," he said. There's a guy who's not taking any chances. A Tennessee school bus driver was arrested and faces charges including vehicular homicide in a deadly crash that killed at least six people, including five children, police said in a news conference late Monday. Chattanooga police Chief Fred Fletcher said that 24-year-old Johnthony Walker was charged with five counts of vehicular homicide. Walker was also charged with reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Fletcher called the afternoon crash every public safety professionals worst nightmare. He said earlier that investigators were looking at speed very, very strongly as a factor in the accident. Police confirmed in the overnight press conference that five children were killed in the crash. According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, the Hamilton County District Attorneys Office reported that an additional person had died at a hospital but it was unclear if it was another Woodmoore Elementary student. In addition to the five deaths, six were admitted to area hospitals but werent critically injured and 20 others were treated and released from hospitals. Thirty-five students from kindergarten through fifth grade were on board when the bus flipped on its side and wrapped around a tree. The bus was the only vehicle involved in the crash, but Fletcher said the scene was complicated and covered a significant area. Bloodied students lay on stretchers, while others walked away dazed with their parents after the crash, local news outlets reported. Emergency personnel needed almost two hours to get all the children off the bus. Television cameras showed emergency vehicles still there late into the night, and the National Transportation Safety Board tweeted that a team would be heading to Chattanooga on Tuesday morning to investigate. Television stations reported that people lined up to donate blood and some donors were asked to make appointments for Tuesday. Kirk Kelly, interim superintendent for Hamilton County schools, said classes would be held Tuesday with counselors available for students and staff. Fletcher said the families of the children who died had been notified but police would not release their names because they were juveniles. "Our hearts go out, as well as the hearts of all these people behind me, to the families, the neighborhood, the school, for all the people involved in this, we assure you we are doing everything we can," Fletcher said. At the state Capitol in Nashville, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam called the crash "a tragic event" and offered assistance. "We're going to do everything we can to assist in any way," Haslam said. "It's a sad situation anytime there's a school bus with children involved, which there is in this case." The Associated Press contributed to this report. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 The Latest on the fatal shooting of a San Antonio police detective during a traffic stop Sunday (all times local): 5:30 p.m. A suspect has been arrested in the fatal weekend shooting of a San Antonio police detective. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said Monday evening that 31-year-old Otis Tyrone McCain was arrested without incident in the Sunday night killing of Detective Benjamin Marconi. He was arrested around 4:30 p.m. Monday after the car he was driving was stopped on Interstate 10. McManus had said previously that dashcam video from Marconi's patrol vehicle provided "a lot of information" for investigators about his death. Marconi was shot as a he sat in his vehicle after making a traffic stop. Authorities have said a gunman walked up to Marconi's driver's-side window and fired. Marconi was writing a ticket for a motorist at the time. Investigators have said that driver was not connected to the shooter. ___ 4:30 p.m. The weekend shootings of police officers in San Antonio, St. Louis and two other cities are prompting some police departments to have their officers work in pairs until further notice. David Pughes, interim police chief in Dallas, urged his officers Monday to partner in pairs. Meanwhile, the Fort Worth Police Department instituted a mandatory two-officers-per-call policy, including on traffic stops. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus already urged his officers to partner on calls after San Antonio Detective Benjamin Marconi was shot and killed Sunday. McManus said he believed Marconi was targeted because of his uniform. A St. Louis police officer was shot and wounded Sunday night. Officers also were shot and wounded Sunday night during traffic stops in Sanibel, Florida, and Gladstone, Missouri. ___ 1:30 p.m. Family members of a slain San Antonio police detective are expressing gratitude for an outpouring of support they say they've received from across the country. Detective Benjamin Marconi's family issued a statement Monday giving "thanks from the bottom of our hearts." Family members are asking for privacy to mourn the death of the 50-year-old Marconi, a 20-year veteran of the department. Marconi was shot twice Sunday morning as he sat in his patrol vehicle writing a traffic ticket near police headquarters. Police Chief William McManus said during a Monday news conference that he thinks "the uniform was the target." The search for the gunman continues. ___ 11:30 a.m. San Antonio police commanders are encouraging officers to patrol with partners as the manhunt continues for a suspect in the fatal shooting of a detective. Police Chief William McManus said during a news conference Monday that officers are not required to patrol with partners but he's encouraging the move. McManus also said dashcam video from Detective Benjamin Marconi's patrol vehicle has provided "a lot of information" for investigators about his death Sunday morning. Marconi was shot as a he sat in his vehicle after making a traffic stop. Authorities have said the suspect walked up to Marconi's driver's-side window and fired. Marconi was writing a ticket for a motorist at the time. Investigators have said that driver was not connected to the shooter. ___ 10:15 a.m. Police in Texas say a San Antonio officer who was fatally shot was targeted because of his uniform. Police Chief William McManus said at a news conference Monday morning that he thinks "the uniform was the target" in the shooting of Det. Benjamin Marconi Sunday morning. McManus says "anyone (in a police uniform) who happened along was the target." Police are asking the public for help in identifying the suspect in the shooting. The man appeared at the San Antonio police headquarters about four hours before the shooting. Surveillance video shows a black man likely in his 20s dressed all in black. McManus declined to explain why police believe this man shot Marconi, saying he didn't want to jeopardize the ongoing investigation. ___ 10 a.m. Authorities in San Antonio say the suspect in the killing of a veteran police detective appeared at police headquarters prior to the shooting. Authorities released surveillance video Monday showing the suspect standing outside the building and then walking in. The images show a black man dressed in all black and wearing a black ball cap. The video shows the man entered headquarters shortly before 8 a.m. Sunday. Detective Benjamin Marconi was shot twice in his patrol car about four hours later after making a traffic stop near police headquarters. Police have not said why the unidentified suspect appeared at the station or who he spoke to while there. San Antonio police say police Chief William McManus will hold a news conference Monday morning. ___ 2:40 a.m. Two police officers have been shot in separate incidents in what authorities are calling targeted attacks. One died while the other was shot twice in the face but was expected to survive. Authorities say a San Antonio detective writing out a traffic ticket to a motorist was shot to death in his squad car late Sunday morning outside police headquarters by another driver who pulled up from behind. San Antonio police Chief William McManus identified the officer as 50-year-old Benjamin Marconi, a 20-year veteran of the force. In St. Louis, a police sergeant was hospitalized in critical condition but expected to survive after being shot twice in the face Sunday night in what the police chief called an "ambush." Police reported early Monday that the suspect was later killed in a shootout with police. The suspect in the murder of a San Antonio police detective was arrested Monday afternoon. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said that 31-year-old Otis Tyrone McKane was taken into custody without incident at around 4:30 p.m. local time. McKane was charged with capital murder. McManus said authorities had pulled over a car McKane was a passenger in on Interstate 10, on the eastern edge of San Antonio. The car was being driven by a woman and a 2-year-old child was also in the vehicle. It was not immediately clear what connection McKane had to the woman and child. The arrest ended a 30-hour-long manhunt following the shooting of Det. Benjamin Marconi, 50, who was writing a traffic ticket when he was killed in his squad car late Sunday morning outside police headquarters. Investigators believed McKane pulled up behind Marconi's squad car, walked up to the officer's driver's-side window and opened fire. Authorities say the driver said the driver Marconi pulled over was not connected to the shooter. "Everyone is relieved," McManus told reporters at a Monday evening news conference. "I don't think anyone slept last night." McManus said that McKane had a criminal record, but did not elaborate. The chief also said that a vehicle sought by police was found near McKane's home. Surveillance video shows McKane at San Antonio police headquarters about four hours before Marconi was shot. The suspect asked a desk clerk a question but left before receiving an answer, said McManus, who declined to say what the man asked. "I don't know why he was in headquarters. We have some ideas," he said. While being escorted to Bexar County Jail later in the night, McKane told reporters that he was angry with the court system for not letting him see his son and he lashed out at somebody who didnt deserve it. In his words, "I've been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didn't deserve it." He said he wished to apologize to the family of the slain officer. The shooting was one of several weekend attacks that authorities say targeted law enforcement in multiple states. In Missouri, a St. Louis police sergeant was shot twice in the face Sunday evening while he sat in traffic in a marked police vehicle. The sergeant was released from the hospital Monday. Police officers also were shot and injured during traffic stops in Sanibel, Fla., and Gladstone, Mo., on Sunday night, but authorities have not suggested these were targeted attacks. The shootings come less than five months after a black military veteran killed five white officers at a protest in Dallas -- the deadliest day for American law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Click for more from FoxSanAntonio.com. At least 12 people were injured Monday night after a bus collided with another vehicle in Indianapolis. Authorities were called to a report of an IndyGo bus crashing into a truck at around 10:05 p.m., according to Fox 59. Police said it appears the truck ran a red light and the driver was possibly impaired. Indianapolis police Capt. Michael Elder told the station that alcohol was found inside the mans truck and a blood test will be taken to determine whether alcohol was the determining factor in the crash. The bus also struck another vehicle, but it suffered minor damage. This crash comes hours after a Tennessee school bus accident killed six children and injured 23 others. Click for more from Fox 59. The Texas woman who allegedly killed a friend and stole her baby in Kansas after faking a pregnancy is expected to face charges soon, prosecutors said. A final charging decision against Yesenia Sesmas, who is currently jailed in Dallas on a Kansas warrant, is expected to be announced Tuesday morning. First-degree murder and kidnapping charges are pending. The 34-year-old woman was taken into custody over the weekend after a frantic manhunt ensued for the missing 6-day-old baby, who was reported missing Thursday after the body of her mother Laura Abarca-Nogueda, 27, was found. Sesmas told KUVN-TV of Dallas-Fort Worth that Abarca-Nogueda had agreed to turn over her newborn daughter to her but reneged on the agreement. In the interview at the Dallas County jail, she admitted to killing the mother in Wichita but said she didnt mean to. The baby, whose name has been spelled by police both as Sofia or Sophia, was six days old when she was reported missing. She was reunited with family members in Kansas on Saturday. According to Wichita police Lt. Todd Ojile, Sesmas had known the babys mother for years and had spent some time in Wichita before returning to Texas several months ago. She traveled to Kansas to kidnap the baby, he added. Ojile said investigators identified a suspect in the case late Friday night, which led them to a house in Dallas where the baby was found unharmed. Also living there were Sesmas boyfriend, along with the suspects son and niece. Ojile said police do not believe the others in the home were aware of the womans plans. The Associated Press contributed to this report. There's no official decision yet on the competency of Dylann Roof to stand trial in the killing of nine black worshippers at a South Carolina church. Court officials say no decision was reached in the two-day hearing that ended Tuesday afternoon in Charleston. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel says he'll rule later this week if the trial can continue. Gergel closed the hearing amid concern its contents could taint potential jurors' views of Roof. The hearing came as Gov. Nikki Haley attended a prayer vigil blocks away at Emanuel AME Church, site of the 2015 shootings. The vigil was one of many statewide Haley requested to encourage prayer for South Carolina during the trials of Roof and former North Charleston officer Michael Slager, as well as recovery from Hurricane Matthew. A Philadelphia police officer has been charged with shooting his son in the back during a dispute over the use of the family car. Officer Dorion Young has been charged with attempted murder and other counts in the Labor Day shooting. District Attorney Seth Williams says the son had retreated to his bedroom when Young broke the door down and shot the 19-year-old with a personal weapon during a struggle. They say a second bullet bounced off the officer's shoe. Williams says the son had to have his spleen removed and continues to recover from his injuries. The 46-year-old Young is in custody and does not have a lawyer listed in court records. Police officials have suspended the 25-year veteran and plan to dismiss him. A 24-year-old Ukrainian man who lied about his name and age to attend a Pennsylvania high school was sentenced Tuesday to 11 to 23 months in jail for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old classmate and stealing a public school education. A Dauphin County judge on Tuesday also ordered Artur Samarin to repay the Harrisburg School District $44,000 while he spends seven years on probation after his release from jail, Pennlive.com first reported. But First Assistant District Attorney Fran Chardo said he doesn't expect either will happen because Samarin has agreed to be deported once his jail term is up. "I don't ever expect to see that money," Chardo said. A federal judge earlier this month sentenced Samarin to two months in prison for passport fraud and Social Security fraud. Samarin will serve the state court sentence imposed Tuesday first before serving the federal sentence. Samarin was called Asher Potts at John Harris High School. He impressed teachers and community leaders including participating in Junior ROTC and student government before authorities learned his identity and true age. He had legally entered the country before overstaying his expired visa. Defense attorney Adam Klein called a retired Harrisburg teacher, Edith Goodson, to testify on Samarin's behalf. She said Samarin tutored other pupils who sought to learn "while I was trying to control the chaos around them." "Not one penny of that money was wasted on Artur," Goodson said of the district's cost to educate Samarin. "He is a fine young man and he was here for all the right reasons." That angered Chardo, who said Samarin "sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl" when he was 22 by pretending to be considerably younger. "He deserves every minute he serves in prison," Chardo said. Samarin has spent about nine months in jail since his arrest in February, all of which counts toward the sentence imposed Tuesday. He pleaded guilty in September to charges including statutory sexual assault, theft by deception and tampering with public records. The sex assault victim wasn't in court because she "didn't want to have to see him again," Chardo said. Klein blamed Stephanye and Michael Potts, who have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial on federal fraud charges, for acting as Samarin's "adopted parents" and allegedly concocting Samarin's identity scam. Samarin apologized for the trouble he caused. "I made a huge mistake to pursue my American dream," he told the judge. The Latest on the fatal school bus crash in Chattanooga (all times local): 12:45 a.m. Police say the driver of a school bus that crashed in Chattanooga, Tennessee, killing six people, has been arrested. Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher says 24-year-old Johnthony Walker has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. Fletcher says additional charges may be added as the case proceeds to a grand jury. The school bus was mangled around a tree at the scene. Police say the students on the bus ranged from kindergarten through fifth grade. The bus was carrying students from Woodmore Elementary. ___ 6:50 p.m. The district attorney says six people are dead in an elementary school bus crash in Chattanooga. Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston told media outlets that five people died at the scene and one died at the hospital. Melydia Clewell, spokeswoman for the district attorney, confirmed the number. The school bus was mangled around a tree at the scene. Police say the ages of the students ranged from kindergarten through fifth grade. The bus was carrying students from Woodmore Elementary. ___ 6:10 p.m. Chattanooga police are reporting multiple deaths in an elementary school bus crash. In a news conference Monday, Assistant Chief Tracy Arnold said there were multiple fatalities but did not confirm the exact number. Police have said the bus crash sent 23 people to area hospitals and 35 schoolchildren were on the bus Monday afternoon. The school bus was mangled around a tree at the scene. Arnold said the ages of the students ranged from kindergarten through fifth grade. ___ 5:50 p.m. Chattanooga police say an elementary school bus crash has sent 23 people to area hospitals. Police Chief Fred Fletcher said 35 schoolchildren were on the bus Monday afternoon. He did not have information about the extent of injuries and said rescue efforts were continuing. Fletcher said at a news conference that the bus was the only vehicle involved in the crash. The students on board ranged from kindergarten through fifth grade. At the state Capitol in Nashville, Gov. Bill Haslam called the crash "a tragic event" and offered assistance. Fletcher said police were interviewing the bus driver to determine what happened. The bus was carrying students from Woodmore Elementary. A Massachusetts college will stop flying all flags on campus after an American flag was burned following Republican nominee Donald Trumps election victory. Hampshire College President Johnathan Lash said in a statement to WWLP-TV on Saturday that the college wont fly any flags for the time being. It is a disrespect. That shouldnt have happened in the first place, he said. A college official said members of the campus community initially lowered the flag to half-staff after the Nov. 8 election. That offended other members of the community. The flag was then found burned on Veterans Day. It was replaced and flown again at half-staff until Friday's decision to remove all flags. According to the station, debates over flag flying have occurred on campus before. For more than a decade flying commemorative 9/11 flags have been a hot-button issue until the school board voted to fly those flags annually. Lash said the Amherst campus will talk with students and staff about properly utilizing flags in the future. The Associated Press contributed to this report. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 The superintendent of public schools in Oakland, California, is heading east to take over public schools in the District of Columbia. A spokeswoman for Mayor Muriel Bowser says the mayor will name Antwan Wilson as the city's schools chancellor on Tuesday morning. Wilson replaces Kaya Henderson, who led District schools for 5 years and built a reputation as a national leader in urban education reform. Test scores and graduation rates increased under Henderson, but the huge achievement gap between white students and non-Asian minorities held steady. Henderson's predecessor, Michelle Rhee, recently met with President-elect Donald Trump as he works to fill his Cabinet. Wilson was Oakland's superintendent for two years. In a letter to staff, he said improving schools in the nation's capital "is more important now than ever." A package exploded in a downtown Philadelphia apartment early Tuesday after a man opened the manila envelope believing it contained an inhaler, police said. According to Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross, the man received the package Monday evening and opened it early Tuesday, apparently believing it contained an inhaler or other type of medicine. The package, he said, was target specific, and that it included an actual device that was meant to injure. Other details about the device were not immediately available. It wasnt clear if police know or suspect who sent the package. The 62-year-old man, whose name has not been released, was hospitalized with hand and chest injuries. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives worked to determine the cause of the blast that injured the man around 4:30 a.m. "As far as I know, there were no threats prior to this and no threats since," Police Chief Inspector Scott Small said. Police said the victim opened the package near the stove in the kitchen of the apartment he shares with a roommate, leading police to initially believe the blast may have been an accidental explosion caused by an inhaler getting too close to heat. Fox 29 News reported that inhalers delivered in the mail had been known to explode in the past. The damage from the blast was confined to the kitchen and included broken glass, Small said. The victim was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and was in stable condition. More investigators&explosives agents arrive as police now believe this was NOT an accidental explosion @FOX29philly pic.twitter.com/DlMfNt5Mf3 Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) November 22, 2016 U.S. Postal Inspectors and the city bomb squad are also working together to determine the cause of the blast. Ten residents were evacuated from nearby apartments, but were allowed to return after the bomb squad cleared other packages. The victim's roommate reportedly told police that the man often receives medical inhalers in the mail. FOX 29 News reported authorities do not believe the package was delivered by the U.S. Postal Service and that it had a very old barcode on it. JavaScript is disabled on your browser. CORDIS website requires JavaScript enabled in order to work properly. Please enable JavaScript. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 A British warship has docked in the Israeli port of Haifa at a time of heightened tensions in the eastern Mediterranean. The two countries conducted a joint naval exercise on Tuesday, and both Israel and Britain are describing the visit by the HMS Bulwark as routine. But its arrival comes shortly after Russia's deployment of the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov to the region off the coast of Syria. The ship's commander, Capt. James Parkin, says the area is a "pretty dangerous place," and that his troops are at a high level of preparedness. An Israeli navy official, speaking anonymously under military guidelines, says the eastern Mediterranean has attracted a "lot of activity" by foreign navies. Germany's top security official says the country's domestic spy agency has started monitoring the so-called Reich Citizens' Movement, whose members have shown an increasing tendency toward violence. Police recently raided the homes of several self-styled Reich citizens to seize weapons. In one case a man opened fire on police, fatally wounding an officer. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told Parliament on Tuesday that he has asked the domestic intelligence services to put the movement under "collective surveillance." Officials say the Reich Citizens' Movement, which has been compared to the U.S. sovereign citizen movement, is extremely diverse but its adherents share a fundamental rejection of the post-war Federal Republic of Germany and its laws. Authorities estimate that there are several thousand "Reich citizens" in the country of some 80 million. An Israeli government body says the Supreme Court has postponed the planned demolition of a sprawling Bedouin Arab village in the southern desert. The Israel Lands Administration says that some 14 structures were to be demolished on Tuesday but the execution was put on hold after the court order. It says the structures in question were built illegally. The case involves a long-running dispute between Israel and the formerly nomadic Bedouin of the Umm Al-Hiran village. Israel moved part of a Bedouin clan to the state-owned land 60 years ago, but now wishes to relocate residents to a government-designated Bedouin township. An adjacent part of the village slated for future demolition is zoned for a new development catering to religious Jewish families with ties to the West Bank settlement movement. An English-speaking homeless woman found wandering the streets of Rome has sparked an international probe to uncover her identity. Italian authorities were poring over missing person reports from around the globe Tuesday in their effort to identify the woman, who is believed to be in her late teens and who has given various names to police when questioned, according to reports. The Daily Mail reported Tuesday that the girl is a 21-year-old Swedish woman who disappered from her home in Stockholm in May and suffers from Asperger's Syndrome. The news outlet identified the girl as Embla Jauhojarvi, after a man called the Daily Mail and said the woman was his daughter -- though authorities have yet to confirm her identity. "She has been missing for six months since May," the man, identified as Tahvo Jauhojarvi, told the Daily Mail after seeing images of the woman online. "I knew she was going to Italy and to study Italian as a language," he said. "I've tried for six months to get help from police in Sweden, but they have been no help." Social media sites are ripe with theories about the woman. Some Internet users claim she strongly resembles Madeleine McCann -- a British girl who disappeared from Portugal in 2007 -- while others suggest she might be a missing girl from the U.S. or Germany. The 5-foot blonde woman, who carries no passport, reportedly told local police she is 20 years old and from the U.K. McCann was snatched from her parents' vacation resort in Praia da Luz in May 2007 in a case that has never been solved. The girl, who would be 13 years old if alive today, has a distinctive dark strip on the iris of her right eye. A Facebook page devoted to the search for McCann dismissed the claim on Monday, saying in a post, "Thank you all for contacting us regarding this child. We have passed on to Operation Grange. They do not believe this is Madeleine." "This is someones child, so if you know who this child is, please contact the authorities in your country. Please keep sharing too," the site said. The Sun newspaper reported that the homeless woman is also being linked to other high-profile missing persons cases, including Amanda Adlai, who was kidnapped in Michigan in 2008, and Maria-Brigitte Henselmann, who disappeared from Germany in 2008. The website, Missing Persons of America, has posted several photos of the girl wandering the streets of Rome. The teen, who has no belongings and refuses to accept money, has been wearing the same long tan skirt, rain jacket and black male shoes for an extended period of time, according to Yahoo News. She reportedly responds to the name "Maria," but has given authorities other names. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 Lebanon's newly elected president is attending a military parade in central Beirut, the first such celebration in two years, to mark the country's Independence Day. Lebanon gained independence from France 73 years ago, in 1943, when France was occupied by Germany during World War II. Lebanon's parliament elected Michel Aoun as president last month, ending a two-and-half-year deadlock that left Lebanon without a leader in the top post. Tuesday's celebrations saw parades by Lebanese armed forces and the security forces as helicopters hovered overhead. Organizers released balloons in the color of the Lebanese flag into the skies. Many hoped the breakthrough that brought 83-year-old Aoun to office would allow for the formation of a new government by Independence Day but Premier-designate Saad Hariri still faces obstacles in assembling a Cabinet. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 NATO is criticizing Russia's deployment of anti-ship missiles in its westernmost Baltic region as "aggressive military posturing," and is urging dialogue to cool escalating tensions. NATO said in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday that the missile deployment near the alliance's borders "does not help to lower tensions or restore predictability to our relations." NATO called for more transparency on military activities "to avoid incidents and the risk of misunderstandings." Moscow has vigorously objected to the deployment of NATO's military units near Russia's borders, and is now reportedly installing Bastian missile-launchers in the Kaliningrad exclave, which borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania. President Vladimir Putin said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies Monday night that Moscow would target NATO sites if it thinks they threaten Russia. next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 More than 1,000 police officers, some dressed as Santa Claus, have staged a noisy protest in the Romanian capital demanding they be allowed to retire at 60. Police officers massed in a central square where Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos and other government members have their offices on Tuesday and banged cymbals and drums. A few stuck on white beards pretending they were Father Christmas, to emphasize the age issue. The current retirement age for male police officers is 65. Protesters say that's too old for officers to carry out traffic duties and keep public order. Labor Minister Dragos Pislaru later met some of the officers and said he would look at their request. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico says he expects a divorce between the European Union and Britain to be painful for Britain. Fico, whose country currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, says the EU has to emerge as the more successful from negotiations about future EU-UK relations because otherwise Brexit could set an example for other countries to follow. Speaking to students on Tuesday, Fico asked: "Was it us who expelled Britain? Didn't we do enough for it to stay?" Fico says Britain should have continued access to the European Union's single market when it leaves only if it continues to allow citizens from member states to freely work in Britain. Prime Minister Theresa May's government wants to control immigration from other EU countries while preserving an open trading relationship. Turkey's government has dismissed a further 15,000 people from the military, police and the civil service as part of an ongoing investigation into the failed military coup in July. Also within the two government decrees issued Tuesday, the government shut-down 500 associations, 19 health establishments and nine media outlets. Turkey has accused U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen of masterminding the failed July 15 attempt to topple the government and has launched a large-scale crackdown on his followers and institutions run by his movement. Authorities have arrested close to 38,000 people and purged 100,000 others from government jobs. Gulen denies involvement in the coup The government is also accused of using powers from a state of emergency declared after the coup to clamp down on other government critics. One after another, fighter jets catapult from the flight deck of the USS Eisenhower, a thousand-foot American aircraft carrier, afterburners glowing amber above the blue Persian Gulf, on their way northwest to join the fight in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State. The fighter jets refuel on the way before receiving from coalition partners targets like convoys, hideouts and mortar positions in IS-controlled territories such as Mosul and Raqqa, said Rear Adm. James Malloy, commander of the Eisenhower carrier strike group. From his office aboard the USS Eisenhower, Malloy described coalition success around Mosul while cautioning that victory is close at hand. "Mosul is the last large city in Iraq that is held by Daesh, but Daesh is by no means finished in Iraq, so our mission in Iraq won't end as Mosul falls," he said, using the Arabic acronym for IS. While inter-coalition coordination was "seamless," communication with Russia was limited to "deconfliction," Malloy said. "There's no coordination there because the goals are not the same," the admiral said. The carrier's captain Paul Spedero said sorties from the Eisenhower have dropped nearly 1,100 bombs on IS targets since June when the ship entered the Persian Gulf after launching strikes from the eastern Mediterranean. The ship's 5,200 sailors arm, repair, launch and recover 7-20 Super Hornet F18 fighter jets every day that drop on average 10 bombs each or reconnoiter in support of anti-IS coalition forces. The crew catapults the jets from the ship at 145mph, and they use a hook and cable to rapidly catch the fighter jets on the 500-foot long carrier deck. "For a catapult shot, if you think about a Porsche 911, zero to sixty in about 2.5 seconds, these aircraft will go from 0 to 145 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds," said commander Jeremy Rifas, the carrier's air boss, from inside the ship's control tower overlooking launches. The fighters on these sorties head north by northwest for an hour before refueling midair and then approaching coalition ground forces that provide the pilots with targets for airstrikes or reconnaissance. "They go into harm's way every single time, every single mission. I don't really close my eyes until 2300 when the last one comes back," admiral Malloy said. The U.S.-led coalition has flown more than 125,000 sorties in Iraq and Syria since Operation Inherent Resolve began in Aug. 8, 2014, according to the US Department of Defense. This article is archived and available in its entirety for free for registered members only. Please login or register to read more. Apolis is a socially motivated lifestyle brand whose aim is to empower communities worldwide, founded by two brothers from Santa Barbara, California, Shea and Raan Parton, who spent their childhoods traveling the world with their parents, passionate nonprofit supporters. From the get-go, the Apolis approach was to locate artisans with interesting skill sets and then, instead of just importing these indigenous crafts, partner up to design something together. Before theyd graduated college, the brothers were shipping Apolis first impact producta cashmere sweater created in conjunction with a Nepalese cooperativestraight out of Sheas dorm room to Bloomingdales. Now, a decade later, Apolis sells men's clothes and other products both online and in stores ranging from Steven Alan to Nordstrom, as well as their own flagship stores in LA and NY. Theyve collaborated with brands like Filson and J.Crew and are one of the few American fashion companies that is both a B Corporation (a company thats achieved the highest benchmark for environmental and social responsibility) and a member of the CFDA, the discerning organization of fashion designers. The Apolis Market Baga leather-handled jute shopping bag designed with a Bangladesh cooperativeis their biggest success story, with more than 77,000 sold. The brothers grew up surfing, in which the relaxed, coastal feel to even their tailored clothes is rooted. "Blazers are unconstructed; t-shirts are whisper-soft; khakis are rolled at the hem and styled with sockless loafers. An Apolis man looks like hes prepared to disembark from a plane and climb a mountain before taking a meeting at the local cocktail bar", states Janelle Brown in a Naturally, Danny Seo article (source). The rather small company, with a staff of under 20, has a Los Angeles Arts District location and a Soho NY location, which both are Apolis stores as well as Community Centers where they host skill-building workshops, dinners, live music, regular advocate keynotes and collection releases. For now, Apolis is men's wear only, but expansion is definitely on the table. One of their home decor products, the Cypress Fig table candle, was quite successful, which led to Apolis now offering the same scent in the form of its debut personal fragrance. Cypress Fig is an aromatic, warm, complex composition of fresh and woody notes that are highlighted by natural citrus and earthy essential oils. "All essential oils and natural ingredients were painstakingly sourced to bring the scent to life. The bergamot hails from Italy; the lemon verbena from Morocco. Each note is complimentary to both men and women - making it the perfect unisex fragrance, says the brand. Top Notes: Bergamot, Lemon Verbena Grapefruit Heart Notes: Geranium, Juniper Leaf, Jasmine, Fig Base Notes: Hay, Violet Leaf, Vetiver Vanilla Bourbon, Cypress Sandalwood, Amber The fragrance was developed by a local perfume company run by Linda and Mike Sivrican, owners of a perfume studio in Santa Monica, California, and the brothers spent a day sitting with them to learn about the process. We studied the scents and tested them in their studio in Santa Monica. The husband and wife team have been pouring small batches of essential oils and natural extracts together since 2012. We were fortunate that they were able to find the time for their team to help us introduce our first fragrance." On my skin, Cypress Fig starts out as an invigorating, citrusy, woody aromatic that has the power to kick start your day but already announces shortly after its initial blast a certain warmth and the slight sweetness of fig. One can see the connection to the scented candle, since it's not hard to imagine the aroma filling up your house, especially this time of year. The base develops slowly and surprised me with its warm, sweet, figgy woodiness that lasts for hours on the skin and has a not overly sweet, soft roundness that contrasts in a big way with the first phase of the composition. At the very end, soft vanilla and fig on a background of wood are peacefully left behind on the skin. Many will label it masculine after the first sniff, but those who are willing to wait for the base to unfold before assigning gender won't make that distinction anymore. Apolis' Cypress Fig Eau de Parfum retails for 98 USD in their stores and through the Apolis website in bottles of 50 ml/1.7 oz. The website also offers extensive information on the company and its founders, including a journal with posts since November 2014. Sources: Apolis website, Naturally Danny Seo article Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy Young physician-scientist receives American Society of Hematology grant Fred Hutch clinical researcher and hematology oncologist Dr. Anna Halpern recently received the Research Training Award for Senior Fellows from the American Society of Hematology, or ASH. The $55,000 research grant came at the same time Halpern and colleagues from Fred Hutch and the University of Washington published a paper in JAMA Oncology on the Association of Risk Factors, Mortality and Care Costs of Adults with Acute Myeloid Leukemia with Admission to the Intensive Care Unit. The grant is really a great opportunity, Halpern said. One of the most challenging transitions a young oncologist faces is from being a fellow to being a successful independent investigator. This award will allow me the time, mentorship and support to continue to do research and pursue an interesting and valuable question, not only for acute myeloid leukemia patients and their caregivers but to help health care systems deliver valuable, cost-effective health care. The research is valuable for lots of different parties. Halperns research and practice focus on patients with acute myeloid leukemia, or AML. Her recent paper, co-authored with Dr. Gary Lyman, co-director of the Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research, or HICOR, examined risk factors associated with admission to the intensive care unit after hospitalization as well as risk factors associated with patient deaths. Patients with AML have a high rate of admission to ICU during hospitalizations for treatment and treatment-related complications, Lyman said. But there hasnt been a lot of study around what the risk factors are for subsequent admission to the ICU or with regard to their outcomes. We know the mortality rate for any type of cancer if a patient ends up in the ICU is higher because theyre sicker. But there are some factors that make that mortality extremely high, and there are others where theyre more likely to survive. Halperns study broke down hospitalization data from more than 43,000 AML patients admitted to more than 200 medical institutions in 43 states. Admission data spanned the years 2004 through 2012. The research team, which also included Fred Hutch researchers Drs. Eva Culakova and Roland Walter found that 26 percent of the patients, or about 11,000 people, were admitted to the ICU. Out of those, 43 percent, or about 4,900, died. Risk factors for requiring ICU care included age (being older than 80); being hospitalized in the South or in a low- or medium-volume hospital; having a comorbidity such congestive heart failure, lung disease, liver disease, diabetes or deep venous thrombosis; or contracting sepsis, invasive fungal infection or pneumonia. Risk factors for dying in the ICU were age (being over 60); being nonwhite; being hospitalized on the West Coast; having a comorbidity; and contracting sepsis, invasive fungal infection or pneumonia. The study also measured the cost associated with admission to the ICU, finding that it increased proportionally with each patients comorbidity burden. There are a lot of factors that put people at risk for morbidity, and some are modifiable and some are not, Halpern said. We cant modify age or the region of the country, but comorbidities were highly predictive of ICU admission and mortality. So perhaps patients with lots of comorbidities will have special protocols a higher nursing ratio or a different manner of intervention if they develop a fever. We can try to manage things differently. Both Halpern and Lyman referred to the study as a first step. This study is leading and guiding us, Lyman said. With future studies, we can hopefully quite substantially change the clinical practice and improve patient outcomes. Weve seen advances in many different cancers and in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, but with AML were not much further along than we were three decades ago. Clearly, this is an area where we need further advances and this could move us closer to such progress. Its not going to cure these patients, but it might enable and improve the quality and duration of survival. Lyman also praised Halpern for her dedication and hard work that resulted in the ASH grant. This study is the result of a very good research effort by a young investigator, he said. Anna is an excellent hematology-oncology fellow. Halpern said her next steps will be to create a risk-prediction model. Now that weve identified these factors, the next step, which has been funded by the grant, is to create a risk-prediction model that can be applied to any AML patient admitted to the hospital to predict their risk of ICU admission and subsequent mortality, she said. Once weve created these models and validated them, ideally well use them to counsel patients and potentially design early interventions to prevent these poor outcomes and decrease mortality. Diane Mapes / Fred Hutch News Service Jacob Frydman - Encourages Support for Toys for Hospitalized Children Program During his years of active involvement in Toys for Hospitalized Children, Jacob Frydman has witnessed on numerous occasions how an unexpected gift uplifts a hospitalized child, senior, or special needs adult by letting them know they are not forgotten. -- Philanthropist and real estate investment mogul, Jacob Frydman will participate in the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education's (NCFJE) Toys for Hospitalized Children program. Mr. Frydman's generous commitment and support for the NCFJE's initiative will help provide toys, gifts, and smiles to children in need. Located in Brooklyn, NY, NCFJE is a multi-faceted charity founded in 1940 by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson dedicated to protecting, feeding, and educating thousands throughout the New York metro area. Today, the NCFJE has several programs under the leadership of Rabbi Jacob Hecht with the objective of providing fast, discreet, and dignified service to all sectors of the Jewish community. Under the direction of Program Director, Mrs. Baila Hecht, the organization's roster of initiatives includes Toys for Hospitalized Children, which sends over 10,000 toys and gifts annually to numerous hospitals, senior residences, and special needs facilities. For more than 50 years, these gifts have brought joy and smiles to those that need it most, and Jacob Frydman is pleased to be able to give back to the community through this meaningful and impactful program. Toys for Hospitalized Children is also helping children learn how easy and fulfilling it is to reach out to help others who are less fortunate. The young volunteers of the program gather to wrap toys, and when possible, visit the recipients to offer the gifts personally. During his years of active involvement in Toys for Hospitalized Children, Jacob Frydman has witnessed on numerous occasions how an unexpected gift uplifts a hospitalized child, senior, or special needs adult by letting them know they are not forgotten. This simple gesture sends a message of compassion and hope to patients and family members that leaves a lasting sense of community spirit in all who participate. A renowned expert on value added investments, Jacob Frydman has made a positive and lasting impact over his 30-year career in the real estate acquisition and development industries. As a recognized leader in his field, Jacob has served as a contributor and panelist at numerous industry seminars, speaking on aspects of property investments. He has been a guest lecturer on real estate finance at Columbia University, and in the Master's Lecturer series sponsored by New York Law School. His television appearances include CNBC, Bloomberg TV, FOX News, and others, where he discusses trends in commercial real estate and provides his invaluable expertise. Frydman has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Bardavon Opera House, home of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and is also an avid philanthropist, often donating his time and capital to various charitable endeavors. He is a firm supporter of organizations such as Chabad of Dutchess County and The Brem Foundation of Washington DC. Jacob Frydman - Property Expert and Consultant: http://jacobfrydmannews.com Jacob Frydman - Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/jacob-frydman Jacob Frydman - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/jacobfrydman For more information, please visit http://www.JacobFrydmanNews.com Contact Info: Name: JFN Email: jacob@jacobfrydmannews.com Organization: JacobFrydmanNews.com Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpgwu_U5liM Source: http://marketersmedia.com/jacob-frydman-encourages-support-for-toys-for-hospitalized-children-program/147747 Release ID: 147747 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) New Book How to Write a Law School Personal Statement Launched Barzin Pakandam launched his brand new book, "The Law School Personal Statement Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Writing Your Personal Statement for Law School", available through the Amazon Kindle store targeted at fans of the Law School Applicants world. More information is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Law-School-Personal-Statement-Handbook-ebook/dp/B01LTGV6BK/ -- Respected admissions counselor and lawyer Barzin Pakandam is launching his brand new book, "The Law School Personal Statement Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Writing Your Personal Statement for Law School". The book is live as of September 7th, available through the Amazon Kindle store and is expected to become a big hit with fans of the Law School Applicants world. More information on the book can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Law-School-Personal-Stateme... This is the first book Pakandam has authored. The book was written with the aim in mind to help law school applicants to write the best possible personal statement. There's also particular excitement about this launch because it compiles the author's many years of experience, unveiling the best tactics that have allowed countless students to be admitted to their first choice schools. The Law School Personal Statement Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Writing Your Personal Statement for Law School sets its main focus on the art of crafting a compelling statement. Readers will likely find a particular interest in the three real personal statement examples. The book's cover art was created by the author himself and The Law School Personal Statement Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Writing Your Personal Statement for Law School is being released by The Editor's Corner. Barzin Pakandam has a background in admissions counseling and is a graduate of the USC Gould School of Law. This helped shaped the creation of the book by igniting a passion for helping prospective law students get into any school of their choice. When asked about why he wrote the book, Pakandam said: "I want to craft a short, easy to read booklet that allows a candidate to read it an afternoon and get to work writing their statement right away. I want to help students brainstorm ideas for an effective statement and how to convey an effective story to law school admissions committees." Pakandam has hopes that the book will allow prospective students to be admitted to their top choice schools. This positive outlook from the author is certainly testament to his optimism considering some of the mishaps during its creation. At one point he almost lost the entire manuscript when the ebook publishing software crashed. In a recent interview, the author made a point of thanking his admissions counseling clients for their part in the creation of the book, saying: "I want to thank all the students I was able to help through the admissions process over the years. Without you, this book would not be possible." Those interested in learning more about the book can visit here: https://www.amazon.com/Law-School-Personal-Stateme... Contact Info: Name: Barzin Pakandam Organization: The Editor's Corner Address: 312 Arizona Ave. Release ID: 147664 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Diphtheria Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Pipeline Review H2 WiseGuyReports.com adds "Diphtheria - Pipeline Review, H2 2016" reports to its database. -- Get Sample Report @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/752819-diphtheria-pipeline-review-h2-2016 Diphtheria is a bacterial infection that affects the membranes of the throat and nose. If left untreated, diphtheria can cause severe damage to kidneys, nervous system, and heart. Symptoms include sore throat and hoarseness, swollen glands (enlarged lymph nodes) in neck, nasal discharge, fever and chills and malaise. Treatment includes antitoxins and antibiotics. Report Highlights Pharmaceutical and Healthcare latest pipeline guide Diphtheria - Pipeline Review, H2 2016, provides comprehensive information on the therapeutics under development for Diphtheria (Infectious Disease), complete with analysis by stage of development, drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type. The guide covers the descriptive pharmacological action of the therapeutics, its complete research and development history and latest news and press releases. The Diphtheria (Infectious Disease) pipeline guide also reviews of key players involved in therapeutic development for Diphtheria and features dormant and discontinued projects. The guide covers therapeutics under Development by Companies /Universities /Institutes, the molecules developed by Companies in Pre-Registration, Filing rejected/Withdrawn, Phase III, Phase II, Phase I, IND/CTA Filed, Preclinical and Discovery stages are 1, 1, 10, 1, 5, 1, 7 and 3 respectively. Similarly, the Universities portfolio in Phase II and Discovery stages comprises 1 and 2 molecules, respectively.Diphtheria. Diphtheria (Infectious Disease) pipeline guide 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. The guide is built using data and information sourced from Global Markets Direct's proprietary databases, company/university websites, clinical trial registries, conferences, SEC filings, investor presentations and featured press releases from company/university sites and industry-specific third party sources. Additionally, various dynamic tracking processes ensure that the most recent developments are captured on a real time basis. Scope - The pipeline guide provides a snapshot of the global therapeutic landscape of Diphtheria (Infectious Disease). - The pipeline guide reviews pipeline therapeutics for Diphtheria (Infectious Disease) by companies and universities/research institutes based on information derived from company and industry-specific sources. - The pipeline guide covers pipeline products based on several stages of development ranging from pre-registration till discovery and undisclosed stages. - The pipeline guide features descriptive drug profiles for the pipeline products which comprise, product description, descriptive licensing and collaboration details, R&D brief, MoA & other developmental activities. - The pipeline guide reviews key companies involved in Diphtheria (Infectious Disease) therapeutics and enlists all their major and minor projects. - The pipeline guide evaluates Diphtheria (Infectious Disease) therapeutics based on mechanism of action (MoA), drug target, route of administration (RoA) and molecule type. - The pipeline guide encapsulates all the dormant and discontinued pipeline projects. - The pipeline guide reviews latest news related to pipeline therapeutics for Diphtheria (Infectious Disease) Reasons to buy - Procure strategically important competitor information, analysis, and insights to formulate effective R&D strategies. - Recognize emerging players with potentially strong product portfolio and create effective counter-strategies to gain competitive advantage. - Find and recognize significant and varied types of therapeutics under development for Diphtheria (Infectious Disease). - Classify potential new clients or partners in the target demographic. - Develop tactical initiatives by understanding the focus areas of leading companies. - Plan mergers and acquisitions meritoriously by identifying key players and it's most promising pipeline therapeutics. - Formulate corrective measures for pipeline projects by understanding Diphtheria (Infectious Disease) 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. - Adjust the therapeutic portfolio by recognizing discontinued projects and understand from the know-how what drove them from pipeline. Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 List of Tables 6 List of Figures 7 Introduction 8 Diphtheria Overview 9 Therapeutics Development 10 Pipeline Products for Diphtheria - Overview 10 Pipeline Products for Diphtheria - Comparative Analysis 11 Diphtheria - Therapeutics under Development by Companies 12 Diphtheria - Therapeutics under Investigation by Universities/Institutes 14 Diphtheria - Pipeline Products Glance 15 Late Stage Products 15 Clinical Stage Products 16 Early Stage Products 17 Diphtheria - Products under Development by Companies 18 Diphtheria - Products under Investigation by Universities/Institutes 20 Diphtheria - Companies Involved in Therapeutics Development 21 Beijing Minhai Biotechnology Co., Ltd 21 BioClonetics Immunotherapeutics, Inc. 22 ...Continued Access Report @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/752819-diphtheria-pipeline-review-h2-2016 Get in touch: LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/4828928 Twitter: https://twitter.com/WiseGuyReports Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Wiseguyreports-1009007869213183/?fref=ts For more information, please visit http://www.wiseguyreports.com Contact Info: Name: Norah Trent Organization: WiseGuy Reports Address: Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar Pune - 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1-646-845-9349 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/diphtheria-pharmaceutical-and-healthcare-pipeline-review-h2/148048 Release ID: 148048 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Louix Dor Dempriey Foundation Supports 20/20/20 ( November 21, 2016 ) Laguna Hills, CA -- A non-profit educational organization, the Louix Dor Dempriey Foundation tithes (i.e. donates) 10% of its gross earnings to selected charitable organizations. For the next 6 months it will be supporting 20/20/20. 20/20/20 is a charitable organization that helps restore sight to blind children and adults from 40 developing countries. The organization's mission is to restore eyesight to 20 million blind children and adults in underprivileged countries worldwide. Many cases of blindness, which is 500% more prevalent in third-world countries, are completely reversible through a simple lens replacement surgery, which can be completed in 15 minutes and costs as little as $300. Utilizing the "teach a man to fish" philosophy, 20/20/20 provides critical training, equipment, and financial aid to local doctors and nurses to provide this much-needed surgery. This is the safest, most cost-effective and productive way to deliver high quality surgeries in developing countries. About Louix Dor Dempriey Foundation: The Louix Dor Dempriey Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization dedicated to sharing the teachings and humanitarian works of Louix Dor Dempriey. Its mission is to help people remember and restore their inherent divinity, and to walk in this world as unconditional love. Louix Dor Dempriey is a spiritual Master who has dedicated his life to helping other people attain self-mastery in all areas of their lives, so that they, too, can experience true joy and inner peace, regardless of worldly circumstances. Louix's darshan, as well as his illuminating discourses, meditations, and ceremonies, have invoked profound transformation in thousands of people worldwide. With grace and humor, Louix imparts timeless wisdom in contemporary, practical teachings--that transcend all faiths, paths, religions, and cultures. He resides at Prema Drala Ashram in Laguna Hills, California. For more information, please visit: http://www.Louix.org. For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Matteson Partners Taking On New In-House Legal Recruitment Clients (Mon 29th May 17) Huong Nghiep A Au Vocational Guidance School Launches New Major (Thu 25th May 17) FSP unveils new Industrial and Gaming power solutions at COMPUTEX 2017 (Wed 24th May 17) The Best Free Keylogger of 2017 Has Been Announced by the Official Remote Keylogger (Tue 23rd May 17) The Remote Keylogger Development Team Announces An Update to the Official iPhone Keylogger (Thu 11th May 17) CaptureStream Announces its New Streaming Video Recorder and Downloader (Mon 8th May 17) Window Security Film Addresses the Weak Link in Commercial Security Protection Strategies ( November 21, 2016 ) Montreal, Quebec -- Canadians are more concerned about the security of their commercial and residential properties than ever before. Mary Allen of Statistics Canada reported the Crime Severity Index (CSI) was higher in 2015 from 2014. It was noted that some of this increase in police-reported crimes was due to higher break and enter incidents and robbery. Canadians invest in alarm services, video surveillance and other measures to discourage damage and theft to their property. However, one of the weakest links in a property's security strategy are the windows. Considerable damage can happen quickly and often the perpetrator never gets caught. One Montreal business experienced an attempted break and enter situation with their popular restaurant. Fortunately, the owner of the restaurant had recently installed a security protective film on the front windows of the building. The crime was committed on December 10, 2015, at approximately 4:15 am. The wanted man appeared in front of a restaurant located on Jean-Talon Street East and smashed a window in the storefront with a rock. While the outer glass pane shattered, the inside pane remained intact due to the protective security film installed. The person attempted to smash the window with a rock several times with no success. The person then threw a Molotov cocktail to start a fire and again with no success. The perpetrator fled on foot. The break and enter situation was captured on surveillance video. Robert Brideau, President of Access Protection Solutions Inc. of Montreal comments, "Windows are one of the easiest entry points for the break and enter crimes. When windows are not properly reinforced with a protective film, the property owner is subject to major damages. In the case of the Montreal restaurant, the damage was only to the window. However, if the window had not been protected, the restaurant owner could have experienced theft of property within the building along with significant fire damages from the Molotov cocktail. The fire would have required closing the business for repairs and restoration along with the loss of employment for twelve employees. In addition to all of this, two families lived in apartments above the restaurant and their property and lives could have been in danger as well." Residential and commercial property owners who are assessing their security needs must also consider strategies to address some of the weakest security points of their buildings. Windows often are overlooked for more elaborate and expensive security measures such as surveillance cameras and alarm systems. While this technology is necessary, windows should not be neglected. Mr. Brideau adds, "It should be noted that for the attempted break and enter case in Montreal, a commercial property a few city blocks away suffered a fire around the same time. Sadly, they did not have their windows protected. The window security protective film is a consideration for street level commercial establishments and residential properties as well. This simple solution provides great peace of mind to the property or business owner. Insurance companies should also take notice of the potential damage costs of a window that is not protected vs. a window that is protected with security film. The amount of the insurance claim is substantially reduced when windows are protected." Technology now exists and is available to property owners so a complete security strategy can be implemented for both commercial and residential buildings. Business and property owners need to be aware of the window security film technology and the potential benefits it provides. About Access Protection Solutions Inc.: Access Protection Security Solutions sells and installs security protective window film along with UV / solar protection, decorative and privacy window films across Canada. They have been serving Canadian commercial and residential owners since 2007. To date, thousands of commercial and residential establishments have been serviced. You can visit their website for more information at http://accessprotection1.com or you can call 855-694-6810 for a free estimate. For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Matteson Partners Taking On New In-House Legal Recruitment Clients (Mon 29th May 17) Huong Nghiep A Au Vocational Guidance School Launches New Major (Thu 25th May 17) FSP unveils new Industrial and Gaming power solutions at COMPUTEX 2017 (Wed 24th May 17) The Best Free Keylogger of 2017 Has Been Announced by the Official Remote Keylogger (Tue 23rd May 17) The Remote Keylogger Development Team Announces An Update to the Official iPhone Keylogger (Thu 11th May 17) CaptureStream Announces its New Streaming Video Recorder and Downloader (Mon 8th May 17) Legal Marijuana Market (Medical & Recreational) with Focus on US & Canada: Industry Analysis 2016 & 2020 Forecasts Report - MarketReportsOnline.com MarketReportsOnline.com adds Legal Marijuana Market (Medical & Recreational) with Focus on US & Canada: Industry Analysis (2016-2020) research report of 62 pages on the legal marijuana industry to the healthcare intelligence collection of its research store. -- Cannabis, also known as marijuana, belongs to a family of plants called Cannabaceae. There are over 700 varieties of cannabis, which have been described till date. Based on characteristics such as shape, color, height, smell, it is usually recognized by two main types: Cannabis Sativa, which originated in the Western hemisphere and Cannabis Indica, which originated in Central and South Asia. Complete report available at http://www.marketreportsonline.com/514768.html. The report "Marijuana Market" provides an in-depth analysis of the US and Canada market on the basis of its segments. The major trends, growth drivers as well as issues being faced by the industry are being presented in this report. The key players in the industry, American Cannabis Company, mCig, Inc., GreenGro Technologies, Inc. and Mentor Capital Inc. are being profiled. The key factors driving the growth of the marijuana/cannabis market are technological advancement, premium pricing due to high energy consumption in marijuana production, rising social acceptance of marijuana and growing business opportunities, increasing business sophistication, large base of potential cannabis consumers, medical cannabis on the rise, growing popular support in cannabis market and the growth of the vaporizer industry. Some of the noteworthy trends and developments of this industry are national expansion & brand growth, emergence of large grow, banking & financial services, cannabis as healthcare treatment and innovative product development. However, the expansion of marijuana/cannabis market is hindered by legal issues. Purchase a copy of this research report at http://www.marketreportsonline.com/contacts/purchase.php?name=514768. In addition to the legalization of medical marijuana, there are states which have also legalized the recreational use of this drug for adults who are 21 years old or older. So far, four states as well as the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana use, and 23 states allow marijuana use for medical purposes. These changes in state laws have helped the growth of the cannabis industry. The new and revised laws show that people are finally starting to realize that this drug can have legitimate uses. Key topics Covered: 1. Marijuana Market Overview 2. Marijuana Market Analysis 3. Market Dynamics 4. Competitive Landscape 5. Company Profiles List of Tables Medical Indications and Benefits Overview of Cannabis Testing Technologies Cannabis Legalized States and the District of Columbia Cannabis "Limited Use" States and 3 "Decriminalized" States Financial Comparison of Key Players (2015) Browse All Latest Healthcare Market Research Reports at http://www.marketreportsonline.com/cat/healthcare-market-research.html. For more information, please visit http://www.marketreportsonline.com/514768.html Contact Info: Name: Ritesh Tiwari Email: sales@marketreportsonline.com Organization: Market Reports Online Phone: + 1 888 391 5441 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/legal-marijuana-market-medical-recreational-with-focus-on-us-canada-industry-analysis-2016-2020-forecasts-report-marketreportsonline-com/148050 Release ID: 148050 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) The Law Office of James W. Friauf, PLLC Has moved to Kingston Pike in Knoxville Law Office of James W. Friauf, PLLC releases teaser information on their upcoming move to its new location, providing Personal Injury Law & other legal services to Knoxville. Further information can be found at http://www.friauflaw.com/. -- Law Office of James W. Friauf, PLLC today announced the official move of its office and their Knoxville Personal Injury Law service. Rumors are already starting to circulate among observers and die-hard fans within the Law world, as the impact of their move on the Personal Injury Law service they provide. The Law Office of James W. Friauf, PLLC has also released three things fans, reviewers and critics can expect from inception time in 2016. The first thing folks should expect is a big improvement in how easy it is to find their office and access their services. The Law Office of James W. Friauf, PLLC makes their clients a priority by focusing on helping everyday people and those who serve everyday people. This is to be expected from a business who places this much value on taking care of their clients and helping them through the process every step of the way. As well as that, the Law Office of James W. Friauf, PLLC will be celebrating by moving to a new office in the heart of Knoxville, TN on Kingston Pike. It is their hope that this will by having a more centralized location, that they can help more people in the Knoxville area, as well as surrounding areas like Maryville, Alcoa, Oak Ridge, Karns, Farragut, Sevierville, Seymour, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. The Law Office of James W. Friauf, PLLC is one of the fastest growing Knoxville law firms. They attribute their success to excellent service, vast knowledge of the law and the legal process, as well as their ability to handle different types of law. In addition to personal injury law, they focus on Knoxville Employment law, Civil Rights Law, Landlord/Tenant Law & Fair Housing Law, 501(c)(3) Formation, as well as wage & hour audits for businesses. James W. Friauf, Owner at Law Office of James W. Friauf, PLLC also wanted to add "It is our goal to be the best personal injury lawyers in Knoxville, as well as the entire state of Tennessee. By focusing on helping everyday people, we can focus on what we do best, which is helping others." For further information about Law Office of James W. Friauf, PLLC or the new Personal Injury Law service, it can all be discovered at http://www.friauflaw.com/ For more information, please visit http://www.friauflaw.com/ Contact Info: Name: James W Friauf Organization: Law Office of James W. Friauf, PLLC Address: 9724 Kingston Pike, Suite 104 Phone: (865) 236-0347 Release ID: 148002 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Crawford Thomas Recruiting Opens New Austin Office Latest expansion brings firm's total to six, and company is excited to begin work in one of the country's fastest-growing markets, Crawford Thomas Recruiting reports -- Full-service staffing agency Crawford Thomas Recruiting has opened a new office in Austin, it announced at http://www.crawfordthomas.com. As Austin ranks among the nation's fastest-growing and most economically vibrant cities, it makes for an especially suitable host for the company's sixth and newest office. With a particular focus on sales, accounting, and information technology positions, Crawford Thomas Recruiting helps partner companies find and hire the key professionals they need to achieve even greater success. With many of the nation's top companies already having presences in Austin and many more seeing it as a natural destination, Crawford Thomas Recruiting will have much to offer as the city and the local business environment develop further. Those interested can learn more about Crawford Thomas Recruiting at http://www.crawfordthomas.com, where information about each of the firm's six offices can be found. "Austin is an incredible place to live and do business, as many people and companies have discovered," said William Stonehouse, President of Crawford Thomas Recruiting, "That's why we're so excited to open our newest office here in the Live Music Capital of the World. From technology powerhouses like Dell and Apple to a thriving community of startups, Austin's business scene is really something to behold. With the quality of life here being so impressive, attracting the best talent the nation has to offer also becomes that much easier. Just as we do at our other offices, we're excited to help match the most talented professionals with the companies that can make the best use of what they have to offer." From Richard Linklater's 1991 cult-classic film Slacker to the people and places that gave rise to widespread cries to keep the city "weird," Austin has a proud history of combining well-grounded Texan practicality with a distinctive character of its own. That blend of traits has helped make it one of country's fastest-growing cities in recent decades, both in terms of its steadily burgeoning population and its increasing economic diversity and influence. With its own roots dating back to the economic expansion of the early 2000s, Crawford Thomas Recruiting is a natural fit for a city that both stands out on its own terms and competes and succeeds with the best the country has to offer. Emphasizing quality, the building of relationships, and the understanding of clients' needs above all else, Crawford Thomas Recruiting consistently stands above volume-focused competitors with the proven excellence of its results. The company's new office will help Austin-area businesses find the key sales, accounting, and information technology talent they need to achieve their most ambitious goals. More information can be found at the Crawford Thomas Recruiting website at http://www.crawfordthomas.com. About Crawford Thomas Recruiting: Driven by a deep commitment to clients, Crawford Thomas Recruiting assists with the permanent placement of key sales, accounting, information technology, and other top professionals. For more information, please visit http://www.crawfordthomas.com/austin-tx/ Contact Info: Name: William Stonehouse Organization: Crawford Thomas Recruiting Address: 201 West 5th Street, 11th Floor Austin, TX 78701 Phone: 512-298-1300 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/crawford-thomas-recruiting-opens-new-austin-office/148094 Release ID: 148094 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) 2021 projections puts Smart Railways Market at 20.58 Billion USD [197 Pages Report] Smart railways market categories the global market by solutions as passenger & freight information system, advanced security monitoring, rail communication, component, by services & by Geography. -- According to a new market research report "Smart Railways Market by Solution (Passenger Information, Freight Information, Rail Communication, Advanced Security Monitoring, Rail Analytics), Component, Service (Professional, Managed), and Region - Global Forecast to 2021", the smart railways market size expected to grow from USD 10.50 Billion in 2016 to USD 20.58 Billion by 2021, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.4% during the period 2016-2021. Browse 83 market data tables and 56 figures spread through 197 pages and in-depth TOC on "Smart Railways Market - Global Forecast to 2021" http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/smart-railways-market-960.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report. The major drivers for upsurge in demand for smart railways solutions, components, and services include increasing demand for improved services in railways, emerging trend of smart cities, increasing government initiatives, and emergence of IoT. Passenger Information System (PIS) is likely to hold the largest market share in the smart railways market. The intelligent solutions such as advanced PIS, advanced vehicle control system, and various other systems provide information regarding the real-time position of a vehicle. The well-grained information serves as input data for refined production schedules, and improved logistics. The growth of PIS solution is also attributed to the increasing globalization and need for advanced transportation infrastructure. Rail analytics system is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period The market for rail analytics would witness a major growth owing to the rise of demographic growth and hyper-urbanization. In addition to that, the cloud-based services, analytics, and mobile internet technologies demand are increasing due to their efficient IT management and reliable security environment. Make an Enquiry @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=960 Europe is expected to hold the largest market share in the smart railways market As per the geographic analysis, Europe is likely to benefit from its technological advancements and followed by high usage of big data analytics, predictive and sensor analytics across all the railways industry. The planned investment to improve urban transport and traffic infrastructures in France and the U.K. is expected to drive the European railway transportation market. The major vendors covered in the smart railways market for this study include Alstom SA (Saint-Quen, France), Cisco Systems, inc. (San Jose, U.S.), General Electric (Connecticut, U.S.), ABB Ltd (Zurich, Switzerland), IBM Corporation (New York, U.S.), Hitachi Limited (Tokyo, Japan), Bombardier, Inc. (Quebec, Canada), Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (Shenzhen, China), Indra Sistemas SA (Alcobendas, Spain), Siemens AG (Munich, Germany), Alcatel-Lucent (Paris, France) and Ansaldo STS (Genoa, Italy). About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is the largest market research firm worldwide in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository. For more information, please visit http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/smart-railways-market-960.html Contact Info: Name: Mr.Rohan Organization: MarketsandMarkets Source: http://marketersmedia.com/2021-projections-puts-smart-railways-market-at-20-58-billion-usd/148073 Release ID: 148073 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Natural Immune Booster (Beta Glucan & Yeast Extract) Market Growth, Key Players, Segments America and Global Forecast 2027 Americas Natural Immune Booster Market (Beta Glucan & Yeast Extract) - Industry Analysis & Forecast to 2027, there by offering insights on key present growth indicators and forecast indicators such as drivers, restrains opportunities and trends that are involved in shaping the market. -- Natural Immune Booster Market In the present era, every individual considers having healthy immune system to prevent their body from various complex conditions and diseases. There is actually no magical food can boost your immune system. One should take a variety of food to improve the immune system to stay away from diseases. Beta-Glucan is one of the natural immune booster product better known as a fantastically complex immune system intended to secure them against all interruptions into the body that may bring about damage. Environmental toxins, aging, stress among others are the factors resulting in weakening the immune system of human body. Beta-glucans (?-Glucans) contain a group of ?-D-glucose polysaccharides normally happening in the cell walls of yeast, cereal, bacteria, and parasites, with altogether contrasting physicochemical properties reliant on source. Beta-glucan is a polysaccharide that is found in normal source, for example, grain oats, yeast and mushroom. The physicochemical properties of beta-glucan differ contingent upon attributes of essential structure, including degree of branching, molecular weight and linkage type. The basic purpose of beta glucan & yeast extraction is to improve the human immune system. These days' people are getting more conscious about health food intake and just to boost their immune system while performing activities the demand of Beta-Glucan has increased globally. Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 70 market data tables and figures spread in 110 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on "Natural Immune Booster Market (Beta Glucan & Yeast Extract) - Industry Analysis & Forecast to 2027" Market Segmentation By Product Type o Yeast Extract o Yeast Beta By Application Type o Beverages o Dairy Products o Pharmaceuticals o Bakery & Processed Food o Others (Animal Feed, Bio Feed, Cosmetics) By Source o Cereals o Yeast And Mushroom Get a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/ask-sample-request/americas-natural-immune-booster-market-beta-glucan-yeast-extract-industry-analysis-forecast-to-2027 Market Growth Influencer Increasing awareness and health consciousness have created the Beta Glucan & Yeast Extract Market very impressive and it has opened the gates of growth and opportunities for several companies to perform and generate revenues. Passing with days large population is shifting from the field job to sitting job; however the mindset of people is pulling towards their health and immune system. Intake of Beta-glucan is helping these segments to fulfill their need and requirement and keeping them healthy. As per the analysis, beta-glucan can be major herb in the treatment of cancer patients. The major growth factor allowing the market to boost up are changing life style, increasing awareness among people. Increasing demand of processed food is also a major growing factor. North America and Western Europe are said to be the top growing market in food and beverage industries. Emerging economies of APAC and Latin America are having ample opportunity to grow in the market as large number of population is covered by this regions. The major trends by which the consumers are shifting towards using the process food is to proactively strengthening their immune system. Globally, the large part of working class belongs to the age group from 18 to 50 which include males and females both and as per the MRFR study; the consumption level of beta-glucan is very high to keep people healthy and proactive. Furthermore, there has been an abundant opportunity for this market to grow in developing region such as India, China, Poland, Russia and others because of the emerging economy and government's initiatives. Key Players o Specialty Biotech Co., Ltd. o BiotecPharmacon ASA o Royal DSM N.V. o Chr. Hansen A/S o Lallemand Inc. o Alltech Inc. o AB Mauri o Angel Yeast Co. Ltd. o AHD International o ABF Ingredients o Bio Springer Schedule Analyst Call @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/schedule-call/americas-natural-immune-booster-market-beta-glucan-yeast-extract-industry-analysis-forecast-to-2027 Regional Analysis Europe Natural Immune Booster Market Europe is leading in the market with global market share of more than XX% of Beta-Glucan. Countries like Germany, France, Italy, Spain & UK tend to consume more Beta-Glucan drink than rest of the other countries. Hence, it makes Europe a potential market for the new companies. America Natural Immune Booster Market America share more than XX% of global market share of Beta-Glucan. The reason behind this is people more believes in health and fitness and for that they invest good amount of money on this product. Developed countries like US and Canada whose standard of living is high than other countries and with good amount of disposable income Beta-Glucan market has kept a good grip on market share and expected to grow in near times. According to Natural Marketing Institutes (NMI), half of the US population is concerned about boosting their immunity. Mostly found in the age group between 28 to 32 that the people are more concern about their health and immune system and just to overcome these issues. In the US around 33% of the population believes in acquiring the meals which claim to be boost immunity and provide them better immune system. Browse Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/articles/americas-natural-immune-booster-market-beta-glucan-yeast-extract-industry-analysis-forecast-to-2027 Asia-Pacific Natural Immune Booster Market China ranks number one in population followed by India and population means opportunities. Although, Asia - Pacific market has claimed to be the fastest and emerging economies through which it creates an ample opportunity to capture the market. Market Research Future introduces about the Natural Immune Booster Market (Beta Glucan & Yeast Extract) - Global Industry Analysis & Forecast to 2027 which mainly includes the growth drivers, trends and restraints and how the market will grow in the future across the globe. In this report, Market Research Future has focused on the current market scenario which includes market segmentation, market dynamics, and competitive landscape along with company profiles. Related Report Global Caramel Market Information-by Ingredient (sugar (white, brown, cane or corn syrup), milk solids, and fat (butter, margarine or vegetable fat)), by Flavors (Vanilla, coffee, fruity, maple and buttery) by Application (confectionery, ice cream, syrup, pudding & desserts, beverage and others), and by Region - Forecast to 2022 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/global-caramel-market-research-report-forecast-to-2022 About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. For more information, please visit https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/articles/americas-natural-immune-booster-market-beta-glucan-yeast-extract-industry-analysis-forecast-to-2027 Contact Info: Name: Akash Anand Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com Organization: Market Research Future Address: Office No. 524/528, Amanora Chambers, Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar Pune Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/natural-immune-booster-beta-glucan-yeast-extract-market-growth-key-players-segments-america-and-global-forecast-2027/148111 Release ID: 148111 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Biodegradable Mulch Film Market worth $52.43 Million USD by 2021,at a CAGR of 7.95% The growth of the biodegradable mulch film market can be attributed to the rising demand of biodegradable mulch films in greenhouse, increased applications in agriculture, and rising environmental concerns that shifted the focus of growers toward eco-friendly mulch films. -- The report "Biodegradable Mulch Film Market by Biodegradable Plastic (TPS, AAC, Controlled Degradable Masterbatches), by Type (Starch, Starch Blended With PLA, Starch Blended With PHA), by Crop Type (Fruits & Veg, Grains, Plants) & by Region - Global Forecast to 2021", The global biodegradable mulch films market size is projected to grow from USD 35.76 Million in 2016 to USD 52.43 Million by 2021, at a CAGR of 7.95% from 2016 to 2021. The growth of biodegradable mulch films market can be attributed to the rising demand of biodegradable mulch films in greenhouse, increased applications in agriculture, and rising environmental concerns that shifted the focus of growers toward eco-friendly mulch films. Browse 142 market data Tables and 37 Figures spread through 176 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Biodegradable Mulch Film Market - Global Forecast to 2021" Download Free PDF Brochure: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=74546369 Starch segment accounted for the largest share in the biodegradable mulch films market by type during 2016-2021 The starch segment in the biodegradable mulch films market is projected to have the largest share in terms of size, during the forecast period. Starch has gained high demand in the biodegradable mulch films market owing to its wide availability, low cost, and potential application in the production of biodegradable mulch films. Starch-based mulch films have become popular with starch being an inexpensive and abundant natural polymer that can produce a film structure. In addition, it also degrades into harmless products when placed in contact with soil microorganisms. High amylose content in starch helps in the formation of strong and flexible biodegradable mulch films. The high demand of thermoplastic starch in the biodegradable mulch films market can be attributed to its low cost, renewability, abundance, biodegradability, and availability from agricultural crops. Additionally, the environmental issues concerning the use of conventional synthetic polymers have shifted the focus of growers toward the adoption of biodegradable materials made from the renewable resources. This has driven the growth of thermoplastic starch in the biodegradable mulch film market. Fruits & vegetables is projected to be the fastest growing segment in the biodegradable mulch films market from 2016 to 2021 Fruits & vegetables segment is estimated to have the largest share in the biodegradable mulch films market in 2015 and the current trend is expected to follow during the forecast period. The market for biodegradable mulch films for the growth of fruits & vegetables is very promising as their application to these crops is convenient (due to the perennial nature of crops in most cases) and sustainable. Biodegradable mulch films improve the quality of produce and reduce fruit rot by preventing contact between fruit and soil. Significant growth for biodegradable mulch films is observed in the Asia-Pacific region Asia-Pacific has a high growth potential for biodegradable mulch films. China is among the leading countries for biodegradable mulch films as the country faces industrial growth and urbanization which have led to higher standards of living among consumers, resulting in rise in demand for food products. This in turn drives the market for biodegradable mulch films. In addition, biodegradable mulch films do not produce wastes that require disposal, and hence represent a sustainable ecological mulching alternative and wide acceptance in the region. Biodegradable mulch films have a favorable growth in this region. The Biodegradable Mulch Films Market is diversified and competitive, with a large number of players. The key players in the biodegradable mulch films market include BASF SE (Germany), Kingfa Sci & Tech Co Ltd (China), BioBag International AS (Norway), AEP Industries Inc. (U.S.), and RKW SE (Germany), while other players include British Polythene Industries PLC (U.K.), Armando Alvarez (Spain), Al-Pack Enterprises Ltd. (Canada), Novamont S.Pa. (Italy), and AB Rani Plast OY (Finland). This report includes a study of marketing and development strategies, along with the product portfolio of leading companies. In terms of insights, this research report has focused on various levels of analyses industry analysis, market rank of top players, and company profiles, which together comprise and discuss the basic views on the competitive landscape, emerging & high-growth segments of the global biodegradable mulch film market, high-growth regions, countries, and their respective regulatory policies, government initiatives, drivers, restraints, and opportunities. Free Sample Pages: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsample.asp?id=74546369 BASF SE (Germany), Kingfa Sci & Tech Co Ltd (China), BioBag International AS (Norway), RKW Group (Germany), and AEP Industries, Inc. (U.S.) are the leading players in the biodegradable mulch film market in 2015. Expansions & investments and new product launches are preferred growth strategies by these players in the biodegradable mulch film market. The purpose of adopting strategic expansion is to increase the geographic presence and product portfolio. British Polyethylene Industries Plc (U.K.), Novamont (Italy), Armando Alvarez (Spain), and Al-Pack Enterprise Ltd (Canada) also have a strong presence in this market. "The study answers several questions for stakeholders, primarily which market segments to focus on in the next two to five years for prioritizing efforts and investments." Speak to Analyst (Ask for Customized Report Matching Your Exact Requirement): http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalyst.asp?id=74546369 About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is the largest market research firm worldwide in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository For more information, please visit http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/biodegradable-mulch-film-market-74546369.html Contact Info: Name: Rohan Organization: MarketsandMarkets Source: http://marketersmedia.com/biodegradable-mulch-film-market-worth-52-43-million-usd-by-2021at-a-cagr-of-7-95/148083 Release ID: 148083 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global Autonomous Vehicles Market is expected to reach $65.3 billion by 2027 Global Autonomous Vehicles Information, by Sensor (Ultrasonic, Radar, Lidar, Image Sensor), by Hardware & Software (Cameras, Communication Systems, GPS systems), by Type - Forecast 2016-2027 -- Autonomous Vehicles Market to Provide over USD 5.0 Billion revenue post 2016 Market research future published a cooked research report on Autonomous Vehicles market. The global market for Autonomous Vehicles market is expected to grow over the CAGR of 26.2% during the period 2016 to 2027 from USD 3.6 billion in 2015. Market Highlights The global autonomous vehicles market has been evaluated as growing market and expected that the market will touch high growth figures. Since the technology has arrived in the automotive industry, many players are concentrating on developing a car which can be self-driven without any human command. Heavy investment in R&D and strategic collaboration is driving the market of autonomous vehicle with CAGR of 26.2% Key Players for Autonomous Vehicles Market: Some of the key players in this market are: o Google (U.S.), o General Motors (U.S.), o Volkswagen (Germany), o BMW (Germany), o Ford Motor Company (U.S.), o Baidu (China), o Toyota (Japan), o Tesla (U.S.), o Audi (Germany), o Jaguar (U.K.). Request a Sample Copy @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample-request/global-autonomous-vehicles-market-research-report-global-forecast-2027 Intended Audience o Car Manufacturers o Technology Providers o Car Component Manufactures o Sensor Manufactures o Software Developers o OEMs in automotive Industry "Analysis also includes consumption. Import and export data for Regions North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India." Key Finding o The global Autonomous Vehicles market and is expected to reach $65.3 billion by 2027. o Radar Sensors are expected to be the fastest growing market with high CAGR of 29.2% between 2016 and 2027. o Regionally, North America holds the largest market share 39.08% of global Autonomous Vehicles market and is expected to reach $24.40 billion by 2027 from $1.42 billion in 2015. o Asia Pacific market is expected to be the fastest growing market, and expected to grow at a CAGR of 29.02% from 2016 to 2027 Segments: Global autonomous vehicles market has been segmented On the basis of sensors which comprises of o ultrasonic, o radar, o lidar, o Image and other. On the basis of hardware and software the market is segmented into o Cameras, o Communication systems, o GPS systems. Furthermore, market by type comprises of semi-autonomous vehicles and fully autonomous vehicles. Browse full Report with In-depth TOC @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/global-autonomous-vehicles-market-research-report-global-forecast-2027 Autonomous Vehicles Market: There are various changes which are taking place in the automotive industry and companies are trying hard in order to gain high market share as well as increase in profit by deployment of advance technologies in the automotive sector. Autonomous vehicle is one of the concept which has emerged decades ago but now coming into picture. These vehicles are equipped with high class technology and sense the environment for safe and secure ride. Driverless cars are capable of taking you from one place to another without any input of yours. They can find the best route, give the ride information, can pick up you at time and can park itself. As the technology is growing and companies are making several attempts to make this reality, it is expected that these cars will hit the road by the end year 2020. Ask for your specific company profile and country level customization on reports. Market Research Analysis: Autonomous vehicles or driverless cars could be a revolutionary product for the automotive industry. Need of change is what makes the industry sustain and run and with the advancement of technology, people do expect some revolutionary product. Autonomous vehicles could change the whole automotive industry and can make the life of a person easier. Aging population, increase accident rate around the world and increasing consumption of passenger and commercial vehicles are some key drivers for the market of autonomous vehicles. Market Research Future has estimated that the market size of autonomous vehicle market will reach to US $65.3 billion by the end of forecasted period from US $3.6 billion in 2015 with CAGR of 26.2%. Table of Content 1. MARKET INTRODUCTION 1.1 INTRODUCTION 1.2 SCOPE OF STUDY 1.2.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 1.2.2 ASSUMPTIONS 1.2.3 LIMITATIONS 1.3 MARKET STRUCTURE: 1.3.1 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE MARKET, BY SENSOR 1.3.2 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET: BY HARDWARE & SOFTWARE 1.3.3 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE MARKET, BY TYPE 1.3.4 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE MARKET, BY REGION 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 RESEARCH PROCESS 2.2 PRIMARY RESEARCH 2.3 SECONDARY RESEARCH 2.4 FORECAST MODEL 2.4.1 MARKET DATA COLLECTION, ANALYSIS & FORECAST 2.4.2 MARKET SIZE ESTIMATION 2.4.3 MARKET CRACKDOWN & DATA TRIANGULATION 3 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET: OVERVIEW 3.1 INTRODUCTION 3.1.1 DEFINITION 3.1.2 MARKET SEGMENTATION OF AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET 4 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET: FORECAST INDICATORS 4.1 INTRODUCTION 4.2 GROWTH DRIVERS 4.2.1 AGING POPULATION 4.2.2 TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT 4.3 GROWTH BARRIERS 4.3.1 COST 4.3.2 LEGAL AND LICENSING CONSIDERATIONS 4.4 OPPORTUNITIES 4.4.1 TIME 4.4.2 EASY PARKING AND ACCESS TO VEHICLES 4.4.3 HIGH DROP IN ACCIDENT RATES 4.5 MEGA TRENDS 4.5.1 HIGH INVESTMENT IN R&D 4.5.2 INCREASE GOVERNMENT INTEREST 4.6 MACROECONOMIC INDICATORS 4.6.1 GDP (GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT) 4.6.2 EMPLOYMENT 5 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET ANALYSIS 5.1 LAWS /REGULATORY BODIES 5.2 PATENTS 5.3 VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS 6 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET: PORTER'S 5 FORCES ANALYSIS 6.1 INTRODUCTION 6.2 THREAT OF NEW ENTRANTS 6.3 SUPPLIER'S POWER 6.4 THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES 6.5 BUYER'S POWER 6.6 DEGREE OF COMPETITION 7 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET: BY SENSOR 7.1 INTRODUCTION 7.2 MARKET SIZE (SUB SEGMENTS) 7.2.1 ULTRASONIC SENSORS 8 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET: BY HARDWARE & SOFTWARE 8.1 INTRODUCTION 8.1.1 CAMERAS 8.1.2 COMMUNICATION AND TELEMATICS 8.1.3 GPS SYSTEMS 9 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET: BY TYPE 9.1 INTRODUCTION 9.2 SEMI-AUTONOMOUS 9.3 FULLY AUTONOMOUS 9.3.1 USER-OPERATED FULLY AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES 9.3.2 DRIVERLESS FULLY AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES 10 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET: BY COUNTRY 10.1 INTRODUCTION 11 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET: COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE 11.1 INTRODUCTION 11.2 KEY MARKET DEVELOPMENT TRENDS 11.3 PARTNERSHIPS, COLLABORATIONS AND AGREEMENTS (2014-2016) 11.4 INVESTMENT (2016) 11.5 ACHIEVEMENT (2015-2016) 11.6 ACQUISITION (2013-2016) 11.7 EXPANSION (2016) 12 GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES MARKET: OVERVIEW Continued...... Purchase a License Copy @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=1020 Key questions answered in this report o What will the market size be in 2027 and what will the growth rate be? o What are the key market trends? o What is driving this market? o What are the challenges to market growth? o Who are the key vendors in this market space? o What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors? o What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors? Related Report Global Connected Car Market Research Report- Global Forecast 2027 About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions. For more information, please visit https://www.marketresearchfuture.com Contact Info: Name: Akash Anand Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com Organization: Market Research future Address: Hadapsar, Pune - 411028 Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/global-autonomous-vehicles-market-is-expected-to-reach-65-3-billion-by-2027/148138 Release ID: 148138 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) Market Is Expected To Reach US$ 38.96 Billion By 2025 | The Insight Partners Growing Consumer Electronics Application will escalate the OLED Market at a CAGR of 12.2% -- Latest market study on "Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) to 2025 by Technology (AMOLED and PMOLED), Application (Display and Lighting), and End-User Industry (Retail, Architecture, Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Security & Signage and Others) - Global Analysis and Forecast", the OLED market is estimated to reach US$ 38.96 billion by 2025 from US$ 12.51 billion in 2015. The report include key understanding on the driving factors of this growth and also highlights the prominent players in the market and their developments. Browse Market Data Tables and in-depth TOC of the Global Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) Market (2016-2025) @ http://www.theinsightpartners.com/reports/organic-light-emitting-diode-oled-market Early buyers will receive 10% customization on reports. OLED market has been seeing decent growth rate in coming year in almost all application areas, especially in consumer electronics and automotive. The consumer electronics industry is expected to hold the largest market share and dominate the OLED market between 2016 and 2025. Increasing penetration of wearable electronics and smart phone flexible display applications are creating a huge demand for OLED within the consumer electronics segment. The industry shares more than 50% of the global OLED market with multiple applications in wearable, smart phones, Laptops, TV and so on. Also, the global market for OLED is segmented on the basis of end-user verticals into retail lighting, security & signage, automotive, consumer products, architecture and others (industrial, food, medical etc.). Rising demand of consumer and commercial products such as smartphones, TV, Signage etc. will drive OLED Market in near future. Also, increasing adoption of Micro-displays in various verticals will boost the market during the forecast period. However, high price and low lifespan will hinder the market growth to some extent. Recent launch of transparent OLED would create a niche yet profitable market opportunity for OLED luminaires. Since it is yet not price competitive, the demand for OLED specialty lighting products will show early traction as consumers are willing to pay a premium price for cutting edge design and unique and futuristic applications of OLED lighting panels. Request Sample Copy @ http://www.theinsightpartners.com/sample/TIPTE100000132 There has been constant development in the OLED industry. Recently, Samsung introduced a contactless smart card with super thin OLED display. The card shows a rotating image of the holder after the activation of embedded chip on it, enabling proper identification of the holder. Also, a German company, Bundesdruckerei, engaged in providing high-security ID products along with Samsung is working on a bendable, slim OLED passport. Besides this, LG has also launched its dual-view flat OLED display, which the company claims is the first digital signage solution to offer OLED technology commercially available in the U.S. Some of the leading OLED market players are Futaba Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Universal Display Corporation, Kunshan Visionox and LG Display Co., Ltd, OSRAM Light AG, Philips, Sony Corporation and other global and local players. The report segments the global OLED market as follows: Global OLED Market - By Technology o Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) o Passive Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (PMOLED) Global OLED Market - By Application o OLED Display o OLED Lighting Global OLED Market - By End-user Industry o Retail o Security and Signage o Automotive o Consumer Electronics o Architecture o Others Global OLED Market - By Geography o North America o Europe o Asia Pacific (APAC) o Middle East & Africa (MEA) Inquire about discount on this report @ http://www.theinsightpartners.com/discount/TIPTE100000132 About The Insight Partners: The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries. For more information, please visit http://www.theinsightpartners.com/ Contact Info: Name: Sameer Joshi Email: sales@theinsightpartners.com Organization: The Insight Partners Address: Pune, India Phone: +1-646-491-9876 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/organic-light-emitting-diode-oled-market-is-expected-to-reach-us-38-96-billion-by-2025-the-insight-partners/148027 Release ID: 148027 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Printing Company Hits 10 Million 4-Color Digital Impressions Borns Group, a digital and commercial printing and marketing company, has announced that it has passed the ten million impressions mark with its digital presses. Borne offers high levels online and offline marketing solutions for any business. -- Borns Group, a commercial printing, digital printing, and direct mail marketing company, has announced that it has surpassed the ten million impressions mark with its digital presses. The Aberdeen, South Dakota based company provides commercial printing as just one element of its comprehensive direct mail marketing service, which in addition to printing includes graphic design, concept development, campaign planning, list acquisition, and mailing services. Four and a half years ago, due to the growing demand for 4 color digital work, Borns Group invested in a RICOH Pro C901 Graphic Arts Edition digital printer. A year and a half ago they added a second machine, in order to handle higher capacity demands, and also to have a backup for 4 color digital production, in the event that one of their machines were to become temporarily disabled. The RICOH Pro C901 is a graphic arts printing system designed to provide superior print uptime, vibrant print quality and consistent throughput. In addition to digital printers, the Ricoh Company also sells other office equipment such as photocopiers, fax machines, and the like. Said Lee Borns, Borns Group President "We have been very pleased with the quality of the output from the Ricoh C901 machines. We feel it puts out as nice a quality as a traditional sheet fed printing press." Mr. Borns went on to say that "We print jobs that are a few hundred postcards to a half a million postcards, and the C901 handles either job with ease!" Established in 1991, Borns Group is a family owned and operated company that began by offering printing services to local clients, but has evolved over the years to become a company that offers marketing assistance (both online and offline) to businesses across the entire United States. Headquartered in South Dakota, the company has production facilities and sales offices in Watertown and Aberdeen, as well as sales offices in Elk River Minnesota, Jackson Michigan, and Plymouth Massachusetts. Borns Group can be contacted at: Borns Group Inc. 503 Brown CO 19 N. Aberdeen, SD 57401 (888) 228-0034 http://www.Bornsgroup.com/Commercial-Printing For more information, please visit http://www.BornsGroup.com/ Contact Info: Name: Lee Borns Email: info@bornsgroup.com Organization: Borns Group Address: 503 Brown CO 19 N. Phone: (888) 228-0034 Release ID: 148293 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Tucson 24 Hour Plumbers Drain Cleaning Trenchless Sewer Repair Services Launched The commercial and residential plumbing company, Intelligent Design Plumbing, with free estimates and 24/7 emergency assistance at 520 622-7434, announced its leading range of plumbing solutions ideal to quickly and sustainably address any home or business plumbing needs is now available in Tucson, Arizona. -- The popular Intelligent Design Plumbing has announced its leading, licensed and comprehensive range of plumbing services, which includes 24/7 emergency plumbing assistance, are now available for home and business owners in Tucson, Arizona. More information is available at http://besttucsonplumbers.com. The Intelligent Design Plumbing is renowned and full-service commercial and residential plumbing company with certified expertise and extensive experience serving any plumbing or air conditioning and heating needs or emergencies with the highest quality of service and affordable, transparent fees. The full-service plumbing company has announced its certified and trusted range of plumbing services covering anything from a leaky toilet or busted pipes and trenchless sewer repair to professional drain cleaning, leak detection, backflow services or supply, repair, installation and replacement of hot water heaters or softeners, and more, are now available for home and business owners in Tucson, Arizona. The leading Intelligent Design Plumbing services are delivered by an experienced, certified and highly trained team of plumbers and technicians on call 24/7 and equipped with the latest state of the art technology to quickly and sustainably identify, fix or address any plumbing issue in the friendly, honest and stress-free manner which has earned the company a leading and accredited reputation across Southern Arizona. Free estimates on all the services provided along with more information on its full range of leading and trusted plumbing solutions can be requested 24/7 at 520 622-7434, through the website link provided above or directly at its facilities conveniently located at 2200 W. La Osa Street, Suite 200, Tucson, Arizona, along with details on its proven client satisfaction track record and commitment to reliable, client-centric, stress-free and affordable service. The Intelligent Design Plumbing team explains that "we are a full-service commercial and residential plumbing service company with many years of experience in the industry which mean that our clients can be confident they're getting quality, professional work. Our staff is well trained, experienced and highly qualified to quickly resolve any issues our clients may have at any time, day or night, and on an economical flat rate basis with no surprises when the job is complete." For more information, please visit http://www.besttucsonplumbers.com/ Contact Info: Name: Andrew Dobbins Organization: Intelligent Design Plumbing Address: 2200 W. La Osa Street Suite 200, Tucson, AZ 85705 Phone: (520) 622-7434 Release ID: 148276 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Prospect Equities Launches New Real Estate App, Now Available On iTunes And Google Play Luxury real estate brokerage launches innovative new mobile app, currently available on iTunes and Google Play. -- Chicago, IL - Prospect Equities, a premier luxury real estate brokerage firm, recently announced the launch of a new mobile app currently available for download on Google Play and iTunes. The company's founder and president, Richard M. Killian, feels this new technology will help the prestigious firm and their agents provide better support to their existing customers and future clientele. The new app offers several features that will significantly help buyers both here and abroad in their quest to find the perfect home or investment property. "We are very excited to announce the launch of our new Prospect Equities mobile app," Killian said. "We firmly believe that, in combination with our proprietary customer strategy systems and all of the advantages our app now offers, we have enabled our agents to significantly improve the buying experience for thousands of people searching for properties throughout the Chicago, New York, South Florida, and Arizona markets." The new app offers several impressive components, including a high-end search engine, simplifying searching for properties offered through the firm; a photo slideshow of property and home listings, and instant directions to homes and properties available for sale. "We also allow users to share listings with their friends and loved ones through text and email," Killian said. "We recognize that, when it comes to buying a new home, many people turn to their friends, family, and loved ones for advice and suggestions. 60% of buyer research is now conducted via mobile device, thus we thought now was the right time to invest in a more mobile friendly, connected buying experience to distinguish our brand." Moreover, the app also offers users a full range of homes and properties available for rent, includes a built-in mortgage calculator, as well as recommended listing notifications via their mobile phone or tablet. "Our ultimate goal with this app is to make shopping for a new home more engaging, and more accessible. Buying a new home should not be a stressful experience - it should be a happy, exciting time in a person's or couple's lives, one they can look forward to. We believe that this app is a game changer, and will allow our Prospect Equities agents to deliver a better buying experience overall." Killian said. Prospect Equities, a tone setter in real estate innovation, is one of the first brokerages to feature this type of technology to power their agents and prospective home buyers in the markets they serve. To download the Prospect Equity app, visit the Apple Store or Google Play Store. About Prospect Equities Founded in 2000 by Richard M. Killian, Prospect Equities has grown from a single real estate holding company to a major real estate brand. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, the Prospect Equities brand has now grown to 10 office locations throughout Illinois, New York, Arizona, and South Florida. In addition to an exciting growth trajectory, the prestigious brand is recognized by their luxury offerings, proprietary systems, and innovative environment. For more information, please visit http://www.prospectequities.com Contact Info: Name: Chris McMillin for Prospect Equities Email: chris@evolvestrategic.com Organization: Prospect Equities Address: 500 N Michigan Ave Phone: 3122020006 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/prospect-equities-launches-new-real-estate-app-now-available-on-itunes-and-google-play/148325 Release ID: 148325 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Intergrid Announces Expansion of National Server Hosting Network to Perth Intergrid is pleased to announce the expansion of Australian and New Zealand hosting network to Perth. -- Intergrid Group is pleased to announce the expansion of its national server hosting network, featuring virtual servers, dedicated servers, and wholesale services to Perth, Western Australia. Perth remains one of the world's most remote capital cities, and with minimal local telecommunications infrastructure the city is heavily reliant on networks on Australia's east coast. With existing infrastructure in Sydney and Auckland, the Perth expansion is Intergrid's third major network, forming a high-performance backbone spanning both Australia and New Zealand, an area which has been previously plagued by high prices and little competition. Along with services in Sydney and Auckland, Intergrid's Perth dedicated servers feature the latest Intel, Supermicro and Dell hardware, housed within a local Tier 3 datacentre with 24/7 security and backup power. The Intergrid network features 50Gbps of DDoS mitigation as standard, along with a 99.5% uptime guarantee and 24/7 local network operations support. In Perth, Intergrid is focused on changing the marketplace by offering affordability, reliability, and flexibility. For its customers' smaller projects, Intergrid's virtual servers deliver the flexibility needed for a fraction of the cost usually associated with dedicated hardware or colocation. Featuring KVM virtualization and SSD storage, Intergrid is excited to be further expanding this service offering in the coming months. In its announcement, the company stated that "Intergrid strives to simplify IT solutions for small businesses and startups by reducing cost, complexity and setup times. We aim to have the sharpest pricing available in the market, without requiring our customers to sign minimum contract terms for most services. We've taken the guess work out of IT infrastructure by providing every customer with direct access to an account manager and network engineer that understand your business and its needs. Intergrid is everything you could want from your IT provider, all in one affordable, flexible package". About Intergrid Group: Intergrid Group is developing Australia and New Zealand's most reliable hosting network with datacentres and infrastructure covering Sydney, Auckland, and Perth. Intergrid focuses on both virtual and dedicated servers for small businesses and wholesale channel customers, delivering with affordability, reliability, and performance. For more information, please visit https://intergrid.com.au/ Contact Info: Name: Intergrid Group Email: marketing@intergrid.com.au Organization: Intergrid Group Source: http://marketersmedia.com/intergrid-announces-expansion-of-national-server-hosting-network-to-perth/148385 Release ID: 148385 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Web Hosting Secret Revealed Announces Exclusive Black Friday Deals On Web Hosting Packages Web Hosting Secret Revealed has sourced a series of outstanding server and web hosting deals for Black Friday 2016, publishing them together in a comprehensive collection. -- A web hosting is the cornerstone of any successful website. Hosting creates the speed and structure necessary to for an outstanding customer experience, which in turn helps websites to rank higher on search engines. There are a huge number of web hosting providers, such that deciding which to trust can be difficult. Web Hosting Secret Revealed is an online resource center that prides itself on creating the most informative hosting reviews available. They have just published a comprehensive series of Black Friday hosting deals, to help people get the best hosting at the best price. The WHSR Black Friday Deals have been collated into a single section on the website, listed alphabetically. They include the discount code itself, together with details on the moneysaving deals that can be redeemed using the code. In total, the list includes more than 70 hosting companies, making it the largest Black Friday Hosting list online. The discounts are also some of the biggest available anywhere. The deals offer up to 95% off on dedicated hosting, and as much as 80% off on shared hosting packages. With more and bigger deals than anyone else, the list is an essential resource to anyone seeking to secure or change their hosting this Black Friday. A spokesperson for Web Hosting Secret Revealed explained, "We are excited to be able to help people find the best hosting deals available online. Every one of the deals comes from a company we have comprehensively reviewed, meaning people can base their decisions on quality as well as incentive. We have scoured the websites of our best reviewed providers, in order to secure the best deals available. These codes go live on 6am Friday morning, and we will keep expanding and updating the listings until then, to guarantee the latest and best deals." About Web Hosting Secret Revealed: Web Hosting Secret Revealed has grown over time to become one of the most trusted names on the web for high quality, independent and actionable web hosting reviews. WHSR's Hosting Reviews focus on serving shoppers looking for trustworthy and practical guidance. The Blog publishes regular blogging, web development, and Internet marketing strategies. The Uptime Monitor offers a simple solution to track web host uptime. For more information, please visit http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/ Contact Info: Name: Jerry Low Organization: Web Hosting Secret Revealed Address: Financial Park Labuan 87000 Labuan FT, Malaysia Source: http://marketersmedia.com/web-hosting-secret-revealed-announces-exclusive-black-friday-deals-on-web-hosting-packages/148421 Release ID: 148421 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutic and Drug Pipeline Review H2 WiseGuyReports.com adds "AIDS Associated Dementia Global Clinical Trials Review, H2, 2016" reports to its database. -- Get Sample Report @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/753491-aids-associated-dementia-global-clinical-trials-review-h2-2016 This report provides top line data relating to the clinical trials on AIDS Associated Dementia. Report includes an overview of trial numbers and their average enrollment in top countries conducted across the globe. The report offers coverage of disease clinical trials by region, country (G7 & E7), phase, trial status, end points status and sponsor type. Report also provides prominent drugs for in-progress trials (based on number of ongoing trials). Clinical Trial Reports are generated using proprietary database - Pharma eTrack Clinical trials database. Clinical trials are collated from 80+ different clinical trial registries, conferences, journals, news etc across the globe. Clinical trials database undergoes periodic update by dynamic process. The report enhances the decision making capabilities and helps to create an effective counter strategies to gain competitive advantage. Scope - The report provides a snapshot of the global clinical trials landscape - Report provides top level data related to the clinical trials by Region, Country (G7 & E7), Trial Status, Trial Phase, Sponsor Type and End point status - The report reviews top companies involved and enlists all trials (Trial title, Phase, and Status) pertaining to the company - The report provides all the unaccomplished trials (Terminated, Suspended and Withdrawn) with reason for unaccomplishment - The Report provides enrollment trends for the past five years - Report provides latest news for the past three months Reasons to buy - Assists in formulating key business strategies with regards to investment - Helps in identifying prominent locations for conducting clinical trials which saves time and cost - Provides top level analysis of Global Clinical Trials Market which helps in identifying key business opportunities - Supports understanding of trials count and enrollment trends by country in global therapeutics market - Aids in interpreting the success rates of clinical trials by providing a comparative scenario of completed and uncompleted (terminated, suspended or withdrawn) trials - Facilitates clinical trial assessment of the indication on a global, regional and country level Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 List of Tables 3 List of Figures 3 Report Guidance 4 Clinical Trials by Region 5 Clinical Trials and Average Enrollment by Country 6 Top Countries Contributing to Clinical Trials in Asia-Pacific 8 Top Countries Contributing to Clinical Trials in Europe 9 Top Countries Contributing to Clinical Trials in North America 10 Clinical Trials by G7 Countries: Proportion of AIDS Associated Dementia to Central Nervous System Clinical Trials 11 Clinical Trials by Phase in G7 Countries 12 Clinical Trials in G7 Countries by Trial Status 13 Clinical Trials by E7 Countries: Proportion of AIDS Associated Dementia to Central Nervous System Clinical Trials 14 Clinical Trials by Phase 15 ...Continued List of Tables AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics, Global, Clinical Trials by Region, 2016* 5 AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics, Global, Clinical Trials and Average Enrollment by Top Countries, 2016* 6 AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics, Global, Clinical Trials In Progress by Top Countries, 2016* 7 AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics Clinical Trials, Asia-Pacific, Top Countries, 2016* 8 AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics Clinical Trials, Europe, Top Countries, 2016* 9 AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics Clinical Trials, North America, Top Countries, 2016* 10 ...Continued List of Figures AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics, Global, Clinical Trials by Region (%), 2016* 5 AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics, Global, Clinical Trials and Average Enrollment by Top Countries, 2016* 6 AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics, Global, Clinical Trials In Progress by Top Countries, 2016* 7 AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics Clinical Trials, Asia-Pacific, Top Countries (%), 2016* 8 AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics Clinical Trials, Europe, Top Countries (%), 2016* 9 AIDS Associated Dementia Therapeutics Clinical Trials, North America, Top Countries (%), 2016* 10 Proportion of AIDS Associated Dementia to Central Nervous System Clinical Trials, G7 Countries (%), 2016* 11 ...Continued Access Report @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/753491-aids-associated-dementia-global-clinical-trials-review-h2-2016 Get in touch: LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/4828928 Twitter: https://twitter.com/WiseGuyReports Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Wiseguyreports-1009007869213183/?fref=ts For more information, please visit http://www.wiseguyreports.com Contact Info: Name: Norah Trent Organization: WiseGuy Reports Address: Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar Pune - 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1-646-845-9349 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/aids-associated-dementia-therapeutic-and-drug-pipeline-review-h2/148427 Release ID: 148427 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Coral Homes Adds Two Brand New Home Designs The home builder has two new models for homeowners to see at their Yarrabilba display centre, reports www.coralhomes.com.au. -- Coral Homes, one of the Gold Coast's premier home builders, recently announced the addition of two brand new home designs to their range to coincide with the opening of their Yarrabilba display centre. Representing Coral Homes' very latest in new home design and innovation for narrow lot living, the two homes are suitable for 12.5m and 14m lot widths. Prospective homeowners who would like to get a glimpse of the new homes are encouraged to call the Coral Homes team to set up a viewing appointment. "Coral Homes has been building homes since 1990, and since then our goal has always been to provide maximum value to those who have decided to make the investment in a new home. Having truly considered the needs of homeowners living on narrow lot, our design team has come up with what we consider to be two of the best and most innovative home designs for those lot types. We know that families are going to be thrilled when they see how much space and versatility they'll get with our cleverly-designed properties," said Coral Homes' National Marketing Manager, Glenn Kennedy. The first of the two new designs showcased at the Yarrabilba display centre is the Grange 26, intone of a series of nine plans. This 240.06m2 (25.9sq) home has been carefully designed to fit on a 14m lot and is a true family home with 3 bedrooms and 4 separate living areas. The home features a fully-enclosed media room, a luxurious master suite, an open-plan family, dining, and kitchen area, and a casual outdoor living area. The Capri 25, the second of the two new Coral Homes designs on display at Yarrabilba, features four bedrooms and an open plan living space that makes it suitable for growing families. The versatile design was created to fit on a narrow 12.5m lot without compromising on desirable features. The Capri Series will offer four new plans to homeowners. Both display homes will also feature Milan and Retro facades, two new architecturally-inspired options available for the new Grange and Capri plans. The Designer list price for the Grange 26 is $167,700, and prospective homeowners can build the the Capri 25 for as little as $168,400. "Our team could not be more excited to finally unveil these two new designs for homeowners to see. We are confident that homeowners will love what we have to offer and that they'll find a design that suits their family's needs. We look forward to showing off these new homes as we help homeowners make the best possible investment in their future and build the life of their dreams," said Mr Kennedy. Prospective homeowners can log on to http://coralhomes.com.au/ to learn more about the two new home designs and schedule a Yarrabilba display centre visit or call 07 5607 9007 or 07 3151 3541 About Coral Homes: Having built quality homes for thousands of Australian families since 1990 customers can be confident they are in the right hands at Coral Homes. At Coral Homes, they've dedicated the last 25 years to refining and developing the way they plan and build homes so as to provide each of their valued clients a rewarding building experience. Coral Homes takes pride in being a reputable business which has stood the test of time and gives their clients real peace of mind. For more information, please visit http://coralhomes.com.au/ Contact Info: Name: Glenn Kennedy Organization: Coral Homes Address: Level 3, 194 Varsity Parade Varsity Lakes, QLD, 4227 Phone: 07 5585 2555 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/coral-homes-adds-two-brand-new-home-designs/148393 Release ID: 148393 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) OklahomaInsuranceQuotes.net Updates Online Homeowners Insurance Quote Module Over the past 11 years, this site has helped people who own property in Oklahoma compare insurance quotes for their home but the time it takes to answer questions has been slashed by 50% and ease of answering inquiries about their home has been enhanced. -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Oklahoma City, OK)--OklahomaInsuranceQuotes.net a go-to resource for residents in Oklahoma who are in the market for homeowners insurance in Oklahoma, recently introduced an update to their online quote module. In an effort to make it quicker and more convenient for homeowners to get the accurate insurance quotes they seek, the site has taken steps to reduce the number of questions homeowners have to answer to obtain their quotes. "While home insurance in Oklahoma is necessary for those who wish to protect what is likely one of their largest investments, the process of obtaining that insurance often inspires feelings of dread, especially among savvy homeowners who shop around for the best rate. As a website that does everything we can to make getting home insurance as painless as possible, we are proud to say that we've achieved that goal with the latest version of our quote module. Having to answer less questions means slashing the time it takes to get a quote by 50 percent, and that's definitely a win for every homeowner who uses our site to search for insurance." In addition to cutting the amount of questions that residents shopping for homeowners insurance in Oklahoma City need to answer in order to obtain a quote, OklahomaInsuranceQuotes.net's newly-launched online quote tool is also easier for them to navigate. The site's owners and developers hope that the changes they've made will make completing the form less confusing for homeowners as they give relevant answers to key questions. Ward further commented, "Shopping around for home insurance doesn't have to be a tedious process. Instead of making dozens of phone calls or getting caught up in answering what feels like a million questions, we encourage homeowners to visit OklahomaInsuranceQuotes.net to make use of our new online quote tool. We've aimed to make it the quickest and best way to shop for insurance, and we know that homeowners will be thrilled when they see how truly easy it is." About OklahomaInsuranceQuotes.net: OklahomaInsuranceQuotes.net helps insurance shoppers compare coverage rates on their auto, home, landlord, renters, mobile home, and life insurance policies. Since 2005, the site has been providing their clients much-needed peace of mind by ensuring that their insurance shopping experience is easy, convenient, and worthwhile. The site's mission is to become the most trusted, reliable, and value-driven insurance rate comparison site in Oklahoma. Media Contact: Keith Ward Oklahoma City, OK 73127 Telephone: (405) 627-8853 Email: info@oklahomainsurancequotes.net Website: www.oklahomainsurancequotes.net For more information, please visit https://www.oklahomainsurancequotes.net Contact Info: Name: Keith Ward Organization: OklahomaInsuranceQuotes.net Address: Phone: (405) 627-8853 Release ID: 147071 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Monster & Supernatural Sighting Incident Report Logs, great gift ideas, out now Michael Patrick Higgins is launching his brand new books, "Monster Sighting Incident Report Log" and "Supernatural Incident Report Log." Both are available through Amazon targeted at fans of the horror, mystery, suspense, young adult and journaling worlds. More information is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1539713075 and https://www.amazon.com/dp/1539713164 -- Night Roamers author Michael Patrick Higgins is launching two brand new journals, "Monster Sighting Incident Report Log" and "Supernatural Incident Report Log." These journals are set to go live 11/20/16, available through Amazon and are expected to become a big hit for the holiday shopping season with fans of the horror, mystery, suspense, young adult and journaling worlds. More information on the books can be found here: Monster Sighting Incident Report Log - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1539713075 and Supernatural Incident Report Log - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1539713164 These journals were created to keep track of all personal monster or supernatural encounters and allow readers to record details and clues about their experiences. There's also particular excitement about this launch because it allows journal writers to track all of their sightings in one place and identify changes between each encounter. Monster Sighting Incident Report Log and Supernatural Incident Report Log set their main focus on personal self help. Readers will likely find a particular interest in that these journals allow them to face their fears and see clues as to what they are really afraid of in the dark. The books' cover art was created by Michael Patrick Higgins and Monster Sighting Incident Report Log and Supernatural Incident Report Log are being released by Night Roamers. Michael Patrick Higgins has a background in unraveling the mysteries of the unexplainable. This helped shaped the creation of the books as he was constantly being disbelieved. He hopes that journal writers will enjoy knowing that there are others out there who feel that they've seen something incredible even if they are the only ones who've witnessed it. When asked about why he wrote the books, Higgins said: "I wanted to create a journal in which people could face their fears and see that they are really not that bad when they are clearly on the page in front of you. I also like the idea that people can share their experiences and not feel so alone in the world." Higgins has hopes that the books will give sleepless children and journal writers peace of mind. This positive outlook from the author is certainly a testament to his optimism considering some of the mishaps during its creation. At one point, important details mysteriously vanished from the book files as if by some otherworldly entity, but were able to be added back before the book was completed. In a recent interview, the author made a point of thanking everyone who is strong enough to face their personal monsters for their part in the creation of the book, saying: "Thank you to anyone who battles monsters of their own and still has the courage to keep going." Those interested in learning more about the books can visit here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1539713075 and https://www.amazon.com/dp/1539713164 For more information, please visit http://www.Nightroamers.com Contact Info: Name: Michael Higgins Email: michael@nightroamers.com Organization: Night Roamers Address: 54 Pineneck Avenue, Sag Harbor, NY 11963 Phone: 3473069876 Release ID: 148349 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Denver, Colorado Real Estate Agent Francisco Padilla launches Home Brokers LLC In a move to better serve clients in the Denver, Colorado area, Francisco Padilla founded Home Brokers LLC, a well-known and respected brokerage firm with 12 years of experience in real estate. -- As part of Francisco Padilla's ongoing effort to improve the brokerage services offered to clients, the Denver, Colorado-based real estate agent has moved to a new brokerage firm, Home Brokers LLC. Home Brokers LLC is known for its full service agency with the ultimate level of client care, fluent in Spanish and will negotiate the best deal in the shortest amount of time throughout the industry, with a history of serving its clients well. What really separates this group of professionals is that they care about each and every client. They do very little advertising because they don't have to. Anyone who does business with them tends to be a client for life, and they refer their friends and family too. Most realtors will lose interest if a home sale gets challenging, but that is when Home Brokers LLC steps up to the plate. They have decades of experience and know exactly how to get the best deal and still make sure that the closing happens in the minimum amount of time. Full details about the change can be viewed on the website: http://casasencolorado.com/ Recent clients speak highly of this brokerage firm, saying things such as "These realtors really know all the neighborhoods in northern Denver and Aurora better than anyone, they will take you from start to finish through the process of buying or selling your home and really put their reputation on the line to get all the way through closing. Plus they are fluent in Spanish too!". This brokerage provides services for Park Hill, Aurora and Arvada in particular, but all people who need brokerage services are welcome. Other areas served include City Park, Berkley, Chaffe Park, Twin Lakes, Sherrelwood, Thornton, Montbello, Green Valley Ranch, Concord, Gateway Village, Commerce City, Ruby Hill, Harvey Park, Athmar Park, Stapleton, and Northfield. All those with questions are invited to get in touch with Francisco Padilla via the website, http://casasencolorado.com/. For more information, please visit http://casasencolorado.com Contact Info: Name: Francisco Padilla Email: francisco@casasencolorado.com Organization: Home Brokers LLC Address: 3401 Quebec St #9300 Phone: (720) 366-0111 Release ID: 148357 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Amazon Badger Shaving Brush Brand Latherwhip Launches No Mo' Movember Giveaway Latherwhip Founder 'AJ Hardy' continues to raise awareness of the brand's "No Mo' Movember" movement and hopes to raise further awareness of Men's health issues. Latherwhip is giving away coupons to get its top-rated $60 badger hair shaving brush for $3.60 through Amazon to celebrate. -- One of Amazon.com's most trusted male grooming brands 'Latherwhip' has today announced a giveaway of it's top rated badger hair shaving brush (which usually retails at $59.99) for $3.60 through Amazon. The shave brush giveaway is to mark Latherwhip's "No Mo' Movember" campaign. Coupons Can Be Claimed Through This Website for this week only. Latherwhip founder AJ Hardy has previously stated how he has wanted to use the small, but much-loved brand to raise greater awareness for a something important. Hardy believes Movember is a critically important movement, yet before now felt the brand wasn't best able to join in with the spirit of 'No Shave November' or 'Movember' since the primary purpose of current Latherwhip products is essentially to 'remove' hair. The "No Mo' Movember" campaign is therefore set up to 'follow up' the official Movember campaign as gentlemen quite often prefer to return to their cleaner shaven or 'stache-less' style. This of course presents the perfect opportunity to shave in the classic style, with a brush, some good soap, in a mug, with a good razor. Hardy mentioned that even if a gentleman only treats himself to a classic shave once every couple of weeks or so - it's still an important time to indulge in a classic masculine pursuit. The Movember movement itself is, of course, in place to raise awareness of men's health issues, including prostate cancer, testicular cancer and male suicide. The aim is to increase early cancer detection, diagnosis and effective treatments - in order the reduce the number of preventable deaths. The shaving brush itself is a well loved and top rated item by customers and sells exclusively through Amazon.com at an MSRP of $59.99 currently at 50% off for the holidays. The "No Mo' Movember" Coupon allows folks to pick up their own brush (or as a gift) for $3.60. Once Again For This Week Only The $3.60 "No Mo' Movember" Coupons Can Be Claimed Here For more information, please visit http://latherwhip.com Contact Info: Name: AJ Hardy Organization: Latherwhip Address: Suite # 9450 SW Gemini Drive, Beaverton, OR, 97008-7105, USA Phone: (013) 018-258031 Release ID: 148383 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) 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. Hundreds protest Fukushima imports TAIPEI, Taiwan Hundreds on Thursday called for the president and premier to resign, accusing the ruling party of selling out Taiwan and poisoning our children in its push to ease a ban on food imports from Japans radiation-affected regions. Article by Sun Hsin Hsuan Protesters organized by the Kuomintang (KMT) demonstrated in front of the Executive Yuan early Thursday, as party councilors from across the country took turns addressing the crowd. Protesters organized by the Kuomintang (KMT) demonstrated in front of the Executive Yuan early Thursday, as party councilors from across the country took turns addressing the crowd. We are humans, and humans dont eat radiation-contaminated food, the crowd chanted with Tainan City Councilor Hsieh Lung-chieh (), who accused that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of betraying its promise to safeguard Taiwans food safety. We all remember clearly which party strongly protested against nuclear power in the past, but whos about to feed poisonous food to our children now! Hsieh said. Taipei City Councilor Wang Hsin-yi () said the protest was not about political issues but was instead a matter of life and death. Taipei City Councilor Ying Hsiao-wei () introduced a 3-year-old girl carried by an elderly woman, and urged the crowd to fight the government to defend public health. Clash with Police Hsieh asked police officers to give way to protesters so they could enter the Executive Yuan and submit their petition to the premier. When the police stood their ground, demonstrators attempted to storm the grounds. The clash ended after Hsu Fu (), director of the Cabinets food safety office, stepped outside the Executive Yuan to receive the protesters petition and then invited KMT Legislator Alicia Wang () and Chen Yi-ming () into the building for talks. No contaminated food No radiation-contaminated food products will be allowed into the nation, according to a Cabinet press statement released Friday afternoon. The Cabinet stated that it would take protesters concerns into account and reinstate its four-noes policy on Japanese food imports. It said all products from the Fukushima Prefecture would continue to be prohibited from entering Taiwans borders. Food products from Gunma, Ibaraki, Tochigi, and Chiba four of the five prefectures affected by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster that are at high risk of absorbing radiation would also remain banned. Those with a lower risk of radiation contamination would also stay banned if they did not have a certificate confirming state of origin and radiation levels. Food products still banned by the U.S. and the Japanese government would also remain banned from Taiwan. An earthquake and tsunami had triggered meltdowns of nuclear power plants in Fukushima Prefecture in 2011. Dozens of countries worldwide imposed sanctions or tightened restrictions on food imports produced in the regions around Fukushima Prefecture. Starting 2015, the European Union and the U.S. gradually lifted the bans as Tokyo continued to urge the move on grounds of fair international trade. Read more at: chinapost.com.tw value="Enter your email address here..." style=" border-radius: 2px; font: 14px/100% Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; padding: .2em 2em .2em;" onfocus="if(this.value == 'Enter your email address here...') { this.value = ''; }" onblur="if(this.value == '') { this.value = 'Enter your email address here...'; }" /> style="display: inline-block; outline: none; cursor: pointer; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; font: 14px/100% Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; padding: .2em 1em .3em; text-shadow: 0 1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,.3); -webkit-border-radius: .2em; -moz-border-radius: .2em; border-radius: .2em; -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0,0,0,.2); -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0,0,0,.2); box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0,0,0,.2);" > Submit a correction >> Research into pig nutrition, as well as production systems and reproduction, is set for a step change following a 7m investment at Leeds University. The investment includes a significant upgrade of the universitys indoor-reared pig research centre, and the creation of a new outdoor facility. Majority funded by the university, but with support from the government-funded Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Livestock (CIEL), the pig herd has been expanded from 200 to 600 sows. One-third of these are outdoor reared. See also: 70m plan to transform livestock sector Animal feed is the largest variable cost which the industry bears, said Helen Miller, director of the university farm. One of the areas we will study is how to improve outdoor sow nutrition to maximise the well-being and productivity of individual animals. This should also result in improved profitability, providing significant support for individual farmers and for larger businesses across the rural economy. Feed recommendations Among the most prominent outcomes will be a greater ability for researchers to make feed recommendations for pigs to keep pace with ongoing genetic improvements. New equipment and facilities include a CCTV network to monitor the pig herd 24/7, equipment to automatically feed and show what each pig consumes and devices to let pigs choose what they want to eat. Each pig will be identified through its DNA, while new accommodation includes flexible penning and birthing arrangements. The new 825,000 sheep house at CAFRE Greenmounts Hill Farm at Glenwherry, Co Antrim, has been two years in the making, but finally the new 72m x 26m shed is finished in time to house 726 ewes this winter. The new premises will give farmers and students access to innovative technologies and enable them to learn about the very latest sheep rearing and management techniques. See also: Whats in your livestock shed- ewes, robots and clever inventions How is it designed? Its a single span building with the shed eaves four metres high with an 18deg pitch roof. Three high definition cameras with zoom lens are fitted along the main roof and a fourth one is placed over the lambing area. Each camera is linked to a central monitor located in a small kitchen in the shed, which is used for mixing lamb milk. The internal layout of 1,800sq m consists of a total of 17 slatted sheep pens floored using a suspended proprietary system to allow slurry to be collected in four below ground tanks. Sheep will be housed in 15 8m x 6m pens which hold 44 ewes each and a further two pens at 6m x 6m, which hold 33 ewes each. This allows a natural space per ewe of 1.1sq m. There is a 5m wide central feed passage through the building, accessed from either end via a roller shutter in the gable. Separate to the main pens there are also 66 individual lambing pens and a sheep handling unit. The slurry tanks are 1.2m deep with one extending to 1.8m deep due to the fall in the land. Mixing points are positioned outside the shed for safety reasons. There are approximately 960cu m of slurry storage in the shed, which accounts for two years total slurry capacity for the livestock numbers housed there for a few months. Tanks are slatted with the MIK stepper slat, which has been specifically designed for sheep and goat flooring applications. The knobbed surface ensures high step safety and foot stability and it costs 35 per sq m. The fact that manure can easily pass through the slots guarantees a clean and dry surface which supports general animal health. What have the best buys been? The college choose the plastic slat instead of a wire mesh slat as it said the stepper slat would last twice as long with a life expectancy of about 20 years. There are 21 new technologies built into the new house to aid with the feeding, management and lambing of the ewes, which are mainly Blackface Swaledale crosses and Texel cross-breds. Among the cutting edge features of the sheep house are handling facilities, including footbaths, a curved race, handling units and equipment to identify, weigh and draft animals, enabling large numbers of animals to be handled safely and efficiently. One of the more desirable pieces of equipment in the house is the combi-clamp, which can restrain the sheep for all management purposes including inspection and dosing. The facilities incorporate the latest sheep EID technology and software to aid management decisions. Also included are flooring systems to provide improved health and welfare of housed ewes and slurry management including tanks, mixing points and flush systems to provide adequate storage and safety for stock and operators. Furthermore, the sheep house boasts environmentally sustainable rainwater harvesting technology and natural ventilation, helping to reduce overheads and minimise environmental impact. How much has all of this cost? The overall cost of the house comes in at 825,000 but the college stresses because this as an educational establishment it does not compare with any commercial farm building. The main costs include: Concrete (tanks, walls, floors, etc) 200,000; shed frame 165,000; galvanised pens 36,000; lighting system and cameras 35,000; slats 35,000; underground slat steel supports 10,000; combi sheep clamp 2,000; weighbridge and EID system 3,000. What are the reasons for the build? The Glenwherry Hill Farm extends to 1,000ha, wrapped inside a 16-mile long perimeter, with only 40 of these hectares classed as improved grassland. Farm facts 1,000ha 1,100 ewes plus 100 suckler cows Shed holds 726 ewes Mainly Blackface Swaledale crosses and some Texel crossbreds Shed dimensions 72m x 26m Housing period mid December to April Replaces three older houses spread out on farmyard that held 300 ewes in total A total of 1,100 ewes are based at the hill farm together with a 100-cow suckler cow herd grazing up to a height of 1,000ft above sea level. The inclement winter weather on the hill can be quite challenging so the majority of the sheep have traditionally been brought down to the farmyard for lambing. However, as the years have rolled on, the sheep housing at the farm has become very outdated and very labour intensive. Moreover, three separate houses on different areas of the farm were used to accommodate the sheep, which made it more difficult for the staff and students who were on lambing duties to keep an eye on them all. The old houses had a capacity for 300 ewes and were over 30 years old, said CAFRE farms director Neville Graham. During the heavy snowfall in March 2013, the flock suffered substantial losses as some of them were being out-wintered due to a lack of room. The sheep industry in Northern Ireland is worth 63m and employs 15% of farm workers. This is the only government owned hill farm in Ireland and is a centre of education for students and farmers alike. It is also with that in mind that we have built this sheep house with all the latest technology. As it is an educational facility we wanted to show the top end of new innovations available for such a house. It cannot be compared, therefore, with a commercial sheep house. The new shed was located on the most level field as close to the main farmyard as possible and it is central to the laneways leading down from the hills. How will the building be used when sheep arent housed? The house will act as accommodation for the sheep in the winter months from around mid-December, but will revert to a handling facility during the other times of the year. Each pen is made with gates that have a special bar that drops into brackets lower down on the gates. This will prevent the sheep entering the pens when the shed is being used as a handling facility. In one corner there is a sheep race which leads on to a sheep clamping unit and an EID reader and weighbridge. All drinkers in the pens are on the one water circuit and are of a new shallow design, which only allows a small volume to remain in the bowl. This ensures the water stays fresher for the sheep. Rain harvesting system The entire shed can be cleaned with a volume wash system using water from the rain harvesting system, which has the potential to collect 23cu m of rain a week. College director Martin McKendry said the new sheep facilities and the education, training and knowledge and technology transfer benefits they will deliver, will help underpin the future of sustainable sheep farming in Northern Ireland. He said: The international marketplace is becoming ever more competitive and it is vital, therefore, that we are positioned to equip our students and farmers with the knowledge and skills they need to develop and manage sustainable and successful farm businesses. This new facility will enable us to deliver the very best sheep management training to thousands of young people for many years to come. Samsung's Latest Messenger May Pave Its Way to A More Advanced Way of Sending Messages Samsung has recently announced that it will be acquiring NewNet Communication Technologies which specializes in Rich Communications Services or RCS. This may actually help pave its way for the Korean tech giant to start developing its own latest messenger that may even surpass that of Apple's iMessage.NewNet Communications Technologies or also known as NewNet Canada provides services and builds infrastructures for RCS which can be considered as the next generation of SMS text messaging. According to Samsung, consumers will benefit from an advanced messaging experience with features such as enhanced calling, group chat, and the ability to easily share and transfer large files including multimedia and high-resolution photos. However, unlike other messaging apps in the market, users will be able to communicate on any network, with an RCS-enabled device as well as SMS-only devices. Samsung still hasn't released any announcements on its plans on providing any future messaging service that will be integrated into its devices. However, a lot of consumers believe that by doing so will directly compete with some of their competitors. The last time that Samsung attempted to create its own messaging platform was back in 2011 with ChatOn. The messaging platform is preinstalled on all Galaxy tablets and smartphones and was also made available for Android, Windows, and iOS devices. However, the messaging service did not really made a splash and was then discontinued the year after. Samsung has yet to clarify its plans with NewNet Canada and will still continue to operate on its own under Gavin Murphy and Brent Newsome. It will function as a wholly-owned company of Samsung Electronics Canada, Inc. However, Samsung recently announced its plans to acquire audio systems maker Harman for at least $8 billion, International Business Times reported 'Tokyo Ghoul' Season 3 News & Updates: Release Date Delayed & Canceled For A While? Fans of anime like "Tokyo Ghoul" was devastated when one of the beloved characters died in one of the episode----Hide, the main protagonist Kaneki's best friend, the one that noticed him when he was alone and sad. Just like people are shocked and enraged because of his death, so as Kaneki and the others. He pledged to never let anyone get hurt again by using his newfound powers against evil and bring justice to everyone. The awaited "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3 might be delayed and canceled due to some reasons that might be related to production, funds, or the timing. Confirmed but not yet ready for release "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3 may get its confirmed release next year but it is not yet ready. It is like an unripe fruit that may not satisfy the expectations of the viewers and fans of this anime. Moreover, there will surely be a Season 3 for the said anime because it follows the manga, which the animation was based on. Rumors and theories go around the internet as fans suspect Haise, the ghoul inspector to be Kaneki Ken in disguise, but that is not proven until "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3 is released. The wait is still on rage because fans are making it a big deal on what happened to Kaneki at the last part, where he was brutally injured by Arima Kishou and both of his eyes were poked by a stabbing attack that pierced his head. Of course, fans would be expecting that Kaneki can still live through that, considering he has a strong regenerative ability. The expected release will still be the same year "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3 will still be released in the future but fans still do not know what it might contain. It may have another point of view, or continuing Kaneki's goal to make it possible for humans and ghouls to live together, which is still impossible on the current moment in the said anime, but it will be granted in the future and how the story writers end it. Queen Elizabeth II Wants To See US President Donald Trump And Ex-Model Wife Melania At Windsor Castle In 2017 Queen Elizabeth II plans to formally invite Mr.Trump and his wife Melania Trump as soon as he is sworn to office on January 20. This visit will be the first foreign trip of Donald Trump as president. He will be accompanied by his wife Melania. According to The Times, deliberations between the Trump camp and the British officials are anticipated to start soon to make sure that the visit will happen by June or July next year. In addition, the Queen will also furnish an official congratulatory message to the president to affirm his inauguration. The specifics of the planning were disclosed by two misters and a senior official close to Downing Street. Trump is expecting the invitation and talked about his excitement at the thought of visiting Queen Elizabeth II. He shared his excitement when he met Nigel Flange and fellow Brexit supporters and Trump ally Aaron Banks, EU Communications Director Andy Wigmore and British Political Activist Raheem Kassam at his New York Apartment last Saturday. A member of Flange's group related to Times that Trump is looking forward to the visit. He added that the President is a huge Anglophile and that his late Mother, Mary, loved the Queen. He further said that Trump told them that he cannot wait to come to England and that his mother would be delighted when he meets the Queen. This move from the British government of offering Trump the chance to visit the Queen and dine at Windsor Castle will enable the Prime Minister to snip a trudge on Fange, News.com said. Britain wants to get Trump to secure a post-Brexit free trade deal with the United States. This is also their way of influencing his perspective on Syria, NATO and other foreign affairs concerns. The Prime Minister is also looking into the likelihood of visiting Washington before the year ends to hammer Britain's case home. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is also sending aides to the U.S. next week to see Trump's team and Mike Pence for talks. Johnson is anticipated to also visit before Christmas. Georges St-Pierre Return, Rumors and Updates: GSP to Bellator? The hottest rumor nowadays in the MMA world is the return from retirement of the greatest welterweight of all time, Georges St-Pierre. The former pound per pound king has already announced his intention of fighting again earlier this year. He was expected to headline UFC 206 in front of his home town crowd in Canada. But with the problems in contract negotiations with the UFC, Georges St-Pierre's current employer whom Georges St.-Pierre is still under their contract, the return of the fighter is indefinitely delayed. The contract disputes stem from the recently new owners of the UFC the William Morris Endeavor-International Management Group. The Reebok deal which forbids fighters from wearing and modifying their gear allowing use of only Reebok apparel is also an issue On Georges St.-Pierre who is sponsored by Under Armor. With talks of Georges St-Pierre and the UFC at a standstill, with his lawyers claiming that talks have failed, Georges St-Pierre might have to look for other options outside the UFC in which he himself stated. These other options might include Bellator as Georges St-Pierre was in attendance during Bellator 165 which features Benson Hederson and Michael Chandler as the event's main fight. St.-Pierre was also pictured alongside, heavyweight great Fedor Emelianenko, training partner and current Bellator fighter and former UFC fighter Rory Macdonald. Another picture from Georges St-Pierre also featured the fighter with former UFC fighting Chael Sonnen with an inscription thanking Bellator and Chael Sonnen for inviting Georges St. Pierre to train on a Bellator Cage. Could this be a sign of things to come? Will Georges St-Pierre follow along the footsteps of several UFC fighters who have been displeased with the company and sign to Bellator? Despite the contract issues, Georges St-Pierre still wants to resolve things with the UFC and its new owners. Georges St-Pierre is scheduled to meet with the UFC and the William Morris Endeavor-International Management Group next year to renegotiate a new contract. The UFC is still the best MMA regardless of Bellator's popularity. But if the talks prove to unsuccessful, Georges St-Pierre might decide to sign under Bellator. Microsoft New Release, Latest News & Update: Defender Hub For Windows 10; Kaspersky Criticizes Microsoft & Calls For Investigation Microsoft has released Defender Hub for Windows 10 on Windows Store. Kaspersky immediately criticized the new release and has accused Microsoft of forcing users to switch to Windows 10. Kaspersky is now calling antitrust bodies to conduct an investigation. Microsoft Update: Defender Hub For Windows 10 Increases Security According to MSPoweruser, Defender Hub for Windows 10 is Microsoft's new release and latest application. It gives access and control to Windows Defender and allows users to use antimalware protection and protect their device. They can easily check protection status and scan their device. The Defender Hub for Windows 10 also helps users to discover the benefits of security solutions from Windows Defender. It provides users with articles and posts from Microsoft's Malware Protection Center website and Microsoft blogs. These articles allow users to stay up to date with the latest news about Windows Defender and Windows 10 security. They also inform users about malware, viruses, and latest security trends. Defender Hub for Windows 10 also gives tips to its users on how to improve computer security. Microsoft Update: Kaspersky Accuses Microsoft Of Harming Competition According to Softpedia, Kaspersky slammed Microsoft a few days before the official release of Defender Hub for Windows 10. It accused the software giant of aggressively forcing users to replace third-party antivirus solutions with Microsoft's Windows Defender. With this, Kaspersky called for a thorough investigation from antitrust bodies in Europe and Russia. Software enthusiasts wait for Microsoft's response to Kaspersky's criticism and accusations. However, Microsoft remains completely tight-lipped on the situation. As soon as a formal complaint will be filed, Microsoft will collaborate with authorities around the world. Microsoft Update: Download Windows Defender Hub At Windows Store Defender Hub for Windows 10 can now be downloaded from the Windows Store and used exclusively on desktop computers. It is given with a free license. There is also no need to buy and subscribe. Samsung Galaxy S7 Glossy Black Release Date, Specs & Update: New Samsung Phone Set To Rival iPhone 7 Jet Black There are rumors that a Samsung Galaxy S7 Glossy Black model will launch early in December 2016. The upcoming variant will reportedly be glossier compared to the current black Samsung Galaxy S7. Samsung may be looking to counter Apple's popular iPhone 7 Jet Black. Samsung Galaxy S7 Glossy Black Features GSM Arena reported that Samsung may be looking to make more sales from the Samsung S7 Glossy Black, after they suffered giant losses with the failed Galaxy Note 7. The company recently featured the Blue Coral color from the Note 7 to the Galaxy S7 edge. The Samsung Galaxy S7 Glossy Black, as well as more hues may be introduced in the following months to potentially rake in more sale. It is still uncertain whether the Samsung Galaxy S7 Glossy Black will launch globally or limited only to a few markets. The current Onyx Black Samsung Galaxy S7 may be described by users as a mix of matte and shiny, with its multilayer nanocoating. The handset gets shinier with a touch of light, but users may still be opting for an official glossy version with the Samsung Galaxy S7 Glossy Black. Since Apple has both Jet Black and Black tones for the iPhone 7, Samsung may be opting for the same approach to provide more options for users, especially since the Note 7 is gone. Samsung Galaxy S7 Glossy Black: Also In Other Colors? The sources that leaked the news of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Glossy Black remained unidentified, and it is still undetermined whether the smartphone will be available only in South Korea or in select countries. The Blue Coral hue was released on a worldwide scale, so users are optimistic that the Samsung Galaxy S7 Glossy Black will also become available everywhere soon. Currently, the Samsung Galaxy S7 is available in Black, White, Gold, Silver, Pink Gold and Blue Coral. GSM Arena stated that the Samsung Galaxy S7 Glossy Black is expected to feature the same specifications and features, such as a 5.5-inch SUPER AMOLED display with a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels and a curved edge display. It will also likely run on Snapdragon 820 or Exynos 8890 octa-core chipset, have 4GB of RAM, 32 or 64GB of internal storage and a 12-megapixel camera. More updates and details on the Samsung Galaxy S7 Glossy Black are expected soon. Microsoft Surface Pro 5 News, Updates & Specs: New Tablet To Be Announced At Next Year's MWC, Packing New Skylake Chipset? There are a lot of rumored big announcements and appearances at the next Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on February 2017. Nokia has already gone on record to state that they will be making a big announcement, possibly for a new line of Nokia-branded Android smartphones. Now Microsoft seems to be gearing up for a reveal of the new Surface Pro 5. There haven't been any official word from Microsoft themselves about the next model in their highly-regarded line of tablets, but that hasn't stopped most of the industry from speculating. Mobile & Apps is predicting that they'll be unveiling the Surface Pro 5 at the MWC, and the biggest draw for the new tablet is that it may very well be running on a new Skylake chipset. The Microsoft Surface Pro used to run on the Intel-manufactured Kaby Lake processor, and the reason for the switch is that its production is delayed to the second half of 2017. Other rumors surrounding the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 is that it will most likely have a 13.3-inch display, and will run on Windows 10 Redstone 2, the latest version of Microsoft's flagship operating system. It will come with a 256 GB hard drive, and a whopping 16 GB of RAM, making it one of the fastest portable Windows devices in the market. Couple that with an improved battery capacity and a Surface Pen that's also rechargeable, and you've got a powerful contender in the field. Because there's very little word on the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 right now, that means that it's not even known when a target release date would be. If the Surface Pro 5 is announced at the MWC in February, then it's very likely to come out sometime in the second quarter of 2017, speculates CNet. We'll bring you more information when it becomes available. Nicole Arias-Rynearson expects to have 11 mouths to feed in her Philomath home this Thanksgiving, but she wont have to do all the cooking herself. Ive got a lot of helpers, she said. Weve got five kids. Paying for the traditional feast on this most American of holidays, however, could be a challenge this year for her and her husband, William Palmer. We have a big family, and right now were both in between jobs, she said. Times are a little tough right now. But theyve got some help in that department, too. The Palmer/Arias-Rynearson family is one of about 1,400 Benton County households who signed up for a free food box as part of this years Community Holiday Food Drive, which for the last 36 years has been providing all the fixings to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner for local families experiencing hard times. Because Nicoles last name starts with an A, they were among the first group in line on Monday morning to pick up their supplies at the Benton County Fairgrounds. The couple brought along two of their five children daughters Lylliana, 10, and Indi, 8 for the occasion. As they waited for the doors to open, they talked about some of their favorite holiday treats. The big thing everybody likes the most has got to be the candied yams, Arias-Rynearson said. Theres a couple secret ingredients that go in it. Indi said her holiday fave is stuffing, while Lylliana was looking forward to deviled eggs. One more family tradition: At their house, Thanksgiving marks the start of the Christmas season. Thats usually when we put up our tree, Arias-Rynearson, said. Inside Guerber Hall, families check in at the front desk. Then they get a shopping cart and a volunteer assistant to help them collect their holiday bounty. Each family gets a cardboard box packed with basics such as bags of flour, cans of corn and green beans, stuffing and muffin mixes, and everyday staples such as peanut butter and tuna fish. Some boxes also contain a colorful handmade Thanksgiving card, part of an annual art project at Linus Pauling Middle School. In addition, there are plastic bags containing perishables such as turkeys, eggs and butter, plus sacks of potatoes, apples and other fresh produce. And each family or individual that comes through also gets their choice of one item from a table of extras such as bottles of ketchup, boxes of cornflakes and packages of ramen noodles. This years food drive brought in about 25,000 pounds of nonperishable food items plus cash donations to purchase turkeys and so forth, according to Judy Gibson, the campaigns principal organizer. Thats enough to meet the immediate need for Thanksgiving food boxes, but in years past there has been another 5,000-10,000 pounds of nonperishable food left over to give to assistance organizations such as the Vina Moses Center. Not this time. Were a little short on food donations this year, Gibson said. Not because people didnt give, but because we didnt get all the neighborhoods covered. The food drive historically has relied on local Boy Scouts to pass out donation bags and then come back the following weekend to collect them. They did that again this year, but there just arent as many Scouts in the Corvallis area as there used to be. The Boy Scout troops are diminishing, and its hard to get another service group to take this on, Gibson said. Thats something Im going to have to work on this coming year. Testing has confirmed that both recent cases of meningococcal disease in Benton County are the same type of the illness, known as strain B. Both cases involve Oregon State University students who are being treated for the disease at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis, and both were reportedly in good condition on Monday. Test results established the first case was strain B, but testing of the second patient late last week was inconclusive. Over the weekend, a second test performed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta determined that patient was infected with the same strain of the disease, according to Lilia Neville, public information officer for Benton County. No additional cases have been diagnosed, Neville said. On Friday, OSU Student Health Services began offering vaccinations against the B strain of the disease to students under 25 and is continuing to do so. Well be communicating to students as they leave (campus) for the Thanksgiving holiday to continue to watch for symptoms, said Steve Clark, OSUs vice president for marketing and university relations. Meningococcal disease primarily afflicts young people. Most incoming students at OSU are required to be inoculated against four of the most common variants of the disease, but that vaccine does not protect against the B strain. While the disease is not highly contagious, it is dangerous and can be fatal. To spread, it generally requires close contact with an infected person for a cumulative total of at least four hours. OSU and county health officials have been working to identify people who may have been exposed to the infected students and treat them with antibiotics as a preventative measure. "We have about 230 on our list," said Charlie Fautin, deputy administrator of the Benton County Health Department. He said most of those people had been contacted and given antibiotics, but others have not yet been located. The names of the two infected students have not been released because of federal privacy restrictions. Symptoms of meningococcal disease include high fever, headache, stiff neck, exhaustion, nausea, rash, vomiting and diarrhea. Anyone experiencing these symptoms is advised to seek medical attention right away. An outbreak of meningococcal disease at the University of Oregon early last year made seven people sick and killed one student. Vaccinations against meningococcal disease-B are available locally beyond the OSU campus, Neville said, but they require a doctors prescription. Vandalism : 420 cars set on fire in NRW DUSSELDORF Setting cars afire is an act of vandalism that has been on the increase in NRW. 420 cars were set on fire in the first half of 2016. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken In the first half of 2016, already 420 cars in North Rhine Westphalia (NRW) had been set on fire by vandals. This is a 19 percent increase in comparison to statistics from the previous year. The figures were reported by NRW Interior Minister Ralf Jager on Monday. In the entire year of 2015, 704 cars had been set afire. Ten years ago, this type of vandalism was not so well-known. In 2006, 93 cars had been set on fire in NRW throughout the whole year. Most of the cars set on fire in the first half of 2016 were in Cologne (45). In Bonn and Rhine-Sieg, the number went down somewhat in the first half of the year with ten cases reported in Bonn (-1) and five cases in Rhine-Sieg-County (-6). IBIS expansion : City retracts initial proposal BAD GODESBERG In a new turn of events, the city administration has retracted its initial support for an IBIS expansion, saying further clarification is needed. It remains unclear whether or not Independent Bonn International School (IBIS) will be allowed to pursue expansion plans. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken The city had given a green signal to the school but is now reconsidering. In a statement to General Anzeiger, the city press office explained that new circumstances have become known, which urgently require further clarification of the facts, and the results of this must be included in weighing out the decision process. The city did not want to comment on exactly what those circumstances were while the information were being examined. It also could not say when a final decision would be made on whether the city administration would support an expansion. Only so much was offered: The necessary steps for further clarification of the facts have been initiated. At IBIS, no further information was available because the school itself had not been informed about this official step. Unfortunately, I cant comment on that because we have not received any information about it whatsoever, said Irene Bolik, IBIS School Director. She hopes that this week they will receive information about this decision and the reasons behind it. Bad Godesberg old town hall area : Investor plans medical center BAD GODESBERG For years, there has been discussion about what will become of the row of historic buildings including the town hall in the so-called Kurfurstlichen Zeile. A medical center or rehabilitation clinic are possibilities being discussed. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken Although there is no decision, there are plans. Being discussed is a specialist medical center, a rehabilitation center or a combination of the two. Stephan Martini, who is developing the project says that if the first proposal goes through, a specialist center will be set up. It would be for doctors who are already practicing in Bad Godesberg. By putting them together under one roof, it is believed that a synergy effect would take hold. For patients, it would mean a shorter waiting time and a convenient location as the area is well-served by bus and train. A core element would be an operating room area for outpatients, says Martini. Dermatological procedures could be carried out there, for example. In general, the idea is to maintain and reuse the buildings surrounding and including the town hall. Another idea would be a rehabilitation clinic but developers of the proposed clinic did not want to discuss plans with General Anzeiger at this time. Reportedly, it would be housed in a new building, and have around 160 beds, with 230 employees. The association Haus & Grund wants discussions to be held in a transparent manner and has initiated a discussion evening open to the public. We are trying to achieve something good for Bad Godesberg and something the citizens of Bad Godesberg find desirable, explained Chairman Pitt Hoffman. Weight: 341 kg Carats: Containing more than 180,000 carats Location: Mine in Bahia, Brazil Date: 2001 The 341 kg Bahia Emerald is one of the largest pieces of rough emerald in the world and was unearthed from a mine in Bahia, Brazil, in 2001. It is a hunk of host rock composed of around nine crystals. One of the nine crystals of the Bahia Emerald is said to be among the largest single emerald crystals ever discovered. The value of the Bahia Emerald is estimated at an incredible $372 ~ 400 million. It narrowly escaped flooding during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 during a period of storage in a warehouse in New Orleans. It was subsequently reported stolen in September 2008 from a secured vault in South El Monte in Los Angeles County, California. The stone has been valued at some $400 million, but the true value is unclear. At one point, the emerald was listed for sale on eBay for a Buy It Now price of $75 million. It originally was mined in the beryl mines of north Bahia, Brazil, from which it takes its name. Bahia is an archaic form of Portuguese baia, meaning bay after the bay first seen by European explorers in the 16th century. After being moved from Brazil to the United States, various attempts were made to sell it without success. There were conflicting claims of ownership. Eventually the emerald was seized from a gem dealer in Las Vegas and taken into the custody of the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department. After a series of legal actions, Judge John A. Kronstadt of the Los Angeles County Superior Court announced in September 2010 that he would hear the case. Anthony Thomas, among the claimants, claimed to have original ownership of the gem including claimants who have paid more than $1.3 million for the emerald. A trial date was set for January 21, 2013, in the Los Angeles County Court. On January 29, 2014, Judge Kronstadt issued a ruling rejecting the claims of Anthony Thomas, leaving the determination of the remaining claimants for a future trial. Mr. Thomas subsequently filed bankruptcy to discharge the costs and attorney fees he incurred in his failed attempt to claim the Bahia Emerald as his own. Mr. Thomas appeal from the ruling against him was later dismissed because Thomas failed to pursue the appeal in a timely fashion. After a trial on March 30, 2015 in the Los Angeles Superior Court, the Honorable Michael Johnson, the judge who succeeded Judge Kronstadt in the civil case, entered a final order on June 23, 2015 determining and ruling that FM Holdings, LLC was the bona fide purchaser of the Bahia Emerald and that title to the Bahia Emerald is now held solely and exclusively by FM Holdings, LLC by a series of agency relationships and lawful transactions. All other claimants to the Bahia Emerald have either been previously dismissed, e.g., Tony Thomas, or settled their claims leaving FM Holdings, LLC, as the sole and exclusive owner of the Bahia Emerald by Judge Johnsons June 23, 2015 ruling. On June 25, 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, on a request by the Department of Justice, issued a restraining order protecting the stone, arguing that it is subject to forfeiture in Brazil, where prosecutors in an upcoming criminal trial allege that two men knowingly received the stolen emerald and illegally smuggled it out of the country. Photo Reference: Wikipedia: Bahia Emerald Bloomberg: The Long, Strange Saga of the 180,000-Carat Emerald Telegraph: Judge to decide who owns 250 million Bahia emerald CNN: 850-pound emerald at center of dispute In 2015 alone, residents of Oklahoma felt the earth move beneath them a total of 907 times, as an unprecedented number of magnitude three or higher earthquakes racked the state. While Oklahoma has historically experienced its share of seismicity, in the last eight years the rate of earthquake occurrence in the state has increased by a factor of 43approximately 4,000%. According to earthquake researchers, including civil and environmental engineering (CEE) Ph.D. student Pengyun Wang, wastewater injection and other fluid injection technologies have something to do with it. Along with his advisors CEE Professor Mitchell Small and Assistant Professor Matteo Pozzi, and collaborator William Harbert, professor of Geology and Environmental Science at the University of Pittsburgh, Wang has spent the last two years investigating the dramatic increase in seismic activity in Oklahoma. And while it is difficult to draw causal relationships in earthquake research, the glut of seismic data in Oklahoma provides researchers a unique opportunity to study the link between seismic activity and fluid injection. Because the earthquake activity there has seen such a significant increase, the state has an impressive network of monitoring infrastructure, Wang says. They have installed a huge number of sensors across the state, and the database of the readings they collect is well-organized and open to the public. Fluid injection is the process by which wastewater, brine, or other fluids are shot through man-made openings in the earth deep into underground wells or reservoirs. Often, this is used as a disposal method for water used in hydraulic fracturing and other industrial processes that introduce chemicals into the water, which makes this water unsafe to reintroduce into the environment. Based on the data gathered in Oklahoma, the researchers have come up with several mechanisms explaining how fluid injection might be causing an increase in seismic activity. The diffusion of the injected fluid can reach nearby, critically stressed fault lines, causing these faults to slip, leading to earthquakes, Wang explains. Additionally, if you have an underground reservoir sitting on or near a fault line, filling the reservoir with water increases its weight, putting undue strain on fault lines. Wang and his team have already published two papers on the subject in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. The first, titled Statistical method for early detection of changes in seismic rate associated with wastewater injections, details research focused on detecting these earthquakes when they first start. The second, titled A Bayesian approach for assessing seismic transitions associated with wastewater injections, works to quantify the intensity of the seismicity over time. Their third study, which the team is currently conducting, takes these previous studies a step further by working to locate exactly where earthquakes are occurring and how they evolve over time. Using this collected data, Wang has built a model that will ultimately be able to help regulators who supervise wastewater injection to make better decisions when considering where and when to inject and store wastewater. Using this model, regulators who are worried there might be an association between increased earthquake activity in their region and wastewater injection can evaluate their individual situations to reduce the risk of making the seismicity worse. In the future, Wang hopes to develop this model further, to take past seismic trends and project them into the future by comparing seismic readings with injection data to potentially find correlations. In this way, the teams research could be used to make recommendations for future injection plans. I hope this research will be useful in decision-making by revealing the past evolution of induced seismicity in the region, Wang says. If local residents of the area are experiencing the negative effects of increased seismicity and want to do something about it, without scientific evidence like this, these people might be powerless to argue against the owners of the wells. But if you can somehow give them evidence, I think it can improve overall awareness of the issue. Reference: Wang, P., Pozzi, M., Small, M., Harbert, W. (2015), Statistical Method for Early Detection of Changes in Seismic Rate Associated with Wastewater Injections. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. DOI: 10.1785/0120150038 Wang, P., Small, M., Harbert, W., Pozzi, M. (2016), A Bayesian Approach for Assessing Seismic Transitions Associated with Wastewater Injections. DOI: 10.1785/0120150200 Note: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. First smartphone to support Googles Daydream VR tech Apart from Google's very own Pixel and Pixel XL, the Moto Z is one of the first smartphones to offer support for the search engine giant's Daydream VR tech. That being said, you'll have to purchase Daydream headset separately to make use of this technology. Quick Reply from notifications One of the most understated changes that the update brings along is the Quick reply feature. With this feature, users can directly reply to a notification event from the notifications itself instead of opening the app to do the same. Click Here for New Tablets Best Online Deals Multi-Window mode The Android 7.0 Nougat update allows support for the multi-window mode. What this essentially means is that you can stream a video on YouTube while texting your friend on WhatsApp simultaneously. Sounds cool, right? Double tap to switch between recent apps and clear them all at once After updating your smartphone with the latest Android OS, you can switch between recent apps just by double-tapping the square' (recent apps) button on your screen. Also, instead of clearing one app after the other, you can directly clean all the apps at once. What about the Moto Z Play? By now you must've been wondering why Moto Z is getting the Nougat update but not the more affordable Moto Z Play in India. Well, the smartphone is still supposed to get the Android 7.0 Nougat update by the end of this year, owing to the slightly slower Snapdragon chipset - which may not be powerful enough to handle the Daydream tech (as effortlessly as the Moto Z) the update may have been delayed. Click Here for New Smartphones Best Online Deals Overall, Double XL is a well-made film that might be liked by gentry in all shapes, sizes, and age too. By the way, do not miss the interval!! Military Strikes Hit ISIL Terrorists in Syria, Iraq From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release SOUTHWEST ASIA, Nov. 21, 2016 U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Iraq and Syria yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today. Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports. Strikes in Syria Attack, bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 13 strikes in Syria: -- Near Abu Kamal, a strike destroyed two tunnels. -- Near Raqqah, three strikes destroyed 13 vehicles and damaged a supply route. -- Near Ayn Isa, six strikes engaged three ISIL tactical units and destroyed two fighting positions, a weapons storage facility and an artillery system. -- Near Dayr Az Zawr, three strikes destroyed six oil tanker trucks and four oil wellheads. Strikes in Iraq Attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted eight strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government: -- Near Huwayjah, a strike destroyed an ISIL improvised explosive device factory. -- Near Beiji, two strikes engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two vehicles and a sniper position. -- Near Kisik, a strike destroyed an ISIL headquarters building. -- Near Mosul, three strikes engaged an ISIL tactical unit; destroyed five mortar systems, five ISIL-held buildings, four vehicle bombs, four tunnels, two vehicles and an artillery system; damaged a bridge, a supply route and an ISIL-held building; and suppressed three tactical units. -- Near Tal Afar, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a vehicle. Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike. Part of Operation Inherent Resolve The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Address by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Plenary session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Fall session in Turkey NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 21 Nov. 2016 (As delivered) Mr. President, Dear Delegates, First of all, I would like to say that, it is really an honour to be back here today and to meet with you, this time in the beautiful city of Istanbul. Last time, I think we met in Norway, in Stavanger. And I will speak to you about the challenges and the tasks that NATO is facing and how NATO is responding. But before I do that, I would like to thank the Turkish Parliament for hosting us and I would also like to thank the president, Mike Turner for the excellent way he has chaired this assembly and the cooperation I have had with him. And we have met many different times on many different occasions, but I remember very well when Mike attended the NATO summit in Warsaw, he spoke to the leaders, and when you did that I actually thought about the importance of having you representing the parliaments around the table with the Heads of State and Government in Warsaw. And I look forward to working with the new president and I promise that I will continue to be in close contact with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. For many reasons but not least because this Assembly is a very important political body because the NATO Assembly is truly a transatlantic institution, binding NATO together across the Atlantic with representatives from the European NATO Allies, from Canada and the USA and Partner Nations. And the bonds, the partnerships, the friendship you create in this Assembly is important for the whole Alliance because it strengthens the transatlantic bond. Secondly, this Assembly is important because you are representing the national parliaments. And I believe, I've said this before, but I will repeat it because it is so important, I have been a parliamentarian myself and I know the importance of parliaments in decision-making in the different NATO Allied countries. Because Parliaments decide on the guidelines, the framework for defence and security policies. No government can conduct in the long run, a policy which is against the will of the parliaments. So therefore, what you decide, what you agree, is of great importance for what NATO can do and what NATO Allies are able to agree on. You are key, for key decisions for NATO, like for instance, defence spending and that has been my main focus since I became Secretary General in 2014, is how we can increase defence spending among those NATO Allies which are spending less than 2%. And that is actually your main responsibility, to decide budgets and therefore, I know that to speak to you is of great importance to me because you are the representatives, representing those parliaments which are at the end, deciding defence spending in the different NATO Allied countries. You are also key for another reason and that is because parliaments actually decide who is going to be member of NATO. And you know that we are now in the process of inviting, of enlarging NATO with a new member, Montenegro. The Accession treaty is signed, what remains to be done is the ratification. And many nations have already ratified the Accession agreement for Montenegro, it has to be done in all 28 Parliaments, so I urge those Parliamentarians, I urge those countries who have not yet ratified the Accession agreement for Montenegro, to do so. This is a responsibility for you, Parliaments, and I speak directly to you: go back to your Parliaments, make sure that you ratify that Accession agreement as soon as possible. We will have a Summit of NATO next year. I really think it is something we should be able to deliver by the Summit next year, that we have the Accession agreement ratified by all Parliaments, so we can welcome Montenegro as a full member by the Summit in 2017, and that may happen early 2017, so you have to hurry up and ratify the Accession agreement. So as you understand I attach great importance to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly because you represent Parliaments which are so important for our Alliance. There is yet another reason why I believe this Assembly is of great importance, and that is just the plain fact that you represent different parties, different nations, different political opinions so the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is a platform for political discussion, for political exchange between different people, different opinions and I think this magnitude, this variety of opinions, are important in itself, because it reflects the important NATO fact that NATO is an Alliance of 28 democracies. There are disagreements, there are different views, there are different positions on many issues. But the strength of NATO is that we have always been able to agree on the core task, on your core responsibility, and to stand together on the message that we are here together, to protect each other, to defend each other and to stand together in the strongest Alliance of the world. And that is also actually what we managed to do in Warsaw. At the Summit we made important decisions on collective defence, on projecting stability and on working together with the EU to strengthen our cooperation with the EU. And I will address briefly these issues and then I'm more than happy to take questions on all the other issues and also elaborate more on collective defence, projecting stability and NATO during the Q&A session. But before I do that I would just also remind us all of the fact that we are meeting here in Turkey, four short months after the failed coup attempt. This should be a sober reminder to us all, a reminder that democracy and freedom cannot be taken for granted. They must be vigorously defended. In September, I visited the Grand National Assembly in Ankara. Which had been shelled by tanks and bombed by F-16s. I saw the damage that was done. And I met Members of the Parliament. From all major political parties. They rushed to the Parliament on the night of the coup attempt. And stood together in defence of their democratic institutions. It made a lasting impression on me. And I want to salute them today for their courage and dedication to democracy. Democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law are NATO's core values. And I personally attach great importance to them. As you do Members of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. The NPA is a platform for democratic debate and open exchange of different views among parliamentarians from all our member states and Partner Countries. And given that we all represent different nations and different political parties, we again and again, have proven, that we are able to stand together in the Alliance on the main message of collective defence and the will to defend each other. And that is exactly what we did in Warsaw and we decided to strengthen our collective in response to Russia aggression. Actions in Ukraine and ongoing military build-up of Russia, NATO has taken prudent and necessary steps. We are increasing our defensive presence in the eastern part of the Alliance. Including the deployment of four multinational battalions to the Baltic States and Poland. Earlier this year, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States each committed to lead one of those battalions. And I want to thank those nations for their leadership. I also want to express my appreciation to the 13 other Allies that have pledged to join these forces. Our preparations for the four battalions are on track. We expect to deploy all four multinational battalions in early 2017. This sends a clear message: NATO is united. We stand together as one. And an attack on one Ally will be considered an attack against us all. NATO is also taking steps to strengthen our presence in the Black Sea region. There will be a Romanian-led multinational brigade. And we are working on additional defensive measures in the air and at sea as well. Everything NATO does is defensive, proportionate and fully in line with our international commitments. Before Russia's aggressive actions in Ukraine, NATO had no plans to send troops to the eastern part of our Alliance. NATO's aim is to prevent a conflict, not provoke a conflict. Moreover, we firmly believe and are firmly committed to a two-track approach to Russia. Strong defence coupled with meaningful dialogue. When tensions run high, it is even more important to keep channels of communication open. With increasing military activity close to our borders, we must do everything we can to prevent military incidents or accidents. And if they occur, we must keep them from spiraling out of control. That is why we held two meetings of the NATO-Russia Council this year. The other major theme of the Warsaw Summit was projecting stability. We know that if our neighbours are stable, we are more secure. NATO helps to build that stability in our neighbourhood, through capacity building, training, working with partners, and maritime security. NATO has been on the front line in the fight against terrorism for many years. Including through our operations and military presence in Afghanistan. Which was launched in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States. And as you know, this is the first and the only time NATO has invoked our collective defence clause Article 5. Our experience in Afghanistan has shown that having strong, highly trained local forces is vital to a country's security and stability. Training local forces is one of our best weapons in the fight against terrorism. This year alone, we have trained hundreds of Iraqi officers in Jordan. And we recently decided to extend our training and capacity-building efforts into Iraq. That work will begin early next year. This training is an important contribution to the fight against ISIL. As is our AWACS surveillance aircraft. Now flying from Konya here in Turkey in support of the Counter-ISIL Coalition. The situation in the Mediterranean remains serious. In response, earlier this month, we launched NATO's new maritime security operation Sea Guardian. This operation will help protect the safety and the security of one of the world's busiest bodies of water. NATO ships, submarines and maritime patrol aircraft will perform core activities like surveillance, counter-terrorism and capacity-building of regional navies. And NATO is supporting the EU's Operation Sophia with information sharing and logistical support. This cooperation with EU in the Mediterranean is just one example of the benefit of closer cooperation between NATO and the EU. The two organisations have transformed Europe. Building the foundation for peace, security and prosperity. And I'm pleased to say that NATO-EU cooperation is now closer than it has ever been. This was underscored by the Joint Declaration that I signed with President Tusk and President Juncker in Warsaw in July. There is momentum in the NATO-EU cooperation. And we must take this opportunity to further strengthen and to do more in the field of NATO-EU cooperation. We are exploring ways to work together. To counter hybrid threats, enhance cyber security and coordinate exercises. As you all know, the EU is considering options for strengthening European defence. And I welcome that initiative. Because it offers a way for European Allies to deliver more capabilities and increased defence spending. Doing so will strengthen Europe, the EU and NATO. It's important to make sure that those efforts are complementary, transparent and mutually supportive. And that non-EU Allies are closely involved. Because they make essential contributions to European security. A stronger Europe will mean a stronger NATO. And it will reinforce the transatlantic bond. A bond that has served the vital security interests of NATO members on both sides of the Atlantic. With that in mind, I welcome the incoming Administration in Washington. And I look forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump. The partnership between Europe and the United States has been rock-solid for almost 70 years. A partnership that has always received bi-partisan support in the United States. And better burden-sharing will make the transatlantic bond even stronger. After years of sliding defence spending, we have seen a shift. At our Wales' Summit in 2014, Allies committed to spend 2% of GDP on defence within a decade. That commitment is already bearing fruit. In 2015, we stopped the defence cuts and we saw a spending increase across Europe and Canada. I expect further increase of 3% for European Allies and Canada this year. So we are moving in the right direction but we still have a long way to go. And defence spending to reach 2% target really matters. Let me illustrate by the following example: if all European Allies and Canada were to meet the 2% spending target, that would mean an extra 100 billion dollars. 100 billion dollars' worth of improvements to our capabilities. That's roughly the equivalent to the combined defence budgets of the two largest defence spenders in Europe: the United Kingdom and France, every year. This is where all of you come in. I'm confident that NATO can count on your continued support. Just as we have relied on the support of the NPA over the past six decades. Since the founding of NATO in 1949, we have helped to secure the peace and provide the foundation for freedom and prosperity. Supported by our citizens and their elected representatives. And dedicated to continued peace and security for our people and for future generations. Thank you for your support and thank you for your attention and I'm looking forward to work with all of you to strengthen the transatlantic bond and to strengthen NATO. Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address USS Nitze Assists Stranded Iranian Mariners Navy News Service Story Number: NNS161121-13 Release Date: 11/21/2016 10:01:00 AM From Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group Public Affairs ARABIAN GULF (NNS) -- Guided-missile destroyer USS Nitze (DDG 94), currently deployed to the Arabian Gulf in support of maritime security operations, assisted three Iranian mariners in distress, Nov. 18. Nitze received notification from aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) (Ike) of a small fishing vessel in distress. Once Nitze's crew identified the distressed vessel, the ship took immediate action to render assistance. After confirming the distressed vessel's mariners were safe, they discovered the vessel had a dead battery. Nitze provided the Iranian crew with a new battery and a case of water. "Our Sailors are trained to respond quickly to those in distress at sea," said Cmdr. Paul Kaylor, commanding officer of Nitze. "We are proud to have assisted in this situation." U.S. naval forces have a long tradition of helping mariners in distress by providing medical assistance, engineering assistance, as well as search and rescue. Ships deployed to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command assisted mariners on more than 30 occasions since 2012, 12 of which involved Iranian mariners. Ike and its carrier strike group, including Nitze, are deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, maritime security operations, and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations. U.S. 5th Fleet operates in approximately 2.5 million square miles including the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, North Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea, and conducts persistent maritime operations to help set the conditions for security and stability, to deter and disrupt trans-national terrorist organizations, and strengthen partner nations' maritime capabilities in order to promote a secure maritime environment. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address International Partnerships Flourish on America during DT-III Navy News Service Story Number: NNS161121-12 Release Date: 11/21/2016 10:00:00 AM By Petty Officer 1st Class Benjamin Wooddy, USS America (LHA 6) Public Affairs PACIFIC OCEAN (NNS) -- In 2006, the first F-35 Lightning II rolled out of the Lockheed Martin factory in Fort Worth, Texas. Since that time, the program has exponentially expanded around the globe, creating new partnerships and reaffirming alliances. The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program consists of three variants; nine partner countries which include Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, the U.K., and the U.S.; and three Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers -- Japan, Israel, and the Republic of Korea. Within the joint, multinational F-35 acquisition program, the U.K. is the only Level 1 partner. This major partner role enables the U.K. to integrate its personnel into the System Design and Demonstration (SDD) phase, which features its forces working side-by-side with the U.S. during developmental test phases -- including the third and final developmental test phase (DT-III) of the F-35B aboard amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6). The integration of the U.K. Royal air force (RAF) and Royal navy within joint squadrons and operations worldwide hearkens back to RAF Harrier and Royal Navy Sea Harrier initiatives to economize and streamline operations by leveraging resources and personnel operating across common platforms. Based upon the success of that integration, the U.K. determined to apply similar tactics to its F-35B Lightning II operations and executed a Long Lead Specialist Skills (LLSS) program developed under the U.K.-U.S. Statement of Intent to help the U.K. regain specific skills for carrier strike regeneration. As part of the LLSS program, the U.K. sent a small team to USS America to take part in DT-III. While LLSS covers a wide variety of skills and trades, the DT-III team featured an air traffic controller, five engineers, handlers, and maintainers responsible for the safe movement and handling of F-35B aboard future Queen Elizabeth-class (QEC) carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) and HMS Prince of Wales (R09). During the F-35B Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing (STOVL) flight operations aboard America, the U.K. embarked a 10-member strong team from the F-35 Pax River Integrated Test Force (ITF) assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 from Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. The U.K.'s DT-III contingent featured a RAF test pilot, three flight test engineers, and six maintainers responsible for the detachment's maintenance evaluation. The team worked together during the 23-day embarkation to gain knowledge and experience of maintenance procedures and techniques, familiarize themselves with the aircraft structure and systems, identify maintenance routines, and generate lessons learned from shipboard operations with the F-35B Lightning II. "This is our new class of aircraft carrier currently under build," said Warrant Officer 1 Jaime Howard, Royal navy air engineer technician. "They are twin ships, both 65,000 tons, 283 meters long with a ski ramp six meters high to launch the F-35B." Each new British ship has a crew of just over 700 and room for 40 aircraft which include the F-35B and an assortment of helicopters. Currently, Queen Elizabeth is due to sail for trials in spring 2017, with Prince of Wales following approximately 18 months later. With the upcoming sea trials for Queen Elizabeth approaching, it was imperative for their sailors to gain the necessary knowledge to support the next generation of aircraft scheduled to deploy with them, including the F-35B. "We have worked hard for the last 12 months in making this period a success," said Royal navy Lt. Cmdr. Dale Collins, U.K. F-35 air engineer and ship integration project officer embedded with the F-35 Pax River ITF. "Planning and production of the Joint Test Plan, participating in conferences and discussions, and working together with the crew of the America and U.S. Marine Corps has been vital to achieving all of our DT-III milestones," Collins added. "This is the last at-sea trial period for this aircraft, so the enormity of the tasks and requirements has been daunting; but, by working together we have delivered." The objective for the Royal navy is to establish a maintenance guideline for the F-35B to compare and integrate with the new QEC carriers, while also gathering information from lessons learned from members of America's team -- experience which will prove valuable for the U.K.'s own flight trials in 2018. In addition to the U.K.'s team, Australian service members integrated with various departments from the America and F-35 team. "We were integrated into the test program to put these aircraft and all three variants through their paces," said Royal Australian air force Sgt. Justin Kelly. "It's not often that all the nations will get together and basically develop an aircraft or request an aircraft to meet certain specifications. There is now an opportunity to share a lot of things. It's very rewarding." According to RAF Squadron Leader Andy Edgell, a F-35 test pilot embedded at the Pax River ITF, integration is important between personnel as testing moves forward and the America team learns how to support the F-35B's DT-III testing, while learning the ship and aircraft parameters. "For the first couple of days, each element is feeling each other out, finding out where we are going to experience challenges and how we can overcome these challenges," said Edgell. "Once the ship knew what the F-35B needed to do and when the F-35B finally found out the ship's limitations and what the ship can do for us, then all the rest of the testing went thoroughly smoothly." Overall, the outcome of the integration resulted in a group of U.K. military service members confident in what they learned with America Sailors. "Through the development of the F-35B Lightning II, the U.K. Royal navy and Royal air force have further cemented excellent working relationships with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps," Collins said. "At all times, whether it be at [Naval Air Station] Patuxent River, our home, or aboard USS America, we have been made to feel at home, part of the team, and had the opportunity to work together once again to further enhance this immensely-capable aircraft for the future of our great nations. I am immensely proud to have been aboard this fine ship." The U.K.'s status as the only Level 1 partner on the F-35 program and its major role in the F-35's SDD phase is enabling the regeneration of the U.K. carrier strike capability, which will result in significant contracts and jobs for U.K. industry as the F-35B Lightning II and Typhoon become the U.K.'s Fast Jet Combat Air Elements of the future. The primary role of the F-35B STOVL aircraft is ground attack with a secondary air-to-air role. The aircraft is powered by a single main engine with a vertically-mounted, shaft-driven lift fan propulsion system. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Carrier Strike Group 5 Returns to Yokosuka after Patrol Navy News Service Story Number: NNS161121-14 Release Date: 11/21/2016 10:05:00 AM From Commander, Task Force 70 Public Affairs YOKOSUKA, Japan (NNS) -- Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 5 and its flagship, aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) returned to Yokosuka, Japan, Nov. 21 following a three-month patrol of the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. While on patrol, CSG 5 was comprised of Ronald Reagan, Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5, Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers USS Chancellorsville (CG 62) and USS Shiloh (CG-67), Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 15, and Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Barry (DDG 52), USS Curtis Wilbur (DDG 54), and USS McCampbell (DDG 85). While McCampbell continues its patrol, the remainder of the strike group has returned to Yokosuka and Atsugi. The strike group visited two countries, participated in three major military exercises, and hosted distinguished visitors from several countries while patrolling the western Pacific. Among the patrol's highlights, CSG 5 completed its annual strike group certification and participated in the biennial exercise Valiant Shield 2016 (VS16), Sept. 12-23. The exercise is a U.S.-only, field training exercise (FTX) with a focus on joint training among U.S. forces to conduct a range of missions in the air, sea, land, and cyberspace. CSG 5 also participated in the biannual exercise Invincible Spirit 2016, Oct. 11-14. Invincible Spirit is a bilateral exercise conducted with the Republic of Korea navy, in the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula, and consisting of routine carrier strike group operations in support of maritime counter-special operating forces and integrated maritime operations. The strike group and Japan Self-Defense Force went on to complete the biennial exercise Keen Sword 17 (KS17), Nov. 11. Directed by the commander of U.S. Forces Japan and the chief of staff of the Japan Joint Staff, KS17 is the latest in a series of joint and bilateral field training exercises since 1986 involving U.S. military and JSDF personnel designed to increase combat readiness and interoperability of the Japan-U.S. alliance. Exercises such as Invincible Spirit and Keen Sword provide critical field training environments for enhancing mutual understanding of each country's tactics, communication protocols, procedures, and general interoperability. CSG 5 is forward deployed in support of security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address New Season for Naval Science: Winter Rotates, Hahn Arrives Navy News Service Story Number: NNS161121-03 Release Date: 11/21/2016 8:42:00 AM By David Smalley, Office of Naval Research Corporate Strategic Communications ARLINGTON, Va. (NNS) -- The Office of Naval Research (ONR) began a new era today, as Rear Adm. David J. Hahn-a decorated submarine commander and naval acquisition officer-was sworn in as the new chief of naval research (CNR) at a change-of-command ceremony at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C. He succeeds Rear Adm. Mathias W. Winter, a decorated aviator with advanced degrees in both computer science and national resource strategy. Winter is joining the F-35 Joint Program Office as deputy director, Joint Strike Fighter Program. Hahn holds a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, a master's degree in Business Administration and has completed advanced studies in International Security Affairs. The ceremony was officiated by the Hon. Sean Stackley, assistant secretary of the Navy (research, development and acquisition). "The work done by the Office of Naval Research is essential for the future force of Sailors and Marines," said Hahn. "With the best and most advanced technologies in their hands, and on their ships, submarines and aircraft, our warfighters will be able to accomplish their missions whenever and wherever they are required." Hahn said he is honored to take command of the Navy's leading science and technology organization. Established in 1946 by public law, ONR's mission is to "plan, foster and encourage scientific research in recognition of its paramount importance as related to the maintenance of future naval power, and the preservation of national security." As new head of ONR, Hahn will oversee the roughly $2 billion Department of the Navy budget for naval science and technology programs. ONR supports science efforts around the world, from basic and conceptual research to applied research and even quick-turnaround technologies requested by Sailors and Marines. Concurrent with the duties of CNR, he also will serve as director, Innovation Technology Requirements, and Test and Evaluation (OPNAV-N94). Winter said the command will be in excellent hands with Hahn. "Adm. Hahn is a tested leader with bold, innovative ideas, underpinned by a unique blend of acquisition and operational expertise that will ensure ONR and N94 continue to move forward to the next level," he said. Winter's tenure as CNR has been marked by breakthrough accomplishments across the fields of directed energy; cyber; electromagnetic maneuver warfare; unmanned and autonomous systems; and synthetic biology. Some of the programs that matured significantly under his leadership include Data-Focused Naval Tactical Cloud; Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology; Automated Critical Care System; Ground-Based Air Defense; and many more. Stackley presented Winter with the Distinguished Service Medal for his work at ONR since 2014. Hahn said he is grateful for Winter's leadership and legacy, and looks forward to leading the command into the future. "I'm excited to have an opportunity to lead an organization with the legacy of this incredible enterprise that stretches all the way back to Thomas Edison," he said. "I look forward to continuing the outstanding tradition of excellence established by my predecessor. "With new and cutting-edge capabilities opening up in the sciences-and as our adversaries tirelessly work to advance their own capabilities-it's essential that the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps retain the technological edge." David Smalley is a contractor for ONR Corporate Strategic Communications. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemeni army forces, allied fighters seize two Saudi bases in Najran Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 6:12PM Yemeni army forces and allied fighters from Popular Committees have taken control of two military bases in Saudi Arabia's southwestern border region of Najran in retaliation for Riyadh's military campaign against their country. The Yemeni forces took control of the bases in the mountainous northern part of the region, located 844 kilometers south of the capital, Riyadh, on Monday afternoon, Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported. Shortly afterwards, Yemeni soldiers and Popular Committees fighters fired a number of Katyusha rockets at a gathering of Saudi forces at Najran Regional Airport. There was no immediate report on the extent of damage inflicted and the number of casualties among Saudi forces. Abu Hamdan and al-Sadis military bases in the same Saudi region also came under missile attacks by Yemeni forces. The developments came on the same day that Yemeni artillery units pounded a position of Saudi-backed militiamen loyal to resigned president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in the Khabb wa ash Sha'af district of the country's northern province of al-Jawf. Meanwhile, Saudi fighter jets struck an area in the Kitaf wa Al Boqe'e district of Yemen's northwestern province of Sa'ada, but no casualties were reported. Saudi warplanes also carried out two separate airstrikes against Baqim district in Sa'ada Province, though no immediate reports of casualties were available. Earlier on Monday, Saudi military aircraft bombarded a power station in the As Salif district of Yemen's western coastal province of Hudaydah. Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a deadly campaign against Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to bring back the former Yemeni government to power and undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement. The impoverished Arab country is grappling with the scarcity of food supplies and outbreak of diseases amid Saudi Arabia's atrocious airstrikes. The United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF) says 7.4 million Yemeni children are in dire need of medical help, and 370,000 run the risk of severe acute malnutrition. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US senators promise to act against Trump on Russia ties Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 1:25PM US senators say they would counter incoming President Donald Trump if he moves to establish warm relations with Russia. Lawmakers from both political parties would like Trump to rein in Russia, but they are also willing to take unilateral measures if necessary, according to an analysis by congressional newspaper The Hill. "We cannot sit on the sidelines as a party and let allegations against a foreign government interfering in our election process go unanswered because it may have been beneficial to our case for the moment," Senator Lindsey Graham said. The South Carolina Republican said he was planning a multi-pronged approach, which would include helping allies in Eastern Europe counter Russia and holding a series of congressional hearings to highlight Russian "misadventures." Graham's closest ally, Republican Senator John McCain, warned Trump last week against another "reset" of US-Russia relations, accusing President Vladimir Putin of "tyranny" and "murder." "With the US presidential transition underway, Vladimir Putin has said in recent days that he wants to improve relations with the United States," the Arizona senator said after the first phone conversation between Trump and the Russian leader. "We should place as much faith in such statements as any other made by a former KGB agent who has plunged his country into tyranny, murdered his political opponents, invaded his neighbors, threatened America's allies, and attempted to undermine America's elections." The increased pressure from the Senate comes as the House of Representatives passed legislation that would impose sanctions on the government of Syria and its supporters, including Russia and Iran. Lawmakers have for years accused President Barack Obama of not being firm enough against Putin in the face of Russia's "aggression" in Ukraine and more recently its air campaign in Syria. They are now even more concerned with Trump who has openly praised the Russian president and called him a much stronger leader than Obama. Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, expressed concern about the appointment of controversial former Army general Michael Flynn as Trump's national security adviser. "I am deeply concerned about his views on Russia, which over the last 12 months have demonstrated the same fondness for the autocratic and belligerent Kremlin which animate President-elect Trump's praise of Vladimir Putin," Schiff said. Senator Ben Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, echoed that concern on Friday, saying he is "disturbed by General Flynn's relationships and ties with Russian actors." "There are Democrats and Republicans that are, I think most members of Congress, that are very concerned about Russia's activities and how we try to reconcile that with statements that Donald Trump made during the course of his campaign," said Cardin, who is the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On Sunday, Putin said Trump had confirmed to him he was willing to mend ties with Russia. "The president-elect confirmed he is willing to normalize Russian-American relations. I told him the same." Trump's campaign had been hit with many controversies since its inception in early 2015. But the real estate tycoon still managed to stun the world by defeating the heavily-favored Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, in the November 8 election. Trump will take office as the 45th US president in January. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Militant attacks kill five soldiers, civilian in Mali Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 1:46PM Twin attacks blamed on militants during weekend municipal elections in Mali have claimed the lives of at least five soldiers and one civilian, security sources say. In the first incident, security sources said on Monday that five Malian troops were killed after being ambushed while transporting ballot boxes in the restive north. "After the voting on Sunday, an army convoy taking the ballot boxes for counting was attacked in the north by jihadists. Five Malian soldiers were killed," AFP quoted a source as saying Separately, a group of militants nabbed several vehicles and killed a civilian in the town of Dilli in southwestern Mali overnight Sunday to Monday. "They arrived early Monday in Dilli. They attacked a council building. The jihadists then took off with two ambulances and a vehicle, after which they killed a civilian and made off for the Mauritanian border," a local official said. This comes as Malians have voted in long-overdue local elections, which were tainted by a spate of violent attacks and opposition boycotts. On Sunday, people in Mali cast their ballots in the first elections since 2013 to elect 12,000 municipal councilors across the troubled West African country. The elections, held with a two-year delay, were boycotted by a number of opposition parties and some armed groups, including the Tuareg rebel group, formerly known as the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA). Reports by residents and officials said that voting was cancelled in some districts of the northern Mali region of Timbuktu after ballot boxes were burned by unidentified armed men. In 2012, Tuareg rebel groups seized control of northern Mali, which they call Azawad. However, al-Qaeda-linked militants took control shortly afterward. Then, the French military intervened in Mali, its former colony. Since the al-Qaeda's move, the impoverished West African country has been in turmoil. The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali was deployed in July 2013 to bring calm. A year later, Tuareg rebels agreed to a ceasefire deal with the government. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Deadly explosion rocks Shia mosque in Afghan capital Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 9:4AM At least 27 people have been killed and 35 others wounded after a large bomb explosion hit a Shia mosque in the Afghan capital, Kabul, officials say. Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said the casualties came after a bomber detonated his explosives at the Baqir ul Olum mosque as people were preparing for prayers on Monday. This is the second blast to rock the Afghan capital on Monday. According to a Kabul police spokesman, Basir Mujahid, two people were injured in an explosion in the Bagrami district earlier in the day. Eyewitnesses said two Afghan National Army soldiers were the victims. There has been no claim of responsibility for the mosque blast, although Afghan officials regularly blame the Taliban for such incidents. However, the militant group denied they were responsible for the attack. "We have never attacked mosques as it's not our agenda," said the group's main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid. Over the past months, Afghanistan has witnessed a surge in Daesh terror activities, particularly in its eastern regions. The rise of Daesh in Afghanistan has triggered concerns in a country, which has already been torn apart by decades of Taliban-led militancy and the 2001 invasion of the United States and its allies. Daesh, mainly active in Syria and Iraq, has reportedly managed to take recruits from Taliban defectors in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan. In August, Daesh claimed responsibility for a bombing during a demonstration held by the Shia Hazara community in Kabul, where at least 85 people were killed more than 400 others wounded. The surge in terrorist activities across Afghanistan comes despite the presence of forces from the United States and other NATO members. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Egypt refers 292 to military court over 'Sisi assassination plots' Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 8:0AM Egypt's public prosecutor has referred 292 suspected Takfiri militants to a military court over charges of planning to assassinate President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the Saudi crown prince, an Egyptian official says. The prosecution official said Sunday that the suspects were affiliated to the Takfiri Velayat Sinai terrorist group, an affiliate of Daesh. The source added that the suspects, including 151 currently in custody, had been questioned and 66 of them had confessed during a probe that lasted over a year. The suspects were reportedly involved in 17 operations, including two plots to assassinate Sisi, one while he was in Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj pilgrimage and another in Cairo, the official said. The official did not elaborate on the plots but said that those who planned the assassination attempts were sacked police officers who espoused Takfiri ideologies. The suspects also planned to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef in Saudi Arabia and five Egyptian judges, the judicial source further said, without giving details. The suspects also face charges of attacking army and police checkpoints and bases in the Sinai Peninsula. The prosecution also accuses them of being behind a February 2014 attack on a bus carrying South Korean tourists in a resort in south Sinai, which claimed the lives of three holidaymakers. Velayat Sinai has been responsible for most attacks in the Sinai Peninsula as well as the capital, Cairo. Such attacks have increased since the 2013 ouster by the military of Egypt's first democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi. A state of emergency was declared in Sinai in 2014 following a deadly assault that claimed the lives of over 30 soldiers. Massive military operations have been underway against the militants in northern Sinai. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemen truce violated by Saudi forces 114 times: Army spokesman Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 6:15AM Yemeni military officials say Saudi Arabia and its allies have violated a recent ceasefire declared by Riyadh in the country over 100 times. Yemen's army spokesman Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman said Sunday that the two-day ceasefire has been violated 114 times by Riyadh's military since it went into effect on Saturday. He said Saudi forces had launched attacks against various Yemeni provinces including Sana'a, Ta'izz and Sa'ada, adding that in some of the attacks internationally-banned weapons were used. The Yemeni general said the army forces and allied Popular Committees fighters remained committed to the cessation of hostilities, but were ready to "defend Yemen's independence in the event of continuing aggression." Saudi Arabia said it had decided to begin a 48-hour ceasefire from 12:00 noon in Yemen's timing (0900 GMT) on Saturday. The official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said the naval and air "blockade" would, however, remain in place and surveillance jets would continue to fly over Yemen. The announcement followed a request for a ceasefire by Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi -- himself based in Riyadh -- to Saudi King Salman, a Saudi statement said. On Monday, Saudi military spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asiri said the ceasefire ended at midday and will not be renewed following what it claimed were repeated "violations" by the Ansarullah movement. He claimed that conditions are not ripe "for prolonging the truce" since more people had been killed in the southwestern city of Ta'izz and that the Houthi fighters had fired "more surface-to-surface missiles" at Saudi military bases. Meanwhile, Saudi warplanes targeted the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, hours before the ceasefire came to an end. Local residents said the aerial attacks hit military sites on a mountain overlooking the city early Monday. The powerful blasts shook buildings as it rocked several city neighborhoods. There are no reports of casualties. Saudi Arabia has been leading an offensive against Yemen since March 2015 in a bid to crush the Houthi Ansarullah. The war has left at least 11,400 civilians dead, according to a latest tally by a Yemeni monitoring group. The US has also been providing logistic and surveillance support to the kingdom in the bloody military campaign. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Blast At Shi'ite Mosque In Kabul Kills At Least 27 RFE/RL's Afghan Service November 21, 2016 Afghan officials say a suicide bomber has detonated his explosives inside a Shi'ite mosque in Kabul, killing at least 27 people. Fraydon Obaidi, chief of the Kabul police's Criminal Investigation Department, said 35 other people were wounded in the November 21 attack. The extremist group Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack. "A martyrdom attack by an Islamic State fighter targets a Shi'ite [shrine] in the city of Kabul," the group's Aamaq Agency said in a news flash. The bomber targeted the Baqir ul-Olum mosque in the western part of the city as worshippers gathered there for Shi'ite religious rituals marking the end of a 40-day mourning period for the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson. The Taliban said it was not responsible for the attack, which President Ashraf Ghani described as "barbaric." "Terrorists cannot achieve their masters' goals by spreading fear," a statement said. Afghanistan should not fall victim to "enemy plots that divide us by titles," said Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, who called the bombing "an act against Islam and humanity." The United States "strongly" condemned the bombing. "This cowardly attack was clearly intended to stoke sectarian tensions in Afghanistan," National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. In July, an attack claimed by the Islamic State group killed 80 people at a Shi'ite demonstration in Kabul. Shi'a make up about 15 percent of Afghanistan's population. With reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, and dpa Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-kabul-mosque-blast/28130314.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Obama Wants Ukraine Deal, 'Not Optimistic' Over Syria RFE/RL November 21, 2016 U.S. President Barack Obama says he wants to reach a negotiated peace settlement in Ukraine before he leaves office in January. Obama, during a wide-ranging press conference in Peru on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, also criticized Iran and Russia's role in Syria's brutal civil war. Obama said he talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 20 about Ukraine and the "need for us to get things done." "I urged him to instruct his negotiators to work with ourselves, with France, with Germany, with Ukraine to see if we can get that done before my term is up," Obama added. Moscow has backed pro-Russia separatists fighting government forces in eastern Ukraine, where the conflict has killed nearly 10,000 people. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's shock election victory has been met with trepidation in Kyiv because of the billionaire's praise for Putin. Obama also said he was "not optimistic" about the immediate future of Syria, where government forces backed by Russian warplanes have been bombarding rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo. The president said once Russia and Iran backed the Syrian government, it was "very hard to see a way in which even a trained and committed moderate opposition could hold its ground." Obama also insisted that he would allow Trump to "put forward his platform and his arguments," but suggested he would speak out if core U.S. values were threatened. Obama also urged Trump to retain U.S. support for a liberal world order, warning world peace and prosperity depended on it. "The main advice that I give to the incoming president is the United States really is an indispensable nation in our world order," Obama said. With reporting by AP and AFP Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/obama- ukraine-russia-syria/28129897.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO Jets Escorted Russian Aircraft Over Baltics Two Times Within a Week Sputnik News 17:32 21.11.2016 NATO fighter jets have identified and escorted a Russian military aircraft over the Baltic Sea twice within a week, the Lithuanian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday. VILNIUS (Sputnik) On November 17, NATO air policing jets intercepted one Russian IL-20 aircraft, which was flying towards Kaliningrad in accordance with a flight plan, the statement read. "On November 14-20 NATO fighter aircraft conducting the Baltic Air Policing mission were scrambled twice to intercept military aircraft of the Russian Federation. On November 14 NATO fighter jets identified and escorted an IL-76 in international airspace over the Baltic Sea," the ministry's statement read. According to the statement, the Russian aircraft was flying "according to a pre-filed flight plan, its onboard transponder was on and the crew kept radio contact with air traffic control centers." NATO has been building up its military presence in Europe, especially in Eastern European countries neighboring Russia, since 2014, using Moscow's alleged interference in the Ukrainian conflict as a pretext. Moscow has repeatedly denied the claims and warned NATO that the military buildup on Russia's borders is provocative and threatens the existing strategic balance of power. During the last NATO summit in July, NATO resolved to strengthen its military presence in Eastern Europe on a rotational basis with four battalions in Poland and in the Baltic nations. During the 2014 summit, NATO established a 5,000-strong Very High Readiness Joint Task Force in response to the alleged Russian threat. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump's World Order: How US Foreign Policy Could Change Under New President Sputnik News 17:30 21.11.2016(updated 17:43 21.11.2016) After new United States President-elect Donald Trump assumes power significant changes are expected to happen in global politics, including a dialogue with Russia, the possible cancellation of the final nuclear deal with Iran and deepening tensions with Cuba. Russia Throughout his electoral campaign, Donald Trump was widely criticized for his calls to restore friendship between Moscow and Washington and develop cooperation in the fight against terrorism. What is more, Trump made a number of praising remarks about Russia leader Vladimir Putin, but insisted he has no links to the Kremlin. Some American media and supporters of Hillary Clinton openly labelled Trump as a pro-Russian candidate. After Trump won the election he confirmed he wants a "good relationship" with Moscow. During a phone conversation with the newly-elected president, President Putin wished him well in the implementation of his electoral program. The Russian leader also underscored that Moscow is ready to build partnership and dialogue with the new American presidential administration, based on principles of equal rights, mutual respect, and non-interference in the international affairs of one another. Moreover, Trump and Putin reportedly shared their views on combatting international terrorism and extremism, and on settling the crisis in Syria. Trump's adviser and former CIA director James Woolsey said in a recent interview with RT that there is a chance for normalization between Moscow and Washington. "There are opportunities for former adversaries such as the US and Russia to work together on some things," Woolsey said. On Friday, Trump announced the first three appointments in his team. In particular, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was appointed the assistant to the president for national security affairs. He is "one of few people in Trump's entourage who support resumption of contacts with the Russian government," according to Sergei Rogov, research director at the Institute for American and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. "Flynn's appointment indicates that probably Trump wants to launch serious dialogue with Moscow. The topic and the terms of such a dialogue are unclear. But that is a fact," Rogov told RIA Novosti. China The first contacts between Donald Trump and the Chinese government revealed that a thaw between Washington and Beijing could be expected. During phone talks, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping shared their interest in developing ties between the two world's largest economies. "During the call, the leaders established a clear sense of mutual respect for one another, and President-elect Trump stated that he believes the two leaders will have one of the strongest relationships for both countries moving forward," a statement from Trump's presidential transition office said. Washington and Beijing must "promote the two countries' economic development and global economic growth" and "push for better development going forward in China-US relations," Xi was quoted as saying by CCTV. During his campaign, Trump made a number of criticizing remarks towards China, including threatening to impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese products and to label Beijing as a currency manipulator. Syria Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the West should fight Daesh terrorists in Syria, instead of making attempts to overthrow the country's President Bashar Assad. At the same time, Washington has sponsored Syrian rebel groups fighting the Syrian government for a long time. Washington's official stance on the Syrian crisis contradicts with Trump's statement. In turn, Assad expressed hope that the Syrian government would welcome Washington's efforts if Trump intends to fight terrorism. "So, we cannot tell anything about what he's [Trump] going to do, but if, let's say if he is going to fight the terrorists, of course we are going to be ally, natural ally in that regard with the Russian, with the Iranian, with many other countries who wanted to defeat the terrorists," Assad told Portuguese television broadcaster RTP last week. France French President Francois Hollande was not very enthusiastic about Trump's victory. According to him, this victory marked the beginning of a period of uncertainty in the United States. "The people of the United States voted for Donald Trump. I congratulate him because this is natural in relations of presidents of two democratic countries These elections open up a period of uncertainty," Hollande said in a statement. Previously, he said that Trump's victory would create difficulties in relations between Washington and Paris. Hollande has repeatedly criticized the policy of Barack Obama's administration. In a book entitled "A President Should Not Say That: Secrets of Five Years in Office" recording dozens of Hollande's private conversations with journalists, the French president blames Washington for the strengthening of Daesh. According to Hollande, Obama's rejection to launch airstrikes on Syria in 2013 resulted in the rise of Daesh. At the same time, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault underscored Paris' commitment to cooperation with Washington. According to the minister, France expects that the US will clarify its position on a number of issues, including the Syrian crisis, the Iranian nuclear programme and the Paris climate deal. Israel The US and Israel are expected to strengthen cooperation during Trump's presidency. After the election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump on the phone and said that Tel-Aviv will remain Washington's close ally. In turn, Trump invited the Israeli prime minister to pay a visit to the United States. Netanyahu expressed hope that Israel would be able to continue the policy of "quiet diplomacy" launched under Obama's administration. "We will work together to advance security, stability and peace in our region," Netanyahu said in a statement. "The bond between the US and Israel is based on shared values, shared interests and a shared future. I am sure that President-elect Trump and I will continue to strengthen the special alliance between Israel and the US and we will bring them to new heights," he added. Earlier, Donald Trump pledged to move the US Embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem and provide unconditional support to Israel. Britain Traditionally warm relations between Washington and London are expected to stay the same under Trump. After the election in the US, British Prime Minister Theresa May said the United Kingdom will remain a close ally to the US, including in the economy, security and defense. "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 defense," May said in a statement. The prime minister added that she was looking forward to working with Trump "to ensure security and prosperity of our nations in years ahead." British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson echoed May's words and wrote on Twitter he was looking forward to start working with the new US administration. "I believe passionately in the importance of the UK-US relationship and am confident we can take it forward together," Johnson wrote. Earlier, it was reported that the British government was considering inviting Donald Trump on an official visit next summer. Germany Berlin also confirmed its commitment to cooperation with the White House. In congratulation to Trump, Chancellor Angela Merkel offered close cooperation to the new American president. "Partnership with the United States is and remains the cornerstone of the German foreign policy. Through [this partnership] we can deal with main challenges of our time: striving for economic and social prosperity, outlooks for climate policy, fighting against terrorism, poverty, hunger and diseases, commitment to peace and freedom in Germany, Europe and the world," Merkel said. She also said that Germany needs to cooperate with US intelligence services in order to counter terrorist threats. Iran Commenting on the results of the US presidential election, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani noted that Trump's victory will not influence Tehran's foreign policy. He also suggested that expanding of Iranian foreign relations after the removal of sanctions is irreversible. At the same time, Trump said he would restructure the final agreement on Iranian deal signed under Obama's administration. In an interview with RT, James Woolsey said the new US presidential administration will embrace a more hardline approach towards Tehran than it was during Obama's presidency. Cuba Donald Trump is not a supporter of the thaw between Washington and Havana, which was launched after Barack Obama visit to Cuba in March 2016. One of Trump's promises during his campaign was cancellation of the restored diplomatic ties with Cuba. Cuban President Raul Castro congratulated Trump. However, on the day when the results of the US election were revealed, Havana announced a five-day long military exercise to prepare "to counter a range of enemy action." Mexico The US presidential election was of special interest for Mexico. During his campaign, Trump made numerous controversial remarks about illegal migrants coming from Mexico to the US. After his victory, Trump also confirmed his plan to build a wall at the US-Mexican border to curb the migrant influx. "Yes," Trump said in an interview with CBS, answering a question on whether he still wants a wall on the Mexican border. "For certain areas I would, but certain areas, a wall is more appropriate. I'm very good at this, it's called construction," he added. Moreover, the Mexican economy was indirectly hit by Trump's victory in the election due to a sharp drop in the national currency's exchange rate. In the first hours after the election results were revealed, the Mexican peso devalued by over than 10 percent. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Three-Party Coalition Government Formed in Estonia - Parliament Sputnik News 16:58 21.11.2016(updated 17:05 21.11.2016) The leaders of three Estonian parties agreed on Monday to form a coalition government, the parliament's press service said. TALLINN (Sputnik) Earlier this month, the Estonian parliament voted for resignation of Prime Minister Taavi Roivas, and the country's Centrist Party, Social Democratic Party (SDE) and Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica (IRL) started negotiations on forming a new government. "The signatures under the agreement were put by the leader of the Centrist Party, the candidate for the candidate for prime minister, Juri Ratas, IRL chairman Margus Tsahkna and the head of SDE, Eugene Osinovsky," the parliament's press service said in a statement. According to the coalition agreement, each party will get five ministerial posts. Under the agreement, the coalition will continue the foreign and internal policy implemented by the previous government. The agreement also emphasizes that Estonia's EU and NATO membership and the regarding partnerships are the most important guarantees of the country's security and prosperity. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemen Ceasefire Deal Ends as Houthis Fail to Commit - Saudi-Led Coalition Sputnik News 14:33 21.11.2016 The ceasefire in Yemen came to an end Monday as the Houthi rebels failed to comply with the conditions of the agreement, Gen. Ahmed Assiri Saudi, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, told Sputnik on Monday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Assiri added that the military operations by the Saudi-led coalition to support the Yemeni army and to protect the civilians would resume. "The statement said that in the event that the Houthis commit to the truce, then it will automatically be extended for another 48 hours, however the other party did not comply. We have counted more than 500 violations within 48 hours So it is natural that the truce comes to an end since the conditions of it were not met," Assiri said. Yemen has been engulfed in a violent conflict between the government headed by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthis, who are backed by army units loyal to former Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Saleh. Since March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf countries has been carrying out airstrikes against the rebels. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Vietnam Likely to Abandon Nuclear Program Sputnik News 14:23 21.11.2016 Vietnam may completely abandon its nuclear program during its legislative session, a senior diplomat from one the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) told RIA Novosti Monday. BANGKOK, November 21 (Sputnik) Vietnam's National Assembly is currently deciding on the future of the state's nuclear program, with the final vote expected at the close of the session on Tuesday. Vietnam has been making moves to suspend nuclear projects in the country, scrapping Russian and Japanese-backed projects over recent weeks. "The decision to suspend the nuclear energy development program has already been taken. Right now the formal wording is being decided on, whether this will be a delay to the schedule of the program or a total rejection of nuclear energy. It appears that the latter is probable," the diplomat, who had previously served in Vietnam, said. Global economic turmoil, as well as falling growth rates inside the country, have prompted the Vietnamese government to reconsider its priorities in the energy mix, according to the diplomat, who stressed that this is the official position and is likely to be true. Russia planned to supply two units for a power plant project in the southern Ninh Thuan province. Its launch was planned for 2020 before Vietnam asked to move the start of construction to that year. In early November, the Vietnamese government announced its decision to withdraw from the contract due to a tight fiscal situation. Vietnam is the latest in a line of several countries to suspend nuclear development in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident, which led to an ongoing collapse in uranium prices and skepticism in the nuclear industry. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Blast From the Past: Sweden Dusts Off Cold War Missile System Sputnik News 13:23 21.11.2016 Amid unfounded fears of a Russian sneak attack, kindled by high-ranking politicians and military experts, Sweden has been taking steps to drastically re-activate its defense. In an obvious return to the Cold War mentality, Sweden has restored a Cold War missile system to protect the island of Gotland. During the Cold War, Sweden possessed coastal artillery that protected Swedish islands, ports and waterways. In the modern era, the coastal artillery was gradually dismantled before the 2000 decision to disband coastal artillery for good. Today, a heavy missile system that was defunct for 16 years has been re-activated. The coastal defense is said to be particularly desirable on the island of Gotland, which in Sweden is widely believed to the likely target for Russian "aggression." Until 2000, the Swedish coastal artillery had missiles mounted on SUVs. The very same missile is still being used on the Gripen aircraft and naval vessels. Today, the trucks formerly in use, which are left in good condition in various museums across the country, have been recovered to carry Saab Robotsystem RBS-15 anti-ship missiles, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported. "A number of trucks survived the disbanding. Besides, we have taken components from existing missile boats and warships which earlier had the same missile system in use," Rear Admiral Thomas Engevall told Dagens Nyheter. The re-assembling was performed in a short time and was described as cost-effective for the Swedish Armed Forces. After test-firing, the land-based RBS-15 was re-introduced into service. A secret number of units were reported to have re-joined the Swedish Navy. Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist, who visited the marine exercise Swenex 16, which is currently underway on Sweden's East coast, lauded the effective collaboration between the Swedish Armed Forces and Saab, the manufacturer of the RBS-15. "It is extremely good that we have land-based coastal missile systems back in our National Defense," Peter Hultqvist said. "It means that we can shoot anti-ship missiles from land over great distances. Also, they provide increased flexibility and capability in marine warfare. This increases our military capability and that's something we need." According to Mike Winnerstig, security policy analyst at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, this decision embodied Sweden's efforts to boost its defense capabilities. "If you group together these kinds of systems on Gotland, you can control quite a lot of territory in the mid-Baltic," Mike Winnerstig told the Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen. Whereas Winnerstig acknowledged that Sweden hardly is a primary goal for Russia, he argued that the price of invading Gotland has increased significantly, calling the missile defense a "tripwire." In September, Sweden stationed 150 troops on Gotland, to boost the defense of the strategically important island. "We have about 150 men on Gotland, which is not much. In the past, when you wanted to defend Gotland for real, there were regiments that could mobilize about 25,000 troops to the island's defense. There's a certain difference," Mike Winnerstig told Expressen. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Update: air strikes against Daesh 21 November 2016 British forces have continued to conduct air operations in the fight against Daesh Latest update - Thursday 17 November Tornados attacked a Daesh bunker in western Iraq and a mortar position in the north, while Typhoons destroyed four booby-trapped buildings north of Raqqa in Syria. - Friday 18 November Typhoons bombed a strongpoint and an artillery piece north of Raqqa, and a large weapons store in Mosul. A Reaper hit two terrorist targets south of Mosul. - Sunday 20 November Tornados struck an artillery piece hidden in trees on the southern edge of Mosul. Detail Royal Air Force aircraft have continued to support both the Iraqi operation to liberate Mosul and the advance by the Syrian Democratic Forces against Raqqa. Two Typhoons, armed with Paveway IV guided bombs, were tasked on Thursday 17 November to deal with a group of buildings which Daesh had heavily booby-trapped with large improvised explosive devices in the path of the SDF's offensive north of Raqqa. Direct hits safely demolished all four target buildings, setting off large secondary explosions. Over Iraq the same day, two pairs of Tornados provided close air support over northern and western parts of the country. North-east of Tall Afar, one mission used a Paveway IV against a terrorist mortar position, while in the west, the other flight used an Enhanced Paveway II to bomb a bunker located in the countryside north-east of Rawah. On Friday 18 November, a Reaper supported Iraqi troops as they fought to liberate the village of Umarkan, south of Mosul. The Reaper's crew observed a group of Daesh fighters retreating into a building. Having checked that there were no indications of any civilians in the area, the Reaper was able to direct a successful coalition air strike onto the target. Our aircraft then used two of its own Hellfire missiles to kill a group of terrorists as they manoeuvred in the open, and to destroy a vehicle carrying a mortar. In Mosul itself, a Typhoon flight used four Paveway IVs to destroy a weapons stockpile in a large isolated building on the western bank of the Tigris. A second pair of Typhoons meanwhile continued to support the SDF north of Raqqa. Working closely with a coalition surveillance aircraft, the Typhoons were able to destroy a terrorist strongpoint with a Paveway IV despite the SDF being very near the target. The Typhoons then used another Paveway IV against an artillery piece concealed in trees some ten miles north of Raqqa. Tornados saw further action over Mosul on Sunday 20 November. On the southern edge of the city, to the east of Mosul airfield, an artillery piece had been spotted hidden amongst woodland. A Paveway IV was nevertheless successfully directed onto the target, and secondary explosions suggest ammunition was destroyed along with the gun itself. Previous air strikes Tuesday 1 November: Tornados patrolled north of Mosul where they supported advancing Kurdish forces. A Paveway IV guided bomb destroyed a Daesh heavy machine-gun position when it opened fire on the Peshmerga, while an Enhanced Paveway II demolished a building in which a light machine-gun was sited. Meanwhile, to the south-east of the city, a Reaper provided further close air support to Iraqi troops. It conducted Hellfire attacks on a mortar team who were spotted firing, and two groups of terrorists, including individuals with rocket-propelled grenades. The Reaper also directed a successful coalition air attack onto a number of terrorists defending a trench network. Wednesday 2 November: A combination of Typhoon and Tornado aircraft patrolled to the east of the city. Some distance to the south-east, they used a Paveway IV guided bomb to destroy a building from which a terrorist mortar team was operating. They then flew north to eliminate a sniper position with a second Paveway. Thursday 3 November: Tornados struck two further targets north-east of Mosul. A Paveway IV destroyed a building from which Daesh extremists were firing on advancing ground forces, while a Brimstone missile accounted for a terrorist vehicle. South-east of the city, a Reaper flew overwatch for Iraqi troops as they pressed forwards. The Reaper's crew used all four of its Hellfire missiles against a mortar team seen firing from amidst trees, and three groups of terrorists as they fired on the Iraqis with rocket-propelled grenades, as well as attempting to set fire to piles of tyres to create a smokescreen. The Reaper was also able to provide surveillance support to two air strikes by coalition aircraft which destroyed a fortified position and an armed truck. Friday 4 November: Reaper operations continued south-east of Mosul, with our aircraft directing a successful coalition air attack onto its target, a weapons dump, and using one of its own Hellfires to engage a group of terrorists on foot. Two Tornados struck close air support targets inside eastern Mosul itself, using Brimstone missiles to destroy an armed vehicle and a large truck-bomb. A Paveway also hit a group of terrorists which another coalition aircraft had been carefully tracking as they manoeuvred towards Iraqi troops. A second Tornado flight supported Iraqi operations elsewhere in the country, and north-east of Mosul used Paveway IV and Enhanced Paveway II bombs to destroy a cave occupied by Daesh in the hills above Bayji, as well as a nearby stock of equipment. Saturday 5 November: Three Hellfire attacks were launched by a Reaper near Mosul, against a truck-bomb, a mortar and a rocket-propelled grenade team. The Reaper also assisted in a coalition strike against a second mortar. On Sunday 6 November, Paveway IV-armed Typhoons bombed a terrorist group in the Tigris valley south of Mosul, while Tornados used a Brimstone missile to destroy an armoured personnel carrier inside the city. On the outskirts, a Reaper tracked a terrorist driving a truck-bomb towards Iraqi troops, but the truck exploded prematurely as it drove over rough ground, negating any need for the Reaper to fire at it. The Reaper instead used its Hellfires against a truck being loaded with spare weapons, a recoilless anti-tank gun, a rocket-propelled grenade team and an armed truck. Monday 7 November: A Typhoon mission armed with Paveway IV guided bombs destroyed a stockpile of rocket and mortar equipment to the north of Bayji, and a Reaper conducting armed reconnaissance near Raqqah struck a Daesh vehicle with a Hellfire missile. Near Mosul, a Reaper provided close air support to Iraqi forces. Daesh fighters were observed firing a recoilless anti-tank gun at the Iraqi troops, then loading the weapon into a vehicle. As the vehicle pulled away, it was destroyed by a Hellfire. The Reaper's crew then used a further three Hellfires, which have a very low risk of collateral damage, in successful attacks on groups of extremists as they engaged in street fighting with the Iraqi troops. Tuesday 8 November: Reaper operations in the area continued, with our aircraft conducting three further Hellfire attacks on terrorist fighters, as well as providing targeting support to a coalition air strike which destroyed a mortar team. To the north-east of Mosul, a pair of Typhoon FGR4s used Paveway IVs to destroy seven Daesh positions. Wednesday 9 November: A Reaper spotted an armoured vehicle firing on Iraqi troops on the outskirts of Mosul, and destroyed it with a Hellfire. Thursday 10 November: A Reaper provided overwatch to Iraqi troops engaged in street fighting at Abasi in northern Iraq. Its crew used Hellfire missiles against two groups of terrorists, including a light machine-gun team. In Mosul itself, a mortar was spotted in an area of heavily wooded parkland. It was destroyed by a Paveway IV guided bomb from a Typhoon flight. North of the city, Tornados used a Brimstone missile to kill several terrorists as they manoeuvred along a street. Friday 11 November: A pair of Typhoons patrolled over Syria, supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces north of Raqqa. Another coalition aircraft was able to identify a Daesh armoured vehicle well concealed under trees, and was able to direct the Typhoon onto the target, which was duly destroyed with a Paveway IV. Meanwhile, south of Mosul, Tornados used another Paveway IV to demolish a terrorist strongpoint on the banks of the Tigris. Saturday 12 November: A Reaper maintained surveillance around Mosul. As well as supporting a coalition air strike that eliminated a recoilless anti-tank gun team, our aircraft used three Hellfire missiles against a mortar and two groups of terrorists engaged in combat with Iraqi troops. Sunday 13 November: Typhoons again operated north of Raqqa and were able to destroy an anti-aircraft gun near Thulth Khunayz. Some miles to the north-east of Mosul, Tornados used a Paveway IV to collapse a tunnel system, while closer to the city, a Hellfire from a Reaper destroyed a large weapon mounted on the rear of a lorry. The Reaper then used a GBU-12 laser guided bomb to attack successfully both a buried weapons cache and a nearby terrorist vehicle. Monday 14 November: Royal Air Force Typhoons provided close air support to Iraqi forces as they fought to liberate the site of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud. A group of terrorists were spotted repositioning in open country some distance north of Nimrud, and successfully struck with a Paveway IV guided bomb. To the north of Mosul, a Reaper provided similar close support to Kurdish troops, in particular hunting for Daesh mortars. The Reaper's crew successfully located two such weapons. One was subsequently destroyed by coalition jets guided onto the target by the Reaper, the second was struck using one of the Reaper's own Hellfire missiles. Tuesday 15 November: A Reaper maintained patrols over Mosul and a further terrorist mortar team was silenced by a Hellfire missile. Tornados and Typhoons meanwhile maintained pressure on Daesh elsewhere in Iraq. The Tornados used a Paveway IV to bomb a terrorist bunker south of Haditha Lake, while the Typhoons destroyed a Daesh-held building to the west of Kirkuk. Wednesday 16 November: The Typhoons operated in the same area using Paveway IVs against two more terrorist occupied buildings some 20 miles west of Kirkuk. A Reaper also continued to keep watch over eastern Mosul, where it successfully hunted down and killed two Daesh mortar teams, and supported a coalition fast jet attack that accounted for a third, vehicle-borne, mortar. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address IS Claims Kabul Shi'ite Mosque Blast That Killed 32 By Ayaz Gul November 21, 2016 Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide bombing of a Shi'ite mosque in the Afghan capital that killed at least 32 people and wounded more than 80 others. The bomber entered the crowded Baqir ul Olum Mosque in Kabul during a religious ceremony and detonated the explosives strapped to his body among the worshipers. General Faridoon Obaidi, head of Kabul's Criminal Investigation Department, told reporters all the victims were civilians. A brief statement issued by IS's media wing said it was behind the bloodshed. President Ashraf Ghani denounced the bombing as "unforgivable" and an act of enemies of Afghanistan aimed at dividing Afghan ethnicities. Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah condemned the attack, saying it targeted "innocent civilians - including children - in a holy place. It is a war crime and an act against Islam." A Taliban spokesman in a brief statement sent to reporters denied involved in the bombing, saying the Taliban had nothing to do with it. The United States denounced the mosque bombing as a "senseless and cowardly act" and extended its condolences to the families of the victims. This attack is another demonstration of contempt for religious tolerance and communal harmony by the enemies of peace and progress in Afghanistan, said a U.S. embassy statement in Kabul. 'Atrocity' Separately, the acting head of the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Pernille Kardel, said the "appalling attack on worshipers is an atrocity." "UNAMA expresses its revulsion at this latest effort by extremists to stoke sectarian violence in Afghanistan," added Kardel. Amnesty International, while reacting to what it described as "a horrific and deliberate attack on civilians," called for Afghan authorities to immediately investigate the crime to bring the perpetrators to justice. "They have a duty to take effective measures to protect Shia Muslims from attacks and end impunity for previous abuses against the Shia community," the London-based human rights defender said in a statement. IS has recently stepped up attacks on Shi'ite worship places and gatherings in Afghanistan. On October 11, two IS attackers wearing police uniforms and armed with grenades and machine guns stormed Kabul's Kart-e Sakhi shrine and opened fire on Shi'ite mourners, killing 19 of them. The Middle Eastern-based terrorist group in July of this year attacked a peaceful demonstration in Kabul in which more than 80 people, mostly members of the Shi'ite Hazara community, were killed while many more were wounded. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Stoltenberg: NATO's Global Actions 'Defensive and Proportionate' By VOA News November 21, 2016 NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance's actions over the years have been "defensive and proportionate," in line with international commitments. Addressing a NATO parliamentary assembly meeting in Istanbul Monday, Stoltenberg touched on relations with Russia, the failed coup attempt in Turkey and presidential elections in the United States. On relations with Russia, Stoltenberg said the alliance is pursuing a two-track approach of "strong defense coupled with meaningful dialogue." "Everything NATO does is defensive, proportionate and fully in line with our international commitments. Before Russia's aggressive actions in Ukraine, NATO had no plans to send troops to the Eastern part of our alliance. NATO's aim is to prevent a conflict, not to provoke a conflict. Moreover, we firmly believe and we are firmly committed to a two-track approach to Russia; strong defense, coupled with meaningful dialogue." Turkey coup attempt He described the failed July coup attempt in host Turkey as a "sober reminder" democracy and freedom cannot be taken for granted and must be "vigorously defended." "We are meeting here in Turkey four short months after the failed coup attempt," he said. "This should be a sober reminder to us all, a reminder that democracy and freedom cannot be taken for granted, they must be vigorously defended. In September, I met members of the parliament from all major political parties. They rushed to the parliament on the night of the coup attempt and stood together in defense of their democratic institutions. It made a lasting impression on me and I want to salute them today for their courage and their dedication to democracy." Europe, US partnership Stoltenberg said he is looking forward to working with the incoming U.S. administration of President-elect Donald Trump, adding that "better burden sharing" will further strengthen the Trans-Atlantic bond. "The partnership between Europe and the United States has been rock solid for almost 70 years. A partnership that has always received bipartisan support in the United States. Better burden sharing will make the Trans-Atlantic bond even stronger," he said. Fighting terror Addressing the meeting, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara needs the support of the world in the fight against terror, but he accused particularly the European Union and the United States of being ambivalent concerning such groups. Erdogan said that without Turkey to act as a buffer between "terror organizations" and the rest of the world, "terrorists will set fire to the whole world and turn it into a bloodbath." "Turkey is a veritable barrier between terror organizations and the rest of the world, especially Europe. If we fail in this fight [against terrorism], if this barrier is demolished, terrorists will set fire to the whole world and turn it into a bloodbath," he said. Erdogan called on the United States and other nations to reassess his country's proposal for the creation of a no-fly zone in northern Syria. "Let's announce a safe-zone, which will be cleared of the terrorists there [in Syria]. Let's [as Turkey] train and equip [local forces]. And there, we can undertake the [re-]construction of especially the residential areas, if you support us financially. Three: let's announce a no-fly zone." Erdogan again criticized the allies' reliance on Syrian Kurdish fighters to battle the Islamic State group. Turkey considers the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters an extension of outlawed Kurdish militants in Turkey. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pakistan Reports Deadly Border Clashes With India By Ayaz Gul November 21, 2016 Pakistan's military says intense clashes with India along the disputed Kashmir frontier Monday killed at least four Pakistani civilians and wounded 10 others. The army's media wing, in a statement said, "effective retaliatory fire" killed six Indian soldiers. It did not cite sources for the Indian casualty toll and there has been no immediate reaction from India on the Pakistani claims. On Saturday, Pakistan alleged that "unprovoked" firing by Indian forces on civilian areas in Kashmir killed at least four children. Islamabad summoned the Indian deputy high commissioner to the Foreign Ministry earlier on Monday to issue a formal protest over the incident and to urge New Delhi to respect the Kashmir cease-fire truce, according to an official statement. Clashes between the two nuclear-armed rival nations in the divided Kashmir region have become routine in recent weeks, causing civilian and army casualties on both sides. Islamabad and New Delhi blame each other for firing the first shot in violation of a 2003 cease-fire deal in the Himalayan region. The military tensions have raised fears of a wider conflict between them as a wide-ranging bilateral peace dialogue remains suspended. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address New York Man Arrested for Attempting to Provide Material Support to ISIL FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, November 21, 2016 A criminal complaint was unsealed today in federal court in the Eastern District of New York charging Mohamed Rafik Naji, 37, of Brooklyn, New York, with attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a designated foreign terrorist organization. Naji was arrested earlier today at his home in Brooklyn, New York, and his initial appearance is scheduled for this afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy at the U.S. Courthouse at 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York. The charges were announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary B. McCord, U.S. Attorney Robert L. Capers of the Eastern District of New York, Assistant Director in Charge William F. Sweeney of the FBI's New York Field Office and Commissioner James P. O'Neill of the New York City Police Department. "As alleged, the defendant attempted to join ISIL and support its terrorist objectives," stated U.S. Attorney Capers. "We will continue to identify and prosecute individuals like Naji who seek to provide support to foreign terrorist organizations that endanger our citizens and partners around the world." Mr. Capers extended his grateful appreciation to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, which comprises a number of federal, state, and local agencies from the region. "As we alleged in our complaint today, Naji has shown continued support to ISIL, beginning in 2014 with social media posts and ultimately traveling to Yemen in March 2015 where he claimed his allegiance to ISIL stating, 'I belong to Islamic state only.' He continued to express support for ISIL and violent jihad upon his return in the U.S. months later. Terrorism threats, like Naji, are only mitigated through the joint efforts of law enforcement to protect our communities," said Assistant Director in Charge Sweeney. "As alleged, the defendant expressed a devotion to join ISIL through both conversation and social media, traveling to Yemen in an effort to join their ranks," said Police Commissioner O'Neill. "Detectives and agents on the Joint Terrorism Task Force uncovered the alleged terrorist objectives of the defendant. I want to commend their work in continually protecting New York City, and our nation, from those who seek to harm us." As set forth in court documents, Naji is a 37-year-old legal permanent resident of the U.S. Beginning in December 2014, through social media posts, Naji expressed his support of ISIL by, among other posts, sharing a video of an ISIL leader advocating violence against civilian targets. According to the complaint, in March 2015, Naji traveled from New York to Yemen in an effort to join ISIL's ranks. While in Yemen, Naji persistently tried to travel to areas controlled by ISIL. In emails to an associate in the U.S., Naji explained that he was on his fifth try to reach ISIL-controlled territory. He also sent his associate media files with sounds of gunfire and claimed to have been almost killed by the "army." Following these email exchanges, Naji instructed his associate to "erase all ur messages," "even from your trash." While in Yemen, Naji engaged in online conversations with a confidential source. During those conversations, Naji instructed the confidential source that in order to join "dawlat islam," (ISIL), he should travel to Hadramout, an area in southern Yemen. In one of the online conversations with the confidential source, Naji proclaimed his allegiance to ISIL stating, "I belong to Islamic state only," according to the complaint. Naji returned to the U.S. in September 2015. Since his return, he has continued to express his support for ISIL and violent jihad. Following the deadly attack in Nice, France in July 2016, Naji expressed support for a similar attack in Time Square. The charges in the complaint are merely allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The government's case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Melody Wells and Ian Richardson of the National Security & Cybercrime Section of the U.S Attorney's Office, with assistance from Trial Attorney Brian Morgan of the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section. 16-1636 National Security Division (NSD) USAO - New York, Eastern NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Is the World's Biggest Surveillance Camera Maker Sending Footage to China? By Xiao Yu November 21, 2016 Imagine a world where almost everyone can be tracked, and everything can be seen by cameras linked directly to the Chinese government. The rapid growth of a little known Chinese manufacturer of high-powered surveillance technology has some people concerned that it's no longer a theory. Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, a company controlled by the Chinese government, is now the world's largest supplier of video surveillance equipment, with internet-enabled cameras installed in more than 100 countries. Capable of capturing sharp images even in fog, rain or darkness, Hikvision claims its most advanced technologies can recognize license plates and tell if a driver is texting while behind the wheel. They can also track individuals with unrivaled "face-tracking" technology and by identifiers such as body metrics, hair color and clothing. In the United States alone, the company's surveillance systems can be found everywhere from prisons to airports to private homes and public schools, and even in places with sensitive national security concerns, such as Fort Leonard Wood military base in Missouri. Abroad, its cameras were installed in the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. According to a U.S. government procurement document published on IPVM.com, the world's largest online video surveillance trade magazine, U.S. embassy officials decided in August 2016 to allow only Hikvision suppliers to bid on the installation contract. Stephen Bryen, a widely published expert on international affairs and cyber security, wrote an article outlining his concerns about the purchase, saying the Hikvision cameras were never proven to be any more secure than comparable models. "If the procurement officer actually thought these cameras were more secure than others, that would have been claimed as part of the sole-source justification," he said of the embassy purchase agreement, adding that no claims of any kind were made regarding the Hikvision products. "The issue is that the U.S. embassy is installing commercial cameras in one if its most sensitive locations," Bryen wrote. "This is a big mistake, and mistakes like this can cost lives." On Monday, a State Department official said on background: "A Hikvision camera system was initially installed to monitor non-sensitive electrical closets for theft prevention. The procurement in question was to either expand this or to install a new system. The procurement was cancelled September 2016 and the previously installed cameras were removed." It is not known whether other Hikvision products have ever been installed in other U.S. embassies. Spreading the word Edward Long, a former employee of a video surveillance equipment company in Florida, recently petitioned the U.S. government with a letter warning that Hikvision cameras are sending information back to China. "Over the past year, [Hikvision has] ... flooded the United States with their equipment," he wrote. "Every time one of their machines is plugged into the internet, it sends all your data to three servers in China. With that information, the Chinese government can log in to any camera system, anytime they want." Frank Fisherman, a general manager for Long's former employer, IC Realtime Security Solutions, tells VOA that Hikvision devices are engineered for effortless hacking. "They have their encrypted information set up so they can access even if you change the admin [passwords] and the firewall," he said, adding that Hikvision may have set aside a "back door" in the production process, such that the manufacturer can monitor devices remotely without the users being aware. IPVM President John Honovich, however, strikes a less alarmist tone. "So far, we haven't found any evidence showing these cameras are sending information back to China, and there is no evidence of such back doors," he told VOA, cautioning, however, that these facts alone do not rule out a possible security threat. "The issue that still remains is that maybe [back doors] haven't been found yet," he said. "All devices have firmware, [which is] updated all the time, just like you update your computer [or] your PC. At any point during the firmware upgrade, back doors can be added by the manufacturers." In April, a New York Times report addressed similar concerns about Chinese drone maker DJI the world's largest manufacturer of small drones that said it issued a user agreement warning customers that "if you conduct your flight in certain countries, your flight data might be monitored and provided to the government authorities according to local regulatory laws." Among well-known video surveillance equipment manufacturers, Honovich added, Hikvision products may not be worth the risk. "There are hundreds of security camera manufacturers in the world," he said. "One can [find a reliable system] without the risk of buying products made by a company largely owned and controlled by the Chinese government." A Beijing incubator company Established in 2001, Hikvision, which originated as a Chinese government research institute, maintains strong ties with that government. More than 42 percent of the company is owned by China's state-owned enterprises, with the remaining stock owned by a combination of general public stockholders and venture capital investors, including 18 percent from private equity in Hong Kong. In 2015, when Chinese President Xi Jinping went on an inspection tour of the southern city of Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, he visited Hikvision's main office instead of the famous Alibaba headquarters. Xi also met with Pu Shiliang, 38, Hikvision's head of research and development. According to the official website of Zhejiang Police Academy, Pu is also the director of a technology laboratory within China's Ministry of Public Security, the main domestic security agency that has long been criticized for tracking and detaining dissidents and perceived Communist Party opponents of any stripe. Beginning in 2015, China's state Development Bank and Export-Import Bank provided Hikvision with 20 billion yuan (nearly $3 billion) in low-interest loans and a 20 billion yuan line of credit loans of a size typically unavailable to Chinese or foreign companies. Invisible to consumers Despite its enormous security implications, the United States appears to have made no national security assessment of Hikvision's products. As indicated by Long's online petition, which ultimately closed with only 15 supporters, Hikvision's links with Beijing are virtually invisible to American consumers. In Britain, where many Hikvision cameras have been installed, some government officials have begun voicing concerns. "If you've got cameras that are IP enabled, or potentially could covertly be so enabled...they could potentially be used for malign purposes," Nigel Inkster, a former British intelligence official, told The Times. Canadian-based Genetec, one of the world's leading video surveillance software companies, recently announced that it would no longer offer free technical support for products from either Hikvision or Huawei a Shenzen-based multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company citing ongoing "security considerations." Issuing the announcement, Genetec cited government and corporate clients who called Hikvision and Huawei products "too risky." Voice of America received no response to multiple attempts to contact Hikvision's headquarters in Hangzhou and its branch in California. Jeffrey He, president of Hikvision's U.S. and Canadian branch, defended the company during an undated interview with U.S. security monitoring website SourceSecurity.com. "There have been some misguided accusations targeting Hikvision's public and industry image, sometimes seeking to create controversy where none exists," he said. "These questions are geared in general not just to Hikvision, but also to many Chinese manufacturers, and none of these accusations have been proven to be true. These accusations are baseless. "The Cold War was officially over when the Berlin Wall came down, but I am seeing that, in the minds of some, it never ended," he added. "We all would be better served if, instead of living in the past, we would look toward the future and the realities of world changes and technology changing along with it." Hikvision now has 35 branches in mainland China and 21 overseas subsidiaries with more than 18,000 employees. This report was produced in collaboration with VOA's Mandarin service. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Defense ministry: China's army on high alert in wake of armed conflicts in northern Myanmar People's Daily Online (People's Daily Online) 12:20, November 21, 2016 Chinese armed forces are on high alert after armed groups in Myanmar attacked military and law enforcement posts close to the country's border on Nov. 20, according to a statement from China's defense ministry. "The Chinese army is on high alert and will take necessary measures to safeguard the country's sovereignty and safety, as well as to protect the lives and property of Chinese citizens living along the border," the statement read. The ministry hopes that both sides in the conflict will stay calm to avoid further escalation. According to a Xinhua report on Nov. 20, three armed groups simultaneously attacked security posts in the border towns of Muse and Kutkai in Myanmar's northeastern state of Shan. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Is Hong Kong Still China? Xi Jinping Calls on SAR Leader to Maintain Stability Sputnik News 19:18 21.11.2016(updated 19:20 21.11.2016) Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chunying to uphold national unity and maintain social and political stability during their meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in the Peruvian capital of Lima. The meeting came amid deepening concerns in Beijing over a fledgling independence movement in Hong Kong and recent street protests in the city. On November 15, a Hong Kong High Court disqualified two pro-independence lawmakers, Yau Waiching and Baggio Leung, from taking office. While taking their oaths last month they displayed a banner declaring "Hong Kong is not China" and substituted derogatory terms for "China." This political gesture sparked controversy and met a stern response from Chinese central authorities who said it had touched the bottom line of the one country, two systems principle. Soon after the incident, the National People's Congress today adopted an interpretation of Article 104 of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong. An oath taker is disqualified forthwith from assuming the public office if he or she declines to take the oath, the interpretation said. An oath taker who intentionally reads out words which do not accord with the wording of the oath prescribed by law, or takes the oath in a manner which is not sincere or not solemn, shall be treated as declining to take the oath. The oath so taken is invalid and the oath taker is disqualified forthwith from assuming the public office specified in the Article, it added. This interpretation and the High Court decision following it stopped chaos in the Hong Kong's Legislative Council after three weeks of paralysis. Such a political vacuum played into the opposition's hands and was inappropriate for the central government, Moscow State University's Institute of Asia and Africa Deputy Director, Andrei Karneev told Sputnik China. "Amid aggravation of the situation, rumors about Beijing being dissatisfied with Hong Kong Administration's work emerged. The observers expected from Xi Jinping and Leung Chunying's meeting some important signals of what the reality is," Karneev said. The official report about the meeting says that the central government "fully endorsed" the work of the Chief Executive and the Hong Kong government. It also emphasizes that it is important "to continue integration policies, to widely gather consensus, to push for economic development and improve livelihoods, resolutely uphold the unity of the country, maintain social and political stability." "Thus, the central authorities made it clear once again that the public consolidation is necessary in the interests of Hong Kong citizens, their long-term prosperity and social stability," the expert said. The call to protect political stability demonstrates Beijing's cautious attitude towards the young oppositionists' gesture, Karneev assumed. He prognosed that the opposition forces may resort to th mass street protests again, which would require the Hong Kong authorities to take a firm stance. Since the new generation of Hong Kong democrats came into political arena the authorities have had more trouble maintaining order. However, the majority of observers believe that the situation in Hong Kong in general remains under control. Nevertheless, the "Umbrella revolution" which brought young members to the Legislative Council will long affect the situation in China's special administrative district. The protests dubbed the Umbrella Revolution began in September 2014 in Hong Kong in response to Chinese authorities' proposed reforms to the Hong Kong electoral system. Protesters demanded direct elections of the city's chief executive to replace the suggested two-step process. China gained sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. The region was granted legal, economic and political autonomy from Beijing under the "one country, two systems" principle formulated by Chairman of the Central Advisory Commission of the Communist Party of China Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Bolstering of Nuclear Force Is to Cope with U.S. Extreme Moves to Stifle DPRK: Foreign Ministry Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS) Pyongyang, November 21 (KCNA) -- The Foreign Ministry of the DPRK released a memorandum on Monday detailing the traces of the crimes the U.S. committed by perpetrating a series of worst-ever hostile acts against the DPRK since the greatest loss suffered by the Korean nation and thus compelling it to bolster up its nuclear force. Since the year 2012, soon after the passing away of the great leader Comrade Kim Jong Il, the U.S. began to openly pursue the objective to politically stifle the DPRK and overthrow its system by all means, the memorandum said, and went on: Blatant remarks denying the DPRK's government, system and policy were made by high-level officials of the U.S. and even Obama himself has constantly heaped malicious slander and criticism on the DPRK in his public appearances. This fully reveals the true nature of the policy of "strategic patience" pursued by the Obama administration, which is none other than an aggressive and heinous "strategic suffocation" policy against the DPRK. By this time, the "human rights" racket which the U.S. has long made against the DPRK has grown so reckless as to attempt to put their wild ambition of overthrowing the DPRK's system into practice. The U.S. has gone so far as to breach the basic principles of international laws and ditch its dignity of a superpower by pleading with other countries to join their pressure racket against the DPRK through downgrading or severing ties with it. Giving an account of the fact that the U.S. revealed its intention to deliver a preemptive nuclear strike against the DPRK and intensified its military threats against the DPRK at a maximum pace during the last five years, the memorandum said: To take an example of the Key Resolve joint military exercise, one of the typical joint military drills of the U.S. and the south Korean puppets, 2 100 U.S. troops participated in the exercise in the year 2012, but the U.S. steadily increased the number of troops to 3 500 in 2013, 5 200 in 2014 and 8 600 in 2015, and in 2016, 27 000 troops participated in the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle 16 joint military exercises. Beside the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises, the U.S. conducted over 40 provocative and aggressive military drills under various names on annual basis including Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercise, Max Thunder joint air force exercise, Double Dragon joint landing exercise and multilateral RIMPAC naval exercise, joint naval strike exercise, joint special force exercise, joint live firing exercise and so on. The total number of troops the U.S. has committed to these exercises reached over 500 000. Since the year 2012, the U.S. has consistently conducted various kinds of military drills against the DPRK, deploying its naval forces into and around the Korean peninsula including nuclear carriers, nuclear submarines, Aegis cruisers, Aegis destroyers and guided missile destroyer. In addition, the U.S. moved B-1B, B-2, B-52 nuclear strategic bombers from the U.S. mainland to Guam and they flew to south Korea several times to conduct drills for landing and dropping nuclear bombs with the purpose of getting ready for a surprise nuclear preemptive strike against the DPRK. The U.S. proceeded with the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) to south Korea in full-scale. The maneuvers of the U.S. to impose sanctions on the DPRK to suffocate it in the last five years was indeed unprecedented in its pace and intensity. The U.S. made an issue of the DPRK's legitimate right to peaceful development of outer space and its buildup of self-defensive nuclear deterrence and made frantic attempts to fabricate heinous "sanctions resolutions" by usurping the United Nations Security Council. Through the so-called UN "sanctions resolutions", the U.S. seeks to prevent the DPRK from its routine financial transactions with other countries; put all the channels linked to the DPRK under tight control; force the inspection of any vessel sailing to and from the DPRK and prohibit entry of such vessel into ports of other countries; have other countries deny permission to any aircraft of the DPRK to take off from, land in and overfly their territory. The U.S. went so far as to devise a provision for the "ban on export and import of luxury goods" and prevented import of sport apparatus which has nothing to do with development of arms and even included daily necessities and children's toys in the list of "banned goods". Pursuant to the anti-DPRK "sanctions resolutions" it has forged, the U.S. is running amuck to impose unilateral sanctions while forcing other countries to get on board. All the facts above clearly substantiate the truth that the root cause of escalated tension on the Korean peninsula lies with the U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threats against the DPRK, not the latter's nuclear and missile tests. The U.S. should face up to the new strategic position of the DPRK and take actual measures to show that they are willing to scrap its anachronistic hostile policy and nuclear threat against the DPRK. -0- NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Former French PM Fillon Secures Victory in Republican Presidential Primaries Sputnik News 14:00 21.11.2016(updated 15:32 21.11.2016) The first round of the presidential primaries in the Republicans center-right party in France resulted in a victory of former Prime Minister Francois Fillon. In the second round, Fillon will face another former Prime Minister, Alain Juppe. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy came third in the primaries. Taking into account the extremely low popularity of incumbent leader Francois Hollande from the Socialist Party, experts predict that the center-right candidate is likely to win the French presidential election next year. A Sensational Victory The center-right presidential primaries initially involved seven candidates, including Nicolas Sarkozy, Francois Fillon, Alain Juppe as well as lawmakers Bruno Le Maire, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Jean-Frederic Poisson and Jean-Francois Cope. From the very beginning of the campaign, experts and the majority of polls were in favor of Juppe and Sarkozy. Fillon alongside Le Maire was rated third or fourth. The situation changed after the kick-off of the debates broadcasted by France's major television channels. Fillon delivered a solid performance during the first and second debates. After the third round, he leapfrogged Juppe and Sarkozy and took the lead with 30 percent of votes. On Sunday, the first official results of the primaries were published, showing Fillon's unexpected victory. He led with 44 percent of votes, followed by Juppe with 28.1 percent. Sarkozy came third with 21.1 percent of votes. Sarkozy Quits Politics Again During the campaign, commentators and experts suggested that a high turnout will not play in the hands of Sarkozy who mostly relied on support from party activists. Turnout was unexpectedly high. Nearly four million people cast their ballots. Some 30 percent of the voters were the electorate of the left and the National Front far-right movement as well as politically neutral voters. Finally, the high turnout played in the hands of Fillon, leaving Sarkozy only third. Sarkozy conceded his defeat and congratulated Fillon and Juppe on advancing to the second round. "I congratulate Francois Fillon and Alain Juppe on advancing to the second round. They are very worthy people who the French center-right should be proud of," Sarkozy said in a statement. "Francois Fillon's political standing is closer to me Therefore I will vote for him in the second round of primaries," he added. For Sarkozy, it was a very difficult decision to support Fillon as their relations have not been friendly over the recent years. In particular, Fillon has repeatedly called to look into numerous criminal cases against Sarkozy. After admitting his defeat, the former French president once again announced he was quitting politics. "I want to tell my wife Carla and my children: I feel you had to go through a lot because of me. It is a challenge to live side by side with a person who is always at the center of passions. So it is time for me to start a life where there are more private passions and fewer public ones," Sarkozy told a crowd. The Second Round is Still Unpredictable Speaking to their supporters, both Fillon and Juppe thanked the voters and confirmed their intention to continue the struggle. "I have a clear vision of my program and I'm ready to fight to the end. I'm with those who want to fix the situation in France and want to tell the truth. This is the spirit of hope for our free-thinking people. We must stop the five-year period of failures. My project will raise a new hope. I'm leading center-right voters who want their values to win," Fillon said. In turn, Juppe commented: "The first round resulted in a surprise. If you want the next round will end with another surprise." Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet who received 2.6 percent of votes called on her supporters to cast votes for Juppe in the second round. Le Maire who gained 2.4 percent of votes announced he would support Fillon. The first polls have already favored Fillon over Juppe. But taking into account the recent development, the situation still may radically changes. Fillion and Juppe are members of the same political party and share the same values, with minor differences between their political programs. Fillon vs. Juppe Francois Fillon served as Prime Minister of France in 2007-2012, during Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential term. Fillon has repeatedly called to modernize agreements of the European Union, in a bid to provide deeper economic integration between country members and to strengthen the eurozone. After he left office, in particular, Fillon has underscored the importance of cooperation between the West and Russia. As for domestic policy, Fillon is considered conservative in social terms while liberal-reformist in economy. For example, he called to increase retirement age to 65 years and lift the moratorium on shale gas production. He was also against the legalization of same-sex marriage. Alain Juppe was Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997 under President Jacques Chirac. After Sarkozy was elected president in 2007, Juppe served as a minister in his government. During the primaries electoral campaign, Juppe called for boosting control at EU inner borders. In addition, he criticized President Francois Hollande for his policy towards Russia. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India to Again Test Home-Made Sub-Sonic Missile Nirbhay Sputnik News 18:31 21.11.2016 Will India's membership of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) make a difference to the fourth test of a sub-sonic missile? Indigenous technology has so far led to two failures and one partial success. New Delhi (Sputnik) Has India's recent membership of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) made a difference in the indigenously designed and developed long range sub-sonic cruise missile 'Nirbhay'? India has to depend on indigenous technology so far because it was not a member of MTCR. This led to two failures and one partial success. The missile has recently undergone changes and Indian scientists are geared for a fourth test in December this year. "A low-flight trial (Of Nirbhaya) will be held next month. This will be followed by two more flights. Work on the air variant is on," said Aeronautical Development Establishment Director M V K V Prasad. India's Defense Ministry had claimed success in some operations that the missile had performed during its last test lasting over 11 minutes. "DRDO needs to get over the critical challenges experienced in stability of the missile in flight over long range which has led to abortion of the mission twice so far," defense analyst Brigadier Rahul Bhonsle (retired) said. India had sanctioned the project in 2010 with plans to complete it after three years. Later on, Government had extended the date of completion and adds extra cost to the project. Of late, it was speculated that plans to extend the range of Indo-Russian BrahMos missile may sink the Nirbhay project. "Technically speaking a BrahMos with extended range and Nirbhay are two separate projects by different agencies. Thus the move to extend the range of BrahMos should not impact the development of the Nirbhay. What is to be decided is do we want two sets of cruise missiles one with a range of 600 and another 1,000 kms? Is there an operational requirement of the two categories of missiles for the armed forces and is there enough money to develop both?" asked Bhonsle. However, the Governments wants to provide full backing to a completely indigenous project as it will give the defense planners greater autonomy in production and deployment. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India Tests Twin-Engine Nuclear-Capable Missile Sputnik News 16:10 21.11.2016 India demonstrated its nuclear deterrence capability by testing the Prithvi II MRBM. Over the next two days, it has lined up tests of an Advanced Air Defense Interceptor and Agni I missiles. New Delhi (Sputnik) India has successfully test-fired two nuclear capable Prithvi II missiles, in a demonstration of reliability of its nuclear arsenal. The two surface-to-surface medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) were fired back to back in salvo mode from two mobile launchers off the coast of Odisha from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur. Prithvi II missile has a range of 350 kilometers and can carry warheads of up to 500 1000 kilograms. It is a significant addition to India's strike options in case of nuclear attack. It has the capability to strike targets precisely using advanced inertial guidance system with maneuvering trajectory. The single-stage liquid-fueled Prithvi II missile was inducted into the Indian armed force in 2003 and is India's first missile to be developed by the state owned Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program. India has lined up two more nuclear-capable missile tests this week. They include the more sophisticated Advanced Air Defense (AAD) interceptor which is capable of destroying incoming enemy missiles of more than 2,000 km range and the Agni-I with a 700 km range. Agni-I and AAD interceptor will be launched from LC-IV in the Abdul Kalam Island in full operational configuration on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iranian Navy due to stage drills in Indian Ocean IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Nov 21, IRNA -- Iranian Navy is scheduled to stage drills in Indian Ocean in the next three months, Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said on Monday. He made the remarks in a press conference. Elaborating on performance of Iranian Navy, Sayyari said that the Navy carried out intensive campaign against sea piracy by dispatching 44 fleets to high seas. Iran has also sent five friendship fleets to other countries, the commander said. Underlining the need for Iran's strong presence in the Gulf of Aden to establish sustainable security in the region, Sayyari said that Iranian warships have escorted some 3,844 oil tankers and merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden so far so as to prevent any maybe damage to the country's economy. 9341**1416 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address FM spokesman: Iran patiently monitoring US developments IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Nov 21, IRNA -- Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said Iran was patiently monitoring developments in the United States after the presidential elcetion. Making the remark during his press briefing on Monday, he also commented on the plan proposed by the UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura saying it was a temporary and stern one. He said none of these plans have bore fruits in Syrian practical political arena. Noting that many actors are operating in the Syrian political scene now, the diplomat said that the disintegration plan of Syria has many frank opponents and could not take place that easily, so it is still soon to focus on it as a serious plan. Asked to comment on the ban on sale of passenger planes to Iran by the US Congress, he said quite a number of similar decisions have been proposed or adopted by the Congress in the past one year with none them enjoying any executive guarantees. Qasemi said it will take a long time for the plan to get Senate approval and then the US president's endorsement, so Iran will be patient to see the result. Iran will certainly take appropriate measures then if sees the plan as opposing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or its national interests, he added. Referring to certain remarks by the advisors of the US president-elect on the need for re-negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran, he said many topics raised in different areas during the presidential campaign were not confined only to the JCPOA and focused on issues in the Arab world, the NATO and many other contradictory ones as well. So, he said, it was too soon to judge the matter. He said the important thing is that the president-elect Donald Trump gradually realizes that he has to abide by laws. He said he thought the American society was wise enough not to endanger its national and international interests because of certain remarks. Anyway, the spokesman stressed, Iran is fully ready to deal with any situation and will take necessary measures according to the situation anytime it feels the Americans are going to take new measures in this regard. He went on to explain that the JCPOA is not a bilateral agreement but a multilateral one which has been endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, so it could not be easy for any of the partners of the deal to cancel it or seek to revise it. The foreign ministry spokesman underlined that he could not offer any comprehensive points yet, noting that Iran will stay patient and monitor the US developments and then make the right decisions according to the new situation created by Trump and his team. 1424**1771 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran Navy fleet enters Atlantic Ocean for first time Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 1:54PM Iran's Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari says an Iranian naval fleet has entered the Atlantic Ocean for the first time after a port call in South Africa. "For the first time, the 44th flotilla of the Iranian Navy, consisting of the Alvand destroyer and the Bushehr [logistic vessel], succeeded in circling the African continent and have sailed into the Atlantic Ocean," Sayyari said at a press conference in Tehran on Monday. He added that the two vessels are now docked at South Africa's Port of Durban. The dispatch of the 44th flotilla to the high seas shows the naval forces' might and strength, he said and added that the Iranian Navy has also sent five other fleets carrying the message of peace and friendship to other countries. The 44th fleet embarked on a voyage for the high seas on October 5 to safeguard maritime routes used by the country's vessels and oil tankers against pirates. It first crossed the Gulf of Aden and then docked at Tanzanian port city of Dar es Salaam on October 29 and remained there for three days. It later sailed through Mozambique's maritime border. The flotilla successfully saved two Iranian ships from three pirate attacks on October 17 in the Gulf of Aden. Elsewhere in the presser, Sayyari said the Iranian naval forces plan to hold massive drills, dubbed Velayat, in the Indian Ocean sometime in the Iranian calendar month of Bahman (January 20, 2017 to February 18). The top commander added that the naval forces would also stage a specialized drill of submarines in the coming days and noted that Iran's Navy has held 15 maneuvers since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20). He said Iranian naval fleets have traveled to India, Pakistan, Oman, Tanzania, Azerbaijan and South Africa since March 20 and further plan to go to Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and the Indian Ocean countries as well as Southeast Asia. Sayyari further said the Iranian Navy has managed to escort 3,844 Iranian merchant ships and oil tankers in the Gulf of Aden and emphasized that the naval forces would continue with their presence in the strategic area with the purpose of establishing lasting security. "Today, we do not need others to supply our required equipment, weapons and ammunition and are meeting our needs ourselves," the commander added. Sayyari said Iranian destroyers have been equipped with surface-to-surface missiles with high ranges. In recent years, Iran's Navy has increased its presence in international waters to protect naval routes and provide security for merchant vessels and tankers. In line with international efforts against piracy, the Iranian Navy has been conducting patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008, safeguarding merchant containers and oil tankers owned or leased by Iran or other countries. Iran's Navy has managed to foil several attacks on both Iranian and foreign tankers during its missions in international waters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraqi Forces Liberate Abbasiya Village Northeast of Mosul From Daesh Sputnik News 20:41 21.11.2016(updated 20:42 21.11.2016) The Iraqi forces have completely liberated the Abbasiya village located to the northeast of the city of Mosul from Daesh terrorist group, media reported Monday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Earlier in the day, an Iraqi army spokesman announced that the village of Humeira to the east of Mosul city had been completely liberated from Daesh terrorists and the Iraqi flags have been raised on the rooftops of buildings in the village. "Troops from the 16th brigade of the Iraqi army backed by the Nineveh guards have been able to liberate the village of Abbasiya in the waterfalls region located to the northeast of Mosul, and they are getting ready to storm in the city from a new axis," AlNoor News network reported citing a security source. Mosul has been occupied by Daesh terrorist group since 2014. The operation to retake the city from the terrorists began on October 17. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Japanese Troops, Armed With New Mandate, Arrive in South Sudan By VOA News November 21, 2016 A contingent of Japanese troops arrived in South Sudan on Monday to join U.N. peacekeepers a mission with an expanded role that critics fear could embroil them in their country's first overseas fighting since World War II. The newly arrived soldiers will help build infrastructure in the landlocked and impoverished country torn apart by years of civil war. But, under new powers granted by the Japanese government last year, the troops will be allowed to respond to urgent calls for help from U.N. staff and aid workers. There are also plans to let them guard U.N. bases, which have been attacked during the fighting. The 350 soldiers are taking over from a previous contingent of Japanese peacekeepers who served in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, but were not authorized to use force. Tsuyoshi Higuchi, a Japanese military information official, told Reuters that 67 troops arrived Monday morning. Another 63 are expected to land in the afternoon. The last of the 350 troops are scheduled to arrive December 15. Japan policy The new mandate is in line with security legislation enacted last year to expand the overseas role of Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF), as the military is known. Critics said the move violates the country's anti-war constitution and could embroil Japan in overseas conflict. South Sudan has been mired in violence since clashes erupted in December 2013 between supporters of President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar. Fighting largely along ethnic lines has caused the economy to sink, killed tens of thousands of people, displaced more than 2 million, and created a dire humanitarian situation, with nearly 5 million believed to be severely food insecure. Machar returned to Juba this year after the sides reached a peace deal, but fresh fighting erupted outside the presidential palace on July 8 while Machar was inside. Some information in this report was provided by Reuters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Car bombing kills four in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 3:48PM A car bomb attack near a hospital in Libya's second city of Benghazi has claimed the lives of at least four people and wounded more than a dozen others, medical and security sources say. The attack took place in front of the coastal city's al-Jalaa hospital on Monday. Medical sources said at least 13 people were also injured in the fatal incident. The death toll could rise as some of the injured are said to be in a critical condition. Meanwhile, Mohamed al-Jali, an officer in Libya's special forces, said it was not immediately clear if the attack was carried out by a bomber. Some reports indicate that the explosion was caused by a bomb that had been planted in the car. Benghazi has been the scene of daily clashes for the past two years between armed forces of Marshal Khalifa Haftar and militants holding onto pockets of the city. Haftar and a faction of loyalist army personnel have taken it upon themselves to fight extremist militants in Benghazi. The renegade general used to be an ally of Libya's long-time dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. He, however, joined the Libyan revolution against Gaddafi in 2011. Libya has been dominated by violence since a NATO military intervention followed the 2011 uprising that led to the overthrow and death of Gaddafi. Rival governments were set up in Tripoli and eastern Libya back in 2014. Last December, however, the two administrations agreed on forming the Government of National Accord (GNA) after months of UN-brokered talks. The presidential council of the GNA arrived in Tripoli in March in a bid to restore order to the oil-rich North African country. Haftar has refused to profess allegiance to the internationally-recognized GNA and his forces have been fighting militants in Benghazi since 2014. The opponents of Haftar say he is essentially involved in a struggle for power and is undermining the country. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Military conflicts break out in northern Myanmar amid gov't peace efforts People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 11:12, November 21, 2016 YANGON, Nov. 21 -- Military conflicts broke out in the border area of northern Myanmar's Shan state early on Sunday morning with an alliance of three ethnic armed groups launching simultaneous and surprise attacks on government's military outposts and police stations in Muse and Kutkai townships as well as a border trade center there. According to a release of the Information Committee of the State Counselor's Office late in the day, a total of eight people including one soldier, three policemen, one militia and three civilians have lost their lives. In addition, A total of 29 people have been injured in the conflicts including nine policemen, two customs officers and 18 civilians. The government forces are now in hot pursuit of the attackers who have retreated after the government troops returned fire. The three armed groups, namely the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Kokang's Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), are among the non-signatories to the Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA). The heavy clashes happened amid the government's peace process to bring the non-ceasefire signatories to join the signing and pave the way for a national-level political dialogue scheduled late this month. The over 800-strong forces of the armed groups in alliance began the coordinated assault in divided forces on Sunday at 2:00 a.m. local time with small and heavy weapons which lasted for several hours. Their attacks targeted government military outposts and police stations in areas of Muse, Kutkai, Monekoe, Kyukoke, Phangsai, Pangsang, Manken and Kyinsankyawk (Honang). The Nangpau bridge and the 105th- Mile border trade zone, southeast of Muse, were also under attack. Sumlon bridge on Lashio-Muse road and Nangpau bridge were blown up and three shops near Nangpau bridge were also burned down. Namtu bridge was also damaged due to explosion. As the military conflicts took place on China-Myanmar border area, the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar issued a statement Sunday night, expressing grave concern over the outbreaking of the military conflicts in northern Myanmar and urging all parties in the conflicts to exercise restraint by taking concrete and effective measures for an immediate ceasefire so as to resume peace in the China-Myanmar border area as soon as possible. The embassy statement reminded the Chinese citizens in Myanmar to watch out for their own safety by avoiding going to those conflict areas. To flee the military conflicts, some Myanmar inhabitants in the border area have fled to the Chinese territory and for humanitarian considerations, the local Chinese government has taken in those who have crossed the border and sent the injured ones to hospitals for medical treatment, according to the statement. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Myanmar wrecked 1,250 Rohingya homes during 6-week lockdown: HRW Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 8:33AM Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the government in Myanmar has destroyed as many as 1,250 residential structures belonging to minority Rohingya Muslims in the country just over the past 6 weeks. The US-based rights body made the announcement in a statement on Monday, adducing high-definition satellite images from the western state of Rakhine. "These alarming new satellite images confirm that the destruction in Rohingya villages is far greater and in more places than the government has admitted," said Brad Adams, the group's Asia director. Last week, government spokesman Zaw Htay criticized international media and the HRW for what he called their exaggeration of the damage after the body released an initial set of satellite imagery showing that the military had destroyed 430 buildings in three villages. The 1.1 million-strong Rohingya community, which the government brands as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, has been suffering widely-reported systematic aggression for years on end. The violence has been interpreted as an attempt to force them out of the country's demographic configuration. Government-allied Buddhist extremists have been waging communal violence in Rakhine, where the Rohingyas are concentrated, since 2012. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands forced from their homes as a result. In addition, the state has been under a military lockdown that came with a "counterinsurgency" push since an alleged attack on the country's border guards on October 9. Nine police officers were killed in that attack, which the government blamed on armed Rohingyas. Referring to the plight of the Rohingya Muslims, Adams, the HRW official, said, "After six weeks of violence with virtually no aid reaching tens of thousands of highly vulnerable people, the government needs to act decisively to assist them." "A government with nothing to hide should have no problem granting access to journalists and human rights investigators," he, said, urging an impartial investigation by the United Nations (UN) into the brutality perpetrated against the Muslims in Myanmar. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Lockheed Martin Awarded $1.2 billion to Modernize Republic of Korea F-16s FORT WORTH, Texas, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) was awarded a $1.2 billion contract to upgrade 134 F-16 aircraft for the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF). The upgrades are based on the advanced F-16V configuration. Among the enhancements are an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, a modern commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)-based avionics subsystem, a large-format, high-resolution center pedestal display and a high-volume and high-speed data bus. "We truly appreciate the trust and confidence the Republic of Korea has placed in us with this contract," said Susan Ouzts, vice president of Lockheed Martin's F-16 program. "These upgrades are a critical piece of South Korea's national defense and highlight Lockheed Martin's commitment to the full lifecycle of the F-16, from production to through-life sustainment." The contract for the ROKAF upgrade is a foreign military sales contract issued by the U.S. Air Force. As Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and design authority of the F-16, Lockheed Martin is uniquely qualified to design, engineer, develop, integrate and sustain a complete F-16 weapons system solution tailored to customer requirements. The F-16 Fighting Falcon is the world's most successful, combat-proven multi-role fighter with more than 4,570 F-16s delivered. The F-16 currently serves as the workhorse of the fighter fleet for 25 nations around the world. For additional information, visit our website: lockheedmartin.com/f16 About Lockheed Martin Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 98,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address South Korea opposition parties want president's impeachment Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 10:6AM South Korean opposition parties are seeking the impeachment of President Park Guen-hye, who is embroiled in a snowballing corruption scandal. The main opposition Democratic Party said Monday that it will look into the conditions for the impeachment, adding that such proceedings need "perfect preparations." "We will immediately review the timing and methods of impeachment and set up a subcommittee to review a push for impeachment," said Choo Mi-Ae, head of the liberal party which holds 121 parliamentary seats. Two smaller opposition parties as well as lawmakers in Park's conservative Saenuri (New Frontier) Party have also vowed to support her impeachment. The three opposition parties hold a combined 55 percent of seats in the single-chamber 300-member parliament -- short of the two thirds majority required to pass an impeachment bill. This comes a day after South Korean prosecutors accused Park of complicity in an influence-peddling scandal. Park's close friend Choi Soon-sil and former presidential aide An Chong-bum have been charged with abuse of power by coercing companies to contribute funds to foundations at the center of the scandal. A lawyer for President Park said later on Sunday that the accusation that she had a central role in the scandal was "imagination." Lawyer Yoo Yeong-ha also said in a statement that Park will not make herself available for questioning by prosecutors, a promise she had formerly made in an attempt to assuage public anger. The corruption scandal has sparked mass rallies in the capital, Seoul, and elsewhere in the country, with protesters demanding the president's resignation over the scandal. Park, who's five-year term ends in February 2018, has resisted calls to resign, but has apologized twice, saying she only sought to benefit the economy not herself, but acknowledges carelessness in her ties with Choi. Observers say Park is likely to do all she can to serve out her time because a sitting president cannot be charged with a criminal offence except insurrection or treason. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address South Korean Air Force Fighters Set for Major Modernization Upgrades Sputnik News 22:04 21.11.2016(updated 01:09 22.11.2016) The Republic of Korea Air Force's 134 F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft will receive extensive upgrades thanks to a $1.2-billion contract awarded to Lockheed Martin. A high-speed, high-volume data bus, a new avionics subsystem, a high-resolution, large-format center display and an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar are among the improvements for the multi-role fighter, which boasts fleets at 25 militaries worldwide. The US Air Force issued the foreign-military sales contract for the ROKAF enhancements to US manufacturer Lockheed Martin, originally awarding the contract to British manufacturer BAE systems in July 2015. Rising costs prompted Seoul to cancel its deal deal with the UK-based company, resulting in BAE laying off 190 workers after development activities at Fort Worth's Alliance Airport ended. BAE expressed regret over Seoul's decision in a statement at the time saying, "we could have performed the remaining work on the program in an efficient and cost-effective manner,"and that "BAE Systems was selected by the Republic of Korea in 2012 after a full and open competition, where our solution was deemed the best, most flexible and cost-effective to meet the Republic of Korea's F-16 upgrade needs." In a statement, Susan Ouzts, vice president of Lockheed's F-16 program, commented, "We truly appreciate the trust and confidence the Republic of Korea has placed in us with this contract.These upgrades are a critical piece of South Korea's national defense and highlight Lockheed Martin's commitment to the full lifecycle of the F-16, from production to through-life sustainment." Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia to deploy S-400 air missile system, Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 12:32PM Moscow says it will deploy its S-400 air missile defense system along with Iskander ballistic missile in Russia's westernmost region of Kaliningrad, near the border with the Baltic countries of Lithuania and Poland and NATO member states. "Russia sees the deployment of its missiles near the western border as a response to Washington setting up a US missile shield in Europe," Russia's RIA news agency quoted Viktor Ozerov, the head of the defense committee in the Russian upper house of parliament, as saying on Monday. The S-400 missile system is Russia's most modern air defense system. It can track some 300 targets and shoot down around three dozen simultaneously over a range of several hundred kilometers. Kaliningrad is sandwiched between Lithuania from the north and east and Poland from the south. The Baltic Sea is on the region's west. Russia has deployed the systems to the region more than once. Poland and Lithuania have expressed concern about the move. Russia to respond to NATO expansion Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Moscow would take countermeasures in response to NATO expansion. "Why are we reacting to NATO expansion so emotionally? We are concerned by NATO's decision making," Putin said in an interview to be broadcast on Russian TV later on Monday. Russia and NATO have been at odds over an array of issues, including the crisis in eastern Ukraine. The US-led military alliance has been deploying troops and equipment close to Russia's borders since it suspended all ties with Moscow in April 2014. NATO suspended ties with Moscow after the Crimean peninsula integrated into the Russian Federation following a referendum in March 2014. The United States and its European allies accuse Moscow of having a hand in the conflict in eastern Ukraine and have imposed a number of sanctions against Russian and pro-Russia figures. Moscow, however, rejects the allegation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Actively Developing Arctic Projects - Minister Sputnik News 11:05 21.11.2016(updated 12:47 21.11.2016) Russian Arctic shelf is still one of the key priorities for Russian Federation, a report authored by Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Sergei Donskoi stated Monday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Oil reserves under categories ABC1+C2 in the Russian Arctic shelf amount to 585 million metric tonnes this year, a report authored by Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Sergei Donskoi stated Monday. "As of January 1, recoverable category ABC1+C2 oil reserves in the Arctic shelf amount to 585 million tonnes, category ABC1+C2 free gas reserves total 10.489 billion cubic meters," the report prepared for the Arctic Days in Moscow forum reads. Moreover, current strategic priorities for Russia's exploration of the Arctic region include developing transport infrastructure and mineral potential, Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Sergei Donskoi also added. "The strategic priority is mastering the development of transport infrastructure in the regions of the Arctic shelf and its coast exploration," Donskoi said during the Federal Arctic Forum "Arctic Days in Moscow." He added that one of the main tasks for Russia was developing mineral potential of the Arctic region. With about a third of its territory located north of the Arctic circle, Russia is an active member of the research and development projects in the region and a member of the Arctic Council along with the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The geological exploration in the Arctic region remains uneven, with unexplored hydrocarbon potential standing at 91 percent on the shelf and 53 percent onshore, Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Sergei Donskoi said Monday. "Geological exploration coverage of the Arctic shelf remains mostly low and uneven Unexplored hydrocarbon potential of the Arctic region stands at 91 percent on the shelf and 53 percent onshore," Donskoi said. Southern areas of the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea have been studied relatively well, while north areas of the aforementioned seas and eastern Arctic seas, such as the Laptev Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea have not been explored properly, according to the minister. However, in recent years, the geological study of the Arctic region has significantly increased, Donskoi added. With about a third of its territory located north of the Arctic circle, Russia is an active member of the research and development projects in the region and a member of the Arctic Council along with the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Concerning businesses in Russia related to Arctic region, they are actively working on projects launched by the Russian government in the Arctic region in spite of the difficulties with the state budget, Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Sergei Donskoi said Monday. "Those projects that have been started, they are being actively developed now. The fact that we, government officials, are stating that there are fewer possibilities with the budget to carry out major projects in the Arctic, it is objectively the truth. But businesses are continuing these projects," Donskoi told reporters on the sidelines of the Arctic Days in Moscow forum. The Russian government has been looking for opportunities to help Russian companies, such as LUKoil and Rosneft, not financially but with the removal of administrative barriers and concentrating efforts on building infrastructure in the Arctic region, which will enable to kick-start numerous other new projects there, Donskoi added. Unlike Russia, the United States excluded plans for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic region starting 2017 due to high exploration costs and low projected oil prices, the US Interior Department stated on Friday. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Putin: Russia Will Take 'Countermeasures' to NATO Expansion By VOA News November 21, 2016 President Vladimir Putin says Russia will take steps to counter NATO's expansion to nations on its borders. In remarks made as part of a documentary film produced by American filmmaker Oliver Stone, to be aired Monday night by Russia's REN-TV, Putin suggested Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine was motivated by fear over the fate of Sevastopol, where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based. Putin said the appearance of U.S. and NATO forces in Sevastopol would have been "very serious." He added, apparently referring to the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO: "When a country becomes a member of NATO, it is already very difficult to resist the pressure from such a large country as the United States, the leader of NATO." 'I don't always understand' After a country joins NATO, Putin said, "anything" can appear there, including a missile defense system, new bases and a new missile strike system. "And what should we do? We should in this connection take countermeasures. That is, place under the threat of our missile systems those facilities which, in our opinion, begin to threaten us," he said. "I don't always understand the logic of our partners," Putin added. "Sometimes it seems that they need to hold in submission, and establish discipline over, their own Western, so-called Atlantic camp. This requires an external enemy. Despite all the apprehensions, Iran does not amount to that." Missiles reportedly deployed Meanwhile, the Interfax news agency reported Monday that Russia's military has deployed state-of-the-art Bastion mobile defense missiles in Kaliningrad, located on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania. Also Monday, Viktor Ozerov, the head of the defense committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia's parliament, said Iskander ballistic missiles and S-400 air defense missiles will be deployed in Kaliningrad, which is Russia's westernmost territory. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Militants can't hold ground against Syrian forces for a long time: Obama Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 10:15AM US President Barack Obama has said "moderate" militants fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cannot hold their ground for a long period of time. Speaking at a summit of Pacific leaders in Lima, Peru, on Sunday, Obama predicted that Syria's second city, Aleppo, was going to fall to Syrian forces supported by Damascus' allies, Russia and Iran. "Once Russia and Iran made a decision to back Assad in a brutal air campaign... it was very hard to see a way in which even a trained and committed moderate opposition could hold its ground for long periods of time," he said. Obama, whose country is funding and training anti-Syrian militants, also said he is "not optimistic" about the Arab country's future. "I am not optimistic about the short-term prospects in Syria." Since March 2011, the United States and its regional allies, in particular Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, have been conducting a proxy war against Syria. US officials often describe the militants fighting against the Syrian government and people as "moderate opposition" forces. The years-long conflict has left more than 470,000 Syrians dead and half of the country's population of about 23 million displaced within or beyond the Arab country's borders. In September 2014, the US and some of its allies started conducting airstrikes inside Syria against Daesh terrorists. However, observers say the attacks did little damage to the terrorists; rather, they targeted the country's infrastructure. In September of last year, Russia launched its own air offensive against the terrorists who were still wreaking havoc in Syria. The Russian campaign, analysts say, has broken the backbone of Daesh (ISIL) and other militants, and has strengthened the Assad government's fight against terrorism. In recent months, the Syrian army, backed by the Russian air power, has been making major gains against Takfiri terrorist groups, recapturing several strategic areas from their grip, particularly in the strategic northern province of Aleppo. On Sunday, Obama held a brief meeting with his Russian President Vladimir Putin at the start of the APEC summit in Lima to talk about the situation in Syria and Ukraine. Obama later said at a news conference in the Peruvian capital he told the Russian leader that Washington is very concerned about bloodshed in Syria caused by "constant bombing attacks," and that a ceasefire was required. "As usual I was candid and courteous but very clear about the strong differences we have on policy," Obama said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Deems Realistic New Humanitarian Pause in Aleppo Next Week Sputnik News 21:16 21.11.2016(updated 21:26 21.11.2016) The United nations considers the prospect of another humanitarian pause in Syria's Aleppo next week realistic, Senior Adviser to UN Special Envoy for Syria Jan Egeland told Sputnik. He added that he hopes for cooperation with Russia in Syria in the future. GENEVA (Sputnik) According to him, as soon as the UN receives consent for a new humanitarian pause in Aleppo from all parties, humanitarian organizations will need three days to prepare the operation. "It could be next week Next week is realistic," Egeland said, answering the question when the next humanitarian pause could start in Aleppo. "And we are still waiting now, today for Russian and Syrian government green light for humanitarian plan for East Aleppo, " he stated, adding that the armed opposition groups have already given the general approval to UN humanitarian plan. UN expects to receive consent from Russia and Syria on a humanitarian pause in Aleppo by November 24, the consent of the armed opposition has already been received, Egeland told Sputnik. "We are eagerly awaiting an answer back from Moscow and Damascus and we hope to have it at the latest in ISSG [International Syria Support Group task groups] meeting on Thursday." "I look forward to good cooperation with Russia. I've been able to work well with Russia in the past and I look forward to working with Russia in the future," Egeland said. The UN official added that the UN was waiting for Russia's "green light" for the humanitarian operation in East Aleppo. Egeland said that the UN has already received consent for humanitarian operations in eastern Aleppo by armed opposition groups in the area, but the number of people in need of evacuation needs to be re-assessed. "They have now given the general approval to the UN plan in its entirety, including evacuations. And we have to identify once again the number of people to evacuate. Previously it was between 200 and 300. How many it will be this time I do not yet know. We have to have an assessment," he added. According to him, the UN has discussed, in particular ceasing attacks on hospitals in the east and in the west of Aleppo, as well as the delivery of medicine and allowing "medical personnel to fill the gaps in hospitals." Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Raqqa Offensive: Syrian Democratic Forces Coming Closer to Daesh 'Capital' Sputnik News 17:58 21.11.2016(updated 20:01 21.11.2016) An area of some 570 square kilometers has been liberated from jihadists by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) during the Euphrates Rage military operation, sources in the SDF told Sputnik Turkiye. Operation Euphrates Rage is aimed at liberating the Syrian city of Raqqa and was launched on November 5. SDF bomb specialists have defused 1,250 mines and other explosives planted in the area. It was also reported that SDF fighters are currently 24 kilometers from Raqqa. Terrorists are proving heavy resistance to the SDF. During the clashes for the village of El Sukeri, United States-coalition aircraft bombed Daesh positions and explosives-rigged vehicles. One of the SDF commanders Serdar Heci told Sputnik Turkiye that earlier SDF fighters had taken control over the strategically important town of Tilsemer, 17 km from Raqqa. "By taking control over Tilsemer, our forces delivered another heavy blow to Daesh," Heci said. "Bomb units of the SDF are currently working in the area to find and defuse numerous mines and traps planted by Daesh," he added. Last week, the SDF council reported that the SDF was going to kick-off the second stage of their offensive on Raqqa. "The first stage has been recently completed as the troops managed to achieve its goal to establish the Syrian Democratic Forces' control over the area between the Suluk and Eyn Issa villages. In the near future the second stage will start. Raqqa will be liberated, which will be a fatal blow to jihadists," senior member of the SDF council Rezzan Hido told Sputnik. He added that the second stage would include encircling Raqqa, while the assault would take place at the third stage. Raqqa, the de-facto capital of the Daesh caliphate spanning across Syria and Iraq, has been under Daesh control since 2013. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Key Militant Outpost Near Damascus Surrenders to Syrian Army Sputnik News 14:15 21.11.2016 Militants surrounded by the Syrian army southwest of Damascus have surrendered to the government, Syrian media reported Monday. DAMASCUS (Sputnik) The terms of the surrender require Jabhat Fatah al Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front) militants to leave their positions in Khan al-Shih and give up their weapons, the Al Watan newspaper said. The area has been surrounded by the government forces since the beginning of October. Since then, militants several times attempted to break though the encirclement from different directions. They attacked with heavy artillery attacks on the Syrian army. However, none of the militants have managed to escape. Last week, Syrian servicemen found underground tunnels in Khan al-Shi, the length of which was some 700 meters. They were used by al-Nusra Front terrorists to transport weapons and ammunition for attacks in Damascus suburbs. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syria Health Services 'Devastated' by Conflict By Margaret Besheer November 21, 2016 Top United Nations aid officials warned Monday that health care services in Syria have been devastated by bombings and the nearly six-year-old conflict. "Over half the country's public hospitals and primary health care centers are either closed or only partially functioning," the World Health Organization's representative in Syria, Elizabeth Hoff, told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council via a video link from Damascus. "Almost two-thirds of all health professionals have left the country; domestic production of medicines has dropped by two-thirds and vaccination coverage rates have dropped by half," she said. Hospitals, clinics are targets The result is that many Syrians are dying of preventable diseases, not just war injuries. Hospitals and clinics have also become a prime target of government and Russian warplanes. Hoff said that in the first nine months of this year, there were 126 such attacks. Just this month, 11 hospitals were attacked in Aleppo, Idlib and Hama governorates some more than once. "Many patients are simply too afraid to travel to hospitals or clinics because they fear attacks, detention or abuse," Hoff reported. "As of yesterday, there are barely any functional hospitals left in eastern Aleppo able to treat those who have escaped death, as all the hospitals are being bombed into oblivion," U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien said. Since July, eastern Aleppo has been the focal point of a massive military air offensive by the Assad regime backed by Russia. After a few weeks of relative calm, intensive bombing began again last Tuesday. "Let me be clear," an angry O'Brien told the council. "This is not business as usual. What has been unleashed on civilians this past week is yet another low in an unrelenting inhuman onslaught." Food stocks are gone Some 275,000 civilians are under siege by government forces in opposition-held eastern Aleppo. On November 13, the last food stocks that the World Food Program had in that part of the city ran out. The government has not allowed aid workers into the east of the city since July. Medical supplies are also dangerously low. O'Brien said residents there will soon face a "harsh winter without heating or the bare essentials for life." They are not the only ones who will be suffering. O'Brien said the number of Syrians living in "besieged" parts of the country have nearly doubled over the past six months from 486,700 to nearly one million. Accountability "Russia and the Assad regime's merciless attacks must end," U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told the council. "And those behind such attacks must know that we and the international community are watching their actions, documenting their abuses, and one day they will be held accountable." She proceeded to name five Syrian commanders who she says Washington believes have been involved in military assaults on cities, residential areas and civilian infrastructure that could amount to war crimes. "Now I know right now, today, with wind at their backs, these individuals feel impunity," Power said. "So, though, did Slobodan Milosevic, Charles Taylor, and countless war criminals before them. Today's atrocities are well-documented, and the civilized world's memories are long." The American envoy also read out the identifying numbers of four Syrian military intelligence branches, an Air Force intelligence investigation branch, Sednaya prison, and the Tishreen and Harasta military hospitals, where she said torture has taken place and continues to take place. She said the international community would be watching the officers who command those locations as well, and that they would also "one day be held accountable." Russian skepticism Russia's envoy, Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov, questioned the veracity of U.N. data on numbers of besieged Syrians. "The purpose of such mathematical contortions is obvious. It is trying to present the government of Syria as the main party responsible for the suffering," Safronkov said. "If this is the case, it's an unacceptable approach." He said it is not clear how the U.N. makes its calculations, as fighters do not allow the U.N. on their territory. He also criticized the U.N. for under-reporting the number of Syrians in government-controlled areas who are in need of humanitarian assistance. Regarding attacks on eastern Aleppo, Safronkov said that since October 18, Russian war planes have not conducted airstrikes over Aleppo or within 10 kilometers around it. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syrian, Russian Forces Pound Eastern Aleppo for 7th Straight Day By VOA News November 21, 2016 Monitors say Syrian forces backed by Russian air power pounded targets in the eastern sector of Aleppo on Monday, a day after Syrian and Russian troops and allied Shiite Hezbollah militants advanced into a key northeastern Aleppo neighborhood held by rebels for the past four years. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors and reports on the country's nearly six-year civil war, said it had confirmed the deaths of 15 civilians in five eastern neighborhoods and said it expected the death toll to rise. "If they take control of Masakan Hanano, the [government] regime will have line of fire control over several rebel-held neighborhoods and will be able to cut off the northern parts of rebel-held Aleppo from the rest of the opposition-held districts," Observatory Director Rami Abdel Rahman told the French news agency. U.N. diplomats rip deadly strategy At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said monitors had confirmed the deaths of 289 people in eastern Aleppo in the past seven days, and said one Syrian volunteer had reported 180 airstrikes on Saturday alone. "The reality is that the regime [of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] and Russia are continuing their 'starve, get bombed or surrender' strategy in eastern Aleppo," she said. Power also scoffed at a two-week Russian bombing lull touted by Moscow earlier this month, calling it a "unilateral" exercise in which the Kremlin failed to coordinate with U.N. relief workers or other organizations trying to get emergency aid to Aleppo's war-ravaged civilians. In a separate critique, U.N. special envoy Stephen O'Brien told the U.N. Security Council that Syrian-Russian airstrikes on civilian infrastructure, "most notably hospitals and schools, have become so commonplace it takes your breath away." He went on to label the attacks as "violations of humanitarian law," while noting that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly described the bombings as war crimes. State Department pushes talks In Washington, the State Department said "multilateral discussions continue in Geneva to try to get at a cessation of hostilities" that can allow humanitarian aid to get in. While expressing concerns that Russia has "permitted even more violence and even more atrocity" in Aleppo, Washington is engaging diplomatically with Moscow because of "a very keen sense of urgency." But "there's no naive or innocent belief in the goodness of Russian intentions," said State Department spokesperson John Kirby on Monday. Divergent views of crisis Moscow and Damascus have routinely described the fight against rebels in eastern Aleppo as a battle against terrorists, despite the sector's vast civilian population trapped in the city and described by witnesses as largely too fearful to flee. Both governments have used that characterization to justify the deadly and apparently indiscriminate bombings in eastern Aleppo. Western governments and the United Nations have framed the Aleppo onslaught as a vast humanitarian crisis, with diplomats and human rights organizations arguing that both Damascus and Moscow could face future war crimes inquiries for their roles in the destruction of eastern Aleppo. VOA's Nike Ching from the State Department contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Tsai feels Trump will maintain U.S. security commitment to Taiwan ROC Central News Agency 2016/11/21 19:38:11 Taipei, Nov. 21 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen () said Monday that she believes the United States' new government will continue to carry out its security commitment to Taiwan and that the two nations will continue to work closely together in several areas. Speaking to a group of visiting U.S. congressmen, Tsai expressed her belief that the new American government and Congress elected on Nov. 8 will stick to the U.S.'s past commitments based on the Taiwan Relations Act and the "Six Assurances." She also felt that the U.S. will continue to maintain close security, economic and cultural interactions with Taiwan and repeated Taiwan's pledge to make economic and safety contributions in the Asia-Pacific region. "Taiwan may be in a difficult situation in the international community, but it will do its utmost to make concrete contributions to the world," Tsai told the visiting delegation, led by Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas. The Taiwan Relations Act was enacted in 1979 to maintain commercial, cultural and other unofficial relations between the U.S. and Taiwan after Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The "Six Assurances" were given in 1982 under the administration of late U.S. President Ronald Reagan. They include the U.S. pledges not to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan, not to hold prior consultations with China on arms sales to Taiwan, and not to play any mediation role between Taipei and Beijing. The assurances also refer to the pledges not to revise the Taiwan Relations Act, not to alter the U.S. position regarding Taiwan's sovereignty, and not to exert pressure on Taiwan to enter into negotiations with China. Taiwan, which faces a military threat from China, has been concerned about the U.S.'s stance toward cross-Taiwan Strait affairs since billionaire Donald Trump won the presidential election on Nov. 8. Tsai's predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou (), who was in office from 2008 to 2016, also said he was not concerned that the Trump administration will change the U.S.'s Taiwan policy that has been followed by six U.S. presidents, starting with Jimmy Carter. At an Asian Leadership Forum held at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, Ma said he did not believe Trump would change course. Judging from history, "this is the only way to maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait," Ma said while answering questions at the forum. Ma flew to Chicago on Nov. 18 for the Sunday forum, in which he delivered a speech on Taiwan's new role in Asia and the world. He was invited by the University of Notre Dame's Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies to give the speech. It is Ma's first U.S. trip to the U.S. since the conclusion of his two-term tenure in May. He will return to Taiwan on Nov. 23. (By Lu Hsin-hui, Tony Liao and Elizabeth Hsu) ENDITEM/ls NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Erdogan calls for NATO, EU support against PKK militants Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 3:43PM Turkey has called on NATO member states and the European Union (EU) to increase support for Ankara against militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). In an address to a meeting of the NATO parliamentary assembly on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he expected the support of NATO countries in Turkey's fight against "all terror groups", including members of the PKK, Daesh terrorists, and the plotters of Turkey's failed July 15 coup. Erdogan also warned the 28-member bloc of the consequences they may face over failure to tighten approach towards the PKK militants and other terrorist groups. "Those who have a hesitant attitude against terrorist organizations will be hit themselves sooner or later," he said. Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale anti-PKK campaign in its southern border region over the past few months. The Turkish military has also been pounding the group's positions in northern Iraq as well in breach of the Arab country's sovereignty. A shaky ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK that had stood since 2013 was declared null and void by the militants following the Turkish strikes against the group. Erdogan's call for more support in the fight against terrorists comes as Turkey, which is a NATO member, stands accused of supporting the militants wrecking havoc in Syria. Turkey's coup plotters should be prosecuted under rule of law During the Monday meeting, Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO, emphasized the Western military alliance's "solidarity" with Turkey in the wake of the July 15 coup attempt and said Ankara "has the right" to prosecute those involved in the putsch. Stoltenberg, however, noted that he had told Turkish leaders to take all measures within the rule of law to ensure human rights are protected. The coup in Turkey began when a faction of the military declared it was in control of the country and the government of Erdogan was no more in charge. Tanks, helicopters, and soldiers clashed with police and people on the streets of Ankara and Istanbul. Over 240 people were killed on all sides in the coup attempt. European officials have been increasingly critical of Turkey's crackdown on people suspected of affiliation to US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the Ankara government accuses of having masterminded the July 15 coup attempt. Gulen has, however, censured the coup attempt and roundly rejected any involvement. Some 110,000 people have been sacked or suspended in the civil service, army, judiciary and other institutions while 36,000 people have been jailed pending trial in the investigation of the abortive July 15 putsch. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Erdogan Stresses Turkey's Essential Role in NATO Sputnik News 12:48 21.11.2016 Turkey has been an integral member of NATO since the Cold War, providing political and military support for the alliance, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday. ANKARA (Sputnik) On November 4, US State Department assured that Ankara's membership of NATO is not at risk despite concerns of the alliance's members over the arrests of opposition politicians and restrictions on press freedom after a military coup attempt in Turkey on July 15. "NATO is a platform for security, which unites the countries that are committed to the ideals of democratic values development. Turkey, the second in size of an army in NATO's structure, became an integral part of the alliance during the Cold War. Turkey continues to provide political and military support for NATO's efforts in defense of peace in the world," Erdogan said during the 62nd Parliamentary NATO sessions in Istanbul, broadcast by the NTV Channel. The Turkish president emphasized Ankara's support for the political settlement of the Syrian crisis. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UK Navy losing ability to deal with potential threats: MPs Iran Press TV Mon Nov 21, 2016 9:40AM The Royal Navy has a "woefully low" number of warships, a group of British lawmakers say, warning that the force would soon lose its ability to deal with future threats. The UK Parliament's defense select committee released a scathing report on Monday, calling on the ministry of defense (MoD) to take actions about the "completely unacceptable" shortage of vessels leave the UK vulnerable to threats coming from Russia and the Middle East. "As an island nation, the importance of the Royal Navy to UK defense must not be underestimated," the committee noted. "Our starting point in this report is our conviction that the current number of frigates, destroyers and personnel inadequately reflects the potential threats and vulnerabilities facing the UK and its interests overseas." "What remains of our surface fleet now faces a prolonged period of uncertainty, as the frigate class is replaced in its entirety and all our destroyers undergo urgent, major remedial work on their unreliable engines," the MPs added. Julian Lewis, the committee's chair, said the Royal Navy was struggling to deal with the current threats. Of the UK Navy's 19 frigates and destroyers, 13 are slated to leave the service between 2023 and 2035. The MPs had "serious concerns" about the MoD's plans and timetables to replace the retiring fleet, the report noted. They also blasted the defense ministry for its "extraordinary mistakes" in the design of the Royal Navy's Type 45 destroyers, which were meant to be the country's most advanced warships. The force's fleet of six Type 45 destroyers has proven unable to cope with the Persian Gulf's warm waters, constantly breaking down in the main area of operation they were intended for. "It is astonishing that the specification for the Type 45 did not include the requirement for the ships to operate at full capacity and for sustained periods in hot regions such as the [Persian] Gulf," the committee fumed in its report. The lawmakers said they were considering an expansion plan for the navy which included "building two aircraft carriers, the new Type 26 global combat ship, Dreadnought and Astute class submarines, and offshore patrols vessels." Over the past few months, British officials and military commanders have used every opportunity to call for more funding. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address War of Words Over 'Woefully Inadequate' UK Royal Navy, MPs With 'No Vision' Sputnik News 19:58 21.11.2016(updated 19:59 21.11.2016) Politicians have clashed with defense experts over what has been described as the "woefully inadequate" state of Britain's Royal Navy, which critics say has been desecrated by politicians with "no idea" about strategy and "no vision for the future." A new report by MPs on the UK House of Commons Defense Committee has said the program to replace and modernize its Royal Navy fleet must deliver on time, otherwise the Government will break its "categorical" pledge to maintain at least 19 frigates and destroyers-already a "pathetically low total." It warns that: "The United Kingdom will then lack the maritime strength to deal with the threats we face right now, let alone in the future. We are putting the MoD on notice that it must not let this happen." "For decades, the numbers of Royal Navy escort vessels have been severely in decline. The Fleet is now way below the critical mass required for the many tasks which could confront it, if the international scene continues to deteriorate. What remains of our surface Fleet now faces a prolonged period of uncertainty," said Dr. Julian Lewis, the Defense Committee chairman. However, supporters of the Royal Navy have criticized politicians for short-sightedness in the procurement programs that have led to delays, cost-overruns and in some cases major failures that have led to long-term problems with new equipment. "I don't think politicians have any idea of the concept of strategy or even care about it. They care about the next election and whether they're going to be re-elected into office. They only think about defense matters for the present day, not for the future," former Royal Navy officer, Rear Admiral Chris Parry told the BBC. "I'm afraid, in the area of defense and in particular the Royal Navy there is no real vision or strategy for the future. At the moment, everything is 'contingency' and is based on present day requirements mainly political, rather than military ones," he said. Power Losses A particular program that has come in for severe criticism is the new Type 45 Destroyer program which has seen around 50 design changes between delivery of the first and last of the new ships, despite which many of which "continue to suffer from reliability issues including major power failures," according to the report. The committee concluded that: "The Type 45 has had a long history of significant engine failures. The Ministry of Defense's (MoD's) Power Improvement Plan is designed to rectify these problems and put an end to the reliability issues which continue to limit the availability and dependability of the Type 45. The MoD has assured us that there are sufficient funds available for the refit program. However, it has yet to set a start date." "If we're not careful, we're going to have a navy that can't fight and won't fight in future simply because we'll pick the fights that will be easy ones. Our [aircraft] carriers will go cruising round bullying people we can they won't be able to go in harm's way," Rear Admiral Parry said. "It's not just a question of numbers, it's a question of quality, in terms of our ships, our submarines and our people, who are woefully undermanned at the moment," he added. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UK Parliament Urges Royal Navy to Present Plans on Replacing Aging Frigates Sputnik News 11:06 21.11.2016 Members of the UK parliamentary Defense Committee called on the Royal Navy to provide details on how it would replace its aging frigates between 2023 and 2035, a report issued by the committee on Monday showed. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The specific measures proposed by the report include setting out a definite timeline for delivering new vessels, a comprehensive assessment of the potential to build a new complex warship every two years and criteria, against which the expansion of the UK's share of the export market in warships will be taken into consideration. "The Government's National Shipbuilding Strategy, to be announced shortly, will set out the framework within which these ships [two types of new frigates] will be delivered The National Shipbuilding Strategy must provide industry with the certainty it needs to plan and develop a stable, sustainable and highly skilled workforce. If it is to be more than a statement of aspirations, the Strategy should set out clear, timed production schedules for the delivery of both classes of frigate," the report's summary said. The Royal Navy is going to replace 13 existing Type 23 frigates with eight Type 26 and at least five Type 31 General Purpose frigates in 2023 2035 at the rate of one per year. "For decades, the numbers of Royal Navy escort vessels have been severely in decline. The Fleet is now way below the critical mass required for the many tasks which could confront it, if the international scene continues to deteriorate," Julian Lewis, the Defense Committee's chairman and one of the report's authors, said emphasizing the need for a comprehensive strategy. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address "Woefully low" total of Navy escort vessels could shrink still further 21 November 2016 The Defence Committee Report say that the Ministry of Defence has yet to explain how it will replace its 13 ageing frigatesdue to leave service at the rate of one per year between 2023 and 2035whilst maintaining even the "woefully low" number of operational vessels currently available and the skilled workforce to renew them. Plans to modernise Royal Navy escort fleet The report examines the MoD's plans to modernise the Royal Navy's escort fleet, including the introduction of two new classes of frigatethe Type 26 Global Combat Ship and the Type 31 General Purpose Frigateand the enforced refit of the Type 45 destroyers' engines. It also considers this work in the light of the forthcoming National Shipbuilding Strategy, to be published later this week, and how that should deliver a sustainable shipbuilding industry. The report calls for the National Shipbuilding Strategy to provide the necessary detail on how and when the Royal Navy's new frigates (the Type 26s and the General Purpose Frigates) will be delivered. Without that information, the Strategy can be little more than a collection of aspirations. The building of new ships requires a skilled workforce. Uncertainty over the funding and timing of these programmes undermines the long-term sustainability of the shipbuilding industry. Therefore the Report recommends that the Strategy should set out: a detailed timeline for the delivery of the Type 26 Global Combat Ships and the Type 31 General Purpose Frigates; a comprehensive assessment of the potential to build a new complex warship every two years; the criteria against which the expansion of the UK's share of the export market in warships will be judged; and the numbers of apprenticeships required in each of the key trades and how it will monitor them to ensure there are no longer-term skills gaps. Type 26 frigates The Royal Navy's existing frigatesthe Type 23swill be replaced by eight Type 26 and at least five General Purpose frigates. The first Type 23, HMS Argyll, is due out of service in 2023, followed by the other twelve at annual intervals until HMS St Albans is withdrawn in 2035. It is therefore vital that the new frigates are delivered to that timetable. Financial pressures appear to have played a sizeable part in the delays already experienced in the Type 26 programme. If further delays are introduced or funding constraints are allowed to slow down the production schedule, the current total of 13 frigatesalready an historic lowwill fall even further. The Committee is not yet convinced that the MoD can deliver to this schedule. It therefore recommends that the MoD should set out: a clear timelinewith costings at each stagefor the Type 26 programme; unambiguous statements that the necessary funds are available in this financial year, and for subsequent financial years, together with details of the amounts spent on the programme as it progresses; and an absolute assurance that short-term financial limitations are not storing up for the future, large cost consequences caused by otherwise avoidable delays in the Type 26 construction programme. General Purpose Frigates The Type 31 General Purpose Frigate will complete the Royal Navy's frigate class. It is still in its concept phase but, if successful, the frigate could both provide the Royal Navy with a modern, flexible warship and offer the UK a way back into the highly valuable export market for such vessels. It also has the potential to allow the Royal Navy to grow its escort fleet, after decades of decline from 35 frigates and destroyers in 1998 to just 19 hulls now. The Defence Committee therefore demands to know: how the construction timetable for the General Purpose Frigate will dovetail with that of the Type 26; how the MoD will fund and achieve its aspiration of increasing frigate numbers by the 2030s; and the minimum capabilities required of the General Purpose Frigate and how they will differ from those delivered by the Type 23s which they will replace. Type 45 Destroyers The MoD is being forced to refit the engines of all six Type 45 destroyers following a series of serious engine failures. These resulted from major shortcomings in specification, design and testing for which blame can be attributed both to the MoD and its contractors. The taxpayer will have to foot the bill for this work. The Defence Committee is demanding from the MoD: costings and timetables for the refit across the entire class of six ships; six-monthly progress reports on the programme; assurances that no funds have been transferred to the refit from other commitments, such as the Type 26 programme. Chair's comments Dr Julian Lewis, Defence Committee chairman, said: "For decades, the numbers of Royal Navy escort vessels have been severely in decline. The Fleet is now way below the critical mass required for the many tasks which could confront it, if the international scene continues to deteriorate. What remains of our surface Fleet now faces a prolonged period of uncertainty, as the frigate class is replaced in its entirety and all our destroyers undergo urgent, major remedial work on their unreliable engines. The National Shipbuilding Strategy offers the potential not just to manage this work efficiently and effectively, but also to reverse the trend of ever-decreasing numbers. To do this, however, it has to contain the degree of detail and scheduling for which we have asked. The Ministry of Defence must deliver this programme of modernisation on time. If it fails to do so, the Government will break its categorical pledge to maintain at least 19 frigates and destroyersalready a pathetically low total. The United Kingdom will then lack the maritime strength to deal with the threats we face right now, let alone in the future. We are putting the MoD on notice that it must not let this happen." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine Marks Third Anniversary Of Euromaidan RFE/RL November 21, 2016 Thousands of Ukrainians have marked the Day of Dignity and Freedom, a holiday commemorating the 2013 beginning of the Euromaidan protests that ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych. Government officials, Maidan protest participants, and ordinary citizens are holding ceremonies in Kyiv on November 21, and placed flowers at a monument to the "Heavenly Hundred" -- protesters who were killed in clashes with security forces during the protest. Many rallied on the capital's Independence Square, also known as Maidan, chanting: "revolution, revolution," and denouncing Russian intervention in Ukraine. There was also a series of minor scuffles in the evening as groups of rival demonstrators faced off on the streets and there were brief clashes with security forces. In a speech made earlier in the day, President Petro Poroshenko called on the nation to unite and stand against the Russian "threat," insisting that the former Soviet republic would never revert to its Moscow-dominated past. "The Revolution of Dignity put an end to our Russian-Soviet past and the post-Soviet period," Poroshenko said. "It has separated our Ukrainian and European world from the Russian world." Commemorations were being held in other cities as well. The Euromaidan movement began when protesters gathered in central Kyiv after Yanukovych announced he was postponing plans to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union and would seek closer economic ties with Russia. Three months later, in February 2014, Yanukovych fled to Russia and was removed from office. Russia then illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, and an ensuing war between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists in the country's east has killed at least 9,600 people. With reporting by AFP Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-euromaidan- third-anniversary/28130367.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Poroshenko Calls For Support of Efforts to Unify Pro-European Forces in Ukraine Sputnik News 19:58 21.11.2016 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Monday for unification of Ukraine's democrats, taking pro-European stance, as well as to refrain from turning political struggle into a war without rules. KIEV (Sputnik) Poroshenko said, that he expected to be supported in the struggle for strategic unity of all the pro-European democratic forces in Ukraine. "Criticism should not be turned into destruction or elimination of the foundation for the Ukrainian statehood. Criticizing the president, the Cabinet of Ministers, the Parliament and other institutions, it is necessary to maintain respect [for them] and to support these institutions," Poroshenko said in a speech, delivered on occasion of the third anniversary of Euromaidan. The Ukrainian president stressed that controversies between the government and opposition are inherent in any democracy, but they must not result in a civil war, which may make the state vulnerable to external threats. In 2013-2014, Kiev's central Independence Square, known as Maidan, witnessed months of the pro-European protests sparked by then President Viktor Yanukovych's announcement to reject the UkraineEU Association Agreement over unfavorable terms. In February 2014, violent clashes with law enforcement officials broke out in the square, claiming the lives of some 100 civilians. The protests and the subsequent coup led to military confrontation between Kiev forces and militias in eastern Ukraine. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Alan Burkitt-Gray speaks to Don MacNeil, chief operating officer of GTT, about its company restructuring after coming out of Chapter 11 and its strategic roadmap for the next 12 months. LONDON, Nov. 22, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- XM Group (Trading Point Group), a leading FX and CFD broker, today announced that the company has expanded its operations into the United Kingdom with the launch of its UK entity, XM UK (Trading Point of Financial Instruments UK Limited) located on Ropemaker Street in the City of London. XM UK, authorized and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), offers its clients an even more advanced trading environment adhering to the UKs enhanced regulatory standards. XM has consistently experienced year-on-year growth in its business and, with this important and strategic milestone in XMs corporate history, is set to continue its growth trajectory by extending its global reach even further. The pace of innovation has never been faster and the power of technology to help customers access the financial markets has never been greater. By being present in one of the leading FinTech hubs in the world, XM UK anticipates further effective enhancements to its trading infrastructure and technology as well as new products and services which will enable XM to scale new heights and continually better serve its clients. Pambos Panayiotou, XM UK's CEO, said: "XM was founded on the belief that efficient and professional trading environment should be available to all clients regardless of their net capital worth, the size of their investment, or their account type. Still founder-led today, we have stayed true to our founding imperative without compromising our values or our commitment to clients. At XM, we are on a bold quest to bring quality and speed of execution in trading through our fair, trustworthy and dependable platform. The opening of our London operations will allow us to engage more closely with customers and partners in one of the worlds most important financial centres as we look to continue to grow our market share in the UK and beyond. For more information about XM, visit www.xm.co.uk. About XM Group XM, the official trading partner of the Fastest Man in the World Usain Bolt, is an award-winning Forex and CFD Broker serving over 700,000 clients through the domains XM.com and XM.co.uk. XM is a brand name of Trading Point Holdings Ltd which wholly owns Trading Point of Financial Instruments UK Ltd (XM UK), Trading Point of Financial Instruments Pty Ltd (XM Australia) and Trading Point of Financial Instruments Ltd (XM Cyprus). XM UK is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Reference number: 705428), XM Australia is licensed by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (Reference number: 443670) and XM Cyprus is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (Reference number: 120/10). State Health Commissioner Marissa J. Levine today declared Virginia's opioid addiction crisis a public health emergency and issued an order allowing anyone to walk into a pharmacy and buy a drug that treats overdoses without a prescription. The state is grappling with a crisis that has gripped the nation; the number of overdose deaths in Virginia averages three daily and hospital admissions continue to spike, Levine said in announcing her decision to escalate the administration's response. The consequences of opioid addiction in Virginia have risen to unprecedented levels and can now be classified as an epidemic," Levine said. The emergency declaration comes days after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released a landmark report declaring drug and alcohol abuse among the nation's most pressing health crises on equal footing with AIDS and cancer. It also comes as increasing numbers of Virginia families prepare for a Thanksgiving meal that a loved one won't be around to enjoy, state officials noted. More than 1,250 people in Virginia will likely die of a drug overdose this year, according to projections from the state health department. Drug overdoses surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of unnatural deaths in 2013, and the numbers have only increased, thanks in large part to a surge in opioid abuse. Young adults are the hardest-hit group, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found. People ages 25 to 44 accounted for more than half of all drug-related deaths between 2007 and 2014 - in large part casualties of the intersection between genetic predisposition to substance abuse and the widespread availability of prescription painkillers, treatment experts say. Too many Virginia families have lost someone to opioid addiction," Levine stated. "These actions today will not diminish their loss, but we owe it to them and each other to work together, watch out for each other and continue to combat the seriousness of this crisis. Addressing an issue that affects about one in seven Americans over the course of their lives is "a moral test" for the country, Murthy concluded in the federal report; Only one in 10 of those with substance abuse issues receives treatment, his office found. Virginia's overdose death rate has historically trailed those of neighboring states such as Kentucky and West Virginia, "but it's been increasing in recent years, with recent increases particularly driven by rises in overdose deaths involving heroin and/or illicitly manufactured fentanyl," said Daniel Raymond, policy director of the Harm Reduction Coalition. The decision to declare a state of emergency is not unprecedented, but unusual, said Raymond, who advocated for Virginia policymakers to go a step further and establish a safe needle exchange program. "The public health emergency declaration and statewide standing order is a good move by Virginia to expand access to naloxone and try to reverse overdose mortality trends," Raymond said. "Syringe exchange programs are highly effective at overdose prevention ... the lack of legal programs in Virginia makes it challenging to reach those at high risk." State officials last year enacted measures to expand substance abuse treatment but wait lists at the community services boards that serve as the local point of entry for Virginia's public system of mental health remain lengthy in many places. "Obviously, there's an enormous amount of work that needs to be done - especially for (those without insurance)," said Dr. Jack Barber, interim head of the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. Anything policy makers can do to boost access to comprehensive care that includes counseling and, when needed, medication-assisted treatment, would move the needle in the right direction, said professor Warren Bickel, director of the Addiction Recovery Research Center at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. "I see this only as a first step; obviously saving someone from overdosing is great but unless they have treatment options they may overdose again," Bickel said. The McAuliffe administration said the state's move comes in response to a growing number of opioid overdoses and evidence that Carfentanil, described as "a highly dangerous synthetic opioid used to sedate large animals such as elephants," has made its way into Virginia. The incidence of Carfentanil has thus far been largely confined to the Hampton Roads area but Richmond-area authorities are eyeing its emergence with caution, said Richmond police Capt. Michael Zohab. "It's so potent it kills people almost immediately," Zohab said of the substance. "It's terrifying, but it's where we are these days. More than two dozen people are treated for drug overdoses daily in Virginia and three die, on average, according to state officials. Of those, many have sought help previously, Bickel said. "One of the things to remember about addiction is that it's a chronic disease," he said. "Too often we treat them acutely and then turn them away." The standing order on access to Naloxone acts as a prescription for the general public, removing a barrier to access. Those with insurance will be charged the cost of a co-pay. Those without may expect to pay upward of $120 depending on which version of the antidote is on hand, officials said. The medicine can be injected intravenously; administered through a nasal spray or injected straight into a muscle. As we see the nature of drug addiction shift, from prescription opioids to heroin and synthetic fentanyl, we must be vigilant and ready to respond quickly, said Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel. Authorities welcomed the move but cautioned that applications of the reversal drug should be followed up whenever possible with medical care. Sometimes emergency responders working in the Richmond area have needed to administer two doses to an overdose victim. Levine said that emergency room visits for heroin overdoses are 89 percent higher for the first nine months of 2016 than over the same period last year. Drug overdoses were likewise 35 percent higher in the first six months of 2016 than they were in 2015. By the end of this year, the number of fatal drug overdoses is expected be 77 percent higher than it was five years ago. State officials also said they have seen a 28 percent increase in the number of Hepatitis C cases reported between 2010 and 2015, which they suspect may be driven by a boost in intravenous drug use. The declaration of emergency was welcomed Monday by the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, which called the proclamation "an important and appropriate step in the ongoing campaign to combat this issue." "The human costs of this epidemic are staggering," association spokesman Julian Walker said in a statement highlighting the health sector's partnerships with public officials and community groups. Concise letters 250 words or fewer on topics of local interest will receive first consideration for publication. All letters are subject to editing for language and clarity. Mailing Address: Letters to the Editor, The Register & Bee, 700 Monument St., Danville, VA 24541 Letters submitted by mail must include the writer's name, signature, address and a daytime phone number. Fax: (434) 799-0595 Email: letters@registerbee.com Or submit a letter via our online form: Submit a letter As we head into December, its a time for the temperatures to drop. At that point, residents reach for the thermostat, to turn up the heat. Now Appalachian Power and the Better Business Bureau of Western Virginia are warning about a new set of utility scammers, callers targeting senior citizens in the area. Appalachian Power issued a first warning on Nov. 14 and then another this past week, after reports came in from customers. Scammers are targeting local businesses, senior citizens and customers whose native language is not English, said Jeri Matheney, Appalachian Powers director of communications. Were sharing this information so customers can protect themselves from this fraudulent activity. In each case, local residents and business owners received a call, claiming to be from Appalachian Power. The caller claims that the person is behind on their electric bill and if they dont pay immediately, the power will be cut. In several cases, theyve demanded the payment be made through a prepaid credit card. In other parts of Western Virginia and Southside, callers have used the same scam, pretending to be from Dominion Power. Officials from Appalachian Power made it clear that they would never call and ask for payment in the same way the con artists did. Appalachian employees will never demand immediate payment, insist a payment be made with a prepaid credit card or ask a customer to meet us in a parking lot to make a payment, Matheney said. Matheney said that in the first few weeks this latest scam was reported, at least 50 percent of those contacted fell for it and paid money over the phone. She asks that instead, customers call both local law enforcement and Appalachian Power after getting one of these calls. Appalachian Power call be reached at 1-800-956-4237. Also, if someone physically comes to your home and tells you the power is going to be cut off, Appalachian officials said to always ask for a company-issued photo I.D. Also, dont let anyone in your home who claims to be from the power company without an appointment. The same goes for any type of utility company, said Julie Wheeler, President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau that serves Western Virginia. "A legitimate company will not demand payment over the phone, accompanied by threats," Wheeler said in a statement. "If you have an account with the company the caller is claiming to represent, use a verified number to call to check the status of your account. Never use the number supplied by the caller." In the past, some of these scammers have also paid physical visits to homes in the area, claiming to be a service technician from Dominion or Appalachian. Unless youve scheduled an appointment and the person can show identification, residents are advised not to let them in. BBB officials also ask people to never give out credit card, debit card, Social Security, ATM, checking or other bank account information to anyone who calls asking for it. Instead, they suggest that you take down the number, along with any information provided and then call your power company, as well as local law enforcement. VANCOUVER, Nov. 22, 2016 /CNW/ - Nevsun Resources Ltd. (TSX:NSU) (NYSE MKT:NSU) ("Nevsun" or the "Company") is pleased to announce new assay results from drilling of the Lower Zone at the Company's Timok copper-gold project ("Timok Project"). HIGHLIGHTS New porphyry copper intersections include: TC150073 / TC160073B: 686.0m @ 0.89% Cu, 0.16g/t Au from 1,104m; including 280.0m @ 1.11% Cu, 0.18g/t Au and 102.0m @ 1.00% Cu, 0.17g/t Au and 58.0m @ 1.26% Cu, 0.28g/t Au and 60.0m @ 1.16% Cu, 0.16g/t Au TC150075: 717.3m @ 0.65% Cu, 0.16g/t Au from 1,502m; including 214.0m @ 1.00% Cu, 0.24g/t Au and 24.0m @ 1.00% Cu, 0.30g/t Au Example historic intersections include: TC150060: 835.0m @ 0.92% Cu, 0.22g/t Au from 1,258m TC140054/54A: 705.8 @ 0.91% Cu, 0.26g/t Au from 1,498m Further drilling ongoing with a target of 67,000m of step-out and infill drilling Drilling estimated to be completed in late 2017 with a maiden resource to follow Near vertical holes designed to intersect the porphyry mineralization at 90 to 100% of true width Nevsun CEO Cliff Davis commented, "The assays reported today demonstrate the tremendous potential of the Timok Lower Zone mineralization. These holes were drilled prior to the Company acquiring its interest in the Timok Project and were recently assayed. With our joint venture partner, Freeport-McMoRan, we have embarked on a $20 million drilling program focused on the Lower Zone porphyry. The results from these holes will be used, along with historical and ongoing drilling, to generate a maiden resource for the Lower Zone." Timok Copper-Gold Project The Timok Copper-Gold Project is located in eastern Serbia near the Bor mining and smelting complex. The Project is focussed on the Cukaru Peki ("Timok") deposit which includes the high grade Upper Zone, characterized by massive and semi-massive sulphide mineralization and the Lower Zone, characterized by porphyry-style mineralization. This news release is solely about the Lower Zone. For recent information on the Upper Zone, please refer to the Company's news release dated October 17, 2016. Lower Zone The Lower Zone consists of porphyry-type mineralization characterized by chalcopyrite-pyrite and occasional bornite and molybdenite occurring as disseminations and within quartz and quartz-magnetite stockwork veinlets. Anhydrite veins are common. Within the Lower Zone, porphyry-type potassic alteration is preserved locally but generally overprinted by sericite-clay, argillic and locally advanced argillic alteration. The latter overprinting also locally brings covellite-pyrite mineralization. The host rocks are predominantly volcanic andesite and andesite breccias. The geometry of the Lower Zone remains to be fully defined. Its top is about 700 metres below surface and has been traced down to depths in excess of 2,000 metres. The $20 million drill program is currently being undertaken to enable an initial resource to be calculated for portions of the zone. Table 1: 2015 Timok Lower Zone Drilling Results (reported in this release) HOLE ID From To Length (m) Cu % Au g/t TC150073 and TC150073B Extension 1,104.0 1,790.0 686.0 0.89 0.16 including 1,108.0 1,388.0 280.0 1.11 0.18 and 1,426.0 1,528.0 102.0 1.00 0.17 and 1,566.0 1,624.0 58.0 1.26 0.28 and 1,694.0 1,754.0 60.0 1.16 0.16 TC150075 1,502.0 2,219.3 717.3 0.65 0.16 including 1,744.0 1,958.0 214.0 1.00 0.24 and 2,050.0 2,074.0 24.0 1.00 0.30 TC150098 No significant values Holes are drilled near vertically and approximately perpendicular to the top of the porphyry zone and are estimated to be between 90 and 100% of true thickness. Table 2: Significant Historical Timok Lower Zone Drilling Results HOLE ID From To Length (m) Cu % Au g/t FMTC 1210 1,026.0 1,248.0 222.0 0.23 0.11 and 1,469.0 1,864.0 395.0 0.30 0.09 FMTC1214 1,082.0 1,286.0 204.0 1.49 0.24 FMTC1218 1,253.0 1,952.0 699.0 0.75 0.23 including 1,351.0 1,802.0 451.0 0.91 0.26 FMTC1219 839.0 1,572.9 733.8 0.75 0.10 including 987.5 1,219.0 231.5 1.16 0.11 FMTC1327 1,146.0 1,952.0 806.7 0.59 0.22 including 1,709.0 1,863.0 154.0 0.95 0.28 FMTC1328 766.0 1,668.0 902.0 0.65 0.14 including 1,130.0 1,361.0 231.0 1.07 0.18 FMTC1332 1,136.0 1,425.0 289.0 0.90 0.17 and 1,839.0 2,160.3 321.3 0.73 0.18 FMTC1334 866.6 1,475.3 608.7 0.68 0.16 FMTC1335 1,209.0 1,680.6 471.6 0.41 0.22 FMTC1340 705.0 1,144.0 439.0 0.71 0.14 TC140054/54A 1,498.0 2,203.8 705.8 0.91 0.26 including 1,826.0 2,012.0 186.0 1.20 0.35 TC150060 1,258.0 2,093.8 835.8 0.92 0.22 including 1,622.0 1,776.0 154.0 2.02 0.45 TC150060A 1,332.0 2,082.0 750.0 0.30 0.06 including 1,502.0 1,604.0 102.0 0.63 0.15 TC150066 750.0 1,108.0 358.0 0.51 0.08 and 1,128.0 1,196.0 68.0 0.45 0.09 Holes are drilled near vertically and approximately perpendicular to the top of the porphyry zone and are estimated to be between 90 and 100% of true thickness. Results previously reported by Reservoir Minerals on April 14, 2016. Table 3: Collar Details HoleID Easting (m)* Northing (m)* Elevation (m)* Depth (m) Dip () Azimuth () Section FMTC1211 7591104.096 4876059.930 398.996 1167.4 -90 0 4876127N FMTC1218 7590910.575 4875990.847 401.962 1952 -90 0 4876127N FMTC1329 7591616.230 4876258.850 373.48 718.8 -90 0 4876127N FMTC1336 7591609.140 4876252.810 373.89 849.3 -85 250 4876127N IEBCP-1 7590926.524 4875970.157 402.412 250.2 -90 0 4876127N IEBCP-2 7590927.877 4875994.736 402.638 281 -90 0 4876127N TC130051 7590957.956 4875990.171 402.856 900 -53 132 4876127N TC140052 7590957.954 4875990.174 402.855 750 -53 132 4876127N TC140054 7590460.390 4876253.120 389.910 1548.3 -85.85 68.72 4876416N TC150054A 7590460.390 4876253.120 389.910 2203.8 -85.85 68.72 4876416N TC150073 7591093.578 4876071.859 400.095 1706.6 -81.336 55.395 4876127N TC150075 7590794.497 4876309.910 409.228 2219.3 -81.26 33.53 4876416N TC150098 7590587.395 4876530.458 413.722 2009.6 -82.18 239.39 TC160073B 7591093.578 4876071.859 400.095 1796.1 -81.336 55.395 4876127N *MGI Balkans Zone 7 Quality Assurance Drill core samples were collected in accordance with protocols that are compatible with accepted industry procedures and best practice. The Company conducts its own analysis of QAQC generated by the systematic inclusion of certified reference materials, blank samples and duplicate samples. The analytical results from the quality control samples have been evaluated and have been demonstrated to conform to best practice standards. Mr. Peter Manojlovic, P.Geo., Nevsun's VP Exploration, is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Manojlovic has reviewed the technical content of this press release and approved its dissemination. About Nevsun Resources Ltd. Nevsun Resources Ltd. is the 60% owner of the high grade Bisha Mine in Eritrea. Bisha has nine years of reserve life, generating revenue from both copper and zinc concentrates containing gold and silver by-products. Nevsun has a strong balance sheet, no debt and pays a peer leading quarterly dividend. Nevsun is well positioned to grow shareholder value through exploration at Bisha and the newly acquired Serbian assets that include the high-grade copper-gold Timok Project. Forward Looking Statements The above contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "hopes", "intends", "estimated", "potential", "possible" and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions or results "will", "may", "could" or "should" occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements are statements concerning the Company's current beliefs, plans and expectations about the future including but not limited to statements and information made concerning: statements relating to the business, prospects and future activities of, and developments related to the Company, anticipated dividends, goals, strategies, future growth, planned future acquisitions and explorations activities, the adequacy of financial resources and other events or conditions that may occur in the future, and are inherently uncertain. The actual achievements of the Company or other future events or conditions may differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of risks, uncertainties and other factors, including, without limitation, the risks that are more fully described in the Company's Management Information Circular dated May 18, 2016, and the Company's Annual Information Form for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015, which are incorporated herein by reference. The Company's forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, expectations and opinions of management on the date the statements are made and the Company assumes no obligation to update such forward-looking statements in the future, except as required by law. For the reasons set forth above, investors should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking statements. Further information concerning risks and uncertainties associated with these forward-looking statements and our business can be found in our Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2015, which is available on the Company's website (www.nevsun.com), filed under our profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) and on EDGAR (www.sec.gov) under cover of Form 40-F. NEVSUN RESOURCES LTD. "Cliff T. Davis" Cliff T. Davis President & Chief Executive Officer Please click here http://files.newswire.ca/1269/Timok_Drill_Results.PDF to see Figures. SOURCE Nevsun Resources Ltd. VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Nov 22, 2016) - DuSolo Fertilizers Inc. (TSX VENTURE:DSF) ("DuSolo" or "the Company") is very pleased to provide an update on its corporate activities, exploration and permitting status, product development, new management appointments and the re-start of extraction operations at the Santiago Project. The Company has been undergoing a restructuring of its operations in Brazil and Canada, optimizing the value of its assets to create significant value for shareholders. OVERVIEW The Company's assets consist of a number of exploration concessions in Tocantins State (totaling 54,073 hectares) containing phosphate rock (P 2 O 5 ) deposits, and the Company also owns and operates the Santiago Project, located in Tocantins State, with a crushing / milling / screening plant located near the town of Campos Belos, just south of the Tocantins border in Goias State. The Company produces a Direct Application Natural Fertilizer ("DANF") sold to local farmers and large agricultural companies such as COFCO, Bunge, Jalles Machado and Goiasa, who are among the largest growers of sugar cane, soya beans and corn in Brazil. The Company recently completed delivery of all stockpiled phosphate material at the Campos Belos plant, and given existing sales contracts and customer demand, has re- started extraction operations at the Santiago Project. This material will provide DANF for customer deliveries in 2016 and through to mid-2017. The Company is not basing its production decision on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability, as a result there is increased uncertainty and economic and technical risks of failure associated with its production decision. The Company is currently finalizing a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") of DANF production - please see the section of this release entitled "Technical Reports". The Company continues to focus on cost reduction and completed the consolidation of its management and technical team in the Belo Horizonte office. As at 1st November the Company had c.$2m in cash as it continues to work on the development of its Bonfim Project in Brazil. STOCKPILE SALES The Company has now processed and sold all its stockpiles of both product and run-of- mine ("ROM") material at the Campos Belos Plant. Total sales to November 17, 2016 of both 12% and 15% Phosphate DANF are 27,868 tonnes. The Company currently has signed forward sales contracts to deliver an additional 9,306 tonnes. NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Brazil remains a substantial agricultural market and imports significant quantities of fertilizer including phosphate-based products. The Company is working with Agroconsult, the leading Brazilian consultancy for agriculture and fertilizers, to determine market size potential and pricing ranges for various products to be used in the PEA for the acid granulated product. Two potential products include the granulation of higher grade material (approximately 15% P 2 O 5 ) with sulphuric acid to improve the agronomic performance, and beneficiation of medium grade material (between 6%-8% P 2 O 5 ) to produce products such as Single Super Phosphate ("SSP"). RESOURCE DRILLING Exploration work continues at the Company's concessions, with field mapping, auger drilling and sampling. A drilling program for the Bonfim, Amaury and Depasa concessions has been designed with input from various technical consultants, to maximize the information generated including samples for metallurgical testing, whilst minimizing the drilling cost. Drilling will include augering, diamond core and reverse circulation holes. This program will provide data to prepare an updated resource estimate at the Bonfim, Amaury and Depasa concessions, targeting material similar to the existing resources grading between 6%-8% P 2 O 5 and will occur in 2017. Assuming successful exploration results and a positive increase in the resources which are the subject of the Company's existing resource estimate, the Company expects to assess the potential for the production of a high grade phosphate fertilizer, similar to SSP, utilizing the medium grade (6-8% Phosphate) material at the Company's concessions. The Company has focused its exploration efforts during the second half of 2016 to support the re-start of the extraction of phosphate rock, prepare the PEA for DANF production and to help prepare the necessary Exploration Reports for the National Department for Mineral Production ("DNPM") that will allow for Kalunga I & II, Depasa and Bonfim to convert to mining concessions. The Company also intends to relinquish concessions east of the main phosphate bearing structure as these are deemed to have little potential. TECHNICAL REPORTS The Company is in the process of preparing the following two Technical Reports with its independent technical consultant GE21 Consultoria Mineral based in Belo Horizonte: A PEA for the production of 12% and 15% Phosphate DANF expected by the end of 2016. This report will include an updated Resource for the Santiago Project and is targeting the extraction and processing of up to 100,000tpa. On the back of the PEA report noted above, the Company is working on a second PEA for the production of an Acid Granulated Phosphate Fertilizer combining 15% Phosphate DANF with Sulphuric Acid to improve the agronomic performance of the DANF. The intent of this granulated product is to widen the market available to the Company, and achieve higher selling prices due to improved solubility and agronomic performance. This report is targeted for completion by mid-2017. PERMITTING The Company is currently permitted to extract material from the Santiago Project by a Guia de Utilization ("GUIA") issued by the DNPM, and an Environmental Licence issued by Naturatins, the Tocatins State Environmental Agency. GUIAs are issued under the terms of the exploration concessions, and are replaced by the life of mine licence known as a Portaria de Lavra, issued by the DNPM. The GUIAs are re-issued on an annual basis and are valid until after completion of exploration activities and the issuance of the Portaria de Lavra. A life of mine Environmental Licence is also required, issued by Naturatins. The Company expects to renew its GUIA to permit the extraction of 100,000t per annum in or before April 2017, and its current Environmental Licence is valid until August 2018. After completing the DANF PEA in 2016, the Company will prepare and submit its application for a Portaria de Lavra in early 2017, and expects to receive approval during 2017. In a parallel process the Company will apply for its life of mine Environmental Licence from Naturatins. The Company and its consultants meet regularly with both DNPM and Naturatins and do not anticipate any issues in obtaining its life of mine licences for the DANF operation. As the Company's assessment of an acid granulated product and then a high-grade fertilizer progress, additional applications will be required to obtain amendments to the Company's existing licences. As with any such permitting process it is subject to interaction with State and Federal authorities and there can be no guarantee that the Company will be able to acquire such licences. NEW MANAGEMENT The Company is very pleased to confirm the appointment of Cris Gallina as the Country Manager of DuSolo's Brazilian operations, replacing Sharon Levy. Mr. Gallina is a Mining Engineer and MBA with 16 years of experience in operations, project development, strategic planning and mineral processing in large multinational companies - Rio Tinto and Vale. As a project manager, consolidating the disciplines of geology, mine planning, mineral processing, engineering, logistics, environment among others, Mr. Gallina has been involved with numerous projects from $20 million to $4 billion. Mr Gallina also has considerable experience in management (approx. 350 people) in the areas of mine, plant (crushing, mill, concentration), rail and port operations at projects in Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina and Australia. CONVERTIBLE LOAN The Company continues its discussions with Tembo Capital Mining Fund LP regarding the repayment or potential re-structuring of the Company's convertible debenture in the amount of $750,000 (the "Loan"). As previously announced the Loan has been extended until the 30th November. QUALIFIED PERSONS The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Porfirio Cabaleiro Rodriguez and Mr. Bernardo Viana, both Managing Partners of GE21 Consultoria Mineral, in compliance with the standards of disclosure as set out in NI43-101. Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Viana are "independent qualified persons" for the purposes of NI43- 101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators. On behalf of DuSolo Fertilizers Inc. Giles Baynham, Chief Executive Officer and Director FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS Certain information contained in this press release constitutes "forward-looking information", within the meaning of Canadian legislation. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur", "be achieved" or "has the potential to". Forward looking statements contained in this press release may include statements regarding the future operating or financial performance of DuSolo which involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may not prove to be accurate. Actual results and outcomes may differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in these forward-looking statements. Such statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations. Among those factors which could cause actual results to differ materially are the following: market conditions and other risk factors listed from time to time in our reports filed with Canadian securities regulators on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and DuSolo disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation. For more information please refer to the technical report filed on SEDAR and titled "Bomfim Agro- Mineral Phosphate Project, Technical Report and Initial Resource Estimate Tocabtins and Goias States, Brazil," filed on March 5, 2014, effective December 31, 2013, and amended on February 6, 2015. The resource estimate was signed off by Mr. Porfirio Cabaleiro Rodriguez an Associate Consultant of Coffey Consultoria e Servicos Ltda., and was prepared in compliance with the standards of disclosure as set out in NI43-101. Mr. Rodriguez is an "independent qualified person" for the purposes of NI43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators. Disclosure - The Company's decision to produce DANF, its DANF production targets and cash flow projections were not based on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability. Without a technical report demonstrating economic and technical viability, there is uncertainty as to whether the Company will be able to economically produce DANF in a long run and as to whether the Company will be confronted with any unforeseen technical impediments. Similarly, the Company has not completed a preliminary economic assessment before making production and project expansion decisions. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange Inc.) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. To OUR Gourmet Retailer Readers While Gourmet Retailer no longer exists as a separate print publication and website, Progressive Grocer will continue to feature new content about boutique retailing in our ongoing coverage of Independent Grocers. Please update your Gourmet Retailer bookmark and check our Independent Grocers topic page regularly for updates and fresh content. -- The Progressive Grocer Team For the most part, the days of file cabinets crammed with patients paper health records are gone, especially in hospitals. Electronic health records are taking their place. While electronic health records are imperfect, theyre beginning to help doctors treat patients more comprehensively. But as the public health community is well aware, theres one area thats been left behind: screening tests for newborns.Created in the 1960s, the newborn screening program is used to check a babys hearing, test for congenital heart disease and, with a few drops of blood from the infants toe, look for a range of serious genetic disorders. The bloodspot is put on a card alongside handwritten information about the infant, including time of birth and when the child was first fed. The card is then sent off to a laboratory where a technician enters the data and tests the blood sample.There are many problems that can arise from this process, which include entering incorrect information or simply taking too long to process the blood sample. In 2013, thereported that over the previous year at least 160,000 blood samples had arrived late at labs across the country -- an occurence for which hospital staffers were rarely reprimanded. The paper also found that many labs were closed over the weekend, so the parents and doctors of babies born later in the week often had to wait longer for results. For a newborn with an undetected disorder, a delay of even a day can be a matter of life and death.Thes investigation has spurred many who work in pediatrics to action, with several states and hospital systems working to streamline the screening process and bring it online. While every hospital has a different approach, one state that has made considerable progress is Minnesota. Its health departments public health laboratory has focused on implementing a system that pulls the newborns demographic information from an electronic health record. The next phase of the project is enabling test results to be sent directly to the health record. Were trying to eliminate the manual-entry side of the process, says Amy Gaviglio, a supervisor at the states public health laboratory.So far, 75 of the states 89 hospitals have adopted the new electronic system. It hasnt been an easy process, however. While hospitals were excited about the system, says Gaviglio, nursing time is valuable, and the only real time we could train them on these new devices was during shift changes, which occur at really inconvenient times like 5 a.m.So why were newborn screenings left behind in the push to go online? There are hundreds of workflows that are not out-of-the box ready for electronic health vendors, says Joe Schneider, a pediatrician who recently retired as chief health information officer at Indiana University Health. And if youre a health executive dealing with diabetes, hypertension and cardiac problems, newborn screenings are relatively small when youre thinking about dollar impact.Pediatricians have to push state health departments to step in to streamline the process, says Schneider, who now consults with Indiana University Health on its efforts to bring newborn screenings online. The university is currently focused on consolidating 31 workflow steps into 14.Gaviglio is optimistic about the progress thats being made. Were starting to see what implementation looks like, and theres now this spirit of collaboration from people in this field, she says. Were on the cusp of things finally coming together. Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a defiant challenge Monday to President-elect Donald Trump from the stage of the historic Cooper Union in Manhattan, saying New York City would not comply with federal policies that threaten its residents' rights."We will use all the tools at our disposal to stand up for our people," the Democratic mayor said in his first major address since Trump's election.He vowed before a receptive audience of hundreds to protect Muslim New Yorkers from any requirement to register and undocumented, law-abiding New Yorkers from deportation. De Blasio said he sought to "deputize" residents of the city to report hate and bias incidents and stand up for their fellow New Yorkers."If all Muslims are required to register, we will take legal action to block it. If the federal government wants our police officers to tear families apart, we will refuse to do it," de Blasio said.Trump and representatives of his incoming administration did not immediately respond to de Blasio's speech.Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Sunday talk shows had sought to reassure anxious Americans that Trump would serve as president to all Americans.De Blasio spoke with a diverse crowd seated behind him with people of various races and religions. The venue he chose had hosted Abraham Lincoln in 1860 for a speech questioning the spread of slavery.De Blasio did not use Trump's name during the remarks, which came just five days after the mayor and president-elect met at Trump Tower."My essential message to him was to remember where you came from," de Blasio said of Trump's New York City roots.In one section of his speech -- which his team promoted for its refrain of "Always New York" -- the mayor listed the various groups he said Trump has threatened or offended during the Republican real estate mogul's presidential campaign, from Latinos to African-Americans to women to Muslims."To all of you, we will protect you. This is your home," de Blasio said. "We are 8.5 million strong and we ain't changing. We are always New York."He repeated the line in Spanish to applause.The mayor, who backed Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House, noted that Trump had won the Electoral College vote but is losing the popular vote by a widening margin."There is not a mandate in this election for division or for undercutting opportunity," he said. Judge: Map guaranteed GOP win in any scenario Geography favors Republicans A panel of federal judges on Monday ruled that Wisconsin's 2011 legislative redistricting plan, created by Republican leaders virtually in secret, is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.The map "was intended to burden the representational rights of Democratic voters ... by impeding their ability to translate their votes into legislative seats," wrote federal appeals court Judge Kenneth Ripple, the senior judge on the three-judge panel, adding that "the discriminatory effect is not explained by the political geography of Wisconsin nor is it justified by a legitimate state interest."Consequently, Act 43 constitutes an unconstitutional political gerrymander," Ripple wrote.The 116-page decision, with a 40-page dissent from U.S. District Judge William Griesbach, was issued several months after the panel heard testimony in federal court in Madison. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb, the third judge on the panel, joined Ripple in the court's 2-1 decision.The panel did not say what should happen as a result of its ruling. Instead, the court ordered both sides to file briefs on an appropriate remedy within 30 days, with response briefs to follow 15 days later. Both sides also must tell the court if they believe additional testimony is required before the court decides what happens next.Ruth Greenwood, one of the lawyers for the Democratic voters who brought the case, declined to discuss what remedy the group intends to seek from the court.The ruling comes nearly six months after the judges heard arguments in the case, brought by a group of state Democratic voters who have called the 2011 redistricting plan "one of the worst partisan gerrymanders in modern American history."The Democrats contend they have found a way to measure unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders designed to give a "large and durable" advantage in elections to one party -- a measure the U.S. Supreme Court said was lacking in previous redistricting cases. The measure, called the efficiency gap, shows how cracking (breaking up blocs of Democratic voters) and packing (concentrating Democrats within certain districts) results in wasted votes -- excess votes for the winners in safe districts and perpetually inadequate votes for the losers.Lawyers for the Democrats said the 2011 plan, which changed boundaries for all of the state's Congressional and state Senate and Assembly districts, was drawn specifically to disenfranchise Democratic voters.Republicans have countered that as the majority party, they can draw the maps any way they choose, short of creating districts that disenfranchise racial minorities."Today is a historic day and I am thrilled with the result not only for our plaintiffs but for all Wisconsin voters," said Peter Earle, one of the lawyers representing the Democrats. "This decision will finally give voters in Wisconsin the power they deserve to shape their democracy. Now a fairer system will be created here in Wisconsin so all voters, not just a select few, will be able to have their voices heard."Gerry Hebert, director of the Campaign Legal Center, which represented the Democrats in court, called the decision "truly a monumental victory for the plaintiffs in this case, but more importantly this is an historic moment for our nation and the betterment of democracy."Hebert added that the fact that the court accepts the Democrats' method of determining the efficiency gap means "there will be, for the first time, a standard to identify this harmful practice."State Attorney General Brad Schimel said he was evaluating the decision but planned to appeal. He added that the decision does not affect the results of any election, including the Nov. 8 election, and that legislative district boundaries remain unchanged until the court decides what the remedy will be.When the lawsuit was filed, the Democrats asked that a three-judge panel made up of district and appeals judges hear the case so that it could be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, with the original intent that it be heard before the 2016 elections. The Supreme Court now stands at a 4-4 deadlock between its conservative and liberal wings and will likely remain so until the Senate confirms President-elect Donald Trump's replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy in March, but he is unlikely to receive a confirmation vote in the Senate before Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration.Crabb was appointed to the bench in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. Ripple was appointed to the U.S. Appeals Court for the Seventh Circuit in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan. Griesbach, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Milwaukee, was appointed in 2002 by President George W. Bush.In its ruling, the two-judge majority rejected the state's contention that partisan scores determined by GOP map-makers were created simply to gain a historical understanding of voter behavior. The maps were created in a tightly controlled room at the Madison law office of Michael Best & Friedrich, and Democrats were not allowed to take part in the process."Their measure was only useful to them," Ripple wrote, "and the exercise of calculating the composite was only worth the effort, if it helped them assess how Republican representatives in the newly created districts likely would fare in future elections."Several alternative maps were created, Ripple wrote, and comparisons were made of old and new districts, with little regard to factors that had traditionally been used to create district boundaries. While the final map complied with traditional principles, he wrote, "it nevertheless had as one of its objectives entrenching the Republicans' control of the Assembly."The new map secured a majority for Republicans by allocating votes in such a way that in any likely election scenario, the number of GOP seats wouldn't drop below 50 percent."It is clear the drafters got what they intended to get," Ripple wrote. "There is no question that Act 43 was designed to make it more difficult for Democrats, compared to Republicans, to translate their votes into seats."In 2012, Republicans got 48.6 percent of the statewide vote but won 60 seats in the 99-seat Assembly. In 2014, the party got 52 percent of the vote and won 63 Assembly seats. Democrats in 2012 received 51.4 percent of the vote but only won 39 Assembly seats, later winning just 36 seats when they received 48 percent of the vote in 2014."The evidence establishes, therefore, that even when Republicans are an electoral minority, their legislative power remains secure," Ripple wrote.Republicans have a modest natural advantage geographically, because Democrats tend to be concentrated in Milwaukee and Madison, Ripple wrote, but that doesn't explain the partisan effect of the 2011 redistricting.GOP drafters created and passed on several plans that would have been more modest, Ripple wrote, concluding that the burden on Democratic voters imposed by the 2011 redistricting plan is not justifiable.In his dissent, Griesbach wrote that he could not accept proof of intent to act for political purposes as a part of any test to determine whether a redistricting plan was unconstitutional."If political motivation is improper," he wrote, "then the task of redistricting should be constitutionally assigned to some other body, a change in law we lack the authority to effect."He said the Democrats' case was also "a poor vehicle for the remedying of any grave injustice" because it's likely that Republicans would have won control of the Legislature in 2012 and 2014 "even without the alleged gerrymandering."Griesbach also said that the efficiency gap is inadequate as a measure of partisan gerrymandering, and that it fails to adequately account for the political geography in Wisconsin, in which Democrats are naturally packed into urban areas like Madison and Milwaukee. He also called the efficiency gap "highly volatile" and possibly triggering court interventions in redistricting when it isn't necessary. Two Indiana Appeals Court judges took issue with key arguments made by the Pence administration Monday, as it tries to keep an email sent to Gov. Mike Pence secret.The judges challenged the governor's argument that the judiciary branch had no authority in the matter, and that the email sent to 30 recipients in various states was protected by attorney-client privilege.In a case that may determine how the governor's office complies with Indiana public records laws, Pence's legal team argued before appellate Judges Nancy H. Vaidik, John G. Baker and Edward W. Najam Jr. that a political white paper should be kept from the public.The civil case was brought by Democratic labor attorney William Groth, who sued the Pence administration in 2015 after it "substantially redacted" and subsequently denied his request for a document. The email in question related to the efforts of Republican governors to stop President Barack Obamas 2014 immigration executive order.The case has drawn national interest in the wake of Pence's aggressive battle on the campaign trail to release the emails Hillary Clinton sent from a private server she maintained while secretary of state. When Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach met with President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday, he was carrying a copy of a plan for the Department of Homeland Security.The DHS oversees border security and immigration, issues on which Kobach advised Trump throughout the campaign.There had been speculation that Kobach might be under consideration to head the department in the lead-up to his meeting with Trump, and photographic evidence appears to confirm that.When Trump greeted Kobach at his clubhouse door in Bedminster, N.J., Kobach carried a document with the headings "Department of Homeland Security" and "Kobach Strategic Plan for the Next 365 Days."The details of the document were first reported by The Topeka Capital-Journal, which zoomed in on a photograph taken by The Associated Press.A McClatchy analysis of the photograph reveals that Kobach's plan includes reintroducing the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System so that "All aliens from high-risk areas are tracked."Kobach had previously told Reuters about this idea, prompting accusations that Trump planned to create a Muslim registry.Kobach's plan includes the use of "extreme vetting" for immigrants from countries that are considered high risk, asking them whether they support "shariah law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution." Kobach would also reduce the number of refugees from Syria to zero.Bill Stock, the president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said Kobach was committed to restricting immigration from an ideological perspective and using whatever tools he had. Stock said if Kobach brought that push to the Department of Homeland Security he would be likely to find himself in court, much as he did with the immigration and voter ID laws he championed at the state and local level."The policies that he proposes, in many instances, would be subjected to challenge from those who believe in due process and fairness," Stock said.Lena Arkawi, campaign manager for the American Relief Coalition for Syria, said Kobach's Syria plan would be "deeply immoral," with Syrians facing bombings, terrorist attacks and shortages of food and medical care."They have no choice but to leave in the face of certain death," she said in a statement. "We implore President-elect Trump to reject inhumane proposals to ban refugees and instead embrace the proud American tradition of granting refuge to the world's most vulnerable people."Naureen Shah, the director of the security and human rights program for Amnesty International USA, called Kobach's plan an "incredibly chilling set of proposals that are reminiscent of the kinds of religiously based discrimination and targeting of minorities that we've criticized governments and armed groups around the world for.""It is horrifying to think that the U.S. government is poised to go down the road of targeting people based on their nonviolent beliefs," Shah said. "And I also question the wisdom of policies that are sure to, frankly, scare the hell out of people in this country who are law-abiding and would report crimes if they saw them taking place."The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which was established in 2002 under President George W. Bush, was indefinitely suspended by the Obama administration in 2011. Shah said the program was dismantled because the DHS considered it ineffective and counterproductive to its anti-terror efforts.She drew a distinction between the program under Bush and its potential re-establishment under Trump. "It's preceded by a campaign where the president-elect and his surrogates specifically talked about Muslims and religion as a basis for policies," she said.The document also includes what appears to be a plan to deport a "record number of criminal aliens in the first year" and the construction of a wall along the southern border.Kobach, who could not be reached by phone Monday, has been an outspoken supporter of Trump's idea to construct a border wall, helping to add it to the Republican Party's national platform.Trump's transition team said in a statement Sunday night that the president-elect and Kobach had discussed "border security, international terrorism and reforming federal bureaucracy."Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who is poised to become the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, told McClatchy she hoped Kobach would not be nominated for a post at the DHS."I've made my opinion of Kris Kobach very clear," McCaskill, a former prosecutor, said Monday.McCaskill previously told McClatchy that the idea of Kobach becoming attorney general _ another position for which he was rumored to be under consideration _ "is frightening to those of us who've watched him in his career.""I know too much about Kris Kobach," McCaskill said. "There's no way I could ever support him."She said Kobach had "fashioned some of the most unconstitutional immigration laws around the country, most of which have been thrown out by the courts.""This is a perfect role for him," said Kelly Arnold, the state chairman of the Kansas Republican Party.Arnold called Kobach a "border security hawk" who could "make sure that what Donald Trump campaigned on is implemented" if he is tapped to lead the DHS or to serve the administration in another capacity.Speaking of Kobach and Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo, a national security hard-liner whom Trump nominated to become CIA director, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback called both "very talented" and "cutting-edge."The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a hard-line group that advocates for stricter immigration restrictions, also praised Kobach. He has done extensive legal work for the federation's offshoot, the Immigration Reform Law Institute. (The federation has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its views on immigration. It strongly disputes that characterization.)"He certainly has a commanding knowledge of the whole immigration issue," said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the federation. "He has come down very clearly as someone who champions the interests of the American public as the primary stakeholders in immigration policy, and he has worked with a lot of local governments around the country to provide them with the means by which they can protect their own community interests when the federal government is failing to protect those interests."Kobach served under then-Attorney General John Ashcroft at the Justice Department in the days immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Ashcroft tasked him with researching loopholes in the immigration system.Kobach also helped craft a controversial Arizona law, SB 1070, which requires law enforcement agents to demand to see the immigration papers of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally.The Homeland Security document appears to include a reference to voter rolls, but the specific proposal is obscured by Kobach's hand.He has championed stricter voting laws during his tenure as Kansas secretary of state.The state adopted a requirement that voters provide proof of citizenship, such as birth certificates or passports, when they register. Kobach has contended that the policy prevents noncitizens from voting, but his critics say it makes it tougher for actual citizens to vote."I think any proposal that Kris Kobach makes about voting rights is one that we should be concerned about, because he has a record of working to undermine the right to vote," said Micah Kubic, the executive director of the Kansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Everything that he's advanced so far has been designed to make it harder for eligible citizens to vote." Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Get a dose of adorable in your inbox Receive local adoptable pets PLUS updates for pet lovers in your inbox every week! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy The Chevrolet Volt is the most popular vehicle in the CHEAPR program. Photo courtesy of GM The State of Connecticut has extended a cash rebate program for municipalities, businesses, and residents to purchase electric vehicles (EVs). Governor Dannel Malloy announced the state will provide an additional $2.7 million in new funding for the rebate program. The Connecticut Hydrogen and Electric Automobile Purchase Rebate Program known as CHEAPR provides a cash rebate for fleets and residents purchasing or leasing a battery-electric, fuel cell, or plug-in hybrid vehicle. Fuel cell powered EVs receive the largest rebate of $5,000, while plug-in hybrid and full-battery electric EVs receive incentives ranging from $750 to $3,000, based on battery size. Since the launch of CHEAPR in May 2015, more than $2 million in rebates have been issued or reserved for the purchase or lease of 960 electric vehicles in Connecticut, according to the governors office. Consumers purchasing EVs have the option to receive a reduction in the price of their vehicles under this initiative at the point of sale. Funding for CHEAPR comes from money that was made available to the state as a result of an agreement that allowed for the merger of two utilities into Eversource Energy. The state also has a number of incentives for government and commercial fleets for EV charging stations. For a list of vehicles and exact rebate amounts, click here. Description GIS - 22 November, 2016: Mauritius is hosting the 6th Africa Regional Platform and the 5th High Level Meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction from 22-25 November 2016 at the Intercontinental Resort in Balaclava. Mauritius is hosting the 6th Africa Regional Platform and the 5th High Level Meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction from 22-25 November 2016 at the Intercontinental Resort in Balaclava. The opening ceremony will be held this afternoon in the presence of the Minister of Civil Service and Administrative Reforms, and Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, and Disaster and Beach Management, Mr Alain Wong. The platform is hosted by the Government in collaboration with the African Union, the Southern African Development Community and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. One of the main objectives of the Regional Platform is to include the African Programme of Action to implement the Sendai Framework in Africa, the Mauritius Declaration on implementation of the Africa Programme of Action and a Draft Africa position for the Global Platform 2017. Some 400 representatives from 40 African countries including 300 government representatives are attending the three-day Regional Platform. The four key areas of the Sendai Framework which is the successor instrument to the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015, consist of understanding disaster risk, strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk, investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to Build Back Better in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction. Furthermore, seven global targets have been agreed to achieve the outcome of the present Framework. The seven global targets include reducing the number of affected people globally by 2030, reducing direct disaster economic loss in relation to global gross domestic product by 2030; and reducing disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services, among them health and educational facilities, including through developing their resilience by 2030. GIS The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, Mr Seetanah Lutchmeenaraidoo, will sign a Bilateral Trade Agreement with the Republic of Tanzania during the forthcoming visit of the Minister for Industry and Trade, Dr Charles John Mwijage, and the Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Dr Charles Tizeba, of the Republic of Tanzania. San Diego County spends $918 million to extend IT outsourcing contract Private equity firm merges three defense contractors into single firm IoT firm Particle raises $10 million in Series A funding Oracle acquires Dyn The San Diego County Board of Supervisors has extended a gargantuan contract that will award the continued outsourcing of its entire IT and telecommunication services operation to Hewlett Packard Enterprise.The contract, which the board approved Nov. 15, is worth $918 million and lasts seven years. The county has outsourced its IT operations to private firms since 1999.About $12 million of the contract is set aside as a one-time expense to consolidate all of the countys data into a single center. Some of that funding will also go toward new technology and projects, according to the boards agenda.HP Enterprise has managed San Diego Countys IT and telecommunications since 2011. Before that, the county awarded similar bids to Computer Sciences Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp.At the end of the seven-year agreement, the county will have the option to extend the contract with HP Enterprise for another five years.Private equity firm Arlington Capital Partners has merged together three defense contractors into a single new entity called Polaris Alpha.The move brings together EOIR Technologies, Intelligent Software Solutions and Proteus Technologies. EOIR offers intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance services, ISS works largely in data analytics and Proteus deals in cybersecurity.Arlington didnt disclose the terms of the deal, but said in a press release that Polaris will have more than 1,100 employees and projected $250 million in revenue in 2017 for the new company.The combination of our technologies and subject matter expertise will significantly enhance our ability to deliver unique, impactful solutions to customers with some of the most important national security missions, said Polaris President Jay Jesse in the statement. This combination, facilitated by Arlington, has been years in the making, and adds breadth and depth to our solutions in the space, intelligence, C2 and cyber domains.Particle, a company that offers a cloud solution to connect Internet of Things devices, has raised $10.4 million in Series A funding.The San Francisco-based company offers both software the platform that enables connected devices to access the Internet, as well as a device management console but hardware as well. That includes development kits and an Internet button that can be pressed to trigger some given event.The Series A participants were Root Ventures, OReilly Alpha Tech Ventures and Rincon Venture Partners, according to VentureBeat . The company has also raised more than $4 million in seed and crowdfunding since 2013.Though the IoT concept remains more or less nascent , especially in government, there are numerous applications on the horizon. In Miami-Dade County, transportation officials are installing traffic controllers capable of connecting to the Internet in anticipation of vehicles that will be able to communicate both ways with signaled intersections. Chicago and Seattle are both experimenting with a project called the Array of Things , deploying networks of sensor nodes to collect data on traffic, weather, air quality and more.Oracle Corp., a large provider of enterprise resource planning software and cloud services to government, has signed on to acquire the DNS provider Dyn.The move might not register visible impacts for many of Oracles clients, though company representatives wrote in a press release that Dyn improves speed for cloud-based applications. Dyn also offers Internet performance management tools.Oracle cloud customers will have unique access to Internet performance information that will help them optimize infrastructure costs, maximize applications and website-driven revenue, and manage risk, Dyn Chief Strategy Officer Kyle York said in the press release.Oracle didnt disclose terms of the agreement, but Dyn has raised $88 million in two funding rounds.The move comes a month after a massive distributed denial of service attack on Dyn took down major parts of the Internet for large swaths of the U.S. Data is going to fix everything, from managing global computer networks to predicting Aunt Millies next online knitting-needle purchase, or so weve been told. Now add to the growing roster of data-driven insights: the very air we breathe.Thats what San Francisco-based startup BreezoMeter is pitching, and its an idea that's gaining traction. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it is poised to award two big grants to encourage data analytics in the realm of air quality, while IBM is helping China use data to clean up that nations famously foul air.Eighty percent of people living cities around the world are exposed to air quality level that the World Health Organization calls unsafe, said Ziv Lautman, a co-founder and chief marketing officer of BreezoMeter. The solution starts with understanding the patterns. It starts with knowledge and intelligence. It starts with data.Founded in 2014, with operations in the U.S. and Israel, the company demonstrated its Smart City technology at the Smart City Expo in Barcelona, Spain, in mid-November. As a software-based approach to air pollution, BreezoMeter aims to apply sophisticated analytics to data drawn from a range of systems. It looks at weather, traffic and other existing metrics, and combines these to produce maps of pollution intensity and patterns.In a demonstration project with Cisco in Place de la Nation, Paris, the company has shown that it can use sensor data to identify areas where air pollution may be headed over the course of a few hours. This may enable city officials to strategically reroute traffic or take other corrective action.The company is not alone in parsing data as a smart-city solution on the air quality front. IBM, for example, has been working with the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau through a project it has dubbed Green Horizons That project combines cognitive computing with the Internet of Things to generate high-resolution 1km-by-1km pollution forecasts as much as 72 hours in advance, and may even predict pollution trends 10 days out, according to IBM researchers. Data can be used to model and predict the impact of weather on the dispersal of pollutants.Better information leads to better management. Guided by IBM data, the Beijing government was able to achieve a 20 percent reduction in ultra-fine particulate matter in 2015, according to the company. Spurred by this success, IBM has sought to extend the air quality data effort. It has struck a deal with the Delhi Dialogue Commission to explore the correlation between traffic patterns and air pollution in Indias capital. The company also says it is working with the city of Johannesburg and South Africas Council of Scientific and Industrial Research to model air pollution trends.Even as the private sector pursues these early forays, the U.S. government also is taking a hard look at the potential for data analytics to impact air quality. The EPA is expected to announce in December the winners of its Smart Cities Air Challenge, a contest launched in August by CIO Ann Dunkin.Two communities will receive up to $40,000 each to deploy air sensors, share data with the public and develop data management best practices from these sensors.Air quality sensors are becoming less expensive and people are beginning to use them to measure pollution levels in their neighborhoods and homes, Dunkin said in a press release announcing the contest. With the EPAs help in the deployment phase, communities will learn how to use data analytics, which can be applied to other aspects of community life.In many cases, the data needed to drive smart pollution analytics already is readily available, Lautman said.Sixty percent of pollution comes from cars, and civic leaders have plenty of traffic data. In addition, the government operates some 2,500 EPA monitoring stations, gathering information on a range of pollutants. Add to this publicly available weather information, and you can start to get a pretty solid picture of where the bad air accumulates.We know where the pollution is coming from, where it is going, what times and what days are more sensitive to pollution. We can alert you in real time when there is a problem, Lautman said, adding that governments can then take corrective measures. If we see a traffic jam on the north side of the city that is knowledge, that is intelligence that the city can take action on.Data can be used not only to inform action, but also to mold public understanding. With the facts of environmental degradation still dismissed even by national leaders, smart city advocates need tools that help to tell the story.How can you fight an enemy that you cant see? Everyone speaks about climate change, but you cant see it. Likewise, in most places in the world you cant see air pollution, and that makes it hard to address, said Lautman. With data analytics you can see this street is polluted. You can see that you are downwind from a factory. You can see where the traffic is. The data is everywhere already. Now we want the pollution information to be everywhere too. 1. Partnering Beyond Borders 2. Consolidating, Integrating and Getting Smarter 3. Leveraging Emerging Tech Its fair to say that state CIOs fall on a spectrum. On one end, you have reactive types who thrive on pressure and just keeping the lights on, and on the other end, those who are looking to the next move and building the right foundation for the future. Illinois CIO Hardik Bhatt is the latter.Surely he has proven his daily operations salt as Chicagos chief information officer and during his tenure in the private sector, but Bhatts real passion and strength seems to reside in mapping what lies ahead for his state a state he toldis going places.We caught up with Bhatt just a day after America contentiously selected the next president, and despite a crackly cellphone connection and the commute in front of him, he presented a positive tone and was ready to talk about the proverbial road ahead.One of Bhatts strong suits is the ability to see opportunity in partnerships. Despite what he jokes is the inclination of those in the technology space to view themselves and their troubles as unique, he is more than comfortable admitting there is a lot to learn from others.For example, the ink is barely dry on a memorandum of understanding with Telangana, India , which is set to open relations and start the flow of information between the two states. While long-distance partnerships between U.S. cities is fairly commonplace by now, Bhatt sees the opportunities for international collaboration blossoming.I think you will see more and more of those things, because frankly, we are finally understanding that even though we take pride in thinking that we are special and different, we are not that much different, he said. We can really learn a lot from each other and grow together.Bhatt said hopes the constant exchange of ideas and best practices will lead to the development of smarter states on both ends of the agreement.As the states needs and available technology advance, the CIO said he isnt discounting the potential for partnerships with other foreign governments.Basically how can we learn and accelerate, thats the idea, he explained.One of the key priorities of the CIO has been reorganizing and repositioning the states technological planning and assets. Since Gov. Bruce Rauner signed an executive order creating the Department of Innovation and Technology and merging all of its IT resources on Jan. 25, 2016, Bhatt said considerable time has been put into successfully restructuring the internal enterprise.But the work hasnt stopped there. Building a rapport with local and federal government partners has also been a prime focus for the DoIT team.At the same time, we are also focusing on vertical integration and the demand integration aspects in how the state government can work closely with the county government, closely with the municipal government. And upward, how can the state government work closely with the federal government and try to integrate our network vertically? he said. We are trying to do as much horizontal alignment with other cities and states. We are also trying to do vertical integration between the various layers of government.In addition to working with federal partners like National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) on cybersecurity issues, the state has also turned its attention to empowering city and county government with the tools needed to become smarter government entities.By making resources available and providing access to infrastructure, Bhatt said small government in Illinois can share the same opportunities for smarter cities as their larger more technologically advanced neighbors.So, every town in Illinois can easily become part of the smart cities movement and apply these smart city solutions. They dont really have to go through their own procurement, etc., he said. Now, we are creating an equalizing opportunity for Sandwich, Ill., Peoria, Rockford, they can be as smart as Chicago.While the technological progress of the state of Illinois has been considerable , leaders are also looking to the next big thing for government and the constituency it serves. For Bhatt, several technologies warrant serious attention.With the advent of artificial intelligence , cognitive computing, [virtual reality] and driverless automated vehicles, we are going to see a fundamental change in the jobs, technology usages and automation and productivity. How do we, not just in state government but externally, how do we use technology to get future-ready? he said. We need to start thinking in the future.Plans to cultivate a state innovation center are also in the works. Though the undertaking would come with some financial limitations, a central innovation repository could be a boon to the larger Illinois IT environment and those it serves.Obviously its going to be on a shoestring budget," Bhatt said. "Its not going to be an innovation center of a large-scale, but its kind of a space which is different from government looking, where we can bring people together, brainstorm and build on that further."Another glaring opportunity that Bhatt described as not quite ready for prime time, is the potential to leverage blockchain technology throughout the government and business enterprise.The CIO said a working group is exploring what the tools are truly capable of and just how they might improve state processes.We are still in the early exploration stages," he told. "We are still kind of understanding the applications of this [technology].He hopes to know more about where DoIT can take the technology in the new year. For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers. As it stands now, South Middleton School Board is facing a preliminary budget deficit of almost $2.9 million estimated for 2017-2018. Operations and Business Manager Matthew Ulmer briefed the board Monday on his very early numbers leading up to a possible Dec. 5 vote on whether to seek an exception under Act 1 for a projected increase in pension costs. If approved by the state, the exception would allow the district to raise the property tax beyond the base index of 2.5 percent for next school year. The first step in seeking the exception would be by Dec. 5 to advertise a proposed preliminary budget five months earlier than what has been customary for the district and before all the cost adjustments could be accounted for. Ulmer is projecting total expenditures at $36,589,657 and total revenue at $33,710,023 for a deficit of $2,879,634. Personnel costs make up about 70 percent of the general fund budget. For now, Ulmer based his projections on the school board maintaining current staffing levels at all buildings and the district office. The budget also assumes a 2-percent salary hike for all teachers, administrators and support staff. The 2-percent figure is completely arbitrary on the part of Ulmer who only wanted to provide the board with a very preliminary estimate. The current contract with the teachers union expires on June 30, 2017. Negotiations are due to begin in January, Ulmer said. The annual contribution the school district makes to the Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System is expected to go up to 32.04 percent requiring an increase in costs to the district of $373,204 next school year. Medical insurance costs are expected to climb by 8 percent, requiring the district to budget an additional $439,068 in personnel costs, according to Ulmer. In addition, the debt service on bonds floated for capital projects will increase from $2.31 million in the current year to $3.43 million in 2017-2018 resulting in an increase in costs of about $1.11 million. Ulmer also included in his projections an estimated $200,000 for next textbooks and curriculum materials and a transfer of $250,000 to a reserve fund for capital improvements. Both these items were delayed as a result of previous budget deliberations. To be eligible for a special education exception, the district must submit actual budget figures that compare one year to the next and show a trend towards higher than normal cost increases. At first, Ulmer thought the district could qualify a special education exception but, after reviewing the actual cost history, it would probably not qualify. Actual year-to-year figures show special education costs went down slightly from $4,558,503 in 2014-2015 to $4,518,182 in 2015-2016. Toto Wolff says he is not interested in succeeding Bernie Ecclestone as boss of formula one. F1 sponsor guru Zak Brown had been tipped for the role in the forthcoming Liberty Media era, but McLaren has just unveiled the American as its new post-Ron Dennis executive director instead. The famous British team said it is the "first step in the group's transition to a new and strengthened organisational structure". This week, 86-year-old Ecclestone repeated his insistence that former Ferrari and Mercedes chief Ross Brawn is unqualified to join him in the area of F1's commercial rights. So attention is now returning to Toto Wolff, who admitted recently that he is currently negotiating an extension to his current role as Mercedes team boss. The Austrian told the French daily Le Figaro: "No, I do not dream about leading F1. "I think it is much more difficult than the people who criticise Bernie think. Adapting the sport to a digital universe and generating income is very complex and I prefer if someone else fixes the problem. "I have to keep my attention on the development of my team," Wolff added. (GMM) When, chest puffed out with pride, my father told a law partner his first-born was accepted to Bryn Mawr College, this was the immediate response: Isnt that the place where they dont shave their underarms and dance naked around the Maypole? Daddys friend had it partly right: We danced around that blessed Maypole fully clothed. So when I saw this week that a bunch of Bryn Mawr students were joining forces with their Haverford counterparts and marching down Lancaster Avenue to protest the white supremacist cops in the Lower Merion Police Department, I shook my head and thought: They must really be lowering the SAT requirements for admission. I am not particularly impressed with the social justice engagement of the precious little pop tarts who decided to skip class to march 40 people strong! down a Main Line thoroughfare to let the suburban police department that keeps them safe know it is nothing but a ritzy extension of the KKK. Amid chants of No justice, no peace, no racist police and We are protesting the fascist movement that is coalescing around Donald Trump, one protestor then made sure to announce that This is a ... respectful protest. Tell that to the fascist police. Im getting a little tired of the totalitarian metaphors and comparisons that have cropped up in the wake of the election. Its really the sign of a lazy mind and makes you question the analytical abilities of the speaker. Recently, some have compared the admittedly gross and bigoted Steve Bannon to Joseph Goebbels, Hitlers chief of propaganda. Thats silly and disrespectful to the Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Ive read Bannons stuff from Breitbart, and while I find him to be repellent, nothing hes written comes close to calling for the extermination of entire races of people. Frankly, Id like it if he werent in Trumps inner circle. But again, the comparison to Goebbels is as shallow as they come. Which brings me back to the little intercollegiate tots at Bryn Mawr, Haverford and the third prong of the Tri-College community, Swarthmore. I read that those from Swarthmore boycotted classes to express their sympathy with the immigrants Trump will round up on Jan. 21 and deport en masse back to Mexico. And I laughed, rather bitterly. I might be generalizing here, but I doubt anyone who can afford hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend these institutions knows anything about the plight of immigrants, particularly those who have been persecuted. I certainly dont think kids currently spending time taking a radical womens theory class have ever faced the barrel of a gun held by a gang member, been subject to female genital mutilation and havent been forced to disguise themselves as a Muslim to escape a West African country where Christians are killed. I know youre probably thinking this is exactly why those privileged Main Line kids were marchingbecause they hate Trump, his harsh immigration rhetoric and probable future policies. As someone who deals with it in the trenches, who has spent the week fielding calls from terrified people and who will spend more time in churches trying to calm some of those fears, I respect that desire to reach out. But excuse me if I have a hard time believing these millennials have any real idea about what white supremacy, persecution and social injustice is and who Goebbels even was. To me, it looks like a group of rabble-rousers looking for a cause, a protest in search of itself, a bunch of L.L. Bean boots on pathetic parade. Yeah, Bannon is not a nice guy. Yeah, Trump is making a bit of a mishmash of his transition (please God, please, not Sarah Palin for Interior Secretary). Yeah, college is a time to spread your wings and develop a social conscience. But looking for white supremacists at Starbucks and thinking that missing a few classes will make the world safe for immigrants is laughable and only slightly more annoying than having to explain that whole Maypole thing 30 years later. It gets cold out there; we wore dresses. Subject closed. Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, and can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com. The new engines will be installed over a period of 3 to 4 years, at a rate of 12 to 18 buses per year. In California, Big Blue Bus (BBB) will receive $870,000 from the Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committees (MSRC) Near Zero Engine Incentive Program. Big Blue Bus will use the grant approved by the MSRC partially to fund the purchase of 58 new Cummins-Westport 8.9L ISL G Near-Zero (NZ) 0.02 NO x engines. The NZ engine is the first mid-range engine in North America to receive emission certifications from both the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California Air Resources Board (ARB) meeting the 0.02 g/bhp-hr optional Near Zero NO x Emissions standards. ( Earlier post .) The ISL G NZ features the same Stoichiometric cooled Exhaust Gas Recirculation (SEGR) combustion technology, spark ignition, and simple TWC aftertreatment as the ISL G natural gas engine. The ISL G NZ can operate on compressed, liquid, or renewable natural gas (RNG). Operating ISL G NZ engines on RNG offers a significant GHG emissions benefit compared to fossil fuels. In addition to the dramatic reduction in NOx, the ISL G NZ will feature Closed Crankcase Ventilation, reducing engine related GHG methane emissions by 70%. In June 2015, Big Blue Bus was awarded $5.9 million from the Federal Transit Administration, to purchase nine new CNG buses. The recent procurement of both CNG buses and engines will help the agency reduce its current NO x emissions by more than 90% in 2018. Serving Santa Monica and the Los Angeles area since 1928, Big Blue Bus operates a fleet of almost 200 vehicles transporting more than 61,000 passengers daily across a 51-square mile service area. Nationally recognized for its long-standing commitment to a cleaner environment, the entire fleet operates on alternative fuels, including renewable natural gas (RNG). Dr. William C. Chueh is assistant professor at the Department of Materials Science & Engineering and Center Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy. He has attained a new level of understanding for diverse fundamental battery dynamics which limit battery rate capability and life cycle. His insights are paving the way for further improving lithium-ion batteries and significantly enhancing their performance. ( Earlier post .) The Volkswagen and BASF international Science Award Electrochemistry 2016 goes to Dr. William Chueh from Stanford University. The jury of representatives from BASF, Volkswagen and from academia selected him for his outstanding research results in the area of energy storage and conversion. By visualizing electrochemical reactions as they take place on length scales ranging from tens of microns down to sub-nanometer, William Chueh has delivered unprecedented insights into the design of functional materials with novel compositions and structures. With the Science Award Electrochemistry he receives prize money of 50,000. Also, on the occasion of the 5th ceremony of the science award, a special prize for applied research goes to Dr. Martin Ebner from the ETH University Zurich, Switzerland for his excellent research in the area of fast charging of lithium-ion batteries. Dr. Martin Ebner received his PhD in Material Science at the ETH University Zurich. His research focuses on new methods to increase the charging rates of lithium-ion batteries with novel electrode processing methods while reducing production costs. Martin Ebner is developing innovative battery anodes that allow fast charging and reduce degradation problems in the battery. In summer 2015, he received funding of the ETH Pioneer Fellowship program and founded the start-up Battrion AG in Luzern to pursue the commercialization of his innovations. The special prize for applied research is worth 15,000. BASFs goal is to create chemistry for a sustainable future. And we all know that the battery is at the heart of electro-mobility. There is huge potential for systematic technological progress in this field, but there are scientific challenges we have to overcome. The science of electrochemistry is a key research field for sustainable future mobility. Therefore, we need top-notch R&D around the globe performed by excellent researchers who inspire each other and lead their scientific communities to constantly develop new and better solutions. Dr. Martin Brudermuller, Vice Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors and Chief Technology Officer at BASF Within the Volkswagen Group, we have a clear strategy for how we want to put battery-electric vehicles into series production across our brands and in many different market segments. However, a major prerequisite for success in the volume market is more powerful battery concepts. In Volkswagen Group Research and Development we are focusing on close cooperation, not only with industrial partners but also with the smart minds of the scientific community. The winners of our Science Award are an excellent example of innovative and creative ideas in this field. Dr. Ulrich Eichhorn, Head of Group Research and Development for Volkswagen AG Knowledge of electrochemical processes and their application in the field of materials, battery cells or storage systems is key to developing future energy storage devices. Without these technologies, it is not possible to provide climate and resource-saving power supplies using regenerative energy or to achieve future drive concepts such as electric mobility. Current energy storage devices have so far been unable to attain the performance which power supply and mobility customers are accustomed to. For this reason, Volkswagen and BASF aim to motivate researchers of excellence working in science and corporate research to place even more commitment to the field of electrochemistry and its applications. The international Science Award Electrochemistry supports excellent scientific and engineering achievements and strives to provide fresh impetus to the development of high-efficiency energy storage devices. The science award has been held every year since 2012 and is targeted at scientists working in academic research all over the world. Total prize money is 100,000, with first place receiving 50,000. It didnt take long. Journalists, editorial writers and columnists who hate Donald Trump and consistently opposed his election are now advising him what not to do. Newspaper headlines claim Trump is pulling back on his campaign promises. Editorials encourage him not to do everything he pledged, although his pledges are what got him elected. The ACLU bought a full-page ad in The New York Times, vowing to use its army of lawyers and volunteers to thwart Trumps agenda. Since everyone else is offering advice, here is mine: Begin with the economy. Propose to Congress cuts in individual and corporate taxes and a plan to do away with the tax code, replacing it with a flat or fair tax. On illegal immigration, start building the wall, but announce that to help pay for it a toll system will be implemented, charging people who cross our southern border in each direction. Drivers have to pay tolls to get in and out of Manhattan. Why not tolls for getting in and out of America? The new president could also ask for contributions from the public to help build the wall, which can bring in additional funds. Well see if Mexico pays anything. Trump says he will forgo the $400,000 presidential salary. Heres a better idea. Take the money and donate it to scholarships for poor children so they can escape failing public schools and get a decent education for a better future. This could be done immediately while waiting for Congress to pass a school voucher plan and would encourage others to make similar contributions to charitable scholarship funds. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., is again playing a central role in the transition. Many of its ideas on domestic and foreign policy are posted at heritage.org. Heritage provided many policy suggestions to Ronald Reagan, which he embraced during his two terms. A source familiar with what is occurring inside the transition tells me landing teams from Heritage will be visiting federal departments and agencies beginning Wednesday to ask questions and retrieve information for the new administration. They will be reminded that President Obama is president until Jan. 20 and to be respectful. We only have one president at a time. The Trump administration plans to follow Speaker Paul Ryans advice and go big, go bold. Hundreds of executive orders are being prepared, along with language members of Congress can use to formulate new legislation and repeal old laws. These include school choice, repealing and replacing most of Obamacare and reversing various social engineering orders, such as transgender bathroom requirements. The transition team is combining the New York and Washington offices and entering what was described to me as the execution stage, moving from policy pronouncements, to enactment. Conservatives should be encouraged that vice president-elect Mike Pence has been put in charge of the transition. He is a rock-solid conservative who will be helpful in making sure people who hold conservative views are placed in key posts. The emphasis should shift from ideology to what works. If, for example, poor children are liberated from government schools and their grades and outlook on life improve, their testimony will be evidence enough that school choice has been a success. Heres another suggestion. The major media hate Trump and always will. At his press conferences, he should include more conservative journalists who will eschew gotcha and what do you say to people who say questions and seek to obtain information of use to the public. This will be the Republicans last opportunity for a generation to show that their ideas work and to promote the general welfare. The possibilities are great if Trump and Pence and the Republican Congress ignore critics who want them to fail and press on to receive the prize that success will bring, not only to them and the GOP, but to a nation that longs for it. Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Tis the season to sit around and binge watch. Streaming fans are sure to get something they'll like this season with all the new additions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu this December. Check out the gallery above to see what's new on your favorite streaming giant this December. Some classics and newer titles are heading to Netflix, with the addition of National Lampoons: Animal House, Beverly Hulls Cop, The Angry Birds Movie, and Captain America: Civil War this month. The second season of Netflix's original show Fuller House also begins in time for the holidays. Related: 12 fall TV shows you can't miss Fans of hit series The Man in the High Castle will be happy for the return of its second season this month, as well as a new season of Mozart in the Jungle and The Expanse. Hulu has numerous hit movies being added this month. Apocalypse Now, American Beauty, Rain Man, and Pulp Fiction are all heading to the streaming platform. If you're missing the horror of October, the first eight Friday the 13th movies will all be available to stream on Hulu as well. GREENWICH The realities of living in Greenwich while struggling to stay above the poverty line were brought into stark focus on Monday morning at a special presentation by the Greenwich United Way. The meeting put the spotlight on people who are classified as asset limited, income constrained but employed, which is given the acronym ALICE. They have jobs but face major challenges paying for basic necessities like food, shelter, transportation and health care and are above eligibility guidelines for many state subsidies. They are really struggling and making tough choices every day, Greenwich United Way President and CEO David Rabin said. And you might ask, well who is ALICE? Well ALICE are the folks you see every day. Theyre our cashiers. Theyre our bank tellers. Theyre the people who are the backbone of our community really. The income level for an ALICE family of four is $72,000 a year. Rabin said the number of people classified as ALICE is up to 15 percent of the town, equaling 3,368 residents, a rise from 12 percent in 2004. When added to the 5 percent in town living at the poverty level, that equals 20 percent of the town struggling to get by every month. Lets say your car breaks down, Rabin said to the crowd of 15 people at the meeting. Lets say you need new breaks. What would you do? Well I could carpool with a friend or use the second or third car that we might or might not have. But ALICE folks have a tough decision. They either have to get it fixed, if they can afford to get it fixed, or not get it fixed, which many times is the decision they have to do, and then what? How do they get to work? Can they get to work? Can they take a bus or a cab? If they miss work they dont get income. These folks are really one financial decision away from financial disaster. The presentation was made to a group of professionals well acquainted with the social services needs of Greenwich. Representatives from the Boys and Girls Club, Neighbor to Neighbor, Meals on Wheels, Abilis, the YWCA and Family Centers were all in attendance. The centerpiece of the meeting at Greenwich Library was walking attendees through a simulation available online at www.makingtoughchoices.org in which people can put themselves in the shoes of a typical ALICE family in Connecticut, with one infant child and one preschool child. As part of the simulation, people are asked to choose which job they would have wait staff, receptionist or grocery store stockroom worker each with different salaries, hours and challenges when it comes to child care. Once that choice is made program users try get people through the month on limited money. Rabin took the attendees through the simulation and asked them what theyd do when choosing places to live, whether to get a car or rely on public transportation, what kind of child care they would pay for and what kind of food theyd give their families since often healthier, fresher food is more expensive than processed choices and frozen foods. The simulation added in money throughout the month as paychecks would come in, but it also presented the reality of the bills ALICE families have to struggle with like unexpected injuries or illnesses. Parents can face difficult choices, perhaps having to forgo health care for themselves, or deciding whether to pay a fee to keep a beloved family dog in the apartment or else give up the pet. Members of the group could not get through the full month without going into debt because of expenses, something Rabin said is very difficult to avoid. When I did this a couple of times I could only get through five days or nine days, Rabin said. I had to try and pick the absolute worst choices you could make because there are so many scenarios built into this. I made it through the whole month but I had to make choices that were just unfathomable. Rabin urged people to do the simulation at home and learn more about the reality of ALICE families in Greenwich and the tough decisions they have to make. The expenses used in building the program were based on numbers compiled by the Connecticut United Way. In Greenwich people face even bigger challenges given the higher cost of living in town, Rabin said. Greenwichs 15 percent population of ALICE families and individuals is not out of proportion with other nearby towns, even ones with less diversity. Rabin said the ALICE level is at 16 percent in Darien, at 14 percent in New Canaan, 17 percent in Ridgefield, 11 percent in Weston, 16 percent in Westport and 12 percent in Wilton. The issues are in towns you wouldnt have expected, Rabin said. What to do about the problem is a goal the Greenwich United Way is focusing on. And that was where the other agencies in attendance would be able to help, explained Jeremy Nappi, the agencys director of development. There is assistance and help out there and thats where our community gathers together to help one another, Nappi said. Many of those programs are supported by the Greenwich United Way. There are solutions but we need to gather together as a family and as a community to do it together. kborsuk@scni.com GREENWICH Public-safety authorities described a horrendous weekend on local roads, with one fatality and two severe injuries reported along the Interstate 95 corridor in Greenwich. Another accident on North Street resulted in a hospitalization and a lengthy road closure. It was a chaotic weekend, said Deputy Fire Chief Thomas Zack. A pedestrian was killed on I-95 near Exit 3 on Saturday. Carlos Coyt-Orozco, 24, of Port Chester, N.Y., was hit by a car carrier after 4 p.m. as he pushed his car, which had run out of gas, near the off-ramp. After stalling, Coyt-Orozco and his passenger, David Espinoza, 23, also of Port Chester, were pushing the car along the right shoulder. Coyt-Orozco was standing by the open driver-side door as he tried to steer the vehicle, when he was hit by the truck. He was in cardiac arrest when Greenwich Emergency Medical Service technicians arrived, and he was pronounced dead a short time later. The driver of the tractor-trailer, John W. Hoffmann, 37, of New Jersey, told police he came upon a curve in the road and was blinded by the sun, causing him to drift onto the right shoulder. Police said Hoffman pulled over immediately and was cooperative with the investigation. No charges were filed in the incident. The accident and subsequent investigation by State Police caused extensive delays in the area and it was a contributing factor in another major accident on Arch Street. There was a lot of additional traffic in this area, said Police Lt. Kraig Gray. A ShopRite tractor trailer had exited the southbound lanes at Exit 3, when the driver decided to pull back onto the highway, according to Greenwich police. The truck hit a Maserati in the Arch Street intersection. Christina Vomoca, 38, of Stamford, was driving the car, with Maiko Kobayashi, 32, also of Stamford, riding in the passenger seat. Both were listed in critical condition at Stamford Hospital on Monday. The rescue operation was especially challenging. We had to cut a section of the guard rail away from the vehicle. It was a very extensive extrication, said Zack. Eventually, firefighters took two doors and the roof off of the vehicle. It was an all-hands on operation, working feverishly, said Zack. On the positive side, Zack noted, police officers, firefighters and EMTs worked together with close coordination. Collectively, all three agencies worked very hard to meet the needs of the community, the deputy chief said. At 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, an old-time 1942 Jeep driven by a local resident ran off the road on North Street near Alpine Road and hit a tree. It rebounded back onto the road, where it was struck by another car. The driver was hospitalized and later listed in stable condition. North Street was closed for three hours. There were no charges filed in the incident. Police did not release names of those involved. Robert.Marchant@scni.com GREENWICH Police are investigating a number of debit-card frauds involving skimming, the use of devices to steals banking information. A handful of cases of skimming have been reported to Greenwich police over the past month, according to Police Lt. Kraig Gray. Weve had several attempts at ATM (automatic teller machine) skimming here in Greenwich, said Gray. Skimming is a national crime trend, in which perpetrators apply a device of some sort which steals the victims card information. While a device mounted over an ATM card-reader grabs a persons debit card information, including the account number, a nearby camera is mounted to capture the persons personal identification number. The scam devices have been found at banks, gas stations and convenience stores, anywhere that debit cards are used for cash or purchases. People should be very cautious with their ATM cards, said Gray, who added it is advisable to cover a machines number pad with a hand or other obstruction when entering a PIN. In July, a local man was arrested for an attempted skimming operation at the Greenwich train station. Police say skimming operations range in complexity from the crude to the advanced. The level of sophistication varies. The quality of the equipment also varies. With some international groups, it is very well organized and capable, the lieutenant said. If anything looks suspicious with an ATM, management should be notified immediately. The Connecticut Financial Crime Task Force is working to break up skimming operations around the region. Robert.Marchant@scni.com This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate MILFORD Its not easy being a bird in Connecticut and experts say that that things will only get worse. The Connecticut Audubon Society on Tuesday released its 10th annual Connecticut State of the Birds report on Monday which painted a sobering portrait of bird species in the state, many of which are seeing drastic population drops over the past two or three decades. We have learned a lot about tidal marsh birds in the last ten years thats the good news. said UConn professor Chris Elphick, who specializes in wildlife species. The bad news is that many of these species are on a rapid trajectory to extinction. He said that the salt march sparrow has seen its numbers decline at a rate of about 9 percent annually since the 1990s. And all of the other species that nest in the marshes are on the decline as well, he said. If you look at the marsh habitat, youre seeing big changes in plant species because the marsh has been getting wetter over just the last ten years, he said. Sea level rise is happening and because of the effects of global warming, the marshes are changing. Bird conservationist and report co-author Patrick Comins agreed. Ten years ago, there were two endangered species and now nine more species have been added to that list since then. He said the long-tailed duck has seen its numbers decline by about 80 percent in the last four decades and a similar drop was seen with the semipalmated sandpiper. These were two of our most abundant species, he said. The king rail, the least bittern have seen similar declines. There are some bright spots, however. Connecticut Audubons Senior Director of Science and Conservation Milan G. Bull said that all of the efforts to bring back the piping plover has shown some success. There has also been improvement seen in the osprey population. But Bull said that policies put in place since the mid-20th century to preserve forests have worked almost too well. Now, he said, Connecticut has a lack of fields and grasslands, along with the species that need this habitat. We need the transitional forests the shrub-scrub habitat to maintain diversity, he said. Surprisingly, concern over the New England cottontail rabbit, which relies on this kind of habitat, has given many of these bird species a chance. Jenny Dickson, the supervising wildlife biologist for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said that conservationists have been able to move the needle through partnerships with private landowners, with other states and with municipalities in adding more grassland and scrubby habitat. But a lot of the habitats that grassland species like are also prime places for hard development, she said. Bull called for more money for research, particularly money to plan for sea-level rise, which will require the creation of landscapes that will will become future salt marshes. Were also calling on funding to update the Connecticut Breeding Bird Atlas, Bull said. This hasnt been updated in 25 or 30 years to give us a perspective that will help make the proper management decisions to help Connecticuts bird populations. jburgeson@ctpost.com The Bismarck Board of Education reviewed six district goals when it met in regular session Thursday in the elementary school library. The goals were agreed upon by the administrative team and approved by the board in November 2013, said Superintendent Chuck Hasty. At that time, it was determined that the school district would continue to evaluate its progress in achieving the goals and make adjustments as needed. The majority of the goals are tied to the MSIP 5 evaluation our district faces annually. According to Hasty, the first goal is to maximize scholarship opportunities for seniors. Our goal is to maximize the number of students receiving scholarship money each year, Hasty said. However, a specific percentage is difficult to establish and will vary from year to year. In 2013, 67 percent of our seniors received scholarship money; in 2014, 70 percent; in 2015, 61 percent; and 2016, 65 percent. The second goal is to see 90 percent of the senior class accepted into a college or tech school. We want to reach the 90 percent and then maintain that number, Hasty said. In 2013, 83 percent of our seniors were accepted; in 2014, 93 percent; in 2015, 84 percent; and in 2016, 77 percent. While 77 percent is a good number, we all know how important an advanced degree is and will be in terms of income potential in the future. That said, this ultimately comes down to the importance an advanced education has in the home. We are teaching and explaining this information in a variety of classes. We are absolutely doing our part. Hasty added that meeting the goal will require that approximately 26 of the 2016-17 senior class to be accepted into college or tech school. The third goal is to have 40 percent of graduating seniors score at or above the national average on the ACT. This remains a lofty goal, Hasty said. The magnitude of the impact of an advanced degree in the United States today cannot be overstated. Hasty reported that 23 percent of the 2013 senior class scored at or above the national average; in 2014, 23 percent; 2015 seniors, 35 percent; and in 2016, 29 percent. We will continue to push for better performance from all of the students, he said. "However, this is another area where individual pride and motivation comes into play. Based on our current enrollment numbers, to achieve 40 percent would require 11 to 12 seniors from the 2016-17 class to reach the goal." The fourth goal is to have 75 percent of district students to read at or above grade level by May 2016. From the beginning we felt this to be an extremely lofty goal, Hasty said. Our secondary students were tested at 73 percent at or above grade level as of May. Kindergarten through fifth grade achieved 39 percent on Aug. 31, 2015; 57.5 percent on May 17, 2016; 34.2 percent as of Aug. 31 and 49.3 percent in October 2016. Sixth through 12th grade achieved 54 percent on Aug. 31, 2015; and 73 percent on May 17, 2016, Aug. 31, 2016 and Nov. 1, 2016. We will continue to challenge the students and make every effort to meet this goal. The concern remains that secondary students simply dont read enough for pleasure. We will continue to do our part from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., August to May. Hasty said meeting the goal requires that approximately 214 of the 6th through 12th grade students and 160 of the kindergarten through 5th grade students meet the goal. The fifth goal is to have 20 percent of the school districts seniors graduate with a minimum of 15 college credit hours. The percentage goal has increased during the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years, Hasty said. "In 2014, 17 percent of our seniors met this goal; and in 2015 and 2016, 32 percent met the goal. Forty percent are on track to meet this goal in 2017, with two potentially receiving their associates degree as well. We remain pleased with the interest in gaining college credit and will continue to encourage participation. To meet the goal in 2016-17, 5 to 6 students must gain the 15 hours. The sixth goal is to successfully achieve the 126 points required to qualify as Distinction by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (D.E.S.E.). An historical review of the school districts performance show that in 2015-16, it achieved 125.5 points; 128 points in 2014-15; 126 points in 2013-14; 119.5 points in 2012-13 the first year of MSIP 5; and 126 points in 2011-12. All years prior to 2011 did not meet the criteria. In the Southeast Region, 50 percent of the districts scored at least 90 percent of the points possible, Hasty said. Ninety-three percent of the districts met the minimum standard of 70 percent as required by D.E.S.E. While our APR shows that we were half-a-point shy of the 126 needed for the old Distinction' qualification, I think we should be proud of how far we have come and our ability to maintain a much higher performance in recent years. As [middle/high school] Principal Jason King may be pointing out in our APR report, we receive all of the points in graduation rate and college and career readiness. Our mission is to graduate all students and to have them prepared to move on to the next level, college or career. The points we missed involved test taking. While it seems that the department wants professional test takers, I am not sure we consistently need to celebrate that area. In addition to this tremendous academic improvement, I think it is important to remind you that our elementary was awarded exemplary status in January 2016. The district will be working on new goals during the 2016-17 school year. Mr. King and his administrative team will be working on these goals over the remainder of this year and will have a plan in place by August 2017. An ecommerce store is a fantastic way to build revenue with very little overhead: You can generate sales around-the-clock at a global level without the expenses or staff required to operate a brick-and-mortar business. Related: Website Builder Squarespace Launches New Ecommerce Tools for Business Owners Yet, despite the fact that more than 205 million consumers in the United States shop online, and spend a per-person average of nearly $3,000 per year, plenty of ecommerce business are still struggling to become profitable. If you count yours among them, here are 10 things that could be the root cause of your revenue problems. 1. Poor quality images and product descriptions When customers shop online, they dont have the ability to pick up a product up and inspect it. Theyre forced to rely on the images you provide, along with whatever description you have. Images and descriptions should be designed to attract buyers to the item. If you have shoddy photos or rely solely on technical descriptions, youll lose a lot of sales because you'll fail to generate interest in your products. Showcase your products from multiple angles, with quality images, and create unique descriptions that show buyers the value of the products and how consumers can benefit from them. The reason it seems that price is all your customers care about . . . is that you havent given them anything else to care about, writes Seth Godin, author of All Markets are Liars. 2. Missing contact information Contact information may seem like a small detail, but limiting it on your website is a huge red flag for consumers. They want to know they can reach you if theres a problem. If youre not displaying your location information (even without a retail store) and phone number, youll have a hard time establishing trust with your customers. 3. A complex checkout process A complex, multi-step checkout process is a frustrating experience for customers. Its like going to Walmart for a single product, only to find the store has only two registers running and lines that are enormous. Eliminate the frustration by creating a very short checkout process. Likewise, never require registration for a checkout. Let customers go through the process and choose the option to register and save their info at the end, in case they want to come back again. Related: 10 Emerging eCommerce Trends Worth Checking Out 4. Hidden shipping rates I have personally abandoned countless carts online because shipping costs were hidden until the very end of the checkout process, and it was only then that I discovered high shipping rates I wasnt willing to pay. Some customers dont even make it that far. Shipping rates are one of the biggest reasons for shopping cart abandonment, but its an easy issue to fix. Provide your customers with a shipping calculator that works based on the items theyre interested in and their zip code. Most ecommerce platforms offer plugins that make it easy to add a calculator like this. 5. Poor navigation (small-tap targets) According to SmartInsights, 80 percent of shoppers search the web using their smartphones. If your online store has tiny buttons, small product images or a cluttered design, navigation can be incredibly difficult. Small-tap targets make it difficult to hit the target link or button on a shrunken mobile screen, which can sour the shopping experience and send a consumer elsewhere. Make sure your mobile design is responsive, with large images and properly sized buttons. Google recommends tap targets and buttons that are at least 48 pixels tall/wide. 6. Customers dont know what to do. Even with an ecommerce website, you need to make it very clear what you want the customer to do on your site. Non-product pages should direct the customer using a blatant and obvious call to action. The most successful ecommerce sites tell customers exactly what to do; never leave them to guess what the next step is. 7. Youre not promoting properly. Without targeted traffic, your store isnt going to generate any revenue. You need to create an inbound marketing strategy that uses social, content marketing and even paid marketing. Once you begin building your customer base, let user-generated content and testimonials build further social proof and promote your store. When you have enough customers, use tools like Rewardstream to build and manage a referral program. You cant wait for customers to come to you, writes Paul Graham of Y Combinator. You have to figure out where they are, go there and drag them back to your store. 8. Youre not engaging your customers. No acknowledgement at all from a salesperson is just as bad as a pushy salesperson. Engage your customers and followers on social media to keep your brand front and center. Get involved in industry-related discussions to turn heads of prospective customers. Most importantly, use content marketing to engage past and current customers to keep them coming back, as you promote your content to new prospects. 9. Youre targeting the wrong audience. You may be pouring time and money into content marketing or ad spends that arent generating any business. If thats the case, are you targeting the right people? Make sure you do your audience research so that your marketing is targeting the right crowd. Related: Ecommerce Is Growing, But Customers Still Prefer Shopping in Stores 10. The price is (not) right. Pricing products can be difficult: if your prices are too low, customers may think your products are lower quality. Price too high, and they'll shop elsewhere. When you factor in tax and shipping costs, its even more challenging. Market research and trial and error can help you find the pricing sweet spot you need, to gain (and keep) customers. Related: How to Prepare Your Business to Win Big on Black Friday 10 Reasons Your Ecommerce Store Isn't Making Any Sales Wal-Mart Will Offer Cyber Monday Deals Starting Black Friday Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved No employee will ever be engaged all the time. But employers take comfort in the fact that routinely disengaged employees usually leave in search of opportunities that suit them better, clearing the way for the hiring of fresh talent. Related: 5 Ways to Determine Which Applicants Will Be Loyal Employees Unfortunately, 8 percent of employees stay on, despite feeling unmotivated, disengaged and generally negative about their employers, an October report published by Aon Hewitt found. The report referred to these employees as "workplace prisoners," and noted that they tend to be long-tenured. Among workers with 26 years or more at their companies, in fact, 17.1 percent are just such "prisoners," the report found. And that sets up a quandary for employers: Such employees may be seen as being loyal to the organization; but if they're not engaged, they're holding up company progress instead of contributing to it. These employees aren't going anywhere any time soon, so it's up to employers to re-engage them and get the most from this veteran talent. The challenge If so-called prisoner-employees are so unhappy, why do they stay? Often, their retention is less about company loyalty and more about comfort. That's because these employees tend to be some of the highest paid. In one firm studied in the Aon Hewitt report, 61 percent of unhappy employees reported receiving salaries above the market median for their jobs, while just 27 percent received below the median. Pay, then, is one of the largest obstacles to overcome. Because these people are paid so well already, they haven't much incentive to change their ways. At the same time, these employees are likely bored. After all, a 2016 study of U.S. office workers conducted by Udemy found that 43 percent of all respondents queried said they were bored at work. And this boredom is likely more rampant among employees who have been with their companies for years. While many employers focus on onboarding and retaining new talent, loyal employees often get less attention and are overlooked because they're less likely to leave. Related: 13 Signs of a Disengaged Employee (Infographic) In addition, these employees have experience and understand how their companies operate, so there's less of an immediate need to offer them learning and development opportunities. And that leads to another major challenge in re-engaging loyal employees: their attitude. These employees are used to doing things a certain way and may think they already know everything they need to know to perform their jobs well. So, what to do? Engaging tenured employees won't be easy, but it is possible. Here's how: 1. Change perceptions. Before employees can change their actions, they need to change their attitudes -- and, here, employers can help. Loyal employees may think they're more productive than everyone else and feel valuable to their employer, when in reality, they're lagging behind. In fact, a July 2015 survey of U.S. office workers conducted by Workfront found that 81 percent considered themselves the most productive among their coworkers, and 55 percent considered themselves more productive than their managers. The message here is that people think they work harder than their neighbors, but that's not always the case, especially among disengaged employees. New challenges may be exactly what prisoner-employees need to realize they haven't experienced everything and that they aren't working to their fullest potential. Challenge them with new responsibilities, more work or even assignments to mentor newer employees. That way, they feel valued. At the same time, they'll have to step up their game to get it all done. 2. Introduce new skills. Tenured employees may be bored because they've been doing the same things and using the same skills for years. And, unfortunately, they aren't offered learning opportunities as often as is newer, less experienced talent. But those opportunities might be exactly what they need. In fact, 80 percent of employees in the Udemy survey said learning new skills would make them more engaged. Because long-term employees already have a handle on the skills needed to succeed within the organization, they are prime candidates to specialize in a particular skill or niche, learn new trends and technology or branch out into new areas that their company's personnel haven't yet explored. Use platforms like Everwise to engage employees in the learning process, using social tools and experimental teaching methods, instead of just watching an online course or seminar. Don't just offer employees courses and webinars and allow them to sit on the information. Challenge them to develop an action plan on how to use the new information to innovate and benefit the company. Then, let them lead the charge. That's how to make a learning opportunity into a special project, not just another course the prisoner-employee needs to complete. 3. Ask for representation. Brand ambassadors are typically some of the most engaged employees, but asking loyal employees to serve in the role can kill two birds with one stone. As representatives of the company, disengaged employees will feel a renewed sense of dedication and want to put their best face forward. By sharing all the great things about the organization and talking with new perspective talent, they'll remember what they loved about the job in the first place. At the same time, these employees may feel honored that they are wanted for the job -- they'll feel special and recognized for their years of loyalty to the company. Related: 3 Ways to Re-Engage Your Employees This strategy doesn't hurt talent acquisition either. After all, the Global Recruiting Trends 2016 report from LinkedIn found that 47 percent of the 3,894 hiring managers surveyed said that social media is the most effective employer branding tool. Using long-term employees to connect with job seekers on social media is a great way to boost engagement while securing new talent. Related: Are Your Most Loyal Employees Also the Most Likely to Be Disengaged? 3 Ways to Be Happily Engaged at Work If You Were Already Worried About Employee Engagement, Prepare to Panic Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved From family gatherings to gift exchanges, the holidays have finally arrived. This festive time of year is not only exciting for people but retailers, too. Businesses are pushing their special promotions, organizing in-store events and restocking inventory to ensure a successful holiday season. But probably most importantly -- at least for us consumers -- are the magical holiday windows. Related: The 5 Most Stunning Holiday Windows in New York City -- and What You Can Learn From Them Since we can recall, retailers across the country have been sprucing up their window displays with festive decor to showcase their latest offerings and entice people to enter their store -- with one being Macys. Known for its stunning holiday windows in major metropolitan areas -- including New York City, San Francisco and Chicago -- Macys windows are a tradition for thousands of people. But pulling off such a massive exhibit isnt easy. According to Roya Sullivan, the national window director for Macys, the ramp up to the big unveil takes about eight months. Between negotiating with the fashion office, marketing team, vendors and merchants; putting together the years calendar, being ahead of trends and designing and sourcing materials, there is a lot of work and strategy that goes into those beautiful holiday windows. And while increasing foot traffic is definitely a goal, so is building brand awareness and goodwill within the community. [We are] interested in exciting our customers and creating experiences that the customers will enjoy, Sullivan says. Today, that means keeping up with trends, incorporating technology into the displays and seeing how people interact with the windows. For instance, for this years Believing the Magic theme, the team noticed how kids have steered away from writing letters to Santa Claus, and instead sending emails and creating YouTube videos. So one of Macys holiday windows features Santa Claus communication center, where elves are receiving YouTube videos from kids of their Christmas lists. Related: The 6 Musts of a Successful Holiday Marketing Campaign These engaging window displays arent just for the big guys; small businesses should seize the opportunity, too. The displays are a way for any brand to connect with customers, show off their products, create experiences and join in the holiday conversation. Below, Sullivan shares some advice for businesses looking to jazz up their holiday windows. 1. Focus on quality over quantity. If you have great products, they should be shown in your holiday windows. But dont overdo it. Rather than flooding your windows with products, be strategic about it. By focusing on the composition of your window display, such as clever details and ways to interact with customers, a company can create a compelling story or theme. This will help to engage people and catch their attention. 2. Plan your schedule early. Macys plans its holiday window displays a year in advance. Immediately after taking down the holiday windows, come January and they are in the ideation process for the following holiday displays. Related: 5 Tips to Get Your Website Ready for the Holidays And while small businesses likely dont have an entire department devoted to display, that doesnt mean they should ignore the opportunity to plan early. By doing so, the store be able to create quality and well-executed window displays. 3. Add some movement. Sullivan is confident that movement will engage consumers -- even if its just the slightest. Its attention grabbing and helps create an interactive aspect that will get customers through the doors. For us, looking at how people receive information and interact with technology is a major factor that influences what will be put in the windows, says Sullivan. Being ahead of the trends both in your industry and in technology will drive engagement and enhance the consumer experience. Related: Macy's Holiday Window Designer Shares 3 Secrets for Better Holiday Displays The 5 Most Stunning Holiday Windows in New York City -- and What You Can Learn From Them 19 Beautiful But Practical Tech Gifts Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved With the Christmas season officially beginning this weekend, area businesses are hoping customers will participate in Small Business Saturday and shop locally this Saturday. Small Business Saturday is a campaign spearheaded by American Express to urge people to shop at small businesses during the Christmas holiday and support their local businesses. When you think Black Friday, you think of the big box stores like Walmart and Target, said Laura Raymer, director of operations and member engagement for the Farmington Regional Chamber of Christmas. Small Business Saturday is a national effort to drive shoppers to shop at local businesses across the United States. According to Raymer, the program was started by American Express in 2012 has grown in popularity ever since. More than 95 million people participated last year alone, Raymer said. It has becomes so successful the United Kingdom has picked it up and are coming up with their own event as well. Raymer added that most people dont realize that 99 percent of businesses in the Unites States are small businesses, not the big box stores you find in the malls. We want to work with the small businesses in the area, Raymer said. These businesses are the life blood of the community. We sometimes just think its the businesses that are downtown, but it is the small businesses around the area. For many local retailers, shopping small as the campaign tells you to do is key to their success and the difference between staying open and eventually closing their doors. Small Business Saturday really brings awareness of the small businesses in the area, said Kayla Tedder, the owner of Southern Sins Boutique in Farmington. This is my first year downtown and second year opened, and 'Shop Small' is really vital for many of the small shops in this area. Ultimately, if we cant get local shoppers to come to our stores, we wont survive. In addition to helping the business owner to grow, shopping locally offers advantages to the community as well. Small businesses in your area, your region are the ones who are putting money immediately into the community, Raymer said. The money stays locally and it builds itself in the community. It comes back to the individual business owner in the form of revenue. The taxes are used for roads and the infrastructure. It allows companies to grow and offer more jobs which will helps the community as well. In the long run, shopping locally is also much more convenient, in time and money. People need to realize they can shop locally and still find wonderful Christmas gifts, said Laura McLean, the owner of Laura Belle Boutique. Im personally challenging myself to purchase all of my gifts from local downtown merchants, and all of the things I want will come from downtown merchants. For more information on Small Business Saturday, visit the Farmington Regional Chamber of Commerce website. Google is taking $30 off the price of the companys newest Google Home Assistant In honor of Black Friday (which isnt until November 25). Google hopes that by lowering the price to $99, more people would be tempted to give the gift of the Google Home, complete with Philips Hue, Spotify, Nest and Chromecast support (among others). The discount will be honored at all retailers that sell Google Home, which are: Best Buy, Walmart, Target, and Googles online Stores. Theres no specific date as to when the sale would end, so well just assume the last day to take advantage of this offer is Friday. Well be on the lookout for Cyber Monday deals! Source (Twitter) | Via As promised, HTC held an event in Taiwan today and just like most rumors suggested, it was the stage for the international release of the HTC Bolt. On the international scene, the device will use the HTC 10 evo moniker. Other than that, nothing appears to have changed on the handset. You get a metal unibody phone, measuring 153.6 x 77.3 x 8.1 mm and weighing in at 174 grams. It is equipped with a 5.5-inch, QHD, Super LCD 3 panel, with a layer of Gorilla Glass 5 on top. Under the hood, the HTC 10 evo comes with some slightly dated, but still powerful hardware. At the heart is a Snapdragon 810 SoC, combined with 3GB of RAM. Storage options include 32GB and 64GB and there is a microSD card slot for expansion up to 2TB. HTC Bolt in Gunmetal In the camera department, the 10 evo comes with a 16MP main shooter, with f/2.0 aperture, OIS, and PDAF. On the opposite side, there is an 8MP, f/2,4 selfie snapper. Other notable entries in the specs sheet include LTE with VoLTE support on the single nano SIM card slot and dual-band Wi-Fi. Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, GPS and a USB Type-C connector. A sealed-in 3,200 mAh battery keeps the lights on and there is Quick Charge 2.0 support for a speedier top-off. The HTC evo 10 is already up for pre-order in Taiwan in Silver, Gold and Gunmetal colors. The 32GB version goes for about $564, while the bigger 64GB one will set you back $626. Sales are expected to officially kick off on November 28. Source Samsung has started pushing the November security update to another of its devices. Last week we saw the Galaxy A5 (2016) getting the latest security patches, and today it's the Galaxy A3 (2016)'s turn to have the exact same fate. The update has started rolling out in Europe to A3 (2016) units that have been sold unlocked and unbranded. It's unclear when carrier-specific models are to expect the update to arrive on them. The new firmware version is XXU2BPK2. It brings with it 60 different security fixes from Google, as well as 14 Samsung-specific software improvements. As always, if you haven't received the update notification yet, you can head over to Settings > About Device > Software Update and tap the Update Now option - you might just get lucky. If not, all you can do is wait, since the rollout is staged as usual. Source (in Dutch) | Via For Farmington Middle Schools students, two days of November will be two school days they will never forget. Not only did many of them get to spend an afternoon at Elephant Rock, they also met the author of a popular school book. Mountain climber, Jordan Romero, motivational speaker and author of the book, No Summit Out of Sight, was the youngest person, at the age of 13, to scale the summit of Mt. Everest. Romero, now 20, who is from Salt Lake City, Utah, holds the distinction of also being the youngest climber to make it to the top of the highest summits on all seven continents, completing his last climb at the age of 15. He now speaks to young adults and helps them see their potential in life. It only takes one kid to say he was inspired by your book to make it worthwhile, Romero said. While I have been here, I have had a couple kids who were really heartfelt when they told me how much my book meant to them and inspired them. That means a lot to me. The campaign to bring Romero to Farmington was more or less a byproduct of finding a book speaking on the pillars of character education - empathy, honesty, accountability, perseverance, humility, courageous, leadership, service and respect. Instructors at the school hoped the students would read the book and walk away with a better appreciation of those key concepts. We had a teacher who picked up the Romeros book last year at the book fair, said Kate Dillon, the library specialist at the middle school. She told us it was a wonderful book and contained the seven character education words (taught at the school) in the book. We thought it was a great book and decided the whole school should read it. According to Dillon, the book helped decide the schools theme for the year - Whats Your Everest? which has a focus on setting goals. Realizing the book was such a hit with the kids, Dillon thought the school should at least attempt to connect with the author and invite him to Farmington. I set up a committee with five girls from our character education council who helped me contact Romero through social media, Dillon said. They (were able to) track him down on Snapchat, Twitter, and Facebook. At first, the school did not hear back from Romero. A couple of months later, Dillon was able to make contact with him. I happen to be scrolling through Facebook and I saw where (he made a posting), Dillon said. I messaged him right away and told him we would love for him to come our school and he agreed. After corresponding via email, plans were made and on Nov. 1, Romero flew into St. Louis to spend the next two days at the school. It was fantastic. Our students were so excited about having Jordan Romero at their school, Dillon said. He was treated like a rock star when he got here. During his stay, Romero spoke to the students in four different sessions, held a Favorite Missouri Pot Luck luncheon with the staff, went on a field trip to Elephant Rocks, and took a sunrise hike at Taum Sauk Mountain - the highest summit in the state. When he finally agreed to come, we knew we had to set up a visit to Elephant Rocks, and to hike Taum Sauk, especially after we found out one of his goals is to climb the 50 summits in 50 states, Dillon said. We set it up and crossed our fingers, and we just happened to luck out with the weather for the first week of November. For Romeros trip to Elephant Rocks, he was accompanied by 150 of his newest friends as three school buses of middle schools students joined him at the state park. For his sunrise hike at Taum Sauk, he was accompanied by three students - Matthew Huff, Nathan Meister and Michelle Allen. Joining them were also Superintendent Matt Ruble and Middle School Principal Dr. Dorothy Winslow. To be picked for the hike, the students were given a challenge by Winslow. Students were asked to write about an obstacle they had to overcome as well as interview another individual who also had to overcome an obstacle. Once that was completed, three students were picked from those submissions. Dr. Winslow offered a challenge to our students to write an essay on perseverance and the things they had to overcome in life, Dillon said. She had a drawing and those three lucky students were picked to go on the hike. For the three students, the hike was more than a morning hiking up the mountain. It was a chance to have one-on-one time with the young motivational speaker. I really liked the fact that we were able to have a normal conversation with him, Allen said. I thought it was going to be kind of weird at first because he is so famous, but it was like talking to one of my friends. Allen wasnt the only one who found spending time with Romero and talking to him as the highlight of the day. Huff said the visit had the same impact on her as well. The whole thing was pretty amazing, but as far as the hike, the waterfalls were very cool, Huff said. But the most amazing thing was having a conversation with Jordan like he was (a) big brother. He was interested in what I had to say and wanted to know what it was like for me growing up. It was really just too amazing. For most of the school, students and faculty alike, Romeros visit has left an indelible mark upon them. From stories of scaling mountains all over the world to talking about perseverance, Romeros visit has been memorable. Haiti - Elections : OAS Preliminary Report Monday the Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS/EOM) to the elections of November 20 in Haiti presented its preliminary report. Despite the difficulties posed by the damages from Hurricane Matthew, the Mission, headed by former Uruguayan Senator Juan Raul Ferreira, commended the efforts of all national stakeholders that led to an improved electoral process, noting greater national involvement and ownership of the process. Although voting in Haiti is not mandatory and the law does not provide for a participation threshold, the Mission expresses its concern for what appears to have been a low turnout in Sundays election and encourages Haitian authorities and political stakeholders to take measures to incentivize political participation. In the coming weeks the Mission will present a report with recommendations to the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to be considered for the next round of elections on January 29, 2017. Full text of the preliminary report : "The Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS/EOM) to Haiti, headed by former Uruguayan senator Juan Raul Ferreira, commends the efforts of all national stakeholders that led to a better Election Day despite the challenges posed by Hurricane Matthew. The Mission was encouraged by the greater national involvement and ownership of the process. The OAS/EOM fielded a team of 130 experts and observers of 24 nationalities. On Election Day, they observed the electoral process in all ten departments of the country from the opening of the polls through the counting of the ballots, visiting 474 voting centers. The Mission is observing the tabulation process and will have continuous presence at the Tabulation Center (CTV) until the publication of the preliminary results. In addition, it will observe the contestation phase. The OAS/EOM recognizes the measures implemented by the electoral authorities that resulted in improvements on Election Day. All polling stations observed opened on average at 6.50 AM and most of them had all the necessary electoral material. The OAS/EOM was pleased to note the use of new polling booths, which contributed to the secrecy of the vote, as well as the introduction of a new type of indelible ink to identify citizens that had already cast their vote. The Mission recognizes that the voting process proceeded in a more efficient manner, which is partly due to a timely and thorough training of the electoral staff. These measures, amongst others, have been recommended by the OAS/EOM during previous deployments. OAS observers reported an increase in the participation of women as polling station members. However, the EOM noticed that the representation of women as candidates was very low. According to data published by the CEP, under 10% of the legislative and senatorial candidacies were female. The Mission laments that political parties are not complying with the 30% quota established by the law for these elections. On Election Day, national observers were present in numerous polling stations, demonstrating the engagement of civil society. Their participation is an important component in the strengthening of the Haitian democratic system. In order to prevent the repetition of irregularities that affected the October 25, 2015 election, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) took measures to provide more certainty to the voters, including the restriction of voting at polling stations where an electors name appeared on the list. The Mission also recognizes the efforts made to regulate the accreditation of party representatives, through an electronic registration system, observing a plurality of clearly identified party agents at the polling stations and a decrease in their numbers. The OAS/EOM acknowledges the efforts made to facilitate voting of some of the actors involved in the organization of the election by way of complementary lists. The implementation of this initiative, however, encountered obstacles, including the late consolidation, printing and delivery of the lists. In addition, the Mission observed few cases of discrepancies between the partial electoral lists displayed outside polling stations and the voters list used by poll workers. The decision of the CEP to reopen the voters list for this electoral cycle translated into an increase of approximately 318,000 voters, posing a challenge for the limited capacities of the National Identification Office (ONI) to timely deliver ID cards to new electors. This challenge was exacerbated by the consequences of hurricane Matthew. Although voting in Haiti is not mandatory and the law does not provide for a participation threshold, the Mission expresses its concern for what appears to be a low turnout in yesterdays election and encourages Haitian authorities and political stakeholders to take measures to incentivize political participation. The Mission commends the efforts of the Haitian National Police (PNH) and MINUSTAH to guarantee a generally orderly and safe voting environment. In the period awaiting the proclamation of the official results by the CEP, the EOM hopes to see a continuation of the spirit that has prevailed in the last weeks, calling upon all political actors to act responsibly so there may be a peaceful conclusion of the electoral process. The OAS/EOM acknowledges the commitment of the government to this electoral process, including its timely financing and the efforts deployed to rehabilitate voting centers in the Matthew affected areas. It should also be commended for its efforts to remain neutral and promote the continuation of the electoral process. In the coming weeks the Mission will present a report with recommendations to the CEP to be considered for the January 29, 2017 elections. Finally, the Mission would like to thank the Government of Haiti for inviting the OAS to observe their November 20 elections and for their support in enabling observers to carry out their tasks. The Mission also wishes to thank the governments of Canada, Chile, France, Mexico, Switzerland and the United States for their financial contributions that made possible the deployment of this Mission to Haiti, as well as UNDP and MINUSTAH for their support." HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Security : Special session of the PM on post-election incidents Monday morning at the National Palace, Prime Minister Enex Jean-Charles, in his capacity as President of the Superior Council of the National Police (CSPN), in the presence of the de facto President Jocelerme Privert and his private Cabinet, Ministers Camille Jr. Edouard (Justice), Francois Anick Joseph (Interior), Jacques Evelt Eveillard (Public Works), of Secretary of State for Public Security, Himler Rebu, the Director General of the Haitian National Police (PNH), Michel-Ange Gedeon, the Security Advisor to the President, Aramick Louis and the Director General of the Electricity of Haiti (EDH), Garry Valdemar; held a special session to assess the incidents that followed the end of the voting process and to avoid the recurrence of new unfortunate incidents likely to jeopardize the achievements of this crucial day for Haiti. Instructions were given to the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ), in order that the light be made on the fire that broke out Sunday night in the market of Freres https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19299-haiti-news-zapping-politics.html in order to establish the cause, possibly criminal. The DCPJ was instructed to also investigate the real causes that caused the disturbances on the EDH distribution grid in the metropolitan area the department of the Center and the city of Gonaives https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-19301-icihaiti-elections-edh-explains-about-the-blackout.html Otherwise, it was recalled at this session that the announcement of electoral results and demonstrations in favor of one or more candidates which are likely to disturb public order constitute violations of the electoral process in accordance with articles 197, 197.1 And 210 b of the Electoral Decree. Jocelerme Privert and the Prime Minister are calling on the population to calm, pending the official publication of the results, by the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19302-haiti-flash-follow-up-of-the-ctv-operations.html HL/ S/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Elections : Statement by the U.S. State Department Monday, John Kirby, Assistant Secretary and Department Spokesperson, Bureau of Public Affairs of U.S. State Department declared "The United States welcomes the holding of the November 20 elections as an important step towards returning Haiti to full constitutional rule and addressing the serious challenges the country faces. We commend Haitians for exercising their right to vote in a peaceful manner, and in some areas, amidst difficult circumstances. The United States welcomes the continued determination of the Provisional Electoral Council, the Haitian National Police, and the Government of Haiti towards the realization of free, fair, credible, and peaceful elections. Preliminary reports indicate that the elections were conducted with minimal violence and disruption. The United States deplores the isolated incidents of violence and intimidation, and urges that those responsible be brought to justice under Haitian law. We call on the Government of Haiti and all Haitians to foster a climate of calm during the tabulation period to ensure that Haiti remains on track toward democratic renewal of its state institutions and the seating, in early 2017, of a president elected by the Haitian people." HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Education : Launch of second university in Artibonite Friday, he Minister of Education, Jean Beauvois Dorsonne, proceded to the installation of Rector of the new Public University of Bas-Artibonite in St-Marc (UPBAS), created by ministerial circular, dated 3rd November 2016, Professor Auguste D'Meza and to the launching of the activities of this entity 2nd University in the Artibonite and the 11th Public University in Region (UPR) created by the Ministry. This university will initially offer 4 courses of study: Education Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Engineering Sciences and Law. The University will start with about 200 students out of a total of 600 already enrolled. For Minister Dorsonne (native of the region) "UPBAS must meet the challenges of this geographical space full of economic potential. It is the expression of a strong desire on the part of the competent authorities to set up a local university after a diagnosis of the situation in the subregion." According to the Minister, this is a great moment for all artibonitians, especially those living in the communes of Saint-Marc, La Chapelle, Verrettes, Liancourt, Desdunes, Estere etc... A great opportunity for young people living in the neighboring communal sections like Deluge, Bois-Neuf, Goyavier, La Louere, Bocozelle, Charrette For his part, Rector Auguste D'Meza affirmed his firm determination to make this university a reference in the field of higher education with the collaboration of all the actors of the city and friends of the Diaspora who have already demonstrated the desire to give it their support. HL/ TB/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Politics : Ban Ki-moon salutes the people of Haiti On Monday in New York, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, made a statement on the elections held in Haiti on Sunday, 20 November 2016 : "The Secretary-General welcomes the holding of elections in Haiti on 20 November. He salutes the people of Haiti for having peacefully expressed their democratic right to vote. He commends the Haitian institutions, in particular the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and the Haitian National Police, for their leadership and professionalism during and in the lead up to the polls. He also welcomes the role of Haitian institutions in ensuring an environment conducive to the holding of these elections. The Secretary-General stresses that this electoral process is crucial to ending the current governance vacuum in Haiti. He urges all parties involved, in particular Presidential candidates and political party leaders, to show the utmost statesmanship at this critical time for the country. He calls on them to reject and discourage all forms of violence and intimidation and place the national interest above any other consideration. He urges all actors to await the results proclaimed by the CEP and only use legal channels for any eventual challenges. The Secretary-General reaffirms the commitment of the United Nations to extend its full support to the Haitian people in the fulfilment of their democratic aspirations." HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping politics... Fanmi Lavalas claims victory Sunday, a few hours after the closure of the polling stations, Fanmi Lavalas issued a statement saying "[...] we have information that let us know that the vote of the majority was expressed in favor of Maryse Narcisse [...] we have information that let us know that the vote of the majority was expressed in favor of Maryse Narcisse [...]" Declining participation rate ? On Monday, the Citizen Observatory for the Institutionalization of Democracy (OCID) revealed at a press conference that the participation rate at national level would be 23.3% (30% in 2015), estimating the participation of women to 37.9% and men to 62.1% Reginald Delva convinced that nothing has changed According to Reginald Delva, former Minister of the Interior and former Secretary of State for Public Security "The notions of massive fraud and zombie votes" have been a mere invention of the enemies of the Nation. 1 year and more than 100 million dollars later, we realize that the results of the elections have not changed (since October 25)." The PHTK claims victory Monday noon during a press conference, Rudy Herivaux, spokesman of the party PHTK declared "The candidate Jovenel Moise is the elected president of Haiti [...] Officially we already know, the country know , The whole world knows who the President-elect of Haiti a nd this is not a mystery..." Discovery of ballots Ballots were discovered around Saint Jean Bosco, a judge was dispatched on the spot. More women in the composition of the BV In the elections of 20 November, the representation of women in the composition of polling stations (BV) increased from 34.5% to 38.9% on 25th October 2015 (35.8% as President, 39.1% as Vice-President and 41.8% as Secretary). HL/ HaitiLibre By William Schwartz | Published on 2016/11/21 Even when the story's not moving forward in "The Man In My House", it's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of character relationships. Weirdly enough, these tend to be centered around pretty much everyone who is not Na-ri, who remains largely oblivious to everything that happens around her. We find out this is a longstanding condition, since apparently important information regarding Na-ri's father was withheld from her because...yeah, I can't come up with any satisfactory reason. Advertisement But anyway, remember how Yeo-joo had become increasingly ancillary to the action? Well, Yeo-joo's role is redoubled here as a random hospital visit causes her to run in to Deok-bong and Deok-sim. Having characters talk about Na-ri rather than to Na-ri directly does not particularly help much when it comes to making the case that these people are important. This is especially true as Deok-bong and Deok-sim become increasingly consumed by their own petty family squabbles. Meanwhile, Nan-gil is hot on the case of trying to figure out whether the last cliffhanger's generally preposterous revelation about his past deeds was true. Then he takes a break to respond to a goofy subplot about prospective free advertising in the form of a broadcast television crew. To which I would like to note, that's not particularly unusual in South Korean culture. Restaurants all over the country have plaques commemorating visits from broadcast television crews. On point, though, such scenes mainly serve to demonstrate how "The Man In My House" is an increasingly busy drama, as if the production team is trying to make up for lost time having spent so much of it lately on having Na-ri and Nan-gil be all googly-eyed at each other. While occasionally the drama does manage to pull off some mildly diverting humor, the catharsis in the more serious scenes is rather limited. When gangsters can be a punchline to a joke about someone being a mild idiot, their dramatic presence suffers for it. One unquestionably good decision was for the first several minutes of the drama to simply be a giant recap of the sequence of events up until now. Inceasingly "The Man In My House" feels like a throwback drama, to the days when viewer engagement was occupied by forcing us to remember who certain characters even are every few minutes. While this did generally manage to hold my attention, ultimately, convoluted storylines by themselves are not an especially strong selling point. Review by William Schwartz "The Man In My House" is directed by Kim Jung-min-XII, written by Kim Eun-jeong, and features Soo Ae, Kim Young-kwang, Lee Soo-hyuk, Jo Bo-ah, Kim Ji-hoon-I and Kim Mi-sook. Watch on Viki A local detective was honored by the DEA recently for his involvement in a large drug ring take-down that was executed last month. St. Louis Division Public Information Officer Karin Caito said in the fall of 2014, DEA Task Force Officer (TFO)/St. Francois County Det. Tim Harris identified Milfred Asher as a multi-ounce crystal methamphetamine dealer who was supplying significant amounts of the drug to numerous individuals in St. Francois County. TFO Harris was able to surmise that Asher was being supplied by an unidentified multi-pound crystal methamphetamine dealer, said Caito. Based on the detailed information developed by TFO Harris, TFO Chris Moss initiated an investigation targeting the Asher Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO). Caito said over several months, surveillance was conducted on the targets of the organization's members. Surveillance was coordinated so that several drug transactions between Asher and others could be observed. Embodying the spirit of teamwork, this investigation utilized several investigative techniques to develop critical evidence of the conspiracy and an extensive in-depth financial investigation of the DTO, explained Caito. The investigation yielded the identification of the DTOs leadership, the sources of supply located in California. The investigation culminated with the federal indictment of 52 individuals in the Eastern District of Missouri for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and other federal offenses, the seizure of 202 pounds of crystal methamphetamine, $1,019,083 in U.S. currency and assets and 16 firearms. St. Francois County Sheriff Dan Bullock said they were really surprised to hear the DEA was going to honor Harris and several others from around the metropolitan area. Bullock said he and his department are very proud of Harris. He is going through some very trying times right now," Bullock said of the detective who has been battling cancer. "It just made us really proud to know the work that he has done, bringing down drug dealers and to honor him up there. Bullock said Harris was very surprised as well. They didnt tell Harris why they were going up there, but Bullock said he knew something was going on because they made him go up there. He was standing very tall and very proud and complimentary of the other officers that he had been working with, said Bullock. It was a very big deal and my captain and one of my detectives went up with me to watch him get the honor. I know they were all very impressed. Bullock said Harris knew something was up when they went, but he didnt know what award it would be. The first week of December he has to be in Texas to start a special treatment for the cancer that he has, added Bullock. We are all keeping him in our thoughts and prayers this next month. His spirits were high and he had a good day. He was doing really well that day and this just made it better. Approximately 19 months ago Harris obtained some information in St. Francois County and took it to the DEA. That information led to a much larger drug case tied to the Mexican Cartel. On Oct. 4 an indictment came down and 36 individuals were taken into custody. Harlow is a former New Town in Essex with a population of 86,000. Located in the upper Stort Valley, it was built in the decades after the Second World War to ease overcrowding and London and provide homes for people bombed out during the Blitz. It includes Britain's first pedestrian precinct and first modern residential tower block, The Lawn. Old Harlow, the historic part of the town, was mentioned in the Domesday Book. David and Victoria Beckham's former home, Rowneybury House, nicknamed 'Beckingham Palace', is nearby. 09:44, 30 OCT 2022 Country Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Canada Cape 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Ireland United States Minor Outlying Islands United States of America Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Mozambique road tanker explosion fatalities rise to 80 Some 80 people died and a further 108 were injured in an explosion and fire next to a road tanker in Tete province, in the country's remote western region near Malawi. One local journalist told AFP the truck had crashed on November 16 and exploded the following day as scores of people tried to syphon off fuel. "In the accident, 108 people were injured, 96 of whom are still being kept in for treatment at Tete Provincial Hospital," government spokesman Mouzinho Saide said at a press conference in Maputo. "The cabinet has created a commission of inquiry to investigate the circumstances, causes and responsibilities for this accident." Authorities suggested that residents may have been taking petrol after the vehicle had crashed or been abandoned by drivers who fled when they feared it could explode. Photographs from the hospital in Tete showed badly burned children arriving for emergency care. "Of the people brought in, we have two pregnant women, 17 children, and a total of 45 severe injuries, with cases of third-degree burns," Jose Mendonca, Tete provincial government spokesman, told reporters. The Tete provincial government has appealed for emergency food aid and transport assistance for affected families. Three days of national mourning have been decreed by the government. The government in Mozambique, one of the world's poorest countries, recently increased the price of fuel after the value of the local currency - the metical - fell sharply by 70% against the US dollar this year, after falling 36% in 2015. A secret video has showed a 7-Eleven employee in Brisbane handing back a significant part of her pay to her employer. The worker told the ABC that she and other staff were told to pay back thousands of dollars or they might lose their jobs. "My bosses say they can't afford to pay the government rate. That's why they ask us to give some of the money back," said the employee. The worker is an international student known as Anna, as the ABC said they would protect her identity. Anna also showed the ABC her bank statements with her withdrawals. Anna said she had paid back more than $6,000 since the start of this year. HC contacted 7-Eleven for comment and they provided the following response. Were aware of the allegations and are investigating. We encourage anyone with information to contact us directly, or the Franchisee Employee Helpline (1800 711 243), said the statement. Our Franchisee network knows we take a zero tolerance approach to any illegal activity including wage fraud, and where proven we will act - up to and including termination of the Franchise Agreement. In an additional statement, 7-Eleven said they called on the ABC to share any information it has to assist their investigation. There should be no doubt that we have zero tolerance of wage fraud, said 7-Elevens CEO Angus McKay. We have aggressively investigated the claims since they were shared with us last week. If they are proven, we will act upon any illegal Franchisee activity, up to and including termination of their Franchise Agreement. Until they are proven or otherwise, it is unfair to jump to conclusions. They added that the former staff member involved in the ABCs story has declined several invitations to come forward, despite claiming to be $6,000 out of pocket. 7-Eleven added they encourage her to do so, to assist their investigation and ensure they can pursue her employer to recover any monies found to be owed to her or to other staff. We repeat our calls to the ABC to share all information it has pertaining to its story, including the unedited covert audio and video footage, to assist our investigation and help us take any appropriate action in a timely manner, including supporting the staff members, said McKay. Our commitment to stamping out these practices within our franchised network of stores, and to repaying staff members found to have been disadvantaged, is absolute. Millennials in Australia are not too fussed about getting to the top and managing others, according to a new ManpowerGroup research report Millennials: A Career For Me. In fact, they are more concerned about paving their own path within their career and developing their skills to ensure employment security. The research involved more than 19,000 millennials across 25 countries, and examined their work ethic and priorities. It also provided a snapshot of the future landscape of work. Millennials are largely focused on developing their individual skills such as communication, technology or job-related skills, with 56% choosing individual skills over learning to lead or manage others (44%). Richard Fischer, managing director of ManpowerGroup Australia and New Zealand said: "Employers often ask about the best way to attract and retain millennials and understanding what really motivates them is the first challenge. As our research shows, contrary perhaps to previous beliefs, millennials are driven by having a sense of purpose as well as accessing opportunities to build relevant skills to create job security. Another interesting finding was that 77% of millennials would change jobs for the same pay, but more skills training opportunities. Only 22% of millennials rank aspiring to leadership roles, such as owning their own company (10%) or getting to the top of an organisation (7%) as their top career goal. In fact, their focus is on making a lot of money (21%), contributing positively (23%) and working with great people (22%). Fischer said it was encouraging to see young people focusing on their skills development, noting that it would likely help people progress and earn more money in time. When starting out in a career, people often focus on their salary expectations more than they do developing soft skills and networking, said Fischer. "These are core competencies that will set you up for the future and it is likely that money and responsibility will follow with time. However, there is still a gap between the number of millennial men who aspire to leadership (24%) compared with the number of millennial women (18%). The gap in the leadership aspirations between men and women, is unfortunately likely indicative of the opportunities women feel are available to them in Australia currently, said Fischer. This suggests we still have work to do to ensure women feel supported and encouraged to go after positions of leadership. With millennials making up one third of the global workforce by 2020, Australias youth unemployment rate lingering at 12%, and significant economic and technological change challenging the business landscape as we know it, employers must find new ways to entice and engage millennials. And for employers, flexibility is key. Employers can attract, develop and retain millennial employees by embracing the following tips, said Fischer: Shoppers who are planning to hit the malls the weekend after Thanksgiving should also remember to visit local merchants for their holiday shopping, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) today. Small business represents 99.7 percent of all U.S. employers, and they provide jobs for 58 million Americans, said Gregg Thompson, state director of NFIB, the nations and North Carolinas leading small-business association. For many local retail businesses, the holiday shopping season is a make-or-break time, and Americans who want to support their communities and the economy should remember to shop small. NFIB is a partner again this year with American Express in a national campaign to promote Small Business Saturday, the day after Black Friday and the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. For many small businesses, the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are a crucial period that could determine whether they are profitable for the year. NFIB and American Express have collaborated on Small Business Saturday since 2010. Last year, according to the post-holiday survey released by NFIB and American Express, 95 million Americans reported shopping at small businesses on Small Business Saturday, and they spent more than $16 billion, an increase of 14 percent from the previous year. Small Business Saturday has grown every year, and we are very proud to sponsor the promotion, said Juanita Duggan, NFIB President and CEO. Small Business Saturday is a very important day to recognize small business owners. We hope that more Americans participate on Saturday and they keep small businesses in mind throughout the year. For more information about NFIB, please visit www.NFIB.com. ### NFIB is the nations leading small business association, with offices in Washington, D.C. and all 50 state capitals. Founded in 1943 as a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, NFIB gives small and independent business owners a voice in shaping the public policy issues that affect their business. NFIBs powerful network of grassroots activists sends their views directly to state and federal lawmakers through our unique member-only ballot, thus playing a critical role in supporting Americas free enterprise system. NFIBs mission is to promote and protect the right of our members to own, operate and grow their businesses. More information is available online at www.NFIB.com/newsroom. Share this: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket (Reuters) Hedge fund managers were largely united in their dislike for Donald Trump before the election. Now they are optimistic that he can use his pro-growth policies to improve the economy and their portfolios. Investors were over-weighing the negatives of his unpredictability as a potential President and they were under-valuing how positive from a policy perspective him with a Republican Congress would be for the markets, said Jason Karp who runs $3.8 billion Tourbillon Capital Partners. Its unequivocally positive for business. To read this article: A prisoner was told by other inmates that his brother's legs would be broken if he refused to bring drugs into Mountjoy Prison, a court has heard. Gareth Carroll (35) was on temporary release when he got a call from inside the prison from a number of inmates who were with his brother at the time. They instructed him to bring heroin, Valium and Xanax into the prison on his return, and said that if he refused his brother would not be leaving with his legs intact. Carroll returned to jail and prison officers later spotted drug paraphernalia on a table in his cell. He was searched and the drugs fell out of his underwear. Carroll, of Cherry Orchard Avenue, Ballyfermot, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of 1,497 of heroin, 768 worth of diazepam and 286 of alprazolam on May 10 last year. He was serving a sentence for a drug offence at the time. Gda Barry Brennan told Dara Hayes, prosecuting, that both Carroll and his brother were serving sentences in Mountjoy when Carroll agreed to bring the drugs into the prison. Concealed He admitted he had concealed the heroin and tablets internally. Gda Brennan agreed with Keith Spencer, for the defence, that Carroll's brother was later placed in protective custody in the jail. Mr Spencer said Carroll was introduced to heroin as a 15-year-old and had been a significant abuser of the drug since. He said the whole family had been blighted by drugs and his client has not had many opportunities in life. Counsel told Judge Melanie Greally that there has been a "significant glimmer of hope recently" because Carroll is now committed to a new relationship and is free from drugs for the first time. He is stable on a methadone programme and is attending narcotics anonymous. "He recognises that his addiction was a lifelong one that had caught hold of him from a young age, but he now wants to break that cycle and wants to invest himself in more wholesome interests" Mr Spencer said. The judge adjourned sentencing to February 27 and ordered a probation report. She remanded Carroll on continuing bail, saying he must continue drug treatment. A woman who claimed she had been accused of stealing money dropped by another customer in a filling station claimed damages for defamation and negligence totalling 88,000, the Circuit Civil Court heard. Silifat Gbolahan sued Topaz Energy Limited, which runs the Swords Petrol Filling Station and Shop, alleging that an accusation had been levelled at her when she dropped two 20 notes at the check-out till in the store. Ms Gbolahan, of Lioscian, Swords, told Circuit Court President Mr Justice Raymond Groarke that, when she went to pay for petrol, a member of staff shouted: "Don't take her money. It's not hers. It belongs to the man who has just left." She told her barrister, Joseph O'Connor, that she had gone to an ATM in the store and had taken out the cash to pay for her petrol purchase. At the counter, she dropped her money and bent down to lift it, offering it to the sales assistant. Conflict Ms Gbolahan said that, when she presented the money for payment, a member of staff shouted the defamatory words to a colleague at the till. The member of staff involved told Mr O'Connor that there had been "a conflict" in the shop over whose money it was after Ms Gbolahan had lifted it off the floor. She had genuinely thought it was the man's money. Ms Gbolahan told barrister Andrew Walker, for Topaz Energy, that she had walked outside and phoned her husband, who was in Nigeria. Her husband had spoken to the shop manager on Ms Gbolahan's phone and told her his wife would be going to see her solicitor. Mr Groarke said the issue in the case was whether or not the words allegedly spoken about Ms Gbolahan were in fact spoken in public. He said he accepted Ms Gbolahan's account that the words "Don't take her money. It's not hers. It belongs to the man who has just left" had been spoken in a loud voice. He awarded Ms Gbolahan 5,000 damages. It is understood that the victim, who is in his 20s, needed intensive treatment in St James's Hospital. A vicious attack in which a young man suffered a suspected broken kneecap and a fractured eye socket is linked to one of the capital's most prominent INLA figures. Details of the lump hammer attack emerged only yesterday, but it is understood to have happened at a south Dublin location a number of weeks ago. Extortion It followed an extortion row over alleged 'taxing' of low-level drug dealers in the south inner city by the INLA figure who previously served a prison sentence for membership of the terrorist organisation. It is understood that the victim, who is in his 20s, needed intensive treatment in St James's Hospital. It is not believed that gardai have received a formal complaint in relation to the savage assault, but sources believe the INLA is involved in extensive extortion rackets, especially in the Tallaght and Crumlin areas. The development comes as a bitter cash row involving a close female associate of slain burglary gang boss 'Fat' Andy Connors and his killers continues. Some of the gang are members of the INLA. Sources have revealed that the INLA mob in Dublin is "in turmoil" over the issue, which has even led to senior gangland figure Troy Jordan attending 'meetings' about it, according to sources. However, it is not known if an attempted gun attack last week on an associate of Jordan in Prosperous, Co Kildare, is linked to the ongoing tensions. Connors, a 45-year-old father-of-six, was murdered in front of his wife and children at his newly-built home on August 19, 2014. Targets A major INLA figure from Crumlin is a suspect for the murder, and was previously arrested and questioned about it. Gardai are investigating whether Connors was killed by the INLA after he refused to pay up to their extortion demands and are also probing a dispute he had with a businessman. Connors' extended Traveller gang were the chief targets of Operation Fiacla, but his murder did not end their nationwide crime spree. Gardai investigating the gangland murder of a 36-year-old criminal who was shot in June have arrested two men in Dublin and Louth. The bullet-riddled body of Neil Fitzgerald, originally from the South Circular Road area, was found by a passing motorist at Hills Lane, Crooksling, off the N81 road between Tallaght and Blessington at around 9am on June 5. The male suspects, aged 29 and 52, were being questioned at Tallaght Garda Station last night. Gardai have disclosed that there have now been six arrests in the investigation. Killer Fitzgerald was a key member of the gang linked to jailed killer Brian Rattigan and sources have revealed that his associates are "determined" to avenge his death. The chief suspect in the murder case has previously been arrested by Tallaght gardai and questioned being released without charge. The Herald previously revealed that detectives were involved in a frantic manhunt for the suspect after receiving information that he had been abducted and shot, but he later showed up alive and well. The thug remains under "serious threat" and has been warned about an active risk to his life. He was not one of the duo arrested yesterday. He is also a suspect in the attempted gun murder of convicted drug dealer Jason Kearns (30) in Crumlin in August, but there have been no arrests in that case so far. The Herald also previously revealed Fitzgerald was involved in a violent altercation with associates of key Christy Kinahan cartel members just weeks before he was shot dead. However, his murder is not being linked to the Kinahan/Hutch feud. Fitzgerald had served a 10-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to possession of a semi-automatic pistol, ammunition and producing a firearm while resisting arrest at Dolphin's Barn on July 23, 2008. He also pleaded guilty to driving a stolen car and five counts of dangerous driving on July 18, 2008. It's been 125 years since Dracula was published. And it's still scary. He has been cited by Rush Limbaugh, quoted in the New York Times, featured at Real Clear Politics and Lucianne.com and interviewed on radio, TV and in social media. Inducted into the Philadelphia Public Relations Hall of Fame, for many years he served as a Lecturer in Corporate Communication at Penn State University. A former President of the Philadelphia Public Relations Association (PPRA) he has lectured at Rowan University, Temple University, The College of New Jersey and Arcadia University. He has conducted workshops on public relations for thousands of participants throughout the nation and has taught countless others the art of public speaking. He has also advised numerous lawyers, judges, public officials and political candidates. Cirucci is a prolific writer and his op-ed pieces have appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Courier-Post and other publications. A native of Camden NJ, Cirucci is a former President of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators. Cirucci served as Associate Executive Director of the Philadelphia Bar Association for nearly 30 years. He served as Chair of Penn State University's Professional Advisory Board for the Corporate Communication major at Penn State Abington and on the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Judicial Selection Commission. He received his MA degree from Rowan University and his BA from Villanova University. He has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of Rowan's public relations program and received the E. A. "Wally" Richter Leadership Award, the highest honor from the National Association of Bar Executives' Communications Section. He has also been honored by numerous other local, state and national groups. Cirucci's passions include politics, the popular culture, books and authors, art, communication, music, theatre, movies, dining and travel. In his hometown of Camden, Cirucci taught fifth grade at the Ulysses Wiggins Elementary School named for the founder of the Camden NAACP. There he was one of the first teachers in the country to teach African-American history to inner city students. He later served as editor of a local weekly newspaper, as Assistant to the Township Manager of Cherry Hill Township and as Associate Director of Communications at the New Jersey State Bar Association. He's Dan Cirucci, the founder and editor-in chief of the Dan Cirucci Blog, Matt Rooney's sidekick on Save Jersey's videocasts and one of the most widely honored public relations professionals in his field. He's also been a public relations consultant to numerous organizations and individuals and hosted The Advocates on RVN-TV. Privacy Overview This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. This domain has expired. If you owned this domain, contact your domain registration service provider for further assistance. If you need help identifying your provider, visit https://www.tucowsdomains.com/ Eight years after sea-borne terrorists Ajmal Kasab and gang arrived at a landing point along the Colaba beach to strike Mumbai on November 26, coastal security management across the nine coastal states and four Union Territories has yet to fall in place. Coastal security straddles both military and police roles that make it a challenge for state governments to manage effectively. Today the police forces suffer from political interference and thereby lack professionalism, which reflects in terms of poor public security priorities. Therefore, coastal security can never figure very high on police priorities and proves a weak link in the national security matrix. The Centre contributes considerably to coastal security in terms of marine platforms and funds. Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavais mooted the proposal to raise a Central Marine Police Force (CMPF) in June at a meeting to review the status of Indias coastal security management in Mumbai. Read | Post 26/11, this is the security ring that keeps Mumbai safe Among the nine coastal states, only Tamil Nadu has paid serious attention to coastal security due to the earlier threat from across the Palk Straits from the LTTE. Raised in 1994, the Tamil Nadu Police Coastal Security Group (CSG) is a well-trained force tasked to protect the states 1,076-km coastline. The marine/coastal security police forces in the other eight cannot be operationally compared with Tamil Nadus CSG. The state governments would like to believe that the presence of the Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard (ICG) across peninsular India is adequate to tackle sea-borne terrorist threats. The Navy patrols the high seas beyond 200 nautical miles given the heavy tonnage of their warships; the ICG covers the waters between 12 and 200 nautical miles. In the process, the swathe of seas from the coastline to 12 nautical miles which is afloat with a high density of smaller craft like fishing boats, mechanised trawlers and dhows becomes the responsibility of the coastal/marine police forces. Only an active coastal police force could possibly perform such a role which involves random checks on cargo that these myriad boats carry. Read | Coastal security project: Mumbais high-rises to get hi-res cameras The creation of a CMPF would relieve the police forces of an additional responsibility for coastal security. The country has a poor policeman-to-population ratio with just one policeman for 761 people that translates into approximately 131 policemen per 100,000 population. Ideally, a policeman should cater to just 568 people at the rate of 176 policemen per 100,000 population according to the Indian Bureau of Police Research and Development. However, for every VIP in India there are three police personnel protecting him/her. Therefore to expect the police forces to prioritise coastal security is unrealistic. The CMPF would have to be under the command of the ICG and mandated to patrol the coastal waters up to 12 nautical miles. The police forces only require to designate an officer to coordinate with the ICG on operational matters. Read | Sri Lankan Navy arrests three Indian fishermen with heroin The proposed CMPF could be staffed by former Navy officers to form the backbone of this force. Also some members of the fishing community of each state could be recruited as marine police constables that would ensure local participation and overcome the language barriers and enhance familiarity with coastal waters. State governments perceive coastal security as a subset of national security. Therefore, the constitution of a CMPF would prove necessary to secure the nations 7, 517-km coastline from sea-borne threats. Bidanda Chengappa is professor, international relations and strategic studies, Christ University, Bengaluru The views expressed are personal Union minister for information and broadcasting Venkaiah Naidu seems to have taken up where censor board chief Pahlaj Nihalani left off. In a recent speech at the 47th International Film Festival of India in Panaji, Goa, he spoke of the need to go back to values in Indian films while saying that the portrayal of obscenity and violence on screen are hurting society. He went to talk about how respect for the elders and gender justice as also keeping our traditions should be part of cinema. Naidu made an impassioned plea to return to our values reminiscing about the days when films without vulgarity and violence ran for days on end. While it is heartening that Naidu is on a nostalgia trip, he must not forget that film makers are very much influenced by the society they live in. And they try to portray what they see realistically. It is a moot point what particular values Naidu is referring to, there are no single set of values governing all of India. The film maker uses his/her creativity to interpret values and norms. Read | Venkaiah pitches for promoting values instead of vulgarity in Indian cinema Naidu may feel that without touching heroine you can create romance. You have the capacity to express. The expression need not be by words it can be through eyes, nose and lips, looks...If our looks are good, the way you convey the message it would be very romantic. But not every film maker or audience subscribes to this school of film-making. Unfortunately, thanks to people like Nihalani, the very word values has come to mean the Right-wings interpretation of tradition. Creativity cannot be constrained by values. Often, a film may not have any particular message, as Naidu wants, but is geared solely to commercial gain. Nihalani had gone to absurd lengths to make film makers fall in line with his vision, which excluded kissing and cuss words among other things. Read | Why so few south Indian films in Indian Panorama, asks Kannada filmmaker In fact, he went so far as to introduce words to replace cuss words which had no meaning at all and insisted on shortening kissing scenes in a Bond movie. Naidu may of course air his views on culture and cinema but his words should not be taken as licence to censor films. The Shyam Benegal committee has rightly suggested that the censor board should serve as a certification body and leave it to the viewer whether or not to watch a particular film. Of course, it is no ones case that any message which promotes social discord or violence be encouraged. But that is for the film maker to decide and also for him/her to face whatever consequences there may be. Naidu being fond of films should know that the discretion of the viewer is always a better way to judge a film than a dictate from the censor board or suggestions from the minister. @lalitapanicker SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Three-thousand strong police force would be deployed at the 69th world Islamic congregation, Tablighi Ijtema in Bhopal to ensure that it is organised in a smooth manner without any untoward incident. The police force would also be accompanied by nearly 3,000 volunteers of the organizing committee of the event to see that the devotees dont face any problem. The 69th Tablighi Ijtema would be organised from November 26 to November 28 at Eintkedi village located at Berasia road, which is about 8-10 kms away from the city. The Ijtema which is one of the biggest Islamic congregations in the world would be attended by more than eight lakh devotees including devotees from more than 25 countries including USA, Canada, England, South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Sri Lanka, Phillipines and others. About 3,000 police force would be deployed during the event that would be on duty from 9 am on November 25 to 9 am on November 29. The force would be divided into two teams of 1,500 personnel each out of which 500 would be deployed at the venue of the event at Eintkhedi and rest at the would be at the route from railway station to the venue, said superintendent of police (north), Arvind Saxena, who would be monitoring the whole security arrangements during the mass event while speaking to HT. He said that the 3,000 strong police force would be divided into teams comprising 1,500 men each. Each team would be headed by one additional superintendent of police and two deputy superintendent of police. The teams would be on duty of 12-hour shifts during the three-day event. Six anti-sabotage teams would also be deployed during the mass event to prevent any incident which may create trouble during the mass event. We have been also given additional force of 1,000 personnel from the police headquarters including Rapid Action Force (RAF), Quick Reaction Team (QRT) and Special Armed Force (SAF), said Saxena adding that police would also be deployed at various check posts along the route to the venue with about 3,000 volunteers from the social harmony groups at major squares and traffic points. Five hundred volunteers would be inside the venue while remaining 2,500 would be deployed to make the traffic arrangements during the event. Spokesperson of the organizing committee of the three-day event, Ateeq-ul-Islam while speaking to HT said that , this time the venue of the Ijtema would be spread in sprawling 55 acres of land. This time the sitting arrangements for the devotees have been made in an area of 55 acres which is 10 acres more than last years edition. Apart from this the parking facility has been made in an area of 160 acres, said Islam. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand visited Sanchi in MP on Tuesday morning where she saw Buddhist relics of importance. In the afternoon, she returned to Bhopal and had a lunch meeting with chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and other state functionaries before flying to Delhi with her entourage of over 30 people. At Sanchi, the casket having the relics of Buddhas two main disciples Sariputta and Maha Moggallana was opened for her. The relics are put out for public display and worship only once a year during a fair. The relics were opened in presence of Raisen collector Lokesh Kumar Jatav. In 1851, British archaeologist Alexander Cunningham found a single bone relic of Sariputta and two bone relics of Maha Moggallana inside a stupa at Sanchi, the 3rd century BC Buddhist complex. The relics are now enshrined in Chetiyagiri Vihara built by Maha Bodhi Society. On Monday Princess Sirindhorn was conferred the first World Sanskrit Award by Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) in Delhi. She is an eminent scholar of Sanskrit and Pali and has been a patron of Sanskrit studies in Thailand. The Thai princess was the Royal Patron of the World Sanskrit Conference held in Bangkok last year. Shahid Kapoor, who has played a variety of characters in his career and has been juggling tough roles of late, says its probably that time in his life when he has to do things that are large. HT Cafe catches up with the actor as he prepares for his next film Padmavati with Sanjay Leela Bhansali, to talk about life, career, fatherhood, and Kareena Kapoor Khan. You seem to be taking up only tough roles these days. When I did Rangoon, which was a tough and intense shoot in typical Vishal Bhardwaj style, I thought, I will now become a dad, and I will do something light and easy, and relax. But then came Padmavati (smiles). I guess its that time in my life when I have to do things that are large and are going to demand a lot from me. But I am happy about doing Udta Punjab, Rangoon and now Padmavati. Its a massive film and it will be a new and different experience. I am a huge admirer of Sanjay sir and feel happy and fortunate to be collaborating with him on a magnum opus. Shahid Kapoor married Delhi girl, Mira Rajput, in a quiet ceremony in 2015. (HT Photo) Do back-to-back tough roles take a toll on you? Of course, but I guess thats what makes you a better actor. The best of the best in the world are used to raising the stakes with every new opportunity be it athletes, artistes or businesspeople. If youre being given a challenge with every new opportunity, you know youre heading in the right direction. Of course, you might fail, but thats part of the job. I feel lucky that film-makers of a certain calibre are considering me for their movies. And I am happy to take up the challenges. I dont have a sense of fear, but there is a sense of excitement or nervousness. I was one of the most boxed-in actors in the first seven or eight years of my career, as I would only get chocolate boy or romantic hero roles. I had that angst in me, Ki mujhe chance toh doh [give me a chance]. So, I am happy that I am getting that chance today. Shahid Kapoor will be seen working alongside Ranveer Singh in Padmavati. (HT Photo) There have been rumours about issues between you and Ranveer Singh vis-a-vis Padmavati. Honestly, I am tired of reading things about Padmavati. I want to go and shoot the film. Let my work do the talking now. Yes, there were some issues, but theyve all been sorted out. The right team has come together to make this film and everybody is very excited. And there are no personal issues with anybody. I feel Ranveer is the best guy to play Alauddin Khilji, as its a very demanding character. I think Deepika is the best Padmavati that anybody could have thought of. And I really do think Im a great cast for Rawal Ratan Singh. I dont feel the need to give a 100 clarifications because Im not that kind of a person. Im looking forward to working with both these actors they are fantastic and talented. We are one team. Shahid Kapoor will be seen with Saif Ali Khan, who is his ex-girlfriend Kareena Kapoors husband, in Vishal Bhardwajs Rangoon. (HT Photo) How has fatherhood changed you? For the first time in my life, I dont feel like leaving home to go to work (smiles). I used to hate staying at home. If I wasnt working, Id be at the gym, watching a movie or be out with friends, because I used to live alone and would feel lonely. Although I liked being on my own, there was too much of it. Now, I dont feel like leaving home, and thats a new feeling for me. I can spend the whole day at home with Misha and Mira, and that in itself is a day well spent. This thought never resonated with my personality before. So thats a big change for me. Shahid Kapoor says his wife, Mira and he talks about everything under the sun. (HT Photo) Does fatherhood make you more responsible? It makes you regret a lot of things you did in the past. I was watching a movie recently, and there was a scene between a father and a son. And earlier, 90 times out of a 100, I would have seen it from the sons point of view. But for the first time, I started relating to the fathers perspective. Trust me, it was so new for me. Five minutes into the scene, and I was like, What the hell just happened? I was connecting with the fathers point of view. That was a massive change in terms of perspective. Now, after having a daughter, I think from the point of view of being a parent. Everything changes [after you become a father]. I dont think like an individual anymore. Im answerable to my wife and child. You have also said that you wont be very protective of Misha. Thats me lying to myself (laughs). Thats me talking out loud hoping it comes true. When I said that and came back home, Mira said, You know na that you are already overprotective? Whenever we meet someone who also has a three or four-month-old baby, I go ahead and say, Misha bhaiya ko hello bolo (laughs) [Misha, say hello to your elder brother]. So Im quite crappy like that. Mera abhi se chalu ho gaya hai [I have already started being too protective]. Shahid Kapoor will be working with Deepika Padukone for the first time in Padmavati. (HT Photo) Did you meet Kareena at an event? Yes, I did bump into her, and it was heartwarming to see her fully pregnant, because Ive just been through [that experience of] having a baby. I felt happy for her. I asked her when she was due, and she told me it is sometime next month. She also asked about Misha. So, it was very nice. Are you nervous or excited to work with Bhansali? Its a great opportunity. I am excited, nervous and I hope I do what Sanjay sir requires of me. What makes me the happiest is that I am able to rediscover myself as an actor, in terms of the genre and the character. I will be able to offer audiences something different, which was a huge challenge in the first half of my career. I feel its better to take risks today, as it is less risky to take chances than to repeat yourself. So, I am happy that I am able to jump from one space into another or one world into another one. Watch Chitta Ve | Udta Punjab Whether it is Udta Punjab, Rangoon or Padmavati, you dont seem to have any problems with multi-starrers If Leonardo DiCaprio was worried about a Matt Damon or other stellar characters in The Departed (2006), including Jack Nicholson, and had given into his own insecurities, he would have reduced the cinematic potential of the film. If Tom Hardy was to worry about his role in The Revenant (2015), he would have lost out on the opportunity of featuring in one of the most revered films of that year. I have seen this happening to many actors over the years. But, I have seen enough of success and failure to know what works. What works is being successful, and being part of relevant cinema. Everything else that we eccentric people create in our own heads, while sitting at home, pull us down. Shahid Kapoor will next be seen in Rangoon. (HT Photo) You are working with top actors such as Kangana Ranaut and Deepika Padukone. Does working with talented actors help you? Absolutely, its always great to work with people who are at the top of their game. Being their co-star is exciting and challenging at the same time. I am looking forward to working with Kangana and Saif Ali Khan too. Its an exciting film. I am also going to work with Deepika for the first time, so its going to be awesome. We have heard that Mira also gives her opinion on scripts. Mira and I talk about everything. Whenever she chooses to give her opinion, they are important to me. She is a bright girl and has a fresh point of view towards things. Its always good to have another persons point of view. The film fraternity has a certain way of looking at things, and then there are common people, who have a different way of looking at movies. Her point of view is more than welcome. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON It could well be the calm after the storm. The Union Budget 2017-18, slated to be presented on February 1, is set to bring in good news for the salaried class, as well as for those engaged in small businesses and the agriculture sector. New tax slabs for the common man, cheaper loans for farmers and more money for public expenditure are likely to be on the cards, sources in know of the development said. The focus will be on making the budget a people-friendly one, which will have good news for all sections, especially following the uproar over the governments recent demonetisation exercise, said the sources quoted above. The NDA government has come under severe attack from the Opposition after the announcement of the demonetisation drive. Opposition parties have claimed that the poor have been the worst impacted. The finance ministry kicked off the pre-budget consultation meetings on Saturday. It will be a budget for everybody. Every section of the society will have something to be happy about. Talks (on the budget) have just started, so nothing is concrete, but that is the broad objective, an official source who did not wish to be identified told HT. The demonetisation exercise, announced on November 8, has led to a severe cash crunch, with R500 and R1,000 notes being sucked out of the market. However, the move has led to a surge in bank deposits. It is also expected to bring in more people into the tax net. Surely the government will come up with announcements that are people-centric... We can expect tax rates to come down. Tax collections this year will be good and overall with the huge deposits, there will be enough scope and elbow room, said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economic adviser, State Bank of India. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Switzerland agreed on Tuesday to automatic sharing of information with India on Swiss bank accounts, a move that could boost the governments fight against black money stashed overseas. Switzerland will not share details about accounts held prior to September 2018, while the first exchange of information will happen in September 2019. The Joint Declaration for implementation of AEOI signed between India and Switzerland provides that both countries will start collecting data in accordance with the global standards in 2018 and exchange it from 2019 onwards. While Switzerland has conformed to the global standards on automatic exchange of information with the signing of the declaration, India, on its part, has promised to safeguard the confidentiality of the data. It will now be possible for India to receive from September, 2019 onwards, the financial information of accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland for 2018 and subsequent years, on an automatic basis, said a finance ministry statement. Describing the signing of declaration as a big step, revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia tweeted: The income tax department will be able to obtain information from accounts of all Indians stashed in Switzerland from 2018 onwards. The Swiss Federal Department of Finance said in a statement that the signing of the joint declaration with India confirms Switzerlands international commitment to implementing the automatic exchange of Information (AEOI) standard. Switzerland is thus strengthening its network of AEOI partner states. India meets in particular the high demands in terms of adherence to the principle of speciality and the safeguarding of confidentiality for the data delivered, which are prerequisites for the introduction of the AEOI, it said. Switzerland, which has always been at the centre of the debate on black money allegedly stashed by Indians abroad, used to be known for very strong secrecy walls till a few years ago around its banking practices. A huge global pressure has resulted in Switzerland relenting on the tough secrecy clauses its local laws gave to the banks. Several information requests on details about Indians who had accounts in Swiss banks are still pending. Tuesdays declaration, however, does not talk about exchange of information based on stolen data or pending requests from India. Following the governments demonetisation of high value currency notes earlier this month as a crackdown on domestic black money, some opposition parties have been demanding that the government take action to bring back the unaccounted Indian money stashed abroad, particularly in Swiss banks. The Switzerland Department of Finance said the automatic exchange of information with India will be implemented based on the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (MCAA). The MCAA is based on the international standard for the exchange of information developed by the OECD. The Swiss Federal Council has authorised the Federal Department of Finance to conduct a consultation for the introduction of the AEOI with India and other countries. It will be initiated soon. Thereafter, the corresponding federal decrees will be submitted to Parliament for approval, it added. In a significant step in the continuing global efforts to crackdown on illicit fund flows in the system and do away with banking secrecy practices, Switzerland had in September ratified the multilateral convention on administrative assistance in taxation matters. The Indian Finance Ministrys statement said fighting the menace of black money stashed in offshore accounts has been a key priority area for the present government. The Joint Declaration for implementing AEOI was signed today by CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra and Deputy Chief of Mission of Swiss Embassy Gilles Roduit here in India. On June 6, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann at Geneva and discussed the need for expeditious exchange of information for combating tax evasion together with an early start to negotiations on the Agreement for Automatic Exchange of Information. As a follow up, Adhia and Switzerlands State Secretary for International Financial Matters Jacques de Watteville met on June 15 and agreed to move towards an early agreement for the implementation of AEOI between the two countries. The Switzerland Department of Finance said the automatic exchange of information with India will be implemented based on the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (MCAA). The MCAA is based on the international standard for the exchange of information developed by the OECD. The Swiss Federal Council has authorised the Federal Department of Finance to conduct a consultation for the introduction of the AEOI with India and other countries. It will be initiated soon. Thereafter, the corresponding federal decrees will be submitted to Parliament for approval, it added. In a significant step in the continuing global efforts to crackdown on illicit fund flows in the system and do away with banking secrecy practices, Switzerland had in September ratified the multilateral convention on administrative assistance in taxation matters. The Indian finance ministrys statement said fighting the menace of black money stashed in offshore accounts has been a key priority area for the present government. The Joint Declaration for implementing AEOI was signed today by CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra and Deputy Chief of Mission of Swiss Embassy Gilles Roduit here in India. On June 6, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann at Geneva and discussed the need for expeditious exchange of information for combating tax evasion together with an early start to negotiations on the Agreement for Automatic Exchange of Information. As a follow up, Adhia and Switzerlands State Secretary for International Financial Matters Jacques de Watteville met on June 15 and agreed to move towards an early agreement for the implementation of AEOI between the two countries. President-elect Donald Trump has said he is a big fan of India. Could his business interests there be the reason? India accounts for the largest chunk of Trump businesses outside the United States 16 of the 111 that he has in 18 countries, according to an analysis of his personal finance disclosure by The Washington Post. His Indian business interests have received new attention and scrutiny following his meeting with three business associates from Mumbai last week, in the middle of picking his cabinet and other members of his administration. There are fears Trumps presidency could be used to further his business interests and he is under pressure to announce a plan on how he will distance himself and his office from his companies here in the US and abroad. His businesses abroad range from luxury real-estate, one-man holding corporations and branding deals. Some of those in India included DT India Venture, DT India Venture Managing Member Corp, DT Marks Gurgaon LLC, DT Marks Gurgaon Managing Member Corp, DT Marks Pune LLC, DT Marks Pune Managing Member Corporation, DT Marks Pune II LLC, DT Marks Pune II managing corporate, DT Marks Worli LLC, DT Marks Worli Member Corp, DT Tower Gurgaon LLC and DT Tower Gurgaon managing Member Corporation. The financial disclosure did not specify what each of these companies do, but Trump has several real-estate projects running in India, according to news reports citing his local business associates and representatives. Trump has five ongoing deals in India with a gross development value of about $1.5 billion, according to Kalpesh Mehta, founder and managing partner of Tribeca, a Mumbai-based developer and the exclusive India representative for Trump Organisation. He told Hindustan Times days after Trumps victory on November 8, One project is finished and sales for two have begun. Three more projects are likely to be launched in 2017. Demand for the Trump brand in India remains strong. Mehta had said India probably has the highest number of Trumps real estate projects outside North America. Though its not clear if all of Trumps business interests in India are in real-estate business his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton used to attack him for sourcing photo-frames from India but they do form the largest portion of his interests outside the US. with inputs from Jyotindra Dubey The demonetisation exercise may not lead to a one-time gain for the government, at least in the current fiscal year, since finance ministry has not made provisions for this, say insiders and experts. If people do not surrender their old currency notes, the Reserve Bank of India (RBIs) currency liabilities are lowered. The gains are moved into the central banks reserves, which can be transferred to the Centre by way of a higher dividend. A higher dividend will mean gains in the governments hands, which can be used for reducing the fiscal deficit or recapitalisation of banks. But it is easier said than done. Money printed by the RBI, but not surrendered will be treated as unclaimed liability in the central banks books. It cannot be transferred to the government as dividend, said a top official in finance ministry, who did not wish to be named. The demonetisation drive has now entered the third week, and numbers are pouring in from the RBI on the amount of deposits and withdrawals. However, according to the government, around R4 lakh crore may not even come back into the system. This is the amount of black money that Indians may not deposit or exchange at banks. According to government sources, changes will have to be made to the RBI Act to treat this black money as a deduction from the central banks currency liability. A cut-off date has to be set when the unclaimed liability will cease to exist and will be removed from the RBIs liability, explained another official, who did not wish to be named. Amendment to the RBI Act can only be done once the deadline for exchanging old currency lapses. This would also require an approval from Parliament, making it difficult for the government to enjoy the windfall of these gains in the current fiscal year itself (2016-17). The government is yet to decide on what to do with the gains, economic affairs secretary, Shaktikanta Das recently said at a press conference. But experts point out that if the government had planned in time, it would have an additional 4 lakh crore in its hands, this fiscal. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Sanjay Dev, a supplier of traditional Maharashtrian sweets to retailers in Mumbai and other cities, is facing a double whammy following the governments decision to ban R500 and R1,000 currency notes. Due to the slowdown in demand and the cash crunch in the market, retailers and distributors are placing fewer orders and some even want him to accept older currency notes. While, he can wait for a few more days, he still has to pay his vendors who supply raw materials. And theres the catch -- They will not accept the old notes and would not even want to wait for long. Business has fallen in the last few days. Retailers are hardly placing any orders as their sales are down. Some distributors want to pay me via old R500 and R1,000 notes, but my vendors are not accepting these notes, said Dev. Following the scrapping of old notes and restrictions on withdrawing and exchanging of new notes, retail sales have been hit, adversely impacting a number of food and consumer goods makers, especially the smaller ones. Sanjana Desai, head of business development at Desai Brothers Foods division, expects the companys sales to come down at least 30% in traditional trade. While sales through modern supermarkets are on the rise, traditional trade, comprising neighbourhood mom and pop kirana stores, still account for 72% of the overall sales of the FMCG sector. Retailers and distributors are not increasing value of the orders and not taking up new products either. They are only replenishing items that are completely out of stock. So overall, our sales have been reduced by around 30% in traditional channels and around 15% in modern trade, Desai added. While many retailers in metro cities are now accepting payments via credit and debit cards and food coupons like Sodexo, the impact is higher in smaller towns and villages, where transactions predominantly happen in cash. Our payments to distributors happen predominantly via cash. So until the availability of cash situation eases, we have limited our orders to distributors. Retail sales for non-essential items, too, have slowed, said a kirana store owner in Mumbais suburb of Bhandup. Some organised retailers, including Reliance Retail, are waving off the credit period and paying entrepreneurs dues up front. If you are a milk or bread supplier, then the credit period could be very short, in some other cases it could go up to 30 days, said Damodar Mall, CEO, grocery, Reliance Retail. We are saying, irrespective of that, whatever is the outstanding with us, we will disburse it. This would help them get their businesses back. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Having missed one deadline after another in the past five years, the SAS Nagar inter-state bus terminus (ISBT), also known as Mohali junction, will finally be inaugurated in the first week of December, with the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) completing formalities to take possession of the newly built Rs 500-crore facility. Once inaugurated, the old bus stand at Phase 8, SAS Nagar, will be closed and the operations will be shifted to the new terminal (at Phase 6) where 1,900 buses will pass daily with the facility of night halt for 95 buses. The terminal spread over 6.6-acres of land adjacent to Verka Chowk on the National Highway-21 will improve connectivity of the tricity area to northern Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The authorities, however, did not commit any specific date of inauguration which is likely to be done by Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal. Punjab transport commissioner Harmail Singh Sra said, All buses entering SAS Nagar, including those going to Chandigarh, will pass through the new ISBT. As many as 1,900 buses will pass through the terminal daily. Only 500 buses entered the Phase-8 bus stand in SAS Nagar. Initially, all buses went to the Phase-8 bus stand but the practice was stopped owing to non-availability of facilities for passengers and bus operators. The facility the regions first air-conditioned ISBT which was to start operations in October 2011 and has missed six deadlines so far will be made operational in phases. In the first phase, the bus stand will be made operational. As part of phase 2, retail outlets and a 10-screen multiplex in tower-A of the complex will be made operational by June next year while in Phase 3, towers-B and -C will be completed by 2018-end. The facility has been named after the Sikh general, Baba Banda Singh, who is credited with defeating Wazir Khan, the Mughal nawab of Sirhind, leading to the establishment of the first Sikh kingdom in 1711. Bandas statue has been built at the entrance. The authorities were preparing to inaugurate it on November 24 and even held a meeting in this regard on Monday, but the same was deferred. C&C Constructions Limited, a Delhi-based company, has executed the project under the public private partnership (PPP) mode. The work on the project started in April 2009. With the Punjab assembly elections nearing (likely in early 2017), the state-of-the-art facility is likely to be projected as an achievement of the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janta Party government. The project will be inaugurated in the first week. The ISBT part will be made operational as of now, said Varun Roojam, chief administrator, GMADA. In the final years of Manmohan Singhs prime ministership, his critics made much fun of his reluctance to speak out on the issues that bedevilled his government or indeed, on any issue at all. Having the misfortune of being the first Prime Minister of the social-media age, he was mocked on Twitter with such unflattering monikers as Maun-mohan Singh, a play on the Hindi word for silence. But if silence tarnished Singhs tenure in office, it has redeemed him in retirement. With rare exceptions, the former PM has maintained a studied maun on his successors performance, keeping a dignified distance from the political hurly-burly, even when members of the current dispensation have slung mud at him. Read: This is not the apocalypse: Prez Obama to White House staffers after Trumps win Theres a lesson there for Barack Obama: If quietude can be a failure in a leader under the political spotlight, reticence is a virtue in one who has exited from the stage. The American President has never been short on words during his two terms in office; now he suggests that even after his departure, he will dispense with long-standing convention and criticise Donald Trump. If an issue goes to core questions about our values and our ideals, and if I think that its necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then Ill examine it when it comes, Obama said, at a press conference in Lima, Peru, at the end of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. Obama suggested he was reserving his right to reprove the Trump presidency as American citizen who cares deeply about our country. But Obama surely knows he will never be an ordinary American citizen. Unless he issues his opinions in the form of anonymous letters to the editor of the Washington Post, any criticism by a former President, and especially from the most recent occupant of the White House, will carry political weight. The temptation to exert may be great, but the wise course is to refrain. If the example of Manmohan Singh is too obscure, Obama has several excellent ones much closer to home, starting with that of his own predecessor. In retirement, George W Bush has kept his own version of maun on political and administrative issues, even though the Obama administration has blamed him for a great deal. As a result, even Democrats who detest everything Bush said and did as President now give him credit for being an exemplary ex. Bush set the tone immediately after Obama took office. In a speech in the spring of 2009, he pointed out that, Theres plenty of critics in the arena. I think its time for the ex-President to tap dance off the stage and let the current President have a go at solving the worlds problems. Obama, Bush said with a rare flash of eloquence, deserves my silence. Read: Obama tells Latin America and world: Give Trump time, dont assume worst Four years later, Bush was still holding fast to his resolve. His fellow Republicans had kept up a highly personal campaign of vilification against Obama, which included questioning his birth certificate (that particular campaign was led by a certain Donald J Trump), his faith and his patriotism. Bush was having none of it. Its a hard job, he told CNN. Hes got plenty on his agenda. A former President doesnt need to make it any harder. Other Presidents have taken different decisions; thats mine. (For some reason, superannuated Vice-Presidents seem to be governed by other rules: Dick Cheney felt no compunctions about attacking Obama, and it is hard to imagine Joe Biden exercising much restraint in his retirement.) Bush was following in the footsteps of his father, who did more than just keep mum after retirement, he actually developed a warm friendship with the man who denied him a second term in office, Bill Clinton. The relationship deepened after Clinton himself left office, when the two travelled together in pursuit of humanitarian causes: they grew so close, Clinton joked that he was the black sheep son of the Bush family. Other modern American Presidents who have forged friendships or at least relationships of mutual respect include Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover, and John F Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower. One of the exceptions to the rule was, ironically, the man who has earned more kudos for his post-Presidential work than for his time in the White House. Jimmy Carter has kept up a steady stream of criticism against every President who has followed him. The criticism has never been personal, and Carter has targeted fellow Democrats as much as Republicans: Clinton and Bush Jr. have borne the brunt of his anger. A devout Christian, he was especially harsh on Clintons moral failings during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Carter has also inveighed against Obamas policy on Syria. If anything, Carters overuse of his pulpit as a past President has undermined the impact of his criticisms, allowing Obama to brush it off without much thought. Read: Jimmy Carter says both Trump and Clinton are quite unpopular Its hard to see Trump being so blase. The President-elect has an exceptionally thin skin: even when he should have been enjoying his victory over Hillary Clinton, he made time to Tweet his dissatisfaction with the coverage he was receiving from the New York Times. But sparing Trumps feelings is not the reason Obama should keep his opinion to himself. The dignity of the office demands that the courtesy be extended even to the most undignified person imaginable. Bobby Ghosh is editor-in-chief of Hindustan Times (Twitter: @ghoshworld) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Early morning on February 3, Inder Kumar Gupta found his wife Manju on the bathroom floor. Her speech was slurred and her hand hurt. Realising that it was a medical emergency, Gupta took her to Bhagat Hospital in Janakpuri and then to Max Pitampura for a CT scan. The scan was done at 8.33am and the doctors began to treat her for stroke but chose not to administer tPA, a key drug which can limit and reverse the damage if given intravenously within 3-4 hours. Manju is barely able to move now. Sometimes, she says it is better to die than live like this. I cannot bear to see her agony, says Gupta who has filed a complaint of negligence with the Delhi Medical Council (DMC). According to Dr Girish Tyagi, member, DMC, such complaints have increased by 30%-40% over the past five years and each case takes at least a few years to be investigated. The punishment ranges from a strict warning to permanent cancellation of licence to practice, which has never happened. The maximum punishment awarded by DMC is barring a doctor from practicing for six months. When is a doctor responsible? Cases that constitute medical negligence if: There is damage to organs due to negligence A wrong course of treatment prescribed because of wrong diagnosis The treatment chosen that is not the accepted or established medical norm An instrument is left inside the body or a wrong part is removed A hospital it runs out of essential supplies, such as oxygen cylinders etc Allopathic treatment is provided by practitioners of alternate medicine Prescriptions, test reports, discharge summary or receipts are not provided A doctor is not negligent when: Several methods of treatment are available and the doctor chooses one The disease is not cured There is an error in judgment (versus wrong diagnosis) When to go to a consumer court? Indiaas Medical Council Act has provisions to take disciplinary action against erring doctors. Consumer courts provide an additional remedy for getting compensated under the Consumer Protection Act. If a doctor or hospital is not found to be negligent in a criminal case, it does not affect the case under Consumer Protection Act as gross negligence and intent to commit a crime is the parameter in criminal cases. Source: www.nationalconsumerhelpline.in The DMC, which has the mandate to investigate cases of medical negligence, has been getting between 20 and 25 complaints of medical negligence each month. Of these, five or six are accepted for review based on evidence, Dr Tyagi said. In cases of negligence, the primary complaint is filed with the state medical council, consumer courts, state health department or the local police, but it is the state medical councils that have the mandate to screen the complaint to determine whether it needs investigation. Less than 10% doctors charged are proven guilty after years of investigation, and those that are, get off lightly. Civil cases can win patients and their families compensation, as did Dr Kunal Saha in 2013, when he was awarded Rs 5.96 crore for the death of his wife Anuradha Saha at a Kolkata Hospital. Read | Denied hospital admission and stretcher, Kanpur mans son dies on his shoulder While patients demand accountability, doctors demand trust and when either group is wanting, accusations of medical negligence occur. Though the DMC has accepted Guptas complaint, the hospital says standard protocols were followed in Manjus case. The exact time of stroke onset was uncertain as the patient woke up with symptoms of stroke. Therefore, the patient was not considered as an ideal candidate for thrombolysis as per established medical protocol and instead, was shifted to the medical ICU and provided conservative treatment. The patient was responding positively to the line of treatment given and her condition began to improve, the hospital said. Gupta says the doctors have now told him that Manju was not eligible for tPA. But I have taken Manjus case files to several specialists and who all say she should have been given tPA, he says. Meanwhile, Manju can walk a bit but requires help for almost everything. Most part of her day is now spent being assisted to physiotherapy and acupuncture sessions. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON If you are travelling out of Delhis Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), you might be asked to go through full body scanner Monday onwards. A scanner has been placed at Terminal 3 for trial run. It will not be mandatory for passengers to go through the scan though. We will make the checks compulsory only when the scanners are permanently placed here, said an official from the Bureau for Civil Aviation Security (BCAS). Sources said this scanner will produce mannequin-like images. Being aware of the objections raised by passengers over X-Ray images that body scanner produced in airports across the world, the BCAS asked the manufacturers to configure the machines to ensure that the images dont reveal body parts. Read: Delhis IGI airport may soon introduce full body scanners to upgrade security The scanner with millimeter wave technology has been brought from the United States and another one from Germany will arrive next week. We want to test both the technologies simultaneously and then decide which one to procure. During the trial run, passengers feedback will be taken . We want to cover most of the passengers travelling out during the trial period, said the official. During this period, passengers will be requested to go through the body scanner after they have collected their boarding pass. It will, however, be mandatory for every passenger to go through the normal security check. The security agencies had a series of meetings on the use of body scanner and it has been decided that scanners with less harmful rays and objectionable image will be installed at the airport by the end of this year. Irrespective of the controversy surrounding it, we had always wanted these scanners at the airport since the beginning. A discussion to install shoe scanners was also held but nothing has been finalised on this front, said a BCAS official. Read: Full-body scanner row: US denies checking all travellers The trial run has been started from the Delhi airport and initially it will not be mandatory for the passengers to go through it. Only highly suspicious passengers will be asked to go through body scanner or those, who voluntarily want to go through it, can use it. A few years ago, a similar trail run was conducted at the Delhi airport and a US based company had installed the body scanner which can detect contraband and explosives hidden inside the body of a person. A survey conducted during the first phase of trial run revealed that 90% passengers feel the new technology will be helpful, but only 40% volunteered to go through the scanner. The entire scanning process, which does not take more than a minute, also comes with privacy filters, the use of which is optional for the official manning the machine. The scanner can reveal plastic and liquid explosives, composite weapons, plastic and metal guns, drugs and other contraband, ceramic and metal knives, box cutters, precious metals and recording devices. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Delhis Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and his cabinet colleague Kapil Mishra were detained on Tuesday when they tried to march to Parliament from Jantar Mantar protesting the Centres demonetisation move. Before beginning the march, Sisodia launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation alleging he is making people cry and shedding crocodile tears. We dont like Modi for what he has done in his personal and political life. This is not notebandi but note-badli. The terrorists in Kashmir today were found with Rs 2000 notes. From where are terrorists getting them? Either you are unaware of the lapse or are involved in it. He keeps crying all the time and makes people cry. But he sheds crocodile tears. The demonetisation drive should be rolled back. This is what people want, Sisodia said while addressing the gathering at Jantar Mantar. He was joined by his cabinet colleagues Gopal Rai, Kapil Mishra and Satyendar Jain. Neither terrorist funding has stopped nor counterfeit notes nor blackmarketeering. The government has no money to give for OROP to soldiers but waives the loans of industrialists, Sisodia added. A day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is presently in Punjab, exhorted people to change the Prime Minister instead of the defunct notes, slogans of note nahi, PM badlo were raised at the march. The PM again became emotional... he is not getting any support. Hence, he is crying. The need is to take the fight to the streets, Gopal Rai said. The Prime Minister had on November 8 announced withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. The decision has been drawing criticism from opposition parties. The six-year-old is disturbed. She has not slept or eaten in the past nine hours. All she has been doing is uttering the name of the person who abducted her three-year-old sister and disappeared in a dark lane. The six-year-old, who is mentally challenged, tried to raise an alarm and inform her parents. She kept uttering the persons name who had offered her sister a chocolate and then taken her with him. But no one listened to her. The three-year-old was found 12 hours later on Tuesday morning, lying unconscious inside a drain across the railway tracks in north Delhis Sarai Rohilla area. She was allegedly raped by the man, thrashed and then dumped there, left to die. But, she survived. The accused, Balbir, who works as a scrap dealer, was later arrested from his residence. Balbir was known to the girls family and lived in the same house. He abducted her when she was playing outside with her sister and took her to a secluded spot, where he raped her. When the girl resisted, he thrashed her. After raping the girl, he strangled her with an intention to kill, a senior police officer said. Read | Delhi ranks second in stalking cases in India Balbir later dumped the girl in a drain, covered the drain with e garbage and left, thinking that the girl was dead. After returning home, he reportedly had a drink and went off to sleep. The girls parents called the PCR at 9pm, when they failed to find their daughter. On reaching the area, we first spoke to her six-year-old sister with whom she was last seen. The girl told us that Balbir took her to a dark lane. She said that after Balbir took her sister away, one of his friends came to her offering a chocolate too, which she refused and went back home, crying, an investigator told HT. Taking a cue from her statement, the police went to Balbirs residence to question him. He was sleeping and refused to entertain the police. The investigators noticed spots of blood on his shirt and he was detained on suspicion. Spots of blood were seen on his shirt and when asked for an explanation, he could not provide one. He was questioned for over four hours, before he confessed to having raped and killed the girl. He then guided us to the spot where he had dumped the body, a police officer said. Read | Only 12% of those charged with raping children convicted in Delhi The police team reached the spot at 6am and found the girl lying in the drain, motionless. We immediately took her to a hospital where she regained consciousness during treatment. She started crying and hugged her mother. She lay in the drain throughout the night, in the cold, but luckily survived. She has sustained internal injuries and has scratch marks all over her body, but is out of danger, an investigator said. Her sister kept telling us that Balbir took her, but no one paid attention as she was mentally unstable. We were tensed after being unable to find the girl despite searching for her and we snubbed her. We never expected this from Balbir as he used to frequent the girls house and worked with her father, the girls landlord said. Balbir, came to Delhi three years ago from Bihar and started working with the girls father, who also works as a scrap dealer. He lives in the same house with his 16-year-old son and father-in-law. Balbirs wife lives in UP. Over nine months after Kanhaiya Kumar, former president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union, delivered a late-night speech after his arrest and bail in a sedition case, he was again a sought after figure on the campus on Monday. This time, it was a class XI student of humanities looking for him. Thousands had repeated after Kanhaiya the slogans of azadi at the universitys Freedom Square on March 3. A class VIII student from a government school, who remembered watching the live telecast, too, wanted to see what he looked like in person. Is Kanhaiya on the campus? many asked as university volunteers guided batches of school students around JNU in the first-ever open day organised on Monday. Moving away from the controversies that have come to describe the 47-year-old university, the Jan Jan JNU event attempted to highlight the academic output of the institution. The open day aimed to project a scholastic image of the university. Over 600 students from 11 Delhi schools visited the campus spread over 1019 acres with 14 schools of study scattered across its thick greens. For a place like JNU, such events are important. When you look at the papers you only hear a certain kind of news about JNU. But when you come here, it is a completely different world. It is a university like any other university, said V Ramgopal Rao, director, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), who was the guest of honour at the event. For vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar, whose previous employer, IIT Delhi, conducts such an event every year, it was a winning shot. Schoolchildren explored various research projects. But the issues of politics, freedom and democracy, student leader Kanhaiya and the controversial event of February 9 had many students hooked. School students at the Open Day asked questions about the courses on offer and the academic research projects, but also about the political issues that have been associated with the university. (Vipin Kumar/HT PHOTO) Science students were quite excited by the models and the live experiments. But those from the humanities stream wanted to talk about politics. How do I know where Kanhaiya is? I am from the sciences myself, a JNU student said even as she led a group of class XI students from Vasant Kunj who were keen to spend time at the Freedom Square a three-sided staircase leading to the vice-chancellors office. They also wanted to know where Najeeb Ahmad, missing from the campus since October 15, could be. Whatever I read in the newspaper and watched on TV about JNU made me skeptical about this place. I was scared of coming here, but the campus is a different world. Its so cool. Its so different. People here are liberal and have a point of view, said Dahsel Bhutia, a class XI student. Anjali, a class VIII of a government school in Tughlaqabad, was delighted to know of JNUs research work. Scored 3.9 on four by National Assessment and Accreditation Council, the university has seen a steady increase in the research projects completed every year from 276 in 2011-12 to 450 in 2014-15. School students at the JNU on the one of its kind First Open Day for school at JNU Campus in New Delhi. (Photo by Vipin Kumar/ Hindustan Times) (Vipin Kumar/HT PHOTO) I thought people here would be violent. I saw on TV that someone was missing and there were too many protests. But when I came here I saw the campus has a very friendly environment. There are so many courses on offer here, said Anjali, dressed in her school uniform of salwar kameez and her hair divided into plaits. JNU Students Union, which was not invited to display any posters like the academic departments and cells, found their own corner to reach out to schoolchildren. As students explored the campus, union members went around handing them pamphlets on how none of the elected bodies on the campus were asked to be part of the event. Ye JNU dekhne nahi aaye. Padai ki baatein karne aaye hain (They have not come to see JNU, but to talk about studies), said a disgruntled volunteer. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The immigrant is arguably the most unloved figure in Western politics these days. Anti-immigrant sentiment helped drive the United Kingdom to vote to leave the European Union, threatens to overturn the French political applecart and is troubling even the once unassailable Angela Merkel. It was also a key plank in the election campaign of Donald Trump, who took special aim at illegal immigrants from Mexico. India is the second-largest recipient of US visas in the world. However, its role as the main user of H-1B visas, a temporary work visa granted to highly-skilled workers, is where it is likely to face the most political flak in the new administration. New Delhi should consider pre-empting the US president-elect from taking punitive measures that would damage Indias otherwise positive public views regarding the sole superpower. Read: Trump vows to withdraw from Trans-Pacific Partnership on day one The signals from the Trump transition team lean towards the negative. One of the most strident opponents of the H-1B, Senator Jeff Sessions, has been chosen as attorney-general and his staffer is in charge of a task force on immigration policy. Trump himself has blown hot and cold on H-1B on the campaign trail, calling for their abolition and then saying he supports the entry of highly-skilled migrants. As a businessman Trump is susceptible to the views of his kind so the US software industry needs to be mobilised to make the case for preserving the H-1B visa. Their requests for such visas still outnumber the full quota by about four to one so there is clearly considerable demand for such migrants. By all accounts, Trump is determined to pander to the demands of the white working class, which propelled him to power. It needs to be made clear to him that this group, whose members have been pushed out of assembly-lines and mining shafts, is not threatened by Indian code-writers and programmers. Studies have shown, in fact, that cheap infotech helps create nearly three additional jobs in other sectors in the US by making firms more competitive. Read: Tech workers with H1-B visas may face uncertain future under Trump, Sessions Nonetheless, New Delhi should be realistic. Some sort of restrictions on H-1B visas will be inevitable, if not in actual numbers but in the parameters by which such visas are granted. This will still be better than abolition of the visa category. Once wiped out, visa categories are harder to re-establish. But regulatory changes are often left to the executive. H and other skilled migrant visa categories have gone through many ups and downs in the past, so it may make sense to accept a temporary down to ensure a future up. One argument that may resonate with President-elect Trump is that one person who claims to have come to the US on an H-1B is a former model by the name of Melania Knauss, the present Mrs Trump. To say that India is among the lowest four countries when it comes to rapes whereas Sweden is number one is clearly an attempt to portray India in a good light. Union minister for women and child development Maneka Gandhi, in addition to this, has also said that the government has zero tolerance towards rape and that the Indian media reports cases of rape every day while this is not so in Sweden. It is passing strange that the minister felt it necessary to compare India with Sweden where the incidence of rape is indeed high but then so are conviction rates. Read | India among lowest 4 countries in number of rapes: Maneka Gandhi Ms Gandhi should not try to minimise the extent of the problem in India where the National Crime Records Bureau puts the figure for rapes in 2015 at 34,651, in which in 95.5% of cases the victim knew the offender(s). The conviction rate for the same year is a dismal 29.37%. The statistics are way below the estimates given by activists, the main reason being that women do not or cannot report cases of rape and sexual violence owing to a variety of factors. One, of course, is the social stigma associated with the crime. The other is that police stations, the first port of call for a victim are either unaware of how to deal with such cases or are unwilling to take the womans word for it. Ms Gandhis endeavour should be to address these issues and not try to project an image of India as a place where crimes against women like rape is not a big issue. She has earlier too made remarks that are less than gender-friendly. For example, when it was mooted that paternity leave could be added to maternity legislation, she opposed it though it could have been a great relief for new mothers. She also made a remark that marital rape in India could not be seen in the international context as there were other factors like poverty and illiteracy at play here. There are many other reasons for poor conviction rates in India and one is a huge backlog in judicial cases. Read | How long will the Centre wait before criminalising marital rape The whole criminal justice system should be geared to make it less traumatic for women to register cases and also to attend judicial proceedings. Often, the victim has to recount her experience in an open court, at other times, she is threatened by the accused as cases take ages to register and evidence collection is very patchy. These are all pressing concerns for the minister to ponder. Scoring brownie points on this issue serves only to detract from the real problems of sexual violence that women face on a daily basis. It is cold comfort that the situation is worse elsewhere; the aim should be to make things better at home. The Supreme Court mandated Oversight Committee (OC) on Medical Council of India (MCI) has approved the establishment of 34 new private medical colleges for the current session with certain conditions, Rajya Sabha was told on Tuesday. The Oversight Committee also approved seven colleges each for private and government, for increase in seats or starting of Super Speciality Courses, Minister of State for Health Faggan Singh Kulaste said in a written reply. The government issued necessary permission/ notification as approved by the OC, he said. He was asked whether the OC headed by Justice (retd) RM Lodha had given clearances to many private medical colleges which were put in abeyance by MCI inspectors that found glaring deficiencies. Read more: MBBS seats filled in pvt colleges, doubts raised over counselling The Supreme Court mandated oversight Committee (OC) on MCI approved following schemes or proposals of the applicant medical colleges for the year 2016-17 with certain conditions. Establishment of New Medical Colleges - 34 private, 0 government; Increase of intake capacity -7 private colleges, one government; renewal of permission - 30 private and O for government, the minister said. In August, the panel had slammed the medical education regulator MCI, saying it disregarded its directives by not conducting fresh inspection of medical colleges. The Oversight Committee (OC) said it had resolved in its meeting held on June 13 that all applicant medical colleges, which were not given an opportunity to present their compliance to deficiencies communicated by MCI, be given an opportunity to do so by June 22. Hundreds of doctors across the country are protesting against the proposed National Medical Commission Bill (NMC Bill), which seeks to dissolve the Medical Council of India (MCI), calling it an undemocratic move. One of the primary responsibilities of the MCI is to regulate medical education in the country. The NITI Aayog suggested the creation of NMC in August 2016. The proposed bill has suggested forming an NMC, which will be a policy-making body for medical education. Scrapping MCI might not be the right move in the long term, experts have said. The proposed NMC Bill 2016 suggests that the Central government will establish autonomous Boards for conducting undergraduate and postgraduate education, assessment and rating of medical institutions and registration of medical practitioners, among other things. According to Dr KK Aggarwal, national president elect, Indian Medical Association, Scrapping MCI will cripple the functioning of the medical profession by making it completely answerable to the bureaucracy and non-medical administrators. Instead, the government must consider introducing amendments to the existing MCI Act to make it transparent, accountable, robust and self-sufficient. Dr Aggarwal says the autonomy of the regulatory body has to be upheld. Experts also suggest that providing for an accreditation authority for medical education on the lines of the authority vested with the All-India Council for Technical Education in respect of technological institutions through National Accreditation Board can be a solution. Vesting MCI with the authority to prescribe service conditions and payable scales for full-time teaching faculties in medical colleges on par with the UGC can be another solution. The government had invited suggestions from stakeholders and public on the proposed NMC Bill. Dr Manish Prabhakar, president, Indian Medical Students Association, says an NMC, if formed, will be undemocratic and highly detrimental to budding doctors, community and medical associations. The NMC also aims to prescribe norms for determination of fees for a proportion of seats, not exceeding 40%, in private medical educational institutions. The Commission will also be responsible for conducting the National Eligibility-cum Entrance Test and a National Licentiate Examination for admission into post-graduate courses in medical colleges. The bill also seeks to establish Undergraduate and Postgraduate Medical Education Boards that will be responsible for determining and prescribing standards and overseeing all aspects of medical education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, respectively. They will also be given the task to develop a competency-based dynamic curriculum (including assessment) at the two levels and prescribing guidelines for setting up medical institutions, besides developing curricula and conducting examinations. But will dissolving MCI help achieve these goals? Dr Arun Aggarwal, former president Delhi Medical Council and professor of excellence, Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi, says, Replacing MCI with another regulatory body does not guarantee that the current issues in medical education will be resolved. How can we be sure that the new commission will function without any glitches and be corruption-free? The new commission also seeks to merge the existing National Board of Examination (NBE), which is responsible for regulating post-graduate medical education in the country, with the Postgraduate Medical Education Board. The Supreme Court in its judgment dated April 3, 2016, while placing an oversight committee for MCI, had mandated a period of one year for the government to undertake reforms in regulation of medical education and set up appropriate systems in place. The apex court will review the position in April 2017. The tenure of MCI will also be completed in a years time. Thus, achieving high growth in healthcare to meet the growing needs is an area of high priority. Reforms in medical education are necessitated and will have to be undertaken sooner than later. However, the needs of medical profession namely professional autonomy and identity have to be appropriately addressed while holding the professionals accountable, says Dr Bipin Batra, executive director, NBE. Read more: Health ministry rankings help you choose a medical school abroad SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The actor loves shopping in London. Shes sentimental about her first Chanel bag As Shamita Shetty dolls up for the shoot, and arranges her favourite shoes and bags, we hang out with her cats Mishca and Queenie. They even pose for our photographer as he sets up the lights. Shetty emerges in white jeans and an orange top, as casual as you like. We dont spot any accessories on her. She doesnt like accessorising, she says. But she loves her shoes and denims. Read: Behind closet doors: Upen Patel Fashion mantra: Dont blindly follow any trend. Fashion is all about your own comfort. See what suits your body and experiment accordingly. A pair of Yves Saint Laurent shoes and a Jimmy Choo bag (Photo: Aalok Soni/HT) Closet staple: I love denims. Currently, I am going through a ripped jeans phase. Youll always find T-shirts, a little black dress, and sweatpants in my wardrobe. Traditional shopper: I cannot shop online. I am quite apprehensive of the concept. I would always want to feel the fabric or try the shoes or check the bag before making the purchase. A Chanel handbag (Photo: Aalok Soni/HT) Faux pas: Avoid the combination of black and yellow at all costs. It actually makes one look like a taxi. My precious buy: I dont attach sentimental value to materialistic things. However, the first Chanel bag that I had bought myself is very dear to me. I am quite possessive about the bag. I had picked it up from London. Style matters: Lace is my all-time favourite. I find lace outfits subtle and classy. The actor loves shopping at Harrods in London (Photo: Getty Images) London calling: London may not be on a par with Paris or Milan in terms of being the fashion capital, but it is my favourite shopping destination. I have also lived there on my own for a while, so I connect with the city better. I enjoy shopping from Oxford Street, Sloane Street, and Kensington. When I am there, I often shop at Harrods, an upscale fashion store at Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, and Selfridges on Oxford Street. Do not accessorise: I am not big on accessories. I like to keep my look minimal and simple. Mostly, I just pair a watch and diamond rings with my outfits. However, I absolutely love chandbalis (gold earrings), especially during festive occasions. Favourite brands: I love All Saints, BCBG, Reiss, and Pinko. Among Indian designers, I love wearing Manish Malhotra, Tarun Tahiliani, and Rocky S. A pair of Rinaldi Pret gifted by Shamitas friend Rina Shah (Photo: Aalok Soni/HT) When other banks were waiting for guidelines from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on the withdrawal of Rs2.5 lakh for weddings, a branch of the State Bank of India (SBI) in Gurgaon has already dispensed the cash required to 13 families. The Mehrauli road main branch of the SBI went ahead with the dispensation after receiving directions from its head office to help those in need of cash for weddings. The bank facilitated cash withdrawal for seven applicants on Saturday and six on Monday. The bank asked the applicants to fills forms containing details of the wedding, and submit wedding invitation from the sides of the bride and the bridegroom and their PAN cards. The Centre had on November 17 announced that families with weddings scheduled till the end of December could withdraw up to Rs2.5 lakh cash per wedding. As people thronged the banks after the announcement, bank officials maintained wait-and watch policy as they could not operate without RBI guidelines. A circular from the RBI reached the bank on Monday with the norms to be followed by customers to avail of the withdrawal facility for weddings. The RBI also released an application form to be filled by customers. We provided cash to 13 persons for wedding purposes. After receiving the RBI circular, we are handing over the guidelines to customers but no one has returned with the formalities completed, Mukesh Kumar Sinha, chief manager of Mehrauli road branch of the SBI, said. To mitigate the inconvenience for families with weddings scheduled, the Haryana government on November 15 directed all business houses, tent dealers, marriage and banquets halls to accept payments through cheque, demand draft, and online methods. The decision was taken after reports that people were facing difficulties in arranging cash for weddings. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON With the public still facing cash crunch, Big Bazaar on Tuesday announced that customers can withdraw cash up to Rs 2,000 by using debit cards at all its stores from November 24. In a statement, the Future Retail firm said all its stores, along with all fbb ones, will be enabled to allow customers to withdraw up to Rs 2,000 from their own bank accounts, using their debit/ATM cards. It said the facility is now available at 258 Big Bazaar and fbb stores in over 115 cities and towns across the country. Read: Take action against staff fraudulently exchanging notes: RBI to banks State Bank of India has helped Big Bazaar activate this facility through the banks Cash at POS machines. Customers can withdraw cash from their bank accounts of any scheduled bank in the country, the company said. We are trying hard to ease any difficulties faced by customers due to the demonetisation of some currency notes and support the governments initiative in meeting its objective, Kishore Biyani, chairman of Future Retail, said. Now with customers being able to withdraw cash at Big Bazaar stores, they are welcome to visit our stores instead of qeueing up at banks and ATMs. Customers can follow four simple steps to withdraw cash: Visit the dedicated cash counter at the store, swipe their debit/ATM cards, enter the PIN and withdraw up to Rs 2,000 from their accounts. The cash withdrawal facility will be subject to all applicable restrictions imposed by banks, Reserve Bank of India and government notifications from time to time. The government recently allowed the withdrawal of cash of up to a limit of Rs 2,000 by swiping debit cards at select petrol pumps using point-of-sale transactions (POS) machines. Read: Demonetisation: Rating agency Fitch to revise down Indias Q4 growth forecast The Madras high court on Tuesday sought clarification from the government over the Devanagri form of numeral printed in the new Rs 2000 currency on a PIL petition seeking to declare it invalid on the ground that the use of the script was against the Official Languages Act. The Madurai bench of the high court rejected the Centres assertion that the inclusion of Devanagri numerals on the new Rs 2,000 note was a design feature, and not evidence of preference for a language. A bench comprising justices S Nagamuthu and MV Muralidaran said that the new numerals represented a promise on the part of the RBI governor that the note carried a value of Rs 2,000, and therefore could not be considered a design feature. It therefore needed to be a legal language, as defined by the 1963 Official Languages Act. As per Reserve Bank of India Act, the RBIs Central Board can recommend designs to be printed on the currency notes. The Devanagari numerical is also a design, the additional solicitor general (ASG) had argued. The bench on Monday had, in response to a petition filed by KPT Ganesan, asked the Centre on what authority the new Devanagri numerals had been used in the new note. Ganesan, in his petition, submitted that the printing of the numerals on the note in Devanagri was against the Official Languages Act, 1963. He argued that there is a legal provision to only use the international form of the numerals, and therefore the new notes should be declared illegal and invalid. Several political leaders, including Dr Anbumani Ramadoss of the Pataali Makkal Katchi, have already expressed their displeasure at the inclusion of the Devanagri numerals in the new currency. The judges asked the ASG to get clarifications from the government and posted the matter to November 28 for further hearing. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON One of the sessions that every one looks forward to at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summitis is the one with Bollywood actors and actresses. From Shah Rukh Khan to Aamir Khan, Deepika Padukone to Katrina Kaif, some of the film industrys biggest names field questions, chat and make the audiences laugh. This year, superstar Amitabh Bachchan will be in conversation with Karan Johar. As we prepare for the upcoming summit, here are some interesting things said by actors and actresses at past summits. Shah Rukh Khan, 2007 The actor and director make for a hilarious combination on any given day, but at Bollywoods first outing at the summit, Johars sharp questions and Khans equally witty answers had the audience enthralled. I havent been to a gathering called a Summit before, said Khan, surveying the packed hall. I read the names of the people who have spoken at the Summit and I wondered, why me? Why was I included in such an important list? I guess Im the only one among them who has to wear makeup before going to work every day. As the audience dissolved in laughter, Shah Rukh added, So Im going to be very intellectually advanced today. Im going to use words like synergy. And the one that really turns me on: three sixty degrees. Sanjay Dutt, 2008 Indian jail manuals have not changed in the last 100 years, said actor Sanjay Dutt at the 2008 summit, openly discussing his time in prison for the first time. I was locked up in my cell from 12 noon to 7am the next day on Independence Day, because the manual says so, even though I, as an Indian, wanted to celebrate my countrys Independence Day. The actor also remembered his special prison friends a little sparrow and a big rat. It took me three weeks to get the sparrow to eat from my hands, he said. I named the rat General Saab because he would come everyday at 11pm, collect food and leave sharp at 12.15. Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan, 2009 Before the actors were married, the power couple made some candid revelations about their relationship as well as their careers. Asked how the love story started, Said said, She said a few very funny, outspoken, politically incorrect things and I thought shes so refreshing! Kareena revealed the reason behind her size-zero look for Tashan. Apparently, the press wrote that Kareena looked overweight in the Ye mera dil song in Don. She decided to change her body shape. Commenting on her size zero avatar which was grabbing the headlines, she said, I am where I am because of my body of work, not just my body! Rishi Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor, 2010 The father-son duo talked about the kind of relationship they have and both were not afraid to speak what was on their mind. While Rishi praised Ranbir for not playing the bubblegum hero,Ranbir confesses that he has his share of confrontations with his dad. Like any father and son, we, too, have contrasting opinions and we do have confrontations. But, one needs to stick to ones beliefs while being open to those of others. He (Rishi) has taught me how important it is to have independent ideas and he respects the fact that, at times, we dont agree on some things, he says. Vidya Balan and Frahan Akhtar, 2011 Both Vidya and Farhan spoke candidly about how they view their relatively newly acquired sex symbol tag. I enjoy and celebrate my body, said Balan, fresh from the success of Dirty Picture, which had just released. When asked about his transition from a director to an actor, Akhtar said, Everyone at some level wants to be a sex symbol. No one says, I detest being one. Kajol and Ajay Devgn, 2013 Bollywoods powerhouse actor couple let down their hair at the summit, talking about everything under the sun. I saw him on the first day of the shoot of Hulchul and was taken aback. I asked the director, hes the hero? I was 19 and didnt think highly of people who didnt talk. I had an image of the hero, who is larger-than-life and has 10 people around him. I realized later he only talks when he has something to say, said Kajol, describing her famously reticent spouse. Shes a great mother and wife, and such a good actress that she complements every actor she works with, said Ajay about Kajol. Kareena Kapoor and Kangana Ranaut, 2015 The two actresses, both at the top of their game, had a frank discussion with director Imtiaz Ali over the pressures of work. It hits you emotionally and mentally, said Kangana. When everyone says pack up, you are left feeling empty and cheated because you just cant get out of the frame of mind of that person. You dont know what to do with yourself. But Kareena had a different take, saying she is able to switch between the character she is playing and her own self. I dont know how to explain because I live in the moment. I become that person and then after the shot, I just go back to looking at my phone. Distressed over shortage of funds for his daughters marriage, a 45-year-old Dalit man allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself at his residence in Rajkot early Tuesday morning, police said. Tribhovan Sumesaras body was found hanging from a ceiling fan at his residence in Khodiyarnagar area near Aji Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC). Sumesaras son Ajay found his fathers body hanging from the ceiling fan early this morning and called up 108 ambulance. However, the medical staff declared him dead, Sub-Inspector SB Solanki said. His relatives informed the police that Sumesara used to work as a casual labourer in the past. However, after suffering two heart attacks, he gave up working. His 21-year-old son Ajay works at a factory in GIDC area here. Police investigation has revealed that Sumesara was depressed as he failed to arrange money for his daughters marriage next month. Sumesara had fixed his daughters marriage next month. Due to his limited income, he requested his relatives to lend him some money. However, his relatives expressed inability, claiming that they only had Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, which have been scrapped by government, Solanki said. We believe that Sumesara might have committed suicide as he was worried about the fate of his daughters marriage after he failed to arrange cash to meet the wedding-related expenses, Solanki said, adding that the body has been sent for postmortem and a probe is on. India has established a working channel with the incoming Republican administration in the US, with foreign secretary S Jaishankar interacting with the campaign and transition teams of President-elect Donald Trump, including briefing them on the threat posed by Pakistan-based terror groups in the South Asia region and beyond. Government sources said National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Jaishankar established a back channel with the Republican candidate even before he won the US election. They had even shared the broad parameters of the September 29 surgical strike through an institutionalised link. The link helped as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was able to congratulate President-elect Trump over phone on the eve of his election victory, said a senior official. Read: Uncertainty at the regional level as US changes under Trump: Jaishankar South Block sources said that Jaishankar met Trumps key campaign managers as well as the Republican transition team on November 17-18 in New York. That India was in touch with President-elect Trumps close advisors is evident from the way the Republican leader singled out the Indian community in US for praise. It is understood that Jaishankar sensitised the incoming US team on the global terror threat from Pakistan-based groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Hizbul Mujahideen and their involvement in cross-border attacks in India. Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is expected in New Delhi on December 8 with talks focused on the Indian Navys acquisition of the Guardian, a variant of the Predator-B drone, for surveillance of Indian Ocean. India plans to buy some 22 non-weaponised Guardian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for surveillance as the first step followed by the weaponised version. Read: Trumps meeting with Indian partners raises concerns SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Electoral battles across six states and a Union Territory did not throw up any surprises, with the ruling parties bagging the majority of the 14 seats in the results announced on Tuesday. The polls, however, defeated opposition parties expectation and pitch that the chaos following recall of high-value bank notes would significantly damage the Bharatiya Janata Party electorally. This was the first set of elections held after the governments surprise announcement on November 8. The BJP retained two Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh and Assam and won three assembly seats, one each in MP, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. In the northeast and West Bengal, the party also made significant gains in its vote share. With opposition parties uniting to attack the government over the demonestisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quick to tweet about the partys gains. I thank people for the continued faith in BJP and in the BJPs unwavering focus on development and good governance, he tweeted. Good to see BJP expanding its base in the Northeast. Read | Ruling parties hold their ground in Lok Sabha and assembly bypolls In West Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress retained the Monteswar assembly and the Coochbehar and Tamluk parliamentary seats. The BJP registered a gain of 12 per cent in its vote share in Cooch Behar and nearly nine per cent in Tamluk. The BJP won the Hayulliang assembly seat vacated after the death of former Arunachal chief minister Kaliko Pul. His widow Dasanglu Pul won the seat by less than 1,000 votes, pushing the BJPs tally to 12 in the 60-member House. The party also retained the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat in Assam vacated by chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal. Pradan Baruah won the Lakhimpur seat defeating Congress Hema Hari Prasanna Pegu by nearly 1.9 lakh votes. Mansing Rongpi, who had won the Baithalangso assembly seat in April as a Congress candidate, returned as the BJP MLA from the constituency. Baruah too had defected from the Congress. In MP, BJPs Gyan Singh defeated Congress candidate Himadri Singh in Shahdol, narrowing the earlier 2.4 lakh margin to less than 60,000 votes. In Nepanagar, BJPs Manju Dadu defeated Congress candidate Antar Singh Barde by over 42,000 votes, a nearly nine per cent gain in vote share since the last election. In Tripura, Barjala and Khowai were retained by the ruling Left front but the BJP finished second in Barjala, trailing the ruling party by only 3,374 votes. In Tamil Nadu, the ruling AIADMK won all three seats. Puducherry chief minister V Narayanasamy won the Nellithope seat the Congress only gain. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON AIADMK supremo and chief minister Jayalalithaa on Tuesday thanked the voters for electing her party candidates in the bypoll elections for three assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu. She asserted that it was a victory for her regimes achievements, welfare measures and visionary schemes. Expressing her heartfelt thanks to voters for giving me consecutive electoral victories, she said the poll win proved yet again that people are on my side in a veiled attack on arch rival DMK. She said people voted for AIADMK candidates by a huge margin after considering her regimes achievements, welfare measures and visionary schemes. In a party release here, she said,I would like to happily inform you that my work will continue according to your expectations. She said,the electoral victory has given me, boundless joy and enthusiasm, adding she was now recuperating. Stating that she would never forget peoples great love, for her, she thanked them for it. She said she was aware that people, and her party workers were offering prayers continuously for her recovery and scores of them were also visiting the hospital to enquire about her health. Also, she thanked her party functionaries, cadres and leaders of alliance parties for their election work in the three constituencies. Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa has been in the hospitali since September 22 after she complained of high fever and dehydration. She was shifted from the critical care unit (CCU) to a private ward of Apollo Hospital in Chennai on Saturday. Read| Ruling parties have a blast: BJP, TMC win 2 LS seats each, AIADMK sweeps TN Security forces early Tuesday neutralised two militants in an encounter in Bandipora, Jammu and Kashmir. The army and the police in a joint operation had cordoned off the area to smoke out the two militants who were holed up and had opened fire, thus engaging in a heavy gunbattle early in the morning. A combing operation is underway to ensure no untoward elements are still present in the area. Another suspicious Pakistani national was gunned down by the Border Security Force (BSF) troops in RS Pura sector in Jammu and Kashmir, after he crossed the International Border early on Tuesday morning. Earlier, a BSF head constable was killed and three other army men were injured in the early hours of Monday after Pakistani Army resorted to heavy cross-border firing in Rajouri sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Since the surgical strike on terrorist launch pads in PoK on September 29, there have been a staggering 286 incidents of firing and shelling along the LoC and the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistani troops, which have resulted in the death of 26 people, including 14 security personnel. Read more | Militant killed in encounter with security forces in Kashmirs Pulwama The distraught family members of missing Indore-Patna Express passengers are running from pillar to post in search of their loved ones. The tragedy has so far claimed 147 lives but theres still no news about the whereabouts of a number of passengers. The family of 55-year-old Mohammed Tahir, who had boarded the ill-fated train along with his wife Safia, received information about his body a day after the accident. But his wife remained untraceable. We got the news on Monday at around 9am that my uncles (Tahirs) body has been found (from under the debris). However, there is still no trace of Safia, Sadiq Khan, nephew of the deceased, told HT. Fifteen members from our community left for Kanpur on Sunday and are camping there, he said. Families of passengers were sifting through the luggage and other belongings piled up at the accident site to look for any clue about their relatives. I am looking for my brother. Who knows what has happened to him? He may have changed his seat... we have searched everywhere, said Ramanand Tiwari. Western railways (Ratlam) PRO Jitendra Kumar admitted that the number of people travelling by the train could be much higher than the official figure of 1,266. We dont have the exact figures at this time There is a huge rush every Saturday to board the train and while a general bogie can accommodate 90 people, usually a double of that board it, he said. (With agency inputs) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Keeping up with his tirade against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has termed demonetisation as the biggest scam of independent India, accusing him of benefiting the rich industrialists at the cost of poor under the pretext of patriotism. Aam Aadmi Party volunteers protesting over demonetisation of high value currency notes, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Tuesday distributed pamphlets of Kejriwals letter to the countrymen alleging that demonetisation involved a scam of Rs 8 lakh crore. These billionaires have usurped Rs 8 lakh crore until now, of which the government has waived off Rs 1.14 lakh crore. The government estimates that deposits worth Rs 10 lakh crore would be deposited in banks. This will be used to waive off remaining seven lakh crores. Five days after the demonetisation, the government has already waived off Rs 6000 crores of 63 billionaires, Kejriwals letter alleged. This is cheating. The whole country is being fooled. Poor, middle class, traders, farmers, housewives and workers are depositing their hard earned money in the banks and the government is doling it out to the billionaires, the letter reads. He said in the letter that people are now asking if attacking black money was intended then why the big billionaires were not caught who have black money. Kejriwal also alleged that the country was being looted in the name of patriotism and the money deposited by people in the banks will be doled out among millionaires. People are also saying let the elections come and we will take revenge for each minute spent in the queues, he added. Read| Sisodia, Mishra detained during anti-demonetisation march BJP and Trinamool Congress won two Lok Sabha seats each, claiming it was a vindication of their stand on demonetisation, as ruling parties in six states and Puducherry won the byelections, retaining most of the assembly seats. Counting for the November 19 by-elections in four Lok Sabha constituencies and 10 assembly seats across six states and one Union territory began on Tuesday morning. The elections were the first real test for the BJP-led NDA government following the Centres decision to demonetise 1000 and 500 rupee banknotes. Bypolls were conducted for three assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu, two in Tripura, one each in Assam, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh and the Union territory of Puducherry. The Lok Sabha seats contested were Lakhimpur in Assam, Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh, and Coochbehar and Tamluk Parliamentary seats in West Bengal. The results are: West Bengal | The ruling Trinamool Congress retained the Coochbehar and Tamluk Lok Sabha seats along with the Monteshwar assembly seat. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee called the mandate as the peoples revolt against the Centres financial emergency. Madhya Pradesh | The BJP kept both the Shahdol parliamentary seat and the Nepanagar assembly seat in a contest with Congress that targeted the NDA over the demonetisation issue. Tripura | The Left front led by the CPI(M) retained the Khowai assembly seat and gained another by winning the Barjala assembly seat from the Congress. Assam | The BJP, which formed its first northeastern government in Assam, won both the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat and Baithalangso assembly seat. Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal said the result was a reflection of the peoples support for the NDAs battle against black money. Arunachal Pradesh | The North East Democratic Alliances candidate won the Hayuliang assembly seat against a lone rival, an independent candidate. Dasanglu Pul, the third wife of the late former chief minister Kalikho Pul, contested the elections on a BJP ticket. Tamil Nadu | AIADMK swept up all three assembly seats -- Thanjavur, Aravakkurichi and Thirupparankundram -- signalling a clear victory over its principal opposition party, the DMK. Puducherry | Chief minister and Congress leader V Narayanasamy won the assembly bypoll by taking the Nellithoppe seat, and will be inducted on Wednesday. Here are the live updates from the counting day: 6:14pm: Tamil Nadu | AIADMK wins the remaining two assembly seats, making it a ruling party victory in the state. In Aravakkurichi, AIADMKs V Senthil Balaji defeated DMKs KC Palanisamy while at Thirupparankundram AIADMKs AK Bose defeated DMKs P Saravanan. 5:10pm: Assam | BJP wins bypolls in Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat and one assembly 4:40pm: Assam | BJP candidate Mansing Rongpi is leading over his nearest rival, Congress Rupensing Ronghang by 4,835 votes in the race for the assembly seat 4:16pm: Arunachal Pradesh | BJPs Dasanglu Pul wins Anjaw assembly seat by 944 votes. 3.33pm: West Bengal | Trinamool Congress Partha Pratim Roy wins Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat by 4,13,231 votes 3.04pm: Tamil Nadu | AIADMKs AK Bhose defeats DMKs Sarvanan by a margin of 42,627 votes to win Thiruparankkundram assembly bypolls. 2.36pm: Madhya Pradesh | BJPs Gyan Singh wins Lok Sabha seat from Shahdol by a margin of 60383 votes. 1.29pm: West Bengal | Trinamool Congress Dibyendu Adhikari wins Tamluk Lok Sabha seat defeating his nearest rival CPMs Mandira Panda by 4.97 lakh votes 1.10pm: Tamil Nadu | After 10 rounds of counting in Aravakkurichi, AIADMKs Senthil Balaji leads by 16,713 votes. In Thiruparankkundram, the AIADMKs AK Bose leads by 27,744 votes. AIADMK candidate AK Bose leading in Thirupparankundram by 24,796 votes #TNPolls @htTweets Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) November 22, 2016 12.25pm: Puducherry | Chief minister V Narayanasamy wins Nellithope assembly bypoll. 12.04pm: Tamil Nadu | AIADMK leads in Aravakurichi and Thirupurakundram constituencies In Aravakuruchi after five rounds of counting, AIADMKs Senthil Balaji leads his DMK rival by 7,756 votes After eight rounds of counting in Thiruparakundram, AIADMK leading so far at 39,942 votes against DMKs 28,370 11.55am: Tamil Nadu | AIADMKs M Rengasamy defeats his nearest rival in Thanjavur from DMK by more than 26,483 votes. 11.45am: Madhya Pradesh | BJPs Manju Dadu wins on Nepanagar assembly seat by 40,600 votes. 10.53am: Tripura | CPI(M) wins both assembly seats in the bypoll. CPI(M)s Jhumu Sarkar (15,769 votes) beats his nearest BJP rival Shistamohan Das (12,395 votes) by a 3,374-vote margin in Barjala (SC) constituency. In Khowai constituency, CPI(M) candidate Biswajit Datta with 24,810 votes trounced his nearest TMC candidate Manoj Das (8,763 votes) by a margin of 16,047 votes. 10.36am: Tamil Nadu | AIADMK leading from Thiruparankundram and Aravakurichi assembly seats 10.26am: All the ruling AIADMK candidates in Tamil Nadu and Congress candidate in chief minister V Narayansamy in Puducherry established early leads Tamil Nadu | According to Election Commission, AIADMK shoots into lead in Thanjavur constituency. The partys candidates also leading in Thirupparankundram and Aravakkurihchi seats also. In Aravakkurichi, ruling AIADMKs V Senthil Balaji leads against the DMKs KC Palanisamy by 4,000 votes. At Thirupparankundram, the AIADMKs AK Bose is leading over DMKs P Saravanan by close to 5,000 votes. In Thanjavur, the AIADMKs M Rengasamy has taken a huge lead of over 15,000 votes against DMKs Anjugam Bhoopathy Puducherry | In Nellithope, Congress leader Narayanasamy is contesting against AIADMK nominee Om Shakthi Segar. 10.20am: Assam | BJP leading with 24,312 votes on Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat, Congress at second with 12,484 votes 10.15am: West Bengal | TMC leading by 34,842 votes on Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat 10.00 am: Madhya Pradesh | In Shahdol, Gyan Singh of BJP leads by 2,000 votes against Himadri Singh of the Congress. In Nepanagar, Manju Dadoo of BJP is leading by 11,000 votes against Antarsingh Barde of Congress 9.55am: Tripura | CPI(M) wins both Barjala and Khowai assembly seats in Tripura 9.23am: Tripura | Barjala assembly seat: CPI(M) leading with 8,466 votes, BJP at second with 6391. CPI(M) leading on Khowai assembly seat. 9.01am: TamilNadu | First counting round for Thanjavur assembly seat ends. AIADMK at 5,993 votes ahead of DMK at 3,974 votes. 8.57am: Madhya Pradesh | Counting begins for Madhya Pradeshs Nepanagar assembly bypolls (ANI on Twitter) 8.00am: Counting starts in three assembly constituencies of Tamil Nadu and in Nellithoppu constituency in Pondicherry. (With agency inputs) An elderly man in Kerala allegedly ended his life fearing he would not be able to withdraw money deposited in a cooperative bank due to demonetisation and another collapsed and died while standing in a queue in a bank, police said on Tuesday. The police said 73-year-old Omanakuttan Pillai was found hanging in his bedroom. His relative said he was apprehensive about the Rs five lakh he deposited in a co-operative bank near his house five years ago. He was quite disturbed over reports that co-operative banks will be targeted next. When he went to the bank officials told him to come only after the dust has settled. It seems this really aggravated his fear, a relative said. In another incident, a retired BSNL employee K Chandrasekharan (68) collapsed and died while he was standing in a queue at a bank in Kollam district in south Kerala. Read | Demonetisation: Man dies standing in bank queue in Delhis Najafgarh According to his relatives he went to the bank on Monday morning but returned after seeing the long queue. He returned to the bank after lunch but collapsed after some time. Though he was rushed to a nearby hospital his life could not be saved, they said. Meanwhile, a special session of the state assembly urged the Centre to take immediate steps to address the woes of the people. It also asked the centre and RBI not to take any decision hastily that may weaken the co-operative banking sector. Both ruling CPI(M) and opposition Congress came down heavily on the Modi government while the lone BJP member O Rajagopal lauded the initiatives of the Centre. Participating in the day-long discussion chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the country was headed towards economic slavery and the person responsible for this was not engaging in debate. In fact, hoarders and black marketeers faced no problem but common mans life has gone for a toss. This uncertainty should end at the earliest, he said adding that a single paisa deposited in the co-operative sector wont be lost. A Bihar-based businessman, who arrived in Nagaland in a chartered jet on Tuesday, was held for allegedly carrying Rs 3.5 crore in demonetised currency. Identified as A Singh from Bihars Munger district, he was questioned by officials of central security agencies and the CISF before his case was handed over to local income tax authorities. CISF sleuths acted on some prior inputs and intercepted the passenger as soon as he landed here. Initially, the amount detected was said to be Rs 5.5 crore but later I-T authorities reported the final amount with him to be Rs 3.5 crore. The taxman is investigating the source of the currency, officials said. Security measures have been stepped up by security agencies and the Central Industrial Security Force at airports in the wake of the demonetisation of the two large currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 by the government. Slain BSF head constable Rai Singh Indora, who died of Pakistans mortal shelling in Rajouri sector of Jammu was cremated with state honours at his native village in Kheri Sampla of Rohtak district on Tuesday morning. At his cremation, Haryanas transport minister Krishan Lal Panwar announced Rs 20 lakh ex-gratia for the family besides a government job for kin. However, the villagers and kin of the martyred soldier questioned the state governments policies of announcing different compensation amounts for the martyrs. Rai Singh was the third jawan from Haryana who died from Pakistans extensive ceasefire violations after India carried out surgical strike across the line of control. However, while the families of previously martyred soldiers Sushil Kumar and Mandeep Singh were given Rs 50 lakh compensation, Rai Singhs got Rs 20 lakh. Angered over the governments move, angry villagers blocked National Highway 10 at Sampla in Rohtak. Rai Singhs brother Ramesh Kumar, who retired from the BSF, said, The BJP minister (Panwar) when visited home said he would make announcement during cremation. Here, he didnt even speak to us and left announcing whatever he wished. Rai Singh has three little sons, who cant work now. How will the family manage like this? he asked. When BJP minister Panwar was asked by media on why the family was not being given Rs 50 lakh, he said increasing the amount was under state cabinets decision. Earlier, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who attended the cremation, said the government must announce Rs 50 lakh compensation. Talks between the protesters and local administration are underway. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Incensed over the name and storyline of an under-production Akshay Kumar film that allegedly violates a marital tradition of two villages, a religious leader has declared a reward of Rs one crore to anybody who brings the tongue of the director. In his presidential address at a mahapanchayat of Hindu saints at Barsana village of Mathura on Monday, Phooldol Behari Dass Maharaj asked the producer of movie to change the title otherwise no further shooting would be allowed to take place in the Braj region. Seers of Vrindavan went to Barsana village to attend the mahapanchayat. The movie Toilet Ek Prem Katha which is being shot in rural areas of Mathura district, has raised the hackles of the saints who want the title and storyline changed. Traditionally, there are no marriages between men and women of Nandgaon and Barsana villages in deference to the pious love of Lord Krishna and Radha. While Krishna hailed from Nandgaon, Radha was from Barsana. Some locals claim the story revolves around marriage links between Nandgaon and Barsana villages of Mathura. Another religious leader, Mahamandleshwar Nawal Giri Maharaj suggested that the films name could have been Toilet A Swachhta Abhiyan to give a message to society. Mahant Haribol Maharaj condemned using the land of Radha and Krishna for shooting a movie with such a title. We would not allow shooting if the title is not changed, warned the mahant. Even the Muslim community cooperates with Hindus in safeguarding the custom and tradition of Braj, another mahant Swami Adityanath Maharaj said in his address. A very good morning from Bhumi and me from the sets of Toilet - Ek Prem Katha! First day it is...need your best wishes #TEPK A photo posted by Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) on Nov 5, 2016 at 10:54pm PDT The director of the film, Narain Singh who addressed the media in Mathura later in the day, refuted allegations that his film would hurt religious sentiments. We are shooting scenes in Nandgaon and Barsana but every doubt would be cleared with release of movie as nowhere the name of Nandgaon has been used in it. The movie is on womens empowerment and Swachhta and Barsana is chosen for communicating this message through lath-maar Holi since Mughal period, Singh said. Couldn't have asked for a better start to the day.Landed in Mathura and got gifted this precious Bhagvad Gita on day 1 by a passerby! #blessed A photo posted by Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) on Nov 5, 2016 at 9:34pm PDT Last week, a lawyer Goklesh Katara had threatened to serve legal notice to the films director if the storyline goes against a tradition in the Braj region, wherein people of Nandgaon arent allowed to marry people from Barsana. While right-wing elements are seeing red at the movies title, Akshay Kumars fans seemed to have no such qualms and thronged a helipad as the actor flew in from Delhi for the shoot. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday thanked people for expressing continued faith in the BJP and its unwavering focus on development and good governance following his partys bypoll success in Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. In the first elections after the governments move to scrap high-value currencies, the Bharatiya Janata Party also did well in West Bengal and Tripura. By-elections for 10 assembly and four Lok Sabha constituencies in these states and Union Territory Puducherry were held on Saturday. I thank people for the continued faith in BJP & in the BJPs unwavering focus on development and good governance, Modi tweeted after the results. I congratulate all BJP Karyakartas & leaders for the impressive victories in Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, he said. As it happened: Ruling parties hold their ground in Lok Sabha and assembly bypolls In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP won Shahdol Lok Sabha seat and bagged the Nepanagar assembly seat, where it increased its winning margin to 42,198 votes as against 22,178 previously. The Congress came second in both places. I consider this victory as unprecedented as Congress was confident of wresting these two seats from BJP and they tried all tricks in their armoury to achieve their goal, MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said. The victory shows people have full faith in Modijis policies and therefore they have voted for his development initiatives, he said. BJP workers celebrate the win of party candidates from Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat and Boithalangsu assembly seat, in Guwahati on Tuesday. (PTI) BJP candidate Pradan Baruah won the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat in Assam that was vacated by Sarbananda Sonowal after he became the chief minister. The ruling partys Mansing Rongpi won the Baithalangso assembly seat, where the Congress candidate who had won in May, joined the BJP. In Arunachal Pradesh, BJPs North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) candidate Dasanglu Pul won Hayuliang assembly bypoll. Pul is the youngest of the three wives of former chief minister Kalikho Pul, who committed suicide in August. In West Bengal, ruling Trinamool Congress swept Tamluk and Cooch Behar Lok Sabha constituencies by a whopping margin of over 4.9 lakh votes, almost doubling the gap from 2014 polls. While the Left and Congress suffered another crushing defeat, the BJP increased its vote share in the two segments. In Cooch Behar, the BJP candidate came second in the poll race. I appreciate @BJP4Bengal for the spirited performance. BJP is fully committed to diligently serving the wonderful people of West Bengal, Modi said in another tweet. But chief minister Mamata Banerjee, an opponent of the demonetisation that has led to a cash crunch across the country, said the landslide victory of her Trinamool Congress was peoples revolt against New Delhi. ...This is symbolic. It is a vote against demonetisation. In a democracy, people vent their anger through votes, Banerjee said after the Trinamool won the Monteshwar assembly seat alongside the two Lok Sabha constituencies. Banerjee will lead a protest against the central governments decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Wednesday. Elsewhere, the AIADMK swept all three assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu and the ruling CPI-M-led Left Front in Tripura wrested one seat from the Congress and retained another. The Congress lone success came in Puducherry. Controversial televangelist Zakir Naiks NGO funded an alleged Islamic State sympathiser who wanted to go to Syria to join the outfit, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has said. Abu Anas, a native of Tonk in Rajasthan, had received Rs 80,000 as scholarship from Naiks Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) in October 2015, said an agency spokesperson. Anas, who was arrested from Hyderabad, has already been chargesheeted by the NIA. Sleuths came to know about the payment after scrutinising account books recovered from raids at over 20 IRF properties in Mumbai over a period of three days. An NIA official said Anas withdrew small amounts of the money received from the IRF through ATMs. We have reason to believe that Anas used the money for questionable activities. We will question him again to find out how he got the money. IRF office bearers will also be questioned in this regard, he added. The government has notified the IRF as unlawful under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA. The agency has registered a case against Naik. NIA officials said the raided properties belonged either to the IRF or its trustees. During search operations, we recovered video tapes and DVDs of Naiks public speeches, documents related to property and investments, financial transactions, foreign and domestic funding of the proscribed IRF as well as its associated companies, and electronic storage devices, an agency statement read. The agency said investigations have revealed that the IRF enjoys close links with firms like Harmony Media Private Limited, Longlast Constructions Private Limited, Right Property Solutions Private Limited, Majestic Perfumes Private Limited and Alpha Lubricants Private Limited. Some of these companies are associated with Naiks Peace TV and its programming. Documents pertaining to the inflow and outflow of foreign and domestic funding have also been seized, the agency added. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Nitish Kumar government has hailed Bihars liquor ban as a success, promised more medical colleges and pledged infrastructure expansion in its report card marking a year in office. The report reiterates the governments resolve for inclusive, sustainable and fair development with empowerment of common man, good governance, rule of law and focus on agriculture. An annual feature of the Kumar administration since 2006, the report was to be released on Sunday at a public function which was called off following the Indore-Patna Express train derailment that left 146 people dead. Kumar leads a coalition, or the Grand Alliance, of his party Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress in the eastern state. This government, says the report put on the information and public relations department website, had put in place allocation and monitoring mechanisms to ensure that the targets set for its five-year term were met. Bihars gross state domestic product grew at 10.59 % in 2015-16 against the national growth of 8.71% for the corresponding year. The reports claims rule of law prevails in the state. The state has often battled charges of lawlessness, especially when the RJD was in power. We have zero tolerance to corruption and a legal and institutional mechanism has been put in place to crackdown on the corrupt, the report quotes the CM as saying. The government plans to launch a Lok Samvad programme to seek suggestions from citizens on its policies and schemes. The programme takes off in December. The report describes prohibition as a unique success due to effective enforcement and people turning it into a social movement. The positive impact of prohibition is evident in the rural areas in the form of greater social cohesion and family joy, it says. As many as 1.4 million applications were disposed of under the right to public service act, which ensures time-bound services to citizens. Bihar is the first state to come out with such a law, which is a great success, it says. The report says rapid strides in infrastructure development in the last 10 years led to double digit growth. The size of the annual budget shot up from Rs 22,500 crore in 2005-06 to Rs 1,44,000-crore. The governments priority is not restricted to provision of basic amenities, viz, tap water, toilets, electricity to all to bridge the rural-urban divide, but it also includes infrastructural expansion and boost to higher, technical and professional learning, the report says. The government plans to set up five medical colleges, three state universities and an animal science university in the state. For Bihars youth, the government was offering loans through student credit card and had launched skill development programme to equip them for the job market. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Under fire from the opposition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi remained firm on demonetisation, telling party MPs on Tuesday it was the beginning and not the end of his governments fight against black money. The party, too, backed Modi, passing a resolution supporting the decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes, saying people were queuing up for a better India. I am not here for myself or my associates, I am here for poor. Welfare of poor will happen, Modi said. The Prime Minister, said sources, got emotional on two occasions as he talked about the lack of housing and drinking water for poor. The opposition has accused the government of unleashing financial anarchy, saying people in rural areas and those who were unbanked were distressed as cash had dried up. Read | Demonetisation has placed premium on honesty of common man: FM Arun Jaitley In his 10-minute speech, Modi reminded party colleagues of his first address in the Central Hall of Parliament, wherein he dedicated his government to the poor. Two weeks after Modi announced the currency switch, people are still being forced to queue up for hours to withdraw money from banks and ATMs. Opposition parties have accused the government of shoddy implementation and failing to plan for the big change. Modi, however, said enough time had been given to people to declare illicit cash and wealth. I had warned that those having black money will not be spared after the deadline or the disclosure of such wealth, he said, referring to a disclosure scheme that ended September 30. I didnt hide anything from anyone. The BJP MPs went into a huddle as the opposition parties were meeting to finalise their strategy to take on the government in Parliament and outside. Parliament has seen repeated disruptions, with the Opposition insisting that Modi be there to answer their queries. Read | Demonetisation politics heats up: Govt hits back as Oppn plans nationwide stir The Prime Minister can speak on TV, pop concert, but why not in the Parliament, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said, referring to Modi addressing the audience, through video conference, at a Coldplay concert in Mumbai. The BJP was confident that the bold initiative would cut off financial support to the terrorists and extremists oganisations, address the problem of fake currency and checkmate illicit money in the system, the resolution said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A chartered flight from Haryanas Hisar landed at Dimapur airport in Nagaland at 10:07am on Tuesday with Rs 3.5 crore in scrapped 500 and 1,000 rupee notes on board. However, the money seized from a passenger by Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and Income Tax officials went missing before the flight took off for Delhi two hours later. The passenger, identified as one Amarjit Singh from Munger in Bihar, left by the flight. There were reports that the relatives of an influential Nagaland politician collected the cash but the local police have launched a probe into the missing cash. Dimapur airport officials said the CISF received a call in the morning alerting them about a man flying in with huge cash. Income Tax department was tipped off after the airports chief security officer received the call from higher officials. The taxmen checked the bag of the passenger after the plane landed, and seized Rs 3.5 crore, airport director M Zhimo told Hindustan Times. Liremo Lotha, Dimapur police commissioner, said they were probing how the cash vanished. We are trying to find out who gave the cash all in denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 to whom and under what provision. We have also summoned the CISF personnel and Income Tax officials concerned for questioning, he said. The CISF said one Anato had claimed the money but we have to check, Lotha said. Eyewitnesses identified Anato as a businessman and son-in-law of former Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio, now a Lok Sabha member representing Naga Peoples Front, which is an ally of the BJP. A chartered flight had landed in Dimapur airport on November 13 too. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Irked at the continued absence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the House, the Opposition plans on charging him with contempt of Parliament. We are looking at the legal issues whether we can bring the notice of contempt in Lok Sabha (where Modi is a member) or the Upper House, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yehcury told Hindustan Times. The Opposition is keen to bring the motion for breach of privilege and contempt of Parliament in Rajya Sabha where they enjoy a majority, after the Parliament proceeding was disrupted for the fourth consecutive day on Tuesday. The BJP accused the Congress of shying away from a debate as the Congress and other parties demanded the PMs presence. Read | Winter session: Opposition in huddle over note ban, Modi meets party MPs Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi kept up his attack on the Prime Minister. He can speak on TV, he can speak in pop concerts, why not in Parliament? he told reporters outside the Parliament House. Why is not the Prime Minister coming to Parliament? Why isnt he coming to Parliament and speaking? To buttress their demand for the Prime Ministers presence, a united opposition said the number of those who have died since the move is a serious concern, which needs to be raised in the House. Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Sharad Yadav demanded compensation for families of those who died from exhaustion or in stampedes while waiting in line at banks or ATMs, from shock or from committing suicide due to misinformation. The government should give Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of the people who have died since demonetisation, Yadav said. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati and Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad also raised the issue of those who died since the demonetisation. Unable to get the opposition to agree to resuming the discussion on demonetisation, the BJP countered the Congress and the other parties for raising questions on the move, which is aimed at weeding out counterfeit currency that finds its way to fund terror and drug cartels. When the discussion (on demonetisation) started, there was no logic or facts in their (oppositions) arguments. They struggled for arguments all through. The discussion should not be in bits and pieces. Please allow a discussion, parliamentary affairs minister, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said. Earlier in the day, 13 Opposition parties sat for their second strategy meet. It was decided that all Opposition parties, barring AIADMK and BJD, will sit for a dharna near the Gandhi statute in Parliament complex. It was also decided that parties must try to involve people in their agitations, said a Congress leader. The plan to march to the President did not finalise as the Left parties have not warmed up to the idea. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said she will hold a dharna at Jantar Mantar on Wednesday afternoon. Not unlike the first four days of the winter session, Tuesdays proceedings in both Houses was constantly disrupted as opposition parties demanded for a debate on demonetisation and for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address Parliament on the issue. Like Monday, the opposition parties met to shape strategy to corner the government over its decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes that has led to a scramble for cash, with snaking queues outside banks and ATMs. A BJP parliamentary meet was held as well where finance minister Arun Jaitley defended the demonetisation move. Read | Demonetisation has placed premium on honesty of common man: FM Arun Jaitley About 200 Opposition parliamentarians, led by the Congress, will hold a protest near Mahatma Gandhis statue in the Parliament complex on Wednesday, and will also take to the streets in New Delhi and across the country to highlight the economic anarchy and harassment to the people. Here are the highlights from the Houses on Day 5 of the Parliament winter session: 2.00pm: I cannot bring the PM, Mr. Rangarajan. That is not my job, says deputy chairman Kurien (to Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP from Tamil Nadu TK Rangarajan) as the opposition protests in the well of the House again as the Rajya Sabha convenes again on Tuesday afternoon. They continue raising slogans demanding the Prime Minister addresses the demonetisation issue in Parliament. There are 28 more speakers to go, says Kurien, referring the Question Hour proceedings that was scheduled to take place. It is an injustice to them, that is all I have to say. As the din continues, a resigned Kurien adjourns the House for the day until 11 am on Wednesday morning saying, I am very sorry, but I cannot conduct the house. I am helpless. 12.35pm: Hamid Ansari attempts to hold Question Hour in the House, as it reconvenes for the third day time on Tuesday, but is forced to adjourn proceedings till 2pm as opposition party members clamours for PMs statement on demonetisation. Rashtriya Janata Dals Prem Chand Gupta and Janata Dal (United)s Sharad Yadav spoke about the deaths that resulted from the demonetisation move announced on November 8, before the House was adjourned. Govt should announce significant compensation to d families of those 70 people who died while standing in queues after demonetization. SHARAD YADAV (@SharadYadavMP) November 22, 2016 12.10pm: Pandemonium in the Lok Sabha as the opposition parties demand for Prime Ministers presence in the Parliament for demonetisation debate. Trinamool Congress MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay charges the ruling party as responsible for the turmoil in the House and says that opposition parties are ready for debate, but under an adjournment motion. Sudip Bandyopadhyay demands discussion on #DeMonetisation under adjournment motion in LS AITC (@AITCofficial) November 22, 2016 Parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar responds, Want to tell everyone that we are ready for a debate in both the Houses. As the din refuses to subside, the Lok Sabha is adjourned for the day. Read | Winter session: Opposition in huddle over note ban, Modi meets party MPs 12.00pm: Could you please allow the Question Hour. Please stop shouting, this is most unbecoming, says Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Hamid Ansari to protestors belonging to opposition parties as he reconvenes Rajya Sabha. Theyre holding up posters and chanting in Hindi, Prime Minister, address the House. Ansari adjourns Rajya Sabha for another 30 minutes. 11.30 am: Rajya Sabha reconvenes only to be adjourned again till 12 pm. 11.20am: Lok Sabha too is adjourned till 12pm after opposition parties begin protesting. 11.11am: You cannot speak in the Well, shouting in the Well is of no use, says Rajya Sabha deputy chairman PJ Kurien as opposition crowds in to the well of the House, protesting against the demonetisation issue and Prime Minister Modis silence in Parliament, as soon as proceedings begin for the day I am ready to accept 267 notice put forward by Ghulam Nabi Azad only if there is order in the house, says Kurien, before adjourning the House till 11.30. 11.00 am: ANI quotes finance minister Arun Jaitley as saying during the parliamentary meet, We are ready for a discussion on demonetisation as we have said many times. He goes on to say that the country has welcomed the move but the scale of operations and the requirement for secrecy made it a challenging task. Everybody should consider the intent behind the demonetisation move and how itll help the poor in the long run, Jaitley says. He also tells the meet that cash will continue to exist but therell be greater focus on digital currency. Read full report on Jaitleys BJP parliamentary party address here. 10.55am: We had passed a resolution in favour of demonetisation, it was moved by home minister Rajnath Singh, says parliamentary affairs minister Venkaiah Naidu after the meet. 10.50am: BJP parliamentary board members meet ahead of the Day 5 of Parliaments winter session. 10.42am: Congress and its allies have decided to hold protests in New Delhi and across the country over demonetisation. Opposition leaders to meet President Pranab Mukherjee. Congress president Sonia Gandhi was accompanied by her daughter Priyanka Vadra during a public event in Allahabad on Tuesday. Sonia was in the city for the inauguration of a photo exhibition on the life of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at Swaraj Bhawan on Monday, an event which her son and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi also attended. On Tuesday, the duo attended the launch of a special programme of the School of Health Sciences at Kamala Nehru Memorial Hospital where she addressed members of the Kamala Nehru Trust in a closed meeting. They later spent some time at Anand Bhawan, the Nehru familys ancestral house which has been turned into a museum. Sonia then met select Congress leaders at Swaraj Bhawan. Sonia and Priyanka also paid their respects to former MP governor and ex-UP chief minister Ram Naresh Yadav who passed away on Tuesday as well as freedom fighter and former City Congress Committee president (Allahabad), Ram Krishna Srivastava, who died recently. After their engagements, the duo left for New Delhi while Rahul had already left Allahabad on Monday night. The presence of Priyanka Gandhi at a public event comes at a time when several sections of the party have asked for her active participation in the partys campaign in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming assembly elections. Also read | No plans to play more active role in UP politics: Priyanka Gandhi Two freshly minted Rs 2,000 notes were found on the two militants who were gunned down on Tuesday in an encounter by security forces in Jammu and Kashmirs Bandipora district. A cache of arms and ammunition were recovered, in addition to Rs 15,000 in cash two Rs 2,000 notes and the remaining in Rs 100 notes. According to an Indian Army spokesperson in Srinagar, a joint operation was launched by the army and the local police based on specific information in Hajin in north Kashmirs Baramulla district. The encounter ended after the two militants were gunned down and a combing operation was carried out. Preliminary reports suggest the duo both believed to be foreigners belonged to the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group, police said, but their identity is yet to be ascertained. Tuesdays incident came a day after four armed and masked men entered a state-run bank in Malpora and made away with Rs 13 lakh in cash, mostly in scrapped Rs 500 and 1,000 banknotes, according to an ANI report. Before that, three masked men robbed a bank of Rs 2.25 lakh in Kulgam district on October 25. In Prime Minister Narendra Modis surprise announcement on November 8 on scrapping of high denomination banknotes, he cited as one of the key targets of the denomination drive militants allegedly funded by counterfeit Indian currency from Pakistan. It is still unclear how the two militants came to possess the new banknotes, less than two weeks after they were launched. Read | Demonetisation has ended terror-funding, stone-pelting in Kashmir: Parrikar With ANI inputs The Samajwadi Party is banking on the 302km Lucknow-Agra expressway to retain power in the 2017 assembly elections but the opposition is not about to let it run away with any advantage. Built at a cost of Rs 13,000, the expressway hit the headlines on Monday with Indian Air Force fighter planes experimenting with landings and take offs at a 3.3-km stretch in Unnao. While projecting the development plank of his government, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav who had been at the receiving end of a bruising family feud with uncle Shivpal Yadav, plans to consolidate his hold on voters in western and Central UP through which the expressway passes. It is the longest six-lane expressway in the country and will be expanded to eight lanes later. Constructed in 23 months, the expressway gives the Samajwadi Party government a solid infrastructure to showcase its achievement. The construction of the expressway in record time shows the determination of the CM and will help him in fighting the anti- incumbency factor during the assembly polls, said SK Mishra, a political observer. The hassle-free acquisition of 3,500 hectare land from 32,000 farmers has helped the SP government project a pro-farmer image, he said. A massive agitation by farmers over acquisition of land for the Yamuna expressway led to the BSPs defeat in the 2012 assembly election, Mishra added. But opposition parties have already launched a scathing attack on Akhilesh, calling him a chief minister in a hurry. Read | Yadav family puts up united front at Agra-Lucknow Expressway inauguration BSP chief Mayawati has said, Instead of focusing on administration, the chief minister is busy inaugurating and laying the foundation stones of projects. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) feels the expressway wont be the magic bullet Akhilesh is hoping for. Rather than the expressway, people will vote on the law and order situation as well as corruption in the state government departments, BJP state chief Keshav Prasad Maurya said. Yashvir Tyagi, a professor in the department of economics at Lucknow University, does not agree with the views of the opposition leaders. The Agra-Lucknow expressway has definitely refurbished the image of Akhilesh Yadav who was at the receiving end due to a feud in the Yadav family. The opposition leaders have often criticised the chief minister for bowing to the wishes of his father, uncle and other SP leaders, but the expressway certainly projects him as a leader who can deliver. The perception that he is a doer will definitely strengthen his image before the crucial polls, Tyagi told HT. The expressway will definitely give a thrust to the economy particularly the rural hinterland. Farmers as well as traders in Agra, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etawah, Auraiyya, Kannauj, Kanpur, Unnao, Hardoi and Lucknow will definitely benefit from the quick movement of traffic, he added. Potato production in Agra, glass industry in Firozabad, agro-based industries in Mainpuri-Etawah, perfume-making in Kannauj, leather business in Kanpur-Unnao, chikankari cluster and mango production in Lucknow will get a boost once expressway connects the rural hinterland with developing urban centres, said Sudhir Pawar, a senior professor at Lucknow University. It takes around 10 hours to transport mango by road from Lucknow to Delhi. Usually, we suffer losses as it is a perishable product. A large quantity of mango is destroyed if the delivery is delayed. Once the Lucknow-Agra expressway is completed, the travel time will be cut down to six hours, said Mohammad Imran, owner of a mango orchard in Malihabad on the outskirts of Lucknow. Shyam Kumar, a perfume trader, said, The expressway will give oxygen to the Kannauj perfume industry. It will not only open a new market but also ensure fast movement of raw material. A senior officer of the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) said the government plans to set up four townships, besides industrial units, along the expressway. The UPEIDA also has plans to develop an education hub along the road link. Agriculture mandis (markets) will be established in Mainpuri and Kannauj. The state government plans to set up information technology investment region (ITIR) and Film City on the expressway. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) has urged the Supreme Court to include racial slurs and racial profiling in the definition of ragging that is banned in educational institutions. This, the SGPC said, would prevent victimization of Sikh students who are often ridiculed for being a Sardar. SGPCs request is part of the suggestions it submitted to the top court on Tuesday to stop the circulation of Sardar jokes and vilification of the community. Curbing of such acts (racial slur) at the educational level, would serve to bolster the pride and self-esteem of youngsters belonging to the Sardar community, and preserve the Sikh identity, the suggestions stated. To save themselves from objectification and under peer pressure, Sikh boys were getting a haircut, which ultimately results in loss of identity of the religion in the country of its origin. The committee said the ministry of information and broadcasting should lay down guidelines for the media, film and television industry to refrain from projecting Sikhs as comic relief or typecast them to project them as fools and imbeciles, lacking wit and intelligence. Circulation of jokes such as Santa-Banta and 12 oclock jokes on the social media should be subjected to scrutiny, it said. Humour that could hurt the sentiments of the Sikh community or have the ability to depict them in poor light should be banned and filtered. SGPC called for an overhaul in school curriculum so that the students are sensitised towards the ill-impact and damage caused to the self-esteem of an individual through racial profile and slurs. Respect and tolerance must be instilled in every citizen of this country, considering the vast diversity of religions, cultures, languages which make up the rich heritage of India, the SGPC said. SGPC also asked the SC to direct state governments to constitute committees at the district level to take cognizance of complaints filed on comments and gestures. The committee could be headed by either a district magistrate or retired additional and sessions judge. A retired high court judge should head the state-level panel. It should have the power to summon the alleged aggressor and direct him or her to tender unconditional apology. In case of non-compliance, the panel should be at liberty to impose a fine on the alleged offender, SGPC said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A bill to provide better mental healthcare is listed for the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday but the Opposition, which has taken on the government in both the Houses over the surprise demonetisation move, is unlikely to relent. Parliament opened for the winter session on November 16 but has got little done, with proceedings being disrupted on all days. Tuesday is unlikely to be better. The Opposition parties were meeting Tuesday morning to shape strategy to corner the government over its decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes that has led to a scramble for cash, with snaking queues outside banks and ATMs. Both the Houses have been adjourned repeatedly, with the Opposition insisting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi be there to answer queries on the demonetisation move. The government has accused the Opposition of running away from discussion. Read | Parliament winter session: Congress to question legality of Rs 2,000 note The Samajwadi Party, which skipped a similar meeting on Monday, is expected at Tuesdays huddle, strengthening the Opposition ranks. Faced with a united Opposition, the BJP holds its first parliamentary board meeting after Modi announced the move to scrap high-value notes in a televised address to the nation on November 8. He was expected to speak at the meeting in which the demonetisation move was to be discussed, sources said, adding the party would not give in to Opposition pressure. As many as 11 Opposition parties met on Monday and discussed nationwide protest plan. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who sat throughout the meeting, said, There is a need to intensify our agitation. We must remain united. About 200 Opposition MPs, led by those from the Congress, will hold a protest near Mahatma Gandhis statue in the Parliament complex on Wednesday. They will also take to the streets in New Delhi and across the country to highlight the economic anarchy unleashed by currency swap. Read | Demonetisation politics heats up: Govt hits back as Oppn plans nationwide stir SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A day after meeting Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, retail traders on Tuesday met chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, and sought various tax incentives to bring relief to the communitys suffering due to the scrapping of old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000. A delegation of retail traders had met Thackeray on Sunday and sought his intervention into the issues being faced by the community. The traders, who are staunch supporters of BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had also claimed that they met Thackeray after attempts to meet the chief minister failed. The move would have rattled the BJP, as traders are considered as traditional voters after which Ashish Shelar, Mumbai BJP chief, took the initiative and a meeting between traders and CM was organised on Tuesday morning. A delegation of around 25 to 30 traders, representing around 2 lakh retail traders from various sectors, met the chief minister and demanded making sufficient currency notes available, incentives on VAT and rebate in income tax to ease the panic in the market. The traders, gathered under the banner of Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association (FRTWA), informed the chief minister that the business of both wholesale and retail traders have been badly affected, owing to the shortage of currency notes. Customers are also not willing to shop due to uncertainties, and fear drawing and deposit cash. All ceremonies and functions including weddings have been postponed, which have led to losses for the traders. Thus, the government should announce tax incentive package for traders, said Viren Shah president of FRTWA. We have asked incentives in VAT, on electricity bills and on taxes on petrol and diesel for the next three months, and the CM has assured that he will look into it, Shah told HT. The traders also demanded special counters at Reserve Bank on India (RBI) and at local bank branches for change of Rs 2000 notes and low denomination notes. Fadnavis assured that he will speak with the RBI governor on the issue immediately. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Pramod Kamble takes a bus from his house to the Vikhroli station every day. Before the seven-minute journey ends, he has to squeeze his way through the crowd, making sure not to step on someones toe, to the conductor in front to buy his ticket. At the railway station, if his season pass has expired, its another queue. Imagine if one ticket could let you skip the queues and hop from bus to metro to train. Its an efficient idea. And, its not new to Mumbai. More than a decade ago, the state knew the solution for the kind of trouble thousands like Kamble face every day an integrated travel card. So whats the hold up? The usual suspects: red-tape and lack of political will. WHY WE NEED A PLAN With the work on the state governments ambitious 173.9-km Metro railway network underway that proposing to criss-cross the length and breadth of the city, and the planned revamp of our local trains and public buses, Mumbai needs a single ticketing system now more than ever. As he has done for all of his endeavors, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has set an ambitious goal of putting in place a single-ticketing system in in six months, but with the clause that a few initial hiccups are likely. The CM has said a chief secretary-led committee, or the Unified Mumbai Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMMTA), is working on a plan to bring the suburban railways, Metro, monorail and all public bus transport systems in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region on the same platform. But the authorities involved in hammering out the plan say a roadmap is likely to be in place in six months, but it will be at least two years before you can seamlessly travel from one mode of transport to the next with a single ticket. THE SCRAMBLE FOR A PLAN UMMTA, a nodal body that has operators of all modes of transport as representatives, is overseeing the implementation of this plan. Under this body, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Transport for London, a wing of the Greater London Authority, credited with the launch of that citys single-ticketing system Oyster card. As each operator has an individual fare system, we will first have to see how these can be brought on one platform. An integrated ticketing system is also either zonal or circular, which means we will have to design zones for ticketing. A major part of the study is the customer proposition, rationalising fare policy, the road map for operators and so on, said an MMRDA official working on the project. Once Transport for London gives a basic architecture of how the plan could to be executed, the next phase will involve the details what devices to use, and the systems to be put in place, the official said. It is only after all this can we issue a tender for actual work to begin. The project has been proposed under the third phase of the World Bank-funded Mumbai Urban Transport Project, but the state government has decided the MMRDA will initiate the project with its own funds, without a formal loan sanction from the World Bank, to speed it up. So far, the biggest hurdle according to sources was convincing all operators. This time, fortunately, all stakeholders are on board and we will have a system where it will be possible to add and integrate more operators, said UPS Madan, MMRDA commissioner. Other Indian cities such as Kochi and Hyderabad are also preparing a concept plan for an integrated ticketing system. FALSE STARTS One of the first attempts at an integrated ticketing system was the Go Mumbai smartcard, introduced in 2006-07. First launched for Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) buses, it was later extended to the Central and Western railways. Bus conductors were given handheld devices to validate cards, and fixed Go Mumbai devices were set up at railway stations. And, there were plans to extend the cards use for toll collection, autorickshaws and taxis. The experiment failed miserably. Some blame it on the company involved, saying it did not supply adequate validating machines and that the machines developed glitches. Commuters did not find the system useful either even though some 75 lakh people use trains and another 35 lakh, the BEST buses, less than 20,000 used the Go Mumbai card. Within five years of introducing it, both BEST and railways phased it out. But authorities are more confident this time around. The technology we have now is very advanced compared to what BEST had when we first attempted integrated ticketing, said Jagdish Patil, general manager of BEST. In fact, the radio-frequency identification card that we have now can also accommodate one more mode of transport, but the state has decided the MMRDA will bring out an integrated solution for all modes. After Go Mumbais failure, MMRDA, in 2010-11 started planning an integrated ticketing system again, this time roping in KPMG as a consultant. But there was one major roadblock the railways were not on board. Central and Western railways had concerns about how the system would work as too many people travel by trains. Will it be a tap-in tap-out system; or a machine that validates the ticket and how would it handle the millions that use the service, the railways had asked. They also had apprehensions over how revenue would be accounted for, an official associated with the project said, hastening to add that this time, the railways are on board. So the MMRDA decided to go ahead and integrate just the proposed Metro, monorail and bus transportation systems across MMR, but this failed too, as the Union Ministry of Urban Development decided to launch a national mobility card in 2011. The plan for a national mobility card has not moved forward much, so we have now decided to go ahead with having an integrated ticketing system for Mumbai at least, said Madan. We will configure our card in way that it can be synced with the Union governments card, whenever that comes. THE GOOD AND THE BAD Cities with the worlds best transport systems have for decades been functioning with a single-ticketing card. It will not only make commuting easy, an integrated, automated ticketing system will also help make operators more efficient as they will divert fewer resources to manage tickets, officials and experts said. The benefits, however, go beyond the commuter and operator. The system has shown to increase the number of people taking public transport, which also means a hike in revenue; it leads to a dip in administrative and transaction costs of individual operators too. In London and Maryland, US, the boarding times of public transport improved, according to a report by the United Kingdoms Public Transport Executive Group in 2011. The report studied examples from 17 cities across Europe, Australia and North America and found the single ticket system led to a 6%-20% rise in patronage, with particular modes showing increases of up to 40% too. The cards also help make the city more tourist-friendly. However, with the railways operating in Mumbai for over a century, and the BEST operating buses since 90 years, both having evolved and grown as individual systems, and modes such as Metro and monorail being introduced with modern ticketing mechanisms, their integration will be an uphill task. The railways, BEST, other public bus transport agencies, the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar Metro, and the monorail all have diverse ticketing systems. Except for the existing Metro line and the Chembur-Wadala monorail, both operated by private entities, none of the other transportation modes have a fool-proof ticket validation system. AV Shenoy, city-based transport expert, said, The major challenge will be syncing the different systems. A single agency should be given the task. The agency should also ensure that the financial systems are linked together. In an integrated ticketing system, the accounting is done at the back end after which revenue is disbursed to individual operators. Integrated ticketing systems mostly operate with either a closed-loop or an open-loop smart card. Public transportation systems over the world are gradually evolving to accept the open-loop card, which is integrated with the debit card and can be used for many purposes besides just ticketing. However, officials working on integrated ticketing for Mumbai say that given the commuter mix, it may be more practical to introduce a closed-loop system in the city. Besides, GR Madan, a retired director of MMRDA, said maintenance of such a large system will also be a mammoth task. Not just installation of the hardware and integration of systems, proper operation and maintenance of systems is also equally important. The Go Mumbai card failed primarily for this very reason that half the machines became dysfunctional and commuters were not able to use the system easily, he said. Until then, its a long journey for commuters like Kamble, who now has his own system in place to beat the queues. I have realised that if I queue up at the Vikhroli station ticket counter around 6pm, after work, I can get my pass done in 15 minutes, said Kamble, an assistant professor at SIES College. It will definitely help to have one card that I can swipe across platforms. It will saving us a lot of time. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The biennial legislative council polls for six seats elected by the corporators in the civic bodies has proved a big jolt to Nationalist Congress Party, as it could win only one seat against its four sitting MLCs. Chief minister Devendra Fadnaviss close confidant, Parinay Phuke, and close aide of the former chief minister, Ashok Chavan, have been elected to the council from Bhandara-Gondia and Nanded urban local bodies respectively. The results of the six seats of the council elections held on November 19 were declared within hours after counting began in the eight districts across the state at 8 am on Tuesday. NCPs loss has resulted in a gain for the Congress and BJP in winning one additional seat, while Shiv Sena won the seat from Yavatmal, the traditional bastion of the Congress. The election for the six seats also witnessed the backdoor alliance between NCP and Shiv Sena in Pune and Yavatmal. NCPs Anil Bhosale bagged 440 votes against, with a party strength of 298 votes in the civic bodies. Shiv Sena, reportedly helped the NCP candidate in Pune, in exchange for support in Yavatmal. NCPs sitting MLC Sandeep Bajoria supported the Sena candidate, who polled 348 votes against the partys trenth of less than 80 votes. Bhartiya Janata Party bagged Jalgaon and Bhandara-Gondia , which were prestigious for the party. Water Resources Minister Girish Mahajans supporter, Chandulal Patel, garnered support from all the three major parties which withdrew their official candidates. It was an internal fight between two BJP camps in Jalgaon as ousted party leader Eknath Khadses candidate and sitting MLC Gurumukh Jagwani was denied candidature by the party. In Bhandara-Gondia, the winning BJP candidate Parinay Fuke is assumed to be handpicked by Devendra Fadnavis, and his victory was matter of prestige for the CM. Phuke defeated Congress MLC Gopaldas Agarwals son Praful by a sizable margin. Former forest minister and senior Congress leader Patangarao Kadams brother Mohan has bagged the Sangali-Satara seat by defeating NCPs Shekhar Gore. Amar Rajurkar (Congress) defeated NCP and supported independent Shyamsundar Shinde by 43 votes. We lost due to horse trading and non-cooperation from the Congress. Had the party supported us in Sangali-Satara in exchange for our support in Yavatmal, we both could have retained our seats, said NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik. Winning candidates Pune Anil Bhosale (NCP) Sangali -Satara Mohan Kadam (Congress) Nanded Amar Rajurkar (Congress) Jalgaon Chandulal Patel (BJP) Bhandara-Gondia Parinay Fuke (BJP) Yavatmal Tanaji Sawant (Shiv Sena) The Marine Drive police have busted an illegal immigration racket with the arrest of three labourers from Kutch, who were to travel to Germany with fake passports, and their agent. Manji Budiya, 37, Ramesh Varsani, 35, and Shailesh Gunsai, 37, were detained by immigration officials at Mumbai airport. They told the police the identity of their agent, 43-year-old Jagdish Singhani, alias Jaddu, and he was arrested the next day from Marine Drive. The police said Singhani would help his clients get week-long tourist visas. After landing in Germany, they would be instructed to surrender to government officials after ripping up their passports. Singhani, the police said, would instruct his clients to hide their nationality so that they werent deported to India and instead punished in Germany itself. After serving their sentences, usually a year or two in prison, they would get a job there with the agents help. The three would have taken up low-level jobs, such as construction work, and later sought asylum in Germany, claiming that they had lost their documents and forgotten their home countries, added an officer. The three applied for visa two months ago. The Germany consulate gave them visas but later realised the documents the three men had submitted were fakes. They intimated the authorities, and the three were detained at immigration when they tried to leave the country. An officer at Marine Drive police station said, The agent is based in Gujarat. He claims that the three men were daily-wage workers and came to him with the desire to earn more, so suggested that they travel abroad for work. The men were about to catch a Swiss International Airlines flight to Berlin at 2pm on November 14 but were caught during the immigration check. They were taken to the German consulate in Nariman Point, after which the authorities informed the police station. The three were arrested and a case was registered, added the officer. The police also laid a trap to nab the agent and arrested him the next day from Marine Drive. They are trying to ascertain how many people he sent abroad. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Nine employees of a security agency, who took out Rs 3.92 crore in old banknotes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 from various ATMs (automated teller machines) in Ludhiana, a day after the Centres demonetisation move was announced, have gone missing. Satinderbir Singh, operation in-charge of Scientific Security Management Service lodged a complaint at Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar police station on Sunday that the accused did not deposit the cash in the respective banks. A case was registered under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant or agent), 420 (cheating) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC for the crime committed on November 9. The accused have been identified as Anil Chopra, Radhe Shyam, Pardeep Singh, Kuldeep Singh, Sharanjit Singh, Ajay Kanojia, Gursewak Singh, Harpreet Singh Bunty and Kamaljit Singh. Satinderbir said the agency, in coordination with Hitachi Payment Service, loads money in ATMs of various banks. He said after demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 banknotes on November 8, he asked these employees to bring back the scrapped currency from 25 ATMs in the town and deposit the cash with the main branches of the banks, including the State Bank of India and HDFC Bank. However, instead of depositing the cash with the banks, the accused fled with it. Police sub-inspector (SI) Manjit Singh, who is investigating the matter, said the agency officials earlier tried to trace the accused at their own, but they failed to do so. A day after two former Punjab Congress chiefs Rajya Sabha MPs Partap Bajwa and Shamsher Singh Dullo attacked partys state president Captain Amarinder Singh over inducting turncoats into the party and allotting them tickets, he welcomed some more leaders from the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) into the party fold on Monday. Amarinder also used the occasion to remind Bajwa about those he got from other parties to contest as Congress candidates when he was at the helm of affairs. Manpreet Badal, then president of the Peoples Party of Punjab, from Bathinda as Congress candidate and Simar Pratap Singh Barnala, grandson of Surjit Singh Barnala, was the joint candidate of the Congress and the Sanjha Morcha for the Dhuri byelection in 2015. There is nothing unusual about the possibility of giving tickets to new entrants. In fact, the influx of people into the party shows which way the wind is blowing, Amarinder said. Showing he had backing of the party high command, Amarinder said it was party president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhis prerogative to allot tickets for the forthcoming assembly elections. The former CM said all sitting MLA would be given tickets though there may be shuffling on some seats. To a question on the Bains brothers joining the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Amarinder said the Punjab Congress had not been in talks to rope them in the party, and added that he had only met one of the brothers about six months ago, with no further contact thereafter. Those who joined the Congress on Monday included SAD leader and formerIAS officer Balbir Sidhu, Soni Ghalib, son of former MP Gurcharan Singh Ghalib, and Olympian and AAP member Surinder Singh Sodhi. It is not only the people in India who are facing the heat of demonetisation, the Sikh jatha that returned from Pakistan, on Monday, had also experienced the same across border. Back from Pakistan after observing the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, the pilgrims reached via special trains at Attari station. They claimed to have faced a lot of currency-related problems in Pakistan. Pilgrim Paranjit Kaur said, It was tough to make transactions using Indian currency as people in Pakistan were not ready to accept it. Shopping even for the necessary things was tough. Leave aside the banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes; people in Pakistan were not accepting Rs 100 notes as well. Another pilgrim Satwant Singh Kahlon mentioned that this was a good tour as far as pilgrimage was concerned, but pilgrims had to struggle a lot on the monetary front. Shopkeepers across border were not accepting the old notes, and currency changers accepted the Indian currency at a low value, he said. When the jatha went to Pakistan, the pilgrims had feared facing such problems in Pakistan. And their apprehension turned out to be true. We had no arrangement to change the banned currency. Pilgrims had to live on limited cash as Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were not accepted anywhere, said another pilgrim Kulwant Kaur. DEAD PILGRIMS BODY BROUGHT BACK The dead body of one of the pilgrims, Prem Singh, reached India through the train. The 70-year-old pilgrim, who hailed from Ludhiana, died of heart attack. He had died in Lahore on Sunday. His son, Gurmeet Singh, had reached Attari station to receive the body. The struggle for ownership of common land between Dalits and the upper caste farmers has taken a U-turn in Jhalur village. On Monday, the upper caste members came out on roads demanding a CBI inquiry into the October 5 incident in which 30 Dalits were allegedly injured and a 70-year-old woman, Gurdev Kaur, later succumbed to her injuries on Friday. Ever since the incident, Dalits along with several labour and farmer unions are protesting to demand the arrest of the upper caste members who attacked them. Recently, they have been protesting outside the residence of finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa demanding immediate arrest of all those who attacked Dalits. On Monday, hundreds of upper caste farmers staged a protest outside sub-divisional magistrate office, Lehra. They raised slogans against the state government and Joginder Singh Ugrahan, president, Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan) , who has lent support to the Dalits. They alleged that a section of the village is trying to spoil the villages atmosphere, which will not be tolerated and have demanded a CBI inquiry of the case. Labour and farmer unions in Sangrur burnt an effigy of Dhindsa and alleged that the government is supporting those who attacked the Dalits. The unions have decided to hold protests against Dalit atrocities in the state outside the office of deputy commissioner on Tuesday in Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Jalandhar, said Mukesh, president Zameen Prapti Sangharsh Committee. On Sunday night, civil society members held a candle march and demanded arrest of all the accused who were booked under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code, after the death of Gurdev Kaur on Friday night at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh. SSP Pritpal Singh Thind, said, Both parties are staging protest against each other but police have been working on the matter. Raids are being conducted to arrest the accused. All the accused who were charged for murder will be arrested soon. A live bomb was found in a crusher unit at Haryal village near Pathankot during excavation of gravel material on Tuesday. The Bomb is likely to be defused by the army special bomb disposal squad on Wednesday. The area has been cordoned by the Punjab Police. The bomb was first spotted by some labours of the crusher unit who were digging the earth for gravel material. Police which was informed by the nearby villagers soon reached on the spot and vacated the area after seeing the rusted live bomb. Senior Superintendent of Police, Rakesh Kaushal admitted that the bomb was live and needed experts to defuse it. He said that the army would defuse the bomb and nobody was being allowed to go near the bomb. He also said that the bomb could be very old but dangerous. The labours who spotted the bomb were in panic as they remained frightened about the consequences if the bomb could have exploded. Many locals say that the bomb could possibly be of the 1971 Indo-Pak war. After doctors, various trade unions have come forward in support of protesting nurses and called for pen-down strike from Tuesday. The decision would affect health services at Rajindra and TB hospitals. Members of the nursing and ancillary staff union are sitting in protest in front of the out-patient department (OPD) of the Rajindra hospital along with their family members. Leaders of the unions condemned the police action against nurses and demanded regular jobs with full pay scale for nurses with immediate effect. Labour of India, Bharti Kisan Union (Dakaunda), Class IV Staff Union of Rajindra hospital, Parjapat Sabha, Milkmen Union and other employee and social organisations have extended their support to the protest of nurses. Leaders of trade unions Sajjan Singh, Nirmal Singh Dhaliwal, Darshan Singh Lubana, Uttam Singh Bagri, Mohan Singh Negi and Jagmohan Singh Naulakha called for support to nurses. The leaders decided to organise a protest in front of the office of the medical superintendent of Rajindra hospital. Members of the Class 4 staff union of Rajindra hospital have decided to stop work in all three shifts to show their dissent against the management and the Punjab government. Ram Kishan, president of the union, said that they have decided to extend support to the nurses. as the state government has failed to meet their demand. He said, We will stall work from Tuesday and the pen-down strike will continue till the demands of nurses are met. He added that they would will not halt work at the emergency services. Kicking off the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) campaign from Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singhs home turf, deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party are banking on rejected and dejected leaders of the SAD. He also rubbished speculation that he may contest from two seats this time. The speculation had gained traction particularly after the AAP announced that its firebrand leader Bhagwant Mann will contest against Sukhbir from wherever he may contest. Sukhbir is two-time sitting legislator from Jalalabad, where AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal made the announcement. I will contest from only one seat, and the party will announce all seats in the coming days, Sukhbir said. On dissidence before and after the announcement of the SADs first list of candidates, he told reporters, I am personally monitoring every seat, and denied tickets to only those who have controversies and no good image in public. From Inderbir Bolaria to Sarwan Singh Phillaur, all were rejected leaders of the SAD. In speech at the first rally here after announcement of ticket to Harinderpal Singh Chandumajra, Sukhbir focused on rural, Sikh and agricultural vote banks in his speech. Each vote to the AAP or Congress will be a vote against Punjabiat and Sikhism, Sukhbir said, raising issues of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and Operation Bluestar. Echoing what BJP president Amit Shah said two days ago in Jalandhar, Sukhbir said, For continuous development, and to take maximum benefit of an NDA government in the state and Centre, vote for the SAD-BJP! He dubbed the AAP as a party of anarchists that will bring miseries to farming, as it wont be able to lift their crops. SAD-BJP, not AAP, raised Amarinders Swiss bank accounts Sukhbir also asked Amarinder to come clean on the issue of Swiss bank accounts of his kin. Its not the AAP, but the SAD-BJP that raised this issue in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and the Enforcement Directorate has already summoned him, he said, rejecting Kejriwals allegations that Badal and Amarinder are hand in glove. Actually, Congress and AAP are in hand in glove. On Amarinders announcement of 4G mobiles and data to youth, Sukhbir quipped, Dont believe in lies of Amarinder! He has become so big a liar that even his party leadership does not believe him. MP Prem Singh Chandumajra, and his son and SAD candidate Harinderpal Singh, too, addressed the gathering. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Another Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MLA, Maheshinder Singh of Baghapurana, quit the party on Tuesday, the third MLA to do so in less than a week after the SAD announced its first list of candidates for the Punjab assembly polls due early next year. He alleged that the police were being used to threaten him to support the partys likely replacement candidate. Police from Rampura Phul and Nihalsinghwala police stations came to my home on Tuesday morning and pressurised me to support the new candidate, threatening me with false cases, Maheshinder said at a press conference in Moga. The likely replacement is Moga district planning committee chairman Tirath Singh Mahla, a close aide of agriculture minister Tota Singh, both of whom held a press conference later to rubbish the allegations. Maheshinder who follows in the footsteps of Sarwan Singh Phillaur and Avinash Chander claimed that party president and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had told him about the ticket denial a fortnight ago. I did not mind that. But sending the police and threatening is not tolerable. He also alleged that the police jammed his and his son Dharampals mobile phones for a few hours so that they wont tell anybody. About his next move, Maheshinder said he has taken the decision to quit hurriedly and so far has not decided anything about the future. Later, terming him an opportunist, Tota Singh he already knew about the resignation as Maheshinder was disappointed with the partys decision of replacing him. The allegations of threat by the police are merely an excuse to leave the party. Is it possible that the police threaten a sitting MLA? Mahla too said Maheshinder quit only because Sukhbir confirmed his ticket from Baghapurana and Maheshinder got to know about this. Meanwhile, Maheshinder has sent his resignation to Sukhbir. After the demonetisation move, the income tax (I-T) department started tightening the screws around bank accounts with high deposits, and intensified its drive to trace unaccounted cash stashed in scrapped `500 and `1000 notes, seizing `15 crore so far in the state. The Jamshedpur I-T investigation wing seized `10 lakh cash from Payal Cinema Hall owners on Tuesday, and initiated action over `20 lakh cash in `500 and `1000 notes seized by West Singhbum police from a Scorpio at Jagannathpur. Weve seized `10 lakh in cash and traced 7-8 bank accounts during survey at Payal Cinema. West Singhbhum police will hand over the seized `20 lakh to us tomorrow, and we will summon the arrested persons and businessmen in a day or two, Jamshedpur I-T deputy director (investigation) Vijay Kumar told HT. The IT department seized `1.50 crore from Harelal Mahato here; raids against five jewellers in Ranchi yielded `5 crore, and another `2 crore from two in Dhanbad. Three more jewellers were raided in Patna, accounting for a recovery of `15-20 crore so far. I-T sources said 4 lakh Jan Dhan accounts in East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum and Seraikela-Kharsawan districts were on radar for abnormally high deposits. It is suspected that rich people, employers and even CPI (Maoists) used the accounts as as dummies to turn black money into white. The Centre announced on Sunday a seven-year jail for those depositing black money misusing the privilege of `2.50 lakh per person without questioning, or allowing others to misuse their accounts for turning black money into white. Banks have been transferring data on all accounts to the I-T headquarters in Delhi, and the disseminated data will reach to local I-T wings after December 30. The real action will start then, said Vijay Kumar. Cyber teams have been formed for analysing bank accounts with high deposits. About 2 lakh Jan Dhan accounts in East Singhbum, 1.25 lakh in West Singhbhum and about 75,000 in Seraikela-kharsawan districts are on our radar. Notices are being served to such account holders, an I-T official said on anonymity. West Singhbhum police lodged an FIR against suspected Maoist conduit Kashi Nath for trying to deposit `65,000 in Jan Dhan accounts in SBIs Noamundi branch. Jamsedpur police seized `3.06 lakh from two people last week while they were recovering from Kadma area here `500 and `1000 notes of `25 lakh cut into pieces. This is the first time the I-T department will scrutinise bank accounts before filing of returns. Earlier scrutiny was done after returns were filed. We will check the source of income, clients, sale and purchase records, cash book and average business, and bank transactions of all suspected accounts, an official said. After the demonetisation move, the income tax (I-T) department started tightening the screws around bank accounts with high deposits, and intensified its drive to trace unaccounted cash stashed in scrapped `500 and `1000 notes, seizing `15 crore so far in the state. The Jamshedpur I-T investigation wing seized `10 lakh cash from Payal Cinema Hall owners on Tuesday, and initiated action over `20 lakh cash in `1000 notes seized by West Singhbum police from a Scorpio at Jagannathpur. Weve seized `10 lakh in cash and traced 7-8 bank accounts during survey at Payal Cinema. West Singhbhum police will hand over the seized `20 lakh to us tomorrow, and we will summon the arrested persons and businessmen in a day or two, Jamshedpur I-T deputy director (investigation) Vijay Kumar told HT. The IT department seized `1.50 crore from Harelal Mahato here; raids against five jewellers in Ranchi yielded `5 crore, and another `2 crore from two in Dhanbad. Three more jewellers were raided in Patna, accounting for a recovery of `15-20 crore so far. I-T sources said 4 lakh Jan Dhan accounts in East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum and Seraikela-Kharsawan districts were on radar for abnormally high deposits. It is suspected that rich people, employers and even CPI (Maoists) are using the accounts as dummies to turn black money into white. The Centre announced on Sunday a seven-year jail for those depositing black money misusing the privilege of `2.50 lakh per person without questioning, or allowing others to misuse their accounts for turning black money into white. Banks have been transferring data on all accounts to the I-T headquarters in Delhi, and the disseminated data will reach to local I-T wings after December 30. The real action will start then, said Vijay Kumar. Cyber teams have been formed for analysing bank accounts with high deposits. About 2 lakh Jan Dhan accounts in East Singhbum, 1.25 lakh in West Singhbhum and about 75,000 in Seraikela-kharsawan districts are on our radar. Notices are being served to such account holders, an I-T official said on anonymity. West Singhbhum police lodged an FIR against suspected Maoist conduit Kashi Nath for trying to deposit `65,000 in Jan Dhan accounts in SBIs Noamundi branch. Jamsedpur police seized `3.06 lakh from two people on Monday; they recovered `500 and `1000 notes of `25 lakh cut into pieces from Kadma area here last week. This is the first time the I-T department will scrutinise bank accounts before filing of returns. Earlier scrutiny was done after returns were filed. We will check the source of income, clients, sale and purchase records, cash book and average business, and bank transactions of all suspected accounts, an official said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON If you are not happy with your bedroom life, check your dental hygiene. Teeth stand witness to your happy love life, says a study, suggesting that individuals who are in a trusting, secure and loving relationship may have good oral health compared to those in a bad one. People in love paid extra attention to their appearance, including dental health. We were surprised how greatly romantic relationships really did play a big part, Grace Branjerdporn from University of Queensland in Australia, was quoted as saying to abc.net.au. Those who were emotionally detached from their partners appeared reluctant to schedule regular preventative dental appointments, the researchers said. The study discovered that those who try to avoid emotional intimacy, or are worried their partner would leave in times of need, were more likely to have negative oral health, Branjerdporn added. They also have higher levels of self-reliance, distrust others and avoid seeking support, she said. On the brighter side, those in a love life, who trust the other person and have higher self-worth lead to better dentist visiting habits, Branjerdporn observed. For the study, published in the journal of Quality of Life Research, the team analysed a group of 265 people, mainly in their early 30s with healthy lifestyles. Follow @htlifeandstyle for more. American President Barack Obama has written an article for the Lonely Planet, stressing the importance of travel and cross-border engagement for building a brighter future. To coincide with the conclusion of his final foreign trip as President of the United States in Peru, Obama reflected on his travels over the last eight years that included a string of firsts and travel milestones: Obama was the first sitting US president to visit Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Myanmar and Laos. In all, he estimates he logged more than a million miles travelling to every corner of the world. In the article, the president provides a long list of diplomatic examples and success stories which required international cooperation, strengthened alliances, and engaged former adversaries over the last few years. There were the coordinated efforts from dozens of countries to stamp out Ebola; the coordinated pressure to roll back Irans nuclear program, and the mammoth cooperation of nearly 200 countries to achieve the Paris Agreement for fighting climate change. And while international cooperation may be indispensable at the diplomatic level, Obama also emphasized its importance on a more human level. But while this cooperation is essential, I have always believed that our engagements with other countries must not be limited to governments we also have to engage people around the world, he wrote. In particular, we must sustain our engagement with young people, who will determine the future long after those of us in positions of power leave the world stage. This is especially true given that more than half of the worlds population is 30 years of age or younger, he adds. That figure spikes dramatically in the developing world where 90% of the global population is under 30. Obama also used the Lonely Planet platform to plug his Young Leaders Initiatives program in Southeast Asia and Latin America, which helps young people build a startup company or begin a career in public service. These efforts dont make headlines. But they reflect the optimism that I have seen in young people from different ethnicities, religions and nationalities all around the globe including in the US, he wrote. At a time when we are faced with so much division in global politics, young people are often more tolerant, more compassionate, and more committed to working to make change that benefits their communities from the bottom up. Follow @htlifeandstyle for more. Ram Kapoor and Sakshi Tanwar created history on Indian television with their successful show Bade Achhe Lagte Hain (BAHL), which aired in 2011 and lasted for three years. Two years later, the hit couple is now returning in a web series thats being produced by Ekta Kapoor. Ram says he is excited about the project, as he has been offered roles in web series for the past year. Web series have become hot property, and many people are making them. I knew I would act in one or two, but this one is the icing on the cake, as it will be with Ekta, who I started my television career with, the actor adds. Ram will be shooting for the show for the next few months. Ram doesnt want to reveal much about the new web series, but adds, Ram and Sakshis fans will surely not be disappointed. The 43-year-old actor says he is looking forward to the response to the web series, which he says will cater to a younger audience, as it will be bolder, fresher and more youthful than television. He assures that it wont be so bold that a family wont be able to watch it together. While the actor is all for the new medium, he doesnt consider it a threat to television. A few years ago, TV grew exponentially in India, and is now huge. Similarly, the web will make its place, too. In the West, online channels are doing well alongside TV channels. They both have their spaces and will continue to grow and thrive. I dont think one will cannibalise the other, he says. About Sakshi Tanwar, Ram Kapoor says its easier to work with people who know their job well. (HT Photo) Speaking about his pairing with Sakshi, which worked due to their chemistry, performances and the story of BAHL, Ram says, She is a phenomenally good actor. We have tremendous respect and trust for each other. We were good friends and admired each others work even before we worked together. The sets of our shows, Kasam Se and Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki, were close by and we met often. When you work with people who know their job well, it becomes easier to work with them. Ram credits Ekta for the pairs success as well, saying the director knows the actors as well as their strengths and weaknesses. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Renewed clashes between Yemeni government forces and rebels killed more than 40 people Tuesday, military officials said, a day after a fragile 48-hour ceasefire expired without halting the violence. Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi repelled an attack by Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies on the western outskirts of Taez city, the officials said. The attack that began late Monday targeted the Al-Dhabab area, which provides pro-Hadi forces with their only access to the flashpoint city of 300,000 people that is surrounded by insurgents. Warplanes from the Saudi-led Arab coalition took part in operations to repel the attack, officials said. Military officials also reported heavy artillery fire in an eastern suburb of Taez as pro-Hadi forces pressed a campaign to wrest back control of a presidential palace, police headquarters and an air defence base from the Houthis. Eleven rebel fighters and five pro-government soldiers were killed in the clashes around the southwestern city, they said. In northwest Yemen, fighting around the coastal town of Midi cost the lives of 18 rebels and four soldiers, a loyalist commander on the ground, Abdel Ghani Chebli, told AFP. Rebel sniper fire on Monday night killed three soldiers as the Houthis tried to advance on Midis harbour, which is controlled by pro-Hadi forces. The coalition and the rebels have traded blame over violations of the ceasefire which came into effect on Saturday after US Secretary of State John Kerry intervened. It was the latest international attempt to end Yemens 20-month conflict, which the United Nations says has killed more than 7,000 people and wounded nearly 37,000. The Houthis overran the capital Sanaa and other parts of the impoverished country in September 2014, prompting the coalition to intervene six months later in support of Hadi. In the southern city of Aden, an airport security officer, Colonel Abdel Rahim Samahi, was gunned down outside his home in an attack, a security official said Tuesday. The Islamic State group said it killed Samahi, the Site Intelligence Group reported. A huge pile-up on a Chinese motorway killed at least 17 people when a total of 56 vehicles crashed into each other in winter weather, state media said Tuesday. The accident took place in snow and rainy weather in the northern province of Shanxi, on an expressway linking Beijing with Kunming, the official news agency Xinhua reported. Pictures of the scene showed lorries scattered haphazardly across the road, some of them overturned, and burnt-out wrecks of cars after the crash Monday. Another 37 injured people were stable after treatment, Xinhua said. Traffic accidents are common in China, with the World Health Organization estimating that more than 260,000 people were killed on the countrys roads in 2013. The WHO figures are strikingly higher than official pronouncements, in a country where government data are often questioned, with the National Bureau of Statistics reporting 58,539 traffic fatalities that year less than a quarter of the WHOs approximation. More than 68,000 people have fled their homes since Iraqi forces launched a huge offensive against the Islamic State group in and around Mosul last month, the UN said Tuesday. The figure increased significantly over the past week as forces battled deep into the densely populated city, but it falls short of pre-offensive predictions. 68,550 people are currently displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement. OCHA said the aid response to the offensive launched against the jihadists on October 17 was growing in complexity, with varying needs for different categories of civilians. Humanitarian needs are severe among displaced families in and out of camps, vulnerable residents of retaken communities, and people fleeing the intense fighting in Mosul city, it said. A million-plus civilians were thought to still live inside Mosul, the countrys second city and the jihadists last major bastion in Iraq, before the operation was launched. The number of people displaced since the start of the offensive is less than we expected -- we should be able to handle this relatively small number easily, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari told reporters after a meeting in Budapest. The UN had initially predicted that 200,000 civilians could be forced from their homes in the first few weeks of the offensive, Iraqs biggest military operation in years. Still no safe routes Iraqi forces have so far been sending the message to the population of Mosul that they should stay at home and not try to flee through the front lines. Many residents of Mosul have indeed hunkered down in their houses as Iraqi forces took on IS fighters in fierce street battles. That has however restricted both the government forces ability to use heavier weaponry against the jihadists and aid groups ability to deliver assistance to civilians in need. While Mosul is under ongoing heavy attack, there are currently no safe routes out of the city, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) spokeswoman Becky Bakr Abdulla told AFP. Civilians are facing an extremely difficult decision of either staying in their homes stuck in the crossfire or risk their lives in an attempt to find their way out of the city, she said. The lower than expected displacement from the city of Mosul has allowed aid organisations to keep up with the number of displaced people in need of shelter. According to the UN, the majority of the displaced are housed in camps, whose capacity is being increased daily and is slated to reach around half a million by mid-December. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said it would be inappropriate to ask who was the more barbarous out of Israel and Hitler, in comments likely to put renewed strain on ties with the Jewish state. The comments come less than a week after Turkey appointed a foreign policy advisor to the prime minister as ambassador to Israel, sealing the normalisation of diplomatic relations after a six-year partial rupture. I dont approve of what Hitler did, and neither do I approve of what Israel has done. When its a question of so many people dying, its inappropriate to ask who was the more barbarous, Erdogan said in an interview with Israeli television on Monday night. The relationship between the two countries plunged to an all time low after an Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound ship in 2010 that killed 10 Turks, prompting Ankara to expel the Israeli ambassador and freeze all defence ties. But the two sides have been working to bring cooperation back to former levels and are holding talks on building an ambitious pipeline project to pump Israeli gas to Turkey and Europe. Nevertheless, considerable tensions remain with Erdogan presenting himself as a champion of the Palestinians and regularly meeting with Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal. Israel, the United States and the European Union all view Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, as a terrorist organisation. It is not the first time that Erdogan has referred to the World War II Nazi leader when dealing with Israel. After the 2010 raid, he accused Israel of keeping Hitlers spirit alive. And during the 2014 Gaza War, in which 2,251 Palestinians were killed, according to the UN, he said Israelis have no conscience, no honour, no pride. They curse Hitler day and night, but they have surpassed Hitler in barbarism. He has accused the Jewish state of carrying out genocide on the Palestinians. In Mondays comments to Israels Channel 2 television, Erdogan said he was well aware of the sensitivities associated with Hitler, blamed for the deaths of some six million Jews. But he said he found it impossible to forget the hundreds, the thousands of people who died when (the Israeli military) struck Gaza. Britain on Tuesday dismissed US President-elect Donald Trumps unprecedented expression of support for Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage to be made British ambassador to Washington, saying pointedly that there is no vacancy for the job. Trump, who after his election victory met Farage ahead of any EU leaders, tweeted Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 Prime Minister Theresa May, who congratulated Trump on his victory, was swift to reject such an undiplomatic proposal. There is no vacancy, a Downing Street spokesman said when asked about Trumps remark on Tuesday. We already have an excellent ambassador to the US. It is highly unusual in the modern era for leaders to publicly suggest to foreign nations who they would like to see as ambassador. Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and one of the key figures of the successful referendum campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, spoke at a Trump rally during the U.S. campaign and visited the president-elect after his victory. Brexit Britain means huge global opportunities. One of the first places the UK should start is in the U.S. with Donald Trump, Farage, 52, said shortly after his meeting with Trump. The photograph of Trump greeting one of the EUs biggest critics before a gilded elevator caused consternation in EU capitals, many of whom view Trump with a mixture of fear and puzzlement. Kim Darroch, the current British ambassador in Washington, did not reply to emails from Reuters requesting comment on Trumps remarks. Queen Elizabeth might invite Trump for a state visit to Britain next year, a spokeswoman for May said on Monday President-elect Donald Trump has announced he will deep-six the Trans-Pacific Partnership on day one in office. While no surprise, it will nonetheless send ripples across the Asia-Pacific. While ostensibly a mega-free trade agreement, the TPP was really a US attempt to economically constrain China. The question Asian capitals will ask: Does Trump have alternate instruments to deter an assertive Beijing? The TPP had few friends in an Indian government generally allergic to trade pacts. But New Delhi should be concerned. With the TPPs demise, global trade leadership could by default fall into Beijings lap. The TPP was created because, as outgoing President Barack Obama had said, we cant let countries like China write the rules of the global economy. As most countries who signed up for the TPP already had low tariffs, the real point of it was to promote service trade. Its primary focus was on harmonising rules and regulations among members. It also sought to limit state-ownership of firms and bring in tighter labour and environmental standards. Much of this was about creating standards that would force China, when it decided to join TPP, to go down a certain economic path. The TPP would be an economic carrot that would persuade the Communist Party to make Chinas economy more like rules-based, market-driven economies such as the US or India. Economic gain was a minor factor in the US decision: If the TPP goes through it would add a miniscule 0.15% GDP growth to the US by 2032. The TPP was a trans-Pacific geopolitical partnership. India The TPP was widely criticised in New Delhi because it required changes in so many domestic regulatory areas, something strongly opposed by a sovereignty-conscious India. But India has a reputation for being a decade behind the rest of the world when it comes to trade policy. While investment friendly for the most part, trade policy is one area where the Narendra Modi government has regressed to an even more protectionist stance. While the external affairs ministry understood the agreements geopolitical underpinning, it ran into opposition from a commerce ministry that could not look beyond tariff lines. The TPP core members deliberately did not invite or even consult with New Delhi when they began negotiating the trade agreement they knew India would object to the very principles of the pact. In any case, according to the WTOs 2014 figures, India represents 1.7% of world trade less than Singapore or Hong Kong so its being a member was seen as irrelevant. Indias commerce ministry will breathe a sigh of relief when the TPP is shelved by Trump in January. New Delhi had not been party to the rules making process. A functional TPP would not have depressed Indian goods trade by more than a few percentage points. But trade analysts like Pradeep Mehta say it would have given a huge advantage to Southeast Asian nations competing against India in the IT services area and led to a diversion of foreign direct investment away from India towards TPP signatories. China However, India should be concerned at the geopolitical space that the TPPs demise will give China. Beijing can be expected to become more aggressive about promoting an alternative trade grouping but one whose agenda will be dominated by China. Some Indian officials put much store in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, centred round the Southeast Asian nations, as a TPP substitute. But the RCEPs ambitions are minimal. The eventual RCEP is likely to mark only cosmetic improvements over existing agreements, argues Amitendu Palit, trade expert at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Australian and US officials say they expect Beijing to now quickly try and bring the RCEP negotiations to a close. President Xi Jinping has already begun hard-selling a Beijing-centred 21-member Free Trade Association of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) as the TTP substitute. India will be marginal to this as well, as a prerequisite to FTAAP membership is being part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum which India has so far been unable to join. There is evidence that the new Trump administration plans to revert to a more hard-nosed policy of building warships and deploying warplanes to contain Chinese power. This will be the opposite of the Obama doctrine which preferred to downgrade military responses and use soft power to tame the dragon. New Delhi may come to regret the passing of the TPP. The real alternative seems to be an Indo-Pacific on a hair trigger and an Asian trade order dictated by China, both of which sound much worse for Indian interests than a service-oriented free trade agreement. Keep in mind, however, that the TPP is not yet dead. The other eleven members of the agreement will simply hold it in escrow to get technical, it will be a treaty not in effect and wait to see if Washington ever changes its mind. The history pages of Iraqs Christian community lie in charred fragments on the floor of a fourth-century monastery near Mosul which Islamic State militants ransacked during a two-year occupation that ended over the weekend. The jihadis at the Mar Behnam monastery burned a collection of books about Christian theology, scraped off inscriptions written in Syriac - the language used by Jesus - and demolished sculptures of the Virgin Mary and the monasterys patron saint. Read | Friend or foe? Sometimes its hard to tell in the war for IS-held Mosul They removed the sites crosses and tried to erase any mention of Behnam, the son of an Assyrian king who, according to popular legend, built the monastery as penance for killing both his children after they converted to Christianity. Their fundamental goal was to destroy Christian history and civilization in the Nineveh plains, Duraid Elias, commander of the Babylon Brigades, a Christian militia that helped retake the site, told Reuters during a visit on Monday. The Nineveh plains, a sprawling region north and east of Mosul, are a mosaic of ethnic and religious communities with roots dating back to ancient Mesopotamia. A fighter from the Kataeb Babylon, a group of Christian fighters who fight alongside the Hashd Shabi, Shia fighters, inspects the Mar Behnam monastery after the town was recaptured from the Islamic State. (Reuters) The Sunni Muslim hardliners of Islamic State have targeted the adherents and religious sites of those minority groups across the area, which it seized in 2014 during a blitz across Iraq and neighbouring Syria. At the time, the group issued an ultimatum to Christians: pay a tax, convert to Islam, or die by the sword. Most fled towards the autonomous Kurdish region, including a few dozen monks who left Mar Behnam with only the clothes on their backs. As a 100,000-strong alliance of Iraqi forces now attempts to oust Islamic State from the city of Mosul, the scale of destruction in nearby Christian areas is gradually being documented. The jihadists had converted Mar Behnam, Iraqs largest monastery, into a headquarters for the Hisba morality police, which enforced strict rules against such things as smoking, men shaving their beards and women baring their faces in public, according to Elias. People take pictures at the Mar Behnam monastery after the town was recaptured from the Islamic State, in Ali Rash, southeast of Mosul, Iraq. (Reuters) A sitting room had been turned into a medical clinic, and the monks bedrooms were used to hold transgressors. A remote corner of the complex was filled with dozens of satellite dishes the commander said had been confiscated from residents nearby. Islamic State graffiti covers the monasterys walls, including the groups motto: Remaining and expanding. Another scrawl includes the date December 24, 2014 one of two Christmases the jihadis spent in control of the site. Read | Forces fighting IS in Mosul regroup, search for cars used for suicide attacks Five weeks into Iraqs long-awaited offensive to retake Mosul, which itself once had a sizeable Christian population, the city is nearly surrounded, but government forces have established only a small foothold in a few eastern districts. Fighting has laid waste to entire towns and villages, while Islamic State booby-traps, including in and around the monastery, mean it could be months or even years before some residents can return home. Eye for an eye The Baghdad-backed Babylon Brigades are the type of force that Iraqs Western allies have pushed to participate in the Mosul campaign in an attempt to secure local support for the expected rollback of Islamic State. The Christian fighters at Mar Behnam monastery on Monday wore an assortment of military uniforms, carried large wooden crosses in their pickup trucks and flew banners including, incongruously, flags used by Iraqs powerful Shiite Muslim militias. Many of the gunmen sported black headbands declaring devotion to Jesus or the Virgin Mary, and one had affixed a religious icon to his bulletproof vest, next to a hand grenade and two single bullets. The Mar Behnam monastery is seen after the town was recaptured from the Islamic State, in Ali Rash, southeast of Mosul, Iraq. (Reuters) Elias, the commander, said his unit had fought alongside the Iraqi army to retake the monastery and the village of Khidir Ilyas where it is located. But the regular troops had since departed, leaving his men in apparent control of the area. After showing Reuters around the site as gunfire rang out in the distance, he welcomed six new volunteers into the Babylon Brigades, issuing them with uniforms and weapons in exchange for a simple vow to protect the area. His men, part of a dwindling population of Arab Christians across the Middle East, are driven by a desire to keep their community alive after Islamic State threatened to destroy it for good. We are proving to the world that Christians are not weak. We are stronger than they imagined, said Elias. He told Reuters his forces had so far demolished three or four homes thought to belong to Islamic State fighters in Khidir Ilyas to keep them from ever returning. There are others. We are going one by one: for every Christian house they blew up, we blow up a house next to it, he said from atop the monastery, pointing out one such pair of buildings. This is war. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Also Read | We were driven like sheep: Mosul escapees tell of human shield ordeal More than 1,000 soldiers deployed by Iran to Syria to back the government side in its civil war have been killed, an Iranian official said, underlining Tehrans increasing presence on front lines of the conflict. It was a major increase in the reported death toll from just four months ago, when the Islamic Republic announced that 400 of its soldiers had died on Syrias battlefields. Iran has been sending fighters to Syria since the early stages of the more than five-year-old war to support its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, against rebels and Islamist militants including Islamic State trying to topple him. Although many of the soldiers the Shiite Muslim Iran sends are its own nationals, it is casting its recruitment net wide, training and deploying Shiites from neighbouring Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. Half of the death toll reported in August were Afghan citizens. Now the number of Irans martyrs as defenders of shrine has exceeded 1,000, Mohammadali Shahidi Mahallati, head of Irans Foundation of Martyrs, which offers financial support to the relatives of those killed fighting for Iran, was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency. Iran alludes to its fighters in Syria as defenders of the shrine, a reference to the Sayeda Zeinab mosque near Damascus, which is where a granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammad is said to be buried, as well as other shrines revered by Shiites. Many Iranians initially opposed involvement in Syrias war, harbouring little sympathy for Assad. But now they are warming to the mission, believing that the Sunni jihadist Islamic State is a threat to the existence of their country that is best fought outside Irans borders. With public opinion swinging increasingly behind the cause, numbers of volunteer fighters have soared far beyond what Tehran is prepared to deploy in Syria. Its not exactly the most promising start between two allies with a special relationship after Downing Street on Tuesday slapped down a recommendation from US president-elect Donald Trump that UKIP leader Nigel Farage would be great as UK's envoy to Washington. The proximity between Trump and Farage has often been highlighted, first during the election campaign and when Farage became the first international leader to meet the real estate mogul after he emerged victorious. But Trump putting in an unsolicited word for Farage in future US-UK relations ruffled diplomatic feathers. As Farage pushed himself for a role on Britains behalf, Trump tweeted on Monday evening: Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 But a Downing Street spokesman said: There is no vacancy. We already have an excellent ambassador to the US. This was reiterated by Brexit secretary David Davis, who said, "We have a very good ambassador in Washington, Kim Darroch, and he'll be there for years". It is considered unprecedented for an incoming US president to ask a world leader to appoint an opposition party leader as ambassador. The role of Britains envoy to the US is among the most prestigious in the diplomatic service. Trumps undiplomatic tweet came within hours of Downing Street announcing it was considering a state visit by the new US president in 2017. The tweet put Prime Minister Theresa May in a difficult position. On his part, Farage said he was flattered by Trumps endorsement, and called it a bolt from the blue. He said he did not see himself as a typical diplomatic figure, but this is not the normal course of events. Farage, reported to be expecting an invitation to Trumps inauguration in January, said his offer to help Britain in its relationship with the US remained, but warned critics that the world has changed and its time that Downing Street did too. Christopher Meyer, a former British envoy to the US, said he was baffled by Trumps tweet: UK ambassador in DC exists to defend UK interests in US, not US interests in UK. Cant have foreign presidents deciding who our (ambassador) should be. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard unexpectedly entered the race for a senior position in Trump administration when she met the president-elect on Monday, sparking speculation she was being considered as US ambassador to the UN. Its a cabinet-rank position considered as a stepping stone towards even more high-profile portfolios. Susan Rice, President Barack Obamas first UN ambassador, was in contention for secretary of state before she was named National Security Adviser. The two leaders had a detailed conversation regarding the situation in the Middle East including the crisis in Syria and America's position in the world, the Trump transition team said in a statement about their meeting. If that could be construed as a hint of a global affairs position being considered for Gabbard, the second part of the statement pointed to a domestic role They also discussed approaches to fix the VA (veteran affairs) and other veterans issues. Gabbard, who is a two-term US representative from Hawaii, is a member of the Army National Guard, a reserve component of the US armed forces, and has served two tours of duty in west Asia. She holds the rank of Major. Gabbard, who is a Hindu and took oath of office on a copy of Bhagwad Gita, is widely considered to be one of our own by the Indian American community. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent her personal greetings and gifts on her marriage in 2015. Knowing her meeting with Trump would not go down well with her party, Gabbard said in a statement, It would have been easier for me to refuse this meeting But I never have and never will play politics with American and Syrian lives. She said she felt it was important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect to counteract neocons steady drumbeats of war, which threaten to drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government. But Gabbard is unlikely to be affected by rumblings in the Democratic party, if any. She had stepped down as vice-chair of the partys national committee to support Bernie Sanders, an independent who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic ticket. Hundreds of Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in neighbouring Myanmar, community leaders said today, many with horrific tales of troops killing and burning villages. Bangladesh says it has prevented hundreds more from crossing into the country, despite pleas from the United Nations to open its border after up to 30,000 Rohingya were displaced by violence in Myanmars Rakhine state. Bangladeshi troops have intensified patrols along the 237-kilometre (147-mile) border, but Rohingya community leaders estimate that 1,000 people have still managed to get in over the last week. Most are hiding out in camps for the 32,000 legally registered already living in southeast Bangladesh, fearing repatriation if they are found by authorities. Mohammad Amin, 17, said he and 15 others fled their homes in Rakhine five days ago and reached Bangladesh by swimming across the Naf river that divides the two countries. The (Myanmar) army killed my father and elder brother. I hid on a hill and then walked and swam across the river, and took refuge at a mosque (in Bangladesh), he told AFP by phone from Coxs Bazar near the border. Where I looked I saw only burnt houses. I dont know what happened to my mother and sister. Zohra Khatun, 25, arrived late Monday with her seven children after their village was burned to the ground, and has been helped by a relative already living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. I waited two days before I had the chance to cross the river to come here, Khatun told AFP by phone. The relative, who asked not to be named, said that at least 100 families had arrived at the camp from Myanmar in the last two days. Another community leader said 500 people had taken shelter near two other Rohingya refugee camps in the area. Commanders of the Border Guard Bangladesh said their troops had blocked nearly 300 Rohingya from crossing the border overnight, the highest number since the crisis began last month. Were preventing them on the zero line, especially those who were trying to cross the barbed-wire fences erected by Myanmar, said Imran Ullah Sarker. US President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he has an open mind about pulling out of world climate accords and admitted global warming may be in some way linked to human activity. I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much, he told a panel of New York Times journalists. Asked whether he would make good on his threat to pull the United States out of UN climate accords, he said: Im looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it. But he said he was also wanted to see how much the Paris climate accord will cost our companies and its impact on US competitiveness. The Republican billionaire businessman has called climate change a hoax perpetrated by China and threatened to pull out of the agreement on limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The accord was reached in Paris in December 2015 after negotiations involving 195 countries. The worldwide pact to battle global warming took effect on November 4. The agreement sets a goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial revolution levels. The United States, the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, ratified the accord in early September, with strong backing from President Barack Obama. More than 1,500 years after it was set up in the misty, mountainous jungles of central China, the unique connection between the legendary Shaolin monastery and India continues. A Buddhist monk from India is said to have inspired the founding of the monastery, famous now for its kung fu-trained monks. (Sutirtho Patranobis/HT Photo) Back in the day, a Buddhist monk from India is said to have inspired the founding of the monastery, famous now for its Kung Fu-trained monks. The evolution of Chan (Zen in Japan) Buddhism precepts central to the temples teaching is attributed to another Indian monk, possibly from the south. Entrance of the monastery. (Sutirtho Patranobis/HT Photo) Centuries later, a precocious 10-year-old, Diya Chalwad, the monasterys youngest student from India, and the deadpan Harsh Verma, 24, the first Indian to be part of the elite Shaolin performing monks team, are keeping the connection alive. A third Indian, stuntman Arya Shergill, is doing a month-long course. Chalwad, Verma and Shergill are among seven international disciples at the monastery. A sum of $1,000 a month covers their stay, meals and training. At Shaolins core, of course, are 300 Buddhist monks who have devoted their celibate and strictly disciplined lives to the temple. Chalwad had played Naomi in Rocky Handsome and Jhumki in Kick. (Sutirtho Patranobis/HT Photo) Tell Chalwad about discipline and she rolls up her eyes. Hindi movie buffs will know her as Naomi in Rocky Handsome and Jhumki in Kick, but at Shaolin, she is just another disciple who has to follow the rules wake up early, eat frugal meals, train for several hours, wash her own clothes over the weekend and get the occasional stick from the teacher for mistakes. Chalwad has to wake up early, eat frugal meals, train for several hours, wash her own clothes over the weekend and get the occasional stick from the teacher for mistakes. (Sutirtho Patranobis) I love Bruce Lee, Jet Li and Jackie Chan, he is so funny, she giggled while showing Hindustan Times around Shaolin, located outside the city of Dengfeng in Henan province. It was a weekday and mostly Chinese tourists were milling around the spartan temple complex on the lookout for the fabled Shaolin monks in their monastic robes. Chalwad was training for gymnastics in Mumbai when her parents heard about Shaolin from Verma, a distant relative, and sent her for a six-month course. Kung fu is about power. Gymnastics is about flexibility, she said with all the seriousness of a 10-year-old while warming up to perform back flips and kung fu poses. Living far from her parents and Dodo, the cutest dog in the world, what she misses is kulfi and paneer. If for Chalwad a course at Shaolin is all about sharpening her gymnastic skills, for Verma the monastery has become a life-choice. He came to Shaolin in 2015 to recuperate from a knee surgery when he heard about the alternative system of medicine practiced at the temple. Eighteen months later, he is here to stay. Verma came to Shaolin in 2015 to recuperate from a knee surgery when he heard about the alternative system of medicine practised at the temple. (Sutirtho Patranobis) Initially, I could not do jumps. Then I learnt the five basic positions in kung fu. How to use the powerthe power comes from the earth to your legs, from your hips and it flows through any channel of your body. In Shaolin kung fu, they say from the tip of your hair till the tip of your toenail, every part has to be used, he said. A giant guardian of the Shaolin temples. (Sutirtho Patranobis/HT Photo) Evidently, Verma used them well enough to be inducted into the domestic Shaolin performance team that travels across China for stage shows. I want to take this culture to India in the way that I have learnt it here. Open an institute. Not just a training centre but one that will preach the principles of Shaolin one has to remember kung fu is just a small part of the culture in Shaolin, he said. India, of course, has been central to the Shaolin culture since it was set up in the late 5th century. The founder of Shaolin temple was from ancient India. His name was Batuo (or Buddhabhadra in Sanskrit and the monastery was built in his honour by a local king). Batuo translated sutras inside the temple, Abbot Shi Yongxin, the senior-most monk at the temple, told Hindustan Times in a rare interview. Then we had Bodhidharma (who came around hundred years later). He is regarded as the founder of Zen (Chan) Buddhism. He taught and created Zen Buddhism. Shi added: Shaolin has a long history. It contributed to the combination of Chinese customs, habits and traditions with ancient Indian culture and Indian beliefs. It has contributed a lot to the world. Generals hum and haw are the giant guardians of the shaolin temple. (Sutirtho Patranobis/HT Photo) But despite the deep Buddhist links, the connection between Shaolin kung fu and Indian martial arts especially Keralas kalaripayattu, as claimed by some is yet to be established. Its certainly true that the Shaolin temple was visited by Bodhidharma, but Bodhidharma was probably from southeastern Tamil Nadu and not Kerala, said Phillip Zarrilli, professor emeritus at the drama department of Exeter University in the UK, who has learnt, researched and written on kalaripayattu. To my knowledge there is no direct linguistic or historical evidence to directly link kalaripayattu with Shaolin or Chinese martial arts. That there may have been earlier Indian embodied practices which combined elements of psychophysical or spiritual practices of breath control, embodied practices or techniques etc, which were taken to China by Buddhists; may certainly be the case, Zarrilli said. But from my perspective as a scholar, there is no such direct evidence and it is problematic to say that kalaripayattu is the mother of all martial arts as some practitioners of kalaripayattu like to claim today. Ok, so the martial arts link is missing. But with written records of ancient Buddhist ties available, the future of India-Shaolin relations seem secure in the well-trained hands of its monks. Donald Trumps victory and the war on Islamic State have given Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps what it sees as a unique opportunity to claw back economic and political power it had lost. Sidelined after a nuclear deal was reached with Iranian reformist leaders and the administration of President Barack Obama and major nations, the IRGC is determined to regain its position in Shia Irans complex governing structure. Republican Trump said in the campaign that he would abandon the 2015 deal that curbed Irans nuclear ambitions in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. His tough stance, in contrast to Obamas olive branch, is expected to empower hard-liners who would benefit from an economy that excludes foreign competition. In addition, the Quds force, that conducts IRGC policies overseas, has played a successful and key role on the battlefields of Iraq increasing the Guards kudos at home. Trump and the Islamic State militants were gifts from God to the IRGC, said a senior official within the Iranian government, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity like other figures contacted within Iran. If Trump adopts a hostile policy towards Iran or scraps the deal, hard-liners and particularly the IRGC will benefit from it, a former reformist official said. Also read | Iran vessels harass US warship, make a high speed intercept: Official Elected in a landslide in 2013 on a promise to end Irans diplomatic and economic isolation, reformist President Hassan Rouhani has struggled to reconnect Irans economy to world markets and to attract foreign investment. Uncertainty over the nuclear deal, unilateral U.S. sanctions, political infighting in Iran alongside complex regulations, labour issues and corruption have hampered a post-sanctions economic revival causing concern to Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who blames the government. Sanctions Benefitted IRGC Deeply loyal to Khamenei, the IRGC was created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution. The IRGC first secured a foothold in the economy after the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War when the clerical establishment allowed them to invest in leading Iranian industries. Involved in a wide range of businesses, from energy and tourism to car production, telecoms and construction, the IRGCs empire grew by taking billions of dollars in projects vacated by Western oil companies because of sanctions imposed to curb the nations nuclear ambitions. Trying to limit IRGC influence, Rouhanis government stalled or cancelled some major projects with the IRGC, including a $1.3 billion deal with National Iranian Gas Co. in March 2014. Hossein Salami is the deputy commander of the IRGC. (Reuters File Photo) Under the nuclear deal, international sanctions were lifted in January opening up the Iranian economy, thereby threatening the IRGC power base. Now the Guards see an opportunity to lever back their position in the Iranian hierarchy. The IRGC will use Trumps win to convince the clerical rulers to give them more political and economic backing. This is what they have been hoping for since the deal was reached, said the senior government official, who declined to be identified. If Trumps presidency scares away foreign investors from Iran, then it is the IRGC that will regain its economic power, said a former reformist official close to Rouhani. More economic involvement of the IRGC means a riskier market for foreign investors. It will hinder Rouhanis planned economic growth and will give more political power to the IRGC and their hard-line backers, the reformist official added. Guards Against Uncertainty Senior members of the IRGC and its front companies remain under unilateral US sanctions for what Washington said was supporting acts of terrorism. Anxious about losing economic power, the IRGC accused Rouhani of favouring foreign firms rather than domestic ones, demanding a bigger role in the economy and calling for implementation of Khameneis vision for a self-reliant Iran. The IRGC-linked companies cannot compete with the foreign firms. Therefore, they will want a limited presence for foreign firms in Iran, said Tehran-based trader Mohammad Ali, adding: Money means power. Foreign companies need an Iranian partner to do business in Iran, which for big projects often means firms controlled by the IRGC. Most of IRGC front companies are not formally owned by the Corps, but by individuals and firms linked to it. The IRGC remains opaque to outsiders. The Guards have different layers. The roots of the IRGC are seasoned and senior commanders who idolise the supreme leader and are ready to sacrifice their lives for pillars of the revolution and have influence in political and overseas activities of Sepah (IRGC), a retired IRGC commander told Reuters, declining to be named. Also there is another layer and not at the top that have been involved in business activities. They gained more economic power under former president (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini with Revolutionary Guards. IRGC gained more power and economic activities under Ahmadijejad. (Agencies File Photo) The future of the nuclear deal will have a direct bearing on IRGC military, political and economic ambitions and it is unclear if Trump will carry out his threat to abandon it. During the campaign, Trump dismissed the deal as one of the worst deals Ive ever seen negotiated. But Trump has in the past made contradictory statements so foreign governments are unsure how much of his rhetoric will be translated into policy. Middle East political analysts expected the powerful clerical establishments political backing of the IRGC to harden in reaction to the uncertainty concerning a Trump presidency. The Sunni Crescent The IRGC will gain more power at least until the dust settles after Trumps win ... the atmosphere in Iran will be militarised because of more power that will be provided to the IRGC, political analyst Hamid Farahvashian said. Uncertainty over Trumps Iran and regional policies, Irans presidential election in May and economic hardship that might lead to street protests will force the establishment to give more power to the IRGC. It was the IRGC that suppressed student protests in 1999 and also silenced pro-reform protests that followed Ahmadinejads disputed re-election in 2009. Analysts and officials say Tehrans Shia Muslim clerical rulers are adamant that the IRGC is the key to help preventing the emergence of a so-called Sunni crescent of power from the chaos of the Middle East conflicts. In rivalry with Sunni Saudi Arabia, Iran has fought decades of sectarian proxy war in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and other regional countries. Quds force commanders have been active recently on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq. The IRGC will adopt a more aggressive and tougher approach in the coming months, the former reformist official said. Western governments and Israel accuse the Quds Force of arming various militant groups in the Middle East. The Corps are in charge of preserving Irans national security and its overseas activities. So, having a threat like Daesh (IS) at our borders and the regional crisis make the Guards essential for Iran, a senior Iranian security official said, on condition of anonymity. No matter who is the president in America or elsewhere, we will support our allies and our Guards will do that. A sandstorm is brewing west of the Iraqi city of Mosul, kicked up across a barren landscape by thousands of men and machines headed to war. Trucks, armoured transports and even tanks carry fighters through a cloud of fine dust past a series of base camps and heavy weapons depots dotting the route to the front line against the so-called Islamic State. These are the Shia militias, and their goal is Tal Afar, on the main road to the Syrian city of Raqqa, the capital of IS self-declared caliphate. Currently a sideshow compared with the street-to-street fighting in Mosul, some 70 kilometers to the east, the battle for Tal Afar is certain to boost Shia power. And its significance could be just as great if not greater for Iraq and the future of the region than the main battle for Mosul itself. Officially, the Iraqi government and top militia leadership say that only Iraqi army units will enter Tal Afar, once dominated by Shias but now primarily Sunni Turkmen, a minority in the country with cultural and historic links to nearby Turkey to the north. Also read | Iraqi troops face stiff resistance from Islamic State in eastern Mosul But some of the militias most powerful units, as well as field commanders and troops all backed by a newly empowered Iran tell a different story. Jaafar al-Husseini, spokesman for Iraqs Hezbollah Brigades, said it is the militias backed by Shia-heavy army units and Iranian weapons that will lead the charge into Tal Afar to drive out IS extremists. The Iranians are with us, he said, adding that Tehran was supporting the militias directly, including strategy from Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who is in charge of a crescent of Shia power stretching from Tehran to Beirut. Our mission and that of the (Iraqi Shia) Badr Brigades is to encircle Tal Afar from the east. Then we will storm it, he said, adding that Soleimani visited a nearby staging ground three days ago. Iraqs Shia militias mobilized against IS in 2014. Since then, they have shown a growing determination to be a major force shaping the country. The prospect worries Iraqs Sunni minority but also some officials in the military and the Shia-led government, who fear the militias, bolstered by prestige from battles with IS, could one day dominate the country like the Revolutionary Guard does in Iran and the guerrilla group Hezbollah does in Lebanon. The larger militias, like Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the Hezbollah Brigades, Badr and the Peace Brigades, emerged after the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein, and are linked to political parties. But their ranks surged after IS overran nearly a third of Iraq in 2014, and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraqs top Shia cleric, called on able-bodied males to fight the militant groups Sunni extremists. Thousands rallied to the militias late last month, bringing their strength to at least 15,000 men in the push toward Tal Afar to cut off IS supply lines west of Mosul. Their umbrella group, Hashd al-Shaabi, has agreed not to enter Mosul itself, but the same cannot be said of all groups when it comes to Tal Afar. Read more | Retaking Iraqs Mosul involves many players, many pitfalls On the winding route through the desert, a relentless flow of pickup trucks and Humvees carried men bristling with weapons. The Iraqi flag was a rare sight; instead, most carried banners from various Shia militias, with their distinctive font and iconography similar to that of Irans Revolutionary Guard and Lebanons Hezbollah. The deployment has not gone unnoticed in the region. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that the militias could prompt a Turkish response if they terrorize the areas Iraqi-Turkmen. Ankara has deployed tanks and other vehicles to Silopi, a Turkish town on Iraqs northern border. In this respect, mistakes in Tal Afar could re-ignite a Sunni-Shia civil war, or at the very least create obstacles to liberating Mosul, said Ayham Kamel, Director of Middle East and North Africa at Eurasia Group, a global political risk consultancy. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadis official plan to have only the army enter Tal Afar played down the chance of an escalation, although the militias actions may not. Rights groups have accused the militias of abuses against civilians in other Sunni areas retaken from IS allegations the militia leaders deny. Residents of Fallujah said Shiite groups exacted revenge during operations to retake the Sunni city last summer, alleging Sunni Arab civilians who fled IS-held areas were detained, tortured and killed. Erdogans ire probably was directed more toward Iran. The two countries rivalry extends to northern Syria, where Iranian-backed militias fighting alongside Syrian forces are competing with Turkish-backed opposition forces for supremacy around the northern city of Aleppo. Turkey launched Operation Euphrates Shield in August, partly to drive back Islamic State militants from its borders. But the rebels it backed have advanced south, raising alarm among hundreds of Shia militiamen from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon trying to seize opposition-held eastern Aleppo. Outside Tal Afar, the commander who led the operation to retake its airport last week said forces in the area would not stand for any Turkish intervention. We are Iraqis, and this is our country, and we consider any foreign intervention to be a provocation for us and our national sentiment, said Abu Taha Naser, and God willing, this will not happen if the Turkish leadership is wise. Should the militias take the city, it would cut a main IS artery into Syria, where the militants already face a recent offensive by a Syrian Kurdish-led force. That would be another major blow for the retreating militants and a boost for Syrian President Bashar Assad, an ally of Iran. Tal Afar would then be the last of a string of Shia cities and towns stretching from Iran across Iraq toward the Syrian border. No matter who leads the offensive into Tal Afar, the Shia forces will inevitably hold the city because they and not the Iraqi army are in the area by the thousands, said Dana Jalal, a Kurdish specialist on Iraqi militias. Yes, they will enter Tal Afar, along with the Iraqi armys 92nd brigade, he said. Its actually more the will of the Iraqi army and less that of the government. Iraqi officials still deny that the military will play a secondary role to the militias or leave it in their hands once Tal Afar is taken. But a look at the army unit intended to join the militias in the days ahead raises further doubt that Iraqs central government will be the main force in the fight for the city. The 92nd brigade, nicknamed the Tal Afar Brigade, is made up almost entirely of Shias from the city. But it also goes by another label: the Hussein Brigade named for the revered Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammads grandson and a key figure in Shia Islam. Read more | Shiite militias say will support Iraqi army offensive on Mosul Flags featuring the Imam Hussein were a common sight on vehicles racing through the desert, with militiamen exclaiming, On to Tal Afar! At a provisions depot farther behind the front line, militiamen ate sandwiches while listening to hymns chanting the imams name. With the thud of incoming mortar rounds from IS positions and ricochets from sniper fire as a backdrop, militiaman Taha Naser was clear. The priority is to cut the supply route between Tal Afar and Raqqa, he said, and then to liberate the city of Tal Afar. Rodricus Crawford The Louisiana Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out the conviction and death sentence of a man whose case drew national attention to the state's use of the death penalty. In its decision , the court said it was sending the case of Rodricus Crawford back to a lower court for a new trial, citing racial discrimination issues in the prosecution's picking of jurors. "I am so thankful that they did the right thing in this case. It was a terrible tragedy since Day 1, and his conviction was a total injustice and the court really stepped up and fixed it, and I am looking forward to continuing to work with the DA's office in order to reach a just outcome," said Cecelia Kappel, Crawford's attorney. She said she had spoken to Crawford's family who called the court's decision "a miracle." The case put Caddo Parish and former District Attorney Dale Cox in the spotlight over the use of the death penalty. The Death Penalty Information Center included Caddo Parish in a 2013 report about how 2 percent of U.S. counties were responsible for 56 % of the people on death row. The Crawford case has drawn particular scrutiny, with defense attorneys and Crawford's supporters arguing there's no proof a crime even occurred. Crawford was convicted of murdering his 1-year-old son. He told authorities he'd been sleeping next to his son and woke up to find him unresponsive in 2012. Prosecutors argued that Crawford smothered the boy. But the defense argued the boy had pneumonia and could have died from natural causes. Defense attorneys also challenged the prosecution's exclusion of certain African-American jurors, and in the end the judges tossed out the conviction on that issue. But Kappel said she was heartened by the fact that some of the justices wanted to go even further and throw the case out for lack of evidence. It was not immediately clear what the Caddo Parish district attorney's office would do next. A new district attorney was elected last year after Cox decided not to run for election; James E. Stewart became the parish's 1st black DA. In a statement, Stewart did not say whether he would immediately push for a new trial. Noting the opinions of justices who wanted to acquit Crawford, Stewart said he would send it to a new assistant district attorney "...for re-evaluation of case in order to make a determination of a proper course of action to proceed forward in this matter." Caddo death row inmate to get a new trial A local man convicted of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to death has been granted a new trial. Rodricus Crawford was convicted in 2013 of the 1st-degree murder of his 1 year-old son, Roderius Lott. In September, Cecelia Kappel, an attorney with the Capital Appeals Project, made arguments on his behalf. The Louisiana Supreme Court issued an opinion Wednesday in the matter. Crawford's convictions and sentences have been reversed. In Kappel's September arguments on Crawford's behalf, she cited several portions of the case that fell to the high court to review. Examples included sufficiency of evidence, evidence of innocence and prosecuting attorney Dale Cox's statement that Jesus Christ himself would impose the death penalty. In all, 23 assignments of error were raised. Following Crawford's trial, more evidence was discovered that called the prosecution's case into question. In a case that has been cited as entirely circumstantial, Crawford's plight has drawn attention from the national media. It is 1 of several that allegedly highlights the high rates of cases resulting in death penalty sentences in Caddo Parish. In a statement to The Times, the Caddo Parish District Attorney's office said the case will be reassigned. A new assistant district attorney will re-evaluate the case in order to make a determination on a proper course of action to proceed further in the matter. "This case has been a tragedy from the start," Kappel said in a statement to The Times. "We look forward to continuing to work with the Caddo Parish District Attorney's Office in order to right this injustice." | 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: Associated Press, November 17, 2016Source: Shreveport Times, November 17, 2016 Lt Gen Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmed has emerged as the favourite for the post of Pakistans next army chief, but there is speculation that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will go for his own candidate despite recommendations sent to him from the army headquarters. Current army chief Gen Raheel Sharif has begun his farewell tour of garrisons across the country, but there is still a question mark as to who will replace him in the most powerful position in Pakistan. With November 29 set to be Gen Sharifs last day in office, it now falls to the prime minister to pick an army chief for the record fourth time. Additionally, the premier will name a new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee, another position falling vacant due to the retirement of Gen Rashad Mehmood. Pakistani media reported on Tuesday that the word in political circles is Lt Gen Ahmed, currently the Multan Corps commander and a key player in counter-terrorism operations, will be named the army chief. In addition, Lt General Zubair Hayat was tipped to be appointed chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee. Others in contention for the post of army chief are Bahawalpur Corps Commander Lt Gen Javed Iqbal Ramday and Inspector General of Training and Evaluation Lt Gen Qamar Bajwa. All four generals are from the Pakistan Military Academys 62nd long course, but have had different career trajectories. Read | Pak Army chief will send list of probables to PM as tenure ends on Nov 29 The influential Dawn newspaper quoted unnamed aides of the prime minister as saying that Sharif had already made up his mind about the next army chief but he has kept his cards close to his chest. Though the prime minister is the only person who definitely knows who the next army chief will be, the word in political circles is that Lt Gen Ishfaq Nadeem (Ahmed)will be named the army chief, the report said. Lt Gen Ahmed, who belongs to the Azad Kashmir Regiment, earlier served as Chief of General Staff and Director General of Military Operations. In the past, the Multan Corps chief has traditionally been the strongest candidate for the top post. Generals Tikka Khan, Zia-ul-Haq and Jahangir Karamat all headed the II Corps in Multan before becoming army chief. Lt Gen Ramday was previously president of the National Defence University. Lt Gen Bajwa was earlier the commander of the important Rawalpindi Corps and is now the Inspector General of Training and Evaluation at the headquarters, a position Gen Raheel Sharif held before becoming army chief. Read | Battle-hardened Pak army equally ready for conventional war: Raheel Sharif It is the premiers prerogative to appoint the army chief by promoting a three-star general to a four-star rank. Lt Gen Hayat is the senior-most army officer while Lt Gen Ahmed is next in line in terms of seniority. But it is believed Lt Gen Ramday, who hails from Lahore and comes from a political family, could be a strong contender. The dark horse among the four contenders is Lt Gen Bajwa. The Pakistani media reported that the prime ministers choice will be important because the new army chief would have to oversee a transition from counter-terrorism operations to the conventional role of defending borders. The formal process for nomination starts with the General Headquarters sending a list of the senior-most generals to the prime minister via the defence ministry, but without making any formal recommendations. The premier then holds informal consultations with the outgoing army chief before announcing his decision. In a statement on Monday, defence minister Khawaja Asif was quoted as saying that the prime minister would soon hold a consultation with Gen Sharif. Libyan authorities said Tuesday that they have arrested a wife of the one-eyed militant leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, once considered the most dangerous man in the Sahara and a veteran al Qaeda-linked figure. A Libyan anti-terrorism force said that one of Belmokhtars wives, Asma Kadousi, was arrested Saturday along with a female companion. It said she had recently given birth in the militant stronghold of Darna, in eastern Libya. It said Belmokhtar is believed to be in southern Libya. A witness told The Associated Press earlier this month that he had seen Belmokhtar in the southern town of Sabha, where a drone attack reportedly killed a militant leader linked to Belmokhtar, along with six others, last week. The witness asked not to be named for security concerns, and it was not possible to confirm the report. The Algerian militant, once a top figure in al Qaedas North African affiliate, is one of the most-wanted militants in the region, with a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. He escaped a US drone strike in eastern Libya last year. Belmokhtar led the January 2013 attack on Algerias Ain Amenas gas complex, in which at least 35 hostages, including three Americans, were killed. Believed to be 43 years old, he was dubbed the one-eyed sheikh after losing an eye in combat. He was later named the leader of the Morabitoon, an al Qaeda-linked group that operates in northern and western Africa, according to the Long War Journal, a blog that monitors jihadi groups. Libya has been plagued by chaos since the 2011 uprising, in which US and European airstrikes helped rebels overthrow the longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Today much of the country is controlled by a patchwork of armed groups, some of which are allied to a UN-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, and others allied to authorities based in the countrys far east. The UN-brokered government on Tuesday condemned the killing of a senior religious official who was abducted in Tripoli a month ago. It was not clear who killed Nader al-Omrani, but he was a member of a religious body that is strongly opposed to Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter, who leads forces allied with the eastern government. Millions of black-clad Shia Muslims, crying and beating their chests in mourning, streamed through a shrine in the Iraqi city of Karbala Monday under heavy protection from the security forces. The processions of faithful walking to Imam Husseins mausoleum from all over Iraq have been routinely targeted by bombings over the years, but this time the Arbaeen commemoration saw very few attacks. The Islamic State group is battling tens of thousands of Iraqi forces in and around its last major stronghold of Mosul, and observers had feared it might seek to strike Baghdad or Karbala during Arbaeen. The authorities in Karbala, which lies about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Baghdad, said at least 24,000 soldiers and police were securing the area. Some pilgrims came from as far afield as Basra, Iraqs main southern port city some 500 kilometres away by road. I came walking from Basra with my wife and three sons... This is the third time, said Jaber Kadhem Khalif. We started walking 13 days ago and reached Karbala on Sunday night. The 40-year-old said his prayers would go to the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary group which has tens of thousands of men deployed on the front lines to fight IS. Support for Mosul Umm Ali came without her husband, who is with the security forces on the front lines. I came with my son and two daughters. I came from Samawa to Najaf by car, then from Najaf to Karbala on foot, to make a plea for my husbands safety, the 45-year-old said. We ask God to support us against Daesh (IS) members, to help us liberate Mosul and urge our politicians to remember the people who have sacrificed so much, she said. Arbaeen, which means 40 in Arabic, is an observance that peaks on the 40th day after the anniversary of Imam Husseins 680 AD death, but the pilgrimage takes place over several days running up to it. Shia Muslim pilgrims perform acts of worship on the last day of the Arbaeen religious festival on November 21, 2016, in the holy Iraqi city of Karbala, 80 kilometres south of Baghdad. (AFP) Nusayyef al-Khattabi, who heads the Karbala provincial council, said he expected the total number of visitors over several days to range between 17 and 20 million. Among them are an estimated three million foreigners, mostly Iranians who started crossing the border days ago. The last day of Arbaeen was dominated by a controversy in Iraq over the publication by Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat of an article accusing Iranian pilgrims of sexually harassing women during the commemoration. Newspaper controversy The article quoted a spokesman from the UNs health agency, which denied any such comment was ever made. It drew condemnation from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and several other leading Shiite figures and bodies demanding an apology. It kept Saudi-Iranian tension as a backdrop to the pilgrimage, after the deadly 2015 stampede during the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca prompted Tehran to angrily question Saudi custodianship of holy Muslim sites. I want to respond to what was published in Asharq al-Awsat. They want to slander the pilgrims and this event, said Magdi al-Muslim, a Shiite who is himself from Saudi Arabia. Our message to them is that we have Imam Hussein and we wont leave him, he said. The London-based paper said Monday that it had sacked its Baghdad correspondent over the false new story. Baghdad and much of the country south of the capital come to a standstill in the days preceding Arbaeen, as several major motorways are reserved for pilgrims on foot on one side and authorised vehicles on the other. Since the previous Arbaeen in December 2015, ISs caliphate has been unravelling and the jihadists are expected to increasingly turn to spectacular one-off attacks on symbolic targets. There were some attacks during Arbaeen this year, but with far fewer victims than in previous years. Karbala, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, faces the desert of Anbar, a vast province which was until recently an IS bastion and where jihadists still carry out frequent attacks. Philippine and US military officials agreed to scale back joint exercises and reduce US troop deployments, a Philippine general involved in the talks said on Tuesday, though a statement issued by the allies spoke of close cooperation. The joint statement omitted mention of any reduced level of engagement between the two militaries, though President Rodrigo Duterte has expressed his opposition to having foreign troops on Philippines soil and threatened to scrap exercises and abrogate pacts. US officials present at the talks in Manila took no questions, and the joint statement was issued via the hosts. Reading the statement, spokesman Brig Gen Restituto Padilla said there would be continued close cooperation in areas central to both our national and security interests. That would include humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, counter-terrorism and maritime security, he said. But one Philippine general involved in the talks said the two sides also agreed to reduce the size and frequency of joint exercises and the number of US troops taking part. The two allies will focus more on humanitarian assistance and disaster response operations and other non-traditional military training and exercises, said the general, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. The number of US troops would be small, he added. Some 5,000 American soldiers have taken part in exercises in the Philippines in the past two years. The Philippines has for decades been one of the United States most important Asian allies but the relationship has been shaken by Duterte voicing disdain and mistrust of Washington. Speaking to business leaders in Beijing last month, Duterte spoke of his separation from the US. A few days later he backtracked on those comments. In Peru on Saturday, Duterte met Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time and bemoaned what he called hypocrisy and bullying by the US and allies. The Philippine general said the defence ministry had instructed the military to scale back joint exercises, which should be refocused on disaster relief, and end naval and amphibious landing drills. Planned US deployments under a 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) which Duterte has said he would try to stop would go on as scheduled. But, that too, we will see a scaling down on the number of aircraft and troops rotated in our bases, the general added. Despite Dutertes threats, Philippine military chief Gen Ricardo Visaya and the commander of US forces in the Pacific, Admiral Harry Harris, met in Manila on Tuesday. The successful completion of the (meeting) ensures continued robust relations between the US and Philippine militaries, Padilla told reporters. This highlights the enduring commitment of both countries to the US-Philippine alliance. But even with Dutertes anti-American sentiment, Philippine-US joint exercises have continued to take place and Harris said at a Washington event last week: There has been no change in anything with the Philippines. Dutertes war on drugs which has seen more than 4,700 people killed is one of the main causes for differences with the US. The United Nations, the European Union and rights groups have raised concerns about alleged extrajudicial killings and a breakdown in the rule of law. Duterte has insisted he is not doing anything illegal, but would be happy to slaughter three million drug users. US President-elect Donald Trump abruptly cancelled and then rescheduled an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, after complaining about the nasty tone of its coverage. In a pair of early morning tweets, Trump said he had called off the interview after the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last minute, an account the newspaper disputed. But a Trump spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, later texted pool reporters: The meeting is taking place as planned. Eileen Murphy, the Times vice president for communications, confirmed the meeting was back on. He will meet with our publisher off-the-record and that session will be followed by an on-the-record meeting with our journalists and editorial columnists. Earlier, Murphy said the newspaper learned of the cancellation from reading Trumps tweet, insisting it was the president-elects camp not the Times that had tried to change the ground rules. They tried to yesterday -- asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to. In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record session with reporters and columnists. During the presidential campaign, the New York billionaire often railed at the Times coverage as biased against him. His latest Twitter comments showed his bitterness toward his influential hometown newspaper remains undiminished since his surprise November 8 victory. Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone! Trump wrote. The Times, which editorially endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, has dug into a host of Trump controversies since he launched his candidacy for the worlds most powerful office. These have included allegations by women that he had harassed or sexually assaulted them, his past failures as a real estate developer and his likely use of a $916 million loss to avoid paying US income taxes for years. On Monday, Trump met at his Trump Tower headquarters in Manhattan with television network executives and on-air personalities for an off-the-record discussion. The New Yorker, citing attendees, described the session as an astonishing aria of invective and resentment at the media. It quoted a participant as saying his behavior was totally inappropriate and outrageous. In an unprecedented move, President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would like to have Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit movement, as the next British ambassador to the US. Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Trump said in a tweet. Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 It is one of the rarest occasion that a foreign leader has indicated his favourite picture of a diplomatic envoy from other country. Trump and Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, have very good relationship. Read | Donald Trump and Nigel Farage are symptoms of the return of white nationalism Farage was one of the few world leaders to have met and endorsed Trump during the US presidential elections. He had also helped Trump prepare for debate. He had said that he is not for an ambassadorial posting. The British leader is likely to attend the January 20 inauguration of Trump as the 45th President of the US. Also Read | Trumps rise, Brexit vote similar: UKIP leader Farage Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Tuesday a controversial bill which could overturn mens convictions for child-sex assault if they married their victim would be withdrawn after a public backlash. We are taking this bill in the parliament back to the commission in order to allow for the broad consensus the president requested, and to give time for the opposition parties to develop their proposals, Yildirim said at a news conference in Istanbul. Opposition parties from across the political spectrum had heavily criticised the bill. School text books obtained from Mosul in Iraq showed the sickening propaganda used by the Islamic State to brain wash young children who the jihadists dub as the Cubs of the Caliphate. The Mirror, posted on its website, pictures of pages from the textbooks which were discovered in the eastern Mosul neighbourhood of Hay Al-Intasar during an ongoing military offensive to free hundreds of thousands of residents from ISIS grip in its last stronghold in Iraq. One exercise in the English for the Islamic State textbook for 11 year-old children asked students to find out the time but the clocks are pictured attached to sticks of dynamite with wires protruding from them. An Arabic grammar book for children aged 7-8 instructed students to use words like bomb, vest, martyr and explode in a sentence. An exercise asks students to fill in missing words in sentences such as I can shoot, __I? and He can bomb, __ he?. Another exercise instructs pupils to choose the correct word to complete the following sentence: Usaamah is a fighter. He is shooting in the __. The options listed are -- Battle, Park, Suq (market). Another page features a vocabulary list of countries. But the countries listed are all those from which significant numbers of foreign fighters have left in order to join ISIS in Syria and Iraq , such as Britain, France, Pakistan, Yemen and Nigeria, the report said. The English textbook was designed for children around the age of 11, but others, including the Arabic grammar book for children aged 7-8, show the violent propaganda being fed to children even younger. The books were used on a daily basis, as children in Mosul were forced to study for hours on end, the report said. The pictures even show evidence that some of the exercises have been completed in pencil. Earlier this year, ISIS had reportedly launched its first mobile app for children to teach them the Arabic alphabet and the vocabulary taught by it included jihadist themes along with words like tank, gun and rocket. More than a million people have been living in Mosul under the brutal terror of ISIS since the terror group captured the city in the summer of 2014. Indian yoga guru Ramdev, who arrived here on a week-long visit on Tuesday, has said he will create 10,000 jobs and make more investments in Nepal in the near future. Through Patanjali Ayurved, we will create 10,000 jobs in Nepal, he said adding his venture has already employed 1,000 people in the country. At present, our investment in Nepal stands at Indian Rs 1.5 billion. We are going to inject more investments here, totalling over Indian Rs 5 billion that will create the additional jobs, he told a news conference in Kathmandu. Ramdev has set up the Patanjali Ayurved Gram Udyog at Bara in southern Nepal. Nepal imports Patanjali products worth Indian Rs 1 billion a year from India, (and) we want to reduce the dependency and (we are) going to set up more ventures, Ramdev said, flanked by his aide, Acharya Balkrishan. He did not give details of his investment plans. Ramdev is scheduled to conduct a five- day yoga camp at Birgunj. President Bidhya Devi Bhandrai, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba, ministers, political leaders and members of the business community have been invited to the camp. More than 10,000 yoga trainers from Nepal and India have assembled at Birgunj for the past month for the camp. Bhandari will on Thursday inaugurate a new venture of Patanjali Ayurved that will produce organic medicines and other products. Ramdev, who has created a business empire with his Ayurveda products, has hundreds of outlets in Nepal that sell his groups items, which are widely popular in the country. The profits we make here will be invested in Nepal and for the well-being of the Nepali people, he said. Besides meeting the prime minister and some ministers, Ramdev will also travel to some districts to explore business opportunities, reports said. BELGRADE AWOKE TO AIR RAID sirens on the early morning of Sunday, April 6, 1941. At 6:50 the first German bombers flew over the capital city of Yugoslavia and began dropping their bombs to signal the start of Operation Strafgericht ( Punishment ). The attacks purpose was to pave the way for the German invasion of Yugoslavia and to punish the residents of Belgrade for overthrowing their pro-Fascist government on March 27. General dissatisfaction over the signing of a pact of alliance with the Axis powers by Yugoslavias government had resulted in mass demonstrations in the capital and a coup detat by a group of young army officers led by General Dusan Simovic. Adolf Hitler, caught amid preparations to assist Italys bogged-down forces in Greece, responded to the coup by invading Yugoslavia as well. Defending Belgrade was the 6th Fighter Wing of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force (JKRV), especially its 51st Group, based at the Belgrade airport in Zemun. Less than 10 minutes after the alert was sounded, 16 fighters of the 102nd, 161st and 162nd squadrons of the 51st Group took off to intercept the German bombers. Ten Messerschmitt Me-109Es of the 102nd were led by six of the best fighters the Yugoslavs had at the time their own homebuilt Rogozarski IK-3s. After taking off, the formation scattered in pairs and intercepted the Germans just as they arrived over Belgrade. Second Lieutenant Dusan Borcic and his wingman, 2nd Lt. Eduard Bamfic, separated over Senjak, one plane heading toward Romania while the second continued toward the old fortress at Kalamegdan. When Borcic reached an altitude of 13,125 feet, 18 Dornier Do-17Zs appeared to the north. Closing on them from the rear, he opened fire with his cannon and two machine guns.The nearest German bomber shook, fell out of formation and exploded on the banks of the Danube River. Borcics IK-3 had scored the first victory for a Yugoslav fighter in defense of the nations capital. Borcic continued his flight north, where the sky was black with German bombers coming from Hungary. His IK-3 plunged head-on into the enemy formation, its guns firing short bursts. The reckless maneuver confused the German pilots for a moment, but soon the bombers numerous Messerschmitt fighter escorts caught Borcic inside a trap known as the devils circle. He tried to escape, but Borcics moment of glory was soon over as his crippled IK-3 crashed on Belgrades Sarajevska Street. Meanwhile, his wingman, Bamfic, was wounded in a fight above the village of Batajnica. Returning to his base, he was again attacked, but he managed to land safely. Captain Sava Poljanec, commander of the 161st Squadron, was climbing alone in an IK-3 because his wingman, Sergeant Dusan Vujicic, had been forced to return to base by engine problems. From 4,000 meters Poljanec dived on a German formation he spotted over the village of Kmjaca. When he came close enough, he leveled out and opened fire, banked a little and then fired a short 20mm cannon burst.The left engine of a German bomber erupted in flames; then the aircraft fell into the Pancevacki Rit wetlands. Its crew survived and was taken prisoner. Suddenly, tracers buzzed by Poljanecs cockpit as 20 yellow-nosed Me-109Es dived toward him. Poljanec, a flight instructor and one of the three best aerobatic pilots in Yugoslavia at that time, rolled and spun his aircraft, but soon was also caught in a devils circle. One German pilot made the mistake of flying in front of the IK-3, and Poljanec fired a burst at him. Glycol vapor trailed from the Me- 109s fuselage as it dived, banking erratically from one side to another, as if the pilot was dead. With other Germans to his left and right, Poljanec had started his approach to the runway at Zemun when his IK-3 was hit again, by an Me-110 that had been strafing the airfield. Poljanec bailed out of his smoking fighter, and the Me-110 was chased away by Sergeant Sava Vujovic of the 101st Squadron. As another wave of Germans roared in at 10 a.m., Captain Tbdor Gogic and Sergeant Milisav Semiz attacked a formation of JunkersJu-87B dive bombers and shot one down. In a fierce fight with the escorting Messerschmitts, they soon used up their fuel and ammunition and returned to base. In the course of that first day, as German bombers attacked Belgrade in four waves Yugoslav fighters took off in pairs or small groups to intercept them. Small groups or single bombers continued to make nuisance raids in the evening. By the end of the day, the Yugoslavs claimed to have shot down at least 35 aircraft over their territory. According to the 6th Wings commander, Lt. Col. Bozidar Kostic, 10 of the German aircraft were downed by pilots of the 51st Fighter Group. The Germans themselves recorded the loss of two Do-17s, four Ju-87s, one Me-109 and five Me-110s in combat, as well as a sixth Me-110 that crashed on landing. The IK-3, the principal Yugoslav-built fighter during that brief but spirited aerial struggle of April 1941, had been the brainchild of three engineers: Ljubomir Ilic , Kosta Sivcev and Slobodan ZrnicZrle. Ilic, who gained his polytechnic diploma in Belgium, had an idea for a new fighter that could replace the Czech-built Avia BH-33E, the mainstay of the JKRV He attended the school of aeronautics in Paris, and in the evenings he listened to lectures at the Sorbonne. In Paris, Ilic met Kosta Sivcev, a pilot and an engineer who was working with the Breguet and Hispano-Suiza aircraft industry companies. The two friends returned to Yugoslavia in 1931 with definite ideas on what their first design would look like. In 1933, after finishing all their calculations and drawings, and testing a model in the wind tunnel at the Eiffel Institute in Paris, they decided to present their project to the chief of the technical department at head quarters, Colonel Srbobran Stanojevic. The colonel liked the idea immediately, and after battling with various skeptics for nearly a year, he managed to get permission from the ministry council to build a prototype.The new aircraft was designated IK-01, using the first letters of the manufacturers name, the Ikarus company in Zemun. It was a high-wing monoplane with fixed, spatted undercarriage and a fully enclosed cockpit. The plane was powered by an 860-hp Hispano-Suiza 12Y-Crs engine and armed with one 20mm cannon firing through the propeller hub and two 7.9mm machine guns in the front upper fuselage. The prototype flew for the first time on April 24, 1934. In its third flight, the pilot started performing aerobatics that were not authorized for the testing program, and the plane crashed when the fabric covering one part of the wing came apart. A new prototype, the IK-02, was constructed with its wings covered with duralumin instead of fabric. When it was completed in June 1936, it performed well, with a maximum speed of 270 mph 9 mph faster than originally planned. Between June 14 and 24, 1937, the IK-02 was tested in 16 mock dogfights with a Hawker Fury Mark I and won all of them, proving itself not only faster than the Fury but also more agile, and with a better rate of climb. Nevertheless, there were many who opposed introducing the IK-02 into service, for a variety of reasons. One of the skeptics, Captain Leonid Bajdak, expressed his doubts too loudly and was challenged by Lieutenant Janko Drobnikar to a duel in three categories: a climb to 4,000 meters (13,123 feet), a 140-kilometer (87-mile) race from Belgrade to Novi Sad and back, and a simulated dogfight over Zemun. On the day of the contest, Bajdak, piloting a Fury, and Drobnikar, flying an IK- 02, roared off the runway at Zemun. The IK-02 won the first round, climbing faster than the Fury. After reaching the agreedupon altitude, the two aircraft set off on their race to Novi Sad, and the IK-02 was the victor in that round as well. Then came the dogfight. Both pilots rolled and spun their aircraft to their respective limits, but when the IK-02 at last caught the Fury in its sights, Captain Bajdak surrendered and admitted that the Yugoslav fighter was indeed superior. Soon afterward, a batch of 12 IK-2s, as the production aircraft were designated, were built at the Ikarus factory. The first were delivered to the 6th Fighter Wing at Zemun, the rest went to the 4th Fighter Wing in Zagreb. On April 9, 1941, six of the 4th Wings IK-2s joined eight Hurricanes in defending the 8th Bomber Wings airfield at Rovine, near Banja Luka, against 27 German Me-109Es. One IK-2 and two Hurricanes were shot down, but the Germans lost two Me-109s, and another two were badly damaged. Some of the remaining IK-2s were destroyed by their crews prior to the Yugoslav retreat, while three planes were captured by the Germans, who later turned them over to the air arm of the independent state of Croatia. While they were working on the IK-01 in 1933, Ilic and Sivcev had started on a separate project building a streamlined, low-wing aircraft with retractable landing gear and enough speed and power to intercept the latest generation of bombers. That was also started as a private venture. After Slobodan Zrnic-Zrle, chief of the construction bureau of the airplane factory at Kraljevo, joined the team, the work was shared. Ilic developed aerodynamic calculations; Sivcev concentrated on equipment, tail surfaces and ailerons; and Zrnic focused on cross sections of the fuselage, wings and related structures, as well as engine installation. The new aircraft was designated the IK-3.The overall idea was to build an airplane that would be very maneuverable rather than fast, which would meet the needs of the Yugoslav fighter pilots. After testing the model in a wind tunnel, the design team chose the 980-hp Hispano Suiza 12Y-29 engine. Documentation was delivered to the air force for approval in 1936, and a contract to finish the prototype was signed in March 1937. After the prototype was completed in the Rogozarski factory in Belgrade, the first flight took place in May 1938. The test pilot, Captain Milan Bjelanovic, declared that the plane, which had a maximum speed of 327 mph, was extremely maneuverable and further said that the control efficiency was very good in all respects. The result of Ilic, Sivcev and Zrnics work looked like a compromise between the British Hawker Hurricane, the German Me-109E and the French Morane Saulnier M.S.406, but it could out turn the Me-109E and was faster than an M.S.406. The new fighter aircraft could climb to 16 ,404 feet in seven minutes. Its armament consisted of one Oerlikon FF 20mm cannon firing through the propeller hub and two 7.9mm Browning/FN machine guns in the upper front fuselage. On January 19, 1939, the prototype was destroyed in an accident when a test pilot pulled up too violently from a steep dive and the wing broke off; the plane crashed, and the flier was killed instantly. Once again, the adversaries of indigenous Yugoslav-built aircraft objected to the design, and the air force demanded additional static and aerodynamic testing. After a few wasted months, however, the decision to build the first group was confirmed. The initial 12 aircraft were delivered by March 1940. These were followed by another six planes by the end of July. Production IK-3s had some improvements in the front part of the cockpit and the rear end of the fuselage, as well as the addition of maintenance access panels. There were plans to produce 48 IK-3s in 1941 and 1942, and 25 aircraft were under construction when Yugoslavia was invaded. After the first day of aerial attacks, the German raids continued on April 7 but in smaller bombing formations. Yugoslav fighters changed their tactics, attacking in larger groups, and succeeded in breaking up German formations. Substantial numbers of German aircraft were shot down, but Yugoslav losses were also heavy. The remaining aircraft of the 51st and 32nd Fighter groups (three IK-3s and 11 Me-109Es) flew to the auxiliary airfield at Veliki Radinci near Ruma, where they were burned on the night of April 11 to prevent them from falling into German hands. At the time of the Axis invasion, one IK-3 airframe was getting a new 1,030-hp Rolls-Royce Merlin III engine, and it was planned to equip all subsequent IK-3s with the 1,100-hp Hispano-Suiza 12Y-51 engine. All experimental IK-3 derivatives, however, were later destroyed to prevent their capture. Also destroyed were all the blueprints and plans for the IK-5 project, a two-engine fighter-reconnaissance aircraft.Testing the IK-5 wind-tunnel model had given excellent results, and the famous designer Igor Sikorsky commented, This could be one of the best airplanes ever built. The German occupation did not end the story of Yugoslavias best prewar fighter.The IK-3s blueprints survived the war, carefully hidden under the floor of Slobodan Zrnic-Zrles house in Belgrade. After the war, relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union deteriorated because of Marshal Josip Broz Titos constant refusal to submit to Soviet protection. In 1948 Yugoslavia was put under an economic blockade by all Socialist countries. On the brink of war, Yugoslavia asked for military aid from the West, but that help especially in regard to fighter aircraft was too slow in coming, so the design team of Ilic, Sivcev and Zrnic found itself in business again. They built Model 211 and 212 trainers as well as 45 S-49A fighters developed from the IK-3. In 1951 the S-49A was followed by the more powerful S-49C fighter-bomber, 130 of which were produced. These were withdrawn from service in 1965, thus ending the era of Yugoslav piston-engine fighters. Originally published in the August 2004 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here. Oklahoma's death chamber "How merciless man is, how deaf to the cries of pity of other men; how light the pain of others seems to him, when his own is not mingled with it." - Roland Dorgeles, The Wooden Crosses On April 29, 2014, the state of Oklahoma tortured Clayton Lockett to death. An anonymous executioner, carrying out a death penalty sentence, attempted to administer a secret 3-drug cocktail, starting with a chemical designed to render Lockett unconscious. The executioner then added a drug to paralyze Lockett, and another to stop his heart - both of which would cause a conscious person immense pain, a sensation of asphyxiation and burning. Unfortunately, Lockett was conscious: The 1st drug was improperly administered. Lockett tried to rise up from the table but could only raise his head. "Oh man," he said. "I'm not ... something's wrong." Then he began to buck and writhe. Prison officials closed the curtains to hide the scene from witnesses. 30 minutes later, Lockett was declared dead. Lockett's family sued Oklahoma and Lockett's executioner for violating Lockett's Eighth Amendment right to be free from "cruel and unusual punishments." On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit tossed out the lawsuit, ruling that Lockett's lengthy torture was not "cruel and unusual," but rather "an innocent misadventure." The ruling is especially disturbing on the heels of a decision by the 8th Circuit allowing states to continue keeping their execution drugs secret. Together, these rulings effectively guarantee that there will be more botched executions in America - and that the victims of this torture and their families will have no legal recourse. The 10th Circuit rooted its ruling in the fact that "some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution," no matter "how humane" it may be. "Simply put," the court insisted, "the Eighth Amendment does not require the avoidance of all risk of pain in carrying out executions." Instead, the Constitution simply forbids "the deliberate infliction of pain for the sake of pain." To bolster this proposition, the court cited a Supreme Court decision from 1890, which is almost comically out of step with modern death penalty jurisprudence. "Everyone acknowledges that Lockett suffered during his execution," the court then conceded. "But that alone does not make out an Eighth Amendment claim." In this case, the court concluded, the state had not intentionally tortured Lockett, but simply embarked upon an "innocent misadventure." This "isolated mishap" did not violate Lockett's constitutional rights, and his family's lawsuit must thus be dismissed. One aspect of the 10th Circuit's reasoning is especially perverse. The execution apparently went wrong because the execution team selected an injection site near Lockett's groin, then placed a cloth over the "groin area ... to shield any view of Lockett's naked groin from witnesses." This cloth interfered with the injection site, partially displacing the IV. The 10th Circuit dismissed this hugely consequential error with sympathy and admiration for the executioner. His team, the court explained, "covered Lockett's groin area" not "to cause Lockett pain," but out of "concerns for Lockett's dignity and privacy." These concerns, the court insisted, were reasonable, even commendable - and their ostensible laudability outweighs the fact that they actually constituted gross negligence that resulted in torture. Although lethal injection was designed to be a humane alternative to more gruesome forms of execution, it has proved to be flawed and unreliable. Lethal injection has the highest rate of botched executions, and when the procedure goes awry, the agony inflicted on the inmate is indescribably severe. Judge Alex Kozinski, who serves on the 9th Circuit, has written that "subverting medicines meant to heal the human body to the opposite purpose was an enterprise doomed to failure." He has argued earnestly for the return of the firing squad, which is effective and largely foolproof, declaring: Sure, firing squads can be messy, but if we are willing to carry out executions, we should not shield ourselves from the reality that we are shedding human blood. If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad, then we shouldn't be carrying out executions at all. Of course, America could also simply abandon its practice of killing certain arbitrarily chosen inmates, like virtually every other Western country. It seems inevitable that the United States will ultimately abolish capital punishment given its plummeting support. But in the meantime, many voters still seem to like executions. And with the election of Donald Trump, abolitionists likely saw their best opportunity for an immediate end to executions - a liberal Supreme Court majority - go out the window. | 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: slate.com, November 17, 2016 DESIGNATION: Bluie West One Airfield OPERATIONAL: January 1942 CAMPAIGN: Atlantic ON JUNE 19, 1941, SIX MONTHS before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a small naval convoy consisting of the troop transport USS Mimargo (AP-20) and three other ships made its way out of New York Harbor to carry out one of the U.S. Armys least-known prewar operations. Aboard Mimargo were 254 officers and men of the 3rd Battalion, 21st Engineer Aviation Regiment (EAR). Among them was my father, Lieutenant John James Haley, the battalion staff engineer. He had earned his degree in civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin, where he had joined the ROTC program. The 21st EAR had been formed only a year earlier to meet the need for engineer units able to provide specialized support for the U.S. Army Air Corps. The 3rd Battalion had been training at Langley Field, Va., when orders came to deploy. Another 215 men were aboard the transport USS Chateau Thierry (AP-31). They included the support force for the engineers in addition to medical, quartermaster, signal, weather and ordnance detachments, as well as a composite battery from the 62nd Coast Artillery Regiment. The entire force of less than 500 officers and men was under the overall command of Army Air Corps Colonel Benjamin F. Giles. In June 1941, the 3rd Battalion like the rest of the regiment was still at peacetime levels: a headquarters and service company and two letter companies. None of those components was at full strength, and each letter company fielded only two platoons. When the deployment order came, the battalion hastily augmented its meager equipment roster with heavier equipment from the regiment. Rumors of a warm-weather destination fed by the yellow fever inoculations the men received before sailing were quashed when the ships turned north out of New York and, six days later, steamed into Argentia Bay, Newfoundland. Aboard Mimargo, the officers of the 3rd were finally briefed on the operation by their battalion commander, Major Edward Walters. The 3rds secret mission was to build Bluie West One, the first U.S. Army airfield in Greenland. During the spring of 1941, the War Department had wrestled with the problem of what to do about Greenland. Intelligence had already identified German agents there transmitting valuable meteorological data to Germanys Atlantic Fleet. Two other problems worried military planners. First, the numbers of U.S. aircraft being ferried across the Atlantic under the Lend-Lease program were increasing. Additional links in the air bridge to England had to be built, and Greenland was the logical place. Second, southwest Greenland was the worlds only commercial source of cryolite, a mineral essential in the production of aluminum. Greenland had to be protected from Germany, and airfields were needed for patrol aircraft. Greenland was a Danish colony, but in April 1940, Denmark had fallen to invading Nazi troops. On April 9, 1941, the minister of the Danish government-in-exile in Washington and U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull signed an agreement by which the United States would become the protector of the Northern Hemispheres largest island. A month earlier, anticipating the agreement, the War Department had dispatched the South Greenland Survey Expedition aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Cayuga. The expedition identified 13 possible sites for airfields, the most promising of which was at Narsarsuaq, a large glacial plain located at the head of Tunulliarfik Fiord in southwest Greenland. Aboard Mimargo, the 3rd Battalion and its support units, now known as the Greenland Defense Force, made their way up Tunulliarfik Fiord, and on July 7, 1941, the first engineer and support troops were transported to the gravel beach via the ships whaleboats. Narsarsuaq its Greenlandic name means the big plain is an expanse of glacial plain at the foot of the Kuussuup Sermia glacier. The glacier had once calved icebergs into the fiord, but it has been a dead glacier for many thousands of years, its head now sitting several miles back from the shore. Located at 61 degrees north latitude (about the same as Anchorage, Alaska), Narsarsuaq is surrounded by rounded, glacier eroded mountains thrusting up to 3,600 feet, their treeless heights covered with heather and wildflowers. The only trees are along the rivers and streams. The ruins of Eric the Reds late 10th-century homestead stand across an arm of the fiord. Living temporarily aboard Mimargo, the engineers immediately set to work. Trucks, jeeps and heavy equipment were offloaded and, under the direct supervision of battalion executive officer Captain Gerard Forney, the engineers began laying out and grading a 5,000-foot runway. Others began erecting prefabricated wooden buildings. Mimargo and Chateau Thieny departed in August, and the Greenland Defense Force moved into tents ashore. From that point on, the main support was provided by the 165-foot cutter Algonquin, whose armament offered a real challenge to any German U-boats trying to reach the head of the fiord. A severe windstorm hit the camp in August. Although the winds blowing off the glacier often reached speeds of more than 100 mph, the head of the meteorological detachment estimated that gusts during the August storm reached 170 mph. Tents were blown down, and large steel fuel tanks were hurled across the plain. By September 1941, the engineers had erected some 85 wooden buildings and Narsarsuaq began to look like the major construction site it was. In September civilian contractors from a New Orleans dredging company arrived to build a wharf. With the deployment to Narsarsuaq of an additional engineering company, military strength was brought to 665 officers and men. Despite the backbreaking work six days a week, clouds of midges and mosquitoes, outbreaks of scurvy, a singular lack of diversions, and harsh working and living conditions, there were few disciplinary problems. Many of the troops of the 3rd Battalion were from southwestern Pennsylvania. They were professional soldiers and used to the hardships of the coal fields and the Depression. The Danes had insisted on a ban on all contact between American forces and Greenlanders, but there were so few Greenlanders in the area that the restriction hardly mattered. For the most part, the men worked, ate and slept. As winter approached, daylight at Narsarsuaq dwindled to only three or four hours a day, and after dark work on the runway continued under floodlights. Boulders were moved or dynamited, the rocky terrain was graded, drainage culverts were built, and the nearly mile-long runways dirt surface was overlaid with pierced steel plank (PSP). As far as anyone knows, it was the first operational use of PSP. Bluie West One was finally declared open in January 1942. The airfield immediately became an important link in the Atlantic air bridge. The War Department had recognized as early as mid-1940 that increased reliance on air power required some sort of reorganization on the part of the Armys Corps of Engineers. Engineer aviation regiments (of which the 21st was the first designated) had been tried, but they werent the solution. Based on the experience in Greenland, the Army decided to organize a number of self-contained engineer aviation battalions, and on April 20, 1942, the 3/21st Engineer Aviation Regiment was redesignated the 825th Engineer Aviation Battalion. More than 50 such battalions eventually were fielded during World War II. In early June 1942, when the ice had broken up in the fiord, the transport ship USS Dorchester arrived to take the 825th Engineer Aviation Battalion back to the United States, where it briefly rested and refitted before deploying to England in August. Originally published in the August 2004 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here. The Soviet-German war was the fiercest, most brutal and most costly chapter in World War II. Since this conflict ended with the destruction of both Germanys Wehrmacht and Adolf Hitlers Third Reich, it was also the wars most decisive theater. It is unfortunate, therefore, that until very recently for largely political, ideological and military reasons the historical record of this struggle has remained woefully incomplete. Newly released Russian and German archival sources now indicate that Soviet histories of the war overlooked or obscured as much as 40 percent of the Red Armys wartime military operations, primarily its failed offensives, in a deliberate attempt to conceal those defeats or to protect the reputations of defeated wartime commanders. Resurrecting many of these forgotten battles enables us to recognize the contributions of the thousands of Red Army soldiers who fought, perished or simply endured for the sake of their Motherland, only to see history forget their sacrifices. German Operations Barbarossa in 1941 and Blue in 1942 interrupted by the Red Armys successful defense of Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov in late 1941 and its partially successful counteroffensive during the winter of 1941-42 dominated the first 18 months of war on the Eastern Front. Although the Wehrmacht retained the strategic initiative throughout much of this period, the Red Army managed to deny Hitler victory at Moscow, ensuring he could no longer win the war. Histories have portrayed Barbarossa, which began on June 22, 1941, and ended on December 5, 1941, as a virtually seamless German advance from the Soviet Unions western frontiers to the gates of Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov, punctuated by occasional heavy fighting but unfaltering until German forces reached Moscow. From late June through September 1941, however,Josef Stalin and his Stavka (High Command) deliberately and repeatedly tried to halt the German juggernaut by launching incessant counterstrokes and, in at least one case, a full-fledged counteroffensive. As early as late June, the Red Army attempted to blunt the German advance with its large tank and mechanized force. In Lithuania the Northwestern Fronts 3rd and 12th Mechanized corps struck back at German Army Group North at Kelme and Raseiniai; in Belorussia the Western Fronts 6th, 11th and 14th Mechanized corps counterattacked against Army Group Center near Grodno and Brest; and in the Ukraine the Southwestern Fronts 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 15th, 19th and 22nd Mechanized corps launched massive counterstrokes against Army Group South near Brody and Dubno. Poorly coordinated and supported, those assaults proved utterly futile and often suicidal, and they ultimately resulted in the destruction of most of the Red Armys tank and mechanized force. Only the massive attacks in the south, personally directed by army General Georgi K. Zhukov, the chief of the Red Army General Staff, had any appreciable effect on the overwhelming German advance. In July the Red Army launched yet another series of heavy counterstrokes. The Northwestern Front struck the vanguard of Army Group North near Soltsy, delaying the German advance toward Leningrad for a full week. And in the center, the Western and Central fronts launched multiple unsuccessful counterstrokes to contain Army Group Centers forces along the Dnepr River. These futile struggles included the spectacular destruction of the Western Fronts 5th and 7th Mechanized corps near Lepel, Marshal Semyon Timoshenkos notorious but also pathetically weak Timoshenko offensive against General Heinz Guderians Second Panzer Group along the Sozh River, and a counterstroke near Bobruisk, all of which were unable to stop Army Group Centers advance toward Smolensk. In the south, multiple counterattacks by the Southwestern Front near Korosten slowed but failed to halt Army Group Souths advance toward Kiev. Undeterred by its July failures, the Red Army continued striking back against the advancing Germans in August. In the north, the Northern and Northwestern fronts assaulted Army Group Norths vanguard near Staraia Russa, again delaying the German advance for a week. In the center , the Western Front assaulted Army Group Center east of Smolensk with five ad hoc shock groups to rescue its forces surrounded in the city. Although all of these Red Army attacks ended in failure, their ferocity persuaded Hitler to delay his advance on Moscow and instead engage softer targets around Kiev. Finally, in late August, the Western, Reserve and Briansk fronts launched a massive counteroffensive in the Smolensk, Elnia and Roslavl regions to prevent the Germans from continuing their advance on Moscow and Kiev. The ensuing bloody failure weakened the Red Armys defenses along the Moscow axis, contributed to its disastrous defeats at Viazma and Briansk in early October, and led to the Wehrmachts subsequent spectacular advance on Moscow during Operation Typhoon. Finally, during the initial stages of Operation Typhoon in late October, the Northwestern Front employed a special operational group (Group Vatutin) near Kalinin to halt the German Ninth Armys advance to the vital Leningrad-Moscow railroad line and ultimately prevent that army from participating in the final Wehrmacht drive on Moscow. These forgotten battles also explain why the Wehrmacht ultimately suffered defeat at the gates of Moscow in early December 1941. Accounts of the Battle of Moscow and the Red Armys winter offensive of 1941-42 ignore Soviet counteroffensives in the Leningrad region, near Viazma west of Moscow, near Bolkhov and Oboian south of Moscow, and in the Crimea. In the north, the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts launched a massive Leningrad-Novgorod (Liuban) offensive in January 1942 to defeat Army Group Norths Eighteenth Army and raise the siege of Leningrad. Although the Volkhov Fronts forces managed to pierce German defenses, Army Group North struck back, encircling and destroying the Soviet 2nd Shock Army and 13th Cavalry Corps by early July 1942. In the wake of the Red Armys successful January counteroffensive at Moscow, in February 1942 the Kalinin and Western fronts launched their Rzhev-Viazma offensive to encircle and destroy Army Group Center. Spearheaded by cavalry and airborne forces, the two fronts penetrated German defenses northwest and southeast of Moscow and almost linked up in the Viazma region. Although it created havoc in Army Group Centers rear area, this offensive also failed after months of fighting, leaving large Red Army forces isolated in Army Group Centers rear area until German forces liquidated them in midsummer. Coincident with its January and February offensives, the Red Armys Briansk and Southwestern fronts also conducted a largescale offensive to eliminate a massive German salient jutting eastward from Kursk toward the Bolkhov and Oboian regions. However, the so-called Orel-Bolkhov, Bolkhov and Oboian- Kursk offensives also failed. Similarly, an unsuccessful Northwestern Front offensive in the Demiansk region and an offensive by the Crimean Front in the Crimea have also disappeared from the pages of history. The Red Army also reacted far more aggressively while the Wehrmacht was conducting Operation Blue from June 28 through November 18, 1942. Rather than abandoning the strategic initiative to the Germans, in May 1942 the Soviets conducted major offensives at Kharkov and in the Crimea. Even after those offensives failed and Operation Blue began, the Red Army struck back fiercely at the Wehrmacht as the Germans advanced toward Stalingrad. During July and August 1942, the Red Army conducted numerous counterattacks against Wehrmacht forces advancing toward Stalingrad and against German defenses elsewhere along the front. Masked by the dramatic German advance, these forgotten battles include three major offensives near Voronezh, one in concert with an impressive counterstroke west of Stalingrad, and others near Siniavino, Demiansk, Rzhev, Zhizdra and Bolkhov. The Red Army conducted its largest-scale attempt to defeat Operation Blue during July, August and September in the Voronezh region.Throughout July it employed its new 5th Tank Army and as many as seven tank corps numbering up to 1,500 tanks in this series of counterattacks. Moreover, Stavka coordinated the 5th Tank Armys assault west of Voronezh with major counterstrokes by the Stalingrad Fronts 1st and 4th Tank armies along the approaches to the Don River west of Stalingrad. The Red Army also timed its offensives in the Demiansk, Rzhev, Zhizdra and Bolkhov regions to coincide with operations near Voronezh and at Stalingrad. For example, the Western and Briansk fronts employed several tank corps and, later, the new 3rd Tank Army in their July and August offensives near Zhizdra and Bolkhov. On the other hand, the Western and Kalinin fronts August-September offensive near Rzhev, which was orchestrated by Zhukov and achieved modest success, became a virtual dress rehearsal for an even larger counteroffensive in the same region later in the year (Operation Mars). Although the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts second offensive at Siniavino, east of Leningrad, in August and September 1942 failed disastrously, it prevented German forces from capturing Leningrad and tied down the German Eleventh Army In the process, however, the 2nd Shock Army, which the Germans had already destroyed at Miasnoi Bor by early July, was destroyed once again in September near Siniavino. The Red Army again seized the strategic initiative in late November 1942 by virtue of its twin offensives in the Rzhev and Stalingrad regions (Operations Mars and Uranus) and held it during its ambitious but only partially successful offensive in the winter of 1942-43. Quite naturally, the Red Armys victory at Stalingrad, its advance to Kharkov and south to the Donbas region in early 1943, and Field Marshal Erich von Mansteins counterstroke in the south dominate accounts of the winter campaign. Those accounts, however, totally ignore three major Red Army offensives Operation Mars, Operation Polar Star and the Orel-Briansk-Smolensk offensive and severely understate the scope of its Donbas offensive, exaggerate its achievements at Demiansk and Rzhev, and distort Stavkas strategic intent in the late winter of 1942-43. During Operation Mars, the second Rzhev-Sychevka offensive in late November and December 1942, which was directed by Zhukov, the Western and Kalinin fronts sought to destroy the German Ninth Army and, if possible, all of Army Group Center. Although Mars ended in bloody failure, it weakened the Ninth Army and ultimately forced Army Group Center to abandon the salient in February 1943. At least in part, the offensive was forgotten to preserve Zhukovs reputation. The Western, Briansk and Central fronts conducted their massive Orel-Briansk-Smolensk offensive from early February through late March 1943 to collapse German defenses in central Russia and drive Werhmacht forces back across the Dnepr River. Although the Central Fronts forces reached the Desna River west of Kursk, the offensive faltered in early March when the Western and Briansk fronts failed to dent German defenses around Orel, and Mansteins counterstroke recaptured Kharkov and Belgorod. This offensive left the infamous bulge at Kursk. The Northwestern, Leningrad and Volkhov fronts conducted Operation Polar Star in February and March 1943 to pierce Army Group Norths defenses near Staraia Russa, liquidate the Germans Demiansk salient, raise the siege of Leningrad, encircle and destroy the bulk of Army Group North, and commence the liberation of the Baltic region. This offensive faltered after the Germans voluntarily withdrew from their Demiansk salient, and Mansteins counterstroke forced Stavka to shift its strategic reserves to the south. Although a clear failure, Operation Polar Star served as a virtual dress rehearsal for Stavkas January 1944 offensive, which ultimately liberated the Leningrad region. Finally, existing accounts of the Red Armys first Donbas offensive in February 1943 overlook a major portion of the Southwestern Fronts offensive and the major role the Southern Front played in the failed effort to expel German forces from the Donbas region. Specifically, these accounts ignore the full context of the 8th Cavalry Corps famous advance to Debaltsevo by simply calling it a raid rather than a failed advance by several mobile corps. THE RED ARMYS SIGNAL VICTORY AT KURSK in July 1943 and its subsequent dramatic exploitation to and across the Dnepr in the battles for Gomel, Kiev and Kremenchug dominate existing histories of the summer-fall campaign of 1943. However, these accounts mask several bloody operational defeats spanning the entire front, from Siniavino in the north to the Taman Peninsula in the south, most of which took place when an overly optimistic Stavka tested the operational limits of its forces completing successful offensive operations. Furthermore, contrary to continuing claims that Stavka routinely focused its offensive efforts along a single strategic axis, specifically in the Ukraine, in reality it ordered the Red Army to conduct strategic offensives along multiple axes and across a broad front throughout the campaign. The only major forgotten conflict during the summer of 1943 occurred within the context of the Battle of Kursk, when the Southwestern and Southern fronts jointly attacked along the northern Donets and Mius rivers. Although the motives for this second Donbas offensive remain unclear, as Soviet sources claim, the offensive was probably designed to collapse German defenses in the Donbas and attract vital German armored reserves away from the Kursk region. The most dramatic forgotten battles during this campaign began in early October, when the Kalinin (1st Baltic), Western, Briansk and Central (Belorussian) fronts drove into eastern Belorussia to capture Minsk; the Voronezh (1st Ukrainian) Front began operations to expand or seize new bridgeheads over the Dnepr north and south of Kiev; and the Steppe (2nd Ukrainian), Southwestern (3rd) and Southern (4th) fronts struggled to clear German forces from the Dnepr River bend from Kremenchug south to Nikopol. The Red Armys first Belorussian offensive, which began in early October and continued unabated through years end, involved intense and costly fighting on the approaches to Vitebsk, Orsha and Bobruisk and along the Dnepr. Although existing histories describe small fragments of this massive offensive, such as the Nevel and Gomel-Rechitsa operations, they studiously ignore the offensives full scope and ambitious intentions. The same accounts also routinely ignore the Voronezh Fronts bitter struggle in October 1943 to seize a strategic bridgehead across the Dnepr River in the Kiev region. During three weeks of bloody but futile fighting, the Voronezh Fronts 38th, 60th, 40th, 3rd Guards Tank, 27th and 47th armies, in conjunction with the Central Fronts 13th and 60th armies, failed to dislodge forces from Army Group Souths Fourth Panzer and Eighth armies, which contained Red Army bridgeheads in the Chernobyl, Gornostaipol, Liutezh and Velikii Bukrin regions. In this instance, the Voronezh Fronts spectacular victory at Kiev in November erased these failed offensives from both memory and history. At the same time, existing accounts also largely ignore the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Ukrainian fronts equally frustrating failure to clear Army Group Souths forces from the lower Don region during their Krivoi Rog-Nikopol offensive from November 14 to December 31, 1943. The North Caucasus Front conducted its Taman offensive from early April through August 1943 to clear German forces from the northern Caucasus region. Directed for a time by Zhukov, this offensive included a prolonged series of unsuccessful assaults against the German Seventeenth Armys fortified defenses around the towns of Krymskaia and Moldavanskoe, which anchored Hitlers bridgehead in the Taman region. Finally, the Leningrad Fronts sixth Siniavino offensive in mid-September 1943 was a furious, bloody, but ultimately successful attempt to overcome Army Group Norths defenses on Siniavino Heights, a target that had eluded Soviet capture for more than two years. The Red Army retained the strategic initiative from January 1, 1944, until wars end. During this period, the Soviets conducted simultaneous and successive offensives on an unprecedented scale, and often without pause, in the Baltic region, the Ukraine, Belorussia, Poland, the Balkans and finally Germany proper, culminating in the final victory at Berlin in May 1945. Accounts of the winter campaign of 1944 focus exclusively on the Red Armys successful offensives in the Leningrad region, the Ukraine and the Crimea. While doing so, however, they ignore frequent Red Army offensive failures, most of which took place during the waning stages of successful offensives in hopes of taking advantage of apparent German weakness. These forgotten battles include major failed Red Army offensives into the Baltic region, Belorussia and Romania. The Leningrad Front, joined later by the 2nd and 1st Baltic fronts, conducted their Narva, Pskov-Ostrov and Pustoshka-Idritsa offensives along the eastern borders of the Baltic states during March and April 1944 to capitalize on Army Group Norths previous defeat south of Leningrad, penetrate the vaunted Panther Defense Line, and begin the liberation of the Baltic region. During this period, three Leningrad Front armies tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to destroy German forces defending Narva and thrust deep into Estonia, while three other Leningrad Front armies wedged into German defenses between Pskov and Ostrov on the northeast border of Latvia but were unable to seize either city despite six weeks of heavy fighting. To the south the massed forces of the 2nd and 1st Baltic fronts repeatedly battered the Sixteenth Armys defenses from Pustoshka southwest of Demiansk to Idritsa, but they only were able to achieve limited success. During the period from January 1 through the end of March, the 1st Baltic, Western and Belorussian fronts continued their first Belorussian offensive to overcome Army Group Centers defenses in eastern Belorussia, during which the fronts suffered more than 200,000 casualties in seven distinct offensives. Attacking north and east of Vitebsk, the 1st Baltic Front severed communications between German forces in Vitebsk and Polotsk and advanced into the western suburbs of the former.The Western Front assaulted German defenses southeast and south of the city, trying in vain to encircle it from the south. In southern Belorussia, the Belorussian Front captured Kalinkovichi north of the Pripiat River in January, drove German forces back to Rogachev and almost severed communications between Army Groups Center and South along the river. At the southern extremity of the front, the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts tried to capitalize on their successful March offensive in the Ukraine by mounting the first IasiKishinev offensive to breach German and Romanian defenses in northern Romania and capture those two vital cities in April and May 1944. The 3rd Ukrainian Fronts repeated failed attempts to breach German defenses along the Dnestr River in April and early May concluded with German counterstrokes that nearly destroyed many of the 3rd Ukrainian Fronts Dnestr bridgeheads. During the same period, the 2nd Ukrainian Front launched two major offensives, culminating on May 2 with an assault by almost 600 tanks from its 2nd, 5th Guards and 6th Tank armies. After four days of intense but totally forgotten fighting (called the Battle of Targul-Frumos by the Germans), counterattacking German panzer forces brought the offensive to an abrupt halt with heavy losses to the attackers. Because they were so successful, the Red Armys offensives during the summer and fall of 1944 in Belorussia, Poland and Romania sharply reduced the number of smaller battles in this campaign. However, although the Red Army achieved far more than it anticipated during those massive offensives, in at least two instances Stavka could not resist attempting to achieve even more, this time in failed offensives in eastern Prussia and eastern Hungary. THE 3RD BELORUSSIAN FRONT INVADED EASTERN Prussia immediately after the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts completed their successful Memel offensive in mid October 1944. By this time, attacking Red Army forces reached the Baltic Sea, separating Army Group Norths forces in Courland from Army Group Centers in East Prussia. Capitalizing on this situation, the 3rd Belorussian Front launched its first East Prussian offensive on October 16 by attacking westward toward Konigsberg with its 5th and 11th Guards armies and, later, its 31st, 39th and 28th armies and 2nd Guards Tank Corps. However, this offensive faltered with heavy losses after nearly a week of intense fighting when Red Army forces encountered deeply fortified defenses and intense counterattacks by hastily regrouped panzer reserves. During the East Carpathian offensive, which took place in the Carpathian Mountain region and eastern Hungary, elements of the 1st, 4th and 2nd Ukrainian fronts attempted to envelop the First Panzer Armys mountain defenses, disrupt communications between Army Groups Center and South, and encircle German and Hungarian forces defending eastern Hungary.The 1st Ukrainian Fronts 38th Army and 4th Ukrainian Fronts 1st Guards and 18th armies attacked through the mountains into eastern Slovakia to link up with the 2nd Ukrainian Fronts 6th Guards Tank and 27th armies and 1st Guards cavalry-mechanized group attacking northward through eastern Hungary. This offensive failed to achieve its ambitious aims when the 38th Armys attack bogged down in the Dukla Pass, the 4th Ukrainian Fronts attack ground to a halt in the mountains, and the 2nd Ukrainian Fronts cavalry-mechanized group was itself encircled and badly damaged at Nyiregyhaza north of Debrecen by counterattacking German panzer forces. Most accounts of the offensive operations the Red Army conducted during the winter and spring of 1945 focus on its massive offensives in East Prussia and Poland and, to a lesser extent, in Hungary. In so doing they ignore two other forgotten battles: the Berlin offensive, which was planned but not conducted until April; and the Western Carpathian offensive, which failed to achieve its ambitious goals. After the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts reached the Oder River, 60 kilometers east of Berlin, in late January 1945, Stavka ordered their forces to mount a final assault to capture Berlin by the end of February or early March. Within days after both fronts began this new offensive, however, on February 10 Stalin ordered them to stop.The most probable explanation for his change of heart was his desire to shift the axis of the Red Armys main advance from Berlin to western Hungary and Austria so that it could occupy the Danube basin before hostilities ended. Stalin reached this decision while Allied leaders were meeting at Yalta, shortly after Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill assured him that the Red Army could capture Berlin and advance to the Elbe River. Ultimately, the Soviets began their Berlin offensive on April 16, the day after Vienna fell to the Red Army. During the same period, the 1st, 4th and 2nd Ukrainian fronts launched the West Carpathian offensive to overcome stiff German resistance in the western Carpathians in northwestern Slovakia. The 1st Ukrainian Fronts 60th and 38th armies attacked southward through Moravska-Ostrava toward Brno in conjunction with the 4th Ukrainian Fronts 1st Guards and 18th armies to link up with mobile forces from the 2nd Ukrainian Front, which were attacking northward toward Brno. The 1st Guards cavalry mechanized group and 6th Guards Tank Army, which spearheaded the 2nd Ukrainian Fronts northward thrust, suffered heavy losses when this offensive failed. The Red Armys climactic offensives against Berlin and Prague in April and May 1945 crushed the remnants of the Wehmtacht and shrank the theater of military operations to such an extent that Soviet intentions were quite obvious. The only exceptions to this rule were a series of Red Army offensives in Courland that were obscured by the dramatic fighting in Poland and at Berlin. After isolating Army Group North in the Courland Peninsula in mid-October 1944, the 1st and 2nd Baltic fronts besieged this German force until it surrendered on May 9, 1945. Although existing histories accurately describe the Courland siege in general, they obscure the heavy fighting that occurred when Red Army forces attempted to reduce the pocket: for example, the concerted offensives the fronts conducted in late October 1944; from November 20-24 and December 21-22, 1944; and in late February and mid-March 1945. This brief survey identifies many but not all forgotten battles of the Great Patriotic War. An accurate history will emerge only after those battles have been returned to their proper place in the vast mosaic of wartime operations. Only then will we completely comprehend the military strategies and operational techniques of the participating armies. Only then will we be able to fully appreciate the contributions of the Red Armys soldiers. Originally published in the August 2004 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here. Key decisions involving the United States role in World War II, from the nonrecognition of Japans Manchurian conquest in 1931 to the bombing of the Hiroshima in 1945, were influenced by Henry L. Stimson. As President Herbert Hoovers secretary of state, he created the main obstacle in Japanese-American relations before World War II, the Stimson Doctrine. As President Franklin D. Roosevelts secretary of war, Stimson backed the presidents forceful actions against the Axis powers. As the man responsible for home-front security, Stimsons term military necessity helped put Japanese Americans behind barbed wire. And as the cabinet member most knowledgeable about the Manhattan Project, Stimson told the newly sworn-in President Harry S Truman about the atomic bomb and later urged him to use it. Henry Lewis Stimson was born in New York City on September 21, 1867. His ancestors had fought in every American conflict stretching back to King Philips War in 1675. His father, Lewis Atterbury Stimson, set a high example for his son by making a fortune as a young banker and then dedicating his life to the practice of medicine. Meanwhile, his uncle , the Reverend Henry Albert Stimson, taught the young boy the gospel of social reform, laying the foundation for his nephews future progressivism. Educated at Yale and Harvard Law School, Stimson began his career in 1893 with the law firm of Root & Clark, where Elihu Root became his mentor and the model for Stimsons later career in government. Investing wisely in the stock market, Stimson became a wealthy man. He also served as a National Guard sergeant during the Spanish-American War. But the noblesse-oblige philosophy of his father and uncle led Stimson to the progressive wing of the Republican Party and particularly to his Long Island neighbor, Theodore Roosevelt. Stimsons association with Root, Roosevelts influential secretary of war, brought Stimson within the presidents orbit. In January 1902, while in Washington, D.C., Stimson was riding his horse near Rock Creek Park when he heard Roosevelt calling to him from the other side of the creek. The president wanted Stimson to swim across and join his group, which included Root. Looking at the rain-swollen creek, Stimson hesitated until he heard the voice of his former law partner: The president of the United States directs Sergeant Stimson of Squadron A to cross the creek and come to his assistance by order of the secretary of war. Stimson saluted smartly and shouted back, Very good, sir. Stimson and his horse nearly drowned thanks to the swift current, but they made it to the opposite bank.The president said, I thought you could see the bank on the other side was impossible. Stimson answered, Mr. President, when a soldier hears an order like that, it isnt his business to see that it is impossible. After that incident , TR called Stimson young Lochinvar and appointed him to his first public office as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. After trust busting for Roosevelt and making a failed bid for the governorship of New York, Stimson was appointed President William H. Tafts secretary of war in 1911. Stimson described himself politically as a progressive conservative. Like his hero TR and mentor Root, he was also an unabashed internationalist, believing that the United States must take a leading role in world affairs. When World War I started in 1914, Stimson now a private citizen distrusted the German empire and hoped for an Allied victory, but backed President Woodrow I Wilsons stand on neutrality. Stimson believed in pre paredness and supported his friend Maj. Gen. Leonard Woods Plattsburgh, N.Y., military camp for training businessmen as military leaders, attending the camp himself in the summer of 1916. Following the April 1917 U.S. declaration of war, the nearly 50- year-old former secretary of war wangled his way into second-in-command of the 305th Field Artillery Regiment, 77th Division, with a rank of lieutenant colonel. After Stimson landed in France, he attended the 12-week officer staff school at Langres, where one of his classmates was George S. Patton Jr. Following the armistice, Colonel Stimson left the Army, viewing his experience as a lesson in American democracy. In 1927 President Calvin Coolidge sent Stimson to mediate the Nicaraguan civil war. His success in the Latin American country led to his appointment later that year as governor general of the Philippines. He served in that capacity until the end of the Coolidge administration. President Hoover appointed Stimson secretary of state in 1929, placing him on a collision course with Japans expansionist policies. The Japanese army occupied Manchuria in 1931 and created a puppet regime the following year. The Hoover administration reacted with a nonrecognition policy and a demand for troop withdrawal. The Stimson Doctrine, adopted in 1933 by Franklin D. Roosevelts administration and invoked again when Japan invaded China in 1937, led to the American economic sanctions of 1940-41, which in turn led to Pearl Harbor. Throughout the 1930s, Stimson once again a private citizen spoke out against fascism. He worked to repeal U.S. neutrality laws, believing they aided aggressors. In 1938 he became honorary chairman of the American Committee for Non-Participation in Japanese Aggression. On June 19, 1940, 72-year-old Henry Stimson was summoned to duty by President Roosevelt who offered him his old position as secretary of war. Trying to put a bipartisan veneer on his administration, FDR had just appointed Republican newspaper publisher and 1936 GOP vice presidential candidate Frank Knox as secretary of the Navy and wanted Stimson to join his cabinet. Stimson accepted. Stimson immediately threw himself into the job of pushing through Congress the first peacetime draft in American history. Following the bills passage on September 16, 1940, Stimson and Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall began the long, slow process of building an army, then authorized at 1.4 million. Equally daunting was the need to equip the new army with modern arms from an American industry just recovering from the Depression. The industrial problem also hampered aid to Great Britain, which needed American war goods. When, just two months before the 1940 presidential election, the Roosevelt administration proposed swapping 50 old destroyers to Britain in exchange for British bases in the Western Hemisphere, Stimson not only urged the president to do so but also used his Republican credentials to ensure no opposition from GOP presidential candidate Wendell Willkie. He then wrote in his diary, very possibly the turning point in the tide of the warfrom now on we could hope for better things. Those better things came on December 29, 1940, when FDR made his Arsenal of Democracy Fireside Chat an overture for Lend-Lease. Five times the secretary of war went before Congress to testify on behalf of the Lend-Lease bill, which he described in his diary as an economic declaration of war against Hitler. On the day Lend-Lease became law, March 11, 1941, Stimson ordered the first supplies shipped to Britain. By the winter of 1940-41, Stimson knew the United States would have to fight and was pushing the always cautious FDR in that direction. On April 22 he met with Roosevelt and spoke to him can didly, insisting that the president show leadership by preparing American public opinion for war. When FDR ordered the U.S. Navy to patrol the western Atlantic for U-boats, Stimson cheered, but felt the president needed to go further. At the next cabinet meeting, FDR called the increased patrol area a step forward. Stimson replied: Well, I hope you keep on walking, Mr. President. Keep on walking. In July Japan marched into French Indochina. Stimson believed the Japanese had embarked on their final course of Far Eastern conquest. He supported the presidents full embargo against Japan and the freezing of Japanese assets. Furthermore, Stimson believed the United States must immediately beef up defenses in the Philippines, while the State Department should continue its diplomatic fencing with Japan. At the end of October, Stimson told Secretary of State Cordell Hull that he objected to an immediate declaration of war against Japan because the War Department needed extra time to build up the Philippines. He quoted his old friend TR, Speak softly and carry a big stick, adding that he needed time to strengthen the stick. In November 1941, fearing Japan was about to strike at British and Dutch possessions in the Pacific without attacking the United States, Stimson wrote in his diary, We should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot. The Pearl Harbor attack put the patriotism of Japanese Americans in question. Racists, bigots and many fair-minded but shortsighted people clamored for the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. Stimson, to his discredit, finally sided with the exclusionists, calling the removal policy a military necessity. But lawyer Stimson knew the injustice of the order, writing in his diary that the Japanese Americans were being removed franklyon the ground that their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even citizen Japanese.Im afraid it will make an awful hole in our constitutional system. Stimsons most important mark on World War II and the postwar world lay in the wars greatest secret the Manhattan Project. In 1941 FDR appointed Stimson to a committee on the employment of nuclear fission. By 1943 Stimson was senior adviser, coordinating work between the War Department and the Office of Scientific Research and Development. Moreover, Stimsons well-known integrity resulted in Congress pouring millions into a project the lawmakers knew nothing about. Shortly after Truman succeeded FDR, Stimson informed the new president about the nearly completed project. On July 2, 1945, Stimson submitted a Memorandum for the President, urging Truman to use all means available to force Japans surrender before launching a costly invasion.Two weeks later, when the atom bombs first test lit up the pre-dawn New Mexican sky, Stimson suggested a last chance warning to the Japanese the Potsdam Declaration. When Japan rejected the demand for surrender, Stimson approved the atom bomb target list and sent it to the president. Less than a month after the Japanese surrender aboard USS Missouri, the 78- year-old Stimson retired to private life. He died at his Long Island home on October 20, 1950. Henry Stimsons influence on Americas role in World War II stretched from the wars seedlings planted in Manchuria to the full flowering of its final tragedies at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Like most Americans, he hated war but believed it was the only way to destroy the warmongers. And that war transformed Stimson and the country he served. Japans air bombardment of Shanghai civilians in 1932 shocked and horrified Stimson and all Americans. But 13 years later two American bombs wiped out two Japanese cities in the blink of an eye. Forty-four months of vicious global warfare had profoundly changed Stimson and his countrymen. Originally published in the August 2004 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here. AUGUST 1944 WAS a time of great elation for the Western Allies. After some particularly brutal battles around Caen and St. Lo, by the end of July the Allies had regained the momentum in their Normandy campaign. Lieutenant General George S. Pattons Third U.S. Army was soon driving hard through Brittany. The Operation Anvil landings commenced in southern France to begin the advance to Toulon and Marseilles. Canadian troops captured Falaise on the 17th, closing the door on the final German escape route from Normandy. Eight days later, French tankers drove in triumph down the Champs Elysees for the first time in four years. For the men of the 1st Polish Armored Division, however, August 1944 was a time of anguish and uncertainty. Not only did they suffer terrible losses as part of the 1st Canadian Army at places such as Chambois and Mont Ormel, but the exiles knew that more than 1,400 kilometers away their countrymen were locked in a life-and-death struggle against their German occupiers. What news of Warsaw? they would anxiously ask each other. On July 29, Soviet artillery shells had begun falling on the Polish capital. Soviet radio appeals urged the citizens to rise up against the Germans. Russian planes dropped leaflets that read: Poles! The time of liberation is at hand. There is not a moment to lose! Fortified by the urgings of the advancing Russians but fearful of what would happen if the city was liberated by Josef Stalins Red Army, Lt. Gen. Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski, the commander of the Polish Armia Krajorwa (AK, or Home Army), met with bis senior commanders to make final preparations to launch an uprising that, it was hoped, would liberate the city from five years of brutal Nazi occupation and secure the dominance of the Polish government in exile, known as the London Poles, before Stalin installed a puppet government of his own. The odds were long against Bor-Komorowski and his 40,000 soldiers. Not only was the AK badly outnumbered, it had almost no weapons. Nevertheless, the men and women believed that with what was in hand they could hold out for at least eight days, which was more than enough time for the Soviets, who were by then less than 10 miles away, to reach them. Throughout the afternoon of August 1 the men and women of the AK quietly assembled at key points throughout Warsaw, where they proudly donned red and white armbands. At 5 p.m., they emerged from their hiding places and began attacking Germans throughout the city. By nightfall, most of Warsaw was under Bor-Komorowskis control, and the Polish flag was flying from the tallest building in the city. Soon, however, things began to go wrong. The Germans, unwilling to be humiliated by people they had brutalized for five years or to lose control of the strategically vital city, fought back. They were assisted in their defense by the indifference of the Russians. Almost as soon as the uprising began, the radio broadcasts stopped, and the Red Armys guns fell silent. The respite gave the Germans time to bring in reinforcements. An incensed Adolf Hitler gave his SS chief, Heinrich Himmler, the task of subduing the uprising. Himmler declared, Every inhabitant of Warsaw must be killed, and there will be no taking of prisoners. Soon thugs under the command of General Erich von dem Bach Zelewski embarked on a pitiless campaign to crush the uprising, and the Germans slowly began to regain control of the city. As the situation became more desperate, Bor-Komorowski made increasingly urgent appeals to the Allies for assistance. These appeals fell on deaf ears. As some within the AK high command had feared, Stalin was quite willing to allow the uprising to be crushed rather than have a force loyal to the government in London in control of the city. In a move that would have made Niccolo Machiavelli blush, the Soviet premier even refused to permit British or American aircraft to land on airfields under his control. It was not until September 18 that Stalin finally allowed the Americans to airdrop supplies to the AK. By that time, however, most of the drop zones had been overrun. Despite the odds against them, the AK fought on alone until early October. On the 5th, Bor-Komorowski formed the remaining 14,000 men and women of the AK into military ranks, and as they marched into German captivity they bellowed out their national anthem, Poland has not yet perished as long as we live. C.J.A. Originally published in the August 2004 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here. NAME: John H. Fuchs DATE ENTERED SERVICE: May 5, 1943 CAMPAIGNS: Central Europe DECORATIONS: Purple Heart, POW Medal, Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal JOHN FUCHS ENTERED THE U S. Army Air Forces in May 1943, completing basic training at Sheppard Field in Wichita Falls, Texas, gunnery training at Las Vegas, Nevada, and Boeing B-17 flight crew training at Sioux City, Iowa. In June 1944, his flight crew arrived in England, assigned to the 385th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force. On September 12, 1944, Sergeant Fuchs and navigator Lieutenant George Pearson were assigned to a B-17G with an experienced crew. The crews 25th and final mission was the first for Fuchs and Pearson. The target was a factory in Leipzig, deep in the heart of Germany. Over the target, Fuchs B-17 released its bombload and was immediately hit by flak. With its two port engines damaged, the plane began to lose speed and altitude. The pilots struggle ended in a crash landing near a pine forest. Sergeant Fuchs was the first to exit, and he provided first aid to the pilot, whose head was severely lacerated. As the crewmen discussed what to do next, they saw a group of German civilians moving in their direction, and Fuchs buried his dog tags, billfold and .45-caliber pistol. The crew split into small groups and headed out in different directions. Fuchs and Pearson ran into the nearby forest, where they hid during the day and walked at night. At times they dug up potatoes or ate apples from an orchard. The 11th day found Fuchs and Pearson sitting under a tree in an apple orchard trying to stay dry in a light rain. They saw a man carrying a shotgun moving in their direction, and they ran into the woods and hid for an hour. When they returned for their dropped apples, they were surrounded by three armed men. The Americans were taken to a Gestapo office in the nearby town, questioned at some length, and then marched for about a mile through a crowd of civilians. The following day they began a six-hour train ride to Aschaffenburg, Germany. Four nights later, they were awakened by local air raid sirens. The Royal Air Force bombed at night, and this night the target was near the prisoners cell. After several weeks, they were set to be transferred to Dulag Lz/Ji-Oberursel near Frankfurt-am-Main. At the Frankfurt train station a German officer questioned the guards and wanted to know all about the prisoners. When he found out that the two were American airmen, he became very upset and hostile.The officer drew a pistol and pointed it at them, saying he wanted to kill them both because they were murderers of women and children. The guards convinced the officer that the men were on their way to a POW camp to be questioned, and that their possible information was more important than killing them. At that point, the officer stormed off. At Dulag Luft a German colonel interrogated Fuchs and was very interested in the name of the young airman. He asked why, with a name like Fuchs, he was fighting against Germany instead of fighting with the Germans. Sergeant Fuchs reply was quick and simple: Because I am an American. At this point the colonel realized that any further questioning was useless. After several days Fuchs and Pearson were loaded with 100 other POWs into cattle cars, 50 men to a car, for a three-day trip to Stalag Luft IV at Gross-Tychow, Poland.The day began at 7 a.m. and ended at 9:30 p.m., with only two small pieces of horsemeat to eat. When maggots were floating in the soup, they were scooped out. The men spent time writing letters and playing cards. On the night of January 29, 1945, word passed through the camp that a select group of POWs would be placed on a train for transfer to a camp on the Baltic coast, Stalag Luft I near Barth, Germany. The Soviet army was advancing from the east, and the Germans did not want the Allied prisoners to fall into their hands. The following morning, several thousand men, including Fuchs and Pearson, were loaded on cattle cars, 53 men to a car. It was so crowded that each man had to sit with his legs pulled up. Food and water became a problem; each prisoner had only been issued one Red Cross parcel. Water was collected in a tin can as snow melted on the roof and flowed down the walls. Fuchs turned 21 years old in this nightmare. Although the low point of his young life, it could have been worse. While he was crowded in the cattle car, approximately 6,000 other prisoners had left camp on a foot march of 600 miles lasting 86 torturous days. Many of those men never reached Barth. After eight days and nights, on February 7, Fuchs group arrived at Stalag Luft I, a large camp of 10,000 men on the Baltic Sea. The Allied officer in command of the prisoners was the famous Colonel Hubert A. Zemke , former leader of the 56th Fighter Group. On May 1, the guards were nowhere to be found the Germans had moved out in advance of the Russians. After the gate and fence were broken down, many of the men walked to town searching for food and drink. Fuchs and fellow prisoner Roy Loveless decided to explore the waterfront. After they had gone a short distance, they came upon what appeared to be a family of two women, a man, a young boy and a small baby in a carriage all had been shot in the head. No one ever found out who had killed these people, or why, but most suspected that it was Russian soldiers. After two weeks, the U.S. Army Air Forces flew in B-17s to begin the evacuation. Sergeant Fuchs was flown to Camp Lucky Strike in France, and then boarded a ship for the United States. After a month of recuperation in Florida, he was discharged in November 1945 and returned to his home in Houston, Texas. Originally published in the August 2004 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here. Many people who are familiar with the movie Gettysburg will probably recognize the name Richard Garnett. Garnett was depicted as a tragic figure in the movie, someone who appeared to have his honor to defend and, despite being sick and lame at the time of the battle (depicted in the movie) he went ahead and defended his honor to the death. The movie shows him riding into the fray on the third day of the battle, going headlong into cannon fire and then disappearing, forever, in a cloud of smoke with only his bloody horse to appear out of the action returning to Confederate lines. The truth is, there is much more to Garnetts story than a sick soldier riding his horse to save his reputation and gain himself some glory. Garnett was one of the more complicated figures of the Civil War and there is much to learn about him and his actions both prior to and during the Civil War. There are some that compare Garnett to his compatriot Lewis Armistead (also part of Picketts Charge at Gettysburg and killed in the battle) in that they were both tragic figures who met sad ends after similarly sad lives. But Garnetts life wasnt as sad as some might think. This is the story of the man who would become a martyr for the Confederate cause at Gettysburg. With his bravery tarnished by an altercation with a superior officer just a few months before, Garnett would carelessly risk his life to prove that officer wrong and show everyone that he was as brave a man as there could be. The cost of all this? His life. The story of Garnett begins on November 21st, 1817 which is when he was born. He was born on what was then known as the Rose Hill estate in Essex County, Virginia. His parents were William Henry Garnett and Anna Maria Brooke. His parents background was English. It must not be forgotten that Richard was related, as a cousin, to Robert Selden Garnett. Robert made his name, in the Civil War, in a somewhat infamous way by being known as the first soldier with the rank of General to die in the war. The two Garnetts completed their education at the United States Military Academy in 1841. Richard was ranked 29th in a class of 52. His post collegiate military career saw him start as a second lieutenant in the 6th United States Infantry. His duty placed him in several different locations including Florida where he was part of the governments effort in fighting the Seminole Indians. He then went out west where he spent some time in various places such as Texas, California and the Dakotas. The Mexican War came but Garnett did not participate in the pre-Civil War action. During that period, he was stationed in New Orleans, Louisiana as a staff officer. Garnett was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant and given command for Fort Laramie in Wyoming. There he oversaw incursions against the Sioux Indians. He was promoted again, this time to captain in 1855, and played a role in various positions and events during his time in the west. Not much is known about the family that Garnett put together during his time out west. It is known that he had a son with an Oglala Sioux woman named Looks at Him (or Mollie Campbell). The child was named William Garnett (also known as Billy Garnett). There are photos that exist of Billy that can easily be found. It is known that Garnetts son has a little bit of a claim to fame as he was that he was present when the famous Native American leader Crazy Horse was killed. The younger Garnett also worked for the Army during his life. The impending Civil War was starting to approach and during the build up to that event, Garnett found himself out in California. Garnetts feelings about the division of the states tended to side with that of the Union (the Federal government) but, like so many other soldiers in his position, he decided to fight for his home state of Virginia and thus took up arms with his native state and the newly created Confederate government. To make it official, Garnett gave up his commission in the United States Army on May 17th, 1861. He started off his career in the Confederate Army at the rank of major and started in the artillery. He was then promoted to lieutenant colonel and put in charge of Cobbs Legion starting August 31st, 1861. Cobbs legion was made up of troops from Georgia and was organized by Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb. This was a well-known unit in the Civil War and when they started service they were composed of infantry, cavalry and artillery units. Garnetts stint as a lieutenant colonel wasnt long and he was promoted to brigadier general on the 14th of November 1861. His new assignment was to take command of the 1st Brigade of the Valley District in the Confederate Army of the Potomac (which was a short-lived name for that Confederate army). The command that Garnett gained was a unit that was first put together by famous Confederate general Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson. The brigade is better known as the Stonewall Brigade. Taking over command of the Stonewall Brigade was an honor but it came with a price and Garnett would, unfortunately, pay that price heavily. The event that would derail Garnetts career and give him bad luck with the brigade came at Kernstown. The battle was somewhat of wash for the Confederates and it put Garnett and his men in a dangerous position. After much success, Garnett and the Stonewall Bridge found themselves in a precarious position that they almost werent able to get out of. During the fight, Garnett and his men were ordered by Jackson to attack a Union force that was close to the same size as their command was. However, the size of the Union unit was underestimated and Garnett found himself going up against many more men than he had available. He was seriously outnumbered. The men of Garnetts command found themselves running out of ammunition and surrounded on three sides. If you know the history of the Stonewall Brigade, you will know that they were very brave fighters and stood tall in all the battles they were involved in. They earned that reputation from their former commander, Jackson. So, giving up and letting go was difficult. But Garnett had no choice and had to order his men to retreat. Had he not done that, the entire command would have been captured. Garnett saved a lot of men but it would come at a price. Jackson was outraged that Garnett retreated and felt that Garnett disobeyed his orders. Jackson thought that the commander of the Stonewall Brigade should have asked for permission to retreat instead of doing it on his own. In his angry reaction to the retreat, Jackson had Garnett arrested for neglecting his duty. He was relieved of command on April 1st of 1862. Garnett was out of action for a while after his arrest. His court martial didnt begin until August of 1862. When it began, the only witnesses against Garnett at that time were Jackson himself and his aide. There are some records and letters available that discuss the varied aspects of the charges from both Jacksons and Garnetts sides and these are very interesting to read. The coming of the battle of Second Bull put a stop to the court martial and gave Garnett a little bit of a reprieve. The commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee, told Jackson to let Garnett go. In a move to get Garnett out of the shadow of Jackson, Lee assigned him to General George E. Picketts brigade which was part of General James Longstreets corps. Garnett was given command of Picketts Brigade at the battle of Antietam. Garnett did well at Antietam by some accounts performing actions that were mainly reserve actions. He and his men arrived at the town of Sharpsburg near noon on September 15th and held a position on the southwest slope of a place called Cemetery Hill. They stayed there until the morning of the 17th and departed after they were relieved by another brigade. The unit appears to have been attacked at some point by Union soldiers. The details of the action are a little sketchy but it would appear that Garnetts men were involved in some fighting just prior to the start of the major battle of Antietam. The battle that they were involved in was South Mountain. We should remember that Garnett had just taken over command of his men and may not have been familiar with every aspect of the unit. The action at South Mountain, involving Garnetts men, came as he and his troops found themselves in Hagerstown, Maryland the morning of the 14th of September. They hurried to Boonsboro and when they arrived at the base of South Mountain, Garnetts soldiers were pushed to the top of the mountain in hurried fashion to help stop the onslaught coming from the Federal troops who were attacking Turners Gap. Garnetts men helped stop the Union forces (under John Hatch) from taking the gap as well as the entire mountain. Later that night, Garnett and his men were taken off the mountain. Just a short few days after the battle of South Mountain, Garnett and his men were involved in the epic battle of Antietam. In the battle, Garnett commanded the regiments of the Eighth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty Eighth and Fifty Sixth Virginia Volunteers. In the early morning of the 17th, Garnetts units were told to move to position on the southeastern side of the town of Sharpsburg to help give backup to some artillery batteries that were part of the famed Washington Artillery. During the next few hours, the men of the brigade came under heavy artillery fire and several soldiers were killed or wounded. They did, however, remain stout against the onslaught that they were facing and did not break amid extreme pressure. After a while, the men of Garnetts command were asked to move ahead towards the top of a hill to try to give a group of skirmishers the enemy had set forth to give the Confederates some resistance. As a result of this movement, the men of his command came under even heavier fire from Union artillery and the losses became greater. Some of Garnetts men (those that had advanced) began to fall back and take cover. The men continued the fight, however, as Garnett was asked to provide some additional troops to harass those Union soldiers that were firing on a new battery that had come up to take over for the Washington Artillery. Garnett obliged and sent his Fifty-Sixth Regiment over to cover the artillery. Soon after, it was discovered that a large force of Union troops had come across Antietam Creek and were heading towards the 56th. Garnett needed to do something. What he did was move him men forward in front of some guns and settled into a cornfield. Initially, an attack by several Union skirmishers was beaten off but a large force of Union troops came straight for Garnetts men. Even though Garnetts men were slim in number (an estimated 200) the combined effect of his mens rifle fire and the fire from the artillery helped in beating back the Union troops. At least they beat them back in Garnetts front. The Northern troops had managed to turn the Confederates right flank and the large force of Confederates was about to be enveloped by the Union force. The artillery force that Garnett sought to protect started to withdraw and his troops soon followed. They fell into the roads north of Sharpsburg where troops from Lees army were in pieces trying to escape the oncoming Federal troops. Fortunes did turn the Confederates way however as elements of the army began to force the Union troops back. In an effort to help, some of Garnetts men joined in to repel the Federal onslaught. Soon the threat from the Union forces was eliminated. Garnett did well at Antietam as did his men. Following the battle Garnett was given full command of the brigade and was assigned to Picketts division full time. Pickett was promoted to brigade command. The men of Garnetts command fought at the battle of Fredericksburg in December of 1862. During the battle, Garnett and his brigade were present for the battle but not much is known about what they did during the fighting. The battle of Chancellorsville was a battle that Garnett and his men, along with the whole First Corps (Longstreets Corps) of the Army of Northern Virginia missed out on. That part of the army was in Suffolk, Virginia during the battle. Chancellorsville did influence Garnett what happened there may have saved his military career. During the battle, his accuser (for Kernstown), Jackson, was shot by his own men and died a short time later. With the death of Jackson, the accusations against Garnett went away and he was no longer being considered for the charges that were leveled against him. But apparently, Garnett did not hold a grudge against Jackson. He was one of Jacksons pallbearers at the funeral and didnt have anything bad to say about him. Some thought he put it behind him but did he really? The next big campaign for Garnett, and the one that would be his last, was Gettysburg. The campaign was a rough one for Garnett and ended even rougher for him as we all know. The details of that day and the few days prior are described further. Garnett had an unfortunate thing happen to him during the trip to Gettysburg. He was kicked by his horse, Red Eye, and suffered quite a bit. He had a fever and the chills because of the injury (or perhaps another illness) and was not feeling his best during the campaign. Garnetts brigade, still part of Picketts division, had the dubious honor, along with the rest of the division, of bringing up the rear of the Army of Northern Virginia. When the fighting started in Gettysburg, the division was still a ways away and wouldnt get to Gettysburg until the evening of the battles second day. The next day would be the culmination of many things. It would be the final bell for the Army of Northern Virginia, it would give some a chance for glory and it would be Garnetts high point and end point. Lee had decided, on the third day, that the Union Army could be broken in its center along Cemetery Ridge. He had a few fresh troops left and the bulk of those troops would come from Picketts division of Longstreets Corps. This meant that Garnett and his men would be put into the thick of the fray and see a bulk of the action. The details about Garnetts actions at Gettysburg are somewhat confusing but there appears to be a consensus about what happened, at least leading up to his death. The consensus detail of the hours prior to Garnetts demise state that several people felt that Garnett was not in any condition to lead during the charge. It is said that General Lee ordered that all generals were not to ride on horseback during the advance and this could have put a damper on Garnetts plans to participate in the charge with his brigade due to the previously mentioned injury. It looked as if Garnett would have to sit this one out. The problems Garnett went through at Kernstown and the subsequent chastising by Jackson made him a little skittish at Gettysburg. He did not want to sit the charge out for fear of being called a coward or losing his honor. Although he appeared not to hold a grudge against Jackson the whole event had scarred him. He was going to make this charge no matter what. He had to do it for himself. Garnett made it known that he was going to participate in the charge despite the fact some fellow officers, including his equal Lewis Armistead, complained and told him that he should not make the charge. Garnetts honor was at stake, at least in his own mind it was. He did make a comment prior to the start of the battle that is mentioned in several publications and even (as of three years ago) has been painted on a wall at the museum in the Gettysburg Visitors center at the Gettysburg National Military Park. Just before Garnett was to make his famed movement towards the Union lines, he turned to his equal, brigadier general Lewis Armistead, and said This is a desperate thing to attempt. Armistead is said to have replied the slaughter will be terrible. Soon everyone would discover just how right Garnett and Armistead would be. Against orders, Garnett mounted his big black horse Red Eye, made his way to the front of his brigade and rode forward as the charge began. Many felt, and this was probably true, that he would make the perfect target for Union riflemen as he approached the line. The story of how Garnett was killed varies. Depending on what you read (and what you watch) there are about two consensus theories on how he died. The overall and accepted view on how he died is that he got close to the Angle (the point in the Union line where the wall that the men were behind took a sharp turn) and then disappeared. Most believe he was cut down by rifle fire. One account has Garnett getting shot down by rifle fire close to the Union line. They say his body fell among the scores of dead around him and that he was buried in a mass grave with other Confederate soldiers. Another account has Garnett getting close to the Union line, atop his horse, and then getting shot from it by canister fire. Its said that his body was disintegrated and that he was not easily identifiable. It was said that his horse returned to the rear with a lot of blood on it. We may never know what really happened to Garnett. What we do know is that he never made it out of the charge alive, falling bravely in front of the Union lines. The details of where Garnetts body is buried are pretty sound. Many, almost the consensus, say that his body is interred with several other Confederates from Gettysburg in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. There is a marker to his name at the cemetery that reads: Among the Confederate soldiers graves in this area is the probable resting place of Brigadier General Richard Brooke Garnett C.S.A. who was killed in action July 3, 1863 as he led his brigade in the charge of Picketts division on the final day of the battle of Gettysburg. First buried on the battlefield, General Garnet remains were likely removed to this area in 1872 along with other Confederate dead brought from Gettysburg by the Hollywood Memorial Association. Requiescat in pace Richard Brooke Garnett 1817-1863 The story of Garnett does not end with his death. There is one more little piece of the story that should be told. Along with the mystery of how Garnett died there was also a mystery of what happened to his sword. You would have thought that as soldiers and others who crossed the battlefield and searched among the dead would have found some kind of indication of who Garnett was (where his body was) but for several years after the battle no one had any idea where he was at or where he was buried. About 30 years after Garnetts death, a former Confederate general named George H. Steurt was in a pawn shop in Baltimore when he discovered something familiar. He found the sword of Garnett in the pawn shop and bought it. On the sword were the initials R.B. Garnett, U.S.A identifying that it was Garnetts. The sword was the one that Garnett had received while he was at West Point and he had it with him when he and his fellow officers gave their allegiance and went to fight for the the Confederate States of America. It was with him when he died at Gettysburg. Steuart had made an attempt to find Garnetts family but he died before he could locate them. About two years later (Steuart died in 1903) his nephew had found the wife of Colonel John B. Purcell, a niece of Garnett, and gave her the sword. Now while this is not a great mystery in and of itself, the mystery of how that sword wound up in the pawn shop is pretty intresting to consider. We will never know but how it came from the battle field to the pawn shop would be something fascinating to find out. The story of Garnett is a sad one. Garnett had a family, he had a son that he may have forgotted. He left his family to continue his military career and fight in the greatest war in all of American history. He had alligences to the Union but, in the end, he gave up those allegiences to fight for his native state of Virginia. It was Virginia to whom he had a greater dedication to than anything else. He was not a die hard secessionist by any means but, like so many former Federal officers that sided with the Confederacy, his allegiance was to his home state and that is side he chose. Perhaps the saddest part of Garnetts life is that he had to do what he did for honor. He knew that if he didnt ride into the face of the enemy on the afternoon of July the 3rd 1863 he might not be able to shake the allegations of cowardice that Jackson had brought against him. He may have felt, that in other peoples eyes, he still had something to prove and he was going to prove it that afternoon. Proving his honor and squashing any remaining doubts about that honor cost him his life. The legend of Garnett was brought up again over the past few years as some noted scholars debated over whether or not a photo, that had been contributed to being Garnett, was actually him. Another photo had surfaced recently that is said to be that of Garnett as well. The original photo of Garnett depicts a solider with dark hair and a beard. The new photo shows someone with light hair and no beard. Some accounts state that Garnett had dark hair. We may never know what Garnett really looked like. The movie Gettysburg did a nice job of portraying the plight of Garnett. You can see his being injured was depeicted and in a scene him talking about his honor was shown. The movie doesnt give the full story of Garnett but it shows him enough to pique your interest and want to know more about him. This writer has the honor of being related to Garnett (as well as his cousin Robert Garnett) through family relation. The story of Garnett is a tragic one but it is one typical of the Civil War. A solider fights for his country and bravely died in the process. There are many stories like that and they all deserve to be told. [dropcap]A[/dropcap] nerve-jangling noise shattered the silence inside the submarine. It did not sound like the Klaxon diving alarm. And it did not sound like the collision siren. It sounded like, well, the crew called it Hells Bells. Each time the ships experimental sonar picked up a deadly mine in the water, it resounded, sending a chill through every crewman aboard the USS Skate as it and eight other American submarines attempted an underwater penetration of the heavily mined waters of Tsushima Strait leading to the Sea of Japan. Theirs was a mission rooted in vengeance. Two years earlier, in October 1943, the USS Wahoo had been patrolling in the Sea of Japan when enemy forces attacked and sank it with all hands, including its commander, the legendary Dudley W. Mush Morton. The loss devastated Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleets Submarine Force. This is the worst blow weve had, he wrote in his diary. Im heartbroken. God punish the Japanese! To Lockwood, Morton represented his ideal of the undersea warrior: He had a veritable lust for combat and he was the deadliest kind of fighterthe cold kind. Lockwood resolved there would come a daya day of visitationan hour of revenge. Now, almost two years after the Wahoo was lost, that day had arrived. The mission of the American wolf pack, a band of nine submarines dubbed the Hellcats, was to penetrate submerged minefields in the Sea of Japan, surprise the enemy, and devastate their shipping. THE LEGEND OF THE WAHOO began in January 1943, when Morton assumed command of the submarine for its third war patrol. He proved himself an aggressive skipper by sailing into New Guineas Wewak Harbor and going after a Japanese destroyer. After his first five bow torpedoes missed, the enemy spotted him, turned, and charged straight at the Wahoo. Morton coolly waited until the destroyer was within 800 yards and fired a torpedo down the destroyers throat. Broke his back, Morton noted in his patrol report. The explosion was terrific. The Wahoo sank another four ships before heading back to Pearl Harbor. On its next two patrols, the Wahoo sank nine more large merchant ships and damaged two, including a 15,000-ton seaplane tender. But its subsequent two patrolsboth into the Sea of Japanwere failures. During the first, the submarine fired nine torpedoes without sinking or even damaging a single target. Morton angrily reported that the torpedoes were defective. After returning to Pearl, the Wahoo was given a load of new torpedoes and, on September 9, 1943, set sail for the Sea of Japan through its northernmost gateway, La Perouse Strait. Morton sank four ships during the first week of October. Then something went wrong. At 9:20 a.m. on October 11, Japanese anti-submarine forces, alert to the presence of a submarine in the northern reaches of the Sea of Japan, spotted an oil slick floating in the strait. Concluding a damaged submarine was attempting to escape into open waters, the Japanese sent six aircraft and five ships to the site and, over the next eight hours, pounded it with 69 depth charges and 40 aerial bombs. By late afternoon the Japanese forces returned to base, satisfied they had destroyed an American submarine. They had. The Wahoo and its crew and commander were a grave loss to the U.S. Navy. In just nine months, Morton had sunk 19 enemy vessels; a spectacular record that made him an icon among American submariners. A CAREER NAVAL OFFICER, Admiral Lockwood had assumed command of the Pacific Submarine Force in February 1943, and began exploring technological opportunities to refine the navys tactical submarine doctrine. A veteran submariner himself, Lockwood visited the San Diego labs of the University of California Division of War Research (UCDWR) that April and pleaded for the development of devices to help his boats survive the enemys increasingly deadly anti-submarine attacks. One such gadget, simply dubbed the small object detector, was a crude prototype of a frequency-modulated (FM) sonar. FM sonar worked on the same basic principal as standard active sonar. It transmitted a signal that, upon striking a solid object, returned as an echo to the sending unit. But instead of emitting an audible ping, FM sonars stream of signals was silent and, as the UCDWR scientists soon discovered, could locate objects below the surfacethings like rocky outcrops, submarine nets, and submerged buoys. The results appeared as bright, pear-shaped images on an indicator screen accompanied by clear, ringing tonesthe Hells Bells. The sounds helped a trained sonar operator distinguish shoals of fish from actual mines; the former produced a muddy audio tone, while the latter rang out sharp and clear. FM sonars ability to locate submerged objects impressed Lockwood, but he and the lab staff were unsure how exactly the experimental box could be used aboard submarines. The lab continued refining the technology, discovering the device could even track whales swimming underwater. And in September 1943 when the scientists met again with Lockwood, they raised the possibility of using FM sonar to detect mines. Lockwood realized the device could enable his vessels to navigate the heavily mined waters off the Japanese home islands. Then, just one month later, the Wahoo was lost. Believing it may have struck a Japanese mine, Lockwood reluctantly decided not to risk any more subs in the Sea of Japan. By the late summer of 1944, the navy completed trials testing FM sonars ability to detect underwater obstacles. Faulty wiring had doomed the devices first tests. It sounded like a chamber of horrors, recalled sonarman Neal Pike of the USS Spadefish. It howled something awful. The crew repaired the wiring and things started looking up; subsequent trials showed significant improvement in FM sonars detection ability. Lockwood felt a tidal wave of triumph at the successes. As he later recalled, I had gambled mucheven the blue chips of my professional standingon the ability of the FM to pick the lock and open the doors that kept our submarines out of heavily mined waters. With a growing force of mine-detecting submarines, Lockwood decided it was time to push the top brass for a very special deploymentsomething his colleagues referred to as Lockwoods pet project. ON DECEMBER 3, 1944, Lockwood sent a memo titled Japan SeaPatrol of to Admiral Ernest J. King, commander in chief of the U.S. Navy. In it, Lockwood argued that there were plenty of shipping targets in the Sea of Japan and that advancements in FM sonar made it possible to get through its southernmost entrancethe 40-mile-wide but mine-strewn Tsushima Straitwith minimal risk. A swift current running through the strait and continuing directly north through La Perouse Strait further tipped things in their favor. By the end of the month, King approved the plan. Despite FM sonars improvements, Lockwood knew the devices were still not consistently reliable. Therefore, neither the UCDWR labs nor Pacific Fleet Command was willing to fully approve the technology for operational use; it is not felt that, in its present state of development, FM sonar is operationally reliable, a February 1945 evaluation report read. A gloomy Lockwood pressed on. He went out with the FM sonar-equipped boats on training exercises, often operating the gear himself. And he twice asked Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief, Pacific Fleet, if he could go on a war patrol aboard an FM sonar-equipped submarine. Nimitz denied Lockwoods requests. By spring 1945, however, things began to look up for Lockwood. More submarinesFlying Fish, Skate, Bonefish, Crevalle, and Sea Dogreceived FM sonar sets. Testing continued to move apace, and some subs even detected and plotted the minefields around the entrance to Tsushima Strait. They returned with valuable intelligence, including news that the Japanese had four lines of underwater mines in the strait, strung northwest to southeast. In April, Lockwood chose Commander William Barney Sieglaffa veteran of seven war patrols, with a record of 15 ships sunkto take over training, planning, and execution of the mission, dubbed Operation Barney. Sieglaff assembled nine FM sonar-equipped submarines into a wolf pack called the Hellcats, divided into three similarly named trios: the Hepcats, the Polecats, and the Bobcats. Sieglaff placed Sea Dogs Captain Earl Hydeman in overall command. [fourcol_one] HEPCATS USS Sea Dog USS Crevasse USS Spadefish [/fourcol_one] [fourcol_one] POLECATS USS Tunny USS Skate USS Bonefish [/fourcol_one] [fourcol_one_last] BOBCATS USS Flying Fish USS Bowfin USS Tinosa [/fourcol_one_last] By mid-May they were ready; FM sonar was still imperfect, but Lockwood and the submariners felt confident enough to proceed with the operation. On May 27, 1945, the Hepcats steamed out of Guams Apra Harbor and set course for the Japanese home islands. The Polecats departed the next day, and the Bobcats sailed on May 29. All of the Hellcats had uneventful Pacific crossings, except the Bobcats USS Tinosa. Around midday on June 1, Lockwood ordered Tinosa, which was 600 miles off the Japanese coast, to divert course and search for the crew of a downed B-29 bomber, the Skyscraper I. The next day, Tinosa found and picked up the 10 airmen. But when the aircrew learned that Tinosa was headed to the Sea of Japan, they asked to be returned to their lifeboat, preferring the open ocean to a mission to Japanese waters. Fortunately for them, reprieve came in the form of a homeward-bound submarine. JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT on June 4, 1945, the Hepcats became the first of the Hellcats to reach the entrance of Tsushima Strait. Sea Dog, as flagship, took the lead. But when it reached the first line of mines, Sea Dogs FM sonar glitched: it picked up only vague blobs and its Hells Bells sounded mushy when they should have rung true and clear. Nevertheless, Sea Dog plowed ahead, and by some miracle the submarine evaded all four lines of mines. The other two subs followed and, after 20 tense hours underwater, the three Hepcats rendezvoused on the surface before setting out for their assigned stations off northern Honshu. The Polecats passed through Tsushima Strait the following night. Within an hour of submerging, Skate reached the first line of mines without any problem. But in the second line, the mines were spaced only 50 yards apartjust half the length of the submarine. As the boat threaded the needle, Skate came upon one very close cluster of mines. With the current pushing them toward the deadly spheres, there was no time to maneuver. Suddenly the crew heard an unnerving noise outside the hull. It was the rasping of metal on metal, a sound that could only mean one thing: the submarine was scraping along a mine cable. If the steel cable snagged in the subs bow planes or superstructure, the mine would be yanked down the cable to the ship, marking the explosive end of Skate. This is it, one sailor said. This is it. Albert Olufsen, Skates hydrophone operator, turned up the volume so his comrades could hear better. They all turned white, Olufsen recalled. For a full agonizing minute, the crew listened with bated breath as the submarine continued to scrape against the cable. Then they were through. On June 6, it was the Bobcats turn. This time, Tinosa rubbed a mine cable. It was an eerie sound, torpedoman Benny Bentham later wrote in his dairy. Motor Machinists Mate Don Pierson recalled that the tension aboard Tinosa was so high during the transit, if you dropped a penny on the deck, people would be on the ceiling. But they, too, got through. Once all nine submarines made it through the strait, they reformed and set off on the hunt, eager to avenge the Wahoo. OVER THE NEXT 17 DAYS, the Hellcats ran amuck in the Sea of Japan, sinking everything in sight. Tinosa got in the first licks on June 9 when it mortally damaged a Japanese freighter. To the north, Crevalle sank another freighter, while Sea Dog destroyed a merchant ship and a large tanker. To the exhilarated Lieutenant James P. Lynch, Sea Dogs executive officer, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Despite the plentiful targets, several Hellcat crews experienced close callsduring the mission. While targeting four vessels anchored in a cove, Skate narrowly avoided running aground and crashing in the uneven depths. Nonetheless, it fired all six of its bow torpedoes and hit all four ships. A few days later Sea Dog temporarily ran aground, while a Japanese plane circled overhead. Fortunately for Sea Dog, the sub went undetected. Early on June 13, Spadefish misidentified and sank a blacked-out ship that turned out to be a Russian maritime freighter, the Transbalt. The Soviet Unionthen neutral in the war against Japanangrily condemned the sinking. Not wanting to admit its submarines were operating in the Sea of Japan, the U.S. Navy blamed the Transbalts sinking on a Japanese submarine. Skates crew had a sobering experience when they sank a Japanese submarine, the I-122. While the enemy submarine was quite a bag, the American crew felt a subdued sense of empathy for I-122s submariners. There was a sudden realization that the sinking sub might have been Skate, communications officer Bill Burlin later recalled. Hydrophone operator Albert Olufsen added: There but for the grace of God go I. At the end of June, it was time to go home. Sea Dogs Captain Hydeman decided on a high-speed surface escape to spare the weary crews another submerged transit through the minefields. But when the submarines rendezvoused outside La Perouse Strait, Bonefish was not among them. Only after the submariners returned to Pearl Harbor did they learn that Japanese anti-submarine forces had attacked and sunk their packmate on June 19. Just after sunset on June 24, Sea Dog was leading the pack of eight submarines eastward at 21 knots when its surface search radar quit. Crevalle took the lead, sneaking the pack past several Japanese ships. As they raced through the strait, the Hellcats unknowingly passed within a few miles of Wahoos underwater grave. By early the next morning the Americans were clear of La Perouse Strait and headed for home. ON JULY 4, THE FIRST group of Hellcats returned to Pearl Harbor to a rousing welcome. Lockwood went aboard each boat to congratulate its skipper and crew. After the celebrations, he went straight back to preparing more submarines for future missions into the Sea of Japan. As far as Lockwood was concerned, Operation Barney had been a noteworthy success. Despite technical problems, most FM sonars had performed admirably. The new technology, combined with detailed planning, crackerjack submarine crews, and dependable subs, had helped the nine Hellcats sink 28 Japanese ships, including a submarine and a destroyer. I felt that the dauntless spirit of the Hellcats and of Dudley Mortons Wahoo was with me when I reported their success to Admiral Nimitz, Lockwood wrote in his 1955 book about the operation, Hellcats of the Sea. Now I could say in sadness and in pride, Go with God, Wahoo! Lockwoods sentiments were heartfelt but the Hellcats mission of vengeance had come at a high pricethe loss of 85 submariners on Bonefish and the Russian sailors lost on the Transbalt. Was avenging Wahoo worth it? Lockwood certainly believed it was. Sensitive to postwar criticism that there had been no lasting strategic value to the mission, the admiral forcefully defended his decision. As one who spent almost two years preparing for it and who now looks back on it from almost ten years, he wrote, I feel even more strongly that in those breathless days of 1945 that it was necessaryvitally necessary. In his 2010 book, Hellcats: The Epic Story Of World War IIs Most Daring Submarine Raid, author Peter Sasgen differed with Lockwoods assessment. By the summer of 1945, the U.S. Navy had already destroyed much of the Japanese merchant fleet; sinking the vessels that remained near the Japanese islands would have required many subsequent missions like Operation Barney. On top of that, a mere month after the Hellcats returned to Pearl Harbor, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war ended weeks later. I believe its fair to say that despite the bravery and dedication of the Hellcat submariners, Operation Barney was simply not worth the risks it entailed to sink ships in the Sea of Japan and avenge Morton and the Wahoo, Sasgen wrote. Certainly it was not worth the loss of the Bonefish. The mission did have one undisputed plus, as a proving ground for FM sonar. What began in 1942 as an apparatus of unknown potentiala primitive breadboard of wires, tubes, switches, and knobshas evolved over the decades into a sophisticated electronic search tool. Today, anti-submarine forces drop sonobuoys with FM transducers to search for hostile boats. Commercial fishermen use FM devices to find shoals of fish. FM-based handheld obstacle recognition systems give mobility to visually impaired persons. Multi-channel side-scanning sonars have revolutionized mapping and object location on the sea floor. The diversity of these devices would have astonished the man whose obsession made them all possible. The story that began with Admiral Lockwood came full circle in 2005 when a multinational search effort, utilizing state-of-the-art, side-scanning FM sonar, located a submarine wreck 213 feet below the surface, about 12 miles off the northernmost point of Hokkaido. It was the USS Wahoo. Russian divers said the ill-fated submarine had suffered a direct hit to its conning tower. The U.S. Navy confirmed the finding and held a wreath laying ceremony at the site in July 2007. Wahoo rests there now on eternal patrol. This story was originally published in the November/December 2016 issue of World War II magazine. Subscribe here. The road ahead for Nokia certainly looks promising. Now that the brand is back in Finnish hands, a major comeback tone is being drummed. When HMD Global acquired the license to manage Nokia devices, observers believe that it will take a little while for the organization to map out realistic plans. However, as of late, the company has announced that it will be attending the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in 2017. It is being perceived that the event will be utilized as the launching pad for the looming new Nokia smartphones. To institute a reboot for the formerly popular brand, HMD Global Oy has partnered with FIH Mobile, a Foxconn Technology affiliate. Pekka Rantala, a one-time Rovio Chief Officer who also spent seven years with Nokia in the past, will be joining the team as Chief marketing Officer. The declaration that android-running Nokia products will be unveiled next year comes from no less than the company's CEO Rajeev Suri. During the Capital Markets Day occasion, it cannot be denied that the brand is really onto something. Plans for 2017 and 2018 have been presented at the event. Based on the shared slides, Nokia has focused mostly on acquisitions, expansions and securing patent licenses in 2016. By next year, aside from unveiling its smartphone product lines, it will be seeking further ventures in mobile, automobile and consumer electronics. In addition to integrating a VR technology approach by 2018, the company seeks to sustain its growth and diversification of which the Digital Health brand is a part of. As of the moment, HMD Global hopes to release the Nokia P1 and the D1C units by year's end. According to sources, the P1, which will come in 5.5 and 5.2-inch surfaces, is equipped with a 2K AMOLED screen. The device will either be powered by the Snapdragon 820 or 821 processor. Moreover, it has also been graded with an IP68 waterproof rating. On the other hand, the D1C tablet introduces a 13.8-inch case with a 1080p HD display. This item, which contains a 3GB RAM plus a 16GB memory storage, will be driven by the Snapdragon 430 chipset. Both products will have the Android 7.0 Nougat OS at the helm. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Vatican has issued an order that will permit priests of the Roman Catholic Church to grant forgiveness to perpetrators of abortion. The course of action, which has been introduced by Pope Francis last year, will now be permanently instituted. Based on the church's Jubilee of Mercy program, the power to provide pardon on abortion offenders will no longer rest exclusively on bishops nor will it only be allowed to special confessors. The move has sustained the papal goal to make the Catholic religious organization to be more open and merciful. Pope Francis has reiterated that abortion is a serious and critical sin because it takes away innocent lives. In line with this, the head of the church has also professed that since God's mercy is far-reaching, unconditional and absolute, those who ask for mercy with a repentant heart will be forgiven for incurring such grave sin. The supporting apostolic document has been released after a mass that indicated the end of the jubilee celebration. The road taken by Pope Francis follows the one directed by the late Pope John Paul II. The latter has given priests the authority the same responsibility during the jubilee event in 2000. It should be noted that in accordance with the Canon law, all those who commit abortion will be automatically excommunicated unless they will confess and receive pardon. For a very long time, abortion has been a reserved sin which means that its getting forgiven from this grave act can only be done by a bishop. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, welcomes the move, saying that the Pope has utilized the church as a channel of mercy that covers everyone. He adds that it may also be appropriate to amend the Canon law. The archbishop has also noted that steps in granting clemency, which the priests will need to fulfill their new duties, are included in the Pope's letter. Not all, however, is comfortable with the Pope's recent pronouncements. Cardinal Raymond Burke has questioned the basis for the current directive. The American church official's criticism has initially stemmed up from the papal document that allowed divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Avvenire, Pope Francis has pointed out that the present reproach may be meant to instigate confusion and division among the people. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Technology that was developed to explore the subsurface of Mars is now being used by a NASA-led team to search for water beneath the remote Kuwait desert. A team led by research scientist Essam Heggy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, recently traveled to Northern Kuwait to map out the depth and extent of aquifers in barren environments using an airborne sounding radar prototype. Using a Sounding Radar The team, which would include several personnel from the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR), will be using a 40-megahertz, low-frequency sounding radar provided by the California Institute of Technology. How They Do It A helicopter equipped with the radar has recently completed 12 low-altitude passes over two areas known to contain freshwater aquifers. Researchers have said that the missions have successfully demonstrated that the radar is able to locate subsurface aquifers, probe variations in the depth of the water table, as well as pinpoint locations where water flowed into and out of these aquifers. According to NASA, the radar is super sensitive to changes in electrical characteristics of subsurface rock, sediments, and water- saturated soils. Zones of water saturation are highly reflective and mirror the low-frequency radar signal. The returning radar echoes will explore the thick mixture of gravel, sand, and silt that will cover most of Kuwait's northern desert and will lie above its water table. Sharing Similar Characteristics The radar sounding prototype has a lot of similarities in terms of its characteristics with two other instruments flying on the Mars-orbiting spacecraft: the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), on the European Space Agency's Mars Express, and Shallow Radar (SHARAD), on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Both these instruments have also found evidence of ice in the Martian subsurface, but currently have not yet detected any liquid water whatsoever. The Kuwait results may lead to revised interpretations of data from these two instruments. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. "We are spending 4 times more on death penalty cases than on comparable cases without death sentences despite having only executed 2 people since the 1960s." Cases with death sentences in Oregon, on average, cost more than double - and as much as $1 million more - than aggravated murder cases with life sentences, according to a new study. The study's researchers calculated the average aggravated murder case with the death penalty cost an average of $1.39 million, even without corrections costs. In contrast, the same type of case with life in prison cost an average of $334,522. The Oregon Death Penalty Cost Analysis report was funded by the Oregon Justice Resource Center, a Portland-based nonprofit, and written by Professor Aliza Kaplan from Lewis & Clark Law School, Professor Peter Collins from Seattle University, Seattle, Washington, and law student Venetia Mayhew. Researchers collection information on hundreds of aggravated murder cases from 2000 to 2013. "This report confirms what many had long suspected about the cost of Oregon's death penalty, but the actual figures are staggering," said Alice Lundell, the center's spokeswoman. "We're spending 4 times more on death penalty cases than on comparable cases without death sentences despite having only executed 2 people since Kennedy was president." 63 people have been sentenced to death in Oregon since the state brought back the death penalty in 1984. Of those, 2 people voluntarily gave up appeals and were executed, four people died of natural causes while on death row and 22 people had their sentences reduced, according to the report. With the recent sentencing of David Bartol, 45, for the jail stabbing of another inmate, 35 people will now be on death row. All potential executions have been subject to a moratorium put in place in 2011 by then-Gov. John Kitzhaber. After taking office, current Gov. Kate Brown upheld the moratorium and made her personal opposition to the death penalty clear. Brown recently re-affirmed the moratorium. Support for capital punishment has fallen in recent decades, but more Americans support the death penalty than oppose it, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Pew also noted that the number of executions - and the number of states conducting those executions - have fallen sharply since peaking in 1999. 31 states have the death penalty. Oregon, along with 3 other states, have a moratorium on executions. Prosecuting aggravated murder, the only crime punishable by death in Oregon, is already a "complicated and time-consuming" process, the report said, but tacking on the possibility of the death penalty drove up the amount of time and money spent on cases. The study's authors noted a gap in available information about the costs behind aggravated murder cases. Specific information from courts and local prosecutors about the amount of time and money spent on cases was often unavailable. Special defense lawyers are required, defense filings double, prosecutorial filings triple and defendants spend more time in expensive, secured housing at local jails. Cases with the death penalty option are required to be 2-phase jury trials. Jury selection is lengthier and costlier in death penalty cases, and trials can span months. The report cited the 2010 trial of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, the father and son duo behind the Woodburn bank bombing. Jurors were summoned in early September, and the trial lasted months. Following a 2-week penalty phase, the Turnidges were sentenced to death on Dec. 22, 2010. Each death penalty case receives an automatic, direct review by the Oregon Supreme Court. This process lasts years, even decades. The 4 longest serving inmates on death row have spent a total of 110 years on death row. None of their appeals have gone very far past the direct review. A Oregon Department of Justice official estimated the average direct appeal demanded about 250 hours of work by lawyers over its course. The report profiled Randy Guzek, 47, the longest serving member on Oregon's row. Sentenced to death in 1988 for killing a couple in Deschutes County, Guzek has had his sentenced reversed 3 times. He was re-sentenced all 3 times. In 2015 the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed his sentence, but Guzek's appeals process remains in its early stages. The study estimated that, not counting incarceration costs, Guzek's trial, sentencing, re-sentencings and appeals cost at least $3.95 million. "Every Oregon taxpayer - including those in the 20 counties that haven't sent anyone to death row since it was reinstated in 1984 - is bearing the burden of funding this broken system," Lundell said. "That's money that's not being invested in our schools, in services for victims and their families, and in programs that would actually increase public safety. While the recent decision by Governor Brown to reaffirm the moratorium is a very welcome step, costs associated with Oregon's death penalty continue to mount." With growing costs, along with the risk of racial bias and the execution of innocent people, the center recommended dropping the death penalty for an alternative already in place: life without possibility of parole. The death penalty is not a proven deterrent, Lundell said. Considering how many times Oregonians have changed their minds on the death penalty, center officials said they believe it's time for the governor to step in. Brown should go further than simply reaffirming the moratorium, she added. "We think she should use the constitutional powers of her office to commute the sentences of all of those on death row," Lundell said. "It would end or greatly reduce the vast sums being spent on those cases, and it would allow space for Oregonians to consider whether the death penalty should remain part of their justice system or should be consigned to history as we believe it should." | 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 Statesman Journal, November 17, 2016 The International Space Station (ISS) just received three new crew members last Nov. 19 with the arrival of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of the Russian Space Agency, astronauts Peggy Whitson of NASA and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully arrived at ISS at exactly 4:58 P.M. EST. Schedules on the engagement The hatches that link the Soyuz and the ISS was scheduled to open at 7:35 P.M. EST. Footage of their first meeting can be viewed online at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV, with multiple coverages concerning anything space, starting at 6:45 P.M. EST. The linkup, 260 miles above Earth, took place just two days after the crew lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Nov. 17. Expedition-50 Novitskiy, Pesquet, and Winston are joining the Expedition-50 crew led by NASA commander Shane Kimbrough. The crew also include flight engineers Andrei Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos, who arrived at the space station just last month. The six crewmembers will be staffing the orbiting lab through February, conducting hundreds of experiments and studies in biology, biotechnology, Earth science, and physical science. Additionally, two more crewmates, Mark Vande of NASA and Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos, will be joining Expedition 50 from March to May. Scheduled tasks In addition to their scientific tasks, the crewmembers are also scheduled to receive three cargo deliveries of several tons of food, fuel, supplies and research materials, as well as new lithium ion batteries to be replacing the nickel-hydrogen batteries that is currently used on the space station. This is to store electrical energy which is generated by its four large solar arrays. The batteries will be installed during a series of spacewalks that is scheduled in January 2017. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are reportedly facing opposition from Queen Elizabeth and Camilla Parker-Bowles as they are not willing to welcome another commoner to the Royal family after Prince William choose to marry Kate Middleton. With scandals about Markle surfacing will the royal romance culminate to a wedding or will Prince Harry and Meghan Markle breakup? Recent reports about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle relationship suggests that it may not last long as Queen Elizabeth and Camilla Parker-Bowles are not ready to welcome another commoner. Notably, after late Princess Diana and then Duchess of Cambridge, the Queen, and Prince Charles' second wife, does not want to welcome another commoner, inspite of their high popularity, reports Morning News USA. It was just recently that Prince Harry and Markle announced their relationship, but the Prince's step-mom, does not have any liking towards the actress and the duo appears to be pitted against each other. Moreover, she fears that the Royal family will land up with another Kate, much to her and the Queen's dislike. In other reports, it is being said that Prince Harry's girlfriend is embroiled in a lot of scandals. A recently surfaced report suggests that the actress's naked pictures with her ex-husband, Trevor Engelson may be leaked. The pictures have Markle and her ex-husband stripped down for the skinny-dipping session in New Zealand, in the year 2012. Reportedly, the locals stole their clothes and Markle had to run after them fully naked, claims Radar Online. Markle has also expressed her concern to close friends that if the naked photos surface, it may end her relationship with Prince Harry. Markle is rather terrified as if another nude photo scandal surfaces, Prince Harry will be under immense pressure to dump her and it is the last thing that she wants. With all the alleged opposition from the Royal family and with all the Markle's scandals surfacing, whether Prince Harry and Meghan Markle wedding will happen or whether they will breakup is yet to be seen. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Is the royal couple really headed for divorce? It seems to be a 50:50 situation. What with rumors of the divorce, people are a bit taken aback that Prince William praised his wife Kate Middleton in an interview. It seemed to give an indirect hint that there is no divorce pending. The interview revolved around Prince William aiming to stop illegal poaching, along with whitewashing the divorce rumors. Hence, on the last day of his official visit to Vietnam for the Hanoi Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade, he talked about his family life as well as his wife. In the English-language 'Talk Vietnam', Prince William said that having a family has its challenges, while bringing up children is also scary. His conversation was pretty long: "I adore my children very much and I've learned a lot about myself and about family just from having my own children. I worry about the future more. When you have something or someone in your life to give the future to I think it focuses the mind more about what you're giving them and are you happy that you've done all you can to leave it in a good state." Apart from being a family man, he also appreciated his wife. He said: "I'm very lucky in the support I have from Catherine [Kate Middleton]. She is an amazing mother and a fantastic wife. But I've struggled at times, the alteration from being a single, independent man to going into marriage and then having children is life-changing." Doesn't Prince William seem extremely committed to his wife, children and royal duties? There do not seem to be anything regarding the divorce, though. So it exists probably only between tabloid covers. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has showed up at the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Peru with the intention of urging everyone to post only honest and genuine narratives online. With the propagation of phony news becoming rampant, the world leaders' summit seems to be the perfect stage to denounce such preposterous activity. Zuckerberg has pointed out that individuals in the other half of the world merely exist on the edge. With no access or whatsoever to the digital or technologically-driven sphere, these populations have been denied of the economic opportunities that would probably improve their lives. With so many prospects in the fields of science, education and medicine, he has called on leaders to contribute and connect with Facebook in admonishing this global predicament. While speaking in front of the government and trade officials from the 21-nation APEC community, the social network's CEO sets a motivational tone that linking four billion people can make a difference for hundreds of millions of individuals mired in poverty. Although numerous advancements can be acquired online, Facebook's top guy has also cautioned about one of the biggest perils of the internet superhighway. It is sad to note that untrue chronicles on the web are not only being patronized but are in fact being used as medium to further vested interests. Dave McClure, founder of the 500 Startups organization, says that technology is a propaganda tool used to sow dissension of data. As part of Facebook's program to repel bogus information, new methods are being applied to check the authenticity of the materials being proliferated. The tools include monitoring and identifying the false data so that users will have an idea in determining whether certain notes are just mere misinformation. In line with this, Zuckerberg is exploring the possibility of working with fact-checking groups to maintain a benchmark that leans on true and honest contents. Flagging stories as pure sham is also being cited to be implemented upon the onset. It is likely that the Facebook founder's campaign to check fictitious articles have been triggered by the information drive that has catapulted Donald Trump into the White House. Zuckerberg has also taken his time on stage to shed light on his company's advertising policy. He stresses that ads suspected to mislead or deceive will not be posted. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim's Mike Trout is headlining the MLB trade rumors today. After winning the American League MVP award this year, he is rumored to be moving to the New York Yankees and seems to be heading to the team this offseason. MLB's Yankees, which is active exploring the market this offseason, is looking for valuable asset(s) that could make their lineup more formidable next year and forget their frustrating showing this 2016. Having won the World Series 27 times, they are expected to be in the MLB postseason every year. But next year, many says that they are in a rebuilding mode and it is evident with their recent moves. They have traded away most of their veterans consists of Aroldis Chapman, Ivan Nova, Carlos Beltran, and Andrew Miller hinting that they are going for youth this time for their long term plans. And it seems that the 25-year old Trout is included in their plans for the future. According to ChattSportNet, the New York Yankees are making one more move to enhance their roster and they are pushing to acquire Mike Trout from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The bold move indicates that the Yankees are too serious to reclaim the title they've won seven years ago. This recent report on MLB trade further noted that the Angels seems to be not ready for the playoffs this season and might be better off without Trout. Aside from Trout, the Yankees are also looking to add Chicago White Sox third baseman Todd Frazier and Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Vince Velasquez, as reported earlier. As reported by iSportsTimes, now that the Yankees are determined to invest in the youth and trade away some of their veteran players, it makes sense now to chase Trout and try to lure him to join them. Trout who started as a nobody made a name for his himself being on the Angels for 5 years. But it added that this could be a long shot for the Yankees as the Angels are seemed not inclined to move Trout and they are committed to him all the way. And if there is one thing that the Angels get's going every year, that's because Trout is there to lead them. Will the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim release Mike Trout to the New York Yankees this offseason? Find out soon by tuning in for more MLB trade rumors, news and updates. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Blog Hinangai While there is much discussion in Guam about the economic benefits of increasing the islands military presence, the damages/dangers that they represent are rarely mentioned. This blog, a supplement to the Peace and Justice for Guam Petition, is meant to counter that by providing information about the US military in Guam, with the hopes of steering policy away from a dangerous unilateralist course to more sustainable notions of regional development and a strengthening international solidarity. Daws77 said: Estimates of the number of illegal abortions in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s range from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year. Prior to Roe v. Wade, as many as 5,000 American women died annually as a direct result of unsafe abortions.Mar 23, 2014 The Impact of Illegal Abortion - Our Bodies Ourselves Click to expand... That is a loaded pile of shiiite, and this link will provide with some truths, I dare you to read it, NWolfe35 feel free to read it as well there are some interesting admissions in it!Here is a piece of it Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL):"How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In NARAL, we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter, it was always '5000 to 10,000 deaths a year.' I confess I knew the figure was totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the morality of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of the way to correct it with honest statistics. The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done was permissible" (Aborting America, Doubleday Pub. p.193)3. Prior to Roe, the number of abortion related deaths had been declining steadily: Dr. Andre Hellegers (late Prof. of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Georgetown University) pointed out in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee (April 25, 1974) that improved medical care and use of penicillin resulted in a drop from 1,231 deaths in 1942, to 133 deaths in 1968. Dr. Thomas Hilgers and Dennis Horan compiled a highly reliable study in 1981 using data from the U.S. Department of Vital Statistics. They note that deaths from illegal abortion dropped from 501 in 1940, to 58 in 1970. (Hilgers, et al "An Objective Model for Estimating Criminal Abortions and Its Implications for Public Policy," in New Perspectives on Human Abortion, University Publications, 1981).4. There is no reliable statistical data to support the claim of a million illegal abortions a year (inBut please continue to embrace the darkness you baby killing pukes! Boyd Martin and Steady Eddie, shown here at the 2016 Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, are among the competitors who will participate in the inaugural Ocala Jockey Club Three-Day Event this Thanksgiving. Boyd Martin and Steady Eddie, shown here at the 2016 Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, are among the competitors who will participate in the inaugural Ocala Jockey Club Three-Day Event this Thanksgiving. If youre in or around central Florida this Thanksgiving weekend, organizers of the new Ocala Jockey Club Three-Day Event are hoping youll want to take part in a new tradition. Eventers will compete in CCI1*, CCI2*, and CIC3* divisions from November 24-27 at the Ocala Jockey Club in an event designed to appeal to spectators. The Ocala Jockey Club, which is located north of Ocala in the town of Reddick, is a 950-acre venue where racehorses and event horses are trained. The facility also hosts weddings and special events, but the OJC3DE is the first major equestrian sport event at the venue. The organizers are ambitious, hoping to add a CIC 4* in the future. Presently there are only six four-star events in the world, and only onethe Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Eventheld in North America. Get Our Free Weekly Enewsletter About Horses This years event begins on Thanksgiving day with dressage from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday will be a spectator highlight with cross-country running all day along with Pony Club Presidents Cup Games. Spectators will also be able to take advantage of the many vendors on site, some of which will be running Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales. Eventing fans will recognize many of the horses and riders scheduled to compete at this inaugural event. 2016 U.S. Olympic team member Boyd Martin is bringing three horses. Buck Davidson, a member of U.S. team for the 2014 World Equestrian Games has four potential horses on the list. Fan favorites Allison Springer and Arthur are one of many Rolex veterans signed up for the CIC3*. Find out if your favorite horse-and-rider pair will be there, plus get more scheduling and ticketing info at ojc3de.com. Leslie Potter is a writer and photographer based in Lexington, Kentucky. www.lesliepotterphoto.com With Marriott`s $13.6 billion acquisition of Starwood Hotels now complete, Marriott chief executive Arne Sorenson will be contemplating how to capture as much value as possible from the deal. As with all such M&A activity though the apparent benefits will only be realized with a well-implemented plan when it comes to bringing together what may be very different corporate cultures. At a recent panel discussion on "How is the hotel industry going to attract and retain the talent of the future?" staged at Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne (EHL), panelists with decades of industry experience shared their views on the mega-merger. Nick van Marken, Global Head of Hospitality at Deloitte, who has interviewed Sorenson on the deal, said the most obvious benefit is scale. The Group will now have 30 brands, 5,700 hotels, over one million rooms and will be present in 110 countries. Underpinning that is loyalty. "This is about combining the power of Marriott Rewards with SPG (the Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty programme). Get this right and you have 75 million loyal customers which Marriott can then try to ensure book direct, reducing the impact of OTAs (online travel agents)." For Marriott, it is also an opportunity to move into spaces it hasn't previously been in. According to Susan Devine, Senior Vice President of Strategic Development with Preferred Hotels & Resorts, 'soft' brands like Preferred, which provides sales and marketing support for independent hotels, have been emerging in the hospitality industry. Now with the consolidation of 'hard' brands like Marriott and Starwood, large corporations will be exploring how they can offer their services to the hospitality industry generally. "The reason they are doing this is because independent hotels don't necessarily need the same things as before. You have the internet now, so does it really matter if you have the Marriott name? You can research a hotel before you go there, so there's an opportunity for hotels to stay independent." "On the other hand, hotels need more support because revenue and distribution, the way in which business is driven in hospitality, is much more complex. You have OTAs, you can't just think about brochures and travel agents. You're looking at a whole different model of distribution which is very fast moving. So hotels need sales and marketing support. They need to be connected with global partners." "The hard brands - the Marriotts and Starwoods are beginning to offer some of these services in different ways. But they'll have to start moving more quickly otherwise these spaces will be taken and we're already seeing that. So the vision of hospitality is broadening," Devine said. "When we all started our careers and you walked through the doors of a hotel and it said Holiday Inn on the roof that meant it was likely to be managed by Holiday Inn, owned by Holiday Inn, and operated under Holiday Inn brand infrastructure," van Marken said. "Now you can walk into a hotel as a consumer and you'll be completely unaware that the building the real estate portion is owned by one party, the management delivered by another party, and the brand can be a franchise. Add that the actual method of booking may be via someone completely different (i.e. an OTA) and you have four interested parties." In Singapore, he added, a hotel has opened which only takes reservations via booking.com. "That is effectively their channel of choice. They have no sales and marketing team. Priceline's market cap is equivalent to the combined market cap of InterContinental, Marriott and Hilton, so you can see which way the financial markets are betting." Another panelist, Jean-Marc Grosfort, the Managing Director of Worldwide Hotel Development, had previously worked for both Marriott and Starwood. The two corporations had different approaches and structures, he said, and processes will now have to be learnt and unlearnt. "The new generation is shaping the future and I saw it when Arne Sorenson became president. He protected the deep values created and implemented by Mr Marriott but took the corporation to a second speed of doing business with the firm intention of accelerating development, moving from a traditional and centralized structure to a more global and assertive approach. What will be challenging will be to take the best of the old values and reshape them to make the future work." Marriott had built its business on taking care of its people, who in turn would take care of the guests, who would keep coming back. "That's Mr Marriott's mantra. He learnt it from his parents and is still talking about it," van Marken said, adding that the corporation is still, in effect, a family business. "He's probably the last guy at the top of a major hotel company which actually has his name on it, and that makes a huge difference." Bill Marriott had hand-picked Sorenson as his successor as, according to van Marken, he had a clear vision and ev6eryone at Marriott believed in him. "You need to get people to follow you," van Marken added. "If you don't, you're going to have a very short career." Jonathan Humphries writes: In my view, these combined companies offer a huge opportunity for future recruits, employees, customers and shareholders. The range of brands gives the Marriott-Starwood entity significant shelf space in the hotel customer and investor market. Arguably there is still more scope to add even more brands to target even more customer groups, so undoubtedly the combined company should continue to grow rapidly with its new momentum. For the ongoing integration, the trick will be to retain key talent within the organization and continue to attract new talent. There is significant knowledge and experience within both organizations, and although there is an expectation that the transition to the future for the combined entity should be swift, it is important that both the new and old employees try and understand each other's perspectives and show "mutual respect". This attribute was prioritized by EHL students as the top decision criterion for selecting future employers. The new energy, enthusiasm and drive created, plus the strong culture, history and previous successes have the potential to create a very powerful combination and give Marriott-Starwood a strong competitive edge. There is ultimately going to be a fallout during this process, however. Existing employees should remind themselves of the quote from the well-known futurist Alvin Toffler, who said that "the mantra for the 21st century should be the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn". Jonathan Humphries is a Senior Lecturer at EHL with nearly 20 years` experience in the hotel and real estate sectors. Stuart Pallister is Associate Director of the Lausanne Hospitality Research Center. This article is published courtesy of EHL Hospitality Insights. Sherif Mamdouh External Communications Manager EHL View source It looks like you've reached a page that doesnt exist (anymore). Please use the navigation or search above to find content on Hospitality Net. Go back to home Donohoe Real Estate Services/CORFAC, a member of Hotel Brokers International announces the successful sale of the 153 key Holiday Inn Valley View in Roanoke, Virginia. Bill Moyer and Charlotte Seale represented Seller and the Buyer was procured by Ms. Seale. The Holiday Inn Valley View is located within close proximity to the Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport and originally built in the 80s as a Sheraton Hotel. The Seller acquired property in 2006 and converted hotel to a Holiday Inn after extensive renovations were completed. The Holiday Inn is situated on 10 acres and contains 153 Spacious Guestrooms with 12,000s.f. of meeting space. The Buyers, Roanoke Airport Hotel Partners, LLC. purchased the property for $7,250,000 and have immediate plans to invest a significant amount of additional capital for major renovations and Brand updates to all areas of the hotel as they continue to operate as a Holiday Inn. Donohoe has enjoyed a long term relationship with Sellers and we are pleased we could identify a qualified buyer for this asset and will continue to assist them in their ongoing efforts to reposition their portfolio, stated Charlotte Seale, Director. The Donohoe Companies founded in 1884 is one of the oldest and largest privately held full service commercial real estate companies in Washington, D.C. Donohoe R.E.Services/Corfac Int'l, Hotel Brokerage Group is committed to providing quality service and cultivating long term relationships that build return for our clients. While Donohoe's focus is the Mid-Atlantic area, we are able to assist new buyers and sellers who emerge in other regions of the U.S. through our alliance with Hotel Brokers International. To learn more, please contact Charlotte Seale, Director (202) 625-4156 email: charlottes@donohoe.com or Bill Moyer, Vice President (202) 625-4153 email: billm@donohoe.com. Founded in 1959, Hotel Brokers International members lead the industry in hotel real estate sales. HBI hotel brokerage specialists have successfully negotiated more than 10,000 hotel real estate transactions and consistently account for the largest share of all select-service and economy hotel sales in the United States. The organizations database currently comprises more than 100 property listings and the HBI website attracts site visitors from around the world. Founder and host of the popular Hotel Investors Marketplace Webcast, HBI also developed the Certified Hotel Broker professional designation program. In addition to hospitality real estate advisory services, HBI offers affiliate membership to professionals in allied fields, including franchising, lending, appraisals and investment services. For more information about HBIs hotel listings or to become a broker or affiliate member, visit www.hbihotels.com. For more information contact: Charlotte Seale, Director/ Associate Broker Donohoe Real Estate Services/Corfac 202.625.4156 charlottes@donohoe.com Bill Moyer, Vice President Donohoe Real Estate Services/Corfac 202.625.4153 billm@donohoe.com Glenda J. Webb, Managing Director Hotel Brokers International Kansas City, Missouri 816.505.4315 gwebb@hbihotels.com Compared with October 2015, the U.S. hotel industrys occupancy was nearly flat, down 0.3% to 68.6%. However, average daily rate (ADR) increased 1.9% to US$126.73, and revenue per available room (RevPAR) grew 1.6% to US$86.94. October marked the industrys 80th consecutive month with a year-over-year increase in RevPAR. The U.S. hotel industry reported mostly positive year-over-year results in the three key performance metrics during October 2016, according to data from STR. Compared with October 2015, the U.S. hotel industrys occupancy was nearly flat, down 0.3% to 68.6%. However, average daily rate (ADR) increased 1.9% to US$126.73, and revenue per available room (RevPAR) grew 1.6% to US$86.94. October marked the industrys 80th consecutive month with a year-over-year increase in RevPAR. October produced the lowest RevPAR growth figure of any month since February of 2010, said Jan Freitag, STRs senior VP for lodging insights. Opposite of last month, we expected results to be fairly weak with the Jewish holiday calendar shift (September 2015 to October 2016) having a pretty significant impact on Group demand. Halloween on a Monday instead of a Saturday (2015) also hurt performance. Another important item to note is supply growth. The 1.7% increase in rooms available was the highest since June 2010. Supply and demand each grew 1.5% through the first 10 months of the year, and while that will likely be the case through the end of the year, we are forecasting supply to pull ahead in 2017 and place further pressure on hoteliers pricing power. Among the Top 25 Markets, Norfolk/Virginia Beach, Virginia, registered the only double-digit increases in occupancy (+11.7% to 60.4%) and RevPAR (+14.8% to US$52.43). ADR in the market grew 2.8% year over year to US$86.79. Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota-Wisconsin, posted the largest rise in ADR (+8.3% to US$131.65) and ranked second in RevPAR growth (+7.6% to US$99.61). Houston, Texas, reported the steepest declines across the three key performance metrics. Occupancy in the market dropped 12.8% to 63.2%, ADR was down 7.4% to US$104.69 and RevPAR fell 19.2% to US$66.17. Miami/Hialeah, Florida, was the only other Top 25 Market to experience a double-digit decrease in any of the metrics. RevPAR in the market dropped 12.6% to US$106.92, driven primarily by an 8.4% decline in occupancy to 67.2%. The Top 25 Markets (RevPAR: -0.4%) lagged behind the performance of all other markets (RevPAR: +3.0%), Freitag said. That is not a surprise given that a significant portion of the countrys supply growth is happening in the major markets. View monthly U.S. hotel performance review STR provides clients from multiple market sectors with premium, global data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights. Founded in 1985, STR maintains a presence in 10 countries around the world with a corporate North American headquarters in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and an international headquarters in London, England. For more information, please visit str.com. New Regional Vice Presidents for Western Europe and Middle East, Africa Offer More than 60 Years of Combined Hotel Industry Expertise Wyndham Hotel Group, the worlds largest hotel company with nearly 8,000 hotels across a portfolio of 16 iconic brands, today announced two new appointments in the Europe, Middle East, Eurasia and Africa (EMEA) leadership team. Patrick Divall has been appointed to the role of Regional Vice President, Western Europe, and Ignace Bauwens to the role of Regional Vice President, Middle East and Africa. Divall joins the company from Starwood Hotels & Resorts, where he was most recently the Regional Director of Finance, Western Europe, and brings more than 30 years experience in the hospitality industry. In his new role, Divall will report into Dan Ruff, President and Managing Director, EMEA, and will be responsible for driving growth of Wyndham Hotel Groups portfolio in Western Europe, which currently includes more than 150 hotels. He will be based at the companys London office. Divall explains, I have a particular passion for growing and nurturing teams and therefore am delighted to join Wyndham Hotel Group at a time when our portfolio of managed and franchised hotels across Western Europe is growing at an incredible pace. We have a tremendous opportunity to continue our explosive growth and build on Wyndham Hotel Groups brand recognition in this region. Bauwens joins Wyndham Hotel Group with almost 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry, including senior operations roles at Accor and InterContinental Hotels Group. Based in the Middle East since 2002, Bauwens most recently served as Managing Director for BLH bvba Hospitality Consultancy and as CEO of Abu Dhabi National Hotels (ADNH). In his new role, Bauwens will oversee one of Wyndham Hotel Groups fastest-growing regions. He will also report into Dan Ruff and will be based at the companys Dubai office. Bauwens says, Wyndham Hotel Group has a very bold development strategy to ensure that wherever adventure leads, travellers can find our hotel brands nearby. Nowhere in EMEA is this strategy more evident than in the Middle East and Africa. I look forward to continuing in the remarkable work the team has done establishing our brands in some of the most exciting travel destinations on the planet. This year Wyndham Hotel Group has reached important development milestones in EMEA, including introducing the Super 8 brand to Europe, opening the companys 50th hotel in Turkey, expanding into Greece with the Wyndham Grand Athens and announcing new hotels in emergent destinations such as Oman, Iraq and Ethiopia. President-Elect is a sensitive guy, and if you act rudely toward him, hell start looking for revenge. One institution Trump has consistently feuded with this election is the New York Times, consistent critics of the Donald. Early this morning, Trump announced that he was cancelling his meeting with the failing NY Times because they were changing the conditions of their meet-up, and because they were not nice. He went on to say that the newspaper covers him with a nasty tone, and that complaints against the NY Times were at an all-time high. Harsh, but probably accurate. The NY Times responded, claiming that they only found out the meeting was cancelled because of Trumps tweet, and that they had not tried to change any of the conditions of the meeting. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding? According to Trump, the meeting is back on at 12:30 today (perhaps its happening as we speak). Trump and Twitter is a bizarre mix. Were looking forward to hear how that meeting goes. To better understand the Trump headspace, peep PartyNextDoors music video for Not Nice below. Donald Trump Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) has spent the majority of 2016 unable to leave South Africa. The rapper was arrested for attempting to use a world passport document to travel out of the country in January, and while he was later released on bail, he has been forced to stay put until further decisions were made. Today, The Guardian reports that Bey has been granted the ability to leave South Africa, but will not be able to re-enter. Beys unreserved apolog[y] to the government of South Africa, has been deemed satisfactory, and the country is dropping their charges against him. However, Bey he has been added to South Africas undesirable persons list. According to TMZ, Beys attorney is planning to appeal the rappers status with the South African government once he is back in the U.S. The world passport Bey attempted to use is a document created by the World Service Authority, an organization fighting for world citizenship. While most countries will not accept the document as a passport, Togo, Mauritania, Ecuador, Zambia, Tanzania, have accepted it, according to the WSA. Yasiin released music with Ferrari Sheppard as Dec. 99th earlier this year. Listen to their track Hymn, released in August. 'Sugar, We're Goin Down' takes a spin on the old record player. Vinyl record sales have steadily been increasing over the past couple of years, making a comeback in the digital age. Not only are people buying the classics like Pink Floyd and the Beatles on vinyl, but modern bands like Radiohead, The Riptide Movement, and countless others are releasing their songs on this mode of listening. Digital downloads, CDs, and the 'ol time feeling of big spinning discs are all a part of the consumer experience. It's hard to believe, but Fall Out Boy have been a band for fifteen years already! The reissue of two classics from 2005 and 2007 reaffirms the revitalisation of vinyl. got some From Under The Cork Tree & Infinity On High vinyl reissues coming for you on 12/16! pre-order yours https://t.co/lf9hoCxbQV pic.twitter.com/D1xBxpuu41 Fall Out Boy (@falloutboy) November 21, 2016 Advertisement Vinyl versions of From Under The Cork Tree and Infinity On High will be available on December 16 - just in time for Christmas! FOCUS ON DEFENSE CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND OCEANIA Its true! The Kooks come back to the UK with their Best Of tour in 2017 starting off in Manchester on April 21st, and winding their way through the country until completing the tour at Londons Alexandra Palace. The British Indie Rock band, known for hits such as She Moves In Her Own Way or Naive announced that the tour celebrates their ten years as a band together. Its hard to believe that they released their debut album Inside In/Inside Out (which received five times platinum last month) a full decade ago. The Brighton band has since released three further albums including Konk in 2008, Junk Of The Heart in 2011 and Listen in 2014. Now, The Kooks will perform their greatest hits of the last 10 years in the UK, along with a few new tracks they have been working on in the studio over the last year. Advertisement You can see The Kooks at the following shows: Friday 21 April: Manchester Academy Saturday 22 April: Birmingham O2 Academy Monday 24 April: Scunthorpe Baths Hall Tuesday 25 April: Leeds O2 Academy Thursday 27 April: Newcastle O2 Academy Saturday 29 April: Liverpool Olympia Monday 1 May: Nottingham Rock City Tuesday 2 May: Bristol Colston Hall Thursday 4 May: Southampton O2 Guildhall Friday 5 May: Plymouth Pavilions Saturday 6 May: Bournemouth O2 Academy Monday 8 May: Norwich The Nick Rayns LCR, UEA Tuesday 9 May: Cambridge Corn Exchange Thursday 11 May: Leicester De Montfort Hall Friday 12 May: Southend Cliffs Pavilion Saturday 13 May: London Alexandra Palace The head of TV3 News was with the station since its launch and was involved in establishing some of RTEs biggest rival's key Irish programmes Andrew Hanlon (pictured here on the left), TV3 Group Director of News and Information Programming, has decided to step down from his position with the station at the end of the year. Andrew has occupied the role since TV3 commenced broadcasting in 1998 and was responsible for the launch of TV3 News as well as Ireland AM, Xpose and the Tonight with Vincent Browne show. Having been with the business since its inception, and through three stages of ownership, the time has come to pass on the baton, Andrew told Hot Press. "TV3 has been an incredible experience for me over the years and I leave with a heavy heart, having made so many friends over my 18 years at the broadcaster. But new and exciting challenges await and I will continue to work in the media business for many years to come. "I would like to thank Pat Kiely for his support and my other close colleagues at TV3 who I will miss dearly. I would also like to thank Tony Hanway and his colleagues in Virgin Media who have been great support for the TV3 business as new owners. I am delighted to be leaving TV3 in such good shape and exciting times whilst equally excited about my own future plans. Advertisement It would be hard to find somebody who played a bigger role in TV3s development of local programming than Andrew Hanlon, TV3 Group Managing Director Pat Kiely said, when the news was released. "From launching Irelands first independent television news service, TV3 News, to Irelands only daily television breakfast show, Ireland AM, and lots in between, Andrew leaves a legacy of successful TV3 programmes. "Andrew was a loyal, dedicated and, above all, supremely talented colleague, who I have no doubt will continue to leave his mark on the Irish media landscape. As TV3 begins a new chapter, I am very sorry to see Andrew leave the business but he takes the very best wishes from all his colleagues in TV3 and Virgin Media with him. This article can only be read with a Premium Account Kelvin Gold pinched a nerve in his neck shortly after he was hired as a seaman by Helix Energy Solutions Group, a Houston offshore energy services firm. He hurt himself again while moving a heavy beam, eventually causing him to leave a ship in Singapore and fly home to Houston. Gold expected he would receive benefits under the Jones Act, the federal law that provides wages, medical treatment and other support to injured sailors. But Helix denied the benefits, arguing that the ship was undergoing such extensive renovations at the time that it was no longer seaworthy - meaning the Jones Act would not apply. The case is now on its way to the Texas Supreme Court, after a lower state court found for Helix, leaving Gold without income and medical benefits. As a seaman, Gold is ineligible for workers' compensation, the state program that covers employees who are injured on the job. RELATED: Does century-old law hurt our modern economy? The issue before the state Supreme Court is whether the lower court judge erred by hearing and deciding the case himself, rather than conducting a trial by jury. Juries have decided Jones Act cases for decades and the high court's decision could change this practice, granting judges much more discretion in determining the outcomes, maritime law experts said. The case also raises the question of what responsibilities employers have to workers injured on the job. The Jones Act, a century-old law named for a senator from Washington, was designed to protect sailors exposed to the perils of the sea, including fires, falls and sickness, and provide a way to hold ship owners and operators responsible for unsafe conditions. The law gave crew members the right to sue for damages as well as lost wages and health care; they can sue in state or federal court. "Seamen are exposed to hazards that most that work on land don't have," said Charles Herd, a maritime lawyer at the Lanier Law Firm in Houston. Gold, who lives in Fort Bend County, was hired in November 2012 as an able-bodied seaman as part of a crew to convert a 534-foot drydocked drilling ship into a vessel that can extend the productive life of existing wells at a shipyard in Singapore. The ship, which Helix bought for $85 million, is known as the Helix 534. Helix spent another $30 million on the renovation, which was eventually completed in Galveston. RELATED: Houston ranks No. 2 in domestic port jobs Gold worked 28 days on, 28 days off, and earned $100,000 a year. But he was injured in December 2012, and several months later exacerbated his injury. Gold received lost wages and medical benefits under the Jones Act until November 2013, when Helix terminated his employment, according to court documents. Gold sued Helix to continue the benefits, accusing the company of failing to comply with government safety standards, provide a safe place to work and proper training. Gold is seeking back pay and future wages because his injuries left him unable to do much physical labor. He also seeks to recover the cost of medical care he needs now and in the future. Helix argued that to qualify as a seaman under the Jones Act, Gold had to work on a vessel in navigation. Since the ship didn't even have an engine while it underwent repairs, the company argued that Gold was ineligible for medical benefits or lost wages. Helix also argued that Gold could not sue for damages under the Jones Act. Helix also denied responsibility for the injuries. In its response to the lawsuit, the company raised several defenses including that Gold should have exercised more care for his own safety, the injury was the result of a pre-existing condition, and Gold was aware of the risks. Whatever the reason, Helix argued, Gold was not entitled to benefits under the Jones Act because the Helix 534 was not seaworthy. Christina Crozier, the Houston appellate lawyer representing Helix, said the issue boils down to whether the vessel was "practically capable" of transportation or merely "theoretically capable." Without an engine or sails, Crozier said, the vessel did not meet the established test of being "practically capable" of moving people or products. Gold argued the repairs were not extensive enough for the ship to lose its status as a seaworthy vessel. He said in court documents that the renovations would not alter the appearance of the ship, which would remain capable of drilling wells. Harris County state District Judge Brent Gamble agreed with Helix, dismissing Gold's case in January 2015. But later that year, the 14th District Court of Appeals in Houston overturned Gamble's ruling, saying that determining navigability and other issues should be left to a jury. That's because the definitions aren't exact; the appeals court cited an earlier case in which a vessel in dry-dock was still considered to be "in navigation." The Texas Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing for January. James MacPherson/STF BISMARCK, N.D. - A federal judge likely won't decide until early next year whether to give the developer of the Dakota Access oil pipeline permission to finish the $3.8 billion project, according to court documents. That leaves open the possibility that a resolution to the matter might still come through federal regulators rather than the courts. The average price of gasoline in the Houston area fell for the third consecutive week, giving the holiday travelers who will jam the roads over the next few days something for which to be thankful. Going into the long Thanksgiving weekend, average prices locally and nationally are among the lowest in years, according to GasBuddy.com, a site that tracks retail gasoline prices. The average price in the Houston area fell nearly 5 cents a gallon this week, after sliding nearly 4 cents the previous week and 2 cents the week before that. Local drivers paid an average of $1.91 a gallon at the beginning of the week, just above last year's average of $1.86, which was the lowest for that period since at least 2011. In 2011 and 2012, local drivers paid $3.14 per gallon as Thanksgiving approached. Nationally, gasoline prices this were also among the lowest in several years. GasBuddy projected that prices nationally on Thanksgiving will average $2.11 cents a gallon, up from $2.05 cents in 2015, but 68 cents less than $2.79 a gallon in 2014. More Information Thanksgiving Day Gas Prices National average per gallon 2007: $3.08 2008: $1.81 2009: $2.62 2010: $2.85 2011: $3.32 2012: $3.44 2013: $3.28 2014: $2.79 2015: $2.05 2016*:$2.11 *projected Source: GasBuddy See More Collapse In addition, GasBuddy added, this year marks the first time in more than a decade that no state has seen the average daily gas price breach $3 a gallon. "With a record amount of travelers, motorists will be facing congestion not only on highways, but at gas stations," said Patrick DeHaan, a GasBuddy senior analyst. "But at least low gas prices have lingered for much of this year." Gasoline prices have largely followed the price of crude oil, which has declined over the past few weeks as markets worried that the OPEC would not complete an agreement to cut output and reduce the global surplus. But with OPEC nations recently signaling confidence in reaching a deal when they meet in Vienna next week, crude has rallied. Oil jumped $1.80 in New York trading Monday to settle at $47.49 a barrel, the highest settlement since Oct. 28. DeHaan said that could mean the end of falling gasoline prices. "Keep an eye on word from OPEC over the holiday weekend," DeHaan said. Regardless of the decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, oil prices likely will remain between $40 and $60 throughout 2017. That suggests that oil prices would only rise moderately next year. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Lake Conroe's flip-flop and T-shirt vibe is getting an urban-style upgrade. A longtime developer in this area north of Houston is building a condominium project designed for wealthy Houstonians who want a first or second home on the laid-back lakeside - but with a downtown twist. The five-story building will have 56 units outfitted with the kind of touches typically found in upscale urban towers: designer appliances, quartz countertops, custom cabinetry. The five-story building will be gated and have two resort-style pools with cabanas and lake views. The 56 units will also have downtown prices, starting at around $500,000 apiece. "Nobody has ever supplied a product like this on the lake," boasted Jim Winkler, president of Winkler Development. He recently started construction on the building, called The Shoreline. But building a luxury property in an area Winkler himself describes as a having a "Jimmy Buffett atmosphere" is a gamble. Danny Barrett, vice president of sales and branch manager of the Lake Conroe office of Coldwell Banker, questions how the building will be received by area buyers. Lake Conroe real estate has held up during the downturn, but demand has been mostly for lower-priced properties. "It's going to be a tough sell," Barrett said. "That price range has been pretty slow and sluggish throughout the economy of late." Sales in the Lake Conroe area fell 3 percent over the 12 months that ended in October, compared with the previous year, data from the Houston Association of Realtors show. The average price of the 1,524 homes that sold was $285,405, virtually unchanged from the previous year. Winkler's new property will be part of the larger Waterpoint development at 15300 Texas 105 West in Montgomery. Waterpoint has shops, lakefront restaurants and a marina with 150 deepwater boat slips. Those amenities could help attract buyers, despite the cooling of the high-end market, Barrett said. "It has the marina, Sam's Boat, Fajita Jack's and some other retail around it," he said. "And it's right on the water. It will probably have really nice views." In 2005, Winkler built a residential project nearby called Paradise Point with 48 condominiums that started at around $200,000 each. "We sold those things as fast as we built them," he said. He's also sold million-dollar single-family homes in the area. The Shoreline was supposed to be built in 2008, but it was shelved when the recession hit. "We had 19 units sold in the first four months and that's when the market tanked on us," Winkler said. "We decided to put the project on hold." After the recession, lenders who had been making hefty real estate loans on condominium buildings scaled way back. Now developers typically need as many as half of their units pre-sold in order to secure construction financing. Winkler is constructing his new building with private financial backing. "We have a private investor that believes in this area," he said. Floor plans in The Shoreline will range from a two-bedroom, two-bath unit with 1,272 square feet to a four-bedroom, four-bath unit with 2,040 square feet. If all goes as scheduled, the first buyers will move in this time next year. "I truly in my heart know there's a pent-up demand for high-end, luxury product on the lake with great views in a laid-back atmosphere," Winkler said. Shane Smith doesn't rest for interviews not during open season, at least. "Come over here, I'm not stopping," he yelled over the churn of a meat grinder, catching a stream of pink deer flesh in little bags before taping them shut and nestling them in a large bin. These are critical weeks at Freer Deer Camp, the outfitting depot that Smith's family started 24 years ago. The front of the shop does a brisk business in hunting garb and equipment including rhinestone-studded hats and belts for hunters' wives under the glassy gaze of deer heads mounted all around the walls. Meanwhile, the shop renders and stuffs game animals that hunters bring by for processing. "I get rich three months out of the year," Smith says, taking a break to drain a water bottle, swatting hopeful dogs away from buckets of scraps. The stream of hunters is a welcome relief for the tiny town of Freer, population 2,783, which has been hard hit over the past year and a half by the decline in oil drilling activity in the nearby Eagle Ford shale play. The local unemployment rate spiked to 12 percent this past summer. But in the fall, the trucks full of hunters from Houston and San Antonio start to arrive, driving out to the vast ranches surrounding town that are stocked with game for a weekend of hiding out in deer blinds. On their way to and from, they'll eat in Freer's handful of restaurants, buy provisions at its stores, and fuel up at its gas stations. It even helps the local airport: One guy, according to city secretary Ana Garcia, flies in twice monthly from Missouri to go hunting. That adds up to real economic impact. South Texas is a deer-hunting mecca, soaking up a large part of the approximately $1.8 billion that hunters spend in Texas annually, according to an article published this year in the International Journal of Environmental Studies. Of course, the hunting economy isn't completely insulated from the oil bust. Freer Deer Camp isn't quite as busy as it was at the height of the boom when not only city slickers had thousands of dollars to drop on a luxury hunting vacation. "When the Eagle Ford was going nuts, the local guys were starting to hunt, because they were making more money," Smith says. Suddenly, even the townspeople could afford to pay $2,000 or more to participate in an activity that before they would only benefit from indirectly. Smith shared in their success. All that melted away in early 2015, when the local bank repossessed scores of trucks from people who could no longer make the payments. "Literally over night, people lost their jobs. No warning, just done," Smith recalls. "I've had more people ask for jobs than I've ever had." Freer Deer Camp will make it through alright, since they didn't do what many businesses and workers did during the boom take on debt that became unsustainable when the money dried up. "When I do good, I rat hole the hell out of everything," Smith says. "It's hurt me, but it's not gonna kill me." The bigger threat, he figures, is the longer-run decline in hunting as a pastime, as expenses have risen and younger city dwellers have lost interest. As an insurance policy, he's started buying houses out at a nearby lake, counting on a future stream of reliable rental income. "Our clientele's getting older and older," Smith says. "In the long run, I need younger people coming in." After cutting up a deer carcass into chunks on a metal table and coating them liberally with spices and cheese, Smith sits back down at the grinder, bunching a 20-foot length of pig intestines onto the spout. An assistant switches on the machine, shoving the meat into the funnel, which squeezes into the sausage casing in a long, neat tube. It's the same process he's used for decades, and will be the same even after the next oil boom arrives. "When I'm gone, it'll probably still be here," Smith says. To a certain extent, everyone is a storyteller. We all make choices about the tales we tell - of our jobs, our friends, our partners. These decisions shape the narrative of each person's life. But sometimes choices are harder to make, especially regarding the stories we tell about the people we love. We care for our loved ones so much that, in our zeal to convey enthusiasm, we may share more than our audiences want or need to hear. This is an understandable impulse, so it's no surprise that Michael Chabon's "Moonglow," a work of speculative fiction written as a memoir, overflows with information about its unnamed protagonist, a character inspired by Chabon's grandfather. If the book is overstuffed with incident, it's still a moving family portrait and an entertaining trip through some of the 20th century's most significant events. The novel's framing device is a series of bedside conversations the fictional "Mike Chabon" has with his dying grandfather in Oakland, Calif. The elder Chabon, a Philly native, shares his recollections "in no discernible order" but begins in 1957, when he loses his sales job at a company called Feathercombs to make room for Alger Hiss. In a rollicking scene out of "No Country for Old Men," the elder Chabon responds by trying to strangle the company president with a severed telephone cord and is sentenced to jail. He doesn't tell his wife what he did, and for good reason. In the early '50s, Mike's French-born grandmother was a fixture on Baltimore television, both as the host of a pre-Julia Child French-cooking show, in which she "disjointed rabbits or whacked cutlets with a tenderizer while wearing pearls and a Dior dress," and as Nevermore, the Night Witch, host of a horror show called "The Crypt of Nevermore." But she also suffers from mental illness and is convinced she's being stalked by the Skinless Horse, "a creature sworn to pursue my grandmother no matter where she went." The chemistry between Chabon's grandparents is among the most moving parts of "Moonglow," but much of the novel concentrates on the grandfather's exploits, from his training as an electrical engineer - in his youth, he was fascinated by rocketry and the prospect of one day flying to the moon - to his work with a World War II invasion force whose mission was "to track down the scientists, technicians and engineers whose names appeared on the Black List and capture them before the Russians could." The prime catch was Wernher von Braun, the German space architect who designed the V-2 rocket for the Nazis and, later, NASA's Saturn V, which the United States used for moon exploration during the Apollo program. From there, the action of "Moonglow" encompasses circus performers and priests, Pearl Harbor and the Challenger explosion, a hunt for a cat-eating snake in a Florida retirement community, shady schemes involving "billiards clubs" and attempts to build rockets out of empty oatmeal drums. More Information 'Moonglow' By Michael Chabon Harper; 448 pp.; $28.99 See More Collapse By now, you've probably figured out the main problem with "Moonglow": Too much is going on. Seven pages on the history of the V-2 and long sections on the design of inertial guidance and telemetry systems, topological algorithms, the mathematics of graphing and even the smell and effectiveness of Prell shampoo make "Moonglow" feel unfocused and heavily researched, as if Chabon learned so much interesting information about his subjects that he couldn't bear to leave any of it out. Yet "Moonglow" contains some of the most memorable scenes Chabon has ever written, including a tender sequence in which young Mike plays cards with his grandmother while wondering if his mother will survive an operation and a passage in which Chabon's grandfather visits his wife at a priory and discovers her delusion that she's going to take orders as a Carmelite novice. The highlight of "Moonglow," as always with Chabon, is the prose. When Chabon's grandmother meets his grandfather at a Baltimore synagogue in 1947, she has her "head cocked to one side, as if only 85 percent certain they had met before and prepared to acknowledge her mistake." A car is "the color of a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk." Distant sounds intensify silence "the way a drop of blue paint intensified whiteness." The experience of reading "Moonglow" is like attending a buffet that offers table after table of painstakingly prepared dishes: You marvel at the artistry while at the same time wondering whether the chef would have been better off if he had scaled back his ambition. Still, thank goodness for ambitious chefs de cuisine such as Chabon. A reader in search of fiction that challenges its audience is better off with a flawed work such as "Moonglow" than with less daring fare. That's an easy choice to make. Izakaya, billed as Houston's first Japanese gastropub, debuted to fervid interest from the foodie community. As the sister project to the celebrated Kata Robata, it carried an air of importance given that Kata chef Manabu Horiuchi was collaborating with another Houston bright light, Jean-Philippe Gaston, formerly of Cove. And as a Japanese drinking concept, it had an imaginative cocktail menu and impressive list of sake, shochu and whiskey. Izakaya delighted local gastronauts and cocktailians, but the owners eventually realized the funky restaurant also needed to be embraced by its Midtown neighbors, who might not have been altogether clear about the restaurant's mission and menu. So about a year after it opened, Izakaya has now gone through something of transformation with Gaston leading the charge for a more simplified restaurant. The Defense Department has released guidelines that effectively allows troops to carry privately-owned and concealed firearms on military bases like Fort Hood, the scene of mass shootings in 2009 and 2014. The directive comes out in spite of public objections by Gen. Mark Milley, the Army Chief of Staff, who commanded Fort Hood during the 2014 killings. "Arming and the Use of Force," which came into effect on November 18, states Department of Defense firearms policies for military personnel during official duties. But, the DoD document also lays out the procedures that will allow Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines to carry privately-owned weapons on military bases. The approving authority in Washington for the new directive was Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work. The document changes a longstanding Department of Defense policy against troops carrying privately-owned weapons on base - even on military facilities in states like Texas that allow concealed carry of firearms. But, the policy has been criticized - especially following "active shooter" episodes like Nov. 5, 2009 when Maj. Nidal Hasan fatally shot 13 people at Fort Hood and wounded more than 30 others. Gen. Milley was commander of Fort Hood on April 2, 2014 when four people were killed, including the gunman, and 14 wounded. Milley, however, came out against allowing military troops to carry weapons on post. "I don't think soldiers should have concealed weapons on base," he said at a news conference following the shooting. Under the new guidelines, military commanders in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel or Commander will be the approving authority to allow personnel "to carry privately owned firearms on (Department of Defense) property for personal protection when it is not related to the performance of official duties." The directive lists requirements before approval can be given. The applicant should be 21 years old with a record free of any military or civilian charges that would prevent them from possessing a firearm. They must take an approved military or civilian-based firearms safety training and carry credentials showing they completed the training. When the permission has been granted to carry a privately-owned weapon on military property, it must be "concealed completely whether wearing civilian clothes or a military uniform. The concealment must not interfere with normal duties," according to the directive. In addition to complying with state laws, the applicant must acknowledge that they "may be personally liable for the injuries, death and property damage" that could result from negligence in using privately-owned firearms in a manner not connected with their military duties. WICHITA, Kan. - A Texas woman suspected of kidnapping a newborn had faked a pregnancy for months and was a longtime acquaintance of the girl's mother, who was found shot to death at her Kansas home, authorities said Monday. Yesenia Sesmas, 34, of Dallas was being held in a Dallas jail on a Kansas warrant, with first-degree murder and kidnapping charges pending. Authorities who are pursuing the charges are seeking to have her extradited back to Kansas. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate SAN ANTONIO - After a 30-hour manhunt, police late Monday afternoon took a man into custody in the fatal ambush shooting of a veteran detective, according to Chief William McManus. Police identified the suspect as 31-year-old Otis Tyrone McKane of San Antonio. McManus said police believe that on Sunday the suspect entered the police headquarters around 7:45 a.m., spoke to a clerk for about 20 seconds and left. McManus said no officers were in the building at the time, but he declined to elaborate on the interaction, citing the ongoing investigation. Four hours later, 20-year-veteran officer Benjamin Marconi was ambushed outside the building, police said. "I think the uniform was the target," McManus said. "We are relieved he was taken into custody without further loss of life," the chief said. "It's a relief for a lot of us. Everyone's looking forward to a good night's sleep." Marconi's slaying comes amid heightened concerns for police officers' safety across the nation. On Sunday, three other police officers were shot in separate shootings, two in Missouri and one in Florida. McKane's arrest was made after a SWAT team pulled over a vehicle on Interstate 10 East near Ackerman Road around 4:20 p.m. Monday. A woman and a 2-year-old child also were in the vehicle, police said. McKane in 2012 was charged with misdemeanor assault with bodily injury of a family member. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 60 days in jail. Marconi, 50, was shot and killed about 11:45 a.m. Sunday during a traffic stop near San Antonio's downtown police headquarters. He was issuing a traffic citation to another driver when a black sedan pulled up behind his patrol car, police said. The man in the black vehicle walked up to Marconi's car and fired two shots through the passenger window, hitting the detective in the head, police said. Marconi was taken to the San Antonio Military Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Family gives thanks Marconi left behind his adult-aged children, Jacy Lewis Marconi and Dane Gregory Marconi. He is the first San Antonio officer to be killed in the line of duty this year. Marconi's family released a statement Monday asking for privacy. "At this time, the Marconi family would like to give thanks from the bottom of our hearts for the outpouring of support, prayers and love we have received. At this time, we would appreciate privacy to mourn the loss of a wonderful father, brother, grandfather, friend and last, but not least, a peace officer," the family said. "He was so loving, so caring," said Estela Ayala, 67, Marconi's aunt. "Ever since he was a little boy he would pray for everyone. If he knew somebody was sick or even if they weren't, he would pray, for everyone." And now, she said, she and her family are praying for him and the rest of their family. Marconi's immediate family declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation, but he was remembered by aunts and friends as an upbeat protector of the community and anyone in need. "I always knew he was going to be something very special," said Elsie McGuire, his aunt and Ayala's sister. "He had this beauty about him that was always with people - working people, talking to people. He was always being there. I knew when he became a policeman, it was like that's his calling. To protect others. And that's what he loved. That's the biggest thing he loved, doing his job." Leticia Van de Putte, a former state senator, was a longtime friend of Marconi - they met in the late 1990s through mutual friends at a birthday party at a club, she said. Later, during her failed campaign for lieutenant governor, he worked privately for her as a security guard. Always keeping safety in mind, Van de Putte said Marconi would keep on eye on people at bars that he deemed unfit to drive. "He was always the first one to tell somebody, 'I'm taking your car keys away. Time to stop.' He never stopped being the protector even in a social situation," Van de Putte said. Good with children And he tried to pass that on to her grandchildren. "He was so good with little ones. He would say, 'You make good choices, because I have to deal with people that don't make good choices and then they have to go to the big time-out. You know what the big time-out is, don't you?' " she said. Marconi was described as a private man - he didn't use Facebook, though two years ago he took up Twitter, where he shared Human Rights Campaign posts, police advocacy notices and LGBT community information. His Twitter profile is a quote from Maya Angelou: "The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them." Marconi kept in impeccably good shape - his Twitter posts detailed how many miles he ran. Marconi moved in with his father, who was also a police officer, during his dad's final months of life. He also helped fix one of his aunt's roof, Ayala recalled. Marconi's death sent a shock wave of grief throughout his family, the police community and those who were his friends. "I just somehow think that the world is off its axis," Van de Putte said, referring to Marconi's death and the other three shootings nationwide. The San Antonio Police Officers Association has set up a memorial fund in Marconi's name at Generations Federal Credit Union. To donate, visit any bank branch or the website www.mygenfcu.org/MarconiMemorial. KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber slipped into a crowded Shiite mosque in Kabul on Monday and blew himself up during a prayer ceremony, killing at least 30 people and wounding scores in the latest attack claimed by the Islamic State on Afghanistan's Shiite minority. The Amaq news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic State, carried a statement saying that a member of the militant group had carried out the blast, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online messages from extremist factions. The midday attack occurred in the Baqir-ul Ulum mosque and cultural center in a Shiite district in western Kabul during a ceremony marking the end of the traditional 40-day mourning period since Ashura, one of the holiest days in the Shiite calendar. An attack on another Kabul mosque during Ashura killed 17 people. Several hours after Monday's blast, volunteers were sweeping glass from shattered windows and rolling up bloodstained carpets in the main worship hall. "I heard a huge noise and the room filled with smoke. When it cleared, I saw bodies everywhere," said Hussein Ali Nazari, 37, one of the volunteers. Huge chunks from the badly damaged stone pillars lining the large prayer room littered the floor. Near the ceiling, a sign in Arabic said, "A mosque is only for spiritual pursuits." Nazari said several hundred men and boys had been praying in the main hall at noon when the bomber struck among them. Women and girls had been gathered on an upstairs balcony. He said survivors used scarves and shawls to carry the dead and wounded outside until ambulances arrived. The Ministry of Public Health reported late Monday that at least 30 people were killed, including children, and about 80 injured. Officials from the United Nations' mission in Afghanistan condemned the attack as an "atrocity." The U.S. Embassy and the U.S. military assistance mission also issued statements condemning the attack. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey called on the United States and other nations Monday to rethink its proposal for a no-fly zone in northern Syria as the U.N. expressed deep concerns over the bombing of hospitals in rebel-held parts of Aleppo. Government forces pounded besieged rebel-held neighborhoods of the northern city for a seventh day, raising fears for the civilian population after airstrikes hit most of the hospitals in the area over the weekend. "There are no more working hospitals in eastern Aleppo, where more than 100,000 children are trapped under siege and heavy bombardment with dwindling access to food and medicine," said Geert Cappelaere, regional director for the U.N.'s children's agency. "They need these hospitals to stay alive." "Children should not be dying in hospitals because of bombs and they should not be dying in schools," he said, referring to a school that was hit on the government side of the city on Sunday, killing eight students. Turkey has long called for a no-fly zone to protect Syrian opposition forces from President Bashar Assad's air force. Ankara sent its own ground troops into Syria in August, but they are not fighting the Syrian government. Instead, Turkish forces and allied Syrian opposition fighters are battling the Islamic State group and U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, which Ankara views as an extension of the Kurdish insurgency in southeastern Turkey. Addressing a NATO parliamentary assembly in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan again criticized allies' reliance on Syrian Kurdish fighters to battle ISIS. "I hope that in the upcoming process, this will be reassessed, especially by the United States, and positive steps will be taken so that terrorism's back is broken and Turkey is rid of the threat of terrorism," Erdogan said. Turkey's positions have put it at odds with Washington, which has refused to directly target Assad's forces while providing air support for the Syrian Kurds, who have proven to be among the most successful ground forces battling ISIS. It's unclear how those policies might change under President-elect Donald Trump, who has expressed skepticism about American support for Syrian rebels and hinted at joining forces with Moscow against ISIS. Erdogan's comments came after Adnan Abu Amjad, a Syrian rebel commander allied with Kurdish forces, said Turkish warplanes struck his group near the northern town of Manbij late Sunday, killing one fighter and wounding others. "The Turkish state is a terrorist state that is attacking positions of the military council that is fighting Daesh," said Abu Amjad, commander of the Manbij Military Council, using an Arabic acronym to refer to ISIS. Yi-Chin Lee / Houston Chronicle/Baytown Consider the daily life of Dr. Denton A. Cooley, who died last Friday at age 96. For decades every morning, he left his home in River Oaks, donned his surgical smock at Texas Medical Center and from dawn to dusk plunged his gifted hands into the open chests of men, women and children whose hearts were failing, who were within days, or less, of death. And then, after saving the lives of as many as a dozen individuals on that particular day, he went home and did it all over again, day after day after day. The man who performed the first successful heart transplant in the United States operated on more than 100,000 heart patients throughout his long career. And when he wasn't in the operating room, he was perfecting numerous other advances in cardiac surgery, including valve replacement, bypass operations, removing aortic aneurysms and the development of heart-lung machines that keep people alive during cardiac surgery. He stopped performing surgery on his 87th birthday but was still working, still saving lives, a week before his death. Building walls Regarding "Fear on the border" (Page A1, Sunday), the front-page story discussed the human aspect of building the wall as promised by President-elect Trump and the great amount of fear and angst it has created among the people of Hispanic heritage. The Outlook page ("Mr. Trump, don't build that wall," Page A41) reported on the damage to employment and economic development that would be done by the building of a wall. And then tucked away in a story on Page A31 about Pope Francis and the "virus of polarization" was the statement by the pope in direct response to Donald Trump's plan to build a wall along the Mexican-U.S. border. We can argue economics; we can argue security; we can argue in legal terms or we can argue in human terms, but Pope Francis is right when he said that to even advocate for building walls is un-Christian. America has never built walls to separate people; we have always been proponents of tearing down walls and barriers and spreading democracy around the world, and I would hope that somewhere in the deep recesses of the conservative movement and today's GOP, someone can play back those words of President Reagan when he said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!" Bill Turney, Houston Irony on display Regarding "Trump agrees to pay $25M to settle suits" (Page A15, Saturday), the story provides a perfect study in irony heaped upon irony: First, after bellowing "Lying crooked Hillary" at us for months and boasting that he would "never settle as a matter of principle," the president-elect must now reimburse the claimants in the Trump University case to the tune of $25 million. Second, it was Judge Gonzalo Curiel, disparaged by Trump as a "Mexican" who couldn't be impartial, who urged that this settlement take place lest the new president have to defend himself from the Oval Office against charges of fraud and racketeering. Third, by avoiding an admission of guilt, Trump can assume the presidency free of any legal claim that he is the one who is "crooked." Marty Adams, Houston Textbook flap Regarding "Ed board rejects history book" (Page A3, Thursday), the voices who had the moral courage to speak out against the proposed textbook adoption of "Mexican American Heritage" with its ethnic stereotyping and multiple inaccuracies are a testament to excellence in education. Texas public school teachers do not just "teach" a textbook; they challenge their students to rise to the level of critical thinking by examining the authenticity of subject content and discerning its validity. Yes, Mexico lost a portion of its geographic sovereignty to Texas in 1836 (fact), but not its dignity (opinion). The dignity that we bestow on one another defines our great state of Texas and our blessed America. Yolanda Ramirez Moore, Houston Incentive helps Regarding "Brady tackles ACA in doses" (Page A1, Sunday), there really is a very simple solution for replacing the Affordable Care Act. The new law should make all members of the U.S. Congress, their families and their staffs subject to the same health care coverage. Under this guidance, I'm sure U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady will produce a law that is very good for all citizens. Louis DuPree, Magnolia Every New Years Eve, my boyfriend and I make the eight-hour, stiff-backed drive across Texas to Big Bend National Park. I always dread the drive, the traffic and the road but to us, there is no better solace than that found in the desert. Big Bend is where we go to reset ourselves, to toast the Chisos and to reflect on all the craziness a year of memories can make. As this 2017 New Year approaches, like many of my fellow millennials, I'm scared. I'm scared not only for Big Bend but for all of our national parks because our National Park Service is drowning. It's drowning in a maintenance backlog mounting over $12 billion, money that our Park Service doesn't have. Of that $12 billion, Big Bend faces $91 million in needed restoration. From our campsite in Boquillas Canyon, I couldn't imagine putting a dollar sign on a place like this. Unfortunately, our Congress has. Only 1/14th of 1 percent of our entire federal budget goes toward our National Park Service. In addition, the Park Service gets just 60 cents for every dollar it needs to keep this maintenance backlog from growing. I've been shocked to learn the scope of suffering Big Bend faces. Like so many other parks, our facilities are deteriorating. Campgrounds, visitor centers, staff housing, roads and plumbing are old, to say the least. Not only that, within the park is preserved thousands of years of human and natural history that must be protected. On a daily basis, our Park Service fights noise, air and water pollution, visitor overcrowding, invasive species, vandalism, traffic problems and the ravages of time. The story is similar across the nation. Our parks can't afford to fix the big problems that are growing in expense every day. But we can fix this. Enthusiasm and public support for parks won't diminish, nor will benefits for local economies. In 2015 alone, nationwide park visitation produced $32 billion for the U.S. economy. In Big Bend National Park, the tourism to the area supports more than 500 Texas jobs, and this number is growing. Likewise, park visitation is at record-breaking levels. Nearly 308 million people visited our parks last year alone. This isn't a political issue. Preserving our national parks is something we all can appreciate and that we all care about. The deeper I've dug into these issues, the more I fear for my generation and the generations after me. I fear that my children and grandchildren won't be able to experience the things that shaped me into the person I am today. Our national parks, in more ways than one, have taught me about the world - the past and the now. But we are the ones creating the future. Congress must provide the proper funding to our National Park Service to relieve the parks' maintenance backlog. We must save these sacred places of solace, learning, experience and recreation. It is our legacy. This is our home. Gulsby is a member of the National Parks Conservation Association's Young Leader Council. Its going to be difficult for visitors to find a place to sleep in Linn and Benton counties on Aug. 21, 2017, thanks to the Great American Eclipse, the first coast-to-coast solar eclipse in North America since 1918. Local motels and area campgrounds are already booked as visitors from around the world flock to the area to view a rare solar eclipse that will block the suns rays in 12 states, from the Pacific Northwest to the Carolinas. A solar eclipse is when the sun, moon and earth are directly in line with each other and the moon blocks the suns rays for a short time. The last total eclipse in North America was 38 years ago, but it only could be seen in five states. Oregon's mid-valley is in the direct line of sight for the unusual event. Although the eclipse will be partially visible throughout much of the United States, it is best observed within a 67-mile band of the events shadow. Leigha Thomas, director of sales for Holiday Inn Express and Comfort Inn Suites in Albany said she began receiving inquires about room availability two years ago. We only take reservations one year out and weve been busy ever since, Thomas said. Were full already and Ive had contact with people from all over the world. Thomas said that includes 82 rooms at the Comfort Inn Suites and 71 at Holiday Inn Express and she understands from others in the business, they are booked up as well. Its kind of a bad time in that the Willamette Country Music Festival is the Friday, Saturday and Sunday before the eclipse, which is on a Monday. So, finding a room is going to be really difficult. Finding open campground spaces will also be a chore. We are seeing an uptick in campground reservations for that time period, said Brian Carroll, Linn County Parks director. Were seeing a huge interest and John Neal, River Bend and Sunnyside Parks are already booked. Carroll said his office has received lots of calls and emails. Scientists predict the first shadow from the eclipse will hit Oregon slightly north of Newport about 10:15 a.m. They predict the area will be dark for one minute and 50 seconds. The mid-valley will provide excellent viewing sites as it moves across Dallas, Albany, Corvallis, Lebanon, Philomath, and Salem starting about 10:17 a.m. and lasting an estimated one minute and 54 seconds. The epicenter of the eclipse will be Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where darkness will last two minutes and 40 seconds. According to the Oregon State Parks website, some 1,200 campsites were reserved in one hour shortly after midnight Monday. A few reservable spots remained available Monday. They are: Nehalem Bay State Park and Cape Lookout State Park, in Tillamook County; Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park, Lane County; L.L. Stub Stewart Memorial State Park, Washington County; Deschutes River State Recreation Area, Sherman County; Memaloose State Park, Wasco County; Viento State Park, Hood River County; Lake Owyhee State Park, Malheur County; and Wallowa Lake State Park, Wallowa County. The park list can be found at http://bit.ly/OregonStateParks2017Eclipse. It will be updated regularly and information can also be found at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Oregon-Parks-and-Recreation-Department. Two major viewing parties have been planned. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry will host a viewing event at the state fairgrounds in Salem. Visit www.omsi.edu/eclipse-2017 and the Oregon SOLARFEST will be held in Madras. To learn more, visit www.oregonsolarfest.com. A manhunt is underway Monday in Texas for a suspect wanted in the fatal shooting of a veteran police detective in what authorities say was one of several attacks targeting law enforcement in multiple states. The San Antonio detective as well as officers in Missouri and Florida were conducting routine tasks Sunday when they become the targets of violence. The detective was writing a traffic ticket when he was shot to death in his squad car late Sunday morning outside police headquarters. In St. Louis, a police sergeant was shot twice in the face Sunday evening while he sat in traffic in a marked police vehicle. The sergeant is expected to survive. Police officers were also shot and injured during traffic stops in Sanibel, Florida, and Gladstone, Missouri, on Sunday night, but authorities have not suggested these were targeted attacks. The shootings come less than five months after a black military veteran killed five white officers at a protest in Dallas the deadliest day for American law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001. Race was a factor in the Dallas attack, but police have not said if race played a part in any of the attacks on Sunday. In San Antonio, police say the suspect is black and the officer was white. In St. Louis, the suspect was black. Police have not released the race of the officer he shot. San Antonio police Chief William McManus identified the officer killed Sunday as Benjamin Marconi, 50, a 20-year veteran of the force. Police said the search for a male suspect was still underway Monday and that no arrest has been made. McManus said he doesnt believe the suspect has any relationship to the original motorist who was pulled over, and that no motive has been identified. At a news conference Monday morning, McManus said Marconi was killed because he was a police officer. I think the uniform was the target and the first person that happened along was the first person that (the suspect) targeted, he told reporters. Surveillance video shows the suspect at San Antonio police headquarters about four hours before Marconi was shot. The suspect asked a desk clerk a question but left before receiving an answer, said McManus, who declined to say what the man asked. I dont know why he was in headquarters. We have some ideas, he said. St. Louis police Chief Sam Dotson declined to name the 46-year-old officer on his force who was shot in the face Sunday evening, but said he is a married father of three who has been with the department for about 20 years. This officer was driving down the road and was ambushed by an individual who pointed a gun at him from inside of his car and shot out the police officers window, Dotson said during a news conference. That officer was released from the hospital Monday. The suspect was wanted for questioning in recent violent crimes that included several robberies, a carjacking and perhaps a killing, Dotson said. He didnt elaborate. Police said the suspects weapon was recovered from the scene. We believe he knew he was good for those crimes and that we were looking for him, Dotson said. Thats why he aggressively attacked a police officer. Police said the suspect was later killed in a shootout with police. The suspects name was not released but Dotson said he was black and born in 1997. At least two other police officers were also shot in other cities Sunday night, but it wasnt clear whether the incidents were targeted attacks. An officer with the Gladstone, Missouri, police department near Kansas City was shot, while the suspect was shot and killed. Gladstone police said Monday that the officer, whose name has not been released, is out of surgery and expected to recover. A Sanibel, Florida, officer was shot in the shoulder during a traffic stop, and was treated for his injuries and released. On July 7, Micah Johnson shot and killed five law enforcement officers who had been working to keep the peace at a protest in downtown Dallas over the fatal police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana. Ten days after that attack, a man wearing a ski mask and armed with two rifles and a pistol killed three officers near a gas station and convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And earlier this month, two Des Moines, Iowa-area police officers were fatally shot in separate ambush-style attacks while sitting in their patrol cars. Its always difficult, especially in this this day and age, where police are being targeted across the country, McManus said. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the slaying of Marconi a horrific act of violence. Abbott said in a statement that attacks against law enforcement officers will not be tolerated in Texas and must be met with swift justice. ASSOCIATED PRESS New adult exercise equipment will soon be installed at Rutherford Park, the Houston City Council heard on Monday. The venue, the citys latest park, is on Westwood Drive west of the Houston Memorial Airport. The effort is primarily funded through a Healthy Schools, Healthy Communities grant totaling about $40,000 for the equipment and required rubber padding. The city will contribute $4,500 and install lights at the park. HSHC is an initiative of the Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH) primarily designed to address the national trend of childhood weight issues. The MFH was formed in February 2000 as a result of Blue Cross Blue Shields changeover from a nonprofit to for-profit company, because federal law requires that proceeds from the sale of tax-exempt entities be directed toward charitable purposes. Earlene Stoops is the local community wellness coordinator. Most recently, it paid for the materials that allowed walkways to be marked at intersections. New playground equipment also is being installed. Theyve also made contributions for equipment at the Lone Star Plaza Annex, including the community kitchen and meeting room. In other matters, members: Were deadlocked on an effort to update hangar leases at the Houston Memorial Airport. A motion to implement the changes and associated fees died after a 2-2 vote that required a tie-breaker vote by Mayor Don Tottingham who agreed to not make the changes. Aldermen Joe Honeycutt and Chalky Wells supported the measure. Members David Arthur and Vicki Narancich opposed it. Absent was member Mary Barnes. Sheila Walker abstained because her mother, a former city clerk, had been involved in earlier discussions. Heard from Rodney Ramsey of a private probation business on South Sam Houston Blvd. The firm will begin a community service program for governmental bodies and other not-for-profits. Decided to give employees the Friday after Thanksgiving off. City hall also will be closed. Some city workers attended the meeting. Held the first reading of an ordinance that will increase electrical rates about 10 percent for commercial and industrial users. The move affects about 35 accounts. Letters will be sent to those included. Some personal contacts also are being made. Final approval is expected Dec. 5. Approved the Missouri Municipal League negotiating on its behalf for a telecommunications settlement with TracFone. The city will pay 5 percent of any funds received. Contributed $25 to the Tiger Backboard program. Learned that funds remain for an asphalt overlay on Waverly Street from Hamrick Avenue to Quaker Street. Heard bids have been received to demolish a city-owned home on Third Street. An insurance audit determined costly repairs were needed. Adult education classes held there have moved to the Lone Star Plaza Annex on Main Street. As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. Most employees want the same things: A fair and competitive salary, raises and promotions, health insurance and retirement funds. However, besides high pay and generous benefits, what do employees really want? What would it take to foster greater employee engagement and a deeper sense of satisfaction at your company? Below are five intangible, non-monetary benefits that consistently top the list of what employees say would give them greater workplace gratification. Provide these benefits, and you could see a more positive culture, more engaged employees, and a more loyal, productive workforce. 1. More autonomy Employees want independence. They want to be clear about what they need to do and the time frame in which they need to do it, but when thats settled, they want the freedom and independence to get the job done on their own. Most employees agree that when someone is continually checking on them, questioning their activities and micromanaging them, its harder to focus on work and harder to get things done. If you trust someone enough to hire them in the first place, grant them the freedom and space to live up to your expectations on their own. That go-getter you hired last year might run out of steam if he or she is not allowed to run with the ball. 2. Professional growth and meaningful contributions Motivated employees dont like stagnant situations. In order to remain engaged, they need to perceive forward momentum an... Two suspects who allegedly robbed the Albany Elmers Restaurant on Sunday morning were charged in Linn County Circuit Court on Monday afternoon. Trammel Pablo Scott, 56, of Tualatin and Heather Charmaine Tressel, 31, of Sweet Home, are accused of first-degree robbery, first-degree theft and second-degree burglary. Scott also faces charges of second-degree assault and third-degree robbery. An Albany Police Department supervisor said that Scott hit a female Elmers employee in the head with a flashlight and then scuffled with an assistant manager until police arrived at the scene. Judge Carol Bispham set Scotts bail at $100,000 and scheduled his next court appearance for Nov. 28. Arnold Poole was appointed his attorney. Prosecutor Michael Paul had asked for $200,000 security for Scott. Given the nature of the violence conduct alleged we think there is a significant public safety risk if he is released, Paul added. He said that Scott had 42 different crime convictions, including four assault cases. Tressel also faces a charge of possession of methamphetamine. Her bail was set at $25,000, and she was scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 12. Kent Hickam was appointed her attorney. The duo allegedly stole more than $1,000 in cash from the business, according to the charging document. Police said that Scott entered the bar and lottery area of Elmers, put on a mask and then demanded money from a clerk. When she was reluctant, he swung at her several times with a flashlight. Tressel had less direct involvement in the case, according to police. First-degree robbery and second-degree assault are Measure 11 crimes that each carry mandatory minimum sentences of several years in prison. lier this month, IBM Kenexa announced the winners of its annual Best Workplaces Awards with a string of innovative employers taking out the coveted titles but what exactly do organisations have to do to win?HRM caught up with Debbie Wood the general manager of people and culture at Harrison Grierson to find out why she thinks the firm was recognised as New Zealands most improved medium-large workplace.Our 2014 survey results indicated that our senior leaders were engaged and felt like they knewwhat was going on in the business but some of the team members indicated to us that they werent particularly engaged and didnt understand what was going on, explains Wood.What that meant to us was we needed our leaders to provide better feedback to their staff, celebrate success, take ownership and responsibility and have some of those courageous conversations as necessary.As a result, Harrison Grierson established a plan to build on those skills and the first step started with improving communication.We thought there was a real gap with that open, honest and frequent communication so we wanted to focus on that and we certainly got the impression from our survey that the employees expected more effective and frequent communication from their leaders, says Wood.There was a bit of a mismatch between our leaders being seen as technical gurus rather than leaders we felt that our teams were telling to us they were actually looking for their leaders to be leaders rather than being overly focussed on technical work.In response, Harrison Grierson developed a three-year talent management program looking at its senior leadership right down through the entire organisation to develop skills and move the firm forward.We felt that to get to where we wanted to be as an organisation we had to change the way we were doing things because we werent going to get anywhere if we just did the same things and expected different results, says Wood.Leadership has probably been the biggest thing that weve worked on in terms of making sure that we have a real robust program in place to really understand what we wanted from our leaders and making sure it was integrated with a lot of other training initiatives that we had in place as well so making sure everything is linked together rather than being a one-off.While leadership took centre stage, Wood says the firm also took notice of the little things pointed out by employees in the engagement survey.There was some low-hanging fruit in there as well, she tells HRM. Some of things our people were telling us was around reward and recognition and feeling valued so I introduced celebration day as an extra paid day off for celebrating birthdays, anniversaries or some other important occasion as a way to recognise and value them.The firm also introduced fruit baskets as a way to help with employee wellbeing and introduced quarterly values awards which lead back to the targeted values and behaviours.Following its ethos to improve communication, the company was also focused on keeping employees involved in changes and informed about any decisions.Back in 2014, when we started to put all of this together, we actually put in place an action planning mechanism and identified action champions through each of our departments so that there was somebody who was a real advocate for change and was able to support the company initiatives, says Wood.Theyre also looking at what is important to them and their teams in their particular location because sometimes local things are just as important as the company wide things for making people feel more engaged.The action champions were also charged with documenting action plans which senior leaders would later respond to in person.Someone from our senior leadership team either me or one of my colleagues went back into the departments to say; Okay, weve had this feedback from you, this is what were doing as a company, lets have a conversation about that.Wood says that without that open conversation, its easy for employees to get the impression that their employer isnt doing anything to address their concerns.We knew if we didnt do something it was just going to be an issue time and again and people would begin to lose faith and lose trust, she says.However, Wood notes that employers should also be completely honest and open about the changes they cant make, explaining why theyre simply not feasible.There are some things that came up around people wanting to be paid $10,000 more or everyone having a company care those things are lovely but we have to be honest about some of the things we potentially cant do and the reasons why as well so its about continuing to have that open communication with people. Much like climate change, the effects of Donald Trump's election will not stay on the southern side of the U.S.-Canada border. There have already been hatecrimes since the American election results and, as David Suzuki told The Huffington Post Canada, Trump's anti-diversity and "frightening" campaign rhetoric is being echoed by Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch and her party. Advertisement "Trump's campaign really was based on the rejection of facts and rationality," Suzuki said, connecting U.S. Republican candidates' climate change denial during their primary season with a similar stance by Canada's Conservative party leadership contenders. "We had the recent debate among Conservatives and Michael Chong got up and said he favoured some kind of carbon tax and he was booed. Other candidates said, 'No, no no, climate change is not an issue,' and they were cheered. So you begin to think, 'Hey wait a minute, what's going on here?'" That said, Suzuki doesn't think that Trump's presidency will be able to cause too much damage on the climate change front. He said that delegates to this month's Marrakesh Climate Change Conference in Morocco were "absolutely stunned" by Trump's election. But they won't give up. Advertisement "It will harden their resolve and they will go it without the United States," he said. "It will not be as easy as he thinks just to throw everything out the window. China is saying they cant just reject and walk away, that's big, because China was always saying no, we can't do anything our economy hasnt grown enough. "Of course, they know they're killing 3,000 Chinese a day from air pollution from burning fossil fuels so they have incentive to get on the right side." Suzuki said he is very concerned about the possibility of a Trump-like candidate getting elected here in Canada. "We can't just pat ourselves on the back and say it couldn't happen here. Kellie Leitch's candidacy now for the Conservatives is really riding on the back of the Trump approach that we can become exclusionary, that we can define what is a Canadian value and that we should be testing people and rejecting them," Suzuki said. Advertisement But he added that actual Canadian values have proven to be the opposite of Leitch's anti-immigration approach, and not just with the recent wave of Syrian refugees, either. "I feel very proud of the fact that during the boat people crisis in Vietnam, Canada again stepped up," said Suzuki of former Conservative prime minister Joe Clark bringing in 60,000 Vietnamese refugees in the late 1970s. "Our past has indicated that we do value diversity, we're an open society, but the fact that youve got a major party candidate with this position, I find shocking." "We can't just pat ourselves on the back and say it couldn't happen here. Don't think the environmentalist icon is only going after the Conservatives, though. While the father of four daughters says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's gender-equal cabinet still deserves to be celebrated, Suzuki is holding Trudeau to his environmental campaign promises. "I was cheering him," Suzuki said of Trudeau's performance at last year's COP21 climate change conference in Paris. Advertisement "But now the rubber does hit the road and he has made some decisions that simply aren't on if he's serious about climate change, and Ive chastised him about that, too." Also on HuffPost A Bloc MP was scolded during question period on Monday after saying he doesnt want to be fed more government bullshit over the governments funding package to help Quebec cheese-makers. Ottawa obviously doesnt care about Quebecs specialty cheeses. Big cheddar producers are as eligible for compensation as fine speciality cheese producers, said Mirabel MP Simon Marcil. Advertisement Will the minister improve the aid package to help cheese producers or is it just going to be more government bullshit? Marcil asked in reference to Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay. Ottawa obviously doesnt care about Quebecs specialty cheeses. House Speaker Geoff Regan called on Marcil to withdraw his comment, and threatened to bar the Bloc MP from speaking for some time. Later, Bloc Quebecois Luc Theriault rose on a point of order to asked the Speaker if he made note of Marcils withdrawn bullshit comment. Regan replied, no. Advertisement Because when I asked him to withdraw that remark he shook his head. If he does with to withdraw his remarks, I will give him the floor, give him the opportunity to do so, he said. Marcil stood and said: Now that everyone knows what I think, I withdraw my remark. An unimpressed Speaker listened. That is not the ideal way of retract, Regan said. Watch Regans reaction here: Earlier this month, Ottawa announced it will provide $250 million in funding to help upgrade dairy producers equipment and also $100 million to help cheese-markers modernize their operations. Quebecs premier scoffed at the promise, and demanded the federal government sweeten its compensation package to the provinces dairy producers whose businesses are expected to be affected by the Canada-EU free trade agreement. Advertisement Bullshit banned since the 70s Last week, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel caused a stink in the House after she likened Ottawas treatment of Alberta to a fart in the room that nobody wants to talk or acknowledge. Rempel refused to withdraw her comment after Green Party Leader Elizabeth May called her word choice distinctly unparliamentary. The word bullshit was added to the list of words and phrases deemed unparliamentary in 1973. With files from Althia Raj Also on HuffPost Edmontonians were shocked to find racist posters promoting white nationalism posted around the downtown core Monday morning. The posters proclaimed "It's Only Racist When White People Do It," and "Tired of Anti-White Propaganda? You Are Not Alone." Advertisement The posters also featured links to various websites and YouTube channels connected to the "alt-right" movement. Oh hell no. White supremacists are now posting trash along Whyte Ave. Not in my city. #MakeItAwkward#yegpic.twitter.com/W695x58HBM Matt Edmonds (@Matt_Edmondston) November 21, 2016 Nothing like a nice- what in sweet hell. #yeg pic.twitter.com/f0GpISjGHw Maddy the Elf (@madisonkerr) November 21, 2016 Jesse Lipscombe has been working to combat racism in Edmonton after he was verbally attacked for being black in August. He told the Edmonton Journal the posters highlight the need for more conversations about racial intolerance. Advertisement "It definitely has alt-right flavour...but nobodys culture needs to be wiped out and thats not happening," he said. "If you have a conversation, thats the first step toward healing anything." Matt Edmonds told Metro News that he's been defacing the offensive signs by writing "this is laughable" or "nope" on them. "Silence is just a form of agreement," he told the newspaper. "If I were a person of colour, Id want to see people resisting this." Another person also posted images of defaced posters. This is not the first time posters linked to the alt-right have appeared in Canada. Similar signs were spotted near a Toronto elementary school earlier this month. Local city councillor Janet Davis called those posters "abhorrent." "The American election and Trump's hate speech has given legitimacy to these types of organizations. It's very frightening," she told the East York Mirror. "It's very troublesome that the Trump election has unleashed this kind of hate." Advertisement A number of high-profile racist incidents in Edmonton have made headlines this year. Anti-Sikh posters distributed on the University of Alberta campus have prompted warnings from police, and both Lipscombe and cyclist Bashir Mohamed have been victims of racial slurs hurled from passing vehicles. Also of HuffPost: The American custom of knocking people flat on their backsides in the name of a heavily discounted plasma television has been a Canadian tradition for years. This year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday fall on Nov. 25 and 28, respectively. The highly anticipated shopping event involves retailers offering up steep discounts on everything from clothing, electronics, housewares, travel, housewares and much more. Advertisement If the thought of pushing and shoving or lining up isnt appealing to you, Cyber Monday may be more up your alley. The trick to scoring a great online deal on Cyber Monday is being ready to place your order the minute the clock strikes 12:01 a.m. The refresh button is your best friend. To help you in your Cyber Monday and Black Friday quest, weve curated a list of Canadian-based retailers and brands that will reward you with the best deals. Keep these sites bookmarked or youll be kicking yourself when youre paying full price for all your holiday gifts. Its a no-brainer that Amazon will be one of the top sites to score great deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They havent released details on what products youll be saving big on yet, but make sure you bookmark their page. Historically, their sales havent let consumers down and we expect the same this year. Advertisement Youll want to stock up on lingerie after hearing about this great deal. Blush Lingerie is generously discounting their already affordable pieces by 50 per cent from Nov. 25 (starting at midnight) to Nov. 27 (until 11:59 p.m. EST). Stay tuned for Cyber Monday where theyll be running their never-on-sale-sale. But youll have to be patient, as they havent released details yet. We can assure you that its worth the wait. The Vancouver-based accessories brand has become somewhat of a sensation. You cant go outside without seeing the brands classic woven label. They dont often have big sales, but theyre offering $10 off purchases of $80 or up, $30 off purchases of $120 and up, and $50 off purchases of $160 and up. If you can hold off until Cyber Monday, deals will be even better: $20 off purchases of $80 and up, $40 off purchases of $120 and up, and $60 off purchases of $160 and up. Theyll also be bringing back last chance items from previous seasons that have been discounted up to 50 per cent. Advertisement If youre looking for designer clothing, Montreal-based SSENSE is where you need to stay glued. Save on your favourite big name designers as well as local Canadian labels. The online boutique offered up to 50 per cent on wide variety of luxury items last year. They added additional discounts on Cyber Monday, so if you can wait a few days, you might be able to score the Comme Des Garcons piece youve been eyeing at a sizable discount. The popular outerwear brand is also planning a great sale for those who havent purchased their winter coats yet. During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, youll find beautiful wool coats and puffer style parkas for up to 40 per cent off, which is quite rare for the brand. If youve been eyeing a certain pair of shoes from Aldo, it might be time to pounce. On Black Friday, Aldo will be offering 50 per cent off already reduced styles and their early bird sale will include 20 per cent off regular priced styles starting at 6 p.m. EST and ends Friday at 10 p.m. On Cyber Monday, Aldo is offering 20 per cent off regular styles and 50 per cent off already reduced styles. Advertisement Vintage lovers are typically not the types who get hyped on Black Friday, but this year is different. Toronto-based Vanguard Vintage is planning a huge online sale this year. Their selection of covetable vintage pieces are hand-picked and carefully curated to appeal to even those with the most contemporary tastes. Youll want to keep this site bookmarked because they are offering 65 per cent off storewide. If there ever were a store that did it all, it would be Hudsons Bay. Its truly a one-stop shop and they take Black Friday and Cyber Monday seriously. The retailer remains tight lipped on exactly what youll be saving on, but their site has indicated that there will be some worthwhile discounts on everything from clothing, shoes, handbags and housewares. Aritzia is upping their Black Friday game this year. Expect some solid discounts between Nov. 22 to 27. From Nov 22 to Nov 24, save 50 per cent on select fall and winter items online and in store. And on Nov. 25, everything will be discounted up to 50 per cent online and in store. Advertisement From Nov. 26 to Nov 27 (until 7 p.m. PST), save 50 per cent off select fall and winter items. From Nov. 27 (7 p.m. PST) - Nov. 28 (11:59 p.m. PST), everything is discounted up to 50 per cent off and youll also get free shipping on all orders. If youre looking for beauty products to splurge on, Canadian-based Consonant skincare is rewarding customers with 20 per cent off all individual products storewide. The first 50 shoppers that pop into their brick and mortar stores will also receive a generous gift-bag and enjoy treats while they browse. As always, Joe Fresh is a great destination for a discount. Last year, they offered a bulked up clearance section as well as a storewide discount of 30 per cent. If that wasnt enough savings, they also waived shipping. Were anticipating a similar sale this year. If youve always wanted a classic pair of Roots sweatpants but couldnt quite pull the trigger, Black Friday may be the time. Advertisement This Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend, Roots is running a 6 Days, 6 Offers sale as well as 30 per cent off the entire store. The 30 per cent discount runs from Nov. 23 to 28, as does the six days of discounted offers (each days sale will be announced the night before). Customers in-store and on Nordstrom.com will receive an additional 20 per cent off select clearance items from Nov. 24 to 28. Starting Nov. 25, the majority of Garmentory's 350 indie boutiques and designers will be participating in the fourday Black Friday Sale with up to 60 per cent off. Indochino is offering up to 70 per cent off in its showrooms and online during its biggest Black Friday Event ever with the coupon codes BLKFRI and CYBMON. lululemons design team has created their exclusive Black Friday Featherlight collection in collaboration with designer Janaina Hilherio. Advertisement On Cyber Monday, expect up to 30 per cent off some of the websites top brands including Honest Company, Aden + Anais, Derma E, Braun, Jamieson and more. Follow Huffington Post Canada Style on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter! Also on HuffPost The Elf on the Shelf has become a big holiday tradition. But whether you've been hosting the little scout for years or are only just introducing him to your family this Christmas, we have five helpful hacks all parents can use. One of the best parts about starting the Elf on the Shelf tradition is choosing a name for your scout. If you need a little help coming up with a creative moniker, the Elf on the Shelf website offers a fun name generator. You can either use the first letter of your first and last name to create a unique moniker, or simply choose any two letters in the lists below. Advertisement For more elf name inspiration, click here to see some of the best names our readers chose. To put your elf in creative positions around the house, rather than simply sitting, you need to make him bendy. To do this, follow the tutorial from She Knows to insert floral wire into your elf's arms and legs. If you're looking for a simpler no-sew method, you can always follow Rocking My 365 Project's hack instead, which uses glue dots to help the elf grasp objects. Advertisement You could use magnets or velcro, too, to make the elf bend, hang and climb, just like on blog Life So Lovely. Sometimes you honestly just forget to move the elf. When this happens, have no fear! You can easily keep the magic of the tradition alive by using a simple explanation from blog Living Locurto. They include: bad weather, the elf didn't want to report the child's bad behaviour, and it's too warm in the house (elves are used to the cold climate of the North Pole) and the elf lost his or her magic. For more explanations and fixes, visit Living Locurto. A photo posted by Global Baby (@globalbabynz) on Nov 21, 2016 at 10:18am PST Advertisement The official Elf on the Shelf website offers easy hacks for when kids accidentally touch their elf. If this happens, the site recommends children do one of three things: write a letter to Santa to apologize, sing Christmas carols (which elves love), or sprinkle a little cinnamon beside the elf before bed. "Cinnamon is like vitamins for scout elves, and it helps them get back to the North Pole," the site reads. "It will help them get back to the North Pole where the elf doctors can check them out!" Also on HuffPost An 18-year-old girl is recovering in a Texas hospital after she was shot three times in the head and stabbed in the neck. Once in the face, once in the back of the head, and another time on the side of the head, her father, Victor Raga, told CBS 11 News of her gunshot wounds. Advertisement Evelyn Bunte was asleep Nov. 5 at a Fort Worth home where she was staying with her boyfriend when one or more people made their way inside and attacked her, according to the broadcaster. Fort Worth Police dont think the attack was random, but they havent yet arrested anyone or uncovered a motive. Raga told CBS he thinks his daughter, who had just moved to the city from Illinois, fell in with a bad crowd. Advertisement He told Inside Edition that she fought back at the people that attacked her, and thats when the situation escalated. "She just wouldn't die. She fought," he said. Bunte lay there for five hours before she was found and rushed to hospital. Raga also told Fox 4 News that since the teen was the only witness to the attack, it's hard to find out what happened. Her actual recollection of things right now is foggy, but as her brain heals and her skull heals up, we're hopeful she'll remember something and can help us in the investigation," he said. A woman who identified herself as the teens cousin set up a GoFundMe page to cover medical costs. Megan Trotsky wrote that Bunte had to undergo surgery on her brain as well as to remove metal pieces from her mouth. She said the teen will likely need long-term rehabilitation after she leaves hospital. Advertisement "She is only 18 years old and is one of the strongest and toughest people I know, especially after pulling through this." Raga told Inside Edition his daughter is staying positive. Although she is blind and partially paralyzed on her right side, she can now stand independently and her motor skills and speech are improving. If thats not a miracle of survival... Its incredible, Raga said. In the video above, she is also shown walking with help. Jan. 25, 1922 Nov. 19, 2016 Jewel was born Jan. 25, 1922, in Mayfield, Oklahoma, the daughter of Robert and Beulah (Jenkins) Alexander. She lived in Oklahoma throughout her childhood where she attended school. She lost her mother at the age of 14 and had to quit school to stay home and care for her younger siblings. She moved to California as a young adult where she ran a small restaurant in the San Francisco area for a while. She lived much of her adult life near Richmond, California, where she worked as a LPN at the Motion Picture Hospital for several years. She moved to Sweet Home in the late 1980s and lived in the Lebanon area for over 10 years. OTTAWA Canadian taxpayers spent nearly $27 million on external public relations contracts for federal government departments, agencies and Crown corporations over the past year, an analysis by The Huffington Post Quebec suggests. The largest single contract $586,375 was awarded by Les Ponts Jacques Cartier Champlain Inc., to the PR firm Casacom in July, 2015, for a four-year duration. Advertisement Champlain Bridge is shown in Montreal on Oct. 5, 2011. (Photo: Paul Chiasson/CP) The Crown corporation, which manages the bridges of Greater Montreal, said the contract covered $60,900 to rebuild a website as well as crisis management to deal with such instances as the installation and removal five months later of a super beam on the Champlain Bridge which caused traffic headaches. In total, departments, agencies and Crown corporations spent $26,897,327.82 on external communications firms between Nov. 4, 2015 and Sept. 19, 2016, according to figures tabled in the House of Commons. The amount may be larger, however, as Natural Resources Canada, for example, was unable to provide all the contracts the department awarded during that specific time period. Advertisement Global Affairs, Health Canada among biggest spenders Global Affairs Canada which includes foreign affairs, international trade and international development and Health Canada were among the departments that spent the most on external communications. They each paid $1.2 million for PR contracts. Global Affairs Canada spent a total of $1,226,995.71 on 119 contracts, most of which was used to promote Canadian artists abroad. The department spent $2,000 contract related to the screening of films by Quebec filmmaker Robert Lepage in Paris, for example. Contracts were also awarded to organize international summits as well as Canadas participation at conferences in the United States and Europe. The federal government gave $23,399.87 to the Israeli firm Ben Horin & Alexandrovitz to ensure the "preparation, implementation and monitoring" of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynnes mission in Israel this spring. Costly consultations Several departments spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to consult on public policies. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, for example, gave Hill + Knowlton $331,844.28 to review its environmental assessment procedures. Advertisement Health Canada awarded $145,167.71 to Earnscliffe to launch "exploratory discussion groups on marijuana." A sum of $81,416.50 was also spent to EKOS Research to poll on the recreational use of marijuana. The Trudeau government is expected to table a bill next spring on legalizing marijuana. Surveys and focus groups on the standardization of cigarette packages cost taxpayers $245,949.70 despite the fact Health Minister Jane Philpott Health had already announced plans to force tobacco companies to use plain packages. Canadian Taxpayers Federation calls tab excessive The Canadian Taxpayers Federation called the $27 million on external communications contracts: "excessive." Their spokesman Carl Vallee Conservative prime minister Stephen Harpers former press secretary told HuffPost that most public relations tasks "should normally be done internally". "There are hundreds and hundreds of employees working in communications within the government, people - who are often - competent. Why not use these resources which taxpayers are already funding? Advertisement Hiring external firms should be the exception, not the rule, Vallee added. The current Liberal government seems to be making it the rule. Feds sometimes need 'temporary and professional help' A spokeswoman for the Treasury Board Secretariat which watches over internal government spending said the public service has excellent communications specialists which the government relies on. Occasionally, the Government of Canada must make use of temporary and professional help when the amount of work fluctuates in an unforeseeable fashion, that we need a unique aptitude or to fulfill temporary absences, Kelly James wrote in an email to HuffPost. The Government of Canada is resolved to reinforce the public service and to increase the services that are offered to Canadians while overseeing public spending in a responsible manner, James added. With files from and translation by Althia Raj Also on HuffPost MPs Who Were Once Journalists (2016) See Gallery Rap superstar Kanye West was hospitalized on Monday with a "medical emergency" after canceling his tour, two days after a rambling onstage tirade against fellow artists Jay Z and Beyonce. The "Saint Pablo Tour" was set to run through December 31 but all 21 remaining shows have been canceled, a spokeswoman for promoter Live Nation told AFP. Advertisement Hours later it emerged that West, 39, was being treated at a University of California, Los Angeles clinic, with gossip website TMZ reporting that he was undergoing psychiatric tests after being examined for exhaustion. Kanye West is seen at LAX on November 11, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by starzfly/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images) Mike Lopez, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, told AFP officers had responded to an early afternoon "call of a disturbance" at an address in Los Angeles known to be the rapper's property. Advertisement "That disturbance became a medical emergency where the fire department came and treated the individual," he said, without naming West. The multiple Grammy Award-winning musician did not immediately make any personal statement and his representatives did not respond to requests for comment. Celebrity gossip website TMZ quoted an unnamed source saying the rapper was pulling out of the tour because he was exhausted. "He's been working around the clock on fashion design, both his own line and the Adidas line," the source was quoted as saying. Since August, West has performed around 40 dates in Canada and the US, rapping above the stage on an innovative "floating" platform. Advertisement - 'Call me, bro' - He halted a gig in New York in the middle of his set when he was informed that his wife, reality TV queen Kim Kardashian, had been robbed at gunpoint in a hotel in Paris. West has not spoken publicly about the incident but TMZ's source said time spent away from family had added to the rapper's stress. Kanye West performs at the Forum on October 25, 2016 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) He canceled several dates the following week but made a comeback in his hometown, Chicago, and performed without incident until a show in Oakland on October 22 where he described the Grammys as "rigged." Advertisement The latest cancelation followed a Saturday night show in Sacramento, where West showed up an hour late and performed three songs before berating other artists and defeated White House hopeful Hillary Clinton, and cutting the performance short. West said he was "hurt" because Beyonce supposedly said she would not perform at a certain show -- likely the Grammys -- unless she wins video of the year over him. "I've been sent here to give y'all my truth, even at the risk of my own life, even at the risk of my own success, my own career," West said. He implored Beyonce's husband, the rapper Jay Z, to "call me, bro, you still ain't called me," adding that he was hurt that Jay Z had failed to visit his family after the robbery. - 'Crazy talk' - "Jay Z, I know you got killers. Please don't send them at my head. Just call me. Talk to me like a man," he added, appearing to suggest that his friend employed hitmen. Advertisement He also criticized Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg for failing to give him $53m to get out of debt. The rapper told an audience on Thursday that he did not vote but would have chosen Republican Donald Trump, sparking angry fans to boo the star and throw items on stage. West -- who has talked about plans to run for president in 2020 -- earned $17.5 million this year, according to Forbes magazine, which placed him 11th in the list of hip hop's highest-paid superstars. The magazine predicted West would lose around $10 million from the cancellation. There was some support for the star on Twitter as well as an angry backlash, with fans accusing him of "crazy talk" and having "lost the plot." West himself raps about going off his medications on his latest album. On the song "Feedback," he raps, "I been outta my mind a long time," and "Name one genius that ain't crazy." Advertisement Another tune "FML" includes West's rap: "You ain't never seen nothing crazier than / this n-a when he off his Lexapro." It is a psychiatric drug used to treat anxiety and depression. Also on HuffPost Is there a bubble in marijuana stocks? Many investors seem to think so. The amount of money betting against Canadas largest medical marijuana producer, Canopy Growth, exploded in the first two weeks of November, according to TSX data compiled by the Globe and Mail. There were 102,000 shares of Canopy shorted at the start of November, meaning investors were betting on those shares to decline. By mid-month, that had exploded by 4,000 per cent to 4.3 million shares. Advertisement Canopy Growths stock price nearly doubled in the week after the U.S. election, when voters in four states California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine approved the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes. That made Canopy the first billion-dollar marijuana startup in Canada. Investors were counting on Canadian medical marijuana producers to get a head start in the U.S.s burgeoning legal weed business. Canopy shares fell back down to earth during a chaotic trading session that required multiple trading halts last week. But shares are still some 24 per cent more expensive than they were a few weeks ago, and many investor blogs are seeing that as a sign of trouble ahead. Advertisement Companies that had $3 million market [value] last month have [a] $30 million [valuation] today. Nobody is looking at profits, theyre all looking at potential. And thats the formula for a good old fashioned dotcom-styled bubble, wrote the Equity Guru blog. Portfolio manager Bruce Campbell of StoneCastle Investment told the Financial Post last week he wouldnt be surprised to see a marijuana stock bubble pop. When they trade at this kind of volume and spike up like that and the valuations are sort of off the charts, its sort of indicative of that. Part of the problem is that no one really knows how large the market for legal marijuana will be, or how it will be regulated across various U.S. states and Canada, if and when it is legalized here as the Liberal government has promised. That makes marijuana stocks open to volatile trading of the sort seen last week. Advertisement Still, many analysts and observers argue marijuana stocks are a good investment in the long run, whatever happens to prices in the short term, because legal marijuana is likely to expand in the coming years. The [Canopy Growth] stock may be hitting bubble territory and could be dangerous as a core holding, but I believe [it] is just getting started, wrote Joey Frenette on the popular Motley Fool investor blog. Also on HuffPost Make no mistake, Meghan Markle is much more than Prince Harry's new girlfriend. The Toronto-based actress has proved time and again she's got both brains and beauty. In a new essay published in Elle UK on gender equality, the 35-year-old wrote about her desire to use her celebrity to "spark change." Advertisement Markle is an advocate for UN Women and an ambassador for World Vision. "Were it not for my show and website, I would never have been asked to be a global ambassador for World Vision or an advocate for UN Women, both of which are honours I relish," she wrote in the personal piece. Markle went on to say that while most people are starstruck by actors, her idols are those who effect change like diplomats and politicians. She's just the best. And still smiles at me like that when I have food all over my face. Happy Mother's Day to the coolest one out there. http://thetig.com/love-letter/ A photo posted by Meghan Markle (@meghanmarkle) on May 10, 2015 at 4:24pm PDT Markle credits her mother for raising her to be a "global citizen." Markle began her activism at an early age. Early into the essay, she recalled a scenario that drove her desire for change at the age of 11. "A dish-washing liquid commercial came on a TV with the tagline, 'Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.' The boys yelled out, 'Yeah, that's where women belong. In the kitchen,'" she wrote. Instead of lashing out at her classmates, Markle says she went home that night and wrote to feminist leaders like Hillary Clinton and Gloria Allred. Not too long after, Markle notes the commercial was changed to say 'People all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.' Advertisement Markle acknowledged the fighting spirit she had back then hasn't changed, but her platform has. "The moment 'Suits' became successful and I realised people (especially young girls) were listening to what I had to say, I knew I needed to be saying something of value," she admitted. This realization led to the creation of her lifestyle website, thetig.com which includes thoughtful pieces from international influencers as well as mainstream topics like fashion and beauty. Concluding her essay, Markle stated, "With fame comes opportunity, but it also includes responsibility to advocate and share, to focus less on glass slippers and more on pushing through glass ceilings. And, if I'm lucky enough, to inspire." Actress Meghan Markle discusses her role in the very popular 'Suits' during AOL Build at AOL Studios In New York on March 17, 2016. This isn't the first time Markle has written a personal piece for Elle UK. In 2015, the "Suits" star wrote about finding her identity and voice as a mixed race woman. Advertisement Also on HuffPost President-elect Donald Trump reportedly tore a strip off some of the U.S.s top news media executives in an off-the-record meeting Monday, according to news reports that the Trump team is denying. The New York Post cited an unnamed source who said Trump began the meeting with an attack on CNN president Jeff Zucker. Advertisement I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed, the source quoted Trump as saying. Trump kept saying, Were in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong. He addressed everyone in the room calling the media dishonest, deceitful liars. It was like a f--king firing squad. Executives and journalists from ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox were present at the meeting at New Yorks Trump Tower, Business Insider reported. Advertisement A separate report from Politico, citing another source, said the meeting was less intense than the Posts report would suggest. But it did confirm that Trump started the meeting with heavy criticism of dishonest media, singling out CNN and NBC in particular. Despite this, Trump reportedly said he wants a cordial and productive relationship with the press, Politico reported. But Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway said the reports of Trumps outburst were untrue. "No, that's not true at all. I sat right to his left. He did not explode in anger," Conway said on Bloomberg News. Another conflict broke out between Trump and the media on Tuesday, when the president-elect tweeted that he was cancelling his meeting with the "failing" New York Times. I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 Advertisement The failing @nytimes just announced that complaints about them are at a 15 year high. I can fully understand that - but why announce? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 "We were unaware the meeting was cancelled until we saw the president-elect's tweet this morning," said New York Times VP for communications, Eileen M. Murphy. "We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to. They tried to yesterday asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to." UPDATE - 11:30 a.m. ET: The meeting with the New York Times is back on, Trump announced in a tweet Tuesday morning. The meeting with the @nytimes is back on at 12:30 today. Look forward to it! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 Advertisement This "shows that he is true to his word," the New York Times wrote. "He did tell the nation he wanted to keep us guessing." UPDATE - 02:45 p.m. ET:According to the Times, Trump's incoming White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, may have tricked the president-elect into cancelling the Times meeting. Reince Priebus, the incoming White House chief of staff, had been among those urging the president-elect to cancel it, because he would face questions he might not be prepared to answer. It was Mr. Priebus who relayed to Mr. Trump, erroneously, that The Times had changed the conditions of the meeting, believing it would result in a cancellation, these people said. Many Trump supporters have argued that the medias failure to predict the real estate moguls electoral win is a sign they were misleading the public. In recent days, the media have criticized Trump for breaking with convention and failing to alert them of his whereabouts, or have a member of the press with him at all times. Advertisement That was highlighted by an incident last week when reporters lost track of the president-elect after he left Trump Tower without informing them. It turned out he was having dinner at the ritzy 21 Club with his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner. Also on HuffPost The World Health Organization on Friday announced that the Zika virus outbreak, linked to deformations in babies' heads and brains, no longer poses a world public health emergency, though it warned the epidemic remains a challenge. Brazil, the epicentre of the outbreak, has however refused to downgrade the risk, while experts swiftly lashed out against the world health body's decision. Advertisement "The Zika virus remains a highly significant and long term problem, but it is not any more a public health emergency of international concern," the world health body's emergency committee chair Dr David Heymann said. Zika is a mosquito-borne virus linked to birth defects. While Zika causes only mild symptoms in most people, pregnant women with the virus risk giving birth to babies with microcephaly a deformation that leads to abnormally small brains and heads. It can also cause rare adult-onset neurological problems such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which can result in paralysis and even death. Advertisement In the outbreak that began in mid-2015, more than 1.5 million people have been infected with Zika, mainly in Brazil, and more than 1,600 babies have been born with microcephaly since last year, according to the WHO. The UN's global health agency declared the Zika epidemic a global health emergency in February 2016. Researchers earlier this year warned that at least 2.6 billion people, over a third of the global population, live in parts of Africa, Asia and the Pacific where Zika could gain a new foothold, with 1.2 billion at risk in India alone. A city worker sprays chemicals with a fumigator to kill mosquitoes in an effort to control the spread of the Zika virus at a school in Bangkok on September 14, 2016. (LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/AFP/Getty Images) Brazil on Friday said it would continue to treat the outbreak as an emergency. "We will maintain the emergency (status) in Brazil until we are completely tranquil about the situation," Health Minister Ricardo Barros told journalists. Advertisement In most cases worldwide, people have been infected with the virus by mosquitoes, though some have contracted the disease through sexual contact. - 'A lot of unknowns' - The WHO was careful on Friday not to dismiss the risk still posed by the virus, which has been detected in 73 countries worldwide, mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean. "We are not downgrading the importance of Zika, in fact by placing this as a longer term of programme of work, we're sending the message that Zika is here to stay and WHO's response is here to stay in a very robust manner," said Dr Peter Salama, director of the agency's health emergencies programme. There are still, he added, "a lot of unknowns" in the battle against Zika. The WHO believes the "Zika virus and associated consequences remain a significant enduring public health challenge requiring intense action but no longer represent" a global health emergency, it said in a statement. "Many aspects of this disease and associated consequences still remain to be understood, but this can best be done through sustained research," it added. Advertisement More than 100 protesters demonstrate on the steps of Miami Beach City Hall against the use of the pesticide 'NALED' being sprayed in Miami Beach to combat Zika on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016 in Miami. (C.M. Guerrero/Miami Herald/TNS via Getty Images) The emergency committee's head Heymann said Brazil's decision to continue dealing with the epidemic as an emergency was "appropriate," even as he affirmed the virus need not be dealt with as an emergency of international concern. - 'Quite worrying' - Georgetown University global health and law expert Lawrence Gostin described the WHO decision as "quite worrying," particularly since the southern hemisphere will soon enter the high-risk summer season for mosquitoes. "I think the international response to Zika has been lethargic, and with WHO's action to call off the global emergency, it has provided reason for governments and donors to pull back even more," Gostin said. Advertisement "That is a recipe for the very lack of preparedness the world has seen time and again with infectious diseases." Meanwhile, in Florida, the only U.S. state so far to have documented local transmission of Zika, cases continued to mount. "Florida maintains an active public health emergency declaration in 38 counties," said the state's department of health spokeswoman Mara Gambineri. The Zika outbreak sparked fears of infection amongst travellers and athletes taking part in this summer's Olympic Games in Brazil. The WHO later knocked down those concerns, saying that no cases had been detected among spectators or athletes. Advertisement Two anti-Zika vaccines are currently being tested, according to the WHO. At the moment, there is no cure for Zika. Also on HuffPost Jan. 12, 1943 Nov. 18, 2016 Shelby C. Garrett, 73, of Lebanon passed away on Friday, Nov. 18, at the Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital. Shelby was born Jan. 12, 1943, in Mena, Arkansas, the son of Kinna and Bertha (Cole) Garrett. He moved to Lebanon in the late 1940s where he has resided since. He attended school in Lebanon and graduated from Lebanon Union High School in the Class of 1961. Shelby worked in various jobs such as Morse Bros., and over 17 years at Willamette Industries in Lebanon. He also worked as a long haul truck driver for several years and at the Champion Plywood Mill for seven years. When the mill closed he returned to school and studied Business Management at LBCC where he received his associates degree. He then worked for the State of Oregon employment division as a job service representative until retiring in 2005. Shelby enjoyed playing the guitar, fishing and spending time with his family. He was a past member of the Lebanon Elks Lodge. He married Sandra Johnson in Lebanon on Oct. 20, 1963. He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Sandra of Lebanon; sons Brad and wife Traci Garrett of Philomath, and Stephen and wife Lisa Garrett of Corvallis; brother Dennis Garrett of Davis, California; grandchildren Mason and Marshall. He was preceded in death by his parents; brother Greg; and granddaughter Madison. A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Monday, Nov. 28, at Huston-Jost Funeral Home. Family suggests memorial donations to the American Diabetes Association in care of Huston-Jost Funeral Home, 86 W. Grant St., Lebanon, OR 97355. Melissa Renwick via Getty Images TORONTO, ON - JULY 14: Premier Kathleen Wynne addresses the crowd gathered for the anti-racism meeting held at Daniel's Spectrum. (Melissa Renwick/Toronto Star via Getty Images) Famous Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote in the literary classic Anne of Avonlea that "we should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us." It's a sage piece of advice for anyone. Don't allow your mistakes to cripple you, but show remorse and don't repeat them. It's some advice that our premier would be wise to follow. At the Ontario Liberal annual general meeting in Ottawa, Premier Wynne said the high hydro rates in the province are her and her government's "mistake." She told the party faithful "our government made a mistake. It was my mistake. And I'm going to do my best to fix it." Advertisement While the premier is at long last acknowledging that hydro rates are a problem -- after her minister of energy denied there was a "crisis" and her minister of finance claimed his hydro bill was going down -- she remains committed to policies that will continue to make life more expensive in Ontario, like her cap-and-trade tax on home heating fuels and gasoline. So much for learning from mistakes. Cap and trade is going to do exactly to our heating bills what the Green Energy Act did to our hydro bills. When the Green Energy Act was first passed, Premier Dalton McGuinty told ratepayers our bills would go up by 46 per cent -- worth it, he claimed. Like her predecessor, Kathleen Wynne is telling families in Ontario that the cap and trade tax increase to our home heating and gas bills will be small. Advertisement What we learned from the experience with the great green energy experiment is that rates rose far and above what McGuinty predicted. Instead of a 46 per cent increase, we saw an average 89 per cent hike, with off peak rates up 102 per cent. And that was just the increase to rates -- the global adjustment rose a dramatic 219 per cent since 2010. For some consumers, it now makes up as much or more than the cost of the actual electricity. With the benefit of hindsight, Wynne now says that this whole thing was a "mistake," yet it's a mistake she's keen on repeating. Just like McGuinty did, Premier Wynne is lowballing the cost of her cap and trade tax, and selling the public an expensive policy we don't need and that will achieve nothing. While the premier claims that cap and trade will cost the average Ontario household $156 per year, that estimate is based on increases to home heating bills alone. Of course, the cost of cap and trade doesn't end there. Cap and trade will also add to the cost of gasoline at the pumps, and to the cost of all goods manufactured or transported within the province. Advertisement A report by Stikeman Elliott estimates that the policy will cost small manufacturers $136,000 in the first year. By 2030, the tax will cost each large participant at least $2 million. This cost will certainly be passed down to Ontario consumers, either in the form of higher prices or lost jobs. The premier may finally be able to recognize her mistakes with hydro rates, now that thousands of suffering Ontario families are screaming about it. But apparently, she isn't able to recognize the mistake she's currently in the process of making with cap and trade. Count that as a lesson not learned. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Randy Plett via Getty Images A nurse of East African descent stands proudly in a hospital with medical supplies in the background. By Jenipher Twebaze Musoke and Kevin McKague Community health workers plan an important role in reducing maternal and child mortality, but as international researchers in the field, our experience shows that much more can be done to support them. From our experience working with the non-governmental organization BRAC in Africa, we have seen that women and children are the main victims of conflicts and lack of adequate health infrastructure, especially in lower-income regions like South Sudan and northern Uganda. In South Sudan, which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, a woman has a one in seven chance of dying during childbirth in her lifetime. Advertisement Community health workers -- recruited from the communities they serve and going door to door with basic health messages and medicines -- are the backbone of under-resourced health systems. After some training, they often work as volunteers because they care for their communities. Most of them are poor women with heavy workloads and existing responsibilities; they are often looking for ways to assist their neighbours while providing for their own families. How can we support these health workers when governments and NGOs often lack the financial resources to pay them a full-time salary? This is the question we addressed on November 18, at the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Vancouver. From our field research, a promising option has emerged: innovative social enterprise business models. Social enterprise is a business activity -- an exchange of goods and services -- that is undertaken primarily to achieve social objectives. BRAC- a global non-governmental organization that has expanded to work in 11 countries from its original base in Bangladesh -- raises about 75 per cent of its development program funding through social enterprise activities such as microfinance and selling feeds and seeds. BRAC has trained over 75,000 community health workers worldwide. Advertisement Our research to date shows four social enterprise business models that could allow community health workers to generate income while caring for mothers and children: Model 1: Selling basket of health products Community health workers can generate additional income through sales of medicines, personal care products and other household goods that promote family health and well-being. In this model, community members fund community health workers directly. We found that it is most suitable for lower-middle income communities with sufficient disposable income and density to support purchases and door-to-door sales. Model 2: Outreach from mission-driven private clinics This model uses a portion of the revenues from public-private partnership clinics and hospitals to pay for the free door-to-door outreach of community health workers to low-income neighborhoods. Wealthier fee-paying patients pay for this model. It is most suitable for communities with large disparities between rich and poor as well as regions where a significant share of the population has formal education, mobility and sufficient disposable income to enable access to private health care. Model 3: Cross subsidization from other enterprise activities In this model, non-healthcare related enterprises and utilities provide stable, year-round funding to support community health workers, by offering a share of user-fees, levies or supplemental income. The customers of these enterprises and utilities pay for health costs and community health workers' salaries. For example, a social enterprise in India that sells clean water to communities is also funding local primary health care. This model is most suitable for smaller rural communities that are economically homogenous and regions that prioritize investment in non-health related sectors. Model 4: Payment in agricultural commodities In some low-income countries such as South Sudan, areas relying on subsistence agriculture do not have a cash economy. In these contexts, community health workers cannot sell health-related products to subsidize their incomes, as community members do not have cash to pay for medicines. Our project is exploring the viability and feasibility of having the health workers receive payment in agricultural commodities with the support of an organization like BRAC that can aggregate and market the commodities on their behalf. This model is still in the early experimental stage. Advertisement Innovating for women's livelihoods and health By generating evidence and recommending effective social enterprise models for community health workers, we aim to make a significant contribution to improving women's economic empowerment and maternal and child health. Our efforts are in line with national governments policy directions and the results will directly inform, strengthen and scale up BRAC program efforts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, South Sudan and Uganda. The ultimate goal is to reduce maternal and child mortality. Together we aim to turn research into action for some of the most vulnerable people in the world. Dr. Jenipher Twebaze Musoke is the Director of Research for BRAC Africa. Dr. Kevin McKague is an Assistant Professor of Social Entrepreneurship and Strategy at Cape Breton University in Canada. This blog is part of the series: "Resilient and Responsive Health Systems for a Changing World" by the Canadian Society for International Health and Health Systems Global, to share the central issues explored at the 4th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Vancouver, 14-18 November 2016. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of CCIC or its members. Advertisement Martin Barraud via Getty Images Crowd reaching for globe We in Canada, along with many other people around the world, did not get to vote in the recent American election -- yet we are meant to suffer the international consequences of it. Shall we sit back, as usual, and watch events unfold, including the possibly catastrophic effects of climate change left unchecked? Moreover, shall we continue to look on, in Aleppo and elsewhere, as communities are blown apart while a few great powers manoeuvre behind the scenes? Now another of these powers will have a bully at the helm -- a loose cannon with his finger on the nuclear button. Bullies may admire each other, but what happens when they cross each other? Advertisement On the other hand, perhaps Donald Trump has done the world a great service by bringing to a head long festering problems that can no longer be tolerated. Enough of the Great Global Powers Imagine a city with weak government and no police force. Gangs would roam the streets, seizing territory and battling with each other for advantage. Well, this is the world we live in today. Three political powers roam the globe, exercising their influence while an economic force called globalization empowers the affluent of the world to ride roughshod over everyone else. We can certainly challenge the outsized control that they, and globalization, exercise over our destinies. We all know about noble America, the defender of freedom, as in the Second World War and the Marshall Plan that followed. Nonetheless, we had better not forget nasty America, with its wars in Vietnam and Iraq, as well as its repeated incursions throughout Latin America. Are we about to experience another round of nasty America -- an America made "great again?" Power does corrupt, whether it speaks English, Russian or Mandarin. Advertisement We may not choose the leaders of the great powers, but we can certainly challenge the outsized control that they, and globalization, exercise over our destinies. Consider a council, a coalition, and connected communities. A Council of Peaceful Democracies Five countries dominate the United Nations: the permanent members of the Security Council. This should be called the War Council, since all five have large arsenals of nuclear weapons and histories of bullying, whether in the form of colonialism or belligerent incursions, and are the five largest exporters of armaments in the world. Imagine instead a Peace Council of democratic countries with no nuclear weapons, no history of military incursions in recent times and relatively insignificant exports of armaments. Does this sound impossible? It could be made possible simply by creating it. Imagine if Pope Francis, perhaps the most respected leader in the world, convened an initial meeting of several such countries to define the mission and determine the membership of such a council. This could include countries that have been particularly active in peacekeeping (such as Sweden and Canada), democracies in South America and Africa (for example, Uruguay, Ghana and Brazil when it gets its political act together), Costa Rica (which got rid of it armed forces in 1948), and perhaps even South Korea from Asia (once it resolves its current difficulties). Advertisement Before ridiculing this collection of peripheral powers, consider how many such countries there are and the influence they could have when working together for a safer world. Get your head around this form of influence -- peace in place of power -- and the ridicule could instead be directed at the obstinate permanent membership of the Security Council. Such a council could take positions on issues such as the inequitable distribution of wealth in the world and the recent demise of so many democracies. With no official status, or even one day with it, the power of such a council would depend on the efforts of institutions and people on the ground. A Coalition of Engaged NGOs Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) abound in the world, each with its own mission. Amnesty International deals with human rights, Greenpeace with the environment, Doctors Without Borders with the medical consequences of calamities. Yet many of these problems share a common cause, namely the imbalances that pervade the world today: the domination of all things economic over anything social, the capacity of global corporations to intimidate sovereign governments and the lop-sided influence of the three great powers. Imagine, then, a coalition of engaged NGOs that could champion the establishment of a compelling, constructive vision -- a manifesto for balance -- around which concerned people everywhere could coalesce. Connected Communities of the "good folk" One message of the U.S. election, Brexit and other such votes is that never before have so many people been prepared to act on the resentment they feel. What they have lacked, however, is this compelling vision to replace the deceptive rhetoric of populist politicians. That could provide a groundswell of collaboration among what can be called the "good folk" of the world -- people concerned with decency and democracy. Collaboration happens in communities, not networks. (If you doubt this, ask your Facebook "friends" to help paint your house.) Thus, the real force for change exists in community groups on the ground, albeit networked around the world. If Amnesty International alone has seven million members, think about how many other people now function in groups in particular communities, and how many more groups would form given a clear rallying call for change. Advertisement The likely alternative could well be one of the nightmare scenarios that would destroy our planet and our progeny. Well, then, what are we waiting for? All the necessary elements are in place for a groundswell of global action: peaceful nations, perhaps now ready to work together; the mass media, to highlight the excesses of our imbalanced world; the NGOs, to articulate a compelling vision for change; community groups of concerned people, determined to make the necessary changes; and the social media, prepared to connect these communities into a worldwide movement. These community groups could pressure their governments to legislate and regulate for better balance, and support businesses that act responsibly while targeting businesses as well as governments that do not, using that tool well-honed by international alliances, the boycott. Think of how powerful it could be when executed at the grass-roots level, across the globe. Is this vigilante justice? Not at all. It is making good use of the marketplace, a concept that corporations understand well -- as does president-elect Donald Trump, not to mention Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. We do, after all, have the right not to buy, also to let the buyer be aware -- and the seller, too. Am I dreaming in colour? Sure, for good reason. The likely alternative could well be one of the nightmare scenarios that would destroy our planet and our progeny. Advertisement Henry Mintzberg is Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Montreal and the author of Rebalancing Society... radical renewal beyond left, right and centre. Email him here. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost: Most parents are very excited to introduce their kids to Indiana Jones. Me, I was dreading it. Not because Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Holy Grail aren't awesome movies, but because they feature Nazis. Nazis may seem like run-of-the-mill bad guys to most folks, but I'm Jewish. So they're not. We ended up letting our son watch them and I made a parenting decision to not explain what Nazis really were. Advertisement He's seven and doesn't need to know yet that there was once a political movement that rose to power during a time of economic anxiety by scapegoating Jews as well as Roma, Slavs, gays and the disabled. He doesn't need to know yet that if we had lived in Germany at that time, we would have been put on a Jewish registry and been forced to wear a Star of David identifying our ethnicity. They are no longer just historical monsters... They are holding rallies in Washington D.C. We would have had our windows smashed and been denied employment. We would have been pushed into ghettos and later into cattle cars. We would have been starved and tortured in concentration camps or gassed and burned in death camps alongside 12 million others who weren't white enough. Advertisement That's what Nazis are. But they are no longer just historical monsters or cinematic bad guys. They are holding rallies in Washington D.C., doing the Nazi salute while yelling "Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!" They are being discussed on CNN with a chryon that reads "ALT-RIGHT FOUNDER QUESTIONS IF JEWS ARE PEOPLE." Richard Spencer, the white nationalist leader who coined the term "alt-right," also said of the mainstream media that "we should refer to them in the original German" at which point the audience screamed back "Lugenpresse," a Nazi-era term that means "lying press" and was used by Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to attack Jews and communists. It was also a term that gained traction during the end of the campaign when Trump supporters would shout it at reporters covering his rallies. Advertisement Spencer concluded his speech to hundreds of his white supremacist "alt-right" followers across the country by declaring: "America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance and it belongs to us." A year ago yesterday I first encountered the "alt-right," though I was not yet aware of their re-branding efforts, when I wrote "Never Again: A Jewish Take On Anti-Syrian Refugee Sentiment" and my Twitter account was cybermobbed by Nazis, including some who threatened me with violence. Yes, this Nazi troll's Twitter avatar is a cat with a Hitler mustache in front of an S.S. cap. These anti-Semitic harassment tweets have continued through the year during Trump's improbable yet inexorable rise to power, and I've received a fraction of that compared to Jewish journalists who cover Trump more regularly. The prevalence of Nazi imagery has only grown worse since election night, beginning with anti-Semitic graffiti in Philadelphia during the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the "night of broken glass" that kicked off the Holocaust, cleverly replacing the "T" in Trump with a swastika. Advertisement There have since been at least 60 separate incidents of swastika graffiti in the U.S., part of the over 700 "hateful incidents of harassment" collected by the Southern Poverty Law Centre since the election, including threats to Muslims, Hispanics, blacks, LGBTQ and women. It's hit schools and churches, and there were even swastikas and pro-Trump graffiti sprayed on a Beastie Boys memorial park for Adam Yauch in Brooklyn. It's crossed the border, too, with swastikas spray-painted on an elementary school, a predominantly black church, a rabbi's house and a Jewish community centre in Ottawa. Someone spray-painted "It's the Jews" on an elementary school in Toronto and plastered racist "alt-right" posters near another elementary school across the city. Anti-Asian flyers have been found in mailboxes in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver, and just today white nationalist posters were found in Edmonton. How has Trump responded to all of this? Well, he took the time to attack the musical Hamilton four times on Twitter. He has also tweeted out multiple attacks on the New York Times and Saturday Night Live. Advertisement But there have been no tweets denouncing the rising hate crimes or Spencer's "alt-right" gathering of neo-nazis shouting "Heil Trump!" During an interview at the NY Times with various reporters and editors, which the newspaper live-tweeted, Trump did finally say something: Asked point-blank about Nazi conference in DC over wknd: @realDonaldTrump tells @nytimes "of course" "I disavow and condemn them" Julie Davis (@juliehdavis) November 22, 2016 However, just as he did during his 60 Minutes interview when he halfheartedly said "stop it" while also diminishing the number of incidents Trump accepted no responsibility for how his bigoted campaign encouraged and inflamed it. Dean Baquet asks if Trump feels like he did things to energize the alt-right movement. "I don't think so, Dean," Trump replies. Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016 Advertisement Trump: "It's not a group I want to energize, and if they are energized, I want to look into it and find out why." (2/2) Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016 Not to mention, of course, that he's not publicly denounced the "alt-right" on his Twitter, which is how he communicates with his followers, but only on 60 Minutes and in the NY Times, both mainstream media outlets that he's repeatedly told his followers not to trust. Now many have argued that Trump doesn't believe this stuff and just said it to get elected. Maybe, even probably, but motivations are meaningless compared to actions. And his actions include installing Steve Bannon as his chief strategist, a man who boasted that he turned Breitbart.com into a "a platform for the alt-right." And yet, Trump defended both Bannon and Breitbart during that NY Times interview: Trump defends Bannon saying "if I thought he was racist/alt-right...I wouldn't even think abt hiring him...he's been treated very unfairly" Julie Davis (@juliehdavis) November 22, 2016 Advertisement Trump: "Breitbart is just a publication." Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 Trump also named Jeff Sessions, a senator who was deemed too racist to be a federal judge, to be Attorney General. His National Security Adviser, retired General Flynn, has tweeted that "Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL." David Duke, former KKK grand wizard, called these cabinet picks as "the first steps in taking America back." He specifically praised Bannon's role in "exposing the vicious war on White people on his Breitbart website;" Sessions, for "being hated for years by the Jewish-dominated media for his opposition to massive immigration into America and... the massive, institutionalized racial discrimination against white people called affirmative action;" and Flynn, for being "an avowed enemy of the Jewish warmonger traitors called 'Neocons.'" So here we are. I spent months worrying about my kid watching a movie and now I have to worry about him watching the news or seeing racist posters or graffiti on the streets or even checking the mailbox. Advertisement Last week, a Trump adviser floated the notion that a Muslim registry has a precedent in the Japanese internment camps during the Second World War, as if those weren't a horrifying part of U.S. history. This week, potential Homeland Security director Kris Kobach was photographed meeting Trump with a document revealing plans for Muslim immigrants, including a registry so that "all aliens from high-risk areas are tracked" and reducing Syrian refugees to zero. Call it "alt-right," white supremacy, white nationalism, ethno-nationalism or whatever else you want. It's just Nazi by another name. Many Trump supporters on both sides of the border are trying to diminish these hate crimes, dismiss the "alt-right" and excuse the president-elect. The goal is normalization. But this is more than not normal. It is familiar. And it is contagious. First Brexit, then Trump, and next it could be Front National's racist leader Marine Le Pen in France. Call it "alt-right," white supremacy, white nationalism, ethno-nationalism or whatever else you want. It's just Nazi by another name and we must stand up to it because we've seen how this story ends and there's no real-life Indiana Jones to stop them. Advertisement Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost: By Graham Henderson (Adapted from his Nov. 1, 2016 speech to The Economic Club of Canada) In 2003, the idea that creators were entering a new Golden Age was widely embraced by artists, the media, policymakers and others worldwide. Peer-to-peer file sharing had become the default way for people to access music for free, and the iPod had taken mobile digital music into the mainstream. The digital era, it was believed, would usher in a utopia for both musicians and the consumer. Artists would gain access to a larger audience than ever before, and make up for the collapse of their traditional marketplaces through concerts, merchandise sales and other means. Advertisement But in reality, artists -- the people who build our nation's cultural foundation and much of the intellectual property we export -- now struggle more than ever to earn a living. The creative middle class has virtually ceased to exist. Just as youth today are told they must accept a world of precarious employment, the gutting of the creative class has been presented as inevitable. It is time that we question that supposition. After all, we live in a social democracy, in which the people, not corporations and not plutocrats, get to decide how to order their lives. Let's consider how the creative community got to where it is today. In music, lots of money is being generated, but a disproportionately small share of it is finding its way to creators. The 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization "Internet Treaties" are the foundation for most of the rules governing our modern digital environment. When the treaties were adopted, less than one per cent of the world's population was online, and it would be 2.5 years before Napster appeared, eight years before YouTube and over a decade before Spotify. Advertisement For the new technological infrastructure to get off the ground, it was argued that creators would have to give up copyright payments that would previously have been required. To achieve this, intermediaries and technology companies were subsequently granted "safe harbours" from liability in copyright laws worldwide. With this arrangement, a social quid pro quo was articulated over and over again: creators would be better off -- this was the promise of a Golden Age. Economist Olivier Bomsel characterized the new arrangement as a massive system of cross-subsidies paid by creators to digital businesses. So what has become of the promised Golden Age for artists? One recent study found that, in 2011, the average artist in Canada earned just $7,200 from music-related activities. A 2015 Writers' Union of Canada survey found that more than 80 per cent of writers earn sub-poverty line income from their writing! They are charter members of a new social class, dubbed the "Precariat" by British economist Guy Standing, arising from technologies that accelerate the growth and concentration of profits while driving wages down and making them ever-more uncertain. Advertisement In music, lots of money is being generated, but a disproportionately small share of it is finding its way to creators. This is due in part to the massive popularity of ad-supported online music streaming. Services such as YouTube and SoundCloud have driven huge increases in digital music consumption while delivering far less revenue than paid subscription services like Spotify. Ad-supported services, with over 13 times more users than paid services, delivered less than one-third of total streaming royalties. Music Canada is among those now calling for reforms to address this "value gap," to restore the creative middle class and to level the playing field for all creators. Any approach to the problem should be holistic and multijurisdictional. At the local level, many municipalities are looking to maximize the job creation, economic and other opportunities that music generates with Music City strategies. At the provincial level, Ontario and B.C. have created substantial music funds and implemented music-friendly policies. Think of the essential role played throughout history by artists in the fight for democracy and civil rights. The federal government, for its part, has made it clear that it wants a new toolkit to confront the challenges facing Canada's creators, that it seeks a new social contract. Here are some thoughts: Advertisement Through legislative reform, end the cross-subsidies paid by creators to digital businesses. Promote Canada as the great music tourism destination it is. Grow music program funding in line with inflation and changing marketplace realities and earmark some Trade Routes funds for music exports. Alleviate the housing affordability situation facing artists, and provide them with skills and entrepreneurial training. Modernize the Copyright Board of Canada as a true business development office for both creators and users of content. Implement policies to attract foreign direct investment in the domestic music economy. Rebuilding respect for the humanities is a nationally important issue. The Heritage Department should therefore convene an expert panel to consider this issue and to establish a permanent National Humanities Council. Also, in keeping with Heritage Minister Melanie Joly's stated aspiration to go in new and bigger directions, the government should look at funding music education to help make up for growing shortfalls that have put music programs across the country in jeopardy. Minister Joly has asked, "How can the government use content to promote a strong democracy?" In searching for a response, we must consider that, to the extent that we allow the voices of our creators to be compromised or marginalized, our democracy will suffer a great loss. Think of the essential role played throughout history by artists in the fight for democracy and civil rights. Young people today, creators and other members of the "Precariat" are objecting to their difficult circumstances, just as people fought against the brutalities of the first Industrial Revolution. In a social democracy, we can shape the world we live in. Advertisement So in answer to the minister's question: If you want a stronger democracy that is less vulnerable to special interests, encourage and enable our creators by restoring balance to the world in which they live. The promise made to creators of a Golden Age has been broken. Let's make it up to them. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost: Stephanie Keith / Reuters An American flag hangs upside down in an encampment during a protest against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S. November 21, 2016. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith The Standing Rock protest is an effort to block the Dakota Access pipeline. This pipeline will carry 450,000 barrels of oil per day, over the Bakken fields of North Dakota, 1,172 miles to Patoka, Illinois. The original route led it close to the town of Bismark, but when the plans changed and the pipeline was rerouted through Sioux tribal land, the community at Standing Rock protest. Since then, disturbing reports of protesters and horses being shot with rubber bullets, protesters being sprayed with mace and set upon by privately-owned guard dogs have trickled in. To date 141 arrests have been made, but that number continues to grow. Advertisement From Sacred Stone: A broad multi-state coalition of tribes, landowners and environmental groups issued a statement speaking out against the project. The coalition called the USACE process "an egregious violation of the relevant federal environmental laws and the 1851 and 1868 treaties between the US and the L/D/Nakota Nations, which remain the supreme law of the land." We are not expendable. We have a right to live. Please stand with us as we protect our sacred lands. Water is life, mni wiconi. If you wish to stand with Standing Rock, here's how you can help: Donate to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Dakota Access Pipeline fund. Contact the Army Corps of Engineers to request a reversing of the permit sanctioning the Dakota Access Pipeline. Call the regulatory complaint line at (202) 761-5903, or contact Jo-Ellen Darcy, the assistant secretary of the Corps, directly at (703) 697-8986 or joellen.darcy@us.army.mil. Advertisement Sign the petition to the White House to Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from threatening native water sources and sacred land. Send supplies thorough Amazon. Access the Camp of Sacred Stones supplies wish list here. You can send cash, checks and supplies. Raise awareness via social media using the hashtag #NoDAPL. Contribute to the Sacred Stone Legal Defense Fund to fight legislation in court. The Camp of the Sacred Stones is a cultural camp on the Standing Rock Reservation helping to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline. Buy the T-shirt to help raise awareness and donate to the fund. The t-shirt is designed by Shailene Woodley: "This fight is a fight for all of our land, water and futures. Join me in getting this shirt, getting involved and becoming a water protector... for all of us." Visit the protesters at Standing Rock to help support their cause. Please be as self-sufficient as you can when you travel. The community at Standing Rock have limited resources, so coming unprepared would put a strain on their supplies. Advertisement Call North Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple to state your support of the Standing Rock protester 701-328-2200. This article was originally published on Greenmoxie.com Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Mike Segar / Reuters U.S. President-elect Donald Trump gestures from the front door at the main clubhouse at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, U.S., November 20, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar There is nothing good, hopeful or exciting about president-elect Donald J. Trump. His antics, behaviour and recent appointees are all unbecoming of a president. What good is there in him to elevate him to the presidency of the United States of America? Since becoming president unexpectedly, he has brought a slew of extremists to the centre of the American government. Rudy Giuliani, who has a long history of misconducts; Stephen Bannon, a white nationalist; Sarah Palin, an accidental lightweight vice-presidential candidate; U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, a known racist lone wolf as Attorney General; New Jersey's Chris Christie, in the midst of a serious scandal in his home state; and Myron Ebell, a climate change denier who been tapped as the president-elect's top adviser on the environment. These people were chosen for their political loyalties to Trump's unlikely bid for the presidency. Advertisement Ivana Trump, the president-elect's first wife, is launching a bid to become America's top diplomat to Czech Republic, and Trump is asking for top-secret security clearances for his own children and their partners. Is this what Americans chose as their president? The "Trump effect" is spilling to other parts of the world. Joining Trump and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Holland and Austria are on the brink of electing populist politicians with little ideas and big slogans. In the worlds of Marine Le Pen, leader of France's Front National Party, the mainstream fringe of French politics, "Donald Trump made possible what was presented as completely impossible." In Canada, the once-mighty Conservative party is reorganizing for a comeback of its formerly fringe self to accommodate the extremism that once defined it and to accommodate the Trumps of Canada. Kellie Leitch, a prospective leader of the party, who once tried to implement a phone line to snitch on suspicious neighbours (Muslims) as a minister of the crown, has become the Donald Trump of the North with a little help from the highly controversial and offensive campaign manager, Nick Kouvalis. Advertisement There were many things broken and imperfect about Hillary Clinton, but she was exceptionally respected and qualified to be America's 45th and the first woman president. She started her career as a smart young lawyer in the midst of a historic Richard Nixon scandal, became a corporate lawyer, a children's advocate with the Children's Defense Fund, the first lady of Arkansas and the United States, an advocate of education, health and women's rights, an equal co-president with her husband, a Senator from New York and the third female Secretary of State, after Madeline Albright and Condoleezza Rice. She ran a polished campaign for president. Sadly, she was shielded from talking policy and answering important inquiries about her past conducts; by far, her candidacy gave substance to what was otherwise a personality, not an idea campaign. I will certainly miss the Hillary presidency that will never be. Donald Trump, on borrowed money from his father, built his empire by benefiting from tax loopholes that helped him escape paying income taxes; he discriminated against African-American clients at his properties; prematurely called for the execution of young African Americans who were found to be innocent in later years through DNA evidence; insulted all who dared to challenge him, used bankruptcy laws to his benefit to escape his responsibilities. He looked down on the American electoral institution and called it corrupt. He appealed to the white working class by helping them embrace the misogyny, bigotry and racism in themselves. It became easy, through him, to blame their neighbours for their own shortcomings and status in life. In Ohio and Michigan, he promised to bring back American jobs from Mexico, neglecting to explain why, as a businessman, he chose to send his businesses to those countries. He promised to deport illegal Mexicans and build a wall to separate his nation while failing to explain why his companies continue to hire illegal immigrants. Hate and ignorance became the Trump campaign and won by managing to bring the fringe to the mainstream and empower the Ku Klux Klan segment of the American society. His becoming president has the same effect as the Irish artist, Bono winning the Glamour Women of the Year Award; Barack Obama becoming a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2009; or Marisa Tomei, winning an Oscar for her performance in My Cousin Vinny. Shouldn't the qualified be awarded what is deserved? Advertisement Trump joins a long list of populist politicians who were elected while citizens decided to vote to protest in the ballot box, hoped for change and instead produced wrong results where there is no-buyer's remorse. The fringe Rob Ford became mayor of Toronto, the most important city in Canada in 2010, by simply repeating empty slogans ("Stop the gravy train!"), like Trump, who himself kept repeating "Make America Great Again."The Arnold Schwarzeneggers and the Jesse Venturas continue to become wrong mainstream political actors. The United States seems to have changed since the election ended a week ago. A black Texas veteran was refused service at a fast-food-joint by a manager when a Trump shirt-wearing customer questioned the man's eligibility for a free veterans' meal. According to the customer, "we did not see people like you over there (in Germany). They would not allow blacks." The veteran later reflected how "the election has changed the hearts and changed the motives of people." In another incident, a swastika and the words "Seig Heil 2016" were painted on a store in Philadelphia. John Weaver, a noted Republican and top aid to Ohio Governor John Kasich, has reflected what is in the minds of the world -- "The racist, fascist extreme right is represented footsteps form oval office. Be very vigilant, America." The world is hurt, confused and very vigilant in Trump's America. A shorter version of this blog first appeared in CNBC Africa. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost: What to do when you've got hundreds of pairs of shoes, enough clothes to dress a small army, and your career demands that you move, oh on average, about every three years? And not just to another city, but an entirely foreign country. Welcome to Anne-Marie Bodal's life. The Footwear Design Director currently lives in Alicante, Spain (that's the designer shoe capital of Europe BTW), but before that she called Thailand, Singapore, South Africa and the UK home. After studying at De Montfort University in Leicester, a solid fashion foundation specializing in footwear led to a flourishing career that's got her expertise is in global demand. From design-led projects for the likes of Fila to brand building for various businesses across Asia, as well as developing successful online marketing strategies, Anne-Marie is leaving her definitive footprint on the industry. Find out how this fashion girl of the world manages to make relocation look like a catwalk. Advertisement First, I must know how you handle the business of packing and shipping your belongings around the globe. What is your no-fail method? My no fail method, to be honest, is getting someone else to do all the packing! What's the first thing you do when you know you've got a big move coming up? Start looking for shipping companies and have a good clear out. Any preferred shipping companies? My advice on shipping companies is to go with a reputable local company. I've found that you get more personalized service if you go with a smaller shipper, as you generally get local knowledge and better prices. However, with corporate moves, your new employer will likely turn things over to a relocation company so they will do the heavy lifting. Love to be hands free on this kind of stuff! That time when your designer duds got lost at sea... Sadly, this happened somewhere between Cape Town and Singapore. After three months at sea, all my stuff from Cape Town arrived smelling of fish! It took weeks to wash everything and some of my vintage pieces still smell weird to this day. Do you think this nomadic lifestyle is in your DNA? I was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti to an Antiguan mother and a Danish father so there's that. Multiple expat postings as a kid definitely sparked my travel obsession. Advertisement My interest in art started from a very young age with all the colour and creativity of the Haitian people becoming ingrained. Also having a mother who was obsessed with fashion and design sparked my curiosity in the world of clothes and accessories. After leaving Haiti, we spent some time in Panama, then a couple of years in Antigua, followed by a long-term stop in Bermuda. I was 16 when we made the big move to the UK. So, yes, I guess I got used to moving around. How do you assimilate into the culture? I always try and research the hot spots like markets, festivals, events, and so on so I can mix with the locals. Befriending my colleagues has led me to those lesser-known haunts. Outside of work, InterNations and Meetup.com have proven to be useful in facilitating introductions to new people. Do you learn the language, or get by on the basics? I think it's important to learn the language if one wants full immersion; otherwise you'll miss the real nuances of the culture. I would recommend taking lessons in order to integrate quickly. Advertisement You are in Alicante now so how does that compare to the big, at times chaotic, cities that you have lived in? In 2007 I moved to Cape Town to experience life in a smaller city. I needed respite from huge, pumping London. It was good for my soul and gave me space to focus. After stints in Singapore and Bangkok, it's good to be back in a smaller "slower" city. Even though I still do miss Thailand every day... especially the kindness of its people. However in contrast to Bangkok, day-to-day life here is simply just easier. No fighting with the traffic; the tram is never massively congested; the beach is five minutes walk from the city centre; the local market is five minutes walk up the street. These benefits make living here simple. And oddly enough for a city of only 300,000 people, there is enough to do from a social perspective, especially on the food front. I do miss out on the big cultural events that Madrid and Barcelona frequently offer, but if there's something major happening, those cities are only two and four hours away respectively. NBD. Advertisement From my own travels, I know that Thailand has quite a distinct culture. How did living in Bangkok affect you? Thailand has a whole other set of life principles and inspiration - the perfect place to develop life/work balance. After moving to Bangkok I realized, and perhaps this sounds ironic, that I was living in fear of change. This was causing me much unhappiness and I was admittedly a very unpleasant person to be around. The Thai people really gave me a reality check. Basically I wanted some of what they were having. And what they are having is a simple, happy, content life; even those with very little. Guessing you have a regular yoga and meditation practice? I think living in Buddhist culture forces you to stop and consider that staring at your belly button for a period of time might be the key to happiness. This was when I made the choice to take some time off work and reassess. I needed to learn to truly understand my needs, so I started practicing yoga every day, as well as meditating. I have noticed a marked improvement with my yoga practice since. I try to meditate for minimum 10 minutes every day and I practice yoga every day. I do an hour session every other day and on the alternate days I'll do 10 to 15 minutes of yoga stretches to stay supple. Advertisement What prompted the move to Spain? All this new thinking. With my inner foundations stronger than ever, and a fresh perspective on life, I was able to realize that it was time to shift away from the people that were no longer adding value to it. I split up from my partner and moved to Spain, a country that I have loved for many many years, with the intention of making a clean start. I'm taking every day as it comes and loving every moment of being here. New career paths are blossoming as I carry a new and improved self-awareness, which I would never have gained if not for that period of stopping and realizing the importance of my needs and my values. My time in Thailand was brief, but filled with life lessons. Anne-Marie is one of 17 international contributors featured in my guidebook, How To Make Big Moves: Relocate Without Losing Your Mind, currently available for Amazon Kindle, iBooks and Kobo readers. Images courtesy of Anne-Marie's Instagram @intlfashionnative. Jupiterimages via Getty Images Couple relaxing together at home So you have waited all day to tell your mate something you are excited about and, just as you get to the important part, he tunes out and looks at his cellphone and begins to reply to a text. Or how about the girlfriend who constantly interrupts you during your telephone conversations and it seems you can never complete your thoughts. Advertisement Sound familiar? In these moments, we may not feel heard -- or even cared about. While it surely happens to all of us at some point, we are all guilty of doing it. It is no secret that good communication is key to good relationships. Whether the relationship is personal or professional, communicating with people you care about is an art, kind of like dancing the Tango. Good communication takes practice and effort, but once you know the secret to great communication, you can have better, deeper and more meaningful connections. When we have too much "noise" or conflict in a relationship, that most likely means communication breakdown, or at least a strain or tension. Contrary to the old adage, communication may not be everything in a relationship, and a relationship may need more than just a communication fix. Though when people feel heard and cared about, they respond accordingly. The secret to great communication is simple -- so simple it is easy to overlook. What is the secret? Get clear on what is most important to the person in the relationship and link it to what is most important to you. This is called "linking of values." Advertisement When you link your values, you now have common ground and something that is important to both of you. For example, let's say you have to go on yet another business trip but your spouse wants you home because she says you don't spend enough time together, since you are both busy with your respective businesses. She is upset at you because she is now feeling you don't care much about the relationship -- or her -- and that your business is more important to you. Looking at this closely, she has a high value in her relationship with you. While you, too, value the relationship, otherwise you wouldn't be in it, your highest priority at this moment is securing that big business deal you are going to be doing on this upcoming trip, so you can invest in your business. So help her understand how your trip will enable the two of you to spend more quality time together upon your return, since that is most important to her, and how you both will get what you would love and deserve by you taking this trip. For instance, perhaps it will enable you to buy a new house, or take a romantic vacation together. Once we learn how to do this dance, our communication gets clearer and our relationships will get stronger. Advertisement What is your secret to great communication? I'd love to hear from you. Tweet to me at @Shannon_Skinner or leave a comment below. Shannon Skinner is an award-winning producer/host of ExtrarodinaryWomenTV.com, radio host, inspirational speaker and author, based in Toronto. For information on her speaking engagements, visit: ShannonSkinner.com. Tweet to her at @Shannon_Skinner. This blog originally was published on ShannonSkinner.com Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost: The refugees, much like the ocean, come in waves. Since the invention of geographic borders, people have continuously stretched across shorelines in attempt to escape an imminent death. Their movement, led by the unforgiving sea, is entrenched in human history. Advertisement This year the term refugee precedes the word crisis as millions of Syrians flee from burning homes to a foreign elsewhere. The refugee is a subject of heated debate, one coded with xenophobic undertones and wrongful calculations aimed to separate the safe from the unsafe. Politicians dance between increased border security and pledges of safety prompted by gruesome photos of infant corpses. While the world looks on in horror, my parents look back. For Eelam Tamils and many other ethnic groups, there is nothing current about the plight of a refugee -- it is a lived reality. The war they escaped serves as the foundation for their very existence. The Sri Lankan civil war, lasting from 1983 to 2009, was an armed conflict between the country's military and Tamil rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which aimed to establish an independent state for the ethnic Tamil minority in the north and east regions of the tear-shaped island. Often described as a quiet genocide, the details of the war are suffocated by extreme government censorship laws. We as a diaspora, watched the curtain fall on a decades-long conflict we could never fully understand. The origins of ethnic tension between majority Sinhala and minority Tamil populations, however, can be traced back to colonial rule during which divisive parliamentary structures were implemented. At the end of British rule in 1948, the Sinhala Only Act was passed in 1956 that deemed Sinhala the sole official language of the country. Tamils were left severely disadvantaged by this policy and continued to face systemic discrimination by the Sinhala state, contributing to heightened ethnic tension and the emergence of armed Tamil resistance groups. Official war broke out in 1983, after government militia responded to the killing of 13 Sri Lankan soldiers by LTTE forces, with the brutal violence of the 1983 riots -- otherwise known as Black July. This anti-Tamil pogrom killed between 400 and 3000 people, destroyed 8000 homes and 5000 shops. It marked a point at which death grazed the tips of Tamil heels as dismembered corpses regularly burned to ashes. During this period, massive groups of Tamil refugees escaped from home and fled to unfamiliar lands across the world. It is why in 2016 large communities of Eelam Tamil populations can be pinpointed around the globe. It is why I have cousins in England and Australia. We are all descendants of war. Tamil refugees boarding a ship in Jaffna - August 1983 The generational divide in Eelam Tamils is marked by vastly different historical contexts that bleed into each other, offering uniquely fragmented identities influenced by the war. While our grandparents saw the country shift from autonomous to colonial rule, our parents experienced its post-colonial restructuring and subsequent Sinhala nationalism. Advertisement Their pain rests undisturbed, suppressed into the subconscious and inherited over generations. We as a diaspora, watched the curtain fall on a decades-long conflict we could never fully understand. And although the impact of the war varies drastically between us, what remains consistent is the recognition of a profound loss and the silent mourning of a forgotten identity. The expression "back home," native to immigrant tongues, takes on a different meaning for Eelam Tamils and other exiled populations. "Back home" for my parents is an allusion to a place that lays buried beneath the aftermath of a violent war. They float between a concept of what was, what could have been, and what has become of a former self. For many Eelam Tamil refugees, the trauma of having witnessed the war and fled its terror remains unprocessed in order to rapidly integrate into a new culture that demands their assimilation. Their pain rests undisturbed, suppressed into the subconscious and inherited over generations. It is therefore unsurprising that issues such as undiagnosed mental illness, alcoholism, and gang violence plague our community. For us to heal from these internalized wounds, it is essential that we make sense of a stateless identity by understanding our history of exile and the structures that were complicit in our displacement. In Pablo Neruda's poem "Forget About Me," the first stanza ends with: let us look for what the sea undid insistently, carelessly, what it broke up and abandoned, and left behind for us As children of refugees, we are capable of uncovering the remnants of the war and will more than likely find placating truths about ourselves in them. Advertisement Related blogs: This blog post was originally published on TamilCulture.com by Brannavy Jeyasundaram -- Read here. Born And Raised is an ongoing series by The Huffington Post Canada that shares the experiences of second-generation Canadians. Part reflection, part storytelling, this series on the children of immigrants explores what it means to be born and raised in Canada. We want to hear your stories -- join the conversation on Twitter at #BornandRaised or send us an email at bornandraised@huffingtonpost.com. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost: As we continue to sort through the results from the Nov. 8 election, some curious trends have emerged. You know already that about 2.02 million ballots were returned in Oregon during the election, marking the first time that more than 2 million ballots have been returned in the state. But that number comes with an asterisk: The overall turnout percentage in Oregon fell below 80 percent for the first time in at least four presidential elections. Although the numbers aren't official yet, the Oregon Secretary of State's office was reporting on Monday that state turnout was 78.72 percent. Turnout in the last three presidential elections before this in 2012, 2008 and 2004 was above 80 percent. (The turnout in 2004 was a remarkable 86.48 percent, and the number has been slipping downward since then.) To be fair, Oregon's voter turnout traditionally ranks among the best in the nation, and this year was no different. In part, that's because the state makes it incredibly easy to register to vote (as it should be), and the state's vote-by-mail process is easy to use and mercifully free of the problems that have plagued the voting process in other states. Oregon turnout also likely gets a boost from the fact that the statewide ballot typically includes hot issues above and beyond the presidential race: This year's ballot, for example, included the controversial Measure 97 tax issue. A closer look at some of the state registration data might offer a clue or two to what pushed state turnout below 80 percent in this year's election. This was the first general election in which the Oregon electorate included voters who had been registered in the state's "motor-voter" program, which has been in place only since the start of the year. This program, in essence, automatically registers people to vote when they get or renew an Oregon driver's license. It's been an open question since the program started whether the voters it's added to the rolls would have much of an impact on the election results. That question remains open, but now we know this much: About 230,000 voters registered through the program. The Secretary of State's office says 97,184 of them returned a ballot in November, for a turnout of about 42.73 percent. That number, however, also comes with an asterisk: Motor voters who affiliated with a political party (Democratic, Republican, Independent, etc.) were almost twice as likely to return a ballot as their nonaffiliated counterparts. In fact, motor voters who registered as Democrats or Republicans notched a turnout of better than 84 percent, better than the overall state average. It remains to enterprising political scientists to chart out what this all means for the state's politics, but our hunch is that the motor voter program generally would appear to give a slight edge to Democrats, if only because Oregon has more registered Democrats than Republicans. The relatively low rate at which motor voters who were unaffiliated with a political party returned ballots likely is one of the factors that tended to depress the Oregon turnout this November. As of now, we only can hazard guesses about what other factors might have been in play: Had a certain election malaise set in by the time ballots arrived? Had we fallen prey to the nasty fiction that our votes don't matter, even in local races? In the meantime, these unaffiliated motor voters in Oregon have the potential to change the course of the state's politics if only a candidate or issue can figure out how to connect with them. (mm) Mohammed Salem / Reuters A Palestinian woman and her child look out of the window of their shelter in Deir al-Balah refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip July 29, 2016. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem Canadians might find it disquieting to have members of Parliament cry, "Shame!" when the government announces $20 million in aid for education and health. Yet this is exactly what happened when Minister of International Development Marie-Claude Bibeau, announced the restoration of Canadian humanitarian aid for Palestinian refugees. The fact that some members of Parliament would behave so outrageously is a testament to the prejudice and misinformation that swirls around the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) -- the UN agency administering Palestinian refugee aid. Advertisement Canada actually has a decades-long history of supporting UNRWA -- a history that was only recently interrupted by the Harper government. So the Trudeau government's resumption of funding is a reconnection with Canada's former humanitarian tradition. It also puts Canada in very good company: every other G7 nation also donates yearly to UNRWA. Anyone who thinks Palestinians refugees enjoy their status is grossly mistaken. UNRWA was founded in 1949 to provide aid to Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled their homes following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. When it began operations in 1950, it was responsible for the wellbeing of 750,000 Palestinian refugees. 66 years later, those refugees and their descendants under the care of UNRWA number over 5,000,000. Canada was one of the countries that voted in support of the partition of Palestine in November, 1947 -- the decision which created the first generation of Palestinian refugees. Rightfully, Canada and the other Western nations have an ongoing responsibility to see that a long-term solution is found for Palestinian refugees. Some people wonder why Palestinians are still refugees after 66 years. There are three reasons. First, contrary to international law, Israel has always refused to allow Palestinian refugees to return to the homes they left behind in Israel proper. In turn, neighbouring countries like Jordan and Lebanon refused to naturalize the Palestinian refugees, viewing such a move as acquiescence to Israel's refusal to readmit them. Finally, no third country has offered to resettle Palestinian refugees en masse. Advertisement Anyone who thinks Palestinians refugees enjoy their status is grossly mistaken. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are forbidden from working in 73 different professions; in other countries, their rights to property, employment, and civil participation remain highly circumscribed. Worse, any time there is political instability, the Palestinian refugees are the first to pay the price. Ask the 300,000 Palestinian refugees who had to flee Kuwait after the First Gulf War; the 30,000 Palestinian refugees who lost their homes in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon in 2007; or the 100,000 Palestinian refugees who fled Yarmouk refugee camp in Damacus over the past two years. Without serious attention, more political and humanitarian crises are bound to arise. Yet there they sit, refused by Israel, refused by their host countries, and with no place else to go. As such, the Palestinian refugee issue is one that is with us until there is an Israeli-Palestinian accord. In the meantime, UNRWA provides services that the refugees' host countries deny them. Education is 54 per cent of UNRWA's budget, followed by health services at 17 per cent, social services at nine per cent, and so on. Michael Bell, former Canadian ambassador to Israel, pointed out that even the Israeli government supports international funds for UNRWA, fearing that more nefarious influences could potentially fill gaps left by an underfunded UNRWA. But the West is playing Russian roulette with Palestinian refugees. Without serious attention, more political and humanitarian crises are bound to arise. Many recognize the precariousness of the plight of Palestinian refugees, foremost the refugees themselves. They demonstrate against cuts to UNRWA not because the agency offers "handouts," but because it offers hope for their children, and an alternative to more radical responses to the impoverishment they face. Advertisement Funding to UNRWA is a stop-gap measure -- one that has been in place far too long. Canada and the West should get serious about forcing Israel and the Palestinians into meaningful negotiations to create a long-term, just and viable solution for Palestinian refugees. Barring that, Canada has a central role to play for Palestinian refugees as chair of the Refugee Working Group -- an international organization established through the 1993 Oslo Accords, and mandated to find workable solutions to the challenges facing Palestinian refugees. That's right: the world is waiting for Canada to bring people together, pound the gavel, and start the discussion for Palestinian refugees. So rather than hollering "Shame," about humanitarian funding for refugees, members of Parliament should be crying "Shame," for Canada's failure to do more for one of the world's most vulnerable populations. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook The five things you need to know on Tuesday, November 22 1) KIM AND 'CAN YA?' Donald Trumps overnight tweets are certainly keeping us early morning journalists in work. They are also keeping No.10 busy. Advertisement The US President Elects latest, suggesting that Nigel Farage would do a great job as the UKs ambassador in Washington, was the Trumpiest of Trump tweets. It defied protocol and managed to undermine both Theresa May and Sir Kim Darroch, our current ambassador. Darroch, who spent years under Blair, Brown and Cameron as our man in Brussels, was described by Farage only last week as a fanatical Europhile. No.10 this morning was a diplomatic as it could be: "There is no vacancy. We have an excellent ambassador to the US. No10 may feel a tad peeved as it confirmed yesterday that a super-quick state visit with all the Buckingham Palace trimmings was under consideration for Trump next year. May and many of her team loathe Farage so much that its inconceivable hed have any formal let alone informal link role between the White House and the Government. But the real question is whether Trump will continue his Twitter diplomacy after he takes office, or if hes just getting this all out of his system before Jan 20. 'Can You Do That?' is not a question the billionaire likes to hear. Advertisement Yet before everyone gets high and mighty about how sacrosanct the civil service is, remember that Peter Jay, Jim Callaghans son-in-law, was made US ambassador at just 40 with no previous experience. Oh and Camerons chief of staff Ed Llewellyn is to be our man in Paris. 2) CREDIT DUE Just how Philip Hammond deals with welfare cuts - and their impact on Theresa Mays just managing narrative - is one of the big questions for the Autumn Statement tomorrow. As I wrote here yesterday, Stephen Crabb seemed to have one answer: dont reverse the cuts to Universal Credit but perhaps delay or finesse them while giving broader help to all. Theres certainly something moving as ministers have been telling MPs there will be an answer. The Sun suggests Hammond will soften the blow of the cuts after No10 stressed it was a political priority. The Guardian has the detail that while the cuts wont be reversed, tapers may be changed and phasing may be slowed. IDS is increasingly confident that this will be his final victory over Osbornes tarnishing of his flagship scheme. But where will Hammond claw back the cash? And May has not been afraid to distance herself (or dump on, some Cameroons say) the Osborne/Cameron era since she took over. Today, we learn of a new approach to broadband that implicitly disses the last Governments approach. Last night, the pay to stay plan for council tenants was dropped. It all feels like barnacles being scraped off the boat - for Brexit or for a snap election? Hammond is no pushover, however. He won his battle with May on workers on boards yesterday, and is more interested in long-term goals than what some see as Downing Street gimmicks. No10s desire for a headline versus Treasury stubbornness has long been a theme of PM-Chancellor relationships. Advertisement In the Times today, Rachel Sylvester points out that Hammond is as much of a control freak as May, even to the extent of wanting to drive his own ministerial car. He once said: My wifes car is extremely messy, with half-sucked boiled sweets and old parking vouchers all over the place. Mine is very clean. I like silence when Im driving. I prefer to be in the car on my own. Just how much Theresa drives, in the front or back seat, will determine this Governments path in coming years. 3) HEALTH COLLAPSE Way back when he was a new Opposition leader trying to detoxify his party, David Cameron declared his priorities in public life could be summed up in three letters: NHS. Today, the three letters that catch the eye are NAO, as the National Audit Office published its blood-curdling warning on a looming 56bn financial black hole. The watchdog declares that financial problems are endemic and this is not sustainableIt is fair to say aggressive efficiency targets have helped to swell the ranks of trusts in deficit over the last few years. Frank Field warns there will be a complete financial collapse by 2020 (hes blogged for us HERE). This is why some are hoping social care will get cash help in the Autumn Statement. Still, the Government must have been delighted then that many papers have put on their front pages something else: NHS tourism. DH perm sec Chris Wormald (former boss at DfE under Gove and seen by many was a tip for Cabinet Secretary one day) told MPs that forcing patients to show two forms of ID for non-emergency care had saved lots of money when trialled in Peterborough. The issue of health tourism is highly controversial. Even the highest estimate of 500m is a drop in the ocean compared to NHS deficits and overall spending, but ministers know the raw political power of talking about migrants not paying for services they use. Advertisement BECAUSE YOUVE READ THIS FAR Its a bit windy out there. Watch this plane wobble its wings before crosswinds force it to abandon a landing. 4) DD-DAY LANDINGS Yes, the day has finally arrived. David Davis is meeting arch euro-federalist Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's chief negotiator, in Strasbourg at 9.30am. The former Belgian PM, who is almost as much of a survivor as DD, said he was looking forward to a "hell of a conversation" over the non-negotiability of freedom of movement and the single market. DD used his catchphrase 'get thee behind me Satan' to once describe Verhofstadt. Yesterday DD had a quieter, more civilised meeting with the man who really matters, the EUs lead Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. Its thought they talked in English. Theresa Mays hint yesterday to the CBI that she too wants to avoid a cliff edge Brexit came as No10 too refused to rule out a transitional deal, once we are out in April 2019. Note that DD is more pragmatic than many think, and a smooth Brexit is not impossible for many Euroscep backbenchers now. As for the vexed issue of Article 50, at 9.45am the Justice Committee takes evidence from the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, on his annual report. Will any enterprising MP dare ask about the High Court and Supreme Court case? Advertisement The FT has an interview with the European Court of Justice president Koen Lenaerts. He says Article 50 can be interpreted by our court like any other provision of union law. It would need a case referred to it first, but. 5) DANIEL, LIONS DEN Monday night Fight Night at the PLP has returned. After Jeremy Corbyn coming under fire over Nato last week, it was John McDonnells turn last night. Things got a bit spiky after John McDonnell previewed his tests for the coming autumn statement. Peter Kyle wanted McDonnell to explain why he hadnt condemned the idea of a deselection threat to Hilary Benn. There was mutters of derision when the Shad Chancellor said Benn was a friend. But other MPs were just as angry with Ken Loach, director of I, Daniel Blake. It was claimed that Loach had told an audience after a Sheffield screening of his movie that Labour MPs are a disgrace, but they are a tiny clique and we must not let them divide us. Local MP Angela Smith demanded that McDonnell dissociate himself from those remarks and he said he would publicly, after he got to the bottom of the allegations. Anyway, McDonnell did phone Loach. His spokesman told me: Ken confirmed to him that he only repeated his view that it was wrong when MPs had sought to undermine Jeremys leadership during the summer. Sounds like there will be no public dressing down of Loach, far from it. But suggestions linger that Labour party staff were forced to facilitate the Loach movie against their will. Meanwhile, as we reported last night, the NEC will today be told Labour is getting battle ready for a snap general election and has hired a new ad agency and polling firm. The ad agency, Krow communications, also works for Virgin Trains. And the pollsters BMG have been in line with other pollsters lately suggesting a big lead for the Tories. ICM yesterday gave a big lead to the Tories on the economy, bigger than 2010-2015, when Strictly was just a twinkle in Ed Balls eye. Advertisement If youre reading this on the web, sign-up HERE to get the WaughZone delivered to your inbox. In recent times, the word "united", what it stands for and the institutions it represents, have endured a serious body blow. Organizations and ideals I used to learn about and pledge allegiance to as a kid, support as a young adult and teach about as an educator, including the "United" States of America and a "United" Europe (EU), are today appearing anything but. Abraham Lincoln addressed this situation in 1858 warning that, "A house divided against itself cannot stand". In view of current events, that house would seem to stand very much in tatters. All the more reason, perhaps, to believe or hope that the only way, from here, must surely be up. But how? How to change that trajectory? I don't want to sound like a whining child (although Rodney King is worth quoting, "Can we all get along?" and he was no child) whilst history clearly illustrates all the reasons why we can't (get along). And yet, and yet. Advertisement Just days before the election, on 28 October 2016, I attended a seminar amidst the salubrious surroundings of the Palais des Nations, Geneva, "the capital of peace and freedom". I say 'salubrious' (health-giving, pleasant, beneficial, luxurious) because that is what this whole area of Geneva is, though a city of contrasts. Home to the International Red Cross, more than 200 international organizations, and the United Nations, the giant "Broken Chair" stands opposite the entrance of the UN, reminding us that 'getting along' is no easy task. And yet the whole area hums with the intent to work together and to heal, even amidst the chaos, competition, selfish political agendas, and all the concomitant drawbacks inherent within each organization. The topic of the seminar, which attracted 150 people from a wide range of backgrounds, professions and nationalities, was: "World Good Will, Ethical Responsibility and the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations". This UN initiative, the SDG's, and its 17 aspirational goals which came into effect early this year, are "a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity". They provide targets for all countries to adopt in order to tackle our mounting global problems including poverty, climate change, inequality, international conflict, and the guidelines to address them now. These goals for the future are officially known as "Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development". In view of the expansion of industrialization and the exponential growth of the population, we know that it is impossible for the present use and abuse of the environment and the earth's resources to continue as it is without disastrous results. As the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said, "There is no Plan B, because there is no Planet B". The keynote of the seminar in Geneva was that we can make development sustainable, but it requires global cooperation and global accountability, the partnership of governments, private sector, civil society and citizens alike to recognize the urgency and put plans in place with an eye to future generations. But, it was emphasized, this action implies the need for social and political will, and behind that is, and must be, a willingness for the greater good as opposed to individual agendas. Advertisement Is this a fantasy? I think not. Nothing happens without wanting and willing, not even your morning coffee; it's merely a matter of which direction that 'will' takes us. And, is it for the greater good? (The morning coffee probably is.) And Conflict Resolution 101 teaches that first, both parties have to want to sit down at the table. So I was reminded at this seminar, in the introductory talk, of something we will never see on the front pages: that Good Will is one of the most basic, better qualities of the human being, "a great untapped resource at the heart of every community". Its power remains "largely unrecognized" although it is in fact "the thoughtful planned action of networks of goodwill that is driving the response to all the problems of our age.... People of goodwill from all cultures are creating a new world where sharing, cooperation and right relations are taking root and spreading". It was stated: "Never before in the history of the planet has goodwill been so active.". Really? A unique thought for today, but one worthy of consideration. In spite of the regressive politics of the alt-right striking fear in our hearts daily, consider the work of tens of thousands of charitable, international and worthy organizations large and small composed of millions of individuals whose driving force is the will-to-good, progressive social change, a willingness to 'get along', and a better life for us individually and collectively (I toss in here a shout -out for the unsung heroes of the NHS who, to my mind, deserve saint-status for the dedicated work they perform daily under the adverse conditions they endure). Psychological studies, and all institutions working for rehabilitation and reformation, recognize that we can train and direct our will. In the process, we can continue to hopefully and usefully channel this innate goodwill into groups, actions and systems, and support of organizations, such as the United Nations, with all its failures and frailties, which exist as a format for manifesting the goodwill of us all. With all its imperfections, there is as yet no other organization of such stature as, for example, the UN, to which the world can more hopefully turn, with its sustainable development goals, its innumerable initiatives, and its founding Charter stating the intent of "We the peoples ...to live together in peace". To bring it home: I am reminded of the unknown gentleman who found my entire set of lost house and car keys in the road, and bothered to turn them in to the local library, seeing a small library tag on the ring, in the off chance they could locate me, thus ending my hours of frantic search. I don't think I'm being Pollyanna when I say, we need some good news, and the good news is that this side of human nature is still alive and well and manifesting in the millions, and in fact making its voice heard louder and clearer in the wilderness, in innumerable ways and innumerable forms, starting with the man on the street (literally) and spreading its way across the world in so many ways. Advertisement While much of the media - especially in the Anglophone world - has been focusing on the American election and the implications of Donald Trump's victory, there's been a new outbreak of violence in western Myanmar that needs urgent attention before it escalates and undermines the country's ongoing reform process. Last month, the authorities in Rakhine state reported an attack on several police posts near the western frontier with Bangladesh in which nine policemen were killed. The attack was blamed on Muslim insurgents - who have posed little of a threat during the country's long history of unrest. Advertisement Last week saw serious clashes between the army and these insurgents, who have yet to be firmly identified, but do seem to be Rohingya, that has left more than thirty dead, among them at least two soldiers. Ever since its independence from Britain in 1947, Myanmar - or Burma as it used to be known - has experienced ethnic conflict. At that time, several of its ethnic minorities rebelled against the central government - dominated by the Burman majority - and have been fighting ever since for greater self- government. Until recently, Rakhine in the western part of the country had not been a major centre of unrest. But since 2011, when the country has started to open up to the wider world and the military has gradually stepped back from running the country, Rakhine has seen an upsurge in communal violence. Advertisement It began with members of the Buddhist majority attacking and harassing people from the Muslim Rohingya minority who they regard as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. This prejudice was fuelled by the central government, which failed to take action against Buddhist extremists inciting hatred against the country's Muslim minority. The government has also refused to recognise the Rohingya as citizens, arguing they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Most historians on the other hand argue Muslims have been living in the area for hundreds of years, although in what numbers is unclear. The argument is more than academic with the Rohingya rendered effectively stateless given they are not Bangladeshi citizens either. The chaotic violence and international criticism of its failure to protect people forced the central government to intervene and set up camps for Rohingya who'd been driven from their homes by Buddhist violence. Advertisement Since then, Rohingya have languished in camps and many others have attempted to flee by sea to neighbouring countries. This new wave of boat people have not been welcome in the countries where they've landed, principally Thailand and Indonesia, which has dimmed the prospect of finding refuge abroad. Assuming the recent attacks are being carried out by armed Rohingya, it should hardly come as a surprise. All the roots of a wider insurgency have been gestating for a while. Attacked by their neighbours, left unprotected by the security forces and with the option of seeking asylum in nearby states limited, it looks like some have decided to fight fire with fire. By the evidence being gathered by rights groups, the Myanmar military - which has been fighting ethnic insurgent groups for seventy years - is responding in time honoured fashion. Advertisement The danger is that an insurgency based among Muslims could attract outside support and end up taking a more radical turn, as it has in other countries, like Nigeria where the Boko Haram group ended up aligning themselves with ISIS. The fact that the country is now run by a civilian-led government under the Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi since historic elections just over a year ago, makes this turn of events even more disturbing. Ms Suu Kyi has called for calm, but she has ducked supporting Rohingya demands for citizenship - her moral compass seems to have been distorted by electoral considerations with her desire to avoid alienating Buddhist voters overcoming her commitment to human rights. This refusal to take a tough line in their defence has disappointed many Rohingya and may have contributed to more concluding violence is the only way to defend their community - after all if a leader who has been admired around the world for her commitment to democracy won't help you, who will? If this is the judgement against her, it may be a bit harsh. Under the constitutional deal that led to the end of sixty years of direct military rule and the first competitive elections in decades which catapulted Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD into office, the military retain control over key ministries, including defence, and still have considerable freedom of action. Advertisement So the civilians don't seem to be driving the response to the insurgency in Rakhine. Whatever the politics in Naypyidaw, the latest violence and heavy handed response of the army pose a challenge to the authority of Ms Suu Kyi's government and threaten to undermine her international reputation even further. However, Ms Suu Kyi has not shown much inclination to use the clout she possesses from her own personal popularity and her party's overwhelming electoral victory to restrain the military. Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan had been brought in to try to find a political solution before the recent attacks on the security forces. Ed Freeman via Getty Images As the Chancellor rises to his feet to give his much-anticipated Autumn Statement tomorrow, there will be much jeering and cheering from all sides of the House of Commons. In the detail of the important announcements that will be made on Wednesday there is a danger that one voice won't be heard. The voice of children and young people with life-shortening conditions. There are 40,000 children and young people with life-shortening conditions across England. That's the equivalent of one child in every school who is unlikely to live into adulthood. These children are the most vulnerable in society, they have the weakest voice, and it is clear from the survey results Together for Short Lives publishes today, that their voice is either not heard or is being ignored. Advertisement Our joint survey with Hospice UK, makes grim and uncomfortable reading. And as a society we should be deeply disturbed by what it says. It says that funding for children's charities, including children's hospices, from local authorities has dropped by a staggering 61% in the past year. This means that, despite a legal duty, funding to support important services like respite support through short breaks is being cut. The knock-on effect of a reduction in these services is devastating; fragmenting and destroying families under severe stress and strain, who depend on that support to help them simply cope with the demands of providing 24/7 care for their much loved, but seriously ill, children. This is but one example. The health and social care and support provided by children's palliative care charities at home or in hospice is vital. And the number of children with life-shortening conditions who need their support is growing and the complexity and cost of their care is increasing. Yet despite this increase in need, funding to support these children, young people and families is decreasing. Overall funding for children's palliative care charities is on a downward trajectory. State funding now only contributes on average to just 22% of their costs. This compares to 33% for adult hospices. Children's palliative care charities help take the pressure off an already overloaded NHS. The reduction in funding to children's hospices and other children's palliative care charities means that these organisations are having to make difficult decisions to reduce services and the necessary holistic care these children and families need. The net impact is multiple - more time spent in A&E, more time spent occupying hospital beds and more time and money wasted when many of these children and families, sadly, do not have time on their side. We are facing a funding crisis. I believe this is a moral outrage and I think the public, who do so much to support children's palliative care charities, would agree. A recent survey by Together for Short Lives found that 81% of the public think that children's hospices receive too little funding from statutory sources - when asked they think children's hospices should receive 73% of their funding from statutory sources. Advertisement There are beacons of hope and precedent for positive change. The Scottish Government recently announced 30 million of funding over five years to Children's Hospice Association Scotland. This will make a huge difference to children with life-shortening conditions in Scotland. We want that same moral and monetary commitment to be made by respective governments in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. I encourage readers to think about your own child or children you know. These conditions can sadly strike any family. At a very minimum you would expect the state to play a key role in supporting them in time of serious illness, you would want to know that help and support was there for you when you needed it. You would want to know that, despite life-limiting or life-threatening illness, you were able to minimise pain for your child, provide a quality of life and, sadly, death for the short time you were together. All we are asking is that appropriate funding is made available so that we do not fail these children, we do not fail these families and we make sure that services that are there, built on compassion, are funded appropriately so that they can continue to do that. Drew Angerer via Getty Images The atmosphere at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys is one of deflation and disappointment, underpinned by an anger that those in positions of authority seem to believe that generation snowflake cannot handle the supposed emotional toll exacted by a one hour long speech from Milo Yiannopoulos, professional provocateur and right-wing fanatic. Let me be clear: The views aired by Yiannopoulos are distasteful at best and abhorrent at worst. He has insulted the transgender community, taken pleasure in unleashing waves of abuse upon figures such as Leslie Jones, and infamously described cancer as favourable to feminism. Furthermore, he is a torch-bearer of the so called 'Alt-Right', a poisonous political movement that counts both white supremacists and misogynists in its ranks and is, in my view, nothing more than a dangerous, re-badged fascism. Advertisement But to deny Milo a chance to share his views with an audience is not to deny his ideas their existence, but rather to deny us the chance to challenge them. Yes, the ideas advocated by Milo do nothing to further human welfare and prosperity, and yes, these ideas should be stamped out. But the way to stamp them out is not through forcefully banning them, but rather through confident and articulate debate, and I am confident that in a Q&A session in which Milo is faced not by young men who think he is a hero, or young women who think he is a monster, but by students who are willing to challenge the essence of his ideas; he would have been unpleasantly surprised. I am sure that many of you will agree with the above point that ideas should not be banned but should be debated. On this basis, the real concern amongst those disconnected from the school is the fact that Milo would have been addressing school age students, as opposed to undergraduates or adult audiences. Too vividly, I can imagine the terror that must have been felt by middle-class parents when they heard that their little darlings were going to be addressed by Milo Yiannopoulos. Too well, I can imagine the relief felt by Whitehall officials as they grabbed an opportunity to show to the country that extremism is not only perpetrated by radical Islam, which, for the last decade, has borne the brunt of the assault on freedom of speech and privacy (Enter the 'Snoopers Charter'...) But surely it is in education that we should exchange and discuss ideas. It is in education that we should have our own beliefs challenged, and practice the ability to defend them. It is in education, surrounded by peers and as of yet unaffected by some of the bias that infects our elders, that we should be able to work out, for ourselves, that the views of Milo Yiannopoulos and the Alt-Right are divisive, hurtful, and devoid of any kind of logical rationality. In any event, the fact that over 200 students signed up to hear Milo speak, in a talk supported by the vast majority of the teaching staff, is evidence of the fact that students want to be exposed to new ideas, however disgusting, and not sheltered from them. The new trend of 'no platforming', so prevalent in universities across the UK and the USA is very worrying; beacons of academia and free discussion being extinguished in the name of political correctness. Advertisement The one thing that has affected me the most throughout this episode, more than the rhetoric coming from the Yiannopoulos camp, and more than the suppression of free speech that we are now seeing, is the attention that we have lavished upon Milo, and the platform we have awarded not just him, but all those who see his ideas as in some way valid and worthy of such attention. For when we consider the huge issues facing the world, issues of global poverty, climate change, and the development of international uncertainty, the views of one flamboyant character who sees himself as the messiah of a populist movement are unimportant. When we consider the growing gap between rich and poor in this country, and huge moves towards the far right in Europe, the views of one individual who insults people as a means to gain wealth and fame are irrelevant. When we can feed all the peoples of the world, encourage cooperation amongst all and secure a better future for generations to come, then, and only then, should we give such airtime to a man who calls himself the 'Dangerous Faggot'. Credit: Anastasia Lin This year there have been two big campaigns which have gripped hearts and minds: the EU referendum in Britain, and the presidential election in the United States. Yet as the year draws to a close, there is one race that, for me, trumps both (no pun intended), and that is the Miss World final, which begins at the end of this week. I am a human rights activist, a writer, a former and potentially future parliamentary candidate, a bookworm and a Catholic who usually hasn't the slightest interest in beauty pageants. Not that I don't appreciate beauty, of course - I do. It's just that I tend to think more about human suffering, injustice, conflict, spirituality, philosophy and politics or, when I am relaxing, about literature, poetry, music and cuisine, than dresses, hair-styles and make-up. Until this year, that is. Advertisement Somewhere towards the end of last year, I became aware of the winner of Miss World Canada 2015, Chinese-born Canadian actress Anastasia Lin, and China's absurd decision to deny her entry to the Miss World finals held in Sanya, Hainan Island, China. Immediately, I felt empathy with Anastasia because I have been deported not once, but twice, from Burma by its military dictatorship and chased by the police in China. I lived in Hong Kong for five years and have travelled in and out of China dozens of times over the past two decades. I have written widely about China's rapidly deteriorating human rights record, including on this site. Then, in February, I stumbled across her remarkable speech at the Oxford Union, on social media. I listened, enthralled. This, I instantly realised, was a quite extraordinary young woman. Not only stunningly beautiful - and yes, I am a man, and I am not shy to acknowledge what is blatantly obvious - but captivatingly intelligent, enchantingly principled, inspiringly courageous. At the time I saw her Oxford Union speech, I was in the midst of organising an inquiry on human rights in China for the UK's Conservative Party Human Rights Commission. Together with a few brave Members of Parliament, we were already challenging Britain's policy of kowtowing to China, and we needed more ammunition. When I watched Anastasia's speech, I had renewed fire in my belly. I then did what seems the craziest of things. I wrote to Anastasia, on the spur of the moment, to ask if she would testify at one of our hearings in London just a few weeks later. Crazy, because who was I to write to a stunning actress and Miss World Canada? Crazy, more to the point, because we had absolutely no budget whatsoever to fly her to London. She'll never come, I thought. She'll be booked up months in advance. She'll charge a fee we can't afford. She'll want to fly first class and we can't even pay economy. What the heck, I thought. Nothing to lose by asking. So I wrote. Within minutes, I got a reply. "I'm interested," she said. A few more messages followed, explaining details, and she replied: "I'll come". Advertisement She came, she testified, and she conquered. I then wrote the Commission's report, after an inquiry process involving two three-hour hearings, receiving oral evidence from ten witnesses, and reading through over 30 written submissions. To my surprise, Anastasia offered to come to speak at the launch of the report - titled The Darkest Moment: The Crackdown on Human Rights in China 2013-2016. Alongside the former Governor of Hong Kong Lord Patten, and Angela Gui, daughter of abducted Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai, Anastasia spoke about her courageous efforts to use her platform as an actress and a beauty queen to speak up for those who could not speak up for themselves. Her father has been threatened as a result, and Anastasia receives constant abuse from the Chinese Communist Party's online trolls, the 50-cent army, but she valiantly soldiers on. And she came to London, once again, at her own expense in order to speak out. Two days after the launch of our report, our Commission held a hearing on forced organ harvesting in China, and Anastasia stayed on in London in order to testify again. The next time we saw each other was in September, when I helped organised a screening for the film The Bleeding Edge, which depicts China's forced organ harvesting and in which Anastasia stars. The Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, whom I had introduced to Anastasia in March, offered to host the screening in his official residence, Speaker's House. Members of Parliament from all parties and both Houses attended and were shocked by what they saw. A few weeks later, MPs tabled a debate on organ harvesting in China, and an Early Day Motion. A campaign is underway to urge the British government to support an independent, international inquiry. Advertisement A month later, Anastasia again came to the United Kingdom, this time to speak at an event alongside the former President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed, a human rights hero himself, as well as David Burrowes MP and myself, at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. In what was one of the best attended fringe meetings of the entire conference, Anastasia challenged delegates to stand up to China over human rights. "When you get too close to a panda, one day, it's going to bite your finger off," she said. Within just over seven months, Anastasia has come to the United Kingdom four times, each time without expenses being paid. Each time she has spoken with incredible courage, in the knowledge that the threats her father faces may intensify. Each time she has spoken out, she has done so knowing that as an actress, she is risking her dream of a life in Hollywood, as China's influence rises. Yet she has not once shrunk from the vision she has or the task she has set herself. I admit I am a novice in commenting on Miss World pageants. Yet from what I have learned, the philosophy the founders Eric and Julia Morley have established is summed up in the phrase: "Beauty with a purpose". I have never met anyone in life who more epitomises that phrase than Anastasia Lin. Born just after the Tiananmen massacre and raised until she was 13 in Communist China, she moved to Canada and the scales fell from her eyes. The truth about the values of freedom, human dignity, human rights dawned on her, and she realised she had been lied to. More than that, she resolved to challenge those lies. Her transformation from Communist student leader to Canadian democrat within just a few years must be recorded as one of the most heroic stories of our age. And at still only 26, she has so much to learn - yet so much also still to teach us. Advertisement I may never follow another Miss World pageant so closely, but in 2016, a year which has seen so much division and conflict, I cannot imagine a more worthy recipient of the crown than a young woman who has struggled through her own journey from repression to freedom, and has done so with a grace, humility and peace that is, to use her favourite term, "awesome". Her campaign platform is focused specifically on drawing the world's attention to the horrific allegations of forced organ harvesting in China, human rights more widely, and to the simple belief that every small act of human kindness can contribute to changing the world. Recently she posted on Facebook what she said was one of her favourite cinema quotes, the words of Gandalf in JRR Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings: "Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love." When I shared with her these words of the former Chief Rabbi in the UK, Jonathan Sacks, in his book To Heal A Fractured World, she adopted them almost as her own: ""Against the fundamentalisms of hate, we must create a counter-fundamentalism of love ... 'A little light', said the Jewish mystics, 'drives away much darkness'. And when light is joined to light, mine to yours and yours to others, the dance of flames, each so small, yet together so intricately beautiful, begins to show that hope is not an illusion. Evil, injustice, oppression, cruelty do not have the final word." Caiaimage/Sam Edwards via Getty Images In the early 1990s, I worked as a counsellor with teenagers as part of a youth agency. These young people were already very angry, and in some cases offending. Many were victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse in childhood. I also worked as a student counsellor at London University with bright academic students who had all sorts of issues - suicidal tendencies, eating disorders and addictions to name but a few. It became increasingly obvious to me that many of their responses to the world had something to do with their childhood. If only they had been able to talk about their fears sooner I thought. If only their parents had been supported and understood themselves. So all this led to me to establish Place2Be as an independent charity in 1994. Advertisement Of course there have been challenges along the way over the last two decades, but witnessing the impact of what we do on children and families remains my biggest inspiration. Two particular stories stick out in my mind... The first took place in one of the very first schools to start working with Place2Be. I visited the school and spoke to the Head Teacher, who told me that one of her pupils had been through such a severe trauma that she had become an elective mute. After a year's one-to-one counselling with Place2Be, she was able to stand up in a school assembly and talk proudly in front of her fellow pupils and staff. This was one of the first concrete pieces of evidence of the incredible, life-changing difference that providing easily-accessible support at an early stage can make. That still brings a lump to my throat. Another story comes years later, when a mother and father stood up at another school visit I attended in the north of England. The father stood tall and silent, while the mother was in tears. She told us that she dreaded speaking out in front of a full room and really didn't want to do it at all, but she felt she must because it was so important that we hear her story. A couple of years earlier, her husband had been violently attacked and mugged, and had subsequently lost the ability to speak. He'd previously had an incredibly close relationship with his three children, and they struggled to cope with the traumatic change. Then a few months later, their 16-year-old son tragically took his own life. After this unimaginably distressing experience, their eight-year-old younger son began refusing to attend school. He struggled with nightmares and bed-wetting, and would not leave his mother's side. No matter what help they tried, nothing seemed to work. At around the same time, his school started working with Place2Be, and they suggested that he attend one-to-one counselling. His parents, at their wits end as nothing had worked, thought what have we got to lose? They made a special effort to ensure that he got to his Place2Be appointments in school and over time, going in became easier. Eventually he was able to become a fully-fledged member of the school community. At the end of her story the mum explained why she felt she must speak out: "getting that support not only changed my son's life, it gave me my family back". Advertisement Why does all this matter? We know that the need is great. During their first eleven years, one in five children will experience a mental health difficulty. Children who are distracted and unable to deal with their worries will not be able to engage with their learning and reach their full potential. We all need good mental health to engage positively with our lives, have a sense of hope and optimism and develop the resilience we need to cope with life's problems. These are vital life skills to help us through childhood and into adulthood and underpin successful relationships, engagement with learning and ultimately help us develop into thriving, flourishing adults who can face the world with a sense of confidence and self-belief. We also know from our own research in partnership with the NAHT that two thirds of primary schools in England have no access to a school-based counsellor. According to the latest data, there are over 24,300 schools in the UK. This year, Place2Be is providing mental health services for pupils, parents and teachers in 282 primary and secondary schools, and supporting staff through training, consultation and development in 93 schools. We know it works, but this is what we might call the tip of the iceberg. My hope for the future is that all schools will have the resources to provide excellent mental health support for all their pupils, that all teachers will be empowered by training to understand and support children's mental health, and that every child will have the opportunity to grow up with prospects not problems. Dame Benny Refson is president of Place2Be Bloomberg via Getty Images My four-year-old son is screaming. The noise is relentless, high-pitched - almost painful. It reverberates in my chest and sets every nerve on edge. He has been screaming for half an hour. He can barely keep it up but there is no way for him to stop. It is visceral. Around the restaurant, people turn to look. My chest is constricted and my heart races. My boy is in agony and I would do anything, ANYTHING to take it from him. But I am aware of all the other people. Their stares are crawling across my skin. Even above the shrieking, I can hear murmurs of disdain. Advertisement My son is screaming because we have forgotten his cup. The only cup he will drink from. I am trying to comfort him alone. My husband left twenty minutes ago, to search the car, to scour nearby shops, to find somewhere that sells them. But he returns, cup-less. After forty-five minutes of unbridled torment, my boy subsides. In the car on the way home he falls asleep, exhausted. His father and I remain in the car, silent, minutes after we get home. We too are spent and this moment of peace is needed after we have all suffered so. A plea from a father to find a discontinued cup for his autistic son recently went viral on social media. You have probably seen it- even retweeted or shared. Ben's father was inundated by people offering to send him their cups. We live in a digital age which enabled his story to be shared across the globe. People everywhere searched cupboards, rifled through charity shops, turned the planet upside down to find that cup, to find hundreds of those cups. They ensured that Ben will have a supply to last a lifetime and Ben's father will never have to worry for his son's life again, never have another A&E visit due to dehydration. It is a beautiful thing. I am happy that Ben will get another cup, that humanity united to make his life better. Advertisement But I am also deeply worried. Facebook makes it easy to show we care. Easy to share a post. Easy to change your profile picture in support. Easy to be the '10% who don't scroll past', who do cut and paste into their status. Easy to broadcast that you are suicide aware, that you support research into motor neurone disease, that you understand autism. But this can be dangerous. When more than half the population use Facebook as their main news source, when most people think that they are doing their bit by changing their profile to the French flag, or sharing a post, there is the risk that we all become complacent. Ben's story is beautiful. But it has not made people more aware of autism. Not truly. If we go to a restaurant and forget my son's cup again, there will still be stares. There will still be people who think he has no business being there. There will still be people who think I am a bad parent because I do not discipline him for making so much noise. There will not be a crowd of restaurant-goers queuing up to find my boy's cup. And the danger of viral stories doesn't end there. A video this week showed a teacher seemingly snatching a microphone from an autistic child during a school play. Several articles appeared on my newsfeed, inviting people to share their outrage. When I read the comments, I was horrified. Bitch. She needs to lose her job. COLD-HEARTED WITCH SHOULD BE SACKED ON THE SPOT. I am the mother of an autistic son. If his teacher behaved that way I would be angry. I would demand to speak to the head-teacher, ask for a meeting with the school. I would find out why my son was treated that way and ensure it never happened again. Advertisement But she deserves to lose her job? She's a bitch? This is society standing up against prejudice and injustice, against intolerance? We have no idea what might have been going on in that moment. The teacher might not have realised. She may have had a reason. She may have been having a bad day. If it was as it appears, she needs autism training and a disciplinary process. But saying she's a bitch who needs to lose her job, the job she may need to support her own family? It is utterly ridiculous - and it harms us all. We are saying people should be kind. We are saying people shouldn't judge on appearances. That should stand for all people, all circumstances. There's no way society will accept children like the boy in that video, people like my son, if we are encouraged to hate so readily. And that's the problem with modern media. It propagates drama, exploits our preconceptions and self-image for clicks. Easy outrage sells. It also makes it easy to care and share, to cut and paste and feel like that's it, job done. It makes it easy to feel like we are better people for posting something that we may not have even read. It is effortless to be autism aware on the internet- translating that into life is much, much harder. Advertisement If you care about Ben, if you felt a stab of pain when that little boy's face crumpled with despair as the microphone was taken from him, I beg of you, don't just share and forget. The ability to distribute information across the globe in seconds, the fact that the whole of humanity can unite to find a cup for one boy - it will become meaningless. We will be faced with the irony of a society that has all knowledge at its fingertips becoming more ignorant, less aware. Read more. Dig deeper. Do something. Be kind to the people in front of you. Otherwise, you're not really aware at all. A report published recently by King's College London shows the huge benefits for children, teachers, parents and museums when pupils are taught in a museum environment. Most of us remember school trips to museums and galleries - in some cases, only because of the welcome contrast to the everyday. At best, the museums and galleries - their collections of curiosities rich with cultural history - created memories more enduring than the classroom-based learning they were intended to supplement. Despite a fair amount of academic evidence on the value of learning within cultural spaces, the majority of school visits support specific elements of the curriculum rather than the learning experience itself. This provided the starting point for My Primary School is at the Museum: might the entire curriculum benefit from a co-location approach? Could there be beneficial learning, social and cultural outcomes for children and their families if full time education took place in a museum - not to mention the benefits for the museums? Advertisement And so earlier this year, for the first time in the UK, three pilot projects placed nursery and primary school children in local museums and galleries for an extended residency lasting up to a term. Most of the daily activities took place there, from Maths and English, to playtime and lunch. The pilots developed out of discussions between Dr Jennifer DeWitt and Dr Heather King of King's College London's School of Education, Communication & Society and Wendy James, an architect with experience of creating learning spaces in museums. King's enlisted the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, Tate Liverpool, the Arbeia Roman Fort & Museum in South Shields and their local schools - St Thomas Community Primary School, Life Bank Nursery at Kensington Children's Centre and Hadrian Primary School respectively - to take part. The experiment found that not only can the full curriculum be successfully delivered in a museum or gallery environment, but that the benefits extend to the children, schools, teachers, parents and museum staff. The children proved themselves highly adaptable to their new environment and demonstrated increased interest in learning. The experience made them more confident and effective as communicators, they remembered more of what they learnt and developed new and improved social skills. The pupils' enthusiasm for 'their' museum infected their parents, some of whom visited for the first time. In each location, different impacts were observed. In South Shields, increased creativity in the children's writing; at Tate Liverpool, increases in confidence with verbal communication, especially in group discussions; in Swansea, expanded vocabulary and improved social skills, as the children interacted with a greater number of adults. Advertisement But the benefits extended beyond this. Teachers gained confidence in using a range of resources in creative ways to deliver the core curriculum. Schools felt it brought them closer to parents, helping create greater community cohesion. Museums had the opportunity to engage in formal, curriculum-based education, especially with younger children, and to extend the use of spaces and collections. Of course, there were challenges. The right equipment wasn't always available, or the physical space wasn't ideal. At times, the museums and schools struggled to understand each other's needs. As with all successful partnerships, brokerage, translation and 'bedding in' time were required before the full benefits could be realised. At the very least, the positive outcomes this new report details support the development of more partnerships between schools and museums. Financial pressures on local authorities - which impact on museums and galleries as well as local education authorities - have reduced the frequency of school trips. These findings reassert the value of children's interactions with museums and galleries and suggest that extended stays in cultural settings, such as the participants in the pilots enjoyed, enhance both learning and social outcomes. At best, this research supports the idea of a co-location model for primary schools and museums. It isn't an idea that could be implemented overnight: it would take leadership, vision and, of course, funding. But might museums of the future be designed with school education in mind? Or might a new school, fit for future generations, include a museum within its boundaries? Co-location presents opportunities for both the education and cultural sectors, supporting the needs of not just young people, but of museums, too. The Warwick Commission on Cultural Value highlighted the lack of diversity - social, cultural and economic - among museum visitors, with 'higher social groups' accounting for 87% of visits to Britain's flagship museums. Despite free entry being 'one of the most internationally admired policies for cultural access', the Commission says it has 'failed in its declared mission' to make museums more inclusive. So in the long term, My Primary School is at the Museum might be as significant for the museums as for the pupils, in helping them cultivate from an early age the habits of cultural engagement that will secure them as visitors in the future. The importance of early years intervention is well understood. King's College London's report into government policy towards arts access for young people - Step by Step (2015) - suggested that greater attention to arts engagement for young children would have a significant impact, 'shaping encounters that may profoundly affect subsequent engagement with the arts'. These pupils from Swansea, Liverpool and South Shields may well have a head start in becoming the culturally confident citizens of tomorrow, helping to ensure that local museums remain a vital component of their communities. "NHS staff morale is at an all-time low" - it's a headline we read in the media or see on social media time and again. We heard it after Mid Staffs, we read it during the junior doctors' dispute and underlined the recent General Medical Council annual report, which found that poor morale among doctors could put patients at risk. And we've seen similar messages in relation to nurses, with the Royal College of Nursing saying morale has 'dropped through the floor'. Yet I'd hedge my bets that those of you who've recently visited your GP or been treated by a nurse in hospital received compassionate care from a highly professional individual dedicated to improving your care. Virtually everyone who works in the NHS decided to pursue a career in healthcare because they want to help and care for people. NHS staff represent the bedrock of the NHS - their morale is critical to the patient experience. Whilst our doctors and nurses make life-changing differences to patients on a daily basis - often helping them get better or doing the little things that improve their experience - a strong body of evidence is telling us loud and clear that staff morale must improve. It's the job of NHS executives and managers to stop that from happening. Advertisement One of the most powerful tools that can boost staff morale is reminding doctors and nurses of the difference they make to people's lives. Many see healthcare reviews as a way for patients to highlight failings and criticise care - but in reality the opposite is true. GPs using iWantGreatCare, which is now the largest independent patient review website in the UK, resoundingly report that the majority of feedback from patients is positive. The most successful organisations strive for positive feedback - health providers should be no different. Patient feedback should be used as a tool to boost staff morale in the NHS. Take Barts Health NHS Trust: within six months of implementing a patient feedback programme the Trust's Chief Executive, Alwen Williams, was able to demonstrate substantial improvements in staff morale. This included a 4% month-on-month fall in absenteeism, a reduction in the staff turnover rate, an improvement in staff engagement rates and a reduction in agency spend. At a time when we are seeing staff morale in the NHS deteriorate - and targets for efficiency savings continue to spiral - improving staff morale would be a huge boost for the NHS. Even tiny reductions in absenteeism would save the NHS billions every year - recent estimates calculate potential savings at 2.4bn per year. NHS managers should think carefully about their staff - harnessing feedback about the compassion and care they deliver to patients every day patients will bring powerful benefits for your workforce, service users and your budgets. Year on year doctors top the IPSOS poll for the most trusted profession. While pollsters do get it wrong sometimes (we need no reminding), on this one they are probably spot on. Trust sits at the heart of the doctor-patient relationship - it is fundamental. I for one have discussed issues with my GP which I would never dream of discussing with friends and family, and as a doctor myself, have been at the receiving end of equally personal and confidential information from patients. The ongoing debate around proposals for mandatory reporting of child abuse - and the NSPCC's warning that this could deter victims from approaching professionals - has however made me stop and take stock of the current status of the doctor-patient relationship. The list of situations where a doctor must report on a patient is increasing, and while changes in mandatory reporting are well intended, I fear there is a risk they could harm the very people they aim to protect, and seriously erode the foundations of trust. Advertisement Doctors are already under a professional obligation, based on GMC guidance, to take action to protect the interests of vulnerable patients and to balance the patient's interest against that of the public. Mandatory reporting of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), provisions under the Terrorism Act 2000, and pressure by the Border Agency to divulge information on patients in my view differs from the long established obligation on health professionals to notify authorities of suspected infectious diseases, so they can monitor and provide early warning of an outbreak. The latter is clearly a public health issue, the former are societal or political issues. Is it right that doctors must now also be accountable for policing our communities? The sensitivities and complexities are immense, and must be acknowledged - for example with child abuse or domestic violence cases the doctor needs to maintain the patient's trust so they do not feel betrayed or unsupported during an already difficult time. Ideally the doctor would have built up the patient's confidence in them enough to agree to information being disclosed to the relevant authorities. There will be some situations where action has to be taken immediately - with or without patient consent - but there are equally other circumstances where rushing into a disclosure could in fact leave the patient at greater risk. Advertisement FGM cases, where the mandatory duty to report suspected cases only applies to victims under 18, are of course equally difficult and come with their own particular set of challenges. Abhorrent acts like these should not be tolerated in society but should those supporting victims be under a legal obligation to inform on their patients, and to do so in a manner and timeframe dictated by statute? Before Government considers imposing more reporting laws on doctors, it is vital it considers the wider implications. A balance must be struck between a duty to report and ensuring patients are not deterred from approaching their doctor for confidential medical advice, or seeking medical attention when they need it most. There is also the risk that patients are reported on multiple occasions by different agencies further increasing hurt, humiliation and the likelihood of them losing trust in their doctor and withdrawing. Malawi is one of those places where those who have never been don't understand its unique charm, and for those who have, it continues to capture their imaginations. Having grown up there and become used to its various quirks and differences, I can vouch for this. So why does Malawi, one of Africa's smallest countries , continue to be home for even those who have long left it? The people Everyone wants a chat, and everyone smiles. A simple 'how are you' becomes a five minute conversation bouncing back 'I'm good thank you and how are you's in either English or Chichewa (muli bwanji? ndili bwino kaya inu? zikomo! zikomo kwabiri) This occurs with everyone, including the psychiatric hospital escapee who would have a chat with me every Tuesday whilst I was en route to my piano lesson. This willingness to chat still proves itself a problem when I attempt to answer an English 'alright' with a small monologue. Everyone wants to welcome you, and no matter how little they have, Malawians are always inclined to give rather than take. Its giant freshwater lake which resembles a small ocean Despite the Bilharzia, the risk of crocs in the Northern area and a very small chance that a hippo may arrive on your cottage lawn, Lake Malawi is known as the Lake of Stars for good reason. As an enormous body of freshwater which stretches further than the eye can see and is filled with around 1000 species of cichlid it is top scuba diving territory (worth forking out a bit more on travel insurance for). The shores of the Lake are clustered with accommodation ranging from the budget to the extremely high-end. Socially, New Year at the lake is notorious and so is its annual Lake of Stars festival which gathers artists together from across the world- Foals played here one year. There is absolutely nothing in the world which compares to watching the sunset over the lake with a cold Carlsberg in hand, listening to the insects come out. Advertisement The weather In a country where 'winter' means thirty degree heat down in Chikwawa and a balmy fifteen degrees during the day in Blantyre, you can't really go wrong. The best time of the year is when the rains break around late October/ early November after temperatures climb to unbearable heights. The smell of dust and scorched grass is everywhere and the heat makes sitting on plastic seats in an un air-conditioned car a thoroughly painful experience. Eventually, the heavens open, a huge thunderstorm rips up the sky and torrential rain falls. The smell of rain hitting the hot ground is intoxicating, as is the drum of the rain on a tin roof. Its massively diverse landscapes The miombo woodlands of Majete, the savannahs of Kasungu, Mulanje mountain, the cooler pine forests of the Zomba plateau and the rippling grasslands of the Nyika Plateau all make for very varied settings. Despite not having quite the same vast savannahs as Tanzania and Kenya, it also has the positives of not having hundreds of annoying tourists fighting for a sundowner spot. The colours Everything is ten times more colourful than anywhere in Europe. The sky can only be described as azure, the grass is a lurid green and purple-crested louries with scarlet on the bottoms of their wings call from the branches of every other tree. Nothing is ever dull, life is a rainbow in this small corner of the world and every car journey has something to look at. Brightly patterned chitenjes fill the streets, and eclectically coloured beaded curios can be bought easily and everywhere. Advertisement The wildlife Make sure to get your rabies vaccine because you're likely to have some fairly close encounters with vervet monkeys and /or baboons. Having grown up with monkeys causing carnage at every break-time, comparatively a fat squirrel scavenging in a bin is very vanilla. This is probably one of the only countries where you can get chased by a buffalo on a school trip (Lengwe 2008, the other year 6 class- N.B: they also lied about seeing a hyena) and have a baby crocodile as the school pet which then disappears, fuelling rumours that it's set up base in the swimming pool. On a less in-your-face level, Malawi's national park system has seen massive regeneration in recent years with African Parks taking over several of its big game parks. Majete now stocks the Big Five and Liwonde has just been subject to a massive translocation of elephants. Kamba Puffs and Sobo The food of youth- unadulterated preservatives and sugar. Nothing compares to either of these delicacies, in particular consuming a kilo's worth of kamba puffs in front of a DSTV delayed Disney Channel movie premiere. The classic orange Sobo has remained stalwart over the years, with various imposters trying and failing to make headway. Realistically, creme soda Sobo was never going to have quite the same kick as its orange sibling when you had to pour half the bottle in to get any hint of flavour. The pace of life Anyone who knows Malawi will realise that there's normal time and there's Malawi time. In Malawi, give any deadline an extra two weeks and don't get stressed if it's not done on time. There's no rat race here, and long days whiled away chatting on the khonde or swimming for hours on end are both perfectly acceptable. People have the time to sit outside and watch the world go by. Kaya Mawa (translated as 'maybe tomorrow') the name of one of Malawi's most luxurious resorts is evidence enough of this laissez-faire attitude to time and place. This also applies to getting your tourist visa- be prepared for mass frustration and make sure you give it approximately 10 years to get it sorted. (Just joking, a good few months should suffice) I currently employ four carers privately with the money I receive from my Personal Health Budget, which is paid by my council. I was one of the 'test cases' for these budgets to see if the idea to give people with a disability more control over their care and to save the council the pricey care agency fees really was the perfect solution it appeared to be. For me, the budget allowed me to hire the people I wanted and to set my own hours, to allow me to commute into London to study law at university, and for three years this worked really well. But all good things must come to an end, which is exactly what happened when one of my carers raised a grievance, subjected me to emotional abuse and threatened to walk out if her demands were not met. I have employers insurance, who advised me on how to deal with her grievance and meet all my obligations as an employer. They said the law currently didn't cover situations like this, so I was forced to have her keep working for me, regardless of my fear and anxiety. They told me that despite feeling completely unsafe with the carer as a result of her threat to walk out on me - which for me could lead to death - her threat wasn't 'bad enough' to be gross misconduct and as she hadn't actually walked out yet there were no grounds to dismiss her. I believe no level of threat or discomfort should be tolerated and if the law doesn't cover this then the law needs to change. I had to handle her grievance by myself, as the council and payroll services I use told me they were unable to attend any meeting other than to minute take. I have no experience chairing a formal meeting or dealing with employment issues, as I am only 22 and have never had a permanent job. Yet I was expected to do everything to the letter of employment law and any mistake I made could open me up to a lawsuit which my insurance may or may not cover. This was a terrifying prospect for me, and I began to think about all the other people who have these budgets who won't have a law degree or a supportive family behind them. How can we be held to the same employment standards as John Lewis when we neither have their resources such as a HR department nor do we have any of the workplace remedies? When you work 1 on 1 with your carer, there isn't the option to transfer them to another department or have them work with someone else who they get along with. Another crucial difference between me and John Lewis is that John Lewis does not need their employees to do personal and life dependent care for them which requires an excellent working relationship. Advertisement The only option I had was to keep receiving care from a person I no longer trusted or felt comfortable with. This situation is not unique to me and is something disabled people are far too often made to go through but until you experience it you have no idea how it really feels and once you have you need to make sure it never happens again. When my carer returned to work, she would not make any eye contact with me and would not speak to me other than 'yes' or 'no' for 12 hours 3 days and 2 nights a week. Take a moment to think about being cared for in that toxic atmosphere. My physical and mental health took a huge toll. Again I had to handle this on my own, as I was the employer and this was a workplace issue. I was almost too scared to talk to her about my discomfort but I knew if I didn't, my situation wouldn't improve and my health would continue to decline. The informal talk did not go well and I was advised to hold another formal meeting by myself. My carer ended up resigning the day before the meeting so thankfully I did not have to go through with it. However the problem does not stop here. There needs to be much better support for people with these types of budgets. The councils cannot simply make someone an employer, save lots of money and then wash their hands of any responsibility. There needs to be a restructure to the budgets to provide adequate support for the disabled employer who relies on personal and life dependent care. I believe it is unfair to ask that we face complex and often hostile issues without adequate support from Health or Social Care. We need recognition that we rely on our carers for everything, so when that relationship becomes uncomfortable for us or it completely breaks down it is extremely serious. I accept we have responsibilities as employers and we can't ignore them, but we need more support and recognition in the eyes of the law. Advertisement I'm trying to start a campaign to get better support for disabled employers but in order to do this I need your help! I'm looking for people to share their experiences of problems with carers hired through a budget of any kind and how you went about dealing with it. I want to know if you had support or if you didn't, what support you would have found helpful. You will be kept anonymous if you prefer. Contact editor@disabilityunited.co.uk to join the campaign now! Share your thoughts on Facebook, tweet us @duniteduk, or email our Editor on editor@disabilityunited.co.uk Being a doctor is hard. Frankly, it should be. As a patient, I want someone who has put in long hours to become 'an expert', someone who has dedicated themselves to this role because they want to care for people. Perhaps selfishly, knowing that they have made sacrifices for their future patients helps me to feel reassured that they're not going to see me as anything less than an individual person, with my own needs and problems. We do however, need to care for doctors too. In the last year, we have seen the frustrations felt by junior doctors played out on the national stage, and morale seems to be at an all time low. It often feels like there is little acknowledgement that we too are human - we also have to handle health problems and family needs of our own. Advertisement As I've written before, I don't want an exhausted automaton looking after me. I want to know I'm safe. As a doctor, I know my decision-making skills are worse when I'm sleep deprived. That I don't communicate as well when I'm fuelled on coffee and sugar alone. We need to ensure that doctors are cared for by their employers; as has been proved in companies around the world, staff who are happy, rested and invested perform better. A huge issue for doctors around the country is where they are based, and which hospitals they work in. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many medics are in relationships and have families with other medics - often meeting during the many years spent in medical school, and assured that if anyone will understand the sacrifices we make, it will be another doctor. I am one such example - my partner is 18 months off qualifying, so we shall be two years apart in our training stages. It is not uncommon for couples who are both doctors to have to live apart for significant periods of their training. These young people, who want to be starting families, buying homes, and who need the support of their loved ones while working stressful, emotionally exhausting jobs, can find themselves living in hospital accommodation, miles from their partner. This is a particular problem when like me, the doctor in question has health needs themselves, and needs more help from loved ones than your average person. Previously, as a disabled doctor, when applying for training posts, the need for me to be near my partner has not been considered. If I were caring for a disabled relative, that would not factor into where in the UK I was placed to work. Thanks to a huge victory between Health Education England and the British Medical Association, this is changing. Advertisement As of the agreement this week, doctors applying for training programmes who have a medical condition or disability, or who care for someone who does and thus need to work in a particular location, can be pre-allocated to that region. Even if doctors don't fit into this criteria, for the first time there will be a formalized swapping system, where doctors can swap with fellow applicants, or into a vacant space. As medics, we well know the frustration of being told which hospital we will be working in only days before we start, or getting our rota on the first day of the job, often making planning life events such as getting married, or simply going on holiday with our partner a challenge of Herculean proportions. This has also been tackled, with the new Code of Practice, where notice of your post is given 12 weeks in advance, generic rota information will arrive 8 weeks in advance, and actual rotas 6 weeks before we start. This will enable annual leave applications to be processed in a timely manner, and should improve the working lives of the 54,000 junior doctors in this country. At precisely 4.34pm on Monday 7 November 2016, women across France left the workplace in protest against wage discrimination. Their rationale was simple: women on average are paid 15% less than men and thus women should work 15% less. The walkout resembled protests that have occurred for the past 11 years in Iceland. Each year on 24 October - a historic day commemorating the 1975 Icelandic women's strike - women leave work at the exact time they would leave were they to receive the same pay as their male counterparts. Walkouts of this nature have achieved historic success in the fight for equal pay. In the UK, for example, the Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968 shifted public and political opinion in favour of wage parity between genders. Realising that male machinists in the same role would receive 15% more pay - the same figure recently cited by French strikers - female workers, led by Rose Boland, Eileen Pullen, Vera Sime, Gwen Davis and Sheila Douglass, walked out of the plant in Dagenham and refused to return until they were offered fairer conditions. The Ford protest was a pivotal moment in the history of the British labour movement and helped to spark the process that ended with the Equal Pay Act 1970, which criminalised any form of gender discrimination based on remuneration. The protests were so essential, indeed, that Labour MP Shirley Summerskill cited the strikers' seminal role in the struggle for wage equality during the Second Reading of the Act. Advertisement The recent French protests, while largely symbolic, are analogous to the successful protests of the past. Such protests remove abstractions and return political discourse to the core issue: hours worked should result in equal compensation regardless of gender. The protests often avoid overt partisan politics. And, most importantly, the protests highlight the overlooked absurdity of the gender pay gap. The protests disarm, and even absorb, counter arguments. One argument against the protests states, for example, that it is unfair that women get to leave work early while men seemingly have to work extra hours for no extra pay. The basis of this complaint is essentially the nexus of the women's argument and thus the complaint is inadvertently akin to solidarity. To argue that a woman leaving work early is economically unfair is to support the closing of the gender pay gap, albeit unconsciously. Another counter argument suggests that women simply do not deserve equal pay: an ostensibly antiquated but hardly absent argument. This argument relies on ill-informed ideas about maternity, gender constructs and even biological ability. It seldom relies on verifiable facts. Such an argument is sexist in motivation and serves only to highlight the actual problem: that directly or indirectly, gender prejudice is still prevalent in society. The real difficulty in arguing against these protests is that the strength of the case for closing the gender pay gap is patently obvious to those devoid of prejudice. The disparity of wages between genders is a familiar injustice, of course, but an injustice nonetheless. Despite gains in the past, particularly on the legislative side, it is still common to witness a woman losing out on a job opportunity to a less qualified man. The unfair treatment of women around maternity is still widespread: the Fawcett society claims, for example, that 54,000 women each year leave employment early due to mistreatment after having a child. Advertisement Men still occupy the majority of the most coveted jobs in society - as one can witness, almost without failure, by examining the heads of any large company - while 60% of those earning less than the living wage are women. Moreover, women occupy 80% of roles in the care and leisure sectors, and those working in other 'feminised' sectors are still less valued and still less well paid. It takes a special kind of ignorance to disregard this injustice. James Payne heads to Bilbao to see the collection of Hermann and Margrit Rupf. Ordinary people who just happened to have extraordinary tastes. Pablo Picasso, Tete d'homme, 1908 Oil on wood Hermann und Margrit Rupf-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum Bern Sucesion Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid, 2016 From the Borghese and Farnese, through to Thyssen and Tate and right up to Saatchi and Zabludowicz, private collectors have shaped the world of art. Advertisement Some collectors like David Roberts and Frank Cohen open up their own spaces whilst others bequeath their works to the nation, as did Robert Lehman at the Met and Richard Wallace with The Wallace Collection. In recent news Elton John generously agreed to donate his extensive photography collection to the Tate. But there are also collectors of more humble means. Ordinary people with extraordinary tastes, like civil servants Herbert and Dorothy Vogel in the US, and Hermann and Margrit Rupf, owners of a haberdasheries in Switzerland, who amassed incredible collections. From left to right: Margrit Rupf-Wirz, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, unidentified woman, and Hermann Rupf in Murren, ca. 1945. Unknown photographer, Rupf Archive, Kunstmuseum Bern. Advertisement Hermann Rupf died in 1962 with 250 works in his collection. Now the Rupf collection is 900 strong and growing and the Guggenheim in Bilbao is showing 70 of the masterpieces. Many of the 70 works are key turning points in the history of abstract art, by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Fernand Leger, Paul Klee, and Vasily Kandinsky. The Rupfs were close friends with Kandinsky and Klee, who gave them dedicated works on birthdays and Christmas. Almost all the works were bought the same year they were created and Hermann Rupf was personally involved with many of the artists, if not at the beginning of their careers, then at a pivotal time. Just one year after Rupf's death, the Foundation bought Henri Laurens's 1918 work Fruit Bowl and Pipe. This policy continues to this day with The Rupf Foundation still buying new works to add to the core of the art collection that the couple amassed over their lifetime. Amongst the works bought since Rupf's death (many on display here) are works by Donald Judd, Joseph Beuys, Meret Oppenheim, James Turrell and many others. Donald Judd, Untitled, no. 85-065, 1985 Aluminum, 30 x 120 x 30 cm Hermann und Margrit Rupf-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum Bern Donald Judd, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016 On Rupf's business trips to Paris to buy fashion accessories for his haberdashery shop, he would meet with his good friend, the gallerist, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and join him on his visits to artists. As early as 1907, Rupf began to purchase works by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and by Fauvists, such as Othon Friesz and Andre Derain. His initial purchases are the first you see as you enter the exhibition, by the Fauvist painter Andre Derain. Kanhweiler had bought Derain's entire studio and Rupf bought several, including the extraordinary Landscape near Cassis from 1907. Many of the concerns of Fauvism are here, with the first steps towards abstraction, the use of bold complimentary colours and loosely applied dabs of paint. Rupf struck artistic gold with his first works, buying paintings by artists the critics had derided as Les Fauves ("The wild beasts"). Advertisement Rupf had an almost Zelig-like knack of being in the right place at the right time. He pops into Picasso's studio and buys a 1907 gouache, and Head of a Man in 1908, two transitionary images following Picasso's visit to the famous African art exhibition in 1907. This is the same year Picasso drew his first designs for what became Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and we can only speculate as to whether the first brush strokes for that revolutionary painting were on the easel in Montmartre as Rupf paid a visit. At the same time he picks up Houses at Estaque by Braque in 1908, considered to be the first cubist painting. Georges Braque, Maisons a l'Estaque, 1908 Oil on canvas Hermann und Margrit Rupf-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum Bern Sucesion Georges Braque, VEGAP, Madrid, 2016 1913 was the year the Armory show in New York brought modern art into mainstream popular culture. It was a good year too for Rupf when he buys Fernand Leger's iconic Contrasts of Forms, which pulls art even further away from its traditional role of representation, and Picasso's Violin Hanging on the Wall (1913), the work that crystallized Picasso's brand of Cubism and was part of his vocabulary right into the 1920s. Pablo Picasso, Un violin accroche au mur, 1913 Oil on canvas Hermann und Margrit Rupf-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum Bern Sucesion Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid, 2016 Incredible for any collector to own so many important pieces but remember Rupf is buying them as they are created, not in retrospect. Advertisement Many of the works in this show are important pieces of art history, and can be read in relation to each other. But the show is not totally chronological, and in a clever piece of curation the show liberally dips into the post 1962 collection. The first time it is used is a lovely surprise when a Gotthard Graubner is shown next to several Derain, seemingly the only reference being colour. One example of a literal intervention is when in 1972 the Rupf institute invited Florian Slotawa, a Berlin-based artist who frequently recontextualises existing objects, to work with the collection. The Rupf family furniture becomes the plinths upon which rest pieces taken directly from the collection, including a Hans Arp sculpture. This is one of my favourite pieces, which playfully questions what is the actual piece? The plinths? Or the artworks on them? Installation view of the exhibition "The Collection of Hermann and Margrit Rupf" at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao 2016. Florian Slotawa, Bernese Pedestals (Berner Sockel), 2010 Group of four sculptures, various materials Hermann und Margrit Rupf-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum Bern Florian Slotawa, VEGAP, Madrid, 2016 Fernand Leger is shown alongside a stunning Donald Judd, echoing the formalism of the two artists. And later purchases by the Zero Group, Enrico Castellani, Piero Manzoni, and Lucio Fontana are displayed alongside a lovely Carlos Bunga (born 1976), which like the Zero group references the crossover between painting and sculpture. The Bunga is a revelation, and is actually on loan and not (yet) part of the collection. Advertisement There was one piece on display here though that is really an unexpected delight. An artist book called Cirque by Fernand Leger, produced towards the end of his life, explores the theme of the circus and rural life using Leger's beautiful colourful images. Fernand Leger, Cirque, 1950 Les Editions Verve, Sixty-three lithographs Hermann und Margrit Rupf-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum Bern Sucesion Fernand Leger, VEGAP, Madrid, 2016 He wrote the text for the book too and part of it is worth quoting: A nervous mobility is taking over the world. Everything is moving and escaping from traditional constraints. Being a painter and feeling so totally unable to resolve this spectacle on a canvas. This was my first time in Bilbao and right now it is worth travelling for. Apart from this brilliant collection, there is also the unbelievable Francis Bacon show (until 01/08/2017). And if you haven't been to Bilbao before, did I mention the Guggenheim's permanent installation of Richard Serra? If I had only seen that, it would be worth the flight alone. And outside of the Guggenheim, take a tour of the old town and pop into a few of the pinxto bars (Basque tapas) with one of the brilliant guides from Basque Destination. Advertisement It's a strange thing having a famous ancestor. My great uncle Alan Turing is known the world over. I guess that's what happens to the name of the man who cracked the enigma code, a defining moment in World War II. Solving that riddle opened up the path to Nazi defeat and changed the course of history. That was the beginning of the future; and his research marks the early days of computing and artificial intelligence. This is a story that brings meaning to people all over the world. I never got to meet him, but often think about the one, less reported fact about my great uncle, which speaks volumes of his character. Alan believed passionately in the power of education, and it was that passion that informed much of his philanthropic work. A belief he practiced from the very earliest days of his career, when he sponsored a young refugee, Robert Augenfeld, through secondary school and university, and later when he funded Hazel Ward's charitable work in Africa. Advertisement But it wasn't until I left school and travelled to Ghana to volunteer in 2009 that I really began to think about his legacy in the rest of the world. I was really struck by the digital gap in rural communities. Even as African economies speed towards the information age, many in the countryside have no access to the knowledge and opportunities fostered by the digital world. That trip was the start of journey that recently culminated in one of my proudest moments - being awarded close to $5,000 from the Clinton Global Initiative University Innovation Fund, to bring solar-powered computing to off-grid Kenyan communities. It was an honour to be chosen from thousands of incredible innovators and entrepreneurs across the world to join 17 other international students to receive the grant. And none of it would have happened if it wasn't for a chance conversation with a University of Edinburgh IT manager when I began my undergraduate degree. Advertisement It was this corridor chat that made me realise I could use Alan's legacy and respect among the computing community to get organisations to donate their old machines, and then teach myself and others to refurbish them, so they could be shipped to rural African schools. It began modestly, as a small group of volunteers and I reconditioned and sent the first two laptops to Ghana in late 2009. But seven years on, we now process more than 1,000 computers every year. Donors and the University itself have been great supporters. We have free premises at High School Yards where we strip, rebuild and ship computers from - complete with valuable education resources, for just 6.20 each. We've installed more than 2,500 computers in rural schools across Ghana, Malawi and Kenya, and helped to train over 15,000 rural students with ICT skills so far, and 2016 is shaping up to be our biggest year yet. Advertisement Work is now underway on the SolarBerry project - a self-financing, community-owned, off-grid and solar-powered computer lab. Housed in a repurposed shipping container, it will provide entire communities with access to comprehensive ICT education opportunities and first-hand experience using Raspberry Pi computers, while its excess solar energy will be sold back to the community at a rate often many times cheaper than other locally-available electricity. We've also just sent 500 machines to Malawi, in the first phase of a three-year, Scottish Government-backed 60,000 project. And our aim is to bring more than 4,000 computers to the county's rural Schools. We still have work to do. Alan left enormous shoes to fill. The results in the 2016 Presidential Election should not have been a surprise. The Candidate Matters. The Message Matters. The Vision Matters. The Passion Matters. The candidate is the messenger and in today's media world - 'charisma' a Greek word meaning "charm that can inspire devotion in others" - really matters! In today's 24-hour news and information cycle you need a compelling messenger to get the attention and win the devotion of the voter. Whatever else you might want to say about Donald Trump he had a unique " tell it like it is charisma " ... and in fact he was so compelling and interesting to watch that the media could not stop following him. Advertisement Bernie Sanders also had his own special charisma and his message and commitment to his cause were genuine and compelling as was clear from the devotion of his followers. Hillary Clinton although a very accomplished individual does not possess this special gift..and unfairly or not she is burdened with the constant comparison to both her husband and Barack Obama. Listening to the voters matters! For about 20 years voters have been voting for change and politicians and pundits have not understood what they are saying. This is especially true of hard working Americans who have taken the entire brunt of U.S. policy on globalization and trade. Advertisement The fact is there is a large segment of the American middle class workforce that was once proud, hard working individuals who could feed their families and expect a better life for their children. They now live in shuttered and dying towns. Their jobs have vanished as we simply stopped making things in America. It may be true that moving production to the lowest cost labor source is good for global companies but it is devastating to the people who were once employed by these industrial giants of global business. Companies who do not belong to any country or any community feel no duty or responsibility to any individual citizen of any nation. It has also been the willingness of both Democratic and Republican administrations alike to let this practice accelerate and continue, while offering empty promises about new jobs and retraining-- that frankly make no sense, almost always offering less compensation and no hope for a brighter future. The plain and simple fact is that a 50 year skilled worker who could once support and feed his or her family does not want to be re-trained to operate a steamroller to build highways. Advertisement Trump was able to give voice to the plight of these forgotten Americans and his message resonated with his supporters driving them to the polls in record numbers on November 8. This is not just a U.S. problem. It is a problem of the industrialized west and this is part of the reason for the success of the Brexit vote and perhaps foreshadows some of the upcoming votes in other European countries. So where do the Players go from here? To quote Dylan Thomas...Will Hillary "go gentle into that good night"...Or will she "rage, rage against the dying of the light?" Will she continue to place the blame for her loss at the feet of FBI Director James Comey or with reflection will she take a more Trumanesque approach and take full responsibility for her loss? Will she be comfortable with the title "Doyenne of The Democratic Party" as Eleanor Roosevelt was decades before? Advertisement Or will she re-invent herself in another role in a second or third act? Remember it was Richard Nixon who in his so-called "last press conference" in November of 1962, following his loss to Democratic incumbent Pat Brown in the California gubernatorial election, when he appeared before 100 reporters at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and lashed out at the media, proclaiming that "you don't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." Well the original "Come Back Kid" Nixon fooled them all as he was elected president twice, defeating LBJ's Vice President Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972. Nixon in his post-Watergate years took on the role of elder statesman and in many ways re-invented and redeemed himself once again from his lowest point - departing the White House in disgrace to avoid impeachment. As the Democrats shuffle to find their footing after this stunningly unexpected defeat who will emerge as the next Democratic Standard Bearer? Will it be Senator Bernie Sanders who gave the youth of our nation a reason to believe that they too could have their own Revolution in their own time? Advertisement Sanders will undoubtedly link arms with his fellow Senate Democrats like incoming Leader Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and others who will use every opportunity to "rage against the dying of the light" and keep the new president's feet to the fire. Will Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea have to accept the fact that their days of White House living are now only a cherished memory? Or will Chelsea decide to take on the challenge following in her parents footsteps. As President Obama returns to his White House home from a week abroad meeting with World Leaders, the question is - Will he move more swiftly through those five stages of grief - beyond denial, anger, bargaining, depression and on to acceptance? Will he finally realize for his own sake and for the sake of the Nation, that President Donald Trump and his agenda are a reality, and if successful, President Trump might reverse much of what he had hoped would be his legacy from his eight-year contribution as president? In less than two months time our new president will be confronted with the enormous responsibility of being the leader of a great nation following in the footsteps of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, JFK and Reagan. Advertisement POTUS Trump is no longer CEO Trump. Trump is not a Monarch, TV Star or a kid from Queens. As he gathers his Cabinet and his team of advisors he must keep in mind that as president he must "preside" over a Congress of 535 individuals many of whom he has insulted and attempted to humiliate while making his bid for The White House. As so-called "Leader of The Free World" on January 20 - when the Inaugural parade is over and he sits behind that Oval Office desk - President Trump must also begin in earnest an effort to bring together the other World Leaders, many of whom he has insulted and many who continue to express their own fear and anxiety as to what a Trump America would mean to global stability and survival. There are those who have said that Trump really didn't want this job....It was just a big ego exercise...He will get bored, feel restricted and will lose interest. I don't quite agree. As a kid who also grew up in Queens, I believe Donald J. Trump will do everything he can do get it right...there is simply too much at stake for him not to give it everything he has got. The awesomeness of this newly acquired position may move him in directions he may never have imagined. Advertisement So, to quote the most colourful character Malvolio from Shakespeare's play "Twelfth Night" "Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them." Two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty six hours. Twenty thousand one hundred and sixty minutes. At my time of writing, this is how long it has been since Donald Trump was declared President Elect of the United States, in a victory which sent ripples through the establishment and proved to the world that an outspoken, offensive outsider is capable of winning office. I watched the results roll in at Trump's newly opened hotel in DC, among a sea of Republicans with the odd Democrat and tourist standing in awe. It was clear looking around the vast reception that the real estate mogul's appeal was far wider than the media would have you believe. Immigrants, women, men, the young and the old, all of varying class and creed, came together to witness a monumental moment in history. Advertisement I went to America for the election, with an intense desire to understand Trump's popularity. The media would forgive you for thinking that he appealed only to the ignorant, the racist, the sexist and those so privileged politics is below them. The reality could not be more wrong. I spoke to a taxi driver, who, in a fifteen minute journey, showed more understanding for 'forgotten America' than millennials with a degree could ever dream of knowing. You see, if you live in an echo-chamber (achieved by deleting those on Facebook for daring to hold a view which counters your own), you can't expect to have your finger on the pulse. We live in a world where being offended is a borderline crime and a difference in political opinion is met with scorn and contempt. A minority of Hillary Clinton supporters who were part of the 'Love Trumps Hate' brigade have incited violence against Trump supporters, encouraged men to rape Melania, attacked police and damaged their cities. A much larger section of the tolerant Left regularly show contempt for the uneducated 'anti-intellectuals' - those who have lived through policy and are directly affected by it, yet are dismissed as not having the knowledge to know what is good for them. Mocking race and religion is rightfully frowned upon, yet ridiculing those without a higher education certificate is apparently fair game. It is this worryingly patronizing trait, too often embraced by the Left, which explains exactly why 'progressive' politics is losing around the world. The people, or 'the plebs' (as much of the losing side would rather have them described), are tired of being told what to think, what to do and that their opinion doesn't matter by the elite and the 'experts'. Advertisement The reality is, the vast majority of voters did not vote for Trump for his alleged sexist and racist views - they voted for him in spite of these. People voted for change. People voted against the status quo. People voted for hope. The same can be said for Brexit, where many remainders would have you believe that the average Leaver is either a racist, a bigot or a combination of both, rather than a person who believes in sovereignty, controlled immigration and a democratic voting system. Nevertheless, we have world-leading universities offering safe spaces to those who cannot cope with the democratic outcome of the election. Female Trump supporters have been described as suffering from 'internalised misogynism' (yes, really). We have people mocking the second ever immigrant to enter the First Family, who, despite speaking six languages and running a successful jewellery business, has been dismissed as a gold-digging bimbo. The hypocrisy is as real as the election result. A Trump win was always going to result in hysteria on a scale that dwarfed Brexit, but two weeks later I am still reading articles likening Trump to Hitler and condemning democracy. To dislike Trump is understandable - indeed, I was never an ardent fan and found elements of his campaign pretty unsavoury. But to truly believe that the millions of people who voted for him - many of whom were women and ethnic minorities - are racist or intellectually challenged, sets a very dangerous and deluded precedent. Donald Trump's use of the term "safe space" in a tweet condemning a speech about diversity and tolerance is political hypocrisy in its purest form. For a man who has used vulgar terms towards almost every minority community to then dare to utter the words "safe space" in a tweet, highlights an individual who believes freedom of expression is a one way street, that only he and his supporters can parade down. This near-hyperbolic reaction by Donald Trump, towards a speech that called for tolerance and respect for all groups within America, is precisely why now is the time to speak out and be heard. The short speech made to Vice President-elect, Mike Pence, was a simple yet powerful reminder of how effective standing together in the face of adversity can be. A clip of Brandon Dixon has been shared thousands of times on social media and resulted in mass media attention. In it he says, with a cool and calm voice, "We are the diverse America" and urges the Trump administration to work on behalf all of those Americans. Dixon's call was directed to a man whose track record is one that has resulted in the LGBT community in particular, being fearful and scared over what the future may bring. The emotional video of NBC News presenter, Rachel Maddow, shone a light on Pence's previous actions as Governor of Indiana, including making it illegal for same-sex couples to even apply for a marriage licence, even when a landmark Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was the law of the land. In outlining his opposition for same-sex marriage, Pence stated, "societal collapse was always brought about following an advent of the deterioration of marriage and family". Implying the end of society due to same-sex marriage may make for an outlandish remark for a UKIP councillor to remark here in the UK, but it has significantly greater consequences in the US from 20th January 2017. Pence has also been on the record stating that funding for HIV programmes should be funneled towards 'gay cure' therapy instead. Advertisement Much of Mike Pence's track record was largely unchecked throughout the campaign period, as the media focused daily ding-dong between Trump and Clinton. However, there are now strong signs that Pence will have a more leading role within the next White House administration. As noted in The Spectator, there is no official role for the Vice President within the US Constitution, other than to break deadlocked votes in the Senate and oversee the work of the electoral college. It's also highly likely Pence will act as a key go-between for Congress and Trump. The reality of this has resulted in LGBT groups across the US being rightly concerned about what protections may be stripped away. As various media outlets and politicians talk of the 'opportunities' the Trump-Pence administration may bring, I have had countless American friends talk their deep fear about what the future may bring. As mere by-standers to the US political circus, it's easy for us to become desensitised over these fears and dismiss them as exaggerated, but when faced with worries about a spike in hate crimes, this reality becomes real. As the Obama family prepare to exit the White House, we mustn't forget the arguably impressive legacy the 44th President will leave on LGBT rights. In 2014, Obama signed an Executive Order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against any employee or applicant on grounds of sexual orientation. He repealed the Don't Ask Don't Tell regulations which paved the way for gay, bisexual and lesbian Americans to serve openly in the US armed forces. In 2010 Obama lifted the 22 year immigration ban for travellers with HIV entering the US. And, let us not forget the moment the White House was transformed to the Rainbow House after the Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage. Advertisement Despite memories of those multi-coloured days now fading, it is vital the voices of the LGBT community both in the US, and here in the UK, do not fade too. As the UK Government talks up our 'special relationship' this modern relationship must be one rooted in protecting the rights of citizens in both sides of the Atlantic. Politicians tell lies, we all know that. In fact, we've grown to expect it. We joke about it and in one of my favourite songs, Sunscreen, Baz Lurham suggests that the thought of politicians being noble in the past is just a nostalgic fantasy. Whatever your political persuasion, though, I am sure you can think of many half-truths and barefaced lies that our leaders have told or promises they have failed to deliver on. Advertisement Let's face it, politicians lie. They always have done, and they always will. But is our cynicism working against us here? By accepting that politicians will always lie, are we setting the behaviour bar too low? Are we just setting low standards and inviting our leaders to live down to them? Now these low standards have dived to new depths. I don't want this to be a Donald Trump-bashing article (you'll find others, if you look hard enough), but during a recent interview on Radio 4, I heard a political commentator explaining quite matter-of-factly that the President-Elect's team would be busy planning which of Mr Trump's promises could be dropped without people noticing. The interviewer didn't seem at all surprised and didn't question the commentator's statement. Hang about! When did this become acceptable? I'm willing to concede that circumstances might change and events might prevent our leaders from delivering their manifesto pledges. But, goodness me, the guy's not even sworn in yet! Is it just naive to hope that our leaders will tell us the truth while seeking our votes? Should we really just accept that politicians make promises on the soapbox that they have no intention of keeping when in power or, in the case of the UK's EU membership referendum, once the Brexiteers have got their way? Advertisement A strange new world In his fiercely topical film HyperNormalisation (available on the BBC iPlayer, but not recommended if you need cheering up), director Adam Curtis invites us to explore what he calls the post-truth world, a place where all is strange and fake and corrupt. Partly because we do not have easy access to the facts and are confused, he says, we have retreated into our simplified personal bubbles, staring at cat memes and wearily accepting fakery and corruption as the norm. In Russia, he claims, news and current affairs are treated as a pieces of theatre, specifically designed by politicians to confuse the people, who grow to accept the unacceptable, which then becomes the new normal. It's a scary technique that's coming our way soon, if it's not here already. How our cynicism fails us Despite the fact that there are 10.5 million people in 70 countries in Savings Groups all over the world and a mountain of research data to match, there is almost no scientific research on the impact of Savings Groups and skills training on incomes - the holy grail of poverty reduction. Yet I and almost everyone working in this area know that Savings Groups and skills training raise incomes. Take Odette, one of our Savings Group members in Rwanda. Thanks to her Savings Group and the business skills she learned there, she now runs a successful tailoring business and is mistress of her own small sewing school. The money generated has doubled the family income. Advertisement Odette Mukarusagara | Tailor | Kiziguro, Rwanda (photographer: Georgina Goodwin). Odette was part of our joint program with CARE Rwanda to graft Hand in Hand's business and entrepreneurship training on to some 3,000 of CARE's Village Savings and Loan Associations (referred to hereafter as 'Savings Groups'). Savings Groups and business training are both integral to the Hand in Hand program so this would be a chance to establish the added value of business and skills training. Together, went the plan, we would create 80,000 sustainable jobs over three years - most of them for women. My team from Hand in Hand Eastern Africa joined forces with CARE Rwanda staff to blend our two methodologies into one program. Fast-forward to last month's publication of the independent program review. Instead of creating 80,000 jobs we'd created 115,000, raised average incomes by 75 percent and uncovered a formula that could have implications for millions of Savings Groups members worldwide. Exceeding our jobs target was nice. But what was really interesting was that project members earned an average monthly business income of US $49 - 75 percent more than those in the Comparison Group (who did not receive the business training). What is more, 79 percent of Hand in Hand business trainees reported investing in household assets such as livestock and equipment over the last 12 months. Only 49 percent of Comparison Group members said the same. Advertisement None of this would have been possible if CARE Rwanda hadn't so graciously implemented Hand in Hand's business training - at least not nearly as quickly or cost-effectively. Access to CARE's pre-existing Savings Group infrastructure gave the project a massive head start. Here, after all, were thousands of groups, mobilised, established and raring to go. When all was said and done, Hand in Hand's business training had reached 4,390 groups and 130,000 group members versus targets of 3,000 and 100,000 respectively. Ten-and-a-half million. That's the number of Savings Group members worldwide. Together with CARE Rwanda, Hand in Hand has proven it's also the number of opportunities to create jobs, raise incomes and improve lives - cheaply and quickly. Context is everything, of course, and Rwanda's growing economy no doubt played a role in the program's success. But at the very least the Savings Group-business training partnership model deserves trialing in another location. Savings Groups are a hugely effective tool but Savings Groups with business training are better. Is arts education under threat? It seems so. What are the implications, and why are declining numbers of students studying Drama at GCSE and A level? Over recent months, many people including Patrick Stewart and Andrew Lloyd Webber, have expressed concerns about arts education. Some have spoken out about the declining numbers of young people studying the arts. Academics have signed a letter opposing plans by one exam board to stop offering Art History at A-level. Others, meanwhile, have campaigned for Government to ensure that the EBacc includes the arts. Together, these voices are calling for something I strongly believe: that arts education should be championed, not side-lined. The arts help to give meaning to our lives. Arts education helps us to make sense of, to understand, and to critique the world around us. These are surely important skills in the worrisome times of rapid technological change and the uncertain, 'Uberified', 'Deliveroo', world of Brexit, 'post-truth', and Trump? Being given the opportunity to think creatively, and critically, take risks, develop an idea from concept to reality, communicate, perform and share, can have a powerful impact on the development of individuals and amplify enriching impacts on society. This is by no means an extensive list - capturing the myriad of ways that people's lives are enriched through arts education is almost impossible. Having worked and lived in several countries, including Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Finland and the US, I'm struck by the quality of the art and design in the UK. The UK starts trends. From London to Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh, these cities stand out as places where it's clear that the arts have a vibrant, real 'value adding' force. Whether it's in music, art, dance, design or in other creative industries, where we lead, often others follow. Seeing the international tourists queuing outside the (replica) Cavern Club in Liverpool or on Abbey Road in London, as I ride past on my bicycle, is a reminder of the benefits for the economy and that the ripple effect of creative genius can be felt across continents and generations. Whether it is David Bowie in New York, David Hockney in Los Angeles, or the Rolling Stones on tour, it would be wise not to underestimate the importance of the role that our cultural leadership plays in Anglo- US relations in particular and international relations in general. Consider also the benefits of welcoming new residents to make their life and work here in the UK, such as Zaha Hadid in Architecture or, Lisa Dwan the world leading interpreter of Samuel Beckett, recently returned from a long US tour. For an example of 'what works', look at Ireland, our neighbour to the West, with its long history of low, or no, taxes for artists and writers. Is this "unfair competition"? The fact is, that it has cultural influence in literature and popular music, which is amplified far beyond what might reasonably be expected for a country of less than 5M people. Daniel Mulhall, the Irish ambassador in London tweets extracts from Irish poets every morning to over 9000 followers. Advertisement Many of the artists, musicians, actors, dancers and others responsible for the UK's cultural leadership would not be where they are without having benefited from arts education. Whether it was the words of encouragement from a secondary school teacher or the intensity of art school, the inspiration of an evening class or the intervention of a lecturer, these experiences can have a transformational impact on a creative person's development. Conventional wisdom dictates that if you want to get a good job you should study something 'sensible'. Maths or science - any 'ology' will do - so long as it's not arts or drama or music, those subjects, are seen by some, as a waste of both time and money. However, the Government has stated that the creative industries contributed over 76.9bn to the UK economy in 2013, accounting over 1.71m jobs. This is more than the 10.7bn contributed by agriculture and not far off the 91bn contributed by construction. The creative industries grew almost twice as fast as other sectors and, according to HESA, over 160,000 people studied creative, art or design courses full time or part time in 2014/15. As the spotlight shines on entrepreneurs this week for Global Entrepreneurship Week, you would be forgiven for not wanting to address the elephant in the room - Brexit. How will this impact the UK's entrepreneurs? Well, the answer is no one really knows. But recent headlines - including new research from Hitachi Capital and the Centre for Economics which has found that a third of business leaders have abandoned 65.5 billion of investments because of the Brexit vote - point to an uncertain future for British businesses. A change in circumstance causes businesses to stop and take stock of their progress to date, prioritise and ensure they're on track for continued success. As a result, many businesses halt their investments until the future becomes clearer. Advertisement In uncertain times, it's absolutely key for UK entrepreneurs to review their progress but, so too, is monitoring the wider surroundings. That's why, at Barclays, through our Entrepreneurs Index, we regularly monitor the UK entrepreneurial landscape to establish what's changed and how we can best help businesses thrive. The Barclays' Entrepreneurs Index is a regular series which has tracked the entrepreneurial lifecycle since 2011. It brings together environmental measures, such as access to finance and talent, along with entrepreneurial outcomes, such as growth and exit activity, in order to assess the strength of the UK's entrepreneurial environment. We've released the Eighth Edition of the Index against a backdrop of political uncertainty and market volatility. As data for the second half of 2016 is yet to be published, our research reviews the entrepreneurial landscape prior to the Brexit vote - but this makes the findings even more important. As a nation we work tirelessly to foster an environment where our entrepreneurs can thrive; which is why it's so important that this momentum is not lost. In our latest Index we have found that UK entrepreneurial performance is at an all-time high, up 10 percentage points since 2011 and showing strong progress and recovery after a decline in 2014. Crucially the UK's environmental enablers for entrepreneurs, such as access to finance and talent, are up 13 percentage points in five years and, encouragingly, 4 percentage points higher than in 2015. This also points to gradual improvements in regulation and research and innovation, all of which have created optimal conditions for enterprise in the UK. Evidently as a nation we have produced a great platform for people to launch their own enterprises. But the hard work doesn't stop here. Advertisement We also found that the number of early stage entrepreneurs fell 4 percentage points over the last year showing the UK is producing fewer businesses with ambitions to scale up. There was only a slight rise in the percentage of high-growth companies within the UK's SME population, growing by 0.7%, demonstrating moderate recovery when compared to the dramatic fall of 21 percentage points seen the year before. Great strides have been made within the UK's entrepreneurial landscape - but the scale-up gap coupled with only a slight rise in high-growth ambitions shows we need to do more to help the UK's entrepreneurs reach the next stage in their lifecycle. This is all the more important in these testing times. Key to this will be ensuring nothing stands in the way of entrepreneur's access to talent, skills and the UK's ability to attract inward investment. I firmly believe that we all - from policy makers, industry experts and entrepreneurs included - have an important role in sustaining and developing the UK's thriving entrepreneurial landscape. This summer, I finally decided to go back to the Philippines for a holiday after three years of being away. My hesitation to go back was fuelled by reasons which were inherently political. I have old-time friends in London who would often travel there for short vacations, only to come back and say that things have not changed much. It was very much the same Philippines I left almost four years ago, they said. I decided to go to back because I thought I was ready. I am graduating with a politics degree in 2017, which equipped me with the necessary knowledge to look at my country with a more critical lens. My long-awaited arrival just so happens to be a few months after Rodrigo Duterte was elected president. Likewise, the rest of the world was experiencing its own turbulence: Brexit and the Republican nomination of now President-elect Donald Trump all seemed so timely. This was also around the time when the Supreme Court decided to extend talks on the burial of the former president Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Burial of the Heroes). Marcos was a politician notorious for being the second most corrupt political leader in the world alongside Haji Mohammad Suharto (1st) of Indonesia and Mobutu Sese Seko (3rd) of the Democratic Republic of Congo. There had been a lot of tension since discussions regarding his burial were brought up, so to hear such optimistic news one morning - that Filipino bureaucrats have, for the first time, finally decided to discuss things empirically, rationally and decisively - was celebrated with such jubilation. Advertisement Months have passed and I am back in London. Absorbed by the demands of my studies, I became disconnected from the affairs happening back home. However, one day, my social media feed erupted with images of mass peoples protesting against the private burial of Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, organised by his family. Horror filled the airwaves. Nostalgia revisited. My heart was heavy, but my anger raging. Words were not enough. But perhaps the most eloquent description was one made by Philippine Vice President, Leni Robredo, who described the deceased dictator "like a thief in the night." However, an issue such as this does not get away without its critics. While many supported the protests, others felt annoyance - perhaps stemming from a feeling that all this seemed unnecessary. "You're standing up for what you believe in," one Facebook user said, "I can admire and respect that... but please, try to not inconvenience the rest of us. Some of us have chosen to continue being productive the way we see fit our daily lives." Likes and hearts galore. Another user followed with a comment saying, "Tell 'em to move on already! It's not that hard." Others chose to respect the country's so-called "rule of law" that made Marcos's burial a legitimate one: "The Supreme Court of The Philippines ruled that it is legal and I will follow and respect the rule of law," another Facebook user said, "I don't understand why people cannot. Law is not sentiment." There seems to be some general consensus that all this is something that can be easily overcome, and that the protests will have no impact on outcomes whatsoever. "Whatever you want to call him", another user commented, "the truth of the matter is: he is dead. He and his family already suffered the shame and the hate of this nation. What more do you ask from a dead person? Can he answer you from the grave?" To follow, someone else had brought up the idea that if the burial ground had been renamed to its original title - the Republic Memorial Cemetery - would things have been a little bit different? Advertisement Perhaps. But it is here where we come to the root of the problem. The burial of Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani is of such symbolic importance because it implies that Marcos was, indeed, a bayani - a hero. True, what constitutes a "hero" is a highly contested topic - one in which the Supreme Court has yet to conclude. But perhaps what makes history such interesting case study is that, through our mistakes, we are able to learn from the past. And surely what the past has to say has a lot to do with how we have come to our present terms. So how has history defined this debated term, the hero? The etymology of the word hero comes from the story of Heracles - popularly known as Hercules - which in Greek translates as "protector" or "defender". Seth Schein, in his book, The Mortal Hero: An Introduction to Homer's Illiad, describes the hero as "a warrior who lives and dies in the pursuit honor and glory" - both terms suggesting a sense worthiness in one's actions. Perhaps we can all agree that a hero is one that sacrifices his own personal prejudices for the greater and grander good, a move which would become the greatest act of altruism. Given this, could we say that Marcos was a hero? Many who will argue for Marcos will quote his service as a soldier, as a protector, of his fellow countrymen. This, some will contest, makes him quintessentially heroic. His service in public office and, indeed, as president implies some sacrifice to serve the public. As the symbolic defender of the country's constitutional rights, this, perhaps, makes him characteristically heroic. Yet these roles - of the soldier and the bureaucrat - carry great paradoxes. What makes them heroes are often based on some zero-sum game where gains are made at the expense of a sore loss. If a promise was made and it is broken, how easy can it be to just forget? Given that the person was aware of his actions, how quickly can trust be restored? Advertisement Marcos was a veteran, yet through this same military power destroyed the bodies of thousands of Filipinos. Over 50,000 opposition members were detained after the imposition of martial law, where individuals were subject to various forms of torture: rape, electric shocks and violent beatings. Disappearances were rampant and some people - thirty years later - are yet to be found. Marcos was a public servant, yet he served the minute interests of the minute public. He embezzled over $10 billion worth of public money only for it to be lost within the one's and zero's. Marcos abused the rule of law by compromising the bureaucracy for vested foreign interests. Speaking on the Presidential Decree No. 3 - a mandate aiming to improve public infrastructure - the Philippine government launched an advertisement on The New York Times in 1974 which urged US investors: "We'll pass the law you need, just tell us what you want." The decree gave leeway for foreign companies to engage in oil exploration under Filipino service contracts, where foreigners were able to retain over 40% of its oil profits while exploiting a wealth of other benefits not experienced by normal Filipinos: tax concessions, cheap labour and product sharing benefits. His eagerness to make the Philippines a favourable investment attraction was at the expense of much-needed infrastructure. In 1975, instead of spending public funds on low-cost housing, Marcos built thirteen new five-star hotels in preparation for the International Monetary Fund-World Bank conference (IMF-WB). Indeed, his incestuous relationship with the IMF resulted in the millions of dollars being wired into the public current account. He then failed to deliver sustainable development programmes, which later spurred the devaluation of the peso and a dip in economic growth by 484.2%. It would take years for the Filipino taxpayer to bail this out. You say these protests were an inconvenience. What about the thousands of martial law victims who, little did they know, had their lives taken away from them? What about their families? What kind of inconvenience was it to have to tell those stories to their children, their grandchildren? How can anyone sleep at night knowing that someone out there couldn't "continue being productive" in the way they see fit their daily lives because of the incompetencies of Marcos? What does this say about the poverty so rampant in our country? What kind of inconvenience is it to have an education system which selectively propagates narratives from the martial law years, only to praise him for his alleged 'good'? This shows the country's education system's failure to engage in critical thinking - a form of censorship - as if putting a band-aid will be able to cover a lesion on the brain. Advertisement How can you respect the rule of law when the rule of law, in itself, is unable to function accordingly? What does the rule of law have to say about the lawlessness of Marcos's actions? You say the law has no sentiment, but what about the disgusting corruption and cronyism under Marcos - an act of manipulation of the rule of law? Does that still make Marcos a defender of the Constitution? A hero? What more can the Filipino ask from the deceased Ferdinand Marcos? Sure, he cannot speak from his grave, but his burial in a funeral of heroes speaks volumes. It suggests the failure of the government to serve justice to those who have suffered under his regime. It failed to acknowledge the delinquencies of Marcos and his cronies, reinforced by the stubbornness of his family and our inept education system. The burial of Ferdinand Marcos fortifies a cancerous legacy which now plagues not only our current political system but our entire social culture. And so this is why we cannot forget. This is why it is hard to move on. Marcos is not only buried in his grave but still lives amongst us, and so these protests, like his burial, is a voluminous symbol in itself: a display of solidarity amongst those who seek refuge. Through this act of protest - a challenge to the mind - it may convince others to re-evaluate themselves. An impact on one is an impact towards thousands moreover, and so the glue of our society strengthens. I don't mean to be a killjoy but I am currently disinclined to see films featuring posh actors, preferring films that include people from more diverse backgrounds. And I would certainly like more white actors from less privileged backgrounds given a chance. The UK is letting their indigenous working class creative community woefully down. Some of these posh actors have unquestionable talent; I am just tired of seeing them. It's making the industry anodyne - just one shade and tone. The actors that I loved, when I was growing up, were De Niro in his early films, Deer Hunter, Raging Bull, Al Pacino in God Father Part 1 and 2, Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now: all actors from humble beginnings. As for the great working class British actors I think of Richard Burton and Terence Stamp; I have always preferred more gritty actors. Kathy Burke is incredible, but apparently she's gone into directing now. One of the greatest performances I've seen was in Ken Loach's, Kes. Did this talented school kid who played the lead go onto greater things? If he had been from a certain background would he have ascended the ranks? Ken Loach and Mike Leigh champion working class actors like Timothy Spall or non professionals, we need more directors like them - desperately. Advertisement I am an artist, a writer and filmmaker, everything that I have done and achieved I have had to fight for; and I have been a professional artist for nearly 20 years now. Doesn't it count for something: the 15 films, the 9 published books, the over 100 exhibitions and screenings around the world? Well I have a Wikipedia write up - thanks. I am not embittered, only frustrated. I long to see different stories told on the BBC, not just in film but also across all media. It's still woeful. The year when I received my first grant from the UK Film Council to make my film White Wall it was shut down shortly afterwards by the government, making it even tougher for independents to get their films made. The BFI's application process, which claims to support diversity, is a minefield. Still from White Wall, my animation film commissioned by the UK Film Council, 2010 Tim Burton, a director whom I admire, said '...things either call for things or they don't...' when asked why he didn't cast actors from more diverse backgrounds. He argued that being politically correct about casting was offensive. There are dramas and documentaries about Asians, but often they feature women in hijabs, honour killings, and arranged marriages, as if there is only one type of Asian out there. The comedy show Citizen Khan plays on those stereotypes, it is hardly ground breaking. Riz Khan (Oxford educated - is that a prerequisite to be an actor?) is one of the few mainstream British Asian actors, his range has been diverse (even though he has been typecast at times). Just because you have brown skin doesn't mean there has to be a brown storyline that ticks all the boxes. Can we bin that idea please? The stories of Asians who are gay, transgender, unconventional, eccentric, dynamic, a bit leftfield and mad - are they not worth telling or is the media is only interested in one kind of myopic depiction. Advertisement Being tacitly shunned by the cultural elite motivates me to get my art out there. Yes, my work is controversial; I performed my one-woman play and acted in it too at Rich Mix in 2015. It was called, 'Do I Look Like a F*****g Mad Person?' Having a credible platform to express yourself is fundamental for all society. Writers like J K Rowling are in pole position to encourage more diverse casting. Imagine a black or Asian actor in the staring role in one of her fantastical creations, so far black and Asians have only received supporting roles in her films. And why couldn't we see a black or Asian super hero? Having Obama, the first black US President, seemed like a landmark, implying the world was changing and people from more diverse backgrounds could occupy significant roles. Trump's election victory is a rejection of this shift and an adamant assertion of white supremacy in all aspects of life. Does that include arts and culture? The Arts Council's Diversity department was closed some years ago. Getting grants is becoming tougher, the new application system has so many caveats. It's an actual art to fill in one of those forms, and you are more likely to get funding if you apply for small pots of cash. Social media and YouTube will be the platforms for black and Asian filmmakers and actors to portray different stories, but will they have the courage to tell them without proper training? Going to art school and acting school is becoming the preserve of those who can afford it. Advertisement As a filmmaker and the first recipient of a Channel 4 bursary maybe I should have pushed harder to get my projects off the ground, but then for someone like me who doesn't fit in Bangladeshi society and also is not white it's tough - there remains a cultural bias towards the white voice, white actors, white stories with a preference for posh educated ones. This bias has become endemic Black film directors like Steve McQueen inspire me, and in interviews he's fierce. He knows he benefited from a first class education at Goldsmiths, which was free. Not everyone has his self belief though. If you lack confidence mentors are essential. Stephen Fry, my friend, has been a mentor of sorts, quietly encouraging me to keep on with my work even when I have been at a low ebb. Dale Robins People who work with nature, in conservation and in science, will look back on 2016 as being a uniquely challenging year. Just as it had seemed people were waking up to the dangers our planet faces, reactionary forces have thrown those considerations aside in favour of economics, fear and short-sightedness. It is clearly not only us Brits who, in the words of Michael Gove, 'have had enough of experts', are sick of charts, statistics, and facts. We are now in an era where emotion triumphs over intellect, and rhetoric shatters reason. This is also the first year in 15million with levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide consistently higher than 400PPM. 2016 is yet again the hottest year since records began. As was 2015. And 2014. And 16 out of the last 17 years. And now the most powerful person on the planet announces that climate change is a Chinese hoax. Advertisement Well, if facts and evidence are losing their impact, let me speak instead of what I see and feel. As I've been traveling for a living for more than twenty years, I have some perspective of how places have changed over time. I don't think of myself as being an old man. Yet the world's population has nearly doubled since I was born, and more than tripled since my parent's birth. Every one of those new people has increased demands on the world's resources, and increased impact on the world around them; and you can SEE it. I decided to put together my oral history of situations where climate change has been much more than esoteric figures on a graph, but instead has been something tangible that you can touch and feel. On my first big solo trip in 1991, I hitchhiked the length of Vietnam, and spent some time in the glorious historic capital of Hanoi. Back then, Hanoi was a silent city; the only sounds the whirr of bicycles, and hawkers selling baguettes filled with pate. Folk moved their stalls and even homes around by pedal power, and it had unparalleled tranquility for such a huge metropolitan centre. In 2001, I went back to film the discovery of a new species of primate for National Geographic. The change over just a decade was cataclysmic. Hanoi now seemed the noisiest place on the planet. Every bicycle had been exchanged for a chugging two-stroke moped, on which people were cramming their entire families. I saw seven people on one moped. The air was thick with smog, the roar continued throughout the night. Borneo is another place I've been back to repeatedly over time. Also in 1991, I took a small plane across Borneo and all I saw below me was rainforest. It was the most exciting thing I'd ever seen, and filled me with a lust for adventure. In those forests Orangutan, proboscis monkeys, gibbons and clouded leopards lived, along with pygmy elephants that when they're cross, will reverse at you, spectacularly farting in your general direction, presumably hoping you'll be too doubled over with laughter to be any more nuisance to them. I returned here in 1997 while writing the Rough Guide to the region. This was the year of the 'Great Burn' where slash and burn agriculture raged out of control. The forests of Southeast Asia were disappearing faster than the Amazon, being hacked down legally and illegally, before the vegetation beneath was burnt away to make way for agriculture. The scale of it was so extraordinary that a layer of smoke covered 1.25 million square miles for most of the year, (the same size as the entirety of India). In the cities there were days you couldn't see the other side of the street. Everyone wore facemasks to protect themselves from the fumes. It cost an estimated 8 billion dollars, and far more in the long-term respiratory complaints people developed. Perhaps 24% of carbon gases come from deforestation, and on this occasion you could taste it in the back of your throat. When I went back to Borneo in 2005, my plane journey was the most depressing of my life. Where before it had been unending forest out to the horizon, now it was nothing but the regimented lines of the oil palm plantations. And once down inside them, you realized the starkest horror. The jungles of Borneo ring with a cacophony of sound, the whooping songs of gibbons, bandsaw roar of cicadas, burps of frogs and ugly squawks of unseen birds. These oil palm plantations were utterly eerily silent, devoid of life. Advertisement My most recent expedition was to attempt to make the first descent of the mighty Baliem river in Papua. I'd traveled much of it back in 1997, and found a tumultuous river created by the equatorial glaciers of a mountain chain that is longer and higher than the Alps. The glacier that the Baliem river originates from however has gone, and I would be gobsmacked if there are still any equatorial glaciers around the world when I reach my dotage. In the Indian Himalaya I returned to an iconic glacier to find it had retreated nearly a mile since my last visit. In Alaska, we compared photos of several glaciers to historical photos taken two decades previously. It was a struggle to even line the photos up as the ice had receded so far. On that same trip, a climate scientist friend showed me that in the northern tundra of Alaska, permafrost had sealed the soil frozen since the last ice age. It was now soggy defrosting mud, and the vegetation was starting to rot. She collected huge bin liners full of methane pouring from the once frozen soils (methane is an even more potent climate change agent than CO2) and set them spectacularly on fire. We abseiled down into moulins, huge whirlpool plugholes in glaciers, where icy meltwater tumbles down into the guts of the glacier. These moulins are getting bigger, form earlier in the year and have increased in frequency, and every one sends water to the bottom of the glacier, lubricating its movement, speeding its demise, ultimately increasing the amount that calves off at the end to become icebergs. Down in Antarctica, we came across a few ancient icebergs where the ice was as clear as diamonds. When you stuck a chunk into your whisky, it vaguely fizzed, as compressed microscopic air bubbles were released. Air that had been trapped in the ice for 10,000 years. With 70% of the world's freshwater sealed in glaciers, ice caps and permanent snow, it's clear that drastic melting will make sea levels rise. Anyone who doubts that should go and dive or snorkel in the Cenotes of Central America. These limestone caves were formed during times when more of the world's water was bound up in ice, and world sea levels much lower. There I've swum alongside stalagmites and stalactites that can only be formed in air, yet are now thirty metres below the surface of the sea. Climate change for me has been most real in the Arctic and Antarctic. Here, temperatures are increasing twice as fast as elsewhere around the world. In Baffin Island I met local Inupiat peoples, who have an oral tradition dating back thousands of years, and an intimate relationship with their land. Their calendar is based around the arrival of the Charr, the blooming of the sourdock, fireweed and cotton grass, and crucially the breakup of the sea ice. These timeless landmark occasions had been the same for millennia and dictate every waking hour. The Inupiat are utterly bewildered that anyone in the outside world could doubt climate change. One friend took me on a tour around the bay in front of his house. 'Up there was a glacier until the late 1980s' he pointed, 'the ice here is forming a month too late, and breaking up a month too early. Polar bears come into the garbage dump to feed and we have to shoot them. We have fish in our seas we've never had before, others that we used to rely on have not been seen for years, and there are now insects here we don't even have names for.' In Alaska, I worked with a biologist who was studying their wild mountain goats and Dall's sheep. In the summer they are plagued by biting blackfly, and move up to the highest slopes to evade their attentions. With every 200m of vertical ascent it gets a degree cooler, and eventually the blackfly cannot follow. However the increase in temperature has already meant the parasites are comfortable even on the highest peaks, and the goats simply have nowhere higher to go. The goats now wander round tormented in incessant circles, unable to feed during the crucial time of summer plenty, and thus their breeding success plummets. There are also very real challenges for whales. Some of my greatest ever wildlife encounters have been with humpbacks, heading to the north to gluttonise and gargantuate on the summer glut of herring, arguably the finest wildlife spectacle on the planet. But the lives of the whales are tied to those periods of summer prosperity, and their prey moves in accordance with vast complex currents, driven by the ever-changing salinity and temperature of their seas. In Iceland earlier this year we worked with perplexed cetacean specialists who reported that warmer sea temperatures meant the normal food fish had moved further north, and been replaced by explosions of mackerel, which the whales don't seem to eat. As a result, their whale sightings have plummeted. Even greater challenges face the true Arctic whales, the bowhead, beluga and narwhal. As the sea ice fragments, it is allowing more boat traffic into their once sacred seas. Hunters can reach them, there are more oil spills, and the introduction of novel pathogens they have no resistance to. Unpredictability in ice formation leads to more animals getting sealed into the ice, and their one predator other than man - the orca - now has unfettered access to them and their calves. We have such an anthropocentric view of the world. We see animals that can survive in seas at -1.8 o C and under Arctic ice as being tough and rugged, because it would be such a challenge for us. But they are a result of millions of years of natural selection that means these wild waters are perfect for them. Existing in such a narrow niche leaves them vulnerable as it changes. The animals that may seem to us the most robust are in some ways the most fragile. And what of the Arctic icon the polar bear? A polar bear gains two thirds of its annual calorie intake from a few precious months out on the pack ice hunting for blubber-rich seals. This June, there were half a million square miles less pack ice than the long-term average, and it broke up 70% faster than normal. A summer with zero Arctic pack ice is imminent; many experts suggest next year could be the first ever. Polar bears are being driven onto land ever earlier and are not only starving, but hybridizing with grizzlies to form so-called 'pizzly' bears. I've been lucky enough to film these extraordinary animals many times, even to be stalked by one when sea kayaking out amongst the Arctic ice. But my most memorable encounters were with bears in the lean times of the summer, when they are eking out a living by whatever means possible. A polar bear climbing vertical cliffs to feed on bird's eggs and hatchlings, and a skinny injured bear eating seaweed, and making half-hearted attempts to attack huge walrus that were clearly much too ambitious prey. She already bore stark wounds from their tusks emblazoned on her flanks. Advertisement And what of the iconic images of a polar bear set adrift on a tiny fragile iceberg on endless Arctic seas. These melancholy tableau have become shorthand for climate change, yet skeptics point out they are disingenuous. A single lonely polar bear on a glacier is no more a result of climate change than that right now I'm outside in shorts and t-shirt in November. After all, polar bears have been stranded as the ice breaks up every single year since the last Ice Age. To this sensible challenge, I must refer to the great philosopher Agent K out of Men In Black; 'A person,' he said, 'is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals.' Recent world events would seem to confirm this is true. People respond to scenarios of great magnitude in a visceral, emotional and personal way. It takes the story of one tortured lion to force us to confront the cruelty of canned hunting, the image of one dead child on a beach to make us connect with the migrant crisis. Perhaps the image of one stranded polar bear cub could succeed in making people wake up to global warming, where facts and figures have failed. In the wake of several political shockwaves and amid ongoing global crises, it can feel that the world faces a future more uncertain than ever before. But as we chart a course through these turbulent times, there are some things that remain certain, and which we can all agree on. Sunday 20th November marks Universal Children's Day, and it is a moment to remind ourselves of that truth. On this day in 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted - setting into international law a set of inalienable rights common to every child, regardless of their circumstances. Each year, millions of children are born into the world, every single one with unique potential. Sadly - and all too easily - the potential of each child can be supressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. Advertisement In challenging times like these, we should work doubly hard to tackle those challenges, and uphold children's rights to lead happy and healthy lives. Across the world, we can draw strength and inspiration today from examples of those who are doing just that. In a somewhat forgotten crisis in east Africa, children are fleeing civil war in Burundi, having lost contact with family members or worse, witnessed their murder. They are arriving in refugee camps in Tanzania, traumatised, injured, and very much alone. The refugees there have been left with nothing - and yet from them, we can learn so much about how to treat one another, and to ensure that children are looked after no matter what. Through projects set up by the children's charity Plan International UK, families in the refugee camps in Tanzania are becoming 'foster families', taking in and caring for orphaned and abandoned children. Advertisement Twelve-year-old Ines, who has found shelter with a foster family in Tanzania, is one such child. "In Burundi people are always fighting," she says. "I made it to the border with Tanzania, and I met another family that were fleeing the violence. Since I was all alone, they became my new family. "My foster mom takes care of me, and doesn't shout at me. It's calm and I feel safe here." In other parts of the world, too, people are going above and beyond to ensure children are kept safe. Fleeing an unrelenting war in Syria, desperate families are making journeys to neighbouring countries and to Europe, where we are seeing the continent's worst refugee crisis since the Second World War. Those children who survive the perilous journey arrive traumatised, physically exhausted and disturbed. Once they settle in safer territory, they will continue to suffer the impact of displacement - on their health, education and wellbeing. As well as shelter, food, medical services, education, and water and sanitation, these children urgently require psychological support and places to learn and play, where they can come to terms with the horrors they have seen and lived through. Twelve year-old Abdel-Rahman fled from Syria to Egypt, where he and his family have been receiving support from Plan International. Advertisement "When we arrived in Egypt," he says, "people smiled at us and treated us in a good way. Then we went to the place where we were going to stay, and only then I felt safe and was able to sleep deeply." Plan International's work has its roots in another time of great upheaval, the 1930s. Having seen first-hand the plight of children orphaned during the Spanish Civil War, British journalist John Langdon-Davies was determined to help. Langdon-Davies wanted to provide not only food, shelter, and education to the children but also a sense that someone, somewhere, was thinking about them as an individual. The scheme asked British people to donate one shilling a day to provide a child with food and shelter, and just as importantly, asked them to write letters and send photos to the child to show them that somewhere, someone cared about them. This was the beginning of what we now call child sponsorship, which helps to improve the lives of children in fifty countries. The nature of work that Plan International does has, of course, changed over time, but the need to care for vulnerable children remains at the heart of what we do. As we look ahead to more difficult times to come, it's important to be guided by our fundamental duty to children. Advertisement To learn more about Plan International UK, please visit https://plan-uk.org/ Meet Sudeshna Chowdhury, An extraordinary young brave woman from Sweden with Indian heritage that is devoting her life to advocate issues concerning sexual violence and gender inequality in Sweden and India. Sudeshna has first time experience of living "in hell" under extreme abusive circumstances and has been a victim of Honor Related Violence including sexual assaults since as long as she can remember until she got out from her so called home at the age of 16. Up until then no one had taken her repeated cries for help seriously or removed her from the unbearable situation she was in. Advertisement Today Sudeshna does everything she can to make a difference in the world by raising awareness about this very important matter and work hands on to make a change, so that children in her situation doesn't have to go through what she had to go through. She has taken her own experience and turned it remarkably well to something positive with her hard work and passion for change, even though it could be far from safe to do so. This is not something that is going on in a remote country that we have never visited or heard of, this is going on now around us, even in "safe Sweden" I have had the pleasure to meet and work with Sudeshna and are now including this interview as the third interview in my "In the Spotlight" series, that is focusing on people that are doing good in the World to inspire others to follow, I hope you enjoy the read. Advertisement What is your name, age, home country and occupation? Sudeshna Chowdhury, 28, Sweden, I advocate for issues concerning sexual violence and gender inequality and I am working as a waitress to pay my bills. What or who inspired you to start working against trafficking? The fact that people still today claims that prostitution is a free choice, a matter of liberty, when the reality is that it's the very opportunity to any type of liberalism. Prostitution is the utter most oppression, a symptom of the society we live in. A society that teaches our children that it's legitimate to take advantage of some of societies most vulnerable. People that have suffered from severe violence and trauma that I have met. I strongly believe that we're harming both the human beings in prostitution, but also the human beings that were teaching that it's ok to harm others. Despite all the evil I've seen and myself experienced, I can finally say that I believe that there is good in human kind but because of lack of love and acknowledgement, people harm others. I believe it's my and every one else's duty to work for a change, for a brighter future for the coming generations. What was the first project you got involved in and why? I joined the international youth movement Freethem that works with changing attitudes and prevention regarding trafficking and pornography. Just a few months after I joined Freethem, I moved to India, and did some social work in Sonagachi. The support and the inspiration from my fellow Freethem co-workers was a contribution to take this brave and at that time scary decision. At that time I had a very well paid job, an apartment in a good neighborhood and life was from a western point of view doing great. But inside I was suffering and had this feeling of life can't consist of paying my bills, buying fancy clothes and attend fun social events. At the same time I've fought extremely hard to get where I finally where, and it was frightening to give up the things I've work so hard for. It's almost been three years and even though I've sometimes had nervous breakdowns and cried like a baby, because I haven't had a clue how I'm going to pay my bills, I've never ever regretted my decision. There is absolutely nothing I would have done differently. How would you inspire others to get involved in a project? Doing good for others have truly changed my life to the better. I'm not going to lie and say that it's always great. To be fair, at least half of the time it really sucks to bare the burden of the evil in the world, but whenever I get to talk about my work I feel a deep satisfaction. I don't feel bad or have any guilty conscience. For instance, now that Trump won the election, I was not totally devastated, because I know that I'm doing everything in my power to make the world a better place. But maybe the most important, when you see that your hard work results in positive life changes among others, for instance people getting out of drug abuse, there's nothing in the world that can buy you that feel of relief and tranquility. What are you most proud of? Despite the fact that I've been taught since I was born that I need the protection from men, I managed to survive in one of worlds most dangerous places as a woman. Whenever I've visited my relatives in India they've forced me (as a child) to dress in a certain way and never go out without a man, otherwise "bad things would happen". I proved everyone wrong by dressing the way exactly as I wanted to and went to red light districts without being accompanied by any man, but not a single sex buyer had the guts to dare to sexually assault me. I think I managed to prove to a whole lot of people that girls are strong and powerful, and the limitations people set up to "protect" us, is in fact oppression, a way to hinder our freedom. How does it make you feel to do good for others? Truly good! The more good I give out, the more good I get back. Which in the end makes me more happy and peaceful. If there was one thing you could change to make the world a better place, what would that be? Educate every child! Education is the key to tolerance, equality and positive growth. If you could name one organisation that you have come across or worked with that you think does a phenomenal job, which organisation would that be? Advertisement The network of Freedom Business companies in Kolkata. It's private companies with the concept that they're hiring women from the sex trade in India. It's a creative way of doing good for society. If the company is growing, it means more women that can leave prostitution. The companies have a holistic perspective and offers counseling, childcare, loans without interest etc. to help the employees out of prostitution. If you could name one person that you have come across or worked with that you think does a phenomenal job against trafficking or for human rights, which person would that be? Her name is "Z" and she works as a social worker at one of the freedom business companies in India that I have worked for. She was herself a victim of trafficking at the age of 12. She was lured at refugee camp by a person she trusted so deeply that she called her a sister. Many years later she had the opportunity to join one of the freedom network companies as a social worker. She literally gives all her life for the women in the red light districts. She knows everyone's name, they're family situation, background etc. It takes years to build a relationship and get the trust from the girls, since they've been through severe sexual traumas, but she never gives up. She's always there and tells the girls that they're worthy and whenever they're ready, they're welcome to her. What is the most unexpected thing that has happened during your charity work? This might not be unexpected from a logical point of view, but from a human perspective it tears my heart. I became friends with a girl in Sonagachi, we were sort of the same age. I tried to encourage and support her to leave prostitution, her destructive relationship and drug abuse. She was going in the right direction; she actually ended the abusive relationship she was in at that time. One day she was suddenly gone and when I tried to find out what happened it was kind of the feeling "mind your own business". I still don't know what happened with her and I have a bad feeling that she's actually dead today. Is there anything in particular that you want to share with us? A moment? A project? A person? A result? A change? A message? An article? A biography? A mantra? A quote? Advertisement The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do How do you think you have made a difference with your work? Working with raising awareness and social work is very hard to measure. But sometimes you actually see other people rephrase the conversations you actually had about a certain topic. Or when you bring up a topic which is seem to be controversial at first, but after sometime people talk about it as an issue, like it's self evident. I've seen that both regarding prostitution and the porn industry. Ulrika Lorenz www.dogoodnews.com John Murphy, VP of Marketplace Quality, OpenX Think back, way back, to the early 2000s. Odds are you remember the home page takeovers and painfully irrelevant pop-ups that interfered with your browsing incessantly. We've made a lot of progress over the last decade and a half but even as we succeed at finding new ways to improve digital advertising, new threats have emerged. Malware. Forced redirects. Auto-play audio and video. All of these threats weaken the consumer experience, and ultimately drive them away from publishers. At many of the biggest advertising events this year, including Cannes and Advertising Week NY, industry players expressed concerns about ad quality and performance. To create an improved user experience that leads to a better ROI, publishers, brands, and technology partners in the middle must all deliver better ads ones that aren't intrusive and disruptive, but engaging and highly relevant to consumers' current wants and needs. Zero In On Ad Quality To some extent, ad quality is subjective; good ads are in the eye of the beholder (or in this case, the consumer). But clearly there are forms of advertising that are objectively bad for the user experience. Display ads that block content or are unsafe (like malware) are plainly unacceptable. They interfere with the publisher-user value exchange, and that can create negative feelings toward both the site and brand. Advertisement Another aspect of online advertising that consumers tend to scrutinize is speed. Thanks to fast-loading apps, consumers expectations for online and mobile ad experience are constantly rising. It's one of the reasons why many users have resorted to employing ad blockers. To your audience, ads that slow down their experience can be as objectionable as those that might put them at risk. The ultimate goal for sellers and buyers should be to create engaging messaging while also improving ad performance: delivering relevant ads fast. Publishers and technology platforms can help indirectly by educating advertisers on the importance of knowing the weight of an ad and how it could impact load times and user experience. Mitigate the Effects of Malware Malicious software is a blight on the digital marketing landscape that continues to spread. Converting publishers from passive players to active participants in improving ad quality and getting full industry buy-in will help to incapacitate malware, but it isn't enough. For example, if a publisher is using the latest browser and operating system, the risk of an attack is much lower, but with programmatic now representing more than two-thirds of all US digital display ad spending, malware can target systems that aren't up to date. The solution? Many premium publishers are now working with monitoring companies like The Media Trust, on both security and user experience. After that, sites should align themselves with a trustworthy monetization partner for their targeted programmatic campaigns, as this approach protects publishers and brands alike. The Future of Advertising is Bright Many wonder what the future has in store. Can we really do enough to effect change? The fact is that today countless publishers aren't fully aware of the types of ads that are running on their sites, how these ads affect page load times, and how they might be degrading the user experience. This lack of insight dramatically reduces their ability to improve the advertising experience, and will continue to do so in the months and years to come. Advertisement It's important, therefore, that publishers become active, informed participants in improving ad quality. Take a closer look at what you're putting out into the online world, and prioritize quality assurance and optimization to create a better ad experience for all. The adtech industry can help this along by empowering publishers with better controls and greater visibility into ads that are running to ensure that users are satisfied and that the integrity of the ad marketplace is preserved. Since the early days of digital publishing, publishers have grappled with the issue of trust. In order to build a loyal audience that's of value to their advertisers, publishers must deliver appealing, informative content that consumers can rely on. At the same time, to maintain their user base and keep consumers coming back, publishers have to serve ads that accurately reflect audience preferences and behavior. The common thread that ties these two efforts together is quality: quality content, quality ads, and a high-quality user experience. Achieving this doesn't fall to individual publishers, brands, or ad exchanges. Rather, it's a mission for the industry as a whole. By Heather Taylor She has flowing hair and wears a crown like adornment atop her head. Her face is serene and her all-knowing grin is akin to the Mona Lisa if Da Vincis masterpiece was ever a secret coffee enthusiast, that is. Since 1971, the ubiquitous image of the Starbucks Siren has been a constant companion to coffee cups from the chain. Whether tall, grande, or venti, if youre spotted carrying a cuppa joe with a green siren printed on the cups packaging it is universally known that you just went to Starbucks. Much like the Mona Lisa, the Starbucks Siren is iconic and also a modern-day mystery to us mere mortals. Dive on in to the depths as we reveal a glimpse into the world of this elusive 45-year-old brand mascot and why she should never be confused with a mermaid. Hailing from Greek mythology to become the face of a brand. As the Starbucks Company Profile states, twin-tailed sirens from Greek mythology inspired the brand logo. Perfectly fitting since the name Starbucks was taken from Herman Melvilles Moby Dick, named after the first mate. Advertisement Steve Murray, Creative Director at Starbucks, says that the founders stumbled upon a picture of a woodcut of a siren while looking through old seafaring textbooks. In that moment, everything clicked. [The siren] is from the sea and coffee comes from across the ocean. Seattle is a kind of seafaring town and it seemed to fit together well, adding a mythical feel to it too. Lest the Starbucks siren ever be confused with a mermaid, keep in mind the number of tails she has. Sirens are known for having twin tails while mermaids only have one. And while Murray assures us that the Siren is not inspired by anyone living, the team at Starbucks does consider her to be real in her own respect. Shes the biggest symbol, and face, of our brand. Advertisement A Siren evolves through the decades. In 1971, the original Siren logo illustration truly embodied her folkloric roots. A twin tail in each hand, the Siren was drawn in brown and white with visible cleavage, a stomach with a naval, and only the faintest hint of a smile on her face. While sailors have been known to fall victim to a sirens song, this one was stylized over time to keep from being viewed negatively by consumers as the coffee brand began to take off in popularity. In 1987, her long flowing hair was moved to the front of her chest and the brown and white colors were discarded for modern greens, blacks, and whites. 1992 saw the disappearance of her stomach and naval completely, with the tails barely noticeable in her hand as her face was zoomed in on. In her most recent 2011 reincarnation, the Siren is completely green and white with wavy hair and twin tails peeking out on either side of her. The name of the coffee brand has been removed from the logo too. In a blog post on 1912 Pike, the Starbucks Coffee Blog, the most recent Siren revamp meant cleaning up the icon a bit with styled hair and light face work. Id say shes gotten a little more modest, Murray says on the Sirens transformation, But mostly the same if you look at her face across all those times. It has stayed pretty consistent. Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, echoes Murrays sentiments when the logo was updated in 2011, The new interpretation of the logo, at its core, is the exact same essence of the Starbucks experience What I think weve done is that we have allowed her to come out of the circle in a way that I think gives us the freedom and flexibility to think beyond coffee. Advertisement Breathing life into the Siren in 2016 and beyond. Since her last major design revamp in 2011, the Siren has also been spotted journeying beyond coffee cups to gift cards in special edition Starbucks Cards. Created by Dana Deininger, Senior Designer at Starbucks, the original illustration depicted the Siren in a pencil sketch. In one hand, she clutched a coffee tree branch and in the other, a coffee cup hovered above her hand. Deiningers drawing captured the Siren lost in her own world and the image transitioned to the cards. Brushstokes of metallic blues and greens in the sea surrounded her and a layer of shimmering gold foil was added to accentuate her tree branch and twin tails. One week after America elected a climate change skeptic as its next president, John Kerry the outgoing Secretary of State stressed that the US is still trying to Trump-proof the Paris climate pact. "This is bigger than one person, one president. We have to figure out how we're going to stop this." In an emotional plea which received a standing ovation at last week's UN climate talks in Marrakech, he asked Donald Trump: Advertisement "On behalf of billions of people around the world, do your own due diligence before making irrevocable choices. No-one has the right to make decisions that affect billions of people based solely on ideology. The question now is not whether we will transition to a clean energy economy. But, whether we will make the transition in time ... to prevent catastrophic damage." He added: "Time is not on our side." His comments came after the EU, China, India and oil rich Russia and Saudi Arabia, all urged the president-elect to honor the agreement: "The US is very important for the climate process. But at the same time we need to recognise that the climate issue is a global issue. And, this process is resilient enough to move forward," said a Saudi delegate. Echoing their calls, over 360 big businesses including HP, Kellogg and Nike all reaffirmed their commitment to the deal. Advertisement The news came as scientists warned that 2016 is on track to be the hottest year on record. That means that 16 out of the 17 warmest years in history have all taken place this century. The World Meteorological Organization described the findings as "very alarming." Given the gravity of the situation, the EU gave Trump a thinly veiled warning last week: the U.S. risks an international backlash if it pulls out of the pact. The Paris accord is the end product of nearly 20 years of UN climate negotiations. In the past, rich and poor nations clashed over who should make the bulk of the cuts. But, last December, as the science grew ever more frightening, nearly 200 countries signed up to rein in their carbon emissions. Their aim: to keep world temperatures below the 2 degrees Celsius mark, with further ambitions to stay below 1.5C. And, whilst that may not sound like much, according to the World Bank, 2C is enough to push millions of people into poverty as basic resources such as food and water slip out of reach. Advertisement Forget battles over oil: the future will be marked by bloodshed over water. That's why last year's Paris pact was hailed as such a "historic" victory. And, when it came into effect earlier this month, the world could finally release a long sigh of relief. However, 4 days later, Trump shook the world to its very core when he won the White House. And, his stance on global warming, which he describes as "very expensive bullshit", can be summed up by one simple tweet: it's a big hoax cooked up the Chinese to sabotage American manufacturing. Last Wednesday, China had to remind Trump that the climate talks were in fact "initiated by the IPCC" together with his Republican Party "during the Reagan" era. Beijing urged the president-elect to make the "smart decision". Alas, the fate of our climate has never looked so bleak. Since winning the election, the former reality TV star has only filled his cabinet with one climate change sceptic after another. And, according to one Trump transition source, he is exploring all options to tear up the Paris pact. And, he has 3 destructive options to choose from. Firstly, he could simply pull out of the accord. According to the agreement however, no nation can exit the treaty for a period of 3 years, plus a year-long notice period. Advertisement Secondly, Trump could withdraw from the accord's parent treaty: the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. That will only take one year. Thirdly, he could just ignore the accord, and; scrap Obama's signature plan to curb emissions from America's power stations; give the green light to highly polluting projects such as the Keystone Pipeline; and, he could drill, dig and pollute whilst Big Oil, Gas and Coal all smack their lips as they toast one multibillion dollar deal after another. So much for "Draining That Swamp." Alternatively, Trump could truly 'Make America Great Again'. He could put large swathes of the country back to work by firing up the clean energy sector. They could all earn a respectable living by building wind farms, solar panels and batteries which are now not only cheaper than dirty fossil fuels, but less prey to price fluctuations. Not only will this bring manufacturing squarely back to the U.S., but it will also create an infinite number of jobs, whilst fulfilling Trump's campaign pledge for "complete American energy independence," from the "oil cartels." He could even line that Mexican Wall of his with solar panels. But, if Trump disengages, and turns his back on the world, he will hand "the next industrial revolution lock, stock and barrel to the Chinese". Advertisement Moreover, it would be such "a highly provocative move, it would escalate non-cooperation to the highest level possible," warns climate law expert Farhana Yamin. So, if Trump does indeed go rogue, the U.S. risks becoming an international pariah, sparking a domino effect which may sour all of its other global aspirations. Whether that will be enough to tame the mercurial Donald Trump remains to be seen. One can but hope that America's next tweeter-in-chief will heed, otherwise he will be remembered as "the man who killed the world's last, best chance" to save our climate. Perhaps, he can find some wisdom in the words of his predecessor Barack Obama: The choice of a place to live is a big and important decision. It is a decision that affects not only you but all members of your family as well. While the search for a new apartment could be a tedious, it could be equally exciting. In your hunt however, it is good to remain meticulous and avoid making rash decision that will not be favorable in the long run. There are some very important factors you want to make sure you are cleared on before signing a lease agreement. As a house is more than the painting and the layout, you should avoid falling victim of poor house renting decision. Thus, we have put together a list of important things to watch out for in renting a new apartment. We hope this could guide your search and prepare you on what to expect 1.Is a Co-signer Required? Most Landlords do require potential tenants to meet a credit check as well as a certain income standard. Thus, in major cities like New York, Boston, you might be required to have an income that is 40 times your monthly rent. This is to ensure that you have the capacity to pay the rent as at when due.However, if you are unable to meet the requirements, you will require a co-signer (a guarantor) to sign the lease. He will also agree to take the fall in case you are unable to make the rent. Co-signers can come in form of close friends or family members. Note however that landlords might charge a fee to make a credit/background check. Thus, be aware of the cost. A detailed discussion with your real estate agent will guide you through what should know regarding the agreement. Advertisement 2.Will Decorating the Apartment Attract Penalty? Some landlords do require that you need their permission in written form before decorating or painting the house. This is usually included in the lease agreement. While some leases will require the apartment to be returned to the very condition you met in. Thus, whatever you want to do in the house in the form of decoration - be it hanging artwork, wallpapers, nails in the walls etc, might need to be reversed when you are leaving the apartment. In the words of Daniel Bignold, the CEO of CommercialView, "decoration is one of the top reasons people lose their security deposit on a rented apartment" 3.The Security Condition of The House This is a factor you cannot afford to take lightly in your quest for a new apartment. However, quite a number of factors need to be accessed to judge the security condition of the house. Are the exterior lightings in good condition? Does the apartment have a security code? If so, you need to have the codes as well as the remote controls. Are the windows in good condition? Do they close and lock properly? Do the windows have leaks that could affect the insulation of the house? Are the doors leading outside in good condition? Is there evidence of attempted break-ins? Having an idea of the above will let you know if you will be required to make additional investment to cater for your security. Besides, if it's a large building, you will want to make sure that there are working security cameras around. Advertisement 4.What is the Pet Policy? This is one of the minute things you should be cleared on. The pet policy of your landlord should be crystal clear. While some landlord will out rightly disallow pet, some might give an exceptions. Carefully go through your lease agreement and check the policy about animals. Some might allow small dogs but disallow giant ones.However, some landlords might require you to pay a pet security deposit.According to Drew Doggett, the co-founder of Kobalt Consulting, a real estate marketing company in Colorado, "many landlords now uses pet-friendliness as a marketing strategy." 5.Are You Safe in The House? Although we already talked about external security issues, but what about sickness, infection and allergies? This is where you need an expert to help do a thorough analysis and assessment of the house. We will give some examples: Are there molds? While most molds are not dangerous, some could be. And they could trigger allergies in the occupants of the house. Thus, you should check for moist places and basement if there is. Besides, you could consider employing the services of a mold inspector. Is there loose fill asbestos? This is a dangerous form of asbestos that might not post any serious health danger if not tampered with. However, it crumbles easily, requiring an increase level of caution by occupants. The major risk of loose fill insulation asbestos is that it releases tiny fibres into the air. These fibers have the potential to cause very deadly illness and might not manifest till many years later. 6.How Are Maintenance Problem Handled? While some apartment might have on-site building managers residing on the property, others might not. Thus, in the case of emergency, you might be required to hire the services of a professional, which might be limited to business hours. You need to know how to report emergency conditions to your landlord, as well as their speed of response. Having to call an electrician to replace a burnt fuse could leave you with a nasty bill! In Conclusion International Remittance Perseverance If a family member is working in another country and needs to make a money transfer this transaction is known as a remittance. International remittances in many cases are the lifelines securing hope and economic security for loved ones living in less prosperous nations. Despite the necessity for this $600-billion industry, remittances have not always been easy to send and receive. A Seattle-based company, Remitly, is looking to provide a better and cheaper way to relieve some of the stress out of that process. While working for Barclays Bank in Kenya as their Head of Mobile Banking, Matt Oppenheimer, experienced the difficulty of sending and receiving money from other countries. But it was even more painful for his Kenyan friends. He thought there must be an easier and faster way to help these people. There wasn't at the time. So, he started to work with some amazingly talented people to build it and it later became Remitly. Advertisement A few words from Co-Founder Matt Oppenheimer: What gets you out of bed in the morning? Helping people. That starts with customers. We make a hugely positive impact in our customers' lives. They've made huge sacrifices as most have moved thousands of miles away from their family, largely so they could earn a bit more money to support their loved ones back home. Yet helping people also extends to our team. I love working with my remarkable colleagues that share a passion to serve customers in a broken industry. Giving them a challenging but rewarding place to work and seeing them thrive motivates me. What has been your biggest challenge in starting your own company? There is a reason that money transmission hasn't been disrupted in over 100 years. The money transmission compliance/licensing, risk systems, capital requirements, international banking network, product complexities, and finally marketing/trust building with customers are all very complex. It's hard to know where to start because you must do them all at the same time, which is hard. While these challenges were unique to Remitly, huge challenges are part of every entrepreneur's journey. If it was easy, 100 other people would have done it. Perseverance and staying truly dedicated to solving a problem and helping people pays off and is what being an entrepreneur is all about. What's the most important thing you're working on right now, and how are you making it happen? Remitly currently allows customers to send money from North America to ten countries around the globe. While that's great, we're really just getting started. There are 200 million migrants around the globe that would like to use our services so we're all about getting our product in as many countries as possible so more customers can use it. Advertisement What advice would you tell someone who was starting their own company, today? Find something you're truly passionate about and then don't give up trying to solve it. Be relentlessly focused on the problem you're trying to solve but flexible on the solution. On November 19th, at about 2:00am -- an hour calculated to prevent press, human rights defenders, and the citizenry from being present -- hundreds of police officers circled the Campamento por la Paz in Bogota's Plaza de Bolivar. By 2:30am, more than 300 police and special anti-disturbance officers had blocked the entrances to the plaza; ESMAD ("Escuadron Movil Antidisturbios," or Anti-riot Mobile Squad) set up barricades two blocks away in each direction. In the coming hours media representatives, human rights lawyers, and fellow campistas would be denied entrance or news of what was occurring inside. Those in the Campamento awoke to find themselves surrounded by full armed guard. The Campamento por la Paz was established out of frustration and desperation after the "No" victory in a plebiscite meant to ratify peace accords between the government and FARC. An unprecedented Occupy-type movement in Colombia, the Campamento por la Paz lasted 45 nights, welcoming more and more citizens to wait, learn, sing, and advocate for change together. But Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa, known for his crackdown on "undesirables" in public spaces, decided to forcefully end this symbol of peaceful resistance. That night, officers gave the campistas ten minutes to collect their property. Upon begging, the campistas were granted five minutes more. At the end of those fifteen minutes the officers began dragging the tents away, ignoring the crying of campistas, many of whom possess little else than that which was trashed. Many campistas are victims of the armed conflict (of which there are more than 8 million in Colombia), those whom the government supposedly affords particular protection. Yet police officers laughed as they watched fellow state agents displace the displaced, destroying tents that represented renewed hope after decades of war. Advertisement Some campistas attempted to resist peacefully. They sat down, sang, and read poetry. The officers continued to pile tents, possessions, and food supplies gathered through donations into a garbage pile. They broke and burned the table used to welcome visitors. One woman woke to an officer yelling through her tent; she asked for a moment to get dressed, and the officer responded by ripping her tent open so that he could watch. An Argentinian campista was told he would be put on a plane and deported immediately; he was only saved when a fellow campista who happened to be a lawyer confronted the police with the Argentinian's residency documents. Throughout, the campistas comforted each other, keeping each other calm and passive. When the officers finished piling up possessions, they circled closer and closer around the campistas, hitting with shields anyone who wouldn't move towards the center. Some campistas realized that there were intelligence agents among them, dressed in civilian clothing and gathering information on who was there. Once all campistas were corralled, the officers told them that they had been held long enough and must exit the square. Those few who tried to peacefully resist, to keep singing and reading poetry, were dragged forcefully into police trucks. Officers dragged one woman into a truck by her hair. Another had her finger broken in a truck door. When the campistas outside the square saw police trucks leaving, they made a human chain to block the road. Meanwhile, police officers were beating campistas inside the vehicles. Hearing that someone inside a truck had been injured, a frantic campista tried to convince an officer to provide medical attention; the officer responded that the injured man could die for all he cared. The truck doors eventually opened, an ambulance eventually arrived, and campistas had temporary relief. Until police vehicles with water hoses arrived to threaten them. All remaining campistas left at that point. Everyone was alive. And scarred. Ten people would receive medical compensation for police-inflicted injuries. Advertisement One could list all of the international, regional, and national laws broken in that dawn operation, a demonstration of state violence against a group promoting peace. But ultimately, it is public opinion that must respond, not just the judicial system. Indeed, just hours before the attack on the camp the Colombian Constitutional Court affirmed protections against arbitrary detention and police harassment in Sentencia T-594. By destroying the Campamento that night, the Mayor of Bogota showed how seriously he takes such judicial mandates. Moreover, he calculated that there would be little political impact. That the rest of the city, the country, and indeed the world would go on sleeping. 1620s FIRST LANDING OF MAYFLOWER PILGRIMS LEAD BY MYLES STANDISH NOVEMBER 9 1620 PLYMOUTH BAY COLONY MUS (Photo by Charles Phelps Cushing/ClassicStock/Getty Images) Those celebrating Thanksgiving in the U.S. should take a moment to reflect on the holiday's origins: on the pilgrims who found sanctuary here from religious persecution. Dinner table discussion topic: Would the refugees of 1620 be welcome in the United States of 2017? During the third presidential debate, then-candidate Donald Trump said that President Obama's admission of Syrian refugees was a "great Trojan horse" and his son, Donald Jr, underscored the vilification of refugees by comparing them to a poisoned Skittle in the candy jar. During the campaign, candidate Trump also repeatedly exaggerated the number of Syrian refugees that President Obama had actually admitted to the United States: Trump said 200,000; the number was 12,587 in FY 2016; 1,682 in FY 2015; 105 in FY 2014, and 36, 31, and 29 in the years FY 2013, 2012, and 2011--a total of 14,470 during a period of warfare in Syria that produced nearly 5 million refugees. Advertisement President-elect Trump's "100-day action plan to make America great again" calls for suspending immigration from "terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur." He appears set to consider many countries that produce large numbers of refugees -- like Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan -- to be terror prone. This, of course, begs the question about protecting the people from such regions who resist and flee terror. It raises the prospect that the US refugee resettlement program -- not just for Syrian refugees -- could be reduced to next to nothing. The US refugee resettlement program exists, in part, because of the failure of the United States to do more to save refugees from Nazi Germany, many of whom were ostensibly refused because they could not be properly vetted. Since the end of World War II the US resettlement program has managed to rescue hundreds of thousands refugees from behind the Iron Curtain, from Khmer Rouge-controlled Cambodia, and from Iran. Those admitted were properly vetted -- despite barriers to information in their home countries -- through extensive interviews while in their countries of first arrival and thorough cross-checking with other sources of information. And the U.S. can do the same today. Why is that? Because Syrians and other refugees who cannot be vetted do not get into the United States. Period. And those who are admitted go through the most intensive scrutiny of the 181 million visitors and immigrants who enter the United States in a year. Unlike for Europe, where refugees have already crossed borders and are now seeking asylum, the U.S. refugee admissions process takes about two years, on average, and that is often after the refugees have spent many years in camps. Before a refugee comes to the attention of the United States, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) conducts its own thorough refugee status determination, which excludes anyone suspected of serious criminality. Only 1 percent of refugees are ever resettled. And those lucky few do not choose their country of resettlement. UNHCR makes that choice. It is well aware of the stringent US security requirements and priorities, and only refers refugees who it believes match those criteria. Advertisement For the small fraction of Syrian refugees who do receive UNHCR referrals to the United States, their resettlement journey is far from over. The U.S. vetting process involves not only extensive investigation by the Department of Homeland Security, but also by the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, and other agencies. The refugee undergoes multiple and overlapping interviews and processing hurdles, biometric INTERPOL checks, as well as medical exams. The slightest cause for concern can stop the process in its tracks. Refugees have been denied entry on terrorism-related grounds as attenuated as working at a food stand in a terrorist-controlled city. Frankly, there are far easier and more direct ways for terrorists to enter the United States -- as demonstrated by the 9/11 hijackers. And many of the mass atrocity acts in the United States have been perpetrated by U.S.-born American citizens -- of various ethnic and religious backgrounds. No system is 100 percent free of risk. But Trump's scare-mongering on refugees is out of all proportion to reality: of the nearly 800,000 refugees resettled in the U.S. since September 11, 2001, three have been arrested for planning terrorist activities. Given his electoral-college victory, Donald Trump has amassed short-term political capital. Early indications are that he will fritter it away. Beginning January 20, 2017, Americans should expect an ultra-conservative government accentuated by Trump's impetuousness and irascibility. We can count on the Trump Administration to overreach. That's why Trump will misuse his political capital. Trump was elected because his supporters believed he would shakeup the economic order. Before the election, Democratic pollster Pat Caddell's survey of likely voters found 87 percent of respondents believed, "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." The New York Times exit poll indicated that of those voters whose most important candidate quality was "can bring needed change," 83 percent chose Trump. Advertisement Jobs: Trump should use his political capital for a massive job-creation initiative. In his election night speech, Trump said: "We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. 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." What Trump is suggesting seems to be the same program that President Obama suggested after the initial recovery from the great recession. This was blocked by congressional Republicans. Now Trump is proposing a similar infrastructure-based jobs program but with a different method of financing: "The American Infrastructure Act leverages public-private partnerships and private investments through tax incentives to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over the next ten years." For example, in Trump's plan, America would finance new highways by giving construction companies tax incentives up front and, after the highway was completed, letting the builder charge tolls. It seems unlikely that Trump will get the support of establishment Republicans. If Trump really is a transformational president -- if he really is serious about changing a rigged system -- then he will use his political capital to push through a real infrastructure program. For an early reading of Trump's intention, watch what happens when the Indianapolis Carrier factory closes. (For comparison six months into the Trump Administration: as of 11/8/16, the U.S. unemployment rate was 4.9 percent, the number of manufacturing jobs was 12.2 million, and quarterly GDP growth was 2.9 percent.) Advertisement Immigration: Rather than focus on jobs, Trump will likely settle for some sort of immigration initiative. During his campaign, Trump made three immigration-related promises: build "a wall" along the U.S. Mexico border, deport all of America's undocumented immigrants, and block immigration of all Muslims. Early indications are that Trump has softened his position on each of these. Initially Trump said his wall would be 1,000 miles long, rise 35-40 feet, and cost $8 billion. the Washington Post studied Trump's wall design and estimated that it would cost $25 billion for design and material; in addition, the construction would require "40,000 workers per year for at least four years." Trump has backed off his demand that Mexico pay for the wall which leaves its funding an open question. One way to finance the wall would be to hide it in the Department of Homeland Security budget -- estimated at more than $40 billion in FY 2017. If packaged in this fashion, the Trump Administration could try to sell the wall as a "twofer," a combination security measure and jobs initiative -- even though the construction jobs would not help workers in the rust-belt states. Trump has also softened his position on deporting illegal immigrants. Pew Research says there are actually 11.3 million illegal immigrants (who comprise about 5.1 percent of the US labor force) Advertisement Now Trump says he would initially deport "two million to three million immigrants" he sees as criminals or "dangerous." Fact checkers say there are only "820,000 undocumented immigrants living in the US with a criminal record." Finally, in December Trump called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." Once again his position has evolved and now Trump calls for banning immigrants from "terrorist countries." It's clear that Trump could ban immigrants from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria without much congressional opposition. Trade: Rather than focus on jobs or immigration, Trump might take the easy way out and focus his political capital on trade. During his campaign Trump railed against trade deals such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and NAFTA. While the TPP is already dead -- it can't get the necessary congressional votes, NAFTA continues. Trump could kill it without getting congressional approval by invoking article 2205 on January 20th -- US withdrawal would happen six months later. It's unclear what the impact would be. Advertisement The "Harry Potter" star said he wanted queer and trans kids who identified with his character "to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way." Photo courtesy of Shutterstock There is still much left to play out in the next 10 weeks when it comes to President-elect Donald Trump's foreign aid and global development policies but it is clear that soon the development community will be grappling with new policies, funding priorities (or lack thereof), and a new order that will change the way we all do the business of 'doing good' abroad. Trump has been clear in letting the world know that his "America first" policies also mean that he would rather focus U.S. foreign aid on projects directly associated with what he perceives to be critically threatening to the United States, mainly terrorism and immigration. So that leaves us with a development agenda that is radically different than our current one. As we've witnessed through experience, foreign aid and global development policies have the potential to be more successful in addressing issues like terrorism when we take a multi-pronged approach that also addresses issues like global poverty, democracy, and human rights at their root levels. On the development hit list: Our support of the United Nations, World Bank, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). At this stage, we could bet that development assistance will likely be positioned early on in the Trump administration as wasteful and corruption-ridden. USAID, long been considered by many conservatives, as an agency that should be eliminated, will likely take a hit in funding and staffing. Also, the question remains on whether the new administration will have the State Department absorb USAID or if it will remain an independent agency. The United Nations and the World Bank may be characterized as bureaucratically broken and ineffective, therefore less worthy of time and financial investments. Advertisement While it has been made abundantly clear that climate change initiatives will not be a focus, as Trump has told us he'll cancel U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement, there are other areas that will likely take a hit. Current priority areas like global poverty alleviation, open society projects, women and girls empowerment projects, human rights initiatives, and our overall commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), will likely be limited on a light development agenda. Strategy will likely be more focused on continued but reduced emergency humanitarian response, violent extremism and terrorism, and potentially, the encouragement of private-sector investments in developing countries. Feed the Future, President Obama's foreign food security initiative and Power Africa, an energy access project, are examples of how private investment in foreign aid programs can work, and they are both backed by Congress. It will be tremendously important for the Trump administration (and a Republican-controlled Congress), to thoroughly review their unfolding development agenda and see how this wide range of current policies and priorities can positively contribute to a multi-pronged approach to foreign policy goals versus just cherry-picked conservative development priorities. It will be also critical to take a long, hard look into what recent development and foreign aid practices have shown real impact and sustainability and to follow through on the commitments that are really moving the needle. To be clear, U.S. foreign aid spending is less than one percent of the U.S. federal budget. On a hopeful note, there is still a likelihood that many important programs will remain in place. We must remember that some of the larger development initiatives like Millennium Challenge Corp., and the President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief were established under a Republican presidency. Also, the policy landscape and a President's stance on it, can quickly shift once a President is actually in office; once meetings are set with other heads of state, the positive realities and pressures of collaboration come to light. While the Constitutions of the United States and North Carolina provide the blueprint for our government's structure and the rights we all enjoy, this blueprint, and our associated rights, are meaningless without independent courts to protect us. The principle of judicial independence--that is, our courts should not be subject to partisan influence from other governmental branches--is one of the most revered principles in our country. Indeed, in North Carolina, while candidates disclose political affiliation, Supreme Court judicial elections are supposed to be nonpartisan and subject to the will of the people. Recent events threaten to change this. On November 8, Judge Michael R. Morgan, defeated incumbent Justice Robert H. Edmunds in the general election for the North Carolina Supreme Court by a margin of 54.06% to 45.94% shifting the balance of the Court toward justices with Democratic affiliations. Various news outlets now report that Governor McCrory and the General Assembly may call an emergency legislative session purportedly to provide additional relief for victims of Hurricane Matthew. During this emergency session, so the rumor goes, the General Assembly may pass legislation creating two new Supreme Court seats, to be filled by McCrory appointments, to shift the balance of the Court back to a Republican affiliated majority. Court-packing legislation is inconsistent with North Carolina law, violates North Carolina practice, and contradicts the philosophy of citizen-based government. While there are historical examples of both Democrats and Republicans attempting to take partisan advantage of the judiciary, never before has court packing been attempted with our state's highest court. The time has come for both parties to rise above politics and to embrace the principle of judicial independence. Advertisement Since the North Carolina Constitution was adopted in 1868, and revised in 1971, we have never had more than seven Supreme Court Justices (one Chief Justice and six Associate Justices). While Section 6 of Article IV permits the General Assembly to increase the number of Associate Justices to "not more than eight," it has never seen a need to do so. Historically, the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) requests additional judicial seats when the workload of the court justifies the need. This is, in part, because of the significant long-term expenses incurred with a new judicial seat. Here, expenses would include, but not be limited to, building and maintaining two new judicial chambers, overhead, salaries, expenses and benefits for two new Associate Justice, law clerks, staff and administrative assistants. To my knowledge, there have been no studies or evidence supporting a need to increase the size of our Supreme Court based on workload. In fact, while North Carolina Court of Appeals' judges average more than 100 opinions per year per judge, Supreme Court justices average approximately five opinions each per year. Given this, if the General Assembly wishes to create additional seats, it should work with the AOC to study the Court's workload needs before incurring these expenses. Absent demonstrated need, such expenses (that will be passed on to the taxpayers) should not be taken lightly in these economic times. There are also possible questions about how these positions could be filled under a textual analysis of Article IV, Sections 6, 16 and 19. While some argue that Governor McCrory could appoint judges under Article IV, Section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution, that argument appears inconsistent with Section 16 that requires Supreme Court Justices to be "elected by the qualified voters of the state." Basic canons of interpretation require us to read sections of the North Carolina Constitution consistently, and not in a manner that may render one section meaningless. Case law that supports the Section 19 appointment interpretation is distinguishable. Advertisement Recent election litigation has affirmed the importance of competitive judicial elections under our Constitution. In 2015, Governor McCrory signed into law a bill that required sitting Supreme Court Justices to undergo a "yes" or "no" retention election instead of a competitive election. The North Carolina Supreme Court, in a 3 to 3 split, upheld the lower court's decision that the retention law was unconstitutional because it was not an "'election' for the office of supreme court justice as required by the constitution." Real questions exist whether the rumored court-packing plan could survive legal challenge. However, legal challenges aside, any lame duck restructuring of our entire Supreme Court--after the loss of an election--is inconsistent with principles of citizen-based government. Earlier this year, eight months before the 2016 election, US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away. After his death, President Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland, the Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to fill the seat. Republicans in the U.S. Senate refused to act on the nomination before the presidential election because it violated the fundamental principle of citizen-based government. Close-up on the floor of the syringe with the drug. In the background, a women drug addict. More than a year ago, America's next president Donald Trump railed against the influx of Mexicans into the United States and strung together a chain of invectives, saying of illegal migrants: "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." It was the first of many such sweeping oublic statements from Trump that provoked raucous approval from his supporters and disgust among his critics. Fact checkers were quick to try to debunk his comments, usually by noting that the numbers of Mexicans in US jails are but a fraction of the overall immigrant population. Advertisement But in his habitually bombastic and imprecise way, Trump was onto something--especially as regards America's current epidemic of heroin usage. It is clear that heroin, along with other debilitating and dangerous narcotics, are crossing the border and in the case of heroin, the drugs are largely manufactured in Mexico. Although it is common to assume that heroin originates in Central Asia and in particular Afghanistan, the Mexican connection should come as no surprise. For more than a century, heroin has been smuggled into the US in mass from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, a mountainous and lawless region. Mexico, not Asia, is currently producing most of the heroin smuggled into the United States, in large part because Mexican producers see a burgeoning market across its northern border. Heroin traffic from Mexico is mainly controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico's most vicious crime organizations. The cartel was in the news recently--its leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, was arrested, escaped and re-arrested and is now in a Mexican jail. That sequence set off a power struggle within the organization it has done nothing to halt the drug flow. Oddly, the recent liberalization of marijuana laws in the United States has driven the Sinaloa Cartel to increase its heroin production. Marijuana prices are down and you get more bucks for the bang selling heroin. That, and the explosion of pharmaceutical opioid addiction across the US has also made the cheaper product of heroin popular. The cartel also upgraded its product, producing a lighter color heroin powder to replace the darker, murky old style "Mexican mud." Advertisement The Sinaloa Cartel has also expanded into production of fenatyl, a powerful pain killer whose illicit use is also spreading and deepening the opioid epidemic. While it's certain where the drugs come from, exactly who individually retails it is less clear. The Sinaloa cartel has made efforts to control the traffic from source to needle. The effort to monopolize not only production but smuggling and sales should also come as no shock. All Mexican crime syndicates attempt to spread their moneymaking operations, not only through drug trafficking but also prostitution, migrant smuggling, extortion and child labor. A quick look at headlines across the US suggests that the cartel is using Mexican dealers in the US heroin market. Most of them have a relationship, and may formally belong, to the Sinaloa Cartel. Are they citizens, residents, or illegal immigrants? Not clear. Which brings us to the question of sanctuary cities. Such cities, including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, decline to cooperate with US immigration officials and refuse to inquire as to the immigration status of crime suspects they arrest. This reluctance--on the grounds that immigrants, illegal or otherwise are a boon and not a bane to the nation--means it is difficult to tell whether undocumented migrants are in part or wholly responsible for heroin sales on the street. Sanctuary also feeds the narrative that these cities are harboring a cog in the machinery of heroin marketing and addiction. In any event, the long history of heroin production and smuggling suggests that Trump, for all his pledges, may have a hard time curbing the traffic. Mexican governments have been unable and, at some level, unwilling to stop it. The long-running US war on drugs has failed to stop heroin and cocaine traffic from Latin America. Will Trump's vaunted wall and promise to beef up border patrols make a difference? Past history suggests blocking narcotics trade in one area simply drives it to another. President George H.W. Bush's 1980s focus on curbing cocaine smuggling into Florida only shifted the route through Mexico. Advertisement Trump wants longer jail sentences for dealers. He was vague on supplying health treatment solutions to the heroin and opioid epidemic. The National Rifle Association spent more than $30 million to elect Donald Trump President. Particularly with Republicans in control of both the Senate and the House, and a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the gun lobby will expect an impressive return on its investment. What will it want? Following the massacre of first graders at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre infamously said that the lesson to be learned was: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." That phrase perfectly captures a core premise of Trumpism: that the nation is neatly divided into "good guys" (who have been forgotten by the elites controlling our government) and "bad guys" (Muslims, undocumented immigrants and "the others" who have been allowed to threaten the safety and well-being of the "good guys"). LaPierre's slogan likely will animate the entirety of the NRA's Trump Administration agenda. Executive Actions Following the Sandy Hook shooting, President Obama issued a flurry of executive orders to strengthen federal efforts against gun violence; he issued additional orders in January of this year. We can expect President Trump to rescind many of these orders, particularly those designed to spur federal research on gun violence and to provide incentives for the development of safer gun technology. Advertisement Another possible NRA target is the database of crime gun traces maintained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which provides invaluable information about how guns are diverted from the legal to the illegal market. The crime gun trace database has long been a threat to the NRA and the gun industry, in part because it can be used to identify gun dealers who supply a disproportionate number of guns to the illegal market. In 2003, Congress, following intensive lobbying by the NRA and the gun industry, enacted the Tiahrt Amendments (named after then-Congressman Todd Tiahrt of Kansas) restricting the use of federal money to give the public, including gun violence researchers, access to the database. Those restrictions have been in every ATF appropriations bill since that time. But the Tiahrt Amendments still allow law enforcement access to the trace database. The database recently was used in a report issued by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman showing that three out of every four guns traced to crime in New York State, during the period 2005-2010, originated with gun dealers in other states, primarily from states with weak gun laws, like Virginia, the Carolinas, Florida and Georgia. This pattern suggests that strong state gun laws, as in New York, make it harder for criminals to get guns, making it necessary for the illegal market in those states to be supplied by dealers in states with weak gun laws. This interstate movement of guns into crime also argues for stronger federal gun laws to prevent the states with weak gun laws from undercutting the strong laws of other states. Thus, the gun lobby has more than enough reason to suppress the ATF data by even further limiting its use by law enforcement authorities. The NRA may push the Trump Administration to further restrict use of the crime gun trace data by simply changing ATF policy; or it may seek to expand the scope of the Tiahrt Amendments through an amended appropriations rider or other legislation. Just as it has sought to suppress all CDC-funded research into gun violence, the gun lobby may seek to close all avenues to the use of ATF crime gun trace data to inform gun policy. Advertisement Congressional Action In Congress, it is likely that the first item on the NRA's wish list will be national "concealed carry reciprocity" legislation, which would force states to recognize the concealed-carry permits of visitors from other states. Under this legislation, states could enforce their concealed-carry restrictions on their own residents, but not against visitors from other states with less restrictive laws. This would allow persons with concealed carry licenses from other states to carry concealed in Times Square, even if New York would never have allowed the same person to possess a gun, much less carry it concealed. In effect, states would be deprived of the authority to determine who the "good guys" are that should be allowed to carry concealed weapons, an extraordinary invasion of state prerogatives. Yet some of the strongest supporters of this idea in Congress are vociferous advocates of states' rights in countless other contexts. For these fair-weather federalists, state autonomy must give way to the overarching goal of more guns carried in more public places. Gun control forces have been able to block this legislation in past years. The gun lobby is likely to redouble its efforts to pass it now. Success in mandating concealed carry reciprocity may whet the NRA's appetite for even greater federal interference with state gun laws. The gun lobby has reason to be dismayed at the success of gun control forces at the state level. In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, multiple states expanded their background checks to cover more transactions, or strengthened their licensing laws. In the 2016 elections, Nevada, California and Washington State all passed referenda strengthening gun laws (although a universal background check proposal was narrowly defeated in Maine). Whereas the federal background check system established by the Brady Law only applies to sales by licensed dealers, now nearly half of all Americans are covered by expanded background check laws at the state level, requiring checks for all gun sales. California is a recurring nightmare for the gun lobby; this year's referendum requiring background checks for ammunition sales, among other restrictions, is just the latest in a long series of California gun control laws passed in the last twenty years. This state activity occurs because federal law does not preempt state gun law; indeed, there is an express anti-preemption provision in the Gun Control Act of 1968. It is possible the NRA will seek to establish a beachhead of federal preemption, particularly as it affects state restrictions on concealed carry, thus preventing states from restricting concealed carry by their own residents. The Supreme Court The NRA knows that President Trump can do the most lasting damage to the nation's gun laws through his appointments to the United States Supreme Court. Federal and state gun laws were essentially immune from successful Second Amendment attack until the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 casting aside established precedent and, for the first time in our history, recognizing an individual right to possess guns in the home for self-defense. That right was extended to protect against infringement by the states in the subsequent decision of McDonald v. City of Chicago. The Heller and McDonald decisions struck down handgun bans in the District of Columbia and Chicago but, to this point, the rulings have not proven to be lethal weapons against other gun laws. This is true for two reasons. Advertisement First, in striking down DC's far-reaching ban on operable handguns in the home, the Heller Court had no occasion to address whether the right extends to carrying guns in public places. Although one federal appeals court has struck down a state law banning all public carrying of guns by extending the Heller right beyond the home, other courts have upheld restrictions on carrying concealed weapons since Heller. Second, the Heller majority opinion, written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, substantially qualifies and limits the right to handguns in the home by recognizing that the right is "not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose" and even listing broad categories of gun laws which the Court said remain "presumptively lawful" under the Court's ruling. By and large, the lower courts have applied Heller in ways that have preserved existing gun laws against legal attack. The Supreme Court thus far has declined to review those decisions upholding gun laws, leading Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia a few months before his death, to dissent from the Court's denial of certiorari in a case challenging a state assault weapons ban. Justice Thomas accused the lower courts of "relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right." All that could change with President Trump's first two appointees to the Supreme Court. In his first post-election interview, President-elect Trump emphasized to Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes that he would nominate justices who are "very pro-Second Amendment." Although it is difficult to imagine that Trump's first appointment could be more pro-gun than Justice Scalia, a second Trump appointment could lead to a series of precedents that would erect a barrier to strong gun laws for a generation. It likely would lead to extension of the Heller right outside the home, thus threatening existing state restrictions on carrying concealed weapons. A new pro-gun majority could also render of marginal importance the qualifications and limitations on the right articulated in the Heller opinion itself, which were transparently included to attract a fifth vote (likely Justice Kennedy's) for striking down DC's handgun ban, but may be utterly disregarded by a more radical pro-gun majority. Even if modest measures like the Brady Law and state background check laws survive, a new 6-3 pro-gun majority could wipe away stronger state laws, particularly licensing laws that give the authorities a measure of discretion over who is allowed to possess guns, instead of just allowing them to deny guns to individuals who fall into narrow categories of prohibited purchasers. In short, if President Trump is allowed to remake the Supreme Court, it could threaten the gun laws we have, as well as precluding the stronger gun laws we need. Advertisement What Can Be Done? Beginning in 2000, when gun control was inaccurately targeted as a key to Al Gore's defeat by George W. Bush, until the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, proponents of stronger gun control laws wandered in the political wilderness. Since the Sandy Hook shooting, the gun control movement has grown more influential by any measure: more activism, more resources and more success. The question now is whether this newly resurgent movement will prove to be an effective bulwark against the NRA onslaught. That will depend on several factors. First, gun control activists must not surrender to despair and leave the playing field to the NRA. Given the extremism of the NRA's "guns everywhere" vision of American society, the Trump gun agenda can be an effective vehicle to build on the organizing that has occurred since Sandy Hook. It is clearly possible that much of the pro-gun agenda can be stopped in the Senate, but it will require constant constituent pressure. Second, it must be made clear to both political parties that the gun control movement is now a potent political force and will remain so. The 2016 election cycle brought a historic infusion of resources from gun control groups into the political process, with Michael Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety and his Independence USA Super PAC, along with Gabby Giffords' Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, leading the way. Their spending contributed to some impressive victories, particularly the successful Nevada referendum to extend background checks to all gun sales, in a state with a record of hostility to gun control, aided by $16 million in spending by gun control forces, as well as the defeat of Republican incumbent Senator Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, with the help of $8.8 million in ads hammering her pro-gun votes in the Senate. Significantly, Republican incumbent Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania was reelected, even though he sacrificed NRA support by co-sponsoring a universal background check bill after Sandy Hook. Toomey received the support of Everytown and ARS, which sent a message that gun control forces will exercise their political muscle to support Republicans willing to buck the gun lobby. Going forward, this kind of well-financed, hard-nosed election activity by the gun control movement must become a permanent feature of the political landscape in a way that it has not been in the past. Third, there will be a formidable progressive coalition opposing President Trump's Supreme Court nominees and the gun control movement must be an active and influential part of that coalition. On the gun issue, nothing is more important, in the long run, than the composition of the Supreme Court. There must be a powerful mobilization against any nominee who would extend the right to be armed to public places, or who would make that right into an inviolable barrier to sane gun laws. Advertisement Lindsay Davis relishes in the delight she receives from her occupation. She's a process engineer. In this role, she's an integral part of a team of engineers who solve manufacturing challenges associated with the design and development of clients' products. "Engineering allows me to channel my fierce competitiveness into solving problems that other people can't solve. Whenever people say something cannot be done, I see it as a dare to prove them wrong, rather than a roadblock. This allows me to think differently and overcome obstacles easier. In manufacturing, problems are abundant and, most of the time, they have to be solved quickly, even if the solution is just to stay up all night and have everyone -- regardless of title --building products as fast as possible to hit a deadline." Lindsay decided upon an engineering career after attending Explore Engineering, Sweet Briar College's introductory engineering event for high school girls, in 2008. Advertisement "I was so looking forward to Explore Engineering. Arriving at Sweet Briar College, one immediately notices the campus, unparalleled in its beauty; my first thought was that I never wanted to leave. As I made my way to the science building, I was met by professors who already knew who I was, calling me by my name. For me, this was a new experience. Having attended a large public high school, teachers never remembered my name. At Explore Engineering, we made speakers out of everyday items: some wire, magnets, a headphone jack, plates, and cups. The professors and current students helped if we were having trouble making it work and encouraged us to try different things to make it louder or better in whatever way we could think. 'Are all your college classes like this, as well?' another participant asked. The professor replied, 'Well, sort of ...' I kind of laughed. There's no way all their classes could be this fun. After leaving, I found myself with a genuine passion for engineering. I wanted to go to Sweet Briar College and be an engineer. I told my mom. I loved that it was so small that you got to know your professors. I loved that professors brought their dogs to class. I loved the beautiful scenery, something I had not previously considered important. Knowing what this women's college offered me, I couldn't go anywhere else." In 2013, upon earning her Bachelor of Science degree from Sweet Briar in engineering science and mathematics, she was hired by her current employer, Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Inc. (AMTI). AMTI provides "product-to-market" services for various industries. Companies engage their services by presenting a product idea they would like to bring to market. Services provided include four primary areas: concept product development, prototyping, manufacturing, and distribution to various clients within various industries. Advertisement After AMTI creates a prototype, Lindsay's engineering team becomes involved as they work towards resolving manufacturing challenges that could prevent commercialization. Lindsay enjoys working at this contract manufacturing and design services firm. The work she is involved in is engaging, and leverages her strong problem-solving skills and engineering education. Working on a variety of projects, she's constantly applying principles from different engineering fields including process engineering, software design engineering, test engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and design engineering. "In manufacturing engineering, it's very rewarding to see a product come in the door as a certain design, giving feedback to the designers about how to make it easier to manufacture, working on each step of how it is going to be made, having a team of people working using your processes, seeing how it fails and how it succeeds, fixing the problems, creating more problems and eventually fixing those problems -- and finally wheeling a big pallet of product into a delivery truck. I also find it meaningful to know I was a part of bringing a product to a customer so that it can make a difference in their life. While it is overwhelming at times being the person everyone goes to with problems and being expected to solve them fast or production will suffer, challenges are fun for really competitive people like me." In appreciation of her alma mater, Lindsay returns often to support and encourage future engineers. She returned this summer to participate in the weeklong summer Explore Engineering event, and has plans to partake in a future weekend series. Two weekend series are held each year, one during the fall semester in the month of October, and the other during the spring semester in March. Advertisement Lindsay's most recent visit was several weeks ago, this time to help judge the 13th annual Cardboard Boat Regatta held on October 8, 2016. She joined engineering alumna Dr. Kaelyn Leake '09, an assistant professor in the program, and Nadirah Abdus-Sabur '16. Lindsay recalled her time as a first-year student: "In my first engineering class at Sweet Briar, we were challenged to create a boat out of 20 lbs of cardboard and 50 feet of duct tape. In a few weeks, we would paddle the boat across the lake as part of the homecoming festivities in front of the president of the college, academic and co-curricular deans, and it was open to all students and faculty. No pressure. I worked tirelessly on my boat for the few weeks and after the race, my team walked away with a clean sweep. We won every category ... by default. The whole class sank, but mine was awarded the best design and best overall." Sweet Briar College is committed to educating the next generation of female engineers, one student at a time. They have done so quite effectively since the inception of their engineering program in 2005. The college's list of engineering alumnae is impressive, replete with women who either successfully launch a career after graduation or continue on for an advanced degree. We all know that women make great engineers! With so many of today's employers looking to hire female engineers, it's nice to know about a quality program and extraordinary talent pool. For those interested, Sweet Briar College is a liberal arts and sciences college for women located in Sweet Briar, Virginia. It is set on a breathtaking 3,250-acre campus. Lindsay Davis is well on her way to a rewarding career in engineering! I'm looking forward to following her career. Advertisement Stay tuned for more amazing STEM alumnae as I continue with my 2016 series: New Year, New Focus: STEM Alumnae From Women's Colleges. Follow Diane on Twitter @HerSTEMCareer where she celebrates and champions STEM women from around the world. To learn more about women's colleges, visit Diane's blog, Advantages of a Women's College, where a complete listing of all women's colleges in the United States is provided. Cape Verde and Aruba are island nations well on their way to total reliance on clean, renewable energy for their electricity generation needs. Are they harbingers of a transition to take place in mainland nations, which by virtue of size alone make such a shift from fossil fuels a more complicated proposition? If trends are any indication, the islands ambitious transformation foreshadows similar moves in many other parts of the world. Indeed, commitments to derive 100 percent from wind, solar, hydro, and other renewable sources are edging toward our shores slowly but surely. Our own island state of Hawaii is seeking to take advantage of its maritime location and exposure to the elements to emulate its smaller cousins. The goal is 100 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2045. [That still leaves the formidable challenge of phasing out fossil fuel consumption in transportation as a result of the internal combustion engine.] Advertisement One hundred percent targets have also started to take root in scattered locations on the United States mainland. San Diego, Salt Lake City, and Aspen, Colorado, are among the few cities that have so far officially committed to that ambitious objective. Nor has the energy transition been overlooked on a national level. A resolution has been introduced in Congress calling for a one hundred percent American renewable dependency by the year 2050. Environmental groups recently sponsored a week to promote the establishment of a 100 percent national renewable energy system, also by 2050. A pipe dream? Several well documented studies make the case for reaching that goal in the United States 20 years earlier. Recent technological advances, falling prices, and extensive job creation make attainment of the 2030 goal all the more plausible. Meanwhile, Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa is exploiting its location by adding tidal-generated energy to its current 35 percent renewable mix. The initial target is 50 percent renewable energy dependency in nine of its 10 islands and 100 percent on the remaining one by 2020. Advertisement Caribbean-situated Aruba is even more ambitious, with a 100 percent target by 2020. Accordingly, it is reducing import duties on wind turbines and solar panels. In our country, there is still some residual unwarranted skepticism regarding the feasibility of a wholesale transition to renewable energy, even as the technology gathers momentum in China, Europe, and many other places abroad. The prospect, and the imminent reality of Donald Trump's presidency strike many Americans as the worst political nightmare that could have ever happened. Racism, misogyny, demagoguery - all duly confirmed during Trump's first two weeks as President-elect - are the main monsters ushering the new American era. The nightmare seems endless. Can we ever wake up? Yes, we can, but not without a severe hangover that will annihilate our ability to dream altogether. And that is a good thing, because the Trump Nightmare and the American Dream are siblings, born of the same mother. They have suckled the same milk, and made their first steps together. Two writers, born in different times yet struggling with similar demons, can help us understand the intrinsic connection between Trump Nightmare and the American Dream. The first one is Hannah Arendt, and the second one is Ta-Nehisi Coates. Advertisement In philosophical and non-philosophical circles Hannah Arendt is most known for her work on totalitarianism and the nature of evil. With The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem she has acquired a fame that transcends university halls and academic journals. Her phrase 'the banality of evil' has entered mainstream vocabulary and is shared widely whenever there is need to describe meaningless wrongdoing. However, one of her most underappreciated works is The Life of the Mind, published posthumously in 1978, three years after her death. It was her last work, which she started in 1971 as a series of lectures and never managed to finish. In this book Arendt offers her philosophy of mind and argues for a compelling thesis that the human faculty of thinking is one of the conditions that make individuals abstain from evil-doing. This is because a thinking person, as she says, is not a passive object of time or of prevailing social norms. A thinking person is a 'fighter who defends his own presence and thus defines what otherwise might be indifferent to him as "his" antagonists: the past, which he can fight with the help of the future, and the future, which he fights supported by the past.' In other words, thinking represents a person's insertion in and mastering of time itself. History is made by reflection. Thinking is a quintessential ability that defines what humans are, and can be. It is the equivalent of being - only a thinking person is fully alive. 'Unthinking men are like sleepwalkers', she says. When people don't think they 'hold fast to whatever the prescribed rules of conduct may be at a given time in a given society.' If the rules of conduct are bad, people will be bad too. Non-thinking is the root cause of evil, and Adolf Eichmann, a non-thinking object of time and Nazi norms, is the perfect example of that. Advertisement Arendt's idea of thinking rests on a difference between thinking-as-being and thinking-as-knowing. Knowing is always driven toward a pragmatic goal, which is finding the truth. Contrary to that, Arendt argues that the purpose of thinking is not only to find out the truth. She takes over Kant's distinction between Vernunft (reason) and Verstand (intellect) to argue that while the latter desires to grasp what is available to the senses, the former wishes to understand the meaning. That is why the practice of thinking never stops. No matter how much we know, or think we know, we must never cease to think, lest we want to live without meaning. Between the World and Me by American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates (published in 2015) is not a philosophy book, and it doesn't aim at addressing any philosophical issues, at least not in the formal sense. It discusses racism in America, and it is not written as a sociological or philosophical treatise, but as a letter from a father to a son. On the surface of things it has nothing to do with Hannah Arendt. However, if one digs deeper the common threads start to appear. Coates writes about the American Dream, a set of culturally shared and reproduced ideas about American exception, excellence and well-being. The Dream is 'perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations and driveways ... treehouses and the cub scouts. The Dream smells like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake.' But, as Coates argues, that Dream is a lie, conjured by historians and Hollywood. It is not the dream of America, it is the dream of white America, built on the sweat and bones of African slaves, and made to 'control, exploit, and break black bodies'. Hundreds and thousands of black, red and brown Americans have never been part of the Dream. They have always been rejects, an unwanted nightmare. In the book Coates warns his son to be wary of the Dream, not to give in to its alluring muses, and to recognize its sinister effects. Coates' description of the Dream fits well with Arendt's portrayal of the inert flow of time and the social norms we unreflectively inherit. When we apply Arendt's lessons to Coates' thoughts, we realize that to believe the American Dream means not to think, not to insert oneself in time and reflect on its direction. Fittingly, to believe the Dream is to be a sleepwalker, a half-living being, a zombie of time and history. But, believing the Dream is not merely to be delusional about reality. It is to be oblivious about the constitutive link between the Dream and evil-doing. Coates' idea of the Dream as the flipside of racial exploitation reveals this link, because without it, as he writes, the Dreamers would 'have to determine how to build their suburbs on something other than human bones, how to angle their jails toward something other than a human stockyard, how to erect a democracy independent of cannibalism.' Advertisement Donald Trump's 'Make America Great Again' campaign is a variant of the American Dream, and this in part, probably, explains its success. It generates a fantasy of a genuine American social and economic success based on ignoring the plight, or in some cases on pure hatred of non-white minorities. The fact that Trump's message about restoring American greatness has always been adjoined by explicit and implicit disgust of Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans, and others, best confirms the common grounds the Dream shares with the Nightmare. The more America is 'great', in Trump's ideology, the more it will be discriminatory, exclusive, and xenophobic. Arendt's thesis that evil is conditioned by non-thinking best corroborates Coates' connection between the American Dream and the racist and exploitative nightmare that serves as its evil, but necessary, twin. Dreaming is by definition non-thinking, flowing through time and history as driftwood, existing only as a sleeping body. With Trump's victory America dove deeper into the dream, like an ignorant sleepwalker, immersed in fantasy and oblivious of the dangers ahead. In order to wake up from Trump Nightmare, Americans must first wake up from the American Dream. This requires reflection and re-examination of American foundational myths, such as historical exceptionalism, intrinsic goodness, and the value of greatness. It requires rejecting the mental monopoly the mainstream media and social network bubbles have imposed upon us, and focusing on practical issues that matter, such as concrete, physical, and fragile lives of many Americans, from poor Appalachians in West Virginia to Native Americans in North Dakota. It requires incessant daily work of each and every one of us in making this society better, inch by inch, act by act, deed by deed. It perhaps requires rekindling pragmatism, the most American philosophy of all, and asking not what kind of an idea best describes what America truly is, but asking what kind of practice will bring us to a better place. Pity the poor Russia expert. We're like the old Maytag repairman, sitting in our forgotten offices, hoping someone will need our help. But when our experience is called upon, it's usually not good news. No one seeks out a grizzled old veteran of the theory wars to solve a Dostoevsky emergency. Pundits and politicians don't look to us for help with the latest Tolstoy crisis. Worst of all, though, is when Russia is relevant because its recent history suggests parallels to American current events. Like so many other Western countries, the United States is caught up in an authoritarian moment. And Russia watchers have seen this before. Advertisement Much, but not all, of Russia's recent political history sets a dismal precedent. Masha Gessen, who has lived through enough political upheaval for several lifetimes, did us all a great service in her recent essay about enduring (and resisting) an autocrat. But there is more that needs to be said. This is not about the Putin/Trump "bromance," a catchy idea that is a distraction from the real problem. Nor do I have in mind Russia' alleged interference in the American presidential election; I don't feel qualified to assess the evidence, and doubt that there will ever be a smoking gun that opponents won't dismiss as a water pistol. Yes, Trump's call to "make America great again" sounds suspiciously like Putin's salvation of Russia by "bringing the country up from its knees." Yes, Trump's casual disdain for constraints on conflict of interest suggests that the two leaders could be building competitive kleptocracies. And, yes, Trump's reflexive accusation that any protests against him are paid for by the opposition seems awfully familiar for anyone who watches the Russian news. There are enough parallels between Putinism and Trumpism to be cause for concern, but that is not the worst of it. The worst of it is that all indications point to Trumpism being a far greater danger. Gessen is absolutely correct to view both men as authoritarians, but the circumstances of their acquisition of power, their differences in intellect and temperament, and the stability of one-party rule in Russia point to divergent outcomes. Though Putin has flirted with the extreme Right and Russian nationalism, he has (so far) managed to co-opt and contain them; Trump reveals more and more of his debt to white nationalism with each passing day. Advertisement Putin is not a fascist, in part because he does not need to be. Trump ran a consistently fascist campaign. Why "Fascism"? "Fascism" is a loaded term in both countries, devalued in the USA by an old leftist tendency to decry any right-wing initiative as the second coming of Mussolini, and rejected in Russia based on the Soviet victory over Nazism in 1945. Russians can espouse fascist ideas while rejecting the label based on a hereditary exemption, as if World War II had introduced a vaccine into the body politic ("My grandfather died fighting fascists, so you have no right to accuse me"). For most Americans, fascism is a historical curiosity that was handily dispatched by our boys "over there." Trump spent over a year both encouraging and failing to discourage violence among his supporters, singling out particular groups as enemies that must be defeated (Muslims, Mexicans, immigrants, journalists). He has revived the tired straw man of "Political Correctness" from the culture wars of the 1980s in order to distinguish effete intellectuals from "real" Americans, explicitly promised persecution based on religion and national origin, pointed to some of the worst chapters in recent American history as precedent (the Japanese internment camps), appealed to a mythical time when American was "great" (a time when women and minorities kept their mouths shut), and encouraged a cult of personality characterized by belligerence, machismo, and an incapacity to tolerate criticism. Without fascism, Trump has nothing. The Will to Power Putin and Trump have a knack for keeping their critics guessing, and for leveraging celebrity for power. As always, though, the devil is in the details. When Putin first took to the public stage in 1999, he was a complete unknown. Moreover, he seemed unknowable. Putin was an odd candidate for a cult, because he initially displayed precious few signs of actual personality. When George W. Bush claimed in 2001 that he had looked into Putin's eyes and seen his "soul," the obvious ironic response practically wrote itself: who knew that he had one? Advertisement Though Putin's first two terms saw a consolidation of state control over the media and an increased emphasis on Russian sovereignty as the be-all and end-all of the country's destiny, these eight years now seem remarkable for the leader's light touch. Yes, journalists were murdered, and opposition was suppressed, but it was easy for ordinary people not to take notice. This was also the period in which his personality cult began, with songs, posters, buttons, and children's books extolling his manly virtues. Only in his current, third term, with his celebrity long established, with plummeting oil prices and challenges on his borders, has Putin not only thoroughly embraced his own personality cult; he has revealed just how authoritarian he is willing to be. For Putin, power preceded any personal magnetism; any cult of personality is a consequence of his position rather than a prerequisite. Trump, of course, is the exact opposite. American Idiot America has known Trump for quite a long time. He has been both idol and clown for the course of his entire public life (just his longevity as a target for Doonesbury is striking). Presumably, he should be the ultimate known quantity. And yet, as a politician, Trump was almost as much of a cipher as Putin. Certainly, his racism was apparent to anyone who bothered to look (from the housing lawsuits to the lynch-mob intensity of his attacks on the now-exonerated Central Park Five). But he was friendly with democratic leaders, hobnobbed with Hillary, and changed his party affiliation seven times. Trump appeared to be all surface, a creation of the markets and the media. Where Putin ruled out participating in political advertisements during his first presidential campaign (comparing such ads to the choice between Snickers and Tampax), Trump has put his entire life (politics included) at the service of his brand. Political positions were secondary, and it was only when he hit on birtherism that he found an ideology his brand could call its own. Advertisement Their divergent paths to power point to their radically different connections with their public supporters. In running what is, for all intents and purposes, a single-party state, Putin and his team are well positioned to defang any opposition from the Right by assimilating just enough of their ideas as to render such parties insignificant. As his adventures in Ukraine show, Putin is a master at mobilizing public sentiment just enough to support his goals, but then reigning it back to avoid mass movements he might not be able to control. And this is why, for all his authoritarianism, Putin has never been (and probably never will be) a fascist leader. Rather than simply arriving on a wave of popular support, Putin controls the wave on which he rides. By contrast, Trump has only two bases of power; for the moment, they seem to be working in concert. First, there is the populist discontent fueled by racism, or at least a willingness to dismiss the campaign's racism as unimportant, and second, there is the Alt-Right, the ideologues of his movement. Trump may well receive the aid and comfort of Republicans in Washington, but he cannot count on them. Instead, he can count on Brietbart, and its ability to channel his supporters' rage. Putin and Trump also differ in the scope of their ambitions. Though the tired accusation that Putin wants to rebuild the USSR is overblown, his geopolitical goals unequivocally include reasserting claims to a broader sphere of interest (again, see Ukraine, but not only Ukraine). Putin is expansionist where Trump is isolationist. Putin wants cross-border influence, while Trump (as you might have heard) wants to build a wall. Slippery Slopes Where, then, are the lessons I promised? They have to do with the Russian example of weakened institutions, heightened national security, and the normalization of authoritarian power. Advertisement Putin's authority was abetted by the weakness of the institutions he inherited from a government that happily disbanded legislatures and fired on its opponents in the early days of Yeltsin's regime, and then manipulated the media to ensure the ailing, unpopular president's reelection. Liberals at home and abroad turned a blind eye, because they feared the same consequences that Yeltsin was staving off. The ends apparently justified the means, but the means came back to bite everyone's collective backside. American institutions have an obviously better, and longer, track record. But there are unsettling parallels between the suppression of dissent under Putin and the rise of the national security state over the last fifteen years of American life. Putin used the 1999 apartment bombings (which his government may or may not have engineered) as a pretext for tightening the screws. The threat of domestic terrorism justified many a national sin; more recently, it is "extremism" (a label slapped on virtually every expression of opposition) that justifies the suppression of liberty. In the United States since 9/11, citizens have grown more and more accustomed to invasions of their privacy and incursions on their personal liberty, all in the name of the "War on Terror." Trump is not responsible for this abysmal situation, which began under Bush/Cheney and was kept largely intact under Obama. But Trump is capitalizing on fifteen years of terror at the thought of Terror in order to render the unspeakable spoken. In Putin's third term, as the government has doubled down on nationalist myths about the people's destiny, the crackpot figures I have been studying for two decades (Alexander Prokhanov and Alexander Dugin being only the most famous among them) have quietly moved from the margins to the center of public discourse. People who once could barely get air time are being consulted on state television for their expertise. This is a process that we are already seeing at home with the domestication of Breitbart and the appointment of Steve Bannon as Trump's chief strategist. Advertisement Putin's third term has also shown the power of the dog whistle. When the government outlaws so-called "gay propaganda," it is not banning homosexuality or explicitly declaring open season on gays. But the law has normalized an ugly, bigoted way of talking about the LGBT community (while rendering any positive discussions of queer people virtually illegal). Even worse, it has marked LGBT people as a category worthy of disdain; the spike in anti-LGBT hate crimes should surprise no one. Meanwhile, while Trump is making America great again, hate crimes against Muslims, African Americans, immigrants, and Jews are on the rise. Again, surprising no one. Though I continue to believe that Putin's regime is not now, and is unlikely to become, fascist, Russia's recent experience with authoritarianism should be a reminder of the need to fight fascism at home, and to fight it quickly. Authoritarianism in Putin's Russia is the slow-cook variety; like the proverbial lobster boiled to death by increments, the Russian public became accustomed to increased state control over a period of many years. The American security state is not a perfect parallel, which is one of the few causes for optimism. What we must learn most of all from Russia's example is the danger of normalization. The much-quoted, late-lamented Umberto Eco was absolutely correct when he said of fascism: "Our duty is to uncover it and point the finger at any of its new instances--every day and in every part of the world." To fight authoritarianism, we have to recognize it, and refuse to assent. To fight fascism, we have to name it. Advertisement Like a kid before Christmas, I eagerly await the start of November every year. As November marks the dedicated month for family caregivers, I hold my breath as the tributes, photo spotlights, and news features begin to trickle across my computer screen. I read every article about caregivers through Google's daily alerts. I read the Presidential Proclamation. I scan the websites of our national caregiving advocacy organizations. Words like "honor", "love", and "support" fill the pages. I finally release my breath, realizing 2016 would be yet another year in which the millions of child and young adult caregivers in America would go without mention. These young people provide unpaid care, support, and assistance to their family members every single day. They care for our veterans. They care for our elderly. They care for our mentally ill. They care for our loved ones with substance abuse issues. In the midst of their homework assignments, part-time jobs, and college classes, they don't forget to look after the very people our society has marginalized and cast aside. Advertisement Yet, when National Family Caregivers Month arrives in November, we forget to recognize them. I spent this past year travelling across the United States interviewing young adult caregivers for my doctoral research. Knowing that my research is based in both the United Kingdom and the United States, my interviewees would ask me, "What's it like in England?" I would tell them about numerous supportive organizations scattering the country, the new national law put in place to give child caregivers legal rights to seeking support, and even the budding growth of bursaries granting young adult caregivers financial assistance to go to college. With regards to supporting caregiving youth, the United States is, in fact, behind the rest of the West. "It's like no one cares about us here", the common response from my interviewees. I don't know what to tell them in return. Yet there is hope. There is Dr. Connie Siskowski's American Association of Caregiving Youth, the only organization in our country committed to supporting children who provide care for their family. For decades, Dr. Siskowski and her organization have worked as tireless advocates, providing practical support to thousands of children, the majority going on to postsecondary education. Her efforts through AACY have culimnated in the designation of this November as "Caregiving Youth Month" by the school district of Palm Beach County, Florida. The sacrifice at the heart of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Spider's Stratagem (1970), which was recently revived at Anthology Film Archives, is that of life for the sake of art; it's refreshing at a time where the high volume of political discourse is wiping the subtlties of creative vision off the map. In the movie Athos Magnani (Guilio Brogi) the son of an anti-fascist hero, returns to the tiny backwater where his father's statue commemorates his heroism. The father has supposedly been killed in an assassination attempt on Mussolini who had visited the local opera house to attend a performance of Rigoletto. The son is actually the doppleganger of his father, sharing both his looks and name. He also shares his father perverse interest in defying preconception and making reality into an artwork. Our hero muses, "Here you find that whatever you decide to do has been foreseen by others." To understand the so-called plot (based on a Borges short story), you may want to speculate that Magnani senior may have become a collaborator less out of any political about face but for the sake of choreographing his own murder in the company of literary figures like Julius Caesar and Macbeth. But ultimately the motive (did Athos become a turncoat for art or life?) is as ambiguous as the fate of the son who ends up trapped in the web of artifice and myth that his father has weaved. Remember that Daedalus (and by proxy Icarus) was trapped in a Labyrinth of his own making. It's not Bertolucci's greatest work but if nothing else the movie makes one nostalgic for a time when filmic truth ("cinema is truth at 24 frames a second," Godard once said) could offer an alternative to the claustrophobic categories of political discourse. The American people, indeed the entire universe, have been in a state of shock and mourning since Donald Trump's apparent presidential election victory. I have never felt such despondency in my entire 23 years. My sister has been crying, my Mexican-American mother has been walking around the house cursing and my Arab-American father jokes that he will throw food over the wall for us, if he doesn't get sent "back to where he came from" (Cedar Rapids, Iowa?). Many of my Caucasian coworkers have been trapped in in a state of confusion and my more liberal-leaning friends have been distraught. In my particular case, being half Mexican, half Lebanese, and identifying as a Muslim woman, I feel personally targeted from every possible angle. Trump speaks of building a wall to alienate Mexicans, creating a registry to monitor Muslims and through his rhetoric holds women in the absolute lowest esteem, and now he talks about unifying our country? How could he utter the word 'unity' after all of the division he created? Trump alienated our Hispanic population, Muslim population, Asian population, black population and women, and Vice President Pence has long ago alienated the LGBT community. Now Trump supporters are offended that a sizable percentage of the population do not consider Trump our president? Deep down, I know that Trump, himself, is not the immediate threat; there is no logical way that a wall can be built on Mexico's penny, there will not be a ban on all Muslims (half of Trumps clients are Middle Eastern Muslims) and his misogynistic tendencies are, sadly, not that uncommon in our society. Rather, my true fear lies in the racist and sexist populace that seems to have been emboldened by his rise to power. We thought racism in our country had been almost eradicated, but the recent election proved that this is far from the case. While Trump stirred the pot, exposing one of America's darker faces, this dark side of American society has clearly been there all along. I feel I have lost my place in America, not because of Trump's campaign rants alone, but because of the hidden feelings among many of our fellow citizens, the true dislike of those different from the mainstream - ethnic, religious and racial minorities included. Our minority citizens are not being seen as human beings by the American majority, rather they are being vilified and stereotyped as threats to an even greater extent than before. Advertisement Recent events have brought this alarming trend to light. Across the nation people have been harassed in schools, busses, workplaces and on public sidewalks for wearing the Muslim hijab or for simply being black, Asian or Hispanic. Trump supporters have taken his election victory as a green light to treat their fellow Americans as objects, exposing the true, bigoted colors of many. Yet Trump is still asking us to come together - a seemingly impossible task. First, it does not seem reasonable that his backers would allow such a thing. Second, the damage has likely been done and the separation among us so deeply engrained that some serious bridge-building on behalf of the Trump organization will have to occur before any minority support is forthcoming. But I have faith. This is where an outside force for unity can step in. As millennials we have had a pretty easy political ride; Obama was cool and before that most of us were too young to understand the political world. Racism was nearly dead and sexism was diminishing, or so we thought. But now we are gazing into the abyss and before we let the monster inside gaze into us, we may have an opportunity to destroy it. I mean, that is what a democracy is all about, right? The ability to change what we do not approve of? My Mexican and Lebanese descendants did not struggle their entire lives for their children and grandchildren to be treated like lesser citizens, and I, for one, am not going to concede without a fight. Advertisement Behind the sobs and fear that we are in political and social hell, I am starting to believe that such a wake-up call may be a good thing. We millennials may be scared and confused, but now is the time to prove that our generation can stand together. Global Kids students and youth climate activists Kate Scherer and Mai Nguyen in Morocco at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP22) The early morning moments of November 9, 2016 was the definition of bittersweet. As we headed towards John F. Kennedy Airport, Mai and I, along with tens of millions of others around the world, felt the shock of the US election results. At the same moment, as the sun rose up over the airport, we felt that nervous excitement mixture swirling around inside ourselves as we embarked on our journey to Morocco for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP22). When we met up with the rest of our group (fellow Global Kids students, Karoline and Courtney and Global Kids educator, David), the combination of our astonishment at the election mixed with our twinges of hope grew into questioning of what our roles as American youth would be at this climate change summit. It was a strange feeling because for many years I (Kate) have felt empowered as a young person. During the last three years of high school, I've been a youth climate activist at Global Kids, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to youth empowerment. Since my sophomore year I have been a part of the Human Rights Activist Project (HRAP) at Global Kids, a climate justice and youth activism program. Week in and week out, I collaborated with Global Kids staff and my peers to lobby for a NYC Council resolution calling for climate change education in all New York State public schools. Finally, last April, after my HRAP peers and I testified before the New York City Council's Education Committee, the resolution passed and we are one step closer to getting comprehensive climate education in New York State. Advertisement I brought my journey of growing into a youth leader to the airport terminal that morning. This journey led me to attending the COP22 in Morocco with Global Kids, where my group's aim was to share our perspectives, learn from others, and bring forth critical youth voices that far too often are left out of the conversation. We both feel that COP22 was an amazing opportunity for all people, from youth to non-governmental organizations to elected officials from around the world, to come together with one aim: combatting climate change. I (Mai) joined Global Kids two years ago when I returned to the United States from Vietnam to finish my high school studies. I am proud to represent the youth of the United States but also my homeland of Vietnam, where I'm from. Global Kids has always supported youth bringing the unique lived experiences to the dialogue. Being in Morocco for COP22 I had the opportunity to express my feelings about environmental justice from both a US and non-US perspective. While we did not have access to the actual UN negotiations and often felt left out because of our age, we found other ways to learn, grow and make our voices heard. Our group had the opportunity to explore both the "Green" and "Blue" zones of the summit. The Green Zone events were easier to attend because the general public was granted access. It was powerful to see the enormous variety of environmental and climate activists presenting their work and their views on climate change everything from recycled art work to inventive scientific solutions to virtual reality as a means for climate change education. We connected with a collection of youth organizations, as each meeting opened our eyes wider to the global community of climate activism and policy. Advertisement Unfortunately, the "Blue Zone" was only open to youth for two out of the 14 days of the conference. It was the space where each country presents its own work as well as negotiating the terms of the newly signed Paris Treaty at COP21. We firmly believe that placing such heavy restrictions on youth participating in the "Blue Zone" does not make sense. It is important for the youth to witness that the resolutions are adopted and to be at the front lines of understanding the biggest threat facing the world. Kate, Mai, fellow Global Kids student Karoline and others at the 350.org rally in Morocco Our mission over our 10 days in Morocco was not to simply sit on the sidelines. We devoted time to exploring the media tent examining who and how the event was being covered. We had the opportunity to introduce ourselves to Amy Goodman from Democracy Now and discovered which US media companies were and were not covering the event. We also met activists from all over the world. We stayed at a hostel sponsored by Camp Climate, a safe space dedicated to young people (mostly ages 18-30) for coordinated advocacy action, capacity building and networking during COP22. At the camp located in the old city of Marrakesh, we stayed up late talking with climate activists from Nigeria to New Zealand. We met engineers and writers who were all dedicating themselves to this cause and looking for sustainable long term solutions. We were amazed at the diversity and the different ways people were able to contribute to the climate movement. We saw this diversity first hand when we attended a rare political rally in Morocco. Thousands of people from almost every nation in the world advocating for climate justice attended a massive climate march organized by 350.org. We met youth activists from a Brazilian human rights organization who told us about destruction done to the rain forest and the extreme weather events that are making daily life more difficult. Speaking with fellow marchers we were able to gain a far wider, global perspective on climate change. We were also able to share our mission and learn strategies from other activists on climate change based in the US, particularly in the aftermath of the presidential elections. As youth, we are the ones that will be most impacted by the dramatic effects of climate change. It is our future at stake and we must be vocal in this fight. At home in New York, we will continue to work to involve youth from many different backgrounds and to empower them to use their varied perspectives to take collective action. However, we cannot be the only ones taking action. We need to bridge the gap between youth and the established NGOs, and even the climate skeptic community in education and debate. As we boarded the plane to return back home to a new political reality, there are many question marks, but there are also many new questions we are ready to ask. We cannot wait. Advertisement By Andrew J. Hoffman, Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise and Education Director at the Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan We all have a theory of change. When we ask our partner to change dinner plans for the evening, when we approach our professor to change a grade, when we work for a company and try to shift strategy, we are working from a personal theory of what needs to change and why, and, importantly, how change takes place. That theory reflects how we see the world and how we engage with it. It defines who we are and how we will accomplish our life's work. I want to offer two reflections on the question "What is your theory of change?" The first begins with a quote from E.B. White, the author of Charlotte's Web: "Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day." I know I feel this same tension, and perhaps you do, too. We live in the world and are the product of it, and yet we want to push it in new directions. It's a hard balance to strike. Many issues we face are not just contests between competing factions in society. In many ways, the contest is within each of us, challenging us to question taken for granted assumptions or own worldviews. In that sense, we are all in this together, faced with the same challenge. Advertisement And that leads me to my second reflection. A theory of change is more than a single question about how change happens. It must also reflect what we are changing and where we want to end up. A complete theory of change has three parts: a statement of the current reality, a desired future, and a path to get from one to the other. Let me take each of them in turn. What is your statement of reality? As an example, over the past few years the stock market has been reaching new heights. Is that the world you see? Or do you also recognize that unemployment remains frustratingly static and income inequality is widening? Do you see that sustainability is going mainstream, as evidenced by the proliferation of annual sustainability reports, chief sustainability officers, and sustainable products? Or do you recognize that many of the sustainability concerns that these efforts are supposed to resolve continue to get worse? Carbon dioxide levels are rising past critical thresholds. Man-made chemicals permeate our environment. What kind of a world do you see? Heed the warning of John F. Kennedy, who said, "All too often, we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." Learn the science; understand the issues. It represents a challenge to deepen your education on the issues you care about, whatever your chosen field. I see a world in which we have entered what geophysicists call the Anthropocene, a geological epoch made distinct from all others by the global influence of human beings on the natural environment. Whether we like it or not, we now play a major role in the operation of many of the Earth's systems. This is a fundamental shift in how I think about myself and the world in which I am a part. Advertisement Is climate change real? Are GMOs safe? Is nuclear power feasible? Should we geoengineer the ecosystem? Your statement of reality will be the foundation of your life's work. What is your desired future? What kind of world do you want to help create? Where do you want to take us? I would hope that in seeing clearly the present reality, you will not stop at lamenting our current problems. Instead, I challenge you to look beyond those problems to a future that is optimistic and attractive, one that includes a life of meaning, security, prosperity, and happiness for ourselves, our children, all of humankind, and all of nature. That is bold work. As the Welsh writer Raymond Williams once said, "To be truly radical is to make hope possible, not despair convincing." We have no shortage of cynics in today's world; that is not a resource that we need more of. In their essay The Death of Environmentalism, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus point out that negative messages do not motivate people to follow a leader. Martin Luther King, Jr., did not give a speech called "I Have a Nightmare," but rather "I Have a Dream." Leaders inspire people to action by creating a vision of a desirable future, not by scaring them with warnings that the end is near. What future do you see? I want you to think about that, and think about it hard. It will be the goal of your life's work. What is the path that will take us from one to the other? This is where your theory of change starts to become clear. My hope is that you will reject convenient black-and-white, binary statements about the problems that we now face. It is far too easy to proclaim that we have the truth and that others are not only wrong, but perhaps even malicious and evil. The thirteenth-century Muslim mystic and philosopher Ibn al-Arabi wrote: "Do not attach yourself to any particular creed exclusively, so that you may disbelieve all the rest; otherwise you will lose much good, nay, you will fail to recognize the real truth of the matter." Advertisement While al-Arabi was talking about religion, his words can be applied to many of today's problems, which do not reside in one discipline (business, science, religion, or engineering) nor in one worldview (Democrat, Republican, libertarian, independent, or socialist). We need to work for the elusive middle way by understanding all sides of the issues we care about and the text and subtext of seemingly simple ideas; we must not pass judgment easily, but instead see the complex fabric--and therefore the complex solutions--with tolerance and compassion. We need to be able to speak to and work with all kinds of people, even those whose worldviews we do not share, if we are to find common solutions to our common problems. There is no other way. Dogmatism and absolutism will not get us there. To really lead people to a place we need to go, and some may be rightly afraid to go, you can't just know the right thing to do. You also need to feel it deeply. You have to feel it to believe it, for, if you don't believe it, you will never convince others to go where you seek to lead them. The way forward begins with you, within you. When I say that your theory of change must be founded in reality, I don't only mean that you need to be informed about the real world, but also that you must find a way to draw your inspiration from that world. I started this chapter with a few words from E.B. White. Let me now present the complete quote for you to ponder. "Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day. But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way savoring must come first." I was diagnosed with HIV in 1988. The AIDS crisis was raging. Along with many others, I was left feeling overwhelmed, hopeless, and scared. I was lucky I had diving which gave me something positive to focus on, a goal, something I was familiar with. Today, I'm healthy and happy. The problem is, then like now, millions without access or support continue to struggle in the face of HIV/AIDS. This is why organizations like AIDS Service Center NYC (ASCNYC) are vital. NOW more than ever... now that we have an incoming President who might not support those living with HIV/AIDS. Not just financial, but emotional support -- of LGBTQ as well as people of different sex, races or religions. HIV/AIDS doesn't discriminate; it is a virus! I recently had the privilege of visiting with the incredible staff and peer educators at ASCNYC. It was exciting to see success in action! ASCNYC's individualized, full-service approach helps people struggling with addiction, stigma, mental illness, and other challenges to get their health back on track. Since it opened its doors in 1991, the agency has inspired positive change in the lives of tens of thousands. In 2015 alone, ASCNYC provided care to 5,733 clients and reached more than 18,300 city residents through innovative peer education and community outreach initiatives. Nationwide, the communities most at risk are men who are black or Latin, gay or bisexual, MSM (men who have sex with men, but do not identify as gay or bisexual), transgender, intravenous substance users, and low-income or living in poverty. In New York, these are the groups ASCNYC works so hard to help. Advertisement Need help or hope? Contact ASCNYC. On Tuesday, November 29, I will proudly join ASCNYC at their 25th-anniversary celebration and fundraiser in New York. I'm honored to be named as one of ASCNYC's 2016 Changemakers. I'm in good company, as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has also been named. As a keynote speaker at the event, I look forward to sharing my journey and to inspiring others. Join us! Tickets are available here. Pretty much everyone loves music in the movies, but who gives much thought to how it gets there? Initially, music supervisors, that's who -- and few are as primed for the field as L.A.-based Laura Katz. At once new on the scene and a veteran thereof, she's just launched her music-supervision company, Supe Troop, and already she and her crew have racked up 11 feature film credits in 2016. Laura Katz photo by Patrick Pattamanuch As an avid collector of soundtracks myself, it was my pleasure to speak with someone who really knows her stuff: Ms. Katz stands poised atop a diverse resume, including a recent, seven-year tenure with the progressive and successful, full-service, music-provider-for-media company Cutting Edge Music Services, with whom she and Supe Troop share friendly industry relations. Our talk went something like this: - - - Supe Troop represents a pretty major development. Congratulations! What got you into this field? I have pretty much always wanted to work in music. I don't know if I was born liking music or if I can thank my parents, but I've always loved music. Advertisement I understand that, at a very young age, you had an auspicious run-in with a legendary chanteuse. Yeah! When I was in elementary school, my pediatrician's office was in a major Los Angeles hospital. I had the flu or something like that and I was in the elevator with my mom going to his office. There was also another man and an elderly woman in a wheelchair with a caregiver. The woman saw me, an obviously under-the-weather child, and started singing to me -- in fact, she scatted "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" to me! And it was Ella Fitzgerald! I didn't know who she was at the time, but I certainly did after that. I always say that's my "origin story," because it started me on my music-obsessive path. You definitely seem to have found your niche early. Or your niche found you! As I grew up in L.A., I was able to start pretty young; I was 17 and interning at record labels. And I had a bunch of different internships, starting in high school and throughout college. I also interned with a music presenter, at a major movie studio, and then my last internship was at Cutting Edge. I actually think I was their first intern. As an intern at a major studio, even though it was a great experience, you don't really get as much hands-on experience as one would in a smaller company, which Cutting Edge was. We clicked, and I really could tell pretty immediately that this was something I wanted to do and that I had applicable skills and interests. And I think that Cutting Edge saw that I was passionate about it as well, and, thankfully, they really gave me a lot of opportunity to run with it. That's cool. Which studio? It was Sony Pictures. Oh, wow, that's enormous. When you are looking for material -- like, there are unsigned bands, I'm sure, that always want to get a song into a film -- but then there are Sony artists, or there are big UMG artists, or the big labels. So as an individual with personal tastes but also as a professional, how do you cherry-pick the best stuff? Advertisement Every project has quite a different set of variables: what the director's looking for, what the script calls for, how much money you have, when your movie's coming out -- I think, once you start narrowing down, based on all of those variables, and there's probably hundreds more, it does crystalize into clearer picture of what you really can pull from. Although I am very passionate about music, when it comes down to it, it's what the director wants. My team and I, we're always looking for what's perfect for the film -- and of course it's fun if we love the music, but what's paramount is what's perfect for the film. Well, this is kind of a curve ball, but how do you find what's right for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? Well, that one-we weren't really looking for anything modern; we were just looking for things that would fit in that time period. And, in that one, the director knew what he wanted. Okay, not a curve ball! I see you had new films in Toronto [the Toronto International Film Festival] this year. Yeah, three films, so that's been very exciting!-two of which are with the same producers: The Limehouse Golem and Their Finest -- and the other one, Message from the King, I co-supervised with a colleague in Supe Troop, Chris Piccaro. Advertisement Can you divulge a little bit about how those projects came together for you? Both The Limehouse Golem and Their Finest are also period pieces -- which is always fun because you can really delve into a time period. And I think I'm fairly well-versed in almost all genres, but I couldn't say I came into this being an expert in what was popular in England around 1939! That was definitely something that I enjoyed digging deeper into. Because it's a World War II dramedy -- when music is used well, it really helps set the stage, the time period, the feelings, and all of those things. With the director and production team, we really work together to give them exactly what would have been on their record players, inside that world. So there's some research -- some real digging. That's great! Yeah, there's a ton of digging. We had to do a lot of extra research to see what was popular at the time. It's actually kind of funny, because, with my college alumni membership, I get access to their library system -- so I was using my college database-searching skills to do research on songs from that period. I minored in music history, so it was like doing college research again. I really enjoy learning more and different things. Laura Katz How does that come in handy, specifically, when you're working on a film? Well, I think specifically would be hard to answer, but, generally, I have a broad understanding of time periods in music, the different genres, and their histories, so it makes it a richer experience, and I do have that context in my brain, which helps me to provide more robust options. - - - Ms. Katz and her Supe Troop (including associates Lauren Weiss and Chris Piccaro) welcome new material; however, theirs is a lengthy and complex process, so artists: consider using the proper channels, making a short-and-sweet sampler, and definitely don't attach it to a query email! Meanwhile, if you loved the movie and especially loved the soundtrack, keep an eye on those credits, for Supe Troop. More fake news every day on The Political Garage Chute. NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- President-Elect Donald J. Trump announced this week that incoming First Lady Melania Trump and his son Barron would not be moving into the White House when he is sworn-in next January. Today he announced that his daughter Ivanka would be "taking on some of Melania's key positions" and one of them would include moving into the White House to "fill Melania's vacancy." "It's a really natural fit, first of all," Trump explained to the press pool covering him, "and second of all, it's not like it's a downgrade in hotness at all. Look at my daughter. Isn't she friggin' gorgeous? I think she is. I think she's so gorgeous that sometimes I just can't help myself and I, you know, want to Access Hollywood her, if you know what I mean? Of course you do. Everyone knows what I mean because I have this great brain here." Trump also reported that the American people have "nothing to worry about" in terms of Trump charging the taxpayers for rental of the Trump Tower apartment as he charged the Secret Service for the use of his private plane during the election. Advertisement "I'll give you all a great rate," Trump assured the American people, "trust me. No one gives discounts like I do. No one makes deals like I do. Just ask the people who attended Trump University, bought Trump Steaks, or drank Trump Water. Everything I touch turns to gold. Or at least if it's a turd, I know how to polish that turd. Speaking of turds, I'm hungry, who's hungry? Let's eat something." Mr. Trump reported that his daughter would "play the part of Melania in many, many ways." "Let's just say there are a lot, and I mean a lot of things that Ivanka can do for me just as well as Melania can," Trump insisted, continuing to add, "and if it weren't for certain laws she'd already be doing those before I was even elected. I'm always really blown...away by Ivanka, truly. She just rolls up her sleeves or drops to her knees, whatever, and gets the job done." Before giving her approval to have Ivanka take her place, Mrs. Trump first consulted with current First Lady Michelle Obama. "I just wanted to get her take on it," Melania told reporters at a separate press conference, "to see what she would do first." Advertisement Mr. Trump summarized his decision succinctly before the presser was concluded. "Sometimes," the president elect said, "if you can't keep it in your family, you keep it in your other family." On November 25, the Asian Development Bank's board will decide whether to provide US$1 billion to expand Azerbaijan's gas fields. A few weeks later, the bank will decide whether to directly fund the government's budget. The Azerbaijani government has been campaigning for these loans while simultaneously waging a vicious crackdown on critics and dissenting voices. The bank's decisions will reveal whether it is truly committed to inclusive, sustainable development. Or does it simply finance, at all costs? Independent organizations in Azerbaijan are struggling to survive in the face of the government's arrests, harassment, and intimidation, as well as laws and regulations restricting their activities and ability to secure funding. The Azerbaijani government's repression is a serious impediment to public participation, transparency, and accountability, principles that the Asian Development Bank has highlighted as essential for achieving its laudable goal of eradicating poverty in Asia. The risk of corruption in Azerbaijan is high. The "Panama Papers," which came to light this April, included documents showing that President Ilham Aliyev's family has, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, "built an empire of hidden wealth." Instead of working to eliminate corruption, the Azerbaijani government has attempted to silence those reporting on allegations of the ruling family's misuse of government funds. The government has attacked people pressing the government to use its oil and gas wealth to invest in the urgent social and economic needs of the people. In May 2013, the authorities arrested Ilkin Rustamzadeh, a blogger and youth activist who had frequently posted criticism about alleged government corruption on social media. A year later, a court convicted Rustamzadeh of inciting violence and organizing mass disorder, and sentenced him to eight years in prison. Prison authorities placed Rustamzadeh in solitary confinement twice in December 2014 as apparent retribution for his letters from prison that were critical of the government and his statement at the appeal hearing, in which he reported ill-treatment and abuses against other inmates. Another critical blogger who has worked to expose corruption, Faraj Karimov, and his brother Siraj, similarly were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms on bogus drug charges, before being released under an amnesty. While the authorities released the prominent investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, a member of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, on May 25 following intense international pressure, her conditional release does not allow her to travel outside of the country. Meanwhile, Ismayilova's lawyer, Yalchin Imanov, is facing retaliation. The government continues to harass and intimidate people linked to Meydan TV, one of Azerbaijan's last surviving independent media outlets that carries material critical of the Azerbaijani government and its policies related to human rights, corruption, and similar issues. Meydan TV is only able to operate out of Germany. Advertisement President Obama explained the election this way, as quoted in the 11/16 LA Times (p A7): "... a pretty healthy majority of people agree (with Obama's vision)... The problem was, I couldn't convince a Republican Congress to pass a lot of them (Obama's initiatives)... Having said that, people seem to think I did a pretty good job. And so there is this mismatch between frustration and anger." Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic voters have been with us for a long time. It remains to be seen if there really is an increase in the percentage of Americans who hold these views, and whether or not we really can credit them for the outcome of the election. The more fundamental cause is the Republican Party itself. Forty years of race-baiting code language by Republicans has culminated in Trump's outright, unvarnished rhetoric of hate. Forty years of ranting that government is bad and taxes are evil, underscored by Republican mismanagement of government, have mesmerized many Americans into assuming that they can't count on their elected officials to do anything useful. Six years of absolute intransigence by Republicans in Congress toward President Obama has stymied him from advancing the progressive agenda that reflects the real will of the people. This has demoralized folks across the political spectrum, contributing to many people's sense that the whole system is futile, rigged, and corrupt. (The antique electoral college system, and its current consequences, only add to this frustration.) The Republicans created the conditions for a demagogue like Donald Trump to rise to power. And we cannot count on them to clean up their mess. What To Do About It: 1) Be mindful. Practice meditation and prayer. Be aware of your reactions to the election. Examine your feelings carefully, with warmth and openness and an absence of judgment. Let your feelings be. Only then can you act carefully and intentionally, instead of reacting automatically and uselessly. Cultivate your moral imagination so that you can be profoundly empathetic even towards people you have never met nor ever will meet. Cultivate a sense of deep curiosity, through art and music, through listening to lectures and reading good books. Our national discourse more than ever needs us to be mindful, kind, respectful, open, interested, patient, and non-judgmental with people with whom we may disagree. 2) Be aware. Stop relying on Facebook and Twitter and "talking heads" as your sources for the news. These sources separate people into parallel universes of thinking and voting that barely intersect. They are a big part of the problem that was revealed on November 8; millions of voters blamed exactly the wrong people for the problems they see with the country. Social media flashes headlines based on your preferences, and what you prefer may well not be what you need to know. You'll get vastly more information by reading good sources than by listening or watching. Read intelligently, professionally-curated news: The Economist Magazine, the New York Times, the LA Times. Read researched books by reputable authors that dig deep into public issues. Identify a few issues you are passionate about, and stay deeply informed about them. It's our civic duty to know what is really going on, instead of relying on "echo chambers" like Fox "News" or Rachel Maddow. Know your Constitution and defend it: you can count on it being trampled by the Trump administration. 3) Belong. What organizations are politically advocating for the issues that matter to you? You can't do it all. You can't be involved in every important campaign that will resist the Trump agenda. So choose one or two, join them, and be seriously involved over time. It is okay to start small; you can grow in your commitment and involvement. Be patient, stick with it. John Oliver's list of organizations to support is a good one. To it I would add Progressive Christians Uniting, which amplifies and organizes the grassroots action of church folks at a national level -- I'm an activist for it and a member of its board of directors. Belong to a faith community or a local community organization where you can have ongoing, face-to-face relationships with folks who are engaged with civic life. They will give you emotional and spiritual support to stay engaged for the long term. 4) Protest judiciously. Mass demonstrations can be powerfully useful, but not always. Pay close attention to the leadership of any protest you are inclined to join. Are the people behind it capable of managing the crowd safely and intelligently? Are they able to translate the protest into sustained, effective action afterward? Will the event serve any real purpose other than burning off angry energy? Is there a likelihood that the protest will backfire, serving only to energize the opposition to your cause? 5) Be an every-election voter, and gently urge everyone you know to make voting an unfailing habit. Be a "votivator": share your voting choices, every time, with your friends and family members. Encourage them to do their own research, of course, but let them know that copying the voting choices of people they respect is a perfectly legitimate "entry level" for democratic participation. The more of us who vote, the more our politicians must attend to our interests and reach out to us for support. Some people are demotivated to vote by the Electoral College. But the fact that at least a million more people voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump will still matter greatly in making the case that the Republicans do not have a popular mandate to move the country backward. Consider running for public office, or vigorously supporting others, particularly young people, who are considering doing so. All politics is local, it is said -- certainly all politics starts at a local level. Progressives need to do a much, much better job of creating and maintaining a "pipeline" of talent for political office from the local to the national level. Voter Registration Application for presidential election 2016 Before the election, my students and I did a research project about the Electoral College. I thought I'd share the results with you, before you decide whether it still a good idea or not. We looked at the number of Electoral College votes, and the population of each state in 2015, as determined by the U.S. Census Bureau. It's not one person one vote. In fact, it's not even close. Here are the results. Advertisement In Georgia, for example, there's one Electoral College vote for every 638,428 residents. For Alabama, it's one for every 539,886 residents, and one Floridian Electoral College vote for every 699,009 residents. But there are more Floridians than Georgians, and more Georgians than Alabamans, so you aren't too surprised, even though you'd probably think the numbers should be, well, standardized so that it might be 1 vote for a set number of state residents. But there's more. In the District of Columbia, near where I moved from to the Peach State, it's one vote in the Electoral College for every 224,076 residents of our nation's capital. I also taught for a year at the University of Delaware, where it's one Electoral College vote for every 315,311 residents. Hey.... In fact, here are the results for the ten states we found had the worst representation. Texas (1 EC Vote for every 722,871 residents) gets hit the worst followed by California (1 for 711,723), Florida, New York (1 for 682,613), and North Carolina (1 for 669,520). So gets the best deals? Wyoming (1 for 195,369) leads, followed by Vermont (1 for 208,680), DC, Alaska (1 for 246,144) and North Dakota (1 for 252,309). Advertisement You're probably thinking, well, this helps the small states, so it can't be all bad. But look at the disparity and tell me that's fair. Imagine if this was our system for funding, and Federal dollars were awarded that way. I've heard people say that we need the Electoral College because people are stupid. So why do we let them choose the electors in the first place? The people can make up their own minds. I'm sure Democrats will cheer these findings, and Republicans will send letters to the editor saying how desperately we need an Electoral College. Just remember that before the election, Trump blasted the Electoral College as a "disaster", but calls it "genius" now (and changed his mind again today in a New York Times interview). It's the opposite with Democrats, who cheered the Electoral College until they lost. Now they want to abolish it. Of course, the Electoral College is embedded in the U.S. Constitution, and it takes more than an Act of Congress to change that. You'd probably need a Constitutional Amendment, and about 38 states to ratify such an amendment. But as Paul Newman said in the "Cool Hand Luke" film "That don't make it right." John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga. He thanks Sydney Aronson, Katelynn Dixon, Wesley Hermonstine, Betsy Markham, Jordan Osborne and Salman Rahim for their research. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, whether the victory of Donald Trump is considered a great triumph or a terrible tragedy appears to depend not only on political allegiances and policy preferences, but also on race, religion, gender, educational level, sexual orientation and zip code. In 2016, America stands deeply divided much like it did during the 1960s and early 1970s. Sadly, the 'generation gap' of the 1960s now appears to have metastasized into a 'systemic demographic gap'. In such times of profound disorientation and fear, catharsis--the purification and purgation of emotions through art--serves as a way to restore conceptual order. It gives a way to cope. In 1966, Barbara Garson, a young political activist in California, wrote Macbird, a drama-satire sketch that superimposed the plot of Macbeth onto the transferal of power to President Johnson following the Kennedy Assassination. Transformed into a full-length play, MacBird opened at the Village Gate in New York City on February 22, 1967, and closed after 386 performances. Advertisement In 2016, MacTrump attempts to make a much similar superimposition of the electoral process and its result on the universal narratives of Shakespeare's plays. Bits and pieces of various Shakespeare plays are loosely spliced into real events up to November 8, 2016. From that day onward, the Witches 'prophesy' stands as good of a chance of being 'right' as any method of modern forecasting. Act 1 Setting: the Annual Banquet of the Media Barons King O'bamach takes revenge on MacTrump, leader of the Birthers, for questioning the legitimacy of his claim to the Throne. O'bamach ridicules the possibility of a MacTrump Imperial White Palace. MacTrump seethes and retaliates by declaring his claim to the Throne. He promises to destroy the legacy of King O'bamach and to rid the realm of Southern gypsies. He ruthlessly defeats all Pach-i-Derm challengers, including the clan's heir apparent Jeb McBush, Little Marco of the Florid-Lands, and the feared Inquisitor Ted de La Cruz. Dem O'Crats prepare for battle. Act 2 Setting: The Battlefield Princess Hillary survives the unruliness of the rebellious Highland Berns whose grievances and anger reveal the deep divisions within the Realm. She gains command of the Dem O'Crat army and vows to defeat MacTrump and his House. Advertisement Princess Hillary brings into battle the Priestess of Abedin, her spiritual guide, and heeds the advice of Queen Michelle to follow the High Road. MacTrump unifies the angry Basket of Deplorables behind him with his message that only he can "Make the Realm Great Again". Together with his strongest allies, The Grand Wizard, the Dixie-Die-Hards, King Coal, and the Rusts-of-the-Belt, he charges at the Ivory Towers of the Elites. They overwhelm the forces of the Liberal Media by unleashing the Twitter floods of the ALT-Right hordes. Crazed villagers burn effigies of "Gun-Grabbing Crooked Hillary" while screaming "Lock Her Up. Lock her Up". Bonnie Prince Willie, Princess Hillary's husband, travels to all quarters of the Realm asking subjects to lend him their ears. He warns villagers that a MacTrump victory would cause a return of the Dark Ages. Princess Hillary gains the support of the Sisters of Saint Femina, the Latin Clans, the Descendants of Africa, the Sages of the Ivory Tower, the Beltway Bandits, and the Gender Fluid Tribes. The Dem O'Crats feel certain of victory. But days before the decisive battle of The Vote the Priestess of Abedin is disgraced by her husband, the perverse Carlos D'Anger. His memoirs implicate Princess Hillary in High Treason and this unsettles the Electoral Masses. With her forces in disarray and facing a MacTrump army greater and fiercer than all had imagined, Princess Hillary suffers a tragic defeat. Once again, security proves to be a mortal's worse foe. Act 3 Setting: The ruins of the Dem O'Crats Palace. King O'bamach's realm lies in ruin. His great Policy Edifices have all been ransacked. The heads of Dem O'Crats who have not fallen in line with MacTrump's rule are prominently displayed on pikes. The once powerful clans of Clinton and Bush have fallen. Advertisement Alone for the last time in the Oval Court, King O'bamach contemplates the Electorate's verdict that something is 'rotten in the state of Dim-mark.' With great ambivalence about his future role in the Realm, he utters: "To be, or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles..." Bonnie Prince Willie despairs over the knowledge that he might have contributed to the demise of Princess Hillary and to the fall of the Dem O'Crats. Sexual misconduct had nearly cost him the Realm. And now Carlos D'Anger's sexual misconduct had dealt a fatal blow to Princess Hillary's claim to the Throne. Contemplating the mementos of the fateful day in which he himself had officiated at the wedding of the Priestess of Abedin to Carlos D'Anger, he falls on his sword. After being locked up in the Tower of Lawsuits, Princess Hillary, like Joan of Arc before her, is burnt at the stake, slowly, so she can "feel the burn." Meantime, at MacTrump's Towers, all of the Lords and Ladies of Pach-i-Derm who had refused to back MacTrump during the Troubles now claim that their donkey heads were the result of being bewitched. They beg for forgiveness and a place at Court. They plead with MacTrump to consider 'mercy' as a quality befitting a man of his power. The second in command, the Duke of Pence, addresses the assembled Pach-i-Derms who rejoice after eight years of House arrest: "Now is the winter of our discontent, Made glorious summer by this son of New York." Advertisement Act 4 Setting: King MacTrump's Towers Queen Melania, the Slav(e)nian, appears in a different outfit in every scene. Her tongue has been cut out to prevent more accidental parroting of the deposed Queen Michelle. MacTrump received the three Witches of The Media Polls and asks them to prophesy his rule. They summon horrible apparitions: "Lady Ivanka MacTrump and the Princes will closely counsel King MacTrump. The walls of the Imperial Palace will echo with the words "You're Fired!" Even the Knights of Cabinet will tremble. MacTrump will grow weaker and weaker as the congenital malady of Narcissus affects his body, spirit and mind. His heirs flatter him into dividing his riches between them. The Towers of MacTrump will begin to fall. Prince Barron the Yawner, once thought 'deficient' like Roman Emperor Claudius, will not be able to withstand the many indignities heaped upon his mother, Queen Melania the Slav(e)nian. He challenges his father to a duel of The Deal and the son wins. Advertisement In the confusing aftermath, the Duke of Pence makes his move. The moment that he has been waiting for since he accepted the nomination has arrived. With the support of Pach-i-Derms and Dem O'Crats Nobles, he condemns MacTrump to the dreaded 'Death by Impeachment'. The Duke of Pence shall be declared King of the Realm and the 'Lord Protector of Personal-Wealth'. He sends the entire MacTrump clan into exile. The Furies of Climate Change, not having received their tribute due, unleash floods, fires, droughts, cyclones and extinctions. With the 'Healing Order of the Affordable Care' now exiled, epidemics kill millions. A Calamitous Century will dawn." MacTrump dismisses the prophecies of the Witches as a ruse of the dreaded Liberal Media. He laughs and rejoices in the thought that the Furies of Climate Change would drown the coastal strongholds of the Dem O'Crats leaving behind only the heartland of the Pach-i-Derms. He orders his Knight of the Strategy, Bannon of Demagoggerich, to banish the Witches. Act V: Setting: Night-time in the forest Planning their revenge, a warren of Elizabeths joins the banished Witches who now stir their brew for the Dem O'Crats. They vow to obtain the prized 'eye of Newt' to 'make the charm cool and good'. Advertisement The last utterances heard are: 'a charm of powerful trouble. Like a hell-broth boil and bubble'. One of the treats of the Lisbon & Estoril film festival is the shuttle ride. Every hour the shuttle picks up guests from their Estoril hotels and takes them to the screenings and debates. You never know who will be inside. "Who are you?" I said to a man in the backseat in the dark. I could not see his face because it was dark. "Oh I?" said the man in a jovial German accent. "I am Peter. Peter Braatz. I made the film Blue Velvet Revisited which is showing tonight." "Wow!" I said. "I really wanted to see that." The film, Peter explained, is a return to footage he had taken on the set of David Lynch's Blue Velvet thirty years ago, in North Carolina, when he was a young film student from Germany. How did he come to be on the set? He had simply contacted the famous Lynch with an enthusiastic letter and a student essay he had written on Elephant Man. Advertisement "What did you learn about Lynch?" I said. "He is a gentle man. Extraordinarily gentle with everyone on the set. He believes in other people and supports all sorts of creative ideas. He is very calm." "And does he really meditate?" "Absolutely. Every afternoon, he goes into an office for an hour and shuts the door. And no one can go inside." Later Peter sent me a link to his film. It's a hypnotically cool time-capsule film for anyone interested in seeing the legendary director at work as a young man, and Braatz' experimental dreamy hallucinogenic way of editing together the stills and Super-8 reels, to an eerie soundtrack, captures the spirit of Blue Velvet. A highlight is an off-camera conversation between the young Braatz and the young Lynch about a girl Braatz has fallen in love with back in Germany. Another highlight is hearing Lynch talk about how excited he is about Blue Velvet and the "awful lot of fun" he and the crew had making it. But I couldn't see Peter's film right then as I was racing off (late!) to another film that evening: German director Corinna Belz' indepth look at famed writer Peter Handke: Peter Handke: In the Woods, Might Be Late. Advertisement Belz' documentary is a must-see for anyone who is a writer or an amateur of literary endeavor. Much of the film is seeing Handke in his calm rustic home in the outskirts Paris, speaking animatedly about what it means to write, with breathtakingly quotable insights. He speaks with equal passion about mushrooms and needlepoint. The camera rests calmly on his hands as he threads a needle and explains the challenge of getting the thread through the hole. We also see debates from Handke's radical young days as a member of the Gruppe 47 movement, his vulnerability and passion apparent in his young raw facial expression. We see the writer in his family context as well: as a father to two daughters, one of whom looks stonily at her father over a breakfast table and explains her issues with him as a child. One of the film's most interesting moments: a delving into the political flack Handke received for his support of Serbia after the Bosnian war. Corinna's approach to this charged issue is balanced and calm, with no judgment. I had the luck to run into Corinna after the screening to ask her about the film. She joined me at my table in the Monumental cafe, where I was eating a vegetarian lasagna. "You really capture Handke in his intimate space!" I said. "Why did you ever do this project? And what is the most surprising thing you learned?" She spent three months filming Handke. "I have a reverence for writers," she confided. " I studied literature in university. For me, Handke is one of the top writers. Up there with Musil!" Advertisement She mused: "The most interesting thing I learned about him? That he has both a female and male side. For example, to hear him talk about writing while he is sewing in his armchair! Stitching created space for him where the words just arose. Language comes into being all the time. He's also so precise with words. He always tries to find the right word. He is patient. Writing creates that patience." Corinna and I spoke all evening over wine in a bistro down the street. My next shuttle ride, to another film, was crowded with a group of laughing Spaniards. "Who are you?" I said in Spanish. "The film directors of the documentary about Pessoa in Lisbon!" said the lively man sitting next to me. "Pessoa/Lisboa!" "Pessoa!" I said, excited to hear about another genius of an author being featured on film. "Yes, the great Pessoa. Incredible man. Imagine he invented over 120 personas, and wrote a book from each persona. In over 120 different styles. Metaphysical, quotidian, high language, simple language..." The man waxed with enthusiasm. "Didn't he spend his life with his mother?" I rejoined. "Until his mother died," he said passionately. "Oh he had a fiancee, but he chose not to marry her. He was dedicated to his art! He made his choice. It was a lonely life! A very depressed life." "So Pessoa was a depressed man! " "Yes! A depressed man. That's why I love him! Happiness is boring. I love depressed people!" The entourage of Spaniards in the back-seat laughed. "You must see our film!" the man said. "But how I will understand it? It's in Spanish with no subtitles." "You understand us! So you'll understand it!" "But what if Pessoa's poems are complicated?" "Depends on the persona he takes!" I was terribly tempted by this brilliant shuttle ride to see this film by my new friends (Alberto Ruiz de Samaniego and Jose Manuel Mourino), but went to see the new Benoit Jacquot film instead. Advertisement A mistake. The first hour is a fetishizing of the benign pretty face of some girl in mourning about her lover played by Mathieu Amalric. There may have been a subtext there--of existential longing--but all I saw was a patriarchal French camera lingering on young facial skin. A conventional trope. My shuttle ride home was a surprise. Corinna and Peter! A woman holds a sign during a demonstration against US President-elect Donald Trump in Paris on November 19, 2016. / AFP / MARTIN BUREAU (Photo credit should read MARTIN BUREAU/AFP/Getty Images) "You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time."-- Angela Davis When I was 6 years old, my parents took me to my first public protest. Nearly 20,000 of us encircled the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant near my home, where plutonium and other dangerous chemicals were seeping into our soil and water. I felt the power in coming together with strangers, clasping hands and raising collective voices in opposition to an obvious wrong. Our symbolic action was seen around the world and signaled the beginning of the end for Rocky Flats. Advertisement That was also the year that my 6-year-old body was touched inappropriately by a male, hurling my life down a path of shame, self-blame, insecurity and, eventually, a fierce mandate to protect girls by forwarding women's human rights globally. Throughout my 20s, I was fortunate to work with an international network of activists and philanthropists responding to the needs of women on the ground in conflict zones. Along the way, I was astonished and humbled by the capacity of women to resist violence and transform systems of oppression in effective ways, even during the onslaught of war. From Uganda to Colombia to Afghanistan, I witnessed women employ their intellect, scant resources, creativity and their bodies while standing up to tyranny and shifting the pages of history. These are the women I look to when organizing and mobilizing for change within the U.S. I grew up in the shadow of our nation's great uprisings, when a quarter of a million people marched on Washington for civil rights and racial justice with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; and two years later, when a quarter of a million people marched on Washington to protest America's involvement in the Vietnam War. But I was also unknowingly standing on the invisible shoulders of the original marchers on Washington: the five thousand Suffragettes who bravely met President Woodrow Wilson outside the White House, as he was sworn into office in 1913. He had not championed their cause during his campaign, they still did not have the right to vote, and they marched to send a bold message to the nation that they were not going anywhere until they got it. I've often wondered what it would take for American women to truly come together over our collective rights, and after last week's crushing defeat, due in large part to white women voters, I'm left dumbfounded. I will admit, I naively thought it would be a trouncing in favor of Secretary Clinton. I had a lot of faith in all women and I was let down by the fairest, most advantaged amongst us. I assumed they would vote in their best interests, regardless of what their fathers, husbands or brothers said. I assumed that equal pay and paid family leave were all it was going to take once they were alone with their ballot. When audiotape emerged of Trump bragging about the ways he likes to sexually assault women, I assumed they would be as offended and outraged as I was. My privilege and carefully filtered news feeds became my blinders, and you know what they say about people who make assumptions... Advertisement And, to be clear, I let you down, too. By not reaching out more in person, by hiding incendiary Facebook posts rather than engaging in difficult debate, by surrounding myself with like-minded people, I let myself believe we'd come much farther than we have. But the truth is, many well-known white Suffragettes were outspoken racists, and the Western feminist movement has, at times, depended upon and propagated racist, oppressive systems. And that has contributed to our global movement's failure. So this time, now that we've gone and messed up the entire world, we white women must listen to what women of color are saying first. For they, as Alice Walker reminds us, have been living under an American Dictatorship for four hundred years. And then we dig-in and do our work at home changing minds and hearts. No excuses. As writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said so eloquently this week, "Every system of oppression has people who are in the group of the oppressed, who have somehow contributed to their own oppression." After all, lest we've forgotten, there were a lot of women throwing stones at the Suffragettes who dared to try and vote. On Election Day, I was added to the "secret Facebook group" Pantsuit Nation. The group garnered more than 3 million members, hundred's of thousands of them posting pictures in their fiercest pantsuits, voting with their sons and daughters, swelling with pride to finally tick a box for President Of The United States with a woman's name on top. By Thursday, the feed was full of heartache and fear and disbelief. Within hours of the results, members began posting about hate crimes and harassment they were experiencing, both in public and within their family systems. They posted about paralyzing fear for their futures and that of their children. But then came an incredible twist. Each teary, terrified post was met with thousands of likes and hundreds of comments offering solidarity, further connection and invites to safe Thanksgiving dinners. As someone who wrote favorably about Secretary Clinton this year, I can attest that a safe place on the Internet can feel just as soothing to your psyche as a real safe space. Advertisement In the days after the upset, we collectively howled our dissent through our keyboards, witnessed each others' overwhelming pain, and then, slowly, we began to organize...to establish offline support systems, to share ways to boycott Trump with our purchasing power, to form a Pantsuit Nation Super PAC, to write Hillary a massive thank you letter...and to call for yet another march on Washington. I haven't seen organizing like that since working in war zones and it carried me through some dark, pessimistic days last week. So here is my truth: Encircling Rocky Flats taught my 6-year-old heart that large-scale, symbolic protests do create real change. From women organizing on the front lines of war, I understand that sometimes you have to be willing to put your body in the path of oppression and refuse to remain silent, even if you've never seen yourself as an activist before. From the results of this election, I was reminded that as a white, American woman I have a unique responsibility to reach out to, awaken and educate other white American women on the dangers of legislating misogyny and hate. And from Pantsuit Nation, I learned how numerous and organized progressive American women can be...and if too many of us were sleeping last week, we are wide-awake now. On January 21, 2017, I will join hundreds of thousands -- millions? -- of women (and men and families) for another historic March For Women in Washington, D.C. One hundred and four years after our first women's march, we will greet another openly sexist President, on his first day in office. At stake? Nothing short of control over what happens inside our own bodies and equal protection under the law. Instead of donning our inauguration heels, we will strap on our marching boots once more and, arm-in-arm, we will chant and sing and mobilize against archaic policies that seek to take away our reproductive agency and undermine our equality. We will meet that multi-headed dragon face on, day one, look directly into its eyes and demand that women's fundamental rights are acknowledged and protected...because one thing is crystal clear, we are NEVER... EVER... going backwards on our long march to equality. Advertisement The rising tide of social change doesn't care what happened at the voting booths, nor if the Electoral College betrays our democracy, nor how many women sided with Trump in 2016. We have seen dozens of men come and go from the Oval Office and we are still marching. And though it may feel like a setback to have to keep demanding the very basic right to decide what happens inside our individual uteri -- a fight perhaps as old as civilization itself -- the good news is that we are swimming in very familiar waters. And if you need immediate inspiration, look no further than the women's movement in Poland, who recently took to the streets, shut down a major metropolis and effectively stopped a proposal for a complete ban on all abortion services. It would take another seven years for the Suffragettes to secure the vote in 1920, another six years for Rocky Flats to be forcibly shut down in 1989, and it may take another eight years to remove the incoming Misogynists from office. But I'm in it for the long haul, and I now know millions of American women are too and that's a starting point we can build upon. And if you still think "change" looks like the white, Christian people moving into the White House, we've got a rude-awakening for you. Because real change is also Brown and Black; it's Undocumented, Indigenous and Queer; it's Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist... and it's coming to their front door. Oh, and I'm bringing my 6-year-old daughter with me. To show her that sometimes we can and must all come together and use our bodies and our collective voice to stand against an obvious wrong, the same way my parents showed me 34 years ago. And because of Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre, the suffragette who convinced her own father that he was standing on the wrong side of history, leading him to eventually remark, "I deem it one of the greatest honors of my life, that this great event [ratification of the 19th Amendment], so stoutly fought for, for so many years, should have occurred during the period of my administration." So this is my call to action... and if someone shared it with you then it is also their call to action... and if you choose to share it with others, then it becomes your call to action. Women from every corner of this imperfect union, along with all the men and children willing and able to stand up for our equal rights, it's time to send the entire world a loud, raging, rainbow-colored message that they can't possibly silence. Advertisement Climate change is the biggest problem we have ever had to face, as communities, countries and the planet. This means it is an expensive problem given that adjusting economies to limit greenhouse gas emissions costs money; so too does adapting agriculture, water use and coastlines. Developing countries, of which most of Africa is a part, just don't have that kind of money. That's the main reason global climate deals, which culminated in the Paris Agreement last year, have stipulated that developed countries need to come up with USD100 billion a year by 2020 in "climate finance" for developing countries. Climate finance alone will not resolve the climate crisis, and some experts say USD100 billion will not be sufficient. But the USD100 billion target is extremely important for African countries. At this year's global climate talks (COP22) in Marrakesh (Morocco), it is vital that countries finalise the recently published "roadmap" showing how the target will be reached. Advertisement African countries need to know when the funds will be available so that they can confidently plan their transition to a low-carbon economy and use the funds to attract co-financing. Indeed experience suggests that predictability is good budget practice. For all these reasons, it is vital that all developed countries contribute their part of the USD100 billion. But there is much more that needs to be done for Africa in particular; it is to ensure that climate finance is adequate and serves its purpose. Indeed a lot more countries and institutions need to mobilise financial resources, and the international climate financing architecture needs reform and adaptation to enable a flow of a fairer slice of climate finance. While developed countries are taking the lead in mobilising climate finance under the Paris Agreement, the pact encourages other parties to provide such support. Emerging economies such as China and Brazil have a major responsibility to contribute; so does the private sector. Multilateral development banks also have a crucial role to play. They need to dedicate funds to climate action and ensure that climate considerations are woven through every policy and project funded. In Africa, the African Development Bank has made a good start in promising to "climate-proof" its projects. It needs to keep a close eye on how well the funds are contributing to the low-carbon transition and helping communities and households adapt to the effects of climate change. The same goes for other regional development banks. Another task for COP22 is to rethink the international climate financing architecture, which suffers from fragmentation and chronic under-financing. As the Africa Progress Panel (of which I am a member) pointed out in its recent report entitled Power, People, Planet: Seizing Africa's Energy and Climate Opportunities, there are now 50 climate funds in operation. Africa's needs are poorly served by such a labyrinthine system. Modest funding has been transferred through overly bureaucratic delivery structures that combine high transaction costs with low impact. Most finance has been earmarked for small-scale projects rather than national programmes. Advertisement This is especially troubling when it comes to adaptation, in view of the fact that African governments face major costs from adapting to climate change. Sea levels are rising and threaten millions of people in coastal communities. Increasing temperatures, severe weather conditions and shifting weather patterns threaten agriculture, tourism and energy supply. For these reasons, global climate agreements have long called for an equal allocation of finance between mitigation (reducing emissions) and adaptation. But in 2013, only less than one quarter of global climate finance (about USD25 billion) went to adaptation. The total amount of finance available for adaptation is also woefully short of what is needed. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that adaptation costs in 2030 are likely to range between USD140 billion to USD300 billion per annum. In other words, in order to meet financing needs and avoid an adaptation gap, the total financing for adaptation in 2030 would have to be approximately 6 to 13 times greater than today's international public financing. The Green Climate Fund, which has recently been operational, needs to play a significant role in financing adaptation, as it seeks to reach an equal split between adaptation and mitigation. The good news is that there is widespread recognition of the magnitude of the problem faced, and of the need to join forces against it. At COP22, this recognition must be transformed not just into promises, but into action too. Linah Mohohlo was Governor of the Bank of Botswana since 1999 until recently (October 2016) and is a member of the Africa Progress Panel that is chaired by the former Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan. Chronos lords over St. John Square by way of the splendid sunburst clock, yet this commanding sign of chronological time is balanced by the occult sign of Kairos given up by the stone. As always, you follow the signs where missingjamesfranco 3.0 instinctively guides...the tagable urban space reflecting synchronous timing: As usual, the Greeks were ahead of us in thinking and speaking about such conundrums. Where we use one word to describe a whole range of things, they had the good sense to use different words to mark distinctions in reality and in experience. For example, they had three different words for the experience of love -- eros for possessive love, philia for friendly love, and agape for sacrificial love. Not surprisingly, the Greeks had two words for marking the differences between the experiences of time -- Coming out of your Zarathustrian seclusion behind Jupiter's Temple, you catch your Split image . The weight loss balloon has exploded into a splendid rabbit shape! This recognition of your shadow mirror triggers a visit from your Aries relation, who suprises you with a spontaneous encounter in the Split Peristyle. Aries knows the deepest desire is to live: he jumped on the t2transfer in Paris to fly in and capture you... ...in the circular base of Aphrodite's Temple inside Kavana Lvxor! THE FIRST SIGN OF KAIROS is speed. Thomas picks you up in his gleaming red sportscar ("NO PHOTOS" he insists as you aim your camera at his licence plate: HORSPOWR). "Where did you find this car?' you ask. He says he built it from the inside out, starting with JDM used engines. "What is JDM?" you ask. Japanese Domestic Market. Lots of Japanese tourists in Split! Splitting from Split, you have arrived at another UNESCO World Heritage Site: Trogir is a precious and consistent part of world heritage. But don't just look for stone. Look for the mysterious spirit in the stones. Look for all those architects, builders, artists, patrons -- for all those stories hidden in the history of stone. The ancient Greek city was established in the 3rd century B.C. A history of invasion left behind... ...an amalgamation of Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque and Renaissance styles of architecture among the palm trees. THE SECOND SIGN OF KAIROS is balance... The justice symbol on the Trogir Loggia, formerly a courthouse. THE THIRD SIGN OF KAIROS is the quantum leap into the THIRD. Incredibly, the city's first structure was a pharmacy, hinting at the western alchemical origins of the serpent fire channeled... ...mirroring your LATTICE LEAP into the THIRD. Forseen by your tag in Zagreb (L), the sign i.hints at the KAIROS treasures hidden behind the black doors of the 11th century Monastery of St. Nicholas (R). Dr. Lisa Paul Streitfeld is a Kulturindustrie philsopher and Web 3.0 theorist. Missing James Franco is a Web 3.0 collaboration and interactive project accessed through www.missingjamesfranco.com. Advertisement The UNESCO quote is from page 6 of the "Trogir Info" booklet. I have special reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving. One is to be thankful to America for admitting me as an immigrant back in 1963. From what I can remember, I was welcomed as part of the then-huge British quote that applied to me, even though I was born in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). I am also very grateful to Rhode Island, where my wife, Linda Gasparello, and I have, by happy chance, made our home for more than four years. People, you have a little treasure here; a bolthole for the world-weary, a welcoming and pleasant place with great restaurants, a wonderful selection of beaches, interesting countryside and the warmest people this side of I know not where -- and I have traveled to more than 100 countries and lived on three continents. Take it from me, Rhode Island is a treasure. To me, it nestles between the arrogance of Massachusetts and the upward-tilted-nose superiority of Connecticut. Advertisement In London, they listen to how you speak: "Just listen to her speak, She's not our class, darling." In New York, they speak about money: "I'm heavily invested in pharmaceuticals." In Washington, they speak about power: "I'm well-connected at the White House." By comparison, Rhode Islanders speak about everyday things. But, oh, must you have such a bad self-image? Self-deprecation has its limits and, if I might be so bold, you have reached them. I sometimes want to take dear Little Rhody by its lapels and gently shake it, saying, "Don't you know you have it all here, give or take a larcenous politician?" John of Gaunt described England in Shakespeare's Richard II as "this other Eden, demi-paradise." Of course, he had not seen Rhode Island, the jewel in New England's crown. "Fort Dumpling, Jamestown, Rhode Island," Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901) But Rhode Island, my adopted home, is more than being about eating and sunbathing. A special delight for us has been good, affordable theater. There is live theater everywhere, if you look. Sure you know about Trinity, the Gamm, 2nd Story and Ocean State. But did you know about the Arctic Playhouse, in West Warwick's impoverished Arctic village? Its productions are polished, and it is moving to new, swankier premises next year. Whereas the other theaters charge around $50 a ticket (which is a bargain), little Arctic only charges $10 for its own productions. That should be sent to the Guinness Book of World Records for theater ticket prices. Advertisement Newport has its place on the list of destination cities, but I would throw in Providence with its downtown masculine charm, its best Italian food offerings in the nation. I speak as a man familiar with the likes of Little Italy in Baltimore and North Beach in San Francisco. When I lived in London in the early 1960s, the thing that struck Americans was how polite the English were. Now London and New York are interchangeable, and Washington is well on the way to losing what is left of its manners. I would offer up the whole state of Rhode Island for recognition as a place of lovely, cheering politeness that makes daily living a pleasure, and smooths a little grease on the rough edges of any day. People of all ages open doors, thank you profusely for even a small purchase, give way to traffic entering a highway and stop for pedestrians. Also -- and as an old newspaperman, this is important to me -- Rhode Island has great pubs, as in public houses. A bar is where you go to drink, a pub is an extension of a living room: a place to hang out, meet friends, eat and, yes, imbibe, if you wish. In Rhode Island, as in Britain, people tend to have a "local," a regular haunt. I have two quite different locals that are quintessentially pubby: the Harris Grill in Coventry and the Square Peg in Warren. In this Cognitive Business interview we talk to Lance Olson, Director for Cortana Intelligence at Microsoft, where he works with organizations around the world in the pursuit of insight through the use of big data and advanced analytics. Lance Olson, Director for Cortana Intelligence at Microsoft / Source: Microsoft The Cortana Intelligence Suite helps the span of all organization types (from nonprofit to public to private) manage their business decisions through a suite of services centered around analytics and big data predictions. The suite supports cross-functions, from product development to operations. The Cortana Intelligence Suite, can for example, help businesses find the right market segmentation for a given product, understand customer needs, and find the problems that need fixing in areas such as manufacturing. Interesting, right? Lets dive into the Q&A. How does Cortana Intelligence work, from an AI perspective? First, we must think about the prediction(s) we want, and then we must follow a series of steps to get there. Let me explain through an example. Advertisement Lets say Rolls Royce wants to predict - in real time - engine health and fuel usage (to assure maximum aircraft health). With identified prediction goals, the next steps would require us to: Identify the outcome youre tracking, such as aircraft and engine health. Think of data needed to understand the health of the engine and acquire relevant data inputs - be it data that is streaming, batched (from relational systems), or weather data feeds. Combine data points to see whats likely to happen in the engine, and feed the data into Cortana Intelligence to train the system to make predictions - this involves starting with defining what a healthy engine looks like and what an unhealthy engine looks like. Train the system to identify patterns of healthy and unhealthy engines based on examples; this way the system will learn when to create alerts when it finds anomalies and predicts malfunctions, failures, or inefficiencies. Continue training, re-training, and fine-tuning the AI systems to assure higher prediction accuracy rates over time. To see an example of this in action, check out this Rolls Royce case. What sets Cortana Intelligence apart from its competition? We focus on simplicity that can be done out of the box. In a matter of minutes, a business decision maker can look at the business dashboards that they can play with, plug in data, and see what the solutions look like with their data online using the Cortana Intelligence Gallery. Other differentiators include: Advertisement lower consulting footprint the breadth of the cloud Cortana Intelligence sits on; were in 34 regions worldwide and growing quickly, hold the record of having the most secure cloud in the world, offer sovereign clouds, and meet sovereign country compliance requirements 15+ years working on search (i.e., Bing) and related research; we understand how people search; weve spent a lot of time understanding image processing and the search process, which requires the ability to accurately learn what people mean from written and spoken communication. How do you define AI vs Big Data? Big data involves new patterns for processing data that differ from traditional methods in their volume (size of data), variety (unstructured and semi-structured data), or velocity (real-time streaming data). Artificial Intelligence is about using algorithms and data to create a result that takes on more human traits such as speech, vision, and language understanding the ability to read a sentence and understand the intent of the person who created it. AI often uses big data to build better algorithms and learn, but AI can be applied to many use cases that operate on traditional data sources, such as looking at a customer table in a relational database and predicting the customers propensity to buy a particular product. What trends and challenges are most impacting AI right now? Three trends that are having a transformative impact on AI today are the growth and availability of data through IoT, the increase in compute capacity from maturing cloud architectures such as Azure, and the increasing sophistication of the resulting algorithms that are available to us. One challenge we face is that the tools needed to build AI-driven systems are still relatively immature and therefore the skillsets needed are in scarce supply. So while it is now possible to do amazing things, it is not as easy as it should be. What are your predictions about the future of AI 2016 and beyond? Cognitive services such as speech and language understanding will continue to become increasingly useful, especially in bot scenarios in which written and spoken conversations are the primary interface. Artificial Intelligence tools like Cortana Intelligence will become usable by a much broader set of people, often embedded as intelligence within existing tools and applications. This will enable more people such as developers and business analysts to perform machine learning and artificial intelligence tasks without being formally trained as data scientists. Heres an example of how we recently did this with Uber to enable face authentication for their drivers. Advertisement What makes a company ready to implement Cortana Intelligence? Most organizations can see ways they could better achieve their goals if they had an increased ability to predict future outcomes, but having the desire to improve in this area is one of the key requirements. How can a company prepare for Cortana Intelligence and AI in general? Pick a few key areas where youd like to focus and start with a relatively simple project. Becoming highly data and AI-driven is like running a long-distance race. We dont usually just go out and have great success on the longer distances without building up. It is an iterative process where we solve smaller problems that build on each other, and increase our momentum with each project. Having the right data is critical to success in these projects so it is good to start by taking stock of your current data assets and identifying areas where you can use what you have or extend its value in interesting ways by combining it with new datasets. What industries do you see AI benefiting first in your space, and why? AI is likely to impact nearly every industry in the world much in the same way the computer has done over the past 50 years. That said, in the last couple years Ive seen a lot of momentum in Retail (e.g., Lowes smart kitchen design center, Ziosk restaurant kiosks), Manufacturing (e.g., Rolls Royce connected engines, eSmart Systems, Schneider Electric smart power), Healthcare (e.g., Dartmouth Hitchcock connected care), and Banking and other Financial services (e.g., Tangerine, Quarterspot loan success predictions). These industries have significant amounts of data already available to them that they can use at relatively low costs to gain real efficiencies in how they run their operations, employ their people, improve their products, and anticipate the needs of others so they can better serve their customers. What is your favorite AI use case? Im torn. My favorite use cases range between a health and a business case. Ill tell you about both. In India, doctors are using Cortana Intelligence to predict Lasik eye surgery outcomes and recovery times, ensuring optimal results for surgery patients at a lower cost and higher success rate. Advertisement In the U.S., Lowes is using Cortana Intelligence to provide their kitchen remodeling customers an exciting experience that allows them to quickly decide on their dream kitchen and quickly bring it to life. Partnering with Pinterest, Lowes today is leveraging Cortana Intelligence in the HoloLens. When people set out to remodel their kitchen, they find it hard to make decisions on what it should look like - especially when there are multiple stakeholders involved, as is often the case. What we found is that people will use Pinterest and they will pin images of dream kitchens that they want. Taking note, we partnered with Lowes and Pinterest, to show whats possible if we enable customers to log into their Pinterest account once inside the store. Cortana Intelligence takes the visual information, extracts ideas from images pinned (on Pinterest), and identifies the customers style preferences. Cortana Intelligence then compares those preferences with the Lowes catalog and popular purchases. Through that process it produces a Lowes version of your dream kitchen. Enter the HoloLens. Cortana Intelligence interacts with the HoloLens and creates the customers augmented kitchen. The customer can then click and style - multiple people can participate. The customer can see the design in an immersive and dynamic environment. Say they want to change the backsplash that was generated, they can do that. Cortana Intelligence recommends adjustments to the kitchen design, based on customer sentiment. When the customer is happy with the design, he can decide to have the design sent to him as well as an estimate of his kitchen remodel. This use case has proven to be a win-win for the customer and Lowes. For the customer, they get their dream kitchen. For Lowes, they get insights into customer sentiment and they get to see a decrease in time to decide on a kitchen remodel, which results in revenue. Advertisement President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress are drawing up plans to take on the government bureaucracy they have long railed against, by eroding job protections and grinding down benefits that federal workers have received for a generation. Hiring freezes, an end to automatic raises, a green light to fire poor performers, a ban on union business on the government's dime and less generous pensions -- these are the contours of the blueprint emerging under Republican control of Washington in January. These changes were once unthinkable to federal employees, their unions and their supporters in Congress. But Trump's election as an outsider promising to shake up a system he told voters is awash in "waste, fraud and abuse" has conservatives optimistic that they could do now what Republicans have been unable to do in the 133 years since the modern civil service was created. Acting hysterical has its artistic merits. Just ask Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, the mad geniuses behind Lucius. With just one listen to Good Grief, their sweet '16 sophomore album released in March, the two co-founders, lead vocalists and leaders of the indie pop band are guaranteed to drive you crazy, too. Embrace the infinite madness. To further fortify their shared insanity, the lively ladies of Lucius hit the road hard over the past month behind the release with their two formidable co-members -- Wolfe's husband Dan Molad on drums and Pete Lalish on guitars -- all of whom were ably assisted by touring musicians Casey Foubert (guitar) and Josh Dion (drums). Advertisement Warmed up by the Cactus Blossoms' endearing but sleepy supporting set, the Nov. 14 show at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado, was unquestionably one of the best I've seen this year. Holly Laessig (left) and Jess Wolfe of Lucius perform on Nov. 14 at the Fox Theatre in Boulder. Propelled by propulsive beats and savory sound bites from the scrumptious ear candy that is Good Grief, their exquisite taste can be heard on such standout numbers as "Almost Makes Me Wish For Rain," "Something About You," "Better Look Back" and, of course, the unhinged lunacy of "Madness" and "Gone Insane." Lucius, which appeared with Roger Waters at the Desert Trip event before this tour officially kicked off, even introduced a new song, "Pulling Teeth," the title cut of a new 10-inch that will be released Nov. 25. My night would have been complete had they performed another Good Grief favorite -- the irresistibly catchy "Born Again Teen." Still, for folks like myself at the Fox seeing Lucius for the first time, a double date with Wolfe and Laessig was a combination of absolute euphoria, exuberance, wonderment and weirdness. Their stylistic presence, dressed and coiffed identically like high-fashion models trapped in a Twilight Zone episode, immediately catches your eye. Advertisement Were they conjoined twins separated at adulthood? Eastern Europe avant-garde performance artists taking lessons from Annie Clark? Or the two deadly nurses with matching white frocks from American Horror Story, on the lam and in disguise for the sole purpose of scaring the wit out of their next victims? As soon as they open their mouths, the mystery is solved. Hailing from cities as diverse as Los Angeles (Wolfe) and Cleveland (Laessig), and friends since 2005 as Berklee School of Music students, they are a combination of simultaneous -- and spontaneous -- combustion. (Laessig, right, with Wolfe.) With resonating voices that seem perfectly in sync, providing a double dose of aural artistry that leaves you begging for more, they also work together instrumentally, whether their fingers are touching a synthesizer or holding a drumstick. Squeals of delight and cheers of sheer joy emanated often from the packed house as Wolfe and Laessig, blonde hair in devil horns and white dresses covered with elegant, ornately designed capes that prove they usually see eye-to-eye, opened the show with the infectious "Madness." The lyric "What's mine is yours and yours is mine" should've been the Good Grief tour catchphrase. Keeping talk at a minimum during the first 30 minutes, Lucius soon followed with five consecutive numbers from Wildewoman, their 2013 debut album, a hand-clapping crowd along for the drive on an especially boisterous "Turn It Around." Advertisement Then they went digging back into the Good Grief gold mine with the glorious "Something About You" and the wildly frenetic "Gone Insane," its tame opening turned upside down. As the women re-enacted a slow burn face-off over a single mic at stage left, Wolfe and Laessig seemingly vented with outrageous screams before their emotionally spent selves found peace with each other. "The writing of 'Gone Insane' was based on the feeling after one of those loose cannon type of heated fights, with helplessness and rage hitting you in alternating waves," Laessig explained in publicity material. "But maybe the perfect description of this song comes in the recording process," Wolfe added. "Holly and I have seen maybe three arguments in the past 12 years. But perhaps the biggest of all, came the day we were to record this song. Emotions were running high, and at some point, Holly blew up at me. In shock, I yelled back and we both stormed off. "This was a prime example of our partnership because a short while later she returned, we apologized, hugged and immediately went to record. It was just the two of us in the dark." Darkness aside, Wolfe and Laessig went from white to black outfits backstage during a marvelous instrumental interlude by their band, returning for an engaging encounter with the crowd. Advertisement Only this wasn't a perfunctory passing through the front row. "Almighty Gosh" (also from Good Grief) became a spiritual awakening for those in attendance as the pair sauntered down both aisles along the sides of the theatre, descending into the middle of the dance floor for energetic leaps of faith among a house now filled with true believers. The sharp denizens of this cool college town and the surrounding area needed this baptism in a sea of joy more than ever after what -- for many of them -- transpired the previous week on Election Day. In the presidential race, Hillary Clinton was a resounding winner in Boulder County, earning 70 percent of the vote, but its citizens were astounded by the end result that will put Donald Trump in the White House. Wolfe deftly touched on the outcome after Lucius' inventive cover of "Uncle John's Band," adding a semi-psychedelic ending to the Grateful Dead song they recorded for the National's Day of the Dead project. "A lot of crazy things going on in the world," she said with a laugh. "We're not gonna preach politics right now. I think we have had enough. I think we all need a break, and what a wonderful thing to come together and have music (crowd cheers) to help heal us and soothe us and support us through such difficult and trying times. But I do ... we want to ask all of you to take a moment of your day, every day, and smile at your neighbors and say hello to people as they're passing you by on the street because, why not? And support each other and love each other through such times because we're not gonna agree on many things. But we need each other. Love, that's all we got." Near the end of the regular portion of the show -- which stretched out to 90 minutes with a three-song encore, including a slow, sexy swirl through the classic "Save the Last Dance for Me" (Minneapolis brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum of the Cactus Brothers adding harmonies) -- Lucius appropriately sang "Two of Us on the Run" from Wildewoman and Good Grief's album-closing "Dusty Trails." Advertisement We may be "halfway to misery" as Lucius reminds us in an astounding a cappella segment during "Dusty Trails." Or, depending on your point of view, it just might be halfway to heaven, since -- as the line goes -- that path "can lead you to a golden road." Regardless, Wolfe and Laessig assured us: "We'll all be OK." You don't have to be crazy to believe them. But realizing how crazy-good Lucius is certainly will help. It is often assumed that changing laws that regulate cosmetic industry practices translates in to negative impacts on business especially small and mid-sized companies. But when the changes sought align strongly with what consumers want and with regulatory trends around the world, businesses of all sizes can benefit. This is precisely the opportunity that ending cosmetics testing on animals now presents. The use of non-animal tests to assure consumer safety has followed an upward trajectory for at least the last 20 years and that trend has accelerated as countries around the world are prohibiting the use of animal tests for cosmetics. The most significant boost to this trend is the closing of the European market to animal tested cosmetics which came into force in March of 2013. An attempt to weaken this ban was thwarted in September 2016 when in response to a legal challenge, the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed that cosmetics containing ingredients tested on animals outside of the EU after March 2013 cannot be sold. As the only NGO given permission to intervene on the case, Cruelty Free International played a key role in ensuring the will of the public was upheld in this landmark decision. Advertisement While 80% of the world still allows animal testing for cosmetics, roughly half of the global cosmetic market is now firmly closed to animal tested cosmetics. An upward trend in countries turning away from animal testing strengthens the argument that ending cosmetics testing in the US would help ensure a level playing field for US businesses of all sizes. Harmonizing safety testing requirements between nations would allow companies to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy and test duplication when accessing international markets to fill the consumer demand for safe and humane cosmetics. Even companies that don't trade internationally stand to benefit in a cruelty free market place via increased access to cosmetic ingredients that allow them to assure conscientious customers that animals were not harmed in bringing their products to market. A March 2015 Neilson survey found that "not tested on animals" was the most important packaging claim among those surveyed. The same survey also found that consumers placed a high level of importance on products labeled "all natural," - a reflection of the growing consumer scrutiny of ingredients in cosmetic products. It's no surprise that companies active in creating sustainable and health conscience products are frequently the same companies active in advocating for an end to animal testing for cosmetics. Clearly it would be counterproductive for companies to support regulatory reforms that would force a tradeoff between their products being deemed safe and cruelty free. Smart companies know there is no reason to compromise. Modern non-animal testing methods have proven to be as good or better at predicting human responses than animal tests and, the new tests tend to produce results more quickly at a lower cost than the animal tests they replace. Perhaps one of the biggest indications of the positive business potential of banning animal testing for cosmetics is the support for cruelty free reform from cosmetic companies of all sizes. The US Humane Cosmetics Act has garnered the endorsement of more than 150 companies including luxury professional hair care brand Paul Mitchell, global beauty giant The Body Shop, and natural personal care icon Kiss My Face. This month, Cruelty Free International teamed up with Neal's Yard Remedies to generate support for the Humane Cosmetics Act with a special petition. Advertisement Neal's Yard Remedies was founded in the belief that it is possible to make effective and safe beauty products that are kind to people, the planet and animals. As a Leaping Bunny certified company, and long-term supporter of the Cruelty Free International global campaign to end animal testing in the beauty and personal care industry, we are proud to support the Humane Cosmetics Act to end cosmetic testing on animals in the United States. US consumers have waited far too long for US cosmetics policy to match their expectations, and the US is now falling embarrassingly behind other countries including India, South Korea and, most recently Taiwan. Together with the support of cruelty free cosmetic companies of all sizes, the incoming Congress needs to know it's time to end animal testing for cosmetics once and for all. Against a Trump regime that is totally unacceptable, we'll need resistance that's sustainable. Like a healthy forest, the resistance will depend on great diversity to thrive -- a wide range of people engaging in a vast array of activities. And our resistance will need community. I'm not talking about the facile gloss of the word "community" that often follows an adjective denoting race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The kinds of community that will make ongoing resistance possible have little to do with demographic categories. The most powerful, most vital bonding will be transcendently human. Facing a Trump presidency, we'll have an imperative opportunity to go deeper as individuals and groups of people working together -- nurturing and growing the social, cultural and political strength that can overcome the Trump regime. Our resistance has got to be broadly inclusive, offering and inspiring a great variety of nonviolent tactics and approaches, whether they emerge with a few people around a kitchen table or with many thousands of people at a public protest. The strength of the united front that we need will depend on the extent of truly cooperative efforts. Trump and his allies have already injected huge quantities of toxins into the body politic, with much more on the way. The antidote is democratic engagement from the grassroots. (Right now, as the new regime rolls out its top henchmen, early steps include doing all we can to block Trump's horrendous Cabinet picks.) To challenge the enemies of democracy who have gained power, we're just getting started. What's at stake for U.S. society includes basic social decency, human rights, economic justice, civil liberties, rule of law -- in short, democracy. Also at stake: climate change, nuclear weapons, the fate of the earth. Trump has clearly shown his intention to destroy many decades of progress for the rights of women, people of color, Muslims, undocumented immigrants and many other people, while tightening the knot of the corporate state and the warfare state. From Wall Street to Pennsylvania Avenue to the Pentagon, the purveyors of mega-corporate technocracy, oligarchy and militarism have given "power" a bad name. And yet the solution to anti-democratic power is power -- truly democratic power -- from the grassroots, from the bottom up -- really our only hope. From protests and electoral work to public education and lobbying and legal interventions and so many other forms of organizing and activism, countless essential tasks await us. During the presidency of Popular-Vote Loser Trump -- maybe more profoundly than at any other time in our lifetimes -- we'll need each other to make resistance personally sustainable, socially viable and political effective. This is all about energizing ourselves and each other, now and for the long haul. That's why community should be a verb. Hollywood has long been the land of dreams and epic storytelling, but many stories of scandal, betrayal, and mystery remain behind the curtain. It's no wonder that novels inspired by the gossip and intrigue of Tinseltown are so exciting to read. Travel to the golden age of Hollywood with these enchanting, glittering, and sometimes dark tales behind the scenes of your favorite silver-screen legends. West of Sunset by Stewart O'Nan As the Jazz Age ended, F. Scott Fitzgerald was financially ruined. Like many others, he traveled to Hollywood to find new success, and his dramatic days on the MGM lot are vividly depicted in West of Sunset. Filled with many classic Hollywood icons, this is a portrait of a beloved artist as he struggles to reclaim his identity. Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub In this richly drawn and redolent novel, a teenaged girl escapes Depression-era Wisconsin for the bright lights of Hollywood. After being discovered by a studio mogul, she is transformed into an exotic, sultry starlet, and struggles to balance fame and personal happiness during the golden age of Hollywood. Advertisement Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates One of America's most acclaimed novelists meets the most iconic of Hollywood legends in this multifaceted work about a complex woman. Blonde explores Marilyn Monroe's troubled and ultimately tragic life, and the manner in which she was exploited by Hollywood. The Love of the Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished final novel is a searing and sharp-eyed look at Hollywood as a land of lost dreams, paranoia, and tragedy. A young studio mogul struggles to survive in the world of cutthroat screenwriters, producers, and actors while also searching for love and true happiness. All the Stars in the Heavens by Adriana Trigiani A young nun is forced to leave her convent and lands a job as starlet Loretta Young's secretary just as the actress falls for movie dreamboat (and married) Clark Gable. Together, the two women navigate decades of adventure, passion, scandal, and fierce friendship in this epic and masterful tale based on true events. Stardust by Joseph Kanon Ben arrives in Hollywood after the end of World War II and is shocked to discover that his successful brother has killed himself. But nothing is what it seems in the movie business, as Ben discovers, especially as the fear of communism casts a long shadow. Advertisement Girl About Town by Adam Shankman and Laura L. Sullivan Adam Shankman, director of hit movies like Hairspray, knows a thing or two about the drama behind the screen. In his sharp romantic mystery, Hollywood's latest It Girl with a dark past and a playboy tycoon find themselves in a mystery filled with twists and turns. Spoiler alert: bullets and sparks fly. See the full list at Off the Shelf, a daily blog that connects great readers with great books. Mercantilism Dies Hard By: David Henderson One of the things that economists, whatever their other views, are most sure of is that free trade is a good idea. The normal way we argue for trade, either between individuals and companies in a country or between individuals and companies across borders, is that both sides benefit. The seller benefits by selling something for a price greater than his supply price. (The supply price is the minimum price that he requires to be willing to supply the item in question.) The sellers gain is the difference between his supply price and the price he is paid, and is called producers surplus. The buyer benefits by buying something for a price that is below his demand price. (The demand price is the maximum price the buyer is willing to pay for an item.) The buyers benefit is his demand price minus the price he pays, and is called consumer surplus. The sum of producers and consumers surplus is the gain from the exchange. Notice that consumer surplus is a big part of the story, whether the exchange is within a country or across borders. But many people systematically leave out the gains to consumers. There are two recent instances. Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and an adjunct professor at Villanova University, in an op/ed in the Washington Post, writes: Many of Trump voters priorities can be addressed in ways consistent with Republican inclinations. Immigration can be reduced but not eliminated; trade deals can proceed if they ensure that benefits flow to average Americans, not just those in finance or exporting industries. Notice Olsens narrow focus. The implication of his focus on exporters seems to be that trade deals dont generally generate benefits for average Americans except in their role as exporters or employees of exporters. But they do benefit. One of the main benefits of free trade is lower prices, and therefore consumer surplus, on the items they buy. Take the 25% tariff on light trucks, please. That tariff makes price of trucks, whether new or used, substantially higher. Yes, it has caused most truck production for the U.S. market to move to the United States. But the producers do that to get around the tariff wall and would likely not do that if there were no tariff. So, although 25% is almost certainly an overestimate of the higher price U.S. buyers pay for new trucks, without a tariff they would certainly pay much less. So a trade deal that cuts tariffs on trucks would definitely help average Americans. And heres the thing: the U.S. government could to that unilaterally without a trade deal. I choose this example on purpose. When I mentioned to my students, while teaching about free trade and protectionism, that there is a 25% tariff on light trucks coming into the United States, that caught their attention. Many of them have bought new trucks and would have loved to have paid much less. They are not literally average Americanstheir and their spouses incomes probably put them in the top 20% of the income distributionbut next time you talk to an average American who owns a pickup truck, tell him about that 25% tariff and see if he is indifferent. Or consider this recent piece in the Wall Street Journal by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, my boss when I was at the Council of Economic Advisers. Hes trying to defend NAFTA. Good for him. But how does he defend it? He writes: During the campaign Mr. Trump promised to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement if he could not negotiate a substantial improvement. Revoking the agreement would put more than $600 billion of U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico in jeopardy. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. companies export more to Canada than they import from Canada. Including Mexico, total Nafta imports exceed exports by less than $40 billion, an amount equal to just one-quarter of 1% of GDP. So Martys defense is that exports would be put at risk and he mentions imports only to compare their size to the size of exports. So all that seems to matter to him, when defending free trade, is gains to producers (exporters), not gains to consumers (importers). Mercantilism dies hard. The misunderstanding is bipartisan. But also the understanding is bipartisan. Democratic economist Alan Blinder laid out the case for free trade beautifully in Free Trade in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. I am a born and bred Yankee. New York City is where I call home, but the South has a special place in my heart. My first experience in the South was a family trip to Florida when I was 2 years old. I admit that my memories of Miami and Disney World are cloudy, but they're happy. I didn't have another opportunity to visit the South until I enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. For basic training, I spent the summer of 1989 at Parris Island in South Carolina. For my specialty training, I spent the summer of 1990 at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Making friends from the South challenged my regional stereotypes. I learned from my friends that the South indeed has obstacles to overcome, but it also has people who are capable of rising above those obstacles, if only given a real chance to do so. Having made more friends from the South over the years, I continue to believe that Southerners, like all of us, just need some help so they can help themselves. In that spirit, we've dedicated this year's POZ 100 list to spotlighting the good deeds of advocates from the South--all 100 are on our gatefold cover. This year's list includes people living with the virus and people who are HIV negative from across the region, as defined by the U.S. Census. Click here to read the empowering stories of these leaders. As is true across the country, the faces of HIV/AIDS in the South are diverse. Showing them all is impossible, but two of this year's POZ 100 honorees -- Steven Romeo and Alex Smith -- are trying their best to literally show as many of them as they can. Click here to read more about their photo project titled "IAMHIV" and to see some of the portraits. Another project that shines a light on the realities of HIV/AIDS in the South is a documentary made by filmmaker and journalist June Cross. Titled Wilhemina's War, the film tells the story of Wilhemina Dixon, a South Carolina resident and the daughter of sharecroppers. She is HIV negative, but Dayshal Dicks, her granddaughter, was born with HIV. The documentary follows Wilhemina and Dayshal over the course of five years. We see many of their highs and lows, including the death of Dayshal's mother, who was lost to AIDS. As we learn about their personal struggles, we also learn the extent of how the virus has affected both rural and black communities. Click here to read more. As we focus this year's POZ 100 list on the Southern United States, we do not want to overlook the fight against the virus in the Global South. In honor of World AIDS Day, which is marked annually on December 1, Josephine Nabukenya of Uganda reminds us of the hope for an end to the pandemic. Born with HIV, Josephine is an ambassador for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. The 23-year-old found out at the age of 10 that she is HIV positive and has been an advocate ever since for youth living with the virus. Click here to read more. Post-election, there were calls for unity from both the losing and winning sides. But how does one unite with someone who is calling for people of a certain religion to register into special government databases or threatening to deport untold millions or remain paralyzed by inaction in the face of hate crimes? Unity seems like a death-wish particularly when the winning side has made little effort at reconciliation. Appointing a person, who can only be described as a propagandist for White supremacy, to be the senior most adviser to the president, can hardly be the beginning of reconciliation. Having advisers and potential cabinet members go on TV to harken back to our shameful past of internments, mass deportations and dragnet surveillance, sends an unwelcome signal to vulnerable minorities. Even if such odious ideas are scaled down for political expediency or beaten back by the courts, their remnants can be damaging to any attempt at unity. I am under no illusion that the U.S. Congress will be an effective check on Donald Trump's imperial presidency. In light of a fast changing landscape that may very well redefine what it means to be an American or who counts as being American, any hopes of reconciliation appears a bridge to far. Having a collective amnesia about the one of the most vitriolic elections in recent memory, also seems like asking a bit too much. In this environment it was jarring to hear Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama talk about cooperating with president-elect Trump. President Obama went as far as to say that he is now "rooting" for president-elect's success. But successful doing what? Establishing a special registry for Muslims? Deporting millions using crude dragnet operations? Pushing millions off healthcare insurance? Ignoring the impact of climate change? Giving Wall Street a free reign in controlling our economy? Using the White House as a conflict-of-interest free zone? A president's success is usually a country's success. But when a president gets elected by less than majority vote and receives over 1.5 million fewer votes than his rival, how can that president's ideas be considered the will of the majority? Resistance appears enticing. It allows the losing side to channel its righteous anger. As much as I want to fling myself unconditionally into the camp of resistors, I am worried too about its efficacy. Resistance without well-defined goals can be a recipe for anarchy. In my faith tradition, anarchy is worse than oppression. President-elect Trump's chief strategist told The Hollywood Reporter that "darkness is good." It is good for those plotting to exploit anarchy. For the rest of us, darkness is darkness. According to Gallup, Donald Trump's net favorability rating is the worst among all newly elected president's since 1992. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both came into the presidency with a net plus 23. Barack Obama was a whopping plus 41. Donald Trump is a minus 13. He surely does not have a mandate, his ideas remain deeply unpopular and his potential cabinet as already elicited concerns across America's political divide. Under these circumstances, resistance to an unpopular and divisive president-elect not only seems to be the moral thing to do but also the most politically effective strategy to adopt. This reporting was made possible by CREDO Mobile Sunday night, on a bridge just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, Morton County police, backed up by the North Dakota National Guard, unleashed a sub-freezing-weather barrage of water cannons, mace and tear gas canisters, 40mm rubber bullets, concussion grenades, 12-gauge bean bag rounds, and other projectiles on hundreds of people demonstrating peacefully against the North Dakota Access Pipeline. Advertisement The police assault resulted in approximately 300 people requiring medical attention and at least 26 people evacuated to three area hospitals. Local EMS crews reported they had to bring in off-duty staff and rigs from as far as Cheyanne, Fargo, and Bismarck to handle the influx of injured people. One ambulance driver told this reporter that it was by far the biggest mass casualty incident the area had ever seen. Among the critically wounded: -- Sophia Wilansky, a young woman from New York City, was shot in the arm with an exploding concussion grenade. She was transported by ambulance to a hospital in Bismarck before being airlifted to Minneapolis, where her arm was amputated. According to a Gofundme page setup by the victim's friend, Wilansky was handing out bottles of water to those trying to recover from exposure to mace and tear gas when she was hit. -- An elder on the front line suffered two episodes of cardiac arrest and had to twice be revived on the scene before being transported to an area hospital for treatment. -- A young man suffered a grand mal seizure after being exposed to a barrage of mace and tear gas canisters fired from 40mm grenade launchers into the densely packed crowd of people who had gathered on the bridge. Advertisement -- A woman shot in the face with a 40mm rubber bullet suffered an eye injury that medical staff say could result in permanent vision loss. -- A young man was vomiting blood due to an internal injury when he was hit at close range with a 40mm rubber bullet. -- Multiple people lost consciousness after being hit in the head with less than lethal projectiles, or by falling down after being hit. -- Multiple people soiled themselves, vomited and/or hyperventilated after being exposed to wave after wave of tear gas and mace. -- Multiple people suffered fractures and/or serious contusions after being hit at close range with less then lethal rounds or falling down after being hit. Advertisement -- Multiple people suffered hypothermia from exposure to the elements after being drenched by police water cannons in temperatures that dipped as low as 22 degrees Fahrenheit. By nights end, many activists and reporters on the scene also reported that they believed police purposely targeted journalists and medics, as well as aimed to maim by shooting 40mm canister rounds directly at peoples' bodies and targeting peoples' heads, necks, and extremities with less than lethal projectiles, as opposed to shooting for participants and observers center mass. The violence began shortly before dusk, when a few dozen "water protectors", their preferred designation, moved toward the highway barricade on the bridge blocking access to the drill site of the controversial DAPL project. Their goal was to remove the two disabled trucks blocking the bridge so that the only direct route from the reservation to medical centers in Bismarck could be reopened. Currently, the closure of the bridge and with it the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's access to North Dakota Route 1806 doubles the time it takes for someone on the reservation to be evacuated to area medical centers, including the area's only level two trauma center. This reporter has made the trip multiple times in the last week. According to Google Maps, the trip that currently takes about an hour and a half should normally take about 40-45 minutes. In an emergency medical situation, this can mean the difference between life and death for not just those out at the encampments, but anyone who calls the reservation home. Advertisement At around 5:30 p.m., after the group had successfully removed one of two trucks in front of the armed barricade with the help of a tractor trailer, the police opened up with a hail of tear gas canisters, mace and other less than lethal projectiles. Upon hearing the familiar sounds of 40mm cannons and 12 gauge shotguns in the air, more water protectors from the camp then began to join their comrades on the bridge -- eventually resulting in hundreds of individuals being trapped in the enclosed space amid volley after volley of less than lethal rounds, mace and CS gas. As the sun set and temperatures began to drop below freezing, police started spraying water cannons indiscriminately into the crowd. The police assault on the unarmed, peaceful demonstrators lasted until nearly three o'clock in the morning. But even with all the violence, the protectors seemed undeterred as a rotating group of them held their line on the bridge well into the next day before withdrawing to plan more direct actions for the coming week. Following the violence, the Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council issued a statement over concern "for the real risk of loss of life due to severe hypothermia under these conditions." The group called on the Morton County Sheriff's Office to "immediately stop the potentially lethal use of these confrontational methods against people peacefully assembled." The Sheriff's Department issued it's own release defending its actions, including repeatedly blasting demonstrators with water in temperatures floating in the middle-20s, by claiming that the campfires some lit on and around the bridge to warm those drenched by police water cannons constituted arson, and that chanting and singing toward the police line was in fact a "riot." However, there was no violence seen by this reporter or reported by the hundreds who marched on the bridge from the Oceti Sakowin Camp, which has grown over recent months into an international solidarity village in support of the Sioux's resistance and has come to represent the larger fight against fossil fuels and an economic system that places the rights of corporations above people. Peter James Callahan is a journalist, broadcaster and media consultant. He is the former Communications Director for Democracy Spring and has also worked as a multimedia producer for The Huffington Post. You can find him on Twitter @PJC_dc. This reporting was made possible by CREDO Mobile Donald Trump won the Presidency not only by appealing to the Republican Party's core conservative constituencies, but also by winning the support of many blue-collar workers who had marked ballots for Democratic Presidential nominees in the past. Trump did this by running as a populist insurrectionist candidate whose appeal ran beyond traditional Republicans who champion tax relief, increasing defense expenditures, and nominating conservatives to federal judgeships. Like most Congressional Democrats, Trump calls for renegotiating trade agreements such as NAFTA, increasing the minimum wage, and dramatically increasing infrastructure spending. In addition, Trump favors providing paid maternity leave for new mothers. While Congressional Democrats will likely fight Trump over federal judgeships, increases in military spending, and tax cuts, the Democratic Party will probably be an ally in getting much of Trump's agenda through Congress. Trump will assuredly need the support of Democrats, and will likely experience antagonism from Congressional Republicans. Trump might have to build coalitions of almost all Democrats while picking off some moderate Republicans. His chief antagonists could be the leadership of the Republican Party and the conservative intelligencia. Advertisement Trump would not be the first President to have to rely on support from the opposing party while fighting his own. Theodore Roosevelt hailed from the progressive bloodline of the Republican Party. When he was President from 1901-1909, both parties harbored liberal and conservative bloodlines. The conservatives in the GOP believed that the Federal Government should be a limited-purpose entity. Their moniker was "standpatter." U.S. House Speaker Joe Cannon (R-IL) was a firm standpatter and was often at loggerheads with Roosevelt. Roosevelt got support from progressives in both parties over the steadfast objections of Cannon and his conservative Congressional coefficients. Yet Roosevelt forged a bi-partisan coalition to shepherd the Antiquities Act through Congress, which gives the President authority to create national monuments on public lands. Cannon remarked: "not one cent for scenery." Cannon also opposed Roosevelt's efforts to reduce tariffs. Dwight D. Eisenhower, like Trump, was a convert to the Republican Party. Also, like Trump, Eisenhower was to the left of many members of his party's Congressional caucus. Eisenhower fought efforts by some in his party to lower the highest tax bracket, which was 91%. Eisenhower ignored their pleas, averring: "We cannot afford to reduce taxes, reduce income, until we have in sight a program of expenditure that shows that the factors of income and outgo will be balanced." In addition, Eisenhower worked with Congressional Democrats to reallocate funds from military spending to foreign aid over the objections of conservative Republicans. Advertisement Like Trump, Eisenhower entered the Presidency with his party in control of both Congressional chambers. Eisenhower developed a largely harmonious relationship with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX) and House Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX). The trifecta worked in unison to shepherd the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through Congress against a coalition of conservatives in both parties. Along these same lines, Johnson, as President, launched a legislative assault to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 through Congress. He effectuated a coalition of moderate and liberal Democrats and Republicans against unswerving opposition from Southern conservative Democrats and Western conservative Republicans. Ironically, as Johnson escalated U.S. troop counts in Vietnam, he relied on support from conservatives in both parties to support its continued funding. He did this while members of his own party, including Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT), voiced opposition to the U.S. role in Indochina. There is a similitude between Trump and Jimmy Carter in that both started their role as outsiders. Carter had served just one term as Governor of Georgia. Carter won plaudits by telling crowds he was "untainted" by Washington. Also, like Trump, Carter was not in lockstep with his party. Carter had won the Democratic Presidential nomination by appealing to the center, while most of his opponents competed for liberal voters. As President, Carter focused on fiscal austerity, inflaming the Democratic base that wanted more social spending. He proposed scrapping many projects he branded: "pork barrel projects," inflaming liberal members of his own party. In addition, Carter nominated tight money exponent Paul Volker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Furthermore, with Republican help, Carter signed legislation deregulating the finance, communications, and airline industries. He also began the post-Vietnam Cold War military buildup that was continued by Ronald Reagan. Defense spending increased from 4.7% of GDP to 5.2% of GDP. Carter also began funding for the MX missile project. Advertisement House Speaker Tip O'Neill (D-MA), an unreconstructed Democrat, was sometimes at odds with Carter. In 1980, O'Neill became indignant when Carter conceded the Presidential election earlier than any major party Presidential nominee since Democrat Alton B. Parker in 1980. This depressed turnout on the West Coast, and likely resulted in Democratic voters staying home, culminating in the loss of Congressional seats. O'Neill mocked Carter's image as an outsider, lashing out at a Carter staffer: "You guys came in like a bunch of jerks, and I see you are going out the same way." Bill Clinton worked with a Republican Congressional leadership to pass NAFTA, Welfare Reform and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. The Democratic Leader in the House, Richard Gephardt (D-MO), opposed all these initiatives. Contrariwise, this legislation mustered the support of the GOP Congressional Leadership. Like Carter, Trump won the nomination and the Presidency not by embracing his party's establishment, but by running against it. He did not immediately endorse U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan in his bid for re-nomination in his Wisconsin Congressional District. Trump declared: "I'm just not there yet" before eventually endorsing Ryan over his long-shot primary challenger Paul Nehlen. Ryan offered only tepid support for Trump, and did not campaign with him, declaring: "We need to support our entire ticket." Trump tweeted that Paul Ryan was "weak and ineffective." Many other Republican leaders distanced themselves from Trump after a tape revealed Trump joking about sexually assaulting women by dis-endorsing him. In politics, there are no permanent allies or permanent alliances. Politicians may work together on one issue, while working against each other on another issue. This is a rule Trump would be wise to follow. He can work with Democrats on passing much of his domestic agenda, while working against them on issues where they disagree. Trump did not get elected as part of the Republican establishment, and few Republicans were elected on his coattails. In fact, many Republicans refused to endorse him and spent much of their campaigns distancing themselves from Trump's actions and oratory. The majority of the country still views Trump unfavorably. Accordingly, it might be in Congressional Republicans self-interest to show independence from Trump. Advertisement Remember Baby Einstein? About a decade ago so-called educational DVDs for infants and toddlers made for a $500 million business. Plunk your little darling in front of a screen, press play, and soon enough your young one could explain the theory of relativity. Purchase Baby Mozart, and a full-blown symphony might emerge from the crib. Or how about a 'lil playwright to dramatize the trials and adventures of being only 2? Why, buy Baby Shakespeare of course. All of these were marketing bunk, not unlike Lumosity's over-hyped "brain-training" for adults. Clearheaded studies refuted extravagant claims. These putative baby-brain enhancers failed to improve cognitive development at all. In fact, they could harm babies' brain development by riveting their growing minds on screen worlds instead of the real one. Growing brains need real-life stimulation, particularly human interaction, in order for neurological pathways to take shape properly. Television's two-dimensional field won't do: it lacks formative power even if it does make for a cheap babysitter. A 2008 report on infant television viewing cautioned that "flashing lights, scene changes, quick edits and auditory cuts may be overstimulating to developing brains." The report also pointed out that every hour a baby spent watching TV was an hour less that he or she could be doing something far more developmentally important or meaningful. [1] Advertisement It is no surprise then that companies selling to infant and toddler customers have been forced to backtrack claims about being "educational" and aiding early development. In fact, Baby Einstein, which was acquired by the Walt Disney Company (um, red flag anyone?), now offers a full refund for any of their videos purchased since 2004. Probably unbeknownst to the millions of parents who bought these DVDs, the American Academy of Pediatrics had long advised against putting babies in front of screens, citing many obvious reasons. Recently, however, the AAP has "evolved" its policies to include a world of ubiquitous digital communication--one in which "children first play with a mobile device when they are still in diapers." [2] The AAP's latest update abandons its "no screens" rule for children under 2, offering a more nuanced approach in which babies are allowed to use screens for two-way communication such as Facetime. For older kids up to age 5, the recommendations are vague, suggesting "more parental involvement" and interaction with the content, which should be "quality." What constitutes quality is left unsaid. The AAP does suggest that families devise a media plan to regulate media use. You can read the guidelines here. While most people agree that children should not stagnate in front of media for too long, the AAP doesn't advise against using screens for interactive learning and homework. It does, however, recommend that parents validate so-called educational apps by using resources such as https://www.commonsensemedia.org. Advertisement So, where does all this get us in a world of screens that seems to be taking over our children's attention spans and reducing them to zero? Unfortunately, not very far. I have written about the negative effects of ceding authority to digital devices, and how the increased presence of screens is altering the brain development and mood of young people. Even if parents can pry devices away from kids at home, they can't stop the ubiquitous glow of tablets in school. Dr. Nicholas Kardaras recently took the educational tech industry to task, calling its call for more screens in schools a $60 Billion Hoax. He cites "over two hundred peer-reviewed studies that point to screen time correlating with increased ADHD, screen addiction, increased aggression, depression, anxiety and even psychosis." What, then, is the solution? The solution is pretty simple given that there is still a world of people and things out there. Kids need to experience it, as they say, IRL. *** [1] The effects of infant media usage: what do we know and what should we learn? Dimitri A Christaki, University of Washington. See http://echd430-f13-love.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/Pediatrics+article.pdf Our first task is to be clear-eyed. Amid post-election grieving and protest, there has been talk about the need for civility. I am all for it, but it must be reciprocated and there must be room for accurately describing our situation rather than papering over the calamitous electoral result. There was nothing civil about people voting for Donald Trump, a crude and ignorant demagogue whose campaign traded in racism, sexism, religious bigotry and xenophobia, and who advocates torture. Those who bought his extravagant yet vague promises are in for a letdown. Meanwhile, they voted against vulnerable populations that now face a frightening backlash. Trump won by means of vote suppression, lies, and incitement, with help from the media and political interference by the FBI. He was further aided by the Kremlin and the anarchist group Wikileaks. This resembles a coup d'etat more than a legitimate decision. Yet despite all this, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. How is that a mandate for Trump? For the second time in sixteen years, the Electoral College is at odds with the will of the people. Yet triumphant voices tell us that "the people" chose Trump. No we damn well didn't. Advertisement Conciliatory impulses should not fool us into thinking that all Americans share the same interests. Contrary to President Obama (who far outclasses his detractors), we are not all on the same team. Trump's goals are inimical to mine. We do not serve our cause by pretending our opponents are merely misguided. Among other things, Trump has threatened to jail his opponents, curtail press freedoms, and bar all Muslims from this country. We must be clear-eyed. Are we supposed to forget that people close to us voted for our erasure? Are we supposed to get over the fact that the eminently qualified, level-headed Hillary Clinton, whose scandals were whipped up by partisans and amounted to nothing, was hounded by sexist double standards while Trump's lengthy list of offenses was treated lightly? Among the most preposterous and contemptible statements are those by Log Cabin Republicans, who called Trump "perhaps the most pro-LGBT presidential nominee in the history of the Republican Party," and now fundraise on their purported access. In fact, Trump chose virulent homophobe Mike Pence for vice president; allowed his convention to pass what Log Cabin itself called the most anti-LGBT platform in the party's history, including support for conversion therapy; and pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia. Our country remains at stake. Generations of work to make America live up to its ideals are at stake. Trump's transition is populated with anti-gay fanatics like Ken Blackwell and Kay Cole James. This is draining the swamp? Trump and his band of grifters do not become honest and decent people because cable shows need a new narrative. We will not defeat fascism by excusing or accommodating it. Advertisement Twenty million people are at risk of losing their healthcare because Republican nihilists refuse to put country before party. Trump was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, which announced a march to celebrate their victory. He has named white nationalist Steve Bannon of Breitbart as his chief strategist. The GOP's refusal to consider the nomination of the widely respected Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court is a glaring example of that party's treasonous insistence that they and only they should be allowed to govern. Trump refuses to release his taxes, and there is reason to believe he has significant conflicts of interest, while he talks as if turning over his business to his children is a blind trust. It is one eye-stretching assertion after another. Intramural fighting among Republicans may create openings for Democrats to advance pieces of their agenda. But demons have been unleashed that will not easily be brought to heel. Consider the minority schoolchildren being harassed by classmates in the racist explosion following the election. Consider the surge in hate crimes and vandalism. Consider the attacks on science and other fields of expertise, and on simple decency, throughout Trump's campaign. American values, institutions, and people are in peril. Taking care of one another is an immediate concern. As we move forward, resisting Trump and the threat he poses is the decent and patriotic thing to do. Advertisement This piece originally appeared in the Washington Blade and Bay Windows. Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist. He can be reached at rrosendall@starpower.net. Last week, the world's most progressive minds came together in the medieval city of Lisbon for the biggest tech gathering of the year, Web Summit. I was there to see first hand how they reacted as America voted in Trump Nearly every speaker at this year's Web Summit in Lisbon promised not to talk too much about the Trump election victory; nearly every speaker then proceeded to talk about it at length. The news hit early on day 2 and was impossible to ignore. The tech crowd is not exactly a bastion of Trump supporters. In fact you'd probably be hard pushed to find 53,056 people less likely to vote for Donald Trump (not that all them were American, of course). Despite this, speakers tried to stay balanced in their response to the event: "The American people have voiced their opinion and we all now need to support the choice they've made" - Sean Rad, CEO of Tinder. The mood was not blaming, but rather about looking forward and thinking about tech's responsibilities to help with some of the democratic and economic issues highlighted. Advertisement Robotics and Artificial Intelligence were big topics at the conference and as one speaker after another lined up the next industry or function for automation, so some would start philosophising on what this meant for society. Sid Sijbrandij acknowledged that his developer support platform, GitLab and the tech industry in general may have had some role in creating the disenfranchised demographic that brought in Trump. He felt that his industry needed to help find solutions for the problems it caused and talked of assistance with retention and retraining. Simon Goodall 2016 Pretty much everyone thought driverless cars were just around the corner, as was the roll out of drones for delivery. Having talked at length about the advantages for his employees in terms of flexibility and health benefits, Deliveroo CEO William Shu didn't miss a beat when asked if his cyclists would soon be replaced by robots: "Its going to happen". The friendly taxi driver who took me back to town is campaigning hard against the arrival of Uber in Lisbon. His two young sons, whom he is anxious about supporting, are unlikely to be able to follow him into the trade on any terms. As a friend commented, "The wall won't keep out robots". On the positive side, tech is creating opportunities for the kind of democratic empowerment that might help us navigate these changes. Former Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou talked about his vision for the Internet being "an Agora of ideas" and how he had attempted to democratise the process of law making in Greece with something called wikilaws. Crowd-sourced law making and the 'Digital Agora' could rejuvenate direct (ancient Athenian style) democracy in the modern world, with citizens participating on a daily basis, rather than just voting at the end of every term. Sean Rad had his own, characteristically much simpler, solution for political engagement already up and running. Yes, you guessed it: swipe right for Trump, left for Hillary. His global poll had been running for weeks and he reported some unsurprising results, with Mexican Tinderers heavily for Hillary, while Russian swipers were the most likely to be in favour of Trump (imagine that face popping up on your Tinder app!). Advertisement There was a lot of queuing to be done in Lisbon. The registration process was very labour intensive for a tech conference, and it took half of the first day to get everyone in. I spent over an hour in a queue into the old town one evening, trying to get back from the presentation on hyperloop and the future of door-to-door transportation. Finally, I nearly missed my flight home thanks to a ridiculously long queue to scan boarding passes: only one of the airport officials was young enough to scan the smartphone displayed passes. The old guys refused to touch these new fangled devices, despite only a tiny handful of travellers from the summit having paper printouts - there's a retraining task for Sid Sijbrandij right there. I admit it was also partly my fault. In the digital future, my electronic personal assistant would have got me out of bed and off to the airport earlier, but it had been a very long 'Night Summit'. Web summiteers are a euphoric bunch, full of self-belief and optimism. They are young and in control of their (and maybe our) futures, and once the day's work was done they were very ready to have a good time. Lisbon's medieval alleys may be a pain to get around by taxi, but they create a great setting for a party. Even in November, the evenings were balmy enough for much of the socialising to happen out in the packed streets and squares. One bright attendee I got talking to at the centre of the party - 'Pink Street' - revealed, somewhat sheepishly, that she had been running algorithms for the Trump campaign, building personas of target segments of the American electorate from an office in London. As George Papandreou had said only a few hours previously, "There is no technological development that is not political as well." Women are strong and powerful, but when they enhance each other they are unbeatable. Simonetta Lein We live in a world of image, speed, and the constant search of success. We see those images; we admire the constant exploration of beauty and we love it. Sometimes, however, I ask myself if that is all true. What do we see behind those pictures? What are those people going through in their lives? Many things are left unsaid, and Farah Zulaikha is someone who doesn't let on to all that she is. Farah is a Pakistani woman born and raised in New York City. Her beauty is beyond words, her oriental eyes and long black hair definitely suggest that she could be a model, and she is. Ms. Zulaikha however, is much more than your ordinary model (and never really thought she would have become one). She is a biomedical researcher who helped develop an artificial pancreatic device that has saved countless lives. Farah is also a United Nations Ambassador (NCWUS) and an Award-Winning Humanitarian who has been standing up in defense of disadvantage women for many years. She is currently serving in The National Council of Women of The United States, and is one of the youngest UN ambassadors ever. When you were a child, did you wish for the career and for the life that you have manifested today? What a wonderfully insightful question. As we should be aware, childhood and our early memories and dreams are some of the purest and most genuine that have ever existed. It makes perfect sense- as children are free of prejudice, free of malice, free of hatred- they are innocent and with that innocence comes the courage to DREAM BIG. Some may dismiss our childhood dreams as outlandish or juvenile- however that is simply not true. So the fact that you recognize that and promote that personally with The Wishwall Foundation is amazing Simonetta! I know this interview is about me but I had to acknowledge you there because you share an ideal with me! That ideal is to nurture our dreams rather than let them die. That being said Simonetta, I was always a dreamer. I'm happy to say I still am! However glory and success was never really what I dreamed of, I just wanted to help people. I was the type of kid who would feel guilty if I had nicer toys than my friends and I would give them away every time until my mother would ask me what happened to them LOL! I told her I didn't want to play with the pretty dolls unless ALL the girls had them- then it was no fun! I always wished for peace and happiness for ALL people and I always hated to see people suffer. I remember when my father (a prestigious medical doctor and leader in his field) took me to Pakistan for a charity mission when I was seven or eight years old and I saw children who really didn't behave anything like the kids in America... they would work in factories, or even worse be begging on the street for food, and if you looked in their eyes you did not see anything hopeful or childlike in them- and even at that age I could understand that I was no different and we were all just children- so why was it that I had everything and they had nothing? What made me so much better than them that I was born to wealthy educated parents and they were born poor and hungry in a third world country? Forget about childish wishes and being able to dream-these children have very adult problems and are too busy trying to find their next meal or not be beaten by the people who kidnap and traffic them. Advertisement I don't mean to be depressing but it is reality and when my heart would break and I would cry bitterly my father would tell me "NO! Don't look away. Don't act like it doesn't exist. LOOK AT THEM. Understand their pain. If you feel that much for them that it brings you to tears, educate yourself, study and use your voice and your talent to help these people. Understand the world is bigger than you and if you are passionate about helping others then REMEMBER THIS FEELING AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT." That has stuck with me for my entire life. Therefore, I never really dreamed about a successful career but more about following my passions and I really wished for a world where everyone has the "good toys", a world of prosperity happiness and love, and I didn't exactly know how I would accomplish that, but I knew that everything I did would be in the pursuit of that ideal. Name a wish that you had for your life or for humanity that finally came true. I am so very thankful for everything in my life, and have a lot to be happy about. I recognize that I have so much when others have so little, and so I try not to be too proud of the things I have earned. However a wish that finally did come true was to be a representation of shattering prejudicial stereotypes of what a woman should be. Society always tries to put women and girls in a box- we are told look a certain way, think a certain way, behave a certain way. There is the notorious "Madonna-Whore Complex" which is often discussed in psychology and basically describes this damaging idea that women fit into certain profiles and they are mutually exclusive- she can only be pure and virginal or otherwise she is dirty and corrupted. For me I am scholar and also a fashionista which gets me odd looks sometimes but I don't see why as it tells more about the person feeling odd about it than the actual idea. Advertisement Why is it so weird that I am a biomedical researcher who helped develop an artificial pancreas device and I also walk the runway at New York Fashion Week and hang out with Donatella Versace? Why do I have to wear spectacles and braces to be considered smart (nothing wrong with glasses and braces I have worn both and still was beautiful no matter what I thought at the time in fact we ALL are), and why does my perceived IQ drop dramatically in proportion to the amount of makeup I am wearing or the length of my skirt? WE CAN BE BOTH INTELLECTUAL AND STYLISH, WE CAN BE ATTRACTIVE AND ALSO OF GOOD CHARACTER, WE CAN AND ARE MULTIFACETED AND MULTI TALENTED! THERE'S NO WRONG WAY TO CELEBRATE YOURSELF AND BE YOURSELF. Just like there are these damaging beauty standards that have been prejudiced against women of color in the media for so long- we simply were not represented! I also know what it's like to go to a model casting and be the only non-white European and again there's nothing wrong with models of white European descent they are just as beautiful and talented, but often the only visible representation in fashion and modeling and therein lies the problem! We need a broader global view of beauty. I know what it's like to flip through the fashion magazines and see dozens of beautiful supermodels but none that looked like me or anyone from my ethnic background and it's one thing to change your style or your hair- but I cannot change my ethnicity nor would I want to and it is written all over my face and my body! I carry my heritage on me so when a major magazine tells me to bleach blonde and ruin my thick dark middle eastern hair that would take several processes to achieve, or when the modeling agencies are only interested in the Eurocentric looking versions of us with light colored eyes and light skin, or when you tell my beautiful black sisters in fashion that their natural skin color and hair texture is not desirable and that they must chemically straighten their hair or bleach their skin, you are telling us that in order to beautiful or fashionable and keep up with the trends, that we must assimilate or erase what makes us ourselves. You are telling us that we were BORN "unfashionable and un pretty" that our very DNA makes us "off-trend." I have never thought that to be true and always was fascinated by the spectrum of beauty growing up in New York, it's a melting pot of beauty and style from every corner of the world and it is the greatest thing. Therefore I always kept my ethnic look- my long dark hair, my thick dark eyebrows, my olive skin and warm brown eyes- I kept them all whether people liked my look or not. Once I started as a fashionista I would sometimes feel discouraged as for example I went to cast for a fashion week show and they selected me but then at the last minute they dropped me and said they "only wanted blondes..." Fine, I thought- no problem. I already had booked a full show schedule and as a model you are used to being chosen based upon fitting into a certain aesthetic. However interestingly enough when the show photos came out, there were brunettes too- just the "right" kind of brunette, a white European brunette. Needless to say there were no models of color in that show. This happens still, and has even to some of the best models of color of all time like Tyra Banks and Jourdan Dunn. But what kept me going was the fan letters I would receive from little girls from places like Dubai, India, Kuwait, Pakistan etc. who would say "I always wanted to be a model and loved fashion but I was never allowed to pursue it" or "I never thought they would find someone who looks like me. I look like you and you make me feel beautiful!" I was so touched and realized what we do is bigger than ourselves- especially in this day and age someone is always watching! Our example is much more powerful than we may realize. Therefore, I am really happy and thankful that I have been able to inspire and be a unique role model for many, and to help dispel these damaging and very anti-feminist ideals. Advertisement **Thank you Farah for continuing to break cultural barriers. It is also thanks to women like you who make cultural progress (because you did not give up and proved them wrong). In any circumstance, please: DON'T GIVE UP AND PROVE THEM WRONG. If you were granted one wish for humanity or for our planet, what would it be? My GREATEST WISH (what I always say would solve so many problems in this world) is for all people to have the ability to empathize with others. Empathy is so rare yet so important and truly is a simple solution to many things. So many people are kind, they are intelligent, they are successful but they do not have the ability to put themselves in someone else's shoes or feel someone else's pain. People sometimes cannot perceive something which does not directly affect them or even worse, don't have an understanding or awareness of how they affect others. It causes an unimaginable amount of misunderstanding and conflict the absence of this concept. I am telling you my dear Simonetta the world would be a much better place if people could simply stop and say "hey how would I feel if that happened to me." **Being the founder of The Wishwall Foundation I do recognize that as one of the biggest problems of all time. Nobody listens to you anymore; people just need to be heard and reassured. Please take a bit of your time and go to www.thewishwall.org and you will find many beautiful wishes. Stop for a moment to read the posts, and if you can help please write a comment. You can change someone's life just by doing that. Let's help makie meaningful wishes together. Advertisement If you could go back in time and ask one question from anyone from history, who would you want to meet and what question would you ask? WOW amazing question. I would go back to the battlefield in France during the Hundred Years War on the same hill where Joan Of Arc (or as I like to call her affectionately Jeanne D'Arc) stood ready to defend her people against the British assault during The Siege Of Paris as only a teenager dressed as a male warrior. I would ask her what she felt at that moment and what gave her the passion and courage to do what she did. I am obsessed with history, especially iconic female historical figures. There is a statue there of that very scene in Paris today, and whenever I am there I always visit it and pay homage to Saint Joan! **She is one of my role models too, and there is an amazing sculpture of her in my beloved Philadelphia across from the Art Museum. She used to say: "One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying." Please tell me what influences your unique sense of style? Ah well first of all thank you the very kind compliment Simonetta, especially from a fashionista like you! I am truly a style stew, with many random ingredients. My beauty looks are definitely middle eastern and south Asian inspired due to my heritage- I LOVE dramatic Arabian eye makeup. I also take notes from my heritage in my clothes as I love opulent glamorous styles and lots of jewelry and gold which is a very eastern thing LOL! Some people may say it's gaudy but I don't care I love to look like a chandelier if I can LOL! However this is not always possible. If I lived in the Taj Mahal and could languish around in a heavy gold thread banarsi sari and 24k gold all over myself I would but unfortunately I live in reality where I also have to be practical. I am also VERY heavily influenced by NYC street style as I was born and raised in New York. I love fashionable sneakers and boots with luxury touches like my Versace Medusa combat boots or my crystal encrusted Swarovski x Doc Marten boots! Girly can also be edgy and you don't need to be wobbling in 6 inch heels to look great! Although I love my high heels too. I'm a person who does many things and my clothes have to keep me looking great and professional but they also have to move with me, whether I'm at the United Nations defending human rights as a young ambassador for The National Council Of Women Of The United States, or whether I'm working on new research in the medical lab, or whether I am appearing at fashion week I have to be ready at all times! Who is your favorite fashion designer or brand right now and why? This is so difficult to answer. I am a fan of them all but particularly Italian designers are my favorite. They were the first to embrace me in the fashion industry and they are just top when it comes to leather, shoes and handbags! The Italians understand fashion and they are beautiful in both appearance, culture, language and personality- it certainly shows in their style. The Italian fashion industry has been so kind to me. Versace, Cavalli, Ferragamo... I have appeared for them all at Milan Fashion Week and I am a bit of a Italia-phile! LOL! When it comes to fashion the saying is true, "Italians do it better." **Thank you for appreciating my culture. Italy is going through a tough time right now, but working in fashion just makes me happy because nobody can hold a candle to Italian fashion supremacy (with of course French, English, and in certain cases American exceptions). After this answer you are an honorary Italian girl! What is your fashion mantra? My fashion mantra is "IF YOU LIKE IT I LOVE IT!" If it makes you happy, more power to you I support anything or anyone who wants to feel great by expressing themselves through fashion. There are no rules, the only rule is to be true to yourself. **Isn't this AMAZING? This is the first time that someone shares a fashion mantra totally devoted on empowering others. If it makes you feel good, at ease, if you like it I will support you (unless you lose total control of an "Italian" sense of style). In that case, please write us and we will support your fashionista's decisions LOL! What is your final message for our readers? First and foremost I would like to thank you so much Simonetta Lein The WISHMAKER for your exceptional questions and talent. She was so patient as I took the time to respond as thoroughly as I could to her insightful questions and I am deeply grateful to her and to The Huffington Post for allowing me this platform to speak. For anyone reading, thank you for taking the time to learn about me as a person! This means more to me than any photo or ad campaign- you chose to take a look at my heart! That is one of the greatest gifts of all so thank you to everyone and positive energy to all! Advertisement **It was a true honor. Please go and visit http://fafazforme.com and keep on supporting WOMEN. As always, make your wishes come true. This is the Thanksgiving after an election result which has opened the floodgates of hate crimes and incidents, and has filled our immigrant and minority communities with nothing short of terror. The reported hate crimes since election day are now numbered at 701, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Sunday after the election, a group of parents of kids attending Brooklyn Bala Vihar, a Hindu Sunday school where I teach along with other parents, were spat at by a man who said, "I don't like Indians and Pakistanis." And a Brooklyn Heights playground where my kids played often when they were small, was defaced with swastikas. As well as being on the board of Sadhana, I am a part of a women's rights organization called Women for Afghan Women. There is enormous fear and bewilderment in our NYC Afghan community, and the staff has been holding the community close, organizing legal advocacy trainings and healing circles. As with every crisis, this moment has within it the seeds of the solution -- the crazy, irrational audacity that fills us even when things seem hopeless; the thing that some call faith! Here are some nuggets of hope that have fueled me these past two weeks, and this Thanksgiving I will give thanks for these: In spite of being terrified of looming threats like the Muslim registry and mass deportations, forty brave Afghan women from Queens have signed up to go to the Women's March on Washington with Women for Afghan Women. This particular community is engaging and asserting themselves for the very first time, and it is so exciting to be witness. Several hundred people came together in that Brooklyn playground in a beautiful vigil to share messages of love. Children and their families cleaned up the hateful swastikas and replaced them with flowers and art. I have been adding my Hindu voice and presence to vigils and rallies and interfaith services since the election, where so many are sharing beautiful messages of commitment to love, unity and diversity. People are pledging to be there for each other, stand together, protect each other, no matter what struggles we must face. This week, I have been inspired by the words of a Christian who sees humanity in every human, created in the likeness of the divine; a Jew whose beloved Torah calls him to welcome and embrace the stranger; and a Muslim who sees humanity as a body and each person a limb or organ: if one person is hurting, the whole body is sick. We Hindus see divinity in every single person, creature and aspect of the universe, and chant, "Vasudaiva Kutumbakam," or "the world is one family." The great religions of the world obligate us to treat each other, in spite of our differences, with love, compassion and respect. While I share the deep concerns and fears about this moment when democracy and civil rights are in peril, not to mention the fate of our planet whose temperature and waters are rising, I give thanks for all those who have filled the streets and my heart with their words of love and peace, and their acts of resistance to hatred. Image: Life in Utah; or, the Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism, J. H. Beadle (1870) I brought some copies of my book, Royal Society: The Public Evolution Summit to London and passed them around the gathering of distinguished evolution enthusiasts at 7 Carlton House Terrace, anticipating that the November 7-9 Royal Society "new trends" conference would fall short of its billing. Indeed, one of the opening speakers referred to himself as representing the Jurassic Age of science and pointed out that the content of the previous speaker's lecture -- which put more than the jet-lagged in the audience to sleep -- could be found in existing textbooks. He was right about the previous talk, it was a rehash of Altenberg 2008 served with a dollop of natural selection. And so it went for most of the presentations, niche construction ad nauseam, except for talks by James Shapiro and John Dupre (I arrived late for Denis Noble's). The event would have benefited from someone in the wings with a hook restraining speakers who insisted on relying on the mantra of natural selection to fill in the blanks of their science. Repeated references to the term became almost comical. Sir Patrick Bateson finally came to the rescue, cautioning against overuse of the "metaphor," saying further that "natural selection is not an agent." Advertisement In his defense of the meeting, principal organizer Denis Noble told me it was amazing the event happened at all because the Royal Society wanted to cancel it. Ten of the 26 presenters were part of the John Templeton Foundation-funded Extended Synthesis project. Templeton is known for its pairing of science and religion. And as the talks proceeded, it appeared to some in the room that the JTF-funded scientists had both compromised their work and retarded science by accepting the foundation's easy money. I again requested a formal interview with Paul Wason, the life science (formerly science and religion) director at Templeton who was in attendance -- but Wason again refused. He did tell me a few things during a chat on the Royal Society stairway, however. In response to my question about Sunny Bains's 23-page report that some of the JTF advisory board members were also grant recipients, some multiple grant recipients -- Wason said JTF no longer had a single advisory board, departments now each have their own advisors. Advertisement But that hardly clears up the issue of JTF cronyism and lack of transparency. Wason also told me that NASA approached JTF in 2015 to partner in a grant to the Center of Theological Inquiry in an outreach to the religious community to see how the religious community would respond to the discovery of life in outer space, because NASA could not directly approach a religious organization with its $1.1 million offer. JTF threw $1.7 million of its own funds to CTI for the two-year investigation. Wason thinks that contrary to the view of Andrew Pohorille -- NASA's senior most scientist on origin of life, who I reported in May 2015 does not think "we" will find life anywhere else in the solar system including Mars -- that it would be tough to find anybody else at NASA sharing Pohorille's perspective. I reminded Wason that there was as yet no scientific consensus on what life even is. . . But getting back to the Royal Society program -- just what was the point of attracting a distinguished international gathering if the speakers had little new science to present? Why waste everyone's time and money? After all, a round trip air ticket US - UK is $1,000, a three-day hotel stay at least another $500, plus meals, ground transportation and miscellaneous travel expenses (including the cost of replacing Wolford hosiery destroyed by a crudely-stapled Royal Society program). Among the disgruntled attendees was Canadian biochemist Larry Moran of Sandwalk, who referred to the speakers as "Adaptationists!" Kalevi Kull, one of The Third Way of Evolution personalities, who traveled from Estonia for the meeting but was not an official presenter, couldn't get a word in because moderators kept taking questions from official speakers seated in the front rows, depriving attendees of their participation time. Another of the TTW personalities, Duke University engineer Adrian Bejan, left after the first day. Only 15 of 50 or so scientists profiled on the TTW page actually showed up for the event. I came away with the impression that the Royal Society may have gone the way of the Explorers Club. We're living in a world that's been largely explored and science has been democratized via the Internet. So these two once-privileged clubs are now seriously diminished in authority. Advertisement Plus I would say the Royal Society needs more than the coat of paint it is now getting, it needs to seriously update its conference facilities. There is just no comparison with, say, the Simons Foundation's "state-of-the-art" auditorium in New York. Of the noteworthy presenters at the Royal Society gathering, John Dupre was probably the most erudite, the diamond in his left ear further mesmerizing. I'd interviewed Dupre prior to the meeting for my book, so I was familiar with his general perspective of process ontology. A view Carl Woese also held. Dupre told me this during our interview: "The central argument that brought me to a process ontology was realizing that the boundaries between organisms are extremely fluid and permeable and the way we divide the world into discrete organisms is not something that is just given to us by nature. This is something that is easy to understand in the context of process, very difficult to understand in the context of discrete things." He also told me: "Perhaps I am at fault for not having made the argument you're making [including a discussion of viruses and microbes in the Royal Society meeting] to the group [meeting's organizers] more effectively," saying further that he'd just finished co-editing an issue of a journal on viruses: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. Aside from Dupre in the October 2016 special issue -- some of the other contributors are Eugene Koonin and Petro Starokadomskyy, who provide a useful table of virus definitions; Maureen O' Malley who points out that not only do viruses "participate in the planet's most crucial food webs" but "[t]hey also constitute regulators of planetary biogeochemistry, controlling cycles on which all life depends (carbon, nitrogen and phosophorus)"; Patrick Forterre commenting that viruses probably predated LUCA since some viruses are common to bacteria, eukarya and archaea; Jean-Michel Claverie and Chantal Abergel who note that giant viruses "might have evolved from extinct ancestral cellular lineages." Advertisement Dupre has in lectures in recent years referred to viruses as the elephant in the room hiding behind microbes, the other elephant in the room: "The enormous powers of viruses to evolve and their ability to insert genetic material into the genomes of cellular organisms has led some biologists to speculate that it is viruses that are the prime movers of major evolutionary change or, at any rate, the main providers of novel biochemical resources. It is beginning to seem possible that, just as microbes are the expert metabolists in nature, so viruses are the leading evolvers." Virologist Luis Villarreal, who was not invited to speak at the Royal Society gathering and did not attend, would certainly agree with Dupre's last statement but he thinks it's not possible to reduce viruses to process. Villarreal says: "ex virus omni" (from virus everything) and sent the following comments to me: "This [viruses as process] is individual fittest type thinking. If the resident viral agents would lose identity, they would no longer be part of a system or network. That's not how it works. The reason for their presence depends on others (like lytic agents). This is the nature of identity, interaction of multiple participants to create identity." James Shapiro, the other bright spot of the RS meeting, highlighted themes from his book, Evolution: A View from the 21st Century, regarding symbiosis and hybridization and waded into the water on viruses, talking about their role in formation of the eye and the placenta. I addressed a question to Jim Shapiro about stem-loop RNAs (viruses), which Shapiro said he was "challenged by." Advertisement Villarreal predicted Shapiro's RS lecture would not go far enough in its reference to viruses. Villarreal thinks stem-loop RNAs "seem to indeed underlie most complex biological systems, especially their control." The other notable conference news was Denis Noble citing the embryo geometry paper of Stuart Pivar, who was seated in the room between wife Larimore and co-author David Edelman and elegantly dressed in a black velvet jacket for the occasion. Pivar has faced fierce criticism in the past regarding his evolutionary perspective, particularly from the PZ Myers pack, and so welcomed Denis Noble's recent invitation to publish in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, one of the journals Noble co-edits. Noble is also listed on the "advisory panel" for Pivar's new web page: urform.org. The United States has partnered with the countries of East Africa to counter violent extremism. On a recent trip to Kenya and Djibouti, U.S. Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism Michael Ortiz met with senior government officials, local and county officials, and members of civil society who are working to counter terrorism and violent extremism. Kenya fulfilled its pledge to host a regional countering violent extremism or CVE Summit in June 2015 and is emerging as a regional leader on this issue. In recent months, the Kenyan government introduced a national countering violent extremism strategy and appointed a senior-level diplomat to lead and coordinate implementation of the strategys action plan. During his trip, Deputy Coordinator Ortiz discussed with Kenyan officials the importance of partnering with communities and civil society. He also emphasized President Barack Obamas and Secretary John Kerry's message that protecting human rights and building trust in security forces is essential to preventing and countering radicalization. Mr. Ortiz underscored that Kenya can benefit greatly by working closely with civil society, religious leaders, and its international security partners to end violent extremism. Online recruitment and radicalization to violence remain serious challenges and Mr. Ortiz emphasized that we must do more to educate parents, teachers, and other community leaders on ways to intervene with young people before it is too late. Local communities on the front lines in the fight against violent extremism must be empowered to stop the process of radicalization to violence. That is why the United States has helped establish organizations like the Strong Cities Network and the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund and launched initiatives such as the Global Counterterrorism Forum's Initiative to Address the Lifecycle to Radicalization to Violence. Just this year, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development started implementing a $7.5 million effort to support the Counterterrorism Partnership Fund in Kenya. In Djibouti, government officials are collaborating with young leaders to address the challenges of violent extremism in partnership with East Africas Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD. Under IGADs leadership, the new East Africa CVE Center of Excellence and Counter-Messaging Hub will provide a platform for East Africans to share best practices, collaborate on research on the localized drivers of violent extremism, and develop innovative counter-messaging efforts. The U.S. will continue to assist it partners in East Africa to tackle terrorism and violent extremism and stands ready to lead in this fight. A year ago I went to Portugal, a country of elaborate azul tiles, ochre rooftops, soft sun, and melting custard tarts. The country of the magic, earthquakes, and first explorers, made me almost forget my mission of working on a more connected world - but I never forget it for too long! In addition to exploring Portugal as a tourist, I interviewed the man behind Europe's largest networks for student internships named PRAXIS. Professor Nuno Escudeiro works at Instituto Politecnico do Porto and is leading PRAXIS, a network assembling opportunities for the students to work at companies and universities. Professor Escudeiro teaches computer science, but for the past five years, he has been dedicating most of his energy to PRAXIS. PRAXIS is a network that helps connect students in Europe to internship opportunities. Professor Escudeiro started PRAXIS in 2011, because at the time he was a coordinator of student programs at IPP. He firsthand witnessed how many times his students wanted to go abroad for the internship, but how finding places for these students was challenging; he came up with an idea to create a portal to help students find internships. Following a successful application for the European funds, PRAXIS was born. Forty four European universities originally participated; the network of partnerships is still growing, and now includes over 120 universities around Europe. They are expanding to India, are about to sign a contract with Nepal, and plan expansion to the United States. Advertisement In addition to higher education, PRAXIS is planning to provide opportunities to students of secondary education as well. Currently the Praxis team is developing a portal for Vocational education and training (VET). It should be launched at the beginning of 2017. The schools are very well connected with the industry, and many students want to go for an internship abroad to apply their hard-earned skills. Internships range in timing from 3 months to a full year, but the majority last about 6 months. Initially, PRAXIS was offering opportunities for the engineering students, but now the network has grown to encompass the opportunities from many different fields. Among the forty four original partner universities, many were from the technical area, and the majority of offers came from the technical companies. These days, now that PRAXIS has grown, there are still a lot of technical opportunities, but many more - including marketing, hotel services, tourism, in addition to traditionally technical opportunities in mechanical, electrical engineering, and even aerospace and space engineering. I spoke with Ivana Slafkovska and Ugo Bresolin, students that found their own opportunities through PRAXIS. Ivana is originally from Slovakia, and was looking for marketing opportunities around Europe. She has been considering either an internship in Portugal, as she has already been familiar with the country, or the Baltic States. She considered a number of opportunities, some of them paid and some offering volunteering work, and settled to work with Professor Escudeiro himself, managing the marketing and social media for PRAXIS. PRAXIS is not only offering internship offers but also practical information for students, companies and academics. For instance, students can find a guide in order to secure their dream internship. The tips start with the obvious, such as practicalities ("understand where you live", "determine industry sector") but move on quickly to the nitty-gritty details of applying for the internships and end with tips how to deal with reverse cultural shock after returning home. At the core of PRAXIS recommendations, students must take initiative in their own hands, and reach out to the companies that they love. Here are some of my favorite tips: Advertisement 1. Polish your Social Media Presence Before applying for an internship, check out your social network presence, facebook, etc.. You may think this is your private space but unless you have set the security and visibility settings very carefully and actively manage them your internship company may be able to see your presence. Be careful what you post - think about what is there from the perspective of a future employer! 2. Test to Win If you have a few companies you are interested in, or for that matter only one, try sending a letter to not your first choice first - try a dummy run, see what response you get and adjust your approach based on what happens. But don't give up on your quest - just remember door to door salespeople have a success rate (and it is not 100%), their strategy is along the lines of every failure is one step nearer the next success. 3. Prepare for Adventure. International internships require you to do everything for a domestic one plus a whole new set of considerations. An international internship requires a big personal investment in research and planning time. For instance, you must consider your budget (travel, accomodation, and commuting expenses), legal requirements (such as VISA), dress code of the workplace, insurances, and other legal details. Do your research. 4. Write Things Down! On your first day, take a notepad and pen/pencil with you so you can note anything important, you will receive a lot of information on your first day and during your induction, great if you have a really good memory, if not keep brief notes. You can also use a tablet pc or phone but we suggest you don't use anything that does not come to life almost immediately so it does not look as though you are doing something else while someone is talking to you. In the current film, Loving, about Richard and Mildred Loving's 1958 interracial marriage that led to their arrest in Virginia, Richard tells their lawyer, as he prepares to present their appeal to the Supreme Court: "tell the court I love my wife." In 1967, that Court unanimously threw out the miscegenation laws then on the books in sixteen states. The film does not present the high drama we are used to in TV or big screen courtroom scenes. The cinematic focus is instead on the love between its protagonists, their struggle for a normal life, and the hardships imposed by the hard-heartedness of their state government. Much has been written in the last two weeks about why Donald Trump won and Hillary Clinton lost the election. Some see in the result the work of racial or identity group politics. Some see anti-establishment anger. Others see the impact of a letter from FBI Director James Comey, the poor turnout of certain voter groups, the power of social media, undisclosed emails, false facts, political lies, and/or corruption. But there is one factor that has been insufficiently understood. The election was in large part about the same demand for human dignity that led the Lovings to marry and that propelled them on a nine-year battle to have that dignity respected by their government. It is possible to see in Trump's victory the desire for dignity of all those in rural and Midwestern America who have lost their livelihoods and their way of life due to the decline of manufacturing, the closing of coal mines, and free trade. For many Americans, they can no longer meet the test Richard Loving so achingly uttered in a moment of sheer frustration in the film: "I want to take care of my family." Advertisement But to see this as the reason Trump won and Clinton lost it to politicize the desire for dignity and to neglect its universality. It is not only rural or Midwestern whites whose dignity has been damaged. It is all those who feel that wealth has become a substitute for worth, that character and hard work no longer guarantee a livelihood and respect. It is the struggle of all those, whether in the country or the inner city, who lack work - an essential precondition to the feeling of self-worth. It is children of illegal immigrants who, born in the United States, face the deportation of their parents and the tearing apart of their lives. It is legions of blacks whose ongoing campaign for civil rights and life itself has left them feeling afraid and abandoned. It is citizens of the Muslim faith who feel degraded and disrespected by those who see in them not the dignity of human beings but the danger of unjustified terrorist fears. It is all those who want their right to marry as respected as was the Lovings. It is women who want to know that their fortunes depend on their capabilities and are not constrained by their sex. It is men who want to feel, as Richard Loving felt, that they can still provide for their families and live out the "caring for them" role to which they have been socialized. It is all those Americans who feel that the winds of technology and globalization are keeping them behind and bewildered, as if the foundations of their families and their lives are floating on uncertain tides instead of anchored in the bedrock of tradition. It is the feeling that we, as individuals, are somehow insignificant, caught up by forces we neither understand nor control. The Declaration of Independence rightly anchored the legitimacy of government in our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Human dignity is impossible without this trinity. It is not surprising, then, that Trump won the Electoral College while Clinton won the popular vote. This should tell us that each candidate appealed to the desire for dignity, though in different ways and among different groups. If President Trump ignores this universal need, misreading the election results as a mandate for hard-hearted policies rather than as a hope for government to respect and bolster human dignity, he will fail to deliver on the chance the voters have given him. If the Republican and Democratic parties in Congress turn again to jockeying for advantage rather than compromising to create the conditions in which Americans can retain if not reclaim their dignity, they will have forsaken, once again, the public's trust. The next election will then just become another exercise in which the forgotten try to extract revenge on those whose sole mission should be to deliver on the Declaration's promise. Advertisement Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states, are concerned by the election of Donald Trump. Ali Jarekji/Reuters President-elect Donald Trump's worldview and projected foreign policy have created deep anxiety, unprecedented fear and grave expectations of destabilisation in the Muslim world. Muslims everywhere were offended and psychologically shocked by his views on immigration, racism, Israel, Arab and Muslim states, and indifference to global political and economic suffering. Advertisement Trump is perceived as a man who measures world issues through race, religion and loyalty to capitalism rather than the long-held American values of tolerance, liberty, human rights and the great "melting pot". Clash of civilisations Trump's statements about Latinos, Muslims, black people and women, alongside his lack of nuance, makes it seem as though we are heading towards a clash of civilisations. Many, including former British prime minister David Cameron, have claimed that such messages of prejudice only encourage extremist groups such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, Fath al-Sham Front, religious zealots and white supremacists. Trump's proposals for dealing with vital and existential issues to Muslims, such as the establishment of Palestinian state or ending the wars in Syria and Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Afghanistan, betray either a profound misunderstanding of world events, or a dangerous bias that will only lead to more conflict. Advertisement Eduardo Munoz/Reuters Even if there is no official united reaction in the Muslim world to Trump's election, some examples can illustrate the mixed feelings in the region. Relief for Syria and Egypt The regimes in Syria and Egypt would likely have been relieved that Trump's rival, Hillary Clinton, failed, since they were expecting a harsh hand against their regimes. Egypt feared that Clinton would support the Muslim Brotherhood, which would weaken its military regime under Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Trump, on the other hand, says he will place the organisation on the terrorist list. This would weaken its struggle with the Egyptian regime and other regimes throughout the Muslim world - in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Yemen. So President Sisi likely considers Trump's victory as his own, and thinks he could become the next true strongman of Egypt, with US blessings. Advertisement In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad is delighted with Trump's views on terrorist organisations and the need to eradicate them, seeing him as "a natural ally". Sana Sana Assad has clearly embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin's seemingly good relationship with Trump, a shift that could seriously affect the political landscape in the region. This new alliance has the potential to unite the US and Russia, as well as Syria and Iran, to eliminate the rebel groups fighting President Assad, as well as terrorist groups such as ISIS and Fath al-Sham Front. It will help keep Assad's regime in place, reversing Barack Obama's policy towards Syria and angering traditional American allies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates Concerns in the Gulf states If the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are happy to see the end of the Obama administration, because of their frustrations with his nuclear deal with Iran and low-key support of Syrian opposition groups, they also worry about Trump's criticism of Muslims and his declarations about creating a safe zone in the Middle East, that the Gulf States will pay for. Advertisement Riyadh has also reacted strongly to Trump's comments that the US needs to block all oil imports from Saudi Arabia. The president-elect's vow to secure US energy independence "from our foes and the oil cartels" was perceived as an attack against the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), controlled more or less by Saudi Arabia. But for the US to reduce its oil dependence also means it could reduce its engagement in the region's conflicts. Israel and oil have historically been seen as strategic assets to the US. This led America to create a security regime for the Middle East and invest a lot in military expansion. The US war against Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait and the second Gulf War are emblematic of this. Now, with the declared intention of finding new resources for oil elsewhere, Trump could be tempted to decrease his military commitments to the region. Apprehension in Iran The Islamic Republic of Iran feels apprehensive about Trump's attitude toward the country, and especially the nuclear agreement it struck with the US in 2015. Advertisement If, once in the White House, the next US president tinkers with the agreement, it will strengthen the hand of hardliners, including the Revolutionary Guards, who have argued that the US is not sincere in its deals and who believe the US wants to control Iranian economy. A Trump presidency will thus weaken the hand of the moderates, headed by President Hassan Rouhani, who wants Iran to open up politically and economically to the US, and the rest of the world. Lucas Jackson/Reuters If Iran is treated as the centre of a new global axis of evil, as Israelis and Saudis want, the nuclear agreement is sidelined or changed and the sanctions are not lifted, the US risks the possibility of a strong reaction from Iran. This could lead to more radical repositioning in the Middle East. A roadmap to peace in the Middle East requires positive engagement with Iran and others with the goal of reducing wars in conflict zones and deflating rising tensions in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Advertisement Mixed feelings in Turkey In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan feels that his relations with the US will not worsen with Donald Trump in the White House. He would appreciate a new US policy that does not support the separatist Kurds. Turkey's strongman is pleased that Trump's priority does not seem to focus on human rights, division of power, and fair political representation. Trump's seeming isolationism could serve the Turkish agenda for expansion in the region and having a free hand with the Kurds, Syrian and Iraqis. But Trump's Islamophobic statements do create anxiety and fear of backlash in the US and Europe. Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters The delicate subject of the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, accused by Erdogan of masterminding this year's attempted coup in Turkey, will have to be dealt with; but it can wait for the inauguration of the new US president. Advertisement More important to Turkey is the continuation of US-Turkish strategic cooperation and benefiting from Washington's and NATO's security umbrella. Nothing seems to be certain in this area for now. A changed relationship? The whole relationship between America and the Muslim world could be radically changed over the next few months. Conservative Islamic and Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia were waiting for their preferred choice, Hillary Clinton, to be elected. They feel that the US they have known for decades is no more. From their point of view, one of the great risks is to see Russia and its allies in the Middle East take the upper hand in winning the wars that are raging. Radical Islamism, Wahhabi fundamentalists and the Muslim Brotherhood could be heavily targeted as the linchpin of terrorism, with consequences that can't be foreseen. The US seems to be considering taking the back seat in regional conflicts, and the priority of the new administration seems to be not to bail out traditional US allies and groups funded or created with their support. Advertisement Donald Trump has not yet developed a concrete foreign policy, but his hard lines on Muslims and Arabs have not brought about the desired-for tranquillity that people want to see in the region. Ahmad Moussalli, Professor of Political Science and Islamic Studies, American University of Beirut More than a year after the Dieselgate scandal, which uncovered cheating by Volkswagen and other car companies in emissions tests, there has been little progress for European consumers. Most people are unsure of how - or if - they will be compensated. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has written to Volkswagen and asked that 2.5 million be reimbursed to Transport for London as compensation for gas emissions affecting the city's residents. I urge @Volkswagen to reimburse @TfL the 2.5m lost in congestion charge revenue. Mayor of London (@MayorofLondon) November 20, 2016 Advertisement The company, which announced 30,000 job cuts on November 18, has not yet replied. Why is the compensation process so different in the US, where Volkswagen will reportedly spend up to US$16.5 billion to buy back affected cars? There are two main reasons: the influence of the diesel lobby in the EU and with national authorities, and the lack of an EU-wide collective redress system. A powerful diesel lobby National carmakers have consistently lobbied national authorities and the EU to gain trust and deal with the fact that most cars surpass legal emissions limits under real driving conditions. The car industry spent more than 18 million on EU lobbying in 2014, making it a powerful force to be reckoned with. Lobbyists for Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW - as well as VDA and ACEA, the German and European automobile associations - have prevented up-to-date car testing methods and limits from being put in place since the first EU regulations in 2007. Advertisement The European Commission has promised new onroad tests since 2012, but these were blocked by the industry. Even after the scandal, in October 2015, car-makers weakened EU emissions limits and delayed the introduction of the new test methods, now scheduled to start in 2017. The European Commission was aware of the possibility of defeat devices being used years before the scandal broke. But because only national authorities can test cars in the EU's fragmented system of regulation, the matter was not investigated. Protecting national interests In Germany, the Transport Ministry was aware that cheating existed up to five years before the Volkswagen scandal. But although an investigation revealed that most carmakers were using defeat devices, it decided in June 2016 not to fine any of its manufacturers - as long as they organised voluntary recalls of their vehicles. However, the German authorities did contact Fiat-Chrysler for questioning about its use of defeat devices. The Italian government argued that its own tests had not found evidence of Fiat cheating and reminded Germany that Italian carmakers were Italy's responsibility. Meanwhile, in August 2016 the Italian Competition Authority became the first in Europe to fine Volkswagen 5 million for misleading advertising. In September 2016, Germany took the matter to the EU, which turned the responsibility for investigation back to Italian authorities. The dispute is still unresolved, but shows how hard transparency can be when national authorities - and the information they provide - are influenced by their national carmakers. Advertisement Fabian Bimmer/Reuters A patchwork system of collective redress But national lobbying alone cannot explain why results for consumers have been so different in the EU and the US. This boils down to the fragmented state of consumer redress (also known as class action) in the EU. The European Commission recommended in 2013 that all countries set up collective redress systems for all areas of consumer policy, but only 16 of its 28 member states currently have such laws. Due to the differences in these laws, it is very difficult to bring pan-European class actions to court. Previous attempts to set up a European collective redress system have failed due to countries' different legal traditions and the fear of a flood of US-style litigation. Consumers are already at a disadvantage in taking on a deep-pocketed multinational, and limiting class actions to country boundaries makes it even harder for consumers to act. In the US, known for its tradition of litigation, class action was one of the main responses to the scandal. The district court of San Francisco gave final approval to the first settlement in October 2016. US consumers can either sell back their car, or have the car repaired and receive compensation of between US$5,000 and US$10,000 each. On top of this, consumers had already received a US$1,000 "goodwill" gift from VW. Advertisement On the other hand, the Italian consumer organisation Altroconsumo brought class actions against Volkswagen and Fiat in September 2014, long before the scandal broke. These were accepted after appeal in 2015 and 2016, and are ongoing. But these actions demand only 500 payback per vehicle, and Volkswagen has made it clear that it has no intention of providing any extra "goodwill" gift to European consumers. Similar lawsuits are ongoing in several other European countries and are being coordinated by the European Consumer's Organisation (BEUC). But the lack of EU-wide rules mean that even if some consumers do receive remuneration, consumers in countries without collective redress systems will miss out. These holes in the system leave consumers with less power to place pressure on manufacturers to go beyond the bare minimum - pressure which is vital when national authorities are reluctant to enforce sanctions themselves. Looking ahead So what prospects are there for consumer compensation in the EU? Progress is still slow, despite pressure from the European Commission and NGOs. In a belated but welcome first step, Volkswagen recently committed to creating an action plan to better inform EU consumers and speed up the repair process. The website will only provide information that US consumers have been given since the beginning though, and, so far, there are no plans to compensate EU consumers. Advertisement Perhaps the most positive thing to come out of the scandal is that it has created momentum for transparency and raised awareness of the need to introduce EU-wide collective redress. In an opaque system dominated by industry lobbying, fragmented regulation and responsibility, that can only be a good thing. It couldn't be stranger when you think about it (which few here care to do). In the latter part of the twentieth century and the first years of this one, Washington did what no power in history had ever done. It garrisoned the globe with a staggering number of military bases in a remarkably blanket fashion (China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and a few similar places aside). In these years, it just built and built and built. At one point, there were something like 1,000 installations in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, from bases large enough to be small American towns to tiny combat outposts. In 2015, there were at least 800 significant U.S. bases in foreign countries (and more small camps and places where U.S. military equipment was pre-positioned for future use). No great power, not even Britain at its imperial height, had ever had such a global military "footprint," such an "empire of bases," and yet in this country it was as if no one noticed, as if it were of no importance at all. The media rarely even acknowledged the existence of such bases. They were never considered news. They played no part in American politics. They went largely unmentioned in "the homeland," despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of American military personnel, their families, private contractors, and others cycled through them annually. Particularly in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, those bases reflected a growing belief in Washington that it might indeed be possible for a single nation, the planet's "sole superpower," to militarily dominate the planet, lock, stock, and barrel. As a result, investment in the U.S. military proceeded apace and the urge for it to be everywhere only spread. At one point in recent years, the Pentagon's budget was larger than those of the next 10 countries combined, including a number of allies; and as Nick Turse has reported, by 2015, the Pentagon had created a vast secret military, its Special Operations forces, which played a role in 147 countries, a figure for the record books. Meanwhile, new drone bases (on which we have no count) were being built in significant numbers to ensure that a Hellfire missile could be delivered to anyplace in the Greater Middle East, much of the rest of Eurasia, or northern Africa on more or less a moment's notice. Nor did Washington's efforts stop there. In these last years, the U.S. has conducted bombing campaigns and other kinds of military activities in no less than seven countries. Advertisement And yet here's what's notable: unlike other imperial powers with such garrisons in their heyday -- the Romans, the French, the British, the Soviets -- the U.S. managed to dominate next to nothing, to impose its will on no place militarily. Instead, in the post-9/11 era, under military pressure from Washington, country after country, area after area passed into a state of chaos, not order, and it seemed to make no difference what form that pressure took. Mr. Trump, Congratulations on winning the electoral college. You have truly upended the political norms by winning this election and you must be congratulated for the victoryre. While you ran on a GOP ticket, it would not be a stretch to call you America's first Independent President. That is truly historic. I would however also like to point out that even though you won the electoral college, you would end up losing the popular vote by more than 2.5 million votes. I bring that up not to delegitimize your victory but to highlight the feelings of majority of the country. This dichotomy puts additional burden on you to run an inclusive and conciliatory government in next four years and win over the majority of the country. While many in media are rooting for your failure and some on the other extreme are rooting for retribution, I am hopeful you would live up to the essence of your campaign, that is to work tirelessly and "Make America Great Again". With legislative majorities in both Chambers of Congress and GOP dominance of Governorships and State Legislatures, you have a historic chance to cement your place as one of America's truly transformative Presidents. Not many have had that chance. Advertisement You have a choice to make - you can choose to use the next four years to enrich your family and further divide the country along partisan lines. Or, you can choose to bring change that many in the past have promised but failed to deliver. America, as you mentioned in many of your campaign speeches, needs a new direction, a new sense of optimism and needs to renew its faith in its institutions and their capabilities. Here are some ideas for you to focus on early-on in your Presidency that can bring the nation together and "Make America Great Again." Tax Reforms: Don't make cutting taxes your primary focus but focus instead on reforming the code. Everyone agrees American tax code is too long, too complex and ineffective. This is a subject where need of comprehensive reform is bipartisan. Vested interests have however ensured no comprehensive reform bill has been brought to a vote in a long while. As an outsider who is not influenced by lobbyists and donors interests, I urge you to make this your top priority. America is losing its corporations to overseas jurisdictions while individuals and small businesses struggle to keep pace with the overly complex code, spending billions on accountants' / lawyers' fees for compliance. We need a simple code that promotes domestic investment and ensures a fair, progressive distribution among various economic classes. Earned Income Credit is one of the best measures to fight poverty and I would urge consolidating various welfare payments into a simpler EIC style incentive. Advertisement Immigration Reforms: As a legal immigrant who is in line for citizenship soon, I have participated in the immigration debate with a lot of interest and exasperation. I hear you when you say we are a country of laws and those who entered the country illegally are automatically subject to deportation. But pls. look at the practical, human and economic aspect of the issue as well. People you plan to deport are here because the country needs them. Many industries, from construction to farming depend on them. They currently live in the shadows and are not able to contribute their fair share to the society, nor realize their true potential. For all the rhetoric surrounding this issue, I would urge you to look at the reform unveiled by the 'Gang of Eight' in 2013. Their plan was tough but fair. It eventually got nowhere but as an Independent, you may be able to rally both the Parties in a direction that is humane, practical and preserving of the great legacy of this country built by immigrants. There is a lot of anxiety among the immigrant community after your victory and some calming words of reassurance would go a great distance. Electoral Reforms: You have won the election and you have one more election to win. You won this election on the back of a great reengineering of race based voter turnout strategy. You can aim to win the next one on the back of your record. Voter turnout in the US trails most developed economies. Reasons for that are not hard to find - most common being complex and different laws across states. A good start would be to build consensus across the country on declaring voting day as a national paid holiday. Next would be to ensure a common set of guiding principles agreed to by all states on early voting procedures, timelines and number and location of voting stations. Different states adopting different voting laws that are often driven by partisan objectives to suppress voting or turning out a specific set of voters defeat the very purpose of our democracy. A common set of principles to ensure higher voter turnout and easier, safer voting process would go a long way in ensuring faith in our democracy. Bridge Income Inequality: During the campaign, your views on the condition of inner cities were largely driven by rhetoric but essence of your message was that our inner cities need help. To ensure help, I would urge you to do a deep dive into what makes our inner cities center of crime, poverty and drug addiction. Its decades of subtle discriminatory practices institutionalized across the country, lack of good schools and heavy handed policing that has killed upward social mobility from vast tracts of America. A genuine plan to revive inner city communities would focus on investments in schools, infrastructure, affordable housing and policing that's rooted in reformation, not extortion. Advertisement I can go on to list many other initiatives your Historic Presidency should focus on but I hope you get the gist. You ran a divisive campaign and won. That's alright because one needs to win an election before one can govern. You have now won and its time to govern. You have an opportunity to go down as one of the finest Presidents or as a greedy individual who could never see beyond his own petty self interests and squandered the opportunity of a lifetime. I sincerely wish you choose to be the former. When you're trying to promote yourself online, social media is one of the channels that can be hard to grasp. Promoting yourself on social media requires different strategies, much more than any other platform. And it can be confusing at times. I totally understand. If you're not sure where to begin, these 7 strategies can lay the foundation for any successful campaign 1.Utilize Calls to Action In order to meet goals, you're going to have to incentivize your readers to perform the actions you want. A call to action might seem simple, but they're actually incredibly effective. Telling clients that you have great deals is one thing, but using a call to action such as "Check out our deals today" has been proven to be much more effective. Advertisement 2.Select a Platform There are a number of different social media platforms for you to choose from. At first, you might want to utilize them all to maximize your reach. But it's just as important to select the platform that is right for your business. For B2B, LinkedIn is highly effective. If you're just trying to do outreach with your existing client base, Twitter is very popular. There are many options to choose from, make sure you carefully weigh the benefits of each. 3.Stay Regular Social media users are used to seeing a lot of different content from a lot of different providers. Most businesses use social media to keep their business at the front of their client's minds. In order to do so, you need to post regularly. Make sure you're updating your feeds at least once per day. 4.A Simple System Social media marketing can be challenging for many businesses to pick up. There are a lot of moving parts, so it can seem a little complicated at first. But the good news is that you don't have to know how to do everything yourself. Yes, no individual or business should be an island; we all need each other either to learn from, or to leverage on our strengths. Advertisement That's why smart businesses form mutually beneficial business partnerships with other businesses to help each other out. And in this case, you could get all the help you need for your social media campaign to be super effective. And once that happens, there is almost unlimited potential for your business to grow. 5.Engage Your Users Most social media platforms are now using engagement as a metric to determine your reach. If users are regularly reacting, commenting on, or liking your Facebook posts, your posts will be seen by more people. If users just keep scrolling by, it's unlikely that you'll have the ability to reach all of your followers and fans without a paid campaign. 6.Cross-Channel Promotion Once you've developed a plan, created a campaign, and targeted your ideal customer base, what's the next step? It's time to take your ads cross-channel. Even though you'll require a slightly different approach to each channel, you'll want to keep your marketing message consistent. Today, most social media users are active on multiple platforms. The only way you'll be able to capture their attention is if your business is active on all of these platforms. 7.Set Clear Goals This might seem simple, but it's important to set clear goals for what you want to accomplish. If you don't have clearly defined goals, you'll never truly know if you were successful or not. Are you trying to increase your reach and number of followers, or are you using social media to generate leads? Advertisement In the physical world, criminals are more likely to target a facility that will give them a suitable reward for the risks they are taking. The same is true for the digital world. Cyber criminals are drawn to industries that give them the greatest potential to realize some value for their hacking efforts. The common thread that runs through the industries that are most targeted for cyber fraud is that they are more likely to transact business with repeat or regular customers, giving them greater access to their customers' personal information. Industries that have adopted loyalty programs are particularly vulnerable, and loyalty point theft has grown into a significant cyber fraud problem. Below are the top targeted industries for cyber fraud. Banks and Financial Services Companies The ("SWIFT") issued a warning of the high risks that banks face for cyber fraud problems following an account at the New York Federal Reserve bank earlier in 2016. SWIFT provides a global messaging platform that is used by 11,000 financial institutions around the world. Banking assets and the large volume of personal information regarding depositors will keep banks at the top of the cyber fraud target list for the near and distant future. Advertisement Healthcare The healthcare industry accounts for one-sixth of all economic activity n the United States. The U.S Department of Health and Human Services has estimated that the personal information of at least half of all United States citizens has been compromised by cyber fraud in the health care industry, and healthcare remains the number one target for cyber fraud activity. Health care records include extremely valuable personal information, including social security numbers, insurance IDs, and credit card and other payment information. On the black market, medical records are often an order of magnitude more valuable than just credit card records alone. Industry efforts and new regulations have established higher standards for protection of health care records, but those standards have not yet produced measurable results. Transportation Airlines were an early adopter of loyalty point programs, and frequent fliers have long enjoyed the extra benefits given to travelers who do repeat business with the same carrier. The transportation industry will continue to be a growing target as more of its operations are transitioned into digital environments. Travelers generally pay less attention to airline loyalty points than they do to credit cards and bank accounts, making loyalty programs even more attractive to cybercriminals. Advertisement Manufacturing The complexity of large manufacturing operations creates many weak links that leave them vulnerable to cyber fraud attacks. In early 2016, for example, the Austrian airline parts supplier, FACC, reported that it had lost more than 50 million in a cyber attack involving communication and information technologies. In many cases, the attacks on manufacturing companies are simple: busy manufacturing employees receive requests from sources that appear to be legitimate to transfer funds in payment for materials or services. Better employee training may alleviate this problem. Retailers Retailing is rising on the list of industries of likely cyber fraud targets. Retailers' implementation of loyalty programs and the volume of information that they collect and retain about customers create a strong motivation for cyber criminals to attack retailers' information systems networks. Companies that operate within these targeted industry sectors are focusing on better employee education and on implementing next-generation loyalty point theft solutions to control and limit the damage from cyber fraud. At about quarter past midnight on 11/8/16, I drove into my garage with my mom sitting next to me, and began to cry. It wasn't a whaling or whimpering cry. It was a cry I have had only a few times before in my life, when pain so overwhelmed me that tears seemed insignificant. It was a cry from deep in my body, as if a monster with anger in its eyes and fanged teeth was looming down, shaking its slobbery head over me, stomping on my belly with a large combat boot. I remember saying to her, "I just can't believe it. Hate won. All the bullies that I pushed up against, over and over and over again in my life, just won. Women like me do not have a place here." In that moment, I felt homeless. I thought I might throw up. We had gone to my Alma Mater, Wellesley College, for election night coverage, to celebrate what we thought we had in the bag. There was no other place I could imagine being that night, to celebrate with the thousands of Wellesley College women accompanied by their friends and families, watching as Hillary Clinton once and for all changed the female narrative. Wellesley's field house was decked out: balloons, drinks, lights, press from around the world, food, even a cupcake station with cupcakes topped with "shattered glass" pieces made from sugar. The sugar pieces were also piled around the table with little wooden hammers that said "Wellesley Women Shattering Glass Ceilings". We gathered around and pounded on the shards of sugar in good fun, laughing and smiling. Advertisement Students passed out pins and flags, "Making the Impossible Possible" "History in the Making"! Madeline Albright (the first female Secretary of State hailing from Wellesley College) Skyped in on the big screen from The Jarvits Center, excited, anxious, and proud. As I walked around the room, I looked at all the people who gathered, and trust me we were not a bunch of blond elitists like one of my Trump voting friends on Facebook called us. Gathered were the faces I had seen while in college, women from every race, every religion, every income bracket, and every sexual orientation. Walking around looking in the women's eyes, I could see the little girls we used to be. The girls that didn't want to sit still and look pretty, the little girls that cared more about getting into a good college than dreaming about their weddings, the girls who in their hearts knew it was up to them to pave the way for the countless other girls who hadn't yet found their voice. I also saw something I was comforted by, real actual hope-that this was going to be it. There was no doubt Hillary would be the next US president. There would be NO WAY the vilest man ever to run for office would beat the most qualified person ever to run. NO WAY, (right)?! Then the night progressed and the hope in our eyes shifted to total despair. Indeed, we were watching history in the making, just not the one any single person in that field house thought we would be witnessing. There was no making sense of it. Advertisement Along with merit scholarships, financial aid and my mother's decision to spend her hard earned dollars on educating her four daughters in lieu of saving for her own retirement, I ended up at Dana Hall School for Girls and Wellesley College. It was through my experiences at these schools that I began to understand who I was, a woman who would not stand for intolerance, hate or injustice of any kind. To be totally honest, my world outside of school was narrow, meaning white (as marshmallows) hard working middle to upper class. But these schools undying commitment to helping women find their power, to not be a afraid, to lead in the face of adversity built the confidence in me to not only step out of my comfort zone but to try to change the views of those in my comfort zone. As I brought back my shifting values to my community, expressing (messily at first) my newly forming beliefs, I was often mocked, ridiculed or put down. Many times, when I would express to folks, I went to Dana Hall or Wellesley both men and women would say to me, "oh were you surrounded by lesbians" or "oh couldn't hack it with the guys, huh?" On occasions when conversation turned to politics and I would express my beliefs, the male voices would start to rise, thinking if they yelled they would get me to stop talking and then they would turn to me and say "why are you yelling?" This would totally confuse me. I would think to myself, "wait, I'm not, I am just matching your voice with mine". It's only later that I realized they weren't really listening to my words they were just mad I was daring to challenge theirs. Like Hillary said, "It's just when women talk, some people think we're shouting." Fast forward to this election, when we Wellesley women (and a good portion of our country) all confidently thought the tower of ignorance would be dealt its final blow. You have to admit, the markers were there. We had voted in a black president not once, but twice. Gay marriage was declared the law of the land. More women have been graduating from college than men, for many years now. On top of that Trump wasn't hiding his bigotry and misogyny he was parading it around for the entire world to see. This was our chance. The odds were stacked in our favor to elect the first female president, an extremely qualified candidate, to the top of the tower--so she could once and for all level it. The moment Trump won the nomination for president hate literally snapped the rudder right off America. And therein lies the immense pain and tragedy of the election. This time period in America's history will not be easy, if we want real change. But when has it ever been easy? There are calls to "get over it" and "to move on". For what aim I wonder? Uniting under false pretense is pointless. What exactly are we trying to insure? That the Republic survives? Which Republic-the Republic of divisiveness and hate or the Republic of decency and shared common human values? It is very obvious now that both sides have been pledging allegiance to the same, but very different, half of the flag. Our job is not to try to convince those who hate to try to hate less that is on them. Our job is indeed much harder. It is to strengthen our own commitment to the truth that we are in it together, until the end, until we get it right for everyone. Figuring exactly where were we go from here will take conviction and real work from all of us. Our soldiers are wounded and the road ahead is littered with debris, but we are regrouping. Hillary Clinton did not have a map of how to do what she set out to do. But she did not get stopped in her unknowing. Indeed she grew stronger as she vigilantly pursued, despite incredible opposition and adversity, to stand up and take action for what she believed. As the days march on from election night, I more fully understand the power and meaning of Hillary being on the ballot that night and am more committed by the loss to work toward taking action against the illusions that bind and blind us. I take comfort in the peaceful resistance. I take comfort in the popular vote. I think about all the times Hillary (and women all around the world) was knocked down but stood right back up. With this, I have the audacity to hope again that love and truth will win just like the lotus flower that emerges from the thickest darkest swamp. We must not grow weary; for it's through the pushing toward the surface of the water, toward the light that gives the lotus the strength to one day fully blossom. A review of Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro's new book On War and Politics: The Battlefield Inside Washington's Beltway By Michael Goldfien In a political climate disdainful of the Washington establishment, retired Major General Arnold Punaro wears his insider status as a badge of honor. Following his military service in Vietnam, Punaro joined the staff of legendary Georgia Senator Sam Nunn as an intern, eventually becoming a top advisor and staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Yet despite his insider status, Punaro's memoir, On War and Politics: The Battlefield Inside Washington's Beltway, does not tell tales of lurid corruption, self-interest, or detachment from the plight of the average American. Rather, it engages readers with Punaro's story of earnest public service. One that, in 2016, is both reassuring and disconcerting. Punaro's book is reassuring in that it offers a positive view of sacrifice for country, as well as bipartisan governance. On War and Politics begins in Vietnam, where Punaro--then a young officer--is wounded, only to see a fellow Marine killed coming to his aid. The author describes this experience with both deep gratitude and remorse. "I began to wish he hadn't come after me. In a few days Marines in dress blues would be knocking on his family's door. They wouldn't know what he'd done for me [or] how he'd died." Punaro says that, in spending his professional life working to reform the Pentagon, he sought to make himself "worthy of" this sacrifice and to make sure that soldiers "do not give up their lives in vain." Advertisement When Punaro returns from Vietnam, the battle eventually shifts to the corridors of power in Washington, DC. Yet his fight in the Senate is not one against enemies, but rather among friendly rivals, each attempting to help their respective constituents and improve the administration of the Pentagon. Frequently, Punaro and his colleagues succeed. The Senate passed, for example, the landmark Goldwater-Nichols Act with a 95-0 vote. As outlined by Punaro, Goldwater-Nichols strengthened civilian control of the military; made the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the top military advisor to the president; streamlined the chain of command; put greater weight on the strategic and contingency planning; and "intensified the development of joint doctrine, training, and personnel." This was Republicans and Democrats coming together to promote smart reform and oversight. While Punaro's memoirs are reassuring in showing what is possible, they are also disconcerting in the way that his experience working in the Senate contrasts with the Washington political battlefield that we see today. Punaro lauds the ability of his Senate colleagues to subordinate politics to the national interest--to make politics stop at the water's edge. The truth is that while partisan politics has always influenced foreign policy, it has gotten worse in recent years. Instead of serious oversight, there are endless hearings on faux scandals like Benghazi. Instead of a tough but fair confirmation process, it is increasingly undignifying and politicized. Worse, many current members of Congress seem unable to adhere to one of Punaro's chief "lessons learned" from his Senate experience: following one's "moral compass." In the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump broke with decades of bipartisan consensus on NATO, nuclear non-proliferation, and other key foreign policy issues. Dozens of the leading conservative foreign policy experts--many risking their own career prospects--signed a letter declaring Trump not "qualified" to be president. Yet few Republicans in Congress could bring themselves to take a strong stand against Trump's views, much less unendorse him. This includes two of the GOP's rising foreign policy stars: Senators Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg wrote about interviewing Sen. Cotton about Donald Trump's foreign policy vision and watching the former "contort himself in embarrassing ways to avoid telling the truth about his party's candidate for president." Sen. Rubio, for his part, said during the GOP primary that an "erratic individual" such as Donald Trump could not be trusted with the nuclear codes, only to end up supporting his candidacy nonetheless. It is hard to imagine the giants of the Senate described by Punaro compromising on their principles so easily. Advertisement If you want understand how committed legislators and public servants govern, read On War in Politics. Unfortunately, the types of public servants that Punaro lauds in the book appear to be losing today's battle inside the beltway. Michael Goldfien is a Campaigns Fellow at Young Professionals in Foreign Policy, and has an MA in International Policy Studies from Stanford University. Lack of inexpensive, reliable energy delivery is one of the chief obstacles to growth and development in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, around 600 million people there lack access to electricity. One way to remedy the situation is to invest in unconventional, innovative solutions. That is the idea behind the Scaling Off-Grid Energy: A Grand Challenge for Development. Launched in late June by President Barack Obamas Power Africa initiative, USAIDs U.S. Global Development Lab, the UK Department for International Development, and the Shell Foundation, this new initiative will invest $36 million into finding new ways to bring electricity to 20 million off-grid households in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. The Scaling Off-Grid Energy: Grand Challenge for Development also announced the Enterprise Awards, hoping that the $4 million in prize money that they will share, will enable the recipients to expand home solar power solutions across Africa, improve payment and distribution processes, and bring down costs for customers. In mid-November, Power Africa Coordinator Andrew Herscowitz announced the 8 winners. In no particular order, they are Greenlight Planet, which provides pay-as-you-go, low-cost solar home solutions in Uganda and Nigeria. In Kenya, d.light is developing software, training materials, and a call center to improve their direct distribution of solar lighting. Also in Kenya, Orb Energy is partnering with banks and microfinance institutions to finance consumer solar system purchases. In Zambia, Fenix offers expandable solar solutions kits, while VITALITE sells pay-as-you-go solar home systems for rural, off-grid communities. In Ghana, PEG Africa is testing new digital payment tools to help rural customers pay for their solar home systems using mobile money. Shinbone Labs sells low cost, expandable, remotely activated and monitored solar kits in Ghana and Benin, while Village Energy is building a distribution and servicing network in rural Uganda by training young men and women to become technicians and retail shop managers in their communities. "The Grand Challenge for Development is designed to support innovators like these eight companies who are scaling up their inventions," said Power Africa Coordinator Herscowitz. "The options for powering your home and business are changing, and these types of innovations will create opportunities to transform the power sector in homes across the planet." Here's when Dunkin' and Atwoods plan to open in Hutchinson Developers of two business blame shipment delays of equipment and materials in pushing back openings for new Hutchinson retail locations. Earlier this year, at the second U.S.-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue in New Delhi, the two countries reiterated their shared commitment to advance mutual prosperity, global peace, and stability. In the joint statement issued at the conclusion of the meeting, the United States and India noted progress and opportunities in the bilateral cooperation on resilience, air quality, forestry and science and technology fellowships under the Joint Working Group. In the support of the joint statement, the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum, the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sponsored the Indo-U.S. Workshop to Explore Bilateral Research Opportunities to Address Air Quality and Health Issues earlier this month in New Delhi, the same week that record air pollution in New Delhi was making international news headlines. Srikanth Nadadur, the workshops initiator and primary organizer, laid the groundwork for the gathering during his tenure as a U.S. Embassy in New Delhi Science Fellow in the fall of 2015. Guest of Honor Jairam Ramesh, Member of the Indian Parliament (or the Rajya Sabha), applauded the scientists for their efforts to study ambient air pollution, particularly by addressing crop residue burning, and highlighted the importance of addressing water, chemical, and indoor air pollution. Representatives of the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and the NYU School of Medicine addressed the importance of creating, maintaining, and expanding bilateral research on these urgent issues. The workshop reviewed air quality and health research conducted by scientists in India and the United States. Researchers at top Indian research institutes presented on the status of air pollution population studies conducted in India. The workshop also included break-out sessions on air quality and health, and an exposure assessment. A panel reviewed the draft recommendations produced by the workshop and made recommendations to bolster the report that will be forwarded to the appropriate government points of contact for consideration. The workshop underscored the importance of a clean and healthy environment, recognized by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during President Obamas visit to India in January 2015. It also highlighted the real opportunities for air quality cooperation and demonstrated the critical role of science in advancing the economic development and well being of people in both countries, as the two sides affirmed in August 2016. Tree Lightings & Holiday Events 2017 Holiday Events (Visit our Holiday Bazaars and Craft Fairs list for holiday fairs.) Wednesday, Dec. 20 'BEER & CAROLS,' Pittsfield, 7 p.m.: Zion Lutheran Church presents Beer & Carols at the church, 74 First St., the fifth annual installment of its popular Christmas sing-along that s intended to gather people together for a lively night of popular Christmas carols and songs. Leading the evening will be pianists Amy Renak and Timothy Weisman, along with Daniel Broad on string bass. Light food and non-alcoholic beverages will be served to all; beer and wine will be available for purchase. There is no admission fee; aA free-will offering will be taken to support the Cathedral of the Beloved, an outdoor worship and meal ministry in downtown Pittsfield reaching the homeless and the underserved. Thursday, Dec. 21 HOOSAC VALLEY HOLIDAY CONCERT, Cheshire, 7 p.m.: The Performing Arts Department of Hoosac Valley High School will present a Holiday Performance at the school. Featured ensembles include the High School Concert Band, the High School Chorus and the High School Jazz Band. All groups are under the direction of Jacob Keplinger and Jonathan Rowe. Admission is free. 1753 HOUSE CAROL SING, Williamstown, 7 p.m.: The 44th annual 1753 House Carol Sing will be held at the 1753 House on Field Park. The 1753 House is located between the Williams Inn and the Milne Public Library at the northern intersection of Routes 2 and 7 in Williamstown. Friday, Dec. 22 'IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE' (1946), Great Barrington, 7 p.m.: The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center presents a free screening of Frank Capras 1946 holiday drama "Its a Wonderful Life," starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. Designated the most inspirational movie of all time by the American Film Institute, "Its a Wonderful Life" is a wonderful, feel-good movie to experience with friends and family. Saturday, Dec. 23 CHARITY GIFT WRAP, Lee, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.: Mt. Everett Regional School Cheerleaders will provide gift wrapping services in exchange for a donation in the food court of the Lee Premium Outlets. All of the proceeds support the cheerleading program. Sunday, Dec. 24 LESSONS & CAROLS AT THE SOUTHFIELD CHURCH, New Marlborough, 7 p.m.: The gift of music continues at the Southfield Church as our ecumenical community choir presents its annual Christmas Eve service, A Festival of Lessons & Carols. The service begins with a rousing ringing of the old bell and lasts approximately one hour. A Lessons & Carols service is a simple service consisting of nine scripture verses (or lessons) followed by a carol sung by the choir and occasionally the congregation. The choirs carol arrangements span from the traditional, such as Silent Night sung by candlelight, to the jazz influenced Still, Still, Still reminiscent of the sound of the jazz vocal group, The Singers Unlimited. Everyone in the community is invited. Monday, Dec. 25 BE OUR GUEST CHRISTMAS DINNER, North Adams, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.: The North Adams American Legion is sponsoring a Christmas dinner, featuring ham with soup, potato, vegetable and dessert. Those needing delivery can call 413-664-9004. All are welcome. We will be adding new information on holiday events as they are submitted. Send information on your holiday events to info@iberkshires.com. Christmas Tree Lightings * ADAMS: Sunday, Nov. 26, 2-5 p.m., at the Adams Town Common. The tree-lighting ceremony will include free carriage rides and music, hot cocoa and coffee, and a visit from Santa. * CLARKSBURG: Sunday, Nov. 26, 6 p.m. VFW Post 9144 and the Clarksburg Fire Department will host the annual Christmas tree lighting. All are asked to bring a non perishable food item to be donated to the Friendship Center Food Pantry in North Adams. Santa will be there courtesy of the fire department. * LANESBOROUGH: Thursday, Nov. 30, 7 p.m. The town of Lanesborough will hold its annual tree-lighting ceremony at Memorial Park next to the police station. There will be refreshments and entertainment provided by the LES chorus. LENOX: Friday, Dec. 1, 6 p.m. The annual Lenox Christmas Tree Lighting will be held in Lilac Park. There will be cookies, hot chocolate and visits with Santa following the tree lighting at the Lenox Community Center. * LENOX DALE: Sunday, Dec. 3, 6 p.m. The annual Christmas Tree Lighting in Lenox Dale will feature Santa arriving by fire engine at Veterans Memorial Park at the intersection of Walker & Crystal streets to light the tree. Following the lighting, Santa will greet the children at the Fire Station on Elm Street where gifts and refreshments will be distributed. Santa will also pose for photos with the children. * NORTH ADAMS: Wednesday, Nov. 22, 6 p.m. at Monument Square. Caroling with the Drury Band, hot chocolate and the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Claus will arrive on the Fire Department's antique Mack Fire Engine with treats. Kicks off the annual Hometown Holiday. This year the Downtown Bike Around will join the procession down Main Street with bikes decorated in lights. (Raindate Dec. 1.) * PITTSFIELD: Friday, Dec. 1, 6 p.m.: Pittsfields annual Tree Lighting Ceremony will be held at Park Square. The ceremony will include a performance by the Taconic High School Chorus, which will perform a variety of carols. Following the tree lighting, Santa and Mrs. Claus will make a special appearance; free hot chocolate will be available, courtesy of Patricks Pub. Those planning to attend the ceremony are asked to bring non-perishable food items that will be donated to the food pantry at the Christian Center, 193 Robbins Ave. * SOUTH WILLIAMSTOWN: Sunday, Dec. 10, 5-7 p.m. The South Williamstown Community Association will host its tree lighting at The Store at Five Corners. There will be carol singing and refreshments; bring a flashlight to see the words on the song sheets. Stop by the Holiday Open House just next door at the Williamstown Historical Museum starting at 3:30 for a tour and music by Singing School as well as light holiday refreshments. Town Administrator Tony Mazzucco explains the difference between assessed value and fair market at Sunday's civic club meeting. Adams Homes Selling Higher Than Assessed Value ADAMS, Mass. Homes in Adams tend to sell 8 to 14 percent higher than their assessed values. "That's a good thing, and it is good to see the values increasing in town," Town Administrator Tony Mazzucco told the Maple Grove Civic Club on Sunday. "North Adams and Pittsfield in their last cycles have seen it a little bit so maybe they are catching up, but we are seeing our values go up." Mazzucco was filling in for Town Assessor Donna MacDonald on explaining the recent town revaluation. And while only a handful of club members showed up at the PNA because of Sunday's snowstorm, he went through the full presentation of what an increased assessed value means. Many homes have increased in value, he said, are selling sometimes up to 14 percent higher than their assessments. Mazzucco said this is good news but the town needs to continue this trend for years to become more financially stable. The state asks that communities go through a revaluation every 10 years. Mazzucco said those revaluations also helps the town catch up on residents who have made improvements to their home without applying for a permit. He said the town has gained value through the latest revaluation and many homes came in with higher assessments. If people updated their homes or added to them, they probably saw an increase in value. There have been about 30 transactions just since the beginning of August. In one example, a home on Grant Street assessed at $155,100 sold for $182,000, or 17 percent higher than its assessment. A home on West Road sold for almost $100,000 over its assessed value and another on Summer Street sold for 16 percent above, according to town and state records. Mazzucco explained that the tax rate is relative to a community's property values. The town still must raise the same amount of money to operate and lower taxes usually translates to higher property values, and vice versa. "The town of Hadley has exactly half the tax rate as us but their total property value is double ours," Mazzucco said. "Their average tax bill is actually a little bit higher than ours so you are always paying the same. It is just about how it looks." The town administrator added that the town needs more growth if it wants to start lowering the tax rate. "I think the community isn't growing enough," he said. "The town needs the same amount of money to run one way or the other ... and we need more than a few new sheds and decks to grow." He said currently the town sees $50,000 to $100,000 in new growth annually but needs to grow four to five times that to substantially lower the tax rate. The Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center, or ISTC has been supporting the development of Armenias information technology sector since 2014. It recently opened a new 1,000 square-meter state-of-the-art premises on the Yerevan State University campus. The ISTC -- a joint project of the Government of Armenia, the Enterprise Incubator Foundation, IBM, USAID, and Yerevan State University -- helps meet the demand for quality specialists to work in Armenias IT sector. ISTC will help develop and strengthen the education and research potential of Armenian universities in the areas of IT and hi-tech. I am proud of the fact that this uniquely designed partnership promotes the education of one of Armenias most valuable resources its youth. The collaboration between the private sector and universities creates economic opportunities for younger generations of Armenia, said U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills, who was joined at the opening of the new facility by more than 100 Armenian tech and business representatives. The ISTC serves students and university faculty, providing them with the latest hardware and software for training and research. Since the projects launch, the ISTC has already assisted more than 100 professors from nine major Armenian universities to improve their training courses. Thanks to these efforts, more than 1,500 students already received training through 30 modernized curricula in the areas of artificial intelligence, business process management, cloud computing, and cyber security among others. Supporting the development of Armenias IT sector has long been a priority of the U.S., Ambassador Mills said. USAID support to the IT sector began a decade ago. Since that time, USAID has played an important role in laying the foundation for a strong and vibrant IT sector in Armenia, he said during the opening. We see the establishment of the Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center as a capstone achievement in our efforts to partner with you to develop and strengthen IT in Armenia. Nov. 19 Darrell M. Anderson, 50, of Elko was arrested at 1660 Mountain City Highway for battery by a prisoner, resisting an officer, and trespass not amounting to burglary. Bail: $21,332 ------ Jordin N. Asberry, 24, of Spring Creek was arrested and transported to Elko County on a violation of probation or condition of suspended sentence. No bail listed. ------ Kyle E. Bird, 22, of Elko was arrested at 674 Cimarron Way for possession of a controlled substance and use or possession of drug paraphernalia. Bail: $5,640 ------ Jose L. Cardoza, 31, of Elko was arrested at Wilson and Third streets for speeding, failure to wear safety belt, non-resident driving when privilege suspended, revoked or cancelled, and fugitive felon from other state. Bail: $625 ------ Vincent Corsetti Jr., 44, of Vallejo, California, was arrested at 2065 Idaho St. for trespass not amounting to burglary. Bail: $192 ------ Steven M. Gilmore, 31, of Reno was arrested and transported to Elko County for two counts of violation of probation or condition of suspended sentence. No bail listed. ------ Nicholas P. Holcomb, 61, of Elko was arrested at 1660 Mountain City Highway for two counts of conspiracy to buy, possess or receive stolen property. Bail: $2,280 ------ Matthew M. Kennah, 33, of Elko was arrested at Aspen Way and Mountain City Highway on a warrant for failure to appear after bail on a misdemeanor. Bail: $695 ------ Rocky M. Pacheco, 34, of Elko was arrested at 438 S. Fifth St. for trespass not amounting to burglary. Bail: $192 Nov. 18 Salvador Augusto-Cruz, 60, of Elko was arrested at Idaho Street and Aspen Way for DUI and failure to obey traffic laws. Bail: $1,445 ------ Aaron J. Fleury, 18, of Elko was arrested at Indian View and Buckskin drives on two tribal charges. Bail: $800 ------ Markell I. Johnson, 18, of Elko was arrested on Indian View Heights for two tribal charges. Bail: $1,000 ------ Rudolph L. Parker, 41, of Elko was arrested on the 1000 block of Idaho Street for assault with a deadly weapon. Bail: $20,000 ------ Henry M. Pinnell, 39, of Carlin was arrested at 12th and Chestnut streets for headlamps not illuminated when required, driving without a drivers license, operator required to provide proof of insurance, and false statement to obstruct a public officer. Bail: $2,190 ------ Lindsey N. Simmons, 26, of Elko was arrested at Fifth Street and Spruce Road for driving with a suspended, revoked or cancelled drivers license. Bail: $355 ------ Robert V. Vetter, 40, of Elko was arrested at Awesome Bail Bonds for revocation of bail. Bail: $2,665 Project Spotlight: Hesed Centers The Fellowship | November 22, 2016 Project Spotlight: Hesed Centers In Hebrew, hesed (or chesed) means lovingkindness, and offering this kind of care to those in need is one of the central tenets of Judaism. Throughout the former Soviet Union, Fellowship-supported Hesed Centers, a network of offices offering social services, have been providing lifesaving care to Jewish communities in need for years. Care Is the Best Medicine for the Lonely Elderly Zoya, now 83, was only 8 years old when World War II soldiers arrived in Ukraine. She was forced to flee, along with her family, to Kazakhstan, enduring years of despair and famine. Eventually, they settled in Russia, where Zoya lives today. Years ago Zoya became a widow, and now she is facing her final years alone. Today, she suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney disease. Her apartment needs many repairs, too. Last summer, a boiler burst in the basement, and the hot water and steam caused a lot of damage to Zoyas ground-floor apartment. The tiles on the ceiling began to peel; Zoya fears they will fall and injure her. Zoya has a son who lives nearby and helps her when he can, but he struggles to make ends meet and cannot offer much financial assistance to his elderly mother. The Fellowship is a huge happiness for me! When she was in better health, Zoya used to volunteer at the local Fellowship-sponsored Hesed center. Today, The Fellowship brings aid to Zoya, as she can no longer physically volunteer and now needs our care. Thanks to The Fellowship, Zoya receives nutritional assistance and homecare. Because of her health problems, she struggles to take care of her apartment. Her many medicine containers are spread across her kitchen table, and she feels overwhelmed by all her health issues. Thankfully, her Fellowship homecare worker not only makes sure she takes her daily medicines, but also helps clean her apartment. The Fellowship is a huge happiness for me, says Zoya, holding back tears. She feels so relieved now that she can rely on The Fellowship! ELKO Longtime public servant and former Assemblyman John C. Carpenter Jr. died Saturday night at his Dotta Drive home at age 86. He served in local and state government for more than 50 years, including 12 terms representing District 33 in the Legislature. Assemblyman John Ellison said Carpenter had heart disease and cancer. His funeral will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Elko Convention Center. Ellison, who was endorsed by Carpenter to take over the seat, considered Carpenter a mentor and was saddened by his death. John Carpenter brought so much to this community, not only as a businessman, but mostly as a family man, Ellison said. His legacy will go on for years and years, forever. He said if it wasnt for Carpenters foresight, Elko wouldnt have had a convention center nor would it have had Great Basin College. He said Carpenter fought for land rights and federal payments to counties in lieu of taxes. I could go on and on, Ellison said. John Carpenter has done so much for the community. He is going to be missed forever. His contributions to Elko County are why the commissioners named the sheriffs office and jail facility after Carpenter, Ellison said. Youve never seen a bigger guy with a bigger heart, he added. Ellison said Carpenter not only made an impact in Elko but the state as a whole. When we brought John to the hall of fame to the Legislature, it was amazing the amount of both sides that came together to help make that happen, he said. I was glad to be a part of that. Ellison also posted about Carpenter on his Assemblyman Facebook page. Our hearts are heavy and filled with great sadness that we had to tell an amazing man, leader, and friend good bye yesterday. Past Assemblyman John Carpenter has always been someone I looked up to. He was a great friend of mine. Nevada has lost a true leader. He was a true champion to rural Nevada and worked with many states to better our state and all rural communities. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family as they mourn his passing, Ellison stated on his page. County Commissioner Demar Dahl said Carpenter had a keen sense of right and wrong. He was willing to throw himself into the battle, Dahl said. Carpenter led the charge on the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade, which was Elko Countys fight against the federal governments closing of a road near the small town in northern Elko County. He was the one who said were going to open the road at Jarbidge when the Forest Service closed it, Dahl said. County Commissioner Delmo Andreozzi said Carpenter was a super strong advocate for rural Nevada and particularly Elko and Elko County, and was also very, very involved with St. Josephs Catholic Church for many, many, many years. Andreozzi said Carpenter and his entire family were active and donated time and resources to the church. Theres a big, giant crucifix thats hanging over the tabernacle in St. Josephs Catholic Church and he was part of even that, Andreozzi said. Hes been very active in the community and certainly will be missed. Regent-elect Cathy McAdoo said she has been friends with Carpenter and his family for years. She said she was grateful that she went to their home Wednesday and visited with him and his wife, Roseann. She said Carpenter was in the midst of physical therapy and when she walked in the room, Roseann was sitting right next to him and they were holding hands. We had a good personal friendship, he and I did, and Im certain thats true of many, many people, she said. McAdoo said Carpenters fingerprint was everywhere in Nevada, across the state, but most definitely in the Legislature and represented Elko County so, so well. He would go to battle for Elko County against all other legislators. We owe a lot to him. After visiting with Carpenter and his wife, McAdoo said she gave both of them a hug. He looked at me and he said, there are wonderful people that live in Elko, McAdoo said. I knew he was getting ready to say something about me, and I said, yeah I know and youre one of them. That was my last word to him. Carpenter was born Oct. 13, 1930, in Fallon. He graduated from White Pine High School in Ely and later married Roseann Slater. He purchased a sheep ranch and moved his family to Elko in 1957. He and Roseann raised their seven children in Elko. Carpenter entered public service in the 1960s as president of the Nevada Woolgrowers Association. He and others called for a school bond issue and this developed into the pay as you go tax. Carpenter served 14 years on the Elko County Commission. He and fellow County Commissioner Eyer Boies worked to create the PILT law which was brought before the U.S. Senate by Sen. Alan Bible. In 1986, Carpenter was elected to the Nevada Assembly. He worked with state Sen. Dean Rhoads of Tuscarora to find funding for Great Basin Colleges building expansion to increase classrooms and degree programs. They introduced bills that financed projects and expansions to the Elko Convention Center, Elko Senior Citizens Center, Northeastern Nevada Museum, the Peace Park, South Fork Reservoir, and other entities in the county. A firm advocate for ranchers, Carpenter became involved with many federal land disputes, including the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade in 2000. Remaining an activist, he recently voiced support for ranchers along the Argenta allotment. In addition to politics, John and Roseann owned several businesses including Cimarron West Family Restaurant, Ranchers Realty, Cimarron RV park, a convenience store, hair salon, and gas station. Together, they supported many local events including the Elko County Fair, the Ruby Mountain Symphony, and Fourth of July Fireworks celebration. In 2010, Carpenter served his final term in the Legislature, concluding 24 years as Assemblyman. Carpenter served on the ECVA Marketing Committee, the California Trail Center Board and remained active in the Elko County Republican Party. U.S. Senator-elect Catherine Cortez Masto stated she was saddened to learn about the passing of Carpenter. John was the definition of a public servant, someone who dedicated his entire life to serving Elko and helping his community grow and thrive, she said. From Great Basin College and the Elko Convention Center to the creation of the Payment in Lieu of Taxes law, John is leaving behind a tangible legacy and Elko is a better place because of his single-minded devotion spanning so many decades. John will be sorely missed, and my thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones. Attorney General Adam Laxalt issued a statement Monday. With the passing of longtime Assemblyman John Carpenter, Nevada lost a true public servant in every sense of the word, said Laxalt. Whether he was serving in Elkos county commission or in the Nevada Legislature, John consistently gave his all to the people of Nevada. I know the residents of Elko will forever be touched by all of the wonderful contributions he made to the community, and I extend my deepest condolences to his family and loved ones in this difficult time. Director Jim Barbee, of the Nevada Department of Agriculture, released the following statement Monday. Our thoughts are with Johns friends and family during this time, Barbee said. In his years of service, John was always an advocate for agriculture and the rural communities of Nevada. He will be profoundly missed by many, including those of us at the Department. Free Press Correspondent Toni Milano contributed to this article. Giving Thanks, Giving Back Sacramento, California - It takes a lot of hands to bring a crop to harvest, starting with farmers, farm workers and ranchers. Theyre responsible for Californias ongoing status as the leading agricultural state in the country and one of the leading Ag economies in the world. These dedicated people all deserve our thanks this holiday season for the care and attention they devote to our food supply. Its a wondrous, diverse bounty we can share with our family and friends at our holiday tables and elsewhere. We also show our gratitude this time of year by sharing with people less fortunate than us. CDFA employees came together last week to donate a number of turkeys to the Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services for distribution to families in need. This annual effort serves as an informal jumping-off point for the State Employees Food Drive, which is facilitated with CDFA and coordinated with the Food Bank (the formal kickoff was back in September). CDFA employees Brandon Morrow (L) and Darrin Okimoto help load turkeys destined for the Sacramento Food Bank and then to needy families. Department employees donated 845 lbs of turkey last week. Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services provides for more than 130,000 food-insecure people every month, including many families with children. The Food Drive continues throughout the holiday season, and I know our employees will continue to look for ways to reach out to those who need a little help. CDFA gives thanks in another way through its annual Farm-to-Food Bank Month each December. Working with partners at the California Association of Food Banks and CA Grown, CDFA coordinates this effort with farmers and ranchers looking to give back to the needy in their communities. For a look at how this program helps families, please view a video below from our Growing California series. I want to wish all of you a happy, healthy and nutritious Thanksgiving and a joyous holiday season. Working together, we can all be part of this miraculous system that continues to produce, distribute and consume California agriculture. Toward a Return to Constitutional Rule in Haiti Washington, DC - The United States welcomes the holding of the November 20 elections as an important step towards returning Haiti to full constitutional rule and addressing the serious challenges the country faces. We commend Haitians for exercising their right to vote in a peaceful manner, and in some areas, amidst difficult circumstances. The United States welcomes the continued determination of the Provisional Electoral Council, the Haitian National Police, and the Government of Haiti towards the realization of free, fair, credible, and peaceful elections. Preliminary reports indicate that the elections were conducted with minimal violence and disruption. The United States deplores the isolated incidents of violence and intimidation, and urges that those responsible be brought to justice under Haitian law. We call on the Government of Haiti and all Haitians to foster a climate of calm during the tabulation period to ensure that Haiti remains on track toward democratic renewal of its state institutions and the seating, in early 2017, of a president elected by the Haitian people. This Isnt Our Last Love Letter Dear Don Don, Way back in 92 I walked into the room and knew Never felt this way before I shook your hand while gazing into your eyes And the feeling grew As I took a seat I knew A love that would have my heart Forever I knew Way back in 92 They say love at first sight doesnt always last or isnt true We were the exception to that rule Our love had no where to hide A spark set fire As if this is how the universe started I never doubted our love or what we could do Together we grew Forming a bond everlasting That became our glue My euphoria was YOU Im eternally grateful for the love and life we shared For how fortunate we were : to have and to hold through sickness and in health Til death do us part Until we are together again This isnt our last love letter I love you with all my heart and soul Yours forever, Deirdre (Mrs. Hank Snow) Im fortunate to have fallen in love with, marry and make a life with the sharpest, coolest, funniest, most rare, bad ass, tender loving, loyal man on the planet, my husband Don Imus. A True American Hero I dont know why it has been so hard for me to write about my dear friend Don Imus. I certainly know what he meant to me, my family, my charity, my hospital and the millions of fans that listened and loved him for so many years. I keep reading all the beautiful condolences that people are writing about how much a part of their lives were effected by listening to him over the years. But what most people dont talk enough about is what he did for all of us. In every sense of the word, he was an American Hero. His work with children with so many different illnesses and his dedication to their future was unmatched by anyone I have ever known or heard about. Besides raising over $100,000,000 for so many causes, he took care of young people for over 20 years in a state where he could not breathe. Along with his incredible wife Deirdre, he created a world where children were not defined by their disease. That was a miracle! He was a miracle. I will miss him ever day for the rest of my life. I was blessed to be a part of his and Deirdes life. No one will ever do what he did. I love you Don Imus - A TRUE AMERICAN HERO David Jurist IMUS IN THE MORNING FIRST DAY BACK! Pledging to protect the Second Amendment is what brought millions of beleaguered American firearms owners to the polls Nov. 8 to elect Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States, and one thing Trump can do to assure them that he deserves their trust would be to instruct his attorney general early in 2017 to name a special assistant whose job would be to protect Second Amendment rights. Over the years, the Department of Justice has taken action against various other civil and constitutional rights abuses. It is time for the DOJ to prosecute violations of the Second Amendment and federal laws including the Firearms Owners Protection Act. The next attorney general should take action against states and local governments that adopt laws designed specifically to infringe on the rights of honest firearms owners or discourage people from exercising their right to keep and bear arms for legitimate reasons, including self-defense. For too many years, cities including Washington, D.C. and Chicago, and states including New Jersey, New York and Maryland have prosecuted firearms owners, including those in transit from other states, for actions that would be legal anywhere else in the nation. This must cease, and those states must be held accountable for their abuses. Egregious laws have been adopted also in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Illinois. Bans on certain commonly-owned firearms in all of these states began as simple licensing and/or registration requirements. Earlier this year, for example, anti-gun Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey unilaterally decided to expand the definition of assault weapon in the Bay State, essentially rendering tens of thousands of legally-owned firearms as contraband. Her claim that the state law on assault weapons has been misinterpreted for the past 18 years, and that she was merely correcting that problem is specious at best. California is another example of a state where rights have been gradually eroded to the point where owning a firearm has become little more than a privilege. The state initially banned a limited number of firearms, and has gradually expanded that to cover a whole class of firearms, making previously legal firearms illegal. A deputy U.S. attorney general could bring the full force of the Justice Department against such demagoguery. That all of this has been done under the guise of gun safety is an insult to the intelligence of gun owners. They see their rights have been infringed, and they deserve to have those rights protected and defended by the Justice Department rather than surrendered piecemeal to gun control extremism. It should not simply be up to gun rights organizations like the Second Amendment Foundation to challenge such laws while the Justice Department acts like a spectator. It would also be the task of this special assistant AG to make sure the DOJ does not take anti-Second Amendment positions on any legal action. This individual would also serve as a liaison with gun rights organizations, working with them rather than against them to assure that the nations laws are used to prosecute criminals rather than persecute law-abiding gun owners. This assistant AG could work with members of Congress and gun rights organizations to restore funding for the long-neglected rights restoration investigations that once were conducted by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. President-elect Trump pledged to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia with someone who shared his view that the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right not contingent with service in some militia. At some point, the high court must address the right to bear arms, sending a message to state governments that a right so encumbered by Draconian restrictions that its exercise is impossible is not a right at all, but a prohibitively-regulated privilege. Donald Trump has been given an opportunity to right so many of the wrongs that have been committed against millions of citizens whose only crime has been a wish to exercise their constitutionally-delineated civil rights. They helped to make him president and it is time for the government to treat them as the first class citizens they are and have always been. It is time to make the Second Amendment to be great again. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Syrian army has claimed that rebels in eastern Aleppo are hoarding warehouses full of food and that they should clear land mines from humanitarian corridors, statements that rebels have dismissed as propaganda. The siege and intense bombardment of east Aleppo, aggravated by renewed, frequent air strikes on hospitals in the past week, have left residents even shorter of medicines, food and fuel. The UN has not been able to access the rebel-held sector since early July and, on Friday, said that aid supplies had run out in the area, where all eight hospitals are either out of action or barely functioning. The general command of the armed forces calls upon militants in the neighbourhoods of east Aleppo to open ration warehouses and distribute food to those that need it, an army statement said. UN spokesman Jens Laerke said it was unclear whose warehouses the army was referring to. There are no UN warehouses of food that can just be opened up ... There are no food stocks on the U.N. side left in the warehouses, he told Reuters. The last UN rations were distributed on 13 November, he said. Zakaria Malahifji, a politburo member of the Fastaqim rebel group in Aleppo, said there were no such warehouses. People are searching for bread. [The army] is saying these things to appear like they care for people, Mr Malahifji said. Mr Malahifji and another witness in Aleppo said that civilians protested last week outside a building believed to belong to the city council for opposition-held Aleppo, thinking there was food inside. The council could not immediately be reached for comment. In pictures: Aleppo bombing Show all 14 1 /14 In pictures: Aleppo bombing In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo Smoke rises after airstrikes on the rebel-held al-Sakhour neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria April 29, 2016. Reuters In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo A Syrian family runs for cover amid the rubble of destroyed buildings following a reported air strike on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Al-Qatarji in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, on April 29, 2016. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo A man reacts as he stands on blood stains at a site hit by airstrikes in the rebel held area of Aleppo's al-Fardous district, Syria, April 29, 2016. Reuters In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo The damage of the airstrikes in the rebel-held area of Aleppo on April 28 Reuters In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo The damaged the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)-backed al-Quds hospital after it was hit by airstrikes, in a rebel-held area of Syria's Aleppo Reuters In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo Syrians evacuate an injured man amid the rubble of destroyed buildings following an air strike on a rebel-held of Aleppo on April 29, 2016. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo People inspect the damage at a site hit by airstrikes, in the rebel-held area of Aleppo's Bustan al-Qasr AP In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo A man leads a woman in tears and child out of the scene after airstrikes hit Aleppo AP In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo Civil defence members search for survivors after an airstrike at a field hospital in the rebel held area of al-Sukari district of Aleppo Reuters In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo A Syrian boy is comforted as he cries next to the body of a relative who died in a reported air strike in the rebel-held neighbourhood of al-Soukour in the northern city of Aleppo Getty Images In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo A Syrian family walks amid the rubble of destroyed buildings following a reported air strike in the Bustan al-Qasr rebel-held district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo Getty Images In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo Syrian civil defence volunteers and rescuers remove a baby from under the rubble of a destroyed building following a reported air strike on the rebel-held neighbourhood of al-Kalasa in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo Getty Images In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo Syrians help a wounded youth following an air strike on the Fardous rebel held neighbourhood of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo Getty Images In pictures: Aleppo bombing Bombing in Aleppo Syrian civil defence volunteers evacuate people from a damaged building following a reported airstrike in the rebel-held neighbourhood of Tareeq al-Bab in the northern city of Aleppo About 250,000 people in eastern Aleppo have been under effective siege since the army, aided by Iranian-backed militias and Russian jets, cut off the last road in early July. A renewed assault began last Tuesday after a weeks-long pause in air strikes and shelling, although battles and air strikes had carried on along the city's front lines and in the surrounding countryside. In a separate statement, the army told rebels to clear mines from crossings into the government-held western sector designated by the Syrian and Russian militaries as humanitarian corridors, and to let civilians who want to leave do so. The Syrian government has said rebels are stopping residents from leaving. Rebel groups and residents of east Aleppo say people are scared to use the corridors for fear of snipers, bombs or arrest. At least 141 civilians, including 18 children, have been killed over the past week in rebel-held districts, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday. The Britain-based monitoring group said it had documented hundreds of injuries as a result of Russian and Syrian air strikes and shelling by government forces and its allies. It said there were 87 other deaths of rebel fighters and people of unknown identity in the eastern sector. The Observatory also documented 16 civilian deaths, including 10 children, and dozens of injuries as a result of rebel shelling of government-held west Aleppo. The UN has been trying to get all parties to the conflict to agree to a humanitarian relief plan, and says rebel groups have agreed in principle to the plan, but it is still waiting for an official green light from Russia. We need the political actors and the military commanders on the ground to allow this plan to proceed, Mr Laerke said. Reuters Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} His shock of white hair glinting in the sun, Jim Jarmusch is having a quiet little rant. Whats got his goat? Those who walk along the street glued to their smartphones. I just want to shove them out the way and say: Look, theres a fucking world going on! What is your problem?! I get so frustrated. No wonder his latest character the eponymous bus-driving poet in Paterson, played by Adam Driver is defiantly analogue. He refuses to get a phone and jots his poems down in a notebook. Adam Driver stars as a bus-driving poet in Jarmusch's latest film, 'Paterson' (Amazon Studios) There is a little bit of Paterson in Jarmusch, who has similarly led the artists life unencumbered by modern technology. Im not against any of these things. But I am a little bit stubborn, he admits. I dont have a laptop, I never have. I do not have a personal e-mail. I have an iPad, I have an iPhone, I go online, but the problem for me if I had e-mail, Id be doing that half the day, and I already have to fight to write and make a film and make music and read and think do my job, which is to take in things. Yet his connection to Paterson the poet runs deeper. Before he broke through with films like Stranger Than Paradise and Down By Law, Jarmusch entered Columbia University with the express intention of becoming a poet. Born and raised in Akron, Ohio, poetry was his escape from the work of Baudelaire and Rimbaud he read as a teen to the American poets he later discovered like Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams (who hails from Paterson, New Jersey, where the film is set). Nor is Paterson Jarmuschs first ode to poetry; 1996s western Dead Man was inspired by William Blake. But this latest champion of the blue-collar artist almost feels like self-validation. I just wanted to make an intentionally slight, quiet little world, he says, of people that were centred in themselves and werent necessarily ambitious and had nice qualities and were creative and balanced and centred. He chuckles. The biggest drama is when his bus breaks down! Thats our big action scene! Paterson Exclusive Trailer While Drivers introspective Paterson lives with a cupcake-maker Laura and their bulldog, Jarmusch is more circumspect when it comes to personal matters. His long-term girlfriend is artist/filmmaker Sara Driver: they met as students at New York University, she helped produce Jarmuschs 1980 debut Permanent Vacation and then Stranger Than Paradise, which went on to win him the Camera dOr in Cannes. But further inquiries are met with a brisk rebuttal. I dont talk about my love life, thank you very much, he says. Both Jarmusch and Driver can be glimpsed in Uncle Howard, a highly personal documentary due next month about filmmaker Howard Brookner, who died of Aids, aged just 34. Howard was the first person I lost to Aids in 1989, the first close friend, says Jarmusch, who worked with Brookner, recording sound on his 1983 documentary about counterculture legend William Burroughs. If Brookner became something of a forgotten figure in the then-fertile New York underground, Jarmusch hopes this will shine some light on his unfortunately short life. Today all clad in denim, fixed to his lapel is a button badge for The Stooges a neat advert for Jarmuschs other new movie, the just-released Gimme Danger, recounting the history of Iggy Pop and The Stooges, Im so proud of the film, says Jarmusch. Its not a documentary. Its more of a love-letter, essayits a love for The Stooges. Like his passion for poetry, it harks back to his adolescent years in Akron. When I was a teenager our huge inspirations were The MC5, The Stooges and The Velvet Underground. These were our bands. Driver and Golshifteh Farahani who plays his wife, Laura, a New Jersey couple in 'Paterson' Jarmuschs second non-fiction film, after his 1997 Neil Young concert movie Year of the Horse, music is evidently just as crucial to Jarmusch as the movies he gorged on when he spent a year in Paris as an exchange student, discovering the works of Ozu and Mizoguchi at the Cinematheque Francaise. While he counts the likes of Tom Waits, The White Stripes Jack White and the Wu-Tang Clans RZA as friends and former collaborators, Jarmusch has a rich musical life of his own. In bands for years, Jarmusch eventually decided to part-score his 2009 film The Limits of Control under the name Bad Rabbit, teaming up with producer/drummer Carter Logan and sound engineer Shane Stoneback. Knowing so many incredible musicians, Jarmusch was uncharacteristically nervous, he told me back then, to share his music with his pals. Its kinda scary. What if Tom Waits is like, Jim, Jim, dont quit your day job! It could be the end of my musical career. With the band now dubbed Squrl, after three EPs, live performances and soundtrack work for Jarmuschs last film, Only Lovers Left Alive and also Paterson, his own music is becoming increasingly integral to his art. If anything, it reemphasises the cottage-industry approach he takes. I have a little business, he says at one point, lamenting the fact its got harder and harder to get his movies financed in the way he used to. I saved some money over the years and now its going down. When Paterson goes home after driving his bus and writing poetry, he takes his wife's dog, Marvin, for a walk For all his reluctance to get personal, the 63 year-old Jarmusch has his moments. We talk about his parents his late businessman father and his mother, who reviewed film for the Akron Beacon Journal and his own interest in Buddhism. My mother is very old now and Im reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead because I want to prepare a bit. I love my mother and shes not going to be here forever. My father is already gone. Ive been losing a lot of friends in recent years. If theres a Zen-like calm to Jarmusch, like the stealthy killer played by Forest Whitaker in his 1999 film Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai, its somewhat heartening to see that even he has his off days. Never mind e-mail or laptops, I have a terrible thing with inanimate objects, he says. Some days, I drop the teacup, the window shade breaksthese goddamn objects! I get frustrated by them. A spot of tai chi helps he says. Then I say, accept it accept that your house is full of broken things and youre an idiot and your shirts on backwards! 'Gimme Danger' is in cinemas now. 'Paterson' opens on 25 November, 'Uncle Howard' on 16 December Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} When bad boy French writer Michel Houellebecq was an unhappy teenager, living with his grandmother in Meaux in France, one of the ways he sought relief from the world was in listening to Iggy and the Stooges records. Years later, when he was trying to become a writer, he lived in a tiny room, bare save for a mattress, some alcohol and a huge poster of Iggy Pop on the wall. Iggy Pop and Houellebecq, in a scene from the documentary, which is based on one of the French authors essays, were fans of each other long before they met (Reiner van Brummelen) If Iggy Pop is the patron saint of unhappy teenagers, its partly because the veteran rocker was once an unhappy and slightly nerdy teenager himself. Iggy reads widely and Houellebecq is now one of his favourite writers. The French novelist (whose books include Atomised, Platform and Submission) once stated that the role of the artist is to put your finger on the wound in society and press down real hard. That is pretty much what Iggy Pop thinks too. It was in 2007 that the chain of events were put in motion that would eventually lead to Iggy and Houellebecq collaborating and, becoming fast friends and, indirectly, to Iggy recording two albums in French, a language he barely speaks. The go-between who brought the writer and the rock star together was a Dutch journalist and filmmaker Erik Lieshout (whose film featuring the duo, To Stay Alive A Method, has been screening this week at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam.) Lieshout had met Houellebecq in France at the time the author was doing publicity for The Possibility of an Island, which he was later to make into a film. Lieshout was there to interview him for Dutch TV. Lieshouts first question to Houellebecq was engagingly pretentious. Is style a quality of vision? The question actually came from an interview that Marcel Proust had given in 1913. Houellebecq didnt recognise the source but spent the night pondering it and the next day gave Lieshout and his crew a nine-and-a-half-minute answer to that question alone. He later saw Lieshouts short film about him. He said it is the best thing ever made on me much better than the BBCs film, Lieshout recalls. Interviewed in a bar in the Spui in Amsterdam, Lieshout looks every inch the Dutch equivalent to the Left Bank intellectual. He began to collaborate with Houellebecq when the French novelist was directing the movie version of The Possibility of an Island. It was a chaotic shoot and Lieshout and his collaborators, Arno Haggers and Reinier van Brummelen, had been brought along to make a documentary, Last Words, about it. Houellebecq was glad to have them there. We were eating together and sharing his worries about the film, Lieshout says. I love his company. Its quite addictive actually because when you sit next to him, the whole world gets a sense of meaning. Immediately, everything is interpreted which is very nice for human beings who are looking for a clue. And hes extremely funny, extremely aggressively funny one of the ingredients of his success is his aggression against the world which he fits into beautiful interpretations. We had nights out, of course, and there was a lot of drinking and there was singing. It was in this period that Lieshout approached Iggys manager Henry McGroggan to ask if the rock star might be prepared to provide a song or two for the documentary. It was a speculative approach and he didnt expected to hear anything back. However, a little while later, when he was out sailing with his three-year-old son Ilja on the IJsselmeer, his mobile phone went off. From his sunlit garden in Miami, Iggy Pop recites Houellebecqs To Stay Alive (Reiner van Brummelen) It was wind force six. I thought, my God, I need to get back in the harbour. I was almost there, which is when you need most to concentrate. That is when he [Iggy Pop] called. I thought, I cant say call back later so I decided not to go back into harbour but to put the ship right back into the wind, with the sails loose. I said to my son, sit down there so you dont fall overboard. Lieshout and Iggy spoke for 45 minutes. The rock star had been staying with former Stooge Ron Ashton in Normandy a few days before and had spent his vacation reading The Possibility of an Island. When he realised that Lieshout was working with Houellebecq, he immediately agreed to provide some music. Lieshout went to Miami to meet him. During this first encounter, Iggy pulled a guitar from the wall and started performing a song called On The Beach, which he had never recorded and which had a line that still sticks in Lieshouts mind: You can convince the world that youre some kind of superstar while an asshole is what you are. Iggy gave permission for this song to be used in the film and provided some others. The reason he started singing in French, is because the rights to the translation of Autumn Leaves were too expensive: Fuck it, Ill do it in French, Iggy said. These songs formed the basis for the Preliminaires record, Lieshout remembers. Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up Lost For Words marked the first (loose) collaboration between Houellebecq and Iggy Pop but they still hadnt properly met. The duo finally came face to face during a live concert Iggy gave at Radio France in May 2009. Houellebecq was in the front row. When Iggy realised he was there, he addressed several of the songs at him directly. Iggy was really singing for Michel and Michel was cheering. When Iggy said fuck or something aggressive, Michel would cheer a little more. After the concert, they all went to a Paris brasserie for a late-night meal and to compare notes. Over oysters and wine, they finally began to talk together. Initially a little shy and star-struck, they admitted that they were die-hard fans of one another. To Stay Alive A Method is a documentary about struggling artists, many with mental problems, who are fighting against the odds to make their art. It is based on Houellebecqs essay of the same name. Alongside the anonymous artists, Houellebecq and Iggy Pop feature prominently. Iggy reads Houellebecqs words on camera in a growling and professorial way. Iggy Pop recognises his own struggles as a young artist in the documentary (Reiner van Brummelen) Michel said that if you want this film to work, the people in the film should be really marginal, they shouldnt be too successful. On the other hand, I had the idea that the film also speaks to the ordinary [person] someone with a normal job in an office who wants to step out of his chains and do something with his life, the director states. In spite of his success, Iggy had a strong sense of identification with the downtrodden protagonists in the film. I had him read To Stay Alive and he said it was exactly his story. He sent me a version of Open Up And Bleed, the song in the film. He said, listen to this, it represents for me exactly the feeling of To Stay Alive. At that time, like he admits in the film, he was doing self-mutilation and he had mental problems. His records were selling for 80 cents, even Raw Power which is [considered] one of the 100 top classic albums right now. Lieshout talks of the bliss of making the film. Everything seemed to go right. A scene was shot without official permission on the Boulevard Saint-Germain but Houellebecqs security guards put in place to protect him when his novel Submission provoked accusations of Islamophobia helped keep the crowds at bay. The irony was that Iggy Pop and Houellebecq proved to be entirely reliable collaborators. In spite of their reputation as troublemakers who leave chaos in their wake, they were always on time. Lieshout is now making another documentary, Made In Europe, about art that binds Europe together. Exasperated by some of his collaborators, Lieshout told them that I can only count on Michel Houellebecq and Iggy Pop. They never let me down. To Stay Alive A Method is screening this week at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) until 27 November. It will be released in the UK next year. Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} In an age where having a lot of followers can land you a role, its kind of expected of actors to be vocal about politics and have an opinion on the trending talking point of the day. Many probably dont wish to, though, especially when the question theyve been asked would be better directed at someone else. Seven major actresses touched upon this when they sat down for a Hollywood Reporter round table interview this week. During a discussion on pay equality, Arrival star Amy Adams said: Who you should be asking is the Producer Roundtable: "Do you think minorities are underrepresented? Do you think women are underpaid?" We are always put on the chopping block to put our opinion out there, and that question is never asked. I'm like, "Why don't you ask them and then have their statements be the headlines in the press?" I don't want to be a headline anymore about pay equality. Taraji P. Henson responded that she has a similar feeling when constantly asked about roles for African-Americans in Hollywood. The actors also talked theatre vs. film, rape scenes and researching playing a crack addict, many of them in contention for this year's Oscars. Sign up to Roisin OConnors free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Roisin OConnors email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A tweet posted from the account of former Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins appears to share new music by the convicted sex offender. The link, which was posted on Monday, shared a Soundcloud link to seven-second music clip on a DJ side project Watkins was involved in from 2009, called LAmourLaMorgue. Some publications have interpreted the post, called Sequence Initiated, to mean that Watkins may be planning to release new music, but The Independent was unable to verify this at the time of writing. (Screenshot (Screenshot) His account also favourited an old mixtape on the same page, and a mix by Twitter user @Megalelz. Watkins' infamous catchphrase was 'Mega Lolz'. TeamRock noted that the official Lostprophets website also seems to have been updated on Monday 11 November 2016 and is now simply one page describing the group as 'The Straight Edge British Metal Band'. The Sequence Initiated track only lasts for seven seconds, compared to the second most recent mix tape posted on the Soundcloud account which is 57 minutes, 33 seconds long and includes samples from Eurythmics Sweet Dreams and Lady Gagas Just Dance. However it does bear strong similarities to the account user's previous style of remixing: It includes a female vocalist saying LAmourLaMorgue which is used in other mixes, and cover art featuring two masked figures who have also been used on other tracks. (Screenshot (Screenshot) It is unclear as to whether Watkins has been able to post on his social media accounts or whether they have been hacked. Watkins is currently serving 29 years in prison with a further six years on licence for a string of child sex offences, including two charges of attempting to rape a baby. He later launched an appeal against the length of his sentence, but it was dismissed by a panel of judges. His Twitter account had been inactive since his arrest in December 2012 until the recent posts. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice told The Independent that Watkins does not have access to a mobile phone, suggesting that he is not able to send tweets from his social media accounts. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The recent dismissal of an appeal lodged by NHS England means that funding for the preventative HIV drug PrEP does fall under the remit of the NHS rather than local authorities, who are generally responsible for preventative health. Pre-exposure prophylaxis is given to those at a high risk of contracting HIV, or used to stop HIV from becoming established in the event of potential transmission, and should be used as an increased protection against the spread of sexually transmitted infections. And although the case and discussion around it has been concerned with who would bear the cost of funding the potentially life-saving drug, it is also of symbolic importance it serves to recognise the validity of sexual practises that may be deemed to be high risk. The law has typically ignored same-sex sexuality in previous cases and pieces of legislation, most notably in the removal of references to sexual intercourse in the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013. This demonstrates the continued reluctance to redefine the legal definition of sexual intercourse as anything that deviates from penile-vaginal sex, and means that same-sex couples are still treated unequally by the law. Same-sex couples are unable to rely on adultery in divorce proceedings and unable to consummate their marriage, demonstrating the ways in which marriage is equal only by name. The reluctance of the law and society more generally to engage with gay sex leads to the what some have called the desexualised homonormative sexual identity a gay identity that is said to assimilate in order to gain equal status and privileges within a society in which heterosexuality is assumed, unquestioned, and dominant. Hiding sex The renouncing, or hiding, of sex in the law therefore has created a domesticated, and political-neutral image of a gay person one that conforms, that is good, not too offensive, and not too risky or public about their sexuality. Using this idea helps to construct the image of a married, monogamous, responsible gay couple, who are far removed from those people who may need to rely on PrEP. But this ignores the facts of sexual practise and sexuality and serves not only to further alienate and exclude those who do not fit within the model of what a gay person should be like, but also contributes to the spread of infection. In 2014 there were 3,360 new diagnoses of HIV recorded in the UK, the largest number ever recorded. These will not stop without further prevention or responsibility assumed from the health service. In reaction to this, the term homoradical has been coined. This is someone who takes risks in their sexual life, and for whom PrEP is a useful tool. The homoradical has been identified in research as one who rejects the idea of marriage and takes part in sexual activity that deviates from traditional relationship models, including the non-monogamous, the slutty, the risky and those who engage in public sex. It is this group who may be more at risk of contracting HIV. Recognising the need to provide further protection to those at a higher risk of contracting HIV is of crucial importance in the task of preventing the further spread of the disease. Transgender women, men who have sex with men, and BME people are most at risk, but it is important to remember that no one is immune from HIV. The initial decision in the High Court that the NHS could fund PrEP sparked a vicious and intensely homophobic backlash, illustrating that there is still a significant amount of work still to be done in improving acceptance and tolerance. The continued refusal of the NHS to provide the treatment and the homophobia that followed will surely contribute to the spread of HIV in circumstances that could have been prevented. Arguments that PrEP leads to riskier sexual practises may be true in some circumstances, but research published in the New England Medical Journal showed that patients on PrEP are less likely to contract other sexually transmitted infections. Although there is an argument that everyone has a personal responsibility with their own sexual relations and conduct, the reality is that the virus has continued to spread in the past 30 years and the onus on personal responsibility serves to reinforce the stigma and exclusion that surrounds those living with the disease. NHS England still maintains that although it has the authority, it is not obliged to provide PrEP. An NHS spokesman said that the NHS are now considering the provision, noting the implications which may arise from its price. Again, then, it appears that LGBT+ and minority peoples health is still something to be fought against by the NHS, rather than protected. In addition to this, the NHS and media have pitted HIV treatment and other treatments for illnesses such as cancer against each other. This is dangerous and will not help anyone at risk of developing HIV, nor those who already live with the disease. The chief executive of the National AIDs Trust has called the delay in the provision of PrEP unethical, and expensive, while the chair of the BMA Public Health Committee has come out in support of the provision of the life-saving drug. At the moment, PrEP is available to the privileged few, those who can afford the treatment coming in at a cost of around 45 per month for a generic version, but up to ten times higher if branded (Truvada). The NHS now has the power to remove this privileged status and afford further protection from HIV to those who need it most. In doing so, the law and the NHS can recognise that the rhetoric of responsibility and aversion to risk, which is particularly prejudiced against LGBT+ people, is exchanged for a developed system of protection and prevention that will do most towards ending HIV. This becomes a step forward in recognising and accepting sexual identities and practises that do not fit within dominant ideas of identity, and validating the importance of protecting those at higher risk. It is about recognising different sexual identities and practises, but also a question of when and how they will be protected. This article was originally published on The Conversation (www.conversation.com) Alexander Maine is a PhD Candidate and Lecturer in Law, Northumbria University, Newcastle Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} "You're very... industrious." This was how I was described by one resident when I was living and working in Sweden. And trust me it was not meant as a compliment. Because, as I discovered over time, although Swedes work hard and with dedication, they do not think their jobs define them. I gradually noticed that people tended to have a healthy work-life balance, and a sense of themselves that was broader than whatever it was they did to make money. When I moved to Sweden from Chicago in 2001, I threw myself into building a life, including some semblance of a career. I taught myself Swedish, took language courses, and taught English at a variety of schools and companies. I wrote articles for a number of different publications, did freelance copy editing, and when my Swedish was good enough, I began translating, too. I was working long hours, seven days a week, with little time for much else. I enjoyed it, but also I felt compelled to do it. As an American from a Jewish background, I was used to thinking that work was everything. Getting a good education and then working your way up is what I believed life was all about. The American dream combined with the hopes of an immigrant, I suppose. So I felt snubbed and insulted by the man who sneered at my industriousness. But then I began looking around me more and seeing what other people were doing. Theres a word in Swedish, "lagom", that can be roughly translated as: Not too much, not too little, just right. Its moderate or just enough. And although it is something of a cliche to refer to lagom when talking about Swedish culture, its still a good place to start. The concept of lagom, after all, raises a series of important questions. Why work until Im burned out? Why shouldnt I take regular breaks during the day, including the famed "fika", for coffee and cake? Why not enjoy the gorgeous Swedish summer by having several weeks off, completely disconnected from work? Why should I always ask what do you do? when I first meet someone, as though their job is their most important feature? The 20 best countries to raise a family Show all 20 1 /20 The 20 best countries to raise a family The 20 best countries to raise a family 20. Iceland These are the 20 best countries to raise children according to a Unicef report into child inequality, which measured inequality across income, education, health and life satisfaction in rich countries (Pic: Blue Lagoon, Reykjavik) Getty Images The 20 best countries to raise a family 19. Portugal (Pic: The Douro Valley vineyards) Getty The 20 best countries to raise a family 18. United States (Pic: New York) The 20 best countries to raise a family 14= United Kingdom (Pic: London) The 20 best countries to raise a family 14= Hungary (Pic: Budapest) The 20 best countries to raise a family 14= Greece (Pic: Athens) The 20 best countries to raise a family 14. Germany (Pic: Berlin) The 20 best countries to raise a family 13. Australia (Pic: Sydney) The 20 best countries to raise a family 12. Croatia (Pic: Dubrovnik on Croatia's Adriatic coast) The 20 best countries to raise a family 11. Czech Republic (Pic: Olomouc) The 20 best countries to raise a family 10. Latvia (Pic: Riga) The 20 best countries to raise a family 9. Slovenia (Pic: Ljubljana) The 20 best countries to raise a family 8. Estonia (Pic: Tallinn) The 20 best countries to raise a family 7. Ireland (Pic: Dublin) The 20 best countries to raise a family 6. Netherlands (Pic: Amsterdam) The 20 best countries to raise a family 5. Austria (Pic: Vienna) AFP/Getty Images The 20 best countries to raise a family 2= Switzerland (Pic: Rheinau) The 20 best countries to raise a family 2= Norway (Pic: Saebo) The 20 best countries to raise a family 2. Finland (Pic: Helsinki) The 20 best countries to raise a family 1. Denmark (Pic: Copenhagen) As someone who researches and translates literature, with a particular focus on Scandinavian texts, Ive noticed that Nordic books are less about jobs than their English-language equivalents. For example, Swedish author Kristina Sandbergs award-winning trilogy about a housewife, Maj, has been extremely popular with Swedish readers, who are fascinated by how the main character lives her life. She cleans her home, raises her two children, socialises with friends, cooks meals every day, and has no outside occupation. It is hard to imagine readers in certain other countries allowing themselves the time and pleasure to read 1,500 pages filled with such intricate details, though I cant help but think wed be better off if we did. And while comics and graphic novels grow in popularity around the world, perhaps it is only in the northern lands, where moderation and equality are taken so seriously, that comics writers such as Lina Neidestam and Liv Stromquist could be so successful. Recommended The 42 books to read before you die Their books have strongly feminist foundations and focus on ideas, not careers. Lina Neidestams heroine, Zelda, is barely employed, and spends her time and energy arguing about the major problems facing our world. Liv Stromquist writes about womens lives, bodies and roles in society, suggesting at times that its our focus on capitalism and power thats making us all suffer. Its not a shock, though its a shame, that neither of these writers have yet had their books translated into English. Or theres Johan Jonson, a popular poet whose 500-plus-page collections require the abundance of free time that Swedish readers value. Swedish culture has taken a step further lately, by making moves towards a six-hour working day. In many of the organisations and companies that have made the change, theyve noticed that their staff are happier, more productive and more creative, which proves the point that if the employees feel better, theyll actually do better work. Its a win-win situation. Burned-out people cost companies and society time and money. They need healthcare, time off work, replacements have to be recruited and trained. Rested, enthusiastic staff members feel positive about their workplaces and can be passionate about their jobs. Working less to live well Some people argue that a six-hour working day simply wouldnt suit work-obsessed cultures such as the US or the UK. But given how unhealthy weve become, with rising levels of obesity, insomnia and stress, something has to change. Weve turned working hard and its natural mate, sleeping very little into a moral issue, or even a fetish. We know the damage that not getting enough rest does to us, and yet we seem unwilling to leave the office, ignore our smartphones, and switch off. Some companies outside Sweden are trying out a shorter workday and surprise, surprise theyve found that staff are feeling refreshed and enjoying the extra time they have for hobbies, friends and families. Time away from work also allows people an opportunity to think about work tasks in new ways and from different perspectives, so they return to their desks feeling stimulated. Maybe its time for more companies and institutions to start respecting their employees and shortening the hours they spend at work. And maybe the rest of the world will be inspired by Sweden, and well start having more fika, more time for leisurely reading about non-work topics, and a more lagom attitude towards our jobs. Oh, and by the way, Im still industrious but within reason. And I never turn down a chance to have coffee and cake. This article first appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.com). BJ Epstein is a senior lecturer in literature and public engagement, at the University of East Anglia Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Chancellor Philip Hammond will outline his priorities for taxes and spending in the wake of the UK vote to leave in the EU in his first Autumn Statement on Wednesday. It will be the Chancellor first major economic speech since the Brexit vote in June. Here is what you need to know: What is the Autumn Statement? The Autumn Statement is the second of the two big economic statements made by the government every year - the first being the Budget which happens in the Spring. The statement was first introduced in 1976 after an act of Parliament decreed that the Government must publish two economic updates per year. This year the Autumn Statement takes places on Wednesday November 23, right after Prime Ministers Question. The main speech takes about an hour and will be followed immediately by a response from Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. How is different from the budget? Good question. Traditionally the spring Budget has outlined taxation plans while the Autumn Statement has been focused on financial forecasts and spending. Although the distinction became blurred under George Osborne and some taxations plans are now announced in the Autumn Statement, we won't know about the details, such as duties on alcoholic drinks or cigarettes. For Philip Hammond the main difference between the two statements comes to refreshments. The Chancellor is officially allowed to have an alcoholic drink during the presentation of the Budget, but it is not the case during the Autumn Statement. Brexit Concerns Show all 26 1 /26 Brexit Concerns Brexit Concerns Brexit will put British patients at 'back of the queue' for new drugs Brexit will put British patients at the back of the queue for vital new drugs, the Government has been warned forcing them to wait up to two years longer A medicines regulator has raised the alarm over a likely decision to pull out of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as the EU itself. ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt dropped the bombshell , when he said he expected the UK would quit the EMA because it is subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Getty Images Brexit Concerns London to lose status as 'gateway to Europe' for banks One of Germanys top banking regulators has warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc. Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the BundesbankGermanys central banktold a private meeting of German businesses and banks earlier this week in Frankfurt that even if banking rules were equivalent between the UK and the rest of the EU, that was still miles away from [Britain having] access to the single market, the BBC reports. Jason Hawkes Brexit Concerns Exodus The number of financial sector professionals in Britain and continental Europe looking for jobs in Ireland rocketed in the months after the UK voted to leave the European Union Shutterstock Brexit Concerns Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer Pay packages of many FTSE 100 chief executive officers are partly tied to how well share prices are doing rather than the CEOs performance -- and some stocks are soaring. ritish equities got a boost since the June vote because the likes of Rio Tinto, Smiths Group and WPP generate most sales abroad and earn a fortune when they convert these revenues back into the weakened pound. Sterlings fall also made UK stocks more affordable for overseas investors. Rex Brexit Concerns Theresa May: UK to leave single market Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". Getty Brexit Concerns Lead campaigner Gina Miller and her team outside the High Court Getty Brexit Concerns Raymond McCord holds up his newly issued Irish passport alongside his British passport outside the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns SDLP leader Colum Eastwood leaving the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns Migrants with luggage walk past a graffiti on a wall as they leave the 'Jungle' migrant camp, as part of a major three-day operation planned to clear the camp in Calais Getty Brexit Concerns Migrants leave messages on their tents in the Jungle migrant camp Getty Brexit Concerns The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) which distributes approximately 700 meals daily in the northern Paris camp states that it is noticing a spike in new migrant arrivals this week, potentially linked the the Calais 'jungle' camp closure - with around 1000 meals distributed today EPA Brexit Concerns Migrant workers pick apples at Stocks Farm in Suckley, Britain Reuters Brexit Concerns Many farmers across the country are voicing concerns that Brexit could be a dangerous step into the unknown for the farming industry Getty Brexit Concerns Bank of England governor Mark Carney who said the long-term outlook for the UK economy is positive, but growth was slowing in the wake of the Brexit vote PA Brexit Concerns The Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe pluninging Getty Brexit Concerns Immigration officers deal with each member of the public seeking entry into the United Kingdom but on average, 10 a day are refused entry at this London airport and between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport for mainly passport irregularities Getty Brexit Concerns A number of global investment giants have threatened to move their European operations out of London if Brexit proves to have a negative impact on their businesses Getty Brexit Concerns Following the possibility of a Brexit the UK would be released from its renewable energy targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive and from EU state aid restrictions, potentially giving the government more freedom both in the design and phasing out of renewable energy support regimes Getty Brexit Concerns A woman looking at a chart showing the drop in the pound (Sterling) against the US Dollar in London after Britain voted to leave the EU Getty Brexit Concerns Young protesters outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to protest against the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU following the referendum Getty Brexit Concerns Applications from Northern Ireland citizens for Irish Passports has soared to a record high after the UK Voted in favour of Leaving the EU Getty Brexit Concerns NFU Vice President Minette Batters with Secretary of State, Andrea Leadsome at the National Farmers Union (NFU) took machinery, produce, farmers and staff to Westminster to encourage Members of Parliament to back British farming, post Brexit Getty Brexit Concerns The latest reports released by the UK Cabinet Office warn that expats would lose a range of specific rights to live, to work and to access pensions, healthcare and public services. The same reports added that UK citizens abroad would not be able to assume that these rights will be guaranteed in the future Getty Brexit Concerns A British resident living in Spain asks questions during an informative Brexit talk by the "Brexpats in Spain" group, about Spanish legal issues to become Spanish citizens, at the town hall in Benalmadena, Spain Reuters Brexit Concerns The collapse of Great Britain appears to have been greatly exaggerated given the late summer crowds visiting city museums, hotels, and other important tourist attractions Getty Brexit Concerns The U.K. should maintain European Union regulations covering everything from working hours to chemicals until after the government sets out its plans for Brexit, said British manufacturers anxious to avoid a policy vacuum and safeguard access to their biggest export market Getty Why should I care? This year's Autumn Statement is Mr Hammonds first opportunity to outline his priorities for taxes and spending in the wake of the Brexit vote, based on the updated economic projections provided by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). It is also the first statement since Theresa May became prime minister in July. This means it will be our first look at what post-Brexit might look like. Brexit Concerns Show all 26 1 /26 Brexit Concerns Brexit Concerns Brexit will put British patients at 'back of the queue' for new drugs Brexit will put British patients at the back of the queue for vital new drugs, the Government has been warned forcing them to wait up to two years longer A medicines regulator has raised the alarm over a likely decision to pull out of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as the EU itself. ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt dropped the bombshell , when he said he expected the UK would quit the EMA because it is subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Getty Images Brexit Concerns London to lose status as 'gateway to Europe' for banks One of Germanys top banking regulators has warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc. Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the BundesbankGermanys central banktold a private meeting of German businesses and banks earlier this week in Frankfurt that even if banking rules were equivalent between the UK and the rest of the EU, that was still miles away from [Britain having] access to the single market, the BBC reports. Jason Hawkes Brexit Concerns Exodus The number of financial sector professionals in Britain and continental Europe looking for jobs in Ireland rocketed in the months after the UK voted to leave the European Union Shutterstock Brexit Concerns Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer Pay packages of many FTSE 100 chief executive officers are partly tied to how well share prices are doing rather than the CEOs performance -- and some stocks are soaring. ritish equities got a boost since the June vote because the likes of Rio Tinto, Smiths Group and WPP generate most sales abroad and earn a fortune when they convert these revenues back into the weakened pound. Sterlings fall also made UK stocks more affordable for overseas investors. Rex Brexit Concerns Theresa May: UK to leave single market Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". Getty Brexit Concerns Lead campaigner Gina Miller and her team outside the High Court Getty Brexit Concerns Raymond McCord holds up his newly issued Irish passport alongside his British passport outside the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns SDLP leader Colum Eastwood leaving the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns Migrants with luggage walk past a graffiti on a wall as they leave the 'Jungle' migrant camp, as part of a major three-day operation planned to clear the camp in Calais Getty Brexit Concerns Migrants leave messages on their tents in the Jungle migrant camp Getty Brexit Concerns The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) which distributes approximately 700 meals daily in the northern Paris camp states that it is noticing a spike in new migrant arrivals this week, potentially linked the the Calais 'jungle' camp closure - with around 1000 meals distributed today EPA Brexit Concerns Migrant workers pick apples at Stocks Farm in Suckley, Britain Reuters Brexit Concerns Many farmers across the country are voicing concerns that Brexit could be a dangerous step into the unknown for the farming industry Getty Brexit Concerns Bank of England governor Mark Carney who said the long-term outlook for the UK economy is positive, but growth was slowing in the wake of the Brexit vote PA Brexit Concerns The Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe pluninging Getty Brexit Concerns Immigration officers deal with each member of the public seeking entry into the United Kingdom but on average, 10 a day are refused entry at this London airport and between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport for mainly passport irregularities Getty Brexit Concerns A number of global investment giants have threatened to move their European operations out of London if Brexit proves to have a negative impact on their businesses Getty Brexit Concerns Following the possibility of a Brexit the UK would be released from its renewable energy targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive and from EU state aid restrictions, potentially giving the government more freedom both in the design and phasing out of renewable energy support regimes Getty Brexit Concerns A woman looking at a chart showing the drop in the pound (Sterling) against the US Dollar in London after Britain voted to leave the EU Getty Brexit Concerns Young protesters outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to protest against the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU following the referendum Getty Brexit Concerns Applications from Northern Ireland citizens for Irish Passports has soared to a record high after the UK Voted in favour of Leaving the EU Getty Brexit Concerns NFU Vice President Minette Batters with Secretary of State, Andrea Leadsome at the National Farmers Union (NFU) took machinery, produce, farmers and staff to Westminster to encourage Members of Parliament to back British farming, post Brexit Getty Brexit Concerns The latest reports released by the UK Cabinet Office warn that expats would lose a range of specific rights to live, to work and to access pensions, healthcare and public services. The same reports added that UK citizens abroad would not be able to assume that these rights will be guaranteed in the future Getty Brexit Concerns A British resident living in Spain asks questions during an informative Brexit talk by the "Brexpats in Spain" group, about Spanish legal issues to become Spanish citizens, at the town hall in Benalmadena, Spain Reuters Brexit Concerns The collapse of Great Britain appears to have been greatly exaggerated given the late summer crowds visiting city museums, hotels, and other important tourist attractions Getty Brexit Concerns The U.K. should maintain European Union regulations covering everything from working hours to chemicals until after the government sets out its plans for Brexit, said British manufacturers anxious to avoid a policy vacuum and safeguard access to their biggest export market Getty So what is the chancellor going to say? We wont know for sure until tomorrow. Many expect him to announce policies which could help "just about managing" families including freezing fuel duty and reducing the burden of childcare costs. He is also set to find extra investments for Britain's roads and other infrastructure projects. More about what we know on the content of his speech so far here. Where can I watch it? BBC Two will cover Mr Hammonds speech live with an extended version of Daily Politics beginning at 11.30am. The programme will also be broadcast online via BBC iPlayer and at parliamentlive.tv. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} London Fields might have been hailed as a must-see film but it has been so stifled by lawsuits it has yet to make it to the cinema, remaining trapped in legal limbo. Amber Heard has now become the latest person to be faced with legal action over the film which is based on the renowned Martin Amis novel. The films producers filed a $10 million lawsuit against the 30-year-old actor, who starred as Nicola Six in film, on Monday. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles superior court, alleges she breached performance and promotional obligations. The actor, who is the ex-wife of Johnny Depp, is also facing claims of breaking contract and carrying out tortious interference, which is defined as a person intentionally damaging the plaintiff's contractual or other business relationships. People news in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 People news in pictures People news in pictures 7 October 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an ice hockey match between former NHL stars and officials at the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Vladimir Putin spent his 63rd birthday on the ice, playing hockey with NHL stars against Russian officials and tycoons EPA People news in pictures 6 October 2015 German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and model Cara Delevingne (C) appear at the end of his Spring/Summer 2016 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais which is transformed into a Chanel airport during the Fashion Week in Paris, France Reuters People news in pictures 5 October 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne addresses the Conservative party conference in Manchester. The Chancellor argued that reducing the payments to people in low paid jobs would give them economic security by reducing the Governments spending deficit Getty Images People news in pictures 4 October 2015 Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston takes a moment in the centre of the field with his daughter Frankie Thurston, holding dark-skinned doll, after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The image quickly became the talking point of Australias National Rugby League Final and provoked a strong reaction on social media, with many praising Thurston for giving his child a toy that promotes inclusiveness and diversity Getty Images People news in pictures 3 October 2015 Pope Francis gives a thumbs-up as he greets people at the end of an audience to the participants of a meeting organized by the "Food Bank" at the Paul VI audience hall in Vatican Getty Images People news in pictures 2 October 2015 Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne (L) throws an American football as he meets with former American football players Dan Marino (2nd R) and Curtis Martin (not pictured) at 11 Downing Street in London, ahead of the New York Jets playing against the Miami Dolphins at London's Wembley Stadium on 4 October Getty Images People news in pictures 1 October 2015 An honor guard opens the door as Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia People news in pictures 30 September 2015 Former Mrs America Lisa Christie, who alleges misconduct by Bill Cosby, holds up photos of her younger self during a news conference at the law office of attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Matt Damon has defended himself against claims that he instructed gay actors to remain in the closet. He had said I think youre a better actor the less people know about you and sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether youre straight or gay, people shouldnt know anything about your sexuality but an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show said, I was just trying to say actors are more effective when theyre a mystery. Right? Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Marion Cotillard has said that there is no place for feminism in Hollywood. Speaking to Porter magazine, she saidFilm-making is not about gender/ You cannot ask a president in a festival like Cannes to have, like, five movies directed by women and five by men. For me it doesnt create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I dont qualify myself as a feminist." Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Paul Walkers daughter, Meadow, is suing Porsche over her fathers death in a lawsuit that claims he was trapped in the burning car because of design flaws and the seat belt. The Fast and Furious star was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in hit a pole in California in 2013. The driver, his friend Roger Rodas, also died when the vehicle burst into flames. AP People news in pictures 28 September 2015 Robert Mugabe waits to address the United Nations General Assembly. The leader of Zimbabwe reportedly exclaimed 'We are not gay!' as he criticised Western nation's "double standards and attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs. In 2013 he described homosexuals as worse than pigs, goats and birds. Reuters People news in pictures 28 September 2015 South African comedian Trevor Noah hosts the first 'Daily Show' since taking over from Jon Stewart as host. Stewart had presented the US satirical news show since 1999 and was described by Noah during the show as a 'Political father' 2015 Getty Images People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Sir Elton John may have received a phone call from the real Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin's spokesman announced he had made contact weeks after the singer was duped by pranksters pretending to be the Russian President. Getty People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was mistakenly declared as the artist who produced the Mona Lisa by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. It was in fact Leonardo da Vinci. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 A new biography claims Donald Trump expected to be dead by 40 and never marry. The Guardian says the a new book also claims that in 1980, Mr Trump manufactured a fake vice-president of his real estate conglomerate, whom he called John Baron. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 The Dalai Lama has said that Britain's policy towards China is just about 'Money, money, money.' And asked 'Where is morality?' People news in pictures 24 September 2015 Puff Daddy secured the number-one spot on the Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings list, with the publication calculating he made an estimated $60million (39m) between June 2014 and June 2015. The suit against Heard alleged: Heards conspiracy, her campaign against the Picture, and her contractual breaches have damaged the Picture, causing substantial harm to the Plaintiff, the Picture, and the Pictures investors. The lawsuit also alleged that Heard breached confidentiality obligations, refused to carry out certain acting services and failed to comply with her publicity contract. It claimed she refused to attend the Toronto premiere or engage in other promotional activities for the film. The film, which also stars Billy Bob Thornton, Jim Sturgess, Theo James, Johnny Depp, Cara Delevingne, Jaimie Alexander, was due to be released on September 18 2015 but has been beset by various lawsuits. The world premiere of the film at Toronto Film Festival was cancelled in September 2015 after a legal dispute. The films director, Mathew Cullen, sued the film's producers for fraud, claiming they hijacked the final cut of the film. However, the producers hit back with counterclaims accusing Cullen of failing to deliver the film on time or on budget. A representative for Heard did not immediately respond to request for comment. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Bill Gates has joined forces with a perfume company to help improve sanitation in underdeveloped areas of the world by changing the way bad odours smell. The Microsoft founder and philanthropist has diverted his attention away from technology to the altogether less pleasant business of toilets, and more specifically, bad smells, as part of the work carried out by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation, established by Gates and his wife, is now hoping to address a sanitation crisis affecting water supplies and soil in underdeveloped countries by encouraging people living there to use toilets being built. Gates says sanitation has long been considered a taboo subject and struggles to attract funding into research as a result, despite having such devastating consequences on health. Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says Show all 10 1 /10 Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says 425782.bin Alex Wong/Getty Images Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says 425781.bin Mario Tama/Getty Images Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says 459445.bin Reuters Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says 459455.bin Getty Images Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says 459461.bin Reuters Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says 147144.bin Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says 426864.bin AP Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says 422688.bin EPA Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says 448184.bin Reuters Bill Gates still richest American, Forbes says 459490.bin Getty Images One billion people have no access to toilets so they defecate out in the open, he wrote in a blog post explaining his latest challenge. Three billion more have toilets, but their waste is dumped untreated, seeping into water and food supplies. About 800,000 children under age five die each year from diarrhoea, pneumonia, and other common infections caused by unsafe water and sanitation. Beyond the tremendous human suffering, its a problem that slows economic development. In India alone, poor sanitation costs nearly $55 billion each yearmore than six per cent of GDP. Gates and a team of scientists from the Switzerland-based fragrance company Firmenich are working to deter people from relieving themselves in the open air instead of toilets because of the bad smells emerging from them. Researchers are now developing fragrance ingredients which block receptors in the brain to make bad odours smell good. Gates has been in the lab as a guinea pig to test these out, which means smelling odours before and after - an unenviable task. The ingredients in the fragrances developed by Firmenich inhibit the activation of the olfactory receptors sensitive to malodors," he explains. "By blocking the receptors, our brains do not perceive the bad smells. "I had an opportunity to experience the odour-blocking fragrances in action. I was invited to push my nose into a glass-sniffing tube and breathe in a mixture of the poop perfume I had just experienced and one of the new odour-blocking fragrances. It smelled pretty good. There was no evidence of repulsive odour I had experienced earlier. Instead of stinky sewage, sweat, and ripe cheese, I sniffed a pleasant floral scent. "The question now is whether this technology is good enough to make a difference in communities with poor sanitation. Thats why Firmenich is launching pilot projects in communities across India and Africa to understand whether the fragrances will make toilets and pit latrines more inviting for users." Protesters have every right to wave signs proclaiming that Donald Trump is Not My President (although their credibility is compromised if they didnt vote). But they are wrong on their facts. Trump is their president our president the only president well have for the next four years. Those protesters have many reasons to feel aggrieved. Trump callously exploited ugly strains of racism, sexism and xenophobia during his campaign. FBI director James Comey broke Justice Department rules by intervening in the campaigns closing days. For the second time in five elections, a Democrat won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College. Still, Trump won fairly. The outcome must be accepted and respected. Thats the American Way. But the American Way must mean something else as well. It must mean that a relentless and independent press holds the new president accountable from day one. No backing down. No buckling under. During the campaign, news organizations realized that Candidate Trump had changed the rules, lying repeatedly and refusing to correct his statements or apologize for them. They became more aggressive in confronting his fabrications, and that aggressiveness has to intensify in their coverage of President Trump. The American Way also places demands on a president. If those protesters are obligated to respect the election, he is obligated to respect the Constitution, including the part about a free press, and here Trump has a dismal record. He repeatedly insults reporters as scum, clowns and dummies. (He called Cokie kooky on Twitter.) Hes barred reporters he doesnt like from his campaign events and threatened to loosen libel laws. Recently, hes evaded reporters assigned to cover him. If Mr. Trump keeps up the posture he displayed during the campaign all-out war footing the future will hold some very grim days, not just for news reporters but also for the American constitutional system that relies on a free and strong press, writes New York Times media critic Jim Rutenberg. Trumps anti-press missiles are only part of his assault arsenal. He boasts of more than 28 million followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and in effect hes created the TBN, the Trump Broadcasting Network, which he uses adroitly to communicate directly with his followers and evade the filter of journalistic scrutiny. In his revealing interview with Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, he called social media a great form of communication and added, Im not saying I love it, but it does get the word out. When reporters give me a bad story or ... an inaccurate story, social media provides a method of fighting back. The TBN, he concluded, helped me win all these races where theyre spending much more money than I spent. Trump has every right to employ these strategies, and hes correct about their effectiveness. But that just means its more important than ever for journalists to say to voters: What you heard on TBN, what you read on Facebook or saw on Instagram, is not the whole story. Trumps ability to combat the media or bypass it completely is enhanced by the rise of fake news, deliberately false stories that are spread rapidly on the web by skilled hoaxsters who manipulate popular platforms like Facebook and Google. In this election, there were a stunning number of fabricated stories masquerading as legitimate journalism, writes Andy Alexander, a former ombudsman at The Washington Post. They constituted a massive volume of civic misinformation. The mainstream media made many mistakes in the last campaign. In a desperate pursuit of ratings and revenue, they gave Trump far too much free coverage during the primaries. In the fall, they relied too heavily on polling and not enough on street-level reporting that might have sensed the pro-Trump surge that surprised just about everybody on election night. As New York Times public editor Liz Spayd wrote: I hope its editors will think hard about the half of America the paper too seldom covers. But those mistakes dont diminish the critical importance of the medias role as the Trump Era dawns. It has to fight doggedly against the misguided notion that we are in a post-truth era, where facts dont matter, and all journalism is about attitude and opinion. If you have a society where people cant agree on basic facts, how do you have a functioning democracy? asks Marty Baron, the executive editor of The Washington Post. Good question. The answer is you cannot. And the only institution that can provide those basic facts is a free, fierce, fearless press. Thats the American Way. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Harrison Fords reaction to being informed that decades-old details of his love-life were about to come spilling forth into the public domain was to joke about lawyering up, according to Carrie Fisher. Ford is (probably) grimacing as the Star Wars actress continues to thrill fans of the franchise by revealing more details of the affair which apparently blossomed between a 33-year-old Ford and Fisher, then aged 19, when the pair filmed Star Wars: A New Hope in London in 1976. Ford was married at the time and Fisher claims their relationship was short-lived, lasting only a few months. Ford has not commented on her claims and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent. People news in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 People news in pictures People news in pictures 7 October 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an ice hockey match between former NHL stars and officials at the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Vladimir Putin spent his 63rd birthday on the ice, playing hockey with NHL stars against Russian officials and tycoons EPA People news in pictures 6 October 2015 German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and model Cara Delevingne (C) appear at the end of his Spring/Summer 2016 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais which is transformed into a Chanel airport during the Fashion Week in Paris, France Reuters People news in pictures 5 October 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne addresses the Conservative party conference in Manchester. The Chancellor argued that reducing the payments to people in low paid jobs would give them economic security by reducing the Governments spending deficit Getty Images People news in pictures 4 October 2015 Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston takes a moment in the centre of the field with his daughter Frankie Thurston, holding dark-skinned doll, after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The image quickly became the talking point of Australias National Rugby League Final and provoked a strong reaction on social media, with many praising Thurston for giving his child a toy that promotes inclusiveness and diversity Getty Images People news in pictures 3 October 2015 Pope Francis gives a thumbs-up as he greets people at the end of an audience to the participants of a meeting organized by the "Food Bank" at the Paul VI audience hall in Vatican Getty Images People news in pictures 2 October 2015 Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne (L) throws an American football as he meets with former American football players Dan Marino (2nd R) and Curtis Martin (not pictured) at 11 Downing Street in London, ahead of the New York Jets playing against the Miami Dolphins at London's Wembley Stadium on 4 October Getty Images People news in pictures 1 October 2015 An honor guard opens the door as Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia People news in pictures 30 September 2015 Former Mrs America Lisa Christie, who alleges misconduct by Bill Cosby, holds up photos of her younger self during a news conference at the law office of attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Matt Damon has defended himself against claims that he instructed gay actors to remain in the closet. He had said I think youre a better actor the less people know about you and sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether youre straight or gay, people shouldnt know anything about your sexuality but an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show said, I was just trying to say actors are more effective when theyre a mystery. Right? Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Marion Cotillard has said that there is no place for feminism in Hollywood. Speaking to Porter magazine, she saidFilm-making is not about gender/ You cannot ask a president in a festival like Cannes to have, like, five movies directed by women and five by men. For me it doesnt create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I dont qualify myself as a feminist." Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Paul Walkers daughter, Meadow, is suing Porsche over her fathers death in a lawsuit that claims he was trapped in the burning car because of design flaws and the seat belt. The Fast and Furious star was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in hit a pole in California in 2013. The driver, his friend Roger Rodas, also died when the vehicle burst into flames. AP People news in pictures 28 September 2015 Robert Mugabe waits to address the United Nations General Assembly. The leader of Zimbabwe reportedly exclaimed 'We are not gay!' as he criticised Western nation's "double standards and attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs. In 2013 he described homosexuals as worse than pigs, goats and birds. Reuters People news in pictures 28 September 2015 South African comedian Trevor Noah hosts the first 'Daily Show' since taking over from Jon Stewart as host. Stewart had presented the US satirical news show since 1999 and was described by Noah during the show as a 'Political father' 2015 Getty Images People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Sir Elton John may have received a phone call from the real Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin's spokesman announced he had made contact weeks after the singer was duped by pranksters pretending to be the Russian President. Getty People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was mistakenly declared as the artist who produced the Mona Lisa by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. It was in fact Leonardo da Vinci. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 A new biography claims Donald Trump expected to be dead by 40 and never marry. The Guardian says the a new book also claims that in 1980, Mr Trump manufactured a fake vice-president of his real estate conglomerate, whom he called John Baron. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 The Dalai Lama has said that Britain's policy towards China is just about 'Money, money, money.' And asked 'Where is morality?' People news in pictures 24 September 2015 Puff Daddy secured the number-one spot on the Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings list, with the publication calculating he made an estimated $60million (39m) between June 2014 and June 2015. Speaking ahead of the publication of her memoir The Princess Diarist, Fisher, 60, told People their alleged affair was intense and began after a birthday party for the director George Lucas. In a separate interview, she admitted her feelings for Ford had not completely disappeared more than four decades after the event. Yes, I love him, she told The Guardian. Ill always feel something for him. The interviews continue to roll in thick and fast and on Monday, Fisher described her surprise at the reaction to details of their brief dalliance, telling the Today show's Savannah Guthrie she forgot she had even written the journals and only discovered them while shooting the latest instalment of Star Wars. I was 19. I was not a sort of cavalier person, she said. I was sad. I was so insecure, and its very raw. Obviously, I didnt expect anyone - including myself - to read it. After finding the diaries, her next step was to call Ford who, by her account, was not thrilled at Fisher's decision to go public. Hes incredibly private. I feel a little bit bad about doing that to him, she explained. But yes, I told him I had found the journals and that I was going to publish them. He sort of went, Lawyer. When youre on locationthis is something I discovered- everything is permitted. I didnt know that, I havent been on location since. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trump summoned representatives of some of the biggest US media outlets to Trump Tower on Monday evening and reportedly told those gathered: Were in a room of liars. Growing concerns for the freedom of the press under a Trump presidency were only exacerbated this morning following reports of an hour-long meeting held by the President-elect. After attacking various media outlets for challenging his behaviour throughout his campaign, Mr Trump continued to wage war on outlets who have criticised or challenged him from inside the confines of his own home in a strictly off the record meeting in New York on Monday. Donald Trump outlines plans for first 100 days in office Representatives from CNN, NBC, ABC and other networks assembled at Mr Trumps gilded residence believing they were there to learn about the access they would be granted to the billionaire business magnate after he is sworn into the White House. Instead, members were rebuked for their reporting and branded liars, according to an account given by an unnamed source to the New York Post. Trump started with [CNN chief] Jeff Zucker and said I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed, the source was quoted as telling the tabloid. The meeting was a total disaster. The TV execs and anchors went in there thinking they would be discussing the access they would get to the Trump administration, but instead they got a Trump-style dressing down. Separately, a source told CNN Money "real progress" was made during the meeting despite Mr Trump having vented his disproval at some of those present. Mr Trumps spokesperson Kellyanne Conway described the meeting as cordial, candid and said it was great to hit the reset button after a bruising campaign. Mr Trump fostered a divide between the media and his supporters throughout his presidential campaign, presenting himself as the candidate unfairly targeted by a biased and "dishonest" media. This division was palpable at his rallies, where video footage showed hostile crowds booing members of the media and shouting insults at them. His favourite method of disseminating his message has been Twitter, which he once described as his own personal newspaper. Arthur Sulzberger Jr, the publisher of the New York Times, was due to meet with Mr Trump on Tuesday. The agenda for this meeting was unclear, but it was set to be an interesting one - that was until Mr Trump cancelled it last minute, claiming the Times suddenly changed the terms and conditions of the meeting in a 6am tweet. Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes, Mr Trump added. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone! The Times said it was unaware the meeting had been cancelled until seeing Mr Trumps tweets. A spokesperson said: We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to. They tried to yesterday asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to. In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record session with reporters and columnists. 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 Mr Trump repeatedly castigated the Times and its reporters throughout the election. After winning, he branded the paper failing despite its reported increase in paid subscriptions of 41,000 in the week after the election. His tweets about the paper now appear to include failing as a prerequisite adjective. The hostility between Mr Trump and the Times reached its peak when his threat to sue the paper over its coverage of women accusing him of sexual assault was met with a letter from their lawyers daring him to do so. His relationship with the Times contrasts heavily with his favourable outlook on Breitbart, the right-wing news site favoured by the so-called "alt-right" movement. After giving the controversial site a number of exclusives in the run-up to the election, and a boost to the site's traffic in the process, Mr Trump then announced its executive chairman Steve Bannon as his chief strategist. Mr Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Gigi Hadid has been forced to apologise after her impression of Melania Trump at the American Music Awards prompted a barrage of criticism. The 21-year-old model, whose father is Palestinian-American and mother is Dutch-born American, was accused of being racist and disrespectful by some for her impression of Donald Trumps wife. While co-hosting the 44th annual ceremony, Hadid mimicked the First Lady in waiting by putting on a Slovenian accent and referencing the accusations of plagiarism levelled at her. Ms Trump, who was born in Slovenia, was accused of plagiarising some of Michelle Obamas Democratic convention speech from eight years ago at the Republican National Convention in July. This is my Melania Trump impression. I got to get the face right, Hadid said prompting laughter from the audience. I love my husband, President Barack Obama, and our children, Sasha and Malia. 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 Hadid has now apologised in a lengthy, handwritten note posted on her Twitter account. She said the joke had been made in good humour and with no bad intent. I was honoured to host the AMA's last night and to work with some of the most respected writers in the business, she wrote. I removed or changed anything in the script that I felt took the joke too far, and whether or not you choose to see it, what remained was done in good humour and with no bad intent. I too have been the centre of a nationally televised comedy skit that poked fun at my actions and was able to find the humour in it. I believe Melania understands show business and the way shows are written and run. I apologise to anyone that I offended and have only the best wishes for our country. Hadids impression of the First Lady divided much of the public. While some commended her skit for bringing humour to the ceremony, others suggested it was tasteless and labelled her a bully. On top of that, other Twitter users claimed Hadid would not have impersonated a black person and suggested she would not have done the same to Michelle Obama. Hey Hadid girl if Melania Trump was a black lady you would not racist jokes about her. Stupid liberal double standard, wrote one. If a Conservative did that with Michelle Obama we would be called racist said another. Nevertheless, others applauded her impression as hilarious and lighthearted. Whats more, several others argued it was ironic some Trump supporters were labelling Hadid a racist. Jay Pharoah, who co-hosted the ceremony alongside Hadid, lauded her impression and said it was spot on. He then did his own impression of Mr Trump. I love Bruno Mars, Pharoahs Trump said. I dont know what colour he is, so I cant deport him. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} While some celebrities have spoken of their despair of what is to come or of their determination in continuing to fight for what they believe in following the divisive result of the presidential election, Gwyneth Paltrow has said it is exciting. The actress turned entrepreneur was speaking at an Airbnb event in Los Angeles when she discussed the recent election. Its such an exciting time to be an American because we are at this amazing inflection point and everything is kind of up in the air, she said adding it is such an amazing time for entrepreneurship. Gwyneth Paltrow in quotes Show all 7 1 /7 Gwyneth Paltrow in quotes Gwyneth Paltrow in quotes On healthy eating 'I'd rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a can' Theo Wargo/Getty Images for NBC Gwyneth Paltrow in quotes On hitting 40 You can still find yourself at a party at 3am, but you also know enough about who you are and how that informs the choices you make. Steven Henry/Getty Images Gwyneth Paltrow in quotes On maintaining a close relationship with ex husband Chris Martin: Were still very much a family, even though we dont have a romantic relationship. Hes like my brother. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) Gwyneth Paltrow in quotes On her travel routine: When I land [from a flight] I try to find a sauna to sit in for 20 minutes to help me sweat out all the germs from the plane. Getty Images Gwyneth Paltrow in quotes On the Hollywood Gender Pay Gap: Your salary is a way to quantify what youre worth. If men are paid a lot more for doing the same thing, it feels shitty. Getty Gwyneth Paltrow in quotes On not caring what people think: I dont hold on to fear as much as I used to, because Ive learned a lot about genuinely not caring what strangers think about me. Its very liberating, Its very empowering. Getty Gwyneth Paltrow in quotes On the Met Gala (2013): Im never going again. It was so un-fun. It was boiling. It was too crowded. I did not enjoy it at all. Getty People are clearly tired of the status quo and [] its sort of like someone threw it all in the air and were going to see how it all lands. Its very important for me, personally, now more than ever, to create a community and to remember the humanity of everybody and to create love and understanding," Page Six reports her saying. The Sliding Doors actress chose not to mention whether she backed Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton for the White House but told the event: Im not going to tell you what side Im on, but my big takeaway [from the election] was, I really need to open my mind and understand better because I dont'. Paltrow was a prominent supporter of Barack Obama and has hosted Democrat party fundraiser events during the president's eight-year run in office. Introducing the President at an event in 2014, she reportedly told the outgoing Commander-in-chief: "You're so handsome that I can't speak properly". During this year's election campaign, she was much quieter in vocalising her support of a candidate. Additional reporting by the Press Association. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} In the days since she lost out on the presidential election to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has kept herself to herself. In the only public speech since her concession, Ms Clinton admitted the temptation to curl up with a good book or our dogs and never leave the house again was palpable in the week since her shock defeat. Reading appears to be one of the ways she is seeking tranquillity and comfort after the defeat given that one of the rare sightings of her has been at a book shop. People news in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 People news in pictures People news in pictures 7 October 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an ice hockey match between former NHL stars and officials at the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Vladimir Putin spent his 63rd birthday on the ice, playing hockey with NHL stars against Russian officials and tycoons EPA People news in pictures 6 October 2015 German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and model Cara Delevingne (C) appear at the end of his Spring/Summer 2016 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais which is transformed into a Chanel airport during the Fashion Week in Paris, France Reuters People news in pictures 5 October 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne addresses the Conservative party conference in Manchester. The Chancellor argued that reducing the payments to people in low paid jobs would give them economic security by reducing the Governments spending deficit Getty Images People news in pictures 4 October 2015 Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston takes a moment in the centre of the field with his daughter Frankie Thurston, holding dark-skinned doll, after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The image quickly became the talking point of Australias National Rugby League Final and provoked a strong reaction on social media, with many praising Thurston for giving his child a toy that promotes inclusiveness and diversity Getty Images People news in pictures 3 October 2015 Pope Francis gives a thumbs-up as he greets people at the end of an audience to the participants of a meeting organized by the "Food Bank" at the Paul VI audience hall in Vatican Getty Images People news in pictures 2 October 2015 Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne (L) throws an American football as he meets with former American football players Dan Marino (2nd R) and Curtis Martin (not pictured) at 11 Downing Street in London, ahead of the New York Jets playing against the Miami Dolphins at London's Wembley Stadium on 4 October Getty Images People news in pictures 1 October 2015 An honor guard opens the door as Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia People news in pictures 30 September 2015 Former Mrs America Lisa Christie, who alleges misconduct by Bill Cosby, holds up photos of her younger self during a news conference at the law office of attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Matt Damon has defended himself against claims that he instructed gay actors to remain in the closet. He had said I think youre a better actor the less people know about you and sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether youre straight or gay, people shouldnt know anything about your sexuality but an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show said, I was just trying to say actors are more effective when theyre a mystery. Right? Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Marion Cotillard has said that there is no place for feminism in Hollywood. Speaking to Porter magazine, she saidFilm-making is not about gender/ You cannot ask a president in a festival like Cannes to have, like, five movies directed by women and five by men. For me it doesnt create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I dont qualify myself as a feminist." Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Paul Walkers daughter, Meadow, is suing Porsche over her fathers death in a lawsuit that claims he was trapped in the burning car because of design flaws and the seat belt. The Fast and Furious star was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in hit a pole in California in 2013. The driver, his friend Roger Rodas, also died when the vehicle burst into flames. AP People news in pictures 28 September 2015 Robert Mugabe waits to address the United Nations General Assembly. The leader of Zimbabwe reportedly exclaimed 'We are not gay!' as he criticised Western nation's "double standards and attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs. In 2013 he described homosexuals as worse than pigs, goats and birds. Reuters People news in pictures 28 September 2015 South African comedian Trevor Noah hosts the first 'Daily Show' since taking over from Jon Stewart as host. Stewart had presented the US satirical news show since 1999 and was described by Noah during the show as a 'Political father' 2015 Getty Images People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Sir Elton John may have received a phone call from the real Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin's spokesman announced he had made contact weeks after the singer was duped by pranksters pretending to be the Russian President. Getty People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was mistakenly declared as the artist who produced the Mona Lisa by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. It was in fact Leonardo da Vinci. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 A new biography claims Donald Trump expected to be dead by 40 and never marry. The Guardian says the a new book also claims that in 1980, Mr Trump manufactured a fake vice-president of his real estate conglomerate, whom he called John Baron. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 The Dalai Lama has said that Britain's policy towards China is just about 'Money, money, money.' And asked 'Where is morality?' People news in pictures 24 September 2015 Puff Daddy secured the number-one spot on the Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings list, with the publication calculating he made an estimated $60million (39m) between June 2014 and June 2015. On Monday, Jessica Wick a bookstore employee in Westerly, Rhode Island shared a picture of herself and the former First Lady and Secretary of State on Facebook. Recommended Voter runs into Hillary Clinton walking dogs during morning hike Ms Wick, a supporter of the former Democrat candidate, said Ms Clinton was gracious and warm as the pair met on Sunday while the 69 year old perused the bookstore with her husband Bill, daughter Chelsea, son-in-law Marc Mezvinsky and their daughter Charlotte. Id have liked to tell her something which encompasses the sadness I feel that she did not win but somehow tell her that in a way which didnt rub salt in any wounds. Id have liked to give her something, she wrote. I told her I voted for he, that she meant and means a lot [] she was gracious and she was warm and said the bookstore was beautiful. Bill Clinton shook my hand and complimented my sweater. They were kind. We were unprepared to meet them, Ms Wick wrote in a post which has been liked over 2,000 times. I wish they were the First Family-elect [...] I wish them a good future and loads of good books and interesting reading. Ms Wick told local newspaper The Day the family seemed like they were just in need of reading adding that they bought several books. Days after the election, Mr and Ms Clinton and their dogs were seen hiking in Chappaqua, New York by another Democrat voter who had gone on a stroll to get away from the news of Mr Trumps victory. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Kim Kardashian West has reportedly cancelled her first public appearance in months to be by her husband Kanye Wests side after he was taken to hospital. On Monday, the rapper was hospitalised for a medical emergency after police officers responded to a call of a disturbance at a Los Angeles property. The gossip website TMZ reported West was undergoing psychiatric tests and was being examined for severe exhaustion. The news came on the same day Live Nation announced the remaining dates of his tour would be cancelled. TMZ The news came on the same day Live Nation announced the remaining dates of his tour would be cancelled. Prior to reports about West's hospitalisation surfaced, his mother-in-law Kris Jenner has said the rapper was exhausted after his gruelling Saint Pablo tour which has seen him perform around 40 dates in North America since August. Kim Kardashian at Paris Fashion Week Show all 7 1 /7 Kim Kardashian at Paris Fashion Week Kim Kardashian at Paris Fashion Week Kim Kardashian in the front row Givenchy show, Spring Summer 2017, Paris Fashion Week, France - 02 Oct 2016 Rex Features Kim Kardashian at Paris Fashion Week Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner attend the Givenchy show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2017 on October 2, 2016 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) Getty Images Kim Kardashian at Paris Fashion Week Kim Kardashian in the front row Balenciaga show, Spring Summer 2017, Paris Fashion Week, France - 02 Oct 2016 Rex Features Kim Kardashian at Paris Fashion Week Kendall Jenner, Kourtney Kardashian, Riccardo Tisci and Kim Kardashian backstage Givenchy show, Spring Summer 2017, Paris Fashion Week, France - 02 Oct 2016 Rex Features Kim Kardashian at Paris Fashion Week Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kris Jenner Off-White show, Front Row, Spring Summer 2017, Paris Fashion Week, France - 29 Sep 2016 Rex Features Kim Kardashian at Paris Fashion Week (From L) Kanye West and Kim Kardashian attend the Off-white 2017 Spring/Summer ready-to-wear collection fashion show, on September 29, 2016 in Paris. / AFP / ALAIN JOCARD (Photo credit should read ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images Kim Kardashian at Paris Fashion Week (From L) Kanye West, Kim Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian attend the Off-white 2017 Spring/Summer ready-to-wear collection fashion show, on September 29, 2016 in Paris. / AFP / ALAIN JOCARD (Photo credit should read ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images Hes exhausted, hes just really tired, the reality TV matriarch told Extra. Hes had a gruelling tour and its been a grind so he just needs some rest. She was speaking from the Angels Ball fundraising event in New York which the businesswoman attended alongside her daughters Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian to honour their late father Robert who died of cancer in 2003. Recommended Kanye West in hospital after cancelling tour Kardashian-West was believed to be attending the event, which would have been her first public outing since she was the victim of an armed robbery in Paris on 3 October. However, according to reports, she flew straight back to LA by private plane after learning of her husbands medical situation. News of Wests hospitalisation comes days after a number of controversial concerts from the 39-year-old. On Thursday, the rapper shocked fans by saying he would have voted for Donald Trump if he had actually voted in the US election. Two days later, he embarked on a lengthy rant where he criticised his friends and frequent collaborators Jay Z and Beyonce after performing only three songs and leaving the show early. Representatives for West and Kardashian West did not immediately respond to a request for comment. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Prince Harry might have only confirmed he was dating Meghan Markle two weeks ago but the Prime Minister of Antigua had no qualms about inviting him to spend his honeymoon on the islands white sand beaches. The 32-year-old was left red-faced and appeared uncomfortable after Gaston Browne made the proposition to the Prince in front of hundreds of guests who were gathered at a reception held in his honour. He is said to have grimaced after the remarks and stared straight at his feet. Not beating around the bush in a speech on Monday night, Mr Browne said: I understand that there may be a new addition to the royal family very soon. I am told that there may be a princess and I just want to say that should you make the decision to honeymoon - then Antigua and Barbuda want to welcome you. We have been voted consistently as the best honeymoon destination in the Caribbean - and one of the best in the world - so there will be nowhere in the world as special to spend your honeymoon, when that day arrives. Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Show all 62 1 /62 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II on a walk-about in Portsmouth during her Silver Jubilee tour of Great Britain, 1977 PA Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II The future Britain's Queen Elizabeth II (R) pictured with her younger sister Princess Margaret (L) in 1933 AFP/Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II The 9-year-old Elizabeth attends an aristocratic wedding with her mother and younger sister. Later in that year with the death of her Grandfather and the Abdication of her Uncle Edward VIII she became first in line to the throne, 1936 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II The coronation of King George VI in 1937, Elizabeth aged 10 became the heir apparent to the throne Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth and her sister arrive at Waterloo station to say goodbye to their parents as they leave to tour Canada. Elizabeth was thought too young to escort her parents on the tour and was described as "tearful" as they departed. She and her parents made the first ever transatlantic telephone call during their time away, 1939 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II The 13-year-old Elizabeth and her sister Margret address children who have been evacuated from the cities on BBC's 'The Chilrens Hour' She said "We are trying to do all we can to help our gallant sailors, soldiers and airmen, and we are trying, too, to bear our share of the danger and sadness of war. We know, every one of us, that in the end all will be well", 1940 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Just before the end of the war Elizabeth took part in training to become an ATS officer. She is pictured learning to change a tire, 1945 AFP/Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II The official announcement of Princess Elizabeth and Phillip Mountbatten's engagement. The pairing was incredibly controversial as Prince Phillip had no financial standing and he was foreign born, the prince of Denmark and Greece (though he served Britain in the war and was given British Citizenship), 1947 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II (in coach) and her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh are cheered by the crowd after their wedding ceremony, on 20 November 1947, on their road to Buckingham Palace, London Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth smiles at her first child, a month old Prince Charles. Charles was born on 14 November 1948 Corbis Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II The couples second child Princess Anne was born in 1950 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Arriving back in England upon hearing the death of her father King George VI. The Kings health had been in decline for a number of years and Elizabeth had been filling in for him on an official visit to Australia by way of Kenya. As his heir Elizabeth became Queen aged 26 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth's coronation took place on 2 June 1953. It was the first ever coronation to be aired live on television, being one of the most watched events in history with millions gathering around their TV sets to see the new monarch Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II standing next to her daughter Princess Anne, 1960 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II President Eisenhower (centre) with the British Royal family (L-R) Prince Philip, Princess Anne, HM Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and Captain John Eisenhower, at Balmoral Castle, Scotland, 1959 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II as she turns to smile and talk to an unidentified officer, during the Trooping of the Colour by the First Battalion of the Jamaica Regiment at Up-Park Camp, Kingston, Jamaica, 1966 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II walking cross country at the North of Scotland Gun Dog Association Open Stake Retreiver Trials in the grounds of Balmoral Castle in 1967 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to the Chelsea Flower Show in London, a regular fixture in the royal calendar, 1971 PA Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh during their traditional summer break at Balmoral Castle. The highland retreat is one of the Queen's favourite places, each year, she heads off to Scotland for the summer. "It is rather nice to hibernate for a bit when one leads such a moveable life," she once said, 1976 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II during a walkabout in Muscat while visiting Oman, 1979 PA Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II with some of her corgis walking the Cross Country course during the second day of the Windsor Horse Trials. The monarch is responsible for introducing a new breed of dog known as the "dorgi" when her corgi Tiny was mated with a dachshund "sausage dog" called Pipkin which belonged to Princess Margaret, 1980 PA Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II (L-R) the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince William, Prince Harry and the Prince and Princess of Wales after the christening ceremony of Prince Harry, 1984 PA Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II taking the salute of the Household Guards regiments during the Trooping of the Colour ceremony in London, 1985 PA Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Diana, Princess of Wales and Queen Elizabeth II as they smile to well-wishers outside Clarence House in London, 1987 AP Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II, with Chief Instructor, Small Arms Corp LT Col George Harvey, firing the last shot on a standard SA 80 rifle when she attended the centenary of the Army Rifle Association at Bisley, 1993 PA Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II South Africa's President Nelson Mandela greets Queen Elizabeth II as she steps from the royal yacht Britannia in Cape Town at the 1995's official start of the her first visit to the country since 1947 PA Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II smiles as she visits Bowring Park in St. John's, Newfoundland, on the third day of a 10-day official visit to Canada, 1997 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh make their way into St. George's Chapel at Windsor for the annual Garter ceremony, 1999 AFP/Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II as they meet at the Vatican, 2000 AP Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother leaving church by horse drawn carriage on the Sandringham Estate, Norfolk, 2000 PA Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth rides her horse in the grounds of Windsor Castle, 2002 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth arrives for the world premiere of James Bond movie "Casino Royale" at the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square in London, 2006 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth boards a scheduled train at Kings Cross station in London, 2009 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II planting a tree at Newmarket Animal Health Trust, during a royal visit which marked her 50th year as the charity's patron, 2009 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II talking with Pope Benedict XVI during an audience in the Morning Drawing Room at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh during a four day visit by the Pope to the UK, 2010 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II visiting the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 2010 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II receives flowers from the crowd during her visit to Federation Square in downtown Melbourne, 2011 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth watches a preview of her Christmas message wearing a pair of 3D glasses, studded with Swarovski crystals in the form of a "Q", at Buckingham Palace in central London, 2012 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Members of Britain's royal family (front L to R) Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles cheer as competitors participate in a sack race at the Braemar Gathering in Braemar, Scotland, 2012 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Britain's Prince Charles kisses the hand of his mother Queen Elizabeth at the end of her Diamond Jubilee concert in front of Buckingham Palace in London, 2012 Reuters Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge laughs as Queen Elizabeth gestures during a visit to Vernon Park in Nottingham, 2012 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip attend a service for the Order of the British Empire at St Paul's Cathedral in London, 2012 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II meets young people during an official visit to The Shard building in central London, 2013 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Actress Angelina Jolie is presented with the Insignia of an Honorary Dame Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace, London, 2014 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red evolving art installation at the Tower of London, 2014 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at the State Opening of Parliament, 2015 AFP/Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II (L-R) Britain's Princess Anne, Princess Royal, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge holding his son Prince George of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Harry (back), Prince Andrew, Duke of York (back), James, Viscount Severn (front), Princess Beatrice of York (back), Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Eugenie of York (back) stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace waiting to view the fly-past during the Queen's Birthday Parade, 'Trooping the Colour,' in London, 2015 Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II The Trooping of the Colour is an annual celebration marking the Queen's birthday, 2015 Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Britain's Queen Elizabeth II stands with Kate the Duchess of Cambridge whilst pushing Princess Charlotte in a pram as they leave after attending the Christening of Britain's Princess Charlotte at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, 2015 AP Photo/Matt Dunham, Pool Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II arrives at the Broadway Theatre in Barking, 2015 Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II greets wellwishers during a 'walkabout' on her 90th birthday in Windsor in 2016 AFP via Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Members of the Royal Family during trooping of the colour in 2017 AFP via Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II The Queen waves at Prince Harry and Meghan after their wedding in 2018 POOL/AFP via Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex gesture during their visit to the Storyhouse in Chester, Cheshire in 2018 AFP via Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Prince Charles reacts as he sits with his mother Britain's Queen Elizabeth II during an event to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, in Portsmouth in 2019 AFP via Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are joined by her mother, Doria Ragland, as they show their new son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, to the Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh at Windsor Castle Chris Allerton/Sussex Royal/PA Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II reacts as she visits the Haig Housing Trust in Morden in 2019 POOL/AFP via Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II takes her seat on the The Sovereign's Throne in the House of Lords next to Prince Charles, before reading the Queen's Speech during the State Opening of Parliament in 2019 POOL/AFP via Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II looks at the coffin of Britain's Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh during his funeral service at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle POOL/AFP via Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II and Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales pose alongside the tree which they planted to mark the start of the official planting season for the Queen's Green Canopy (QGC) at the Balmoral Cricket Pavilion, Balmoral Estate in Scotland POOL/AFP via Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Britain's Queen Elizabeth II cuts a cake to celebrate the start of the Platinum Jubilee during a reception in the Ballroom of Sandringham House, the Queen's Norfolk residence on February 5, 2022. - Queen Elizabeth II on Sunday will became the first British monarch to reign for seven decades, in a bittersweet landmark as she also marked the 70th anniversary of her father's death AFP/Getty Queen Elizabeth II: Life in pictures Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II arrives in Westminster Abbey accompanied by Prince Andrew, Duke of York for the Service Of Thanksgiving For The Duke Of Edinburgh on March 29, 2022 in London Getty However, the Prime Minister did not stop there, as Prince Harry was lined up to meet six of the islands beauty queens he drew for the old whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas idiom. Whatever is done here, stays here. So do not worry, Mr Browne reassured him. Prince Harry confirmed he was in a relationship with Markle, who is best known for her role in Suits, via an extraordinary statement released by Kensington Palace at the beginning of November. The Palace rebuked the serious invasion of Markles privacy and attacked the racial undertones of media coverage of her. The statement said the Prince rarely engaged in formal action over fictional stories but the past week had seen a line crossed. Despite the fact that organisers of an Antiguan charity event he attended on Sunday had declared his romance with Markle was off limits for discussion, the Prime Minister appeared to have missed the memo. Organisers had taken care to tell young people not to bring up his girlfriend when he arrived at the residence of the Governor General - the Queen's representative in Antigua and Barbuda - for the Colours of Charity event. However, this did not stop the PM continuing to dig a hole at the other event, again commenting on the marriage rumours. I believe Meghan is a very beautiful looking girl, they make a very good looking couple, he said. When probed about whether he approved of the Princes choice of marriage, he said: Yes, I heard about her and I hear they are speculating that they will now get married. I hope that Harry and Meghan come here for some quiet time very soon. A representative for Prince Harry declined to comment to on the matter to The Independent. Additional reporting from Press Association Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planet Get our free Climate email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Independent Climate email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Strange events in the Arctic appear to suggest that something very troubling is happening with the sea ice there, scientists have said. The North Pole is experiencing hugely unexpected hot sea temperatures, which are stopping the usual ice from forming and could be a mark that something global warming is having even more worrying effects than previously thought. In most years, the sun goes down in mid-October and that serves as a signal that the sea ice will start coming back as the water freezes. But this year that ice is actually melting, because intense heat is stopping the usual processes from happening. Climate change: It's "game over" for planet earth Scientists say that heat has never been seen in previous years and is off the charts when compared with what has happened before. Temperatures have been as much as 20C hotter than where they usually should be. Part of that is the result of cold weather over northern Russia thats on its way to the Arctic. When it arrives there, the freezing should begin and much of the ice that should already be there will appear. But because of that effect, theres likely to be problems over the next year because the ice will be thinner. And the hot air itself is likely to cause strange weather, with the cold air being pushed further south. The unusual melting and lack of freezing doesnt necessarily mean that scientists have underestimated the extent of climate change so much as the effect that climate change will have on sea ice. The concern about the planets poles is actually worry about two effects. In the Arctic, the sea ice recovery usually happens around this time, and isnt; but in the Antarctic, sea ice levels are also falling far more quickly than would usually be expected. Antarctica would usually lose sea ice during this period, but it is melting far quicker than expected. Thats thought partly to be the result of climate change, but also is happening because of the effects of the El Nino that wreaked havoc on the worlds weather last year. 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke filled with the carbon that is driving climate change drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals, says the photographer. Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow. Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a public health emergency. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan Climate scientists have traditionally resisted using the amount of sea ice as a measure of the climate, in part because it underestimates the effects. Lumping the two together has been a climate denier tactic in the past to mask out the sharp drop in Arctic sea ice in recent years, wrote meteorologist Eric Holthaus. Mr Holthaus also wrote that climate change might actually lead to more sea ice in the coming years. On the one hand, increased ice mass loss and freshwater output from Antarctica may actually lead to increased sea ice in the next few decades because freshwater freezes more quickly than saltwater. On the other hand, temperatures are going upnot good news if you're an ice cube. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Thomas Mair, who is accused of murdering Labour MP Jo Cox, will not give evidence in his defence at the Old Bailey. Mr Mair, 53, denies murdering the Batley and Spen MP outside her constituency librabrary days before UK's European Union referendum. Mr Mair allegedly shot and stabbed the 41-year-old mother of two in the street as she arrived at the Birstall Library for a surgery on 16 June. He also allegedly stabbed 77-year-old Bernard Kenny who rushed to help Mrs Cox during the attack. Recommended Jo Cox to be honoured with public space named after her in Brussels During the trial the court has heard that Mr Mair repeatedly shouted "Britain First" during the alleged brutal attack on the Labour MP. He has also been found to have kept newspaper articles referencing Mrs Cox's support for remaining within the EU and a stash of Neo-Nazi meterial at his West Yorkshire home, including a "Third Reich eagle with a swastika". Mr Mair's lawyer, Simon Russell Flint, QC, told the court at the conclusion of the prosecution case that the defendant would not be going into the witness box. He called no evidence on behalf of the defendant. Tommy Mair, 53, denies murdering the Labour MP (SWNS) Mr Mair denies the charges of murder, possesion of a firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence and possesion of an offensive weapon, a dagger. He also denies the charge of causing grevious bodily harm with intent in connection with the serious injuries suffered by Mr Kenny. Trial judge Mr Justice Wilkie told the jury they can draw inferences from Mr Mair's silence. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The richest 1 per cent of people in the UK own almost a quarter of the countrys wealth, a new report has revealed. The study by Credit Suisse also found 1.2 trillion was wiped off UK household wealth following Britain's decision to leave the European Union. The huge levels of inequality in the UK were revealed in a detailed assessment that also showed the richest five per cent of people in the country own 44 per cent of all wealth. Recommended Figures show child poverty increased under Tory rule The yearly global wealth report by the Credit Suisse Research Institute highlighted a growing divide between the rich and poor across the world, with the richest one per cent of people now owning more wealth than everyone else on the planet combined. The number of millionaires and billionaires is increasing faster than any other group of people. Oxfam said the high levels of inequality in Britain were "holding back the fight against poverty". Sally Copley, the charity's Head of UK Policy Programmes and Campaigns, said: "The wealthiest one percent of the population - who own nearly a quarter of all the country's wealth - continue to do well whilst so many people in Britain are just about managing to stay above the poverty line. "Tomorrow's Autumn Statement presents a real opportunity for the government to show how they are going to make the economy work for everyone and not just those at the very top. "Globally, the richest one percent own more wealth than the rest of the world put together. This huge gap between rich and poor is undermining economies, destabilising societies and holding back the fight against poverty." The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life Show all 17 1 /17 The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 1 West Midlands Pylons are seen situated over a residential housing area in Birmingham Getty The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 2 East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire A general view across Scunthorpe Getty The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 3 Shropshire and Staffordshire Aerial view of Wellington in Shropshire Rex The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 4 South Yorkshire A general view showing housing in Rotherham, South Yorkshire Getty The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 5 West Yorkshire Homes in Bradford, West Yorkshire Getty The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 6 Herefordshire and Worcestershire Houses located in the county of Worcestershire Getty The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 7 West Wales and the Valleys A general view of houses and homes in Aberystwyth, Wales Rex The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 8 Essex Housing in Basildon, Essex Rex The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 9 Kent A view of housing in Gravesend, Kent Rex The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 10 Greater Manchester A general view of traditional terraced houses in Manchester Getty The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 11 Cumbria Aerial view of Ambleside in the Lake District, Cumbria Rex The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 12 East Wales A view of Barry near Cardiff, in Wales Rex The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 13 Tees Valley and Durham Red brick back to back terraced houses in Dawdon, County Durham Rex The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 14 Inner London Residential tower blocks in an area with a high concentration of social housing in Southwark, London Getty The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 15 Derbyshire and Nottingham Terraced houses in the Lenton area of Nottingham Rex The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 16 Northumberland and Tyneside Apartments in North Shields near Newcastle Rex The 17 regions of the UK with the worst quality of life 17 South Western Scotland Portpatrick Harbour in Portpatrick, Scotland Rex The Credit Suisse report also revealed the true cost of Brexit to British families, with UK household wealth having dropped by 1.2 trillion in the last year an average of 44,000 per household. Michael OSullivan, Chief Investment Officer of International Wealth Management at Credit Suisse, said: The impact of the Brexit vote is widely thought of in terms of GDP but the impact on household wealth bears watching. "Since the Brexit vote, UK household wealth has fallen by USD 1.5 trillion. Wealth per adult has already dropped by USD 33,000 to USD 289,000 since the end of June. In fact, in US dollar terms, 406,000 people in the UK are no longer millionaires. The UKs fall in wealth was against international trends that saw global wealth increase by 1.4 per cent in the last year. The rise in recent years means the number of millionaires in the world has more than doubled to over 13.4 million since 2000. There are now 2.2 million people in the UK worth more than a million US dollars equating to one in every 15 of the worlds millionaires. That figure is forecast to rise to 3.1 million by 2021 a 40 per cent increase in just five years. The UK also has the worlds third highest number of ultra-high net worth individuals (those with wealth of $50 million or more) behind only the USA and China. There are 9,000 UHNWIs in the UK compared to 56,000 in the USA and 9,000 in China. Credit Suisse said: This century, no other segments of the wealth pyramid have developed as significantly as the millionaire and UHNWI segments. The number of millionaires is projected to reach 45.1 million by 2021, while the number of UHNWIs could reach 208,000, up from 141,000. The question remains unanswered: how did a dolphin end up in Madrids Casa de Campo park , and who left it there? The extraordinary appearance of the cetacean nearly eight months ago continues to be a mystery. There were no witnesses. But a line of investigation is emerging: the Civil Guards Nature Protection Service (Seprona) has ruled out that animal traffickers were involved , as was initially suggested. Instead, there is now another theory: someone found the creature washed up on a beach and brought it to Madrid as a collectors item. To conserve its bones or to stuff it, say investigators. The dolphin corpse found in the Casa de Campo. Madrid Animal Protection Center There is mounting evidence pointing to this second hypothesis. DNA analysis shows that the dolphin found in the Casa de Campo was a Delphinus delphis, or a common ocean dolphin. Study of the animals corpse, carried out by scientists at the National Natural Science Museum, ruled out that the specimen was a river dolphin. The difference is significant, given that the latter are more rare and exotic, and as such more likely to be trafficked, says marine biologist Manuel Gosalvez. The dolphins corpse was found on March 30, when Cesar, a dachshund belonging to a nearby resident, found it half buried amid scrubland in the large park on the western edge of the capital. The animal had been wrapped up in chicken wire, which, according to investigators, was new and rust-free, and had therefore most likely been purchased specifically for transporting the dead mammal. Insects eat the soft tissue and the bones are not lost, as they are in the chicken wire Juan Bejar, president of the National Association of Taxidermists The wire mesh could also have been used to preserve the animals bones. This is normal when someone wants to keep the skeleton, explains Juan Bejar, the president of the National Association of Taxidermists. Insects eat the soft tissue and the bones are not lost, as they are in the chicken wire. This process usually takes five or six months, but there is no demand for dolphin bones in the market. Bejar also rules out the possibility that the dolphins illegitimate owner wanted to stuff it. From the insects that were in the corpse, investigators were able to determine that the animal had been dead for several months. In fact, it was rotting. An animal has to be in very good condition if it is to be preserved, it has to be very fresh, because as soon as the skin is slightly gone it cant be done, the specialist explains. His colleague Luis Espeton, a taxidermist who has worked with fish for 20 years, adds another important fact: Dolphins are a protected species. And we are subject to regulations laid out by Seprona and obliged to follow the law. No colleague would take on such a job. No one has ever asked me to do anything like this, and I never would either. The discovery of the dolphin in the Casa de Campo was evidence of a crime Dolphins are protected under Spanish law. According to the Secretary of State for Commerce, there are regulations covering the ownership of such an animal, as well as the conditions and installations where they are kept and how their remains are disposed of. As such, the discovery in the Casa de Campo was the evidence of a crime. The public prosecutor opened an investigation into the incident shortly afterwards. Until now, investigators were working on the assumption that the individual who dumped the dolphin owned a property or land in Madrid big enough to host the animal in a tank or a pool. But in recent weeks, Seprona officers have begun working on the basis that the person they are looking for has a second home outside the Madrid region and may have found the cetacean on a beach. The search area has since been increased, and with it, the mystery of the Casa de Campo dolphin deepens. English version by Simon Hunter. Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} David Hockney is to design a stained glass window in Westminster Abbey to celebrate the Queen's reign. The influential British artist, who once turned down the chance to paint the monarch because he was too busy, said: I have planned a landscape full of blossom that's a celebration every year. The tall 20ft by 6ft window one of the church's few remaining clear ones will be known as The Queen's Window and is in the north transept of the gothic Abbey. The cost is being covered by two anonymous benefactors. Westminster Abbey said Mr Hockney would largely have artistic control, but be given guidance from the Dean and Chapter and the Westminster Abbey Fabric Commission who deal with changes to the historic building. He's given a very elliptical hint. We're as interested as everyone else to see what he comes up with. He will have pretty much free rein because he's David Hockney, an Abbey spokesman said. The Queen is certainly aware of the proposal and there will be continual briefings from us. Bradford-born Mr Hockney, widely considered to be the country's greatest living artist, is well known for experimenting with different ways of making art - drawing, painting and using the iPad. He has been an internationally-renowned painter since he burst on to the scene in the early 1960s as one of the leaders of British pop art - and over the years has extended his talents to work as a photographer, draughtsman, printmaker and stage designer. Although Mr Hockney will design the window, it will be transferred into stained glass by the Barley Studio in York, who will work closely with him. The Dean of Westminster, the Very Rev Dr John Hall, came up with the idea of approaching Mr Hockney to help celebrate the Queen's reign. Elizabeth II marked her 90th birthday this year and last year became the nation's longest reigning monarch. The artist accepted the commission after travelling from his LA home in the summer to be shown the window by the Dean. Dr Hall said he was delighted with the plan. It will be wonderful to have in the Abbey the work of this internationally-renowned contemporary British artist who has been honoured by The Queen with membership of the Order of Merit, which is in Her Majesty's personal gift, he added. In 2011, Mr Hockney revealed he turned down the chance to paint the Queen because was very busy painting England actually. Her country. He added: I generally only paint people I know. He finally painted the monarch in 2012, composing an image of the Diamond Jubilee river pageant on an iPad as he watched it on TV. His piece showed the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh as tiny figures with their backs to the viewer as they headed towards Tower Bridge on the royal barge. Hockney goes back to nature Show all 7 1 /7 Hockney goes back to nature Hockney goes back to nature IA17-Hockney-main.jpg EPA Hockney goes back to nature IA17-44-Arrival-of-Spring.jpg David Hockney Hockney goes back to nature IA17-44-Winter-Tunnel.jpg David Hockney Hockney goes back to nature IA17-44-Winter-Timber.jpg David Hockney Hockney goes back to nature IA17-44-Under-the-trees.jpg David Hockney Hockney goes back to nature IA17-44-Big-Hawthorne.jpg David Hockney Hockney goes back to nature IA17-44-Arrival-of-Spring in Woldgate.jpg David Hockney Westminster Abbey, which is steeped in more than 1,000 years of history, is where the Queen was both married and crowned. Her coronation was held at the Abbey in June 1953, nearly six years after she wed the Duke of Edinburgh in November 1947 as a 21-year-old bride. The monarch has maintained a close connection with the church, which is a Royal Peculiar and subject only to the sovereign and not to any archbishop nor bishop. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge married at the Abbey in 2011 and the funerals of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Queen Mother were also held there. The royals are regular visitors to its services of thanksgiving or commemorative events throughout the year. The window is due to be unveiled in June 2018, to coincide with the opening of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries in the Abbey's medieval triforium, which runs 70 ft above the Abbey floor. Press Association Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Green & Blacks has begun using non-organic chocolate for the first time since it was founded in 1991. The upmarket chocolate brand is known for its products with the word 'organic' printed in pride of place below the company logo but the word has been dropped for a new range in the US. A Green & Black's spokesperson confirmed to The Independent the new range was not organic, but would "sit alongside the classic Green & Black's range, which will continue to be organic". Green & Blacks was founded by Craig Sams and Josephine Fairley as a small, organic brand, which was awarded Britain's first Fairtrade mark. It was bought in 2005 by Cadbury, which has been owned by American company Mondelez International formerly known as Kraft Foods since 2010. Mondelez sparked outrage this month when it changed the shape of its Toblerone chocolate bars. The company said it had increased the space between the distinctive triangles because it was "experiencing higher costs for numerous ingredients". In October, Tesco and Unilever clashed after the company said it would raise prices of its key products including marmite to compensate for the diminishing value of British currency. In the UK, all Green & Blacks products are organic. In the USA, we have just launched a new range of discovery products, to sit alongside our classic, organic range," said the Green & Blacks spokesperson. What it's like to recreate your head using chocolate Show all 5 1 /5 What it's like to recreate your head using chocolate What it's like to recreate your head using chocolate Can you see the resemblance? Rachel Hosie What it's like to recreate your head using chocolate Rachel Hosie What it's like to recreate your head using chocolate Rachel Hosie What it's like to recreate your head using chocolate Rachel Hosie What it's like to recreate your head using chocolate Candy Mechanics "The new range has been created to introduce our delicious, ethically sourced chocolate, made from the finest ingredients, to people who might never have tried Green & Blacks before. They said the new bars would have a different "new signature taste" and will be made from sustainably sourced cocoa. "This new range will not be organic, but will sit alongside the classic Green & Blacks range, which will continue to be organic. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The mother of a girl who won the right to be cryogenically frozen has accused her ex-husband of lying in comments regarding his daughters death. The terminally ill 14-year-old had her remains frozen and stored in the hope she could be revived in the future after winning a High Court battle shortly before she died of cancer. Her divorced parents were embroiled in a dispute over whether her wish should be granted. Her mother, who she lived with, supported her wish for cryogenic preservation but her father was reluctant to approve the plan. The girls father said a judge had prevented him from saying goodbye to his dead daughter before her body was frozen and claimed he had not seen her since 2007 on the insistence of his ex-wife. He told The Telegraph he had spent months being treated for cancer in the same hospital as his daughter without ever knowing she was there. My daughter didn't even know all the court case procedures that I have been so desperately trying to see her, he told the newspaper last week. I am so sad about it. Mr Justice Jackson ruled no one involved could be identified (AFP/Getty) But the girls mother has called his comments unacceptable and untrue in a statement released by her lawyers. It said she did not wish to comment herself as she was devastated by her daughters death. Recommended Women who freeze their eggs do so to meet the right partner The mother wishes to clarify that she considers the comments made by the father and his family in the press to be unacceptable and untrue, it said. Mr Justice Peter Jackson found in favour of the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and she is now being stored at the Cryonics Institute in Clinton Township, Michigan, USA. Her father has heavily criticised the institute and accused it of selling false hope to vulnerable people such as his daughter. I believe they are selling false hope to those who are frightened of dying taking advantage of vulnerable people, he told the Mail on Sunday. When I asked if there was even a one in a million chance of my daughter being brought back to life, they could not say there was. I think it would be doubly impossible to both bring her back from the dead and cure her cancer, and companies should not hold out some false hope. 13 ways to help prevent cancer Show all 13 1 /13 13 ways to help prevent cancer 13 ways to help prevent cancer Stopping smoking. This notoriously difficult habit to break sees tar build-up in the lungs and DNA alteration and causes 15,558 cancer deaths a year 13 ways to help prevent cancer Avoiding the sun, and the melanoma that comes with overexposure to harmful UV rays, could help conscientious shade-lovers dodge being one of the 7,220 people who die from it 13 ways to help prevent cancer A diet that is low in red meat can help to prevent bowel cancer, according to the research - with 30 grams a day recommended for men, and 25 a day recommended for women 13 ways to help prevent cancer Foods high in fibre, meanwhile, can further make for healthier bowels. Processed foods in developed countries appear to be causing higher rates of colon cancer than diets in continents such as Africa, which have high bean and pulse intakes 13 ways to help prevent cancer Two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables a day were given as the magic number for good diet in the research. Overall, diet causes only slightly fewer cancer deaths than sun exposure in Australia, at 7,000 a year 13 ways to help prevent cancer Obesity and being overweight, linked to poor diet and lack of exercise, causes 3,917 deaths by cancer a year on its own Getty 13 ways to help prevent cancer Dying of a cancer caused by infection also comes in highly, linked to 3,421 cancer deaths a year. Infections such as human papilloma virus - which can cause cervical cancer in women - and hepatitis - can be prevented by vaccinations and having regular check-ups 13 ways to help prevent cancer Cutting back on drinks could reduce the risk of cancers caused by alcohol - such as liver cancer, bowel cancer, breast cancer and mouth cancer - that are leading to 3,208 deaths a year 2014 Getty Images 13 ways to help prevent cancer Sitting around and not getting the heart pumping - less than one hour's exercise a day - is directly leading to about 1,800 people having lower immune functions and higher hormone levels, among other factors, that cause cancers 2011 Getty Images 13 ways to help prevent cancer Hormone replacement therapy, which is used to relieve symptoms of the menopause in women, caused 539 deaths from (mainly breast) cancer in Australia last year. It did, however, prevent 52 cases of colorectal cancers 2003 Getty Images 13 ways to help prevent cancer Insufficient breastfeeding, bizarrely, makes the top 10. Breastfeeding for 12 months could prevent 235 cancer cases a year, said the research AFP/Getty Images 13 ways to help prevent cancer Oral contraceptives, like the Pill, caused about 105 breast cancers and 52 cervical cancers - but it also prevented about 1,440 ovarian and uterine (womb) cases of cancer last year 2006 Getty Images 13 ways to help prevent cancer Taking aspirin also prevented 232 cases in the Queensland research of colorectal and oesophagal cancers - but as it can also cause strokes, is not yet recommended as a formal treatment against the risk of cancer Clive Coen, a neuroscience professor at King's College London, said cryogenics companies should not be allowed to advertise because there is no evidence the technique works in humans. He told The Guardian: There is no evidence outside amphibia and tissue slices that any of this works. We're not at a point where regulation is appropriate. The whole body is just ridiculous and the whole brain is only slightly less ridiculous. The judge's ruling was made in October but could not be revealed until after her death. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Tesco has been accused of discrimination following claims that one of its stores makes state school children queue up outside while private school children are allowed to enter the store freely. It has been claimed that the Bruntsfield Tesco Metro in Edinburgh allows children from the George Watson private school in the area to walk into the shop without being stopped while children from nearby state school Boroughmuir high school are forced to queue up and be allowed to enter, the Guardian reported. Neil Pollock, a parent of one of the children who queue up outside the shop, highlighted the alleged issue on Twitter. He wrote: @Tesco makes one set of school kids queue outside, whilst another school walks in. One is state, the other private. Which one has to queue? He told the newspaper: My son is at Boroughmuir. He has to stand in the queue each day. Hes not one to complain but it was getting him down - so we decided to do something. Mr Pollock said his son and his friends are frustrated at having to wait while others walk in ahead of them and claimed Tesco police the door by having someone stood next to it making sure the children queue. Three former pupils of the state school told the newspaper they had been forced to queue behind a barrier at the Tesco store while the private school children were allowed to enter without being stopped. The children are understood to frequently visit the store in large numbers on their lunchbreak. A representative told Mr Pollock on Twitter they had called the store in question and been told by a duty manager that the private school normally have a lesser amount of children which is quicker and easier for the store. Mr Pollock responded that "it may be easier for the store but it is discrimination. Everybody should queue or nobody should queue." A Tesco spokesperson responding to the claims said: This is completely untrue there has never been any discrimination between state and private school children at this store. It is not the first time the retailer has been accused of discrimination. Earlier this year a boy was awarded 3,000 he was stopped and searched in a Tesco supermarket in Maida Vale, west London. The mixed heritage boy, who was not named, brought a race discrimination case against the supermarket after he claimed he was taken by the arm by a shop assistant into a back room and searched by two members of staff. They found no items on his person and reportedly released him without explaining why he had been stopped. The boy told the Daily Mail the incident left him constantly unnerved whenever I was in a store. Tesco said in a statement the staff believed the boy had been shoplifting and settled the case with no admission of liability. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A senior EU official has said cabinet minister David Davis told him the British Parliament will be involved in triggering Brexit talks, effectively conceding defeat in the legal case the Government is fighting over the issue. The European Parliament's chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said Mr Davis made the admission at a meeting in Strasbourg. Recommended Theresa May could try to overturn Brexit ruling with Article 50 claim It comes despite government officials preparing an appeal in the Supreme Court, in a bid to push ahead with Brexit talks without Parliaments approval. Former Belgian prime minister Mr Verhofstadt also said Brexit talks should be concluded quickly so that the UK can leave the EU before mid-2019. Mr Davis saw the EU politician amid a series of meetings with his counterparts in the European Commission and European Parliament before formal discussions on the UKs departure begin in March next year. After their appointment, Mr Verhofstadt said Mr Davis told him the British Parliament "will be involved" in triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which officially launches Brexit talks. The Government is still planning to fight an appeal at the Supreme Court, against a High Court decision forcing Theresa May to allow Parliament to vote on triggering Article 50. Ms May had wanted to take the decision to invoke the Article herself, using royal prerogative powers. Brexit Concerns Show all 26 1 /26 Brexit Concerns Brexit Concerns Brexit will put British patients at 'back of the queue' for new drugs Brexit will put British patients at the back of the queue for vital new drugs, the Government has been warned forcing them to wait up to two years longer A medicines regulator has raised the alarm over a likely decision to pull out of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as the EU itself. ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt dropped the bombshell , when he said he expected the UK would quit the EMA because it is subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Getty Images Brexit Concerns London to lose status as 'gateway to Europe' for banks One of Germanys top banking regulators has warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc. Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the BundesbankGermanys central banktold a private meeting of German businesses and banks earlier this week in Frankfurt that even if banking rules were equivalent between the UK and the rest of the EU, that was still miles away from [Britain having] access to the single market, the BBC reports. Jason Hawkes Brexit Concerns Exodus The number of financial sector professionals in Britain and continental Europe looking for jobs in Ireland rocketed in the months after the UK voted to leave the European Union Shutterstock Brexit Concerns Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer Pay packages of many FTSE 100 chief executive officers are partly tied to how well share prices are doing rather than the CEOs performance -- and some stocks are soaring. ritish equities got a boost since the June vote because the likes of Rio Tinto, Smiths Group and WPP generate most sales abroad and earn a fortune when they convert these revenues back into the weakened pound. Sterlings fall also made UK stocks more affordable for overseas investors. Rex Brexit Concerns Theresa May: UK to leave single market Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". Getty Brexit Concerns Lead campaigner Gina Miller and her team outside the High Court Getty Brexit Concerns Raymond McCord holds up his newly issued Irish passport alongside his British passport outside the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns SDLP leader Colum Eastwood leaving the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns Migrants with luggage walk past a graffiti on a wall as they leave the 'Jungle' migrant camp, as part of a major three-day operation planned to clear the camp in Calais Getty Brexit Concerns Migrants leave messages on their tents in the Jungle migrant camp Getty Brexit Concerns The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) which distributes approximately 700 meals daily in the northern Paris camp states that it is noticing a spike in new migrant arrivals this week, potentially linked the the Calais 'jungle' camp closure - with around 1000 meals distributed today EPA Brexit Concerns Migrant workers pick apples at Stocks Farm in Suckley, Britain Reuters Brexit Concerns Many farmers across the country are voicing concerns that Brexit could be a dangerous step into the unknown for the farming industry Getty Brexit Concerns Bank of England governor Mark Carney who said the long-term outlook for the UK economy is positive, but growth was slowing in the wake of the Brexit vote PA Brexit Concerns The Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe pluninging Getty Brexit Concerns Immigration officers deal with each member of the public seeking entry into the United Kingdom but on average, 10 a day are refused entry at this London airport and between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport for mainly passport irregularities Getty Brexit Concerns A number of global investment giants have threatened to move their European operations out of London if Brexit proves to have a negative impact on their businesses Getty Brexit Concerns Following the possibility of a Brexit the UK would be released from its renewable energy targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive and from EU state aid restrictions, potentially giving the government more freedom both in the design and phasing out of renewable energy support regimes Getty Brexit Concerns A woman looking at a chart showing the drop in the pound (Sterling) against the US Dollar in London after Britain voted to leave the EU Getty Brexit Concerns Young protesters outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to protest against the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU following the referendum Getty Brexit Concerns Applications from Northern Ireland citizens for Irish Passports has soared to a record high after the UK Voted in favour of Leaving the EU Getty Brexit Concerns NFU Vice President Minette Batters with Secretary of State, Andrea Leadsome at the National Farmers Union (NFU) took machinery, produce, farmers and staff to Westminster to encourage Members of Parliament to back British farming, post Brexit Getty Brexit Concerns The latest reports released by the UK Cabinet Office warn that expats would lose a range of specific rights to live, to work and to access pensions, healthcare and public services. The same reports added that UK citizens abroad would not be able to assume that these rights will be guaranteed in the future Getty Brexit Concerns A British resident living in Spain asks questions during an informative Brexit talk by the "Brexpats in Spain" group, about Spanish legal issues to become Spanish citizens, at the town hall in Benalmadena, Spain Reuters Brexit Concerns The collapse of Great Britain appears to have been greatly exaggerated given the late summer crowds visiting city museums, hotels, and other important tourist attractions Getty Brexit Concerns The U.K. should maintain European Union regulations covering everything from working hours to chemicals until after the government sets out its plans for Brexit, said British manufacturers anxious to avoid a policy vacuum and safeguard access to their biggest export market Getty But Mr Verhofstadts comments suggest ministers are now resigned to losing the case. Whitehall insiders are also said to be already preparing legislation for Parliament to vote on. The Belgian also said: "We agreed on the need that this process needs to start as early as possible and needs to finish, in any case, before the next European elections [in 2019]." At a hearing in September, Mr Davis was asked about comments by Verhofstadt on the need for Britain to accept free movement of labour to stay in the single market. Davis responded: "Get thee behind me, Satan." Today Mr Davis told journalists after the meeting that Mr Verhofstadt is a "very nice man" and that their first meeting was a "good start". Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Brexit Secretary David Davis has apparently told a senior EU politician that Britain wants to stay in the single market, sparking further confusion about the Governments strategy. German MEP Manfred Weber, the chairman of the centre-right European People's Party, revealed part of his conversation with Mr Davis after a meeting in Strasbourg, France. Mr Weber also criticised a lack of fresh information from the British government, saying: There is no idea what Brexit really means. Brexit: Corbyn accuses May of having 'no plan' Meanwhile, Downing Street insisted Mr Davis had not revealed any policy shift, saying: The Governments position hasnt changed on this. It is widely believed that Theresa May plans for Britain to leave the single market, as the price for meeting her red line that freedom of movement of EU citizens must end. She is also under fierce pressure from many Tory MPs to pursue a hard Brexit in the exit talks to get underway next year. Mr Davis held talks in Strasbourg today with Mr Weber and other senior MEPs, including Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliaments chief Brexit negotiator. After the meeting, Mr Weber strongly criticised the way the UK is handling the Brexit process, saying: What we really expect are clear proposals. Today, in my talk with David Davis, unfortunately I have not heard anything new, I have not heard much as to how the British Government wants to tackle Brexit and what Brexit really means. I have not received any new information, quite the opposite is true. Today I have been told that the British government, as far as the economy is concerned, it wants to stay in the single market but the British government would also like to continue and have very close cooperation in legal issues. But, Mr Weber added: Brexit means Brexit, so we are going to have to cut back on our relationships. It is not a cherry picking situation at all. In response, a No 10 spokesman said: We are very clear that what we want is a trading relationship that allows UK companies to trade both with and within the single market and lets European businesses do the same. The No 10 spokesman declined to respond to repeated questions about whether the relationship the Government is seeking would require single market membership. A Government source said Mr Davis had made clear that Britain wants the freest possible trading relationship with the EU, but "didn't elaborate further or prejudge how that might look". Mr Webers comments are the second major confusion about the Governments plans in 24 hours, after Ms May hinted she would seek a transitional deal rather than a clean break in 2019. The Prime Minister agreed there was a danger of a cliff edge for businesses if Britain left without a new trade deal, although No 10 later rowed back on her remarks. Mr Weber also accused Boris Johnson of being arrogant because of his support for Turkish EU membership. He said it was unbelievable for the Foreign Secretary to go to Ankara and speak in support of EU membership after his leading role in the Brexit campaign which warned about Turkish immigrants coming to the UK. Mr Weber said: He himself did, in the Brexit campaign, leaflets where he showed Turkey, Syria and Iraq as possible members of the European Union, making people afraid of possible EU migration waves. He used it himself and then a few weeks afterwards he is travelling to [President] Erdogan and he is offering support for becoming a member of the European Union it is unbelievable, it is a provocation and it is arrogant what we hear from him. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Financial problems facing the NHS have been branded endemic as two-thirds of trusts report deficits, according to a new report by the National Audit Office. The report, outlining the perilous state of Britains health service, finds that in 2015-16, NHS commissioners, trusts and foundation trusts recorded a combined deficit of 1.85 billion a significant increase on the 574 million reported in the previous year. In their fifth report into the financial stability of the NHS the National Audit office an independent parliamentary body finds that the financial position of NHS bodies overall has continued to decline. It adds provider trusts overall deficit grew by 185 per cent to 2.45 billion, up from 859 million on the previous year. Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said: With more than two-thirds of trusts in deficit in 2015-16 and an increasing number of clinical commissioning groups unable to keep their spending within budget, we repeat our view that financial problems are endemic and this is not sustainable. It is fair to say aggressive efficiency targets have helped to swell the ranks of trusts in deficit over the last few years. The Department, NHS England and NHS Improvement have put considerable effort and funding toward stabilising the system, but have a way to go to demonstrate that they have balanced resources and achieved stability as a result of this effort. Therefore, value for money from these collective actions has not yet been demonstrated. Frank Field, a Labour MP and chair of the work and pensions select committee in Westminster, said the report was evidence that Britains health and social care services are staring into the abyss. He added: The path they are on now leads only to a complete financial collapse by 2020 the NHS in England alone faces a gobsmacking black hole of 56 billion over the next five years. An immediate penny increase in National Insurance contributions a move which goes with the grain of voters wishes would see the NHS through this five-year period of intensive care. A root and branch reform of the contributory base, involving a new, hypothecated, progressive National Insurance system, is then required to see health and social care through the next generation. Commenting on the report Norman Lamb, a former Lib Dem health minister, said: The report is a nail in the coffin for the Governments claims to be adequately funding the NHS. Mr Lamb said fresh thinking is needed if the country is to avert a total catastrophe. He added: The National Audit Office seems to have no confidence whatsoever that the NHS can make heroic savings the Government is relying on. Meg Hillier, chair of the influential public accounts committee, said the Department of Health and NHS England were making pie in the sky assumptions to maintain they can still close the gap forecast in funding by the end of the decade. A Department of Health spokesperson said: We know finances are challenging for some parts of the NHS, which is why we have a strong plan to get back on track. We are already seeing progress, with 40 fewer trusts in deficit compared to this time last year. We are also investing an extra 4 billion in the NHS this year to transform services and improve standards of care, which will rise to an extra 10 billion per year by 2020/21. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said Labour could be at risk of damaging the national interest by criticising Donald Trump over his views on climate change. The President-elect has previously claimed that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese and has threatened to destabilise the landmark Paris climate change agreement by refusing to sign up to the deal. But speaking in the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary rejected Emily Thornberrys assertion that the election of Mr Trump in relation to climate change was a hugely dangerous development for the future of the planet. Mr Johnson said: I really must say to the right honourable lady that I believe she is being premature in her hostile judgements of the administration-elect. And any such premature verdict, I believe, could be damaging to the interests of this country. It is important for us in this country to use our influence, which is very considerable, to help the United States to see its responsibilities, as Im sure they will. The shadow Foreign Secretary Ms Thornberry added: As we meet today on the 53rd anniversary of John F Kennedys death we have this prospect of a very different president about the enter the White House in just a matter of weeks. She then asked Mr Johnson for his reasons for being positive about the President-elects views on climate change, to which he replied: I think its vital that we are positive as we can possibly be about the new administration-elect. As Ive said before to the House I believe the UK-US relationship is of vital importance and I think President-elect Trump is a deal-maker. When it comes to climate change this is something the UK has led on globally we have had outstanding success and yes, I am very open with the House, it is a message we will be taking to the administration that we believe to be important, we believe it to be in the interests of the United States and of the world. Mr Johnson also faced further embarrassment in the Commons today following the unprecedented suggestion from Mr Trump that the UK government should make the interim Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, the next ambassador to the US. 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 In a highly unusual intervention, the President-elect posted on his Twitter account: Many people would like to see Nigel Farage represent Great Britain as their ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! MPs in the Commons mocked the suggestion by recommending Hillary Clinton for the role of US ambassador to Britain. Sir Simon Burns, the Conservative MP for Chelmsford, poked fun at the tycoons extremely generous advice. He said: Although there is no vacancy, would the Foreign Secretary think this is extremely generous of Donald Trump to suggest who should be our ambassador in the United States? And in that measure of fraternity, might he suggest that the best person to fill the vacancy of the ambassador to the United Kingdom next year would be Hillary Rodham Clinton? But Mr Johnson rejected the offer and dismissed any suggestion that Britains incumbent ambassador Sir Kim Darroch would be replaced. We have a first rate ambassador in Washington doing a very good job of relating both with the present administration and with the administration to be, and there is no vacancy for that position, he added. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Electoral Commission has opened an investigation into Ukip after allegations the party misspent taxpayer-funded EU cash, the watchdog has announced. A leaked audit compiled by the European Parliament Bureau claimed the party misspent around 400,000 of taxpayers' money to fund its own electioneering. The report said the money, meant to support the party's fuctions at a European level, was used as indirect financing of a national political party and a referendum campaign both of which are prohibited. Interim leader Nigel Farage dismissed the allegations, telling Sky News, which unearthed the dossier, that his party was being "victimised". The Electoral Commission said it had been officially approached by the Euroepan Parliament with the allegations on the evening of Monday 21 November. The elections watchdog confirmed that it was against the rules to use the funding for the direct or indirect funding of national parties, election candidates and political foundations at either the national or European level. The organisation said in a statement: The Electoral Commission has opened an investigation regarding the UK Independence Party (Ukip) to ascertain whether the party accepted impermissible donations from the European political party the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE) and its affiliated foundation the Initiative for Direct Democracy in Europe (IDDE). If the money is deemed to be an impermissible donation the party could face a fine of up to 20,000 and be forced to repay the money through the courts. The Commission said it had in recent weeks already met with representatives of the Euroepan Parliament an inspected material that it gathered as part of its audit. The watchdog's investigation is to ascertain whether the party breached UK law on donations to political parties, as outlined under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The Independent has contacted Ukip for further comment on the investigation. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Theresa May ought to abandon her Brexit challenge in the Supreme Court and put Article 50 to a vote, according to the former Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, who is fighting the Richmond Park by-election as an independent. Speaking to The Independent Mr Goldsmith said while it was frustrating not knowing the Governments plans for leaving the EU he defended Theresa May for keeping her card close to her chest. He added: I think they should accept it and I think there should be a vote in Parliament. Im pretty sure that vote would go through very easily theres very little opposition in voting for Article 50 so as far as Im concerned the Prime Minister should do that and not spend months bickering with judges. Mr Goldsmith also vowed not to return to his former party before a general election. He was, however, more reluctant to dismiss the idea of re-joining his former colleagues entirely. While he said, if elected, he would remain an independent for his full term in Parliament, he added: Its not clever to start planning two or three elections ahead because Ive got a battle in my hands getting over this line. If Im elected as an independent I will stay an independent I dont believe people should switch parties without going back to their electorate. Im standing as an independent and will be an independent for this term. No one makes commitments two elections in advance, its pompous and its absurd and presumptuous to do so, so Im not going to. Its absurd for a politician to start talking about two, three, four elections into the future. I am standing as an independent if Im elected I will be an independent for the full term. I dont even know if Ill be standing in any further election. In ten days time voters in the Richmond Park constituency will head to the polls, following the decision by Mr Goldsmith to resign from the Conservative party in protest at Theresa Mays backing for the expansion of Heathrow airport. He has been a vocal critic of the plans for the past decade and promised his affluent constituents he would trigger a by-election long before he was elected six years ago. Mr Goldsmith's resignation means he has no access to the infrastructure or the data available through the Conservative party machinery in the constituency. Hes had to build his campaign from scratch he adds. Ive had a lot of help, a lot of volunteers and in a way its a good thing because we are knocking on doors in a completely random manner as opposed to following any old formula. That gives us a much more honest picture of what people are thinking locally. Its obviously a big challenge, were up against a national party machine but, so far, its been very positive its going well. But his old colleagues, and friends in the party have not been totally absent in the campaign. Just last week he was photographed with Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg and the former Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villers. Mr Goldsmith is hopeful more will join him on the frontline in the final stretch of campaigning in the by-election. Current Cabinet ministers, including his friend the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, however, have been blocked by Downing Street from lending a hand in the fight. Ive had lots of support from local Conservatives, he added. After I resigned they had a meeting and sent a message back to the party nationally to say they were backing me in the campaign irrespective of whether there was an official Conservative candidate. As a consequence, the party took the pragmatic view that its probably not a good idea to put a candidate up. But while the constituency is considered a safe Tory seat by many Mr Goldsmith received 58 per cent of the vote share compared with 19 per cent for his closest rival in 2015 the Liberal Democrats are making a concerted effort to retake the seat, which was held by them until 2010. The party leader Tim Farron has travelled to the constituency every Wednesday morning since the announcement of the by-election. Zac Goldsmith: Heathrow runway will be a 'millstone around the Government's neck' As Mr Goldsmith attempts to focus the campaign on Heathrow, the Lib Dems are rallying around Brexit in the constituency that voted 72 per cent to Remain at the EU referendum. It is quite clearly the dividing line between the two candidates (both of them oppose Heathrow expansion) and it is one the Lib Dems are exploiting. The by-election here is a clear choice between two candidates with very different views on Brexit, claims the partys campaigning literature handed out to commuters outside Richmond station on one Wednesday morning. Speaking to The Independent their candidate Sarah Olney, an accountant who joined the Lib Dems 18 months ago following the partys catastrophic general election result, said Conservative voters in the constituency, who had voted Remain at the referendum, have already promised to vote for her. She added: When Zac Goldsmith stood down he wanted the campaign to be a referendum on Heathrow but we started campaigning on the basis as we thought that is what people wanted to hear about. But time and time again people were saying they care about Heathrow but what I really, really care about is Brexit thats what is really upsetting. But the focus on Brexit is clearly irritating Mr Goldsmiths campaign shortly after our interview his publicist calls to suggest the questions were unfair and that there was no focus on Heathrow. The Lib Dems have been massively downplaying how important Heathrow is in this area, Mr Goldsmith added. But I think theyve misjudged that and of course there are lots of other issues. People know that the election is happening for only one reason and that is because of Heathrow expansion. Most people appreciate the fact I kept that promise and the impression Im getting is that there is a big appetite among constituents to use this to vote against Heathrow. As far as I'm concerned the PM should [hold a vote on Article 50] and not spend months bickering with judges Zac Goldsmith He continued: But Im not sure theres an appetite to re-run that referendum and thats what the Lib Dems are hoping. I dont think there position really adds up. My view is that I didnt campaign on the issue but I voted Brexit. I think it would be very dangerous to try and stop Brexit, Brexit Concerns Show all 26 1 /26 Brexit Concerns Brexit Concerns Brexit will put British patients at 'back of the queue' for new drugs Brexit will put British patients at the back of the queue for vital new drugs, the Government has been warned forcing them to wait up to two years longer A medicines regulator has raised the alarm over a likely decision to pull out of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as the EU itself. ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt dropped the bombshell , when he said he expected the UK would quit the EMA because it is subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Getty Images Brexit Concerns London to lose status as 'gateway to Europe' for banks One of Germanys top banking regulators has warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc. Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the BundesbankGermanys central banktold a private meeting of German businesses and banks earlier this week in Frankfurt that even if banking rules were equivalent between the UK and the rest of the EU, that was still miles away from [Britain having] access to the single market, the BBC reports. Jason Hawkes Brexit Concerns Exodus The number of financial sector professionals in Britain and continental Europe looking for jobs in Ireland rocketed in the months after the UK voted to leave the European Union Shutterstock Brexit Concerns Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer Pay packages of many FTSE 100 chief executive officers are partly tied to how well share prices are doing rather than the CEOs performance -- and some stocks are soaring. ritish equities got a boost since the June vote because the likes of Rio Tinto, Smiths Group and WPP generate most sales abroad and earn a fortune when they convert these revenues back into the weakened pound. Sterlings fall also made UK stocks more affordable for overseas investors. Rex Brexit Concerns Theresa May: UK to leave single market Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". Getty Brexit Concerns Lead campaigner Gina Miller and her team outside the High Court Getty Brexit Concerns Raymond McCord holds up his newly issued Irish passport alongside his British passport outside the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns SDLP leader Colum Eastwood leaving the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns Migrants with luggage walk past a graffiti on a wall as they leave the 'Jungle' migrant camp, as part of a major three-day operation planned to clear the camp in Calais Getty Brexit Concerns Migrants leave messages on their tents in the Jungle migrant camp Getty Brexit Concerns The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) which distributes approximately 700 meals daily in the northern Paris camp states that it is noticing a spike in new migrant arrivals this week, potentially linked the the Calais 'jungle' camp closure - with around 1000 meals distributed today EPA Brexit Concerns Migrant workers pick apples at Stocks Farm in Suckley, Britain Reuters Brexit Concerns Many farmers across the country are voicing concerns that Brexit could be a dangerous step into the unknown for the farming industry Getty Brexit Concerns Bank of England governor Mark Carney who said the long-term outlook for the UK economy is positive, but growth was slowing in the wake of the Brexit vote PA Brexit Concerns The Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe pluninging Getty Brexit Concerns Immigration officers deal with each member of the public seeking entry into the United Kingdom but on average, 10 a day are refused entry at this London airport and between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport for mainly passport irregularities Getty Brexit Concerns A number of global investment giants have threatened to move their European operations out of London if Brexit proves to have a negative impact on their businesses Getty Brexit Concerns Following the possibility of a Brexit the UK would be released from its renewable energy targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive and from EU state aid restrictions, potentially giving the government more freedom both in the design and phasing out of renewable energy support regimes Getty Brexit Concerns A woman looking at a chart showing the drop in the pound (Sterling) against the US Dollar in London after Britain voted to leave the EU Getty Brexit Concerns Young protesters outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to protest against the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU following the referendum Getty Brexit Concerns Applications from Northern Ireland citizens for Irish Passports has soared to a record high after the UK Voted in favour of Leaving the EU Getty Brexit Concerns NFU Vice President Minette Batters with Secretary of State, Andrea Leadsome at the National Farmers Union (NFU) took machinery, produce, farmers and staff to Westminster to encourage Members of Parliament to back British farming, post Brexit Getty Brexit Concerns The latest reports released by the UK Cabinet Office warn that expats would lose a range of specific rights to live, to work and to access pensions, healthcare and public services. The same reports added that UK citizens abroad would not be able to assume that these rights will be guaranteed in the future Getty Brexit Concerns A British resident living in Spain asks questions during an informative Brexit talk by the "Brexpats in Spain" group, about Spanish legal issues to become Spanish citizens, at the town hall in Benalmadena, Spain Reuters Brexit Concerns The collapse of Great Britain appears to have been greatly exaggerated given the late summer crowds visiting city museums, hotels, and other important tourist attractions Getty Brexit Concerns The U.K. should maintain European Union regulations covering everything from working hours to chemicals until after the government sets out its plans for Brexit, said British manufacturers anxious to avoid a policy vacuum and safeguard access to their biggest export market Getty Mr Goldsmith also accused his Lib Dem rival Ms Olney of U-turning on Brexit, claiming before the by-election she was quite emphatic that there should not be a re-run of the referendum. The official position of the party is that there should be a second referendum on the terms of Britains exit from the EU. If this isnt granted Mr Farron will instruct his MPs to vote against triggering Article 50. The fact that she has completely turned her position on its head in a matter days purely to scrape up a few votes in the area I dont think goes down that well with a highly-political and educated constituency. I think it looks cynical, and it is cynical, Mr Goldsmith added. His campaign in Richmond Park, however, follows an unsuccessful bid for London mayor, in which critics, including some Conservatives, branded his tactics against Sadiq Khan as racist and disgusting. Asked whether he believed the controversial campaign would have any negative effect on the upcoming by-election, he responded: The outcome of the mayoral election in this part of the world was a good one. It may not have been for the whole of Londonno mayoral candidate has done better in the mayoral election in this part of the world than I did. Does he regret the tactics used in the campaign? I regret losing the race because I had an exciting plan Id put a lot of work into developing a programme for London. My manifesto was brilliant I didnt write it myself which is what allows me to say that. But I hope the incumbent, the current mayor takes the best bits and uses them because theres some good stuff there. Ms Olney said that while the campaign did damage his reputation but said she has deliberately not made it part of her campaign. We should aim for a better politics, she added. The by-election has also proved to be a useful experiment in the concept of a progressive alliance and the obstacles it faces. Despite suggestions from senior figures in the Labour party to test the concept with the Lib Dems and not field a candidate, they eventually chose Christian Wolmar a former contender of the Labour nomination for mayor of London. In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Show all 22 1 /22 In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Inside one of the terminal tents in 1946 The year the airport opened. Comfortable armchairs and flowers try to distract from the conditions Graham Bridges collection In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow An aerial view of the airport in 1949 Construction of the runway layout and Central Area are under way In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow A Pan Am crew checks out the Boeing Stratocruiser N1029V Clipper Golden Eagle in 1954 During the early 1950s, Pan Am and American Overseas Airlines operated Statocruisers into London Airport in direct competition on the North Atlantic route operated by BOAC In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow One of the first official London Airport guidebooks C.1953, priced 1s In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow In 1950 a permanent concrete terminal building was built This replaced the tents previously used at London Airport North and is seen still in use for charter and cargo flights in this 1959 view via Graham Bridges In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow BOAC check-in desk in 1954 Inside the new London Airport North terminal building, just before the move to the Central Area Graham Bridges collection In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Air traffic control tower in the 1960s Inside the visual control room CAA Archives via Pete Bish In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Rear cover of the 1956 guidebook Showing a plan of the airport at the time, with entrance prices to the spectators viewing terraces and for airport coach tours In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Spectators in 1958 How close can you get? As soon as the Central Area was open, spectators were afforded unprecedented views of the airliners In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Terminal 3 was opened as the Oceanic Terminal on 13 November 1961 It was built to handle flight departures for long-haul routes. Renamed Terminal 3 in 1968, it was expanded in 1970 with the addition of an arrivals building In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Inside Terminal 3 in 1969 Check-in desks for BOAC and QANTAS airlines In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Plane spotting on Heathrows viewing terraces in the 1960s Wrap up warm, take your spotting logbooks, pen and binoculars and get your mum to pack your sandwiches In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow No 1 Passenger Building Also called the Europa Building. In this photo, taken on 22 June 1963, flags of the many airlines it serves are flown Lee Holden In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Luggage-trailer-towing Routemaster buses When BEA and BOAC merged to form BA on 1 April 1974, both fleets had to be repainted in the new livery, but so did all the ground support equipment In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow The entrance to the traffic tunnel in 1974 A Lufthansa Boeing 737 is seen on the runway In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow A 40 per cent scale model of Concorde In September 1990 it was erected on the roundabout at the entrance to the tunnel that passes under the northern runway at Heathrow Airport. It was built in four main parts, with an 80ft-long central fuselage section, to which the wings and tail fin were attached. The completed model was placed on the roundabout in September 1990 and was monitored by CCTV and surrounded by an infrared perimeter alarm that was connected to the local Heathrow police station to ensure it was not vandalised In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Heathrow Airport's 50th anniversary On 2 June 1996, Heathrow marked its anniversary with a flypast of representative airliner types that have served the airport over the years. This culminated in a formation flypast by Concorde with Hawks of the RAF Red Arrows aerobatic team In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow The roof of Terminal 3s car park One of the last bastions for plane spotters and spectators was here. This is the unfriendly notice that greets anyone who attempts this today Richard Vandervord In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow On 24 October 2003 BA withdrew its Concordes from service The final scheduled commercial flight was BA002 from JFK operated by G-BOAG. Here we see three of the Concordes parked together outside the BA hangar on 8 November 2003 following withdrawal John Hughes In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow The new control tower Costing 50 million to construct, it gives controllers an excellent 360-degree panoramic view NATS photograph In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow The new Terminal 2 The Queens Terminal In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Looking due west down Runway 27L And Ms Olney appeared relieved there was a Labour candidate. Its a tough one because between us and Labour there are large differences on policy. I dont want to be standing in this election as a representative of Jeremy Corbyn. I think Im more comfortable that they are standing as a general rule Im not Corbyns candidate, she said. The local Green party decided not to contest the seat but Ms Olney rejected there was any deliberate attempt to form an alliance. Ukip, which came fifth in the seat at the general election last year, also decided not to put a candidate and endorsed Mr Goldsmith for the job. While Mr Goldsmith appeared confident he will remain the representative for the constituency, he added: Its a battle, clearly. One of the latest polls by BMG for the Londons Evening Standard newspaper found Mr Goldsmith was on course for a solid 56 per cent of the vote down by just two points from the last general election. But the Lib Dem leader believes the momentum is in his partys favour and that the by-election on 1 December could prove to be the starting point in a Liberal revival. Spanish exports reached a historic high in the first nine months of 2016 , growing year-on-year in terms of revenue by 1.2%. Data published by the Secretary of State for Commerce on Monday shows that foreign trade has generated 188.49 billion so far this year. What the figures dont show is that Spain seems to be caught up in the overall slowdown of global trade. The country is performing better than most of its competitors , but its overseas sales have been decelerating steadily since July, to the point that in September, growth was zero. Have Spanish exports reached their peak? EFE That said, only Germany and Italy have registered export growth so far this year of 1% and 0.5% respectively while the UKs has fallen by 4.5%, France, a 1.5 % dip, the United States, 5%, China, 6.8%, and Japan, a hefty 9.2%. From January to September, Spanish exports to the European Union grew by 3.9%: the EU is far and away the countrys biggest market, making up 66.5% of the countrys overseas trade. But sales to the rest of the world have fallen: by 2.3% to the United States, by 1.4% to Japan, by 8.2% to South Korea, by 25.1% to Saudi Arabia, and by 11.35% to Latin America. The automotive and food industries have contributed the most to Spains exports By contrast, there has been growth in exports to China (11.8%), to Canada (9.1%), to Morocco (15%) and to Chile, where growth was 3.3%. Until recently, China was investing in mainly German machinery and equipment, but as its growth model shifts toward greater internal consumption, there is growing demand for consumer goods and foodstuffs. Spains newly installed Secretary of State for Commerce, Maria Luisa Poncela, said on Monday that China is helping boost Spanish exports at a time when Chinese imports are declining. She added that she expected Canadas new trade agreement with the European Union will help further improve trade. In the wake of this summers Brexit vote, exports to the UK seem to be falling, due in large part to a weaker pound. Trade rose by 8.8% over the course of the year, but fell by 1.5% in September. In August it barely rose by 1.2%, a significant slowdown on the previous 12 months. Spain seems to be caught up in the overall slowdown of global trade Although Spanish exports grew by 3.2% in volume in the first nine months of the year, the 2% fall in prices amid a highly competitive market translated into a 1.2% growth in terms of revenue. Imports grew by 2.7%, but prices fell by 4.2%, which explains the 1.6% fall in imports. As a result, between January and September, Spains trade deficit was around 13.2 billion, 29% lower than for the same period in 2015. In large part the improvement is due to falling prices, and particularly the collapse of oil prices. Spains energy import costs have fallen by 30% up to September, the same proportion as the improvement in its trade balance. That said, the increase in crude prices is beginning to be felt: Septembers figures show that the cost of energy imports fell by 19%, compared to the 30% figure for the rest of the year. The automotive and food industries have contributed the most to Spains exports, growing by 8.5% and 6.2% more, respectively. The Secretary of State for Commerce says the 8% increase in capital goods represents the modernization of units and an advance indicator of activity. English version by Nick Lyne. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli state in the city of Hebron amounts to apartheid a former Conservative international development minister has said. During Foreign Office Questions in the House of Commons Desmond Swayne, who served as a minister until this summer, asked the Government front bench for its assessment of the situation in the city. Has he walked the streets of Hebron, which Palestinians may not use? We used to call that apartheid, he asked. Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative Foreign Office minister, replied that the MPs description of the situation in the city was lucid. My honourable friend in his lucid way outlines the challenges that we face in Israel and indeed the West Bank, he said. It is important that we are able to ensure that security measures that we spoke of at the initial question are about to provide those confidence building measures so that we can bring people back to the table. I do hope this is something the American administration will want to lean into. Later in the question session Mr Ellwood also condemned Israel's plan to legalise settlement outposts which it had previously accepted were illegal under international law. Labour's shadow FCO minister Catherine West said the UK should renew its commitment to "preserving the state of Israel as a safe and stable national home for the Jewish people but also protecting the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine". Human rights groups have reported severe and deeply discriminating restrictions on Palestinians moving around the city of Hebron, with the regular closure of major streets and armed security check-points. Desmond Swayne, former International Development Minister (House of Commons) Earlier this year Philip Luther, Amnesty Internationals director in the Middle East, said that on top of decades-long restrictions on Palestinians movement in the area, new restrictions have compounded these violations and intensified the collective punishment of tens of thousands of Palestinians, in violation of international law. The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Show all 10 1 /10 The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Medics evacuate a wounded man from the scene of an attack in Jerusalem. A Palestinian rammed a vehicle into a bus stop then got out and started stabbing people before he was shot dead AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Israeli ZAKA emergency response members carry the body of an Israeli at the scene of a shooting attack in Jerusalem. A pair of Palestinian men boarded a bus in Jerusalem and began shooting and stabbing passengers, while another assailant rammed a car into a bus station before stabbing bystanders, in near-simultaneous attacks that escalated a month long wave of violence AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Getty Images The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinians throw molotov cocktail during clashes with Israeli troops near Ramallah, West Bank. Recent days have seen a series of stabbing attacks in Israel and the West Bank that have wounded several Israelis AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Women cry during the funeral of Palestinian teenager Ahmad Sharaka, 13, who was shot dead by Israeli forces during clashes at a checkpoint near Ramallah, at the family house in the Palestinian West Bank refugee camp of Jalazoun, Ramallah AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies A wounded Palestinian boy and his father hold hands at a hospital after their house was brought down by an Israeli air strike in Gaza Reuters The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinians look on after a protester is shot by Israelis soldiers during clashes at the Howara checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus EPA The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies A lawyer wearing his official robes kicks a tear gas canister back toward Israeli soldiers during a demonstration by scores of Palestinian lawyers called for by the Palestinian Bar Association in solidarity with protesters at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, near Ramallah, West Bank AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Undercover Israeli soldiers detain a Palestinian in Ramallah Reuters The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinian youth burn tyres during clashes with Israeli soldiers close to the Jewish settlement of Bet El, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, after Israel barred Palestinians from Jerusalem's Old City as tensions mounted following attacks that killed two Israelis and wounded a child Israel justifies its policies based on the security situation in the West Bank, where stabbing attacks are currently taking place. The city came under Israeli control during the Six Day War of 1967. Illegal Israeli settlements have since been built in the area. In February David Cameron said he had seen first hand illegal settlements in occupied east Jerusalem and that he had found the situation there genuinely shocking. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Proposals for Labour MPs and party members to elect at least some of Jeremy Corbyns top team are dead in the water, The Independent has been told. The flashpoint issue of elections to the Shadow Cabinet was due to be thrashed out at a Labour away day today, but has now been dropped permanently, a source says. Mr Corbyn also failed to push forward his ideas for party members to have a direct say in policymaking through digital consultations raising the likelihood that they too have been shelved. The Labour leader is said to be secure and relaxed after his thumping victory in Septembers election and with no desire to return to internal party wrangling. The well-placed source said, of Shadow Cabinet elections: It hasnt been on the agenda for weeks and it never will be. Its dead in the water. The controversy dominated Septembers Labour party conference, after MPs voted overwhelmingly to restore their power to decide who Mr Corbyn must work with. Tom Watson, Labours deputy leader, saw the idea as a way to achieve some sort of party harmony, ahead of a possible early election, saying: We have got to put the band back together. It was also seen as the only way many of Mr Corbyns fiercest critics would return to his side - with a direct mandate from their colleagues. The Labour leader then hit back, proposing that one third of Shadow Cabinet posts should be elected by the parliamentary party and another third by members, with Mr Corbyn appointing the final third. The partys ruling NEC then agreed to delay any decision on the issue until the November away day which was held today, with no discussion at all. In the meantime, Mr Corbyn put together a fresh Shadow Cabinet by appointment, but with few of the big-hitters who walked out back in the summer. Key figures including Angela Eagle, Hilary Benn, Maria Eagle, Lucy Powell and Chris Bryant remain in exile. In September, Mr Corbyn also proposed a democratic revolution that would give its hugely-inflated mass membership a role in shaping party policy. It would be modelled on the digital consultation that Labour held before last years vote on whether the party should back extending the bombing of Daesh to targets in Syria. It was suggested that Mr Corbyn wished for a new era of digital democracy that would make Labour look more like Syriza, in Greece, than the traditional party of the unions. Many Labour MPs saw it as further evidence of their leaders determination to marginalise his MPs and put power in the hands of ordinary members. Instead, Mr Corbyn has switched tack by making known that Labour is planning to move to bigger offices, hire more staff and sign up polling companies in anticipation of an early election. Theresa May has denied that there will be an election before May 2020, but could be forced to call one early if her government faces defeat in the Commons over Brexit legislation. Labour has commissioned work from the polling company BMG Research and Krow Communications, the advertising and branding agency that promotes Team GB athletes. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to the United States, has suggested it would be barking mad for the Government to appoint Nigel Farage to his former role. Speaking to The Independent Mr Meyer, the diplomat who served in the role between 1997 and 2003, also claimed the interim Ukip leader would be beholden to President-elect Donald Trump, rather than the British Government. His comments came after an unprecedented intervention by Mr Trump, who broke all diplomatic convention to claim many people want to see Mr Farage given the influential role in Washington. Both Downing Street and Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, have been forced to issue statements suggesting there is no vacancy for the influential post and expressing confidence in Sir Kim Darroch. Downing Street and Boris [Johnson] have said there is no vacancy and that Sir Kim Darroch is an excellent man. He is an excellent man I could declare an interest here, I know him quite well. Hes a first-rate ambassador, said Sir Christopher. So the notion that you can sack a first-rate ambassador to replace him with a politician who is at odds, most of the time, with Theresa May and her Government and would be beholden to Trump is barking mad. He told The Independent that the situation was most unusual, adding that he knew of no precedent where a President-elect of the United States had ever suggested to the British government that a certain candidate would be good as British ambassador. He added: Secondly, Im not aware of a President-elect or a President even suggesting privately that such a such a candidate might be good as ambassador. It is pretty uncharted territories and its quite a surprising intervention by the normal standards but by the standards of Trump, I suppose it is par for the course. Anyway, you cant have a US President, any more than any other president, suggesting to us whom we should appoint as our ambassador in the capital of the country concerned, because the first duty of any ambassador is to his or her country, to his or her own national interests. Sir Christopher said Mr Farage would be hopelessly compromised being beholden to Trump when he should be 100 per cent beholden to his own Government. However, he dismissed that the unexpected episode would be the cause of any diplomatic row between Ms May and the President-elect, adding hed be astonished if it did so. 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 He was more concerned about the precedent being set by Mr Trump. He said: The principle that a nation can appoint its own ambassador to another country without the president of that country saying, oh by the way, Id like so-and-so in the embassy it doesnt matter whether its Trump or Farage that principle, in my view, is sacred. And that is what is fundamentally at stake. I think Trump is going to give us a lot of surprises like this, simply because hes never been in Government before and he likes tweeting in the wee small hours. Asked whether it places the current ambassador in an awkward position, Sir Meyer replied: If I was in Washington I would find it a bit awkward, but the most important thing for me would be to know that behind my back the British Government were standing four-square behind me. Earlier on Tuesday MPs in the Commons mocked the suggestion by asking the Foreign Secretary to recommend Hillary Clinton, the former Democratic nominee for president, for the role. Sir Simon Burns, the Conservative MP for Chelmsford and a lifelong supporter of the US Democratic Party, poked fun at the tycoons extremely generous advice. Speaking in Foreign Office questions, he said: Although there is no vacancy, would the Foreign Secretary think this is extremely generous of Donald Trump to suggest who should be our ambassador in the United States? And in that measure of fraternity, might he suggest that the best person to fill the vacancy of the ambassador to the United Kingdom next year would be Hillary Rodham Clinton? Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Nigel Farage has made an extraordinary pitch for a role helping build relations with Donald Trump, after the President-elect broke diplomatic convention to suggest the Ukip politician be the UKs new US ambassador. Mr Farage told Downing Street to accept him because the world has changed and then chided Number 10 for being negative about his involvement. After Mr Trumps intervention, which will be deeply uncomfortable for Theresa May, the Ukip MEP said it was time Number 10 accepted he was in a good position to help. Ms Mays officials have consistently dismissed the idea of Mr Farages involvement, arguing that the Prime Minister and future president would have a Reagan/Thatcher-style connection in which there is no third person. But writing for the right-wing Breitbart website, Mr Farage said: I have said since the now famous photograph with Donald Trump ten days ago that I would do anything to help our national interest and to help cement ties with the incoming Anglophile administration. At every stage I am greeted by negative comments coming out of Downing Street. The dislike of me, UKIP, and the referendum result is more important to them than what could be good for our country. I have known several of the Trump team for years and I am in a good position with the President-elects support to help. The world has changed and its [sic] time that Downing Street did too. Mr Farage said Mr Trumps tweet, suggesting him for the post of the UKs US ambassador, came like a bolt from the blue, but that it was less of a surprise because the President-elect supports those who stand by him. Turning his guns on Ms May, he said: It is called trust and it is how the whole world of business operates. Sadly, the cesspit that is career politics understands nothing of this. In their world the concept of trust is transitory. The political revolution of 2016 now sees a new order in charge of Washington. In the United Kingdom the people have spoken but the players at the top have, I am afraid, stayed the same. Those who supported Remain now hold senior positions. Worst still, those who were openly abusive about Trump now pretend to be his friend. Boris Johnson: There's 'no vacancy' for US ambassador Both Ms May, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and other senior Tories had made disparaging comments about Mr Trump during the election campaign. But since the shock win by the US millionaire, Ms May has been criticised in the UK for her welcoming words to the President-elect, while Mr Johnson sparked an EU row by telling European leaders to stop their whinge-o-rama over Mr Trumps victory. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A Conservative MEP has said refugees are not escaping those things they want to leave behind when coming to Europe, and Britain should definitely not be accepting any more. Geoffrey Van Orden, the MEP for the East of England region, said he believed the UK had not demonstrated that it had the capabilities to give refugees a fresh chance. The 71-year-old, who is the Conservatives spokesman for Defence and Security policy at the European Parliament, told The Independent that immigration was the root of many of the difficulties across the continent. You are taking people out of a difficult area and bringing them to a country where the culture is entirely different and the language is different everything about it is entirely differently, Mr Van Orden told The Independent. The trouble is too rapidly many of them are drawn back into a culture within our country which is sustaining the problems they had before. In other words, they are not escaping those things they want to leave behind they are finding exactly the same things in parts of our own country as well. When asked if we Britain should take more refugees, Mr Van Orden, who is a former senior British Army officer, replied definitely not. We only have to look at some of the difficulties that we have in many of our societies now on the whole migration issue. We have a very long tradition of accepting genuine refugees coming from personal persecution and giving them shelter, sometimes temporary, Mr Van Orden said. What we are finding is that large numbers of people coming from cultures and societies which are not only economically very disparate but also culturally very separate. We cannot go on like that. It is the root cause of many of the difficulties that we had in many European countries at the moment and we are seeing a revolt against that, he added. 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 Mr Van Orden also told The Independent that the majority of refugees were not coming from Syria. "Theyre coming from all over the place. If we look at the world there are probably two billion people out there living in poor countries in oppressive countries and theyd all love to come in live somewhere like Europe. Clearly, that is neither possible nor desirable. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Theresa May held a meeting with Britains most senior diplomat in Washington after she was forced to reject calls to replace him by Donald Trump. The talks between Ms May and Sir Kim Darroch, who began his role as the British ambassador to the US earlier this year, came as Mr Trump broke with diplomatic conventions declaring that Nigel Farage would do a great job in the role. Downing Street was forced to stress that "as a basic principle, we appoint our ambassadors", while Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that the UK already had a "first rate" envoy in Washington. The meeting between the Prime Minister and Sir Kim Darroch was described as routine and long planned by Downing Street. Mr Johnson also praised veteran diplomat Sir Darroch who met Ms May during his visit to London telling MPs: "We have a first rate ambassador in Washington doing a very good job of relating both with the present administration and with the administration to be, and there is no vacancy for that position." And Mr Farage accused Downing Street of putting its dislike for him ahead of the national interest, saying it was time for Ms May to recognise that "the world has changed", as he claimed he was "in a good position, with the president-elect's support, to help". But, in an interview with The Independent, Sir Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador to the US, said it would be barking mad to give the role to Mr Farage. The diplomat, who served in the role between 1997 and 2003, also claimed the interim Ukip leader would be beholden to President-elect Donald Trump, rather than the British government. Downing Street and Boris [Johnson] have said there is no vacancy and that Sir Kim Darroch is an excellent man. He is an excellent man I could declare an interest here, I know him quite well. Hes a first rate ambassador, said Mr Meyer. So the notion that you can sack a first rate ambassador to replace him with a politician who is at odds, most of the time, with Theresa May and her Government and would be beholden to Trump is barking mad. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Downing Street has been forced to defend its choice of ambassador to the United States after President-elect Donald Trump suggested Nigel Farage should be given the job. Number 10 issued a statement saying there is no vacancy for the post, after Mr Trump broke all diplomatic convention to claim that many people want to see Ukip MEP Mr Farage given the influential role. The new US leaders intervention is deeply uncomfortable for Downing Street, given it has already tried to dismiss the idea of the interim Ukip leader having any diplomatic position. Mr Farage, who told The Independent he is very flattered by Mr Trumps suggestion, has already embarrassed Theresa May by becoming the first British politician to have an audience with the President-elect following his shock election win. After Mr Trumps comment, a Downing Street spokesman said: There is no vacancy. We have an excellent ambassador to the US. Mr Farage, meanwhile, was not put off by the Number 10 response and suggested he was still ready to take up any job offered that allowed him to use his connections with Mr Trump to build ties between the US and UK, adding: I said after my meeting with him in New York that I would like to help where I can. Asked if he thought Downing Street could accept him, he said: We'll have to see. Hope springs eternal. It was last night that Mr Trump took to Twitter to say: Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job! It follows embarrassment after a leaked memo written by the current US ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, said the UK was well placed to help Mr Trump evolve his more outlandish campaign pronouncements. Earlier this month, an ecstatic Mr Farage appeared in pictures with Mr Trump following their meeting in New York, before doing television interviews telling Ms May it was time to mend some fences with the US leader. Nigel Farage jokes about Donald Trump groping Theresa May After spending more than an hour with the President-elect, the interim Ukip leader urged Ms May to stop running him down and instead use his closeness to Mr Trump to put the national interest first. He also said the new US leaders team was concerned by disparaging comments made about him in London during his election campaign. The meeting came amid claims, not denied by Mr Farage, that he had spoken with Tory ministers about serving as an intermediary to try and improve relations with the new US leader. But at the time, Ms Mays official spokesperson said the Government already had well-established channels of communication with Mr Trumps team and dismissed the idea that there would be a third person in the Reagan/Thatcher-style relationship Ms May would have with Mr Trump. Ms May was also criticised in the UK for her welcoming words to Mr Trump on his election win, while Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has irked EU leaders by telling them to stop their whinge-o-rama about Mr Trumps win. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} One month away from entering his 30th year as Zimbabwes President, Robert Mugabe has fuelled speculation that he might finally be set to step down. While political analysts have long suspected Africas oldest serving head of state would die in office, Mr Mugabe appears to have finally acknowledged the growing calls for him to resign. At the age of 92, Mr Mugabe is visibly frail. Opposition elements in Zimbabwe seized on footage of his wobbly arrival last week at the COP22 UN climate summit in Marrakech, Morocco. And speaking on his return to Harare in a key speech to senior government officials and police leaders, Mr Mugabe admitted that the country was entering a period he described as regime change. The war veterans who fought for Mr Mugabe against white minority rule and for independence in 1980 have been the foundation of his support during his 36 years as the countrys leader. But as the countrys economy has deteriorated beyond all hopes of a quick recovery, the failure to pay their pensions and support widows has seen his leadership questioned even by them. Addressing the officials, Mr Mugabe said: If I am failing, let me know. I will go. Calls for the president to step aside were given new impetus in July by the former vice-president and close Mugabe ally Joice Mujuru, now having formed her own party in exile. Ms Mujuru said the president was corrupt, the country collapsing and that Mr Mugabe must resign and call for fresh elections. And while Mr Mugabes speech can be seen as a concession to his critics, there is no suggestion he will resign any time soon - despite some of the gleeful headlines the news has generated. According to his own ruling Zanu-PF party, Mr Mugabe will still contend the countrys 2018 elections. If he runs, he will most likely win, making him president until 2023 - when he would be 99 years old. According to a translation by the Africa Check web resource, Mr Mugabe said he accepted Zimbabwes leadership would have to change - but he rejected the idea of doing so on what he called British, American terms. We are in a critical time of regime change. To think that we will be toppled by whites who say we want to change the government of Zimbabwe which we fought for all these years, will we simply yield? I say no. The British [and] Americans are working hand in hand, but I think we have defeated them. So change will come in good time. If I have to retire, let me retire properly; people must sit down and discuss it cordially and not go to traditional healers such as that woman did [Ms Mujuru], leaving us and calling themselves Zimbabwe [People] First [the party Mujuru started after she was expelled from Zanu-PF by Mugabe]. Thats just not OK. If observers were looking for an indication that Mr Mugabe will change his authoritarian leadership style in the wake of his speech, there was none to be found in the news that five war veterans began their trial in Harare on Tuesday accused of undermining the presidents authority. Among those on trial are the former secretary-general and spokesman of the war veterans association, which announced in a statement in July that it was withdrawing its official backing for Mr Mugabe. All five defendants have been expelled from Zanu-PF and, if convicted, face up to 10 years in prison. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Tennessee authorities have reported at least six deaths following the crash of a school bus carrying dozens of school children. WTVC reported that 35 elementary school students had been on the bus when it crashed at approximately 3.30pm Monday afternoon. The district attorney told reporters that five children died on the bus, another died at the hospital. The Chattanooga fire department said that 23 patients had been transported to the hospital. They did not disclose the status of the remaining 17 at the hospital. Weve had a tragic event involving a school bus down in Hamilton County, said Gov Bill Haslam. Were going to do everything we can to assist in any way. Its a sad situation anytime theres a school bus with children involved, which there is in this case. The bus driver is cooperating with Chattanooga police. Parents rushed to the scene, one demanding from emergency crews to let me see my baby. Video captured the school superintendent rushing to the scene, unable to respond to reporters request for comment. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The backlash against Donald Trump from some of those who were his most ardent supporters has already began, fueled on Tuesday alone by his staking positions on climate change and Hillary Clintons emails at odds with what they were expecting. Nowhere is the anger and disappointment likely to be more intense than on the issue of Ms Clinton. Just two weeks after defeating her in a campaign that saw him declaring his determination to see her prosecuted, he was suddenly evincing unmistakable second thoughts. Recommended Trump wages his war on US media and so far it is working for him There seemed to have been just as sharp a u-turn on climate change, when, in an interview with reporters and columnists of The New York Times he said he accepted some possibility of connectivity between global warming and human activity and signaled he may after all embrace the new international treaty on emissions. Not that the left was immediately celebrating. The gyrations from Mr Trump maybe just that, with different sentiments emanating from him depending on the day of the week. It could be betrayal. It could be a president-elect who is all over the place on issues. But some saw betrayal anyway, including members of a Hillary for Prison feed on the Reddit sharing site and Twitter handle. Broken Promise, blurted Breitbart, the radical right new site that loaned its chief executive, Stephen Bannon, to be his campaign CEO and who is now slated to be chief strategy advisor to Mr Trump in the White House. Its beef: his backing off Ms Clinton and her server. It was on Twitter that the much of the fury was most evident. Among those venting was Ann Coulter, the rightwing author and commentator, who, like many others, called out Mr Trump not just for seemingly going soft on the Clintons but also taking it upon himself to tell the FBI, an independent agency, and the Justice Department what they should be doing with the case. Whoa! I thought we elected @realDonaldTrump president. Did we make him the FBI, & DOJ? His job is to pick those guys, not do their jobs, Ms Coulter said in one Tweet. That was followed by: As happy as I am that our long national nightmare's over, NO president shld be blocking investigators from doing their jobs. Their bad day began when Kellyanne Conway, now senior advisor to Mr Trump during the transition, first let Mr Trumps new thinking on Ms Clinton drop during an interview with MSNBC. If Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps thats a good thing, Ms. Conway said. It was during his conversation with the Times, that Mr Trump made clear she had not been mistaken. I don't want to hurt the Clintons; I really dont, he said. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many ways. He added that pursuing the issue was just just not something that I feel very strongly about. Mr Trump predicted his supporters would get over their disappointment because his administration would save our country in other ways. That sentiment is unlikely to mollify Judicial Watch, a right wing group that seeks to influence the countrys legal landscape. It would be a betrayal of his promise to the American people to 'drain the swamp' of out-of-control corruption in Washington, it fulminated later on Tuesday. President-elect Trump should focus on healing the broken justice system, affirm the rule of law and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton scandals. That Mr Trump was departing from his campaign promises was beyond doubt. He frequently egged on his supporters as they chanted lock her up at his rallies. At one of the debates he turned to the Democrat nominee and to her face declared: If I win I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because theres never been so many lies, so much deception. The waverings of Mr Trump began before Tuesday. Since the start of his transition, he has also emitted conflicting signals on his attitude towards Obamacare, the law on universal insurance put in place by President Barack Obama that during the campaign he vowed to overturn in its totality. He has now suggested that there are parts of the system hed like to keep. In her television interview, Ms Conway was unapologetic if some were seeing gaps between promises made on the trail and some of Mr Trumps utterances now. He is thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, she offered, and things that sound like the campaign aren't among them. A hypothetical referendum on Californias independence has a date: March 13, 2019. The probability that the plebiscite will actually take place is currently minimal, but proponents are banking on a fresh wave of support following the victory of a presidential candidate who is widely despised in California, where over six million people voted against Donald Trump. An L.A. protest against President-Elect Trump on November 12. EFE More information Registrada oficialmente la iniciativa de independencia de California On Monday, a group called Yes California officially submitted a citizen initiative to the state attorneys office. If the proposed ballot measure prospers, Californians would ultimately be asked to vote for or against secession from the United States. The initiative proposes to repeal Article III, Section 1 of the California Constitution, which currently says: The State of California is an inseparable part of the United States of America, and the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land. The proposal also seeks to add a provision to the California Elections Code, to read that on March 13, 2019, the Secretary of State shall submit a question to state voters: Should California become a free, sovereign, and independent country? Independence for California and Texas, the countrys two largest economies, has always been a vague fantasy for fringe groups The initiative states that the result of the plebiscite will be considered a declaration of independence if at least 50% of registered voters participate, and if yes wins by at least 55%. In such an event, the Governor shall carry and shepherd an application for the newly-independent Republic of California to join the United Nations. More than fantasy? Independence for California and Texas, the countrys two largest economies, has always been a vague fantasy for fringe groups. Donald Trump lost the state of California to Hillary Clinton. Reuters But Trumps recent victory could bring a Calexit closer to being a reality. On election night, an angry Silicon Valley businessman tweeted that he was ready to bankroll any such initiative. In California, the Democratic Party controls the governorship and enjoys reinforced majorities in both houses of the state capitol. Hillary Clinton beat Trump here by nearly three million votes. Yes Californias initiative will now have to be reviewed by the public and by the state, then published officially before the signature collection can begin. The group has already presented nine other initiatives in the past, but none of them secured enough signatures to make it on the ballot. This time, secessionists will have to collect 585,407 signatures in order to include the initiative on the ballot for 2018 legislative elections. If passed, this would lead to a special plebiscite in March 2019. Added traction Trumps victory could give the movement new traction. On November 14, the cities of Los Angeles and New York held the countrys largest protests against the president-elect. In L.A., tens of thousands of people occupied Wilshire Boulevard, one of the citys east-west arteries. City officials praised demonstrators. Meanwhile, state senate and assembly leaders Kevin de Leon and Anthony Rendon, both Hispanic, have pledged to do everything possible to defend migrant protection policies in California, the state with the highest number of immigrants in the US. And Governor Jerry Brown has already warned that California will not relax its policies against climate change, which are among the most stringent in the country. Ignored two years ago by voters, proponents of Calexit may be facing a more willing audience this time around. English version by Susana Urra. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trump's daughter took part in his first official conversation with Argentine president Mauricio Macri, the president said, raising further concerns over a conflict of interest. The Argentine leader said Ivanka Trump, who will run Mr Trump's business empire once he is inaugurated as president, spoke with him when he called her father to congratulate him on his victory. "In the call, I also talked with his daughter," Mr Macri told the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. "I have known her since her infant days." 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 Mr Trump has said he will keep his business and presidential interests separate by having his three children Ivanka, Donald Jr and Eric run his business interests once he is inaugurated. A report in the Argentine newspaper La Nacion quoted allegations Mr Trump used the call to ask Mr Macri for help over a stalled construction permit for a 35-storey Trump Office tower in Buenos Aires. The newspaper quoted Jorge Lanata, who hosts the weekly investigative journalism programme Periodismo para todos (Journalism for everybody) as saying: Macri called [Mr Trump]. This still hasnt emerged but Trump asked for them to authorise a building hes constructing in Buenos Aires. "It wasnt just a geopolitical chat. However a spokesman for Mr Macri denied he discussed Trump Office with the President-elect or his daughter, according to The Guardian. Donald Trump outlines his policy plans While he insists they will hold no formal posts in his administration, the President-elect has given Americans good reason to believe his adult children will continue to play an important role at his side. Official snaps of the president-elect's first meeting with a foreign leader last Thursday triggered a torrent of criticism. They show Ivanka Trump sitting in on the talks with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, while she and her businessman husband Jared Kushner can be seen chatting and laughing with the prime minister's delegation at Trump Tower. Her first televised appearance alongside the President-elect triggered a mini scandal when her company promoted a $10,800 bracelet she wore during the "60 Minutes" interview on CBS. Ivanka was also reportedly present, along with Eric and Donald Jr when Mr Trump met with three of his Indian business partners at Trump Tower, to discuss expanding his business on the subcontinent, India's Economic Times reports Additional reporting by agencies Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trump could be impeached on his first day in office due to conflicts of interest that would arise from him running the country and maintaining his business at the same time, legal experts have warned. Steven Schooner, a law professor at George Washington University, told MSNBC on Monday that because the President-elect does business in various countries, he could have an impeachment issue" because there are "foreign states basically paying money to the Trump Organisation by using their hotels. Professor Schooner said: The contract [with the General Services Administration] specifically says that no elected official of the United States government can share or benefit from the lease. Its a 60-year lease with the GSA but the language is unequivocally clear. Donald Trump outlines plans for first 100 days in office In order to open Trump International Hotel in Washington, Mr Trump entered into that contract, explained Mr Schooner, pointing to this as grounds for impeachment. The law professor added: The unequivocal message so far from the Trump Organisation is that ethics, conflicts of interest in terms of ethical behaviour just dont matter. It is not the first time law experts have warned Mr Trump that he could face breaching the constitution when he enters office with things as they stand. On Sunday two top law professors urged Mr Trump to divest from his new hotel in Washington DC after it was allegedly used to entertain and give a sales pitch to foreign diplomats, potentially violating the US constitution as soon as he enters office They warned he could be in breach of the Emoluments Clause, which prohibits presidents from buying influence with federal officials or receiving special treatment. The clause states: No person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state. During his campaign Mr Trump agreed that, if elected, he would leave his businesses to be handled by his children. In January, the businessman stated: If I become president, I couldnt care less about my company. Its peanuts. I have Ivanka, and Eric, and Don sitting there. Run the company kids, have a good time. But since his presidential victory, his children have been seen sitting in on meetings and working with his transition team, indicating there will not be "necessary separation" between the future president and his business interests. Professor Schooner added that as long as the Trump family are in ownership of the business there would not be "necessary separation", and he did "not expect the Trump Organisation to do the right thing". 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 "As long as his family is owning the family-owned business of which he is the primary share owner and beneficiary, we do not have the necessary separation that we need to expect from our chief executive and our commander-in-chief," Mr Schooner added. Theres no confidence whatsoever, so were going to have to see some important action, some difficult choices, made by government officials and by congress. "I think it would not be very difficult for GSA to do the right thing and get out of this contract before the inauguration, and as for the later issues, I think its going to take congressional action and I think the private sector is going to have to move through public interest litigation, but I don't expect the Trump Organisation to do the right thing. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Details have emerged of what a plan for a Muslim registry under Donald Trump might look like, after they were revealed - apparently accidentally - by one of his potential cabinet members. Kris Kobach is considered the front runner to head up the Department of Homeland Security when Mr Trump forms his administration in January next year. So some say it is ironic that he was photographed as he arrived for a meeting with the President-elect with a supposedly confidential strategy document visible under his arm. A cynic would call it a deliberate ploy to get attention for the "Kobach strategic plan for first 365 days", which is how the document is headed. The proposals involve restarting a post-9/11 era security programme called Nseers (the National Security Entry-Exit registration system), which meant men from certain Muslim-majority countries were subject to additional checks and monitored during their time in the country. Critics at the time said the programme was ineffective - doing nothing to make the country safer - while encouraging Islamophobia. Mr Kobach's plan also appears to include adding "extreme vetting" to Nseers. The document describes questioning Muslims "regarding support for Sharia law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution". And it proposes "reducing intake of Syrian refugees to zero, using authority under the 1980 Refugee Act". Harder to make out in the document, but still legible, was a definition of "criminal aliens" as "any alien arrested for any crime" - note, not convicted - "and any gang member". And further down it is just possible to make out the line "in addition to 386 miles of existing actual wall". It is unclear how much of the document would ultimately be endorsed by a President Trump. But the language it uses - referring to immigrants as "potential terrorists" and "high-risk aliens" - is in keeping with his stump speeches during the campaign. Speaking to the Daily Beast, Amnesty International's Naureen Shah said the slim proposals on the document would be enough on their own to cause her group to organise protests. We will create the public pressure and international community pressure to make these kinds of proposals untenable, she said. When you see that as a packageNSEERS, the so-called extreme vetting, and the shutdown of the refugee programthat package deal, to govern based on bigotry and fear-mongering about the Muslim other, is an astounding way to start." 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 Katherine Tactaquin, the executive director of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, told the Daily Beast that Mr Kobachs ideas meant going back to the post-9/11 norm. Obviously thats going to target Muslims, she said. Its another way of doing that without specifically saying, Were identifying Muslims. And Anthony Hensley, Mr Kobach's political rival as the Kansas Senate Minority Leader, was critical of the Secretary of State. He told the LA Times: Thats the height of irony if hes wanting a job in Homeland Security and youre able to see in a photograph what should be confidential information. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trump made a series of U-turns during his first meeting with the New York Times since 8 November in an attempt to air his grievances about a paper which has consistently published investigative reports on the president-elect. Mr Trump appeared to backpedal on some of his core promises to voters, such as scrapping climate change agreements with the United Nations - he said he would keep an open mind on them - his views of president Barack Obama - I like him a lot - and his promise to prosecute Hillary Clinton - I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont. Were his campaign promises all talk? As Mr Trump grapples to put together his cabinet, many of whom have displayed anti-Muslim, anti-gay or anti-women sentiment, the president-elect himself does not seem to take such a hard line view on many of the same issues - or even issues that he propagated during his own 18-month campaign. Recommended Donald Trump just completely changed his mind on climate change Millions of his supporters were energised by his pledge to investigate Ms Clinton and the alleged misuse of her personal email server, but the Republican told the Times that it was not something he felt very strongly about. I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont, Mr Trump said. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways. 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 The meeting with the paper, during which Mr Trump was described by staff as joking, evasive and in sales mode, almost did not happen. Mr Trump re-arranged the meeting on Tuesday just three hours after he cancelled it over a disagreement of the ground rules. The newspaper insisted it had never changed the terms of the on-the-record meeting with publishers, editors and reporters of the paper. Although he reportedly started the meeting by airing his list of grievances against the paper, he said he had tremendous respect for it but he thought that he had been treated very rough. Asked about the First Amendment - the right to free speech - he responded: I think youll be happy, I think youll be happy. The real estate mogul, who swept to victory thanks to the electoral college system and lost out to Ms Clinton in the popular vote by at least 1.7 million votes, he said he was never a fan of the electoral college and would have preferred to have won the popular vote. Mr Trump has already been criticised for his U-turn on Obamacare - he consistently said he would repeal and replace it - yet he said this month that he would keep certain provisions of the health care scheme in place. The comments followed his meeting with president Obama at the White House. He said he had spoken to the current president again since the 10 November meeting. I didn't know if Id like him. I probably thought that maybe I wouldnt, but I did. I really enjoyed him a lot. He said very nice things after the meeting and I said very nice things about him, he added. Donald Trump outlines plans for first 100 days in office His stance on sorting out the craziness of fighting in Syria appeared unchanged, although he offered no concrete policies on how that would be achieved. He also re-iterated his view that he disavowed and condemned white supremacists, although he did not offer any condemnation of ultra-conservative Breitbarts coverage of ethnic minorities under the editorship of his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon. "Ive known Steve Bannon a long time," responded the president-elect. "If I thought he was a racist, or alt-right, I wouldnt even think about hiring him." 'Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!' He confirmed that retired general James Mattis was a key pick for defense secretary, and he was surprised that the general was not in favour of waterboarding, unlike he and his sons. He named Jared Kushner as the top lcandidate to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians, cementing speculation that he saw his son-in-law as key within his new administration. Mr Trump said he also wanted to play a part in bringing together the two regions. "I would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians, that would be such a great achievement," he said. Despite significant softening on his core campaign promises, Mr Trump appeared unlikely to forget the papers investigative reports about him. In a parting shot, he said the paper was a "great American world jewel". "And I hope we can all get along," he said to the staff. "To me, it would be a great achievement if I could come back here in a year or two years, and have a lot of the folks here say, Youve done a great job." Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trump has fuelled growing calls for Nigel Farage to be given a senior role as a go-between for the UK and his administration, saying the Ukip leader would make a "great" US ambassador. Mr Farage has previously rejected the suggestion that he could take on one of the most prestigious roles in British diplomacy, describing himself as not "the ambassadorial type". But on Tuesday morning, the Ukip leader appeared to welcome Mr Trump's highly unusual intervention, saying he was "deeply flattered". Donald Trump outlines plans for first 100 days in office The Government strongly played down talk of giving Mr Farage such a key position. Downing Street said there was "no vacancy'' and praised Britain's incumbent ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch. A No 10 spokesman said: "There is no vacancy. We already have an excellent ambassador to the US.'' On Monday night, Mr Trump said he backed the "many" who wanted Mr Farage as ambassador. He tweeted: Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!" Mr Farage was once again a source of embarrassment for the Government when he beat Theresa May to congratulating Mr Trump on his election victory in person. The pair began working together after Mr Farage successfully campaigned for Britain to leave the EU. The Ukip leader joined Mr Trump at a rally in Jackson, Mississippi, where he was lauded as "the man behind Brexit". Following a campaign run on similar anti-establishment lines to Vote Leave, the Republican described a victory as "Brexit plus plus plus" on the eve of the vote. Days after the win the pair appeared together in a golden lift following a private meeting at the president-elect's New York residence, Trump Tower. By comparison Ms May had only spoken to Mr Trump over the phone, after reportedly waiting for a string of other leaders to congratulate the winner. No 10 later rejected suggestions Mr Farage could be the "third person" in the relationship between the PM and her US counterpart and insisted that the Government had "well-established" channels of communication. In the immediate wake of Mr Trump's election a leaked memo reportedly sent by Britain's incumbent ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, sought to reassure the Government that UK diplomats were "well placed" to capitalise on change at the White House. However Mr Farage said it was "obvious" that Sir Kim, who took over in January, should resign as he was part of the "old regime". "His world view, and the world view of the Trump team are going to be diametrically opposed and I would have thought it would be sensible to put someone there who was likely to get on with Team Trump," he told Sky News. "I don't think I will be the ambassadorial type. Whatever talents or flaws I have got I don't think diplomacy is at the top of my list of skills." Additional reporting by agencies Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} White supremacists have been filmed performing Hitler salutes and shouting hail Trump! during a speech by a leading member of the alt-right movement. Richard B Spencer, president of the far-right National Policy Institute, made numerous allusions to Nazi ideology during his half-hour speech at a conference in Washington on Saturday. Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory! he shouted as members of the audience leapt to their feet applauding, with several making prolonged Hitler salutes. No one will honour us for losing gracefully, no one mourns the great crimes committed against us. For us it is conquer or die. Mr Spencer went on to attack the mainstream media for its treatment Donald Trump. He used the slur Lugenpresse, meaning lying press in German, which was originally employed by Nazis and is gaining currency once again among the German far-right to insult reporting on the refugee crisis. It was also heard being shouted at Trump rallies, where the Republican candidate frequently attacked the press, and has become a hashtag popular among some of his supporters on social media. The press has clearly decided to double down and wage war against the legitimacy of Trump and the continued existence of white America, said Mr Spencer to more cheers. But they are really opening up the door for us. The white nationalist, who claims he coined the term alt-right, also described journalists as soulless Golem supernatural creates from Jewish folklore animated by some dark power. Richard B Spencer also called for a 50-year freeze on immigration (screen grab) Footage broadcast by The Atlantic as part of an upcoming documentary on Mr Spencer showed his followers repeatedly performing Hitler salutes during the tirade, where he claimed America was a white country [that] belongs to us. To be white is to be a striver, a crusader, an explorer and a conqueror, he continued. We dont exploit other groups, we dont gain anything from their presence. They need us and not the other way around. Within the very blood in our veins as children of the sun lies the potential for greatness. That is the great struggle were called to. Were not meant to live in shame and weakness and disgrace. We were not meant to beg for moral validation from some of the most despicable creatures to ever populate the planet. The National Policy Institutes website could not be reached on Tuesday but an archived version showed its homepage describing the organisation as dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world. 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 Its stated aim is the revival and flourishing of our people, linking with international far-right movements including the UKs Traditional Britain Group, which claims to be fighting political correctness and enforced multiculturalism. As the groups leader, Mr Spencer writes regular blogs that have called Martin Luther King a fraud and degenerate, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The anti-discrimination group said Mr Spencer calls for peaceful ethnic cleansing to halt the deconstruction of European culture, noting that he was arrested and expelled from Hungary when he attempted to hold an NPI conference in Budapest in 2014. His speech came amid controversy over groups professing support for Mr Trump, including the former head of the KKK. Responding to Mr Spencers speech and other praise by white nationalists, Bryan Lanza, a spokesperson for the transition team, told CNN: President-elect Trump has continued to denounce racism of any kind and he was elected because he will be a leader for every America. To think otherwise is a complete misrepresentation of the movement that united Americans from all backgrounds. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The cost of security protection in New York for Donald Trump is adding up to $1m (805,000) a day, it has been claimed. CNN Money reports that three unnamed city officials have said that security for the President-elect, which includes guarding the Trump Tower and protecting Mr Trumps family, is costing New York City more than a million dollars a day as it assists the Secret Service. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a press conference that the city has never had a situation where a President of the United States would be here on such a regular basis. Mayor de Blasio said that while the details of Mr Trumps future plans are as yet unknown, we certainly know that over the next 65 days he will certainly be here very regularly. Weve never had that situation before and certainly not with the focal point location being in the heart of midtown Manhattan, he told reporters. This is a very substantial undertaking. It will take substantial resources, and we will begin a conversation with the federal government shortly on reimbursement for the NYPD, for some of the costs that we are incurring. Melania Trump will not immediately be joining her husband in the Whitehouse so that their 10-year-old son Barron can finish his school year. The pair will remain in New York until that time. CBSNews reports that Trump Tower is already surrounded by roadblocks, concrete barriers and armed police, and New York police officers are assisting with the Secret Service with managing vehicle access and screening checkpoints. Donald Trump outlines plans for first 100 days in office John Miller, the NYPDs deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter-terrorism, told the broadcaster that securing the President-elects residence in New York presented an unprecedented challenge. The biggest challenge is trying to blend the two things that we have to make work as a police department: one is securing the president of the United States when hes in New York, or right now, the President-elect. And the other is, doing it on what could be a very regular basis, at what we consider practically the centre of the Earth, which is 57th Street and Fifth Avenue. City records seen by CNNMoney show that New York was reimbursed $26m (21m) in the year to 30 June for expenses relating to the security and protection of world leaders and heads of state, which amounts to around $500,000 (402,000) a week. Mayor de Blasio said this was for events such as United Nations meetings, according to the broadcaster. Well have to establish a new set of ground rules, he said. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Its a story to warm the heart and the head. An 86-year-old grandfather taught himself to knit, just so he could make dozens of woolly hats for premature babies at an Atlanta hospital. Several months ago, the Dogwood Forest assisted living facility in Acworth, Georgia, set its residents the challenge of knitting hats for infants born early. Retired engineer Ed Moseley didnt know how to knit, but for reasons of his own, he felt compelled to take part. I told my daughter about it and I said, How can I knit? what do I need to do?, Mr Moseley told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Bless her heart, she went and got a [starter loom] kit, yarn and instruction kit for me. So I started slowly and learned it just takes patience, he said. Mr Moseley started knitted while watching TV, training himself to complete a hat in about an hour. Then he offered to teach his fellow residents and staff how to make the hats, too. Eventually the facility donated more than 300 hats, of which Mr Moseley himself made 55. The hats went to the neonatal intensive care unit at Atlantas Northside Hospital, which delivers more babies than any other hospital in the US including some 2,000 premature babies per year. It is also where Mr Moseley had been undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Doug Bunt, whose newborn son Matthew was born prematurely on 12 November, told ABC News it was really nice to know that someone was thinking about the well-being of these babies... The fact this man is taking time out of his day to help the kids really means a lot to us. Mr Moseleys achievement has even inspired children at the school where his granddaughter teaches to learn knitting. He is now making caps for friends and family. I am taking orders right now, he said. As they long as they furnish the yarn, I dont charge anything. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} President-elect Donald Trump just offered a preview of his first 100 days in office. Trump appeared in a YouTube video on Monday outlining a number of policies he says his administration will seek to enact after he is inaugurated in January. The message closely resembled the pitch from his days on the campaign trail, highlighting his goals to preserve American jobs and bolster US military defenses. Here's a list of the initiatives Trump says he wants to pursue starting on Day One: Trade issue a notice of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Energy cancel what Trump described as "job-killing" restrictions on American energy production. Regulations the incoming president says he would seek to follow a simple rule: for every new regulation, eliminate two old regulations. National security Trump says he will ask the Department of Defense to develop policies that protect US infrastructure from cyberattacks and "all other forms of attacks." Immigration ask the Department of Labor to investigate abuses of visa programs that "undercut the American worker." Ethics reform institute a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the administration, and a lifetime ban on the same officials lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. Two things were missing from Trump's message any mention of a border wall that he has vowed to build between the US and Mexico, and details on his proposed alternative to the Affordable Care Act. The border wall was one of Trump's signature campaign promises and an extension of an immigration platform that sought to deport millions of people who are in the US illegally. On the Affordable Care Act better known as Obamacare Trump had promised during his campaign to "repeal and replace" the law as soon as he took office. Donald Trump appears alongside his daughter Ivanka at a ribbon cutting ceremony at the grand opening of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC on 26 October, 2016 (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) It is unclear when those initiatives might be taken up. After Trump's first meeting with President Barack Obama days after the election, Trump signaled that he may keep some Obamacare provisions in place. Additionally, Trump's promise on Monday to push for ethics reform comes at the same time his labyrinthine foreign business connections are being called into question. Last week, amid a flurry of meetings with domestic and international dignitaries, the real-estate mogul also sat down with three Indian business partners who are building a Trump-branded apartment complex near Mumbai. According to The New York Times, a Trump Organization spokeswoman described the meeting as a "courtesy call." Trump, who has grown increasingly hostile toward news organizations since he was elected, appeared to address that issue in a tweet late Monday night. He said it was "well known" that he has business dealings around the world. "Only the crooked media makes this a big deal," he wrote in the tweet. The president-elect's private business interests are widely thought to pose a conflict of interest. Read more: This chart is easy to interpret: It says we're screwed How Uber became the world's most valuable startup These 4 things could trigger the next crisis in Europe Read the original article on Business Insider UK. 2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter. Fears that Colombia could descend into the violence of the recent past have been stoked by a spate of killings in recent days of human-rights and environmental activists following agreement over a revised peace deal between the government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The government and FARC rebels are expected to sign a new peace deal this week. Ernesto Mastrascusa (EFE) More information El paramilitarismo repunta en Colombia tras el nuevo acuerdo de paz At least three people were killed over the weekend and another two seriously wounded in attacks attributed to right-wing paramilitary groups. A note left by the so-called United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and a rifle at the scene of one of this weekends murders in Caqueta, a department in the south of the country close to the border with Ecuador and Peru, contained a warning for FARC supporters. Labeled a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States, the AUC was set up in 1997 and attracted some 30,000 fighters, before it was officially disbanded in 2006. It was made up of vigilante anti-guerrilla groups and defectors of drug kingpin Pablo Escobars Medellin cartel, leaving a trail of death and terror in the wake of its drug-trafficking activities. Santos has made it clear that the revised peace deal will not be put to a popular vote A recent report by Colombian daily El Espectador said that so far this year some 70 human rights and environmental activists, as well as community leaders, have been murdered, with almost 300 others receiving death threats. Last week, the Colombian government published a revised peace deal with the FARC in a bid to build support to end a 52-year war, after the original draft was rejected last month in a referendum amid objections it was too favorable to the rebels. Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last month for his efforts to end the war, said he would first consult with the FARC leadership, but said he agreed with the revised agreement being discussed by lawmakers. In the late 1980s, more than 4,000 members of the left-wing Patriotic Union were murdered by paramilitaries. The FARC has called on President Santos to act against the latest spate of killings. This situation is dramatic and very worrying. A new genocide is underway against community leaders and peasants, says a recent statement by the FARC. So far this year some 70 community leaders have been murdered The murder of community leaders and activists, along with the death of two guerrillas last week at the hands of the armed forces, has highlighted the urgent need to sign a new peace deal in the wake of the rejection of the previous accords rejected in a referendum on October 2. Over the weekend, as news of the latest killings spread, Humberto de la Calle, the Colombian governments chief negotiator, along with the countrys high commissioner for peace, Sergio Jaramillo, both called for the peace process to be concluded as soon as possible, pointing out the danger of the FARC responding to the paramilitaries provocations. FARC representatives and the government have been holding new talks since October 2 in a bid to incorporate demands from opponents of the peace deal. Santos has made it clear that the revised agreement, which is expected to be signed this week, will not be put to a popular vote, but will be approved by Congress. A demobilization process would then see the FARC hand over its weapons within a period of 180 days. Former President Alvaro Uribe has led a campaign against the peace deals, and has already said that he does not believe the changes made to the accords since the referendum meet the demands of opponents. Uribe is backed by another former president, Andres Pastrana, who has called on Santos to put the new peace deal to a another public vote, accusing him of trying to railroad any new accord with the FARC through Congress. English version by Nick Lyne. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trumps cabinet picks are likely to include a conservative member of Congress as his top health and human services chief who has a record of excoriating Obamacare and opposing legislation to protect the gay, lesbian and transgender community. The speculation that the President-elect plans to nominate Congressman Tom Price, a Republican from Georgia, as the Health and Human Services Secretary, has sowed alarm among LGBTQ groups who are on high alert for any roll-back of progress made under President Barack Obama. The Congressman, who leads the House Budget Committee in the House, has a zero per cent rating from the Human Rights Committee, the most influential advocacy group for the LGBTQ community. His public stance against abortion has earned him a similar rating from the National Right to Life Committee. Mr Price, 62, an orthopedic surgeon, has above all, however, been a cheerleader for conservative members of the House determined to overturn Obamacare, the signature legislative achievement of President Obama, that is now threatened with slow strangulation. A close friend of Paul Ryan, the House speaker who has also made repealing Obamacare a top priority, the congressman has tabled his own bill for replacing the Mr Obamas law, which was first approved in 2010 and later upheld by the US Supreme Court. His Empowering Patients First Act would, according to a statement from his own office, offer a law that fully repeals Obamacare and starts over with patient-centred solutions, including individual health pools and expanded health savings accounts, tax credits for the purchase of coverage and lawsuit abuse reforms to reduce the costly practice of defensive medicine. Mr Price was one of a few members of Congress who was comfortable publicly supporting Mr Trump during the campaign, in a way that Mr Ryan was not. Appearing with Mr Trump at one rally, he made clear to Trump supporters that he wanted to lead the way consigning Obamacare to history. The things that we all believe about health care we want a system that is affordable for everybody, that is accessible for everybody, that is of the highest quality and provides choices for patients all of those things have been destroyed by Obamacare, he said at the rally. That is why we need Donald Trump and Mike Pence to work with us and make sure we put in place a real health solution. The fear he strikes in the LGBTQ community partly stems from is record in Congress where, for instance, he voted against bills that variously promised to end job discrimination based on sexual orientation and to enforce laws against anti-gay hate crimes. During a 2013 conference call with members of a far right group called Tea Party Unity, Mr Price reportedly agreed with a caller that it was time for Congress to study the health impact and economic impact of the homosexual agenda. The caller was Rabbi Noson Leiter, who had previously blamed Hurricane Sandy of 2012 on New York passing a gay marriage law. The consequences of activity that has been seen as outside the norm are real and must be explored completely (before) moving forward with any social legislation that would alter things, Mr Price replied, according to Right Wing Watch. Im always struck by people who wake up one morning and think that theyve got a grand new way of doing something when as you all know that the tried and true traditions in history that made us great are preserved and have survived because they are effective. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The US Holocaust Memorial Museum has taken the unusual step of issuing a statement saying it is deeply alarmed by the rhetoric of white supremacist supporters of Donald Trump. Newly-released footage from a meeting of the far-right National Policy Institute in Washington DC on Saturday showed the organisations president, Richard Spencer, making salutes while praising the new US President-elect. Mr Spencer told a crowd of around 200 supporters: "Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory! America was until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us. He attacked the black political machines and claimed Hillary Clinton supporters consisted of mutually hostile tribes only united by a hatred of whitey that is to say, out of a hatred of us. Mr Spencer also claimed in the footage - released by The Atlantic - that the US media had been critical of Mr Trump in order to protect Jewish interests. He said: "One wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem". The reference relates to a Jewish story about the golem, a clay giant that is brought to life to protect Jews. Mr Spencer also reffered to journalists in the original German as "lugenpresse" a term used by Hitlers followers to attack parts of the media seen as disloyal to the Nazis aims. 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 Following the event, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum released a statement saying it was deeply alarmed at the hateful rhetoric at a conference of white nationalists held on November 19just blocks from the Museum. It said: The targeting of Jews was central to Nazi racist ideology. The Germans attempted to kill every Jewish man, woman and child they could find. Nazi racism extended to other groups. The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words. The Museum calls on all American citizens, our religious and civic leaders, and the leadership of all branches of the government to confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a living memorial to the Holocaust, inspires citizens and leaders to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. The election of Mr Trump has raised fears about a rise in support for far-right groups, sometimes referred to as the alt right. Mr Trumps new chief strategist, Mike Bannon, previously edited Breibart News the fari-rights main news outlet. Mr Bannon, who has himeslf been accused of anti-Semitism, has publicly condemned racism and said he was only an economic nationalist. A spokesman for Mr Trump said: President-elect Trump has continued to denounce racism of any kind and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American. To think otherwise is a complete misrepresentation of the movement that united Americans from all backgrounds. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Japan has deployed troops to South Sudan in their first overseas deployment since the end of World War II. Tokyo sent 350 soldiers to the UN mission in South Sudan, where they will help build infrastructure in the capital, Juba. For the first time since the country adopted a pacifist stance more than 70 years ago, the peacekeepers will have the ability to use force to protect civilians, UN staff and themselves. There are also plans for them to guard UN bases, which have been attacked during the country's civil war. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Japan's constitution, drafted under US direction after the war, forbids the use of force in settling international disputes, but the government has reinterpreted the constitution to allow Japanese troops to use force in some situations. Approved by the Japanese legislature in 2015, the expanded capacity to use force was opposed by some in Japan who feared that it could entangle the country's military in an overseas conflict and were concerned it violates Japan's anti-war constitution. However, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe argued that the broader military powers give Japan the ability to respond to growing threats, including China's growing military assertiveness and North Korea's nuclear ambitions. South Sudan agrees to more UN troops South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011 a development greeted at the time with mass celebrations in the oil-producing state. Aid agencies and world powers promised support, but fighting, mostly along ethnic lines, erupted in 2013 after President Salva Kiir sacked his longtime political rival Riek Machar from the post of vice president. A peace deal, agreed under intense international pressure and the threat of sanctions, brought Mr Machar back to the capital in April, but he fled after more clashes and the violence has continued. Additional reporting by agencies For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Two people died from rare "thunderstorm asthma" while waiting for ambulances to arrive in Melbourne, Australia on Monday, after hundreds of city residents became ill. 1,870 people phoned paramedics because they were experiencing breathing difficulties, triggered by an extremely high level of rye grass pollen in the air, whipped up by strong winds. Ambulance Victoria took six times more calls than the daily average between 6pm and 11pm local time on Monday. At least 30 people remain in intensive care. The state of Victoria government has promised to conduct a full investigation into the deaths. Health Minister Jill Hennessy said Ambulance Victoria would be reviewing the incident, which pushed it and hospitals beyond capacity. Therell no doubt be a full review of what occurred last night and what the clinical outcomes were as a result, she told local media. No doubt, there will be lessons to learn, there always are in these cases, but every part of our emergency management surge occurred correctly." Ms Hennessy added that the crisis was so severe private hospitals had been forced to open their doors to the public. It was extraordinarily busy, it was unprecedented, Mick Stephenson, Ambulance Victoria's executive director of emergency operations, told the BBC. He said about 200 calls were directly linked to asthma, but 600 more reported respiratory issues. What we do know is that a lot of people who called last night had never had asthma before, so this was their first experience, he said. One of those killed by the freak weather event was named by her family as 20-year-old Hope Carnevali. Local media said the young woman had suffered a horrific asthma attack, and lay on her lawn for more than 30 minutes waiting for an ambulance to arrive, while her family desperately performed CPR. Eighteen-year-old Omar Moujalled, a high school student, died at a doctor's surgery before he could reach hospital. A spokesman for Ambulance Victoria said: Our thoughts are with the families of those patients. We will carry out a full clinical review into these cases. The incident occurred on one of Australia's hottest November days. At 8am the temperature had already hit 26 degrees, rising to 35 degrees in the afternoon before the storm hit. By Tuesday the weather had dropped to a dramatic 18 degrees cooler, providing relief to residents who described it as typically Melbourne, local media reported. About one in 10 people have asthma in Australia, with about 80 per cent of those sufferers experiencing allergies, particularly to rye pollen. Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Show all 30 1 /30 Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape New Brighton A miniature sandstorm whipped up unusually high winds blows across the breakwater next to the Perch Rock lighthouse in New Brighton Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Weston-Super-Mare Rain clouds gather above the big wheel on the seafront in Weston-Super-Mare Getty Images Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Weymouth Visitors to Weymouth beach spend time in the sunny weather Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape London The Palace of Westminster shrouded in fog early this morning PA Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape London Lightning flashes in the night sky over South London Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape East Renfrewshire A springtime rainbow near to Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape London A girl carries a 'Keep calm it's raining' umbrella on Westminster Bridge Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Scotland Northern lights in Aberdeen Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Southend-on-Sea Kite surfers make the most of sunny weather and strong winds off Shoeburyness, Southend-on-Sea Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape UK Newhaven lighthouse is battered by waves as high winds from the lastest winter storm continue in Newhaven on the south coast of England Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Somerset Mist lingers around Glastonbury Getty Images Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape North Yorkshire Moors Snow covered sheep huddle together on moorland as heavy snow falls on the North Yorkshire Moors near Castleton Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Cornwall Storm waves crash over the Longships Lighthouse just off Lands End in Cornwall Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Edinburgh Perfect weather brought lots of people out to the East Meadow Park to enjoy picnics, barbecues, ball games, music and chat Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape London London's rainy day Alamy Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Liverpool A rainbow over the Liverpool waterfront Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Scotland Largs promenade is battered by winds in Largs Getty Images Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Tewkesbury The Tewkesbury Abbey is seen surrounded by flood water Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Bath Snow covers trees in the Parade Gardens in Bath Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Surrey Thorpe Park in Surrey sits in flood water Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape London Sunrise in the City of London GETTY IMAGES Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Scotland A train passes along the coast at Saltcoats, as a combination of high tides, heavy rains and strong winds brought severe flooding to many parts of the country PA Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Egham A police officer looks on as a British solider helps a tree surgeon remove a fallen tree in Egham, west of London after high winds brought by a winter storm battered southern England Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Charmouth Beach The rainbow appears to pass in front of the distant Golden Cap, the highest point on England's south coast Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Brighton People relax in deck chairs during the hot weather on Brighton beach AFP Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Wateringbury Flooded property is seen in Wateringbury, southern England Reuters Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Poole Harbour Lightning strikes over Poole Harbour during a thunderstorm in Poole Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Whitley Bay Northern lights at St. Mary's Lighthouse and Visitor Centre, Whitley Bay, North Tyneside Owen Humphreys/PA Wire Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Somerset A policeman on a boat looks at a car submerged on the side of a flooded road leading into the cut-off village of Muchelney Weather in Britain: Stunning images show off beauty of British landscape Princetown Children make their way to school in Princetown, Dartmoor, as the winter weather hits UK PA When saturated in rain, the pollen breaks down into smaller particles which become easier to inhale and trigger an asthma attack. A person who has an allergic response to that particular pollen, because it's so small, it will get into the lungs, Asthma Victoria chief Robin Ould told the BBC. He said Monday's rye particle count of 102 was more than double what would be considered high on a normal day. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The EU's most senior Brexit negotiator has launched an extraordinary attack on Donald Trump, branding him an autocrat who wants to destroy Europe. Guy Verhofstadt said President-elect Trump was one of a ring of autocrats alongside Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan who threatened to encircle the continent, during a debate on EU and Turkey relations. Not only do they like each other, they also have one thing in common, Mr Verhofstadt said. Bashing and destroying our way of thinking, our values, our European liberal democracy. He went on to attack Mr Trump's appointment as chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Mr Bannon is the self-styled leader of America's alt-right. He was one of the masterminds behind the Breitbart News website, which is considered the mainstream online home of modern white nationalism. He has previously faced accusations of racism and anti-Semitism. Trump's strategic adviser Bannon wants to launch his extreme-right website Breitbart in Paris and Berlin to undermine French and German elections, Mr Verhofstadt continued. The former Belgian Prime Minister also referred to Mr Trumps recent comments suggesting Nigel Farage should be appointed Britain's ambassador to the US. Mr Trump said he would do a great job and that many people wanted to see Mr Farage take the role. Trump wants to play Her Majesty the Queen by appointing the British ambassadors, Mr Verhofstadt said. So if Mr Farage was here, I would ask him is this taking back control? I think one clown in Washington is more than enough. Mr Verhofstadt also warned of a fifth column, active in Europe and made up of cronies of Mr Erdogan, Mr Putin and Mr Trump who he said were undermining Europe from within. He described them as old puppets of Putin and the new puppets of Trump as he called on the continent to fight back. 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 Mr Verhofstadt's speech came after he met David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, in Strasbourg, to discuss Britains withdrawal from the EU. There was frustration at the European Parliament over the lack of clear information coming from the Government as Mr Verhofstadt said an agreement needed to be found ahead of the 2019 European elections. After his talks with Mr Davis, the Belgian MEP said Brexit could not mean enjoying the benefits of EU membership but imposing curbs on migration. It is impossible to find solutions where we destroy the so-called four freedoms. These four freedoms are key, they are a basic element of the European Union: the freedom of movement of goods, of services, of capital and of people, he said. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The European Parliament has backed plans to create a defence union which will secure structured cooperation between nations as well as a new EU military operational headquarters. Lawmakers at the European Parliament voted 369-255 in favour of the proposals, which also calls for greater spending by nations on defence. Although the vote is not legally binding it does represent support for the proposition before the European Council meets in December to discuss Europes defence capabilities. Urmas Paet, the former foreign minister of Estonia, drafted the report and told The Independent he was glad Parliament had made a clear statement on how European defence should now develop. There are more and more risks to Europe related to terrorism, Russia, the Middle East and North and Central Africa, Mr Paet said. [Currently] if there is some crisis emerging and you need to move military personnel and equipment from one European country to another, then it will take days or even weeks to get all the approvals. It is a very bureaucratic process and we all understand that when it is a crisis there is no time to wait for this kind of stuff. The plan was proposed in September by France and Germany but some have argued that the new European Defence Union would be a threat to Nato. Geoffrey Van Orden, the Conservatives European defence and military spokesman, argued strongly against the proposals. You cant have the European Union trying to hijack what is essentially a Nato requirement. You have to separate the requirements for member states, in other words European allies, to spend two per cent of their GDP on defence, which has precious little to do with the EUs ambitions, Mr Van Orden told The Independent. The ambitions have been heightened for the creation of a European Defence Union and call it by whatever name you like, some sort of European army. Although they deny thats what they want; but it is a European army in everything but the name. Mr Orden also added that the motivation behind the proposal was to create further political integration and for the EU to act as some sort of actor on the world stage. 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 Mr Paet rejected this notion and said his proposals would strengthen the capabilities of Nato. Everything the EU does must go hand in hand with Nato. Some say it will weaken Nato but vice versa, we should do this in close coordination with Nato ...Twenty-two EU member states are also Nato members. If they increase their defence budgets, it also automatically means more money for Nato, the Estonian MEP told The Independent. Mr Paet was also very strong in denouncing the idea that this represented a new European army. If Nato is there and functional, I dont think so. If you have this [European] army of 28 nations, there will be other problems. Cultural backgrounds and historical backgrounds and so on, Mr Paet said. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Following the conclusion of World War II, Germany embarked on an initiative to rid their society, culture and politics of any remains of Adolf Hitler's Nazi ideology. However, researchers have said words belonging to the years of the Third Reich are increasingly being used by German politicians and members of the public to criticise their government's response to the refugee crisis. The increase in the use of Nazi terminology comes amid an unprecedented rise in the number of attacks on asylum seekers and refugee accommodation. Recommended Refugee crisis sparks record year for political violence in Germany Attacks on asylum seekers' accommodation increased more than fivefold from 2014 to 2015, according to national crime statistics released by interior minister Thomas de Maiziere. Crimes targeting the homes of asylum-seekers also swelled, quadrupling to 1,031, including four attempted murders, eight explosives offences, 60 assaults and 94 arsons. The authorities also recorded crimes of vandalism, such as the spraying of swastikas and neo-Nazi slogans on refugee accommodation. Previously taboo words which echo the ideas of racial purity held by the Nazis have begun to reemerge in German political discourse, and have been turned towards refugees and asylum seekers in particular. Anti-Islam movement PEGIDA stages protests across Europe Researchers have seen an increased use of Nazi terminology by politicians and members of the public, Josefin Graef, final year doctoral researcher at the Institute for German Studies at the University of Birmingham, told The Independent. She cited the example of the chairwoman of the Alternative For Germany (AFD) party, Frauke Petry, using the word "Volkisch" ("ethnic"), which was used by the Nazis to describe those they saw as belonging to the superior German race. Ms Petry said the term should not be seen in a purely negative sense and should instead carry positive connotations because it is linked to the world "Volk" ("people"), hinting she did not want the term to be seen as the equivalent as "racist". Her claim was met by outrage by other parties and the media, who argued the term was key to Nazi ideology and stands for a policy of exclusion towards those perceived as "non-German" - in this instance refugees and asylum seekers. A Pegida march in Cologne in January attracted 1,700 people (Getty Images) The term "Volksverrater" ("Traitor of the people") is increasingly heard during anti-refugee protests such as those held by the anti-Islam Pegida movement, Ms Graef added. The phrase has been used to denounce Angela Merkel and ministers from her Christian Democratic Union for allowing 890,000 asylum-seekers to settle in Germany over the last year. Pegida have also referred to the media as "Lugenpresse" ("lying press"), a disparaging term used by Adolf Hitler to discount negative reports in the media. The expression was also used by supporters of Donald Trump to attack the media in America during his campaign to become president of the United States. The use of Nazi terminology can also be seen as a response to political differences between the main German parties in recent years, Ms Graef said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel paused for a selfie with a refugee after she visited the AWO Refugium Askanierring shelter in Berlin, Germany, on 10 September, 2015 (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) Many were critical of Angela Merkel's "we can do it" slogan in response to the refugee crisis, questioning the government about how many refugees it intended to accept and how they would be integrated within German society. More than 20,000 refugees have arrived in Germany so far this year. As such, many see the refugee crisis as an opportunity to challenge the political status quo in Germany ahead of the next general election in 2017. "Provocation is easily achieved with the use of Nazi terminology," Ms Graef said. Doctor Alim Baluch, a teaching fellow in German Politics and Society at Bath University, told The Independent that many Germans are unaware they are using sayings belonging to Germany's Nazi past. He said words such as "Abartig" (which approximately translates to "abnormal and disgusting") and the prefix Volks- are a throwback to the time of the Third Reich. Refugee crisis - in pictures Show all 27 1 /27 Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugee crisis - in pictures A child looks through the fence at the Moria detention camp for migrants and refugees at the island of Lesbos on May 24, 2016. AFP/Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Ahmad Zarour, 32, from Syria, reacts after his rescue by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi, Dodecanese, southeastern Agean Sea Refugee crisis - in pictures Syrian migrants holding life vests gather onto a pebble beach in the Yesil liman district of Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, after being stopped by Turkish police in their attempt to reach the Greek island of Lesbos on 29 January 2016. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees flash the 'V for victory' sign during a demonstration as they block the Greek-Macedonian border Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants have been braving sub zero temperatures as they cross the border from Macedonia into Serbia. Refugee crisis - in pictures A sinking boat is seen behind a Turkish gendarme off the coast of Canakkale's Bademli district on January 30, 2016. At least 33 migrants drowned on January 30 when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea while trying to cross from Turkey to Greece. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A general view of a shelter for migrants inside a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, Germany Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees protest behind a fence against restrictions limiting passage at the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Since last week, Macedonia has restricted passage to northern Europe to only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who are considered war refugees. All other nationalities are deemed economic migrants and told to turn back. Macedonia has finished building a fence on its frontier with Greece becoming the latest country in Europe to build a border barrier aimed at checking the flow of refugees Refugee crisis - in pictures A father and his child wait after being caught by Turkish gendarme on 27 January 2016 at Canakkale's Kucukkuyu district Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants make hand signals as they arrive into the southern Spanish port of Malaga on 27 January, 2016 after an inflatable boat carrying 55 Africans, seven of them women and six chidren, was rescued by the Spanish coast guard off the Spanish coast. Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee holds two children as dozens arrive on an overcrowded boat on the Greek island of Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures A child, covered by emergency blankets, reacts as she arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek island of Lesbos, At least five migrants including three children, died after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek coastguard said Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants wait under outside the Moria registration camp on the Lesbos. Over 400,000 people have landed on Greek islands from neighbouring Turkey since the beginning of the year Refugee crisis - in pictures The bodies of Christian refugees are buried separately from Muslim refugees at the Agios Panteleimonas cemetery in Mytilene, Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures Macedonian police officers control a crowd of refugees as they prepare to enter a camp after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee tries to force the entry to a camp as Macedonian police officers control a crowd after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees are seen aboard a Turkish fishing boat as they arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos Reuters Refugee crisis - in pictures An elderly woman sings a lullaby to baby on a beach after arriving with other refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A man collapses as refugees make land from an overloaded rubber dinghy after crossing the Aegean see from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures A girl reacts as refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees make a show of hands as they queue after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures People help a wheelchair user board a train with others, heading towards Serbia, at the transit camp for refugees near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija AP Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees board a train, after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers - many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia - entering the country every day Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures An aerial picture shows the "New Jungle" refugee camp where some 3,500 people live while they attempt to enter Britain, near the port of Calais, northern France Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A Syrian girl reacts as she helped by a volunteer upon her arrival from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean Sea EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Beds ready for use for migrants and refugees are prepared at a processing center on January 27, 2016 in Passau, Germany. The flow of migrants arriving in Passau has dropped to between 500 and 1,000 per day, down significantly from last November, when in the same region up to 6,000 migrants were arriving daily. Dr Baluch cited two particular examples of the use of Nazi terminology, which he described as "imbued with pseudo-biological concepts which imply a scientific rationale for treating people differently based on their race or physical appearance". In the first, Bettina Kudla, MP for Ms Merkel's CDU, used the phrase "Umvolkung" when criticising Germany's immigration policy on Twitter, a term referring to Hitler's idea of ethnic cleansing. Ms Kudla was using the term to suggest ethnic Germans were being ethnically cleansed by immigrants, Dr Baluch said. She later deleted the tweet. In another, Bjorn Hocke, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) chairman for the state of Thuringia, claimed Africans had a "fundamentally different type of reproduction" in contrast to Europeans. Dr Baluch said Mr Hocke had used terms typically assigned by biologists to different species in order to suggest Africans have a higher birth rate compared to Europeans. Similar rhetoric and attitudes can be found across Europe, Dr Baluch and Ms Graef added, and are becoming part of the political mainstream in France, Austria, Denmark, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Two women from Qatar have been robbed of valuables worth at least 5m (4.3m) after their car was held up on a motorway in Paris. Police sources told the AFP news agency the sisters had just left Le Bourget Airport when their Bentley was stopped by two masked men, who sprayed them with tear gas and stole "everything in the vehicle", including jewellery, clothes and luggage. Both victims are in their sixties, French broadcaster BFMTV reported, saying their driver was forced to stop at a service station on the A1 motorway. The heist came weeks after American reality star Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in the French capital. A spokesperson said she was tied up and locked in her bathroom while five robbers ransacked the hotel suite where she was staying last month, escaping with valuable jewellery. Mallika Sherawat, a Bollywood actress, was also tear-gassed and beaten during another attack earlier this month. Monday's robbery was not the first time cars have been targeted near Le Bourget. Last month, a taxi transporting the chief executive of a French company was held up after leaving the airport, with three robbers making off with an estimated 100,000 (85,000) in valuables. A Korean art collector was the target of a similar heist last year, with three attackers snatching 4m (3.42m) in jewels from her car. 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 A convoy was transporting a Saudi prince there for a flight in August 2014 when it was ambushed, with thieves getting away with a quarter of a million euros in cash and "sensitive" diplomatic documents. Le Bourget, which hosts the Paris Air Show, is not used by large commercial carriers and hosts only private flights, making it a frequent choice for international politicians and celebrities. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} As right-wing politicians across Europe call for economic migrants to be deported or even left to drown in the Mediterranean Sea, analysts say the term is divorced from the harrowing reality faced by many of the men, women and children risking their lives to reach safety. The passage from Libya to Italy, the deadliest crossing in the world, is now the dominant route after the controversial EU-Turkey deal aimed to close the comparatively safer and shorter path over the Aegean Sea. Libya has been a draw for people seeking work across Africa for decades and the prospect of high wages and abundant construction work is still luring migrants unaware of the chaos and violence that awaits. Over five years after Britain and allies mounted a military intervention against Muammar Gaddafi, the country remains divided between a fragile government, Isis and more than 1,700 separate armed groups battling for control. Desperate journeys: Rescued at sea, refugees detail abuse in Libya Migrants and refugees are frequently kidnapped by gangs in exchange for ransoms, being beaten, raped and tortured in squalid makeshift prisons, while others are detained in labour camps or forced into prostitution until they pay their way out. With routes out of Libya controlled by militias and many borders closed, the only escape is flimsy rubber boats sent into the Mediterranean Sea by smugglers, who threaten to shoot anyone attempting to resist being packed into the overcrowded dinghies. Earlier this month, The Independent joined the largest humanitarian ship in the Mediterranean to observe its search and rescue operations as hundreds of flimsy dinghies continue to be launched from the Libyan coast. Of the 868 migrants and refugees taken aboard the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Bourbon Argos in just 10 hours of rescues, many said they had not set out to start a new life in Europe. Diomande Habib, a 26-year-old man from the Ivory Coast, told how he was working in Gabon when he heard about opportunities in Libya. My friend said there used to be a war there but now its a country under construction, so I thought I could go there and get a good job, he told The Independent. Mr Habib paid a smuggler 150,000 CFA francs (200) to drive him eight days through the desert to reach what he thought was a land of opportunity, but was kidnapped and imprisoned soon after his arrival in November 2015. We would go three days without food and then they would give us a piece of bread to share and some water, he recalled. They beat us, they beat us all the time. In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Show all 7 1 /7 In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby being taken on to MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos all images by Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby among refugees on a boat carrying 185 people off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Migrants and refugees sleeping after being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos ship Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A crew from MSF's Bourbon Argos ship rescuing a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya, at sunrise Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A woman in a stretcher being lifted onto MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden Mr Habib does not know who the gang who detained him were, describing them as bandits, who demanded a 200,000 CFA (265) ransom in exchange for his freedom. He called his family but the money never came. After three months he was freed when a rival militia broke into the prison during battles, releasing the hostages, and he walked to Tripoli where he was finally able to meet a friend and get a job. But Mr Habibs trials were not over. His new employer did not pay him for his labour and when Mr Habib demanded the agreed amount, he said the man threatened to kill him. Seeing no way back to Gabon or his home country, he boarded a smugglers boat into the Mediterranean. Among the other rescued migrants on the boat was Ali Ibrahim Salman, a Syrian man who moved to Libya for work in the 1990s. When the revolution that would lead to the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi and civil war started in 2011, he returned to Syria with his family, only for battles between Islamist rebels and government troops to later reach his hometown in Hama province. I went back to Syria but it was too dangerous to stay, he told The Independent. My baby was killed. He was in the bedroom when the Islamists fired a shell. The shrapnel flew through the window and he died. Mr Salman is planning to join relatives in Sweden and later be joined by his family, but hopes one day to return home. The majority of asylum seekers The Independent met on the Bourbon Argos did not know or care where they were going, overcome by relief escaping Libya. Not one person interviewed intended to come to the UK. Ali Ibrahim Salman, a 51-year-old Syrian man, on board MSFs rescue ship the Bourbon Argos (Lizzie Dearden) I dont care where I go, said Didi, a 33-year-old Nigerian woman. Anywhere as long as we are safe. She left her home country on her own to find work, being smuggled out of the country inside a cattle lorry and later being forced to labour on a lime farm and kept in a prison in Libya before being able to board a boat into the Mediterranean. Not everyone wants to go to Europe, she said. Some of them want to go home, but theres no way back. Refugees who have survived labour camps have given horrific accounts of beatings and torture, including gang rape, as well as disease and starvation killing detainees who face death if they attempt to escape. One of the men taken aboard the Bourbon Argos on a stretcher had a bullet wound in his leg that had fractured the bone in two places. He was shot just six days before the rescue while trying to flee a detention centre, narrowly escaping with his life. Leaving Libya via land is not considered an option, with widespread reports of border guards and militias shooting those trying to get out, even setting one man attempting to leave on fire, and gangs stealing passports and documents to make legal travel impossible. Analysts say the desperate situation is making attempts to separate economic migrants from refugees increasingly obsolete as those who originally have set out for work become victims of violence and persecution. Marta Foresti, interim executive director of the Overseas Development Institute, said the situation was additionally complicated by changing decisions on routes to Europe that can take months or even years. The idea that migrants and refugees leave their homes to journey to Europe is not the majority, she told The Independent. Migrants sleeping on the MSF Bourbon Argos after being rescued off the coast of Libya (Lizzie Dearden) People who gain vulnerability because of the journey itself get trapped by this increasingly negative label of economic migrants. The whole idea about these two categories of refugees and migrants is becoming increasingly unhelpful most people arriving are something of a mix between the two. There is no legal definition of an economic migrant but the increasingly pejorative term has become linked to people arriving from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, rather than workers from more affluent countries in Europe and the US. Right-wing parties and groups across Europe have called for those arriving to be deported, or for rescue missions in the Mediterranean to stop in the belief it will discourage those risking their lives to flee Libya. Czech President Milos Zeman said he was for the deportation of all economic migrants last month, suggesting they could be relocated to empty places in North Africa or uninhabited Greek islands. Of course I respect the cruelty of civil war in Syria, Iraq, and so on, he said. But we do not speak about those people, we speak about economic migrants. In efforts to distinguish supposedly real refugees, countries such as Macedonia have shut their borders to selected nationalities in spite of UN warnings over possible violations of the 1951 refugee convention, while nations across Europe have been increasing restrictions. Now the dominant route to Europe, the passage between Libya and Italy has become the deadliest in the world, claiming the vast majority of almost 4,700 lives lost in attempted sea crossings so far this year. The death rate in the Mediterranean Sea is the highest ever recorded, with hundreds of migrants drowning in a succession of disasters last week alone, as boats continue to be launched in worsening winter weather. Around a quarter of almost 345,000 migrants and refugees to have arrived on Europes shores this year are Syrian, followed by Afghans, Nigerians, Iraqis, Eritreans and other nationalities, with 55 per cent men, 18 per cent women and 27 per cent children. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A growing number of migrants reaching Europe did not set out with the intention of coming to the continent; research has shown as hundreds of refugees continue to drown in the Mediterranean Sea. A survey by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) found that almost 60 per cent of migrants in Libya intended the oil-rich country to be their final destination, with less than a third of almost 2,000 interviewed wanting to travel onwards to Italy, France and Germany. Chaos and violence reigns in Libya, more than five years after Britain and allies mounted a military intervention against Muammar Gaddafi, leaving the country divided between a fragile government, Isis and more than 1,700 separate armed groups all locked a bloody contest for control. Migrants and refugees are frequently kidnapped by gangs in exchange for ransoms, being beaten and tortured in squalid makeshift prisons, while others are detained in labour camps or forced into prostitution until they pay their way out. Desperate journeys: Rescued at sea, refugees detail abuse in Libya With routes out of Libya controlled by militias and many borders closed, the only escape is flimsy rubber boats sent into the Mediterranean Sea by smugglers who threaten to shoot anyone attempting to resist being packed into the overcrowded dinghies. Flavio di Giacomo, an IOM spokesman in Italy, said the proportion of migrants arriving in Europe who say they never intended to reach the continent has increased dramatically since last year. Growing numbers of migrants are telling us that they didnt want to come to Europe when they left their home countries but got caught up in the violence and fighting and torture in Libya, he told The Independent. They dont have any choice to save their lives other than to get a boat to Europe. Some left their homes because they were fleeing conflict, the regime or persecution, but even economic migrants in Libya become vulnerable because they are all victims of human rights abuses. Now the dominant route to Europe, the passage between Libya and Italy has become the deadliest in the world, claiming the vast majority of almost 4,700 lives lost in attempted sea crossings so far this year. The death rate in the Mediterranean Sea is the highest ever recorded, with hundreds of migrants drowning in a succession of disasters last week alone, as boats continue to be launched in worsening winter weather. Some of the migrants arriving [last week] told us they didnt want to leave because of the conditions and they were forced by the smugglers, Mr di Giacomo added. Its clear that they dont really care if the migrants survive or not but launching the boats in these conditions, it is likely they will die, so its very cruel. Rescuers are carrying out an outstanding job but its impossible to save them all in these conditions. In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Show all 7 1 /7 In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby being taken on to MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos all images by Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby among refugees on a boat carrying 185 people off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Migrants and refugees sleeping after being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos ship Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A crew from MSF's Bourbon Argos ship rescuing a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya, at sunrise Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A woman in a stretcher being lifted onto MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden Earlier this month, The Independent joined the largest humanitarian ship in the Mediterranean to observe its search and rescue operations as hundreds of flimsy dinghies continue to be launched from the Libyan coast. Of the 868 migrants and refugees taken aboard the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Bourbon Argos in just 10 hours of rescues, many said they had not set out to start a new life in Europe. Recommended The stories of the refugees rescued from the Mediterranean The majority of asylum seekers The Independent met did not know or care where they were going, overcome by relief over escaping Libya. Not one person interviewed intended to come to the UK. Not everyone wants to go to Europe, said Didi, a 33-year-old Nigerian woman. Some of them want to go home, but theres no way back. Refugees who have survived labour camps have given horrific accounts of beatings and torture including gang rape, as well as disease and starvation killing detainees who face death if they attempt to escape. One of the men taken aboard the Bourbon Argos had a bullet wound in his leg that had fractured the bone in two places. He was shot just six days before the rescue while trying to flee a detention centre, narrowly escaping with his life. Leaving Libya via land is not considered an option, with widespread reports of border guards and militias shooting those trying to get out, and gangs stealing passports and documents to make legal travel impossible. A Nigerian woman told researchers from the Unravelling the Mediterranean Migration Crisis (Medmig) project she saw a border guard pour petrol on a migrant and set him on fire, adding: You cannot get out of Libya alive. You have to give your money to someone and hope they will take you. They tell you, you must take the boat. Analysts say the desperate situation is making attempts to separate economic migrants from refugees increasingly obsolete as those who originally have set out for work become victims of violence and persecution. Refugees struggle not to drown as they wait to be rescued in the Mediterranean on 4 October 2016 (AFP/Getty Images) Marta Foresti, interim executive director of the Overseas Development Institute, said the situation was further complicated by changing decisions on routes to Europe that can take months or even years. The idea that migrants and refugees leave their homes to journey to Europe is not the majority, she told The Independent. Recommended European leaders blamed for record high deaths in the Mediterranean People who gain vulnerability because of the journey itself get trapped by this increasingly negative label of economic migrants. The whole idea about these two categories of refugees and migrants is becoming increasingly unhelpful most people arriving are something of a mix between the two. Those being pushed out of Libya are mainly from African countries including Nigeria, Eritrea and Guinea, but a similar pattern has been seen with asylum seekers crossing from Greece, who say they remain at risk from persecution in the worlds largest refugee-hosting countries including Turkey and Lebanon. But with the route over the Aegean Sea virtually closed by the controversial EU-Turkey deal struck in March, the dominant route is now the Central Mediterranean, and through Libya. Tim Eaton, a research fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, said the situation was unlikely to get better in the short term and could soon get worse. Libyas new Government of National Accord is still not recognised by some of the countrys most powerful forces who still control swathes of territory, he said, as sporadic battles continue between an estimated 1,700 different armed groups. Major pro and anti-government militias are due to come into contact when Isis is driven out of its stronghold of Sirte, potentially triggering a new phase of the civil war within weeks. Libyan forces are trying to dislodge Isis from Sirte (Goran Tomasevi/Reuters) Each of the blocs feels that they can continue to fight and win, so while that continues theres no chance of a deal, Mr Eaton said, saying a lack of planning by a Nato-led coalition that launched air strikes in support of Libyan rebels in 2011 contributed to the ensuing chaos. A Parliamentary report released earlier this year blamed David Cameron for the breakdown in order, described by Barack Obama as a s***show, but the UK has refused to resettle refugees fleeing to Italy according to a quota system and is expected to turn down asylum claims for many African migrants detained and tortured in Libya. Steve Symonds, the refugee and migrant rights programme director at Amnesty UK, said that with no authority able to police the abuses and Libyan security services frequently accused themselves, an estimated 250,000 trapped migrants remain at risk from all sides. What governments in Europe, including ours, need to realise is that the idea of increased efforts to stop people getting out of that place, or returning people to that place, is an appallingly inhumane response, he added. Part of whats fuelling of that internal conflict is the exploitation of these people, is the money made by exploiting them, by ransoming them, by extorting them. Pushing people back into that situation what is it doing? Its just providing more human fodder to be exploited and continue the horror that is Libya. A spokesperson for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it has allocated 10m for the new Libyan government this year to rebuild the economy and defeat Isis and criminal gangs, as well as deploying the Royal Navy on anti-smuggling missions. After four decades of Gaddafi misrule, Libya undoubtedly faces huge challenges and the UK continues to play a leading role within the international community to support the internationally recognised Libyan Government of National Accord, he said. Spains fertility clinics have a problem: they dont know what to do with all the frozen embryos left over from IVF treatments. State records show that more than 230,000 of them have been in storage for over two years, says Jose Antonio Castilla, one of the workers in charge of record-keeping. And every year, there are around 50,000 additional embryos left over from fertility treatments . IVF treatments have created large amounts of leftover embryos. Hospital Sant Pau-Fundacion Puigvert Changes made in 2003 to the Assisted Reproduction Law left couples with three options: giving the embryos to other infertile couples, donating them to science, or having them destroyed. The Popular Party (PP) conservatives, who were then in government, favored the first choice because it avoided criticism by the Catholic Church and other conservative groups who feel that human life begins the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg. In 16 years, there hasnt been a single scientific project requesting embryos Rocio Nunez, Clinica Tambre The second possibility was using the embryos for scientific research. At the time, embryonic stem cells were a promising field, and even though it meant destroying the embryo, conservative officials felt that at least it was for a good cause: to cure other people. The third option was simply to get rid of the embryos by taking them out of the freezer. But this was viewed as an abortion by the most conservative sectors in Spain. Over a decade later, donation has not yielded the expected results and its not because of a lack of demand, notes Castilla. But the law stipulates that donors cannot be over 35 this rule was written with egg donors in mind when most couples who try fertility treatments have passed that age. And scientific research with embryos has been a failure as well. Destruction is viewed as abortion by the most conservative sectors in Spain In 16 years, there hasnt been a single project requesting them, says Rocio Nunez, deputy director of the Madrid-based fertility center Clinica Tambre. The emergence of new sources of stem cells, including the possibility of reprogramming adult ones, has dimmed interest in embryonic stem cell research. And very few of them have been destroyed, says Nunez about a process that requires that the embryo remain in storage for 10 years before elimination. After that, the couple must still provide consent. But after so much time, some people can no longer be easily located, while others simply refuse to have their embryos destroyed. In theory, if we send them two certified faxes and receive no reply, we may go ahead with embryo destruction, says Nunez, whose clinic is storing around 50,000 frozen embryos without a clear purpose. But you always think, what if a research project turns up? English version by Susana Urra. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The deployment of Russian missiles on the Polish border "is destabilising to European security," the US State Department has warned. Moscow said will deploy S-400 surface-to-air missiles and nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in the exclave of Kaliningrad over "concern" about Nato expansion. "Russia has made threats to move its Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad for the past decade in response to a variety of developments in Europe, none of which demand such a military response," State Department spokesman John Kerry told reporters. "We call on Russia to refrain from words or deeds that are inconsistent with the goal of promoting security and stability," he added. Russia shows off new weapons as Syria offensive resumes His comments came in response to the head of the defence committee in Russia's upper house of parliament saying the Kremlin was forced to react to the planned deployment of Nato's US-led missile shield in eastern Europe. "As response measures to such threats we will have... to deploy additional forces... This reinforcement includes deployment of S-400 and Iskander systems in Kaliningrad," the state-run RIA news agency quoted Viktor Ozerov as saying. "We are facing two main tasks to penetrate air defenses and ensure protection from possible strikes," Mr Ozerov added. The S-400, which Russia has sued to protect its air base in Syria, is a sophisticated weapons system capable of simultaneously tracking and striking multiple aerial targets at ranges of up to 400 kilometeters (250 miles). Based in the Kaliningrad exclave, which borders Nato members Poland and Lithuania, it will be capable of targeting Nato aircraft and missiles over most of the Baltic region. The Iskander has a range of up to 500 kilometres (310 miles), allowing it to target facilities in several Nato member nations with pinpoint accuracy. It can be fitted with a conventional or nuclear warhead. Russia has previously said it periodically sends Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, but until now it has said these were routine drills. The Russian Interfax news agency also said the military had deployed state of the art Bastion anti-shipping missile launchers in Kaliningrad. The Bastion made its combat debut in Syria earlier this month and can be used against ships and ground targets. 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 Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was "concerned by Nato's decision making" in an interview broadcast on Monday. "Why are we reacting to Nato expansion so emotionally? We are concerned by Nato's decision making," Mr Putin said. "What should we do? We have, therefore, to take countermeasures, which means to target with our missile systems the facilities, that, in our opinion, start posing a threat to us," he added. Moscow has not linked the moves explicitly with what it says is a Nato military build-up on Russia's western borders. Up to 300,000 Nato troops were put on alert earlier this month, amid rising tensions between Russia and the Baltic states. In October, Nato was preparing to station 4,000 troops on the Russian border with the Baltic states in its biggest military build-up since the Cold War. Additional reporting by agencies For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Men have been calling a dedicated mansplaining hotline to ask for tips on how not to be sexist as well as to mansplain to call-handlers why the scheme is a bad idea. Unionen, Swedens largest union, ran the advice line throughout last week. It encouraged women to call up when male colleagues gave them unsolicited and patronising lectures on things they already understood. It was part of a campaign to highlight and stamp out the insidious and damaging practice of mansplaining, which the organisation said can lead to unequal pay. But although they sought publicity the union, which represents around 600,000 people, told the Local it was surprised when the story was picked up by national newspapers all across Europe; it seems the concept struck a chord with women globally, and touched a nerve in many men. Perhaps as a result of the attention it received, some Swedish media outlets claimed the line was dominated by angry male callers. One operator reported most of her calls were from men, who wanted to tell her why mansplaining was a bad term to use, how the campaign was bad, and how it should have been run instead. Many of our calls, unfortunately, are from men who talk for a very, very long time," Seher Yilmaz, a volunteer call-handler, told Arbetsvarlden. "It blocks the line, and makes it impossible for other people to come forward." But a Unionen spokesperson told the Local this was not the case; some of the men who called were actually looking for guidance on how not to mansplain, a spokesman said. Our mansplaining campaign has attracted engagement from both women and men," Gabriel Wernstedt from Uninonen told the Local. "Many women who rang in have felt that someone finally put into words a recurring experience in both their working and private lives." He added: The men, for their part, have been both curious about a concept they were not aware of, and annoyed about a concept they see as discriminatory. Some men also wanted to get tips on how you can avoid mansplaining." Mr Wernstedt also said although the organisation was suprised by how far news of their campaign had travelled, it was pleased. We knew of course that it would spark a debate, but never that it would go all the way to CNN, the BBC and the New York Times," he said. "The concept of mansplaining has a bit of an unexpected angle to it and provokes discussion. We think thats good, thats the point of the campaign. That the question takes on a life in the workplace. For those who might not be familiar with the modern portmanteau, the union defined mansplaining as when a man explains something to a woman without being asked, particularly something which she might already know more about than the man. Unionen said the commonplace practice diminishes women, by making them appear less competent than they are. A study by the American Psychological Association found that men tend to overestimate their intelligence to a much greater extent than women and showed that self-assurance in men grows with age, while the same is not true of women. The hotline advised upset and frustrated callers, who had been victim of a mansplainer, on what action they should take next, and tried to help them move on. Although many women said the line was useful to them, it was also widely criticised, mostly by men. Posters on the Unionen Facebook page argued that it was polarising and negative, and even that using the term mansplaining in the name is sexist. Female journalists who covered the issue were abused by male trolls on Twitter. But Unionen remained defiant, saying it was important to look at historical, structural inequality in society. "There is a structural problem built into the concept mansplaining that can not be ignored," they said in a statement. "The Union shares the analysis that mansplaining is more often performed by men and we believe it is important to talk about the problem on the basis of the analysis for us to bring about change. Unionen's gender expert Peter Tai Christensen said mansplaining could be done consciously or unconsciously, and it could be a technique to "consolidate or restore" male privilege in a time when traditional gender roles are being renegotiated. Mansplaining is maneuvering, tricks and suppression techniques designed to put women 'in their place'" he said. He said whether it was intentional, a form of misguided benevolence, or just a habit, the problem is basically that women are assumed to be less knowing, competent, important, or legitimate. He added: It is obviously not the case that all men expose women to mansplaining all the time. It would be an absurd assertion that lacks reality. But enough women are exposed to enough mansplaining for it to be a problem that needs to be highlighted, discussed and solved. Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Show all 18 1 /18 Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Feminist Quotes From Leading Men John Legend All men should be feminists. If men care about womens rights, the world will be a better place. We are better off when women are empowered it leads to a better society. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Matt McGorry I'm embarrassed to admit that I only recently discovered the ACTUAL definition of "feminism". The fact that the term is sometimes clouded with anything other than pure support and positivity in our society is very tragic. I believe in gender equality. Being a feminist is for both women AND men. I AM A FEMINIST. In for equality? Pass it on. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Hugh Jackman I'm for gender equality because it shouldve never been any other way! Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Seth Meyers When you work with the sort of really strong women that I work with, the idea that anyone would want to make decisions for them is hard to wrap your head around. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Ezra Miller I feel that all revolutionary causes should start with addressing misogyny. Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I do call myself a feminist. Absolutely! Its worth paying attention to the roles that are sort of dictated to us and that we dont have to fit into those roles. We can be anybody we wanna be. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Joss Whedon [My mother] really was an extraordinary, inspirational, tough, cool, sexy, funny woman. And thats the kind of woman Ive always surrounded myself with, my friends and particularly my wife, who is not only smarter than and stronger than I am, but occasionally taller too. I think it also goes back to my father and my stepfather, because they prized wit and resolve in the women they were with above all things and they were among the rare men who understood that recognizing someone elses power doesnt diminish your own. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Ryan Gosling Im attracted to films that have strong female characters because there are strong female characters in my life. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Eddie Vedder Im usually good about my temper, but all these men trying to control womens bodies are really beginning to piss me off. Theyre talking from a bubble. Theyre not talking from the street, and theyre not in touch with whats real. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Mark Ruffalo My own mother fought to make herself more than a possession; she lived her life as a mother who chose when she would have children, and a wife who could earn a living if she so chose. I want my daughters to enjoy that same choice. I dont want to turn back the hands of time to when women shuttled across state lines in the thick of night to resolve an unwanted pregnancy, in a cheap hotel room just south of the state line. Where a transaction of $600 cash becomes the worth of a young womans life. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Prince Harry We know that when women are empowered, they immeasurably improve the lives of those around them their families, their communities and their countries. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Iggy Pop Im not ashamed to dress like a woman because I dont think its shameful to be a woman. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Daniel Craig Women are responsible for two-thirds of the work done worldwide, yet earn only 10 percent of the total income and own 1 percent of the property So, are we equals? Until the answer is yes, we must never stop asking. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Jon Hamm "Men ruled the roost and women played a subservient role [in the Sixties]. Working wives were a rarity, because their place was in the home, bringing up the kids. The women who did work were treated as second-class citizens because it was a male-dominated society. That was a fact of life then. But it wouldn't be tolerated today, and that's quite right in my book... people look back on those days through a thick veil of nostalgia, but life was hard if you were anything other than a rich, powerful, white male." Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Dalai Lama I call myself a feminist. Isnt that what you call someone who fights for womens rights? Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Alan Alda "I think [misogyny] is like a disease that needs to be cured. And if we could eradicate polio, I don't see why we can't eradicate misogyny." Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Andy Samberg "Since there have been men and women, there have been funny women... f***ing idiot-ass men keep saying that women aren't funny. It makes me crazy. I find it disgusting and offensive every time." Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Barack Obama We stand with women by fighting for economic security, protecting access to health care and supporting womens leadership across the country. Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Kurt Cobain Rape is one of the most terrible crimes on earth and it happens every few minutes. The problem with groups who deal with rape is that they try to educate women about how to defend themselves. What really needs to be done is teaching men not to rape. Go to the source and start there. Getty Unionen said the negative responses were unfortunate, and the campaign was not intended to make men feel guilty. Our goal has never been to single out or make all men guilty, but rather to raise awareness about the mansplaining phenomenon, harassment and discrimination in the workplace, Mr Wernstedt said. Our purpose was to stimulate discussion in workplaces and and in society, and I think we have succeeded in that." For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Turkey has abandoned plans for a controversial law that would have allowed men who had sex with underage children to be pardoned if they married the victim. The reversal came after Parliament approved the bill in an initial reading on Thursday, with a final vote scheduled for Tuesday. However, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the government had pulled the highly controversial measure from the parliament floor and would submit it for a review by an all-party committee. Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag then said later on Tuesday that the government had shelved the proposal and it would come back on the agenda in the future only if all parties could reach a consensus. Mr Bozdag added: The issue has been closed. The plans provoked fury in the country and saw thousands take to the streets on Saturday in protest. Turkeys government had insisted the law would help resolve the legal challenges caused by widespread child marriage in the country, but critics said the bill legitimised rape. The law would have allowed men who sexually abused girls under 18 without force, threat or any restriction on consent and then married them, to have their convictions quashed or avoid prosecution. The change would have applied to cases between 2005 and 16 November 2016. The latest bill proposed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came after Turkeys constitutional court annulled part of the criminal code in July which classified all sexual acts with children under 15 as sexual abuse, a change that also prompted uproar. Although the legal age of consent is 18 in Turkey, child marriage is widespread, particularly in the South-east. The country has one of the highest rates of child marriage in Europe, with an estimated 15 per cent of girls married before their 18th birthday. Hundreds of people gathered in front of the parliament building to protest against the measure burst into celebrations after the government decision. Opposition parties, rights groups and citizens had widely condemned the proposal since its initiation last week, issuing statements and staging demonstrations across cities nationwide. United Nations agencies, including the childrens fund Unicef, issued a joint statement on Monday warning that the proposal would weaken the countrys ability to combat sexual abuse and child marriages. The government had insisted it was committed to fighting child marriages but said the measure was needed to help 3,800 families where underage marriages had occurred according to customs. We cannot ignore this [problem], Mr Yildirim said. There are 3,800 cases and thousands of children. The children are paying the price of their parents mistakes. In 2005, the government scrapped loopholes in legislation that had allowed men to escape rape charges if they married the victim, as part of efforts to join the European Union. Associated Press contributed to this report For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A video of a small boy tearfully asking a medic whether he is going to die after supposedly inhaling chlorine gas has emerged from the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo. Wrapped in a blue blanket and eyes red from gas exposure and crying, he tells a woman what happened to his family. I was looking at the planes. The planes dropped a barrel. I saw smoke, it was yellow, he said. Coughing, he takes his oxygen mask off to go on to say he doesnt know where his siblings are. Am I going to die, Miss? Am I going to die? he asks as she reassures him he everything will be fine. The video from Thursday night was shot before the underground hospital the little boy was being treated in was hit in another strike, leaving all of the besieged areas medical facilities offline. We are living in a daily horror movie, Oussai Alali, a nurse at one of east Aleppos destroyed hospitals told The Independent, sending pictures of him and other workers sitting in the rubble. Imagine what your country would be like without hospitals. People would die. Now imagine there are war planes and bombs. Every day children are dying. Now more will, he said. One hospital worker said they estimated 1,700 barrel bombs, missiles and artillery strikes have hit east Aleppo since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad renewed the attack on the area last Tuesday. At least 140 people have died in the fresh campaign so far, the UK-based monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said. Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Show all 16 1 /16 Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo A girl who fled areas of conflict rides a vehicle in Dahiyet al-Assad, west Aleppo city, Syria REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Rebel fighters from the Jaish al-Fatah (or Army of Conquest) brigade have a tea in a building under construction Getty Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo A rebel fighters' armoured vehicle in Dahiyet al-Assad Reuters Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Rebel fighters from the Jaish al-Fatah (or Army of Conquest) brigades sit on a tank Getty Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Abandoned magazine of shells after rebel fighters took control of Dahiyet al-Assad Reuters Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Rebel fighters ride a pick-up truck with civilians who fled areas of conflict in Dahiyet al-Assad, west Aleppo city, Syria Reuters Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo A rebel fighter gestures with a girl who fled areas of conflict while they ride a pick-up truck in Dahiyet al-Assad Reuters Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Smoke rises near a damaged road in Dahiyet al-Assad, west Aleppo city, Syria Reuters Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Syrians carry their belongings as they leave the southwestern frontline neighbourhood of Dahiyet al-,Assad Getty Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo A view shows a damaged minaret of a mosque after rebel fighters took control of Dahiyet al-Assad, Syria Reuters Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Rebel groups have pledged to push from newly captured positions in the Dahiyet al-Assad district towards Hamdaniyeh. Rebels and allied jihadists launched a major offensive on October 28, 2016 to break through government lines and reach the 250,000 people living in the city's east Getty Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Rebel groups have pledged to push from newly captured positions in the Dahiyet al-Assad district towards Hamdaniyeh Getty Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Rebel fighters from the Jaish al-Fatah (or Army of Conquest) brigades hold a position at an entrance to Aleppo, in the southwestern frontline neighbourhood of Dahiyet al-Assad Getty Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Smoke billows from the frontline district of Dahiyet al-Assad following an attack by rebels on Syrian regime forces in the northern city of Aleppo Getty Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo Syrians carry their belongings as they leave the southwestern frontline neighbourhood of Dahiyet al-Assad Getty Dahiyet al-Assad - Aleppo People who fled areas of conflict ride a pick-up truck in Dahiyet al-Assad, west Aleppo city, Syria Reuters SOHR also collaborated on the ground reports that the bombing that had injured the little boy had taken place, but could not confirm whether chlorine gas had been used. The Syrian government denied that it had used the chemical weapon. Damascus supposedly destroyed its chemical weapon arsenal after international outcry over a 2013 sarin gas attack on a rebel area which killed at least 281 people. Although both Damascus and its allies in Moscow say that air strikes on east Aleppo - home to around 250,000 people - do not target civilian infrastructure, all of the areas hospitals and first response centres have been repeatedly targeted, forcing most to move to underground locations or move frequently. The World Health Organisation says that the Syrian regime has attacked health facilities across the country 126 times in 2016 alone. On Tuesday, Syrian state media reported that government-allied ground troops had made gains on rebel neighbourhoods, adding to the growing sense of despair in east Aleppo since government forces managed to cut off rebel supply lines completely in July. Premature babies removed from incubators and treated on the floor of a civlian home after the bombing of an east Aleppo hospital (Yasser Al-Rahil) Rebels have tried several times to break the siege on the east, without success, although they have killed scores of west Aleppo civilians in rocket and mortar attacks. One European diplomat told AFP it is seemingly a matter of time before the city completely falls to government forces. Now, it's just a question of how long [the rebels] can hold on, the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. There is nothing to eat, no more hospitals and the bombardment is non-stop. They are under very strong pressure. The UN warned last week that the last food parcels had been distributed inside the siege barricades, leaving residents facing starvation this winter if aid is not allowed in soon. The international bodys envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura was in Damascus over the weekend to discuss a humanitarian plan of action and a possible truce in Aleppo, but both were rejected by the government, which said a ceasefire would reward terrorists". For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A case against a British woman charged with having extra-marital sex after reporting she had been raped in Dubai has been dropped. Prosecutors in the UAE said they had stopped the case after studying mobile phone footage of the alleged rape. The 25-year-old woman has been told she can return home, as have the two men involved. A statement from prosecutors said: "The office of Dubai Public Prosecutor has closed the case involving the alleged rape of British national ZJM following careful examination of all evidence." They concluded "the act happened with the consent of the three parties in question". "A video obtained from the mobile phone of one of the suspects detailing the act was a key evidence that supported this conclusion," they said. The alleged rape was reported in late October by the British national at Al Barsha police station. She said she had been raped by two British men while on holiday in the country. Radha Stirling, founder of UK-based charity Detained in Dubai, said in a statement: "We are extremely pleased to hear reports that [the] charges have been dropped [...] "We expect that the spotlight on the UAE justice system has led to a review of the charges and their subsequent withdrawal. "We hope that the UAE takes this as yet another example of why they need to implement a policy that protects victims of crime against retaliatory charges or counter criminal accusations." The organisation had previously warned tourists against reporting incidents of rape in the UAE, in part because of "racist" preconceptions held against Western tourists in the country. Earlier in November Ms Stirling told The Independent the authorities in the UAE "assume women are 'looking for it'". In the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's travel advice for the UAE it says all sexual relations outside marriage are considered illegal, whatever a couples relationship at home, alongside homosexual sex and same-sex marriages. Its against the law to live together, or to share the same hotel room, with someone of the opposite sex to whom you arent married or closely related, it advises. 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 The laws, which can also mean unmarried pregnant women and their partners are jailed, have been used to criminalise rape victims including women from Norway and Australia, and numerous British victims. The burden of proof required for rape under the UAEs interpretation of sharia law a confession from the rapist or witness statements from four adult men means that cases that reach court are heavily skewed in the defendants favour and are frequently dismissed or turned around to prosecute the alleged victim. Campaigners say female migrant workers are hit particularly hard by the laws, with their stories rarely attracting the public attention garnered by cases involving Westerners. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told members of his government they are not allowed to contact US President-elect Donald Trump or his administration without seeking prior permission. A letter to all ministers from Cabinet Secretary Tzachi Braverman on Monday stated that any attempt to speak to Mr Trumps team must be made through the official channels of either the Prime Ministers Office or the Israeli Embassy. The move comes after several public statements from Israeli government ministers on Mr Trumps election on November 8. On Saturday, an open letter from right wing Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel addressed to Steve Bannon, Mr Trumps new chief strategist, appeared on Mr Bannons alt-right website Breitbart. It thanked the editor for his stance on the US-Iran nuclear deal, anti-Israeli student boycotts, and for creating a Breitbart Jerusalem bureau. While Breitbart writers have called him a friend of the Jewish people and defender of Israel in the past, Mr Bannon has been accused of bigotry and anti-Semitism by many rights groups, who have called on his appointment to be cancelled. Mr Bannon has denied such claims. While Israel calls Jerusalem its capital, few other countries accept that, including the United States (EPA) Mr Netanyahu congratulated Mr Trump on his election two weeks ago but cautioned his coalition government to refrain from speaking publicly about their views on the new US President-elect after Education Minister Naftali Bennett said Mr Trumps victory meant that the era of a Palestinian state was over. Mr Trump has previously said that he will consider recognising Jerusalem as Israels capital. Shortly after winning the election called Mr Netanyahu to invite him to visit the US at "the first opportunity." Israel has no doubt that President-elect Trump is a true friend of Israel, Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer said last week, adding that the country was looking forward to working with Mr Trumps entire team". For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The President of Turkey has said he could not decide whether the Holocaust or Israeli military offensives in Gaza were more barbarous in an interview on Israeli television. Recep Tayyip Erdogan was conducting his first interview with the Israeli press in more than 10 years on Monday when he was questioned about accusing the countrys government of barbarism that surpasses Hitler in 2014. He was unapologetic for the remarks, which provoked outrage in Israel during international tension over Operation Protective Edge, the offensive against Hamas militants that left more than 2,200 Palestinians mostly civilians dead. Turkey: Erdogan cites Hitler's Germany as 'example' of presidential state I don't approve of what Hitler did, and neither do I approve of what Israel has done, Mr Erdogan said, according to a translation by AFP. When it's a question of so many people dying, it's inappropriate to ask who was the more barbarous. The Times of Israel reported a slightly different translation from the remarks in Turkish, quoting Mr Erdogan saying: Theres no place for comparison in order to say whats more barbaric. His comments on Israels Channel 2 came as Israel and Turkey attempt to improve relations marred by the killing of 10 Turks in an Israeli commando raid on a ship heading towards Gaza in 2010, prompting Ankara to expel the Israeli ambassador and freeze all defence ties. Mr Erdogan made another Nazi comparison in the aftermath of the attack, accusing Israel of "keeping Hitler's spirit alive" and has also claimed the Jewish state is carrying out "genocide" on Palestinians. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes Show all 8 1 /8 Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Just a week before he was elected President, he called Erdogan Amberin Zaman, the Turkey correspondent for 'The Economist', a "shameless militant woman disguised under the name of a journalist" after she had asked an opposition leader whether "Muslim society is able to question" the authorities. "Know your place," Erdogan said. "They gave you a pen and you are writing a column in a newspaper. "And then they invite you to a TV channel owned by Dogan media group and you insult at a society of 99 per cent Muslims," he said he said according to Today's Zaman newspaper. Sascha Schuermann/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Turkish people are pictured chanting slogans during an anti-government protest on Taksim square in Istanbul, on 29 June, 2013. The protests were sparked by brutal police action against a local conservation battle to save Istanbul's Gezi Park, and soon turned into nationwide demonstrations against the government. Amid the protests - the worst in Turkey for years - Erdogan accused demonstrators of being "arm-in-arm with terrorism," according to Reuters. "This is a protest organized by extremist elements. We will not give away anything to those who live arm-in-arm with terrorism," he said. GURCAN OZTURK/AFP/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes During last years protests, activists used social media to organise and disseminate information. Several dozen tweeters were arrested following the protests, according to local media reports. Erdogan responded by calling the technology a "menace". "There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society," BBC New reported. Vladimir Astapkovich/RIA Novosti via Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Not helping to allay accusations of authoritarianism, after Turkish police detained 49 people, including well-known business people and those close to the ruling party, Erdeogan ominously told reporter that Turkey "is not a banana republic" that can be affected by unnamed "operations", according to Today's Zaman newspaper. People who are backed by the media and certain funders cannot change this country," he said. "People backed by certain dark gangs both inside and outside Turkey cannot mess with the country's path. They cannot change conditions in Turkey. Turkey is not a country that anyone can launch an operation into. The [Turkish] nation will not allow that. The AK Party, which is governing this nation, will not allow this." Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Friends and relatives of the miners who died in an explosion at the Soma mine are pictured praying following the burial in Soma cemetery of the last body to be recovered from the mine in May 2014. At the time, the then-Prime Minister badly misjudged the Soma mining disaster, in which 301 workers died. He told the relatives of dead and dying miners that "these types of incidents are ordinary things", following allegations that the government had ignored safety concerns about the privately owned mine, the Guardian reported. In his defence, Erdogan recounted in a separate speech a list of mining disasters which occurred abroad, including a British disaster in 1862, and one in America "which has every kind of technology". Oli Scarff/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Palestinians pictured attending Friday noon prayers in a destroyed mosque that was hit by Israeli strikes, in Gaza City. As Prime Minister, Erdogan has condemned Israel, accusing it of deliberately killing Palestinian mothers and warned that the it would "drown in the blood it sheds." Speaking to thousands of supporters during a rally in Istanbul ahead of the 10 August election, Reuters reported him as saying: "Just like Hitler, who sought to establish a race free of all faults, Israel is chasing after the same target." "They kill women so that they will not give birth to Palestinians; they kill babies so that they won't grow up; they kill men so they can't defend their country ... They will drown in the blood they shed," he said. AP Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes Amid the worst protests in Turkey for years which had spread across dozens of cities last June, Erdogan accused demonstrators of being "arm-in-arm with terrorism," according to Reuters. A demonstration to halt construction in a park in an Istanbul square grew into mass protests against a heavy-handed police crackdown and what opponents called Erdogan's authoritarian policies. "This is a protest organized by extremist elements," Erdogan said before departing on a trip to North Africa. "We will not give away anything to those who live arm-in-arm with terrorism," he said. Sascha Schuermann/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most controversial quotes The Turkish President's craziest quotes In March 2014, Erdogan accused a 15-year-old boy who died from injuries sustained in last year's anti-government protests of being linked to terrorism. Berkin Elvan, who became a symbol of anti-government protests, had gone to pick up bread when he was hit with a teargas canister - sending him into a nine-month coma before he passed away. In a speech broadcast on state TV, Erdogan said of Berkin: "This kid with steel marbles in his pockets, with a slingshot in his hand, his face covered with a scarf, who had been taken up into terror organisations, was unfortunately subjected to pepper gas. How could the police determine how old that person was who had a scarf on his face and was hurling steel marbles with a slingshot in his hand? ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images On Monday, he told Channel 2 he was "well aware" of the sensitivities associated with Hitler, blamed for the deaths of some six million Jewish people in the Holocaust. But he said he found it "impossible to forget the hundreds, the thousands of people who died when [the Israeli military] struck Gaza". Israel and Turkey have recently been working to improve cooperation and are holding talks on building an ambitious pipeline project to pump Israeli gas to Turkey and Europe. Last week, Turkey appointed a foreign policy advisor as ambassador to Israel, sealing the normalisation of diplomatic relations after a six-year rupture but considerable tensions remain. Mr Erdogan frequently speaks on Palestinian issues and human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as meeting the leader of Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist group by Israel. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Turkey has issued an arrest warrant for a Kurdish leader of Syrian nationality over his alleged role in a bombing in Ankara earlier this year, state media reports. Salih Muslim Mohammed, 65, is the co-chair of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), based in northern Syria, which declared its autonomy from the Syrian state shortly after the civil war began in 2011. Turkey blamed the Febrary 17 car bomb targeting military vehicles near parliament in the Kurdish capital which killed 30 people and left 81 injured on the PYD and its military wing, although radical splinter group the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons later claimed responsibility. Turkey, which regards the PYD and the allied PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) as terrorist organisations, has arrested dozens of Turkish Kurdish politicians in recent months in connection with recent bombings claimed by Kurdish activists, and what it says are planned attacks against the state. Ankara launched a military campaign in neighbouring Syria in August this year designed to oust Isis from the border region, with the secondary aim of curbing any Kurdish appetite for territorial expansion. Mr Muslim Mohammed's name was among another 47 arrest warrants for PKK members announced on Tuesday. Three prominent PKK leaders named - Cemil Bayik, Murat Karayilan and Fehman Huseyin - are believed to currently be based at the group's paramilitary bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} At present every economy-class passenger over 15 pays 13 for a short-haul flight or 73 for a long-haul flight originating in the UK. The long-haul rate is to increase by 2 next April. APD levels are doubled for premium economy, business and first class. In its 2015 manifesto, the SNP promised a reduction of 50 per cent and longer term plans to abolish APD completely, in order to encourage more direct flights to and from Scotland. Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, told the Airport Operators Association annual conference: I dont actually yet firmly believe the Scots will do this. But Drew Hendry MP, the SNP Westminster group leader, told The Independent: Obviously the Parliamentary arithmetic has to work to get the vote through, but the Scottish government are absolutely committed to halving APD. He said the cut would take effect in April 2018. Airports in northern England, especially Newcastle, are concerned that passengers would be tempted north of the border to benefit from the lower rate of tax. The British Infrastructure Group of MPs said the deeply uncompetitive nature of APD ran counter to Government plans for seeking markets beyond Europe. In a report ahead of the Autumn Statement, it said: Despite the Prime Ministers ambitions, Britain simply cannot become the worlds greatest free-trading nation if it has the worlds highest air passenger duty. But the managing director of Butlins has called the prospect of lower APD to help poorer families ridiculous. Writing for The Independent, Dermot King said: This suggested cut in APD is a very odd way of showing that the Government is on the side of those struggling families. UK residents already spend 14bn more on foreign holidays than is spent on tourism in the UK and our government should be supporting businesses in this country not businesses in France, Germany or Spain. Neil Pakey, chair of the Regional and Business Airport Group, called for a temporary suspension of Air Passenger Duty to see if it generated more income for the nation. He was chief executive of Shannon airport in Ireland when the Dublin government carried out a trial, which later led to the tax being permanently dropped. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Ryanairs chief executive has lambasted the UK Government over its plans for Brexit, saying: The politicians have no idea how they are going to exit the EU. Michael OLeary, chief executive of Europes biggest budget airline, campaigned strenuously for a Remain vote in the EU Referendum. He told the Airport Operators Association annual conference: Britain has no negotiation position whatsoever. You file the Article 50 in March, you walk off a cliff in two years time. "Were already working on the summer '19 schedule. I need to know whats going to be happening in March 2019. We cant plan with that kind of uncertainty. Mr OLeary warned that the remaining EU nations would ensure that the UK would be screwed into the floor. He likened the Government's approach to Dads Army, and ridiculed the notion floated by Theresa May that transition arrangements could be negotiated. Of the three Cabinet ministers responsible for Brexit David Davis, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox the Ryanair boss said: If their IQ was one point lower theyd be plants. Ryanair is an Irish airline whose main base of operations is the UK, an arrangement made possible by the EU open-skies policy. There are fears in aviation that the agreement that allows airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet to flourish in Europe could come to an end, with countries such as France and Italy imposing restrictions on UK carriers in order to help their own airlines. Willie Walsh, chief executive of IAG which owns British Airways, Aer Lingus and the Spanish airline Iberia said: I struggle to disagree with Michael. I fear Europe will see this as an opportunity to damage the UK. "The idea we're just going to go in and say 'here's what we want, now give it to us,' is naive." But John Holland-Kaye, chief executive of Heathrow, said: We do have a strong negotiating position. The Government has to pay its cards close to its chest. Mr Holland-Kaye said the UK would be able to get a better deal from the EU than Norway and Switzerland achieved. In aviation there is a consensus to maintain open skies and common standards. The government sees aviation as the enabler to all other industrial sectors. Michael OLeary also claimed that Ryanair is Europes cleanest, greenest airline, though he added the view that Climate change is completely bloody bogus. When asked for his long-term ambition for Ryanair, the airline's chief executive said: World domination followed by intergalactic domination. Click here to view the latest travel offers with Independent Holidays Lobbyists in favor of maintaining the United States long-standing trade and investment embargo on Cuba have scored a major victory with the inclusion in Donald Trumps transition team of Mauricio Claver-Carone, a key figure in the fight against any thaw in relations between Washington and Havana . Mauricio Claver-Carone has joined the Trump transition team. Claver-Carone was named by Trump to the transition team for the US Department of the Treasury, where he was an attorney-adviser until November of 2003. One of the harshest critics of President Barack Obamas efforts since December of 2014 to improve relations with Cuba, Claver-Carones appointment to the Trump team signals a reversal of some of those changes. More information Los partidarios del embargo a Cuba toman posiciones en la futura Administracion Trump He is executive director of the US-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee (USCD PAC), as well as Cuba Democracy Advocates, which describes itself as a non-partisan organization dedicated to the promotion of a transition in Cuba toward human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The US Treasury oversees the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), used by the US government to administer and enforce economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy. Trump said during the campaign that he would have negotiated a better deal with Cuba than Obama. Critics of Obamas changes have complained that Cuba was not required to improve its human-rights record or further open its economy. Claver-Carone has also accused Cuba of working with Russian military intelligence Claver-Carone has been especially critical of the Obama administrations approval of several US companies to do business with companies owned by the Cuban government and its military. He has also attacked the lack of compensation for properties confiscated from US citizens in the 1960s. Obamas new route has made a bad situation worse in Cuba, wrote Claver-Carone in The Miami Herald last week, adding: The Obama administration has pivoted to support the Castro regime, rather than the Cuban people and their desire for economic and political reform. Tourists outside the Revolution Museum in Havana. Ramon Espinosa (AP) US policy on the island has gone from what it initially portrayed as a noble purpose to pure sycophancy in pursuit of historic firsts, he wrote. Born in Miami in 1975 and raised in Madrid, Claver-Carone is one of the loudest and harshest critics of the Castro regime in Cuba. He runs the Capitol Hill Cubans website, is a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows, and mixes at the highest levels in Washington. A lawyer, he has taught law at the George Washington and Catholic Universities. He testified before a Congressional committee in March about Obamas Cuba policies. Trump says he would have negotiated a better deal with Cuba than Obama In September, he was invited by the House of Representatives Agriculture Committee to outline his vision of Obamas planned agriculture expansion. Claver-Carone argued that giving US companies financial assistance to set up business in Cuba would be financing the regimes monopoly. He said that if money started to flow into Cubas agriculture sector, the Cuban armed forces would immediately take control of it and its profits. He has also accused Cuba of working with Russian military intelligence. Quite how that will go down with his new boss, who has said he wants to improve relations with Moscow, is unclear. English version by Nick Lyne. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Something important just happened in France. One of our many Brexit delusions was that we would free ourselves from the machinations of continental politics. But they could affect us more than ever now, and for many years to come. Our Brexit outcomes will largely be determined by a powerful trio, the PM, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the French President. We do tend to forget this. Merkel will seek a fourth term and should win, though she is damaged. The dynamics between these three people, the geo-political understanding that they reach with right wing populists breathing down their respective necks, will be crucial to our future. Probably not since Yalta, the inception of the Common Market itself and the fall of Communism, will a handful of leaders have had such momentous decisions to make. So, very soon, we will need to take a close look at either Fillon or Juppe. Nicolas Sarkozy, increasingly populist, described by President Hollande as a Duracell bunny who is perpetually agitated, has crashed and burnt. As unpredictable as Trump, he will not be missed. Fillon, in contrast, is modern and reasonable whilst recognising the importance of the immigration issue. He may even be an anglophile. Juppe is perhaps rather unimaginative, and seemingly straight from French political elite central casting. A series of rather unfortunate events may await us either way, but I am hoping for a President Fillon, when the key Brexit decisions are made. John Gemmell Birmingham Buckingham Palace Given all the problems with Buckingham Palace, could we not just flog it to the Chinese and then let HRH rent it under some PFI arrangement? Rob Lucas Ross-on-Wye Twitter King Trump The cast of Hamilton was rude to a very good man tweeted President-elect Donald Trump after the cast of the show asked Trumps running-mate Mike Pence, who was sat in the audience, to up-hold our American values. The fatuous Trump insisted it was insulting of Hamiltons cast to treat our great future VP to a theatre lecture. What this incident shows is that Trump is like every bully that has ever thrown his weight around a playground - he can dish it out but he cant take it. Trumps whole campaign was offensive, bad-mannered, and disrespectful and he can expect people to respond in kind. If Trump thinks the mild rebuke Pence received from the cast of Hamilton was insulting he will find the next four years an eye-opener. Trump and the nest of bigots he is assembling into an administration may well have power but they will never have respect. Sasha Simic London Trump has quickly assembled a potential list of loyalists and enemies. Loyalists are being rewarded with plumb positions in his administration and enemies will no doubt feel the sting of his 3am Twitter onslaughts. The Twitter king shows few signs of moderation but continues to pick people that mirror his extreme ideology that defined his presidential campaign. Hawks and conservative loyalists are being selected to fill important positions. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama has been tapped as attorney general in recognition for his unrelenting crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Retired General Michael Flynn has been nominated as national security advisor for his hawkish stance on Muslim immigrants and willingness to join the lock her up brigades. Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas has been nominated director of the CIA for his harsh criticism of Hillary Clinton over Benghazi. Most surprisingly, is the overture to Governor Mitt Romney a former bitter critic possibly displacing the prior favourite, the incendiary New Gingrich as secretary of state. Giuliani another favourite is almost certain to be part of Trumps inner circle if he can extricate himself from his huge financial interests. Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of schools in the District of Columbia the charter school queen will probably be offered the position as secretary of education. Jagjit Singh USA Close to 200,000 cows are to be culled over the coming months in the Netherlands in a desperate attempt by Dutch authorities to avoid losing their nitrates derogations. The Irish Government will soon be seeking approval for the continued availability of the Nitrates Derogation to Irish farmers. The Nitrates Directive has been in place since 1991. It aims to protect water quality from pollution by agricultural sources and to promote the use of good farming practice. Similar to many intensive Irish dairy farms, the majority of Dutch livestock farmers have derogations to apply up to 250kg/ha of nitrogen per year, up from the standard annual limit of 170kg/ha. However, this derogation has been jeopardised by the Dutch breaching their phosphate limits each year for the last three years. Farmers had been banking on the introduction of a new quota system for phosphorus that would have allowed retiring farmers to sell their phosphorus allowance to those staying in the sector. Expand Close Rabobank's Kevin Bellamy / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Rabobank's Kevin Bellamy However, a ruling that this would contravene EU State aid rules has forced authorities to adopt a more drastic option of reducing national output by 13pc through a cull of the estimated 1.8m dairy herd. Mitigation Initial predictions had indicated a figure of closer to 100,000 cows being culled, due to mitigation measures being considered by the Dutch government. "Low phosphate concentrates that would reduce the phosphate load in the slurry were being suggested, so there's no doubt that this is a severe knock-back for the Dutch industry and the intense politicking in recent weeks between lobby groups for pigs and dairy is unlikely to end here," said Rabobank's dairy analyst, Kevin Bellamy. Livestock production is so intensive in Holland that there is very little artificial fertiliser used, which limits the scope for low phosphorus compounds to be used. In addition, the concept of exporting processed animal slurry to other regions outside of the Netherlands has been opposed by locals objecting to proposed sites for mega slurry processing facilities. Dutch and Irish in the firing line The Dutch, along with the Irish, have seen the biggest increases in milk production since the removal of milk quotas. Many other regions blamed both the Irish and their Dutch counterparts for collapsing milk prices over the last two years. While Dutch milk output is likely to fall by a minimum of 750,000t, it is a preferable to losing their nitrates derogation, which would double the cut imposed. While Irish dairy farmers will see the development as a positive one, beef finishers will be concerned about the impact of an extra 100,000 cull cows in a European beef sector that is already struggling. Spot milk prices in Holland have risen to 45c/l in recent weeks, with Fonterra also giving their price forecast by 12pc to NZ$6/kg milk solids. The move by the world's largest dairy co-op is set to boost returns for Kiwi farmers by 850m, and brings the average milk price in New Zealand to 29.9c/l, similar to Irish averages following increases across the board from Irish milk processors for October deliveries. However, large Irish exporters of milk powders such as Ornua and Glanbia will be unhappy this week as the EU has decided to start selling intervention stocks at prices of just 2,100/t, which is likely to slow further price increases. Meanwhile, Northern Irish milk suppliers are pushing for processors to switch to setting milk prices on a forward rather than retrospective basis. A farmer in Roscommon turned up at a hazardous waste disposal site with enough cyanide to 'wipe out' the county. The farmer had the hazardous waste on his farm for the past 45 years and told officials he had originally bought it to get rid of rabbits on his farm. Suzanne Dempsey, Environmental Officer with Roscommon County Council told Shannonside radio that the 4kg of cyanide was handed over by an elderly farmer. She said he had used it in the past to kill rabbits on his farm. "That would have been common practice. The farmer had it in his shed for 45 years and had previously sought advice on how to dispose of it safely. "The toxic expert on the day said the amount was enough to wipe out most of the county." She also said the farmer had the chemical well secured in containers. Other waste products that farmers arrived with included one of the main ingredients in Agent Orange, a chemical weapon used in the Vietnam war. The Environmental Protection Agency is currently running a series of hazardous waste disposal collection events where people can take any dangerous or hazardous waste they have and dispose of it safely. The European Union is preparing to introduce a new class of senior bank debt designed to absorb losses when a firm fails, according to Valdis Dombrovskis, the bloc's financial-services chief. The plan, which would make burning of bondholders in a bank crisis automatic, is part of efforts to end taxpayer bailouts by ensuring that banks can be salvaged or shuttered without recourse to public funds. The EU is in the process of setting requirements for the liabilities banks must have to absorb losses and allow recapitalisation in a crisis. Eligible securities must be easily converted to equity or written down in resolution, a process known as bail-in. "What we're doing is ensuring that there is an asset class that is clearly bail-inable," Dombrovskis said in an interview in Brussels. "We're clarifying or, if you want, harmonising, the creditors' hierarchy so they know where they stand." Traditionally the hierarchy of losses when a bank ran out of money was well established, with shareholders losing first, followed by lenders to the bank and depositors. But those rules were parked during the crisis, when taxpayers in Ireland and other countries pumped cash into banks without losses falling on bondholders. Now under EU rules, shareholders and creditors must bear losses equivalent to 8pc of a failing bank's total liabilities including own funds before rescue funds can be tapped. If necessary, that means senior creditors must also take a hit. Countries have taken different approaches to lining up creditors for losses. Germany subordinated plain-vanilla senior unsecured debt to deposits, derivatives and structured notes to make it available to take losses. This applies retroactively, making a pool of liabilities available in January, when the law kicks in. Italy chose an approach similar to Germany's, but it left liabilities other than deposits on the same level as senior unsecured bonds. France created a new class of "senior non-preferred" debt. "I wouldn't say it's this or that country's approach," said Dombrovskis, when asked about the similarity between the EU and French plans. The EU rules will apply to new bond issuance, and won't disrupt national arrangements already put in place, he said. "This is without prejudice to solutions which are already taken," said Dombrovskis. "There's no need to step back for those countries which already made their creditors bail-inable." Elke Koenig, the head of the euro-area bank resolution authority, has said that the German and French subordination models are both feasible. Dublin Meanwhile, the Dublin-based units of US banking giant Citi yesterday became the first global lender to come under European Central Bank (ECB) supervision since Britain's vote to leave the European Union. It's an option several UK banks are exploring to keep their access to the single market. Banks are looking for ways to ensure they can easily sell their services into the EU, a market of 450 million people, after Britain leaves. One option is to shift enough assets to a eurozone country to qualify for ECB supervision. Citibank Holdings Ireland was added to a list of large banks directly supervised by the ECB yesterday, after it expanded its balance sheet through last year's merger with UK-based Citibank International. (Reuters) Rush Credit Union, which is at the centre of the probe Picture: Mark Condren Forensic accountants probing bust Rush Credit Union have been unable to work out what happened to 15 cars that were supposed to be prizes in draws. The cars cost 220,000 in total, and were bought locally for between 14,250 and 18,000 each. But forensic accountants at Grant Thornton, who were asked to probe the credit union, have been unable to work out who won the cars. Serious questions now hang over the prize draws, as there are no available accounts of who entered and what was paid out. This is just one among a litany of explosive revelations of fraudulent activity, tax dodging, questionable expenses claims and the signing of blank cheques uncovered at wound-up Rush Credit Union. The evidence emerged after the High Court agreed to appoint liquidators to the north County Dublin lender, having earlier appointed them on an interim basis. An affidavit sworn by the head of resolution at the Central Bank, Patrick Casey, lists a catalogue of shortcomings, making it clear that Rush Credit Union was one of the most rotten financial institutions in the State. It has emerged that it ran 15 car draws from 2010 to 2014. "Grant Thornton have been unable to locate details of winners of previous car draws, as no information is recorded or published on Rush [Credit Union's] website," Mr Casey said. Some 450,000 has had to be returned to members, many of whom were entered into the draw without giving their consent. Some members were entered into the draws without being told when they turned 16 years of age. "From an initial review by the registrar of Credit Unions, it appeared that there was no detailed database of previous winners available and no income and expenditure account was maintained in relation to this," Mr Casey said in his written evidence. The High Court was told the use of blank cheques was prevalent in the lender that operated in the Rush and Lusk areas. Under a section headed Internal Control Weakness, Mr Casey pointed out loose arrangements for the handling of cash and bank accounts, and referred to "the use of pre-signed cheques". The credit union's credit cards were being used for personal expenditure. Grant Thornton, appointed by the Central Bank to probe the credit union, reported to the regulators that it had "identified a number of non-business related transactions carried out on Rush [Credit Union] credit cards." Issues around staff pay, and travel and other expenses are also outlined by Mr Casey. According to the documents, the credit union's auditors, FMB, notified the Central Bank in February this year of irregularities. Gardai were called in on March 18 last. In June, the Irish Independent reported the suspected fraudulent activity and financial mismanagement at the credit union. Mr Casey points out that the Central Bank feared a "disorderly collapse" of the credit union after news of its issues broke. Money laundering is also suspected at the lender, and questions have been raised about the accuracy of financial returns submitted to the registrar in the Central Bank. Issues around the use of contractors and failures to pay tax have been reported to the Revenue Commissioners. Charlie Weston: Nobody comes away clean from rotten mess The president of the High Court, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, confirmed the appointment of Jim Luby and Tom Rogers of McStay Luby as liquidators, who had previously been appointed on a provisional basis. The judge ordered that a statement of affairs of the credit union be prepared and put the case in for the High Court examiners list in early January. He also said there should be a continuation of his earlier order providing for the redaction of sensitive material in court documents which the Central Bank prepared in its application for the winding up. The court heard previously one of the reasons for the redactions was that criminal prosecutions may be brought arising from the probes. Online shoppers have been warned about hidden tax pitfalls of buying goods on the internet. The Revenue Commissioners has warned that all goods from non-EU states are liable to tax and duties. And alcohol and tobacco have to have tax paid on them whether they come from inside or outside the EU. The tax authorities also warned that it will seize counterfeit goods, and said these are often dangerous as there are no safety standards applied. Consumers were warned that what looks like a bargain may turn out to be far less attractive when taxes and duties are imposed when the goods are delivered. Average tax and duty of 33 was added to more than 70,000 parcels by Revenue officials operating in postal depots nationwide last year. All goods from non-EU member states are liable to tax and duty on arrival here, a spokeswoman for Revenue said. Mostly there is no tax or duty applied on goods bough with the European Union. But this is not the case with alcohol and tobacco products. Drink and tobacco products bought online or by mail order will have tax and duty applied on them whether they are bought inside or outside the EU, Revenue said. This could mean that what seems like a bargain of 12 bottles of wine for 60, could end up costing 120 once the tax and duty is imposed. Excise duty and VAT on an average case of 12 bottles of wine originating in another EU country will add more than 60 bringing the price you actually pay to over 120, the tax authority warned. Value added tax of 23pc and varying levels of excise duty apply to alcohol and tobacco products delivered here, even if excise duty was paid in the EU country of origin. Anyone buying these products online were advised to check with the seller if Irish VAT and excise duty has been paid. If the tax and duty has not been paid and the alcohol is seized, you as the buyer are liable, Revenue said. For people buying online from retailers outside the EU, Revenue said that if the value is under 22 there is no VAT due. But if it is valued at more than 22 then VAT is liable on the full value of the item. If the goods are valued at more than 150 then customers duty will also be due on the full value of the item, which includes the cost of postage and packaging. No customs duty is due on gifts from outside the EU if the value is under 45. However, this only applied where the gift but only if the gift is of an occasional nature sent from one private individual to another. Revenue warned: Be wary of websites that offer to undervalue your goods to avoid these import duties. This is illegal and as the importer, you are responsible for ensuring that that all duties and taxes are paid. Revenue also warned that it seized 138,000 counterfeit goods last year, and it seizes goods it believes to be knock-offs. The Laundroid robot can fold and sort a pile of clothes in minutes Credit: Seven Dreamers Panasonic has invested tens of millions of dollars in a robot that can reduce the time it takes to wash clothes by sorting clean items and folding them into neat piles. The electronics giant will pour $60m (48m) into the startup behind the folding robot called Laundroid, which was first unveiled in October last year. The domestic robot has been a decade in the making and is expected to finally be available to buy next year. Created by Japanese company Seven Dreamers, the Laundroid can fold a shirt in ten minutes and sort clothing into types. Seven Dreamers is yet to say how much the robot, which is around the same size as a fridge-freezer, will cost, but Panasonic is reportedly funding just 10pc of the project. Expand Close Laundroid is expected to be ready from March 2017 Credit: Seven Dreamers / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Laundroid is expected to be ready from March 2017 Credit: Seven Dreamers Consumers place clothes in a drawer at the bottom of the Laundroid, which it then identifies, sorts and folds using a combination of image recognition software, advanced robotics and machine learning. It can fold a range of clothing items, including shirts, skirts, shorts and trousers, according to Seven Dreamers. The company plans to release the Laundroid in March 2017, and will unveil more details at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Seven Dreamers said the robot could shave hours off the amount of time we spend doing chores each year, claiming that on average people spend 9,000 hours or 372 days folding washing in their lifetime. The company, with Panasonics assistance, is also working on an all-in-one robot that can wash and dry clothes, as well as fold and sort them. Although this device probably wont be ready until 2019. It is not clear when the robot, created in Japan, will be available in the UK. Japan is a world leader in utilitarian robotics, with Nissan recently launching a self-driving chair that can transport people queuing for restaurants in the country. But the UK isnt far behind. This summer autonomous delivery robot makers Starship launched a London trial with Just Eat to bring customers unmanned food. Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] Leaders from nations around the Pacific Rim vowed on Sunday to fight protectionism, and officials said more countries are looking to join a China-led trading bloc after Donald Trump's election victory raised fears the United States would scrap free trade deals. Trump campaigned for US president on a promise to pull out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, and also threatened to impose steep tariffs against China and Mexico. Regional leaders responded on Sunday, saying they would push ahead with the TPP. "We reaffirm our commitment to keep our markets open and to fight against all forms of protectionism," they said at a summit meeting of the 21-country Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group in Peru. On his last foreign trip before he leaves the White House in January, President Barack Obama said abandoning TPP would be a mistake for the United States. "I think not moving forward would undermine our position across the region and our ability to shape the rules of global trade in a way that reflects our values and our interests," Obama told a news conference at the end of the summit. Obama negotiated the TPP but has stopped seeking its congressional approval and says its ratification is now up to the incoming Trump administration. China is not part of TPP and has been pushing an alternative vision of free trade in Asia under the so-called Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which does not currently include countries in the Americas. Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Tan Jian, a senior member of China's delegation at the summit, said more countries are now seeking to join its 16-member bloc, including Peru and Chile. The APEC leaders said the TPP and RCEP were both valid paths to a broader Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific. "We encourage that all regional undertakings, including TPP and RCEP, remain open, transparent and inclusive and draw on each other," they said. Some APEC leaders in Lima have suggested the TPP could continue without the United States, but others said that would require a complete renegotiation. A way forward might be to make some cosmetic changes that would allow Trump to change his mind on the TPP without losing face, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key suggested. Obama said he was already hearing calls for a "less ambitious" free trade agreement with fewer protections for workers and environmental standards, a likely reference to the China-led RCEP. "That kind of agreement would obviously exclude US workers and businesses and access to those markets," he said. China's delegation warned against the "politicisation" of trade agreements and said they should not just be for rich economies. "If you have such high standards, then developing economies will have difficulty with trade," Jian told Reuters. Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who hosted the summit, said it was too early to write off the TPP and that Trump's support was due more to "difficult economic conditions" than to fierce protectionist sentiment. Canada, a member of TPP but not RCEP, is keeping its options open on future trade deals, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. Australia said it too was pursuing various opportunities, including RCEP. (Reuters) Warner Bros. Ireland has awarded a scholarship to a student from Dublins Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT). It was announced today that Miriam Devitt, an MA Screenwriting student, was awarded the honour. Now in its third year, the scholarship will, over the course of the year, provide Miriam with postgraduate funding support and the experience of a short paid placement at Warner Bros. Irelands Dublin offices, as well as mentoring support from the studio's executives in the country. The two previous Warner Bros. Creative Talent scholars from Ireland have both gone on to enjoy successes, with Ciaran Dooleys short film The Great Wide Open receiving a nomination for an Irish Film and Television Award. The short, starring John Kavanagh, also picked up awards at the 60th Cork Film Festival and the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival. Expand Close Miriam Devitt, recipient of the Warner Bros. Creative Talent Scholarship. Photo: Brian McEvoy / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Miriam Devitt, recipient of the Warner Bros. Creative Talent Scholarship. Photo: Brian McEvoy Daniel Kelly has also celebrated award success after winning an Irish Writer's Guild Award in 2015 for best Screenplay with his film Into Night. Josh Berger CBE, President & Managing Director, Warner Bros. UK, Ireland & Spain, said: Warner Bros. Creative Talent is part of our continued commitment to supporting the next generation of talent from the creative industries and I am thrilled to welcome Miriam into the programme. Our previous two scholars have seen fantastic success and I look forward to seeing how our support will help to nurture and grow Miriams impressive talent during these important first few steps of her career. Ronan O Muirthile, Head of the National Film School IADT said "IADT is again delighted to welcome the continued support of Warner Bros for our MA in Screenwriting. The scholarship they provide is a recognition of the importance of good visual storytelling and opens an important door for our students to the world of professional screen writing." The Irish scholarship is an extension of Warner Bros. Creative Talent, a key part of Warner Bros. long-term investment in UK creative industry skills and training. Announced in 2013, Warner Bros. Creative Talents multi-layered investment encompasses scholarships at some of the UKs most respected higher education institutions; apprenticeships with roles ranging from set-lighting to post-production; trainee positions on every Warner Bros. UK film production; year-long training course places for young people at inclusive theatre company, Chickenshed and work experience placements for schools local to Warner Bros. London HQ. Expand Close Ciaran Dooley / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ciaran Dooley Warner Bros. has a storied film-making history in Ireland, most notably the 1996 production of Michael Collins, which became the countrys top-grossing film on release and still remains the highest grossing Irish film of all time. The films Academy Award-winning director, Neil Jordan, is also behind other Warner Bros. hits including Interview with a Vampire and award-winning film The Butcher Boy. The first full-length trailer for Barry has landed; Netflix's Barack Obama biopic. With just two months to go before Obama is succeeded by Donald Trump in the White House, nostalgia is already building around the current US president. The trailer for Barry, a film about Obamas days as a student at Columbia University in the early 1980s, should further stoke the sentimentality. In the Netflix biopic, a young Barack Obama, known to his friends as Barry, arrives in New York City in September1981 to begin his junior year at Columbia University. Australian newcomer Devon Terrell stars as the 20-year-old undergraduate, struggling with his identity as a mixed-race kid from Honolulu in a largely white scene. He's grappling with a series of increasingly-strained relationships with his Kansas-born mother, his estranged Kenyan father and his classmates in the racially-charged enviornment. You a whole different type of brother, a friend tells him at one point. You do realise that, dont you? I fit in nowhere, Terrell as Obama. The film premieres on Netflix in Ireland on December 16. On Monday morning, Twitter users woke up to a proliferation of #KanyeIsOverParty tweets. In the time-honoured tradition of #TaylorIsOverParty and #ZigiIsOverParty, this can only mean one thing: the rapper has been attracting attention, again. Kanye West is no stranger to controversy. In February he made headlines after publicly asking Silicon Valley billionaires for money, claiming he was in millions of dollars of debt. The summer was marked by West, his wife Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift feuding over his lyric, in which he claims he "made that b---- famous". Just a few weeks ago it emerged that West had bought a $30,000 sofa only to throw it out immediately. But such events pale in comparison to how West spent his weekend. Here, in order, is why West has made the headlines: Thursday, November 17 West admits he supports Trump West, who is in the middle of his Saint Pablo Tour in North America, played at the SAP Centre in San Jose, California, an area that was supportive of Hillary Clinton in the recent US presidential election. West took to the stage at 10pm, 90 minutes after his expected set time, but within 10 minutes had restarted his Life of Pablo song Famous several times. Worst was yet to come: West admitted that although he didn't vote in the election, if he had, he would have done so for President Elect Donald Trump. The admission came during what local reports call at "25-minute-long rant" in which West spoke about his frustration with politics and telling his crowd, "Specifically to black people, stop talking about race so much." If I would have voted, I would have voted for Trump West said. I wanted to say that before the election, but they told me, Whatever you do, dont say that aloud, Kanye West tonight speaking on racism in America. "Specifically to black people, stop talking about race so much." pic.twitter.com/HTWlJgdq7E Brandon E. Patterson (@myblackmindd) November 18, 2016 Not only did I not vote, but there were a lot of things I actually liked about Trumps campaign. His approach was (expletive) genius because it worked. Video footage of West's outburst appeared online while people attending the gig shared his quotes on social media. Local newspaper The Mercury News reported that attendees left early, but only after throwing shoes and hats at West, whose outburst was met with booing from the crowd. Saturday, December 19 West rants at Jay Z and Beyonce The Saint Pablo tour's next stop was in Sacramento, California, and West appeared to stick to his more recent set list of embarking upon a monologue within minutes of starting his show. The Sacramento Bee reports that after just two songs and 30 minutes about half that time spent on a stream-of-consciousness rant against everything from MTV to Hillary Clinton the hip-hop star abruptly pulled the plug. Video of the Day While Trump wasn't on the agenda, West did take a pop at music's golden couple Beyonce and Jay Z. Those familiar with West's escapades will remember his controversial MTV VMAs 2009 moment, when he defended Beyonce over Taylor Swift via a stage invasion. However, he was, he told several thousand people who weren't Beyonce, hurt because I heard that you said you wouldnt perform unless you won Video of the Year over me and over Hotline Bling. He then took umbrage with her husband and former West collaborator, Jay Z, suggesting that he hadn't heard from him in a while: Jay Z, call me, bruh. You still aint calling me. Jay Z, call me. Aye, bruh, I know you got killers. Please dont send them at my head. Just call me. Talk to me like a man. Kanye West exposes Beyonce and Jay Z at his concert pic.twitter.com/mTo9Q60h5Z EXPOSED (@Exposing_celebz) November 20, 2016 After these public service announcements, West then explained that the show's over before dropping the microphone and running off the stage. The venue later released a statement explaining that those who bought tickets from Ticketmaster or on the phone would get an automatic refund, but with no updates for those who had acquired their tickets through the secondary market. Official statement from @Golden1Center on refunds for Kanye West. Curious what this means for those who bought tix from Craigslist, etc.? pic.twitter.com/ZUekqYfzdA Frances Wang (@ABC10Frances) November 20, 2016 Sunday, November 20 West updates his Instagram account and cancels his show The social media blacklash that followed West's San Jose and Sacramento shows reached West's neglected Instagram account which, until Sunday morning, had just one photograph posted on it. This received more than 160,000 comments, largely from irate fans posting abuse. Perhaps in an attempt to drown out the anger, 99 photographs from vintage Mason Margiela lookbooks were uploaded to the account in a matter of hours. Then, with just three hours before West was due to take to the stage on the next leg of his tour in Los Angeles, he cancelled his show at the Inglewood Forum. The venue notified users on Twitter, although at the time neither promoter, Live Nation nor Ticketmaster, gave a statement: A photo posted by Kanye West (@kanyewest) on Nov 20, 2016 at 3:57pm PST Following the cancellation an LA Times reporter tweeted that West had told his crew that the rest of the tour had been cancelled along with the Inglewood show. There has, however, been no official statement from the rapper and his website maintains that the shows are going ahead. Monday November 21 Snoop Dogg joins in the #KanyeIsOverParty, West cancels his tour, is admitted to hospital with 'exhaustion' The hashtag first trended on Saturday afternoon, but Twitter users are still reveling in the virtual festivities, fuelled by rapper Snoop Dogg's live narration of West's rant, which appeared on Instagram on Sunday night. Hours after speculation that West had cancelled the rest of his tour, a representative for the rapper told Pitchfork that all of the remaining tour dates had been cancelled, and ticket-holders will be refunded at the point of purchase. Within hours, reports were emerging that West had gone to hospital after police responded to a medical welfare call. At 1.20pm, the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to an unspecified medical aid request in the 900 block of North Laurel Avenue, reporting that "an adult male described as medically stable was taken to an area hospital for assessment." There has been no official statement from West's camp yet, but his mother-in-law, Kris Jenner, said at a red carpet event on Monday that the rapper was "exhausted". A source close to West denied that he was having a breakdown, but said that he had been dealing with a large workload: "He's just exhausted. He's been working around the clock on fashion design, both on his own line and the Adidas line. He's a notorious workaholic, so balancing both that work which is extremely important to him and the rigors of the tour every night, it really wore him out," a source told People. Tuesday, November 22 concern pours out for West As reports emerge that West is suffering from "exhaustion" and "sleep deprivation", fans and fellow musicians have shared their concern for the star online: Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol Armenia and Azerbaijan to do so without delay An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan". UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT Google Ad The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022 Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building OSCE Chairman-in-Office and OSCE Secretary General call for immediate cessation of hostilities along Armenia-Azerbaijan border Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh Devotees of Alice Munro might disagree, but for many readers William Trevor was the greatest short story writer of our time in the English language. Indeed, although he was the author of 17 novels, many of them memorable, it was in the short form that he felt most at home, describing himself as "a short story writer who happens to write novels, not the other way around". A very prolific one, too - his 1992 'Collected Stories' ran to 1,250 pages, a 2010 updated edition was 600 pages longer, while subsequent stories ran in 'The New Yorker' until the infirmities of old age ended his prodigious output. Yet Mitchelstown-born William Trevor Cox came relatively late to fiction, having first tried to make a living as a sculptor and then working as a copywriter at a London advertising agency. Disliking this job, he began to write fiction, and the modest success enjoyed by his award-winning novel 'The Old Boys' in 1964 encouraged him to risk becoming a full-time writer. His talent was obvious from the outset and the 1967 story collection 'The Day We Got Drunk on Cake' immediately confirmed him as a master of the short form - the gleefully heartless title story drawing on his ad agency experiences. And though voluntarily exiled (mainly in rural Devon with his wife Jane), he soon began writing about his native Ireland, in such classic stories as 'The Ballroom of Romance', 'An Evening with John Joe Dempsey', 'The Grass Widows' and 'Teresa's Wedding'. These are stories that are sympathetic to the plight of their often self-deceiving characters but that are also beady-eyed in their focus on the cruelly telling detail - as when a pal of Teresa's young spouse boasts to him at the nuptials that he had "a great ride off of" her a few months earlier. These stories from the 1970s are full of such merciless observations, and in later decades his sardonic eye was still as sharp as ever. Expand Close William Trevor poses with his novel The Story of Lucy Gault in 2002 Picture: PA/Chris Young / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp William Trevor poses with his novel The Story of Lucy Gault in 2002 Picture: PA/Chris Young As he grew older, though, he tended more to the wry and the elegiac, especially when evoking the disappearing communities of a changing and increasingly urbanised Ireland. You'll encounter these minor-key strains in such late novels as 'The Story of Lucy Gault' (2002) and 'Love and Summer' (2009), both of them exquisitely written and quietly affecting. But it's in the stories that Trevor reveals his true mastery, a mastery that won him a multitude of readers and many awards. And the fact that he was shortlisted five times for the Man Booker without ever winning it says nothing about his stature but a lot about such honours. He was also occasionally mentioned as a worthy candidate for the Nobel prize, though as a writer with no agenda other than to create memorable fiction about ordinary people and their extraordinary lives, he was probably deemed by the Swedish Academy not to have the right credentials for such an honour. In 2015, Trevor was elected Saoi of Aosdana, an honour which has previously been bestowed on writers such as Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney. President Michael D Higgins led tributes to the revered author yesterday as news broke of his death. He said: "The work of William Trevor was widely regarded by his peers and critics as being among the finest literary works produced in Ireland. "His loss will be felt most by his wife Jane and their two sons, Patrick and Dominic, to whom Sabina and I send our condolences." Chair of the Arts Council, Sheila Pratschke, said: "William Trevor was a writer of extraordinary gifts. "A novelist, playwright and, perhaps most famously, a short story writer, Trevor was a true master of his craft, and has profoundly influenced a generation of writers, in Ireland and abroad. He was a writer of sensitivity, grace and insight, and leaves behind a deep legacy of work." Those who know Trevor's books will honour one of the finest writers of the age and lament his passing. The country's leading broadcasters have rushed to send their best wishes to RTE legend Gay Byrne following his shock cancer revelation. The former 'Late Late Show' host revealed on Sunday that his doctors fear he may have prostate cancer that has spread to his back. Ryan Tubridy, who is now at the helm of the show that propelled Byrne to national fame, said his predecessor was a "survivor". "I certainly want to wish him and the family well in the next couple of weeks, that he gets looked after. Gay is a trooper, a fighter, a survivor," Tubridy said. "He's had a pretty tough year, let's face it, after last December and on he goes. "He goes to the openings of plays and movies and book launches...and, honestly, he just keeps on going. He is remarkable, and I just wanted to send him enormous love and goodwill and good wishes. "And I think I'm probably reflecting the thoughts of all in RTE - and beyond, the listeners who used to listen to him on this programme in previous incarnations, and watch him on 'The Late Late Show' and everything else." Meanwhile, businessman and Newstalk host Bobby Kerr, who also broke the news of his cancer battle on-air in 2015, has praised Byrne for the way in which he tackled the subject head-on with his listeners. Tony Ward: He ignored the signs, as did I. Don't make the same mistake Mr Kerr said Gay had "demystified" his health concerns by speaking openly. "I think it's great that he came out with such clarity," he told the Irish Independent. "He's a great ambassador and everyone wishes him well. Everyone wants him to get better," he said. "He is the classic communicator and he knows how to do it," he said. "You could see that's the way that he wanted to do it, and that's the way he did it. "Everybody in broadcasting looks up to him and I'm sure everyone wants him to get better as soon as possible." Fellow cancer survivor Michael Murphy, a former newsreader with RTE, also said he hoped the broadcaster would pull through. "I was very sorry to hear Gay's news, I hope he will be alright," he said. "He's the greatest broadcaster we have. It'll be a huge shock for people. "November is the month for men's cancer awareness so it's ironic that this should occur for poor Gay at this time." Mr Murphy is featured in the Marie Keating Foundation's Heroes of Hope exhibition. Larry Gogan, who has worked alongside Gay for many years, has sent his best to his friend. "Gay and I are the two oldest broadcasters left in RTE ...hopefully, he will be all right," he said. A Garda killer who was jailed for seven years in 2011 has been charged with driving and drugs offences in Northern Ireland. Martin McDermott (31), who is originally from Raphoe in Co Donegal, was jailed five years ago after he drove a stolen car into a Garda car on the main Derry to Letterkenny Road in 2009. Garda officer Gary McLoughlin died from injuries he sustained in the impact. At Derry Magistrates' Court yesterday, McDermott, who now lives at Meehan Terrace in the Waterside, appeared with another man. He and Gary Dobbins (35), from St Eithne's Park in the city, are jointly charged with four drug charges linked to the seizure of 5,600 diazepam tablets, as well as conspiring with two other men to supply the tablets. Both men are alleged to have committed the offences on March 26 of this year. McDermott is further charged with offering to supply or sell Pregabalin, better known as Lyrica, and possessing it with a prescription. Those offences are alleged to have occurred last Saturday. He is also charged with driving while disqualified and driving without insurance on the same day. Dobbins is also charged with driving without insurance and while disqualified, driving without due care and attention and failing to stop for a police officer. Expand Close Garda Gary McLoughlin, who was killed in 2009 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Garda Gary McLoughlin, who was killed in 2009 Those offences are alleged to have taken place on a cross border road between Derry and Donegal on October 2. Opposing bail, a PSNI officer told District Judge Barney McElholm that McDermott had 99 previous criminal convictions in the Republic and 11 in Northern Ireland. "He was disqualified from driving for 20 years in the Republic of Ireland following the death of a Garda colleague yet he continues to drive without having a driver's licence," she told the court. McDermott received a seven-year jail sentence in July 2011 for the manslaughter of Garda Gary McLoughlin. The officer died when his squad car was struck at speed by a stolen car driven by McDermott at Burt, Co Donegal, in December 2009. The police witness said the drugs charges against the two defendants followed an investigation after large quantities of diazepam were intercepted by Royal Mail staff. This led to properties in Derry and in Belfast being searched. She said one of the boxes of drugs was addressed to Dobbin's home while an empty box related to McDermott's home address. The officer said in September last year, 5,600 diazepam tablets posted to McDermott's home address were intercepted by the police. She said McDermott's home address was searched on October 21 last year. Police found a box containing information leaflets relating to diazepam patches. Mr McElholm refused bail to both men, saying that he did not think they would stop offending if released. A judge has halted the trial of a son of late billionaire hotel boss Jim Mansfield on ammunition charges, ruling that the case is too serious to be dealt with at district court level. Patrick James (PJ) Mansfield was being tried at Dublin District Court for having more than 1,000 bullets without a licence, with evidence from several garda witnesses heard, when Judge Ann Ryan refused jurisdiction to continue with the case. This afternoon, she adjourned proceedings for the preparation of a book of evidence. Mr Mansfield will instead be sent for trial by jury to Dublin Circuit Criminal Court when the book is ready. Meanwhile, Mr Mansfields brother Jim Mansfield Junior had his case adjourned for mention on the same date. He is facing a similar charge arising from a separate garda search but no evidence has been heard yet. PJ Mansfield (39) is accused of possession of 1,257 rounds of Walther ammunition without a firearms licence at his former home at Coldwater Lakes in Saggart on January 29, 2015. Jim Mansfield Jr (49) is charged with having 180 rounds of .22 Walther ammunition without a firearms licence at his home at Tassaggart House in Saggart. They have both pleaded not guilty to the charges. The accused are sons of Jim Mansfield Snr, who passed away in January 2014. He was the businessman behind the Citywest Hotel, Weston Airport and a number of other high-profile ventures. Several of these other businesses collapsed in the recession. When PJ Mansfields case got underway, gardai alleged a total of 1,557 .22 Walther bullets were found in a search of the house at Coldwater Lakes. Ammunition was found in a gun safe, a wardrobe and a garage, gardai said. Of the Walther bullets found, a total of 1,257 was in excess of what was permitted under licence, it was alleged. Gardai also found a Walther pistol loaded with one bullet behind a picture hanging above the bed in the master bedroom, the court heard. A shotgun was found in the gun safe and both firearms were legally licenced. Giving evidence, Detective Sergeant Brendan Flanagan who was attached to the Criminal Assets Bureau, said a warrant was issued at the District Court and he went to PJ Mansfields address at around 7am. There was a large gate at the driveway which he scaled before ringing the front doorbell, he said. The front door was opened by the accused and Det Sgt Flanagan identified himself and explained his purpose for being there. There were three other gardai and a revenue officer present. Det Sgt Flanagan said he had a warrant to search the premises, showed Mr Mansfield the original and gave him a copy. The accused told him his girlfriend was upstairs in bed at the time and Mr Mansfield agreed that they would both come to the kitchen while the search was being carried out. Cross-examined by Tony McGillicuddy BL, for the defence, Det Sgt Flanagan confirmed that quantities of ammunition had been found in a gun safe, a garage, and wardrobe. Detective Garda Maria Flynn said the pistol that was found was loaded. It was capable immediately of firing on the trigger being pulled, she said. I removed the clip and the bullet to render it safe. Detective Garda Nigel Petrie said the accused was only licenced to have 300 rounds so he separated those out and seized the excess. After hearing the evidence of the three gardai, Judge Ryan said she had reconsidered the issue of jurisdiction and decided the case was too serious to proceed in the district court. She adjourned it to a date in January. Earlier, she had adjourned Jim Mansfield Jrs case to the same date after the court heard there would not be time to hear it on the same day as his brothers. Jim Mansfields case remains before the district court. Former Justice Minister Alan Shatter is to receive a declaration that his constitutional rights were breached by a report into garda whistleblowing allegations. However, efforts by the former Fine Gael TD to have parts of the report quashed are being opposed by lawyers for its author, barrister Sean Guerin SC. Mr Shatter resigned as justice minister in 2014 after the report found he had failed to heed concerns raised by garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe. But a commission of investigation, headed by Mr Justice Kevin OHiggins, subsequently found Mr Shatter had dealt with the concerns appropriately. A three-judge Court of Appeal heard today there was a dispute between both sides as to what should happen following a ruling earlier this month that opinions critical of Mr Shatter in the Guerin report were reached in breach of his right to fair procedure as he was never asked to give his version of events. Counsel for Mr Shatter, Paul Sreenan SC, said there was agreement between both sides on a declaration. However, orders being sought by Mr Shatter for the quashing of conclusions, that the quashing order be given to Taoiseach Enda Kenny, and that Mr Guerin amend his report and deliver it to the Taoiseach, have been opposed by lawyers for the senior counsel. Paul Anthony McDermott SC, for Mr Guerin, said the report could not simply be edited on the assumption the conclusions would remain the same. He also said it was not within Mr Guerins power to amend the report. His client had been asked to write a report by the Government, had delivered it, and was no longer in control of it. The court heard that despite the OHiggins findings, Mr Guerins report remains available on the Department of Taoiseach website and has not been edited. It is the Taoiseach who is in control of the report and it is the Taoiseach who would have to do anything. The Taoiseach is not in court, said Mr McDermott. Our point all along is that Mr Shatter sued the wrong party. He should have sued the Taoiseach, but we lost that argument. Asked by Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan if this was a matter for Mr Shatter and Mr Kenny to work out, Mr McDermott said: Yes. It is not for the court to get involved in outstanding issues between Mr Shatter and the Taoiseach. Mr Sreenan said the orders sought were necessary to address an injustice done to Mr Shatter. If they were not granted a stain on his reputation would remain on the public record, via the Department of Taoiseach website. Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan said she did not see any law which would allow for the quashing of parts of a report. The president of the court, Mr Justice Sean Ryan, said it would be a pyrrhic victory for Mr Shatter if he obtained a declaration his rights were breached only for the report to remain in place. He said the court would consider whether the orders should be granted and would deliver a ruling on the issue shortly. The case revolved around a scoping report delivered to the Government by Mr Guerin in May 2014. The report examined a series of allegations about the handling of cases in the Cavan/Monaghan division and how complaints about the conduct of investigations were dealt with. Mr Shatter objected to the process in which the report was compiled, as he did not have an opportunity to respond in advance of the reports publication. He resigned as minister a day after the findings were published. Mr Shatter claims Mr Kenny told him he would not be able to express confidence in him. But the OHiggins commission subsequently found Mr Shatter had dealt with the complaints appropriately. Mr Shatter blamed the Guerin report for the loss of his job and the subsequent loss of his Dail seat. He is seeking his costs and the costs of an earlier High Court case, but has not lodged any claim for damages. A man who was serving a prison sentence for conspiracy to rob a security van containing 1m cash is challenging the Minister for Justice's decision to refuse him one-third remission. Alan Bradley (42) of Churchfields, Kentstown, Co Meath, with his brother Wayne, pleaded guilty before the Circuit Criminal Court in 2012 to conspiring to steal cash from Chubb Ireland in November 2007 at Tesco, Celbridge, Co Kildare. Alan was sentenced to nine years imprisonment with the final two years suspended. This was reduced on appeal to eight years with 18 months suspended. He has since been given bail pending the outcome of his High Court challenge over his remission claim. In that action, he claims that after undergoing a number of courses and his behaviour while serving the sentence in Portlaoise Prison, this entitled him to enhanced or one-third remission, rather than the normal one-quarter off his sentence. Two applications he made to the Minister for additional time off his sentence were refused on the basis that he represented a risk to public safety. Arising out of the refusals, he launched proceedings aimed at quashing the refusals. He also seeks a declaration he is entitled to enhanced remission. The action, which is opposed by the Minister, opened before Ms Justice Una Ni Raifeartaigh on Tuesday. Michael O Higgins SC, for Bradley, said his client had undergone a number of educational and training courses including one in first aid. Counsel said the Minister says she took a number of criteria into consideration before assessing any application for enhanced remission. Counsel said that part of the material submitted to the Minister when the application was being assessed was a four year old newspaper article concerning Bradley. The article quoted an anonymous garda source, was out of date and should not have formed the basis of any decision made in respect of Bradley's applications in 2016 for enhanced remission, he said. Counsel said Bradley would have been entitled to release last June had he got one-third remission, rather than the normal one-quarter. The refusal meant he had to spend approximately five more months in prison. Bradley, who is on bail pending the outcome of the action, was present in court for the hearing. The Minister has opposed the action and argues the Minister was entitled on the basis of the material before her to refuse the application for enhanced remission. The case continues. Three people have now pleaded guilty to drugs offences before Cork Circuit Criminal Court in relation to the Garda investigation launched following Mr Ryans death Photo: Getty Stock Three people have pleaded guilty to possession of a deadly synthetic drug, nicknamed 'N Bomb', following an investigation into the death of a teenager. Alex Ryan (18), of Liscahane, Millstreet, Co Cork, got sick at a house party at St Patrick's Terrace, Green Street, Cork, on January 19 last. He was rushed to Cork University Hospital (CUH) but died four days later. Three people have now pleaded guilty to drugs offences before Cork Circuit Criminal Court in relation to the Garda investigation launched following Mr Ryan's death. Harry Clifton (29), of St Finbarr's Place, Proby's Quay, Cork, pleaded guilty to four charges. These included having drugs in his possession for sale or supply on January 18 last. The charges involve drugs including N Bomb, DMT, MDMA and cannabis. Jessica O'Connor (20), of Rosebank House, Killarney, Co Kerry, pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring with another to possess a controlled drug, namely N Bomb, for sale or supply in Cork city on January 18 last. Ruairi Maher (22), of Ballycurrane, Thurles, Co Tipperary, previously pleaded guilty to conspiring with another to handle drugs, namely N Bomb, for sale or supply. The trio will be sentenced tomorrow. The brutal attacker who caused horrific head and facial injuries to a university student may have fled with visible marks on his clothing or body, said a garda chief today. Garda Superintendent Gerry Wall spoke at the scene of the savage attack in Maynooth to appeal to the public for help in their investigation. Expand Expand Previous Next Close Supt Gerry Wall speaks to the media in the Moyglare Abbey estate in Maynooth where Kym Owens was assaulted on Sunday evening. Photo: Gerry Mooney Gardai in the Moyglare Abbey estate in Maynooth where Kym Owens was assaulted Photo: Gerry Mooney / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Supt Gerry Wall speaks to the media in the Moyglare Abbey estate in Maynooth where Kym Owens was assaulted on Sunday evening. Photo: Gerry Mooney Gardai have named the 18-year-old student as Kym Owens from Castleblaney, Co Monaghan. The attacker may have been "in an agitated state" and it was possible someone in the Maynooth area encountered someone with marks of their clothing, he said. It was "very, very possible" that the unknown attacker or attackers could have travelled on the same bus as Kym into Maynooth on Sunday night and gardai were keeping all possibilities open regarding the assailant. Kym (18), a Bachelor of Arts student, was walking to her digs at the entrance of the Moyglare Abbey estate on Sunday shortly before 8.30pm when she was subjected to the sudden violent attack. Expand Close Kym Owens. Picture released to help with investigation. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kym Owens. Picture released to help with investigation. Kym remains in "a serious condition" in the intensive care unit of Blanchardstown Hospital today and her parents have asked for their privacy to be respected, he said. "She is receiving magnificent care'" said the garda superintendent based in Leixlip where a garda incident room has been set up with a public hotline 01 6667800. Expand Close The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain) "We appeal to the public...their information is vital, however trivial it seems, as it could be the vital link," he said. Gardai will meet with student leaders at Maynooth University at 4pm today and address students about the attack and ask for help for the investigation. Superintendent Wall said gardai had given safety advice to first year students at the beginning of the academic year. "Young women should not walk alone at night and always tell friends or family where they are going and what time they were expected to arrive," he said. Expand Close Moyglare Abbey estate in Maynooth where Kym Owens was assaulted on Sunday evening. Photo: Gerry Mooney / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Moyglare Abbey estate in Maynooth where Kym Owens was assaulted on Sunday evening. Photo: Gerry Mooney "It was a well lit road but there were very foggy conditions which reduced the visibility," said the garda chief, describing local conditions when the crime occurred. "Kym is five feet three inches tall...with long brown hair. She was wearing a dark green coat with a hood. She also wore a red hoodie and black jeans," he said. Expand Close The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain) She wore white runners and carried a distinctive green bag with a yellow handle with the work Castleblaney on the side of the bag. The private bus service she used to travel from Castleblaney to Maynooth on Sunday night began in Monaghan town and travelled to Carrickmacross before picking up Kym in Castleblaney. The bus picked people up at later stops, including Arden and Slane. Gardai were ruling no possibilities out, including the possibility the attack travelled on the bus. CCTV footage that night would have been compromised by very foggy conditions. The crime was "quite violent in its nature," he said. Kym suffered broken eye sockets, a broken jaw, a smashed nose, and she lost several teeth in the attack. There are 11,000 students living in the small town and such an attack is a "rare event" in the area, he said. Students have been warned to take extra precautions to ensure their safety in the wake of the savage attack. Speaking in advance of a gathering of student leaders called to discuss safety, Annie Hoey, Union of Students Ireland President said: We want all students to be safe and happy this winter, and to avoid the hazards of the season. Were asking students to take three simple precautions to stay safe and sound this winter." Ms Hoey warned students to "take care to walk wherever you need to go via a well lit path". "Avoid darker areas, because its easier to trip or fall on leaves or ice if you cant see them - let alone any other risks that could be lurking there. If there are unlit areas in or around your campus, see it as your duty to let the Students Union know so they can do something about it. "Secondly, make sure youre visible. The time for dressing in dark colours is the summer, when everyone can see them - and in winter, High Vis is the new black, particularly when walking in poorly lit areas off the beaten track, or where youll be walking close to traffic. If youre jogging, cycling or running, dont even think about hitting the path without glowing like a christmas tree. "Thirdly, make sure people know where you are and where youre going. Its always best at this time of year to walk in groups - theres safety in numbers and, if the weather gets colder, snow angels are more fun with company. If thats not possible, a quick text saying where youre going to and from, along with your expected arrival time makes sense." A mother who lost two babies to a rare disorder has told of her gratitude for the care and support she received from specialist nurses. Lucy Greene's first child Darragh was born in 2008 with neurological abnormalities, which meant he suffered seizures and could not keep down his food. The mum, from Doonbeg, Co Clare, said that back then there was little help available to care for Darragh. Son Ronan was later born with the same condition in 2012. She then had support of specialist nurses at University Hospital Limerick who are part of the Children's Palliative Care programme. "The family was able to care for Ronan at home, avoiding the stresses of hospital visits," said Lucy, who has two other healthy sons. She was speaking at the launch of a report titled 'An Evaluation of the Children's Palliative Care Programme', which has helped hundreds of children with life-limiting conditions. The report, launched by Health Minister Simon Harris, found the programme is "significantly enhancing" the quality of palliative care offered. An iconic Clerys sign worth up to 3,000 is feared stolen after it went missing from the walls of the historic department store. The valuable bronze crest, which is believed to have been pinned to the wall of the building since it opened in 1853, has been missing for a number of months. It is one of a number of metal plaques on the walls of the old department store which are protected structures, according to Dublin City Council. The local authority says it was taken down without its permission. A spokeswoman for DCC said it had received a complaint and was investigating. Protected "The crest was not removed by Dublin City Council," she said. "As this is a protected structure the crest should not have been removed without permission or at least a Section 5 Declaration. "Dublin City Council Planning Enforcement have received a complaint and the matter will be investigated." Ian Whyte of Whyte's auctioneers on Molesworth Street, told the Herald that an item such as this crest could be sold for up to 3,000. "If it was on a legitimate market and the owners of the building were selling it, it might be worth as much as 2,000-3,000," Mr Whyte said. "The Clerys one would be more manageable and is quite a nice size for someone to display. "Some of it is melted down I'm afraid. If it's made of bronze it could be worth a few bob," he added. Mr Whyte said his auctioneers sold a number of items from Clerys at an auction in September, which commanded quite high prices. "We had the old doorman's cap and that went for around 200 and we had a presentation key which was given to Denis Guiney on his 21st anniversary of buying the place in 1961 - that made 580," he said. Another crest, similar to the one that is missing, appears to have all of its main bolts removed and city councillor, Mannix Flynn fears that more of these signs will be stolen. Targeted He added that Clerys is just one of a number of parts of the city that are being targeted by thieves. "Someone will come along and just jemmy that off and I want to save that one," Mr Flynn said. "There's a pool of people going around stealing these things. These are invaluable and these are part of our heritage and history, it's not good enough that these aren't protected. "I think that when a building is unoccupied these items should be taken in and restored," he added. Building owner, OCS Properties, was contacted by the Herald but had not responded at the time of going to print, though it has no involvement in the disappearance of the Clerys sign. Gardai have issued a warning to motorists after six cars were stolen from driveways while owners tried to clear windscreens. In a post on the Kildare Garda Division Facebook page today officers wrote that there had been two reports of cars being stolen from the driveways of peoples homes in the area over the last 24 hours. "Car owners have come out and started the engine to allow the car to warm up and to clear the windscreen of frost and ice and left the car unattended. Within seconds, the cars were taken. The post continues: "Please be aware of these type of incidents. The car thieves are great fans of the frosty mornings." A garda spokesman has confirmed to Independent.ie that they are also investigating four incidents of unauthorised taking of a vehicle that occurred in the Lucan area of Dublin on last Friday, November 18 between 6.40am and 7.35am. One of the cars was recovered, abandoned a short time and distance later. No arrests have been made. Investigations are ongoing. The warning comes as temperatures are expected to plummet to -6 degrees in parts of the country this week as a high pressure Arctic weather system settles over Ireland. Motorists, please do not leave vehicles unattended whilst defrosting. Op. Waste DMR Traffic recovered this car today, stolen this morning. pic.twitter.com/2k4uI4I6bx An Garda Siochana (@GardaTraffic) November 18, 2016 Read More Ice and fog will be widespread over the next few days with freezing fog developing in midland areas. Southern counties might see double figures, with highs of 10 degrees, but most counties will struggle to reach 8 degrees during the day. The ferry docking after being stranded for more than 24 hours Bleary-eyed passengers from the Stena Europe arrived at Fishguard Harbour just before 11am on Tuesday morning following a 27.5 hour sea crossing in storm-lashed seas. Mountainous waves meant that the ferry, which had left Rosslare at 9am the previous morning with 87 passengers and 59 crew aboard was unable to dock in Fishguard and was instead forced to take a northerly route to ride out the storm. Ship tarcking website @MarineTraffic shows Rosslare-Fishguard ferry Stena Europe off the Gwynedd coast rather than in port Stormy weather!! pic.twitter.com/NA8T7oROxb Eryl Crump (@DP_eryl) November 21, 2016 And passengers disembarking at Fishguard spoke of their relief that their rough passage was finally over. I was told this was only the third time the ferry has been unable to dock in twenty years, Andrew Neads, a 52-year-old sheet metal worker returning home to Caerphilly, told the County Echo. I'm not a good traveller anyway so I took a bunk over and a bunk back it was just a case of getting my head down and making the best of it. We were offered a free breakfast and free evening meal and the Stena crew looked after us very well. Passengers stuck on Stena ferry overnight due to bad weather. Can't dock. Was due at Fishguard from Rosslare at 12:30. Photo - Lesley Hughes pic.twitter.com/3gFYbD2L93 Barra Best (@barrabest) November 21, 2016 Yes, it was quite rough and people were getting frustrated but I think that was more through worrying about taking another day off work. Anne Tomlinson, of Romford, who had travelled over to Ireland for a family party with her husband, Mike, questioned the decision to sail from Rosslare. When we arrived at Rosslare the sea looked pretty rough and we expected the crossing to be called off, she said. Instead I think the captain must have decided there was a window of opportunity he went for it and we ended up being stuck out at sea for 27 bloody hours. The crew were great, though, even though the crossing was awful. Although some people got a bit angry most of us seemed to accept everyone was in the same boat if you'll pardon the pun. We were so close to docking in Fishguard on Monday afternoon we could actually see the white buildings in the port, but then the captain announced he was going to have to abort because of the conditions. It was a case of so near and yet so far. Anne Burke (59) of New Ross, had been travelling to see her two-week-old grandson in Bridgend. Expand Close The ferry docking after being stranded for more than 24 hours / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The ferry docking after being stranded for more than 24 hours I'd rung Rosslare the night before and was told the crossing would be fine, she said. As it turned out, the weather was horrendous. Her views were echoed by Catrina O'Regan, a 25-year-old student from Cork City who was travelling back to her digs in Gorslas, near Swansea. It was horrific, she said. I've been travelling since 4am on Sunday and I'm totally exhausted having not slept for 27 hours. This was my first time aboard a ferry and I'll certainly not be doing it again in a hurry. But the crew were amazing they did everything they could for us, to be honest. Michael Lawrence, a 45-year-old crane driver originally from Co Mayo who was returning to his home in Bristol, said the Stena crew made one big mistake. They closed the bar at 9pm, he complained. If someone is suffering from nerves they obviously need a drink or two. Yes, there was plenty of tea and coffee on offer but an Irishman such as myself needs something a bit stronger than that. I rang the wife back home to tell there was a huge party on board - sadly that wasn't the case. His eleven-year-old son John-Boy said: I was pretty sick out there and my tummy still doesn't feel right now, I don't know when I'll feel like food again. However, while some passengers admitted to being somewhat shaken, Giles Fitzherbert, a retired diplomat from Co Wexford, was unstirred. Mr Fitzherbert (81) who reckoned he was the oldest passenger on board, said he made light of the conditions as he looked forward to visiting family in Oxford. I have been travelling for a very long time and compared with some of my experiences this crossing was quite smooth, believe me, he insisted. I just wish my grandchildren had been with me because they'd have enjoyed the excitement. It wasn't traumatic we were actually quite comfortable. Arriving a day late is just a little inconvenience having said that, I now need a train to Oxford and there's currently absolutely no sign of it. A statement from Stena Line says:"The health and safety of passengers and crew is of paramount importance to Stena Line, therefore we spent a comfortable night onboard sheltering at Cardigan Bay. We are sailing south now and as soon as berthing parameters are safe we aim to have our passengers on their way by 11:00hrs this morning." The Stena Line service left Wexford at 9am on Monday and was due to arrive in the Welsh port at 12.30pm. It failed to reach the port and another attempt to dock at 3.30pm was also unsuccessful. Diane Poole, Head of PR and Communications for Stena Line praised the passengers for remaining in high spirts while on board. "They are actually in great spirits, considering they have spent almost 24 hours on board. They are very relaxed but obviously anxious to get home or get to the destination they are going to." The ferry spent the night at sea, about six kilometres off-shore and had 87 passengers and 59 crew on board. A spokesperson from Stena Line said "extreme weather conditions" meant they were unable to dock. "The health and safety of passengers and crew is of paramount importance to Stena Line, therefore the passengers will remain onboard overnight and a second attempt at docking will take place at midday tomorrow (Tuesday)." Dublin to Holyhead crossings are running as normal today. Met Eireann has issued a status yellow warning for all Irish coastal waters, with strong gales expected on the Irish Sea. The cold and windy weather looks set to continue throughout the morning but soon clearing to give a bright day. Meanwhile, in the UK, more than 75 flood warnings were put in place across the South West, the Midlands, North East, North West, Wales and the East of England on Monday evening, with a further 207 flood alerts issued across England and Wales. Storm Angus wreaked havoc across the country, with schools and roads across being forced to close and a number of homes and cars submerged in water. A 27-year-old man has died from injuries he received following a collision close to Belfast International Airport. John Fitzgerald, from Kilmacthomas, Waterford, was walking in the area when he was involved in a collision with a car. The incident happened close to the Ballyrobin Guest House shortly before 4.50pm on Saturday. Kilmacthomas GAA paid tribute Mr Fitzgerald on Facebook this evening. Expand Close John Fitzgerald. Picture: PSNI / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp John Fitzgerald. Picture: PSNI In a deeply personal and emotional message the club wrote: "A dark cloud hangs over the village as we discover the passing of a true gent who has been called way too soon." Mr Fitzgerald, known as "Bungles", was described as "kind gentle and one of the soundest lads you could meet". "Anytime you'd meet him he'd either have a fag and a bottle of coke with him or else sometimes in the pub having a pint and no doubt playing a game of pool or darts. "No matter who you were or where you came from you would be treated the same with a big hello and and a smile." The club posted pictures of Mr Fitzgerald togged out for an u21 county final for the club some years ago. His connection to the club didn't stop there and recently he drove a truck during field development on pitches. "I remember he had a fag in the mouth and a big smile and we all looking at him driving around a dumper, some would joke and say 'who gave him a dumper, sher he haven't even a car'." The club sent its condolences to his parents, brother, sisters and all friends and family. PSNI officers from the Collision Investigation Unit are appealing for anyone who was travelling on the Ballyrobin Road on Saturday evening and who witnessed the collision to contact them on 101 quoting reference number 831 of 19/11/16. Turkologist: Armenian-Turkish relations reached an impasse (video) At this point, Turkey has a major problem which flared up in early November, Turkologist Gevorg Petrosyan said on November 22. Several members of Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), including at least 10 MPs, were arrested in November as police raided homes in Ankara and Kurdish-majority areas in eastern Turkey. Several representatives of the party in the Turkish parliament were arrested in November [as part of a counter-terrorism investigation.] It means that the coup against Erdogan continues. Influential Kurdish leader Ahmet Turk was arrested on Monday, November 21. This implies that Erdogan will not stop destroying all the Kurdish forces. Also, armed operations against the (PKK) [a separatist group engaged in an insurgency against the government] continue. The problem is that Kurds are getting a greater opportunity to act in a well-organized way in the political domain. That is why, Erdogan began to fear them. I think there will be more arrests ahead of the planned constitutional referendum because if Erdogan succeeds in his plans, Turkey will switch from the parliamentary system to the presidential system. The Turkologist thinks that Erdogan is using violence to resolve short-term problems on his way. Speaking about the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations, Gevorg Petrosyan said that the oral attacks between Serzh Sargsyan and Recep Tayyip Erdogan show that the relations are still at a deadlock. Serzh Sargsyan's latest statement did not contain positive elements, and what happened in Istanbul once again came to prove that after Zurich the Armenian-Armenian relations are at an impasse. A new process needs to be started but unfortunately neither of the sides, especially Turkey, demonstrates the necessary political will. Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar has questioned the use of the word 'foetus' by people when referring to a "form of human life". Using the word 'foetus' instead of baby would be offensive to a pregnant friend, said the minister, while discussing abortion law during a seminar on equality, diversity, inclusion and human rights at University College, Dublin. He was asked whether he supported a woman's right to health as well as her right to life being enshrined in the Constitution. The minister said abortion laws were too restrictive and they should include safeguarding a woman's health. But he went on to question the use of word 'foetus' in such contexts. "I met a friend of mine for dinner on Saturday night and she was pregnant, expecting her first child . . . I did ask her if she knew what sex the baby was. I didn't ask what sex the foetus was," said Minister Varadkar, who is a qualified doctor. "If I did ask her about her foetus, she would have been quite offended. "And the same goes for my sisters because, to me, a foetus is a medical word. "It's like talking of your glossus instead of your tongue or your digits instead of your fingers. "I often wonder why people use that word. "It is yet to be explained to me why people use a medical word to talk about what is a form of human life, if not a person," said the minister. Minister Varadkar had already told the gathering that the abortion laws should be changed to safeguard women's health. The current law states termination is legal "only if there is a significant risk that you might die but if your health is permanently destroyed and you have a stroke or if you are currently incapacitated, it doesn't apply," he said. "It's far too restrictive and I think there should be a change. I don't know yet what it should change to and I think that's the debate that we probably need to have in the Citizen's Assembly and as a country," he said. Transport Minister Shane Ross has claimed judges want the proposed new system for judicial appointments to be controlled by members of the bench and people from a legal background. The Independent Alliance TD said it would be "wrong" for this to happen and that the Government intends to press ahead with plans for a judicial appointments committee with an independent chairperson and a lay majority. He also claimed the judiciary was "unaccountable" and "living a charmed life". Mr Ross's remarks came just days after he and Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald met a three-judge delegation to discuss the planned reforms. Subsequent to that meeting, the Chief Justice, Susan Denham, gave a speech in which she rejected claims the judiciary was "fighting change". In an apparent slapdown of Mr Ross, she told the National Judges' Conference at the weekend that the judiciary had been seeking reforms of the system for years. Responding to her remarks yesterday, Mr Ross accepted that the judiciary wanted change, but he claimed they wanted it on their own terms. "The detail of this has been talked about to the judiciary and the judiciary wish to change the appointment being in the hands of politicians to being a majority in the hands of lawyers, legal people and judges. That is a difficulty because I see that as wrong," he said in an interview with RTE Radio. Mr Ross said he wanted judges to have an input into the selection process, but "they shouldn't control it". The current 12-member Judicial Appointments Advisory Board is chaired by the Chief Justice, and includes four other senior judges, the Attorney General, and nominees from the Bar Council and the Law Society. The Programme for Government agreed between Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance would see this board slimmed down and given a lay majority. It would also be limited to providing the Cabinet with three recommendations per judicial vacancy, rather than the minimum of seven currently required. Mr Ross believes this will limit the discretion of the Cabinet and lessen the opportunity for politically motivated appointments. Sources familiar with the views of senior judges confirmed there were reservations about the proposed make-up of the committee. In particular, they wish to see the retention of a majority of members with a legal background. They said this was a feature of advisory committees in other common law countries and ensured candidates were assessed by people with significant experience of the legal system. They also want to retain the appointment of the Chief Justice as chairperson. It is understood the judges believe concerns about fairness or impartiality could be addressed by requiring that the commission endeavour to make decisions by consensus and if a vote is needed, that a two-thirds majority be required. Analysis: Ross got agreement on radical reforms of judicial appointments, but has now gone back for more They believe subcommittees carrying out interviews could be chaired by a lay chairperson. In the interview, Mr Ross reiterated his belief that judges should be required to provide a register of interests. However, it appears unlikely this will be included in forthcoming judicial appointments legislation. It is more likely to be addressed by a separate bill allowing for the setting-up of a judicial council, which would set ethical guidelines for judges and investigate complaints. Mr Ross also rejected fears, most recently articulated by Law Society president Stuart Gilhooly, that the failure to fill existing vacancies in advance of the new appointments system being introduced would cause significant backlogs in the courts. The international firm that advised NAMA on the sale of its Northern Ireland loan book was treated like an eejit and a patsy prior to the 1.6 billion property transaction, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has heard. Lazard, seen as a key player in the sale of Project Eagle, was kept in the dark in relation to details that were potentially highly significant to the sales process. The allegations were made by Sinn Fein TD Mary Lou McDonald during an at times testing sitting of the PAC. The hearings are examining the Comptroller and Auditor Generals report (CAG) into the sale. Project Eagle was sold in April 2014 to a US investment firm known as Cerebus. The CAG report found that the taxpayer incurred a potential loss of up to 190m sterling. Representing Lazard, the official sale advisor, its managing director Patrick Long accepted that he and his staff were not informed of key details in relation to the transaction. These include the fact that an investment firm Pimco pulled out of the bidding process after being asked to provide a fixer payment of 16 million for three parties involved in the deal. The money was to be shared equally by Belfast businessman Frank Cushnahan, US law firm Brown Rudnick and Ian Coulter, a managing partner of Belfast solicitors firm Tughans, Pimco previously told the committee. Mr Cushnahan was formerly a Nama adviser on Northern Ireland, on the recommendation of the Democratic Unionists. Brown Rudnick and Tughans also advised Cerberus on the successful deal. All parties have denied any wrongdoing. During robust questioning, Ms McDonald claimed that Mr Long and his company spectacularly lacked insights as sales advisor. "Do you know the expression eejit? NAMA made an eejit of you, a patsy, she said. Mr Long insisted his company always acted professionally and did the best job it could. We gave the best advice we could in knowledge we had at the time, he said. Earlier, Mr Long acknowledged that there were quite a lot of unusual features in the sale process itself. These included that the fact there was just one round of bidding, the small number of participants and the relatively tight time-frame imposed by NAMA. While Mr Long said all of these aspects have been seen in previous sales processes, the combination of them made this particular process unusual. During questioning from TDs, Mr Long admitted that his firms contract with NAMA was predicated on success fees. Success fees are common place our fee was only payable on success, he said, adding that his firm was at all times impartial. Project Eagle was sold in April 2014 to a US investment firm known as Cerberus. The CAG report found that the taxpayer incurred a potential loss of up to 190m sterling. During the hearings, Mr Long said the sales process was highly competitive and was designed to meet the criteria laid down by NAMA. There was competitive tension, he added. He said that eight other bidders were rejected as they did have the capacity to pay for the portfolio. We didnt feel the other eight would be additive to the sale process we didnt believe they had the capacity to pay more for these loans, Mr Long said. He said that it was made clear to him and his officials at all stages that the process itself was politically sensitive. Transport Minister Shane Ross may not realise it, but there was much common ground between him and the judiciary at one stage. While they would not have shared his view that they are "unaccountable" and "living a charmed life", it is true to say that judges have been advocating changes to the way they are appointed for several years. Their views were neatly summed up in a report forwarded by a judicial committee to the Department of Justice in 2014. This 97-page document called for the introduction of a "merit-based" system of appointments, ensuring political considerations play no part in the process. The guiding principle was that the most able and qualified person should be appointed. The document also advocated that any committee advising the Government on appointees should recommend only three candidates for each position. These passages ought to have been music to the ears of Mr Ross, a long time critic of the existing appointments system, which he believed to be an outlet for political patronage. In the Government formation negotiations between Fine Gael and Mr Ross's Independent Alliance, judicial appointment reform became a red line issue. It was, he says, one of the hardest fought aspects of the negotiations. What emerged was a pledge to introduce legislation for a new selection process, which would ensure appointments were made on merit from a shortlist of just three candidates. This would seem to be where the consensus between Mr Ross and the judges ended. Senior judges favoured a committee where the majority of members had a legal background, to ensure suitable vetting of candidates. But Mr Ross wanted to dispense with this and was successful in negotiating a lay majority with Fine Gael. Work began on a bill, with Department of Justice officials estimating the reforms would be in place by next summer. The game was essentially over and Mr Ross had won. But instead of taking his foot off the gas, the Transport Minister went on the offensive again. During the summer he sought and received an agreement at Cabinet that no new appointments would be made until the new system was in place, despite private misgivings from a number of Fine Gael ministers that this could lead to significant backlogs in the courts. Last week he opened up a new front in his war on the judiciary, saying he would be seeking for judges to have to declare their interests, because "they might forget their oath" of office to administer justice without fear or favour. He also claimed there would be resistance from judges to his bill. Having already secured so much, the comments seemed to be completely unnecessary and ended up blowing up in his face. Taoiseach Enda Kenny disowned the remarks in the Dail, saying he did not accept that judges would forget their oaths. The Chief Justice, Susan Denham, had also had enough and used a judicial conference at the weekend to hit out at "inaccurate discussion and misrepresentation of the position of the judiciary". Judges had been advocating change for years, but it had never been advanced by politicians, she argued. Unmoved, Mr Ross doubled down on his criticism of the judiciary yesterday, ensuring the row will run and run. Transport Minister Shane Ross could end the appointments logjam in his department by requesting a more specific shortlist of candidates, according to sources familiar with the process. The minister is refusing to fill 36 vacancies on State boards because he believes the system in place for selecting candidates gives him too much ministerial discretion. As a result, key boards including the Road Safety Authority (RSA), Irish Rail, Dublin Bus, the Dublin Airport Authority, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, Failte Ireland and Sport Ireland are operating with depleted numbers. However, the guidelines for appointing members of State boards gives the minister wide-ranging powers over the Public Appointments Service (PAS). They require the PAS to ensure the minister is provided with a "sufficient number of suitable candidates to allow the Minister to exercise appropriate choice in his or her decision-making". Sources say previous ministers have engaged with the PAS to request a limit on the number of CVs arriving on their desk. Mr Ross said yesterday that he had been given as many as 33 names for two positions. "That is just not satisfactory. I can't make a choice like this," he said. "I've put in some very detailed, possible reforms so that this would be ended. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform are now looking at this and new guidelines should be out within a few weeks." Labour Party senator Kevin Humphreys, who quizzed Mr Ross on the issue in the Seanad last week, told the Irish Independent he believes the minister is "absolutely wrong" about the need for a new system. "He doesn't understand," the former Minister of State claimed. "He's saying he was sent up whole lists of stuff. He's not consulting the public service." Mr Humphreys noted that some of the outstanding appointments date to the previous government as Mr Ross and others had insisted they didn't want "farewell appointments" in the build-up to the election. "He hasn't been prepared to make any decisions. I raised issues about appointments to the Road Safety Authority. "He was so bombastic, there was very little time for real input from the Seanad. It's quite obvious at this stage that he has not mastered his brief yet when he's giving misleading information to the Seanad," Mr Humphreys said. Fianna Fail's Robert Troy also rejected calls for the PAS to be reformed. "It is an independent body which is used to make appointments right across the public service. Minister Ross has no credible excuse for failing to take on board its recommendations," he said, adding that Mr Ross had been "paralysed by indecision". The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain) The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain) The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain) A student who was violently beaten as she walked home in Maynooth was left with head injuries, broken eye sockets, a smashed nose and had several teeth knocked out. The Co Monaghan teenager had taken a bus from her family home on Sunday night, and was walking from the town of Maynooth, Co Kildare, to her student accommodation in the Moyglare Abbey Estate when she was set upon shortly before 8.30pm. Neighbours nearby heard the 18-year-old's screams and rushed to her aid. The victim was rushed to Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, where she is in a critical condition. No arrests have yet been made and gardai at Leixlip are appealing for any witnesses to come forward as well as anyone on a private bus from Monaghan that arrived in Maynooth at 8.15pm on Sunday. Friends of the girl's family in Castleblaney said they were shocked at the brutal, unprovoked attack. Stephen Dignam, chairman of the local Castleblaney Faughs GAA club, said the young woman was always willing to help out and get involved. Expand Expand Previous Next Close Students Elaine Fallon, Karen OConnor and Rebecca Doyle at the scene of Sundays attack in Moyglare Abbey, Maynooth Photo: Colin ORiordan Garda forensic officers wash blood away from the scene of the attack. Photo: Colin ORiordan / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Students Elaine Fallon, Karen OConnor and Rebecca Doyle at the scene of Sundays attack in Moyglare Abbey, Maynooth Photo: Colin ORiordan "I just would be very concerned about her at this stage," he told the Irish Independent. "We haven't heard anything from the family yet. We're trying to make contact with them. "She plays here and she'd help out. She's been a great person around the club." Locals in the estate where her family live were disgusted to hear about the incident. They said her parents were in the hospital with her. "She is just such a lovely girl," one local woman said. "She is very slight and well mannered." Another local man said: "She's got her whole life ahead of her and we pray to God she gets through." Meanwhile in Maynooth, residents Patrick and Chris Kirrane said they were appalled. "We've never heard of anything like this here before. It's such a quiet estate. We are numbed by it all," Chris said. "There are quite a few students from the university staying in accommodation here, especially first years. I hope they catch whoever did this and that the poor girl will recover." Expand Expand Previous Next Close The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain) The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain) The motive for the attack is unknown but locals said the young woman's phone, bag and laptop were not taken, so robbery is unlikely. Maynooth University students yesterday said they could not believe the news. "I live in the estate and it is always quiet and safe. It's awful to think this could happen," law student Elaine Fallon (19) said. Rebecca Doyle (18), from Co Wexford, typifies many of the students who travel home at weekends. "I passed by here at around 10pm and it was sealed off by gardai. It's frightening," the science student said. Maynooth University issued a statement saying its entire community was disturbed to hear of the serious incident. "Our immediate thoughts are with the student and her family," it said. "The safety and well-being of all our students is of the utmost importance to us." Anyone with information is asked to contact Leixlip Garda station on 01 6667800, the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666111, or any garda station. Ararat Khandoyan: I shall take revenge on all of you for my mothers tears (video) Ararat Khandoyan, the brother of Sasna Dzrer group member Ararat Khandoyan, was greeted with cheers and applause, in the courtroomon Tuesday. The Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevans Kentron and Nork-Marash districts today continued the hearing of the case of Ararat Khandoyan and Arman Arakelyan, who are accused of participating in mass disorders and using violence against a police officer during clashes between the riot police and supporters of Sasna Dzrer group that seized a police building in Yerevan in July 2016. Ararat Khandoyan first greeting everyone in the courtroom and then, seeing his mother, banged his fist on the table. I shall take revenge on all of you for my mothers tears, he said addressing the prosecutor and others. Then turning to his mother, Ararat Khandoyan asked her to calm down. If you do not want to be a slave, you should fight for your rights. People have chosen to become slaves, they serve the oligarchic regime, but we serve our motherland, he said. Lawyer Ara Gharagyozyan filed a motion to lift the ban placed on relatives visits. Though Prosecutor Hayk Petrosyan had no objections, Judge Mnatsakan Martirosyan turned it down. Ara Gharagyozyan filed a second motion, requesting the court to release Ararat Khandoyan on bail. The Judge has retired to the consulting room to make a decision. A little bit of stress can go a long way, motivating us to attain our goals and meet daily challenges. But poorly managed chronic stress and persistently high levels of cortisol, on the other hand, can impair memory function. Professor Sabina Brennan explains 1 Feeling forgetful? Absent-mindedness is a common sign of stress. Stress interferes with our ability to learn and can affect our ability to remember to do things in the future, like taking regular medication or meeting a friend for lunch. Our concentration and sleep can also be impacted by stress. Sleep disturbance and impaired concentration can then in turn impact negatively on our memory function. 2 All work and no play? If stress is prolonged or chronic it can trick us into narrowing focus to the extent that we fail to set aside time for physical exercise or other leisure activities like music, art or reading. 3 Lost your sense of humour? Stress can steal our sense of humour robbing us of our ability to see the funny side of life. Laughter is the ultimate stress-buster, and humour helps us to cope with the unthinkable. Laughter actually reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Stressed individuals with a strong sense of humour become less depressed and anxious than stressed individuals with a less well-developed sense of humour. 4 Unhealthy eating habits? Stress can lead to over-eating and unhealthy food choices. In the short term, stress can supress appetite, but in the longer term, if stress becomes chronic and is left unmanaged, cortisol can increase our appetite and spike our motivation to eat. 5 Feeling lonely? When stress overwhelms us it is very tempting to shut others out of our lives because we need time alone to think. We might also avoid others in order not to inflict our crankiness or irritability on them. The effort required to be with friends and family can feel like an added stressor and so we end up isolating ourselves at the very time that we should be seeking social support. Isolating ourselves in this way can actually make things worse and have profound effects on our physical, mental and brain health. 6 Not sleeping or sleeping fitfully? Stress can make it difficult to fall asleep and to stay asleep. When our body is in balance cortisol is secreted into our blood in a predictable 24-hour rhythm. Our natural body clock sees a peak in cortisol in the early morning that helps us to get out of bed. Cortisol levels decline slowly over the course of the day, reaching a maximum low around bed-time, rising again in the early night-time hours, slowly preparing for the morning to ensure that we have lots of energy to face the day. Chronic stress can interfere with the production of cortisol so that we might make too much at night preventing us from sleeping and nothing in the morning when we need that spur to get out of bed. 7 Be active Exercise and physical activity reduce stress and release endorphins that make us feel good. Physical activity has direct benefits on brain structure and function. Exercise also improves heart and mental health, thereby reducing levels of depression and anxiety. Making time for daily exercise is a great way to manage stress and is an effective way to improve mental alertness, concentration and overall cognitive function. Physical activity can also improve sleep, which can suffer during times of stress. Spending most of the day sitting without moving can increase anxiety levels so make sure you make time to move around during the day - even five minutes of aerobic exercise can stimulate anti-anxiety effects. 8 Be present We've all walked into a room to get something, then drawn a complete blank - what was it you went in there to do? When we are stressed it can be difficult to keep focused on the task at hand. Being present and focused on doing what we are doing while we are doing it is a natural antidote to stress-induced absentmindedness. Being 'in the moment' also helps us to stay away from negative thoughts or memories that can cause anxiety, stress and depression. Rooting awareness in the body, such as feeling the soles of your feet while walking, or focusing on breathing in and out can tie you closer to the present moment. 9 Be positive Negative thinking can be both a source and a consequence of stress and is a common symptom of anxiety. Practicing positive thinking not only helps reduce stress but may also benefit our general health. Try writing out your negative thoughts. The simple act of putting them on paper may release your brain from having to remember them. 10 Be excited Stress is a natural part of living. It keeps us motivated and allows us to adapt to change and to become more resilient. Life would be boring and static without challenge, uncertainty and novelty - what would life be like if we didn't go on that first date, attend that job interview, or make that speech? If we manage our stress and stressors well by preparing properly and seeking support when we need it, stressful events can be an opportunity for personal growth and achievement. We still feel the fear and often want to flee but when we come out the other side we reap the rewards, we feel invigorated, alive, proud - we can also look back on and learn from the experience. A small shift in perspective from fear to excitement can make a huge difference. So next time you get that wobbly feeling in your gut try naming it excitement rather than stress, the feelings are almost identical. Choose to take control of this feeling and remember courage grows out of fear. 11 Be connected People with more social ties live longer, have better health, are less depressed, and less likely to develop cognitive impairment in later life. Loneliness is, quite literally, a killer. Resist the temptation to withdraw when stressed. Seek support from friends, family and health professionals if necessary. 12 Be balanced Our body likes regularity and needs internal balance to maintain our health. Stress can disrupt this balance in a way that can have serious consequences for our health. Eat and exercise regularly. Go to bed at a regular time each day and allow your body time to rest and recuperate after stressful events. Set boundaries to ensure that you have a good balance between work and the rest of your life. Switch off email notifications and only check emails at pre-determined times. If you can, treat work as a place not a thing. Make time for hobbies, socialising and for relaxing. 13 Be realistic Be realistic about what you and those around you can achieve. Recognise when good enough is better than perfect. 14 Be practical We all know what it is like to run around the house first thing in the morning frantically searching for our keys - it's just another stressor on top of a long list of stressors that you can do without when you are already running late. Simple things like making a single place for all of the important things in your life can help reduce stress. Create a place for your keys, wallet, swipe card, driving licence etc. and be absolutely disciplined about always putting them in that place when you come home. No more mad panics in the morning. Identify and avoid people who feed your stress. Keep a diary to identify your own personal stress triggers. 15 Smile Finally my favourite stress-buster is smiling - it's free and it boosts brain health. It gives birth to new brain cells and encourages changes in areas of the brain associated with learning and memory. It makes your brain more flexible, more resilient and better able to cope when challenged by stress, injury or disease. Smiling releases hormones that make you feel good, it lowers blood pressure, boosts immune function and protects against stress, depression and anxiety. Start and end your day with a smile. Smile at least five times a day, even or especially if you don't feel like it. The simple act of smiling sends messages to your brain that can make you happy even if you are not. It's contagious and can lead to laughter. Spread the happiness and the health benefits. * Professor Sabina Brennan is a psychologist who works with the Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. To take the stress out of contraception visit yourperfectmatch.ie In last Saturday's Irish Independent, I invited readers to slow down as the first step in understanding and managing stress. I referred to the poet, WH Davis, who was forced to slow down when his foot was crushed by a moving train. Sometimes it takes something drastic, or even tragic, to get us to slow down. But it doesn't have to be like that. We can slow down. It might not be easy, but we can do it. We may need to. If we don't, we are possibly heading for trouble. Constantly living at a very fast pace means we leave ourselves open to having accidents, making mistakes and becoming sick. So we slow down. What do we do next? Human nature is interesting. We might think we would congratulate ourselves on living life at a more manageable pace. The chances are we don't and instead blame ourselves for having gone so fast. We might worry about what we did or didn't do, should or shouldn't have done. We may find the slowing down thing just too difficult and quickly dive into speeding up. How about slowing down enough to notice what is causing you most stress at this moment in time? Does anyone else know about this? If so, are they supportive to you? If not, is there anyone you would like to know? Slow down even more to consider what supports you have right now. Is it possible for you to ask for more support? Is it possible for you to take more support? Notice how you feel as you notice. Notice what you are thinking as you notice. Notice what you are doing as you notice. You may feel tired, overwhelmed, frustrated, embarrassed and/or hopeless. You may think that there is nothing that you or anyone can do to ease this stressor. You may, right now, be attacking yourself for not being able to manage all of this better. Maybe slowing down has helped you to become a little more compassionate towards yourself. You may recognise just how fast you were moving, without judging yourself harshly. You may give yourself some credit for having slowed down. You may think that having done this, you can slow down a little, a little more often. You may feel rested, at peace and/or hopeful. Notice. Take time to notice. Make time to notice. Dr Claire Hayes is clinical director with mental health charity Aware, which provides nationwide support, education and information services around depression and bipolar disorder. Register online now at fitmagazine.ie for the 11th Annual Aware Christmas Run which takes place on Saturday, December 10 in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. Dorset dairy farmer Jason Barber is producing vodka from milk in what he claims is a world first A Dorset farmer is producing vodka from milk in what he claims is a world first. Dairy farmer Jason Barber invented his Black Cow vodka after wanting to diversify the produce from his 250-strong herd of cows, supported by his "deep personal interest" in the spirit. The Beaminster farm's pure milk vodka is made entirely from the milk of grass grazed cows and nothing else. It is made after separating the milk into curds and whey, with the whey fermented into a beer using special yeast that converts the milk sugar into alcohol. The milk beer is distilled and put through a secret blending process, and the vodka is then triple filtered and finished before being hand bottled. The company said fresh whole milk made an "exceptionally smooth vodka with a unique creamy character". The vodka has no additives or flavourings, is gluten free and is suitable for those with lactose intolerance, as all the milk sugar has been converted into alcohol. Black Cow co-founder Paul Archard said the company aimed to champion the work of British dairy farmers. He said: "Often when we explain that Black Cow is vodka made from milk the reaction we get is 'milk? Eugh.'" But the vodka has already won a gold medal at the prestigious San Francisco World Spirits Awards, as well as various other UK awards. It has also won plaudits from chefs and critics, with restaurateur Mark Hix describing a martini made with the vodka as his "drink of choice" and food writer Tom Parker Bowles calling it "one of the most remarkable things I've ever tasted". A rat in a kitchen and the wrong takeaway delivery are among 999 calls released by a police force as it introduces an "appointments system" for callers. On the calls to the 999 service, a disgruntled customer can be heard complaining about the wrong delivery of food from a takeaway, a woman tells the call handler, "I've got a rat in my kitchen and I've been ringing the housing...but I'm terrified, literally," and a man who wants officers to retrieve his coat from a bar because he is not allowed back in. Merseyside Police wants to highlight the amount of non-urgent calls it receives requesting immediate police assistance. The force says of 2,500 calls a day, up to 2,000 of those do not require immediate help and this week it launches an appointment system for non-urgent callers who require a visit from an officer. Instead of waiting for the first available patrol, the call handler will arrange a convenient time either at their home, or their local police station, to see an officer. Chief Superintendent Ngaire Waine, head of the force Contact, Crime and Resolution department, said: "Currently we dispatch patrols to those non-urgent calls when an officer is available, but this is not always convenient for the caller. "We hope that the introduction of the new appointment system will make the caller's experience of police contact more convenient and less stressful, by providing a time and location that is convenient to them and fits in with their work and family schedule. "There are still a lot of people out there who call the police in relation to incidents which do not require a police service. We receive calls about all sorts of issues from rat infestations to cats up trees and blocked drains, because people aren't sure who they should contact. These types of calls can put extra pressure on our call handlers and could slow down their ability to respond to a caller who is in urgent need of a police response." People should only call 999 if a crime is in progress, someone is injured or people are in danger, or a suspect is still in the vicinity, police said. As well as the non-urgent 101 number, members of the public can report non urgent crimes via a direct e-mail account, COMMCEN@merseyside.pnn.police.uk, or via the force website https://www.merseyside.police.uk/contact-us/report-crime-online/. Firefighters and others watch the port to check the water level as a tsunami warning is issued following an earthquake in Soma, Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan (Hironori Asakawa/Kyodo News via AP) A man evacuated from his home looks at a television screen showing a news report on tsunami warnings, at a shelter following an earthquake, in Sendai, Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo November 22, 2016. Mandatory credit Kyodo Kyodo/via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - This aerial photo shows Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, following a strong earthquake hit off the coast of Fukushima, northern Japan (Kyodo News via AP) A powerful earthquake rocked northern Japan early on Tuesday, briefly disrupting cooling functions at a nuclear plant and generating a small tsunami that hit the same Fukushima region devastated by a 2011 quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. The magnitude 7.4 earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, sent thousands of residents fleeing for higher ground as dawn broke along the northeastern coast. There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries hours after the quake hit at 5:59 a.m. (2059 GMT Monday). It was centred off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 kilometres (6 miles), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. A wave of up to 1.4 metres (4.5 ft) high was recorded at Sendai, about 70 km (45 miles) north of Fukushima, with smaller waves hitting ports elsewhere along the coast, public broadcaster NHK said. Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from harbours as tsunami warnings wailed after alerts of waves of up to 3 metres (10 feet) were issued. "We saw high waves but nothing that went over the tidal barriers," a man in the city of Iwaki told NTV television network. Aerial footage showed tsunami waves flowing up rivers in some areas, and some fishing boats were overturned in the port of Higashi-Matsushima before the JMA lifted its warnings. The U.S. Geological Survey measured Tuesday's quake at magnitude 6.9, down from an initial 7.3. Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close In this image made from video released by Miyagi Prefectural Police, the water flows up river in the Sunaoshi River in Tagajo, Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan, as a tsunami warning is issued following a strong earthquake Tuesday (Miyagi Prefectural Police/Kyodo News via AP) Books are scattered on the floor at a library in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016 after a strong earthquake (Kyodo News via AP) In this image made from video released by Miyagi Prefectural Police, the water flows up river in the Sunaoshi River in Tagajo, Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan (Miyagi Prefectural Police/Kyodo News via AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp In this image made from video released by Miyagi Prefectural Police, the water flows up river in the Sunaoshi River in Tagajo, Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan, as a tsunami warning is issued following a strong earthquake Tuesday (Miyagi Prefectural Police/Kyodo News via AP) All Japan's nuclear power plants in the area have been shut down in the wake of the March 2011 disaster, which knocked out cooling systems at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing reactors to melt down and spew radiation into the air, soil and sea. The cooling system for a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at the reactor at its Fukushima Daini Plant was initially halted on Tuesday, said a spokeswoman for Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, but was restarted soon after. Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest. Nuclear plants need cooling systems operating even when in shutdown to keep spent fuel cool. Tohoku Electric Power Co said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported there were no irregularities at the Tokai Daini nuclear plant in Ibaraki prefecture. COAST EVACUATED Japanese Minister for Disaster Management Jun Matsumoto told reporters there had been no reports of significant injuries. One woman suffered cuts to her head from falling dishes, Kyodo reported, citing fire department officials. Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater. The March 11, 2011, quake was magnitude 9, the strongest quake ever recorded in Japan. The massive tsunami it generated knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier. Systems have been updated since the 2011 disaster to spread warnings more quickly, said Tsunetaka Omine, head of the Disaster Management Division in Iwaki, a city in Fukushima prefecture. Previously, there were complicated directions on where to evacuate. "But now, we basically just tell people to head away from the sea, to the highest possible ground," Omine said. Authorities now also send tsunami warnings to every mobile phone in the area and broadcast on local radio. Staying in a traditional Japanese inn on the coast in the city of Ofunato with a dozen international high school students on a study tour, teacher Kathy Krauth said the shaking began just seconds after a quake alarm on her phone went off. "I felt like the lessons of 3-11 were really taken to heart," said Krauth, who teaches a class on the March 2011 disaster and its aftermath. "The feeling was, we just don't know, but we're going to be as cautious as we can." Nissan Motor Co said it would suspend work at its engine factory in Fukushima at least until the latest tsunami warning was lifted. A spokesman said there were no injuries or damage at the plant, which was badly damaged in the 2011 disaster. Toyota Motor Corp said all its factories in northeastern Japan were operating as usual. Japan's famous Shinkansen bullet trains were halted along one stretch of track and some other train lines were also stopped. Japanese financial markets were little affected, with the Nikkei 225 index closing up 0.3 percent and the yen steady against the U.S. dollar. President-elect Donald Trump said the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a potential disaster for the US (AP) Donald Trump does not want to pursue further investigations into Hillary Clinton's email practices, a senior adviser has said, in a turnaround from all the campaign rallies when he roused supporters to chants of "lock her up". "I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don't find her to be honest or trustworthy, but if Donald Trump can help her heal then perhaps that's a good thing," Kellyanne Conway said. The U-turn came after months of the president-elect nicknaming his Democratic rival Crooked Hillary, and raging against the Justice Department for refusing to prosecute her for blending private and official business on her own email server. He told her face-to-face at a presidential debate that if he won the presidency, she would "be in jail". Ms Conway's comments were striking because Justice Department investigations are historically conducted without the influence or input of the White House. Presidents do not dictate decisions on which criminal investigations are pursued or their outcome. The disparity between Mr Trump's taunts on the campaign trail and his approach now, Ms Conway suggested, is part of a purposeful shift away from at least the tone, if not the substance, of his past rhetoric. "I think he's thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States and things that sound like the campaign aren't among them," she said. Mr Trump has appeared to waver on whether he would seek further probes into possible wrongdoing by the Clintons. "I'm going to think about it," he said in a 60 Minutes interview, his first sit-down interview after the November 8 election. "I feel that I want to focus on jobs, I want to focus on health care, I want to focus on the border and immigration and doing a really great immigration bill. We want to have a great immigration bill. And I want to focus on all of these other things that we've been talking about." He said in that interview that Ms Clinton "did some bad things", but ultimately the Clintons are "good people" and "I don't want to hurt them". Ms Conway's comments came as Mr Trump abruptly cancelled a meeting with The New York Times on Tuesday, accusing the organisation of changing the conditions for the session "at the last moment". The newspaper denied this and said his aides tried to change the rules, but Hope Hicks, speaking for Mr Trump, said later that the meeting was back on and he would be "going to The New York Times" later. He met representatives of the television networks privately on Monday. The president-elect also heralded "more great meetings" in his Manhattan tower as he continues shaping his administration before heading to Florida for Thanksgiving on Tuesday. Earlier, he confirmed he will take the US out of a key trade pact as he defended his worldwide business interests. The US president-elect released a short video about his plans for his administration, which included the intention to quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). "I am going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country," Mr Trump said. "Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back on to American shores." Mr Trump said in the video he wa s assembling a cabinet made up of "patriots" and that his agenda "will be based on a simple core principle - putting America first". He repeated a number of promises for the first 100 days of his administration, including vows to negotiate new trade deals, remove regulations on businesses and establish a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists. Notably missing from his promises was his pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act and his vow to build a southern border wall with Mexico. The president-elect later appeared to deny using the powers of his future office to benefit his businesses worldwide. He tweeted: " Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world. Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!" AP The check-in counters of Eurowings at Helmut Schmidt Airport in Hamburg (AP) Cabin crew at Lufthansa's budget airline Eurowings have launched a 15-hour strike, causing dozens of flight cancellations, as the German carrier warned customers to prepare for a larger walkout by pilots on Wednesday. The Cockpit union announced on Monday that pilots of all short and long-haul flights out of Germany will go on strike in a dispute over pay. Lufthansa said: "Due to tomorrow's strike, 876 of 3,000 LH Group flights had to be cancelled." It said about 100,000 passengers would be affected, including on 51 intercontinental connections. The Cockpit union said the airline has been posting "very good numbers for years" but pilots have not seen any pay increases. It is asking for a 3.66% yearly raise for five years. Lufthansa has called the union's position "absolutely incomprehensible". The disruption follows a decision by the ver.di service workers' union to call on Eurowings cabin crew based in Dusseldorf and Hamburg to walk out on Tuesday from 4am to 7pm UK time. News agency dpa said 50 of 88 planned flights to and from Dusseldorf have been cancelled, while at least seven departures and seven arrivals at Hamburg were scrapped. The airline and two unions are in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions. The other union, UFO, staged a 24-hour walkout last month. Ver.di said it is insisting on a separate deal for its members. The airline urged passengers planning to travel on Wednesday to check its website for information about cancelled flights. AP Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders Google Ad PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol Armenia and Azerbaijan to do so without delay An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan". UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT Google Ad The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022 Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building OSCE Chairman-in-Office and OSCE Secretary General call for immediate cessation of hostilities along Armenia-Azerbaijan border Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh Mohamed Morsi meets then prime minister David Cameron in New York in 2012 An Egyptian court has struck out a life sentence and ordered the retrial of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi on charges of conspiring with foreign militant groups, including the Palestinian Hamas which runs the Gaza Strip. The decision by the Court of Cassation in Cairo came nearly 17 months after the initial sentence against Morsi, who hails from the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood. Last week, the same court overturned a death sentence against Morsi in a separate case, linked to a prison break during the 2011 uprising against Egypt's long-time autocrat and Morsi's predecessor, Hosni Mubarak. The court on Tuesday also threw out life sentences for 16 other jailed Brotherhood members, including the group's spiritual leader Mohammed Badei. The court also overturned death sentences against powerful Brotherhood figure Khairyat el-Shater and 15 others, most of whom were tried in absentia. No new date has been set for the retrial. For the prison break, Morsi had received the only death sentence so far. Last month, a court upheld a 20-year sentence for Morsi on charges arising from the killing of protesters in December 2012. It was the first final verdict against Morsi, whose rule proved divisive and who was ousted by the military in 2013 after a year in office. Since his removal, Morsi has been in solidarity confinement and has faced several court cases on different charges. The court rulings come at a time when Egyptian authorities, after banning and declaring the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, continue to crack down on the group's supporters and finances. On Monday, a justice ministry committee ordered the confiscation of assets of more than 45 Brotherhood leaders and supporters. AP A tiny island has recorded its first crime in living memory after a father disciplined his son for causing chaos at a local chocolate factory. Caldey Island is so remote police had to be taken on a RNLI lifeboat to the island, two miles off the Welsh coast, to make the arrest. The assault, which has now been dubbed the crime of the century, was revealed when a holidaymaker on a day-trip from Dudley, West Midlands, appeared in court on the mainland to admit the offence. The man was visiting the island when he struck his misbehaving seven-year-old son during a visit to the chocolate factory at St Illtyds church. The historic island, which only has a population of 40, has a monastery and is home to 18 monks and a number of farmers. The monks were described as concerned by the assault. Island manager John Cattini (65) said: This is the first crime I can recall and I've been here more than 40 years. "I'm glad to say I didn't witness it but I'm sorry to say I was told about it. It is very sad. "We are happy to say we live here very peacefully. This person was a visitor and is a sign of the modern world, I expect." Before the assault in September, official crime statistics have recorded a zero for Caldey Island for anti-social behaviour, theft, burglary, arson, drugs, public order, vehicle crime, robbery and possession of offensive weapons. Traffic offences are also at zero because the island only has 300 yards of roadway. During the court hearing, prosecutor Dennis Davies said visitors called police after seeing the man (45) attack his son. He said: The man was said to be shouting at the boy before lifting him up with an outstretched arm by the throat. He then put him down, slapped him on the back of the head and frogmarched him away. The court heard that another visitor shouted: Thats child abuse. The father told police his son was being naughty and wouldnt listen and explained the child had ADHD and was on the autistic spectrum. Defending, Mike Kelleher said: The boy doesn't like crowds and queuing, and doesn't see danger as others do. "The father said his son was misbehaving and running up and down the steps, and he was concerned that he would hurt himself or others. "The father is deeply upset and didn't want to hurt his son. The man was released on bail until next month for reports to be prepared. After the hearing, a spokesman for Dyfed-Powys police said: We acknowledge that the crime rate on Caldey Island is very low, but we take all reports of crime seriously and as such investigate them thoroughly. Caldey, which is a mile-and-a-half long, has been a religious retreat since the first monastery was set up there 1,500 years ago. The monks take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and observe a rule of silence between the hours of 7pm to 7am. Every year, more than 3,000 visitors travel to Caldey Island between April and October to sample the perfume, shortbread and prized homemade chocolate made by the monks. Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] CCTV still issued by Metropolitan Police of a man police wish to speak with in connection with sex attacks in Clapham Credit: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire Detectives are hunting a suspected sex attacker who subjected two women to "terrifying ordeals". CCTV footage has been released of an Asian man, aged between 25 and 35, thought to have targeted the victims in Clapham, south London. In the first attack, at around 2am on Sunday May 22, he followed a woman into the communal hallway of flats in Clapham Common South Side and sexually assaulted her. She managed to fight him off and he ran away. About a month later, on Sunday June 26, again at 2am, he sexually assaulted a 27-year-old woman in Klea Avenue, after sneaking up behind her and pushing her into the communal area of some flats. She managed to scratch him in the face with her key, close to his left eye, and he ran off. The suspect is about 5ft 5in, has short black hair and spoke with an English accent. He was caught on CCTV near the scene of both attacks and on Tuesday police released footage in a bid to identify him. Investigators had previously released still images. Detective Inspector Andrew Wadey said: "We are extremely keen to identify this man in connection with these incidents and appeal to anyone with any information to come forward as soon as possible. These incidents were terrifying ordeals for both victims." Thousands of members of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party march to the parliament in Ankara, Turkey (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici) Turkey's government has withdrawn a controversial proposal that critics said would have allowed men accused of sexually abusing under-age girls to go free if they were married to their victims. The proposal, which was scheduled for a final vote in parliament on Tuesday, would have deferred sentencing for sexual assault of minors in cases where there was no physical force and where the victim and perpetrator were married. The government said it would submit the proposal to a parliamentary committee for review. The age of consent in Turkey is 18, although courts permit civil marriages from 16. Many younger people are married in Islamic ceremonies. The government has argued for the need to redress "unfair treatment" of families where fathers were jailed for marrying girls under the age of 18 even if both parties and their parents consented. The proposal by the ruling Justice and Development Party, rooted in Turkey's Islamic movement, would have applied to cases that occurred between 2005 and November 16 this year. Opponents argued that the bill amounted to a pardon for statutory rape if the perpetrator was married to his victim, and would disrupt efforts to prevent child marriages and sexual assault on children. They maintained that it would, for example, legitimise the practice of men taking brides as young as 13 or 14. Hours before the vote, prime minister Binali Yildirim told reporters the government was pulling back the proposal and would ask an all-party commission on family affairs to review it. His comments came after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the state-run Anadolu Agency late on Monday that a broad consensus on the issue should be sought. "Due to a lack of full public consensus, our president's call for a broad consensus and to allow opposition parties to develop their own proposals, we are taking this proposal which is in parliament, to the commission," Mr Yildirim said. "This problem will certainly be solved after being discussed in detail, with all parties' views being taken into account." Hundreds of people gathered in front of parliament to protest against the measure even after the government withdrew it. Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the opposition nationalist party called on the government to abandon the measure completely, and that submitting it to a review is not enough. "Don't suffocate Turkey any further with such meaningless and empty discussions," Mr Bahceli said in a speech in parliament. Opposition parties, rights groups and citizens had widely condemned the proposal since its initiation last week, issuing statements and staging demonstrations across cities nationwide. United Nations agencies, including the children's fund Unicef, issued a joint statement on Monday warning that the proposal "would weaken the country's ability to combat sexual abuse and child marriages". The government had insisted it was committed to fighting child marriages but said the measure was needed to help 3,800 families where under-age marriages had occurred according to customs. "We cannot ignore this (problem)," Mr Yildirim said. "There are 3,800 cases and thousands of children . The children are paying the price of their parents' mistakes." In 2005, the government scrapped loopholes in legislation that had allowed men to escape rape charges if they married the victim, as part of efforts to join the European Union. Syrian regime forces have made a fast-moving advance in opposition-held areas of eastern Aleppo, storming ahead in a new phase of the Russian-backed offensive that began last Tuesday. Government forces, backed by Iranian and Russian troops and fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah, have penetrated the eastern part of the Masakan Hanano neighbourhood, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor. This neighbourhood is a keystone for eastern Aleppo: the first to fall to rebels in 2012, its location makes it a gateway for control of the eastern part of the city. Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman called it "the most important advance inside the eastern neighbourhoods that the regime has made so far". "If they take control of Masakan Hanano, the regime will have line of fire control over several rebel-held neighbourhoods and will be able to cut off the northern parts of rebel-held Aleppo from the rest of the opposition-held districts," he said. Syria's 'Al-Watan' daily, which is close to the government, described Masakan Hanano as the "biggest and most important stronghold of the gunmen" in Aleppo. The shift on the ground comes after more than 100 civilians were killed in east Aleppo over the first six days of this offensive, according to statistics gathered by the Observatory. On Sunday, children on both sides of Aleppo, many of whom have never known peace, paid the highest price for an adult war. At least seven were killed by rebel rocket fire that hit a school in government-held west Aleppo, said state media. In the east, airstrikes and barrel bombs devastated homes and some of the area's few functioning hospitals, killing at least seven children there, according to the Observatory. The reinvigoration of the battle for Aleppo comes after a period of relative respite marked by signs of impending escalation by Moscow. In the past weeks, Russian battleships including the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier and a constant stream of heavily-laden supply ships have made their way to the Syrian coast. Yesterday's ground forces push into eastern Aleppo came a day after Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem rejected UN envoy Staffan de Mistura's suggestion to allow an autonomous rebel administration in east Aleppo, saying this would "reward terrorists". Mr de Mistura warned that time was "running out" for eastern Aleppo, adding that there was concern "instead of a humanitarian or a political initiative" there would be "an acceleration of military activities" in the city and elsewhere. Despite vocal concern from senior UN officials and world leaders including US President Barack Obama, that acceleration began in earnest yesterday. Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] The case against a British tourist who claimed she had been raped by two men in Dubai has been dropped, its public prosecutor has said. The woman, in her 20s, had been arrested after she reported being allegedly attacked by two men from Birmingham while on holiday in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in late October. She was bailed but had her passport confiscated and could have faced jail if found guilty after a trial of having extra-marital sex. The Dubai Public Prosecutor's office said both men were also arrested and questioned and after "careful" examination of the evidence, including mobile phone footage, investigators concluded the act had been consensual. Its statement said: "The office has decided not to proceed with legal proceedings. "The public prosecutor's office clarified that a thorough review of statements given by the British woman and the two suspects as well as the reports of investigating officers from Dubai Police, showed that the act happened with the consent of the three parties in question. "A video obtained from the mobile phone of one of the suspects detailing the act was a key evidence that supported this conclusion." Hillary Clintons lead in the US presidential election popular vote now stands at more than 1.7 million despite the Democrat losing the overall election to Donald Trump. With the last remaining ballots being counted, Mrs Clinton so far has 63.6 million votes compared to 61.9 million for her Republican rival meaning she has received more votes than any other US presidential candidate in history except Barack Obama. The Democrat has received 48 per cent of votes counted so far compared to Mr Trumps 46.7 per cent, according to figures compiled by the Cook Political Report. However, Mrs Clinton's sizeable lead in the public vote has little bearing on the result of the election because she lost the Electoral College tally that ultimately determines who becomes President. This system sees each state assigned a number of college votes that go to whichever candidate wins the public vote in that state. Mr Trump has currently banked 290 electoral college votes compared to Mrs Clintons 232. More than 270 are needed to win the presidency. The Republican won the Electoral College after taking the battleground states of Florida, Ohio and North Carolina and unexpectedly snatching victory in states, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that had previously been part of the Democrats firewall of safe states. Mr Trump looks set to extend his lead further, with Michigan soon to declare its final result. The businessman is currently ahead in the previously-Democrat state, albeit only by a narrow margin of around 11,000 votes. The other candidates in the election, Jill Stein of the Green Party and the Libertarian's Gary Johnson, picked up more than 7 million votes between them. Had those votes instead gone to Hillary Clinton, she would likely have won the presidency. The votes still being counted almost two weeks after polling day are a combination of postal votes and ballots cast by people whose voting eligibility could not be verified on election day. Mr Trump appeared to have been angered by people pointing out he had lost the public vote - and suggested he could have won it had he wanted to. He tweeted: If the election were based on total popular vote I would have campaigned in N.Y. Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily. The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different! The victory for a candidate who received fewer votes than his rival has led 4.5 million people to sign a petition calling on the delegates that each state sends to vote in the Electoral College to defy the instructions given to them by the electorate in their state. There have been 157 of these so-called faithless electors throughout history but they have never overturned an election result and it is unlikely to happen this year. The petition states: Secretary Clinton won the popular vote and should be President. The only reason Trump won is because of the Electoral College. But the Electoral College can actually give the White House to either candidate. So why not use this most undemocratic of our institutions to ensure a democratic result? The result has also fuelled calls for the Electoral College system to be abolished and replaced with a entirely first-past-the-post system. Mrs Clinton is the fourth presidential candidate in history to lose the presidency despite winning the popular vote. Mr Trump himself had previously called the electoral college a disaster for democracy after mistakenly thinking that Barack Obama had lost the public vote in 2012 but retained the presidency. One reason the Electoral College was created was to ensure no single region of the US could dominate the election, such as the North out-voting the South along old Civil War lines. Donald Trump was last night facing a growing row over his business interests after claims he had asked the Argentine president for help with a project. The Trump team denied as "not true" a report that he and President Mauricio Macri had discussed construction of an office tower in Buenos Aires. But it was the latest example of questions being raised about conflicts of interest over Mr Trump's global business interests. There are plans for a Trump-branded $100m (94m) skyscraper in the Argentine capital with an intention to start construction next year. Jorge Lanata, one of Argentina's leading journalists, claimed: "Macri called him. This still hasn't emerged but Trump asked for them to authorise a building he's constructing in Buenos Aires. It wasn't just a geopolitical chat." A spokesman for Mr Macri said: "They didn't talk about the tower at all. It's absolutely untrue." Last week the US president-elect and family members met in his office at Trump Tower in New York with three Indian business partners who are constructing a Trump-branded apartment complex near Mumbai. That was described as a courtesy visit from the businessmen. It also emerged yesterday that Mr Trump registered eight companies in Saudi Arabia during the US presidential campaign. The companies were thought to be connected to a potential property deal in Jeddah, and four of them were still active when he filed his latest financial disclosures with the Federal Election Commission in May. "Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them, they buy apartments from me. They spend $40m (37m), $50m (47m). Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much," Mr Trump said during the campaign. In another foreign link, a company owned by Mr Trump was paid millions of dollars by the owners of Trump Towers Istanbul, who have links to the Turkish government. More than 100 Trump companies have business dealings in 18 countries across several continents. The extent of his dealings has also raised the prospect that Trump-linked projects overseas may become terrorist targets. The billionaire has so far declined to give up his interests, or put them in a blind trust, as previous presidents, including both Bushes, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did. In a letter to Mr Trump a group, including former White House ethics lawyers, criticised his links with the Trump Organisation. There was better news for Mr Trump as a new poll found his popularity has risen dramatically since he won the election. People with a 'favourable' view of the president-elect rose to 46pc, up nine points, according to a 'Politico/Morning Consult' poll. Those with an 'unfavourable' view had fallen 15 points, from 61pc to 46pc. And, in what appeared to be an attempt to ease his feud with the US media, Mr Trump met executives and high-profile presenters from major TV networks at Trump Tower. Otis Tyrone McKane, who was arrested after a manhunt for a suspect in the fatal shooting of a veteran Texas police detective (San Antonio Police Department/AP) Flowers, balloons and notes are placed at a makeshift memorial for San Antonio police officer Benjamin Marconi (AP) The suspect arrested over the fatal shooting of a Texas police detective has said he was angry about a child custody battle and "lashed out at somebody who didn't deserve it". Otis Tyrone McKane was being led by officers to Bexar County Jail when he told reporters he was angry with the court system for not letting him see his son, and took it out on Detective Benjamin Marconi. "I've been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didn't deserve it," McKane said. He said he wanted to apologise to Mr Marconi's family. McKane, 31, was arrested on a capital murder charge on Monday afternoon. The detective was shot as he sat in his squad car on Sunday after making a traffic stop in San Antonio. Authorities have said a gunman walked up to Mr Marconi's window and fired. It was one of several attacks against law enforcement in multiple states over the weekend. The San Antonio detective and officers shot in Missouri and Florida were conducting routine tasks on Sunday when they were targeted. Mr Marconi was writing a traffic ticket. "I think the uniform was the target and the first person that happened along was the first person that (the suspect) targeted," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said. In Missouri, a St Louis police sergeant was shot twice in the face as he sat in traffic in a marked police vehicle. He was released from hospital on Monday. Police say there has been an alarming spike in ambush-style attacks. Sixty officers, including Mr Marconi, have been shot dead on the job this year, compared with 41 in all of 2015, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Of the 60 killed, 20 were purposely targeted by their assailant compared with eight last year, the group said. Police officers were also shot and injured during traffic stops in Sanibel, Florida, and Gladstone, Missouri, on Sunday night, but authorities have not suggested those were targeted attacks. All the shootings come less than five months after a black military veteran killed five white officers at a protest in Dallas - the deadliest day for American law enforcement since September 11,2001. Race was a factor in the Dallas shootings, but police have not said if race played a part in any of the attacks on Sunday. In San Antonio, the suspect is black and the officer was white. In St Louis, the suspect was black, but police have not released the officer's race. Most killings of police officers are carried out by white men, and most people shot and killed by police are white, said Craig W Floyd, president of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Mr McManus said McKane was arrested on a capital murder warrant without incident after the car he was riding in was stopped on Monday afternoon. Surveillance video shows the suspect at San Antonio police headquarters about four hours before 50-year-old Mr Marconi, a 20-year veteran of the force, was shot. The suspect asked a desk clerk a question but left before receiving an answer, said Mr McManus, who declined to say what the man asked. "I don't know why he was in headquarters. We have some ideas," he said. St Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson declined to name the 46-year-old officer who was shot and wounded there. He said the officer is a married father of three and has been with the department for about 20 years. "This officer was driving down the road and was ambushed by an individual who pointed a gun at him from inside of his car and shot out the police officer's window," Mr Dotson said. The suspect, 19-year-old George P Bush III, was wanted for questioning in recent violent crimes that included several robberies, a carjacking and perhaps a killing, Mr Dotson said. "We believe he knew he was good for those crimes and that we were looking for him," Mr Dotson said. "That's why he aggressively attacked a police officer." Police said Bush was later killed in a shootout with officers. AP Syria's military has announced it is forming a new anti-terrorism commando force, calling for volunteers interested in "achieving the final victory against terrorism". The announcement, which named the new anti-terrorism unit the Fifth Corps, did not specify where the force would be deployed. After nearly six years of combat, the Syrian conscription-based armed forces have become overstretched and have increasingly relied on regional allies to boost its numbers and capabilities. Iran, Iraq and Lebanon's Hezbollah group have sent hundreds of fighters who have fought alongside government troops, sometimes leading combat units, in decisive battles against armed opposition groups and extremist militants. The move comes a year after Syrian armed forces announced the formation of the Fourth Corps, also an anti-terrorism force, soon after Russia began its military operations alongside the Syrian government. Moscow's military backing of the Syrian government, with intensive aerial bombings and long-range missiles fired from the Mediterranean, has dramatically turned the fortunes of the Syrian government - emboldening ground advances on multiple fronts, including in the besieged rebel-held parts of Aleppo city. The Syrian army declaration read on state TV came as the pace of government warnings to residents of eastern Aleppo increased. State TV on Tuesday aired announcements urging armed opposition groups to allow civilians to exit the besieged enclave through government-designated corridors. Another warning urged residents to co-operate with government forces. A third called on residents to avoid going out in the streets except in "dire need" and to stay clear of areas where armed groups operate. The media campaign comes after a week of an intensified aerial bombing of the rebel-held enclave left at least 140 civilians dead, including 18 children, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The government aerial campaign began as Russia announced an offensive against militants in the armed groups' stronghold in Idlib province and the central province of Homs. The bombing campaign, which has put most of eastern Aleppo's health facilities out of service, sparked widespread international criticism. At the UN on Monday, the organisation's chief humanitarian officer condemned Bashar Assad's government for "bombing its own people". On Sunday, the Syrian government dismissed a UN peace proposal to establish limited autonomy in rebel-held eastern Aleppo. The offensive was accompanied by pro-government troops pushing their way into neighbourhoods on the edges of eastern Aleppo. Fighting on the southern edge, in the Sheik Saeed neighbourhood, intensified on Tuesday. A major rebel group, Ahrar al-Sham, said one of its leading commanders was killed as they repelled advances by government troops. On Tuesday, Assad received a Russian delegation in Damascus, headed by the Russian deputy prime minister, in a show of close ties between the two governments in the face of international criticism. AP Recep Tayyip Erdogan said a broad consensus on the issue should be sought (AP) Thousands of members of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party march to the parliament in Ankara (AP) Turkey's government has abandoned a controversial proposal that critics said would have allowed men accused of sexually abusing under-age girls to go free if they were married to their victims. The proposal, which had been scheduled for a final vote in parliament on Tuesday, would have deferred sentencing for sexual assault of minors in cases where there was no physical force and where the victim and perpetrator were married. Earlier on Tuesday, prime minister Binali Yildirim had said the government had pulled the highly controversial measure from the parliament floor and would submit it for a review by an all-party committee. But justice minister Bekir Bozdag said later that the government had shelved the proposal and it would come back on the agenda in the future only if all parties could reach a consensus. Mr Bozdag added: "The issue has been closed." The age of consent in Turkey is 18, although courts permit civil marriages from 16. Many younger people are married in Islamic ceremonies. The government had argued for the need to redress "unfair treatment" of families where fathers were jailed for marrying girls under the age of 18 even if both parties and their parents consented. The proposal by the ruling Justice and Development Party, rooted in Turkey's Islamic movement, would have applied to cases that occurred between 2005 and November 16 this year. The measure would have required men who were married to minors in Islamic ceremonies to formalise their union with civil marriages. Opponents argued that the bill amounted to a pardon for statutory rape if the perpetrator was married to his victim, and would disrupt efforts to prevent child marriages and sexual assault on children. They maintained that it would, for example, legitimise the practice of men taking brides as young as 13 or 14. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the state-run Anadolu Agency late on Monday that a broad consensus on the issue should be sought. Hundreds of people gathered in front of the parliament building to protest against the measure burst into celebrations after the government decision. Opposition parties, rights groups and citizens had widely condemned the proposal since its initiation last week, issuing statements and staging demonstrations across cities nationwide. United Nations agencies, including the children's fund Unicef, issued a joint statement on Monday warning that the proposal "would weaken the country's ability to combat sexual abuse and child marriages". The government had insisted it was committed to fighting child marriages but said the measure was needed to help 3,800 families where under-age marriages had occurred according to customs. "We cannot ignore this (problem)," Mr Yildirim said. "There are 3,800 cases and thousands of children . The children are paying the price of their parents' mistakes." In 2005, the government scrapped loopholes in legislation that had allowed men to escape rape charges if they married the victim, as part of efforts to join the European Union. AP CONCORD- Open burning has been banned and all burning permits have been cancelled in Cabarrus County in response to drought conditions. The North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture has banned open burning and cancelled all burning permits for 22 additional counties in western North Carolina, including Cabarrus. Burning has now been banned in a total of 47 counties. The City of Concord said the local ban is effective within corporate limits until further notice. Anyone in violation of the burning can could receive a citation or fine. Open burning includes: burning of leaves, branches and other plant material, in addition to the use of recreational fires, bonfires and outdoor fireplaces. The ban does not apply to cooking fires, such as grills or outdoor cookers. In all cases, it is illegal to burn trash, lumber, tires, newspapers, plastics or other non-vegetative materials. Residents should be especially careful with any potential ignition sources such as cigarettes or sparks from lawn equipment. Although the ban does not apply to cooking fires, the Concord Fire Department urges the community to use safe cooking practices over the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving is the peak day for cooking fires and frying food is the greatest risk. Two-thirds of home cooking fires start from burning food or cooking materials. More than half of home cooking fire injuries happen when people try to fight the fire themselves. The fire department wants everyone to think twice before using a turkey fryer. Instead they ask you consider using an outdoor cooking appliance that does not use oil or leave the frying to professional establishments. If you do fry a turkey remember: -Completely thaw and dry the turkey before cooking - Never use a turkey fryer in, on or under a garage, breezeway, porch or any structure that can catch fire - If oil begins to smoke, immediately turn off gas supply - If fire occurs, call 911 For more information about state burns bans visit ncforestservice.gov. For additional information about open burning or fire prevention call the Fire Marshals Office at 704-920-5517. Cabarrus County high schools contributed to collecting more than 250,000 pounds of food for local families in need this holiday season, bringing the six-year total to more than 1 million pounds. The Carolinas Student Hunger Drive, led by high school kids, is a six-week initiative to engage teenagers in their community and collect food for families. Each participating high school competes against others nearby and at the end of the challenge sends donations to local ministries and shelters. "We were super excited because we realized after last year that we were so close to reaching the million pound mark, and we made that amount," Mona Lita Carr, executive director of Carolinas Student Hunger Drive, said. "[The students] took on the charge, and they blew it out of the water, and they ended up raising in six weeks 288,000 pounds of food. We're super excited about that because that translates to 192,422 meals for families." Student Hunger Drive began in Iowa 30 years ago to get high school students involved in projects that gave back to the community. Carolinas Student Hunger Drive, a chapter based in the Charlotte region, opened in 2010. Each year, local teenagers start and organize food drives at their high schools, bringing the donations to Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina regional food pantries serving their area. To help encourage participation, the high schools compete against each other, and many schools have their own internal incentives. "What we typically do, we have a class competition," Trevor Stevenson, a student at Hickory Ridge High School, said. "We have one of the class periods during the day, and they compete against each other to raise the most food, and then they typically have a food party." In the last five years, the Charlotte chapter had raised just less than 800,000 pounds of foodgood for more than 530,000 mealsafter the 2015 event. But this year's 288,633 pounds, or 192,422 meals, increased that total to 1.08 million pounds of food. In Cabarrus County, Hickory Ridge joined Cox Mill High School, Cannon School and the Cabarrus-Kannapolis Early College in the food drive frenzy. Combined, the county collected 63,439 pounds of food. Stevenson said Hickory Ridge contributed 6,149 pounds of that, up from just 1,200 last year. "We had to deliver food to the Harrisburg food pantry last year, and I didn't even realize that there were that many hungry people in Harrisburg that we needed a food pantry," Stevenson said. "That was eye-opening to me that there's so many people in our area that are hungry, and they need our help." The teen said that seeing that need first-hand helped him and many others at his school really engaged in the project. "The school gets very behind it I think mostly because the incentive, but I think they really do like the idea that it's really coming back to the community," he said. "Some other food organizations, it may go somewhere far away, but it's coming right back to Harrisburg. I think it's intriguing because there could be someone's neighbor that may be going hungry. The fact that it could be your neighbor that you're donating to, that just makes people want to donate more." And Carr said she hears that same sentiment time and again from students who participate in the drive. Though many high schoolers use the initiative to fulfill community service requirements, she said for many it has become more than that. "The thing that I get excited about year after year is, yes, they get excited about the competition; yes they get excited about winning money for their schools," she said. "But so many students keep coming up to me saying this really helps the community, and this really helps me as a person. They are connected to the community and leadership around service. They're really connected to the mission of giving back to other people." The Cabarrus County Board of Elections recorded more than 1,880 provisional ballots for the General Election in November. Provisional ballots are cast when a voter shows up at the polls but isnt on the approved registered voter list for that precinct. That individual can cast a ballot pending, essentially, that will be counted only after the Board of Elections verifies the voters eligibility. This year for the 2016 General Election, Cabarrus County recorded 1,883 provisional ballots. At a board meeting held Monday, Nov. 21, the Board of Elections fully approved 820 of those. The board partially approved 114. Partial approval occurs when someone votes at a precinct other than their own that might not have the same state or local representatives, in which case the selections for those races wouldnt count. The Board of Elections denied 949 provisional ballots. The board also received 180 additional absentee ballots after Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 8. Neither the provisional ballots nor additional absentee ballots affected the results of local races. Final numbers will be released after a canvass Tuesday, Nov. 22, at which time precinct by precinct data will become available. This week's horror musical release is 'Saansein - The Last Breath'. Not many are aware though that this is the first ever Bollywood horror flick to have been entirely shot in Mauritius. "When you think of Mauritius, you obviously think of beaches and sun soaked sand. Of course all of this also signifies love, romance and music. This is something that Rajesh Khanna and Tina Munim realized too when they paired up for Sauten, the first ever Bollywood film to have been shot at the island nation. Over last three decades, many Hindi films have been shot in Mauritius. However, invariably these have been love stories or predominantly comic affairs," informs our source. This is pretty much apparent from the fact that David Dhawan has taken his crew to the island on multiple occasions, be it for Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, Dulhan Hum Le Jayenge, Mujhse Shaadi Karogi or Chashme Baddoor. Also, Anees Bazmee too shot extensively at the island for his No Entry. As for Deepika Padukone and Imran Khan, they spent some quality time together at Mauritius while shooting for Break Ke Baad. "Now the same has happened with Rajniesh Duggall and debutant Sonarika Bhadoria too for their film, Saansein - The Last Breath," says a source attached to the film, "The difference here is that other than the romantic portions being shot with quite a few quality songs brightening up the visuals, there are horror scenes captured at the island as well." This makes it a unique mix indeed as the scenic beauty otherwise symbolizes love, romance and music. "Or some light hearted moments for that matter, as was the case with F.A.L.T.U. or The Shaukeens," quips a production executive, "The only time when some element of horror was captured in the country was when Saif Ali Khan traveled there for Go Goa Gone. That was a zombie flick and even the horror element had a comic touch to it. However, the horror that you see in Saansein - The Last Breath is out and out scary, dramatic and spine chilling." We would like to see how it all unfolds when the film, which also stars Hiten Tejwani and Neetha Shetty, releases all over this Friday. Markets see a day in red Indian equity markets saw a day in red today. Nifty 50 ended the day, down by 62.55 points. Sensex ended the day, down by 215.26 points. Top Gainers today were Hindalco, Sun Pharma, ITC. Top Lo... November 02, 2022 | 4:08 pm Pudumjee Paper PBT rises 57% during Q2FY23 Pudumjee Paper Products Limited (PPPL), has reported impressive results for the six-month period ended September 30, 2022. During the six-month period ended September 30, 2022, the C... November 02, 2022 | 3:23 pm Airtel crosses 1 million customers on it 5G network Bharti Airtel on Wednesday has announced that it has crossed the 1 million unique 5G user mark on its network. The company achieved this milestone in less than 30 days of its commercial la... November 02, 2022 | 2:50 pm Rupee declines 12 paise against the dollar In morning trade on Wednesday, the rupee lost 12 paise to 82.71 against the US dollar due to a flat trend in domestic stocks. Forex traders reported that the rupee started the day flat before t... November 02, 2022 | 2:45 pm Markets near day's low with Nifty below 18,100 Domestic benchmark indices trading in the red after a gap-down opening on Wednesday. Both the Sensex and Nifty benchmarks are marginally lower in the afternoon market session. Moreover, globall... November 02, 2022 | 2:00 pm Water Protectors Face Police on the Backwater Bridge I'm back online and will be posting more photos and videos from the front line in the #NoDAPL battle. Peaceful unarmed Water Protectors were brutalized by the local Law Enforcement in below freezing temps last night on the Backwater Bridge. SHARE! Help show the world what's happening out here! #MniWiconi #WaterisLife #DeFundDAPL #KeepitintheGround Posted by Rob Wilson Photography on Monday, November 21, 2016 Authorities in North Dakota continued their violent crackdown on the #NoDAPL movement as the wealthy backers of the Dakota Access Pipeline were back in federal court, vowing to finish the controversial project despite lacking a critical easement. Upwards of 300 people were injured on Sunday in what Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier described as a "riot." Acting under his command, authorities used water cannons, tear gas, stinger grenades, rubber bullets and other less lethal weapons on a night when the average temperature dropped below the freezing point "All I can say is why? We are asking for clean water, we are asking for the right to live, we are asking for our children to live," said LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the founder of the Sacred Stone Camp , the original #NoDAPL encampment. "Instead they attack us, because they protect oil. Morton County and DAPL security are inhuman -- what is wrong with their hearts?" Photographer Rob Wilson , whose work has provided the world with a close view of the struggle, was among those who was hurt. In a post on Facebook , he said he was "encased in ice, tear gassed, hit by both rubber bullets and a bean bag, and a stinger grenade" as he watched another man repeatedly shot by authorities even after falling to the ground. Resident of the #NoDAPL encampment in North Dakota continue to prepare for the long haul by building more permanent structures near the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Photo courtesy Morton County Sheriff's Department Other injuries were reported to be severe. In a post on Facebook, Dallas Goldtooth , who is Mdewakanton Dakota and Navajo, said a woman from Minnesota has been hospitalized and is facing amputation of her arm after being struck by a grenade. "Projectiles in the form of tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades led to numerous blunt force traumas including head wounds, lacerations, serious orthopedic injuries, eye trauma, and internal bleeding," the Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council , which responded to the incident, said in a press release The assault occurred as Dakota Access once again told a federal judge that it has the right to complete the pipeline despite lacking approval to drill under the Missouri River. The filing, lodged on Sunday , repeated the firm's claim that the easement has already been "signed" but is being delayed due to "political interference" from the highest levels of the Obama administration. And in an investor call on Monday , executives from Energy Transfer Partners voiced confidence in their ability to secure the document they say already exists at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers . The firm is being acquired by Sunoco Logistics Partners , its co-owner in the pipeline. "We think they are making progress on it -- obviously not as quickly as we'd like them to make progress on it -- but we do feel like they're making progress," Matt Ramsey, who will serve as the chief commercial officer of the merged entity, said after being asked directly about the status of the easement. Kelcy Warren, the billionaire who ranked among the top five individual donors to Republican president-elect Donald Trump , will remain as chief executive officer once the transaction, which is worth an estimated $20 billion, is complete. Water Protectors again took to the streets in Bismarck and Mandan to spread their message and voice their opposition to... Posted by Rob Wilson Photography on Friday, November 18, 2016 Despite the firm's optimism, the Army Corps has said it will not issue the easement until it consults further with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The Department of Justice is opposing efforts by Dakota Access to speed up consideration of a counter-claim that was filed less than a week ago. "Dakota Access does not suggest how any delay in granting an easement over Corps-managed federal lands at Lake Oahe would delay construction elsewhere," government attorneys wrote on Monday as they quoted from a November 10 Energy Transfer investor call stating that the pipeline was "84 percent" complete at the time. The filing followed a more detailed one on Friday that also said the easement was still being reviewed. Prior to last week's cross-claim, attorneys for Dakota Access repeatedly told the court that they need to finish construction in order to start transporting oil by January 1, 2017. But by asking for a hearing on January 3 in their motion to expedite , they appear to concede that the deadline can slip without any apparent harm to the costly project. "Our culture, our children and our homelands have been repeatedly stolen from us," Chairman Dave Archambault II of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said in a press release on Monday . "We are deeply saddened that despite the millions of Americans and allies around the world who are standing with us at Standing Rock, a single corporate bully -- backed by U.S. government dollars through a militarized law enforcement -- continue to be sanctioned by aggressive, unlawful acts." "President Obama, this cannot be your legacy," he said. President Barack Obama visited the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in June 2014 , had an emotional meeting with youth and attended a powwow in Cannon Ball, not far from where the violent crackdowns are occurring. It was his first visit to Indian Country since taking office in January 2009. The crisis at Standing Rock has put a dark mark on his final months in office as Indian Country loses faith in his ability to put a stop in the pipeline. The late timing of the easement delay, coupled with the new legal maneuvers by Dakota Access, increasingly point toward Donald Trump playing a huge role in the next stage of the dispute. Within his first 100 days in office, Trump has vowed to lift "roadblocks" to large infrastructure projects like Dakota Access . He's also invested his own money in the companies that are financing and operating the controversial pipeline. Join the Conversation Related Stories A view of Denali, formerly known as Mt. McKinley. Photo by U.S. Department of the Interior An Alaska Native leader is urging Republican president-elect Donald Trump to keep his hands off the highest mountain peak in North America. During his historic visit to Alaska in 2015, President Barack Obama recognized the original name of Denali , which means "the high one" or "the great one" in the Koyukon Athabascan language . But Trump has vowed to "change [it] back" to its non-Native designation. We wanted that change for a long time, and now we finally have it, and we need to leave it alone, Tanana Chiefs Conference President Victor Joseph told the Associated Press. He added: It was an insult to the first people of this land when they took away the name and gave it to somebody else." According to the AP, it would only take an executive order for Trump to change the name back to Mount McKinley . The peak was named in 1917 for the late president William McKinley, who was from Ohio and never set foot in Alaska. Read More on the Story: Alaskans vow pushback if Trump targets mountains new name (AP 11/20) Join the Conversation Related Stories: Alaska Native leader named to Arctic Research Commission (12/18) Mark Trahant: Challenges and opportunities for indigenous people (10/27) Raina Thiele: Alaska Natives share culture with President Obama (10/06) Native village residents could be first climate change refugees (09/07) Mark Trahant: Telling the story about tribal sovereignty in Alaska (09/04) President of Alaska Native village highlights threat to community (9/3) President Barack Obama offers thoughts on historic trip to Alaska (9/3) Transcript: President Obama speaks in Native village of Kotzebue (9/3) President Obama enjoys unique welcome in Alaska Native village (9/3) Gyasi Ross: Obama's checkered record on Native environment (9/3) President Obama set for visit to Native communities in Alaska (9/2) Alaska Native students being left behind in their own backyard (9/2) President Obama meets Native leaders after landing in Alaska (9/1) Rhonda Pitka: Alaska Natives put priority on subsistence rights (9/1) Transcript: Obama remarks following Native leaders roundtable (9/1) 94-year-old Alaska Native elder greets Obama with Denali song (9/1) Politicians in Ohio oppose return of Alaska Native name for peak (9/1) President Obama restores Alaska Native name of highest peak (8/31) President Obama to visit Native villages on historic trip to Alaska (8/25) Alaska governor pursues appeal in landmark land-into-trust case (8/25) Alaska Natives to welcome President Obama at end of month (8/17) Alaska Native community still waiting on funding for relocation (2/26) The Crow Tribe has partnered with Cloud Peak Energy to develop a mine on its reservation Montana. Photo from Big Metal Coal President-elect Trump is well positioned to grant more freedom to Native Americans. Just prior to the election, the newly formed Native American Coalition made up of members of tribal organizations from 15 states endorsed candidate Trump. That endorsement opens the door for a new relationship between tribes and the federal government. Chairman of the Native American Coalition, Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma and a member of the Cherokee Nation) captured the nature of federal control over Indian Country and path to reducing that control: The daily flood of new federal regulations keep[s] Indian Country from becoming self-sufficient. Local tribal decisions, not federal bureaucrats, are the best way to improve our communities I will stand with Donald Trump in supporting tribal sovereignty and reining in federal over-regulation. Considering the fact that tribes have an estimated $1.5 trillion in energy resources, President Trump should start by promoting more tribal authority over those resources. Congress tried to help with legislation in 2005 giving tribes authority to lease energy resources without approval from the Department of the Interior, but tribes did not take advantage of the legislation calling the process too complicated and confusing. More recently, both houses have passed bills (S 209 and H.R. 538) trying to simplify the permitting process. Such legislation is helping tribes like the coal-rich Crow. In 2013 it signed an option with Cloud Peak Energy, LLC to lease 1.4 billion tons of reservation coal. For the option, Cloud Peak paid the tribe $3.75 million and payments could increase to $10 million by 2018 if they start mining. What will Republican Donald Trump do for Indian Country once he's in the White House ? Terry L. Anderson believes the 45th president can help tribes with energy development: Read More on the Story: Terry L. Anderson: Presidential Medal Of Freedom Should Come With Freedom For American Indians (Forbes 11/22) Join the Conversation Related Stories The best thing about travel is that you end up opening yourself up to shitloads of real information - something that reaches you directly and is not filtered through search engines. On the flip side, it's always great if you know some really cool facts about certain places before you've visited them. You then get to enjoy seeing them play out irl. That's why you're reading this. And you should. Luxury Accommodations 1. The Swiss Military keeps fully stocked artillery bunkers disguised as quaint country homes in the middle of populated villages. 2. Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu, in New Zealand is the longest name of a place in the world. It has 92 letters. 3. There is no land at the North Pole. It's floating ice in the sea that expands and contracts depending on what season it is. Twitter 4. The worlds deepest underwater mailbox lies 10m deep, below the surface of Susami Bay, Japan. 5. About 96 per cent of people on Earth speak only 4 per cent of the world's languages. 6. Australia has 10,000 beaches more than any other country in the world. 7. Austrians get a minimum of 22 paid vacation days. Per year. Iwanderwhy 8. Barely 1 per cent of the world's population has travelled to Antarctica. Are you the 1 per cent? 9. 99 per cent of Libya is a desert. 10. If you were a flight attendant in the 1930s, you wouldn't be allowed to weigh more than 52 kg. 11. Saudi Arabia has no rivers. None. This makes it the only country in the world with this 'situation.' missionbreakout 12. Big Ben refers to the bell inside the tower and not the clock. 13. The Statue of Liberty was initially meant to be installed and used as a lighthouse. 14. Machu Picchu was created to withstand earthquakes. This explains its unique design where the stones fall back into place after an earthquake has hit an area and faded. kevinandamanda 15. The Eiffel Tower is a daily place of work for 600 Parisians. 16. Not the Grand Canyon, it is Tibets Tsangpo Canyon that is the world's biggest and deepest canyon. In a world full of insecurities, jealousy, and negativity, there are people who are trying to make us believe in goodness all over again. These real life heroes will make you realise how small acts can make a very big difference. In the midst of this whole demonetization debate and Indians finding it really difficult to get used to this change in the system, we completely missed one point. BCCL Bank employees have been working really hard, harder than most of us. While this demonetization drive has obviously left many of us startled, bank employees have been working tirelessly to ensure that people's lives hit normalcy as soon as possible. BCCL From working overtime to working on weekends, bank employees are indeed the real heroes and we haven't validated them enough. Not many know that at some locations, even retired bank employees have extended a helping hand to current employees to sort their lives. However, Prashant Singh, an employee of the State Bank of India, Indira Nagar, Lucknow, shared a video that will reinstate your faith in goodness. The video has an elderly lady who walks up to each bank employee to hand them roses. Video Screengrab Along with flowers, she also has a beautiful message to give. She is heard saying in the video, "aap log bahut mehnat kar rahey ho." (You are working very hard.) Watch the video and yes, it will warm the cockles of your heart. Theres absolutely no denying the fact that the Coldplay concert at the Global Citizen India Festival in Mumbais MMRDA Grounds was phenomenal. Everything was perfect and its safe to say that the 80,000 people who tottered home that night had had the time of their lives. Whether or not you attended the concert, youd know it created somewhat of a hue and cry when it was first announced. The reason initially was the unbelievably high price of the tickets. However, the format of a Global Citizen initiative was soon revealed and fans were made to understand that they had to perform social actions in the spheres of women empowerment, gender equality, poverty alleviation, and sanitation and hygiene, among others to win tickets - for free. In fact, the achievements of the efforts were even highlighted on stage! The concert last Saturday was a dream, and went on without any hiccups. But soon enough, reports started emerging about how the very people who had pledged social actions to help India attain its Sustainability Goals were the same lot littering the hell out of the venue. Social media was abuzz with pictures of litter strewn all over, and quite likely half of all the plastic bottles in India, decorating the grounds. Facebook/JubinJacob But what a lot of reports missed was the fact that Global Citizen India had a team of over 60 youngsters, as volunteers, in place who came right back the day after the greatest night this year - to clean the entire venue. The initiative was a collaboration between Bandra-based NGO Swachhalay and Global Citizen Festival India. The Coldplay concert might have started in the evening, but the whole Global Citizen Festival itself had begun at 3 in the afternoon. The actual reason there was so much litter around was that there was a shortage of dustbins at the venue. "The amount of mess that would be created was estimated in advance, and hence measures were taken. The reason why so much waste was collected was because GCI was giving out free water to all 80,000 attendees. The housekeeping staff was constantly at work to clear up the areas and we ensured, along with team GCI that all the waste was cleared up and responsibly disposed off," said a spokesperson from the event. Facebook/Global Citizen India In fact, the guys at Global Citizen India shared a post on their Facebook page, calling out the heroes. Facebook/Global Citizen India The post read: A huge shoutout to our team of volunteers who spent all day yesterday cleaning up the garbage from MMRDA ground! This was part of a cleanliness drive organised by Swachhalay in collaboration with #GlobalCitizenIndia. All the plastics and metals will be recycled, while all the organic waste will be composted. Thank you, team! You can view the full post here: This might finally stop men from having multiple sexual partners. Well, according to this new study, men with multiple sexual partners are more at risk of developing prostrate cancer. Researchers have found that men with more than seven sexual partners in their lifetime are twice as likely to have prostrate cancer than those with fewer than three partners. samadiroboticsfoundation.org Men who are sexually active earlier may also be at risk, the researchers said. "The more partners you had, the more orgasms you had, the younger you were when you first had sex, all pointed to an increased prostate cancer risk," Visalini Nair-Shalliker, doctoral student at Cancer Council New South Wales in Australia, was quoted as saying to smh.com.au. The increased risk of cancer is believed to be because of hormonal changes that occur due to sexual activity. Also, sexual activity and metabolism were associated with antigen, a male sex hormone that is also strongly linked to the initiation of prostate cancer. sexualhealthmen.com Other risk factors included having a father with a history of prostate cancer, a previous diagnosis of prostatitis or benign prostatic hyperplasia. In addition, the study found that being overweight or obese was also associated with increased risk of the disease, but to a lesser extent. There was no association found between prostate cancer risk and circumcision, vasectomy or erectile function, the researchers observed. It is important to recognize risk factors so men could be given advice. Moreover, men aged over 50 who fall into those risk categories should speak to their doctors, especially if they had a family history of the disease. "However, we can't make any recommendations around sexual activity because it's multi-faceted. We're not saying 'increase or decrease your sexual activity' because the evidence is still grey about that," Nair-Shalliker noted, in the paper published in the journal in the International Journal of Cancer. "Demonetisation in a booming economy is like shooting at the tyres of a racing car," says development economist Jean Dreze . A leading advocate of welfare policies, Dreze who was a member of the National Advisory Council during the UPA regime, tells ET that the sudden move to demonetize high-value currency notes has created a scary situation for people who live on the margin of subsistence, and that opposition parties may well be the real targets of the move. Edited excerpts: Youtube How do you view the demonetisation drive? The debate is vitiated by delusional hopes of the impact it might have on the black economy. Tall claims are being made about the ability of demonetisation to `flush out black money', `crush the shadow economy', or achieve `an all-out assault on the parallel economy', to quote just a few expressions used by the government and its admirers. These claims are based on what might be called the hoard theory of black money. In this view, black money is a gigantic hoard of illegal income that keeps growing and needs to be flushed out. This is wrong.Crooks know better than to keep their illegal income in suitcases of cash. Instead, they spend, invest, launder or convert it in one way or another. They use it to buy property, fund lavish weddings, shop in Dubai or oblige politicians. Of course, at any point of time some black money is likely to be lying in jars or pillow-cases. But going after that residual liquidity is like mopping the floor under the shower. Thinking of it as a decisive strike on the black economy is a severe delusion. This point has already been made by many eminent economists, but the government seems to prefer its own echo chamber. The main cash hoarders are likely to be political parties.For them, it makes sense to accumulate cash over time, in anticipation of election campaigns.Opposition parties may well be the real target of the demonetisation move. Being in power, the ruling party is less vulnerable. How has it affected rural India? Reuters Some of the short-term costs are already clear -the time people waste in long queues, the liquidity crisis in the informal economy, the layoffs and, of course, many tragic deaths. Wider economic costs are likely to be felt soon. Some reports already suggest that economic activity in rural markets has slowed down. For instance, a study by Nidhi Aggrawal and Sudha Narayanan of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research shows that mandi arrivals of non-perishable agricultural commodities crashed across the board within a week of demonetisation. The declines range from 30% for cotton to 87% for soya bean. When farmers are short of cash, agricultural labourers and local artisans are bound to suffer too. MNNREGA workers are likely to be hit. As it is, they are affected by chronic delays in wage payments. With bank staff out of action for weeks, it is bound to become harder for them to collect their meagre wages. The same applies to social security pensions, a lifeline for millions of poor widows and elderly. For people who live on the margin of subsistence, this is scary. The Opposition has criticised the introduction of the `2,000 note, arguing that it undermines the demonetisation drive... Youtube The release of `2,000 notes does not make it easier for those who hold black money to launder their cash. So, demonetisation can serve its limited purpose even with`2,000 notes being printed. Withholding them would perhaps make it more difficult to hoard black money, or rather black currency. But the complete absence of high-denomination notes would cause much inconvenience to the public, and I doubt that it would have a major impact on the black economy. Remember, black money in the sense of illegal income may or may not be earned in cash, and even if it is earned in cash, it can easily be converted into other stores of value. Reuters Demonetisation on this scale is a huge gamble with the economy. The full consequences are difficult to predict. The best-case scenario is that the economy will stay the course, after the initial disruption, and that significant sums of black money will be neutralised. The worst-case scenario is a prolonged economic slowdown, with very little result in terms of preventing illegal activity. The initial economic shock, already visible, can easily have ripple effects over the next few months. For instance, delayed sowing of rabi crops today could affect the harvest months from now. With employers short of cash, labourers are likely to lose jobs. It is also important to remember that macroeconomic trends depend a lot on expectations. If the initial shock creates adverse expectations, the economy's growth trajectory could be derailed. In a booming economy, blanket demonetisation is a little bit like shooting at the tyres of a racing car. A day after PM Narendra Modi announced the overnight demonetisation of 500 and 1000 currency notes, officials had claimed that it would smash "Pakistan's multi-crore fake Indian currency network (FICN)." Reuters Pakistan, experts said, was printing fake Indian currency, supplying crores fund J&K terror and Indian Mujahideen modules across the country. Intelligence agencies had even said that the security features of the new 2000 and 500 Rupee notes will be impossible to replicate. But we dont need to consider the sophistication of Pakistans FCIN setup (which reportedly uses ink from Frankurt and Switzerland.), fakes are popping up across India. 1. Bodakdev. Gujarat A paan shop owner found a forged Rs 2,000 currency note in his till, featuring the Gandhi watermark, the national emblem and a fake security thread. It was later on, when he wondered how the recently launched note could look so soiled, that he took a second glance. "The Rs 2,000 note was introduced recently so it had to be crisp and new in appearance. This note, however, looked begrimed and faded in colour. I suspected it could be a fake," said Barot, a resident of Sattadhar Society in Sola. I was shocked to see that the note was smaller in length and breadth. To confirm my suspicion, I took the note to the Central Bank of India's Lal Darwaza branch and the manager confirmed that the note was fake," said Vansh, adding, "I then went to the Reserve Bank of India. However, they were closed. I will submit the note along with an application and hand it over to the RBI on Tuesday." He added, "Notes of Rs 2,000 denomination are new in the market so people do not expect fakes so soon." 2. Chikkamagaluru, Bengaluru Rs 2000 fake note found in Chikmagalur. Fake Note found at APMC Market. Fake Note trimmed using scissor on the edge. @NewsX pic.twitter.com/hYWgRznmwX Sagay Raj P (@sagayrajp) November 12, 2016 Fake notes of the new currency made their debut first in In Chikkamagaluru, two days after the notes went into circulation. A local trader approached police to inform them he was handed a photocopy counterfeit note. 3. Sunarimunda, Odisha Madhusudan Meher of Jharsuguda was arrested while he was trying to use the fake currency at petrol pump in Sunarimunda, a senior police officer said. The petrol outlet staff handed him over to the cops, after catching him trying to use a colour photocopy of the 2000 Rupee note. 4. Punjab A small-time computer operator in Punjab, and his 2 accomplices managed to produce counterfeits using everyday scanners and printers, completely ignoring the various security features. The three accused knew that there were only a few Rs 2,000 currency notes in circulation in the small town of Bhikhiwind so they could easily fool people, said the police. patrikai 5. Andheri, Mumbai Mumbai's first incidence of fake new notes was recorded in Andheri, when a wine merchant was duped by a customer, who bought liquor with a fake Rs 2,000 note. My friend, who works at a wine shop, was cheated on Wednesday. He accepted the fake Rs2,000 note for a sale of Rs1,000 and gave back the change. He realised later that the note was a fake one, said Shiv Makwana, who owns a shop near Andheri station. As a result, Makwana has also started refusing these new notes. I still cannot differentiate between a fake and real Rs500 and Rs2,000 note. So even I have stopped taking these notes, he said. 6. Virar, Mumbai Virar East-resident Tushar Chikhale, 26, was caught by a wine shop owner trying to buy beer with a fake Rs. 2000 note. The fake note was merely a colour photocopy of the original one. We also recovered from him several torn fake currency. It appears that the accused made at least four or five attempts till he got the perfect printout, said a senior police officer from Virar. BCCL What do you do if you spot a counterfeit note? Once the bank identifies (after examination of various safety features) that the note is indeed counterfeit, they put a stamp on the note stating 'Counterfeit Banknote Impounded'. The official enters the details of the note in a separate register. After impounding and stamping the note, the banker gives an acknowledgement receipt. And, you are expected to countersign the receipt. Even if you are unwilling to countersign the receipt the bank will still issue you an acknowledge receipt. If there are up to four fake notes detected, in a single transaction, then the bank sends a report to the local police authorities along with the notes. If five or more fake notes are detected in a single transaction, the fake notes are forwarded to the local police station. That's not all. A first information report is also filed for further investigation. Under no circumstance will the bank return the note to you, or give you compensation for the note you just lost. So you simply lose the money. As for today's cross-border lethal attack from Pakistan shows, there is (unofficially) no more ceasefire agreement and the body of a soldier was mutilated. The Hometown Of Martyr Sepoy Mandeep Singh Who Was Beheaded By Pak Terrorists, Refuses To Celebrate Diwali 3 weeks ago, not far from the same spot, Sepoy Mandeep Singh beheaded by terrorists, aided by the cover fire by Pakistani Army. His head was reportedly taken back across the border. Machhal attack #JKOps 3 soldiers killed in action on LC in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act @adgpi NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) November 22, 2016 According to initial reports, the attack was carried out by BAT (border action team), which typically consists of terrorists and Pakistan Army regulars. The same group was believed to be involved in the beheading of an Indian soldier Manjeet Singh, last month. 286 incidents of firing and shelling were recorded along the LoC till last week by Pakistani troops, since the surgical strike on terrorist launch pads in PoK. #JKOps In a swift op at Hajin, Bandipore, two terrorists killed and weapons recovered. Ops terminated, No casualties suffered @adgpi. NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) November 22, 2016 There have been 186 ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops along the over 190km International Border (IB) in Jammu frontier, while 104 violations of the agreement took place along the over 500km Line of Control (LoC). More terror launchpads AFP/representational image The Army's military intelligence (MI) in Jammu and Kashmir has spotted at least four terror launch pads of Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) across the international border (IB). Sources said that, according to an MI report, the launch pads had been spotted at Masroor Bada Bhai, Sukhmal, Chapral and Looni. One of them is located just opposite the BSF BOP (border outpost) at Paharpur in Kathua's Hiranagar sector. According to the report, heavily armed men dressed in camouflage had been seen getting dropped at Pakistan's Nur-ul-Islam BOP via Masroor Bada Bhai. It added that after the Army's surgical strikes on September 29, terror commanders had changed their location from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (POK) to the territory across the international border in the Jammu region. The aim was to avoid detection by India's thermal imagers and mini unmanned aerial vehicles. A lull in cross-border fake Indian currency PM Modi's "surgical strike in black money" in the form of overnight demonetization of 500 and 1000 Rupee notes has led to a complete fall in fake Indian currency notes (FICN). India used to receive 70 crore in FICN every year. BSF shows precision strikes targeting Pakistan posts The BSF released thermal camera footage showing Pakistani posts getting hit in "precision strikes" by its personnel. "The Indian retaliation (to the 'unprovoked and relentless' firing all along the international border in Ramgarh, Arnia and R S Pura sectors through the day on November 1, 2016) was measured and accurate and aimed at military targets rather than Pakistan civilian population. afp An accurate and coordinated fire assault by the BSF, executed with complete precision, destroyed a number of Pakistani forward morchas and posts," said a BSF release. BSF claimed serious damage to 14 Pak Rangers posts and numerous defence bunkers, after Pakistan's unprovoked and relentless firing along the international border in Ramgarh, Arnia and R S Pura sectors of Jammu on November 1. 1 week of non-stop violations The Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup revealed the extent of Pakistan's ceasefire aggression in a statement. "We conveyed that despite calls for restraint, Pakistan forces have committed twelve ceasefire violations between 9 and 15 November 2016 during which Pakistan Army deliberately resorted to calibre escalation by employing artillery and 120 millimetre heavy mortars against Indian posts." "We conveyed that despite calls for restraint, Pakistan forces have committed twelve ceasefire violations between 9 and 15 November 2016 during which Pakistan Army deliberately resorted to calibre escalation by employing artillery and 120 millimetre heavy mortars against Indian posts. The week saw "18 instances when terrorists attempted to infiltrate into the Indian side from the vicinity of Pakistani posts and also targeted Indian posts and patrols," Swarup said. Targeting civilian villages India has also accused the Pakistan Army of "deliberate" targeting 14 villages along the LoC during nine to 15 November 2016. This resulted in in four fatal and 25 non-fatal casualties, besides extensive damage to public and private property and displacement of civilian population. Why ceasefire violations seem to be increasing as winter approaches Year after year, from October till the harsh Himalayan winter sets in, there have been sporadic ceasefire violations and this time around it is not going to be a different story. Once the winter sets in, the ice covered terrain makes it practically impossible for terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen to push in foot soldiers and fidayeens into Indian territory in the next couple of months. This leaves them in a tight spot - the number of their operatives will be limited and every time they engage with the Indian security forces and get killed in operation their manpower depletes. Hence, they are desperate to invade as soon as possible. Almost A Month After Surgical Strike, BSF Destroys 27 Pakistani Ranger Posts, 18 Watchtowers Even as Rs 2,000 notes printed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are yet to reach banks everywhere, the first fake note of this denomination has surfaced in Gujarat. A paan shop owner in Bodakdev here found a forged Rs 2,000 currency note in his till. While fake notes found in other parts of the country were photocopied versions, this note had features including the Gandhi watermark next to the national emblem and a fake security thread. AhmedabadMirror The Centres move to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes meant brisk business for Vansh Barot, who owns a paan and soda shop next to the branch of a bank on busy Judges Bungalow Road. Tired of standing in line, people would walk into the 25-year-olds shop to buy snacks and drinks. So, when a customer handed over a magenta Rs 2,000-note to the employee manning the cash counter on Thursday, it raised no alarm. That was until Vansh emptied the cash over a magenta 2,000-rupee note to the employee manning the cash counter on Thursday, it raised no alarm. That was until Vansh emptied the cash box to count the days earnings. A soiled-looking note sent warning bells ringing. The Rs 2,000 note was introduced recently so it had to be crisp and new in appearance. This note, however, looked begrimed and faded in colour. I suspected it could be a fake, said Barot, a resident of Sattadhar Society in Sola. BCCL/Representational Image He had completed his MBA in Human Resources from London and had set up a franchisee of Anand Paan Shop six months ago. Since the day was over, I locked the note in my almirah. The next day, I took out the note and compared it to other notes of the same denomination. I was shocked to see that the note was smaller in length and breadth. To confirm my suspicion, I took the note to the Central Bank of Indias Lal Darwaza branch and the manager confirmed that the note was fake, said Vansh, adding, I then went to the Reserve Bank of India. However, they were closed. I will submit the note along with an application and hand it over to the RBI on Tuesday. BCCL/Representational Image No Clue Found Vansh added, I have CCTV camera in my shop. I went through all the footage captured by this camera on November 17. But I was unable to find the person who gave me this note. Central Bank of Indias Chief Manager (Lal Darwaza) B R Ramkrishna Naik confirmed that the fake note had not been a photocopy. It was not a simple copy. The fake note brought by Vansh had a security strip and a Gandhi watermark next to the Ashok Pillar emblem. However, it did not have the additional electrotype 2,000 watermark. The seven raised angular bleed lines on the right and left side of the fake 2000-rupee note had gaps. The emblem too was not printed properly. The colour of the fake note was darker than the real note. Notes of Rs 2,000 denomination are new in the market so people do not expect fakes so soon. They must learn the security features of the new notes and be extremely cautious while using it for transactions," he added. Repeated attempts to speak to SOG ACP B C Solanki were in vain. The Central government and the RBI decided to scrap the older high-denomination notes on November 8 and bring in new Rs 2,000 notes for a variety of reasons, among which was the crackdown on fake currency notes. If anyone comes across a fake note, s/he can take it to a private or government bank, said the manager. BCCL/Representational Image Once the bank identifies (after examination of various safety features) that the note is indeed counterfeit, they put a stamp on the note stating Counterfeit Banknote Impounded. The official enters the details of the note in a separate register. After impounding and stamping the note, the banker gives an acknowledgement receipt. And, you are expected to countersign the receipt. Even if you are unwilling to countersign the receipt the bank will still issue you an acknowledge receipt. If there are up to four fake notes detected, in a single transaction, then the bank sends a report to the local police authorities along with the notes. If five or more fake notes are detected in a single transaction, the fake notes are forwarded to the local police station. That's not all. A first information report (FIR) is also filed for further investigation. Under no circumstance will the bank return the note to you, or give you compensation for the note you just lost. So you simply lose the money. Here Are The 17 Points You Need To Know About Security Features On Rs 2,000 Note 1. The denomination numeral 2000 can been seen when held against light. 2. Latent image of the numeral 2000 can be seen on the back of the note when held at 45 degree angle to the eye. 3. Numeral 2000 written in Devnagari script. 4. Portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in the centre. 5. Micro letter RBI and 2000. 6. RBI, Bharat in Devnagari and 2000, on the security thread. Colour changes from green to blue. 7. Guarantee Clause, RBI Governors signature with promise clause and RBI emblem towards right. 8. Watermark of Mahatma Gandhis portrait and electrotype 2000 watermark 9. On the number panel, numerals growing small to big on top left and bottom right. 10. Denomination with rupee symbol in colour changing ink on bottom right 11. Ashok Pillar emblem on the right. For visually impaired Raised printing of Mahatma Gandhi portrait, Ashok pillar, bleed lines and identification mark. 12. Horizontal rectangle with raised 2000 printing on the right 13. Seven raised angular bleed lines on the right and left side 14. Year of printing note. 15. Swachh Bharat logo with slogan. 16. Language panel towards centre. 17. Motif of Mangalyaan. On the thirteenth day of demonetization, the Reserve Bank said overdraft and cash credit account holders could withdraw Rs 50,000 per week, the government allowed farmers to buy seeds with the old Rs 500 notes, and the Income Tax department conducted surveys on service providers engaged for a multi-crore wedding in Bengaluru. BCCL 1. Reserve Bank gives borrowers 60 additional days to repay loans worth up to Rs 1 crore. Borrowers who've taken out housing, car, farm and other loans payable between November 1 and December 31, have 60 additional days to repay them, The RBI said today in a notification. The apex bank added that this move was a short-term deferment, and didn't result in a restructuring of the loans. BCCL 2.Government order allows farmers to purchase seeds with demonetised notes The Union government on Monday said farmers could now purchase seeds with the demonetised Rs 500 notes. The Finance Ministry said in a statement that farmers could buy seeds - after showing proof of identity - at centres, units or outlets belonging to the central or state governments, public sector undertakings, national or state seeds corporations, central or state agricultural universities and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. 3. Banks get over Rs 5.44 lakh crore of scrapped notes between November 10 and 18: Reserve Bank According to bank reports, Rs 5,44,571 crores's worth of scrapped currency notes have been either deposited or exchanged across the country between November 1o and 18, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in a statement on Monday. Over-the-counter and ATM withdrawals amounted to Rs 1,03,316 in that period, the statement added. AFP 4. Cash credit, overdraft account holders can now draw Rs 50,000 per week: RBI After allowing current account holders to withdraw up to Rs 50,000 per week, the Reserve Bank today extended this facility to overdraft and cash credit account holders - which have been operational for the last three months or longer. However, the extension of the weekly withdrawal limit isn't applicable to personal overdraft accounts, the apex bank said. 5. Opposition in Rajya Sabha demands confidence motion for those who died in bank queues The Opposition in the Rajya Sabha today said no discussion on demonetisation would take place until the House adopted a resolution mourning nearly 70 deaths said to have been caused by hardship created by demonetization. In the Lok Sabha, which didn't function for a third consecutive day, opposition parties demanded an Adjournment Motion - meaning a suspension of all business. They also rejected Parliamentary Affairs minister Ananth Kumar's request for a debate on demonetisation under Rule 193, which doesn't entail voting or the passage of a resolution. BCCL 6. Janardan Reddy's daughter's mega-wedding: Income Tax department surveys service providers After mining baron and ex-Karnataka minister Janardan Reddy organised an extravagant multi-crore wedding for his daughter last week in Bengaluru, the Income Tax department today conducted surveys at several locations of high-end event management firms, catering and multimedia service providers hired for the wedding. The IT department is going through account books, payment receipts, and contract portfolios of these firms, officials said. Three Indian soldiers were killed during an operation along the Line of Control (LoC) on Tuesday. AP/ Representative Image The incident happened in Machhal sector along the LoC. Confirming the incident, the Army's Northern Command said in statement that the "Retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act." #JKOps 3 soldiers killed in action on LC in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act @adgpi NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) November 22, 2016 This is the second incident in recent months when an Indian soldier was killed and was mutilated. According to initial reports, the attack was carried out by BAT (border action team), which typically consists of terrorists and Pakistan Army regulars. The same group was believed to be involved in the beheading of an Indian soldier Manjeet Singh, last month. Pakistan has a long and dubious track record of blatant disregard to international norms when it comes to combat. Saurabh Kalia, an Indian Army captain was captured by Pakistan army during the Kargil War in 1999. He held in captivity for 22 days, where he was subjected to third degree torture body burnt; eardrums were pierced with blazing iron rods; eyes were punctured before removal; teeth, bones, and skulls were broken; limbs and private organs were sliced off; and were finally shot dead after multiple rounds of fire. His mutilated body was handed over to India on June 9, 1999. Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh, were killed by terrorists and their bodies were found mutilated on 8 January 2013. In many parts of the world the dignity of a dead body and their rights for proper burial is considered much more than those of the living but not here, not now. Unclaimed bodies are being sold to medical students in Bihars Muzaffarpur district for Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000. Mortuary staff put such bodies on sale after post-mortem. The bodies are stripped of flesh, the skeleton is boiled and then neatly packed in cartons to sell it illegally to medical students who need it to understand human anatomy. Dainik Bhaskar The illegal trade is rampant at Sri Krishna Medical College And Hospital (SKMCH) in Bihars Muzaffarpur district. This is happening despite the fact that such institutions have a committee for the burial of unclaimed corpses. Such bodies directly go in the custody of sanitary staff of the colleges mortuary soon after post-mortem who strip off the flesh and preserve skeleton to sell it to the needy students. The demands of such bodies are higher in the market because costly artificial skeleton sold in the market. This thriving illegal business came to light following a sting operation conducted by a leading Hindi daily. Undercover reporters posing as first-year medical students reached the hospital and contacted mortuary staff asking them to arrange for them three human skeletons. Once they offered Rs 500 to the human corpses traders, a human skeleton was available before them after few minutes of their wait. Reuters The men who were selling the skeleton admitted it belongs to unclaimed bodies brought to the hospital for post-mortem. When the reporters ask them to arrange two more skeletons, they surprisingly agreed to deliver it then and there. The rates vary between Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 based on bargaining you do with them. The sellers of human bones proudly claim that there is no cheating in their business and they give full skeleton containing 206 bones. If you ask them about being caught if it smells, they say, No, it wont smell. We strip off the flesh, boil the bones and let it dry in the sun. Once it is properly dried, it does not smell. We then safely pack the bones in cartons with a preservative. Reuters Asked if the bodies are not burnt or buried by the authorities concerned, they reluctantly say it is not done despite the allocation of special funds for it. When SKMCH Principal Professor Vikas Kumar was contacted for comments, he denied the allegation. This is illegal and no such activity takes place here. We have a separate department that ensures all such bodies get respected burial, he added. But the police consider the allegation serious and assure culprits will be brought to book after investigating the matter. We will probe the matter to take strict action against those who are found guilty. Everyone deserves a dignified burial and if something like this is happening it is criminal activity, said Tirhut Commissioner Atul Prasad. The Reserve Bank of India has placed tough conditions on those seeking to withdraw cash for weddings. The guidelines issued by the regulator clarifies that only one party parents of either the bride or the groom, or one of those getting married can withdraw a maximum of Rs 2.5 lakh. Reuters RBI has also said that since the withdrawn amount will be used for cash disbursement, it has to be established that the person to be paid does not have a bank account. "A detailed list of persons to whom the cash was withdrawn is proposed to be paid, together with a declaration from such persons that they do not have a bank account is required. The list should indicate the purpose of the proposed payments," RBI said. amarujala Last week, the finance ministry had said that it would allow a one-time withdrawal for wedding-related purposes to ease the troubles of those whose weddings are to take place before December 31. However, even after the announcement, banks were not in a position to release funds due to a lack of operational guidelines from the RBI. BCCL While the RBI has now come out with guidelines, many account-holders looking forward to withdrawing cash could find the conditions daunting. There have been instances of service providers failing to meet their obligation due to the cash crunch, affecting their ability to hire temporary workers. The conditions of obtaining a declaration from the recipient will make it difficult to make any ex gratia payment. BCCL "Banks should encourage families to incur wedding expenses through non-cash means such as cheques/drafts, credit/debit cards, prepaid cards, mobile transfers, internet banking channels, and NEFT/RTGS. Therefore, members of the public should be advised, while granting cash withdrawals, to use cash to meet only such expenses which have to be met through cash mode," the RBI said in its circular. Online petitions is an emerging phenomenon - a new trend, according to some - used by common people who want to change existing norms and practices, however big or small. Many petitions are floated across the world everyday seeking support of people on a particular issue. People, regardless of their identity, will sign up if they believe in the floating cause. Others will move on, perhaps to sign something else. Others, however, are naysayers who believe that online petitions fail to transform anything whatsoever. Reuters Broadly there are two schools of thought those who think change begins at home (in this case even from your bed ) and those who think online petitions are nothing but lazy activism. We did some research to find out if these petitions end up achieving their goals or not. And also, if there are any success stories that have actually led to any change. Antony Rubin, co-opted member of the Animal Welfare Board of India, told Indiatimes: Online petitions have the possibility of reaching a larger audience. One person might come across a petition for a cause they believe in and if they share that on their Facebook or Twitter wall, then someone else might read about it even if they dont sign up. So a message is spread in the very least. Change.org works on the philosophy of "power of your voice and connects people across geographical and cultural borders to support causes they care about. According to them, every hour, there is one petition that is victorious. In June 2016, Rashmi Bachani petitioned the CEO of Redbus.in to make travel safer for women after she was molested by a Redbus driver. Her petition confirmed victory after she was able to garner 149,220 signatures. i.ytimg So, while she started off as a lone soldier trying to make travel safer for women in India, she ended up gaining support from all across the country and eventually making traveler safer on Redbus, a step forward in itself. Rubin also does not believe that online petitions alone can cause any real change. He views them more as evidence, a type of material backing. If you rake up thousands of signs for a cause and take it to court, then you can say that look, its not just me or two guys who want animal abuse laws to change, for example, but 25,000 people. This forces the court and authorities to consider petitions more seriously. Hitesh Banerjee signed the petition on change.org demanding death penalty for Nirbhayas rapists in December 2012. The 28-year-old signed it because he believes social media has the power to make something good happen and spread a message. He also thinks that the Supreme Courts verdict came much sooner, in nine months, because of peoples pressure in form of protests and online petitions. There are other examples of online petitions that have garnered support of a large group of people dispersed around the world and achieved their goals. businessline Petition victories exist, a lot of them, from simple community problems to macro issues that affect the larger public. 1. Tejaswini Naik vs Youtube Tejaswini Naik from Mumbai petitioned Youtube to take down "disturbing videos" of Indian children being taught to say lines such as, Adolf Hitler did nothing wrong and feminism is cancer. She received 52,540 signatures and Youtubes CEO responded to take down all such videos. Reuters 2. Iman Ghavami vs Iranian government and UK government British-Iranian Ghoncheh Ghavami was released from solitary confinement in Iran after her brother petitioned the Iranian and UK government. She was imprisoned for attending a mens volleyball match in Tehran and he managed to rein over 7,50,000 signatures and governments were pressurised to take action against her wrongful imprisonment. Reuters In order to implement change through online petitions, its important for the person who initiates the conversation to constantly follow up. Ghonchehs release wasnt swift, it took nearly one year to win her release. 3. Alina Tiphagne vs Uber In October 2015, an Uber driver was found guilty of raping a female passenger in New Delhi. Alina Tiphagne started a petition on change.org to urge Uber to stop the double standards. Mandate a 7 year background check for all Uber drivers in India like the US. She won the petition with over 63,000 signatures and Uber responded carry out stringent checks on their drivers. Change.org 4. Emily Clarke vs Government of Sudan Another blockbuster petition saved the life of a Sudanese girl who was facing death for being Christian. Meriam Yehya Ibrahim faced persecution but pressure from 1,092,281 people around the world, who fuelled her campaign, played a huge role in saving her. change.org 5. Sharkwater & United Conservationists vs Toronto Thousands of members of Care 2, a petition website, made Canadas Toronto fin free. Sharkwater and United Conservationists started the petition to ban shark fin in Toronto and the city council was pressured to hear them out after they won almost 6,000 signatures. There is an activist in all of us. Everyone wants to change something - whether its as local as planting more trees in your neighborhood or as macro as building safe and clean highway toilets. Just like flowers dont bloom if the seedlings arent watered, online petitions will not lead to any change if they are left alone on the Internet with thousands of signatures. Online petitions reach a large audience. Shared on my wall. People see it. The case is known to a larger audience. If it goes to court, then the petition signs can be used for evidence. Constant updating. I believe nothing is impossible. Using dogs in laboratories. 25K signed up. This is going to the supreme court. Community is not just a few people. Louder voice than does help on a national level. Its a backing, an evidence, wouldnt create an impact alone. Person initiated needs to follow up. People want to contribute somewhere somehow because their heart is close to a cause. A new map has dawned upon the world that reveals the rudest regions because they are named so. We don't know if those in charge of naming these regions were stoned at the time, because this is highly unacceptable! ST&G But on the flip side, these are quite hilarious too. Imagine hailing a cab to go to Windpassing. Or telling your friends you are going to Crap. Funnier still, informing your folks that you will be late at Bum Bum. ST&G The map, however, also names regions with offensive names such as P***y, Golden B***s and Fj***by. Sheesh. Do yourself a favour and try not locating them on the map. ST&G But if you ever feel the urge to visit these towns just for the heck of it, make sure you pin to your list Climax in Georgia, Lovely Bottom in Tasmania, and Puke in Tonga! *guffaws* Theround of negotiations between the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot leaderships over a long-awaited solution appeared to have broken off on Monday evening , with one reason given being continuing differences over the number of Greek-Cypriots allowed to return to occupied territories in the wake of any resolution. One area where institutional creditors and the Greek government have converged in negotiations over a second review of the Greek program (third bailout) has apparently left outprofessionals in a draft framework for out-of-court settlement of arrears and debts. The Leadership of Islamic Movement of Nigeria on Monday in Kano accused the Federal Government of plotting to wipe out the movement in the country. At an emergency press briefing held in Kano, the Head of Martyr Foundation of IMN, Sheikh Abdulhamid Bello, maintained that in Kan, the Ashura procession had ended peacefully before security agents, who he claimed masqueraded as members of a youth vanguard group, attacked Shitte members. According to him, since the eruption of the Shitte sect face-off with law enforcement agents, President Muhammadu Buhari had neither intervened nor sympathised with the victims of police attacks. Bello maintained that the Federal Governments continued silence over the persistent victimisation of Shittes members was a subtle plot to permanently stop them from practising their faith and mode of worship. We were walking away from Kano toward Zaria and we did not obstruct traffic. It was the heavily armed police officers, who scattered the hitherto orderly, peaceful and solemn procession. There was simply no justification for the police attack, who unjustifiably shot indiscriminately, killing men, women and children, including an eight month-old infant. Bello also called on the Federal Government to compel security agents to release the corpses of their over 100 members so that we can organise a befitting burial for them according to Islamic rites. He urged Nigerians to be mindful of the shameless disregard to civilians lives and property exhibited by the Buhari-led administration. Bello urged Nigerians to caution President Buhari and his lieutenants and to remind them that they were not voted into office to kill those they harbour religious enmity against. Finally, we also reiterate our demand for the unconditional release of our leader, Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, his wife, and all those being detained illegally since the pogrom against us commenced, he said. Source: Punch A Japanese man has been arrested after admitting he stole a company presidents wallet containing 50,000 yen during an interview earlier this month, The Japan Times reports. Shogo Takeda, 24, stole the wallet during an interview at an elevator maintenance company in Yokohama. He allegedly took advantage of easy access to the presidents bag when he briefly left the room. I wanted to work for that company, but since I havent got a job I needed money, police said Takeda told them upon owning up to the charges. The president noticed his wallet was missing after the interview and reported the incident to police, suspecting Takeda had taken it as the pair were alone in the office during the interview. Takeda was tracked down via contact details, including his address and phone number, on his resume. He reportedly did not contact the company for a follow-up. In order to attend a hearing on the environmental damages caused by years of oil spills in Nigeria blamed on oil company Royal Dutch Shell, King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi of Ogale community, near Ogoni, Rivers State has flown to London. In what may suggest a loss of faith in the Nigerian judiciary amidst fears of official conspiracy, two Nigerian communities in March sued Shell in London over multiple oil spills in the Niger Delta. Britains High Court has begun to hear arguments on whether English courts can hear two legal claims on behalf of the over 40,000 Nigerians against Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC). During the hearing on Tuesday, King Okpabi held plastic bottles believed to contain contaminated water from his community in Ogale, in Nigerias oil-rich Niger Delta region, claiming my people are drinking this water. There are strange diseases in my community skin diseases, people are dying sudden deaths, some people are impotent, low sperm count, he was quoted by AFP as saying. I can afford to buy water. But can I afford to buy for everybody? No. We are dying. King Okpabi wants the English Court to compel Shell to implement a 2011 landmark report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Oil spills were found to contaminate clean water and damage the fishing industry in Nigeria in a 2011 report. UNEP warned of dangerously high levels of hydrocarbons in the water, bitumen-coated mangroves, and poor air quality. It stated that immediate action was needed. Shell has argued the case should be heard in Nigeria, as it involves its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC. The Anglo-Dutch oil company will use the first three days of hearings to challenge the courts jurisdiction. According to International Business Times, a spokesperson for the oil giant claimed both Bille and Ogale communities are areas heavily impacted by crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining which remain the main sources of pollution across the Niger Delta. The spokesperson added that SPDC has not produced any oil or gas in Ogoniland, the region surrounding Ogale, since 1993. However, plaintiffs have argued that aging and leaking pipelines owned by the company still run through the area. SPDC further claimed it had delivered water and healthcare to communities and was supporting the implementation of the UNEP process, which in June saw the launch of a $1bn clean-up operation in Ogoniland, which the UN report said could be the most wide-ranging and long term oil clean-up exercise . The clean-up exercise aims to restore drinking water, land, creeks and important ecosystems such as mangroves and is estimated to take up to 30 years. Some residents of Arepo community in Ogun State, under the auspices of Journalists Estate Residents Development Association, on Moday stormed the office of the Ikeja Electric (IE) in Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, protesting against alleged five-month power cut and outrageous billing in the area. The residents barricaded the main entrance of the IE office for several hours, displaying placards with inscriptions such as No billing without light, Fashola must sack IE, and Restore our light, among others. The Chairman of the Journalists Estate Residents Development Association, Mr. Nosiru Salau, said the entire Arepo Community had been without electricity for months, adding that despite the IEs gross inefficiency, it was fond of bringing outrageous bills. He said, We bought a new transformer with our money, but the IE refused to energise it because we declined to give the workers money to buy some accessories. The firm is used to bringing crazy bills. We have paid for pre-paid meters close to three years now, but the IE has not brought the meters. We cannot continue to be in darkness. We are calling on the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, to intervene. He vowed that the protest would continue until the management of the IE develop a listening ear, adding that further steps would be taken if their demands were not attended to. The Secretary of Arepo Residents Association, Mr. Friday Irabor, said the IE usually would not provide electricity to the estates in the area until the end of every month when it would supply electricity for an hour and give an estimated bill of N36,000 per resident. A resident, Mr. Demola Bidmus, said the residents decided to stage the protest in order to demonstrate their seriousness about the issue on the ground. He said, We are calling on Fashola to do something because he is the one in charge. We cannot continue to live in darkness and still pay bills. A businessman, Mr. Kuti Odukunle, said companies in the area had been spending close to N300,000 monthly to fuel their generators. We want them to put pre-paid meters in all the houses in the community so that we will be able to pay as we use, he added. The News Agency of Nigeria also reports that the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr. Anthony Woudea, stated that the IE had noted that the residents were not satisfied with its services. He said the management of the company would visit the community to find solution to electricity challenges in the area. Source: Punch A 24-year old South African Pastor, Prophet Lethebo Rabalago is now using insecticide, petrol and fire to heal members of his church. Rabalago, who is a pastor at Mount Zion General Assembly (MZGA) explained methods; We are glorifying God. We want God to be seen. We are saying with God anything is possible. Its not a matter of inspiration. When one is inspired you are copying. Its not a matter of inspiration. No one inspired me. I just believe in God for anything. We can use anything that you believe to heal people. In the book of Genesis, the spirit of God was hovering over the water. [Therefore] everything here on Earth belongs to God. Petrol belongs to God. Doom belongs to God. Some people came with injuries but we sprayed them and they were healed. Prophet Rabalago has invited critics to his church to subject themselves to his curious brand of healing. The church has also put up several testimonies of people who were healed after the insecticide was sprayed on them. The Chairman of the All Progressives Congress Governorship Campaign in Ondo State, Mr. Solomon Lalong, on Monday said the absence of the party leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and some South-West governors at the partys rally in Akure on Saturday did not make any difference. He said since President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, were present at the rally, there was no cause for alarm. Lalong, who is the Plateau State Governor spoke with State House correspondents shortly after he and the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, met Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Tinubu and Governors Rauf Aregbesola (Osun); Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo); and Akinwunmi Ambode (Lagos) were conspicuously absent at the rally held at the Democracy Park in Akure on Saturday. Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State was the only APC governor in the South-West who attended the rally. Tinubu and other governors who did not attend are believed not to be in support of the partys candidate in the Saturday election, Chief Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN). But Lalong said their absence was not a problem to the party. He said, That (their absence) was not a problem. We explained their absence. They sent in their apologies. You heard what happened there. As far as we are concerned, the President who is the leader of the party was at the rally. The national chairman was also there. As far as we are concerned, everybody was there. To the party, their absence did not make any difference. If a leader was not there and he has said he was not there because of ill-health, we have prayed that God will heal him. The governor expressed confidence that the APC would emerge victorious in the Saturday election. He said he and Fayemi were at the Presidential Villa to thank Buhari for making time out to attend the rally personally. We have finished our campaign. You saw what happened at the grand finale. We are not in doubt that APC will win the election in Ondo. It is other parties that are scared of the APC and not the APC being scared of other parties. We have come to thank the President for going to Ondo for the grand finale rally, he said. Source: Punch The University of Lagos has begun registration of new students whose names appeared on the 2016/2017 merit admission list. The Deputy Registrar (Information) of the university, Mr. Toyin Adebule, made this known on Tuesday, adding that the registration is holding at the institutions multipurpose hall. Adebule said that the registration, which began on Monday, Nov. 21, would end on Friday, Dec. 2. He, however, advises students to strictly adhere to the procedures of the registration. Meanwhile, the Deputy Registrar said the university was set to chase out persons who do not have business with the institutions community. Adebule said that the university had also devised measures to weed illegal students from the system. He said there were many illegal students, who often deceive their parents and the public, claiming to be students of the university. We have published names of about 68 students, either rusticated or expelled, while their pictures have been pasted around the campus for easy identification. They were sanctioned with either rustication or expulsion, having been found guilty during the 2015/16 academic year. Some of them were also found wanting for academic and social misconducts, ranging from result forgery to conducting themselves in a manner that is inconsistent with the universitys rules and regulation. Management has warned that the rusticated students must stay away from the offices, departments and faculties of the university until the expiration of their rustication period, Adebule said. He advised genuine students of the institution to abide by the universitys rules and regulations by joining hands with management to sustain set standards. President-elect Donald Trump on Monday sent out the strongest signal yet that the H-1B visa program is going get real scrutiny once he takes office. Trump listed five executive actions he plans to take on his first day in office. It includes asking the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of the visa programs that undercut the American worker. Trump did not get into details and didnt specifically mention the H-1B visa, but his intent is clear. During the campaign, he was critical of the H-1B visa program and invited displaced IT workers from Disney to speak at his rallies. He said the visa is being used to undercut workers. Companies are importing low-wage workers on H-1B visas to take jobs from young college-trained Americans, said Trump at a rally last month in Ohio directed at millennial-age voters. He called the outsourcing of jobs a tremendous threat. Trump detailed his executive plan in a video posted on his Facebook page. He said he asked his transition team for executive actions he can take on day one to restore our jobs and bring back our jobsits about time. The Labor Department has been asked before to investigate the visa program to no success. In 2015, 10 Senators, including Trumps attorney general pick, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), asked the department to look at the layoffs of IT workers at Southern California Edison, but the department said it couldnt because it lacked a formal complaint. Edison workers subsequently did file complaints with the department; it investigated though half-heartedly, and found no wrongdoing, said Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at Howard University, who has testified multiple times before Congress on the visas use. The same thing happened with complaints from displaced IT workers at other firms, he said. I believe that the (Labor Department) had much more authority and discretion in its ability to investigate and penalize wrongdoing, said Hira. Even more importantly, it had an obligation to point out how it was handcuffed by Congress in ensuring that the spirit of the law was upheld. Hira believes the agency was negligent in its duty to ensure that the U.S. labor market is fairthis is something that is in the mission statement of the organization. The Trump administration can investigate the H-1B program, expose fraud, enforce existing rules, expose flaws and make recommendations including new regulations for fixing it, said Hira. Trumps other first-day actions include withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), removing job-killing restrictions on energy production and new limits on lobbying for former government officials. Another day-one action involves cybersecurity. Trump said he will direct the Defense Department to develop a comprehensive plan to protect Americas vital infrastructure from cyberattacks and all other form of attacks. This story, "Trump to attack visas that undercut the American worker" was originally published by Computerworld . Cattle Held Firm on Tuesday, Feeders Weakened Barchart - 1 hour ago 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 : 152.225 (+0.18%) LEG23 : 155.525 (+0.18%) LEJ23 : 159.025 (+0.09%) GFX22 : 178.225 (+0.73%) GFF23 : 179.725 (+0.86%) Midweek Hogs May Pick Direction Barchart - 1 hour ago 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 : 84.000 (-1.41%) HEJ23 : 92.825 (-0.83%) KMZ22 : 94.450 (-0.97%) Cotton Rising Into Midweek Barchart - 1 hour ago So far into the Wednesday session cotton prices continue their rise with the board up by triple digits in the lead month Dec. Cotton rallied by the 3 cent limits on Tuesday, marking just the 16th green... CTZ22 : 78.60 (+4.80%) CTH23 : 77.36 (+3.64%) CTK23 : 77.08 (+2.98%) Focus Property Group, a real estate investment and development company, has submitted plans to build a new Greenbox Self Storage facility in Denver. The 4.4-acre property at Holly Street and Leetsdale Drive is the former site of the now-demolished Dillon Dairy. Focus purchased the lot from Southern Foods Group last year for $3.9 million, then tore down the single-story, 35,000-square-foot warehouse, according to the source. Plans submitted to the city last month include the construction of a three-story storage building with a walkout basement on the western end of the property along Leetsdale Drive. The facility would take up less than half of the acreage and comprise 143,000 square feet of storage space. Details for the sites eastern end, which stretches along Holly Street and Leetsdale Drive, arent included in the plans. The city has yet to approve the project, the source reported. Studio DH Architecture is the architect firm designing the project. Sterling Design Group LLC will create the facilitys landscaping, and Perception Design Group Inc. is the engineering firm on the project. Focus has another Greenbox facility under development at the site of the former Rockies Inn on Evans Avenue in Denver. The project was delayed last spring after a fire started on the top floor of the three-story building. Based in Denver, Focus is a commercial real estate acquisition, development and management firm. Greenbox has three facilities in Denver. Focus also develops, owns and operates hospitality, office and retail assets. Jernigan Capital Inc., a merchant bank and advisory firm serving the self-storage industry, has invested $12.6 million in two Florida self-storage development projects. The company invested $7.5 million to build a 784-unit facility in East Jacksonville with co-investment partner PLG Properties LLC, a Georgia-based developer. Its also investing $5.1 million to add 256 units to an existing asset in Ocoee, a suburb of Orlando. Both projects are expected to commence before year-end, according to a press release. Construction on the Jacksonville project is expected to begin immediately. The facility will be 100 percent climate-controlled. This is the first self-storage development between Jernigan Capital and PLG, the release stated. The Ocoee project will be built on land adjacent to a multi-story facility that opened in May. Managed by self-storage real estate investment trust and third-party management firm CubeSmart, the asset is 65 percent occupied, according to the release. Orlando-based Storage Builders II LLC will serve as developer. Construction is slated to begin the first week in December. Jernigan Capital is a commercial real estate finance company that provides financing to private developers, operators and owners of self-storage facilities. It offers financing for acquisition, ground-up construction, major redevelopment or refinancing. The firm intends to be taxed as a real estate investment trust and is externally managed by JCap Advisors LLC. The Texas A&M Foundations longtime vice president of investments, Janet Handley, plans to retire at year end, she confirmed to Institutional Investor. Alternative investments director Ben Wall is to take over from Handley at the $1.5 billion fund, the outgoing VP said via e-mail. After 15-plus years with the Texas A&M Foundation, I am electing to retire, Handley wrote. My plans going forward are not set in stone, but I have no doubt my time will be filled productively. I will continue to be engaged with the Texas A&M Foundation, but as a donor, not an employee! Handleys planned departure is the latest in a string of resignations and staff changes at U.S. post-secondary funds. Dartmouth College CIO Pamela Peedin will exit next June, the university recently announced. A search is underway for her replacement. Harvard appointed its latest endowment leader earlier this fall, hiring Narv Narvekar away from Columbia University. Columbia backfilled the CEO opening by promoting longtime CIO Peter Holland. The Texas A&M Foundation lost 1.7 percent for the year ending June 30, 2016, versus peers -1.36 percent median loss, according to Callan Associates data on U.S. endowments and foundations above $1 billion. It gained 4.6 percent versus peers 5.96 percent over three years, and 4.7 percent versus peers 6.16 percent over the past five years. During Handleys tenure, the Texas A&M Foundations long-term asset pool, the largest under its management, more than tripled in value, to $1.39 billion. Leanna Orr is Global Content Director of Investor Intelligence Network (IIN), Institutional Investors private community for asset owners. A number of pension systems across the country are facing funding crises, but one is in more imminent danger than most. The $2.3 billion Dallas Police and Fire Pension System (DPFP) could run out of cash to pay pension beneficiaries as soon as January, according to people briefed on the situation, owing to a run of bad performance and an investment portfolio stuffed with highly illiquid investments. The pensions woes are putting pressure on the citys budget at a time when Dallas should be thriving, observers and the citys mayor say. Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston, who serves on the board of the troubled pension plan, says the latest report he has received suggests that in a worst-case scenario, the retirement fund will at least have enough cash on hand to pay beneficiaries through the end of 2017, but that would require selling assets at fire sale prices and we dont want to do that. Kingston is one of a group of city officials, including Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, and pension board representatives who are seeking to resolve the Texas citys pension problem. It is likely that Dallas pension woes will be taken up by the state lawmakers when the legislature meets for its biennial five-and-a-half month session in January. Some GOP state lawmakers have indicated that they will push to convert the Dallas pension to a defined contribution system, an outcome which likely would not be greeted favorably by the union supporters of defined benefit plans in Texas and elsewhere. Kelly Gottschalk the executive director of DPFP, who joined the system in April of 2015, replacing long time executive director Richard Tettamant told Institutional Investor that no actuarial projections show the plan will be out of liquidity by January and the plan is currently in the process of liquidating investment assets. An FBI investigation into what happened at DPFP is under way; the pension plan is considered to be a victim, and the fund has hired a legal firm to do its own internal investigation. In her December 2015 report to the Dallas city council and the mayor, Gottschalk reported that if steps were not taken to rectify the situation, the plan would be underwater in 15 years. But with assets tied up in illiquid real estate deals and elsewhere, the plan could be out of cash much sooner than that. Pension beneficiaries are also yanking money out of the system in droves. As much as $260 million had been withdrawn from the system from the start of the year to mid-September, owing to a specific pension benefit called the Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP) that allows members who have passed their retirement date to continue working after that point and transfer their retirement benefits to a separate DROP account that receives a guaranteed rate of return. Retired cops and firefighters have been redeeming these funds, fearful of what will happen to the struggling pension system. If there is a run on the bank, it will affect our liquidity greatly, says Dallas city council member Jennifer Gates, who joined the DPFP board in June. Generous benefits including the DROP program have contributed to DPFPs problems, as have its investments. The pension plans portfolio contains a number of illiquid, high-risk investments, including a real estate portfolio that currently makes up more than 23 percent of the pensions investments and has much of its assets tied up in direct deals. These investments have contributed to the poor performance, and the overall illiquidity, of the fund in recent years. For the fiscal year ending June 30, the pension plan, which has a funding ratio of 45.1 percent, has a 10-year annualized return of 2 percent, placing it in the 99th percentile among its peers. A proposal currently before the DPFP membership would require the city of Dallas which has been making its pension payments all this time to put in $1.1 billion to fill the pension deficit gap (the city and police and fire employees both contribute to the pension fund). Council member Kingston predicts that will be a no-go for city lawmakers. What you will see within the next week is the city council speaking with a unified voice to say if you expect us to contribute anything beyond what we are statutorily required to do, then you will cut benefits to the bone to make that contribution as small as possible, says Kingston. He has seen figures that suggest the additional payment the city would have to make to plug the funding hole could be as low as $300 million. Any benefit cuts, however, are likely to be challenged through the courts. Mayor Rawlings testified on November 3 before the Texas Pension Review Board that his city could be facing bankruptcy if something is not done to fix the pension problem. Rawlings is pushing for governance reform at DPFP. This content is from: Portfolio Dont give up on small funds. Theyve still outperformed in 20 of the last 25 years. The insurance industry has an important role to play in the development of home sharing businesses such as Airbnb and Stayz, one industry head has said.Mike Bartlett, commercial director of Sum Insured, said that as home-sharing gains popularity, the main thing insurers and brokers can do is help drive awareness and education for consumers on the risks these services entail.For insurance companies, I think it is really [about raising] awareness they want to do the right thing by their clients, Bartlett told Insurance Business.I believe in the good in people, I dont think people are trying to circumvent the system with their insurance company, I just think a lot of people dont really understand the system and havent thought it through.Airbnb launched its home protection insurance program in Australia in 2015. The policy, which offers up to $1 million in liability protection, has been made available to nearly one million customers across 16 countries and aims to placate the fears of some hosts who worry that insurance will not cover their temporary leasing. IAG also launched ShareCover, designed to help consumers using house listing services such as Airbnb and Stayz.As the sharing economy continues its rise, Bartlett noted that brokers are being given a new way to engage with customers. If brokers are able to tap into the growing trend of people running small or micro-businesses from their own homes, Bartlett sees success in their future.People use insurance brokers because they value advice and the broker industry just plays a pivotal role in providing good advice to people, Bartlett continued.I think brokers, if they are aware that their client is renting their property out on one of these short-term sites, they can definitely play a very good role in creating an awareness and education programme.With the insurance industry a key target for outside disruption, Bartlett said that the response to the sharing economy will provide a key litmus test for the future of the industry.The insurance industry has really been targeted as one of the industries that is ripe for disruption, Bartlett said.This is something that is here now and this is the opportunity for the insurance industry to really start to show that they have the capability to take on these new challenges. Key appointee has over 15 years of insurance experience to his name A lawsuit against William Paterson University over its handling of sex assault charges against five male students will be allowed to proceed. The five were charged in 2014 but a Passaic County grand jury declined to indict them. Two of the students sued, alleging the school failed to conduct a proper investigation and caused them financial and emotional damage. A federal judge dismissed some counts of the lawsuit Thursday but let others go forward. Among the counts that remain are claims of false arrest and imprisonment, breach of contract, infliction of emotional distress and negligence. The judges ruling was made public late Friday. A school spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday. William Paterson usually doesnt comment on legal matters. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits New Jersey A powerful earthquake rocked northern Japan early on Tuesday, briefly disrupting cooling functions at a nuclear plant and generating a small tsunami that hit the same Fukushima region devastated by a 2011 quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. The magnitude 7.4 earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, sent thousands of residents fleeing for higher ground as dawn broke along the northeastern coast. There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries hours after the quake hit at 5:59 a.m. (2059 GMT Monday). It was centered off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 kilometers (6 miles), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. A wave of up to 1.4 meters (4.5 ft) high was recorded at Sendai, about 70 km (45 miles) north of Fukushima, with smaller waves hitting ports elsewhere along the coast, public broadcaster NHK said. Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from harbors as tsunami warnings wailed after alerts of waves of up to 3 meters (10 feet) were issued. We saw high waves but nothing that went over the tidal barriers, a man in the city of Iwaki told NTV television network. Aerial footage showed tsunami waves flowing up rivers in some areas, and some fishing boats were overturned in the port of Higashi-Matsushima before the JMA lifted its warnings. The U.S. Geological Survey measured Tuesdays quake at magnitude 6.9, down from an initial 7.3. All Japans nuclear power plants in the area have been shut down in the wake of the March 2011 disaster, which knocked out cooling systems at Tokyo Electric Power Co.s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing reactors to melt down and spew radiation into the air, soil and sea. The cooling system for a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at the reactor at its Fukushima Daini Plant was initially halted on Tuesday, said a spokeswoman for Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, but was restarted soon after. Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest. Nuclear plants need cooling systems operating even when in shutdown to keep spent fuel cool. Tohoku Electric Power Co. said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported there were no irregularities at the Tokai Daini nuclear plant in Ibaraki prefecture. Coast Evacuated Japanese Minister for Disaster Management Jun Matsumoto told reporters there had been no reports of significant injuries. One woman suffered cuts to her head from falling dishes, Kyodo reported, citing fire department officials. Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the worlds most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the worlds earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater. The March 11, 2011, quake was magnitude 9, the strongest quake ever recorded in Japan. The massive tsunami it generated knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier. Systems have been updated since the 2011 disaster to spread warnings more quickly, said Tsunetaka Omine, head of the Disaster Management Division in Iwaki, a city in Fukushima prefecture. Previously, there were complicated directions on where to evacuate. But now, we basically just tell people to head away from the sea, to the highest possible ground, Omine said. Authorities now also send tsunami warnings to every mobile phone in the area and broadcast on local radio. Staying in a traditional Japanese inn on the coast in the city of Ofunato with a dozen international high school students on a study tour, teacher Kathy Krauth said the shaking began just seconds after a quake alarm on her phone went off. I felt like the lessons of 3-11 were really taken to heart, said Krauth, who teaches a class on the March 2011 disaster and its aftermath. The feeling was, we just dont know, but were going to be as cautious as we can. Nissan Motor Co said it would suspend work at its engine factory in Fukushima at least until the latest tsunami warning was lifted. A spokesman said there were no injuries or damage at the plant, which was badly damaged in the 2011 disaster. Toyota Motor Corp said all its factories in northeastern Japan were operating as usual. Japans famous Shinkansen bullet trains were halted along one stretch of track and some other train lines were also stopped. Japanese financial markets were little affected, with the Nikkei 225 index closing up 0.3 percent and the yen steady against the U.S. dollar. (Additional reporting by Chris Gallagher, Jon Herskovitz, Osamu Tsukimori, Aaron Sheldrick and William Mallard; writing by Lincoln Feast; editing Paul Tait) Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Earthquake Cyber criminals have remotely attacked cash machines in more than a dozen countries across Europe this year, using malicious software that forces machines to spit out cash, according to Russian cyber security firm Group IB. Diebold Nixdorf and NCR Corp., the worlds two largest ATM makers, said they were aware of the attacks and have been working with customers to mitigate the threat. The newly disclosed heists across Europe follow the hacking of ATMs in Taiwan and Thailand that were widely reported over the summer. Although cyber criminals have been attacking cash machines for at least five years, the early campaigns mostly involved small numbers of ATMs because hackers needed to have physical access to cash out machines. The recent heists in Europe and Asia were run from central, remote command centers, enabling criminals to target large numbers of machines in smash and grab operations that seek to drain large amounts of cash before banks uncover the hacks. They are taking this to the next level in being able to attack a large number of machines at once, said Nicholas Billett, Diebold Nixdorfs senior director of core software and ATM security. They know they will be caught fairly quickly, so they stage it in such a way that they can get cash from as many ATMs as they can before they get shut down. Group IB declined to name banks that were jackpotted, a term used to describe forcing ATMs to spit out cash, but said the victims were located in Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Britain and Malaysia. Indeed, Dmitry Volkov, head of threat intelligence with Group IB, told Reuters he expects more heists on ATMs. More Heists Expected Hackers have moved from stealing payment card numbers and online banking credentials to more lucrative hacks on bank networks, giving them access not only to ATM machines, but also to electronic payment networks. A February attack on servers at Bangladeshs central bank that controlled access to the SWIFT messaging system yielded more than $81 million in one of the biggest digital heists on record. Russian banks lost over $28 million in a series of wire-fraud cases that were identified earlier this year. What we are seeing demonstrated is the new model of organized crime, said Shane Shook, an independent security consultant who helps banks and governments investigate cyber attacks and reviewed Group IBs findings. Diebold Nixdorf and NCR both said they had provided banks with information on how to thwart the new types of attacks. We have been working actively with customers, including those who have been impacted, as well as developing proactive security solutions and strategies to help prevent and minimize the impact of these attacks, said Owen Wild, NCRs global marketing director for enterprise fraud and security. Disclosure of the campaign follows two ATM hacks in July: $2.5 million was stolen from Taiwans First Bank and $350,000 from Thailands state-run Government Savings Bank. Hackers remotely infected ATMs at both banks, forcing them to spit out cash that was collected by teams of money mules, who authorities say traveled to Asia from Eastern Europe. One Criminal Group? The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this month sent a private alert to American banks, warning them to be on the lookout for attacks on ATMs following the heists in Taiwan and Thailand, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the attacks in Europe. Group IB released a report describing its findings late on Monday, saying it believed the attacks across Europe were conducted by a single criminal group which it dubbed Cobalt. (http://www.group-ib.com/cobalt.html) It named them after a security-testing tool known as Cobalt Strike, which the perpetrators used in the heists to help them move from computers in the bank network that were infected with tainted emails to specialized servers that control ATMs. Group IB believes that Cobalt is linked to a well-known cyber crime gang dubbed Buhtrap, which stole 1.8 billion rubles ($28 million) from Russian banks from August 2015 to January 2016, because the two groups use similar tools and techniques. Buhtrap stole money through fraudulent wire transfers, not ATM jackpotting. The ATM Security Association declined to comment on Group IBs findings. Members of the group, which works to improve ATM security, include ATM maker Diebold Nixdorf as well as banks ABN Amro, Bank of America Corp, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Wells Fargo & Co. Representatives of Europol, which coordinates investigations of cyber crimes across Europe, had no immediate comment. (Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston; additional reporting by Anthony Deutsch in The Hague; editing by Dan Grebler and Bernadette Baum) Related: Topics Cyber Russia Europe The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau late on Friday asked the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review an October decision that its structure is unconstitutional. The review will involve all the courts judges, a group generally seen as more liberal on the whole than the three-judge panel that decided that the agency vests too much power in its sole director. The panel had also said the president should be able to fire the director at will but stayed the decision pending appeal. In its petition, the agency said last months ruling overrides Congresss explicit determination to create an independent agency in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. Also, it said the decision could affect similar agencies with single directors who can only be removed for cause, such as the Social Security Administration. The reviews losing side is expected to appeal to the Supreme Court. Senator Sherrod Brown, the most powerful Democrat on the Banking Committee who strongly supports the CFPB, said he expects the full court to find the CFPBs structure sound. The decision, in a lawsuit involving PHH Corp., reflects a larger debate about the bureau that President-elect Donald Trump could soon weigh in on. Members of Trumps Republican party say the CFPB should be governed by a commission. Trump could seek to withdraw the CFPBs petition and let the October decision stand, allowing him to fire the current director, Richard Cordray. This is an important first step in the fight to overturn the courts reckless, politically motivated decision that was designed to cripple the CFPB, said Karl Frisch, executive director at Allied Progress, which has lobbied the bureau to tighten regulation of the payday lending industry. Under Cordray, its first director, the CFPB brought a landmark case against Wells Fargo bank for creating accounts without customers knowledge. It has also tightened oversight of the student loan and mortgage markets, and this year has proposed rules on payday lending, mandatory arbitration clauses and debt collection. (Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) With good reason, Dan Greulichs doctors called him the miracle man. In the span of a decade, the insurance company executive engaged not once, but twice, in a race with death as he awaited replacements for failing organs. And twice, just as death was poised to win, he made it to the top of the national transplant list ahead of thousands of other dying people. Donor organs became available, he was rushed into surgery, and he emerged with a new lease on life. After Greulichs second combined liver-and-kidney transplant in early 2012, his wife, Rae, sent a letter to the donors family. You not only saved a man, she wrote, you saved a family. But then, less than three weeks into his recovery at University of California-Los Angeles Medical Center, Greulich contracted an antibiotic-resistant infection a common and often lethal hazard of hospital stays. Over the next five months, according to thousands of pages of medical and billing records reviewed by Reuters, Greulich was attacked by no fewer than half a dozen different superbugs, most of them strains that are encountered almost exclusively in healthcare facilities. Greulichs immune system, suppressed by medications to prevent organ rejection, had no way to fight the bacteria. When the usual antibiotics failed to snuff them, he was pumped full of powerful alternatives, sometimes as many as half a dozen a day. Some had alarming side effects hearing loss, severe pain, nausea. The infections kept coming. Sepsis, a dangerous inflammatory response to infection, set in. Confined to an intensive-care unit (ICU), Greulich was frequently placed on mechanical ventilation, itself a common source of infection. He wavered in and out of consciousness. Doctors cut him open again to seek the source of the problem. At one point, they considered putting him back on the transplant list, but only if they could clear him of infection. They couldnt. On June 30, 2012, Greulich died, age 64. Dan Greulich is one of the uncounted the tens of thousands of people in the United States whose infections and deaths by superbug are not tracked by public health agencies. As revealed in the first article in this series, deaths related to drug-resistant infections often arent recorded as such on death certificates. Greulichs death certificate blames cardiac arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat. Even when superbug deaths are recorded, tens of thousands a year go uncounted because federal and state agencies are doing a poor job of tracking them. Today, the lack of a unified national surveillance system makes it hard to fight a scourge that officials 15 years ago declared to be a grave threat to public health. Deaths like Greulichs speak to the high human toll of superbugs. But Greulichs death and, in particular, the effort to prevent it also speak to the enormous waste caused by the infections: two precious organs in a country where 22 people die every day waiting for one; thousands of hours put in by dozens of doctors, nurses and other medical workers to save a life; and big sums of money spent on drugs, surgery and hospital care, contributing to the billions of dollars superbugs add to the U.S. healthcare bill every year. Two people that could have gotten those organs died waiting for those organs, Rae Greulich said. To see it become a failure is certainly devastating, said Dr David Klassen, chief medical officer of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the Richmond, Virginia, nonprofit group that coordinates all U.S. transplants. It isnt clear how Greulich contracted the superbugs that killed him. UCLA Medical Center declined to make anyone available to discuss his illness and hospitalization. In a statement emailed to Reuters, the hospital said: We treat many severely ill patients who require complex care, and we have detailed procedures and protocols in place to prevent, detect and treat infections. Beyond the loss of viable organs that could have saved other lives, Greulichs infections added to the growing national tab for treating them. Records show that from the time he first entered UCLA Medical Center in December 2011, until he died seven months later, Dan Greulich racked up a total bill of $5.7 million. How much of that went toward treating Greulichs superbug infections and how much went toward his transplant surgery and related treatments is hard to determine precisely. Too many other variables are at play. However, at $5.7 million, the charges for Greulichs seven-month hospitalization were nearly five times what the National Foundation for Transplants says are the average first-year charges for a liver-and-kidney transplant. Charges for antibiotics he was given in a failed attempt to beat his infections were at least $230,000, exceeding the $200,000 in charges for obtaining and transplanting a liver and kidney. Charges for seven months of accommodations at UCLA Medical Center totaled $2 million. AN ELUSIVE NUMBER Lack of reliable data hinders any effort to calculate how much superbugs add to overall U.S. healthcare costs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cites figures from a 2009 study sponsored by the Alliance for Prudent Use of Antibiotics that put the annual cost of antibiotic-resistant infections at more than $20 billion. But that figure is extrapolated from data from a single hospital. And it uses infection rates from 2000, which were far less than what they are now. Dr. Stuart Levy, director of Tufts Universitys Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance in Boston and an author of the 2009 study, acknowledged the limitations of the analysis. The important point was we were supposed to show this was a very costly consequence of doing hospital care, he said. Reuters undertook its own analysis to get an idea of how much superbug infections cost. Using national inpatient data from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality for 2013, the analysis of millions of records focused on infections from two superbugs: methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile. It found that an infection can add thousands of dollars to the cost of a patients hospital stay. The average MRSA infection added about $11,000 per inpatient stay, while C. difficile added about $5,200. In all, Reuters found that the two infections combined added about $6 billion in charges to hospital stays nationwide in 2013. MRSA infections added about $4.1 billion, and C. difficile added about $1.9 billion. To calculate those numbers, Reuters used a method called propensity score matching to compares costs for patients with and without infection who are otherwise similar in terms of demographic characteristics, other illnesses, hospital setting and so on. While MRSA and C. difficile are two of the most common and well-known drug-resistant pathogens, they are only two of 18 superbugs the CDC considers to be a threat to public health, suggesting a total cost much higher than $6 billion. Some of those other infections, while not as widespread, can be far more costly to treat. Most superbug infections are contracted in hospitals and other medical facilities. The big bills that result are most often covered by health insurers and other third-party payers. This means that ultimately, the costs are passed to consumers in the form of higher insurance premiums, said David Cutler, a Harvard University economist who specializes in healthcare. There is no other way to do it, he said. Private insurers generally do not deny reimbursement for treatment related to superbug infections. Even in cases where hospitals are held legally liable for the infections, they are often shielded from eating the full cost. James Woodard contracted a MRSA infection at age 64 while in the University of New Mexico Hospital for back surgery in 2012. The infection led to a dozen more surgeries over four years and left him wheelchair-bound and with memory loss. But he hasnt forgotten the pain as the infection spread: It felt like someone was hacking my body in half, he said. In a malpractice suit Woodard and his wife brought against the hospital, a jury earlier this year found the hospital at fault and awarded Woodard and his wife $4.25 million for medical costs, Woodards injuries and other damages. But New Mexico caps malpractice awards. Within those limits, the hospital is asking the court to set the award at $700,000, said hospital spokesman Luke Frank. That is less than the $973,000 that Frank said the hospital received in payments from Woodards insurer. Hospitals make money on those complications, said Woodards lawyer, Amalia S. Lucero. And Woodard could end up with even less if his own insurer recovers some of the money it paid to the hospital from whatever award Woodard receives. More than half the states have imposed caps on malpractice awards in response to medical and insurance industry concerns that multi-million-dollar verdicts were driving up the cost of healthcare and premiums. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) penalizes hospitals for high infection rates by reducing payments from the huge Medicare government health-insurance program for the elderly. And the agency does not pay the added costs of some types of preventable infections, such as catheter-associated urinary tract infections, if they are contracted in the hospital. Hospitals have found a way to get around the CMS payment restrictions. Several studies have shown that hospitals sometimes use a strategy called upcoding, whereby they manipulate the codes for submitting reimbursement claims so that they receive payment for infection-related treatments. For instance, a hospital could claim an infection was present when the patient was admitted, rather than acquired in the hospital. Or it could not mention an infection at all. A 2015 study from the Stanford Graduate School of Business estimated that CMS reimbursed for more than 10,000 upcoded claims from 2009 to 2010, costing Medicare a total of $200 million. As for Dan Greulichs $5.7 million bill, his widow, Rae, said the couple paid about $10,000 themselves. Most of the balance was covered by Dans employer-sponsored insurance with Anthem Inc. The insurance company declined to comment. Hospital charges are typically a starting point that insurers end up negotiating down. Payment records for Greulichs seven-month stay at UCLA Medical Center show that Anthem paid at least $2.9 million. LONG ODDS One day in February 2000, Dan Greulich failed to show up for work as a senior vice president of property and casualty insurer Western Mutual at the companys Agoura Hills, California, office. His son, Tim, found him lying unconscious on the floor at home. At the hospital, doctors told Greulich that his liver and kidneys were failing, damaged beyond repair from his years of heavy drinking. He probably wouldnt live more than a couple of months. His alcoholism disqualified him for a life-saving transplant. Greulich began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings while undergoing dialysis four times a week. He completely gave up the second he went to that hospital, Tim said. He never picked up a drink after that. By the end of 2000, he was on the transplant waiting list. The hospital entered his information into a computer system run by UNOS, the transplant coordinator, which uses information from hospitals and organ-procurement groups across the country to match donors with recipients. The odds were against him. In 2001, the 6,080 people who died and became donors didnt come near to covering the 86,000 people waiting for organs. As Greulich waited, his health deteriorated. He struggled to make it through each workday. He spent lunch hours napping in his car. Then, in July 2002, he got his first transplant. Recovery, according to Rae, was complicated by his first encounter with superbugs: He contracted a MRSA infection, which kept him in the hospital until September. A month later, after about two years as a couple, Dan and Rae got married. Tim, Dans son from a previous marriage, lived with them. Dan returned to work, paring down his hours from 60 to 45 a week. He and Rae bought their dream home in Simi Valley, in the mountains 40 miles outside of Los Angeles. They had fruit trees in their backyard lemon, orange, pomegranate and kept horses. For nine years, Dan remained healthy and was very religious about taking his transplant medications, according to medical records. In 2011, he began taking an herbal remedy called St. Johns wort to cope with stress at work. He didnt know the plant could block the effects of anti-rejection drugs. On Dec. 6, nearly a decade after his first double transplant, Dan was back in UCLA Medical Center, his donated liver and kidney failing. He was soon relisted for a transplant. Again, as he waited, his health declined. On Jan. 5, 2012, medical records show, he was vomiting blood, and he was moved to an intensive-care unit. He was charged the next day for his first night in the intensive-care bed: $10,400. His skin grayed. He spent more time sleeping. Every day, it seemed more likely that he would die before he made it to the top of the transplant list. In the early morning hours of Jan. 25, Rae received a call in her hotel room: A 40-year-old woman had died, and she was an organ donor. Dan was at the top of the waiting list. Everythings going to be OK, Rae said she was thinking hours later, as Dan was wheeled into surgery. A second transplant is far more complicated and risky than the first, said Dr Fady Kaldas, an associate professor of surgery at UCLA specializing in liver transplants who was part of Dans medical team. Dan was losing so much blood during the operation that doctors spread the procedure over two days to give his body time to stabilize. At one point, Rae recalled, doctors told her they were losing Dan. He survived one of 462 people to get a double transplant that year. His new liver soon began working on its own. His sister, Pat Herbert, said he told her he would make it to Florida for her birthday in May. His rosy color returned. Even when his new kidney didnt take, meaning he would have to rely on dialysis, he remained optimistic. Then, in early February, as nurses were removing post-surgical drains from Dans abdomen, a nauseating stench filled the ICU room, Rae recalled. Rae suspected something was awry. She was right. Dans medical records show that lab tests of fluid from the drains found two drug-resistant pathogens, Citrobacter freundii and Aeromonas. And they werent Dans first infections. He was already fighting a fungus called Candida albicans, which can be especially dangerous in transplant patients. MODERN DANGERS Modern medical advances complex organ transplants, drug therapies, devices such as ventilators and dialysis machines sustain life for people who would otherwise die. But they come at a cost. They leave many people cancer patients, people with HIV, premature infants, anyone with a suppressed or weakened immune system particularly vulnerable to bacteria. At the same time, many of the bacteria that thrive in the hospitals where these people are concentrated have developed resistance to antibiotics. Dan Greulich was the perfect target. Transplant patients take drugs for the rest of their lives that suppress their immune systems so that their own bodies dont reject the donor organs. That leaves them vulnerable to opportunistic pathogens like the two that showed up in Dans lab tests. Both rarely cause illness in otherwise healthy people; for the immune-compromised, they can be deadly. Hospitals have well-established protocols to contain the threat. At UCLA Medical Center, once Greulich tested positive for drug-resistant infections, everyone doctors, nurses, technicians, Rae, other relatives had to don a gown and gloves before entering his room and discard them when leaving. Rae said she repeatedly asked nurses about Dans post-operative drains. They told her only that he had a fungal infection, she said. No one told her the names of the pathogens, or that they were resistant to multiple drugs, or how dangerous they were. UCLA Medical Center declined to comment. Dan was now battling sepsis life-threatening inflammation that is triggered throughout the body in a haywire response to infection. His blood pressure was abnormally low. His heartbeat was rapid and weak. Breathing was difficult, and he was often placed on mechanical ventilation, inserted through a tracheostomy, a hole surgeons cut into his windpipe. He was receiving dialysis through a port in his groin. He received fluids and drugs including increasing amounts of ineffective antibiotics through multiple tubes inserted into his veins and arteries. He was seldom lucid. Occasionally he would utter an I love you to Rae or ask how his recovery was going. Rae usually lied. Youre doing so much better, she would say, to encourage him to keep fighting. Doctors were desperate to locate the infection behind Dans sepsis. On Feb. 22, they wheeled him into surgery again and opened his abdomen, distended with retained fluid. This was risky in a patient so ill. Its not necessarily the easiest thing to take somebody whos so stressed and sick and take them back to surgery, Kaldas said. The surgery failed to reveal a definitive site of infection. Dans medical bills show at least $20,000 in related charges for the operating room, the procedure, anesthesia and a liver biopsy. In March, Dan tested positive for a drug-resistant strain of Enterococcus. Unrelenting sepsis caused his body to swell. His skin was stretched tight and easily punctured. When Rae tried to clip his fingernails one day, he bled. Doctors had put Dan on drugs called vasopressors, which constrict blood vessels and thus raise the dangerously low blood pressure that sepsis causes. But that same mechanism also decreases essential blood flow to new organs, putting them at risk. Thats what makes sepsis such an evil process  It just wreaks havoc on your body, including a delicate transplanted liver, Kaldas said. Its always a game of whats going to happen first. Are these organs just going to fall apart from being on vasopressors for a week, or is the infection going to go away first? Another month, another infection. In early April, it was vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE), another common menace to hospital patients with weakened immune systems. A few days later, Rae recalled, two of Dans doctors sat down with her for a talk. Imaging showed that his new liver was a potential site of infection and a probable source of his sepsis. If they could clear Dan of the infections, they would consider him for a third liver-and-kidney transplant. In notes dated April 18, 2012, Dr Leonard Irwin Goldstein wrote that another transplant would provide his best chance for long-term survival. Only now, Rae said, did she realize that Dans struggle was not to recover from transplant surgery, but from a barrage of infections. Nobody said he had a laundry list of infections, she said. She started researching infection control and keeping a close eye on the nurses caring for Dan. In the ensuing weeks, she wrote three letters to the ICUs nurse manager to urge vigilance against further infection and to list lapses she noticed in her husbands care. In a May 7 letter, she described stopping a nurse from starting an intravenous line when she saw that the nurse wasnt going to change gloves after touching cabinet drawers and other potentially contaminated surfaces. UCLA Medical Center declined to comment. Since February, Dan had undergone increasingly aggressive antibiotic therapy. By the end of March, records show, he had been charged about $45,000 for the drugs. Then, for April alone, the amount ballooned to more than $110,000. Of that, $93,000 covered charges for 169 doses of Synercid, a combination of quinupristin and dalfopristin that is one of the few drugs that can beat back VRE. In just one day May 2, 2012 Dan was given six different antimicrobial drugs: amikacin, cefepime, daptomycin and Synercid, all of them commonly used to treat multi-drug-resistant infections; Bactrim; and caspofungin, an anti-fungal. Many of these drugs are hard on the body. The Synercid caused severe bone pain. Dan, who for months hadnt complained about his pain, uttered to his wife, Im in agony, according to Rae. At Raes request, doctors eventually stopped the drug. Antibiotics beat you up, said Kaldas. Imagine somebody on nuclear weapons of antibiotics, and theyre on 10 of them, or five of them, or three of them. Its a lot to ask. By June, the continuing antibiotic therapy had left Dan nearly deaf. His hair had fallen out. On and off a ventilator, he had suffered several bouts of pneumonia. Unrelenting sepsis and the phenomenon known as ICU delirium confusion and cognitive impairment associated with acute-care settings left him incapable of recognizing little around him other than Rae and Tim. Doctors now said Dan would never be well enough for another transplant. He was going to die. They urged him to sign a do not resuscitate order. He refused. Rae posted a sign above his bed: Mr. Greulich very clearly stated NO DNR and wants aggressive treatment. For Dans medical team, giving up on a third transplant was an admission of defeat. What we worry about is putting yet another organ into somebody thats going to go the same way as the last organ, said Kaldas. Youve developed a relationship with this patient  Theres nothing you want more than to see them get better. But you have to take a step back and say, well, a third liver will not make this person get better. After months of illness, pain and confinement, Dan began to lose his will to live. He told Rae he felt worthless and that he knew he wasnt ever going to recover. On June 29, Rae walked into his hospital room a little before 9 a.m., as she had nearly every day for the past seven months. He was sitting up in bed, alert and almost perky, she said. I want to die, he told her. The next day, Rae and Dans son, Tim, 24 years old at the time, stood at Dans bedside, holding his hands. They said their goodbyes. Just before 11:30 a.m., doctors turned off Dans dialysis machine. He soon lost consciousness. Rae and Tim watched as the tracing on Dans heart monitor slowed and slowed and then flat-lined. Greulichs death certificate did not mention sepsis or the infections that caused it. His autopsy report, however, lists at least five pathogens present in samples taken from his body, most of them drug-resistant. The report states: The autopsy findings and microbiology studies support the clinical diagnosis of septic shock, which appears to be the immediate cause of death. It was clearer than anything that he died of septic shock, Rae said. When I got the death certificate, I was staggered. (Edited by John Blanton) Topics Carriers USA Medical Professional Liability Drugs Four workers injured in a deadly 2013 petrochemical plant explosion in south Louisiana have been awarded a total of $16 million by a jury. This weeks verdict follows a separate late September trial in which four other workers were awarded $13.6 million for injuries suffered at the Williams Olefins Geismar plant. Two people died in the ground-rattling June 2013 blast southeast of Baton Rouge. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board said there were 167 reported injuries. In the verdict, the jury assigned just over 83 percent of the fault for the explosion to Williams Co. Inc., an Oklahoma-based business, and 16 percent of the blame to Sabic Petrochemicals, a Saudi energy company that was added as a co-defendant in the latest lawsuit. Two plant officials were assigned less than 1 percent of fault. Williams has made too many reckless choices that led to this explosion, Kurt Arnold, an attorney for Houston-based Arnold & Itkin. The firm represents about 80 of the injured workers. As it did after the first trial, Williams Olefins said it will appeal. Williams Olefins has admitted in numerous legal-related filings and ensuing reports, its responsibility for the accident. But, there was never any intent to injure anyone. We think the verdict does not comport with the law and will therefore appeal, the companys emailed statement said. Susan LeBourdais, a spokeswoman for Sabic Petrochemicals, said in an email that the company does not comment on pending litigation, except to say that we intend to pursue all available remedies. Related: Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Hurricane Matthew victims in North Carolina have more time to apply for federal disaster assistance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said in a news release that it has approved a 31-day extension for applications. Residents now have until Jan. 9, 2017, to register with FEMA. The extension also applies to homeowners, renters and businesses submitting applications for low-interest disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration. The state had requested more time for registration because a number of counties were added for individual assistance several weeks after the original Oct. 10 presidential disaster declaration. Registration is open in 45 counties. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Hurricane North Carolina Its a different concept, a way to build at ground level in a flood zone. And its working for a business in Jackson County, Miss. DaBayou Bar & Grill may look thrown together, but there is a lot of planning and permitting hurricane straps, extra bolts and re-enforcements behind the new restaurant in south Jackson County. Made of solid metal shipping containers, welded together and anchored to the ground, it meets all the countys requirements for building. With holes cut into the base of the containers, as flood vents, the little restaurant and bar meets MEMA and FEMA requirements, too. It sits right on the ground along Simmons Bayou in an area where elevation requirements are 10 feet or more. And it has an evacuation plan if a hurricane threatens the Coast disconnect all plumbing and electrical, pack the restaurant into one shipping container and have a mover with a crane under contract to haul it all off on a flatbed. The building is substantially more solid than it looks, county building official Marcus Catchot told the Sun Herald. And owner deShea Waguespack said it was considerably less expensive to build than a traditional building, because when you elevate, its pilings, elevators, handicapped ramp and accessibility. It takes a lot of wood. Everything costs more because of what you have to put into it. So instead, the little bar and grill is able to offer its customers walk-up, easy access along the marina pier near the condos in Gulf Park Estates. Its at 2411 Beachview Drive, where the old Broomes grocery and bait shop existed. After Katrina, that vacant slab looked horrible for everyone passing on the main drag of Gulf Park Estates, a sprawling subdivision just east of Ocean Springs, said DaBayou builder Marty McGrath. He leases the land and got the idea to build a shipping-container commercial building on the low property from businesses he had seen in Alabama and Florida. It took him six months to get all the paperwork through county, state and federal agencies, then four months to actually put it together with county inspectors approving his every move. Waguespack opened the restaurant in June. And so far its been a popular spot with the locals. It sits almost at water level and with an open concept all the dining area is either under a tarp or out on a deck. The only parts of the business that are housed in the five metal containers are the entrance, the kitchens and a porch. McGrath spent many hours doing exactly what the county wanted, he said. MEMA has been out here. He brought us documents, it was all designed, Catchot said. They didnt just go in there welding and beating and banging things together. They had a plan, and theres nothing like it in Jackson County. For that matter, theres nothing quite like it on the Mississippi Coast. Shaggys in Biloxi is using shipping containers for an outdoor oyster bar, but its elevated like the rest of the restaurant. In Hancock County, some harbor and yacht club offices and restrooms are at ground level, portable in case of storm surge, not flood proof. DaBayou doesnt have to move except the one container they haul off. The buildings are wide open with flood vents so water can enter and exit without damaging anything, Catchot said. Theres no drywall, insulation, air conditioning or heating ducts. Theres nothing water can damage, Catchot said. When the water recedes, they hose it out and go back to work. The roof is nothing more than a break away tarp of sorts and the shipping containers are anchored so hurricane surge wont roll them around to damage other buildings or boats in the area. Its not in a velocity zone on the front beach. The restaurant is away from the Mississippi Sound in a flood hazard area that would experience rising water in a surge, but not wave action. We looked into it extensively, Catchot said. McGraths vision for the structure came from The Gulf restaurant in Alabama and Red Fish Blue Fish in the Florida Panhandle. Pascagoula has looked into the concept for its River Park, a low-lying area just north of U.S. 90 on the west bank of the Pascagoula River an area where elevation could be unwieldy. However, the city manager said there is nothing in the works yet. DaBayou becomes a shell made of flood-resistant materials during evacuation. With the steel containers, theres very little building code left to meet. The core structures are well beyond the county requirements for strength. Catchot said the county would look at such a concept from anyone. He and McGrath also pointed out that using it could help repopulate businesses in the difficult, flood-prone areas of the county. The county inspected every phase of the DaBayou construction. What is designed to remain in a storm surge had to be solid. It was a long process, Catchot said, but added the concept is intriguing and the county is open to it. People in other places are building houses out of those storage containers, he said. We would entertain that. Its just not conventional so we recommend you get a design engineer. Open since mid-June, its attracting a following. Waguespack, 43, said having a restaurant is something she has always wanted to do. She has another full-time job and opens DaBayou at 4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. It stays open until people quit eating. The capacity is about 50 to 60, but she sees room for expanding maybe out onto the pier and deck. Winter is coming and she is working with the open-structure concept to come up with ways to keep out the cold such as clear zip-up walls. The decor? Its a collection of things people bring in, Waguespack said. People want to be part of the business, and it adds character, she said. Theres no set interior design going on. Exterior wooden siding from an old barn in Vancleave is purely decorative. All in all, the shipping containers that cost less than $15,000 made a restaurant in that area affordable, Waguespack said. Theres no way I could have done it the traditional way, she said. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Flood Hurricane Mississippi Carls Jr. is suing Utah-based chain Apollo Burger, accusing the restaurants of knowingly copying its trademarked Western Bacon Cheeseburger. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Salt Lake City claims Apollo Burger was selling a cheeseburger with the same name, which is confusingly similar to a recognizable part of the Carls Jr. brand. Carls Jr. is asking the court to make Apollo pay for any profits it made from sales of its version of the burger. Apollo L.C. owner Michael Ziouras told The Salt Lake Tribune that they thought it was the generic name of a sandwich. H e says Apollo changed its menus but it wasnt fast enough for Carls Jr.s comfort. Apollo Burger opened its first restaurant in 1984 and has 13 locations in Utah. Related: Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits The term data science is only about 15 years old. It first showed up in a paper from Purdue University calling for a new academic discipline combining the knowledge of computer scientists and statisticians. Since then, data scientist has been dubbed the sexiest job in America and the best job of the year for 2016. College graduates are flocking to the job openings, but theres still a gap. United States businesses will be short 1 million data scientists by 2018, and 40 percent of companies are already struggling to find top data analytics talent, according to a recent Deloitte report. Recruiting top data-science talent will continue to be challenging and expensive. But building a team of superstar data scientists is only one part of transitioning to a data-driven organization. Truly infusing an insurance organization with data-driven decision-making cannot start with hiring external employees and building stand-alone departments. It must start with frontline employees. While these individuals will never be the data scientists, mining the depths of systems and the Internet of Things for trends, they are the people with the insurance know-how to identify the problems big data and data scientistscan solve. And theyre the ones who have to adopt and accept new data-driven processes and insights. Data at the organizational level Many companies are already making great progress on the path toward organizational data analytics, and theyre seeing significant benefits. Bain & Company performed a study of 400 large companies that were early adopters of data analytics. Analysts found that these companies are: Twice as likely to be in the top quartile of financial performance within their industries Five times as likely to make decisions much faster than market peers Three times as likely to execute decisions as intended Twice as likely to use data very frequently when making decisions Data analytics is not just a bottom-line booster. Organizations that make more decisions based on data react to market shifts more quickly and execute change more efficiently. This is especially important in the insurance industry, where organizations proprietary competitive advantages are what set them apart and allow them to adapt and exceed customer expectations. The agility and effective decision making that come with big data are vital to continually improving business operations and products. For example, data-driven decision-making will not only keep your claims process competitive through advanced data mining capabilities, but also it will define the future products and processes your company needs to be successful. Data-driven changes start with frontline employees Getting employees in claims, underwriting, customer service and other traditional insurance roles on board with new big-data initiatives is crucial. The first step in bringing these employees up to speed begins with identifying the analytical techniques and strategies your organization prioritizes. It is important to train frontline employees on these processes and make them as specific to your companys operations as possible. When done right, this knowledge transfer not only teaches employees how to use new analytics-based techniques, but also it gets them thinking about all operations in terms of data, from identifying new risk parameters to setting optimal times for staff meetings. After all, securing frontline buy-in for big data is as much about good old-fashioned employee motivation as it is about education. You can have the most advanced, streamlined analytical tools in the business, but if employees still favor doing things the old way, those tools wont do much good. Employees need to be motivated to learn the new systems, help data scientists recognize what aspects of their job could benefit from big data, and adopt new processes. It wont always be an easy transition. But the more data advocates you have, the more easily new data-driven techniques will be accepted and executed. Hammond is about to deliver his first budget statement at a time when tax uncertainty looms on every business as a result of the Brexit vote, but what could his budget look like? Some analysts have described the Autumn Statement as a golden ticket opportunity to overhaul the UKs complex tax system, reset a number of tax policies and reinvent the wheel. An overhaul of the tax system must be high on the Chancellors agenda, said Stacy Eden, head of property and construction at Crowe Clark Whitehill. We have a real opportunity at the moment, added Anita Monteith, tax manager at the ICAEW, during a recent Women in Tax conference. This is a moment for the government to act decisively to make it easier for firms to expand and find more opportunities, said Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors (IoD). The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a think tank, has suggested radical change, calling for 20 taxes to be abolished in a recent report, including corporation tax, national insurance, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, council tax and business rates, among others. In addition, it suggests cutting the VAT rate from 20% to 12.5% and removing most exemptions. No matter what policies Hammond announces on November 23, Kevin Nicholson, head of tax at PwC said that this is going to be a landmark Autumn Statement. Regardless of whether the Chancellor resets policy, or plays it steady, the Autumn Statement will indicate the UK's fiscal stance for the years to come, Nicholson said. A budget of hints and winks? However, some tax practitioners believe Hammond will not make any striking changes or deliver on the long wish list of tax changes. The Autumn Statement will see neither major tax reductions nor spending increases, according to Bill Dodwell, head of tax policy at Deloitte. As Philip Hammond has suggested that he wants to move away from the Autumn Statement being a kind of second budget, it may be that we will not get a significant number of new announcements, said Catherine Robins, partner at Pinsent Masons. At this point we think small changes are more likely and that anything more substantial will come (if at all) in the Spring Budget. Chris Sanger, head of tax policy at EY, added that following the Brexit vote, Hammond may look to ready many of the measures used during past times of economic shock but may opt to defer unleashing them until the 2017 Budget. This points to an Autumn Statement of hints, winks and suggestions, but with the real action to follow in the spring. Id expect this Autumn Statement to be short on the eye-catching surprises beloved of Mr Hammonds predecessor, with the watchwords of dependability and consistency in times of uncertainty, said Ian Stewart, chief UK economist at Deloitte. This will set the theme for the long haul of Brexit that lies ahead. A spring clean on tax incentives An area that several practitioners and organisations are keen to see change is on tax incentives, with many needing to be removed or revised There are currently around 1,000 tax reliefs in the system. Some are antiquated, others are not fit for purpose and some, in the Chancellors view, are too expensive, noted David Kilshaw, private client services partner at EY. The Chancellor could start this term with a spring clean that would enable him to make many reliefs less generous while improving others. Dame Margaret Hodge, an MP who also chairs the All-Party Parliamentary group on responsible tax, said she would like to see all tax reliefs have a sunset clause so that the government can come back to it at a future time to review it. Corporation tax In recent months, comments from Prime Minister Theresa May and the former chancellor George Osborne have suggested that a cut in the corporate tax rate could be announced when Hammond delivers his Autumn Statement. After the Brexit referendum vote on June 23, Osborne suggested reducing the 20% rate to below 15%, while May has reportedly said that corporation tax could fall to as low as 10%, but Hammond has not given many clues about what he is likely to announce. Some practitioners expect Hammond to continue with plans to cut the corporation tax rate to 17% by 2020, but not reduce it further as suggested by Osborne or May. The Chancellor seems ready to step away from the deficit reduction targets of his predecessor, which may give some wiggle room to cut the corporation tax rate further. But the rate is unlikely to be cut below the 17% target already set out, said Mike Cooper, international tax partner at PwC. While going further would send a signal to the outside world that the UK is well and truly open for business, it would not play well with the public. For this reason, our research suggests businesses are apathetic about further cuts to corporation tax, despite the benefit it could have for inward investment. Like other NGOs, the IoD has suggested that the government needs to consider replacing corporation tax, which it said is becoming increasingly poorly-suited to taxing global businesses. Speaking to International Tax Review, practitioners have also provided some insight into what additional business tax measures they expect from Hammonds speech, or which may be announced later during his term as Chancellor, including: Looking into various tax measures to boost infrastructure investment, such as increasing investment allowances and undertaking a comprehensive review of incentives to create more investment; Announcing the final shape of the new regime on restrictions on the deductibility of corporate interest expense, or announcing a delay in introducing the measure; Announcing the final shape of new corporate loss relief rules; Increasing funding for HMRC so that it can increase its tax administration resources for dealing with large taxpayers and strengthening the Customer Relationship Manager programme; Reducing the employment tax burden by reducing the rate of employer National Insurance contributions to offset the increase in the apprenticeship levy; and Redesigning the business investment relief to encourage more UK residents living abroad to bring money into the UK without an immediate tax charge if it is invested in a trading company. BEPS Action 4 Some announcements are expected on a number of consultations that were held over the summer. One of these were rules based on OECD BEPS Action 4 to introduce restrictions on interest deductibility in April 2017. A key focus for business will be whether and in what form the government proposes to introduce restrictions on interest deductibility, which are scheduled to be introduced in April 2017, said Dominic Stuttaford, head of tax for Europe, Middle East, Asia and Brazil, at Norton Rose Fulbright. However, Robins from Pinsent Masons said she would like to see the proposals postponed. We do not think this is the right time economically to introduce such a major change and because there are still areas on which the OECD has not made final recommendations, such as how the rules should apply to banks and insurance companies. We think a postponement is unlikely, but we hope for some tweaks to the rules. According to Richard Milnes, financial services tax partner at EY, some of the governments possible implementation methods suggested in the earlier consultation document could hit both banks and insurance companies hard. It is, therefore, important that the government recognises that existing regulation of the banking and insurance sectors means that, in practice, they cannot use interest deductions to shift profits in any case. Time is now very short to finalise the rules and a definitive announcement is long overdue. VAT VAT is an area where Hammond may change the rate to help the economic climate in the UK. The IEA is calling for a VAT rate of 12.5%, with most exemptions abolished. Although this may seem like a radical suggestion, a cut in the rate could be possible. A temporary cut in the rate of VAT to boost growth and spending could prevent prices rising due to higher import costs caused by the weakening of the pound, EY said in a statement emailed to International Tax Review. This would repeat the temporary reduction at the height of the financial crisis. However, consumer confidence appears to be solid so the Chancellor may choose to keep this up his sleeve for a later date. However, PwC said that even a two percentage point reduction in the VAT rate was highly unlikely as consumer spending has not fallen since the Brexit referendum in June. The firm pointed out that a 2% cut would cost the Exchequer close to 11.4 million ($14.3 million) in 2017/18. Even if no change to the VAT rate is announced, other VAT changes that may be included in Hammonds speech include: Extending the VAT grouping eligibility provisions to include, for example, partnerships; Changing the rules on VAT recovery by holding companies that are members of VAT groups; and Amending the UK rules on the place of supply for services relating to immovable property to align with EU rules that will enter into force on January 1 2017, which will be based on where the property is situated. Tax avoidance and evasion Measures against tax avoidance and evasion will continue to be a theme that runs through Hammonds term as Chancellor. While we have not had any clues as to what the Chancellor plans for his Autumn Statement, we continue to see reoccurring themes from the new government around addressing aggressive tax planning by multinationals and other businesses, according to Stuttaford. EYs Sanger said the government will likely reaffirm its pledge to tackle tax avoidance. An update on this summers proposals to impose penalties on advisors is possible after the consultation on the plans recently closed. We can expect the Chancellor to reiterate the Prime Ministers pledge that everyone must pay their fair share of tax. Individuals rather than businesses are likely to be the focus. On VAT avoidance, RSM said that following the consultation on strengthening the tax avoidance disclosure regimes for indirect taxes and inheritance tax, the VAT disclosure regime (VADR) is likely to be completely redrafted to more closely align the VADR with the direct tax disclosure of tax avoidance schemes (DOTAS) rules for direct taxes. In addition, RSM said that a new penalty regime for participating in VAT fraud will be introduced that will enable HMRC to issue a penalty at the same time that its principle decision has been made (rather than awaiting the findings of a tribunal) and will not distinguish between whether a business or individual knew, or should have known, of the connection with VAT fraud. A consultation on the measure ended on November 11. Other predictions Other possible changes that could be announced in the Autumn Statement include: Some stability for financial services that have been subject to increasing taxes in past budgets; Incentives to boost the infrastructure investment; Measures to encourage growth and stability in the oil and gas sector; Some announcements around the governments Making Tax Digital initiative; and Possible changes to the national insurance contributions and personal tax regimes following the recent court case concerning self-employment and Uber. Whatever is announced in the Autumn Statement, Hammonds first budget as Chancellor is likely to make a firm mark on the governments fiscal intentions as the country moves forward with Brexit. Commentators and the markets alike are waiting with bated breath for the Chancellor to spell out the direction of the countrys fiscal policy and put in place measures that will help the UK economy to seize the opportunities and cope with the turbulence of Brexit said Michelle Quest, head of tax at KPMG in the UK. Un ottobre da sogno per Antonio Conte: lex ct della Nazionale italiana, attualmente alla guida del Chelsea, nelle ultime quattro gare di Premier League ha collezionato solo successi, conditi da 11 reti segnate e addirittura nessuna incassata. Numeri da record che non sono certo passati inosservati alla Federazione inglese, la quale ha conferito al tecnico leccese lambito premio di Manager del mese. Unavventura oltremanica iniziata in sordina, quella di Conte, pur a fronte di tre vittorie nelle prime tre gare di campionato. A far vacillare, anche se solo per un momento, le certezze del patron del club londinese, Roman Abramovich, i risultati conseguiti tra la 4a e la 6a giornata, coincisi con un pareggio sul campo dello Swansea City e, soprattutto, con le due pesanti sconfitte subite dal Liverpool, sul terreno casalingo di Stamford Bridge, e dallArsenal. In particolare, la debacle interna coi Reds, aveva irritato non poco il numero uno russo, poiche occorsa proprio nel giorno della sua 250esima partita da presidente della societa. Come detto, solo un momento. Dopo lincontro dellEmirates, il tecnico salentino cambia modulo, adottando un piu equilibrato 3-4-3 e inserendo elementi di corsa come lo spagnolo Pedro. Una svolta totale perche, di li in poi, il Chelsea inanellera solo e soltanto vittorie: 2 gol allHull City e al Southampton in trasferta, 3 ai campioni dInghilterra del Leicester e 4 allo United in casa, con un meraviglioso numero zero nella casella delle reti subite. Un fantastico poker, ottenuto tra l1 e il 29 ottobre. Un cambio di marcia sbalorditivo, confermato dal 5 a 0 rifilato ai toffees dellEverton nel primo match di novembre, e una scalata che, man mano, ha portato i blues al secondo posto in classifica, a soli 2 punti dal Liverpool capolista. E allora, non poteva mancare il riconoscimento di migliore allenatore del mese, ottenuto surclassando tecnici del calibro di Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool), Arsene Wenger (Arsenal) e Mark Hughes (Southampton). Tanta, ovviamente, la soddisfazione: E un grande onore e voglio condividerlo con i giocatori e con la societa ha dichiarato Conte sul sito ufficiale della Premier League -. E la prima volta che lavoro in un altro Paese, con una cultura diversa, e portare la propria filosofia non e facile, ma ora sono contento di questa scelta. A completare la festa, la premiazione del fantasista belga, Eden Hazard, come miglior giocatore di ottobre. Due risultati importanti per il club, ottimo incentivo per la rincorsa al trono dei campioni, occupato dal Leicester di Ranieri. Il prossimo appuntamento per l11 di Conte sara al Riverside Stadium, tana del Middlesborough neopromosso. Il tempo di festeggiare e gia finito. United States Steel Corporation (X) has been drifting sideways since the Trump administration threatened to impose steel tariffs in the first quarter, although the policy is intended to support the American steel industry. The June 1 tariff implementation on the European Union, Canada and Mexico has had little effect on buying or selling pressure, although U.S. steel stock continues to hold seven-month support in the low $30s. This holding pattern may continue through the summer months while optimists hope for a negotiated solution and pessimists prepare for the worst-case scenario. Regardless of the final outcome, ongoing trade tensions could sharply lower worldwide economic output and eventually end the multi-year bull market, ultimately weighing on revenues of all sorts of American industrial companies, including those currently in the tariff limelight. (See also: 3 Sectors to Buy in a Trade War and 3 Sectors to Sell Short in a Trade War.) X Long-Term Chart (1991 2018) The stock carved a sideways pattern in the mid-$20s after coming public in its current incarnation in April 1991 and turned higher in October 1992. An eight-month uptrend topped out at $46.00 in 1993, with that price level coming back into play repeatedly in the past 25 years (red line). It then entered a severe decline, losing ground in a volatile seesaw pattern that finally bottomed out in the single digits in 2003. A powerful advance booked historic gains into June 2008, posting an all-time high at $196. The stock dropped nearly 180 points in the next nine months, stunning complacent shareholders before bottoming out at a five-year low in the mid-teens. A strong bounce into April 2010 failed to ease major technical damage, stalling at $70.95 ahead of a secondary decline that tested the bear market low in 2013. Support held, generating a lower high, followed by a breakdown that hit an all-time low at $6.15 in January 2016. A recovery wave remounted the bear market low in July 2016, re-establishing support in the mid-teens, ahead of upside that stalled at the multi-year trendline of lower highs in February 2017. It finally broke out in February 2018, but the uptick ended just one week later, giving way to a failed breakout. Selling pressure eased near $30, ahead of nearly four months of basing action at the underside of the trendline. The monthly stochastic oscillator crossed into a sell cycle in February 2018 but hasn't reached the oversold level, predicting bearish control into the fourth quarter. X Short-Term Chart (2017 2018) The rally into 2018 completed a bullish 100% retracement of the 2014 into 2016 decline while ending the multi-year string of lower highs. However, the decline back through the trendline marked a significant failure that could presage the start of a new downtrend. Even so, basing action in recent months favors neither bulls nor bears, telling sidelined market players to keep their powder dry until the standoff declares a winner with a strong trend, higher or lower. On-balance volume (OBV) bodes well for bulls in the second half of 2018, lifting to a seven-year high in February when the rally reached 2014 resistance. It turned lower into the second quarter, carving a high basing pattern, ahead of healthy buying interest so far in the third quarter. It is likely that technically oriented traders are contributing to short-term buying pressure, hoping for the completion of an inverse head and shoulders breakout, with the neckline perfectly aligned with the trendline failure at $38.50. (For more, see: Trump's Steel and Aluminum Tariffs: What You Need to Know.) The Bottom Line U.S. Steel has failed to reward shareholders since steel tariffs were announced earlier this year, dropping into a holding pattern that is generating a neutral bias. It is possible that price action is now completing the final stages of a base breakout, telling market players to focus their attention on resistance at $38.50. (For additional reading, check out: Top 4 Steel Stocks for 2018.) Top News - Investor Idea A Boat-full of Potential - Renewed Interest in the Cruise Industry Bolsters Luxury Markets (OTC: MASN) (NYSE: CCL) (NYSE: CUK) (NYSE: RCL) (NYSE: NCLH) Vancouver, Kelowna, Delta, BC - November 2, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Investorideas.com, a leading investor news resource covering luxury goods and cruise ship stocks releases a special report featuring Maison Luxe, Inc. (OTC: MASN), a company that offers luxury retail consumer items. Top Health and Wellness News - Investor Idea Health and Wellness Stock News - Endexx (OTCBB: EDXC) Secures $3.8M Order for Non-Nicotine Vape Product HYLA from Italy CAVE CREEK, Az. - November 2, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Endexx Corporation (OTCBB:EDXC), a provider of innovative, plant-based, and sustainable health and skincare products, today announces it has secured a new $3.8 million USD order for its newly acquired, non-nicotine based vape product, HYLA from customers in Italy. Top EV Stock News - Investor Idea Breaking EV Stock News: Overwhelmingly Positive Reactions Pour in From First Leg of Mullen Automotive's (NASDAQ: MULN) 'Strikingly Different' FIVE EV Crossover Tour BREA, Calif. - October 31, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN), an emerging electric vehicle ("EV") manufacturer, announces today that the Mullen FIVE has received overwhelmingly positive reactions from members of the public, reservation holders and Mullen investors who were able to ride in the vehicle for the very first time on the "Strikingly Different" tour which kicked off last week in Pasadena, California. Top AI Stock News - Investor Idea Breaking AI Stock News: FatBrain (OTCQB: LZGI) Acquires Confidential Computing Platform ZeroTrust to Protect Data Privacy and Accelerate Innovation for Millions of Growth Businesses NEW YORK, NY - October 19, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) FatBrain AI (LZG International, Inc.) (OTCQB: LZGI), the leader in powerful and easy-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for star enterprises of tomorrow, has acquired the confidential computing and privacy intellectual property (IP) plus software assets of Zero2A PTE LTD ("ZeroTrust Platform"), a software company based in Singapore. Check out our Podcasts for great investor ideas: Get new posts by email: Subscribe Powered by Investorideas.com Newswire: Subscribe to Investor Ideas Newswire The Internet of Things is widely being viewed as a technological achievement with unlimited (and largely untapped) potential. Connected devices and systems can significantly improve our quality of life in nearly innumerable ways, from making our homes more secure to improving healthcare. The thinking in many cases is that IoT systems will only get better with time, as they quite literally learn to better address our needs and desires. Its going to be fascinating to see how it all develops in the coming years. However, there are also some concerns about what the IoT means for our society, particularly when it comes to various job markets. An article at Value Walk painted a particularly grim picture of what this could look like, theorizing that the IoT could eventually lead to the loss of many jobs performed by people. Thats probably a bit dramatic at this stagebut we are already seeing the potential for job replacements in several significant areas. Automated Manufacturing Processes Many people hold misconceptions regarding how the IoT will affect manufacturing without realizing that technology has been integrating into the industry for years. The truth is that many of the physical processes in production plants have been largely automated for some time now. However, there are a lot of functions between the lines that can now also be automated as a result of the expanding IoT. According to Industry Week, these functions include analytics and cost estimates, plant load optimization, monitoring equipment, managing the supply chain, and maintaining healthy and safe environments. With all of these things automated, a production facility can essentially run itself with minimal human involvement. Taxis & Public Transportation Were already moving past "taxis" in the traditional sense, as more people are transitioning to companies like Uber and Lyft. Interestingly enough, those companies tend to advertise themselves as job opportunities more than public transportation systems. Thousands and thousands of people are now making money by driving for Uber and Lyftand those jobs likely won't be around too much longer. A blog post from Networkfleet asserts that Uber is already testing a fleet of self-driving Ford Fusions, and it's widely believed that other companies will be building automated taxi fleets as well. This has the potential to put not only Uber and Lyft drivers, but also conventional taxi drivers and entire bus companies out of commission. Sales Jobs This is a broader category, but a look at some estimates by CNN makes it fairly clear that a variety of sales and retail representative jobs could be in jeopardy. In fact, those estimations listed insurance sales agents, telemarketers, and retail salespersons among the types of employees with a 90 percent probability of eventually being replaced by smart robots, which would naturally be incorporated into the IoT. These are still just a few areas in which the IoT could affect the job market. And as systems continue to become smarter and spread into more aspects of our day-to-day lives, we can probably expect this list to grow. Its all pretty fascinating, but with consideration of the job market, it also raises an extraordinarily important question: where will displaced workers go when technology comes for their jobs? Right now, there is not a clear answer to this question, which explains why the IoT is something of a source of anxiety for some economic forecasters. However, its at least somewhat true that new and developing technologies create new opportunities even as they eliminate old ones. For instance, a discussion in The Guardian theorized that new fields and expertise will emerge along with IoT systems. That doesn't mean there will always be natural transitions for displaced employees. However, it does mean that opportunities will exist that didn't before. The same discussion mentions the need for workers to learn to compete in a knowledge-based economy, possibly taking on jobs in field services, asset management, robotic maintenance, remote diagnostics, and analytics. Right now this is somewhat hypothetical. But the idea of the IoT creating enough jobs to offset those it makes obsolete is one shared by quite a few experts. In all likelihood there will be a rocky period during which a lot of employees struggle to find new work, and there will be a need for education in new fields. But in time, there's a chance the IoT has a pretty balanced impact on employment opportunities. About the Author: Sara Upton is a freelance writer based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has a passion for all things related to technology, fitness, and fashion. Follow her on Twitter. Edited by Ken Briodagh An upgraded free trade agreement (FTA) could bring increased revenues for the worlds largest dairy exporter, New Zealands Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd, its chairman said. The upgrade of the FTA provides an opportunity to strengthen the already strong dairy relationship between New Zealand and China, John Wilson, Fonterra chairman, told Reuters news agency. We are committed to continuing to build our business in China and the FTA will remain the key platform for that growth. New Zealand prime minister, John Key, said that the upgrade would ensure the existing trade agreement would take into account the FTAs that China has negotiated with other trading partners since 2008. The first round of negotiations would begin in the first half of 2017 and would be followed by an as yet unknown number of talks that would take place in both China and New Zealand. Both nations said they were aiming to speed up the negotiation process. Issues that would be covered include technical barriers to trade, such as customs rules, as well as e-commerce, competition policy and the environment. China entered into a free trade agreement with New Zealand, the first Western country to do so, in 2008, which has helped the Asian giant grow to become New Zealands largest goods export partner. The value of goods and services exported from New Zealand to China was $8.54bn (8bn) in the year to June. These political risks are unlikely to abate anytime soon, with considerable uncertainty about what Brexit and a Trump presidency will bring next year. There is also growing concern about rising political risks in the eurozone, ahead of next months referendum in Italy and the elections due in the Netherlands, France and Germany next year. Ultra-nationalism and anti-EU sentiment are on the rise in many European countries. There is a risk that the Italian government could fall in the coming months, with polls indicating that it is unlikely to win the upcoming referendum on political reforms. An early general election could pave the way for eurosceptic parties to enter government in Rome. Meanwhile, anti-EU and far-right and nationalist parties are expected to do well in next years elections in the Netherlands, France, and Germany, although they are not expected to gain power. Nonetheless, a strong showing by these parties will trigger questions about the direction of the EU and whether other countries might decide to follow the UK and leave the bloc. In this regard, there is much uncertainty about how the negotiations on the UKs exit from the EU will proceed next year. It is unclear if the UK government will be able to trigger Article 50 by the end of March to begin the formal EU departure process. Meanwhile, the indications are that the EU authorities are not prepared to begin formal talks on a future trade deal with the UK until it leaves the EU. Thus, an exit deal is likely to contain only transitional arrangements on trade, with a clear risk that the UK could lose access to the single market if it continues to insist on a full return of sovereignty and control over immigration. Meanwhile, markets will be closely watching to see the extent to which president-elect Donald Trump will implement his policies next year, especially on the fiscal front. If he presses ahead with plans for sharp tax cuts and large infrastructure spending, it will lead to a big rise in the US budget deficit, while also boosting growth and inflation. This is going to shape monetary policy in the US, with major impacts across global financial markets. The US has near zero official interest rates but with an unemployment rate of below 5%. An aggressive loosening of fiscal policy could see the Federal Reserve implement a series of rate hikes over the next couple of years. Mr Trump is of the view that official rates are too low, so he is unlikely to be put off his expansionary fiscal agenda by the prospect of higher rates. We have seen big moves this year in equity, bond, and currency markets and this is likely to continue in 2017. Aggressive rate hikes by the Fed could see the euro-dollar rate move to parity next year, as could any tax changes that see US corporates repatriate funds held abroad. However, the dollar will have to overcome stiff resistance at around $1.05-1.06 to do so. Sterling is also likely to remain volatile. The currency has staged a good recovery against the euro recently, which has fallen back to around the 86 pence level from 90 pence. Part of the reason is that traders are cutting short positions in sterling in the run up to year-end amidst heightened uncertainty in markets. The UK high court ruling that parliamentary approval is required for the government to trigger Article 50 has also helped sterling, as has data showing a better than expected performance by the economy in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. Nonetheless, the risks remain tilted to the downside for sterling, given that very difficult negotiations lie ahead next year with the EU on Brexit. The UK economy is also likely to slow as inflation rises. Thus, we could see the euro to move back up towards 90 pence. Ironically, the one saving grace for sterling may be if political risks continue to rise in the eurozone next year. The political landscape is changing in Europe and growing anti-EU sentiment is a clear risk for the euro. Oliver Mangan is chief economist at AIB. The case has settled subject to a payment being made and could be adjourned on consent for mention in two weeks to facilitate that, Rossa Fanning SC, for Kendrick Investments, told Mr Justice Brain McGovern yesterday. A hearing date could also be vacated, counsel added. The judge made those orders. The flood alleviation scheme which went on public display yesterday will protect the Glanmire area, which has suffered an estimated 18m in damage to property from floods in June 2012 and December 2015. Ken Leahy, a senior engineer with project consultants Arup, said that when completed, the scheme will protect 106 properties, of which 78 are residential, from the threat of future flooding. Mr Leahy said a number of remedial works will be undertaken along the River Glashaboy from Sallybrook Industrial Estate, downstream to the Hazelwood and Crestfield shopping centres, Meadowbrook Estate, John OCallaghan Park, Copper Valley View, and The Groves. The works will include building earth embankments, walls, culverts, and pumping stations alongside the river. A new, higher road bridge will be built between the two shopping centres to provide greater river flow, while the flood defence walls at Meadowbrook Estate are to be raised. All 49 houses in the estate were flooded in 2012. New culverts will be developed at Copper Valley View and the river channel there will be deepened and widened. Mr Leahy said the project would have a minimum 50-year lifespan and it would be easy to adapt it if climate change led to increased rainfall and higher river levels. At the signing of a contract in the chamber of Cork County Council at Cork County Hall for the appointment of consultants for Midleton Flood Relief Scheme were (seated from left) Cian O Donaill, regional engineer, OPW; Denis Crowley, director, Arup, consultng engineers; Cllr Seamus McGrath, Mayor of Cork County; Declan Daly, deputy chief executive, Cork County Council; (standing from left) Colm Brennan, project engineer, Cork County Council; Cllr Noel Collins and David Keane, Cork county engineer. Picture: Denis Minihan The minister with responsibility for the OPW, Sean Canney, who formally launched the project in County Hall yesterday, urged as many people as possible to attend the public exhibitions, which are taking place in Vienna Woods Hotel. He said all submissions would be looked at and it is vital the public provides engineers with feedback. A number of preliminary works have already been undertaken in the area by the county council. In conjunction with Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), it carried out river cleaning in the Glashaboy from the shopping centres downstream to Meadowbrook and to the southern side of Riverstown bridge. They also ensured drains in the area were free of debris. There was a setback to the preliminary works when the destructive, invasive plant Japanese knotweed was discovered in the area. Specialist contractors were engaged to control it spreading. The scheme has been drawn up by county council engineers and consultants Arup and JBA on behalf of the OPW. It is expected that construction will start next October and be completed in late 2018 or early 2019. At the opening of the exhibition were Fiona Patterson (left) and Emer Nic Aoidh, Arup, consulting engineers. Picture: Denis Minihane The first day of the public exhibition opened yesterday in Vienna Woods Hotel. Council engineers will be on hand at the hotel again to answer queries from the public between 2pm and 8pm on November 30, December 6, and December 20. The public will also be able to see copies of the proposed scheme up until to December 20 at Glanmire Library in the Hazelwood Shopping Centre and the council offices at Ballinglanna, Glanmire. The closing date for submissions for the project is January 31, 2017. They should be addressed to the Glashaboy Flood Relief Scheme, Coastal Management and Flood Projects Department, Floor 10, Cork County Hall. The council yesterday signed an agreement with Arup to develop plans for flood relief in Midleton. The German manufacturer of the Haemospect device disputes any defects and claims any inaccurate readings are a result of misuse of it, its counsel told the Commercial Court. The IBTS case is against MBR Optical Systems GMBH & Co KG, (MBR), Wuppertal, Germany, as manufacturer of the device, and Linc Medical Systems, Leicester, UK, as supplier of a number of the devices to the IBTS. The IBTS claims the device, which does pre-donation non-invasive finger pulp tests on prospective blood donors before donations are accepted, had falsely recorded hemoglobin levels as within the acceptable range when they were not. In court files, the IBTS said it began using the device in 2014 and MBR released a software update for it a year later. For reasons including there being no apparent issue in relation to use of the device, and no documented risk assessment in relation to updated software, the IBTS said it decided not to update the software. The service claims it first became aware of alleged defects after the device recorded a reading allowing a second-time donor proceed with donating blood on October 1, 2015. She became progressively more unwell, developed chest pain and breathlessness and, a week after giving blood, was hospitalised and transfused with two units of blood. The service suspended use of the device from October 21, 2015. The IBTS said MBR had initiated an investigation and in December 2015 issued an urgent field safety notice concerning actions it was taking concerning the device and advising it was working on a contemporary solution, a potential software update. The IBTS claims it bought 20 of the devices from Linc between June 2013 and May 2015 for about 215,532 and also entered a rental agreements with Linc for five devices at a cost of 25,500. It alleges it has suffered special damages of over 1m on grounds including alleged breach of contract and reputational damage. It is also claiming for some 71,000 legal fees incurred to date. At the Commercial Court yesterday, Rossa Fanning, for the IBTS, said there was consent to it being entered into the courts list with hearing directions adjourned arising from possible issues about the jurisdiction of Irish courts to deal with it. He was satisfied Irish courts have such jurisdiction, counsel said. BMR had last September initiated proceedings in Germany seeking a declaration it is not liable to the IBTS concerning the device, the court heard. Linc wants to consider jurisdictional issues and possible mediation and says there is also an issue concerning the terms of the contracts between the parties, it was stated. A teenager fatally stabbed a 21-year-old at a Halloween bonfire after yelling at him: You dont know who my dad is, a court was told yesterday. The 16-year-old boy, who cannot be identified due to his age, had originally been charged with Lorcan OReillys murder and a trial date had been set. However, at an arraignment hearing at the Central Criminal Court yesterday, the accused pleaded not guilty to murder and guilty to Mr OReillys manslaughter at the Oliver Bond flats in Dublin early on November 1, 2015. His plea was accepted by the prosecution. The accused was 14 at the time of the killing. During yesterdays hearing, the court was told the deceased and the defendant had both attended an organised Halloween bonfire next to the flats in Dublins south inner city. Mr Grehan said the accused and deceased had been involved in a slagging match at about 2.40am and that, at 2.42am, the accused was caught on CCTV in possession of a hurley. One witness, whose unnamed statement was read in court by Mr Grehan, told gardai there was a lot of slagging off going on. He [the accused] was saying who he was and who his dad was. Det Paul Insp Cleary agreed with Mr Grehan that the accused had been swinging the hurley towards the deceased while shouting: You dont who my dad is You dont know who I am. Taking the hurley from the boy, Mr OReilly was heard saying: I dont care. Im not letting a 14-year-old talk to me like that. The accused left the scene but returned minutes later and struck Mr OReilly in the chest with a knife. He ran off but Mr OReilly chased after him and the pair clashed again, this time with Mr OReilly receiving a second stab wound to below his right eye. Moments after the second altercation, Mr OReilly approached a friend and said: Im after being stabbed He was taken by car to the emergency department of nearby St Jamess Hospital where he later went into a cardiac arrest. Mr OReilly never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at 4.05am. Mr Grehan told the court an autopsy revealed the fatal blow had been a knife wound to Mr OReillys chest that had punctured his heart. The court was also told that although around 23 youths had been present at the Halloween party, gardai had struggled to gather witness statements and that 19 arrests had been made during the investigation. When asked by Mr Grehan if gardai had had concerns about the safety and w ell-being of witnesses, Det Insp Cleary replied: Serious concerns. Days after the killing, on November 4, the accused attended Kevin St Garda Station under his own volition with his maternal and paternal grandmothers. During a subsequent interview with gardai on that date, Mr Grehan described how one of the grandparents said to her grandson: Show him the bruises on your arm. When are you going to tell your side of the story? When your solicitor comes? The accused was later charged with Mr OReillys murder on April 1. During yesterdays hearing, closed to the public except for close relatives of the accused and deceased, Det Insp Cleary agreed with Mr Grehan that the deceased had been a popular and well-liked member of the community and people spoke highly of him. Sentencing was adjourned until February 6 and the accused was remanded on bail. Simon McGinley, aged 32, of Connaughton Rd Car Park, Sligo, had admitted killing Mr Gillespie, aged 67, at his home in Old Market St on September 19, 2012, but denied it was murder. The Central Criminal Court heard that the manslaughter plea was not accepted by the State and a jury was sworn in for the trial. He had pleaded guilty to the false imprisonment of Mr Gillespie, as well as trespass to commit robbery. Mr Gillespie was a retired telecoms broker who worked in the family shop and lived alone with his dog. He was found tied up in the hallway of his home by his nephew and his brother two days after the assault. McGinley was found guilty of murder and was given the mandatory life sentence by Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan on April 3, 2014. He handed down a 10-year sentence for the false imprisonment charge and seven years for burglary to run concurrently with the life sentence. McGinley brought appeals against his conviction and sentence which were heard in the Court of Appeal yesterday. The three-judge court dismissed both sets of appeals on all grounds. Giving judgment on both sets of appeals, Mr Justice George Birmingham said McGinley had entered the home of Mr Gillespie in the course of a burglary. Mr Gillespie was subjected to a serious degree of violence. At one stage, McGinley restrained Mr Gillespie by tying his hands behind his back with a cord. Mr Justice Birmingham said McGinleys lawyers, who had not represented him at trial, had formulated a large number of grounds of appeal none of which were raised at trial. They included criticisms of the trial judges charge to the jury. Mr Justice Birmingham said no one involved in the trial had any criticisms to make of the judges charge. Very understandably so, he said, because the judges charge was clear, concise, and had accurately stated the law. Turning to the sentence appeal, he said the court could not conclude the terms were excessively severe. The Childrens Palliative Care Programme (CPCP), which included outreach nurses and training programmes, was adopted seven years ago and its impact has just been evaluated. Lucy Greene lives with her family in Co Clare. They lost two babies, Darragh and Ronan, due to a rare disorder. Darragh died in 2008, when he was aged almost six months, and Ms Greene said there seemed to be very little help available to them at the time. She made regular trips to the emergency department with her son to access medical help, as his condition deteriorated. However, when her son Ronan was born in December 2012 with a similar neurological disorder, the family was able to access the CPCP and had a trained outreach nurse. Because Ronan was being properly cared for by the team, he was much more comfortable, said Ms Greene. He died less than three months after his birth. As of December 2015, the childrens outreach nurses service was providing help to 267 children with life-limiting conditions in Ireland. This figure stands against the statistic that about 350 children die before their 18th birthday in Ireland every year. An evaluation of the programme found the quality of life for the children had improved. Health Minister Simon Harris launched the report yesterday, saying: Naturally there is always room for improvement and further development, but this report is clear evidence of the progress that has been made and the real difference the introduction of these services has made to children and their families. Sharon Foley, CEO of the Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF), said more work needed to be done in the area. We need to acknowledge that there are some parts of the country where parents are still waiting for these services or areas where the existing services are overstretched, she said. Cork Lions Club said last night it was extremely disappointed after the automatic external defibrillator (AED) on Oliver Plunkett St was damaged last summer. And, given the costs, the club may have to review its ambitious plans to install 12 AEDs around the city centre. The Lions Club unveiled the first in its network on the wall near the Oliver Plunkett St entrance to the Penneys retail outlet last August. However, the perspex window in its wall-mounted cabinet was smashed around 3.30am on Saturday. Lions Club member Martin Walley, who is co-ordinating the defibrillator project, removed the AED for inspection, replaced the perspex, and fitted a replacement AED by 3pm that afternoon. However, the cabinet window was smashed again at around 4am on Sunday. The AED is now being kept in Penneys pending a review. CCTV footage is also being examined. We are very appreciative to the people of Cork for their support in helping us raise the funds to allow us make an AED publicly available in the city centre, Mr Walley said. AEDs are extremely important in increasing the chance of recovery for anyone experiencing sudden cardiac arrest and we are still determined to pursue the Cork Lions City Centre Defibrillator Project. However, he said that, given the costs each cabinet and AED costs around 2,500 vandalism could threaten the project. We hope what happened over the weekend was isolated, said Mr Walley. But when you have incidents like this, you have to stop and think is this the right thing to be doing. The figure, the equivalent of about 1,800 a day, covered the cost of providing private security contractors and paying non-public overtime to maintain a round-the-clock garda presence at the 5m St Anthonys Park group housing scheme in Hollyhill, on the northside of the city, which opened last June. The security bill was described as unprecedented by the city councils head of housing, Valerie OSullivan. It was a total drain on resources which we could have been spending elsewhere on a range of other worthy projects, she said. The cost of the security emerged in response to a question from Sinn Fein councillor Mick Nugent, who sought details on what funds were available for Traveller accommodation projects in the city council area in 2015 and 2016. Work on the housing scheme started in summer 2015 to replace the cramped city-run St Anthonys Park 12-bay halting site close to Apples European headquarters. However, soon after work started, gardai had to be deployed at the building site after claims of threats and intimidation being directed at construction and city council workers. The Traveller Visibility Group said last year that it had no knowledge of any alleged threats or intimidation and it accused gardai and the city council of racial profiling over the policing of the site, and following the installation of CCTV cameras outside. In April 2015, it emerged that the security operation to date had cost some 300,000. However, has now emerged that the total security bill for the entire construction period topped 672,000. The housing scheme is on an almost two-acre site almost three times the size of the old halting site. It has seven one-bed bungalows, three three-bed houses, three four-bed houses, and nine bays for caravans. The caravan bays are each equipped with a stand-alone welfare unit which includes a kitchen/dining area, a living area, a utility room, a bathroom, and storage space. The development features solar panels and stoves with back boilers to maximise energy efficiency, built-in wardrobes, fully-fitted kitchens, and wooden flooring. A grotto and two large green areas for recreational and play purposes were also provided. Travellers initially refused to relocate in a stand-off over horses and other issues, but they eventually agreed to move in on June 15, 2015. Bishop John Buckley blessed the site and urged residents to respect the facilities. However, vandalism delayed the opening of a new community centre built on site. The centre was repaired but has been vandalised again, and forced to close. City officials are now assessing the cost of those repairs. Editorial: 12 Up until now, this power was reserved for bishops and special confessors. Pope Francis extended the power in his apostolic letter yesterday, following the ending of the churchs Holy Year of Mercy on Sunday. A spokesperson from the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference (ICBC) told the Irish Examiner that its members welcomed the letter. Bishops welcome the apostolic letter Mercy and Peace, which was published by Pope Francis, the spokesperson said. Bishops intend to share the fruits of the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, which concluded yesterday, with the faithful of their dioceses. They added that the full details of yesterdays letter will be considered by them next month. Todays apostolic letter will be considered by the Winter General Meeting of bishops which will take place in December, the spokesperson said. Previously, Pope Francis had temporarily granted the power to forgive abortion to all priests but based on the contents of yesterdays letter it is understood that this has now become a permanent instruction. I henceforth grant to all priests, in virtue of their ministry, the faculty to absolve those who have committed the sin of procured abortion, he wrote. The provision I had made in this regard, limited to the duration of the Extraordinary Holy Year, is hereby extended. In the letter, he said he wanted to restate as firmly as I can that abortion is a grave sin since it puts an end to an innocent life. In the Catholic faith, abortion is considered a sin that brings about automatic excommunication. Pope Francis also said the absolution granted by any priest would also trigger the simultaneous lifting of excommunication. The Catholic Churchs current stance on abortion dates back less than 150 years. In an 1869 document called the Apostolicae Sedis, Pope Pius IX declared the penalty of excommunication for abortions at any stage of pregnancy. However, up until then, the teaching was that homicide has not occurred if abortion had taken place before the foetus was instilled with a soul, known as ensoulment. In 1591, Pope Gregory XIV said that ensoulment occurred at 166 days of pregnancy, almost 24 weeks. The victims were aged four to five when their uncle began abusing them. The abuse came to light after the younger victim went to gardai in 2012. Shortly afterwards, her brother also made a complaint. The brother explained in a victim impact statement that he wanted to come forward sooner but the words would just not come out. He said the abuse stayed secret until my little sister said the dreaded words. I will have to ask myself for the rest of my life why I kept the abuse secret, he said. My siblings will suffer for the rest of their lives but at least we will no longer suffer in silence and that is because my sister was brave enough to speak out. His younger sister, who was four when her uncle started molesting her, told the court she would think of ways to kill herself almost every day as a result. It impacts every single part of your life, she told the court. Trying to describe what it does to you is like trying to describe colour to a blind person. Its a massive secret you feel you have to keep to yourself. She said that she fell into drug and alcohol abuse and nearly tore her family apart. She is now in a stable loving relationship but that a word or a song can bring me right back to that horrible place. She said no sentence will give her back her childhood. Being sexually abused should never be hidden, she added. The truth always comes out in the end. The 47 year-old accused pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to rape, oral rape, sexual assault, and indecent assault on the two victims between 1988 and 2003 in Waterford. The man, who cannot be named to protect the victims identities, has a mild intellectual disability and there were some initial doubts as to whether he was fit to stand trial on the charges. A doctors report stated that he might not cope well with time alone in his cell. Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said that the womans victim impact report made grim reading and that the abuse had a grievous effect on her but that she seemed to be an extremely brave young woman. He said that her brothers statement showed his regard for his sister and said he should not feel guilty. He said the most striking feature of the case was the young age of the complainants when the horrific abuse began. He said one could readily envisage the extreme pain the young girl had suffered as a result of the vaginal and anal rapes. Mr Justice McCarthy imposed consecutive sentences totalling 13 years and ordered three years post release supervision. During the sentence hearing, a local garda said the man started abusing his nephew in the late 1980s when the boy was five or six years old. Most of the incidents occurred when the boy was sent up to the accuseds bedroom to get him out of bed. He began molesting and raping the girl a decade later when she was visiting the house. On one occasion, he anally raped her and put the corner of a pillow in her mouth to stop her from screaming. Defence counsel Colman Cody said the man has lived a very sheltered, isolated life and has never had a job. He asked the judge to consider the mans guilty plea, which saved the victims the stress of a trial. Mr Justice Brian McGovern, who queried whether the OFlynns case had sufficient commercial law aspects to warrant being fast-tracked in the Commercial Court, said yesterday he was satisfied to transfer the case to the commercial list. The judge was earlier told by Michael Cush, counsel for the OFlynns, that the information at issue was financial, personal, and corporate and the sums involved were very large, relating to assets worth hundreds of millions of euro. That information, as far as his side was aware, was disseminated to four identified entities and his clients claim was that undermined the marketing strategy which Nama had agreed with them, counsel said. Paul Sreenan, counsel for Nama and National Assets Loan Management Ltd, said his clients were neutral whether the case was fast-tracked or not but very much deny the claims, especially the claim that the information was confidential. The court was told that the OFlynns case is also against Enda Farrell, a former employee of Nama, and he had been served with the proceedings. Mr Cush said his side had been told that a solicitor, Robert Dore, was likely to come on record for Mr Farrell. Having heard the sides, Mr Justice McGovern said he would transfer the case to the Commercial Court. He also approved directions for exchange of legal documents between the sides and said Mr Farrell has liberty to apply if he wished to raise any issue in that regard. A hearing date will be fixed later. The case arose after Nama acquired loans advanced to the brothers companies in 2010 and the parties had engaged in a major restructuring process. In their action, the OFlynns say that Mr Farrell, with an address in Belgium, pleaded guilty before Dublin Circuit Court last May to eight counts of unlawfully disclosing information and was given a two-year suspended term. In July, Nama confirmed to the OFlynns and their company information about them had been leaked by Mr Farrell, it is claimed. The OFlynn side claims that the alleged leaks had a material and depreciative impact on prices achieved by both them and Nama in relation to disposal of assets from 2010-2013 and a significant loan sale in 2014. The multi-awardwinning writer was born in Mitchelstown, Co Cork, and was named a saoi in Aosdana by President Michael D Higgins just last year, marking a hugely successful career which saw him shortlisted for the Booker Prize on four occasions. Born William Trevor Cox, he had lived much of his life in England, but the town of his birth paid its own tribute to him when, they invited him to attend the unveiling of a sculpture in his honour in 2004. At that event, Mr Trevor recalled how his father, James, worked in the Bank of Ireland and because of this it meant a lot of moving in his young life, with the family switching from Mitchelstown to Youghal, Skibbereen, Tipperary, Enniscorthy, Portlaoise, Armagh, and Galway. Yesterday, the chairman of Mitchelstown Heritage Society, Andrew Dineen, said Mr Trevor was very proud of his north Cork roots and his death marked the end of an era. Mr Trevor was educated at St Columbas College in Dublin and later graduated in history from Trinity College Dublin. He also met his future wife, Jane Ryan, at TCD and they moved to England, where he initially began work as a sculptor. William Trevor: Won the Whitbread Prize three times but not the Booker. In London, he then worked as a copywriter at an advertising agency, during which time he began writing fiction. He subsequently disowned his first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, first published in 1958, and instead referred to his 1964 work The Old Boys as his first novel. Set in London, it won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. He wrote more than 15 novels, many of them set in Ireland, and won the Whitbread Prize three times. He was last shortlisted for the Booker Prize for The Story of Lucy Gault in 2002, when the prize was awarded to Yann Martels The Life of Pi. He was also a regular contributor to the New Yorker and was an acclaimed short story writer. He lived for many years in Devon but he regularly visited Ireland. Publishers Penguin Random House said that he had passed away on Sunday night. He is survived by his wife Jane and their two sons, Patrick and Dominic. Sheila Pratschke, chair of the Arts Council said that: William Trevor was a writer of extraordinary gifts and achievement. A novelist, playwright and, perhaps most famously, a short story writer, Trevor was a true master of his craft, and has profoundly influenced a generation of writers, in Ireland and abroad. The cost of insurance working group has published a list of 40 recommendations for the industry ahead of its report, due next month. Chaired by minister of state at the Department of Finance, Eoghan Murphy, the group has also suggested insurance companies should be permitted and compelled to require proof of NCT/CRW (certificate of roadworthiness) before offering car insurance. Mr Murphy believes it is possible to reduce the cost of car insurance but warned there was no simple solution as it would be a time-consuming process. The industry needs reform, I think thats quite clear from the work that we have been doing for the past number of months, he told the Today with Sean ORourke programme on RTE Radio 1. What we hope to publish next month is a series of reforms that will speak to those different areas of the insurance market, and by setting out an ambitious timeline and a detailed plan of action, over time that will help see insurance premiums come down, he said. However, he warned the industry would not return to the days of very, very cheap premiums, which is not affordable for the industry. Other recommendations include the proposed establishment of a fully functioning integrated insurance fraud database for industry to detect patterns of fraud and the phase-out use of paper-based insurance discs following full introduction of a fully functioning real-time database of motor insurance. The CEO of Insurance Ireland, Kevin Thompson, said the body has recommendations of its own and cited legal fees and whiplash awards which are three times the amounts awarded in comparable cases in the UK, as issues that need to be addressed. We welcome todays publication and would call upon the minister and his working group to implement these recommendations as a matter of priority, especially in relation to the level of awards. If this is done we believe the escalating cost of claims can be comprehensively addressed. As we have done throughout, Insurance Ireland will continue to work with the minister to ensure the volatility in the cost of claims is brought under control, said Mr Thompson. As part of its transparency recommendations, the working group has recommended insurers should be required to give motorists reasons for any increases on their yearly premiums. Mr Justice Peter Kelly made the order against Jennifer ODriscoll on the application of the Health and Social Care Professionals Council (HSCPC). Ms ODriscoll, aged 45, is in Limerick Prison and is due to be sentenced today for theft and deception. Health Minister Simon Harris will seek Government approval for the publication of the two-year investigation into the scale of symphysiotomies during the weekly cabinet meeting this morning. The report, by former High Court judge Maureen Harding Clark, was commissioned by Mr Harriss predecessor Leo Varadkar in late 2014 in a bid to highlight the full extent of cases involved. It was officially set up to ensure now elderly women could receive compensation of 50,000 to 150,000 without the need for drawn-out court cases. However, it has been criticised by some victims over the fact any payment recipients will be barred from taking further action and claims its terms of reference were kept deliberately narrow to reduce the potential compensation bill. Judge Clarks report is expected to conclude that hundreds of women should be paid the ex gratia sums for what happened to them and the total figure should be in the region of 34m. Her report will also raise questions over the actions of doctors, hospitals, health boards, and the Department of Health during the period amid claims that the rights of vulnerable women were not protected. The now banned symphysiotomy and pubiotomy procedures involved sawing open a womans pelvic bone in certain complicated childbirth situations, causing intense pain and life-long complications. While it was consigned to history across the vast majority of western Europe by the 1950s, it continued to be forced on some women without their explicit consent up to 1984 in Ireland. This was because the alternative, C-sections, were deemed incompatible with Catholic teaching and due to what previous critics have claimed were overly ambitious actions of individual doctors. While Patient Focus and SOS Ltd support the payout scheme, Survivors of Symphysiotomy has described it as an attempt to ensure the State is not sued for the barbaric acts. Guardian journalist and author of the Snowden Files, Luke Harding, spent four years in Moscow as a bureau chief for The Guardian, where he was heavily surveilled and later deported. He does not consider email as private messaging and also chooses not to bank online. His 2014 book has just been released as a film with digital whistleblower Edward Snowden played by American actor Joseph Gordon- Levitt. Having worked at the forefront of the erosion of privacy as we know it, thanks to the digital age, he has some words of warning for the general public. In Russia, when I was there as a correspondent for four years our apartment was bugged and my wife and I subsequently discovered there was video in our bedroom. We were basically totally surveilled and this was fairly standard for the FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) which was the kind of KBG (security service of the former Soviet Union), he told the Irish Examiner. If you havent got privacy it does kind of begin to corrode you and Im not saying the US and the UK are as invasive as say the Kremlin but I sort of think, when you fire up your laptop what you write, whether its an email or whether say youre a teenager uncertain about your sexuality and youre looking online, then that should be private unless theres a compelling reason for the state to look at that and at the moment its not private, its being captured. They say theyll only look at it if they need to, but if you imagine say 30 years ago in the pre-internet age, if everything youve written, your diary for example had been taken, we would think thats totally unacceptable, he said. As far as his life and privacy goes now, the author and journalist is very careful about the digital footprint he leaves behind and does as much as possible to ensure his personal data, be it of a financial nature or otherwise, is safely secured with ever-changing passwords. I use things like LastPass. LastPass is a password management app where they generate very random passwords, I dont know the password to my Gmail account. Its incredibly complex. You go in (to your email) via Last Pass and then you open up your Gmail account with that password. It means its harder to hack. Then theres Google authenticator for all sorts of stuff now, for VPN connection, for Gmail account, the number changes every 60 seconds, so without the number you cant access it, Harding said. He also encrypts his emails, which means they can only be read by their intended recipient as most emails are not encrypted and are therefore known as being sent in the clear. The most sensitive stuff that I deal with now, certainly I encrypt, but also I got an anonymous letter two weeks ago, its a long time since I had an anonymous letter but people are realising that the electronic route isnt the most secure and theyre sending stuff in brown envelopes again. I dont use a banking app. His experience in Russia is not the only thing that makes him attentive to his privacy. Harding was part of a team of journalists who worked on the Snowden files in 2013, when they were leaked to the media. Working in a room on the fourth floor of The GuardiansLondon office, Harding was part of a team that used new computers and covered windows in brown paper bags, to securely decipher the content they had just received. However, he said he did not feel paranoid, more suspicious that the police would arrest him and take their files. It was more that I thought the plod (of incoming police officers) would come up the stairs and arrest us all. I didnt think wed be killed in Kings Cross (The Guardian office). I thought theyd come in, take us into custody and all our material would be seized, he said. Three years later and still with his freedom intact, Mr Harding believes Mr Snowden is a brave person who did a great service to the world. Edward Snowden is an incredibly brave guy who pulled down the curtain, says Luke Harding. I think he is an incredibly brave guy who basically pulled down the curtain and revealed the real nature of things which is actually essentially that your emails, my emails, Google searches, all the data from our iPhones, location data is being hoovered up by the US, the NSA, by the Brits. And at what point did we agree to all of this? Im not sure we did and basically the spying capabilities now are bigger than any other point in our history and I think unless we make a fuss about it, privacy is rapidly disappearing not just for our generation but for the next generation, he said. However, Mr Harding believes that Mr Snowdens fate, unless there is a regime change, lies in Russia. I dont think the US will forgive him. Theres nothing to be gained from pardoning Snowden so I think unfortunately the reality is hes stuck in Moscow, said Mr Harding. As far as Mr Snowden himself goes, he likes the film and even has a cameo in it. He likes the film, hes seen the film, hes actually in the film. He appears at the end. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is playing Mr Snowden and the end of the film is that the Hollywood Snowden morphs into the real Mr Snowden. It was filmed in a hotel room in Moscow, said Mr Harding. n The journalist was talking at a recent Cybercrime Awareness Day 2016 event in Dublin It may even become challenging to convince foreign companies with profitable bases here, especially American ones, to stay in Ireland if US president-elect Donald Trump and British prime minister Theresa May deliver on promises to slash corporation tax. Mr Trump wants to cut Americas tax from 35% to something between 20% and 15%. Mrs May wants to cut Britains tax to the lowest among the worlds 20 largest economies. It has been suggested that she could cut the tax to a figure below 15% to try to insulate Britain from Brexit upheaval. From an Irish perspective, Mr Trumps proposals are by far the more worrying, though Government agencies charged with attracting FDI to Northern Ireland will welcome Mrs Mays proposals that would, at least, level the corporation tax playing field on this island. It may not always chime with our self-image but corporate America is the high-energy, inventive, and export-driven heartbeat of our economy. The migration of American companies into Ireland in the 1990s helped foster the Celtic Tiger and that central role continues today. Last year, goods worth 27bn were shipped from Ireland to America, while Ireland bought just 10bn from America. Services sold by Irish businesses to the US stood at 8.5bn in 2014. American investment in Ireland has been a game changer and reshaped this society and economy in the most profound way. Stephen Moore, one of Mr Trumps chief economic advisers has argued that by cutting corporation tax America could more than double its annual growth rate to 4% before the decade ends the equivalent of adding another Texas to the US economy, he suggested. This may offer some comfort, however briefly, to those in Americas rust belt who imagine that Mr Trump can turn back the clock and negate automation and job-exporting globalisation but it will offer little or no comfort to the tens of thousands of people working in Ireland but employed by a US firm. Their jobs are, after all, one of the prizes sought by Mr Trump and his supporters. The situation for Britain is more complex. Mrs May may cut the UK rate as she wishes but without easy access to the EUs free market it is unlikely to make Britain much more attractive than it already is. Mrs May has repeatedly asserted that she wants access to the free market but the right to control the movement of people. This flies in the face of core EU principles and the weekend decision by German chancellor Angela Merkel to seek another term in office suggests that position will be defended forcibly. These are just some of the issues around using corporation tax cuts to seduce investors as we did for decades but there are huge social implications too. In a world where people committed to the idea of society look in dismay at the levels of tax paid by some multinational corporations, these pay-even-less proposals will strengthen the belief that real power has shifted further from national governments to business and that we will all, one way or another, pay a price . Business Shan State Clashes Disrupt China Border Trade A closed entrance to the Muse 105-mile trade zone / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy Burmas largest border trading point in Shan States Muse Townshipthe 105th mile trade zonehas fallen silent amid armed conflict between Burma Army and ethnic armed groups that began on Sunday, leaving traders lamenting the loss of business. Attacks on security posts in Muse and Kutkai townships by an alliance of four ethnic armed groups have left at least nine dead, 30 injured, and thousands displaced. Trucks have been stuck in their paths on the well-trodden trade route from Mandalay to China through the Muse border point. Big trucks are not traveling to Muse from Mandalay right now, but some small vehicles have been transporting crops [vegetables] that need to be sent while they are fresh, U Chon, vice chairman of the Commodity Exchange Center Mandalay said. Beans, pulses, rice, and seasonal crops carried from Mandalay to Muse on 22-wheeled trucks have been delayed by damaged bridges and military checkpoints. Some big trucks couldnt return to Mandalay and remain stuck. No trucks have left Mandalay, he said. We are concerned for our commodities, its dizzying, he said. The Muse 105th mile trade zone trades at least US$5 billion per year and recorded US$3 billion in trade between April and mid-November 2016, according to the Ministry of Commerce. The Shan State governments minister for economic development U Soe Nyunt Lwin said the trading point is not officially closed but that business has almost stopped and 50 large trucks remain stranded inside the zone. This is causing big damage to our economy as the trade zone is the biggest trading point in this country, he said. Traders of seafood, cantaloupes, watermelons, and other vegetables in particular will suffer if clashes continue, said U Naing Lin Htet, secretary of the Pegu Division charter of the Burma Watermelon and Melon Growers and Exporters Association. Watermelons and cantaloupes have been in high demand from China this year and sold for between 2,500 to 3,000 yuan (US$363-435) per tonne. Fresh fish and eel exporters have also suffered from transportation delays, according to U Taing Kyaw, chairman of Mandalay Division Eel Producers and Exporters Association. The prices of mung bean, sesame and peanuts in Mandalay wholesale markets declined due to an influx of produce unable to be exported, said U Maung Htay, information officer of the Mandalay Beans and Pulses and Sesame Commodity Exchange. Most of the transportation service providers in Mandalay are holding a wait-and-see attitude, said chairman U Myo Swe of the Mandalay Region Long-Distance Commodity Transportation Service Providers Association. The China-Burma trading point in Muses 105th mile trade zone had the biggest trade volume in 2015-2016 fiscal year, with US$5.3 billion of total US$7.1 billion nationwide. Myawaddy on the Thai border, and Chin Shwe Haw on the China border followed respectively out of 15 total border trading points in the country. Additional reporting by Myat Pyae Phyo in Mandalay. In Person TNLA Spokesman: The Joint Offensive is Necessary Col Tar Bong Kyaw. / Kyaw Kha / The Irrawaddy The Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA) launched a joint offensive against the Burma Army in northern Shan State along the China-Burma border over the weekend. The attacks have killed at least 10 and injured 29 people, according to the government. The border trade route has been disrupted as clashes continue near the trading hub of Muse. The Irrawaddys reporter Kyaw Kha interviewed Col Tar Bong Kyaw, a TNLA spokesperson, about the clashes. What is the reason for launching the joint offensive in northern Shan State? We launched it because it was necessary. Clashes continue and the joint military operation [aims] to make the government think more practically about armed conflicts in order to solve them as soon as possible. Could you tell me about where clashes are taking place? There were clashes [on Sunday] along the motor road between Kutkai, Nam Hpat Kar and 105th Mile [in Muse]. There were also intense clashes in Mong Ko as well as Mong Ton. There are clashes all over the place. The government released information that three civilians died and 18 were injured in the clashes on Sunday. What purpose does the military operation serve? We are not targeting civilians but casualties during clashes are normal. We are very sorry that civilians were affected. There may have been some injuries, but we later learned that it was not as many as the government claimed. We think the [government] counted injured Burma Army soldiers as civilians. We are working carefully not to harm civilians in any new clashes. What is the main objective of the joint offensive? The main objective is to [make the government] solve political problems through political means. We hate that the [military] urges ethnic groups to sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement [NCA] on one hand and attacks the Kachin [Kachin Independence Army-KIA] on the other hand. We launched the joint offensive to [pressure the military] to cease fire and to solve the root cause of the problem through political means. Does the alliance think the offensive is an answer to the problem? We had to make hard choices in the face of Burma Army attacks and we think [the offensive] is the best option. The so-called democratically elected civilian government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been silent about the Burma Armys massive offensives [in ethnic regions]. We dont think forcing us to join the NCA through military offensives will solve political problems. Inevitably, we had to launch joint military operations. Did your alliance realize that the attacks would affect civilians and disrupt the China-Burma trade route? Yes, we predicted that. But we had to do this to make it clear that this problem needed to be solved by the government, army and ethnic groups. You said civilians and trade were affected, but in Kachin State, tens of thousands of people have faced hardship for many years. In our region, many Taang people died from artillery fire by the Burma Army in the past month. How many people were injured and how many have fled from their homes? We had to take military action because we can no longer stand the situation. There is the talk that the United Wa State Army (UWSA) is supplying arms and money for the alliance. Is that true? That is speculation. Our groups cooperate in this fight for survival. Those who criticize will criticize. Arent there any other means that would not harm the economy or civilians? We have very limited options and had to choose this. It depends largely on the Burma Army and the government. They need to de-escalate offensives in our ethnic regions and they need to cease fire. Then, we will be able to find other means. What do you think the consequences of this military operation will be? The best thing we can hope is that Daw Aung San Suu Kyis governmentas the democratically elected governmentwill be able to lead [the peace process]. We hope Burmas military listens to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and chooses a peaceful path. But if it seeks military means, our ethnic groups are prepared to face whatever comes. Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko RANGOON The only reason 46-year-old former refugee U Aye Lwin returned to Burma was so that his six children could receive a formal education in his home countrythe country he left eight years ago due to political turmoil. After having taken refuge in a camp on the Thai-Burma border since 2008, he decided to repatriate once the National League for Democracy-led government took office in April of this year and welcomed the return of refugees. Education in the camp was neither official nor up to standards, U Aye Lwin said. Educated people among the refugees founded a school and contributed to the community by teaching kids in the camp, he explained. U Aye Lwin is one of 17 former refugees who recently returned to Rangoon from the Nu Po camp located on the Thai-Burma border, which was established according to an official arrangement by the governments of Thailand and Burma, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The first batch of 65 returnees was repatriated to Burma via the Myawaddy-Mae Sot Friendship Bridge in late October. Seventeen of them asked to be sent to their homes in Rangoon. U Aye Lwin made up his mind to earn money by doing any kind of job available so that his kidsfrom his 4-year-old son to his 18-year-old daughtercould go to school. But his homecoming hasnt played out how he thought it would. Since arriving in Rangoon in October, the 17 returneesfour familieshave only been provided temporary shelter at a warehouse run by the Relief and Resettlement Departments Rangoon office in Mayangone Township, waiting for the regional government to arrange long-term accommodation. The department, operating under the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief, and Resettlement, provides 3,000 kyats (US$2.33) to each returnee for daily living expenses. Each family has received 300,000 kyats (US$230) from the Union government, and the Thai government has offered 8,300 baht per adult and 6,500 baht per child before leaving Thailand. Daw Khin San Yee, 59, is a former political prisoner and, along with her husband, was a refugee at the Nu Po camp in 2009. Though she was a refugee, she followed news about Burmas democratic transition on the radio and televisionthe only available news sources in the camp. Ive been willing to return to Burma since its government transition [last year], she said. UNHCR and officials from the Burmese government came to the camp and told us that we could officially register to return homein dignity. All four families that The Irrawaddy spoke to last week said that their voluntary returns were driven by the fact that the NLD is in power. The Rangoon regional government provided low-cost, 9.8 million kyats-worth housing in the Shwe Linn Ban Industrial Zone in Hlaing Tharyar Township for the former refugees but asked them to use it in installments, paying 30 percent upfront and the rest over eight years. Still, the families refused to buy the apartments, saying that they couldnt afford them. The commercial capitals rental prices for housing have increased nearly three-fold in less than 10 years. Asked if they owned any places in Rangoon before they left Burma, Daw Khin San Yee and U Aye Lwin told The Irrawaddy that they have never been able to afford to buy apartments and that they previously had to rent places. We returned from a refugee camp, Daw Khin San Yee said. We didnt come back bringing heaps of money. How are we supposed to pay 3 million [kyats]? she questioned. U Thant Zin Maung, 47, returned home to get traditional medical treatment for his wife, who is unable to walk due to muscle atrophy in her legs. He said he would do any kind of work to afford hospitalizing his wife and sending his two children to school once he gets long-term accommodation for his family. This 3 million-kyat price is too much for us, he said. It would be acceptable if the amount were logical. U Win Shwe, a director at the relief and resettlement department in Rangoon, told The Irrawaddy that his department has reported to Rangoons regional government about the current situation and is waiting to hear back about a possible solution, potentially this week. We cant provide [free] accommodation to everyone who returns, he said. Its impossible to do that given that there are also people who are in worse trouble, he added, stating that the government is still struggling to provide affordable housing to illegal squatters in the city. Burma is not rich enough that it can give housing for free. There are also hundreds of thousands of refugees living in border camps, hoping to come back [to Burma]. If Rangoons government were to provide free housing to returnees, others in the future would also look to return to Rangoon, and the situation would get out of hand, he explained. They have returned to Burma and are no longer refugees. They shouldnt be given privileges under the title refugee, he said. The official also said that each regional government provides to returnees supports and rights afforded to every citizen. U Soe Aung, permanent secretary and spokesperson of the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, told The Irrawaddy that the government is doing as much as it can to support returnees and to find job opportunities for them. Based on what kind of work family heads have skills for, we are working together with the Ministry of Labor and Immigration to find suitable jobs [for returnees], he said. Rangoons regional minister for social welfare U Naing Ngan Linn visited the temporary shelter after returnees arrival in Rangoon and told reporters afterward that the government was responsible for arranging long-term accommodation for the new arrivals. Daw Khin San Yee said that returnees are not asking to have the Shwe Linn Ban housing for free, but rather just a place where they can afford start their lives again. Other returnees echoed these words, saying that they dont want to depend only on donations, that they are ready to work. We are not afraid to work or face hardship in our own country. Whats most important is securing long-term accommodation, U Aye Lwin said. U Thant Zin Maung said they now realize situation is very different from their expectations. We returned to our parents. We thought that our parents would treat us better when we came back because even strangers helped us while we were in the camp. Yet this has not exactly been the case, as even family heads are concerned about their uncertain futures in Burma, and their children have also been victimized by these circumstances. Sixteen-year-old Ma Thiri Suu Kyi was fidgeting her hands, not making eye contact. Sitting in front of a warehouse in Rangoon, she talked about how she used to hang out with her friends in a refugee camp in Thailand. I didnt want to come back to Burma, she said, adding that she doesnt know what to do next with her life. She was 8 years old when she and her father U Aye Lwin left for Thailand in 2008 and barely remembers what Burma looked like back then. She was in the 7th grade in the Nu Po camp and thought that she could continue school when she returned to Burma. But not anymore. Its not suitable for someone my age to be in 7th grade, she said. I have to learn with these small kids, so I dont want to continue school here, she continued, pointing to her 10-year-old child brother. Burma Challenges Await as Burma is Vetted for EU Timber Trading Partnership Teak logs are loaded onto a truck at a logging camp in northern Burmas Sagaing Division in March 2014. / Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters Hoping to overcome doubts over the legality of exported timber in the European market, the Burmese government is attempting to become a trading partner within the European Unions Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (EU-FLEGT), a process which could take five to ten years. An interim taskforcea collaborative effort between representatives from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation, the private timber sector and civil society organizations (CSOs) advocating for legal timber productionhas been dealing with the issue since January 2015. If Burma becomes the member country in the EU-FLEGT, problems and misunderstandings could be overcome, said U Aye Cho Thaung, the deputy general manager of the Myanmar Timber Enterprise, referring to last weeks Swedish court ruling that exported teak from Burma was harvested illegally. FLEGT members have to ensure that they are following the Volunteer Partnership Agreement (VPA) process in combating illegal logging during the production and processing of timber, and also adhering to effective forest governance. Member benefits include direct export to the EU market. There are 28 member countries that have signed the VPA, includingin Southeast AsiaThailand, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia. Membership would be proof that Burmas timber business is changing and adhering to international standards, and that shift would improve the image of the State, in addition to reaping economic benefits, said U Barber Cho, who was a consultant with the Myanmar Forest Certificate Committee (MFCC). He added that Burmas timber trade with EU companies stands at less than US$100 million. Becoming a VPA member country of the EU-FLEGT is not an easy process. Environmentalist and director of EcoDev U Win Myo Thu explained that it requires transparency on the part of the government. In the meantime, EcoDev has initiated awareness raising activities about the FLEGT within civil society. The government needs to prove to the European Union that timber production is legal, as well as provide open access for CSOs and third party organizations to check whether timber products have been legally harvested and [that the process] is not violating the human rights of the local population, U Win Myo told The Irrawaddy. Ethnic minority communities in remote regions in particular have faced rights abuses related to logging and the production of timber. A half-century of civil war and military rule, which gave way to widespread land confiscation and timber harvest in the name of agricultural cultivation, have contributed to the vulnerability of these populations throughout Burma. In verifying the legality of timber extraction and in ensuring the states standing in the international community, U Win Myo Thu said the government should willingly accept the role of CSOs in counter-checking, which previous governments did not allow. If the respective authorities are unwilling to make changes recommended by third parties, the process for recognition as an FLEGT member could take more than a decade, he added. Forested areas across the country are not all under the control of the central government, as many are located in regions home to Burmas many ethnic nationality groups, including those in the northern part of the country where fighting has been ongoing between government forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). On Nov. 20, a joint offensive against the Burma Army by the KIA, the Taang National Liberation Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Armycalling themselves the Northern Allianceraised questions about the direction in which peace talks will continue. U Barber Cho said that becoming a member state in the EU-FLEGT is of parallel importance to the current peace process and upcoming political dialogue. If we do not have a firm political dialogue framework which guarantees shared interests concerning natural resources, this effort [to be a VPA country within the EU-FLEGT] could go on for more than five years, he said. Burma China Says 3,000 Flee Burma after Shan State Clashes Muse, a major border trading hub between Burma and China, is relatively deserted after fighting between government troops and an alliance of ethnic armed groups broke. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy BEIJING, China China is giving shelter to more than 3,000 people who have fled Burma after fighting between the government and rebels, and stray shells have fallen inside Chinese territory causing minor damage but no deaths, Chinese state media said on Tuesday. Four ethnic armed groups have attacked security forces in the north of Burma, dealing a major blow to leader Aung San Suu Kyis top goal of reaching peace with ethnic minorities. China, which has been alarmed by previous fighting along the porous border, has put its armed forces on high alert and called for all sides to exercise restraint. The official China Daily said injured people among the 3,000 Burmese citizens have been taken to hospital in the southwestern province of Yunnan, which shares a long border with Burma. The Chinese authority has responded swiftly and handled the situation appropriately, Pan Xuesong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Burma, told the newspaper. Stray shells have fallen in Wanding, an important border crossing, causing some minor damage, state television added. The Global Times newspaper also said a Chinese government building in Wanding had been lightly damaged. Chinas Foreign Ministry said on Monday that at least one Chinese resident had also been injured. Previous fighting along the border pushed thousands of people into China. China was infuriated last year when five Chinese people were killed when the fighting spilled over into Chinese territory. Burma Hundreds Flee across Burma Border into Bangladesh, Aid Workers Report Rohingya refugees approach the Kutupalang Refugee Camp after illegally crossing the Myanmar-Bangladesh border in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh, on Nov. 21. / Mohammad Ponir Hossain / Reuters COXS BAZAR, Bangladesh Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims from Arakan State crossed the border to Bangladesh over the weekend and on Monday, aid workers said, seeking shelter from escalating violence in the northwest that has killed at least 86 people and displaced some 30,000. An official from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations migration agency, who did not want to be identified, said he had witnessed more than 500 people enter its camps in the hills near the border on Monday. Aid workers from other United Nations agencies and Reuters reporters in the IOM camps also reported seeing Rohingyas who said they had recently fled the fighting in Burma. The UN workers did not give specific numbers, but expressed concern about a sudden influx of people. The bloodshed is the most serious since hundreds were killed in communal clashes in the western Burma state of Arakan in 2012, and is posing the biggest test yet for the eight-month-old administration of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Soldiers have poured into the area along Burmas frontier with Bangladesh, responding to coordinated attacks on three border posts on Oct. 9 that killed nine police officers. Moulavi Aziz Khan, 60, from a village in northern Arakan State, also known as Rakhine State, said he left Burma last week, after the military surrounded his home and set fire to it. At that time, I fled with my four daughters and three grandsons to a nearby hill later, we managed to cross the border, he said. Burmas military and the government have rejected allegations by residents and rights groups that soldiers have raped Rohingya women, burnt houses and killed civilians during the military operation in Arakan State. New York-based Human Rights Watch said over the weekend satellite images taken on Nov. 10, 17, and 18 showed 820 destroyed buildings in five villages in northern Arakan State, bringing the total number it says it has documented to 1,250. CHECKING REPORTS Burmas government has also rejected previous reports of Rohingya civilians trying to escape to Bangladesh. U Zaw Htay, presidential spokesman and member of the newly-formed information taskforce on Arakan State, said the government continued to investigate such reports, but had not so far been able to substantiate any of them. We checked with the military and police about people fleeing to Bangladesh since Oct. 9. Some people fled from their villages, but we put them back to their villages, he said. If something like that happened, we are concerned and we will continue to investigate. We are not rejecting all allegationsour government always checks all the allegations, and some were found to be untrue. The Burma Army has declared an operations zone in mainly Muslim northern Arakan State, where it says it is battling Islamist-inspired Rohingya insurgents, and it is not possible for international reporters to enter the area to verify claims. Burmas 1.1 million Rohingya, viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh by many of the countrys majority Buddhists, are denied citizenship and face severe restrictions on their travel. Up to 30,000 people are now estimated to be displaced and thousands more affected by the recent fighting, the UN has said. Humanitarian operations that had been providing food, cash, and nutrition to more than 150,000 people have been suspended for more than 40 days. The UN refugee agency called on the Burma government for access to allow it to distribute aid. The idea is to help them where they are, so that they wouldnt be forced to cross over into Bangladesh, Vivian Tan, regional public information officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told Reuters Television. If they cant get the assistance where they are then, if they are forced to cross into another country like Bangladesh, were really appealing to the Bangladeshi government to honour its long tradition of hospitality and open its borders to these refugees. Burma Lawmaker Urges Action on Illegal Fishing in Arakan State Fishing boats in Arakan State. RANGOON An Upper House lawmaker urged the Union government to prevent trawlers from Bangladesh from illegally fishing in Burmese waters and to provide security for local fishermen on Arakan States coast. Lawmaker U Khin Maung Lattrepresenting Arakan State Constituency 3 asked in the Upper Houseasked on Monday if the government had plans to revitalize small-scale fishing on the coast between state capital Sittwe and Maungdaw Township as illegal fishing in the area has crippled the livelihoods of locals for the last 20 years. Illegal Bangladeshi fishing trawlers have trespassed along 40 miles of the 60-mile Arakan, U Khin Maung Latt told the Upper House. There is usually over 20 people on board each trawler. Locals have witnessed illegal fishing trawlers enter Burmese waters at night and leave in the morning. He alleged that Bangladeshi fishing trawlers pay a monthly fee of 50,000 kyats to local authorities for access. U Khin Maung Latt said in Parliament he was worried that illegal fishing trawlers were working with local Muslim Rohingya fishermen, an allegation that could not be verified. The Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation Dr. Aung Thu replied that he would provide an answer together with the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Arakan State government. The responsibilities of the agriculture ministrys Fisheries Department are limited to checking registration of sea-going trawlers on their arrival and departure, he said. When it comes to fishing trawlers [operating] at sea, the Defense Ministry takes responsibility. In the sea around Rathedaung Township, Burma police are providing security, said Dr. Aung Thu. Under 1991 orders, the Burma Army and navy are responsible for the security of Burmas sea territory and taking action against local and foreign vessels, including fishing trawlers. According to Dr Aung Thu, Since January 2013 action was taken against 17 vessels smuggling timber logs, 12 vessels smuggling drugs, six vessels smuggling goods, six vessels trafficking humans, and three illegal fishing trawlers of foreign countries, totaling 60 vessels and the seizure of smuggled goods amounting to two billion kyat. The minister said that his ministry has been designing a work plan for development of fishing industry in Arakan State as well as the development of Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships. The ministry submitted a plan to the government in July this year for cooperation with UN agencies and international partners. Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko Burma NLD Member Charged Under Article 66(d) U Kyaw Kyaw Nyan Lin. / Thein Min Tun / Facebook PYAY, Pegu Division Amid growing controversy surrounding Article 66(d) of Burmas Telecommunications Law, a National League for Democracy (NLD) member was sued under the provision in Pyay Township of Pegu Division. U Kyaw Kyaw Nyan Win, the press officer of the NLDs Pyay chapter, was sued by a 100-household administrator (a rank that falls under ward/village administrator) for sharing a post on Facebook that accused the administrator of misappropriating relief aid. The court hearing for the case was held on Monday after U Maung Maung, the 100-household administrator of Nawin Ward in Pyay Township, filed a complaint at the local police station against U Kyaw Kyaw Nyan Win on Aug. 28. The Facebook post accused U Maung Maung of misappropriating relief aid and cash donated to flood victims of the ward on Aug. 10. He accused me of taking 100,000 kyats and clothes, which I didnt. So, I sued him, U Maung Maung told The Irrawaddy. U Kyaw Kyaw Nyan Win said that he sued because it was his duty as an information officer to inform the public and work within the legal framework. Im not guilty because I did it in the interest of the people. Breaching this provision cant be punished if it [sharing information online] is done in the interest of people, U Kyaw Kyaw Nyan Win told The Irrawaddy. Article 66(d) of Burmas Telecommunications Law states that anyone found guilty of extorting, coercing, restraining wrongfully, defaming, disturbing, causing undue influence or threatening any person by using any telecommunications network shall be punished with a maximum three years in prison, a fine, or both. The end of the year brings with it a bevy of holidays. For most of us, holidays are connected with deep traditions. So it would make sense that we as runners would also have running rituals that we associate with different holidays. Here are some of the things the three of us do to incorporate a little seasonal flair into our running routine. From Pam: My kids like to refer to the end of the year as the HallowThanksMas season which means we cycle nonstop through ghosts and goblins, turkeys and pilgrims, and Santa and reindeer. But truth be told, I was a big Halloween fan way before kids and have always loved the opportunity to don a costume. Running has given me one more reason to get creative with my ensemble. The Autumn Leaves 50k/50 Mile is a local ultra on the last weekend in October which encourages costumes. It has been a staple on my racing calendar and I am proud to report that I am a five-time costume contest winner! Thanksgiving wouldnt be complete without running what the locals have dubbed a preemptive calorie strike. Some years this has meant a casual run with friends, but on a couple occasions I have convinced the whole family to get out for 5k. It always feels good to get some exercise in before stuffing ourselves silly and the run reminds me of so many things I have to be thankful for. Christmas has a lot more hustle and bustle on the day than Thanksgiving, and if I do get in a run at all, it is usually just a hurried few miles between breakfast and dinner preparations. But in the days leading up to the holidays, our core of Tuesday/Thursday runners have made a few of our 5 a.m. dark and dreary runs a little more merry by toting backpacks of goodies around town and elfing the porches of our friends who are still sound asleep. And my Monday track group annually does The 12 Days of Christmas workout the week of the holiday. I have never made a big effort to run on New Years Day. Sometimes an interesting opportunity comes up, like a race or an invitation to run with friends, but just as often it is a day off for me. These days, midnight is such a rare sighting for me that even a sober late night is enough to leave me feeling a bit hungover, and adding alcohol just makes it worse. I am happy to spend the day lounging in pajamas and relaxing with family. Any New Years resolutions and training plans that I have for the year can start on January 2! From Gina: Holiday exercise traditions. I have to say that I dont have many, but the one thing I try to do, if it can even be considered a tradition, is to simply just get in a run. Holidays are meant to be spent with family and friends, so I make social engagements my first priority. I believe family and friends are the key to helping us develop feelings and emotions, thus really experiencing the fabric of life. Ill start with Thanksgiving Eve. Where I grew up, in Bangor, Pennsylvania, Thanksgiving Eve is the biggest party night of the year. To be honest, I have no idea why but it is. The night involves meeting up with your best friends, drinking multiple cocktails, and dancing excessively (with the crazy thought that dancing will burn off all the cocktail calories). As you can imagine, the next morning isnt easy to greet, but hungover or not, I had the local turkey trot to hold me accountable for getting in my run. Since moving to Boulder, Colorado a few years ago, my turkey trot has morphed into a Bear Peak summit run via Fern Canyon. My good friend Krissy Moehl and I were both a long way from home in terms of attending a family party, so with extra time and no place to go, we decided to upgrade the traditional turkey-trot run. Christmas time is always spent back in Pennsylvania with my family and friends. 99% of these people do not run, but they sure know how to celebrate. Since I never have anyone to run with, Id always dread the days after a night out on the town with friends. I was already unmotivated, and the struggle-bus hangover wasnt helping. At some point, I finally came up with a little plan to force me into running the day after a crazy evening. Id drive to wherever our hangout destination would be, and then go home with one of my sober friends. This little maneuver would force me to run to pick up my car the next morning. It isnt always pretty, but it works! I spend the majority of my life planning runs and fitting everything else in between. But when it comes to the holidays, running takes the backseat. Running is a very important part of who I am and what I do, but it isnt everything. Im already looking forward to this years holiday shenanigans, and can only imagine where Ill be running to pick up my car. From Liza: This year will be my familys first turkey trot. Im not sure exactly where well be dragging our children to trot Thanksgiving morning, but we will be trotting somewhere because my vegan in-laws just let me know theyre not coming to dinner as planned. I was all set to make various stuffed vegetables and an Herbivore Holiday Roast (along with a tiny turkey to make the house smell right), but they changed their minds yesterday. Theyd driven from Houston to watch my kids for two days while Eliot and I attended conferences. (Eliot took his students to the Texas Conference for Women. He heard Amal Clooney speak about important things and brought home some nice facial cleanser.) Anyway, either the six-hour round trip, or our awful children, or our tiny, dusty house was too much for them because they told us theyd decided not to come back for Thanksgiving. Id be hurt if my thoughts werent consumed with turkey-trot plans. Since this is the first year of our tradition, Id love advice from all you veteran trotters. Do you garnish the running with anything? Turkey hats? Pilgrim shoes? Carrying cans of jellied cranberry sauce? Should I dress my three year old up like a turkey? December and January are actually our best running months in south Texas. Its not too hot and not too cold, and our clothes arent soaked with sweat. We forget our summer plans to do whatever it takes to get the heck out of Texas and move to the mountains. And two of our biggest and best races, the Bandera 100k and Rocky Raccoon 100 Mile take place in January and February, so Im usually training through the holidays. Thats good because every night of Christmas week seems to start with this: Ive never managed to get the family to agree to a jingle-bell run, but if the turkey trot goes well, Im definitely going to find an elf costume, attach bells to the kids, put a Santa hat on Eliot, and get that tradition going too. And Ill be out running early on New Years Day. Thats been my habit since I enjoyed a mid-course correction in life about 15 years ago. Sometimes Ill mull over my resolutions while I run. And sometimes Ill nurse a hangover. But I always count the runners wearing brand-new running outfits and shoes who look like theyre completing Day 1 of their New Years resolutions (2016: eight nattily attired runners). Im always overcome with happiness before I finish a New Years Day run, grateful to be outside and moving for another year. And thats how I need to start 2017. Call for Comments (from the Trail Sisters) What are your holiday traditions? Are there particular running events associated with Islamic holidays? Hanukkah? Any Diwali running events? Do you set early season goals for yourself to ensure you run through the holidays? Whats hardest for you about running or training during the holidays? Any advice for others or ways to involve your family? Tuesday, November 22nd, 2016 (12:33 pm) - Score 834 A new TNS survey of 2,012 British adults aged 16-64, which was commissioned by Satellite provider ViaSat, has revealed that 72% dont believe the Government is doing enough to meet future broadband needs, while many others are confused about the reality of current service coverage and speeds. At present fixed line superfast broadband (24Mbps+) capable networks are available to 91% of premises across the United Kingdom and this should reach around 98% by 2019, which is being achieved through a mix of both commercial (private) and public investment. Over the past few years the amount of public funding that has been committed towards related improvements has reached 1.6bn and the Government has today announced another major investment programme (here), which could push an additional 1bn+ towards helping with the roll-out of future Gigabit capable FTTP/H based ultrafast broadband connectivity. However the respondents to ViaSats survey revealed that many people remain dissatisfied with the Governments effort and quite a few appeared to be confused about what has actually been achieved. Study Highlights * Fewer than half (48%) of respondents believe that they can access superfast broadband in their area, which is despite UK coverage reaching 91% of premises (as above). * 77% believe broadband expansion is disproportionately focused on London and the South-East, while 66% say London has the fastest broadband in Great Britain. In reality London has plenty of patchy problems with slow broadband and is certainly not the fastest city or part of the UK by a long shot. * 79% would accept disruption to their home in order to get faster broadband, which is good news for the many operators that will need to conduct disruptive civil works during their network roll-out. Consumers also expect that their data needs (consumption) will increase by 2.4 times over the next two years, which is quite close to the reality. On top of they expect that modern broadband speeds should be, on average, at least 60Mbps and this is about 2.5 times faster than the Governments current 24Mbps+ commitment (note: some contracts use 30Mbps+). Mind you the 24Mbps+ target is not an average, but rather a minimum. Neil Fraser, ViaSat UKs Head of Space and Comms, said: Despite the Governments best efforts to roll-out superfast broadband across the UK, it still has an uphill perception battle to fight. The work of the Government and other organisations is not being recognised by the consumer. According to the survey, British consumers see themselves as a nation that is disconnected, which is in stark contrast to the Governments own statistics showing the vast majority have access to superfast services today. This failure to deliver in the eyes of the British public comes at a time when British broadband has been under scrutiny; Ofcom just completed its review of Openreach, and 100,000 UK citizens voiced their opinions on the nations broadband initiatives via the Fix Britains Internet campaign. This is all the reason for the UK Government to show not only if and how they are reaching 90% of the population today, but even more importantly how they plan to reach 100% of the nation in the future. Naturally ViaSat doesnt miss the opportunity to play up their vested interest by suggesting that Satellite broadband solutions are now increasingly capable of offering the speed and coverage that the UK needs, both now and in the future. This means that the UK Government can meet the demands of the population head-on, and demonstrate that it is dedicated to bringing a truly democratic internet. However Satellite is far from an ideal solution, with speeds often suffering from heavy throttling at peak times and data allowances tending to be both meagre and very expensive to top-up. Likewise the high latency times afforded by such services can break fast-paced online gaming, as well as cause other sync problems for latency sensitive apps. Lest we forget that the average speed of 60Mbps touted by respondents above is not yet viable via domestic Satellite broadband (20-30Mbps tends to be the current level). Tuesday, November 22nd, 2016 (10:33 am) - Score 1,375 A new Vodafone commissioned study from Point Topic has predicted that only 6.5% of UK households can expect to be covered by Gigabit (1000Mbps+) capable FTTP/H fibre optic broadband cables by 2020, but other data from Point Topic forecasts a figure of 9.4% when business premises are included. At present just shy of 2% of premises in the United Kingdom have been covered by a Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP/H) based pure fibre optic broadband service, including 330,000 premises passed via Openreachs (BT) national network and the rest from alternative network (AltNet) providers. However Vodafone warns that only 6.5% of UK households can expect to receive gigabit-capable fibre-optic cables by 2020 and they claim that BTs focus on 330Mbps hybrid-fibre G.fast technology will only improve UK ultrafast broadband coverage by around 3.78%, largely due to the presence of Virgin Medias similarly capable Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network in many of the same urban areas. Weve pasted the full results at the bottom of this article, which includes a breakdown of forecast FTTP/H coverage across the UKs various regions. At this point we note that Vodafone fails to strictly define the speed for ultrafast, but since they reference it alongside Virgin and BTs G.fast then well assume it reflects the a top speed of around 100-300Mbps+. Meanwhile Gigabit performance is more strictly associated with FTTP/H, at least for now, and usually means 1000Mbps+ (1Gbps or faster). Vodafone also claims that 80% of homes in Sweden and Spain are already passed by fibre and in Portugal the figure is now above 60%. Portugal and Spain are apparently expected to get to 95% FTTP coverage by 2020, which is well above the UK but then linear country-to-country comparisons are tricky animals to fairly balance. Sadly the EUs own data is now woefully out of date (here). Helen Lamprell, Vodafones UK Director of External Affairs, said: We call upon BT to be up-front with the British public about its roll out plans and acknowledge that G.Fast will do nothing to help those stranded on archaic and woefully inadequate broadband today. BT is pushing a muddled compromise rooted in the past, while the rest of the world is focused on building the Gigabit Society at light speed over fibre. As usual some of the points that Vodafone make require a little clarification. The first thing wed say is that BTs G.fast deployment has made no secret of the fact that its a commercial project and will focus on rolling out to economically viable urban areas, which should largely mirror Virgin Medias own reach (i.e. BTs primary infrastructure competition in the urban space). The Government has already hinted that they may eventually need to recreate something similar to todays Broadband Delivery UK programme, which would be needed in order to help push ultrafast broadband technology beyond the low hanging fruit of urban and busy sub-urban areas. Vodafones criticism of BTs G.fast deployment is also a touch weak unless they themselves are similarly willing to commit clear funding to help deliver truly universal FTTP, but in practice Vodafone would face many of the same economic and engineering challenges in doing non-urban areas as BT; irrespective of Openreachs future status as independent or not. However we do know that G.fast and FTTP from BT will later be pushed out to most UK homes by 2025 and ISPreview.co.uk has previously predicted that such a roll-out would be similar in scope to BTs commercial FTTC deployment, potentially reaching around 60-70% UK coverage. On the other hand Openreach has yet to set a solid target for their post-2020 strategy. Another problem is that Vodafones figures are focused on households and Point Topic informs ISPreview.co.uk that this excludes business premises, which is a key distinction. The predicted FTTP/H coverage figure of 6.4% in Vodafones report thus rises to 9.4% when you look at total coverage (premises passed), including both homes and businesses. Heres what Point Topic actually predicts for the UK (overall total coverage) by 2020 and then also 2025, with the Net premises figure below reflecting the total in terms of ultrafast broadband coverage (note: Point Topic define this as 100Mbps+, rather than the 300Mbps+ mooted by Ofcom). The above also reflects the fact that BT has already promised to make their own Gigabit capable FTTP network available to 2 million UK premises by 2020 and Virgin Media has just set a similar target for 2019 (total of around 4 million). Meanwhile Alternative Network (AltNet) ISPs have so far been able to deliver around 400,000 650,000 premises passed via FTTP/H/B (here), depending upon which set of figures you believe. Theres also a rather overly optimistic prediction from INCA that, with the right support, AltNets could reach 4.9 million premises by 2020. If all of the above pans out then FTTP coverage by 2020 could be a fair bit stronger than the 9.4% currently predicted, potentially rising to around 20-30%. Otherwise here are the figures from Vodafone, make of them what you will but remember these are only for households. Nations and Regions UK Households in FTTP footprint (coverage in 2020) UK Households in G.Fast Footprint (coverage in 2020) UK Households in G.Fast Footprint incremental to cable (coverage in 2020) North East 2.8% 33.7% 5.02% East of England 4.2% 26.4% 2.76% South East 4.3% 24.6% 2.35% East Midlands 5.0% 30.7% 1.59% North West 5.1% 39.7% 5.63% West Midlands 5.3% 42.8% 2.27% Northern Ireland 5.7% 27.2% 5.18% Yorkshire and The Humber 7.7% 29.0% 4.07% Scotland 8.4% 54.3% 4.98% South West 8.9% 17.3% 1.87% London 9.2% 52.9% 4.66% Wales 11.5% 30.5% 7.94% TOTAL 6.5% 35.0% 3.78% UPDATE 1:50pm Point Topic has now released a bit more detail on the overall figures, which splits the household (HH) and business (Bus.) coverage. The Philippines Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday confirmed that there are now two cases of pregnant women with Zika virus all over the country. The first case was confirmed last September while the second case is a pregnant 16-year-old girl from Las Pinas City. The confirmation regarding the news was made by the Philippine DOH spokesperson Dr. Eric Tayag in his Twitter account, citing that Dr. Pau (Health Secretary Dr. Paulyn Ubial) confirms second pregnant with Zika, 16-year-old from Las Pinas City. A 16-Year-Old Pregnant Woman Has Zika Virus The pregnant 16-year-old girl is in her 32nd week or 8th month of pregnancy. According to Interaksyon, one of the leading news channel in the Philippines, Dr. Eric Tayag said the woman has manifested skin rashes and fever. Confirmatory tests showed she is positive with Zika virus infection. In the tweet, Tayag also said that she has not yet undergone an ultrasound examination.The confirmation was done in coordination with the City Health Office of Las Pinas, which provided the details on the suspected and confirmed cases. Tayag said they are also closely monitoring the community to check if there are more cases in the area, as reported by CNN Philippines. He added DOH of the country is seeking the help of local government units in their "very serious campaign against these mosquitoes." Of the 33 cases, 12 were recorded in Iloilo; four in Bacoor, Cavite; three cases each in Mandaluyong and Calamba, Laguna; two cases each in Antipolo, Las Pinas and Muntinlupa; one each in Cebu, Quezon City, Makati, Caloocan, and Manila. Pregnant Woman On Zika Virus According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), A pregnant woman can pass Zika virus to her fetus during pregnancy. Zika is a cause of microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects. We are studying the full range of other potential health problems that Zika virus infection during pregnancy may cause. There are no reports of infants getting Zika virus through breastfeeding. Because of the benefits of breastfeeding, mothers are encouraged to breastfeed even in areas where Zika virus is found. For several months now, the state of Florida struggled to control the spread of Zika. One of the most controversial items on the ballot in Florida Keys on the November 8th election was dealing with disease. In a 3-2 vote on Saturday, residents in the Florida Keys approved a measure allowing a British company to begin a trial release of genetically modified mosquitoes. These are designed to curb the spread of infectious diseases, such as Zika, dengue, and chikungunya. Key Haven Residents Are Fearful Of The Consequences Of The Trial Residents from Key Haven said that they don't want to be used as "guinea pigs" and fear unintentional environmental consequences. Others fear being bitten by engineered blood-suckers. However, the FDA and other federal and local regulators say the concerns are unfounded. Trials will not be conducted in Key Haven because the residents rejected it. Oxitec and the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District staff are now looking for a new neighborhood to conduct trials. British Company Engineered The Trial Mosquitoes Oxitec, a British biotech company engineered the 'Aedes aegypti' mosquitoes for the trial. A. aegypti are exotic and invasive to the United States, including Florida. Only females can bite, and they're able to transmit viruses, such as Zika. Oxitec plans to release millions of engineered males - which naturally don't bite - to mate with females inorder to produce dud offspring. Similar trials have been conducted in Panama and Brazil, the engineered mosquitoes were able to zap up to 90 percent of wild populations for short periods. FDA Said Trial Has No Potential Adverse Impact On People Monroe County, which includes the Keys, has had big problems in the past with dengue, another disease carried by the same mosquito causing Zika, but there are no reported incidents of Zika in the area yet. Bob Eadie, the county's health department head, supports the trial and said that it doesn't mean that Zika is not a threat to the residents, eventhough there are no cases of Zika in the county currently. "There is a tool available for the people of Monroe County that can help control mosquitoes that carry a very, very, very serious disease," he said. Oxitec said that if the trial in Keys goes well, they may begin trials in Miami next year. Electronic brands giants Samsung and Panasonic have been accused of exploiting and underpaying their Nepalese workers in the supply chains located in Malaysia, who was also told that they must pay large fines if they wish to return to their country before the contracts end, and had their passports confiscated. The Workers Were Treated As Slaves According to The Guardian, the workers claimed that they were even forced to work up to 14 hours on their feet without resting and with restricted toilet breaks. Also, they told that they felt cheated and trapped in the factory jobs, creating or assembling the components for household electrical products that are sold on the global market. Although some of those who work for Samsung were employed directly by the company, the majority were hired through a labor supply company, while those who work for Panasonic were employed by subcontracting firms. While both companies has forbidden their suppliers from confiscating the passports of the workers or charging the migrants some recruitment fees, most of them had to pay up to $1,247 to recruitment agents in Nepal in order to secure their jobs with the electronic brands giants Panasonic and Samsung. Panasonic And Samsungs Response To The Allegations According to the International Business Times, the South Korean company said through its spokesperson in a response to the allegations that Samsung comply fully with the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalitions Code of Conduct, and havent found any evidence of violations in the hiring process of migrant workers who were hired directly by the manufacturing facility in Malaysia. Also, the spokesperson told that if any violations have been uncovered, Samsung will make immediately suspend its business with the companies that are found to be in violation. By its part, Panasonic said through a statement that the company will conduct a full investigation of this issue since it takes very seriously these allegations. Also, it said that if it was discovered that one of its suppliers violated such laws or regulations, Panasonic will take any kind corrective action immediately. Googles (now Alphabets) futuristic smart contact lens wont be tested in 2016, since one of its main partners Novartis explained that it wont be able to achieve its goal of testing this incredible technology in the remaining weeks of this year, because of some technically complex process that both companies are facing. However, far from being explained which are these issues, the reasons remain undisclosed. The Delay Could Be A Huge Problem For The Smart Contact Lens According to the International Business Times, a spokesperson from Novartis explained that although it is too soon to announce the exact moment in which the human clinical test for the smart contact lens will start, both Google and the pharmaceutical company will be providing updates at the proper time. However, the big issue is that this delay will affect the smart contact lens that provides auto-focusing for people for far-sightedness, which could represent an important setback for both companies, giving the fact that in addition to the one that was designed to monitor the blood glucose levels of people with diabetes, this device was expected to be one of the greatest products ever released by the tech giant. An Incredible Device Which Could Revolutionize Health Care According to Engadget, both smart contact lenses were considered for Google as an important long-term bets on the future of health care, giving the fact that this device would treat presbyopia and diabetes in a way that would revolutionize the treatment of both diseases. Also, the huge problem is that theres no guarantee that this device would be ready quick, and it is not known if the wait is going to be short or we have going to wait years for this product to come. Far from being the only company whos betting in this kind of devices, Samsung is also working on a smart contact lens that is capable of projecting augmented reality experiences to the wearers vision, which could also be an innovation that could possible change the world for good. The only thing that is sure is that none of this is going to be released this year. Google will open a new AI research unit in Montreal, taking advantage of Canada's expertise in the field. Google's Montreal AI Research Unit Task automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics are already widely used in business. Google is one of the big tech companies positioning itself at the forefront of research in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). According to ZDNet, the company has announced that it is opening a research group in its Montreal office. According to a blog post by Shibl Mourad, the head of engineering at Google Montreal, the new research unit will focus on AI and deep learning research. The Montreal AI research group will be led by Hugo Larochelle, a leader within the deep learning community and it will be linked to the Google Brain team based in Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. Mourad noted in his blog post that, thanks to a combination of a growing AI startup community, corporate investment and substantial government funding, Montreal has become a "global machine intelligence powerhouse." Combined, the McGill University and University of Montreal have more than 150 researchers working on deep learning. This is world's greatest academic concentration in the field. Google's Other Montreal Projects Google will also provide financing over three years for seven faculties from different Montreal institutions, by funding a new grant for the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA). The new grant comes to increase to $4.5 million CAD ($3.375 million USD) the support Google already provides for deep learning research at MILA. According to Fortune, part of Google's investment in its Montreal AI research unit will involve funding renowned expert Yoshua Bengio's research projects. Bengio, along with other AI researchers like Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun are considered by analysts to be responsible for a modern-day renaissance in artificial intelligence. This AI revolution is made possible thanks to their work in deep learning. The whole September 2016 was a tough month for Samsung Mobiles team. The South Korean company was forced to start an expensive global recall to implement a fix regarding their flagship Samsung Galaxy Note 7 explosion. That solution of recalling the smartphone didnt work and a second recall was started, along with the production of the handset ending. The Note 7 was expected to be one of the biggest selling handsets of the year. Instead, it became a millstone around Samsung Company's branding. The Released Reuters/Ipsos Poll "Your own personal experience trumps what you read and what people tell you," says Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research who thinks the recall was mostly limited to early buyers of the Note 7 rather than the majority of Samsung's customer base. The poll showed that 91% of current Samsung users would opt for another Samsung smartphone, and 92 % of current users would buy another Samsung product. The poll, however, measured how interested people were in purchasing Samsung phones and not how much the Galaxy Note 7 recall had influenced their decisions. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English in all 50 states. It included 2,375 people who own Samsung phones and 3,158 people who own iPhones. The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 2 percentage points. According to Reuters, the poll found that Samsung's customers were fiercely loyal to their brand. Some 91 percent of current Samsung users would likely purchase another Samsung smartphone, and 92 percent of current users would probably buy another Samsung product in general. Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Recall Did Not Damage The Branding Of The Company "In a modern market that saturated with smartphones its not often we get excited about a new smartphone. But the Note 7 has left us with a smile that were finding very hard to wipe from our faces," said by Expressed. Samsung has said that customers chose another Samsung model as a replacement for the Note 7 in a majority of instances, without giving more detail. It has said nearly 85 percent of the recalled Note 7 devices had been replaced or returned through its refund and exchange program as of Nov. 4. Samsung insists that its Galaxy S7 is safe and doesn't catch fire. Reports are coming in that the some S7 devices have been catching fire but Samsung vehemently denied that the problems are related to the batteries. One incident involves an S& bursting into flames while in the pocket of the owner. The owner suffered second- and third-degree burns and is planning to sue the company. Another incident was relayed by someone working for a large U.S. carrier who claims a customer complained about an S7 Edge catching fire. The Galaxy Note 7 debacle is still fresh in everyone's minds and surely, Samsung just want to forget and move on. But there seems to be a curse of the 7s for the Korean tech giant. Samsung released a press statement to answer the allegations. "Samsung stands behind the quality and safety of the Galaxy S7 family. There have been no confirmed cases of internal battery failures with these devices among the more than 10 million devices being used by consumers in the United States; however, we have confirmed a number of instances caused by severe external damage. Until Samsung is able to obtain and examine any device, it is impossible to determine the true cause of any incident." Forbes reports that the company's third quarter profits decreased by 30 percent after the controversy with the Note 7. This move to quell rumors concerning the S7 is one way of saving the company from further embarrassment and to keep customers at peace. To be fair, only a handful of cases have been reported. The S7 devices have been available since March of this year. If there really was an issue with the phones, then there should be more than a few incidents. After the Note 7 disaster, Samsung integrated some of the good features of the doomed smartphone into the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. If the rumors of the device catching fire are proven true, then the S7 must have gotten more than just the Note 7's good traits. It looks like Credence will be the center of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them 2 joined by Newt, Jacob and the Goldstein sisters. Just recently, Producer David Heyman has confirmed Credence is still alive and revealed that audience would have seen him riding a boat with Newt heading out of New York but decided to cut the scene. Moreover, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" director and producer said that J.K. Rowling found a story that she really wanted to tell, passionately, which centers on Credence ultimately which removes all speculation who will be the center of the movies sequel. And in analyzing Credences character, the directors hint only means Credence has already chosen a side and its not the dark side. Moreover, if the Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them 2 will center on Credence, it also means he will be accompanied by Newt most of the time. This makes a lot of sense because they were together when they left New York so they should still be together as he goes back to his home country. In the last scenes of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them 2, Newt also promised Porpentina he will be back to give her a copy of his book. Since Credence considers her a good friend, it's highly possible he will accompany Newt back in New York for a vacation. Its also an opportunity for Newt to catch up with his friend, Jacob. Whats supposed to be a time off in New York could also be just in time when Grindelwald has come up with a new plan in terrorizing the No-majs in the city. Other characters expected to be introduced in the sequel includes Dumbledore and Leta Lestrange. David Yates confirms this scoop and describes Lestrange as a very complicated character in Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them 2. She's quite complicated and damaged and confused and Newt is absolutely still in love with her, so she has a kind of power over him, and she, yeah, she's a kind of tragic figure, so we will see a bit more of her in the second movie. Come Nov. 25, shoppers will be better off using the Google Maps as they go through their Christmas wish list. And through hordes of shoppers - with a few violent ones - for that matter. Google Maps is now capable of determining how busy a place is. Actually, the app has been able to do so for around year now. The Popular Times feature of Google Maps was introduced last year. This feature will tell the user if a certain restaurant, for example, is too busy to accommodate more people. This allows the user to make a decision on where to go for coffee, a meal, or a few drinks. Popular Times also applies to shops. During the much-awaited Black Friday Sale, which will be just a few days from now, Google Maps can tell shoppers if a place is too filled up or too busy. While the long queue in front of stores will be inevitable, at least the user can know how long the line will be. The user can then decide whether he or she should proceed to that certain shop. Google Maps can also tell how long people stay in the place. By knowing the average stay at a certain location, the user can figure out his or her schedule a little better. To make the shopping experience even better, Google Maps will inform the user of the opening hours of not only the store but even the departments within the store. One can access the Popular Times feature by simply typing the name of a certain store in Google Search or in Google Maps. The app will determine the status of the place by anonymizing location data and searches. Google is known to act according to the times. During the election fever, Google found ways to remind voters to vote. The company even utilized Google Maps to help voters find their way. This time, Google is helping people have a better shopping experience. The 2018 Toyota C-HR has recently made its debut at the 2016 Los Angeles Auto Show and it caught quite the attention. The Japanese automaker seems to have succeeded in putting style and performance in one package that young buyers are looking for in vehicles nowadays. The Stylish 2018 Toyota C-HR The 2018 Toyota C-HR features an aggressive look with its highly raked rear glass, blackout B-pillars paired with high beltlines, low slung rooflines and curved lines found on the sides. These are all thanks to the diamond theme that has been incorporated into the whole vehicle as reported by Nashville Chatter. Other external features include slim headlight that provides the front a more vibrant look, an 18-inch wheels that give the ride a higher ground clearance and a double spoiler on its back that gives the compact crossover a futuristic look. The 2018 Toyota C-HR Performance Package According to Green Car Reports, the 2018 Toyota C-HR for the U.S market has only one option for its powertrain. It has a 2.0-liter inline-4 engine that is capable of putting out 144 horsepower and 140 pound-feet of torque. This power is paired with a seven-speed continuously variable transmission (CVT) that sends the power to the front wheels. Unfortunately, there is no all-wheel drive (AWD) drivetrain option for the 2018 Toyota C-HR. There are no details yet regarding its fuel economy rating but the same report stated that it will be announced as the launch date of the new model draws closer. Interior Features, Price And Market Launch A standard Toyota Safety Sense P electronic driver aids will come as a standard in the 2018 Toyota C-HR. The bundle consists of automatic emergency braking, lane departure and lane keep assist, and adaptive cruise control. A seven inch infotainment touchscreen, dual-zone automatic climate control and an Aha smartphone app will also be available. At this point, the price has not yet been confirmed but the new model is expected to be on the market in spring next year. A character in one of Akira Toriyama's manga will be returning to "Dragon Ball Super." The official website of the anime series announced on Tuesday, Nov. 22 that Arale from "Dr. Slump" will be appearing in episode 69 titled "Goku vs. Arale! Hachamecha Battle de Chikyu ga Owaru?!" (Goku vs. Arale! A Nonsense Battle Will End the World?!). Arale Norimaki is a female android built by Senbei Norimaki. Despite her unbelievable superhuman strength, she is known for her lack of common sense and naivety. She also wears prescription glasses due to nearsightedness. Senbei wants to convince the people in the Penguin Village that Arale is a typical girl. Mami Koyama, who previously played Arale in the original "Dr. Slump" series, will be back to reprise the role. According to Anime News Network, "Dragon Ball Super" episode 69 will follow an event called the "World Invention Award," which honors the best inventions in the world. Senbei will be awarded for his invention and Dr. Mashirito will launch an attack due to frustration that he was not invited in the event; however, Arale and Gatchan will side with him. Luckily, Bulma is also present at the awarding and Goku is working part-time at the event as a security guard. "Dr. Slump" was published by Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 1980 to 1984. An anime series with 243 episodes was produced by Toei Animation which was aired from 1981 to 1986. A remake of the series consisting of 74 episodes was aired from 1997 to 1999. Arale has also appeared in some episodes of the "Dragon Ball" anime series episodes and even in some "Dragon Ball" films and video games. She also had a cameo appearance on "Dragon Ball Super" episode 43 back in May, but this time, the "Dr. Slump" main character will be one of the key cast. Meanwhile, the Future Trunks Saga arc is expected to come to an end in "Dragon Ball Super" episode 68 on Nov. 27, while "Dragon Ball Super" episode 69 will air on Dec. 4. We don't usually think of drones as operating over open water, but Aerovel's Flexrotor drone was designed to do just that. Flexrotor can land and take off vertically like a helicopter, without the need for any additional infrastructure on the deck of a ship. This gives the vehicle the ability to operate from almost any vessel. Once airborne, Flexrotor transitions to horizontal flight, which allows the vehicle a much longer range of operation. "What they were intended for was to go out and spot tuna or anything that you needed to find in an austere environment where manned aircraft are no longer safe," says Matt Parker, vice president of Precision Integrated Programs, a company signed up to be the launch customer for Flexrotor. Since its inception, Flexrotor has gone on to hunt for humans as well. "Our first mission we went out for was actually to protect marine protected areas," Parker says. "We were out at sea, Cocos Island, 300 nautical miles off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, to monitor the marine protected areas and make sure there werent illegal poachers and shark finners and such in the area." More recently, Flexrotor was used to guide a fleet of ships through ice in the Arctic. The drone can carry up to a 4.5-kilogram payload and can be equipped with a number of sensors, including LIDAR, infrared, and multispectral. It also serves useful on land, in places where there isn't much space to land, like small fields in a forest. Full-scale production of the Flexrotor will begin in the first quarter of 2017, Parker says. When asked about her biggest priorities as CIO of Ford Motor Company, the $150 billion automobile manufacturer, Marcy Klevorn says, Its really a story of and. Not long ago, Ford and its chief competitors made automobiles, and Americans bought American-made cars. But global competition took hold, and the decline of Detroit began. Then came the economic downturn of the late 2000s, which led to the U.S. governments auto bailout. (Ford did not receive bailout funds but did take government loans to retool its manufacturing facilities.) The Ford Motor Company Marcy Klevorn, CIO of Ford Motor Company. Just a few years later, Ford is contending with an astounding degree of disruption, from Tesla to Uber to self-driving cars and beyond. In response, Klevorn and her organization are revving Fords innovation engine, focusing on areas like mobility, robotics and boosting agile development. But the cultural change that accompanies technology breakthroughs is more important to Klevorn than any of those individual breakthroughs themselves. Thats one of the most important lessons that Klevorn a Michigan native and 30-plus-year veteran of Ford has learned in her career. The business of being a CIO, or even being in information technology, is a people business, she said. When Klevorn assumed the CIO post in January 2015, her boss, Ford CEO Mark Fields, spoke with her about how Ford and the automotive industry overall were increasingly becoming a technology and software business. With that transformation came the all-important cultural considerations. Ford would have to find new ways to communicate with its customers, as well as create an environment that inspired its employees to move the company forward. For Klevorn, those pressures were not necessarily anything newnot when you understand her leadership philosophy and focus. Shifting gears Klevorn earned a business degree from the University of Michigan. Her first job out of college the only she would hold outside of Ford was in marketing with AT&T, where she helped sell technology to companies like Ford. But she made a career shift a logical transition not long after. While at Michigan, Klevorn took computer science classes, learning to code and design systems. At AT&T, Klevorn took a six-month course in telecommunications, during which she decided that marketing was less appealing than finding solutions to business problems, and working with technology. Before long, Ford hired her away from AT&T to work in telecommunications services. Klevorn would go on to serve in a number of managerial and leadership roles in data and information management, product lifecycle management, strategy and infrastructure with Ford in the Americas and Europe, and Ford Credit. Working in marketing taught Klevorn the importance of personal connections, and she had a chance to put that to work in her time at AT&T working with Ford. At Ford, it played an outsized role in shaping her philosophy of IT as a people business. Not starting out as a pure technologist helped me lead with relationships, building trust, and seeking to understand first, and then come with the solution next, Klevorn said. Klevorn describes herself as an introvert not unlike many of the IT professionals with whom she has worked and now work for her. In her Myers-Briggs assessment, shes an F (feeler), which points to seeking to understand the concerns of key stakeholders and make decisions that are best for those stakeholders. Aiming to prevent the commercialization of potable drinking water to the citizens, Slovenia amended the state's constitution which proclaims that all citizens have equal rights for the access and utilization of the rich clean resources of the country. An item in the Slovenia's constitution was revised through a vote from 64 lawmakers which declares that all citizens shall have the privilege to access drinkable clean water. The European Union country is rich with water resources as over half of the state's mountainous territory is enclosed by forest. In the parliament composed of 90 seats, the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), which has been known to be the center-right opposition, refrained from participating in the vote stating that said amendment was unnecessary for it only meant to increase the support from the public. The article that has been amended reads: "Water resources represent a public good that is managed by the state. Water resources are primary and durably used to supply citizens with potable water and households with water and, in this sense, are not a market commodity." Miro Cerar, the center-left prime minister insisted on the lawmakers to support the said amendment as Slovenia, which shelters over two million citizens, must look after the safety and preservation of the water with the uppermost level as possible. Cerar expressed that Slovenia's water resources are of very high quality. More so, there could be possibilities in the future that the said resources will become a prospect of foreign states and other international companies for its high value. And, as the demand for potable water will possibly increase so as its value as a commodity, the pressure in its preservation and protection also heightens and the government must continue to maintain it. In the figures released by Rampedre, while 15 countries from around the world has already passed the same bill, in the countries among the European Union, Slovenian parliament is the first to incorporate the right of access to water in the state's constitution. In 2014, the European Union has supported the exclusion of the supply of water resources as well as its management in the regulations that are exercised in the European's inner market after the very first victorious Initiative of the European Citizens which achieved more than a million support through signatures. The anime world is a buzz when updates got out that "One Punch Man" season 2 would air next year in 2017. What's more surprising is that there have been leakages about the plot and new characters for next season. Saitama would face new challenges and stronger enemies in his journey. Reports have it that in "One Punch Man" season 2, Saitama will face new and stronger opponents just like his arch nemesis Lord Boros. The Parent Herald confirmed that there are emerging characters that would be worthy of defeating Saitama in the second installment of the anime series. Garou is one notable character that would challenge Saitama in "One Punch Man" season 2. He possesses abilities and powers that would match Saitama's. In fact, both characters are very similar because they gained their abilities through practice and training. Another emerging character is Amai Mask who is reportedly going to fight Saitama as well. He will be coming back in "One Punch Man" season 2 but there are no specific details about this character. He may be a wild card next season. There have been also rumors that Lord Boros will come back stronger and is going to take his revenge following his defeat in season 1. According to News Everyday, Lord Boros and Saitama will fight again in "One Punch Man" season 2 and it will be a much more interesting battle. Aside from Saitama's new enemies, more spoilers have also leaked out that he will become a super villain. There are no confirmations about this but it would be interesting to have a change in the storyline of "One Punch Man" season 2. The air date of "One Punch Man" season 2 would most likely be early in spring next year. Fans just need to wait for the second season and see if these rumors would happen. Stay tuned for more updates on "One Punch" Man. With the start of the 2016 Los Angeles Auto Show last week, we have seen the future of cars with its coolest features and innovative breakthroughs. We also saw debuts of different cars, one of this is the much awaited comeback of the British SUV brand, the new 2017 Land Rover Discovery. This became the 'parent' version of the Discovery Sport which is first seen at the same auto show 2 years ago. 2017 Discovery is supposed to replace the Land Rover LR4 sporting a curved modern look resembling a crossover between a Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque. Though with a lustrous design, it still retains the outgoing feature of LR4. 2017 Discovery features a higher ground clearance at 11 inches to 7.3 inches deeper striding depth of 35 inches to 28 inches. It also comes with a state of the art aluminium frame like the Range Rover making it a thousand pound lighter that the LR4 thus, having more fuel efficiency. Under the hood, we can choose between a 340-horsepower, 3.0-liter V-6 petrol engine or a turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 diesel engine which has both an automatic transmission system. 2017 Discovery boasts that it will outdo LR4 on fuel efficiency by 14 percent. The 2017 Discovery's interior is what the company if proud of, with its amazing seating flexibility and family-friendly features. With a seven seater capacity with a lot of leg and headroom for even tall passengers, it will be the most amazing three-row SUV that you will experience.The seats are also engineered to fold flat if you ever find yourself looking for more cargo space which can hold 661 pounds. 2017 Land Rover has an app which is available on both Android and iOS which can be used to raise or lower the seats with an artificial intelligence system that will assist you on the procedure. Folding command can also be initiated in the 10 inch touch screen console. The 2017 Discovery's interior can be fitted with screens and gadgets with a 17-speaker Meridian sound system. It also comes with 9 USB ports that will ensure that all of the passenger's gadgets are charged and ready to go. Sporting an amazing attention to detail of 2017 Discovery's interior and with a state of the art driving capacity in both on and off the road, the vehicle will surely find happy homes. Though, we have no definite release date, 2017 Discovery will be available of the market on the middle of 2017. As news began to reveal that Donald Trump's transition for his term as the 47th president of United States was in chaos, the presidential team announced last Friday that Trump has offered job positions to his loyal backers.Among the three posts offered by Trump to serve for his administration are the state's Attorney General, National Security Adviser and CIA Director which are then accepted by Sen. Jeff Sessions, Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Kansas Representative Mike Pompeo, respectively. A lawyer recognized for his stand towards the policies in immigration, Sessions became a confederate of Donald Trump after the senator has been the first incumbent legislator to publicly express support to the Republican bet. Senator Sessions' point of view goes coherent with the President-elect's position on immigration. Trump once said that the senator is significantly appreciated by the people who are acquainted to him, as well as the scholars in the field of law. Trump also called Senator Sessions as a "world-class legal mind". Meanwhile, Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is among the reliable advisers of Trump during his candidacy in recently-concluded US Presidential Elections. Flynn was the Defense Intelligence Agency's head during the administration of President Barack Obama. Trump has expressed his impression to Flynn who, according to him, possesses the exemplary expertise in the field of military intelligence and foreign policies. The President-elect considers Flynn to be an asset on his incoming administration despite the controversies the retired lieutenant general was involved into, including his tweet about the rationality of the Muslims' fear. Pompeo, who is also a Republican, is the current representative of the 4th Congressional District of Kansas and also a part of the Committee of House Intelligence. After endorsing Marco Rubio first, Pompeo then showed his support for Donald Trump's presidency which subsequently made him the newest director of the CIA. Trump said that Pompeo will be of great help towards safeguarding the Americans as well as the country's allies against the amassing challenge in the states' intelligence. TIME magazine has issued a report that the road towards the transition to Donald Trump's presidency is indeed a rough one. In a data released by Virginia's government on the morning of Friday, it was revealed that for its third consecutive month, the state's number of unemployed has added a massive 27,000 job seekers during the month of October alone. According to economists, the growing number of unemployed in Virginia is not because of the lack of employment of the part of the companies but rather a result of the large number of workers currently employed in the industry. For the record, the labor market of Virginia has actually been falling for the past few years which results to the consistent increase in the percentage of job hunters in the state. Based on the data, Virginia has added the most number of unemployed in the month of October with 27,000 additional job hunters, making it the biggest increase in labor pool since 1976 when the survey was first conducted. For the record, before the October statistics was released, the largest rise in jobless citizens of Virginia was 15,000. Andy Bauer, Regional Economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said that despite the fact the many people engage themselves in the labor market to search for suitable jobs, there are also other people who enter into the labor market but not looking for jobs. This, according to Bauer, causes a huge impact in the rising percentage of unemployed in the state. In the month of July, economists question to whether or not the state achieved a successful employment as Virginia's rate of unemployment dropped to an alarming percentage of 3.7. However, despite these figures, Virginia has still managed to increase job offerings with a 2 percent increase compared to its recorded rate on 2016. Bauer also confirmed that they several businesses suggest the upsurge in the wage of workers to be able to entice and maintain personnel for long-time employment as the increase in salaries effect the rate of unemployment in every state. Meanwhile, the rate of unemployment in the District and in Maryland during the month of October remains the same with 4.2 and 6.1 percent, correspondingly. Donald Trump may have won the election but it seems like his son Barron Trump and wife Melania Trump have decided not to live in White House. Many are wondering if the 10-year-old kid's autism issue was the reason behind. During the victory speech of the newly proclaimed US President, the unusual gesture of Barron Trump brought up a question to everyone. Is Donald Trump's son an autistic kid? In line with this, some think he is just weary with all that happened. But many believed that there is more to his restless mannerism, Morning Ledger reported. This resulted to a possibility why Trump family does not want the idea of living in White House. Why Barron Trump and Melania Trump Chose Not To Stay in White House It has been initially reported that Donald Trump will not stay at the White House. Following this decision, Trump's wife preferred to remain living in New York as well with Barron Trump. Melania's mother instincts wanted to avoid disturbances in her child's life and school schedules. Embed from Getty Images According to Perez Hilton, the first lady will still go to White House. However, she wanted her main attention to be on Barron. After all, Melania is reportedly hands on when it comes to taking care of her son. According to Perez Hilton, the first lady will still go to White House. However, she wanted her main attention to be on Barron. After all, Melania is reportedly hands on when it comes to taking care of her son. On the other hand, people can't seem to understand why Barron Trump needs this so much attention. Previous reports seem to show how troubled he is with all Melania's efforts to lessen the disruptions. In the end, they are reportedly aiming to have a normal life with their decision to stay at home in New York. Trump's son reacts to hearing his father say "tremendous" for the 100th time today #barrontrump #PresidentTrump #Election2016 pic.twitter.com/Ya5Pq7xBw4 Ashley Hames (@AshleyHames) November 9, 2016 Barron Trump and his Alleged Autistic Condition The said issue first come to light when Donald Trump reacted against vaccinations at early age. Vaccinations are said to be the result of autism. He gave an example about a kid whom he knew with that condition. And people presumed that it was Barron Trump. Moreover, there are no confirmed details if the child possesses the said condition. I'm not against vaccinations for your children, I'm against them in 1 massive dose.Spread them out over a period of time & autism will drop! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2014 Furthermore, Barron Trump could have been the first son to live again at White House since John F. Kennedy. Unfortunately, that would be unlikely base on recent reports. Email Links to our top local news stories of the day, Monday through Saturday. Piedmont Advantage Credit Union and Piedmont Hawthorne Aviation LLC have agreed to dismiss their lawsuits, about seven weeks after reaching a confidential settlement over accusations of land contamination. The parties agreed in Wednesdays filing with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of N.C. to dismissal with prejudice, meaning it cant be filed again. The dismissal includes the filing of a third-party complaint against Jim Taylor, retired top executive of Landmark Aviation and chairman of PACU. PACU alleged in a complaint filed Jan. 11 that Piedmont Hawthorne, doing business as Landmark Aviation, damaged PACUs 17,532-square-foot facility at 3810 N. Liberty St. by the knowing and unabated continued migration of oil and other hazardous substances from (its) aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul facility at 3820 N. Liberty St., a 74,568-square-foot building on a 7.93-acre site. The PACU property is across the street from Smith Reynolds Airport. Landmark responded Feb. 15 to the PACU complaint by requesting that it be dismissed. In July, a potential sale of the property involving Forsyth County was disclosed in a court filing that led to a 90-day stay in the case until Sept. 28. As part of the $2 billion Connect NC bond proposal that was approved in a statewide referendum in March, $350 million in funding was dedicated to N.C. Community College System projects. Forsyth Technical Community College is proposing a $16 million aviation campus at Smith Reynolds to provide training that people need for jobs at companies around the airport. The facility would offer hangar space, classrooms, shop and laboratory space for technology education and training, including Federal Aviation Administration certified training. Money for the project was included in a $65 million county bond referendum that voters approved in the November general election. Forsyth Tech has said the campus could open by 2019. Our existing tenants are always seeking qualified people in metal work, aircraft mechanics and avionics, said Mark Davidson, the airports director. We think it will revitalize and help Smith Reynolds Airport. PACU claimed that Landmark violated the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act and the federal Oil Pollution and Hazardous Substances Control Act, in addition to claims of private nuisance, trespass to real property, and negligence to adjoining landowners. The credit union requested reimbursement and punitive damages for costs and losses because of contamination to its property. It wanted the court to issue a permanent injunction requiring Landmark to abate and remediate the site. PACU said it had been unsuccessful since August 2014 in trying to sell the site because of the contamination issues. The defendants said they have refused two requests from the credit union to buy the property. Landmark acknowledges that contamination has occurred on its property and that it is cooperating with the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality on remediation for that property. It said it is cooperating with the agencys investigation of the other property, but denies it knowingly permitted any migration of contaminants onto the PACU property. Paul Burks, founder of defunct Ponzi scheme ZeekRewards.com, may learn by the end of the month the length of his prison term and when it starts. A brief description of a sealed court filing Friday said that a final pre-sentence investigation has been completed. Sentencing could occur on or after Nov. 28. On July 21, a federal jury found Burks, 67, of Lexington, guilty of wire and mail-fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, and tax-fraud conspiracy in the $939 million Ponzi scheme. The wire and mail-fraud conspiracy charge, the mail-fraud charge and the wire-fraud charge each carry a maximum prison term of 20 years and a $250,000 fine. The tax-fraud conspiracy charge carries a maximum prison term of five years and a $250,000 fine. Burks has been free on bond awaiting his sentencing date. It is possible Burks could spend the rest of his life in prison. ZeekRewards was one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history, according to federal regulatory officials and prosecutors. The companies, which debuted in January 2011, were shut down and their assets frozen in August 2012. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Rex Venture Group LLC, Zeekler, ZeekRewards and Burks of raising more than $800 million through unregistered securities, also known as penny auctions, and another $96 million in subscription fees. The companies raised the money from at least 2.2 million customers, including more than 230,000 in the United States, with 47,000 of those in North Carolina. Prosecutors claimed that Burks received at least $10.1 million from the scheme. Burks reached a consent settlement with the SEC in August 2012 in which he did not admit wrongdoing or that his companies operated as a Ponzi scheme. However, he agreed to pay a $4 million penalty. The court-appointed receiver for ZeekRewards, Kenneth Bell, said that as of Sept. 30, he has recovered $362 million and disbursed $269.8 million to victims. Many victims have received funds accounting for between 60 percent and 70 percent of their losses. On Sept. 13, two top ZeekRewards officials were sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Dawn Wright-Olivares and her stepson, Daniel Olivares, pleaded guilty in February 2014 to fraud charges after reaching agreements in December 2013 with the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of N.C. Wright-Olivares served as chief operating officer, while Olivares was senior technology officer. Wright-Olivares pleaded guilty to an investment fraud conspiracy charge and to tax fraud conspiracy. She was sentenced to a 90-month prison term by Judge Max Cogburn Jr. She had faced up to 10 years in prison. Olivares pleaded guilty to an investment fraud conspiracy charge. He was sentenced to two years in prison. He faced up to five years in prison. Wright-Olivares faces up to a $500,000 fine, while Olivares faces up to $250,000 fine. Wright-Olivares owned 95 percent of Wandering Phoenix LLC, a company that she used, among other things, to receive payments from ZeekRewards and Rex Venture. Wright-Olivares and Wandering Phoenix were said to have received about $7.2 million in victim funds. The attorneys office said Daniel Olivares personally enriched himself with victim funds totaling $3.1 million. WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump's charity has admitted that it violated IRS regulations barring it from using its money or assets to benefit Trump, his family, his companies or substantial contributors to the foundation. According to a 2015 tax return posted on the nonprofit monitoring website GuideStar, the Donald J. Trump Foundation acknowledged that it used money or assets in violation of the regulations not only during 2015, but in prior years. The tax filing, first reported Tuesday by The Washington Post, doesn't provide details on the violations. The filing's release comes as the New York attorney general's office investigates whether Trump personally benefited from the foundation's spending, including several purchases detailed in reports by The Post. Questions sent via email to Trump's transition team weren't immediately answered Tuesday. The foundation's admission in the tax filing isn't the first time it has run afoul of laws and regulations governing charitable organizations. In October, the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, ordered the foundation to stop soliciting donations after it was discovered that the charity had been accepting outside contributions without the proper New York state registration. The foundation also gave an improper $25,000 check to a political committee supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in 2013. Charities are barred from engaging in political activities, and the president-elect's staff says the check he signed was mistakenly issued following a series of inexplicable clerical errors. Earlier this year, the Trump Foundation paid a $2,500 fine to the IRS over the check. Trump had intended to use personal funds to support Bondi's re-election, his campaign said. At the time, Bondi's office was fielding media questions about whether she would follow the lead of Schneiderman, who had then filed a lawsuit against Trump University and Trump Institute. Scores of former students say they were scammed by Trump's namesake get-rich-quick seminars in real estate. Bondi, who the AP reported in June personally solicited the $25,000 check from Trump, took no action against Trump University. Trump last week settled three lawsuits over Trump University days before the scheduled start of a fraud trial in California, agreeing to pay out $25 million with no admission of wrongdoing. Bondi, meanwhile, met with Trump in Manhattan last week and appears to be under consideration for an appointment in the Trump administration. A wildfire that broke out Monday night in Blowing Rock has led to evacuations. According to WBTV, the fire began around 7:30 p.m. in the Sampson Road area in Watauga County. The brush fire is moving into the woods and is endangering a few homes. About 12 structures have been prepped. Officials are burning around the structures to protect them, according to the report. The latest of the growing western North Carolina wildfires now includes Blowing Rock in Watauga County. More than 1,000 firefighters are battling several wildfires that have been burning for over a week in western North Carolina. In a joint press conference with Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel last week, President Obamas advice to President-elect Donald Trump and whoever else was listening was on the money: Last week marked the 27th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The United States was proud to stand with the people of Germany as this nation and this continent reunited, and rebuilt, and reached for a better future. And its a reminder that the commitment of the United States to Europe is enduring and is rooted in the values we share values that Angela just mentioned: our commitment to democracy; our commitment to rule of law; our commitment to the dignity of all people in our own countries and around the world. Our alliance with our NATO partners has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for nearly 70 years in good times and in bad, and through presidents of both parties because the United States has a fundamental interest in Europes stability and security. The commitment that Angela and I share to this guiding principle has formed the basis for our conversations this afternoon. He then gilded the lily, admonishing his successor, that on issues like Ukraine, on issues like Syria, weve had very significant differences. And my hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach, finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia where they are deviating from our values and international norms. He kept going, as if he assumed moral amnesia had descended from the skies: My hope is, is that he does not simply take a realpolitik approach and suggest that if we just cut some deals with Russia, even if it hurts people, or even if it violates international norms, or even if it leaves smaller countries vulnerable or creates long-term problems in regions like Syria that we just do whatever is convenient at the time. Listening to Obama, of all people, one can only marvel at the hypocrisy and chutzpah. President Obama has allowed Russia, with little penalty, to invade and hold on to territory of a sovereign country and U.S. ally, Ukraine. Obama opposed supplying Ukraine with even defensive arms and never pushed forward with sector-wide sanctions. Obama took no action to speak of when it was confirmed that Russian-backed rebels shot down a civilian airliner. Obamas nonexistent Syria policy consisted of handling the chemical weapons issue over to Moscow. Pushing on an open door, Russia has stood by Syrias Bashar al-Assad, helping him to commit genocide and assorted other war crimes and to create a refugee crisis of enormous proportions which Merkel has had to contend with (and which Trump used to fuel his xenophobic campaign). Among the presidents dating back to 1980, Obama has been the weakest when it comes to human rights. The administration tried its best to derail the Magnitsky Act. He had no response to speak of when Russia summarily banned a group of nongovernmental organizations. Even when Russia meddled in the U.S. presidential election, the administration remained relatively mute. Over the past eight years, this administration has mastered the art of the empty declaration of indignation (e.g., deeply concerned, object in the strongest terms). When Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) panned Trumps chummy phone call with Putin, he might as well have been talking to Obama: The Obama administrations last attempt at resetting relations with Russia culminated in Putins invasion of Ukraine and military intervention in the Middle East. At the very least, the price of another reset would be complicity in Putin and Assads butchery of the Syrian people. That is an unacceptable price for a great nation. When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side those fighting tyranny. That is where we must stand again. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) implicitly indicted the current administration in recounting recent developments: Russias destabilizing activities continue abroad with attacks on Ukrainian forces across the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and Russias illegal occupation of Crimea, a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty that cannot and will never be legitimized. Putins announcement Wednesday that he will withdraw Russia from the International Criminal Court because of a United Nations inquiry into his activities in Ukraine speaks for itself. In Syria, the wide-scale bombing of Aleppo by Russian forces is an unconscionable crime against humanity. We have said many times as an international community, never again. But it is happening. Today. Right now. Led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Putin. If Trump really wanted to show up his predecessor, hed take McCain and Cardin seriously, adopt a hard line against Putin, stand up for NATO and our other allies, be bellicose on human rights and work to change conditions on the ground in Syria to undermine the position of Iran and Russia. Instead, Trump seems poised to continue Obamas policy of timidity and moral vacuity starting with his selection of Putin toady Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn as his national security adviser. Today A mix of clouds and sun this morning followed by increasing clouds with showers developing this afternoon. High 67F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%. Tonight A shower is possible early. Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. Winds light and variable. Tomorrow Sun and a few passing clouds. High 71F. Winds light and variable. The Dorchester County Sheriff's Office recently announced bringing a murder suspect into custody related to an Oct. 20 incident that transpired at 107A Roberta Drive in the Greenhurst subdivision of Summerville. Read moreS'ville homicide under investigation Reddit Email 0 Shares Human Rights Watch | Witnesses Describe Executions (Erbil) A mass grave discovered near Mosul by Iraqi Security Forces on November 7, 2016, most likely contains the bodies of at least 300 former local police officers executed by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Witnesses said that they believe that at the end of October, ISIS massacred several hundred former policemen they had been holding as prisoners. The bodies in the grave, 30 kilometers southeast of Mosul, appeared to be of men killed in custody. This is another piece of evidence of the horrific mass murder by ISIS of former law enforcement officers in and around Mosul, said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. ISIS should be held accountable for these crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch visited the site of the mass grave, around 50 by100 meters, on the outskirts of the village of Hammam al-Alil, on an Iraqi military training ground behind an agricultural college campus, on November 12. Researchers saw four exposed corpses, as well as piles of trash covering corpses. The area had a strong, foul smell. This is another piece of evidence of the horrific mass murder by ISIS of former law enforcement officers in and around Mosul. ISIS should be held accountable for these crimes against humanity. Joe Stork Deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch reviewed the summary of a report of a governmental delegation from Baghdad who visited the site on November 9. It stated that the grave housed about 100 corpses, with at least 20 visible from the surface. It found, based on the visible corpses level of decomposition that the individuals had been killed within the previous three weeks. All the visible corpses had bound hands and ankles and were blindfolded. Ammar, 31, a laborer from the village of Rasif, 15 kilometers south of Hammam al-Alil, and Ahmed, 28, a former policeman from the same village, told Human Rights Watch that on October 19, at a time when ISIS was fully in control of the village and neighboring towns and villages, fighters rounded up at least 2,000 people from the area and forced them to head north toward Mosul and Tel Afar. Most did not have cars so had to walk. Expand An ISIS mass grave discovered near Mosul on November 7, 2016, most likely contains the bodies of at least 300 former local police officers. The corpses were not buried, some were covered with piles of trash while others were left on the surface. 2016 Belkis Wille/Human Rights Watch Ahmed said that the families walked four kilometers the first day, and spent the night in the village of Safiyah, with ISIS fighters forcing local people to host the families. The following morning, fighters called all the men and boys 15 and above to gather in the village. ISIS separated the former policemen, loaded them into vehicles, and drove them away Ahmed said he heard they were taken to Hammam al-Alil. The remaining men, women, and children traveled to another 10 kilometers to Hammam al-Alil over the next two days by foot. Ahmed said he had escaped detection as a police officer by hiding in a villagers home, and he subsequently joined the families. By the time the group reached Hammam al-Alil, it included families from eight villages. People there housed three or four families each in their homes, Ammar said. He said that when his family reached Hammam al-Alil, they escaped by hiding for days in an abandoned apartment near the agricultural college. On the night of October 28, at about 8 p.m., Ammar said, he saw ISIS fighters drive four large KIA trucks carrying a total of 100 to 125 men, some whom he recognized as former policemen, past the agricultural collage. Minutes later he heard automatic gunfire and cries of distress. The next night, he saw ISIS fighters bring the same four trucks, carrying between 130 and 145 men. Minutes later he again heard automatic gunfire and screams. Expand A home used as a prison by ISIS in Hammam al-Alil, where fighters held policemen before executing them and leaving their bodies in a mass grave, according to witnesses. All the walls were painted black, and the windows were covered in order to keep the prison in the dark. 2016 Belkis Wille/Human Rights Watch Muhammad, from Hammam al-Alil, said he and his family lived about 250 meters from the mass grave site. He told Human Rights Watch that for three nights in a row starting at about 10 p.m., he heard automatic gunfire for about seven minutes. Muhammad said that three ISIS fighters came to their home at about 5 a.m. on October 27, and took away his brother Hamed, a 33-year-old former policeman, saying they needed to interrogate him. Muhammad said he had not heard from his brother since. Hassan, 16, a student from Hammam al-Alil, lived next to the house ISIS fighters used as a makeshift prison to hold men from neighboring villages. He took Human Rights Watch researchers to the prison, which he said ISIS had opened in July. Around October 20, he said, ISIS starting bringing groups of about 30 new prisoners to the prison daily, and removing others already there. He said he recognized most of the men as former police from Hammam al-Alil and neighboring villages. On the night of October 28, he saw ISIS fighters load about 40 men into at least three trucks and drive off in the direction of the agricultural college. Then a few minutes later he heard gunfire. This continued for two more nights, he said. Human Rights Watch spoke with five Hammam al-Alil police officers on November 3. They said that at 11 a.m. on October 20, an ISIS commander announced over the loudspeakers in three Hammam al-Alil neighborhoods ordering all men and boys over age 12 to gather at a nearby bridge. Worried that they might be targeted because of reports of ISIS rounding up security force members, these officers and at least 65 others escaped. They said they did not know what happened to the men who had been taken. Expand A holding cell set up in a home used as a prison by ISIS in Hammam al-Alil, where fighters held policemen before executing them and leaving their bodies in a mass grave, according to witnesses. 2016 Belkis Wille/Human Rights Watch A local official told Human Rights Watch that ISIS had taken about 2,000 individuals north toward Mosul on that date. Iraqi Security Forces pushed ISIS out of the town after clashes on November 7. Since the Mosul operation began, Human Rights Watch has documented ISIS forcibly evacuating civilians under their control with its fighters, apparently to use them as human shields, and executions of former Iraqi security forces. ISIS has also carried out at least three chemical attacks on civilians south of Mosul. Widespread or systematic murder carried out by a state or organized group as part of an attack against a civilian population as part of a policy to commit murder constitutes a crime against humanity. The killing of prisoners, civilian or military, during an armed conflict constitutes a war crime. Crimes against humanity and war crimes are prohibited under the International Criminal Courts Rome Statute. But the courts jurisdiction only applies to crimes committed in the territory of or by the nationals of countries that are parties to the Rome Statute, or to situations referred to the court by the UN Security Council. Iraq has not yet ratified the Rome Statute. Via Human Rights Watch Related video added by Juan Cole: BBC News: Inside the street battles for Mosul BBC News Reddit Email 12 Shares By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | Richard Spencer is a rock star of the Neofascist movement that hides behind the euphemism alt-right. (Since theyre always going on about how manly white people are, why dont they man up and admit their Nazism? Why hide behind weak tea like a keyboard pun?). Trumps new Goebbels, Steve Bannon, had turned Breitbart.com, he said, into an organ of the alt-right, i.e. of Neofascism, and Richard Spencer is the leader of the movement Bannon/ Trump have empowered. On Saturday the Neofascists met at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., and Spencer gave an unhinged rant I mean, speech during which he denounced the Lugenpresse, a toxic German word. The lying press or mendacious press is not just an attack on journalists in the tradition of the German far right wing. Everyone understood that the term was racialized. Pure Germans did not write lying newspaper articles. Only Jews and mongrel leftist inferior Germans would do such a thing. This connotation of the word was very deep and preceded the rise of the National Socialists. But it was especially used by the Nazis to deflect criticism. Who could dissent from the dynamic march of Nazism but the lying Jewish press? CNN: Alt-Right Founder Questions If Jews Are People Thus, during the Spanish civil war the German air squadron, the Condor Legion, was loaned to Gen. Francisco Franco by Hitler. It bombarded the Basque town of Guernica in April of 1937, dropping 3,000 incendiary bombs on it. News of the atrocity provoked the horror of the outside world. Among those deeply touched by the piles of scattered body parts was Pablo Picasso, whose masterpiece on the subject in turn caught the global imagination. In response, the Nazi propaganda machine swung into action. There was no massacre from the air of Guernica. It was an ancient archeological site that had long been rubble. Allegations to the contrary were, you guessed it, dismissed as the work of the judische Lugenpresse, the mendacious Jewish press. Richard Spencer last Sunday said the word lovingly, with a broad mischievous smile, looking for all the world like Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs after a hearty meal of human and fava beans, drawing out the umlaut on the u . . . Lu. . . u . . . ugenpresse. He knew exactly the Nazi dog whistle he was blowing, knew that he was using a highly racialized term. Spencer complained of the mainstream press and the army of social media commentators who predicted the outcome of the election incorrectly, adding, One wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless Golem. Right wing rags are defending Spencer, saying that he did not direct this last sentence at Jews. But of course he did. First of all, he had already identified the target of his ire as the Lugenpresse, which has heavy racial overtones especially in the world of white supremacism in which Spencer operates. The second dog whistle is his use of the word golem, which derives from a Jewish fable about clay that is brought to life by magic. Then there were his hysterical shouts of Heil! at the end of his speech, which rather give the show away. Spencer went on to say that the present United States had become a sick, corrupted society. He alleged, America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity . . . It is our creation, it is our inheritance and it belongs to us. I somehow dont think Spencer includes Arabs and Jews in the category of white. You even suspect you have a good idea who exactly he thinks corrupted American society. Act two of this sordid tale, which deeply implicates Steve Bannon and Donald J. Trump, came on Monday on CNN when reporter Jim Sciutto asked a panel about Spencers speech, describing it as hate-filled garbage against the Jews. Contemporary cable television news services have contracted with the Chyron company, which provides software that electronically generates captions in the bottom third of the screen as interviews are proceeding . These captions are called chyrons in the business. Unfortunately, the robot script went very badly awry, when it operated on Spencers National Socialist screed, throwing up the caption Alt-Right Leader questions whether Jews are People. Jewish viewers, who were under the firm impression that their membership in homo sapiens sapiens was uncontroversial, were shocked and horrified that this question was being posed on the small screen in bright letters, as were we other bona fide members of that genus and species. Maybe the Neanderthals of the Neofascist movement not so much. I fear the condemnations issued by hard right pro-Netanyahu Jewish groups of Spencers ugly discourse will not carry much moral weight. They have squandered their credibility by crying Antisemite at people who care whether Palestinians are stateless, and by aligning with a Republican Party that has had its lips glued to the dog whistle for some decades. That Israeli cabinet members have stood up for Trump and Bannon further debases their coin. American Jews deserve to be represented by decent organizations who care as much about Palestinian rights as they do about those of Jews. What happened was not Jim Sciuttos fault he was obviously deeply appalled by Spencers remarks. He was filling in for Jake Tapper, who is Jewish, so the awkwardness is, like, multidimensional. It was the gaffe of a robot, and of television producers who had automated chyron-generation. But Id like to point that this misstep of the chyron bot is simply symptomatic for CNN in its 2-year-long coverage of the presidential campaign. It almost nightly turned the airwaves over to Trump bloviating at his rallies and saying racist things. Moreover, its reporters have rushed to normalize Trumpism. The disgust and discomfort we all felt at seeing the Nazi chyron is not a new emotion. We had felt it when Mexicans were being excoriated as rapists and all Muslims as dangerous, and women were configured as undressed Barbie Dolls whose limbs and genitals are available for twisting. The Nazi chyron, in short, is the perfect symbol of the complete pusillanimity and complicity of the corporate media in the dark side of the Trump phenomenon, which Steve Bannon has admitted has more in common with the planet-destroying Darth Vader than with George Washington and James Madison. Reddit Email 0 Shares By Luis Gomez Romero | (The Conversation) | In an interview with CBSs 60 Minutes, United States president-elect Donald Trump highlighted some campaign promises that he actually plans to keep. Among others, he confirmed that he will build his promised wall on the Mexican border and deport up to three million undocumented migrants. If the United States is serious about kicking out the bad hombres from Mexico and Latin America, then its important to ask: who, in fact, are these people? In Trumps apocalyptic worldview, theyre a hoard of Latino gang members and drug dealers with criminal records who are invading America. But analysis reveals that image is far from reality. Whats in a name? First, Mexico and Latin America are not the only sources of immigration to the US. In fact, since 2009 more Mexicans have been leaving the US than coming to it, and China and India have since overtaken Mexico in flows of recent arrivals. Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa also now comprise a significant share of undocumented immigrants in the US. Still, in his third presidential debate, Trump used Spanish to depict undocumented migrants as wicked lawbreakers. The perverse effect of the bad hombres quip is the vilification of Latinos in our own language albeit with such humorously bad diction that it sounded more like bad hambres bad hunger. This bigotry is the hashtag version of an old and ugly American tradition. As early as 1829, Joel Poinsett, Americas first ambassador to Mexico, described Mexicans as an ignorant and debauched people. The supposed moral and intellectual ruin of Mexicans was the predictable outcome of the constant intercourse of Spaniards with the aborigines. That is, Mexicos mestizo origins were the cause of the countrys backwardness. On 60 Minutes Trump Finally Reveals Just How Many People Hes Going To Deport as President In Poinsetts view, whereas Spanish settlers were among the most ignorant and vicious of Christian Europeans, Mexicos native people were the very lowest class of human beings. Poinsetts racist generalisations established the foundations of current US stereotypes about Mexicans and Latin Americans. Meeting the bad hombres Given the unsavoury foundations of some Americans suspicion that Latin American migrants are violent criminals, its urgent to understand precisely what sort of migrants Donald Trump may deport. We can do so by examining the record-breaking 2.6 million deportations undertaken by the current American administration. Barack Obama has actually tried to focus immigration enforcement on convicted criminals, and Trumps approach is, to some extent, a continuation of these policies. But Obama also intended to build political support for revising immigration laws that aimed at creating a path to citizenship for illegal migrants in the US. The Obama administration estimated by 2013 that 1.9 million removable criminal aliens were living in the US. This figure is not limited to undocumented migrants. It includes those with greencards (for legal permanent residency) and those with temporary visas. Nor is it limited to those found guilty of serious crimes; it also includes people who have been convicted not of drug trafficking or gang activity but of theft and other non-violent crimes. So it would be a mistake to assume that the key priorities of immigration enforcement are terrorism suspects and convicted felons. In 2015, 59% of the people America deported 235,413 in total were convicted criminals, while 41% were removed for immigration violations such as overstaying a visa. Undocumented entrants apprehended at the border are also included in this number. So the claim that three million undocumented migrants living in the US are dangerous criminals is unsubstantiated and irresponsible. The tide of history flows back to the US Still, hundreds of thousands of deportees are actual criminal offenders. The stereotypical Latino offenders that primarily obsess Trump and his ilk are gang members and drug dealers: Mexican cartel bosses, Salvadoran maras. Scary stuff, right? Maybe, but a nuanced historical analysis shows something nativist US politicians are less keen to publicise: that American anti-Communist foreign policies implemented in the 1980s played a major role in fuelling these criminal activities. Ronald Reagan famously claimed in 1982 that those who embraced communism ran against the tide of history. Reagan thus committed himself to lead a crusade for freedom against the communist evil. Under his watch, the US was meant to deliver freedom and human dignity across the world. Mexico and Central America were crucial battlefields. In 1979, the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front overthrew Anastasio Somozas dictatorial government in Nicaragua. Reagan immediately offered financial and material support to anti-Sandinista forces called the Contras, including by ordering the CIA to plant mines in Nicaraguas harbours and deploying funds obtained by selling weapons to Iran, which were then embargoed. Critical to todays reality, the US also channelled its assistance to the Contras through traffickers who had been indicted on drug charges. A 1989 senatorial committee lead by then-Senator John Kerry, revealed an appalling complicity between the US government and Latin American drug traffickers. The report found, for example, that the Department of State paid over US$806,000 to renowned drug traffickers, including Honduran drug lord Juan Ramon Matta-Ballesteros. At the same time, in El Salvador, the US was also embracing a military junta that in 1979 had overthrown president Carlos Humberto Romero, offering its leaders substantial military and economic aid in order to prevent another Nicaragua. As El Salvadors dictators violently repressed political criticism and opposition, peaceful political groups metamorphosed into leftist guerrilla forces called the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). In May 1980, FMLN leadership met in Havana, Cuba, establishing themselves as US enemies. With US guidance in tactics learned from Vietnam, the Salvadoran army brutally suppressed the FMLN Communists. According to Americas Watch, this strategy involved, along with bombings, occasional civilian massacres. This US-sponsored violence in Nicaragua and El Salvador soon spread to Guatemala and Honduras, in part due to geographic proximity and in part because as all these countries have historically been characterised by marked social and economic inequality. What does all of this have to do with the gangbangers and drug lords of Trumps imagination? Decades of war left thousands of Central American orphans. Many of them eventually migrated to the US and, parentless and penniless, joined what family the streets had to offer: criminal organisations such as Los Angeles Mara Salvatrucha and 18th Street gangs. Latino drug traffickers and gangs are hence an important legacy of the Reagan administration. Time for resistance John Forsyth was US Secretary of State from 1834 to 1841. In 1857, he noted in a letter that the hybrid races of the American continent would succumb to and fade away before the institutions and superior energies of the white man. The current president-elect of the US has ominously based his immigration policies on this tradition of thought, a problematic position further compounded by a general American failure to understand the historical causes of the immigration-related problems Trump seeks to address. The time for Latin America to resist bigotry and racism has thus arrived. In this task, we must not resort to nationalist discourses that merely mirror, from the other side of the looking glass, the stereotype of evil gringos who hate bad hombres. Rather, Latin American responses to racism should draw both from humanism and an accurate knowledge of the past, as well as of human rights and international law. Two positive steps we could take are addressing the countries own crime problems while respecting rights and due process, and treating with dignity the approximately 500,000 Central American immigrants who cross into Mexico each year. Like it or not, history and geography have now made Mexicans the vanguard of resistance, and the world will be watching. Luis Gomez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. [JURIST] Egypts Court of Cassation [official website, in Arabic] on Tuesday overturned the life sentences of former president Mohamed Morsi and 16 other members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi had been convicted [Al Jazeera report] for conspiring with the Palestinian Hamas and other foreign militant groups. The court ordered a retrial in the matter, though a new hearing date is yet to be scheduled. The court also performed the same [AP report] for Brotherhood spiritual leader Mohammed Badei and fellow members accused of spying for Hamas and Iran. Last week the court had overturned [JURIST report] Morsis death sentence in the matter of his prison break during the Egyptian Revolution in 2011. Morsi still faces numerous other sentences including 20 years for violence against protestors [JURIST report] and 40 years for leaking state secrets to Qatar. Morsi was elected president of Egypt in 2012 following the Egyptian Revolution [JURIST backgrounder]. After only a year in power, Morsi was deposed by the military in July 2013 and criminal charges were first raised [JURIST reports] against him in September of the same year. In August 2014 the Supreme Administrative Court in Egypt banned [JURIST report] the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsis political party, from the country. An Egyptian appeals court acquitted [JURIST report] Morsis former prime minister, Hisham Qandil, in July of that year. Morsis trial in Cairo was adjourned [JURIST report] in February 2014 after a brief appearance in court. Following the initial charges of incitement to murder, Morsi was also charged [JURIST report] with espionage and terrorism in December 2013. [JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Monday that Republican redistricting in the state was unconstitutional gerrymandering. The court stated that Act 43 [text], enacted by the Wisconsin Legislature [official website] in 2011, directly influenced the the results of the 2012 and 2014 elections. According to the court, 12 Wisconsin voters brought suit alleging Republicans of, [t]wo gerrymandering techniques: crackingdividing a partys supporters among multiple districts so that they fall short of a majority in each oneand packingconcentrating one partys backers in a few districts that they win by overwhelming margins, in order to dilute the votes of Democrats statewide. The court concluded that these techniques are not explained by the political geography of Wisconsin nor [are they] justified by a legitimate state interest. Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel [official profile] said that he planned to appeal [statement]. Voting rights and issues have remained a constant topic in US courts. Advocacy groups in September filed a lawsuit challenging the redrawn boundaries [JURIST report] for North Carolinas congressional seats. Also in September several organizations filed a federal lawsuit challenging Georgias voter registration system [JURIST report]. In April the Supreme Court unanimously upheld [JURIST report] an Arizona commissions decisions regarding the redistricting of voting districts in the state. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf on Monday vetoed [veto message, PDF] HB 1538 [text, PDF], a bill that would criminally punish public officials that release information about police officers within 30 days of their causing death or serious harm. Wolf explained his veto: these situations demand utmost transparency, otherwise a harmful mistrust will grow between police officers and the communities they protect and serve. Further, I cannot allow local police department policies to be superseded and transparency to be criminalized, as local departments are best equipped to decide what information is appropriate to release to the public. Both the Pennsylvania House and Senate voted in favor of the bill with large majorities151-32[legislative materials] in the House and 39-9 [legislative materials] in the Senateenough to overcome the veto should the bill come to a vote again. Wolfs veto comes in the midst of public outcry about police accountability. A Minnesota police officer was charged last week in the shooting death of Philando Castile, the same day the city of Cleveland submitted [JURIST reports] a revised use-of-force policy to the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, which is overseeing an agreement by the city to reform their police department. Cincinnati trial judge Megan Shanahan declared [JURIST report] a mistrial on November 12 after the jury declared it was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on murder and manslaughter charges in a case involving the shooting of an unarmed black man, Samuel DuBose, by Officer Raymond Tensing in July. In September the DOJ announced [JURIST report] it would investigate the shooting of Terence Crutcher, a unarmed black man killed by a police officer in Tulsa. [JURIST] The Catholic Church in Rwanda on Sunday issued an apology for its role in the Rwandan Genocide in a statement read aloud to parishioners. The Church acknowledged [Al Jazeera report] that many members engaged in wrongdoing, including the planning, aiding and execution of innocent people in Rwanda and also acknowledged that many were slain in the churches in which they took refuge. The Church stated [Catholic Herald report], [w]e apologize for all the wrongs the church committed. We apologize on behalf of all Christians for all forms of wrongs we committed. We regret that church members violated [their] oath of allegiance to Gods commandments. In May two former Rwandan mayors went on trial [JURIST report] in the Assize Court of Paris on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In January the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) formally closed [JURIST report] after issuing 45 judgments. In September of last year a court in Toulouse, France, refused extradition requests [JURIST report] for Joseph Habyarimana, a Rwandan man facing charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. In January of last year two Rwandan police officers were sentenced [JURIST report] to 20 years in jail for the murder of a Transparency International anti-corruption activist. In July 2014 the ICTR unanimously affirmed [JURIST report] a 30-year jail sentence for former army chief Augustin Bizimungu for the role he played in the genocide. In December 2012 the ICTR convicted [JURIST report] former Rwandan minister Augustin Ngirabatware, sentencing him to 35 years in prison on charges of genocide, incitement to commit genocide and rape as a crime against humanity. A group of UN human rights experts expressed concern [press release] Monday over countries attempting to retroactively block a mandate of an independent expert to investigate sexual orientation and gender identity-based rights abuses. The resolution [text] was approved by the member states of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website] in June. The challenge came from a bloc of African countries, which have typically gone against acknowledging lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. The Coordination Committee of Special Procedures [official website] warns that a move to block this resolution could undermine the authority of the UNHRC. The Third Committee of the General Assembly [official website] voted Monday on the resolution, with the attempted block failing. The challenge itself has left many experts hoping more challenges do not come, citing the special procedure mandates as a way to quickly address emerging issues. The group had warned that if the resolution had been voted against it might create a political vacuum for the UNHRC. The rights of LGBT persons remains a controversial topic throughout the world. The UN passing the resolution, which was originally passed [JURIST report] in June, shows that the largest International body is determined to protect the rights of citizens throughout the world. Many other countries have begun to follow this trend, including France, which last month removed a sterilization requirement [JURIST report] for transgender individuals. Not all movements towards LGBT rights are being met happily, as shown in September when thousands marched [JURIST report] in Mexico against same-sex marriage. In August the Belize Supreme Court struck down [JURIST report] an anti-gay law. Meanwhile in June, a Kenyan court upheld [JURIST report] a law allowing anal examinations to determine sexual orientation. NEWSLETTER Sign up Tick the boxes of the newsletters you would like to receive. Just Drinks Daily News The top stories of the day delivered to you every weekday. Just Drinks Weekly News A weekly roundup of the latest news and analysis, sent every Monday. Just Drinks Magazine The industry's most comprehensive news and information delivered every quarter President Tran Dai Quang (2nd line, 1st R) and other APEC leaders (Source: VNA) Addressing the closing ceremony of the APEC Summit 2016 in Lima, Peru on November 20th, the President welcomed leaders and representatives of APEC economies to the APEC year 2017 themed Creating New Dynamism, Fostering a Shared Future. Earlier the same day, the leader presented five proposals to ensure food security, climate change response and water resources access at the second plenary session of the 24th APEC Summit. The APEC economies should display political resolve and take drastic measures to realise global climate agreements, the President said. He also suggested developing agriculture in a sustainable manner in tandem with the effective use of natural resources, including cross-border management of water resources. Other tasks include implementing the APEC Disaster Risk Reduction Framework and improving disaster recovery capacity, with a focus on community-based disaster risk management and sustainable rural development. President Quang also stressed the need to enhance connectivity between remote areas, step up public-private partnerships in investment in infrastructure, transportation, telecommunications and the internet. APEC should intensify mutual support in capacity improvement, technology transfer and share experience to guarantee sustainable and comprehensive development, he noted. The leader also underlined the significance of linking regional connectivity programmes together, including the ASEAN and Mekong Sub-region connectivity programmes. He explained that climate change, natural disasters and water scarcity have had adverse impacts on peoples lives, sustainable development and regional food security. Vietnams Mekong Delta region, one of the worlds rice bowls, has been hit by severe drought and saltwater intrusion, affecting the livelihoods of tens of millions of people, he said. Participating leaders agreed that enhancing connectivity is essential for APEC member economies in the 21st century in the context of globalisation and development of technologies and global value chains. They committed to coordinating in coping with climate change, ensuring food security and promoting connectivity in infrastructure, digital, institutions and humans to facilitate trade and investment exchange while improving living standards. On November 20th evening, President Quang and his spouse left Peru, concluding his trip to the 24th high-level week of the APEC forum from November 17th-20th. He will then pay a State visit to Italy from November 21st-24th at the invitation of his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella and visit the Vatican on November 23rd as a guest of Pope Francis./. NEWSLETTER Sign up Tick the boxes of the newsletters you would like to receive. Just Style Daily Update The top stories of the day delivered to you every weekday. Just Style Weekly Update A weekly roundup of the latest news and analysis, sent every Monday. Just Style Magazine The industry's most comprehensive news and information delivered every quarter. Ms Sounthone Sayachac grants an interview with a VNA reporter. (Photo: VNA) Sounthone Sayachac, Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee member and Head of the Lao Party External Relations Committee, talked with Vietnam News Agency reporter about the significance and importance of the visit. According to Ms Sounthone Sayachac, the Vietnam - Laos relationship has been established for a very long time by President Ho Chi Minh and Presidents Kaysone Phomvihane and Suphanuvong. The relationship has been passed down and fostered by the next leading generations, the two States and peoples, becoming an invaluable asset of the two countries on the way of national development, prosperous and happy lives of the people. The Laos - Vietnam relationship is a factor deciding the success of both revolutionary process and the national construction, protection and development, said Ms Sounthone Sayachac, adding that the relationship between the two nations over the past years has been continuously expanded in every area, including politics, national defence, security, diplomacy, education, culture, trade and investment. At present, over 10,000 Lao students are studying in Vietnam, showing that the Laos - Vietnam relationship covers all areas and benefits both countries. In particular, in early 2016, the two Parties successfully organized the National Congresses. The close organization of the two Party Congresses shows similarities in operation, as well as in ideal, of the two Parties. During the Congresses, the two Parties stressed and confirmed their consistent policy in continuing to maintain and develop the great friendship relation, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two Parties, Governments and peoples, making the relationship better and better. Talking about the official visit by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, his first foreign visit since he was re-elected as Vietnamese Party General Secretary, Ms Sounthone Sayachac asserted his first foreign visit to Laos shows that the Vietnamese Party, Government and people always attach great importance to tightening the Vietnam-Laos relationship, confirming the vitality of the Laos - Vietnam special relationship which has been immortal and built up by the blood of so many Lao and Vietnamese people and soldiers. We appreciate meetings and discussion of cooperation among Vietnamese and Lao high-ranking leaders of the two Parties and Governments, continuing to work out orientations for cooperation expansion in the future, she said, confirming that she believed this visit would make important contribution to expand and heighten the friendship relationship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two Parties, Government and peoples./. Philadelphia, PA, USA, 11/22/2016 /SubmitPressRelease123/ Daniel Gallatin was a father, grandfather, veteran and fireman for nearly 40 years when he was killed in 2013 when his motorcycle was struck by a driver who was texting while driving in Hickory Township in Lawrence County in western Pennsylvania. Those who cared about him took action and helped pass Daniels Law which was signed by Governor Wolf earlier this month. This new state law imposes jail time for texting while driving in some situations. Philadelphia car accident lawyer Rand Spear says drivers are needlessly distracting themselves with cell phones and causing serious injuries and deaths. Under the new law drivers distracted by their cell phones could be sentenced up to five years in prison if a motor vehicle accident results in a fatality. If texting while driving causes serious bodily injury it could result in a two year sentence. Under past law the highest fine for texting while driving, a primary offense in Pennsylvania, was $50. The driver who killed Gallatin served sixty days in jail, seven months of work release and house arrest on manslaughter charges, according to the Philly Voice. More than 14,800 crashes were caused by drivers distracted by cell phones in 2015 in Pennsylvania, resulting in 66 deaths, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Nationwide distracted driving contributed to the deaths of 3,328 people in 2012 and about 421,000 people were injured in accidents involving distracted drivers. William Van Camp was distracted by texting while driving in Bucks County in 2011 when his Volkswagen collided with a pickup truck, causing severe injuries to the two men inside. As part of his criminal sentence he needs to speak to young drivers about the dangers of texting while driving, according to NBC10. Anthony Arminio and his father were in the truck. Arminio suffered broken legs, a broken pelvis, a broken hip and bleeding to his brain because of the accident. His fathers neck was broken. After three years the two have gotten more than $400,000 in medical treatment but both are still in pain due to their injuries. Van Camp sent or received 13 text messages in the 12 minutes leading up to the accident. He admits to texting to three different people while behind the wheel. Van Camp cant remember what he was texting about or who he was texting with at the time of the accident but hes not forgetting the consequences. He spent nine months in prison, had to complete fifty hours of community service and pay restitution. If you have been injured in a vehicle accident caused by a driver distracted by his or her cell phone whether you were in a vehicle or as a pedestrian in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, contact Philadelphia car accident lawyer Rand Spear at 888-373-4LAW today so you can set up a free consultation to discuss the accident, how the law may apply in your situation and what you should do next to protect your rights to compensation for your injuries. Photo courtesy of Oregon Dept. of Transportation http://www.flickr.com/people/[email protected] source: http://randspear.com/2016/11/21/jail-time-texting-driving-says-philadelphia-car-accident-lawyer-rand-spear/ Newsroom powered by Online Press Release Distribution SubmitMyPressRelease.com Like Us on Facebook It's only fair to share... Pinterest Linkedin email Print The working meeting was held to realise the results reached during a survey visit to Russia in October by the Vietnamese city Centres of Trade Promotion and Investment Promotion. Mr. Sergeev Geogry Gennadevich, on his first visit to Da Nang city to work in business with the city businesses, said that some Russian companies are seeking partners to open their representative offices in Vietnam. Businesses from St. Petersburg hope to cooperate with Vietnamese partners in aviation components and materials for helicopters and airplanes, electric motors, pump devices, metre devices in oil and gas sector, cold storage, interior decoration goods, and the processing of agricultural products, he said. He added that Russian businesses need to import electric engines and pumps, and hope to have goods contracts of up to 10 years. In addition, Russian businesses expressed their desire to establish joint ventures and complete legal documents to work in Vietnam as well as in Da Nang city. During the meeting, the two sides exchanged their demand for cooperation and showed their hope to have specific contracts in the near future. Accordingly, the Seatech Equipment Joint Stock Company wants to study devices to freeze quickly; the Song Thu Corporation cares about interior in shipbuilding, and generators; and the Opal interior supermarket is willing to be Russian businesses partner in selling high-class wooden interiors./. Photo: nhandan.com.vn During the program, the delegation also presented 500 sets of books in the Vietnamese language, 600 sets of schooling equipment and 6,000 notebooks worth VND100 million to the Vietnamese Cambodian Association in Kampong Chhnang and Pursat provinces. Vice Chairwoman of the Overseas Vietnamese Committee of Ho Chi Minh and head of the voluntary delegation Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh said that through the activity, the delegation wanted to express the affection of the Vietnamese Party, State and people towards overseas Vietnamese and Cambodians, hoping that they would overcome difficulties to lead stable, prosperous and happy lives. The activity also aimed to reinforce the good traditional relationship between the two peoples and Governments, she said. This was the second humanitarian activity that the Overseas Vietnamese Committee of Ho Chi Minh city has carried out in Cambodia this year./. Ambassador Truong Manh Son and some outstanding students (Photo: baoquocte.vn) Speaking at the ceremony, Vietnamese Ambassador to the Czech Republic Truong Manh Son praised the second and third generations of overseas Vietnamese in the Czech Republic for having studied well and reaping many successes in international, national and local knowledge, art and sport competitions. He also thanked the parents for being interested in educating their children to ensure the future for themselves, bring fame to their families, improve the position of the Vietnamese community and contribute to the local society. On behalf of the parents, Mr. Le Hoai Trung, who has two sons being honoured at the ceremony, stressed that despite the strenuous nature of making a living away from home, overseas Vietnamese still follow the tradition of the nation; always guiding their children to improve their knowledge and talent in all aspects and to remember their origins and ancestry. Ambassador Son; Mr. Hoang Dinh Thang, Head of the Union of Overseas Vietnamese Association in Europe; and Mr. Giang Thanh, Deputy Head of the Overseas Vietnamese Association in the Czech Republic, presented certificates of merit and awards to 55 outstanding young overseas Vietnamese in the Czech Republic. Apart from students gaining high points at high schools, universities and professional schools, there are students gaining high positions at national and provincial mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and Czech, English, German and French language Olympiads, and at piano, music, chess and karate competitions in the world, Europe and the Czech Republic. Over the past years, the Vietnamese Embassy and the Overseas Vietnamese Association have paid more attention to supporting the study and talent of young generations of overseas Vietnamese in the Czech Republic./. Reflecting Australias commitment to promote study opportunities for women and disabled Vietnamese, 38 of the 53 scholars are women and one awardee has a disability. Funded by the Australian Government, the Australia Awards are prestigious international awards targeting the next generation of global leaders. Awardees are able to undertake vocational education and training, professional development, research fellowships or postgraduate study at a university of their choice in Australia in a diverse range of areas. The new scholars are the latest of a total of 5,800 Vietnamese students who have received long-term and short-term training opportunities from the Australian Government since the opening of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1973. Many Australia Awards alumni have reached positions of leadership in both the private and public sectors throughout Vietnam. Photo: Binh Chau The Australia Awards are a central pillar in the development of Australias economic and innovation partnerships with Vietnam. They are building invaluable connections between the Australian and Vietnamese scholars and academics, which in turn helps develop innovation partnerships that boost productivity and economic development, said Australian Ambassador to Vietnam, Mr. Craig Chittick. Australia Awards recipients are required to return home to Vietnam, where they contribute to the development of this country. I am sure these awardees will make a strong contribution to Vietnams development and enduring linkages between Australia and Vietnam, he added. The Australia Awards Scholarships are part of a broader investment by the Australian Government in human resource development in Vietnam, which will over time include short courses and informal training opportunities to address gaps in skills and knowledge needed to support Vietnams development. They also contribute to stronger bilateral relations. The Australian Government recently launched the Australia Global Alumni Engagement Strategy to connect with alumni well after their studies are finished through ongoing learning opportunities and access to a thriving network of like-minded professionals that extends across the globe. New application rounds for Australia Awards Scholarships will open on February 1st, 2017 and in April 2017 for the Australia Awards - Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships./. On 19 November 2016, this years United Nations climate change conference ended in Marrakech, Morocco. The 22n conference of its kind, or COP22 as it is broadly known, was a relative success. Coming less than a year after COP21 in Paris (December 2015), COP22 was not meant to deliver any major new agreement, but to set in motion the process of implementing the ambitious Paris Agreement, which came into force on 4 November 2016, much earlier than anticipated. With China, the US, the European Union and many other countries on board it was not difficult to achieve the minimum requirement of 55 countries representing at least 55% of global emissions having become members to the Paris Agreement. In the shadow of Paris, the goal of Marrakech was to help sort out the specifics of the Paris Agreements implementation by accelerating the development of a rulebook a framework of rules or guidelines regarding the submission by member countries of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), as well as on transparency arrangements, new institutions like the Paris Committee on Capacity Building and processes like the periodic stocktaking of what more needs to be done to stay well below 2o Celsius in average global temperature increase compared to pre-industrial levels. At the same time, COP22 had to facilitate an effective implementation of decisions reached at pre-Paris COPs, like the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage, meant to assist developing countries cope with the cost of the most severe climate change impacts, such as tropical storms. Also on the agenda were the so-called Climate Change Gender Action Plans (ccGAPs), climate financing for both adaptation and mitigation, etc. Inevitable compromises and elaborate half-measures have once again increased the complexity and reduced the flexibility of the whole process. Within the confines of a semi-expert, semi-diplomatic gathering, the conference has delivered enough progress to allow all these issues to be moved forward. Nevertheless, the inevitable compromises and elaborate half-measures have once again increased the complexity and reduced the flexibility of the whole process. On the sidelines of the negotiations, but often central in terms of visibility and impact, many announcements were made of financial, technology or capacity building support to developing countries by international financial institutions or governments, as well as climate friendly investors from the private sector. The presence of some 80 heads of state or government and many more ministers elevated the conference to the highest political level. The non-binding Marrakech Action Proclamation on Our Climate and Sustainable Development that was issued in their name contains a strong push for the implementation of the Paris Agreement through the joint efforts of state and non-state actors. Disregarding the usual posturing and drama, part and parcel of any self-respecting negotiation process, all would, at least most of the time, be good and sunny like Marrakech itself if it were not for the chilling news that arrived during the opening days of the conference: Donald Trump was elected President of the USA, to succeed Barak Obama in late January 2017. A maverick opportunist, construction magnate and self-proclaimed anti-establishment fighter, Mr Trump had sent worrisome signals during his campaign with regard to climate action and the protection of the environment, among other messages of intolerance and unilateralism. Having tapped into the pulse of a large section of the US public, which harbours anti-globalisation, anti-immigrant and anti-intellectual feelings on both sides of the two-party system, Mr Trump can wreak havoc on international cooperation if he chooses to. The fear within and outside the US is that Mr Trump may withdraw his country from the Paris Agreement, or even from the mother UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) itself. This could be a low hanging fruit for Mr Trump to demonstrate that he keeps his electoral promises and acts according to his criticisms against the Obama Administration, which was among the first to accept the Paris Agreement, and was actually among its main architects. Hopefully, such fears will not materialise, not only because it will mean the shut-down of a major engine for climate action that the US has been, often in partnership with China, during Obamas years. The UNFCCC would also lose the 22% of its operating budget, contributed by the US, which would lead to reduced activities and reduced impact. If that happened, others could, of course, step in to bridge the gap. The cooperation between China and Europe could, perhaps, become more central, replacing the China-US leadership duo. While this would be quite possible in terms of economy size and climate ambitions, the chronically divided and politically weak European Union would need more than a shot of courage to step up to the plate. The challenge of climate change concerns more than just climate. It is an emblematic global issue that can only be addressed through global cooperation. The challenge of climate change concerns more than just climate. It is an emblematic global issue that can only be addressed through global cooperation. If Mr Trumps America goes a separate way and starts polluting with new or revamped coal power plants, if unrestrained shale gas extraction and oil pipelines criss-crossing the country are the new order of the day, that will lay an even heavier burden on all others to reduce their own emissions to try to make up for the US shortfall. The resulting free-for-all amidst bitter recriminations could unravel decades-worth of climate action efforts, and would undermine the broader 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United Nations in September 2015, which features the fight against climate change as one of its 17 global goals. Now more than ever, vigilance, leadership and coordinated action are required especially on the part of those still embracing the vision of an international system that works for all people, protects our planet and is geared towards a broadly shared prosperity. with Lawrence DeLoach Jewelry box aficionados; living and shopping with Mom; reselling epi-pens and Chick Fil-A; life as a stripper; the problem with roast battles; Megyn Kelly; Trump settles Trump University lawsuit; Hamilton vs. Mike Pence; West Virginia mayor enjoys racist Michelle Obama post This episode and pictures related to it are only available to KATG VIP members. Not a VIP member? Click here to find out more. Login to VIP We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Student Jessica Belanger, left, found out she can donate blood for the first time at the Canadian Blood Services Holiday Give campaign stop at Okanagan College on Monday. Standing next to Belanger is Canadian Blood Services territory manager Gayle Voyer. The importance of voting cannot be understated On Tuesday, Nov. 8, voters will head to the polls to choose who will serve as governor, lieutenant governor, state comptroller, attorney general, state Assembly... Spindle Items ..CRASH DETECTION The much-touted crash detection feature of the new iPhone 14 automatically dials 911 if it calculates that the vehicle has been in... Out of the Past 25 Years AgoNov. 5, 1997 The Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda Board of Education began the planning stages of hiring a new superintendent Monday. Dr. Donald Ogilvie... Community engagement through ThoughtExchange The Sweet Home Central School District is in the early stages of building and implementing a new strategic plan designed to ensure relevancy in our... The first results of operation of the innovation park on the territory of Kyiv Motorcycle Plant, the anchor projects of which are UNIT Factory and Technology Companies' Development Center (TCDC), would allow making a decision on the viability of expanding this project to other cities in the country, in particular, Lviv and Kharkiv, the businessman, famous developer and founder of K.Fund Vasyl Khmelnytsky has said. "I would open the first part [of the project in Kyiv]. I will see how the university works and how the project as a cluster works. Then I would assess the possibility of expanding the project to Lviv and Kharkiv. I have sites there," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine. Khmelnytsky said that 25 ha were allocated in Kyiv for the future innovation park. The presentation of the park and the managing company is scheduled for May 2017. Total investment in its development is estimated at $100-400 million. Commenting on the anchor projects, the founder of the park said that UNIT Factory created in partnership with French coding school 42 is free and open to all with the condition of working in Ukraine for three years after graduation. He said it should become a powerful source of IT specialists for companies that would be residents of the innovation park. He said that the number of students in UNIT Factory would be increased from current 300 to 3,000. "In three years we would create the environment where it would be hard for a person to leave our park. There will be everything there: institutes, startups, support center, many various free services, cafes, restaurants, accommodations and medical services. We would create a real cluster," he said. He said that the second anchor project of the innovation park is TCDC with gross area of 3,500 square meters. It will support small and medium-sized high-tech projects offering offices at the rent rates starting from $5 per square meter to compensation of up to 70% of the cost of educational programs. Kyiv Mohyla Business School will be the educational partner of the center. Yevhen Sarantsov's BlackBox Capital would be responsible for management in the technology sphere. In addition, a managing company, an advisory board, Juscutum law firm, BIONIC IT-University, two high-tech laboratories VR Lab (Crytek) and Smart City Lab would support the center. Construction works would be finished in December 2016. Total investment in TCDC is assessed at UAH 100 million. "We propose to companies to move to us with a discount. Thirty companies are ready to do this. In addition, we have arranged with Fablab Fabricator that they would be residents of the park. Then we will try to attract other companies, look for an investor, then find contractors to grow and expand. The main thing they would stay with us," Khmelnytsky said. He said that he wants to attract not only IT companies, but also representative of a wider cluster of new technologies. The businessman said that he does not have plans to create a venture fund or enter IT business himself. "I do not create my own IT companies. We would have 30 companies. Let them agree with each other, hire someone. I am ready to create the environment. The better environment is the higher rent rates will be. I will earn on this. I am afraid that if I create an IT company, I would become a rival [in the eyes of other companies]," he said. Khmelnytsky said that if promising startups and companies start working in the park venture funds would show their interest to them. Commenting on his previous project - Bionic Hill innovation park, when it was planned to open a large research and development (R&D) town with 35,000 jobs in the suburbs of Kyiv on 147 ha of the former military unit, he said that the project has been frozen until favorable conditions on the market appear. "There was no chance for Bionic today, as many foreign companies left the country for some reasons. I wanted to create the environment mainly for our specialists who would work in western R&D centers. Today they went away and now it is hard to do from the economic point of view," the businessman said. He said that he would realize the project in the future. "I am sure that it would build it. When I speak about UNIT, this is Bionic, but of the smaller scale and in the city," he said. Khmelnytsky is a majority shareholder in UDP, which is engaged in implementing large-scale infrastructure projects. Kyiv International Airport, Ocean Plaza shopping mall, Novopecherski Lypki residential complex, Boulevard of Fountains, RiverStone and Parkove Misto are among them. K.Fund was founded in 2015 to support projects related to education and the economy. Fitch Ratings has upgraded the Long-Term Foreign Currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) of seven Ukrainian banks to 'B-' from 'CCC', Fitch has said in a press release. The banks are State Export-Import Bank of Ukraine (Ukreximbank), State Savings Bank of Ukraine (Oschadbank), Alfa-Bank, Ukrsotsbank, ProCredit Bank (Ukraine), Credit Agricole Bank and Pravex-Bank. The Outlooks on six of the banks' Long-Term IDRs are Stable, the Outlook on Pravex-Bank is Negative. According to the press release, the revision of the Support Rating Floors (SRFs) to 'B-' from 'No Floor' and upgrades of state-owned Ukreximbank and Oschadbank reflect Fitch's view that the Ukrainian authorities' ability to provide support to the banks, in case of need, has somewhat improved. The upgrades of the Long-Term Local Currency IDRs of ProCredit Bank, Pravex and Credit Agricole Bank to 'B' from 'B-', i.e. one notch above the 'B-' sovereign rating, reflects the strength of the expected shareholder support for these entities. The affirmation of Alfa-Bank (Ukraine)'s and Ukrsotsbank's Long-Term Local Currency IDRs and Alfa-Bank (Ukraine)'s senior debt ratings at 'B-' reflects Fitch's view of potential support both banks' may receive from other assets controlled by their main shareholders, including their sister bank, Russia-based OJSC Alfa-Bank (AB; BB+/Negative). The probability of support is limited, in Fitch's view, due to the banks' indirect relationship with other Alfa Group assets and the mixed track record of support (for Alfa-Bank (Ukraine) from the shareholders. The Negative Outlooks on Pravex and the downgrade of its National Rating to 'AA+(ukr)' from 'AAA(ukr)' reflect the likelihood of the bank's ultimate sale and hence the probable reduction in potential shareholder support. Fitch said that Pravex is currently fully owned by Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. (Intesa, BBB+/Negative). The bank has been up for sale since early 2014, although with little apparent progress so far with its disposal and the absence of any named potential buyer. Alfa-Bank (Ukraine) and Ukrsotsbank are both ultimately owned by ABH Holdings S.A. (ABHH), which is part of Alfa Group's financial business and is the owner of several other banking subsidiaries, mostly in CIS. In October 2016, Ukrsots' former owner, UniCredit S.p.A. (UniCredit, BBB+/Negative), transferred its 99.9% share in Ukrsots to ABHH in exchange for 9.9% of ABHH's shares. ProCredit Bank is controlled (94% of voting stock) by Germany's ProCredit Holding AG & Co. KGaA. (BBB/Stable). Credit Agricole Bank is fully owned by Credit Agricole S.A. (A/Positive). The Cabinet of Ministers has approved a draft agreement on the extension of the agreement with the European Union on support of judicial reform for one year. According to the decree No.854 dated November 16, the Cabinet authorized First Deputy Prime Minister and Economic Development and Trade Minister of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv to sign this agreement. The report, which is attached to the decree, says that the decision was made to continue the implementation of the project "Support to reforms in the field of justice in Ukraine" for one year. The project will ensure the development strategy for reforming the criminal justice sphere, aimed at implementation of the Criminal Procedure Code; assistance in the implementation of police reform, the prosecutor's office, the system of ensuring citizens' rights to protection and access to justice, guarantee of the independence of the judiciary, prevention and combating corruption and provision of information to the public. Election Day may be behind us - however, for the small town of Rio Bravo, big changes are now set on what is required for anybody wanting to take office. Residents voted to pass six out of the seven amendments on the ballot. Some of the changes are on the education requirements for people looking to take office. Now, anybody wanting to become mayor must have a Bachelor's Degree from a U.S. school before putting his or her name on the ballot. "People have seen through prior mayors, prior candidates," says Mayor Francisco Pena. "They have seen education now a days is a must to carry on this kind of an office. I was gratified, was quite surprised." Another amendment passed is the Requirement of Commissioners Education. Now they must have a high school education from a U.S. school, and preferably two years in college. Avonmores Kilkenny-based soup production facility celebrates 25 years in operation this month, producing over three million packs of Avonmore fresh soup annually. Originally launched in 1991 with five flavours, Avonmore pioneered the introduction of fresh soup onto the Irish market and continues to grow the market with an expanding range of product. Using only natures best ingredients, the Kilkenny site produces 14 different varieties of fresh soup to meet changing consumer tastes and requirements. The Kilkenny facility employs 44 people, including Sile McEvoy and Ollie Nolan, who have been working at the facility since its opening 25 years ago. The Avonmore soup range is developed at Glanbias Innovation Centre in Kilkenny, where Product Development Chef, Barry Foley has been with Glanbia for ten years, developing the Avonmore food product portfolio. Commenting, Barry Foley said: Irish consumers have a strong affinity with fresh soup and seek out products that taste great and are convenient to eat. We work very closely with our network of local suppliers to ensure only the best quality ingredients are used in making our soups here in Kilkenny. We constantly strive to deliver a taste of homemade - delicious soups full of nourishing goodness in every spoonful. Eithne OHara, Head of Marketing for Avonmore Food said: Were delighted to celebrate 25 years of our soup plant with our employees here in Kilkenny. Avonmore has delivered the taste of homemade soup to Irish homes for 25 years, using the best of Irish ingredients. We look forward to continuing to innovate and evolve our wide range of flavours, pack sizes and formats to respond to evolving customer needs and tastes. Is your Starbucks habit putting a grande dent in your wallet? Try these tactics to slash your coffee tab. Join My Starbucks Rewards for a free birthday treat, free in-store refills, plus special discount offers. Gold members get a free food item or drink for every 125 stars they earn. Rack up the stars on your friends' or coworkers' dimes by being the designated coffee runner. Then, use your free rewards on fancier (aka more expensive) drinks. Subscribe to Kiplingers Personal Finance Be a smarter, better informed investor. Save up to 74% Sign up for Kiplingers Free E-Newsletters Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplingers expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail. Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplingers expert advice - straight to your e-mail. Sign up Only want a small caffeine jolt? Opt for the unadvertised (and less expensive) "short" size. Bring your own re-usable cup for a 10-cent discount. Don't bother buying bottled water to wash it all down. Just ask the barista for a cup of water. Buy discount Starbucks gift cards at websites like Gift Card Granny or Cardpool. Try brewing your own Starbucks coffee at home. My Starbucks Rewards members still score points at Teavana and on some grocery store purchases. When all else fails, consider a side gig as a barista to get 30% off drinks, food and merchandise. HANOI, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official market and indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi at 0111 GMT. Nov 22 Nov 21 USD/VND mid-point 22,120 22,124 USD/VND interbank 22,560/22,570 22,500/22,590 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 35.67/35.87 35.62/35.82 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 22 (Reuters) - Following is a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets, indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi and interbank offered rates at 0404 GMT. Nov 22 Nov 21 USD/VND mid-point 22,120 22,124 USD/VND interbank 22,534/22,540 22,500/22,590 USD/VND unofficial 22,630/22,650 22,630/22,700 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 35.68/35.86 35.62/35.82 Interbank offered rates Overnight 1.4-1.8 1.4-1.8 1 week 1.4-1.9 1.5-1.9 1 month 2.3-2.8 2.4-2.8 3 months 4.2-4.8 4.2-4.8 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; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath) The European Union (EU) would continue providing border assistance to Moldova and Ukraine during next years. The mandate of the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM) will be extended until late 2019, the Mission told Interfax on Tuesday. The decision was made earlier at the 27th meeting of the EUBAM Advisory Board in Chisinau (Moldova). The mandate of EUBAM is expiring on November 30, 2017. It has been prolonged four times. "Given the current geopolitical context, the challenges related to border and customs management, as well as the security situation, a general consensus emerged on the need for the EU to maintain its presence on the borders of this region," Chairman of the Advisory Board, EU Ambassador to the Republic of Moldova, Pirkka Tapiola, said. The mission plans to pay special attention to increase trust of Chisinau and Tiraspol in settling the Transdniestria conflict. According to the board, the situation on the Moldova-Ukraine border has considerably improved, automated data exchange has been established and technical requirements meeting European standards have been introduced. "Strengthening regional security through active contribution to the settlement of the Transdniestria conflict, efficient organization of integrated management at the Moldovan-Ukrainian border and combating smuggling and cross border crime remain the priority," Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Republic of Moldova Daniela Morari said. Deputy Director General, Directorate General for the European Union, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Serhiy Saienko appreciated that the EU presence in the field and on the borders, including the Ukrainian-Moldovan border, should be retained. "We should benefit from the experience gained and lessons learned by EUBAM, taking into account the current security challenges. Thus, we could consider replicating the existing EUBAM experience in other segments of the Ukrainian state border. If extended, the new EUBAM mandate could be focused mainly on issues related to the Transnistrian segment of the Ukraine-Moldova border and, if necessary, Integrated Border Management in the Republic of Moldova," he said. The EUBAM Advisory Board will meet again in Odesa in May 2017. The EUBAM was launched in 2005. It promotes border control, customs and trade norms and practices that meet EU standards and serve the needs of its two partner countries. It is an advisory, technical body based in Odesa (Ukraine). The Advisory Board, which meets twice a year, acts as the Missions governing body. (Kitco News) - Seabridge Gold (TSX: SEA, NYSE: SA) is one step closer in the development of one of the worlds largest gold mines after receiving a key license from the Canadian Government. Seabridge announced Monday that the federal government approved a 25-year license for the companys water management control system at the KSM project in northwestern British Columbia. The issuance of the water system license follows companys Environmental Impact Statement, which was approved by the Canadian government in 2014, after a seven-year evaluation. This important permit highlights the Government of Canada's continued support for the environmental standards incorporated into our design of the KSM project, said Rudi Fronk, Chairman and CEO of Seabridge. According to the companys press release, the projects water facilities will be located on the Mitchell and Sulphurets creeks, tributaries of the Unuk River system that flows into Alaska. Although the license is another major regulatory hurdle the company has surpassed, there is still a long way to go before the mine is developed and in commercial production. According to the companys Preliminary Feasibility Study, initial capital costs for the KSM project will total $5.5 billion and sustaining capital over the mines 51-year lifespan is estimated to be around $10 billion. The companys PFS estimates that the mines proven and probable reserves are around 38.8 million ounces of gold, 10.2 billion pounds of copper and 183 million ounces of silver. Under the companys base-case scenario, total operating costs is expected to around $673 per ounce. Annual production at KMS in the first seven years is expected to average more than 1 million ounces, with a life-time average of more than half a million. Expected production would put it in the same class as Goldcorps Carlin mine in Nevada, which produced 27.6 tonnes of gold in 2015 and was the seventh biggest mine in the world. By Neils Christensen of Kitco News; nchristensen@kitco.com Follow @Neils_C By Sergio Goncalves LISBON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Spain's Caixabank could face a new obstacle in its pursuit of BPI after minority shareholders in the Portuguese lender threatened a legal challenge to its sale of a stake in its Angolan business. BPI shareholders meet on Wednesday to decide on the sale of 2 percent of its Angolan division BFA for 28 million euros ($30 million) to Angolan telecoms firm Unitel, which is controlled by Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola's president. Dos Santos is also a shareholder in BPI and the Angolan deal helped ease her opposition to Caixabank's pursuit, paving the way for the Spanish bank to launch a takeover bid for BPI in September at 1.134 euros a share. Minority shareholders in BPI, however, feel they have been short-changed by the terms of the Angolan deal because the extra 2 percent Unitel is buying will push its overall stake in BFA to a controlling 51.9 percent. The Association of Investors and Technical Analysts (ATM), a group of BPI minority investors, says the 2 percent BFA stake should carry a control premium worth 307.4 million euros, which is not reflected in the sale price of 28 million euros. To take account of this premium, ATM and Better Finance, an organisation representing small shareholders in Europe, want Caixabank to raise its bid for BPI to about 2 euros per share so all BPI shareholders can benefit from the Angolan deal. ATM head Octavio Viana, together with his Spanish counterpart and Better Finance, have met BPI executives to explain their demands and Viana has also contacted the CMVM Portuguese market regulator. "We told CMVM that, if there is no revision of the bid price or no independent auditor is named to fix the price, as is required in these cases, we will challenge the decision in the courts," Viana told Reuters. Caixabank has been pursuing BPI since early 2015 to expand into Portugal and has built up a 45 percent stake in the Portuguese lender. A spokesman for Caixabank said the Spanish bank did not take part in the negotiations with Unitel over the BFA stake sale. Nobody at Santoro, dos Santos' holding company in Portugal, was immediately available to comment. The board of BPI has called Caixabank's bid friendly but has also said the bank is worth more, while the Spanish bank's CEO has said the bid price is "adequate". A spokeswoman for CMVM said once a takeover offer has been registered the market regulator will consider the value of the bid, which Caixabank hopes to complete by the end of the year. An auditor can be named by CMVM to evaluate the price if it is not considered fair, the spokeswoman said. ($1 = 0.9401 euros) (Additional reporting by Jesus Aguado Gonzelez in Madrid; writing by Axel Bugge; editing by David Clarke) (Amends dateline) JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia plans to more than triple the contribution of its mining industry to national wealth as measured by GDP by 2030, the energy minister said on Tuesday. The kingdom is finalising a mining strategy aimed at raising annual mining revenues from 64 billion riyals ($17 billion) to 240 billion riyals by 2030, Khalid al-Falih told reporters at a conference in Jeddah. "The ministry will develop this vital sector... double the number of work opportunities in the sector and boost exploration activities," Falih said. Saudi Arabia's efforts to build an economy that does not rely on oil and state subsidies involves a shift towards mining vast untapped reserves of bauxite, used to make aluminium, as well as phosphate, gold, copper and uranium. Saudi Arabia aims to implement the new mining strategy early next year. The world's largest oil exporter has said that, as part of a broad economic reform plan, it wants to introduce structural reform to the mining sector which was largely neglected for decades apart from some small-scale gold extraction. State-controlled Saudi Arabian Mining Co (Ma'aden) has said mining will generate an annual 97 billion riyals and create 90,000 jobs within five years. Mining firms such as Ma'aden Aluminium, a joint venture between Ma'aden and U.S. aluminium giant Alcoa, face fundamental pressures. Heavy aluminium production in China has left global prices for its products near multi-year lows. Saudi companies' cost advantage in the energy-intensive mining industry may be eroded by rises in energy and gas feedstock prices in Saudi Arabia, which cut subsidies last December to cope with a nearly $100 billion state budget deficit caused by low oil prices. Falih said the recent discovery of gas reserves on Saudi's Red Sea coast where many of the country's mineral reserves are located would help fuel the mining expansion. "Energy in the Kingdom will not be an obstacle at all towards developing the mining sector, we announced in the kingdom that we will double gas production," he said. ($1 = 3.7503 riyals) (Reporting by Reem Shamseddine; Editing by Tom Finn and Adrian Croft) DUBAI, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Stock markets in the Gulf may get a boost on Tuesday following a rally in crude oil and as global equities continued to turn higher, but Saudi Arabia's index may trade lower on profit-taking. Brent futures are now trading at their highest level since October at $49.34 a barrel as the market priced in a potential output cut led by producer cartel Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which is set to meet on Nov. 30. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 1.2 percent, taking the lead from robust U.S. stocks and European equity markets overnight. Although the global environment is somewhat positive, any gains in Gulf equity markets may be limited as institutional investors are choosing to sit out the session until there is more clarity from the outcome of the OPEC meeting and until the markets reprice a Donald Trump U.S. presidency. "This week has so far been characterised more by retail investors and less by institutional investors," said a Dubai-based stock broker. Saudi Arabia's index has been hit by profit-taking over the last three sessions, and is down 2.3 percent over that period. The index is still up 14.9 percent over the last 30 days with many of the blue chips trading near their estimated fair values, offering investors fewer reasons to continue adding shares. "In Saudi, retail investors will likely come back to the foreground, so we will see more activity in the smaller-sized companies," said the stock broker. (Reporting by Celine Aswad; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath) Union petition calls for St. Michael leadership's ouster A union leader said of the hospital's short staffing in the ER that the crisis was 'extraordinary.' Antonov to challenge decision of Russian court to collect 180 mln rubles for Russian defense ministry State Enterprise Antonov (Kyiv) is drawing up a counterclaim against the ruling of the arbitration court of Moscow to collect 180.3 million Russian rubles fine for Defense Ministry of Russia, the press service of the enterprise has reported. Commenting on the decision made by the court on November 18, the press service said that it concerns the project on the creation of An-70 military and transport aircraft that earlier implemented by Ukraine and Russia. "The Defense Ministry of Russia filed a claim to the arbitration court of Moscow against Antonov to collect 753.3 million rubles fine for failing to meet the deadline in research and design works to create An-70 military and transport aircraft," the press service said. "The judicial disposition was announced on November 18. The claim was partially satisfied in the amount of 180.3 million rubles," the press service said. At present specialists of the law department of Antonov Enterprise are working on challenging the decision. Russia and Ukraine were implementing the program to create An-70 military and transport aircraft under intergovernmental agreements signed in 1993 and 1999. Defense ministries of Ukraine and Russia ordered batch production of the aircraft. Antonov is a leading Ukrainian aircraft designer and manufacturer and an acclaimed world leader in the area of various types of transport aircraft. It was included in Ukroboronprom State Concern in April 2015 on the government's orders. Ukraine in June 2014 imposed a ban on military and technical cooperation with Russia, including double-purpose products. The Ukrainian government in May 2015 terminated the intergovernmental agreement with Russia in the military and technical cooperation sphere signed in 1993. Ukrainian household wealth declined by 18.5% or $10 billion in the 12 months through June 2016, to $44 billion, according to the annual report of Credit Suisse investment bank. The bank said that in the long-term outlook household wealth mainly depends on the pace of the country's economy, deposits and demographic factor. In the short-term outlook the indicator is influenced by the cost of assets and exchange rates. The latter two factors impacted the pace of Ukrainian household wealth over the period. Credit Suisse analysts said that the market capitalization of assets decreased by 96.8%, and the exchange rate of the national currency by 15.4%. As reported, Ukrainian Exchange index in 2015 fell by 33.6%, PFTS index by 37.8%. Since early 2016, they rebounded by 17.2% and 11% respectively. The index of Ukrainian companies' shares on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) WIG-Ukraine grew by 51.22% in 2015 and by 36.6% since early 2016. According to the National Bank of Ukraine, the hryvnia exchange rate to the U.S. dollar declined by 51% on the interbank currency market in 2015 and since early 2016 by 7.4%. EU announces allocation of about EUR 120 mln for continuation of reforms in Ukraine The financial assistance for the continuation of anti-corruption and civil service reform will be allocated at the 18th EU-Ukraine summit. "The November summit could confirm a further EUR 15 million in support of an anti-corruption program and EUR 104 million for public administration reform," the EU report says. The summit will be an occasion to "welcome recent steps towards a visa free travel for Ukrainian citizens when travelling to the EU and vice versa." KYIV. Nov 22 (Interfax-Ukraine) The financial assistance for the continuation of anti-corruption and civil service reform will be allocated at the 18th EU-Ukraine summit. "The November summit could confirm a further EUR 15 million in support of an anti-corruption program and EUR 104 million for public administration reform," the EU report says. The summit will be an occasion to "welcome recent steps towards a visa free travel for Ukrainian citizens when travelling to the EU and vice versa." A customer applies cosmetics with an AmorePacific cushion at a Sephora store in New York.. / Courtesy of AmorePacific Total sales of cushion compacts top 100 mil. units By Park Jae-hyuk AmorePacific Group said Monday cumulative global sales of its cushion compact exceeded 100 million units. Cushion compact means a makeup product combining a compact with a special sponge soaked with base makeup, such as sun block or foundation. Korea's top cosmetics firm developed the world's first cushion compact category with a product named IOPE Air Cushion in 2008. The company and its 15 brands sold more than 33 million cushion compacts last year including 6.5 million sold in overseas markets, which means at least one unit was sold every single second. According to a TNS Korea survey of 800 Korean women, 75 percent have used a cushion compact at least once and 55 percent are only using it for their base makeup. Three out of four respondents said they spend less time on touch-ups or base makeup because of the product. The global market researcher's data also showed the average makeup application time decreased from 13 to 7 minutes and the average number of necessary base makeup cosmetics from 2.2 to 1.7. In order to promote its achievements, AmorePacific is conducting a digital campaign titled "The Truth of Cushion", which began on Monday and will run until next April, which features a video introducing the company's innovative cushion technologies. Its teaser released on Nov. 11 was watched by 2.3 million viewers in just 10 days. In the video, AmorePacific researchers said, "A good cushion is the one that helps cosmetics adhere to skin thinly and evenly." The researchers said those cushions naturally show the user's skin tone and are more economical, as they can be used longer than other cushions having similar capabilities. Most innovative company Last year, Forbes chose the 100 World's Most Innovative Companies and AmorePacific ranked 28th vying with global enterprises. The U.S. business magazine also published an article titled, "How South Korea's AmorePacific Became One of the World's Most Innovative Companies," regarding AmorePacific's cushion compact as an innovation and explaining that the firm attracted global customers with the newly-made cosmetics category. AmorePacific has researched and developed its cushion compacts at Cushion Laboratory or C-Lab, where researchers for cushion, foundation, primer and powder gather with experts of customer analysis and merchandise study. As a result, the company upgraded its cushions from the first generation in 2008 to the fourth generation now, evolving the core technology of the product for 15 times. The fourth generation cushion features a three-dimensional hive-shaped sponge and ultrafine dispersion technology. It minimizes the particle size and naturally expresses a user's skin tone. AmorePacific also collaborates with overseas laboratories in order to make products meeting the demands of customers who live in different regions and to expand its presence in the global market. For example, the company's two brands Innisfree and Etude House developed base cushion compacts for Chinese customers wanting to hide their facial blemishes. Another brand Laneige released a moistureless cushion for customers living in hot and humid ASEAN countries. As of October, AmorePacific applied for patents for 177 cushion technologies developed by C-Lab and registered 26. The company received the Excellence Award of the Korea Technology Awards in 2012, the IR52 Chang Young-sil Award in 2014 and the Gold Tower Order of Industrial Service Merit in 2015. It was also selected among the World-Class Products of Korea in 2013 as it has led global K-beauty fever. Secret of development The world's first cushion was developed after AmorePacific researchers became inspired by a parking stamp which sets a seal to parking tickets without any leakage of liquid. The researchers applied the idea to cosmetics products and developed a stamp-typed sun block in 2008, which had never been seen before. A polyurethane foam sponge soaked with liquid sun block was contained in a compact with a puff, so that its users can touch up anywhere at any time. Customers could easily carry the product and did not have to wash their hands after applying their makeup. AmorePacific invented the first generation cushion after 3,600 experiments on its sponge to test various factors, such as material, hardness, thickness and size of pores. According to the company, the sponge is the most important technology of its cushion compact. "AmorePacific will not stay in its current position but continue to actively lead the global cushion market through technological innovation and R&D," said AmorePacific C-Lab director Choi Kyung-ho. "We hope our customers look for future cushion technologies which will change the life of women all over the world." Lee Bong-jin By Park Si-soo Multinational fashion house ZARA's domestic office chief has come under fire for criticizing people who rose up against scandal-plagued President Park Geun-hye. According to reports, Lee Bong-jin, chief of ZARA Korea, said during a recent public lecture: "When you took to streets (to protest), 49 million people who didn't join the rally were doing something for themselves," referring to the mass anti-Park rally in Seoul on Nov. 12 that drew a million people out of the country's 50 million population. "Your future will be shaped based upon what you do now," he said. "Political events such as Donald Trump's election as U.S. President don't affect your lives. What you need to do now is just study." His comments can be interpreted to mean anti-president protesters were wasting their time on the streets and, rather than joining the rally, sitting at a desk to study would be a better option for students who want to have good future. His comments have gone viral on social media, sparking huge public fury against Lee and his company. There are signs of a boycott of ZARA products. Amid controversy, Lee said he did not intend to attack anti-Park protesters. "My intention was, that in this chaotic situation, we should be more dedicated to what we are supposed to do -- studying for students and working for workers," Lee said. "I agree that we are in a very unfortunate situation." The State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF) expects participation of international companies in the privatization of PJSC Odesa port-side chemical plant, SPF Head Ihor Bilous has told journalists in Kyiv. "It's worth expecting ... I can disclose information about the participants not earlier than December 9 ... We also have foreign participants: someone has filed an application, someone is in the process, someone is collecting documents, someone is asking questions," he said. Bilous said none of the applicants to participate in the privatization of Odesa port-side plant has submitted all the necessary documents. Hyundai Motor Group Vice Chairman Yang Woong-chul, right, poses with Peter Schreyer, Hyundai Motor's global head of design, during a media conference at Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday. / Courtesy of Hyundai Motor By Jhoo Dong-chan Hyundai Motor has officially introduced the new Grandeur sedan, aiming to boost the presence of its most popular model that has been fully changed after six years of design modifications. The country's largest carmaker held a media conference for the new Grandeur at Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, west of Seoul, Tuesday. "The all-new Grandeur evolved through Hyundai Motor's endless innovation to become the best. It also inherits 30 years of Grandeur's heritage," said Hyundai Motor Group Vice Chairman Yang Woong-chul during the conference. "I believe Grandeur will set new standards in design, performance and safety in the global premium auto market. It will also boost Hyundai Motor's global sales." The new Grandeur sedan is a product under the so-called Project IG,' Hyundai Motor's five-year research and development (R&D) project after introducing the fifth-generation Grandeur in 2011. In design, the new Grandeur has become masculine with a new highly textured "cascading grille" and futuristically designed L-shaped headlamps in front, while the previous model had an exaggerated U-shaped grille. The cascading grille adopts an upright style with a long hood and a more vertical windshield. On its back panel, the new Grandeur has a completely redesigned tail lamp that is similar to the tail lights on the Renault Samsung SM6, or the Talisman on the global market. The new grandeur comes with four different engines: 2.4- and 3.0-liter GDi Lambda engines as well as a 2.2-liter diesel engine and a 3.0-liter LPi engine. The car powered with the LPi engine is for rental companies. The cars powered by the 2.4-liter GDi and the 2.2-liter diesel engines have three different trim levels Modern, Premium and Premium Special while the car powered by the 3.0-liter GDi has two trim levels Exclusive and Exclusive Special. The car powered by the 3.0-liter LPi comes in three different trim levels Modern Basic, Modern and Exclusive. The cars powered by the 2.4-liter GDi and 3.0-liter LPi engines will be equipped with 6-speed transmissions, while the front-wheel-drive 8-speed transmission will be used with other engines. The car powered by the 2.4-liter GDi engine is priced between 30.55 million won ($25,966) and 34.25 million won depending on the trim level, while the car powered by the 2.2-liter diesel engine is priced between 33.55 million won and 37.25 million won. The car powered by the 3.0-liter GDi engine is priced between 35.50 million won and 39.20 million. The car powered by the LPi engine is priced between 26.20 million won and 33.45 million won. Hyundai Motor said in a press release that it has received more than 27,000 preorders for the new Grandeur midsize sedan in the three weeks since it started taking preorders on Nov. 2. By Yun Suh-young "The Last Empress," as part of the "SAC on Screen" project by Seoul Arts Center (SAC), was invited to the 9th Korean Movie Festival hosted by the Korean Cultural Center in Spain. The screening was held at the Cine Dore cinema in Madrid on Nov. 11 and 20. Around 200 attended the screening and many waited outside before the doors opened, according to the SAC. The screening in Madrid this month was the first held in Europe by the SAC which began the project in 2013. Its first overseas screening was the ballet "Giselle" at the Korean Cultural Center in Los Angeles in 2015. "The screening of The Last Empress in Spain as part of the SAC on Screen project was a meaningful first step in introducing Korea's quality performance content in Europe," said Ko Hak-chan, SAC president. Following the screening, the Spanish audience gave feedback, praising the opportunity to learn about Korea's history in relation to Japan as well as the production value, and requests for more screenings to carry Korea's unique story. The SAC on Screen project began as a public service to provide SAC's performances in film to those who are marginalized from culture, notably in rural areas. Since 2013, the SAC has filmed 18 performances to be screened and has shown them in 65 locations across the country, including military bases, schools and small theaters. Around 140,000 people have viewed the performances through the SAC on Screen project. SAC on Screen was also invited to Jakarta, Indonesia, twice last year to screen opera "The Magic Flute" and contemporary dance "Vaporization" and this year to screen "The Last Empress" and ballet "La Bayadere." Allegations have it that President Park Geun-hye recently told her aide recently, "Did I commit anything wrong?" / Korea Times file Psychiatrist suspects Park suffers from Ripley's Syndrome By Park Si-soo Is President Park Geun-hye in too much shock? Or is she so naive and simple-minded that she has not yet realized the seriousness of the situation? According to news reports, the scandal-plagued head of state recently met one of her close aides at the presidential office. The aide reportedly told the President, "It would be wise for you to step down in phases. That would be the best way to keep your honor untarnished. If you take a back seat and vanish from the public eye, people's indignation would be eased." President Park's was dumbfounded: "Did I commit anything wrong?" This conversation was first made public on Monday by Rep. Min Byeong-doo of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, who said he secured the information from his intelligence source. "Park seems to be self-hypnotized to the level where she is unable to think and analyze the situation normally," Min said. "Some believe there are advisers who calculate and analyze the situation to drive the situation favorable to the President. But I don't agree with that. I think she (the President) firmly believes from the bottom of her mind that she did nothing wrong and makes decisions on related issues on her own." The lawmaker's comments indicated that Park, not her lawyer or secretaries, was behind a series of controversial remarks or decisions that have fueled public outrage against the President. Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Yoo Il-ho, left, speaks during a Cabinet meeting he presided over on behalf of President Park Geun-hye at the government complex in Seoul, Tuesday. The Cabinet endorsed a controversial intelligence sharing deal with Japan, called the General Security of Military Information Agreement. / Yonhap Hasty endorsement expected to cause huge backlash By Jun Ji-hye The Cabinet approved a controversial deal to share military intelligence with Japan, Tuesday, despite overwhelming public opposition, a hasty endorsement expected to draw a huge backlash. President Park Geun-hye endorsed the agreement hours after the Cabinet's approval. Opposition parties vowed to nullify the deal, describing President Park and her rubber-stamp Cabinet as "traitors." Defense Minister Han Min-koo and Japanese Ambassador to Seoul Yasumasa Nagamine will formally sign the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) today in Seoul. The deal goes into effect immediately after, according to the ministry. The approval comes less than a month after the government announced the resumption of discussions with Tokyo, Oct. 27, despite objections from the opposition parties and negative public sentiment. The three opposition parties vowed to submit a joint motion to the National Assembly, Nov. 30, demanding the dismissal of Han for having "rushed" into a sensitive deal while public attention has been centered on a massive political scandal involving Park and her longtime confidant Choi Soon-sil. Once it takes effect, the pact will allow Seoul and Tokyo to directly share and exchange intelligence on the North's military activities related to its nuclear and missile programs. Currently, the two indirectly exchange such intelligence through Washington under a trilateral sharing pact signed at the end of 2014. "The signing of the GSOMIA will enable the nation to utilize Japan's advanced information-gathering capabilities on the North," a ministry official said on condition of anonymity. By Jun Ji-hye Kim Hyun-chul, the second son of late President Kim Young-sam, passes his father's portrait during a ceremony to commemorate the first anniversary of Kim's death held at Seoul National Cemetery, Tuesday. / Yonhap Politicians from the ruling and opposition parties attended a ceremony, Tuesday, to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of former President Kim Young-sam who is credited with ending decades of military rule and promoting democracy. Kim, who served as president from 1993 to 1998, passed away last year at the age of 87. National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun as well as top officials from the rival parties, including ruling Saenuri floor leader Chung Jin-suk, main opposition Democratic Party of Korea Chairwoman Choo Mi-ae and the second largest opposition People's Party interim leader Park Jie-won, attended the memorial ceremony. The anniversary of the death of the iconic figure of the pro-democracy movement comes while the nation has been hit by the corruption and influence-peddling scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil. Park, who has been remaining low-key since the outbreak of the scandal, sent wreaths to the venue. Ruling party Chairman Lee Jung-hyun and eight-term lawmaker Suh Chung-won, noted loyalists to Park, did not participate in the ceremony, either. "The people are angry over incompetence and immorality of government power. They are also angry over the National Assembly's failure to deliver good leadership in a national crisis," said Kim Soo-han who served as the Assembly speaker during the last two years of Kim's presidency and currently heads the Kim Young Sam Center for Democracy. "I hope the anniversary will become a chance for politicians to take time for self-examination and turn over a new leaf," he said. Kim, a native of Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province, was a nine-term lawmaker who opposed military dictators from the 1960s through the 1980s. He was twice placed under house arrest in the early 1980s. Upon taking office, Kim put his two predecessors generals-turned-President Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo behind bars on charges of mutiny and treason stemming from the 1979 coup that led Chun to seize power. However, Kim pardoned the two convicted military strongmen at the end of his term. Also, he was credited with disbanding a key military group that had produced many politicized generals in past military dictatorships in an effort to prevent another military coup. A member of the Korea Federation of Organizations of the Disabled is having his head shaved at an anti-Park rally at Yeouido, Seoul, on Nov. 21. / Yonhap By Ko Dong-hwan Korea at first appeared united in demanding that scandalized President Park Geun-hye step down. However, the President's fervent supporters are as diligent and determined as the anti-Park protesters and have staged their own passionate rallies throughout the country. But it is highly anticipated that the largest crowd to gather at Seoul's Gwanghwamun Square to vent anger at the President will be seen on Saturday about 2 million, according to Bisang 2016, which has been coordinating the four anti-Park demonstrations since late October. The boiling anti-president movement, however, has consolidated Park's supporters, who say the opposing forces are trying to subvert the government based on lies and unconfirmed allegations. People of many ages and social groups have criticized the President over the influence-peddling scandal involving her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil, and the President now appears to be struggling to protect her office in Cheong Wa Dae. Farmers from the National Farmers Federation on their tractors and cultivators move on the streets in Haenam-gun, South Jeolla Province, with flags that read "Park Geun-gye, resign immediately" on Nov. 15. / Yonhap Meanwhile, members of the National Farmers Federation (NFF) across the country began anti-Park protest tours simultaneously on Nov. 14. Referring to themselves as "Jeon Bong-jun fighters" -- a prominent leader of the Donghak Peasant Revolution in 1894 -- farmers from South Gyeongsang Province, "the East Army," and those from South Jeolla Province, "the West Army," plan to join in Seoul on Nov. 25. The NFF's chapter in North Chungcheong Province and an association of farmers in Okcheon County in the province said Monday they will embark on an anti-Park tour, riding cultivators and tractors to join the "armies" in Gyeonggi Province. "Despite the boiling public voice calling for the President's resignation, Park's administration is not backing down but pushing the nation into danger," the North Chungcheong Province farmers said before launching their tour at Okcheon County Office on Monday. "In the spirit of Donghak peasant armies, we now gather our ancestors' passion and proclaim our mission to attack Cheong Wa Dae." Participants of anti-Park demonstration that was joined by some 500 physically disabled people in Yeouido, Seoul call for the President's resignation on Nov. 21. / Yonhap Some 500 physically disabled people gathered in Yeouido, Korea's financial hub and home of the National Assembly, on Monday to demand the President's resignation. The members of 12 civic groups for the physically disabled, including the Korea Federation of Organizations of the Disabled, shouted that Park "played at governing the country while ignoring Korea's 5 million disabled who asked the government to protect their basic rights to live." Fifteen of the protesters shaved their heads in public, while others toured the district on their wheelchairs to express their anger. Senior high school students joined anti-Park rallies across the country immediately after sitting the annual College Scholastic Aptitude Test on Nov. 17. The teenagers, including students from middle schools and high schools, were not shy of voicing their opposition to the incumbent leader, who national prosecutors identified on Sunday as an "accomplice" to her aides and Choi, who were indicted the same day on charges of extortion and abuse of official power against Korean conglomerates. "Why do adults only pay attention to teenagers when they need them?" a third-year middle school student said to JoongAng Ilbo, which chatted online with hundreds of teenagers who wanted to make their voices calling for the President's resignation heard. "I appreciate people praising us for having political voices. But that only reflects that adults have treated us with double standards, believing we were not supposed to have such voices." Members of Park Sa Mo carry a giant Korean national flag at Seoul Station Square on Nov. 19, denouncing anti-Park demonstrations. / Yonhap The President's supporters, meanwhile, are desperate to prevent the anti-Park forces from pushing her from office. Their common motto is that "(anti-president protesters') candles can be put out by wind but our national flag will not." Jung Gwang-yong, President of Park Sa Mo -- a civic group supporting Park -- said on the group's homepage that its first demonstration on Nov. 19 at Seoul Station Square of some 70,000 members opposing Park's resignation was "only the beginning" and warned anti-Park protesters "to keep your eyes open for our coming attack." "You shall pay for trying to oust the President by ignoring the Constitution," Jung said, arguing that if President Park is swept away by the opposing protesters' "rumors, blackmailing, lies and controversy theories, no president in the past could have completed their terms and no one in the future will be able to do so." "Platoon of Moms," another ultra-conservative civic group consisting of married women, has made headlines staging rallies opposing the President's resignation, including one at Seoul Station Square on Nov. 17. Joo Ok-soon, a controversial leader of the group, who has often made emotionally provocative statements against mainstream voices, allegedly hit the face of a female high school student who joined an anti-Park protest at Gwanghwamun Square on Nov. 5. Joo was taken to the Jongno police for questioning on a charge of physical violence. A member of the Korea Parent Federation is having his head shaved in front of the house of Hong Seok-hyun, chairman of the JoongAng Ilbo. The conservative senior group criticized that JTBC, the daily's TV network, made a false news report that Choi Soon-sil is an influence-peddler behind the President. / Courtesy of Twitter The Korea Parent Federation, an ultra-right-wing group of senior male citizens, sued JTBC President Sohn Suk-hee on Nov. 10 for allegedly making a false news report that said Choi is an influence peddler behind the President. The "old" conservative group has been holding rallies in favor of Cheong Wa Dae for years but their intention, according to widespread nationwide belief, has been encouraged by getting paid to do so. By Kim Hyo-jin More than 30 lawmakers from the ruling Saenuri Party have expressed support for the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. This means if an impeachment motion is submitted, the motion is highly likely to get National Assembly endorsement. With all three opposition parties gearing up for Park's impeachment, an anti-Park group in the ruling Saenuri Party is also showing active support for the move. In a recent poll, 31 Saenuri Party lawmakers said they will vote for the motion, which is more than the number required from the ruling bloc for its passage. An impeachment motion will pass with the two-thirds of the votes of the 300-member legislature. Assuming 171 opposition lawmakers and leftist independent lawmakers are all on board, a minimum of 29 votes should come from the ruling party. A Munhwa Ilbo poll conducted on the 129-member Saenuri Party showed Monday that 31 of 65 respondents supported the impeachment while eight opposed it and 26 abstained. The number of proponents has a high chance of increasing considering the 26 lawmakers who abstained and the remaining 64 lawmakers who refused to participate in the poll. Opposition parties are zeroing in on getting the 29 or more votes before beginning the impeachment process. "Once we secure enough votes, we will submit the impeachment motion," Rep. Woo Sang-ho, floor leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), said during a party meeting. "It can be as early as tomorrow." The party spokesman said their lawmakers are set to pressure ruling party members to vote in favor of impeachment. "They will seek to get votes from the ruling party by approaching them one by one," floor spokesman Rep. Ki Dong-min said. Ki noted that the party will bank on the lawmakers' one-on-one contacts as these are viewed more effective than an official alliance with the anti-Park group. The ruling party lawmakers who are not affiliated with the President have formed an intra-party group, tentatively called the "emergency situation committee," amid the corruption scandal involving the President, and have demanded her and the pro-Park party leadership resign. Of 35 lawmakers, 32 agreed Sunday to begin the impeachment process, according to Rep. Hwang Young-cheul. Some remained cautious, saying it is too early to be confident about the passage of the motion. "It might still be difficult for the Saenuri lawmakers to vote in favor of impeaching the President who belongs to their party," DPK's vice floor leader Rep. Park Wan-joo said. "Right now, the only certain votes are three from former Saenuri leader Kim Moo-sung, and from anti-Park lawmakers Hwang Young-cheul and Kim Yong-tae." Rep. Kim Kyung-jin of the minor opposition People's Party agreed, saying, "We should obtain a guarantee of at least 35 votes before considering those who might bolt from the opposition bloc." If the motion is passed with a minimum of 200 votes in favor of impeachment, the case will be deliberated by the Constitutional Court. The court has to make a final decision within 180 days before a conviction can be confirmed if six of its nine justices agree. As two justices are scheduled to retire early next year, if the new appointments are not made within that time, the case will be reviewed by seven justices but still requires the support from six of them for confirmation. After the conviction of President Park, the presidential election should be held within 60 days. President's prescriptions come under investigation By Kim Se-jeong The prosecution said Tuesday that it will look into why President Park Geun-hye used proxy names when she visited a private anti-aging clinic in southern Seoul. The investigation comes after health authorities filed a complaint against Kim Sang-man, a doctor who worked at the Chaum clinic for suspicious prescriptions of vitamin shots. Park is suspected of having her medicine from Chaum prescribed in the name of her confidant Choi Soon-sil from 2011 to 2014. Choi and her family members were regulars at the clinic since 2010. Kim was appointed as one of the President's medical advisors in 2013. He left Chaum in 2014 and has worked for Green Cross I-Med since then. Cheong Wa Dae allegedly purchased about 300 placenta injections and vitamin shots worth 20 million won made or imported by Green Cross between March 2014 and August this year, according to Rep. Kim Sang-hee of the Democratic Party of Korea. By Yi Whan-woo President Park Geun-hye is becoming the nation's biggest security and diplomatic risk as political uncertainty over the fate of the scandal-ridden leader is causing havoc in international relations at a crucial period, analysts said Tuesday. Possible security and diplomatic risks in the absence of a head of state have been cited as a reason for objections to Park resigning or being impeached despite a corruption scandal surrounding her and her confidant Choi Soon-sil. But it is actually the President who is escalating such risks by clinging to power and snubbing the people while the vacuum in state affairs is stirring up chaos, according to the analysts. They said Park's presence at Cheong Wa Dae is hampering efforts to restructure foreign and security relations with allies amid growing uncertainties over security on the Korean Peninsula after Donald Trump was elected as the new U.S. president. The experts also said Park is responsible for stirring up misunderstanding among the people concerning the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) between South Korea and Japan, although it is crucial to countering North Korea's threats. "The current power vacuum will be the biggest stumbling block in coping with uncertainties on the peninsula when Trump begins his term," said Kim Joon-hyung, a professor at Handong Global University, during a discussion at the National Assembly. A think tank under the wing of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea hosted the event. "Now is the golden time for Korea's diplomacy because it will be around next May and June at the earliest for the Trump administration's foreign affairs team to be ready to deal with international affairs. Therefore, Park's resignation and holding an early presidential election will be the only option to save our diplomacy." Choi Jong-kun, a Yonsei University professor who mediated the discussion, echoed this view. "We saw Trump winning the election when the power vacuum caused by the Park Geun-hye and Choil Soon-sil scandal stirred up chaos, and that's what makes the people more anxious," Choi said. "I urge the Park government to call it a day, and arrange an election for us to pick the next leader." New Zealand Ambassador to Korea Clare Fearnley, second from right, poses with other participants in the Year-End Grand Hui event at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul, Thursday. They are, from left, John Riley, deputy head of mission at the New Zealand Embassy; Yoo Myung-hee, director general for FTA negotiations at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy; Ambassador Fearnley; and Tony Garrett, chairman of the Kiwi Chamber. / Courtesy of EDGE Communications By John Redmond Korea and New Zealand celebrated the first year of the free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries at a seminar and networking function at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul last Thursday. The Year-End Grand Hui event co-hosted by the New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Korea, known as the Kiwi Chamber, and the New Zealand Embassy in Seoul drew more than 150 dignitaries from government and the local business community. Immediately before the Grand Hui, a seminar hosted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) and the New Zealand Embassy enabled 60 Korean business representatives to learn more about the FTA and New Zealand's economic environment. New Zealand Ambassador to Korea Clare Fearnley delivered the a keynote address, emphasizing the mutually beneficial nature of the FTA. Yoo Myung-hee director general for FTA negotiations at Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and KCCI Vice President Kang Homin addressed guests to commemorate the important occasion. "It is good to see that even at an early stage the Korea-New Zealand free trade agreement is delivering on its promise and benefitting businesses in both countries," said Ambassador Fearnley. Dr. Tony Garrett, chairman of the Kiwi Chamber, added, "The Kiwi Chamber Year-End Grand Hui is an important annual event for the chamber, and this year is extra special as we celebrate the first year of the Korea-New Zealand FTA, which the Kiwi Chamber has advocated for and supported since its inception." The Hui, which is a traditional Maori social gathering or assembly, offered guests a New Zealand-themed culinary experience which included world-class wine and beer from the home country, coupled with a Maori cultural performance by Ngati Herekore and contemporary New Zealand music. A lucky draw included top prizes from key sponsors Singapore Airlines, Babich Wines, Monteith's Beer, Zespri, Ecostore and Killinchy Gold Ice Cream. The Kiwi Chamber consists of over 250 members and was officially launched in November 2008. The group's main mission is to support its members, New Zealand businesses in Korea and Korean businesses interested in the New Zealand-Korea commercial relationship. Ukraine's Ministry of Health allows an increase in budget funding for the program of reimbursement for the cost of drugs for treatment of cardiovascular diseases, asthma and diabetes, Acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun has said at a briefing in Kyiv. "We are ready to work on changes to the budget [to get more money for reimbursement]," she said. Suprun, following a meeting with the participation of pharmaceutical manufacturers and Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, said that drugmakers are ready to participate in the reimbursement program. "Most pharmaceutical manufacturers support the program. They are ready to cooperate not to halt the program," she said. She said the reimbursement program provides reimbursement for the price of the cheapest generic with the possibility of additional payments for more expensive drugs, but not higher than the so called median price. The cost of more expensive drugs will not be reimbursed. Suprun stressed the program includes medicines under international non-proprietary names (INN) without indicating dosage. "In the decision we intentionally indicated INN and did not indicate dosage to avoid possibility of manipulation," she said. Some 1,500 North Koreans were killed in devastating natural disasters that hit North Korea over the past decade, a U.S. broadcaster reported Tuesday. The North has suffered a total of 10 massive natural disasters since 2007, which left 1,533 people dead, Radio Free Asia (RFA) said, citing data from the disaster research institute of the University of Leuven in Belgium, Radio Free Asia, monitored here, said. Floods took up the lion's share, being seven of the 10 disasters, with those in 2007 and this year leaving 610 and 538 people dead, respectively, the broadcaster said Forest destruction to expand farmland, in particular, is believed to be a main cause for the heavy flood damage. Typhoons also took the lives of 59 people in 2012 and 60 this year, according to the broadcaster. "There can be massive defections from North Korea if a serious food crisis takes place again like the one in the 1990s because of a flood or a typhoon," a researcher at the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies said. (Yonhap) By Bernard Rowan Two weeks have passed, and the Choi-Park controversy continues to get bigger. The controversy imperils the presidency of Park Geun-hye, and it appears increasingly likely irreparably so. There are growing calls for her to resign or to face impeachment. Rallies are drawing hundreds of thousands. Her popularity has tanked. Choi Soon-sil may have violated laws, but now so sadly, the President may have violated her constitutional mandate. Democracy depends on limits in the exercise of power enshrined in laws, in particular, constitutional laws. These laws have force when they reflect the reasoned considerations of the people, who are sovereign. These laws depend on officeholders for implementation. Officeholders remain responsible to the people through laws and elections. Now the investigations begin. The President may resist and delay. Though unusual, the President should answer questions. There will be special investigations ordered by the national legislature. Eventually, the investigators will issue their findings. I mean a formal reporting and an official statement. A deliberate decision about any next steps awaits these findings and statements. Officeholders also need to consider the statements before taking action. No one should want to see a president resign or face impeachment. Citizens should ask the President and national assembly to act on facts and reason. This will take more time than people want to allow. However, democracy shouldn't be rushed not if good government is the purpose. The Korean people may have already stated their opinion. The public expects resignation. Park Geun-hye must decide about that opinion. If the investigation presents actionable charges to the legislature, lawmakers must consider how to act. The President, national assembly and people should have in mind the good of the Korean people, state, and nation as a constitutional democracy. The aides and advisers of Park Geun-hye must consider with sobriety the path currently adopted. They themselves may face investigations. The nation faces a crisis that needs all to follow the laws. People are impatient, but democracy comes first. A chief executive can rule without the majority on her side. However, without what a constitutional mandate, the president's power dims to little or nothing. A president's constitutional mandate is the will pf the people that she or he has legitimacy in office. Legitimacy flows from the laws of the people. A failing constitutional mandate describes the Park administration now. A constitutional democracy isn't a plebiscite. Action on the basis of a change in the president's constitutional mandate awaits constitutional action by lawmakers, beginning with Park herself, but including the National Assembly. Constitutional action, if it's certain, should happen deliberately but not swiftly. Equally important, there must be legal reforms of the administrative culture. New laws should end the money schemes that occurred on the public watch. The triangulations of corporate heads, government officials, and private citizens should stop. The people should understand that change needs to focus not on one person as the problem. A broader context makes the anti-democratic practices possible. At this point, many lawmakers opposed to continuing the presidency want Park to resign. She doesn't agree. The public must look to the National Assembly to take their duty seriously to look into the claims and consider impeachment if warranted. That means the Saenuri Party should cooperate fully, and the opposition parties should avoid scapegoating. This is a national and political emergency of moment, of first moment. It's time for Koreans to continue showing their love of democracy, their young democracy. Protests work. However, they shouldn't stop the processes of government. Having faith in laws complements faith in men and women. Democracy as the rule of constitutional law counts more than an officeholder's future. It's sad to write these words. Citizens don't have the luxury of utopia it seems, perhaps never on earth. May Koreans continue to practice their civic duties. Democracy counts more than Park, whatever the results. Bernard Rowan is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University, where he has served for 23 years. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University. Reach him at browan10@yahoo.com By Lee Sun-ho As a board member of the Korean-American Association, I was kindly invited to watch the quadrennial election returns live on Nov. 9 (Nov. 8 U.S. time) at the Nuri Ballroom of the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul as Hillary D. R. Clinton (D) and Donald J. Trump (R) completed their bids for the White House. It was hosted by the Protocol Office of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul and attended by 450 guests. These distinguished guests included incumbent U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert, former U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens, other embassy staff including Mark Canning, Cultural Affairs Officer, professors, political experts, press journalists and local college and graduate students. This special event lasted from 9:00 a.m. through 2:00 p.m. The election watch featured live returns broadcast on the CNN big screens, academic panel discussions interpreting results, and election-related activities amid continued unpredictable outcomes of the ballot counting of individual states in favor of Trump instead of Hillary, despite the popular vote ratio of 47.5 percent vs. 47.6 percent, respectively. The election is an indirect one in which citizens of the U.S. who are registered to vote in one of 50 states and in Washington, D.C. cast ballots for members of the Electoral College (electors). The electors in turn cast direct votes for president. Most state laws in the U.S. established a winner-takes-all' system except Maine and Nebraska. I began to have a special interest in hearing U.S. presidential election campaigns since the historic day of September 26, 1960. This was when the first TV debate between John F. Kennedy (D) and Richard Nixon (R) occured, which resulted in the smallest victorious popular vote margin of 49.7 percent to 49.6 percent. During the turn-of-the-century period, I watched with attention, the two pronounced races between Bill Clinton (D) and George H.W. Bush (R) in 1992, stressing "no more taxes" and between Barack Obama (D) and Mitt Romney (R) in 2012, representing "October surprise." This 58th quadrennial presidential election campaigns in 2016 have seemed to me something extra-ordinary, worrying about being rigged, suppression like those shown in past instances in Korea. The five-hour watch event for ballot counting, including the intermission quiz to win souvenirs was memorable and instructive for me to confirm some behind-the-scenes processes and amusing historic records of the U.S. presidential elections with worldwide attention, which I was not well aware of before this. As far as the president of the U.S. being one of the most powerful leaders in the world, I would like to mention one more thing about the fate of Korea at stake as a consequence of the U.S. presidential election in 1948. If Harry S. Truman (D) was defeated by Thomas E. Dewey (R) as anticipated by the majority of the pollsters and the press, I wonder whether South Korea could have been safe from the aggression of the bellicose North Korea's full-fledged attack on June 25, 1950. Who knows what horrible results would have happened without Truman's immediate dispatch of U.S. troops stationed in Okinawa to the battlefield of the Korean Peninsula at that time? The stunning 2016 election acceptance speech delivered by Hillary and her husband was impressive and signified the esteemed political level of the world's super-power, as I witnessed. With good wishes for the 45th president-elect Trump and congratulations on his big win, I hope his Republican administration would certainly exercise not only fair domestic policy guidelines for its national interest but also for reasonable international peace and mutually-beneficial cooperation toward aligning friendly relations with neighboring nations including Korea upon his inauguration slated for January 20, 2017, in the process of fulfilling Trump's election pledge, "make America great again!" during his tenure. The writer is an ombudsman columnist for The Korea Times in Seoul. This is his 300th contribution to The Korea Times since his first one on Sunday, Oct. 15, 1967. You can reach him at kexm2@unitel.co.kr. By Choi Sung-jin The United States and the rest of the world are still smarting from the stunning electoral upset of Donald Trump. Not many countries could be more alarmed and dismayed by Trump's political success than South Korea with reason. On the campaign trail, the real estate mogul-turned-politician made more than a few remarks putting the two major pillars of the bilateral alliance trade and security at risk. Trump called the ROK-U.S. free trade agreement a "bad" deal and a "job-killing" accord that must be renegotiated from the ground up. And he effectively called for Seoul to pick up most of the tab for keeping U.S. troops here. Even more worrisome is Trump's perception of North Korea. He called its leader Kim Jong-un a "lunatic" one day but said he is willing to have a "hamburger meeting" with Kim on another. Neither approach suits Seoul's taste: the new U.S. leader's hatred and belittling of the North Korean regime could lead to an unwarranted preemptive strike while an abrupt rapprochement between the U.S. and North Korea could sideline South Korea. BNP Paribas, a French financial group, also said South Korea is the second most vulnerable country to Trump's economic policy among 20 emerging nations, after Malaysia. It was a small surprise then that the South Koreans showed a support rate of 6-7 percent for Trump, the lowest in Asia, although higher than the 5 percent approval rate they gave to their own scandal-tainted leader. Let's think again, however. Could it have been much different if Hillary Clinton had won? Like Trump, Clinton also vowed to revisit the bilateral free trade accord to make it better serve the interests of U.S. businesses and consumers. Trump's biggest problem is uncertainty and unpredictability in his policy. If Clinton's certainty means a definite disadvantage for this country, however, there are few reasons for Seoul not to bet on Trump's uncertainty. On North Korea, too, it's possible Clinton would follow her predecessor's "strategic patience" policy, which failed. South Koreans need to remember how fiercely they opposed the free trade deal with the United States until the last moments of its negotiation. A recent tally shows the ROK-U.S. FTA has benefitted Seoul more than Washington in terms of trade balance. But that was more because South Korean companies have tried harder to adapt themselves to the new trade environment and honed their export competitiveness more than their U.S. counterparts than because the deal itself was concluded to Seoul's advantage. Unless the U.S. withdraws from the World Trade Organization, it cannot twist the arms of key trade partners at will. On the national security front, Trump's policy can give even a freer hand to South Korea. If the Republican president-elect is to reduce the U.S. intervention in foreign affairs on condition that the allies under its shelter pay higher prices, Seoul can shoulder 1 trillion won ($843 million) more as the cost to maintain the U.S. troops size out of its annual defense budget of 40 trillion won, and seek greater wiggle room in its defense and diplomatic policy. It should start by taking back the wartime operational control and pursuing different inter-Korean policies by resuming cooperation amid confrontation, denuclearizing North Korea in part through dialogue and detente. If Brexit and Trumpism mean this planet is shifting from globalization and integration toward nationalistic free-for-alls if in the foreseeable future the Koreas can ill afford to be the only nation in the world to remain split in two and be mired in an outdated proxy war of bygone ideology. China is going all out to regain its past glory as the Middle Kingdom and Japan has all but become a country capable of waging war, not just for defense but for offense. This explains why Seoul should reconsider the deployment of the U.S. anti-missile system actually targeting China and the conclusion of the Korea-Japan military intelligence sharing accord. It is not only risky but stupid for Seoul to work as a sub-partner of Japan in reshaping the regional balance of power. The 70-year-long global order is changing, in which liberal democracy and free trade are giving way to populist nationalism and protectionism. Gurus and pundits say what happened in Britain and America reflects the underclass' revolt against the elite in increasingly polarizing societies, economically and otherwise, as victims of globalization. That may be a correct analysis, on a national scale. Yes, globalization and unfettered trade have served more for business corporations, especially big ones, rather than for individuals. In relative terms, however, Britons and Americans have been the greatest beneficiaries of the neo-liberalistic economic system at the expense of their less powerful foreign counterparts. True, developing countries, Korea in particular, have also benefitted from free trade but their prosperity was never earned freely. Trump was wrong: Koreans did not take away Americans' jobs but the former worked far harder than the latter. This is no time for Koreans to let their incapacitated leader remain at the helm of state, especially in foreign policy. Park, extremely disoriented and incompetent but abnormally adhering to political power, is the person who can use, or even trigger, inter-Korean conflicts by staying at the Blue House. The nation should oust her as soon as possible and usher in a leader more independent-minded and forward-looking in inter-Korean affairs who can pursue policies based more on national consensus. He or she ought to form a dream team of administration composed of reformative conservatives and rational progressives. The new leadership should then deal with surrounding powers, including the U.S., on a more equal and square footing whether or not Trump meant what he said in foreign policy. Choi Sung-jin is a contributing writer to The Korea Times and an adjunct professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Contact him at choisj1955@naver.com. Park keeps going back on her word to deal with the scandal The people's fury toward President Park Geun-hye reached new heights after Cheong Wa Dae's incomprehensible response to the prosecution's interim investigation results of an unprecedented influence-peddling scandal. In particular, President Park's uncooperativeness with the prosecution, which fingered the President as an accomplice in the so-called Choi Soon-sil scandal, leads many to seriously question Park's ability to think rationally. Going back on her own words, Park responded to the prosecution's announcement through her legal representative that she will refuse to undergo questioning. This goes completely against what she said during her nationally televised apology on Nov. 4 in which she vowed to submit herself to an investigation if necessary. After the prosecution indicted her longtime confidant Choi and two former Cheong Wa Dae aides earlier this week and linked the President to most of their criminal acts, the presidential office questioned the fairness of the prosecution's investigation results and made it clear it will not respond to its future requests for questioning. It also refused to recognize any of the prosecution's assertions of her involvement in the scandal. Cheong Wa Dae even mocked the prosecution by saying the investigation results were based on "imagination" and that they have built a "house of fantasy." As President, it is one of Park's most important duties to uphold the rule of law. It is extremely regrettable that not only has the President gone back on her own word, but also displayed a glaring lack of respect toward rule of law by defying the prosecution's call for questioning. Cheong Wa Dae's assertion of Park's innocence does not resonate with the people at all. If she truly has nothing to be ashamed of, the rational thing would have been to cooperate with the investigation. Cheong Wa Dae said it will start preparing for a "neutral" investigation by an independent counsel. The Cabinet approved a bill Tuesday that would allow the opposition parties to pick candidates for an independent counsel to investigate the scandal. But what happens when Park determines the independent counsel is not in her favor? Will she refuse to cooperate then as well? If she continues obstructing the investigations, she will only make things worse for herself and the country. Park has also signaled that she may change her mind on the appointment of a new prime minister. During a visit with National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun on Nov. 7, the President said she will nominate a new prime minister recommended by the Assembly and hand over the control of the Cabinet. But this week, Cheong Wa Dae hinted that circumstances had changed and it will wait and see on the issue of appointing a new prime minister. This kind of flighty attitude is not something the people want to see from a scandal-ridden President who has brought shame to the country and crippled state affairs. Gangdong-gu Mayor Lee Hae-sik delivers a speech on the district's healthcare technologies at the 2016 Global Conference on Health Promotion held in Shanghai, China, Monday. / Courtesy of Gangdong-gu Office By Park Jae-hyuk Gangdong-gu Office head Lee Hae-sik introduced the district's healthcare technologies at the Ninth Global Conference on Health Promotion in Shanghai, China, running from Monday to Thursday, the district office in eastern Seoul said Tuesday. As a chairman of the Korea Healthy Cities Partnership, Lee introduced Gangdong-gu's stair-climbing smartphone application, health checking zones and healthcare centers at the conference. Thanks to the office's efforts, the physical activity scale of its residents increased from 17.0 percent in 2009 to 26.1 percent last year and obesity rates dropped from 24.6 percent in 2008 to 23.5 percent last year, according to the 2015 Community Health Survey by Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Korea's healthy cities are enhancing the global governance, building international networks with overseas healthy cities," Lee said. "We will continue to share and develop our policies for Korea to be much healthier." Co-hosted by the World Health Organization and China's National Health and Family Planning Commission, the conference focuses on promoting health and sustainable development, which had been highlighted in the Ottawa Charter signed at the first international conference in 1986. Participants of the conference included public policy decision makers, health promotion experts and ministers of agriculture, development cooperation, finance, foreign affairs, health, planning, and trade. About 750 participants discussed better policies and introduced cases supporting healthy cities for sustainable development. The Asia Artist Awards 2016 had just recently concluded and you can only expect the joy that the fans felt after seeing their favorite stars win their respective awards. But who among the several nominated artists actually ended up going home with an award? Find out here. Asia Artist Awards is one of those award giving bodies where k-pop artists rub shoulders with k-drama actors in an event filled with explosive performances and beautiful faces. The winners are chosen by popular vote which means fans get to choose who the winners will be. This year, the Asia Artist Awards 2016 were held at the Grand Peace Hall in Kyung Hee University located in Seoul, Soompi reports. Lots of celebrities participated in the event such as Park Bo Gum, Park Shin Hye, YoonA, Nana, Jung Shin and more. The event featured performances by EXO, BTS, TWICE, BLACKPINK, Gummy, MAMAMOO, NCT 127 among many others. While most artists performed smoothly and without glitch, there were a few unfortunate people who experienced technical difficulties during their performance such as BLACKPINK and BTS's J-Hope. According to Allkpop, Jennie and Lisa's microphones were both not working properly during BLACKPINK's performance of their hit singles 'Whistle' and 'Playing with Fire.' Fans were extremely upset by this technical error because this is the first time that BLACKPINK had performed in a big awards show. However, the girls still delivered a spectacular performance amid all the errors. If BLACKPINK was a technical error, J-Hope's blunders were all his doing. His microphone fell off during the first parts of their performance. However, he was also able to attach it back before a lot of people could notice. As for the rest, here is the full list of winners during the Asia Artist Awards 2016: DAESANG: Jo Jin Woong / Drama EXO / Artist ASIA BEST ARTIST: Park Shin Hye / Drama Female Park Hae Jin / Drama Male TWICE BTS NEW WAVE AWARD: Kwak Si Yang Lee Jung Shin Bang Dae Dong Hwang Chi Yeol RISING STAR AWARD: Han Dong Geun Park Hye Soo Shin Hyun Soo Chi Pu Cosmic Girls Boys and Men ASIA STAR AWARD: Park Bo Gum EXO YoonA BEST CHOICE AWARD: Lee Si Young Dynamic Duo Sung Hoon BEST OST AWARD Gummy / You Are My Everything - 'Descendants of the Sun' BEST PRODUCER AWARD Bang Si Hyuk - Big Hit Entertainment POPULARITY AWARD YoonA EXO Baekhyun BAIDU STAR AWARD: EXO ROOKIE AWARD BLACKPINK NCT 127 Nana Ryu Jeon Yeol BEST ENTERTAINER AWARD: B.A.P MAMAMOO Seo Kang Joon Nam Ji Hyun BEST CELEBRITY AWARD: Kim Ji Won Namgoong Min Jin Goo AOA VIXX BEST ICON AWARD: BTS Kim Yoo Jung Ukrzaliznytsia has appealed to the holders of its eurobonds worth $500 million with the request to extend until the end of 2017 exemption from cross-default conditions on certain domestic debts, including that of Donetsk Railways. According to a company report on the London Stock Exchange, those who agree to this leniency will receive $5 for every $1,000 of eurobonds par value. A meeting of eurobond holders is scheduled for December 7. As reported, Ukrzaliznytsia on May 12, 2015 declared violation of obligations on the payment of principal on some internal bilateral loan agreements, cross-default on eurobonds and the plan to restructure debts to private creditors for a total of UAH 32 billion with the total debt being UAH 37.5 billion, including UAH 22 billion of internal debt. It was initially planned to restructure the domestic debt by the end of 2015. Regarding the domestic debt, the holders of Ukrzaliznytsia eurobonds in the amount of $500 million on February 17, 2016 approved the restructuring of the securities. The Donbas militants conducted 17 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in the past 24 hours, the anti-terrorist operation staff said on Facebook on Tuesday. In the Mariupol sector, the militants fired mortars of various calibers on Shyrokyne, Hnutove and Slavne and used grenade launchers and infantry combat vehicle weapons against Maryinka and Lybidynske, it said. In the Luhansk sector, Ukrainian army positions came under attack of grenade launchers and mortars, the report said. In the Donetsk sector, the militants fired small arms and various types of grenade launchers on the outskirts of Zaitseve and Avdiyivka, the report said. Two deserters who joined the Russian Armed Forces in 2014 have been detained on the border with Crimea, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said. "It is two former Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen who betrayed their oath and joined the Russian army [in 2014]...," SBU said on Monday evening, when commenting to Interfax on the Russian Defense Ministry's report that the Ukrainian special service had detained two Russian Armed Forces servicemen and had taken them out of Crimea. "They were detained after crossing the border in Chonhar," SBU said, adding that it was conducting a criminal investigation against them on counts of 'desertion' and 'high treason' under the Ukrainian Penal Code. The Russian Defense Ministry told Interfax earlier that Ukrainian special services had illegally detained two Russian servicemen and had taken them out of Crimea. Defense minister orders to create register of all of ministry's funds, land parcels within two months Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak has ordered to create the register of funds and land parcels of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine within two months. The ministry's press service reported that the order was given at a meeting with heads of the housing and exploitation divisions of all levels held in Kyiv. "I set the tasks for the housing and exploitation divisions of the major construction department: within two months to study the situation and create the register of funds and land parcels in the electronic form and on paper," the minister said. He also ordered to report on all problems unveiled to the top managers and find the ways of their solution. Firefighters continue to fight a wildfire near the Buffalo River in Newton County. The fire is in steep and inaccessible terrain near Whitaker Point, also known as Hawksbill Crag, in the Upper Buffalo Wilderness Area. Freezing temperatures across much of Arkansas caused leaves to drop by the millions over the past few days, particularly in the national forests. In combination with the lack of moisture and gusting winds, the leaves pose problems for firefighters. With the significant leaf fall, we are seeing some reigniting of wildfires that recently burned, said Lance Elmore, fire staff officer for the Ozark-St. Francis and Ouachita National Forests in Arkansas and Oklahoma. And on currently active fires, the leaves are resulting in an increase in intensity. Elmore says people should be careful with any activity that could cause a fire. He said firefighters are stretched thin in Arkansas due to the number of wildfires that occur each day, and the number of firefighters that are assisting with the wildfire siege in the East, namely North Carolina, Kentucky and Georgia. The 75-acre fire near Whitaker Point was started by an unattended campfire more than a week ago. Fire suppression is not allowed in some wilderness areas but that is not the case in the Ozark-St. Francis National Forests where the Land Management Plan guides firefighters to suppress all fires in wilderness areas where it can be safely accomplished. Our first priority is public and firefighter safety, said Incident Commander Mike Haisten. The steep and rocky terrain, and dead snags from Red Oak Borer and ice storm damage make it difficult for us to directly attack the wildfire, but we have options that have allowed us to use natural barriers, and handline to contain it. Haisten said they are able to use some mechanized equipment like chainsaws and leaf blowers to gain the upper hand, but all actions are light on the land to reduce any lasting impacts. Firefighters put in a handline along an old trail on Monday and conducted a burnout to essentially button up one area of the fire. If the line holds, Haisten cautiously estimated the fire could be called contained within a few days. Unlike some wilderness areas, the Upper Buffalo Wilderness has private inholdings within the wilderness boundary, and one area near the fire is dotted with structures, including homes. Firefighters installed sprinkler systems around these structures, and worked to improve some areas to increase survivability in the event the Whitaker Point fire travels that far. Firefighters are monitoring the fire through the night near the private property and along the Hawksbill Crag Trail, which is temporarily closed for public safety. Many people continue to try to use the trail, either purposely or because theyre unaware of the closure. The Forest Service asks people to honor the trail closure until it is lifted. Access our webpage at or like us on Facebook at for information about National Forest wildfires. An HIV-positive Malawian man has been sentenced to 24 months in jail with hard labour, after being found guilty for having unprotected sex with newly bereaved widows, local journalist Alfred Guta has told the BBC. Malawis President Peter Mutharika had ordered the arrest of Eric Aniva, a sex worker known locally as a hyena, after he admitted in a BBC interview to having sex with more than 100 women and underage girls and not disclosing his HIV status. His lawyer, Michael Goba Chipeta, said Aniva would appeal against the conviction and the sentence. The practice of widow cleansing, when a widow must have sex after her husband dies, was outlawed a few years ago. Aniva was the subject of a BBC feature into various sexual cleansing practices in Malawi. The president had wanted him tried for defiling young girls, but none came forward to testify against him. Instead Aniva was tried for harmful cultural practice under section five of Malawis Gender Equality Act for having sex with new widows. In some remote southern regions of the country it is traditional for girls to be made to have sex with a man after their first menstruation. Last year Malawi banned child marriage, raising the legal age of marriage from 15 to 18 something activists hoped would put an end to early sexual initiations. Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates The police in Lagos State on Monday paraded an alleged quack doctor, Celestine Yolonfun, who was arrested in the Apapa area of the state. It was gathered that 32-year-old Yolonfun had been practising as a doctor since 2005 after he dropped out of a nursing school in the Benin Republic. Punch Metro learnt that Yolonfun was arrested on Wednesday by operatives of the State Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Department, Yaba. It was gathered that a pregnant woman, who was due for delivery, allegedly died in Yolonfuns hospital, and her husband reported the doctor to the police at the SCIID. A Punch correspondent was told that the police went to Yolonfuns hospital Be Well Hospital on Liverpool Road, Apapa, and arrested him. Yolonfun, who hails from Badagry, Lagos State, told Punch Metro that he had been practising since 2005 and only two patients had died in his hospital. The suspect confessed that he paid a colleague N70,000 to obtain fake certificates of the Nigerian Medical Association and the University of Ibadan, Oyo State. He said, I have been practising since 2005. I did not attend any school in Nigeria. I went to the Benin Republic. I sat for the General Certificate Education two years ago. I wanted to attend a university in Nigeria to study Medicine. But my wife fell sick and I could not. I dropped out of a nursing school in the Benin Republic. I came back to Nigeria in 2004, and I started the hospital in 2005. Since I started the hospital, which takes care of general ailments, only two persons had died in the hospital. The first patient died in 2013. The second patient was that woman who died penultimate Saturday. The woman was pregnant. She also had high blood pressure. After giving her the initial treatment, I planned to refer her to a bigger hospital, but she died before I could move her. Her baby also died. The state Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, said the police had contacted all the medical associations the suspect claimed to be registered with and they had confirmed him to be a fake doctor. He said, The suspect was arrested and was found to have been in this illegal practice since 2005. He operated a makeshift hospital in the Liverpool area of Apapa. We found a fake University of Ibadan MBBS certificate, a fake Dental and Medical Council of Nigeria certificate and a fake Corporate Affairs Commission certificate in his house. The professional bodies have been contacted by the police, and the suspect had been confirmed to be a fake medical practitioner. Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko has said that in the Hague on Monday he discussed the possibility of investigating the case concerning events on the Maidan, in annexed Crimea and occupied Donbas. "I have had several meetings with representatives of the ICC prosecutors office in Kyiv. Today we have met with the head of the prosecutor's office and discussed the possibility of a joint approach to these two cases. Our investigation finds that it is impossible to separately consider the events on the Maidan, events during the annexation of Crimea and events during the Russian not declared aggression in Ukrainian Donbas," he said in the Freedom of Speech program on ICTV channel on Monday. According to him, former President Viktor Yanukovych created an organized criminal group and, together with others, he committed crimes against Ukrainian citizens - stood on the path of treason. "We believe that this is one element of the crime and we offer our colleagues from the office of the ICC prosecutor to consider the case as the case of former presidents treason, murder of hundreds of people at his order, the beginning of an undeclared war aggression, which have led to crimes against humanity and war crimes," the prosecutor general said. Stephany Rose, who last month became the new Captain of the San Diego Police Department Northern Division (which includes La Jolla), said her first police assignment was as a bike patrol officer in the Southern Division. Now 23 years later, shes been involved in diverse areas of the force, including Internal Affairs, Vice operations, sex crimes and the centralized telephone report unit. The 51-year-old was promoted to Captain in April 2015, and led the Northwestern Division until a few weeks ago when she switched posts with former Northern Division Captain Mark Hanten. Rose said the change was a part of the police departments personal growth policy. Id been at Northwestern for four years, so Chief Shelley Zimmerman wanted to give me an opportunity to work something different, and the same with Captain Hanten, Rose said. Hanging on one of the walls in her office, above a whiteboard showing shifts and work assignments, is a straw broom fashioned into a vehicle. It features a bike seat, a witch hood ornament and a license plate that reads Stephany. It was given to me by my squad at Western years ago. We had an officer who was injured and he always limped, so they gave him a cane that was black-and-white with a little flashing reflector light, like you would have on a bike, and they gave me that. Since then, I bring it with me everywhere. My parents and I moved a lot, but Im originally from Southern California. At one time we lived in Chula Vista. I went to high school in Oregon, and then I came to San Diego for college and never left. In discussing the Northern Division beat, Rose said, I realize each community has different issues, whats happening in La Jolla is not the same as Clairemont, Pacific Beach, Mission Beach or Fiesta Island. But to me they all have the same priority, as we have to take action with whatever is going on there. As to the types of crime that occur in La Jolla, Rose said, So far most of what Im understanding is that La Jolla has some quality-of-life issues with transients coming into the area, and this seemed to be increasing overtime, and there are property crimes. Its similar to the community I just came from. We ask our quality-of-life team to come up with solutions; one is to contact the transients moving into the area and find out where theyre from, what can we do to get them resources and back out to wherever they need to be. I also want officers and volunteers, who we use a lot for visibility, to be able to drive all the streets and talk to everybody. That visibility is a huge deterrent weve found to be very effective. I want to make sure that any areas where we are starting to see extra property crimes, we add extra patrol, as well as having our officers address anybody with warrants wanted for property crime-type offenses. When informed of the direction several communities within La Jolla are exploring to hire a private security force, Rose responded, Every community needs to do whatever they feel they need to do ... obviously, we cant be everywhere at once, and neither could a security company. Ive worked in gated communities that had their own security force, and Ive worked in communities that did not, but had their own citizens patrol, and these can be effective, but they have to be properly trained to be our eyes and ears. I dont know if private security would be beneficial for La Jolla or not, but we will support whatever the neighbors decide to do, and we will always work with Neighborhood Watch groups or private security. In response to the short staffing within the police department, Rose said she looks at how to best use the officers on hand. Chief Zimmerman has started a Community Board where theyve picked people from each community to help us recruit, and try to get more of the people that are here so we reflect the same demographics, she explained. In the next few months, Rose said she plans to attend community and business meetings, to find out what peoples concerns are, What they see, versus what we see, she said. Then when working on problems, sometimes you come up with new municipal codes, other times its having that one-on-one and explaining to a group of people why we do what we do, maybe we revitalize an area doing environmental designs, we plant some trees, we paint, we redecorate or we try to change zoning. It amazes me how many Neighborhood Watch programs are in the Northern Division, that means the community is really involved, and thats a good thing, because we cannot do it all ourselves. We have a tendency to look at the law, and enforcing it, but what impact is that having? And without getting that input from someone whos looking at it from a different viewpoint, youll be effective to an extent, but you have to have those multiple viewpoints to be really effective. To reach Capt. Steffany Rose: Northern Divison headquarters is at 4275 Eastgate Mall. (858) 552-1700. E-mail: sdpdnorthern@pd.sandiego.gov During its Oct. 24 meeting, the San Diego City Council allocated an additional $5 million for the Replacement of Stormwater Infrastructure on Avenida de la Playa (RSIAP) in La Jolla Shores. According to the request for action, $6,362,508 had already been spent on the project, which brings its pricetag to $11,362,508. According to the Citys website, the calculated cost of the project is $10,862,507, but as Citys public information officer Anthony Santacroce said, This number will continue to be refined as the project progresses. After years of construction, the RSIAP was finished in May 2015. Six months later, in January 2016, a large storm event collapsed the infrastructure, creating a sinkhole that extended almost half a block to the beach and flooding the Avenida de la Playa businesses between Camino del Sol and El Paseo Grande. Engineer Hany Elwany of Coastal Environments, who works out of La Jolla Shores, explained that, in his opinion, the project had engineering and construction safety problems. This is troubling for the people living in the area because you cant continue closing and reopening the ground, and this costs the City a lot of money, he said. The explanation for why new stormwater infrastructure failed completely is not an easy one to come by. As City Senior Engineer Steve Lindsay reported at the Sept. 14 La Jolla Shores Association (LJSA) meeting, logs and debris coming down the system clogged the recently installed outfall structure (which replaced the old storm drain). Allegedly, thats what caused the sinkhole that appeared close to the beach in the area known as boat launch. In the 2012 Mitigated Negative Declaration document on the original project, this part of the infrastructure replacement was described as follows: For the storm drain portion of the project, approximately 0.26 miles of (dual) 51-inch by 90-inch and (single) 72-inch by 72-inch Reinforced Concrete Boxes would be installed along Avenida De La Playa from Paseo Del Ocaso west toward the seawall within and adjacent to the beach area. At the Nov. 9 LJSA meeting, Lindsay stated, The original design did not hold up with the first large event we had. It was a cast structure with a heavy lid that just sat on top. As soon as it got pressure, the lid blew off, there was nothing holding it down. This new structure is going to be cast in place; theres no way this thing is going to suffer the damages that the original structure did. At the same time, a biofilter box installed under El Paseo Grande didnt have the capacity to process the amount of water it received and it, too, blew up during the same storm event, causing flooding in that area of the street. When revisiting the project, Lindsay said they decided to leave the biofilter box out. Unfortunately, what was there was working fine and we put something in that didnt work, so we go back to the original design, he explained. Area of Special Biological Significance La Jolla Shores is one of 34 Areas of Special Biological Significance (ASBS) along the California coastline. Coastkeeper lab coordinator Meredith Meyers explained that the designation was created in the 1970s to protect the water quality of those areas. La Jolla Shores is home to several important habitats kelp beds, rocky reefs, sandy flats and the canyon and its special because gets a high level of use and its in the proximity of a highly urbanized area that makes it very vulnerable, she said. In 1983, Meyers continued, a no-discharge requirement for ASBS was included in the States Ocean Plan. However, The cities were already there, so there were some exemptions granted on a case-by-case basis. The City of San Diego secured an exemption, but has been working since then to reduce urban runoff and low-flow discharges. As Lindsay pointed out, the low-flow has been directed to the sewer system for 15 years. Once the water gets to Camino del Sol, theres a diversion, so we take the low flow and put it into the sewer, so it doesnt go to the beach. The sewer goes down to the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plan, gets cleaned, and pumped into the ocean, he explained. However, the City had reports that indicated low-flow discharges during the dry season. As the original budget, included in the 2014 Fiscal Year City Budget, states, Reports indicated low-flow diversion was not functioning as needed resulting in dry weather flow reaching the beach, which is out of compliance with the California Oceans Plan. Additionally, the current pipe is vastly undersized which results in street flooding every year. The current construction, which eliminated the biofilter box, will replace the box culvert that failed in the storm event and add a baffle box on La Jolla Shores Drive. The baffle box, as Lindsay described it, will eliminate some of the contaminants for smaller storm events. If you have a big stream coming down La Jolla Shores Drive, we are not going to put the baffle box right in the middle, we are going to have a pipe going to the side, so theres no risk of losing that again, he said. Lindsay said the original design was to blame for the failure, and that was done by Tetra Tech Inc. A new company was hired for the new construction. The Avenida de la Playa storm drain system and outfall structure drains approximately 820 acres (1.28 square miles) into a protected area of the Pacific Ocean. The highly-urbanized watershed, mainly for residential and commercial uses, has a large amount of impervious surfaces that contribute to the urban runoff. The failure of the stormwater system in January 2016 endangered low flow and wet weather discharges. But, even when the current construction is completed, the ASBS will still be subject to urban runoff from large storm events. As Meyer put it, By protecting urban runoff, you protect the biological communities that are valuable there, but you are also protecting the dozens of humans swimming there every day. Poroshenko asks UN High Commissioner for Refugees to pay attention to problems of Crimean Tatars in Crimea Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has had a meeting with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, who has visited Ukraine for the first time, and asked him to pay special attention to the problems the Crimean Tatars face in Crimea temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation. "We are pleased with the level of Ukraine's cooperation with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and thank you for your strong support of our country in this difficult time," Poroshenko said. As reported on the official website of the president, in the course of the meeting the president expressed hope that the visit of the High Commissioner to Ukraine will allow him to assess "the complexity of the humanitarian situation in Donbas." In his turn Grandi noted that it stands to reason that he carried out his visit to Ukraine in the first year after his election to the post of the UN High Commissioner. "We attach significant importance to the situation in your country and the role we can play in resolving respective problems. This visit is also important because we can bring information about challenges of Ukraine to the world, "Grandi told the Ukrainian president. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees underscored the efforts of the Ukrainian authorities aimed at ensuring the rights and meeting the needs of IDPs. Grandi congratulated the president of Ukraine on the third anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity. According to the press service, the last visit of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to Ukraine took place 22 years ago. The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary Read more PRESS RELEASE APEC Steps Up Planning for Chinas Proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific Nov. 21, 2016 (EIRNS)Notable in the "2016 Leaders Declaration," issued at the end of the Lima APEC summit, is its reiteration of the leaders "commitment to the eventual realization of the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) as a major instrument to further deepen APECs regional economic integration agenda," and that "instructs officials to implement the Lima Declaration on FTAAP." Work programs towards the realization of the FTAAP are to be developed, and regular progress reports on implementing those programs are expected, the final declaration states, and "we instruct officials to consider next steps that can be taken towards the eventual realization of an FTAAP." Chinese President Xi Jinping had urged fellow leaders at the APEC Summit to accelerate steps towards the FTAAP, in his speech on Saturday, given the weakness in the world economy. The idea of a FTAAP, unifying the myriad of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements between Asian-Pacific countries (Xinhua counts 160 different agreements as of the end of 2015), goes back to 2006. But China has taken the lead in pushing it forward, in the last two years in particular. Unlike Obamas Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), designed explicitly to exclude China, the FTAAP would include all nations in the Asia-Pacific region which wish to join. And Chinas concept of FTAAP is to facilitate trade so as to foment the physical economic development of the participating nations, not the bankers-corporate dictatorship of Obamas TPP. Obamas now-dead TPP was not even mentioned in the main final declaration, but was relegated to brief mention in the annexed Lima Declaration on FTAAP, urging that the TPP be "inclusive" and "transparent." Obamas grandstanding in Lima during the summit reportedly enraged his Peruvian hosts and members of the U.S. business delegation attending alike. Obama didnt bother to address the summit at all, but took off to address a "youth" meeting at the Catholic University, covered extensively on Peruvian TV, and he called his own press conference right after the final press conference of the other leaders closing the summit, where he held forth for any who would listen on how he wants the Democratic Party, Trump, and everyone else to behave. Ukrainian representative to the Trilateral Contact Group's humanitarian subgroup Iryna Herashchenko and OSCE coordinator Tony Frisch have met with the families of 109 Ukrainians held in the Donbas territories uncontrolled by Kyiv. "Ambassador Frisch told them about his first visit to prisons in individual districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the past 36 months and said he had had a chance to speak with our servicemen and teenagers branded 'saboteurs and terrorists'. [...] We had a frank discussion of the negotiations and our efforts towards the release of the hostages," Herashchenko said on Facebook on Monday. A total of 109 Ukrainians, both civilians and military men, are on the list of captives, she said. "Some servicemen have been imprisoned for over two years, since Ilovaisk and Debaltseve," Herashchenko said. The release of prisoners is a primary objective of the humanitarian subgroup, she said. "We very much want to hear good news of their release," Herashchenko said. Nov. 21, 2016 (EIRNS)Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who served two tours of combat duty in Iraq before running for U.S. Congress, today met with Donald Trump on Syrian policy, and other foreign policy matters. Gabbard, an outspoken opponent of endless war, staunch supporter of Glass-Steagall, and backer of Bernie Sanders during the campaign, resigned her post at the Democratic National Committee in protest against its dictates on behalf of Clinton. Her meeting with Trump threw the Establishment press into a flurry of commentary, with ABC News reporting that the Congresswoman "is being looked at as a candidate for Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense or United Nations Ambassador." After the meeting with Trump, she released this statement on her website: "President-elect Trump asked me to meet with him about our current policies regarding Syria, our fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face. I felt it important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect now before the drumbeats of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian governmenta war which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families. "While the rules of political expediency would say I should have refused to meet with President-elect Trump, I never have and never will play politics with American and Syrian lives. "Serving the people of Hawaii and our nation is an honor and responsibility that I do not take lightly. Representing the aloha spirit and diversity of the people of Hawaii, I will continue to seek common ground to deliver results that best serve all Americans, as I have tried to do during my time in Congress. "Where I disagree with President-elect Trump on issues, I will not hesitate to express that disagreement. However, I believe we can disagree, even strongly, but still come together on issues that matter to the American people and affect their daily lives. We cannot allow continued divisiveness to destroy our country. "President-elect Trump and I had a frank and positive conversation in which we discussed a variety of foreign policy issues in depth. I shared with him my grave concerns that escalating the war in Syria by implementing a so-called no fly/safe zone would be disastrous for the Syrian people, our country, and the world. It would lead to more death and suffering, exacerbate the refugee crisis, strengthen ISIS and al-Qaeda, and bring us into a direct conflict with Russia which could result in a nuclear war. We discussed my bill to end our countrys illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government, and the need to focus our precious resources on rebuilding our own country, and on defeating al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups who pose a threat to the American people. "For years, the issue of ending interventionist, regime change warfare has been one of my top priorities. This was the major reason I ran for CongressI saw firsthand the cost of war, and the lives lost due to the interventionist warmongering policies our country has pursued for far too long. "Let me be clear, I will never allow partisanship to undermine our national security when the lives of countless people lay [sic] in the balance." PRESS RELEASE Putin the Statesman Meets Obama the Narcissist Nov. 21, 2016 (EIRNS)Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barak Obama met on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima, Peru, yesterday, for all of four minutes. Putin, as always, was very statesmanlike about it. "[O]ur dialogue was not always easy, there were difficult moments and working together was not always a straightforward process, but nonetheless, as President Obama and I both noted, we always had respect for each other and for each others positions," he said, during a press conference, later, according to the transcript posted on the Kremlin website. "I thanked him for these years of work together and said that we would be happy to see him in Russia at any time, whenever he feels the need or desire to visit." Obama, on the other hand, remains an unreconstructed narcissist, intent on lecturing others on how to behave, even after his presidency has been rejected by the American voters. "The President urged President Putin to uphold Russias commitments under the Minsk agreements, underscoring the U.S. and our partners commitment to Ukraines sovereignty," a White House official told Reuters. Russian television coverage of the Putin-Obama mini-exchange, however, had a different account, which was backed up by video footage. It was Putin who approached Obama during a break in the summit to have a one-on-one talk, and it was Putin who raised the urgency of fully implementing Minsk II, and who additionally pressed for the United States and Russia to maintain the Kerry-Lavrov negotiations, seeking a solution to the Syria war and a resolution of the Ukraine situation. During his press conference, Putin was also asked about his phone call, last week, with President-elect Donald Trump. He noted that Trump had "reiterated his desire to normalize our bilateral relations," and that "we seek the same." "We did not discuss a specific date for a meeting but said it could be useful, perhaps, to organize a meeting between representatives of our staffs," Putin went on. PRESS RELEASE War Party Moving To Preempt Trump-Putin Reset Nov. 21, 2016 (EIRNS)Josh Rogin reports in the Washington Post today that a bipartisan group of Congressmen and Senators are planning to take actions to block any serious attempt by Trump to reset relations with Russia. John McCain and Lindsey Graham are taking the point in opposing a shift towards cooperation with Russia. They are planning to lead a Congressional delegation to Ukraine, Georgia, and Estonia, to reassure those countries that the US will remain their ally against Russian "aggression." They will be holding a series of hearings beginning in January on Russian transgressions in Syria, the Baltics, and in the cyber-warfare area. Graham, according to Rogin, also intends to use his chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations to finance European allies in their efforts to block Russian advances. Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will also introduce bills to increase funding of the European Democracy Initiative. House bills are also being prepared to impose new sanctions on Russia. CSIS European Program director Heather Conley told Rogin that Congress is moving preemptively to limit President-elect Trumps ability to move toward cooperation with Putin and Russia. And the Atlantic Council has published a new report, detailing how Russia has worked overtly and covertly to build up pro-Russian political parties and factions in Europe, including in Britain, France, and Germany. Former Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski wrote the introduction to the Atlantic Council report, and he wrote that any overtures to Russia are doomed to fail because of Russias core commitment to exploit the weaknesses in Western political systems: The Kremlins blatant attempts to influence and disrupt the U.S. presidential election should serve as an inspiration for a democratic push back. Rogin noted that Trump will have a few allies in his effort to improve U.S.-Russian relations, including Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. Thirty-one authors have signed an open letter to President Obama, urging him to pardon Edward Snowden, the former U.S. government contractor charged with violating the Espionage Act for leaking National Security Agency documents to journalists. Writers who signed the letter include Michael Chabon, Ursula K. LeGuin, Cheryl Strayed, Neil Gaiman, Teju Cole and Joyce Carol Oates. Throughout American history, the pardonable offense and the pardon privilege itself have functioned together as a uniquely direct system of check-and-balance between the individual citizen and the executive branch, the letter reads. Both can be understood as extreme actions undertaken to mitigate the harm caused by judicial and legislative insufficiency; by courts that would rule unfairly, and by laws like the Espionage Act whose vagaries and datedness would make their application too severe or too broad. Advertisement The authors argue that Snowdens actions were not treasonous, but instead patriotic. Having sworn an oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution, Snowden proceeded to do just that, the authors wrote, by releasing the information hed uncovered to reputable institutions of our free press, in accordance with Jeffersons principle that wherever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. Snowden was charged with theft of government property and Espionage Act violations in June of 2013, weeks after he fled the United States to Hong Kong and leaked NSA documents to three journalists. Days later, he flew to Russia, where he remains. The country has granted him asylum, which is set to expire on Aug. 1, although it could be extended for another three-year period. Those who see Snowden as a hero have started a campaign urging Obama to pardon him. Supporters of the campaign include business figures George Soros, Steve Wozniak and Jack Dorsey, as well as celebrities such as Daniel Radcliffe, Rosie ODonnell, Peter Gabriel and Martin Sheen. In the open letter, the authors invoked Alexander Hamilton, who in the Federalist Papers described the presidential pardon privilege as a benign prerogative. By pardoning Snowden and permitting him to return free to the country he loves, your administration would be sending a message to the future, the authors wrote, that America remains committed to democratic accountability, and that tomorrows innovations will not be allowed to bend or bow the Constitution, but will, instead, be made to conform to it, and to reinforce the rights that it bestows. Volkswagen Groups namesake brand hopes to bounce back from its diesel emissions scandal with a broad restructuring that will mean more battery-powered cars, digital services such as ride sharing, and more SUVs for the U.S. market. Herbert Diess, head of the Volkswagen division, unveiled the German automakers Transform 2025 plan at a news conference Tuesday, saying that in the coming years, we will fundamentally change Volkswagen. Only a few things will remain as they are. The plan foresees a major shift in focus toward investments in electric-car technology and in software to enable new ways of using and sharing cars. The Volkswagen division alone expects to sell a million electric vehicles a year by 2025. Including the companys other brands, such as SEAT and Skoda, Volkswagen Group expects to sell up to 3 million electrics by then. Advertisement Diess said the company would also massively step up its capacity to develop software, aiming to create industry-leading programs and hardware systems for digitally connected and autonomous cars by 2025. Another element of the plan is increasing sales in the U.S. by introducing products that are more appropriate for the market, such as more SUVs and larger cars. This year, Volkswagen-badged cars have only 1.8% of the U.S. market through October, badly lagging behind competitors such as General Motors, Ford, Fiat Chrysler and Toyota. Diess also said the company would start making electric vehicles in the U.S. by 2021. Currently Volkswagen makes Passat sedans at its plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. For years, a concept for success in the U.S. has been lacking, Diess said at company headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. Sometimes we have not been on the bandwagon with new market trends. He said regional managers would get more local responsibility to make decisions and meet local conditions. The plan for the Volkswagen brand follows Fridays announcement that the division would eliminate 30,000 jobs, of which 23,000 are in Germany, and create 9,000 new positions focused on new technologies. Diess said the company aims to raise profit margins on sales to 6% by 2025 from 2% in 2015. Profitability at the Volkswagen brand has lagged due to its higher cost base, the result of a strong role for employee representatives. They have half the board seats and are generally supported by the government of Lower Saxony, which holds a stake in the company. Partly as a result, Volkswagen Group makes most of its profit from its luxury brands Audi and Porsche. The company struck a deal with its workforce, which agreed to the job reductions through voluntary means such as early retirement over a period of years. In return, employees won a commitment to locate new technology development and manufacturing in Germany. Volkswagen has agreed to pay $15 billion under a settlement with U.S. authorities and car owners over cars equipped with software that turned off emissions controls under normal driving conditions. The scandal has spurred the company to shake up its management culture and address longstanding issues such as the cost question in Germany. Electric cars remain only a small fraction of the global market. Yet major automakers are investing heavily in battery-powered vehicles as they position themselves for a time when increasing range and falling costs tip the balance and make consumers more interested. Along with electric vehicles, automakers are working on vehicles that take over more functions from the drivers, and on new ways of using and owning cars such as app-based ride hailing and car sharing. ALSO How Trump could use the presidency to help his own business interests Inside the Indian IRS scam that cheated U.S. taxpayers out of millions Siblings clash over control of L.A.-based movie theater chain Reading International Strikes are planned Nov. 29 at Chicago OHare International Airport and at myriad McDonalds restaurants in a nationwide day of protests that the Fight for $15 movement said will be its most disruptive yet. The Fight for $15 campaign announced protests at 20 airports and strikes and acts of mass civil disobedience at McDonalds restaurants in 340 cities. It said it expects tens of thousands of people to participate. The campaign said Monday that after the election of Donald Trump to the White House it wont back down from its activism in the face of an incoming administration it believes threatens an extremist agenda to move the country to the right. Advertisement Airport and fast-food workers are expected to be joined on picket lines by child-care workers, home-care workers and graduate assistants, who are among the estimated 64 million U.S. workers who earn less than $15 an hour. OHare is the only airport where workers are planning to walk off the job. About 500 OHare workers baggage handlers, airplane cabin cleaners, janitors and wheelchair attendants, all employed by private contractors committed to a strike after a vote last week to protest what they see as low wages, inadequate working conditions and retaliation against organizing efforts. They are being organized by the Service Employees International Union Local 1. The airport workers plan to picket outside the terminals and conduct silent pickets inside. The Chicago Department of Aviation said it doesnt anticipate any disruption in service. OHare baggage handler Raquel Brito said at a news conference Monday that the strike was scheduled after the brunt of the Thanksgiving travel rush is over so as not to alienate holiday travelers and instead get their support. OHare airport workers often cant afford a proper Thanksgiving dinner and know what its like to miss Thanksgiving with our families, said Brito, 21. However, we respect families traveling to be together, and that is why were holding off our strike until after the Thanksgiving holiday. National Fight for $15 organizers said Nov. 29 was selected because it is the fourth anniversary of the fast-food worker strikes that launched the Fight for $15 campaign. In addition to demanding a $15 minimum wage and union rights, the campaign said it will keep up unrelenting opposition to efforts to block wage increases, gut workers rights or healthcare, deport immigrants or support racism or racist policies. On Nov. 8 our fight got tougher, but it only recommits our resolve, Kendall Fells, organizing director with the campaign, said in a conference call with reporters. The protests are scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. Nov. 29 with strikes at McDonalds restaurants. The airport protests are to start at noon. Though the protests are in large part directed against Trumps rhetoric and policy promises, which include deporting illegal immigrants and repealing the Affordable Care Act, they also are in reaction to economic conditions that ushered in his win. America does not feel fair anymore to a lot of people the elites ignore, Oliwia Pac, a wheelchair attendant at OHare, said during a conference call the campaign held Monday. A $15 wage would mean I might have money to spend on something other than just surviving. Fells said its hard to say whether Trump would support an increase in the minimum wage. aelejalderuiz@chicagotribune.com ALSO Wells Fargo is hit with new sanctions after fake-accounts scandal The U.S. labor forces guy problem: Why arent more men working? Obama confronts an uncertain future on trade with the likely death of his signature TPP deal With the surge in high-profile data breaches recently, are user names and passwords the best way to ensure that the people logging into corporate networks are who they say they are? ImageWare Systems is betting that businesses want better authentication particularly for remote access from smartphones, tablets and laptops. The San Diego company has introduced a technology platform that enables users to meld biometrics into the traditional user name/password process for signing into a corporate network. Advertisement Instead of just logging into your system with a password, the new platform, called GoVerifyID, would prompt users to also take a selfie or speak a predetermined phrase into their smartphone microphone, or both. The hackers have found a way to impersonate you and me, said Jim Miller, chief executive of ImageWare. If I hack your password, and I am remotely accessing your companys network, as far as they know, I am you with the way security is conducted today. To date, biometric authentication has been a niche technology, used primarily in government. It sometimes required special hardware such as infrared cameras for iris scanning. Now ImageWare thinks that it can tap the cameras, microphones and other sensors on smartphones to tailor biometric technology to a wider audience. GoVerifyID works like this: Once authorized by their employers, workers download the GoVerifyID app to their smartphones. When they log into their corporate network, they get a message via the app that asks if they are indeed signing in. If they answer no, access is denied. If they answer yes, the app requests the selfie or spoken phrase. The information is sent to ImageWares biometric database, which is specifically built for high-speed matching of biometric data. The cloud-based system lets customers run their own facial recognition or voice recognition algorithms quickly, Miller said. ImageWare charges a monthly subscription to customers, reducing the cost of using biometrics. As smartphones add more sensors, the companys database is capable of handling fingerprint data, retina scans and other biometric information, Miller said. Citing research from IBM, Miller said 77% of businesses reported a data breach last year. Their average cost was $3.8 million. Some of the headline-grabbing cyberattacks, such as the Target breach, led to top executives getting fired. The enterprise is getting absolutely trashed, Miller said. People are trying to hack into these companies daily. So there is a pressing need, and when your C-suite starts to lose jobs, you tend to give a little more attention to the issue. For corporate security officers, credential protection is a major concern as employees, contractors and suppliers tap into networks remotely using mobile devices, said Jeromie Jackson, director of security and analytics at Nth Generation Computing, a technology consulting firm. But biometric technology hasnt been a popular authentication technique, in part because it has been viewed as costly and intrusive compared with alternatives. Most people are opposed to sticking their eyeball up to a scanner, Jackson said. While [biometrics] can be high-quality authenticators, I would say adoption rates tend to be pretty low except in top-secret environments. ImageWare has several government and corporate customers, including the U.S. Veterans Administration and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. But the 70-employee company isnt profitable. It reported a $7.8-million loss so far this year on $2.9 million in revenue. Miller believes that the use of biometric data for authentication can grow as costs fall and cyberthreats rise. What we have done is take our unique experience in government over the last 20 years, and we are leveraging that into the commercial and consumer space, he said. mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @TechDiego Yucca Mountain is back on the bargaining table on Capitol Hill. And if the nuclear waste repository in Nevada gets back on track and thats a big if, considering the controversial site has been debated for going on 40 years and six presidential administrations it could provide a destination for the 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste now beached at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. There will almost certainly be efforts to reintroduce legislation that would restart the Yucca process, said David Victor, chairman of the Community Engagement Panel, which acts as a liaison between the public and the operators at San Onofre. Advertisement Whats interesting is this is not a normal left-right [political] issue. Located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Yucca Mountain at one time was determined to be the best site to deposit the nations nuclear waste, which has now reached more than 70,000 metric tons at some 120 sites across the country. The site was slated to open in 2017. But Sen. Harry Reid ( D-Nevada) who loathed the idea of storing waste in his home state, became the Senate Majority Leader after the 2006 elections. During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama said Yucca Mountain was an expensive failure and should be abandoned. The Obama administration cut off funding for Yucca Mountain in 2010. The January retirement of Reid from the Senate and the arrival of the administration of President-elect Donald Trump has led to speculation that Yucca Mountain which has already cost taxpayers $9 billion to $15 billion could be revived and re-funded. Trump has not taken a position on Yucca Mountain, but last month during a campaign stop in Nevada, he said he was going to take a look at it. A report from Bloomberg News last week cited two unidentified people familiar with Trumps transition planning who said reopening Yucca Mountain is being actively discussed by advisors. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Illinois), considered to be in line to become chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has long maintained that Yucca Mountain represents the fastest, best and most viable solution for storing waste. Should the Yucca Mountain debate return to the halls of Congress, Victor said its best chance for survival would come if it is combined with another potential nuclear waste solution: consolidated interim storage. Under consolidated storage, sites would be built in isolated locations like the desert where multiple plants could deposit their waste. Democrats and Republicans many of them anxious to get waste shipped out of their home states have introduced legislation to help clear the way for consolidated storage. One site in West Texas and another in eastern New Mexico have been mentioned as potential destinations for San Onofres waste and could open as early as the 2020s a short time period by nuclear waste timetables if they can clear a series of daunting political and regulatory hurdles. I think you can get a bigger coalition by linking Yucca to consolidated storage, said Victor, who is also a professor of international relations at UC San Diego. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) echoed those remarks last week. We have tried year after year to get a pilot waste program, Feinstein said at a Senate subcommittee hearing. We know there are people who want to build it, a waste facility, because even if Yucca went ahead, Yucca would be filled. Feinstein has co-sponsored nuclear waste legislation with two Republicans and another Senate Democrat. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), also has co-sponsored a bill to find alternative sites for nuclear waste. The San Onofre nuclear plant is in Issas congressional district. Obviously we would love it if we had a permanent site, especially one that had so much time and money spent on it, Issa said. But if Congress reopens the question, we shouldnt open it with a prejudice that it must be good. And we shouldnt allow the prejudice that Harry Reid always had that it must be bad. The in-between is putting together the proper balance of pros and cons and have it fairly and scientifically reevaluated. The issue is of particular importance to California, where more than 3,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel is stranded. Victor was quick to point out that efforts to reach a political solution on Yucca Mountain could end up on the back burner as other policies promoted by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate take center stage. There are going to be other things that are going to be much higher on their list Obamacare, for one, Victor said. Those are going to be very complicated issues that could really suck the oxygen out of the legislative process. And Victor noted that even if a deal on nuclear waste is reached on Capitol Hill, there is still a regulatory process that has to be navigated. Congress cant legislate Yucca to open, Victor said. Congress can restart the process of Yucca going through all the regulatory approvals, which it is nearly done with, but not completely. That does not insulate Yucca from all sorts of local problems and possible changes in administrations in the future. rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com Democratic lawmakers pleaded with their Republican counterparts last week not to mess with financial reform in general or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in particular. But that looks like wishful thinking. A stopgap government funding bill passed in September will expire Dec. 9. Its widely expected that conservative members of Congress will include language in follow-up funding legislation that would change how the bureau operates and the scope of its authority over financial institutions. Congress must not include in end-of-year funding legislation any riders designed to repeal, undermine or delay any provisions of Wall Street reform, including those targeted at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said in a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate. Advertisement They added that it would be irresponsible for you to use the appropriations process as a replacement for committee consideration of legislation through regular order. Like thats going to stop lawmakers who have been trying for years to cripple the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It became law in 2010 and placed a host of regulatory restrictions on banks, mortgage companies and other businesses that were seen as a key cause of the financial meltdown that ushered in the Great Recession. For consumers, perhaps the most significant aspect of Dodd-Frank was creation of the CFPB, a watchdog agency charged with protecting the interests of credit card holders, home loan recipients and others who in the past may have found themselves largely powerless to stand up against such powerful business interests. Since it got up and running, the bureau says it has recovered about $12 billion ripped off from consumers by illegal or questionable practices. This month, for example, the CFPB filed a lawsuit against Virginias B&B Pawnbrokers for deceiving consumers about the actual annual cost of its loans. The business community says the CFPB has too much power. Most consumers would probably counter that if businesses kept their noses clean, thered be no need for such an agency. Dodd-Frank and specifically the bureau have been incredibly cost-effective, said Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League. They have delivered billions of dollars wrongfully taken from consumers. She said critics of the CFPB are guided not so much by concerns of regulatory overreach but rather by a feeling among financial firms that any additional supervision is unnecessary. In fact, the agency has done a terrific job of being even-handed, Greenberg said. It should continue on the course its on. That seems unlikely. In September, the Republican-controlled House Financial Services Committee passed a bill written by its chairman, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), to roll back Dodd-Frank and water down the CFPBs enforcement power. Reflecting more business-friendly marching orders, the agency would be renamed the Consumer Financial Opportunity Commission, run by a five-member, bipartisan commission that would no longer have the authority to ban bank services or products deemed abusive. In the 2014 election cycle, Hensarling was Congress No. 1 recipient of cash from payday lenders, pocketing $68,000. Meanwhile, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled last month that the CFPBs organizational structure is unconstitutional. It said an independent agency with a single director appointed by the president does not provide for sufficient separation of powers. The bureau appealed the ruling Friday. It remains to be seen whether President-elect Donald Trump, after he takes office, will be able to hand CFPB Director Richard Cordray his walking papers. Until now, the director could only be removed for cause that is, for abuse of power. A CFPB spokeswoman declined to comment. The court case notwithstanding, it appears all but certain that Republican lawmakers will pass legislation gutting the bureau and that Trump will sign it. He said prior to the election that he was committed to doing away with Dodd-Frank. Consumer advocates, however, are hoping for the best. Over the last five years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau firmly established itself as the first and most important line of defense against predatory, illegal practices by the financial companies, said Emily Rusch, executive director of the California Public Interest Research Group. President Trump and the Republican-led Congress can show they side with consumers, not big banks, by protecting the independence of this watchdog agency, she said. In their letter to congressional leaders, Waters and Brown noted the important role that the CFPB recently played in holding Wells Fargo accountable for opening more than 2 million accounts without customers permission. Regulators, led by the bureau, hit Wells with a $185-million fine. Given the recent scandal at Wells Fargo, where the banks employees were under pressure from bank management to open as many customer accounts as possible, its clear that our financial markets need stronger rules and oversight, not less, the Democratic lawmakers wrote. Whats clear is that our next president and his Republican allies in Congress seem to think otherwise. And consumers will return to fending largely for themselves. David Lazarus column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com. MORE FROM LAZARUS Heres how your kid is running up your credit card with free games Trump embraces the cool part of Obamacare but not the part that makes it work This couple put $1,000 on gift cards. But then the money disappeared MP from Samopomich faction and head of the parliamentary committee for preventing and fighting corruption Yehor Sobolev has asked the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) to check the correspondence of way of living of Batkivschyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko and her income mentioned in her e-declaration. "Today I wrote an address to NACP asking to monitor the way of living of Batkivschyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko. I have questions about her declaration. I asked Yulia Volodymyrivna to initiate the monitoring herself. I decided to help her, as she has not done it," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Monday. Sobolev said that he appealed to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) asking to check five more lawmakers. "As for leaders of the two other parliamentary factions Oleh Liashko from Radical Party and Ihor Hryniv from Petro Poroshenko Bloc - I see signs of unlawful enrichment or untrue information in declarations. I ask that NABU jointly with the anti-corruption prosecutor checked this information," he said. Martin Luther (1483-1536) had planned to become a humdrum lawyer, acceding to his fathers wishes. Instead, he broke Europe in two. The 500th anniversary of Luthers Protestant revolt against the Roman Catholic Church comes next year, pegged to the autumn day in 1517 when the renegade Augustinian monk is said to have nailed his famous 95 Theses to the door of the imposing All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Germany. To mark the transformative aftermath of the event, one of the most far-reaching in European history, several American museums are mounting exhibitions. Prominent among them is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art . The newly opened Renaissance and Reformation: German Art in the Age of Durer and Cranach is a tightly organized, deeply absorbing overview of a subject extraordinary in its complexity. Curator Patrice Marandel worked with German state museums in Berlin, Dresden and Munich to assemble 113 objects from their magnificent collections paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, courtly decorations and arms and armor that cover considerable ground. The selections include the weird and the wonderful and how could they not? The story of the Reformation is a tangled tale of powerful forces, popular and princely, wrestling over deeply held religious beliefs. The byzantine brew mixes the sacred and the profane. It begins with the moral scandal of indulgences. Tilman Riemenschneider, Standing Virgin and Child, circa 1520. (LACMA) (Photo Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung & Museum fur Byzantinische Kunst, SMB / Antje Voigt) Albrecht Durer, The Virgin as Mother of Sorrows, circa 1495-98. (LACMA) (bpk | Bayerische StaatsgemA?Aldesammlungen) Those were a means by which a Catholic sinner might buy his way out of seemingly interminable purgatory after death, speeding directly into heavenly bliss. Indulgences were like get-out-of-jail cards albeit not for free. The magical thinking went like this: One could lead a virtuous life, modeling Christs humility, but however morally upright, it would never be enough. Only a saint, of which the Catholic Church had plenty, could bank sufficient good deeds to open heavens door straightaway. Indeed, saints racked up more than they could ever use. Why let all that surfeit of goodness go to waste? Indulgences drew on the saintly bank. Buy some now from the pope, and you were good to go for the afterlife. Luther insisted otherwise: Personal faith was enough for salvation. The exhibition opens with a gathering of saints, capped by two large, magnificent lime wood carvings by the great Tilman Riemenschneider. Both are unpainted, an unusual characteristic of his work. Deep carving exploits shadows and highlights to articulate dramatic form. St. Matthias is a subtly torqued figure, from the left-facing foreground foot up through the gently turning body to the right-facing head. The Virgin Marys slender body is elongated, perhaps to optically compensate for the sculptures likely placement in a high niche. The subtlety of her design is nonetheless powerful. Thick, curving folds in Marys robe emanate outward from her womb, from which a lively baby Jesus arises. Hes like the reverse of a pebble tossed in a pond, energy rippling outward. A similarly strange compositional maneuver marks The Holy Trinity, one of eight paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder, who is a star of the exhibition. Cranachs painting is installed opposite Riemenschneiders sculpture. But, theres a stark difference: The limp, battered body of a crucified Christ emerges from the labial folds of the robe worn by God. Oval layers of crimson cloth echo the almond shape of a radiant mandorla within which the Trinity hovers. The father gives metaphorical birth to the son, sanctified by the winged dove of the Holy Spirit. The Cranach, painted before the artist left the Catholic Church and embraced Protestantism, is an astonishing image of Christian patriarchy. Those masculine prerogatives are most easily seen in the shows marvelous selection of portraits. Lucas Cranach the Elder, Martin Luther, 1532. (LACMA) (A?A Staatliche Kunstsammlun) Albrecht Durer, Portrait of Jakob Muffel, 1526, oil on panel transferred to canvas. (LACMA) Among them is the famous little picture of Luther, Cranachs friend and neighbor in Wittenberg. The portrait is a private devotional image barely 7 inches high. Luther is shown as a scholar conspicuously holding a book with both hands. Think secular saint. Given the decline in demand for religious paintings in Protestant Germany, portraiture rose in prominence. Luther advocated moderate emancipation for women, but of the shows 10 portraits, only one is female an upper-class wife rendered by Batholomaus Bruyn the Elder. Her dependent status in relation to the adjacent portrait of her husband is signaled by the carnation she holds up a symbol of marital affection. He holds gloves, sign of a gentleman. The paintings are finally all about him. The most riveting portrait, unsurprisingly, is by Albrecht Durer, Germanys greatest Renaissance artist. Its one of three panels by him in the show to my knowledge, the first ever to be sent to Los Angeles and reason enough to go. (A separate Durer print show opens Dec. 17.) The picture, painted just before its subject died, is a rich catalog of tactile beauty soft fur, crepuscular skin, crisp linen, silken hair, coarse embroidery. Jakob Muffel, the sitter, is not a mannered symbol. Hes unique flesh and blood occupying a voluptuous material world. He and Durers singular painting meet on common ground. This profoundly humanist brand of portraiture went international. Hans Holbein the Younger exported it to the court of Englands Henry VIII, represented by a double portrait of a ruddy notary and his prosperous son. Lucas Cranach the Elder, Lucretia, 1533. (LACMA) (Photo A bpk / GemAldegalerie, SMB / Volker-H. Schneider) Of two dozen paintings total, all but one of the remaining female images is biblical, the Virgin Mary or Eve. The exception is well, exceptional. Cranachs exquisite Lucretia casts an ancient Roman heroine as a secular Venus. He adapted the willowy nude from an earlier painting of the mythological goddess. But here Cranach slips a long dagger into her hand, the tip of its blade pressed beneath her breast as she prepares to commit suicide. Lucretia had been raped by the son of an enemy king. The dreadful (if popular) historical legend cast her suicide as the ritual restoration of her honor. Cranach pulled a delicate, transparent veil across her naked sex, the imminent piercing of her body by one weapon juxtaposed with the memory of another. Cranachs painting is brilliant, while the cruel social creed that Lucretia represents is wicked. Such was the norm. A wall label notes that between 1500 and 1750, nearly 100,000 women were burned at the stake as heretical witches, vulgar subject of a Hans Franck drawing. Masculinity and violence form the subtext of a remarkable gallery of lavishly decorated ceremonial arms and full suits of armor. Take the cylindrical cartridge box for a pair of extravagant pistols, all three inlaid in gold and silver: Its form is a blunt phallus. Nearby, a gilded helmet lined in velvet and embossed with ancient battle scenes features a tall ridge along the skull from forehead to neck. This exquisite golden crescent is a virtual halo. It consecrates the soldiers sacred purpose as surely as the one Durer painted on his Virgin Mary, mother of sorrows. An epic battle painting by Melchior Feselen presents legions of massing soldiers, each one a distinct and individual personality. (Its more than 5 feet tall.) Another by Cranach shows Egyptians being swallowed up by the Red Sea as fleeing Israelites huddle beneath protective cliffs given hallucinatory animal forms nature as protector. Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Pharaohs Hosts Engulfed in the Red Sea (detail), 1530. (LACMA) At the other end of the spectrum, though equally important to the blockbuster clash between Luther and the Roman Church, is a fascinating selection of 15 inexpensive propaganda broadsheets. Hans Brosamers outlandish woodcut gives Luther seven heads the Book of Revelations Beast of the Apocalypse. In a grotesque Melchior Lorch etching, the furry, donkey-eared man spewing snakes, scorpions and vermin from his mouth, a pig riding on his shoulder, also wears a papal crown. Its easy to tell which side of the fight each artist occupies. With these mass-produced prints, the modern media age dawns. Gutenbergs mechanical printing press allowed for their wide public dissemination, as it did for the Bible translated by Luther from mysterious Greek and Latin into accessible German. From the privileged text of a closed priesthood, the Bible went open-source. Durer is our first great media artist. His intimate, exquisitely wrought engraving of a contemplative St. Jerome working alone in his study circles back on the precedent for Luthers achievement: It was Jerome who translated the bible from ancient Greek and Hebrew into then-contemporary Latin. LACMAs show, copious if inevitably not comprehensive, does an excellent job of translating 16th century German culture into a revealing 21st century exhibition. It even links to modern artistic conventions, since Durer an ambitious egoist who monogrammed almost everything he made was the first artist to use media as a branding tool. The museum has a reputation for organizing important shows of German art, mostly from the modern era, and Renaissance and Reformation impressively extends the range. Plus, theres an unexpected benefit. Luthers 500th anniversary was its impetus, but the shows focus on art during a period of deep moral crisis couldnt be timelier, given the threatening upheaval Americans are experiencing today. Coincidental, the concurrence is also critical. ------------ Renaissance and Reformation: German Art in the Age of Durer and Cranach Where: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. When: Through March 26. Closed Wednesdays. Information: (323) 857-6000, www.lacma.org Harvard professor Jospeh Koerner considers Durer as a template for the modern artist christopher.knight@latimes.com Twitter: @KnightLAT ALSO John McLaughlin at LACMA: The most important postwar artist you may not know Paul Sietsema's first L.A. show of new Conceptual art was worth the 14-year wait 'Creature' is a smart exhibition at the Broad museum The U.S. may not have awe-inducing ancient temples of the sort you see in Athens, Rome or Mexico City, but we have produced modern ones. Foremost among them: the Salk Institute in La Jolla. Perched dramatically on a hillside above the roaring Pacific Ocean, the nonprofit research complex, completed in 1965, was designed by Modernist architect Louis Kahn. His symmetrical, saw-tooth arrangement of brut concrete buildings frames a brilliant travertine plaza devised by Mexican architect Luis Barragan. The entire composition feels like entering a procession one that dissolves in an endpoint where ocean meets sky. Its function may be for science, but Kahns structures feel more like a temple to nature. Walk across the plaza, bisected by a gurgling channel of water, and it will come as little surprise that over the course of its life, the Salk has been been hailed as San Diegos anonymous Taj Mahal. Anonymous because even though it is an icon of Modern architecture, it maintains a relatively low profile: Invisible from the street, only revealing itself once you enter the Salk campus, its the sort of place that isnt stumbled upon. You have to seek it out. I go there practically every time Im in San Diego, says Annabelle Selldorf, the New York-based architect who is designing the renovation and expansion for the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla. It reflects an understanding of science and the simultaneity of working together and working in solitude. It reflects our desire to be in contact with nature, but also a very refined thinking about tactility and materials. I find it so inspiring. Not only do the buildings continue to function well, I would say this is the best way to build a laboratory. Thomas Albright, neurobiologist at the Salk Institute The Salk Institute in La Jolla, a scientific research lab designed by architect Louis Kahn for Jonas Salk, and completed in 1965. (Salk Institute) (Salk Institute) It has been a little more than 50 years since Kahn completed the task set before him by his client, Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the first successful polio vaccine, to create a facility worthy of a visit by Picasso. Earlier this month, the San Diego Museum of Art debuted a sprawling exhibition devoted to Kahn, one of the 20th centurys most influential designers. Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture organized by the Vitra Museum in Germany in collaboration with the Architectural Archives at the University of Pennsylvania (which holds Kahns papers) and the New Institute, a design museum in the Netherlands features drawings, models, photography and video from throughout the architects career. This includes original drawings and models depicting facets of the Salk. READ: Christopher Hawthorne's review of Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture The confluence of events makes it a fine time to evaluate how the Salk, Kahns masterpiece in our midst, is holding up both in terms of design and the materials from which it is made. Its at the 50-year mark, says Sara Lardinois, a project specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute, which is when most Modern buildings are ready for their first major repair job. The top line? The Salk is entering its grande dame period with panache. And while it is certainly showing signs of its age some wear on the teak wood elements, a bit of spalling on the concrete it nonetheless continues to function nimbly as an important scientific research laboratory. (One that has harbored half a dozen Nobel laureates over the course of its life.) Not only do the buildings continue to function well, I would say this is the best way to build a laboratory building, says Thomas Albright, a neurobiologist who has worked at the Salk for three decades. The view east, revealing the buildings teak elements, sawtooth design and reflecting pool. (Salk Institute) Its a facility that has aged well and gracefully, adds Tim Ball, who serves as the senior director of facilities at the complex. Its flexibility still allows creativity and advancement in science. This grace has everything to do with Kahns thoughtful design more than a half century ago. The architect, who was born in Estonia, but lived in Philadelphia for most of his life, had already established a name for himself when he accepted the job from Salk in the late 1950s. At that point, he had already received the commission to build the Richards Medical Research Laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania a building that served as an important precursor to the Salk and earned him a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In Salk, Kahn found not just a client, but an important intellectual partner one who wanted to create an advanced laboratory that would employ architecture that was just as advanced. Louis Kahn, around 1972. (Robert C. Lautman Photography Collection / National Building Museum) There was a reason he had such a fruitful relationship with Salk, says curator Ariel Plotek, who oversaw the installation of the Kahn exhibition. There was the fact that that they were both Jews from [the former Russian empire] Salk from Russia and Kahn from Estonia. Kahn also had a real interest in science. That is something you see in his other work as well, like the helix pattern for the City Tower he designed for Philadelphia. (A structure that was never built.) At the Salk, the architect employed a key idea he had begun to develop at the Richards in Philadelphia: Separating the floors that contained the laboratories from the ones that contained utilities such as electricity and ventilation, meant building maintenance at the Richards could be done without disturbing the science. Flexible touches at the Salk include placing some mechanical systems behind easier-to-access block walls instead of the more architectural poured concrete. Lab windows can be easily unscrewed to allow for the introduction of oversize equipment. And, most significantly, support beams are placed at the perimeter of the 245-foot-long laboratories, so these massive spaces can be configured and reconfigured in different ways over time. Kahn also corrected some of the problems that had plagued the Richards, such as crowded laboratories and a lack of private space. Whats truly amazing is the thought that went into the construction, says Ball. The way they built it makes it very easy for us to adapt to advances in science. The Richards Medical Research Laboratories in Philadelphia, designed by Kahn and completed in 1960 an important precursor to the Salk. (Malcolm Smit / Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania ) Albright, who oversees the Salks Center for the Neurobiology of Vision, and studies the ways in which the brain perceives things, including architecture, says the open lab plan makes for a more dynamic place in which to study science. "My lab flows into the lab next to me and thats the valuable thing, he says. The sparks fly at the boundaries of different areas of scientific research. People are always running into other people. The open design also means it is possible for scientists to continuously update their equipment and reconfigure their spaces without having to tear into walls or rebuild floors. As Salk told architecture writer Esther McCoy in 1967: The building does guess tomorrow. The obsolescence is reduced by the investment in flexibility. This makes the Salk Institute very contemporary. These ideas about creating flexible space that can be adapted over time preoccupy todays architects as they consider issues of sustainability. Likewise, there is the use of abundant daylight, which reaches even the basement levels of the building through a series of open-air courtyards and light wells. The Salk buildings are offer masterful plays on light, drawing sunshine to even the deepest corners. (Salk Institute) The way the light penetrates it, it reaches all the way down, says Ball, you can turn off all the lights and still have daylight in the building. The one area of the institute that has needed work is the teak wood panels that line the private study areas of the building, and soften the brutal nature of the Kahns raw concrete. These have contended with termites and been weathered by the sun and La Jollas salt air. Plus, a spore that likely comes from area eucalyptus trees was turning the wood black. In some cases, says Ball, we had to an inch of wood loss from the weathering. The Salk is currently in the midst of a $9.7 million restoration plan to fix the teak and study other fixes with the assistance of the Getty Foundation and the Getty Conservation Institute, which have supplied research funds and expertise. Lardinois has spent time digging around the architects archives at the University of Pennsylvania, and interviewing former associates to understand the architects approach to the wood. (Kahn died in 1974.) They are a unique synthesis of industry and craft, she explains of the teak fixtures. They were made in a cabinet makers shop. The conservation plan will help preserve much of the original teak (roughly 70%), which will be supplemented with new panels all of which are being treated with fungicide and a UV coating that will not affect the woods look. Already, tests have been conducted and work on two of the complexs study towers have been completed. (Though if you are thinking of visiting, its best to hold off until March, when the black construction scaffolding that now envelopes most of the complex comes off.) Beyond their flexibility, the buildings embody other contemporary ideas, too. The entire complex is based on important notions of collaboration. In this case, it was the unique partnership between Kahn, who designed the building, and Barragan, who developed the plazas iconic look. Kahn had been thinking of planting trees between his two rows of laboratories. It was Barragan who told him, I would put not a single tree in this area. I would make a plaza. If you make a plaza, you will have another facade to the sky. There is this myth of the great lone architect in isolation who conceives a great master work, says Selldorf. But the Salk is a great master work because it was placed in context and contact with others. It comes as a result of dialogue and collaboration and conversation. His buildings have a conviction about how you bring people together. Annabelle Selldorf, architect Louis Kahn at work in his studio in 1961. (Louis I. Kahn Collection / University of Pennsylvania) Its a collaboration that draws architectural pilgrims from all over the world. (The building receives an estimated 4,500 visitors a year.) Plotek first saw the Salk Institute on a trip to California in the early 2000s, before he had moved to the area. I felt I was in the presence of something that was as perfectly designed and as sublime as the religious buildings I had studied, he says. There is a wholeness to it, a unity. Architecture writer Sam Lubell, who included it as one of the top sites in the newly published guide Mid-Century Modern Architecture Travel Guide, says the comparison to the Taj Mahal holds up. Its perfectly symmetrical and you have this channel that leads to infinity and you get this feeling of awe, he says. I like to call it the Taj Mahal of Brutalism. Ive been to the actual Taj Mahal a couple of times, and its the same feeling: You get pulled in every time you are there, staring down that long channel. And of course, theres the site, which is right on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, he adds. Its very experiential. A lot of Louis Kahns work is like that. You dont get it until you go. But, above all, are the myriad human touches: Offices are purposely disconnected from studies, requiring researchers to step into fresh air. Conversation areas are located throughout, encouraging scientists to gather and exchange ideas. Warm, wood-lined studies, with views of the ocean, offer areas of intense contemplation. A lower level corner harbors a scientists surfboard. The buildings lie within view of the Pacific. (Carolina A. Miranda / Los Angeles Times) We think about Kahn because of his use of material, says Selldorf. But I find myself returning to Kahn a lot these days because of the very unequivocal moves he makes. His buildings have a conviction about how you bring people together. It is indeed a temple of sorts to science, to people, to the sky and sea for which California is so well known. And its destined to be with us for many more years. +++ For details on visiting the Salk Institute, along with information about regular weekday tours, visit salk.edu. Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter Find me on Twitter @cmonstah. ALSO Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego marks 75 years with launch of bold expansion plan George Lucas' museum designs for L.A. and S.F.: A first look at competing plans From UC Davis to the National Mall: Key architecture projects this fall Low-key, funny and overflowing with feeling, FXs Atlanta, the comedy series created by and starring Donald Glover (Community), spends little energy explaining itself. Weird things just happen: Theres an invisible car, a pop star named Justin Bieber who is black, and a random cameo by Family Matters Jaleel White. But if unpredictability is part of what gives Atlanta its special glow, so does its core of emotionally complicated characters: Earn (Glover); Van (Zazie Beetz), his sometimes girlfriend and mother of his daughter; his cousin Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry), a rapper who performs as Paper Boi and hires Earn as his manager; and sidekick Darius (Keith Stanfield), a good-natured eccentric. When it first aired in September it marked the biggest comedy debut for any FX or FXX half-hour since 2011s Wilfred. Says Glover, who grew up in Atlanta, For a long time, a lot of shows were exactly the same. But what people want now is a show with a super-specific point of view and lots of minutiae. Right now, perspective is king. Atlanta is sometimes surreal and sometimes deeply dramatic television. How did you pitch it to FX? Advertisement I tried to make it as short as possible. I told them I wanted to make a show about two cousins trying to work in the Atlanta rap scene. That and Twin Peaks for rappers was pretty much it. FX has already ordered a second season. What did Season 1 get right? Actual life is very messy. I think right now were going through a time where everything is like or dislike, everything is chopped up, were a swipe left, swipe right culture. Real life isnt like that. Life is a jumble and thats where real life begins with the things that arent easy to articulate. Your writing staff is composed of mostly first-timers who work from your living room or in your courtyard, not an office. Was that intentional? [Writing] can be frustrating, tedious, if youre in an office. Whenever you have to clock in somewhere? You tend to resent that place. I think work should be enjoyable. Our writers room is a salon of sorts. [We] dont sit and think, Whats going to happen to Darius? We usually just start talking about what happened to us that day or that morning and why it affected us. The character of Alfred was an instant fan favorite. Why do you think that is? I think it was a side effect of people assuming the most about him. Like, I already know what this guy is like. Brian did such a good job of making him three-dimensional. People might not see eye to eye with [Alfred] on the issues, but hes who people can relate to on a human level. Settle the debate: Is the tone of Atlanta more like an indie film or a theater piece? I understand peoples feeling of wanting to go, Oh, this is like a Pinter play. Or The slow pacing makes it feel like an indie film. But to me it feels more like a dream, the kind where its like, Me and my Dad talked for most of it. And it felt really weird. But nothing happened. Then a bat came out of the water and that scared me. But I also knew everything was going to be OK. The mixing of emotions is human. I think people are reacting to that, that you cant split everything into ones and zeros. You cant split a dream into, Did I like this? Like, some dreams are really scary, but also really funny. Youre playing a young Lando Calrissian in the upcoming Han Solo stand-alone film. Have you reached out to Billy Dee Williams for advice? I havent. [Long pause] I wonder if Ill get to meet him beforehand. Id really love to. You do know that the fame game allows for such bridge-building in Hollywood? Im still not in that world yet. Im not fully acclimated to the idea of, Oh, yeah. I have people and they should call his people, and I can meet him. Today, I got stopped and was literally asked about being Lando and I was like, Oh, yeah. My lifes different now. calendar@latimes.com Here is what The Girl on the Train director Tate Taylor has learned about characters dying on screen: You can never have enough blood. Its funny about blood in movies, he says, noting that the two key deaths in Train are the first time hes killed anyone on film. Whenever you think its too much, whatever you show is about 20% of what the reality would be, with an actual injury. Even in movies where you think its too bloody, its not even accurate. Death: Directors have to orchestrate it; actors have to make it look realistic and original. Its hard to come across a movie in Oscar season that doesnt in some fashion revolve around a death and many this season are bathed in blood one way or another. Advertisement Ben Foster, Chris Pine and Jeff Bridges star in Hell or High Water. Death is interesting in cinema, says Hell or High Water director David Mackenzie. Back in the day with westerns and war films, death was everywhere. Coming out of the Second World War, Im sure the relationship between audiences and death was more connected. Nowadays cinema has moved to younger audiences and theres a lot of death denial in movies. But to keep things interesting when characters die, actors and directors have to keep it surprising, emotionally resonant and real all at the same time. So how do they do it? Collaboration helps. With a good director, its a back-and-forth with the actor, says Hacksaw Ridge screenwriter Robert Schenkkan (a onetime actor whose spectacular death on Star Trek: The Next Generation was banned on British TV). Some directors are autocratic they see it in a certain way, and thats not so much fun. And in the process of that collaboration, some directors really get into it. Nocturnal Animals director Tom Ford loves to personally demonstrate blocking, for example. Generally when the actors come on set, Ill act it out for them, he says. Throw myself on the ground and sometimes they say, Oh no, I shouldnt do that I should do this. We had to make sure the actors [chest] wasnt going up and down and his eyes werent fluttering; we had to watch it closely on the monitor... Mike Birbiglia There are a lot of technical aspects to consider as well beyond the basic blocking. Dont Think Twice may be a comedy, but it features a death scene and director Mike Birbiglia says there was a lot of detail to consider. We had to make sure the actors [chest] wasnt going up and down and his eyes werent fluttering; we had to watch it closely on the monitor. In post they can sometimes digitize that stuff out but you cant rely on that. Tempo matters too. Taylor directed two major deaths in Train and was conscious about not making them both equally heinous. I really had to decide my moment, he says. After Megan is killed in such a horrific way, I realized that keeping on with horrific violence would take away from Annas final action. So I decided we had to use strangulation first. Hacksaw Ridge features Teresa Palmer, Andrew Garfield, Hugo Weaving, Sam Worthington and Vince Vaughn. Yet a death scene doesnt mean much if its randomized or has no real context. Hacksaw features an extended battle sequence to rival Saving Private Ryan for sheer verisimilitude, but mass deaths can become a blur without an emotional undercurrent. Smittys death isnt elaborated on, notes Schenkkan of the soldier character who befriends the films protagonist played by Andrew Garfield. These two men become possibly the only true friend either of them has had, and then one dies. Its quick and brutal like most of the deaths in Hacksaw, but its not the death that makes it potent its the buildup created before it. The necessity of things being real is relative, though. Ford noted with Nocturnal, just his second film after A Single Man, that both of his leads die in similarly artistic fashion. They both drop to the floor and the camera slides up their body and I thought, Maybe this will be my signature, he says. But these are not crime movies where Im trying to be realistic theyre nostalgic melodrama with some license. For Mackenzie, though, realistic deaths in films became a personal mission after he worked on an ultra-violent scene in his first film (The Last Great Wilderness) that resulted in a character being put out of his misery. I found the making of that movie deeply traumatic, he says. It really got to me. And today? In High Water, characters are dispatched one shockingly, one with deliberation and snuffed out in a wink. There is no long, drawn-out death scene they are here, they are gone. And that can be just as effective as ones that gush with blood. Im just not spending as much time with the actual dying anymore, he says. In the end, its about striking the right tone even when working with the Bards lines. In high school I died as Hamlet, recalls Schenkkan, noting that by that part of the play the stage is strewn with three other bodies. The tension is enormous, and the key is how you make that fourth death the capper without tipping it over. If you make it cathartic, theres pity and sorrow. If you dont do it right, theres a giggle. And thats not good. calendar@latimes.com ALSO: Look for respectable choices in the Golden Globe nominations Will these four new TV shows be hits with Golden Globes voters too? Hell or High Water shows the bigotry, violence, poverty and quiet love in the world, cast says Recently, actor-director Fred Savage tweeted a plea to Chrissy Metz, who plays Kate on NBCs new drama, This Is Us. Yes @chrissymetz, yes! Now if you could just stop making me cry every week, we could be best friends. Savage is not the only one taking to social media to discuss spilling tears while watching the delicately intertwining, past-and-present lives of the Pearson family the grown children are Metzs aforementioned Kate, her twin brother Kevin (Justin Hartley) and their adopted brother Randall (Sterling K. Brown); Mandy Moore and Milo Ventimiglia play their parents. Lately, there seems to be an entire branch of Twitter devoted to This Is Us love and the lachrymose havoc it wreaks. The other day, as series creator, Dan Fogelman, (Cars, Crazy, Stupid, Love) sat in his office on the Paramount Lot, he confessed, Im not surprised that its touched people or moved people. I always felt that was going to be a selling point. But the crying has caught me a little bit by surprise but not in a bad way. Its no news to Fogelman, however, that his breakout hit its most recent episode as of press time brought in 9.5 million viewers is unfolding on network television at a time when cable and streaming are thought of as more artistic outlets. Whats exciting about the shows success is that youre starting to see that chances can be taken, says Fogelman about the networks, and indeed, This Is Us toyed with broadcasts prim reputation in the pilot episode by featuring a glimpse at Ventimiglias naked backside as his character prepared for a sexy birthday dance from his very pregnant wife. Advertisement See the most read stories this hour If This Is Us began as an abandoned spec script for a feature film, one about a group of same-aged individuals, each at a different crossroads, it wasnt until Fogelman thought of the ending a big reveal that their lives were interconnected -- that his brain started exploding. I picked it back up, rewrote it and made it into a TV [series], says Fogleman, who shopped it around by having executives first read the pilot script before letting them in on two structural twists for the second episode: It would open with eight years having passed in the Pearsons lives, and, by the close, jump ahead 28 more years, hinting that the unwaveringly loving mom and dad characters are no longer a couple. It completely changes what the series is, says Fogelman, whose distillation of his drama comes down to seeing the extraordinary in ordinary peoples lives. But NBC gave me their word that Id have creative freedom and theyve never gone back on it. Any single detail, any fault of the series, is 100% my doing. Before the series began, Fogelman brought in an expert on trans-racial adoption so that his writing staff could better absorb the intricacies of Randalls story arc, of what it is like to be an African American child raised in an all-white family. As for the character of Kate, who struggles with obesity, Fogelmans most reliable resource is the woman whom the character is loosely based upon, his real-life sister, Deborah Fogelman Devine, who works as a consultant on the show. For my sister, weight has been a constant battle, up and down, for her entire life, says Fogelman of Devine, who keeps Kate real by reading every script, then offering her opinions. I loved sending notes from my sister to the writers, says Fogelman, adding that something she said to him evolved into one of Kates most memorably revealing monologues. I said, Im trying to find stories for Kate that arent always about the weight, and she said, Its always about the weight. When I read that, I said, Dan, these are words that Ive said, says Metz, who, with her dimpled smile, force of personality, and skill at showing years of accumulated pain in brief, flickering moments, is arguably the series fan favorite. But from Metzs perspective, Kates popularity is also about the fact that her relationship to the number on her bathroom scale isnt mined for laughs or pity. Its not about a girl boo-hooing in the corner because shes not as thin as the average woman, says Metz. Its just a complex journey about a normal everyday person. calendar@latimes.com Moonlight, Barry Jenkins intimate drama depicting three periods in the life of a young gay black man, earned six nominations Tuesday for the Film Independent Spirit Awards feature, director, screenplay, cinematography, editing and the Robert Altman Award, which honors the director, casting director Yesi Ramirez and the acting ensemble. The last three movies to win the Spirits best film trophy Spotlight, Birdman and 12 Years a Slave have gone on to win the Oscar. That kind of outsized expectation might be a little much for an uncompromising film about a character, played by three different actors, learning to accept his sexual identity. But then, Moonlight, an indie hit and critics favorite, has done nothing but exceed expectations since premiering in September at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals. Advertisement If you had sat me down six hours before that Telluride premiere and said, Eleven weeks from now, this is going to happen, I would have said, No, youre wrong, Jenkins told The Times. I never imagined this many people would care about this film. Indie Spirit Awards 2017: Full list of nominees American Honey, Andrea Arnolds exuberant movie celebrating youth, which, like Moonlight, was released by A24, also received six nominations. (A24 earned a leading 19 Spirit nominations with Swiss Army Man, 20th Century Women and The Witch also earning recognition.) Honey hasnt connected commercially with audiences and its probably not on the radar of most Oscar voters unless their grandchildren have begged them to watch it. Also nominated for best feature: Manchester by the Sea, Jackie and the disturbing drama Chronic, which has grossed $9,033 since its September release. The recognition for Chronic and its lead actor, Tim Roth, along with nice showings for Kelly Reichardts meditative, mysterious Certain Women and the provocative religious drama Free in Deed, address the annual complaints that the Spirits arent indie-minded enough. (Free in Deed has played only the festival circuit.) Meanwhile, the Spirits love for Moonlight, Manchester and Jackie will give the movies a nice boost as Motion Picture Academy and guild members begin to sift through towering stacks of movie screeners this Thanksgiving weekend. But its not a certainty that these other groups will follow the lead of the critics, programmers, actors and filmmakers who vote for the Spirits nominations. Last years two big Spirits nominees Netflixs child-soldier war drama Beasts of No Nation and the lesbian romance Carol had mixed success moving forward. Beasts was shut out at the Oscars. Carol received six nominations, but was left off the academys best picture slate. To be eligible for the Spirit Awards, films must be American productions made with an economy of means, which Film Independent defines as budgets up to $20 million. The budget guideline eliminated Damien Chazelles musical La La Land, which cost around $30 million, as well as the upcoming dramas Nocturnal Animals, Fences and When a Monster Calls. The Weinstein Co.s tear-jerker Lion didnt qualify either because its an Australian production. Three years ago, all four Spirit Award acting winners went on to take the equivalent Oscar. With Denzel Washingtons adaptation of August Wilsons Fences a powerful acting showcase ineligible, a similar sweeping correlation is unlikely. Also worth noting: The absence of any individual acting nominations doesnt hurt Moonlight, as the same thing happened with Spotlight last year. The Spirits simply chose to honor the movies extraordinary ensemble as a whole. The 2017 Film Independent Spirit Awards will be held on Feb. 25 in Santa Monica. IFC will broadcast the show live. glenn.whipp@latimes.com Twitter: @glennwhipp ALSO: Kanye Wests personal doctor is reported to have made the 911 call Monday that resulted in the rappers hospitalization. Dr. Michael Farzam told police that his patient Jim Jones was suffering from temporary psychosis as a result of sleep deprivation and dehydration, TMZ on Tuesday quoted law enforcement sources as saying. Farzam said his 39-year-old patient had tried to assault a staffer at his trainers gym, the website reported from a police report it had obtained. Although Jones wasnt violent, the doctor reportedly told police, he might become violent when help arrived. West was reportedly handcuffed to a gurney for transport, which is standard procedure as part of a psychiatric hold. Advertisement Wests wife, Kim Kardashian West, had intended to return to the public eye Monday night for the first time since she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris on Oct. 3. She cut that plan short, however, when her husband who in addition to physical exhaustion reportedly feels under spiritual attack was taken to UCLA Medical Center. The rapper, who had abruptly canceled the rest of his Saint Pablo Tour after nixing his L.A.-area concert three hours before it was to begin, was taken to UCLA Medical Center on a psychiatric hold Monday afternoon, according to TMZ. The website on Tuesday obtained a 911 recording discussing a response to a psychiatric emergency at the home of Kanye Wests trainer. Law enforcement sources confirmed an incident to The Times, but could not identify the person by name because of privacy laws. Kanye is exhausted and currently dealing with sleep deprivation, People quoted a source as saying. He went to the hospital at will under the advice of his physician. Upon getting the news, Kardashian West jetted home from New York City, People said, while mom Kris Jenner and sisters Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian attended the Angel Ball in support of cancer research. The late Robert Kardashian was the honoree. People quoted a source Tuesday as saying West is physically exhausted and also feels like hes under spiritual attack. He feels like its a trying time for his spirit, but that can be a good thing. , the source is quoted in the magazine. But thats where growth comes from. Kanyes concerts in recent days have been nothing if not rough: In San Jose, fans got upset after he talked for 25 minutes and said that if he had voted it would have been for Trump. In Sacramento, he went on a tear about Beyonce and Jay Z and ended the show after only three songs. Then he canceled his Sunday performance at the Forum in Inglewood three hours before it was supposed to start. Follow Christie DZurilla on Twitter @theCDZ. ALSO Authorities spent 2 hours persuading Kanye West to be hospitalized, sources say Kanye West exhausted, Kris Jenner says; rapper hospitalized after LAPD visit Kanye West, a Trump supporter? As always, its complicated Kanye West cancels remainder of his Saint Pablo tour after a rough week on the road Kanye West didnt vote, but says he would have gone Trump -- and thinks people should stop focusing on racism Robert Zemeckis Allied begins in Casablanca, 1942 talk about setting the bar high where two skilled assassins, played by Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, have been sent to assassinate a German ambassador. On the eve of their deadly mission, they drive out into the Moroccan dunes and, throwing caution to the very dusty wind, proceed to make passionate love in the front seat of their car, the camera swirling feverishly around them as a sand storm rages in mimicry of their grand passion. Zemeckis isnt exactly known for his torrid love scenes. But this is one exception that, in its blend of emotional directness and technological sophistication (watch how that camera moves), hits one of his reliable sweet spots as a director. A digital pioneer with the soul of an old-time classicist, Zemeckis hails from a long line of entertainers, including Steven Spielberg and James Cameron, who have broadened the mediums horizons in order to reaffirm its most traditional pleasures. It hasnt always worked, as the eye-popping but bloodless performance-capture worlds of The Polar Express and Beowulf attest. But more recently, with movies like Flight and last years underrated The Walk, Zemeckis has made a welcome return to live-action form, confirming that he does his best work when he uses technology to amplify rather than nullify the human factor. Advertisement In Allied, a handsomely crafted, fitfully effective throwback to earlier epics of love, betrayal and wartime espionage, most of that digital wizardry is of a stealthy, decorative nature. Working with the production designer Gary Freeman, whose detailed sets provide the scaffolding for a range of subtle but elaborate visual effects, Zemeckis builds a polished vintage frame for his stars, and for the tricky game of shifting emotional and political loyalties mapped out by the screenwriter Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises). Parachuting into Morocco, Max Vatan (Pitt) makes his way to Casablanca to be reunited with his wife, Marianne Beausejour (Cotillard). In a city draped with Third Reich banners, no one not even the audience initially realizes that these two gorgeous-looking Parisian expats are in fact assassins working for the Allied Forces: Max is a Quebecois operative employed by British special operations, while Marianne is a member of the French Resistance. For the benefit of spectators on either side of the screen, Max and Mariannes marital charade requires professional detachment but also a measure of believable sexual tension, both of which they are willing to supply in abundance. As soon becomes clear, they are also exceptionally good at maintaining their cover under tense circumstances. OK, so Maxs French needs a little work, as Marianne points out (and shes being generous). But to watch as Max suavely passes a test set for him by a Nazi officer is to marvel at his consummate professionalism and also, perhaps, to appreciate the unspoken parallels between spy craft and screen acting. Each is a form of deception predicated on detailed aliases, careful memorization and a fabulous wardrobe in this case, courtesy of the costume designer Joanna Johnston, who has a ravishing eye for wide-brimmed hats and Italian silks. Marianne herself underlines the metaphor when, explaining her ability to ingratiate herself so fully with some unsuspecting German associates, she warns against detached, calculated technique: I keep the emotions real. Her words will come back to haunt her. Naturally, she and Max end up playing their parts far too well, and not long after their mission is completed, they decide to transform their sham marriage into a real one. Soon theyre living in London with an infant daughter, whose birth is the first of two scenes played, for drama-heightening effect, against a fiery air raid. A different kind of bombshell is on the way: Two of Maxs higher-ups, played by an excellent Jared Harris and a supremely ratty Simon McBurney, inform Max that they suspect Marianne of being a double agent. As Max undertakes a series of secret quests to clear Mariannes name, yielding some unexpected collateral damage, the film patiently underscores his sense of a noose tightening with every minute, even if its not around his own neck. The golden desert vistas of the first act, redolent of David Lean and suggestive of endless possibilities, stand in stark contrast to the Vatans cramped quarters in Hampstead Heath, where abruptly ringing telephones and even a bustling house party evoke a potent sense of entrapment. Should his wife be found guilty, Max is under strict orders to execute her himself, in accordance with the intimate betrayal rule of the era. Marital double-crosses, it seems, were something of an occupational hazard back then. In some ways, Allied suggests a resolutely old-fashioned companion piece to the 2005 comic caper Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which cast Pitt and his future wife, Angelina Jolie, as spousal spies assigned to kill each other. (The obligatory gossip that has coalesced around Pitt and Cotillard in the wake of his divorce from Jolie makes the two movies feel even more like bookends.) But Allied might also remind you of another very different Pitt vehicle, Inglourious Basterds, and not just because both pictures feature the German actor August Diehl in a small but crucial role as a Nazi. For all its fantastical revisionism, Quentin Tarantinos World War II revenge fantasy paid close, rigorous attention to its characters language skills and speech patterns. This was a world of disguises, after all, where a single phonetic gaffe or misplaced idiom could get an operative killed. Ironically, its on that score that Allied doesnt entirely convince. Pitt sells you easily enough on the characters killer instincts, and his square-jawed intensity suits a man whose determination to vindicate the woman he loves is tinged with both desperation and anger. But as fine as the actor looks in a gray mackintosh or a three-piece suit, theres a matinee-idol stiffness to his performance that keeps full immersion at bay; somehow, a crucial dimension of emotional verisimilitude is missing. Cotillard, a more chameleonic presence as well as a seasoned femme fatale (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Macbeth), fares rather better, to the point where she almost seems to undermine the movies choice of perspective. While Marianne is a radiant enigma by design loving wife and mother, professional killer, possible traitor you cant help but feel, by the end, that a more interesting story might well have been told from her point of view. In the tense final moments, Cotillards performance achieves some of the piercing gravity of her work in James Grays The Immigrant. But this movies delicate, lingering emotion isnt just a function of her acting, or of an ending whose wrenching finality seems all the more inevitable in retrospect. Even when Allied loses its footing, there is something unmistakably touching about Zemeckis commitment to evoking a world so quietly, heroically out of step with the times. ------------ Allied MPAA rating: R, for violence, some sexuality/nudity, language and brief drug use Running time: 2 hours, 4 minutes Playing: In general release See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour Our politically charred landscape has provoked more discussion than usual of safe spaces those zones of physical, cultural and ideological refuge that are typically spoken of with either earnest sincerity or harsh derision. The Twitter-fueled brouhaha around a recent performance of the Broadway musical Hamilton, where Vice President-elect Mike Pence found himself booed by the audience and publicly called out by a member of the cast, turned the very notion of a safe space on its head: Whose sanctuary was being intruded upon? Who was in violation? That debate will be continued, though probably not concluded, in a different forum. Still, my thoughts kept returning to it not long after I saw Disneys Moana, and not just because this bright, bouncy, insistently enchanting computer-animated fantasy features a soundtrack of songs co-written by Lin-Manuel Miranda the chief creative force behind Hamilton and a current poster child for the sort of popular art that knows no racial, historical or imaginative boundaries. In short, any theater showing Moana a movie steeped in ancient Polynesian folklore and bronzed to a shiny, state-of-the-art Disney polish probably represents the safest space you could possibly find in this holiday moviegoing season. Audiences in search of bright colors, easy jokes and family-friendly vibes will find sweet relief here from the drunken, misanthropic high jinks of Bad Santa 2. Those seeking a vacation from everyday reality without springing for that last-minute island getaway will scarcely believe their good fortune. Advertisement The trailer for Disneys Moana, starring the voice of Dwayne Johnson. At the simplest level, the endangerment of a safe space a simpler term for it would be home forms Moanas very premise. Written by Jared Bush (in his second Disney-produced screenplay of the year, after Zootopia), the movie begins on the beautiful South Pacific island of Motunui, where, mere minutes after providing a buoyant musical introduction to their lush agrarian paradise, the villagers suddenly find their way of life threatened by crop disease and fish shortages. The only way to restore the natural order is to locate the shape-shifting Hawaiian demigod Maui and make him restore the Heart of Te Fiti, a magical artifact that he stole centuries ago, setting the present blight in motion. That task ultimately falls to Moana (voiced by newcomer Aulii Cravalho), a young woman whose headstrong, adventurous spirit chafes against the restrictions of her father, the village chief (Temuera Morrison). If that daddy-daughter dynamic sounds familiar, it may have something to do with the fact that Moana was directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, best remembered for a very different oceanic fantasy called The Little Mermaid. Musically, lyrically and dramatically, their new picture doesnt reach the soaring heights of that 1989 hand-drawn classic, which helped launch Disneys 90s new-wave animation renaissance. Nearly 30 years later, Moana follows Tangled and Frozen in a newer wave of cleverly refurbished fairy tales, reinventing the company line with CG animation, self-referential humor, slyly feminist attitudes and other contemporary amenities. In other words, Moana, like most seemingly innocuous mainstream diversions, has its own undeniably political dimension. As both a gentle ecological parable and the first Disney cartoon showcase for a Polynesian cast since Lilo & Stitch (2002), it could scarcely be otherwise. And as with Musker and Clements previous film, The Princess and the Frog (2009), which featured a rare African American heroine in a 1920s New Orleans setting, a conscientious effort to diversify the company stable has already met with appreciation and trepidation alike. Some have already voiced their opposition to the fact that Maui, usually depicted as a fairly trim, nimble figure, has here been inflated to proportions more appropriate to Shrek or a sumo wrestler. To argue that the character perpetuates stereotypes of long-haired, heavily tattooed, plus-sized Polynesian masculinity strikes me as both valid and (as is sometimes the case with chiefly race-based critiques) faintly inadequate, not least because it misses the singular comic gusto of Dwayne Johnsons performance. Not unlike Robin Williams Genie in Aladdin, another Musker-Clements creation, Maui is a boisterous agent of show-stopping supernatural chaos. The movie has fun with the visual contrast between its two leads, but if anything their difference in temperament he mocks her youthful inexperience, she scorns his arrogance and selfishness is even greater, providing the primary source of tension in a fairy tale without an Ursula-caliber villain. There is, instead, a fleet of pint-sized, coconut-armored pirates and an angry, fire-throwing lava monster. There is also a giant crab named Tamatoa (voiced by Jemaine Clement), a preening narcissist whose big, David Bowie-channeling musical number, performed in the depths of a bioluminescent grotto, provides the movie with its most arrestingly surreal set piece. Despite the occasional lapse into anachronistic, self-aware humor, Moana for the most part displays a welcome restraint. The intellectually challenged rooster that fills the obligatory animal-sidekick role wisely, and hilariously, never says a word. In an especially inspired touch, Moanas other silent ally here is the ocean, whose playful, often life-saving interventions bring new meaning to the expression friendly wave. (Moana would be a noteworthy achievement for its sparklingly vivid animation of water alone; there are moments here that make you long to see the filmmakers tackle the parting of the Red Sea.) Despite their differences, Moana and Maui turn out to need each other desperately, though that need is refreshingly platonic in nature. While Maui remains haunted by emotional scars from his ancient past, Moana ponders the uncertainties of the future, questioning her ability to shoulder her mighty destiny. For the viewer, at least, that ability is never in doubt, which is both a testament to the characters strength and a sign of the films adherence to formula a formula that is no less obvious for being executed so skillfully. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the songs (written by Miranda, Opetaia Foai and Mark Mancina), many of which are deeply transporting even when their narrative function follows a fairly standard template. Listening to Cravalho croon her way through the self-directed musical pep talk How Far Ill Go, your pleasure is only slightly tempered by the vague sense that youve heard a version of it before Part of Your World, perhaps, or Reflections from Mulan and it wont be too long before you hear it again. Thats cause for more cheer than disappointment. The moral of Moana is that playing it safe can have its limits. Its hard not to agree, even when this lovely, reassuring hug of a movie doesnt entirely heed its own advice. ------------ Moana MPAA rating: PG, for peril, some scary images and brief thematic elements Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes Playing: In general release See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour Movie Trailers ALSO Dwayne Johnson gets animated in Disneys Polynesian musical adventure Moana Dwayne Johnson sings a Lin-Manuel Miranda song in the new Moana clip Disney pulls Moana costumes for children amid cultural appropriation uproar Injecting more multicultural fashion flair into Los Angeles Westlake neighborhood, Afropunk, the Brooklyn-based music festival, brought its Fancy Dress Ball to the West Coast for the first time on Sunday. The event, part of Red Bull Sound Selects month-long concert series 30 Days in L.A., took place at the historic, Gothic Revival-styled event space the MacArthur, drawing hundreds of people in celebration of the theme Be You. Be Free. We are a platform that celebrates freedom, and this is a party with a purpose, said Jocelyn Cooper, who co-founded Afropunk with fellow music veteran Matthew Morgan. Were about music and activism and beautifulness and the celebration of people of color expressing themselves in every avenue of their life. [The Fancy Dress Ball] is a manifestation in the physical form of that. The Afropunk name might sound familiar: Since its 2005 founding, the New York festival has become a yearly cultural touchstone in music, art, fashion and culture. The event takes its name from the 2003 documentary Afro-Punk about the participation of African Americans and other black communities in the overwhelmingly white punk music scene. Previous headliners have included Lauryn Hill, Lenny Kravitz and DAngelo. The Afropunk brand, however, has become more than just the festival, representing all that is stereotype-bending, nonconforming and unconventional. (There is also an Afropunk online magazine.) The Fancy Dress Ball, rooted in Carnival traditions of the African Diaspora, benefits the Afropunk Global Initiative, which aims to, according to the groups website, move the needle of progress closer to a holistic, democratic and enlightened representation of people of color within all facets of society [by creating] unique programming that encourages diversity in media. The soiree, at which such cultural garb as dashikis, kaftans and kimonos was to be expected, had been held only two times prior, once in New York (with Grace Jones as the headliner) and once in Paris. At Sundays event, between headlining sets by queer hip-hoppers Big Freedia and Cakes Da Killa, The Times caught up with some of the attendees to talk about their personal style and outfits for the night. Here are some of the standouts. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Michelle Harper Occupation: Works in fashion Age: Unknown Ive had this outfit on all day. I pretty much dress like this every day. My style is very eclectic. I love fun clothes. Im into Egyptian and mystery and love that this is very covered but also very sexy. This [headpiece] was in my car. I got it from the Lagunitas Beer Circus in Azusa and decided to throw it on. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Michele Chantel, Elise Welch and Abby Gould Occupation: Graphic designer; hairstylist and DJ; and fashion designer, respectively Age: 30, 31 and 26, respectively Speaking on behalf of the trio, Chantel said: We all had our outfits and felt it spoke true to who they are these colorful, great prints from the brand OTT in Dubai. Theres nothing more important than putting something on and saying, This is me. This is it. Its walkable, wearable art. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Mike Taylor Occupation: Singer Age: 32 Im always giving color. Im a person of color, so I have to give myself, 365, 24/7. This [print] is actually my album cover. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Loren Piretra Occupation: Works for Red Bull Age: 27 I got this vest from Goodwill for under $20. We keep it faux. I was trying to go with a colorful pastel vibe, so I mixed two of my favorite colors a baby pink and a mustard yellow/burnt orange. I travel a lot and try to make a Salvation Army or Goodwill stop every trip that I go on. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Ebony Occupation: Unknown Age: 30 I really wanted to wear this lavender wig because I think it complements my skin tone and is fabulous. These are my moms vintage leather biker shorts and a Fashion Nova bodysuit. It slays, and I like to online shop. I have a skinny-enough body so I can order things, and they fit me. Im lucky about that. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Kristine Lee Occupation: Unknown Age: 31 I feel like Im always digging through weird, old things. I tend to find things that have lived a life before coming into mine. I found this walking around the Long Beach flea market. The choker was made by my bestie in Portland, and the necklace is actually a belt my mom found at a thrift store. She always told me, Never brand yourself for others. Brand yourself for you. Dont wear labels. Wear something that when you put it on, youre empowered. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Derek Hines Occupation: Works in fashion Age: 32 I just wanted to be vintage Tom Ford and sexy. I got these glasses from somewhere in downtown L.A. and Im wearing them because Im tired as so I have bags under my eyes. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Jodie Turner-Smith Occupation: Unknown Age: 30 I thought [this skirt] made my bum look really nice, which I really liked. And I like a bit of drama. The headscarf is actually a dress. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Spencer Niemetz Occupation: Social Media Age: 23 Its a maxi silhouette because I ate a lot of pizza this weekend. I put the harness on to make it modern with a pointy-toed shoe to let people know that I have an aggressive side. Everything Im wearing is head-to-toe Nasty Gal even the bag, which is square, I didnt want to bring. But I knew my phone was going to die, so I needed my charger. ---------- 10:46 a.m., Nov. 22: An earlier version of this article listed the occupation of Spencer Niemetz as retail. He works in social media. ---------- (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Daniel Chimowitz Occupation: Textile designer Age: Unknown My goal is to make my patterns on my jackets stand out next to womens patterns. I believe men should have the ability to rival womens clothes. Im tired of women having all the great patterns. This is kind of a tribute to Alexander McQueen . When he died, thats when I decided to take fashion to the next level. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Jacques Smith Occupation: Fashion designer Age: 27 Im feeling very mult-culti. This kimono is one of my own pieces; I do custom embroidered Jacques-ets. The bottom piece is from Dubai, and I got my hat in Istanbul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Sesalli Castillo Occupation: Executive assistant Age: 26 Im trying to give myself the ability to twerk it and werk it. But Im also trying to give people some shine, some glitter, some life. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Lydia Broussard Occupation: Anthropologist Age: 29 I didnt want to be a walking offensive person [wearing African prints], so I went to a goth website and got this strappy number. I thought it was military chic. But its also see-through, like bedroom chic. So I paired it with an old American Apparel dress that I once wore for a photo shoot where I was New Years Eve. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Ann Marie Occupation: Unknown Age: 28 My hair underneath all of this is orange, because I really like sunsets. I told my friend, whos a hairstylist, that I wanted cornrows and individual [braids]. But I also have a few dreads in my hair which signifies for me, intention and the lessons that Ive learned. So, for tonight, I wanted to incorporate something similar to that that I already had, and that was metallic beads. I love this whole look. Get your life! Follow me on Twitter: @TrevellAnderson. Defense Ministries of Ukraine and Canada are ready to sign a cooperation agreement, which lays the basis for further in-depth cooperation in various spheres of defense, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze has said. According to the press service of the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said during the meeting with the Ukrainian delegation headed by Klympush-Tsintsadze that work on the cooperation agreement between the Defense Ministries of Ukraine and Canada has been completed and further the two countries' defense ministers will seek the earliest opportunity to sign this document. "This is a basic document, which lays the foundation for the further deepening of cooperation in various spheres of defense, starting with training missions and ending with military doctrine and documents of a strategic nature," the report says. During the meeting the parties also discussed the extension of the Canadian training mission Unifire. This is the project, under which Ukrainian soldiers and officers are being trained by 200 Canadian military at the Yavoriv training ground and in Kamenets-Podilsky training center. Klympush-Tsintsadze expressed gratitude for the Canadian support and cooperation. "Canadian side assured that now it is working out the best format to continue the mission after March 31, noting that the new format should best meet the urgent needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the source reported. Sajjan assured that Canada supports Ukraine in its efforts to reforms, particularly noting the reform of the police. "I was extremely impressed by the police reform during a visit to Ukraine. Particularly impressive was the positive reaction of people," Canadian Defense Minister said. The Emmy-nominated ABC series black-ish has won critical accolades since its 2014 premiere for exploring provocative issues surrounding race. The show, about an upper-middle-class African American family living in a predominantly white neighborhood, has managed to wring humor out of episodes tackling police brutality and the complexities of the N-word along with more traditional sitcom plot lines. But when the shows creator, Kenya Barris, came to grips with the fact that Donald Trump, who had built much of his campaign around racially inflammatory comments and viewpoints, had been elected president of the United States, he found little to laugh about. Barris, a big fan of President Obama and a supporter of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, wrestled with his own shock while also trying to comfort his distraught wife and children. Advertisement Although he had distanced himself from black-ish this season in order to focus on developing other TV projects, Barris felt compelled to return to the series and write an episode to sort through his conflicted feelings about Trumps election. That installment will air Jan. 4, 2017. He also said that the series, which had become relatively lighter in its current third season, will use humor to further examine the countrys racial and cultural divides. (One of the projects Barris is developing is a show about an interracial couple who are pundits on opposing sides of the political aisle. Felicity Huffman is set to star.) In a recent phone interview, Barris explained his response to the election and his plans for black-ish in its wake. The election and reelection of President Obama, along with the popularity of black-ish, Empire and other series that show inclusion of cultures, felt like an indication that there had been an embrace of multiculturalism in the last few years. (Laughs). Yes, it seemed that way. But this election seemed to demonstrate otherwise. What do you feel happened, or was that opinion wrong? Like many people, I have been in a reflective place since the election. I believe there was a sense of smugness that began to permeate our thinking, the feeling that Were right. Our argument against this person is an easily won and right argument. That point of view, I believe, infuriated the right, the conservatives. They took a stance of Were going to show them. As someone who grew up in poverty or poverty-adjacent, theres nothing that speaks louder to you than Im hungry or I wonder if my lights are going to be on. There is a huge part of the left that forgets that fear comes first for a lot of people. Someone put it to me like this: I have cancer, and Hillary is saying, Im going to increase the amount of cancer clinics. Im going to increase your medicine so it can be cheaper. Im going to increase cancer awareness. Then the other candidate says, I have the cure to cancer. Im going to listen to that person with the cure, even if in my heart I know its not true. Just the chance that it might be true you cant fight that. Trump offered a sense of change. There was talk in our writers room about maybe the electoral college will turn over the election. I said, What? So we can start a civil war? I dont want this president either but, guys, let me tell you, Im black and weve never gotten what we want. This is not the way. Do you feel when someone can express inflammatory views about race, as Trump did, a sensible person can say, Yeah, thats not great, but otherwise hes a great guy? As a logical person, I feel its really hard to excuse the gross atrocity of a person and follow that with But hes a nice dresser or Hes still a sweet man. There were 50 million people that voted for Trump. Fifty-million people are not crazy, or racist or misogynist or xenophobic. Maybe 1 million of them are, maybe 5 million are. The point is, we cant just call them all crazy. We have to find a way to reach out to each other and find common ground or else were literally never going to make it and this country is going to get worse. What was going on with you on election day? I was in shock. Im ashamed to say that because of the things that have happened in this country, to myself. It keeps happening. I could not believe it. I bought into the rhetoric, bought into the smugness, bought into the pollsters, who I think should be eliminated from the process. This obviously sparked something in you. I wasnt going to write on black-ish this year. I have pilots. I have some movie things going on. But as a show runner, I woke up that Wednesday and said, I have to write. I have to write about this election, how I feel, how I want us to heal. The last week of my life has been gearing up for the episode that comes on when we return in the new year. How do you reflect your pain and that of those around you and still offer a bridge to the voters who supported Trump? The show is not my personal pulpit. It has to open a conversation. My job is to really speak from an intellectual place, look at what happened and to understand the one thing I know. [Many in] the country felt a different way, and we cannot treat them like theyre crazy. That attitude is how my people have been treated my entire life. When Obama was elected, if the electoral college had found a way to turn over the electoral votes and not elect him, black people would have reacted: Here it is, once again, were being disenfranchised. My job is to open up the conversation on both sides, and say Where are we now? How did we get here? I want to do something on what this black American family is feeling and doing in relation to the world around them. What about other episodes? As of Wednesday night after the election, we want to get back on track in terms of really digging and talking about things that are a little scary to talk about, get back to heftier issues. The topics have been lighter this season because you get caught up in the election and theres so much to deal with. You can hit people over the head so much it turns them off. But I feel, at this point, we have to talk about something. black-ish Where: ABC When: 9:30 p.m. Wednesday Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children) greg.braxton@latimes.com Twitter:@GeBraxton Marc Summers stood in front of a giant prop nose filled with goo. He was explaining to 90s Nickelodeon star Lori Beth Denberg (All That) how to root around the nostrils to retrieve a neon orange flag from inside. Fans of Double Dare recognized the iconic, gross-but-funny obstacle from the enduringly popular Nickelodeon game show. The series revolutionized kids programming during its late 80s-early 90s run by giving children the chance to embrace messy, public play supervised and warmly encouraged by beloved host Summers. Lori Beth Denberg, Josh Server, Danny Tamberelli, Kel Mitchell (front), Derrik Lang, and Emily Bicks. (Harrison Hill / Los Angeles Times ) Advertisement Its been more than 20 years since Double Dare was canceled but, at San Diego Comic-Con this summer, fans lined up for autographs and mobbed Summers, who hosted a modified version that streamed live on Facebook and featured other past Nickelodeon stars such as Denberg and Kel Mitchell (Kenan & Kel.) Nickelodeon executive Keith Dawkins said it was magical to watch Summers interact with fans, whose childhood is coming to life in front of them again. It will come to life once more when Nickelodeon airs The Double Dare Reunion Special at 9 p.m. Pacific time Wednesday, commemorating the shows 30th anniversary. And, if enough people watch, the physical challenges, the giant nose, the obstacle course, the trademark Nickelodeon green slime the whole kit and kaboodle could be resurrected for a new generation. Double Dare lives at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con. (Harrison Hill / Los Angeles Times ) The audience will really decide, Dawkins said of the show, which was canceled in 1993 after 525 episodes hosted by the infectiously energetic Summers. Theyll decide the fate of this, whether we do it as a one-off special, or a many-year special, or as a series. Summers is both amazed and humbled by the ongoing attention from those who grew up with the show, but it wasnt always that way. When it ended and he sought other work in Hollywood, Summers admits, I went through a period, honestly, where yeah, [my association with Double Dare] made me angry because I was trying to do other things and it always came back down to kiddie show host Marc Summers. Now, though, at age 65, the Indiana native lights up as he delivers the line that began every physical challenge on the show: On your mark, get set, go! He has had occasion to deliver it several times this year. In addition to Comic-Con, Summers, in his iconic Size 9 white Reebok shoes, starred in eight sold-out performances of Everything in Its Place: The Life and Slimes of Marc Summers at the Bloomington Playwrights Project in Bloomington, Ind. Part vaudeville, part drama and part Double Dare including two physical challenges the show recounts Summers life, in which hes faced a number of serious obstacles of his own. Life and Slimes finds Summers crawling across the floor, arranging fringe on a rug, illustrating the reality of living with obsessive-compulsive disorder. He tells the story of a horrific 2012 accident when his face smashed into a taxis partition. He details learning that he had leukemia. And he takes calls from a violent stalker who later confronts Summers on a walk, threatening his family members lives. The stalker a personification of Summers OCD played by actor Mike Nappi concludes the show by drenching Summers with the famed green slime. During its fourth performance in April, an audience of 85 people watched and recoiled in empathetic horror for the man whod just shared his life story. The play is both biography and a triumph of vulnerability, a very public rejection of the fear of being stigmatized after sharing his OCD diagnosis during an episode of his 90s Lifetime talk show Biggers & Summers. That honesty cost him a job hosting Hollywood Squares in 1998 and, with the talk show canceled, his family was in trouble. We sold a house because we were in bad shape financially, says Summers. He was left doing corporate speaking gigs for a pharmaceutical company. But talking about OCD constantly for years and years left him stuck and depressed. Translating Summers memoir and memories to the stage over the course of five years was the work of Tony-nominated actor Alex Brightman (School of Rock) and his writing partner, Drew Gasparini. The play traces Summers life from his days as a page at CBS to the present. It drains me every night, Summers says of re-enacting emotionally charged moments. During an initial read-through of the play in December, someone told Summers, Youre spilling your guts out, and I said, Yeah, I guess I am. I got a little concerned: Should I pull back? I think you get to a point and maybe its because of the cancer and the car accident I dont give a Summers is hoping that the show will make its way to Philadelphia next year and eventually to New York and that it will perhaps lead to other roles on Broadway, since theater is now offering opportunities that television is not. Thats because Summers is facing what he did at the start of his career: ageism. Back then, however, he looked too young; now, ironically, They think Im too old. The audience doesnt care, but they do, he says, referring to television executives. Summers most prominent television role recently was mainly behind the scenes as executive producer of Food Networks Restaurant: Impossible. It was canceled this summer. Yet Summers has only kind words for the network that offered him a path back to television in 2001 as host of Unwrapped. A decade later, when it was canceled, he was a year into treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Without Unwrapped, he wouldnt have been able to afford his $20,000 treatments. Food Network is like the best network in the history of the world, Summers says. They could have said, Were sorry, too bad, but they gave me more episodes so I could get through the chemo. Now in remission, Summers is going strong. Besides The Life and Slimes and the potential revival of Double Dare, a documentary called On Your Marc is being shopped to potential distributors, either for a theatrical release or on Netflix or premium cable. (It includes interviews with Summers friends and mentees, including Neil Patrick Harris, Guy Fieri and Ryan Seacrest.) I closed the office for Restaurant: Impossible July 1, and two weeks later, I was in San Diego for Comic-Con, he says. Ive never worried about whats next. Ive been really lucky, since the Nickelodeon years, where one thing jumped into the other. As Summers says in the play, Life keeps knocking me down, but I keep getting back up. Nickelodeons game show Double Dare celebrates its 30th anniversary at the 2016 Comic-Con. The Double Dare Reunion Special Where: Nickelodeon When: 9 p.m. Wednesday Rating: TV-G (suitable for all ages) In this weeks restaurant news, the ever-expanding neighborhood of Koreatown welcomes a new addition, and Mar Vista gets a new Taiwanese restaurant with cocktails. Kung pao and cocktails: A new restaurant called Little Fatty (seriously, thats the name) has opened in Mar Vista. It has taken over the space previously occupied by chef-owner David Kuos former restaurant Status Kuo. And its logo? An illustration of a cute pig eating out of a take-out container with chopsticks. This is Kuos version of a Taiwanese soul food restaurant. On the menu: his renditions of walnut shrimp, kung pao chicken hes even got beef and broccoli. To drink, theres a cocktail bar next door called Accomplice, run by Aaron Siak (from Proprietors LLC). Expect a punch bowl. The bar has its own menu, but you can also grab takeout from Little Fatty. Little Fatty, 3809 Grand View Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 574-7610, www.littlefattyla.com. | Accomplice, 3811 Grand View Blvd., Los Angeles, www.accomplicebar.com/. K-Town fancy: Sixth Avenue, the restaurant group behind Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong and Quarters two Korean barbecue joints with the longest wait times in Koreatown has opened Terra Cotta. The restaurant is named after the blue-green terracotta exterior of the Pellissier Building, where its located, at the corner of Western Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard. And it isnt Korean barbecue. Instead, chef Danny Ye, formerly of Nobu in New York City, is preparing a global menu that includes Latin American, Korean and Japanese flavors. Designed by Sean Knibb, the restaurant features chandeliers and 20-foot-high ceilings. 3760 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 365-1077, terracottala.com. Doughnuts by the beach: Blue Star Donuts, the Portland, Ore.-originated company that opened its first L.A. location in Venice last year, is scheduled to open a shop in Manhattan Beach in December. Good thing, as the one in Venice often has a line wrapped around the entrance. And everyone keeps talking about the blueberry bourbon basil doughnuts. When the Manhattan Beach location opens (exact date to be announced), the shop promises to give out free doughnuts until they run out. 451 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Manhattan Beach, www.bluestardonuts.com. Advertisement Mall eats: Del Amo Fashion Center is about to get a new seasonal small plates restaurant with craft cocktails. Brio Coastal Bar & Kitchen is scheduled to open there in December. Chefs Brian Harvey and Alison Peters will be serving brown butter gnocchi, scallops with roasted butternut squash and grilled salmon with kale. And to drink: moonshines infused in-house, more than 30 wines and local craft beers. 3525 W. Carson St., Torrance, www.briocoastal.com. South Florida ice cream: Sloans Ice Cream, which is known for its sweet wares and colorful decor, will open a location at the Gallery on the Third Street Promenade next year. The Santa Monica shop will feature ice cream, baked goods, plush toys and neon pink and green walls (told you it was colorful). www.sloansicecream.com. Still hungry? BLVD 16 at the Hotel Palomar Los Angeles in Beverly Hills has closed and will be replaced next year with a new restaurant focusing on elevated American comfort food. The Toscana Restaurant Groups Beverly Hills restaurant Nerano is now open. Salt & Straw ice cream will open a location in West Hollywood next year. For the next three Saturdays, Jenis Ice Cream Truck will be parked outside Mr. Holmes Bakehouse in Highland Park for featured flavors meant to pair with the bakerys pastries. Joans on Third has released two new private label wines, available for retail at both the West Third Street and Studio City locations. ALSO: Bludsos BBQ in Compton closes, to reopen in a new location Want to eat out on Thanksgiving? 20 great restaurants wed go to Measure M: An article in the Nov. 21 Section A about voter support for a new half-cent sales tax for transportation said Glendora Mayor Gene Murabito is chairman of the Gold Lines construction authority. He is the vice chairman of a board of elected officials advising the agency building the light-rail line. Good Eye Gallery: In the Nov. 20 Holiday Gift Guide, a list of crafts events said Good Eye Gallerys Merry Makers would be held Dec. 3 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. It will be held Dec. 3 and Dec. 4 from noon to 6 p.m. Elder care: A Steve Lopez column in the Nov. 20 California section about the hard choices his family faces regarding his mothers long-term care listed an incorrect URL for a website where one could go to get help. The correct URL is thescanfoundation.org. Advertisement If you believe that we have made an error, or you have questions about The Times journalistic standards and practices, you may contact Deirdre Edgar, readers representative, by email at readers.representative@latimes.com, by phone at (877) 554-4000, by fax at (213) 237-3535 or by mail at 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. The readers representative office is online at latimes.com/readersrep. Morrad Ghonim sped out of the parking lot with his young bride bleeding to death in the passenger seat next to him. On the way to a hospital, he barreled through a red light. Through frantic screams, he told the California Highway Patrol officer who pulled him over that someone had just shot his wife, Vicki, through the window of the familys burgundy Honda as they left a park in La Mirada. He didnt get a look at the shooters face, he said. As her body went limp, their 6-month-old son watched from the back seat. It was July 23, 1992, and Ghonim had just become a 19-year-old widower. Advertisement Detectives followed a few leads, but the investigation went cold. A breakthrough nearly two decades after the shooting would lead investigators to a drug dealer with a wild story and a courtroom drama that ended Monday. The morning after the shooting, Ghonim and a pair of somber detectives went to see Vickis parents. He told them that he and his wife had taken their baby to Creek Park. It was a special place for the sweethearts Morrad, 19, and Vicki, 17 who sometimes had sneaked away from class at John Glenn High School to spend time there together. Soon after they got to the park, Ghonim said, he heard a group of people catcalling his wife. He figured they were gang members. Vicki, whose loving but feisty personality sometimes got the best of her, screamed something back. Ghonim said he got a bad feeling and ushered his family toward their car. As they settled into the Honda, he heard gunfire. The shooter had been hiding behind bushes, he said, so he never got a look at who had attacked his wife. Police had collected a clump of clothes from the park that night, including a sweatshirt a witness recognized as one worn by a man jogging nearby right after the gunshots rang out. But detectives could never determine whom the items belong to. Ghonim eventually remarried a woman from Jordan his parents homeland. He and his new wife had five children. They raised Vickis son together. He fell out of touch with his dead wifes family. About a decade ago, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department received grant money to reopen old cases and look at genetic evidence. They tested a pair of black pants found in the bushes at Creek Park and turned up DNA from Leon Martinez, who was serving prison time for burglary. At first, Martinez tried to pin the murder on a dead friend. But he eventually admitted to shooting Vicki Ghonim. It wasnt the botched carjacking that authorities long had suspected. No, he told detectives, he was a hired hit man. And his client was Morrad Ghonim. Now a businessman living in Antigua with his third wife, Ghonim was extradited last year. He recently sat at the defense table in a Norwalk courtroom his graying temples framing heavy eyes. As Martinez entered to testify, Ghonim cleared his throat and glared. The two had met through a mutual acquaintance in 1992, Martinez said. After Ghonim bought crack cocaine from him that same day, Martinez said, Ghonim asked if he knew anybody who would kill for money. Martinez had recently traded drugs for a .22-caliber revolver, so he said he would do it. They didnt get into many details, Martinez said, but Ghonim told him that he wanted it to look like a robbery. They settled on a price: $20,000. He just wanted her dead, Martinez said. When he saw the burgundy Honda pull into the parking lot that evening, Martinez was high on cocaine. But he said he remembers walking up to the window and pulling the gun from his pocket. He stood a foot away, he said, and fired at Vickis head. As she pleaded with him not to hurt her baby, he shot her again and again. The last time, he said, he put the gun directly to her eyes and pulled the trigger. As her body slumped over, Martinez testified, Ghonim handed him an envelope of cash, reaching over his wifes body. It doesnt get more premeditated and deliberate, Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Villa said during the trial. After taking the money, Martinez said, he jogged away, shedding his top layer of clothes near some bushes. He then headed to a nearby Del Taco, where he waited for a friend. During Martinezs testimony, Ghonim scribbled notes. Sometimes he stared down, shaking his head. Villa urged jurors to consider Martinezs testimony along with that of his former friend, Deanna Woody, who had picked him up the night of the murder. In 1998, Woody said, a tearful Martinez had confessed to her. She said she didnt tell police until after a detective contacted her in 2009 because she feared for her life and her familys safety. She also testified that a few days before the slaying, she had seen Martinez with a man who she thought looked Middle Eastern. She said the man asked her if she was single and told her that he was having problems with the mother of his child a student at John Glenn High. He said they were planning to split up. The man also told Woody, whose child had recently had a heart transplant, that he too had had an operation on his heart, she testified. But the defense pointed out that Woody had been unable to pick out Ghonims photograph from a lineup. And Martinez had changed some details while on the witness stand. During previous interviews and court appearances, hed said that Ghonim had paid him a lot less putting the amount at $500 one time and $10,000 at another. Earlier, hed told authorities that he had met Ghonim on numerous occasions to sell him drugs before he was asked about killing Vicki. Pressed by the defense, Martinez said, My memory aint that good at all. And in several recorded phone calls Martinez made to his wife from behind bars, he said he had talked to the prosecutor about the case and was considering lying about Ghonims role in the killing. I could tell by the way the D.A. is acting that they need me, he told her. If I could make up a lie to convict this other guy, theyre going to do that. In another call, he said the detectives and attorneys wanted him to basically sit and make a story up. Asked about the calls during the trial, Martinez said he was lying because he didnt want his wife to know that he had killed Vicki. Ghonims attorneys argued that the recordings were clear proof that Martinez had lied for his own benefit. After a jury convicted him last year of Vickis murder, Martinez struck a deal. In exchange for his testimony against Ghonim, hed get 28 years to life in prison instead of life without the possibility of parole. Hes told so many different stories, defense attorney Dmitry Gorin told jurors before they began deliberating last week. Hes somebody that cant be trusted and hes the centerpiece of the governments case. In his closing arguments, Villa asked the jury to think back a few days to when theyd heard from Ghonims second wife, Nisreen Alfaleh. She testified that Ghonim has a scar on his chest from heart surgery he had as a child a clear sign, Villa told jurors, that the Middle Eastern man Woody had spoken to years earlier was Ghonim. Alfaleh also testified that during the winter of 2012, the couple got into a fight at a restaurant in Antigua. Alfaleh said she told her then-husband she was planning to take the kids and move to Texas. If you ever think of getting a divorce, Ill hurt you, she recalled him saying. It cost me $500 then, it wont cost me much now. Why did you pick $500, she asked him? Are you referring to your first wife? He didnt respond, she said. The jury, which deliberated for nearly a week, reached a verdict Monday: Morrad Ghonim was guilty of first-degree murder. He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole at his sentencing Dec. 19. Villa praised the panels decision, calling it a relief for Vickis family. Its finally over, he said. marisa.gerber@latimes.com For more news from the Los Angeles County courts, follow me on Twitter: @marisagerber ALSO L.A. voters just showed how frustrated they really are over traffic Garcetti pushes back against possible cuts in federal funds over immigration stance Here I am above average: Chinese parachute kids are coming to the U.S. at younger ages The cries for help came from just behind the police station in Healdsburg, a small town in Northern California. In the parking lot outside police headquarters, officers found a naked man holding the wet, lifeless body of his 4-year-old daughter. Gerardo Ordaz, 42, was arrested early Monday after investigators concluded that he drowned his daughter in the baptismal pool of a nearby Roman Catholic church, the Healdsburg Police Department said. Advertisement Earlier in the evening, Ordaz had been with his daughter and a 9-year-old boy in the sanctuary at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, about one block from the police station. Inside the house of worship, investigators say, Ordaz drowned his daughter in the foot-deep water of the baptismal pool. They were the only ones in the church at the time, Healdsburg police Chief Kevin Burke said. The church leaves the doors open late on Sunday. Police did not specify a motive but said they do not believe the death was accidental. After Ordaz arrived about 8:30 p.m. at the police station, officers tried to revive the girl and she was rushed to a hospital. There, she was formally pronounced dead, Lt. Matt Jenkins said. The killing was set to be the first homicide in Healdsburg since 2008, when a woman fatally stabbed her boyfriend. The town of about 11,000 people is 15 miles northwest of Santa Rosa. The childs death stunned the parish community at St. John the Baptist, which was founded in 1860. The churchs pastor, Fr. Sean Rogers, issued a brief statement: Sunday night, there was a tragedy in the church; a little girl lost her life. When police finish the investigation, we will know more, Rogers said. In the meantime, please pray for the family, and the parish community. Ordaz was booked on suspicion of murder and was being held without bail in the Sonoma County jail. Prosecutors charged him with one count of murder and he was scheduled to appear Tuesday afternoon in court for his arraignment, according to jail records. matt.hamilton@latimes.com Twitter: @MattHjourno. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Monday that President-elect Donald Trump would be making a mistake if his administration cuts federal funding to L.A. over the citys immigration stance. Anything that would take away federal aid would cause social, economic and security problems, Garcetti said. I am hoping we can have this conversation separate and without threats. Reince Priebus, Trumps designee to be the White House chief of staff, told CNN on Sunday that the Trump administration is exploring cutting off federal money to so-called sanctuary cities. Advertisement Trump vowed during the election to punish such municipalities for their lenient policies toward illegal immigration. Los Angeles is slated to receive about $500 million this fiscal year directly from the federal government to pay for services such as port security and homeless shelters. That figure doesnt include federal money that flows to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a joint city-county agency. The agency will receive about $23 million in federal Housing and Urban Development funds this fiscal year. L.A. police and city leaders have vocally protested any immigration crackdown under Trump, with both Garcetti and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck saying in the last week that police wont change their enforcement policies. CNNs Jake Tapper asked Priebus on State of the Union whether Trump would cut federal funding to Los Angeles given the citys position. Priebus said he personally feels that funding shouldnt flow to sanctuary cities, but said the issue is open to negotiation. The idea that a city would decide to ignore federal law and then want the federal government to help them anyway is an inconsistent position for those local governments to continue to engage in, Priebus said. Garcetti was asked about Priebus comments Monday at a Boyle Heights event with local high school students centered on the issue of deportation fears under Trump. We participate all the time with our federal immigration authorities and we will continue to do so, he said. Garcetti also suggested that programs targeting clean air and homeless funding may be jeopardized if federal money no longer comes in. Federal funds pay for homeland security, too, he added. We have a mutual interest in fighting terrorism, Garcetti said. Los Angeles County is home to more than 1 million of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country without legal status. Beck said last week he would not change the LAPDs stance on immigration enforcement, despite Trumps pledge to toughen federal immigration laws and deport millions of people upon taking office. Both Beck and Garcetti have said the LAPD will continue to enforce Special Order 40, which bars officers from contacting someone solely to determine their immigration status. dakota.smith@latimes.com Twitter: @dakotacdsmith ALSO L.A. voters just showed how frustrated they really are over traffic Secessionists formally launch quest for Californias independence Here I am above average: Chinese parachute kids are coming to the U.S. at younger ages A Glendale man believed to have deliberately jumped in front of a moving train and killed himself Monday had slashed his estranged wifes throat a day before, authorities say. Glendale police had been looking for Henrik Manokian, 57, after identifying him as a suspect in the attack on his wife, according to Sgt. Robert William. Manokians wife was found about 5:49 p.m. Sunday in the 3700 block of Mayfield Avenue in Glendale, he said in a statement. Advertisement The 50-year-old victim had a severe gash on her throat. She was taken to an area hospital, where she is recovering. Detectives worked through the night to find Manokian, who had been living out of his vehicle, William said. Then on Monday, police received reports that a man had been struck by a train near the intersection of San Fernando Road and Doran Street. The man was late identified as Manokian, he said. Moments before Manokian jumped in front of the train, he told a passerby that he wanted to end his life, William said. The passerby notified a nearby business to call police. But as the Amtrak train approached the intersection, the man ran onto the tracks and was struck, police said. veronica.rocha@latimes.com For breaking news in California, follow @VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter. ALSO Pregnant woman stabbed to death on street in Venice Beach Kanye West exhausted, Kris Jenner says; rapper hospitalized after LAPD visit Tragedy in the church: Man accused of killing 4-year-old daughter by drowning her in baptismal pool A suspected armed robber was shot and killed by Los Angeles County Sheriffs deputies early Tuesday after a three-hour standoff inside a convenience store in La Mirada, authorities said. Video from media outlets showed the conclusion of the standoff, when the man suddenly emerged from the front of the AM/PM store in the 13500 block of South Beach Boulevard and fired at deputies, who returned fire, killing him, about 12:30 a.m. In a news release, Sheriffs Department officials said the man had already fired at deputies from inside the store and had refused commands to surrender. Advertisement The incident began as a report of an armed robbery about 9:15 p.m. Monday, said Sgt. Hank Ortega. The first deputies to arrive ordered the man to drop the weapon and surrender but instead he ran back inside the building, authorities said. The man had at one point stepped just outside the front doors and appeared to yell at deputies while waving his hands in the air before going back inside, video showed. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. His identity has not been released. No deputies were injured. joseph.serna@latimes.com For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter. ALSO As trial approaches, Baca fights with feds over key witness Wreckage of missing aircraft found in Upland canyon Tragedy in the church: Man accused of killing 4-year-old daughter by drowning her in baptismal pool UPDATES: 10:30 a.m.: This article was updated with details of the standoff. This article was originally published at 6:15 a.m. A 3-year-old boy in San Bernardino narrowly avoided death Monday when a bullet from a drive-by-shooting struck a wall just inches above his head while he slept, authorities said. San Bernardino County sheriffs deputies are looking for the gunman who was in a car with three other passengers about 1:30 p.m. when he opened fire on a 13-year-old boy, his brother and his friend outside a home in the 6900 block of Tippecanoe Avenue, officials said. The teen was struck once in the buttock and three other bullets hit a home nearby. One of those went through a window and lodged in the wall just above the toddlers head, authorities said. Advertisement No arrests have been made, but police say security video is helping in their search for the occupants of the vehicle. Authorities released an image of the car in hopes that someone will recognize it. Anyone with information can call Det. Donald Patton at (909) 387-3545. The wounded teen was taken to the hospital for surgery and is expected to survive. Joseph.serna@latimes.com For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter. ALSO Kanye West remains hospitalized after incident involving LAPD Robbery suspect killed after shooting at sheriffs deputies outside La Mirada convenience store Glendale man jumps in front of train and kills himself after slashing wifes throat, police say Militants used a Grad multiple launch rocket system in a Donbas district on Tuesday morning, Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzianyk said. "We tentatively confirm this information. Today, the enemy used a Grad-P system, a so-called 'Partizan', in one of the districts," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday. Motuzianyk said that militants launched four 122mm rockets. Berkeley police say Starbucks customers helped them capture armed robbers who made off with a womans laptop. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that two Oakland men, ages 19 and 22, were arrested for the apparent robbery at a Starbucks about a mile from the campus of UC Berkeley. Police said witnesses described a man ripping a laptop away from a woman and heading for the exit, but a customer moved to block the door. The robber pulled out a gun, police said, and the customer moved away from the door. Advertisement Police said a Starbucks patron told them a getaway vehicle and driver were waiting for the man. Berkeley Police spokesman Sgt. Andrew Frankel said officers caught up with the bandits and recovered the laptop. ALSO Kayne West remains hospitalized after incident involving LAPD Robbery suspect killed after shooting at sheriffs deputies outside La Mirada convenience store Pilot dead after small plane crashes into hillside near Upland The chances of a new Supreme Court challenge to partisan gerrymandering significantly increased Monday as federal judges in Wisconsin ruled the states Republican leaders had unconstitutionally drawn electoral districts to entrench their control over the state Assembly. The states legislative districts had been drawn so meticulously to ensure partisan advantage that Republicans won overwhelming control of the house in 2012, with 60 of 99 seats, even though Democrats won 51% of the vote statewide, the judges noted. The 2-1 decision from a three-judge federal district court panel marked the first time that federal judges have ruled a states electoral map was so one-sided as to deny voters from one party a voice in state government. Advertisement The judges said GOP leaders had drawn districts for the Legislature after the last census with the aim of preserving their majority for a decade almost regardless of what voters had to say. Republicans had control of the both houses of the state Legislature, and Gov. Scott Walker signed their election map into law. We conclude that the evidence establishes that one of the purposes (of the state map) was to secure Republican control of the Assembly under any likely future electoral scenario for the remainder of the decade, in other words to entrench the Republican Party in power, wrote Judge Kenneth Ripple. A group of 12 Democratic residents of Wisconsin had sued, contending the state plan deprived them of the right to have their voices heard on an equal basis. They did not claim the districts were drawn with squiggly lines or made for peculiar looking districts. Instead, they said GOP consultants had used software programs to draw an electoral map that ensured Republicans would win a majority of the seats, regardless of how the states voters split. The case has been seen as potentially having a national impact because the losing side was almost certain to seek a ruling from the Supreme Court. This is a monumental victory for the plaintiffs in this case, but more importantly this is a historic moment for our nation and the betterment of democracy, said Gerry Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, which backed the plaintiffs. With this decision, partisan gerrymandering should come to an end in Wisconsin and is now on its way to extinction across the nation. The judges did not say what Wisconsin must do to solve the problem. They asked both sides to submit briefs on a possible remedy. The states lawyers can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the past, the justices have been closely divided over claims of partisan gerrymandering. They have never struck down a states electoral map because it gave one party an unfair and overwhelming advantage over the other, although some justices have suggested the court might do so if the right case arose. david.savage@latimes.com Twitter: DavidGSavage ALSO: Should it be legal to have a congressional district only one party can win? Court disputes over voting laws often divide justices along party lines The U.S. labor forces guy problem: Lots of men dont have a job and arent looking for one Home buyers and sellers interests must be protected when the same firm represents both, state Supreme Court rules President-elect Donald Trump will soon have the chance to make good on one of his most consequential campaign promises: fill the Supreme Court vacancy with a judge in the mold of conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February. Any Trump nominee is almost guaranteed to be a conservative jurist who is anti-abortion and supports the 2nd Amendments right to bear arms. But what kind of conservative he selects will determine whether his first nominee will be quickly confirmed or instead trigger a fierce fight in the closely divided Senate, potentially overshadowing the early months of Trumps presidency. Advertisement If Trump opts for a Scalia-like justice, as he repeatedly said he would during the campaign, conservatives lawyers say the betting favorite is Judge William H. Pryor Jr. from the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta, a former Alabama attorney general who called the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law. The 54-year-old Pryor believes in Scalias approach of interpreting the Constitution by its original meaning one which has little room for gay rights, even womens rights. His nomination would electrify Trumps conservative base, but it would also set off a confirmation battle for which the outcome is not assured. His nomination would ignite a firestorm across the country, said Nan Aron, president of Alliance for Justice, among the liberal activist groups that are already mobilizing to fight a Pryor nomination. Our organization and others would pull out every stop to keep him off the court. Instead, Trump may opt for a less provocative nominee, such as Judge Diane Sykes of Wisconsin, 58, a moderate conservative who sits on the 7th Circuit Court in Chicago. Sykes has ruled in favor of religious employers who challenged President Obamas healthcare law and its requirement to provide free contraceptives, and she voted to uphold Wisconsins voter ID law. But she has not taken sharply ideological stands or called for overturning liberal precedents. Pryor and Sykes have been seen as top contenders ever since Trump mentioned them by name during a Republican debate shortly after Scalias sudden death, which threatened to tilt the courts ideological balance to the left. But much will depend on the whether the GOP-led Senate moves to alter its filibuster rules. If the new Senate maintains its current rules, it would take 60 votes to cut off debate and set a final vote on a Supreme Court nominee. That would allow the minority Democrats, voting as a bloc, to prevent confirmation of a controversial pick like Pryor. Republicans next year are expected to control only 52 seats. But Republican leaders could simply change the rules to clear the way for Trumps high court nominee to be confirmed with a simple majority. Thats what Democrats did in 2013 when they controlled the Senate and wanted to overcome Republican filibusters against Obamas judicial nominees. At the time, Democrats exempted Supreme Court nominations from that rule change. It remains unclear whether Republicans will agree on changing the rules to allow confirmations with just 50 votes. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has said he would oppose abandoning the filibuster rule, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has also been seen as resistant to changing long-standing Senate practices. Even so, Pryor appears to have the inside track, according to conservative lawyers and advisors in touch with the transition team. Before becoming a judge in 2005, Pryor drew attention with a series of outspoken Scalia-like pronouncements on issues like abortion and gay rights. He ended one speech in 2000 with a prayer for the newly elected George W. Bush, saying Please, God, no more Souters. It was a reference to Justice David Souter, a Republican appointee who disappointed conservatives during his 19 years on the court by frequently siding with liberals. No one on the right worries that Pryor would move to the center or the left if he were appointed to the high court. He is also a protege of Jeff Sessions, the Alabama senator who is slated to become Trumps U.S. attorney general. Last week, the conservative Federalist Society met in Washington, and Pryor was seen by many as the favorite for Trumps first high court nomination. He would be great, said Roger Pilon, vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute. Trump appears to share that view. Hours after Scalia died, Trump mentioned Pryor and Sykes as among the fantastic people who could replace Scalia. I hope that our Senate, Mitch [McConnell] and the entire group, is going to able to do something in terms of delay. We could have a Diane Sykes or a Bill Pryor, he said, calling upon Senate Republicans to block Obama from filling the seat. The GOP-led Senate pursued such a strategy, refusing to consider since March President Obamas nomination of Judge Merrick Garland. During the campaign, Trump put out two lists and a total of 21 potential Supreme Court nominees, and his aides say he will make his selection from those lists. Lawyers at the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society expect Trump will choose a federal appeals court judge who is under age 60 and has a conservative record. Other favored candidates include Judges Neil Gorsuch, 49, from the 10th Circuit Court in Denver, Steven Colloton, 53, from the 8th Circuit in St. Louis, and Raymond Kethledge, 49, from the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati and Thomas Hardiman, 51, from the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia. Trumps list also includes several state justices, and the most talked about names are Joan Larsen, 47, a Michigan Supreme Court justice who was once a clerk for Scalia, and Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett, 50, an avid tweeter who at times has criticized Trump. At the Federalist Society meeting last week, panel talks included nine of the 21 potential Trump nominees to the high court. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas also delivered speeches. Pryor moderated a panel on the separation of powers, and he echoed Scalias view that real constitutional law is about the governing structure, not the individual rights protected by the Constitution. Its a mistake to think the Bill of Rights is the most important feature of American democracy, he said. Pryor, like Scalia, believes issues such as abortion or same-sex marriage are not individual rights protected by the Constitution, but instead are matters to be decided by the states and their voters. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who spoke on the panel, said he has known Pryor since they were law clerks in New Orleans. Bill is extremely smart and committed to first principles of constitutional interpretation, Turley said after the panel talk. He strongly believes in the original design of the dual sovereignty between state and federal governments. He believes that states must make the decisions in traditional areas of responsibility, including abortion, the death penalty and gay rights. In 2003, when the Supreme Court was hearing a challenge to a Texas law that made gay sex a crime, Pryor filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Alabama urging the court to rule for Texas. He said the court should not be swayed by political correctness. Engaging in homosexual sodomy is not protected by the 14th Amendment and its reference to liberty, he wrote. Upholding such a claim must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography and even incest and pedophilia, he added. The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision struck down the Texas law as an unconstitutional invasion of liberty and privacy. In dissent, Scalia wrote a passage similar to Pryors brief. The courts ruling, Scalia said, has called into question state laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity. Pryor grew up in a Roman Catholic family from Mobile, Ala., graduated from Northeast Louisiana University in Monroe and from the Tulane Law School. In 1996, Pryor was a 34-year old deputy attorney general in Alabama when Sessions, his boss, was elected to the Senate. He took over as state attorney general and won a narrow election in 1998. When George W. Bush became president, he picked Pryor for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, but his nomination ran into fierce resistance from Senate Democrats. They blocked his confirmation, but Bush went around them and gave him a recess appointment. Then, in a bipartisan deal, the Senate agreed to hold votes on several stalled judges, and Pryor won confirmation on a 53-45 vote in 2005. david.savage@latimes.com On Twitter: DavidGSavage ALSO: Supreme Court grants emergency order to block transgender male student in Virginia from using boys restroom Supreme Court turns down Ohio Democrats bid to restore golden week of early voting Breitbart News wants supporters to #DumpKelloggs after advertiser pulls out By David Ng Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak, left, and Chief Executive Larry Solov at the Breitbart offices in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) The Breitbart News Network is seeing some of its advertisers head for the exit doors and is responding in typical Breitbart fashion: by going on the counteroffensive, labeling one of them as un-American and calling it a war on conservatism. Since Donald Trumps victory in the presidential election, Los Angeles-based Breitbart has experienced a backlash from some advertisers who say that the online site conflicts with their corporate values. Breitbart took a pro-Trump stance during the campaign, supporting the Republican candidates views on immigration and national security. The companys executive chairman, Steve Bannon, who is on a leave of absence, was Trumps campaign manager and has been named chief White House strategist. Although Bannon was quoted in Mother Jones as saying Breitbart is a platform for the alt-right the ultraconservative movement associated with white nationalism the news site has denied accusations that it engages in racist rhetoric. The company has stated that it isnt affiliated with the alt-right and that the brand of nationalism it espouses is political, not racial. Breitbart is fighting back at one of the advertisers breakfast cereal maker Kellogg Co. by launching a Twitter campaign, #DumpKelloggs, that encourages its readers to sign a petition and boycott the maker of such favorites as Froot Loops and Apple Jacks. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Supreme Court weighs rules for jailed immigrants in Trump era By David Savage The Supreme Court building in Washington. (Saul Loeb / AFP-Getty Images) Facing the likelihood of dramatically stepped-up deportations under a President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court justices sounded closely split Wednesday over whether the government can indefinitely jail immigrants with criminal convictions while they fight legal efforts to remove them from the country. Trump, who made illegal immigration one of the platforms of his presidential campaign, has promised to deport as many as 3 million immigrants once he takes office, and the Supreme Court case involving a Los Angeles immigrant could give his administration greater leverage. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump says he saved American jobs, but he hasnt shown how he can turn the victory into policy By Noah Bierman A Carrier Corp. plant in Indianapolis. (Darron Cummings / Associated Press) President-elect Donald Trumps newly announced agreement to save more than 1,000 jobs in Indiana gave him the kind of trophy he covets: a tangible victory that matches his campaign promise to serve as deal maker in chief. But its long-term value will depend on what Trump gave up to keep those factory jobs from going to Mexico and whether he is able to craft a successful fiscal policy that has a broader impact on the economy. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Lawmakers reach a compromise to help California soldiers ordered to repay enlistment bonuses By David S. Cloud House and Senate negotiators announced a compromise Tuesday that would permit the Pentagon to forgive debts owed by thousands of California National Guard soldiers who received improper bonuses during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The agreement was included in a defense bill due to be voted on by the House on Friday and the Senate next week. It seeks to strike a balance between the Pentagons concerns about fraud in the bonus system and lawmakers attempts to resolve a scandal that has hurt thousands of military veterans and sparked a public furor. The compromise calls on the Pentagon to forgive the enlistment bonuses and student loans benefits unless the soldier who received the money knew or reasonably should have known that he or she was ineligible for it. The provision stops short of requiring the Pentagon to forgive debts allegedly owed by all California Guard soldiers as long as they fulfilled the terms of their enlistment contracts and did not commit fraud a far more sweeping waiver that members of the California delegation had proposed. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Pentagon says human errors led to mistaken bombing of Syrian-backed forces By W.J. Hennigan Smoke rises near the Syrian village of Hisha, about 25 miles from Islamic States de facto capital of Raqqah, after an airstrike by the American-led coalition on Nov. 9, 2016. (Delil Souleiman /AFP/Getty Images) A U.S. military investigation has found that unintentional human errors led to a coalition airstrike that mistakenly killed dozens of Syrian-backed troops this fall, but it did not recommend disciplining anyone for the deadly attack. The Sept. 17 air raid on a garrison in the eastern Syrian town of Dair Alzour is one of the worst coalition errors to emerge since the Obama administration began an air war against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria in mid-2014. The attack, which was in an area also frequented by Russian forces, led to sharp criticism from Moscow after it emerged that Russian attempts to use a communications hotline to stop the attack were not answered for nearly half an hour. Russias Defense Ministry has said the attack killed 62 Syrian troops, wounded 100 more and opened the way for an Islamic State offensive in the area. It also helped destroy an already fragile U.S.-Russian cease-fire. A four-page redacted summary of the investigation that was released Tuesday concluded that the botched bombing did not violate international laws of armed conflict. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print U.N. slaps new sanctions on North Korea for recent nuclear test By Tracy Wilkinson Participants stand behind a military band in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Sept. 13 during a celebration rally after the countrys successful test of a nuclear warhead. (Kim Won-Jin / AFP/Getty Images) The United Nations has slapped additional sanctions on North Korea in an effort to cut its exports of raw materials as punishment for conducting another nuclear test. The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a U.S.-drafted resolution aimed at cutting North Koreas exports of coal, copper, silver and other raw materials, which are its biggest legitimate sources of foreign revenue. The latest sanctions were issued in response to Pyongyangs fifth and largest nuclear test, which was conducted in September in violation of U.N. resolutions. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power estimated the new sanctions will cost North Korea about $800 million a year in lost export income. North Korea is determined to refine its nuclear and ballistic missile technology to pose an even more potent threat ... to international peace and security, Power said. But this resolution imposes unprecedented costs on the [Kim Jong Un] regime for defying this councils demands, she said. Previous international sanctions have had little apparent effect on decisions in Pyongyang, and its difficult to know whether the latest round will make a difference. In March, a set of sanctions described as the most severe in two decades was imposed. But North Korea has gotten around some of the restrictions thanks to complicity from China, its neighbor and longtime benefactor. Wednesdays measures included a 60% cut on North Koreas export of coal, its biggest income source, and bans on the export of copper, nickel, silver and zinc. The sanctions also banned North Koreas export of statues, a business that caters mostly to Africa, and blacklisted 11 people and 10 entities. Under the resolution, North Korea is also threatened with suspension of some U.N. privileges if it fails to comply. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print CIA director warns Trump it would be the height of folly to scrap the Iran deal By Brian Bennett In an unusual public warning, the head of the CIA said Wednesday it would be the height of folly and disastrous for President-elect Donald Trump to scrap the Iran nuclear deal. CIA Director John Brennan said in a TV interview that ripping up the historic accord could allow Iran to resume its nuclear program and set off an arms race in the Middle East by encouraging other countries to acquire their own nuclear weapons. I think it would be disastrous for the incoming Trump administration to renege on the deal with Iran, Brennan said in an unusually blunt interview with BBC. It could lead to a weapons program inside Iran that could lead other states in the region to embark on their own programs, so I think it would be height of folly if the next administration were to tear up that agreement, Brennan said. It is extremely rare for the CIA director to issue a public warning to an incoming administration, and it suggests deep concern inside the intelligence community about Trumps intentions. During the campaign, Trump variously promised to dismantle or to revise President Obamas signature foreign policy achievement, an international deal that cut off Irans ability to build or acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for easing of sanctions on its finances and oil industry. Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), Trumps pick to replace Brennan as CIA director, also has been a vocal critic of the deal. I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the worlds largest state sponsor of terrorism, Pompeo wrote Nov. 17 on Twitter. After meeting Trump at the White House after the election, Obama said they had discussed the Iran deal and that he hoped it would survive intact, noting that the United States would be acting alone if it sought to impose new sanctions. The five members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany negotiated the deal in 2015, and the U.N. later voted to enforce it. Implementation began in January, and no evidence has emerged to indicate Iran is violating its side of the agreement. View Twitter post Obama administration officials want to brief Trump and his top advisors on classified details and assessments of the Iran deal, including monitoring systems put in place to verify Iranian compliance. So far, Trumps transition team has delayed receiving more than a handful of in-depth intelligence briefings. There are a lot of people out there who read the papers and listened to news broadcasts where the facts may be a bit you know off, Brennan told the BBC. I want to make sure the new team understands what the reality is. It ultimately will be up to them to decide how to carry out their responsibilities, Brennan said. Robert M. Gates, a former CIA chief and secretary of Defense, also called for preserving the nuclear deal. It would be a mistake to tear up the agreement at this point, Gates said in an interview on CBS This Morning. I think we would be the ones isolated, not the Iranians, because none of our partners who helped to negotiate that would walk away from it. But I think what the new president can do is push back against the Iranians. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Rep. Nancy Pelosi elected by House Democrats for another term as minority leader By Lisa Mascaro House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Andrew Harnik/Associated Press) House Democrats elected Rep. Nancy Pelosi for another term as minority leader after she fended off a rival who said the November election showed the party needs change at the top. The San Francisco Democrat has beaten back challengers before, but this years campaign from Ohio Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan focused attention on President-elect Donald Trumps success in attracting white, working class voters in Rust Belt states that had traditionally been part of the Democratic base. Pelosi responded by expanding her leadership team to include more seats at the table for younger members and those from states Trump won. The only woman to serve as House speaker, Pelosi has faced calls for her ouster ever since Democrats lost the House majority in 2010. First elected to leadership in 2002, the mother of five -- and grandmother -- has also endured questions about how much longer she will stay at the helm. The 76-year-old typically swats back such inquiries by noting the comparable ages of male colleagues in leadership roles elsewhere in the Capitol. Pelosi remains a fundraising powerhouse and despite interest by other Democrats in taking a turn at leadership, few have been able to make the case to their peers that they could match her drive. But this year, Pelosi appeared to take her challenge seriously. She repeatedly worked to shore up support from liberals and minorities who make up the bulk of the Democratic caucus. She also pointed to the gains Democrats have made under her watch -- they picked up six seats in November -- and warned that losses could have been worse. Democratic Rep. Adam B. Schiff of Burbank, in nominating Pelosi during a closed-door meeting Wednesday, said, We need the very best to lead us.... No one is a better tactician than Nancy Pelosi. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump pledged to protect Medicare. His choice for health secretary has other ideas By Noah Bierman Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), President-elect Donald Trumps choice for Health and Human Services secretary. (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)) President-elect Donald Trump reassured voters during his insurgent political campaign that he would protect Medicare, Social Security and other popular federal assistance programs. But in tapping Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) to be his Health and Human Services secretary, he has elevated one of the most aggressive proponents of dramatically overhauling the government safety net for seniors and low-income Americans, a long-held conservative goal. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump says he will leave his business in total to fully focus on running the country By Jim Puzzanghera (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images) President-elect Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday morning that he would leave his business operations in total to fully focus on running the country. Trumps vast interests in real estate and other ventures have raised unprecedented concerns about the potential for conflict of interest, both at home and internationally. In one of a series of tweets, Trump said he would be leaving my great business in total. Legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations. The Presidency is a far more important task! he said. However, Trump made no mention that would be giving up ownership of the Trump Organization, which includes hotels, golf resorts and other properties and many licensing deals that span the globe. Neither did he specify whether his separation from his businesses would be permanent. To avoid conflicts or the perception that his presidency would benefit his financial empire, government ethics lawyers and watchdog groups have urged him to sell off his businesses and put the assets in a blind trust to be managed by an independent third party. Trump said last week that he has been turning over operations of his businesses to three of his children, who already have senior positions at the Trump Organization. But some critics have said turning over control to his children may not be enough to alleviate such concerns, since several of his adult children remain active in planning his transition. What he does not seem to realize, or does not want to admit, is that the conflicts arise from his ownership of the Trump Organization, said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, in reacting to Trumps announcement Wednesday. He will continue to know what his business interests are and to benefit from them whether or not he is involved in the day-to-day management, so the conflicts remain unchanged. Federal conflict-of-interest rules for government employees and members of Congress dont apply to the president. Trump said in an interview with the New York Times last week that the president cant have a conflict of interest In theory, I can be president of the United States and run my business 100%. He said then that it would be very hard to sell off his businesses because they are mostly real estate, but also noted that he would like to try and formalize something in terms of an arrangement that would distance his businesses from his work as president. On Wednesday, he tweeted that While I am not mandated to do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as President, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses. Trump said he would detail the changes at a New York news conference with his children on Dec. 15. I will be holding a major news conference in New York City with my children on December 15 to discuss the fact that I will be leaving my ... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2016 great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! While I am not mandated to .... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2016 do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as President, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses.. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2016 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump names billionaire investor Wilbur Ross as Commerce secretary By Jim Puzzanghera President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence greet investor Wilbur Ross, left, in New Jersey on Sunday. ( (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)) President-elect Donald Trump has chosen billionaire financier Wilbur Ross, known as the king of bankruptcy for his investments in distressed properties, to serve as Commerce secretary, according to a person familiar with the decision. If confirmed, Ross would become the Trump administrations chief liaison with the business community and a leading advocate for U.S. trade abroad. Ross, 80, who was a senior policy advisor to Trumps campaign, is worth $2.9 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Like Trump, Ross has been critical of U.S. trade deals. He sharply criticized trade negotiators and called for the U.S. to withdraw from the yet-to-be-ratified Trans-Pacific Partnership and to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump has pledged to do both upon taking office. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump taps Wall Street executive and Hollywood producer Steven Mnuchin for Treasury secretary By Jim Puzzanghera Steven Mnuchin at Trump Tower in New York this month. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / AFP/Getty Images) President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Steven Mnuchin, a wealthy Wall Street executive and Hollywood movie producer who served as his campaign finance chairman, to be the next Treasury secretary, according to a person familiar with the decision. Mnuchins deep roots on Wall Street fit the mold of past Treasury secretaries but contrast with the populist stance that Trump took during his campaign. Mnuchins net worth is unclear, but he could be the second billionaire member of Trumps Cabinet, after Betsy DeVos, who is Trumps pick for Education secretary. The third is expected to be financier Wilbur Ross, who has been selected as Commerce secretary. Mnuchins selection which was first reported Tuesday by the New York Times drew ire from Democratic and liberal groups, which have accused him of profiting from the financial crisis after buying the failed IndyMac Bank in 2009. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Noam Chomsky, Junot Diaz and nearly 400 MIT faculty oppose Trump picks in open letter By Colleen Shalby President-elect Donald Trump. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) Nearly 400 MIT faculty members, including professor emeritus Noam Chomsky, writer Junot Diaz and four Nobel Prize winners, signed an open letter criticizing President-elect Donald Trumps Cabinet picks. The President-elect has appointed individuals to positions of power who have endorsed racism, misogyny and religious bigotry, and denied the widespread scientific consensus on climate change. Regardless of our political views, these endorsements violate principles at the core of MITs mission. At this time, it is important to reaffirm the values we hold in common. The letter also denounces the controversial rhetoric often associated with Trumps campaign and impending presidency. For any member of our community who may feel fear or oppression, our doors are open and we are ready to help, it states. MIT boasts a student body represented by 120 foreign countries, all 50 U.S. states and three U.S. territories. While campaigning, Trump lauded his late uncle, John, who was a professor at MIT for nearly 50 years. Shortly after Trump announced his candidacy, he spoke about him to CNN. I had an uncle who went to MIT who is a top professor. Dr. John Trump. A genius. Its in my blood. Im smart. Great marks. Like really smart, Trump said. A handful of faculty members who signed the statement overlapped in time with John Trump. At least one, physics professor Robert Jaffe, said that he did not know the uncle, but hopes that his nephews administration will maintain a dedication to science. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print With no Cabinet to build, Hillary Clinton appears with Katy Perry By Chris Megerian Pop star Katy Perry was one of Hillary Clintons biggest celebrity boosters on the campaign trail, and on Tuesday night the former Democratic presidential nominee introduced the singer at a charity gala in New York. Perry has served as UNICEFs goodwill ambassador. Hilary Clinton surprise appearance just now to intro @katyperry #SnowflakeBall #UnicefSnowflake pic.twitter.com/3wh2Zc2BwG David Ushery (@DavidUshery4NY) November 30, 2016 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Jill Stein pays fee to green-light Wisconsin recount By Michael A. Memoli The recount is officially on. The Wisconsin Elections Commission said Tuesday that Green Party nominee Jill Stein has paid the nearly $3.5 million estimated cost to set into motion a statewide retabulation of the presidential vote. Stein had asked for the recount after claiming that evidence of foreign interference existed. She is also seeking recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania; together, the three states carry enough electoral votes to flip the election from President-elect Donald Trump to Democrat Hillary Clinton, but such an outcome is all but impossible. The Wisconsin recount, which starts Thursday, is likely to cost Stein slightly more, the commission said, blaming an earlier error in adding up cost estimates from the 72 county clerks who will oversee the ballot review. Stein will be charged whatever additional costs are incurred after the recount is concluded. Officials on Monday said that most counties will complete their recount in a week but that more populous counties will face a challenge in meeting the deadline to certify results. The state aims to finish by Dec. 12, as state law gives the recount petitioner five days after the new tally is finished for further legal challenges. Presidential electors in 50 states and the District of Columbia will meet Dec. 19 to formally cast the votes that will elect Trump as the next president. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Repeal and replace Obamacare? It wont happen on Trumps first day, GOP leader says By Lisa Mascaro House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) cast doubt on whether the Republican-led Congress would be ready to repeal Obamacare by inauguration day, as some in President-elect Donald Trumps transition team have suggested could happen in a special session. But McCarthy said Republicans would try to start as soon as possible on what he acknowledged would be a complicated two-step process to repeal and replace Obamacare that will consume much of 2017 and beyond. Their plan involves retroactively passing a fiscal 2017 budget in the early weeks of Trumps term. Such a maneuver would give Republicans the ability to unwind President Obamas signature domestic program with a simple majority vote, without facing a Democratic filibuster. Replacing the Affordable Care Act would come later, and likely extend into fiscal 2018. Once its repealed you will have hopefully fewer people playing politics and everybody coming to the table to find the best policy, McCarthy told reporters. I just want to make sure we get it right. McCarthy on Tuesday welcomed reports that Trump intends to nominate House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) to lead the Health and Human Services Department as Congress focuses on getting rid of Obamacare. Democrats, though, suggested that Price, a medical doctor who has championed House Speaker Paul D. Ryans plans to overhaul Medicare, will face so much opposition in the Senate that he may not be confirmed. Try it, said Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, the incoming Democratic minority leader. Privatization of Medicare goes way beyond where most Americans are. For years, Republicans have promised to end Obamacare, and with Trump in the White House they will have their best opportunity to do so. But McCarthy cautioned that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act will be more complicated than simply sending a bill to the White House for the presidents signature. Instead, Congress will need to insert special repeal instructions as part of the wonky budget reconciliation process. And that will take time, he said. McCarthy said that replacing Obamacare will be even tougher than repealing it. Even though Republicans have promised their own healthcare law, they have never been able to produce an agreed-upon alternative. To gather ideas, McCarthy said he would solicit advice from governors and state insurance commissioners. Hell be sending a letter to the states later this week. Since Congress did not pass a 2017 budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, they hope to retroactively approve one in the weeks ahead so they can include the first part of the special instructions needed to repeal the program. But he doubted that would be completed by the time Trump takes office. I dont think you can do it before [Jan.] 20th, he said. Theres only so many legislative days. The finish the job, lawmakers will use the reconciliation process for the fiscal 2018 budget, which is due by spring. McCarthy predicted Congress would still need to pass additional legislation, which cannot be completed through the reconciliation process, in order to ensure a smooth transition. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Obama will skip Fidel Castros funeral but is sending an informal delegation By Christi Parsons The Cuban flag hangs at half-staff in front of a picture of Fidel Castro on the facade of the Cuban national library in Havana. (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP/Getty Images) President Obama is not going to the memorial service for former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro on Tuesday but instead is sending a pair of key representatives to pay their respects, an informal appearance that reflects the delicate diplomacy between the White House and the leadership in Havana. Obama is sending Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the top U.S. diplomat in Cuba, along with deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, but the two men are not being dispatched as part of a formal delegation, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday. DeLaurentis and Rhodes played key roles in reopening U.S. ties to the communist island nation in late 2014, ending five decades of a Cold War-era freeze in relations. The policy has been celebrated for opening the possibility of expanded trade with and travel to Cuba, while critics attacked Obama for engaging with President Raul Castro without extracting concessions on human rights. His brother Fidel held power through firing squads, false imprisonment and harsh treatment of dissidents. President-elect Donald Trump was one of those critics, saying after Fidel Castros death that if Cuba isnt willing to make a better deal for the Cuban people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate the deal. After Castro died Friday, the White House released an oblique statement noting that his death filled Cubans with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Donald Trump to pick Elaine Chao, a well-connected establishment figure, as Transportation secretary By Noah Bierman President-elect Donald Trump plans to name Elaine Chao a former Labor secretary married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as his Transportation secretary, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield). Chaos establishment ties conflict with Trumps promise to drain the swamp in Washington and promote outsiders to lead his government. But Chaos connections could be an asset in Trumps plan to promote a major infrastructure proposal that could face resistance from within his party. Trump has decried the state of the nations airports, bridges and roads and promised to make their revitalization a major part of his jobs program aimed at helping working-class Americans whose votes helped propel him to victory. Chao, who served as Labor secretary through the entire George W. Bush administration, could play a central role in negotiating an infrastructure spending bill while her husband leads the Senate. Trumps spokesman Jason Miller did not confirm the pick on a conference call with reporters but said that Trump had taken people whove been successful in all different walks of life including business, government, and military to fill a Cabinet that Miller called a true dream team. The Taiwan-born Chao also exemplifies the type of immigrant success story that became the subject of debate during Trumps campaign, which promised to crack down on illegal immigration and labeled many of those entering the country illegally from Mexico as criminals, drug dealers and rapists. Chao is one of four sisters who attended Harvard Business School. Her family donated $40 million to the institution in 2012. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print U.S. economy grew 3.2% in third quarter, the best in two years By Jim Puzzanghera The U.S. economy grew faster in the third quarter than initially estimated, expanding at its strongest pace in two years in a rebound from a weak first half of 2016. Total economic output, also known as gross domestic product, expanded at a 3.2% annual pace from July through September, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. The figure was up from an initial estimate of 2.9% and the best performance since the economy expanded at a 5% annual rate in the third quarter of 2014. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Q&A: What you need to know about the Wisconsin recount By Michael A. Memoli This is certainly not Bush vs. Gore, a Wisconsin elections official said Monday. Well, what is it? The state is initiating the first significant candidate-driven recount in a presidential election since the 2000 ordeal in Florida between then-Vice President Al Gore and eventual President George W. Bush. This time, though, Donald Trump is certain to remain president-elect after Wisconsins nearly 3 million ballots are re-tabulated. But the fight here and potentially in other states has given third-party candidates new rationale for seeking public attention for their causes, and it has given Trump fresh ammunition to trash his opponents as well as, bafflingly, the political process in which he just secured the presidency. Here is a look at the issues involved in the Badger State and elsewhere as the seemingly unending 2016 presidential election seeps into overtime. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print By tweet and petition, Donald Trump and the left cast doubt on credibility of election By Noah Bierman (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) Rather than celebrating his victory, Donald Trump is amplifying far-right conspiracies to undermine the credibility of an election he won. At the same time, he is finding some common cause in the quixotic effort by the fringe left to prevent him from reaching the White House. The chances of changing the election result with selective ballot recounts, as some on the left hope, or finding widespread voter fraud as alleged by Trump are next to nil. Yet a combination of self-interest and a desire for misdirection have propelled factions of both parties to debate the results of an election already decisively settled. Trumps motives are often hard to pinpoint. But by pushing the myth that millions of ballots were cast illegally for his opponent, as he has done on Twitter in recent days, he may be building the case to claim a larger mandate for his victory despite the fact that Hillary Clinton is leading the popular vote by more than 2 million votes. The issue also distracts attention from mounting questions about the financial conflicts of interest he is likely to have in the White House, given that he plans to allow his children to run his international real estate and branding business while he serves as president. Finally, Trumps rhetoric may also sow the seeds of future efforts to propose more restrictive voting rules championed by some of his top advisors. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Democrats look to make some deals with Trump and divide the GOP in the bargain By Lisa Mascaro Republicans became known as the party of no during the Obama years because of their frequent efforts to block the presidents initiatives. As congressional Democrats prepare to deal with a Republican White House, they appear ready to take the opposite approach, effectively challenging President-elect Donald Trump by finding opportunities to say yes. The goal is to strategically engage with the White House on common objectives and at the same time try to drive a political wedge between Trump and those Republicans anxious about his costlier ideas, such as rebuilding infrastructure, aiding blue-collar workers and expanding paid family leave, a pet project of daughter Ivanka Trump. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump to name a harsh critic of Obamacare as his pick for Health secretary By Noam N. Levey (Drew Angerer / Getty Images) President-elect Donald Trump plans to select House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) to be his Health and Human Services secretary, according to a person familiar with the decision. In picking Price, Trump is tapping an arch-conservative lawmaker and leading critic of the Affordable Care Act to lead his push to roll back President Obamas signature health law. Price, a six-term congressman from suburban Atlanta, has never held an executive position comparable to leading the federal Department of Health and Human Services, a behemoth that includes the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the agency overseeing Medicare and Medicaid. Three of the four previous Health and Human Services secretaries were former governors. Price, an orthopedic surgeon, would be the first physician to serve as the departments secretary since Dr. Louis Sullivan, who held the post from 1989 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. He would also be among the most politically conservative Health and Human Services secretaries in history. And as a member of House leadership, he would bring to the Trump administration a revolutionary governing agenda closely aligned with Republicans on Capitol Hill. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump says he won the electoral college in a landslide, but he ranked near the all-time bottom By Cathleen Decker In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016 President-elect Donald Trumps tweet that he would have won the popular vote this month but for millions of illegal voters was not based on fact. There is no proof backing up his statement, and voting researchers uniformly dismissed it as false. Also problematic was his second claim in the same tweet, that his victory was one of the rare landslides in American political history. A study of electoral vote results by John J. Pitney, an author and professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, shows that Trump resides on the lower end of the electoral vote scale. He won 56.97% of the electoral votes up for grabs by virtue of his state wins. That places him 46th out of the 58 elections since George Washingtons era, Pitney found. In 38 elections, the winner exceeded 60% of the vote, a lopsided verdict by voters. Clear landslides were won most recently by Ronald Reagan in both of his elections: In 1984, he won 97.58% of electoral votes, and in 1980 he won 90.89%. President Obama won nearly 68% of the vote in 2008 and just under 62% in 2012. Faring worse than Trump among modern presidents was George W. Bush, who eked past Al Gore in 2000 with 50.37% of the vote, after a protracted squabble over the Florida results that ended in a U.S. Supreme Court verdict favoring Bush. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump says Cuba has to act or hell end the diplomatic thaw, but its not that simple By Tracy Wilkinson In his latest comment on Cuba since the death of revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he would end Washingtons diplomatic thaw with the island unless Cuba makes a better deal. If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal, Trump tweeted. President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro renewed diplomatic ties in 2014 after a half-century of Cold War hostility. Since then, through a series of executive orders, Obama has eased restrictions on Americans traveling to Cuba and U.S. firms doing business there. Castro, at the same time, has made it easier for Cubans to travel and to engage in limited private enterprise. However, Castro has not enacted significant political reforms, and the death Friday of his brother, former president and leader of the revolution Fidel, at age 90, is not likely to usher in quick change. It was not clear what Trump meant by a better deal. An email seeking clarification from his transition team was not answered. Previously, however, Trump has spoken of the release of political prisoners and more open space for free expression of opinions and dissent. These are the same elements the Obama administration has been demanding, while choosing not to delay economic progress while awaiting political change. From a legal standpoint, Trump could easily reverse Obamas executive orders with little more than a signature. Politically, however, renewed estrangement would be more complicated and would isolate the U.S. as the only country in the world that does not recognize the Communist-led government in Havana. Its not as simple as one Tweet might make it seem --@PressSec Josh Earnest, on whether @realdonaldtrump might undo @POTUS Cuba policy Christi Parsons (@cparsons) November 28, 2016 Trump and his top aides have sent conflicting signals over his likely Cuba policy. On Saturday, his staff put out a statement saying a Trump administration would do all it can to help Cubans achieve prosperity and liberty. But it did not mention reversing Obamas actions expanding ties. While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, Trump said, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve. Kellyanne Conway, a top advisor, told NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday that nothing is definite when it comes to Cuba. But Trumps soon-to-be White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, said that Trump would be looking for some movement in the right direction to keep the Cuba opening on course. Conservative Republicans, like Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, oppose detente with Cuba as long as any Castro continues to rule. But a growing number of Cuban Americans, as well as most Democrats and a substantial segment of the business community, want better ties and opportunities for economic exchange. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print The era of super-low interest rates might be ending. Whats in it for you? By Jim Puzzanghera Since President-elect Donald Trumps surprising election victory this month, financial markets have sent a forceful message that the era of super-low interest rates is coming to a close. Mortgage rates have shot up. Bond yields have jumped to their highest levels in a year. And the dollar has surged against other major currencies to values unseen in more than a decade. Those developments have been fueled by expectations of stronger economic growth and higher inflation from Trumps promises to cut business taxes, reduce regulations and increase defense and infrastructure spending. His plans triggered a post-election stock market rally and, combined with recent solid economic data, increased expectations that the Federal Reserve would nudge up its benchmark short-term rate again next month with more hikes to follow next year. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump seems ready to fight the world on climate change but hes likely to meet resistance By Evan Halper Coal trucks leave a power plant operated by PacifiCorp outside Huntington, Utah. ( (George Frey / Getty Images)) Donald Trump is branded with all manner of unflattering labels, but one that hasnt seemed to much bother him is climate pariah. The president-elect is unabashed in his disdain for Americas global warming policy. He has placed a staunch climate-change doubter and antagonist of mainstream science in charge of reshaping or as Trump has suggested, dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency. He has talked frequently about reneging on the historic Paris global climate treaty the U.S. took a lead in drafting. And he has said he wants every federal green-energy program eliminated. Environmentalists take little comfort in Trumps recent comments that he accepts there is some connectivity between human activity and climate change and that he has an open mind about it, as what hes said elsewhere and done so far suggests otherwise. And even those comments gave scientists cause for alarm. You can make a lot of cases for different views, Trump told the New York Times, casting doubt on the finding by more than 90% of climate scientists that emissions are accelerating global warming. Im not sure anybody is ever going to really know. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Jared Kushner, the Trump son-in-law whos the next presidents eyes and ears By Chris Megerian The election results were rolling in, and so were the phone calls for Donald Trump. But no matter who was on the other end of the line, the person handing the phone to the next president of the United States was the same. Jared was screening the calls, said Armstrong Williams, a political ally who described the scene in Trumps Manhattan skyscraper on election night. That would be Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law, and his election-night role provides a glimpse of the enormous influence he wields as Trump prepares to take office in January. As the husband of Ivanka Trump, the president-elects elder daughter, Kushner holds an unassailable position inside Trumps unruly ecosystem of advisors. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump falsely claims that millions voted illegally, costing him the popular vote By Matt Pearce Donald and Melania Trump cast their ballots on Nov. 8. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) Donald Trump falsely claimed Sunday that he won the popular vote, alleging in a tweet without evidence that millions of people had illegally voted for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally, Trump wrote, hours after he tweeted his opposition to a recount in Midwestern states initiated by the Green Party. In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016 Election experts, who say election fraud is rare, immediately denounced Trumps claim. Theres been no evidence produced of millions or thousands or even hundreds of noncitizens voting for president in 2016, tweeted Rick Hasen, a professor of law and politics who writes for the Election Law Blog. The source of Trumps claim appears to be a widely shared Nov. 14 article on the conspiracy site Infowars, which is famous for claiming the Sandy Hook mass shooting was a hoax. Politifact investigated the illegal votes claim and rated it false. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump is warned that supporters will feel betrayed if he picks Mitt Romney as secretary of State By Don Lee A senior advisor to President-elect Donald Trump stepped up an extraordinary public effort Sunday to discredit Mitt Romney and thwart the chances that he would be picked as secretary of State. Kellyanne Conway warned on Sunday TV talk shows that Trumps supporters would feel betrayed if he picked the former governor of Massachusetts, a sharp critic of Trump during the campaign, for a senior Cabinet position. Conway, who was Trumps campaign manager and now is a top advisor to the incoming president, said she felt compelled to speak out on the matter because of the backlash from the grass roots. People feel betrayed to think that Gov. Romney, who went out of his way to question the character and the intellect and the integrity of Donald Trump, now our president-elect, would be given the most significant Cabinet post of all, Conway said on NBCs Meet the Press. They feel a bit betrayed that you can get a Romney back in there after everything he did, she added. We dont even know if he voted for Donald Trump. Conway dodged questions about whether Trump supported the concerns she has been raising publicly about Romney, which began with a tweet she posted on Thanksgiving morning: Receiving deluge of social media & private comms re: Romney. Some Trump loyalists warn against Romney as sec of state. Conway made clear that she did not approve of Romney, who was the GOP presidential nominee in 2012, and didnt see him as especially qualified to act as Americas top diplomat. In the last four years, has he even been around the globe doing something on behalf of the United States of which were unaware? she asked on CNNs State of the Union. Did he go and intervene in Syria where they are having a massive humanitarian crisis? Meaning when I say intervene, like offered help. Has he been helpful to Mr. [Benjamin] Netanyahu? she said of the Israeli prime minister. Im all for party unity, but Im not sure that we have to pay for that with the secretary of State position, Conway said, although she quickly added that she would respect what Trump decides. During the campaign, Romney called Trump a phony and a fraud and said his policies would lead to economic ruin. In response, Trump mocked Romney as a failed candidate who had choked in the 2012 race. But a little more than a week ago, Trump met with Romney for about 90 minutes at a golf course in New Jersey to discuss the State Department post. Afterward, Trump said the meeting went great and Romney described the discussion as very thorough and in-depth. Trump is also considering Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was a fierce Trump loyalist during the campaign, for the job. The former mayor of New York has touted his experience traveling, consulting and speaking overseas since leaving office in 2001. But his extensive business deals abroad have raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest if he gets the post instead of Romney. In criticizing Romney, Conway exposed what appears to be deep divisions in the Trump camp as it tries to assemble a team. It is highly unusual for a senior representative of an incoming president to be lobbying publicly against a candidate under consideration. Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman and Trumps choice to be chief of staff, on Sunday sought to downplay reports of internecine struggles in the transition. However, he acknowledged that picking Romney would represent a team of rivals concept. Trump wants to put the best possible people together for all Americans, Priebus told Fox News Sunday. The fact that hes actually even flirting with the idea of choosing a rival should tell the American people where hes at which is the best place for everyone in this country, he said. Conway also said Trump, who spent the Thanksgiving holiday weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., talked with President Obama by phone on Saturday for about 40 or 45 minutes. She wouldnt say what they talked about. I can tell you from President-elect Trumps side that he very much enjoys speaking with President Obama, talking about the serious issues that face this country and the world, Conway said on NBC. They get along nicely. They disagree on many things. Thats not going to change. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Hillary Clinton campaign will participate in ballot recount in Wisconsin By Don Lee Hillary Clintons presidential campaign will participate in a ballot recount led by Green Party candidate Jill Stein in Wisconsin and perhaps two other battleground states that were crucial to Donald Trumps victory, a Clinton campaign lawyer said Saturday. In response, Trump called the recount request ridiculous and a scam designed to raise money for Steins political party. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Donald Trump names KT McFarland, Don McGahn to White House posts By Michael A. Memoli Don McGahn is named by President-elect Donald Trump as his White House counsel. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) President-elect Donald Trump added to his West Wing roster Friday, naming KT McFarland as deputy national security adviser and Donald McGahn as his White House counsel. McFarland served in three separate Republican administrations, most notably as a spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger under Ronald Reagan. In 2006, she sought to challenge Hillary Clinton for her U.S. Senate seat from New York but lost in the Republican primary. Most recently, she has been a regular contributor to Fox News on national security issues. She joins retired Gen. Michael Flynn, previously named as Trumps national security adviser. So proud & honored to have KT McFarland as part of our National Security team. She will help us #MAGA General Flynn (@GenFlynn) November 25, 2016 McGahn, who was general counsel for Trumps campaign and a former chair of the Federal Election Commission, is a partner at the powerhouse Washington law firm Jones Day. President Obama revealed at a recent news conference that he had advised Trump to hire a strong White House counsel to guide him and his team, who could provide clear guideposts and rules to help avoid ethical and conflict of interest concerns. Trump campaign officials said Friday that the president-elect, who is spending the holiday weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, would make no additional high-level announcements until next week when he returns to New York. On Monday, he will meet with several more potential Cabinet and sub-Cabinet choices, including Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, Pennsylvania Rep. Lou Barletta and Oklahoma Atty. Gen. Scott Pruitt. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Ben Carson hints he may join Trump Cabinet as Housing secretary By Christi Parsons Former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks in Lakewood, Colo. on Oct. 29. (David Zalubowski / Associated Press) Ben Carson said Wednesday that an announcement is imminent about his role in improving the nations inner cities a broad hint that President-elect Donald Trump will name him secretary of Housing and Urban Development. After serious discussions with the Trump transition team, I feel that I can make a significant contribution, particularly to making our inner cities great for everyone, Carson said on Facebook. An announcement is forthcoming about my role in helping to make America great again. Carson, himself once a candidate for president, would be the first African American named to Trumps Cabinet. He was a mild critic of Trump during the campaign, but after dropping out of the race, he backed Trump and now serves on the president-elects transition team. Though Carsons professional background is as a neurosurgeon, he has spoken often of his experiences growing up in inner-city Detroit, with a mother who sometimes relied on food stamps and other assistance. Carson has said they moved into a tenement at one point but has never said whether he lived in public housing. Days ago, a senior advisor said Carson thought he lacked the background needed to manage a federal agency, and that he didnt think it was the best way for him to serve. Carson didnt want to take a position that could cripple the presidency, advisor Armstrong Williams told the Hill newspaper. HUD is responsible for administering low-income housing assistance, fair housing laws, housing development and aid to neighborhoods in distress. Carson indicated a change of heart Wednesday. We have much work to do in strengthening every aspect of our nation and ensuring that both our physical infrastructure and our spiritual infrastructure is solid, he wrote. In an interview with the New York Times on Tuesday, Trump suggested he isnt applying the usual standard of qualifications to his Cabinet picks. Were trying very hard to get the best people not necessarily people that will be the most politically correct people, because that hasnt been working, Trump said. So we have, really, experts in the field. Some are known and some are not known, but theyre known within their field as being the best. Thats very important to me. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump picks Michigan school-choice advocate to be his Education secretary By Christi Parsons President-elect Donald Trump chose a Michigan charter school advocate and prominent Republican donor to serve as his secretary of Education, he said Wednesday, a decision that may hearten supporters of school choice but worry teacher unions and even some of Trumps core supporters. Trumps pick, Betsy DeVos, is a champion of charter schools and school vouchers that give families tax funds they can spend on private school if theyre not happy with their local public schools. DeVos, 58, served as chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, a credential that ties her to the party establishment reviled by many Trump supporters. She and her family are among the countrys largest donors to Republican and conservative Christian causes, including opposition to same-sex marriage. She has also backed the Common Core initiative to standardize educational requirements across the nation. Trump repeatedly called for its demise. In a tweet after her selection was announced, DeVos disavowed past support for Common Core, acknowledging that the topic was an issue among conservative activists. Many of you are asking about Common Core. To clarify, I am not a supporterperiod. Read my full stance, here: https://t.co/qB2nAXvX0B Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVos) November 23, 2016 In his statement announcing her as his choice, Trump called DeVos a brilliant and passionate education advocate. Under her leadership, we will reform the U.S. education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families, Trump said in the statement. 1:46 a.m.: This post was updated with DeVos statement about the Common Core. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump may have one more Cabinet-level pick coming before Thanksgiving By Christi Parsons (John Minchillo / Associated Press) President-elect Donald Trump may decide another Cabinet-level position Wednesday, aides said, after he announced South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as his ambassador to the United Nations. Aides did not say which job Trump was considering making an announcement about. As he and his family settle in for Thanksgiving at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Trump is still spending significant time on one prominent position, secretary of State, a sign that a pick for it may not come before the holiday, one staffer on the presidential transition team said. In his search for a secretary of State, Trump has met with close advisor and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and with Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president. Aides said Trump chose Haley for the U.N. post because she improved South Carolinas economy and took part in overseas trade and recruitment trips. The two have a natural chemistry, one staffer said, and their views jibe on how the U.S. should be represented on the world stage. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump taps South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for U.N. ambassador By Tracy Wilkinson South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley speaks at the Federalist Societys National Lawyers Convention in Washington on Nov. 18. (Cliff Owen / Associated Press) President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday picked South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a rising star in the GOP, as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, an announcement that brings a measure of diversity to a transition that has been dominated by white, male figures. Haley, 44, and the daughter of Indian immigrants, is the first woman and first person of color to be picked for the new administration. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Dalai Lama: I have no worries about Trumps election By Associated Press (Ganbat Namjilsangarav / Associated Press) The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, said he has no worries about Donald Trumps election as U.S. president and expects the businessman will align his policies with global realities. Commenting at the conclusion of a four-day visit to Mongolia, the leader of Tibetan Buddhism said he looks forward to meeting Trump at some point after the Jan. 20 inauguration. The 81-year-old monk says he has always regarded the U.S. as the leading nation of the free world and wasnt concerned about remarks made by Trump during the election campaign. Some of those comments have been cited as offensive to Muslims, Latinos and other U.S. minority groups. China accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking to split Tibet from China and had demanded Mongolia scrap his visit. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump asks Ben Carson to consider Housing secretary post By Chris Megerian Donald Trump asked Ben Carson to consider serving as secretary of Housing and Urban Development, an advisor to the former Republican presidential candidate said Tuesday. They discussed the potential job at a meeting in the morning and Carson is seriously considering it, said the advisor, Armstrong Williams. Its a role that plays to Dr. Carsons passions, he said. Asked what qualifications the retired neurosurgeon has for overseeing housing policy, Williams said: Dr. Carson has experience with everything. Youd be shocked at the depth of his experience. Williams had previously suggested that Carson didnt feel he had the experience to serve in Trumps Cabinet, but he said Tuesday that those comments were taken out of context. Housing secretary was one of a few options discussed Tuesday, Williams said. Carson always felt that hed be willing to serve in the administration if Trump felt that no one else could fill the position, he added. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Texas judge blocks Obama administrations new overtime rule from taking effect By Michael A. Memoli Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press) A Texas judge blocked President Obamas bid to expand overtime pay protections to millions of Americans on Tuesday, thwarting a key presidential priority just days before it was set to take effect. The Labor Department rule would have doubled the salary level at which hourly workers must be paid extra for overtime pay, from $23,660 to $47,476. Siding with business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Texas District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III halted it. The rule, finalized in May, represented the first such change in more than a decade and was hailed at the time as the most consequential action the Obama administration could take for middle-class workers without congressional involvement. Plaintiffs had argued the Labor Department acted beyond its authority under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The administration said more than 4 million salaried workers stood to benefit from the change when it took effect Dec. 1. The rule was already in jeopardy after the election of Donald Trump. Just as the Obama administration made the change through its rule-making prerogatives, a Republican administration could undo it. Neither the White House nor the Labor Department had an immediate comment. Republican lawmakers and their allies in the business community, which were behind the legal challenge, celebrated the decision. The decision brings us a step closer to curbing regulations that have resulted in $80 billion in compliance costs and more than 25 million hours of paperwork, said Linda Kelly, senior vice president for the National Assn. of Manufacturers. The fights are not yet over and our work is just beginning. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Heres why the electoral college (probably) wont stop Donald Trump from becoming president By Chris Megerian Some liberals who really, really, really dont want Donald Trump to be president are pinning their hopes on a long-shot effort to prevent him from officially winning the election. Understanding how their plan would work requires some background on the electoral college, which was established in the Constitution at a time when the founding fathers were wary of direct democracy. As widely known, presidents are not chosen based on the national popular vote if they were, Hillary Clinton would be the next commander in chief, given she is ahead by roughly 1.7 million votes. Each state is assigned a certain number of electoral votes based on population. Those votes are awarded to candidates based on the states popular vote. Trump won the presidential race with 290 electoral votes. (That total will reach 306 if Michigan is called for him, as expected.) The process doesnt end on election day. Each electoral vote is represented by an elector, an actual person who has to cast an official ballot for the president on Dec. 19. The electors are chosen through different processes state by state, and usually are selected by state political parties. With unrest over the result, there are efforts to persuade electors to be faithless, meaning they wouldnt back Trump even if he won their states. A Change.org petition calling the president-elect a danger to the Republic has almost 4.6 million supporters. What are the chances of this actually happening? Very slim, says George C. Edwards III, a Texas A&M political science professor who has written a book about the electoral college. From time to time, there are faithless electors, he said. Theyre few and far between. There were some electors who refused to vote for winning candidates in the 1800s, such as six who declined to support James Madison, but never enough to sway the outcome of the race. In the last century there have only been a handful of cases. There were some attempts to persuade electors to back Al Gore over George W. Bush during the disputed 2000 election, but they were unsuccessful. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Can Trump put another Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court? By David Savage Judge William H. Pryor Jr. of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals moderates a panel discussion during the Federalist Societys National Lawyers Convention in Washington last week. ( (Cliff Owen / Associated Press)) President-elect Donald Trump will soon have the chance to make good on one of his most consequential campaign promises: fill the Supreme Court vacancy with a judge in the mold of conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February. Any Trump nominee is almost guaranteed to be a conservative jurist who is antiabortion and supports a strict interpretation of the 2nd Amendments right to bear arms. But what kind of conservative he selects will determine whether his nominee will be quickly confirmed or instead trigger a fierce fight in the closely divided Senate, potentially overshadowing the early months of Trumps presidency. If Trump opts for a Scalia-like justice, as he repeatedly said he would during the campaign, conservatives lawyers say the betting favorite is Judge William H. Pryor Jr. from the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta, a former Alabama attorney general who called the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law. The 54-year-old Pryor believes in Scalias approach of interpreting the Constitution by its original meaning one that has little room for gay rights, even womens rights. His nomination would electrify Trumps conservative base, but it would also set off a confirmation battle for which the outcome is not assured. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Michelle Rhee has some thoughts on Donald Trump By Joy Resmovits After meeting with president-elect Donald Trump Saturday, former Washington, D.C., schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee weighed in on people who have told her to avoid him. She also indicated that shes not likely to be named as Trumps secretary of Education. In light of the speculation about the Secretary of Education role, I wanted to clarify my position and what's best for America's students. pic.twitter.com/DXRZxdAZNX Michelle Rhee (@MichelleRhee) November 22, 2016 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump veers off script on climate change, his potential conflicts of interest and even whether to prosecute Clinton By Evan Halper President-elect Donald Trump strayed far from the talking points of his campaign during his wide-ranging interview Tuesday with New York Times journalists. Trump suggested he does not necessarily need to sever ties to his businesses while president. He said he has an open mind to acting on climate change. And he even offered some praise for the Clinton Foundation. On the business ties, Trump was vague about when he will wind them down and how. He suggested he intends to transfer ownership to his kids, but then he also noted that the president is immune from federal conflict-of-interest laws. "In theory I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly. There's never been a case like this,"he says of his tangles Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 Trump on his businesses/conflict q's: "The law's totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest." Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 Trump, who once declared global warming a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, backed off his skepticism of climate change. He said he believed there is a connection to human activity and warming but he is still undecided about how much of one. And he said he has an open mind to keeping in place the international climate agreement President Obama took a lead in negotiating, which Trump has been vowing for months to withdraw from. Tom Friedman asks if Trump will withdraw from climate change accords. Trump: Im looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it." Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016 Trump also addressed the public re-emergence of the white supremacist movement, and how his campaign has energized those groups. He said he disavows and condemns such groups, including the neo-Nazis who gathered in Washington over the weekend. But he defended his pick of chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, the Breitbart News executive who boasted that his outlet is the platform for the alt-right. Trump: Ive known Steve Bannon a long time. If i thought he was a racist, or alt-rightI wouldnt even think about hiring him." Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016 Trump is asked about concerns from minority groups about Breitbart Newss coverage under Steve Bannon. His reply: pic.twitter.com/FBqCGwQpBr Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016 When the conversation turned to Hillary Clinton, Trump said he will not press law enforcement agencies to prosecute her. And he even said people could argue the Clinton Foundation has done good work. Trump is pressed if he has definitively ruled out prosecuting Hillary Clinton. Its just not something that I feel very strongly about." Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016 That last tweet was Trump making clear he doesn't favor prosecution. Added people could argue the Clinton Foundation has done "good work." Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Ben Carson made it clear that he was too inexperienced for a Cabinet job. Now Trump says hes considering Carson for one By Evan Halper I am seriously considering Dr. Ben Carson as the head of HUD. I've gotten to know him well--he's a greatly talented person who loves people! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 It was only a week ago that Ben Carson had put out word that he wasnt qualified to run a federal agency, and thus had no place in Donald Trumps Cabinet. Now Trump says Carson would be the perfect person to run a federal agency. Trump tweeted on Tuesday that he is seriously considering Carson to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Carsons qualifications? Hes a greatly talented person who loves people! Perhaps Carson was playing hard to get last week, when one of his top advisors, Armstrong Williams, told multiple news outlets that Carson wasnt a good fit for any of the Cabinet posts. Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience; hes never run a federal agency, Williams told the Hill. Trumps tweet that Carson was at the top of his list for the HUD job was unusual for another reason. Such trial balloons are typically floated anonymously, to gauge public reaction. If its hostile, the president-elect can scrap the plan and deny it was ever something he seriously contemplated. After Trumps advisors put the media on notice Tuesday morning that they would offer no details of what Trump will discuss at his meeting with Carson, Trump went ahead and shared them with millions of people himself. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Donald Trump may have won the election, but hes still mad at the media By Evan Halper The President-elect does not care who knows how unforgiving or vain or distracted he is, David Remnick writes. https://t.co/6vOriXjf4E The New Yorker (@NewYorker) November 22, 2016 So much for burying the hatchet. Even victory has not diminished Donald Trumps resentment of the news media. His relations with the news outlets have gotten no better now that he has transitioned from confrontational candidate to confrontational president-elect. Trumps angry rant about the New York Times on Tuesday morning in which he briefly canceled a meeting with the outlet followed what was by several reports a stormy session the day before with major news networks. Television executives and journalists traveled to Trump Tower for the closed-door meeting anticipating a discussion about media access to the White House and perhaps a recalibration of the increasingly hostile relationship. Trump had something else in mind. He delivered an angry scold about the way he has been covered, complaining of unfairness even in the selection of the photos of him used during broadcasts, which, he griped, emphasized his double chin. He called the coverage outrageous and dishonest, according to a report in the New Yorker. Its unclear what Trumps intentions were. But if his goal was to chasten the media, he did not succeed. Some at the meeting described being offended and accused Trump of failing to understand the press 1st Amendment protection from government suppression. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Aide says Trump does not want to pursue charges against Hillary Clinton By Del Quentin Wilber A top official of Donald Trumps presidential campaign on Tuesday reaffirmed signals sent by the president-elect that hes not interested in pursuing criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, despite his repeated campaign promises to prosecute the Democratic nominee over her handling of classified materials and involvement in the Clinton Foundation. Kellyanne Conway, Trumps former campaign manager, also told MSNBC that congressional Republicans should follow Trumps lead, suggesting they drop their own probes into Clinton. I think when the president-elect, whos also the head of your party, tells you before hes even inaugurated that he doesnt wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone, and content to the members, Conway said. Trump had promised his supporters that he would re-investigate whether Clinton broke laws while using a private email server as the nations secretary of State, even after the FBI concluded she had not. During a presidential debate, he even pledged to assign a special prosecutor to look into the matter. Despite his supporters strongly favored such an investigation -- they often erupted into chants of Lock her up! at his rallies -- Trump hinted after the election that he had changed his mind, telling 60 Minutes earlier this month that the Clintons were good people and he didnt want to hurt them. Conway said the former Democratic presidential candidate still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans dont find her to be honest or trustworthy, but she added, If Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps thats a good thing to do. FBI Director James B. Comey has said that Clinton was extremely careless in how she and her aides handled classified information on her private server while she served as secretary of State. But agents, he said, turned up no evidence they had intended to violate espionage laws. The Justice Department agreed with Comey and closed the inquiry. Its highly unusual for a president to tell an attorney general whether or not to investigate a potential criminal matter, especially one involving his political rival. Trumps apparent desire to drop the matter raises questions about the FBIs inquiry into the Clinton Foundation, which unlike the email probe has not been concluded. The attorney general would have some discretion whether to prosecute, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. Politically, however, its not feasible if the president really doesnt want it to happen. The FBI has not commented on the status of any investigations into the Clinton Foundation. FBI agents in New York were reportedly looking into the nonprofit and wanted permission to use more aggressive law enforcement tools to dig deeper into the organization. But they were blocked by prosecutors and top FBI officials who did not believe the investigators had developed evidence to justify such actions, according to law enforcement officials. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print One of Donald Trumps meetings might offer a clue for how he wants to replace Obamacare By Noam N. Levey Dr. James Jackson performs a physical on Matthew Shorter, 51, a Medicaid patient enrolled in the Healthy Indiana Plan, at the Heart City Health Center in Elkhart, Ind. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) Donald Trump has consistently vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare. But he has yet to explain what he intends to replace it with. His meeting schedule today might offer a clue of what he is pondering. On the agenda is a chat with Seema Verma, an architect of Indianas unusual healthcare program for the poor. Indiana is among a handful of red states that took federal aid through the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid eligibility to poor, childless adults. But unlike most traditional Medicaid expansions, Indiana set up a system that requires many low-income residents on the program to pay small monthly contributions for their health coverage. Conservatives, including the states governor, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, have argued that this makes poor patients take greater responsibility for their health. And healthcare advocates in Indiana generally supported the program, in large part because it was seen as the only way to expand health protections in the deeply conservative state. But cost-sharing requirements for low-income patients remains controversial, and a number of states that have experimented with it in the past stopped after concluding it was too expensive and difficult to administer. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Britain says not so fast to Trump tweet about Nigel Farage as ambassador to U.S. By Laura King Donald Trump, right, welcomes pro-Brexit British politician Nigel Farage to speak at a campaign rally in Jackson, Miss., in August. (Gerald Herbert / Associated Press) Donald Trump and Nigel Farage were always something of a love match. But cold political realities may have intervened. The U.S. president-elect tweeted late Monday that Farage, leader of a far-right British political party, would make a great British ambassador to Washington. Apparently, the British response early Tuesday could be summarized as: Er, no. There is no vacancy, the Guardian newspaper quoted a spokesman at 10 Downing St., the prime ministers official residence in London, as saying. We already have an excellent ambassador to the U.S. Farage was a wholehearted proponent of Brexit, the June referendum in which the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, with still unknown long-term results. The British politician traveled to the United States during the campaign to offer his support for Trump, making rally appearances to sometimes bemused crowds to promote their purported common cause. In the course of his push for the presidency, Trump declared himself Mr. Brexit, and at one point dubbed his insurgent campaign Brextit-plus-plus an allusion to his support for a referendum across the Atlantic that was strongly colored by anti-immigrant sentiment. Farage was among the early visitors to Trump Tower following the GOP candidates unexpected victory. The two posed, grinning, in front of a bank of gold-plated elevators in the president-elects Manhattan residence. But hopes of a more formalized relationship appear to have been dashed. The Guardian quoted members of Parliament as saying Farages inflammatory views made him a poor candidate for a diplomatic post. The Reuters news agency said it would be highly unusual for an incoming foreign administration to so publicly air its pick for a diplomatic post. Trumps suggestion, it noted, provoked anger, support and even hilarity in Britain. The news agency quoted a Conservative lawmaker, Simon Burns, as joking that Britain should name its own choice for U.S. envoy to the United Kingdom: Hillary Clinton. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump the president vs. Trump the businessman: Can he juggle both? By Don Lee Donald and Melania Trump greet a guest at a grand-opening ceremony last month at Trumps new hotel in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) The Trump Organization spent months trying to drive off the culinary union from its Las Vegas hotel, losing one legal battle after another before a federal labor board. Soon Donald Trumps company, which has refused to bargain with the union after housekeepers and other employees voted to join last December, could gain some leverage. As president, Trump will be able to appoint two new members to the National Labor Relations Board, giving the agency a 3-2 Republican majority that could be more sympathetic to Trump. We hope that Mr. Trump doesnt use his power to interfere, considering he has a financial interest in the outcome, said Bethany Khan, spokeswoman for Culinary Workers Union Local 226. Khans concern is but one of many examples of potential conflicts of interest that could arise for Trump the president vs. Trump the businessman. His vast holdings include hotels, office buildings and golf courses, and he has licensing deals across the globe. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Donald Trump briefly cancels meeting with New York Times and complains about its nasty tone By Amy Fiscus I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 Donald Trump briefly canceled a meeting Tuesday with New York Times journalists, claiming that its terms were suddenly changed. The charge was made in the obfuscatory style that has come to mark Trumps tweets. He said only that the terms of the meeting were changed, not who changed them; the paper said Trump, not anyone on its side, had requested new terms after the meeting was set. NYT did not try to change ground rules. Trump did, asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which NYT refused. https://t.co/EpmZFdDYAh Jonathan Mahler (@jonathanmahler) November 22, 2016 The meeting was supposed to have included both a private discussion, similar to one Trump had Monday with television news network executives, and a segment where reporters were free to quote Trump by name. The Times said Trump later asked for the meeting to be fully private, a request the newspaper refused. After the cancelation gained widespread attention, spokeswomen for both Trump and the newspaper said it was back on as scheduled. Trump has done a handful of interviews since being elected, none with the Times, and has not held a news conference, as is customary for most presidents within a few days of their election. He also said the papers coverage of him had a nasty tone, without citing specifics. Its front page Wednesday included stories questioning the constitutionality of his foreign business deals and one citing concerns that the military might have too much influence over foreign policy in a Trump administration. 7:25 a.m.: This story was updated with the scheduled meeting being reinstated. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Neo-Nazi alt-right crowd cheers the president-elect with Hail Trump By Jessica Roy A newly released video shows a room full of people doing the Hitler salute and yelling Hail Trump! after listening to a speech about white nationalism that invokes Nazi terminology. The video was taken over the weekend by a reporter for The Atlantic while working on a documentary about Richard Spencer. Spencer is the person speaking in the video. He runs the National Policy Institute, a self-described alt-right think tank that openly supports white nationalist and neo-Nazi policies. In the past, he has called for a peaceful ethnic cleansing of the United States. In the video, Spencer calls the media leftists and cucks, invoking popular alt-right insults for people they disagree with. He calls the media the Lugenpresse, which is what the original Nazi Party called the media in Germany the lying press. We dont exploit other groups, he says, the we referring explicitly to white people. We dont gain anything from their presence. The press has clearly decided to double-down and wage war against the legitimacy of Trump and the continued existence of white America, he continues. But they are really opening up the door for us.... America was, until this past generation, a white country, designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us. America was, until this past generation, a white country, designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us. Richard Spencer Members of the crowd give the Nazi salute throughout the speech. Last week, the Twitter accounts for Spencer and his think tank were suspended, along with a number of other alt-right accounts. Trumps campaign issued a statement in response to the video: President-elect Trump has continued to denounce racism of any kind and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American. To think otherwise is a complete misrepresentation of the movement that united Americans from all backgrounds. White supremacists have credited Trumps win with sparking a new interest in their movement. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Donald Trumps first promises since winning the election leave out the border wall, NAFTA and his Muslim ban By Noah Bierman President-elect Donald Trump spent more than a year campaigning to build a border wall, repeal Obamacare and rescind President Obamas moves to protect from deportation some immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally. But in his first extensive public comments since winning the election this month, Trump mentioned none of those issues. Nor did he talk about withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement, banning Muslims from entering the country, or ending the Syrian refugee program. Trump instead made five more modest promises for his first day in office during a nearly three-minute video released Monday that presented him as a more moderate figure and appeared to be an effort to soften Trumps message while he establishes an inner circle of advisors and Cabinet picks of hard-liners. In the video, Trump promises to withdraw from the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a potential disaster for our country, and instead pursue bilateral agreements with some of the Pacific countries involved. He promised to lift restrictions on energy production, including shale and coal, implement a rule that any new government regulation must be accompanied by removing two regulations on the books and to instruct his Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a new cybersecurity plan. His only discussion of immigration involved the legal immigration system a crackdown on visa fraud. Trump also said his previously announced ethics rules barring employees in his administration from lobbying for five years after they leave the government and from lobbying for foreign governments for life would take effect as soon as he is inaugurated. Trump vowed in the video to release more plans in the days to come. These are some of our Day 1 executive actions, spokesman Jason Miller said in an email. By no means is it everything hell work on day one or after that many additional good things to come. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print World gets glimpse of deportation plan Kris Kobach took to meeting with Trump By Colleen Shalby Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state whos been tapped to join Donald Trumps immigration policy transition team, probably didnt intend for the world to see details of his plan to bar terrorists and Syrian refugees when he brought it to a meeting Monday. But thats what happened when he posed for a photo with President-elect Donald Trump outside of Trump International Golf Club in New Jersey. The document was in full unobstructed view, as Kobach apparently wasnt thinking about the power of a zoom lens. The clearest part reads: DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY KOBACH STRATEGIC PLAN FOR FIRST 365 DAYS Bar entry of Potential Terrorists Update and reintroduce the NSEERs screening and tracking system (National Entry-Exit Registration System) that was in place from 2002-2005. All aliens from high-risk areas are tracked. Add extreme vetting questions for high-risk aliens; question them regarding support for Sharia law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution. Reduce intake of Syrian refugees to zero, using authority under the 1980 Refugee Act. Record Number of Criminal Aliens in the First Year Those details arent exactly new. Trump has made it clear that he intends to deport 2 million to 3 million immigrants in the country illegally who fall under his definition of criminal. And Kobach, who is behind several controversial immigration laws and was the architect behind the NSEERs system, has said previously that he will help Trump reverse President Obamas immigration policies. The Obama administration has set a second-term priority to deport migrants with criminal convictions. Since taking office, Obama has expelled more people than any other president in American history. Less legible on Kobachs document, but still visible, are mentions of its definition of criminal alien (any alien arrested for any crime, and any gang member); the phrase 386 miles of existing actual wall; the Patriot Act; and Draft Amendment to National Voter .... Its possible this line refers to the National Voter Registration Act. Kansas Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley criticized Kobach. Thats the height of irony if hes wanting a job in Homeland Security and youre able to see in a photograph what should be confidential information, Hensley said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Rolling out Obamacare was chaotic, but a repeal could be much worse By Noam N. Levey In the summer of 2013, as state and federal officials readied new insurance marketplaces created through the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans started getting disquieting notices from their insurers. Health plans were being canceled because they didnt comply with the law, often called Obamacare. Some 4 million people were ultimately told they would lose their plans. The ensuing outrage sparked a political firestorm, seriously eroded public confidence in Obamacare and forced an embarrassed President Obama to change federal regulations so people could keep their coverage. Yet that tumultuous episode could be dwarfed by what President-elect Donald Trumps administration and its congressional allies unleash beginning next year. They plan to not only repeal the law but are contemplating changes that are significantly more far-reaching and could disrupt insurance coverage for many more Americans than did the original law. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print The U.S. labor forces guy problem: Why arent more men working? By Jim Puzzanghera Inmates at San Quentin State Prison in August. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) As the recovery from the Great Recession continues, job growth is solid and the labor force is growing at close to its fastest pace since 2000 because more unemployed workers are coming off the sidelines. Still, the percentage of working-age Americans in the labor force remains stuck near its lowest level since the late 1970s. Although retiring baby boomers are the main reason, theres another troubling factor that experts predict wont be solved by stronger economic growth. Too many men in their prime dont have a job and arent even looking for one. Experts trying to figure out the reasons are probing the roles of criminal background checks, painkillers and even video games. In all, about 7 million men ages 25 to 54 are neither employed nor available for work, putting them outside the labor force. Their growing numbers worry and puzzle economists. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Obama gives strong support to Pelosi as she faces leadership fight By Christi Parsons House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) President Obama all but endorsed Nancy Pelosi to continue to lead House Democrats on Sunday, defending her as she faces a challenge to her position from restive members of the Democratic caucus. Although he is reticent to meddle in party votes while he is on the way out the door, Obama said at a news conference that he cannot speak highly enough of the first female House speaker, who has been a key ally on some of his most important work as president. She combines strong progressive values with just extraordinary political skill, and she does stuff thats tough, not just stuff thats easy, Obama said when asked whether the California Democrat should be reelected to her position. Obama made his remarks during a news conference in Lima, Peru, where he was wrapping up a summit meeting with Asian and Pacific leaders. Some of Pelosis decisions have been unpopular, even with voters in her San Francisco district, he said, but she has done them anyway because its the right thing to do for the American people. Pelosi faces a challenge from Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, a seven-term member of the House. Perhaps the most notable example of her support for Obamas agenda was Pelosis steadfast support for the Affordable Care Act, which likely cost some Democrats their seats in Congress in the midterm election when Republicans took over the chamber. In offering advice to fellow Democrats, though, In the hours after the Kennedy assassination, after Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit and was identified as the presidents assassin, a Secret Service officer named Mike Howard was dispatched to Oswalds apartment. Howard found a little green address book, and on its 17th page under the heading I WILL KILL Oswald listed four men: an FBI agent named James Hosty; a right-wing general, Edwin Walker; and Vice President Richard Nixon. At the top of the list was the governor of Texas, John Connally. Through Connallys name, Oswald had drawn a dagger, with blood drops dripping downward. Special Agent Howard turned the address book over to the FBI and, ultimately, to the Warren Commission. Only some time later did he learn that the list with its hugely important insight into the killers motive had been torn out of the book. I didnt hear about Howard until after I published my book The Accidental Victim three years ago on the 50th anniversary of the assassination. In it I argue a circumstantial case that it was Connally, not John F. Kennedy, who was Oswalds target in Dallas. It is the story of a smoldering grudge in which Oswald came to associate Connally with all the setbacks in his disastrous, hopeless life. Advertisement In her testimony to the Warren Commission, Oswalds wife, Marina, definitively named Connally and not Kennedy as her husbands target. This grudge got started in January 1962. Oswald was in the Soviet Union, where hed gone after being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. When the Marines learned he wanted to defect, Oswalds discharge was summarily downgraded to undesirable. (The defection was never consummated.) Oswald was angry and for good reason; his actions after his discharge had nothing to do with his three years as a Marine. By early 1962, Oswald was disenchanted with Soviet life and wanted to return home. He was now saddled with a wife, Marina, and a child, and he knew that someone with a ninth-grade education, who had spent time in Russia and had an undesirable discharge on his record, would have few prospects in America. Oswald wrote a heartfelt plea to Connally, a fellow Texan and the head of the Navy Department, the civilian overseer of the Marines. In poignant terms Oswald asked Connally to redress what was a transparent miscarriage of justice. What he got back a month later, in February 1962, was a classic bureaucratic brushoff. The dismissive letter arrived in an envelope with Connallys smiling face on the front, bursting from a Texas star and announcing his bid for the Texas governorship. In the months after Oswalds return to America, his worst fears were realized. He did, indeed, have serious trouble finding and holding jobs in Texas. According to the testimony of Russian emigres in Dallas who knew him during this period, every time his discharge came up in a job interview, Oswald froze, and his blame of Connally deepened. In her testimony to the Warren Commission, Oswalds wife, Marina, definitively named Connally and not Kennedy as her husbands target. She repeated this belief in testimony to the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. Dallas emigres also testified to Oswalds obsession with Connally. Moreover, there was ample testimony that Oswald bore no animus toward Kennedy. Indeed, he admired JFKs important initiatives like the presidents efforts at detente with Russia. Why was this evidence on motive ignored and buried in the official investigations? More pointedly, why is Oswalds little green book which Ive examined in the National Archives missing that pivotal page? For many years, in a community college class he teaches, retired Special Agent Howard has put forward his view of the assassination: Connally, not Kennedy, was Oswalds target. To the question of the missing address book page, Howard suggests two possibilities. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director, would not have wanted his agency, through agent Hosty, to be implicated in Oswalds murderous rage. As it turns out, Hosty had vigorously interviewed Marina Oswald over her immigration status just weeks before the assassination. An infuriated Oswald left a written threat at the Dallas FBI office in early November 1963. Hosty testified to Congress that on orders from higher-ups he deep-sixed the threat after the assassination. President Lyndon Johnson might have had an even stronger motivation: He would not have wanted Connally, his closest friend, to be identified as the catalyst for the crime. For 53 years, a cottage industry has developed over the motive for the Kennedy assassination. It had to be connected to the Mafia or the Russians or the Cubans or Oswalds Marxist beliefs or Jack Rubys petty crimes in the Dallas underworld. The public has embraced the notion that the greatest crime of the 20th century must have been the product of an equally grandiose conspiracy. But none of these conspiracy theories hold up when the events of the six months before Nov. 22, 1963, are carefully studied. Oswald was no coldhearted professional assassin under orders. The real answer to the reasons he took aim are to be found in his frustrations and obsessions. And the real tragedy of Dallas lies in the accidental death of a president who just happened to be in the line of fire. James Reston Jr. is the author of, among other books, The Accidental Victim: JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the Real Target in Dallas and The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally. He is a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook MORE FROM OPINION Consider the turkey on Thanksgiving. Specifically, consider not eating it How the showdown at Standing Rock mirrors our troubled democracy A world inching towards climate change catastrophe cant afford Trumps proposed energy policies The dramatic protests against an oil pipeline in North Dakota began with the local Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which fears the project could contaminate its water supply, but has grown into something much larger, and more contentious. And that could bode either ill or well for a nation that is so disengaged with politics and its government that it elected Donald J. Trump as president. The project itself sneaked onto the national stage in part due to the nature of regulations. Because the 1,170-mile pipeline from North Dakota to Illinois is being built primarily on private land, it did not need a start-to-finish permit from the federal government, just signoffs by the Army Corps of Engineers where the path crossed waterways including the Missouri River, near where the showdown is taking place. Thats despite the large capacity of the project it will move half a million barrels of crude oil a day, the kind of undertaking one would hope would get a sharp-eyed environmental review. But as William Yardley pointed out in The Times news pages a couple of weeks ago, because the Dakota Access Pipeline involves primarily private land, the reviews were limited: Advertisement Rather than broadly examining the impact a major pipeline could have across its length, looking at cumulative effects on water, air quality, land and animal species or the climate-changing emissions a pipeline might enable, the Corps typically assesses big pipelines as a series of much smaller ones, sometimes hundreds of smaller ones breaking them up into segments to be reviewed at specific water and wetland locations. No wonder the environmentalists are upset. Its in violation with, if not the law itself, certainly the spirit of the law, Jim Murphy, a National Wildlife Federation lawyer, told Yardley. But it has been Native Americans flocking to Standing Rock from around the country who have propelled what at first seemed like a small protest onto a national, and even international, stage. It is now drawing support from nonnative progressives who have similarly either gone to join the fight or are planning to (I know of a group from Detroits progressive community who are about to go; a family friend is leaving a just-finished political campaign to go; and the son of a friend is already there). That is a sign of a broken democracy, and its been busted for a long time. What do they hope to achieve? Well, stopping the pipeline, obviously, to both preserve the Standing Rock Reservations water supply and to stymie yet another effort to expand the nations fossil-fuel infrastructure even as the vast majority of us except, notably, Trump recognize that burning fossil fuels is leading to potentially catastrophic climate change. But the protest also, in the wake of Trumps election, is assuming a larger status as a symbol of opposition to a government, no matter who is in charge, that seems to be gamed for the benefit of special interests (in this case, the oil industry) rather than the people the government ostensibly represents. And thats where the violent turn of the protests becomes something of a Rorschach test. Ive been in or near enough protests to know that no version of events is completely reliable. Protesters say they were behaving peacefully when a phalanx of militarily equipped police began firing rubber bullets, stun grenades (there were unconfirmed reports that a protesters shattered arm may be amputated), and water cannons. The police say they were responding to rock-throwing protesters trying to dismantle a roadblock separating them from the construction site. Theres likely truth in both accounts, but focus on the details of the skirmishes some of it was aired live on social media deflects from the broader issues that led to the protests in the first place: the sense that government, and the democracy, are not mediating competing political interests evenly, or fairly. It was disaffection with politics as usual that led the left to propel Bernie Sanders run for the Democratic presidential nomination, and rallied the center-right and far right in enough states to give the electoral college to Trump. But remember, Trump won the nomination with less than a majority support of his own party, and received only 47% of the popular vote (behind Hillary Clinton) in the general election and only 26% support from all eligible voters. The turnout was within range of prior national elections, in which nearly half the country defers to a minority of eligible voters to determine the nations direction. Theres an argument to be made that people who dont vote deserve the results that arise. But when nearly half an electorate decides, for whatever reason, legitimate or not, that its not worth their time to vote, the democracy is weak. And when the people who vote elect someone who intends to dismantle not only the status quo, but large chunks of the government itself, then the signal, unintended or not, is that the nation is rejecting the government. Under the Obama administration, frustrations led to people occupying Wall Street, marching the streets of Ferguson and Baltimore, or standing at remote barricades on the Great Plains facing down police water cannons, rubber bullets and pepper spray. As Washington takes a hard-right turn under Trump (judging by his early appointments), we may be in for four long, street-filled years. Scott.Martelle@LATimes.com Follow my posts and re-tweets at @smartelle on Twitter To the editor: As The Times notes, the muezzins chant, broadcast over a loudspeaker from the mosques minaret, is a familiar sound throughout the Islamic world, from the giant mosques of Cairo, Istanbul and Baghdad to the smaller ones in towns and villages in every Arab country. (Israels muezzin law would muffle the call to prayer, editorial, Nov. 18) Islamic countries are struggling with how to handle the noise generated by the loudspeakers five times a day. In Egypt, for example, authorities have unsuccessfully attempted to unify the timing and to restrict the call to prayer to only the largest mosques in order to reduce noise. A few years ago, then-Religious Endowments Minister Mahmoud Zakzouk maintained that loudspeakers undermine Islam and are an invention with no connection to Islamic law. Cairo, as well as some Saudi and European cities, currently impose decibel restrictions on the muezzins call. Whatever one thinks of the controversial Israeli bill to ban the use of loudspeakers for the muezzin, it is disingenuous of The Times to ignore the fact that the issue goes beyond Israel. Advertisement Tamar Sternthal, Jerusalem The writer is director of the Israel office of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. .. To the editor: In the 21st century, why does a muezzin need to use a loudspeaker to recite the call to prayer for nearby Muslims? Doing this five times a day and starting before dawn may be appropriate in a theocracy, but not in religiously diverse countries. How about sending texts to devout Muslims cellphones to convey those traditional calls to prayer? That would satisfy theological precepts while remaining a good neighbor, one who doesnt inflict aural affronts on dozing infidels. You know, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Gloria Martel, Los Angeles Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Defense Minister of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak during a visit to the International Exhibition of Defense Industry "IDEAS-2016" has held a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. According to the Defense Ministrys press service, Poltorak pointed at the interest of the Ukrainian side in the further development of partnership relations between Ukraine and Pakistan in the military-industrial sphere. He is convinced that his visit will contribute to the bringing of the bilateral Ukrainian-Pakistani relations to a new level. In his turn Sharif said that Ukraine is an important partner of Pakistan, particularly in the military-industrial sphere. According to the Defense Ministry, nearly 90 delegates from different countries and 40 high-ranking officials in the defense sector have arrived to visit the ninth International Defense Industry Exhibition "IDEAS-2016". The exhibition is held in Karachi (Pakistan). To the editor: Thank you for the article about the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. (Talk of a registry for Muslims has Japanese internment survivors asking: Cant they see whats wrong? Nov. 18) The Venice Japanese American Memorial Monument Committee, of which I am a member, has gathered community support and raised funds for a permanent monument on the northwestern corner of Venice and Lincoln boulevards. This marks the corner from which 1,000 persons of Japanese ancestry lined up for transport to the Manzanar concentration camp in a remote California desert in April 1942. The monument will be dedicated in April. The black granite obelisk resembles the one at the cemetery at Manzanar. There, three kanji characters identify the obelisk as a monument to console the dead. The obelisk in Venice will be a reminder to the living: Be forever vigilant about defending our constitutional rights. The powers of government must never again perpetrate an injustice against any group based solely on ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, race or religion. Advertisement Today, more than ever, we must remember our history. Phyllis Hayashibara, Los Angeles .. To the editor: We judge prewar Germans harshly for not seeing Adolf Hitlers racism as categorically disqualifying. A large minority of German citizens voted for him because he offered the country hope, and they overlooked his racism. A large minority of Americans have just elected a president who offered them hope, overlooking an attitude toward race and torture that ought to have been categorically disqualifying. We should be just as concerned about the one as we were about the other. Neither had any prior experience in governing. Both showed dictatorial tendencies early. Both were persuaded that their passionate followers in effect gave them a blank check. I can hardly believe that I will be living through the self-destruction of two aspiring empires in a single lifetime. Siegfried Othmer, Woodland Hills .. To the editor: The election of Donald Trump as president has made fear and anxiety the dominant emotions for many minority groups. As a Muslim, I combat fear with faith in God and follow the motto love for all, hatred for none. However, news of Muslims getting harassed makes me antsy. Every day, members of my mosque fear having a pigs severed head, bacon or something worse thrown at us. Recently, when members of my congregation arrived for daily prayers, there was indeed something at the mosques door. One of our neighbors had left flowers and a card that read as follows: Although we do not share the same religion, I know we share the same values of love and respect for all. As your neighbors, we want you all to know we are here for you. This was not just a neighborly gesture; it provided hope for people who look different and pray differently. This holiday season, we must spread this message of unity. Aziza Faruqi, Austin, Texas Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook California Democrats ask Obama to pardon nearly 750,000 Dreamers, but White House says it wouldnt work The members of Congress who persuaded President Obama to grant temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought into the country illegally as children are now asking him to use a pardon to prevent those immigrants from being deported by President-elect Donald Trump. The White House, however, promptly batted down the idea. Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Downey) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) sent a letter to Obama on Thursday asking him to use his pardon authority to forgive the past and future civil immigration offenses of the nearly 750,000 people granted deportation deferrals under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. They believe that would keep those people from being deported, and even though it would leave them in legal limbo without work permits or visas, they could more easily apply for legal status from within the U.S. without immigration offenses on their records. They wouldnt have a piece of paper, they wouldnt have work authorization, but they wouldnt have to be living in fear every moment of their lives about deportation, Lofgren said after a news conference Thursday. Lofgren, a former immigration attorney, said the pardons would probably be applied to the civil offenses related to entering and remaining in the country without authorization. But whether a pardon would actually be applicable in the so-called Dreamers situation is unclear. Lawyers disagree over whether the immigrants could be pardoned for civil crimes they havent been formally accused of, and whether such a pardon would actually prevent them from being deported while they seek legal status. A White House official signaled late Thursday that the administration was not considering a pardon for those registered under DACA because it believes a pardon would not allow them legal status. We note that the clemency power could not give legal status to any undocumented individual. As we have repeatedly said for years, only Congress can create legal status for undocumented individuals, an administration official said. After immigration reform efforts stalled in Congress during Obamas first term, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pressured Obama to act independently to protect from deportation certain immigrants brought into the country illegally when they were children. He then used an executive order to create the DACA program in 2012. The Dreamers, one in three of whom are estimated to live in California, gave the Department of Homeland Security their fingerprints, home addresses and other information to undergo background checks that allowed them to defer deportation under DACA. At the time, advocates and the administration emphasized that providing the information would protect the Dreamers and was worth the risk. But with Trump vowing to deport millions of people who are in the country illegally and many fearing he may let the DACA program expire, Dreamers are worried the information they provided will be used to deport them. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), whose husband is an immigration attorney, said at the news conference she has been getting a flood of messages from frightened Dreamers. On Tuesday she sent a letter to Obama asking him to keep their information from the Trump administration. We promised these recipients security, and now they are facing a nightmare, she said. Roybal-Allard said those who pushed Obama to create the program and persuaded people to come out of the shadows to register with the government have an obligation to protect them. These are kids. We feel a sense of responsibility. We went out into our districts and we talked to the Dreamers, and they asked us, Is it really OK for us to do this? Roybal-Allard said. And we said, No, dont worry, you need to come forward. Now we are in a situation where all that we said, in fact, could possibly be reversed. Although the presidents pardon power is normally used for individual cases, there is some precedent for the chief executive to pardon a large group of people. President Jimmy Carter pardoned half a million Vietnam War draft evaders in 1977, and at least seven other presidents have issued broad pardons. Congress and the Supreme Court cannot undo a presidential pardon, nor can a new president. Lofgren said if Obama doesnt pardon the Dreamers, she hopes he responds with his own idea to help them. These young people are not alone, they are not going to be abandoned by us, she said. UPDATES 4:59 p.m. This post was updated with additional details throughout. 2:15 p.m. This post was updated with the White Houses response to the proposal. This post was originally published at 11:30 a.m. Donald Trumps Twitter wars with media sites and cultural institutions have been panned by opponents as overreactions by a thin-skinned president-elect who prefers rhetorical skirmishing to soberly building his administration. But Trump is extending what helped him win the presidency a battle against elites that secured the loyalty of voters outside the coastal metropolises, delivered directly to his supporters by bypassing the media he considers reflexively unfair. It is also a tactic of distraction that he is likely to use throughout the transition and, come January, as the nations first Twitter president. Advertisement Over the weekend, Trumps social media blast against the cast of Hamilton deftly turned attention away from bad news a $25-million settlement in a fraud case brought by former students at Trump University and accusations of conflicts between his business and political careers. Tuesday morning, a series of similar tweets criticizing the New York Times shifted attention away from new controversies over whether he or those close to him had used his influence to bolster his overseas business interests. His tweets may have a downside, but unarguably deliver a benefit: Even as Trump works to staff a government that will inevitably include establishment figures some of his backers abhor, he is reasserting his disruptive bona fides to those who support him the most. Trumps use of Twitter as a communications engine is only one of the ways he has, since his surprise election, worked to maintain a direct line to voters. On Monday, he released a video describing his plans for his first days as president. He asserted that his transition was moving very smoothly, efficiently and effectively to hire patriots. My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America first, he said. Whether its producing steel, building cars or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here on our great homeland, America, creating wealth and jobs for American workers. The video was the first of many, he indicated, promising to make America great again for everyone and I mean everyone. Trump is hardly the first president to try to bypass traditional gatekeepers: President Obama often appeared on nontraditional formats while granting relatively few interviews to traditional media. For Trump, that approach has become supercharged. He has not held a news conference since July; since he claimed victory in the early morning hours of Nov. 9, he has sat for an interview on CBSs 60 Minutes, one with the Wall Street Journal and, on Tuesday, with the New York Times. But he has offered no formal remarks nor held a news conference, unusual for a president-elect. That has given even more prominence to Trumps social media comments and the brief, tweet-sized remarks he made over the weekend as he bade farewell to visitors vying for Cabinet positions. The real deal, he said of former Marine Gen. James Mattis as he departed on Saturday. Hes just a brilliant, wonderful man. Trump did not adopt Twitter as a preferred communications vehicle because of the campaign. He used the micro-messaging system well before he became a candidate (often to express views that were exactly the opposite of what he would later say while campaigning for president). Twitter became a potent tool for candidate Trump because it dovetails with the demands of todays political environment: delivering brief, blunt statements that because of their pithiness seem authentic truthful or not. Hes been very successful in developing an image of himself by tweeting, said Pablo Barbera, a USC assistant professor of international relations who has studied the use of social media by politicians. In contrast to Hillary Clinton, who had a very professional lookTrump was more raw and authentic, and it helped him. In his 60 Minutes interview, Trump called Twitter a great form of communication and bragged of adding 100,000 followers on the Thursday after the election. (He has 15.7 million Twitter followers; Clinton has 11.2 million.) I think that social media has more power than the money they spent [on ads], and I think maybe to a certain extent, I proved that, he said. For more on politics Its not been without stumbles: At times, Trumps use of Twitter to nurse grievances can interfere with his broader goals. A month before the election, for example, Trump used Twitter to falsely accuse a former Miss Universe of starring in a sex tape. (Trump chastised her, at the time and during the campaign, for her weight when he ran the pageant.) In the final weeks of the campaign, his top aides appeared to have taken control of his Twitter account to avoid controversies. Days after the election, Trump tweeted criticism about protesters objecting to his victory, then followed the blast a few hours later with an uncharacteristic message praising them for exercising their right to free speech. But much of the time his tweets seem strategic, both in the topics he addresses and those he avoids. He has not, for example, tweeted about the outbreaks of postelection violence against gays, women and others by people purporting to be his supporters. He has not tweeted any comment on the weekend meeting of white nationalists in Washington who praised his victory. He has devoted more than half a dozen tweets since election day to criticizing reporting by the New York Times, a favorite target of Trump and his followers. The tweets included denials of statements that Trump clearly had made. And he took on the multicultural cast of Hamiltonaccusing it of harassing the incoming vice president, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. The incident began when Pence arrived at the play Friday night to a mixture of applause and boos. The cast did not join in the booing, instead distancing themselves from it. After the show, actor Brandon Victor Dixon read a statement from the stage thanking Pence for attending but adding that the cast represented the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us. He told Pence he hoped the show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us. Pence later said that he was not offended by the booing or the statement and praised the show. But Trump began issuing tweets the next morning. He insisted that the cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologize to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior. Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing, he said. This should not happen! For Trump, teeing off on the cast allowed him to appear to oppose the New York elite hes a member ofgiven his Fifth Avenue penthouse and self-described billionaire statuson behalf of someone who isnt. The gesture symbolically aligned him with supporters who cant afford a ticket to the hit show and who view New York as disdainful toward them. Thats a perfect culture war, said UC San Diego political science professor Thad Kousser, who has studied candidates and social media. What Twitter allows him to do is speak directly to his base in the most stirring terms possible. Picking a fight with Hamilton is picking a fight with the coastal intelligentsia. Its a perfect platform for continuing to show his voters why he sticks up for them against the people they feel are down on them. Trumps tweets about the play overshadowed an earlier tweet in which he defended settling the Trump University fraud lawsuit. And the one-way nature of Trumps tweets meant he didnt have to have to confront follow-up questions. Over the weekend, when a reporter shouted a question about Trump University, Trump did not respond. Studies of other politicians who have used Twitter to communicate with their public have shown that is part of its appeal: it offers bite-sized news releases, delivered without any expectation of a back-and-forth. Politicians from other countries who have relied on Twitter have moderated their comments once they took office. None of them, however, was Donald Trump. In the 60 Minutes interview, he nodded in the direction of becoming more restrained, but then defended his use of Twitter. Its a modern form of communication, he said. There should be nothing you should be ashamed of. Its -- its where its at. cathleen.decker@latimes.com Twitter: @cathleendecker ALSO: Rolling out Obamacare was chaotic, but a repeal could be much worse What to make of Trump one week in: unpredictable and keeping his options open Updates on California politics Live coverage from the campaign trail UPDATES: 12:40 p.m.: This article was updated with a reference to Trumps interview with the New York Times. The article was originally published at 7:35 a.m. Whale sharks are the largest fish in the ocean, but that doesnt mean theyre easy to study. Scientists hoping to learn about them must spy on them from the air, tag them with devices so they can be tracked via satellite or sneak up on them to collect tissue samples for DNA analysis. But there may be an easier way. Researchers from Denmark and Qatar were able to learn about a group of whale sharks in the Persian Gulf simply by gathering the seawater around them and analyzing the environmental DNA it contained. With 20 samples of seawater, the research team was able to show that the recently discovered group of about 200 whale sharks were more closely related to whale sharks from the tropical portions of the Indian and Pacific oceans than to the colonies in the Atlantic. They were also able to estimate the number of breeding females in the population, according to a report published Monday in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Advertisement The surface seawater samples were collected from 15 spots around the Al Shaheen oil field, where the whale sharks had been observed. Most of the samples contained just 1.5 liters of water. The researchers used DNA sequencing machines to decode the mitochondrial DNA extracted from the water. Mitochondrial DNA is found in the part of the cell that converts food into energy, and its passed down from mother to child virtually unchanged. By zeroing in on a few sections of the mitochondrial genome, they were able to gauge the genetic diversity of the Persian Gulf whale sharks and compare them to their cousins in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. The team was able to check its work because it also had access to mitochondrial DNA from tissue samples collected from 61 whale sharks who swam in the same waters. The genetic fingerprints collections of mutations known as haplotypes were found in similar frequencies in both the seawater samples and the whale shark tissue, according to the study. Whats more, the catalog of haplotypes gathered from the seawater was more complete than the ones contained in the tissue samples alone. By counting up the accumulated mutations in certain parts of the genome, the researchers calculated that the whale sharks had an effective female population size of between 43,618 and 183,526. (This is the population of mothers that give birth to the next generation.) Doing the same analysis with the tissue samples instead of the DNA from seawater yielded a range of 85,087 to 351,654 females. Although the average of the two ranges were off by nearly a factor of two (71,600 versus 138,400), the fact that they overlapped at all shows that environmental DNA offers a promising way to estimate effective population size, the researchers wrote. The seawater samples also contained DNA fragments from mackerel tuna, which spawn near Al Shaheen. In fact, the greater the concentration of whale shark DNA, the greater the concentration tuna DNA. The reverse was also true when whale shark DNA was relatively scarce, tuna DNA was scarce as well. This is most probably a sign that the whale sharks had come to the area to feed on tuna spawn, the researchers wrote. (Its also possible that the tuna were following the whale sharks, though this has never been observed in Al Shaheen, they noted.) Other groups have already used environmental DNA to identify the inhabitants of certain waters, but this is the first study to show that environmental DNA can provide meaningful information about a population of animals and the biodiversity of their habitat, the authors wrote. karen.kaplan@latimes.com Follow me on Twitter @LATkarenkaplan and like Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook. MORE IN SCIENCE Scientists aim to feed the world by boosting photosynthesis By drawing 50 states according to income, study reveals developing countries within the U.S. Pluto has a cold, wandering heart, and maybe a hidden ocean too UPDATES: Nov. 23, 8:35 p.m.: The story has been updated to include additional details from the study. The story was originally published at 6:10 p.m. on Nov. 21. Students, parents and teachers of Joaquin Miller Elementary celebrated the diversity of their school recently with music, poetry and dance. The event took place in the schools library, where parents and community members donated about 250 books featuring the various cultures of the students who attend Miller. The evening featured poetry readings in Spanish and Armenian and a presentation of Aztec and Inca history by Estela Sermeno, the schools Spanish community liaison. The opportunity to share our differences and to learn from each other can only help to unite us and make us stronger as a school and community, Judy Hession, Millers principal, said in a statement. Korean middle school and high school students performed Korean drum music known as Samulnori, while Ruben Harutyunyan, a master duduk player, played music on the ancient Armenian oboe. What started as a simple book drive turned into a beautiful celebration, said Burbank school board member Armond Aghakhanian in the statement. "[It] was a demonstration of the beauty and the strength of diversity and how education can unite the community. -- Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com Twitter: @kellymcorrigan -- ALSO: CTN Road Trip expects to draw cartoon fans to Downtown Burbank Arts Festival Suspect in Burbank mans assault arrested; victim did know assailant, contrary to initial report A total of 16 Burbank, Glendale schools win states rare Gold Ribbon Award Nearly two-dozen residents spoke Monday night during a Burbank City Council meeting, where elected officials voted to endorse a set of proposed terms that would apply to the development of a gate-for-gate replacement terminal at Bob Hope Airport. The current terminal has 14 gates. Fourteen gates means 14 gates, said Frank Quintero, president of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority board, promising the council and the public that airfield officials would not seek to expand the airport any further. The airport authority had endorsed the terms earlier this month, along with a measure to initiate an environmental study considering multiple alternatives for the new terminal building including not to construct it at all. Airport officials want the new terminal, which would be a safer distance from the runways, to have larger waiting areas and offer modern amenities. The mutual endorsement of the terms, which are nonbinding and lay out the foundation for legal documents and other staff work in the coming months, is a sign of progress for the two governmental bodies, which have been at odds over the proposed terminal project for years and had reached a stalemate in negotiations earlier this year. Despite the fact that there have been multiple public meetings on the matter during the past two years including three prior meetings in the past month where the outlined terms were made public and at least two where public comment on the items was received the Burbank residents who showed up Monday complained that the council had sought no public input. Several of the speakers expressed confusion over items on the term sheet, an eight-page outline of conditions for any terminal-project development agreement, which would not only need the agreement of the city and airport, but would require a public vote under Measure B, which was passed by Burbank voters in 2000. For example, the term sheet states that the terminal will not have more than 14 gates, and the authority will continue to enforce noise rules as it does now, while also supporting a mandatory nighttime curfew. Another section states that a super-majority of the airport authority board could change any of those positions. This is how you get to that, said Councilman Will Rogers, explaining that the authority board can change those positions now with a simple majority of any five of nine commissioners, but the super-majority requirement would mean that if two Burbank commissioners voted against such changes, they could block them. Quintero said he prefers to think of it as a veto power for Burbank on issues related to the airports impacts on the citys residents, who would bear the brunt of those effects compared to residents in the authoritys other two cities. Some speakers complained that one proposed condition would allow the cities of Glendale or Pasadena to conduct building inspections of the new terminal in place of Burbank inspectors, which city officials said is not an uncommon practice. The inspections would be conducted according to Burbanks building code, City Manager Mark Scott said. The airport authority sought the condition for fear that Burbank could hold up the construction process by nickel and diming the authority with petty concerns, Rogers said. Members of the public also complained of anticipated impacts, such as increased traffic, aircraft noise and the loss of the existing terminal, which is expected to be razed when the replacement terminal is built. An environmental study, which was started in 2013 but stalled when the council and airport officials reached an impasse in the summer of 2014, will evaluate those impacts. It will include a review of two alternatives that would leave the existing terminal as-is. A public informational meeting will kick off work on the study tonight. It is slated for 6 to 8 p.m. in the Burbank Community Services Building, 150 N. Third St. Officials said the study is just one of many activities moving forward that will provide opportunities for public input, along with, for example, hearings on whether or not to authorize bonds to fund the new terminal, which is expected to cost $400 million, mostly paid for through fees charged to passengers. Paul Dyson, a member of the citys transportation committee, said the discussion should focus on the building, not the number of flights or passengers or the amount of noise, which could all increase even at the existing terminal, where there is capacity for more planes and a greater number of passengers than the airport handles currently. Many of the residents who came to the council meeting had been apparently motivated by a flier distributed throughout some Burbank neighborhoods, and which Vice Mayor Jess Talamantes said contained not even half-truths. The postcard-like flier, bearing the logo of the community group Save Burbank Neighborhoods, was a scare tactic, some council members said. It proclaimed a Flight Path To Deception, threatened more planes, traffic and noise, and stated, City Council plans to eliminate legal protections by giving them away to unelected airport bureaucrats. It called on residents to urge council members not to support the proposed terms for the terminal project. The flier also claimed that the document was drafted without any public input, despite the fact that members of the group had been at meetings where earlier drafts of the terms were made public and discussed, such as a special Sunday council meeting on Feb. 8. The city released the latest version to the public nearly a month ago, soliciting input. Rogers, who lives under the airports flight path, said he had sought for a year to meet with the group to discuss the airport issue. He said he was frustrated and a little bit angry to be so impugned by people who are my neighbors and I have literally gone to your doors literally gone to your doors to talk to you about this. Burbank resident Mike Moynihan, who said he was at the council meeting in February and who is active with Save Burbank Neighborhoods, said obviously we dont understand [the terms] completely, but he defended the flier, calling its contents merely opinions. He said he planned to congratulate his friends, the flier designers, for getting so many residents to the meeting. Moynihan said he had heard from some public commenters that they felt intimidated after council members had chided them over their misinformed critiques. Talamantes, however, said he had lost some respect for the organization as a result of its misrepresentations. Stepping down from the dais and walking into the audience during the meeting, Mayor Bob Frutos said the progress on the terminal project stalled last year because the Burbank officials were seeking greater protections for the city than airport officials were willing to give at the time. The proposed terms endorsed this week provide those added protections, he said. I am trying very hard to do whats right, not just for today, but also for the future, Frutos said. -- Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com Twitter: @chadgarland Staff members from the Burbank Community Development Department sought feedback Wednesday from residents regarding design features of the second phase of the Burbank Channel Bikeway as the city waits for initial plan checks to go through. Ross Young, the citys project manager for the bikeway, told residents during a community meeting that the $4.4-million pathway which would run along the Western Flood Channel from Alameda Avenue to Olive Avenue, where the Downtown Burbank Metrolink Station is located is currently being reviewed by the Los Angeles County Flood Control District and will soon be reviewed by the Army Corps of Engineers. He said he anticipates both plan checks will be completed this coming summer. Young added that he expects construction to begin late next year and be finished by summer 2018. Join the conversation on Facebook >> While the routes are being reviewed, the Community Development Department decided to start gathering input from residents on what trees, shrubs and walls should be planted along the path. City staff is suggesting using an earth-toned brick wall rather than a cement wall along the bikeway to give it a more appealing look. Mexican elderberry, cork oak and western red bud trees were recommended to be planted along the pathway, Young said. Resident Mary Butler said that she liked the design suggestions for the project. However, she and a few other residents expressed concerns about public safety on the bikeway. Butler, who lives on Elmwood Avenue west of the bikeway, said that a bridge thats off the bikeway and goes over the flood channel was once used by gang members as an escape route. Unwanted activity has since stopped because the bridge is open only during the day for students to use when they walk to and from school, but Butler said she fears that criminal activity might come back to the bridge if it is opened for bicyclists. I hope we dont get started with the gangs again, Butler said. Thats what Im afraid of. Young said the bridge will continue to function as a footbridge for students and will not be permanently open. Resident Mike Hollis, who is the chairman of bicycle-enthusiast nonprofit Walk Bike Burbank, said the overall project is an important asset for the city to have and is a step forward toward getting more people to ride bicycles. It seems like a short section of bike path, but its an important link in what we need at this point, Hollis said, adding that the Burbank Channel Bikeway would connect the San Fernando Valley to Los Angeles and beyond. Im very excited to see this progress. -- Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com Twitter: @acocarpio A 47-year-old man was arrested Monday in connection with a fire that burned about 40 storage units and injured two people in Newport Beach this month. Newport police arrested Albert Eugene Faulk at 8:15 a.m. in Santa Ana on suspicion of unlawfully causing a fire to an inhabited structure. Detectives suspect that Faulk, whose last known address was in Anaheim, was occupying one of the storage units at the time of the fire. Police said Faulk was one of two people injured in the blaze, which caused a plume of smoke that could be seen for miles. It was not immediately clear how the fire started. The four-alarm blaze was reported at about 2:30 a.m. Nov. 11 in the 800 block of Production Place, an industrial area near Hoag Hospital. Sixty-six firefighters from the Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach fire departments knocked down the bulk of the fire within two hours, authorities said. A Newport Beach firefighter was injured during a follow-up investigation, authorities said. He received medical attention and has returned to work, according to police. hannah.fry@latimes.com Twitter: @HannahFryTCN The Costa Mesa Planning Commission recommended Monday night that the City Council deny a controversial plan to replace a commercial center in the College Park neighborhood with a multi-story housing development. After about two hours of public comments from College Park residents, most of them against the project, the Planning Commission voted 3-0 during a special meeting to recommend council denial, citing concerns about building a high-density project next to a single-family neighborhood. Commission Chairman Robert Dickson and Vice Chairman Jeff Matthews were absent. For the development to move forward, the City Council would have to approve a general plan amendment to change the land-use designation from neighborhood commercial to high-density residential. The council is expected to consider the project Dec. 6, according to city staff. The applicant, Newport Beach-based Sheldon Development LLC, is seeking to demolish the existing two-story commercial building at 440 Fair Drive to make way for 28 residential units. The 1.66-acre property is at the intersection of Fair Drive and Carnegie Avenue. The proposal includes eight detached units and 20 duplex units in multi-level buildings that would be 33 and 37.5 feet tall, respectively. The duplex units would include rooftop decks. The buildings would have a contemporary design consisting of geometric layouts of wood, stone and composite siding. Commissioners and several residents said they favor redeveloping the center, which includes Hotties Pizza, small offices and several spas and massage parlors. In 2011, police raided the parlors, which were suspected of being prostitution fronts. No arrests were made. The property also has housed medical marijuana dispensaries. That center over there is an eyesore, Commissioner Colin McCarthy said. Any way you want to cut it, its not good for the community. However, commissioners and residents said the proposed project doesnt fit the character of College Park. Rezoning this thing to high density next door to single-family residential without a strong reason, aside from getting rid of massage parlors ... its not palatable to me, McCarthy said. Commissioners said they would be more in favor of a medium-density project on the site, noting 33 two-story detached homes underway on 3.71 acres at the northeast corner of Merrimac Way and Harbor Boulevard. Steve Sheldon, chief executive of Sheldon Development, said his companys project would eliminate an aging and blighted commercial building and provide high-quality housing for Costa Mesa families while increasing property values. He declined to comment after Mondays meeting about the commissions recommendation. Dozens of College Park residents packed City Hall to speak against the project, and 99 residents sent letters to the commission outlining their objections. This project would do little or nothing to enhance the community but would be detrimental to property values in every surrounding neighborhood, College Park resident Jim Lindsay wrote. It would also create traffic problems associated with developments like this, as well as require infrastructure upgrades. Sheldon said the new homes would reduce traffic to and from the site, because residential properties typically generate fewer car trips than commercial uses. The project also would provide 117 parking spaces onsite, all but five of them in garages or driveways, he said. Staff had suggested the Planning Commission delay voting on the project Monday and direct the developer to meet again with local residents about their concerns. Staff also suggested that code violations at the commercial center should be addressed before the new project moves forward. La Canada Elementary School fifth-graders separated fact from fiction Friday in a feast centered on giving thanks and clarifying a few points about the 1621 meal between Americas European settlers and Wampanoag Indian tribe and the Thanksgiving we celebrate today. The schools longstanding tradition invites participants to dress in wide, white pilgrim-style collars and buckles or fringed and beaded wardrobes inspired by Americas first natives as they break proverbial bread and reflect on what the holiday means to them. Teacher Barb Drange says the Fifth-Grade Feast accompanies a grade-level curriculum that introduces students to the precepts of American history. Along with a trip in February to Pennsylvanias Valley Forge used as a military encampment during the American Revolution the feast is a way to engage kids more deeply in the lessons they learn throughout the year. Join the conversation on Facebook >> Matthew Plocher, dressed as a pilgrim, left, and Jensen Karlich, dressed as a Native American, right, enjoy the annual fifth grade Thanksgiving lunch at La Canada Elementary in La Canada Flintridge on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) Its American history so we want the kids, as well as people who are visiting, to understand the real Thanksgiving, Drange said, explaining the school tradition goes back decades. A lot of our teachers and parents did this in fifth-grade as well and still remember it. On Friday, LCEs cafeteria was decorated with autumnal flair in preparation for this years feast, which included songs of gratitude and a student performance about the historical distinctions between the harvest celebration in Plymouth, Mass., and its modern-day equivalent. Its to represent what we give thanks to, Matthew Plocher, dressed in pilgrim garb, said of the event as he sat down to sup on turkey with all the trimmings. We give thanks for having all this. Seated across from Plocher, a native-attired Jacob Harp recounted what he learned in class about the 1621 celebration. "[The Indians] heard gunshots and wanted to know what it was, he said of the days festivities 395 years ago. They helped set it up, because they taught [the settlers] how to farm corn and fertilize it. After having turkey and all the trimmings, Kendall Short enjoys pumpkin pie at the annual fifth grade Thanksgiving lunch at La Canada Elementary in La Canada Flintridge on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) Two tables over, fellow fifth-grader Victora McLurkin said her class has been learning about the complex relationships between early settlers and Native Americans on an ongoing basis. They kind of teach us each year a little bit, and then you learn more each year, said McLurkin who, like many of her female classmates, opted for native-themed dress. Mother room rep Ann-Luu Hohnbaum was among several parents who dished up mashed potatoes, corn and cranberry sauce to hungry students, including her own son, Nathan. Weve heard about the fifth-grade feast since he was in first grade its a milestone, she said. It ties in with all the history theyre learning. Hohnbaum admitted the curriculum helped stoke her own memories about Americas early history. I feel like I know it, she said. But its good to be refreshed. -- Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com Twitter: @SaraCardine Croatia has taken the initiative to establish a bilateral group for the study and implementation of the experience on the reintegration of the occupied territories, the first vice-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Ukraine's representative in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group on Donbas, First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Iryna Gerashchenko has said. Ukrainian MPs from different factions met with the new Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic. The Croatian side initiated the creation of a bilateral group for the study and implementation of the experience for the reintegration of the occupied territories, their return to a peaceful life. Croatia has passed this terrible path of war: return of its territories and its recovery," Gerashchenko said on her Facebook page on Monday. She said that the Croatian side understands that the conflict in Donbas region has its own peculiarities, and that the first issues after the return of the territories under Kyiv's control is demilitarization and reintegration, mine lifting, humanitarian settlement, as well as an inclusive dialogue. "The Croatian colleagues are ready to share their experience in all areas: legal and humanitarian issues, mine lifting, fiscal and monetary policy. It has been agreed that on the basis of an informal parliamentary platform titled "Minsk platform," we will penetrate into the committee work, which is to work as an intergovernmental one," Gerashchenko said. "She also said that during the meeting the sides discussed the release of the hostages, which require pressure from all over the world, and the aggravation of the situation over the occupied Crimea. "In addition, the issues of bilateral cooperation and the European integration have been discussed." Croatia supports granting of a visa free regime to Ukraine and the full ratification of the Association Agreement," the first vice-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada said. Nearly an hour into the phone call, the woman began to get suspicious. The man on the line said he was with the Internal Revenue Service and that she owed a penalty for tax fraud. But to make the payment, he told her to drive to a nearby Food 4 Less grocery store in suburban San Diego and purchase an iTunes gift card. Twice he said she owed 1,000 rupees, before correcting himself to say $1,000. Advertisement Even the name he gave, Daniel Parker, sounded odd. He spoke with a foreign accent and mangled basic phrases. Your name is Daniel Parker? Are you sure? she finally asked. Yeah, maam, he replied. I am sure. But it was too late. The 29-year-old National City woman had already shared an iTunes card number worth $500 becoming one of tens of thousands of Americans drawn in by an extensive, years-long scam in which callers from India pose as IRS agents to extort money from taxpayers. Indian call centers have built a reputation for handling customer service and tech support inquiries for major U.S. companies. But in recent years, investigators in the United States, Canada, Britain and other countries have traced several organized phone frauds involving callers posing as computer technicians, debt collectors, immigration officials or tax agents to Indian call centers. On their surface, little sets the illicit call centers apart from legitimate ones. They operate almost in the open, using the same corporate-style office spaces and recruiting from the same vast pool of English-speaking college graduates allowing the crimes to persist for years. This year, the Federal Trade Commission described Indian call centers as the source of various impostor frauds that have reached consumers throughout the English-speaking world. Last month, police in the northern Mumbai suburb of Thane (pronounced THA-nay) raided three office buildings suspected of being used to make the fraudulent IRS calls and rounded up more than 700 people for questioning. At least 70 remain behind bars as investigators have expanded the probe to include dozens of call centers in multiple Indian states. Weeks later, the Justice Department announced the indictments of nearly 60 people in India and the United States for involvement in shady call centers that had conned more than 15,000 Americans out of hundreds of millions of dollars since 2012. Among those indicted for conspiracy, fraud and money laundering is the suspected ringleader of the Thane operation Sagar Thakkar, also known as Shaggy, a flamboyant twentysomething with a taste for ripped jeans and fast cars, who is believed to have fled India as police closed in on his business. The scheme part of what the IRS described in 2014 as the largest phone fraud to target American taxpayers has exposed a dark side of Indias $30-billion call center industry, a symbol of this booming countrys information economy and one of its biggest exports to the West. It has blighted the image of India, said Parag Manere, deputy police commissioner in Thane. Someone who does this kind of thing, they will not be tolerated. Parag Manere, deputy police commissioner in Thane, India, helped bust the fake call centers. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times ) Yet the Thane police investigation and the federal indictment unsealed in late October showed how the scam went on for several years despite growing concern in both countries. The Oct. 4 raids in Thane led police to the headquarters of the operation in Ahmedabad, in the western state of Gujarat, which has a large diaspora population in the United States. There investigators found computers with sophisticated call blasting software that was used to place thousands of voice mails to numbers in the U.S. The messages would warn the recipient that he or she was suspected of tax fraud and order the person to call a U.S. number routed to one of the call centers in India. Authorities believe dozens of calls a day were fielded at the offices set up this year outside Mumbai, Indias commercial capital, whose large numbers of jobless English-speaking college graduates were prime candidates for recruiters. Police said entry-level callers were paid about $300 a month, plus commissions a typical call center salary, though far less than the amounts they extorted from individual victims. Any large country where the employment opportunities are few but the number of available graduates is high, you will always have the risk of illicit activities, said K.S. Viswanathan, vice president of industry initiatives at Nasscom, an industry group that has worked with U.S. authorities to combat call center fraud. In Thane a once-sleepy backwater now exploding with high-rise apartments and office blocks most of the callers operated out of a nine-story tower of glinting blue glass called the Hari Om IT Park. When it opened this year, police said, suspects used the cover of an outsourcing company and signed a lease to occupy six floors, installing desks and partitions to house hundreds of employees. Starting in July, large groups of employees mostly men in their 20s began arriving around 7 every evening, typical working hours for call centers that deal with customers in the United States. They would wrap up around 6 a.m. and return that night to start a new shift. There was nothing suspicious that we saw in that time, said Prem Bahadur, the buildings caretaker, who lives in a small room on the ground floor behind a hulking generator. It looked like a normal call center. A second office opened a month later, in a basement below a bank branch. The 4,800-square-foot space was subleased from a tenant who had a five-year lease, and representatives of the landlord said they did not know the identities of the tenants. Authorities believe these two offices and a third nearby raked in between $150,000 and $225,000 every day. They knew they were cheating people, Manere said. But perhaps they didnt care because the victims were foreigners. At one of the offices, police found a six-page script used to train employees. In long, convoluted passages filled with gaffes one police officer said the fast-talking Indian callers sounded like parrots it demanded the target make an immediate payment or police would show up at your doorsteps within 30 minutes. If the person sounded ready to pay, the call would be handed to a more experienced closer to complete the deal. But if he or she expressed suspicion, the script suggested a sharp response: I will promise you will gonna lose everything what you have and you will end up paying bills to IRS to your rest of your life. I thought they were prank callers because of the kind of language they were using, said Anant Dhillon, an Indian immigrant in Victoria, British Columbia. Returning a message from the Canadian Revenue Agency in April, Dhillon, a bank employee, was connected to a call center that he assumed was near Mumbai, because he could make out voices in the background speaking Marathi, the local language. They said I owed thousands of dollars. But I said I only make about $40,000 a year so there must be something wrong with your numbers. Then the guy started swearing at me in Marathi and Hindi. Dhillon hung up and reported the call to local police. But many others were taken in. One Indian immigrant in Tustin contacted Thane police to say his 75-year-old father had been conned into paying $2,000. Another elderly American suffered a fatal stroke after being threatened on the phone, police said. Some victims described in the federal indictment paid tens of thousands of dollars using dozens of gift cards, such as iTunes cards. Once they obtained the card number, scammers transferred the money to a prepaid debit card, which they used to purchase a money order, authorities said. That money was deposited into a U.S. bank account and wired to India using the informal hawala money transfer system. U.S. and Indian agencies have made arrests before in similar cases. Last year a Pennsylvania man, Sahil Patel, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for his role in an India-based IRS scam, though the kingpins remained at large. The Thane bust could be the most significant yet. The Better Business Bureau, which used to field approximately 200 reports of tax scams every week, said that after the arrests in India it received just 11 complaints in a week. The impostors seemed unaware the police were closing in. Speaking to the National City woman on Sept. 24, a caller in Thane insisted she leave her office immediately to make a payment, according to a recording police provided to The Times. The woman wondered how she could owe a tax penalty, saying she had earned less than $20,000 in 2015. But the callers demands only grew more specific. She had to keep him on speakerphone while she drove to the Food 4 Less, he said, and when she went inside to buy the iTunes card. Just keep the phone in your pocket, he said. I cant, she replied, sounding worried. I dont have any pockets. It was agreed that she would keep the phone in her hand. Twenty minutes later, the $500 transaction completed, the caller asked for an additional $500, saying that would make her free from the IRS. She had rent and car payments due, but agreed to pay the following week. Satisfied, the caller asked if he could give her a compliment before hanging up. You have a sweet voice, he said. Ten days later, the police swooped in. shashank.bengali@latimes.com Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia Special correspondent Parth M.N. contributed to this report. ALSO China is no longer ruining their livelihoods, but these Filipino fishermen arent entirely grateful Islamic State claims responsibility for deadly attack inside Shiite mosque in Afghanistan Buying baby formula at $40 a can, and other stories of survival from Aleppo As difficult as it will be to drive Islamic State from its last major stronghold in Iraq, there is little doubt that the militants in Mosul will be defeated. The question is whether they will be back one day. Previous attempts to pacify the city, once one of Iraqs largest and most diverse, devolved into ethnic and sectarian infighting that made fertile ground for the militants to stage a comeback. We have made this same mistake at least twice in Iraq, said Kenneth M. Pollack, a Middle East specialist at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. We dont prepare adequately for the political context, and the result, as I warned in 2002, is chaos, warlordism and civil war. Advertisement There is little trust between Sunni Arabs, who dominate in Mosul and the rest of Nineveh province, and the Shiite Muslim-led government in Baghdad. Relations are equally fraught with Iraqs semiautonomous Kurdish region, which Arabs fear will use the fight against Islamic State to extend its territorial reach into Nineveh just as it has done in the oil-rich province of Kirkuk. The offensive is being waged by an array of forces: the Iraqi army and federal police; Kurdish fighters known as peshmerga; local Sunni, Christian, Yazidi and Shabak fighters; and members of Shiite militias, some of them backed by Iran. For now, they are united by a common enemy but they have very different ideas about what should happen after Islamic State is gone. Ninevehs former governor, Atheel Nujaifi, who assembled a force of several thousand trained by Turkish military advisors, has argued that the province should be given greater autonomy to run its affairs much like the Kurdish region to the north and east. The Kurdish leader, Massoud Barzani, has suggested that Nineveh be divided into three smaller provinces and referendums held to decide whether they will be affiliated with Baghdad or the Kurdish government in Irbil. Shiite leaders in Baghdad want to keep Nineveh intact, but some are open to the idea of giving more power to the province. What could prove even more problematic are the many local fissures social, political, tribal that are bound to surface as leaders set about the contentious business of standing up a police force, restoring services, getting displaced people back into their homes and rebuilding neighborhoods after what is expected to be a drawn-out and destructive fight. If such differences cant be bridged, it could reignite the frustration and fear among Sunni Arabs that propelled Islamic States rapid spread in Iraq, and that of Al Qaeda before it. Just look to 2003: Baghdad was then a stronghold of Saddam Husseins Baath Party with a proud history of military service dating back to the Ottoman Empire. But after the U.S. invaded, the interim administration led by L. Paul Bremer III disbanded the Iraqi army in a purge of regime loyalists, sending many high-ranking officers and soldiers into the arms of the insurgency. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who as commander of the 101st Airborne Division was responsible for Mosul in 2003, said his attempts to foster reconciliation between local Sunnis and the countrys ascendant Shiite majority were undone by Iraqi officials in Baghdad who continued to enforce Bremers order barring members of the Baath Partys upper echelons from holding government jobs, even after U.S. diplomats started pressing for more inclusiveness. At a certain point, [Sunnis] realized they had an incentive to oppose the new Iraq rather than to support it, and that obviously is a very dangerous situation, said Petraeus, who went on to command all U.S. forces in Iraq. Those disgruntled former military officers and tribal leaders would later make common cause with religious extremists who came to Iraq from other countries to fight the U.S., giving rise to the group Al Qaeda in Iraq. 1 / 6 In the Cahra neighborhood of Mosul, a woman and her children walk in the streets despite the battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 6 The sign of coalition bombers circles above an Iraqi soldier, but commanders say that the Americans arent giving them as much air power as they would like. In the Cahra neighborhood of Mosul, Saffaa Moaid, 26, stands on the tank hes assigned to. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 6 In the Cahra neighborhood of Mosul, the body of an Islamic State fighter killed overnight is found in the market area. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 6 On the frontline in the fight against Islamic State in the Cahra neighborhood of Mosul, an Iraqi special forces soldier makes his way to the roof where the lookout continues for the enemy. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 6 On the frontline in the fight against Islamic State, a soldier watches for the enemy through a small whole in the rooftop wall in the Cahra neighborhood of Mosul. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 6 A convoy of Iraqi special forces troops moves through the Cahra neighborhood of Mosul, where heavy fighting has slowed progress to take back Mosul from Islamic State. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) The Iraqi forces that were brought in to fill the security vacuum in Nineveh were primarily peshmerga who had fought against Hussein. The people of Mosul saw this as Kurdish occupation under a very thin guise of it being the Iraqi army, said Michael Knights, a Boston-based fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. To make matters worse, analysts say, Mosul received short shrift from the U.S. and Iraqi authorities, who were more focused on securing Baghdad and Sunni strongholds in neighboring Anbar province. As a result, the militants were able to regroup and launch counteroffensives in the north of Iraq. U.S. commanders credit an uprising by Sunni tribal leaders that began in Anbar for helping to turn the tide against Al Qaeda in 2007 and 2008. But the prime minister at the time, Nouri Maliki, never trusted the so-called Sunni Awakening, which included former insurgents, and had many of them arrested. After the U.S. military withdrawal in 2011, prominent Sunnis were purged from the government and military, leading to waves of protests in Sunni parts of the country. By the time Islamic State fighters swept across the border from Syria in 2014, morale in Mosul was so low that many members of the security forces shed their uniforms and fled. Some city residents initially welcomed the militants, seeing them as protection from a sectarian government in Baghdad and an expansionist Kurdish region. But two years under Islamic States brutal rule changed the view of many. When Iraqi counter-terrorism commandos punched their way into eastern districts of Mosul this month, they were greeted as heroes by some residents who flashed victory signs and planted kisses on their cheeks. This presents an opportunity for Malikis successor, Prime Minister Haider Abadi, to break the cycle of instability in Mosul, analysts say. Iraqi leaders and their foreign allies appear to have learned from past mistakes. Peshmerga and Shiite militia fighters, accused of abuses against Sunni Arabs during previous campaigns, are deployed in villages around Mosul and not inside the city proper, for example. But officials in Baghdad have said little about how they intend to secure and govern Mosul after Islamic State is gone. In the two years since he assumed office, Abadi has shown a willingness to work with groups once seen as adversaries. But the premier has struggled to exert authority in the face of opposition from fellow Shiites including Maliki. Many of his proposed reforms, including plans to establish a national guard that could bring more Sunnis into the armed forces, have languished in parliament. Abadis government is now under attack by members of his own parliamentary bloc who engineered the departure of two senior Cabinet members Defense Minister Khaled Obeidi, a Sunni from Mosul, and Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd within the space of a month through no-confidence votes. The prime minister has done a good job so far of bringing Iraq back from the brink, said Sajad Jiyad, managing director of Al Bayan Center for Planning and Studies, a Baghdad think tank. But the competitive and dysfunctional nature of Iraqi politics means there are politicians who will attempt to disrupt progress to undermine him and whip up sectarian and ethnic tensions for political gain. Brett McGurk, President Obamas envoy to the coalition fighting Islamic State, acknowledged at a recent news conference that much remains undecided on the political front. But he said if Iraqis had tried to resolve every issue before launching the military campaign, the militants would remain in Mosul for the foreseeable future and perhaps forever. The plan, he said, is to restore to power the current governor, Nofal Hammadi, and provincial council, with the addition of representatives from Baghdad and Irbil. They will then decide the way forward in consultation with the United Nations and the coalition. That approach worries Pollack, who was recently in northern Iraq and met key players. I would say that all sides are reasonably confident that things are going to work out their way, Pollack said. That should tell you that someone is inevitably going to be disappointed and we dont know how they are going to react. The threat isnt just internal. Turkey and its regional rival, Iran, are both heavily invested in what happens there and could intervene if they believe their interests -- or those of proxies -- are at risk. Knights, however, said there was logic to the governments approach. What weve realized over the years is that you shouldnt expect a post-conflict stabilization plan for a city in Iraq to look like the plan for the Olympic Games, with 200 working groups and 500,000 pages of detailed text and annexes, he said. What is important, he said, is to have a strategy to keep all the sides talking. alexandra.zavis@latimes.com Twitter: @alexzavis ALSO Two days, 63 patients, and the constant fear the next arrival may be the enemy Global development community fears bad news for refugees, foreign aid, womens rights under Trump Islamic State claims responsibility for deadly attack inside Shiite mosque in Afghanistan To lawyer Ceren Akkaya, a proposal by Turkeys government that would defer sentencing or punishment in some sexual assault cases and which critics say would legitimize child marriages is a disaster waiting to happen. Akkaya said the proposal, which parliament is expected to vote on Tuesday, puts the burden of proving rape on young women or girls who are typically not in a position to assert their rights. Human rights groups and opposition lawmakers say the proposal would provide amnesty to individuals accused of sexually abusing minors. For all of Turkey, if this bill [is] approved, it will really be a disaster, said Akkaya, a lawyer with Mor Cati, an organization that provides support and shelter for victims of domestic violence. Advertisement The proposal, which drew thousands of protesters to the streets across the country over the weekend, calls for deferring sentencing or punishments in sexual assault cases not involving force and where the two people are married. It says that unless the suspect used force, threat, deceit, or another way of impinging free will, sentences for sexual harassment occurring before Nov. 16 would be suspended or postponed if the suspect marries the victim. It would apply to cases from 2005 to the November cutoff date, amounting to about 3,000 families according to the government, though opposition lawmakers have said the number could be as high as 17,000. The proposal is part of a bill that would make scores of changes to laws dealing with sexual assault. The ruling Justice and Development Party introduced the proposed law last week. Under current law, the age of consent is 18 and individuals age 16 or 17 must obtain special permission from a judge to get married. Anyone 18 or older found to engage in sexual relations with someone 15 or younger is automatically charged with a statutory crime. In 2005, as part of reforms aimed at boosting Turkeys bid to enter the European Union, the ruling party introduced a set of reforms that closed a loophole that allowed perpetrators of sexual abuse to walk free if they married the victim. Current Turkish law calls for eight to 15 years in prison for anyone convicted of sexual assault and a minimum sentence of 16 years for anyone convicted of rape. In May, the countrys top court said punishment for offenders should be proportional to the age of the victim. The government, looking to meet a Jan. 13 deadline set by the court, has proposed longer jail times 18 years for rape -- when the victim is younger than 12, and keeping current sentences in other cases. Part of that package meant to address the court ruling is the controversial amnesty for child abusers, which the government says is meant to provide relief for people convicted of statutory rape who were involved in a consensual relationship. There are children who are married at an early age. Their families do not know the law, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Friday. The fathers have ended up in prison. This is a one-time measure to correct an unjust situation. According to government statistics, judges approved 31,337 marriages, 5.2% of all marriages, in 2015 that involved spouses 16 to 17 years old, with almost all cases occurring in the largely conservative east and south of the country. Marriages involving those younger than 16 cannot be legally registered, so many families opt to only perform a religious ceremony in the largely Muslim country. According to some womens rights groups, the actual rate of underage marriages is much higher, and accounts for a third of all current unions in the country. Although the rate has declined over the last decade, UNICEF estimates that 15% of new marriages in 2015 involved girls younger than 18, and 1% involved girls younger than 15. Opponents of the government proposal say the conditions are prohibitive for many victims, especially underage ones. Its very difficult for anyone to take [a case alleging forced marriage] to court, to say I was forced to marry, Akkaya said. Also, if they are forced into marriage, they are likely forcing the family of the girl too. Under this fear, how can she go and sue the husband? Its so difficult, even for an adult, even more so if she is so young. The proposed law drew a rare rebuke even from womens organizations close to the ruling party, at a time when the country is politically polarized. The perpetrator of sexual abuse has power and opportunities to influence the victim and gain freedom by marrying the victim, said a statement by the Women and Democracy Assn., demanding a meeting with the government to review the bill. The organizations vice president is Sumeyye Erdogan Bayraktar, daughter of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The victim, on the other hand, is most likely to be forced to marry at an early age under pressure, and be obligated to continue the marriage. How can the own will of such a young girl be identified? The State Directorate for Religious Affairs, which has sole authority to appoint the imams that would officiate a union, has repeatedly issued decrees against underage marriage. In 2013, the organizations head, Mehmet Gormez, said, Whoever tries to find an argument or justification [for child brides] in any Islamic source, does injustice both to religion and that girl child. In October, it issued a statement saying the practice shattered the lives of children. Farooq is a special correspondent. According to a report by analysts at JPMorgan, Venezuela's state-owned oil company has activated a 30-day grace period for interest payments on its 2021, 2024 and 2035 bonds A 6.4- earthquake struck San Juan province, western Argentina, according to the US Geological Survey. The tremor was also felt across the border in the neighboring country of Chile, as reported by an eyewitness on Twitter. The tremor was originally measured at 6.7, but then downgraded to 6.4. The epicenter of the quake was located at 25.75 kilometers southwest of San Juan, and about 290 kilometers northeast of Chile's capital Santiago,as reported by CBC.There have been no reports of casualties so far and no tsunami warning was issued, according to the USGS. However, there is also a possibility that poorly-constructed buildings may have been damaged, according to director of Argentina's seismic institute, Alejandro Guiliano. In addition,the quake also didn't affect the operation of state-owned copper mining firm Codelco. Global miner Anglo American said that its Los Bronces copper mine in central Chile is still operating normally, despite being located near the quake's epicenter. The San Juan quake was the second in eight days. On November 12, 2016, a 6.2 quake also shook the region with the depth of 99 kilometers. No injuries were also reported in last week's quake. Residents who live in such a region prone to quake panic after feeling the floor shaking and seeing pictures frame falling from the wall. Chile is prone to earthquake, situated on the Pacific Ring of Fire where tectonic plates collide. The strongest earthquake ever recorded was in 1960, when a 9.5 tremor struck the country. The quake occurred in Valdivia, in the country's southern part, so it is called the 1960 Valdivia earthquake. The quake was preceded by three tremors in the city of Concepcion. In February 2010, an 8.8 tremor devastated the country, killing around 500 people and triggering a tsunami. However, Chile is more prepared to quake as less casualties were reported, compared to the tremor in Haiti, which was rated 7. Hollywood actor Tom Cruise was forced to end his secret relationship with lesbian porn star Jennifer Hammon after his Scientologist church leader compelled him to quit on her. Hammon, 43, worked as a personal assistant to Cruise, 54, during the filming of "Last Samurai" and "Collateral." Heavy reported that Hammon already had a secret relationship with Cruise before he married Katie Holmes in 2006. They broke up shortly after Cruise's marriage. The relationship of the two was still going on until David Miscavige, a Scientologist leader, learned that Hammon performed a lesbian role in a soft core porn movie Allyson is Watching in 1997. He found the tape after Hammon finished filming a Scientology propaganda movie, The Married Couple. Hammon in that movie stripped down to perform lesbian oral sex. Cruise, as reported, had personal knowledge with the video since she was unable to keep it secret while filming "Last Samurai" and "Collateral." Miscavige prompted Cruise to pull the plug on his connection with Hammon as it would be a disgrace to both him and the church. Both Cruise and Hammon are active Scientology members, which is why their relationship has been perceived as nothing short of humiliating. Hammon is currently married to Cruise's driver. They were known as having obvious affair and Cruise was even introduced to Hammon's family. Hammon's mother, Sue Hammon, said in Radar Online report that she met Cruise when he was hosting a family get-together. "They played laser tag with his adopted kids. His mom was there, too. They were very nice, and it was a lot of fun," she added. Cruise and Hammon also attended the opening of the Scientology Spanish headquarters together in 2004. Aside from working as Cruise's personal assistant, Hammon appeared on TV during the 1990s. She stopped in 2001. Cruise had been in several relationships with famous actresses and had been also involved in some unusual issues. Last week I had the extreme pleasure to meet with a delegation of Azerbaijan lawyers to discuss law office technology. I learned a couple of things that may be of interest to you. These lawyers were visiting the United States as a part of the Open World leadership program and were sponsored by Rotary Club 29 of Oklahoma City. I was happy talk to them about law office technology. They also heard from our OBA Executive Director, General Counsel and Ethics Counsel. Their bar association is organized differently than ours, as a part of the central government rather the states or state courts. So we had a good discussion. I had little prior knowledge about Azerbaijan did a bit of online research before the meeting. I must say that this was one of the warmest, nicest and friendliest group of people you would ever meet. Meeting them was a truly great experience! They have much work ahead as their country's legal system continues its evolution. But I certainly plan on checking in on the news from their country from time to time. But there were two interesting law office technology aspects to my talk with them. First of all, I decided to do a speech recognition demonstration for them using Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I use this tool almost every day and knew that moving from my office to our larger board room would likely have a negative impact on accuracy. In fact I have set up an extra profile in DNS just so it doesn't change my speech file based on different acoustics. I began my dictation with "Today I am visiting with a group of lawyers from Azerbaijan." 100% accurate transcription. Everyone of the group looked surprised. I paused the dictation and assured them this was the first time I have ever said their country's name into DNS. I dictated some more and DNS performed almost flawlessly. The other interesting thing was during my brief discussion of practice management software tools and paperless work flow. Our OBA Practice Management Advisor Darla Jackson interjected that one of the tools, Practice Panther, was available in the Azerbaijani language, both the Cryillic and the Latin versions. I was aware they had developed a Spanish language version, but there are many other languages now included, even though unlike the Spanish language version, the others are done through machine language translation only. I'm not sure that they made any purchasing decisions after that but they did ask me to repeat the product name. Ukrainian representative to the Trilateral Contact Group Leonid Kuchma hopes that the 'Normandy Four' foreign ministers will coordinate the Donbas settlement roadmap but says he has no illusions. "I am still counting on the foreign ministers' roadmap," Kuchma told reporters in Kyiv on Tuesday. He said he doubted the possibility to elaborate and to approve the roadmap within a month (the period prescribed by the 'Normandy Four' leaders). "To my knowledge, they [the foreign ministers] are expected to meet in the end of this month. However, I have not heard either party expressing the assuredness that we will move in the right direction," he said. In his words, the foreign ministers have more rights than Trilateral Contact Group members. "Being a representative of the Trilateral Contact Group, I, personally, suggest that they deliver results. Let them not shift what you are supposed to do onto the Minsk Contact Group. And this is [an attempt] to step aside and to point a finger at someone else. The Trilateral Contact Group has heard its fair share of 'praise'," Kuchma said. He also noted that the roadmap text was being coordinated by advisors rather than by foreign ministers. "Whenever advisors are involved, each of them brings a roadmap of one's own and all [those] documents are different, I mean, especially those of Ukraine and Russia," Kuchma said. "Our stance is known and clear. But when will it all happen? We will be waiting," he said. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed on the phone on November 21 that the 'Normandy Four' foreign ministers would meet in late November. SBU head says 2 'deserted servicemen' detained at Chonhar crossing point between Crimea, Ukraine Two Ukrainian deserted servicemen were detained at the Chonhar crossing point in the Kherson region, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) chief Vasyl Hrytsak said. "The criminals were actually detained at the Chonhar crossing point," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday. Russian Defense Ministry said earlier that Ukrainian security services illegally took two Russian servicemen out of Crimea. Ukraine's Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak during the ninth international military production exhibit IDEAS 2016 met with the heads of Pakistani military production enterprises, with which Ukraine cooperates or plans to cooperate. "We have a large sphere of activities where we can cooperate. We are interested in your experience of launching production of rifle and munitions. Relying on your experience in this area, we can more quickly and without making mistakes create such a production line," said Poltorak during a meeting with the board chairman of Pakistan Ordinance Factories, Mahmood Hayat, according to the website of Ukraine's Defense Ministry. The sides agreed that a group of experts from Ukraine would arrive in Pakistan and begin work in this area. In addition, Poltorak discussed issues of existing cooperation with the board chairman of large industrial enterprise HIT TAXILA Syed Wajid Hussain. Nov 21, 2016, 6:49pm ET GM to export Chevy Colorado, Silverado to China The company previously focused on more efficient vehicles, leaving its US pickups to be imported via grey market channels. General Motors has announced plans to export its Chevrolet Colorado and Silverado to China. The company previously focused on more efficient models in the world's largest automotive market. Buyers with enough means can still buy either model in China, but only via the grey market at a significant price premium. GM will now use its own distribution channels to address Chinese demand for its American pickup siblings. The Silverado will be available with GM's EcoTec 6.2-liter V8 with 460 lb-ft of torque. The Colorado, meanwhile, steps down to a 3.6-liter V6 with 269 lb-ft of twist and a 3.1-ton tow rating. GM and its joint-venture partners sold a record 343,773 vehicles in China for September, representing a 16 percent increase from the same period last year. The Chevy brand accounted for 51,932 units, approximately half of Buick's take. The Colorado and Silverado will follow on the heels of the Equinox and sixth-generation Camaro, which have only been available for a few months in China. Barnes Army.jpeg Alfred L. Barnes is seen in a photo from his time in the U.S. Army. The Bethlehem man, and executive secretary at the former Bethlehem Steel Corp., was murdered Oct. 18, 1968, in the Effort section of Chestnuthill Township, Monroe County. The gunman, Richard F. Keiper, was arrested in October 2013 and convicted in July 2015, in one of the United States' oldest cold-case trials. (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) A 70-year-old Texas man convicted in one of the United States' oldest cold-case trials should remain in prison for life, a Pennsylvania appeals court ruled Monday. Richard Franklin Keiper is seen at 67, upon his 2013 arrest in Texas in the murder of Bethlehem Steel employee Alfred L. Barnes in 1968. (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) Richard F. Keiper was convicted by jury in July 2015 for the murder nearly 50 years prior of Alfred L. Barnes, a 40-year-old executive secretary at the former Bethlehem Steel Corp. Keiper was sentenced Oct. 1, 2015, to life in prison for killing Barnes on Oct. 18, 1968, in the Effort section of Chestnuthill Township, Monroe County. Keiper had been living in Boyd, Texas, and working at a wastewater treatment plant when he was arrested Oct. 17, 2013. Keiper appealed his sentence to the Pennsylvania Superior Court. Repeating claims made in a motion for mistrial last year in Monroe County Court, Keiper argued the prosecution improperly raised the testimony of Quaquo Kelly. It was Kelly's 1971 statements to police that led to Keiper's arrest. When the time came for trial last year, Kelly was deemed in too poor health to testify -- but only after the Monroe County District Attorney's Office introduced Kelly's claims in opening statements at Keiper's trial. The county court ruled against a mistrial, as did the Superior Court, having determined the prosecution's reference to Kelly's claims did not unduly prejudice the jury, according to Monday's ruling. Claiming self-defense, Keiper told investigators he shot Barnes three times, court records say. The body was dumped in a desolate farm pasture and found the next day by hunters. Keiper stole Barnes' 1969 Ford Thunderbird, abandoning it at a campground in Blairstown Township. Pennsylvania State Police Detective Bernard "Old Stoneface" McCole investigated the Oct. 18, 1968, murder of Alfred L. Barnes, an executive secretary at the former Bethlehem Steel Corp. He was shot and killed by Richard F. Keiper, then 22, who was arrested in October 2013 and convicted in July 2015, in one of the United States' oldest cold-case trials. (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) Pennsylvania State Police Detective Bernard "Old Stoneface" McCole was assigned to the case and determined Barnes was shot as he sat in the driver's seat of the Thunderbird by someone to the right rear of the car. McCole further determined the shooter then pulled Barnes from the car while still alive. Barnes slumped to his knees, and two more shots were fired downward into his skull. McCole died suddenly of natural causes the following year, and the case went cold until the early 1970s when Kelly's claims to police renewed interest in the case. By then, Keiper had joined a traveling carnival and could not be found, and the case languished unsolved until Barnes' nephew inquired about the case in 2010 with state police. Searching a modern database, investigators found Keiper in Texas, where Texas Ranger James Holland elicited the self-defense admission. Keiper's story would change, starting out with him hitchhiking and Barnes giving him a lift. They then searched for a private spot in the Poconos until Barnes pulled into a field, saying, "This has gone on long enough," and pulled a gun on Keiper. During an ensuing struggle, Keiper claimed the gun went off and he drove away in the Ford coupe as Barnes complained about the car theft. Keiper later told the ranger a man he knew as Steve fired a second gun, hitting Barnes, before Keiper and the mysterious gunmen stole the car. "Neither story was backed up by the physical evidence, which showed that Barnes was shot once in the car, pulled out onto the field, and shot twice more in the head at a downward trajectory, execution style," Monroe County First Assistant District Attorney Michael Mancuso wrote in an examination of the case. "The wounds would have been immediately incapacitating and fatal." Keiper was 22 at the time. Barnes' body was found with his fly open, indicating the two may have been having a tryst when the murder occurred, the investigator, McCole, wrote. Kelly's statement to police, in 1971 and again in 2013 after the cold case had been reopened, concerned Keiper's efforts to sell him a revolver inside a rooming house above a bar at Sixth and Linden streets in Allentown. In his appeal, Keiper argued Kelly's claims were the only evidence tying him to the murder -- other than Keiper's own self-defense story. "The trial court concluded that the combination of mentioning Kelly in the opening statement and then not calling him as a witness did not render the jury incapable of returning a true and just verdict," reads the Superior Court's ruling, in concurrence with the county court. Barnes, a bachelor, had emigrated from Cuba, where his father worked at Bethlehem Steel. He was living on Market Street in the city at the time he was killed. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and on Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. The court has arrested former Ukrainian servicemen Oleksandr Baranov and Maksym Odyntsov, who were detained on the border with the occupied Crimea, with a bail option, according to the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Hrytsak. "The detained deserters have been transferred to the military prosecutor's office, as required by law. A pre-trial restriction has been chosen for them in the form of detention. Unfortunately, there is also a bail option," Hrytsak said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday. The SBU head said that the court's decision on the pre-trial prevention measure for the detained deserters will be appealed. He also expressed surprise that the deserters could be released on bail. In turn, the Hromadske radio reported referring to the first deputy military prosecutor of the southern region of Ukraine, Petro Vizniuk, the Central District Court of Mykolaiv ruled to put Baranov and Odyntsov in custody for two months with an option of a bail. The investigating judge of the Central District Court of Mykolaiv granted the request of an investigator of the military prosecution of Mykolaiv Garrison and chose a measure of restraint for junior sergeant Oleksandr Baranov detention or a UAH 350,000 bail and detention or a UAH 250,000 bail for private first class Maksym Odyntsov, Vizniuk said. The Ukrainian Security Service announced the detention at the Chonhar crossing point in Kherson region, of two deserters, who transferred into Russian army service in 2014 after the illegal annexation of Crimea. The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier that Ukrainian security services illegally took two Russian servicemen out of Crimea. John Morganelli no caption Northampton County John Morganelli said his office opened a criminal investigation into the death Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016, of 21-year-old Salisbury Township resident Kaitlyn Laumann. (Lehighvalleylive.com file photo) ( ) The death of a 21-year-old Lehigh County woman Saturday is the focus of a criminal investigation, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said. Kaitlyn N. Laumann, of the 1600 block of Rader Avenue in Salisbury Township, was pronounced dead at 11 p.m. at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg in Bethlehem, Lehigh County Chief Deputy Coroner Andrew Kehm said in a news release. An autopsy was performed Monday morning. The cause and manner of death were pending further toxicological testing, Kehm said. Northampton Borough police were assisting in the investigation, according to the coroner's office. Morganelli earlier in the day confirmed his office was investigating the apparent heroin-overdose death of a 21-year-old woman from over the weekend. He described the investigation as an effort to find whoever supplied the drugs. The investigation came up during a Monday afternoon roundtable on heroin and opioid drugs organized by Pennsylvania Attorney General-elect Josh Shapiro and hosted by Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin in Allentown. Morganelli said he didn't immediately have further details on the victim, but authorities said the Lehigh County Coroner's Office was also involved in the investigation. Asked about the 21-year-old victim, Coroner Scott Grim said shortly before 5 p.m. Monday a news release would be forthcoming, Kehm issued the release about 8:40 p.m. Prosecuting a charge of drug delivery resulting in death is especially difficult, Morganelli said Monday, with often little to no cooperation or evidence available. His office is currently prosecuting that charge against Daniel Fisher Jr. in the overdose death Aug. 20 of 26-year-old Thomas O'Brien Jr. in Forks Township Speaking generally about these investigations, Morganelli said during the forum with Shapiro, "We're trying to encourage people that are in this drug world to come forward." Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and on Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Hoping to save $1 million a year, the Bethlehem Area School Board voted on a new five-year charter for Lehigh Valley Academy that caps district student enrollment. Lehigh Valley Academy Regional Charter School got a five-year charter extension but the school says it can't accept the terms. But it's not a done deal. Lehigh Valley Academy Regional Charter School says it can't accept the district's request to cap its enrollment of district students at 60 percent of the total charter school enrollment. And it also shot down other school district requests aimed at saving taxpayer dollars, according to the district. "These proposed revisions would have no significant impact on the ability of the charter school to continue to function," Superintendent Joseph Roy said. "BASD's proposals were aimed at curbing the skyrocketing cost of tuition payments made by the district to LVA." The charter school could vote to accept the new charter with an enrollment cap or file an appeal with the state's Charter Appeal Board. Charter schools are privately operated public schools funded by taxpayer dollars. Bethlehem expects to send Lehigh Valley Academy $11 million in tuition payments this year, up from $4.8 million in 2009-10. The district will spend almost $26 million total on charter school tuition this year. Lehigh Valley Academy CEO Susan Mauser, who was not present at the meeting, said it was disappointing to hear how her school was portrayed. The school is reviewing its legal options, she said. "We have exactly the same auditors (as Bethlehem)," Mauser, who had two school representatives at the board meeting, said in a telephone interview after Monday's school board meeting. "We are fiscally responsible. Our students do well. We have always thought of ourselves as being really transparent in all that. It was really disheartening to be presented in such a negative way." Lehigh Valley Academy agreed to an overall enrollment cap of 1,950 students, but felt that the district-specific cap sought by the Bethlehem school board left them open to legal challenges, Mauser said. "We are mandated by the charter law to specifically provide students from our two sending districts priority to enrollment and those caps would not allow us to do that," she said. Bethlehem's proposed limit would not affect current students, but would start with the 2017-18 kindergarten class. Under the proposal, if an existing grade had more than 90 Bethlehem students and a district student left, the spot would have to be filled by a student from another district. "Parents don't have to fear being dis-enrolled," said Dean Donaher, Bethlehem school director. Mauser noted the school has waiting lists currently for grades and gives priority to siblings of existing students. The cap would interfere with that, she said. Bethlehem school board President Michael Faccinetto said he had planned to reject the charter renewal because he does not think the school's curriculum is significantly different than the district's own. He also criticized the charter school for spending 20 percent of its budget to lease office space to house the school in an office park off Center Valley Parkway in Hanover Township, Northampton County. "I think there is extreme financial mismanagement," Faccinetto said. But in the end, Faccinetto said he had to support an enrollment cap that could save $1 million. "I can live with this," he said. Former Lehigh Valley Academy Board of Trustees member Jack Toy, who is sharply critical of the school, has long lamented that the charter pays exorbitant rates to lease the space. He echoed his complaints again Monday night and praised the Bethlehem school board for what he said were reasonable proposed restrictions. Bethlehem asked LVA to write into its charter that it will stop using taxpayer dollars to help cover the cost of student lunches; align its calendar with Bethlehem's to save on transportation costs; conduct a rigorous residency verification; and agree to hold public board of trustees meetings at least once a month. Mauser said she finds many of the requests perplexing. The board holds a public meeting the third Tuesday of every month. "I have 15 years of minutes," she said. LVA does not use tax dollars to pay for school lunches; students pay for their lunches, Mauser said. Bethlehem says this costs $200,000 a year. "We subsidize the salary of some of our lunch servers," Mauser said. "We are permitted to do so. We do plan to continue to do that." The charter school has aligned its calendar to Bethlehem's school calendar where it can, but the school is in session 10 more days a year. Mauser noted the school now holds a teacher in-service day on Columbus Day because Bethlehem does too. The district says it requested the charter cover the transportation costs, estimated at $60,000, on days Bethlehem schools are not open. Mauser is also confused that Bethlehem questioned its residency verification process since the charter school uses the district's own policy to verify where a student lives. "I have no idea where that is coming from," she said. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Nathan Desean Bragg-Jones got himself out of Harlem. But he couldn't leave the criminal lifestyle behind. Bethlehem police said they arrested one suspect, a 23-year-old from New Jersey, in a Feb. 28, 2016, robbery after tracking the car used in the incident. (Lehighvalleylive.com file photo) The 23-year-old admitted Tuesday to a robbery in Bethlehem and was sentenced to two and a half to five years in state prison. Northampton County Judge F.P. Kimberly McFadden made him eligible for a state boot camp program, which could earn him an early release if he's accepted and finishes it. Bragg-Jones said he was on drugs and wasn't thinking clearly when he robbed two people of two iPhones and a wallet on Feb. 28 in the 400 block of Carlton Avenue. "I take full responsibility for what happened," he said. "If I could take it back, I really would. It's not who I am as a person." Court papers say he's from Bloomfield, New Jersey. He told the judge he was born in Harlem but moved to the Lehigh Valley with his fiancee. "I thought we would move out there for a better life and instead I got caught up in some nonsense that I shouldn't have gotten caught up in," he said. Bragg-Jones dropped out of school in the seventh grade, according to defense attorney Anthony Rybak. Now he won't be there for his 2-year-old daughter. In the five months he's been in prison two members of his family have died, Rybak said. "He couldn't be there to help his family grieve. He couldn't be there to say goodbye." The judge ordered Bragg-Jones to serve two years on probation after his parole expires and to earn his GED. She said he hopes he learned his lesson. "I don't want to see you back here again," she said. Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. By John A. DiMaio Saturday Nov. 26 is Small Business Saturday, part of an annual shopping day sponsored by American Express. Small Business Saturday was, and still is, intended to bring focus to small retail shops the Saturday after Thanksgiving to help kick off the holiday shopping season. It is a part of American Express' Shop Small campaign. Small Business Saturday brings a good deal of attention to the small shops, many of which dot our downtowns. Some towns really do it up and make a big deal out of it. Others, not so much. Generally, while it does bring a lot of attention to small shops and local restaurants nationally, the overall success is arguable. As a former mayor, freeholder and now assemblyman, I'd like to suggest we make every day Small Business Day. Yes, Small Business Saturday has a nice ring to it, like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but the reality is that for small shops every day is a struggle, as they fight competition from big box stores and middle-sized stores. Perhaps even more dangerous to their existence is fast-rising Internet competition. I have spoken to many small business owners over the years. One thing hasn't changed: they work hard. Most shop owners open early in the morning and close, at the least, around the dinner hour. Most are open at least six days a week. It is very difficult for them to match big box prices but they do offer, in many cases, a lot more in personal service and convenience. Small shop owners are truly dedicated to their business. They have to give it their all every minute, every hour, every day, every week. For that, they deserve our business, and not just one day in the year! This effort starts at the top, in my opinion. It's easy to take our small businesses for granted. They don't generally have big splashy ads on TV or huge ads in newspapers, or mail us shiny advertising pieces. Their marketing budgets are modest at best. That is why it is incumbent upon town officials to do make sure they shop in their hometown stores and urge their constituents to do likewise. A healthy business community starts with and depends on local support. Many small shops are located in downtowns such as Hackettstown, Washington and Clinton. These towns are lucky to have business organizations behind them in their efforts to attract new customers. Not every town is so lucky to have an advocate for their businesses. These organizations work hard to support their businesses and have found success in different ways. In Hackettstown, Business Improvement District Executive Director Jim Sheldon says that "downtowns have had to develop niches" to be successful -- or take advantage of niches that come along. In Hackettstown, a flurry of new restaurants and micro-breweries have been key to a rise in awareness, as they've captured the attention of beer magazines and other publications. In Clinton, Dana Lane, vice president of the Clinton Guild, acknowledges the Red Mill Museum and the Hunterdon Art Museum are key components to the shopping district, attracting folks from outside the area. The guild, an all-volunteer organization, works hard to beautify, market and plan events in the downtown. Events play an important role in attracting customers. John Monteverde, executive director of the Washington Business Improvement District, notes that Washington offers a "robust event schedule" throughout the year. Each town's needs are a little different from each other. However, leaders agree with a few themes: The continuing need to make New Jersey more business-friendly, provide resources for owners to help them grow their business, and make grants and tax incentives available. Most importantly, our towns' leaders must lead the effort to "shop small." John DiMaio of Hackettstown represents the 23rd District in the New Jersey Assembly. Class A biosolids Synagro Technologies presented a sample of Class A biosolids pellets to the Plainfield Township Planning Commission on Nov. 21, 2016. (John Best | lehighvalleylive.com contributor) A proposed sewage sludge treatment facility would burn methane gas from a landfill to fuel dryers that would convert waste into Class A biosolids. Synagro Technologies presented plans to the Plainfield Township Planning Commission during a special exception application meeting Monday night. The plans call for a plant that would receive truckloads of waste from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to be treated and shipped back out. Synagro, which operates in 30 states, takes commercial and residential sewage and treats it so it can be used in a variety of applications, such as fuel or fertilizer. Grand Central Sanitary Landfill in Plainfield Township -- owned by Waste Management -- generates methane gas as waste materials decay. The Green Knight Economic Development Corporation operates a facility at the site that collects the gas, burns it and converts it into energy, which it then sells to energy providers. Synagro would like to tap into that energy source for its plant, particularly to be used for the ovens that treat the sludge. "This is not only a suitable place but it is the best place for this particular structure," Synagro project developer Jim Hecht said. Plans call for Class B biosolids to be trucked in to the plant, likely via Interstates 78 and 80, then to Route 33 and finally along Route 512 to the Waste Management property. The sludge would then be placed on belts that move slowly through 400-degree ovens and heated to a sustained temperature of about 170 degrees for 30 minutes. The process seeks to break down and eliminate certain pathogens inherent in waste. The processed material would be classified as Class A biosolids that can be used with less stringent government regulations than Class B. At full capacity, 20 truckloads containing 400 tons of wet "cake" would be received daily. After processing, 100 tons of the dried-out pellets would be shipped out each day by five trucks. Hecht said the pellets could be used as fertilizer for farms or as fuel for industrial operations such as kilns in cement plants. It would be most cost effective to sell the product locally, Hecht said. Wash water from equipment cleaning and condensation from evaporated water during the drying process would be collected and treated at the plant and discharged into either Waltz Creek or Little Bushkill Creek. That raised concern among members of the planning commission, who have been involved in cleanup efforts to remove bacteria and pollutants from local waterways. "It doesn't matter which creek they choose," Planning Commissioner Terry Kleintop said. "They're both high-quality watersheds." Synagro representatives repeatedly assured planners that the facility would follow all state and federal laws regarding health and safety standards. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection requires regular testing of biosolids treatment for a variety of heavy metals and pathogens. Those assurances didn't appear to satisfy residents in the audience. Several people, mostly from Upper Mount Bethel and Lower Mount Bethel townships, questioned Synagro's ability to adequately test the sludge. Sludge application on farms has been a topic of controversy in both townships in recent years. Lower Mount Bethel resident Tim Smith said he was more concerned about the foul odors he experiences when his neighbors apply sludge to their farms. Smith described the odor as unbearable. Hecht said the plant would have an air treatment system that would prevent odors from escaping. Representatives from Hanover Engineering Associates, which is representing Plainfield Township in the matter, said they visited Synagro's Philadelphia treatment plant and they did not notice any offensive smells. The plant is a permitted use at the location by special exception, which means it must satisfy several conditions. For special exceptions, the planning commission reviews the applications then makes its recommendation to the zoning hearing board. Recommendations could be either for the plan, against the plan, or for the plan with certain conditions. Planners said they would likely require the testing at the plant of discharged water to include standards set by the Delaware River Basin Commission. Planners tabled the matter Monday and asked Synagro to resubmit site plans based on a number of concerns raised by Hanover Engineering, particularly the capture of spilled materials during loading and unloading of trucks. John Best is a freelance writer. Find lehighvalleylive on Facebook. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. Two servicemen detained near Crimean border might theoretically be put on hostage swap list The servicemen detained recently by the Ukrainian Security Service near the border with Crimea might theoretically be included in hostage exchange lists, Security Service chief Vasyl Hrytsak said. "It's hard for me to answer. Everything can happen in theory. But their future will be determined first by the investigator, in line with the Criminal Procedure Code [...] and then by a court," Hrytsak said at a news briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday, when asked whether these people could be included in the exchange lists. At the same time, Hrytsak confirmed that the servicemen, suspected by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies of desertion, produced Russian passports once they had been detained. Some Russian Federation Council members had suggested earlier that the Ukrainian Security Service abducted the two Russian servicemen on the Crimean border so as to exchange them for Ukrainian citizens. A woman appeared in Naas District Court yesterday, Wednesday, November 16, on a charge of allegedly running a brothel in Naas. At the November 16 sitting, Terezinha Aparecida de Jesus (73), with an address given as 8 Basin Street, just around the corner from the courthouse, appeared before Judge Desmond Zaidan. Garda Inspector Oliver Henry said it is being alleged that on November 9 last, Ms de Jesus, allowed the premises at 8 Basin Street, Naas, to be used as a brothel. Judge Zaidan raised some initial issue about the charge sheet and the matter was adjourned temporarily for that to be clarified by the prosecuting female Garda. Matthew Byrne, solicitor, representing Ms de Jesus, said his client was from Brazil and spoke Portuguese as a native language. There was somewhat of a language barrier, he said. When the matter was called later, the prosecuting officer, Garda Rogers, clarified the matter on the charge sheet. She told the Court that when the charge was put to Ms de Jesus, the defendant made no reply. Judge Zaidan opted to allow the amendment to the charge sheet. Mr Byrne said that Ms de Jesuss 98 year old mother was very ill and asked for a date which would enable her to deal with family matters while the case progressed. The matter was adjourned until December 14 and Ms de Jesus was remanded on bail to that date. Garda Rogers said that Ms de Jesus spoke very good English. Mr Byrne said it was all right english but I would not say very good. He requested an interpreter and was granted one. Mr Byrne also asked for free legal aid for Ms de Jesus. Judge Zaidan asked if she could not fund it herself. Unfortunately not, replied Mr Byrne. Free legal aid was granted to her. Its now five months since the EU referendum on June 23rd: plenty of time, you might have thought, for a government which appointed ministers committed to Brexit to key posts to have developed a strategy. Yet confusion reigns in Whitehall and Westminster. The clock is ticking towards Theresas pledged date of invoking Article 50 by the end of March. Yet the government seems more focused on fighting a court case to limit the involvement of Parliament than in setting out its preferred future relationship with our neighbours on the European continent. This is a degree of incompetence about which we should be angry, on top of our anger at the false promises and illusions of the Leave campaign. Some, at least, of the leaders of the Leave campaign should have had a strategy for negotiating a new relationship with the EU. But the coalition of ideologues and opportunists who led the Leave campaign only agreed on what they did not want. Economists for Britain wanted unilateral free trade; Professor Tim Congdon is still promoting this in the press. Liam Fox thought the Anglo-Saxon Commonwealth would welcome us with generous free trade agreements, and has discovered that this is not how trade negotiations work. Boris Johnson has so far offended most other EU foreign ministers by flippant remarks and unwillingness to recognise that they have their own interests to defend. The anti-foreigner undertones of the Conservative Party conference hardened attitudes in Berlin, the Hague, Stockholm and Helsinki our closest natural allies within the EU and reduced willingness to offer special concessions to ease the Conservatives dilemmas. The Europhobe ultras continue to argue that we should tear up the treaties and leave, without further negotiations. And heaven knows what the Prime Minister thinks; stories circulate around Whitehall about her determination to keep control of the process, but she has few people around her who understand the issues. Tory Europhobes, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph have covered this drift and confusion by ever-more shrill attacks on their critics from judges to Liberal Democrats. Bits of information are slowly emerging. The government has said that it wants to stay plugged into police and intelligence cooperation (thank goodness); papers are reportedly being written about how to maintain cooperation in defence and foreign policy (but the Europhobes will bitterly oppose that); some sort of deal has been offered to Nissan, and another may be cooked up for the City. But theres no coherent package within sight. Meanwhile, the total contradiction between shrinking the state and taking back control becomes clearer. The Taxpayers Alliance wrote in last Fridays Times that ministers should resist taking on more civil servants to manage the negotiations; somehow we should manage this massive task while cutting staff and taxes further. Parliament heard on Monday that the UK has 3 coastguard boats to patrol our lengthy maritime border, while the Dutch have 16 boats for 200 miles of coast. Promises of more money for the NHS and funds for an industrial strategy are yielding to cuts in corporation tax to compete for business outside the EU. This is a mess. In previous revisions of the EU Treaties, our governments published white papers, set out their objectives, and carried the public with them. This time, the Prime Minister is clinging to secrecy, in order to avoid deepening the antagonisms within her own party. Any international negotiation has to win over domestic opinion as well as persuade foreign partners; so far, over five months, the government has gone backwards in convincing either side. Liberal Democrats have the right to say to those who led the Leave campaign to its narrow victory: You broke it, you fix it. And if you cant work out how to fix it, what then? * William Wallace has fought five parliamentary elections in Manchester and West Yorkshire. He is a former president of the Yorkshire regional Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats have released a set of demands for tomorrows Autumn Statement, including an urgeng 4bn injection of funding into the NHS, to avert a winter crisis and prevent declining performance and longer waiting lists next year. The 4bn demand breaks down as follows: 1.3bn additional funding for social care 1.8bn additional transformation funding, to deliver modernisation and improve efficiency in the NHS 400m additional dedicated funding for mental health 500m additional emergency funding to plug gaps across services You can find more detail on the partys website here, alongside demands for a commitment to the Single Market, housebuilding, a public sector pay rise and support for small business. It will be instructive to see whether the chancellor can continue to put off the so-called punishment budget the Leave campaigns name for George Osbornes observation that he would have less money to spend in a damaged post-Brexit economy. Much will hinge on the state of economic forecasts, which themselves are clouded by political uncertainty. THE devastated father of murder victim, Jeffrey Hannan, is renewing his appeal for information on the ninth anniversary of his sons death. Jeffrey Hannan, who was aged 19, died after he was attacked near his home in OMalley Park, Southill during the early hours of November 22, 2007. He died from severe injuries after he was struck a number of times during a row with a group of young men. The results of a post mortem suggested he was struck across the head with a weapon of some sort - possibly an axe. While more than 20 people have been arrested and questioned by gardai about the murder, nobody has ever been charged in connection with the killing. Jeffreys father, Alan Hannan has consistently maintained his belief that there are people who have information about what happened to his son. There is someone out there who knows what happened and who seen things on the night and I reckon most people in Southill know who done it, he said appealing to anyone with information to come forward. There were a lot of people up there that night where he was killed and there must have been some commotion someone had to have seen what happened, he said. Alan says the last nine years has been a constant nightmare and that it gets harder every year particulary as Jeffreys daughter, Nikita (10) gets older and begins to understand what happened to her father. The garda investigation into the fatal assault remains open and anyone wiith information about what happened is asked to contact Roxboro Road garda station at (061) 214340. WHEN Sigi Schoeneck was forced to leave her home in Freiburg in south west Germanys Black Forest, she left with her mother Klara and just the clothes on their back. We were shipped off to some relations in a mountainous area where there werent too many bombs. I was very sad because I had no toys at all. Sigi was six. It was towards the end of the Second World War. As well as enduring the sadness of leaving behind her father Albert, the little girl had to say goodbye to her lovely little doll. I had a lovely doll at home that I couldnt bring, Sigi recalled as she packs the last of her 124 shoe boxes into her Toyota car ahead of the journey to Unit F3 LEDP at the Old Krups Building. A big metal container has been provisionally booked to arrive at the unit on the evening of November 24. Physically, it will transport some 10,000 shoeboxes to some of the remotest and poorest parts of Africa. Symbolically, it will carry a ray of hope to the thousands of children who think theyve been forgotten by the world. Back in the remote mountainous area, young Sigi was struggling to come to terms with her new surroundings when she was handed a brown paper bag. I have never forgotten the moment, she smiles this week. I opened it and there was a little doll inside it. For me it was like heaven. Despite it being several decades ago, Sigi can recall every last detail from that moment and what the small gesture meant to her. I was sitting on a wooden bench. I had three or four cousins around me, they were all older than I was and one of them said to me, open that. There was a doll. It had a pink dress on. It was actually a doll to keep eggs warm. The little pink dress had little pouches and I could put stuff into those pouches. I could remember that distinctly. It was absolutely, you know, beautiful. And I remember saying to my mam, Look mam, we dont have to go home anymore I had the doll. I will never forget that moment.It meant the world to me. Four years ago, while in a second-hand shop in Limerick Sigi spotted a doll. Memories of the wooden bench and the pink dress came flooding back and she said to herself Gosh, wouldnt that be nice in a Christmas shoebox That year Sigi made two shoeboxes, the following year, she made four. I gave them to the school, the local school, Caherdavin National School. Then I decided to go in a bit bigger, she smiles. My car is choc-a-block full with boxes and a neighbour is helping me as well - she has her car full also. I have 124 done. The first 30 are gone already to the centre in the old Krups factory - thats where were off to now with the remaining 94. I have 62 and my friends has 32. Sigi works on the shoeboxes the whole year round. She will never meet the recipients but each of the boxes - which were sourced from Gleesons shoe shop in the city - are wrapped with tender loving care in brightly coloured festive paper. There could be 15 items in each one - sometimes you have smaller bits to fill out the corners. Ive everything in them - toys, toothbrush, toothpaste, a skipping rope, one piece of clothing maybe a T-shirt or something like that. The boxes are targeted at two ages groups - two to four year-olds and five to nine year-olds. I change them up for boys and girls. For a boy I would have a toy car or play cards, explains Sigi who now resides on Sheelin Road, Caherdavin. So how did a girl from south east Germany end up in Limerick? I went to England first, she explains. I wanted to improve my English. I worked in a hotel and I was sitting in the staff room when one day a lovely young fella came towards me and said, I hear that you want to learn English. I said, thats right and he said, I want to learn German - would you help me with my German if I help you with your English?' The young man was 19, Sigi was 21. He came to Germany for about two months and said everybody is crazy over here - you come to Ireland. Sigi agreed to go for six months. She has been married to the lovely young fella, Patrick Murrihy from Farranshone for 52 years now. Sigi worked as an interpreter as well as a tour guide throughout Ireland for over 30 years. She also lectured German in UL and in the College of Hotel Management in Shannon. The couple have three children - Tanya, a garda, Esther, a special needs teacher and Oliver who lives in Germany and works with a building supplier company. When asked to cast her mind forward to Christmas and the moment the young children in Africa finally tear open the shoeboxes, Sigi smiled at the thought and remarked: If I could only give the children half the joy I had when I got that little doll I will be quite happy! INDEPENDENT Limerick councillor John Loftus has revealed he signed the petition in favour of knocking down the Moyross wall. While members on the northside have not joined the online campaign which has attracted over 125 signatures Cllr Loftus, who represents City West, is fully supportive of the Moyross residents bid. The petition, first revealed by the Limerick Leader, has sparked a huge debate both locally and nationally, with Niall Boylan on Classic Hits 4FM dedicating almost 90 minutes to the debate on Friday. Cllr Loftus said: Building walls between any two communities wherever they are in the world is only going to cause a divide. I remember the first time I was in Moyross and saw that wall and wondered what the hell it was for. The wall was erected some 20 years ago after a spate of anti-social behaviour. But Cllr Loftus told the Limerick Leader he sees the 10-foot barrier as an overreaction. It's there as if people are going to sweep into Thomond Village and Caherdavin and rape and pillage. It's not a fair reflection of of Moyross. We are told how dangerous the place it is - people need to get real, he added. Some residents in Moyross have turned fire on the students in Thomond Village to the other side of the wall, saying if the partition is knocked, it could in fact lead to anti-social behaviour from them. Lucia Begley, who lives in Pineview, Moyross wrote on Facebook: If they take that wall away the students will run riot in Moyross. We have to listen them party nearly every night. They go around speeding in there cars in the village. So keep the wall up. Ger ORiordan added: To be honest the students are gone worse than any bad egg across the wall. Ger Crawford says the focus should be on putting another shop and bus shelter in Moyross, as opposed to spending money on demolishing the wall. BOSSES of some of Limerick's biggest American companies have allayed fears of job losses under policies planned by Donald Trump. Mr Trump whose election as American president shocked the world two weeks ago has pledged to aggressively cut corporation tax and introduce other policies to entice US multi-national firms to come home. Limerick has a large number of companies which were founded in the United States, with around 8,849 people working in multi-national firms backed by the IDA. A further 6,599 people are working at IDA-backed firms in Clare, including the Shannon Free Zone. However, local leaders of Northern Trust, Uber and Cook Medical which between them employ 2,000 people have distanced themselves from fears of job losses. And in a statement, Dell EMC has reaffirmed its commitment to Ireland, where it has operations here, plus Dublin and Cork. Bill Doherty, managing director of medical technology firm Cook Medical, said: I would say there is nothing to fear. Global companies are always going to remain global. It is difficult if not impossible to run a global firm out of one continent due to the sheer time zones alone. You need to be in Europe and Asia-Pacific if you are to be a true global company. Companies like Cook would stay in these continents as they as they are global. Mr Doherty feels that if Mr Trump did slash corporation tax to 15%, it could benefit Ireland, showing its 12.5% rate as being a sensible and normal thing to have. Mr Trump is talking about bringing back jobs to the rust belt where youd have mining. Jobs in companies like Cook are not the kind of roles people in the rust belt are equipped to do. It doesnt add up to me that a company would want to move part of its manufacturing back to that part of the USA, or any part, the Rosbrien man continued. Kieran Harte, the Ireland boss of transportation network firm Uber, which has its European headquarters in Limerick, also appeared to rule out job moves locally. Our jobs are specifically Europe, Middle East and Asia based, serving a part of our business outside the USA. It is not something we have thought much about at all to be honest. We are moving ahead with our development here, he said. Catherine Duffy, the manager of financial services firm Northern Trust, said she could not see any of her companys jobs moving back Stateside. There are big set-ups here, there is a lot of infrastructure, there is a skilled labour force we have here. All of this has to be taken into account. We have a book of business to run, we have a client base to look after. Nothing is changing for us in terms of our growth trajectory, so for us it is business as usual, said Ms Duffy, who is also the president of the Limerick Chamber. In a statement released to the Leader, a spokesperson for Dell said: Ireland remains a strategic location for the company its close proximity to Europe, its English speaking workforce, and the quality of available talent are just some of the many reasons we can to Ireland in the first instance and why we remain committed 30 years later." The chief executive of the Limerick Chamber Dr James Ring said while he does not believe the citys current jobs at American firms are under threat, he believes the gravy train of new investments may ground to a halt. It seems the most plausible view is the companies which are already here will stay as they have too much invested. They cannot just up sticks and go home because a policy changes. We wont see as much investment in the future though, if Trump brings in these measures. We might find it harder to get a new Regeneron or Dell. It is imperative if this level of investment slows, we must push investment from our own people and incentivise entrepreneurs in this country, Dr Ring said. But this claim was rejected by John Hartnett, the Corbally businessman who is based in the tech capital of America, Californias Silicon Valley. There is no question that if there is an attractive tax rate in the US, it is going to see companies create a value proposition, he argued. On the other hand, if youre a company based in the USA, you cannot do everything from California. You have to have talent in the European market, which represents 500 million consumers. Servicing this from the West Coast of the USA is not practical, Mr Hartnett told the Limerick Leader from America. Mr Hartnett, who was a high-profile supporter of Hillary Clinton, said Mr Trump was coming out with simplistic soundbites while not thinking through the complexities of implementing them. He pointed out many of the jobs at American firms in Limerick are not that transportable. Speaking recently to the Limerick Leader from Washington, where he was visiting as well as number of other US cities last week, finance minister Michael Noonan said that is not being expressed here at all, when asked if jobs in Limerick could be affected when Mr Trump becomes the 45th President of the United States in January. Asked his own views on the election of Mr Trump, Mr Noonan said: Its up to the Americans to decide who their president is. He said he had not sought a meeting with the businessman, whom he met on a red carpet when he jetted into Shannon Airport two years ago. Im dealing with the present administration. Ive had no contact with him at all, and didnt look for contact with him, Mr Noonan said. My trip wasnt related to the election, it was arranged after Brexit. The trip is more of a follow-up to Brexit than anything else. But asked if Limerick could still benefit from jobs following Britains decision to leave the European Union, he said: There is no diminution in interest. But there is nothing ready to announce yet. The IDAs business development manager for the Mid-West, Niall OCallaghan said: The United States is, and will continue to be a major source of foreign investment into Ireland, and we expect US companies will remain a very significant part of Irelands FDI story. The Limerick Leader contacted a number of other American companies based in the city and county to ascertain their intentions following Mr Trumps election. Regeneron could not be reached, and Analog Devices declined to comment. On Thursday, November 24, at 11.30, Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference entitled "Will Bread Price Grow? Prices on Flour and Food Wheat Market." The participants will include Director of the Millers of Ukraine Union Rodion Rybchynsky, Adviser to Economic Development and Trade Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Romanovych, owner of Roma LLC Commercial and Industrial Company Serhiy Tsymbalov (8/5a Reitarska Street). Admission requires press accreditation. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. Some of our partners may process your data as a part of their legitimate business interest without asking for consent. To view the purposes they believe they have legitimate interest for, or to object to this data processing use the vendor list link below. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page. LIMA, Nov. 21 -- Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the 24th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting from Nov. 19-20 in Lima, capital of Peru. Here is a list of the highlights of his attendance. On Saturday, the Chinese president delivered a keynote speech at the APEC CEO summit, calling for pushing forward the building of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), as protectionism has dented global trade and economic integration. The FTAAP "is a strategic initiative critical for the long-term prosperity of the Asia-Pacific," said Xi. "We should firmly pursue the FTAAP as an institutional mechanism for ensuring an open economy in the Asia-Pacific," he told global business leaders. The FTAAP process was launched at the 2014 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Beijing with the endorsement of a roadmap. A "collective strategic study" was conducted subsequently, as agreed by the APEC members, and the result should be reported to the economic leaders by the end of 2016. "The Asia-Pacific is under similar pressure and is grappling with such challenges as the fragmentation of regional economic cooperation," Xi said. After the APEC CEO Summit, the Chinese president, along with other APEC leaders, held dialogue with representatives of the APEC Business Advisory Council, exchanging views on the FTAAP, economic integration in the Asia-Pacific, connectivity and the Chinese economy. Speaking at the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting on Sunday, Xi urged APEC members to stay committed to taking economic globalization forward with vigorous measures, despite increasing setbacks around the world. Highlighting the APEC's role as a pioneer, leader and trailblazer of economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific and the world at large, Xi called on APEC members to leverage the Asia-Pacific's role as a growth engine and work for an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy. Currently, the world economy still finds itself in profound adjustment, with weak recovery and more divergent growth, said Xi, adding that economic globalization has encountered setbacks, as evidenced by sluggish international trade and investment and rising protectionism. Citing the blueprint for strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive world economic growth produced by the G20 Hangzhou Summit in September, the Chinese president said it embodies the spirit of partnership to jointly rise to challenges as well as the commitment to common development. At the high-level gathering of APEC economic leaders, Xi called on the APEC economies to stay committed to taking economic globalization forward, increasing openness in the Asia-Pacific economy, breaking bottlenecks in regional connectivity and blazing new trails in reform and innovation. "We need to stick to our agenda and take more effective actions to realize the FTAAP at an early date, thus bringing about an Asia-Pacific economy with greater openness," said the Chinese president. He recalled that China has given priority to opening up to the Asia-Pacific over the past 25 years since it joined the APEC, and pledged to work with other parties to increase openness, pursue regional economic integration and connectivity, advance reform and innovation, and jointly write an exciting chapter of Asia-Pacific cooperation. On the sidelines of the APEC Meeting, President Xi also held bilateral talks with leaders of some countries. Talking with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Saturday, Xi called for joint efforts by China and Russia to push forward the FTAAP process, saying that both sides should fully implement the consensus reached at the 2014 APEC Beijing meeting and other meetings in recent years. He underlined the need for China-Russia cooperation under the APEC framework in a bid to promote the bloc to contribute more to regional and global economic growth. Echoing Xi's remarks, Putin said Russia and China should strengthen coordination and collaboration in APEC and other multilateral mechanisms. Hailing good momentum of bilateral economic ties and achievements they have scored in high and new technology, the Russian president stressed that Russia is looking forward to working with China to strengthen collaboration between the Belt and Road Initiative and the EEU. When meeting with Barack Obama on Saturday, Xi spoke highly of the U.S. president's endeavor in developing bilateral ties, especially their joint decision to build a new type of China-U.S. major country relations that has guided the two countries to achieve significant progress in bilateral ties. Recalling his close contacts with Xi in recent years, Obama said he and Xi have established a candid, friendly and constructive relationship and enhanced mutual trust. In more than three years, the United States and China have joined hands to confront challenges and effectively managed differences, while bilateral consultation and cooperation mechanisms have yielded rich results, said Obama. The U.S. side is ready to develop a more sustained, fruitful relationship with China, said Obama. During his meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday, Xi praised Duterte's visit to China last month, saying it achieved full improvement of China-Philippines relations, opened a new chapter for bilateral ties and injected positive energy into regional peace and stability. On maritime issues, Xi urged the two sides to actively mull maritime cooperation and promote positive interaction on the sea, and thus jointly transform the South China Sea issue into an opportunity for bilateral friendly cooperation. For his part, Duterte spoke highly of his successful visit to China last month, saying it produced rich results. The Philippines follows an independent foreign policy and is willing to be friends with "brotherly" China forever, said the president. The Philippines, he added, is willing to properly address maritime issues with China through dialogue and consultation, so as to jointly safeguard the momentum of improvement and development in bilateral relations. During the APEC Meeting, Xi also met with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Leung Chun-ying, chief executive of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Xi's attendance at the APEC Meeting and his remarks have received warm and positive response from world media, experts and netizens. Mario Mongilardi, president of the Lima Chamber of Commerce, believed Xi sent an encouraging message to the business communities of the 21 APEC members. "The president of China made an extraordinary speech today. He laid out the bases for the future growth of the world economy," Mongilardi told Xinhua in an interview following the summit. Luis Delgado, a professor of social studies at the state University of Carabobo in northern Venezuela, said "the speech marks the route the Chinese government is proposing to reactivate the world economy," and indicates "how the Asia-Pacific region can be the vanguard in the reactivation of the world economy." On social media, netizens speak highly of Xi's speech and hail China's effort to push forward the process of FTAAP. "China is gearing itself to fill a possible U.S.-shaped hole and led the way on global trade," said Twitter user Christel Quek. "(There is) no other better ways. Partner together makes the world more peaceful. China makes a right move," said Facebook user Alex Ong. Daimler China has fired an executive following his alleged insulting remarks on China during an altercation over a car parking space in Beijing. The case has drawn huge attention on social media and has provoked anger among Chinese. The truck and bus company released a statement saying that the company had decided to part ways with Rainer Gartner, president and CEO at Daimler Trucks & Buses China Ltd., following the incident. The statement said that the manner in which Gartner had conducted himself during the dispute was detrimental to the standing of our company, unbecoming of a manager of our brand and prejudicial to our good name. Such an incident reflects in no way the values of Daimler AG, and we sincerely apologize for the concerns raised by this matter, the statement added. Gartner has made a disparaging comment on Chinese people, saying that "I have been in China one year already; the first thing I learned here is: All you Chinese are bastards." His gaffe came after a parking row with a Chinese driver at a residential community in Beijing's northeastern Shunyi District. It was alleged that the Chinese driver was reversing into a parking space, when a black Mercedes-Benz suddenly clinched the spot. The quarrel drew passersby to come and defend the Chinese, but they were pepper sprayed by the German executive. The entire scene was posted on social media, drawing anger and discussions among Chinese netizens. Zoo Atlanta invites fans to choose names for the new panda cubs.(Xinhua/Courtesy of Zoo Atlanta) A U.S. zoo is inviting fans around the world to choose names for their newest panda cubs. The names of the 11-week-old twin girls, now referred to as "Cub A" and "Cub B," will be finalized on their 100th day of life on Dec. 12, 2016, Zoo Atlanta announced on its website on Monday. Voting opens on seven sets of names on Monday and will continue until 11 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 4. The names will be revealed at the twins' 100 Day Naming Celebration on Dec. 12. "There's much more to this milestone than just two names. The permanence of names gives us a celebration of the achievements of the giant panda program at Zoo Atlanta and a continuation of the bright future of one of our longest-lived and most successful conservation partnerships," said Raymond B. King, the zoo's President and CEO. "It's also a tribute to our giant panda care team, who have done a tremendous and tireless job in helping Lun Lun raise two healthy, thriving young cubs," He said. The twins were born on Sept. 3 to their mother Lun Lun and father Yang Yang in Atlanta. The seven sets of names, each of which has a special meaning or association with the cubs or their parents, were supplied by Zoo Atlanta's partners in giant panda conservation in Chengdu, China. Expected to make their debut at Zoo Atlanta in December 2016 or January 2017, the pair, who are the second set of female twins for 19-year-old Lun Lun, follow in the footsteps of their older brothers and sisters in receiving their names on their 100th day. The 100 Day Celebration follows an ancient Chinese tradition that holds that when a child reaches the 100th day of life, he or she has survived the fragility of infancy and may be considered on track for a successful future. The names in the running and their meanings are as follows, in alphabetical order: 1. Ba Lun and Shu Lun: Ba Shu are ancient names of the Sichuan area and are still widely used in China, including Sichuan Province and Chongqing. Ba Shu also means "land of abundance." 2. Jiu Jiu and Yuan Yuan: Jiu means "longevity" or "long time." Yuan means "far distance" or "far away." Together, they mean "longevity and permanence." 3. Lun Jia and Jia Lun: The first Jia means "addition." The second Jia means "good," "fine" or "praise." Lun references daughters of Lun Lun. 4. Lun Li and Lun Yu: Lun Li means "ethic" or "ethics." Lun Yu is Confucian Analects, a collection of sayings of Confucius and one of the pillars of Chinese culture, widely read across centuries. 5. Ya Lun and Xi Lun: Ya means "elegant;" Xi means "happy;" "Lun" references daughters of Lun Lun -- "Lun Lun's elegant and happy daughters." 6. Ya Lun and Xin Lun: Similar in origin to Ya Lun and Xi Lun, with Xin meaning "fragrant." 7. Yang Hai and Yang Gui: Yang is a reference to the twins' father, Yang Yang, and means "ocean." Hai means "sea." Gui has many meanings, including "laurel." Disturbing history (Image credit: nswwrecks.info) Historic World War II-era shipwrecks in the Java Sea, near Indonesia, are being plundered for scrap metal by illegal salvage operators, according to an underwater survey expedition that explored the region early this month. The expedition found that several Allied warships that were sunk in combat with Japanese forces in 1942 are now entirely missing or have been badly damaged, likely by people illegally scavenging for metal. This 3D sonar scan image taken by the expedition shows the location of the wreck of a British destroyer, HMS Electra, which sank in the Battle of the Java Sea in February 1942. Only part of the shipwreck remains. [Read full story about the plundered WWII-era shipwrecks] USS Perch (Image credit: US Navy) The wreck of the USS Perch (SS-176) is one of several wartime wrecks that has fallen prey to metal scavengers in recent years. The American submarine was scuttled in the Java Sea in March 1942 after being damaged during an attack on Japanese destroyers. All its crew were taken as prisoners-of-war by Japanese vessels before it sank. The submarine wreck was found by divers in 2007, but the latest expedition to the Java Sea early this month found it has "completely disappeared," according to the expedition report. [Read full story about the plundered WWII-era shipwrecks] HMS Exeter (Image credit: nswwrecks.info) The Java Sea expedition also explored the wreck site of the British heavy cruiser HMS Exeter, one of five Allied warships sunk during the Second Battle of the Java Sea in March 1942. The expedition reported that the wreck of the Exeter has now almost entirely disappeared, and little more than a hole in the seafloor remains where it once lay. Returning to port (Image credit: Royal Navy) HMS Exeter was one of three Allied warships that sank the powerful German battleship Graf Spee at the Battle of the River Plate, off the Atlantic coast of South America in December 1939 the first naval battle of World War II. This image shows the Exeter returning to its base in Devonport in the United Kingdom in February 1940, a few weeks after the battle. Damaged in battle (Image credit: Royal Navy) In early 1942, HMS Exeter and other Allied warships were assigned to defend the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) from invasion by Japanese forces. The Exeter was badly damaged by shell fire from the Japanese cruiser Haguro in the first Battle of the Java Sea on Feb. 27, 1942, but it survived to fight in the Second Battle of the Java Sea a few days later, on March 1, 1942, when it sank after being hit by Japanese torpedoes. The Exeter was almost intact when the wreck was rediscovered in 2007, but now it has been almost completely scavenged for scrap metal, according to the expedition report. HNLMS De Ruyter (Image credit: Koninklijke Marine) The recent expedition to survey the wartime Java Sea shipwrecks was sponsored by the Karel Doorman Fund, a Dutch naval memorial society. The wrecks of three Dutch warships that fought in two Battles of the Java Sea were rediscovered in 2002. They included the wreck of the cruiser HNLMS De Ruyter, pictured here, which was assigned as the flagship of Rear-Admiral Karel Doorman for the Java Sea battles. HNMLS Java (Image credit: Koninklijke Marine) The Dutch war wrecks rediscovered in the Java Sea in 2002 also included the cruiser HNMLS Java, pictured here, and the destroyer HNLMS Kortenaer. The Dutch ships were among 14 Allied warships that took part in the First Battle of the Java Sea on Feb. 27, 1942, against a Japanese invasion fleet of more than 18 warships. Under attack (Image credit: Koninklijke Marine) The Karel Doorman Fund expedition had planned to capture video footage of the Dutch war wrecks in preparation for next year's 75th anniversary commemorations of the Battles of the Java Sea. But, the expedition reported that the De Ruyter and Java wrecks now seem to be completely missing from the seafloor, and a large piece of the Kortenaer is also missing. This photograph shows the Java under fire from Japanese aircraft a few weeks before it was sunk at the First Battle of the Java Sea. USS Houston (Image credit: US Navy) Under international agreements, naval ships remain the property of their home navies even after they sink, and it is illegal to salvage anything from them without permission. But investigators say high metal prices and a lack of effective protection for war wrecks in many parts of the world in recent years have resulted in extensive damage to many wrecks by illegal salvage operators. Among them is the wreck of the American cruiser USS Houston, shown here, which sank in combat with Japanese warships in 1942 at the Battle of the Sunda Strait, southwest of the Java Sea, with around 650 sailors and marines on board. The U.S. Navy reported last year that the Houston wreck has also suffered "unauthorized disturbance of the grave site." [Read full story about the plundered WWII-era shipwrecks] Men still aren't living as long as women and that holds true for humans' primate cousins as well, a new study shows. In the study, researchers looked at data from six populations of humans from both modern and historical times, in different countries. The investigators found that, "in spite of the huge gains in human longevity over the past century, the male-female difference has not shrunk," said Susan Alberts, a professor of biology at Duke University and a co-author of the new study. The researchers did find that the the amount by which women outlived men varied across populations. For instance, the largest male-female difference in life span among the populations studied was in modern-day Russia, where the gap is approximately 10 years. Much smaller differences were found in other populations such as people living in modern-day Nigeria and India. [Extending Life: 7 Ways to Live Past 100] Additionally, the scientists found that the gap for nonhuman primates was much smaller than it was for humans. In the study, the researchers looked at the mortality of six different human populations that represented "the full range of human experience." The scientists drew information about three generally long-lived populations from a large international database called the Human Mortality Database, including the Swedish population from 1751 to 1759, the Swedish population from 2000 to 2009 and the Japanese population in 2012. The researchers also looked at data from three populations with generally much shorter lives, including two modern hunter-gatherer populations, the Hadza of Tanzania and the Ache of Paraguay, as well as data from a population of freed slaves, who migrated from the U.S. to Liberia between 1820 and 1843. For nonhuman primates, the researchers looked at data collected from six wild populations of sifakas, muriquis, capuchins, gorillas, chimpanzees and baboons, each with a population somewhere between about 400 and 1,500. Finally, the researchers also supplemented their data on humans by looking at smaller data sets from an additional 16 human populations, including people in Russia, China, India, the U.S. and other countries. The study produced three major findings: First, in long-lived populations of humans, such as those of modern-day Japan and Sweden, people's average life spans are fairly consistent, meaning the age of death within populations is fairly similar in different countries: Most deaths in those countries occur when adults are between their late 70s and early 90s. In contrast, other primates' life spans are much shorter and highly variable. Second, the difference in life span between the people living industrial societies and those living in hunter-gatherer societies was greater than the difference between the hunter-gatherers and the nonhuman primates. People living in industrial societies live 30 to 50 years longer than hunter-gatherers, but hunter-gatherers live only 10 to 30 years longer than nonhuman primates, the researchers found. Third, the lives of females "tend to be longer and less variable" in length than the lives of males, the researchers found. [Wonder Woman: 10 Interesting Facts About the Female Body] In all of the populations, the oldest individuals tended to be females, according to the study. However, for both nonhuman primates and the human populations with shorter life expectancies, the male disadvantage in life span appears to be relatively small. The reason for this difference between males and females still isn't clear, the researchers said. But the existence of this difference in so many different groups of humans, as well as in nonhuman primates, suggests that the disparity has "deep evolutionary roots," the researchers wrote in their study. One possible reason for the difference is "that men take more risks," Alberts told Live Science. If men's life spans are cut short by risk-taking behavior, it could explain the gap in longevity between men and women, as well as the greater variability in men's age of death as compared to women's, she said. Another possibility is that testosterone plays a role, Alberts said. The higher levels of testosterone found in men may compromise their immune systems, which may affect how long they live, she said. The study had several limitations, such as a relatively small sample size of nonhuman primate populations, the researchers noted. The research was published today (Nov. 21) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Originally published on Live Science. If you think dinosaurs are amazing and unusual, you may want to take a closer look at your own mammalian family tree it's brimming with extinct animals that are just as bizarre and fascinating as a duck-billed and crested hadrosaur, or a frilled and horned Triceratops. A new, illustrated "field guide" to extinct prehistoric mammals describes the range of warm-blooded creatures of all sizes that roamed the Earth millions of years ago, and they're stranger and more spectacular than you might imagine. In "The Princeton Field Guide to Prehistoric Mammals (opens in new tab)" (Princeton University Press, 2016), author Donald Prothero, a research associate in vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, introduces readers to an array of real-life, but seemingly fantastic, beasts extinct mammals. [In Images: 'Field Guide' Showcases Bizarre and Magnificent Prehistoric Mammals] Mammals first emerged during the dinosaur age, with the first so-called "true mammal" a tiny, shrew-like creature appearing about 160 million years ago. The group later came to dominate the planet, after the nonavian dinosaurs died out. Over time, mammals diversified into a wide range of forms, many of which can still be seen today, in their living relatives. There were sizable carnivores: enormous and long-legged hyenas, saber-toothed cats with blade-like incisors, toothed whales larger than any swimming the oceans today, and the so-called "bear otter," which was about the size of a modern tiger. Even more massive than the carnivores were some of the plant eaters, such as hornless rhinos with necks like a giraffe's, giant ground sloths and towering mammoths. Other extinct mammals sported peculiar ornamentation: impressive tusks that curved downward (or sharply upward), mouths that resembled shovels, or oddly shaped bony structures sprouting from the fronts of their skulls, in addition to the horns protruding from the tops of their heads. Prothero recently spoke with Live Science to explain how this book not only spotlights some of the most charismatic mammals in the fossil record but also represents the ways that scientists group these animals together. Anatomical studies and recent innovations in molecular biology are providing a clearer picture than ever before of how these amazing animals and their modern descendants are related. (This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.) Live Science: How did you get involved with this book project? Donald Prothero: I've worked on fossil mammals almost all my life, since I started as a paleontologist in the early 1970s. I saw that the Princeton series had a field guide to dinosaurs and was planning one for pterosaurs, but had no title for fossil mammals which, in many ways, is actually the more interesting topic! So I decided that was something that needed to be done. I contacted the publisher at Princeton and told them I was interested, and they were interested, too. Live Science: When it comes to paleontology, the general public usually thinks of dinosaurs as the "rock stars" of the fossil record. How could a field guide to prehistoric mammals change that? Prothero: We do see people interested in mammals already saber-toothed tigers and mammoths and giant rhinoceroses. I'm trying to tap into that and point out that there's a huge array of unfamiliar but equally bizarre and fascinating creatures that we have in the mammal fossil record in many ways, even more bizarre than dinosaurs. Live Science: How does one put together a "field guide" to extinct animals? Prothero: You obviously can't have a true field guide for creatures that are extinct. "The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs" is more of a catalog of all the extinct dinosaurs but there are only a couple hundred species of dinosaurs that are known, and there are more than 20,000 species of extinct and living mammals! I realized I couldn't do what Greg Paul [author of "The Field Guide to Dinosaurs"] did, because there are way too many fossil mammals. So I had to be very selective in how I went about approaching this; I really focused on the interesting and the unusual ones in each family. [12 Amazing Saber-Toothed Animals] Live Science: What was the biggest challenge of making those selections? Prothero: It was trying to decide how much weight to give this and how much weight to give that. For example, in terms of diversity, rodents are by far the most abundant vertebrates on Earth; they were more abundant than dinosaurs by an order of magnitude. But I don't think I could get an audience too excited about 700 species of rodents. So I chose to give the rodents just a highlight or two, and indicated how I could not do them justice. When you look at a modern mammal field guide, it would be dominated by rodents and bats. Those are the things that are most common today, and you'd only see three pages on large mammals. But in the fossil record, it's actually the opposite large mammals are well preserved, and they're also much more interesting to most lay readers, so that's what I focused on. And there are a lot of them, and there are a lot of things people don't know about them. [In Photos: Mammals Through Time] (Image credit: Mary Persis Williams) Live Science: Describe the world of prehistoric mammals. What kind of ecosystems did they inhabit, and how were their environments different from the world as we know it today? Prothero: Two-thirds of fossil mammal history was in the age of dinosaurs. Back in the late Triassic, it was just little rat-sized creatures hiding in the dark and the vegetation. It was a greenhouse planet with no ice anywhere at all, very high sea levels and very warm climates all of which favored dinosaurs, and mammals had to live with the fact that they were in a world with a great reptilian overlord. But when the nonbird dinosaurs vanished 66 million years ago, the world opened up to mammals. It was still a greenhouse planet in the early age of mammals there were still tropical rainforests all the way to Montana and North Dakota. Even above the Arctic Circle, there were alligators and crocodiles, and there were lots of mammals as well. But then that planet changed in the course of its climate over the last 50 million years, and the greenhouse world of the dinosaurs gradually vanished, got drier and colder in various phases through the latter part of the age of mammals, until the last 2 million years, where we've been in ice ages ever since. Live Science: The book is full of illustrations representing so many kinds of extinct mammals. How do paleoartists reconstruct what these animals may have looked like in life? Prothero: From the bones, you can be pretty confident of the shape of the body, and the amount of muscles they had in various places that's fairly well established by just doing basic animal anatomy. And most groups have living descendants, so you can base it on that as well, and also what kind of fur they might have had. Coloration is simply a matter of taste. So, it's a mixture of things that we're confident about, based on evidence, and things which are really artistic license. [Image Gallery: Evolution's Most Extreme Mammals] (Image credit: Mary Persis Williams) Live Science: Have recent discoveries changed how paleontologists view the mammal family tree? Prothero: There was what was called the cladistics, or the classification revolution, in paleomammalogy, in the 1970s and 1980s. By the 1990s, we had sorted out a lot of the relationships between living and extinct mammals at a level that had never been possible before cladistics came along. Over the same period of time, molecular biology made huge breakthroughs. By the end of the 1990s into the early 2000s, we had very powerful molecular evidence for how mammals were related and most of that confirmed what we already decided was true based on anatomy. Now there are mammal groups that are based on molecular evidence only, because we don't have any anatomy to support them yet. I felt it was time to go ahead and put that in the book, to show that this is where the state of research is as of today, that we really have a very different perspective on how all of these things are related. For example, there's good evidence that ties elephants together with things like manatees a lot of anatomical and fossil evidence first, and when they started doing molecular biology, it was even more strongly supported. But then, molecular studies add things like tenrecs, which are these insectivorous mammals from Madagascar, and golden moles, and aardvarks, that you would never cluster with things like elephants, because they don't have any anatomical reasons that connect them. So that group has been called on evidence from molecules only, the "Afrotheria," because they all seem to have origins in Africa. But we've yet to find any anatomical character that ties an aardvark and a tenrec and a golden mole and all these other things to elephants and manatees. [Wipe Out: History's Most Mysterious Extinctions] Live Science: What do you hope that readers will get out of this field guide? Prothero: It's a fun book to flip through, is the first thing. It's full of amazing and bizarre creatures, many of which have never been illustrated or adequately illustrated in any book for a lay audience. And there are a lot of new discoveries here. We found many, many more weird mammals than they've ever heard of before. There are other books published on fossil mammals, but now they're grossly out of date, both because they use old-fashioned classification schemes that are now obsolete and because they don't catch up with what we now know, all the newer discoveries about these mammals. Even people who think they know something about fossil mammals will find there are surprises. "The Princeton Field Guide to Prehistoric Mammals" was published Nov. 15. Prehistoric Mammals (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) $24.99 (opens in new tab) View (opens in new tab) Original article on Live Science. For women in the third trimester of their pregnancy, lying down on their back may place stress on the fetus, which could increase the risk of stillbirth in certain cases, a small new study from New Zealand suggests. However, experts say that it's too early to make recommendations based on the findings, and that pregnant women do not need to change the way they lie down as a result of the study. "It is not possible to draw a firm link between maternal position and stillbirth risk from this study and further robust research is needed," Hannah Knight, a spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. "Women should sleep in a position that is comfortable for them," Knight said. In the study, the researchers at the University of Auckland monitored 29 healthy, pregnant women and their fetuses while the women lay down in different positions on their right or left side, and on their back for 30 minutes at a time. The women were 35 to 38 weeks pregnant. [9 Uncommon Conditions That Pregnancy May Bring] The researchers found that, when the women lay on their backs or their right side, the fetuses were more likely to be in a sleep-like state that's associated with using less oxygen, compared to when the women lay on their left side. In addition, when the women lay on their back, the fetuses were more likely to switch from being in a more active state to the sleep-like state, compared to when the women lay on their left side. The researchers also looked at the fetuses' heart rate variability, which is a measure of the variations in the interval between heartbeats. They found a link between those pregnant women in the study who lay on their back and a reduction in heart rate variability in the fetus, compared to those women in the study who lay down on their left side. Lower heart rate variability is known to precede fetal distress, the researchers said. Overall, the researchers said that their findings suggest that, for the women studied, lying on the back is mildly stressful for the baby, and the fetus adapts to this by switching to a state where less oxygen is consumed. They speculated that in certain cases, such as when the fetus is already deprived of adequate oxygen due to other factors, the fetus might not be able to adapt to the extra stress that's imposed by the mother lying on her back. However, none of the women in the study had a stillbirth. "The supine position may be disadvantageous for fetal wellbeing and in compromised pregnancies, may be a sufficient stressor to contribute to fetal demise," the researchers wrote in the Nov. 22 issue of the The Journal of Physiology. All of the women gave birth at full term, and neither the newborns nor their mothers experienced any complications. It is important that women are not unnecessarily alarmed by the results of this small study of 29 women, none of whom had a stillbirth," Knight said. She also noted that the study measured the occurrence of a sleep-like state in the fetuses, "which has little evidence of any association with hypoxia, brain damage or stillbirth." This study is not the first to suggest that there's a link between the mother's position while she is lying down and a risk of stillbirth. In a 2011 studyof about 500 women, the same group of researchers found that women who slept on their back had an increased risk of stillbirth compared to those who slept on their left side. In that study, the researchers calculated that the risk of stillbirth for women who slept on their back or their right side was about 4 out of 1,000, compared to about 2 out of 1,000 in women who slept on their left side. The researchers noted that in their new study, they looked at the effect of maternal positions only while the women were awake, and only for a very short period of time, said study researcher Dr. Peter Stone, a professor of maternal fetal medicine at the University of Auckland. More research is needed to examine the physiological effect of staying in certain sleeping positions overnight, Stone said. Original article on Live Science. Gentleman ( Junzi) is a key concept in traditional Chinese culture, and constitutes the ideal for a male personality in the thinking of Confucius and his disciples. Under the influence of Confucian thinking, the terms gentleman and lady, or unassuming gentleman and graceful lady have become the idealized personality traits to which men and women aspire in a Chinese cultural setting. The Chinese term for gentleman (Junzi) can be found in many of the pre-Qin era classics. It occurs 122 times in the Changes of ZhouZhouyi, 186 times in the Book of OdesThe Classic of Poetry, also Shijing or Shih-ching, 107 times in The Analects and 141 times in Master Zuos Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals. Accordingly, an understanding of the Chinese concept of Junzi is necessary for anyone wishing to understand or study traditional Chinese culture. The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary defines Junzi as a classical term for persons of high status; in later times, the term is used to refer to persons of high moral integrity. As a definition, however, this seems a little too vague, as it does not give a full and accurate understanding of the Chinese concept ofJunzi. This is evidenced by the volume of internet traffic asking about, discussing and exploring the concept of Junzi. To clearly understand the concept of Junzi, we first need to understand the three characters (yin), (Jun) and (zi). In ancient Chinese, yin() is interpreted to mean someone who rules or has control over human affairs. In this sense, the character yin implies governance, or someone who is in charge of public affairs; i.e. an official. The character itself is a pictorial representation of a hand holding a knife or writing brush, symbolizing a person with power over or control of things. For this reason, many of the ancient words for official titles include the character yin, for example (government officials who are teachers), (chief counselor), prefectural magistrate), (official for the Dao), (official for divination rites), (mayor of the capital), etc. The character (Jun) is composed of the characters (yin) and (kou). The explanation given in the ShuowenJiezi (the early 2nd-century Han Dynasty Chinese dictionary that gives explanations of basic characters and analysis of compound characters), a gentlemanJunzi is respectful and practices governance; and his commands are given orally. In other words, a gentleman is a respected status, and its meaning is derived from the meanings of the characters yin and kou. A gentleman is someone who possesses force or power and has the ability to issue orders. There is a classical expression a person of status should be a gentleman. Here, gentleman generally refers to a ruler: the supreme authority of a country or region. In addition to the basic meaning of child, the character (zi) is also the root for words expressing respect, titles and honorifics. For example, the word zi implies respect, and is a term commonly used to refer to a person of virtue. The first person to be awarded the honorific zi was Jizi [Gija (Kijain) of Korea]. Jizi was the paternal uncle of the last emperor of the Shang Dynasty and held the imperial rank of Grand Preceptor (the most senior of the top three civil positions at the time). He was given this name because he had once got stuck in a basket (). As Chinas first philosopher, Jizis thinking influenced Yu the Great, and led to the Zhou concepts that the nobility should be morally upright and protect the people as well as to the Confucian concept of virtue as reflected in the book Shangshu (Book of Documents). He taught the nine precepts for ruling (found in the Nine Categories of the Grand Paradigm) to King Wu, the first ruler of the Zhou Dynasty, and these were adopted by later generations as the fundamentals of governance. That he was held in considerable esteem by the rulers of later dynasties is evidenced by the fact that the Grand Paradigm is referenced in the names, lintel inscription boards and antithetical couplets on either side of the doors of the first three buildings of the Forbidden City. Because of this, later generations referred to Gija as Jizi, and he accordingly became Chinas first zi. Gija was the first in a long line of persons to be awarded the zi honorific that include Confucius (Kongzi), Mencius (Mengzi), Laozi, Zhuangzi, Mozi, Xunzi, Guanzi, Guiguzi, Wuzi, Sun Tze (Sunzi), Huainanzi, Zengzi, Zhuzi and Chengzi. The use of the character (zi) as a suffix to a surname became an honorific indicating a person of profound knowledge and moral virtue, and the names of the philosophers who make up the Hundred Schools of Thought were created by this method. If we follow this logic, the original meaning of the word Junzi is clear. A gentleman (Junzi) is a ruler most deserving of respect and admiration because he (or she) has both learning and merit. In the Confucian view, Junzi stand apart from ordinary people in a class of their own. The masses are considered to be nothing more than fools, straw and chaff. In the pre-Confucius era, the term Junzi was not extensively used, as evidenced by the 58 surviving chapters of Shangshu, a classic historical text stretching over 1,400 years and covering the reign of Yu the Great, the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, in which the word Junzi only appears eight times. It was only during the time of Confucius that the term gained overwhelming popularity as an idealized personality trait lauded by the Confucian school, as evidenced by the frequent appearance of the term Junzi in the Changes of Zhou, the Book of Odes, Master Zuos Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Analects of Confucius. Given the wide-spread belief that Confucius himself compiled and revised the Book of Odes, the Book of DocumentsShangshu, the Book of Rites, the Classic of Music, the Changes of Zhou and the Spring and Autumn Annals, it is tempting to wonder whether the frequency of the term Junzi in these classical texts was intended by the original authors, or whether the term was incorporated into the texts as a personal preference of the master philosopher. What is clear, however, is the deep significance and affection Confucius attached to the term Junzi, in itself an apt reflection of the philosophers erudition and aspiration. Because Confucius is not only knowledgeable person, but also is ambitious, with lofty ideal. Until he was 68 years old, Confucius did not relinquish his efforts to rise through the official ranks or his aspirations to secure a position of power and authority which would allow him to make full use of his talent and ambition. As he was an extremely well-read and highly conscientious scholar, he also delved deep into the study of human needs, and waited for his chance to become the perfect ruler (one of the connotations of Junzi). Casting himself in the role of the quintessential Junzi, Confucius was not only a fervent proponent of the Junzi concept, but also enriched and reinforced the connotations of the personality traits linked with the term. In the Commentary on the Book of Changes, the phrase A gentleman (Junzi) should is used repeatedly to draw conclusions and set out the guiding beliefs of what constitutes a true gentleman. In the Analects, Confucius never misses an opportunity to interpret the profound connotations of Junzi; and on top of this, Confucius gave the majority of his disciples the name zi, effectively integrating his high expectations for his followers with his own belief in being a gentleman. Other than the higher ranking Ran Geng and Ran Yong, almost all of Confuciuss disciples were named zi, including Zi Yuan, Zi Lu, Zi Gong, Zi Si, ZiQian, Zi You, ZiWo, Zi You, Zi Xia, Zi Zhang and Zi Yu. Extending the Confucian legacy of advocating the concept of Junzi, the character Jun became a part of East Asian culture as a highly respectful term of address. Some notable examples include Liu Hezhen Jun, Runzhi Jun (Mao Zedong), Yao Jun, Li Jun, (the honorific) Tai Jun or Taikun, and Songxia Jun (Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic). Confuciuss fondness of the term also cemented the character zi as a key component in the honorary title of Confucius (Kong Zi), Mencius (Meng Zi), and philosophers of the Hundred Schools of Thought. In addition, the character became widely used in words of blessing and in courtesy names for children or young people. Many highly respected figures in Chinese history have the character zi in their courtesy names: MengKe (Meng Zi, courtesy name: Zi Yu), Zhuang Zhou (Zhang Zi, courtesy name: Zi Xiu), Huo Guang (Zi Meng), Zhang Zhao (Zi Bu), Lu Su (Zi Jing), Taishi Ci (Zi Yi), Du Fu (Zi Mei), Liu Zongyuan (Zi Hou), Su Shi (Zi Zhan), Yuan Mei (Zi Cai), Gui Youguang (Zi Mu), Zhao Mengfu (Zi Ang) and Wang Shizhen (Zi Zhen), for example. Moreover, influenced by traditional Chinese culture, modern Japanese still uses the kanji (Chinese character Jun) after surnames as a respectful term of address. With the changing times, the Confucian notion of Junzi has become a thing of the past. We have broken away from the original hierarchical context of feudal society, which created a sharp distinction between ruler and subject and between members of the nobility and commoners; and with this evolution, the term has gradually reshaped itself to connote the perfect personality trait and the ideal state of moral integrity. (Translated by Nicholas Smith, UK A Madagascar hissing cockroach at the Bronx Zoo in New York City. A new study found that male Madagascar hissing cockroaches have evolved different physical characteristics for mating. Cockroaches are known for their superior survival skills, but it seems these bugs have another evolutionary advantage when it comes to the mating game: Male roaches can grow bigger testicles, if need be, to woo a mate. A new study finds that Madagascar hissing cockroaches can adopt different strategies to win females, either evolving as a "lover" with bigger testes or a "fighter" with larger horns. Roaches compete for females in various ways, with two main approaches being to defend a female by force, or to sneak past larger males to mate. Based on these two strategies, the researchers think that males from two species of giant cockroaches from Madagascar evolved different physical characteristics based on their tactics for winning a female. [Gallery: Out-of-This-World Images of Insects] "These cockroaches are acting like red deer in the rut, competing for females by combat, but if they don't have the size and strength to win fights outright, they can try and sneak mates," study lead author Kate Durrant, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. "A male cockroach seems to be adapted to be either a lover or a fighter, and what's interesting is that they do this before they become fully adult, at the final moult." Durrant and her colleagues used 3D-scanning technology to precisely measure males from two different types of giant hissing cockroach species: the flat-horned cockroach, Aeluropoda insignis, and the wide-horned cockroach, Gromphadorhina oblongonota. The high-resolution X-ray computed tomography (CT) scans allowed the researchers to determine each roach's body length, body volume and the size of their "horns." These body measurements were then compared to the cockroaches' aggression levels when fighting rival males, and the size of their testes a sign that the roaches have more of an investment in mating. The researchers found that the flat-horned cockroach, which is small, with short horns, was nonaggressive and had large testes. These "lover" roaches were more likely to avoid fighting by mating with females behind the backs of larger males. Wide-horned cockroaches, in contrast, were larger and heavily armored with big horns, but with smaller testes "fighter" roaches. "These observations support sperm competition theoretical predictions but require field observations of natural mating systems in these relatively poorly known organisms for confirmation," the researchers conclude in the study. The trade-off between lover and fighter strategies is also seen within each cockroach species, the researchers reported in the study. In other words, individual males with smaller horns typically had larger testes to compensate, the scientists said. The study was published online Nov. 7 in the journal Scientific Reports (opens in new tab). Original article on Live Science. Selena Gomez opened up about her experience with mental health issues in an acceptance speech last night (Nov. 20) at the American Music Awards. "I was absolutely broken inside," Gomez said when she accepted her award for Favorite Female Artist Pop/Rock. "If you are broken, you don't have to stay broken." Gomez, who is 24, recently took a break from the spotlight to treat her anxiety and depression, NBC News reported. It is not uncommon for depression to emerge in a person's late teens or early 20s, said Dr. Matthew Lorber, the acting director of the child and adolescent psychiatry department at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Lorber has not treated Gomez. [7 Ways to Recognize Depression in 20-Somethings] Part of the reason for this is due to how the brain develops. Scientists now know that brain development continues into a person's mid-to-late 20s, Lorber told Live Science. "As the brain is developing and changing, it's susceptible to something new happening, and sometimes that might mean depression," Lorber said. In a person who is genetically predisposed to depression, a major life change or traumatic event can trigger the disorder, Lorber said. Indeed, in late adolescence and young adulthood, people face a number of serious stressors, such as finishing high school and beginning college. Life transitions always have a high risk for triggering depression, Lorber added. The impact of these different pressures on someone with a developing brain who might already be predisposed to depression can put that person at high risk for having a first depressive episode, Lorber said. Lorber noted that while the onset of depression is often recognized in a person's late teens or early 20s, that doesn't mean that the condition wasn't there earlier. In younger teens and children, for example, depression can sometimes present itself as irritability rather than sadness, Lorber said. A person's sex also plays a role. Depression is more common in teenage girls and young women than in their male counterparts, Lorber said. But before puberty, the rates of depression and other mood disorders such as anxiety, are the same in boys and girls, Lorber said. After puberty, girls are nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression, he said. Part of the reason for this goes back to brain development, Lorber said. People like to say that girls mature faster than boys, but indeed, parts of girls' brains do mature faster than those of boys, he said. Specifically, the emotional part of the brain develops more quickly in teenage girls than in boys, and this makes them more vulnerable to depression, he said. Originally published on Live Science. A 3D sonar scan of the remains of British warship HMS Electra, one of several war wrecks in the Java Sea thought to have been plundered by metal scavenging operators. Illegal salvagers have plundered at least six World War II shipwrecks near Indonesia for scrap metal, including the wreck of an American submarine that has now "completely vanished," according to investigators. The damaged wrecks include three Dutch and two British warships sunk by Japanese forces after the Battle of the Java Sea in February 1942, and the American submarine USS Perch, which sank in the Java Sea in March 1942 after being damaged in an attack on Japanese destroyers. The scale of damage to the historic shipwrecks was discovered early this month by an international team of divers and underwater survey specialists, sponsored by a Dutch naval memorial society, the Karel Doorman Fund. The fund had hoped to capture video footage of the Dutch shipwrecks in preparation for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Java Sea next year. [See Photos of the Historic WWII-Era Shipwrecks in the Java Sea] The Dutch wrecks were almost intact when they were rediscovered by amateur divers in 2002, but the latest expedition found only holes in the seabed where many of the wrecks once lay. "It was shocking," Jacques Brandt, president of the Karel Doorman Fund, told Live Science. "As the representative organization of the next-of-kin [of the ships' crews], it was a big blow to us, as we considered those ships as being war graves under the sea and they clearly should not be tampered with." The survey team reported that the wrecks of two of the Dutch warships the HNLMS De Ruyter and the HNLMS Java appear to be missing. A large part of a third wreck the HNLMS Kortenaer is also missing. The wreck of the Dutch cruiser HMNLS De Ruyter has disappeared from the floor of the Java Sea. Investigators think it was broken up for scrap by illegal salvage operators. (Image credit: Koninklijke Marine) They also reported that two British war wrecks in the area the HMS Exeter and the HMS Encounter have been almost entirely scavenged for scrap metal, and that the wreck of the USS Perch has "completely vanished." Wrecking history The Java Sea survey report has now been turned over to the Dutch defense ministry, which is in charge of protecting the nation's naval wrecks, Brandt said. "It is a very serious offence if the wrecks have been deliberately removed, but before we make that conclusion the authorities will have to make further investigations," he said. The Dutch defense minister made a statement to members of Parliament last week, noting the destruction reported by the expedition to the Java Sea wrecks. Britain's defense ministry also issued a statement in response to the expedition's report, condemning the damage and desecration done to the wrecks and suggesting that illegal metal salvagers are to blame. Under international agreements, naval vessels remain the property of their governments after they sink, and it is illegal to disturb or salvage them without official permission, said marine archaeologist Innes McCartney, a visiting research fellow at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom. [Sunken Treasures: The Curious Science of 7 Famous Shipwrecks] But a "perfect storm" of high metal prices and a lack of enforcement has resulted in many wartime shipwrecks being broken up for scrap metal by illegal salvagers, especially in the Asia and Pacific regions, he said. "There has been anecdotal evidence for an abundance for years that shipwrecks in the area of the Battle of the Java Sea have been getting hammered by salvage companies," McCartney told Live Science. "From my standpoint it's incredibly frustrating. We will now never be able to archaeologically study the Battle of the Java Sea it's gone, it's lost to us forever." Metal pirates Suspicion surrounding the destruction of the Java Sea war wrecks has fallen on a number of salvage ships operating in Southeast Asian waters, McCartney said. They include a Mongolian-flagged salvage barge that was photographed last year taking metal from a popular scuba diving wreck near Singapore, according to Underwater Photography Guide News (UWPG News). Illegal salvagers are also thought to be responsible for recent damage to the wrecks of the British warships HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, which were sunk by Japanese aircraft near Malaysia's Tioman Island in 1941, and the illegal salvage of a Dutch submarine wreck, the HNLMS 0-16, in the Gulf of Thailand in 2012, reported the New Strait Times. The U.S. Navy reported last year that the wreck of the American cruiser USS Houston, which sank in February 1942 in the Sunda Strait, southwest of the Java Sea, with around 650 sailors and marines onboard, had also suffered "unauthorized disturbance of the grave site." McCartney said the salvage barge photographed near Singapore last year appeared to be equipped with a large crane and a 5-ton "drop chisel," which is designed to cut a shipwreck apart. "What they're doing is just dropping it down on the wreck, chopping the wreck into manageable pieces, and then using that crane to haul it on board," he said. Similar equipment was used by some Dutch salvage operators in recent years to remove especially valuable metals, like brass, from British shipwrecks that were sunk at the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea in 1916, McCartney said. Although researchers have identified and documented the salvage firms responsible for much of the damage to the Jutland wrecks, so far the Dutch authorities have taken no action, he said. Eyes in the sky Radio beacons and satellite radar technology now make it possible to track salvage ships in the same way that many fishing trawlers are now tracked to prevent illegal fishing, McCartney said. Salvage ships that are seen to linger over known shipwrecks, or that exhibit other suspicious behavior, can be flagged automatically and inspected when they reach port, he said. McCartney also noted that a growing number of countries have agreed to mutually protect shipwrecks in their waters under the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. But, several leading countries including the U.S. and the U.K. have not ratified the convention, out of concern that it will be too difficult or expensive to enforce, he said. McCartney said, however, that modern methods of enforcement are mostly electronic, and dont require sending warships to physically protect the shipwrecks. "The legal framework is there, and the technological framework is there it just requires the countries of the world to get on and do it," he said. Original article on Live Science. Archaeologists uncovered the foundations of a wooden church where the body of the Viking king Olaf Haraldsson may have been enshrined after he was declared a saint. The original shrine to a Viking-king-turned-saint has been discovered in Norway, archaeologists say. The Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) announced Nov. 11 that its researchers had discovered the foundations of a wooden church where the body of King Olaf Haraldsson was taken immediately after he was declared a saint in 1031. St. Olaf, as he is now known, conquered and consolidated Norway in 1016 but held on to rule for a little more than a decade before his power was threatened by Canute I, king of Denmark and England. Olaf died in the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030. Now, archaeologists say they've found a key location in the king's posthumous journey from martyr to Norway's patron saint. [25 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries] A saint's grave A 3D model of the central excavations of the remains of St. Clement's Church in Trondheim, Norway, as seen on Oct. 18. The stones are the foundation of the church, which has long been in ruins. (Image credit: Kirke/church at Sndregate 18/10 by nikunorway is licensed under CC Attribution) The site is in Trondheim, where Olaf was buried after his death in battle. After locals began circulating stories about miracles credited to the dead king, his grave was opened, and his body was found to be miraculously well preserved, according to church teachings. The local bishop declared him a saint and reinterred his body in St. Clement's Church. It's this church that NIKU archaeologists believe they have now uncovered. They found stone foundations, and even a small rectangular platform made of rock on the building's east end, believed to be the base of the church's altar. This altar may have been the High Altar of the church built over St. Olaf's new grave. "This is a unique site in Norwegian history in terms of religion, culture and politics," excavation director Anna Petersen said in a statement. "Much of the Norwegian national identity has been established on the cult of sainthood surrounding St. Olaf, and it was here [where] it all began!" The pope would confirm St. Olaf's local canonization as a saint in 1164. Founding history Olaf's remains were later moved to a larger church in Trondheim, upon which Nidaros Cathedral was built, according to NIKU. Begun in 1070 and completed in 1300, the ornate cathedral still stands today (though it has been badly damaged by fire several times and almost completely rebuilt and restored). Utgravningsomrade Sndre gate 19/10 (opens in new tab) by nikunorway (opens in new tab) on Sketchfab (opens in new tab) Along with foundations and an altar, the ruins believed to be the original St. Clement's Church also include a small well that may have been considered holy, Petersen and colleagues reported. King Olaf had a winding path to sainthood. According to the Catholic Church's history, he was born around 995 and was a Viking raider as a young man. He was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church in 1013 and began his attempt to consolidate Norway in 1015, clinching his rule in 1016. In 1024, English Bishop Grimkell (who would be the first to declare Olaf a saint, in 1031) presented a religious code at Olaf's behest, establishing the Church of Norway. However, Olaf's run in power crumbled soon after, when the then-king of England and Denmark, Canute I, resolved to reconquer Norway. Olaf was forced to flee to Russia in 1028; he returned in 1030 to try to win back the throne, but died instead. Some contemporary sources report that he was murdered or unceremoniously killed in an ambush. The Norse saga Heimskringla, which was written 200 years after the fact, tells a more valorous tale of the king leading an army into battle and dying in hand-to-hand combat, with Thorir Hund, one of the leaders of the resistance to Olaf's reign, delivering the final death blow. Original article on Live Science. A magnitude-6.9 earthquake struck yesterday off the coast of Fukushima, Japan, likely along the same fault that ruptured in 2011, unleashing a massive 9.0-magnitude temblor that triggered deadly tsunamis and caused widespread destruction. Over the course of its history, Japan has seen its share of shaking, but what makes this part of the world so susceptible to big earthquakes? The answer has to do with Japan's location. The island nation lies along the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an imaginary horseshoe-shaped zone that follows the rim of the Pacific Ocean, where many of the world's earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. In fact, 81 percent of the world's largest earthquakes happen in this active belt, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). [Image Gallery: This Millennium's Destructive Earthquakes] "The Earth's surface is broken up into about a dozen or so major chunks that are all moving around. Where they all interact at their edges, interesting things happen," Douglas Given, a geophysicist with the USGS in Pasadena, California, previously told Live Science. Within the Pacific Ring of Fire, several tectonic plates mash and collide. In what are known as subduction zones, one plate bends and slides underneath the other, causing the oceanic crust to sink into the Earth's mantle. "From Alaska down to Japan and the Philippines, all the way down around the western Pacific and then the boundary of the west coast of South America and central America are all big subduction zones," said Robert Smith, an emeritus professor of geophysics at the University of Utah. Japan itself sits atop a complex mosaic of tectonic plates that grind together and trigger deadly earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, Smith told Live Science. Yesterday's earthquake off the coast of Fukushima was centered about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of the epicenter of the 9.0-magnitude Tohoku quake that struck in March 2011. This means the magnitude-6.9 temblor could be an aftershock of the more-powerful 2011 quake, according to seismologists. "There's been a whole sequence [of aftershocks] since the 2011 earthquake," Smith said. "These enormously big earthquakes have aftershocks that can continue for tens to hundreds of years. It's very common." The 2011 earthquake released hundreds of years of pent-up stress within the subduction zone and triggered an enormous tsunami that inundated the coastal Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, eventually causing a level 7 nuclear meltdown. While yesterday's quake was not as powerful as the Tohoku temblor, the entire region is still at risk of big earthquakes. The Tohoku quake "was one of the biggest earthquakes we've recorded historically, but the fact is, the seismic hazard of the whole subduction zone is extremely high, so large earthquakes are more common there than other places," Smith said. Earlier this year, in April, a magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck the Kumamoto region in southern Japan, two days after a 6.2-magnitude temblor shook the same area. Original article on Live Science. A comparative study of employment and pay conditions of international lorry drivers in 15 European countries has highlighted huge disparities in operating costs that suggest harmonisation in road hauliers operating conditions and competitiveness across the EU appears to be as far away as ever. Undertaken by Frances road freight research and data agency, Comite National Routier (CNR), the study takes into account lorry drivers' employment and pay conditions, including salaries, social security contributions, travel allowances, driving time and working hours. The study reveals that, taken as a whole, the cost-gap in terms of driving personnel is enormous. The same hours driving in the same lorry on the same road with the same goods can cost 8 per hour or 33 per hour depending on whether the driver is employed by a Bulgarian company or a Belgian company, the report said. The total annual cost of an EU international lorry driver ranges from 16,000 for a Bulgarian haulier to 56,000 for a Belgian haulier. From the perspective of the drivers, who cross paths at the truck stops, these are more than mere figures, the report added. The Europe they perceive is not one of social solidarity, but one of competitiveness. It continued: Competitiveness gaps of this magnitude cannot exist in one marketplace. We can only confirm the theorem put forward by French economist Michel Albert, which essentially warns that any business based in a country with high living standards which employs primarily low-skilled labour is bound to either go bankrupt or move its operations elsewhere. EU expansion and the introduction of limited cabotage (domestic transport) rights for international haulage operators in Europes road haulage sector have seen haulage firms based in higher-cost countries such as Italy, Belgium, and France squeezed out of the international space over the past decade. The market has become hyper-concentrated around several countries, with Poland alone having a 25% share of the EU market while hauliers from member states such as Lithuania, Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia have emerged as important players, the report noted. Under EU cabotage rules, foreign firms have the right to carry out a maximum of three domestic transport operations over a seven-day period, immediately following an international operation. Although there have been plans to open up the EU cabotage market completely, this continues to face considerable opposition, particularly from higher-wage western European countries. In May 2013, the Commission bowed to pressure from road haulage federations and shelved plans to introduce a cabotage scheme without restrictions across the EU from 2014. As things stand in terms of competition relations, if the European cabotage market is opened up in the coming years, we should make no mistake that the same causes will lead to the same effects, the report said. It said the goals set out in the EUs founding treaties of social harmonisation while improvement is being maintained, and a level playing field in terms of competition conditions in Europe, are still a major work in progress, at least in Europes road freight transport sector. For a significant number of EU member states, the current situation in the international road freight transport single market is therefore untenable, the study adds. France and Germany in recent years have attempted to protect their own road freight operators by introducing various minimum-wage requirements, including for international hauliers in transit, although these have been challenged by other EU countries. In February 2015, the German government suspended the application of legislation introduced the previous month that imposed the countrys minimum wage on international hauliers in transit through Germany. The measure had been intended to combat dumping on wages in the German road haulage industry, where there is strong resentment at unfair competition from low-wage countries. But the government bowed to pressure from other European countries, notably Poland, and also trade bodies such as the IRU. And in May 2015, the European Commission (EC) launched an infringement procedure against Germany concerning the application of its Minimum Wage Act (MWA) relating to international road haulage transit operations. Whilst fully supporting the introduction of a minimum wage in Germany, the Commission considers that the application of the MWA to all transport operations which touch German territory restricts the freedom to provide services and the free movement of goods in a disproportionate manner, the Commission said. The infringement does not extend to cabotage activities, meaning Germany can still require that its minimum wage of 8.50 per hour be paid to the drivers of foreign firms when on domestic operations within the country. The Commission has yet to adopt a position on cabotage in relation to the minimum wage in individual Member States. Frances rules may also come under EC scrutiny. In February 2015, the French parliament passed a law, to take effect at the end of 2015, applying Frances statutory minimum wage to cabotage operations. Aa reported in Lloyds Loading List, transport ministers from eight European states in October wrote to EU Transport commissioner Violeta Bulc to highlight their growing concerns over alleged violations of EU labour laws and illegal business practices within the road haulage sector, which they claim has led to unfair competition and social dumping. The ministers, from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Luxembourg and non-member Norway, claim that the fundamental rights such as the free movement of goods and services, which we wholeheartedly support, are increasingly being invoked in a abusive way in order to avoid conforming to European regulations, which are the guarantee of fair competition in the internal market. The ministers have also drawn attention to the emergence in the sector of so-called letterbox companies - set up to circumvent legal and collective agreement obligations in another EU country - whose unfair business practices are more and more frequent. They make a number of recommendations to the commissioner, which include prohibiting drivers from sleeping in their vehicles during designated weekly rest periods, stepping up and harmonising checks on HGVs, introducing measures to put an end to shell company activity as well as action to curb the growing trend of light commercial vehicles (vans) carrying out international transport operations. An EU source told Lloyds Loading List that the Commission shared a number of the views expressed in the letter and was currently working on a number of initiatives for the road haulage industry, to be presented in 2017, to bring more clarity and a better enforcement of labour legislation. The source added: Certain rules are unclear and are implemented differently depending on the member state. This is the case regarding restrictions on cabotage for example. The rules on the establishment of road transport undertakings need to be revisited to address the phenomenon of letterbox companies. By the very nature of the transport industry, many of its workers are highly mobile and this creates issues specific to it. For example, what salary should drivers be paid when working in 10 different countries in a single month? Germany and France have taken unilateral steps to impose their minimum wage regulations on international road haulage firms in a bid to quash 'social dumping' practices. But the Commission reacted by instigating infringement proceedings against the two member states. In both instances, we are at the first stage of the infringement procedure, the EU source said. A letter of formal notice was sent and we received the respective replies from the French and German authorities. We are assessing these replies before deciding on the next steps, and are not bound by a deadline. Michelle Yeoh, global ambassador for the Make Roads Safe Campaign and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassador for SDGs, gave an exclusive interview to People's Daily Online at the 9th Global Conference on Health Promotion (GCHP) on Nov. 21. She expressed her understanding of road safety and her secrets for keeping healthy. The 9th Global Conference on Health Promotion (GCHP) is being held in Shanghai from Nov. 21 to 24, 2016. The theme of the conference is Promoting Health through Sustainable Development Goals: Health for All and All for Health. It is organized by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China (NHFPC), together with the World Health Organization (WHO); the municipal government of Shanghai is hosting. Attendees include those working on health initiatives from member states of WHO, representatives of UN agencies, several countries' health ministers, Healthy City mayors and experts in international health and sustainable development. If you do not have a current print subscription to the Lodi News-Sentinel, but want to view unlimited articles for the month, please choose this option. Check out our latest E-Edition Accessible anytime and anywhere on your desktop, tablet and smart phone devices. The Lodi News e-Edition is enhanced with the latest digital tools, including RSS feeds, social networking and much more. Check out our latest E-edition! Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called on China and Latin American countries to strengthen dialogue on global issues and boost cooperation on domestic development, in a bid to better build their community of common destiny on a new starting point in history. Xi made the remarks while addressing the Peruvian Congress on his first state visit to the country after attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima. Xi proposed that China and Latin America and the Caribbean hold high the banner of peaceful development and cooperation, seek synergy between their development strategies, speed up and upgrade practical cooperation and bring benefits to both peoples. In his address, the president also elaborated on China-Peru relations, China's stance on international order and China's economic development. NEW COURSE FOR CHINA-LATAM TIES "We will strengthen strategic communication and dialogue on global issues and strive for greater representation and voice of emerging markets and developing countries," the Chinese president said. He noted that China will firmly support Latin American countries in seeking development paths suited to their national conditions, gaining greater strength and prosperity through unity, and playing a bigger role in regional and international affairs. Xi called for synergizing development strategies between China and Latin American and Caribbean states, and developing their relationship in the context of international and regional development through active participation in trade and investment arrangements and innovative development in the Asia-Pacific. He highlighted the role of trade, investment, finance, industry and other sectors in scaling up their bilateral practical cooperation and urged the two sides to promote the development of the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Forum. "We need to make sure that our people are the ones who promote, conduct and benefit from our cooperation," the president said. He announced that in the next three years, China will increase the number of training opportunities of various kinds for Latin America and the Caribbean to 10,000. A center for press exchange will be set up in China and journalists from Latin America and the Caribbean will be invited to study or work in China, he said. In addition, China would like to suggest a roundtable on environment and development policies be held in Beijing next year and looks forward to having active participation from LatAm countries, he said. The Chinese president arrived in Peru Friday, the second stop of his ongoing three-nation Latin American tour. He had visited Ecuador and will also travel to Chile. It is Xi's third visit to Latin America as president since he took office in 2013. In his address, Xi also reviewed the friendly relations and exchanges between China and Peru, and between China and Latin American countries over the past years. Before the speech, Xi was awarded the Grand-Cross Medal of Honor of the Peruvian Congress by Luz Salgado, president of the Congress. During Xi's second Latin American visit in July 2014, he and leaders from the region held a summit meeting and the two sides agreed to establish a comprehensive cooperative partnership featuring equality, mutual benefit and common development. The China-CELAC Forum was also set up during the visit to steer cooperation between China and the 33-member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Chinese official statistics showed that China has become the second largest trading partner of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the latter is a major destination for outbound Chinese investment, second only to Asia. Alfonso Miranda, president of the National Society of Industries' (SNI) Fisheries Committee, said that China is Peru's top trading partner and the deepening of ties is crucial to the economic growth of this country in the years to come. "The bilateral relations are linked to the aspirations of Peruvian producers to enter the Chinese market, considered to be one of the largest in the world, which would allow us to boost exports," he said. Carlos Aquino, an economics professor at the National University of San Marcos in Lima, said that one of the most important parts of the Chinese president's speech was his call for intensifying cooperation, and boosting investment and socio-economic development in Latin America in order to improve the quality of life of its people. "One initiative that is also highly relevant was his desire to see both sides work together, at all levels, to exchange experience, especially China's solid experience in technological development, innovation, education and sustainable development," he said. NEW MODEL OF INT'L RELATIONS In his address, Xi urged the international community to push for a new model of international relations featuring win-win cooperation, and foster a community of common destiny for mankind. China has maintained that countries around the world should make joint efforts to foster a partnership of equality, consultation and mutual accommodation, and a security architecture of fairness and justice that is built and shared by all, he said. "All countries are equal members of the international community. The big, strong and rich must not bully the small, weak and poor. And the right of every country to independently choose its social system and development path should be upheld," Xi said, adding that all forms of Cold War mentality should be rejected. As the leader of the world's second largest economy, Xi promised that China will continue to build international peace, contribute to global development and maintain international order. "Committed to a path of peaceful development, we will never seek hegemony, expansion or sphere of influence, no matter how the international situation may evolve and how much development we can achieve," he said. China will stay committed to the path of common development, the win-win strategy of opening-up and the balanced approach to friendship and interests, the president said. "China will share its development experience and opportunities with the rest of the world and welcome other countries on board the express train of its development, so that we can all develop together," he said. He also pledged that China will continue to stand together with other developing countries and firmly support greater representation and say of developing countries in the international governance system. On China's development, Xi said it can bring opportunities to the rest of the world, citing that in the next five years, China is expected to import 8 trillion dollars of goods, use 600 billion dollars of foreign investment and invest 750 billion dollars overseas, and Chinese tourists will make 700 million outbound visits. "All this will present an even bigger market, more capital, a greater variety of products and more valuable cooperation opportunities to countries around the world, including Latin American and Caribbean countries," he added. Aquino, the economics professor, spoke positively about Xi's remarks on international relations. "With respect to China's stance on world peace, sustainable development and mutual respect between nations, I think this reflects the humanitarian spirit which has arisen in China and it must fulfill a leading role in global development and stability," he said. Michael OLeary, the CEO of Ryanair, will address a special Business in the Midlands breakfast briefing in Mullingar next Friday with more than 400 local business leaders and other stakeholders in attendance. Mr OLeary, who lives in Westmeath, is a long-time supporter of enterprise in the midlands. He is expected to speak about the attractiveness and benefits of the region to potential business investors, as well as addressing his own experiences and his high-profile career with the airline. The event has been organised by Robert Troy TD, who serves the constituencies of Longford-Westmeath and who says it is vital for business groups in the midlands to mobilise and promote the unique benefits of the region. This event is going to be an unprecedented show of purpose on the part of the midlands business community, said Deputy Troy. There is a lot of talk about economic recovery and uplift, but on the ground, in towns like Athlone and Mullingar and Longford, theres a sense that not enough is being done to promote business in the midlands. I believe that any international company that is considering Ireland should be looking closely at the midlands, he said. It is one of the most accessible parts of the country, with plenty of space for companies to set up and expand, including three IDA parks. We also have a young and highly educated workforce and an award-winning Institute of Technology in Athlone. This region has the potential to be an economic powerhouse, but we need to get that message out there, Deputy Troy added. I am hugely encouraged by the level of interest in this event, and I hope it will be the start of a conversation about the opportunities that exist in the midlands. In addition to circa. 400 business people from the region, both Enterprise Ireland and the IDA will be represented at the breakfast briefing, which will be hosted by the RTE broadcaster and journalist Olivia OLeary. Business in the Midlands takes place on Friday, November 25 at the Mullingar Park Hotel, Dublin Road, Mullingar, from 7.30am. Tickets are available until Tuesday, November 22 at 20 per person or 200 for a table of 10. To book, please contact Aideen Ginnell at Cullen Communications on (01) 668 9099 or email aginnell@cullencommunications. ie Also read: Olivia O'Leary to MC at Michael O'Leary breakfast briefing; networking opportunity for Longford businesses Aoife Parle, an employee in Tesco Gorey, Co Wexford has launched a charity single entitled Silver Lining in aid of Temple Street Childrens Hospital. The single will be available to buy in Tesco stores across Ireland, including Longford town, for 2, from Monday, November 28. Silver Lining is also now available for 99c to download via iTunes, Google Play and Amazon. All proceeds from this single will go directly to Temple Street Childrens Hospital. Following her victory at Tescos annual employee talent competition, Tescos Got Talent, in 2015 Aoife used her recording studio prize to create this Christmas single for Tesco Irelands charity partner, Temple Street. Speaking about her inspiration for Silver Lining Aoife said: I took my inspiration from the little heroes in Temple Street - they are so brave and resilient. The atmosphere in the hospital is so warm and full of support. Silver Lining is about celebrating hope and that theres light at the end of the tunnel. Aoifes role as Tesco Area Community Champion gives her a unique insight into the real difference charitable organisations make across the country. Aoifes job connects her with local communities across the South East and hundreds of local good causes through the Tesco Community Fund, FoodCloud and fundraising for Temple Street. After winning Tescos annual colleague talent competition in 2015, Aoife was determined to make a difference with the prize of studio recording time. Aoife added: Temple Street has some of the best doctors and nurses in the world but it needs on-going fundraising support to ensure it continues to offer specialist facilities and lifesaving equipment. When I won Tescos Got Talent, I decided to use the prize of recording time in studio to help Temple Streets fundraising efforts. I have been overwhelmed by the support I have received locally in Wexford and especially from my Tesco colleagues across the country. I would like to thank Tesco for giving me the opportunity to achieve my dream of releasing a single. I would encourage everyone to continue to support the work of Temple Street by picking up this CD, every little really does help. Emma Barrett, Temple Street Foundation said: On behalf of all the patients in Temple Street I would like to say a huge thank you to Aoife and the Tesco colleagues for all their support to date. Please pop down to your local Tesco store and pick up the CD, which is the perfect stocking filler this Christmas. Every 2 really does go such a long way toward helping our little heroes! Tesco Ireland has been working with Temple Street as its charity partner since October 2014 and to date has fundraised over 2.1m for the hospital, helping it to buy life-saving equipment. Each year Temple Street Childrens Hospital treats over 145,000 children from across the country and operates the busiest A&E department in Europe. For thousands of children, Temple Street is the only hospital in Ireland they can be treated in. Through the charity partner programme, Tesco colleagues and customers can help little people from all over Ireland get better and be real life heroes to children attending the hospital. The unforeseen and sensational election of Donald Trump has been greeted with a typically partisan reaction from Longford ex-pats across the Atlantic. After initially being written off by his many detractors, the billionaire real estate mogul created arguably the biggest upset in US political history by becoming its soon to be 45th president. The manner, and more notably the margin of his win over Hillary Clinton has raised more questions than it has answers. Less than a week on, emigrants from this region have been giving their say on the post Trump electoral fallout. Longford Association of Greater New York president, Michael Prunty said Americans were still trying to digest the enormity of the past seven days. It's a surprise, unbelievable really, he said. When Donald announced that he was running people thought it was a joke, no one thought he was serious and a lot of Republicans left him because of the things he was saying. But it is what it is. The 75-year-old retiree has spent the best part of the past five decades aiding Longford folk in their efforts to secure accomodation and work in the Big Apple. Mr Prunty said while concerns surrounding immigration and murmurings of imminent cuts to America's corporate tax rate are well founded, all may not be lost. Much of that thinking, he says, is based on the contrasting disposition of America's president elect. He (Trump) can be a smoocher, he said. But before he was elected the stock market dropped by 700-800 points but when he came out and made his acceptance speech it was a very different Donald Trump. He was very gracious and talked about how he was going to work with everybody, it wasn't the Donald Trump we knew. Fellow Longford ex-pat Seanie Hayden said he wasn't overly surprised to see Americans give the thumbs up to the controversial tycoon. A New York based businessman himself with a controlling interest in two bars on Ninth Avenue, Seanie put Mr Trump's success down to a combination of voter apathy and a call for change. I think that people were just sick and tired about hearing of corporate America, he said. Hillary was never a popular candidate and people had just got sick and tired of the Clintons and Bushes. It (voting for Trump) was kind of the lesser of two evils. You didn't really know what you would get with Trump but with Hillary people knew what they were getting-that was four more years of Obama. If there was any sign that voters were perhaps starting to come to terms with Mr Trump's election, for others like Arva native Adrian Leddy and his family, the shock of last week's events still lingers. Now living in Wisconsin with his wife Danielle and two children Aisling and Kieran, the 34-year-old pulled no punches as to the uncertainty Americans now faced. He (Trump) has brought out the worst in people both liberal and conservative, he said. Families are falling apart because of this election. His wife Danielle was arguably more outspoken. She argued that had Bernie Sanders and not Mrs Clinton clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, the world would have been welcoming a different president into the Oval Office this week. Bernie Sanders would have won, hands down, had he not been robbed of the primary that he clearly won, she said. A lot of the way people voted was a big middle finger to the Democratic Party who rigged the Primaries. The biggest reason Trump took the election, and why Bernie would have been a better opponent, is because people here are sick of the status quo. Sick of the same people getting ahead and the destruction of the middle class. A US multinational's plans to build a 14 metre high manufacturing facility in Longford has put a severe dent in Donald Trump's plans to entice companies back home. Abbott Ireland has been one of Longford town's largest employers ever since its arrival to the county in 2004. More than a decade later, the medical diagnostic provider has signalled its intention to expand its presence still further under a major expansion plan. The details of that plan, encompassing an 1800 sq metre manufacturing facility and 1000 sq metre warehouse, was given the green light by Longford County Council last week. Provision has also been made for more than 80 car parking spaces at its Lisnamuck headquarters on the outskirts of Longford town. Giving his reaction to the news this week, Chamber of Commerce president Derek Scanlon said the announcement represented a major boost to the town's local economy. We are delighted to see that Abbott has been approved planning permission for a new facility, he said. As the symbolic voice of the business community in Longford, Mr Scanlon said Abbott's proposed expansion was indicative of the increasing confidence that's now being felt locally. We believe it's a vote of confidence in Longford, its people and the talent companies like Abbott are able to attract, he stoically added. It has been rumoured Abbott hopes to compliment its increased physical scope with a jobs announcement totalling somewhere between 150 and 200 new positions. The move comes just days after a key adviser to US President elect Donald Trump warned a "flood of companies" will leave under the new regime's tax plans. Abbott, whose global headquarters is situated in Illinois, had been mooted as possibly one of the Trump administrations key targets. However, Mr Scanlon said while those soundings had done little to soothe fears amongst the wider business sector, there were many other factors at play. At the top of that list, he said, was the availability of affordable housing, a wide offering of recreational facilities and the lure of a highly educated workforce. The attractiveness for companies looking to expand goes beyond tax benefits. And while there is worry and anxiety about what might happen, we have to make sure that we have a positive product to sell in Longford and Ireland as a whole. The Minister for the Environment Denis Naughten met with the Chief Executive Officer of the Asthma Society of Ireland Averil Power to outline his plans to improve air quality in Ireland. Ireland ranks fourth in the world for the condition of asthma. Asthma and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulminary Disease) are among the most serious issues for the Irish health service and both are heavily influenced by air quality and other environmental factors. In Ireland alone four deaths per day can be attributed to air pollution and a cost estimated to be around 2 billion per year, stated Minister Naughten. Among the topics discussed between Minister Naughten and Averil Power at their meeting in Government Buildings were: The early implementation of a national smoky coal ban; a national network of real-time air quality monitoring stations; pollution from transport Minister Naughten also confirmed to Averil Power that within the next six weeks he will: Publish Irelands first Annual Transition Statement under our Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act Bring Irelands first National Mitigation Plan to public consultation to ensure our citizens can contribute to this process and inform the actions identified by key sectors in developing a coherent and effective plan Launch Irelands National Climate Dialogue in early 2017 Publish an initial consultation on a Clean Air Strategy for Ireland with a view to developing an ambitious plan in line with EU policy that seeks to protect citizens health, and that fully recognises the inter-linkages between our energy use and the quality of air we breathe Announce details of a joint venture between two semi-state companies that seeks to optimise the supply and management of sustainable biomass industry for Ireland Members of the Longford Older Peoples Council (OPC) were on hand to help launch the National Positive Ageing Indicators Report in Cavan Crystal Hotel along with Minister for Mental Health and Older People Helen McEntee TD. The National Positive Ageing Indicators Report is part of the Healthy and Positive Ageing Initiative, a joint programme between the Department of Health, The Atlantic Philanthropies, the HSE and Age Friendly Ireland. According to the report: * Most people aged 50+ feel very positive about later life almost three quarters agreed that ageing was a time of personal growth (73%) but on the other hand almost one in five (19%) said that a shortage of money stopped them from doing the things they want to do. * Many in the 50+ age group contribute to their families and communities by providing care to a child or grandchild (32%) or through volunteer work (26%) but 45% of them reported that they felt discriminated against because of their age. * Over nine out of ten (93%) people aged 50+ have at least one supportive relative or friend but 7.1% of people aged 50+ often feel lonely. * Eight out of 10 people (80%) aged 50+ rates their health as good or very good but six out of 10 people (61%) aged 50+ have a chronic disease. * Almost half (48%) of people aged 50+ used the internet other than for work. * Over two thirds (67%) people aged 50+ report low levels of physical activity. * Eight out of 10 (82%) people aged 50+ report high life satisfaction but almost one in 10 (9%) people aged 50+ report severe depressive symptoms. The number of people in Ireland over 65 years is expected to double, reaching 1.4 million by 2040 and those aged over 80 years will quadruple in that same time period. Launching the report Minister McEntee said As Minister for Older People I am very aware that planning for positive ageing goes well beyond the extension of average lifespan, where much progress has already been made and is continuing. A good quality of life and maximising independence is what we must work to achieve. We need to develop strong devolved local government capable of engaging all in bringing about changes in planning, health, housing, transport, safety and public space management. Welcoming this report, Bob Gilbert Chair of Cavans Older Peoples Council and Chair of the National Network of Older Peoples Councils said Its fitting that such a heavyweight report is launched here today at our National Convention of Older Peoples Councils where the voice of older people is loud and clear and that voice is echoed throughout this report. These findings can really inform and improve our age friendly cities and counties programme into 2017 and beyond, and such an investment will be of benefit to all Irish citizens into the future, because ageing isnt a choice or an achievement, it is a fact and it comes to us all. The Healthy and Positive Ageing in Ireland (HaPAI) team worked with older people and other stakeholders locally and nationally to agree the indicators that were most relevant and important for Positive Ageing. Further information on www.hapai.net This report presents lots of positive messages but also highlights areas that we need to improve on for an ageing population in Ireland that presents both a challenge and an opportunity for all of Government and society at large. It contains 56 indicators spanning the whole range of areas identified by the National Positive Ageing Strategy, under its three pillars of Participation, Health and Security. Border police register the identities of Burmese people. Local governments in Wanting and other areas of Yunnan province have undertaken emergency response procedures after military conflicts broke out in northern Myanmar. More police have been sent to the border area to maintain order and provide humanitarian aid to people from Myanmar. Meanwhile, according to the official microblog of Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, the ports of entry between China and Myanmar are still open, and the government has taken measures to help people from Myanmar settle in safe areas. Zhu Minyun, head of the Dehong Blue Sky Rescue team, said the Manghai settlement has accepted more than 2,000 refugees from Myanmar. Hundreds of Myanmar people who crossed the border to escape the fighting have settled in Wanting, a small town close to northern Myanmar. Three armed groups attacked security posts in the border towns of Muse and Kutkai in Myanmar's northeastern state of Shan on Nov. 20. Soon after, China called on all involved parties to exercise restraint and halt military operations so as to avoid further escalation of the conflict. Chinese armed forces are also on high alert after the attacks. Members of the Blue Sky Rescue team put up tents in a settlement for Myanmar people in Wanting, Yunnan province. A settlement in Wanting, Yunnan province. (Photo/Zjol.com.cn) The city of Sansha in China's Hainan province which is tasked with administration over Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha Islands in the South China Sea has officially been given a loan for 100 million RMB for basic infrastructure improvements in the city. The loan, the first of its kind granted to Sansha, was signed on Nov. 21 by the city government and China Development Bank. The loan term is three years, Thepaper.cn reported. According to Ah Dong, Sanshas deputy city Party chief, the signing of the contract marks great progress for the city, which hopes to develop its investment and financing platform. The loan also lays the foundation for future financing cooperation on a larger scale. The signing ceremony was held on Yongxing Island in the Xisha Islands, where the city government is headquartered. Established in July 2012, Sansha is the youngest and southernmost city in China. Regional infrastructure has significantly improved since the city's establishment, including transportation, medical and communication facilities. Two airfields on the island and Yongshu Reef will improve air transportation over the South China Sea, and will also facilitate improved weather assessments, aeronautics research, communication, navigation and surveillance. The city now provides waste water treatment facilities and marine environmental monitoring stations, according to the Global Times. 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 [File photo] A Chinese fast food chain has been ordered to change its name and menu after its vulgar advertising campaign was bombarded with criticism on Chinese social media. Call a Chick, a Shanghai-based fast food chain that mainly sell fried chicken, has sparked controversy nationwide. The companys branch stores across the country have been boycotted by many customers, who criticize the company for being a bad influence, as its brand name and advertising are erotic and disturbing. In order to promote their food, the chain has created a menu filled with sexually suggestive dish names, including chick with no sex life and chick and booty calls. The chain also refers to its telephone ordering service as a hotline for calling chicks, and advertises that Call a Chick food will satisfy every ounce of your fantasy for a chick. The chain has quickly become an online sensation, with many Internet users poking fun at its name and advertising, as the Chinese word for chick is commonly used as slang for a female prostitute. In response to the negative comments, the fast food chain issued a statement on Sina Weibo on Nov. 19, promising its customers that it will change the content of its menu as well as its brand name. The companys online menu has already been removed as of press time, though the companys name can still be found on its website. Call a Chick branch stores in Chengdu, Shanghai and Hangzhou have been ordered by local authorities to suspend operations, with the official explanation that they did not receive permission to use the brand name. Meanwhile, Shanghai authorities have carried out their own investigation, suggesting that the brand name may violate Chinas advertisement law, which forbids obscene content from being used in advertisements, Shanghai Morning Post reported. [File photo] The incident has drawn thousands of comments on Chinese social media, with many criticizing the company for its potential impact on children. My 5-year-old son keeps asking me the meaning of the dish names. Its disturbing enough to see a menu with so much sexual connotation, let alone figuring out a way to stop my child from asking me about the filthy content, one netizen wrote on Sina Weibo. On the other hand, some believe the brand name is clever and creative. Many Internet users were satirical and snarky in their tone, criticizing authorities for overreacting and killing creativity. KFC has used the slogan We do chicken right. If you over-analyze this [slogan], it can also mean something dirty. Those who have dirty minds will see everything through a filthy lens. I dont understand how such a creative business idea could get banned, commented another netizen. The US State Department added a senior Islamic State leader and two external operations planners to its list of specially designated global terrorists today. The US government has identified the Islamic States external operations network, which is assigned to conduct attacks against the West and its interests abroad, as a significant threat and has targeted its leadership in Iraq and Syria. The US government identified the three Islamic State commanders as Abdullah Ahmed al Meshedani, Abdelilah Himich, and Basil Hassan. Meshedani, who is also known as Abu Qassim, is a leader who manages arriving foreign terrorist fighters, handles guesthouses for them, and transports suicide bombers on behalf of ISIL, or the Islamic State, according to the designation. State also noted that Meshedani is an an advisor who reports to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the emir of the Islamic State. Himich, who is also known as Abu Sulayman al Faransi, is a senior foreign terrorist fighter and external operations figure who is thought to have planned both the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, France in November 2015 and Brussels, Belgium in March 2016. One hundred and thirty people were killed and more than 360 were wounded in the Paris attacks, which included suicide bombers and a suicide assault team. Thirty two civilians were killed and more than 300 were wounded in bombings at the airport and train station in Brussels. Additionally, Himich formed the Tariq Ibn Ziyad Battalion, a European foreign terrorist fighter cell that has provided operatives for ISIL attacks in Iraq, Syria, and abroad; at one time the battalion numbered as many as 300 members, according to State. Himich, a Moroccan national, is thought to have served in Afghanistan with the French Foreign Legion before joining the Islamic State in Syria in 2014, according to Frontline. Hassan is described as an external operations plotter who was accused of shooting Lars Hedegaard, a 70-year old Danish author and journalist in 2013. Hedegaard, a vocal critic of Islam, was shot at his home in Copenhagen, Denmark, but survived. Hassan presumably fled Denmark undetected and wound up in Turkey, where he was arrested by Turkish police in 2014. According to State, he was freed as part of a prisoner exchange with the Islamic State and went to Syria. Targeting the Islamic States external operations network has become our highest priority, US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said in October. The US military has killed three senior members of the external operations network in the past year. In March, the US announced that it killed Abd al Rahman Mustafa al Qaduli (also known as Hajji Iman, Abu Ali al Anbari and Abu Ala al Afri). A veteran of jihad who joined al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 1998, Qaduli was a top Islamic State leader who also was involved in external operations. The following month, the US killed Abu Isa Al Amriki, who acted as a recruiter and external attack planner and who plotted attacks in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Amriki communicated with Aaron Travis Daniels, an American citizen who was arrested on Nov. 7, 2016 as he was attempting to join the Islamic State in Libya. On Aug. 30, 2016, the US military killed Abu Muhammad al Adnani, in an airstrike in Aleppo. Adnani served as the Islamic States overall commander of the external operations network as well as the groups top spokesman, recruiter, a military commander, and a senior advisor to Baghdadi. The US killed Abd al-Basit al-Iraqi, who served as the emir of the Islamic States Middle East external networks, on Nov. 12, 2016, according to the US military. His network targeted Americans, Turks, and Europeans. Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal. Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here. (Photo/Daily Mail) Two Chinese companies have confirmed their participation in a solar power plant project in Chernobyl. The new plant is expected to revive the Ukrainian city, which is now nearly synonymous with the nuclear disaster that struck it. GCL System Integration Technology Co. Ltd., (GCL-SI), a subsidiary of major energy group GCL, is leading the project together with China National Complete Engineering Corporation (CCEC). Together, the two enterprises are expected to complete construction of a more than 1-gigawatt photovoltaic (PV) plant by 2017. CCEC will act as the general contractor, managing everyday tasks associated with the project, while GCL-SI will provide consultancy and planning services, as well as PV facilities. "There will be remarkable social and economic benefits as we try to renovate the once-damaged area with green and renewable energy. We are happy to be making joint efforts with Ukraine to rebuild the community for the people who live there," said Shu Hua, chairman of GCL-SI, in a press release. An anonymous GCL-SI employee told the Global Times that the project will not be based in the exclusive zone of Chernobyl, and that the site will fit proper conditions for construction. The environmental impact assessment report is being assembled by Ukraine. If we couldn't guarantee security, we would not risk it, the employee said. Luton is a large town, borough and unitary authority area of Bedfordshire. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 258,000. Luton is home to Championship team Luton Town Football Club, London Luton Airport and The University of Bedfordshire. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. For all the latest news from Luton sign up to our newsletter here. A launch ceremony was held on Sunday in Peru's national library in Lima to mark the establishment of the first-ever Chinese book center in South America. The book center was set up by China International Publishing Group and the National Library of Peru with the support from Chinas Stated Council Information Office. The launch of the book center, coinciding with Chinese President Xi Jinpings state visit to Peru, is an important outcome of China-Peru cultural exchanges, said Huang Kunming, executive deputy head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, at the opening ceremony. Xi also attended the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting during his stay in Peru. Highlighting the importance of the book center, Huang said that the center will, with joint efforts of both sides, serve as a window for Peruvian public to learn about the Chinese culture. The Chinese books collected and displayed by the center, which appears like a hall exhibiting the colorful Chinese culture, will help Peruvian public understand Chinese culture and contemporary China, he added. In addition, about 1,000 Chinese books were donated to the National Library of Peru at the inauguration ceremony. Those books cover a broad range of topics including the traditional culture and national conditions of China. Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Prime Minister Modis Black Money Magic by M.C. Pindwal The demonetisation of Indian currency, as announced by PM Modi at 8 pm on November 8, 2016 in his address to the nation, has no solid basis. It is being argued from the governments side that demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes was necessary due to huge duplication in circulation upto 80 per cent. However, this is not true. No doubt these were in circulation but it is the ever increasing black money, certainly a dangerous portent to the Indian economy, that might have compelled the government to take this drastic action compelling the poor people to encounter the most inconvenient period of their life with all relief to the rich people who have no dearth of money or its equivalent in terms of gold, silver, shares of various companys or investment in properties. The earlier result of demonetisation of Rs 10,000 notes in 1978 by the Janata Party Government had failed to achieve anything significant despite many advisory committee reports on removal of the black money menace. Hence, this action of the government shall be watched with great curiosity by the people of India as we watched PM Modis visit to Pakistan followed by Pathankot and the much proclaimed surgical strike which was followed by increasing number of deaths on the Indian border that should have been avoided in the light of the most efficient strike ever taken by India. Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > A Nascent Caste on the Horizon: the Judicial Dynasties by Kunal Ghosh During the Emergency of 1975 to 1977, called by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Parliament passed laws for preventive detention of individuals and took the extreme step of suspending the Habeas Corpus. Even in 1962, during the days of the Chinese invasion in North-East India, Prime Minister Nehrus government had promulgated an ordinance called the Defence of India Rules for preventive detention. But there was no legislation suspending Habeas Corpus. The 1975 law was challenged and a Bench of five seniormost judges heard the case. Justices A.N. Ray, M.H. Beg, P.N. Bhagwati and Y.V. Chandrachud delivered a majority ruling in favour of the tyrannical state. The only dissenting view was that of Justice H.R. Khanna. It is often said that Mrs Gandhi curbed the powers of the judiciary severely. However, it appears that she did not have to do much; the judiciary surrendered its powers tamely. Justice Ray was already a CJ (that is, Chief Justice); the remaining three went on to become CJs. The seniormost, Justice H.R. Khanna, was denied promotion and the position, as punishment for his uprightness. Reverse Swing of the Pendulum Mrs Gandhi did believe in the committed judiciary and favoured either ideologically aligned or genuflecting judges. At least she followed a legislative process under the Constitution in taking powers away from the judiciary. In contrast, what the highest echelon of the judiciary did in two landmark cases is utterly without precedence and totally against convention. That is why I call it the Reverse Swing. In the S. P. Gupta Vs Union of India: Transfer of Judge case of 1981 and subsequently in the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association Vs Union of India case of 1993, the learned judges of the Supreme Court (abbreviated to SC hereafter) gave such verdicts that had the effect of taking away all powers from the executive (read the government) to appoint or transfer judges. They vested these powers in a Collegium System created by the SC itself. The Indian Constitution had given these powers to Parliament which was exercised by the executive appointed by the Parliament. In fact, it is the President who used to appoint the judges on advice from the Cabinet of the ruling government. Needless to say, the Collegium System finds no mention in the Constitution. One can argue that the said verdicts were against constitutional sanction. Also, this is unprecedented in the history of parliamentary democracy of the world. It is a mute question whether these verdicts, that amount to amendment of the Constitution, are constitutionally valid. Does the SC have powers to amend the Constitution? No, it does not. That power belongs only to the Parliament and the Legislative Assemblies in a complex web of rules. Jurists, lawyers and constitutional experts outside India expressed alarm. Indian law-makers remained more or less indifferent. No amendments of the Constitution, no legislation, just delivery of verdicts and the result is substantive alteration of the basic structure of the Constitution and disturbing the balance of powers between two organs of the state as envisaged by the Constitution. In July 1998 the then President of India, K.R. Narayanan, under his constitutional powers, raised a question of law regarding the verdicts of the two cases and the Collegium System, but to no avail. The SC stuck to its position and re-affirmed the validity of the Collegium System. The two cases and the presidential reference together are known as the Three judges cases among the legal fraternity. In fact, in the second case the petitioner is not a judge and the third was not a case at all; and hence, the label is a misnomer. It is true that the executive, the legislature and the judiciary are independent, equal and countervailing in a parliamentary democracy. But what is forgotten is that Parliament is the first among equals because it is elected by the people who are the sovereign. Our founding fathers gave the powers of appointing judges to the elected government. This is so in all the countries where some form of the parliamentary model is followed. Now as a result of the verdicts of the SC, there seem to be two poles of sovereigntythe people and the judiciary. The Collegium System Under the Collegium System a judge is appointed to the Supreme Court by the President of India on the recommendation of the collegiuma closed group of the Chief Justice of India, the four seniorhrost judges of the Court and the seniormost judge hailing from the High Court of a prospective appointee. The President, as advised by the Cabinet, has the option of rejecting a recommendation. The Collegium System and the strict Contempt-of-Court laws have given almost absolute powers to the judiciary. The result has been deepening of corruption and spreading of nepotism. The National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) was a body, proposed by the Narendra Modi-led NDA Government, which would have had the sole power to appoint and transfer judges. Firstly, the government had recognised that there had been undue political interference in judicial affairs in the past. So the NJAC was designed to insulate the judiciary from direct political interference. Secondly, tens of very eminent lawyers and retired judges were consulted in drafting the proposal. The Commission was established by Parliament by amending the Constitution (Ninetyninth Amendment Act, 2014). Along with the Constitution Amendment Act, the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014, was also passed by Parliament to regulate the functions of the NJAC. The NJAC Bill and the Constitutional Amendment Bill were ratified by 16 of the State legislatures in India, and subsequently received the assent of the President. The twin legislations were challenged by the Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association and struck down as unconstitutional by a Constitution Bench of the SC by a majority decision, of four to one, in October 2015. On one side is ranged the wisdom of the entire elected body of representatives of the people (in Parliament and the Assemblies), eminent lawyers and ex-judges, and on the other side is the opinion of a handful of sitting judges of the SC. The proposed NJAC included representatives of both the executive and the judiciary (it is not necessary to go into the details). Yet it was struck down and the arguments offered substantially meant that the elected bodies cannot be trusted. And, of course, the argumentthe Basic Structure of the Constitution will be compromisedwas repeated. Mistrust between the two organs of the state now stands institutionalised, a most unhealthy precedence. Also the basic structure argument does not seem to be valid; if it were valid, then the Constitution was being violated from 1950 to 1993an absurd proposition. Then the countries from which we borrowed parliamentary democracy are all violating the basic structureanother absurd proposition. The Finance Minister in the Modi Cabinet, Arun Jaitley, has rightly called the SC ruling a tyranny of the unelected. Confrontation and impasse between two organs of the state have happened in other countries too. The Lower House in the Parliament of the UK is called the House of Commons or just Commons whose members are directly elected by the people. The Upper House is called the House of Lords, which has a large number of hereditary peers who at one time used to enjoy considerable powers, both legislative and judicial. In 1909 the Liberal Party had formed the government. The Lords rejected the governments budget. The Liberals then introduced a bill to end the powers of the Lords to reject any legislation approved by the Commons. That too could have been blocked by the Lords, but the Liberals threatened to fill the House of Lords by a large number of Liberal appointees. The Lords wisely backed off from the confrontation and the tyranny of the unelected ended. Judicial Dynasties A prominent feature of the Indian society is the caste system that stands on two pillars: (1) hereditary privilege and/or profession, and (2) the custom of endogamous marriage (within the community pursuant of the same profession). The first had appeared in the House of Lords. Initially the peerage, that is, the membership of the House of Lords, was passed down from father to son, although an eminent person could enter laterally as a new appointee. The Lords had legislative as well as judicial powers. A committee of legally qualified Lords, known as the Law Lords, was at one time the ultimate appellate authority on many matters. A Law Lords son had only to acquire a law degree and some experience, then on his fathers death he would automatically become a Lord and was eligible for the post of a Law Lord. In course of time the Commons took a series of legislative steps to curb the hereditary powers of the Lords. The key issues here are the automatic inheritance of powers and its consequences. In India it is common for a lawyers son or a politicians son to enter his fathers profession. Lawyers are often appointed as judges and strong connections to people in authority often clinch the deal. In this context, I like to draw attention to the growth of judicial dynasties. By a very short search lasting over a few days I have discovered two budding dynasties in the higher levels of the judiciary. The present Chief Justice of the SC, Tirath S. Thakur, took over on December 2, 2015. His father, D.D. Thakur, was a well-known lawyer who later became a judge of the J&K High Court. D.D. Thakur was the main advocate of Sheikh Abdullah when he was facing arrest in the Nehru era. He later became a Finance Minister in the Sheikh Abdullah Government. He also served a term as the Assam Governor before returning to practice in the S C. Tirath S. Thakur enrolled as a pleader in 1972 and joined his fathers chamber. He became an Additional Judge of the J&K High Court and within a month (a surprisingly short time!) was transferred to the Karnataka High Court as a judge. Did connections clinch the deal? We do not know. He was transferred to the Delhi High Court in 2004 and became the Acting Chief Justice in 2008 (Ref: The Times of India, November 5, 2015, Ahmedabad). Elevation to the SC followed later. The present Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court, Dhananjaya Chandrachud, is the son of Justice Y. V. Chandrachud, who had ruled in favour of the Indira Gandhi Government in the Habeas Corpus case during the Emergency and who later became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1978 to 1985. I wonder how many such dynasties would be unearthed if an all-India search is instituted by a team of journalists. What I have discovered may be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I like to conclude by saying that the growth of such dynasties within the judiciary is an unhealthy feature and it is likely to be encouraged by the present Collegium System for judicial appointments. The first characteristic necessary for the formation of a caste has already emerged. If the dynasties fuse into one another through marital links, a new caste would be born. PS: Since this article was written, Justice Dhananjaya Chandrachud has been transferred from the Allahabad High Court to the Supreme Court. The author is a retired Professor and Head, Aerospace Engineering, Department, IIT, Kanpur. Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > Trump triumphs When the countrys mood is the Right, you cannot expect it to vote for Hillary Clinton who represents the Left-of-Centre if not the Left. Donald Trumps victory is an assertion of the White who constitute nearly 63 per cent and still have the phobia of being a minority. It is an unfortunate thinking but one cannot write it off because that is what America is today. Once again, the thesis of isolation is coming to the fore. There have been a substantial number of people in America who believe that they should go it alone and not bother about what the rest of the world feels about them. But this thought has not captured America at the White House. The outgoing President, Barack Obama, had two terms although he represented the non-Whites. The policy of isolation has been tried before in the country but the people have come back to a secular policy, which has recognised the Constitution more than the minority or the majority. President Abraham Lincoln was a Republican but he has gone down in history as the most acceptable personality by the minority as well. Donald Trump has, no doubt, outlandish views on Muslims but he is bound to be influenced by the realities of the world. America cannot afford to have an anti-Muslim policy and still expect trade with the Middle East and other Muslim countries. The realities of econo-mics are bound to guide the person at the White House. In a country where unemployment is the main problem, the promise to give jobs has an appeal. The young voters have been very much influenced by this call because they are in the market to seek job. They have heeded to Donald Trump because he, compared to Hillary Clinton, represents that sentiment. She is seen to support continuity. If Hillary Clinton had won and had a deal with a Republican Congress, she would have moved towards the middle as her husband did after the Republican Revolution of 1994. Hillary is regarded as more liberal than Bill Clinton on economic issues. On foreign policy, it is likely that a Democratic victory would have led to more international cooperation than a Republican victory. Democrats are generally more interested in promoting multilateral solutions and diplomacy than Republicans, illustrated by the Obama Administrations agreement with Iran, which the Republican candidate denounced. But in more ways than one, the presidential election of 2016 was a referendum on the eight years of President Obama. When he launched his campaign in 2007, Obama was an untried candidate who hoped to be a transformative President the way Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan had been, arguably the two most significant Presidents of the twentieth century. However, there are diverging views on his achievement, particularly after his final State of the Union Address. President Obama tried arguing why his presidency had been successful. He pointed out that 14 million new jobs were created during his presidency. These included 900,000 jobs in manufacturing that have been added during the last six years. The budget deficit was reduced by three-fourths, according to a transcript of his speech. No doubt, Obama had helped turn the economy around by regulating the financial sector in order to help prevent a new financial crisis. However, the major disappointment of his regime was his own admission of not succeeding in bridging the divide between the parties. He had hoped to be the person to unite the country, but the nation had ended up even more divided than under President George W. Bush. In addition, the economic inequality had remained a major challenge. A President is both a head of state and Cabinet leader. President Obama can point to significant legislative success and economic progress as a Cabinet leader, but not everyone sees him as a great head of state. As for Hillary Clinton, their view was more or less similar because she was bound to pursue her predecessors policy. On the other hand, many voters saw Trump as a patriotic person with gravitas who could be a great head of state, in spite of his arrogant behaviour at times and big ego. Widespread anger at the federal government was another key factor that helped explain Trumps support. Trump generally received a lot of support because he is an outsider who is not a politician. For instance, the entrance polls showed that a majority were angry and dissatisfied with the Democrats. Trump is skeptical of free trade and Chinas currency manipulation, and he wants to bring jobs back to America. Trump is a fighter and a successful businessman who understands the economy, many voters felt. Trump, a billionaire, got credit for using his own money instead of relying on rich donors to private political action committees formed to back presidential candidates. Many people liked that Trump was not beholden to anyone and that the Trump campaign had not spent large amounts of money on negative advertisements. In an incisive and persuasive New York Times commentary, Steve Inskeep compared the New York real estate magnate to President Andrew Jackson of the 1820s and 1830s. Trump attracted a particularly large group of supporters in the disadvantaged Appalachia region, as Jackson did. Jackson was a populist who did well among a diverse group of people and was tough on Indians the way Trump wants to punish illegal immigrants. However, the unfortunate fallout is that America would cease to have active interest in what happens in the world. For example, the complete withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan would give a free run to the ISIS which represents a radical form of Islam. Even the Taliban are not relevant. Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is conscious of this but he has to move according to the wishes of his countrys Army which believes that the Taliban are required to fight the radicals. This is probably the time when both India and Pakistan can have a joint front to fight for the people in the region. This would be good for the two countries and also for the world. The author is a veteran journalist renowned not only in this country but also in our neighbouring states of Pakistan and Bangladesh where his columns are widely read. His website is www.kuldipnayar.com A woman surnamed Xie in Nanjing, Jiangsu province gave birth to her baby in a subway station on Nov. 19, assisted by a passing midwife and medical professor who happened to be on the same train. Xie's contractions began while she was on the subway en route to the hospital, together with her husband. Upon learning of the situation, the midwife, Wu, immediately came to Xie's carriage and conducted an initial examination. Wu said she could already see the baby's head as she inquired about Xie's reproductive history. Liu Wentao, a professor at Nanjing Medical University, also lent a hand in Xie's labor. As the mother-to-be's contractions became more and more frequent, Wu suggested that they deliver the baby in the subway office. At 7:50 pm, just one minute after Xie entered the office, the infant was safely delivered. Liu wrapped the baby in a T-shirt to keep it warm, and Xie was later sent to the hospital. Wu noted that although expectant mothers can make it through labor by themselves in extreme conditions, doing so significantly increases health risks for both the mother and child. "The infants and new moms also risk infection in public spaces, where it's difficult to maintain a sanitary environment," Wu added. Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2016 > After Modis Thoughtless Firman POLITICAL NOTEBOOK It was heartening to see the entire Opposition in Parliament, barring Nitish Kumars JD(U), close ranks in opposing the demonetisation decision of the Modi Government and its fallout throughout the country putting to great inconvenience all sections from farmers to factory workers to the white-collar employees in cities and towns, with the very notable exception of the owners of black money against whom the step is believed to have been taken. It is, indeed, most significant that every partyfrom the Congress to the TMC, from the National Conference of Kashmir to the Shiv Sena of Maha-rashtra, from the SP and BSP to the CPI-M/CPIis presenting a solid phalanx against the thoughtless firman of the Government of Narendra Modi. The pressure of the Opposition and the anger of the common people who have been made to stand in unending queues before bank branches and ATMs have compelled the government to modify partly its draconian order. The farmers have been allowed to withdraw up to twentyfive thousand rupees per week from their bank accounts. Families preparing for marriages have been permitted to withdraw up to Rs 2,50,000. But this facility can be enjoyed only by one single member of the family, not by other members, even if they have money in their respective bank accounts. However, the tem-porary relief provided to the common citizens having savings bank accounts has been withdrawn: in their case the upper limit of exchanging old notes has been brought down again from Rs 4500 to Rs 2000. Parliament, which reopened for its winter session on November 16, 2016, has witnessed uproarious scenes in both Houses today with the Opposition sharply castigating the Modi dispensation for its decision to demonetise high denomination currency ostensibly to fight black money without taking into consideration the hardships it has caused to the common people. TMC supremo and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee has demanded that the decision be rolled back within three days, a proposal that has been rejected offhand by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Nevertheless, addressing a public meeting at the Capitals Azadpur Mandi both Mamata and Delhi CM and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal assailed the Modi Government in no uncertain terms. Kejriwal described the demoneti-sation project as the biggest scam of independent India, adding: People will deposit Rs 10 lakh crores and Modiji will write off loans amounting to Rs 8 lakh crores given to his corporate friends. (He alleged that Adani and Ambani knew about this decision and had done the needful thereafter.) He also referred to 40 persons having died while standing before banks in queues, and asked: Is this patriotism according to Modiji? Who is responsible for the death of these people? The hardships that those in the urban areas are being forced to endure are quite visible but in the rural areas the citizens are facing a far worse situation. The media has highlighted their plight and brought into focus the adverse impact of the PMs decision on food security. This too has been underlined by the Opposition leaders both inside Parliament and outside but Modi is unconcerned. This attitude can only aggravate the crisis for which he alone is responsible. November 17 Analyst Give The Malahat Review this holiday season! For the readers on your list, or as a special gift for yourself, why not buy the gift that keeps on giving four times per year? We have priced a one-year subscription to The Malahat Review specially to help you send holiday cheer, near and far. Order a gift subscription for a friend or loved one for only $15 (regular one-year subscriptions cost between $35 - 45). Thats a savings of 57% off the one-year subscription price or 69% off the newsstand price. This offer is also good for renewals of current or expired Malahat subscriptions. Well send the recipient a card in the mail to share the good news and cheer of your generous gift of words. Order early to guarantee the card arrives on time! First-time subscriptions will begin with Indigenous Perspectives, our Winter 2016 focus on contemporary Indigenous writing in Canada today, to be distributed in late January / early February 2017. We wont tell how little you spent! This offer expires January 31, 2017. On behalf of The Malahat Review and its dedicated staff, board members, and superlative volunteers, I thank you for your support. And I wish you a wonderful holiday of reading and good cheer. John Barton Editor The Malahat Review [File photo] Germanys semiconductor giant Aixtron has denounced U.S. interference in its pending takeover by a Chinese fund. The company said it would appeal to President Obama directly to approve the deal, along with its Chinese counterpart. The announcement was released by Aixtron on its official website on Nov. 18. The equipment manufacturer said the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) had suggested that Aixtron halt its takeover by Chinas Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund, as the deal has raised potential security concerns. However, Aixtron and its Chinese partner have decided to disregard the recommendation, seeking alternative measures that allow the transaction to proceed. Aixtron is one of only two companies that can produce metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) equipment, which can be used to manufacture light-emitting diodes, lasers, solar cells and other opto-electronic devices. Unlike its U.S. counterpart VEECO, Aixtron has been operating at a loss in recent years. According to Thepaper.cn, Germanys Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy approved the takeover on Sept. 8. Though GCI paid for around 65 percent of Aixtrons stocks on Oct. 21, which is enough for the takeover to be completed, German authorities withdrew their approval three days later, restarting the evaluation procedure. German newspaper Handelsblatt revealed on Oct. 25 that the withdrawal was due to U.S. interference. The U.S. government fears that China may acquire semiconductor technologies for military use. This is not the first time CFIUS has thwarted a Chinese company's attempt to enter the European market. In October 2015, a bid by Chinese investor Go Scale Capital for Royal Philips NVs lighting-components unit was blocked by CFIUS, also due to alleged security reasons. According to CFIUS rules, President Obama has 15 days to decide the fate of the deal. Over the course of his presidency so far, he has only used this power once, forcing a Chinese firm to divest from a wind project deemed too close to a U.S. Navy facility in Oregon. In partnership with TheRealReal. Helena Bala knows that everyone has a story. Its why she started Craigslist Confessional a safe space for everyone to tell theirs in 2014. She was born in Albania and, as a child, attended international schools in Slovenia and then Bridgeport, Connecticut. She has the kind of open energy that just makes you want to tell her stuff. Fitting, all considering. She moved to America just before 9/11 and experienced how her otherness become a burden. Years later, she got a law degree so she could pursue a career in human rights. Although she now jokingly calls herself a recovering lawyer and lobbyist, shes still very much interested in helping people. She founded Craigslist Confessional (which now also runs as a column on Quartz) after making a connection with a homeless man simply by listening to his story and then telling him hers. It sparked an idea maybe more people simply needed open ears. Two years later and shes still listening. On that note, pop in your headphones and give her your ears for todays episode of Oh Boy. Helena Bala is the Founder of Craigslist Confessional, follow her on Twitter @clistconfession! Shes also a regular contributor to Man Repeller! Follow host Jay Buim on Instagram @beardwizard and check out his website, too. Logo by Kelly Shami; illustration by Amber Vittoria. This podcast is sponsored by The Real Real. The Real Real is launching its first pop-up shop from December 1st to 15th at 79 Greene Street in Soho, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. M-F and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sat-Sun. (Xinhua) 20:49, November 22, 2016 Chinese Ambassador Hong Liang on Tuesday urged all parties to exercise restraint to immediately end the armed conflicts near the China-Myanmar border. Hong made the call at an inaugural ceremony of two Chinese non-governmental organizations in Yangon, Myanmar Chinese Communication and Cooperation Central Association (MCCCCA) and Chinese Enterprises Chamber in Myanmar(CECM). Noting that Myanmar is full of hope and business opportunities currently, Hong called on Chinese businessmen to work for the country's economic and social development as well as enhancement of trade cooperation between China and Myanmar. MCCCCA would also help push forward the two countries' friendly cooperation, he said, adding that it needs a good environment for such cooperation. He expressed deep concern over the current outbreak of armed conflicts near China-Myanmar border, calling on all parties to exercise constraint to immediately end the conflicts. Pledging support of Myanmar's peace process, Hong maintained that peace talks are the only channel to gain national reconciliation and eternal peace. Chairman of the MCCCCA U Thitsa said the association was formed with the aim of working for the welfare of the people based on friendship of the two countries and development and consolidation of such bilateral relations. Chairman of CECM Lv Dexing stressed that his organization would push the cooperation between businessmen of the two countries and enhance the friendly relations between the two peoples. Noting that Myanmar and China are neighboring countries enjoying traditional Paukphaw (fraternal ) friendship, Speaker of the Yangon Region Parliament U Tin Maung Tun called for doing more in economic and social cooperation. Asia to West Africa container traffic fell by 19% in the third quarter; the end-year result will not be much better. The IMFs latest World Economic Outlook, published last month, described multispeed growth for sub-Saharan Africa economies with the divide between the haves and have nots hinging on different nations exposure to commodities. The biggest West African economies of Nigeria and Angola are struggling to adjust to lower oil revenues with the former expected to see GDP contract by 1.7% this year and the latter to flat-line. The outlook is not much better for 2017 with Nigerias economy predicted to grow by just 0.6%, while Angolas output is expected to rise by a meagre 1.5%. In contrast, smaller, non-resource exporting economies in the region such as the Ivory Coast and Senegal are (and will continue) enjoying GDP growth of more than 5%. These economies are benefiting from low oil prices and enjoying healthy private consumption and investment growth rates, the IMF said. Container flows into the region are reflecting the fact the economic slowdown is hitting the largest economies the hardest. After nine months of 2016, southbound shipments from Asia to West Africa were down by 11%, according to data provided by the Container Trades Statistics Ltd. Traditionally one of the strongest periods of the year, the third quarter saw volumes slide by 19% year-on-year, the worst decline on our records dating back to 2012 and the seventh consecutive quarter with a negative comparison. Figure 1: Southbound Asia to West Africa container traffic ('000 teu) - See Fig 1 The end-year 2016 deficit will almost certainly beat the 10% drop in annual volumes experienced last year. The average monthly Asia to West Africa volume over the past 12 months up to September 2016 fell to 101,700 teu, 11.6% down on the same month last year (see Figure 2). The speed of the decline is accelerating and indicates a trade decrease of around 12-14% come end-December. Figure 2: 12-month rolling average of southbound Asia to West Africa container traffic Fig 2 Source Drewry Maritime Research, derived from Container Trade Statistics Despite the dramatic fall off in volumes Asia-West Africa carriers did not adjust their capacity accordingly. The total slots available to the market remained roughly unchanged through the third quarter (see Figure 3) with missed voyages temporarily limiting the impact of bigger ships that have been cascaded into the trade. As of last month, MSC was operating five ships of over 10,000 teu on its Africa Express service (the largest being the 13,100 teu MSC Altair) that has helped boost the average size of ship deployed to around 5,500 teu. Figure 3: Southbound Asia to West Africa capacity ('000 teu) Fig 3 Source Drewry Maritime Research Carriers lack of response to falling volumes had negative consequences for ship utilisation and freight rates. The average ship utilisation on the southbound leg of this trade fell to 56% in the third quarter, down from 63% in the second quarter. Consequently, the brief uptick in rates seen in July and August was quickly erased by September with a further drop seen in October. Representative 40ft container spot market rates between Shanghai and Lagos fell to just $1,200 in October, the lowest since April and nearly half their value for the same month last year. Figure 4: Southbound Asia to West Africa utilisation v rates Fig 4 Source Drewry Maritime Research Notes: *Based on effective capacity after deductions are made for deadweight and high-cube limitations and then again for out-of-scope cargoes, i.e. those relayed to areas outside the range. Where relevant, operational capacities have also been adjusted for slots allocated to wayport cargoes. Data subject to change Source: Drewry Maritime Research Our view The third quarter drop in volumes was unexpectedly severe and must have caught carriers out by surprise, judging by the lack of response on the supply front. This trade is in dire need of capacity rationalisation, along the lines of what happened in Asia-East Coast South America, if a freight recovery is to be achieved US Education System Broken: Let's Try 'Ed-Exit' Maryland Governor Larry Hogan recently signed an executive order forbidding Maryland public schools from beginning classes before Labor Day. Governor Hogan's executive order benefits businesses in Maryland's coastal areas that lose school-aged summer employees and business from Maryland families when schools start in August. However, as Governor Hogan's critics have pointed out, some Maryland school districts, as well as Maryland schoolchildren, benefit from an earlier start to the school year. Governor Hogan's executive order is the latest example of how centralized government control of education leaves many students behind. A centrally planned education system can no more meet the unique needs of every child than a centrally planned economic system can meet the unique needs of every worker and consumer. Centralizing education at the state or, worse, federal level inevitably leads to political conflicts over issues ranging from whether students should be allowed to pray on school grounds, to what should be the curriculum, to what food should be served in the cafeteria, to who should be allowed to use which bathroom. The centralization and politicization of education is rooted in the idea that education is a right that must be provided by the government, instead of a good that individuals should obtain in the market. Separating school from state would empower parents to find an education system that meets the needs of their children instead of using the political process to force their idea of a good education on all children. While many politicians praise local and parental control of education, the fact is both major parties embrace federal control of education. The two sides only differ on the details. Liberals who oppose the testing mandates of No Child Left Behind enthusiastically backed President Clinton's national testing proposals. They also back the Obama administration's expansion of federal interference in the classroom via Common Core. Similarly, conservatives who (correctly) not just opposed Clinton's initiatives but called for the abolition of the Department of Education enthusiastically supported No Child Left Behind. Even most conservatives who oppose Common Core, federal bathroom and cafeteria mandates, and other federal education policies, support reforming, instead of eliminating, the Department of Education. Politicians will not voluntarily relinquish control over education to parents. Therefore, parents and other concerned citizens should take a page from the UK and work to Ed-Exit government-controlled education. Parents and other concerned citizens should pressure Congress to finally shut down the Department of Education and return the money to American families. They also must pressure state governments and local school boards to reject federal mandates, even if it means forgoing federal funding. Parents should also explore education alternatives, such as private, charter, and religious schools, as well as homeschooling. Homeschooling is the ultimate form of Ed-Exit. Homeschooling parents have the freedom to shape every aspect of education -- from the curriculum to the length of the school day to what their children have for lunch to who can and cannot use the bathroom -- to fit their child's unique needs. Parents interested in providing their children with a quality education emphasizing the ideas of liberty should try out my homeschooling curriculum. The curriculum provides students with a well-rounded education that includes courses in personal finance and public speaking. The government and history sections of the curriculum emphasize Austrian economics, libertarian political theory, and the history of liberty. However, unlike government schools, my curriculum never puts ideological indoctrination ahead of education. Buy Ron Paul's latest book, Swords into Plowshares, here. Dr. Ron Paul Project Freedom Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill. Dr. Ron Paul Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Best Cashback Credit and Debit Cards for Christmas Savvy shoppers will no doubt be looking to make the most of their hard-earned cash at this time of year, and they could attempt to earn some much-needed cashback each time they spend. However, with just five weeks to go until Christmas, there isnt much time left to work out which are the good deals and which are the bad. The latest research from Moneyfacts.co.uk compares some of the best deals around and could help shoppers make the most of rewarding credit cards and current accounts throughout the festive season. Rachel Springall, Finance Expert at Moneyfacts.co.uk, said: Over the years, rewards have become far less rewarding, showing that loyalty doesnt pay. Indeed, its becoming increasingly more difficult for shoppers to get something for nothing, but customers can still earn a little back over the festive season by exploring cards and current accounts. Barclays is trebling the rewards and cashback that shoppers can earn for a limited time if they switch this month, American Express is still offering a credit card that pays 5% cashback for the first three months, and Halifax is still offering a 100 switching incentive, plus a 5 monthly reward and up to 15% cashback. Shoppers can also get 220 in gift cards from M&S Bank if they switch and stay for twelve months. Good things dont last forever though; already we have seen Santander withdraw its 123 Credit Card from sale and in February next year it will cap the cashback on offer to existing customers, so the most they will be able to earn in one month once the 3 monthly fee has been deducted is 6. TSB will pay shoppers 5% cashback when they spend 100, but only until the end of this year, and Halifax will drop its 5 payment on the Reward Current account to 3 in February, so time is running out to take advantage. Its clear to see that shoppers must measure up whats on offer to find the best deal, but in the meantime they could exchange card points for vouchers or use cashback sites to earn a little back this year. www.moneyfacts.co.uk - The Money Search Engine Moneyfacts.co.uk is the UK's leading independent provider of personal finance information. For the last 20 years, Moneyfacts' information has been the key driver behind many personal finance decisions, from the Treasury to the high street. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. MARTINSVILLE The City Council will be talking trash during its meeting tonight. Specifically, it will discuss updating the citys solid waste management plan. State law requires solid waste management planning units localities, basically to update their plans every five years. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality approved Martinsvilles last update in 2011 and is expecting to receive the latest update by Dec. 31, a report in the councils agenda packet shows. Martinsville and Henry County previously have submitted joint plans and intend to do so again this year. Joyce Engineering, with which the city consults on solid waste matters, is developing the update. The council will consider scheduling a public hearing on the update for Dec. 13, at which time it will be detailed. The Henry County Board of Supervisors also intends to hold a hearing next month, the report shows. Copies of the plan will be available for public review at the Blue Ridge Regional Library on East Church Street, the city public works department office in Room 226 at the municipal building on West Church Street uptown and the Henry County Administration Building on Kings Mountain Road near Collinsville. Also, a link to the plan will be posted on the citys website at www.martinsville-va.gov. The council will meet at 7:30 tonight in its chambers on the second floor of the municipal building. It will recognize city employees who will be presented longevity of service awards through the end of December. Listed by their lengths of service, those employees are: @ 30 years William Stultz of the utility billing department. @ 25 years Mark Gilbert of the police department, Doug Boaz of the water plant. @ 20 years Danny Worrell of the public works department. @ 15 years James Hopkins of the fire department. @ 10 years Sandra Tomlinson of the revenue commissioners office. @ 5 years Wayne Moore of the wastewater treatment plant. Also to be recognized are John R. Redd, who recently received the 2016 Henry County-Martinsville Outstanding Military Veteran award and Malon I. Shelton, who recently was named Veteran of the Year. The Outstanding Military Veteran award is jointly presented by the county and city. The Veteran of the Year is named by the local Veterans Service Organization. Redd joined the Army in 1944. After undergoing basic training at Fort Bragg, N.C., he was trained as a sewing machine operator at Fort Lee, Va. In May 1945, he was deployed to Okinawa, where he was assigned to the 4482nd Quartermaster Salvage Repair Company, 10th Army. He was involved in Operation Iceberg, the last land battle on Okinawa prior to the end of World War II. The Army honorably discharged him in November 1946. Shelton joined the Marines in March 1966. After serving with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, he spent the rest of his time in Vietnam assigned to 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines G Company. He left Vietnam as a lance corporal. Other agenda items include: @ Hearing an update on the New College Institute from Leanna Blevins, its acting executive director and chief academic officer. @ Discussing the citys proposed 2017 legislative agenda. @ Considering an amendment to the citys Northside Community Development Block Grant project contract. @ Hearing brief public comments about city issues not on the agenda for discussion. Mickey Powell reports for the Martinsville Bulletin. He can be reached at mickey.powell@martinsvillebulletin.com. BASSETT Bassett High School bustled Saturday and Sunday as thousands of holiday shoppers walked the halls. Hosting vendors ranging from Origami Owl to handmade wooden walking toys, consumers scoured the gym, auditorium, foyer and hallways for unique gifts for the upcoming holidays. Admission prices, concessions and vendor set up fees supported the Bassett High School Band Boosters. Helping at the admission table, self-professed band mom Becki Bishop expressed pride over the work the students had put into the 26th annual event. All of the band parents love these students and we are extremely proud of them, Bishop said. Band members buzzed throughout the school providing a helpful hand to vendors who could not leave their booths. One band member, freshman Austin Boyd, said he was pleased with the turnout. Its even more successful than we thought it would be, Boyd said. Vending at the craft show for more than ten years, husband and wife team Deborah and Jim Davis set up their booth, Wings of Time. Its based on anything to do with time, Deborah explained. Deborah first became interested in jewelry making when she noticed intricate pieces of clocks, her husband being an avid collector. When Deborah showed Jim her first piece a set of earrings made of a minute and hour hand Jim expressed concern. I thought she had been into my clocks, Jim said. That conversation took place in the 1990s. Since then, Jim and Deborah have traveled all around selling Deborahs symbolic pieces. For the mismatched clock hand earrings, Deborah explained, You can be a pair, but you dont have to match. Making the time-centered jewelry reminds the vendor of words her mother told her while growing up. She said, Slow down, girl, slow down. Time flies. So thats when I added wings to some pieces of jewelry, Deborah said. Deborah also sold dragonfly necklaces at the show, which she said symbolized a flutter of time. Time after time, Jim and Deborah ventured back to the Bassett High School Holiday Market. Weve got so many of the same customers that come each year, Jim said. Weve already paid for next year. While Jim and Deborah are veteran vendors, newcomers also joined the 2016 show. Best friends Rita Shelton, originally from Bassett, and Susan Kontoleon, originally from Collinsville, set up at the show for the first time. Shelton first saw an idea for snowmen snowballs made of fleece on Facebook. I made them for my grandkids but didnt make any for my kids. So they got bombarded and started asking, Wheres mine? Wheres mine? Shelton said. The crafter not only made a set for her kids, but also for other friends and family members. Having success in her circle, she and Kotoleon decided to sell items at the show. Husband and wife team Chris and Vickie Nichols also made seasonal items. Their booth, Vickie Nicholss Arts focused on items Vickie hand painted. I am a gourd painter, Vickie said. I paint new designs with a modern twist. Along with gourds, the crafter also painted flowerpots, wooden sleds and decorative penguins. I paint anything that stands still, Vickie said. Diane Taylor also focused on paining. Both Taylor and her husband, Brian Taylor, sold hand painted plates in their booth, Chalk Creations by Diane. Each plate had a different saying written atop chalk paint. However, not just any plate would do. Diane scours both the internet and craft stores for the perfect combination of color and style. I just try to get a variety of colors, Diane said. All plates are different. Since the holiday show catered to all needs, Pat Coleman set up her booth, Pats Treats for Pets. Coleman sold tasty items for the four-legged members of the family. Some treats contained sweet potatoes, cheese and peanut butter. Nobody really thinks about our furry friends around the holiday season, Coleman said. They need special attention. Also at the booth, Annie Washburn set up her human-friendly baked goods selection, Grandmas Goodies. Ruth Ridgeway also sold homemade treats at her booth, Ruths Crafty Corner. Ridgeway gave out free samples of her famous sourdough fruitcake. My husband loved fruitcake and I came across this cookbook with nothing but sourdough, Ridgeway said. He said, Dont ever make another kind of fruitcake. That is the best. Levita Bowman, Bridgette Burnette and Bettie Bowman also set up at the craft show. They sold necklaces, bracelets and earrings at their booth, BLBs Handmade Unique Fashion Jewelry. Its made with love, Burnette said about each piece. Its something you cant find in stores, Levita said. Bettie said, You wont see anyone else wearing it. Whether purchasing a one of a kind piece of jewelry, a deco mesh wreath or a book by local authors in connection with Tom Perrys Laurel Hill Publishing, LLC, consumers shopped small and lived large at Bassett High School Band Boosters 26th annual Holiday Market. A total of how much was raised for the band was not available by presstime. COLLINSVILLE-A Henry County Grand Jury on Monday handed down 203 indictments, according to records in the Henry County Circuit Court Clerks Office. Of that number, 81 of the indictments were sealed by a judges order until served or for five days. Of the remaining 122, 70 follow and the remainder will be printed in an upcoming edition of the Martinsville Bulletin. Among those indicted were: -Elaine Marie Pennington, 20, of Savannah, Georgia. Shes charged with one count each of possessing between 100 to 200 grams or more of methamphetamine or a methamphetamine mixture with intent to distribute; transporting methamphetamine into the Commonwealth with intent to sell or distribute; and possession of a firearm while possessing methamphetamine. Those all stem from a May 26 incident. -Dahneilia Myckell Newmius, 26, of Charlotte, N.C., also faces one count of possessing 100 to 200 grams or more of methamphetamine or a methamphetamine mixture with intent to distribute, one count of transporting methamphetamine into the Commonwealth with intent to sell or distribute and possession of a firearm while possessing methamphetamine. Those charges stem from a May 26 incident. -Irvin Blane Allen, 61, of Axton, faces two counts of forcible sodomy with a victim less than 13 years old; two counts indecent liberties with a minor while in a custodial/supervisory position; and two counts of aggravated sexual battery with a victim less than 13 years old. Those charges include incidents that allegedly happened between May 1, 2015 and Feb. 29. -Jacob Anthony Hairston, 52, of Martinsville, faces one charge of assault and battery on a family/household member third or subsequent offense. Thats from an Aug. 12 incident in the county. -Eric Justin Hodges, 26, of Bassett, was charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle after a June 5 incident. -Terri Lee Hensley, 57, of Martinsville, faces one count of assault and battery of a police officer and felony shoplifting greater than $200. That stems from a June 15 incident. -Tina Renee Spence, 35, of Bassett, faces one count of felony destruction of property. Thats from an April 17 incident. -James Winfred Hopkins, 65, of Martinsville, faces one count of assault and battery on a police officer. That comes from a Dec. 29, 2015 incident. -Marsha Elaine Pennington, 35, of Stanleytown, stands accused of threatening to bomb, burn, destroy or damage structure, after an incident June 3. -Nakita Darchell Waller, 29, of Collinsville, faces one count of felony shoplifting greater than $200, after a May 2 incident. -Albert Leshawn Young, 35, of Fieldale, faces one count of felony shoplifting greater than $200, after a May 2 incident. -John Robert Glenn, 42, of Bassett, was charged with strangulation, after a June 12 incident. -Scottie Lynn Cundiff, 34, of Axton, was charged with threatening to bomb, burn, damage or destroy structure. That stems from a March 7 incident. -Casey Daniel Stanley, 31, of Ridgeway, faces one count of heroin possession and possession of methamphetamine, from a Sept. 9 incident. -Tammy Lynn Coleman, 32, of Bassett, faces charges of shoplifting third or subsequent offense, after a March 17 incident. -Quinton Neal Gilbert, 33, of Martinsville, faces one count of grand larceny, after an April 18 incident. -Victoria Walker Cumbee, 28, of Martinsville, faces one count of felony shoplifting greater than $200 and felony failure to appear in court. That stems from the original incident April 24 and the original court date of June 9. -Cynthia Rena Campbell, 60, of Fieldale, faces one count of shoplifting third or subsequent offense and felony failure to appear in court. The original incident happened July 23 and the scheduled court date was Aug. 8. -Montel Montoya Carter, 22, of Martinsville, faces one count of shoplifting third or subsequent offense, after an incident Nov. 4, 2015. -Terrie Dalena Teague, 38, of Martinsville, faces one count of petit larceny third or subsequent offense, after a June 16 incident. -Anthony Jay Hodges, 45, of Bassett, faces one count of possession of methamphetamine, after an incident June 22. -Logan Everet Cassell, 26, of Bassett, faces one count each of grand larceny; larceny with intent to sell/distribute greater than $200; and entering property with intent to damage/interfere. Thats all from an incident July 5. -Carlos Luis Rodriguez, 30, of Patrick Springs, faces one charge of possession of a firearm by a felon within 10 years of release and possession of ammunition by a felon. Those both stem from an incident June 19. -Alfred Jay Pennington Jr., 60, of Collinsville, faces two counts of threatening to bomb, burn, damage or destroy structure. Those come from a June 3 incident. -Russell Wayne Hundley, 47, of Collinsville, faces one count of robbery use of deadly weapon, after a July 23 incident. -Alan Lane Kaufholz Jr., 34, of Bassett, faces one count of felony failure to appear, after a scheduled court date of Sept. 19. -William Bradley Rea, 33, of Collinsville, faces one count of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute greater than 10 grams and elude police speed 20 mph or more over limit. Those both stem from a July 18 incident. -Darren William Wilson, 39, of Axton, faces one count of felony failure to appear. That comes after a Sept. 19 incident. -Jeovani Burgos-Mauricio, 31, of Bassett, faces one count each of aggravated sexual battery with a victim less than 13 years old; object sexual penetration with a victim less than 13 years old; and taking indecent liberties with a minor while maintaining custodial/supervisory position. The charges involve incidents between Oct. 1, 2007 and April 7, 2010. -Kelly Renee Trull, 28, of Martinsville, faces one count of credit card fraud, after a May 6 incident. -Darryl Ramon Johnson, 22, of Bassett, faces one count of breaking and entering a dwelling with the intent to commit larceny and grand larceny. That comes from a July 5 incident. -Roberto Gomez Telles, 22, of Collinsville, faces four counts of assaulting a police officer, one count of possession of methamphetamine. Those come from an incident June 19. -Charles Douglas Coffin, 32, of Greensboro, N.C., faces one count each of grand larceny; grand larceny of firearm; breaking and entering into a dwelling with the intent to commit larceny; and credit card fraud. That comes from an incident July 1. -Ronald Gene Edwards Jr., 27, of Ridgeway, faces one count of breaking and entering into a dwelling with intent to commit larceny, from a July 30 incident. -Lisa Ann Jacobus, 26, of Martinsville, faces one count of shoplifting third or subsequent offense, after a July 12 incident. -Alisa Anne Kaminsky, 28, of Martinville, faces one count of breaking and entering into a dwelling with the intent to commit larceny. That stems from a July 30 incident. -James Michael Murray, 38, of Spencer, faces one count of breaking and entering into a dwelling with intent to commit larceny, after a July 30 incident. -Jeremy Caleb Tuggle, 26, of Martinsville, faces one count of grand larceny, after an Aug. 3 incident. Electoral results provide an important, albeit imperfect snapshot of the mood in society at any given time. Although they cannot reflect the full complexity of the subterranean changes taking place, they do provide valuable insights. Processes that have been quietly evolving over years and decades suddenly surface and take form. In these results, over time, you can trace the demographic, economic, social, and ideological changes taking place beneath the surface of society, as reflected at the ballot box. Image: Socialiste Appeal (US)At times there are prolonged periods of relative stasis, followed by dramatic transformations and changes. Parties and politicians that seemed immutable outlive their historical usefulness and are swept from the stage of history, and replaced by otherswhich rise and fall in turn. Sometimes, old political shells are filled with new social contentthe names remain the samebut the social forces they represent do not. In the final analysis, political parties reflect the interests of different classes or layers of classes. As the underlying economic basis for capitalist rule enters into crisis, so too do the systems political and ideological forms. This is a complex and contradictory process, not a direct and mechanical one. Nonetheless, the bases for these crises are rooted in the economic framework of society. The Democrats and Republicans, both of which represent the interests of the capitalist class, have controlled American politics for over 150 years. They were able to ensure their dominance by leaning on the working class, playing one layer against another, offering crumbs to some while viciously oppressing others, to cobble together the semblance of an electoral base of support. This continued into the 21st century on the basis of the post-WWII economic boom, social inertia, and the pernicious role of the labor leaders, who refused to break with these parties and offer a working class political alternative. But the economic boom is long over. It has taken several waves of crisis to burn away the fat, derail the inertia, and shake peoples confidence in the system. The 2008 crisis has accelerated the process. On November 8, we saw the latest political manifestation of the crisis. This, in turn, will feed back on the economic and social crisis, and vice versa. The relative stability of the last few decades is dead and buried. A search for answers Part of the process of finding a way out of the crisis is the testing of existing parties and leaders. With no traditional mass working class party, American workers must go through a particularly strange variant of this experience. Fumbling around in the dark without a lead from the labor leaders, they will have to bang their shins and stub their toes in the process. Eventually, however, the lights will turn on, and the reality of what theyve been dealing with and the need for a very different way of doing things will become apparent. Once the American workers conclude that new parties, leaders, and methods of struggle are needed, it will be lights out for capitalism. In the span of just a few months, weve seen the ignominious fall of Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, the hand-picked inheritors of their entrenched political dynasties. Weve also witnessed the spectacular ascent and crash of Bernie Sanderswho drove himself into the river by not breaking with the Democrats and running as an Independentand the eventual upset victory of the ultimate upstart, Donald J. Trump. Although Trump and Sanders, each in their own way, helped their respective parties maintain their relevance through another electoral cycle, the forces they unleashed will speed up the eventual demolition of these pillars of capitalist rule. The liberal-right-wing of the ruling class was given eight years to solve the working classs problems, but failed. A combination of disillusionment, abstention, the Electoral College, and the crystallization of a form of urban-rural working-class sectionalism that tipped the balance in a few key states, handed victory to the conservative-right wing. But as we shall see, he has no real mandate. Trump is now putting together his cabinet, surrounding himself with reactionary ideologues and bankers such as Stephen Bannon, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Steven Mnuchin, and more. We will explore this rogues gallery in detail in future articles. Suffice it to say that this veritable thieves kitchen will only accelerate the decomposition of the winning partywhich also has control over Congress. Trump will have no excuses for not delivering on his bombastic domestic and foreign policy promises, many of which are contradictory and at odds with his partys platformnot to mention unrealizable in full or even in part under capitalism. Confidence in the entire system and all its institutions are already at record lows and even though some people will give him a chance at first, Trump will end up driving confidence in the system even lower. I dont regret not voting This lack of confidence was on full display on election day as voter participation remained stagnant despite the panicked appeals by both sides to get out the vote. Just 58.4% of eligible voters bothered to vote, a far lower rate than most developed countries, and even lower than countries like Turkey and Mexico. The reason is clear: tens of millions abstain because they instinctively know that their vote wont change anything. Overwork, low wages, debt, stress, and insecurity will continue no matter who wins. This year saw the two most despised candidates in recent memory engage in a personal war of attrition that offered little but negative options to defeat the other candidate. And without standardized voting machines and proceduresand the fact that voting takes place on a Tuesday workdaymillions couldnt be bothered to make it to the polls. However, even 58.4% is an exaggeration. The media reports on the participation of eligible votersnot the total voting age populationto inflate the numbers. Some 231 million Americans were legally eligible to vote in 2016. However, this does not include the 20 million or more voting-age residents of the US who are unable to weigh in because they are in prison, are convicted felons, or who, due to their immigration status, have no rights despite working and paying taxes in this country. According to the Pew Research Center, the US ranked 31st out of 35 mostly OECD countries for voter turnout based on the voting age populace. In the end only 24.7% of the voting age population voted for Trumpeven fewer than the 25.4% who voted for Clintonhardly a mandate. Neither candidate won a majority of the votes cast in any state except Washington, DCwhich isnt even a stateand which, tellingly, voted 90% for Clinton. In only six states plus Washington DC was turnout high enough that one of the candidates won more votes than the total that abstained: Iowa and Wisconsin for Trump and Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire and DC for Clinton. To put things into recent historical context, consider the following totals for the winning candidate in the last three elections: 2008 (Obama): 69.5 million 2012 (Obama): 65.9 million 2016 (Trump): 61.9 million This fall in votes for the winner is even more dramatic when one considers that the population has grown by an estimated 21 million over the last eight years. On top of all of this, 14 statesincluding important swing stateshad new voting restrictions in place this year which were clearly intended to reduce voter participation among eligible minority voters. When all of this is taken together, it is no wonder the idea that these elections reflect the will of the people rings hollow. The key to understanding the result is the fact that an estimated 9 million fewer people voted in 2016 as compared to four years agoand about 7 million of those had voted for the Democrats in 2012. Although some 1.9 million of them switched their votes to the Republicans, most of these former Democratic voters simply stayed home. As the New York Times put it, The election was notable as much for the people who did not show up, as for those who did. A few examples concretely illustrate the electoral effects of 30 years of working class decline and betrayal by the worker-friendly Democrats: In a Brigade app poll held before the election, 2% of registered Republicans said they would vote for Hillary, while 40% of registered Democrats said they would vote for Trump. More Democratic Party women indicated they would move over to vote for Trump than men. One-third of 700 counties that previously voted for Obama flipped and voted for Trump. Clinton received 129,000 fewer votes in heavily Democratic Detroit than Obama did four years ago and lost the state by around 61,000 total votes. Clinton received 95,000 fewer votes in heavily Democratic Milwaukee than Obama did and lost the state by 73,000 total votes. As one Milwaukee barber expressed it: I dont feel bad. Milwaukee is tired. Both of them were terrible. They never do anything for us anyway. 29% of Latino voters, including 26% of Latina women who supported Donald Trump. More white women53%voted for Trump instead of Clinton. Only 1% of women voters overall shifted to the Democrats. Many women clearly saw her as more concerned with breaking glass ceiling for herself while defending a system that keeps working women and all workers in chains. NY Times exit polls showed that younger voters shifted towards the Republicans by +5%, and that across the country, all ethnic groups shifted towards the Republicans: +1% of whites, +7% of blacks, +8% of Latinos. 50% of union members voted for Trump, despite the frantic efforts of the labor leaders to keep them in line and voting for Clinton. Obamas presidency will end with Democrats in possession of 11 fewer Senate seats, more than 60 fewer seats in the House of Representatives, at least 14 fewer governorships, and more than 900 fewer seats in state legislatures than when he took office. The Democrats controlled Congress from 2008 to 2010, and what did they deliver? As far back as 2008, the ground was being laid for the smashing of the incumbents in 2016. Democracy, American Style What about the pesky detail that Clinton actually received 1.7 million more votes than Trump? How is it possible that the winner can take office while receiving that many fewer votes? As we wrote before the election in US Election 2016: On the Eve of Armageddon And lets not forget about the Electoral College. For all the fuss about democracy and the will of the majority, not a single American will vote for president on November 8. The Electoral College is one of many safety valves built into the US Constitution to ensure the masses don't take democracy too literally. It is weighted towards the more conservative rural constituencies and means that voters actually cast ballots for unelected electors who are not legally bound to vote for the candidate most voted for by the electorate in their district. Remember: this is democracy for the bourgeoisie, not the working class. To win the keys to the White House, a candidate must receive a minimum of 270 electoral votes. Electors are allocated in the same ratio as members of Congress, with each state receiving two electoral votes for each Senator, and a varying number of electors equal to the number of members of the House of Representatives. Washington DC is also allocated three electors, though they have no representation in Congress. As of this writing, not a single person has yet voted for President of the United States. In fact, the 538 electors will not meet to vote until December 18. So why is it that Clinton meekly accepted defeat and has fallen off the public radar? Those who watched the debates will recall the pressure that was put on Trump to say he would acknowledge the results, which he repeatedly said were rigged. He finally relented and said that he would accept the resultsif he won. Confident of victory, Clinton vowed to play by the rules, and she is now bound by them. Ironically, Clinton spoke against the Electoral College some years ago but did nothing to bring about its end. Now she and the US ruling class, who overwhelmingly preferred her to Trump, must live with the poisoned fruits of this archaic institution. 2016 marks the fifth time since 1820 that the winner of the popular vote lost the presidency (the others were in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000). Most recently, George W. Bush was declared the 43rd president despite receiving 540,000 fewer votes than Al Gore. Seeking to avoid a major controversy, Gore accepted defeat after the unelected Supreme Court decided that Bush had in fact won Florida on the basis of hanging chads. The Electoral College was one of the many compromises between Southern slave-owning plantation owners and Northern merchants and bankers who cobbled together the US Constitution. Since Southern states had much smaller populations than the North, and since such a large proportion of their populations were slaves without rights, they needed a way to ensure they had a say in federal government. The compromise was one of the results. In short, part of the Founding Fathers vision was to count black slaves as of a human being. This would help pad the population rolls just enough to grant Southern states a few more members of Congress and electoral votes. Not surprisingly, four of the first five US presidents were from the slave-owning state of Virginia, and the countrys capital was moved from New York City and Philadelphia to a malaria-ridden swamp across the Potomac river from Virginia. Although slavery has ended, the desire to counter the growing weight of the urban working class has compelled the ruling class to keep the Electoral College in place as a counterbalance. Rural areas tend to be more conservative, and especially after the labor struggles of the 1930s, the anti-democratic violation of one person, one vote has been kept in place, despite a steady decline in the rural population. So, for example, both the states of Wyoming and of California receive two Senators. But in the case of Wyoming, each Senator represents roughly 291,000 residents, whereas each of Californias Senators represents 19.2 million people. Wyoming only receives one representative in the US House, and California receives 53. But the balance is still overwhelmingly in favor of rural, conservative Wyoming, which received one Electoral College vote per 194,000 residents, as compared to 697,000 residents per Electoral College vote from California. Multiply this across the huge rural expanse of the country, and you have a statistical edge in favor of the more conservative voters. This is just one of the many checks and balances in the Constitutionintended to check the power of the working majority. Funnily enough, the President-Elect seems to agree that the Electoral College makes a mockery of the system. After Obamas re-election, Trump tweeted: The electoral college is a disaster for democracy. Now that he has won on the basis of this very mechanism, he told CBSs Lesley Stahl that he still agrees with his 2012 tweet: Im not going to change my mind just because I won... I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. Though he says he doesnt agree with it, Trump, as always, is happy to play by the rules written by the rich and powerful for the rich and powerful, whether its tax-time or election-time. Constitutional crisis? The idea that the system is rigged gets a wide echo for a reason. Tens of millions of Americans can see that the system is riggedin favor of the wealthy. Even if the Electoral College were abolished and the president was elected by a simple majority of the popular vote, there are no viable options for the working class. This is why we supported neither Clinton nor Trump, despite the lesser evil cacophony of the Democrats. This is why we insist on the need to build a mass socialist party to represent the working class. But the fallout over the Electoral College raises some important questions about the long-term viability of the worlds oldest existing republic. As history shows time and again, a social formation in crisis will have its legal framework stressed, questioned, and eventually broken. In addition to the compromise, the original US Constitution disenfranchised women, most white men, Native Americans, many freed blacks, immigrants, etc. It took two centuries of class struggle to amend the Constitution to the point where, at least on paper, we are all equal. But everyone knows this is not the case in reality. A major reason Clinton accepted her humiliating defeat without a peep is that the ruling class desperately wants to avoid drawing too much attention to the Electoral College and other inconvenient facts about the Constitution, which most Americans havent even read. They prefer to use other measures to try and keep Trump under control. Were they to mobilize people on the streets in defense of the winner of the popular vote things could quickly get out of control. A constitutional crisis and even elements of civil war could not be ruled out. As we have explained, the US Constitution is an unholy mix of contradictions of libertarian and centralized government forms. These are rooted in the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary origins and genesis of this country. Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration of Independence, was himself a mess of contradictions. But he had unequivocal views on the question of the Constitution, as outlined in a 1789 letter to James Madison: Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of nineteen years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right. Decades later, in 1813, he maintained the same basic view in a letter to John Wayne Eppes: The generations of men may be considered as bodies or corporations. Each generation has the usufruct of the earth during the period of its continuance. When it ceases to exist, the usufruct passes on to the succeeding generation free and unencumbered and so on successively from one generation to another forever. We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country. He based his figure of nineteen years on the average generational unit of his epoch. By any measure of what constitutes a generation at 227 years since the adoption of the Constitution, at least Jefferson would agree that its high time to revisit the legal statutes that rule us. A few things have changed since it was adopted by a tiny handful of the population at the time. The US has been transformed from a small ex-colony of England to the worlds greatest economic and imperialist superpower, its territory has expanded dramatically, and its population has grown nearly a hundred-fold from 3.5 million to 320 million. For our part, we believe that in a genuine democracy, the working class majority should have the right to determine their destiny, including the right to amend or rewrite the constitution altogether, to be approved through a popular referendum. As it happens, Article V of the US Constitution contains provisions for the calling of a constitutional convention. Several state legislatures have already symbolically voted to invoke this process. To date, most efforts to rewrite the constitution have come from conservatives in the South, who think the countrys guiding statutes are too liberal. Until the majority of Americans move in this direction, we are of course compelled to live under the present statutes. However, we have plenty of ideas for what a new constitution should look like, for example: Equal protections, voting, and citizenship rights for everyone living in the United States Guaranteed civil liberties for all, in the spirit of the present constitutions Bill of Rights Direct, participatory democracy on the basis of elected councils, with all elected officials subject to immediate recall and earning no more than an average skilled worker Public ownership and democratic administration of any company too big to fail, starting with the Fortune 500 A constitutional guarantee to a quality job with union pay and protections or a place in education Robust health, safety, and environmental protections The right to free, high-quality, universal health care and education, safe, affordable housing, and efficient public transportation for all A dramatic reduction in the workweek and generous paid holidays and parental leave As we have explained many times, we live in a democracy for the rich. We are granted the semblance of a voice only because it is easier to rule people through the semblance of democracy than through naked force and there is not enough force at their disposal to keep us all down. In the future, a socialist constitution would establish a new set of parameters for what we can expect from life on this planet. No mandate! As we have seen, Trump was elected by a small minority of the population, many of whom saw him as a protest vote and middle finger at the status quo. He currently has a mere 42% approval rating, the lowest of any first-term president since records began after WWII. Nonetheless, this is higher than at any time during the campaign, as many fatigued by the election are willing to wait and see what he does in office. We can be sure that they wont have to wait long in order to see what he represents. Millions who were indifferent to the elections are not indifferent now that he is preparing to take power. Millions of others have already hit the streets and are preparing to do their part in the years of stress and strain ahead of us. While many recoil in horror at the mess society finds itself in, Marxists take the long view of history. We understand that what we are experiencing are the belated birth pangs of a new society. Capitalism is pregnant with the potential for a dramatically different way of organizing human production, distribution, and exchange. The material potential for socialism has been present since at least the 1920s, but the lack of a sufficiently strong and revolutionary working class leadership has condemned us to suffer the contradictions of capitalism for many decades. A change is long overduelike a baby many months or years post-termand this gives the process a particularly distorted character. The task of Marxist revolutionaries is to facilitate the birth as swiftly as possiblelest both the old society and the new die in the process. We are confident that the present generation can end this misery once and for all. Join the fight for socialist workers democracyin which the majority truly rules. Join the IMT and help us speed the day! dunkerley-easton-vicalvi.jpg Left to right, Diane Dunkerley and Donna Easton-Vacalvi (Submitted photos) LONGMEADOW A Longmeadow resident has been named vice president for commercial banking for the Springfield area at a Vermont-based bank's only Massachusetts location. Diane Dunkerley was named vice president and commercial banking officer at NUVO, a division of Merchants Bank, according to a statement released by Merchants Bank. In addition to the Tower Square location in Springfield, Merchants Bank operates 31 branches in Vermont. "We are excited about Diane joining our team," Dale Janes, NUVO's regional president said in a press release. "She is an outstanding local commercial lender who has a wealth of experience in lending to businesses of all sizes." A commercial lender, Dunkerley has 16 years of commercial and small lending experience as well as 19 years of experience analyzing financial statements in the manufacturing, retail, education, health care, service and real estate industries, the Merchants Bank release states. For 27 years, Dunkerley has supported the Springfield Boys & Girls Club, serving as the organization's treasurer and chair at some points, according to the release. She also currently serves as treasurer of the Western Mass. chapter of SCORE, which provides free, confidential counseling to small business entrepreneurs. NUVO also recently hired Donna Easton-Vacalvi of Hampden as its Springfield vice president of government banking and cash management. According to a press release, Easton-Vicalvi's experience includes more than 20 years as the municipal treasurer for the town of Hampden and eight years as a government banking officer. "I am thrilled that Donna has joined our Government Bank & Cash Management group," Shelley Quinn, vice president cash management & government banking manager for Merchants Bank, said in the release. "Her extensive knowledge of Massachusetts municipalities is indispensable to our team and will greatly benefit our government clients." Fifty years ago this week plans for the Eastfield Mall were released publicly for the first time. The $14 million mall on Boston Road and Parker Street in Springfield would be the first of its kind in western Massachusetts. The enclosed mall would connect three department stores and would provide space for about fifty specialty shops. Opening was planned for the spring of 1968. Later in the week, combat deaths in Vietnam topped the 6,000 mark. Official said that 100 deaths were reported the previous week, bringing the total of U.S. combat deaths to 6,049. Ten years later the town of Adams voted down a casino project for Greylock Glen Resort 71 to 65. The special town meeting was for precinct members only and only 12 of the 147 registered voters were absent. These are some of the headlines you'll see from Page 1 of The Republican and its predecessors over the past fifty years for the week of November 20 - November 26. Each week I'll put together a slideshow of Page 1 images from selected years over the course of that week. We're starting with a look back at one, five, thirty, forty and fifty years ago, with Page 1s from each day of the week for those years. The slideshow for November 20 - November 26 is embedded at the top of this article. From the November 22, 1966 edition of The Springfield Union We'll also find some humor printed out on page one over the years. In 1966 'Dennis The Menace' could be found on the bottom of page one six days a week. Five years ago Governor Patrick signed the bill that made casino gambling legal in Massachusetts. And a year ago a series on the heroin epidemic in the Pioneer Valley. You'll find with looking through the slideshow, that while many stories come and go, many of the issues and topics that affected lives in the past, continue to have an impact on our lives today. Copies of these and other stories can be found in the online archives. Links to the archives are at the bottom of the page at www.masslive.com/republican The historic archive includes stories prior to 1989, and the Newsbank archive covers 1988 through the present day. HYDE PARK -- A Facebook post that has been shared more than 2,300 times describes alleged sex acts occurring in the back of the bus involving 6-year-old students from the Boston Renaissance Charter School. According to the post, five male students may have been molested by another student, who bribed them with gifts and threatened to shoot them. The poster said she is a friend of a mother whose son was assaulted. The charter school sent a letter to parents which said school officials are aware of the Facebook post and are looking into the incident "This is a highly sensitive matter. We ask our school community to respect the privacy of our students and families, and allow the school to handle this appropriately," the school wrote. According to WCVB.com, both the Boston Police Department and Massachusetts Department of Children & Families have been notified of the incident. Boston Police had heard about the incident as early as Nov. 3 but told WCVB that no criminal case would be pursued because of the ages of the children involved. Parents commenting on the post mentioned that they would have wanted to been notified of the incident earlier. SPRINGFIELD -- A judge ordered a Springfield man held for a mental health evaluation Monday, three days after he allegedly gunned down a dog on a sidewalk in the Forest Park neighborhood. Edwin A. Harrison, 37, was arrested around 4 p.m. Friday after he got into an argument with a man walking his dog on Fort Pleasant Avenue, police said. The owner of the dog -- a Jack Russell terrier/chihuahua mix named "Cookie" -- said Harrison pulled out a handgun, shot the dog and then casually walked away, according to police and witnesses. The dog died instantly from a neck wound and Harrison was arrested nearby after a brief chase. The officers recovered a .22 caliber semi-automatic handgun reported stolen in New Hampshire in 2007, as well as 47 bags of heroin and eight bags of crack cocaine packaged for sale, police said. Harrison was held over the weekend for his arraignment Monday in Springfield District Court. At the request of defense lawyer William Higgins, the judge postponed the session and ordered the court clinic to interview Harrison and determine if he is competent to stand trial. If he is found competent, Harrison could be arraigned later this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday, Murphy said. Police said the argument between Harrison and the dog's owner was over the man's identity, without elaborating. No further details were disclosed during Monday's hearing. In addition to killing a domestic animal, Harrison is charged with resisting arrest, possession of a stolen firearm, carrying a firearm without a license; carrying a firearm with three prior felonies and possession of heroin and cocaine, each with intent to distribute. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Elena Kosolapova Trend: The law on avoidance of double taxation between Azerbaijan and Sweden is expected to come into force by late 2016, Charge dAffaires of Swedish Embassy in Azerbaijan Tomas Danestad said. Danestad made the remarks at the opening of the third Electrolux store in Baku Nov. 22. He stressed that the Swedish and Azerbaijani companies are actively cooperating. Danestad added that the export of Azerbaijani energy resources oil and gas is a very important issue. He added that however, there are also many other promising areas of economy in Azerbaijan. In particular, Danestad said Azerbaijan has very high-quality agriculture products and the area has great potential. He also said the fall in oil prices opens up opportunities for Azerbaijan to develop non-oil sectors of the economy and make the economy more efficient, which will help attract even more investors. Danestad added that Azerbaijan has abundant resources and huge human potential. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 Trend: The US, together with other OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries, must intensify efforts to resolve the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said. Mammadyarov made the remarks at a meeting with US Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Bridget Brink in Baku Nov. 22. The Azerbaijani foreign minister informed Brink about the negotiation process to resolve the conflict and stressed inadmissibility of the status quo. 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. During the meeting, Mammadyarov and Brink expressed satisfaction with the cooperation between Azerbaijan and the US in economy, energy, peacekeeping operations and fighting international terrorism. They also stressed the importance of increasing efforts to intensify cooperation between the two countries. Brink said the US attaches great importance to cooperation with Azerbaijan and appreciates the countrys contribution in the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan and the fight against terrorism. Montana education specialists say the future of career and technical education (CTE) courses is promising, but not without its challenges. The state of Montana requires students to take one credit of CTE. That could be a class in business management, agriculture or family and consumer sciences education to name a few. These classes focus on preparing students for future careers, but oftentimes they are the first to go when budget cuts weigh heavy on a school. By Ariana Lake Full Story: http://www.kpax.com/story/33763364/the-importance-of-montanas-career-and-technical-education-classes The Missoula City Council passed a six-week paid pregnancy leave for city employees Monday night, in advance of discussions next summer about expanding the leave to 12 weeks and including partners and adoptions in the available time off. PETER FRIESEN [email protected] Full Story: http://missoulian.com/news/government-and-politics/missoula-approves-six-week-paid-maternity-leave-for-city-workers/article_58e666f4-f620-5dbe-b7c3-15ab05db2dc2.html Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 Trend: Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev offered condolences to Indias President Pranab Mukherjee over heavy casualties caused by a passenger train crash in the country. I was deeply saddened by the news of heavy casualties caused by a passenger train crash in Uttar Pradesh state, said President Aliyev. On behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I extend my deep condolences to you, the families and the loved ones of those who died and the people of India, and wish the injured the soonest possible recovery, he added. Bank One a annonce quelle a recu le prestigieux titre de Best Trade Finance Bank in Mauritius dans la categorie Afrique par Global Trade Review (GTR). Chaque annee, GTR celebre les meilleures banques de financement commercial en Afrique subsaharienne et se base principalement sur les donnees recueillies de professionnels du secteur ainsi que celles soumises par les participants a GTR. GTR recompense les efforts accomplis par Bank One pour la structuration du financement du commerce international et les solutions ciblees mises en place pour relever les defis propres a lAfrique. Bank One se positionne comme un partenaire bancaire solide et fiable from Africa, for Africa . Ce titre reconnait notre capacite a comprendre les defis auxquels sont confrontes nos clients et a proposer des solutions adaptees a leurs besoins. Nous continuerons a developper nos activites en Afrique et a apporter une reelle valeur ajoutee en repondant aux besoins du marche declare Mark Watkinson, CEO de Bank One. Nous sommes honorees de recevoir ce prix qui temoigne de notre engagement a fournir des solutions taillees sur mesures aux institutions souveraines et financieres en Afrique subsaharienne ajoute Carl Chirwa, Head of International Banking a Bank One. A ce jour, Bank One accompagne des clients situes dans 19 pays africains et dispose dune equipe professionnelle issus de 11 differents pays a travers lAfrique. De plus, les actionnaires de Bank One, notamment I&M Group PLC et CIEL Finance, membre du conglomerat mauricien, CIEL Group ont une forte presence dans huit pays dAfrique subsaharienne, dont le Kenya, la Tanzanie, le Rwanda, lOuganda, la Cote dIvoire, le Ghana, Madagascar et Maurice. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 0 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn Articles similaires Le Board of Racing Stewards compose Mr. S. de Chalain (Chair), & Ms J. Keevy, Messrs P. Kalleechurn, H. Maigrot et A. Rousset e publie son rapport interimaire sur la j28 journee de la sison 2020. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 0 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn Articles similaires Xavier-Luc Duval a pose sa Private Notice Question lors de la seance du parlement du 12 avril 2022 au Dr Renganaden Padayachy, a louverture des travaux. I have to inform you that the Honourable Leader of the Opposition, Charles Gaetan Xavier-Luc Duval, GCSK, FCA, MP, has given notice of the following Private Notice Question which he proposes to put to Dr the Honourable Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development, at the sitting to be held today Tuesday 12 April 2022 at 1130 a.m To ask Dr the Honourable Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Whether, in regard to the ongoing fall in the exchange rate of the Rupee vis a vis the US dollar and the ensuing scarcity of this currency in commercial banks in Mauritius, he will state the measures, if any, Government and the Bank of Mauritius propose to take to reverse same? Monsieur le President,Tout comme mardi dernier, je tiens a remercier le Leader de lopposition pour sa question.Cette question me donne une nouvelle fois lopportunite dapporter un eclairage sur le sens de laction du Gouvernement en faveur de la population et en premier lieu envers les plus demunies. Pour ce faire et dans un premier temps, je donnerai rapidement quelques elements de contexte. Monsieur le President, En effet, il nest un secret pour personne que depuis mars 2020, et suite a lapparition de la pandemie de la Covid-19, un ralentissement notable des activites economiques a ete enregistre. Avec deux confinements et la fermeture de nos frontieres, notre economie a ete mise a rude epreuve. Au global, Maurice a subi deux contractions successives. La premiere de 6,9% pour lannee fiscale 2019-2020 et la seconde 5,4% pour lannee fiscale 2020-2021. Je rajoute a cela que le declenchement du conflit russo-ukrainien a rajoute un halo supplementaire dincertitudes, entraine une poussee inflationniste mondiale et pourrait conduire notre monnaie a se deprecier davantage. A cet egard, je mappuie sur le recent rapport de la Commission Economique Africaine des Nations Unies intitule The impact of the Ukraine Crisis in Africa anticipant : Une depreciation de 10% de la roupie, Un surplus dinflation de 2,2% en Afrique uniquement du au conflit, et Une pression accrue sur les comptes courants de 43 pays africains importateurs denergies et de denrees alimentaires, a linstar de Maurice. Monsieur le President, Jen viens donc a la problematique de lentree de devises dans le contexte des deux dernieres annees que jai a linstant etaye. Le choc a ete particulierement violent pour le secteur du tourisme, celui de lexport et celui des services financiers. Encore une fois les chiffres parlent deux-memes. Dune part, Maurice a ainsi du faire face a une baisse drastique des arrivees touristiques. Cest-a-dire que nous sommes passes dun flux annuel pre-Covid de 1,3 million de touristes pour lannee 2019, a 300 000 touristes en 2020 et 180 000 touristes en 2021. Les consequences en termes dentree de devises ont ete majeures etant donne que sur la periode que je viens de citer, nous avons facilement perdu 2,3 millions de touristes. Sachant que chaque touriste, en periode pre-pandemique, depensait en moyenne 1 200 euros par sejour hors transport, le manque a gagner cumule est considerable. Dautre part, les exportations de biens et services, qui avaient rapporte lequivalent de 191,9 milliards de roupies en devises etrangeres en 2019, sont tombees a 128,9 milliards de roupies en 2020 et a 132,9 milliards de roupies en 2021. Enfin, le secteur des services financiers, bien quayant demontre sa resilience, a enregistre une baisse de la valeur ajoutee brute de 51,8 milliards de roupies en 2019 a 49,3 milliards de roupies en 2020, indiquant une diminution des entrees de devises. Au global, au cours des deux annees de la pandemie, leconomie a ainsi enregistre un deficit de quelque 122 milliards de roupies dentrees de devises etrangeres. Monsieur le President, Pour repondre a la question de lhonorable Leader de lopposition, permettez-moi de prime abord de preciser le mandat revenant a la Banque de Maurice et celui qui incombe au Gouvernement. Conformement a la section 4 de la Bank of Mauritius Act, la Banque de Maurice est lentite en charge et en toute independance de conduire la politique monetaire et celle des taux de change. Elle seule en est le decisionnaire. Je cite the Bank is entrusted, inter alia, with the responsibilities to: conduct monetary policy and manage the exchange rate of the rupee, taking into account the orderly and balanced economic development of Mauritius. En vertu de son mandat et pour faire face au deficit dentree de devises etrangeres, jai ete informe par la Banque de Maurice que cette derniere a vendu quelques 2,9 milliards de dollars americains sur le marche depuis le debut de la pandemie, en mars 2020. Je rappelle quen 2018 et 2019, Maurice avait recu un montant de 12,67 milliards de dollars, comparativement a 7,35 milliards de dollars en 2020 et 2021. Soit une baisse de 5,32 milliards de dollars, equivalent a 230 milliards de roupies, representant la moitie de notre PIB. Lapprovisionnement regulier du marche en devises etrangeres par la Banque de Maurice, qui est en charge de la conduite de la politique monetaire et de la stabilite financiere, a permis de limiter les perturbations du fonctionnement normal du marche des changes. Et cela en conformite avec le regime de change flottant comme qualifie par le Fonds Monetaire International. Au vu des perspectives relatives aux performances encourageantes du secteur touristique et en tenant en compte la tendance inflationniste mondiale, la Banque de Maurice a egalement porte a ma connaissance quelle est intervenue sur le marche a hauteur de 25 millions de dollars a un taux apprecie de 43,15 roupies contre 43,25 roupies lors de sa derniere intervention. Monsieur le President, Je vais maintenant elaborer sur la strategie deployee et les mesures implementees par le Gouvernement pour soutenir le pouvoir dachat de la population. Premierement, la reouverture totale de nos frontieres en octobre 2021, dans le respect des protocoles sanitaires, a bien entendu ete une etape importante pour assurer la reprise franche et durable des entrees de devises. Ce nouveau souffle, cest la bouchee doxygene dont nous avions besoin pour atteindre les objectifs que nous nous sommes fixes. Deuxiemement, le Gouvernement, sous limpulsion de notre Premier ministre, a travaille darrache-pied pour faciliter les affaires a Maurice et maintenir lexcellente reputation de la juridiction comme un Centre Financier International. Je pense notamment a la sortie de Maurice des listes du Gafi, de lUnion Europeenne et du Royaume-Uni. Une excellente nouvelle pour leconomie, tant en termes de croissance, demploi que dentree de devises etrangeres. Troisiemement, et sans porter prejudice a la viabilite de notre dette, le Gouvernement a egalement contracte plusieurs prets concessionnels en devises etrangeres. Ces prets aux conditions avantageuses et qui plus est souvent accompagnes de subventions ont permis de faire rentrer des devises etrangeres sur le marche local. Quatriemement, notre strategie pour faciliter lentree de devises etrangeres sest orientee vers louverture de notre economie aux investisseurs et expatries, notamment les seniors. Les Budgets 2020-2021 et 2021-2022 ont fait la part belle a la Silver economy. Je rappelle quil est estime que chaque retraite expatrie a Maurice amene au pays une moyenne de 9 000 dollars par individu, sur la base dune residence de 6 mois par an a Maurice. Atteindre lobjectif de 25 000 retraites a Maurice permettrait daccroitre les entrees en devises etrangeres de 250 millions de dollars. Enfin, permettez-moi de rappeler les efforts considerables deployes par le Gouvernement pour subventionner une large gamme de produits de necessite, pour un montant total de 8,2 milliards de roupies. Monsieur le President, Selon la Banque de Maurice, notre monnaie sest depreciee de 7,6% en 2020 et de 9,2% en 2021. Au regard du contexte historique, la valeur de notre roupie aurait pu etre plus largement affectee. Ce qui me fait donc poser la question de la depreciation la roupie a lHonorable leader de lopposition quand lui et ses amis etaient au pouvoir entre 2006 et 2014. Une periode caracterisee au niveau mondial par une expansion exceptionnelle a savoir une croissance forte de 3,6% en 2014 et surtout une inflation faible, tres faible de 2,9% en 2014, sans pande9-=0mie, sans guerre ni perturbations de la chaine dapprovisionnement. Auraient-ils cherche deliberement a devaluer la roupie en 2012 ? La population se souviendra qua cette epoque, le Leader de lopposition, alors Ministre des finances, avait pris la decision non-conforme dinjecter 100 millions de dollars dans le but explicite de devaluer notre roupie. En 2012, alors que leconomie mondiale se portait bien, quil ny avait pas de confinement ni de crise de la Covid-19 et que le secteur du tourisme avec pres dun million de visiteurs apportait des devises etrangeres et que le niveau du secteur de lexport de biens et services setablissait a 188,6 milliards de roupies, la roupie a pourtant ete devaluee : de 29,9 roupies pour le dollar en 2011 a 31,2 roupies, la livre de 46,7 roupies a 50,3 roupies et leuro de 39,4 roupies a 40,9 roupies. Ainsi, entre 2005 et 2014, la roupie a ete devaluee de 11,2% par un Gouvernement qui se souciait peu du pouvoir dachat des mauriciens, en particulier de celui des plus vulnerables. Je conclus en rappelant au Leader de lopposition que pour comprendre le present et preparer le futur, nous devons analyser le passe. Monsieur le President, Notre budget alloue a lEtat providence, notre Welfare State, etait de seulement 48 milliards de roupies en 2014. Aujourdhui malgre la pandemie, malgre la crise, malgre la recession, ce Gouvernement, porte par lhumanisme du Premier ministre, a fait doubler le budget du Welfare State pour lamener a plus de 93 milliards de roupies en 2021-2022. En y ajoutant le Wage Assistance Scheme et le Self-Employed Assistance Scheme, ce montant depasse largement la barre des 100 milliards de roupies que nous avons retournes a la population. Ces chiffres demontrent la solidarite dont ce Gouvernement fait preuve envers sa population. Merci. The Honourable Second Member for Port Louis South and Port Louis Central (Mr Uteem) To ask Dr the Honourable Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Whether, in regard to the proposed setting up of a manufacturing plant for the local production of COVID-19 vaccines and other pharmaceutical products in Mauritius, he will state if any company manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines approved by the World Health Organisation has been approached therefor? Mr Speaker, Sir, From the very outset, I wish to state, that the objective of the Government is to develop pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing into an industry that can potentially emerge into a growth pole for the Mauritius economy. The emphasis on this industry was outlined during the 2021-2022 Budget whereby a seed funding of Rs 1 billion was earmarked for internationally renowned pharmaceutical and vaccine laboratories to set up manufacturing activities in Mauritius. We also made provision for the setting up of the Mauritius Institute of Biotechnology (MIB), with a view of channelling this funding into projects that meet the conditions set forth by Government. Accordingly, pending the setting up of the MIB, the Economic Development Board (EDB) launched an Expression of Interest (EoI) on 19th June 2021 for the Development of a pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry in Mauritius in priority areas of vaccines and pharmaceutical products in speciality areas. The EoI, was diffused, through key local and international media, as well as through our embassies in Europe, USA and Asia. Mr Speaker, Sir, I wish to inform the House that 40 firms showed interest in the EoI exercise, which comprised not only vaccine manufacturing but also the production of generic pharmaceuticals and medical devices, amongst others. As far as vaccine manufacturing is concerned, nine interests were received and five submitted their business proposals. As part of the evaluation exercise, the EDB had enlisted the services of Dr Deoraj Caussy, an independent expert in epidemiology and virology, to assess the five proposals received. The expert report was submitted on 27th October 2021, and this includes recommendations on the proposals that may be considered by the authorities concerned. The experts report will be submitted to the Mauritius Institute of Biotechnology Ltd for its consideration. Mr Speaker, Sir, In parallel to this exercise, discussions are also being held with companies producing COVID-19 WHO-approved vaccines, in India and USA. The MIB Ltd which has recently been set up, will oversee the implementation of this budgetary measure. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Elena Kosolapova Trend: A new strategic partnership agreement between Azerbaijan and the EU may have a positive effect on the development of trade relations between Azerbaijan and individual EU countries, including Sweden, Charge dAffaires of the Swedish Embassy in Azerbaijan Tomas Danestad told reporters in Baku Nov. 22. The European Council adopted a mandate for the European Commission and the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy to negotiate, on behalf of the EU and its member states, a comprehensive agreement with Azerbaijan on Nov. 14. The new agreement should replace the 1996 partnership and cooperation agreement and should better take account of the shared objectives and challenges the EU and Azerbaijan face today, said a message on the European Councils website. Currently, bilateral relations between the EU and Azerbaijan are regulated on the basis of an agreement on partnership and cooperation that was signed in 1996 and entered into force in 1999. There was a break in relations between Azerbaijan and the EU, Danestad said, adding that nowadays, another strategic cooperation agreement is needed. The EU sees Azerbaijan as a part of Europe, Danestad noted. Trade turnover [between Azerbaijan and Sweden], as the trade on the global scale, has been coming down in 2016 and it is the same for the whole world, he said. There have been some exports of petroleum products and raw materials from Azerbaijan to Sweden. I think a big potential lies within partnership between Swedish and Azerbaijani companies, for instance within the IT sector. I think we will see more of interesting examples of [Azerbaijani-Swedish] partnership development when the agreement on the avoidance of double taxation comes into force, Danestad added. He noted that there were visits of Swedish foreign minister, prime minister, the countrys business delegation to Azerbaijan. I hope we will see much more of these visits, he said. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova (Details added, first version posted at 19:30) Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Anakhanum Hidayatova Trend: Azerbaijan and the US continue to work together on counterterrorism and transnational threats, US Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Bridget Brink told reporters in Baku Nov. 22. I am here today to reaffirm our longstanding commitment to independent, stable, prosperous, democratic Azerbaijan, she said. Today I had productive meetings with the president, foreign minister, members of civil society and others. We discussed how we can build-on the progress we have made in bilateral relations, she noted. On security issues we continue to work together on counterterrorism and transnational threats. With regard to economic and energy issues we affirmed our commitment to Azerbaijans economic growth. She said the US reiterates appreciation for the important role that Azerbaijan plays in the EUs energy security. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Elena Kosolapova Trend: Kazakh banks increased volume of loans to the transportation sector, Finprom.kz analytical center reported. As much as 221 billion tenges (338.99 tenges = $1) of loans were provided to transportation companies in January-September 2016, which is 53 percent more compared to the same period of 2015. About 44 percent of all new loans issued to the sector in this period are long-term loans. The volume of loans by banks to transportation and logistics companies reached 532 billion tenges at the end of September, which is 5 percent more than a year earlier. The volume of services in transportation sector increased by 4 percent in January-September 2016 compared to the same period of 2015. The transportation sector was one of the main drivers of economic growth in this period. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Azad Hasanli Trend: Azerbaijan reduced goods export to Georgia by 14 percent to $377.4 million in January-October 2016, according to the report of Georgias National Statistics Office. The report says that Azerbaijan, with a specific weight of 4.6 percent (7 percent in January-October 2015), ranks the sixth among the countries exporting goods to Georgia. Canada, with almost $1.8 billion (21.7 percent), is the leader for goods export to Georgia. Turkey with $1.1 billion (13.6 percent) and Ireland $620.9 million (7.5 percent) are following Canada. Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Georgia amounted to almost $490 million in January-October 2016, according to the report. The specific weight of Azerbaijans trade turnover with Georgia accounts for 4.9 percent of the total volume of Georgias foreign trade operations. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Azad Hasanli Trend: Azerbaijan reduced goods import from Georgia by almost twofold to $112.6 million in January-October 2016, as compared to the same period of 2015, according to the report of Georgias National Statistics Office. During the period, Azerbaijans share in the Georgian export was 6.6 percent (12.1 percent in January-October 2015). The country was a leader for goods import from Georgia for a long period. However, the situation changed after the introduction of a temporary ban on imports of cattle from Georgia in 2016, as well as due to a sharp decline in export of cars and other products. According to results of ten months of 2016, Azerbaijan ranked the sixth among countries importing Georgian products. The country was the leader for goods import from Georgia ($221.1 million) in January-October 2015. Georgia mainly exports pipes, iron alloys and others to Azerbaijan. Russia takes the lions share $153.3 million with a specific weight of 9 percent in the import of Georgian goods. Turkey with almost $151.4 million (8.9 percent) and China - $145.2 million (8.5 percent) are following Russia. Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Georgia amounted to almost $490 million in January-October 2016, according to the report. The specific weight of Azerbaijans trade turnover with Georgia is 4.9 percent of the total volume of Georgias foreign trade operations. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Azad Hasanli Trend: An international exhibition RecExpo II on real estate and investments kicked off in Baku Nov. 22. At the opening of the exhibition, the Chairman of the Azerbaijani State Committee on Property Issues Kerem Hasanov said that the main goal of the event is to attract investments, revive the real estate market in Azerbaijan, as well as involve investors in the privatization of state-owned properties. Such events are very significant in terms of attracting investments, Azerbaijan's Transportation Minister Ziya Mammadov told reporters. The minister added that Azerbaijan will be able to attract big investors from other countries through such exhibitions. The exhibition will continue until Nov. 24. The event is organized with assistance of Azerbaijans Committee on Property Issues and ElanExpo and Atlm Fuarclk companies. Around 100 real estate projects of Azerbaijan, Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus are presented at the exhibition. Along with the 15 Azerbaijani largest companies, construction and investment companies from 10 countries -Turkey, UAE, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Hungary, Georgia and others - will present their projects at the Baku Expo Center. RecExpo II is the only specialized exhibition in Azerbaijan dedicated to real estate. Also, a large conference on Real Estate Sector Investments will be held Nov. 23 as part of this exhibition. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @AzadHasanli by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 21, 2016 Now that the election is over, the big question is: Where do TV news networks and programmers go from here? CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, among other news programming, benefited in a big way when it came to TV viewership, and, in turn, higher advertising sales. Now what? Can TV news networks and local TV station news programming do what many believe was unthinkable -- continue to find new viewers, in non-major election periods? Heres one way those outlets can benefit, capitalizing on the backlash from digital media sites that run fake news. Big digital players Facebook and Google have addressed this issue recently -- claiming such content will be eliminated. The bigger questions is whether consumption of -- ah hem -- real news now grows. To be sure, the heavy opinionated cable TV networks arent perfect -- there is lot of content that isnt straight ahead news reporting. But versus fake news stuff? No contest. advertisement advertisement Many believe it could drive consumers back to electronic media -- but especially print media like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. All the major newspapers have had their businesses endure ups and downs in recent years. Next step: Traditional TV news media should market this new awareness, positioning itself as a viable source, combating the negative reaction to fringe, pseudo news content. Consider all the fact-checking issues that arose during the recent presidential election. Consumers need to question the credibility of the news media -- and the news itself. The downside: TV news consumers might need to do more work. But who has the time? Some investors have noted traditional media stock prices -- print and some TV station groups -- have been rising since the election: The New York Times is up 11%; Tronc (Tribune newspapers) adding 12%; and Tegna improved 22%. Still, active misinformation is rampant. What will consumers do about it? by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, November 21, 2016 One of the worlds most iconic tech startups is reaching for a traditional medium as it seeks to build brand awareness and loyalty. Over the weekend, Airbnb, the room-sharing app that allows homeowners and renters to host paying guests, announced plans to launch a new custom publication called Airbnb Magazine. Previewed by Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky at the companys Open conference in Los Angeles, the magazine is being produced in collaboration with Hearst Magazines. The project is spearheaded by Hearst chief creative officer Joanna Coles. The magazine will feature stories from Airbnb hosts and travelers, focusing on different cities around the world. The first 28-page issue focuses on Los Angeles, and includes ads from Airbnb Open conference partners Delta Air Lines, American Express, and the film "La La Land." Airbnb Magazine launched with one issue distributed immediately and will continue with two annual full-size issues next year. The magazine will be distributed to hosts, as well as other travel-related venues. This is actually Airbnbs second foray into print. The company previously took a stab at publishing with Pineapple, a special-issue publication that offered longer-form essays and features focused on a few big cities. The launch of the new magazine comes amid Airbnbs ongoing efforts to placate regulators and activists concerned over the companys unpaid taxes and its alleged impacts on cities, including rising house prices and housing shortages. Also over the weekend, Airbnb revealed it is in the process of negotiating tax agreements with 700 additional cities around the world, which would allow the app to continue functioning in return for paying hotel taxes to city government. The company already has about 200 such agreements around the world. In late October, Airbnb suffered a major setback when New York State banned short-term rentals of less than 30 days, but vowed to appeal the law. Airbnb also introduced a new product, Trips, that aims to provide travelers with fuller experiences by allowing them to hire guides and arrange tours, thus promising to contribute more money to local tourist economies as well. by Richard Whitman , Columnist, November 21, 2016 Reese Witherspoon has teamed with Otter Media to form a new entity called Hello Sunshine, which will tell female-driven stories across digital, social, film and TV. The company's home base for content will be Hello-Sunshine.com. Former Video Genome Project COO Kerry Tucker will head the new company. Prior to her time at VGP, Tucker served as VP and CMO of Victoria's Secret as well as head of marketing for all divisions of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Of the launch, Sarah Harden, president of Otter Media, said: Reese is a phenomenal partner with a unique sensibility, and together with Kerry, who has championed womens voices throughout her career, we are excited to launch a company that is anchored in the ambitious vision of reflecting and inspiring women everywhere. We look forward to producing content that resonates deeply with our community in all formats, and through all channels. Hello Sunshine will be a part of Otter Media and access the firm's content, distribution and monetization models. Otter Media was formed in 2014 by AT&T and The Chernin Group. Hello Sunshine clients will include Fullscreen Media, social agency McBeard, Japanese anime video platform Crunchyroll and VRV, a video platform for fans of anime, animation, gaming, comedy, fantasy and technology. by Aaron Baar , November 22, 2016 Verizon continues its adaptation of past hits for its prepaid wireless programs, this time customizingThrift Shop by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis for a thrifty, holiday message. The campaign continues a theme started earlier this year, targeting Millennials with parodies of familiar past hits. The first spot featured a group of young consumers in a diner airing out their own version of Kelis Milkshake, which racked up 13 million views on YouTube. (A second Spanish-language spot racked up 2.5 million views on YouTube.) Verizons previous spots in this style had unprecedented response on YouTube, Dave Bowen, Verizons director of brand and consumer marketing, tells Marketing Daily. We found that the tone and approachability of these spots resonated with multicultural Millennials and that this format helped with consumers memorability. advertisement advertisement The new commercial depicts a young couple in a laundromat. The girl asks the boy whether he has any good gift ideas, leading the man to break out into song. Verizon Prepaids gonna be my gift/no extra charges means money stays in my pocket, he raps, as others look on (and some join in). Its got easy streaming/Others are too stingy. The spot continues its theme touting its always-on data. The current spot will air in English and Spanish versions. Our goal with this campaign is to target multicultural Millennial consumers who live in a culturally fluid world in which ethnicity and race dont define them, but shared connections to cultures and subcultures do, Bowen says. We used a pop-culture hit, as music is core to connecting with Millennials, and overlaid it with clever lyrics to effectively connect with our consumer and highlight that Verizon gives them the freedom that they want with its prepaid offering. Details added (first version posted at 14:15) Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Anvar Mammadov Trend: The World Bank continues work with Azerbaijans government to stabilize the macroeconomic situation in the country, Hans Timmer, WB chief economist for Europe and Central Asia, told reporters in Baku Nov. 22 during a video conference from Bucharest, Romania. He said the WB also cooperates with Azerbaijan towards stabilization of the situation in the countrys financial market, preparation of a medium-term fiscal framework and in other spheres. Timmer recommends Azerbaijans government to be more attentive to the sensitive strata of the population when carrying out reforms to ensure macroeconomic stability in the country. At the same time, the WB offers Azerbaijan five major recommendations, the first of which is to change monetary policy, switch to a flexible currency exchange rate, which has already been done, and to find a balance in this policy, Timmer said. The second recommendation is to stabilize the financial sector, including the banking sector, and this is considered important not only for Azerbaijan, but also for other oil exporting countries, he noted. The third recommendation is a stable medium-term budgeting with achieving a balance between oil and non-oil revenues, Timmer said. The fourth recommendation provides for transparent and fair distribution of income, so that the main burden as a result of reducing the national income doesnt affect the most sensitive strata of Azerbaijans population, he added. The fifth recommendation involves the creation of new jobs, reforms to improve competitiveness by increasing business access to finance, he noted. Azerbaijan joined the WB Group in 1992. by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, November 22, 2016 As U.S. shoppers search for products online and U.S. retail marketers continue to ramp up campaigns preparing for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday buying season, Google has been busy creating measurement tools to track live performance. Distance and location reports track where in-store visits originate and the types of ads marketers should create. Whereas distance reporting shows store visits based on the distance between the consumer and the store they want to visit when people search online, store visits performance will show geographic and user location. Performance data in the brand's AdWords account can help marketers to identify the geographic areas to determine where to focus advertising efforts and budgets. What triggered the ad geographically can be determined, and then the consumer can be served ads for products in which they showed interest in through searches. advertisement advertisement If the data suggests that store visits are highest within one mile, marketers can apply targeting around that specific radius. The marketer can then set higher bids for nearby consumers and serve custom ads like 50% off in-store with holiday doorbuster deals until noon." Store visits distance reporting is available now for Search campaigns, and will roll out to Shopping campaigns soon. Store visits performance is also coming soon to geographic and user locations reports, allowing marketers to see the geographic areas that drive the most ad clicks that result in a store visit. Marketers can use the data to determine whether budgets in those areas should increase. Foot traffic typically remains heavy in the afternoon, according to Google's data. The company also updated its ability to tell searchers when a store has the most foot traffic in real-time. The company updated its Popular Times features added to Google Maps in July 2015. It's now a live feed. The Live tags allows Google Maps to display a red overlay on top of historically busy times to analyze foot traffic in the store or restaurant. Google says that Black Friday store foot traffic in 2015 typically peaked in the afternoon between noon and 4 p.m., but people search and shop all day long from smartphones. by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, November 22, 2016 Scores of local governments across the U.S. have bought software to monitor social media, many of them for security purposes, according to a new survey of procurements by county and city governments conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. The report comes close on the heels of the controversy resulting from social networks sharing information about protesters with law enforcement via services like Geofeedia. The Brennan Center analyzed a database of local government procurement contracts from around the country (only showing contracts with a minimum amount of $10,000). Most procurements were for one of eight different social media monitoring products: Geofeedia, Media Sonar, Snaptrends, Dataminr, DigitalStakeout, PATHAR, Meltwater, and Babel Street. Overall, the survey counted 151 cities, counties, police departments, and other local government bodies that have made purchases meeting this minimum amount. The authors were quick to note that this is probably a very conservative tally, since the database only shows results for agencies that have opted into its procurement system. advertisement advertisement The report also notes that its hard to know whether these social media monitoring products are actually being used by law enforcement specifically, since they are often purchased by the general procurement arm of local governments however its also difficult to imagine too many other uses for this kind of information. Citing previous reporting, the Brennan Center described a number of ways that law enforcement can use social media data to go beyond passive surveillance into active monitoring. This includes creation of undercover accounts and targeted friend requests to suspects and surveillance subjects, for example from attractive women. Clearly social media surveillance gives law enforcement access to an impressive, and some might say disturbing, amount of information about individuals. In one example cited by the Brennan Center, a New York City police officer addressed one activist, Ashley Yates, by her Twitter handle. In Baltimore, police used social media data and facial recognition software to identify protesters with outstanding warrants and then arrest them. by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 22, 2016 Local targeting may prove more beneficial during the holiday season than some marketers realize. Data pulled from Verve shows that Black Friday shoppers are seldom willing to travel more than 10 miles, but it really depends on the type of store and what the consumer plans to purchase. The data does not reflect the fact that it could drive sales online, but in my opinion it could. Here's why. An interesting example comes from a recent Verve study highlighting the 2015 Black Friday shopper experience, locations, and trends. The behavioral data come from the collection of first-party user-location data on more than 200 million users via 3,000 publisher apps. So to better understand audiences for the 2016 holidays, the company analyzed Black Friday data from mobile devices that consistently showed frequent in-store visits to several retail chains on Friday Nov 27, 2015. Shoppers were about 34% more likely to travel distances greater than 50 miles to visit an Ace Hardware location. Consumers were three times more likely to travel farther than 50 miles to visit an Ace Hardware than they were a Home Depot, which has nearly double the amount of locations. advertisement advertisement The data suggests that consumers were two times more likely to travel distances greater than 50 miles to go to Sears, which has about 301 stores nationwide, than those traveling to Walmart Neighborhood Markets, which has about 359 nationwide locations. If a brand like Ace Hardware, per Verve's data, offers significantly fewer locations nationwide, that could result in consumers needing to travel longer distances to the location versus brands with denser coverage. Julie Bernard, CMO at Verve, advises marketers to think about the effects of things like long lines that could have on the consumers. It can create a negative consumer experience, especially if they're willing to drive long distances. In my opinion, that could possibly mean building strategies that would make shoppers stand in a long line late at night or have them wake up at an unreasonable hour to get 25% off. Having a carefully planned out local strategy, in my opinion, could mean the difference between lower and increased sales. For example, I live in a suburb of California close to shopping malls. I'm more apt to drive 10 miles or less these days. But when I move to the rural landscape of Wyoming, I will likely drive 1 to 2 hours with little thought or buy online. Verve's study points to company data that suggests there isn't a strong correlation between larger urban areas and increased foot-traffic on Black Friday. Some of the most populated metropolitan areas had a lower increase in traffic than their less populated urban counterparts. Verve data showed below-average Black Friday traffic in areas such as New York and Chicago -- cities with larger populations that tend to have a consistent shopper population. Conversely, locations such as Cincinnati and St. Louis had above-average traffic. Overall, discount stores had less traffic on Black Friday than usual. Target led for big-box retailers with about 40% more people visiting stores. Large metro areas had the smallest increase in traffic. There was below-average Black Friday traffic in areas such as New York and Chicago while locations such as Cincinnati and St. Louis had above-average traffic, per Verve. What's my point, per Verve's data - location behavior could drive sales during the holidays. In my case it will drive sales online. by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, November 22, 2016 A recent order requiring Yelp to purge a bad review from its site "threatens to undermine the validity and efficacy of the information available to consumers, and online speech generally," the company argues in new court papers. Yelp makes the argument in a high-profile bid to convince the California Supreme Court to reverse a trial judge's ruling requiring the review site to take down a bad review of attorney Dawn Hassell, allegedly posted by one of her former clients. Obviously unhappy over the post, Hassell sued the former client for defamation. The ex-client never appeared in court to defend herself, or argue that the review wasn't defamatory. A trial judge awarded Hassell a default judgment of more than $500,000. Then, in an extraordinary move, the judge also ordered Yelp to take down the post -- and a subsequent post by the same user -- even though Yelp had never been notified about the case. advertisement advertisement Yelp then intervened in the matter, in hopes of vacating the order. A trial judge and appellate court ruled against Yelp. The company is now asking the California Supreme Court to vacate the takedown order. The review site makes a host of arguments, including that the lower court judges violated the company's right to argue its case before being hit with a censorship order. "Yelp and other online forums like it ... are publishers and editors whose actions to disseminate speech are fully protected by the First Amendment and due process rights," the company says in papers filed Monday. "The appellate court plainly erred in failing to recognize ... that Yelp was denied its due process right to notice and a hearing before the injunction was entered against it." The company adds that the lower court's order effectively teaches other businesses how to remove bad reviews. Yelp says those businesses could "follow Hassell's example: intentionally sue the commenter alone ... and then after a default judgment present the injunction to the website publisher as an unassailable fait accompli." The battle has drawn the attention of numerous Silicon Valley companies, academics, and media organizations, including The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, The New York Times, Gannett, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Hassell is slated to respond to Yelp's latest arguments within 30 days. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, November 22, 2016 Home sharing company Airbnb has dropped its attempt to block a New York state law that imposes fines of up to $7,500 on people who post ads for illegal rentals. Airbnb's move came after New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman agreed that he wouldn't seek to hold Airbnb liable for violations of the law, according to court papers filed Tuesday. The law, signed last month by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, gives new teeth to a 2010 measure that prohibits New York City residents from renting apartments for fewer than 30 days, unless the host is present. In the past, landlords and other apartment owners -- but not renters -- risked fines for violating the short-term rental prohibition. advertisement advertisement Airbnb alleged in a complaint filed last month in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that the New York law violates the federal Communications Decency Act, which immunizes Web sites from liability based on unlawful activity by users. The company contended that the law's wording created an ambiguity about whether intermediaries like itself would be liable for ads for illegal rentals. Airbnb is still fighting other local laws, including a San Francisco measure that makes it a crime for home-sharing sites to collect booking fees for units that haven't been registered with the city. Airbnb says the San Francisco law 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 in the Northern District of California rejected Airbnb's argument on that point. But late last week Donato temporarily prohibited San Francisco from attempting to enforce the law, due to concerns over whether Airbnb has an effective means of verifying whether apartments have been registered with the city. DUBLIN $125 million David Nicholson Douglas Ingram Thomas Chase Jeffrey L. Cummings $640 billion North America Western Europe Asia-Pacific North America Western Europe Asia-Pacific Dublin, Ireland Thomas Chase Kathleen Clarence-Smith Douglas Ingram Greg Parekh $24 million $22 million December 31, 2015 September 30, 2016 Lisa DeFrancesco Mark Marmur , Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN), a leading global pharmaceutical company, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Chase Pharmaceuticals Corporation, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of improved treatments for neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease (AD), Allergan acquired Chase for an upfront payment of(subject to certain adjustments) and additional potential regulatory and sales milestone payments related to Chase's lead compound, CPC-201, and certain backup compounds.Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150612/222796LOGO"Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disease that represents a major and growing global public health problem, for which very few approved treatment options are available, and the societal cost is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, so the need for improved treatment choices is paramount," said, Chief Research & Development Officer, Allergan. "This acquisition adds a new Phase 3 ready program for Alzheimer's disease to our CNS portfolio and builds on our commitment to develop innovative approaches to improve the lives of millions of patients suffering from this devastating illness."Chase's lead compound, CPC-201, is a patent-protected combination of the most commonly prescribed acetylcholinesterase inhibitor (AChEI), donepezil, and the peripherally acting cholinergic blocker, solifenacin. AChEIs have been shown to improve cognition in Alzheimer's disease patients. Currently approved AChEIs are only modestly effective due to dose-limiting side effects, including diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.In Phase 2 clinical trials, 29 out of 33 patients (88%) reached 40 mg/day of donepezil (maximum dose allowed), without experiencing dose-limiting adverse events. This median donepezil dose did not change significantly during three months of maintenance treatment. Chase's next-generation formulations offer the possibility of greater and more tolerable dosing, and may provide the potential for significantly improved cognition and function in Alzheimer's disease patients.Chase Pharmaceuticals recently completed an End of Phase 2 meeting with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Based on feedback from the FDA, Allergan intends to advance CPC-201 into a single Phase 3 registration study in 2017."We at Chase Pharmaceuticals are passionate about developing and bringing to physicians and their patients profoundly improved Alzheimer's disease treatments. I am very excited that Allergan has recognized the strong clinical value of our development programs and look forward to seeing Allergan apply its leading clinical development and regulatory expertise to bring these potential treatments forward for patients," said, Chief Executive Officer and President, Chase Pharmaceuticals Corporation."We believe our lead candidate, CPC-201, will offer a significant improvement over existing therapy in the symptomatic treatment of Alzheimer's disease, and will benefit all those suffering from this disease," said, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Chase Pharmaceuticals."When determining appropriate treatment for my patients with Alzheimer's, I am looking for treatments that provide a beneficial effect with the lowest possible side effect profile," said, MD, ScD, Director of the Cleveland Clinic's Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and the Camille and Larry Ruvo Chair of the Neurological Institute at Cleveland Clinic and a former consultant for Chase Pharmaceuticals. "The potential to provide improved cognition without the dose-limiting side effects of currently available AChEIs would be a welcome advance for medical professionals, their patients and caregivers who seek better approaches to manage the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease."Today there is significant unmet medical need and heavy economic burden across multiple diseases characterized by cognitive impairment and dementia. Healthcare costs associated with AD and dementia (estimated at overforand) including nursing home care, continue to grow dramatically and new therapies with better and more durable efficacy are urgently needed. It is estimated that more than 45 million people worldwide have dementia (4.8 million in, 7.5 million in, 3.6 million in) and this is expected to increase to more than 130 million in 2050. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia and may contribute to 6070% of cases. In addition, an estimated 1.4 million patients in the US suffer from Lewy body dementia.Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN), headquartered in, is a bold, global pharmaceutical company and a leader in a new industry model Growth Pharma. Allergan is focused on developing, manufacturing and commercializing branded pharmaceuticals, devices and biologic products for patients around the world.Allergan markets a portfolio of leading brands and best-in-class products for the central nervous system, eye care, medical aesthetics and dermatology, gastroenterology, women's health, urology and anti-infective therapeutic categories.Allergan is an industry leader in Open Science, the Company's R&D model, which defines our approach to identifying and developing game-changing ideas and innovation for better patient care. This approach has led to Allergan building one of the broadest development pipelines in the pharmaceutical industry with 70+ mid-to-late stage pipeline programs in development.Our Company's success is powered by our more than 15,000 global colleagues' commitment to being Bold for Life. Together, we build bridges, power ideas, act fast and drive results for our customers and patients around the world by always doing what it is right.With commercial operations in approximately 100 countries, Allergan is committed to working with physicians, healthcare providers and patients to deliver innovative and meaningful treatments that help people around the world live healthier lives every day.For more information, visit Allergan's website at www.Allergan.com.Chase Pharmaceuticals Corporation is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of improved treatments for neurodegenerative disorders. Chase's development program, if successful, will profoundly improve the symptomatic treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The company was co-founded by, MD, the former Scientific Director and head of the Experimental Therapeutics Branch for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and, MD, PhD, the former head of CNS development at each of Sanofi, Hoffmann-La Roche and Otsuka. Chase is led by its chief executive officer and president,, formerly the president of Allergan, Inc. Chase's Board is headed by its Chair,, founding partner of New Rhein Healthcare Investors, LLC, and formerly worldwide head of M&A at Novartis.Chase has closed overin funding, with approximatelythrough a Series B financing led by New Rhein Healthcare Investors, LLC and including, among others, Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, Cipla Ventures and Brain Trust Accelerator Fund.Chase was represented in this transaction by the law firm Hogan Lovells and advised by investment bank Cowen and Company.Statements contained in this press release that refer to future events or other non-historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect Allergan's current perspective of existing trends and information as of the date of this release. Except as expressly required by law, Allergan disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from Allergan's current expectations depending upon a number of factors affecting Allergan's business. These factors include, among others, the difficulty of predicting the timing or outcome of FDA approvals or actions, if any; the impact of competitive products and pricing; market acceptance of and continued demand for Allergan's products; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties detailed in Allergan's periodic public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to Allergan's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year endedand Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended(such periodic public filings having been filed under the "Actavis plc" name). Except as expressly required by law, Allergan disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.(862) 261-7152(862) 261-7558 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/allergan-acquires-chase-pharmaceuticals-to-expand-cns-rd-pipeline-and-build-on-commitment-to-alzheimers-disease-300367558.html SOURCE Allergan plc Advertisement adults who developed acute neurological syndrome, newborns with vertical infection with neurological disorders, pregnant women with rash outbreaks suggestive of Zika. More serious conditions, such as Guillain-Barre syndrome, have been associated with Zika infection in adults, but are uncommon.Many adults infected with Zika have no symptoms at all.Zika appears to be most dangerous when transmitted from a pregnant mother to her fetus during the first trimester of pregnancy, increasing the likelihood of severe brain defects in the baby, including microcephaly.Zika has also been linked to eye defects, hearing impairment and stunted growth in babies.The first study looks at CT findings of the central nervous system in 16 newborn babies with congenital Zika virus infection confirmed by tests in cerebral spinal fluid.The researchers identified a pattern of CT brain findings in the babies, including decreased brain volume, simplified gyral pattern, calcifications, ventricular dilatation and prominent occipital bone."We live in Pernambuco, a state in northeastern Brazil, which had the highest number of patients with microcephaly during the Zika outbreak in our country," said study author Natacha Calheiros de Lima Petribu, M.D., from the Department of Radiology at Barao de Lucena Hospital.This study proves that Zika virus infection can cause congenital brain damage in babies with and without microcephaly.Many of the adults had symptoms of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disorder in which the body's immune system attacks the nervous system causing rapid onset muscle weakness.A few showed inflammation of the brain and spinal cord (Bickerstaff's encephalitis) or brain stem and spinal cord lesions.Common MRI findings included enhancement of certain spinal and facial nerves. In the newborns, MRI showed orbital injuries and anatomical changes in brain tissue."It was alarming to find so many cases of neurological syndromes in adults, some very serious, related to Zika virus infection," said study author Emerson de Melo Casagrande, M.D., from the Department of Radiology at Antonio Pedro University Hospital - Federal Fluminense University. "We have also noticed a difference between these syndromes, even though the trigger was the same."In a third study, ultrasound and fetal MRI were performed on pregnant patients with Zika virus infection at different gestational ages.Once the babies were born, they underwent ultrasound, CT and MRI.The researchers then created 3-D virtual and physical models of the skulls.More than half the babies had microcephaly, brain calcifications and loss of brain tissue volume, along with other structural changes."The emergence of Zika virus in the Americas has coincided with increased reports of babies born with microcephaly," said study author Heron Werner Jr., M.D., Ph.D., from the Department of Radiology at Clinica de Diagnostico por Imagem. "An early diagnosis may help in treating these babies after birth. Moreover, the knowledge of abnormalities present in the central nervous system may give hints about the pathophysiology of the disease."Pregnant women and women who are considering becoming pregnant should avoid visiting areas where infected mosquitoes are known to be present.However, if women live in areas where the mosquiteos are present, the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is to wear clothes that protect from mosquito bites, use mosquito repellent and get appropriate testing, including routine prenatal care and an ultrasound at 18 to 20 weeks.Pregnant women who are worried that they may have contracted the virus should speak with their obstetrician to initiate testing.Although these reports focus on the Zika outbreak in Brazil, the infection has spread to countries and territories around the world, including the United States.Source: Medindia Advertisement After five weeks, participants were invited to attend a talk about heart health and to have their pedometer data downloaded. Researchers reviewed the activity data with the participants and discussed increasing their aerobic steps. Participants were also offered a challenge in an effort to increase aerobic activity as well as to improve retention to study completion. This challenge included an increase their total daily average of aerobic steps by at least 10% for the remainder of the study.Finally, on completion of the program, participants' weight, BMI, blood pressure, and cholesterol were measured. They were also asked to complete a survey about their physical activity, food choices, personal characteristics and behaviors from the 10-week period.The results of their post-test confirmed the team's initial hypothesis that walking would improve cardiovascular risk factors in the short term."I believe there is a need to test for effects of a built-in challenge within a program to see if that helps motivate participants to participate longer and/or produces more successful outcomes," said Fahs. "In addition, work needs to be done to see how best to keep rural women engaged in meaningful exercise for longer periods of time."Studies such as these are usually conducted and tested in urban or suburban areas. According to the researchers, this study can be replicated in other rural communities both within and outside the United States.The team suggested future research to have randomized sampling with a more diverse population.In addition to Fahs, the research team included Elisabeth Marigliano, an adjunct clinical faculty member in the School of Nursing at SUNY at Delhi, and doctor of philosophy student at Decker School of Nursing, Binghamton; and Cristina Ludden, an advisement coordinator in the School of Nursing at SUNY at Delhi.The study, titled "Walking for Heart Health: A Study of Adult Women in Rural New York" was published inSource: Eurekalert Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Maksim Tsurkov Trend: The European Union (EU) has started the project to provide technical assistance to the Baku International Sea Trade Port CJSC (aka Port of Baku) in the sphere of creation of a free trade zone (FTZ) in Azerbaijan, the Port of Baku said in a message Nov. 22. The aim of the technical assistance is to provide the EUs support to the Port of Baku on the creation of the FTZ, personnel training, holding trainings, as well as the use of European practice in the ports operations. Addressing the event dedicated to the projects launch, the ports Director General Taleh Ziyadov said that the port and the FTZ, which is being created, will have a serious impact on the trade turnover with the European countries. European companies, which specialize in the spheres of transportation, logistics, IT, agriculture, will be able to use the FTZ and create production clusters there in order to enter the big markets, he noted. The projects implementation period is one year. Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree March 17, 2016, on measures to create a free trade zone type special economic area covering the territory of the Baku International Sea Trade Port in the Alat township of Bakus Garadagh district. In September 2016, the Azerbaijani government and Dubai Port World company (DP World, one of the worlds major port operators) signed an agreement on providing consulting services for the creation of the free trade zone in the Alat township. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov Advertisement "While schools are known hotspots for infections such as measles, scientists actually have little information about the specific rate at which the measles spreads among children in school," explained senior author Bryan Grenfell, Princeton's Kathryn Briger and Sarah Fenton Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Public Affairs.The data came from the Wellcome Library's Collection of digitized historical medical documents maintained by the London-based Wellcome Trust."This study addresses that gap with historical data," Grenfell said. "We need to be cautious in comparing historical data from the early 1900s to transmission today; however, our study does illustrate the potentially high transmission rates of infection in schools where vaccination is low."First author Alexander Becker, a Princeton graduate student of ecology and evolutionary biology, said, "our direct estimates of measles infection in schools indicate potentially swift transmission rates and a consequent need to maintain vaccination levels."A pathogen's infection rate is indicated by the figure R0 - pronounced "R nought" - which indicates how many people catch a disease from the initial carrier in a fully susceptible population, Becker said. In the general population, measles has a notably high transmission rate of R0 = 12-18.In the schools at the center of the 1904 outbreak, the researchers found that at the school level each sick child transmitted measles to an average 27 people with the transmission rate at individual schools falling within a range of 12 to 42. Zooming in to the classroom level, each sick child infected 40 others on average with a transmission-rate range as low as 8 in one school to a whopping 93 in another.Using these historic estimates, the researchers investigated how measles might spread in today's schools. There are presumably notable differences in the living conditions, hygiene and crowding children experienced in London in 1900 versus what children experience in the 21st-century United States, Becker said. Nonetheless, transmission estimates from more recent periods in the pre-vaccination era indicate that measles infection has been quite strongly focused in schools.The researchers developed a mathematical model based on current vaccination estimates in California and found that high vaccination levels were required to prevent transmission."This work adds more evidence to the benefit of having a fully vaccinated school-age population," Becker said. "Even if a school has high coverage, it should push to go higher because there could be a risk of a significant outbreak."At the same time, Grenfell said, the study emphasizes that the pervasiveness of measles once it infects a school population calls out for a better understanding of how it spreads than scientists currently have."Probably the most recently studied infection at the school level is influenza," he said. "Our results underline that we also need contemporary studies of measles transmission in schools when it occurs. More generally, our paper emphasizes the importance of digitizing the rich trove of historical data on transmission of infectious disease, as the Wellcome Library did with these data.""These results highlight the importance of sustaining high measles vaccination coverage among school children," said William Moss, a Johns Hopkins University professor of epidemiology, who is familiar with the research but had no role in it. "Because of the high transmissibility of measles virus within schools, outbreaks will occur among the unvaccinated school children should an infectious individual enter the school," he said.The researchers show that at small spatial scales such as schools, highly contagious pathogens can behave with a complexity that becomes obscured in large-scale transmission data from a city or national level, Moss said.A "notable aspect of this research relates to understanding how the more complex dynamics of measles-virus transmission at fine spatial scales such as schools relates to more regular and predictable dynamic patterns at larger spatial scales," Moss said. "The findings are specific to measles but these methods could be applied to other infectious diseases with different and complex dynamics at different spatial scales."In addition, the researchers' application of 1904 data to a current public health scenario illustrates the value of historical information in understanding how diseases spread, Moss said. After all, he said, while society has changed since then, measles has not."Measles has a characteristic clinical appearance and during outbreaks does not need laboratory confirmation, which didn't exist in 1904," he said. "This shows the value of searching for such data sets and of the stories they can tell that are still of relevance more than 100 years later."Becker and Grenfell worked with Ruthie Birger, a former graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology now at Columbia University; Aude Teillant, a former research assistant in the Princeton Environmental Institute now at the University of Caen Normandy in France; and Paul Gastanaduy and Gregory Wallace of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Source: Eurekalert Advertisement Two new studies on residents' perceptions explore when and why residents choose to prolong their work shifts. These studies appear online as an "article in press" on thewebsite in advance of print publication.A total of 3,795 residents from 117 residency training programs in the FIRST Trial completed the survey in January 2016 (response rate 95%) as part of the American Board of Surgery In-Training Examination (ABSITE). The survey specifically asked residents in both study arms (standard or more flexible policies) why and how often they exceeded duty hour limits. Responses to the survey indicated:- Interns (PGY-1 or first-year residents) in the flexible policy arm reported working more than 16 hours continuously at least once in a month more frequently than standard policy residents (86% vs. 37.8%).- Flexible policy residents overall reported working more than 28 hours at least once in a month more frequently than standard policy residents (PGY 1: 64% vs. 2.9%; PGY 2-3: 62.4% vs 41.9%; PGY 4-5: 52.2% vs. 36.6%). However, this circumstance generally occurred only one to two times per month; 71% of residents in the flexible arm reported working more than 28 hours in a shift fewer than three times in a month.- While flexible policy residents reported working more than 80 hours in a week three or more times in the most recent month more frequently than standard policy residents (19.9% vs 16.2%), the difference was driven by interns (30.9% vs 19.6%). There were no significant differences in exceeding 80 hours among all PGY 2-5 residents. [Note: PGY=Postgraduate Year of Training]With the exception of interns working more than 16 hours in a shift, most flexible policy residents reported either not using flexibility or doing so only one to two times in a recent month. The most common reasons reported for extending duty hours were:- facilitating care transitions (76.6%)- stabilizing critically-ill patients (70.7%)- performing routine responsibilities (67.9%)- operating on patients known to the trainee (62%)Interns reported more frequently extending shifts to take care of routine responsibilities, complete documentation and rounds with the team, whereas senior residents more frequently reported staying to stabilize a critically ill patient, operate on a patient known to them, or return to work because of a patient's worsening condition. Nearly half of interns in the flexible arm also reported staying longer to attend educational (didactic) sessions."These data show that residents' extending of work shifts beyond standard limits occurred infrequently and very selectively," said FIRST Trial principal investigator Karl Y. Bilimoria, Director of the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago. "Residents in the flexible arm worked additional hours selectively as needed within the 80-hour workweek; there is no indication that longer shifts were routinely used or abused."In a separate study, the FIRST Trial researchers also looked specifically at duty hour violations among residents who fell under the current standard policies. They analyzed survey data collected from all residents who completed the 2015 ABSITE, excluding those in the flexible policy arm. These residents were asked about their perceptions of the effect of current duty hour limits on patient safety and how often they violated these limits. Although many factors contribute to patient safety, one often cited issue is "workload compression" due to time-limited shifts.In total, 4,554 trainees from 184 programs were included in the analysis, including programs that did not participate in the FIRST Trial. Key findings include the following:- Just over 25% of trainees felt that the current ACGME duty hour policies negatively affected patient safety. Senior residents more frequently perceived that duty hour restrictions negatively influenced patient safety than junior residents and interns (PGY 1: 18.5%, PGY 2-3: 22.6%, PGY 4-5: 31.0%; p<0.001).- In addition, 23% of residents under current policies reported frequent (at least three times per month) duty hour violations. Junior residents reported the highest rate of frequent violations compared to interns and senior residents (PGY 1: 21.7%, PGY 2-3: 24.8%, PGY 4-5: 22.0%; p=0.07).- Overall, trainees with negative perceptions of how current duty hours affect patient safety reported frequent duty hour violations more often than those with neutral/positive perceptions (32.7% vs. 20%, p<0.001).The findings of both of these studies closely mirror the recommendations of an ACGME task force that were made available for public comment on November 4, 2016. The proposed revised standards strengthen the 80-hour work week and eliminate a separate 16-hour shift limit for first-year residents."Flexibility appears to be used selectively by residents for reasons beneficial to patient care and resident training," said Dr. Bilimoria. "Moreover, these data identify areas that need to be monitored and enforced more closely (e.g., 80-hour work week requirement) if flexibility is to be implemented in surgical residency programs nationally.""Data from these studies shows clearly that residents are careful in how they apply flexibility to their work hours," said Frank R. Lewis, Executive Director, American Board of Surgery. "Residents want to provide high-quality patient care; they are using flexible hours to help do this.""This new analysis shows that when surgical residents have some flexibility with their work hours, they choose to devote their time to important activities that safeguard and benefit their patients," said David B. Hoyt, Executive Director, American College of Surgeons. "These activities also contribute to their education and training experience and to their professionalism."Four other studies using FIRST Trial data have also been published on thewebsite. These studies examine gender differences in duty hour perceptions among residents; differences in ABS exam score results; differences in patient length of stay; and perceptions of residents and program directors based on one-on-one qualitative interviews.On November 14, 2016, another FIRST Trial analysis was released showing U.S. general surgery residents strongly prefer work hour policies that allow them the flexibility to work longer when needed to provide patient care over standard, more restrictive work schedules. A striking 86% of surgical residents preferred flexible duty (work) hour policies over standard duty hours, or had no preference.Source: Eurekalert Over the past two years, MEMRI has translated numerous sermons by sheikhs in Europe containing anti-Christian and anti-Jewish incitement, incitement to violence and jihad, and pro-ISIS and other jihadi content. In many cases, these MEMRI translations have led to arrests, criminal charges, and other legal action against the sheikhs. Most recently, on November 14, 2016, Danish media reported that police prosecutors in Denmark had indicted one such imam, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Khaled Samha, for violating Article 266b of Denmark's penal code, for which he could face a fine or up to two years in prison. One report also included the MEMRI TV clip. In September 2014, MEMRI TV released a clip of Al-Khaled Samha, who is an imam at an mosque run by the Islamic Society in Denmark (Islamisk Trossamfund) in the Odense suburb of Vollsmose,[1] speaking at a mosque in Odense. He called the Jews "the offspring of apes and pigs" and adding "Oh Muslim, oh Servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." After the clip was released, Danish authorities began looking into legal action against him. To view the clip, click here or below. According to reports, it took two years to indict Samha because the matter had first been submitted to the public prosecutor and then sent to the prosecutor general, who eventually sent it back to police. It was also reported that prosecutors were considering action against him for engaging in spreading propaganda. The case is slated to be heard in a court in Odense, Denmark, where the offense was committed, on December 20, 2016. Years before his statements at the Odense mosque, in September 2006, it was reported in Germany that a suspect in a botched August 2006 plot to bomb two trains in Germany, was found to have Al-Khaled Samha's phone number in his pocket. Al-Khaled Samha had denied knowing the suspect, but said it was a matter of time before terrorists would strike Denmark: "Osama bin Laden said in a message three years ago that he will punish the countries" that have troops in Iraq, he said in an interview.[2] According to another report, he told the Associated Press that he knew the suspects.[3] According to Danish media reports, he knew four of the suspects,[4] and one had a train ticket to Odense.[5] Prior to that, Al-Khaled Samha was a member of the delegation that in December 2005 travelled to Egypt and the Middle East to publicize the publication the previous September of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, leading to the widespread controversy over the matter.[6] The following are excerpts of Al-Khaled Samha's statements in the September 2014 MEMRI TV clip: Muhammad Al-Khaled Samha: "[Palestine] is a blessed and sacred land, and the people living there are blessed and sacred. Its air is sacred, its soil is sacred, and its people are sacred and blessed. These are not my own words, but the words of Allah in the Koran. So how can we - or any free Muslim with faith in his heart - accept the division of Palestine between [the Palestinians] and a gang of Jews, the offspring of apes and pigs? [...] "Oh beloved ones, the land of Palestine is Islamic waqf, by consensus of the scholars of the Islamic nation. Whoever relinquishes even a single inch of it is betraying Allah and the Prophet Muhammad. Mahmoud Abbas and his ilk can relinquish their right to their homes, but there is no doubt whatsoever that they do not have the right to relinquish the right of the Islamic nation to Palestine. "Palestine has been and will remain the land of Islam. It is the land of Islam - a sacred and blessed land. It is the land of the gathering and resurrection [on Judgment Day]. It is the land of the great battle, in which the Muslims will fight the Jews, and the trees and the stones will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.'" Endnotes: On October 27, the Russian media outlet Lenta.ru published a lengthy report on the history of the Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, titled "Fire In The Sky, Why Admiral Kuznetsov Is Smoking." The article's author, Ilya Kramnik, explains that the Russian aircraft carrier's creation was the result of many compromises and palliative decisions. After departing Severomorsk[1] on October 15, the Admiral Kuznetsov reached Syria on November 12. Russia's aircraft carrier has already been involved in large-scale operations to deliver strikes in the Syrian provinces of Idlib and Homs.[2] Below are excerpts from Lenta.ru's article:[3] Admiral Kuznetsov (Source: Russian Ministry of Defense) 'An Antisubmarine Cruiser With Aircraft Armament, Which Was Named Kiev' "On 21 July 1970, in the Chernomorskiy Shipyard, the largest Soviet shipyard, situated in Nikolayev, the lead ship of Project 1143 was laid down - an antisubmarine cruiser with aircraft armament, which was named Kiev. It was intended to become the first Soviet aircraft carrier - i. e. a ship designed for aircraft landings and take-offs directly from the deck. The specific characteristics of this project were the result of a difficult intra-Soviet compromise, which found expression in everything including classification. Post factum, the definition 'antisubmarine cruiser with aircraft armament,' later exchanged for 'heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser,' can be explained inter alia by a desire, to avoid problems with passage through the Black Sea straits, but these explanations are false: firstly, the Montreux Convention does not incorporate a direct ban on passage through the straits of aircraft carriers of litoral Black Sea states; secondly, in the Western classification (used among others by Turkey, which controlled the straits), including the classification used in addendums to the Montreux Convention, Kiev and its descendants were always clearly defined as aircraft carriers. "The reason for these classification tricks was purely internal: it was impossible, in the context of Soviet ideological reality, to announce directly the construction of ships that were at the same time branded by the [Soviet] press as 'tools of aggressive war.' "To a large extent, the same reasons defined the ship's characteristics: it was a hybrid that overcame the hurdles put in its way by numerous opponents of aircraft carriers as a vessel class. The hybrid was designed for the deployment of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft and helicopters, but with a cruiser's missile munitions and the size of an 'aircraft carrier'. With a 37 thousand ton standard displacement, a 273 meter length, and a 180 thousand horsepower steam turbine propulsion system, Kiev could be placed somewhere between the French Foch and Clemenceau-class aircraft carriers with a standard displacement of approximately 30 thousand tons and a length of 265 meters, and the 45 thousand ton American Midways. "In contrast to those ships, Kiev lacked a full deck - its bow contained cruiser fighting equipment, which restricted its aircraft carrying capabilities to operating VTOL aircraft, just like the much smaller British Invincible-class ships, which were designed at that time. "The biggest problems of Project 1143 were related to the air group: the Yak-38, a subsonic VTOL plane with weak weapons and a relatively small action radius, looked odd on a ship equipped with anti-ship missiles with a range of up to 500 km. In fact, the Yak-38, officially classified as a strike fighter, could not perform any of the truly critical tasks: as a strike aircraft it was useless in anti-fleet operations since it did not have missiles that would allow it to attack ships, and as part of air defense forces its chances would be slim in a confrontation with the enemy's strike machines operating under supersonic fighter cover. "Kiev's shortcomings were obvious, so new alternatives were considered. 'Any Detailed Development Of Project 1160 Was Never Started. Instead Of A New Aircraft Carrier, It Was Decided To Continue Series 1143' "The chief alternative was the project assigned the number 1160. It contained some compromise solutions, such as anti-ship missile launchers, but it was a full-fledged aircraft carrier project. Nuclear propulsion system, 72 thousand ton standard and 80 - full displacement, full deck, an aircraft system that included an angled deck, four steam catapults, and arresting gear - all this made it a fully functional analogue of American super aircraft carriers. "As for the air group, there were plans to use MiG-23A Molniya (Lightning) aircraft (the deck-based variant of the newest contemporary Soviet frontline fighter), Su-24K missile bombers (the deck-based variant of a strike aircraft that was being developed at the time), P-42 anti-submarine defense aircraft specially designed for aircraft carriers by the Beriev design bureau, as well as 'flying radars' based on the latter, and helicopters. As planes developed, plans changed: in 1973, there were suggestions to use deck-based variants of Su-27 and MiG-29 that were being developed then. Project 1160 aircraft carrier, a variant (Source: Lenta.ru) "The creation of this ship required solving a number of process tasks, the chief of which was the development of arresting gear and steam catapults - devices that Soviet industry had not previously produced. There is no doubt that these systems could be produced in 1970s - the USSR already disposed of all the necessary technologies by that time. "Nevertheless, any detailed development of Project 1160 was never started. Instead of a new aircraft carrier, it was decided to continue Series 1143. In 1972, another Project 1143 ship was laid down - the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Minsk, and in 1975 - Novorossiysk. 'The Navy Did Not Abandon The Attempts To Obtain A Ship Capable Of Taking Conventional Take-Off And Landing Aircraft' "Supporters of the aircraft carrier idea, with the backing of ministers of defense and shipbuilding industry and the interest of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian navy, continued to propose new variants. In 1973, on the basis of the groundwork done on Project 1160, the Nevskoye design bureau started developing Project 1153 - an atomic CATOBAR (Catapult Take-off But Arrested Recovery) aircraft carrier similar to 1160- with catapults and arresting gear but smaller in size and cheaper, with two catapults instead of four. This project, however, was also supposed to carry anti-ship missiles, and the air group was supposed to consist of 50 aircraft (at 60 thousand ton standard displacement). "The building of the ship was supposed to start in 1978, but in 1976, the aircraft carrier lobby lost two of its major figures: the minister of defense Andrey Grechko died on April 26, and the minister of shipbuilding industry Boris Butoma - on July 11. At the insistence of the new head of the military department, Dmitri Ustinov, Series 1143 was extended with the fourth ship - heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Baku. Project 1153 aircraft carrier, possible general view (Source: Lenta.ru) "Nevertheless, the navy did not abandon the attempts to obtain a ship tailored for conventional take-off and landing aircraft. The Nevskoye design bureau began developing a new aircraft carrier project, as near as possible to Project 1143 in general ship systems - to remove at least the cost obstacle to the development of a new ship. "On September 1, 1982, in the Chernomorskiy Shipyard, the fifth ship of Project 1143 was laid down - heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Riga. It was the result of a compromise between the desire to finally have a normal aircraft carrier and the pressure of the 'anti-aircraft carrier' lobby that consented only to modifications of Project 1143. From the technical perspective, Project 1143.5 was a hybrid of preliminary work done in Project 1153 and the "Order" research and development project, planted onto the source base of Project 1143. "In size, 1143.5 with its 55 thousand ton standard displacement was not much smaller than 1153 and considerably larger than its predecessors. The large deck and elevator area facilitated the use of heavy and large Su-27-based machines, but catapults were removed from the project - instead, a ski-jump ramp was supposed to be used to allow shorter take-off run. "Gone too was the nuclear propulsion system and instead, Riga (which soon afterwards was renamed the Leonid Brezhnev, following the Secretary General's death) got a steam turbine system consisting of four TB-12 geared-turbine units and eight KVG-4 boilers with a total capacity of 200 thousand horsepower. This variant of propulsion system determined the future of the ship, which was renamed Tbilisi after its launching in 1985, and then, in 1990, with the collapse of the USSR already on the horizon, - Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov. 'In Order To Make The Creation Of Aircraft Carriers Of The New Generation Possible, The Navy Must Keep And Repair Admiral Kuznetsov' "Admiral Kuznetsov could not help being a problematic ship - its introduction into service coincided with the disintegration of the country and was accompanied by serious organizational problems, one of which was the uncertainty of its future: in autumn 1991, Russian navy command seriously contemplated as a threat the scenario of the ship being hijacked in Sevastopol by Ukrainian separatists who were rather popular even in the Black Sea Fleet. "The result was Kuznetsov's secret and hasty departure from the Black Sea to the Northern Fleet, even though some of the works had not yet been completed, including works on the propulsion system. "The ship's deployment in the Kola Bay removed the worries over its nationality, but did not contribute to its normal introduction to service: most of the technical experts, whose absence rendered the aircraft carrier's maintenance highly problematic remained at the Black Sea. Partially, these problems were solved by the fact that heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers Kiev and Admiral Gorshkov (until 1990 named Baku) were part of the Northern Fleet as well. They had propulsion systems almost identical to that of Kuznetsov, but severe reductions in military expenditures and the transfer of these ships from the first line to the reserve with the accompanying crew size reduction did not improve the situation. "In 1993, the first three ships of Project 1143 - Kiev and the Pacific Ocean-based Minsk and Novorossiysk were withdrawn from the navy for good. In 1994, the navy lost Admiral Gorshkov as well; by that time, it had been laid up for repairs after a fire in the aft engine-boiler room. In Nikolayev, works on Kuznetsov's sister ship - the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Varyag (laid down in 1985 under the name Riga and renamed in 1990) - were stopped. The last ship of the 1143-1143.7 family, named Ulyanovsk, was scrapped in the Nikolayev shipyard in 1993, when it was 20% ready. Further fate of these ships was different in each case. The most interesting was the story of Gorshkov and Varyag: the former, after a long reconstruction in Severodvinsk was given to India in 2013 as the aircraft carrier Vikramaditya; the latter was sold by Ukraine to China in 1998 at the price of scrap metal, and about 15 years later became the aircraft carrier Liaoning. The launching of Riga, renamed Varyag (Source: Lenta.ru) "As for Ulyanovsk, which was laid down in 1988, when ideological dogmas were no longer a fixed part of the Soviet military construction, it was the closest to a full-fledged aircraft carrier - a hybrid with simultaneous use of a ski-jump ramp in the bows and catapults on the angled deck; its large size and nuclear propulsion system made it similar in its capabilities to the unimplemented projects 1160 and 1153, as well as to American atomic aircraft carriers. However, it too had to carry anti-ship missiles. "In 1995, it was decided to send Admiral Kuznetsov to the Mediterranean: the long-distance voyage was timed to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the Russian navy to be celebrated the year after. The first voyage could have been the last one - the breakdown of the propulsion unit nearly resulted in the loss of the ship during a storm. The aircraft carrier finished its voyage successfully and returned to the Kola Bay, but the condition of the technical systems of the engine-room department remains a source of major concern even now. "Lack of funds for full repairs in 1990s - early 2000s, coupled with the shortage of skilled experts, made the ship's problems chronic. They could be partially solved by cannibalization - removing necessary parts from Project 956 destroyers, which used similar turbine-geared propulsion units and boilers; but this was not a comprehensive solution. Power problems significantly reduce the ship's performance, which affects the capabilities of its aircraft - for a take-off with maximum takeoff weight (i.e. maximum fuel supply and payload), the ship needs to put on full speed. The existing operating limitations result in a reduction of fuel supply and payload, which affects the aircraft's combat performance. Externally, the problems with the ship's propulsion system are expressed, among other things, by excessive smoking in some modes - according to some experts, the direct reason for smoke may be a defect of the automatic controls of the main propulsion machinery, which makes using optimal fuel combustion modes impossible. "Problems with the propulsion system are only one part of Kuznetsov's shortcomings. The infrastructure degradation that went on for a long time, the air group that was always undermanned, and the general condition of the fleet that did not have enough funds for full combat training until 2000s, - all this resulted in the loss of a significant part of the aircraft carrier service experience acquired with previous ships. Now, this experience has to be acquired anew, but the only Russian aircraft carrier has not grown any younger in the interim. "The modernization and repairs of Admiral Kuznetsov, scheduled for the next few years, should fundamentally solve the ship's problems. But it's not enough to maintain carrier-based aviation as a system. The Russian navy still needs planes capable of providing cover for its deployment off the coast - primarily in order to defend its own sea borders in the Arctic and in the Pacific Ocean. But in order to make the creation of aircraft carriers of the new generation possible, the navy must keep and repair Admiral Kuznetsov. In this realm, no other source of human resources and technologies exists in Russia." Endnotes: In a June 25, 2016 interview with the liberal Arab website Elaph, Dr. Najat Al-Sa'eed, a Saudi communications lecturer at Zayed University in Dubai, said that Islam is the only monotheistic religion that has not adapted to the modern age, and that this was not the fault of Islam but rather of Muslims, who are conservative. Hence, she said, the process of modernization must begin with the religion itself, by reforming the rituals of worship. For example, she suggested changing the internal layout of mosques so as to allow men and women to pray together, introducing codes of proper conduct and appearance in mosques, and installing seats and dim lighting that will create an atmosphere of spirituality and calm, like in a church. Asked about the phenomenon of women imams, which exists in some Western countries, she answered that the Arab world should start with forming institutions of women jurisprudents, publishing books on religion written by women and airing religious television programs presented by women. The following are excerpts from the interview: Question: "Is there any religious prohibition on changing the rationale behind the internal layout of mosques?" Answer: "From the religious perspective, there is no ban on changing the internal layout of the mosque as we know it in the Islamic world today, and besides, the layout differs from mosque to mosque. If the outer compounds of the Mecca [Grand] Mosque [could be] changed and expanded, why not change the internal design of mosques? The outer compounds of the [Grand] Mosque in Mecca are surrounded by ultra-modern skyscrapers. If you look at them from above, you realize that they resemble [the skyscrapers] of Manhattan in New York. According to a hadith narrated by Abu Al-Darda, the Prophet said: "Whatever Allah permitted in His book [the Koran] is allowed, and whatever is forbidden [in that book] is forbidden - and whatever He was silent about is pardoned, so accept the pardon of Allah.'" Question: "Is the absence of a [shared] internal space the only factor that prevents men and women from [worshiping] side by side in mosques?" Answer: "That may be one of the reasons, but I think that habit, and the adherence to customs and tradition, are [the real factors] that prevent men and women from doing this. Islam does not forbid them to mix, as evident from the fact that the Hajj and Umrah rituals are mixed and so is prayer at the Mecca compound. So why should they be segregated in other mosques? Any [reform] initiative of this sort is difficult in the beginning from the perspective of tradition, but from the religious perspective it is not forbidden. The main goal we should pursue is to enlighten society by studying Islam from a cultural perspective that fosters equality and mutual respect between men and women instead of segregating them as though they come from two different planets. Let's make mosques similar to churches!" Men and women side by side in the compound surrounding the Kaaba in Mecca (Image: nativepakistan.com) Question: "Why don't you give us a detailed description of the mosque, as you see it in your minds' eye?" Answer: "I traced this picture for myself a long time ago. [I see] a spacious mosque with seats for those who come to read the Koran or listen to the sermon. The seating area will be divided into two sections, side by side, one for men and the other for women. In the prayer area there will be a pulpit for the preacher, and the lighting will be dim, to create an atmosphere of spirituality and inner calm. In the center of the mosque, in front of the seats, there will be a wide platform, slightly elevated, for prayer, divided into two parts: one for men and the other for women." Question: "[Don't you think] that the [introduction of] seats will perhaps anger the Muslims, even simple worshippers, because of the resemblance to the pews in a church?" Answer: "Everything is difficult at first, but I do not understand why Islamists and conservatives should object to seats in mosques when they do not object to the construction of Western-style skyscrapers around the [Grand] Mosque compound in Mecca, and do not regard this as changing the Islamic architectural features and replacing them with Western ones. It is unreasonable to object to having seats in a mosque [just] to avoid any resemblance to a church. After all, most moderate clerics preach tolerance and rapprochement between the religions, so why shouldn't a mosque resemble a church? Everyone [on earth] sits on chairs, and I have never heard that sitting on a chair is forbidden or reprehensible. I think it is civilized and good for one's feet, knees and back. Mosques should also have instructions [telling people] how to conduct themselves in terms of tidy appearance, decorum and performance of the purification rituals, so that the mosque does become filled with water." Question: "Who do you think will support your suggestion to change the traditional layout of the mosque?" Answer: "After I posted the idea on my Facebook page, I was actually surprised by the response, [which was] more positive than I had anticipated. I expect anyone who is interested in the restoration and renewal [of Muslim society] to support me. We have made many innovations in our lives. Our homes are different than they were in the past, and so are our buildings, our hotels and our markets. Everything is different, more modern in style. So why is reforming the layout of the mosque so difficult and impossible?" Question: "Do you expect [your idea] to spark controversy, like any other expression of innovative thinking?" Answer: "In the beginning it may spark controversy, but if a mosque like this is built in some Arab or Muslim country, I am sure the idea will spread, because there is nothing in it that harms the religion. On the contrary, [such a mosque] has a more civilized appearance and will lend the Muslims a gentler image." Question: "When will it be possible to free Islam of notions and patterns that harm it more than they preserve it?" Answer: "Islam appeared in a desert region whose residents are distinguished by their conservativeness and their reluctance to accept change and advance towards modernity. That is why Islam is the only monotheistic religion that has not advanced [and adapted] to the modern age. It's not the religion but the believers. In order to gradually change the character of the people in this region we must start with the religious rituals. Muslims are distinguished by loudness and disorder, and men and women are not accustomed to gathering together in places of worship. Sadly, most Muslims' perception of women is fanatical and sexualized, far removed from spirituality and rationality. Hence, building mosques of the type [I propose, and having men and women] meet each other in a spiritual environment on a regular basis, will improve the relationship between the sexes and will have a positive cultural impact on society as a whole. Getting used to sitting in chairs in an orderly manner and praying in soft voices under dim lighting will gradually refine Muslim behavior." Question: "What do you think of women leading public prayers [i.e., serving as imams]?" Answer: "We have seen women leading public prayers and delivering sermons in mosques in Europe and the U.S.[1] The last of them was Yemeni academic Elham Manea, who delivered a sermon in a mosque in Switzerland. We have also heard of Amina Wadud, a lecturer on Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in America, who was the first woman to lead [a mixed congregation of] men and women in Friday prayers. This sparked wide controversy, but I think that before we can reach this stage, our Arab and Muslim societies must [first] accept the idea of women jurisprudents or women presenting religious [television] programs and answering viewers' questions about religion. So far, men have a monopoly in this sphere, and they exclusively dominate [the spheres of Koranic] exegesis, [religious] books, religious programs and jurisprudence. How can society accept a woman leading Muslims in prayer when she is not allowed to issue religious rulings or present religious programs? Before discussing [women] leading prayers in mosques, let's begin by establishing an institution for women jurisprudents, and having women write books on religion and presenting religious programs. I would like to see a program on an Arabic satellite channel presented by a woman versed in Islamic shari'a, such as Dr. Suhaila Zain Al-Abidin, for example." Endnote: Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Anvar Mammadov Trend: The lowest rate of Azerbaijans national currency, manat, against the US dollar was set at 1.7146 AZN/USD for Nov. 23 after a currency auction held by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) on Nov. 22 with the participation of the countrys state oil fund SOFAZ, said the CBA. The auction started with a price of 1.7091 manats per US dollar, according to the CBA. Under a new mechanism, the official rate of manat is set based on the weighted average rate in accordance with the transactions concluded with commercial banks in the interbank foreign exchange market and in auctions. On the days when no auction is held, manats official rate against the US dollar will be set based on the weighted average rate formed in the currency market on the basis of the currency purchase and sale transactions between banks. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.22 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: OPEC faces a huge challenge to agree on a cut, with individual country-by-country maximum levels which do not exceed the 32.5-33.0 million barrels per day, director of Downstream Consulting at IHS Markit, Spencer Welch told Trend Nov.22. Commenting on the recent agreement reached between Venezuela and China to increase the joint oil production, the expert said that this is one of a number of bits of news which makes an OPEC cut less likely. Other bits of news include record exports of oil from Saudi Arabia in September, record OPEC production levels in October, record Russian production levels in October, increasing production from Nigeria, increasing production from Libya, said Welch. Earlier, Venezuela and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) agreed on an investment plan of $2.2 billion, which will increase joint oil production by 277,000 barrels a day. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said after signing of the agreement that with this new deal "we will reach 800,000 barrels a day with China." According to Venezuela's Oil and Mining Affairs Minister Eulogio del Pino, the funds will be used to finish the construction of a new oil factory in China and to increase oil production at three joint ventures in Venezuela. Regarding the remarks made by Maduro that OPEC countries are ready to reach a "forceful" agreement on cutting oil output, Welch said it is unlikely that any country would agree to measure which they do not believe is in their own interests. With Nigeria and Libya likely be to given a get-out clause from any cut, although Saudi Arabia has clearly said that they will not shoulder the burden of a cut alone (as they have in the past), it is very likely that Saudi Arabia and its two close allies, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait, will have to supply the bulk of reductions to have any chance of decisively turning markets around, he said. 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. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.22 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: If the president-elect of the US Donald Trump blocked the oil import from Saudi Arabia, there would be significant diplomatic and industrial repercussions, director of Downstream Consulting at IHS Markit, Spencer Welch told Trend Nov.22. Theoretically it is possible, but unlikely, as it is a threat to encourage increased contribution and support in the war against the Islamic State (IS, aka ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) terrorist group, according to the expert. For one thing, the US relies on the supply of some heavy crude for its refineries, which cannot run purely on US domestically produced crude, Welch explained. Saudi Arabias Aramco company runs three oil refineries in the US, with a total capacity of more than 1 million barrels per day as part of the Motiva Enterprises JV with Shell, he added. The expert pointed out that president-elect Trump has made a number of bold statements during his campaign and only in early 2017, when he takes up office, his policies will be clearer. Earlier, Donald Trump said that the US needs to block all oil imports from Saudi Arabia. During his campaign, Trump vowed to secure US energy independence from our foes and the oil cartels." However, later, Saudi Arabias oil minister Khalid Al-Falih said that at his heart President-elect Trump will see the benefits [of Saudi oil imports] and I think the oil industry will also be advising him accordingly that blocking trade in any product is not healthy. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Maksim Tsurkov Trend: Officials of Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR will meet with Giorgos Stathakis, Greek minister of economy, in Athens Nov. 22 to discuss closing SOCARs deal to purchase a stake in Greeces national gas transmission system operator DESFA, Greek media reported. According to the report, the meeting will be of great importance for the final deal. Vitaly Baylarbayov, SOCAR deputy vice president for investments and marketing, will meet with Stathakis November 22 as DESFA privatization lags greatly, the report said. The Azerbaijani side is assessing the purchase of a stake in DESFA worth 260 million euros after the law was adopted on new rules of calculating gas tariffs in Greece. The Azerbaijani side thinks the new rules limit the profitability of the deal. Representatives of the Italian Snam are expected to participate in the meeting, the report said. SOCAR says the difference in value of the company as compared to the originally agreed price of 400 million euros is about 100 million euros." SOCAR won a tender in 2013 on the purchase of a 66-percent stake in DESFA for 400 million euros. The Azerbaijani company will obtain 31 percent from the Greek government and will buy the complete package of 35 percent of the Hellenic Petroleum. The deal will be closed only after the purchase of at least a 17-percent stake out of SOCARs 66-percent stake by Italys Snam. 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. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Maksim Tsurkov Trend: Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR will additionally produce about 3,650 tons of oil annually, thanks to the commissioning of a new well that is being drilled at the Oil Rocks offshore field, SOCAR said in a message. The wells projected depth is 1,750 meters and its daily yield is expected at the level of 10 tons. In January-October 2016, SOCAR produced 6.32 million tons of oil at Azerbaijans offshore and onshore fields, as compared to 6.91 million tons in the same period of 2015. SOCAR produced 8.16 million tons of oil at those fields in 2015, as compared to 8.32 million tons in 2014. Along with SOCAR, foreign companies also extract oil in Azerbaijan. In total, 41.59 million tons of oil were produced in Azerbaijan in 2015, as compared to 42.02 million tons in 2014, according to SOCAR. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.22 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Canadas Zenith Energy Ltd has received the first two payments for invoices generated for producing Ural crude oil from the Muradkhanli-Zardab-Jafarli field in Azerbaijan during August and September 2016, said the message posted on the companys website. The crude oil was sold to Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR and payment was made in accordance with the company's Oil World Market sales Agreement signed between Aran Oil Operating Company ("Aran", the operating company within Zenith's operations in Azerbaijan) and SOCAR, said Zenith. Payments were delivered to Zenith Aran on October 29 and November 15 in accordance with the company's expectations, according to the message. Additional crude oil quantities have been formally delivered into the international pipeline network by Zenith Aran, creating additional invoices, and issued every 15 days, said the company. For the purpose of investor clarification, Zenith Aran's crude oil is transported from the Shirvan oil terminal, domestically through the network of SOCAR pipelines, and then internationally, through Transneft, where it ultimately reaches the Novorossiysk port on the Black Sea. As an alternative, Aran may also choose to transport its crude oil to the Mediterranean Sea through the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) pipeline operated by BP British Petroleum, said the message. CEO and president at Zenith Energy Ltd, Andrea Cattaneo said that the company is exceptionally pleased with the rapid progression of commercial activity in Azerbaijan and delighted to note that the first payment for crude oil from the Muradkhanli oil field was received two days in advance of the due date. The second payment further validates our confidence in the process. These are landmark events for the company as it signals the initiation of a new income stream with significant growth potential and confirms for shareholders that payment terms have been quickly and efficiently respected, he said. Already at a production rate of 300 barrels per day, these payments equate to approximately $360,000 per month, said Cattaneo. While management has always been confident in the quality and credibility of our buyer, SOCAR, we believe it is important to communicate these results to our international investors so that they may share our confidence, he added. The companys CEO pointed out that given the region's extensive energy infrastructure and its proven functionality, Zenith is prepared to increase the scale of its activities. It is our plan to reinvest significant operational cash flow to generate sustainable ongoing investment into the development and optimization of our fields, said Cattaneo. Zenith Aran Oil Company Limited is a fully owned affiliate of Zenith Energy Ltd. Zenith Energy Ltd focuses on the acquisition and further development of proven onshore oil and gas fields where production has declined over time, but which are capable of increased productivity following an injection of capital and optimization through its corporate engineering and technical expertise. SOCAR and Zenith Aran Oil Company signed March 16 an agreement on production sharing, restoration, development and exploration at the block that includes Muradkhanli, Jafarli and Zardab oil fields. Muradkhanli, Jafarli and Zardab fields cover an area of 642.2 square kilometers. Giving special attention to formation of young personnel, improvement of their knowledge and skills, Nar decided to support Microsoft Imagine Cup innovation competition this year, too. Microsoft Imagine Cup is a large scale innovation contest, traditionally supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Microsoft Azerbaijan, High-Tech Park and Nar, and held among world students every year. It is noteworthy that mentioned competition is held for the third time in Azerbaijan once a year. Teams of higher and vocational education institutions participate in the competition in three categories: Innovation, World Citizenship and Games. To take part in the contest, it is required to develop innovative program project on Microsoft platform, prototype of the application on Microsoft technologies, solving problems of the modern era or original game on any Microsoft Windows platforms. Main purpose of the meeting, organized on November 21, 2016 on the occasion of the competition, was to provide information for the students on the opportunities available for innovative young people. Products, programs and initiatives of the local and foreign companies, aimed at information technology and business development, were presented in the event. Terms and conditions of the traditional Microsoft Imagine Cup 2017 competition were explained during the meeting. Also, other projects and privileges aimed at the students were discussed. Development of education, science and culture is one of the main priorities of Nar Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy. For further information about the mobile operator's CSR strategy, please visit nar.az. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Fatih Karimov Trend: Iran plans to participate in the offshore oil projects in Europe and Africa, Abolghasem Rahmani, the managing director of the Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company (IOEC), said. The IOEC has held negotiations with certain international companies to carry out projects in Black sea and Nigeria, Rahmani said, IRNA news agency reported. However the talks need to be finalized before the agreement is signed, Rahmani said. He added that the IOEC has undertaken certain projects abroad including a project for laying submarine gas transmit pipeline in Europe which will be carried out in 2017. Rahmani underlined that the details of the project will be announced in the future once the negotiations are finalized. While commenting about the project which is planed to be implemented in Africa, Rahmani said that the IOEC is studying the project for construction of a 500-kilomter oil pipeline in Nigeria. He also said that Iran has reached agreement with a Dutch company to exchange equipments in various projects if is needed. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Fatih Karimov Trend Iran and Slovenia signed three documents to boost mutual cooperation, the state-run IRINN TV reported Nov. 22. The deals were signed on the sidelines of a meeting between Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and Slovenian President Borut Pahor in Tehran. The signed documents include three MOUs for cooperation in economy sector as well as nanotechnology and ICT. Slovenian President Borut Pahor heading a high ranking politico-economic delegation arrived in Tehran on Nov.21. He will confer with Iranian officials on ways to develop political and economic cooperation between the two countries. Trade between Iran and Slovenia decreased in recent years. It should be noted that Slovenian embassy in Tehran is due to reopen on Nov. 23. PORT AUSTIN The life of John D. Pridnia took many paths. His final stretch took him to Port Austin. Last week, Pridnia, 73, passed away after a two-year battle with ALS. Pridnia was a loving and devoted husband, father and grandfather, as well as a well-respected businessman and public servant. He was perhaps best known in Huron County as the creator of the Port Austin Farmers Market. "John set out to put together the best farmers market he could," said Joyce Stanek, of the Greater Port Austin Area Chamber of Commerce. Stanek said it was Pridnia's vision for the market that helped make it into one of the most popular ones in the state. She said he spent a year doing researching, traveling around to other markets and knocking on the doors of local farmers to get them on board with the idea. "He had dozens of vendors the very first day that they opened," Stanek said. "That's very unusual for a brand new market it usually starts out very tiny and then builds up. That first year, he had as many as 40 or 50 vendors. That is unheard of." Added Stanek: "He was just so organized and it was so thought out. He built the foundation for the market and it has exploded. But it's all due to the fact that John took the time to really build that foundation for a successful market. I can't overemphasize how important it was the foundation that he built." Earlier in his life, Pridnia raised a family in rural northeast Michigan, running many small businesses. Over the period of 10 years, the list of businesses included Harrisville Shell Station and Tackle Shop, Pridnia Mobile Home Park, Dairy Dome, Alco Theatre, State Park Motel and WDBI Radio Station. At the age of 39, after raising his family, John directed his efforts and talents toward public service at the state level. He served two terms as State Representative and two terms as State Senator, where he was well respected by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. His efforts focused around business, tourism and conservation, but his true legislative passion was in the area of public health. He was most proud of his many accomplishments while chairing the Senate Health Policy Committee. After retiring from the state legislature, John and his wife, Lisa, settled down in Port Austin. Despite being retired, Pridnia did not slow down. He continued on his path of service and contribution by working with the Port Austin community to improve the lives of so many people who lived in or visited the area. Some of his better known projects include the redevelopment of the Port Austin Waterfront Development Project and the farmers market. He also played a crucial role in assisting and mentoring many local business owners. "He was an important mentor to me," said Todd Murawski, local business owner and former village president. "He played a big role in helping me grow as a business owner as well as a public figure." A fitting tribute to Pridnia and his commitment to Port Austin rests a sign at the harbor that states, "He had the vision to imagine what could be done, the knowledge of how to do it and the commitment to make it a reality." Visitation will be held from 1 to 4 and 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, with vigil at 7:30 p.m., at the Knoblock Funeral Home in Kinde. Visitation will also be held at 9 a.m. at St. Michaels Catholic Church of the Annunciation of The Lord Parish until the time of the Funeral Mass at 10 a.m. A luncheon will follow. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be made to the Huron County Community Foundation, John D. Pridnia Community Service Fund, (P.O. Box 56, Bad Axe, MI, 48413), a fund established to continue to enrich the lives of the people in the Port Austin area. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Show More Show Less 3 of 3 SEBEWAING In August 2016, Christ the King Lutheran School (CTK) began Every Knight Reads, a year-long reading program to encourage students to strengthen and excel in their reading development. Each student who met their quarterly goal for reading was eligible to receive a first quarter reward. CTK is excited to announce the 83 percent of students met their quarterly goal set by their teacher. CTK currently enrolls 158 students in Kindergarten through eighth grade. The students who were randomly selected to receive the reward for meeting their first quarter are as follows: Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Khalid Kazimov Trend: Iran has established correspondent relations with 230 foreign banks since January 16 when the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA/nuclear deal) was implemented, a financial official has said. Gholamali Kamyab, vice governor of Central Bank of Iran for foreign exchange affairs, said that Iran managed to build up trust in a short period of time following the implementation of the JCPOA, Mehr news agency reported Nov. 22. He made the remarks in a joint meeting between banks from Iran and Afghanistan. Kamyab added that Iranian banks opened $17 billion worth of letters of credit over the first seven months of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 20). Although the nuclear related sanctions on Iran were lifted following the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on January 16, Iran still has difficulty in establishing banking ties with leading European banks as they are worried about running afoul of US regulations. Aetna Inc. operates as a health care benefits company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Health Care, Group Insurance, and Large Case Pensions. The Health Care segment offers medical, pharmacy benefit management service, dental, behavioral health, and vision plans on an insured and employer-funded basis. It also provides point-of-service, preferred provider organization, health maintenance organization, and indemnity benefit plans, as well as health savings accounts and consumer-directed health plans. In addition, this segment offers Medicare and Medicaid products and services, as well as other medical products, such as medical management and data analytics services, medical stop loss insurance, workers' compensation administrative services, and products that provide access to its provider networks in select geographies. The Group Insurance segment offers life insurance products, including group term life insurance, voluntary spouse and dependent term life insurance, group universal life insurance, and accidental death and dismemberment insurance; disability insurance products; and long-term care insurance products, which provide the benefits to cover the cost of care in private home settings, adult day care, assisted living, or nursing facilities. The Large Case Pensions segment manages various retirement products comprising pension and annuity products primarily for tax-qualified pension plans. The company provides its products and services to employer groups, individuals, college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans, health care providers, governmental units, government-sponsored plans, labor groups, and expatriates. Aetna Inc. was founded in 1853 and is based in Hartford, Connecticut. American Midstream Partners, LP provides midstream infrastructure that links the producers of natural gas, crude oil, natural gas liquids (NGLs), condensate, and specialty chemicals to various intermediate and end-use markets in the United States and Mexico. Its Gas Gathering and Processing Services segment offers services to producers of natural gas and crude oil, including transporting raw natural gas and crude oil from various receipt points through gathering systems, treating the raw natural gas, processing raw natural gas to separate the NGLs from the natural gas, fractionating NGLs, and selling or delivering pipeline-quality natural gas and NGLs. The company's Liquid Pipelines and Services segment transports, purchases, and sells crude oil. Its Natural Gas Transportation Services segment transports and delivers natural gas from producing wells, receipt points, or pipeline interconnects for shippers, local distribution companies, and utilities, as well as industrial, commercial, and power generation customers. The company's Offshore Pipelines and Services segment gathers and transports natural gas from receipt points to other pipeline interconnects, onshore facilities, and other delivery points. Its Terminalling Services segment provides petroleum products, distillates, chemicals, and agricultural products storage services at its marine terminals for commodity brokers, refiners, and chemical manufacturers. As of May 10, 2018, the company owned approximately 5,100 miles of interstate and intrastate pipelines; gas processing plants and fractionation facilities; an offshore semisubmersible floating production system with nameplate processing capacity of 90 thousand barrels per day of crude oil and 220 million cubic feet per day of natural gas; and terminal sites with approximately 6.7 million barrels of storage capacity. American Midstream GP, LLC serves as the general partner of the company. The company was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Our portfolio of high quality UK commercial property is focused on London Offices and Retail around the UK. We own or manage a portfolio valued at 13.7bn (British Land share: 10.3bn) as at 30 September 2020 making us one of Europe's largest listed real estate investment companies. Our strategy is to provide places which meet the needs of our customers and respond to changing lifestyles - Places People Prefer. We do this by creating great environments both inside and outside our buildings and use our scale and placemaking skills to enhance and enliven them. This expands their appeal to a broader range of occupiers, creating enduring demand and driving sustainable, long term performance. Our Offices portfolio comprises three office-led campuses in central London as well as high quality standalone buildings and accounts for 65% of our portfolio. Our Retail portfolio is focused on retail parks and shopping centres, and accounts for 31% of our portfolio. Increasingly our focus is on providing a mix of uses and this is most evident at Canada Water, our 53 acre redevelopment opportunity where we have plans to create a new neighbourhood for London. Sustainability is embedded throughout our business. Our places, which are designed to meet high sustainability standards, become part of local communities, provide opportunities for skills development and employment and promote wellbeing. In April 2016 British Land received the Queen's Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development, the UK's highest accolade for business success for economic, social and environmental achievements over a period of five years. 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. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Fatih Karimov Trend: Iran and the EU are doing their best to strengthen the nuclear deal, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said. Rouhani made the remarks during a joint press conference with visiting Slovenian President Borut Pahor in Tehran Nov. 22, the state-run IRINN TV reported. Iran and Slovenia discussed the importance of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, aka nuclear deal) and enjoying the opportunities emerging following the deal, Rouhani said. He further said the relations with the EU have big importance for Iran and the Slovenian presidents visit will serve to boosting mutual ties as well as ties with Europe. Iran and Slovenia enjoy great potential to boost ties in economy, technology and trade, Rouhani said. He added that in addition to the economic ties, the two sides also highlighted the expansion of cultural, scientific and technological relations, especially in the field of new technologies. Global issues, including terrorism, extremism and immigration were also discussed by the two sides, Rouhani said. The parties also talked about the recent presidential election in the US and its possible impacts on world affairs as well as regional issues, Rouhani said. Pahor, for his turn, said his visit will open a new chapter in ties between Iran and Slovenia, adding that Ljubljana is keen to expand relations with Tehran in all fields. He said that both Iran and Slovenia seek to remove the barriers that hinder boosting trade exchanges. Pahor noted that the two countries share similar viewpoints on various issues. The Slovenian president further underlined that all sides to the nuclear deal should remain committed to their obligations. President Pahor, heading a high ranking politico-economic delegation, arrived in Tehran on Nov. 21. He will confer with Iranian officials on ways to develop political and economic cooperation between the two countries. Trade between Iran and Slovenia decreased in recent years. The parties signed three MOUs on the sidelines of a meeting between Rouhani and his Slovenian counterpart Nov. 22 to cooperate in economy as well as nanotechnology and ICT. It should be noted that Slovenias embassy in Tehran is due to reopen on Nov. 23. The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. manufactures, markets, and sells skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products worldwide. It offers a range of skin care products, including moisturizers, serums, cleansers, toners, body care, exfoliators, acne care and oil correctors, facial masks, cleansing devices, and sun care products; and makeup products, such as lipsticks, lip glosses, mascaras, foundations, eyeshadows, nail polishes, and powders, as well as compacts, brushes, and other makeup tools. The company also provides fragrance products in various forms comprising eau de parfum sprays and colognes, as well as lotions, powders, creams, candles, and soaps; and hair care products that include shampoos, conditioners, styling products, treatment, finishing sprays, and hair color products, as well as sells ancillary products and services. It offers its products under the Estee Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, MAC, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin, Smashbox, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, GLAMGLOW, Kilian Paris, Too Faced, Dr. Jart+, DECIEM, and The Ordinary brands. The company sells its products through department stores, specialty-multi retailers, upscale perfumeries and pharmacies, and salons and spas; freestanding stores; its own and authorized retailer websites; third-party online malls; stores in airports; and duty-free shops. The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in New York, New York. 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. 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. HURLBURT FIELD, Florida -- A U.S. special tactics operator saw the urgency for airstrikes to diffuse an oncoming firefight from Taliban combatants in Afghanistan recently. The AC-130 gunship circling overhead delivered 105mm cannon rounds so precise, they screeched down just 13 meters from where U.S. and coalition troops were located, according to Col. Michael Martin, 24th Special Operations Wing commander. From air to ground assault, Air Force and Army special operators, along with coalition partners, work together in fast-paced environments to coordinate targeted attacks. The contingents are fully "committed to fusing air and ground maneuver to defeat the enemy," Martin said of campaigns evolving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Air Force personnel "are involved" in ongoing operations across Mosul, including calling in precision strikes, Martin told Military.com on Thursday. U.S. troops serving as advisers were moving with elite Iraqi forces outside the city units just last week, but remained behind the "forward line of" Iraqi Counter Terror Service units, according to Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve. Martin provided a few more details. Special tactics airmen are "dismounted on foot, and guys in operations providing a level of support to our Iraqi counterparts to put lethal fires precisely on our targets and enable them to continue the advance," Martin said. He declined to comment on U.S. elite forces' involvement in the assault on Raqqa, Syria, which began earlier this month. RELATED: US Ground Troops Now Likely Inside Mosul 'We've Got Their Back' Air Force Special Operations Command members continuously train for the kind of battle U.S. troops have been perfecting since the height of conflict in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. However, the responsibilities and tasks of thwarting the enemy now belong "to the guys we've invested a lot of our time training," Martin said. "The violence that the enemy wants to project continues. They're unevaded, they're going to be more deliberate and more tactically focused," he said. "But some of these fights aren't our fight -- we're here to enable and support, so we might not be standing shoulder to shoulder, but behind. We've got their back." Martin reiterated, "We're not the guy in the door first; we're the guy in the door second now in Iraq, Afghanistan -- fighting the Islamic State, the Taliban and so on." Last week, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter traveled to Hurlburt Field to witness the Air Force's 21 Special Tactics Squadron and 8th Special Operations Squadron, and the Army's 7th Special Forces Group training under similar, hostile circumstances. Carter observed personnel recovery training, a "core mission for us that we currently are deployed supporting in that capacity," Martin said. "Very specifically, today we were looking at a number of the special operations forces' assault capabilities," Carter said. "This is a kind of capability that we use nearly every day, somewhere in the world." But it speaks to what the special operators might face next. The Next 'Gray Zone' Martin said AFSOC units, for example, are spending time on training focused on how quickly units can position themselves for the next fight, one where planning and details could change instantly. "The military, we thrive on what is a requirement, and we have strategies and theories and vision statements that we try to drive toward," Martin said in a follow-up interview Friday. But now is the time to turn a watchful eye East, Martin said, to the conflicts in Ukraine and threats from adversaries such as North Korea. Paying attention to "how they have evolved, what does that mean in a contested or degraded environment based on their capability? It's drastically different than dealing with a counterterrorism threat." In the next few years, he said, expect a shift in AFSOC operations to the anti-access area denial space, or A2/AD -- which more broadly refers to weapons and capabilities designed to keep the U.S. from approaching or encroaching upon foreign territories and holdings, or prohibiting access to global common areas. RELATED: Pentagon Wants Technologies for Multi-Domain Battle One example Martin pinpointed was "getting A-10s to land on highways in Estonia" in June, the first time the aircraft practiced a highway landing since 1984, according to The Washington Post. "The techniques we use in the Middle East, they don't work so well in Eastern Europe, or let's say the Republic of Korea because those environments don't support it in the austere sense [because] we rely on the infrastructure we have in place that would enable us to be more precise, or more lethal," he said. In these locations, basic communication technologies "could be taken away from us really, really quickly, so we have to understand if it's taken away, what is our other option?" Martin said, referring to urban warfare techniques Russian forces have used to jam signals in Eastern Ukraine. For months, Russian-backed separatists have used electronic warfare to misdirect or take out commercial drones Ukrainian soldiers use to conduct aerial surveillance. The move, first observed in 2014, triggered U.S. troops to keep watch as they trained Ukrainian guardsmen on the western side of the country. Practicing With Humanitarian Relief Special Tactics Airmen from the 21st Special Tactics Squadron were prepped to drop into Haiti after Category 4 Hurricane Matthew ravaged the island, showing the flexibility of Special Tactics capabilities on the spectrum of combat and humanitarian missions. In 2010, Special Tactics Airmen cleared the runway for cargo aircraft carrying aid to land, and relieved personnel injured by the storm. RELATED: Airmen Detail Hurricane Relief Efforts in Haiti These "are the same guys that will go to Europe and will operate in the next six months to do some of these activities with our partner nations in NATO," Martin said. "We're all in for the contested and degraded environments, or the 'gray zone,' " Martin continued, "because some of our skill sets work well in humanitarian and disaster relief." The airmen will then head back to the Central Command theater for more counterterrorism operations. And that's the point, Martin said. From engaging in firefights, to confined space rescue or clearing and establishing an airfield, the goal for special operators will be to understand and balance all demands put on them. Editor's Note: This story has been updated to clarify Col. Martin's comments. -- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214. In a series of experiments this year, units from 2nd Marine Division will be silencing every element of an infantry battalion -- from M4 rifles to .50 caliber machine guns. The commanding general of 2nd Marine Division, Maj. Gen. John Love, described these plans during a speech to Marines at the Marine Corps Association Ground Dinner this month near Washington, D.C. The proof-of-concept tests, he said, included Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, which began an Integrated Training Exercise pre-deployment last month at Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms. "What we've found so far is it revolutionizes the way we fight," Love told Military.com. "It used to be a squad would be dispersed out over maybe 100 yards, so the squad leader couldn't really communicate with the members at the far end because of all the noise of the weapons. Now they can actually just communicate, and be able to command and control and effectively direct those fires." Chief Warrant Officer 5 Christian Wade, the division's gunner, or infantry weapons officer, said the Lima companies in two other battalions -- 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, and 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines -- now had silencers, or suppressors, on all their rifles, including the M27 infantry automatic rifles. All units are set to deploy in coming months. The combat engineer platoons that are attached to these units and will deploy with them will also carry suppressed weapons, he said. Suppressors work by slowing the escape of propellant gases when a gun is fired, which drastically reduces the sound signature. Used by scout snipers and special operations troops to preserve their stealth, the devices are also valuable for their ability to minimize the chaos of battle, enabling not only better communication but also improved situational awareness and accuracy. "It increases their ability to command and control, to coordinate with each other," Wade told Military.com. "They shoot better, because they can focus more, and they get more discipline with their fire." The noise of gunfire can create an artificial stimulus that gives the illusion of effectiveness, he said. When it's taken away, he explained, Marines pay more attention to their shooting and its effect on target. "They've got to get up and look, see what effect they're having on the enemy because you can't hear it," he said. He added that suppressors were already in common use by near-peer militaries, including those of Russia and China. Wade said he is working on putting suppressors on the Marines' M249 light machine gun and M240G medium machine gun, using equipment from Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command. The third and final objective will be the suppression of the .50 caliber heavy machine gun, he said. As the units conduct training and exercises with suppressors, 2nd Marine Division is collaborating with the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab to collect and aggregate data. Weapons with suppressors require additional maintenance and cleaning to prevent fouling, and the cost, nearly $700,000 to outfit an infantry battalion, might give planners pause. But Wade said he will continue to gather data for the next year-and-a-half, following the units as they deploy. And he expects the idea to have gained significant traction among Marine Corps leadership by then, he said. "When I show how much overmatch we gain it will have sold itself," he said. -- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck. Related Video: Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Khalid Kazimov Trend: Iranian intelligence ministry has disbanded a terrorist group in one of the countrys southern regions, a high ranking official said. Hossein Zolfagari, Iranian deputy interior minister for security, has said that the intelligence ministry forces have confronted a four-member terrorist team in the evening on Nov 21, IRNA news agency reported. According to the report, as a result of an armed confrontation, one member of the terrorist team was killed, three more got arrested. The official added that the security forces seized explosives from the team members but he did not disclose any further details on the last nights operation. The 164 new Americans who took their oath of citizenship Monday at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Virginia, received an unusual send-off: "Hooah!" The Army cheer came from retired Capt. Florent Groberg, who was honored with the Outstanding American by Choice award at the ceremony. Groberg, who received the Medal of Honor last year for heroic actions in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, that saved the lives of American troops, was born in Poissy, France, and became an American citizen in 2001 at age 17. He is one of only 11 living Medal of Honor recipients from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Groberg, 33, told the group, who hailed from 43 different countries, that he had come to understand what it meant to be an American through his seven years of military service. "When I lost my friends, when I felt that pain, it reminded me why this is the greatest country in the world. Because of its people, because of our history," he said. "We stand up while others run. We face our struggles head on, and when we get back down, we get back up." The presence of Groberg and Army Secretary Eric Fanning, another guest of honor at the ceremony, gave more weight to passages in the oath of citizenship that commit new citizens to "bear arms on behalf of the United States" and "perform noncombatant services for the Armed Forces" when required by law to do so. Fanning hailed the diversity in the room, saying it was crucial to American military strength. "For me, the existence and frequency of these naturalization ceremonies ranks as an important national achievement," he said. "As Army secretary, when I look at a formation of soldiers, I want to see strength. I want to see the resilience. I see that as I look around this room today. These characteristics are what makes Americans and America great." Fanning subtly referred to the heated national debate on immigration stoked by President-elect Donald Trump, saying these were "anxious times" for many immigrants and their children. "But if history provides any preview of our future, we know that the contributions of our newest Americans, their love for this country, and their fearless and relentless pursuit of opportunity will remain the surest foundation of our strength and success," he said. "The dynamism and diversity you bring to this nation will be a catalyst for a stronger and more prosperous America, just as it has always been." The presence of Groberg and Fanning at the ceremony was particularly significant for two military spouses who became citizens with their uniformed husbands in attendance. "The Medal of Honor recipient, I loved everything he said. It was really special," said Dolly Morris, born in Colombia, who met her husband, Navy Capt. Mark Morris, when he was a chief of mission in Bogota from 2006 to 2010. Morris, who retired in 2014 and wore his dress blue uniform to the ceremony, said his military experiences made the citizenship more remarkable. "I've served with a lot of different officers from other countries, and all of them were -- they just were beyond belief that we would allow people to come here, to become citizens, to vote, to own property," he said. "They would say, 'In my country, we would never let someone else become a citizen. We'd never let them vote.' It was just a universal thing except for here. It's pretty amazing." Dolly Morris said she had wanted to become an American citizen in order to vote in the presidential election and narrowly missed doing so, but hopes to vote in other elections. Natalia Vedenskaya also took the oath as her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Eliezer Morales, looked on. The couple met when Morales was stationed in South Korea, where Vedenskaya, who is from Russia, worked. She began the process to become a citizen in 2012, she said. For Morales, who works at the Defense Intelligence Agency at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C., having Groberg and Fanning in attendance has special significance for him as a soldier. "It's really nice to see how people from other countries like him come here as a young person, and go through all the stuff he went through," he said. "It's really amazing. I'm glad he was here." Groberg told Military.com he was honored to be a part of the ceremony. And even in a year of political tumult, he said he wasn't worried about the nation's future. "We are the greatest country in the world. This is a place where we can make anything we want of ourselves; this is the land of opportunity," he said. "So I'm very confident in the leadership that we have had, and will have. And I just, every day, am grateful to call myself an American. I wouldn't have it any other way." -- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck. The Navy's new $4 billion warship is in Panama for repairs after suffering a breakdown while passing through the Panama Canal on Monday evening. A spokesman for U.S. 3rd Fleet, Cmdr. Ryan Perry, told Military.com that the commander of 3rd Fleet, Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, had instructed the USS Zumwalt, the first in a new class of stealthy destroyers, to remain at ex-Naval Station Rodman in Panama to address the engineering casualty. "The timeline for repairs is being determined now, in direct coordination with Naval Sea Systems and Naval Surface Forces," he said in a statement. "The schedule for the ship will remain flexible to enable testing and evaluation in order to ensure the ship's safe transit to her new homeport in San Diego." An official confirmed to Military.com that the ship had been transiting south through the canal en route to its new San Diego homeport when the incident occurred. The ship had to be towed to pier by the Panama Canal Authority, the official said. While details about what caused the breakdown were few, Navy Times -- which first reported the incident -- cited reports about problems with heat exchangers in the ship's integrated power plant that had contributed to the mishap. It's not the first casualty for the Zumwalt, which was commissioned just last month, on Oct. 15. In September, ahead of its commissioning, the Zumwalt was sidelined due to a problem in its engineering plant, USNI News reported. Navy officials said the problem was discovered after crew found a seawater leak in the propulsion motor drive lube oil auxiliary system of one of the ship's shafts. That repair was completed at Naval Station Norfolk. The ship also made headlines earlier this month when multiple outlets reported that the missiles fired from its 155mm Advanced Gun System, at $800,000 apiece, were too expensive for the Navy to buy in large quantities, raising questions about the effectiveness of the ship's weapons. The Zumwalt, and the two ships planned to follow it, will be assigned to the Pacific as part of the regional rebalance, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in April. -- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck Related Video: There are a lot of resources out there for veteran entrepreneurs who want to start their own business, and there's a good reason for it: Veterans are a big part of the U.S. economy. With an estimated 300,000 veteran-run businesses in America, veteran entrepreneurs make up 5.9% of all businesses and employ nearly four million people. Any veteran looking to get started in business or improve their existing business should know about the plethora of important resources available to help them. The following organizations offer training, information and mentorship, often without cost. If you know a business-minded veteran, this is one list worth sharing. 1. Small Business Administration The U.S. Small Business Administration should be any entrepreneur's first stop for information and resources on getting a business up and running or expanding their current business. Luckily for American veterans, the SBA also has a few programs and offices just for vets. Boots to Business is a free, two-day training program for current active and reserve members of the Armed Forces, and can be accessed through an installation's transition service manager's office. For separated or retired service members, the SBA offers Reboot, a similar fundamentals course that opens the door for all other veteran-oriented SBA offerings. After these fundamentals courses, vets get access to specialized training from the SBA, like Revenue Readiness, special programs for service-disabled veterans through nonprofit partners and Veteran Institute for Procurement, which helps vet-run businesses get government contracts It all starts with Boots to Business or the Reboot courses. Visit the veteran-owned business page of the SBA website to find out about them or learn about other special programs for veterans. The SBA also operates a number of veterans business outreach centers (VBOCs) around the country that provide similar programs and training. 2. Department of Veterans Affairs Becoming a verified service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) or veteran-owned small business (VOSB) through the VA's Vets First Verification Program allows these businesses to compete for special contracts from the federal government. The Veterans First Contracting Program offers contracts for programs and funds specifically designed to be awarded to firms owned and controlled by veterans and service-disabled veterans. The four-stage process includes intake, assessment, federal review and decision. Any business that has worked as a federal contractor can testify to the game-changing nature of being awarded a federal contract, and the VA's Vets First Verification Program is how to get started. 3. Institute for Veterans and Military Families The D'Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University offers so much to veteran entrepreneurs, it's hard to know where to begin. Its research-based entrepreneurial programs partners with the VA, the SBA and other agencies to provide specialized training in many areas. For business-minded veterans who are just getting started, the IVMF offers help and resources for ideation, the free IGNITE one-day training event to learn the pathways to entrepreneurship, the STRIVE startup training and resource program and idea testing for veterans, spouses and transitioning service members called EBV-SPARK. The IVMF also has programs for existing businesses. Veteran EDGE brings together like-minded spouses and veteran business owners for training and networking, VetSource brings corporate procurement specialists together with veteran entrepreneurs for panel discussions, networking and resource sharing. EBV-Accelerate is a boot camp-style program that tackles the nuts and bolts of business growth. No matter what phase your business might be in, there are resources and free training programs available at Syracuse University's D'Aniello Institute. 4. SCORE SCORE is a business-oriented nonprofit organization that provides helpful resources, free software and online services to help veteran-owned businesses during their startup phases. It's the country's largest network of volunteer business experts, so when veterans are paired with a SCORE mentor, they can rest assured that their mentor knows their troubles. SCORE for Veterans includes other veteran entrepreneurs in their volunteer ranks to help vets translate their military and use their earned benefits effectively. 5. GOVCON Ops Since federal contracting can be so critical to the success of veteran-owned businesses, the founders of GOVCON Ops help veteran entrepreneurs through the entire process. This veteran-founded business provides proposal writing services for a GSA schedule and offers to help simplify the proposal writing process and assist veteran firms during the proposal process. After potential contracts are awarded, GOVCON Ops also offers consulting services to help business owners with their GSA schedule post-award compliance and audits, ensuring contracts they win are kept. -- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook. Want to Know More About Veteran Jobs? Be sure to get the latest news about post-military careers as well as critical info about veteran jobs and all the benefits of service. Subscribe to Military.com and receive customized updates delivered straight to your inbox. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Khalid Kazimov Trend: Over 1,000 servicemen deployed by Iran to Syria to back President Bashar al-Assads government have been killed in the Arab country. Mohammadali Shahidi-e Mahallati, head of Irans Foundation of Martyrs, said the death toll surpasses 1,000, Tasnim news agency reported Nov. 22. He made the remarks addressing a gathering of the members of Irans volunteer paramilitary force of Basij on the occasion of formation of the volunteer force. The earlier announcements by the Iranian officials suggested that 400 fighters deployed by the Islamic Republic to Syria were killed. Following the outbreak of the Syrian crisis, Iran reportedly set up Zeinabioun brigade of Pakistani Shia nationals and the Fatemioun brigade of Afghan Shia fighters to support President Bashar al-Assad's government against armed opposition groups. In addition, the Islamic Republic sent a group of its military personnel to Syria on advisory mission. Iran and Syria are close strategic allies and Iran has provided significant support for the Syrian government in the conflict. The US, on the other hand, works with Saudi Arabia and other regional allies so support the opposition. More than 250,000 people have been killed in the Syrian crisis with hundreds of thousands displaced since crisis started in the country. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22 By Orkhan Quluzade Trend: As part of fight against the movement of Fethullah Gulen, accused of involvement in the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, a special operation was carried out in the countrys 19 provinces, the Hurriyet newspaper reported Nov. 22. As a result of the operation, Turkish police detained 60 employees of the Turkish Armed Forces, according to the report. There are fighter pilots among the detainees, said the report. 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. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade The 48-hour cessation of hostilities in Yemen has expired and renewed fighting has been reported, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moons spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Monday, Sputnik reported. The armed conflict in Yemen had clearly resumed as the both sides reported ceasefire violations, including airstrikes and ground clashes, Dujarric said Monday. "Both sides of a conflict reported violations, including airstrikes and ground clashes during the cessation of hostilities. The armed conflict, unfortunately, has clearly resumed," Stephane Dujarric told journalists. During the cease fire, both sides to the conflict reported violations including airstrikes and ground clashes, Dujarric noted. The main obstacle to the provision of humanitarian assistance in Yemen are bureaucratic impediments from all sides, Dujarric stated. Despite the difficulties, aid reached 4.6 million people aid last month, the spokesman added. Earlier on Monday, Saudi-led coalition spokesman General Ahmed Assiri said the ceasefire in Yemen came to an end because Houthi rebels failed to comply with the conditions of the agreement. The conflict between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels, which has been ongoing since 2014, has caused a humanitarian catastrophe. Houthi-led militants have seized control over large areas of the county, including Yemen's capital of Sanaa and a number of ports on the Red Sea. According to a UN World Food Program report on Yemen issued on November 14, more than 21 million people, or 82 percent of the population, are in need of humanitarian assistance. A landslide killed at least 13 people last week in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo after thousands of artisanal miners began invading a copper mine controlled by Freeport-McMoRan Inc, the provincial governor said on Monday, Reuters reported. Between 5,000 and 10,000 illegal miners have descended on the Tenke copper mine, one of the world's largest, since last week, Richard Muyej, governor of Lualaba province, told U.N.-sponsored Radio Okapi. "The Tenke Fungurume site is overrun by clandestine miners who organize incursions into the heart of the private concession," Muyej said. "The report I received indicated that 13 bodies were taken from the site." It was not immediately clear what accounted for the surge in artisanal miners on site. Freeport did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Freeport agreed in May to sell its 56 percent stake in Tenke to China Molybdenum and Toronto-based Lundin Mining announced last week it would sell its 24 percent stake to BHR Partners, a Chinese private equity firm. But state miner Gecamines, which owns the remaining 20 percent, is trying to block the sales, saying they violate its right to purchase the stakes for itself. Deadly accidents are common in Congo's mostly unregulated artisanal mining sector, where diggers use rudimentary tools, but far rarer at its large industrial mines. Tens of thousands of people in Congo's southeast depend on small-scale mining to support their families and often operate within the perimeters of industrial mines. Congo is Africa's largest copper producer. Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks about accelerating regional economic integration at the recent APEC summit in Lima, Peru. (Photo : Getty Images) China is offering to lead countries of the Asia-Pacific region with an alternative to the trade deal under the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which has now stalled following the election of Donald Trump whose protectionist policies run counter to Obama's free trade policies. Advertisement According to the Financial Times, the TPP could be one of President Barack Obama's biggest policy legacies since it served as the backbone for U.S. leadership role at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. With Trump's victory, many U.S. allies fear a more belligerent and isolationist America under the new leader. But China was quick to position itself to fill the gap at this year's APEC summit in Lima, Peru, as President Xi Jinping offered an alternative to other APEC members. "China will not shut the door to the outside world but will open it even wider," Xi told business leaders on Saturday, Nov. 19. During one of their chance meetings, Xi also warned Obama about the critical stage that the U.S.-China relationship is currently undergoing. "We meet at a hinge moment in the China-U.S. relationship," Xi said. "I hope the two sides will work together to focus on cooperation, manage our differences, and make sure there is a smooth transition in the relationship and that it will continue to grow going forward." APEC officials observed and felt in nearly all meetings, the sudden shift towards China. "There is a different dynamic around the table. People are hedging their bets," one senior official said. Japan and other TPP countries are looking for an alternative to the TPP, after Trump threatened that he would pull the U.S. out of the TPP, which has not been ratified by the U.S. Congress. Malcolm Turnbull, Australia's prime minister, said in an interview with the Financial Times that he would continue to pursue the TPP as he also cautioned about the risk of protectionism. "Protectionism is not a ladder to get you out of the low-growth trap. It is a shovel to dig it much deeper," Turnbull said. John Key, New Zealand's prime minister, also warned that if the U.S. leaves the TPP, it would leave the door open to China. "The TPP was all about the United States showing leadership in the Asia-Pacific region. We like the U.S. being in the region. But if the U.S. is not there that void needs to be filled, and it will be filled by China," Key said. Obama and other U.S. officials, however, told their regional allies that Trump's election does not mean a complete withdrawal of its interest in the region. "Don't assume the worst," Obama told a group of Latin American entrepreneurs and activists. "How you campaign is not always how you govern." Mike Froman, Obama's trade tsar, said: "The U.S. has always been a Pacific power. I think American interests in this region are enduring." According to Evan Feigenbaum, a former U.S. diplomat now at the University of Chicago's Paulson Institute, China's growing economic influence has made it difficult for Obama to proceed with the TPP. Trump's election and abandoning the TPP would only help accelerate the loss of U.S. influence in the region, he added. China's bid for regional leadership will be resisted by countries such as India and Japan, Feigenbaum added. "But either way, the U.S. is the loser because the rules will be set by someone else," Feigenbaum said. "And U.S. economic statecraft in Asia, which has been so essential to Washington's role and leadership there, will fade." you are here: Apple unveiled its mobile operating system, iOS 10, during WWDC 2016. (Photo : YouTube/EverythingApplePro) Apple is about to issue iOS 10.2 but the jailbreak providers remain silent. Both Pangu and TaiG are not saying anything on the matter. Or is there really a chance that an iOS 10 jailbreak release will ever happen? However, the jailbreak community is not totally idle thanks to the stream of new Cydia apps and tweaks. Advertisement Of course, jailbreak tweaks are hardly replacements for a new jailbreak, the latest version of which is Pangu's iOS 9.3.3, but they do wonders to at least tide over jailbreak fans, at least until the new JB tool comes touching down. For the last two weeks, iDownloadblog.com has listed a number of interesting jailbreak tweaks, which the blog site said are not too many these days considering that the next moves coming from both Pangu and TaiG are still unknown. While waiting for the next jailbreak release, if any, these new Cydia apps should be worth the while. PasswordRecovery Even in the jailbreak world, security and privacy are still of prime concern and one solid proof is the new tweak PasswordRecovery that for the most part makes it no pain for iPhone and iPad users to manage password and passcodes. The tool provides security protection not only to a mobile device but also so social media or other web-based accounts. "It works with your social media apps, as well as with your device's passcode, and should you ever forget them, you'll never have to go through complicated password reset processes again, as a simple means of authenticating yourself will provide you with your password so you can sign in more easily," iDownloadblog.com said. Be reminded though that enjoying the convenience and protection provided by PasswordRecovery comes at a cost but at dirt cheap $1.50. PullOver This tweak serves as a quick shortcut to favorite apps or more correctly, it allows pinning of apps for easy access and dismissal without the need to fully open an application and leave the Home interface. According to iDownloadblog.com, the tweak is easy to use and ready to get without charges. EmojiSuggest While still waiting for an iOS 10 jailbreak, an integral messaging feature of the software is brought to the jailbreak world by the EmojiSuggest tweak. "EmojiSuggest is a great new tweak that brings Emoji to the predictive keyboard on jailbroken iOS 9 devices. As you're typing words, it will suggest Emoji to use instead," iDownloadblog.com said. The tool is useful to jailbreak fans that elected not to install iOS 10. ClearClockView Another free tweak that as the name suggests will make the Clock app transparent, obviously for aesthetic use. As for the iOS 10 jailbreak release, the same report indicated that either TaiG or Team Pangu will be the provider despite the last proof showed off by Luca Todesco of an iPhone 7 running on jailbroken iOS 10.1.1. But if Cydia creator Saurik is to be asked, it is Pangu that will release the next jailbreak. When it is happening, he did not say. Lucifer Season 2, episode 10 promo, spoilers: What happens in Quid Pro Ho? (Photo : YouTube/Trending Promos) Charlotte turns Chloe against Lucifer to force him to leave Earth. The promo for "Lucifer" Season 2, episode 10 revolves around what is in store on "Quid Pro Ho." Will Lucifer and Chloe kiss on the new episode? Warning: This article contains spoilers from "Lucifer" Season 2 episodes. Read to know more. Advertisement "Lucifer" Season 2, episode 10 promo trailer Note: The article will be uploaded as soon as the network makes in available, stay tuned. Update: "Promise me, you will not touch her," Lucifer tells Charlotte in the promo. Charlotte wonders what is so special about this one little human. Meanwhile, Amenadiel is seen confronting his mother but it is too late now. Towards the end of the promo, Charlotte finds out about Chloe and Lucifer's relationship. Watch the promo below. Credit: YouTube/Television Promos "Lucifer" Season 2, episode 10 spoilers According to the official synopsis released by Fox, Charlotte forces her son Lucifer to leave Earth as she turns Chloe against him. Elsewhere, Amenadiel is now with Charlotte and that leads to Maze questioning his loyalty. Is it Amenadiel's plan? "Charlotte is determined to get Lucifer to leave Earth by turning Chloe against him. Meanwhile, Amenadiel has begun working as Charlotte's soldier, which makes Maze question his loyalty in the all-new "Quid Pro Ho" episode of LUCIFER airing Monday, Nov. 28," reads the official synopsis. Meanwhile, writer Mike Costa talked to TVLine about introducing characters from the comic. 'Because the comic is so obviously totally supernatural, we want to be very careful ... that we don't just start throwing everything at the wall." Case in point: "When Uriel showed up, it was for a very specific reason, and it served a very strong dramatic purpose," Costa said. Stay tuned for more "Lucifer" Season 2, episode 10 spoilers, news and updates. Share your views and thoughts in the section below. Friends In Pink is still on the radar and growing every year Letter to editor: Voting is necessary to protect democracy Rabbis installation at Keneseth Israel will get a boost of student creativity First Report on Biotechnology Developments in Developing Countries shows China in the Lead Locations of TWAS General Meetings. (Photo : TWAS ) The first report on biotechnology in developing countries revealing an overall picture of their biotechnology growth and competitiveness was released last week. The report was issued during the 27th TWAS General Meeting held in Kigali, Rwanda. The meeting was organized by CAS-TWAS Centre of Excellence for Biotechnology (CoEBio), a joint center operated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and TWAS, or the World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries. Advertisement TWAS was formerly known as the Third World Academy for Sciences. It is a global science academy based in Trieste, Italy working to advance science and engineering for sustainable prosperity in the developing world. TWAS was founded in 1983 by a distinguished group of scientists from the developing world, under the leadership of Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam, a Pakistani physicist. The founders shared a belief developing nations, by building strength in science and engineering, could build the knowledge and skill to address such challenges as hunger, disease and poverty. Held annually, the TWAS General Meeting showcases scientific excellence in the developing world. The meetings convene a range of participants -- from the elite ranks of TWAS fellows and TWAS prize winners -- to government science ministers and presidents of universities and science academies. The TWAS report reveals that among the 141 developing countries, 128 countries have references published in biotechnology and only 30 countries have had patents granted. Five regions of TWAS (TWAS East and Southeast Asia and Pacific Region and TWAS Sub Saharan Africa Region) have the most references and patents, while, TWAS Sub Saharan Africa has the most active cooperation. The report lists China, India, Brazil and Mexico as having the most references and patents. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Algeria have the fastest growth in references. China has the most references and patents among all. The report focused on scientific publications and patents in 32 categories of industrial, agricultural and medical biotechnologies, said Release by Professor LI Yin, director of CoEBio. It covers 141 developing countries during the period 2004 to 2014, and included collaborations among those countries. "This report is the first extensive document summarizing the development status of a specific technology area in the developing world," said Prof. Yin. BAI Chunli, President of CAS and TWAS, said the report provides a strong, valuable assessment of biotechnology activities in developing countries, as measured in scientific publications and patents. The report was a joint work of CoEBio and Clarivate Analytics (formerly the IP & Science business of Thomson Reuters). It also has a comparative study of development and characteristics among five regions in TWAS, with a detailed analysis of each country. This study provides a macro-reference of the subject for TWAS and UNESCO in understanding the current status and future trends in biotechnology development in developing countries. CoEBio was formally established in 2013, based on the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is an integrative platform aimed at strengthening the biotechnology innovation capability of developing countries. It also provides biotechnological solutions to problems in developing countries through strategic intelligence analysis, scientific cooperation, technology training and education relating to biotechnology. Friends and family of Tara Romero joined the community in raising about $5,000 to pay for a statue of the slain 14-year-old, who died in a 2011 drive-by shooting in southwest Morgan Hill. At a Nov. 19 fundraising event organized by Joey Romero, Tara Romeros brother, several musicians performed while volunteers sold raffle tickets for San Jose Sharks tickets, local restaurant gift cards and other prizes. The fundraiser took place at GVA Cafe, at the intersection of Second Street and Monterey Road in downtown Morgan Hill. Joey Romero, an artist himself, displayed several of his paintings on the walls of the cafe. He said they raised almost $5,000 during the evening, which will all go toward a six-foot bronze sculpture depicting Tara Romeros likeness. When complete, the sculpture will be placed on the City of Morgan Hills Civic Center campus on Peak Avenue. In December 2015, the city council approved that location for the sculpture to serve as a permanent reminder of the impact of violence, urging youth and other passersby to commit to a peaceful environment. Fundraising at the Nov. 19 event was bolstered by several large cash donations, including one from GVA Cafe owner Renee Carrillo. Tara Romero was a freshman at Sobrato High School when she was gunned down in a drive-by shooting Nov. 4, 2011 at the corner of Cosmo and Del Monte avenues. Five young men drove slowly by the intersection when at least one of the occupants opened fire on Romero and a group of her teen friends, who were standing in the area waiting for a ride home. Romero was pronounced dead at the scene. Three of her friendsalso her classmates at Sobrato High Schoolwere injured by the gunfire. The occupants of the vehicle were arrested shortly after the shooting; four of them have been to trial on murder and attempted murder charges. Three were convicted earlier this year, and one was found not guilty. The fifth suspect is awaiting trial. According to police reports and testimony at the trial, the suspects were associated with the Norteno street gang and perpetrated the shooting for gang-related purposes. The victims were not associated with gang activity, and were mistakenly targeted by the shooters, according to trial testimony. Friends and family of slain Morgan Hill teen Tara Romero still have about $3,500 to go to reach their goal to pay for a bronze statue of the 14-year-old at the Morgan Hill Civic Center campus. The family has also set up a gofundme page to help with the fundraising effort. For more information or to make a donation, visit the page at gofundme.com/jsrtr-hotmail-com?ssid=812526148&pos=2, or visit gofundme.com and search for Fund Community Memorial for TARA. 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' spoilers: Zendaya confirms not playing Mary Jane Watson; Official trailer to launch next month, Carnage teased for the MCU? Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the "Captain America: Civil War and the new "Spider-Man" 2017 film. (Photo : Facebook/Marvel) The latest details and spoilers for "Spider-Man: Homecoming" will feature the confirmation of Zendaya's character, official trailer launch and Carnage in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It seems that truth behind Zendaya's character in "Spider-Man: Homecoming" has been revealed as the "K.C. Undercover" star told ET Online that she will not be playing the Spider-Man's icoinic love interest Mary Jane Watson in the film. Advertisement Zendaya will be playing the character Michelle in the film and Zendaya described her as not a "romantic" person rather a a dry, awkward. intelligent and having a very deep personality. which sets her apart from Mary Jane Watson who is outgoing, friendly and confident in the comics. Rumored reports suggest that Peter Parker's (Tom Holland) possible love interest in "Spider-Man: Homecoming" could be her high school crush Liz Allan (Laura Harrier). Liz Allan is one the many love interest in Spider-Man's history joining the likes of Mary Jane Waston and Gwen Stacy. The romance between Peter and Liz will be similar to the comic books as Peter was attracted to the popular Liz, but she was dating Flash Thompson (Tony Revolori). In Spidey lore, there is a whole plotline where Peter tutors Liz, who was popular in high school, and while she initially treats him like a nerd, she eventually falls for him, leaving Flash, denounces the cool kids, and goes to be with Peter. Meanwhile, the possible release of the "Spider-Man: Homecoming" trailer will likely launch on Dec. 16 and its attached to the "Rogue One: A Star Wars story" film, ComicBook reported. The details for the "Spider-Man: Homecoming" trailer have already been leaked online from the San Diego Comic con event. Lastly, Movie Press YouTube podcast host Simon Thompson claimed that "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" actor Lin-Manuel Miranda wants to play the Spider-Man villain Cletus Kasady/Carnage in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thompson stated that Miranda is a Marvel fan and if the Marvel Studios and Disney will allow Carnage or do a "Maximum Carnage" storyline in the MCU, he wants to be in it and play the villain. Peter Parker in the "Spider-Man: Homecoming" will face off against The Vulture (Michael Keaton), Tinkerer (Michael Chernus) and Shocker ( Bokeem Woodbine). There are also rumors that Norman Osborn/Green Goblin or Eddie Brock/Venom will making their debut in the MCU soon. "Spider-Man: Homecoming" will be release on July 7, 2017. Actors Lee Joon-Gi, Ji Chang-Wook, Lee Jong-Suk, Park Hae Jin, 2PMs Taecyeon and EXOs Kai will star in a new web drama '7th First Kiss.' (Photo : YouTube/music lover kpop AD) Lee Joon-Gi, Ji Chang-Wook, 2PM's Taecyeon, EXO's Kai, Choi Ji-Woo and Lee Cho-Hee attended the "7th First Kiss" press conference on Nov. 22, Tuesday. There, the Hallyu stars revealed their roles in the upcoming web drama. Produced by the Lotte Duty-Free Shop, "7th First Kiss" follows a woman, Min Soo-Jin (Choi-Hee), who never had a boyfriend since birth. She then meets a goddess (Choi) who gives her the chance to meet seven handsome guys: Joon-Gi, Ji, Taecyeon, Kai, Lee Jong-Suk, Park Hae-Jin and Lee Min Ho. Advertisement Out of the seven male actors, only Ji, Joon-Gi, Kai and Taecyeon attended the production press conference at Lotte Cinema in Jamshil, Seoul on Nov. 22, Tuesday, Naver reported. Speaking before a predominantly Korean crowd, Kai introduced his character, stating he would play Min Soo-Jin's younger male friend who used to get Chinese tutoring. Ji, who recently portrayed a former mercenary soldier in tvN's "The K2," will once again transform into a skilled secret agent. Joon-Gi, who is known for his roles in several popular historical dramas, will play a church oppa from Min Soo-Jin's younger days. "I played a church oppa from Choi Hee's younger days," All Kpop quoted Joon-Gi as saying. "Previously, I was in a historical drama so I'm happy to show my romantic act, even though it's short." Taecyeon, who recently played Park Bong-Pal in tvN's "Hey Ghost, Let's Fight," plays the son of a Chaebol. He revealed his character is willing to sacrifice everything for love, stressing that it is the kind of role that he has always wanted to try. Park and Jong-Suk, who failed to attend the press conference, introduced their respective characters through a recorded video. The former revealed he would transform into a romantic co-worker, while the latter will play a top Hallyu star. There is no word yet about Min-Ho's role in the upcoming web drama. Raising anticipation for the "7th First Kiss," Lotte Duty-Free Shop just released the web drama's official poster through their SNS channels. The said promotional poster was widely circulated on Twitter. Directed by Jung Jung-Hwa, "7th First Kiss" will be released online in mid-December. Check out the video below for more information: Japan has more to gain or lose from changes to US economic and foreign policy under a Trump presidency than most. As its largest trading partner, the US accounts for around one-fifth of all Japanese exports. As such, the fortunes of the Japanese equity markets, which are packed with exporters like Sony and Toyota, will be closely linked to the decisions made within the incoming Trump administration. Despite the country being the subject of much accusatory finger pointing during Mr Trumps campaign speeches, there are reasons for Japanese equity investors to remain positive. Expectations of rising rates in the US have already seen a strengthening of the US dollar against the Yen. This, coupled with the expected large-scale fiscal stimulus in the US, could both lower the cost and increase demand for Japanese goods and services, boosting the exported-orientated Japanese equity markets. On the other hand, Trumps protectionist rhetoric has left the fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement, which includes Japan, hanging in the balance. The introduction of additional trade restrictions or tariffs would portend bad news for Japanese exporters. Following an initial sell-off, Japanese equity markets have responded positively to the electoral shock. Which are the Best Japanese Equity Funds? Morningstar recently launched Analyst Ratings for a broad range of equity and fixed-income ETFs. The Morningstar Analyst Rating is a forward-looking qualitative assessment of a funds ability to offer superior returns relative to its peers whether active or passive - over the long-term. Amongst the European-domiciled ETFs assigned an Analyst Rating, the following three are some of the highest rated funds offering exposure to Japanese Equity markets. iShares Core MSCI Japan IMI ETF (IJPA) We have awarded our highest rating of Gold to this ETF, which is one of our favourite passive offerings in a market in which active managers have struggled to demonstrate their worth. The MSCI Japan IMI Index it tracks offers one of the most representative cap-weighted exposures to Japanese large-cap equities. Covering around 1,200 Japanese companies, including large-, mid-, and small-caps, the index represents around 99% of the free-float-adjusted market. With an ongoing charge of just 0.20%, the fund is one of cheapest Japan ETFs available. The yawning fee gap between this fund and the average fund in the Morningstar category of 1.64% has proved to be a formidable hurdle for active managers. The low fee, coupled with an underperformance of active managers, has seen the fund outshine its surviving category peers over three and five years on a risk-adjusted basis. Vanguard FTSE Japan ETF (VDJP) One of only two Gold-rated ETFs offering exposure to broad Japanese equities, this fund exhibits all the hallmarks of a top-notch tracker. With around 480 constituents, including a number of mid- and small-caps, the FTSE Japan Index is narrower than either the TOPIX or MSCI Japan IMI indices but still stands as an excellent proxy for the Japanese equity markets. With an ongoing charge of only 0.19%, the fund holds a fee advantage over both passive and active funds peers. This has helped the fund clearly outshine its surviving category peers over three years when ranked on a risk-adjusted basis. This strong performance can be extended out to 10 years if we include the returns of older funds tracking the same index. In addition to its low fee and strong performance, what sets this fund apart from the other trackers is our positive view of Vanguard. The source of Vanguard's competitive advantage and the foundation of its culture is its mutual ownership structure. Fund shareholders own Vanguard through their funds, which compels the firm to operate at cost rather than for profit and to put investors' interests first. Lyxor Japan TOPIX DR ETF D-EUR A/I (JPNL) We have awarded this ETF a Silver rating. Due to its sprawling coverage, the TOPIX Index offers the broadest and most representative cap-weighted exposure to Japanese large-cap equities. Including almost 2,000 Japanese companies, it approximates the total market exposure. It has performed well, out-performing its surviving category peers over three, five, and 10 years on a risk-adjusted basis. The fund has also been the best-performing ETF tracking the TOPIX Index over the trailing five-years period. With an ongoing charge of 0.45%, this fund isnt the cheapest available, and for this reason we cannot give the fund our highest rating. 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. The Canadian government has unveiled its housing strategy plans, following months of consultation with Canadians and industry stakeholders.Affordable housing can connect individuals with the facilities and services they need to build secure, productive and meaningful lives for themselves.Living close to jobs, public transportation and childcare enables people to participate fully in society and the economy, Jean-Yves Duclos, minister of families, children and social development, said in the report, entitled What we heard: Shaping Canadas national housing strategy. A National Housing Strategy will align the efforts and resources of all players governments, stakeholders in the private and non-profit sectors and others toward improving housing outcomes for all Canadians. The 66 page report , which was prepared by the Conference Board of Canada, was released Tuesday, which marks National Housing Day in Canada.The strategy focuses on housing affordability for all Canadians. It was formulated following consultation with over 7,000 Canadians who expressed a number of ideas on how the Canadian government can address housing needs for citizens across the country.As a result of that consultation, a number of themes emerged.The housing plan has a ways to go before actual policy is implemented, however.The hard work continues. Needless to say, broad consultations indulge peoples expectations, as they should, the report said. However, policy makers must balance these against fiscal constraints. Our objective will be to develop an NHS that employs finite government funds to maximum effect, yielding the best outcomes.The major themes reported in the study can be viewed below:. It is clear that Canadians are united in wanting better housing outcomes - not just for themselves, but for individuals and families with the most severe housing needs, including low-income Canadians, the homeless and victims fleeing violence.. Indigenous peoples told us that a separate, but parallel strategy is needed to address the unique housing challenges facing Metis, Inuit and First Nations peoples living on and off reserve, in cities and remote areas, and in the North and bring housing need levels on par with on-Indigenous peoples.. A fundamental goal of a National Housing Strategy should be to eliminate homelessness in Canada, and short of that, make it rare, brief and non-recurring. The needs of homeless Canadians, who fall at the extreme end of the housing spectrum, ought to be prioritized.. Canadians said housing they can afford and that meets their needs was the most important housing outcome. The lack of affordable, suitable and adequate housing is especially a concern for low-income households and other vulnerable Canadians across the country.. Canadians told us they expect a National Housing Strategy to better coordinate the various housing initiatives already in motion across the country and to tackle housing needs across the entire continuum.. All recognized the need for housing solutions to be people-focused so that individuals and families have access to jobs, schools and supports in order to participate in their communities and help lift them out of poverty. Canadians also want housing located in safe neighbourhoods with day-care facilities, community services, public transportation, recreational and other amenities nearby.. You told us that a national strategy must set clear outcomes and measurable targets in order to report back to Canadians on progress in achieving better housing.. We heard loud and clear from housing providers and developers that long-term and stable funding is necessary to plan and deliver more affordable housing. Similarly, access to innovative financing and affordable lands will also help alleviate affordable housing gaps.. Canadians said a national housing strategy should examine whether our laws, policies and practices are sufficient to prevent homelessness, forced evictions, and discrimination in having adequate housing.. Canadians and housing experts stressed that more and better housing data is needed to understand housing conditions and the housing needs of Canadians, and in order to develop informed, cost-effective, policies, programs and initiatives.. Canadians told us that a National Housing Strategy should take an integrated approach, building on the capacity of all orders of government and other partners. Clear Collaboration and flexible solutions are necessary to achieve a national vision of housing. Click here to read the entire report. Cicero Group Names New CEO US-based data analysis and consulting firm Cicero Group has promoted President and COO Trent Kaufman to the role of Chief Executive Officer, succeeding company founder Randy Shumway. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Cicero Group captures and analyzes internal, secondary and primary data about clients' customers, competitors and potential new opportunities. Kaufman (pictured) takes up his new role on January 1st, having served as the firm's President and COO since 2007, when it acquired his change leadership consulting firm Education Direction. Shumway will continue as Chairman of the Board, while being responsible for new business development and community engagement. He says of Kaufman's appointment: 'I fervently believe that periodic, structured change in leadership can be remarkably powerful in propelling innovative new ideas and driving organizations to new heights. Trent will lead Cicero to unprecedented levels of success. He is a visionary and incisive leader. I'm going to do whatever Trent asks of me professionally to help Cicero achieve his aggressive goals for the company'. Web site: www.cicerogroup.com . Tantawi, who is of Nubian origin, met with Aswan officials in an attempt to resolve the issue Egypts former defence minister Hussein Tantawi and parliamentary speaker Ali Abdel-Aal held a meeting on Monday with top Aswan governorate officials to discuss possible solutions to an ongoing sit-in by Nubians protesting the allocation of land in their area to non-Nubians, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported. Abdel-Aal and Tantawi, who is of Nubian origin, met with Aswans governor and parliamentary member Yasseen Abdel-Sabour as the sit-in, held near Abu Simbel, enters its third day. Abu Simbel is former general Tantawis birthplace. On Sunday, around 150 Egyptian Nubians continued their sit-in for the second day on the Abu Simbel-Aswan highway, protesting the allocation of land to non-Nubians. Security forces refused to allow them entry to Toshka, the area in which the lands have been allocated by the state to be sold to investors. Three protesters were injured as security forces attempted to disperse dozens of demonstrators who blocked a number of major highways and railways in Aswan. In August, Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi issued a presidential decree allocating 922 feddans including land in Toshka to the new Toshka development project. In October, the Egyptian government announced that it would sell parts of the new Toshka development project in an auction for investment as part of the "1.5 million feddan" national mega-project. Saturdays sit-in comes after a long history of grievance by Nubians who have long objected to the selling of their land, citing Article 236 of the constitution, which states that "the state must work on developing and implementing projects to bring the residents of Nubia back to their original areas and develop them within 10 years in the manner organised by law." Search Keywords: Short link: New members inducted into Institute of ... The court also overturned death sentences for three Brotherhood leaders in a case that involves 21 defendants Egypt's Court of Cassation overturned on Tuesday a June 2015 life sentence against ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in the case of espionage with the Palestinian group Hamas and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, ordering a retrial. The court's ruling covered a total of 21 defendants who had received varying sentences in the case in a lower court. Sixteen of the defendants had received life sentences alongside Morsi, including Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohamed Badei. The court also overturned death sentences against three Brotherhood leaders: Essam El-Erian, Mohamed El-Beltagy and Khairat El-Shater. The panel also overturned a seven-year sentence for Morsi's Chief of Staff Mohamed Refae El-Tahtawy. Last week, the same court overturned a death sentence against Morsi in a 2011 prison break case. Search Keywords: Short link: President-elect Donald Trump's administration will not pursue further investigations of Hillary Clinton related to her private email server or the Clinton Foundation, Trump's former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday, a significant break from a major campaign promise. A top adviser to Donald Trump is suggesting that the president-elect is going to help Hillary Clinton "heal" and not pursue a probe of her private email server. President-elect camp: No plans to investigate Clinton Trump camp suggesting president-elect is going to help Hillary Clinton "heal" Trump unveils his 100-day plan Kellyanne Conway said on MSNBC on Tuesday that Trump is setting a tone for congressional Republicans by refraining from calling for more investigations. She says that "he doesn't wish to pursue these charges." Days earlier, Trump told CBS's "60 Minutes" that he wants to think about whether to look more into Clinton's homebrew email server and the Justice Department's decision to not recommend charges against her. Now Conway says that, "if Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that's a good thing." Trump during the campaign vowed to put his Democratic presidential rival "in jail" over the matter. Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. According to Russian news agency TASS, Russian experts could head to Cairo next week for further security assessment of airports Russia's transport ministry said that Egyptian aviation authorities have made significant progress in complying with Russias aviation safety requirements, Russian news agency TASS reported on Monday. "Recently, our Egyptian colleagues have made good progress in that direction, and the country is cooperating constructively," the ministry's press service said. The ministry said that the resumption of flights would only be possible after Egypt satisfies all the demands made by Russian experts on ensuring security at domestic airports. According to TASS, the ministry said Russian experts would be ready to once again head to Egypt within a weeks time after it receives an official invitation from the Egyptian side for a security assessment of the airports. Russia grounded flights to and from Egypt after an Airbus A321 en route to St Petersburg crashed soon after taking off from Sharm El-Sheikh on 31 October 2015. All 224 people aboard died as a result of the crash that was classified by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) as a terrorist attack. Since the crash, Egypt has been implementing new, tighter security measures at all of its airports to meet the Russian demands for the resumption of flights. Negotiations between the two countries to resume Russian flights to Egypt have been ongoing for months, with multiple visits by Russian security to Egyptian airports to monitor changes implemented by Cairo. In late October, Egypt's Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy said biometric airport equipment recommended by Russian inspectors to improve Egyptian airport security is due to arrive by mid-November. Fathy told Russian journalists on the first anniversary of the deadly crash that "we [Egypt] will then contact our Russian colleagues and discuss our next steps." The return of Russian flights to Egypt would mean the country could once again receive large numbers of Russian tourists to boost its ailing tourism industry, which is a major source of much needed foreign currency for Cairo. Search Keywords: Short link: President-elect Donald Trump took to YouTube on Monday to outline his plan for the first 100 days in office. President-elect Trump outlines 5 proposals for 1st 100 days Proposals cover trade deals, environmental restrictions, visas Trump continued meeting with prospective cabinet members On the agenda: plans he should be able to accomplish without needing congressional approval. They include: Withdrawing from Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations Canceling President Barack Obama's environmental restrictions Have Department of Labor investigate federal worker visas Impose broad new lobbying bans for federal employees Direct national security team to fortify against cyberattacks "As part of this plan, I've asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day one to restore our laws and bring back our jobs," Trump said. Trump promised to have the TPP replaced with "fair bilateral trade deals." He also said he would investigate all abuses of visa programs. Trump also said he would lift restrictions on energy production, including shale and coal. Another rule would only allow for the implementation of a new regulation if two regulations are removed as well. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy, said in a speech Monday that despite Trump's proposals, he will not be able to undo the "spectacular" advancements by Obama in imposing environmental rules and helping create thousands of jobs in renewable energy such as wind and solar power. &amp;amp;amp;amp;nbsp; Campaign promises not mentioned in the video are those that will require congressional support: repealing the Affordable Care Act, building a wall along the Mexican border, new restrictions on immigration from majority Muslim countries and a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. Republicans hold majorities in the House and Senate, though Democrats do have some room in the Senate to block measures they do not approve of. Each of those plans are fraught with their own challenges. In the case of ACA, even if lawmakers are able to completely repeal the law, any changes would take time to be applied while Republicans craft the replacement, which could take years. Trump, meanwhile, spent Monday meeting with elite Republicans, at least some of whom confirmed they were looking for jobs. Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown said he would be excellent as Veterans Affairs secretary. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said she had a wonderful conversation with Trump. She's thought to be a candidate for Interior secretary. Trump also met with former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Hawaii Democratic. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. But the media were clearly on his mind as he met with executives and on-air personalities from TV networks. He frequently singled out the media declaring them "so dishonest" for criticism during the campaign, but it's not unusual for presidents to hold off-the-record meetings with journalists when trying to promote policies or programs. Among the attendees were NBC anchor Lester Holt and "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd, ABC's "Good Morning America" host George Stephanopoulos and anchor David Muir, CBS' "Face the Nation" host John Dickerson, CNN's Wolf Blitzer and several executives at the networks. None of the attendees would discuss the meeting with reporters in the lobby, though senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said it was "very cordial, very productive, very congenial." Information from the Associated Press and CNN were used in this story. Detectives say a suspect has been arrested in the shooting death of San Antonio Det. Benjamin Marconi. Police officer shot while writing a ticket Traffic stop was near San Antonio police headquarters Otis Tyrone McKane arrested Monday Police took 31-year-old Otis Tyrone McKane, a San Antonio resident, into custody Monday afternoon without incident. A motive in the attack is still not clear. Police say surveillance video shows McKane early Sunday when he went into San Antonio Police Departmetn headquarters four hours before the shooting. Authorities think he was the gunman who walked up to Detective Benjamin Maroni's patrol car and shot him twice at point-blank range. Chief William McManus says his department feels a great sense of relief, but his officers must stay alert. "Well the fact that he's been taken into custody that does not negate the fact that there are people out there who are still targeting police officers, so our officers will always be vigilant and on guard for that," McManus said. SWAT tailed McKane for several hours before making the arrest. They stopped McKane in a car with a woman and child inside, but they were unharmed. McKane was not in the car used during Sundays shooting. The district attorney says it's too early to say whether his office will seek the death penalty. After an arbitration hearing Monday, former Orlando Police officer William Escobar will get his job back. In March 2014, Escobar was accused of kicking and punching Refus Holloway. Those accusations, including two videos of the arrest, got Escobar charged with battery and perjury. &nbsp; He was eventually fired, but in November 2015, a jury cleared Escobar of the excessive force charges. Now, an arbitration ruling Monday ordered that Escobar be reinstated with full seniority and full back pay, all entitled benefits. Plus, the City of Orlando has been ordered to remove disciplinary documents from his personnel file, and it has to pay for expenses associated with the arbitration. My strong faith sustained me during this long and difficult ordeal. I cant overstate the support given to me by my family and the guidance and expertise of my legal team, Escobar stated in a news release that his lawyer, Jill Schwartz, issued to media. Escobar is required to attend mandated training required by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to keep his law enforcement certification. His new assignment will depend on what the current vacancies are within the Orlando Police Department, public information Officer Sgt. Wanda Miglio told News 13. "The decision of the arbitrator is final and binding on both parties, and the grievance shall be considered permanently resolved," Miglio stated. President-elect Donald Trump is heading to the Sunshine State for Thanksgiving, and he will bring more than pumpkin pie and turkey with him. Donald Trump traditionally spends Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago Coast Guard will set up security zones near Palm Beach Trump Tower's heightened security is causing issues in NYC Becoming a president-elect means, among other things, having heavy security, and simple travel plans become a safety issue. Trump traditionally spends Thanksgiving in Palm Beach, which is home to his Mar-a-Lago resort. So when Trump heads to the Palm Beach area, the Coast Guard has the job of setting up security zones in preparation. The security zones begin Tuesday afternoon and will continue for several days. Boaters must receive permission from the captain of Port Miami to enter, stop or anchor in three special zones during this time. The Coast Guard stated that the zones are necessary to protect Trump and anyone else in the region from any subversive acts. Zone 1: This zone is always in effect. No vessels or person will be permitted to enter this zone consisting of the waters of the Lake Worth Lagoon from the southern tip of the Everglades Island in the north to approximately 1,000 yards from the south of the Southern Boulevard Bridge on the south and eastern shore line west of Fisherman Island. Zone 2: This zone is always in effect. All vessels transiting the second zone shall maintain a steady speed and shall not slow or stop from waters of the Lake Worth Lagoon including the Intracoastal Waterway from the southern tip of the Everglades Island in the north to approximately 1,000 yards from the south of the bridge on the south and from the western shore line to the western edge of the Fisherman Island in the east. Zone 3: This zone is always in effect. All vessels transiting the third zone shall maintain a steady speed and shall not slow or stop from waters of the Atlantic Ocean from the Banyan Road in the north to Ocean View Road in the south and from shore to approximately 1,000 yards east of the shoreline. Trump's Florida home isn't the only place seeing heavy, heightened security. Officers armed with assault weapons, bomb-sniffing dogs and concrete barricades causing congestion and other headaches outside Trump's home will remain in place at least until his inauguration in late January, city officials warned. It's a situation that has put the Republican president-elect's hometown in the position of asking his new administration to pay ongoing costs for what Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio called an unprecedented security effort for a U.S. president's unofficial residence. The measures, largely intended to fortify Trump Tower in a terror attack, have slowed motor and foot traffic outside and raised concerns among retailers it could hurt business during the holiday shopping season. Anti-Trump demonstrations have shut down Fifth Avenue entirely at least three times in the past 10 days. Authorities are still refining their tactics to minimize inconveniences to workers and shoppers through late January. In the immediate aftermath of the election, Trump Tower's entrance was walled off by dump trucks filled with sand, and its atrium was closed to tourists, measures that were lifted within a couple of days. What happens after the inauguration will depend on how the new president divides his time between his high-rise apartment and the White House, officials said. Depending on the answer, the NYPD might create a new command assigned full time to securing Trump Tower. Officials also said they have begun exploring ways to get federal help in covering potentially huge overtime costs for the nation's largest police department. Similar reimbursements have been made in the past for large-scale events such as Pope Francis' visit to the city last year. The Associated Press contributed to this article. Seventy-nine years before the Pilgrims sat down in 1620 with their Indian friends in Plymouth, Mass., to celebrate a bountiful harvest, Spanish explorers held what has been acknowledged as the first thanksgiving service in what is now the United States. That watershed event took place about 65 miles north of Plainview in Palo Duro Canyon. An official Texas Historical Commission marker four miles east of Canyon alongside Texas 217 leading to Palo Duro Canyon acknowledges that Fray Juan De Padillo conducted thanksgiving services there on May 29, 1541, for the army accompanying Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. Much like the Pilgrims, Coronado and his 1,500 traveling companions had much to be thankful. Tired, hungry and disillusioned, the large company found food and water for themselves and their animals, and help from the friendly Indian tribes who live there. In 1540, Coronado embarked on an expedition from the west coast of Mexico into what is now the Southwestern United States in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola, expecting to find a large civilization and great wealth. He crossed the deserts of Arizona, discovering the Grand Canyon, before reaching the western border of New Mexico and Cibola. Instead of a wealthy civilization, he found the pueblos of poor but industrious agricultural Indians. Coronado spent the winter of 1540-41 at Tiquex on the Rio Grande, 20 miles north of Albuquerque. Unfortunately, continued Spanish demands for warm clothing and shelter eventually caused friction with their Indian hosts. Fighting broke out and several hundred Indians were killed before the uprising could be put down. Although peace was restored, Coronados reluctant hosts apparently were ready for the Spaniards to move on. Realizing Coronados quest for great wealth, they introduced the conquistador to one of their slaves from a supposed city of great wealth called Quivera. The Spaniards called him La Turque the Turk because they thought he looked like one. The pueblo Indians offered Turk as a guide, and he led the expedition of 1,500 men and thousands of horses, cattle and sheep across the Pecos River and onto the Texas plains. There they wandered across a trackless sea of grass, supplies dwindling, for several months before happening upon Palo Duro Canyon. The men and animals made a harrowing descent into the canyon where they encountered a group of Indians called the Teyas. A hailstorm hit the canyon the first night and stampeded the expeditions horses and destroyed much of their equipment. Coronado sent hunters to venture onto the plains to kill buffalo and other game, but the hunters got lost. Helpful comrades built fires and blew trumpets to help them find their way back to the canyon. Most did. The Teyas at Palo Duro Canyon told Coronado they knew of Quivera it was to the northeast in what is now Kansas, and not to the southeast as the expedition had been traveling. Confronted with this new information, the Turk admitted he had been trying to get the Spaniards lost instead of finding his home city of Quivera. The Turk would eventually pay for the deception with his life. With supplies running short and chances of finding gold in Quivera slim, Coronado called his captains together for a tactical decision. It was agreed that the main column would split, with Coronado accompanied by 30 horsemen continuing to Quivera, and the rest returning to Tiquex. Based on an account of the expedition written by one of Coronados captains, an 18th century Mexican historian, Mota Padilla, said those decisions were made on the day of the Feast of the Ascension, May 29, 1541. This feast, which included a Catholic Mass, can be considered Americas first Thanksgiving. Reports of the event indicate that the Mass was witnessed by Indians, who watched quietly in amazement. It was really not the same kind of thanksgiving as we understand the term, Dr. Fred Rathjen, a West Texas A&M history professor, told the Herald in 1983. Its thanksgiving with a small t in the service of the (Catholic) church, but not in the sense of a national holiday. But it did happen, and it is significant. The actual Mass was celebrated by Father Fray Juan De Padilla, O.F.M. Franciscan missionary, who later became the first martyr for Christianity in the United States and in Texas. The priest accompanied Coronado to Quivira, and later returned to the region where he worked toward civilizing and christianizing the Wichita and other Indian nations in the region of the Texas Panhandle. His martyrdom occurred in 1544. Not long after the Mass and feast of thanksgiving, Coronado and his small band left for Quivera. Some accounts said he departed later that day, while others indicate that phase of his journey began on June 2. He soon found Quivira, a small poor settlement on the Arkansas River in central Kansas. As he now suspected, there was no gold. He visited with the natives a few days before rejoining the main column in Tiquex. But before returning to Tiquex, the main column, under command of Tristan De Arellano, remained in Palo Duro Canyon for two weeks. According to accounts cited by the late Eddie Guffee, former curator of Llano Estacado Museum, Arellanos army returned to Tiquex via the Running Water Draw, crossing just east of Plainview and traveling west. From Tiquex, Coronados army walked back to Mexico without the gold it had sought, and with Coronados image and career permanently tarnished. To comment: dmcdonough@hearstnp.com 806.296.1353 The Cairo Criminal Court has postponed to 13 December the trial of former interior minister Habib El-Adly and 12 other officials on charges of illicit gains The Cairo Criminal Court ordered on Tuesday former interior minister Habib El-Adly and 12 of his underlings to be placed under house arrest for the duration of their trial on charges of illicit gains, and postponed the trial to 13 December. The court postponed the case per the request of defence lawyers to hear testimony from the former head of the Accountability State Authority Gawdat El-Malt and the one-time Mubarak interior minister Hassan Al-Alfy in the upcoming session. The defendants, who were referred to the criminal court in August 2015, are accused of abusing their positions to illicitly gain EGP 2.388 bn and illegally rewarding ministry officers. In the wake of the 25 January uprising in 2011, the long-time interior minister during Mubarak's era was acquitted in several other trials on charges of embezzlement, squandering public funds and the killing of protesters. In 2014, he was acquitted along with six of his aides and former president Hosni Mubarak on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the January 2011 uprising. In a separate case, El-Adly also saw an initial 12-year sentence and EGP 15 million in fines dropped in a case that involved charges of corruption and money laundering. Search Keywords: Short link: The syndicate has called for a general meeting on Wednesday to discuss steps to fight for journalists' rights A Cairo court has set 25 December to hear an appeal by the head of Egypts press syndicate and two board members against a ruling earlier this week sentencing the trio to two years in prison for harbouring fugitives inside the syndicate's headquarters. On Saturday, a Cairo misdemeanor court sentenced the syndicate chairman Yehia Kalash and board members Gamal Abdel-Reheem and Khaled El-Balshy in absentia after they failed to appear in court. The court set bail at EGP 10,000 for each defendant. Hours after the ruling, the press syndicate's board issued a statement saying that the verdict is the latest move in a six month-long crisis engineered by the government against the syndicate. The board also said it would take all legal steps to fight the verdict, stressing that this verdict will not distract the syndicate from the basic issues currently facing journalists, such as the new media law and economic crises. The syndicate board is set to meet on Tuesday to discuss the issue. The syndicate also called on journalists to attend an open general meeting on Wednesday to discuss the implications of the recent conviction and the steps that should be taken in response. The court ruling has been widely criticised by local and international rights groups. On Monday, the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) released a statement condemning the verdict and expressing its grave concerns over the escalation of attacks against the EJS [Egyptian Journalists Union], its leaders and press freedom in Egypt, and called on the Egyptian government to take all necessary steps to sustain independent journalism as well as journalists social and professional rights. This latest attack against the EJS leaders challenges once more the principle of an independent journalists union and its main priority of defending journalists social and professional rights, IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said in the statement published on its website. The three union leaders were accused in April by prosecutors of harbouring journalists Mahmoud El-Sakka and Amr Badr, who were wanted on charges of inciting violence ahead of the 25 April protests against the Egyptian-Saudi Red Sea maritime border agreement. Badr and El-Sakka were arrested in a police raid on the union's headquarters on 1 May. The two journalists were recently released on bail pending trial. Kalash, Abdel-Reheem and El-Balshy are also facing charges of spreading false news about the police raid on the syndicate's headquarters. Search Keywords: Short link: Forgot to pick up canned pumpkin for the pie on Thanksgiving Day? Dont sweat it. Retailers, grocers and mobile delivery apps are giving San Antonio consumers a few ways to make sure their Thanksgiving food prep goes as smoothly as possible. The whereabouts of a San Antonio attorney accused of fabricating court documents and forging judges signatures appear to be a mystery. Lawyer Todd Prins failed to appear at a court hearing Monday despite instructions by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta that he needed to attend the proceedings. Its not enough to say that Allied is set in the 1940s. Its set in the 1940s of collective imagination. A fair portion of it takes place in Casablanca. The musical score, by Alan Silvestri, has the sadness and portent of the music heard in classic World War II documentaries such as The World at War. Theres a lushness to the photography that feels like a color analogue to the soft-focus, black-and-white photography of Hollywood in the war years. Most important of all, Allied finds actual movie stars for the lead roles, and director Robert Zemeckis treats them like movie stars, making their faces the locus of all meaning and their interaction the stuff of romantic fantasy. He creates a movie that is old-fashioned in every possible good way, but that in no way seems passe or cliched. Coming off of Allied, there were rumors that its stars, Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, were having an affair during its making. Assuming thats not true, its still understandable how people could think so, or even want it to be true. In the midst of a movie-made romantic atmosphere and depicting the kind of life-and-death stakes that can only intensify an aura of excitement and longing, Pitt and Cotillard make us believe that something is building between them from their first moments on screen. Written by Steven Knight (Eastern Promises, Locke) and loosely based on real events, Allied begins with a covert operation in Morocco. Max (Pitt), a Canadian fluent in French, is parachuted into the desert and makes his way into Casablanca. With a quick shave and a change of clothes, he looks as impeccable as Cary Grant. He goes to the rendezvous point, a nightclub, where he meets the fellow spy posing as his wife, Marianne (Cotillard). Theres no better express train to intimacy than posing as a married couple. More Information Allied *** Quick take: An old-fashioned winner See More Collapse The Casablanca mission is almost incidental to the path of the larger story, but Zemeckis and Knight lavish time on it, and theyre right to do so. The long lead-up to the big event is also the couples entrance chute into real emotional closeness, and the very fact that theyre resisting the attraction and fighting the impulse, makes us anxious for them to just give in already. The combustion finally happens inside an old sedan in the middle of a dust storm, and it might well be the most satisfying movie love scene of 2016. The bulk of the film, however, takes place in London, but again, this is not the workaday London of reality. This is the London of officers who talk like Terry-Thomas (remember him?), the London whose skies look like a fireworks display at night, with British Hurricanes and Spitfires defending the city against German invaders. Only later can we appreciate Zemeckis accomplishment here: He crafts a mood so heightened that it in no way feels histrionic, but merely appropriate, that the scene of a woman giving birth takes place on a London street during an air raid, with buildings collapsing all around. Most of Allied revolves around the question of trust and belief. Max and Marianne, after their Casablanca adventure, relocate to London and assume the life of a normal couple. But then one day, British intelligence informs him that Marianne is under suspicion of being a German double agent. Max makes it his mission to prove her innocent, but the issue is complicated by the fact that this is a woman he has seen lie with charm and grace. He has also seen her shooting a machine gun at people at a party -- a party of her supposed friends. So he knows shes not a normal person. He just doesnt know what kind of not-normal. From that situation is she or isnt she, and a loving husbands desperate effort to prove that shes not Allied builds a series of tense adventures, as well as two-person scenes between Pitt and Cotillard that are fraught with an underlying urgency. To describe Cotillards performance would almost necessitate revealing the ultimate turn of Mariannes character. Better to put it this way: Throughout were never entire sure about Marianne, and yet by the end, we realize that Cotillard and Zemeckis have not given us a single false note or misdirection. Cotillard is remarkable, and Pitt does everything a movie star can do, which is what most movie actors cant do. Hes the audiences stand-in, the person viewers are content to be for two hours. He makes us care and then shows us that he cares us much as we do, maybe even more. Needless to say, we believe him. Running time: 124 minutes MPAA rating: R (violence, profanity, nudity, drug use) High Top Releasing Incarnate: Talk about getting inside someones head. The only mainstream movie opening next week is this supernatural horror yarn about a troubled scientist in a wheelchair (Aaron Eckhart) who attempts to enter the unconscious mind of an 11-year-old boy to evict a demon. Carice van Houten is his mom; Catalina Sandino Moreno is the Vatican rep who calls the scientist for help. This one is only PG-13, so how terrifying can it be? Disneys decades-long struggle with its princess addiction finally reaches the acceptance stage in Moana, the latest satisfying musical from the animation giant. If you wear a dress and have an animal sidekick, youre a princess, the God Maui, voiced by Dwayne Johnson, tells the reluctant heroine midway through the movie, stopping just short of turning to the audience with an animated wink. The studio should populate its casts with whomever they want as long as the films continue to be this solid. A slow start keeps Moana (opening today in San Antonio movie theaters) from reaching Frozen or Beauty and the Beast levels of excellence. But the comic self-awareness, engaging songs and a fulfilling finish are enough to merit a strong recommendation. Walt Disney Animation Studios, which arguably hasnt had a dud since Meet the Robinsons in 2007, continues its roll. Moana indeed begins with a royal figure Moana Waialiki (AuliI Cravelho), who is the daughter of a chief on an isolated Polynesian island. But like Anna from Frozen and Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, she arguably is the most capable and liberated person in the movie. With her island suffering from a curse and the crops barren, Waialiki goes on a mythic voyage with Maui, whose powers are matched by his ego and insecurity. They set sail on the electric blue and green postcard of the sea, meeting flashy mythical sea creatures while they engage in refreshingly romance-free banter on their canoe. (If theres a love interest in Waialikis world, we dont get to meet him or her. Arguably, Moana is too good for everyone in Moana.) Moana is guided by The Little Mermaid and Princess and the Frog directors Ron Clements and John Musker, whose Disney pedigree goes back to Petes Dragon in 1977. They get off to a shaky start. The initial island scenes feel like a checklist of Disney animated cliches, with awkward introductions and a poor sense of pacing. A sidekick pig seems thrown in just to add another toy selection for the fast food Happy Meals. More Information Also opening today "Allied": Brad Pitt is a Candadian intellifene officer who falls for a French resistance fighter (Marion Cotillard) who may also be working for th eGermans in WWII. "Bad Santa 2": Billy Bob Thornton returns as the title character from the 2003 feel-bad holiday movie; this time he and his sidekick (Tony Cox) aim to steal from a Chicago charity. "Rules Don't Apply": Romanc set in Hollywood in 1958 stars Lily Collins and Alden Ehrenreich as an aspiring actress and her driver, both in the employ of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes (Warren Beatty, who also directs). Robert Johnson See More Collapse The action gets much, much better when the three best characters Moana, Maui and an unintelligent-beyond-description rooster named Hai-Hai (voiced by Alan Tudyk) leave everyone else behind. The story finds its sea legs, and the voyage starts to feel like a worthy update of an old Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movie. There are big set pieces, unexpected detours and a dreamlike feel, as if our heroes have passed into another reality altogether. Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda comes along for the ride, providing musical direction. How Far Ill Go is typical Radio Disney fare, as if it was written to be piped through the speakers on the lido deck of the Disney Cruise Line. But the lively Johnson-sung Youre Welcome and Bowie-esque Shiny (voiced by Flight of the Conchords co-star Jemaine Clement as a disco crab monster) are top-shelf Disney soundtrack material, contributing to the story as much as album sales. Along with the slapstick and inevitable peeing-in-the-ocean humor, theres a building sense of environmental responsibility in the Polynesian fables that come to life. Mauis animated tattoos are nature-focused movies-within-the-movie, giving Musker and Clements a throwback 2D palette to work with. The Balrog-like lava monster at the end of the movie is less of a bad guy and more of an obstacle in the heroines journey of self-discovery. Yes, Moana is a princess of sorts, but whatever distress she runs into shell have to resolve with her own brain and brawn. The animal sidekicks, like the rest of us, are just witnesses to her voyage. Running time: 103 minutes MPAA rating: PG (mild rude humor) Two forms of arts ballet and photography combined last month in an effort to disprove the controversial immigration rhetoric provided by President-elect Donald Trump, the artist behind the project said. Omar Z Robles, an official Fujifilm X-Photographer, often uses bustling New York City streets as his photography studios. After completing a similar series in Cuba, Robles set his focus on Mexico City, while Trump's words from a June 2015 speech "echoed" in his mind, he said on his blog. GREENWICH Audubon Connecticuts Schoolyard Habitat Program has announced the eight new member schools that will get help building bird-friendly habitats on their school grounds. The new schools in Fairfield County were Discovery Interdistrict Magnet School in Bridgeport, Franklin Elementary School in Stratford, Westside Middle School Academy in Danbury and Casimir Pulasky Elementary School in Meriden. In New Haven, the new schools are the Quinnipiac Real World Magnet Math STEM School, Davis Street Arts and Academics School, Fair Haven School and the John C. Daniels School. None of the Greenwich schools that applied for a spot was chosen. The schools in Greenwich that already take part in the program are Parkway Elementary School, Brunswick School and the Armstrong Court preschool. The newly chosen schools will get financing to the tune of about $3,000 and guidance from naturalists in how best to attract different species of birds to school grounds so children can observe them. It was a really competitive year and we were psyched for the enthusiastic response to the program, said Katie Blake, bird friendly communities manager for Audubon Connecticut. Everyone is hitting the ground running right now, so its an exciting time. The program, a partnership between Audubon Connecticut and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, helps schools create bird-friendly habitats on their grounds and to craft educational curricula around. Member schools can have Audubon members come to their campus and walk the site, providing insight into which native plants would grow best and help establish a bird-friendly habitat on the grounds. It was really competitive, it was a really hard decision, Blake said. We had a lot of strong applicants. These schools have a vision for creating habitat and integrating it into the curriculum. The eight new schools join 17 others that have already developed bird-friendly habitats in the state because of the program, Blake said. About half of them are in New Haven. Member schools get help from Audubon Connecticut with paying for the materials in the project, but have to come up with the labor to get the habitat put in place on their own. Most run effective volunteer campaigns to get the job done, Blake said. We will be offering our guidance along the way, Blake said. We hope to fuel the strong interest thats out there. The schools also get an interpretive sign for their habitat as a part of the program that explains what the habitat is, what birds may be seen and sometimes features student artwork, Blake said. To support the program, Audubon Connecticut gets funding from the Dalio Foundation, the 1830 Foundation, the Disney Conservation Fund, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. pfrissell@hearstmediact.com; @PeregrineFriss A Cairo criminal court accepted on Tuesday an appeal by Egypt's Supreme State Security Prosecution against a previous court order for the release of journalist and researcher Ismail Eskandrani. The court also ordered that Eskandrani be detained for 45 days. The prosecution had appealed against a Sunday court order to release Alexandrani, who is being investigated over charges of "joining a terrorist group" and spreading false news. The investigative journalist, who specialises in Sinai affairs, has remained in detention without trial since his arrest in December 2015, when the prosecution accused him of "spreading false news regarding the situation in Sinai." Several Egyptian and international rights groups have condemned Eskandrani 's arrest and detention. Search Keywords: Short link: The brazen escape of two killers from an upstate prison will soon hit the small screen. And it will focus on the role of their accomplice. Lifetime has announced production of "Prison Break: The Joyce Mitchell Story" the network's latest ripped-from-the-headlines drama with upstate ties. According to Deadline.com, Penelope Ann Miller will star as Joyce Mitchell, the former civilian prison worker who enabled the shocking 2015 escape from Clinton Correctional Facility by two murderers. Miller was sentenced to up to seven years in prison for her role in the plot that captivated the nation for three weeks. Myk Watford is slated to play Richard Matt, Joe Anderson will play David Sweat. Lifetime previously aired "Romeo Killer: The Chris Porco Story" based on the University of Rochester student who took an ax to his parents while they slept in their Bethlehem home in November 2004. Those who covered that case felt Lifetime took liberties with the facts and played up Porco's romantic exploits. It was some time in the overnight hours between June 5 and 6, 2015, that Matt and Sweat slipped through holes cut in the rear of their adjoining steel-plated cells and navigated a labyrinth of catwalks and tunnels, slipped through a steam pipe and emerged through a manhole on a street a block from the Dannemora prison. They had stuffed sweatshirts to make it look like they remained in their beds, and it wasn't until 5:30 the next morning that that their disappearance was discovered. The pair eluded more than 1,000 searchers who combed the thick woods and bogs of northern New York for much of the next three weeks. Matt was killed by a border agent June 26. Sweat was wounded and captured by a state trooper two days later. Mitchell admitted to becoming close with the pair and agreed to be their getaway driver before backing out at the last moment. The two escapees were forced to scrap plans to head to Mexico and instead fled on foot after emerging from a manhole. Mitchell, 51, who claimed she was in "way over my head" when she aided the escape that triggered a massive manhunt, is serving a sentence of 2 1/3 to seven years, according to her plea deal in the case. Mitchell told the court she feared one of the inmates, Richard Matt, would kill her husband if she did not go along with the plan. "I was scared for my husband and family's" lives, Mitchell said, but the judge that argument rang hollow and that she could have stopped the escape plot at any point. Albany A group of Hoosick Falls residents returned to the state Capitol on Monday to argue that not enough has changed in the Rensselaer County community since their previous visit in June to address the PFOA contamination crisis. The news conference just steps from Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office also marked a year since the federal Environmental Protection Agency informed residents not to drink or cook with water from the village's municipal water system. Accompanied by activists from Environmental Advocates and Citizen Action, the residents presented a report card that gave Cuomo and state lawmakers failing marks on setting a new statewide safety limit for PFOA, and for overall government accountability and transparency issues. The executive and legislative branches drew incomplete grades for action on the demand for rigorous biomonitoring of residents, many of whom have PFOA levels far above the national average, and the search for a permanent source of uncontaminated water for the community. "If my child brought home this report card, she'd be grounded," said resident Michele Baker. The controversy over Hoosick Falls' contamination by PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), a substance linked to numerous human maladies including cancer, has been relatively quiet since the conclusion of a handful of legislative hearings on water quality in that community as well as the nearby town of Petersburgh, the city of Newburgh and several Long Island communities. But for Hoosick Falls residents seeking a more long-lasting solution and clarity about their families' health, the fear and anger remain fresh. "I purchased my home without knowing that the water was contaminated," said Jennifer Plouffe. "I signed my mortgage, (and) the very next day found out about the water situation. And through no fault of my own I ended up underwater on my home from the moment I signed. I checked the water quality when I moved here from Virginia no transparency." Plouffe said that her economic travails were minor when compared to the health concerns of her neighbors. She noted that Senate Republicans have still not produced materials obtained through a subpoena to the companies identified as the likely polluters. Earlier this month, a Senate GOP spokesman said the material was still being reviewed. In a statement, the Health Department said it had "taken unprecedented action and spared no expense to secure clean drinking water for Hoosick Falls. The Village of Hoosick Falls public water supply has been free of PFOA since installation of a temporary water treatment system early this year and the permanent treatment system is on track for completion by the end of December." DOH also noted it had installed nearly 1,000 Point of Entry Treatment (POET) filtration systems on private wells at homes, businesses and schools throughout the region, and has conducted biomonitoring for residents to understand their PFOA exposure. "In addition, the state has conducted an extensive biomonitoring program to help thousands of residents better understand their exposure to PFOA, as well as working with local healthcare providers for follow-up care," DOH said. cseiler@timesunion.com 518-454-5619 BRIDGEPORT One of the states top law firms, Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder, is hailing as a victory a decision Monday by the Statewide Grievance Committee rejecting claims that the lawyers overcharged a Stamford family in a medical malpractice lawsuit. We are pleased that the Statewide Grievance Committee rejected the claims of the DAttilos new lawyer that the family was overcharged, or that any misrepresentations were made over the nine-year battle that Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder waged on the familys behalf, the law firm stated. The committee also acknowledged that no change was ever made to the original fee agreement, which was negotiated by the firm and the familys independent attorney in 2003. COLLEGE STATION Scientists at the Space Food Research Facility at Texas A&M University are making sure that astronauts celebrating Thanksgiving in space will get to enjoy the same delicious foods as their Earth-bound friends and family members, Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp said in a new video. Click http://chancellor.tamus.edu/videos/ to see the chancellors video. Since 2007, the Space Food Research Facility has produced more than 50 kinds of food items for astronauts on the International Space Station and throughout NASA's human spaceflight program. Some of the holiday food items available in orbit will include sliced turkey, candied yams and even apricot cobbler. Food scientists at A&M create the flavorful dishes from the highest quality ingredients, and they take care to make sure that the crew members enjoy the best quality meals possible while in space. Chancellor Sharp said most people dont realize that much of the food consumed in space is made on the West Campus of Texas A&M University in College Station. Texas A&M is proud to feed our brave astronauts aboard the International Space Station, he said. You know the food is going to be tasty and healthful if its made at A&M with Aggie pride. Texas AgriLife, NASA and Wyle Laboratories (now KBRwyle) joined forces almost 10 years ago to develop the space food kitchen in College Station. The operation is housed in the Food Technology Facility for Electron Beam and Space Food Research on Discovery Drive in College Station. At the Space Food Research Facility, food scientists use a retort system to produce thermostabilized food items, which contain water and differ from freeze-dried foods. The system uses heat and pressure to sterilize the food and to give it a shelf life of several years. Few facilities can produce pouched thermostabilized products, making the Space Food Research Facility at A&M a vital food supplier for NASA. The facility is used for education purposes, too, allowing food science students at Texas A&M to learn more about food processing practices. Chancellor Sharp recently joined Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, a retired NASA astronaut and current professor at A&Ms Department of Aerospace Engineering, to sample some of the space meals made at A&M. In the video, Dunbar explained to the chancellor and Ben ONeil, a food scientist at the Space Food Research Facility, how astronauts choose and eat meals while in a weightless environment. The meats are really great, Dr. Dunbar said. Its just like Thanksgiving dinner. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate STAMFORD Strong winds grounded the big balloons in Sundays annual downtown parade, and combined with cold temperatures to keep the crowd count down. Parade organizers had predicted 200,000 people, though such numbers are far from exact. In the 23 years of the event, designed to kick off the holiday shopping season, organizers have claimed as many as 300,000 spectators. Police have previously said the largest number of people who can line the one-mile parade route is probably closer to 100,000. But they havent released an estimate in years. In Stamford, as in other cities, determining crowd size is a prickly, political business. City officials and event organizers can be angered when police dont confirm their predictions. Estimating the size of crowds at mass public events is much more about public relations than a quest for truth, Steve Doig, a crowd-counting expert from Arizona State University, told the Chicago Tribune in a Nov. 4 story about how many fans showed up for an event celebrating the Cubs, whod just won their first World Series since 1908. Chicago officials said 5 million people attended the Cubs rally. Experts said it was more like 1 million. In 2008, a New York Police Department spokesman told The New York Times that police hadnt provided crowd counts since the 1990s for the annual Times Square New Years Eve celebration. Its because whatever the count was, it was usually never enough for whatever group was involved, the spokesman said. But the Stamford Police Department is less worried about the size of the crowd for the parade, the citys biggest event, than it is about the size of the space, Assistant Chief Jim Matheny said. We dont do a crowd estimate, said Matheny, who worked the balloon parade for many years. Whats really an issue for us is whether it happens in a confined place. The main concern is that sidewalks arent completely blocked and intersections are clear, Matheny said. The biggest risk is that first responders wont be able to get through in case of an emergency, he said. We close off areas around the parade route to leave ourselves plenty of room. We create a buffer zone around the places where people are standing. And we close off everything to vehicular traffic. Safety before balloons Police concerns take priority when city and Downtown Special Services District officials plan the parade, Matheny said. The safety template gets laid in first. Everything else comes after that, he said. Its about much more than crowd control. Long before spectators arrive, police secure the parade route. We remove garbage cans. We do preventive sweeps. We limit vehicular traffic, Matheny said. We deploy bomb technicians and dogs. We bring in other agencies to help secure the area. We take other measures we dont publicize. Its life in a post-9/11 world. These days you cant run a race or hold a concert or play a ballgame without taking care of security first, Matheny said. With every event where large numbers of people gather, we assume its a target. Theres always a whisper, some chatter. We are as vigilant as we can be. Its good when citizens are the same, he said. The see something, say something thing is very important, Matheny said. Recently, somebody left a suitcase in the parking lot of the Grade A Supermarket. It was unusual, so somebody called us. We love getting those calls. The more eyes, the better. Consider the recent threat to the Macys Thanksgiving Day parade in Manhattan. Big parade precautions The NYPD boosted security along the route after an ISIS propaganda magazine wrote the event is an excellent target for an attack such as the one that took place in Nice, France, on July 14, when a terrorist drove a truck through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day, killing 86 and injuring hundreds. In New York on Tuesday, barricades were already up, parking bans were in place, and a fleet of sanitation trucks was on its way to line the parade route. Thousands of police officials will work the parade, some with dogs trained to search for chemical weapons. Each situation has its own demands. In Stamford, there is an event that has police concerned about head count the Alive@Five concerts held in Columbus Park on Thursday evenings during the summer, also organized by the Downtown Special Services District. The capacity is 8,500 people, but they have brought in 10,000, Matheny said. Its an issue for us because of the nature of the event, the ages of the people who attend, the alcohol involved. In that case, we rely on the fire marshals office to keep count. They tell us how many people show up, and its our call whether to allow more in. Such measures may seem extraordinary, but they are necessary, Matheny said. If you sit back and wait for something to happen, he said, something will happen. angela.carella@scni.com; 203-964-2296; stamfordadvocate.com/angelacarella An investigation and forensic team arrived at the murder scene shortly after the incident to investigate the crime The CEO of the Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank Nevine Loutfy was found murdered at her home in the 6th of October suburb on the outskirts of Cairo on Tuesday. An investigation and forensic team arrived at the murder scene shortly after the incident. Her body was discovered with multiple stab wounds, according to Ahram Arabic website. Loutfy began her banking career with Citibank in March 1976 where she joined the Cairo office as a Financial Analyst. She graduated with a BA in Economics from the American University in Cairo. With over three decades of banking experience, Loutfy has a diverse background and has worked across the corporate, SME and retail sectors. She has extensive international experience gained in the US, Europe and emerging markets, with primary areas of expertise in local corporate and SME business management, in addition to credit risk and capital management. As part of a series on pioneering Egyptian women, Ahram Online interviewed Nevine Loutfy, as she was the first ever female head of an Islamic bank. Search Keywords: Short link: A federal appeals court reinstated a wrongful-death suit Tuesday against a North Coast police officer who said he shot a suspect who was swinging a club at another officer, a statement the court said was contradicted by a video and the dead mans autopsy. Jacob Newmaker, 26, was killed in a March 2012 confrontation with police in Fortuna (Humboldt County). Officer Maxwell Soeth said Newmaker, who had come to the police station at midnight asking for help because people were chasing him, was seen around 6 a.m. banging on the doors and windows of a home. Soeth chased him on foot and caught him, and said he had stunned Newmaker several times with a stun gun and clubbed him with his baton when he resisted. A second officer, Sgt. Charles Ellsbrecht, soon arrived and tried to subdue Newmaker. The suspect grabbed Soeths baton and swung it at Ellsbrechts head, Soeth said. Soeth said he shot Newmaker after he refused to drop the baton, and shot him again after he first fell, then tried to get up and take another swing. The lawsuit by Newmakers parents against Soeth, Ellsbrecht and the city of Fortuna was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton of Oakland, who said Soeth had reasonably feared that his fellow officer was in danger. But on Tuesday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the officers statement conflicted with other evidence. A jury should decide whether the shooting was justified, the court said. An autopsy showed that Newmaker was shot twice in the back, Judge William Fletcher said in the 3-0 ruling. He said the angle of the bullets was inconsistent with Soeths statements that Newmaker had been standing and swinging the baton when he was first shot, and trying to rise when he was shot again. A video taken from Ellsbrechts dashboard camera showed nothing clearly visible in (Newmakers) hands when he fell after the first shot, Fletcher said. He said the officers statements also conflicted with one another in several details, and that both officers had changed their narratives after receiving suggestions from a district attorneys investigator who interviewed them a day after the shooting. A reasonable jury could conclude that Soeth and Ellsbrecht were wrong when they claimed that Newmaker grabbed the baton, or that Newmaker was swinging the baton when Soeth shot him for a second time, Fletcher said. He said such a suit should not be dismissed without a trial when the outcome rests on the officers credibility that is genuinely in doubt. Eric Valenzuela, a lawyer for Newmakers family, said they were happy about the ruling. Newmaker had mental health and drug problems, Valenzuela said, but he also had a family who cared about him and was greatly affected when he was killed. Nancy Delaney, a lawyer for the officers and the city, said they may ask the full appeals court for a rehearing. The appeals court invaded the province of the trial judge who heard the testimony firsthand, she said. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko New York Donald Trump held court from his perch high above Manhattan on Monday, receiving a line of former rivals, longtime allies and TV executives while overseeing a presidential transition. Trump met with nearly a dozen prospective hires, all of whom who were paraded in front of the cameras set up in the Trump Tower lobby. Out of public view himself, he fell back on his TV star roots by filming a video that touted his legislative goals once he takes office. Trump did not immediately announce any appointments after the meetings. Unlike his predecessors, Trump has turned the search into a very public audition process. The extraordinary exercise took on a routine feel on Monday: First, former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown stepped off the gold-plated elevator to declare to waiting reporters that he was "the best person" to become Veterans Affairs secretary. Next, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a candidate for Interior secretary, did much the same. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry declined to speak to reporters. Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard also met with Trump but entered and exited out of sight. She later defended crossing party lines to meet with Trump about U.S. involvement in Syria. No one was saying whether Trump would announce more appointments before heading to Florida for Thanksgiving. He was planning to leave Tuesday or Wednesday Egypt is currently hosting refugees within its borders with no outside help, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said during a speech delivered on Tuesday in Portugal. According to Egypts state-owned MENA news agency, El-Sisi said that there are currently no refugee camps in Egypt, and that refugees from the Middle East and Africa live alongside Egyptians without facing any discrimination. He added that refugees receive education and healthcare at Egyptian schools and hospitals. According to the UNHCR website's profile on Egypt, as of August, the country was hosting 187,838 registered refugees, mostly from Sudan, Syria and Libya, with the number of unregistered refugees believed to be much higher. El-Sisi said that refugees escape their countries looking for hope and peace, stressing the importance of working towards an appropriate degree of peace and stability in their home countries. The president also said that we need joint efforts and support from influential countries to counter illegal immigration, expressing Egypt's readiness to bolster cooperation with European states to secure maritime borders. This is not the first time for the Egyptian president to discuss the issue of irregular migration during visits to other countries. El-Sisi said during his September speech at a high-level UN plenary meeting in New York that combating irregular migration should be at the top of world leaders' international priorities, adding that the flow of migrants would be stemmed if doors are opened for legal immigration. In November, El-Sisi approved a law aimed at curbing irregular migration and cracking down on human trafficking amid a hike in the number of migrants leaving Egypt for Europe. The law, passed by parliament in October, came following the sinking in September of a migrant boat carrying around 450 people off the coast of off Egypt's Mediterranean coast. The accident left 202 people dead. While the legislation does not punish the migrants themselves, it imposes jail terms on those convicted of smuggling migrants or acting as brokers or facilitators. Search Keywords: Short link: The Wednesday meeting will also see a discussion on the 'new media law and the impact of the recent economic decisions on journalistic institutions' Egypts press syndicate has called on all journalists to join an open meeting to be held on Wednesday to discuss the repercussions of the latest crisis involving the recent prison sentence against the syndicate head, as well as pressing issues facing journalists, mainly the new media law and the impact of the recent economic decisions on journalistic institutions. On Saturday the head of Egypts Journalists Syndicate Yehia Kalash and two other syndicate board members Gamal Abdel-Reheem and Khaled El-Balshy were sentenced to two years in prison for "harbouring fugitives" inside the syndicate's headquarters. The three union leaders were accused in April by prosecutors of harbouring journalists Mahmoud El-Sakka and Amr Badr, who were wanted on charges of inciting violence ahead of the 25 April protests against the Egyptian-Saudi Red Sea maritime border agreement. Badr and El-Sakka were arrested in a police raid on the union's headquarters on 1 May. The verdict against the union leaders, which was issued in absentia earlier this week after the trio abstained from appearing in court, can still be appealed, and the court has set bail at EGP 10,000 for each defendant. A Cairo court has set 25 December to hear an appeal by the defendants against the verdict. The syndicate thanked in its Tuesday statement all those who expressed solidarity and those that volunteered to collect donations to cover the bail. However, the syndicate said it refuses to "politicise" the case, adding that it would cover the bail from its budget. On Tuesday, the Doctors Syndicate released a statement in solidarity with the press syndicate and "its stand in support of freedoms." A statement signed by several public figures, rights and labour activists as well as political groups also expressed solidarity with the press syndicate head and the two board members following this week's sentence. The statement criticised the court sentence against the journalists, saying that it aims to end the syndicate's "struggle for a free press, its role in revealing corruption and supporting the people in their struggle for freedom and justice." The over 200 signatories also expressed their solidarity with the Doctors Syndicate, whose deputy chairman Mona Mina recently came under attack for statements criticising hygiene measures at public hospitals. They also defended public transportation workers that have been facing prison detention for threatening to strike. Search Keywords: Short link: The US-led coalition bombed a key bridge in Mosul Tuesday to isolate Islamist militants whose stiff resistance in the east of the city is threatening to bog down Iraqi forces. The number of civilians displaced since last month's start of the offensive against Mosul -- the Islamic State (IS) militant group's last stronghold in Iraq -- rose to 68,000, but most of the city's population remained trapped. A coalition aircraft carried out an air strike on Mosul's "third bridge", leaving a British-era bridge in the centre as the last crossing of the Tigris River running through the city. Coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said IS fighters has been using the bridges to re-supply the eastern side of the city, "essentially rotating their forces". "We're not going to let that happen," he told AFP. A member of the provincial council for Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital, said the central bridge was the last remaining after four others over the Tigris had been destroyed. IS has put up fierce resistance to defend Mosul, the city where its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a "caliphate" in June 2014. The eastern bank of the Tigris was expected to offer less resistance when tens of thousands of Iraqi forces launched the offensive on October 17 to retake the city. Most of the Islamist militants' traditional bastions are on the western side of Mosul, as is the old city whose narrow streets will be hard to penetrate for the government forces' armoured vehicles. A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration voiced concern that the lack of bridges could further trap civilians, who IS have routinely used as human shields. "That would deprive a lot of families with an avenue to get away from the fighting," Joel Millman told AFP. Over five weeks, Iraqi forces advancing on several fronts have made considerable progress in the advance, but the fighting in Mosul itself has been tough. Elite forces from the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) -- the best trained units in the country -- have faced a daily barrage of mortar and sniper fire. IS fighters have also launched car bombs driven by a seemingly endless supply of suicide bombers against their positions and convoys in the city. "We're just in the very toughest part of the fight," Dorrian said. Iraqi forces are "up against an enemy where the most likely course of action and the most dangerous course of action are often one and the same," the coalition spokesman said. The intensity of the fighting has made it difficult for the hundreds of thousands of civilians in Mosul to flee to safety in camps erected around the city. "68,550 people are currently displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance," the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Tuesday. OCHA said the aid response to the offensive was growing in complexity, with varying needs for different categories of civilians. "Humanitarian needs are severe among displaced families in and out of camps, vulnerable residents of retaken communities, and people fleeing the intense fighting in Mosul city," it said. The UN had initially predicted that 200,000 civilians could be forced from their homes in the first few weeks of the offensive, Iraq's biggest military operation in years. Iraqi forces have so far been sending the message to the population of Mosul that they should stay at home and not try to flee through the front lines. Many residents of Mosul have indeed hunkered down homes as Iraqi forces took on IS fighters in fierce street battles. That has restricted both the government forces' ability to use heavier weaponry against the Islamist militants and aid groups' ability to deliver assistance to civilians in need. "While Mosul is under ongoing heavy attack, there are currently no safe routes out of the city," Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) spokeswoman Becky Bakr Abdulla told AFP. "Civilians are facing an extremely difficult decision of either staying in their homes stuck in the crossfire or risk their lives in an attempt to find their way out of the city," she said. Search Keywords: Short link: New data released from Niche shows how high schools in different neighborhoods around San Antonio compare to each other in academic quality, activities and access to resources. The data was released this month in the education analyst groups annual 2017 Best Schools publication, which ranks the citys 84 high schools based on data and reviews from students and parents. Fitness studio to host diabetes fundraiser A local fitness studio will offer a donation-based class 4 5 p.m. Sunday. The fundraiser at Lacy J Pilates and Fitness is a free Zumba class with all donations benefiting the American Diabetes Association. For every dollar donated, participants will be entered into a raffle to win a Lacy J Pilates and Fitness class package. People who donate $125 or more will receive a diabetes awareness T-shirt. Elder Bush provides update on leukemia patient Three years after shaving his head to show support for a toddler battling leukemia, Former President George H.W. Bush said the boy is feeling and doing much better. The 92-year-old Bush provided an update and a new picture of him with the boy on his Twitter account Monday. The boy is the son of a Secret Service agent and has been identified only as Patrick. Bush shared a picture in July of 2013 of himself with a freshly shaved head and the then 2-year-old, who had lost his hair due to leukemia treatment, sitting on his lap. Both Bush and the boy have hair in the new photo. George and Barbara Bush lost their second child, 4-year-old Robin Bush, to leukemia in 1953. Health department has flu shot clinic The citys Health & Senior Services Division is offering a flu vaccination clinic for all ages. Health & Senior Services at Kingsway mall on Illinois Avenue, is administering the flu shots from 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m.Mondays through Thursdays and 8 a.m.-noon on Fridays. The vaccine is available for those 6 months and older, and a high-dose vaccine is available for those 65 and older. The division accepts private insurance, Medicaid and Medicare. For more information, call 432-681-7613. Weekly support groups & hotlines (subject to change) TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) 5:30-7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Christian Church of Midland, 2609 Neely Ave. 694-8643. Overeaters Anonymous; 7-8 p.m. Tuesdays and 3-4 p.m. Sundays; B&J Plaza, 206 N. Midkiff Road, Suite 1-D; 553-1031. Survivors of sexual abuse; interactive Bible study to help deal with the consequences of sexual abuse meets Tuesdays. Child care available; House of Hope, 570-5935. Peer to Peer support group for veterans, active duty, guard, reserves and their families, 6 p.m. Tuesdays, Permian Basin Community Center, 401 E. Illinois Ave., Suite 403; Wil Hoggard, 213-5342, william.hoggard@wtcmhmr.org. PDAP meetings: 7-8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays: Parents group and younger group (12-17), 1208 W. Wall St.; college group (18-26), 2503 W. Ohio Ave.; older group (27 and over), First Presbyterian Church 11:30-1:30 p.m. Wednesdays: older group, 1208 W. Wall St., includes lunch Alcoholics Anonymous hotline 580-7868. Serenity Group, 8 p.m. daily, 3101 N. A St., Building C; 685-3100. 710 Group, 7 a.m., noon and 8 p.m. Wednesdays, 710 Ohio Ave.; 682-8162. Alpha Omega, 8 p.m Tuesdays and 11 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, 311 S. Pecos St. 12-Step Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, 7:30 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays, 10 a.m. Saturdays; 206 N. Midkiff Road; 697-0272. Narcotics Anonymous hotline 582-2926. Laundry Group, 8 p.m. daily and noon Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 104 N. Marshall St. Xodus Group, 5:30 p.m. Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, 7 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays and 8:30 p.m. Saturdays, 206 N. Midkiff Road. CODA Group, 12-step program for relationships, 7 p.m. Thursdays, 206 N. Midkiff Road; 697-0272. La Hacienda Alumni, support group for former patients, 7 p.m. Thursdays, 206 N. Midkiff Road; 697-0272. MMH payment options Midland Memorial Hospital recognizes that our community is facing challenging financial times. Resources are tight and families are having to make important decisions about what to spend money on now and what has to wait. Realizing health care can be expensive and the increasing deductibles make it hard to manage, the hospital has adjusted its payment procedures. We want to make sure you receive the care you need, when you need it. To find out about the new options now offered to better accommodate your payment needs, call 221-4705. Source: Midland Memorial Hospital How sick are you? Midland Memorial Hospital offers a a nurse triage program 68-NURSE. The program is designed to help people determine whether their health situation warrants a trip to the emergency room. Midland residents can call the line by dialing 686-8773. The program is free and available 24 hours a day-365 days a year. Local nurses are available to help you determine the best place to receive care for your situation. 68-NURSE can help you save time and money by directing you to the most appropriate healthcare option, whether its a neighborhood clinic, urgent care center, emergency room or just staying home. Help line for long-term or disabled care The Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services has a toll-free number residents can call to obtain information on services for the disabled or long-term care. For more information, call 855-937-2372. Contact your Hospital District representative Midland Memorial Hospital 400 Rosalind Redfern Grover Parkway, Midland, Texas, 79701 Phone: 221-1111 Website: www.midland-memorial.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/MidlandMemorialHospital Twitter: twitter.com/MidlandMemorial President Russell Meyers 221-1584 Directors -- District 1: Tracie Greene, District 2: Dwain Tomlin, District 3: Larry Mercer, District 4: Cressinda Hyatt, District 5: Cari Chaplin, District 6: Joe Kiowski, District 7: Jeffrey Beard This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Bexar County deputies gave a final salute to slain SAPD Det. Benjamin Marconi Tuesday morning at a makeshift memorial outside police headquarters downtown. RELATED: Exclusive: Accused cop killer Otis McKane married in San Antonio after ambush, before arrest Marconi, 50, was fatally shot while issuing a traffic citation Sunday near police headquarters. Otis Tyrone McKane, 31, was arrested Monday night and is suspected to be the man who pulled up behind the detective, and fired two shots through Marconi's window, striking him in the head. Marconi was pronounced dead Sunday at the San Antonio Military Medical Center. RELATED: Donald Trump called son of slain SAPD Det. Benjamin Marconi, family says Since his death, a pile of well wishes, flowers, candles and balloons has amassed outside of the police headquarters downtown, 315 S. Santa Rosa. Dozens of deputies with the Bexar County Sheriff's Office honored the detective with a salute Tuesday morning. "We are relieved (McKane) was taken into custody without further loss of life," SAPD Chief William McManus said Monday night. "It's a relief for a lot of us. Everyone's looking forward to a good night's sleep." kbradshaw@express-news.net Twitter: @kbrad5 This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo, under intense criticism for telling new U.S. citizens last week that you need to go to another country if they didnt like that Donald Trump will be president, told his bosses Tuesday he will retire next year. He sent a one-page letter to the U.S. district judges here and the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which runs a commission that will review a complaint filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund about his speech. The letter did not reference the controversy that erupted when KENS TV aired portions of his talk, in which he criticized the response by some protesters of the Trump victory as inappropriate. It drew brickbats from many quarters, including the American Civil Liberties Union, but also praise from conservative websites. Primomo, who has sworn in at least 100,000 new citizens since 1989, has said he didnt even vote for Trump himself but was trying to admonish the crowd that they needed to respect the office of the president, no matter who occupies it. The judges received the MALDEF complaint on Tuesday and referred it to the 5th Circuit, a day after they suspended Primomo from conducting further naturalization ceremonies. Primomo will continue to serve as a federal magistrate, making bond decisions and holding other pre-trial hearings, until his retirement on Sept. 23, after he turns 65. It will be midway through his current term. Primomo has been repeatedly reappointed by the U.S. judges here. MALDEFS complaint referenced the publicized controversy and asked the judges to refer it to Judicial Council of the 5th Circuit to determine whether he violated the code of conduct governing federal judges. If he did, he should be immediately terminated, the letter stated. The district judges did forward the letter to the 5th Circuit, but Marisa Bono, MALDEFs southwest regional counsel, said the organization learned about Primomos suspension after it composed the complaint and was satisfied with the judges quick response. We are very gratified how quickly the court moved to address the community concern and we think this was a fair outcome, Bono said, adding that if the reports of what Primomo said were true, it could undermine public confidence in the courts. Primomo declined comment Tuesday, except to say he was not a Democrat nor Republican, but was just trying to say something nice and it didnt turn out that way. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate President-elect Donald Trump offered his condolences to the family of slain SAPD Det. Benjamin Marconi Monday, his son said. Dane Gregory Marconi posted a Facebook status Monday evening that read: "Just got off the phone with the future president Trump, he sends his condolences to our family," according to a post made by Annie Patterson Campos, who lists herself as a crime scene investigator for the San Antonio Police Department on her account. Campos' post has since garnered 500 shares and hundreds of likes. RELATED: Suspect arrested in ambush killing of San Antonio police officer Benjamin Marconi Public records show Dane Marconi is the son of Benjamin Marconi. Dane Marconi did not immediately respond for comment. RELATED: SAPD: Suspect entered police HQ hours before ambush killing of officer, 'uniform was the target' Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not immediately confirm that the president-elect called Dane Marconi. Benjamin Marconi, 50, was shot and killed Sunday during a traffic stop in downtown San Antonio around 11:45 a.m. McKane is accused of pulling up behind Marconi's cruiser while the detective was issuing a traffic citation and firing two rounds through the passenger window. After a 30-hour manhunt, police arrested Otis Tyrone McKane, 31, who is accused of killing Benjamin Marconi. He told reporters Monday night he "lashed out at somebody who didn't deserve it" due to an ongoing custody battle for his son. "I've been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didn't deserve it," McKane said. RELATED: Ambush killing of SAPD's Marconi marks 18th officer killed in line of duty in Texas in 2016 Monday night, Chief William McManus said the department was "relieved" McKane was taken into custody "without further loss of life." Earlier that day, McManus said he believed "the uniform was the target" in Marconi's death. The police chief offered no speculation on a motive Monday night. Benjamin Marconi's family asked for privacy Monday. "At this time, the Marconi family would like to give thanks from the bottom of our hearts for the outpouring of support, prayers and love we have received. At this time, we would appreciate privacy to mourn the loss of a wonderful father, brother, grandfather, friend and last, but not least, a peace officer," the family said in a statement, thanking the San Antonio community and the support they received from across the country. Staff writers Bruce Selcraig, Chris Quinn, Tyler White, Silvia Foster-Frau, Kolten Parker, Emilie Eaton, Madalyn Mendoza and news researchers Mike Knoop and Misty Harris contributed to this report. kbradshaw@express-news.net Twitter: @kbrad5 This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate SAN ANTONIO A 63-year-old man was arrested Friday for allegedly swindling about $15,000 from a man who was trying to find care for his dying wife, according to court documents. David Alan Helbon faces third-degree felony charges of exploitation of an elderly person and theft between $1,500 and $20,000 of the elderly, according to jail records. RELATED: SAPD: Suspect entered police HQ hours before ambush killing of officer, 'uniform was the target' An unnamed co-conspirator introduced Helbon to the victim, 73, in July 2014. The two suspects made the victim believe they were officers for an alternative cancer treatment facility in the Philippines, which they were investing money into, according to the arrest affidavit obtained by mySA.com. The victim was offered a deal to purchase 15,000 shares of the treatment facility for $1 each. Helbon allegedly had the man write him checks for $1,000 and $14,000, with the victim believing the investment would benefit his dying wife, the affidavit said. RELATED: 50 malnourished horses seized, 20 others dead at concentration camp ranch in North Texas When interviewed by police, Helbon denied meeting with the victim or receiving any money from him. The victim was in a state of emotional turmoil with his wifes disease and became extremely vulnerable to the defendant and his co-conspirators elaborate scheme to steal money from the victim using false pretense, the document said. The victim depleted his bank account, took out a $10,000 signature loan, cashed in over $34,000 in investments, and took over $29,000 in cash advances against a credit card, the affidavit said. The defendant took advantage of an elderly man and his dying wife, the affidavit said. RELATED: Marquee serves as makeshift memorial for slain Stone Oak kindergarten teacher If convicted, Helbon faces up to 10 years in prison for each charge. Text "Breaking" to 48421 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com twhite@mysa.com Twitter: @tylerlwhite Following a public outcry, Turkey's government has withdrawn a proposal that critics feared would legitimize the practice of men marrying underage girls. The proposal, which was scheduled to undergo a final vote on Tuesday, would have deferred sentencing or punishment for sexual assault in cases where there was no physical force and where the victim and perpetrator were married. The government said it would now submit the proposal for review to a parliamentary committee. The age of consent in Turkey is 18, although courts permit civil marriages for people as young as 16. Many younger people are married in Islamic ceremonies. The government has argued of the need to redress "unfair treatment" of families where fathers were placed in jail for marrying girls under the age of 18 even if both parties and their parents consented. Opponents argued that the bill amounted to a pardon for statutory rape if the perpetrator was married to his victim and would disrupt efforts to prevent child marriages and sexual assault on children. They maintained that it would, for example legitimize the practice of men taking brides as young as 13 or 14. Hours before the vote, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters the government was pulling back the proposal from the floor and would ask an all-party commission on family affairs to review it. His comments came after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the state-run Anadolu Agency late on Monday that a broad consensus on the issue should be sought. "Due to a lack of full public consensus, our president's call for a broad consensus and to allow opposition parties to develop their own proposals, we are taking this proposal which is in parliament to the commission," Yildirim said. "This problem will certainly be solved after being discussed in detail, with all parties' views being taken into account." Opposition parties, rights groups and citizens had widely condemned the proposal, issuing statements and staging demonstrations across multiple cities nationwide. United Nations agencies, including the children's fund UNICEF, issued a joint statement on Monday warning that the proposal "would weaken the country's ability to combat sexual abuse and child marriages." The government had insisted it was committed to fighting child marriages but said the one-time measure was needed to help some 3,800 families where underage marriages had occurred according to customs. "We cannot ignore this (problem)," Yildirim said. "There are 3,800 cases and thousands of children . The children are paying the price of their parents' mistakes." Search Keywords: Short link: AUSTIN Gov. Greg Abbott released his latest tax return Tuesday, showing he and his wife Cecilia paid no federal taxes in 2015 on income totaling just under $120,000. With standard deductions and exemptions, the Abbotts reduced their taxable income to just $4,922, according to the filing, which left them with no federal tax bill for year. They are due a refund of $27,059. See Abbott's full return online The Republican governor has released copies of his personal tax returns dating back to 2011, a practice he started while campaigning for the state's highest office in 2013. He has pledged to voluntarily release his tax returns for as long as he serves as governor. "Governor Abbott is fulfilling his pledge to Texans and continues to believe his financial dealings should not be shielded from the public," spokesman Matt Hirsch said. The 2015 tax filing was the first time that the Abbotts effectively paid no federal income tax in the years of tax releases the governor has made public. Abbott and his wife Cecilia reported total income of $134,000 in 2014 and paid $104 in federal income taxes that year. The Abbotts respectively paid $28,743, $18,098 and about $14,000 in federal taxes in 2011, 2012 and 2013, while reporting income in those years of about $200,000. The Abbotts earned a total of $119,819 in total income from the governor's state salary in 2015. They claimed more than $101,000 in deductions, largely stemming from property taxes, mortgage interest and charitable contributions. The Abbotts also claimed another $12,000 in deductions. In his return, the governor listed $42,544 paid last year in property taxes for a multi-million dollar West Austin home that was sold in May of 2015 and $13,125 in charitable contributions. The governor also paid $1,490 in general sale taxes The tax documents disclosed by Abbott on Tuesday give only a broad glimpse into his finances. Abbott has received millions of dollars from a settlement following his 1984 accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. He currently receives more than $170,000 annually and also gets a six-figure lump-sum payment every three years. That money is nontaxable and not reported on the governor's tax forms. Much of the political commentary over this past two weeks has been bleak and despairing for the future of our fragile republic. It has assumed the worst about Americans character, our dedication to inclusiveness and diversity, and our ability to rein in our ugliest instincts. America has abandoned its values, we pundits fret in unison. Iraqi-born immigrant Omar al-Khattab doesnt buy it. Last week, with a full heart and an open mind, al-Khattab recited the oath of allegiance to the United States. He became a newly minted U.S. citizen exactly one week after Americans elected a president who said Muslim immigrants like himself dont belong here. Al-Khattab was joined by 14 other immigrants at a naturalization ceremony at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York. The museum, dedicated to telling the stories of generations of American immigrants, hosts this event every year; this years proceedings, though, took on a new sense of urgency and hopefulness. As despondent native-born Americans muse about ditching their country for greener, Donald Trump-free pastures, these 15 immigrants pledged their commitment to stay and fight for the nations most fundamental values. These emigres swore as no native-born American is ever legally required to do as a condition of their citizenship to support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Al-Khattab, 37, may have recited this oath aloud for the first time last Tuesday. But he has been walking the walk for years. As a child, he was enamored of American culture. He taught himself English by watching Robert De Niro films and listening to Michael Jackson songs. And as an adult, he repeatedly risked his life for Americans. Al-Khattab is a surgeon by training. While working in an Iraqi hospital, he began liaising with local American hospitals and eventually became an interpreter for the U.S. Air Force. Yes, I worked several missions in the field, he says. They were very, very risky, and exposed me to almost assassination. Six years ago, he came to the United States on a special immigrant visa for Iraqi and Afghan interpreters. He says his parents remain in Iraq and have been seeking refugee status. Today al-Khattab works as a patient coordinator at New York-Presbyterian Hospital while he studies for his medical licensure exams. He ultimately plans to redo his residency and practice as a doctor once again. His new citizenship status offers him some additional legal protections, of course (well, maybe). More generally, though, he mostly shrugged off concerns about recent displays of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment. Including those from our new president-elect. What matters are Americas enduring institutions and legacies, al-Khattab says. The fear we are seeing is basically fear of the unknown, he says, arguing that everyone has been unfairly prejudging Trump. If given the chance, al-Khattab says, he would have voted for Hillary Clinton, but he trusts that the candidate who won instead will take his new responsibilities seriously. The guy has not even been in the White House yet. He speaks strongly. He has. But remember, his job entitles him to be the protector of the U.S. Constitution, no matter what, he says. Al-Khattab notes that the United States has always been a temple of immigrants: Its the Constitution and the values you look at. Its the values of the country as a whole, not what a person says or not. But what of Trumps proposed Muslim immigrant ban or the outbreak of anti-Muslim hate crimes? If you survive Iraq, you will survive anything, he says with a smile. He believes that journalists have been irresponsible in our portrayals both of Muslims and those who might fear Muslims. Everyone he has come into contact with here in the United States has been kind and good to him, he says. I come from a country where fear from the other is tearing it apart right now, he says, suggesting that Americans must engage with fellow citizens motivated by fear as well. When somebody tries to impose that on me, I have to please understand where is he coming from. He probably doesnt know who I am as a person, but once he knows who I am, Im sure his attitude will definitely change. Welcome (more permanently) to the United States of America, Dr. al-Khattab. For your sake, and all of ours, may your countrymen be everything you believe us to be. crampell@washpost.com Dallas hotelier Mark Wyant plans to build a six- to eight-story new location of his boutique Saint Hotel chain on the River Walk. The hotel is in early planning stages, but it will likely have about 100 full-service rooms and a restaurant and cocktail bar on the ground floor, Wyant said. It will be on a 0.2-acre property that he bought in October at 151 E. Travis Street, across the river from the Weston Centre. More than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria have been killed in the conflict, the head of Iran's veterans' affairs office said Tuesday. "The number of martyrs from our country defending the shrines has now passed 1,000," Tasnim news agency quoted Mohammad Ali Shahidi Mahalati, the head of Iran's Foundation of Martyrs' and Veterans' Affairs, as saying. Iran has sent military advisers, as well as volunteer fighters recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to work with Assad's forces. They are known in Iran as "defenders of the shrines" in reference to Shia holy sites in Syria. Shahidi did not specify the nationalities of those killed. Shia Iran is a staunch supporter of Assad and provides both financial and military support for his regime. The Fatemiyoun Division of Afghan recruits organised by Iran comprises the majority of volunteers sent from Iran to fight in Syria and Iraq. Iran says they are sent to fight against Sunni extremists such as the Islamic State group (IS). The Islamic republic denies having any boots on the ground in Syria, and insists its commanders and generals of the elite Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations wing act as "military advisers" both there and in Iraq. Iranian media regularly report on the death in Syria of Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani "martyrs" whose bodies are buried in Iran. The latest death toll is significantly higher than previous tallies, although no overall figures have been officially announced so far. In August, Shahidi said Iran's Foundation of Martyrs' and Veterans' Affairs was caring for 400 people related to fighters killed in action in Syria and Iraq, half of them Afghans. "We immediately cover (the families) that the Quds Force announces to us," he said, according to ILNA news agency, referring to the Guards' foreign operations wing headed by Major General Qassem Suleimani. "We are waiting for the Quds Force to confirm the martyrdom" of more fighters, "so we can cover their families too," he said at the time. Iran in May passed a law allowing the government to grant citizenship to the families of foreigners killed while fighting for the Islamic republic. The law could apply to volunteers from Afghanistan and Pakistan who are fighting in Syria and Iraq against Islamist militants including those from IS. Search Keywords: Short link: Turkey on Tuesday dismissed over 15,000 state employees and ordered the closure of 375 associations within the state of emergency imposed after the July failed coup, in a purge that shows no sign of slowing. More than 100,000 people have already been suspended or sacked so far in a crackdown on those alleged to have links to coup-plotters while dozens of media outlets have been shut down. In the latest government decree published on Tuesday, 7,586 personnel working in the police, including police chiefs and commissioners, were dismissed. Meanwhile 1,956 soldiers and personnel in the air force and navy were sacked while another 403 were removed from the gendarmerie, which looks after domestic security. Thousands more were dismissed in government ministries and state institutions, including nearly 3,000 officials in the interior ministry and related institutions. In total, 15,726 people have been dismissed under the latest decrees. The dismissals are permitted under the state of emergency, which was extended by another three months in October, and was originally imposed in the wake of the coup. But its scope has been vehemently criticised by the European Union and human rights activists. The decrees, published in the latest issue of the official gazette, also ordered the closure of 375 associations across the country working on issues ranging from rights to culture to women. Critics have claimed that the crackdown goes well beyond the suspected coup plotters and targets anyone who has dared show opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "The closure of nearly 400 NGOs is part of an ongoing and systematic attempt by the Turkish authorities to permanently silence all critical voices," said Amnesty International's Europe Director, John Dalhuisen. Amnesty said the groups closed included lawyers associations working on preventing torture, women's rights groups working against domestic violence and local NGOs helping refugees. Among those ordered closed is the leading Ankara-based children's rights NGO Gundem Cocuk (The Agenda is Children). The decrees also ordered the closure of nine provincial press outlets and 19 health institutions. Ankara blames the coup plot on the US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen and says an unrelenting campaign is needed to root out his influence from public life. Gulen denies the allegations. Erdogan indicated in a speech on Tuesday that the purges would continue, saying that not all Gulen supporters had been rooted out of Turkish institutions. "We know that the state has not been entirely cleared of this treacherous network. "They are still in our armed forces, our police organisations, inside our judiciary, inside different state institutions," he said. In a separate development on Tuesday, Turkish authorities detained 20 staff at Silivri jail outside Istanbul accused of using the Bylock messaging app that Ankara says was specially developed by Gulen supporters for the coup plot. Those detained include the head of the prison, named as H.T., it added. Hundreds of suspects rounded up after the coup are being held in the jail. Search Keywords: Short link: The Joice Mujuru led National Peoples Party (NPP) has confirmed talks to form a grand coalition with the Movement for Democratic Change MDC Alliance in preparation for the upcoming general elections are progressing well, with an agreement to field a single Presidential candidate in the July 30 polls imminent. In an interview with 263Chat, Jeffreyson Chitando, the NPP National Spokesperson who once dismissed reports of Mujuru joining the MDC Alliance said they have been in talks with MDCT since last year. NPP has been in talks with the MDC-T since 2017 and we were the first political party to sign the MoU with the late MDC-T president Dr. Morgan Tsvangirai. Dr Mujuru held the first public rally in Gweru with MDC-T and so far talks for a grand coalition have been going on well and its every Zimbabweans hope that the opposition parties form a united front against ZanuPF, said Chitando. Dr Mujuru and NPP believe Chamisa and Khupe are true national leaders who have worked together for many difficult years and will understand that its important to work together for the betterment of Zimbabweans. NPP is calling upon every Zimbabwean opposition to throw away their personal egos and think Zimbabwe. We cant have any more seconds after election day under Mnangagwa and his military government. We have to be united to fight as a block, added Chitando. Chitando could not however explain if they are going to dump the Rainbow Coalition Zimbabwe and the fate of their alliance partners should they jump ship and join the MDC Alliance. Political analyst, Takavafira Zhou was skeptical of Mujurus decision to join the MDC Alliance saying their coming on board at the 11th hour will create problems in the coalition arrangement. In my view they are just part and parcel of ZANU-PF chicanery and may be on a mission to destroy the alliance. They are joining the alliance on the 11th hour and that may jeopardize the smooth sharing of constituencies that has ensured, more if they claim a bigger share of constituencies as I would expect, said Zhou. Primary elections are almost over and forcing some people who have spent a fortune campaigning to drop in favor of NPP candidates may cause internal tension that may weaken the alliance than strengthen it, added Zhou. MDC Alliance Spokesperson, Professor Welshman Ncube could not be reached for a comment as his mobile phone was not reachable. Currently, Joice Mujuru is the Presidential candidate of the Rainbow Coalition Zimbabwe, an alliance of opposition parties including Democratic Assembly for Restoration and Empowerment (DARE), Zimbabweans United for Democracy (ZUNDE) led by Farai Mbira and a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party led by Lucia Matibenga. 263Chat Breaking News via Email United Family International Pastor Emmanuel Makandiwa made a chilling prophecy on Sunday about Zimbabwe and declared that chilling events are soon to take place. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, visit your altars. Keep on visiting until I tell you to stop. What is going to be happening is very strange. This matter has now come before the immortals. Zimbabwe you shall fear God. Youll be seeing a lot and hearing a lot but I wont say much but its The Hand of The Lord. God is about to judge the gods of this land. Lying demons are going to be exposed. Bear with me ladies and gentlemen, Ive a work to do. I didnt want it to happen before I make the announcement because some may think its a coincidence. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Dont ask me kuti tonamatira chi. Handina kukupa mharidzo iyi. iHarare Breaking News via Email Former First Lady Grace Mugabe and some of her relatives and allies are being stripped of 14 stands worth almost US$12,6 million in one of the most upmarket developments in Borrowdale, Harare, on the grounds that they acquired the land for next to nothing by abusing their connections with the then Government. The 14 stands are in the plush suburb of Harare, Carrick Creagh due east of Borrowdale Brooke and between them cover 167 997 square metres, or almost 17 hectares, and at the quoted commercial selling price of US$75 a square metre they are worth US$12 599 775. Mrs Mugabe owned four adjacent stands covering 7,36ha through a pair of front companies Montshow Private Limited and Navline Investments Private Limited in which her children are now directors according to company records. This land, at the US$75 a square metre selling price, should have cost US$5 525 550, but in practice it cost her almost nothing. She and the other 10 land owners, four using companies, were able to get into the housing scheme without putting up the required purchase price because it is a Public Private Partnership joint venture between the Government and a private developer on State land. They operated through a former minister who himself has corruption-related legal problems arising from the way he became involved in land deals and stand allocations. The ex-minister also included at least his alleged girlfriend in the Carrick Creagh scheme. It is understood that Mrs Mugabe first used members of the State House staff in the original allocation of stands, and then carried out her intention of acquiring the formal ownership in the name of her companies. But now Local Government and Public Works Minister July Moyo wants the corruptly-acquired land back and the title deeds cancelled. He announced his intention, and gave the required notice, in the Government Gazette on Friday last week and is placing the weekly press advertisement for the next three weeks, seeking objections. Minister Moyo is able to do this under section 18(1)(b) of the Deeds Registries Act, which allows the minister to direct the cancellation of the deed for any land in respect of which the State has the right to claim transfer. The right being invoked is that the land in question was not properly paid for, being given away for what amounted to free. The Act lays down the procedure that must be followed, and in particular the calling for objections and the need to study these objections before the cancellations can take place. The minister is also relying on section 308(3) of the Constitution which requires him to take positive action in these circumstances. The section reads: It is the duty of every person who has custody or control of public property to safeguard the property and ensure that it is not lost, destroyed, damaged, misapplied or misused. Mrs Mugabes four stands include the largest, third largest, fourth largest and sixth largest of the 14 stands. Two stands were registered in the name of Montshow Investments (Private) Limited: stand 306 of 18 034 square metres, and stand 307 of 25 133 square metres. The other two were registered in the name of Navline Investments (Private) Limited: stand 308 of 13 733 square metres and stand 309 of 16 744 square metres. This block of four stands, covering 73 674 square metres should have cost US$5 525 550. Mrs Mugabe paid a token sum, basically getting the large block for free. The other 10 stands were transferred as follows: stand 96 of 9 592 square metres to Timothy Mubhawu; stand 172 of 4 000 square metres to Lazarus Dagwa Kambarami Dokora; stand 195 of 3 971 square metres to Comverol Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd; stand 196 of 4 039 square metres to Cavord Trading (Pvt) Ltd; stand 269 of 13 857 square metres to Gloryboost Investments (Pvt) Ltd; stand 300 of 12 384 square metres to Taruvinga Hamura; stand 91 of 8 003 square metres to Olivia Farai Mashonganyika; stand 228 of 12 086 square metres to Junior Shuvayi Gumbochuma; stand 288 of 19 310 square metres to Olivia Tafadzwa Chinouya, and stand 99 of 7 081 square metres to Penking Investments (Pvt) Ltd. Asked for comment, the developers lawyer Mr Munyaradzi Bwanya referred all questions to the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works. Herald Breaking News via Email The beginning of nanotechnology at the 1959 APS meeting (Nanowerk News) "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ..." The classic lines that open A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, rendered in a minuscule type size, netted Tom Newman $1,000 and a letter from Richard Feynman. In the last few days of 1959, several hundred physicists gathered for Winter Meeting in the West of the American Physical Society. Feynman, then a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech, was among the attendees, and he delivered an after-dinner lecture at the nearby Huntington-Sheraton Hotel entitled "Theres Plenty of Room at the Bottom". The banquet speech would prove prescient. Feynmans lecture is widely accepted as spurring the field of nanotechnology, and the Nobel Prize Committee lauded it as visionary when they awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to researchers who assembled tiny motors made of molecules. "I want to talk about the problem of manipulating and controlling things on a small scale," Feynman said early in his lecture. He went on to discuss information storage, suggesting that the 120,000 volumes in the Caltech library might, within 10 years, be kept on just one library card. Feynman also talked about miniaturizing computers and creating perfect copies of miniscule devices based on spins. It is a staggeringly small world that is below, he emphasized. Feynman concluded his lecture by presenting two challenges to his audience. The first challenge, associated with a cash prize of $1000, was to miniaturize a page of text by 1/25,000 in linear scale so that it was readable with an electron microscope. The second challenge, also worth $1,000, was to build a functioning electric motor within a 1/64-inch cube. I do not expect that such prizes will have to wait very long for claimants, Feynman prophesied. Tom Newman in his lab (Photo: Tom Newman) Indeed, one of Feynmans prizes was claimed within a year by William McLellan. The Caltech graduate presented Feynman with a working motor far smaller than a pinhead. However, Feynmans other challenge of miniaturizing text remained unsolved for decades. When Engineering & Science, Caltechs quarterly magazine, covered McLellans achievement it humorously noted that [since offering the prizes] Feynman has been married, bought a house and, what with one thing and other, hasnt got another spare $1,000. In 1985, Tom Newman was a graduate student at Stanford University in the electrical engineering department. His Ph.D. thesis work which involved making very small lattices to observe quantum effects was nearly complete. My advisor encouraged me to finish up and not get too distracted by side projects, Newman remembered. At the same time, another student in Newmans research group read a transcript of Theres Plenty of Room at the Bottom. Ken Polasko suggested to Newman that he attempt Feynmans remaining challenge. The lab I was working in had all of the optics necessary for making a high-resolution [printer], Newman acknowledged. [And my advisor, R. Fabian Pease] had a real passion for lithography. When Pease was away at a conference on the east coast, Newman seized his opportunity to investigate Feynmans challenge. I decided to give it a big push for two days while he was gone. During that time, I was able to come up with the basis for how to do it, Newman said. He made rough calculations of the necessary resolution and the size of the letters required, and he looked over his bookshelf. I had [A Tale of Two Cities]; it was a nicely bound copy. When I pulled it out, it seemed like a nice text, Newman said. Fortunately, Pease was enthusiastic about Newmans pursuits, and the two men begin to repurpose their labs existing equipment. The pattern generator that we had produced a square dot matrix of 512 x 512 pixels, Newman explained. He determined how to convert a typed-in string of letters readable by humans into a string of bits readable by the pattern generator. Pease and Newman then used the pattern generator to scan a beam of electrons over a thin layer of poly(methyl methacrylate). When the electrons impacted the poly(methyl methacrylate), they broke bonds within the materials organic molecules and rendered that area more soluble to a developer solution. The developer solution eats away the area thats been exposed, explained Newman. Newman and Pease printed the first page of A Tale of Two Cities on a 200 200 micron square of poly(methyl methacrylate). The text occupied an area just under six microns on a side, which made it challenging to find on the square. I learned after the first time [of going to the microscope] to bring a map on a piece of paper, said Newman. At this scale, the entire Encyclopedia Britannica could be printed on the head of a pin. Tom Newman used an electron beam to etch the opening of Dickens' Tale of Two Cities onto a 200 x 200 micron square of plastic and won the Feynman challenge. (Photo: Tom Newman) On October 12, 1985, Newman and Pease sent a telegram to Feynman at Caltech. The short message read: Please advise if prize has been collected for reducing a page of text 25 thousand-fold to be readable in an electron microscope. We had decided not to even bother him until we were certain that we could meet the spirit of the challenge, Newman explained. Just a few weeks later, Newman was in the lab when a telephone call came through. Someone said they were transferring a call to me from Professor Feynman. I was a little nervous taking the call, said Newman. The first thing Feynman said was something like Hey Newman, what are you guys doing up there?, Newman recounted. Feynman went on to say that the prize had not been claimed and that he was interested in seeing what Newman and Pease had produced. On November 5, Newman mailed an envelope to Pasadena containing photos of his printing taken using a transmission electron microscope. I didnt have high hopes at that point that Feynman would agree that we met [the challenge], said Newman. The image is kind of rough, and youre seeing the resolution limit of this process. But Feynman was satisfied and considered his challenge solved, 26 years after it was first proposed. Within a couple of weeks, Newman received a congratulatory letter from the physicist and a check for $1000. It was a welcome amount of money, Newman recalled. I was thinking of getting a Macintosh computer. They had just come out and I was really fascinated by them. Newman defended his thesis in December, 1985, and his work would stand as a proof of concept that text could be substantially compressed. Maybe I didnt plan it this way, but there is some value in having people recognize this text, said Newman. The fact that they knew that first line or at least the first part of the first line probably helped a bit in terms of interpreting what I had done. Since graduating from Stanford, Newman has worked in the field of lithography. His job responsibilities have spanned engineering, project management, and marketing. Mars ice deposit holds as much water as Lake Superior (Nanowerk News) Frozen beneath a region of cracked and pitted plains on Mars lies about as much water as what's in Lake Superior, largest of the Great Lakes, researchers using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have determined. Scientists examined part of Mars' Utopia Planitia region, in the mid-northern latitudes, with the orbiter's ground-penetrating Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument. Analyses of data from more than 600 overhead passes with the onboard radar instrument reveal a deposit more extensive in area than the state of New Mexico. The deposit ranges in thickness from about 260 feet (80 meters) to about 560 feet (170 meters), with a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, mixed with dust or larger rocky particles. This vertically exaggerated view shows scalloped depressions in Mars' Utopia Planitia region, one of the area's distinctive textures that prompted researchers to check for underground ice, using ground-penetrating radar aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Rome/ASI/PSI) (click on image to enlarge) At the latitude of this deposit -- about halfway from the equator to the pole -- water ice cannot persist on the surface of Mars today. It sublimes into water vapor in the planet's thin, dry atmosphere. The Utopia deposit is shielded from the atmosphere by a soil covering estimated to be about 3 to 33 feet (1 to 10 meters) thick. "This deposit probably formed as snowfall accumulating into an ice sheet mixed with dust during a period in Mars history when the planet's axis was more tilted than it is today," said Cassie Stuurman of the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas, Austin. She is the lead author of a report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters ("SHARAD detection and characterization of subsurface water ice deposits in Utopia Planitia, Mars"). Mars today, with an axial tilt of 25 degrees, accumulates large amounts of water ice at the poles. In cycles lasting about 120,000 years, the tilt varies to nearly twice that much, heating the poles and driving ice to middle latitudes. Climate modeling and previous findings of buried, mid-latitude ice indicate that frozen water accumulates away from the poles during high-tilt periods. Martian Water as a Future Resource The name Utopia Planitia translates loosely as the "plains of paradise." The newly surveyed ice deposit spans latitudes from 39 to 49 degrees within the plains. It represents less than one percent of all known water ice on Mars, but it more than doubles the volume of thick, buried ice sheets known in the northern plains. Ice deposits close to the surface are being considered as a resource for astronauts. "This deposit is probably more accessible than most water ice on Mars, because it is at a relatively low latitude and it lies in a flat, smooth area where landing a spacecraft would be easier than at some of the other areas with buried ice," said Jack Holt of the University of Texas, a co-author of the Utopia paper who is a SHARAD co-investigator and has previously used radar to study Martian ice in buried glaciers and the polar caps. Diagonal striping on this map of a portion of Mars' Utopia Planitia region indicates the area where a large subsurface deposit rich in water ice was assessed using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The deposit holds about as much water as Lake Superior. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Rome/ASI/PSI) The Utopian water is all frozen now. If there were a melted layer -- which would be significant for the possibility of life on Mars -- it would have been evident in the radar scans. However, some melting can't be ruled out during different climate conditions when the planet's axis was more tilted. "Where water ice has been around for a long time, we just don't know whether there could have been enough liquid water at some point for supporting microbial life," Holt said. Utopia Planitia is a basin with a diameter of about 2,050 miles (3,300 kilometers), resulting from a major impact early in Mars' history and subsequently filled. NASA sent the Viking 2 Lander to a site near the center of Utopia in 1976. The portion examined by Stuurman and colleagues lies southwest of that long-silent lander. Use of the Italian-built SHARAD instrument for examining part of Utopia Planitia was prompted by Gordon Osinski at Western University in Ontario, Canada, a co-author of the study. For many years, he and other researchers have been intrigued by ground-surface patterns there such as polygonal cracking and rimless pits called scalloped depressions -- "like someone took an ice-cream scoop to the ground," said Stuurman, who started this project while a student at Western. Clue from Canada In the Canadian Arctic, similar landforms are indicative of ground ice, Osinski noted, "but there was an outstanding question as to whether any ice was still present at the Martian Utopia or whether it had been lost over the millions of years since the formation of these polygons and depressions." The large volume of ice detected with SHARAD advances understanding about Mars' history and identifies a possible resource for future use. "It's important to expand what we know about the distribution and quantity of Martian water," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Deputy Project Scientist Leslie Tamppari, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "We know early Mars had enough liquid water on the surface for rivers and lakes. Where did it go? Much of it left the planet from the top of the atmosphere. Other missions have been examining that process. But there's also a large quantity that is now underground ice, and we want to keep learning more about that." Joe Levy of the University of Texas, a co-author of the new study, said, "The ice deposits in Utopia Planitia aren't just an exploration resource, they're also one of the most accessible climate change records on Mars. We don't understand fully why ice has built up in some areas of the Martian surface and not in others. Sampling and using this ice with a future mission could help keep astronauts alive, while also helping them unlock the secrets of Martian ice ages." Renewed clashes between Yemeni government forces and rebels killed more than 40 people Tuesday, military officials said, a day after a fragile 48-hour ceasefire expired without halting the violence. Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi repelled an attack by Shia Houthi rebels and their allies on the western outskirts of Taez city, the officials said. The attack that began late Monday targeted the Al-Dhabab area, which provides pro-Hadi forces with their only access to the flashpoint city of 300,000 people that is surrounded by insurgents. Warplanes from the Saudi-led Arab coalition took part in operations to repel the attack, officials said. Military officials also reported heavy artillery fire in an eastern suburb of Taez as pro-Hadi forces pressed a campaign to wrest back control of a presidential palace, police headquarters and an air defence base from the Houthis. Eleven rebel fighters and five pro-government soldiers were killed in the clashes around the southwestern city, they said. In northwest Yemen, fighting around the coastal town of Midi cost the lives of 18 rebels and four soldiers, a loyalist commander on the ground, Abdel Ghani Chebli, told AFP. Rebel sniper fire on Monday night killed three soldiers as the Houthis tried to advance on Midi's harbour, which is controlled by pro-Hadi forces. In the Saudi border town of Najran, a Yemeni civilian was killed and seven other non-Saudis were wounded by rebel shelling from Yemen, the Saudi civil defence said. Cross-border fire from Yemen has killed dozens of people in Saudi Arabia since March 2015. The coalition and the rebels have traded blame over violations of the ceasefire which came into effect on Saturday after US Secretary of State John Kerry intervened. It was the latest international attempt to end Yemen's 20-month conflict, which the United Nations says has killed more than 7,000 people and wounded nearly 37,000. The Houthis overran the capital Sanaa and other parts of the impoverished country in September 2014, prompting the coalition to intervene six months later in support of Hadi. In the southern city of Aden, an airport security officer, Colonel Abdel Rahim Samahi, was gunned down outside his home in an attack, a security official said Tuesday. The Islamic State (IS) militant group said it killed Samahi, the US-based SITE Intelligence Group reported. In recent months, IS and Al-Qaeda have stepped up attacks on Aden and south Yemen where loyalist forces have struggled to dismantle Islamist militant groups. Search Keywords: Short link: The "Action Plan Nanotechnology 2020" introduces the Federal Governments inter-departmental support strategy for nanotechnology in the period 20162020. It thus pursues the objective of continuing to exploit the opportunities and potential of nanotechnology in Germany, without disregarding any potential risks to humans and the environment. Alongside exploitation of the opportunities from nanotechnological developments, its political activities are equally determined by safe and environmentally responsible application of this technology. Under the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS), the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG), the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), the Federal Ministry of Defence (BMVg) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) are involved in the Action Plan Nanotechnology 2020. The Action Plan Nanotechnology 2020, in addition to a description of the status quo of national nanotechnology, for the first time after 10 years of inter-ministerial cooperation a conclusion is drawn on the progress that has been achieved from the point of view of the participating ministries, where potential gaps can be identified and therefore the need for action is derived with respect to future activities. Unsung hero Ina Doyle has been shortlisted for this years Volunteer Ireland Awards for her efforts in the local South Tipperary community. Clonmels Ina has been involved in voluntary work the past 20 years, starting at the Wilderness Youth and Community Centre in Clonmel with her friend Miriam Doyle who was manager of the centre. She got involved in the youth program at the centre through Waterford and South Tipperary Community Youth Service, lending a helping hand as an assistant and head chef at summer outings. As Inas voluntary work began to blossom, she got involved with social inclusion groups, community drug programmes, womens groups, and fundraising for many events and local charities. In 2012, Ina was aware and had empathy for those who were homeless, struggling with addiction, dealing with mental health issues or from social isolation. Determined to tackle these issues, she started Clonmel Soup Kitchen, distributing nutritious food from the boot of her car. Irish United Nations Veterans Association Post 24 approached Clonmel Soup Kitchen, offering Ina and her cohorts their cafe at the Railway Station on Tuesday and Friday evenings. Ina can be found at the base every Friday and hasn't missed an evening in over three years. Having a relative in the local Alzheimer's unit sparked another volunteering opportunity as Ina became involved in organising an Ascot Day to coincide with ladies day for those in the unit. Fancy hats for the ladies, cravats for the gentlemen and china cups and saucers were sourced together with cucumber sandwiches and French fancy pastries for the occasion. Each lady was ushered to the venue by an escort in top hat and tails, presented to the attendees in their best attire. High tea was served and bets, which were sponsored by patrons, were taken and brought to the local bookmakers. Always looking for a new challenge, Ina began organising Food Cloud donations together with a number of local voluntary collectors to disperse food donated by Aldi and Tesco. She also volunteered for the EU Charter in Cashel when over 1,200 delegates were catered for over a three day period. In nominating her for the award, Amanda Quigley applauded enthusiastic and modest Ina. I'm delighted to put Ina forward for this award, but she was not happy about being nominated as she doesnt see her endeavours as being anything out of the ordinary, Amanda highlights. Amanda adds that Ina is completely focused and dedicated to giving back to the community. In recent years Ina has had a number of health issues to contend with, but that has never stopped her giving a hand to any charity or organisation who needs it. She is always recruiting new volunteers and letting people know the benefit of volunteering. If you have an hour to spare Ina will rope you into helping out, Amanda smiles. Appearances matter when it comes to commercial real estate concentrations. In the case of Independent Bank Group in McKinney, Texas, such a view contributed to the decision to buy Carlile Bancshares in Fort Worth, Texas. While management wasn't feeling pressure from regulators to shrink their bank's CRE book, they realized that buying a bank with less exposure would look better to examiners. Having a lower ratio of CRE to total risk-based capital "looks and feels better to our regulators and board," David Brooks, the $5.4 billion-asset Independent's chairman and chief executive, said during a conference call Tuesday to discuss the $434 million acquisition. He noted, however, that Independent felt "comfortable" with its current exposure. CRE loans are equal to 415% of Independent's total risk-based capital, while such credits make up 53% of total loans. After Independent buys the $2.3 billion-asset Carlile, the ratio should fall to 365%, while CRE will make up just under half of its loan portfolio. Regulators will likely continue to focus on CRE exposure next year, even at banks that have strong underwriting procedures, industry experts said. "I think CRE concentrations are going to remain a prominent issue," said Michael Rose, an analyst at Raymond James. "Regulators are trying to get ahead of it. I think the banks are showing they're taking it seriously, by either limiting their growth in that concentration or raising opportunistic capital." Given current regulatory pressure, Independent likely would have "looked more cautiously" at buying a bank with a high CRE concentration, said Brady Gailey, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. Regulators are asking for some heavily concentrated CRE banks to provide more metrics or raise capital, he said. Improving CRE metrics isn't the only reason for the deal, Brooks said. Carlile will introduce Independent to several attractive markets, including Tarrant County, Texas, which is home to Fort Worth, and will provide a much larger presence in Denton County, Texas, which is northwest of Dallas. Those counties have high median household incomes and are projected to have stronger population growth than Texas and the nation, the company noted in its presentation. Independent, which had been looking to gain traction in Fort Worth for more than three years, had all but given up on expanding in Denton on its own, Brooks said. The company sold a branch in Denton earlier this year because it "couldn't compete there" against Carlile's Northstar Bank. "It's a cultural difference," Brooks said. "Many of my friends have [gone] over to Fort Worth, opened a location and hired a banker and put [their] flag out. It is tough ... to build anything of significance over there." The all-stock deal, which values Carlile at more than 210% of its tangible book value, will also serve as Independent's first foray outside of Texas. Carlile has 18 branches and roughly $600 million in assets in Colorado, mostly around Denver and Colorado Springs. Independent, which had once indicated that expanding beyond Texas wasn't a goal, would have likely avoided buying a small Colorado bank on its own, Brooks said. Still, these markets are intriguing, Brooks said. While there are many similarities in certain Colorado and Texas markets and several Texas banks have entered the more northern state in recent years the economy in Colorado is far less dependent on energy. Independent has been reducing its exposure to energy credits, which make up less than 3% of total loans, Rose said. Independent's management is still deciding whether it wants to expand in Colorado organically or by pursuing more acquisitions. "We have some work to do between now and next spring to determine what that book of business looks like and what the opportunities are to grow it," Brooks said. "We are a Texas franchise," Brooks added. "We intend to continue to focus the vast majority of our efforts in Texas. However, Colorado, and especially the I-25 corridor, is one of the more attractive markets in the western United States." More acquisitions could be on the table, though it's likely Brooks would continue to focus on high-quality banks in the Lone Star State, where he has good relationships with many executive teams, Gailey said. Independent is known as "one of the buyers that you want to partner with in Texas," he added. Independent will have roughly $8 billion of assets after buying Carlile, and management has already started discussing plans to cross $10 billion, which will trigger additional regulatory stress testing and caps on interchange fees. Brooks, who is committed to pursuing more deals, said he no longer believes a bank on the cusp of crossing the threshold must complete a big deal to make the jump. Still, he said Independent could lose roughly $1.8 million in interchange fees and add up to $4 million in costs preparing for stress testing. "It's not as big of a hurdle as we thought a few years ago," Brooks said. "Our view is given the economy, the optimism in the economy and the strength of all bank stocks across the country right now that this is a time where we're going to be an acquirer." WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump said in a tweet Tuesday that he is considering Dr. Ben Carson one of his opponents in the Republican primary to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I am seriously considering Dr. Ben Carson as the head of HUD. I've gotten to know him well--he's a greatly talented person who loves people! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 The tweet from Trump is the latest evidence of his unorthodox campaign and prolific use of social media to advance his agenda. It's unclear exactly why Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, would be a good fit for HUD. He had been earlier rumored as a possible candidate to head up the Department of Health and Human Services. But Carson appeared to take himself out of the running for that job or any cabinet post when he reportedly indicated to the transition team that he didn't feel up to the task of running a government agency. Carson later quarreled with that idea, posting on Facebook that his decision not to seek a cabinet position had "nothing to do with the complexity of the job." He told Fox News on Sunday that his preference is to be an outside adviser to Trump, but he might consider a cabinet post if offered. "If after going through the process, they all conclude it would be much better to have me in the cabinet, I would have to give that very serious consideration," he said. Carson's business manager, Armstrong Williams, told The Hill last week that while Carson was "never offered a specific positioneverything was open to him." However, he added that Carson "feels that he has no government experience." WASHINGTON If President-elect Donald Trump selects House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling as his Treasury secretary, it would be a clear sign that he intends to embrace a more traditional GOP agenda when it comes to financial services issues. The Texas Republican is a fierce opponent of the Dodd-Frank Act, and a conservative ideologue who has preferred to stick to his principles rather than compromise to move forward on legislation. In virtually every banking issue of note during his 13 years in Congress, Hensarling has pushed toward the right. That includes housing finance reform, where the protege of former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, has sought to eliminate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and dramatically curb any government role in the mortgage market. He also has particular enmity toward the Dodd-Frank Act, which he has blamed for slow economic growth, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which he views as an unaccountable agency run amok and the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which he wants to abolish. "In my world [FSOC] would play probably no role," Hensarling said in a speech last week. "I do not believe that FSOC is adding value to our economy." Ironically, if Hensarling is confirmed as Treasury secretary, he would be nominally in charge of FSOC, acting as its chairman. He would also be a key player in setting much of the Trump administration's economic policy. Among his likely first objectives is the passage of his own bill, the Choice Act, which dismantles much of Dodd-Frank, curbs the powers of federal banking regulators, and offers institutions a chance to ease regulations in return for holding higher capital. His well-documented record on financial issues make him a known entity to the financial industry, which respects Hensarling's knowledge and intellect, but views him as inflexible on certain issues, including housing finance reform. Whether he would be confirmed is an open question. On the one hand, Senate Democrats may see Hensarling as a potential ally of big banks because of his deregulatory policies and his repeated attempts to roll back Dodd-Frank. "If Donald Trump puts up a Treasury secretary nominee who will empower Wall Street I will vigorously oppose that person," said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in an email last week before the announcement was made, alluding to a number of deregulatory bills the House Financial Services Committee chairman has passed out of the committee. Yet Hensarling may be a preferable alternative to many others who have reportedly been weighed by Trump and his advisers in the past couple weeks, including multiple alumni of Goldman Sachs or even Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase. Hensarling is "a member of the Congress, and he's got an impeccable reputation as a decent man and has a lot of experience in the area," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told the Dallas Morning News last week. Hatch chairs the Senate Finance Committee, which is responsible for confirming the Treasury secretary. Despite his reputation as an ideologue, observers said Hensarling also knows when to bend to get things accomplished. "He has passed over forty different bipartisan bills that have passed the committee on a bipartisan basis," said J.W. Verret, a law professor at George Mason University and a former House Financial Services Committee staffer. Unlike most Treasury secretaries, Hensarling would come into the job with a clearly stated agenda. Last week, he talked about pushing forward on the Choice Act, reform of the Federal Reserve system and even housing finance reform. One item that would be unlikely to make his list is restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law that divided commercial and investment banking and was repealed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. Though Trump's campaign embraced a return to Glass-Steagall this summer, the idea has not surfaced since and Hensarling would almost certainly be opposed to any such move. "As a protege of Sen. Gramm, he stands in the way of serious consideration of Glass-Steagall restoration," said Bartlett Naylor, a financial policy advocate at the watchdog group, Public Citizen, wrote in an email. If chosen and confirmed to Treasury, it is not immediately clear who would succeed Hensarling as Financial Services chair. Verret said no matter who it is, the work Hensarling has done on the committee could be picked up by another Republican. "The Choice Act has been developed in a way that it has been informed by all the Republican members of the committee," said Verret of the Choice Act. "If he leaves and someone replaces him, I think the next chairman can take up the flag and charge up the Hill very quickly, very easily." Under Hensarling, the international Basel accords are likely to be further fractured. The U.S. and EU are already at loggerheads on how far to go in embracing the international committee's capital and liquidity standards, with the U.S. taking a harder line. But Trump and Hensarling are skeptical of such agreements. "As regulations are given from Basel into the U.S. financial regulators, we now have kind of an agreement where the U.S. is absorbing regulatory guidance, regulatory suggestions from the international community," said David Malpass, a senior economic adviser to Trump, in a recent speech. "There is a giant problem of the international financial regulatory system being run in ways that work very well for New York and Washington. These are gigantic boom cities and benefiting from an international financial system which is leaving millions and millions of people out so part of the goal is to create a financial system that works for the average person rather than the financial elite that involved in those markets." Hensarling's distaste for the Basel accords manifested itself in the Choice Act which provided banks an "off-ramp" to Basel capital and liquidity requirements if they met a simpler leverage ratio. Hensarling is also close to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, whom he served with in the House and succeeded as chair of the House Republican Conference. Hensarling has also embraced Trump's populist message to "Drain the Swamp" in D.C. Some consumer groups, however, see that as disingenuous. "Hensarling is a gator-in-chief in D.C." said Mary Bottari, deputy director at the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy, while pointing out that hedge funds, commercial banks and insurance firms have been some of his largest contributors. President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he would "love" to clinch a deal to end the intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinians despite the checkered history of US attempts to broker a Middle East peace. "I would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians, that would be such a great achievement," Trump said in an interview with The New York Times. A New York Times reporter tweeted that Trump also suggested that his son-in-law Jared Kushner could help broker a peace deal. Search Keywords: Short link: First Community Mortgage has added six loan products to its menu, each targeted to borrowers who are not eligible for a conforming or government mortgage. "We're seeing a significant number of borrowers who certainly have the ability to repay but who nevertheless do not qualify for a conventional mortgage. We see this as a significant opportunity to add business with minimal risk," said Lorenzo Adams, First Community Mortgage assistant vice president of special projects and production analytics, in a press release. The company is offering loans for non-warrantable condominium apartments, properties that are not approved by the government-sponsored enterprises and/or the Federal Housing Administration. There is a bank statement program aimed at self-employed borrowers whose income fluctuates throughout the year. First Community will average the borrower's business deposits over a two-year period and compare it to the company's profit and loss statement for the same period. The lesser of the two amounts will be used to validate the borrower's income during the underwriting process. Another new offering, the Recent Housing Events Program, allows borrowers who have made late mortgage payments because of divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure, deed in lieu, short sales and other events to get financing. There is also a loan for doctors and dentists who can't qualify for a conventional mortgage because of their high student debt load. Approval is on a case-by-case basis. First Community is also offering loans to foreign nationals in the U.S. temporarily to purchase a home, and to real estate investors to finance up to 20 properties. All six products are available through the company's retail and wholesale production channels. First Community Mortgage will sell these loans to undisclosed investors on a servicing-released basis. Soaring Pine Capital, an affiliate of Simon Group Holdings, has provided a senior secured credit facility to Park Street Group Realty Services to fund the company's acquisition of residential properties in the Detroit area. Park Street Group primarily focuses on buying and selling performing and nonperforming mortgage notes, but recently the company began purchasing residential properties to rehabilitate and then to flip to investors as rental or income properties. In total, Park Street Group has participated in more than 1,500 such transactions across the Detroit metropolitan area and in parts of Ohio and Indiana. The credit facility will allow Park Street Group to expand its residential acquisition and rehabilitation platform within Detroit and Wayne County, Mich. Park Street Group will also use the funds to buy from the Detroit Land Bank Authority, of which they are an approved purchaser. Soaring Pine Capital Real Estate Debt Fund II, which is supplying the credit facility to Park Street Group, was formed in 2016 to make investments in a variety of real estate assets. The credit facility was funded using equity, the company said in a news release. "My leadership team and I have a strong commitment to supporting the revitalization of Detroit," said Sam Simon, Simon Group Holdings founder and chairman, in a news release Monday. He also noted that it is likely his company will provide further credit "over the next several months." Alcohol industry bears some responsibility Partiers can't distinguish between higher and lower alcohol content (NaturalNews) Most everyone knows that the alcohol industry makes billions of dollars per year in profits, but not everyone knows just how far the industry is willing to go in terms of the harm it inflicts on societies worldwide in order to protect those profits.New research from the International Alcohol Control study, coordinated by Massey University in New Zealand, measured the extent that the alcohol industry depends on the harmful use of its products in order to generate profits, reports Prof. Sally Casswell is director of The SHORE and Whariki Research Centre and lead author of the study titled, "How the Alcohol Industry Relies on Harmful Use of Alcohol and Works to Protect Its Profits," which was published recently in the peer-reviewed journalCasswell said that public health researchers and those advocating for better health practices are growing increasingly concerned about the behavior of the alcohol industry, and that is especially the case for the powerful global alcohol corporations, in the overall development of alcohol use policies."The industry consistently lobbies against effective policy and, as in the recent case in Scotland with minimum unit price, successfully holds up or completely blocks policy that would reduce alcohol-related harm," she said.Casswell added that her analysis of global alcohol policy makes clear that there is a conflict of interest between global alcohol corporations and the public health sector in a way that is similar to the tobacco industry.She said that her results came from five different countries: New Zealand, Australia, Mongolia, Vietnam and Thailand. All showed a similar pattern, according to her analysis.Overall, she concluded, more than half 59 percent of the alcohol consumed was done during binge drinking situations, which she classified as eight or more drinks for men and six or more for women.The study found that the alcohol industry actually relies on the harmful use of alcohol to sustain its sales and its profits, so "we should not be surprised by the extent to which they go to protect these," Casswell said, noting that a "stronger response" by governments around the world is needed to lower incidents of harm caused by drinking.One idea, say advocates, is to lower the strength of alcoholic beverages. A separate study published in August by the Institute for Mental Health Policy Research at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Canada, found that a small reduction in alcohol content could save scores of lives."The idea is that a small reduction in alcohol - such as beer with four per cent ethanol content versus six per cent - would reduce alcohol intake per drinker even if the same overall amount of beverage is consumed," says Dr. Jurgen Rehm, lead author of the study, as reported byThe reduction in the most harmful ingredient in alcohol ethanol would likely lead to lower blood alcohol levels in drinkers, which could reduce immediate harm like injuries or accidents caused while someone is under the influence. It could also reduce alcohol-related chronic diseases that occur over time with regular, excessive alcohol consumption, like cancer or cirrhosis of the liver And in fact, the researchers noted, there is even more incentive for the alcohol industry to align itself with proposals to lower alcohol levels in beverages, because that proposal is better than other policy measures such as higher taxes on liquor, reducing access and further marketing restrictions. Also, they say that the industry holds some responsibility for its products."We know from experiments that consumers can't distinguish between beers of different strengths," Rehm said. He noted that in one study, which took place at three college fraternity parties, the amount party-goers drank did not differ between weaker versus stronger drinks. In another study, he said, most drink participants could not distinguish between beers of different strengths.Obviously the best way to remain healthy is to avoid alcohol and boost your intake of superfoods . But if youpartake of liquor, limit your consumption. Are unqualified 'assistants' really taking the place of nurses and doctors in the UK? (NaturalNews) Great Britain's socialized system of medicine is so' target='_blank'>http://www.medicalchoice.news/">so fraught with problems, that those who oversee it will soon have so-called "nursing associates" rather than licensed and qualified physicians and nurse practitioners begin administering pharmaceuticals and other risky treatments to the country's sickest patients, new reports indicate.Leaked documents written up by the UK's National Health Service (NHS) reveal that health officials there are already and quietly in the process of training some 2,000 nursing associates to carry out these new duties, which will include handing out potentially deadly medicines and administering them to patients as a doctor would except with no doctor present.Thereports that the first group of nursing associates is expected to begin training as soon as this upcoming January at 11 sites throughout the country. In as little as two years, according to Health Education England, these individuals will be "ready" to start delivering hands-on care to patients with absolutely no supervision from qualified nurses or doctors a first for the country's allegedly "advanced" care protocols.There's apparently such a shortage of qualified individuals in the UK to perform these duties or a simple lack of necessary funding that the NHS is having to cut corners by bringing in unqualified individuals to perform them instead. Patients will basically be receiving medical treatments from people http://www.corruption.news/" target="_blank">who aren't legally allowed to administer them, all under the sanctioning of the government."By the end of the programme, the trainee nursing associate will be able to deliver planned nursing interventions ... in a range of health and/or care settings under the direction of a registered https://www.naturalnews.com/nurse.html>nurse without direct supervision, delivering care at times independently in line with an agreed/defined plan of care," the document reads.Since the plan came to light, many have come out in condemnation of what it entails. Anne Marie Rafferty, a professor of nursing policy at King's College London, expressed concerns about the plan to the, warning that the new protocols could lead to all sorts of problems, including misdiagnoses http://science.naturalnews.com/malpractice.h... target="_blank">and medical malpractice."It does not appear to be well thought through and is a recipe for confusion within the nursing profession, the public and other professions such as doctors about who is doing what in clinical practice," she said."What are these people not able to do? What would be the sole preserve and prerogative in terms of scope of practice for the qualified registered nurse? It also raises questions over accountability because of the confusion it will create."The Royal College of Nurses (RCN) previously expressed its own concerns about the plan, warning that it represents a potential slippery slope towards replacing qualified nurses and doctors with what amount to fill-in assistants that, though they might require less pay, will surely put patients at increased risk of complications or even death. A published study from back in February corroborates this, having found that the use of healthcare "assistants" increases patient risk of death.Similar evidence out of the U.S. supports this, having found that hiring the American equivalent of nursing assistants increases not only the risk of mortality, but also the likelihood of poorer patient outcomes in many other areas."The nursing associate role must not be a substitute for registered nurses, who are required to make clinical judgements using a high level of experience and knowledge to assess complex situations," RCN chief executive and general secretary, Janet Davies, told the http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-38... target="_blank">DailyMail.co.uk www.nursingtimes.net/news/policies-and-guida... target="_blank">NursingTimes.net Recurring earthquakes near drilling sites in the United States has been long associated to hydraulic fracturing or fracking, but the U.S. Geological Survey kept reassuring Americans that wastewater disposal, and not the fracking operations itself, is the cause of most induced earthquakes. Now, a new study from the University of Calgary revealed that injecting fluid deep underground could buildup enough stress to produce periodic earthquakes that can last for months after the fracking operations have stopped. The study, published in the journal Science, showed that fracking operations in western Canada can directly influence most induced earthquakes in two ways. "The key message is that the primary cause of injection-induced seismicity in Western Canada is different from the central United States," explained David W. Eaton, a professor of geophysics at the University of Calgary and co-author of the study, in a report from New York Times. "It's a different situation." For the study, the researchers analyzed the seismic activity at Fox Creek, Alberta using data from four seismograph stations near six drilling sites between December 2014 and March 2015. The researchers found two patterns to the seismic activity in the western Canada. First, most of the earthquakes in the east of fault line occurred during the fracking operations. On the other hand, few immediate quakes in the west of the fault occurred intermittently over several months after the fracking ceased. Their analysis of the two pattern showed that the fracking process in could produce an explosion-like shock that can travel into the rock formation and disrupt the stress patterns from within. Critical changes in the stress patterns could push the fault over to the edge, creating earthquakes that can be prevented when the fracking stopped. On the other hand, the researchers noted that the earthquakes in the west were caused by fracking fluid that remained underground in the fractured shale. These fracking fluids could lead to more persistent pressure within the fault zone, creating more earthquakes over time even the fracking operations stopped. An underwater graveyard of dead corals in the Pacific is slowly coming back to life, scientists found. Just a year ago, scientists examined the coral reefs in Kiritimati, a remote island in the Pacific. What used to be a stunning site had become an underwater ghost town: 85 percent of the coral was dead and 10 percent was sick because of coral bleached. Only about 5 percent of them were alive. But after returning this November, the same group of scientists found that 6 to 7 percent of the coral is now alive. Many of the fish that used to rely on coral reefs have come back, and there are "coral babies" settling in. "We left with a sense of dread and came back with a renewed purpose because there are some corals that literally came back from the brink," Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech who returned from the expedition earlier, told the Associated Press. "It's the best we could have hoped for." Coral bleaching affects not only the coral community but the entire ecosystem as well. When water temperatures rise, corals release the symbiotic algae that dwell inside them. The algae provide the nutrients that create the bright colors in the corals, and without them, the corals turn bone white. If temperatures continue to rise, the coral will eventually die. According to scientists, oceans are currently experiencing the longest stretch of coral bleaching on record, which is driven mostly by El Nino - the natural occasional warming of the Pacific that changes the weather globally - and exacerbated by man-made global warming. The Kiritimati coral reefs are among the most severely affected coral spots in the world. "But despite this mass mortality, there are a few small signs of hope," Julia Baum, coral reef scientist at the University of Victoria, said in the same statement. "It's clear that coral reefs have great resilience and the coral here is trying to recover." The Kiritimati coral reefs are not the only ones that have shown strong signs of recovery. Scott reef off Western Australia has revived almost half of its original reef 12 years after the 1998 El Nino had damaged the region. The Coral Castles Reef, which had been pronounced dead in 2003, was found to be flourishing again. Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero is still determined to perform the world's first human head transplant, having stated that recent advances in re-connecting spinal cords that are surgically severed has opened up the door to full human head transplants. Canavero has just announced that his patient, 30-year-old Valery Spiridonov who suffers from muscular atrophy, will spend much of his preparation time inside a virtual reality machine to get him used to his new body. Several members of the scientific community are very skeptical of Canavero's claims, even more so of his timeline since he plans to perform the procedure within the next 12 months. But Canavero also has his supporters: Dr. Ren Xiaoping of Harbin Medical University has signed on to help Canavero with the 36-hour operation. Both doctors are widely popular for their willingness to take extreme medical risks. Should the procedure be successful, it could still lead to "unexpected psychological reactions" from the patient as he adjusts to his new life. Canavero's solution? A virtual reality world to prepare the patient for the new body. Spiridonov will be trained to deal with the "unexpected psychological reactions" using a new VR system. The system was unveiled during the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow conference in Scotland last Friday. "This virtual reality system prepares the patient in the best possible way for a new world that he will be facing with his new body," Canavero said. "A world in which he will be able to walk again." The system was created by the Chicago-based tech firm, Inventum Bioengineering Technologies and was designed to help prospective head transplant patients adjust to the sensation of looking down and seeing someone else's body. Inventum chief executive Alexander Pavlovcik advised that patients would need to take part in sessions for months before an operation. "In preparing the patient of Heaven (Head Anastomosis Venture) to transition into a new body, virtual reality training will be used before the surgical procedure to prevent the occurrence of unexpected psychological reactions." Prospective patient Mr Spiridonov, is optimistic. "Virtual reality simulations are extremely important as this kind of systems allow to get involved into action and learn fast and efficiently. As a computer scientist I am extremely certain that it is an essential technology for the Heaven project." Representatives from 47 of what could be considered as some of the world's most "disadvantaged" nations are pledging to go full green and renewable energy by the year 2020. Countries such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Haiti are pledging to update their national plans in order to cut carbon before 2020. This was done during the Climate Vulnerable Forum this year in Marrakech. According to BBC, this was welcomed as an "inspirational" move by other delegates. These negotiations have been going on more or less as a reaction to the election of Donald Trump into the US presidency. In an effort to show that even what could be considered as the world's "poorest countries" are dealing with global warming, members of the CVF have promised to go full green energy between 2030 and 2050. The Marrakech Vision promises that the 47 members will be meeting 100-percent renewable energy production as rapidly as possibly while striving to end energy poverty. In turn, this may be able to help protect water and food security, depending on national circumstances. The countries are also stalwart supporters to keep the global temperature rise this century under 1.5 degrees Celsius, as agreed in the Paris negotiations last year. This is in order to avoid impacts such as hurricanes, typhoons, and droughts. Part of the Marrakech Vision is to also create long-term plans in order to sustain their climate-cutting pledges. Edgar Gutierrez, Costa Rica's environment minister, also urged everyone to move toward net carbon neutrality and 100 percent renewable energy. Of course, it should be considered that much of the progress toward accomplishing these goals depend on the help of richer nations. They have promised to contribute at least $100 billion a year from 2020, as instructed from the Paris climate agreement. However, if the U.S. pulls out from the agreement, there can be a vast impact on the fund. America haspromised $3 billion from the initial capitalization of the green climate fund, but it has only paid $500 million to date, and President-elect Donald Trump has "promised" that he will stop spending on global warming initiatives. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be meaningless without U.S. participation, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he would withdraw the United States from the pan-Pacific free trade deal. Abe, who attended a gathering of TPP leaders in Lima on Saturday, said there was no discussion at the meeting that other members should try to put the TPP into effect without the United States, Abe told reporters in Buenos Aires. "The TPP would be meaningless without the United States," Abe said. Trump released a video on Monday laying out actions he would take on his first day in office on Jan. 20, including withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a joint statement with Argentine President Mauricio Macri at the Casa Rosada Government House, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 21, 2016. Trump campaigned for the U.S. presidency on a promise to pull out of the 12-nation trade deal, calling it a job-killing "disaster." Abe, who met Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to discuss economic cooperation and a decades-old territorial row, stressed at the Buenos Aires news conference his resolve to put an end to the island dispute under his leadership. "This is the problem that cannot be solved without the relationship of trust between leaders," Abe said. "I will be directly communicating with President Putin and make progress one solid step at a time." The territorial row over the chain of western Pacific islands, seized by Soviet troops at the end of World War Two, has upset diplomatic ties ever since, precluding a formal peace treaty between Tokyo and Moscow. Search Keywords: Short link: A company aims to release "workplace" versions of its hallmark modular exoskeleton. The armor can reduce muscle force needed for hard labor by 2.5 times, with a medical version to be available in 2018. People can recognize SuitX as the company that makes exoskeleton for people with disabilities. A spin-off of the University of California, Berkeley, it has now created a trio of devices that uses the same technologies to enhance the skills of able-bodied workers. Their new set of exoskeleton aims to prevent common workplace injuries. According to Next Big Future, SuitX's Modular Agile eXoskeleton (MAX) has three components: bacX, shoulderX, and legX. These can lower the forces of different joints and muscles and can be worn together or separately in order to help with lifting, carrying, and other repetitive manual tasks. The system gradually increases the support force during lifts and equally distributes the weight of objects across the system. It's also heavily adjustable, being able to fit an assortment of dimensions. New research from Berkeley indicates that the new system can reduce the muscle force required to complete tasks by as much as 60 percent. The MAX also won two Saint Gobain Nova Innovation Awards for its design and impact. The system aims to provide a flexible exoskeleton solution that adapts to a variety of tasks. The result is a system that can allow workers to complete tasks involving shoulders, lower back, and legs while avoiding injuries at the same time. SuitX also wants their suits to be comfortable enough for everyday use. All modules "engage" when you need them to and stops when you don't. This means ascending and descending stairs and ladders, biking and driving are not interrupted by the exoskeleton. SuitX said it conducted field evaluations in the U.S. and Japan in various fields, such as construction, material handling, shipbuilding, airport baggage handling, and foundry. The workplace exosuit appears to be already available, while its medical version should be available in early 2018. Leading military and intelligence experts are going to reveal in a global conference just how governments may use social media as a tool for warfare, with alarming evidence of how they use the internet as "a new front in warfare." The Sixth Annual Confernece on Social Media Within the Defence and Military Sector is sponsored by the Thales Group, which is the tenth largest defense company in the world also partially owned by the French Government. According to Motherboard, the conference highlights the perceived need of governments to "exploit" social media in order to gather intelligence on civilian populations, enemies, and conduct propaganda to influence the public. American Civil Liberties Union last month revealed that CIA-funded Geofeedia is already being used by the police to conduct surveillance on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to monitor activists and protesters. While Facebook and Twitter already revoked Geofeedia's access to the feeds, the conference seeks to prove that social media surveillance is becoming a rapidly-growing industry with no oversight. The more alarming insight is how governments are benefiting from the transaction. For instance, a panel will discuss how the UK military can "maintain a wide reach over a valid audience with reduced costs" using social media. Another is with the military using social media to influence the beliefs of populations to win wars. Another will make direct reference to the role of social media in covert US military operations. Termed as psychological warfare, these propaganda operations also use social media to support mass surveillance. The conference also aims to show that social media can be an effective propaganda tool for the military even in remote regions. For instance, only nine percent of the continent of Africa has access to social media, but still wants to ensure that these citizens are still getting the right message. Military forces around the world are concerned how social media can potentially be a new "battleground" to identify actual and potential enemies, influence opinions and collect intelligence. The event is chaired by Steven Mehringer, Communications Services head at NATO, and some of the military and intelligence leaders from the world. It will also include "social media experts" from across the armed forces and defense industries. The Luxembourg government has a new law that ensures that private operators working in space will have the right to the resources that they extract. This is part of an overall strategy within its SpaceResources.lu initiative to use and extract resources from Near-Earth Objects (NEO) such as asteroids. According to Luxembourg's government website, the draft law affirms that space resources can be appropriated in accordance with international law. This makes Luxembourg the first European country to provide legal certainty toward the ownership of minerals and other space resources in NEOs. The law is based on a study of the legal and regulatory aspects of the usage of space resources by the University of Luxembourg. Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Etienne Schneider said the legal framework in the draft law is perfectly in line with the Outer Space Treaty. She affirmed that the law does not suggest or establish that Luxembourg has any sovereignty over a celestial body. Rather, it affirms that Luxembourg's new legislation wants it to be a European hub for the exploration of space. It can be remembered that the Outer Space Treaty prohibits the ownership of Celestial Bodies such as the Moon by any nation. University of Luxembourg guest professor Jean-Louis Schiltz commented that the legal framework is very innovative and "strongly embedded" in the international legal framework. The draft law also laid down regulations or the authorization and the supervision of space resources, such as the exploration and use of these resources. Companies that want to undertake missions to gather space resources must obtain authorization to do so. The draft law is expected to enter into effect in 2017. Meanwhile, Schneider also said that negotiations are underway to formalize relationships with around 20 companies and entrepreneurs to cement this undertaking. NASA and Russia have resumed their discussions about a potential joint mission to explore Venus in the late 2020s. The discussion has been put for two years now, but was postponed because of the sanctions imposed against Russia over Ukraine in 2014. According to United Press International, the mission called Venera-D aims to land a space probe on the surface of Venus and spend several days conducting research before it gets destroyed by the intense heat. Russianspaceweb.com reported that Venera-D is the first Russian project in the post-Soviet period aimed to explore Venus. "D" stands for Dolgozhivushaya (long-lasting). "A joint working team put forward several scenarios of the project in October, with Russian and American competences complementing each other. After that we discussed the matter with NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman, who confirmed NASA's interest to the Venus-D project," director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Lev Zeleny told the Izvestiya Daily. Named after the Roman Goddess of beauty, Venus is the second planet from the sun and our closest planetary neighbor. It is considered as the hottest planet in the solar system because its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect. NASA said its surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead. "We made a lot of progress," said David Senske, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who is the U.S. co-chair of the Venera-D science definition team. "We heard a lot about what they had in mind. We've been told this is an IKI/Roscosmos endeavor, so they're in the driver's seat." If the joint mission pushes through, it will not be the first time a spacecraft has reached the planet. The very first time that the human race had ever landed a spacecraft on Venus was in December 1970. The capsule of the Soviet Vega-2 robot station exploded in less than two hours because of extreme heat. No official agreements had been made yet. Meanwhile, a number of European and Chinese agencies have also expressed their interest to participate in the mission. It is no secret how the turnout of the recent presidential elections have some sectors nervous for their futures. The president-elect, Donald Trump, has made very damning statements about a slew of different fields before and during his campaign. Arguably, scientists championing projects geared towards alleviating the effects of climate change are amongst the most worried for the future of their projects. In the past, the upcoming commander-in-chief has expressed his doubt over the legitimacy of climate change a s a global issue. Almost exactly four years ago in 2012 on his official Twitter account, Donald Trump claimed that climate change is nothing more than a hoax. The magnate believes that the so-called issue is something China has invented in order to handicap the U.S. manufacturing industry. "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive" read Trump's tweet. In the light of Trump's victory, Chinese officials have since addressed his previous negative claims regarding climate change. During the recent COP 22 Climate Conference held in Morocco, Chinese Foreign Minister, Liu Zhenmin, explained that Trump's statements are completely baseless especially considering how the U.S. spearheaded the initial efforts to combat climate change in the 1980s. "If you look at the history of climate change negotiations, actually it was initiated by the IPCC with the support of the Republicans during the Reagan and senior Bush administration during the late 1980s" said Liu as reported by Popular Science. Trump has yet to address the concerns of scientists regarding his stance on climate change. Nevertheless, it is a dire issue that needs swift decisive resolution. The effects of climate change have been in the extreme in the last few years. According to NASA, sea levels have risen double in the last century, global temperature have broke all former historical records and glacial sheets amount to a fraction of what they used to be a few decades ago. Now that President-elect Donald Trump is meeting with his transition committee, NASA is more than ever, prepared to welcome the new leader. However, speculations are circulating saying that Trump threatens to decrease the agency's climate change budget to shift focus on the moon and the solar system. Reports say that Donald Trump will cut NASA's budget to fund missions that will send humans on the edge of the Solar System and to the moon. Although it may sound appealing, that the new leader is actually interested in deep space explorations, it is despondent to hear that the president-elect might still think climate change is a hoax due to this move. Some changes will also be experienced by NASA as it is said to be reduced to "a logistics agency concentrating on space station resupply and politically correct environmental monitoring," said Bob Walker, one of Donald Trump's space policy adviser in an interview with Telegraph. "We would start by having a stretch goal of exploring the entire solar system by the end of the century," Walker added. The new administration wants NASA to focus on space programs instead on Earth-based climate change programs. Although again, it is enticing to see the new president thinking of space explorations, NASA will definitely not be happy with what looks like Trump's intentional disregard to the pressing issues of climate change. But NASA is adamant in saying the Earth-based programs is entirely beneficial to human life. "Nasa's work on Earth science is making a difference in people's lives all around the world every day. Earth science helps save lives," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA science administrator said in a statement. Since Trump's advisers already mentioned a possible lunar mission, experts around the world say that Trump may indeed send humans to the moon under his administration. "It is very plausible to speculate that the new administration will insert a mission to the lunar surface, probably international in character, as a step on the way to Mars," John Logston, a science policy analyst said in a statement. NASA received $1.92 billion this year. However, there is no percentage revealed as to how much of the agency's climate change budget will be sacrificed. For the first time, an optical clock was tested in space, demonstrating that the precise technology could be used in space-based applications. The space-borne optical clock is equipped with a new frequency comb technology- the "gears" that make clocks tick at optical frequencies. According to the researchers, who wrote the report published in Optica, the new compact, robust and automated frequency comb laser system had successfully survived the harsh conditions of a rocket launch and operated in microgravity before falling back to Earth. "Our device represents a cornerstone in the development of future space-based precision clocks and metrology," Matthias Lezius of Menlo Systems GmbH and first author of the paper, said in a statement. "The optical clock performed the same in space as it had on the ground, showing that our system engineering worked very well." Phones and other GPS-enabled devices communicate with satellites that bear atomic clocks, which are based on natural oscillation of the cesium atom - a frequency in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Each satellite provides a time stamp and the system calculates the person's location based on the relative difference among those times. But optical clocks have higher frequencies - using visible light instead of microwave - and tick faster than atomic clocks, which could provide more accurate time stamps and improve GPS precision. Frequency combs are the key to the operation of optical clocks, but conventional frequency combs have been too large and too complex to be used outside a laboratory. But Lezius and Menlo Systems developed an automated optical frequency comb that measures only 22 by 14. 2 centimeters and weighs 22 kilograms, and is rugged enough to withstand extreme acceleration forces and temperature changes when being launched into space. "We think that it's not so far away that such clocks will be space-qualified to fly on satellites," Lezius said in a report by Space.com. In April 2015, the system launched on a research rocket for a 6-minute parabolic flight into space. While in microgravity, the system started taking measurements automatically and was controlled from the ground station through a low-bandwidth radio link. While the experiment did not have the desired level of accuracy, the researchers are planning to relaunch a more accurate version by the end of 2017. The Alabama Department of Public Health blames the chicken served at a wedding last November 12 for the recent outbreak of salmonella that sickened nearly 100 in Colbert County. Preliminary investigation of the health officials showed traces of the salmonella enteriditis in food specimens of cooked chicken and green beans that were served during the wedding. About 150 people attended the wedding. Out of those, 99 were sickened due to the food borne disease with 22 of them needed hospital care. According to the report from Decatur Daily, the Indelible Catering of Moulton, which provided the food for the wedding, has been involved to another outbreak of food-borne disease in 2014. The permit of Indelible Catering of Moulton is now being suspended by emergency order. Federal investigators believe that the salmonella originated in the chicken and cross-contaminated the green beans, most likely from using the same utensils during preparation. Poultry products that have not been cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees have a high risk of salmonella contamination. Telltale symptoms of salmonella include diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after infection. The illness usually last four to seven days and in most cases, patients can recover without medical intervention. However, some extreme cases of infection could cause severe diarrhea, resulting in hospitalization. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, salmonella is estimated to cause one million food-borne illnesses in the United States every year. These also include about 19,000 hospitalization and 380 deaths as a direct result of the illness. Salmonella can become a deadly illness when the bacteria spread from the intestines to the blood vessels and then to other body parts. Children, elderly and people with compromised immune system are more likely to experience the more severe case of salmonella. The best way to prevent the spread of salmonella is thoroughly cooking raw poultry and meat. Keeping a clean work environment with different set of utensils for raw products, vegetables and other ingredients could also prevent further spread of the bacteria through cross-contamination. Chinese astronauts arrived safely back on Earth after finishing the country's longest-ever manned space mission, which, according to Zhang Youxia, commander-in-chief of China's manned space program, was a complete success. Astronauts Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong took a month-long space mission aboard the Shenzhou 11 at the Tiangong 2, also known as the Heavenly Palace 2. The first space mission for 38-year-old Dong and the third time for 50-year-old veteran Jing Haipeng, the commander who also participated in the Shenzhou-7 and Shenzhou-9 missions. In a report by Space Daily, Haipeng and Dong landed the 11 space capsule last Friday, November 18, at the expect site, the Central Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Vice premier and member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Zhang Gaoli immediately welcomed them and delivered message of congratulations from the CPC Central Committee, the State Council and the Central Military Commission at the command center of China's manned space program in Beijing. China's Shenzhou-11 space mission is the country's sixth manned space flight. Launched on October 17 of this year, the spacecraft docked two days later at Tiangong-2, China's first space laboratory, where the Chinese astronauts lived for 30 days. Aside from transporting personnel and materials, the two also did a series of aerospace medical experiments, space science experiments, and in-orbit maintenance. Some of their experiments included raising silkworms in space and bringing germinated seeds of flowering plant thale cress, in hopes of further understand farming and botanical advancement in space. At a press conference, Huang Weifen, a deputy chief designer with the Astronaut Center of China, told the press, "The success of this mission demonstrates that China has acquired the capability to support long stays in space by astronauts." China plans to build its own permanent manned space station by the year 2022. The Chinese space station initially designed to last for 10 years can house three up to six astronauts who can stay in space for up to a year. Kiev police said on Tuesday they were investigating an attack by far-right activists on a Russian bank and the office of a Ukrainian politician who is close friends with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. On Monday, Ukraine had marked the third anniversary of the start of three months of protests that resulted in the country's Russian-backed former president being ousted in February 2014 as the former Soviet republic set on a pro-European Union course. The peaceful day ended with violent rallies by nationalists who at one stage firebombed and ransacked the Kiev office of the Russian bank Sberbank. The activists "destroyed furniture and apparently came away with some office equipment", the Kiev police said in a statement. The branch's representative in Kiev told AFP that the bank remained closed on Tuesday due to damage but that none of the staff had been hurt. The protesters also targeted the office of Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. The 62-year-old leads the Ukrainian Choice movement and is branded as a Russian ally by Kiev because of his personal ties to Putin. The police said the windows of Medvedchuk's office were broken and "smoke bombs were thrown inside, which caused a fire". Ukrainian Choice issued a statement on Tuesday saying that 1,000 "fascist youngsters" were responsible for the storming of the office. It also said that it supported peace in Ukraine and called "on the international community to make an appropriate assessment of the radicals' attack". Medvedchuk currently serves as a negotiator for the release of prisoners in the 31-month pro-Russian separatist conflict that has claimed nearly 10,000 lives in Ukraine's industrial east. The Kiev police said it had launched two criminal investigations but had so far made no arrests. Ukrainian nationalists have previously attacked Russian targets on holidays marking Kiev's split from Moscow. Branches of at least three Russian banks were targeted during a spate of violence in February across Ukraine that coincided with the second anniversary of Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovych being forced from office. Search Keywords: Short link: DODGE COUNTY, Wis. (WMTV)---Authorities are investigating the death of a 46-year-old Milwaukee man who was found dead inside a cabin in Dodge County Monday night. According to the Dodge County Sheriffs Office, the two men were staying at a cabin in rural Reeseville. A family member of the two men reported the men were overdue to return home from a weekend deer hunting trip, and the family was unable to reach either men by phone. When responding deputies knocked at the door, they didnt receive a response. They were able to see through a window that one of the men on the floor was unresponsive. Deputies requested EMS and forced their way into the cabin. Authorities said the mans father, a 69-year-old man from Milwaukee, was transported by EMS to a local hospital with a potential life-threatening medical problem. He was later transferred to an Intensive Care Unit in Madison. His condition is unknown at this time. A cause has not yet been determined, but carbon monoxide and other environmental causes are being investigated. Copyright 2016: WMTV Families of county jail inmates across California are striking back against what they call unfair and excessive phone fees that send vulnerable families into debt and limit communication between loved ones. Families of county jail inmates across California are striking back against what they call unfair and excessive phone fees that send vulnerable families into debt and limit communication between loved ones. At least nine California counties have been hit with class action lawsuits this year claiming jails extort mostly poor and minority families that are trying to stay in contact with incarcerated family members. For a boy or girl speaking with their father or a wife calling her husband, those fees can be cost prohibitive. In parts of the Bay Area, families can spend more than $30 for a one hour conversation. With these families in mind, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 earlier this year to limit what prisons and jails can charge for in-state phone calls, but a federal court blocked that fee cap. Families and their attorneys are now waging that fight one county at a time throughout the state. They realize there isnt an abundance of public sympathy for inmates, but they ask the public to consider the toll those fees take on families, and what its like for a child to grow up without a relationship with their mother or father. [Inmates] are paying their time for what they did, said Shirley Banks, whose husband is serving a four-year stint for burglary in a San Mateo County jail. Theres no reason why their loved ones have to be punished. Banks, a plaintiff in one of those lawsuits, spent more than 30 years working for Hewlett Packard. She met her husband Alfred later in life, after retiring from her career. They bonded through a church program to feed the hungry and were soon married. Just days after they were married, Alfred began his sentence. When he was first incarcerated, we were newlyweds, Banks said. Real newlyweds like three days. So to me, it was doubly important that we kept communication. Shes only allowed to visit twice a week, so Banks cherishes the time they spend on the phone. They speak at least twice a day unless theyre interrupted by a lockdown or some other disturbance at the jail. But those conversations come at a price. Every month, Banks pays hundreds of dollars in fees to a private company contracted by the county to provide jail phone services. Each 15 minute call costs more than $4, and by the end of the month, her budget is stretched thin. To avoid going into debt, Banks came out of retirement, taking a part time job working the cash register at a local Walmart. The average bill is anywhere from $300 to $350, but Ive gotten $450 depending on whats going on with him, Banks said. At one point he was in the hospital and after that I wanted to talk more to follow what was happening. Jail vs. Prison The cost of a phone call from a Bay Area jail varies by county, but theyre all significantly more expensive than calls made from a California State Prison. Thats because California dramatically reduced the price of in-state phone calls from its state prisons in 2011, limiting the cost of a 15 minute conversation to less than $1.50. But phone contracts obtained by the Investigative Unit show calling from a Bay Area county jail can cost nearly six times higher. In Napa County, which charges the highest fees in the region, the cost of that same 15 minute call can cost nearly nine dollars. Even in San Francisco, which has the cheapest rates in the Bay Area, families pay more than $2.60 for 15 minutes on the phone. Those fees mean big money for Bay Area counties, which raked in more than $6.5 million last year. Alameda County alone generated more than $2.2 million in revenue. But proponents of those fees say the money goes to a good cause. California law mandates that the revenue is placed in an inmate welfare fund to pay for things like educational and religious services. Although all nine Bay Area counties declined to be interviewed for this story, some said these funds would dry up if fees were slashed. INFO GRAPHIC HERE But critics of the fees, including FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, argue these programs can still be maintained without placing the financial burden on vulnerable families. Inmates typically dont have many advocates in their corner, but on this issue, they have a powerful champion in Clyburn. We cant talk about being a family-friendly nation if 2.7 million children cannot afford to keep in touch with family members on a regular basis, Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said. This is devastating communities. It is tearing families apart. According to Clyburn, who ranked this issue among the most important facing the FCC, families pay an average of $5,000 each year to keep in touch with incarcerated love ones. Studies (LINK) show that one in three families will go into debt paying for jail phone calls. Clyburn said she was devastated when a federal court blocked the FCCs approved fee cap, but vows to keep fighting. It has a heartbreaking ripple effect in our society, Clyburn said. This is why we need to address this market failure, the most egregious case of market failure I have ever seen in my 18 years of regulation. Reform advocates like Clyburn also argue that lower phone rates are beneficial for society as a whole. Jail can be a revolving door for many inmates, but studies show family contact reduces recidivism when they return to society. Darris Young, who served 17 years in prison, knows this firsthand. One of the loneliest places that a person can be is when he or she paroles from prison, Young said. Youre returning to nothing and nobody. That within itself perpetuates the cycle of recidivism, not having anybody out there. Young now works with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland as a local organizer. He spends a lot of time doing outreach work at local jails, and speaks routinely speaks to the families of inmates. He said counties should consider those families when setting phone rates. If they dont care about the individual thats incarcerated, then they should care about the family members, especially the children, Young said. Because what ultimately makes our society safer is when we invest in people that are already at the lower end of our societal success scale. Despite having to put retirement on hold, Banks said shell keep paying for those phone calls. Its an investment in her relationship, after all. And one day soon, she can speak to her husband for as long as she wants with no guards and nobody else listening. We want to talk, even though we talk all the time, Banks said. But without hearing, you have one minute remaining. At least nine California counties have been hit with class action lawsuits this year claiming jails extort mostly poor and minority families that are trying to stay in contact with incarcerated family members. For a boy or girl speaking with their father or a wife calling her husband, those fees can be cost prohibitive. In parts of the Bay Area, families can spend more than $30 for a one-hour conversation. With those families in mind, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 earlier this year to limit what prisons and jails can charge for in-state phone calls, but a federal court blocked that fee cap. Families and their attorneys are now waging that fight one county at a time throughout the state. They realize there isnt an abundance of public sympathy for inmates, but they ask the public to consider the toll those fees take on families and what its like for a child to grow up without a relationship with their mother or father. [Inmates] are paying their time for what they did, said Shirley Banks, whose husband is serving a four-year stint for burglary in a San Mateo County jail. Theres no reason why their loved ones have to be punished. Banks, a plaintiff in one of those lawsuits, spent more than 30 years working for Hewlett Packard. She met her husband Alfred later in life, after retiring from her career. They bonded through a church program to feed the hungry and were soon married. Just days after they were married, Alfred began serving his sentence. When he was first incarcerated, we were newlyweds, Banks said. Real newlyweds like three days. So to me, it was doubly important that we kept communication. NBC Bay Area Shes only allowed to visit twice a week, so Banks cherishes the time they spend on the phone. They speak at least twice a day unless theyre interrupted by a lockdown or some other disturbance at the jail. But those conversations come at a price. Every month, Banks pays hundreds of dollars in fees to a private company contracted by the county to provide jail phone services. Each 15 minute call costs more than $4, and by the end of the month, her budget is stretched thin. To avoid going into debt, Banks came out of retirement, taking a part time job working the cash register at a local Walmart. The average bill is anywhere from $300 to $350, but Ive gotten $450 depending on whats going on with him, Banks said. At one point, he was in the hospital, and after that I wanted to talk more to follow what was happening. Jail vs. Prison The cost of a phone call from a Bay Area jail varies by county, but theyre all significantly more expensive than calls made from a California state prison. Thats because California dramatically reduced the price of in-state phone calls from its state prisons in 2011, limiting the cost of a 15-minute conversation to less than $1.50. But phone contracts obtained by the Investigative Unit show calling from a Bay Area county jail can cost nearly six times higher. In Napa County, which charges the highest fees in the region, the cost of that same 15-minute call can cost nearly $9. Even in San Francisco, which has the cheapest rates in the Bay Area, families pay more than $2.60 for 15 minutes on the phone. Those fees mean big money for Bay Area counties, which raked in more than $6.5 million last year. Alameda County alone generated nearly $2.2 million in revenue. But proponents of those fees say the money goes to a good cause. California law mandates that the revenue is placed in an inmate welfare fund to pay for things like educational and religious services. Although all nine Bay Area counties declined to be interviewed for this story, some said these funds would dry up if fees were slashed. Kavin Mistry/NBC Bay Area But critics of the fees, including FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, argue these programs can still be maintained without placing the financial burden on vulnerable families. Inmates typically dont have many advocates in their corner, but on this issue, they have a powerful champion in Clyburn. We cant talk about being a family-friendly nation if 2.7 million children cannot afford to keep in touch with family members on a regular basis, Clyburn said. This is devastating communities. It is tearing families apart. According to Clyburn, who ranked this issue among the most important facing the FCC, families pay an average of $5,000 each year to keep in touch with incarcerated love ones. Studies show that one in three families will go into debt paying for jail phone calls. Clyburn said she was devastated when a federal court blocked the FCCs approved fee cap, but vows to keep fighting. It has a heartbreaking ripple effect in our society, Clyburn said. This is why we need to address this market failure, the most egregious case of market failure I have ever seen in my 18 years of regulation. Reform advocates like Clyburn also argue that lower phone rates are beneficial for society as a whole. Jail can be a revolving door for many inmates, but studies show family contact reduces recidivism when they return to society. Darris Young, who served 17 years in prison, knows this firsthand. One of the loneliest places that a person can be is when he or she paroles from prison, Young said. Youre returning to nothing and nobody. That within itself perpetuates the cycle of recidivism, not having anybody out there. NBC Bay Area Young now works with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland as a local organizer. He spends a lot of time doing outreach work at local jails and speaks routinely speaks to the families of inmates. He said counties should consider those families when setting phone rates. If they dont care about the individual thats incarcerated, then they should care about the family members, especially the children, Young said. Because what ultimately makes our society safer is when we invest in people that are already at the lower end of our societal success scale. Despite having to put retirement on hold, Banks said shell keep paying for those phone calls. Its an investment in her relationship, after all. And one day soon, she can speak to her husband for as long as she wants with no guards and nobody else listening. We want to talk, even though we talk all the time, Banks said. But without hearing, you have one minute remaining. If you have a tip for the Investigative Unit email Vicky Nguyenvicky@nbcbayarea.com or you can email theunit@nbcbayarea.com or call 888-996-TIPS. Follow Vicky Nguyen on Twitter www.twitter.com/VickyNguyenTV and Facebookwww.facebook.com/VickyNguyenTV Click here to submit tips online Follow Michael Bott on Twitter @TweetBottNBC The San Ramon Unified School District on Monday announced that it had found yet another incidence of racist graffiti, this time on a Traffix school bus that carries students from Danvilles Monte Vista High School. What was written was not exactly spelled out. This is the sixth time homophobic or racially-charged graffiti has been found in the district, which is made up of predominantly white students, since Oct. 18. At California High School in San Ramon, there have been four reports of vandalism, while Monte Vista has been targeted twice. Nat Rojanasthira, an assistant to the town manager for the city of Danville, confirmed that the graffiti had been found on the back of one of the bus seats, but declined to go into details citing the ongoing investigation. The Danville Police Department will continue its investigation while the school is on Thanksgiving break, while the district will continue looking into the matter once classes resume, Rojanasthira said. First Student, the largest school bus provider in the U.S, operates the Traffix busses. The company could not immediately be reached for comment. The rash of vandalism has been the subject of student-organized walkouts and faculity-led assemblies. At each passing, district officials have attempted to assuage fears that the school is not a welcoming place for minorities, ratcheting up efforts after an African-American student went into one of Monte Vistas restrooms and discovered the words White and Colored scrawled above two urinals. "I am all too aware of how far we have come as a nation in our pursuit of treating all people with dignity and respect," Supt. Rick Schmitt wrote in a message to students. "And yet, events across the nation and in our own community continue to demonstrate the need to teach our children about tolerance and cross-cultural understanding." He suggested that the 2016 election has influenced campus climate. The words exchanged on the campaign trail and the racist words written on bathroom walls cry out for how much we need to support, teach and listen to our children, he wrote. During a protest, district students also rebuked the campaigns rhetoric, saying there is no place for it on campus. "A large group of people felt genuinely unsafe," California High student Danika Katovich said at a school walkout on Nov. 11. "Not necessarily because of Donald Trump, but because of the sentiments that he put forward in his campaign. Throughout the Bay Area and the nation, racist attacks, verbal and physical, are being reported at an alarming rate, according to hate-tracking groups. And many are blaming President-elect Donald Trump a favorite of the "alt right" and the Ku Klux Klan as the culprit for unleashing pent-up racist emotions. As of Monday, the Southern Poverty Law Center had noted 701 reports of hate harrassment since the day after Election Day. As recent as Sunday, however, Trump, in an interview on 60 Minutes said he was unaware of these hate crimes, but told America, if true, to "stop it." Gillian Edevane covers Contra Costa County for NBC Bay Area. Contact her at Gillian.Edevane@NBCuni.com. The scenes from Fukushima, Japan in 2011 stunned the world. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggered a 33-foot high tsunami wave that wiped out the cooling system of the Daiichi nuclear plant releasing tons of harmful radioactive materials into surrounding communities and the Pacific Ocean. Addressing a crowd at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. Monday morning, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the agency is trying to protect American citizens in a timely way from that kind of nuclear contamination. NBC Bay Area A lot of this information and this concern came out of Japan in the Fukushima incident. It didnt get resolved quickly. There were people that were left not knowing what to do, and we thought that it was necessary to provide this information, McCarthy said. Administrator McCarthys appearance was the first public comment directly about questions surrounding a new proposal to allow higher levels of radiation in drinking water after an NBC Bay Area investigation uncovered concerns about the proposal (click here to see original story from November 14, 2016). The EPA administrator told the crowd that there are greater concerns over radiation today, saying, We have more at issue right now in terms of radiation, we have the little bombs that can happen. The EPAs answer is a Protective Action Guide (PAG), which has been in development since at least 2009. The 2009 PAG lists 107 radioactive materials. The most recent, in 2016, lists only 3. For each material, it lists a maximum level. At that level, government agencies or rescue crews must provide bottled water or evacuate residents. The concern is over radioactive materials which are decaying. That means theyre emitting particles, gamma rays or electrons. This radiation can change the chemical balance of cells or change DNA, which can lead to birth defects, cancer, and in large enough doses - death. Before the EPA released its new document, agencies relied on the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 for acceptable radiation levels in drinking water after emergencies. City of Dallas Daniel Hirsch, Director of the Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at UC Santa Cruz, accuses the agency of trying to sneak this plan through. Hes concerned that the levels in the Protective Action Guide, or PAG are drastically higher than the Safe Drinking Water Act. When I looked at the table of numbers that they were proposing and compared them to the Safe Drinking water levels, I almost fell off my chair, said Hirsch. Ive never before seen someone increasing by a factor of a thousand, by 10 thousand or 100 thousand. Ive never ever seen numbers like that and I thought at first it must be a misprint. It isnt. Theyre actually proposing increases that large. To view links to EPA PAGS: The EPAs chief stressed that this should not affect the water we drink every day. I dont want anyone to think that we are changing our standards for drinking water, that is not the case, McCarthy said. She referred to an apocalyptic scenario following a nuclear disaster, saying What we are trying to do is figure out how to actually start transitioning from a case where everybody is in their house and hunkered down, and cant drink drinking water to being able to understand what exposures - in a temporary way - would allow life to continue. A key issue in this debate surrounds the word temporary. How long would the higher doses of radiation be allowed in drinking water? According to McCarthy, We are providing the best information we can in those transition days, not sending a signal that we think that those numbers should be the standard for drinking water. But the EPAs own manual says that these doses are for the first and a limited number of subsequent years. EPA Hirsch thinks the plan will benefit industry and hurt consumers. It (the PAG) is for a year to several years afterward, so it makes no sense unless you are an industry or agency that has polluted groundwater or surface water and you want to avoid having to clean it up. Documents obtained by NBC Bay Area reveal that even the EPAs own experts are concerned about the proposed plan as far back as 2009. Stuart Walker, National Radiation Expert at the EPAs Superfund Division wrote in an email, My management was wondering how we are going to justify allowing consumption of potentially much higher concentrations of radiologically impacted water than we generally would during an emergency. And, Senior Attorney in the Office of General Counsel at EPA, Charles Openchowski wrote, This guidance would allow cleanup levels that exceed (current levels) by a factor of 100, 1000, and in two instances 7 million, and there is nothing to prevent those levels from being the final cleanup achieved. When the EPA posted its plan for public review it received 67,404 responses. Only about six of those were positive. Both Senator Barbara Boxer and New Yorks State Assistant Attorney General John Sipos (Click here to see NY Attorney General letter) have written letters asking the EPA to withdraw the proposal due to the concerns over public health. Sixty environmental groups have also written a letter, and at least one lawsuit is in the works. But despite the opposition, Administrator Gina McCarthy is intent on moving forward with the new rules. She told her listeners today, Were doing the best we can to provide advice in a situation that we certainly hope no will ever face in the United States. A man was killed in an apparent forklift accident Monday afternoon in San Francisco's Dogpatch neighborhood, according to fire officials. The incident occurred just before 2 p.m. at Tennessee and Cesar Chavez streets, according to fire department spokesman Jonathan Baxter. Baxter described the incident as an "industrial accident." Police confirmed they are investigating the incident but provided no additional details. Up to a million people around West Africa's Lake Chad are cut off from humanitarian aid by Boko Haram despite a regional military offensive against the Islamist militants, a United Nations official said on Tuesday. Boko Haram violence has uprooted more than 100,000 people across the swamplands of Lake Chad, where the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria meet, and disrupted the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of others, according to aid agencies. Security sources say a regional task force is wrestling back control of the lake - where Boko Haram controls part of the fishing industry in a labyrinth of waterways - with hundreds of militants having surrendered in the past month. Yet many areas are impossible to reach amid the insecurity, said Toby Lanzer, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel. "We believe that there are up to a million people in the areas and villages we haven't been able to reach," Lanzer said. Boko Haram militants have killed about 15,000 people and displaced more than 2.6 million in a seven-year insurgency and they still launch deadly attacks despite having been pushed out of the vast swathes of territory they controlled in 2014. Some of the displaced in the region have moved again due to fear of further violence or as a result of attacks by Boko Haram, two of which were recorded last month, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). "We are very concerned about the security situation ... do not think that the crisis is anywhere near over," Lanzer told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. Chad earlier this year extended the state of emergency in the region, which has disrupted fishing, farming and cattle breeding and hit cross-border trade, markets and livelihoods, according to the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP). Malnutrition rates in the lake region have dropped slightly over the past year as humanitarian access has improved, said Martha Nakakande of the International Medical Corps (IMC). "But with people spread over so many different islands and IDP (internally displaced persons) sites, we are worried that we can't reach everybody," the IMC's nutrition officer said. Search Keywords: Short link: The Oakland mayors office confirmed Tuesday morning that a "framework deal" has been reached with a development team who wants to keep the Raiders in Oakland. Despite the vague announcement, which offers no specifics, the latest development flies in the face of what Raiders owner Mark Davis has been saying repeatedly: He wants to move to Las Vegas. The Oakland Raiders or the NFL have yet to comment on this latest development, which would need to be approved by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and the Oakland City Council. Oakland #Raiders fans have new hope the team could stay in Oakland. Mayor Libby Schaaf says there's new plan to build a stadium in Oakland. pic.twitter.com/e3Y3poqLtJ Jodi Hernandez (@JodiHernandezTV) November 22, 2016 Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced early Tuesday that she had reached a framework with a group led by former NFL player Ronnie Lott, a spokesperson for the mayor's office said. Schaaf said she's never felt closer to finding a way to keep the Raiders in Oakland. "We're excited that, for the first time, we're working with a private partner who has not just the passion to keep the Raiders in Oakland but also the capacity to put upfront the amount of capital it will take to privately finance a stadium," Schaaf said. "The Raiders belong in Oakland. This is where they were born and raised. This is a part of their identity, and they are a part of our identity." Aside from being a Hall of Famer, Lott is among a group of investors who had wanted to buy the Coliseum land, which includes Oracle Arena and other properties, for $167.3 million. Lott and others signaled their intent to keep the team in Oakland and out of Las Vegas in September. According to Schaafs office, the mayor will be meeting with representatives from the county and the City Council in closed session over the next few days. There is a framework that has been agreed upon and is currently in closed session with the county and will be in closed session on Nov. 29 with the City Council," Schaaf spokeswoman Erica Terry Derryck said. "Both bodies will review so we know if we can move forward." Raiders vs Texans in Mexico City Jim Zelinski, co-founder of Save Oakland Sports, which launched the Quedate in Oakland rally in Mexico, among other efforts to keep the team in Oakland, said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the development. But there are two big hurdles," he said. "First, you need the buy-in of the most important stakeholder, (owner) Mark Davis. And two, dont forget there are some very powerful owners who have lined up behind the Las Vegas deal. Zelinski noted that despite what the mayor and Lott might have worked out, Davis has said repeatedly that he is ready to move to Vegas. He added: Were behind Mr. Lott, but I dont know what the mayor means by a framework. Still, Zelinski didnt want to come off as sounding too negative. And he vowed that Raiders fans would do everything in their power to keep the team in town as a civic treasure and remind the powers that be that keeping the Raiders in Oakland is is in the best long-term economic interest of the NFL. Longtime fan, Ray Perez, who goes by Dr. Death at the Raiders' games, had a more upbeat take on the news, which he called a "very big deal." The framework means, he said, that anyone who said "Oakland hasn't done anything for the Raiders is now wrong." He said he understands that Lott's investment group would either be able to buy or lease the stadium land, which, in turn, would take Oakland out of the negotiations with the team. "Mark Davis would no longer be negotiating with Oakland anymore," he said. "And this gives the NFL an opportunity to look at the whole market." Still, the NFL and 31 other owners have to agree on whatever deal is hammered out, and all that is up in the air. Plus, Perez asked out loud, "What is Lott getting out of it? There's such a thing as revenue sharing." Amid all the relocation buzz, the Raiders have become a bonafide Super Bowl contender, CSN's Ray Ratto wrote Monday. The Raiders making the playoffs is a given, "after Mondays 27-20 come-from-behind win over the improbably decent Houston Texans," Ratto wrote in his column. Oakland Unified School District's superintendent is headed to the nation's capital to become chancellor of schools in the D.C. area, an Oakland district spokesman confirmed late Monday night. Superintendent Antwan Wilson came to Oakland in April 2015 from Denver, where he spent six years as an assistant superintendent. Ash Solar, executive director of Go Public Schools Oakland, released a statement Monday night in response to Wilson's departure, calling him a champion for equity and opportunity in education. "Antwans work has led to progress for all students," Solar said. "Under his leadership, there have been increases in high school graduation rates and college readiness as well as decreases in school suspension rates. While we are disappointed by Antwans departure, we know that he has left a strong foundation for the district to maintain the progress that it is making." Solar concluded by calling on the school board to move quickly in finding Wilson's successor. A group of longtime Palo Alto residents say a private school is trying to rip out 100-year-old trees to make way for a parking lot. The residents are now fighting the school expansion from moving into their historic neighborhood. "They trample on us," resident Christine Stone said. "It's offensive to me." Stone believes her block will lose its quiet charm if the private all girls campus, Castilleja School, is allowed to expand. The school is asking permission from the city to increase student enrollment and rebuild the campus at 1310 Bryant Street, just off Embarcadero Road. Part of the plan includes tearing out a home currently owned by the school and replacing it with an underground parking structure. "We don't want our street destroyed and turned into an industrial concrete bunker exit," resident Rob Levitsky said. In a statement, Castilleja School said in part they are "committed to maintaining the current traffic level with no additional impact to the neighborhood even as students are added." While some neighbors welcome the school upgrade, others fear their tree-line street will be at risk. The city forestry director did not know how many trees on the property would be removed if the plan is approved, but he did say it could be a couple dozen. That is part of an environmental review, which will likely take several months for the city to complete. Kanye West was under observation at a Los Angeles hospital late Monday after he abruptly canceled the remaining dates of his national tour, multiple sources familiar with the case told NBC News. The admission followed a week of bizarre incidents during which the provocative rapper publicly railed against fellow music stars Beyonce and Jay Z and retroactively endorsed President-elect Donald Trump. A source familiar with the case said Los Angeles police responded to a medical welfare call about 1:20 p.m. No criminal activity was involved; the decision to hospitalize West at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center was for his own health and safety, the sources said. A court in Turkey issued a formal warrant Thursday for the arrest of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the government accuses of being behind the failed July 15 coup that left more than 270 people dead. Neighbors described the scene on the 900 block of North Laurel Avenue to NBC4, saying there were "security guards, fire trucks and police." "I knew that something was going on," resident Kaye Switzer said. The house that firefighters and police responded to is owned by Harley Pasternak, a celebrity trainer with clients that come to him. Pasternak was seen leaving his house Monday night, but would not comment on West. West's concert promoter, Live Nation, said earlier in the day that the remaining dates of his Saint Pablo Tour had been called off. No reason was given. The cancellation of Wests tour comes on the heels of a rough week for the rapper. On Thursday, West announced at a concert in San Jose, California, that he hadn't voted in the 2016 presidential election but that he would have supported Trump "if I voted." And on Saturday, West delivered a politically charged rant at his show in Sacramento, California. He lashed out against everyone from Beyonce to Mark Zuckerberg, before cutting the show short and dropping the microphone on stage. Less than 24 hours after the Sacramento incident, West canceled his Los Angeles area show at the Forum. [NATL] Top Entertainment Photos: Best of the American Music Awards, and More It's hardly the first time West has found himself in hot water for combative, self-aggrandizing behavior. The artist known for hits such as "Gold Digger" and "Jesus Walks" once famously interrupted Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards, insisting that her award should have gone to Beyonce. Last year, he declared that he would run for president in 2020. NBC4's Whitney Irick and Robert Kovacik contributed to this report. The attorney for a suspect charged in the assault of a Richmond Sikh man said it's a case of fraud, not a hate crime. Two men from Texas, Chase Little and Colton LeBlanc, pleaded not guilty to hate crime charges Monday in Contra Costa County court. They're accused of attacking Richmond resident Maan Singh Khalsa last month. Prosecutors say the men targeted Khalsa in the assault because of his ethnicity. But the suspects' attorneys insist there's another side to the story, and LeBlanc's lawyer, Joseph Tully, claims the charges are based on fraud. "There's a big self-defense claim there," Tully said. "One of the individuals was struck by a car by the complaining witness in this case, so that preceded everything." Prosecutor Simon O'Connell disagreed. "We went into a long investigation before filing charges to make sure we had not only the right people charged but also the right charges against those who are accused of what are very serious crimes," O'Connell said. Khalsa told NBC Bay Area he had to have his finger amputated last week because of the attack. The two suspects are due back in court for their preliminary hearing in February. High school students in San Francisco on Monday opened up to Californias lieutenant governor about their fears for the future. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom paid a visit to Burton High School to hear from students in the wake of Donald Trumps election to the White House. Several students shed tears as they talked about what they think might happen if Trump follows through on his previous pledge to deport undocumented immigrants or ban Muslim immigrants. Newsom was at the school to reassure students and to call out the president-elect. He told Burton High juniors and seniors that school districts need to counter an uptick in bullying and racism recorded since the election. "A week after the elction, a study came out from the Southern Poverty Law Center saying there were over 700 hate crimes in the United States just in the first week, 80 of them in California," Newsom said. Student Karen Huang fears she could be left in the U.S. alone if her mother is deported. "Because my moms an immigrant, and its really hard for me," Huang said through tears. Newsom criticized Trump for failing to address the issue. "Whats amazing is the extraordinary silence coming from the president-elect, who has no problem going on a Twitter storm about a play in New York but says nothing about what happened here in Danville," Newsom said. In Danville, a high school bathroom was defaced with graffiti that labeled stalls "whites" and "colored." It was one of five recent incidents at two Contra Costa County schools. The incident was cited in the Southern Poverty Law Centers study, which didnt record hate crimes, but rather hate harassments since Trump's election. A graph of those harassments shows theyve actually declined precipitiously since the day after the election. "The biggest hate crime incident I can remember in the Bay Area is the attacks by mobs of angry people on Donald Trump supporters in June in San Jose," said Harmeet Dhillon, vice chair of the state Republican Party. Dhillon urged Californians to reserve judgment on Trump until they see the president-elect's new policies. As Seen On Former Chicago Ald. Edward R. Vrdolyaks defense attorney left the Dirksen Federal Courthouse Tuesday without explaining how his client landed a piece of Illinois massive settlement with tobacco companies two decades ago, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting. Vrdolyak, a onetime powerhouse 10th Ward politician, was quietly charged earlier this month in a 19-page federal indictment that outlined his role in a scheme to pocket millions from the $9.3 billion settlement reached in 1998. The indictment alleges that Vrodlyak was promised $65 million from the settlement even though he did no work on the Tobacco Lawsuit. Its not clear how much money Vrdolyak made from the settlement, but federal prosecutors told a judge in 2010 that Vrodlyak has a guaranteed income stream of $260,000 per year . . . until 2023 from tobacco-related litigation. The indictment charges Vrdolyak, who turns 79 next month, with impeding the IRS and tax evasion. He faces a maximum of eight years in prison for allegedly trying to help his co-defendant, attorney Daniel Soso of Alsip, dodge federal income taxes. He appeared at the federal courthouse Tuesday for arraignment, pleading not guilty in front of U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve. Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu said during the hearing that prosecutors have more than 150,000 pages of evidence to turn over to Vrodlyaks legal team. St. Eve ordered Vrodlyak released on his own recognizance but she told him not to contact Soso or any lawyer or judge involved in the tobacco settlement in the 1990s. The judge also set a status hearing for Feb. 2, but Vrdolyak will not be required to appear. Michael Monico, one of Vrdolyaks defense attorneys, spoke to reporters in the courthouse lobby after Tuesdays hearing, telling them this case does not involve Mr. Vrdolyaks tax returns and calling the case disturbing. But when asked how his client got a piece of the tobacco litigation, Monico said, the case does not involve that. Its curious as to why thats in the indictment, Monico said. All thats in the indictment, really, that is a charge . . . relates to Mr. Sosos tax returns. Monico then walked out of the building as he was pressed on the question. Last week, Monico described the money as a referral fee and he said Vrodlyak has more than $250,000 in escrow waiting to be paid to the IRS. A member of the City Council from 1971 to 1987, Vrdolyak earned the nickname Fast Eddie for his back-room deals and reputation for dancing on the edge of the law. A federal judge initially handed him a big break in 2009, giving him no prison time for his role in a financial scam with corrupt influence peddler Stuart Levine. But prosecutors appealed, and another judge ultimately sentenced Vrdolyak to 10 months in prison followed by 10 months of home confinement and work release. The new indictment alleges Vrodlyak and Soso were not appointed as Special Assistant Attorneys General and were not authorized to represent the state of Illinois in the tobacco case. Illinois reaped $9.3 billion from the settlement, but it ultimately agreed to pay $188.5 million of that to outside law firms that helped with the litigation. Soso and Vrodlyak allegedly then struck a secret deal with Washington state attorney Steve Berman to collect a percentage of the fee. The indictment does not identify Berman by name, and he is not charged in the case. The deal evolved over time. But in May 1999, Berman allegedly sent Vrodlyak a letter on his firms letterhead indicating that Vrodlyak stood to collect $65 million. Vrdolyak soon agreed in writing to give a portion of it to Soso. However, the feds say Soso was dodging taxes, and the IRS served Vrodlyak with a levy in 2005 and 2006 demanding Vrodlyak pay any money he owed to Soso to the IRS. Vrodlyak allegedly stopped paying Soso and told the IRS he owed Soso nothing. Meanwhile, the feds say Vrdolyak and his law firm continued accepting money from Berman. Eventually, Soso asked Berman to pay him directly. Soso also allegedly hid that money in accounts belonging to his relatives and girlfriend. Finally, in 2010 and 2011, the feds say Vrdolyak sent $170,242 to Soso and an unnamed recipient in connection with the tobacco settlement. That payment conflicted with Vrodlyaks earlier statement that he owed Soso nothing. A group of teens have entered at least two Chicago businesses distracted shop owners and patrons before making off with phones and tablets, police and victims say. The robberies all happened in broad daylight on busy streets in the Bucktown neighborhood. Kim Blackburn was working at Red June Cafe Friday when three teenagers walked through the door. They were looking over the place, asked if they could have an application and grabbed my phone out of my hands behind the counter and ran out, she said. Blackburn said they also tried to grab her iPad but it was attached to the counter. I quickly chased after them, I dont know what I was going to do, she said. I ran out the door and saw them hop into a minivan and they sped off down the street. A similar incident was reported at Asha Salon on Damen Avenue. Police say a group of teens entered the salon, caused a disturbance and stole phones from at least two employees. Police say the suspects were driving a white minivan. The Bucktown Community Watch Group told NBC 5 they were patrolling the neighborhood Monday afternoon to keep an eye out. Detectives are questioning a person of interest after man was killed and three more were wounded in a Chinatown neighborhood stabbing Monday night on the South Side. About 8:15 p.m., officers responding to a call of a person down in the the 200 block of West 23rd Street found a 50-year-old man who had been stabbed in the back, and a 23-year-old man stabbed in the groin about a block away, according to Chicago Police. The older man was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he died, authorities said. The younger was taken in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, where two additional men later showed up with stab wounds. Their conditions were stabilized, police said. The Cook County medical examiners office withheld the 50-year-old mans name Monday night pending notification of his family. As of Tuesday morning, a person of interest was being questioned in connection with the stabbing as Area Central detectives conduct a homicide investigation. At least eight people died and an unknown number were missing as a new series of Mediterranean boat dramas left Italy on the verge of a record number of migrant arrivals. Confirming the latest fatalities in what is already a record year for migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Italy's coastguard told AFP that 1,400 people had been saved in 12 separate operations between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon. The rescues will take the number of migrants to have arrived in Italy by sea this year to almost 170,000, a whisker short of the previous record set in 2014. A coastguard boat recovered seven bodies and oversaw the rescue of 182 people from a stricken rubber dinghy in waters off Libya. The other confirmed victim, a man, died on the Topaz Responder, a boat operated by Malta-based charity MOAS with a Red Cross medical team onboard. MOAS said survivors' accounts suggested that "many" people were unaccounted for, including the mother of two children who survived. The organisation said it had help rescue some 600 people in four difficult operations, including 117 from one sinking dinghy. The vessel of choice for people traffickers operating out of Libya, such dinghies typically have between 120 and 150 migrants crammed onto them. "The doctors managed to revive several people with hypothermia but it was too late for one of them," MOAS spokeswoman Maria Teresa Sette told AFP. Among the survivors were two in a critical state awaiting evacuation to the outlying Italian island of Lampedusa. The coastguard said the 12 stricken boats assisted in the latest rescues included one larger wooden vessel that was was carrying 450-500 people, six smaller wooden boats with a few dozen people on board and five dinghies. Unusually, the survivors included "many families" from Syria, according to MOAS, as well as people from the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Sudan. Of late, migrants leaving Libya have been overwhelmingly from sub-Saharan or East Africa with a much-anticipated surge in the numbers of refugees from Syria's war having failed to materialise following the de facto closure of the Turkey-Greece migrant route earlier this year. The latest victims will add to a total of 4,655 migrants confirmed to have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean so far this year, according to counts by the International Organisation for Migration and the UN refugee agency. The rescued survivors will add to a total of 168,544 migrants who have been registered at Italian ports in 2016. The highest previous annual total was 170,100, in 2014. The vast majority of the migrants landing in Italy come from Africa and begin their sea crossings from Libya, typically paying traffickers several hundred dollars for the crossing. With Italy's neighbours having tightened their borders, the numbers being housed in reception facilities spread across the country have risen to an unprecedented total of over 176,000, prompting howls of protest from some local authorities. Many migrants arrive in Italy with the intention of travelling north, often to try and rejoin relatives, with Germany and Sweden among the popular destinations. One such man, thought to be from Eritrea, died overnight while trying to board a freight train travelling from Italy to Austria via the Brenner tunnel through the Alps. The man was hit by a train moving in the opposite direction near the main station in Bolzano, close to the border. Police said the incident was the first of its kind for Bolzano. Recent weeks have seen several migrants killed by cars while trying to cross from Italy into France at their coastal border. Search Keywords: Short link: The man charged with criminal trespassing after he allegedly refused to leave a Chicago production of Hamilton on Saturday was provoked by partisan theater goers riled up by the lecture a cast member in New York gave to Republican Vice President-elect Mike Pence from the stage the day before, the mans lawyer said Monday. My understanding was everything was in response to an unfortunate, biased and partisan audience on the night in question, said Jonathan D. Feldman, the attorney representing John Palmer, 56, of the downtown Streeterville neighborhood. It is my understanding that the audience within the production of Hamilton has now been fueled by a fire created by the cast and production in New York. Feldman also insisted Palmer was neither intoxicated nor combative inside the PrivateBank Theatre during the incident, which occurred after actors playing Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette sang Immigrants we get the job done! Thats contrary to social-media postings of audience members, who described a man, now identified as Palmer, ranting loudly before he was removed, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting. Afterward, video taken by one audience member, Jeff Grider, shows the man swearing and seeming to argue with somebody as security guards had him up against a wall in a vestibule outside the performance area. Grider confirmed he shot the video, posted on Facebook, in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. Our side won! Our side won! Grider recalled the man saying in the theater. F anyone who didnt vote for [President-elect Donald] Trump, you dont belong here! The episode went on for about six minutes before security intervened, Grider said on Facebook. Palmer later was charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass for refusing to leave. Feldman, Palmers lawyer, said his client went to the show with family members and was forced to defend himself in the audience. Its my understanding that prior to Mr. Palmer defending himself in the audience, other members of the audience had adequately antagonized and provoked a political viewpoint that was not in defense of our president-elect, Feldman told reporters during a brief news conference outside a River North health club. Feldman wouldnt specifically say how Palmer, who couldnt be reached for comment, responded to the audience provocation. Feldman described his client a good family man, a company man. Palmer is due in court Jan. 9. Feldmans impassioned defense of Palmer came as the feud between Hamiltons New York cast and Trump continued Monday. Actor Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr in the New York version of the musical, told CBS This Morning that theres nothing to apologize for. Dixon gave Vice President-elect Mike Pence an onstage earful about equality at the end of Fridays performance. Trump has called on the cast to apologize to Pence. Dixon said Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda had a hand in crafting Dixons remarks, although Dixon said he made some adjustments. Dixon said that both Trump and Pence are welcome to come backstage and meet with the cast at any time, adding, Art is meant to bring people together. Three men have been charged with fatally shooting a man in west suburban Brookfield in January to keep him from testifying at a trial. Comfort K. Robinson, 39; Jermaine E. Douglas, 25; and DeJuyon M. Johnican, 29, are all charged with first-degree murder for the death of 33-year-old Michael Smith, according to Brookfield police. At 12:08 p.m. Jan. 27, Smith was shot in front of his home in the 3700 block of Forest Avenue in Brookfield, police said. His wife and 3-year-old son were inside, waiting to have lunch. His wife heard the gunshots, ran outside and called 911. During the early morning hours of March 8, 2015, Smith was working a security detail at the now-shuttered Shrine nightclub at 2109 S. Wabash Ave. in Chicago, police said. Robinson, a patron of the club, was involved in a disturbance and security intervened, police said. Robinson had a gun and was arrested by Chicago Police for several felonies, including being an armed habitual criminal and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon. Smith was scheduled to testify as a witness in the court case against Robinson, police said. On the day of the murder, Robinsons case was set for a bench trial. A motion was presented by his defense to have a jury trial instead, which was granted. Smith left the courthouse and was followed home to Brookfield, police said. When he pulled up in front of his house, and before getting out of his car, Douglas pulled up and fired multiple shots at point-blank range. Smith was struck several times and was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he was pronounced dead at 12:46 p.m., authorities said. His court subpoena was still in his pocket when he was killed. Douglas took off in a blue vehicle, which was recovered by police the the next day. Police said Johnican met up with Douglas and Robinson at different locations moments before and after the shooting. Douglas, of the 7100 block of South Whipple, was arrested by Chicago Police on Nov. 15 after a chase ended in a crash at 87th and Ashland, police said. A loaded .50 caliber handgun was recovered after the crash. Johnican, of the 1400 block of South 57th Avenue in Cicero, was arrested without incident near his home later Tuesday, police said. Robinson, of the 2100 bock of South 13th Avenue in Broadview, has been in custody for several months on a separate felony charge, police said. He was arrested by Brookfield police and FBI agents upon his release from the Danville Correctional Center on Friday. All three remain in custody at the Cook County Jail. Douglas was ordered held without bond, and Robinson and Johnican were each ordered held on $250,000. Michael Smith was a good man; a model citizen and hardworking family man who was killed in the prime of his life, just for doing his job. My heart goes out to his family and friends for their tremendous loss, police said in a statement. Kim Kardashian West skipped an expected public appearance in New York City amid reports that her husband, Kanye West, was hospitalized. This would have been Kardashian West's first public appearance since she was tied up and robbed at gunpoint last month in Paris. It was to come at the Angel Ball, a charity event in New York honoring her late father, Robert Kardashian. Her mother, Kris Jenner, and sisters Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian were on hand at the event. When asked how the Wests were doing, Jenner simply smiled and said, "They're good." West had just pulled the plug on his Saint Pablo Tour after behavior that caused a stir on social media. On Thursday, during a concert in San Jose, West said he didn't vote in the presidential election but would have cast a ballot for Donald Trump, praising the president-elect's "method of communication" as "very futuristic." On Saturday in Sacramento, he ended his show after just four songs but not before a 10-minute tirade about Beyonce, Jay Z, Hillary Clinton, Mark Zuckerberg, the radio and MTV. West then canceled his Sunday show in the Los Angeles area before scrapping the entire tour. A Connecticut College student was charged with DUI after she struck a scooter on Route 32 in New London early Tuesday morning, according to police. New London police said the driver, identified as Sophia Thielman, 19, of Rye Brook, New York, was driving on Route 32 south near the Waterford line when she struck a man riding a scooter around 12:18 a.m. Tuesday. Police have identified the victim as 36-year-old Zachary Chesebro and said he is still in the hospital, where he is in critical condition. Chesebro was taken to Lawrence and Memorial Hospital for treatment of serious injuries and later transported to Yale-New Haven Hospital for further treatment. Thielman was arrested, charged with DUI and released on a promise to appear. She is due in court on Jan. 5. It's not clear if she has an attorney. Route 32 was closed for several hours while police investigated but has since reopened. Anyone who witnessed the rash is asked to contact New London police at 860-447-5269. A Farmington firm is looking to invest in the redesign of a Stanley Black and Decker factory and build a data center, powered by fuel cells. Weve been talking about this project for the better part of eight or nine years," said Tim Stewart of the project with Thunderbird CHP. Stewart is New Britain's former mayor and currently works for the New Britain Chamber of Commerce. Thunderbird and Stanley confirmed the preliminary details of the project to NBC Connecticut. A spokesperson for Stanley said the plan would be for Thunderbird to lease space owned by the Fortune 500 company. The building that would be the catalyst for the project is a former metal stamping factory that's been vacant for years but remains in Stanley's portfolio. The fuel cell and data center project, Stewart says, makes sense because there is already a fiber line directly below the site, and New Britain's location. We sit in a hub that is exactly in between Boston and New York and you know financial centers abound in both of these places and this is I think a great place to locate, he said. The project recently hit a speed bump when it wasn't selected for a grant from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Stewart says that funding was not a make or break for the project. Theyre still on track and theyre still moving forward but that was just a bump in the road. The parents of 3-, 5- and 6-year-old children are accused of extreme neglect after the children were found malnourished, dehydrated, in diapers and unable to speak, according to Connecticut state police. Police have arrested 32-year-old Donna Rodeheffer, and said the childs father, 24-year-old Nicolas Emory, is being held in Arizona on child pornography charges, but similar charges will be filed against him when he is brought back to Connecticut. State police started investigating the case on July 21 when the state Department of Children and Families reported Rodeheffer and Nicolas Emory were suspected of neglecting the three children in Danielson. The 6-year-old boy weighs about 35 pounds, which is the average weight for a 4-year-old child, according to police, who said he had a thick, yellow, dry scalp; cracked and scabbing lips; and a rotting gum line. Police also said his speech was clearly delayed, as are his basic life functions. The 5-year-old weighed 26 pounds and also had a thick, yellow, dry scalp and overgrown fingernails and toenails, according to arrest documents. When detectives spoke with family members, they learned the children left their Danielson home up to three times a year and had never been enrolled in school, police said. Police also said the children did not have regular check-ups with a pediatrician or dentist. The children were not potty trained, drink diet soda and eat "junk" food alone in their beds, and stay up sometimes until about 3 a.m., according to arrest documents. Police applied for arrest warrants and Rodeheffer, 33, now of Webster, Massachusetts, and she turned herself in to police today. She has been charged with three counts of negligent cruelty to persons and three counts of risk of injury to a minor. She was held on $150,000 bond and appeared in court. Emory is being held in Arizona as a fugitive from justice on a child pornography charge from Connecticut and state police said he will be charged in that case, as well as this one, when he is brought back to Connecticut. President-elect Donald Trump met with staff from The New York Times Tuesday hours after saying he'd backed out of the scheduled meeting with journalists at the newspaper. Times reporters were live tweeting the interview with staff from the newsroom and opinion teams. He answered questions about the white nationalist-associated "alt-right" movement, potential conflicts between his business and the presidency, whether he wants to prosecute his election rival Hillary Clinton and more. Trump said that he had "great respect for the Times" but thought he had been treated "very rough," reporter Mike Grynbaum wrote. He told the publication that he wants to move on from years of investigations of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Despite his campaign promise that he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate his then-opponent Hillary Clinton, he reversed his stance and said Tuesday that his doing so would be very, very divisive for the country. He said he doesnt want to hurt the Clintons, adding that he doesnt think his supporters will be disappointed once he explains that we, in many ways, will save our country.[[401746386, C]] The president-elect also faced questions from reporters about whether he and his children face a conflict of interest by having roles in both the presidential transition and the Trump Organization. He responded that the president cant have a conflict of interest, but that hes in the process of handing his business over to his children, anyway. He said of critics, If it were up to some people, I would never, ever see my daughter Ivanka again to avoid any business-presidential conflict. He has come under scrutiny about possible conflicts of interest recently after a meeting with British politician Nigel Farage, head of the UK Independence Party, during which Trump brought up his own business concerns. The president-elect reportedly brought up the two Scottish golf courses he owns and his concerns that plans to build offshore wind farms would damage the resort's views of the skyline. When asked Tuesday, Trump did not deny that that conversation had taken place. He also publicly disavowed the white nationalist sympathizers who celebrated his election during an alt-right conference in Washington over the weekend. A reporter asked Trump for a comment about the event, during which attendees cheered Trumps election and gave Nazi salutes. I disavow them and condemn them, he said. "It's not a group I want to energize. And if they are energized, I want to look into it and find out why." But Trump did defend his appointment of Steve Bannon, former president of Breitbart News, to serve as his chief strategist and senior White House counselor. Bannon has been criticized for his leadership of the news site, which has a history of publishing anti-Semitic, racist and misogynist content and is embraced by the alt-right and white nationalist groups. Trump told Times reporters that he does not think Bannon shares the same negative beliefs as the site's following. "If I thought he was a racist or alt-right or any of the things, the terms we could use, I couldn't even think about hiring him," he said. And he praised his fellow Republicans in Congress and President Barack Obama, who he said is "looking to do absolutely the right thing for the country in terms of transition." Trump shifted his rhetoric somewhat when asked about humans' role in climate change. The president-elect told reporters that theres some connectivity there. He said hes keeping "an open mind" about whether to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, a multinational agreement on climate change a stance that appeared to break dramatically with his previous remarks that climate change was a hoax. I think there is some connectivity, he said Tuesday. Some, something. It depends on how much.[[400399811, C]] Whether the Times meeting would even happen was a saga that played out online early Tuesday morning, involving competing claims of who was responsible for canceling what is a common trip for major politicians to make. Politicians regularly visit major newspapers to discuss their policies and beliefs. But the president-elect claimed in a tweet early Tuesday that the paper changed the rules of the meeting. The Times countered that Trump's transition team had tried to change the rules, not the newspaper. "I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice," Trump tweeted Tuesday. But several hours later, spokeswoman Hope Hicks told reporters gathered in Trump Tower that Trump was in fact "going to the New York Times" later in the day.[[400628631, C]] The head of communications at the Times, Eileen Murphy, tweeted that the newspaper was told by Trump's staff that the meeting was on again. She said Trump and Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. would meet off the record before Trump talks to journalists and editorial columnists on the record. By 10:40 a.m., Trump tweeted he was looking forward to the meeting. 1 of 2 Mr. Trump's staff has told us that the President Elect's meeting with The Times is on again. Eileen Murphy (@NYTeileen) November 22, 2016 2 of 2 President Elect will meet with our publisher off-the-record. Then, on-the-record with our journalists & editorial columnists. Eileen Murphy (@NYTeileen) November 22, 2016 The meeting with the @nytimes is back on at 12:30 today. Look forward to it! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016 During the campaign he threatened to sue the Times over a story where two women accused him of touching them inappropriately years ago. A Trump lawyer also suggested he might sue after the paper wrote about and published part of his tax return from 1995. A story published by the Times on Tuesday looked at how Trump's many business dealings could test a provision in the Constitution "should he continue to reap benefits from transactions with companies controlled by foreign governments." Another article examined how a small group of super wealthy Americans, Trump included, "has laid the groundwork for an unprecedented legal assault on the media." Trump has also accused the Times recently of losing thousands of subscribers. But the paper said it added 41,000 paid print and digital subscribers in the week since Election Day, the most in a week since it launched its digital pay wall in 2011. A powerful earthquake off the northeast Japanese shore Tuesday sent residents fleeing to higher ground and prompted worries about the Fukushima nuclear power plant destroyed by a tsunami five year ago. Lines of cars were seen snaking away from the coast in the pre-dawn hours after authorities issued a tsunami warning and urged residents to seek higher ground immediately. The warning was lifted nearly four hours later. The magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck in the same region that was devastated by a tsunami in 2011, killing some 18,000 people. The Japan Meteorological Agency said Tuesday's quake was an aftershock of that magnitude 9.0 earthquake more than five years ago. The agency warned that another large quake could hit in the next few days and urged residents to remain cautious for about a week. There were reports of minor injuries and damage, Japanese broadcaster NHK said. The earthquake shook buildings in Tokyo, 240 kilometers (150 miles) southwest of the epicenter. NHK also showed one person's video of water rushing up a river or canal, but well within the height of the embankment. It was eerily reminiscent of the 2011 disaster, when much larger tsunamis rushed up rivers and overflowed, wiping away entire neighborhoods. On Tuesday, tsunami waves were recorded along the coast. The highest one was 1.4 meters (4.6 feet) in Sendai Bay. A tsunami advisory for waves of up to 1 meter (3 feet) remained in effect along the coast. The operator of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant said there were no abnormalities observed at the plant, though a swelling of the tide of up to 1 meter was detected offshore. The plant was swamped by the 2011 tsunami, sending three reactors into meltdown and leaking radiation into the surrounding area. The plant is being decommissioned but the situation remains serious as the utility figures out how to remove still-radioactive fuel rods and debris and what to do with the melted reactor cores. Plant operator TEPCO said a pump that supplies cooling water to a spent fuel pool at the nearby Fukushima Dai-ni plant stopped working, but that a backup pump had been launched to restore cooling water to the pool. Both plants are run by Tokyo-based TEPCO. Naohiro Masuda, head of TEPCO's decommissioning unit, said he believes that the pump was shut off automatically by a safety system as the water in the pool shook. He said decommissioning work at the destroyed Dai-ichi plant had been temporarily suspended because of the earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey measured the magnitude at 6.9. A school bus driver who authorities say was speeding along a narrow, winding road when he wrapped his vehicle around a tree was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide in the deaths of five children. The wreck Monday afternoon plunged the city of Chattanooga into mourning, with parents stricken by the news and people lining up to donate blood. "The most unnatural thing in the world is for a parent to mourn the loss of a child," Mayor Andy Berke said. "There are no words that can bring comfort to a mother or a father. So today, the city is praying for these families." Police said Johnthony Walker, 24, was driving well over the posted 30 mph limit when he lost control of the bus. He was jailed on $107,500 bail for a court appearance Nov. 29 on charges that also included reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Thirty-five Woodmere Elementary School students from kindergarten through fifth grade were aboard when the bus flipped onto its side and hit a tree. No other vehicle was involved. Emergency crews needed almost two hours to get all the youngsters off the bus. Bloodied children lay on stretchers, while others walked away dazed with their parents. More than 20 injured students were taken to the hospital, police said. Twelve remained hospitalized Tuesday, six in intensive care, said Kirk Kelly, interim school superintendent. Three of the children killed were in fourth grade, one was in first grade and another in kindergarten, Kelly said. Their families were notified, but their names were not released. The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to investigate, and police obtained a warrant to remove the bus' black box, which contains data on the vehicle's movements. Craig Harris, a parent of two children who were on the bus, told ABC's "Good Morning America" that the bus driver sometimes drove too fast. "There has been times where I've seen him going a little faster than he probably should be going," Harris said. He said his daughter and stepson were in shock and pain after the crash. The driver was employed by an outside bus contractor, Durham School Services. Walker appeared to have no criminal record in Tennessee, state and local authorities said. Walker had an accident involving property damage in September, and his license was suspended for about a month in 2014 for failure to show proof of insurance, according to state commercial driver records. Hamilton County School District spokeswoman Amy Kutcher declined to say whether the district had received any complaints involving Walker. She referred all questions about his performance and that of other Durham drivers to the contractor. "Legally there is no way that we could discipline someone who is not our employee," Kutcher said. "We've got 192 Durham bus drivers. Obviously, this is a bad one." Durham CEO David A. Duke issued a statement on Twitter saying the company was "devastated" by the accident and working with police and school officials to investigate. Durham has had other drivers who have run into legal trouble in the school district that includes Chattanooga. Last year, one pleaded guilty to aggravated statutory rape, and another was arrested on child-porn possession charges. Durham, based in Warrenville, Illinois, operates about 13,700 vehicles around the U.S. and has nearly as many drivers, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. It had a "satisfactory" safety rating from the agency in July 2015. The company has had 346 crashes over two years, including three resulting in deaths and 142 with injuries, federal figures show. During that period, it had 53 incidents involving unsafe driving violations. Demetrius Jenkins said he had yet to tell his first-grade son, Jermaine Bradley, that the boy's best friend had died in the crash. "It's sad. He's going to eventually find out," Jenkins said. "I know he's going to be full of tears." On Tuesday morning, the heap of mangled metal that used to be a bus was loaded on a trailer and taken away. A small memorial of flowers and stuffed toy monkeys lay in front of an area cordoned off with crime-scene tape and guarded by police. Counselors were on hand for the students and staff as classes resumed at the school. Pastor Tavner Smith and a dozen staffers of the Venue Church went to offer support. "It's devastating," Smith said. "You send your kids to school and think you're going to see them that evening. We're really just praying for all the families right now, for what they're going through." A bomb stuffed inside a manila envelope exploded in a downtown apartment early Tuesday when a man opened the package, apparently thinking it contained an inhaler, police said. The victim was hospitalized with face, hand and chest injuries. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said it was an "actual device" that the resident activated it wasn't remotely set off which was meant to injure. The 62-year-old, who had arrived home after being out of town, opened a package that he thought contained medication for an inhaler and there was an explosion around 4 a.m. Tuesday, his partner told police. The package was placed, not delivered by the postal service to his apartment on the 1800 block of Pine Street on Monday, said Ross. "It clearly was sent to that individual," Ross said. "It was addressed to him." Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon the envelope contained some type of shrapnel and caused "substantial damage" to appliances in the kitchen. The man's most serious injuries involved his left hand. Medics took the victim to Jefferson Hospital where he was listed in stable condition. He was able to speak to investigators, said police. The man, who works as a caterer, opened the package near the stove in the kitchen of the apartment he shares with his partner, leading police to initially believe the blast may have been an accidental explosion caused by an inhaler getting too close to heat. [[238427591, C]] "We don't know whether this was a bomb mailed to the house... or whether this was just some sort of freak accident where something like an inhaler exploded," Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small said at first. Philadelphia Bomb Squad, ATF officers and postal inspectors searched for clues in the first-floor kitchen Tuesday. Authorities have not seen the type of explosive device in Philadelphia before, Sullivan said, but they are "familiar with it in other areas of the world." Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agent Sam Rabadi said the device is being analyzed an ATF laboratory. Investigators are running down a number of leads but have no motive yet, Rabadi said. "We are going to look at every possible motive that comes across our radar," he said. The package was "target specific," Ross said. It wasn't immediately clear if police know or suspect who sent the package, or why. Other details about the device were not immediately available but investigators didn't consider it an act of terrorism, said Ross. [[402422205, C]] Aly King and Brian Muldoon live two doors down from the townhouse where the blast happened and said they didn't hear any explosion, but their dog woke up around 3:45 a.m. King said she let her puppy out in the backyard and that is when she heard firefighters in the alley, shuffling garbage cans, and saw emergency vehicles filling the street. They said they had never met the victim. "It's kind of a peculiar time of day to open a package, at 4 a.m.," Muldoon said. Ten residents were evacuated from nearby apartments, but were allowed to return after the bomb squad cleared other packages. The victim's roommate told police that the man often receives medical inhalers in the mail. He was home at the time of the blast but was uninjured. Pine Street remained closed around into the Tuesday morning rush. Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court will probe the trafficking of migrants out of Libya to see if there is evidence of war crimes, the chief prosecutor told AFP Tuesday. With the situation in Libya "deteriorating," Fatou Bensouda said "my office is planning to make Libya a priority in investigations" in the coming year. "One of the areas I intend to look into is the issue of the migrants, and the fact that we see hundreds of thousands of migrants being trafficked across from Libya, coming into Europe," she said. She was speaking in an interview with AFP in the ICC's new permanent home on the outskirts of The Hague, just as Italy was on the verge of a record number of migrant arrivals for the year. Asked if such trafficking could be considered "a crime against humanity," Bensouda replied: "It could be, depending on what evidence we find." "We are still continuing with our investigations in Libya. We are receiving a lot of information with regards to the crimes that are being committed." Italian officials said on Tuesday at least eight people had died and an unknown number were missing in a new series of boat disasters in the Mediterranean. Some 1,400 people had been saved in a dozen separate operations between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon, the Italian coastguard said. The rescues will take the number of migrants to have arrived in Italy by sea this year to almost 170,000, just short of the previous record set in 2014. "The crimes are just many. And unfortunately it is the civilians... the women and children who are bearing the brunt of those crimes," Bensouda said. Although Libya is not a party to the Rome Statute which underpins the ICC, the UN Security Council unanimously mandated the tribunal to investigate abuses in the country in February 2011. It was then still under the rule of longtime leader Moamer Kadhafi, who was killed months later by rebels in a NATO-backed uprising. An arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity is still outstanding for his son, Seif al-Islam, said to be behind bars in Zintan, a town southwest of Tripoli that opposes the unity government based in the capital. The new unity government in Tripoli still faces dogged resistance from Islamist militant holdouts, who seized on the chaos unleashed since 2011. Bensouda's attempt to have the ICC warrant served on the battalion commander in charge in Zintan, to compel him to turn over Islam to the court, was Monday turned down by the trial chamber in The Hague. But she vowed her office would keep up its investigations, and said new arrest warrants could perhaps follow next year. "So far the judges have decided that we should continue to have contact with the authorities in Libya... we will follow that up and see what we can do. The efforts have to continue." Search Keywords: Short link: A katana sword that was missing from an Anchorage card shop has been returned. KTVA-TV reports surveillance video shows a person dressed as a ninja leaving BOSCO'S Comic, Cards & Games with what looked to be the Japanese-style sword. Employee Eric Helmick said in an email that a man bought the sword from the thief and brought it back to the shop Thursday after hearing on the news that it was stolen. Helmick said the man waited at the shop for Anchorage police officers to arrive and told them what happened. The sword was slightly damaged. He said the shop's staffers are thankful this odd situation wasn't worse and that they all got a chuckle out of it. The NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters have learned the company hired to improve reliability issues plaguing our states new 911 network had a significant outage with a 911 system it oversaw in a state nearby. This follows an NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters exclusive on first responders concerns about Next Generation 911 this summer. Many people the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters spoke with wonder if these Next Generation 911 outages are just isolated hiccups with new technology that needs to have the kinks worked out, or if the state is moving too fast with something that has not been perfected yet. Jenna Stepleman could not believe she received a recording after calling 911 July 15 - a last resort after her group got their car stuck in a New Haven garage that had closed. That night half the states 100-plus dispatch centers had intermittent outages most lasting 15 minutes or less. Those failing dispatch centers were equipped with new Next Generation 911 technology that the state hopes will someday enable text and video to 911. Stepleman told the Troubleshooters It's a problem!...because if we were in some sort of like crazy emergency how would we have gotten to anyone for help without 911? AT&T, the lead contractor on the Next Generation 911 project, agreed. It reevaluated the original company that designed the Next Generation 911 software. In October, it told the states Enhanced 911 Commission it fired the company and replaced it with a software company called West. An AT&T employee told those in attendance about West: It's highly reliable, there's numerous solutions that have already been deployed, that drive the same level of capacity, and need, as what we see from a state of Connecticut standpoint. The change, in some cases not even a year after some dispatch centers switched to next generation 911, raised questions with some dispatch managers. The NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters also discovered that West ran Vermonts Next Generation 911 network from 2011 to 2015 under the companys prior trade name, Intrado. In 2014 Vermonts 911 network had a 40 minute outage. Its contract with the state was not renewed. The state says that decision was prior to the outage. All this generated mixed opinions from our state legislators familiar with the Next Generation 911 issue. Public Safety Committee Co-Chair Steve Dargan said, I think AT&T had some problems with that subcontractor and they realized that and went and looked at additional software and chose a new subcontractor to finish some of the kinks that are in our Next Gen 911. State Senator Tony Hwang of Fairfield raised concern. This move to a new vendor, without a lot of transparency, without a lot of dialog, is a significant cause of concern for me as legislator. Neither AT&T, nor the state of Connecticut will talk on camera about the switch to West or the system failure in Vermont. In a statement AT&T said after a thorough evaluation of call handling platforms and options available, a new platform was selected that best meets the needs of the citizens of the state of Connecticut. The state also had a prepared statement, saying we will continue to hold AT&T accountable to the terms of the contract to install the Next Generation 911 system. The West Corporation has not responded to our requests for comment. Berlin dispatcher Tammy Wright welcomes the change in Connecticuts Next Generation 911 software. even if its the second time this has happened in just a few years. It is more user friendly, it looks nicer," she said. Jenna Stepleman, the person on the end of a failed 911 call, remains unsure. It's a weird thing to think about that you can't trust 911 but just a personal experience kind of led it to be that way. While some still question if the Next Generation 911 change will work out, the good news is the state says it will not cost the state any more than the $13 million it has already spent on the software package. The plan is to have Next Generation 911 deployed statewide by the end of next year. The threat of bankruptcy for the city of Dallas over unfunded public safety pension and back pay liabilities made front page news for nationwide readers of The New York Times Monday. The headline said "Dallas, a Hive of Growth, Flirts With Bankruptcy," and Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said it is ironic but true. Cranes dot the city skyline with new high-rise construction and yet a possible $6 billion total unfunded expense could make the city government go broke. "This is the best time in Dallas's history, and I think all of America is looking at us. So we've got to work hard not to even flirt with that," Rawlings said. "But having that on the horizon, I think, sobers everybody up. They're taking it seriously." Dallas bankruptcy attorney Mark Ralston said reorganization for city government could be painful for employees and taxpayers. "For a municipality, it's the last resort," Ralston said. Services could be reduced and employee benefits reduced even further than the cuts police and firefighters are being asked to approve now in pension fund changes. In a city of Detroit bankruptcy case, Ralston said creditors asked that art from the city-owned museum be sold to raise money, but philanthropists later help save the Detroit art. "It's not something that businesses that are looking for a home, possibly Dallas, would see favorably. So that's, I think, why it's better to address it now," Ralston said. The Dallas Police and Firefighter Pension fund faces a possible $4 billion in future unfunded benefits after decades of promising too much with risky real estate investments that returned too little. Several police and firefighter back-pay lawsuits could result in $2 billion in judgments if employees prevail on claims of being cheated for decades on raises mentioned in a voter referendum. "If those things came together, we could be walking into those fan blades of bankruptcy. And I'm hopeful that that's not going to happen," said Rawlings. "We've got to work together. If we are in adversarial positions, it could be terrible for retirees, it could be terrible for the current police officers, it could be terrible for taxpayers." In the next session of the Texas Legislature starting in January, lawmakers will be asked to make some changes to help fix the pension fund. A Dallas City Council briefing to focus on the issues is planned next month. Dallas police officers are encouraged to work in pairs following a deadly attack on a San Antonio officer. Interim Dallas Police Chief David Pughes sent out a memo recommending officers take advantage of the two-officer patrol that was recommended after the July 7 ambush that killed five officers in downtown Dallas. "We have officers that are very very worried. To say that we're not scared would be a lie, of course we are," said Dallas Police Sgt. Michael Mata. Mata, the Dallas Police Association's vice president, says it's a troubling reality for the men and women who are just doing what they swore to do: protect the public. He says officers are not only concerned for their safety but also taking precautions following this weekend's rash of officer shootings nationwide. In addition to the death of San Antonio Police Detective Ben Marconi, three officers in Missouri and Florida were injured in shootings Sunday. "I think the far majority of officers feel like they want to ride two-man right now. We have a responsibility to our families, and just like I told my wife, I'll do everything I can to make sure I come home safe," Mata said. In his memo to officers, Interim Chief Pughes reinforced that, "officer safety and the safety of our citizens is our number one priority. In addition, officers are approved and encouraged to work with a partner if they choose." Mata added that officers are being reminded to mark out on traffic stops exactly where they are, and when an officer is spotted during a traffic stop, an additional unit should pull over to make sure they're OK. "It's a very difficult time right now for the law enforcement community, and I just ask the public to understand what we're going through," Mata said. Tuesday marks 53 years since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated during a trip to Dallas. Monday morning, a piece of history from that fateful day found a new home at The Sixth Floor Museum. On Nov. 22, 1963, WBAP radio reporter Bob Welch was busy covering Kennedy's visit, when multiple shots rang out in Dealey Plaza. "It hits you like a cold glass of water with ice cubes in it," Welch said, recalling that day. Breathless and trying to grasp what had just happened, he delivered one of the first known reports that the president had been hit. "I'm sort of a fair to Midland on-air reporter," Welch said of his breaking news report. "But I was giving it my best shot." The following is a transcript of Welch's report from that day: "As I say, it has not been fully confirmed, but police radios are carrying that the president has been hit. The president's party his wife, the governor, senators, and all other political officials were en route, as fast as they could get there, to Parkland Hospital under heavy police guard, going extremely fast past the Trade Mart, past the large throngs of people waiting to catch a glimpse of the president. It's thought that the incident occurred near the underpass section entering the Stemmons Expressway, just on the outskirts of Downtown Dallas. This unit is presently en route to Parkland Hospital. Confirmation will come shortly." "You could tell the seriousness from which I was delivering the message pretty much how bad it was," Welch said. "I was the Lone Ranger out there riding the biggest story in a decade." Welch said he was sad, and remembers shortly before the shooting he was at the airport for President Kennedy's arrival. "It was a glorious welcome to Dallas," Welch said. "People loved him to death." That moment and all of WBAP's coverage before and after the shooting were preserved on 21 audio reels, which the station donated to the Sixth Floor Museum Monday. "Moments like this are few and far between, but it's like Christmas," said Stephen Fagin, curator for The Sixth Floor Museum. "When we get something like this, it really allows us to enhance our collection and tell a more personal story of the local coverage. These guys knew the city and the knew the ins and the outs of the story. And so we get an immediacy and a vibrancy that you just don't get from the national news coverage." The story of how the reels were discovered is vibrant in its own right. Back in the 1960s, NBC 5 was part of the WBAP family. The reels were placed inside two boxes and stored in the television station's original Fort Worth studios, where they were eventually forgotten over the years. More than three decades later, an NBC 5 news crew was tasked with going through the station archives to look for any old clips that would be appropriate for an upcoming anniversary special. They came across the two boxes and WBAP Operations Manager Tyler Cox got a phone call. "[The reporter] said, 'We found something we think you guys are going to want,'" said Cox. "So they showed up at our studios and brought these boxes in and we were just flabbergasted." They played the reels and couldn't believe their ears. "The voices coming out of the speakers sounded like they were coming out of the next room," said Cox. "The audio was just amazing." The reels had been kept at the WBAP studio since, but Cox says it was always their intention to give them to the museum. "They're home where they should be," said Cox. "Not under my desk, not locked in some closet, but they're here where they belong." The museum says it will look into digitizing the reels and also plans to make them available to students and researchers who come to the museum. The suspect arrested in the ambush shooting of a San Antonio police detective has said he was angry about a child-custody battle and "lashed out at somebody who didn't deserve it." Otis Tyrone McKane was being led by police to the Bexar County Jail late Monday when he told reporters that he was angry with the court system for not letting him see his son and took it out on Detective Benjamin Marconi. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus announces an arrest in the fatal shooting of a 20-year police veteran near the departments headquarters. "I've been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didn't deserve it," McKane said. He said he wanted to apologize to the family of the slain officer. McKane, 31, of San Antonio, was arrested on a capital murder charge Monday afternoon in the fatal shooting of Marconi. The detective was shot as he sat in his squad car Sunday after making a traffic stop. Authorities have said a gunman walked up to Marconi's driver's-side window and fired. It was one of several weekend attacks against law enforcement in multiple states. The San Antonio detective and officers shot in Missouri and Florida were conducting routine tasks Sunday when they became the targets of violence. Marconi was writing a traffic ticket. "I think the uniform was the target and the first person that happened along was the first person that (the suspect) targeted," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said. A $25,000 reward is being offered for information on who targeted and fatally shot a San Antonio police officer during a traffic stop Sunday. In Missouri, a St. Louis police sergeant was shot twice in the face Sunday evening while he sat in traffic in a marked police vehicle. He was released from a hospital Monday. Law enforcement officials said there's been an alarming spike in ambush-style attacks. Sixty officers, including the San Antonio detective, were shot to death on the job this year, compared with 41 in all of 2015, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Of the 60 killed, 20 were purposely targeted by their assailant compared with eight last year, the group said. Police officers also were shot and injured during traffic stops in Sanibel, Florida, and Gladstone, Missouri, on Sunday night, but authorities have not suggested those were targeted attacks. All the shootings come less than five months after a black military veteran killed five white officers at a protest in Dallas -- the deadliest day for American law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001. Race was a factor in the Dallas attack, but police have not said if race played a part in any of the attacks on Sunday. In San Antonio, the suspect is black and the officer was white. In St. Louis, the suspect was black, but police have not released the officer's race. Most killings of police officers are carried out by white men, and most people shot and killed by police are white, said Craig W. Floyd, president of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Chief McManus said McKane was arrested on a capital murder warrant without incident after the car he was riding in was stopped Monday afternoon on an interstate. County records obtained by The Associated Press show McKane got married at the Bexar County Courthouse Monday morning before being stopped and arrested later in the day. McManus said earlier that he doesn't believe the suspect has any relationship to the motorist who was pulled over initially. Surveillance video shows the suspect at San Antonio police headquarters about four hours before the 50-year-old Marconi, a 20-year veteran of the force, was shot. The suspect asked a desk clerk a question but left before receiving an answer, said McManus, who declined to say what the man asked. "I don't know why he was in headquarters. We have some ideas," he said. St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson declined to name the 46-year-old officer who was shot and wounded there. He said the officer is a married father of three and has been with the department for about 20 years. "This officer was driving down the road and was ambushed by an individual who pointed a gun at him from inside of his car and shot out the police officer's window," Dotson said. The suspect, 19-year-old George P. Bush III, was wanted for questioning in recent violent crimes that included several robberies, a carjacking and perhaps a killing, Dotson said without elaborating. "We believe he knew he was good for those crimes and that we were looking for him," Dotson said. "That's why he aggressively attacked a police officer." Police said Bush was later killed in a shootout with officers. On July 7, Micah Johnson shot and killed five law enforcement officers who had been working to keep the peace at a protest in downtown Dallas over the fatal police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana. Ten days after that attack, a man wearing a ski mask and armed with two rifles and a pistol killed three officers near a gas station and convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And earlier this month, two Des Moines, Iowa-area police officers were fatally shot in separate ambush-style attacks while sitting in their patrol cars. "It's always difficult, especially in this day and age, where police are being targeted across the country," McManus said. The City of Dallas has big plans for at least one of the vacant buildings in Fair Park. Architects and designers have drafted plans to remodel the old Science Place II Building into a state-of-the-art broadcast learning center for students across North Texas who dream of working in broadcast television and radio. The new building will include three studio sets for community and educational planning, editing stations, a student lab and a separate program for students at Skyline and Lincoln High School in Dallas ISD. Students from the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of North Texas, Southern Methodist University, Paul Quinn College, the University of Texas at Arlington and Texas Christian University will also have the opportunity to take classes and utilize internship opportunities at the facility. The city council will vote on the construction plans in December of 2016 and are scheduled for construction in January 2017. Footage from the body cameras police officers wear will no longer come for free in Texas. Starting Thursday, the state will require people to pay a fee if they request body camera footage, according to an announcement Friday in the Texas Register, an online publication of the Texas secretary of state's office. Body cameras, which can be attached to law enforcement officers to record their actions, have been touted as a way to increase police accountability. Under the rule proposed by the Texas attorney general's office, law enforcement agencies in Texas will charge $10 for each recording they provide to the public. They will also charge an additional fee of $1 per minute of footage if an identical copy hasn't been released. Click here to read more from our partners at The Dallas Morning News. While the incidents of hate and harassment are being reported on a daily basis across the country as concern grows over the rise of white nationalism, there are small acts of kindness occurring, too. One such act occurred this Saturday when Zoe Sokatch, 11, of San Francisco, and her dad, Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the New Israel Fund, delivered Hershey kisses to the San Francisco Muslim Community Center on Mission Street. Only one man was there, Sokoatch recalled, when he and Zoe dropped off the treats on Saturday during a downpour. They also left a handmade card with hearts that said, "Sending Love, from your Jewish neighbors." He and his daughter envisioned more people entering the Islamic place of worship at some point during the week and feeling warmed that strangers, and from a different faith, had wished them well. Courtesy Sokatch Family This surprise visit came after Sokatch had been feeling a "deep gloom" after Donald Trump was elected president. He, a liberal for both U.S. and Israeli politics, said he feels both countries are growing more conservative and more filled with fear of the "other." Trumps incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus said Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press that he wouldnt rule out mandating a Muslim registry, which the Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said hed sign as a Jew so that Muslims wouldnt be alone. With the backdrop of both countries behind him, on the Thursday after the election, inspired by a friend in the Boston area, Sokatch decided to do something, albeit small and symbolic, as well. After work, he hopped into a CVS and bought a bag of chocolates, which he left at the Masjid Al Tawheed on Sutter Street. One man was there, and he looked "warily" at Sokatch until he saw the candy. Sokatch said to him: "I know this sounds crazy but there are San Franciscans who stand with you and have your back. Please share these sweets with your brothers and sisters. He broke into a super sweet smile when I said 'We have your back.'" Neither mosque had anyone answering the phones on Monday, so how the Hershey kiss surprise played out wasn't immediately known. But the Sokatch family knows how they feel. Father and daughter plan to visit two more mosques on the weekend after Thanksgiving. "We feel it's about doing the right thing for people feeling scared and alone," Sokatch said. The 34th annual E.J. Jackson Foundation Turkey Dinner Giveaway will provide holiday meals Tuesday to thousands of needy families in South Los Angeles, despite the recent death of the event's founder. Members of Ellsworth Jackson's family are moving forward the event, which annually attracts a line of families in need that winds through the streets surrounding the Jackson Limousine Service, despite his Nov. 1 death from an apparent heart attack. Organizers said more than 10,000 families will receive meals this year. "His legacy will live on, and on behalf of our family, I want to say thank you so much for showing your love and sharing my father's love," Jackson's son, Tyron, said through tears the day after his father's death. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) started the day off with a prayer and a moment of silence for Jackson Tuesday. "E.J. Jackson was a generous man," Waters said. "E.J. Jackson was a kind man." Jackson was the owner of Jackson Limousine Service, which has become well-known as the chauffeur to the stars. But Jackson became even better known for his annual turkey giveaway, which attracts celebrities who volunteer their time to help package and hand out food boxes to the thousands of needy residents who would sometimes wait in line for days. Among those expected to work at the event this year are Lou Gossett Jr., Edward James Olmos, Tone Loc, Dawnn Lewis, KiKi Shepard and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles. According to the company, the giveaway began in 1982 when some area senior citizens who couldn't afford Thanksgiving holiday meals approached Jackson, who responded by buying 100 turkeys and creating the E.J. Jackson Foundation. The next year he bought 200, and the next he bought 500. The giveaway grew into an annual community event. Last year, more than 12,000 turkeys were handed out, along with other Thanksgiving meal fixings. Mayor Eric Garcetti called Jackson an "inspiration" and a "role model." "The holidays in L.A. won't be the same without E.J. on the streets at sunrise, making sure everyone's basket is full," Garcetti said. "He set a timeless example for us to follow, and we can honor his legacy by building on the tradition he started and committing ourselves every day to making a difference in the lives of our families, friends and neighbors." The Jackson event is just one of several giveaways being held Tuesday and this week. At 9 a.m., the Inner-City Games and Hollenbeck Police Business Council will hold their 35th annual turkey basket giveaway, with turkeys donated by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the executive commission of Inner-City Games. The event will be held at the youth center, 2015 E. First St. At 6 p.m., the San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission will hold its 17th annual Thanksgiving dinner, serving holiday meals to more than 500 homeless people in the Van Nuys area. The event will be at La Iglesia En El Camino, 14800 Sherman Way. At 9 a.m., Sen. Isadore Hall III, D-Compton, will host the 35th Senate District's 12th Annual Healthy Family Update and Turkey Giveaway at the Urban Youth Academy, 901 E. Artesia Blvd. in Compton. Also at 9 a.m., longtime local activist "Sweet" Alice Harris will hold an annual giveaway, passing out about 900 turkeys at 10828 Lou-Dillon Ave. in Watts. Written by Mohamed Casper and directed by Abdelrahman Darwish, the play titled It is Truly a Joyful City is adapted from the American script 12 Angry Men For three nights, a play titled Enaha Haqan Madina Mobhega (It is Truly a Joyful City) will be staged at Teatro Eskendria starting 27 November. Directed by Abdelrahman Darwish, the play is performed by El-Ferqa Raqam 13 (Band Number 13), and is loosely adapted from the script for 12 Angry Men by American writer Reginald Rose, which centres on the jury in a homicide trial. Roses work was broadcast on radio, performed on stage, and adapted for film several times. The play is written by Mohamed Casper and is set in a utopia called The City of Joy, where no one rules or is ruled, and there are no crimes and everyone is equal. The city has equilibrium despite the fact that its residents differ in everything; religion, language, and ethnicity. As follows, the main aim of the adaptation is to present a state of being that is joyous and where everyone is united in their love for their city. However, something strange happens that threatens the foundation of this joyous city, the event description on Facebook reads. Band Number 13 is a theatre troupe founded in 2015. They describe themselves as presenters of art from the people to the people. Programme: 27, 28, 29 November, at 7pm Teatro Eskenderia, 25 Fouad street, Raml Station, Alexandria For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture Search Keywords: Short link: Days after police officers rescued a small, scared dog from a burning home last week, PETA has awarded the South Pasadena Police Department with a "Compassionate Police Department Award." On Nov. 17 around 1:10 p.m., South Pasadena police officers responded to a house fire in the 1000 block of Garfield Avenue in South Pasadena. When Corporal Craig Phillips and Officer Brian Wiley arrived, they saw part of a house was on fire and tried to contact residents in the home, South Pasadena police said in a statement. When they received no response from inside, they broke down the door and started searching the house to see if anyone was still inside. Although they did not find any people, the officers found a small 17-month-old Maltese, named Kolby, hiding in the corner of a room downstairs. "It was a scared dog, but it was a friendly dog," Wiley said. Kolby was not harmed by the fire. After the officers took Kolby outside, firefighters took over efforts to put out the fire, and a "huge portion" of the home was saved, Wiley said. In a statement Tuesday, PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange said, "These brave officers made every effort to ensure that no living being was trapped inside this burning house. Local residents are lucky to have such kind emergency responders who don't hesitate to help humans and animals in need." The South Pasadena Police Department will be awarded with a framed certificate and with "a box of delicious vegan cookies," PETA noted. Authorities are searching for at least three people connected to a fatal stabbing of a pregnant mother Monday night in Venice. Officers responded at around 9:30 p.m. to an assault with a deadly weapon call at 80 Windward Avenue and found an unresponsive woman in her early 20's bleeding from stab wounds, according to the Los Angeles Police Department Pacific Station. The woman was taken to the hospital, where she later died. Family members and police identified the woman as Jasmine Preciado. Preciado's family said she was three months pregnant and a mother to a 3-year-old daughter. "Did you know that by hurting Jasmine, you hurt her daughter? You hurt her family, and you hurt her friends," said Preciado's cousin, Christina. Preciado was on a date with her boyfriend Monday night, her family said. The couple got into an argument with three other people before Preciado was stabbed, police said Tuesday morning. Authorities noted they do not know what they were fighting over. Surveillance video released Tuesday shows the moments leading up to the deadly stabbing. Footage appears to show Preciado in dark clothing showing her phone to several people near a vehicle. A short struggle is seen along with a person dressed in white, holding something shiny. The Los Angeles Police Department is looking for a man and two women who fled driving eastbound on Windward Avenue in a dark-colored SUV. No further details were immediately available. Anyone who saw the incident was urged to call LAPD's Pacific Division at 310-482-6334. Marin Austin contributed to this report. It's been years in the making and now the Miami Marine Stadium finally have the necessary funding to start its renovation project. The Miami commission signed off on a $45 million bond proposal. Some of the funds needed for the project were raised by the "Save Your Seat" campaign. Beer company, Heineken, helped launch the campaign and pledged to match the first $20,000 in donations. Now, with the approval of the bond proposal, one of America's most iconic destinations is ready for its makeover. A Florida woman who thought her house guests overstayed their welcome was arrested after she shot one of them, authorities said. Alana Annette Savell, 32, was arrested Monday on a charge of aggravated battery with a firearm, Bay County Sheriff's Office officials said. [NATL-CHI] Shocking Photos Show Inside Abandoned Lincoln Mall A woman told authorities that she had gone to Savell's home with a friend. Savell said they started drinking and were getting too loud, and said she didn't want them in her home. [NATL] Unfortunate Truck Spills: 3,000 Piglets Loose on Ill. Highway Savell armed herself with a handgun and started shooting at their feet from the doorway of the home, officials said. The woman was hit in the legs and was taken to a hospital for treatment. Savell's boyfriend was also hit in the leg with a bullet during the shooting, authorities said. The boyfriend allegedly told authorities that he told Savell that if someone is told to leave their property three times, she is to get the gun and shoot it at the ground. If that doesn't work, she's supposed to shoot them in the leg. Savell was booked into jail. It's unknown if she's hired an attorney. When theres a life-or -death crisis, one word or one look can make or break the situation. Thats why crisis negotiators are trained to get inside the minds of people in distress. It's an intense job and really takes a special kind of person to want to do it and do it well. On Nov. 2, Fadel Jabado, a father of six, allegedly shot his wife and son to death, and then his attorney. Miami-Dade Police Crisis Negotiator Victor Millian was dispatched to a location where Jabado was held up. Millian was literally the last line of communication where anything could have happened. One of the things he kept telling us from the minute I started my conversation, he wanted us to kill him he wanted to be suicide by cop, he implored me, said Millian. Millian is a member of the departments specialized crisis and hostage negotiation team. Last month, the team helped successfully talk down a man who shut down Floridas Turnpike and threatened to kill his wife and himself. In the summer, negotiator also talked a man off a ledge as he hung from the 836. Millian and his team deal with people in their darkest moments when theyve lost all coping skills and feel like the only solution is to die. You get really involved in this individuals mind field. Really thats what it is and we have to remember this person is in crisis for numerous things, explains Millian. It is the ultimate mind game that could mean life or death. Negotiating is nothing like we see in the movies. In reality, its a team of a diverse group of people with one person taking the lead. Dr. Scott W. Allen is the departments senior staff psychologist. The negotiator has the skills to keep that person on the phone by providing some form of empathy, some style of listening and responding with care and understanding, says Allen. Dr. Allen adds that their most frequent calls are people with a type of mental illness, usually under the influence. His team must break through a subjects false universe to resolve the crisis at hand. They are completed locked in with that individual and it is so powerful that this negotiator clearly realized I assisted that individual in reshaping their problem solving to develop some alternative options other than suicide, says Allen. Millian relies a lot on personal experience to make a connection. As a veteran himself, he successfully talked down a veteran after five hours of negotiating. Millians life situations are now helping to diffuse others. I kind of think about maybe I had a similar experience I've negotiated a gentleman who has a very complicated divorce and Im divorced so I can speak to that and understand emotions that go with it. The negotiators typically respond to 12-16 call outs every year. The number of call is actually down in 2016. Dr. Allen says its down because of training dealing with minority groups, mentally ill and returning veterans. In 2017, the team says it will focus specifically on the autism spectrum. Two Miami men are among 79 drug offenders who had their sentences commuted by President Obama Tuesday. Thomas Brown had been sentenced to life in prison in October 1989 but will now have his prison sentence expire next November. Brown had been convicted of possession with intent to distribute at least five kilograms of cocaine. Lavan Maurice Walker was sentenced to 420 months in prison with six years of supervised release in March 2004 after he was convicted of possession with intent to distribute a detectable amount of heroin, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Walker's prison sentence was commuted to expire in March. One of the toughest critics of President Barack Obamas efforts to restore relations with Cuba will now be working to help the transition team for the next Commander-in-Chief. Mauricio Claver-Carone, the executive director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee, was named by President-elect Donald Trump as a member of the group that will help map strategy and policy for when Trump takes the oath of office January 20th. USCD PAC says they are a non-partisan group promoting the transition in Cuba toward human rights and the rule of law. Claver-Carone will work on the transition team for the Treasury Department, where he once worked as an attorney and adviser during the administration of former President George W. Bush. Those who oppose the Obama administrations efforts regarding Cuba since 2014 praised the move, saying Claver-Carone is the right person to help fix what they believe was a major error by the President. Others, including some in the Cuban community in South Florida, oppose Claver-Carone having a seat at the transition table believing he has worked more for people with financial motives behind a continued embargo with the island nation. USCD PAC, according to election records obtained by the Miami Herald, donated over $600,000 to candidates that have been critical of the Obama administrations plans including Sen. Marco Rubio and Reps. Carlos Curbelo and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Calver-Carone has also spent time as a college professor while writing for several different websites on the issue of Cuba policy. Dozens of South Florida families will have a table full of food this Thanksgiving thanks to the Biscayne Bay Kiwanis Club. The group Monday handed out bags of food to 75 needy families in Miamis Overtown. "We want to give these families not only a wonderful Thanksgiving meal, but we want to give them enough food to carry them for the week," said Nellie Hernandez of the Biscayne Bay Kiwanis Club. Joshua Robinson is quick to tell us why he's thankful. I have my family, friends, education and a roof to sleep under. Joshuas mom is thankful that she has one less thing to worry about this Thanksgiving week. I am a mother of six. So it's amazing. It's beautiful, said Nadia Garcon, mother. The families from five different schools, including Frederick Douglass Elementary and Phillis Wheatley Elementary, grabbed a Publix bag and filled it with essentials like turkey, vegetables, bread and a sweet treat. Each family is selected based on need. Volunteers with the Kiwanis Club say some students who depend on free or reduced lunch struggle over holiday breaks. This bag of food costs about $50 dollars and goes a long way. Gratitude is the resounding response, said So much so that one family dropped off a letter thanking the Biscayne Bay Kiwanis Club. President-elect Donald Trump will spend Thanksgiving at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. Vice President-elect Mike Pence is traveling to Mississippi, where his son is stationed, for the holiday. That's according to Jason Miller, a spokesman for Trump's transition team. Pence's son, Michael, is a Marine who is training to be a pilot. Miller said Trump will get together with family at his Palm Beach home and take a brief break from transition planning. Asked what Trump will be doing, Miller said, "hopefully eating some turkey." Local businesses and organizations are stepping up to help make sure the less fortunate eats Thanksgiving dinner even one South Florida strip club. Cheetah Gentlemens Club in Hallandale Beach has again partnered with Rodriguez Charities to host their annual 1,000 Free Turkeys event to help families in need this Thanksgiving holiday. We all must help those in need, the gentlemens club said in a Facebook post promoting the turkey giveaway. The free birds are limited to one per family on a first come, first served basis. The event will be held Monday, Nov. 21 in the Cheetah Hallandales parking lot, beginning at 3 p.m. and lasting until the last turkey has been given away. Click here for more details. Mahlab gave a speech at an economic conference hosted by Egypt's weekly French newspaper Ahram Hebdo in partnership with the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the French embassy in Cairo Egypts former prime minister Ibrahim Mahlab called on Tuesday on French businessmen to invest in the country, especially in the tourism industry, and called on French citizens to visit the country. [Egypt] is close to France, it has beautiful weather, unique beaches, and there are no obstacles for tourists to visit the country, enjoy its beaches and [take advantage] of its affordable prices, Mahlab said in a speech at an economic conference hosted by Egypt's weekly French newspaper Ahram Hebdo in partnership with the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the French embassy in Cairo. Mahlab also pointed to a number of factors that can increase the allure of Egypt to investors, as it is a meeting point between Africa, Asia and Europe, with trained and affordable labour, [and has sound] infrastructure. He also mentioned recent measures taken by the country to prevent bureaucracy from hindering foreign investments. The number of tourists coming to Egypt dropped by 50 percent in the first half of 2016 compared to the same period last year, according to figures from Egypt's Tourism Authority, after the October crash of a Russian airliner in Sinai that killed all 224 people on board. Search Keywords: Short link: What to Know An article in ISIS mentioned driving a truck into spectators at the Thanksgiving Day Parade, an attack similar to one carried out in France In response, the NYPD is boosting security even more; sanitation trucks will barricade the parade route and thousands of cops will attend The threat comes as a NYC man was arrested for allegedly trying to join ISIS and talking about driving a truck into people in Times Square Police are busy securing the Thanksgiving day parade route after a recent article in an ISIS propoganda magazine called the nationally televised event an "excellent target." The article mentioned an attack similar to the one in Nice, France, on July 14, when a terrorist drove a large truck through a crowd, killing 86 people and injuring hundreds more. The attack in Nice also inspired a Brooklyn father of three who was arrested by the FBI after talking about attacking Times Square, authorities say. Mohamed Rafik Naji, 37, faces charges of providing material support for terrorism, according to court documents and law enforcement officials. The Yemen-born Brooklyn resident was arrested Monday. Authorities said Naji allegedly traveled to Yemen in 2015 in an attempt to join ISIS, but returned after several months when he was unable to join the terrorist organization. The NYPD has boosted security along the parade route in light of the ISIS article and the arrest of Naji. Barricades were already up and parking restrictions were in place Tuesday morning ahead of Thursdays parade. Eighty-one sanitation trucks, previously parked outside of Trump Tower to protect the president-elect, will line the parade route from 77th Street on the Upper West Side to 34th Street in midtown, where the parade ends. The trucks will also block certain intersections bordering the festivities. During the parade, thousands of police officers will watch the route, along with police dogs that are trained to search for chemical weapons. Despite the threats, New Yorkers and visitors to the city said that they have confidence in law enforcement to protect them. Its the best city in the world. I understand that we have threats, but we have protection, Clarence Tennell said. Julie Spellman, who will watch her daughter perform in the parade, believes the city is up for the security challenge. Its a dream come true for me to be here at the parade, Spellman said. I have complete faith in the NYPD to keep us safe. A New Jersey judge has ruled a severely anorexic woman committed to a state psychiatric hospital two years ago can refuse forced feedings and granted her request for care to relieve pain or discomfort. The 29-year-old Morris County woman, identified only as A.G., weighs 69 pounds and has been a patient at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Parsippany since 2014. She told the court earlier this month she doesn't want food or water and would prefer instead to enter palliative care. Superior Court Judge Paul Armstrong in Morristown granted her request on Monday and ordered her transferred into palliative care at the hospital. The state attorney general's office contends the woman is not mentally competent due to her chronic depression. It said anorexia is not a terminal condition and had asked the court to approve force-feedings, requested by state Department of Human Services. The attorney general's office said the woman's depression could be treated using an experimental drug. Doctors testified that the woman has been diagnosed with terminal anorexia-nervosa. She told the court she would resist force-feedings, which are administered through a tube inserted through the nose and pushed down the throat. Her court-appointed lawyer, Edward D'Alessandro Jr., said his client's bone density is comparable to a 92-year-old's. She would be at risk for injury if restrained, he said. Judge Armstrong determined the woman's testimony was "forthright, responsive, knowing, intelligent, voluntary, steadfast and credible." He said the woman's parents, doctors, psychiatrists, court-appointed medical guardian and the ethics committee at Morristown Medical Center all supported her decision to refuse forced feedings. [[238427591, C]] "This decision was made by A.G. with a clear understanding that death was or could be the possible outcome," the judge said. Armstrong cited previous "landmark" cases where patients, their families, physicians, and their institutions were found to be "proper cooperators" in making difficult medical decisions. A spokesman for the state attorney general's office declined to comment on the order. It's unclear whether the state will appeal. A Philadelphia man and a Camden man, both serving lengthy federal prison terms for drug offenses, are among 79 offenders to have their sentences commuted by President Obama, according to officials Tuesday. Tyris Ford, 47, of Philadelphia, was convicted in 2001 for possession and distribution of cocaine and carrying a firearm during a drug trafficking crime. He was sentenced to 300 months in prison and 10 years' supervised released. He was not scheduled for release until July 9, 2020, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons. Jose Rodriguez, of Camden, was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to 360 months in prison. It is unclear when he was scheduled for release. Both men will now be released March 22, according to Obama's commutation grants. Ford and Rodriguez are on a list of commutations of prisoners from across the country. The 79 offenders announced Tuesday bring the total to receive clemency under Obama to more than 1,000, according to the White House. "The President has now commuted the sentences of 1,023 men and women incarcerated under outdated and unduly harsh sentencing laws, including 342 individuals who were serving life sentences," the White House said in a statement. "The majority were offenders sentenced for nonviolent drug crimes." A 36-year-old woman accused of abusing rabbits seized from a rabbit colony in Brooklyn has been convicted on 100 counts of animal cruelty. The New York Times reports Dorota Trec, of Brooklyn, faces up to two years in jail and fines after Monday's conviction. Authorities say the rabbits were seized from her last year. They say they had various injuries and ailments including syphilis. Trec contends the rabbits were injured while they were being confiscated from a vacant lot near the Gowanus Canal. The 36-year-old music teacher from Poland has been keeping rabbits in the lot since 2012. She says she raised them "to be wild and strong." Animal control authorities took a total 176 rabbits from the lot after a news article drew attention to the colony. San Diego County Sheriff's deputies (SDSO) have arrested a 21-year-old man and continue to look for a second suspect in connection with the mysterious October homicide of a woman in Santee. Jose Luis Nunez-Torres, 21, of San Diego, was arrested and re-booked on a single count of murder for the Oct. 4 death of Leticia Arroyo inside her Santee townhouse. Nunez-Torres was already in custody at the San Diego Central Jail on unrelated charges. Sheriff's deputies said they continue to search for a second suspect in the case and the investigation is ongoing. In October, Arroyo's roommate came home to their residence in 8800 block of Mission Greens Road, near Mission Gorge, at around 10:40 p.m. to find the woman unconscious on the floor, critically injured. He immediately called 911. SDSO deputies were dispatched to the scene and when they arrived, the woman was confirmed dead. The victim's sister described Arroyo as a beloved daughter and aunt who made everyone laugh and had an infectious smile. "She was a beautiful person," said Priscilla, adding that Arroyo was an alumna of Mount Miguel High School, where she excelled as a softball player. "We want peace, we want closure, we want justice," said Priscilla. The investigation spanned several blocks in Santee that October as deputies gathered evidence. At this time, deputies said they found "blood evidence" was found in the street near the woman's home, although detectives have not yet determined if the blood belongs to the victim or to the suspect or suspects. Sheriff's officials have not revealed what happened the day of the homicide. The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information on this case can reach out to the SDSOs Homicide Detail at (858) 974-2321 or (858) 565-5200, or San Diego County Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Arroyo's family with funeral costs. You can donate to the fund here. What to Know No mosquito-transmitted Zika virus cases have been reported in San Diego County, and ten neighborhoods were sprayed for prevention. Zika virus is spread by the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito, which actively bite humans during the daytime. There aren't any Aedes mosquitoes in San Diego County or California that have been found carrying the virus as of Nov 21, 2016. County health officials plan to hand spray a section of the Nestor neighborhood after a patient contracted the virus in a travel-related case. The Nestor resident recently traveled abroad to a country where tropical, mosquito-borne illnesses, such as the Zika virus, are actively spreading. Officials say the mosquitoes and larvae that can carry the Zika virus were found near the patient's residence. This marks the tenth area sprayed to prevent the spread of Zika virus in San Diego County this year. County crews plan to spray the neighborhood to prevent invasive Aedes mosquitoes from potentially spreading the Zika virus. County crews will go door-to-door through the neighborhood Wednesday, to inform residents about the hand-spraying and teach them how to avoid creating breeding grounds for mosquitoes. In a neighborhood covering about nine acres of land, crews will spray south of the Interstate 5 and State Route 905 interchange, which will take place around Pikake Street, Deep Haven Lane, Lawndale Street and Quadra Avenue. There are two types of invasive Aedes mosquitoes that have been spotted in San Diego County that are capable of carrying the Zika virus, but none have been documented actively carrying the virus in the region or California, according to County health officials. Invasive Aedes mosquitoes like to live and breed near people, in the standing water in backyards and even inside homes, said officials. They are more likely than native species to bite during the day, rather than at night. All mosquitoes in the area like to bite around dawn and dusk. Mist will affect visibility in the northern and central parts of Egypt on Wednesday. "Early drivers should pay extra attention as the morning fog will be intense," Wahid El-Seoudy, spokesman for the Egyptian Meteorology Authority, told Ahram Online. The weather could affect marine navigation, El-Seoudy said. Parts of Upper Egypt saw power cuts for a few hours on Sunday when severe fog led to a breakdown in operations at Samalot power station in Minya and at the Aswan High Dam. The power cut also affected water stations, hospitals, and bakeries. Cloudy weather and possible rain are forecast for the northern parts of the country, Sinai, and the Halayeb and Shalatin on Wednesday, MENA reported, while the other southern areas of the country are expected to have warm weather. Search Keywords: Short link: Students and staff at two San Diego high schools may have been exposed to tuberculosis in two new, unrelated cases. According to the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA), individuals at Sweetwater High School were exposed to TB between July 20 and Oct. 20. Students and staff at Serra High School may also have been exposed to TB between Aug. 29 and Nov. 7. HHSA says the two cases are not related. Officials from Sweetwater High and HHSA are notifying any individuals that may be affected. There will be free testing for students and staff on Nov. 29 at Sweetwater High and Dec. 5 for Serra High. Tuberculosis is a contagious but preventable and curable disease that spreads through the air. Most people who are exposed to TB do not develop the disease," said County public health officer, Wilma Wooten, M.D., M.P.H. Symptoms of tuberculosis include fever, weight loss, night sweats and a persistent cough. According to HSSA, there were 234 reported cases of TB in San Diego County in 2015. Child pornography was found on a Maryland sheriff's officers phone, according to an affidavit. A company that provides cloud security tipped the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about suspected child pornography uploaded to a specific phone number in October and November, according to the affidavit. A Charles County Sheriffs officer investigated the number and recognized the name of the man it belonged to as a fellow officer. A search warrant for Alexander C. Sullivan, 37, of King George, Virginia, was executed Nov. 17, according to the U.S. attorneys office. More than 200 images and five videos of child pornography were found. Sullivan, who recently moved to Virginia from Indian Head, Maryland, was arrested Monday evening and charged with possession of child pornography. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. A judge ordered Sullivan's release under the conditions he stay away from children and submit to electronic monitoring. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners as the investigation moves forward, Charles County Sheriff Troy D. Berry said in a news release. Sullivan, a 10-year veteran of the sheriffs office, is suspended without pay. A supporter of President-elect Donald Trump said he was the target of hate-based vandalism. Thomas Roszkowski found a swastika spray-painted on the front door of his home in Silver Spring, Maryland, over the weekend. He also told police his American flag was stolen out of his front yard, and he had a Trump sign taken off his lawn in October. Detectives said eggs were thrown at Roszkowskis home in November. Police believe the homeowners political affiliation may be the motive for these thefts and vandalisms. A war hero from Bethesda, Maryland, was honored Monday at a ceremony where hundreds of people became American citizens. Retired U.S. Army Capt. Florent Groberg was recognized as an Outstanding American by Choice. Groberg saved soldiers lives when he tackled a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in August 2012. In Alexandria on Monday, 165 people from 43 countries participated in a naturalization ceremony lead by Groberg. "I was being given a gift. Becoming an American was something that changed my life," he said. Groberg was born in France and became a U.S. citizen in 2001, the same year he graduated from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda. President Barack Obama gave Groberg the Medal of Honor in 2015. "I think of myself as an American, an American soldier that did his job," Groberg said. The Outstanding Americans by Choice initiative from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recognizes outstanding achievements by naturalized U.S. citizens. "Through civic participation, professional achievement and responsible citizenship, recipients of this honor have demonstrated their commitment to this country and to the common civic values that unite us as Americans," USCIS' website says. This was his message for new Americans: "Cherish this moment, because this is the greatest country in the world.This is an honor." When a Virginia womans van broke down just days after it had been fixed, she learned the work shed paid more than a thousand dollars for hadnt been done. A mechanic told Kimann Butterfield of Dumfries she would need to replace her transmission and offered to replace it with a used one to save cash. He charged her $1,600, and a week later the single mother of two got her van back. Days later, it broke down again. I had to pull over on my way to Tysons on Braddock Road because it stopped completely, she said. Her mechanic wouldnt take her calls, so she had to call another mechanic who informed her the transmission was still the original. The screws, markings and serial numbers were all original to the van. Butterfield went back to the first shop, and the owner admitted her transmission was never removed and he fired two employees because of it. He promised to refund her the full $1,600, putting it in writing and giving her $800 right away. He said, 'Come back this Friday and I'll give you back your money," she said. Instead, he stopped taking her calls, she said. NBC4 Responds went to the Fredericksburg shop and found the sign removed, the doors locked and the garage empty. The owner promised Butterfield would get her money within a week, and he said he is taking the two employees to court in December. Butterfield said he did reach out to her and return the remaining $800. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Antwan Wilson will be D.C.'s new public schools chancellor Tuesday. Wilson was selected, in part, for his success in raising achievement scores, sources told News4's Tom Sherwood and Mark Segraves on Monday. Bowser made her official announcement Tuesday morning, after News4 broke the story online Monday evening. She welcomed Wilson and his wife, Teresa, to "the best city in the world" during her press conference. "As superintendent [in Oakland], he has focused on managing and improving a complex organization, championing important messages to improve teaching and learning, increasing high school graduation rates, and improving social and emotional learning in special education processes," Bowser said. She said he also negotiated increases in teacher pay and per-student funding in Oakland. "The District is well-positioned to continue moving forward on behalf of young people," Wilson said Tuesday. "....I believe it's extremely important to make sure that schools are places that educate young people and prepare them for success, not just academic success, but success as people." He recalled his own childhood, when he was raised by "a single parent, a teenage parent, where we had to move year after year after year." "There are so many reasons that families move, and life happens," he said. "It's really important that there is a system that picks families up and really makes a difference for young people, so they know there is a future ahead of them and there's a reason to come to school." According to the Oakland Unified School District website, Wilson previously served as assistant superintendent for post-secondary readiness in Denver Public Schools for six years, where he led Denver's Middle, High, and Intensive Pathway Schools. He arrived in Oakland in April 2015. President-elect Donald Trump's announcement that he plans to quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal may spell the end of the dozen-nation trade pact at least in its original form. But other Pacific Rim leaders are vowing to pursue market-opening efforts they view as vital for their own countries' future growth. Meanwhile, China also is moving ahead with rival free-trade initiatives. Trump's message, in a short video on his future administration's plans, was issued just after leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group ended their annual summit Sunday with a unified call to fight the backlash against free trade highlighted by Trump's victory and Britain's vote to leave the European Union. In an annex to their summit statement, the APEC leaders gathered in Lima, Peru, voiced support for the TPP, which has been envisioned as a step toward building a wider, pan-Pacific free trade zone. Speaking after his return home, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key told reporters Tuesday there were alternatives. "The United States isn't an island. It can't just sit there and say it's not going to trade with the rest of the world," Key said. "At some point they're going to have to give some consideration to that. But naturally, we're a bit disappointed." Trump described the 12-nation trade pact as a "potential disaster for our country." He has also said he wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. President Barack Obama recently announced that his administration was giving up seeking congressional approval for the Pacific Rim trade pact, which he had championed as a strategy for ensuring U.S. could lead the process of devising a "gold standard" set of rules for 21st century trade. "I think not moving forward would undermine our position across the region and our ability to shape the rules of global trade in a way that reflects our interests and our values," Obama told reporters in Lima. Under terms of the TPP agreement signed this year in New Zealand, the vast free trade agreement can be only implemented, in its current form, if it is ratified by at least six countries that account for 85 percent of the combined gross domestic production of the 12 TPP nations. Since the U.S. accounts for 60 percent of the combined GDP of the group, and Japan less than 20 percent, those conditions cannot be met without U.S. participation. During their weekend meeting in Peru, some Asia-Pacific leaders said they might try to modify the trade pact to make it more appealing to Trump, or try to push ahead without the U.S. Key said he wasn't surprised at the comments Trump made after he campaigned strongly against the agreement. But the U.S. will need to think about what role it wants to play in Asia and how it will access fast-growing markets there, he said. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that while Trump and other members of his administration would have to decide for themselves, the other 11 members of the TPP were unanimous in wanting to ratify it and see it come into force. From "Australia's point of view, getting access, greater access for Australian exports, whether it is goods or services to those big markets is manifestly in our interest," Turnbull said. "It is manifestly delivering more jobs, better jobs and stronger economic growth in Australia." But after Trump's announcement Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who last week became the first foreign leader to meet the president-elect since his Nov. 8 election victory, was less optimistic. "TPP is meaningless without the United States," Abe told reporters while on an official visit to Argentina. He said renegotiating the agreement would "disturb the fundamental balance of benefits." As Japan's most powerful leader in a decade, Abe invested political capital in overcoming strong domestic opposition to the TPP, especially from farmers and the medical lobby. His ruling Liberal Democratic Party pushed TPP ratification through the lower house of parliament and had been set to seek final approval in the upper house. The TPP member countries also include Chile, Mexico, Canada, Peru, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Australia. With the TPP likely stalled, other trade initiatives may gain traction. That includes the less well-known Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP. It includes many Asian-Pacific countries, including China, India, Indonesia and South Korea, which are not part of the TPP. So far, no countries from the Americas have joined. The fallout continues at a Boston charter school after allegations that a 6-year-old sexually abused other children on a school bus. As necn Investigates has learned, Boston Renaissance Charter School in Hyde Park did not contact officials from the Department of Education. According to state officials, they are legally obligated to contact the state after a "significant incident" within two business days. "They are not facing penalties at this time, although we expect to send them a formal letter about the reporting requirement in addition to the conversations and correspondence we have had with them over the last 24 hours," said Jackie Reis, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Boston Public Schools has placed the bus driver on paid administrative leave as a precaution. BPS provides transportation for the charter school. Earlier Tuesday, the charter school did send out a notice to parents outlining why they did not immediately notify parents on Nov. 3. "We consulted with the Child Advocacy Center and followed applicable state and federal legal guidelines in determining how to communicate with the families involved and the broader school community," the letter read. "We have been cooperating fully with these agencies from the beginning ... This is a highly sensitive matter. We ask our school community to respect the privacy of our students and families, and allow the school to handle this appropriately." Meanwhile, community advocates are urging Boston Public School officials to put monitors on all school buses. Boston Police said they can't say much about the investigation because of the children's ages, including when the alleged incidents happened or how many children may have been assaulted. The mother of one of the children who was allegedly assaulted said the incidents began at the beginning of the school year, and alleged at least four students were assaulted. "We have to look at this issue. Our children are not safe on any school bus that does not have a monitor," community activist Mary Franklin said at a press conference Tuesday. "Our mayor has to step up and he has to see these children as valuable human beings and protect them and keep them safe." Police were first notified of the incidents on Nov. 3 by Boston Renaissance Charter School in Hyde Park. They referred the matter to the Children's Advocacy Center of Suffolk County because of the ages of the students involved. The state Department of Education was also not notified within the required two-day window. The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office said it is aware of the allegations and is coordinating with Boston Police, the school and the Children's Advocacy Center. Juvenile court only has jurisdiction over children age 7 or older, so no charges can be brought against someone under that age. Advocates now want parents and citizens, along with Mayor Marty Walsh and Superintendent of Schools Tommy Chang to meet for a town hall on Dec. 29 to discuss school bus monitors. "Every school bus carrying the most precious cargo, which is our children, our grandchildren, family members, and friends, have the right to ride to and from school safely and to be respected," Franklin said. "Let me be clear here - monitors are needed, regardless of a school being a public charter or district." Parents said the school only notified them of the incidents on Monday - more than two weeks after police were called - after some of the details were shared by a parent on Facebook over the weekend. The mother of one alleged victim said her son was molested a number of times. "He said it happened more than 10 times," said the mother, who did not want to be named. "As a mom, I lost it. My son was being touched on the bus by another child that's 6 years old. The kid wanted my son to play with his genitals and he wanted my son to play with his genitals also. He mentioned a lot of grabbing of the buttocks." The mother said the boy, who is now under investigation, also made threats. "He made mention that there were guns at his house and if he was going to say anything that he was going to kill me," she said. According to the mother of the alleged victim, she was told by school officials that another student saw what happened and told an administrator. Boston Renaissance Charter School issued a statement Monday saying that it is taking the matter "very seriously" and has taken steps to ensure student safety and to protect the privacy of the students involved. "We are aware of the Facebook post that has been circulating regarding an alleged incident on a school bus earlier this month," the school said. "We can assure all Boston Renaissance families that the school leadership team took immediate action and followed appropriate legal protocols, contacting law enforcement immediately upon learning of the issue. "This is a highly sensitive matter," the school added. "We ask our school community to respect the privacy of our students and families, and allow the school to handle this appropriately." Franklin, the grandmother of a 6-year-old student in Boston schools, said it's time for the "lies and excuses" to end. "There are too many horrific stories of abuse, neglect and dangerous behaviors that are taking place on many school buses," she said. "These occurrences are added trauma to the overwhelming issues our children are confronted with in their communities. "As parents and concerned citizens, we can no longer allow our children to be mistreated, abused and viewed as if they don't matter to the City of Boston. We want to ensure that our children are safe going and coming to school." Renaissance Charter School is not part of the Boston Public School District. Boston Public Schools provides bus service to all public and charter schools in the city of Boston. The school will be holding a meeting with parents Monday night at 6 p.m. to address concerns. They told necn it is not open to the public. Only parents will be allowed to attend. (Beijing) Bitter quarrels within management and inquiries by China's banking regulator into opaque capital flows have rattled Shandong-based Hengfeng Bank, one of the country's 12 national commercial banks. Hengfeng, also known as Evergrowing Bank, may have violated banking regulations or corporate laws, according to a Caixin review of company documents, interviews with a former president of the bank and others close to the organization. Since May, the bank has been under media scrutiny after reports by several publications, including the state-backed newspaper China Times, China Industry and Economic News, and a news portal run by Tencent Holdings Ltd., said they received reports from an unnamed whistleblower accusing top executives of embezzlement. The attention set off a round of finger-pointing among executives and unveiled the bank's internal power struggles. The whistleblower alleged that Chairman Cai Guohua and others misappropriated millions of yuan without board or shareholder approval, a charge later reiterated by the former president of the bank. Hengfeng has denied the reports Adding to controversy surrounding the bank are billions of yuan in off-balance-sheet transactions between Hengfeng and its shareholders. Caixin investigations based on public and internal company documents and interviews with sources familiar with the bank found that enormous bank-operated wealth management funds and shell companies backed by bank executives complicate Hengfeng's ownership. People close to the matter said Hengfeng's top executives went to Beijing in late October to explain to the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) why its shareholding structure changed so frequently. The commission did not launch any formal inquiry into the matter. The commission ordered the Yantai city government, the largest shareholder of Hengfeng with a 19.4% stake at the end of 2015, to tighten supervision of the bank. The CBRC may also consider putting the bank under its direct oversight, according to these sources. Established in 1987 as a bank wholly owned by the Yantai city government, Hengfeng was restructured in 2003 as a joint-stock bank with private ownership partners. Although it is expanding rapidly as one of only a dozen national commercial banks in China, Hengfeng is much smaller than better-known competitors such as Minsheng Bank, China Merchants Bank and Citic Bank. At the end of 2015, Hengfeng's total assets were 1.06 trillion yuan ($154 billion), up 70% in just two years from 600 billion yuan at the end of 2013. The jump reflected the rapid expansion of off-balance-sheet interbank and wealth management deals, according to the company's financial reports. Hengfeng's interbank assets such as bank-to-bank loans and resale agreements of bankers' acceptances, bonds and bills accounted for 70% of the bank's total assets at the end of 2015. Between December 2013 and December 2015, the bank's investment receivables, including some interbank assets and wealth management plans, which carry lower-risk weightings under China's capital adequacy rules, surged from 304 billion yuan to 437 billion yuan. During the same period, Hengfeng's total issuance of loans grew from 200 billion yuan at the end of 2013 to 308 billion yuan two years later, company documents showed. In 2015, Hengfeng reported 8 billion yuan in net profit on revenue of 23.8 billion yuan. According to the Shandong provincial government's financial department, Hengfeng planned to make an initial public offering in late 2020. Unfolding drama The Hengfeng drama began unfolding in May, when domestic media reported that several Hengfeng executives, including Chairman Cai, were accused of misappropriating more 50 million yuan without approval of the board of directors or shareholders. Hengfeng denied the reports in a statement. The controversy escalated in September after a state newspaper quoted Hengfeng's former president, Luan Yongtai, who retired in June 2015, as saying that he was among the executives who received the money, and his share was about 21 million yuan. In a September interview with Caixin, Luan said he accepted the money because he thought it was a retirement bonus. According to Luan, about 20 executives shared the 50 million yuan. Hengfeng's management team responded by issuing a public letter with the signatures of all 11,000 employees, accusing Luan of corruption. Luan responded on his verified registered account on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like service, that Cai "embezzled 380 million yuan and controlled the bank through irregular means." Hengfeng has yet to respond to Caixin's request for an interview. Previously, Hengfeng had been at the center of another scandal involving top management. In October 2014, the Communist Party of China's disciplinary agency put former Chairman Jiang Xiyun, who retired in late 2013, under investigation on allegations of corruption. Jiang was expelled from the party in January 2015, and his case is still awaiting a court hearing. Behind the scenes Shockwaves from the current scandal apparently pushed the bank's latest fundraising attempt into a dead end. In late September, Hengfeng submitted a plan to the CBRC to invite privately owned June Life Insurance Co. to be a new investor. Several sources close to Hengfeng and June Life said the equity investment was designed to strengthen Hengfeng executives' control over the bank. In early September, June Life announced a plan to acquire 3.26% of Hengfeng for 1.8 billion yuan, while contemplating further investments. Before that, though, Hengfeng arranged to invest 28 billion yuan in June Life in batches beginning in February, giving Hengfeng a 70% stake in the insurer. According to June Life business documents, the company's registered capital almost doubled to 6.25 billion yuan at the end of March compared with the end of 2015. The investments from Hengfeng strengthened June Life's balance sheet enough to make it a credible investor in Hengfeng, sources said. Hengfeng's financial reports and fundraising documents obtained by Caixin showed that Hengfeng raised the 28 billion yuan for injection into June Life mainly from wealth management funds, with a set yield guaranteed by the bank. Such arrangements may have violated several industry regulations, including a ban on using borrowed money to invest in insurance companies and other rules regarding the use of wealth management funds, according to policy documents issued by the CBRC and China Insurance Regulatory Commission. As Hengfeng came under closer media and regulator scrutiny, June Life changed its mind about the investment because of concerns over compliance risks, sources close to the insurer said. If the transaction falls through, Hengfeng will have to write off 800 million yuan in costs for raising the funds. In early November, sources close to June Life told Caixin that the company decided to sell its stake to a new investor instead of Hengfeng, returning the 28 billion yuan to the bank. In a Nov. 17 telephone interview with Caixin, Zheng Yonggang, the controller of June Life, said the company "doesn't have any relationship with Hengfeng." Hidden risks June Life is not the first company Hengfeng executives sought to use to shield their control of the bank through complex shareholding structures. Company financial and business registration documents showed that Jiangsu Huijin Group, an environmental engineering company that held 11% of Hengfeng in late 2015, has been jointly controlled by founder Zhu Mingliang and Shanghai Zuoji Equity Investment Co. since September 2014. According to Hengfeng's documents viewed by Caixin, Shanghai Zuoji is a company jointly set up in January 2015 by the bank and Zhu's affiliate companies to hold part of Hengfeng's equity as requested by the Yantai government. By the end of 2015, Shanghai Zuoji held 7.63% of Hengfeng, making it the fifth-largest shareholder. Caixin found from business registration documents that Shanghai Zuoji and a number of affiliated companies are registered under the umbrella of Shanghai Zuofeng Investment Management Co., of which Hengfeng chairman Cai owns 75%, with several other executives holding the rest. Shanghai Zuoji has undergone constant shareholding changes and invited new investors over the past year. As of Dec. 25, the company's registered capital had jumped to 8.9 billion yuan from 647 million yuan when it was established in January 2015, with capital injections from a Shanghai-based fund manager and several Chongqing-based private companies. Meanwhile, the registered capital of Jiangsu Huijin, the environmental engineering company, expanded from 508 million yuan in January 2016 to 16.6 billion yuan in April, as the company invited new investors, including another Shanghai-based wealth management firm and several Chongqing businesses. Companies' fundraising documents obtained by Caixin indicated that the two Shanghai wealth management firms jointly invested 15.4 billion yuan in Jiangsu Huijin and Shanghai Zuoji. The money was raised from wealth management funds from several smaller city commercial banks, with Hengfeng offering the guarantee. Most of the wealth management funds were returned to investors after three to six months with interests paid by Hengfeng, company documents showed. The Chongqing firms that invested in Jiangsu Huijin and Shanghai Zuoji are owned by a businessman named Wang Yuqiang, an acquaintance of Hengfeng Chairman Cai, a person close to the bank and the Yantai government said. Through these complicated and opaque transactions and capital flows, Jiangsu Huijin, Shanghai Zuoji and other enterprises are all holding Hengfeng shares on behalf of Hengfeng executives, said one legal expert. This person also questioned whether some of the deals violated corporate laws, such as Hengfeng's guarantee for the two fund management investors. While working closely with Hengfeng executives to acquire stakes in the bank, the Chongqing businessman Wang and Jiangsu Huijin's Zhu are also major borrowers from the bank. According to Hengfeng's financial reports, Jiangsu Huijin was the bank's largest borrower in 2014 with outstanding loans of 1.85 billion yuan at the end of the year. The bank didn't disclose Jiangsu Huijin's lending total in 2015 but said its interest payments totaled 77.5 million yuan. Zhu refused in a Nov. 15 interview with Caixin to comment on Jiangsu Huijin's borrowing from Hengfeng. Hengfeng's financial documents showed that Hengfeng has also extended several billion yuan of loans to Wang. The opaque capital flows, implicit guarantees on wealth management products and enormous loans extended to shareholders have fueled concerns about Hengfeng's asset quality. Hengfeng said at the end of 2015 that the bank had 4.8 billion yuan in bad loans with an additional 10 billion yuan under special monitoring for possible risk of default. A person at the bank said that if off-balance-sheet assets are included, the bank may have 100 billion yuan of assets at risk of turning sour. In a recent internal meeting, the bank's Chongqing branch reported more than 20 billion yuan of bad loans as of the end of September, the same source said. Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Hengfeng executives went to meet with banking regulatory officials in Beijing on their own accord, and that the CBRC did not conduct any formal inquiry into the situation. Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com); editor Ken Howe (kennethhowe@caixin.com) After a tense stand-off with Boston Childrens Hospital, a Massachusetts family is finally getting to use a drug that could potentially save their daughters life. Six-month-old Arianna Condon, of Peabody, is on the verge of paralysis due to a debilitating genetic disorder called Type 1 Spinal Muscular Atrophy affecting one in 10,000 babies. She may not be there next month, she might get sick, said Arianna's mother, Marina Condon. And she may not make it. The disease robs motor function and is also the leading cause of genetic deaths in infants. By the beginning of next year, the Food and Drug Administration could approve a treatment called Spinraza, made by Cambridge based Biogen in collaboration with Ionis Pharmaceuticals. So far, the results are astounding. Bostons Childrens Hospital conducted clinical trials, and is one of the few sites in the nation being allowed to treat patients with this new therapy. But for nearly a month, hospital leaders denied the drug to the Condons, saying it needed to go through an institutional review board, a routine checks and balances for patient safety. Condons own doctors said the later that the infant get the treatment, it may be very difficult to back peddle and regenerate those neurons, according to Marina Condon. But on Monday, the family received word that the promising treatment will be available to them and other families as well. You can imagine our excitement as to what this drug could do, said Arianna's father, Adam Condon. After the tense back and forth with the hospital, Arianna's parents are wondering if their daughter lost precious time waiting for a drug, available in their back yard. Its the red tape that they got to be able to break through real quick. They cant be so scared to bring a drug, Adam Condon said. The SMA treatment is still investigational, meaning, parents who want to enroll their children in the program, need to be approved by doctors. Former Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi is back in Boston after being released from prison in North Carolina. DiMasi was let out of a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, Tuesday morning. His wife, Debbie, accompanied him home to Massachusetts. He arrived at Logan International Airport around 5 p.m., and was wheeled off the plane in a wheelchair. He spoke briefly to reporters, saying he's "happy and grateful" to be back in Boston in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. "It's a very emotional day for me," he said. "It's been a trying and difficult experience for me and I'm looking forward to just being reunited with my family... I just love being back in Boston." DiMasi served five years of an eight-year sentence for public corruption. Last week, a judge approved a request for compassionate release because of DiMasi's health problems. DiMasi has been treated for throat and prostate cancer in prison. His cancer is in remission, but his treatments caused a narrowing of his esophagus that creates a risk of choking when he eats or drinks. "I'm a fighter," he said Tuesday upon arriving home. "I'm gonna fight this all the way." The once-powerful Democrat was convicted of steering state contracts to a software firm in exchange for $65,000 funneled through his private law firm. An arrest has been made in the deadly beating of a Massachusetts mother of four after a fight outside of a party. The Middlesex District Attorney's Office said Amirilies Huertas-Perez, 23, of Worcester will be arraigned Tuesday in the death of Gloribel Orengo, 44, of Lowell. Huertas-Perez has been charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury. Authorities say the investigation into Orengo's death, which is being called a homicide, is ongoing. No other details were immediately available, including whether Huertas-Perez has an attorney. Lowell Police said officers responded to a report of an injured woman Saturday night on Pawtucket Boulevard, where they found Orengo suffering from serious injuries. She died shortly after at a local hospital. Their preliminary investigation indicated that Orengo was one of several people involved in a fight outside of a home after being asked to leave. Orengo's fiancee, Miguel Morales, said her 27-year-old son - who has Down Syndrome - held her body as she was dying in a parking lot. "He was holding her, telling her to wake up, that he loved her," Morales said. Orengo leaves behind four children and three grandchildren. "She loved to cook for everyone," Morales said. "If you needed something and she had it, it was yours. She was just the best." Connecticut state police have taken a man into custody who is accused of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old child in Florida. The Altamonte Springs Police Department in Florida reached out to state police on Saturday because they were looking for 28-year-old Blair Thompson and believed he was staying in Mansfield. Troopers spent the weekend following various leads and conducting surveillance and took Thompson into custody, according to state police. He was transported to Troop C and is being held on $500,000 bond. State police said they are coordinating extradition with authorities in Florida. The Cambridge License Commission is recommending that Harvard Square's Hong Kong restaurant's owner is punished after two of his employees allegedly consumed marijuana-laced gummy bears, according to Wicked Local Cambridge. Last month two Hong Kong employees allegedly shared the marijuana-laced gummies. Cambridge police responded when they received a report that one of the employees was distressed. "She was freaking out and talking nonsense," said officer Matthew Grassi. The woman was transported to a hospital and the other Hong Kong employee, a manager who gave her the gummies, was arrested and charged with distribution. Hong Kong restaurant owner Paul Lee says he fired the manager, but the Cambridge License Commission is not satisfied with Lee's actions and will vote on his punishment at the commission's next meeting on Dec.7. A New Hampshire man was hospitalized on Monday after being shocked while installing Christmas lights outside a home in Merrimack. Fire officials said the man was using a large metal pole with a hook on the end to install the lights onto a tree, when the pole made contact with nearby power lines. Authorities said the metal pole transferred 19,900 volts into the man, shocking him. The man, who has not been identified, was first taken to a local hospital then transported to a Boston hospital for treatment. His condition is unknown. "We ask that people please use caution when putting decorations up and especially around power lines," said Captain John Manuele, Merrimack Fire Marshal. A Salem, Massachusetts, police officer married to the city's police chief has resigned amid charges he sexually assaulted an intoxicated man in protective custody inside a station closet. A city attorney confirms that 56-year-old Brian Butler resigned two days after his arrest earlier this month. The attorney said Butler will be entitled to receive accrued vacation, but said it was unclear if he was eligible for pension and retirement. The alleged assault occurred Oct. 31 and was reported on Nov. 5. The man told investigators he felt compelled to go along because he was in fear. Butler has pleaded not guilty to rape and indecent assault and battery and is free on bail. He told investigators the encounter was consensual. Butler's attorney says prosecutors must prove there was a lack of consent. Butler's wife, Chief Mary Butler, has returned to duty after taking personal leave. With a deadly batch of heroin threatening residents in Pelham, New Hampshire, police are going above and beyond their usual protocol to warn the community. Students at Pelham High School and their parents got an emergency email from police warning them Tuesday about one of the most powerful batches of heroin the community has ever seen. Pelham mom Donata Kirk was alarmed when she read her email Tuesday afternoon. Please share this info with your family and friends, she read aloud to necn. A press release typically intended for the media, sent to parents and students about a deadly batch of heroin. It is a scary thing as a parent raising children in this day and age, especially when you get things like that where it hits so close to home, Kirk said. Police say there have been two overdoses since Sunday and two deaths in just the last week. The heroin on the streets in Pelham right now is proving more powerful than ever before. What were finding is they are putting this into their system and it is immediately shutting them down, said Pelham Police Lt. Anne Perriello. So they dont even have a chance to say, something is wrong, I need to call 911. The laced heroin is so dangerous, Lt. Perriello decided that high school students and their parents needed a warning. So she forward the press release to Pelham Superintendent Amanda Lecaroz. I didnt even question whether we were going to send it out, of course we would send it out, Lecaroz told necn Tuesday. Lecaroz wasted no time, using the schools emergency alert system to reach as many people as possible. We have an all staff, student, community list which is 2,333 emails, Lecaroz explained. Thats what went out today. While the school district works closely with law enforcement on several drug prevention programs including DARE, Lecaroz says Tuesdays email chain was a first. If we can just save one person as a result of that message it is worth sending, she said. Kirk tells us the email definitely had an impact by reigniting an important conversation with her two kids about drugs. Lt. Perriello expects the heroin is laced with fentanyl and other synthetic drugs. She says her first priority right now is finding the source and getting it off the streets. Anything with information in the case is asked to contact Pelham Police. A vigil was held Monday night for a Massachusetts woman who was killed over the weekend after going to a party in Lowell. Police have still not made an arrest in the beating death of 44-year-old Gloribel Orengo, but her family says she knew the killers. Family and friends who gathered at the candlelight vigil where she was killed are still in disbelief. "It was horrible. Im still in shock," said Orengo's friend, Deb Carroll. "I dont know how to say bye to my friends. She was my best friend, she was like my sister." Investigators say Orengo was at a party at the Westminster Village apartment complex on Pawtucket Boulevard when a fight broke out and spilled into the parking lot. Orengos son, Luis Anthony Barreto, says his brother, who has Down Syndrome, was with their mother as a group attacked her. "He started saying, 'no mommy its OK, get up,' Barreto recalled. "He kept saying it's his fault. I told him it's not his fault. He keeps saying hes sorry - it just breaks my heart." Family members said Orengo was a mother of four and grandmother of three. Her fiance Miguel Morales, said in the 24 years they were together he cant imagine who could brutally attack her. "If you needed something she had it, and she was just the best," said a heartbroken Morales. New Hampshire's outgoing Sen. Kelly Ayotte was mentioned during President-elect Donald Trump's lengthy interview with the New York Times Tuesday afternoon - but she may not be a fan of what was said. Trump told reporters that when he "easily" won the presidential election, he "helped numerous senators" be re-elected. Then he turned to the subject of Ayotte, who was narrowly defeated by Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan in one of the most-watched Senate contests over the course of the election. The president-elect said Ayotte "would love a job in the administration," but then quickly stamped out rumors she was being considered for his cabinet. "No, thank you," he said about her. Ayotte had difficulties during her Senate campaign regarding her support, or lack thereof, of the then-Republican presidential nominee. Early in October, she quickly retracted a statement made during a debate that Trump was a good role model for children. By mid-October, she announced she would write in Vice President-elect Mike Pence's name on the ballot for president after Trump described grabbing women by the genitals in a leaked audio recording from a decade-old Access Hollywood interview. (Beijing) Weibo Corp. posted a strong profit and revenue growth in its latest quarterly results, as the social media company, often called "China's Twitter," boosted its business from smaller corporate customers and reduced its reliance on major stakeholder Alibaba. Weibo's revenue grew 42% in the quarter through September, reaching $177 million, according to its latest quarterly report issued on Monday in the U.S. Its operating profit tripled to $42.9 million, while its net profit more than doubled to $32.1 million. The Sina Weibo microblog began life as a Twitter imitator, but like its U.S. counterpart, the platform struggled to find a formula for sustained profits. It finally found success with leading e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which owns 30% of the networking firm and supplied about a third of the company's revenue last year. But Alibaba accounted for just $9.3 million in revenue in Weibo's latest quarter, down sharply from $32.5 million a year earlier and accounting for just 5% of the company's total. That drop was more than offset by revenue from key accounts and small and midsize enterprises (SMEs), whose contribution doubled to $147 million. "Weibo's key account and SME ad revenue has doubled from last year for the third consecutive quarter, as we benefited from our brand, breadth of product offering and ad spending shifting toward mobile, social media and video," CEO Wang Gaofei said. "Our efforts to build a content ecosystem that attracts premium user-generated content have led to strong traffic growth." Weibo Corp.'s shares fell 1.3% in after-hours trade after the results were released, giving back some of their 3% gain during the regular trading session. Their shares have surged this year, nearly quadrupling since February, as the company demonstrated it can earn strong, sustainable profits. Contact reporter Doug Young (dougyoung@caixin.com); editor Calum Gordon (calum@caixin.com) Tributes paid to film of hope creator Dan Lawrence Tributes have been paid to inspirational Dereham Christian youth worker Dan Lawrence, who died last night (November 21) from a brain tumour only two weeks after his film Looking to Eternity was released. When faced with an inoperable brain tumour Dan, aged 25, turned his diagnosis into a way of engaging young people in an ambitious media project. It resulted in an 80-minute production, filmed and acted by young people, that tackles challenging issues such as death, faith and hope. Dan and wife Kim were present at the premiere of Looking to Eternity at the Hollywood cinema in Dereham on November 4. Ang Fox, Director of North Breckland YFC, said: Dan passed away yesterday evening. He was with all his family and passed peacefully to glory. Dan's faith in Jesus has never wavered. He constantly professed God is good. Please pray for Dans family and the young people who we work with who loved Dan lots, as we journey with them. In early 2015, Dan, recently married to Kim, found out he was suffering from an aggressive and inoperable brain tumour. His response to the devastating diagnosis was in keeping with his passions, his creativity and positive character. Dan wrote a screenplay called Looking to Eternity, with the intention of turning it into a project to engage and benefit young people, and be filmed and acted by them. In a final media interview, Dan spoke about the film and his journey, to Good News for Norwich & Norfolk, just two weeks ago. Theres always been a difference in the way we do things and we would never just sit around, said Dan. I dont think there has ever been a point where I thought: I cant be bothered. There has always been something. Dan has always had a faith, growing up attending Sprowston Methodist Church. Since 2010 he has been a youth worker for North Breckland Youth For Christ (YFC), specialising in projects where he can gently and patiently engage and encourage young people in media and creative initiatives, such as BreckFest Youth Radio, a filmed version of the Passion story and a new pantomime. With the full support of North Breckland YFC, Dan focused on the script through his early radiotherapy treatment. Following almost two years of hard work, Dan, North Breckland YFC, a cast and crew of young people and other key volunteers turned that screenplay into the feature length film Looking to Eternity. The film of hope is the story of a grumpy young man called John who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. It follows the journey that he and his wife, Edy, go on through his illness, finding faith and ultimately joy. The quality of the production is impressively professional, and the difficult subject matter is handled with sensitivity, intelligence, humour and uncompromising honesty. Dan said: It is a complicated matter but something that needs to be dealt with I think. And something that needs to be dealt with in a way that almost makes it comical at the same time, but in a way that there is a definite reason for it all. The film, shot over seven days, is an incredible achievement, given that the majority of the characters are played by young people who had never previously acted and many of the technical roles were carried out by young people learning as they went. The inspiration for the film was a verse Dan read in his Bible. 2 Corinthians 4:18: "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal". It has been a great source of comfort for the team during Dan's illness. Ang Fox, producer of Looking to Eternity describes the film as a miracle. She said: Gods hand is just all over it at every stage. His timing and provision all the way through has been amazing. We had an 8,000 budget and we came in on budget. If you talk to anyone in the industry they wouldnt believe it and the quality that has been produced in seven days is a miracle. The young people have been amazing. They have learned such a lot and they have shown a real example of what it is to work in unity and work towards a purpose. The film was funded by the Jerusalem Trust with grants for equipment awarded by Breckland Youth Advisory Board, Barnham Broom Trust and Red House Youth Project. A professional film director, Jeremy Higham, gave guidance on the script and provided training at the week-long film school that first brought the cast and crew of young people and adults together in February 2016. Dans twin brother, Ben Lawrence, a youth worker for Norwich Youth for Christ, was also instrumental in the project, editing and deputising as director when Dan was unable to be on set due to the illness. Dans wife Kim, a youth worker for Norwich Christian youth charity ENYP and also the 27 Beat Editor for the film, said: Its been a good thing to focus on. During the treatments it was just something else to be doing and focusing on when everything else health-wise wasnt doing so good. In May 2016, Dan was told that the brain tumour was continuing to grow and another cycle of chemotherapy began. In October 2016, he was told that the chemotherapy wasnt working and treatment would stop. Describing how Dan took this news, Kim said: We came out of that appointment and I said: how do you feel about it? and Dan just looked at me and said: Gods good. And through everything, every time we get good or bad news, Dan is always like: Gods in control and Gods good. And that has always been the focus: God is still good and God still loves us. When asked how he thought his own faith had helped him face the diagnosis, Dan said: Theres the crux of it. I get asked this question and I just sometimes dont know. I think that it all comes down to how you take it on. I think there is something amazing about being in the Christian world, because there is a chance and a real hope. Looking to Eternity is now available to buy on DVD for 10. Half of the proceeds from sales of the DVD will go to The Brain Tumour Charity at Dans request. The North Breckland YFC team pray that the film will be watched far and wide both by individuals and groups. The charity has produced free downloadable resources that groups can use alongside the film to discuss the issues that the film raises. Ang said: We just want as many people as possible to see it, because we believe that God will touch peoples lives with it. I think weve known that from the beginning and thats always been what is driving us. You can purchase the Looking to Eternity DVD and download the free resources from www.northbrecklandyfc.org.uk Looking To Eternity will be shown on Saturday November 26 at The Sanctuary, Grove Walk, Norwich at 7pm (doors open at 6.30pm) and also at Oak Grove Chapel on December 11 at 7pm. Story by Jenny Seal Pictured top, Dan and Kim Lawrence at the premiere of Looking to Eternity in Dereham on November 4 and, above, Emma Struthers and Joshua Gould in a scene from Looking to Eternity. You can also read the interview with Dan and the story of Looking to Eternity in the latest edition of Good News for Norwich & Norfolk by clicking here. New research from HR executive network and research firm Future Workplace reveals that companies are increasingly investing in career mobility programs to improve employee engagement, productivity and teamwork. The Future Workplace Forecast: Navigating the Future of Work surveyed 2,147 global HR leaders and hiring managers and highlighted an emerging trend: Employers are offering internal career mobility opportunities to allow employees to "test drive" new roles and prepare them for the future workplace, according to the research. For businesses, these internal mobility programs provide a way to help employees with flexibility and career growth and development while stemming the turnover rate; employees get to add skills and experience to their resume without job-hopping, says Jeanne Meister, founding partner, Future Workplace, and co-author of The Future Workplace Experience: 10 Rules for Mastering Disruption in Recruiting and Engaging Employees, a book based on the results of the research study. "We're seeing these internal career mobility programs crop up in a lot of places, and they're a great way for employees to further their education and training from within an organization, as well as for companies looking to retain valuable talent and help them grow in their careers," Meister says. [ Related story: How 'Bring your parents day' improves work-life balance ] Internal talent market What do these programs look like? They're virtual talent marketplaces that exist within larger organizations, and match available roles with existing employees' skillsets and experience, says Meister. Two examples include Cisco's Talent Cloud and MasterCard's Smart Steps, which post available projects and then encourage employees from every area of the company to contribute. "The analogy is to career planning departments within universities that let students see what it's like to be in certain careers to help inform their decisions. So, if I'm in marketing right now, for instance, but I'm interested in data science, I might fill out an application within this marketplace, talk to my manager about how I could contribute, and see how my current skills would fit in with that role. Then, I'd do some job shadowing in data science, or even take on a few 'stretch' assignments within the new role to see what it involves," Meister says. [ Related story: Battling gender bias in IT ] Stop the job hop These programs are increasingly important for companies that don't want to risk losing elite talent but that recognize employees' desire to further their career paths and improve their knowledge, Meister says. They're also important for engagement, productivity and retention, according to the research. Forty-nine percent of survey respondents say offering career mobility programs will increase employee engagement, 39 percent say these programs will improve employee productivity and 39 percent say they will improve employee teamwork, the research reports. Career mobility programs also allow companies to increase their engagement levels, while stemming job hopping -- at least, external job hopping, Meister says. "If you have a star in your department, your biggest fear is that the person is going to leave. But the argument for these programs is that, unless you give them room to grow and explore, that person is going to leave anyway. It's much better for the company as a whole to have those folks growing and learning and contributing within the company," Meister says. [ Related story: Do you need a digital brand manager? ] In addition, career mobility programs are a key differentiator for companies that are seen as "best places to work," according to the research. Seventy-six percent of individuals surveyed say career mobility leads to positive outcomes in their organization. "Employers recognize that winning in the future workplace and being an employer of choice for candidates requires them to grow and broaden employee's skills not just through formal learning, but by exposing employees to a myriad of new jobs and roles inside the company," Meister says. Related Video This story, "How career mobility programs improve retention" was originally published by CIO . Councillor disputes use of compulsory purchase order THEALE parish councillors clashed over the future of education in the village, with one saying that there was no point in fighting a new primary school being built. West Berkshire Council wants to build an urgently-needed replacement for the Ofsted-rated outstanding Theale Primary School on land at the North Street playing fields. But the issue is complicated as the land is owned by the Englefield Estate, which leases it to Theale Parish Council. The parish council has refused to relinquish the land because of concerns over childrens safety. It also believes that the site is not best suited to cope with additional traffic. The parish council also feels that land offered to offset the loss was not suitable. Both councils are locked in negotiations, but the parish councils unwillingness to release the land means that West Berkshire Council must carry out a compulsory purchase order (CPO) on the site. The district council has said that funding for the CPO and delayed construction costs, estimated at around 85,000 to 100,000, will have to be clawed out of the existing budget. And there was a clash of opinion over the parish councils stance at a meeting last Monday when councillors were asked to grant the clerk, Jo Friend, permission to seek legal advice over the CPO. Newly-elected parish councillor Paul Clifford objected to the move, saying: I dont see the point of fighting. I would ask you to consider how you are handling the CPO and to work with other parties to get a better outcome. Mrs Friend said that advice needed to be sought as the parish council has never dealt with a CPO before. She said: Its not about fighting or supporting, its about getting legal advice and making sure what we are doing is correct legally. We would be negligent if we didnt, added David Wood. Chairwoman Becky Williams explained that councillors could only discuss what was on the agenda and that new councillors didnt know everything about the situation. The best thing we can do is arrange a meeting to sit down and have a chat and bring you up to speed, she said. Mr Clifford asked whether the parish councils position could be discussed at a future meeting. He added that he disagreed with the parish council spending money in relation to the CPO and asked how much was budgeted. He was told by Mrs Friend that there was no budget as she needed to be granted permission to assess costs. Its not an uncapped budget... [and] this is not a blank cheque, Mrs Friend said. Parish councillors voted to grant Mrs Friend permission to seek legal advice. Mr Clifford and new parish councillors Dan Baker and Darren Lye abstained. (Beijing) China will launch a pilot program next month that will award special license plates for new-energy cars an effort to promote the industry as it tries to clean up the nation's air and develop cutting-edge products it can someday export. The new program will begin on Dec. 1, with initial participation by the eastern cities of Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuxi and Jinan and the southern city of Shenzhen, the Traffic Management Bureau of the Public Security Ministry said late Monday. The program will be applied to the rest of the country as early as the second half of next year, the Traffic Management Bureau said. The special plates will have six digits and a green background color, unlike the usual blue ones with five digits. The system will allow cities to separately manage their new-energy car fleets, and more effectively promote electric cars, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles. "There might be more privileged policies for new-energy vehicles, such as reductions in tax and insurance, along with the new car plates," said Liang Yonghuo, an auto analyst at China Merchants Securities. The State Council, China's cabinet, held a conference a year ago to implement special policies to distinguish new-energy vehicles from traditional gasoline-powered ones. The central government ultimately hopes to put millions of such vehicles on the nation's streets to ease the air pollution that now plagues many major cities. It also hopes to foster an industry that can someday become a global leader, with the ability to export its products. Despite all those efforts, consumers have been slow to embrace the cars, often due to lack of familiarity and scarcity of charging stations and other new-energy infrastructure. Some of China's most congested cities now use an array of methods to limit the number of vehicles on the street. New-energy plates could now be exempt from some or all of those, encouraging consumers to buy such cars, analysts said. Beijing, for example, forces city drivers to take their vehicles off the road for one work day each week, and Shanghai doesn't allow out-of-town car plates on its elevated freeways during peak hours. Beijing and Shanghai also limit the number of new license plates available each month, with the result that sometimes it can take months or even years to get a new plate. But both cities make new-energy vehicle plates much easier to obtain, and such policies could continue under the new program. "The special car license system can facilitate differentiated management and help continue the process of loosening regulation on new energy vehicles," said Liu Xiaojie, an analyst at WAYS Consulting Co., a Guangzhou-based car consultant. Contact reporter Coco Feng (renkefeng@caixin.com); editor Doug Young (dougyoung@caixin.com) By Reuters WASHINGTON: The U.S. government should go after payouts to former Wells Fargo & Co executives involved in a scandal over unauthorised accounts now that a federal regulator has said it has the power to do so, lawmakers said on Monday. The San Francisco-based bank reached a $190 million settlement with federal regulators after admitting employees opened as many as 2 million accounts without customer consent. That September deal allowed Wells Fargo to make "golden parachute" payments to departing executives. But on Friday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees many federal banks, voided those terms. On Monday, two leading Democratic lawmakers urged the OCC to move ahead and revoke compensation to relevant executives. "Bank executives shouldn't get golden parachutes while employees making $12 an hour get shown the door," U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio told Reuters in a statement. Brown, the most senior Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, has said Wells Fargo scapegoated low-paid tellers in the scandal while bank bosses escaped blame. Wells Fargo fired 5,300 workers over the course of five years that the fraud persisted. "The OCC and all federal watchdogs shouldn't give banks that cheat a free pass," he said. U.S. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia also urged the regulator to go after former executives with all its authority. "I am encouraged that the OCC has now positioned itself to take appropriate action, and I would strongly urge them to do so," he told Reuters in a statement. On Saturday, Wells Fargo's chief executive, Tim Sloan, wrote employees that the bank would "comply with the revised requirements and continue to cooperate with the OCC." A Wells Fargo spokesman cited that memo when asked for comment on Monday. Last week's move was a reversal for the OCC, which had stopped short of imposing the toughest controls on executive payouts in its original settlement with Wells Fargo. The San Francisco-based bank "is not subject to the limitation on golden parachute and indemnification payment," according to the September accord. On Friday, the OCC said that it had "revoked" that earlier exemption for Wells Fargo, allowing it to keep a check on executive payouts, new bank leaders and other controls. An OCC official declined to say what steps the regulator would take next. The agency also declined to say why it had initially offered Wells Fargo an exemption or what prompted the reversal. The regulator often waives its authority over "golden parachutes." In 2014, for instance, the OCC sanctioned Bank of America and Citibank but exempted the lenders from those controls, according to a Reuters review of enforcement paperwork. Bank of America Corp and Citigroup Inc both declined to comment. Following the settlement, lawmakers held hearings where they grilled then-CEO John Stumpf about Wells Fargo's sales practices and corporate culture. He resigned in October. Stumpf and Carrie Tolstedt, the former head of retail banking, relinquished about $60 million in stock compensation in the aftermath of the scandal. But the pair also stood to take home more than $350 million in compensation, according to a Reuters review of filings. Stumpf and Tolstedt could not be immediately reached for comment. Wells Fargo has said that it might try to recoup some of Tolstedt's compensation - but only after the firm has completed an internal investigation. WASHINGTON: The U.S. government should go after payouts to former Wells Fargo & Co executives involved in a scandal over unauthorised accounts now that a federal regulator has said it has the power to do so, lawmakers said on Monday. The San Francisco-based bank reached a $190 million settlement with federal regulators after admitting employees opened as many as 2 million accounts without customer consent. That September deal allowed Wells Fargo to make "golden parachute" payments to departing executives. But on Friday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees many federal banks, voided those terms. On Monday, two leading Democratic lawmakers urged the OCC to move ahead and revoke compensation to relevant executives. "Bank executives shouldn't get golden parachutes while employees making $12 an hour get shown the door," U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio told Reuters in a statement. Brown, the most senior Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, has said Wells Fargo scapegoated low-paid tellers in the scandal while bank bosses escaped blame. Wells Fargo fired 5,300 workers over the course of five years that the fraud persisted. "The OCC and all federal watchdogs shouldn't give banks that cheat a free pass," he said. U.S. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia also urged the regulator to go after former executives with all its authority. "I am encouraged that the OCC has now positioned itself to take appropriate action, and I would strongly urge them to do so," he told Reuters in a statement. On Saturday, Wells Fargo's chief executive, Tim Sloan, wrote employees that the bank would "comply with the revised requirements and continue to cooperate with the OCC." A Wells Fargo spokesman cited that memo when asked for comment on Monday. Last week's move was a reversal for the OCC, which had stopped short of imposing the toughest controls on executive payouts in its original settlement with Wells Fargo. The San Francisco-based bank "is not subject to the limitation on golden parachute and indemnification payment," according to the September accord. On Friday, the OCC said that it had "revoked" that earlier exemption for Wells Fargo, allowing it to keep a check on executive payouts, new bank leaders and other controls. An OCC official declined to say what steps the regulator would take next. The agency also declined to say why it had initially offered Wells Fargo an exemption or what prompted the reversal. The regulator often waives its authority over "golden parachutes." In 2014, for instance, the OCC sanctioned Bank of America and Citibank but exempted the lenders from those controls, according to a Reuters review of enforcement paperwork. Bank of America Corp and Citigroup Inc both declined to comment. Following the settlement, lawmakers held hearings where they grilled then-CEO John Stumpf about Wells Fargo's sales practices and corporate culture. He resigned in October. Stumpf and Carrie Tolstedt, the former head of retail banking, relinquished about $60 million in stock compensation in the aftermath of the scandal. But the pair also stood to take home more than $350 million in compensation, according to a Reuters review of filings. Stumpf and Tolstedt could not be immediately reached for comment. Wells Fargo has said that it might try to recoup some of Tolstedt's compensation - but only after the firm has completed an internal investigation. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: THE Commerce and Industry Ministry will press for an increase in cash withdrawal limits for exporters, said Commerce and Industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday. Some exporters have either shut shop or scaled down production because of cash shortages following the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Sitharaman, who was speaking post a meeting with the export promotion councils said that the Ministry will take up the issue with the Finance Ministry. They voiced short term difficulties that they are facing. A majority of them felt they still had a segment of their activities (in cash), she said, adding that because of a contraction in liquidity post the announcement they do not have the cash. So some of them prefer closing down the units and telling their workers to come back after a week, or some of them reducing the capacity of production from 100 to 30-40 per cent. The request for a relaxation has come from exporters in very labour intensive segments like carpets, handicraft and handloom etc, who buy raw material and pay wages in cash to migrant workers. Sitharaman pointed out that the limit on withdrawals of Rs 50,000 per week for businesses was not enough to make all the necessary payments. Carpet exporters clearly say that migrant and transient workers constitute a big chunk. So they felt paying these workers are still not happening through bank accounts, so cash payments are important. During the meeting, exporters had also demanded that the limit be increased to three lakh and above. We assured that, we will take a quick and well compiled report back to the finance ministry so that quick remedial solutions are offered. We will pitch for them and I am sure that the Finance Ministry will give us a sympathetic hearing, she said. Sitharaman also said that there was no quantification of output loss due to short term closure of units. NEW DELHI: THE Commerce and Industry Ministry will press for an increase in cash withdrawal limits for exporters, said Commerce and Industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday. Some exporters have either shut shop or scaled down production because of cash shortages following the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Sitharaman, who was speaking post a meeting with the export promotion councils said that the Ministry will take up the issue with the Finance Ministry. They voiced short term difficulties that they are facing. A majority of them felt they still had a segment of their activities (in cash), she said, adding that because of a contraction in liquidity post the announcement they do not have the cash. So some of them prefer closing down the units and telling their workers to come back after a week, or some of them reducing the capacity of production from 100 to 30-40 per cent. The request for a relaxation has come from exporters in very labour intensive segments like carpets, handicraft and handloom etc, who buy raw material and pay wages in cash to migrant workers. Sitharaman pointed out that the limit on withdrawals of Rs 50,000 per week for businesses was not enough to make all the necessary payments. Carpet exporters clearly say that migrant and transient workers constitute a big chunk. So they felt paying these workers are still not happening through bank accounts, so cash payments are important. During the meeting, exporters had also demanded that the limit be increased to three lakh and above. We assured that, we will take a quick and well compiled report back to the finance ministry so that quick remedial solutions are offered. We will pitch for them and I am sure that the Finance Ministry will give us a sympathetic hearing, she said. Sitharaman also said that there was no quantification of output loss due to short term closure of units. Akram Mohammed By Express News Service Amid clamour for cash, city shopkeepers willingly accept old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, but not without extra tax or commission. Entry of Rs 500 notes has, meanwhile, sent excitement levels soaring among Bengalureans BENGALURU: The long wait for the new Rs 500 notes has finally ended for Bengalureans. Notes have arrived in the city and will be available in all the major cities of the state by the end of this week. However, the new currency notes will first be distributed in urban areas. There are concerns that cash crunch in rural pockets might be compounded if the new denominations are not widely available soon. M Mohan Reddy, convener of State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC), told Express that the new Rs 500 notes are being dispensed in ATMs around the city since Monday morning. There are also reports of the new currency notes being airlifted or transported by other means. The cash will be supplied across the country by Wednesday or Thursday, he said. The new Rs 500 notes will be loaded in ATMs as soon as possible. Recalibration of ATMs is also proceeding at a brisk pace in all parts of the state, Reddy added. SLBC sources said that the new Rs 500 notes will reach different ATMS of the state capital within a fortnight. More cash flow in rural areas As problems have been more severe in rural areas due to the lack of adequate banking facilities, bank mitras have been empowered, Reddy said. Bank mitras are banking representatives who withdraw money from the banks and distribute it to people in rural areas. So far, the bank mitras could withdraw Rs 50,000 per day from a bank and distribute it in villages deputed to him. The withdrawal limit for the bank mitras has now been increased to Rs 1.5 lakh. The move was to ensure adequate cash flow in rural pockets, Reddy said. Not enough new notes According to a manager of a leading bank, who did not wish to be identified, there is insufficient amount of smaller denomination notes in circulation and this has hampered the economic activity as people do not have cash to purchase things. We are hoping that new notes will be circulated soon. Banks have been managing with all the resources they have had these days, he said. The length of queues has reduced slightly though, he added. Amid clamour for cash, city shopkeepers willingly accept old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, but not without extra tax or commission. Entry of Rs 500 notes has, meanwhile, sent excitement levels soaring among Bengalureans BENGALURU: The long wait for the new Rs 500 notes has finally ended for Bengalureans. Notes have arrived in the city and will be available in all the major cities of the state by the end of this week. However, the new currency notes will first be distributed in urban areas. There are concerns that cash crunch in rural pockets might be compounded if the new denominations are not widely available soon. M Mohan Reddy, convener of State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC), told Express that the new Rs 500 notes are being dispensed in ATMs around the city since Monday morning. There are also reports of the new currency notes being airlifted or transported by other means. The cash will be supplied across the country by Wednesday or Thursday, he said. The new Rs 500 notes will be loaded in ATMs as soon as possible. Recalibration of ATMs is also proceeding at a brisk pace in all parts of the state, Reddy added. SLBC sources said that the new Rs 500 notes will reach different ATMS of the state capital within a fortnight. More cash flow in rural areas As problems have been more severe in rural areas due to the lack of adequate banking facilities, bank mitras have been empowered, Reddy said. Bank mitras are banking representatives who withdraw money from the banks and distribute it to people in rural areas. So far, the bank mitras could withdraw Rs 50,000 per day from a bank and distribute it in villages deputed to him. The withdrawal limit for the bank mitras has now been increased to Rs 1.5 lakh. The move was to ensure adequate cash flow in rural pockets, Reddy said. Not enough new notes According to a manager of a leading bank, who did not wish to be identified, there is insufficient amount of smaller denomination notes in circulation and this has hampered the economic activity as people do not have cash to purchase things. We are hoping that new notes will be circulated soon. Banks have been managing with all the resources they have had these days, he said. The length of queues has reduced slightly though, he added. By Express News Service CHENNAI: After eight months of treating for pregnancy, government doctors told a woman that she's only been carrying a cyst and not a baby. For Hasheena Begum (28), from Kannagi Nagar, it has come as a shock. Seven years into her marriage, a Urine Pregnancy Test in April at the Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital, Triplicane showed positive results. The Estimated Date of Delivery (EDD) was written as 18 November on her ruled notebook that serves as medical records. However, when she visited the hospital three days after her EDD, she was told that she was never pregnant and was only carrying a cyst. "I didn't have a baby for seven years. I thought this was it. I even celebrated my Baby shower," said Hasheena as she hands out a picture of herself in blue silk saree and jewellery embracing her bulged belly. "In three per cent of the cases, the urine pregnancy test could go wrong and hers would've been one of that," said Dr Vijaya S, Gynecologist of the hospital, after Hasheena had paid nearly a dozen visits. "I think she had psuedocyesis. It is a condition where the person believes she's pregnant, when she's actually not," she added. However, even after eight months of diagnosis, there are no records of an Ultrasound test in the medical records, while the patient claims that she's done a handful of scans after her pregnancy test turned positive. The doctors guess that she must've left the premises each time after checking only basics such as weight and blood pressure without finishing her scan. "The doctors may not have known if she left without doing the scan because the hospital is over-crowded," the doctor said. "Nearly 600 deliveries happen here every month and our maternal mortality rate is really low. There's barely a chance that we've missed an ultrasound on a patient like this," she added. Hasheena also has Poly-Cystic Ovary Disorder (PCOD) and a cyst was removed from her abdomen this January. However, rarely does the condition stop menstrual cycle, especially for months. The doctors have decided to enquire further into the case. Meanwhile they have promised Hasheena to treat her for a year. CHENNAI: After eight months of treating for pregnancy, government doctors told a woman that she's only been carrying a cyst and not a baby. For Hasheena Begum (28), from Kannagi Nagar, it has come as a shock. Seven years into her marriage, a Urine Pregnancy Test in April at the Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital, Triplicane showed positive results. The Estimated Date of Delivery (EDD) was written as 18 November on her ruled notebook that serves as medical records. However, when she visited the hospital three days after her EDD, she was told that she was never pregnant and was only carrying a cyst. "I didn't have a baby for seven years. I thought this was it. I even celebrated my Baby shower," said Hasheena as she hands out a picture of herself in blue silk saree and jewellery embracing her bulged belly. "In three per cent of the cases, the urine pregnancy test could go wrong and hers would've been one of that," said Dr Vijaya S, Gynecologist of the hospital, after Hasheena had paid nearly a dozen visits. "I think she had psuedocyesis. It is a condition where the person believes she's pregnant, when she's actually not," she added. However, even after eight months of diagnosis, there are no records of an Ultrasound test in the medical records, while the patient claims that she's done a handful of scans after her pregnancy test turned positive. The doctors guess that she must've left the premises each time after checking only basics such as weight and blood pressure without finishing her scan. "The doctors may not have known if she left without doing the scan because the hospital is over-crowded," the doctor said. "Nearly 600 deliveries happen here every month and our maternal mortality rate is really low. There's barely a chance that we've missed an ultrasound on a patient like this," she added. Hasheena also has Poly-Cystic Ovary Disorder (PCOD) and a cyst was removed from her abdomen this January. However, rarely does the condition stop menstrual cycle, especially for months. The doctors have decided to enquire further into the case. Meanwhile they have promised Hasheena to treat her for a year. By PTI NEW DELHI: Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and his cabinet colleague Kapil Mishra were today detained when they tried to march to Parliament from Jantar Mantar protesting the Centre's demonetisation move. Before beginning the march, Sisodia launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation alleging he is making people cry and shedding "crocodile tears". "We don't like Modi for what he has done in his personal and political life. This is not notebandi but note-badli. The terrorists in Kashmir today were found with Rs 2000 notes. From where are terrorists getting them? Either you are unaware of the lapse or are involved in it. "He keeps crying all the time and makes people cry. But he sheds crocodile tears. The demonetisation drive should be rolled back. This is what people want," Sisodia said while addressing the gathering at Jantar Mantar. He was joined by his cabinet colleagues Gopal Rai, Kapil Mishra and Satyendar Jain. "Neither terrorist funding has stopped nor counterfeit notes nor blackmarketeering. The government has no money to give for OROP to soldiers but waives the loans of industrialists," Sisodia added. A day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is presently in Punjab, exhorted people to "change" the Prime Minister instead of the defunct notes, slogans of "note nahi, PM badlo" were raised at the march. "The PM again became emotional... he is not getting any support. Hence, he is crying. The need is to take the fight to the streets," Gopal Rai said. The Prime Minister had on November 8 announced withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. The decision has been drawing criticism from opposition parties. NEW DELHI: Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and his cabinet colleague Kapil Mishra were today detained when they tried to march to Parliament from Jantar Mantar protesting the Centre's demonetisation move. Before beginning the march, Sisodia launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation alleging he is making people cry and shedding "crocodile tears". "We don't like Modi for what he has done in his personal and political life. This is not notebandi but note-badli. The terrorists in Kashmir today were found with Rs 2000 notes. From where are terrorists getting them? Either you are unaware of the lapse or are involved in it. "He keeps crying all the time and makes people cry. But he sheds crocodile tears. The demonetisation drive should be rolled back. This is what people want," Sisodia said while addressing the gathering at Jantar Mantar. He was joined by his cabinet colleagues Gopal Rai, Kapil Mishra and Satyendar Jain. "Neither terrorist funding has stopped nor counterfeit notes nor blackmarketeering. The government has no money to give for OROP to soldiers but waives the loans of industrialists," Sisodia added. A day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is presently in Punjab, exhorted people to "change" the Prime Minister instead of the defunct notes, slogans of "note nahi, PM badlo" were raised at the march. "The PM again became emotional... he is not getting any support. Hence, he is crying. The need is to take the fight to the streets," Gopal Rai said. The Prime Minister had on November 8 announced withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. The decision has been drawing criticism from opposition parties. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: The Rachakonda cyber crime police on Monday arrested two Nigerian nationals and their woman associate from Nagaland, for allegedly duping a woman from city to a tune of `3.5 lakh under the pretext of sending her a gift parcel. The prime accused in the case, who cheated the woman, is building a house in Nigeria with the money duped from Indians, police said. Acting swiftly on a complaint received about duping of `3.5 lakh from a woman, who was lured by the high-valued parcel being sent from USA, the cyber crime police apprehended Simon Ebuka Umebee, Okonkwo Kenneth Chigbo of Nigeria and their woman accomplice Changkhumla (26) of Tuensang town in Nagaland, at a flat in Benguluru. Simon, the mastermind of the fraud, had come to India on a business visa in 2013, but was staying here despite expiry of the visa. With the help of his Nigerian friend, who is now living in Brazil, Simon obtained bank accounts of Zenith Bank of Nigeria, to evade suspicion by foreigners. The Nagaland woman provided accounts to Indians. The police found that the trio used to send Facebook friend requests and lure people with their communication skills. After gaining their trust, the gang members extorted money in huge amounts. In a recent case, they cheated a housewife from LB Nagar, on the pretext of sending her a parcel containing gifts. The woman received a friend request on her Facebook account from a person claiming to be a US citizen in June this year and she accepted it. The conman told the woman that he is a wealthy American and wants to invest in India with her help. He called her up saying that he has sent her a parcel through courier, Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said. After two days, the woman received a call from a lady who introduced herself as a Customs officer working at New Delhiairport and inquired whether she is expecting any parcel from US, he said. The fraudsters sent emails to the victim under the guise of Customs department and asked her to pay charges towards customs clearance, anti-terrorism certificate, United NationsMoney Laundering certificate etc. Believing their version and as per their instruction, she deposited Rs 3.5 lakh in the bank account numbers provided by them. However, after they demanded another Rs 3.2 lakh, the woman grew suspicious and filed a complaint with police, Bhagwat said. Accused Simon is also building a new villa at Lagos city in Nigeria, with the money looted from Indians and other foreigners, the commissioner said. The two Nigerian nationals have forged their visas and passports, to show them to the local police during checking of documents of authentication to live in India. Photos of the new villa of Simon are recovered from his mobile, he said. Two laptops, nine mobile phones, 20 gm gold chains, four branded wristwatches, one car (Toyota Corolla) and other incriminating documents were also seized, he added. HYDERABAD: The Rachakonda cyber crime police on Monday arrested two Nigerian nationals and their woman associate from Nagaland, for allegedly duping a woman from city to a tune of `3.5 lakh under the pretext of sending her a gift parcel. The prime accused in the case, who cheated the woman, is building a house in Nigeria with the money duped from Indians, police said. Acting swiftly on a complaint received about duping of `3.5 lakh from a woman, who was lured by the high-valued parcel being sent from USA, the cyber crime police apprehended Simon Ebuka Umebee, Okonkwo Kenneth Chigbo of Nigeria and their woman accomplice Changkhumla (26) of Tuensang town in Nagaland, at a flat in Benguluru. Simon, the mastermind of the fraud, had come to India on a business visa in 2013, but was staying here despite expiry of the visa. With the help of his Nigerian friend, who is now living in Brazil, Simon obtained bank accounts of Zenith Bank of Nigeria, to evade suspicion by foreigners. The Nagaland woman provided accounts to Indians. The police found that the trio used to send Facebook friend requests and lure people with their communication skills. After gaining their trust, the gang members extorted money in huge amounts. In a recent case, they cheated a housewife from LB Nagar, on the pretext of sending her a parcel containing gifts. The woman received a friend request on her Facebook account from a person claiming to be a US citizen in June this year and she accepted it. The conman told the woman that he is a wealthy American and wants to invest in India with her help. He called her up saying that he has sent her a parcel through courier, Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said. After two days, the woman received a call from a lady who introduced herself as a Customs officer working at New Delhiairport and inquired whether she is expecting any parcel from US, he said. The fraudsters sent emails to the victim under the guise of Customs department and asked her to pay charges towards customs clearance, anti-terrorism certificate, United NationsMoney Laundering certificate etc. Believing their version and as per their instruction, she deposited Rs 3.5 lakh in the bank account numbers provided by them. However, after they demanded another Rs 3.2 lakh, the woman grew suspicious and filed a complaint with police, Bhagwat said. Accused Simon is also building a new villa at Lagos city in Nigeria, with the money looted from Indians and other foreigners, the commissioner said. The two Nigerian nationals have forged their visas and passports, to show them to the local police during checking of documents of authentication to live in India. Photos of the new villa of Simon are recovered from his mobile, he said. Two laptops, nine mobile phones, 20 gm gold chains, four branded wristwatches, one car (Toyota Corolla) and other incriminating documents were also seized, he added. By IANS LOS ANGELES: Actress Marion Cotillard says sex scenes with her "Allied" co-star Brad Pitt were very beautiful. The pregnant actress, 41, was on the sets of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" last week where she talked about filming sex scenes with Pitt in the new spy drama, reports etonline.com. "Let's imagine, you are with your wife, in bed or anywhere, here, and then all those people are watching. Yeah, cameras, like 50 people are watching. Do you still find it sexy?" she asked the host Stephen Colbert. After they laughed, Cotillard added: "But it's a beautiful love scene, very beautiful." "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" airs on Star World Premiere HD in India. LOS ANGELES: Actress Marion Cotillard says sex scenes with her "Allied" co-star Brad Pitt were very beautiful. The pregnant actress, 41, was on the sets of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" last week where she talked about filming sex scenes with Pitt in the new spy drama, reports etonline.com. "Let's imagine, you are with your wife, in bed or anywhere, here, and then all those people are watching. Yeah, cameras, like 50 people are watching. Do you still find it sexy?" she asked the host Stephen Colbert. After they laughed, Cotillard added: "But it's a beautiful love scene, very beautiful." "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" airs on Star World Premiere HD in India. By BNS Richa Chadha is currently shooting for a web series Powerplay and then begins shooting for the sequel to Fukrey .Before that she is going to take some time out from her schedule to help her aunt, who runs a charitable school in Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh. A source says, Richas aunt has left her Delhi home to start this school, which she has been running successfully from past 20 years. The motto behind opening this school was that to provide affordable education to kids from poor financial background. However when Richa met her aunt and got to know that this particular town faces the issue of frequent power cuts and unable kids to complete their regular school activities, she decided help them out. After getting to know the situation, Richa met her aunt and tried to find out the permanent solution and they realised that setting up solar power project. Richa is working on the project and it will be ready and running by early next year. Richa says, Solar energy is an under-utilized clean source of energy in our country. I am glad Im able to do something, even at this small level in order to ensure that the kids at this school can have electricity and understand the power of green energy. Richa Chadha is currently shooting for a web series Powerplay and then begins shooting for the sequel to Fukrey .Before that she is going to take some time out from her schedule to help her aunt, who runs a charitable school in Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh. A source says, Richas aunt has left her Delhi home to start this school, which she has been running successfully from past 20 years. The motto behind opening this school was that to provide affordable education to kids from poor financial background. However when Richa met her aunt and got to know that this particular town faces the issue of frequent power cuts and unable kids to complete their regular school activities, she decided help them out. After getting to know the situation, Richa met her aunt and tried to find out the permanent solution and they realised that setting up solar power project. Richa is working on the project and it will be ready and running by early next year. Richa says, Solar energy is an under-utilized clean source of energy in our country. I am glad Im able to do something, even at this small level in order to ensure that the kids at this school can have electricity and understand the power of green energy. Prasanta Mazumdar By Express News Service GUWAHATI: Post-demonetisation, the BJP-led NDA government will face its maiden test in the by-elections to one parliamentary and four assembly constituencies in the Northeast on Saturday. According to industry sources, business has been down by 50% in the region following demonetisation. The lone parliamentary constituency in the Northeast going to by-polls is Lakhimpur in Assam. The seat was earlier held by Sarbananda Sonowal but after his election to the state assembly and subsequent appointment as the chief minister, it was lying vacant. The BJP has fielded a sitting MLA, Pradan Baruah, in the seat. He is up against Congresss little known Hema Hari Prasanna Pegu, a doctor. Assembly constituencies going to by-elections include Baithalangso in Assam, Hayuliang in Arunachal Pradesh and Khowai and Barjala in Tripura. The by-polls in Baithalangso were necessitated following the resignation of sitting Congress MLA, Mansing Rongpi. He had resigned to join the BJP. His fight will be against Rupansing Rongpi of the Congress. Former Arunachal Chief Minister Kalikho Puls suicide necessitated the by-polls in the Hayuliang seat where his third wife Dasanglu will vie against the Congress-backed independent Yomki Kri. Dasanglu is contesting on BJPs ticket but backed by the ruling Peoples Party of Arunachal. BJP is a partner in the states ruling coalition. Pul represented Hayuliang for more than 20 years and as such, Dasanglu is likely to get the sympathy votes. Located in the states remote Anjaw district bordering China, the constituency has just 11,003 voters. In Tripura, the by-polls in Barjala are being held as the sitting Congress MLA Jitendra Sarkar defected to CPM. The Khowai seat fell vacant following the demise of sitting CPM legislator Samir Deb Sarkar. In both seats, it will be a straight fight between the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress. The results of by-elections will be declared on November 22. GUWAHATI: Post-demonetisation, the BJP-led NDA government will face its maiden test in the by-elections to one parliamentary and four assembly constituencies in the Northeast on Saturday. According to industry sources, business has been down by 50% in the region following demonetisation. The lone parliamentary constituency in the Northeast going to by-polls is Lakhimpur in Assam. The seat was earlier held by Sarbananda Sonowal but after his election to the state assembly and subsequent appointment as the chief minister, it was lying vacant. The BJP has fielded a sitting MLA, Pradan Baruah, in the seat. He is up against Congresss little known Hema Hari Prasanna Pegu, a doctor. Assembly constituencies going to by-elections include Baithalangso in Assam, Hayuliang in Arunachal Pradesh and Khowai and Barjala in Tripura. The by-polls in Baithalangso were necessitated following the resignation of sitting Congress MLA, Mansing Rongpi. He had resigned to join the BJP. His fight will be against Rupansing Rongpi of the Congress. Former Arunachal Chief Minister Kalikho Puls suicide necessitated the by-polls in the Hayuliang seat where his third wife Dasanglu will vie against the Congress-backed independent Yomki Kri. Dasanglu is contesting on BJPs ticket but backed by the ruling Peoples Party of Arunachal. BJP is a partner in the states ruling coalition. Pul represented Hayuliang for more than 20 years and as such, Dasanglu is likely to get the sympathy votes. Located in the states remote Anjaw district bordering China, the constituency has just 11,003 voters. In Tripura, the by-polls in Barjala are being held as the sitting Congress MLA Jitendra Sarkar defected to CPM. The Khowai seat fell vacant following the demise of sitting CPM legislator Samir Deb Sarkar. In both seats, it will be a straight fight between the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress. The results of by-elections will be declared on November 22. (Beijing) German carmaker Daimler AG said it has removed a top executive who caused a stir on Chinese social media for allegedly making racist remarks during an argument over a parking space in Beijing on Sunday. The maker of Mercedes-Benz automobiles apologized and said Rainer Gaertner, CEO of Daimler Trucks and Buses (China) Ltd., had been relieved of his position. The company did not clarify whether the executive was fired, demoted or transferred. A woman, identified only by her social media pseudonym, Mee Rice, told the Beijing News on Tuesday that a male friend was trying to back into a parking space near an upmarket villa in Beijing's Shunyi district when another driver, later identified as Gaertner, cut in front of him and occupied the spot. When the Chinese driver confronted Gaertner, he allegedly said: "I've been in China for a year already. The first thing I learned here is that all you Chinese are bastards!" The woman also said Gaertner used pepper spray on bystanders who got involved in the spat when they became angered by his comments. The Chinese driver's eyes were sprayed in the scuffle, she told the newspaper. Gaertner apologized for the rant once local police intervened, the woman said. Shunyi district police said the two drivers agreed to settle the dispute privately, but did not elaborate. Daimler said in its statement said the spat was purely a "personal argument" and "does not represent at all the views of the company." The disparaging remarks caused a backlash on Chinese social media with the issue becoming one of the top 10 trending topics on microblog site Sino Weibo on Monday morning China time. Hundreds of users were critical of what they perceived as "arrogant behavior" by expatriates in the country, while others called for a boycott of Daimler cars. Contact reporter Li Rongde (rongdeli@caixin.com); editor Poornima Weerasekara (poornima@caixin.com) By PTI RAIPUR: A CRPF personnel was today killed and two other paramilitary jawans were injured in a bomb blast triggered by Naxals at separate places in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district. "While a Sub Inspector was killed and a head constable injured in the explosion in Chintalnar Police Station area, a constable was critically injured in the blast in Maraiguda police station limits," a CRPF official told PTI. A team of Central Reserve Police Force's 74th battalion was out on an area domination operation between Burkapal police camp and Chintalnar, around 450 kms away from here, early this morning, he said. When security forces were cordoning off a patch near Gargarmetta, two personnel inadvertently stepped over a pressure IED (improvised explosive device), concealed beneath the ground, triggering the blast which left Sub Inspector BS Bist and head constable Sudhakar, belonging to 74th battalion, injured, he said. After the incident, reinforcement was rushed to the spot to retrieve the injured personnel, he said. "Bist succumbed to injuries while being evacuated," the official said, adding Sudhakar was airlifted to Jagdalpur for treatment and his condition was said to be out of danger. Few hours after this incident, a jawan of CRPFs 217th came under the impact of pressure bomb blast at around 10.45 AM during a 'road security operation' in Maraiguda police station area, the paramilitary official said. The injured was identified as constable Prabhakar Yadav, deputed as a sniffer dog handler, in the squad, he added. The patrolling party of the battalion was providing security to the under construction Golapalli-Maraiguda road. When they reached near Gangler rivulet, Yadav accidentally stepped over the pressure IED connection leading to the blast which left him critically injured, he said. Yadav was immediately shifted to Bhadrachalam (in Telangana), close to Maraiguda, by road from where he was being airlifted to Hyderabad keeping in view his serious condition, the official added. On Monday, two jawans of the 74th CRPF battalion were injured in a pressure bomb blast in Chintalnar area of Sukma. RAIPUR: A CRPF personnel was today killed and two other paramilitary jawans were injured in a bomb blast triggered by Naxals at separate places in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district. "While a Sub Inspector was killed and a head constable injured in the explosion in Chintalnar Police Station area, a constable was critically injured in the blast in Maraiguda police station limits," a CRPF official told PTI. A team of Central Reserve Police Force's 74th battalion was out on an area domination operation between Burkapal police camp and Chintalnar, around 450 kms away from here, early this morning, he said. When security forces were cordoning off a patch near Gargarmetta, two personnel inadvertently stepped over a pressure IED (improvised explosive device), concealed beneath the ground, triggering the blast which left Sub Inspector BS Bist and head constable Sudhakar, belonging to 74th battalion, injured, he said. After the incident, reinforcement was rushed to the spot to retrieve the injured personnel, he said. "Bist succumbed to injuries while being evacuated," the official said, adding Sudhakar was airlifted to Jagdalpur for treatment and his condition was said to be out of danger. Few hours after this incident, a jawan of CRPFs 217th came under the impact of pressure bomb blast at around 10.45 AM during a 'road security operation' in Maraiguda police station area, the paramilitary official said. The injured was identified as constable Prabhakar Yadav, deputed as a sniffer dog handler, in the squad, he added. The patrolling party of the battalion was providing security to the under construction Golapalli-Maraiguda road. When they reached near Gangler rivulet, Yadav accidentally stepped over the pressure IED connection leading to the blast which left him critically injured, he said. Yadav was immediately shifted to Bhadrachalam (in Telangana), close to Maraiguda, by road from where he was being airlifted to Hyderabad keeping in view his serious condition, the official added. On Monday, two jawans of the 74th CRPF battalion were injured in a pressure bomb blast in Chintalnar area of Sukma. Prasanta Mazumdar By Express News Service GUWAHATI: At 10:07 am on Tuesday, a chartered flight from Hissar in Haryana landed at Nagalands Dimapur airport with Rs.3.5 crore in crisp but old Rs.500 and Rs.1000 currency notes on board. Two hours later at 12.15 pm after the flight had taken off for Delhi, the cash vanished into thin air right in the presence of CISF personnel and sleuths of the Income Tax (IT) department. It was apparently collected by the relatives of an influential Nagaland politician. The person, who came in the chartered flight, was identified as one Amarjit Singh. According to airport authorities, the cash was seized from Singh soon after the planes landing at the airport. They said the CISF had received a call earlier in the day from higher officials that a man was flying to Dimapur in the chartered aircraft carrying huge cash. The airports chief security officer had received a call from higher officials who informed him about a suspected case of cash-carrying. Accordingly, the IT department was tipped off. Later, when the plane landed here, the IT officials checked a bag, which the passenger was carrying, and seized Rs.3.5 crore, Dimapur airport director M Zhimo told Express. Dimapur Police Commissioner, Liremo Lotha, said they were probing as to how the seized cash vanished. We are on the job. We are trying to find out who had handed over the cash and to whom and under what provision in case it was handed over. We have summoned the CISF personnel on duty and the IT officials for questioning. These were all old notes in the denominations of Rs.500 and Rs.1000, he said. According to CISF, (one) Anato had come forward to claim the money but we shall have to ascertain it, Lotha said. Anato is a young Naga businessman and son-in-law of Lok Sabha MP and three-time former Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio. He was said to be at the airport when the plane had landed. Lotha said the cash carrier, Singh, had left by the same flight to Delhi but this time in the company of Anato and two-three others. GUWAHATI: At 10:07 am on Tuesday, a chartered flight from Hissar in Haryana landed at Nagalands Dimapur airport with Rs.3.5 crore in crisp but old Rs.500 and Rs.1000 currency notes on board. Two hours later at 12.15 pm after the flight had taken off for Delhi, the cash vanished into thin air right in the presence of CISF personnel and sleuths of the Income Tax (IT) department. It was apparently collected by the relatives of an influential Nagaland politician. The person, who came in the chartered flight, was identified as one Amarjit Singh. According to airport authorities, the cash was seized from Singh soon after the planes landing at the airport. They said the CISF had received a call earlier in the day from higher officials that a man was flying to Dimapur in the chartered aircraft carrying huge cash. The airports chief security officer had received a call from higher officials who informed him about a suspected case of cash-carrying. Accordingly, the IT department was tipped off. Later, when the plane landed here, the IT officials checked a bag, which the passenger was carrying, and seized Rs.3.5 crore, Dimapur airport director M Zhimo told Express. Dimapur Police Commissioner, Liremo Lotha, said they were probing as to how the seized cash vanished. We are on the job. We are trying to find out who had handed over the cash and to whom and under what provision in case it was handed over. We have summoned the CISF personnel on duty and the IT officials for questioning. These were all old notes in the denominations of Rs.500 and Rs.1000, he said. According to CISF, (one) Anato had come forward to claim the money but we shall have to ascertain it, Lotha said. Anato is a young Naga businessman and son-in-law of Lok Sabha MP and three-time former Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio. He was said to be at the airport when the plane had landed. Lotha said the cash carrier, Singh, had left by the same flight to Delhi but this time in the company of Anato and two-three others. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday told the parliamentary Board meeting of the BJP that the decision on demonetization is just the beginning of a long battle against black money and corruption. The Parliamentary Board of the BJP in a resolution endorsed the Prime Ministers crusade against black money and corruption. The Prime Minister during his first speech to the BJP MPs in the ongoing Winter session of Parliament got emotional, saying that his decisions are not for personal gains but for benefit of the people. The BJP leaders afterwards explained that the Prime Minister had been peeved at personal attacks by the MPs of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in the Parliament on the agitation against demonetization. "We have come to power not for personal benefits or toi benefit those who we know, but for the poor. The common men suffered for 70 years on account of black money, corruption and terrorism, Modi said. The Prime Minister also stated that his government would not waver from the path to eliminate black money. He recalled that the government had also taken a few measures, including setting up of a SIT on black money and Income Disclosure Scheme, 2016. Demonetisation is not the end but beginning of a long, deep and constant battle against black money and corruption. It will benefit the poor and the common man. The poor and the lower and middle classes have suffered the most due to black money, counterfeit currency and corruption, said Modi. The BJP MPs gave standing ovation to the Prime Minister, while slogans were reportedly raised to hail the decision on demonetization. Modi stated that the economy would come out much stronger after the implementation of the decision on demonetisation. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely told the BJP MPs that the demonetisation would help India embrace digital economy. NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday told the parliamentary Board meeting of the BJP that the decision on demonetization is just the beginning of a long battle against black money and corruption. The Parliamentary Board of the BJP in a resolution endorsed the Prime Ministers crusade against black money and corruption. The Prime Minister during his first speech to the BJP MPs in the ongoing Winter session of Parliament got emotional, saying that his decisions are not for personal gains but for benefit of the people. The BJP leaders afterwards explained that the Prime Minister had been peeved at personal attacks by the MPs of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in the Parliament on the agitation against demonetization. "We have come to power not for personal benefits or toi benefit those who we know, but for the poor. The common men suffered for 70 years on account of black money, corruption and terrorism, Modi said. The Prime Minister also stated that his government would not waver from the path to eliminate black money. He recalled that the government had also taken a few measures, including setting up of a SIT on black money and Income Disclosure Scheme, 2016. Demonetisation is not the end but beginning of a long, deep and constant battle against black money and corruption. It will benefit the poor and the common man. The poor and the lower and middle classes have suffered the most due to black money, counterfeit currency and corruption, said Modi. The BJP MPs gave standing ovation to the Prime Minister, while slogans were reportedly raised to hail the decision on demonetization. Modi stated that the economy would come out much stronger after the implementation of the decision on demonetisation. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely told the BJP MPs that the demonetisation would help India embrace digital economy. Anand ST Das By Express News Service PATNA: Police in Bihars eastern Madhepura district on Tuesday arrested two of the six men accused of setting afire as many as 18 houses belonging to a Mahadalit community the poorest among the Dalit communities living in Bihar. Nearly 50 people from the distressed Mahadalit community in Udakishan area, many of them women and children, have now been forced to live under the open winter sky since the accused persons, who belong to an upper-caste community, burned down their modest dwellings on Monday night, said officials. The reason behind the attack is said to be a long-standing dispute over a piece of land that members of the Mahadalit community have been using for several years. Bateran Rishidev, one of the Mahadalit men who lost their houses, said the upper-caste people in the area had for long threatened them of attacks. They had been harassing us over several matters for many months. Now they took this violent step that has rendered nearly 50 of us homeless during the winter, he added, demanding immediate arrest of all the accused and relief measures by the local administration for the victims. After arresting two of the accused, we are conducting raids to nab the others. An investigation has been launched to ascertain the real motive behind this attack, said Madhepura SP Vikas Kumar. District magistrate Mohammad Sohail said steps are being taken to rehabilitate the affected families. However, Gajendra Singh, a relative of one of the accused men, described the charges against them as concocted. Our people have absolutely no role in this fire. Concocted and politically motivated charges are being used to arrest upper-caste people, said Singh. Mohammad Sohail appealed to the absconding accused to surrender and cooperate in the investigation. The attack, the latest in Bihar in a string of incidents the lower-caste people continually face, shows how the Mahadalit communities still remain vulnerable to the ire of the upper-caste people despite the Nitish Kumar-led governments efforts to bring about social justice with development. PATNA: Police in Bihars eastern Madhepura district on Tuesday arrested two of the six men accused of setting afire as many as 18 houses belonging to a Mahadalit community the poorest among the Dalit communities living in Bihar. Nearly 50 people from the distressed Mahadalit community in Udakishan area, many of them women and children, have now been forced to live under the open winter sky since the accused persons, who belong to an upper-caste community, burned down their modest dwellings on Monday night, said officials. The reason behind the attack is said to be a long-standing dispute over a piece of land that members of the Mahadalit community have been using for several years. Bateran Rishidev, one of the Mahadalit men who lost their houses, said the upper-caste people in the area had for long threatened them of attacks. They had been harassing us over several matters for many months. Now they took this violent step that has rendered nearly 50 of us homeless during the winter, he added, demanding immediate arrest of all the accused and relief measures by the local administration for the victims. After arresting two of the accused, we are conducting raids to nab the others. An investigation has been launched to ascertain the real motive behind this attack, said Madhepura SP Vikas Kumar. District magistrate Mohammad Sohail said steps are being taken to rehabilitate the affected families. However, Gajendra Singh, a relative of one of the accused men, described the charges against them as concocted. Our people have absolutely no role in this fire. Concocted and politically motivated charges are being used to arrest upper-caste people, said Singh. Mohammad Sohail appealed to the absconding accused to surrender and cooperate in the investigation. The attack, the latest in Bihar in a string of incidents the lower-caste people continually face, shows how the Mahadalit communities still remain vulnerable to the ire of the upper-caste people despite the Nitish Kumar-led governments efforts to bring about social justice with development. By IANS NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday said that lawmakers in Uttar Pradesh assembly would only recommend the work of a developmental nature in their constituencies under the Vidhayak Nidhi Scheme but its execution would be by a body of the state government. "The role of the elected representatives would be to recommend the work of a developmental nature in their constituencies within the budget allotted under the Vidhayak Nidhi Scheme," said the bench of Chief Justice T.S.Thakur, Justice D.Y.Chandrachud and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar in their judgment. Holding that Vidhayak Nidhi Scheme was not offending constitutional provisions, Justice Chandrachud, pronouncing the judgment, said: "The feasibility of the work, estimate of funds, selection of the implementing agency and supervision of work must be independently determined by a nominated authority or body of the state government". The court said this while disposing a petition by NGO Lok Prahari seeking to put an end to the misuse of funds under the Vidhayak Nidhi Scheme by some lawmakers in Uttar Pradesh. It was alleged that lawmakers were spending funds under the Scheme for helping institutions promoted by their kith and kin or acquaintances and not for general good of the public. Directing the implementation of the recommended work by an independent agency, the court said that "panchayati raj institutions in rural areas and municipal bodies in urban areas may be considered as preferred implementing agencies ... and that "sufficient safeguards should be provided to ensure against conflicts of interest such as the allocation of funds to institutions controlled by an elected representative or a member of his or her family". It further said that the safeguards should also include "financial transparency, such as proper supervision of work, monitoring quality and timely completion besides procedures to ensure proper audit and utilisation of funds". NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday said that lawmakers in Uttar Pradesh assembly would only recommend the work of a developmental nature in their constituencies under the Vidhayak Nidhi Scheme but its execution would be by a body of the state government. "The role of the elected representatives would be to recommend the work of a developmental nature in their constituencies within the budget allotted under the Vidhayak Nidhi Scheme," said the bench of Chief Justice T.S.Thakur, Justice D.Y.Chandrachud and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar in their judgment. Holding that Vidhayak Nidhi Scheme was not offending constitutional provisions, Justice Chandrachud, pronouncing the judgment, said: "The feasibility of the work, estimate of funds, selection of the implementing agency and supervision of work must be independently determined by a nominated authority or body of the state government". The court said this while disposing a petition by NGO Lok Prahari seeking to put an end to the misuse of funds under the Vidhayak Nidhi Scheme by some lawmakers in Uttar Pradesh. It was alleged that lawmakers were spending funds under the Scheme for helping institutions promoted by their kith and kin or acquaintances and not for general good of the public. Directing the implementation of the recommended work by an independent agency, the court said that "panchayati raj institutions in rural areas and municipal bodies in urban areas may be considered as preferred implementing agencies ... and that "sufficient safeguards should be provided to ensure against conflicts of interest such as the allocation of funds to institutions controlled by an elected representative or a member of his or her family". It further said that the safeguards should also include "financial transparency, such as proper supervision of work, monitoring quality and timely completion besides procedures to ensure proper audit and utilisation of funds". By PTI NEW DELHI: Opposition parties today joined hands to stall pre-noon proceedings in Rajya Sabha demanding Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of each of the 70 persons who lost their lives post demonetisation and the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the debate on the issue. The rare unity in opposition parties brought Congress and TMC as well as SP and BSP together as their slogan-shouting members trooped into the Well of the House, even as treasury benches countered them demanding resumption of the debate on the issue. Deputy Chairman P J Kurien first adjourned the House till 1130 hours and then till noon. No sooner were the listed papers laid on the table, Sharad Yadav (JD-U) said the government should pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to kin of the 70 persons who lost their lives due to hardships caused by the withdrawal of 500 and 1000 rupee notes. Naresh Agarwal (SP) and Mayawati (BSP) said Modi should be called before starting a discussion on the demonetisation. "He should come and listen to the pain people have faced because of his decision," Mayawati said. The leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad (Cong) said the opposition is ready for discussion on the issue but Prime Minister should come to the House first. As he spoke, members of the BJP moved into the aisles raising slogans. At this point, TMC members carrying placards of "Financial Emergency" trooped into the Well, with Congress members following suit. As they shouted slogans from the Well, Kurien said, "You cannot speak in the Well. Shouting in the Well is of no use. If you go back to your seats, I will give you time (to speak)." He told Azad that he was ready to accept his notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of business. "Mr Azad, I am ready to admit your notice under 267 if only there is order in the House." As BJP members also created a ruckus, an angry Kurien snapped at them. "Why should treasury benches do this? Mr Minister, why should treasury benches to this," he asked Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. With pandemoneum continuing, he said this was "blatant indiscipline." "Both sides do not want discussion. Not only the opposition but treasury benches are also disrupting the proceedings. That is very unfortunate," he said before adjourning the proceedings till 1130 hrs. When the House assembled at 1130 hours, Agarwal (SP) alleged that the Prime Minister does not listen and such a "dictatorial attitude" has never been successful. His remarks led to noisy protests by BJP members. As several BJP members started speaking at the same time, the Deputy Chairman again said "I fail to understand why treasury benches were disrupting" the proceedings. To this, Naqvi said government only wants that debate on the demonetisation, which started on November 16, should be resumed. Amid uproar, the Leader of Opposition said 70 people have died due to the "wrong decision" of the Prime Minister. "Opposition is for discussion and debate. (Our) demand for (presence) of the Prime Minister in the House is not anti- national," the senior Congress leader said. Naqvi again sought to start the debate and said replies would be given to all the questions of the Opposition members. Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) demanded that the Prime Minister who announced the demonetisation decision should be present in the House. Kurien said he understood the demand that the Prime Minister should intervene or reply to the debate, but "your demand that he should be here is not possible". Azad again said the entire opposition wanted the discussion on demonetisation to resume, but the Prime Minister should come to the House and listen to the concern of the MPs. "He (Prime Minister) can speak outside, why cannot he speak in the House," Azad asked. In an effort to bring order in the House, Kurien said during the discussion each member can demand presence of the Prime Minister in the House. Mayawati (BSP) demanded compensation for those who reportedly died following demonetisation. As uproar continued, Kurien said that he can call the Finance Minister in the House as the matter relates to the Finance Ministry, but not the Prime Minister. As Congress, TMC and BSP members trooped into the Well, the Chair was forced to adjourn the House till noon. When the House resumed proceedings at noon, Chairman Hamid Ansari called for Question Hour but the protesting Opposition members kept demanding the presence of the Prime Minister in the House, as TMC members trooped into the Well. With continued ruckus, the House was adjourned for the third time for 30 minutes. When the House met again for Question Hour at 1230 hours, members from opposition including Congress, SP, BSP, JD(U), CPI and CPI(M) rose from their seats shouting slogans over the death toll in the demonetisation drive announced by the government. Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari asked Prem Chand Gupta (RJD) to ask his question on lack of medical services in rural areas, but it could not be heard due to the sloganeering by members. Senior JD(U) leader Sharad raised the issue of death of over 70 people so far in the demonetisation drive and asked who was responsible and what the government was doing about it. Amid constant din in the House, Ansari adjourned the House till 2:00 PM. NEW DELHI: Opposition parties today joined hands to stall pre-noon proceedings in Rajya Sabha demanding Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of each of the 70 persons who lost their lives post demonetisation and the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the debate on the issue. The rare unity in opposition parties brought Congress and TMC as well as SP and BSP together as their slogan-shouting members trooped into the Well of the House, even as treasury benches countered them demanding resumption of the debate on the issue. Deputy Chairman P J Kurien first adjourned the House till 1130 hours and then till noon. No sooner were the listed papers laid on the table, Sharad Yadav (JD-U) said the government should pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to kin of the 70 persons who lost their lives due to hardships caused by the withdrawal of 500 and 1000 rupee notes. Naresh Agarwal (SP) and Mayawati (BSP) said Modi should be called before starting a discussion on the demonetisation. "He should come and listen to the pain people have faced because of his decision," Mayawati said. The leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad (Cong) said the opposition is ready for discussion on the issue but Prime Minister should come to the House first. As he spoke, members of the BJP moved into the aisles raising slogans. At this point, TMC members carrying placards of "Financial Emergency" trooped into the Well, with Congress members following suit. As they shouted slogans from the Well, Kurien said, "You cannot speak in the Well. Shouting in the Well is of no use. If you go back to your seats, I will give you time (to speak)." He told Azad that he was ready to accept his notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of business. "Mr Azad, I am ready to admit your notice under 267 if only there is order in the House." As BJP members also created a ruckus, an angry Kurien snapped at them. "Why should treasury benches do this? Mr Minister, why should treasury benches to this," he asked Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. With pandemoneum continuing, he said this was "blatant indiscipline." "Both sides do not want discussion. Not only the opposition but treasury benches are also disrupting the proceedings. That is very unfortunate," he said before adjourning the proceedings till 1130 hrs. When the House assembled at 1130 hours, Agarwal (SP) alleged that the Prime Minister does not listen and such a "dictatorial attitude" has never been successful. His remarks led to noisy protests by BJP members. As several BJP members started speaking at the same time, the Deputy Chairman again said "I fail to understand why treasury benches were disrupting" the proceedings. To this, Naqvi said government only wants that debate on the demonetisation, which started on November 16, should be resumed. Amid uproar, the Leader of Opposition said 70 people have died due to the "wrong decision" of the Prime Minister. "Opposition is for discussion and debate. (Our) demand for (presence) of the Prime Minister in the House is not anti- national," the senior Congress leader said. Naqvi again sought to start the debate and said replies would be given to all the questions of the Opposition members. Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) demanded that the Prime Minister who announced the demonetisation decision should be present in the House. Kurien said he understood the demand that the Prime Minister should intervene or reply to the debate, but "your demand that he should be here is not possible". Azad again said the entire opposition wanted the discussion on demonetisation to resume, but the Prime Minister should come to the House and listen to the concern of the MPs. "He (Prime Minister) can speak outside, why cannot he speak in the House," Azad asked. In an effort to bring order in the House, Kurien said during the discussion each member can demand presence of the Prime Minister in the House. Mayawati (BSP) demanded compensation for those who reportedly died following demonetisation. As uproar continued, Kurien said that he can call the Finance Minister in the House as the matter relates to the Finance Ministry, but not the Prime Minister. As Congress, TMC and BSP members trooped into the Well, the Chair was forced to adjourn the House till noon. When the House resumed proceedings at noon, Chairman Hamid Ansari called for Question Hour but the protesting Opposition members kept demanding the presence of the Prime Minister in the House, as TMC members trooped into the Well. With continued ruckus, the House was adjourned for the third time for 30 minutes. When the House met again for Question Hour at 1230 hours, members from opposition including Congress, SP, BSP, JD(U), CPI and CPI(M) rose from their seats shouting slogans over the death toll in the demonetisation drive announced by the government. Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari asked Prem Chand Gupta (RJD) to ask his question on lack of medical services in rural areas, but it could not be heard due to the sloganeering by members. Senior JD(U) leader Sharad raised the issue of death of over 70 people so far in the demonetisation drive and asked who was responsible and what the government was doing about it. Amid constant din in the House, Ansari adjourned the House till 2:00 PM. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Total 18 Indian soldiers have been killed in the Line of Control by multiple acts carried out the Pakistani army, since Indian armys cross border surgical strike on terror launch pads situated in the Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Reacting to Tuesdays killing of three soldiers, defence minister Manohar Parrikar told security forces to retaliate in strongest manner after he was briefed by the vice chief of army Lt. Gen Bipin Rawat on the incident. Army officials here in national capital are not calling Tuesdays incident at act by Pakistans Border Action Team (BAT), but it was a well coordinated act of Pakistan army and terrorists. Pakistan has been aggressive on the border with about 380 ceasefire violations by the Pakistani forces at the line of control and international border. Army sources, several desperate efforts have been made by the terrorists to infiltrate as only a small window left for militants to sneak before snow cover the passes and high altitude locations. Moreover, to carry out brutal action on Indian army, the commandoes of Special Service Group, who was found in action with terrorists close to the Line of Control. Military sources said that Pakistan has deployed nearly 700 SSG commandoes on nearly 700 kilometers of border sharing India including 200 km of International Border and 740 km of Line of Control. An officer explained that around 15 platoon of SSG commandoes are deployed on Pakistan side that mainly form the core of its Border Action Teams (BAT) and its primary task to dominate by carrying out brutal military killing by long range snipers or an ambush. NEW DELHI: Total 18 Indian soldiers have been killed in the Line of Control by multiple acts carried out the Pakistani army, since Indian armys cross border surgical strike on terror launch pads situated in the Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Reacting to Tuesdays killing of three soldiers, defence minister Manohar Parrikar told security forces to retaliate in strongest manner after he was briefed by the vice chief of army Lt. Gen Bipin Rawat on the incident. Army officials here in national capital are not calling Tuesdays incident at act by Pakistans Border Action Team (BAT), but it was a well coordinated act of Pakistan army and terrorists. Pakistan has been aggressive on the border with about 380 ceasefire violations by the Pakistani forces at the line of control and international border. Army sources, several desperate efforts have been made by the terrorists to infiltrate as only a small window left for militants to sneak before snow cover the passes and high altitude locations. Moreover, to carry out brutal action on Indian army, the commandoes of Special Service Group, who was found in action with terrorists close to the Line of Control. Military sources said that Pakistan has deployed nearly 700 SSG commandoes on nearly 700 kilometers of border sharing India including 200 km of International Border and 740 km of Line of Control. An officer explained that around 15 platoon of SSG commandoes are deployed on Pakistan side that mainly form the core of its Border Action Teams (BAT) and its primary task to dominate by carrying out brutal military killing by long range snipers or an ambush. Ritu Sharma By Express News Service NEW DELHI: US President-elect Donald Trumps resolve to undo the Obama administrations recalibration of Asia-Pacific strategic equations by pulling out of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement will force India where US anchored its Asia-Pacific policy to rethink its Look East Initiative. The agreement was signed this year after seven years of protracted negotiations between 12 Pacific Rim countries. The aim was to counter Chinas growing clout by bringing together its neighbours and reduce their dependence on Chinese trade. One of the most ambitious trade agreements, it covered 800 million people and accounted for 40 per cent of global trade. Former Ambassador and security expert P Stobdan said a US pullout as promised by Trump could threaten the US Asia rebalancing. Walking out from TPP threatens the US strategy of rebalancing Asia, which amounted to India-Japan-US security cooperation, said Stobdan. India was not part of the TPP, but it has been an important instrument of realpolitik for Washington and New Delhi as they sought to counter the rise of an assertive China without hurting their economic equations with the country. In the rebalancing of its resources in Asia-Pacific, the US saw Indias role as the lynchpin of the strategy. The US Pivot to Asia and Indias Act East policies conflate. Washington sees India as having a greater role in providing security and stability in the region. The two strategies have been shaping the security order in the region as India was reinvigorating its ties with Asian powers like Japan and Australia that has rattled China greatly. Former foreign secretary and ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao said the way forward from an uninterested US could be strengthening economic ties between ASEAN countries. We were never a part of TPP. Perhaps the way forward for the region is to intensify efforts towards a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). RCEP is seen as a counter to TPP as it would include more than 3 billion people or 45% of the world's population, and would have a combined GDP of about $21.3 trillion, accounting for about 40 per cent of world trade. Rao said Beijing would be growing more assertive in the future as the US close economic and military ties with the Pacific Rim while giving established markets to Washington also acted as a check against growing Chinese power for the countries. Watch the Asia-Pacific space for an even more assertive China, she added. The US had decided to deploy 60 per cent of its military assets in the Asia-Pacific region by 2020. NEW DELHI: US President-elect Donald Trumps resolve to undo the Obama administrations recalibration of Asia-Pacific strategic equations by pulling out of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement will force India where US anchored its Asia-Pacific policy to rethink its Look East Initiative. The agreement was signed this year after seven years of protracted negotiations between 12 Pacific Rim countries. The aim was to counter Chinas growing clout by bringing together its neighbours and reduce their dependence on Chinese trade. One of the most ambitious trade agreements, it covered 800 million people and accounted for 40 per cent of global trade. Former Ambassador and security expert P Stobdan said a US pullout as promised by Trump could threaten the US Asia rebalancing. Walking out from TPP threatens the US strategy of rebalancing Asia, which amounted to India-Japan-US security cooperation, said Stobdan. India was not part of the TPP, but it has been an important instrument of realpolitik for Washington and New Delhi as they sought to counter the rise of an assertive China without hurting their economic equations with the country. In the rebalancing of its resources in Asia-Pacific, the US saw Indias role as the lynchpin of the strategy. The US Pivot to Asia and Indias Act East policies conflate. Washington sees India as having a greater role in providing security and stability in the region. The two strategies have been shaping the security order in the region as India was reinvigorating its ties with Asian powers like Japan and Australia that has rattled China greatly. Former foreign secretary and ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao said the way forward from an uninterested US could be strengthening economic ties between ASEAN countries. We were never a part of TPP. Perhaps the way forward for the region is to intensify efforts towards a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). RCEP is seen as a counter to TPP as it would include more than 3 billion people or 45% of the world's population, and would have a combined GDP of about $21.3 trillion, accounting for about 40 per cent of world trade. Rao said Beijing would be growing more assertive in the future as the US close economic and military ties with the Pacific Rim while giving established markets to Washington also acted as a check against growing Chinese power for the countries. Watch the Asia-Pacific space for an even more assertive China, she added. The US had decided to deploy 60 per cent of its military assets in the Asia-Pacific region by 2020. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: After year-long deliberations, the Ministry of Defence has finally unveiled the guidelines for penalties in business dealings with entities. The new guidelines appear to be more liberal than norms followed by the previous UPA government. Though the ministry said it has simplified rules for blacklisting, it has not yet commented on the future of four foreign companies that were barred from doing business in India for 10 years by former defence minister A K Antony. The blacklisted companies include Singapore Technologies, Israeli Military Industries, Germanys Rheinmetall Air Defence and Corporation Defence of Russia for their alleged involvement in a multi-crore ordnance factory scam. These companies have already gone to court against the Centres decision. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said that the Director General (Acquisition) will draw up a list as required under the new policy and hence old cases will also be looked into. The review will include about a dozen firms that came under blanket blacklisting in the previous regime, a move the forces were unhappy about as it proved detrimental to their modernisation plans. That does not mean they will be taken out. Dont interpret... they will be examined what is the status, how many years they have been blacklisted for and why they were blacklisted, Parrikar said on the sidelines of an event in the national capital. According to the new rules, India can do business with banned companies if there is no available alternative in the market. For example, due to a ban on key Israeli defence firms, the production line at the newly set-up Nalanda ordnance factory could not take off. But now, this will be allowed after approval from the highest authority in the service, not below the rank of vice-chief of concerned service. Parrikar has been maintaining that national security should not be compromised due to a blanket ban on erring defence firms. The new policy also states that banning of business dealings may be ordered only if a company accepts its misconduct, the CBI files a chargesheet against it or a court or tribunal finds it guilty. But the fresh guidelines also make it clear that the ban period will not be less than five years in case of violations of integrity pact unlike the blanket ban of 10 years during the previous government. But the new policy does not mention the maximum ban period. And the company against which ban was imposed, will be allowed to take part in new tenders for spares, upgrades and maintenance for weapon systems supplied earlier if the equipment which is the object of the contract is a propriety item and there are no available alternate sources of supply. It is notable that multiple ongoing projects of the Navy and IAF were hit due to a blanket ban on business dealings with such companies. NEW DELHI: After year-long deliberations, the Ministry of Defence has finally unveiled the guidelines for penalties in business dealings with entities. The new guidelines appear to be more liberal than norms followed by the previous UPA government. Though the ministry said it has simplified rules for blacklisting, it has not yet commented on the future of four foreign companies that were barred from doing business in India for 10 years by former defence minister A K Antony. The blacklisted companies include Singapore Technologies, Israeli Military Industries, Germanys Rheinmetall Air Defence and Corporation Defence of Russia for their alleged involvement in a multi-crore ordnance factory scam. These companies have already gone to court against the Centres decision. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said that the Director General (Acquisition) will draw up a list as required under the new policy and hence old cases will also be looked into. The review will include about a dozen firms that came under blanket blacklisting in the previous regime, a move the forces were unhappy about as it proved detrimental to their modernisation plans. That does not mean they will be taken out. Dont interpret... they will be examined what is the status, how many years they have been blacklisted for and why they were blacklisted, Parrikar said on the sidelines of an event in the national capital. According to the new rules, India can do business with banned companies if there is no available alternative in the market. For example, due to a ban on key Israeli defence firms, the production line at the newly set-up Nalanda ordnance factory could not take off. But now, this will be allowed after approval from the highest authority in the service, not below the rank of vice-chief of concerned service. Parrikar has been maintaining that national security should not be compromised due to a blanket ban on erring defence firms. The new policy also states that banning of business dealings may be ordered only if a company accepts its misconduct, the CBI files a chargesheet against it or a court or tribunal finds it guilty. But the fresh guidelines also make it clear that the ban period will not be less than five years in case of violations of integrity pact unlike the blanket ban of 10 years during the previous government. But the new policy does not mention the maximum ban period. And the company against which ban was imposed, will be allowed to take part in new tenders for spares, upgrades and maintenance for weapon systems supplied earlier if the equipment which is the object of the contract is a propriety item and there are no available alternate sources of supply. It is notable that multiple ongoing projects of the Navy and IAF were hit due to a blanket ban on business dealings with such companies. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday thanked people for expressing continued faith in the BJP after the party scored victories in bypolls in Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh besides doing well in West Bengal and Tripura. In Bengal, the ruling TMC swept the bypolls and registered a landslide victory in the two Lok Sabha seats and one Assembly seat. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed the victory was a result of public ire against demonetisation and said the party will launch district and panchayat-level agitations in Bengal from Wednesday against the move. In MP, the BJP which is in power, retained Shahdol Lok Sabha and Nepanagar Assembly seats, defeating the Congress which had highlighted the demonetisation issue. However, compared to the 2014 LS polls, the BJPs victory margin in Shahdol fell by nearly 2 lakh votes. Meanwhile, proving that it is well and truly on a roll in the Northeast, the BJP won three of the five seats in the bypolls in the region. In one of Tripuras two seats, the party even managed to give a scare to the States ruling Left Front by emerging second. In Assams Lakhimpur LS seat, lying vacant after Sarbananda Sonowals appointment as chief minister in May, BJPs Pradan Baruah defeated his nearest Congress rival by 1,90,219 votes. In Baithalangso Assembly seat, BJPs Mansing Rongpi defeated Congresss Rupansing Ronghang by a margin of 16,600 votes. Rongpi had won the last poll on Congresss ticket but resigned two months later and joined the BJP. Following his victory, the BJPs tally in the 126-member Assam Assembly has gone up to 61. In Arunachals Hayuliang Assembly seat, it was a straight contest between BJPs Dasanglu Pul, wife of former Arunachal Chief Minister Kalikho Pul, and independent Yompi Kri. Dasanglu won by a margin of 942 votes. The bypoll was necessitated as Pul had allegedly committed suicide. Following Dasanglus win, the BJPs tally in the 60-member Assembly has risen to 12. In Tripura, the ruling CPM retained the Barjala and Khowai Assembly seats. In Barjala, the BJP finished a close second. The BJP, which has a presence in the coalition governments of Assam, Arunachal and Nagaland, has now set its sights on Manipur, where it has two MLAs, and Tripura. Assembly polls in Manipur are due next year. Tripura will go to polls in 2018. Meanwhile, in Bengal, TMC candidate Dibyendu Adhikari won by nearly 5 lakh votes in Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency.In the former CPM stronghold Manteswar, TMC candidate Saikat Panja won by a margin of 1 lakh votes. The party had won the Assembly seat for the first time by a slim margin of 706 votes in April 2016. In the Coochbehar LS seat, TMCs Partha Pratim Ray won by a margin of around 4 lakh votes. Securing 3,81,133 votes, the BJP emerged runner-up in this north Bengal seat and made inroads by leading in two Assembly segments. NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday thanked people for expressing continued faith in the BJP after the party scored victories in bypolls in Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh besides doing well in West Bengal and Tripura. In Bengal, the ruling TMC swept the bypolls and registered a landslide victory in the two Lok Sabha seats and one Assembly seat. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed the victory was a result of public ire against demonetisation and said the party will launch district and panchayat-level agitations in Bengal from Wednesday against the move. In MP, the BJP which is in power, retained Shahdol Lok Sabha and Nepanagar Assembly seats, defeating the Congress which had highlighted the demonetisation issue. However, compared to the 2014 LS polls, the BJPs victory margin in Shahdol fell by nearly 2 lakh votes. Meanwhile, proving that it is well and truly on a roll in the Northeast, the BJP won three of the five seats in the bypolls in the region. In one of Tripuras two seats, the party even managed to give a scare to the States ruling Left Front by emerging second. In Assams Lakhimpur LS seat, lying vacant after Sarbananda Sonowals appointment as chief minister in May, BJPs Pradan Baruah defeated his nearest Congress rival by 1,90,219 votes. In Baithalangso Assembly seat, BJPs Mansing Rongpi defeated Congresss Rupansing Ronghang by a margin of 16,600 votes. Rongpi had won the last poll on Congresss ticket but resigned two months later and joined the BJP. Following his victory, the BJPs tally in the 126-member Assam Assembly has gone up to 61. In Arunachals Hayuliang Assembly seat, it was a straight contest between BJPs Dasanglu Pul, wife of former Arunachal Chief Minister Kalikho Pul, and independent Yompi Kri. Dasanglu won by a margin of 942 votes. The bypoll was necessitated as Pul had allegedly committed suicide. Following Dasanglus win, the BJPs tally in the 60-member Assembly has risen to 12. In Tripura, the ruling CPM retained the Barjala and Khowai Assembly seats. In Barjala, the BJP finished a close second. The BJP, which has a presence in the coalition governments of Assam, Arunachal and Nagaland, has now set its sights on Manipur, where it has two MLAs, and Tripura. Assembly polls in Manipur are due next year. Tripura will go to polls in 2018. Meanwhile, in Bengal, TMC candidate Dibyendu Adhikari won by nearly 5 lakh votes in Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency.In the former CPM stronghold Manteswar, TMC candidate Saikat Panja won by a margin of 1 lakh votes. The party had won the Assembly seat for the first time by a slim margin of 706 votes in April 2016. In the Coochbehar LS seat, TMCs Partha Pratim Ray won by a margin of around 4 lakh votes. Securing 3,81,133 votes, the BJP emerged runner-up in this north Bengal seat and made inroads by leading in two Assembly segments. A Surya Prakash By More than hoarders of black money, the Prime Minister, Narendra Modis announcement on November 8 to demonetise high value currency to strike at the root of illicit wealth appears to have stunned his political opponents. Coming within weeks of the surgical strike against Pakistan, through which he signalled his ability to take decisive action, the blow that he struck against hoarders of black money a fortnight ago has put him way ahead of the competition. It is true that the roll out of the scheme has been rather clumsy and different organs of the government are struggling to cope with the challenges posed by demonetisation, resulting in long queues outside banks and hardship for people wanting to exchange old currency for new. Yet, the large mass of people all over the country have given the idea a big thumbs up, because barring a few diehard critics of Modi, nobody is doubting his intentions. This is indeed extraordinary, because it is difficult to recall the last time an Indian prime minister commanded the trust of the people across the length and breadth of India and that too when people from every strata of society have been hit by the sudden absence of liquidity in the system. Meanwhile, the Opposition has begun to whip up tensions over the non-availability of new currency leading to long queues outside banks. So far, the people have refused to fall for the bait, but the government machinery needs to do much more if it is to prevent trouble on the streets. However, going by how the demonetisation plan has worked out in the first two weeks, one thing is obvious: The country now has a prime minister who thinks out-of-the-box and who is determined to end the status quo mentality of the Nehruvian establishment that he has inherited. But, he does not have the kind of machinery which he needs to carry out his policies. Although he has given the bureaucracy many a pep talk, it is mired in the inertia and the sluggishness of the past seventy years and is finding it difficult to cope with him. The massive problems encountered in the roll-out of the demonetisation scheme is a pointer to the fact that the prime minister and the administrative machinery through which he operates are not running at the same pace. Modi has publicly declared his intention to take several more tough measures to achieve the goal of cleaning the body politic, which means we must be ready for many more big ticket programmes. But, does the prime minister have the administrative apparatus to carry out his plans? Going by the experience of the past fortnight, it seems some innovative strategies will be necessary to upgrade the management skills of the government. One way of dealing with this is to ensure lateral entry of management experts, who are currently outside the government system. Given Indias complexities and the pace at which Modi wants to bring about change, a good mix of the best minds in government and the private sector may be necessary to manage specific schemes. In order to do this, the prime minister will have to break the shackles of tradition and entice the best minds within and outside the government to come in and help him achieve his goals. Within the government, he could look at officials in the various services with strong technology and management backgrounds and get them to work alongside those who come in from outside the system. From the private sector, Modi could look at individuals who have specialised in the rural market or those who have found innovative ways to capture the market at the bottom of the pyramid. In this, the prime minister can look at the way the US president picks his team. Many of those who get the top jobs in the administration come from the private sector, fit into the system, and get on to doing something else after their tenures in government are over. Rather than seeing the chosen one as an intruder or an outsider, the American bureaucracy welcomes the new entrant and goes about its business in the most normal way. Since Modi is given to questioning the efficacy of existing practices, he could look at the possibility of opening the doors of government to management specialists hired specifically to manage national programmes. This can happen if he can end the stuffiness of the Indian bureaucracy, which has the reputation of resisting outsiders and killing their creativity. In India, the bureaucracy resists the idea of lateral entry into the bureaucracy. Political bosses are okay in the sense that they are a necessary evil, but the entry of foreign bodies into the administrative set-up must be resisted and challenged. Those who do not have a batch, a service and a year to refer to, have no b u s i n e s s b e i n g i n government! This will have to change. The new India that Modi wishes to build will need a new administrative machinery. Given the Indian reality, the new structure will have to be a proper blend of bureaucrats who have grappled with problems at the grass roots and management specialists from outside government, who are not weighed down by bureaucratic baggage. In other words, it will have to be a combination of the old and the new, the traditional and the radical. In order to achieve this, the prime minister will have to shake up the system and trigger a paradigm change in the way government works. This will be the next big surgical strike that he will have to undertake, in order to have the machinery that can execute his plans. Let us keep our fingers crossed! A Surya Prakash is Chairman, Prasar Bharati Email: suryamedia@gmail.com More than hoarders of black money, the Prime Minister, Narendra Modis announcement on November 8 to demonetise high value currency to strike at the root of illicit wealth appears to have stunned his political opponents. Coming within weeks of the surgical strike against Pakistan, through which he signalled his ability to take decisive action, the blow that he struck against hoarders of black money a fortnight ago has put him way ahead of the competition. It is true that the roll out of the scheme has been rather clumsy and different organs of the government are struggling to cope with the challenges posed by demonetisation, resulting in long queues outside banks and hardship for people wanting to exchange old currency for new. Yet, the large mass of people all over the country have given the idea a big thumbs up, because barring a few diehard critics of Modi, nobody is doubting his intentions. This is indeed extraordinary, because it is difficult to recall the last time an Indian prime minister commanded the trust of the people across the length and breadth of India and that too when people from every strata of society have been hit by the sudden absence of liquidity in the system. Meanwhile, the Opposition has begun to whip up tensions over the non-availability of new currency leading to long queues outside banks. So far, the people have refused to fall for the bait, but the government machinery needs to do much more if it is to prevent trouble on the streets. However, going by how the demonetisation plan has worked out in the first two weeks, one thing is obvious: The country now has a prime minister who thinks out-of-the-box and who is determined to end the status quo mentality of the Nehruvian establishment that he has inherited. But, he does not have the kind of machinery which he needs to carry out his policies. Although he has given the bureaucracy many a pep talk, it is mired in the inertia and the sluggishness of the past seventy years and is finding it difficult to cope with him. The massive problems encountered in the roll-out of the demonetisation scheme is a pointer to the fact that the prime minister and the administrative machinery through which he operates are not running at the same pace. Modi has publicly declared his intention to take several more tough measures to achieve the goal of cleaning the body politic, which means we must be ready for many more big ticket programmes. But, does the prime minister have the administrative apparatus to carry out his plans? Going by the experience of the past fortnight, it seems some innovative strategies will be necessary to upgrade the management skills of the government. One way of dealing with this is to ensure lateral entry of management experts, who are currently outside the government system. Given Indias complexities and the pace at which Modi wants to bring about change, a good mix of the best minds in government and the private sector may be necessary to manage specific schemes. In order to do this, the prime minister will have to break the shackles of tradition and entice the best minds within and outside the government to come in and help him achieve his goals. Within the government, he could look at officials in the various services with strong technology and management backgrounds and get them to work alongside those who come in from outside the system. From the private sector, Modi could look at individuals who have specialised in the rural market or those who have found innovative ways to capture the market at the bottom of the pyramid. In this, the prime minister can look at the way the US president picks his team. Many of those who get the top jobs in the administration come from the private sector, fit into the system, and get on to doing something else after their tenures in government are over. Rather than seeing the chosen one as an intruder or an outsider, the American bureaucracy welcomes the new entrant and goes about its business in the most normal way. Since Modi is given to questioning the efficacy of existing practices, he could look at the possibility of opening the doors of government to management specialists hired specifically to manage national programmes. This can happen if he can end the stuffiness of the Indian bureaucracy, which has the reputation of resisting outsiders and killing their creativity. In India, the bureaucracy resists the idea of lateral entry into the bureaucracy. Political bosses are okay in the sense that they are a necessary evil, but the entry of foreign bodies into the administrative set-up must be resisted and challenged. Those who do not have a batch, a service and a year to refer to, have no b u s i n e s s b e i n g i n government! This will have to change. The new India that Modi wishes to build will need a new administrative machinery. Given the Indian reality, the new structure will have to be a proper blend of bureaucrats who have grappled with problems at the grass roots and management specialists from outside government, who are not weighed down by bureaucratic baggage. In other words, it will have to be a combination of the old and the new, the traditional and the radical. In order to achieve this, the prime minister will have to shake up the system and trigger a paradigm change in the way government works. This will be the next big surgical strike that he will have to undertake, in order to have the machinery that can execute his plans. Let us keep our fingers crossed! A Surya Prakash is Chairman, Prasar Bharati Email: suryamedia@gmail.com By Express News Service BELAGAVI: Members of Opposition parties staged a protest in the well of the house against arrests of farmers across the state for heading towards Belagavi Suvarna Soudha. As soon as the house assembled on the first day of winter session, Opposition leader Jagadish Shettar raised the issue and criticised the government for arresting farmers for no mistake. Demanding withdrawal of cases against farmers for indulging in Mahadayi and other agitations, he said that the farmers were being treated as terrorists and dacoits, and arrested from across the state.The government should immediately release the farmers. Why did you arrest them when they were nowhere close to Suvarna Soudha, he added. Congress rebel MLA AS Patil Nadahalli said that the government has no concern for farmers, who are worst hit due to drought in past three years. What was the need to create a helipad inside Suvarna Soudha premises, he added. In reply, Industries Minister RV Deshpande said that they have not arrested farmers, but only took preventive measures. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that he has directed the cops to release farmers. BELAGAVI: Members of Opposition parties staged a protest in the well of the house against arrests of farmers across the state for heading towards Belagavi Suvarna Soudha. As soon as the house assembled on the first day of winter session, Opposition leader Jagadish Shettar raised the issue and criticised the government for arresting farmers for no mistake. Demanding withdrawal of cases against farmers for indulging in Mahadayi and other agitations, he said that the farmers were being treated as terrorists and dacoits, and arrested from across the state.The government should immediately release the farmers. Why did you arrest them when they were nowhere close to Suvarna Soudha, he added. Congress rebel MLA AS Patil Nadahalli said that the government has no concern for farmers, who are worst hit due to drought in past three years. What was the need to create a helipad inside Suvarna Soudha premises, he added. In reply, Industries Minister RV Deshpande said that they have not arrested farmers, but only took preventive measures. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that he has directed the cops to release farmers. By Express News Service KOCHI: Noted physicist Mambillikalathil Govind Kumar Menon, who was know for his high intellect and administrative judgment, passed away in New Delhi on Tuesday. He was 88. M G K Menon had made the state proud by playing a prominent role in the development of science and technology in the country over the past five decades. The crucial role he played in saving the Silent Valley from ecological disaster is one of his outstanding achievements. He was head of the eight-member committee appointed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi - four selected by the Kerala Government and four by the Central Government. Three months were too short a period to assess the pros and cons of the issue fully. However, the decision came slowly but surely, with careful evaluation, in favour of environmentalists. And Silent Valley, a repository of plant and animal wealth, is there for all of us to enjoy. Menon had also served as the Minister of State for Science and Technology in the V P Singh Government (December 1989 to November 1990). Earlier, he had served as secretary in the departments of Science and Technology and Environment. He was a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) in the 1990-96, period from Rajastan (Janata Dal). In 2008, an asteroid was named after Menon, as 7564 Gokumenon, to honour him. MGK Menon was born on August 28, 1928, in Mangaluru as son of Justice Sankara Menon of Kizhakkepat and Narayanikutty Amma of Mamballikalathil. After completing his schooling in various parts of the country, Menon joined the University of Bristol in the UK in 1949. He got the spark that lit his deep commitment to fundamental research from Nobel Laureate C V Raman, who insisted that Menon should do research in physics. In 1972, Menon served as chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), after Vikram Sarabhai, and served as director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) at the age of 35. Menon was a member of the Planning Commission from 1982 to 1989; Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister from 1986 to 1989; and vice-president of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) from 1989 to 1990. He was also Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London. KOCHI: Noted physicist Mambillikalathil Govind Kumar Menon, who was know for his high intellect and administrative judgment, passed away in New Delhi on Tuesday. He was 88. M G K Menon had made the state proud by playing a prominent role in the development of science and technology in the country over the past five decades. The crucial role he played in saving the Silent Valley from ecological disaster is one of his outstanding achievements. He was head of the eight-member committee appointed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi - four selected by the Kerala Government and four by the Central Government. Three months were too short a period to assess the pros and cons of the issue fully. However, the decision came slowly but surely, with careful evaluation, in favour of environmentalists. And Silent Valley, a repository of plant and animal wealth, is there for all of us to enjoy. Menon had also served as the Minister of State for Science and Technology in the V P Singh Government (December 1989 to November 1990). Earlier, he had served as secretary in the departments of Science and Technology and Environment. He was a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) in the 1990-96, period from Rajastan (Janata Dal). In 2008, an asteroid was named after Menon, as 7564 Gokumenon, to honour him. MGK Menon was born on August 28, 1928, in Mangaluru as son of Justice Sankara Menon of Kizhakkepat and Narayanikutty Amma of Mamballikalathil. After completing his schooling in various parts of the country, Menon joined the University of Bristol in the UK in 1949. He got the spark that lit his deep commitment to fundamental research from Nobel Laureate C V Raman, who insisted that Menon should do research in physics. In 1972, Menon served as chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), after Vikram Sarabhai, and served as director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) at the age of 35. Menon was a member of the Planning Commission from 1982 to 1989; Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister from 1986 to 1989; and vice-president of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) from 1989 to 1990. He was also Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London. By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CBI on Tuesday arrested a personal staff member of Fisheries Minister J Mercykutty Amma in connection with a murder case. A CPM Kollam district committee member was also arrested along with him. Markson, a staff member of the minister, along with partys Kollam district committee member K Babu Panicker was arrested in connection with the murder of Anchal Ramabhadran in 2010. CBI questioned the Chairman of Kerala State Cashew Development corporation, former district panchayat president and member of CPMs district secretariat S Jayamohan in connection with the murder. He was asked to report to CBI officials again on Wednesday, according to sources. The arrest of Anchal area secretary P S Suman and DYFI leader Riyaz are also likely, said the source. While the district and area leaders were questioned for planning the murder, Riyas and Markson are said to have executed it. Babu Panicker and Markson were taken into custody from their respective houses and were taken to CBI office in Thiruvananthapuram. It was on April 10, 2010 that Ramabhadran of Sree Rama Chandra Vilasom, Nettayam, who was then the Eroor mandalam president of Congress, was hacked to death in front of his wife and two daughters. A total of 29 wounds were found on his body. The case had seen many twists and turns as it was first investigated by local police, then by Crime Branch and on the intervention of Kerala High Court it was transferred to Central Bureau of Investigation. Based on a writ petition filed by Bindu V S, wife of Ramabhadran, with the High Court in October 2015, Justice Kamal Pasha issued an order by ruling against CBIs decision not to take up the investigation even after the state government issued a notification recommending for entrusting the probe to the central agency. The petitioner had alleged that from the very beginning a proper investigation was not being carried out by the local police. The complainant says that the removal of the investigation officer who inquired the case first was for saving the influential persons. After many legal fights and pressures, the investigation was handed over to the Crime Branch. It was then that the petitioner, Bindu, appealed to the court that a larger conspiracy is involved in the matter and the local police have identified the assailants only. She also alleged that the assailants might be hired assassins. Citing the political clout and conspiracy behind the murder a CBI investigation was demanded in the case. The CBI which has taken a stand that they are overburdened with investigations of other cases and therefore are not able to take up the investigation of Ramabhadran murder case had to change its stand after the intervention of the court. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CBI on Tuesday arrested a personal staff member of Fisheries Minister J Mercykutty Amma in connection with a murder case. A CPM Kollam district committee member was also arrested along with him. Markson, a staff member of the minister, along with partys Kollam district committee member K Babu Panicker was arrested in connection with the murder of Anchal Ramabhadran in 2010. CBI questioned the Chairman of Kerala State Cashew Development corporation, former district panchayat president and member of CPMs district secretariat S Jayamohan in connection with the murder. He was asked to report to CBI officials again on Wednesday, according to sources. The arrest of Anchal area secretary P S Suman and DYFI leader Riyaz are also likely, said the source. While the district and area leaders were questioned for planning the murder, Riyas and Markson are said to have executed it. Babu Panicker and Markson were taken into custody from their respective houses and were taken to CBI office in Thiruvananthapuram. It was on April 10, 2010 that Ramabhadran of Sree Rama Chandra Vilasom, Nettayam, who was then the Eroor mandalam president of Congress, was hacked to death in front of his wife and two daughters. A total of 29 wounds were found on his body. The case had seen many twists and turns as it was first investigated by local police, then by Crime Branch and on the intervention of Kerala High Court it was transferred to Central Bureau of Investigation. Based on a writ petition filed by Bindu V S, wife of Ramabhadran, with the High Court in October 2015, Justice Kamal Pasha issued an order by ruling against CBIs decision not to take up the investigation even after the state government issued a notification recommending for entrusting the probe to the central agency. The petitioner had alleged that from the very beginning a proper investigation was not being carried out by the local police. The complainant says that the removal of the investigation officer who inquired the case first was for saving the influential persons. After many legal fights and pressures, the investigation was handed over to the Crime Branch. It was then that the petitioner, Bindu, appealed to the court that a larger conspiracy is involved in the matter and the local police have identified the assailants only. She also alleged that the assailants might be hired assassins. Citing the political clout and conspiracy behind the murder a CBI investigation was demanded in the case. The CBI which has taken a stand that they are overburdened with investigations of other cases and therefore are not able to take up the investigation of Ramabhadran murder case had to change its stand after the intervention of the court. By Express News Service CUTTACK: Ravenshaw University remained tense for the third consecutive day on Tuesday with inmates of both New and Lalitagiri Hostels staging separate protests seeking action against the accused responsible for violence on the campus. More than 150 inmates of New Hostel staged a dharna in front of the Vice-Chancellors office demanding stringent action against the accused students who attacked them and vandalised their bikes. They submitted a memorandum in this regard to the Vice-Chancellor. On the other hand, the boarders of Lalitgiri Hostel took out a rally seeking action against some inmates of New Hostel for ragging a junior. Contacted, Vice-Chancellor Prakash Chandra Sarangi said, It It appears to be a case of post-poll violence. The matter has been forwarded to the disciplinary committee of the university as well the Commissionerate Police for necessary action. While five inmates of both the hostels were hurt in the clash on Sunday night, more than 12 students sustained injuries in the fight which resurfaced on Monday night. One platoon of police force has been deployed on the university campus to check further untoward incident. CUTTACK: Ravenshaw University remained tense for the third consecutive day on Tuesday with inmates of both New and Lalitagiri Hostels staging separate protests seeking action against the accused responsible for violence on the campus. More than 150 inmates of New Hostel staged a dharna in front of the Vice-Chancellors office demanding stringent action against the accused students who attacked them and vandalised their bikes. They submitted a memorandum in this regard to the Vice-Chancellor. On the other hand, the boarders of Lalitgiri Hostel took out a rally seeking action against some inmates of New Hostel for ragging a junior. Contacted, Vice-Chancellor Prakash Chandra Sarangi said, It It appears to be a case of post-poll violence. The matter has been forwarded to the disciplinary committee of the university as well the Commissionerate Police for necessary action. While five inmates of both the hostels were hurt in the clash on Sunday night, more than 12 students sustained injuries in the fight which resurfaced on Monday night. One platoon of police force has been deployed on the university campus to check further untoward incident. RK Rajasekaran By Express News Service MADURAI: Is Devanagari, the widely used Hindi script, a language or design? Being hauled before court over the new Rs 2,000 currency notes that ruffled a few feathers in the Hindi-wary Tamil Nadu, the Centre contended that the Devanagiri numeral written the on both sides of the new notes was a design component and not a language. "As per Reserve Bank of India Act, the RBI's Central Board can recommend designs to be printed on the currency notes. The Devanagari numerical is also a design," argued the Additional Solicitor General (ASG) before the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Tuesday, a line that the bench refused to buy. The numerical conveys the promise made by the RBI governor that the currency note carried a value of Rs 2,000, pointed out a division bench of Justices S Nagamuthu and MV Muralidaran. In doing so, it is communicating, said the bench, adding that the language should be a legal one as per the existing acts. The numeral, it stressed, cannot be termed design. Failing to convince the bench, the ASG sought time, which the court granted. The case will be heard on November 28. The petitioner 'Agri' K P T Ganesan said the new notes carried the numerals for Rs 2,000 in the international form (English) as well as Devanagari, though there is no provision to use it under the Official Languages Act enacted in 1963. Even before the enactment of the act, the President did not give nod for such utilisation of Devanagari, the petitioner added. Using Devanagari on the notes without enacting the mandatory legislative measures has rendered the new notes illegal and invalid, he said. The new currency had given rise to the old debate on languages, one of the key components that shaped the politics of Tamil Nadu. Many here are quick to equate it to the Hindi imposition efforts of the previous decades that catalysed Dravidian politics, to which the use of Devanagari numerals on the new currency (including the Rs 500 notes) has proven a technical weapon against the Centre. MADURAI: Is Devanagari, the widely used Hindi script, a language or design? Being hauled before court over the new Rs 2,000 currency notes that ruffled a few feathers in the Hindi-wary Tamil Nadu, the Centre contended that the Devanagiri numeral written the on both sides of the new notes was a design component and not a language. "As per Reserve Bank of India Act, the RBI's Central Board can recommend designs to be printed on the currency notes. The Devanagari numerical is also a design," argued the Additional Solicitor General (ASG) before the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Tuesday, a line that the bench refused to buy. The numerical conveys the promise made by the RBI governor that the currency note carried a value of Rs 2,000, pointed out a division bench of Justices S Nagamuthu and MV Muralidaran. In doing so, it is communicating, said the bench, adding that the language should be a legal one as per the existing acts. The numeral, it stressed, cannot be termed design. Failing to convince the bench, the ASG sought time, which the court granted. The case will be heard on November 28. The petitioner 'Agri' K P T Ganesan said the new notes carried the numerals for Rs 2,000 in the international form (English) as well as Devanagari, though there is no provision to use it under the Official Languages Act enacted in 1963. Even before the enactment of the act, the President did not give nod for such utilisation of Devanagari, the petitioner added. Using Devanagari on the notes without enacting the mandatory legislative measures has rendered the new notes illegal and invalid, he said. The new currency had given rise to the old debate on languages, one of the key components that shaped the politics of Tamil Nadu. Many here are quick to equate it to the Hindi imposition efforts of the previous decades that catalysed Dravidian politics, to which the use of Devanagari numerals on the new currency (including the Rs 500 notes) has proven a technical weapon against the Centre. By Express News Service MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in its interim order has banned two soft drinks majors, Pepsi and Coca Cola, from drawing water from the Thamirabarani River for the purpose of producing commercial products like soft drinks or packaged drinking water. In his public interest litigation (PIL), D A Prabakar of Tirunelveli said the Thamirabarani River, originating from the western ghats and flowing through Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi, supported the drinking water projects and irrigation schemes of the two districts. Apart from implementing about 20 integrated drinking water projects, for which 12.5 crore litres of water was being tapped every day in Tirunelveli district, the Tamil Nadu Water and Drainage TWAD) Board has been managing various other drinking water schemes for Thoothukudi, Virudhunagar and Ramanathapuram districts. About 10 crore litres of water was taken daily for drinking, in only Thoothukudi and Ramanathapuram. Against this background, about 5 crore litres of water was taken from the river for industrial purposes in Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi. More than 27 industrial establishments have been functioning at SIPCOT in Gangaikondan near Tirunelveli while in the SIPCOT complex in Thoothukudi, 73 industries are being run. As many as 1,84,0871 litres and 15,89,769 liters of water are being supplied to the industries in the respective SIPCOT complexes, said the petitioner. Prathishta Business Solution, co-packer of Pepsi Cola Company and South India Bottling company, the co-packer of Coca Cola Company, are being operated on about 30 acres each in Gangaikondan SIPCOT. They were given contract for a period of 99 years. The state government has agreed to supply 9 lakh litres and 15 lakh litres of water daily to those two companies respectively. It is given at the rate of `37.50 per 1000 litres, said the petitioner, adding that it is sorry state of affair that the same multinational companies were allowed to sell their soft drinks and drinking water at enormous rates. Moreover, Gangaikondan was declared as spotted deer national sanctuary. There was an exclusive park for the animal. These two companies were located within 4 km radius of the spotted deer park and if they were supplied huge amounts of water from the Thamirbarani, it may affect the deer population too. So the court should restrain the SIPCOT from supplying water to the companies, he prayed. When the petition was heard on Monday, a division bench of Justices S Nagamuthu and M V Muralidaran has banned the two soft drinks firms from drawing water from the river for producing soft drinks or any beverages or packaged drinking water, saying that it is important to protect the interests of farmers and common man. MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in its interim order has banned two soft drinks majors, Pepsi and Coca Cola, from drawing water from the Thamirabarani River for the purpose of producing commercial products like soft drinks or packaged drinking water. In his public interest litigation (PIL), D A Prabakar of Tirunelveli said the Thamirabarani River, originating from the western ghats and flowing through Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi, supported the drinking water projects and irrigation schemes of the two districts. Apart from implementing about 20 integrated drinking water projects, for which 12.5 crore litres of water was being tapped every day in Tirunelveli district, the Tamil Nadu Water and Drainage TWAD) Board has been managing various other drinking water schemes for Thoothukudi, Virudhunagar and Ramanathapuram districts. About 10 crore litres of water was taken daily for drinking, in only Thoothukudi and Ramanathapuram. Against this background, about 5 crore litres of water was taken from the river for industrial purposes in Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi. More than 27 industrial establishments have been functioning at SIPCOT in Gangaikondan near Tirunelveli while in the SIPCOT complex in Thoothukudi, 73 industries are being run. As many as 1,84,0871 litres and 15,89,769 liters of water are being supplied to the industries in the respective SIPCOT complexes, said the petitioner. Prathishta Business Solution, co-packer of Pepsi Cola Company and South India Bottling company, the co-packer of Coca Cola Company, are being operated on about 30 acres each in Gangaikondan SIPCOT. They were given contract for a period of 99 years. The state government has agreed to supply 9 lakh litres and 15 lakh litres of water daily to those two companies respectively. It is given at the rate of `37.50 per 1000 litres, said the petitioner, adding that it is sorry state of affair that the same multinational companies were allowed to sell their soft drinks and drinking water at enormous rates. Moreover, Gangaikondan was declared as spotted deer national sanctuary. There was an exclusive park for the animal. These two companies were located within 4 km radius of the spotted deer park and if they were supplied huge amounts of water from the Thamirbarani, it may affect the deer population too. So the court should restrain the SIPCOT from supplying water to the companies, he prayed. When the petition was heard on Monday, a division bench of Justices S Nagamuthu and M V Muralidaran has banned the two soft drinks firms from drawing water from the river for producing soft drinks or any beverages or packaged drinking water, saying that it is important to protect the interests of farmers and common man. By AFP STRASBOURG: The European Parliament's Brexit negotiator warned his British counterpart on Tuesday there is an "intense" window of just 15 months to complete talks for the country's exit from the EU. Guy Verhofstadt said he had also told Brexit minister David Davis that European lawmakers would not accept Britain trying to keep access to the single market while limiting freedom of movement for EU citizens. "We agreed on some things, on the need for this process to start as early as possible and need to be finished in any case before the next European elections" in May 2019, Verhofstadt said after the talks in Strasbourg, France. "So the window for the negotiations is more or less 14, 15 months," he added. "It's going to be a period that is very intense." He said if Britain triggers the two-year divorce process in March 2017 as Prime Minister Theresa May has promised following Britain's June vote to leave, then formal negotiations are unlikely to start until May 2017. MEPs must then formally give their consent for any deal and that would take several months from late 2018, he said. Former Belgian prime minister and leading European federalist Verhofstadt had tweeted that it would be a "hell of a meeting" after Davis jokingly compared him to Satan earlier this year. 'Races classic cars' Davis said the meeting with Verhofstadt was "great fun" and "very useful". "Hes a very nice man. He races British classic cars and we got on very well," he told the BBC. My view is that we can get an outcome here which will be in the interest of the European Union and in the interest of Britain and will meet the requirements of the referendum." May has said she wants to cut EU migrant numbers and retain access for British businesses to Europe's single market, but EU leaders insist the two are incompatible. The head of the European Parliament's largest group, Manfred Weber, said he learned nothing new when he also met Davis at the parliament in Strasbourg. "Unfortunately I havent heard anything new from David Davis today. For us it's clear: the four fundamental freedoms are not negotiable," said Weber, head of the centre-right European People's Party. "Brexit means Brexit so we're going to have to cut back on our relationships, it's not a cherry-picking situation at all," he warned. The talks came a day after Davis met the European Commission's top negotiatorMichel Barnier in Brussels for a "courtesy coffee". The pair both insisted the meeting did not mark a formal start to negotiations, saying that would have to wait until Britain formally triggers the exit process. European Union leaders have ruled out any formal Brexit negotiations before Britain invokes Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, the official exit procedure, following its June vote to leave the 28-nation bloc. With the timing looking increasingly tight, May said on Monday: "We don't want a cliff-edge". These comments are widely interpreted as referring to a possible transitional arrangement by the 2019 deadline, with a full Brexit coming later. Another potential complication in the timetable stems from a British court ruling that parliament must approve the process to trigger Brexit. The British government has appealed to ruling to the Supreme Court, which is due to consider the case in early December, although it is not expected to give its verdict until early in the new year. STRASBOURG: The European Parliament's Brexit negotiator warned his British counterpart on Tuesday there is an "intense" window of just 15 months to complete talks for the country's exit from the EU. Guy Verhofstadt said he had also told Brexit minister David Davis that European lawmakers would not accept Britain trying to keep access to the single market while limiting freedom of movement for EU citizens. "We agreed on some things, on the need for this process to start as early as possible and need to be finished in any case before the next European elections" in May 2019, Verhofstadt said after the talks in Strasbourg, France. "So the window for the negotiations is more or less 14, 15 months," he added. "It's going to be a period that is very intense." He said if Britain triggers the two-year divorce process in March 2017 as Prime Minister Theresa May has promised following Britain's June vote to leave, then formal negotiations are unlikely to start until May 2017. MEPs must then formally give their consent for any deal and that would take several months from late 2018, he said. Former Belgian prime minister and leading European federalist Verhofstadt had tweeted that it would be a "hell of a meeting" after Davis jokingly compared him to Satan earlier this year. 'Races classic cars' Davis said the meeting with Verhofstadt was "great fun" and "very useful". "Hes a very nice man. He races British classic cars and we got on very well," he told the BBC. My view is that we can get an outcome here which will be in the interest of the European Union and in the interest of Britain and will meet the requirements of the referendum." May has said she wants to cut EU migrant numbers and retain access for British businesses to Europe's single market, but EU leaders insist the two are incompatible. The head of the European Parliament's largest group, Manfred Weber, said he learned nothing new when he also met Davis at the parliament in Strasbourg. "Unfortunately I havent heard anything new from David Davis today. For us it's clear: the four fundamental freedoms are not negotiable," said Weber, head of the centre-right European People's Party. "Brexit means Brexit so we're going to have to cut back on our relationships, it's not a cherry-picking situation at all," he warned. The talks came a day after Davis met the European Commission's top negotiatorMichel Barnier in Brussels for a "courtesy coffee". The pair both insisted the meeting did not mark a formal start to negotiations, saying that would have to wait until Britain formally triggers the exit process. European Union leaders have ruled out any formal Brexit negotiations before Britain invokes Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, the official exit procedure, following its June vote to leave the 28-nation bloc. With the timing looking increasingly tight, May said on Monday: "We don't want a cliff-edge". These comments are widely interpreted as referring to a possible transitional arrangement by the 2019 deadline, with a full Brexit coming later. Another potential complication in the timetable stems from a British court ruling that parliament must approve the process to trigger Brexit. The British government has appealed to ruling to the Supreme Court, which is due to consider the case in early December, although it is not expected to give its verdict until early in the new year. By AFP WASHINGTON: Hillary Clinton was about to be indicted, Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump: the battle over fake news is heating up after a White House campaign in which the misinformation industry may have swung the outcome of the vote. Last week, Google and Facebook moved to cut off ad revenue to bogus news sites. But media watchers say more is needed to stamp out a powerful phenomenon seen by some people as a threat to democracy itself. One of those people is President Barack Obama, who has warned that fake news threatens the basic principle of freedom of speech. "If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect," Obama said during a visit to Germany. The hoaxes of the 2016 election season were in many cases spectacular -- "Did the Clintons Commit Murder?" -- and created by groups purely out to make money from clicks and ads. And since Trump's victory, reports have exposed the dark underbelly of operations -- run from Macedonia to California -- that boast of making easy money with wholly fabricated stories, under such headlines as "Look At Sick Thing He Just Did To STAB Trump In The Back." An analysis published by BuzzFeed News found that the 20 top-performing bogus stories from hoax websites and extremely partisan blogs generated slightly more than 8.7 million "shares" on Facebook to just 7.4 million from major news websites, in the three months before the election. Now, the outcry over fake news and its apparent role in the election is prompting calls for Facebook to consider itself a media company, with editorial responsibilities, which the social network has repeatedly rejected. - Arbiters of truth? - Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan argued that Facebook "should hire a top-flight executive editor and give that person the resources, power and staff to make sound editorial decisions." For Gabriel Kahn, a former journalist who teaches at the University of Southern California, "they're in the same business as pretty much every media company, which is aggregating audiences and using that to sell advertisements." And Kahn believes that Facebook, by considering itself a "neutral" platform, "allows the media ecosystem to be polluted" with bogus news. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Friday offered additional insight on plans to curb online misinformation while arguing for caution. "The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically," Zuckerberg said in a posting. "We believe in giving people a voice... We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties." Zuckerberg said nonetheless that Facebook would step up efforts to weed out fake news with "stronger detection," an easier process to report hoaxes and "third party verification" from "respected fact checking organizations." Tech entrepreneur Elad Gil said it should not be too difficult for a company like Facebook to apply its technical expertise to determine when a news story is fake. "Intriguingly, a group of undergrads at Princeton were able to build a quick and dirty fake news classifier during a 36-hour hackathon," Gil said in a blog post. - 'Click farms' vs ideology - Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy argued that it is important to differentiate between "click farms" which make money off entirely fake news and politically driven news sites. "I think Facebook could do a lot to crack down on fake news, and I think that's something everybody could agree on, but if they try to go against the ideologically motivated sites it will inevitably get caught up in the culture wars," Kennedy said. The prevalence of ersatz news, analysts note, comes in a context of deep distrust of mainstream media, which is often accused of one-sidedness. Any effort to filter out those voices could "lead to the relitigation of ancient disputes over media bias," said Kennedy. Reason magazine editor Scott Shackleford said it would be hard to draw a line between filtering bogus news and ideological censorship. "So a decision by Facebook to censor 'fake news' would heavily weigh in favor of the more mainstream and 'powerful' traditional media outlets," he wrote. City University of New York journalism professor Jeff Jarvis and startup entrepreneur John Borthwick argued in a blog post that the media and technology industries should work together to help readers establish the credibility of news. "We do not believe that the platforms should be put in the position of judging what is fake or real, true or false as censors for all," they wrote. "The platforms need to give users better information and media need to help them." Even if the online platforms do not turn into media firms, the two wrote in the blog, they should "hire high-level journalists inside their organizations" to "bring a sense of public responsibility to their companies" and "to explain journalism to the technologists and technology to the journalists." WASHINGTON: Hillary Clinton was about to be indicted, Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump: the battle over fake news is heating up after a White House campaign in which the misinformation industry may have swung the outcome of the vote. Last week, Google and Facebook moved to cut off ad revenue to bogus news sites. But media watchers say more is needed to stamp out a powerful phenomenon seen by some people as a threat to democracy itself. One of those people is President Barack Obama, who has warned that fake news threatens the basic principle of freedom of speech. "If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect," Obama said during a visit to Germany. The hoaxes of the 2016 election season were in many cases spectacular -- "Did the Clintons Commit Murder?" -- and created by groups purely out to make money from clicks and ads. And since Trump's victory, reports have exposed the dark underbelly of operations -- run from Macedonia to California -- that boast of making easy money with wholly fabricated stories, under such headlines as "Look At Sick Thing He Just Did To STAB Trump In The Back." An analysis published by BuzzFeed News found that the 20 top-performing bogus stories from hoax websites and extremely partisan blogs generated slightly more than 8.7 million "shares" on Facebook to just 7.4 million from major news websites, in the three months before the election. Now, the outcry over fake news and its apparent role in the election is prompting calls for Facebook to consider itself a media company, with editorial responsibilities, which the social network has repeatedly rejected. - Arbiters of truth? - Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan argued that Facebook "should hire a top-flight executive editor and give that person the resources, power and staff to make sound editorial decisions." For Gabriel Kahn, a former journalist who teaches at the University of Southern California, "they're in the same business as pretty much every media company, which is aggregating audiences and using that to sell advertisements." And Kahn believes that Facebook, by considering itself a "neutral" platform, "allows the media ecosystem to be polluted" with bogus news. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Friday offered additional insight on plans to curb online misinformation while arguing for caution. "The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically," Zuckerberg said in a posting. "We believe in giving people a voice... We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties." Zuckerberg said nonetheless that Facebook would step up efforts to weed out fake news with "stronger detection," an easier process to report hoaxes and "third party verification" from "respected fact checking organizations." Tech entrepreneur Elad Gil said it should not be too difficult for a company like Facebook to apply its technical expertise to determine when a news story is fake. "Intriguingly, a group of undergrads at Princeton were able to build a quick and dirty fake news classifier during a 36-hour hackathon," Gil said in a blog post. - 'Click farms' vs ideology - Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy argued that it is important to differentiate between "click farms" which make money off entirely fake news and politically driven news sites. "I think Facebook could do a lot to crack down on fake news, and I think that's something everybody could agree on, but if they try to go against the ideologically motivated sites it will inevitably get caught up in the culture wars," Kennedy said. The prevalence of ersatz news, analysts note, comes in a context of deep distrust of mainstream media, which is often accused of one-sidedness. Any effort to filter out those voices could "lead to the relitigation of ancient disputes over media bias," said Kennedy. Reason magazine editor Scott Shackleford said it would be hard to draw a line between filtering bogus news and ideological censorship. "So a decision by Facebook to censor 'fake news' would heavily weigh in favor of the more mainstream and 'powerful' traditional media outlets," he wrote. City University of New York journalism professor Jeff Jarvis and startup entrepreneur John Borthwick argued in a blog post that the media and technology industries should work together to help readers establish the credibility of news. "We do not believe that the platforms should be put in the position of judging what is fake or real, true or false as censors for all," they wrote. "The platforms need to give users better information and media need to help them." Even if the online platforms do not turn into media firms, the two wrote in the blog, they should "hire high-level journalists inside their organizations" to "bring a sense of public responsibility to their companies" and "to explain journalism to the technologists and technology to the journalists." By Reuters Panama can remain a competitive financial center while cracking down on tax evaders and other criminals who have used the country to launder money, according to the panel formed by the government after the "Panama Papers" scandal broke in April. The five-member "Committee of Independent Experts", including a former boss of the Panama Canal, said the country needs to get in line with United Nations transparency standards, adopt tougher anti-corruption legislation and tighten regulation of trusts. "The moment has come. The country can no longer postpone decision-making in this field," said the 23-page report released on Monday. A leak in April of more than 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, dubbed the Panama Papers, sparked outrage by showing how the rich in many countries go offshore to avoid paying taxes while working families pay theirs. "Panama is already acting on most of these issues, including strengthening the regulations that apply to trusts and aligning ourselves with international standards," Dulcidio de la Guardia, the country's economy minister, told Reuters in a telephone interview after the report was released. He said the budgets of financial regulatory agencies have already been raised as part of the effort. The report, which stressed the need for Panama to remain a magnet for banking and other service industries, calls for "transparency in identifying the final beneficiary of legal and financial instrument". This was a recommendation made by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Swiss anti-corruption expert Mark Pieth, both of whom resigned from the panel in August, claiming that Panama would not promise to make its report public without first being vetted by the government. The official report went to President Juan Carlos Varela on Friday, before being released on Monday. Stiglitz and Pieth published findings of their own last week, saying that countries that fail to give up their secrecy jurisdictions should be cut off from the global financial system. The Panama Papers showed money was hidden in ways that law enforcement agencies could not detect. The culprits were not only tax dodgers, Stiglitz and Pieth said, but money launderers for a wide variety of criminal groups including a Russian child pornography ring. The official report calls for "anti-corruption legislation that addresses acts performed by Panamanian nationals or economic groups established in Panama that directly or indirectly participate in the implementation of illegal activities in third countries." Panama can remain a competitive financial center while cracking down on tax evaders and other criminals who have used the country to launder money, according to the panel formed by the government after the "Panama Papers" scandal broke in April. The five-member "Committee of Independent Experts", including a former boss of the Panama Canal, said the country needs to get in line with United Nations transparency standards, adopt tougher anti-corruption legislation and tighten regulation of trusts. "The moment has come. The country can no longer postpone decision-making in this field," said the 23-page report released on Monday. A leak in April of more than 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, dubbed the Panama Papers, sparked outrage by showing how the rich in many countries go offshore to avoid paying taxes while working families pay theirs. "Panama is already acting on most of these issues, including strengthening the regulations that apply to trusts and aligning ourselves with international standards," Dulcidio de la Guardia, the country's economy minister, told Reuters in a telephone interview after the report was released. He said the budgets of financial regulatory agencies have already been raised as part of the effort. The report, which stressed the need for Panama to remain a magnet for banking and other service industries, calls for "transparency in identifying the final beneficiary of legal and financial instrument". This was a recommendation made by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Swiss anti-corruption expert Mark Pieth, both of whom resigned from the panel in August, claiming that Panama would not promise to make its report public without first being vetted by the government. The official report went to President Juan Carlos Varela on Friday, before being released on Monday. Stiglitz and Pieth published findings of their own last week, saying that countries that fail to give up their secrecy jurisdictions should be cut off from the global financial system. The Panama Papers showed money was hidden in ways that law enforcement agencies could not detect. The culprits were not only tax dodgers, Stiglitz and Pieth said, but money launderers for a wide variety of criminal groups including a Russian child pornography ring. The official report calls for "anti-corruption legislation that addresses acts performed by Panamanian nationals or economic groups established in Panama that directly or indirectly participate in the implementation of illegal activities in third countries." By AFP LONDON: King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi holds up a plastic bottle containing contaminated water from his community in Nigeria, proof of oil pollution that he blames on Royal Dutch Shell -- and on which he hopes a London court will deliver justice. "My people are drinking this water," said the tribal king of the Ogale community in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Okpabi has flown to London for a High Court hearing on Tuesday in which lawyers for more than 40,000 Nigerians are demanding action from Shell to clean up oil spills that have devastated their communities for decades. "There are strange diseases in my community -- skin diseases, people are dying sudden deaths, some people are impotent, low sperm count," he told AFP. "I can afford to buy water. But can I afford to buy for everybody? No." The Anglo-Dutch oil giant argues that the case should be heard in Nigeria, pointing out that it involves its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the government, and Nigerian plaintiffs. But Okpabi, wearing a traditional robe with a red necklace and black top hat, said the English justice system was his only hope to end the blight on his people's lives. "Shell is Nigeria and Nigeria is Shell. You can never, never defeat Shell in a Nigerian court. The truth is that the Nigerian legal system is corrupt," he said. He wants the High Court to compel Shell to implement a 2011 landmark report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which warned of dangerously high levels of hydrocarbons in the water, bitumen-coated mangroves and poor air quality. It should order the company to "go and clean-up Ogale, go and provide water for them; go and do medical history for them, and where medical attention is needed provide for them," he said. The king said no money would be enough to address the damage, which UNEP warned could take 25 to 30 years to resolve, but wants compensation, adding: "We are dying." - Sabotage - Shell will challenge the jurisdiction of the English courts in the case during three days of hearings this week, while it also disputes the claims made by lawyers Leigh Day, who represent Ogale and the smaller Bille community. "Both Bille and Ogale are areas heavily impacted by crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining which remain the main sources of pollution across the Niger Delta," a company spokeswoman said. She noted SPDC has not produced any oil or gas in Ogoniland, the region surrounding Ogale, since 1993. But Okpabi and his lawyers say the company's ageing, leaky pipelines still run through the region and it must take responsibility. SPDC says it has delivered water and healthcare to the community and is supporting the implementation of the UNEP process by the government, which in June launched a $1 billion (800 million, 940 million euros) oil pollution clean-up programme in the Niger Delta. Okpabi said he believed President Muhammadu Buhari is "sincere" in wanting to address the issue, but warned: "If we wait for the system to roll on its own, I hate to say this, but it may be too late for the people of Ogale." Attacks on Nigerian pipelines have increased this year, cutting output and helping tip the country into recession, but Okpabi insists "there is no vandalising" in Ogale. The king condemned the saboteurs, warning that "you cannot bomb your house to get attention". However, he added: "I'm also appealing to Shell and the Nigerian government to listen to those communities that are non-violent and do something." In January 2015, Shell agreed to pay more than $80 million to the Nigerian fishing community of Bodo for two oil spills in 2008, following a case brought by Leigh Day in London. In December, a Dutch court permitted four Nigerian farmers and fishermen to sue the company for environmental pollution, potentially opening the door to other cases to be brought in the Netherlands. LONDON: King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi holds up a plastic bottle containing contaminated water from his community in Nigeria, proof of oil pollution that he blames on Royal Dutch Shell -- and on which he hopes a London court will deliver justice. "My people are drinking this water," said the tribal king of the Ogale community in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Okpabi has flown to London for a High Court hearing on Tuesday in which lawyers for more than 40,000 Nigerians are demanding action from Shell to clean up oil spills that have devastated their communities for decades. "There are strange diseases in my community -- skin diseases, people are dying sudden deaths, some people are impotent, low sperm count," he told AFP. "I can afford to buy water. But can I afford to buy for everybody? No." The Anglo-Dutch oil giant argues that the case should be heard in Nigeria, pointing out that it involves its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the government, and Nigerian plaintiffs. But Okpabi, wearing a traditional robe with a red necklace and black top hat, said the English justice system was his only hope to end the blight on his people's lives. "Shell is Nigeria and Nigeria is Shell. You can never, never defeat Shell in a Nigerian court. The truth is that the Nigerian legal system is corrupt," he said. He wants the High Court to compel Shell to implement a 2011 landmark report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which warned of dangerously high levels of hydrocarbons in the water, bitumen-coated mangroves and poor air quality. It should order the company to "go and clean-up Ogale, go and provide water for them; go and do medical history for them, and where medical attention is needed provide for them," he said. The king said no money would be enough to address the damage, which UNEP warned could take 25 to 30 years to resolve, but wants compensation, adding: "We are dying." - Sabotage - Shell will challenge the jurisdiction of the English courts in the case during three days of hearings this week, while it also disputes the claims made by lawyers Leigh Day, who represent Ogale and the smaller Bille community. "Both Bille and Ogale are areas heavily impacted by crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining which remain the main sources of pollution across the Niger Delta," a company spokeswoman said. She noted SPDC has not produced any oil or gas in Ogoniland, the region surrounding Ogale, since 1993. But Okpabi and his lawyers say the company's ageing, leaky pipelines still run through the region and it must take responsibility. SPDC says it has delivered water and healthcare to the community and is supporting the implementation of the UNEP process by the government, which in June launched a $1 billion (800 million, 940 million euros) oil pollution clean-up programme in the Niger Delta. Okpabi said he believed President Muhammadu Buhari is "sincere" in wanting to address the issue, but warned: "If we wait for the system to roll on its own, I hate to say this, but it may be too late for the people of Ogale." Attacks on Nigerian pipelines have increased this year, cutting output and helping tip the country into recession, but Okpabi insists "there is no vandalising" in Ogale. The king condemned the saboteurs, warning that "you cannot bomb your house to get attention". However, he added: "I'm also appealing to Shell and the Nigerian government to listen to those communities that are non-violent and do something." In January 2015, Shell agreed to pay more than $80 million to the Nigerian fishing community of Bodo for two oil spills in 2008, following a case brought by Leigh Day in London. In December, a Dutch court permitted four Nigerian farmers and fishermen to sue the company for environmental pollution, potentially opening the door to other cases to be brought in the Netherlands. By AFP MANILA: Children as young as nine could be jailed in the Philippines for certain crimes under a proposed law backed by the president, sparking concern Monday from the United Nations and rights groups. President Rodrigo Duterte's allies have been pushing to pass laws by December that would restore the death penalty and lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 9. Duterte won May elections largely because of a vow to kill tens of thousands of drug dealers, also promising on the campaign trail to close a loophole in the juvenile justice system that he said allowed traffickers to use minors as narcotic couriers. "Adult criminals knowingly and purposely make use of youth below 15 years of age to commit crimes, such as drug trafficking," Pantaleon Alvarez, one of the proposed law's main backers, said in an explanatory note. While Duterte wanted the age threshold dropped to 12, his allies went one step further by calling for it to be lowered to nine. The UN children's agency UNICEF reminded the Philippines of its international obligations. Manila is a state party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says criminal responsibility below the age of 12 is not acceptable. "Jail is no place for a child. It is alarming for children to be institutionalised (sent to a penal institution)," UNICEF said in a position paper sent to AFP Monday. "It will be retrogression on the part of the Philippine Government." Rights organisations launched a campaign called #ChildrenNotCriminals to urge lawmakers to reconsider their support for the law. One of the groups, Plan International, told AFP that children on the wrong side of the law were often victims of criminal gangs. "It is unfair that it's always the children who are blamed. This will result in children becoming hardened criminals," said Ernesto Almocera of Plan International Philippines. The advocates appealed to Duterte to explore factors that led children to commit crimes, such as poverty and lack of parental guidance and education. "We cannot hold children to the same standard as we hold adult offenders," Melanie Llana of the Philippine Action for Youth Offenders told AFP. "Are we really going to jail 9-year-olds who we know are not fully mature?" Duterte's hardline approach to criminals has drawn criticism from its ally the United States, the UN and human rights groups. Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in police operations and 2,800 have died in unexplained circumstances since Duterte took office on June 30, according to official figures. Critics allege some of these deaths amount to state-sponsored extrajudicial killings, a charge Duterte has rejected. MANILA: Children as young as nine could be jailed in the Philippines for certain crimes under a proposed law backed by the president, sparking concern Monday from the United Nations and rights groups. President Rodrigo Duterte's allies have been pushing to pass laws by December that would restore the death penalty and lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 9. Duterte won May elections largely because of a vow to kill tens of thousands of drug dealers, also promising on the campaign trail to close a loophole in the juvenile justice system that he said allowed traffickers to use minors as narcotic couriers. "Adult criminals knowingly and purposely make use of youth below 15 years of age to commit crimes, such as drug trafficking," Pantaleon Alvarez, one of the proposed law's main backers, said in an explanatory note. While Duterte wanted the age threshold dropped to 12, his allies went one step further by calling for it to be lowered to nine. The UN children's agency UNICEF reminded the Philippines of its international obligations. Manila is a state party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says criminal responsibility below the age of 12 is not acceptable. "Jail is no place for a child. It is alarming for children to be institutionalised (sent to a penal institution)," UNICEF said in a position paper sent to AFP Monday. "It will be retrogression on the part of the Philippine Government." Rights organisations launched a campaign called #ChildrenNotCriminals to urge lawmakers to reconsider their support for the law. One of the groups, Plan International, told AFP that children on the wrong side of the law were often victims of criminal gangs. "It is unfair that it's always the children who are blamed. This will result in children becoming hardened criminals," said Ernesto Almocera of Plan International Philippines. The advocates appealed to Duterte to explore factors that led children to commit crimes, such as poverty and lack of parental guidance and education. "We cannot hold children to the same standard as we hold adult offenders," Melanie Llana of the Philippine Action for Youth Offenders told AFP. "Are we really going to jail 9-year-olds who we know are not fully mature?" Duterte's hardline approach to criminals has drawn criticism from its ally the United States, the UN and human rights groups. Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in police operations and 2,800 have died in unexplained circumstances since Duterte took office on June 30, according to official figures. Critics allege some of these deaths amount to state-sponsored extrajudicial killings, a charge Duterte has rejected. By AFP MOSCOW: The Kremlin said Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin enjoys good relations with Francois Fillon, the surprise winner of the first round of France's rightwing presidential primary. "They established relations when Putin was still head of government, they had quite extensive exchanges," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "They do indeed maintain quite good relations." Peskov added that Moscow was following the French presidential primaries with "great attention." "France is our partner, a country with which Russia maintains good relations and with which the scope of cooperation could be much larger than it is now," Peskov added. Former prime minister Fillon, an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, pulled off a stunning upset on Sunday, knocking his former boss Nicolas Sarkozy out of the race and beating the favourite, fellow ex-premier Alain Juppe. Russian media this week portrayed Fillon as a "friend of Moscow" capable of mending relations that soured over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and its support of a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Business daily Vedomosti wrote Fillon was France's "pro-Russian" presidential candidate, while online news portal Gazeta.ru said he was a "French remake of Donald Trump." Fillon has called for closer ties with Russia and voiced support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Fillon will go head-to-head with Juppe in a run-off Sunday that is widely expected to decide France's next leader after a prospective duel next year with far-right leader Marine Le Pen. MOSCOW: The Kremlin said Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin enjoys good relations with Francois Fillon, the surprise winner of the first round of France's rightwing presidential primary. "They established relations when Putin was still head of government, they had quite extensive exchanges," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "They do indeed maintain quite good relations." Peskov added that Moscow was following the French presidential primaries with "great attention." "France is our partner, a country with which Russia maintains good relations and with which the scope of cooperation could be much larger than it is now," Peskov added. Former prime minister Fillon, an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, pulled off a stunning upset on Sunday, knocking his former boss Nicolas Sarkozy out of the race and beating the favourite, fellow ex-premier Alain Juppe. Russian media this week portrayed Fillon as a "friend of Moscow" capable of mending relations that soured over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and its support of a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Business daily Vedomosti wrote Fillon was France's "pro-Russian" presidential candidate, while online news portal Gazeta.ru said he was a "French remake of Donald Trump." Fillon has called for closer ties with Russia and voiced support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Fillon will go head-to-head with Juppe in a run-off Sunday that is widely expected to decide France's next leader after a prospective duel next year with far-right leader Marine Le Pen. By Associated Press BEIJING: Dozens of vehicles collided amid snowy weather in northern China, leaving 17 dead and 37 injured, state media reported Tuesday. A total of 56 vehicles were involved in the accident on a major expressway in Shanxi province on Monday under cold, slick conditions, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. It cited local authorities as saying the injured were in stable condition. A rescue operation was launched involving local police, firefighters, doctors and government officials. Xinhua said an investigation into the cause of the accident is under way. Highway accidents are common in China because of high speeds, aggressive driving and a failure to leave adequate braking distance. BEIJING: Dozens of vehicles collided amid snowy weather in northern China, leaving 17 dead and 37 injured, state media reported Tuesday. A total of 56 vehicles were involved in the accident on a major expressway in Shanxi province on Monday under cold, slick conditions, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. It cited local authorities as saying the injured were in stable condition. A rescue operation was launched involving local police, firefighters, doctors and government officials. Xinhua said an investigation into the cause of the accident is under way. Highway accidents are common in China because of high speeds, aggressive driving and a failure to leave adequate braking distance. Express News Service COLOMBO: The view of C.V.Wigneswaran, Chief Minister of Sri Lankas Tamil-majority Northern Province, on the basic structure of the proposed Sri Lankan constitution, runs counter to that of the Constitutional Assemblys sub-committee on Center-Provincial relations. While the sub-committee has refrained from branding the proposed devolution system as either federal or unitary, Wigneswaran said here on Tuesday, that the constitution should not only be federal in nature but should identify itself as such. Proper devolution to the provinces and naming the constitution as federal is important. A patchwork of different ideas will not do if the current problems are to be resolved, Wigneswaran said while initiating a North-South dialogue organized by the Tamil Peoples Council (TPC), which he heads. But this is likely to lead to the division of the Sri Lankan Tamil polity into moderates, who are inclined to go half way to meet the concerns of the majority Sinhalese for the sake of reaching an amicable solution of the national question, and radicals, who want the full realization of the Tamils aspirations, not through half-way houses, but here and now. The sub-committee on Center-Periphery relations was chaired by D. Siddharthan, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP. The TNA has 16 Members in parliament. It is also the ruling party in the Northern Provincial Council. But Northern Province Chief Minister Wigneswaran, though elected as TNA, is not fully with it. In fact, he has his own group called the Tamil Peoples Council (TPC) which has brought together Tamil radicals from various parties and walks of life. A federal structure has been the traditional and main demand of the Tamils from 1948. But given the staunch opposition to the idea from the majority Sinhalese over the years, the Constitutional Assemblys sub-committee on Center-Provincial relations avoided using the term federal or unitary through it recommended substantial devolution of power over land, police and finances to the provinces. It also recommended that the provincial Governor should be a figurehead and not the de-facto and de jure Chief Executive as he is now. COLOMBO: The view of C.V.Wigneswaran, Chief Minister of Sri Lankas Tamil-majority Northern Province, on the basic structure of the proposed Sri Lankan constitution, runs counter to that of the Constitutional Assemblys sub-committee on Center-Provincial relations. While the sub-committee has refrained from branding the proposed devolution system as either federal or unitary, Wigneswaran said here on Tuesday, that the constitution should not only be federal in nature but should identify itself as such. Proper devolution to the provinces and naming the constitution as federal is important. A patchwork of different ideas will not do if the current problems are to be resolved, Wigneswaran said while initiating a North-South dialogue organized by the Tamil Peoples Council (TPC), which he heads. But this is likely to lead to the division of the Sri Lankan Tamil polity into moderates, who are inclined to go half way to meet the concerns of the majority Sinhalese for the sake of reaching an amicable solution of the national question, and radicals, who want the full realization of the Tamils aspirations, not through half-way houses, but here and now. The sub-committee on Center-Periphery relations was chaired by D. Siddharthan, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP. The TNA has 16 Members in parliament. It is also the ruling party in the Northern Provincial Council. But Northern Province Chief Minister Wigneswaran, though elected as TNA, is not fully with it. In fact, he has his own group called the Tamil Peoples Council (TPC) which has brought together Tamil radicals from various parties and walks of life. A federal structure has been the traditional and main demand of the Tamils from 1948. But given the staunch opposition to the idea from the majority Sinhalese over the years, the Constitutional Assemblys sub-committee on Center-Provincial relations avoided using the term federal or unitary through it recommended substantial devolution of power over land, police and finances to the provinces. It also recommended that the provincial Governor should be a figurehead and not the de-facto and de jure Chief Executive as he is now. Who are Newport's top taxpayers? Take a look at the top 50. Hotels generate plenty of discussion in the City-by-the-Sea, but there's no doubt of the significance their tax payments have on the city's coffers. Twenty-two years ago, Diane Gottheil and her late husband Fred started Joshs Fund, which is still going strong today. Diane stopped by The News-Gazette on Monday to chat with our Marcus Jackson about what has turned out to be an amazing project. A suite of sensors can predict heart failure events by detecting when a patient's condition is worsening, according to Dr. John Boehmer, professor of medicine, Penn State College of Medicine, who presented the findings at the American Heart Association annual meeting in New Orleans. Heart failure is responsible for more than 1 million hospitalizations each year and more than $20 billion in costs. The new technique could help prevent costly hospitalizations and poor health outcomes including death. Current efforts to manage heart failure by monitoring weight and symptoms have not significantly reduced hospitalizations. More than one in five patients are readmitted within 30 days after being hospitalized for heart failure. An international team of researchers set out to investigate if implantable devices already used in heart failure patients could be retrofitted with sensors to track their condition. Their results will also to be published in JACC Heart Failure. Nine hundred heart failure patients were followed for up to one year. At the beginning of the study, the researchers uploaded software to each patient's implanted defibrillator, a battery-powered device that delivers an electric shock if the patient's heart stops beating. The software allowed the defibrillators to also act as sensors, monitoring the patients' heart rate, activity, breathing, heart sounds and electrical activity in the chest. Over the study period, the suite of sensors detected 70 percent of heart failure events in patients. This detection was often more than a month before the events occurred. Sensitivity at this level far exceeded the researchers' goal of greater than 40 percent detection. While there were false positives, the number was within an acceptable range. "If you're going to monitor a hundred patients, it becomes a fairly manageable number of alerts that you have to deal with," said Boehmer, a cardiologist at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Boston Scientific developed the system and funded the study. They named the system HeartLogic. "This is a new and clinically valuable measure of worsening heart failure, and it combines a number of measures of the physiology and heart failure much like a doctor will look at a patient," Boehmer said. "Doctors look at all their signs and symptoms, get some tests and put it all together and make a decision about how well or ill the patient is. HeartLogic does it similarly. It integrates a number of measurements of what's going on with the patient, including breathing, activity and heart sounds, and puts that all together to give us an index that we believe is both sensitive and specific for heart failure." Boehmer said the technology can help monitor the patient's condition so heart failure events can be prevented before they happen. "It's like having high blood sugar if you're managing diabetes," Boehmer explained. "The doctor doesn't need to know about every high blood sugar and every high blood sugar doesn't result in a hospitalization. But you want to treat it before it gets very high and the patient becomes so symptomatic they become ill and end up in the hospital. This is the same concept." A pilot study and intervention trials to test the system's safety, physician acceptance and use and patient outcomes are planned to investigate benefits to patients. One of the differences between adults and preschoolers when it comes to private speech is that adults typically talk to themselves in their heads, while preschoolers talk to themselves aloud, particularly while playing or working on a task. Private speech is a good thing for a child's cognitive development; however, it may be important that children monitor and repair errors in their speech, even when talking to themselves. Louis Manfra, assistant professor in the College of Human Environmental Sciences at the University of Missouri, found that children do, in fact, monitor their speech for errors, even without a listener. Manfra says parents and caregivers might encourage preschool-aged children to monitor their private speech by demonstrating such behavior in their own aloud private speech. "A disconnection between private speech and task behavior has been observed in studies of children with self-regulation issues, such as ADHD," Manfra said. "What was unknown until now was the extent to which preschool-aged children correct their own speech, and if they do so when talking to themselves. This is important because children who do not repair their speech may not benefit as much from their private speech as children who consistently repair their private speech." Manfra studied three-and four-year-old children to investigate their speech behaviors. The children worked on a project with building blocks, a problem-solving task known to elicit private speech. The children talked through the project with someone and then alone. In assessing speech errors and self-repairs during social and private speech, Manfra found that approximately eight percent of preschoolers' utterances made during problem-solving tasks contained errors and self-repairs. Moreover, he found that children made errors and repairs both while talking through the task with another person and alone, providing evidence that they monitor speech for themselves, just as adults do. "Adults often struggle to find the right word or have breaks in their speech as they think through a task," Manfra said. "Though they make corrections, they often internalize those corrections, talking to themselves in their head rather than aloud. To help children repair their private speech, adults working with children should model speech repair behaviors by talking aloud while working on a task. Doing so will help children realize that even without a listener present, speech errors should be corrected." Scientists have sequenced the genome of the parasitic worm responsible for causing onchocerciasis--an eye and skin infection more commonly known as river blindness. Through their work, researchers have gained insight into the workings of the parasite and identified proteins that potentially could be targeted with existing drugs or provide areas for developing new treatments and a preventive vaccine. The research, which is described in a pair of papers published this week in Nature Microbiology, was conducted in part by scientists employed or supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that river blindness currently affects an estimated 18 million people worldwide, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa. The disease occurs among humans through the bite of blackflies that live and breed on the banks of fast-flowing rivers and streams. These flies transmit Onchocerca volvulus, the tiny parasitic worm responsible for river blindness. Once inside the human body, the worms reproduce. Their offspring migrate to the skin, where they cause intense itching and rashes, and to the eye where they cause ocular symptoms and, ultimately, blindness. The infection is commonly treated using the anti-parasitic medication ivermectin. However, a complete cure can require decades of treatment, and some researchers are concerned that widespread use of ivermectin may cause the worms to develop resistance to the drug. Additionally, ivermectin can cause severe side effects in patients who also have Loa loa, another parasitic worm infection. In the newly published research, the scientists describe sequencing the complete genomes of O. volvulus worms gathered from Ecuador, Uganda and West Africa. Additionally, they reconstructed the genetic makeup of Wolbachia, the symbiotic bacteria that lives within the worms. By examining the genomes of the worms and their symbiotic bacteria, the researchers were able to identify genes that coded for common proteins and molecular reactions essential to infection. 16 of the newly discovered proteins look promising as targets for existing drugs not currently used as treatments for river blindness, adding to the potential new medications for the disease. Further, the authors note, the protein data will accelerate development of new treatments for river blindness as well as other diseases associated with parasitic worm infections. Heart disease, the leading cause of death in America, can be combatted by implementing a simple walking regimen. Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York found that moderately intensive walking improves cardiovascular risk factors in the short term. "We know walking is an excellent form of exercise, but research has been mixed on how successful a walking program can be in changing biological markers such as cholesterol, weight, blood pressure," said Pamela Stewart Fahs, associate dean, professor, and Dr. G. Clifford and Florence B. Decker chair in rural nursing at the Binghamton University Decker School of Nursing. Fahs guided Elisabeth Marigliano, PhD student, as they conducted a study on a group of 70 women. The subjects were tested as part of their volunteer participation in a community walking program. Participants were given a programmable pedometer to wear for waking hours over a 10-week period and asked to walk briskly for at least 150 minutes per week. Two days later, they returned to record pre-test data. Next, a web-based risk assessment tool was used to determine the participant's risk of a heart attack within the next 10 years. After five weeks, participants were invited to attend a talk about heart health and to have their pedometer data downloaded. Researchers reviewed the activity data with the participants and discussed increasing their aerobic steps. Participants were also offered a challenge in an effort to increase aerobic activity as well as to improve retention to study completion. This challenge included an increase their total daily average of aerobic steps by at least 10 percent for the remainder of the study. Finally, on completion of the program, participants' weight, BMI, blood pressure, and cholesterol were measured. They were also asked to complete a survey about their physical activity, food choices, personal characteristics and behaviors from the 10-week period. The results of their post-test confirmed the team's initial hypothesis that walking would improve cardiovascular risk factors in the short term. "I believe there is a need to test for effects of a built-in challenge within a program to see if that helps motivate participants to participate longer and/or produces more successful outcomes," said Fahs. "In addition, work needs to be done to see how best to keep rural women engaged in meaningful exercise for longer periods of time." Studies such as these are usually conducted and tested in urban or suburban areas. According to the researchers, this study can be replicated in other rural communities both within and outside the United States. The team suggested future research to have randomized sampling with a more diverse population. In addition to Fahs, the research team included Elisabeth Marigliano, an adjunct clinical faculty member in the School of Nursing at SUNY at Delhi, and doctor of philosophy student at Decker School of Nursing, Binghamton; and Cristina Ludden, an advisement coordinator in the School of Nursing at SUNY at Delhi. Allergy and immunology experts at Rush University Medical Center, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago have conducted the first study designed to assess and characterize the racial and ethnic difference in food allergies among children in the U.S. The researchers found that both African American and Latino children had significantly higher rates of corn, shellfish and fish allergies compared to white children, confirming that race and ethnicity play an important role in how people are affected by food allergy. Results of the study were published in the upcoming Nov. 21 issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical immunology, In practice. "Food allergy is a prevalent condition in the U.S., but little is known about its characteristics and severity in racial minority groups," said Dr. Mahboobeh Mahdavinia, study principal investigator, lead author and allergy and immunology expert at Rush. "Our goal was to characterize the food allergy related outcomes in these children and to identify any disparities in health care usage among African American, Latino and white children with food allergy." Food allergy is an immune system reaction that occurs soon after eating a certain food. Even a tiny amount of the food individuals are allergic to can trigger signs and symptoms, such as digestive problems, hives, breathing problems or anaphylaxis (a severe, potentially fatal allergic reaction). Food allergy is major public health concern affecting eight percent of children in the U.S. with an estimated economic burden of $24.8 billion annually. "It has been well documented that the prevalence of food allergy has been increasing in children in the U.S., but little data and research exists about its frequency, severity and outcomes among minority race and ethnicities in the U.S.," said Mahdavinia. Mahdavinia and her colleagues at Rush, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and Lurie Children's conducted a large study of children from birth to age 17 who were diagnosed with food allergy and were seen in allergy/immunology clinics at two urban tertiary care centers in the U.S. The study included 817 children in all and was composed of 35 percent African Americans (285 children), 12 percent Latino (99 children), and 53 percent non-Hispanic white children (433 children). Results of the study indicate that compared with non-Hispanic, white children, African American children had significantly higher odds of having asthma and eczema, as well as significantly higher odds of allergy to wheat, soy, corn, fish and shellfish. "We found African American children had a significantly higher rate of wheat allergy than did white children," said Mahdavinia. "Wheat-based bread is a staple in the U.S. and consumed on a daily basis in most U.S. households with an average consumption of more than 130 pounds per person per year. Wheat allergy can be a significant financial burden, especially for low-income families," said Mahdavinia. "The higher rate of wheat allergy among African American children could potentially explain the higher rates of anaphylaxis, which is a severe allergic reaction that requires immediate care, and the emergency room visits observed in this population." Latino children had significantly higher odds of allergy to corn, fish and shellfish, but a similar rate of asthma compared to non-Hispanic white children. The rate of corn allergy in Latinos could due to corn being a major food staple in Mexican and Hispanic families. The study also found that compared with whites, African American and Latino children received less follow-up care for food allergy from an allergy specialist and had higher rates of food allergy related anaphylaxis and emergency room visits. In this study, 55 percent of African American, 18 percent of Latino and 11 percent of white children were covered by Medicaid, indicating lower income rates among the African American families participating in the study. Low income children incur higher costs for emergency room visits and hospitalization and spend less on specialty care. Shorter follow-up duration can negatively affect food allergy outcomes and can increase rate of death. Peanut was the most common food allergen in all three groups. The only allergen more common among white children than African American and Latino children was tree nut. Tree nut allergies are distinct from peanut allergy because peanuts are legumes, whereas a tree nut is a hard-shelled fruit. "A major concern is that African American and Hispanic children had significantly higher rates of food-induced anaphylaxis than White children. Furthermore, African American and Hispanic children also had higher odds of emergency room visits for food allergy related reactions compared to White children," said Mahdavinia. "The three centers evaluated their patient population separately, but when we pooled the data together we saw the striking similarity of the findings among the centers, which confirmed our initial suspicion that food allergies present differently in various races. This is an important issue to make pediatricians and allergist aware of so they can look for the relevant allergies in each of the various races," said Dr. Amal Assa'ad, study co-author and allergy and immunology expert at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "We found a difference in the insurance coverage among the various races, which may impact access to care and adherence to follow up visits and avoidance measures," added Assa'ad. "We need to conduct further research to identify food allergy and food sensitivities among all races and ethnicities so we can develop culturally-sensitive and effective educational programs to improve food allergy outcomes for all children," said Mahdavinia. "It is critically important for us to understand food allergy in children of different races and ethnicities, so we can improve management for all children," said Dr. Ruchi Gupta, senior author of the study and pediatrician and researcher at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Andrew Boyden THOUGHT LEADERS SERIES ...insight from the worlds leading experts What did a recent study by pharmacists at the Calvary Public Hospital in Canberra highlight about where pregnant women and new mothers found health information online? At our recent NPS MedicineWise National Medicines Symposium, held in Canberra, Australia, we heard about a study of conversations among pregnant women and new mothers on Facebook. The research was presented by pharmacists from the Calvary Public Hospital in Canberra, who looked at conversations that took place in selected parenting groups on Facebook. Of these 825 responses from 55 de-identified Facebook conversations, the majority of people were asking about treatment advice for acute conditions, and the most common medications asked about specifically by name were paracetamol and ibuprofen. Were you surprised by these findings? A medium like Facebook means you can connect with others in a similar situation at any time from the comfort of your home, but to me the research highlighted a need for health professionals to provide clear direction on where new parents and pregnant women can access reliable and evidence based information about medicines. How accurate did the study find the online guidance to be? The study authors found that 19% of responses to people's posts about medicines or health conditions in pregnancy or in their children were actually classified as inaccurate. Id certainly acknowledge that online groups can be a great place to find support, especially for new parents, but two per cent of the responses examined in the study were considered by the authors as potentially harmful if the person who had asked the original question went on to follow the advice offered by other parents. Some examples of incorrect advice included responses that recommended too frequent administration of paracetamol or immunisation advice that was outside the recommended schedule. There were also a number of inappropriate medication suggestions for women who were pregnant and breastfeeding. What's this medicine for? Play How important is it to seek evidence-based information about medicines? Its very important to look for information about medicines that is not only evidence-based but also independent of vested interests. Ideally, everyone would seek information from a health professional who knows about you, your medical history and conditions, and any other medicines you might be taking. Especially if you are pregnant or planning to be, or caring for a child and would like to find out more about a particular medicine, talk to your health care team your specialist, obstetrician, GP, midwife, nurse or pharmacist, and read the packaging, labels and information for your medicine (available on the NPS MedicineWise website or from your pharmacist or doctor). What are the active ingredients? Play Where are the best places to find evidence-based information about medicines online? Of course, the health professionals that care for you are a reliable source of health information, but you may not always be able to talk to them. For Australians, NPS MedicineWise, HealthDirect and Better Health Channel are good places to start when seeking medicines information online because theyre independent and credible websites designed to support you to find information on health conditions and medicines, and are free from commercial advertising or corporate sponsorship. And in Australia, Consumer Medicines Information (CMI) leaflets are available for all prescription medicines and many non-prescription medicines. The leaflets explain how the medicine works, as well as giving practical advice on how and when to take it, common side effects and potential interactions with other medicines. CMIs are available on websites like NPS MedicineWise or the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), or you can ask your pharmacist to print it out for you. How do I take my medicine correctly? Play What more needs to be done to guide consumers on where they can find accurate and evidence-based information on medicines online? Almost four out of five Australians (78%) report that they look for information about medicines on the internet, according to a 2016 survey* we released during Be Medicinewise Week earlier this year. Three out of five people (58%) admitted they will sometimes or always look up information about health conditions on the internet to avoid going to see a health professionalwith this number increasing to almost four in five people (79%) in the younger age category of 18-34 year olds. But its important to be aware that not all health information you access on the internet will be accurate or reliable. Some might be full of medical jargon and not have plain language statements to explain the information clearly. You need to be able to assess the reliability of information found on the internet, and understand limitations of what internet can tell you. As part of our work at NPS MedicineWise, we aim to assist people to work with their health professionals, such as a doctor, nurse or pharmacist, to better understand their health and any medicines, tests and treatments they might need. What are the side effects and what can you do? Play Can you please outline the main findings of another study also presented at the National Medicines Symposium in Canberra regarding knowledge of childrens paracetamol? Another study presented at the National Medicines Symposium 2016 in Canberra indicated that many people dont know basic information about childrens paracetamol. This small study of 174 adults who had recent purchased childrens paracetamol, conducted by researchers at the University of Wollongong, found that approximately a quarter of the respondents (26.4%) did not know the recommended maximum daily dose for the medicine. Over a third of people (37.4%) did not know that liver toxicity could result from overdose of childrens paracetamol, and almost half (46%) didnt know how many days in a row the recommended dose could be safely given. How important is it to know how to accurately measure and administer medicines such as paracetamol to children? Its important for peopleparticularly parentsto understand that all medicines come with risks as well as benefits. Small mistakes can cause big problems in little bodies, so parents and carers need to know how to give medicines to children safely. Knowing how to accurately measure and administer medicines to children will help to avoid accidental overdosing or underdosing. What are the main tips to be medicinewise when administering over-the-counter (OTC) medicines to children? Some ways to be medicinewise when children are involved include reading the medicine label and packaging, knowing the childs weight, measuring liquid medicines accurately (by learning how to use the dosing device and checking the dose is right), keeping track of the medicines given, and asking questions if youre ever unsure about anything. How do I keep track of my medicines? Play If youre ever unsure about what to do with regards to administering a medicine, where can you find help? In addition to reading the medicine label and packaging and checking the Consumer Medicine Information (CMI) leaflet, you can speak to your doctor, pharmacist or other health professional for advice on administering medicine. In Australia, for more information on prescription, over-the-counter and complementary medicines (herbal, natural, vitamins and minerals) from a health professional, including questions about side effects and medicine interactions, call NPS Medicines Line on 1300 MEDICINE (1300 633 424). Hours of operation are MondayFriday 9am5pm AEDT (excluding public holidays). Where can readers find more information? Our NPS MedicineWise website also has some good information about medicines and children, including tips for accurate dosing and a list of the top 5 medicinewise questions when measuring and giving a childs dose of medicine. To find out more go to http://www.nps.org.au/topics/ages-life-stages/for-individuals/children About Dr Andrew Boyden Dr Andrew Boyden is a general practitioner with additional qualification in public health. Prior to being appointed as medical adviser with NPS MedicineWise he worked in health advisory and management roles with both government and non-government organisations - including as national director of clinical issues for the National Heart Foundation of Australia and medical adviser with the Department of Health and Ageing. He has wide ranging interests in evidence- based healthcare, including in relation to the prevention and management of chronic disease, and the quality use of medicines and diagnostic tests. Measles, one of the world's most contagious diseases, can spread more quickly in schools than previously thought, according to Princeton University-led research. The researchers report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the only sure method of controlling measles among schoolchildren is to maintain very high vaccination rates. The researchers conducted one of the first direct examinations of how measles spreads at the school level by reviewing data from a 1904 measles outbreak in London that affected 18 schools. While schools are known hotspots for infections such as measles, scientists actually have little information about the specific rate at which the measles spreads among children in school, explained senior author Bryan Grenfell, Princeton's Kathryn Briger and Sarah Fenton Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Public Affairs. The data came from the Wellcome Library's Collection of digitized historical medical documents maintained by the London-based Wellcome Trust. "This study addresses that gap with historical data," Grenfell said. "We need to be cautious in comparing historical data from the early 1900s to transmission today; however, our study does illustrate the potentially high transmission rates of infection in schools where vaccination is low." First author Alexander Becker, a Princeton graduate student of ecology and evolutionary biology, said, "our direct estimates of measles infection in schools indicate potentially swift transmission rates and a consequent need to maintain vaccination levels." A pathogen's infection rate is indicated by the figure R0 -- pronounced "R nought" -- which indicates how many people catch a disease from the initial carrier in a fully susceptible population, Becker said. In the general population, measles has a notably high transmission rate of R0 = 12-18. In the schools at the center of the 1904 outbreak, the researchers found that at the school level each sick child transmitted measles to an average 27 people with the transmission rate at individual schools falling within a range of 12 to 42. Zooming in to the classroom level, each sick child infected 40 others on average with a transmission-rate range as low as 8 in one school to a whopping 93 in another. Using these historic estimates, the researchers investigated how measles might spread in today's schools. There are presumably notable differences in the living conditions, hygiene and crowding children experienced in London in 1900 versus what children experience in the 21st-century United States, Becker said. Nonetheless, transmission estimates from more recent periods in the pre-vaccination era indicate that measles infection has been quite strongly focused in schools. The researchers developed a mathematical model based on current vaccination estimates in California and found that high vaccination levels were required to prevent transmission. "This work adds more evidence to the benefit of having a fully vaccinated school-age population," Becker said. "Even if a school has high coverage, it should push to go higher because there could be a risk of a significant outbreak." At the same time, Grenfell said, the study emphasizes that the pervasiveness of measles once it infects a school population calls out for a better understanding of how it spreads than scientists currently have. "Probably the most recently studied infection at the school level is influenza," he said. "Our results underline that we also need contemporary studies of measles transmission in schools when it occurs. More generally, our paper emphasizes the importance of digitizing the rich trove of historical data on transmission of infectious disease, as the Wellcome Library did with these data." "These results highlight the importance of sustaining high measles vaccination coverage among school children," said William Moss, a Johns Hopkins University professor of epidemiology, who is familiar with the research but had no role in it. "Because of the high transmissibility of measles virus within schools, outbreaks will occur among the unvaccinated school children should an infectious individual enter the school," he said. The researchers show that at small spatial scales such as schools, highly contagious pathogens can behave with a complexity that becomes obscured in large-scale transmission data from a city or national level, Moss said. A "notable aspect of this research relates to understanding how the more complex dynamics of measles-virus transmission at fine spatial scales such as schools relates to more regular and predictable dynamic patterns at larger spatial scales," Moss said. "The findings are specific to measles but these methods could be applied to other infectious diseases with different and complex dynamics at different spatial scales." In addition, the researchers' application of 1904 data to a current public health scenario illustrates the value of historical information in understanding how diseases spread, Moss said. After all, he said, while society has changed since then, measles has not. "Measles has a characteristic clinical appearance and during outbreaks does not need laboratory confirmation, which didn't exist in 1904," he said. "This shows the value of searching for such data sets and of the stories they can tell that are still of relevance more than 100 years later." The targeted control of biochemical processes and neuronal signalling pathways using the messenger substance neuropeptide Y could help in the future treatment of anxiety disorders. This is demonstrated in research findings by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, which were published in Neuropsychopharmacology. Palpitations, sweating and sleep problems most people have already experienced symptoms of anxiety. As a response to danger, fear is vital for our survival. However, when fear becomes overwhelming or lasts too long, it can result in the development of psychological disorders: "Anxiety disorders are the most common brain diseases and every fifth person will suffer from them in their lifetime", says Ramon Tasan from the Medical University of Innsbruck. Such disorders are currently treated using drugs and behavioural therapies. Yet, a large proportion of patients fail to respond to these approaches and, in many cases, alleviation of symptoms is only temporary. New therapeutic strategies are therefore required. In a project supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, Tasan and his team studied the neuronal circuits and biochemical processes that underlie the suppression of fear responses and erasure of newly acquired fears, and identified new starting points for the development of effective therapeutic strategies and drugs for the treatment of anxiety disorders. NEUROPEPTIDE Y ALLEVIATES FEAR The focus of the project was on the role of fear control by the body's own neuropeptide Y, a key messenger substance found in the communications network between the neurons in the different regions of the brain. Preliminary studies had shown that neuropeptide Y has a fear-alleviating effect, in particular through the activation of the Y1 docking sites or receptors. "We were then able to identify another receptor as an important node in the brain's communications network for the processing of fear. In the mouse brain, this receptor, which is known as Y2, influences the amygdala pathways, which trigger physical responses like increases in muscle tension, heart frequency and blood pressure in response to fear stimuli. The Y2 receptors thus play a central role in the processing of fear stimuli", says Tasan, summarising the research findings. It was previously assumed that the activation of these receptors inhibits the release of the protective neuropeptide Y and thus intensifies fear. "However, we established that Y2 receptors reproduce the effect of the Y1 receptors and support the suppression of fear and erasure of newly-acquired fears", says Tasan. These findings could represent a crucial turning point in the clinical development of drugs for the treatment of anxiety disorders: Y2 receptors or the neuropeptide Y could offer suitable targets for the development of new drugs. 'UNLEARNING' FEAR The project also provides some important starting points for new behavioural approaches. As part of the project, the scientists examined in the mouse model how fear is acquired and can be erased. "Like humans, mice build up fear memories over the course of their development. This is important from an evolutionary point of view, as it enables the rapid recognition of danger and its avoidance", explains Tasan. "When a fear is erased, the information is stored in a separate extinction memory which, in turn, specifically suppresses the fear memory." Using Pavlovian conditioning, mice learned to identify a particular sound as dangerous in experiments, to store it later in the extinction memory and in this way cause it to be erased. These effects could be intensified using Y2 receptors. HUNGER ERASES FEAR It emerged here how closely intertwined the neuronal circuits for food intake and fear regulation are: "We discovered that the activation of the Y4 receptors by the neuropeptide Y influences the feeling of hunger. Animals with no Y4 receptor were slimmer but they also lacked the ability to erase fear", explains Tasan. "We were able to influence this, however, by adapting their food intake: mice that had not been given any food for 16 hours before the fear erasure process were able to improve their fear management. They had a strongly reduced long-term fear memory but their short-term memory and learning capacity were unaffected." Overall, the findings of this FWF project, which were recently published in the journal "Neuropsychopharmacology", open up new possibilities for the development of more targeted drugs and behavioural therapies for anxiety disorders. The UK Prime Minister Rt Hon Theresa May today joined key stakeholders from across the life sciences sector to open the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institutes new Bridget Ogilvie Building and the Biodata Innovation Centre at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridge. The Sanger Institute is one of the world's leading genome centres and a major UK scientific success story. Together these new buildings will house one of the worlds most advanced gene sequencing facilities and a unique innovation space for global genomics and biodata businesses. The buildings will be home to a powerful collaboration between academia, businesses large and small, charities and Government. The Ogilvie Building houses the Sanger Institutes genome sequencing facility which has expertise in sequencing genomes from humans, pathogens and many other species with samples arriving from all corners of the world. It also houses the Genomics England sequencing operation which is delivering the 100,000 Genomes Project. The project will enable the NHS to become the first mainstream health service in the world to offer genomic medicine as part of routine care. Sir John Chisholm, Executive Chairman of Genomics England said: The UK is recognised across the world for being the first nation to introduce whole genome sequencing at scale in routine care environments. The Ogilvie facility is central to that achievement and opens the way to the virtuous circle of treating patients with genomic medicine leading to knowledge creation leading to advanced therapies leading to superior health outcomes. The Biodata Innovation Centre houses start-up companies in the field of genomics emanating from local academic research, as well as cutting edge companies attracted from around the world already businesses have moved to the Centre from the US, Europe and Asia to collaborate with the UKs best scientists. Professor Sir Mike Stratton, director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and chief executive of the Wellcome Genome Campus, said: Genomes and biodata are an important part of all our futures. The Campus is home to research institutes, spin-out and start-up companies, academic-industry partnerships and Genomics England; all dedicated to driving and leading pioneering research and innovation and discourse in the sphere of genomes and biodata. Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today The new buildings mark the next major step in the progression of our vision for this Campus as a global hub for genomics and biodata. We have an ambition to translate and commercialise research findings, as well as inform and enable the NHS to integrate genomics into clinical care. The Ogilvie building is named in honour of Dame Bridget Ogilvie, who worked at Wellcome for nineteen years - seven of these years as Director. It was during her tenure, that Wellcome established the Sanger Institute and shaped its key role in the human genome project. Dr Jeremy Farrar, Wellcomes Director said: Genome sequencing is already changing the face of medicine, making possible more accurate and personalized treatments than ever before. Wellcome is delighted to build on its support of over 20 years standing with the launch of the Sanger Institute's new sequencing and business incubation centres, which will accelerate further the application of genomics to human health and create significant economic benefits for the UK." UK Prime Minister Rt Hon Theresa May, said: It is an honour to open these buildings as they truly represent cutting edge British science and business in the modern era. What Ive seen on the Wellcome Genome Campus is an excellent example of research from across the UK and around the world coming together with commerce to deliver benefits for everybody including patients in the NHS. We want the UK to be the go to place for scientists, innovators, businesses and investors. This really is a very good example of that. News18 Blogs India Demonetisation: Jokes And Implications People exchange their old Rs 500 and 1000 notes at a SBI branch in New Delhi on Thursday. (Image: PTI) Since 8th of November, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetization of Rs 500 and 1000 currency notes, social media has virtually erupted with all sorts of messages, jokes and suggestions. All kinds of people are putting across their views good, bad and ugly some suggesting doomsday while others predict a transformed India. In the maze of jokes one particularly caught my attention. Someone cited an uncanny similarity between the demonetization carried out in 1978 by then PM Morarji Desai and Modi. Desai was also a Gujarati and so is Modi. In the days of the license raj, even the RBI Governor was a Gujarati Patel (IG Patel), and today the post is occupied by a Patel who though born in Kenya has his roots in Chartotar, a small settlement in Gujarat. In matters of money (here demonetization) if Gujaratis are involved decisions seldom fail! quips a banker. Will it hold true this time? As demonetization and its unpredictable consequences are yet to be gauged, economists are already warning of grave consequences of this abrupt decision, though right-wing brigade and a large number of bankers have welcomed the move, though with a word of caution. So what is the truth? Will demonetization provide a welfare shock and jolt the economy, as many argue, and in the long run propel India several notch up the ladder of development. Will massive digitization, especially in financial and banking sector, (you wont have cash in your pocket to bribe and a babu will dare not accept bribe through Paytm!, said one joke) weed out corruption from our daily lives? Will governments mounting fiscal deficit go down drastically as more money flows into the banking system, eventually leading the banks to slash lending rates, leaving more disposable income in the hands of the people, pushing up the GDP? This is what the government hopes to achieve. But is that possible? Here are the views of some of the economists who have termed this decision fraught with disaster. In 1978, when demonetization took place and big currency notes of Rs 1000 to 10,000 were banned, the circulation of these notes was only 2% of the total currency. Today a large number of people (more than 86 %) hold Rs 500 to 1000 notes as in these three decades the value of rupee has gone down considerably. This means the government has sucked off 86% of the liquidity from the system, says former RBI governor K C Chakarborty, and consequences of it would be disastrous for the Indian economy. Unless the government brings in cash (liquidity ) back into the system with speed there is a fear that this may lead to a mini recession. But the question is why new currency notes are not getting back in the economy with the speed as they should? Firstly, the decision to demonetize currency came all of a sudden and was a surprise for even top banking leaders (who had to later implement and bear the consequences) who found out only through PMs address to the nation on 8th Nov. In a nation where over 50% of people do not yet have any bank accounts and India, especially rural India, the banking sector is faced with a mammoth task of giving cash back into the hands of the public as soon as possible. The task is not as easy as it sounds. India has only 2 lakh ATMs and not a single ATM was recalibrated for dispensing the new Rs 2000 and 500 rupee currency notes when the PM made his dramatic announcement. Secondly, the printing of new currency notes started only in September 2016 as RBI needed the signature of the new governor Urjit Patel to be printed on the new notes. Before demonetization, total currency in circulation was roughly 17 lakh crores out of which 45% were Rs 500 notes and 39% were Rs 1000 notes. Only 16% was in the rest of the currency, including currency notes and coins. To make matters worse, the government decided to circulate Rs 2000 rupees notes before the new Rs 500. This was a big mistake, says Sanjaya Baru, media advisor to former PM Manmohan Singh. What this meant was that people who got Rs 2000 notes could not find any takers as people did not have that any change. In one stroke, a total of 22 billion (2200 crore) notes were taken out of circulation - out of which roughly 16 billion (1600 crore) were Rs 500 notes and 7 billion (700crore) were Rs 1000 notes. Now the question is whether the four printing presses are capable of printing currency at the desired volume and supply banknotes back into the system. The four printing presses which supply currency are in Nasik in Maharashtra, Mysore in Karnataka, Dewas in Madhya Pradesh and Salboni in West Bengal. At the moment there are three presses Nasik, BNP Devas and BRBNMPL in Mysuru is printing currency notes in India. In Nasik press, some 3 million (30 lakh) notes of Rs 500 denomination is being printed every day while at BNP Devas some 9 million ( 90 lakh) Rs 500 notes are being printed every day. The printing presses, thus, face a gigantic task of printing 19.3 billion currency notes (assuming half the quantity of Rs 2000 notes as compared to Rs 1000 notes). Notwithstanding the claims of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling it a short-term pain, the fact remains the task if far from easy. Going by the printing capacity of the three printing presses it looks unlikely that news bank notes would come back into the system in desired time frame. As top banker Meera Sanyal says, To re-monetize the economy, some 20 billion (2000 crores) notes (of Rs 500 and Rs 2000) have to be brought back into the economy and at this rate it could take 2 to 3 years to print these notes! No surprise, In Uttar Pradesh which is going to polls and where Modi has high stakes, figures released by the RBI are shocking. Even after 12 days of Modi announcing demonetization, against Rs 7 lakh crore deposited in over ten lakh bank accounts in UP, the cash disbursement post demonetization is only Rs 8000 crore this means each person holding a bank account in UP has managed to got only Rs 800 cash so far. But this unprecedented demonetization exercise is not just throwing mind-boggling economic figures. What we are seeing now in form of long queues at banks and ATMs is only the first order effect, the second order effect is yet to come, warns former finance minister P Chidambaram. Money drying at the supply side of the economy could mean severe food scarcity, famine and massive job loss which can be only imagined. Needless to say, the entire exercise has left extreme distress in the economy and so far more than 55 people in India (when the blog was written) have died directly or indirectly due to ill-effects of demonetization. These include 13 bankers who have lost their lives due to extreme stress. A debt-ridden farmer in Telangana wanted to sell his land to meet his financial needs but the buyer called off the deal at the last moment fearing crash in property prices; poor farmer had no choice but to commit suicide. In the national capital Delhi, a boy stood in the ATM line outside a bank for two consecutive days but did not get cash. The next day his family found his suicide note. In Nanded, Maharashtra, a 70-year-old man standing in a queue outside a bank died due to heart attack after hours of waiting in the queue. IN UPs Bulandshahr, son of a BSF officer could be bear the stress of not getting smaller denomination notes and gave his life. The list goes on. In many parts of the country, demonetization has caused serious law and order problems . Villagers in UP who wanted to change old notes lost their patience and pelted stones at the bank employees. In Varanasi, cash ran out at a SBI bank branch and miffed public vandalized the bank branch. But the Modi government seems to have already shot the arrow and it is something which the government cannot roll back. Understandably, BJP has gone on the offensive against those who are questioning this move. In his rallies in UP, the PM has been explaining at length how demonetization has been aimed at those who have black-money and government would protect the common man. The party is trying to brand those opposing demonetization as anti-nationalists. But mere words from the government cannot help now. The government must not only ensure that cash reaches faster in the hands of the people but also announce some relief measures like cutting fuel prices by Rs 5 to 6 to immediately provide relief. Bankers also expect a rate cut of 50 basis points when RBI announces its monitory policy in December. The budget in February should also see some relief measures on the taxation front by the government. It's bad enough that women across the world are still being shamed for their personal choices- being told when they should marry, when is an appropriate time to have kids and what not, but the Science Olympiad Foundation thought it appropriate to take this one step further and teach 8-year-olds to judge women for their reproductive choices.This was the question that Class 1 students had to answer in the science section of a competitive exam:I have one question for the exam board: Is there no other way you could have explained/tested these children on what the characteristics of a living being are? What you did do though was reaffirm skewed gender roles (because only a functioning and well-used womb qualifies when we speak of real women).The world is still smarting from Americas electoral choices. The more qualified person to do the job (incidentally, a woman) lost. The hardest glass ceiling refused to shatter and for those who claim sexism and misogyny had nothing to do with this - think again.(Image: Reuters)The first appearance that Clinton made after the results had far too many people talking about her going make-up free.Her decision to ditch the war paint was ostensibly more shocking than the fact that 53% of American white women cared more about their privilege than keeping an alleged sexual-predator out of the White House.Or the fact that through his campaign, Trump did everything he possibly could to demean, insult and ridicule all women. Or the fact that a male politician would never be judged by the same harsh, exacting standards that Hillary was and still is being subjected to.Apparently a more human Hillary - minus the make-up, the blow dry and the pantsuit is an image that is easier to digest. We still like our women vulnerable, likeable, and ambitionless.And thats a battle that isnt Clinton's alone. Maia Sandu - who is running for the post of President in Moldova- has been called 'the laughing stock, the sin and the national disgrace' of her country because as an unmarried woman she dared to think she could lead a country. It's not just her gender that goes against her. Everyone knows, in order to be an effective leader you need to be married - but only if you're a woman.If the trauma of rape wasn't bad enough, a British woman in Dubai has been arrested for reporting the assault. Reuters reports that she was on holiday when she was reportedly gang-raped by two British men in Dubai. While the woman has been charged for having extramarital sex, the men were allowed to return home without facing any charges. The woman's family has now launched an online appeal, urging the public and the UK government to help negotiate her release. Now women expats in Dubai are being encouraged not to report rape lest they be similarly arrested. This is not the first time this has happened. In 2008, a woman violently beaten up and raped after her drink was spiked, was similarly charged and held in the country for eight months.A term that is has now worked itself into the dictionary and into the 21st-century feminist movement. We finally have a phrase that aptly describes being talked down to by a man who thinks he knows more. In case you're wondering what that looks like in action, go back to the US Presidential debates. Trump's condescension and constant interruptions and attempts to cower Hillary is Mansplaining 101.And now for women (and men) in Sweden who are sick of being talked down to by men who revel in the adage 'ignorance is bliss' but patronizing comes easy- there's good news. A new hotline is promising to be your sounding board. You can call, rant, share your experiences and ask your questions. Interestingly, as many men have called the helpline in Sweden as have women.In the midst of the din in Parliament, you have this crucial bill that still needs the Lok Sabha's nod- where the government enjoys a majority. Passed by the Rajya Sabha in the Monsoon session, this bill will empower working women in the private and public sector by granting them six months maternity leave. Presently, expecting mothers are entitled to only three months. This bill will also allow adopting and commissioning mothers to take leave. While the bill does tragically leave out paternal leave as well as leave for the surrogate mother, it nonetheless will empower over 1 billion women and it's passage will be a watershed moment for Indian women. Audi launched its supercar in India this year, the R8 V10 Plus. It was first showcased at the Delhi Auto Expo 2016 and now after selling some in India, Audi planned a sportscar experience with it at the Buddh International Circuit that we attended.The 5.2-litre V10 powered Audi R8 Plus is priced in India at a whopping Rs 2.6 crore (ex-showroom, Karnataka). The car features Audis Quattro drive system and the engine churns out 610 hp. The car is capable of going from 0-blurr (100 km/h) in just 3.2 seconds. Audi claims that the top speed of the new R8 is 330 km/h and we are in no doubt about that. We did achieve a straight line speed of 260 km/h easily on a remote airstrip near Karnataka earlier this year. The car is produced at Audi BollingetHofe production site in Neckarsulm, Germany and we wanted to know how it would perform on a race track.Read the full story here Hyundai Creta AT in white has been quite a seller for the company, a fact backed by recent figures. Hyundai on November 21 rolled out their seven millionth car off the production line with MD, Mr Y K Koo and VP production, Mr Ganesh Mani S in the drivers seat at Hyundai Motor Indias facility in Sriperumpudur near Chennai. Hyundai India are now placed second amongst their overseas peers, only after China, and the company is now the first auto manufacturer in India to achieve such a figure within 18 years of commercial operation. At this pace, Hyundai India crossed 1 million mark every 18 months at an average. HMIL rolled out its first millionth car, Santro, in 2006 eight years after commencement of commercial production in 1998. Thereafter, production picked up momentum, with the next million milestone being achieved within an average of 18 -19 months. The 5 millionth car was flagged off in October 2013 by Hyundais brand ambassador Shahrukh Khan. Mr Y K Koo, MD and CEO, Hyundai Motor India Limited congratulated employees on this very significant achievement for the company. He went on to express gratitude to the government of Tamil Nadu for the contribution in the company's success. Hyundai have also played a role in the economic development of Sriperumbudur region by contributing to the exchequer and also by generating employment opportunities, both directly & indirectly. New Delhi: The massive rush at bank branches to exchange scrapped currency notes post the demonetisation drive has cashiers weeping as they end up paying from their own pockets for mistakes committed out of high level of stress, bank employee association leaders told News18. Where there were around 50 to 60 transactions a day, these days there are over thousands of transactions. Cashiers can hardly concentrate in such an atmosphere. Not only are they losing out on personal cash but they also end up accepting duplicate notes, said JP Sharma, vice president of All India Bank Employee Association. Every employee in a bank these days is a cashier, Sharma said, pointing out that the role of a cashier is one which demands a certain level of expertise. But fearing angry customers, employees from peon to a manager are working as cashiers, and they often make mistakes while dealing with the crowd which leads to their own financial loss, Sharma said. According to RBI, various banks across the country has received Rs 5,44,571 crore in deposits and old notes submitted for exchange from the time banks reopened after currency demonetisation till November 18, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said. This includes deposits of Rs 5,11,565 crore and exchanged currency notes of Rs 33,006 crore. CH Venkatachalam, General Secretary of the All India Bank Employees Association, claimed he has received thousands of complaints from banking staff across the country post the demonetisation announcement. There are 10 lakhs bank employees and they have catered to almost 25 crore people in these two weeks. Why is it that only banks and post offices have been involved to disburse cash? The government should have involved railways, LIC office, government offices and this will help people spread across without creating an extra burden on the banks, he said. The trade union leaders complained that bank managements are not bothered about how the employee seeks to address the disparity in the accounts, which needs to be tallied before they leave office. D Gunasekaran, vice-president of the State Bank Staff Union, told News18 that bank employees often have to resort to desperate measures to mend their mistakes. Banks will not wait to deduct salaries of cashiers. If the accounts do not tally, then they have to debit their personal account that evening itself or take loan from others to settle the accounts before leaving the bank. In case an official fails to do this, proceedings can be initiated against him, he said. A lot of the human errors being committed at the teller counters has got to do with multitasking that involves checking forms, identity proofs, veracity of the old notes and then giving back the exchange in new notes. Every bank knows their regular customers, but now there is a new set of unknown customers who lose their temper and shout at bank officials. Some customers claim that they have not been paid and the cashier is confused. They end up paying the customers twice over. Even the cash management software is adding to their woes by often juggling up entries, said Venkatachalam. Secretary of the Bank Employees Federation of India, Kolkata, Joydeep Dasgupta, believes that this problem has its root in the large scale of vacancies left unaddressed in the clerical and sub-ordinate sector of the banking industry. Dasgupta told News18 that retired banking officials and clerks have now been called by several banks to fill in the vacancies and help serve more customers. There are over 2 lakh posts which are yet to be filled from 1987 to 2007. This crunch is being felt now when everyone in the bank is grappling to meet the rising demand of customers looking to either withdraw or exchange their old notes. In this situation cashiers are bound to be under pressure which leads to cash misplacement and their own personal financial losses, he said. KS Chauhan, Senior Vice-President of the Indian Banks Association, told News18 that although they are not concerned with such complains considering they are a private body but even IBA has received innumerable such complaints from banking staff over the past few days. The sad part is most of the cashiers have a limited salary and such issues in tallying of account shave direct impact on their personal financial standing, Chauhan said. Sharma said that Cashiers are also facing the problem of accepting duplicate notes and be held responsible for the same at a later date. The sudden increase in the work load has led to compromises in the vigilance practiced by banking officials. State Bank Staff Unions Gunasekaran said that mostly cashiers are incurring losses of Rs 8,000 or Rs 10,000 which they are paying out of their own personal accounts but in the event of a sum larger than 50,000, or 1, 00,000, the higher management would have to be brought into the picture. Pakistan strongly rejects the false & baseless Indian media reports reg the alleged mutilation of an Indian solider on the LoC -1/5 M. Nafees Zakaria (@ForeignOfficePk) November 22, 2016 Pakistan on Tuesday rejected as 'false' and 'baseless' the charges that the body of an Indian soldier, who was among the three killed by suspected Pakistani terrorists, was mutilated in a cross LoC-attack.Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Nafees Zakaria in a series of tweets said the reports about the mutilation were aimed at maligning Pakistan."Pakistan strongly rejects the false & baseless Indian media reports regarding the alleged mutilation of an Indian solider on the LoC. These reports are a fabrication and a blatant attempt to malign Pakistan," he said.Zakaria said as a professional force, Pakistan Army isn't involved in any such "unethical & non-professional" activity.He said the Pakistan Army never supported any such action.However, he said, Pakistan is fully prepared and ready to respond to any misadventure across the LoC, Working Boundary or the International Border.Earlier today, the Indian Army said three soldiers were killed in an ambush on army patrol in Machhil sector of Kashmir."Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act," it said through a tweet.Paying homage to the martyrs Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said, "Condemn the cowardly killing of our soldiers & mutilation of one of them. Salute these brave martyrs for their sacrifice."Condemning the attack, the Indian Army in a statement said, "Retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act." Police on Tuesday raided a call centre in Ahmedabad and arrested 19 people, including six women, for allegedly posing as officials of US' Internal Revenue Service and extorting money from American nationals by threatening them of legal action over 'tax evasion'. Similar raids were conducted last month in Thane, Maharashtra by local police on at least seven call centres in connection with the multi-crore scam wherein US citizens were duped adopting similar modus operandi. Based on a specific tip off that one Hitendra Davda (29) and Sandip Rajwani (21) are running an illegal call centre at a rented office in Bodakdev area, a crime branch team raided the premises and arrested both the masterminds and 17 employees, including 6 women, who have been hired as "call agents" by the duo. During the raid, police recovered 34 CPUs, 21 mobile phones, 3 laptops, 2 Internet routers and scripts for call agents, stated a release issued by the crime branch. Investigations have revealed that Davda and Rajwani started the call centre in Maurya Atria building in Bodakdev around one year back. The duo used to earn Rs 7 lakh (USD 11,000) per month by compelling US nationals to pay after threatening them of arrest and cancellation of driving license and social security number, stated the release. The action was taken in the wake of similar raids carried out by Thane police on call centres. Following those raids in Thane, city police commissioner has ordered the crime branch to identify and raid such call centre running in the city, stated the release. The officials have learnt that the callers used to make calls using sophisticated calling applications such as Magic Jack and X-lite to dupe US citizens. Explaining the modus operandi of Davda and Rajwani, the release stated the duo acquired a database of the US-based 'defaulters' who can be targeted. The callers used to threaten these citizens to pay them a specified amount online to save themselves from facing stern legal actions, including imprisonment for three months, stated the release. Blowing the lid off the Thane call centre scam, police had raided seven call centres in Mira Road area last month and arrested about 70 directors and key persons of these call centres. The mastermind behind running Thane call centres, identified as Sagar alias Shaggy Thakkar, is absconding. New Delhi: The CBI on Tuesday questioned senior Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, officials said. "Tytler was called for questioning by the agency in a case related to anti-Sikh riots," Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) spokesperson Devpreet Singh told IANS. "He was questioned for around four hours," she added. The case against Tytler pertains to the riots at Gurudwara Pulbangash in north Delhi where three people were killed on November 1, 1984, a day after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Confirming his questioning, Tytler told IANS, "Yes I appeared before the CBI today (Tuesday). They wanted some clarificiation from me and I replied to them." On December 4, 2015, a CBI court ordered the CBI to further investigate a riots case against Tytler, pointing to arms dealer Abhishek Verma's statement that Tytler had tried to influence a witness. A court gave CBI a last chance to complete its probe in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case in which Tytler was given clean chit by the agency. , ! 5/N Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) November 22, 2016 New Delhi: Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who was detained during a protest march to Parliament, was on Tuesday released from Parliament Street Police station.The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader was leading a protest march from Jantar Mantar to Parliament against the Centre's demonetisation scheme."Sisodia has been detained along with some AAP leaders and supporters," Deputy Commissioner of Police Jatin Narwal said.AAP had chalked out its strategy to march to Parliament and 'gherao' it under Sisodia's leadership.While inaugurating the Delhi Pavilion at the 36th India International Trade Fair (IITF) at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi on Monday, Sisodia criticised the central government for demonetisaion of higher currency notes and asked how trade would go on without any cash.Highlighting the plight of the traders, Sisodia said that common people, especially traders, are facing trouble due to the move and they will not be able to do business as long as the cash crisi exists.Upping the ante against demonetisation, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Mnday exhorted people to "change" the Prime Minister instead of defunct notes, saying those supporting the exercise were against the country, even as AAP announced a march to Parliament on Tuesday.Kerjriwal had earlier set a three-day deadline to the Centre demanding that demonetisation, "a massive scam", be rolled back. He will also address rallies in Varanasi, Meerut and Lucknow next month to corner the government on the issue. The deadline expired on November 20.AAP says the demonetisation drive, which was announced by the Narendra Modi-led NDA government on November 8, is in reality will help corporate houses and not unearth black money.(With agency inputs) The demonetisation faceoff between the Modi government and Opposition worsened on Tuesday, sending tempers flaring both in and outside Parliament. Opposition demands for PM Narendra Modis presence in Parliament led to repeated adjournments in both Houses. The BJP held a key meeting of its lawmakers where an emotional PM Narendra Modi reportedly told them to spread the positive message behind banning of old currency notes. Stay tuned for LIVE updates Read all the Latest News , Breaking News , watch Top Videos and Live TV here. London: In sickening propaganda, ISIS school books have been found which reportedly instruct children to make sentences from words like bomb and explode while also featuring a vocabulary list of nations such as Pakistan and the UK that are a source of fighters for the terror group. ISIS school textbooks have given an insight into jihadists' efforts to brainwash young children dubbed "Cubs of the Caliphate", The Mirror reported. The daily posted pictures of pages from school textbooks which it obtained from Mosul, Iraq. One exercise in the "English for the Islamic State" textbook for 11 year-old children instructs pupils to tell the time, but the clocks are pictured attached to sticks of dynamite with wires protruding from them. An Arabic grammar book for children aged 7-8 instructs students to construct sentences out of groups of words such as bomb, vest, martyr and explode. The books were discovered in the eastern Mosul neighbourhood of Hay Al-Intasar during an ongoing military offensive to free hundreds of thousands of residents from ISIS' grip in its last stronghold in Iraq , the report said. In the textbook for grade five pupils, an exercise asks students to fill in missing words in sentences such as "I can shoot, __I?" and "He can bomb, __ he?". Another exercise instructs pupils to choose the correct word to complete the following sentence: "Usaamah is a fighter. He is shooting in the __". The options listed are --'Battle, Park, Suq (market)'. Another page features a vocabulary list of countries. But the countries listed are all those from which significant numbers of foreign fighters have left in order to join ISIS in Syria and Iraq , such as Britain, France, Pakistan, Yemen and Nigeria, the report said. The English textbook was designed for children around the age of 11, but others, including the Arabic grammar book for children aged 7-8, show the violent propaganda being fed to children even younger. The books were used on a daily basis, as children in Mosul were forced to study for hours on end, the report said. The pictures even show evidence that some of the exercises have been completed in pencil. Earlier this year, ISIS had reportedly launched its first mobile app for children to teach them the Arabic alphabet and the vocabulary taught by it included jihadist themes along with words like 'tank', 'gun' and 'rocket'. More than a million people have been living in Mosul under the brutal terror of ISIS since the terror group captured the city in the summer of 2014. 2 terrorists neutralised in Bandipora (J&K),currency recovered from them handed over to police for further probe: Vikramjeet Singh, CO 13 RR pic.twitter.com/HnCrBlbu7m ANI (@ANI_news) November 22, 2016 New Rs 2,000 notes have been recovered from the terrorists who were gunned down by the Indian Army in Bandipora area of north Kashmir on Tuesday morning.Reportedly, a total of Rs 15,000 cash was recovered from both the terrorists which included two notes of Rs 2,000 whereas, the rest were of Rs 100 denomination along with arms and ammunition.Confirming the report, Vikramjeet Singh, CO, 13 Rashtriya Rifles, said,"Two terrorists had been neutralised in Bandipora area of Jammu and Kashmir and the currency recovered from them has been handed over to police for further probe."The terrorists were killed after a fierce gun battle with security forces and combing operations were on.Following specific information about militant presence in Bonikhan village, troops of the 13 Rashtriya Rifles and the special operations group (SOG) of the state police launched the operation, the police said.As the surrounding troops closed in on the hiding militants, they opened fire triggering the encounter."The militants were engaged in a sustained gunfight till two of them were killed," said a senior police officer."Both the slain militants were believed to be of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit. However, their exact identities were being established," he said.The encounter comes three days after a Hizbul Mujahideen militant was killed in a gun battle with security forces in Pulwama district of south Kashmir. #UPDATE: Two terrorists gunned down by Army in Bandipora(J&K), combing operation underway ANI (@ANI_news) November 22, 2016 Two militants were killed in an encounter in Bandipora area of north Kashmir on Tuesday morning.The terrorists were killed after a fierce gun battle with security forces and combing operations were on.Following specific information about militant presence in Bonikhan village, troops of the 13 Rashtriya Rifles and the special operations group (SOG) of the state police launched the operation, the police said.As the surrounding troops closed in on the hiding militants, they opened fire triggering the encounter."The militants were engaged in a sustained gunfight till two of them were killed," said a senior police officer."Both the slain militants were believed to be of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit. However, their exact identities were being established," he said.The encounter comes three days after a Hizbul Mujahideen militant was killed in a gun battle with security forces in Pulwama district of south Kashmir.(With IANS inputs) Sofia: Actress Akshara Haasan, who plays an important role in Ajith Kumar-starrer yet-untitled upcoming Tamil spy thriller, will soon join the film's crew in Bulgaria. "En route Bulgaria," Akshara posted on her Twitter page on Monday. She shares screen space with Ajith in the film, which marks her Tamil acting debut. Being directed by Siva, the makers are currently shooting over a month-long schedule in Bulgaria. "Apart from Bulgaria, they will also be shooting in some exotic locations across Europe. They are currently shooting some important action sequences," a source from the film's unit told IANS. Also starring Kajal Aggarwal and Vivek Oberoi, the film has music by Anirudh Ravichander and is produced by Satya Jyothi Films. New Delhi: From interesting tasks to some shocking revelations, Salman Khan never fails to make news for his crazy antics on Big Boss 10. And recently, the actor was at it again when he apparently took a dig at heartthrob Ranbir Kapoor. In the recent episode of 'Big Boss 10', when Alia Bhatt came on the sets to promote her new film Dear Zindagi, Salman made the actress pick actors in a game. When Alia was asked to choose between Ranbir and Ranveer, the actress chose the former. The 50- year-old actor told Alia Bhatt, Ranveer ko hi gayab kar do, Ranbir toh waise hi gayab ho rahe hai!" It is no secret that Salman doesn't share a cordial relation with Ranbir owing to his closeness with actress Katrina Kaif. Well, it would be interesting to see how Ranbir would react to it. Mumbai: Amid Shiv Sena's growing criticism of Centre's demonetisation move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday told the party MPs had former party patriarch Bal Thackeray been alive, he would have supported the move. Modi said this while interacting with Shiv Sena MPs, who met him in the national capital urging him to allow co-operative banks, district central co-operative banks (DCCBs) and credit co-operative societies to exchange notes. "Prime Minister told the visiting MPs that had late Sena supremo Bal Thackeray been alive, he would have supported the decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes," a Sena source said. Responding to Modi's invocation of former Sena supremo, party president Uddhav Thackeray said he was happy that PM had respect for Balasaheb in his heart. "But right now, Modi needs to answer the people who are looking up to him with questions. If people get the answers they seek and their lives are made easier, Balasaheb would be happier," Thackeray said. Centre's demonetisation move seems to have brought more bitterness in the already-strained ties between the two ruling allies - BJP and Sena - as the Uddhav Thackeray-led party has been consistently slamming Modi over the decision. In an embarrassment for the BJP, Shiv Sena had taken part in the protest march led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in New Delhi last week against demonetisation. MPs Chandrakant Khaire and Gajanan Kirtikar of Shiv Sena had taken part in the march. New Delhi: BJP and Trinamool Congress shared the honours by winning two Lok Sabha seats each, claiming it was a vindication of their stand on demonetisation, as ruling parties in six states and Puducherry held sway in byelections, retaining most of the 10 Assembly seats up for grabs. In the Assembly bypolls held on November 19, results of which were declared on Tuesday, BJP and AIADMK won three seats each, CPI(M) got two while Congress and Trinamool bagged one each. BJP won the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat in Assam, vacated by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, by a margin of 1,90,219 votes and Shahdol Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh, both ruled by the party. Trinamool Congress swept Tamluk and Coochbehar Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal by a whopping margin of over 4.9 lakh votes, almost doubling the gap from 2014 polls. Trinamool also won the Monteswar assembly seat with candidates of CPI(M), Congress and BJP losing their deposits. In Madhya Pradesh, BJP's victory margin in Shahdol Lok Sabha came down to 60,000 from 2,41,301 in the 2014 general elections. It bagged the Nepanagar Assembly seat, where it increased its winning margin to 42,198 votes as against 22,178. In Tamil Nadu, AIADMK, whose supremo Jayalalithaa is hospitalised for two months, retained Thanjavur and Thirupparankundram Assembly seats and wrested Aravakkurichi seat from DMK by margins ranging from 20,000 votes to 42,000. The ruling CPI(M) in Tripura wrested Barjala (SC) seat from Congress and retained Khowai. Senior Congress leader and Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy won the bypoll to Nellithope Assembly seat defeating AIADMK's Om Sakthi Segar by a margin of 11,144 votes. North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) candidate Dasanglu Pul of BJP won Hayuliang assembly by-poll in Arunachal Pradesh defeating her lone rival Yompi Kri, an independent candidate, by 942 votes. Pul is the youngest of the three wives of former chief minister Kalikho Pul. The bypoll was necessitated by his suicide. Union Minister Ananth Kumar and Sonowal said the BJP's win in the bypolls showed that people have endorsed the government's decision against black money and corruption. "BJP's victory in by-polls is a clear indication that people are fully supporting the decision to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes. It is people's mandate for the Prime Minister's decision of demonetisation," Sonowal told reporters. West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, however, termed the byelection result as a mandate against the Centre's decision of demonetisation. "The by-election result is a befitting reply against the anti-people demonetisation by the Centre. It's a people's revolt, rather a mass revolt against the Centre. BJP should take lessons from this mandate," she told newsmen in Kolkata before leaving for New Delhi to join the protest by the Opposition. TMC candidate Dibyendu Adhikari won Tamluk Lok Sabha seat by defeating his nearest CPI(M) rival Mandira Panda by 4.97 lakh votes. The party won the Coochbehar LS seat with its candidate Parthapratim Roy drubbing his nearest rival BJP's Hemchandra Burman by a margin of 4.9 lakh votes and pushed Forward Bloc, a LF partner to the third position. Roy increased the party's victory margin from 38,000 in 2014 to 4.9 lakh. In Monteswar assembly seat, Saikat Panja of TMC won the seat by a margin of 1.27 lakh votes over his nearest CPI(M) rival Md Osman Gani Sarkar. TMC'S winning margin in the May 2016 assembly polls was a mere 786 votes when Congress and CPI(M) fought unitedly. BJP candidate Pradan Barua won the Lakhaimpur LS in Assam seat by a margin of 1,90,219 votes defeating his nearest rival Congress's Hema Prasanga Pegu by a convincing 1,90,219 votes, the returning officer said. BJP candidate Mansing Rongpi won the Baithalangso Assembly seat. He had earlier won on Congress ticket but resigned from the party to join BJP in July which necessitated the bypoll this year. Rongpi defeated his nearest Congress rival Ruponsing Ronghang by 16,600 votes. In Tripura, CPI(M) candidate Jhumu Sarkar defeated his nearest BJP rival Shistamohan Das by a margin of 3,374 votes in Barjala (SC) constituency. Bypoll in the constituency was necessitated due to the resignation of Congress MLA Jitendra Sarkar in June last. Congress secured only 804 votes, while Trinamool Congress (TMC) 5,629 votes. In Khowai constituency, CPI(M) candidate Biswajit Datta trounced his nearest TMC candidate Manoj Das by a margin of 16,047 votes. The seat fell vacant due to death of CPI(M) MLA Samir Deb Sarkar, a veteran party leader. In Tamil Nadu, Aravakurichi and Thanjavur, elections were held after being cancelled during the May assembly polls due to alleged corrupt practices, while bypoll was held in Tiruparankundram to fill a vacancy caused by the death of an AIADMK member. With today's outcome, the AIADMK's tally in the 234-member assembly has risen to 136, including the Speaker. New Delhi: CPI(M) is seeking legal opinion on moving a contempt notice against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for announcing policy matters like demonetisation outside Parliament but not coming to the House to explain them. "If the Prime Minister makes a major policy announcement outside Parliament, particularly when it has been summoned by the President, it is incumbent that he comes to both Houses to explain the issue. This has not been done," party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told a press conference in New Delhi. "We are examining the issue and we would like to move contempt notice against PM after discussing with other Opposition parties," Yechury said, criticising Modi for his "arrogancy and obduracy" in not facing Parliament. He posed whether the Prime Minister can make a policy statement outside Parliament when the House has already been summoned by the President. "According to us, he cannot. But that has been done." Yechury said the Prime Minister was making statements after statements outside Parliament when it was in session but not inside and this "amounts to utter contempt of Parliament. We are examining the possibility of moving contempt proceedings against him and are seeking legal opinion. We will hold consultations with all opposition parties." In a democracy, people are supreme as they elect representatives to Parliament and the government is answerable to Parliament. "Since the PM is not coming to Parliament, it is a breakdown of the parliamentary system," he said. He also asked why the government was not giving out the names of bank defaulters, alleging that over Rs 11 lakh crore have been siphoned off from the banks and termed non-performing assets as "the biggest scam". On the demonetisation issue Yechury said people are facing serious problems and till date about 74 have died due to problems faced for the demonetisation move and the government refusing to condole their deaths in the House. He also chided the media for "not seeming to recognise that there is an Opposition in the country and carrying only what the ruling party says. Myth is being generated that the people are hailing the (demonetisation) move." "It is an abnormal situation where the people cannot use their own money. It is violation of their fundamental right to property. How can you deny me from using my own property," the CPI(M) leader said, adding that now "new routes to exchange old currency" have been provided via Nepal, Bhutan, Dubai and Singapore. He said all Opposition parties will meet on Wednesday to chart out the future course of action amid the logjam in Parliament. Ghaziabad: In an apparent attack on the ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, Union minister Kalraj Mishra on Tuesday said those opposing the Centre's demonetisation move have no right to remain in government in states. Addressing a 'Parivartan Rally' at Shani Chowk in Trans Hindon area, the Union Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Minister exhorted the people to ensure a change in government in Uttar Pradesh. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a grant of several million crores of rupees to the UP government, but development is still a distant dream in the state," he said. He said the UP government took no action in the Bulandshahr rape case, Dadri lynching case and Kairana exodus episode. On the issue of Ram Temple, he said that the temple will be constructed in Ayodhya with the consent of masses. The rally was addressed by Union ministers V K Singh and Sanjeev Baliyan among others. Meanwhile, a FIR has been lodged by BJP workers against Congress leaders at Kavi Nagar police station over burning of an effigy of the Prime Minister outside the collectorate today, police said. Superintendent of Police (City) Salman Taj Patil said the effigy of the Prime Minister was burnt by Congress workers led by its district president Harendra Kasana and women wing president Pooja Chaddha. Some derogatory slogans were allegedly raised against PM at the event, he said. The FIR has been registered against 30 office-bearers and workers of Congress. The matter is being probed, the police officer said. Cyber criminals have remotely attacked cash machines in more than a dozen countries across Europe this year, using malicious software that forces machines to spit out cash, according to Russian cyber security firm Group IB. Diebold Nixdorf and NCR Corp, the world's two largest ATM makers, said they were aware of the attacks and have been working with customers to mitigate the threat. The newly disclosed heists across Europe follow the hacking of ATMs in Taiwan and Thailand that were widely reported over the summer. Although cyber criminals have been attacking cash machines for at least five years, the early campaigns mostly involved small numbers of ATMs because hackers needed to have physical access to cash out machines. The recent heists in Europe and Asia were run from central, remote command centres, enabling criminals to target large numbers of machines in "smash and grab" operations that seek to drain large amounts of cash before banks uncover the hacks. They are taking this to the next level in being able to attack a large number of machines at once, said Nicholas Billett, Diebold Nixdorfs senior director of core software and ATM Security. They know they will be caught fairly quickly, so they stage it in such a way that they can get cash from as many ATMs as they can before they get shut down. Group IB declined to name banks that were jackpotted, a term used to describe forcing ATMs to spit out cash, but said the victims were located in Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Britain and Malaysia.Indeed, Dmitry Volkov, head of threat intelligence with Group IB, told Reuters he expects more heists on ATMs. MORE HEISTS EXPECTED Hackers have moved from stealing payment card numbers and online banking credentials to more lucrative hacks on bank networks, giving them access not only to ATM machines, but also to electronic payment networks. A February attack on servers at Bangladesh's central bank that controlled access to the SWIFT messaging system yielded more than $81 million in one of the biggest digital heists on record. Russian banks lost over $28 million in a series of wire-fraud cases that were identified earlier this year. "What we are seeing demonstrated is the new model of organised crime," said Shane Shook, an independent security consultant who helps banks and governments investigate cyber-attacks and reviewed Group IB's findings. Diebold Nixdorf and NCR both said they had provided banks with information on how to thwart the new types of attacks. Disclosure of the campaign follows two ATM hacks in July: $2.5 million was stolen from Taiwan's First Bank and $350,000 from Thailand's state-run Government Savings Bank. Hackers remotely infected ATMs at both banks, forcing them to spit out cash that was collected by teams of "money mules," who authorities say travelled to Asia from Eastern Europe. Uploader Of Fake News Deleted Post After He Was Exposed. RT If You Feel Kejriwal Must Apologise For Spreading Rumor.#___ pic.twitter.com/79puIoavH3 Sir Ravindra Jadeja (@SirJadeja) November 20, 2016 The internet is buzzing today with news that Mark Zuckerberg's found dead at age 42. His final wish was to stop fake news articles on the Facebook. Each time this story is shared , Facebook will donate one dollar to his son, who otherwise would live in poverty.Well clearly he's not.Dont believe in everything that you read on the internet or on social media. Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg at a recent event in Lima, Peru admitted that fake news on social media platforms including his a growing concern. He even termed the problem as a complex one and says that Facebook has been working towards fixing it.With more internet news sites than actual news to cover around the word, news websites are facing a shortage of content. Many arm-chair journalists use their imagination at times to put their opinion as news on the internet.Once it starts getting shared on a social platform like Facebook or Twitter, it spreads like wildfire. The truth is always stranger than fiction, but in growing fake news cases on social media around the world its the other way around.The fake news instances were prominently seen during the recently held US Elections 2016 . Elections for choosing the President for the oldest democracy in the world, were mainly fought on Social Media. Many also blame the medium for Donald Trumps unbelievable victory.Even the current president of USA, Barrack Obama said recently that, In an age where there's so much active misinformation and it's packaged very well and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television. If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect."The age of misinformation is here. And we as users of social media need to be cautious of what we share and what we believe on the internet.Some of the biggest examples have come closer to home, after the PM Narendra Modi announced the de-monetisation initiative and banned Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes.One of the biggest misinformation that spread like fire was that the new Rs 2000 currency note has a nano-GPS chip and can be tracked. Even some of the biggest names in TV journalism believed it to be true and had Facebook videos up on their page.Many were left with their foot in the mouth when RBI had to issue a statement that no such technology was used in the currency notes.Politicians and political parties know the power of social media and they often tweet and share Facebook videos which are misleading and often have factual errors. Recently Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal , tweeted a picture of a man who hung himself at a bank because he could not get money, he blamed demonetisation as the primary cause for his death. Only to realise later that it was an old picture of an unrelated incident.He, however did delete his tweet, but parody accounts and trolls were quick to point out his mistake.Another interesting instance was of a Business man in Gujarat who declared Rs 6000 crore of black money after Narendra Modi announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes will no longer be valid.The businessman in question Laljibhai Patel had to go on TV to tell people that the news was fake. He was known for buying PM Modi's Rs 4.3 crore blue suit, that was auctioned a few months ago.The biggest problem with fake news is that once misinformation goes viral, it dilutes the truth. Mark Zuckerberg says its a complex problem, and hes right.Mediums like Facebook and Twitter rely on their users to generate content. With everyone having access to social platforms, it takes less than 30 mins to register on them and start a page with any misinformation. To identify these users is also not that easy, as many websites feed on misinformation and often have factual errors.And once anything goes viral, television channels quickly pick it up from the internet to gain some points over their competitors. The age of vetting a story is history. Anyone with a smartphone can start reporting news.The problem rightly is complex and we as users of social media often fall prey to misinformation. To help resolve such news on social media we need to first question such stories, and then if they are found to be fake, report them. Once you click on report the administrators of the social media platforms will be able to bring such stories down.As users of internet have to be the first responders to stop the spread of misinformation. India and the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) signed an agreement on November 21 on making India an associate member state of the research organisation that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. This follows CERN Council's adoption of the resolution to this effect on September 15, 2016, an official release issued here said. The agreement was signed by Sekhar Basu, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy and CERN Director General Fabiola Gianotti in Mumbai, it said. CERN, based in Geneva on the French-Swiss border, is the world's largest nuclear and particle physics laboratory, where scientists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the Universe by using the most sophisticated scientific instruments and advanced computing systems. In recent years, Indian scientists have been involved in all pioneering activities at CERN. India has made significant contributions to the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in the areas of design, development and supply of hardware accelerator components/systems and its commissioning and software development and deployment in the machine, it said. The discovery of the Higgs Boson at the LHC is the most talked about scientific discovery in recent memory. Indian scientists have played a significant role in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiments, which is one of the two large experiments that have led to the discovery of the Higgs Boson. They have been named as part of this historic discovery. The CERN has 22 member states, four associate member states while observer status is given to four states and three international organisations. Thailand's military government, which has cracked down on online dissent since seizing power in 2014, is pushing ahead with cyber security bills that rights groups say could mean more extensive online monitoring, raising concerns over privacy protection. Amendments to Thailand's 2007 Computer Crime Act to be considered by parliament next month have come under fire from critics who say the bill could give state officials sweeping powers to spy on internet users and restrict online speech. Critics say parliament is likely to approve the amendments because lawmakers voted unanimously to pass the bill in its first reading. The amendments come as the military government has ramped up online censorship since the May 2014 coup, particularly perceived insults to the royal family, as it tries to ensure a smooth transition following the death of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej on October 13 and ahead of a 2017 general election. Since the coup, the government has shut down or blocked thousands of websites it has deemed offensive or inappropriate. The amendments to the cyber law, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, have pro-democracy activists worried that they could lead to arbitrary invasion of privacy without a court warrant. Sam Zarifi, Asia Director at the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation, said the amendments would strengthen the government's ability to silence speech that it deems violates Thailand's lese-majeste law, a crime that is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. "This absolutely curbs free expression," Zarifi told Reuters. In the amendments, Articles 18 and 19 of the Computer Crime Act say state officials can obtain user and traffic data from service providers without court approval and can seize a computer device within an unspecified time period. Article 20 says a website that could threaten national security or "offend people's good morals" can be removed or suspended. A committee would be in charge of flagging suspicious content. The current law says officials need court approval to remove content. In a statement last month, the ICJ and four other rights groups called for Thailand's parliament, or National Legislative Assembly, to reject the draft. The National Human Rights Commission has also opposed the amendments. Members of the National Legislative Assembly declined to comment on the cyber security bills when contacted by Reuters. The amendments will be followed by the Cyber Security Act and the Personal Data Protection Act, which the government has approved in principle and aims to pass through parliament by March. Experts say the Computer Crime Act is a benchwarmer for the more dangerous Cyber Security Act, which would allow the state to wiretap phones and computers without judicial approval. "These laws are aimed at controlling online media, accessing personal data, and when the Cyber Security bill is passed, mass surveillance is a real threat," said Kanathip Thongraweewong, a data privacy expert at Saint John's University in Bangkok. Under the act, a National Cyber Security Committee will have the power to order any state or private agency to do anything without judicial oversight. The committee could take down whatever it wants, said Arthit Suriyawongkul of the Thai Netizen Network group, which has campaigned against the bills. Drafts of the bills show the committee's secretary will also serve as secretary in the Personal Data Protection Committee, raising conflict of interest questions. "A committee that protects people's rights and freedom should be independent from the state, especially when the state is a potential violator," said Arthit. Washington: In an unprecedented move, President-elect Donald Trump today indicated that he would like to have Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit movement, as the next British Ambassador to the US. "Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!" Trump said in a tweet today. It is one of the rarest occasion that a foreign leader has indicated his favourite picture of a diplomatic envoy from other country. Trump and Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, have very good relationship. Farage was one of the few world leaders to have met and endorsed Trump during the US presidential elections. He had also helped Trump prepare for debate. He had said that he is not for an ambassadorial posting. The British leader is likely to attend the January 20 inauguration of Trump as the 45th President of the US. The Hague: France is "ready to cooperate" with the International Criminal Court to probe Islamic State jihadists in Syria for war crimes, Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has said. The ICC, founded in 2002, is the world's only permanent war crimes court. But moves so far to refer Syria to The Hague-based body have been unsuccessful as Russia has blocked them with its veto in the UN Security Council. The UN go-ahead is needed as Syria is not a member state. Ayrault told AFP that action "can be launched it they concern (French) nationals who are engaged in the war in Syria alongside Daesh," using another name for the Islamic State group. "We are ready to cooperate and give our backing if there is a track to follow," he said. "Even if the margin for manoeuvre is limited, it's a chance to recall that we do not accept impunity." Russia dealt the International Criminal Court a blow Wednesday saying it was formally withdrawing its signature to the tribunal's founding Rome Statute. "The court did not live up to the hopes associated with it and did not become truly independent," Russia's foreign ministry said, describing its work as "one-sided and inefficient". Ayrault said the "action is symbolic and political which I regret because it would have been preferable that Russia does the opposite" and ratifies the founding Rome Statute. He was in The Hague for the annual meeting of the court's member states who ware discussing among other things how to bring those guilty of crimes in Syria to justice. In May 2014, France presented a draft resolution calling for war crimes to be investigated in Syria, but the measure was defeated when Russia and China vetoed the request. A country that has signed up to the Rome treaty or whose citizens have been the victims of crimes may refer cases to the ICC's chief prosecutor for investigation. Cases may also be referred by the UN Security Council, and the prosecutor can initiate her own investigations with permission from the judges providing member states are involved, or a non-member state can agree to accept the court's jurisdiction. Lagos: Nigeria on Monday released a banner containing photographs and names of 55 Boko Haram wanted for various attacks and terror activities in the northeast where the military currently prosecute war against the insurgents. Nigerian Chief of Defense Staff, Gen Abayomi Gabriel Olonishakin, who disclosed this while releasing the banner at a brief event, urged the public to facilitate in tracking them down, Xinhua news agency reported. "With this launching of additional list of wanted terrorists, it is hoped that the public will collaborate to identify the wanted Boko Haram wherever they are," he said. The defense chief urged Boko Haram who wish to surrender their arms and embrace peace to do so in time so as to benefit from the military Operation Save Corridors programme for repentant Boko Haram insurgents. UPDATE: The U.S. Forest Service said Tuesday morning the forest fire in the Mount Pleasant area has grown to approximately 2,700 acres. The fire, first reported around 5:30 p.m. Saturday, is not contained. About 70 firefighters and support staff are battling the blaze, the Forest Service said. The fire is in the George Washington and Jefferson national forests about 12 miles northwest of the town of Amherst. "Winds have challenged firefighting efforts the past two days. Todays weather should be more favorable to firefighting efforts. However, there is still no rain is forecasted in the next few days," the Forest Service said Tuesday morning. Officials have scheduled a public meeting for 7 p.m. Tuesday at Central Baptist Church at 103 Central Church Lane. EARLIER: AMHERST Smoke blanketed the Mount Pleasant National Scenic Area in Amherst County on Monday as multiple crews continued fighting a fire that's burned around 2,000 acres of national forest and private land since Saturday. About 80 responders under the direction of the U.S. Forest Service fought the blaze from the air as well as the ground on Monday as high winds and low relative humidity continued to fuel the fire. By Monday night, officials maintained that about 2,000 acres were affected. Two contracted helicopters with U.S. Forest Service firefighters attacked the blaze, one carrying more than 2,000-gallon loads of water from nearby Thrashers Lake. The other helicopter carried hundreds of gallons of water in a suspended bucket; on the ground, about seven engines worked to keep fires from burning close to houses. Several farms and scattered homes dot the unmarked roads leading into the mountains and national forest lands. Jon Agner, forest fire management officer for Hiawatha and Ottawa National Forests, flew from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to serve as incident commander at the fire. Responders from around the country were called in to lend their assistance. Agner said the fire encompassed around 1,400 acres Sunday night and estimated that the wind has spread it to affect 2,000 acres or more on Monday. We just dont have enough resources to flank and basically confine this fire like wed like to, he said. Weve got enough resources to protect the structures, and thats our priority. Agner said hes ordered in additional resources like another helicopter and more vehicles, as he said Monday was a critical day to fight the blaze. Gary Roakes, the countys director of public safety, said the countys 911 center began receiving several reports of smoke rising from the Mount Pleasant area at around 4:15 p.m. Saturday. The Amherst Fire Department loaned its resources to the U.S. Forest Service, and local crews worked Sunday night into Monday morning. From a locality standpoint, were here to support them, said Roakes. The fire likely began on a stretch of private property and spread to national forest land, Agner said. Law enforcement with the U.S. Forest Service will continue to investigate the cause. While crews have worked to keep the flames at bay all the way up to some residents front porches, Agner said no structures had caught fire. No mandatory evacuation had been issued as of Monday afternoon, but he said hes encouraged some people who are directly threatened to leave. Weve probably got ... 20 homes directly threatened at this time which were putting our focus on right now and probably another 50 homes, outbuildings and cabins indirectly threatened, he said. Officials at the scene on Monday said the fire was spreading eastward, but moving slowly. National Weather Service observations in Amherst recorded wind gusts up to 17 mph on Monday; forecasts for today call for 3 to 6 mph winds becoming calm by nighttime. Once winds die down, Agner said crews can start working to contain the fire. Don Pyrah is a public information officer with the Montana Type 3 Incident Management Team, which responds to complex wildfire incidents. He said changing weather conditions will work in favor of response teams that are coming in to monitor the fire overnight into today. Recent dry conditions have led to a number of open -bans around the state, especially in the southwestern region. The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests last week put a burn ban in effect through Feb. 1. A fire near Lovingston that spread to around 200 acres on Monday led to Nelson County announcing a state of emergency and ban open-air burning. The ban went into effect at 2 p.m. Monday and will remain in effect until the area receives a significant rainfall that decreases fire risk. Reports of the Lovingston fire came in at around 7:45 p.m. Sunday. Nelson County Emergency Services Coordinator Jaime Miller estimated that Virginia Department of Forestry personnel have been on the scene since around 6 a.m. Monday. The fire has been contained but its cause has not been released. No one was ordered to evacuate. Emily Brown contributed. The issue of LGBT rights is a divisive one among the organization's 193 member states. The UN says homosexuality is still a crime in more than 70 nations. Some countries oppose homosexuality based on religious or cultural grounds. "No nation or group of nations should pretend to hold a monopoly over cultural norms and therefore seek to impose those values on others," Botswana's UN\ ambassador Charles Thembani Ntwaagae told the committee. African states, led by Botswana, retroactively sought to block the work of Vitit Muntarbhorn, whose mandate came into effect on November 1 as the first U.N. Independent Expert on the Protection against Violence and Discrimination based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI). The position was created by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council last June. An attempt to block creation of an independent expert to challenge violence and discrimination directed at homosexuals and other persons based on gender identity failed Monday in the UN General Assembly human rights committee. Botswana proposed a resolution to delay Muntarbhorn's appointment until at least next September, so member states could confer further on whether there is basis in international law for establishing the position. The amendment had support from Russia, as well as many Muslim countries. "It's outrageous of parts of the African group to try to overturn the decision by the Human Rights Council," British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told reporters. Several states agreed that the challenge to the councils authority was inappropriate. South Africa was one of the few African states that did not support delaying Muntarbhorn's appointment. "South Africa is still healing the deep wounds caused by racial discrimination. We are not going to add fresh wounds to these wounds we are trying to heal in South Africa," their envoy said. Latin American states, supported by many Western countries, submitted an amendment to the resolution deleting the request for the postponement. That amendment was adopted, as was the revised resolution, allowing the appointment to go forward. Nearly 800 civil society groups signed an open letter calling on states not to block the SOGI appointment. "The establishment of the Independent Expert does not seek to create new standards, but simply to address within the existing framework provided by established international human rights law a protection gap for individuals facing violence and discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity," the letter reads in part. Several states said Monday that they would not recognize or cooperate with the special rapporteur. GamesRadar+ is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Heres why you can trust us. Girl, 13, sues State Attorney Asaf Hosein, who filed the case, is contending that the gate fell on top of Anjula and it pinned her to the ground. But the gate appeared to have been rotted and worn. As a result, the attorney contends that the Ministry of Education had not been ensuring that the gate was maintained. Anjula was rushed to the San Fernando General Hospital and, according to the lawsuit, after a CT scan was done, doctors transferred her to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope where she was placed on a ward. Since the incident, Anjula has experienced severe headaches on the right side of her head, occasional dizziness, facial swelling on the right side and neck pain. A medical diagnosis, according to the lawsuit, lists the schoolgirl as a child who suffers from mild cerebral irritability which is more prominent on the left side of the head. It further went on to state that there has been some regression in respect of Anjulas brainwave regulation. In fact, the lawsuit further states that the impact of the gate falling on the child, has affected her psychologically. She becomes frightened upon hearing the sound of an ambulance siren but, that apart, Anjula did not return to school until September 2014. During the period she had been at home following the accident, she was unable to read and suffered regular blackouts. Hosein contended that the only inference that could be drawn from the accident is that the Ministry of Education was negligent by not ensuring that there were regular checks at school buildings in order to ensure their fitness. Anjula is seeking compensation for loss and personal injuries. Steel men demand meeting with PM SW UTT president Christopher Henry said the union has two potential investors experienced firms from Canada and the US with proposals to restart the plant seeking new opportunities, created by the widening of the Panama Canal (to build shipping containers) and the opening of the Cuban market. Henry related that two SWUTT officers met Rowley in April and he promised to champion their proposal if it is workable. Since submitting their formal proposal to him on September 28, the SWUTT received a letter of acknowledgment but no agreement from the PM to meet again. We didnt ask the Government for one red cent, Henry said. We told him it is workable in terms of our investors. Alleging that ArcelorMittal had left its sacked staff without any severance pay by use of legal loopholes, he said, The Prime Minister and the Government have not given this situation the attention it deserves. He spelt out the plight of the 2,000 people now without jobs since the firms closure. Children have had to change schools because there is no money. The daughter of one of our members had to stop studying for her doctors degree. Six of our members have lost their homes. Each day that goes by it gets worse, Henty said. He was worried that ArcelorMittal might be trying to buy back the plant under a different name, saying the firm knows lawyers who now hold high office. On the 23rd of this month the liquidator will give an opportunity for investors to look at the plant. In December the bids will be open, and well know which investor was chosen. He alleged that the Government is treating them like second-class citizens. Henry disliked the alleged scepticism shown by Finance Minister Colm Imbert, who had allegedly asked how a union could find investors, and had demanded to know the identity of the investors. Alleging that the Government has a seeming bias in the class of people it wants to deal with, Henry said, We are not dunces. We say the plant is still viable. He said the plant had been earning revenues of US$25 million a month. The SWUTT, in its formal proposal, wants the Government to give it concessions for the supply of gas, electricity and water, tariffs to protect TT-made steel, and a committee to assess their proposal. Asked about Chinas firing of one million steel workers as an indication of a low demand for steel during this economic lull, Henry admitted that while China will land steel on any port for US$300 a tonne, TTs cost to produce steel is US$420 a tonne. However, he said that TT beats China by making a higher quality of steel, and that while the Chinese Government hugely subsidises the cost of production, this subsidy has now reached its limit of sustainability. Theyve been selling steel to themselves, to build cities for nobody to live in. This could no longer continue, he said. No One Has Done This Before in Billboard's History Trump strongly criticized the TPP -- which includes the United States but not China -- during an election campaign notable for his strong criticism of U.S. free trade deals. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum closed Sunday in Lima, Peru, with a joint pledge to work toward a sweeping new free trade agreement that would include all 21 members as a path to "sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth,'' despite the political climate. Leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific nations have ended their annual summit with a call to resist protectionism and protect the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact, which has been thrown into uncertainty after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. But at a news conference at the end of the summit, U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States should not retreat from global trade, but should seek to "do trade right'' so that workers are protected and environmental standards are upheld. Obama said it's time for the U.S. to reaffirm its support for the TPP trade deal. He said if Trump withdraws the U.S. from the pact, it will be a weaker deal and the U.S. would lose an opportunity to shape the rules of global trade "in a way that reflects our values." Earlier in the day, Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin had brief talks about Syria and Ukraine on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima, Peru, the White House said, in their first face-to-face encounter since the election victory of Donald Trump. Obama later told reporters he encouraged Putin to uphold Russia's commitments under the Minsk deal aimed at ending the Ukraine conflict. Both the White House and the Kremlin said the leaders agreed that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov should keep working on initiatives to decrease the violence in Syria and alleviate suffering. Putin, speaking later in Lima, said he and Obama noted that while their working relationship had been difficult, they'd "always respected each other's positions, and each other." The Russian leader also said Trump has confirmed to him he is willing to mend ties. "The president-elect confirmed he is willing to normalize Russian-American relations. I told him the same. We did not discuss where and when we would meet." Barring unforeseen circumstances, this is the 52nd and final foreign trip of Obama's eight years in the White House. A cornerstone of Obama's foreign policy was a focus on Asia and the Pacific, the so-called Asia-Pacific re-balance, but that could change substantially after he leaves office in nine weeks. On Saturday, Obama had a message Saturday for 1,000 young leaders from all over Latin America and the Caribbean on President-elect Trump: "Don't assume the worst." Speaking at a town-hall style meeting in Peru's capital, Obama took several questions from young people in the audience who were anxious about the future as the U.S. presidency changes hands. Obama called on them to be optimistic, advising that no one can make things better unless they have hope. "I think it will be important for everybody around the world to not make immediate judgments, but give this new president-elect a chance to put [his] team together, to examine the issues, to determine what their policies will be," Obama said. "How you campaign is not always how you govern," he added. The president appeared to be in his element interacting with young people in Peru Saturday, in a meeting similar to many other town-hall gatherings he has taken part in during previous trips across Asia, Europe and Africa. Obama received a rock star's welcome from the crowd, and he sought to reassure everyone in his youthful audience, part of the Young Leaders of America initiative, that they can write their own history. Although his time as president is coming to an end, Obama said, the worldwide network of encouraging entrepreneurship among young people is just beginning: "The main message I want you to know is that you have a partner in me, and you have a partner in the U.S. government." After the town hall, Obama held a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. In brief remarks to reporters beforehand, Xi expressed concern. "We meet at a hinge moment in the China-U.S. relationship. I hope the two sides will work together to focus on cooperation, manage our differences and make sure there is a smooth transition in the relationship, and that it will continue to grow going forward," Xi said. (Newser) Armed with plenty of caffeine and a laptop, Anthony Anderson works from his South Carolina home to expose a unique type of deception: stolen valor, where people pretend to be service members, or actual service members and veterans who exaggerate or lie about their war stories. A piece in the Atlantic details how Anderson works to uncover fraudulent military claims, using both his Facebook page and websitethe latter of which was instrumental in 2013 in exposing an American Idol contestant who claimed he had suffered a brain injury after an IED explosion while serving in Iraqto get the word out on the scammers. Anderson started his amateur investigative service about five years ago and gets some of his leads from Doug Sterner, an ex-combat engineer in Vietnam who first came across some of his own fakers while setting up a database of real military heroes. When he gets a tip, Andersonhimself a staff sergeant with South Carolina's National Guardfirst heads to his computer for some online scouring, where he hopes to match a name with a DOB or Social Security number. With that info, it's easier for him to track down the basics (e.g., where a person served and when). If he needs more details, he can file a FOIA request. Anderson says he just wants the truth in his searches, and he takes false accusations seriously, making sure to try to contact alleged fraudsters to get their side. As for whether he feels more "distaste" for civilians playing military or service members hyping up their contributions, Anderson notes: "If you served, you should know better than a civilian what it means. For somebody else to claim it when they haven't earned it, it just makes you angry." (Prosecutors say a veteran faked war wounds to get a Purple Heart and $750K in benefits.) (Newser) A woman acknowledged kidnapping another woman and picking up a $250,000 ransom that authorities handed over in hopes of the safe return of the victim, but her body was found along a rural road in Washington state two days later, a police report said Monday. Police tailed and arrested Theresa Wiltse, 49, after she got the ransom for Sandra Harris, 69, at a gourmet grocery store Friday night, the AP reports. "Theresa confessed to being part of the kidnapping," along with two men she identified only as "Jose" and "Jesus," the report said. But her "role appears to be much bigger than she claims," police wrote, adding that blood was found in the backseat of Wiltse's vehicle and it was being analyzed. Police only have Wiltse in custody but said they were not ruling out the possibility of additional arrests. The kidnapping was not randomWiltse knew the victim and her husband, Randy Harris, who owns a pawn shop in the city of Kennewick called Ace Jewelry and Loan, authorities said, though exactly how they knew each other is still under investigation. Harris was kidnapped Friday from her Kennewick home, police said. Harris called her husband at work from her cellphone to say the kidnapper was demanding money, they said. The FBI joined local police in contacting the suspect and negotiating for several hours before agreeing to meet up in rural Franklin County that night to pay the ransom. Shortly afterward, a SWAT team arrested Wiltse near the tiny community of Eltopia. She was driving a rental car with California plates. A driver found Sandra Harris' body Sunday in arid scrubland along a road south of Kennewick, off Interstate 82, the Benton County Sheriff's Office said. An autopsy was scheduled later this week to determine how and when she died. (Read more kidnapping stories.) (Newser) Donald Trump railed against the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a candidate, and now he plans to do far more as president. Trump said Monday in a video address that he would announce a US is withdrawing from the pact on his first day in office. Trump called the pact, a deal among the US and 11 Pacific Rim nations, "a potential disaster" for the nation. "Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back to Amerian shores," he said. Earlier Monday, Japan's prime minister discounted the idea of going ahead with the TPP without American participation, the AP reports. "TPP is meaningless without the United States," Shinzo Abe said. During the address, Trump listed other executive actions he intends to take "on day one," reports the Boston Globe, which has a transcript of the speech. Other actions included canceling the "job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy," instituting "a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated," ordering "a comprehensive plan to protect Americas vital infrastructure from cyber-attacks" to be put together, and imposing "a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the Administrationand a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government." (Read more Trans-Pacific Partnership stories.) (Newser) A school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Monday afternoon killed at least five and injured at least 20 more, authorities say. It was unclear Monday night whether all of the dead were children. Police haven't determined what happened, but they say early reports suggest the bus hit a utility pole, flipped, and wrapped around a tree, reports the Tennessean. "Certainly speed is being investigated very, very strongly as a factor in this crash," said the police chief. The driver survived and was being questioned. The Hamilton County district attorney said five people died at the scene, but exact figures on casualties were still unclear. The bus was carrying 35 students from kindergarten through fifth grade, reports AP. (Read more bus accident stories.) (Newser) A massive search effort in Alaska has failed to find any trace of David Grunwald, a 16-year-old who vanished more than a week ago. He was last heard from the evening of Sunday, Nov. 13, when he called his mom to say he'd be back a little late from dropping his girlfriend off, KTUU reports. He was reported missing by 11pm and the next day, his burned Ford Bronco was found on a trail up Bald Mountain Ridge, about a 20-minute drive from his parent's home in Palmer. David is from a military family, and service members were among around 300 people who joined search efforts in rough terrain over the weekend, Alaska Dispatch News reports. Six horse teams and a helicopter joined the effort around Palmer, which is about 40 miles away from Anchorage. No remains were found in or around the badly burned Bronco. David's relatives "are holding up as best as can be expected," private investigator Brenda Paradise tells NBC. "They are preparing for the worst, but we're praying for a miracle." She says there's no sign that anything was bothering David. "It very well could be a case of wrong place, wrong time, wrong people," she says. Paradise, who's providing her services pro bono, tells the Dispatch News that an anonymous tip line (907-290-8999) has been set up. "A lot of people are afraid to call law enforcement; a lot of people are afraid to get involved because there's minors involved," she says. (Elsewhere, a ransom has been offered in the case of a missing jogger.) (Newser) Potential Homeland Security chief Kris Kobach has a thing to learn about keeping his own documents secure: The Kansas secretary of state was photographed with his "Department of Homeland Security Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days" clearly visible before a meeting with Donald Trump on Sunday, the AP reports. The parts of the plan that were visible included a revival of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, for people from high-risk nations, which he helped create in 2002. "All aliens from high-risk areas are tracked," states his hard-line plan, which also includes "extreme vetting questions for high-risk aliens" on subjects like Sharia. His plan also calls for the US to stop accepting Syrian refugees. The visible parts of the plan suggest that Kobach's vision for Homeland Security matches Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric, including a "rapid build" of the border wall, Politico reports. Kobach has been advising Trump on issues like immigration, and the transition team says they met Sunday "to discuss border security, international terrorism, and reforming federal bureaucracy," the Topeka Capital-Journal reports. It's not clear whether his carelessness with his documents will affect his chances of heading Homeland Security. "That's the height of irony if he's wanting a job in Homeland Security and you're able to see in a photograph what should be confidential information," says Kansas Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley. (Trump has told the British that he thinks Nigel Farage would be a great ambassador to the US.) (Newser) A Texas woman accused of fatally shooting a new mom and kidnapping her baby has told police she did so because the child had been promised to her, reports KWCH. Suspect Yesenia Sesmas, 34 is a former co-worker of 27-year-old Laura Abarca-Nogueda, who was found dead in her Wichita home on Thursday. Sesmas told detectives that she previously lost a child and that Abarca-Nogueda agreed to give her the infant if she had a girl. But when Sesmas arrived in Wichita last week and found Abarca-Nogueda with a days-old infant, she says the new mom changed her mind, reports WFAA. "I only wanted to threaten her in case she wouldn't give [Sophia] to me, but the gun went off," she said, per police. As for Sophia, "I wanted to have her with me as if she were mine." After learning Sesmas "had faked a pregnancy over the last several months and then had traveled to Wichita," authorities raided her Dallas home on Saturday, reports the Wichita Eagle. Sophia, now 11 days old, was found safe and is back with family members. Sesmas was taken into custody and will be extradited to Kansas to face charges of first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping, police say, adding that Sesmas' boyfriend, son, and niece living at the Dallas home knew nothing of her alleged crimes. According to police records, a woman also accused Sesmas of aggravated battery and aggravated kidnapping involving two children in Kansas in July. "I can't believe they let her out of jail," the woman tells the Wichita Eagle. (Read more Kansas stories.) North Korea's Foreign Ministry in a nine-page statement on Monday called on the U.S. to drop its "hostile" policies toward Pyongyang. The North has "chosen the path to nuclear armament as a way of self-defense... from constant nuclear threats from the U.S.," the statement said. This seems to be a thinly veiled appeal to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump to overhaul North Korea policy. The statement lists what it calls the U.S.' "political, military, and economic hostilities since 2012." "Five years have passed" since the North began a full-scale confrontation with the U.S. to counter "the U.S.' hostile maneuvers and nuclear threats" after former leader Kim Jong-il's death. Washington should look squarely at the North's "changed strategic status" and show with deeds that it will "stop anachronistic hostile policies toward the North and nuclear threats," it continued. "This alone will be a starting point for a solution to all problems." (Newser) The suspect arrested in the ambush shooting of a San Antonio police detective says he was angry about a child custody battle and "lashed out at somebody who didn't deserve it." Otis Tyrone McKane was being led by police to the Bexar County Jail late Monday when he told reporters that he was angry with the court system for not letting him see his son and took it out on Detective Benjamin Marconi. "I've been through several custody battles, and I was upset at the situation I was in, and I lashed out at someone who didn't deserve it," McKane said, per the AP. He said he wished to apologize to the family of the slain officer. McKane, 31, of San Antonio, was arrested on a capital murder charge Monday afternoon in the fatal shooting of Marconi. The 50-year-old detective, a 20-year veteran of the force, was shot as he sat in his squad car Sunday after making a traffic stop. Authorities have said a gunman walked up to Marconi's driver's-side window and fired. Before the arrest, SAPD Chief William McManus said he believed the suspect visited police headquarters hours before the shooting and "the uniform was the target." Marconi's shooting was one of four attacks on police officers in four cities in a 24-hour period. (Read more San Antonio stories.) (Newser) It seems Turkey has taken the hint. Hours before a final vote was to be held Tuesday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim withdrew a proposed law that would pardon men convicted of having sex with minors if they married the girl, reports the BBC. Thousands of people had protested the bill in Turkey, where underage marriages are common, while 800,000 signed a petition calling for the bill to be dropped, per Deutsche Welle. Critics say it would essentially sanction statutory rape and the notion of taking child brides. Yildirim suggested the bill will now be reworked, though opponents say they'll fight to ensure it never passes. (Read more Turkey stories.) (Newser) School bus driver Johnthony Walker, 24, was arrested Monday night and charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment, and reckless driving over Monday's deadly school bus crash in Chattanooga, the Chattanoogan reports. Initial reports stated that six children died in the horrific crash, but Fletcher told reporters that casualty figures will not be released until he has spoken to all the families personally, 12 News reports. "This is an absolute nightmare for our community, for police, for partners, but I can ensure you we are prepared and trained to make sure this is investigated thoroughly," he said. Speed is "being investigated very, very strongly" as a factor in the crash, according to the chief. At least 23 of the 35 Woodmore Elementary students on the bus, from kindergarten through fifth grade, were hospitalized after the crash, reports the Chattanooga Free Press. It took hours for emergency workers to remove all the children from the wreckage of the bus. National Transportation Safety Board investigators will arrive at the scene Tuesday. The New York Times reports that there has been a huge outpouring of support in Chattanooga, where a blood donation center stayed open late and still had a line of donors that stretched outside at 9pm. At a local store, a woman bought every stuffed animal in stock after the crash and brought them to the school, telling officials that she would be back Tuesday with one for every student. (Read more school bus stories.) (Newser) Unoccupied holiday homes in southern New Zealand may not currently have any residents, but they've been getting mail anyway. Specifically, drugs. Authorities are warning that meth and other drugs have been showing up in mailboxes at such homes in Central Otago district, a popular tourist spot known for its vineyards and "adventure sports," the Guardian reports. "With the rise in popularity of methamphetamine and the ease of ordering drugs off the internet we have seen a sharp rise in people dealing hard drugs such as P [methamphetamine], MDMA, ecstasy, and LSD, says a local sergeant, noting that hard drug crimes in the region have increased 100-fold over the past five years. The owners of the homes are not suspected of having anything to do with the deliveries. Residents are being asked to call authorities if they notice anyone checking the mail at an unoccupied house, Radio New Zealand reports. At least two locals have been charged with importing and selling drugs, including one man who allegedly imported $200,000 worth of ecstasy and sent it to unoccuppied vacation homes in the area. (Read more weird crimes stories.) (Newser) An Ohio prosecutor said Tuesday he'll again seek a murder conviction against a white former University of Cincinnati cop who fatally shot a black man during a traffic stop. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said he wants to move the case to seat a jury that won't be feeling fear and community pressure in the Ray Tensing case, the AP reports. A judge declared a mistrial Nov. 12, when jurors deadlocked after deliberating some 25 hours on charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter in the July 2015 shooting of Sam DuBose by Tensing. Deters will retry him on both counts, but he says the murder charge is appropriate. "It's my belief that Sam DuBose was murdered. Period." The jury of 10 whites and two blacks was seated Oct. 31 for the first trial. Tensing, 27, had testified he feared for his life when DuBose tried to drive away. Deters repeated Tuesday the shooting wasn't justified and that no one should be shot in the head for a traffic stop (DuBose was pulled over near the university campus for a missing front license plate). DuBose family members, the Cincinnati City Council, and faith leaders have pushed for a new murder trial. Prosecutors said repeatedly during the trial the evidence contradicted Tensing's story. Meanwhile, Tensing's attorney has asked the judge to acquit Tensing in the aftermath of the mistrial. A hearing on the case is scheduled for Nov. 28. (Read more Ohio stories.) The long awaited Microsoft's comeback to the smartphone sphere, Microsoft Surface Phone 2017, was rumored to be released may finally take place next year. Tech giant Microsoft may announce the smartphone alongside the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 in February. Reliable German Windows-centric website Dr Windows revealed that it has received "concrete evidence" that HP is working in partnership with Microsoft in making a powerful Windows 10 smartphone. The website added that the new Microsoft Surface Phone is the rebranded Lumia handsets as it will inherit Lumia's best features such as ClearBlack screens, Glance and more. However, the details of the smartphone are not yet released. There are rumors that Microsoft announced a smartphone internally that is for release in February 2017. This fueled the rumors that the smartphone will be released alongside the popular Microsoft Surface Pro 5 tablet-laptop hybrid. Allegedly, the two new devices will be announced at the Mobile World Congress 2017 or at a separate event to highlight the inception of the new devices, according to Yibada. Currently, the tech giant has released updates to its current flagship device Microsoft Surface Pro 4. This puzzles consumers as it seems that Microsoft is promoting the laptop-tablet hybrid. Apparently, the tech company is delaying the Surface Pro 5; hence, the upgrades on current device. Microsoft just announced the new Surface Studio and Surface Book i7 at the Windows 10 event on Oct. 27 as new members of the Surface family. It is most probably that Microsoft delayed the release of Surface Pro 5 to avoid stealing the spotlight of the new devices and the media and consumers will focus on the features they offer. There is no official announcement from Microsoft yet. Meanwhile, Buyers who were lucky enough to have purchased a Surface Studio shortly after launch, check your emails, Microsoft has apparently begun shipping those pre-orders this week. MSPoweruser reports that some early purchasers have received an email notifying them that their package has been processed and will be out for delivery the week of November 21 (this week). Stay tuned for more news and updates! Apple has launched a battery replacement program for iPhone 6s handsets that are encountering shutdown problems. The second repair program will be free of charge and covers units manufactured between September and October 2015. The Cupertino company attributes the problem to a fault with the battery that results to handsets randomly powering down. According "The Guardian," Apple's free repair program for iPhone 6s smartphones will only address a very small number of handsets that may unexpectedly shut down. The tech company published a support document on Sunday in response to the complaints of several customers. Apple advises iPhone 6s owners whose handsets' screens are cracked to resolve the issue first prior to the battery replacement. Damaged screens could impair the replacement of the battery. The company reiterates that there will be a cost associated with the repair. The website Engadget reported that customers who are eligible for the Apple's iPhone 6s battery replacement program must visit the nearest local Apple Store or authorized service provider. Those who will qualify will get a replacement device. The battery replacement scheme for Apple's iPhone 6s mobile phones follows another repair program the company launched for the so-called touch disease affecting the iPhone 6 Plus. This issue is reported by customers who found their touch screen inoperative following the appearance of a thin grey line. The iPhone 6s battery problem facing Apple has raised concerns among its avid buyers that their handsets might also end up like the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fiasco which involved the overheating of its batteries. The South Korean company plunged into global scandal after Note 7 phones caught fire this year. In October 2016, the website BGR reported on a woman who claimed that her iPhone 6s Plus went up in flames. Another report by the same website, quoted the Phone Arena that an iPhone 6s caught on fire. Apple is currently investigating on the alleged explosion of the handsets. The summons will cover the country's biggest business leaders -- de facto Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong, LG chairman Koo Bon-moo, Hyundai Motor chairman Chung Mong-koo, SK Group chief Chey Tae-won, CJ chairman Sohn Kyung-shik, Hanwha chief Kim Seung-youn and Hanjin chairman Cho Yang-ho. The three major political parties on Monday agreed that the tycoons must explain what they discussed with the president in private meetings last year that resulted in massive donations to two dodgy nonprofits Park's friend Choi Soon-sil set up. The heads of the country's biggest conglomerates will appear before a National Assembly committee probing the crony scandal that has engulfed President Park Geun-hye. Lotte chairman Shin Dong-bin and Federation of Korean Industries chairman Huh Chang-soo will testify about separate meetings with Park in March that led to Lotte giving billions to one of the foundations. The tycoons will testify on Dec. 5 and Choi and Cheong Wa Dae and government officials involved in the influence-peddling scandal the following day. Big business leaders were also hauled before the National Assembly in 1995 over a slush fund amassed by former President Roh Tae-woo and in 2003 over corporate political donations to what was then the former Grand National Party, now renamed the Saenuri Party. But those two hearings took place behind closed doors whereas the upcoming hearings will be public. The latest scandal has once again thrown the spotlight on the close but uneasy ties between government and the conglomerates that dominate Korean business. A record 17 million foreigners are expected to visit Korea by the end of this year. According to the Korea Tourism Organization on Monday, the number of foreign visitors has reached 15 million so far this year, breaking the record of 14.2 million for the whole of 2014. The number of Chinese tourists surged thanks to the lasting popularity of Korean pop culture and cosmetics in China. So did numbers of visitors from Japan and Southeast Asia. Some 1.89 million Japanese visited Korea between January and October, almost back to the 1.93 million recorded in 2014. The family of President Park Geun-hye's crony Choi Soon-sil gave Park W250 million in 1998 when she was running for a National Assembly seat, the Segye Ilbo reported Monday (US$1=W1,183). Earlier, TV Chosun quoted Choi's half-brother Cho Soon-je as saying Choi's mother hauled a suitcase full of money to Park's constituency in the conservative stronghold of Daegu in 1998. According to the Segye Ilbo, Choi's family forked over huge sums of money in the by-election in 1998 and general election in 2000, while Choi's mother Lim Sun-yi lived with Park in an apartment in Daegu during the campaigns. Choi's former driver, identified only by his surname Kim, told the daily, "Lim told me that she and her four daughters put up W50 million each which was to be delivered to Daegu. I drove Lim and the bag of money to the apartment in Daegu where Park was staying." Kim said he carried another bag full of money down to Daegu during the 2000 general election. "It looks like Choi told her family to contribute money, but Soon-deuk (Choi Soon-sil's sister) must have refused, claiming she had to borrow the money," Kim said. "Then Soon-sil called Soon-deuk in the car and told her, 'Don't ever ask me for any more favors again. Mind your own business.' After that her sister paid up without asking questions." Kim said only Lim, Park and a maid on loan from Choi Soon-deuk lived in the apartment in Daegu. "Lim was probably the only person Park talked to at that time," he added. The revelations, if true, would shed light on the wretched question why Park felt so beholden to Choi as to enlist her entire office in her friend's extortion scams. Ankara: Turkey has criticised as "unacceptable" an Israeli proposal that would make mosques reduce the volume of loudspeakers issuing their call to prayer. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters on Monday after a weekly cabinet meeting that the proposal was contrary to religious freedoms and went against Jerusalem's historic multi-religious culture. Kurtulmus said: "Bringing the restrictions on the call to prayer at Al-Aqsa and other mosques on the agenda is in no way acceptable." He was referring to the main mosque in Jerusalem. Supporters of the Israeli bill have painted the issue as a matter of quality of life. The bill, however, has deepened a sense in the Arab minority that it is being marginalized. The Turkish deputy prime minister's comments came as Israel and Turkey are preparing to exchange ambassadors as part of a reconciliation deal reached in June that ended six years of animosity between the two countries that were once close allies. Meanwhile, in a rare interview with Israeli media, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said ties between the two countries are warming. He said "I am convinced that we have advanced significantly toward normalizing relations," according to a Hebrew translation of his remarks to Channel 2 TV's investigative news program "Uvda,". Israeli-Turkish ties declined after Erdogan, whose party has roots in Turkey's Islamist movement, became prime minister in 2003. Relations imploded in 2010 after a deadly Israeli naval raid on a Turkish ship trying to breach the blockade of Gaza, ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas. The blockade was imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas took power in 2007. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Mumbai: The collection of taxes and arrears by urban local bodies from citizens in the form of demonetised currency notes crossed Rs 1000 crore mark on Monday. The time for accepting demonetised notes to pay taxes was extended till November 24 last week.The collection in taxes and arrears till today stood at Rs 1,026.29 crore, a government statement said. Since the Centre announced the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes on November 8, the Maharashtra government allowed citizens to pay their dues like water and power bills, property tax and arrears in the scrapped currency. Also Read: Demonetisation effect: Banks get about Rs 5.44 lakh crore worth of scrapped notes Till November 21, among the municipal corporations, Mumbai collected Rs 322.06 crore, Thane Rs 38 crore, Navi Mumbai Rs 42.05 crore, Kalyan Dombivli Rs 52.04 crore, Meera Bhayandar Rs 41.34 crore, Pune Rs 119.69 crore, Pimpri-Chinchwad Rs 34.67 crore, Nagpur Rs 19.55 crore, Aurangabad Rs 12.66 crore, Nashik Rs 19.16 crore, Kolhapur Rs 9.02 crore among others, the statement said. The directorate of municipal administration which covers municipal councils collected Rs 136.84 crore, it said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Bhartiya Janta Party is set to have a strategy meeting before another day of Parliaments winter session. According to reports, PM Modi is expected to attend the meeting. So far, the both houses of parliament have not been able to function due to continued demands of discussion and PMs clarification on demonetisation by the opposition parties. Opposition parties, led by Congress and JDU, have been united in creating pressure on the ruling government. On Monday, some work in the form of Question Hour transpired in Lok Sabha, while Rajya Sabha remained mostly disrupted. Read full coverage of: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 Here are the live updates on Day 5: #Rajya Sabha adjourns till Wednesday #FM meeting with ministers: Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani, Jayant Sinha, Santosh Gangwar and Arjun Meghwal present #Senior ministers meeting with FM Arun Jaitley underway in Parliament. Discussion on demonetisation and opposition stand #Rajya Sabha adjourned till 2pm #PM can speak on TV, pop concert, but why not in the Parliament?: Congress Vice president Rahul Gandhi #Lok Sabha adjourned till tomorrow as uproar continues over demonetisation issue, opposition demand PM Modi's presence in the Parliament #Uproar in Lok Sabha continues over demonetisation issue, opposition demand PM Modi's presence in the Parliament. #Want to tell everyone that we are ready for a debate in both the houses: Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar in LS #Congress demand in Lok Sabha PM's presence in the Parliament for demonetisation debate #Rajya Sabha adjourned till 12:32pm #Rajya Sabha adjourned till 12 pm after protests over demonetisation #Rajya Sabha session begins amid ruckus (11:30am) #Lok Sabha adjourned till 12 pm after protests over demonetisation FM Arun Jaitley in BJP Parliamentary party meet (11:00am) #For next few weeks we are planning to focus on agricultural sector, Rabi season is also coming #Some people saying even FM did not know of this decision, and then they say the party knew beforehand #By stopping the 'normal' of last 70 years, PM Modi has created a new 'normal' #Currency ban will help the poor, the decision is in the favour of Indian poverty #India has welcomed demonetisation, it is a historic move #Demonetisation was a major decision, which required guts #We are ready for discussion on demonetisation, have said it many times BJP Parliamentary party meet #We passed a resolution in favour of demonetisation, was moved by HM Rajnath Singh: Venkaiah Naidu after BJP Parliamentary party meet #Opposition leaders to meet President Pranab Mukherjee on demonteisation Delhi: BJP Parliamentary party meeting underway pic.twitter.com/PH4RYqyRZx ANI (@ANI_news) November 22, 2016 #BJP Strategy meeting begins #Meeting of opposition parties begins in Parliament For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: One CRPF officer has been killed and Jawan has been injured in an blast in the Chintgufa area of Chhattisgarh's Sukma district on Tuesday morning. The blast was triggered by an improvised explosive device, officials said. It was reportedly a naxal attack. The martyred officer was sub-inspector in 74 battalion of CRPF. The injured jawan has been identified as head constable Sudhakar and has been rushed to Jabalpur for medical care. More details are awaited. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Two suspected militants were killed in J-Ks Bandipora town during a joint operation by the Indian Army and police. Sources said that both the militants were of foreign origin who have not been identified yet. During the safety checks following the encounter, security forces seized a huge cache of arms along with newly-released high-denomination currency notes of Rs 2,000. Officials said two AK-47 assault rifles, 10 magazines, eight grenades, one thrower grenade, a mobile phone, a wireless set and about 500 live cartridges were and cash to the tunes of Rs 15,000 were recovered from the dead militants. The encounter broke out after security forces launched a search operation to track down hiding militants in the area. Sources said militants opened fire on noticing the security forces who retaliated, triggering a gunbattle. A suspected Pakistani intruder was also gunned down by the BSF troopers in Jammus RS Pura sector while he was trying to sneak into the Indian territory. (With inputs from agencies) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday invited responses from the general public over their reception of his policy to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.A The move introduced to curb corruption and black money in India has drawn a strong reaction from opposition parties, which have refused to let parliament function without Prime Ministeras clarification on the issue.A Taking to twitter to announce the survey, PM Modi on Tuesday tweeted: aI want your first-hand view on the decision taken regarding currency notes. Take part in the survey on the NM App.a To take part in the survey, you can download the aNarendra Modi Appa in Andriod or iOS7 based phone from app store and answer simple questions such as:A #Do you think black money exists in India?A #What do you think of Modi Governmentas move to ban old Rs 500 & Rs 1000 notes?A #Did you mind inconvenience faced in our fight to curb corruption, black money, terrorism and counterfeiting of currency?A I want your first-hand view on the decision taken regarding currency notes. Take part in the survey on the NM App. https://t.co/TYuxNNJfIf pic.twitter.com/mWv2frGn3R a Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 22, 2016 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Supreme Court dismissed on Tuesday Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's plea seeking stay on trial court proceedings in a criminal defamation case filed by finance minister Arun Jaitley. A bench of justices PC Ghose and justice UU Lalit, while dismissing the plea, said that under the Evidence Act, a judgement given in a civil proceeding is not binding on the criminal case. "We have seen the judgements. We can't interfere with the judgements of the Delhi high court and the trial court. The petition is dismissed," the bench said. Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Kejriwal, said that if the high court pronounces judgement in the civil proceedings, then the subordinate court would have to follow the law in the case which is based on the same facts and circumstances. He sought staying of the criminal defamation case filed by Jaitley against Kejriwal before the trial court and said that the civil proceedings before the high court shall be continued. The Delhi high court had on October 19 dismissed Kejriwal's plea seeking stay of trial court proceedings in a criminal defamation case, saying, there was no "illegality" in continuing it simultaneously with a civil defamation suit in the high court. The high court had said there was "no prejudice" on account of a pending civil suit and there was no "double jeopardy" and as such Kejriwal's plea was "devoid of merit". It had said the criminal and civil defamation cases were "different in nature". Besides a civil defamation suit in the high court, Jaitley had also filed a criminal defamation complaint in a lower court alleging Kejriwal and five AAP leaders -- Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai -- had defamed him in the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) controversy. On April 7, the trial court had granted bail to Kejriwal and others in the case after they had appeared before it. Jaitley had on December 21, 2015 filed the criminal defamation case against the AAP leaders and sought their prosecution for offences that entail a punishment of up to two years in jail. Jaitley, in his civil defamation suit in the high court, has sought Rs 10 crore in damages from Kejriwal and the five AAP leaders for issuing allegedly false and defamatory statements against him and his family in connection with alleged irregularities in DDCA when he was its president. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The defence ministry will review all cases of blacklisted firms as it prepares a new list of such entities following the new policy unveiled by it which is a mixture of heavy fines and graded banning. Defence minister Manohar Parrikar said on Tuesday that the director general (acquisition) will draw up a list as required under the new policy and hence old cases will also be looked into. "That does not mean they will be taken out. Don't interpret... they will be examined. What is the status, how many years they have been blacklisted for and why they were blacklisted," Parrikar told PTI on the sidelines of a seminar in Delhi. Parrikar said that as per the new policy, there has to be a new list. "So the list will have to be re-ascertained," the minister said. The review will include about a dozen firms that came under blanket blacklisting in the previous regime, a move which the forces were unhappy about as it proved detrimental to their modernisation plans. Some of the firms like Singapore Technologies have approached the courts seeking removal of blacklisting. Singapore Technologies' argument is that it has been wrongly blacklisted since no contract was ever awarded to it and neither is it mentioned in the charge sheet filed by the CBI in connection with a bribery case involving the then Ordinance Factory Board chief. Under its new liberalised blacklisting policy for arms companies, India will now be open to doing business even with a banned firm if there is no alternative available to its weapon system or equipment in the market. This can be done on the grounds of national security, operational military readiness and export obligations, after the vice-chief of the service concerned, the chief of the integrated defence staff or the additional secretary (defence production) signs a certificate to that effect and gets permission from the "competent authority", who is the defence minister. Another key element of the new policy is that unlike the blanket ban of 10 years, the government has said that ban on serious defaulters will be for minimum five years. The policy does not mention the maximum time period for ban. Called the 'Guidelines of the Ministry of Defence for Penalties in Business Dealings with Entities', the policy, which has been in the works for long, aims to ensure probity and transparency in defence deals without affecting the modernisation plans. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New York: Several children were killed in the US state of Tennessee when a school bus carrying up to 35 students plowed into a tree, officials said. Images broadcast on local media showed the bus flipped on its side in the eastern city of Chattanooga with a tree splicing its center. There were conflicting reports about the number of children killed, with multiple US media stating that six students have been killed in the accident, citing the Hamilton County Office of the District Attorney General. "There were we believe 35 children on that school bus ranging from kindergarten through fifth grade. It was a single-vehicle crash," Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher told reporters. Of those, 23 students were taken to area hospitals, NBC News reported, citing Fletcher. The city's police department posted on Twitter that "multiple fatalities" had occurred, adding that the exact number was not confirmed. "Certainly speed is being investigated very, very strongly as a factor in this crash," Fletcher said. "It was clear and dry... there did not appear to be any roadway conditions. But it is a complicated ... scene, it covers a significant area," he added. The National Transportation Safety Board said on Twitter it would deploy a team today morning to investigate the crash. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Delhis deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and his cabinet colleague Kapil Mishra were detained by the police on Tuesday during their protest march towards the Parliament building. The Aam Aadmi Party had organised the march to protest against Centres demonetisation move that scrapped high-denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 on November 8. The leaders had decided to gherao the Parliament building. The protestors had assembled at Jantar Mantar and started their march prompting police to detain Sisodia and Mishra. The party opposed the decision with chief minister Arvind Kejriwal calling it an eight lakh crore scam. (More details are awaited) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Some 12,000 North Korean families have moved into newly built homes in flood-ravaged North Hamgyong Province, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said Monday. The Unification Ministry here estimates that around 15,000 homes were destroyed in the recent floods in the North and some 37,700 households were affected by the disaster. New Delhi: Turkish government withdraws a controversial bill that pardons and allows the release of men convicted of having sex with underage girls, if they have married them. The bill which came as part of a package of amendments to legal system, sparked overnight protests across Turkish society and got condemned globally. Critics believe, such bill would legitimise statutory rape and encourage the practice of taking child brides. ALSO READ: (Turkey slams Israeli bill to reduce volume of loudspeakers during call to prayer) UN agencies too have argued that it would damage the country's ability to combat sexual abuse and child marriage. But the governments logic says that the main aim of such bill is to exonerate men imprisoned for marrying an underage girl apparently with her or her family's consent. Considering Turkeys patriarchal set up and cases of widespread child marriages, critics say a young girl would hardly be able to defend her right of saying No. So, the bill would have legitimized rape in some way. Soon after the protests, Turkish Prime Minister Binali YAldArAm said, The commission will evaluate and take into account all sides and surely a solution will be found. The legal age of consent in Turkey is 18, but child marriage is widespread here. The bill has not only been questioned by Opposition activists, but pro-government Womens and Democracy Association have also criticized the bill. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Amid protests and forced adjournments in both Houses of Parliament by opposition parties on demonetisation row, the Narendra Modi government on Tuesday found reasons to cheer as the Bharatiya Janata PartyA (BJP) managed to win all assembly and Lok Sabha seats it had won before the bypolls held on November 19 this year.A According to reports of the bypoll results, the BJP has retained all the assembly and Lok Sabha seats it had secured before the elections.A The BJP also snatched two assembly seats - one in Assam and one in Arunachal Pradesh - from the Congress party. According to a tweet by psephologist Yashwant Deshmukh of CVoter, the Congress has got zero percent vote share in Arunachal Pradesh'sA Hayuliang seat and the party candidate was declared disqualified. The Congress has managed to win just one assembly seat Nellithope, vacated for Chief Minister V Narayanasamy in Puducherry. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his series of tweets on Tuesday evening, thanked the people for showing faith in BJP.A The PM tweeted from his personal Twitter handle @narendramodi- # I thank people for the continued faith in BJP & in the BJP's unwavering focus on development and good governance. # I appreciate @BJP4Bengal for the spirited performance. BJP is fully committed to diligently serving the wonderful people of West Bengal. # Congrats to Tripura BJP Karyakartas for an impressive performance in the bypolls. Good to see BJP expanding its base in the Northeast. # I congratulate all BJP Karyakartas & leaders for the impressive victories in Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. @BJP4India Here's the details of vote swing and winning details of all seats inA Tuesday's bypoll results-A Final Snapshot of #Bypolls. Each State Gov has got thumping Victories to showcase them as Win in Favour/Against #DeMonetisation drive. pic.twitter.com/Vr3lTWhdVw a N33R4J (@_N33R4J_) November 22, 2016 1. Arunachal Pradesh North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) candidate Dasanglu Pul of BJP won the Hayuliang Assembly by-poll after defeating her lone rival Yompi Kri, an Independent candidate, by 942 votes. Pul, who was contesting on a BJP ticket, polled 5,326 votes while Kri could secure 4,384 votes in the by-poll held onA November 19. The winner is the youngest of three wives of former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Kalikho Pul. The by-poll was necessitated due to his alleged suicide. Hayuliang (Assembly) - vote share INC: 0% (Swing:-78%) BJP: 54% (Swing: +38%) Others: 46% (Swing: +40%) 2. Madhya Pradesh The BJP has retained the Nepanagar Assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh with party candidate Manju Dadu defeating her nearest Congress rival Antar Singh Barde by a margin of 42,198 votes. Nepanagar (Assembly) - vote share INC: 35%(Vote Swing: - 4%) BJP: 60%(Vote Swing: + 8%) Others: 5%(Vote Swing: - 5%) BJP's Gyan Singh has won Lok Sabha seat from Shahdol (Madhya Pradesh) by a margin of 60383 votes. Shahdol (Lok Sabha)A - vote share INC: 38% (Vote Swing: 9%) BJP: 45% (Vote Swing: -9%) Others: 17% (Vote Swing: 0%) 3. Assam In Assam, BJP won both Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat and Baithalangso assembly seat. Lakhimpur (Lok Sabha)A - vote share INC: 36% (Vote Swing: +7%) BJP: 55% (Vote Swing: 0%) Others: 9% (Vote Swing: -7%) Baithalangso (Assembly)A - vote share INC: 41% (Vote Swing: +1%) BJP: 54% (Vote Swing: +25%) Others: 5% (Vote Swing: -26%) 4. Tripura The ruling CPI-M in Tripura has won the two Assembly seats, Barjala (SC) and Khowai, by defeating Congress and TMC candidates respectively. CPI-M candidate Jhumu Sarkar trounced his nearest BJP rival Shistamohan Das by a margin of 3,374 votes in Barjala (SC) constituency. CPI-M secured 15,769 votes, while BJP garnered 12,395 votes. Barjala (Assembly)A - vote share CPM: 45% (Vote Swing: - 3%) INC: 3% (Vote Swing: - 46%) BJP: 35% (Vote Swing: + 34%) In Khowai constituency, CPI-M candidate Biswajit Datta trounced his nearest TMC candidate Manoj Das by a margin of 16,047 votes. CPI-M secured 24810 votes and TMC 8763 votes. Khowai (Assembly)A - vote share CPM: 68% (Vote Swing: +6.7%) INC: 2% (Vote Swing: -35.3%) BJP: 7% (Vote Swing: +6.3%) The Congress' vote share has nosedived from 43% plus to just about 2% votes. The BJP makes huge gain in North East inroads. BJP formally replaces Congress as main opposition in Tripura. Overall vote share CPM: 57% (Vote Swing: +2 %) INC: 2% (Vote Swing: - 41 %) BJP: 21% (Vote Swing: +20 %) 5. West Bengal Trinamool Congress has retained two Lok Sabha seats (Cooch Behar, Tamluk) and one assembly seat (Monteswar). Cooch Behar (Lok Sabha)A - vote share TMC: 59% (Vote Swing: +19%) Left+: 6% (Vote Swing: - 27%) BJP: 28% (Vote Swing: +12%) Tumluk (Lok Sabha)A - vote share TMC: 60%(Vote Swing: + 6%) CPM: 22%(Vote Swing: -13%) BJP: 15%(Vote Swing: +9%) Monteswar (Assembly)A - vote share TMC: 78% (Vote Swing: +34%) CPM: 11% (Vote Swing: -33%) BJP: 9% (Vote Swing: +1%) Hailing the mandate for TMC in the by-elections in West Bengal as "people's revolt" against demonetisation, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee onA TuesdayA attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "failing" to bring back black money from abroad. "The by-election result is a befitting reply against the anti-people demonetisation by the Centre. It's a people's revolt, rather than a mass revolt against the center. BJP should take lessons from this mandate," she told newsmen before leaving for New Delhi to join the protest rally by the Opposition. However, according to tweets by Yashwant Deshmukh of CVoters, the BJP (21%) has pushed CPM+ (14%) to third place in overall vote share. According to him,A in West Bengal bypolls of 2 Lok Sabha seats and one assembly seats; the BJP has polled 21% which is upswing of +10%. The CPM+ has managed 14%, downswing of - 21% total votes. 6. Tamil Nadu The AIADMK has retained the Thanjavur Assembly constituency by a margin of over 25,000 votes and was surging ahead in two other segments in Tamil Nadu. Thanjavur (Assembly)A - vote share DMK: 40%(Vote Swing: - 6%) AIADMK: 54%(Vote Swing: + 3%) Others: 6%(Vote Swing: + 3%) In Aravakkurichi, AIADMK's V Senthil Balaji won the election by a good margin over his nearest DMK rival K C Palanisamy. Aravakuruchi (Assembly)A - vote share DMK: 39%(Vote Swing: -11%) AIADMK: 54%(Vote Swing: +7%) Others: 7%(Vote Swing: +4%) In Thirupparankundram Assembly segment, AIADMK candidate AK Bose won by a comfortable margin over his nearest rival, DMK candidate P Saravanan. Thiruparankundram (Assembly)A - vote share DMK: 35%(Vote Swing: -1%) AIADMK: 56%(Vote Swing: +9%) Others:9%(Vote Swing: -8%) In Thanjavur, AIADMK candidate M Rengasamy won by a comfortable margin of over 25,000 votes against DMK candidate Anjugham Boopathy. Thanjavur (Assembly)A - vote share DMK: 41% (Vote Swing: - 5%) AIADMK: 57% (Vote Swing: + 6%) Others: 2% (Vote Swing: - 1%) 7. Puducherry bypoll 2016 results Senior Congress leader and Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy has won the bypoll to the Nellithope Assembly constituency defeating AIADMK's Om Sakthi Segar, by a margin of 11,144 votes. Nellithope (Assembly)A - vote shareA INC: 70% (Swing: +1%) ADMK: 28% (Swing: +4%) Others: 2% (Swing: - 5%) (Vote share data taken from Yashwant Deshmukh's tweets) (With inputs from PTI reports/ANI Tweets) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Cairo: An Egyptian appeals court on Tuesday quashed one of the two life sentences handed down to ex-president Mohamed Morsi and ordered a retrial in connection with an espionage case. The court also quashed life sentence of 15 other Muslim Brotherhood leaders. The defendants were accused of spying with foriegn organisations, including the Palestinian military movement Hamas, funding terrorism and disclosing national security. The court also cancelled death sentences against 16 defendants, including leaders Khyrat el-Shater, Mohamedel-Beltagy Ahmed Abdel Aty. Thirteen of the 16 were sentencedin absentia. Last week, Egyptian court quashed the death sentences given to 65-year-old Morsi and Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie and 25 other Brotherhood leaders. The court also cancelled life sentences for 21 others inthe same case. Last month, an Egyptian Court confirmed a 20-year prisonsentence against ex-president Mohamed Morsi for taking part in citing violence near Ittihadeya presidential palace in 2012, juridical sources said. Morsi was sentenced to life in prison in two othertrials. He was convicted of spying for Iran, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. Morsi is still in prison in other cases, including spying and handing documents of national security importance to Qatari intelligence through a news channel. Morsi came to power after Egypt's long-time President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011. He was toppled by the current President Abdel Fattahal-Sisi following mass street protests. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Rajkot: Distressed over shortage of funds for his daughters marriage, a 45-year-old Dalit man allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself at his residence here early this morning, police said. Tribhovan Sumesaras body was found hanging from a ceiling fan at his residence in Khodiyarnagar area near Aji GIDC. ALSO READ: (Ailing 4-year-old girl dies while father waits in bank queue to withdraw money for her treatment) Sumesaras son Ajay found his fathers body hanging from the ceiling fan early this morning and called up 108 ambulance. However, the medical staff declared him dead, Sub-Inspector S B Solanki said. His relatives informed the police that Sumesara used to work as a casual labourer in the past. However, after suffering two heart attacks, he gave up working. His 21-year-old son Ajay works at a factory in GIDC area here. Police investigation has revealed that Sumesara was depressed as he failed to arrange money for his daughters marriage next month. ALSO READ: (Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal takes funny jibes at marriage woes during cash crunch) Sumesara had fixed his daughters marriage next month. Due to his limited income, he requested his relatives to lend him some money. However, his relatives expressed inability, claiming that they only had Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, which have been scrapped by government, Solanki said. We believe that Sumesara might have committed suicide as he was worried about the fate of his daughters marriage after he failed to arrange cash to meet the wedding-related expenses, Solanki said, adding that the body has been sent for postmortem and a probe is on. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Yoga guru Ramdev, who has been raising his voice against black money since 2009, in an exclusive interview to News Nation supported Prime Minister Narendra Modis decision to demonetise high-value currency notes. Below are the excerpts from the interview: #We started the campaign against black money in 2009 #Modi government had to keep the decision confidential and it was necessary to announce the demonetisation move in a surprise announcement. Had it been leaked, it wouldn't have been successful #The purpose of demonetisation is to tighten the noose around the neck of black money holders #Terror funding stopped after demonetisation move #Non-performing asset (NPA) laws should be strict Watch | Exclusive: Let the Opposition support black money, it suits us, says Finance Minister Arun Jaitley #Banks should also be probed, cash overflow should be checked #Deaths after demonetisation not because of standing in queue; deaths are being used as political tool #Patanjali is facing loss of RS 100 crore per month after demonetisation, but country is first for us not money #I don't understand why Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee are against the demonetisation move #Mamata should help people open bank accounts in West Bengal instead of using her efforts in staging protests in Delhi #I don't know what is wrong with Arvind ji. He had been with us in the fight against corruption and black money. Even he had this opinion that the high value currency notes make the job of black money holders easy Watch EXCLUSIVE | Modi govt changes its stand every day like a weather bulletin: Chidambaram on demonetisation #There is a threat to PM Narendra Modi's life because the terror funding has stopped after demonetisation. Dawood Ibrahim, drug mafias, political mafias, land mafias, gold mafias have now lost crores of money. So, now they can go to any extent to take a revenge #PM Modi has a taken the biggest political risk by discontinuing Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. PM Modi has risked his own life, risked his party and risked his vote bank, no doubt should be raised on his intensions. This is for the country's good and PM Modi is not going to get any political gains out of it #Speaking against demonetisation is like speaking against the country Click here to read the script in Hindi For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Ankara: Turkey's state-run news agency says authorities have issued arrest warrants for 48 Kurdish militants, including the leader of a US-backed Syrian Kurdishgroup. Anadolu Agency says the warrants were issued on Tuesday in connection with a suicide bomb attack in February in Ankara. The attack which killed 29 people was claimed by a Kurdish militant group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers'Party, or PKK. Anadolu said those wanted include two alleged PKK leaders currently in exile in Europe, three PKK commanders who are believed to be based in northern Iraq, and Saleh Muslim, the leader of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD. Ankara says the PYD and its armed wing are an extension ofthe PKK in Syria. All three are designated as terrororganisations. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Aden: Renewed clashes between Yemeni government forces and rebels killed 19 people on Tuesday, military officials said a day after a fragile 48-hour ceasefire expired without halting the violence. Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi repelledan attack by Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies on the outskirts of Taez city in the southwest, the officials said. The attack that began late yesterday targeted the Al-Dhabab area, which provides pro-Hadi forces with their only access to the flashpoint city that is surrounded by insurgents. Warplanes from the Saudi-led Arab coalition took part indefensive operations and repelling the attack, officials said. Eleven rebels and five government soldiers were killed, they added. Meanwhile, three soldiers were killed and four wounded late on Monday by rebel sniper fire in the area of the northwestern coastal town of Midi, a military official said. The Huthis have been trying to advance on Midi's harbour,which is controlled by pro-Hadi forces, the official said. The coalition and the rebels traded blame on Monday overviolations of the ceasefire which came into effect on Saturday after US Secretary of State John Kerry intervened. It was the latest international attempt to end Yemen's 20-month conflict, which the United Nations says has killed more than 7,000 people and wounded nearly 37,000. The Huthis overran the capital Sanaa and other parts of the impoverished country in September 2014, prompting the coalition to intervene six months later in support of Hadi. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Arbil: The UN claimed on Tuesday that more than 68,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since Iraqi forces launched a huge offensive against the dreaded terrorist group Islamic State in and around Mosul in October. The figure increased significantly over the past week as forces battled deep into the densely populated city, but it falls short of pre-offensive predictions. "68,550 people are currently displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance," the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement. OCHA said the aid response to the offensive launched against the jihadists on October 17 was growing in complexity, with varying needs for different categories of civilians. "Humanitarian needs are severe among displaced families in and out of camps, vulnerable residents of retaken communities, and people fleeing the intense fighting in Mosul city," it said. A million-plus civilians were thought to still live inside Mosul, the country's second city and the jihadists' last major bastion in Iraq, before the operation was launched. The UN had initially predicted that 200,000 civilians could be forced from their homes in the first few weeks of the offensive, Iraq's biggest military operation in years. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: In an exclusive interview to News Nation, Former National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon spoke at length on various issues including 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai, US President-elect Donald Trump, surgical strikes, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikars statement on nuclear doctrines, terror funding and demonetisation. On the issue of demonetisation, Menon said "terrorists will copy this currency too and will use genuine currency if they can't fake. Demonetisation won't stop cross-border terror. There is no connection." On being asked about why India didnt attack Pakistan after 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai, Menon said "in the past when there has been an attack, world says that we should maintain ceasefire and sort it out. Pakistan had attacked us in the past. We wanted world to know that. People who attacked us wanted us to use force. Pakistan army post Kargil war was weak and wanted an Indian attack so the country would unite behind them. Government wanted to improve relations with us but army and terror groups didn't. Decision of not attacking Pakistan was the right decision in hindsight. Pakistan took action but we didnt get what we wanted. Terrorists are still at large." When asked on Donald Trumps chances of declaring Pakistan a terror state, former NSA said "Trump was a lot of rhetoric. What politicians say before and after winning an election is very different. On being asked whether US policy to Pakistan will change, Menon said that they can do it but they havent done it so far. Trump said many things but he said those things before becoming President." On the question of whether US knew about 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai, Menon said "there is suspicion that they knew more. Headley was working for government. His wife reported that he is a terrorist and was dealing with Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed." Menon also said "surgical strikes and military forces have its limits. Surgical strikes also took place in the past but we didnt publicise it. It was quiet. If we go public with surgical strikes, it will not serve the purpose. But, it will only buy us temporary peace. If we go public then we will have to escalate it in the future. Terrorists have incentive to strike further if we go public with surgical strikes." Talking on the statement of Manohar Parrikar over nuclear doctrine, Menon mentioned "if a Defence Minister gives his personal view it confuses the issue. Nuclear doctrine needs to be reviewed. In the past we have reviewed and decided on no first use. We should not confuse the issue. Prime Minister and Defence Minister speak for the government. As they represent government at highest level, they should not confuse." (Based on the conversation between News Nation Executive Editor Meetu Jain and Former National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. London: The European Parliament's Brexit negotiator warned his British counterpart on Tuesday that there is an "intense" window of just 15 months to complete talks for the country's exit from the EU. Guy Verhofstadt said he had also told Brexit minister David Davis that European lawmakers would not accept Britain trying to keep access to the single market while limiting freedom of movement for EU citizens. Former Belgian prime minister and leading European federalist Verhofstadt had tweeted that it would be a "hell of a meeting" after Davis jokingly compared him to Satan earlier this year. "We agreed on some things, on the need for this process to start as early as possible and need to be finished in anycase before the next European elections" in May 2019,Verhofstadt said after the talks in Strasbourg, France. "So the window for the negotiations is more or less 14,15 months," he added. "It's going to be a period that is very intense." He said if Britain triggers the two-year divorce process in March 2017 as Prime Minister Theresa May has promised, then formal negotiations are unlikely to start until May 2017. MEPs must then formally give their consent for any deal and that would take several months from late 2018, he said. Verhofstadt added that it was "impossible to find solutions where we destroy the so-called four freedoms"including the freedom of movement. May has said she wanted to cut EU migrant numbers andretain access for British businesses to Europe's singlemarket, but EU leaders insist the two are incompatible. The head of the European Parliament's largest group,Manfred Weber, said he had "heard nothing new" when he also met Davis at the parliament in Strasbourg. "Unfortunately I haven't heard anything new from David Davis. For us it's clear: The four fundamental freedomsare not negotiable," said Weber, head of the centre-right European People's Party. "Brexit means Brexit so we're going to have to cut backon our relationships, it's not a cherry-picking situation atall," he warned. "We need a clear position from the UK government, soplease make things clearer." The talks came a day after Davis met the EuropeanCommission's top negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels for a"courtesy coffee". The pair both insisted the meeting did not mark a formal start to negotiations, saying that would have to wait until Britain formally triggers the exit process. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: With the Opposition seeking Narendra Modis participation in the debate in Parliament over demonetisation, Union minister Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday said the Prime Minister will intervene in the issue as and when required and appealed to rival parties to resume the discussion. Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha were adjourned for the day as the Opposition locked horns with Treasury benches over demonetisation and demanded Modis presence during the discussion on the issue. Some of the Opposition parties are making issues out of non-issues. The Prime Minister is very much there in Parliament. He will come to the Houses and intervene as and when required, Naidu said. The Opposition initiated the debate, but they soon realised they had to escape it. They then brought the Prime Minister into it, unnecessarily, he alleged. The minister appealed to the rival parties to allow the debate on the issue in Parliament, saying that disruption will ultimately hit the common man. I hope that our friends in the Opposition allow resumption of the debate in the House. Please debate, discuss and decide. Do not disrupt because the sufferers of disruption will be the common man, he said. The Prime Minister is very keen that debates take place in the House, he said and urged the Opposition not to spoil the positive narratives which ultimately benefit the people. Meanwhile, CPI(M) has sought legal opinion on moving a contempt notice against Modi for announcing policy matters like demonetisation outside Parliament, but not coming to the House to explain it to them. If the Prime Minister makes a major policy announcement outside Parliament, particularly when it has been summoned by the President, it is incumbent that he comes to both the Houses to explain the issue. This has not been done, party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. No justice: Man gets 40 years for killing daughters molester An Alabama man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for killing a man who sexually abused his daughter between the ages of 4 and 9. Article by Lana Shadwick He pleaded guilty so his daughter would not have to testify at trial, reported AL.com in Alabama. Jay Maynor, 43, was sentenced to 40 years after he murdered his daughters maternal grandfather after he was told he had sexually abused her when she was a young girl. His daughter, now a mother of three, told the local publication, Basically he took it so that I didnt have to relive the molestation and also be on the stand in front of a bunch of people talking about and bringing back memories of molestation. My father was protecting me, like a father should do. He is an amazing fatheractually the best. He loves us so much, Julia Maynor of Cullman, Alabama added. Jay Maynor shot his daughters maternal grandfather, 59-year-old Raymond Earl Brooks, in 2014. Brooks pleaded guilty in 2002 to sexually abusing Julia. The murder was prompted after Julia Maynor spoke to her father about the abuse, AL.com reported. I havent seen Raymond in years. It was just something I said out of anger to my father. On June 9, 2014, right after Julia talked to her father, Jay Maynor drove to Brooks home. On his way there, he fired shots into a country store and into a Quick stop when he saw a man who had abused his stepdaughter while he was dating her. The boyfriend was unharmed but Jay Maynor was charged with attempted murder. Maynor pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Julia Maynor says she thinks the prison sentence is unfair. He took my innocence away and only served like 18 months, and now I suffer daily from what Raymond did to me. Its not fair, she told AL.com. She told the paper she now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Im going through hell. Everything comes back to me as to why this has happened. I feel like its my fault. Im sad but yet mad. Lana Shadwick is a contributing writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2. Read more at: breitbart.com Submit a correction >> All construction and paving activities on state roads and highways will be suspended over the coming Thanksgiving weekend to ease congestion during the busy travel period, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced Tuesday. The Thanksgiving holiday is traditionally one of the busiest travel periods of the year, and we want to ensure that Connecticut residents and visitors do not have to worry about additional delays throughout the weekend that could cause an inconvenience because of roadwork, said Malloy in a statement. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate REDDING Much-needed repairs on the historic one-room Umpawaug schoolhouse are expected to begin this winter, a few months earlier than originally proposed. The first phase of the project will be to repair the roof, which is part of the exterior work expected to cost $43,800. The interior work should begin next year. G L Capasso, the contractor, had wanted to delay all exterior work until March because of worries that temperature fluctuations in the fall would affect proper setting of mortar during masonry work. But members of the historical society worried that keeping the roof under a tarp all winter would trap moisture and require more interior repairs. Thats why theres that sense of urgency, town historian Charley Couch said at this weeks meeting of the Board of Selectmen. Restoring the 230-year-old schoolhouse has been in the works since last year, when a conditions assessment report was completed by New Canaan-based Architectural Preservation Studio. Capasso was hired shortly afterward to do the work. First Selectwoman Julia Pemberton said the company specializes in historic restoration and is a great fit for the project. Supplies are to be ordered next week and the work itself, which should take about four days, should be done by Christmas. Every step of the job will have to be completed by state-approved professionals because the building listed is on the National Register of Historic Places. The school was built in the 1700s and is considered to be one of the last one-room brick schoolhouses in Connecticut. Classes were taught there until 1929. Its now open only for scheduled class trips and an annual open house, last held Nov. 13. My main concern has been the deterioration, which has been very surprising, on the roof, Couch said. Umpawaug School has undergone three major renovations since 1938, when the Redding Womens Club decided the building needed to be preserved. The last round of renovations was done in the early 2000s, when a new roof was put on. At the time, Couch did the carpentry work and another volunteer painted the building. Why the roof disintegrated so quickly us still a mystery, Couch said. Its probably because it was a low quality of shingles used. Other threats facing the building are the poor drainage, which weakens the foundation, and the vibration from cars passing close to the school on Umpawaug Road. Pemberton said the town plans to work on the drainage when the town starts another three-year road plan. She said this will include new catch basins to draw water away from the building. She added the town is still trying to figure out how to reduce traffic vibrations, especially after the idea of a stop sign was rejected. All of the selectmen agreed the schoolhouse is a treasure, citing the strong attendance at the open house this month as proof of its value to the community. It was one of our biggest turnouts ever, Couch said. There were cars lining Umpawaug all day. kkoerting@newstimes.com; 203-731-3345; @kkoerting Uber launches in Dhaka Bangladesh,Indo-Pak/Pakistan,Business/Economy, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Dhaka, Nov 22 (IANS) Uber, the US online taxi hailing company, on Tuesday launched its operation in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. "The world's largest on-demand mobility platform will be available in Dhaka (from Tuesday) to offer safe, reliable and affordable rides at the push of a button while opening up flexible, economic opportunities for driver-partners," the company said in a statement. "As we roll out our services in Dhaka, we are excited to partner with Bangladesh's leading telecom partner Grameenphone with their most powerful 3G network that will elevate the experience for our riders and drivers," Xinhua news agency cited the statement as saying. "Uber has a simple goal to use technology to make our cities more accessible while reducing congestion and pollution. In line with the government's vision of Digital Bangladesh, we are thrilled to be in Dhaka to harness technology for the benefit of riders, drivers and the city," said Amit Jain, president, Uber India and South Asia. Uber allows consumers with smartphones to submit a trip request, which the software programme then automatically sends to the Uber driver nearest to the consumer, alerting the driver to the location of the customer. According to statistics as of August 2016, the Uber service was available in over 66 countries and 507 cities worldwide. --IANS py/vt Egypt court overturns Morsi's life sentence Egypt,Politics,Defence/Security,Crime/Disaster/Accident, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Cairo, Nov 22 (IANS) An Egyptian court on Tuesday overturned the life sentence of former President Mohamed Morsi in the Hamas espionage case and ordered a retrial, the media reported. The Court of Cassation, the highest degree court in Egypt, has ordered that Morsi and 21 co-defendants, including the supreme guide of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie, will also be retried, Xinhua news agency reported. Morsi was sentenced to life imprisonment for 25 years in June last year for allegedly delivering secret documents to Palestinian group Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah group and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The court last week overturned the only death sentence against Morsi in a jailbreak case. Morsi no longer faces execution. Morsi, the first democratically elected President after the 2011 revolution, was overthrown by the army in response to mass protests against his one year rule in July 2013. The ousted President has received several jail sentences in other cases related to spying and espionage, against which he has appealed. --IANS py/bg Thai PM urged to allow politicians to prepare for election Thailand,Politics, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Bangkok, Nov 22 (IANS) A member of Thailand's Pheu Thai party on Tuesday suggested that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha allow politicians to carry out political activities from very early in the next year to prepare for the forthcoming general election. Former Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul said Prayut should allow the politicians to resume their political business as soon as after New Year season so that they would have enough time to get prepared for the next general election, Xinhua news agency reported. Prayut, who heads the National Council for Peace and Order, has frozen all political activities in Thailand since the 2014 coup. He has repeatedly assured that the election will be held some time next year. However, it remains unclear when he will finally let the politicians go back to business. "It is time the premier seriously took into account the calls for the carrying out of political activities. We need time to lay out policy issues and electoral campaigns. Besides, we need time to select our candidates to run in the election," said Surapong, an executive member of the once-ruling Puea Thai (for Thais) Party, which was founded by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2008. The next race to parliament is yet to be held under organic laws of the 2016 constitution, the latest Thai charter yet to be endorsed by King Rama X, the new Thai monarch, within the upcoming February. Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, the heir apparent to the late King Rama IX, Bhumibol Adulyadej, is expected to rise to the throne early next month. Former Premier Yingluck Shinawatra, earlier viewed as de facto leader of Pheu Thai party, is sure to miss the election as she has been politically prohibited for five years since last year. --IANS py/dg South Korea endorses military intelligence pact with Japan South Korea,Politics,Defence/Security, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Seoul, Nov 22 (IANS) The South Korean cabinet on Tuesday endorsed a bilateral military intelligence pact with Japan amid public and parliamentary opposition. Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Yoo Il-ho, chaired the meeting that approved the pact to directly exchange military intelligence on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear and missile programs. The signing ceremony of the pact -- the General Security of the Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), is scheduled to be held in Seoul on Wednesday, Xinhua news reported. With the presidential ratification expected later Tuesday, South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo and Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine would formally seal the pact. GSOMIA will go into effect immediately after the signing. If realized, the two countries would reach an agreement less than a month after resuming talks on the pact. South Korea has hurriedly pushed the accord as part of efforts to find a breakthrough by regaining support from conservative voters sensitive to security issues. Seoul and Tokyo held the first working-level dialogue earlier in November. It was initially supposed to be presided over by President Park Geun-hye, but the president did not appear at the meeting due to growing public fury over the scandal involving Park and her long-time confidante, Choi Soon-sil. Prosecutors had identified Park as a criminal accomplice to Choi in many of criminal acts. Public objections to the pact were also strong. At least 59 per cent opposed the deal. Japan has reportedly remained unrepentant of its brutalities during World War II. The Korean Peninsula was colonised by Japan from 1910 to 1945. --IANS in/ Australia's 'lifetime ban' on illegal asylum seekers may fail Australia,Politics,Human Interest/Society, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Canberra, Nov 22 (IANS) The Australian government's controversial plan to impose lifetime bans on all illegal asylum seekers may fail, as crossbench senators on Tuesday denied their support to the bill in its current form. Despite being approved by the House of Representatives in November, the bill is set to fail unless Immigration Minister Peter Dutton makes a number of key amendments to please the crossbench, Xinhua news reported. Having crossbench support is a key for the government to pass the bill as it does not have a Senate majority. However, the plan has come under fire from a number of independents. While Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) leader Nick Xenophon has described it as "vexed morally", independent Derryn Hinch has labelled the lifetime ban as "ridiculous". "You can't say to some poor guy who has gone to live in Spain or Belgium (after being denied entry to Australia) that he can't even come back on a tourist visa," Hinch said. The bill was expected to be debated in the Senate next week before the Parliament goes on break until the New Year. --IANS in/ Four killed in Indian firing, says Pakistan Army Pakistan,Indo-Pak/Pakistan,Defence/Security, Tue, 22 Nov 2016 IANS Islamabad, Nov 22 (IANS) The Pakistani military has said that Indian firing killed at least four Pakistani nationals and injured 10 others in different sectors along the Line of Control (LoC). "There are reports of heavy casualties of Indian soldiers due to effective retaliatory fire by Pakistani troops," a statement from the ISPR said late Monday. Six Indian soldiers have been confirmed killed, the Pakistan Army said in the statement. Indian Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh was summoned to the Foreign Office and conveyed the Pakistani government's strong condemnation of the "unprovoked" ceasefire violations by Indian forces, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday. "The Deputy High Commissioner was told that the deliberate targeting of civilian populated areas was highly deplorable." The Foreign Ministry said the Indian side was urged to respect the 2003 ceasefire understanding in the letter and spirit, investigate the continued incidents of ceasefire violations and stop targeting the villages and civilians and maintain peace on the LoC." --IANS ahm/vm Skill India Summit: Europe offers know-how for skilling of Indian youths Delhi,National,Business/Economy,Education, Wed, 23 Nov 2016 IANS New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) Several European stakeholders made their bids and shared views on how to make rural Indian youth more employable and increase their competence, on the second day of EU-India Skill Development Summit here on Tuesday. Speaking on the behalf of Rudoph Strahm, author of "Why They are So Poor: A Work Book for Development and Underdevelopment in the South", Nandini Nagar, a learning specialist in Switzerland, gave her insight into the reasons behind the economic and educational success there. "It's certainly not because of the banks," she said at the event. "They (banks) constitute only 5.8 per cent of the total GDP of the country. It's the vocational educational system of Switzerland, which allows youth to be well-trained before he hits the job market, which makes the country special," said Nagar, adding 80 per cent of Swiss youth goes to vocational training institutes under its VET (Vocational Education and Training) system, and only 20 per cent opt for universities after schooling. She also emphasized that lack of professional training is "the biggest poverty risk". "In India going to vocational colleges is considered a stigmaa electrician and plumbing are not the only vocational courses... we have vocational courses like mechanical engineering as well, among many others," she added. Another official from a major bank in Europe clarified that giving vocational training to young people by the industries should not be considered charity, but the most practical thing to do. "Everything involves a cost, so does the training of young people. But it has emerged that benefits outweigh the costs and make economic sense when we train people in the initial phase," said Clemens Weiland, Senior Project Manager, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany. Ajoy Kumar Singh, a Secretary to the Jharkhand Government, gave a run-down of the state's progress in recent years and made a bid to the training institutes to come and train people there. "From being ranked at 29th spot, we are ranked seventh now in terms of ease of doing business according to a survey done by World Bank. "In the coming few years we will be training 25 lakh individuals. We have decided to build 25 Mega-Skill Centres and bids are open for this. You won't have to make the capital investment, it will be done by the state," he added, wooing the entrepreneurs in training field. Organised in collaboration with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), the summit is a brainchild of the EIFE (Europe-India Foundation for Excellence), a Belgium-based foundation which has adopted Skill India as its own mission. The Summit was kick-started Monday with EIFE Chairperson Count Christopher de Breza had said: announcing that they "have identified the partners in the European Union who can contributea and we have brought them to New Delhi, face to face with their Indian counterparts who are looking for help in exactly these areas". --IANS vn/vd Causes include Distraction Deluge, Process Paralysis and Complacency Complex TORONTO, Nov. 22, 2016 /CNW/ - Nearly one out of every two workers in Canada is less productive than they could be, and they admit it. This was the key finding of the latest ADP Canada Sentiment Survey, which reveals that 49 per cent of Canadians say they could be doing more on the job. "We've identified several key causes of Canada's workplace productivity deficit, and employers should take note," says Russell Wong, Chief Financial Officer at ADP Canada. "While the problem and its various causes are widespread, the good news is a combination of productivity improvements, tools and increased employee engagement can help." Among the 49% of Canadian workers who say they are only somewhat productive, not very productive or not at all productive (collectively, "less productive Canadian workers"), the leading causes they cite are: Distraction Deluge Distraction is the leading cause of workplace productivity deficit, cited by a broad and diverse cross-section of 43% of less productive Canadian workers. The data reveals a significant gap between those aged 18-25 and those aged 55-64 (49% vs. 36%). Regionally, Ontarians are the most distracted group among less productive workers (53% vs. the national average of 43%). "Distraction can be rooted in a wide variety of causes, from poor office design to overly ambitious multi-tasking to the pervasive presence of social media," says Wong. "Every situation is different, but employers should look first at the things they can control, such as noisy or crowded workspaces and then at what their employees can control. Helping employees manage distractions comes down to a combination of workload management and helping them find tools that can minimize distractions," Wong added. Process Paralysis Among less productive Canadian workers, 35% complain of Process Paralysis, which includes barriers such as cumbersome workflows, bureaucratic red tape and organizational bottlenecks. Interestingly, this problem is cited almost equally by Canadians of every working age, region, gender and level of education. "This is an area where tools that automate repetitive tasks can be a game changer," says Wong. "Given the widespread impact of this productivity drain, streamlining processes and actively working to remove productivity barriers should be a focus for employers." Complacency Complex More than one quarter of less productive employees (27%) simply say they don't need to work more efficiently to get the job done, a sure sign of Complacency Complex, according to Wong. While virtually equal percentages of employees of all ages admit to Complacency Complex, the data shows that females are slightly more inclined than males to cite this (30% vs. 25%). "While in some cases complacency can be the fault of the employee, more often it comes down to issues like a lack of training, resources or low levels of employee engagement, and these are unquestionably management problems," says Wong. "Most workers are capable of, and want to add more value to their organization, but sometimes they're simply not given the tools, opportunities or context to discuss and advance these aspirations." Other leading causes of workplace efficiency deficit cited by less productive Canadian workers include boredom and a lack of resources or tools (both mentioned by 20%), as well as overwhelming workload (15%) and shortcomings in training (10%). According to a 2016 study by the ADP Research Institute titled The Evolution of Work, within the next three years, employees globally expect more technological tools will be used to monitor and adjust their performance levels. Interestingly, the study shows that many employees welcome the onset of these tools to help them better manage their time and output in the workplace. The international survey also revealed that Canadian workers are more likely than workers in most other countries to crave work that is personally meaningful, has a positive impact on society and benefits people's well-being. Employee engagement takes dedicated resources and a strategy with clear, metrics-based goals that reflect the needs of employees and managers. For this reason, employers are increasingly automating or outsourcing routine tasks such as payroll and time and attendance tracking with services such as those offered by ADP Canada, so they have the time to focus on people, and the data to do so strategically. Survey methodology A survey of 1565 Canadians was completed online between October 3rd and October 6th 2016 using Leger's online panel, LegerWeb. A probability sample of the same size would yield a margin of error of +/-2.5%, 19 times out of 20. About ADP Canada ADP Canada gives organizations of every size the tools to help their people thrive. From basic payroll to complex people management systems and analytics, we help business leaders make better decisions. Our clients trust ADP to provide strategic insights and on-demand expertise to build and inspire the workforce they need. Visit us at adp.ca or follow us on Twitter @ADP_CDA. About ADP Powerful technology plus a human touch. Companies of all types and sizes around the world rely on ADP's cloud software and expert insights to help unlock the potential of their people. HR. Talent. Benefits. Payroll. Compliance. Working together to build a better workforce. For more information, visit ADP.com. SOURCE ADP Canada For further information: or to arrange an interview with an ADP spokesperson about the survey: Eric McLean, Environics Communications, 416-969-2756, [email protected]; Fahd Pasha, Environics Communications, 416-969-2672, [email protected] CALGARY, Nov. 22, 2016 /CNW/ - Clarocity Corporation (TSXV: CLY) (the "Company" or "Clarocity"), today announced its third quarter (Q3) financial results for the three months ended September 30, 2016. The Company will be hosting a conference call November 22, 2016 at 4:00pm EST to comment on the results. "The residential valuation space is changing at a rapid pace. Over the last few months, market leaders have made formal policy statements that align completely with our technology and product offering, positioning us perfectly to take advantage of these opportunities," stated Shane Copeland, CEO of Clarocity Corporation. "If you look at our accomplishments for Q3 such as the acquisition of ValVets and our positive Morningstar audit, each step has been carefully designed and taken to eliminate regulatory barriers and speed up our product adoption. We're exiting Q3 with the strong foundation necessary to accelerate growth and deepen market penetration for our technology through 2017." "While this quarter's revenue wasn't on par with expectations, we're pleased to have achieved 146% growth from 2015," stated Dave Guebert Chief Financial Officer of Clarocity Corporation. "We expect to realize significant revenue growth in the upcoming quarters, both in our Valuation Vision product and as a result of the consolidation of the results of the recently acquired ValVets. Had the acquisition been completed at the start of Q3, the Company's revenue numbers would be increased by over $2.0 million and the net loss would have been reduced by $140,000. While there continues to be dynamic market forces in the U.S. markets, our Q3 initiatives have already yielded positive growth in our sales pipelines." Financial Highlights Total revenue was $938,465 for the three months ended September 30, 2016 , compared to 1,083,430 for the same period in 2015. For the nine months ended September 30, 2016 , revenue totaled $3,978,680 compared to $1,620,836 for the same period in 2015, a 146% increase. for the three months ended , compared to 1,083,430 for the same period in 2015. For the nine months ended , revenue totaled compared to for the same period in 2015, a 146% increase. Net loss of $2,514,186 ( $0.01 per share) for the three months ended September 30, 2016 , compared to a net loss of $2,092,945 ( $0.02 per share) for the same period in 2015. Net loss for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 $6,664,517 ( $0.02 per share) compared to $11,199,974 ($0.07) for the same period last year, a decrease of 41%. ( per share) for the three months ended , compared to a net loss of ( per share) for the same period in 2015. Net loss for the nine months ended ( per share) compared to for the same period last year, a decrease of 41%. As at September 30, 2016 , the Company's cash position was $974,049 , compared to a cash position of $568,883 on June 30 , 2016. Operational Highlights The Company closed the acquisition of a national Appraisal Management Company (AMC) Valued Veterans, LLC., providing the regulatory framework necessary to engage appraisers in next-generation valuations The Company rebranded from Zaio to Clarocity to support integrated valuation technology focus. The Company received a positive vendor ranking for Morningstar credit ratings, allowing Clarocity to participate in rated mortgage security transactions, a multi-billion rapidly growing market as assets are moved from banks to Wall Street. CONFERENCE CALL DETAILS Date: Wednesday, November 22, 2016 Time: 4:00 PM EST Participant Dial-in Numbers: Local Toronto (+1) 416 764 8688 Toll Free North America (+1) 888 390 0546 Conference ID: 08254764 Recording Playback Numbers: Toronto (+1) 416 764 8677 Toll Free North America (+1) 888 390 0541 Passcode: 254764 # Expiry Date: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 11:59 PM EST About Clarocity Corporation Clarocity Corporatation provides real estate valuation solutions and platform technologies designed to address today's dynamic housing market. Our innovative platform is driving the next-generation of valuation solutions such as MarketValue Pro (MVP) and BPOMerge and setting new standards in real estate valuation quality and reliability. Every day GSE, banking, and investor clients rely on our proprietary solutions to value assets, fund loans, and securitize portfolios. As a fully integrated technology and valuation services company, Clarocity provides a full spectrum of appraisal and alternative valuation solutions. For more information, visit www.clarocity.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. Forward-Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking statements which may include financial and business prospects, as well as statements regarding the Company's future plans, objectives or economic performance and financial outlooks. Such statements are subject to risk factors associated with the real estate industry, the overall economy in both Canada and the United States. Forward-looking information in this press release, includes, among other things, information relating to growth acceleration, deepening market penetration for our technology and future revenue growth. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in this news release are reasonable but actual results may be affected by a variety of variables and may be materially different from the results or events predicted in the forward-looking statements. Readers are therefore cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. In evaluating forward-looking statements readers should consider the risk factors which could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof, and unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not intend nor does it undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities of the Company will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of U.S. persons except in certain transactions exempt from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act) SOURCE Clarocity Corporation For further information: visit www.clarocity.com or contact: Shane Copeland, CEO, Clarocity Corporation, 760-208-6460, [email protected]; Babak Pedram, Investor Relations, Virtus Advisory Group Inc., 416-644-5081, [email protected] Photo and interview opportunity MONTREAL, Nov. 22, 2016 /CNW Telbec/ - Shop The Neighbourhood, a local shopping awareness campaign from Yellow Pages (TSX: Y), encourages Canadians to adopt sustainable shopping habits by supporting small businesses in their communities. This year, to celebrate its fourth edition, Shop The Neighbourhood - now a year-round campaign - continues to put an emphasis on the Saturday between Black Friday and Cyber Monday and is asking Canadians to take part in the Shop The Neighbourhood Challenge by making a local purchase during one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year. Approximately 12,500 businesses and one million Canadians participated in last year's Shop The Neighbourhood event resulting in $155 million invested back into the Canadian economy. WHAT: Yellow Pages employees, along with participating local business associations, will be mobilizing in select neighbourhoods across Canada to raise awareness for the importance of local businesses and the positive impacts of shopping locally. To celebrate the shop local cause, street teams will be distributing free Shop The Neighbourhood balloons and shopping bags. Canadians are invited to join in the festivities and take the Shop The Neighbourhood Challenge by making purchases at local businesses in their neighbourhoods to show their support. WHEN: Saturday, November 26th 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. WHERE: Media are invited to the following locations, forming the central point(s) of each area's Shop The Neighbourhood events. Toronto The Kingsway Sidewalk area in front of 3010 Bloor Street West Roncesvalles Village South West corner of Wright Avenue and Roncesvalles Avenue (High Park Library Lawn 228 Roncesvalles Avenue) Montreal Boulevard Saint-Laurent Parc des Ameriques (corner of Rachel E. and Saint-Laurent blvd.) Promenade Wellington Eglise Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs (4155 Wellington St.) Vancouver West End Jim Deva Plaza (1200 Bute Street ) Kitsilano West 4th Avenue Sidewalk area in front of Miz Mooz Boutique (2177 West 4th Avenue) Calgary Kensington Plaza Theatre (1133 Kensington Road NW) WHY: Shop The Neighbourhood aims to bring awareness to the benefits of supporting small business and to challenge Canadians to shop local year-round and especially during the holiday season when large-scale shopping events drive dollars away from our local economies. Shop The Neighbourhood reminds Canadians that small businesses are our economic backbone. They create jobs, funnel funds back into the community, keep decision-making power localized, and generally contribute to building healthy, thriving neighbourhoods. Shopping locally means helping strengthen small businesses and, by proxy, the neighbourhoods where Canadians live, work and play. For more information on the campaign, visit www.shoptheneighbourhood.yp.ca. About Yellow Pages Yellow Pages (TSX: Y) is a Canadian digital media and marketing solutions company that supports neighbourhood economies by helping local businesses reach new customers and foster stronger relationships with existing clients through its various media and products. Yellow Pages holds some of Canada's leading local online search properties including YP.caTM, RedFlagDeals.comTM, Canada411.caTM, the Comfree/DuProprio network and YP NextHome, as well as mobile applications YP, YP Shopwise, YP Dine, Comfree, RedFlagDeals, Canada411 and 411.ca, as well as the Yellow PagesTM print directories. Through Mediative,Yellow Pages is a leader in national advertising through its various channels and services devoted to North American businesses. The Company also owns JUICE Mobile, a mobile advertising technology company whose proprietary programmatic platforms facilitate the automatic buying and selling of mobile advertising between brands and publishers. For more information visit www.corporate.yp.ca. SOURCE Yellow Pages Image with caption: "Yellow Pages employees, along with local business associations in participating neighbourhoods across Canada, are inviting shoppers to take the Shop The Neighbourhood Challenge and make a local purchase in support of small businesses. (CNW Group/Yellow Pages)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161122_C2733_PHOTO_EN_823625.jpg For further information: Media Contact: Toronto: Christina Arseneau, 647-302-1448, [email protected]; Montreal: Beatrice Gougeon, 514 688-3936, [email protected]; Vancouver: Izabela Leszko, 604-805-0423, [email protected]; Calgary: Jenny McKenzie, 587 226-3665, [email protected] The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor has a new delayed schedule. First plasma is now slated for 2025 and the start of deuterium-tritium operation is set for 2035. First plasma was originally scheduled for 2018 with the start of deuterium-tritium operation set for 2026. However, in July 2010 the Iter Council agreed a new schedule under which first plasma is slated for November 2019, with deuterium-tritium operation starting in March 2027. It is estimated that in the coming years, the number of jobs linked to ITEReither direct, indirect or inducedwill reach 6000 to 7000. Original Ghostbusters quote Dr. Raymond Stantz: Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didnt have to produce anything! Youve never been out of college! You dont know what its like out there! Ive WORKED in the private sector. They expect *results*. Thirty-five nations are collaborating to build Iter. The magnetic fusion device is designed to prove the feasibility of the fusion of hydrogen nuclei as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. The EU is funding half of the cost while the remainder comes in equal parts from six other partners: China, Japan, India, Russia, South Korea and the USA. Construction began in 2010. The ITER project aims to make the long-awaited transition from experimental studies of plasma physics to full-scale electricity-producing fusion power stations. The ITER fusion reactor has been designed to produce 500 megawatts of output power for several seconds while needing 50 megawatts to operate. Thereby the machine aims to demonstrate the principle of producing more energy from the fusion process than is used to initiate it, something that has not yet been achieved in any fusion reactor. The first commercial demonstration fusion power station, named DEMO, is proposed to follow on from the ITER project. ITER is designed to produce approximately 500 MW of fusion power sustained for up to 1,000 seconds. (compared to JETs peak of 16 MW for less than a second) by the fusion of about 0.5 g of deuterium/tritium mixture in its approximately 840 m3 reactor chamber. Although ITER is expected to produce (in the form of heat) 10 times more energy than the amount consumed to heat up the plasma to fusion temperatures, the generated heat will not be used to generate any electricity 1985. At the Geneva summit meeting in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev suggested to Ronald Reagan that the two countries jointly undertake the construction of a tokamak EPR as proposed by the INTOR Workshop. The ITER project was initiated in 1988. 1988. Conceptual design activities ran from 1988 to 1990. 1992. Engineering design activities started. 1998. In June, the Final design from the Engineering Design Activities was approved. 2001. In July, the cost-cutting ITER-FEAT design was agreed. 2006. The ITER project was formally agreed to and funded with a cost estimate of 10 billion ($12.8 billion) projecting the start of construction in 2008 and completion a decade later. 2007. In September, fourteen major design changes were agreed to the 2001 design. 2013. The project had run into many delays and budget overruns. The facility is not expected to begin operations at the schedule initially anticipated. 2015. In November a project review concludes that the schedule may need extending by at least six years; (e.g. first plasma in 2026). 2016. Atomic Energy Organization of Iran completed the preliminary work for Iran to join ITER In 2012 European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA) presented a roadmap to fusion power with a plan showing the dependencies of DEMO activities on ITER and IFMIF Conceptual design to be complete in 2020 Engineering design complete, and decision to build, in 2030 Construction from 2031 to 2043 Operation from 2044, Electricity generation demonstration 2048 So now with the eight year delay in ITER, Nextbigfuture added the time to 2012 DEMO first commercial fusion reactor plan Conceptual design to be complete in 2028 Engineering design complete, and decision to build, in 2038 Construction from 2039 to 2051 Operation from 2052, Electricity generation demonstration 2056 By GMM 22 November 2016 - 07:26 Malaysia will host its twentieth and final grand prix at Sepang in 2018. The countrys tourism minister Nazri Abdul Aziz told the state-run Bernama news agency that the decision had been taken for financial reasons. "We spend 300 million ringgit ($68m) per year but are not getting 300 million back," he said. "There are no returns on the grand prix." He also admitted that local crowd numbers are down because "I think the people have lost interest", but said that is not a phenomenon that is unique to Malaysia. "I dont think there is anywhere in the world where the number of spectators for F1 has increased," Nazri said. The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has revealed that 40 per cent of candidates, who... The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has revealed that 40 per cent of candidates, who pass the examination annually conducted by the body, do not have the qualification to study in the university.This was as he stated that 80 per cent of the 1.5 candidates, who apply to write the yearly Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, do not have the qualifications to sit for it.Oloyede made this known in Abuja at the 2016 Nigeria Higher Education Summit with the theme: Exploiting diversity, differentiation and quality assurance in revitalising the Nigerian higher education system.The event was organised by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Federal Universities in collaboration with Trust Africa.According to the JAMB boss, Forty per cent of them (those who sit for JAMB exam) do not have qualification. They may pass JAMB, but they do not have the OLevel requirements to go into the universities.By the time you mop up the whole thing, what will remain is not this big figure (1.5 million) that gives us the type of shameful statistics you parade all over Africa, he added.In his remarks, the Secretary-General of Association of the Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, Prof. Michael Faborode said the researches done by Nigerian universities needs to be celebrated.Let us appreciate these things and let us bring them to the fore so that we will not just be mourning over the challenges alone; let us celebrate the successes, he said.The JAMB Registrar had before now stated that the move by the Senate to extend the validity of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, to three years will do more harm than good, stressing that the approach may not solve the problem it seeks to address. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday endorsed the crackdown on parallel market forex traders by the officials of the Department of... The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday endorsed the crackdown on parallel market forex traders by the officials of the Department of State Services (SSS) across the country.The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this while addressing journalists at the end of its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja.According to Mr. Emefiele, the foreign exchange regulation in the country forbids trafficking in currency.He said that the SSS had the right to enforce the law and make sure that currency hawkers were forced out of the illegal trade.The governor, who said it was demeaning for traders to hawk currency on the streets, urged the traders to legitimise their business by applying for Bureau De Change (BDC) licence.Officials of the SSS raided the parallel markets in Lagos, Abuja and Onitsha last week over alleged arbitrary sale of forex.The raid, which worsened dollar scarcity at its wake, forced the naira to settle at N465 to a dollar. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is collaborating with the office of the wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Muhammadu B... The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is collaborating with the office of the wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Muhammadu Buhari, to engage Nigerian women in a nation wide sustainable fight against corruption.According to EFCC, the programme, which is tagged Nigerian Women Against Corruption, WAC, was initiated based on the significant role of women in the family and in the society at large.The programme is scheduled to be flagged off by the wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Muhammadu Buhari, in Abuja at the International Conference Centre, on December 7, 2016. WAC is aimed at getting the women to buy into the corruption fight and to raise the consciousness of the consequences of corruption in the minds of their household in particular and also to create awareness of the evil of corruption in the larger society.Acting Chairman, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, said the women engagement will help develop a comprehensive women-based programme of engagement that will enhance the fight against corruption. He said women would thereafter help to act as watch dogs, foot soldiers and whistle blowers against corruption and to drive the regime of probity and accountability. While speaking on the significance and why women needed to buy into the corruption fight Magu said: a woman who has the ability to build a home can as well tame the corruption monster.While quoting the words of Diana Marriechild, he said a woman is a full circle; within her is the power to create, nurture and transform. Significantly, the WAC programme is coming up on December 7, 48 hours before the internationally celebrated anti-corruption day which is Friday, December 9, 2016. The crusade will later be taken to the grass-root through the state and the local governments across the country. The Leadership of Islamic Movement of Nigeria on Monday in Kano accused the Federal Government of plotting to wipe out the movement in th... The Leadership of Islamic Movement of Nigeria on Monday in Kano accused the Federal Government of plotting to wipe out the movement in the country.At an emergency press briefing held in Kano, the Head of Martyr Foundation of IMN, Sheikh Abdulhamid Bello, maintained that in Kan, the Ashura procession had ended peacefully before security agents, who he claimed masqueraded as members of a youth vanguard group, attacked Shitte members.According to him, since the eruption of the Shitte sect face-off with law enforcement agents, President Muhammadu Buhari had neither intervened nor sympathised with the victims of police attacks.Bello maintained that the Federal Governments continued silence over the persistent victimisation of Shittes members was a subtle plot to permanently stop them from practising their faith and mode of worship.We were walking away from Kano toward Zaria and we did not obstruct traffic. It was the heavily armed police officers, who scattered the hitherto orderly, peaceful and solemn procession. There was simply no justification for the police attack, who unjustifiably shot indiscriminately, killing men, women and children, including an eight month-old infant.Bello also called on the Federal Government to compel security agents to release the corpses of their over 100 members so that we can organise a befitting burial for them according to Islamic rites.He urged Nigerians to be mindful of the shameless disregard to civilians lives and property exhibited by the Buhari-led administration.Bello urged Nigerians to caution President Buhari and his lieutenants and to remind them that they were not voted into office to kill those they harbour religious enmity against.Finally, we also reiterate our demand for the unconditional release of our leader, Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, his wife, and all those being detained illegally since the pogrom against us commenced, he said. The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) last week attacked several Boko Haram Terrorist (BHT) locations in Northern Borno killing several insurgen... The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) last week attacked several Boko Haram Terrorist (BHT) locations in Northern Borno killing several insurgents and providing cover for many of its own troops.According to a newly declassified video of the operation made available to The Nation by the Director Of Public Relations and Information (DOPRI), Group Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa, the attacks were carried out at Kadara, Ngoshe and Kangarwa.Active in the operations were NAF Alpha Jets, many of which was weaponised by local technicians before being deployed to the Northeast. According to Famuyiwa, on November16, 2016, an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft reported a gathering of BHTs under a tree at Kadari. An Alpha Jet on armed reconnaissance was called in to strafe the location thus killing a number of the insurgents and causing survivors to flee in different directions.Also on 18 November 2016, NAF fighter jets again carried out a series of coordinated air strikes against BHT locations at Ngoshe. The strike, carried out by a 3-ship formation of Alpha Jets against 5 carefully selected BHT targets, was part of OPERATION RESCUE FINALE by the Nigerian Army.In Ngoshe, the Alpha jets hit their targets five times while a similar air strike was conducted on another BHT location near Kangarwa on 19 November 2016.In Kangarwa, based on ISR aircraft request, an Alpha Jet was scrambled for air interdiction at a location close to Kangarwa. The area was strafed with cannon at least two times. On the same day, the NAF provided ISR cover for own ground forces advancing from Ngoshe to Pulka. The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Caretaker Committee Chairman, Sen Ahmed Makarfi, has predicted that the leadership crises that have bed... The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Caretaker Committee Chairman, Sen Ahmed Makarfi, has predicted that the leadership crises that have bedevilled the party will be over by the end of the year.Speaking in Abuja, the former Kaduna State governor said the decision to give the caretaker committee a one-year extension in Port Harcourt during the partys National Convention in Port Harcourt, Rivers State in August was a right decision.According to Makarfi, before the tenure of his committee expires, the Supreme Court would have settled the leadership crises ravaging the party.Now, we are in the Supreme Court. That is an achievement. Hopefully, before the end of the year, we should be able to resolve this crisis, Markafi said.Recall that the leading opposition party has being in crises since its first inconclusive National Congress which saw the emergence of the Sen Ahmed Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee in Port Harcourt, Rivers State in May 2016.Following the inauguration of the committee, factional leader of the party, Sen Ali Modu Sheriff had dragged the party before an Abuja Federal High Court, which in its ruling sacked the Caretaker Committee, saying it was illegally constitute.Despite the court ruling, the party during the rescheduled convention on August 17, 2016, still in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, extended the tenure of the Makarfi-led committee by one year.However, both aggrieved camps recently agreed to sheathe their sword and give peace a chance.The matter is currently before the Supreme Court, which will decide who is the authentic leader of the party. The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Justice Ibrahim Saulawa-led panel of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which is handling the various ... The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Justice Ibrahim Saulawa-led panel of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which is handling the various cases relating to the dispute over the Peoples Democratic Partys governorship ticket in the forthcoming election in Ondo State, to continue with its proceedings.The five-man panel of the apex court led by the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, made the order after 10 applications asking for stay of the Court of Appeals proceedings were withdrawn by the applicants lawyer, Mr. Beluolisa Nwofor (SAN).With the Tuesdays order, the Justice Saulawa panel can go ahead to deliver its reserved judgments on the appeals filed by Eyitayo Jegede and a factional leader of the PDP, Ahmed Makarfi, challenging Jegedes replacement by the Independent National Electoral Commission as the partys governorship candidate for the election scheduled to take place on November 26.Acting on the orders of Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court in Abuja made on June 28 and October 14, 2016, INEC had dropped Jegede and substituted him with Jimoh Ibrahim of Ali Modu Sheriff faction of the PDP as the authentic governorship candidate of the party in Ondo State.The Justice Saulawa panel had heard and reserved its judgments on the appeals after hearing them between November 16 and 17.But on November 18, the appeal court panel suspended its proceedings with respect to all the pending appeals relating to the dispute over the partys ticket for the election slated to hold next Saturday, on the grounds of the pending motions for stay of proceedings pending before the apex court.The appeal court panel had ruled that it would stay proceedings pending when the Supreme Court would determine the motions for stay of proceedings and another setting aside the November 16 proceedings of the appeal pending before the apex court.The motions for stay of proceedings were filed before the apex by nine respondents before the appeal court who were led by Mr. Biyi Poroye, who filed the motion before the Supreme Court are state officials of the Sheriff-led faction of the PDP in the South-West zone.But at the hearing before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Poroyes lawyer, Nwofor, withdrew all the 10 motions seeking stay of proceedings of the appeal court.The lawyer withdrew the motions for stay of proceedings to pave the way for the hearing of his motion seeking the setting aside of the proceedings of the appeal court which were said to have been conducted on November 16 in defiance to pending appeals and applications before the Supreme Court.The application to withdraw the 10 motions for stay was not opposed by other lawyers appearing for other parties to the suit.In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court dismissed the motions having been withdrawn without objection.Reading the lead ruling of the apex court, Justice Onnoghen held that the motions for stay of proceedings having been withdrawn, the appeal court is ordered to continue its proceedings forthwith.The order of the apex court on Tuesday paved the way for the appeal court to go ahead to deliver its reserved judgment. The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Abuja Division of the Appeal Court to continue its hearing in the ongoing legal battle for the ... The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Abuja Division of the Appeal Court to continue its hearing in the ongoing legal battle for the Ondo States Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship ticket.The Appeal Court had on October 18 suspended hearings into the various applications pending the decision of the highest court.The applications were brought to the Appeal Court by a factional candidate of the party, Eyitayo Jegede, who challenged the decision of the Federal High Court in Abuja to replace him with another contender for the ticket, Jimoh Ibrahim.While both candidates belong to the PDP, Mr. Jegede was picked by the Ahmed Makarfi faction of the party, and Mr. Ibrahim represents the camp of former Borno governor, Ali Sheriff.A three-member panel of the appeal court led by Ibrahim Salauwa set aside the matter to await the decision of the Apex Court.Applications regarding the forthcoming elections were taken to the Supreme Court by a factional leader of the party in Ondo state, Biyi Poroye, who represents Mr. Sheriffs faction.On Tuesday, a five-man panel of justices led by the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, ordered the Appeal Court to proceed with the matter. Donald Trump faced growing calls Tuesday to denounce a fringe white nationalist group that celebrated his election win with rousing Na... Donald Trump faced growing calls Tuesday to denounce a fringe white nationalist group that celebrated his election win with rousing Nazi salutes.The so-called National Policy Institute held a conference Saturday around the corner from the White House. It had been scheduled before the results of the November 8 election were known.The group describes itself as an organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world. It is part of the far-right movement known as the alt-right.One of the conference organizers, Richard Spencer, concluded a speech by shouting Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory! reminiscent of the German heil.Some of the people in the crowd clapped wildly, cheered and gave the Nazi salute. This was seen in a video excerpt posted online by the magazine The Atlantic.Trump attacked the cast of the Broadway hit Hamilton over the weekend when it expressed worry that his administration might not respect Americas racial and cultural diversity.Mr. Trumps itchy Twitter finger, however, fell silent when 200 or so white nationalists of the alt-right movement gathered to celebrate his election with a very public coming-out party filled with racist and anti-Semitic filth, the New York Times said in an editorial Tuesday.Mr. Trump, who brought this group out of the shadows during the campaign, has a duty to unequivocally denounce its toxic propaganda, the newspaper said.The National Policy Institute says on its website that the past 12 months might be remembered as the year of Donald Trump the year of the Red Pill and the year of the Alt Right.The pill reference comes from the 1999 movie Matrix and refers to the act of embracing reality.The NPI adds: It was a time when more people joined our movement then ever before and when our ideas began invading the mainstream.Spencer told the Times he does not believe Trump should be considered alt-right.I do think we have a psychic connection, or you can say a deeper connection, with Donald Trump in a way that we simply do not have with most Republicans, Spencer said.Trump has caused alarm among Democrats and other critics by naming as his chief strategist Steve Bannon, former head of the news website Breitbart, associated with white nationalism.If Trump doesnt do something more forceful to disown his neo-Nazi hangers on, they will continue their brazen march into the mainstream, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote Tuesday.There is room for cooperation on much of Trumps agenda. But cooperation is difficult, if not impossible, when a president gives sanction to bigotry, Milbank added.AFP And how the private sector can help lead agricultural mechanization And how the private sector can help lead agricultural mechanizationAs the prestigious news magazine The Economist mentioned this year, Gabon is reinventing itself from being almost totally dependent on oil exports, to a healthy diversified economy, that is not so exposed to the volatility of one sector alone, with the recent collapse in oil prices and the following decline from the middle of 2014 the challenge is big for the Gabonese economy. In this weeks article we want to try get some understanding on why is so hard to move away from the once so-called black gold.Every country which economy depends heavily on resource exports, like Oil for the Arab countries, or any commodities, face three big challenges:Job-creation The oil sector generates few jobs directly and the government sector tends to be the largest employer and offers better compensation than the private sector. Therefore the challenge is to grow truly self-sufficient non-oil sectors that will provide a sustainable source of growth and employment even when oil resources are depleted.Macroeconomic volatility Over-reliance on oil also exacerbates macroeconomic volatility. When oil prices drop, as is presently the case, the related decline in fiscal revenue often requires cuts in public spending, which dampen growth in the non-oil sector and strain the sustainability of public employment.Depletion of oil (or any given resource) Oil is also an exhaustible resource and countries need to develop adequate non-oil sectors before their oil reserves are depleted. While some countries have ample reserves, hydrocarbon resources in a number of Arab countries could be depleted in the foreseeable future.but, why is so hard to diversify from oil?For the scholars of economy there is a well-known phenomenon called the Dutch Disease which is an apparently negative impact on the economy caused by the sharp inflow of foreign currency, therefore causing over-development of a specific sector (like natural resources) causing currency appreciation, making the countrys other products less price competitive on the export market, because your currency is more expensive now, (there are plenty of examples like Australian mineral commodities in the 2000 and 2010s, or Chile due to the boom in mineral commodities in the late 2000s) in an ironic twist the sudden increase of foreign capital kills other sector making the country even more dependent on black goldthats why is so hard to get past oil.The non-oil private sector remains relatively small and, consequently, has been only a limited source of growth and employment.While some countries have achieved more than others in diversifying their economies, the energy sector, typically highly capital intensive, remains dominant in many economies.Nonetheless, it creates few jobs directly, while oil revenue is often used to finance an oversized public sector. Still, the employment situation varies greatly across countries: some Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) economies rely on foreign labor to fill private-sector jobs while other Arab oil exporters need to meet the needs of a fast-growing domestic labor force.The model of public-private association is working towards the diversification of Gabons economy.Lets go back where we started, The Economist news magazine and the specific example about the Republic of Gabon, which is located in west-central Africa, and its economy was hit hard by the declining in oil prices. Perhaps not such a bad situation because the bright side is that this forced the country to look for new ways of solving creatively the aforementioned three big challenges.For example In 2009 Gabon banned the export of whole logs, a trade which earns little, add no value, and generates considerable waste. So, they moved to add value by developing timber processing. The gaboon tree (Aucoumea klaineana), used for making plywood, is an important source of foreign currency.Strategic Goal: Boost Gabon Agricultures Contribution to GDP from 5% to 20% by 2025The government also wants the country to grow more food, and become a leading source of palm oil and rubber. This strategic goal reduces the dependence on food imports, create jobs, in turn protecting the economy from the single commoditys risks of volatility.Therefore, they launched the GRAINE program in December 2014, which is designed to promote entrepreneurship in agriculture by helping small farmers to form cooperatives for the production of cash and long-cycle crops by providing start-up financing, equipment and training as well as buying their produce.The five-year project is being developed as a public-private partnership through SOTRADER, a joint venture between Olam International, the technical partner, (49%) and the state (51%). The government will provide land rights, funding and logistics infrastructure, while Olam will develop and manage the project, and offer market access to farmers by either buying the products directly or helping them sell through distribution networks.The government aims to transfer the rights to 200,000 ha of land across all nine provinces to the cooperatives, and each farmer will receive between 4 and 7 ha depending on the type of crop they will grow. Under the scheme, each cooperative signs a contract with SOTRADER for financing and supply of inputs to be reimbursed from the sale of its produce. SOTRADER guarantees to buy all produce at a rate based upon the local or international market prices depending on the product type.But this huge endeavor requires also a huge support in the mechanization of agriculture practices and all the logistics involved, past experiences demonstrate in many countries that public efforts are needed to support the development of appropriate and affordable agricultural machinery to increase the productivity, but public alone is not sustainable in the long term. Private alone without the public investment put the entire burden in dealers and farmersSent by Muhammad Kabir (Agricultural researcher/Analyst.Kwali,AbujaSource: graine-gabon.com JERSEY CITY -- When Chris Gadsden graduated from Snyder High School in 1992, he put a one-word blurb beneath his yearbook photo. "Politics." Twenty-four years later, that teenage dream of a life in the political world came true as Gadsden, 42, was sworn in as the new Ward B councilman tonight. The City Hall ceremony came 13 days after Gadsden's stunning win over incumbent John Hallanan in the Nov. 8 special council election. In brief remarks to a crowd of family and friends gathered inside the council chambers, Gadsden choked up after thanking his wife and his mother and had to pause to regain his composure. "Ma, I love you and I appreciate you," he said, his voice wavering. "We've gone through a lot. We've fought for a lot." Gadsden's term -- he was elected to fill the seat left vacant when Khemraj "Chico" Ramchal resigned from the council in May -- will run until Dec. 31, 2017. Chris Gadsden knew when he graduated from Snyder High School in 1992 that he would enter the world of politics. A Lincoln High School vice principal, Gadsden's victory came as a shock even to him. He was up against Mayor Steve Fulop and the Hudson County Democratic Organization, which backed Hallanan, and Gadsden's campaign was outmatched in fundraising too. Hallanan reported raising more than five times what Gadsden pulled in. During a Nov. 11 interview at the West Side Avenue Dunkin' Donuts with his three daughters sitting nearby -- his Union Street home was not prepared to be photographed, he said -- Gadsden described his reaction when he realized he had defeated Hallanan. "I thought, oh, snaps, who does this? Nobody does this. Nobody beats the machine," he said. Provisional ballots were not counted until today, leading to the nearly two-week delay in declaring Gadsden the winner of the race. The final tally for the race is 2,289 votes for Gadsden, 2,007 for Hallanan and 627 for Montgomery Street store owner Lekendrick Shaw. Fulop attended tonight's swearing-in, calling Gadsden's victory "significant and historic." Gadsden is the first African American elected to represent the West Side on the council. "The challenge over the next year is there's a lot of work to do," Fulop said. "We wish you the best of luck." Gadsden said once he brushes up on the ins-and-outs of being a ward councilman, he would like to work to expand recreational opportunities for young people and get litter removed from streets on the West Side. Gadsden won't have much of a honeymoon period to adjust to the life of a politician. He said he's already been inundated with requests for his phone number from constituents. Hallanan is returning to his job as an attorney in the city's corporation counsel office. He told The Jersey Journal today as he was cleaning out his council office that he spoke to Gadsden by phone this afternoon to congratulate him. "I told him, anything I can do moving forward to help out, I'd be glad to do," he said. Behind the scenes, political operatives are pointing fingers about who is to blame for Hallanan's loss. But most of them agree that Gadsden, with the help of friend Jerry Walker and political operative Joe Cardwell, outworked his competitors. "He just went out and, the old-fashioned way, knocked on a bunch of doors," one Democrat said. Gadsden made his first attempt at winning a council seat in 2013, when he came in fourth out of four candidates. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. matt oree.jpg Matt O'Ree (second from left) and his band will perform at Maxwell's Tavern in Hoboken on Saturday, Dec. 3 Matt O'Ree, a staple of Asbury Park's rock and blues scene for over a decade, brings his band and new album Brotherhood to Maxwell's Tavern on Saturday, December 3. The Hoboken show follows a record release party at O'Ree's hometown hangout The Stone Pony for what should be an exciting year-end push. The long-haired career musician has reason to be optimistic, since Brotherhood includes a guest appearance from no less than Bruce Springsteen as well as a track co-written by Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan. The high-energy rock 'n' roll album makes a strong case that O'Ree has become much more than just "that blues guy" from Asbury Park. "Growing up in my household, it was either country-western or it was blues," O'Ree said. "My brother was a huge Jimi Hendrix fan, and at an early age, I really got sucked into Eric Clapton, which most guitar players do. So having that blues moniker was never a bad thing for me." "In fact, when I first started playing in bands, blues music was all I wanted to play," he added. "But when I was in high school, I was also into Van Halen and Bad Company, and my favorite was Led Zeppelin. So as an artist, I think it only makes sense to branch out and try to stretch your wings and become something more than what you started as. My roots will always be the blues, but this new record is a rock record, no doubt about that." O'Ree had already released a debut album and established himself as a local player of note when his 2005 album Shelf Life won four Asbury Park Music Awards - for "Best Blues Band," "Best Guitarist," "Best Local Release" and "Best Song of the Year." The next year, he bested 4,000 other guitarists to win Guitarmageddon's "King Of The Blues" contest. O'Ree credits the Jersey Shore Jazz & Blues Foundation for carrying the torch for blues music and making his early career possible. "Of course Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi are the biggest names out of New Jersey, along with Gaslight Anthem, but the people in Asbury still respect blues music as an acceptable thing," O'Ree said. "You can go to the Wonder Bar or the Stone Pony and see a blues artist and still have a great audience there. And that's so important. It's great that Asbury is as diverse as it is and supports so many different kinds of music." "I used to play at a place called the Crossroads Cafe on Main Street in Asbury Park, once a week for a really long time," O'Ree recalled. "It was owned and run by bikers, and it was such a great place. Unfortunately it's not there anymore, but I had so many great nights there. And it was indicative of what a great blues scene there was in Asbury at the time. You could have a straight up blues band and find a great gig in town every week of the year." Ironically, it wasn't his career as a gigging musician but his day job as a guitar teacher that led to some of O'Ree's most important connections. "The person who was the biggest influence on me and my biggest mentor was Bernie Brausewetter, from a band called B.B. And the Stingers," O'Ree said. "Bernie passed away in 2007, but his influence on me was that he always taught private guitar lessons. He's the one who told me that I should be teaching full-time. That way, he said, I could make my own schedule and change my schedule at the drop of a hat to go play, because the most important thing at the end of the day is always playing the gig. And in the meantime, he said, you're helping your students and you can make some good money." "Just from that advice and from Bernie's influence, and then from just word of mouth, it's amazing how many people I met in the industry whose children wanted to take lessons," O'Ree said. "And eventually I met someone who knew Bruce Springsteen's son, and I wound up becoming his guitar teacher. I wound up teaching him for about seven years and we became really good friends. At one lesson, Evan Springsteen asked O'Ree if he had any new material he could hear, and O'Ree gave him a copy of the song "Black Boots." "The next week I showed up for our lesson and he said, 'Matt, I really liked that song you gave me,'' O'Ree said. "So I said great, I'd love to hear any criticism or suggestions you have and he said, well. I don't know if I do, but my dad might, he really liked the song too.'" "So the next time I saw Bruce at a lesson, he mentioned that he really liked the song, and I screwed up every bit of courage I had and asked him if he'd like to add something to it," O'Ree said. "And he just stood back and thought about it for a second, and then said, 'Sure, I'll do something on it.'" Springsteen wound up adding a vocal harmony and a guitar solo to the track, which now leads off O'Ree's new album. "I was so excited when I finally heard it," O'Ree said. "And it took quite a while to get it done, but every time I talked to Bruce about it, it was really obvious that all he cared about was the art of the song, much more than he cared about whether the song would be a hit or anything. It says a lot about him that he'd do something like that, he's really one in a million." Another connection that came through guitar lessons was David Bryan, Bon Jovi's keyboard player. One night in 2012, a former student came to one of O'Ree's gigs accompanied by Bryan and his wife. "I had met him once before at a wedding and remembered how humble he was, so I asked him if we wanted to come up and play a song with us," O'Ree remembered. One thing led to another and before long, O'Ree and Bryan became close friends and collaborators, and O'Ree wound up opening for Bon Jovi on a leg of their 2015 tour. Bryan and O'Ree co-wrote the single "My Everything Is You" on the new album. "What a life-changing experience," O'Ree said, "not just being able to work with Bon Jovi, but getting a taste of top of the top touring like that." Matt O'Ree first played Maxwell's in 2010, and said he's looking forward to coming back. "Like everyone else, I was so upset when I saw it was sold, and I'm so happy to see that it's back," he said. "I love Hoboken and it's such a great time up there playing, I'm excited to come back." Matt O'Ree and his band will perform at Maxwell's Tavern (1039 Washington Street, Hoboken) on Saturday, December 3, with Cold Roses. Doors open at 8 p.m. and tickets are $10 advance, $12 at the door. SECAUCUS -- A Pennsylvania man wanted for burglary in Connecticut was captured in a New Jersey store last month, authorities said. Police in West Hartford, Connecticut notified Secaucus police on Oct. 25 that they had tracked Victor Padilla's cell phone to the Walmart on Park Plaza Drive, Secaucus Capt. Dennis Miller said. Details on the West Hartford burglary were not available. Secaucus police officers located the suspect's car, created a perimeter around the area, and proceeded into the store, Miller said. Padilla, of Sciota, Pennsylvania, was then arrested on charges of being a fugitive from justice and he was taken into custody, police said. "Our dispatchers, supervisors, detectives and officers all did a really good job that day," Miller said. "They effectively set up a perimeter and made an arrest within a busy shopping area with the thought and mind to limit the risk to the public." 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. Welcome to non league daily news now - your number one spot for all things relating to the National League System. Our dedicated reporters have come straight from the sidelines to bring you news fresh from the dugout - but not before theyve stopped off at the burger van first! We know that non league football fans are full of heart, passion, and belief. You trust the manager, you believe in the team, and, for some strange reason, you trust those rickety stands, too! Here at Non League Daily, we hope we can become your trusted non league news resource - a platform thats just as passionate about non league daily news now as you. Come rain or shine, well be out reporting on the latest non league fixtures. Well also be scouring the news, refreshing social media, and sourcing information from team websites in the hopes of finding the latest breaking non league daily news for our readers. As youll soon see, weve got exclusive match reports on the Vanarama National League, weve got transfer speculation thatll affect the National League South, weve found great stories thatll spice up the National League North, and weve even got news on the latest giant killers of the FA Cup. We may not be able to agree on who is going up this year, but we can all agree that any news on the NLS worth knowing will be published here, at Non League Daily. Welcome to nonleaguedaily.coms news provision, your go-to source for all non league updates, rumours, interviews, and much more besides. Founded by a team with a genuine passion for the world of non league football, nonleaguedaily.com understands exactly what supporters of the so-called lower leagues are looking for. You want the high-quality reporting, in-depth analysis, and match reporting that matches that is more commonly found in the journalism for the top flights, but with the focus firmly fixed on the national leagues. We understand that your passion, interest, and dedication is constant, and we believe you need a news service that matches that commitment with its own dedication and thoroughness so thats what you can expect from our site. The latest non league news, as and when it happens Conventionally, non league news has always travelled fairly slowly, especially when compared to the instantaneous, constant breaking news cycles found in the upper leagues. Tales are told on terraces, rumours passed between pub patrons and circled between supporters at the latest game, often forced to remain somewhat local initially before word eventually spreads to other locales. For us, this slow spread may be fairly organic in nature, but it simply isnt compatible with the modern football environment. Its also not conducive to the current fast-paced, always-available media landscape, nor the way that people tend to consume news nowadays. Thats why we have put together a non league news source that fans can turn to for the latest updates, as and when they happen, and as and when you want to read them. Non-league news now is the only acceptable speed at Betting.co.uk. We update our non-league football news coverage constantly, bringing you all the latest developments and seeking to spread the word as quickly and accurately as possible. So if youre wondering whats happening both with your local team and with the lower leagues as a whole, you can visit us for non league news now, and be confident the stories you find are completely up to date. News reported by passionate fans Our efforts to bring you the very best non league football news are undeniably a professional concern, and one that we take seriously. We are if youll excuse the uncharacteristic tooting of our own horns good at what we do, and we know that the efforts we make in this regard are one of the reasons our site has enjoyed such success thus far. However, everyone who writes for us also shares our readers enthusiasm for non league football. Were not just churning out content in the hopes of cashing in on a professional dream; were here because we want to be, and will always be dedicated and committed to non league football as an entity and thriving in the experience of being able to talk about our favourite subject whenever we can. We create non-league news now that is written by genuine fans and enthusiasts, for fans. We know what you want to know and what matters most to an ardent non league supporter, and we always ensure that focusing on these elements is our guiding principle as we seek to solidify our status as an online non league paper fans can always rely on. When compiling non league news, we think with the mind of a fan first and foremost. We cover the angles and stories that we find compelling and that we know our fellow non league enthusiasts also care about. News doesnt have to be dry and formulaic, in our opinion. When its written by people who are genuinely as fascinated by the stories they are reporting on as their readership will be, we believe news can be interesting, compelling, and even have a sense of personality and humour. News content written with passion and expertise We believe that thanks to our dedication, insightfulness, and commitment to our subject matter of non league today, we are offering the best of both worlds to those searching for an online non league paper. We give you the professional approach we feel is appropriate for news about one of the most intriguing aspects of UK football; an aspect that we genuinely feel does not receive the interest and plaudits that it should be generating. Nevertheless, we dont let that professionalism take over everything we do: we remain committed fans, nurturing our own personal interest in non league football and ensuring every word we compose is infused with a sense of passion and dedication that enhances the posts we create. Its therefore obvious that our non-league content today isnt ever going to be dry, basic, or put together by a tired staff writer who has never heard of any team below the Championship before they rush off to the pub for the evening. Our writers are genuine experts: were covering non league football because we want to, because we believe in it, and because its where our strengths lie. The result is informed content that capitalises on our deep knowledge of the history, as well as the present-day realities, of non league football in the UK. Beyond news: the nonleaguedaily.com interview series One of our goals with nonleaguedaily.com is to not just dryly report the news from an outsiders perspective, effectively regurgitating press releases that are devoid of genuinely illuminating information. We also go right to the source of the stories: the managers and club insiders who have direct experience, and often influence, on the sport and how it is managed. We regularly conduct interviews as part of our news provision, asking the questions that are on everyones lips and providing the best possible view into the non league world. We have reporters pitchside at matches, microphone to hand and plentiful questions ready to be asked. The end result for you, the reader, is the kind of information and close-up looks into the non league world that just cant be found anywhere else. As our commitment to providing interesting interviews amply demonstrates, we want to be involved in breaking the stories that everyone then talks about, rather than following along and focusing solely on what everyone already knows. If youre looking for leading content that you cant find anywhere else, and that goes right to the centre of the non league world, then you can turn to nonleaguedaily.com for all the benefits of a conventional non league paper, but in electronic, easily-accessed form. A host of other content to enjoy alongside the non league today Our focus on providing non league news will always be maintained: we consider this aspect the most important of what we do, and it will always be the recipient of our time, dedication, and interest. Well be here, a consistent and trustworthy news portal, for as long as non league football news exists. With that said, when you have read up on the latest goings-on, were here with further content for you to enjoy. Naturally, given our partnership with leading brand Betting.co.uk, we provide guidelines for those interested in the world of sports betting. Well help you find the best UK bookmaker with our plentiful coverage of existing brands; ideal if youre looking to put your newfound knowledge, courtesy of us, about non league to use and place a few bets. Furthermore, we also provide highlights of all the latest UK betting offers, so you can ensure youre achieving the best value with all the latest betting deals whenever youre betting on the latest non league matches. Youll find all of this coverage is as consistent and reliable as our non league news provision, Non league features and deep dives Returning to the world of non league football, we also provide a range of feature content that goes deeper and further into the non league world than ever before. Less instantaneously topical but still hugely relevant to the modern game, our features are the dream deep dives that we feel non league fans deserve. Were always striving to do better, offer more, and ensure that non league fans can enjoy the same wealth of content as followers of the top tiers, so you can expect top-flight content with the same commitment and dedication as found throughout the upper echelons of the sport. So whether youre looking to find the most recent non league football news, seeking a new bookmaker for your non league bets, or hoping to delve deep into a niche non league-related topic, nonleaguedaily.com is always going to be worth a visit. Return to nonleaguedaily.com for all your non league news needs Weve told you what you can expect from nonleaguedaily.coms news; now we need to put our confidence where our promises are, make sure we deliver on those promises, and establish trust as an online non league paper you can trust. We look forward to welcoming you back to our news section and showcasing the best we have to offer, from exciting new non league interviews to cutting-edge news to transfer speculation. If you want to truly have your finger on the non league pulse, then nonleaguedaily.com is always going to be here for you. OFFUTT AIR BASE (AP) Nebraskas new state senators got a look at some of the issues theyll have to tackle in January, including an estimated $900 million budget shortfall. The 17 senators-elect and other lawmakers gathered for a session preview last week at Offutt Air Force Base. Outgoing Republican Speaker Galen Hadley cautioned them that running for election is easy, but that governing isnt. I think that is something that you will find as you go through this, Hadley said. Its the compromises. Its the working together to find solutions to these problems. The senator who is chosen as the new speaker will have to oversee a tough budget year and manage a Legislature that has seen increasing filibusters over the past several years. The speaker is someone who schedules the daily debates and keeps bills moving through the process. The two senators competing for the speaker position are Sen. Jim Scheer and Sen. Matt Williams. Williams said he sees the new senators as hardworking, excited to learn and not bashful. He warned against putting labels on new senators as some people tried to do to his class two years ago. Scheer said he would demand that senators treat each other with respect. While it may be difficult, he said there is some pain in every change. The Legislatures Executive Board chairman, Republican Sen. Bob Krist, said the conversations and questions from the newly elected senators were encouraging. I think that their life experiences are so different, I think even more so than the last two years, Krist said, referring to the group of senators elected in 2014. Other important topics addressed at the session preview included prison reform, climate change, mental health treatment and the cycle of poverty. Nebraska was fertile soil for a Trump victory HYANNIS If the incoming leader of the free world ever pulls on a pair of cowboy boots and treads the sandy soils of Grant County, he can shout This is Trump country! to the endless horizon. Bigly, he might add. Unlike the tears, protests and Not My President posters that erupted in urban Nebraska after Donald Trumps improbable White House victory, most residents of rural Nebraska had smiles on their faces and a little more giddyap in their strides. Relieved, said Cliff Dailey, a businessman and elected official in Hyannis, a village of 185 people roughly 365 miles northwest of Omaha. Id say they were just relieved. Everybody was just shaking their heads and smiling and saying I cant believe we won. When he says everybody, hes hardly exaggerating. Trump won 367 votes in Grant County, while Hillary Clinton received just 20. Thats 93 percent of the vote versus 5 percent. Overall, Trump claimed about 60 percent of ballots cast in Nebraska compared with Clintons 34 percent. But in a region where the tallest thing is a grass-covered sand dune, it wasnt nearly that close. Grant County narrowly finished first in rural Nebraskas stampede for Trump, just ahead of Hayes County. But the brash New York real-estate developer won at least 85 percent of the vote in another 17 of Nebraskas 93 counties. Such lopsided percentages make rural Nebraska stand out among Trumps other strongholds nationally. In Grant and Hayes, Nebraska has the third- and fourth-highest Trump-supporting counties in the nation, based on a World-Herald review of official state election websites and election results collected by the Associated Press and posted on the Politico website. Only two small-population counties in Texas edged out the top Trump counties in Nebraska. Grant and Hayes Counties in Nebraska were more pro-Trump than any county in the deeply red states of Wyoming, West Virginia, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota, Tennessee and Arkansas. Kansas, South Dakota and Montana each had a single county give more than 90 percent support to Trump, but none of those intensely pro-Trump counties could surpass Grant and Hayes counties. It should be noted that states and counties are still finalizing their election results. Its not immediately apparent why a reality TV star from Manhattan would appeal so strongly to voters in the Nebraska Sand Hills and Panhandle, places where the only subways youll find are a brand of sandwich. But whats also known as Nebraskas 3rd Congressional District has a long tradition of voting for Republican presidential candidates. Strong GOP support in the 3rd District is a major reason why Nebraska hasnt helped elect a Democratic presidential candidate outright since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 although voters in Omahas 2nd Congressional District did send one electoral vote to President Barack Obama in 2008. Historically, the GOP is even more firmly entrenched in Grant County. Not since 1936, when Franklin D. Roosevelt sought his second of four terms in the White House, have the countys voters elected a Democrat. County Clerk Christee Haney said about 40 of the countys 640 residents are currently registered as Democrats, and Im not even sure theyre Democrats in their hearts. Rural Nebraska has gradually been turning a deeper shade of red for decades. The showdown between Trump and Clinton appears to have accelerated that trend. Since the 2000 presidential election in Nebraska, 67 counties have seen a decline in registered voters, according to Matt Waite, a professor of practice at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Of those 67 counties that lost voters, 64 of them went stronger for Trump than any other presidential candidate in the past five elections, Waite said. And 61 of those shrinking counties became more Republican as a percentage over the same period of time. Cattle ranchers, farmers and business owners in rural Nebraska cite a long and familiar list of Trump promises they liked: cracking down on illegal immigration, reducing regulation on business and agriculture, protecting the rights of gun owners, repealing the Affordable Care Act and checking the growth and power of the federal government. But more than anything, they said they voted for Trump because of what he wasnt: an establishment Democrat who promised to continue the policies of Obama. Drain the swamp. Lets make some changes, lets get the establishment out of there, said Pat Keslar of Hyannis, a motel owner who also breeds American quarter horses and hunting Labrador retrievers. Most of the Republicans interviewed for this story said Trump wasnt their first choice to lead the party. But not Keslar, who heard Trump speak in person several years ago at a motel industry conference. Keslar said he believes Trump can make the federal government more efficient and pro-business. Thank God for the Electoral College, he added. Like other Trump supporters, he said some of the statements Trump made about women are not right, but he quickly pointed at former President Bill Clintons checkered history of dealing with the opposite sex. Nearly the entire population of Grant County 98 percent identifies itself as non-Hispanic whites, according to records of the U.S. Census Bureau. The estimated median income in 2014 was a little over $45,000 and the majority of jobs are tied to agriculture and the school system. Mona Vinton, who operates a ranch in Grant County with her husband, Dan, rejected the notion that racist beliefs or intolerance of non-Christians may have factored in to Trumps rural support. Like others, she blamed the media for perpetuating a stereotype, along with one that says rural residents are uneducated and misinformed. Vinton said her first choice among the Republican field of candidates was retired surgeon Ben Carson, who is African-American. To me, theres only one race: the human race, she said. But thats not to suggest that immigration isnt a major concern in places like Grant County. Residents repeatedly expressed support for Trumps promise to build a wall on the nations southern border and to vet immigrants from Middle Eastern nations. Dailey, who serves as chairman of the Hyannis Village Board, said wanting to have secure borders and control who enters the country is about national security, not discrimination. The rising cost of health care is another big issue in rural Nebraska. Dailey, 60, owns a convenience store and a tire and trailer shop called Cow Country Sales and Service. He said the private health insurance he buys for himself and his wife recently increased by several hundred dollars and now approaches $2,000 per month. If Trump doesnt repeal Obamacare, Dailey said he hopes the incoming administration can at least find a way to bring costs down. James Doc Moore is a retired history professor from Cornell University who now lives in Sioux County in far northwestern Nebraska. He serves as the Democratic Party chairman in a county where Trump got 84 percent of the vote. Based on numerous conversations with Republican friends and neighbors, Moore said hes convinced what happened at the polls was more anti-Obama than it was pro-Trump. They did definitely like the plain, straight talk, he said. They really liked that. Being a Democrat takes commitment in some parts of rural Nebraska right now, said Vince Powers, the outgoing chairman of the Nebraska Democratic Party. He blamed the saturation of conservative talk radio, television and social media for creating an ideological echo chamber in cattle country. Democrats currently have 83 county chairmen in Nebraska. Among the 10 counties without one is Grant County, said Bud Pettigrew of Valentine, the party official in charge of recruiting county leaders. Some Democrats in the reddest counties keep a very low profile, Pettigrew said, especially if they own businesses. He said some zealots in his community have stolen Clinton signs and even bumper stickers off his car. A few have gotten in his face, he added. This is America, he said. You should be able to express your political beliefs without fear of violence or intimidation. Terry Sigler of North Platte is a longtime party organizer who fondly recalls the days when Democratic candidates such as J.J. Exon, Bob Kerrey and Ben Nelson could compete and win in statewide elections. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, a call for help to place yard signs throughout the 3rd District would attract several hundred volunteers. A recent call for the Clinton campaign drew maybe a dozen people, Sigler said. Party chairmen in western Nebraska were given only a handful of Clinton signs so resources could be concentrated in Omaha. Even though North Platte has a large number of railroad workers who belong to a labor union, Clinton got only 18 percent of the vote in Lincoln County. I have one bright side, Sigler said. The younger progressives are starting to get involved, the Bernie (Sanders) supporters. Dick Peters, an 88-year-old former auto mechanic from Hyannis, is one of the few people who was alive the last time Grant County voted for a Democrat. His grandfather voted for FDR in 1936 and always told Peters that the rich got richer and the poor got poorer under the Republicans. Im a firm believer in what my granddad said, Peters added. Peters voted for Clinton and hes not afraid to admit it. And he argued that Obama has been a good president, saying the country is in far better shape now than it was in 2008. Kimberly Nuss is a registered independent in Hyannis who said she leans left in most elections. There was never a chance she would vote for Trump, she said, largely because of the offensive things he said about women. Yet she said she can separate a political figure she opposes from the community where she lives. The 36-year-old school art teacher moved to Hyannis from Lincoln nine years ago. She said she loves the Sand Hills and its people, calling Hyannis a wonderful place to live and raise a family. It has not been her experience that people in cattle country are close-minded or racist, she said. And she spends her days working with bright children who know theres a diverse world beyond the buff-colored hills of their home. Its OK for me to be the weird Hillary supporter, she said. People need to know its OK not to think the way everybody thinks. Spaniard arrested over drugs From:Shanghai Daily | 2016-11-22 01:47 A Spanish drug addict who allegedly flew to Shanghai with about 277 grams of marijuana in his stomach that he ate as a food bar has been arrested for smuggling drugs by prosecutors in Jingan District. The 28-year-old suspect, identified only as Anthony, is accused of buying marijuana in something resembling a chocolate bar for 1,200 euros (US$1,275) in a Spanish town on October 13. Prosecutors say that later that night, he broke the bar into 24 pieces, wrapped them in transparent sheeting, and swallowed them. He flew to Shanghai, arriving on October 15. He had tried to excrete them, but he failed and developed severe stomach pains and started to vomit. Fearing he was dying, he was admitted to a Shanghai hospital on October 20. An x-ray showed foreign objects in his stomach which he couldnt explain. He said he wanted instead to fly home to Spain for treatment. But doctors called in the police. Prosecutors said Anthony has worked as an English teacher in a Shanghai education institution since 2015. LANSING A group of workers from National Pasteurized Egg asked the Lansing Village Board last week for help after being locked out by the company. The group appeared at the Nov. 15 trustees meeting and said on Oct. 17 about 70 workers walked out of the facility at 2963 Bernice Ave. in a protest. They allege sexual harassment, poor safety conditions, unfair pay for women and excessive hours, according to religious nonprofit labor advocate Arise Chicago. They went back to work four days later after agreeing to a union election with the aid of Local 881 of the United Food & Commercial Workers International. Arise Chicago says the company then locked out workers on Nov. 7 and hired replacement workers from a temp agency. The union election on whether to join the United Food & Commercial Workers took place Friday. There is no official result as of yet as the company challenged 107 of the votes, according to Arise Chicago. National Pasteurized Egg, of Lansing, did not respond to requests for comment. The company is being acquired by Post Holdings, of St. Louis, which will fold it into Michael Foods. Post Holdings did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. The eggs are sold under the Davidsons Safest Choice label. Jorge Mujica, an organizer from Arise Chicago, led the group at the Nov. 15 trustees meeting in Lansing. He asked the board to take up the matter. Of course, youre not responsible for enforcing labor rights, Mujica said. But if you want to see the city prosper for everybody, you have the moral responsibility to take a close look a the behavior of this plant. Village trustees listened but did not respond to the groups request to get involved. Nadia Mellin spoke to the board, reading from a prepared statement. She said shes been a Lansing resident for 11 years. I am the mother of two children. I buy their food in Lansing local stores. I pay my taxes in this city, Mellin said. Temporary workers from Indiana obviously do not. Arise Chicago released a statement in support of the workers signed by over 70 religious leaders from throughout the Chicago area. The tenets of all major faith traditions support the rights of workers to be paid fairly, to work safely and to freely decide about unionization without harassment or intimidation, the statement read in part. Arise also held a rally Thursday in Lansing to support the employees.w U.S. Steel will pay a fine of $2.2 million and clean up pollution in Gary, Michigan and Illinois as part of an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department. The Justice Department and the states of Indiana, Illinois and Michigan sued the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker in 2012 over alleged Clean Air Act violations. U.S. Steel reached an agreement Tuesday to settle the lawsuit that was filed in federal district court in the Northern District of Indiana. As part of the consent decree, U.S. Steel agreed to remove contaminated transformers at Gary Works and repair a large opening in a metal shell around a blast furnace to cut down on emissions at the steel mill on Lake Michigan. Such construction projects typically result in jobs for local union tradespeople. I applaud the united, collaborative effort by all parties who worked to resolve this matter and to hold accountable those responsible for polluting the environment, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said. No one should be subjected to living and working in a polluted environment. U. S. Steel further agreed to remove tires it dumped in Gary, and to remove and dispose PCB-contaminated lights at Gary schools, and replace them with more modern energy-efficient lighting that isnt toxic. Defendant U. S. Steel, a major global iron and steel manufacturer, has agreed to curtail significant pollution from its three Midwest plants, U.S. Justice Department Assistant Attorney General John Cruden said. This outstanding settlement, whose results will especially benefit the three environmental justice communities most closely affected by defendants pollution, is another example of how the Department of Justice, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and our state counterparts often work hand-in-hand to enforce our federal and state clean air act laws to protect the health and welfare of our citizens. U.S. Steel also agreed to do environmental cleanups at its steel mills in Granite City, lllinois, and in Ecorse, Michigan. We believe it was in the best interest of the company to settle this matter and move forward with our environmental stewardship priorities, U.S. Steel Spokeswoman Sarah Cassella said. It is our hope that the communities surrounding the facilities will benefit from the supplemental environmental projects that will be completed as part of the settlement. CHESTERTON A Chesterton High School student was arrested Friday after police said he and another student knocked a special needs students off his feet, nearly flipping him over. Isiah Hilley, 18, of Chesterton, was arrested by Chesterton police. He was charged with misdemeanor battery. According to a police report, the victim was walking down a hallway at Chesterton High School when he was "violently knocked to the ground." Police said Hilley and another student, who was not identified because he is a juvenile, can be seen on video surveillance both lowering their shoulders then rushing into the victim. According to police, the force of the impact was so forceful that it almost makes the victim flip over backward. Police the the victim landed on his back and his belongings scattered around him. Police said Hilley and the other boy ran away smiling. The police report called it an "unprovoked attack." The victim told police it hurt him when he hit the floor, but he suffered only a small rug burn. SCHERERVILLE A Lake County sheriff's officer was arrested early Tuesday on a drunken driving charge after an off-duty crash that heavily damaged his vehicle and a parked car, Indiana State Police said. Sgt. Joseph Hardiman, 34, told Indiana State Police he attempted to avoid a deer that ran out in front of his 2009 Ford van before the crash, according to a news release. State police were dispatched to the crash about 3 a.m. in the 5400 block of 75th Avenue, after Schererville police requested they conduct an independent operating while intoxicated investigation, the release said. Hardiman drove his van, which is a personal vehicle, to the left side of the road and struck a parked, unoccupied 2007 Dodge Caliber, police said. The crash caused substantial damage to both vehicles. Hardiman later agreed to take a breath test, which showed his blood alcohol content was 0.19, police said. The legal limit for driving in Indiana is 0.08. Sheriff's spokesman Mark Back said Hardiman has been placed on administrative leave with pay by Sheriff John Buncich. Lake County Police Merit Board rules do not permit the sheriff to place officers on leave without pay at this stage of an investigation, he said. Hardiman remained in the Lake County Jail Tuesday morning, Back said. State police are handling the criminal investigation, but Buncich anticipates bringing Hardiman before the Police Merit Board at its meeting next month, Back said. Hardiman is the second Lake County sheriff's officer to face a drunken driving charge this year. Lt. Guy Mikulich, 37, has been suspended without pay since his arrest July 10 in Gary. State police allege Mikulich was driving intoxicated in an unmarked Ford Crown Victoria squad car while on duty at the Gary Air Show when he struck and severely injured a pedestrian. Mikulich has pleaded not guilty to 13 charges in Lake Criminal Court. The Lake County Police Merit Board unanimously voted last week not to award disability benefits for Mikulich, who has sought treatment after being diagnosed with emotional problems, according to his attorney. Sheriff John Buncich, who was indicted last week on federal bribery charges, has been pushing for Mikulich's termination from the department. PORTAGE TOWNSHIP A Lake Station police officer was arrested Nov. 12 on a drunken driving charge in Porter County after driving his Jeep into a utility pole. Andres Verduzco, 31, of Portage, was charged with operating while intoxicated. Police were called at 12:42 a.m. Nov. 12 to the area of Lake/Porter County Line Road and County Road 700 North. Police said Verduzco's Jeep was sitting off the road and had severed a telephone pole and lines were down in the street. No injuries were reported. Porter County police said Verduzco was seated in the back seat of a Lake Station police car when they arrived. Verduzco told Porter County police he was sending his wife a text message while he was driving and lost control of his vehicle, according to the report. He also told police he had consumed seven or eight beers. He registered a blood alcohol content of 0.13 on a portable breath test, but Verduzco refused to take a certified chemical test. Porter County police requested and received a warrant to draw his blood. He was taken to Porter County Jail. Lake Station Police Chief David Johnson said Verduzco is on administrative leave pending the investigation and review by the Lake Station Police Merit Board. When asked why Lake Station police were at the scene of a crash in Porter County, he said the department is reviewing everything that occurred that night. Call a Chick called out over lurid menu From:Shanghai Daily | 2016-11-22 01:47 SHANGHAIS market watchdog is investigating fried chicken restaurant chain Call a Chick over allegations its name and the names of some of its menu items are vulgar and offensive, officials said yesterday. Call a Chick has more than 40 branches and some of its dishes translate as virgin chick, having sex with her, and chicks sex partner. They refer to spring chicken, chicken drumstick and drinks. But in Chinese, a chick is a slang term for a prostitute. The promotion slogan of the chain is satisfying all your expectations over chicks and a card sent with takeaway food reads: The secret of a man who has sex 10 times a night. The Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau said it had launched an investigation yesterday. The content involved could violate social order, said Li Hua, deputy director of the advertisement department of the bureau. Advertising laws ban ads that undermine public order or violate ethical standards. Violators can be ordered to stop immediately or face a fine of up to 1 million yuan (US$145,000) and their business license revoked in serious cases. Call a Chick first came under fire in Sichuan Province after a woman complained to media that the sexually explicit content of one of the chains outlets in Chengdu embarrassed her because her 8-year-old son kept asking her the meaning of call a chick. That outlets signboard was dismantled and the menu changed under the order of local urban management authorities. The Shanghai-based chain said in a statement it has started replacing its promotional slogans and menu in both physical outlets and online. It apologized to consumers who felt uncomfortable. It said its promotional content had been designed for the 18-28 age group its target audience when the group opened two years ago. At the Puan Road outlet of the restaurant in Huangpu District, all sexually explicit content has been removed from the menu and signboards, but the name of the restaurant remains unchanged. And the sensitive content can still be found on third-party food delivery platforms and restaurant reviews. PORTAGE The city will settle a federal lawsuit filed by a man who alleged Portage police allowed a police K-9 to attack him while he was unconscious. Richard Kominski, of Griffith, will receive $9,300 and have a $18,356 restitution charge waived. The restitution was due to damage to a police car. The incident stemmed from a September 2014 arrest. Kominski and another man allegedly were stealing from Town & Country grocery when Kominski got into a car and led police on a chase. The chase ended with a crash with a police car at the corner of Carnation and Crocus streets. In his lawsuit, Kominski claimed he was unconscious when a K-9 officer released his dog inside of the car. Kominski was bitten by the dog and received injuries to his head and arm. The original police report said Kominski fought with the K-9 handler and his dog. Court filings by the city also denied Kominski's allegations. City Attorney Gregg Sobkowski said settling the claim is not an admission of guilt by the city, rather based on economics that the settlement would be cheaper than fighting the issue in court. The settlement has been approved by the Advisory Claims Committee and Portage Board of Works and will be on the City Council's Dec. 6 agenda. MUNSTER Hammond is in Rosemary Wilson Colbys blood. And she smiles widely when she begins to talk about her and Hammonds heritage. The 99-year-old woman is the oldest living descendant of the founders of Hammond. Shes not only the great-granddaughter of Caroline and Ernst Hohman, but Colbys family tree also branches out to the Sibleys, Sohls and Motts. Great-Grandma Caroline came from Chicago during the plague, said Colby as she and her daughter, Rosemary Nelson, thumbed through family photo albums more than 150 years old and history books that tell the story of the city. Ernst and Caroline Hohman migrated from Germany and initially settled in Chicago. In 1849, they ventured into what was considered at the time wilderness along the banks of the Calumet River. They established a business and bought land. They called it Hohmans Inn. People came and spent the night on the way to Chicago, said Colby. Her great-grandparents died before she was born, but their stories were passed to her by her grandmother, Emma Hohman Mott. Caroline Hohmans maiden name was Sibley. She was born in England. Her sister, Louisa, married Walter Sohl and also migrated to what was to become Hammond. The city itself was named after George H. Hammond, who located his meat packing company there in 1869. Caroline Sibley Elementary School in Lansing is named after her great-grandmother. And, said Colby, even though Caroline wasnt Catholic, she gave the land for the construction of St. Joseph Church in Hammond. The three family names are emblazoned in street signs with Hohman Avenue remaining the main street through the citys downtown. Colby was born on Sept. 30, 1917, in Chicago, the daughter of Irene Mott and Charles Wilson. Her mother died in childbirth, and Colby and her father moved into her grandparents home across the street from Harrison Park. They used to call it Motts front yard, she said, because her grandfather, Fred Mott, developed the 25-acre park on South Hohman Avenue while he served as mayor of Hammond, from 1894 to 1898. I used to put my ice skates on at grandmas house and go skating at the pond in the park. All my friends would come over. Colby recalled having lots of family around as a child. An uncle, Ben Bell, also served as Hammond fire chief for a time. Colbys father, who worked for Wilkie Metals Refinery in Hammond, eventually remarried and moved to Dyer. The home, on Lincoln Highway across from St. Joseph Church, was only recently demolished to make way for retail development. Colby graduated from Dyer High School, where she was a cheerleader and played girls softball, but her heart remained in Hammond. There was a lot more going on in Hammond, she said. There were two movie theaters, the Orpheum and the Parthenon. There was also the Masonic Hall and shopping at Minas and Goldblatts. Youd go to Goldblatts basement, where they sold the best cheese, recalled Colby. On Friday Id pack my bag and my dad would drive me into Hammond. It took a while compared to now. Dad had one of those funny old cars, she said. I loved to come to grandmas. Grandma had a big old house. She had a separate music room and had a grand piano, and I took piano lessons, said Colby. When Colby graduated from high school, she attended Western College for Women, now Miami University of Ohio. When she graduated, she came back to Hammond and worked as a social worker for the Department of Public Welfare. She met her husband, Averill Colby Jr., who graduated from Hammond High School and worked in the Hammond Sanitary Department before taking a job at U.S. Steel. They married a year later, in 1940. The two remained in Hammond, raising three children. Only her daughter Rosemary Nelson remains in Hammond. Her husbands family had been recruited to come to Hammond in its early years, and her father-in-law, Averill Colby Sr., established a bus company, Shore Line Bus, the citys first public transportation system. INDIANAPOLIS One hundred fifty men and women from the four corners of the state, and dozens of cities and towns in between, entered the Statehouse as individuals Tuesday and left it as members of the 120th Indiana General Assembly. Together they will work for four months, starting in January, to understand, represent, prioritize and attempt to meet the known and unknown needs of some 6.6 million Hoosiers. There will be fierce debates, misunderstandings and hurt feelings during the legislative session, with the possibility for triumphant accomplishments, bipartisan cooperation and bold leadership hanging over each day. But on the first day, there were only smiles as new members, including five from Northwest Indiana, entered the wood-paneled House and the marble-walled Senate for the first time, took their oaths of office and perhaps paused for a moment to ask themselves how exactly they got there. Im just trying to take it all in, said state Rep. Jim Pressel, R-Rolling Prairie, who never before held elected office until LaPorte County voters decided two weeks ago to send him to the Statehouse on their behalf. Theres just an incredible amount to learn, he said. I think we all have an idea how it should work, but how it really works is just intriguing. Pressel said hes not intimidated by the task ahead of him and is ready to get down to business, a sentiment shared by new state Sen. Eddie Melton, D-Merrillville, one of just nine Democrats in the 50-member Senate. We have a lot of significant issues that have to be addressed as far as K-12 education and road funding, Melton said. Right now Im enjoying the moment, but I know its time to work. State Sen. Mike Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores, almost missed the start of his four-year term as he searched outside the Senate chamber for his family to join him for his swearing-in by Chief Justice Loretta Rush, but they already were waiting inside for him at the rostrum. Being involved with county government I thought that was a really, really neat experience to be sworn in there, and its nothing like this, Bohacek said. He vowed that come January he definitely will be on time to start addressing Indianas drug epidemic, infrastructure needs and pre-kindergarten funding. Across the rotunda, two of the Regions new House members pretty much have seen it all before, but still couldnt be happier to be there. State Rep. Earl Harris Jr., D-East Chicago, is following in the footsteps of his late father and namesake, who represented the 2nd House District for a third of a century, and his mother, former state Rep. Donna Harris, D-East Chicago. He confessed that after years of watching from the sidelines hes excited to be the one actually advancing policy ideas and working to make them reality. Im looking forward to serving the citizens of Northwest Indiana, and the entire state, and doing some good, Harris said. State Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster, who served in the House from 2006 to 2014, picked up right where she left off after losing a re-election bid two years ago and reclaiming her seat Nov. 8. I dont really feel like I ever left, she said. I have been equally engaged in the community and doing the things that I would normally do to move Northwest Indiana forward. The longest-serving Region lawmaker, state Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, with 34 years in the House, said he hopes the commitment to bipartisanship pledged by House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, in his session-opening address will allow the 30 Democrats in the 100-member chamber to meaningfully contribute to the new state budget and other laws that will be enacted next year. I think that would go a long way in terms of what the future of this state will hold, Brown said. CROWN POINT Gov. Mike Pence named former business owner Amy Jorgensen the new Hammond City Court judge on Monday, a decision criticized by the city's mayor. Jorgensen is the former owner and operator of seven Sylvan Learning Centers in Northwest Indiana and Chicago, according to a resume she provided The Times of Northwest Indiana. Jorgensen said Monday in an email she sold her remaining interest in the tutoring centers in December 2015, but she remains a consultant for the new owners. In January, Jorgensen was appointed chairwoman of the St. John Republican Party, but she said Monday she resigned from that position. Jorgensen obtained a law degree from the Valparaiso University School of Law in 1998, the resume states. Jorgensen will replace longtime jurist Jeffrey Harkin, who died in April. Gerald P. Kray was appointed the pro tem judge on April 26. The City Court handles both criminal and civil cases, including evictions and local traffic and ordinance violations. Pence said in a statement Monday he believed Jorgensen possessed the intellect and temperament to make an excellent judge, and he was confident she would serve the community with distinction. Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr., a Democrat, criticized the governor Monday for choosing a nonresident of the city to serve as its judge. He also said Jorgensen lacked the law experience necessary to preside over the city's busy court. She will get very little respect from me as mayor, McDermott said in an interview. This is a carpetbagger coming in to run our City Court and hundreds of thousands of dollars. The governor's office did not respond to a request seeking comment. Jorgensen said she had no interest in partisan squabbling. Jorgensen's resume indicates she has had little, if any, professional law experience, but her law license remains active, state records indicate. She did not respond directly to questions about her law experience, but said Pence reviewed her application and declared she would make an "excellent judge," which should satisfy the mayor. Jorgensen admitted she was not a current resident of Hammond, but said it was not a requirement for a gubernatorial appointee. However, she said she executed a lease for a Hammond residence last Friday, and she was also seeking to purchase a home. Jorgensen was selected over two other candidates for the appointment Hammond City Court civil referee Nathan Foster and Hammond attorney Diana Gonzalez. Jorgensen will serve the remainder of Harkin's four-year term, which began last November. Friday marks 10 years since one of the city's most infamous police shootings, where a Queens man was gunned down on his wedding day. The former fiancee of Sean Bell sat down with NY1's Dean Meminger to talk about how her life has changed in the past decade. It was supposed to be her wedding day, but it ended up being the worst day of Nicole Paultre-Bell's life. Just hours before she was to marry Sean Bell, he was shot dead by NYPD detectives in a hail of 50 bullets. "Everyone who had come to town to celebrate the wedding with us stayed for his funeral," Paultre-Bell said. "It was not only traumatic for me, it was traumatic for the entire family. And still is." Friday morning marks 10 years since one of the city's most horrific and controversial police shootings. Sean Bell and his friends were celebrating at his bachelor party at a Queens club when police say they thought he had a gun. As they went to approach him in his Nissan, undercover detectives say he tried to ram them with it. They fired 50 shots, killing the soon-to-be groom. Two of his friends in the car were injured. No gun was found. "I've learned to accept. I've learned to be able to live. Because if I were to hold onto that bitterness, it would just eat away like cancer," Paultre-Bell said. "I've had to show my daughters a mother who is not bitter." There was a state trial for three of the detectives involved. A judge found them not guilty. The Justice Department decided against a federal trial. Meminger: Ten years later, would you be willing to speak to any of the officers? Paultre-Bell: Absolutely. Although I don't think they would be willing to talk to me. But absolutely. You know, I am raising two daughters. Jada and Jordyn Bell, their father is Sean Bell. For the rest of their life, they are going to carry this story with them, no matter where these officers are now. Maybe they are not even thinking of us. I don't know. Ten years later, Paultre-Bell says old wounds are reopened every time she hears of another unarmed black man killed by police. "It is like, 'Oh my gosh,' again," she said. "And for my daughters, it is a conversation I have to have, because we live in the era of social media." And that's often a difficult conversation with the two daughters she had with Sean. One is 10 years old. The other is soon to be 14, and she's very aware of recent cases. "When there is a highly publicized police shooting, her father's name is brought up again. And sometimes, she may be tagged in a post, or her friends may be talking about it at school," Paultre-Bell said. "And it is tough." Paultre-Bell, who is married now and has another daughter. says she wants her children to trust police, but admits for her family. that is not always easy to do. She's encouraged by the NYPD and other police departments admitting there needs to be more community policing strategies to improve the troubled relationship between officers and African-Americans. "It is a baby step in the right direction. It is," she said. "I can only hope that there is so much more done." On Thanksgiving night at 11 p.m., Paultre-Bell and other family members will gather on Sean Bell Way in Jamaica, Queens to remember his life. At 4 a.m. Friday, they will ring a bell 50 times to reflect the number of shots police fired on that day 10 years ago. Global health is priority for China From:Shanghai Daily | 2016-11-22 01:47 PREMIER Li Keqiang said China would continue to promote global health while providing help to other developing countries. Li made the remarks in Shanghai at the opening ceremony of the 9th Global Conference on Health Promotion. Jointly organized by China and the World Health Organization, it runs until Thursday. WHO officials, city mayors and health ministers are among more than 1,180 health-sector personnel from 126 countries and regions at the conference to share ideas on how to improve the well-being of the worlds 7.4 billion people. China had taken an active role in pushing forward global health, Li said, adding that the country would continue to honor its international obligations. In the past 50 years China had sent 20,000 medical workers to 67 countries and regions, treating more than 260 million patients. Li said when an Ebola epidemic broke out in West Africa in 2014, China sent 1,200 medical workers and public health experts to the affected areas, significantly helping to defeat the epidemic. He called for a strengthening of global cooperation and for the building of a global prevention and control system for public health. China, which supported WHOs drive to establish emergency teams and set up contingency funds, also called on developed countries to increase support for developing countries and jointly build a global health and safety barrier, Li said. The premier also urged the promotion of health science and technology research. Technological innovation is the golden key to open the door to health, he said. Since the first Global Conference on Health Promotion in 1986, it has become a key platform for WHO and members to discuss important global health issues and set the agenda for promoting health worldwide. This years theme is Health for all and all for health. Margaret Chan, WHOs director-general, in her keynote address, praised Shanghais efforts to make airports, railway stations and hotels smoke-free. And she appealed to city mayors at the conference to make sure the smoking control in China can be further progressed. Describing the combination of legislative and fiscal measures as among the most effective interventions, Chan called for intersectional efforts at both the national and municipal levels to reshape peoples environments and lifestyle choices. Yesterday, the Shanghai Declaration on Health Promotion was delivered and adopted by participants of the conference as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by world leaders last year. The goal is to end poverty and inequality and tackle climate change. The Shanghai Declaration will guide the next phase of work in global health and enlarge the role of health in the UN Sustainable Development Agenda by 2030, according to WHO. The declaration states health and well-being are essential to achieving sustainable development. It also called on governments to consider the growing importance and value of traditional medicine. Tomorrow, which is China Day at the conference, the delegates will be invited to tour sites across Shanghai where innovations in health promotion and sustainable development have been implemented. The route spans 15 districts of the city, with visits to schools, workplaces and neighborhood communities. NY1 went to the municipal archives to take a look at the controversy that erupted when former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani decided to take his papers with him when he left office. NY1's Michael Scotto filed the following report. Donald Trump supporter Rudolph Giuliani hammered Hillary Clinton during the presidential race for improperly handling classified information on her private email server. "She clearly violated the law," he said in August. But critics say Giuliani himself has a history of mishandling government documents - not classified material, but records the public has the right to access. Before leaving office, Giuliani did something unprecedented. He hired a moving company to take 2,000 boxes of his mayoral papers to a Queens warehouse, and then to a private archivist, before transferring them to the city. "He's not a man who's known for trying to be transparent about what he's doing," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. Back then, Giuliani said the city could not properly organize the papers. Critics wondered whether Giuliani was trying to expunge some of his record. Archivist Richard Lieberman doesn't think that was Giuliani's motive, but says the move was a slap to the city. "We, meaning the municipal archives, has the best staff," Richard Lieberman said. "They've been doing it for decades. They know what they're doing. With Giuliani reportedly up for a job as Donald Trump's secretary of state or head of national intelligence, NY1 searched his archives for records of a diplomatic dust-up when he was mayor, his ouster of Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat from Lincoln Center in 1995. We found only a letter, written by an aide who said Arafat's removal was based on "principle...not politics." But because of the way Giuliani handled his papers, critics say the public will never know if other records that could shed light on the incident were destroyed. "The fact that Giuliani shipped his papers out will put them under a cloud forever," Donna Lieberman said. A Giuliani spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. A law has been passed ensuring no mayor will walk out of City Hall again with records that belong to the public. The rapper Kanye West was hospitalized on Monday in Los Angeles for exhaustion, hours after he canceled the remainder of his 2016 tour, his representative said. The Los Angeles Police Department said that it had responded to a call in the West Hollywood area at 1:20 p.m., but that the encounter became a medical emergency and was handed off to the Los Angeles Fire Department. In a recording of the Fire Departments dispatch call obtained by TMZ, the matter was referred to as a psychiatric emergency. Mr. Wests representative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said the call had come from the rappers doctor and that he was taken willingly to the U.C.L.A. Medical Center for evaluation. The episode was first reported by NBC News. The cancellation of Mr. Wests Saint Pablo tour, which was scheduled to run through the end of the year, came after a turbulent few days for the rapper. Onstage in Sacramento on Saturday night, Mr. West delivered a long, meandering speech, criticizing friends and associates in the music industry, including Jay Z and Beyonce, as he praised the communication style of President-elect Donald J. Trump. He then ended the concert after only a few songs. His show the next night in Los Angeles was canceled just hours before he was set to perform. Its back now because there is a growing recognition that demand for legal services is not picking up and firms are facing overcapacity issues, said Peter Zeughauser, a law firm consultant. Some firms have been quietly weeding their partner ranks as a result. In a process called de-equitizing, law firms set retirement dates for certain equity partners or reduce them to salaried status, cutting them out of the yearly profit distribution. Such demotions take a heavy toll personally and financially. One lawyer, who graduated from an Ivy League law school in 1994, recalled that her own experience was dismaying and disorienting. After a decade of law firm and government work, she made partner at an elite firm but was nudged out the door a few years later. It was, she said, the first negative feedback she had received from her fellow partners. A feeling of loss stuck with her after her exit, she said. The lawyer said that she had to start her career over, taking a job that was more junior and at lower pay. She agreed to tell her story on the condition that she and her former firm not be identified, fearing that her professional reputation and livelihood would be seriously harmed as a result. Not all de-equitized lawyers leave. The number of nonequity partners at the 200 largest law firms in the country has more than tripled to an average of 117 per firm in 2014 from an average of just 35 in 1999, said James D. Cotterman, a principal at Altman Weil, a legal consulting firm. There were men in suits and loafers and some apparent tourists. At least one victorious buyer walked back down the line, wearing one pair of Spectacles while hawking the other pair that he had bought with gusto. Four hundred and you can leave the line! he shouted. Its unclear whether he found any takers. Reporters from USA Today and other outlets descended, along with the temperature. By 9:30 a.m., Snapchat employees had handed out wristbands to some of those in line, demarcating in purple plastic who was assured an opportunity to buy up to two pairs of Spectacles. I received the second-to-last bracelet. By about 12:30 p.m., the last of us were ushered into the pop-up space, which had once housed the restaurant and cafe Bottega del Vino. Once warmly decorated, it was now rendered stark white, with brick walls and an exposed industrial ceiling. Television monitors hung from one wall, rotating as they displayed footage captured from Spectacles. At the far end, standing apart from the crowd, was the bright yellow Snapbot vending machine that dispensed the glasses. Even inside, time passed slowly. Word circulated that the Snapbot was having trouble reading some credit cards. Some customers were busy taking videos of themselves and others buying the glasses. Mr. Min of McCann worried that he would run late for meetings that he had already postponed on account of his consumerist adventure. Debates arose over which colors to get: stylish black, colorful blue or ostentatious coral. A Snapchat staff member said the most popular choice was black, followed by the teal-like blue. All decisions were final. Several people sat on the floor, peering intently at their smartphones. A few others animatedly discussed how much they could sell their Spectacles for. It had all the trappings of a high-level rapprochement: President-elect Donald J. Trump, now the nations press critic in chief, inviting the leading anchors and executives of television news to join him on Monday for a private meeting of minds. On-air stars like Lester Holt, Charlie Rose, George Stephanopoulos and Wolf Blitzer headed to Trump Tower for the off-the-record gathering, typically the kind of event where journalists and politicians clear the air after a hard-fought campaign. Instead, the president-elect delivered a defiant message: You got it all wrong. Mr. Trump, whose antagonism toward the news media was unusual even for a modern presidential candidate, described the television networks as dishonest in their reporting and shortsighted in missing the signs of his upset victory. He criticized some in the room by name, including CNNs president, Jeffrey A. Zucker, according to multiple people briefed on the meeting who were granted anonymity to describe confidential discussions. It is not unusual for journalists to agree to off-the-record sessions with prominent politicians, including President Obama, as a way to gain insights and develop relationships. By now, jewels were piling up on the table a giant sparkler of a Kissing Gems ring, asymmetrical earrings with multi-carat diamonds, a sapphire-encrusted chalcedony cuff, a lacy necklace of diamond rhondelles topped by remarkable unoiled emeralds. A respectably sized yellow diamond was found forgotten on the showroom carpet floor. Then the showstopper appeared and everyone in the room who was not a Boghossian gasped. The bib of pink sapphires, finished just days before and set to have its debut at Jewelry Arabia this week, bore a grape-size diamond suspended from a diamond-encrusted flourish of Boghossians new Les Merveilles technique. Boghossian introduced this technique, after years of experimentation, at the Biennale des Antiquaires in September: infinitesimal square prongs secure stones in a gradation of sizes, creating a tapered column that gleams on all sides, a swooping strip that looks as if it was made of solid diamonds. The brand may be fairly new to the public, established only eight years ago, but the brothers Ralph and Roberto Boghossian, are the sixth generation in the jewelry business. Originally from Armenia, the Boghossians set up a stone-trading business in Aleppo, Syria, in the early 20th century, then moved to Beirut, Lebanon, where Albert and his brother Jean Ralph and Robertos father were born. Image A Kissing Gems ring. Credit... Reto Albertalli for The New York Times In the 1970s, with the war in Lebanon raging, the brothers moved to Antwerp, Belgium, to sell gems, settling later in Geneva, where they expanded to manufacturing jewelry for high-end brands and private customers. When the younger Boghossians joined their father and uncle in the business, they wanted the family name to become a brand. Since then, the family has capitalized on its connection to gemstones and its multinational history. Were people who come from the East, yet its 40 years that were working in Europe, Albert Boghossian said. We blend both civilizations in our thinking and philosophy, where the East brings with it the femininity, the intricacy, the sophistication of the workmanship, like you see in the Taj Mahal or the Alhambra, and the West brings with it the modernity, the avant-garde touch, the innovation. Our jewels reflect those two strengths. It started almost as a whimsy. Then it took over her life. For Louisa Guinness, jewelry made by artists is more than just adornment. Her gallery in the Mayfair district of London is a mecca for those who love such style. She frequently commissions pieces from contemporary artists such as Anish Kapoor, Claude LaLanne, Marc Quinn and Ron Arad and works closely with them on the designs. She has curated art jewelry exhibitions for Sothebys S|2 Gallery in London and is curating another for Jacob Rothschild, to open at his Waddesdon Manor museum, in Buckinghamshire, in March. But her life didnt start this way. Ms. Guinness, who was born in Ireland, spent nearly 20 years in the finance world, first in London and then in Hong Kong and New York, before returning to Britain in 2000. I needed a break, she recalled. I didnt know what it was I wanted to do, but I knew somehow it should be with art, or jewelry and art. In 2003, she and her husband, the art dealer Ben Brown, came up with the idea to organize an exhibition of artist-designed outdoor furniture. Soon after, inspired by her mother-in-laws Calder necklace, Ms. Guinness organized a Christmas-season sales exhibition of jewelry by artists. I wanted to put together all the artist jewelry I could get my hands on, Ms. Guinness recounted, because the more I discovered and the more others discovered it, I just wanted more and more. BANGALORE, India When Sushma Sonty wanted to buy herself some jewelry for her birthday, she didnt head to a traditional jeweler, as is the custom in India, or even to a local store. Instead, she turned to Melorra, a new website that marries Western fast-fashion trends with wearable fine jewelry. It was the first time I was buying semiprecious jewelry online, and I took a risk, said Ms. Sonty, 32, a human resources manager. But it exceeded my expectations. She bought a pair of 18-karat rose-gold earrings for the equivalent of about $200, not an insignificant sum in a country where the average online monthly spend is about 9,400 rupees, or $140. Melorras designs are international and sophisticated, like something someone in London or New York would wear, Ms. Sonty said, adding, You dont see these designs in Indian jewelry stores. Jewelry is an integral part of Indian culture, but most makers here design for big occasions, producing traditional pieces with significant price tags based on gold and gemstone weights. That focus has continued even though the nation is modernizing at a rapid clip, and so are womens wardrobes, with urban Indian women preferring Western ready-to-wear or casual Indian wear as their daily attire. Ornate Indian-style precious jewelry doesnt suit such clothes, so many either gravitate toward costume jewelry or do without jewelry altogether. Ever wonder why some watch companies have the word Fleurier attached to their names? Just as the Vallee de Joux has been known as the birthplace of Swiss watchmaking, for centuries Fleurier, the village of flowers, has been the center for the decorative crafts of engraving, enameling and gem-setting that turn watches into works of art. The town even has its own style of engraving, called fleurisanne, developed by Bovet in the 1800s, which uses distinctive swirls to convey the way the poppies in the fields bordering the river valley dance in the wind. A visitor today to this small community of about 3,500 residents will find among the neat stucco houses and eccentric street art some obvious indications of its watchmaking attachment. One square is named the Place de la Horlogerie; a blue-and-white street sign announces the Rue de lEcole dHorlogerie, even though the school closed in the 1970s. And the names Parmigiani, Bovet, Vaucher and Chopard are often heard in stories of the towns past, the brands own tangled history in watchmaking and, today, as the employers of a third of the towns population. A Brooklyn man who tried to join the Islamic State and later told an informer that the group wanted to stage an attack in Times Square similar to the one that killed 86 people in Nice, France, last summer was arrested in New York on Monday, the authorities said. The man, Mohamed Rafik Naji, 37, who is facing charges of trying to provide material support to terrorists, began expressing support for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, on social media in December 2014 and traveled overseas to try to join the group three months later, according to a criminal complaint. He first went to Turkey, then to Yemen, according to the complaint. He appeared in federal court in Brooklyn on Monday night and remained in custody, said Nellin N. McIntosh, a spokeswoman for the United States attorneys office for the Eastern District of New York. She said no bail was set. As alleged, the defendant was persistent in his efforts to join ISIL and support its terrorist objectives, Robert L. Capers, the United States attorney, said in a statement. Prosecutors presented no evidence that an attack in Times Square was actually planned. Zheng Yi: Chinese enterprises to make full use of commercial insurance when going out By:Jiang Wenran | From:english.eastday.com | 2016-11-21 10:54 Shanghai, November 21- Over the past five years, China's foreign investment has significant growth, which is expected to continue rising until 2020 or later, and not be affected by the global economic slowdown according to an authoritative report. Due to the differences between Chinese and foreign environments, policies and laws & regulations, Zheng Yi, president and Chief Executive Officer of AIG Insurance Company China Limited told reporter from Eastday.com during the exclusive interview that Chinese enterprises will encounter natural, liability and financial risks in the process of going out. Commercial insurance should be made full use to effectively avoid those risks. The earliest form for Chinese enterprises to go out is to export products, Zheng proudly said that the insurance industry has started to protect exported Chinese products from the aspects of export product liability insurance and export cargo insurance since then. Later, an increasing number of Chinese projects are going out as more and more Chinese engineering contractors conducted infrastructure projects abroad, from Southeast Asia at the very beginning to South America, Middle East, Africa and other developing countries. Zheng Yi noted that a lot of large projects were successfully finished at that time. Ministry of Commerces latest statistics show that the total amount of Chinese foreign investment has surpassed the amount of foreign capital into China by 2015. Chinas foreign investment amounted to $145.6 billion last year while a total of $135.6 billion entered China last year. China has become the worlds second largest foreign investment destination last year, after the United States. We feel very proud that more and more Chinese enterprises are going out, Zheng also pointed out that due to the differences between Chinese and foreign environment, policy and laws & regulations, Chinese enterprises will encounter natural, liability and financial risks in the process of going out. Commercial insurance should be made full use to effectively avoid those risks. As the domestic Chinese enterprises management ways are not necessarily suitable for its development abroad, they always need a learning process. Zheng noted that they may have to pay some tuition in the process, but hopefully not too expensive. What risks can be avoided through commercial insurance? Zheng Yi told reporter that the first one is natural risks. Commercial insurance products help avoid property loss caused by earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters. The second is liability risks. Environment, personnel, the third party and some other liabilities are involved during Chinese enterprises going out process. Zheng mentioned that some corresponding insurance and services are provided to avoid these risks. The third is financial risks. Due to asymmetric information, merger and acquisition will also carry some risks. So we provide those Chinese enterprises with M&A insurance to eliminate or avoid risks. China's insurance has relatively short history and the total insurance premiums percentage of GDP is about 1%, lower than that of developed countries (4% ~ 5%). Zheng hopes to introduce the concept of risk aversion to Chinese enterprises. Zheng noted that comprehensive planning and commercial insurance are needed before companies going out. A joint New York State and federal investigation into how false reports of gunfire at Kennedy International Airport in August led to mass panic found security protocols seriously lacking, with poor coordination between agencies and widely divergent levels of training for security personnel exacerbating the chaos. Within minutes of the first reports of gunfire on the night of Aug. 14, a wave of panic swept across the airport as thousands of travelers and employees, receiving no official direction, took it upon themselves to run or hide. The investigation by the task force, the details of which were outlined in a six-page letter released by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Monday, offered the first official account of how fear led to hysteria and ultimately put lives at risk. The task force cited a failure of bureaucracy, where the lack of clear lines of authority and poor communication led to one of the nations busiest transit hubs grinding to a halt. The episode also raised serious concerns about what would have happened if it had not been a false alarm but an actual emergency. Faced with a Republican president-elect willing to draw hard lines on immigration, policing and funding for social programs, Mayor Bill de Blasio in a formal address on Monday drew some of his own, presenting New York City as a national model of resistance and a better way. Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, vowed to mount a legal challenge if the federal government tried to create a registry of the nations Muslims. He promised to protect immigrant families threatened with deportation. He pledged that an aggressive stop-and-frisk policing policy would never return to New York. The president-elect talked during the campaign about the movement that he had built, said the mayor, referring to Donald J. Trump and the huge rallies he led. Now, its our turn to build a movement a movement of the majority that believes in respect and dignity for all. The mayors 40-minute speech billed as a major address and delivered to supporters, invited guests and 11 center rows filled with city workers at Cooper Union echoed in theme and some content one that another Democrat, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, delivered a day before, also in Manhattan. Both levels extend westward from the main Stephen A. Schwarzman building. The Milstein stacks will provide quick access to the materials and also preserve them for future generations, library officials said, adding that the fate of the old seven-floor storage space has not been decided. After construction on the underground space was completed in March, work began on moving the books in, placing bar codes on and storing them based on size rather than by subject or author, a system that library officials say will increase the new bunkers capacity by 40 percent. Library workers in the Milstein stacks lay incoming books on color-coded trays that help categorize the books, which are then assigned to shelf spots California Local History was recently placed next to a Bible, for example, because they are of similar size and given a bar code. Library officials said the 1 million or so books that were not brought back will remain in New Jersey but can be quickly made available to users. Charles Warren, a Manhattan architect who opposed the librarys original plan to move the three million books off-site, said it was a real concern that only a portion of those books were being returned to Manhattan, especially since the stacks under the reading room are empty. This is a library, a place where you go for books, he said, and now there are fewer books available than before. Library officials said they carefully selected which books to bring back, favoring titles published in the last 100 years, which are generally in highest demand. They estimated that this curated portion of materials would fulfill 90 percent of research requests, and said underground space was being kept free to accommodate new material, including the approximately 100,000 volumes they acquire every year. For the last four years, New York Democrats have had to contend with an only-in-Albany riddle: In a 63-member State Senate with slightly more Democrats than there are Republicans, how do the Republicans manage to hold a majority? The answer often lies with one rogue Democrat: Senator Simcha Felder, who votes with the Republicans and whose heavily Democratic, overwhelmingly Orthodox Jewish district in Brooklyn voted just as overwhelmingly for President-elect Donald J. Trump. To the Democrats endless frustration, Mr. Felder has never once caucused with members of his own party, defecting to the other side of the aisle within days of being elected in 2012. This year, the Democrats long electoral migraine did not lift. With absentee ballots in two close races on Long Island still being counted to settle the final Senate margins, the Democrats would need to win at least one of those, lure back the seven-member Independent Democratic Conference which has teamed up with the Republicans to govern the Senate for several years and reclaim Mr. Felder in order to form a working majority. The dean of Yale College, Jonathan Holloway, announced on Monday that he was stepping down at the end of the academic year to become provost of Northwestern University. As dean, Dr. Holloway, a scholar of African-American history and one of the highest ranking minorities at Yale, last year found himself at the center of a storm of student protests challenging what they described as a racially charged atmosphere on campus. As protests over the treatment of minorities stretched across the country in recent years, impassioned college students have demonstrated on campuses from New York to California. At Yale, the protests were set off by an email about Halloween costumes that some students considered to be culturally offensive, but included the universitys history and the way it has dealt with race. Dr. Holloway, the first black dean of Yale, was uniquely situated to address the issues, and he embraced some student demands, like calling for a more diverse faculty. But he was also criticized by some students who said he should have worked harder to address concerns about race on campus. To the Editor: Re Donald Trumps Disturbing Picks: What the Justice Dept. Would Look Like Under Jeff Sessions (editorial, Nov. 19): We now know the answer to Donald Trumps appeal to black voters, What do you have to lose? Mr. Trump has nominated Jeff Sessions to be attorney general. The Senate years ago turned down Mr. Sessions for a federal court judgeship because of his biased racial views. If confirmed by the Senate to be attorney general, Mr. Sessions will be the government official deciding whether to bring civil rights prosecutions in cases in which state officials fail to prosecute police officers for shooting unarmed African-Americans. What do we have to lose? The Democrats totally failed to answer Mr. Trumps rhetorical appeal to black voters. Now the answers are coming out when it is too late. M.A. FEIRSTEIN New York To the Editor: In response to Specter of Race Trails a Potential Cabinet Pick (front page, Nov. 17), I can tell you as a friend who has known Jeff Sessions for 32 years that Jeff does not have a racist bone in his body. I first met Jeff when he was United States attorney in Mobile, Ala., and I was the United States attorney in Atlanta. To stretch our limited per diems on travel to Justice Department conferences, we often shared a hotel room. You really get to know a person when you interact so closely. Myanmar has long persecuted the countrys Rohingya Muslim minority, denying it basic rights to citizenship, to marry, to worship and to an education. After violence unleashed in 2012 by Buddhist extremists drove tens of thousands of Rohingya out of their homes, many risked their lives to escape in smugglers boats; more than 100,000 others are living in squalid internment camps. Now, a counterinsurgency operation by Myanmars military is again forcing thousands of Rohingya to abandon their villages. Over the weekend and on Monday, according to Reuters, hundreds of Rohingya Muslims crossed from Myanmar into Bangladesh seeking shelter from the escalating violence. An official from the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency, told the news agency that he had seen more than 500 people enter its camps in the hills near the border. Meanwhile, Reuters also reported fighting between security forces and rebels on Myanmars border with China. The militarys counterinsurgency operation began as a response to an attack on Oct. 9 by armed assailants that left nine police officers dead in Rakhine State. It is not clear who the assailants were, and theories range from drug gangs to Islamist terrorists. Since then, more than 100 people, mostly civilians, have been killed by the military. Satellite images published by Human Rights Watch indicate that at least 430 homes were burned in villages in northern Rakhine State between Oct. 22 and Nov. 10. There are credible allegations of soldiers looting, killing unarmed people and raping women. The government denies this. U Aung Win, the chairman of a Rakhine State investigation into the Oct. 9 attack, said soldiers would not rape Rohingya women because they are very dirty. Poland has one of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. Recently, a government-backed bill sought to go further, punishing women who had abortions with up to five years in prison. Last month, Polish women responded with a one-day strike. On Oct. 3, tens of thousands of people, most of them women dressed in black, protested in major cities. Poland is run by a nationalist, right-wing Roman Catholic party that controls Parliament, has taken over independent media, is disregarding rulings of the Constitutional Court and now proposes creating a militia outside the command of the armed forces. It would not seem to be a government that would listen to such a protest. But three days later, its legislators voted down the abortion bill. Why? The government saw the size and speed of the mobilization, and its high concentration of young people, as a threat one it worried could grow. The current relevance of this to America, which enshrines in its Constitution the right to peacefully voice protest to check government power, will escape no one. The Republican Party will soon control the presidency, Congress, most governorships and state legislatures; in all probability, there will be a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Given Donald J. Trumps approval of advisers from the white nationalist far right, following his vitriolic attacks on the policies of the Obama administration, Democrats, independents and even some Republicans are bracing for assaults on everything. From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, weve come under constant assault, said Mr. Alefantis, 42, who was once in a relationship with David Brock, a provocative former right-wing journalist who became an outspoken advocate for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Alefantis suspects those relationships may have helped to make him a target. Ive done nothing for days but try to clean this up and protect my staff and friends from being terrorized, he said. Fake news online has been at the center of a furious debate for the past few weeks over how it may have influenced voters in the presidential election. President Obama warned last week that we are in an age where theres so much active misinformation and its packaged very well on social media sites. The criticism has buffeted web companies such as Google and Facebook, whose chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has promised to work on technology tools to slow the gusher of false digital information. But Mr. Alefantiss experience shows it is not just politicians and internet companies that are grappling with the fake news fallout. He, his staff and friends have become a new kind of private citizen bulls-eye for the purveyors of false articles and their believers. Image The Comet Ping Pong pizzeria. Credit... Chad Bartlett for The New York Times For more than two weeks, they have struggled to deal with the abusive social media comments and to protect photos of their own children, which were used in the false articles as evidence that the pizza restaurant was running a pedophilia ring. One person even visited Comet Ping Pong to investigate the allegations for himself. A shaggy white guy in a bellboy uniform knocks on the door of a hotel room in Seoul, South Korea, a little bumbling and out of place. Hes come to deliver a package to an American woman named Ana, but she thinks there must be some mistake: No one knows shes there. It is 1975, the day before her birthday, and even she doesnt understand why shes come, checking in with an urn containing the ashes of her father, Luke. This was, apparently, his idea and the bellboy, whose name tag reads JC, seems to be in on the plan. Inside the package is Lukes diary from World War II, and the story of Anas own origin. Was he sickly, or pale, or suicidal looking? Ana asks. The man who gave this to you? Not really? says the bellboy, a sweetly befuddled Jesus in disguise. Had a scruffy beard, nice teeth, oh, and a little limp on the left leg. Right leg? Left leg. Right leg? CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. At least five children were killed on Monday afternoon when a school bus carrying nearly three dozen elementary school students overturned and crashed into a tree in Chattanooga, according to local officials. About two dozen of the 35 Woodmore Elementary School students on the bus were taken to hospitals here after the accident, which occurred before 3:30 p.m. about a mile from the school, Chief Fred Fletcher of the Chattanooga Police Department said on Monday night. The police arrested the bus driver, Johnthony Walker, 24, on Monday night and charged him with five counts of vehicular homicide, as well as reckless endangerment and reckless driving, the police chief said. Our thoughts, our prayers and all of our efforts are with the families of these children and others impacted by this tragedy, said Chief Fletcher, who described the accident as a single-vehicle crash. Whenever Mr. Trump receives anything from a foreign sovereign, to the extent that its not an arms-length transaction, Mr. Eisen said, every dollar in excess that they pay over the fair market price will be a dollar paid in violation of the Emoluments Clause and will be a present to Mr. Trump. The Supreme Court has never squarely considered the scope of the clause, and there are no historical analogies to help understand how it should apply to a president who owns a sprawling international business empire. Earlier presidents worked hard to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest involving a foreign power, said Zephyr Teachout, a law professor at Fordham who ran for Congress in New York this year as a Democrat and lost. The reason we dont really have a lot of precedent here is that presidents in the past have gone out of their way to avoid getting even close to the Emoluments Clause, she said. But if Mr. Trump takes a different approach, it is not clear that anyone would have standing to challenge him in court. There are a lot of very smart lawyers turning that question over in their minds today, Mr. Eisen said, adding that a business competitor injured by foreign favoritism toward a Trump company might have standing. But Richard W. Painter, who was the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007, said such a business most likely would not have standing to sue. Its not there to protect a competitor, he said of the clause. Its there to protect the United States government. What several of these generals share is a rocky history in the Obama administration. The White House forced General Flynn out of his last job, citing poor management of an agency with 20,000 employees. General Mattis, who oversaw military operations in the Middle East and Southwest Asia from 2010 to 2013, had his tour cut short by the Obama administration, which believed he was too hawkish on Iran. General Kelly opposed the administrations plan to shut down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mr. Obama fired General McChrystal after he disparaged other officials in an interview with Rolling Stone, while Mr. Petraeus, as C.I.A. director, failed in his effort to persuade Mr. Obama to supply arms to moderate rebels in Syria. Mr. Obama eventually did provide the weapons, and Mr. Petraeuss resignation in 2012 was prompted by an unrelated scandal involving his disclosure of classified material. For Mr. Trump, the strained history of these generals with his predecessor is less a liability than a credential. He is sticking his tongue out at the prior administration, said Richard H. Kohn, a professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has written about civilian control of the military. He is inherently distrustful of the military people that the system throws up at him. He thinks theyre not strong people. They are Obamas generals. Mr. Trump might also view generals in his administration as a political asset. At a time when trust in institutions like Congress and the news media is eroding, the military remains enduringly popular. General Mattis, in particular, commands wide respect from uniformed men and women especially Marines, who revere him as one of their own. On Sunday, Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that General Mattis was a true Generals General. Stephen K. Bannon, the president-elects chief strategist, said the incoming administration was looking at potential cabinet officials with combat experience so that people who had fought in wars would be making decisions about whether to commit the country to more of them. We cannot buy things from nearby shops anymore because they dont have bills of higher denomination. So we head to malls or supermarket where we can pay using credit card and debit cards. Small businesses have taken a hit. Aditya Mishra, a student in Amritsar We at least are able to manage some emergencies by making payments online, but to think of the plight of all the farmers, laborers and workers is highly disturbing. Raghu Raman, a photographer in New Delhi For my parents, it was bit of a discomfort. My father had to take one full day off from his work to deposit and exchange old bills that he had. Same goes for my grandparents. Local vegetable vendors stopped setting up stalls as they dont have cash to buy from farmers. Even though they have new bills of 2,000 rupees, they cant use them unless the other person has enough cash to return the change. Ashish Dubey, a software engineer in Bangalore A smooth process for others Personally, my family has not been affected much. Yet. We managed to deposit the 15,000 or so we had in cash into our local post-office account, as the bank queue had already grown large. We live in a rural area, with a small town about four miles away where everyone goes to do most of their weekly shopping. As of now, the shopkeepers are still accepting the old 500 notes as a favor, and we have done most of our shopping either through those or on credit. The problems probably start coming some time later, though. As we near the deadline of Dec. 30, shops will stop accepting the old notes. Badri Sunderarajan in Thekampattu My cash usage has always been minimal. I was barely affected. My parents who live in a smaller city faced very few problems. The lines outside banks disappeared within a couple of days and things are back to normal. Most small shops have started accepting digital wallets or credit cards. Bhavin Shah, a consultant in Bangalore MOSCOW Russias Defense Ministry said Monday that Ukrainian Security Service operatives had abducted two of its servicemen, who were later described by Kiev as deserters from the Ukrainian Army. The two servicemen, identified by Russia as Maksim Odintsov and Aleksandr Baranov, were detained and whisked by the operatives over the disputed border of Crimea into the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. The Ukrainian special services are trying to fabricate a criminal case against Mr. Baranov and Mr. Odintsov, the statement said, as carried by the Interfax news agency. It is not excluded that psychological and physical evidence will be applied against the Russian servicemen in order to get the right testimony. The statement described what happened as a rude provocation and demanded the immediate return of the men. BEIRUT, Lebanon The United Nations special envoy to Syria offered unsolicited advice on Monday to President-elect Donald J. Trump: Pay attention to what happens between now and January in Syria, particularly in Aleppo, the storied city at risk of obliteration by Russian-backed Syrian forces. The envoy, Staffan de Mistura, suggested that Mr. Trumps shared desire with Russia to collaborate to annihilate the Islamist militants ensconced in eastern Aleppo and elsewhere presented new circumstances that could alter the war for better or worse. While such a collaboration could be effective in eradicating the Islamic State, Mr. de Mistura said during an interview in Beirut, the carnage and destruction caused by the Syrian and Russian militaries in Syria increasingly make it more problematic politically for Mr. Trump to align with Russia. Mr. de Misturas remarks, after a weekend of frustrating diplomacy in Syria, represented the first time that he had spoken about Mr. Trumps potential role in the war through the president-elects eagerness to work with Russia, which backs the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. As the Islamic State loses ground around Mosul, there is a high risk of the group using chemical weapons to slow down and demoralize advancing enemy forces. said Columb Strack, a senior analyst and the head of the IHS Conflict Monitor. And to potentially make an example of and take revenge on civilian dissidents within the city. At least 19 of the 52 chemical attacks have taken place in and around Mosul, according to the IHS data, but the assessment noted a decline in attacks before the Iraqi-led offensive against the city. Mosul was at the center of the Islamic States chemical weapons production, Mr. Strack said. But most of the equipment and experts were probably evacuated to Syria in the weeks and months leading up to the Mosul offensive, along with convoys of other senior members and their families. The Islamic State is not the only actor in Syria to carry out chemical weapons strikes: The Syrian government has conducted many more such attacks. Syrian military helicopters dropped bombs containing chlorine on civilians in at least two attacks over the past two years, a special joint investigation of the United Nations and an international chemical weapons monitor said in August. Beginning last year, American officials confirmed the first instances of the Islamic State using sulfur mustard, a chemical warfare agent, and the presence of the mustard gas on fragments of ordnance used in attacks by the group in Syria and Iraq. Laboratory tests, which were also performed on scraps of clothing from victims, showed the presence of a partly degraded form of distilled sulfur mustard, an internationally banned substance that burns a victims skin, breathing passages and eyes. Chemical warfare agents, broadly condemned and banned by most nations under international convention, are indiscriminate. They are also difficult to defend against without specialized equipment, which many of the Islamic States foes in Iraq and Syria lack. The chemical agents are worrisome as potential terrorist weapons, even though chlorine and blister agents are typically less lethal than bullets, shrapnel or explosives. An art historian in Germany has unearthed a three-ton, 65-foot-wide stained glass mural that was created in the early 1980s for the headquarters of the East German secret police, or Stasi, and had been forgotten in a shipping container for 24 years. It will go on sale at a temporary exhibition space in Miami to coincide with the Art Basel Miami Beach contemporary art fair next week, with a price tag of $21.4 million which some historians said was out of line with its value. The free-standing stained-glass screen was commissioned in 1979 by Erich Mielke, the head of the Ministry of State Security. It sat in a general purpose room in the agencys compound, a high-security group of buildings in the former East Berlin that is now the Stasi Museum. The work was recently found by Thilo Holzmann, an art historian and dealer whose uncle had bought it in 1990 and put in storage. Willem Melching, an expert in German Cold War history at the University of Amsterdam, said it was a kind of custom to make stained glass memorial things in East Germany, and he questioned the asking price for the work. What struck me as odd is that it was in the Stasi headquarters and that there is no specific reference to the secret work, intelligence activities or the conspiracies which they indulged in, he said. That would make it more valuable. More than five million people are expected to travel to New York City in the next 40 days. If youre one of them, you might want to see some art. The citys museums and galleries are jammed full of great things to see. But that abundance can also be overwhelming. Here are tips to make the most of it. The flood of tourists and the school holidays make this the busiest time for many museums, so plan ahead to avoid crowds. The quietest days are always Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, and the 31st of December, said Adrian Hardwicke, director of visitor experience at the Whitney Museum of American Art. BEIJING One of Chinas top art academies is facing criticism for moving ahead with a major exhibition of work by Anselm Kiefer, even after the blue-chip German artist expressly disavowed the show, which he said was organized without his consent. In a statement issued last week, Mr. Kiefer called for the cancellation of the exhibition, Anselm Kiefer in China, which was co-organized by the Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum in Beijing and the Bell Art Center in Hamburg, Germany. Throughout my career I have been heavily involved in all my major international exhibitions, and it is a matter of deep regret and frustration that the organizers of my first show in China have seen fit to exclude me from the process, Mr. Kiefer said in the statement. The artist, who did not respond to requests for an interview, is in London to oversee the installation of his latest show, which opens on Wednesday at White Cube Bermondsey. LONDON The painter David Hockney will design a stained-glass window for Westminster Abbey to honor Queen Elizabeth II, the abbey announced on Thursday. I have planned a landscape full of blossom thats a celebration every year, Mr. Hockney said in a statement posted on the abbeys website. Mr. Hockney will have artistic control over the design, with input from the Abbey, The Telegraph reported. The window is expected to be completed in mid-2018, when the abbey will also unveil the Queens Diamond Jubilee Galleries, a new museum above the abbeys main galleries. Throughout this bitter election campaign, liberal celebrities like Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lawrence, Lena Dunham and Lin-Manuel Miranda used their powerful media platforms to sing Hillary Clintons praises. Now theyve invited their online followers to join them in processing her loss and protesting the impending administration of Donald J. Trump. I want to live in a #CountryOfKindness where #LoveTrumpsHate, Lady Gaga wrote on Twitter the day after the election. She added a photo of herself at a protest outside Trump Tower in Manhattan, where she had climbed onto a truck in a strapless black jumpsuit and raised a pro-Clinton sign. While the angry tweets, therapeutic Instagram testimonials and fiery speeches may comfort their fans, these left-leaning celebrities are also inadvertently energizing the opposition. Conservative news outlets most notably Breitbart News Network, the right-wing populist enclave are perfecting the art of sapping Democratic stars name recognition and repurposing their words and actions into pro-Trump material. The enormous reach that celebrities enjoy, and the privileged bubble they live in, is wielded against them here, refashioned as evidence of the outsize control that the rich and famous have over regular Americans. This new battle in the culture wars is being waged not by bombastic, big-name right-wing commentators like Rush Limbaugh, but by nimble, often nameless online aggregators who quickly churn through popular culture and throw the most evocative stories to their readers, often without much commentary. All it takes is a pointed headline, an unflattering photo and a few well-chosen (and real) quotes. Like this: Lady Gaga Protests on Sanitation Truck Outside Trump Tower, read Breitbarts headline for its article on her tweet. London The party isnt over, after all. Fabric, the fabled London nightclub whose closure in September jolted the global electronic music scene, will reopen after agreeing to tough new measures to prevent drug abuse at the club, the club and officials from the borough that hosts it said on Monday. The 2,500-person-capacity venue, whose freewheeling spirit helped draw a generation of clubbers, was stripped of its license and forced to close its doors after the deaths of two 18-year-olds, both of whom had taken MDMA, better known as Ecstasy. In 2014, the club had come under scrutiny after the deaths of four others in the previous three years, which police had blamed on drug use. But in a hearing on Monday at Highbury magistrates court in North London, the Borough of Islington, home to the club, said it would allow Fabric to reopen after its owners had agreed to tough new antidrug measures, including preventing anyone under the age of 19 from entering, scanning identifications, and banning for life anyone caught dealing drugs or possessing them. Fritzsche knows that the greatest cataclysms of World War II took place in the East, but he begins on the comfortable ground of what Americans said to one another and to the British. He then edges forward into the war itself, to famous English individuals like Virginia Woolf, to French writers and diarists like Colette, and finally to Germans and to German Jews. In all of these cases Fritzsche patiently analyzes long conversations among civilians who had time to talk: the British on the home front, the French during the phony war of 1939-40 and then under occupation. Even the Germans spent 10 years under Hitler before the war really hit home, and even German Jews, at least by comparison with other Jews, had a great deal of time to contemplate the Nazis. Victor Klemperer, the outstanding German-Jewish linguist and student of totalitarian language, is inevitably cited in studies that take this approach. In September 1941 Klemperer could write to a friend about whether wearing a yellow star was the final act in the sense of the end of a Shakespearean drama; at that same moment 33,771 Jews were shot over a ravine just outside Kiev. Klemperer had been thinking and writing about Hitler for nearly a decade; the Jews of Kiev were murdered a few days after German power arrived. We know that they did talk to one another on the path to death, but this is not the kind of conversation that Fritzsche has in mind. This is a general problem with Fritzsches approach as applied to the East: Death came quickly, and in stupefying numbers, and to people who did not speak the Western languages in which the history of the war is largely written. No more than one in 20 Jews who died in the Holocaust knew the languages that Fritzsche does; and very few of the millions of victims in the Soviet Union left an intelligible trail. Fritzsche pushes his idea of conversation as far as he can by attending to a group of Swiss Red Cross volunteers who followed the German march to Smolensk. The strange encounter he describes between people who spoke German and the Germans themselves provides extraordinary accounts of Germans explanations of their atrocities. But to reach these interesting moments, Fritzsche has to send his Western Europeans east; and the perspective in question is always theirs. Because Fritzsche is interested in how people responded to the fate of their neighbors, his most fascinating conclusions turn out to be broadly European rather than specific to the cases he is considering. He writes of the Poles and the French, but what he finds when he compares these groups and others is that people generally reacted much the same way to their neighbors disappearance. Everywhere individuals defined their own community as against the people who were being murdered; and everywhere material considerations like the possibility of avoiding hunger or gaining shelter had a similar effect. Thrown into this mix are the Senate Democrats. Under the Senate rules, 60 votes will be needed to bring any legislation revising Dodd-Frank to a vote. The Republicans have 51 senators and maybe 52, depending on the results of the Louisiana runoff on Dec. 10. New Yorks Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate Democrats, has already said that although there are areas of common ground on Republican plans for infrastructure projects, there is no such agreement on financial regulation. So assuming the Democrats hold the line, any legislative repeal of Dodd-Frank is unlikely. And although some Democrats may cross over, getting eight or nine will be almost impossible. So where does that leave us? Very likely there will be a muddle. Areas where the president can act without Congress are likely to see the most change. If Mr. Trump adopts the House Republican mantra, things like the Financial Stability Oversight Board will wither. The designation of systemically important financial institutions for insurance companies will also go away. The rest will depend on what Mr. Trump wants and who he picks for Treasury secretary. All three rumored potential candidates would seem to be more in favor of the Republican House bill than the ideas Mr. Trump put forth. They may try a compromise that the Democrats can buy into. However, compromise can only go so far. Dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is probably a nonstarter. Given that 60 Senate votes are necessary to modify the bureaus status, it is likely to remain. In fact, the agencys budget is protected from Congress and the president. It can continue on its current course, at least until Mr. Trump appoints a new director in two years. But there may be more common ground on how to deal with the big banks. This is because the proposals in the House bill concerning bank regulation are worth discussing, and the Houses changes to regulation of the big banks have credible support in reasonable quarters. For example, the bankruptcy option seems more viable than a liquidation authority that will never be used. In an op-ed article in DealBook, Professors David A. Skeel Jr. and Mark J. Roe wrote that the core concept behind the bill bankruptcy for banks is sound, noting that there it needed some tweaks to be viable, including allowing regulators to force banks into bankruptcy. The exit ramp from Dodd-Frank may also not be viewed as a watering down of regulations. The financial services law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell stated that the standard poses a high bar and its utility was uncertain because of this. Even some of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus proposals make sense, despite being unlikely to pass. Reconstituting the agency into one like the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Federal Trade Commission, with commissioners appointed by the president and split among the parties, would make the agency more responsive to democratic government and better able to enact longer-lasting regulation. The ideas to limit public companies overly burdensome compensation disclosures, which do not seem to do much but impose substantial costs, would also seem ripe for elimination. Headliner GUN HILL TAVERN Theres a burger at this South Bronx newcomer to be sure, but with a menu that also features shrimp po boys, vegetable quesadillas and a pulled-pork Cuban sandwich, its not your everyday neighborhood spot. Were serving more upscale pub food so we might attract a wider market, said Dave Lopez, an owner, along with Adam Gherardi, the manager. Mr. Lopez is also a partner in Gun Hill Brewing Company, in the north Bronx, near Gun Hill Road. The tavern will serve its own beers, with names pulled from history, given that there was a Revolutionary War battle at Gun Hill. (One of the beers, Rise Up Rye, is poured at the Richard Rodgers Theater, where Hamilton is playing.) Everything in a glass is from New York State, including other beers, wines, ciders and spirits. The tavern pours a kind of refined Puerto Rican moonshine called Pitorro from Port Morris Distillery next door, also a partner in the tavern. Other whiskeys include some made in-house and used to flavor homemade ice cream: 780 East 133rd Street (Willow Avenue), Port Morris, Bronx, 718-585-3192, gunhillbrewing.com. Opening BROOKLYN PIZZA CREW Nino Coniglio, who won the top prize at the Pizza Expo in Las Vegas in March, is an owner of Williamsburg Pizza, a slice joint that places more emphasis than most on quality ingredients and artisanal techniques. Now he is opening this place with the same approach. Stuffed pizza, Sicilian sfincione and square Detroit-style pizza are also served: 758 Nostrand Avenue (Sterling Place), Crown Heights, Brooklyn, 718-363-1122, brooklynpizzacrew.com. GHOST DONKEY The space that was AvroKOs Madam Geneva bar and lounge behind Saxon & Parole has reopened with a Mexican theme. An array of tequilas and mezcals to sip straight or in cocktails is served, alongside snacks to nibble: 4 Bleecker Street (Bowery), 212-254-0350, ghostdonkey.com. HONEYBRAINS Theres a honey bar at this cafe, along with dishes made with ingredients claimed to promote brain health. In essence, it features the same sorts of salads, sandwiches, bowls, plates and juice concoctions made with whole grains and vegetables that have become typical across the city. But its nice to see that along with tuna and salmon, organic slab bacon counts as brain food. The designer, Vamos Architects, has included a circadian lighting system said to stimulate the brain: 372 Lafayette Street (Great Jones Street), 646-678-4092, honeybrains.com. After eight years, the socially responsible luxury brand Suno is shutting its doors. Suno will not produce its spring 2017 collection, the designer Max Osterweis told Business of Fashion. Mr. Osterweis and his design partner Erin Beatty had received positive reviews at a presentation during New York Fashion Week in September. Neither he nor Ms. Beatty was available for further comment. The news raised questions about the viability of small businesses trying to combine a socially responsible mission with style. Founded in 2008 by Mr. Osterweis, the label from the beginning was committed to practices like training tailors in Kenya, making its first collection from East African kangas and working with small-batch factories in Italy, Romania and South Korea. It expanded after hiring Ms. Beatty, who had previously worked as a creative director at Tory Burch and as a product manager at Gap Inc. Over time, Suno, which is carried by more than 70 retailers including net-a-porter and Neiman Marcus, attracted support from celebrities (Michelle Obama, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Michelle Williams are fans) and industry players. In 2013, Suno won the CFDA Swarovski Award for womens wear, and in 2014 it was a finalist for the LVMH Young Fashion Designers Prize. Dr. Vanessa van der Linden, another author of the study and a neuropediatrician at the Association for Assistance of Disabled Children in Recife, Brazil, where most of the babies in the study are patients, said the type of brain damage in the babies who later developed microcephaly presented the same pattern, but less severe than those with it at birth. The babies in the study published this fall also appeared to have a pattern of similar, but less severe, brain damage, said Dr. Antonio Augusto Moura da Silva, of the Federal University of Maranhao and an author of that study, which was published in Emerging Infectious Diseases. He and his colleagues studied 48 babies with brain abnormalities in the northeastern state of Maranhao, identified six babies who did not have microcephaly at birth, and found that three of them later developed it. We were worried, but now that weve started following those cases, we are very sad, Dr. Silva said. The picture is really terrible. At the least, if they have microcephaly, we expect them to have a very poor quality of life. Experts and the authors of the studies said it was unclear why these infants brains did not develop enough to match their age and body size. Dr. Ernesto T. A. Marques Jr., an infectious disease specialist at the University of Pittsburgh and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Recife, who was not involved in either study, said it could be that because of the initial fetal brain damage, the necessary pathways and hormones that organize growth of the neonatal brain are not there anymore and the brain doesnt grow. It could also be the result of the immune system responding to the original Zika virus infection. Dr. Moore said that another possibility might be that there was still some infection that continued to damage the brain. But she said that seemed less likely, given that follow-up tests for Zika virus conducted on seven of the babies did not find evidence of active infection. Dont be bitter, were told. But in American cocktail culture especially its most rarefied, la-di-da precincts bitterness has become a signifier of sophistication and discernment. A decade ago, bar patrons who wished to make it clear that they werent into the sweet stuff might have requested something on the dry side or the sour side. Now theyre as likely to want it bitter. This doesnt mean just adding a few extra dashes of Angostura, or other aromatic bitters, to your Manhattan or sour. It means treading into the world of amaro: a lilting, romantic name, subtly suggestive of love, for a class of liquor thats vexingly difficult to delineate. In his new book, Amaro: The Spirited World of Bittersweet, Herbal Liqueurs, Brad Thomas Parsons discusses the challenge: The word is Italian, as are a great many of the liqueurs to which it is assigned, and whose recipes are closely guarded, including the popular, bright red aperitif standard Campari. Many Italian producers he encountered insist that to be called amari, they must be Italian. But to Parsons, digestifs including that spicy-sweet frat-party darling, Jagermeister, also count. So does the robust Czech Becherovka, and the intense Unicum, Hungarys favored shot (now usually encountered as Zwack outside Hungary). Essentially, if an herbal liqueur has a pronounced bitter quality, we may call it amaro. But few amari are aggressively bitter: Other traits (including sweetness) are in place to round out and balance the flavor. Should you find yourself faced with a row of amaro bottles lined up at a bar, its easy to zone out a little just looking at the labels another of the categorys charms is that the bottles are often lovely to behold, with rich colors and elaborate lettering and, sometimes, pastoral scenes and maidens and monks and birds. But when you snap yourself back into focusing, you might wonder where to start drinking. Begin in amaros heartland. Superrich plaintiffs, however, arent subject to the same market forces. They can treat suing the press as an investment, with the payoff being, at a minimum, the expense and time required for the other side to produce documents and sit for depositions. In February 2012, the magazine Mother Jones published a story about the Idaho billionaire Frank VanderSloot, a major donor to a super PAC that supported the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. In 1999, in response to a documentary, he sponsored billboards that asked, Should public television promote the homosexual lifestyle to your children? The magazine wrote that VanderSloot outed a gay reporter, Peter Zuckerman, and bashed Zuckerman and his reporting after he helped break a story in 2005 about a history of pedophilia by a Boy Scouts camp counselor in Idaho Falls. The portrayal of VanderSloot was based partly on several ads that he placed in The Idaho Falls Post Register. VanderSloot was upset at the storys implications for the Boy Scouts, and the ads called Zuckerman a homosexual and attacked him for having a personal ax to grind. VanderSloot sued Mother Jones for libel over the article. They wanted to give me a public beating because I made a sizable donation to Mitt Romney, he told me. VanderSloot, who owns an online health-shopping club, also said the Mother Jones article cost him customers. Over three years of proceedings, which included turning over internal emails, Mother Jones racked up about $2.5 million in legal fees. Insurance didnt cover the whole cost. The suit was a huge drain on us, Clara Jeffery, editor in chief of the magazine, told me. Were still digging our way out. Judge Darla Williamson finally threw out VanderSloots suit in October 2015, finding that Mother Joness statements about him were either substantially true or opinions protected by the First Amendment. But Williamson took the unusual step of including a section in her opinion partially supporting his underlying complaint, accusing the magazine of mudslinging rather than recognizing its approach as squarely within the tradition of investigative journalism. Despite his defeat, VanderSloot declared himself absolutely vindicated and announced that he was creating a Guardian of True Liberty Fund to aid other people who want to sue the liberal press. The fund has grown to between $1 million and $2 million, he told me, with five times that amount pledged, so that as soon as something hits we think is worth it, we can go after it. It was another billionaire, Peter Thiel, who realized the full potential of bankrolling other peoples lawsuits. Thiel, an influential figure in Silicon Valley who was a founder of PayPal and sits on the board of Facebook, is now an adviser to Donald Trump. Thiel and other Silicon Valley executives were regular targets of Gawkers aggressive reporting and mockery. In 2007, the site ran an article titled Peter Thiel Is Totally Gay, People. Thiel didnt sue on his own behalf. But he secretly paid a Hollywood lawyer, Charles Harder, at least $10 million to sue Gawker on behalf of a suite of plaintiffs. Neither Thiel or Harder will say how many suits Thiel funded, but Harder has filed at least five against the website and its writers and editors. (He also represents Melania Trump in a $150 million suit in the United States against the British tabloid The Daily Mail and a Maryland blogger for calling her an escort.) When Thiels role was revealed by Forbes magazine, Thiel said his goal was less about revenge and more about specific deterrence. Asked in October about his secrecy, Thiel said, Transparency would have turned it into this very different narrative that its this billionaire trying to squash the First Amendment. (He declined to comment for this article.) Last March, while Thiels role remained hidden, one of the suits he funded went to trial in Florida. The plaintiff, the aging wrestler-entertainer Hulk Hogan, sued Gawker for violating his privacy by publishing a brief video clip in October 2012 that showed him having sex. Hogan, whose real name is Terry G. Bollea, testified that he was emotionally devastated. Yet when he learned of the existence of the sex tape seven months earlier, Hogan appeared on TMZ Live, joking about having sex with several brunettes. A crane operator and a construction worker were killed on Tuesday when a steel beam fell from a crane on a gusty day in Queens, officials said. The accident occurred around 12:10 p.m. at a construction site at 81-10 134th Street in the Briarwood neighborhood, where work was being done on an apartment complex. The beam had been lifted about four stories when it fell, striking the cab of the crane and killing the operator inside before hitting the worker on the ground who had been helping to guide it with a flag. The two unidentified workers, ages 47 and 43, were dead by the time emergency workers arrived, officials said. The I-shaped beam weighed about 6,500 pounds, officials said. Officials at the scene said investigators were trying to determine why the beam fell. Their preliminary findings indicated that the cause was a failure of the cranes rigging, unrelated to the wind, Rick D. Chandler, the commissioner of the citys Buildings Department, said. But Mr. Chandler cautioned that investigators were at the beginning of their inquiry and that they had not made any final determinations. The first time I saw him, there was nothing in his eyes, Ms. Chen said. She and her husband also have a daughter, who is now in prekindergarten nearby. After the experience with her son, she refused to send her daughter to China. Ms. Russo and her staff try hard to build bridges to the families. In August, Ms. Russo, Ms. Chu and several other teachers and administrators took a trip to China, organized by Ms. Chu, hoping to gain a better understanding of their schools community. Students and their parents seemed to find it validating, Ms. Russo said, that school staff members took time to learn about their country and their culture. It also gave those who went on the trip more perspective on the experience of their charges. You dont speak the language, and you have to rely on people and you have to figure things out, said Debra Fox, a fifth-grade teacher. You realize how difficult it must be. I always knew that, we always knew, but to experience it for yourself. To go into a store and just kind of smile. It makes you realize, she added, how hard these little guys have it. When Dr. Rachel Dubroff and her family chose their apartment at Riverside Boulevard and 63rd Street in Manhattan, they were thrilled by its picturesque views of the Hudson River. But they did not expect to have a front-row seat to an annual whale-watching event. For two years in a row, Dr. Dubroff said on Tuesday, she has spotted a whale swimming outside her living room window. Last year, she didnt quite believe the sighting was real. But she saw a whale again on Saturday and in the same spot again on Sunday and news reports confirmed her hunch: The Hudson River has a resident humpback. It was general excitement and shock, Dr. Dubroff, 39, said, and how thrilling that a whale can be in the Hudson, based on what we see float by sometimes. It reminds him that God will always make a way, and, he says, he is a recipient of Gods grace. After arriving at St. Anthony, Mr. Bracey was connected with multiple social services, including programs for the blind and the homeless. Catholic Charities Guild for the Blind has provided him with a caseworker and enrolled him in employment training classes. Mr. Bracey has worked several jobs, including in telemarketing and sales, but he has been out of work for several years. Of working-age adults who are blind, only 40 percent are employed, according to the National Federation for the Blind. The Bible tells him he deserves the chance to contribute in some way, recalling 2 Thessalonians 3:10: For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. I would love to work, Mr. Bracey said. Unable to find employment, Mr. Braceys monthly income comes in the form of assistance: $235 from Supplemental Security Income, $518 from Social Security, $87 from New York State disability and $189 in food stamps. His top priority is to secure permanent public housing for people with disabilities. His name is on waiting lists. In August, Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York used $324 in Neediest Cases funds to pay for a MetroCard and three months of phone and laundry bills. The resulting occlusion, the directive said, was primarily from water filling the nasopharynx, breathholding, and much less frequently the oropharynx being filled rather than the sealing effect of the saturated cloth. The drowning experience, in other words, wasnt simulated; it was real. That C.I.A. interrogators actually employed this method is consistent with videotapes of waterboarding sessions. A 2004 review of these since-destroyed videos found that instead of using the wet-cloth technique, interrogators continuously applied large volumes of water. The review, by the C.I.A.s inspector general, noted that this differed from what the Justice Department had authorized. The agencys method, a psychologist-interrogator told the inspector general, was more poignant and convincing. The medical service instructed physicians to manage waterboardings dangers by combining the practice with sleep deprivation and shackling of detainees in stressful positions; this, the service advised, could prolong the period of moderate use of the waterboard by reducing the intensity of its early use. The service conceded in the recently released text that the abuse its doctors helped to plan put detainees at deadly risk. Inhalation of water, spasm of the larynx, hypothermia and lung and limb infections are among the hazards physicians were told to watch for. The role of physicians included assessing the comparative efficacy of abusive methods. The medical service judged extended sleep deprivation most effective because of its demonstrably cumulative contribution toward demonstrating helplessness in an unpleasant environment. But it concluded that confinement in tiny boxes worked poorly since this offered a respite from interrogation, and it expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of waterboarding. Some of the agencys doctors challenged the torture programs efficacy and questioned why the psychologists who created it served in conflicting roles as both its managers and evaluators. There were objections, as well, to the ethics of putting behavioral science to such brutal use. But the programs advocates prevailed, and the medical service instructed its physicians accordingly. There have been no public indications that any refused to go along. As The Timess Joseph Goldstein reported on Monday, members of the movement held 11 hours of speeches and panel discussions. The conference culminated Saturday evening in a speech by the movements leading ideologue, Richard Spencer, who accused the news media of attacking Mr. Trump during the campaign to protect Jewish interests. Speaking of political commentators, he said, One wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem creatures of fable that were set in motion by rabbis in time of danger. Mr. Spencer quoted Nazi propaganda in German and reinforced his often-stated view that America belonged to white people: America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us. This speech echoed remarks Mr. Spencer made earlier last week in an interview with NPR, when he said that his goal was to make the United States a big empire that would accept all Europeans and be a safe space for white Americans, Slavs, Celts and so on. He went on in that interview to say that legal immigration the lifeblood of the United States was the most damaging kind, apparently because the country does not have a racial test that favors whites. He declined to condemn the Ku Klux Klan, a group that promotes racial terror, because people wearing white robes are merely expressing themselves or getting in touch with their identity as a European. The young, suit-and-tie white supremacists who traveled to Washington had no idea a year ago that their views would be getting a hearing in mainstream political discourse, much less finding sympathy in the White House. But Mr. Trump ensured that outcome by playing to white nationalism during the primaries, then choosing as his campaign chairman Mr. Bannon, who managed the alt-rights most visible platform. Former Secretary of State Dean Achesons memoir, Present at the Creation, is a classic account of how a durable and productive Atlantic alliance, based on common values and a cleareyed judgment of Americas strategic interests, rebuilt Europe after World War II and produced international institutions responsible for the security and expanding economic opportunities that have been of such benefit to the United States. Today we are faced with this question: Will two remarkable events within the past several months, the Brexit vote in Britain and the election of Donald J. Trump as president, threaten to undo what Harry S. Truman, George C. Marshall, Acheson, Dwight D. Eisenhower and their farsighted counterparts in Europe and Asia created 70 years ago? Achesons book recounts the struggles, the intense negotiations and the occasionally brilliant statecraft that established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The foundations of NATO became the European Union and other international institutions. They also led to the Bretton Woods agreement stabilizing currencies; the Marshall Plan, which saved much of Europe from tyranny; efforts to devise an international understanding on nuclear weapons; and development of the Truman Doctrine, which halted Communist expansion in Europe. These eventually led to border arrangements that produced freer flows of people and goods, a common currency in much of Europe and, most of all, a stable and secure trans-Atlantic region. These institutions, while not perfect and always ripe for reform and evolution to meet contemporary challenges, have brought prosperity to millions and created a remarkably peaceful period in a European history filled with costly wars. This year, for the first time since Ronald Reagan assailed the Soviet Union in 1980, an American presidential candidate actively campaigned against another countrys national interests. By threatening to deport all undocumented immigrants, about half of whom are Mexican; to build a wall on the Mexican border; and to rip up the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is far more important for Mexico than for the United States, Donald J. Trump made Mexico one of the central issues of the campaign. How should Mexicans respond now that Mr. Trump has been elected? President Enrique Pena Nieto has opted for a nonconfrontational approach. Since his embarrassing invitation to and welcome of Mr. Trump in August, he has repeatedly tried to accommodate Mr. Trumps demands. He has accepted reopening discussion of Nafta and he has limited debate about the wall to who will pay for it not whether it should be built. Mr. Pena Nieto has said he will help the Mexicans whom Mr. Trump says his administration will deport, but he has not taken a firm stand against the deportations themselves. Mexico doesnt have to appease Mr. Trump like this. It can fight back. It will not win every battle, but it may achieve more through obstruction, and making life miserable for the new president by increasing the cost of his anti-Mexican policies, than it will achieve by appeasement. On Nafta, Mexico should simply tell Washington that it refuses to renegotiate the treaty. There may be reasons to create side agreements to supplement the treaty and to address issues like currency devaluation or wages. But the idea of renegotiating Nafta, as Mr. Trump says he intends to do, should be completely unacceptable to the government of Mexico. To the Editor: Re Post-Election, No Appetite for Families (front page, Nov. 16): My nearly 99-year-old father has voted for a Republican president every election since he could vote. Despite our differing politics, I have always loved and admired my father. With this election, however, I feel he has crossed a personal line that Im unsure I can forgive. I believe that by voting for Donald Trump, he has rejected my core family values of inclusiveness and civic responsibilities. At last years Thanksgiving table, we talked about the plight of the Syrian refugees; this year I fear that it will be reduced to the weather without the part about climate change. JANET MARKOFF New York To the Editor: Canceling a holiday trip to a home state that voted for Donald Trump is a mistake. Raised in Omaha, Neb., Im planning to return for the holidays, to channel my political energy, and to encourage friends and family to speak against extremist cabinet selections and policies. I strongly believe that these trips can re-create a political dialogue and offer a means to tamp down Mr. Trumps harsh campaign promises, particularly since voices from red states will get far more airtime in the next administration. I think youll be happy, I think youll be happy. That was President-elect Donald Trump, talking to a group of Times journalists today about his views on the First Amendment. The real issue, of course, is not whether journalists are happy. (Were not exactly a popular bunch with most Americans.) The issue is whether the next president and his administration plan to remain faithful to the Constitution. And there are reasons to worry. During the campaign, Trump referred to the reporters covering him as scum and said that he wanted to open up libel laws to make it easier to sue media companies for unfavorable coverage. He is also part of a small group of wealthy Americans who have tried to intimidate journalists with lawsuits, as my colleague Emily Bazelon writes for The Times Magazine. Once installed in the White House, Trump will have a wider array of tools at his disposal, Bazelon writes, and his record suggests that, more than his predecessors, he will try to use the press and also control and subdue it. A new private research institute financed by the billionaire James H. Simons in New York will develop software tools and apply cutting edge computing techniques to science often not possible in academia and industry. Researchers this week will start moving into the Flatiron Institute, across the street from the downtown offices of the Simons Foundation, a nonprofit that finances basic science research. Mr. Simons, a mathematician turned wealthy hedge fund manager and now philanthropist, and his wife, Marilyn, the foundation president, hope the new institute will fill an overlooked niche. Computers have been a fixture for decades in astrophysics and many other fields of science. But typically, the computer programs are written by graduate students, often abandoned after they finish their programs. Those people arent great coders, for the most part, Mr. Simons said. Long the preserve of fusty country gents, the venerable British footwear brand Grenson has enjoyed a renaissance in the hands of the designer Tim Little; its sturdy handmade shoes and boots are now prized by footwear fetishists from Hackney to Tokyo. This year, the label is celebrating its 150th birthday in understated British fashion. It has re-editioned eight styles from the last century, including an awkward-looking orthopedic Oxford from the 1930s named the Grenson Joy Step and a 1940s infantrymans boot. To mark the anniversary, Little invited the British photographer Martin Parr famed for his unflinching depiction of his compatriots at work and play to turn his lens on the company and its work force. We mustnt get dragged down by sentimental ideas of heritage, Little says. Heritage is about people and the skills they have, not brick walls. Accordingly, when he bought Grenson in 2010 following five years as creative director, one of his first moves was to shift the company out of its original redbrick Victorian factory. Though picturesque, after decades of neglect it was so drafty the bootmakers worked wearing overcoats and fingerless gloves. Shoes in progress had to be sheltered under tarps when the roof leaked frequently. When William Green built the first factory in 1866, it was state-of-the-art; he saw himself as a modern businessman, says Little, from his perch overlooking the now warm and leak-free factory floor in Northamptonshire, the traditional heartland of British footwear. Despite its contemporary shell, the workshop depicted in Parrs photographs is still stocked with traditional cordwainers machinery and ancient wooden storage units from the old site, offset by personal touches: meerkat calendars and posters of Jon Bon Jovi. In 2005, a descendant of the Green family asked Little if hed consider taking over the running of Grenson. Unlike Little, whose career was on the upswing hed started an eponymous, thriving label eight years prior the company had descended to a sorry state since its glory days making military boots during World War II. By then, it was producing lackluster footwear for yellowing, end-of-row stores in small market towns. After two weeks, I knew it was going to be a nightmare; everything needed a complete overhaul, Little says. What we had was a factory with amazing skills and a brand with heritage and back story, but that was about it we had to build from the bottom up. Video Title: How China Is Changing Your Internet Video Description: In China, a sheltered internet has given rise to a new breed of app, and American companies are taking notice. What was once known as the land of cheap rip-offs may now offer a glimpse at the future. PART I: Intro 1. If you are sitting in the United States or Europe right now, youve probably never used a Chinese app, but the reality is, if you want to know how the internet will develop, China, the land once known for its cheap rip-offs, has actually become a guide to the future. PART II: The creation of the Chinese Swamp Monster 2.1 You know, the internet is the internet, but for China the internet is more like an intranet. Its largely walled off from the Western world by this incredible complex system of filters and blocks that we call the Great Firewall. And basically the Great Firewall blocks any foreign site the Communist Party doesnt think it can control. 2.2 So that means there is no Facebook, no Twitter, no Google. Instead, what filled the internet vacuum was a generation of Chinese copycats that have grown into huge companies. 2.3 So for Google, you had Baidu; for YouTube, you had Youku; for Twitter, you had Sina Weibo, and the list goes on and on. 2.4 Its almost as if the Chinese internet is a lagoon as an aside to the greater ocean of the internet, and in that lagoon there are these swamp monster apps that bear some resemblance to the creatures in the ocean but are mutated in some ways because they evolved in a different kind of environment. PART III: The Chinese Swamp Monster Leaves the Pond 3.1 But things have started to shift, in the sense that before, no one outside of the lagoon really cared about the swamp monsters. But now all of a sudden, some of the features theyve developed are so amazing that Western apps are trying to copy them. And the greatest example of this is WeChat. 3.2 WeChat is an example of, for lack of a better word, a super-app. Its a Swiss Army knife that basically does everything for you. 3.3 Its your WhatsApp, Facebook, Skype and Uber. Its your Amazon, Instagram, Venmo and Tinder. But its other things we dont even have apps for. There are hospitals that have built out whole appointment booking systems. There are investment services. There are even heat maps that show how crowded a place is, be it your favorite shopping mall or a popular tourist site. The list of services goes on basically forever. 3.4 But its not the variety of things you can do on WeChat that makes it so powerful, its the fact that theyre all in one app. So why does that matter? PART IV: The Power of the Super-App 4.0 These are real people. Using the app in real ways. (We just made up the story.) 4.1 Hypothetically, imagine youre sitting at home and one day you notice your corgi is dirty. You open WeChat, hit a few buttons and a few hours later a man shows up at your door with some shampoo and a big vacuum. Your dog gets cleaned, and he looks great. You take a photo. You share it with your friends and tag the dog cleaning business. You havent left the app. 4.2 Your friend who likes Hello Kitty and works a boring office job is slacking off at work and looking at WeChat. She sees the photo of your clean corgi. She decides she wants her poodle cleaned. She clicks the tag on your photo and orders the same service. Within seconds the man with the big vacuum is on his way to her house. She pays him, and hes happy because he got paid instantly on WeChat. She starts chatting with you to thank you. Neither of you have left the app. 4.3 While chatting, she tells you about a new, hip noodle joint. She says, You have to come. Its a shlep, but you accept. She orders food while still at her desk. You order a taxi. She pays for the food. On the way to her house, the man with the big vacuum invests the money he earned from both of you into a wealth management product thats probably a little too risky. Neither of you, nor the man with the big vacuum, have left the app. 4.4 Both of you arrive, and the app tells the kitchen youre there. Your WeChat profile photo pops up on the wall. Its an old photo from that year you had that weird part in your hair. Of course, she makes a comment. Your food is served. You notice your meat is a bit overcooked, so you snap a photo and post a disparaging restaurant review. Youre already on your phone, and you remember you still owe your friend money because she paid. You transfer her money. Neither of you, the man with the big vacuum, nor the restaurant, have left the app. 4.5 At the restaurant: There are no menus. There are no waiters. There is no cashier. There is only WeChat. 4.6 By rolling so many functions into one single app, its altered the concept of virality. Its no longer just videos or images or tweets that can go viral its a dog washer, noodles, all sorts of companies and products that get the push of a social network. 4.7 Here in China, that network is 700 million people. Part V: The Costs of the Super-App 5.1 Sounds great, right? Well it is, but using a single app to find a date, schedule an oil change or notarize a document also enables WeChat to collect a staggering volume of personal data. 5.2 They know what you talk about, who you talk about it with, what you read, where you go, why youre going there, whos there, how you spend money when youre online, how you spend money when youre offline. The list goes on indefinitely. 5.3 For advertisers, this is miracle: Its the combined data of Facebook, Amazon, Google and PayPal, all in one place. The problem is, all of the data is information Chinese companies are forced to share with the Chinese government, which has a long record of human rights violations and isnt exactly shy about stalking its citizens. Part VI: Outro 6.1 So if youre not in China, why does this matter? It matters because were starting to see a number of Western tech companies attempt to replicate super-apps like WeChat. 6.2 For the companies, its incredibly powerful, and for you and me its a convenient and even transformative technology. 6.3 But of course, it could also be problematic. Concentrating so much data in so few hands could lay the groundwork for an Orwellian world where companies and governments can track every single movement you make. This years election has forced Americans to take notice of class divisions between workers. And while these divisions may at first ring of lazy stereotypes the rural Rust Belt worker without a college degree and the coastal urban college-educated worker theyre rooted in a real dynamic. Many of the most skilled workers young people with college degrees are leaving struggling regions of America for cities, specifically for cities in Southern and coastal states. There are clear economic reasons for their choice. Dense metro areas tend to produce more jobs and make workers more productive. Wages, for all kinds of workers, are also higher. In theory, these incentives should prompt workers of all levels of education to move to metro areas. But moving outside ones region is relatively rare these days, and even more rare for someone without a college degree. Moving is actually quite uncommon in advanced economies. The United States has been one of the exceptions. It has one of the highest rates of internal migration among advanced economies, and it has since at least the middle of the 19th century. A study comparing thousands of American and British census records between 1850 and 1880 showed that nearly two-thirds of American men moved across county lines, while only a quarter of British men did. CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. Jasmine Mateen was standing outside her home here on Tuesday afternoon when her cellphone went off: Two of her daughters, who were injured when their school bus crashed on Monday, were being discharged from the hospital. The news pulled her briefly from her grief. Moments before, Ms. Mateen had been talking about her 6-year-old daughter Zyaira, the girl with the new leopard-print coat, who died in the same bus crash that injured two of Ms. Mateens other daughters. My babys coming home, but her sisters dead, Ms. Mateen said as a single tear rolled down her left cheek. Even though she was the one who told me my baby was dead, I just didnt want to believe it, she said of her other 6-year-old, Zasmyn. The third daughter on board, ZacaureeA Brown, is 10. I couldnt believe it. You know how you try to hold on to hope? HOUSTON Before the election, gun rights activists were so worried Hillary Clinton would win the presidency that some of them bought extra ammunition and guns, fearing a crackdown on certain weapons, bullets and magazines. Theyre not worried now. Instead, since the election of Donald J. Trump, gun advocates have been rejoicing, crowing about their political clout and plotting ways to eliminate many remaining curbs on gun ownership and use as they await one of the most vocal pro-gun presidential candidates ever to enter the White House. Weve been threatened. Weve been bullied. Weve been ridiculed for eight years, said Alice Tripp, legislative director of the Texas State Rifle Association, the state affiliate of the National Rifle Association. I expect the tone to change. If tone sets policy, then weve got it made. It was more than just the outcome of the presidential race. Gun advocates played a role in flipping the State Senate in Iowa from blue to red and helped defeat a ballot initiative in Maine that would have required universal background checks for gun sales. President-elect Donald J. Trumps foundation has acknowledged that it may have run afoul of self-dealing rules that guard against using money meant for charity to benefit principals of the organization, according to its 2015 tax filing. On the filing, the president-elects charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, checked yes to answer a question about whether its resources had been directed or used to benefit a disqualified person meaning one of the organizations central people. The tax filing offers new details about Mr. Trumps charitable giving, which became the subject of intense scrutiny during his presidential campaign after news reports raised questions about whether he had followed through on pledges he made to donate money and his lack of financial support for the foundation. The president of the United States is allowed to have whatever conflicts he or she wants, but I dont want to do that, Mr. Trump said. But he said that Mr. Kushner, who is an observant Jew, could be very helpful in reconciling the longstanding dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I would love to be able to be the one that made peace with Israel and the Palestinians, Mr. Trump said, adding that Mr. Kushner would be very good at it and that he knows the region. A lot of people tell me, really great people tell me, that its impossible you cant do it, Mr. Trump added. I disagree. I think you can make peace. I have reason to believe I can do it, he added. Mr. Trump spoke only in general terms about foreign policy. He said the United States should not be a nation builder, repeated his line from the campaign that fighting the war in Iraq was one of the great mistakes in the history of our country, and said he has some very definitive and strong ideas about how to deal with the violent civil war raging in Syria. He declined to say what those ideas are despite several requests to do so. We have to end that craziness thats going on in Syria, he said. The president-elect said that he had talked with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia since winning the election, but he did not elaborate. He said it would be nice if he and Mr. Putin could get along, but he rejected the idea that any warming of relations would be called a reset, noting the criticism that Mrs. Clinton received after her attempts at bettering relations between the countries failed. I wouldnt use that term after what happened, Mr. Trump said. Mr. Trump made a forceful defense of Mr. Bannon, whom he named as his chief strategist and who has drawn charges of racism and anti-Semitism. This summer, Mr. Bannon called Breitbart News, the website he led, the platform for the alt-right, a white nationalist movement. Kara Waite, an English teacher at Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown, Mass., made a rule for herself: For every political rant she posts on Facebook, she must pick up the phone and call a legislator. Its kind of a swear jar for political action, Ms. Waite said recently. Ms. Waite, who volunteers for liberal causes and who created a widely shared document last week to teach others her methods, figures that a phone ringing off the hook is more difficult for a lawmaker to ignore than a flooded inbox. Activists of all political stripes recommend calling legislators, not just emailing and certainly not just venting on social media. Several lawmakers, along with those who work for them, said in interviews that Ms. Waite is right: A phone call from a constituent can, indeed, hold more weight than an email, and far outweighs a Facebook post or a tweet. To understand why, it helps to know what happens when someone answers the phone at a legislators office. Low-fat milk may not be the best option for kids, though many experts recommend it to fight obesity for children over 2. Canadian researchers collected height and weight data on 2,745 healthy children ages 1 to 6 years. They took blood samples, and their parents reported how much skim, 1 percent, 2 percent and whole milk the children drank. After controlling for age, sex, outdoor play and other factors that affect both vitamin D levels and weight, they found that children who drank one cup of whole milk per day had a vitamin D level comparable to that of children who drank 2.9 cups of 1 percent milk, but their body mass index was lower by 0.79 points. The higher the fat content of the milk they drank, the lower the childrens B.M.I. and the higher their vitamin D levels. The study is in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Why this happens is unknown, but the senior author, Dr. Jonathon L. Maguire, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto, suggested that vitamin D is better absorbed with fat, and drinking low-fat milk may leave a child hungrier for more calorie-dense food. BEIJING A single spark can start a prairie fire, Mao Zedong said. And being accused of a bigoted outburst can start a wildfire on the internet in China, as a manager for Daimler, the German automaker, has learned to his regret. Daimler Greater China said it had removed a manager after a regrettable matter. The emailed statement from the company, a unit of Daimler, which makes Mercedes-Benz cars and other prestigious vehicles, did not identify the manager or say exactly what he had done. But the Chinese news media and internet users have been much blunter. They accused Rainer Gartner, the president and chief executive of Daimler Trucks and Buses (China), of insulting the Chinese people on Sunday during a squabble with a driver over a parking spot on the outskirts of Beijing. The area is hilly and heavily forested, and the conditions on Tuesday were foggy and very cold, Brig. P. S. Gotra of the Indian Armys northern command said by phone. Brigadier Gotra said it was not clear whether the soldiers had been killed by infiltrating militants, Pakistani Army troops or a combination of the two. Exchanges of fire on the Line of Control at the border between India and Pakistan have been unrelenting in recent months, despite a cease-fire agreement that was signed in 2003. Virtually every other day, the two countries accuse each other of cease-fire violations, unprovoked gunfire and the killing of civilians and soldiers. India announced on Sept. 29 that its army had conducted surgical strikes on militant bases along the line of control, an act that was celebrated by Indians as a powerful assertion of force. The strikes were presented as retaliation for an attack by militants on an Indian Army base in Uri, in which 19 soldiers were killed. Pakistan denied that Indian forces had managed to penetrate its defenses. Since then, however, India has had significant losses in cross-border shelling and other fire, among them the deaths of 13 soldiers, seven border guards and 12 civilians. Fifty-seven civilians have been injured in the same period, said Indias border security force. On Nov. 14, the Pakistani Army said, seven of its soldiers were killed by Indian fire at the border. The two governments have summoned each others diplomats and lodged repeated protests. Pakistan said India committed 180 cease-fire violations in 2016, killing more than 27 civilians and wounding more than 100. What I can say is todays response was decent and they seemed to be confident, said Tatsujiro Suzuki, director of the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition at Nagasaki University. But, he said, it would be difficult to independently verify Tepcos claims because the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority depends on the company to release information. He added that he was not convinced that Tepco was being fully transparent about its decisions, particularly about the cleanup at the Daiichi plant. We should be informed fully whether this operation is reasonably done with cost effectiveness and safety and making sure that the best technology is being used, Mr. Suzuki said. Daisuke Maeda, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulation Authority, said the agency had offices on the sites of the nuclear plants and worked with Tepco and other utility companies on Tuesday to confirm that the power stations were safe after the earthquake. Regarding the longer-term situation, nuclear experts expressed concern about the safety of the cleanup operation at the Daiichi plant. The melted cores of three reactors have yet to be removed as they are still too radioactive for workers to approach. Since the 2011 disaster, groundwater seeps into the reactors daily. The water, contaminated by the melted fuel rods, needs to be treated and stored on site. So far, Tepco has built more than 880 tanks of about 1,000 tons each. The tanks are inspected four times a day to confirm that they do not leak, said Mr. Okamura of Tepco. And in an effort to halt the flood of groundwater into the damaged buildings, the company has built an underground wall of frozen dirt nearly a mile in length encircling the reactors. The wall is not yet fully frozen, though, and groundwater continues to flow into the reactors. Critics worry that the sea walls or storage tanks might not withstand a more powerful earthquake or tsunami. And Tuesdays incident at the Daini reactor showed that quakes can set off problems even at plants that are not operating. SEOUL, South Korea President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday approved a military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan aimed at countering the North Korean threat, a move that angered South Korean opposition parties, which want to impeach Ms. Park over a corruption scandal. The United States, an ally of both South Korea and Japan, has pressed them to increase military cooperation so the three countries can more effectively monitor and confront threats from the North, whose development of nuclear arms and missiles has been accelerating. Currently, Japan and South Korea use Washington as an intermediary when sharing intelligence on North Korea. But South Koreans are wary of cooperating too closely with Japan, which ruled Korea as a colony for 35 years until the end of World War II. Many of the protesters who have been demanding that Ms. Park resign over the corruption scandal have also insisted that she cancel the negotiations with Japan. Ms. Park has been accused of conspiring with a friend, Choi Soon-sil, to extort millions from big businesses. Her polling numbers have reached record lows, and huge crowds have gathered in Seoul, the capital, and other major cities to demand that Ms. Park step down or face impeachment. That was invented by enemies of the people, enemies of our state, who know that as long as I am in the Caucasus, the Western, European special services will not manage to change the situation here, he says, riffing on the official conviction that the West seeks to engineer regime change in Russia. That is why they want to make the Russian people have a bad attitude toward me. They want to make an enemy of the people out of me. On the contrary, people run to me. They hug me. Mr. Kadyrov, 40, is clearly getting a hug from the Kremlin, with state-run television running what amounts to a weekly infomercial. The reason for it is less obvious. The first possible reason is economic. Chechnya, with a population of 1.4 million, costs the Kremlin about $1 billion in annual subsidies, the RBC newspaper calculated. Moscow recently announced that persistent economic problems meant the republic would face federal budget cuts like all government entities. The show appears aimed at persuading more investors and Russian tourists to open their wallets in Chechnya so that Moscow will not have to. I thought soldiering was the most difficult part, but attracting investment is, Mr. Kadyrov laments in one episode, bragging about his role in fighting Russian forces before his father led the clan to switch sides. The show may also be an attempt to groom Mr. Kadyrov for a national role. They are aware of the experience of Trump; they are aware of the experience of other people who have used media stereotypes for their political careers, said Grigory S. Shvedov, the editor of Caucasian Knot, a web-based news service. This is clearly political P.R. Lithuanias foreign minister, Linas Linkevicius, said last week that he was very afraid for the Baltic States Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia which sit along NATOs increasingly tense frontier with Russia. He expressed concern that Russia might try to test the United States before Mr. Trump takes office as president on Jan. 20. During the American election campaign, Mr. Trump called on NATO members to spend more for their collective security and rely less on the United States. Members are supposed to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on their military, but only the United States, Britain, Greece, Poland and Estonia do so now. Mr. Skvernelis said in a statement after his election on Tuesday that Lithuania would join them. We are ready to increase financing for our military up to 2 percent by the end of 2017 2018 at the latest, he said. On top of that, we will increase spending on interior security systems, such as border control, civil defense and intelligence services. Mr. Skvernelis said his government had full trust in the United States, as well as other partners in NATO. The European Unions sanctions should be relaxed only when there is real progress on the ground from Russias side, he said, but so far, the involvement of Russian forces in Georgia and Ukraine does not imply willingness to cooperate in a neighborly spirit. Unlike the more prosperous countries of northwestern Europe, Lithuania worries about emigration, not immigration. Young people leave in search of jobs and higher living standards, and the population has been falling. The Peasants and Greens Union promised to stem the exodus by emphasizing the nations cultural heritage, luring investment to rural areas, and cleaning up corruption, especially in the health and defense ministries. PARIS Two well-heeled Qatari sisters arrived on Monday night with their family by private jet at Le Bourget airport, north of Paris, where they were met by a chauffeur-driven Bentley waiting to take them to their pied-a-terre in the French capital. Soon after the two sisters, ages 60 and 61, and their driver set out on the A1 highway toward Paris, the car in front of them a black Peugeot 406 with tinted windows slammed on its brakes and forced the Bentley off the highway. It was a holdup. Three balaclava-wearing men emerged from the Peugeot. One of them attacked the Bentleys driver with tear gas, while the two other assailants snatched the womens luggage from the trunk. Within seconds the three bandits got back into their car and sped away with valuables worth an estimated 5 million euros, or about $5.3 million. A police union spokesman said the brazen attack was clearly well planned. It doesnt seem that this was random, said the spokesman, Luc Poignant. It was targeted. ISTANBUL The Turkish government on Tuesday expanded its crackdown on political opponents, dismissing an additional 15,000 civil servants from their jobs and shutting down 375 organizations, including nine more news outlets. More than 100,000 public workers, including police officers, teachers, soldiers and others, had already been fired for what the authorities said were connections to a failed coup on July 15 or to terrorists. The new wave of dismissals came on a morning when the European Parliament was scheduled to debate freezing accession talks for Turkey to join the European Union. It was one of several recent indicators that the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was abandoning hope of success in that process, which has dragged on for 11 years. Mr. Erdogan has been defiant, saying it was time that the European Union made up its mind on Turkeys membership, and threatening to hold a nationwide referendum on whether to continue the talks. LONDON Once again, President-elect Donald J. Trump seems to have gone out of his way to embarrass the British government. After Election Day, he spoke with nine other leaders before taking a call from Prime Minister Theresa May and then told her casually, If you travel to the U.S., you should let me know. In a Monday night Twitter post, just as the British government was reaching out to Mr. Trump to reaffirm the special relationship with the United States that Britons prize, he suggested the appointment of Nigel Farage, the interim leader of Britains populist, anti-immigrant U.K. Independence Party, as ambassador to the United States. The prime ministers office quickly dismissed the recommendation, telling reporters: There is no vacancy. We have an excellent ambassador to the U.S. in Kim Darroch, a former national security adviser. Mr. Ponomarev, a New York Times photojournalist, and Mr. Arango, The Timess Baghdad bureau chief, are in northern Iraq covering the Mosul offensive and the intensifying humanitarian crisis surrounding it. Each day, dozens of families pick their way out, some carrying white flags even as they come under mortar or sniper fire from the Islamic State. Billowing black clouds from oil wells set on fire by militants provide a dystopian background to the scenes of flight; it is so bad south of Mosul that the sheep there have begun turning black. The military campaign to retake Mosul, Iraqs second-largest city, is in its sixth week and bogged down in a grueling fight. Seeking to escape the fighting, more civilians than ever are taking the risk of evacuation, hoping to find help if they can make it past the militants gun range. Cal State Fullerton Army Reserve Officers Training Corps. ROTC cadets and junior cadets, active military, and members of the local community participated in the universitys fourth annual Ruck-a-thon fundraiser on Oct. 29. The event raised about $4,300; about 90 people participated. While carrying a 35-pound rucksack, participants completed a 10K course. A 5K running or walking course was also offered. Proceeds from the competition will benefit the universitys Army ROTC program, which trains students to become officers in the armed forces. This semester the program is made up of 116 cadets. Angie Marcos The Victorian San Juan Capistrano house where Judge Richard Egan used to hold court by day and host lavish social events by night is alive once more. Vacant for nearly eight years, the brick and wooden structure that San Juans justice of the peace built downtown in 1883 reopened Nov. 17 as Ellies Table. The new bakery and cafe at 31892 Camino Capistrano offers indoor and outdoor seating, including front-porch seats that command a view up the street to Mission San Juan Capistrano. Directly across the street is the landmark El Adobe Restaurant, part of which was originally a home dating back to 1797. RELATED: Remembering Judge Egan, The King of Capistrano Ellies Table is a family-owned business whose members spent a year and a half renovating the Egan House, intent on creating a relaxed cafe feel while highlighting historical features, as elliestable.com put it. There are displays telling not only the story of Judge Egan but of Jay and Eleanor Mastroiannis family business, which has served Orange County since the 1960s as Jays Catering. They have so lovingly and carefully restored the building, said Kerry Ferguson, San Juans mayor pro-tem. Its a model for how buildings need to be treated that are of this character and historic nature. I know that this is going to be the hot spot of San Juan, Mayor Pam Patterson said. Mark Bodenhamer, San Juan Chamber of Commerce CEO, said it was worth the wait. This is probably the No. 1 question weve gotten at the chamber when is Ellies Table going to open after when are the swallows coming back, he said. The chamber hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony a day before the opening to offer a preview to local dignitaries and invited guests. Jennifer Pointer, the chambers operations manager and a former docent on architectural walking tours of San Juan, said the landmark building holds a hidden legacy that diners may not realize was right beneath their feet. This building was half a residency, half a courthouse, she said. When the banditos used to get punished, or have to go to jail, they would go underneath. There was a tunnel from under here to the jail across the street, which is now the El Adobe wine cellar. Through most of its history, the Egan home was known as Harmony Hall. Judge Egan (1842-1923), who local historian Jan Siegel said made his money in real estate in California, would host dinners and recitals. Madame Helena Modjeska, an internationally acclaimed actress, was said to have been a frequent guest and called him The King of Capistrano. Before Ellies Table, the building served as a gift shop, a tea house, a Christian bookstore and a restaurant called The Egan House, Pointer said. It was against this historic backdrop that developer Bill Griffith, whose offices just up the street occupy the restored art-deco 1939 Esslinger building, purchased the Egan House two years ago. My family jumped at the opportunity, said Jake Griffith, who works for his father. Our family has a history of restoring and preserving historic properties. The Griffith family was aware of Jays Catering, which caters events at another local Griffith property, Serra Plaza. In 2013 Jays Catering had opened its first standalone bakery and cafe in a San Clemente landmark building, Casino San Clemente. This was the right match for Egan House, Jake Griffith said. Armand Jay Mastroianni founded Jays Catering with his wife Eleanor, and Ellies Table is a family legacy said to honor her signature palm-sized sandwiches, fresh-baked goods and attention to quality and detail. As the catering company grew, she continued to work into her 70s. Jay died in 2013, six months before Ellies Table opened at San Clementes North Beach, but Ellie, now 85, has lived to see both ventures open in historic buildings. Ellie was present for the ribbon-cutting, wheeled out in her wheelchair to greet a special guest, 4-year-old Oliver Siqueiros of San Clemente. He and his mother, Sarah Baer, are regular customers at Ellies Table in San Clemente. Oliver visits me every week at North Beach and he asks, Where is Ellie? said Katy Romanowski, who manages both Ellies Tables. Every week, she would tell Oliver something different. At the ribbon-cutting, Ellie, who lives in north county, presented him with a gift. Armand Berrigan, Jay and Ellies grandson and project manager, said each Ellies Table location is unique. We didnt want to make them feel chainy, he said. We were going to wait for the perfect location. For the next one, we are going to keep that trend of historic buildings. We are patient. If the right building falls into it, if it feels right, well do it. Contact the writer: fswegles@scng.com or 949-492-5127 Catholic women may seek forgiveness for abortions by walking into their local confessional rather than appealing to the often less-accessible bishops, Pope Francis said Monday. The announcement gives permanent authority to parish priests worldwide to absolve women of what Catholics consider one of the worst sins; priests received temporary permission from Francis to offer forgiveness along with bishops as part of the yearlong Jubilee of Mercy, which ended this month. Performing or having an abortion remains a sin under Roman Catholic doctrine, Francis confirmed in his latest apostolic letter, but wrote, There is no sin that Gods mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart. Priests in the United States have been allowed to forgive those who get or perform abortions for decades and many dioceses, including in Orange County, have hotlines to connect those seeking repentance with counselors. Bishops in the past have been allowed to delegate the authority in their dioceses. Im not aware of any (dioceses) in the U.S. that dont permit priests to give absolution, said Jesuit friar Allan Deck, a professor of pastoral theology at Loyola Marymount University. The importance of Francis decree is that mercy should continue to be in our thinking and make it easier to be pardoned. American bishops began granting priests that ability in response to the great need of women who were hurting and seeking forgiveness, said Michael Donaldson, the director of the Office of Pastoral Care for Families in All Stages for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange. But that wasnt the case in many other countries, he added. In March 2015, Francis unexpectedly called for a Jubilee a holy year that typically happens every 25 years even though the last one was in the early 2000s. The Jubilee of Mercy, which began in December, called for rededicating the church to forgiveness and opening its doors to more people. Pope Francis announced at its December opening that priests worldwide could forgive people for getting or performing abortions. The Monday apostolic, marking the end of the jubilee, made it permanent. May every priest, Francis wrote, be a guide, support and comfort to penitents on this journey of special reconciliation. Catholics in Southern California welcomed Francis decision, saying it brings consistency to how parishes and dioceses approach abortion and is in line with the religions view on Christian principles. The pope offered a universal seal so were all basically on the same page, said Mary Huber, director of Respect Life & Pastoral Care programs for the Office of Life, Dignity and Justice in the Diocese of San Bernardino. This high-profile message from Pope Francis is an opportunity for everyone to recognize that Gods mercy is full of love. But womens health organizations said Francis decree fell short: Abortion is still considered a sin under Catholic doctrine, placing a shame and stigma on women who get abortions that should not exist. Abortion is a normal part of reproductive health care, and it is not something that women should be shamed or judged for, or should need to seek forgiveness about, Nicole Ramirez, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, said in a statement. Every pregnancy is unique, and every womans decision about her pregnancy whether to parent, choose adoption, or have an abortion should be respected and valued. About 30 percent of women, she added, will have an abortion before age 45 and reactions can vary from relief to sadness. Donaldson, though, said the church doesnt purposely put shame on anyone. Weve heard from priests how painful this decision is in some womens lives, he said, noting that one to two people a week call the Orange dioceses Hope and Healing After Abortion hotline. We arent going to reject them. We know God will forgive you whether you go to confession or not, he added. But reconciliation helps people move forward. Staff writer Jeff Horseman contributed to this report. Contact the writer: 714-796-6979 or chaire@scng.com Frank, Frank! The warning sounded through the 2 a.m. darkness of the crowded transient encampment. The water is coming and its coming fast! Frank Block scrambled from his tent on the edge of the Santa Ana River under the Orangewood Avenue overpass, near the looming Angel Stadium. Block, 62, slim, tall and missing two fingers on his right hand, watched as part of his tent washed away early Monday. He helped a neighbor save some of her belongings and managed to pull several items, including coolers and portable generators, to higher ground. It wasnt a good night, Block said Monday morning, wearing rolled-up shorts and rain boots and resting in a folding chair near the wide flood control channel. Sitting next to the chair was a half-full bottle of brandy. He said about three dozen homeless had been camping in the underpass when the rising stormwaters swept through the camp. He was the only one still around by mid-morning. After years of drought and mild Southern California winters, Sunday nights storm, one of the heaviest so far this season, served as a wake-up call about the dangers for the hundreds of people who have sought shelter along the river. RELATED: The helpers try to reach homeless in O.C.s Skid River but victories, frustration side by side Its not a place meant for human habitation, said Susan Price, who was hired this year as the countys director of care coordination to oversee services to the homeless. Orange County Health Care Agency outreach workers routinely traverse the area near the channel to check on the homeless. Last week, the Orange County Sheriffs Department used a helicopter to broadcast announcements to the homeless and sent deputies to the encampment to warn those living there about potential flooding from Sundays storm, said Lt. Mark Stichter. Most heed warnings to leave the area when heavy rains are expected, Price said. But some opt to stay or say they werent aware of the warnings. Theres always someone who doesnt leave, Price said. Block has lived beneath the overpass for 2 1/2 years and, despite enduring five other floods, says he plans to stay. The spot keeps him out of the sun, provides a modicum of privacy and has ample room for the spacious 10-man tent hes dubbed The Compound. More than his own problems, Block said hes concerned for his neighbors in a far larger shanty town of tents and tarps on higher ground across the channel. Many of those residents are in their 30s, he said. Most seem to have lost hope in the American dream, he added. That encampment has about 160 tents housing about 500 people, said Terri Edwards, a volunteer with Omas Angels Foundation, an Anaheim nonprofit dedicated to helping the needy. On Monday, Edwards waded into waist-deep water below the larger camp to retrieve clothes, food, chairs, cots, pillows, towels and even a set of car keys belonging to those in the encampment. I would do that for anybody, said Edwards, a 49-year-old Yorba Linda resident. Its the right thing to do. If we dont help each other, what else do we have? In the larger camp, Heather Smith, 41, who has been homeless about six months, said she hunkered down with her pit bull, Shera, on Sunday while rain pounded their tent. Shera was tripping pretty bad, she said. Resident Jesse Gaytan, 40, said those in the tent city rallied together during and after the storm. We have a fear of losing what little we have, he said, raking up muddy debris near his tent. We are trying to pull together the best we can. The Sheriffs Department has launched a homeless liaison program with the aim of helping transients find more secure places to live but does not focus on moving them out of the encampment. Its not a matter of going in there and clearing everyone out, he said. If you do that, where do you send them? The Courtyard, a shelter in the Santa Ana Civic Centers old bus terminal, is one alternative to staying along the river. But Sunday night, the population at the shelter swelled past its intended capacity to more than 400 people, Price said. Though they arent yet open for the winter season, the county also relies on the National Guard armories in Fullerton and Santa Ana as overnight, cold-weather homeless shelters. Theyre scheduled to open Dec. 5, Price said, and can handle a total of 400 people. The Santa Ana facility is only for families. Staff writer Theresa Walker contributed to this report. Contact the writer: 714-796-7767 sschwebke@scng.com Twitter: @thechalkoutline Re: Five ideas to make America greater [Opinion, Nov. 20]: I agree with Joel Kotkins suggestion that President-elect Donald Trump should unleash the energy industry. Id like to add the suggestion that he do so by focusing on renewable energy instead of dead-end fossil fuel production. Not only will renewable energy promote energy independence but it will also reduce climate change and the resulting weather calamities. David Salahi, Laguna Niguel Obama should follow Bush lead Re: Obama may jump in to protect legacy [News, Nov. 20]: President Obama is promising to cause and encourage havoc during President-elect Trumps tenure as president. For seven years, Obama has blamed Americas failures and shortcomings on George W. Bush. Former President Bush hasnt publicly defended himself nor has he publicly criticized Obama. To contrast, Bush has more class in his little toe. Mark Cameron, Santa Ana Classroom isnt place for propaganda Re: San Francisco teachers union offers anti-Trump lesson plan [News, Nov. 16]: I am shocked that the San Francisco teachers union has an anti-Trump lesson plan. It is not their place to force a political agenda on students. Their responsibility is to teach an unbiased curriculum. I am a teacher and would never impose my personal political views on my students because it is so inappropriate. Parents should demand that the district and its teachers refrain from this one-sided propaganda. Janis Shekerlian, Laguna Niguel Loss of health care will hurt Californians Re: California rejected Trump but could benefit anyway [Opinion, Nov. 18]: Susan Shelleys optimistic analysis of the Trump administrations effect on California fails to mention the $20.5 billion California will lose when Trump repeals Obamacare, and also fails to mention the devastating effects it will have on millions of Californians who will once again be unable to afford health insurance. However, such omission is not surprising given the right-wing bent of the Register. Maryanne Rose, Laguna Niguel Fullerton Democrat Josh Newman has taken the lead in the still-undecided race for the 29th state Senate District, positioning California Democrats to gain a two-thirds legislative supermajority in the statehouse. With votes still being counted following the Nov. 8 election, Newman on Monday night overtook Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang, R-Diamond Bar. He led Tuesday morning by 829 votes. Newman has trailed since the first vote counts were reported on Election Day and was down by 5,051 votes as recently as last week. Since then, Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties the three counties that the 29th straddles have tallied a large number of mail-in and provisional ballots, which have so far favored Newman. Those counties had thousands of ballots left to count as of Sunday, so the race for the 29th could still go either way. Democrats entered Election Day needing to pick up two Assembly seats and one state Senate seat to gain a supermajority, which would allow them to raise taxes and place measures on the statewide ballot without Republican support. Democrats have already surpassed two-thirds control in the Assembly this election cycle, but they need a win in the 29th the last undecided state race to gain a full supermajority. Newman and Chang are vying to replace termed-out GOP state Sen. Bob Huff. Contact the writer: jgraham@scng.com or 714-796-7960 A high school senior, Yaocihuatl Reyes didnt pay much attention to the presidential race until she found her teacher sobbing and her east Los Angeles classmates terrified that the election of Donald Trump would lead to the deportation of their families. At that moment, the 17-year-old daughter of a nurse and security guard with little political upbringing said she felt driven to act. She and a friend asked students from nearby high schools in the predominantly Latino neighborhood to meet at a park, where they decided to lead a walkout. They made signs, wrote chants and mapped routes for the march to City Hall days later. Hundreds took part. We just wanted to go and tell our community that were here for them, were scared, too, but were not going to give up, said Reyes, whose family is in the U.S. legally. This walkout was kind of for unity, to unify each other. Though too young to vote, thousands of high school students from Seattle to Silver Spring, Maryland, have taken to the streets since Trumps election to protest his proposed crackdown on illegal immigration and his rude comments about women. It is an unusual show of political involvement on the part of young people. And experts say that kind of engagement can lead to increased activism when they are adults. The election has really promoted a feeling on the part of many people that just staying silent is being complicit, and so were seeing a huge uptick in engagement, said Jennifer Earl, a professor of sociology at the University of Arizona who researches the internet and social movements. On the other side of the political divide, students have also rallied in support of Trump, though in smaller numbers. The so-called millennial generation the youngest adult generation is the most racially and ethnically diverse in the country now, according to the Washington-based Pew Research Center. Nearly half of millennials identify themselves as political independents, more than in prior generations, according to Pew. Young people who are politically active and concerned about issues are more likely to vote once they turn 18, said Joseph Kahne, professor of educational policy and politics at the University of California, Riverside. Many teens are using social media to spread the word about demonstrations. The best predictor of whether a young person attends a protest is whether he or she is asked to go, Kahne said. Reyes said she had never even attended a political event until earlier this year, when she asked her mother to take her to a rally for Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders. Oregon teen Cole Sandlin said he, too, had never attended a political rally before organizing one at his high school. He and a friend ordered flags online to support Trump, affixed them to their trucks and gathered in the parking lot before class on Election Day. The rally drew about 30 students. We thought, this is basically our first election that were involved in, that we ought to do something to show our political views, said Sandlin, who turned 18 shortly after the election and likes Trumps promises to revamp health care and trade. Sandlin said he has long been interested in politics and grew up watching the news with his father, a farmer in Silverton, Oregon. He said he plans to work on the farm after graduation but will keep up on political issues. If there was something I felt compelled to share my opinion, I wouldnt have a problem doing that, he said. Nor would Reyes, who plans to attend college next year and major in political science, inspired by Sanders campaign. She said also wants to organize a community rally in east Los Angeles with speakers on topics such as criminal justice reform. It was kind of bizarre. I didnt think people would come, she said of the walkout. I just kept telling my friends, Wow, we actually did this. People actually came. It worked. Joe Chandler, from Brunswick, Georgia, may just be the only person in the United States of America who doesnt know who won this years presidential election. Two weeks since the final election day, the unconventional artist is still trying very hard to remain oblivious to the result. It all started when Joe Chandler was invited to a party at a friends house on election night, where he figured everyone would be biting their nails waiting to see who will become the next US president. I was invited to an election party to stay up into the night with everybody gnawing their nails, hanging on and I thought, oh there has to be a better way, he told Fox News. All I wanted to do is give myself 24 hours of blissful ignorance. It turns out that ignorance felt so good that he didnt want to give it up the next day either, so he has been doing everything in his power to not find out who the president elect is. Photo: YouTube screengrab But its really hard to believe that someone in the United States doesnt know that Donald Trump is the next president, unless theyve been living in total isolation for the past 14 days. Thats not exactly Chandlers case, but he has taken some serious precautions to make sure he doesnt find out by accident. He hardly ever leaves his house, which is not a big inconvenience, because he usually works from home, but when he does, he puts on a pair of earmuffs and wears a I dont know who won, and dont want to. PLEASE DONT TELL ME. sign around his neck. He also makes sure to divert his gaze from newspaper boxes. I divert my gaze from newspaper boxes I dont venture out very often, and when I do I wear my headphones and my sign, and people have been very respectful of my decision, Chandler told TODAY.com. The day after the election, Joes daughter told him You know, you may be the only person in the country, other than those in a cave or something, who still doesnt know. Since then, she has been sending him edited versions of the news so he can keep up to date with the world while avoiding finding out the result of the election. As strange as his decision may seem to the rest of the world, Joe Chandler claims that being clueless about the result of the presidential election has proven delightfully relaxing. Having subtracted myself from this political fracas and all of the mayhem of the digital media, I kind of found the center of the cyclone, he said. It is very peaceful in my bubble of ignorance. As for when hell finally be able to find out who the next president is, Chandler told Atlanta TV station WXIA Id like to make it to 2020, but Ill be lucky to make it to tomorrow. The Yangtze River Bridge in Nanjing, China, is one of the most popular suicide spots in the world, and also the place where one man has spent all his weekends and holidays over the last 13 years trying to convince people out of ending their lives. He has so far been able to save over 300 people. Chen Si claims that he can approach and talk people out of jumping off the bridge, because he knows how they feel. Many of those who attempt to commit suicide on the Yangtze River Bridge are not actually from Nanjing, but migrant workers living far away from home. Mr. Chen was like them once, a migrant disappointed with his life, living far away from his family. But then he met an old man who offered him optimistic advice and helped him look at life in a positive way. Unfortunately, not longer after they met, the old mans sons started arguing about their inheritance, and he got so upset that he stopped eating and eventually died. It was this tragic event that inspired Chen to help troubled souls overcome their difficulties and persuade them that life is worth living. He always believed that if he had visited the old man sooner, as he had planned to do, he might have convinced him of that as well. What could be more important than life itself? he asks. So every weekend since 2003, Chen Si has been traveling 25 kilometers from his home to the Yangtze Bridge and patrolling it for hours, either on foot or on his scooter, looking for people who look like they might be thinking of jumping into the river. He pays particularly close attentions to loners staring into the muddy waters below. Chen says he has become an expert at spotting people contemplating suicide. It is very easy to recognize, he says. A person walks without a soul. Chens style of intervention depends on the situation. To the people who havent yet built up the courage to go over the railings and jump, he talks gently, like a therapist, hoping to change their minds, but he can get aggressive if the person is getting ready to go through with their plan, and fast and decisive action is required. Although he has been named the guardian angel of Nanjing and has received high praise for his voluntary dedication, not everyone appreciates his interfering. Mr. Chen has been the target of verbal and physical abuse from the very people he was trying to save, but he hasnt let a few bruises and cuts deter him from saving as many people as he can. But convincing people to give life a second chance is only part of his intervention. To make sure that these people wont return to the bridge once hes gone, he has rented an apartment in Nanjing where they can stay for a couple of days to clear their heads and receive psychological counseling. He often call these people for weeks after their suicide attempts to make sure they are alright, and if they have financial problems, he will call their creditors and persuade them to lessen the financial burden they are under. Anything it takes to save their lives, Chen will do it. In the Angel of Nanjing, a recent documentary about his 13-year-long effort to prevent suicides on the Yangtze River, Chen Si admits that he isnt as successful at saving people as he would like. He has watched 50 people jump of the bridge before he could even approach them, and then there are those who take their lives when he is not there. In the hopes of saving at least a few of them, he has left his phone number on the bridge so they can call him for support. But while the world applauds his long-term effort to save lives, Chen Si struggles to keep his sanity and positive attitude in the face of so much pressure. Ever since he became famous in the press, he constantly receives phone calls from all over the country, but he cant help them all. Then there are the sad, often time tragic stories of those he does manage to save. The dedication to this noble cause has put a strain on his marriage and alienated many of his friends. Chen says that ever since he started patrolling Yangtze, he has become a chain smoker, has turned to alcohol and often struggles with depression himself. But he wont give up his mission, it is too important. Sources: The New York Times, Global Times, Angel of Nanjing To help Japanese companies better deal with the increasing number of foreigners visiting the country, Panasonic has created an innovative megaphone capable of automatically translating Japanese into English, Chinese and Korean. Remember that cool universal translator the crew of the Enterprise used to break down language barriers with alien species? Such technology is not yet available in real life, but if Panasonics Megahonyaku is a sign of things to come, that universal translator doesnt seem so sci-fi anymore. Megahonyaku is a pun on the Japanese words for megaphone and translate, which actually makes a lot of sense because its a megaphone that can translate Japanese into several other languages in real time. When a user speaks Japanese into the megaphone, it recognizes and translates what is being said instantly, and outputs the phrase in English, Chinese or Korean. It sounds amazing, and seeing it in action is pretty impressive, but Megahonyaku has limitations. It cannot translate everything you say, as it only comes pre-loaded with 300 common phrases, like The train has been delayed or Watch your step, which a Panasonic official said the device can almost certainly recognize even if they are not spoken word for word. However, the jaoanese company behind Megahonyaku promises to a dd new phrases regularly, which users can download via the internet. The device was designed to be used in places like transport stations, airports and tourist destinations, where speedy and accurate announcement are needed most. Around 30 Japanese organizations, including police and train operators, have been using Megahonyaku on a trial basis since 2015, but Panasonic will officially launch the device Dec. 20. If youre hoping to get your hand on one, dont hold your breath. Instead of selling these portable speech translator, the Japanese company plans on renting them out for less than 20,000 ($183) a month on a three-year contract, and offering clients future updates and maintenance. Panasonic has also announced that it may add support for other languages, like Russian, depending on clients needs. Megahonyaku also features a touchscreen that allows users to select the language they need their speech translated into. via Japan Times With the Irish economy improving, the impetus to travel overseas in search of employment has dwindled for many. However, experts at VisaFirst.com say that while some people no longer feel forced to move away, Irelands love affair with travel has certainly not gone away, and an estimated 6,500 Irish workers are expected to sign up for the 2016/2017 Canadian Working Holiday programme, which has opened its doors to applicants. The migration experts say that every year there are disappointed applicants to the 3 stage application process, but that, in the main, this is largely down to poorly completed and tardy application forms. Since this years programme opened, VisaFirst have received hundreds of calls from potential applicants from all over the country who are struggling to get their head around the application process, and/ or who are worried they may not fill in their application properly and scuppering their chances of success. Edwina Shanahan, Manager with www.visafirst.com explained, The process for the IEC visa application process is now separated into three stages. Firstly, you need to create a profile with the Canadian government; second, if successful, you will be issued an invitation letter from the Canadian Government inviting you to apply for a permit; and lastly, you apply directly for your permit to work. She stated that "In 2016, many people took the first step and created profiles but they were either late or gave insufficient data or both, and so many of these people did not receive a Government invitation to apply for with permit to work, which meant no visa!" "We are urging people this year to be organised - the best chance to get selected for an invitation letter is to get in the applicant pool early" VisaFirst.com say that Canadian employers are very much in favour of candidates from the Irish workforce and many offer lucrative attractive packages to entice people to relocate to Canada, often with their families, evidenced by the large swathes of workers applying for Permanent Residency in the country, which will allow themselves & their family to stay there for the foreseeable future. Edwina continued, The Irish have a good reputation abroad, they are seen to have a strong skill-set and a great work ethoics. Canada and Australia are both vying for popularity amongst those looking to travel. With the latter recently increasing the age threshold to 35 for their working holiday programme to match that already in existence in Canada. We estimate that between the IEC and the general working holiday visa programmes approximately 7,500 Irish workers will travel to Canada this year. Irish Looking to Stay Long-term VisaFirst.com say that over the last 10 years the numbers of Irish travelling to Canada on temporary work visas had risen significantly, but that as a result of the upturn in the economy the last couple of years have seen the numbers fall somewhat. However, Edwina Shanahan says that while temporary visa figures appear to be falling, Ireland was still ranked the 11th highest country to be issued work permits in 2014. In addition, the migration specialist notes that permanent residency figures are actually on the up, Edwina continued, Its interesting to see that of the people already in Canada working, more & more are more are applying for Permanent Residency making Ireland the 27th highest ranked country to be issued with PR visas in 2014. Temporary Foreign Work Permits Issued to Irish Workers 2005 - 260 2010 - 450 2013 - 1561 2014 - 778 Permanent Residency Visas Issued to Irish Workers 2005 - 224 2010 - 547 2013 - 1015 2014 - 1977 IEC Working Holiday Programme How Does it work?: The IEC program allows people from many countries up to the age of 35 (30 for some countries) to live and work in Canada for a period of 12 or 24 months. The applicant should hold a passport from an eligible country of which Ireland is one and the passport must be valid for the duration of their stay. They must have sufficient funds to support your stay (C$2500), have health insurance and a clean criminal record. The process of acquiring a Canadian Working Holiday Visa VisaFirst.com say that applicants dont need to wait until the beginning 2017 to begin their application process. The initial registration can be submitted now. It is important to get registered as soon as possible because the system will select applicants on a random basis until the quota is filled. Work permit application process: Edwina explained, Before you can apply for the IEC working holiday visa, you need to register your interest under the various IEC streams that you want to be considered for. Invitations are then issued. If accepted for a particular stream, you have only 10 days to accept or reject the offer before it expires. She said "Once you accept your invitation from IEC, you must get your work permit documentation submitted and pay the required immigration fees. You have just 20 days for this stage so again you need to be really focused and ensure that you have your documents submitted on time. Note that some documents can take a few weeks to obtain. If you are not prepared, it could result in you missing out on your opportunity for Canadas working Holiday program 2017 if you dont get them submitted within the time frame." "After reviewing your application, the CIC may request even more supporting documents. If you are approved, you will be sent a letter of introduction (LOI) which you need to present to immigration when entering the country in order to be granted the work permit." "The application process needs to be handled properly to ensure you get your IEC Working Holiday visa for Canada granted successfully. A mistake on any part of your application can cost you a few months of time or can result in the application being rejected," she concluded Weve tried many a ham recipe, but this is probably the Worlds Best Brown Sugar Ham. The best part is, you can make it in the oven or the slow cooker. The Best Brown Sugar Ham + Ham Glaze Recipe I know that Cade and I are guilty of calling many of our recipes the best ever, but this is truly the BEST baked ham recipe Ive ever made. The sticky sweet ham glaze that crisps up in the oven, the ultra moist spiral ham, the bits of pineapple everyone wants a bite of every part of this baked ham is finger-licking good. Even better, this spiral ham recipe is actually so easy to make. If youve never made a whole ham recipe before, I understand if youre feeling a little intimidated right now. But once you slice the ham, all you have to do is whip up a quick sauce for the ham, brush it over the meat, and bake. For extra tips and tricks, make sure to check out our post on how to carve a spiral ham. Hopefully that post will clear up any questions you might have about prepping this brown sugar ham! Whether youre wanting to make a Thanksgiving ham, a Christmas ham, an Easter ham, or a ham for any other occasion, you cant go wrong with this classic brown sugar ham recipe! Whats in This Brown Sugar Ham? You actually need very few ingredients to make this whole ham and ham glaze recipe! All you need is: 10-pound spiral cut ham Canned pineapple tidbits Brown sugar Dijon mustard Cinnamon stick If you like to serve your brown sugar ham with a dipping sauce, our family and extended family are obsessed with these holiday ham dipping sauces (there are two recipes, a pina colada dipping sauce and a honey mustard sauce). We never serve our ham without these two sauces! How Much Ham Per Person? A good rule of thumb is to plan on pound of ham per person if youre buying a boneless ham and pound of ham per person if youre buying bone-in ham. If youll be serving lots of little ones as well, use your best judgement! How to Make Brown Sugar Glaze for Ham This brown sugar and pineapple ham glaze recipe cant be beat! Its incredibly easy to make, and it will take your Easter or Thanksgiving ham to the next level. Heres how to make our favorite ham glaze recipe: Combine the pineapple tidbits and their juice, brown sugar, mustard, and cinnamon stick in a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Let it bubble until thickened. Set aside until ready to use. How to Cook a Ham in the Oven Believe it or not, cooking a whole ham is fairly simple. Heres what you do: Make the ham glaze. Brush most of the sauce for the ham over top and in between the layers of meat. Bake for 90 minutes. Brush the remaining brown sugar pineapple ham glaze on just before serving. Carve the ham (weve linked our tutorial in the recipe card below). How Long to Bake Ham If your ham isnt 10 pounds exactly, we recommend baking your ham for roughly 10 to 12 minutes per pound. What to Serve with Ham This baked brown sugar ham pairs perfectly with any classic holiday side. A few of our favorite foods to serve alongside baked ham include: Who wouldnt love a holiday spread like this? One thing to keep in mind is that you dont want to be opening and closing the oven door to baking more casseroles and sides while the ham is cooking. So if you know youll be making sides that require time in the oven, try to pick recipes that require the same oven temperature as the ham and bake everything together. Watch this video on how to make baked ham! How to Store Ham Leftovers Leftover brown sugar ham and pineapple ham glaze should be kept in an airtight container in the fridge. It will last up to 4 days in the fridge, if stored correctly. How to Reheat Ham If you need to reheat the entire brown sugar ham, wrap it tightly in foil so it doesnt dry out, then heat it in a 300F oven for roughly 15 minutes per pound. If you need to bake this ham ahead of time and reheat it prior to serving to friends and family, you can also keep the ham warm in a slow cooker. This is a great alternative to reheating the brown sugar ham in the oven since your oven will likely be full to bursting during the holidays! If your slow cooker isnt big enough to fit the whole ham, slice the meat from the bone and then place it in the slow cooker. It wont be as nice of a presentation as carving the brown sugar ham with pineapple glaze in front of everyone, but itll still taste good, which is what matters! Can You Freeze Ham? Yes, this brown sugar ham can be sliced and frozen for later. To freeze the ham, let it cool to room temperature and then wrap individual portions in aluminum foil. Then, store the foil-wrapped portions in a freezer bag (the foil makes it easier to separate the slices once frozen. Trust me, you dont want to store frozen ham in one big lump!). To thaw the frozen ham, place it in your fridge overnight. Or add the frozen ham directly to your favorite soups and stews and cook until its heated through. Can I Use Another Fruit Besides Pineapple? If you or a loved one cant eat pineapple or if you simply ran out, you can also use canned mandarin oranges in this recipe. Make sure to buy mandarin oranges packed in water and not syrup, though. Should I Cover the Ham with Foil? We dont cover our baked ham with foil, no. However, if youve already put your ham in the oven with foil over top your ham should turn out fine. Should I Buy Boneless or Bone-In Ham? We prefer bone-in hams since they have better flavor. Plus, you can use the ham bone and any leftover ham in Ham Hock Soup or ham and beans! Tips for the Best Baked Ham You can use a pre-cooked spiral cut ham for this brown sugar ham recipe. The reason the ham needs a full 90 minutes in the oven is because it needs to be heated through all the way. If you use a raw ham, youll need to cook it for longer. Because this whole ham recipe is so simple, we highly suggest using the exact ingredients weve listed in the recipe below. Dijon mustard in particular is a must. Regular yellow mustard doesnt have the same depth of flavor and is a little harsher than Dijon. And using a cinnamon stick versus ground cinnamon will keep the ham glaze from being too cinnamon-y. Also note that this brown sugar ham recipe is perfect in the oven as the sugars caramelize into the most beautiful sight ever. However, you can also make a whole ham in the slow cooker as well! If youd rather make your ham in a slow cooker, we suggest following our Slow Cooker Ham recipe. More HAM RECIPES You Will Love: Launched! Our new book is now available! This unique cookbook guides the way through every step, including meal lists and easy-to-follow recipes, and features dollops of heartwarming family stories. Buy now World's Best Brown Sugar Ham 3.66 from 85 votes Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes Additional Time: 1 hour 45 minutes Total Time: 3 hours 30 minutes Servings: 18 -20 Save Recipe Print Recipe We've tried many a ham recipe, but this is probably the World's Best Brown Sugar Ham. The best part is, you can make it in the oven or slow cooker. Ingredients 10 Pound Spiral Cut Ham Use [this information] on the proper and easiest way to cut a ham 20 ounce can pineapple tidbits or crushed pineapple 3/4 Cup Brown Sugar 1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard 1 Cinnamon Stick Instructions Place the ham in a roasting pan, cut side down. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. In a saucepan over medium high heat, combine the pineapple tidbets as well as the juice, brown sugar, mustard and cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil and then turn down to medium heat to simmer until thickened, about 10-15 minutes depending on your stove. Brush 3/4 of the glaze over and in between the layers of the ham. Bake for 90 minutes. Remove the ham for the oven and brush the last bit of glaze and serve! Notes may be stored in the refrigerator for 3-4 days Nutrition Facts World's Best Brown Sugar Ham Amount Per Serving (1 g) Calories 404 Calories from Fat 117 % Daily Value* Fat 13g 20% Saturated Fat 2g 13% Polyunsaturated Fat 6g Cholesterol 161mg 54% Sodium 2487mg 108% Carbohydrates 17g 6% Fiber 1g 4% Sugar 15g 17% Protein 56g 112% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. This is a story I read last year and it really touched my heart. It seemed perfect for the Christmas season, which is quickly approaching. So we hope youll read it, enjoy it and share it with someone and of course after that make sure you pin the Worlds Best Brown Sugar Ham because it is so stinking delicious! This is the full talk. Its called Shepherds of Israel and you will love it. Some years ago, it was my privilege to visit the country of Morocco as part of an official United States government delegation. As part of that visit, we were invited to travel some distance into the desert to visit some ruins. Five large black limousines moved across the beautiful Moroccan countryside at considerable speed. I was riding in the third limousine, which had lagged some distance behind the second. As we topped the brow of a hill, we noticed that the limousine in front of us had pulled off to the side of the road. As we drew nearer, I sensed that an accident had occurred and suggested to my driver that we stop. The scene before us has remained with me for these many years. An old shepherd, in the long, flowing robes of the Saviors day, was standing near the limousine in conversation with the driver. Nearby, I noted a small flock of sheep numbering not more than fifteen or twenty. An accident had occurred. The kings vehicle had struck and injured one of the sheep belonging to the old shepherd. The driver of the vehicle was explaining to him the law of the land. Because the kings vehicle had injured one of the sheep belonging to the old shepherd, he was now entitled to one hundred times its value at maturity. However, under the same law, the injured sheep must be slain and the meat divided among the people. My interpreter hastily added, But the old shepherd will not accept the money. They never do. Startled, I asked him why. And he added, Because of the love he has for each of his sheep. It was then that I noticed the old shepherd reach down, lift the injured lamb in his arms, and place it in a large pouch on the front of his robe. He kept stroking its head, repeating the same word over and over again. When I asked the meaning of the word, I was informed, Oh, he is calling it by name. All of his sheep have a name, for he is their shepherd, and the good shepherds know each one of their sheep by name. It was as my driver had predicted. The money was refused, and the old shepherd with his small flock of sheep, with the injured one tucked safely in the pouch on his robe, disappeared into the beautiful deserts of Morocco. As we continued our journey toward the ruins, my interpreter shared with me more of the traditions and practices of the shepherds of that land. Each evening at sundown, for example, the shepherds bring their small flocks of sheep to a common enclosure where they are secured against the wolves that roam the deserts of Morocco. A single shepherd then is employed to guard the gate until morning. Then the shepherds come to the enclosure one by one, enter therein, and call forth their sheepby name. The sheep will not hearken unto the voice of a stranger but will leave the enclosure only in the care of their true shepherd, confident and secure because the shepherd knows their names and they know his voice. The words of the Master Shepherd rang loudly in my ears: But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. I love that message. What a great lesson to be learned from such a simple story. Loading... OilVoice will be with you shortly... Every week or so, the third-graders at Field Club Elementary get a visit from a tiny dynamo of tail-wagging energy. His name is Elijah or Eli a 9-month-old white-and-brown Jack Russell terrier in training to be a therapy dog at the Nebraska Medical Center. Eli comes to Field Club because he needs to be socialized, to learn to not jump up and sniff the sick children hell visit at the medical center. The children learn to properly interact with an animal many dont have pets at home. The experience also ties into their reading and writing lessons on working dogs and therapy dogs and into Field Clubs Character Counts pillars of citizenship and caring. A concrete example of what (therapy dogs) are doing is great, said Kristine Bielenberg, the third-grade teacher. They really get a focus on being kind and helping others. On Monday, the kids met Eli in small groups, usually of four. Elis owner and trainer, Melissa Lester, talked to the children about dog safety and manners. Specifically, she explained how to approach someone elses dog: Ask the owner if it is OK to pet the dog, allow it to sniff your hand and start petting below its head. Sometimes it worked. The kids would approach on their knees, ask permission to pet and extend their hand. Thats good, Eli, Lester said as a third-grader scratched a compliant Eli under his neck. There you go. ... That was really super good. Sometimes it didnt. An eager Eli would jump forward and lick a childs wrist or fingers. He will have to learn to be a bit more restrained. Some kids at the hospital, they have tubes, Lester explained to a group. If he were to jump up, he could hurt one of the kids. Eli still has time to learn. He cant be certified until he gets to be at least a year old. Lester has been a pet therapy volunteer at the medical center for 12 years. She recalled that a 2-year-old girl who had undergone stomach surgery didnt want to walk. But when Lester gave her the opportunity to take a therapy dog on a walk, that changed. Her eyes lit up and she walked, Lester said. Thats the kind of gift that we offer. She added, Some of the kids at the hospital, the only smile they get all day is when the dogs come in. An update to the Millard Public Schools sex-education curriculum avoids discussion of gender identity and other topics that sparked heated debate after they were added to Omaha Public Schools new curriculum. The board did reaffirm its commitment to teaching what the district describes as a pro-abstinence sex-education curriculum. Board members voted 6-0 to reaffirm existing board policy. The policy has been in effect since 1992. The board also adopted a framework for health education instruction across the district, a step toward implementing a new curriculum, possibly in the 2018-19 school year. The framework outlines the topics to be covered in prekindergarten through high school health classes, including the human growth and development classes that cover sex education in the upper grades. Adoption of the framework clears the way for the district staff to begin selecting and evaluating textbooks, videos and other curricular materials from which the courses will be taught. Once those materials are determined, the public will have a chance to review them at community nights, most likely sometime next year. After considering public input, the staff would then recommend materials, and the board would vote again to approve the entire program. Under the framework, fifth-graders would learn about puberty and AIDS. Sixth-graders would learn about puberty, the human reproduction system and birth. In eighth grade and high school, the lessons include abstinence and contraceptives. The framework states that contraceptives are included to highlight inadequacies and ineffectiveness of their use ... to further support (the) position of abstinence and safe approach to sexual behavior. Teachers, it says, would not demonstrate how to use family planning devices. Heather Phipps, associate superintendent for educational services, said the district teaches contraception methods but stresses that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective method. We are trying to be consistent in our message, Phipps said. Our message is always pro-abstinence. That is what is effective. That is what prevents STDs. Other forms of birth control, she said, are not as effective as abstinence. Under the framework, the district would continue avoiding certain topics, some of which have generated controversy as the Omaha school board adopted its new curriculum this year. Omahas new curriculum addresses gender identity, orientation, abortion and transgender, but like Millards, it does not discuss masturbation. The Millard framework states that health teachers would not discuss sexual identity, orientation or abortion. Teachers would also avoid discussing the topics of transgender, masturbation and several others. If students raised questions about these and other topics, teachers would refer them to their parents, the framework says. Eighth-graders would get lessons in pregnancy, birth, teen parenting and sexually transmitted infections. High school topics would include pregnancy, self-advocacy such as refusal skills and seeking support, and sexually transmitted infections. NEW YORK (AP) Federal regulators are urging railroads across the country to test train operators for obstructive sleep apnea after the engineer in Septembers deadly New Jersey commuter train crash was found to have the fatigue-inducing disorder. The Federal Railroad Administration will issue a safety advisory this week stressing the importance of sleep apnea screening and treatment, Administrator Sarah Feinberg said. One railroad that already tests its engineers, Metro-North in the New York City suburbs, found that one in nine suffers from sleep apnea. The advisory, akin to a strong recommendation, is a stopgap measure while regulators draft rules that would require all railroads to screen engineers for sleep apnea. That process could take years, and Feinberg said railroads shouldnt wait for the government to force action. At this point its unacceptable to wait any longer, Feinberg said. Sleep apnea sufferers are repeatedly awakened and robbed of rest as their airway closes and their breathing stops, leading to dangerous daytime drowsiness. You end up with an engineer who is so fatigued theyre dozing off, theyre falling asleep in these micro bursts and they often have no memory of it, and theyre operating a locomotive at the time, so theyre putting hundreds of people in danger, Feinberg said. Airplane pilots with sleep apnea arent allowed to fly unless theyve been successfully treated. Regulators are also pushing for bus and truck drivers to get tested. Currently, train engineers are required to undergo vision and hearing testing at least every three years. Some railroads require annual physicals, but there are no federal standards for comprehensive medical exams. New Jersey Transit engineer Thomas Gallagher, 48, was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea about a month after his train slammed into Hoboken Terminal at double the 10 mph speed limit on Sept. 29, his lawyer said. One woman on a platform was killed by falling debris. More than 100 people were injured. Gallagher had passed a physical in July and was cleared for duty, lawyer Jack Arsenault said. The engineer told investigators he felt rested when he reported to work. He said he had no memory of the crash and remembered only waking up on the floor of the cab. NJ Transit already tests for sleep apnea, but its not clear if Gallagher was screened. The agency updated its rules last week to prevent diagnosed engineers from operating trains until theyre fully treated, Feinberg said. NJ Transit declined to answer questions about its screening program, saying it was not authorized to discuss an employees medical information and couldnt discuss specifics about the crash while federal investigators continued their probe. Sleep apnea also went undiagnosed in the engineer of a commuter train that sped into a 30 mph curve at 82 mph and crashed in New York City, killing four people, in 2013. He had fallen asleep at the controls. A deadly freight train crash in 2013 in Missouri also was attributed to sleep apnea. Metro-North started testing for sleep apnea after the 2013 crash. Its screening program has found sleep apnea in 51 of its 438 engineers and trainees, spokesman Aaron Donovan said. They are undergoing treatment, he said. The Long Island Rail Road is in the process of starting a testing program. The FRA first recommended sleep apnea testing in 2004, but Feinberg said most railroads are still not doing enough to address the issue. This is one more thing railroads can do to keep their passengers safe and the communities theyre traveling through safe, Feinberg said. Copyright 2016 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. High school students across the city walked out of class and took to the sidewalks and streets Friday, broadcasting messages of both unity and fear after Donald Trumps election to the presidency. Chanting not my president and we have a voice, Omaha Central High School students poured out of the downtown high school Friday morning during a staged walkout. An estimated 125 Northwest High School students soon followed suit, leaving school midmorning to hold an anti-Trump protest at 90th Street and Military Road. Walkouts occurred at Bryan and South High Schools, too. At Millard North High School, videos on social media showed students in the cafeteria chanting love trumps hate, as another group of students responded with: Build the wall! Build the wall! About a dozen Westside High students also demonstrated after school. Westside spokeswoman Brandi Petersen characterized the protest as peaceful and brief, and said school staff have been answering questions and encouraging open conversations in the classroom. We want our kids to be engaged in whats going on around them, she said. As nationwide tensions over the elections outcome spill into classrooms, school officials have sometimes been called on to act as referees. At Millard North, spokeswoman Rebecca Kleeman said staff stepped in as students went back-and-forth over Trump, and told kids to get to class. Principal Brian Begley sent parents an email about the incident. Central students called their protest a rally designed to unite the schools diverse student body around a message of peace and acceptance for all after a bruising election cycle. Students said they came to support groups who felt marginalized by Trumps campaign rhetoric, such as women, African-Americans, immigrants and the LGBT community. Junior Eh Ta Ler held a sign that proclaimed No Place for Hate @ CHS. He wanted to take a stand for his friends who were immigrants and fear they or their families will now face deportation after Trumps tough talk about cracking down on illegal immigration. Im here to support other people and other cultures, he said. Central students waved American, Mexican and rainbow flags, sang the national anthem and hoisted signs with messages such as Not My President, We Are Stronger Together, and We Thank The Veterans That Fought For Our Right To Protest. Most of us are 15, 16, 17 years old, said junior Nick Koehler. We feel like we dont have a say ... By doing this, students have a voice. Two Omaha Public Schools administrators estimated that more than 1,000 Central students gathered on the schools front lawn and sidewalk in front of Dodge Street during homeroom. Kids stayed outside for about one hour, and then headed back to class at the urging of teachers and other students. Those numbers likely swelled due to an ill-timed fire alarm that triggered a school evacuation. Principal Ed Bennett said fire officials determined the alarm was set off by a faulty sprinkler head, not a student. School officials stressed that the protest was not school-sanctioned and would result in students being marked truant for missed class time. Still, Bennett and ReNae Kehrberg, an OPS assistant superintendent, said students generally remained respectful and kept signs and chants free of profanity. Before the protest started, one man brought a large Trump campaign sign with F--- Trump spray-painted across it, but moved across the street from the high school. Our parents know that we as educators arent partisans, Kehrberg said. Our job is to support students and keep them safe. We need to guide them and tell them to stay in school. Central administrators organized assemblies Thursday as rumors of a walkout spread across social media. There, students were able to share their comments on the election, and school staff discussed the transition of power and the checks-and-balances built into the American political system. Hillary Clinton won a mock election at the school, although students said there were certainly students who supported Trump. Senior Marshall Biven said he knew students would receive flak for leaving school and protesting against the man lawfully elected president. But he said he was disappointed at the apathy that drove so many voters to sit out this election. This is my government class period, he said. What better way to learn about government than to participate in a live protest? One Central parent dropped off her child late and witnessed the tail end of the protest. She asked Kehrberg whether the school was behind this. I dont think its funny that people are smiling about this, the woman said. Its not cute. Police blocked off northbound and southbound lanes of traffic at 90th Street and Blair High Road for about 20 minutes during the Northwest protest, which wrapped up around 11 a.m, as kids headed back to school. Since Trumps election, Jeremiah Abol said, many students at Northwest High School, especially black students, have been mad and sad. The 16-year-old junior said many feel Trump represents only rich white people. Some people are just scared for the future, Abol said. At age 17, seniors Tasja Campbell, Tishara Collins and Makayla Grant couldnt vote, but said they wont stay silent. This is our voice, Grant said of the protest. It wasnt up to us. We have to deal with him for four years. Students got some friendly honks from passing motorists, but at one point, the girls said a man in a black pickup truck stopped, got out, lit a cigarette and called them a racial slur. He told them we would put them to work. They said they tried to ignore him. Hundreds of Bryan High students marched around on the south end of campus before walking north along 48th Street to Harrison more than a mile from the front doors of the school and back. Bryan is a diverse school, and many protesters were Latino. They cited immigration as a key concern. The students said they had plenty of naysayers, but those critics were strangers on social media, not their fellow students. Weve had many people disagree with us a lot, said Dylan Guzman, 17, a senior, who said many of the strangers told them they were too young to have a valid opinion on the election. They are telling us to pack our bags, said Damien Perez, 17, a senior, holding a sign that said Love Trumps Hate. World-Herald staff writers Emily Nitcher and Andrew J. Nelson contributed to this report. For the third year in a row, deputies and other employees at the Sarpy County Sheriffs Office are letting their beards grow for a worthy cause. For $90, deputies can go without shaving as part of the No-Shave November challenge, which lasts until Dec. 17, with the goal of raising $5,000 for a cause close to the Sheriffs Office. Sgt. Mike Bramhalls son Michael, 23, was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as an infant. In August, Michael underwent a double-lung transplant in North Carolina, and the Sheriffs Office hopes to help the family with some of the expenses. When we were looking for a cause or organization to donate money to for No-Shave November, it was obvious we should give money to the Bramhall family, said Chief Deputy Greg London. This years No-Shave November also coincides with a fundraiser to be held for Michael by the Sarpy County Sheriffs Office and the Fraternal Order of the Police Lodge #3. This event will be held at The Belvedere Hall, 201 E. 1st St., Papillion, at 4 p.m. Sunday to raise money for Michaels expenses, which could range from $100,000 to $800,000. My employees see the goodwill of the fundraiser, London said. Weve always had very worthy causes, and thats why weve had a lot of participation in No-Shave November. London estimates about 75 people, or about one-third of the Sheriffs Office, are participating in one way or another. Sheriffs Deputy Earl Johnson said he enjoys growing a beard during the month because it keeps his face warm as the temperature gets colder. I dislike shaving, so Im all for it, Johnson said. Especially when were doing it for a good cause. Members of the Sheriffs Office follow strict rules regarding facial hair. For the rest of the year, male employees are allowed to have only a mustache, so No-Shave November gives them far more facial hair freedom. Although this event is mainly beneficial for the men in the Sheriffs Office, women who work in the office can wear jeans for $30. Because of uniform requirements, there arent as many options for female deputies, although they are allowed to paint their nails for the month. Thats the hard part is how do we get them involved, London said. Most of our female deputies are just sort of out of luck because they cant wear jeans. Last year, the money raised, which was also about $5,000, was donated to several local food pantries. For London, its important that the money raised stays in Sarpy County. We want to keep the money in Sarpy County to help Sarpy County families, London said. For our fundraising, we can see first-hand where our money goes to. Its very transparent. A man unfamiliar with his brothers Jeep Cherokee drove the vehicle over the curb at Eppley Airfield, striking his brother and a woman in a wheelchair before ramming into the airport terminal. Suffering serious injuries were Jerome Merwald of Omaha and Shyrell Windom-Haynes of Kyle, Texas. Tim Conahan, chief of the Omaha Airport Authority Police Department, provided this account: Merwald, 72, drove to Eppley at 1:35 p.m. to pick up his 66-year-old brother, Frank Merwald, who was flying in from California. The elder Merwald told his younger brother that he needed to use the restroom and asked him to drive around the terminal while he ran inside. Vehicles arent allowed to idle outside the terminal. As the younger Merwald prepared to move the 2004 Jeep, it backed up quickly, which startled him. Merwald then shifted into drive and apparently became confused and hit the accelerator. That sent the SUV over the curb, striking his brother and Windom-Haynes, who was being helped from a wheelchair into a waiting vehicle. The Jeep also pushed into the airports revolving door near the United Airlines area at the north end of the terminal. Jerome Merwald was knocked through a plate-glass window and into the terminal. He suffered a fractured ankle and a head injury, said Omaha Police Officer Alicia Julian, an accident investigator. He was taken to Creighton University Medical Center. Windom-Haynes, 49, had an injury to her left leg and was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center, Julian said. Frank Merwald suffered a cut to his face and was treated at Creighton and released, Julian said. Police ticketed him on suspicion of negligent driving. Steve Coufal, executive director of Eppley Airport Authority, said airport officials would investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident to see whether additional protective measures are needed. A damage estimate hadnt been completed as of Monday evening, he said. Airline passenger travel was not interrupted. The revolving door that was struck was disabled. Tammy Tyree, who was at the airport, said she was walking toward the Jeep when she saw it crashing over the sidewalk. I didnt know what to think, she said about safely running out of harms way. But just to see those two people fly all the way after being hit like that was ... was horrible, Tyree said. World-Herald staff writers Alia Conley and Megan Smith contributed to this report. President Barack Obama spent Thursday and part of Friday in Germany, underlining the importance of the relationship with Chancellor Angela Merkel and, particularly, their personal rapport. With Obamas imminent disappearance from the world stage, the transition to a Donald Trump administration is creating international disquiet, as world leaders prepare for the unknown. The German chancellor is arguably the most important figure of stability in international politics. They met in Berlin, increasingly the capital of Europe, although Brussels still hosts the headquarters of both the European Union and NATO. British Prime Minister Theresa May, French President Francois Hollande and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy all traveled to Berlin for their farewell-as-president meeting with Obama. Germany is the economic and, thus, probably, the political center of Europe, an ironic epilogue to its loss of two major wars in the last century. There will be national elections in Germany next year, but Merkel is still the most solidly based politically of the leaders of the most powerful Western European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain. Journalists questioning Merkel and Obama in a Berlin press conference were most interested in finding out if she intended to run for what, in effect, would be her fourth term. As chancellor since 2005, her head remains firmly above whatever glass ceiling there might have been in Germany. If she wins re-election again in 2017, it is likely she will again stay on top of the complex, multiparty scene that German politics constitutes. Merkels and Germanys relationship with the United States under the leadership of the newly elected American president remains to be defined. She got along smoothly with Obama, but she is also enough of a pragmatist to work effectively with Trump where she sees American and German interests as coinciding. She also had a close relationship with Obamas predecessor, President George W. Bush. The principles that she as chancellor stands for include some that Trump did not advocate as a candidate. These include efforts to combat climate change, opposition to Russian designs in Ukraine, support of a strong NATO, economic reform and free trade, including international agreements. Merkel has also pursued a German policy of welcoming immigrants, some 1 million in 2015. She would agree with Trump on strong economies with lots of job creation and firm opposition to Islamic State encroachment. The American president-elect should not imagine that he and America can get along in the world without good relations with Germany and its chancellor. Neither Bush nor Obama thought so. Ukraine and Russia wont do it. Rise of BJP in Tamil Nadu Chennai oi-Anusha For a state that has always preferred regional parties over national parties Tamil Nadu is steadily paving way for the BJP. The results of bypolls in 3 constituencies of Tamil Nadu stands proof of BJP stomping ahead on regional parties like Vijayakanth's DMDK(Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam) and former Union Minister Dr Ramdoss' PMK(Pattali Makkal Katchi) and Seeman's NTK(Naam Tamilar Katchi). Combined vote share for BJP in all constituencies in TN stands at 2.6% with 13538 votes even as Vijayakanth's DMDK stands at a meagre 1.3% with 6806 votes. Vijayakanth's party failed miserably even when compared to 1.6 per cent vote share of independent candidates as announced by the Tamil Nadu election commission. DMDK has been on a losing streak since Lok Sabha elections of 2014. With its vote shares plunging seems like the BJP has made the most of it. The fight has always been between arch rivals AIADMK and DMK but if Tuesday's bypolls results are anything to go by, Tamil Nadu is being stormed by the BJP that has secured its position in top 3 pushing down other dravidian parties. The bypolls results in Aravakuruchi, Thanjavur and Thiruparankundram have shown a clear sway of voters towards a national party like BJP. [Also Read: Congress wins Nellithope constituency ] Post the 'self respect movement' of Periyar that led to the rise of dravidian parties people of Tamil Nadu have always voted for dravidian parties. Over the last 3 years however, a non-dravidian BJP is giving the regional parties a run for their money. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 16:24 [IST] 2 Indian soldiers martyred, 1 beheaded. Army promises to hit back India oi-Vicky Three soldiers were killed and one of them beheaded by the Pakistan army commandos in Jammu and Kashmir today. The killing took place in Machhal near the Line of Control today. The army said that the retribution for this cowardly act would be a strong one. Army officials say that the intruders from the Border Action Team of the Pakistan army managed to escape after carrying out this gory attack. It may be recalled that last month a Indian soldier was killed and his body mutilated by terrorists. In that incident the body of 27 year old Sepoy, Mandeep Singh was mutilated by the Pakistan terrorists before they ran back with the help of cover fire provided by the Pakistan army. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 17:04 [IST] Blacklisted firms to be reviewed; New defence policy out India oi-PTI New Delhi, Nov 22: The Defence Ministry will review all cases of blacklisted firms as it prepares a new list of such entities following the new policy unveiled by it which is a mixture of heavy fines and graded banning. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said that the Director General (Acquisition) will draw up a list as required under the new policy and hence old cases will also be looked into. "That does not mean they will be taken out. Don't interpret... they will be examined. What is the status, how many years they have been blacklisted for and why they were blacklisted," Parrikar told PTI on the sidelines of a seminar here. He said that as per the new policy, there has to be a new list. "So the list will have to be re-ascertained," the Minister said. The review will include about a dozen firms that came under blanket blacklisting in the previous regime, a move which the forces were unhappy about as it proved detrimental to their modernisation plans. Some of the firms like Singapore Technologies have approached the courts seeking removal of blacklisting. Singapore Technologies' argument is that it has been wrongly blacklisted since no contract was ever awarded to it and neither is it mentioned in the charge sheet filed by the CBI in connection with a bribery case involving the then Ordinance Factory Board chief. Under its new liberalised blacklisting policy for arms companies, India will now be open to doing business even with a banned firm if there is no alternative available to its weapon system or equipment in the market. This can be done on the grounds of national security, operational military readiness and export obligations, after the vice-chief of the Service concerned, the chief of the integrated defence staff or the additional secretary (defence production) signs a certificate to that effect and gets permission from the "competent authority", who is the Defence Minister. Another key element of the new policy is that unlike the blanket ban of 10 years, the government has said that ban on serious defaulters will be for minimum five years. The policy does not mention the maximum time period for ban. Called the 'Guidelines of the Ministry of Defence for Penalties in Business Dealings with Entities', the policy, which has been in the works for long, aims to ensure probity and transparency in defence deals without affecting the modernisation plans. PTI Coimbatore: 24 years back and now, the radical Islamists are of the same family City shocked by death of beloved 20 rupees doctor' India oi-Madhuri By Madhuri Coimbatore, Nov 22: A small private clinic opposite to Ramakrishna Hospital in Sidhapudur, Coimbatore witnessed a heartwarming farewell when thousands of people gathered to pay respect to their beloved '20 Rupees Doctor'. Dr Balasubramaniam ran a clinic in the Sidhapudur area of Coimbatore, which he started after he was retired from Employee's State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). Two years ago, Dr Balasubramaniam initially charged his patients a fee of merely Rs 2 which gradually increased over the year to Rs 10, finally amounting it to Rs 20. He never charged anything extra when providing his patients with injections and tablets. Also, he did not charge patients who visited him for follow-ups. It is learnt that Dr Balasubramaniam had a cardiac arrest and died on Saturday. Even Sindhu, the grand daughter of Dr Balasubramaniam flew from Bangalore as many people called her up to ask about her grand father's demise. On hearing about his death, the streets of Sidhapudur overflowed with people on Sunday morning who came to pay their respects to their philanthropic doctor. Outside his clinic, people were seen lined up to light candles and offer prayers, and to bid farewell to him when his body was brought to his clinic before being taken for cremation. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 9:28 [IST] Demonetisation: Kashmiri youth writes to PM, read viral letter here India oi-Jagriti New Delhi, Nov 22: The demonetisation of high value currency notes announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 has raised eyebrows of Opposition. The united Opposition escalated its attack on PM Modi citing the hardship being faced by common man across the nation. The move announced with an aim to curb the menace of black money has got mixed response from public in the country. Meanwhile, a Muslim youth from Kashmir has written a letter to PM extending his support on demonetisation. Read the viral letter written by Afzal Rehman to PM, first appeared on theindianvoice.com Dear PM Narendra Modi The life of a Kashmiri is unimaginable for the rest part of India. How a Normal Kashmiri, who works hard everyday to feed his family, lives his life amidst the constant tussle between separatists and Security forces, though it is really a sorry state but we have to live with it. I am a Normal Kashmiri- Afzal Rahman- and I am not from the 2% separatists in Kashmir. I am a husband, a father of 4 and a son of aged parents- And yes I am a proud Indian and a Kashmiri who runs a "Garments Shop" in Srinagar. Only thing that I think over and over again is to give a good future to my children. Thus, even after so many threats, I asked my elder son to go for the "Police admission Exams" this year. One of my daughter is studying in class 12th, and I am aware how big this year means in her life, Career and Growth. But last 4 months have been very unsettling. With almost No Business for 4 months and Curfew almost every day. How can a lower middle class man survive without work? Somehow, I managed to feed my family with past savings- but that was not the only problem. My daughter lost so many days of her schooling, in such an important time of her life. My son was very demoralized with the situation he saw. The youngsters of his age, who were unemployed, were throwing stones on the security forces. They were given money by separatists. But then what an unemployed man can do?- He will do anything to get some money which could feed the aged parents and crying children. My own so, who was an aspiring police man, joined the gang of stone pelters, without my knowledge. I got to know about it when he was shot on his arm, by pallet gun. When the tussle slowed down a bit, they started burning the schools in the valley. My daughter's school was also there in the list of those 29 torched schools. Our life was totally down and out, neither we could sleep, nor we could eat, and we were not even allowed to die. But then on 8th November we heard a news on Radio-Kashmir. You took a decision on banning currency notes of 500/1000. The decision scared us further. We had a little money left with us and that too was in the currency notes of 500. And the option of exchange was never with the Kashmiris, due to unrest. The whole India thinks about Black Money but Kashmiris think about survival. We never thought this decision of yours would give us our lives back, but it certainly did. There wasn't any stone pelting on streets, though the forces were there but pelters were not. With in one or two days traffic started moving in the valley. We opened our shops, there were people in the market. We could certainly see some happy faces. At other part of India, they must be feeling pain standing in lines, but we Kashmiris are enjoying standing in the bank queues, and socialize. We were worried about my daughter's exam, but now she went there to take her board exams. And it was not my daughter who took the exam. There were so many other happy faces came to take the exams. It was the highest attendance of students in examination hall this year- almost 95%. With all this positive happened- We all sat together and started talking about what went well? We came to the conclusion that -These separatists have had only 500/1000 rupee notes which no one is taking now. I don't know what rest of India thinks but we in the valley are very happy with the decision. Yours Afzal Rahman OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 14:57 [IST] Five years of demonetisation: Notes in circulation on rise; so are digital payments PM Modi should admit that demonetistion a failure: Owaisi on cash seizure in UP Demonetisation: Opposition to hold sit in outside Parliament on Wednesday India oi-Jagriti New Delhi, Nov 22: Opposition parties are set to hold sit in protest outside the Parliament against Centre's move to demonetise Rs500 and Rs1000 notes here on Wednesday. The decision was unanimously taken in a meeting by leaders from both upper and lower houses of Parliament. "We will hold dharna in front of the Gandhi statue (outside Parliament building) tomorrow at 9.45 AM on the demonetisation issue. "It was decided to meet the President. But the date will be decided. We will go step by step," Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said after the strategy meeting of opposition parties here. Since the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Rs 500 and 1,000 notes will no longer be legal tender, the opposition has trained its guns on the government. Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee earlier warned the Centre of intense protests if the problems being faced by people over demonetisation are not resolved in three days' time. PM seeks support on demonetisation, opposition won't oblige While Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week urged the opposition parties to cooperate with the government on its decision to demonetise in the larger national interest, but the opposition refused to play ball. #Opposition escalates attack on govt over #demonetisation, to hold sit-in outside Parliament tomorrow. Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 22, 2016 OneIndia News (With inputs from PTI) Yechury raises suspicion over EC decision to put on hold poll to RS seats in Kerala Decision to bring in new faces in LDF cabinet taken in CPI(M)'s long term interest: Sitaram Yechury This is daylight highway robbery of national assets, Sitaram Yechury on Air India returning to Tatas Demonetisation- Opposition wants PM to speak in Parliament, plans contempt notice India oi-Vikas By Vikas New Delhi, Nov 22: The opposition is contemplating moving a contempt notice in Parliament against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for refusing to answer questions on demonetisation. He should answer in Parliament to the concerns raised by the opposition, said Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the CPI(M). He also held the Prime Minister responsible for the repeated stalling of Parliament over the issue. He said that the opposition is examining the possibility of moving a contempt notice against the PM. We are in consultation will the opposition parties regarding the same, he also said. Why is the PM speaking everywhere about demonetisation except in Parliament, Yechury sought to know. This amounts to contempt he also added. Yechury said Modi must participate in the debate on demonetisation as it was he who made the announcement. Echoing similar views, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said Prime Minister Modi is obliged to speak in the House. "If the Prime Minister is not bothered about Parliament, then what are the members supposed to do. Prime Minister is obliged to address Parliamentafter in the aftermath of such an important announcement," he also said. Oneindia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 16:06 [IST] Khan's recent move seeking removal of state Finance Minister K N Balagopal from the cabinet was also criticised by Vijayan. Take a look at EWS flats at Kalkaji to be inaugurated by PM Modi [Photos] Cabinet approves MoU between India, Denmark in field of Water Resources Development and Management For beneficiaries of EWS flat a gift from PM Modi like none other PM Modi hands over keys of 3024 EWS flats to beneficiaries under slum rehab plan Demonetisation: Modi wants citizen's view on NM App India oi-Vikas By Vikas New Delhi, Nov 22: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged the citizens to give their opinion on the government's decision to demonetise Rs.500 and Rs.1000 notes on the NM app (Narendra Modi APP). I want your first-hand view on the decision taken regarding currency notes. Take part in the survey on the NM App. https://t.co/TYuxNNJfIf pic.twitter.com/mWv2frGn3R Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) 22 November 2016 Demonetisation of higher value notes has become a contentious issue with the opposition parties trying to corner the BJP-led government over it in the Parliament. Since the demonetisation announcement on Nov 8, people have been waiting for hours in long queues at banks, mostly to exchange the banned notes for new currency. Meanwhile, Modi government's currency demonetisation move has been gaining support from the citizens. According to a survey by LocalCircles - a citizen engagement platform - 79 per cent of those surveyed citizens fully supported the demonetisation programme while only 3 percent were against it. Prime Minister Modi, had on November 8, announced that all Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 rupee notes would cease to be valid in all forms of transactions in a bid to tackle hoarding of black money, corruption and terror financing. Oneindia News Do drugs in college and face one year jail term India oi-Madhuri By Madhuri Bengaluru, Nov 22: The Karnataka PU department on Tuesday issued a new directive to all the colleges to take strict action against instances of drug abuse among students. According to a report in the Bangalore Mirror, the department has issued a new directive to colleges, asking them to report such incidents to the police so that cases can be filed under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. The report also stated that it will also allow frequent checks on campuses, and will authorize the police to seize and arrest a student. Under the NDPS Act, a student or a faculty member found to have consumed cocaine, morphine, diacetylmorphine or any other drug or psychotropic substance will be directly reported to police. The individual could be sent to jail for up to one year, be fined Rs20,000, or both. Incidents of drug abuse have been witnessed in many of the city's reputed colleges. The commonly peddled drugs in the city are ganja, brown sugar, cocaine and heroin. Officials from the department say that the move could curb the problem of nepotism to greater extent. According to a report, In 2014, the Crime Branch has registered 44 cases under the NDPS Act and have seized many high-end drugs including cocaine in the city. In 2015, 69 cases and in 2016, till August, around 69 cases were registered. OneIndia News Mahashivratri: More than 1 crore devotees take holy dip in Sangam 'Invades Right to Privacy': Allahabad HC makes display of notice for inter-faith marriages optional Centre has given nod to renaming 7 cities, towns in last five years: Govt in Lok Sabha Farmer fined Rs 15 lakh over false compensation claim India oi-IANS By Ians English Ghaziabad, Nov 22 The Allahabad High Court has slapped a fine of Rs 15 lakh on a farmer for misleading the court about not being compensated for his land acquired for Ganga Water Project in Ghaziabad. Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) law officer Rajendra Tyagi said on Tuesday that Banarsi Dass Kaushik -- a farmer of Prahaladgarhi area -- filed a writ petition in Allahabad High Court in 1982. Kaushik's 4.25 acre land was acquired by Avas Vikas Parishad for Ganga Water Project which handed over a total of 50 acre land to GDA for the Ganga Water Project in 1980. The Avas Vikas Parishad made it clear that it had deposited the compensation amount of Rs 80 lakh for Kaushik's land with the Additional District Magistrate (Land Acquisition) but he did not collect it and misled the court. In his petition, Kaushik claimed that neither the Avas Vikas Parishad or GDA compensated him for the land that was acquired in 1980. Taking a serious view of the matter, the Allahabad High Court had ordered the Principal Secretary (Housing), GDA Vice Chairman and Commissioner of Avas Vikas Parishad to appear before the court. The GDA on Tuesday made it clear before the high court that the authority had paid Avas Vikas Parishad Rs 2.66 crore for the acquired land. The farmer has no direct link with GDA and it was a conflict between Avas Vikas Parishad and Kaushik. After verifying that Kaushik misled the court by hiding the payment-related information, the high court slapped him with az fine of Rs 15 lakh on Tuesday, said GDA official Rajendra Tyagi. IANS Gap between rich and poor has widened, needs to be bridged: Gadkari Gadkari meets Uddhav Thackeray India oi-PTI Mumbai, Nov 22: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari today met Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray at the his residence in suburban Bandra here. Gadkari met Thackeray to extend his daughter's wedding invitation, the Sena chief's media advisor Harshal Pradhan said. The meeting assumes significance after a series of telephonic talks between top BJP leaders and Thackeray over the Sena's stand on demonetisation. Earlier, Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Venkaiah Naidu and Rajnath Singh had called up Thackeray to allay his apprehensions over demonetisation. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had last week spoken to Thackeray and is believed to have conveyed BJP's unhappiness over Sena participating in a march against demonetisation. However, the NDA ally had stuck to its criticism, saying the demonetisation decision could have been implemented in a better way. The Shiv Sena, the oldest ally of BJP and part of the governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra, had last week joined a march to Rashtrapati Bhavan led by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and participated by AAP and National Conference against the Centre's demonetisation move. PTI Three held in Mangaluru after police open fire at gang UP: Flood like situation in Kanpur after Ganga river swells again Gang exchanging banned notes for a premium held India oi-Vikas By Vikas Vijaywada, Nov 22: A gang of 17 people that used to exchange banned Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes at a premium has been busted by the Andhra Pradesh Police, said reports. The gang, which included a woman, was reportedly held following a sting operation by a TV channel. The cops have also seized Rs. 6.8 cash, both in old and new currency, from them. According to reports, the gang used to contact traders promising them of small value notes for a commission of around 18 to 20%. The role of the bankers, if involved, is being investigated by the authorities. The police are now likely to visit banks and observe the CCTV footage. This gang we arrested used to exchange old notes for new ones and took some commission for it: Gautam Sawang,CP Vijaywada pic.twitter.com/6X5VDUQuWM ANI (@ANI_news) 22 November 2016 Andhra Pradesh: Currency exchanger gang busted in Vijaywada, old and new notes seized pic.twitter.com/s4JXf87QBq ANI (@ANI_news) 22 November 2016 (With agency inputs) For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 11:18 [IST] Have wedding plans? Follow these conditions after note ban India oi-Madhuri By Madhuri Mumbai, Nov 22: A sigh of relief for couples looking to get hitched as long as the wedding is before December 30. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed conditions for withdrawal of up to Rs 2.5 lakh rupees from bank accounts for weddings, saying the money can be withdrawn only if the date of marriage is on or before December 30. The RBI also said cash withdrawn should be used only to make payment to those persons who do not have bank accounts like a caterer or florist and that the name of such recipients should be mentioned while applying for withdrawal of cash. Money can be withdrawn only by the bride, groom or their parents. People looking to withdraw have to also submit adequate proof of the wedding, including the invitation card and purpose for which the proposed payments are being made, and a detailed list of people who will receive the cash. Withdrawals can be made by either of the parents or the person getting married. Only one of them will be permitted to withdraw, the central bank said on Monday in a notification. The government on November 8 banned the two highest currency notes - which formed 85 per cent of the cash in circulation - to check tax evasion and terror funding. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 17:13 [IST] India extends curbs on sugar exports for another year From being a victim of terrorism to exploring global solutions: India praised at UN's Counter Terrorism meet Explained: Why were 26.85 lakh WhatsApp accounts banned in India Cabinet approves MoU between India, Denmark in field of Water Resources Development and Management Dr. Rinky Kapoor- One of the best celebrity cosmetic dermatologists India successfully test-fires n-capable Agni-I ballistic missile India oi-Jagriti Bhubaneswar, Nov 22: India on Tuesday successfully test fired indigenously built nuclear-capable intermediate range Agni-I ballistic missile from Odisha coast. Agni-I was launched from LC-IV in the Adbul Kalam Island in full operational configuration on Tuesday. India on Monday successfully test-fired its indigenously developed nuclear capable Prithvi-II missile from a test range at Chandipur in Odisha. India successfully test fires twin missiles India successfully test-fired indigenously built nuclear-capable intermediate range Agni-I ballistic missile from Odisha coast ANI (@ANI_news) November 22, 2016 OneIndia News People of J&K hate corruption, I always felt their pain: PM Modi 40 down and counting: Forces on the verge of wiping out Pakistani terrorists in Valley Two militants holed up in Badipora gunned down India oi-Jagriti Srinagar, Nov 22: At least two militants were gunned down by security forces after encounter broke out between them in Bandipora district of north Kashmir on Tuesday. The security forces launched a combing operation in a residential area of Hanjan village in the district following tip-off about the presence of militants in the area. As many as 377 ceasefire violations occured along the Line of Control and the International Boundary with Pakistan by November. 377 ceasefire violations this year: Minister Till November 14, eight army personnel were killed and 59 injured on the LoC and IB. Four BSF men were killed and seven others injured till November 1. #UPDATE: Two terrorists gunned down by Army in Bandipora(J&K), combing operation underway ANI (@ANI_news) November 22, 2016 OneIndia News Madhya Pradesh: Low on terror strikes, high on anti-national activities India oi-Vicky Bengaluru, Nov 22: If one were to notice, Madhya Pradesh has not witnessed a major terrorist attack in recent times. While this is something to cheer about, there is another side to the story. There have been several cases relating to terror activities which would include jail breaks, setting up of modules among others. Statistics show that there have been a large number of anti-national acts reported from this state. In 2014 there were 25 such acts and in the 2015 the number was at 15. Madhya Pradesh has been in the news twice in two years. Jail breaks involving SIMI activists were reported from Khandwa in 2014 and Bhopal this year. While cases relating to recruitments and spying have been reported in large numbers, one must also bear in mind the fake currency cases that have been reported from this state. High on anti-national acts There have been over 90 such cases reported from MP since 2007. Each of the years cases have been registered and by 2014, the number had jumped to 25. Anti-nationals have used Madhya Pradesh as a transit point to pump in fake currency and explosives. There is a supply chain which has been created in MP from where anti-national elements such as naxalites too get their share of explosives. The police have bust several ISI linked cells in MP which have been dealing with recruits and supply of arms and ammunition. A case involved two accused persons Imran Khan and Wasim Khan led to the busting of a module linked to Shafi Armar, a former Indian Mujahideen operative, who went on to run a cell for the Indian wing of the ISIS. Also read: The Great SIMI escape: Who inside the jail helped them? Anti-nationals have found it easy to operate in the state thanks to the well-oiled module that was set up by the SIMI. The SIMI was a strong outfit in this state thanks to Safdar Nagori-the man who set up the radical version of the SIMI. Most of the SIMI operatives are in MP and there are a good number who are lodged in jails as well. While the state police have been cracking down on most of these modules, Intelligence Bureau officials say that the SIMI would look to revive itself from MP. SIMI finds its roots deep in the state and hence finds it easier to operate. It has become a regular affair for the ATS in the state to keep a tab on such activity. There are modules and micro modules within the state which help anti-national acts. One could say that over the years, the problem had been underestimated as a result of which these modules have become extremely strong. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 9:01 [IST] Maharashtra farmers find way to get around note shortage India oi-PTI Mumbai, Nov 22 Some farmers in western Maharashtra have devised a novel way to get around the problem many others in the country are facing -- that is shortage of small denomination notes and the long queues outside banks and ATMs. At the annual Yashwantrao Chavan agricultural expo, underway at Karad in Satara district, all one needs to buy anything at around 400 stalls is a 'Yashwant Chalan' -- a 'currency' note bearing the image of late Maharashtra Chief Minister Y B Chavan. "This Yashwant Chalan is in the denomination of Rs 100 and is valid at all the stalls in the expo. Farmers get 20 of these 'notes' after depositing the new Rs 2000 note. It will help them buy anything at any of the stalls," a member of the expo committee said. "When the farmer is all done with his shopping, he will be able to exchange the Yashwant Chalan with the genuine Indian currency notes," he said. "We also accept debit cards and give 'Yashwant Chalan' for that amount to the cardholder," he said. This idea has evoked a good response as farmers are battling acute shortage of small denomination notes as the bank and ATM network in rural areas is not as robust as that in urban areas, he said. PTI CUET impact? Only 1 from Kerala board in Hindu College's popular course so far JNU Admissions 2022: PG First merit list to be released today; how to check 'Pollution not a state problem': As Delhi chokes, AAP leader passes the buck to Centre No compromise on corruption, black money: Narendra Modi News oi-Lisa By Lisa New Delhi, Nov 22 Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a book on Kidar Nath Sahani, former RSS Pracharak and leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He talked in detail about Sahani. Sahni Ji wanted to join the airforce but destiny had other plans. He served society but through a different method: PM @narendramodi PMO India (@PMOIndia) November 22, 2016 Prime Minister during the speech asserted that the central government will not submit to the opposition pressure on demonetisation. He said there will be no compromise on the issue of corruption and black money. Modi criticised the opposition parties without naming them and asserted that corruption cannot be part of the system. "It's unfortunate for the nation that some people are speaking in favour of black money," he said, adding that degradation of social values is a cause for concern. Why should we accept corruption & black money as things that are a part of the system. We have to think about the future, no compromises: PM PMO India (@PMOIndia) November 22, 2016 "Earlier, a thief would steal without getting noticed, but these days he does it openly," Modi said. He praised Sahni for his "selfless work" for the country and recalled several instances when he kept people's welfare above everything else. We remember the work of Sahni ji, VK Malhotra ji and Madan Lal Khurana ji. They showed the way on how to work in a party organisation: PM PMO India (@PMOIndia) November 22, 2016 Citing an incident, Modi said that once former Chief Minister of Delhi Sheila Dixit consulted him on an issue, and he gave her a very useful suggestion without thinking about which parties they came from. I was seeing that @SheilaDikshit ji has written about Kedarnath Sahni and how she found his views on a policy matter valuable: PM PMO India (@PMOIndia) November 22, 2016 "For Kidar Nath Sahni, the interest of Delhi was always bigger than the interest of his party," he said. For Kedarnath Sahni ji, interest of Delhi was always bigger than the interest of his party: PM @narendramodi PMO India (@PMOIndia) November 22, 2016 Similarly, as anti-Sikh riots broke out in Delhi after Indira Gandhi's assassination, Sahni was in the forefront helping members of the Sikh community, Modi added. In the wake of the events in Delhi after Mrs. Gandhi's assassination, Sahni ji was at the forefront, helping members of Sikh community: PM PMO India (@PMOIndia) November 22, 2016 OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 22:56 [IST] Pak brutality- NSA chairs meet, army warns of heavy retribution News oi-Vicky By Vicky New Delhi, Nov 22 National Security Advisor (NSA), Ajit Doval has chaired a security level meet following the escalation of tension along the India-Pakistan border. The meet is being chaired following the brutal incident in which 2 Indian soldiers was killed and another beheaded by Pakistan forces. The high level security meet of which Defence Minister is part of is discussing the steps to be taken in the aftermath of this incident. The army has already warned of a heavy retribution in the aftermath of this incident. This is the second time that such an incident of brutality by Pakistan is being reported in the recent months. Three soldiers were killed and one of them beheaded by the Pakistan army commandos in Jammu and Kashmir today. The killing took place in Machhal near the Line of Control today. The army said that the retribution for this cowardly act would be a strong one. Army officials say that the intruders from the Border Action Team of the Pakistan army managed to escape after carrying out this gory attack. It may be recalled that last month a Indian soldier was killed and his body mutilated by terrorists. In that incident the body of 27 year old Sepoy, Mandeep Singh was mutilated by the Pakistan terrorists before they ran back with the help of cover fire provided by the Pakistan army. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 18:26 [IST] In India terror down by 34%, civilian deaths by 90% since Art 370 scrapped: Shah Only those from political families can eye a CMs post in Congress: Amit Shah Modi's decision to eradicate black money has worried many leaders: Amit Shah India oi-Sandra Marina Fernandes Almora (Uttarakhand), Nov 22: BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday addressed a rally here and said that the demonetisation move was hurting people with black money. Speaking at the event, Shah said: "I can understand that people are suffering due to demonetisation, but corrupt people with black money are suffering more." Taking a dig at leaders opposing demonetisation, Shah said that Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee are now worried. "Narendra Modi's decision to eradicate black money has worried Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee." Shah said that in one move Narendra Modi has tackled terrorism, black money, fake currency and corruption. "Those who do not have any black money have nothing to worry," he added. Also read: Demonetisation has badly hit terror funding: Rijiju Hitting out at Congress, Shah said: "Atalji had created Uttarakhand with a lot of love but Congress leaders have ruined the state. Till the time Congress is not rooted out of the state, till then there can be no development in Uttarakhand." Shah had on Monday held a meeting with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over the demonetisation issue. Though it is not clear what the two leaders discussed, it is believed that demonetisation figured prominently in the meeting. OneIndia News No comment on Pranab Mukherjee book before reading it: Former Union Minister Public servants should have integrity, innovation, India: Pranab Mukherjee News oi-Lisa By Lisa New Delhi, Nov 22 President Pranab Mukherjee today said "integrity, innovation and India" should be at the heart of thought and actions of every public servant. Addressing the probationers of Indian Ordnance Factories Service and Indian Telecom Service, who had called on him at Rashtrapati Bhavan, said it gave him pleasure that they have by choice decided to opt for a career as public servants dedicated to serve the cause of India and its people. "He said that he has a message for them that should guide their thoughts and actions, in the years to come. More than anything else, 3-Is i.e. Integrity, Innovation and India should be at the heart of their thoughts and actions," Deputy Press Secretary to the President, Shamima Siddiqui said in a statement. The 3 Is of Integrity, Innovation and India should be at the heart of your thoughts and actions #PresidentMukherjee said to probationers President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) November 22, 2016 Mukherjee said that it will be extremely important for them to have integrity of purpose, innovation in action and the interests of India at heart in every task that they undertake and every responsibility that they are called upon to fulfill. "The President said that the Indian Ordnance Factories Service as well as the Indian Telecom Service deal with technology and manufacturing in the public sector. In serving the requirements of national security and communication needs of the country, both these services cater to elements of vital national interest," the statement said. He said Ordnance Factories are playing a significant role in contribution to national security. "Modernisation and technological up-gradation are continuously required and in this area innovation is important. Their endeavour should be to address the requirement of our Armed Forces, Para Military Forces and fulfil the same," it said. The statement said Mukherjee told the probationers of IOF probationers to remember that on their product depends a precious life. "They should give in the hands of a soldier such trustworthy equipment which makes addition to his bravery and valour," he said. The President said that young officers of the Telecom Service, as civil servants should work for the people of India. "They have to use the information and communication technology to improve and widen the service delivery mechanism to the citizens of India," it said. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 22:09 [IST] RIVER should become constituent institution of a varsity: Kiran Bedi India oi-PTI Puducherry, Nov 22 Lt Governor Kiran Bedi today said the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Veterinary Education and Research here should become a constituent college of a University so that it would get funds from Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Addressing students and staff of RIVER, the Lt Governor said once the institute became a constituent college of ICAR, it would get funds and this could be used for research and development works. A release from the office of Lt Governor said she told the authorities of the institute that resources available from the government were limited and the grants released would be sufficient to meet the ends of recurring expenditure only and the institute should therefore generate its own resources by co-opting students and the faculty, she said. The Lt Governor, who listened to the power point presentation made by the Principal, said deficiencies pointed out by students should be attended on priority basis. She also later visited the Perunthalaivar Kamarajar Krishi Vigyan Kendra and acquainted herself with the activities of the kendra. She appealed to the functionaries of the Kendra to develop organic farming and work in cooperation with Swachchtha Corporation and municipalities to produce compost which could be sold to farmers. The Kendra was sponsored as a project of the ICAR here some four decades ago. PTI 5-year-old dies after being attacked by pack of dogs in MP Shivraj Singh Chouhan thanks people for support in MP bypolls India oi-Vikas By Vikas Bhopal, Nov 22: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Tuesday thanked people for their support following BJP's strong performance in the bypolls. @BJP4MP ShivrajSingh Chouhan (@ChouhanShivraj) 22 November 2016 The BJP today retained Shahdol Lok Sabha and Nepanagar Assembly seats in the by-elections in Madhya Pradesh. The BJP defeated the Congress which had brought to the campaign the demonetisation issue alongwith local themes against the ruling party. In Shahdol, BJP's Gyan Singh defeated Himadri Singh of Congress by a comfortable margin of over 60,000 votes, belying the latter's hopes of wresting the seat to add to the party's tally in the Lok Sabha. Gyan Singh bagged 4,81,398 votes while his Congress rival polled 4,21,015 votes. The BJP also defended the Nepanagar Assembly seat where its contestant Manju Dadu trounced nearest Congress rival Antar Singh Barde by a margin of 42,198 votes. The ruling party sharply increased its winning margin in Nepanagar to 42,198 votes as against 22,178 in the 2013 Assembly polls. Congress had seized on the currency scrapping issue which came by its way in the midst of the campaign, claiming that it had caused serious inconvenience to the people even in tribal-dominated areas. BJP leaders, however, exuded confidence of retaining both the ST seats, arguing that the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes would not affect the party's prospects. (With PTI inputs) For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 17:33 [IST] Some CBI officers had 'setting' with TMC, so ED was sent to probe Bengal scams: Dilip Ghosh 'Won't bow my head before BJP': TMC's Abhishek Banerjee after ED interrogation in cattle scam TMC retains all three seats in WB by-poll India oi-PTI Kolkata, Nov 22: Trinamool Congress today retained the two Lok Sabha seats and one assembly seat in West Bengal where by-poll was held on November 19 with its candidates winning by massive margin. TMC candidate Dibyendu Adhikari won Tamluk Lok Sabha seat by defeating his nearest CPI(M) rival Mandira Panda by 4.97 lakh votes, up from 2.5 lakh votes in 2014. The party won the Coochbehar LS seat with its candidate Parthapratim Roy drubbing his nearest rival BJP's Hemchandra Burman by a margin of 4.9 lakh votes and pushed Forward Bloc, a LF partner to the third position. Roy increased the party's victory margin from 38,000 in 2014 to 4.9 lakh. In Monteswar assembly seat, Saikat Panja of TMC won the seat by a margin of 1.27 lakh votes over his nearest CPI(M) rival Md Osman Gani Sarkar. The CPI(M), Congress and BJP lost their deposits in the polls. TMC'S winning margin in the May 2016 assembly polls was a mere 786 votes when Congress and CPI(M) fought unitedly. The bypoll to Cooch Behar LS and Monteswar assembly seats was necessitated following the deaths of TMC MP Renuka Sinha and MLA Sajal Panja respectively. Bypoll to Tamluk LS seat was necessitated after TMC MP Suvendu Adhikari, elder brother of Dibyendu, won the West Bengal Assembly election from Nandigram and became a state minister. West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee termed the assembly poll results as a mandate against the Centre's decision of demonetisation. "The by-election result is a befitting reply against the anti-people demonetisation by the Centre. It's a people's revolt, rather than a mass revolt against the Centre. BJP should take lessons from this mandate," she told reporters before leaving for New Delhi to join the protest rally by the Opposition. PTI Got an idea of what was to come, former Pak envoy on meeting Ram Madhav Trump may bring 'fresh ideas' to combat terrorism: Ram Madhav India oi-PTI Washington/New Delhi, Nov 22: US President-elect Donald Trump seems to have a friendly perspective towards India, a senior BJP leader has said and expressed hope that he would bring "fresh ideas" to combat terrorism and establish the rule of law. Summarising the current state of Indo-US relationship, Ram Madhav, the general-secretary of the ruling party, said the ties reached a new peak under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama. The relationship is likely to march ahead under the Trump administration, he said. "Going by his pre-election statements towards India, the president-elect seems to have a friendly perspective towards India. He does not seems to be a run-of-the-mill politician, hence we expect him to bring fresh ideas to counter-terrorism, and establish the rule of law," he said. Madhav is the first senior leader of the ruling party to have addressed on India-US relationship after the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States. He said India has earned a tremendous trust from its neighbours in the significantly important Indo-Asia Pacific region. At an event organised by the Federation of India and Indian Diaspora Studies, Madhav said India assumes the responsibilities - along with its neighbours - to establish peace and "law and order" in the region. But, he said, India expects the US to continue its pivotal role in the region instead of slowing trade and military engagement in the region. "The regional powers will have to take a leading role with America playing a supportive role. That is perhaps the way forward," he said at the event on Friday in the suburbs of Washington DC. PTI Woman, her two children mowed down by train; Suicide not ruled out What ails Indian Railways, explains Dinesh Trivedi, former Railway Minister India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer New Delhi, Nov 22: On November 20, 149 people died when the ill-fated Indore-Patna Express derailed near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. Reports say around 200 people sustained injuries during the accident and several of them are still in critical condition. After the rescue operations got over on Monday, now it is time for the Railway Ministry to answer several queries post the massive disaster that rock the country in recent times. In a column--Why trains derail: Explained by former Railways minister--former Railway Minister and All India Trinamool Congress party leader, Dinesh Trivedi, explained in detail about the issues plaguing the Indian Railways. [Also Read: Will Suresh Prabhu follow on the footsteps of Lal Bahadur Shastri and resign?] "Now, the question is, "What is really ailing the Indian railways?'' I heard the honourable minister, reacting to this incident, say, "strictest possible action would be taken against the guilty." Who is the guilty? Do we blame the British government for an inefficient railway system? Certainly not," Trivedi writes. "One of the assets we inherited from the Raj was an efficient railway system. Then where does the buck stop? The poor gang-man on duty? Of course not, as he isn't qualified to know the quality of rail and how much wear and tear it can take. I wouldn't even blame the minister. My view is, successive governments have to take the blame, all those who have treated the Indian railways as a political tool rather than an asset, capable of transporting people and freight and adding at least two per cent to our GDP," he adds. [Also Read: Reasons behind train accidents: What Indian Railways says] Trivedi stressed on the need to completely modernise Indian Railways with latest technologies to avoid future tragedies. "In conclusion, we need to go for a generational change in our railway system and completely modernise it with latest technology," he writes. "For this, the government needs a massive investment programme without relying on revenue from the railway's internal generation," he adds. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 12:32 [IST] Five years of demonetisation: Notes in circulation on rise; so are digital payments PM Modi should admit that demonetistion a failure: Owaisi on cash seizure in UP Why is RBI governor Urjit Patel silent on demonetisation? India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer New Delhi, Nov 22: It has been two weeks since Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a televised address to the nation announced the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes on November 8. Since then lives of the people have taken a complete U-turn as everyone is scrambling to get hold of valid currency notes from banks and ATMs. Cash crunch has hit the entire nation, which in turn has adversely affected the economy of the country. [Also Read: Do you've Rs 2,000 note? Sorry, no business without Rs 500, Rs 100 notes] In such a scenario, the silence of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel has baffled everyone. Patel is yet to make any public statement on the issue. In fact, there is a growing clamour for his resignation after the "havoc" demonetisation has caused across the nation. [Also Read: Dear PM Narendra Modi, joke on demonetisation not really funny] According to a report in The Indian Express, the All India Bank Officers Confederation has called for the resignation of RBI governor Patel, taking the moral responsibility for the current crisis in the country and the deaths of more than 50 people, including 11 bank officials. "The present governor has utterly failed in his role by taking a crucial economic decision without planning, which has brought havoc to the nation's economy and lives of the majority," D Thomas Franco, senior vice-president of the confederation, said. "The person responsible for the implementation of the policy has been completely silent over the past 13 days. Urjit Patel, who took over from Raguram Rajan as the Reserve Bank of India governor in August, has not found it necessary to make a single statement about the chaos that demonetisation has unleashed. The man firefighting in the media has been the Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das," stated an article in Scroll. OneIndia News Why no 'Bengal Tiger' on new notes of Rs 2,000, asks Mamata Banerjee India oi-Madhuri By Madhuri Kolkata, Nov 22: West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee who has been leading the anti demonetisation protests has now asked why there is no image of the Bengal Tiger on the new Rs 2,000 note. According to Mamata Banerjee, the picture of the Royal Bengal Tiger is missing not by accident but by design. Mamata further said,''Everyone knows about Sunderban and Royal Bengal tigers. In the 2000 rupee note, Bengal tigers are not seen. Whereas a picture of Elephant which is called as 'National Heritage' is featured. But the national animal Tiger is not there''. ''Even the BRICS symbol has been turned into a lotus. The government is doing anything it wants,'' added Mamata. The 2,000 rupees note has printed image of Mahatma Gandhiji and a Mangalyaan (reflecting country's first venture in the interplanetary space) at the back of the note. The now defunct 1000 and 500 rupee notes did not have pictures of any animals on them. The new currency note was introduced in order to come down hard on people stashing black money in cash as well as people peddling counterfeit notes. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 12:50 [IST] Vaishali Takkar suicide: Her e-gadgets to be probed; hunt for the harasser is on Man beats up traffic cop when questioned about tinted glass in his car Will Suresh Prabhu follow on the footsteps of Lal Bahadur Shastri and resign? India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer New Delhi, Nov 22: History repeats itself, but most often it does not follow the same trajectory. On November 20, 145 people died when the ill-fated Indore-Patna Express derailed near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. A similar train accident rocked the nation exactly 60 years ago. [Also Read: Reasons behind train accidents: What Indian Railways says] According to a report published by Firstpost, on 27 November, 1956, an Indian Railways train met with an accident at Arilayur in Tamil Nadu, killing 144 passengers. Both the disasters share a lot of similarities in terms of its horrific magnitude and fatalities. [Also Read: Tragedy on the tracks: Worst train accidents that killed hundreds] However, there is no resemblance in the way the bosses of Indian Railways reacted now and then. Then Railways minister Lal Bahadur Shastri immediately resigned from his post after the accident in 1956. "I am responsible," Shastri said. "All of us are very unhappy over the tragedy but I am sure - in fact I know it - that probably the unhappiest among all of us is the Railway Minister," said then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the Parliament. Now, the question is will Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu own up responsibility and resign, as opposition parties are demanding. OneIndia News 'Demonetisation won't prevent corruption': Former US Treasury Secy International oi-IANS By Ians English Washington, Nov 22: Coming down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetisation drive, former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers not just doubts the lasting benefit of the "chaos-causing" currency reform, but feels it has resulted in "loss of trust" in the government, even as it will be unable to prevent corruption. The move also has also unleashed chaos and goes against the spirit of free societies that call for several criminals to go scot free, than convict an innocent person, Summers writes in a blog with Natasha Sarin, a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Harvard University. "This is by far the most sweeping change in currency policy that has occurred anywhere in the world in decades," says the blog, expressing surprise at the dramatic action to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes. "It is the imminent prospect of notes currently held becoming worthless that has created such alarm and disruption in India. Small and medium-sized merchants have seen their shops (which transact mostly in cash) deserted and ordinary Indian citizens have spent the last week in line outside banks hoping to be able to exchange their cash holdings for legal tender," it says. Summers says even as many people hold large quantities of ill-gotten cash in India, raising the temptation to expropriate such assets, there are also those who have come by their wealth legally and have nothing to fear in exchanging the old notes for new ones. "Most free societies would rather let several criminals go free than convict an innocent man. In the same way, for the government to expropriate from even a few innocent victims who, for one reason or another, do not manage to convert their money is highly problematic," he says. "Moreover, the definition of what is illegal or corrupt is open to debate given the commercial practices that have prevailed in India for a long time," says Summers, also a former Chief Economist of the World Bank. The blog also goes on to question the equity and efficacy of the move and says there are strong possibilities that the largest amount of ill-gotten wealth is not held in cash but in foreign exchange, gold, bitcoin (digital currency) or some other store of value. "So it is petty fortunes, not the hugest and most problematic ones, that are being targeted," he says adding: "Without new measures to combat corruption, we doubt that this currency reform will have lasting benefits. Corruption will continue albeit with slightly different arrangements." On balance, he says, one was not enthusiastic previously about the idea of withdrawing existing notes from circulation because the costs were perceived to exceed the benefits. "The ongoing chaos in India and the resulting loss of trust in government fortify us in this judgement." IANS First Hindu Democrat Congresswoman meets Trump, discusses terrorism International oi-IANS By Ians English New York, Nov 22: The first Hindu elected to Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, crossed her Democratic party line to meet Republican-elect Donald Trump to discuss Syria, terrorism and national security matters and warn of the risk of a nuclear confrontation with Russia amid speculation he may be checking out the war veteran for a position in his administration. On economic and social issues, Gabbard belongs to the leftist wing of the Democratic Party. But she is closer to Trump's policies on waging a tough war on terror while avoiding foreign interventions. This makes her a prime candidate for the President-elect's efforts to reach out to his opposition. Trump's press office characterised the meeting as one of those held to "gather ideas and speak with potential leaders being considered for positions inside the Trump-Pence Administration". It was Trump's first meeting of the day and a statement from his press office said: "The two leaders had a detailed conversation regarding the situation in the Middle East including the crisis in Syria and America's position in the world." In a hint of a cabinet position she may be considered for besides defence, the statement said: "They also discussed approaches to fix the VA (Department of Veterans Affairs) and other veterans issues." The department, which deals with welfare of ex-service personnel, has come under withering criticism for mismanagement and poor treatment of wounded soldiers. Gabbard was a major in the Army National Guard and has served two tours of duty in Iraq. Donald Trump wants NASA to focus on deep space missions "I saw firsthand the cost of war and the lives lost due to the interventionist warmongering policies our country has pursued for far too long," she said after the meeting Trump, who has criticised US military entanglement abroad. During this month's election, the Republican Party leadership had helped Gabbard by withdrawing support for their own party's candidate Angela Kaaihue, who made a bigoted attack on Gabbard with anti-Hindu vitriol calling her a "pathetic Hindu 1,000 gods leader". Trump's outreach to Gabbard illustrates the complexity of US politics, where Trump is a dove when it comes to foreign interventions while extremely tough on Islamic terrorism, whereas his Democratic Party rival Hillary Clinton is a hawk advocating interventions abroad and a confrontation with Russia. Gabbard said she told Trump about her concerns with enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria that Clinton, along with Democratic and Republican hawks, advocates to counter Bashar al-Assad and Russia. "It would lead to more death and suffering, exacerbate the refugee crisis, strengthen ISIS (Islamic State) and Al Qaeda, and bring us into a direct conflict with Russia which could result in a nuclear war," she said. If the US were to enforce a no-fly zone, it could be drawn into a direct confrontation with Russia, which conducts bombing raids over areas controlled by Islamic State terrorists. Though Gabbard, who represents a constituency in Hawaii, is not of Indian descent, she is a second-generation Hindu by religion. She is only 35 years old and is considered a rising star in the Democratic Party. "For years, the issue of ending interventionist, regime change warfare has been one of my top priorities," she said in a veiled attack on Clinton who has promoted an agenda of overthrowing governments from Egypt to Ukraine with disastrous results. Gabbard made a scathing attack on Republican neo-conservative hawks like Paul Wolfowitz, the planner of the deadly Iraq War who had crossed over to Clinton's side. She said it was important for her to meet the "President-elect now before the drumbeats of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government, a war which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families," Gabbard said. She has previously expressed support for Russian bombing of Islamic State-held territories in Syria. "While the rules of political expediency would say I should have refused to meet with President-elect Trump, I never have and never will play politics with American and Syrian lives," she added. During the Democratic Party's presidential nomination race, Gabbard was aligned with Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist who defied the party leadership to run against Clinton. Gabbard resigned as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee after clashing with the then-Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whom she accused of unfairly backing Clinton and working against Sanders. This could make her a potential conduit to the discontented supporters of Sanders, who emerged a strong rival to Clinton with his populist platform appealing to the disempowered, the working class and foreign policy doves. Underlining the differences with Trump on other matters, Gabbard said: "Where I disagree with President-elect Trump on issues, I will not hesitate to express that disagreement." Gabbard has criticised President Barack Obama for his reluctance to label as "Islamic extremism" terrorist attacks carried out by some Muslims, a criticism Trump has also voiced. She has advocated a tough line on Pakistan for its role in international terrorism and tried to get Congress to cut aid to Islamabad and increase pressure on it to stop this violence. IANS North Korea fires two more missiles towards Japan Sumo: Is Japan's national sport on the ropes? Japan jolted by earthquake: Memories of 2011s massive death, destruction and nuclear disaster International oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer Tokyo, Nov 22: Once again the island nation, Japan, has been hit hard by a tsunami following a massive earthquake. On Tuesday, an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.3 struck northeastern Japan's Fukushima. Thereafter, news reports say a tsunami measuring one metre hit Japan's coast at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. The news brought back the memories of 2011 when tragedy almost torn-apart the country. [Also Read: Magnitude 7.3 quake jolts Japan, tsunami warning issued] In fact, in 2011, an earthquake and tsunami struck the same area killing thousands and destroying parts of the coastline. Around 18,000 people died in 2011 tsunami in Japan. The worst fear is that once again nuclear disaster might hit the island nation like it did back in 2011 at Fukushima prefecture. Fukushima prefecture, around 290km north of Tokyo, is the home to Japan's ill-fated nuclear power plant. [Also Read: 1-metre tsunami hits coast at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant] The plant was destroyed by a huge tsunami following an offshore earthquake in March 2011. The latest warnings have brought back all the horrifying memories of the earlier nuclear disaster. Japan is seismically active and earthquakes are a regular feature in the country. "However, in March 2011 the country experienced its biggest quake on record measuring in at an unprecedented magnitude 9.1. The massive quake resulted in a tsunami that triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl," wrote News.com.au. "Japan is a major supplier of nuclear energy and has a number of nuclear power plants dotted along its coastline. In March 2011 these in-built security measures failed to work as intended. The earthquake caused a 15-metre-tall tsunami to crash over a number of power plant facilities causing major problems," added News.com.au. The News.com.au writes that in 2011, eleven operating nuclear power plants shut down automatically, however, three of them suffered what's known as an INES 7 accident (the highest disaster level for nuclear plants) causing a loss of power, leading to loss of cooling protocols and subsequent radioactive releases. The escape of radioactive materials created an incredibly toxic hazard and forced the displacement of thousand of nearby residents and caused immense environmental damage. All reactors in the Fukushima nuclear plant were shut down following the 2011 disaster, but cooling is still needed for the used nuclear fuel stored on the site. After Tuesday's earthquake, residents were asked to seek higher ground immediately. There were reports of minor injuries. "The US Geological Survey initially put the magnitude of Tuesday's earthquake at 7.3 but later downgraded this to 6.9, lower than the number given by the Japanese authorities," reports BBC. Watch the video below: OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 9:40 [IST] Slip of Tongue in Pak Parliament: Speaker pronounces Nawaz Sharif's name instead of Shehbaz Sharif Nawaz Sharif likely to return to Pakistan next month: Imran Khan Maryam Nawaz gets her passport back after 3 years; meets father Nawaz Sharif in London Nawaz Sharif inaugurates mega international defence expo International oi-IANS By Ians English Karachi, Nov 22: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, addressing the inauguration of an International Defence Exhibition and Seminar here on Tuesday, reiterated Pakistan's commitment to discourage an arms race in the region. "We pursue the motive of 'Arms for peace', which is the tagline of IDEAS," Nawaz Sharif said at the Karachi Expo Centre. The International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) is being participated by 418 firms from 34 countries. It is a biennially held defence exhibition which brings together the defence industry's players across the globe to showcase latest technological innovations. The defence industries of Turkey, China, Russia, North America, South America, Europe and Asia will have a significant presence at the exhibition, which has 157 Pakistani firms participating. "This time 9 more countries are visiting and participating in IDEAS. These include Luxembourg, Denmark, Belarus, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belgium, Romania and Nigeria," a statement said. Nawaz Sharif jointly inaugurated the exhibition, which is set to run from Nov 22-25, alongside outgoing Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif. "Pakistan's ever growing defence industry is in quest for seeking international alliances to meet the requirements of its armed forces and growing needs of the regional defence forces," a statement posted on the IDEAS website explains why it was held in Pakistan. "Pakistan's own defence products present a perfect mix of indigenous and foreign technologies thus offering an ideal platform for defence collaboration." Besides showcasing of products, there will be several high-level meetings among foreign delegates, key government officials and participants on the sidelines of the four-day IDEAS for forging alliances in defence production. An important international defence seminar will be held at a hotel on Nov 22. Although Chinese and Turkish defence industries will have a significant presence, Russia is participating in the event this time in a big way. IANS CUET impact? Only 1 from Kerala board in Hindu College's popular course so far JNU Admissions 2022: PG First merit list to be released today; how to check 800 school students attend Open Day at JNU New Delhi oi-IANS By Ians English New Delhi, Nov 22: An 'Open Day' for school students was held at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to give them exposure to the research being conducted at the varsity and to encourage them towards different career options available in humanities and sciences there. A total of 800 students from several schools in Delhi-NCR attended the day and visited 16 pavilions and schools at the University on Monday. Vice Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar, in his address to the students, emphasised that one of the responsibilities of JNU as a public institution is to inspire the young minds to building their career and also be connected to the larger social realities, said a statement issued by the varsity. "Children were enthralled with the wide range of exhibits, ranging from a live demonstration of an insect-eating plant from northeast India, to understanding how to convert vibrations to energy, measure air pollution and learn new languages, " it said. A film on JNU was shown to the students, followed by three parallel sessions on Mind Mapping and basic introduction to Indian sign languages. Besides that, an animation film on Panchantantra and a documentary from School of Languages were also shown to the students, who were later taken to different stalls and school buildings. Chief guest, V. Ramagopal Rao, Director of IIT-Delhi also addressed the students and emphasised on the need to be inquisitive and to raise question than provide answers. IANS For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 12:32 [IST] CUET impact? Only 1 from Kerala board in Hindu College's popular course so far JNU Admissions 2022: PG First merit list to be released today; how to check Demonetisation: Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia detained during protest, released New Delhi oi-Sandra Marina Fernandes New Delhi, Nov 22: Delhi Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and AAP minister Kapil Mishra were detained on Tuesday along with other leaders while they were on their way to Parliament protesting against demonetisation. He was, however, released later. Sisodia was leading an AAP protest march on the demonetisation issue, when he was taken away by Delhi Police officials. AAP has been protesting the demonetisation move by the government and has joined forces with the Opposition over the same. "Sisodia has been detained along with some AAP leaders and supporters," Deputy Commissioner of Police Jatin Narwal told IANS. -PM Modi ji will not only use Demonetisation Scam, but also the state machinery, Police, to hide his scams.@msisodia detained. pic.twitter.com/AiWyepfIkT AAP (@AamAadmiParty) November 22, 2016 Sisodia, before the march, launched a scathing attack on Narendra Modi over demonetisation alleging he is making people cry and shedding "crocodile tears". "We don't like Modi for what he has done in his personal and political life. This is not notebandi but note-badli. The terrorists in Kashmir today were found with Rs 2000 notes. From where are terrorists getting them? Either you are unaware of the lapse or are involved in it. He keeps crying all the time and makes people cry. But he sheds crocodile tears," Sisodia said at Jantar Mantar. Also read: Rahul attacks Modi, says PM can speak at pop concert, why not in Parliament? Meanwhile, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday criticised the goverment over demonetisation and said: "I am inviting other political parties to join me at Jantar Mantar to protest against demonetisation. BJP will get befitting reply from the people, they wont be able to get any vote this time." Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had last week given three days to the government to rollback the demonetisation move. Kejriwal had said that demonetisation was implemented to create black money and not to eradicate it. (With agency inputs) OneIndia News CUET impact? Only 1 from Kerala board in Hindu College's popular course so far JNU Admissions 2022: PG First merit list to be released today; how to check 'Pollution not a state problem': As Delhi chokes, AAP leader passes the buck to Centre Rahul attacks Modi, says PM can speak at pop concert, why not in Parliament? New Delhi oi-Sandra Marina Fernandes New Delhi, Nov 22: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday, taking a jibe at prime minister Narendra Modi said: "PM can speak on TV, at a pop concert, but why not in the Parliament?" Also read: Demonetisation: Rahul sharpens attack on Modi, says PM not interested in talking to people Questioning his absence in Parliament to discuss the demonetisation issue, Gandhi made an apparent reference to Modi's address via Live Stream ahead of ColdPlay's concert in Mumbai on Saturday, Nov 19. Meanwhile, the Opposition has been demanding that the PM discusses and debates the demonetisation issue in the Parliament. The Prime Minister can speak on TV, at pop concerts, but why not in the Parliament? pic.twitter.com/2QMYHXvMmx Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) November 22, 2016 On Monday, Gandhi said: "The biggest economic decision in India's history was taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi without consulting anybody except for 3-4 people." Meanwhile, Congress leader Anand Sharma too, on Tuesday said: "What is happening in India is continuing illegality; white money is accounted. Nobody can impose limitations on it." If PM Modi is saying that 86% currency in this country is black then it is a very shameful statement, he added. OneIndia News Demonetisation-Kerala govt passes resolution, asks Union govt to lift restriction on co-op banks Tiruchirappalli oi-Anusha The Kerala assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution urging the union government to lift restriction on cooperative banks for cash transaction over demonetisation. The resolution was passed in a special assembly session called to discuss demonetisation. The move comes days after the entire cabinet led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan protested outside the RBI office in Trivandrum demanding that cooperative banks be allowed to exchange and transact with new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 currency notes. The Kerala Chief Minister in his address to the assembly on Tuesday said that economy of rural Kerala was dependent on cooperative banks and the rural masses had taken a beating with cooperative banks not being allowed to exchange or accept old notes for new ones. The BJP in Kerala, however, has been accusing the CPI(M) and Congress of using cooperative banks as safe havens to launder black money. Tuesday's move was anticipated since the Chief minister had made public his decision to take the protest in support of cooperative banks forward during a protest rally last week. On Monday the Chief Minister had said that an all-party delegation will meet the Prime Minister and Finance Minister to highlight the need to remove restriction on cooperative banks. OneIndia News In Strasbourg, an exhibition brings together 27 artworks looted by Nazi Germany and repatriated in 1945, in the hope of one day,.. euronews (in English) 02 Nov 2022 Sky News 01 Nov 2022 The first calls to police about the crush in Seoul that killed more than 150 people came in four hours before the incident turned.. Rumble 18 Oct 2022 KUDOS to the Chattanooga Tennessee Police Department for cornering a rape suspect in rush-hour traffic and then taking him into.. Belfast Telegraph 16 Aug 2022 Plans by former US president Donald Trump to visit his familys west Clare golf resort later this month have been scrapped. Our website uses cookies to improve your experience. Learn more Digicel Business launches powerful solutions for small businesses in PNGDigicel Business has today announced the launch of three new comprehensive service packages that are uniquely designed to help Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) establish and grow their businesses in Papua New Guinea.The new service has introduced a number of new packages to help business owners achieve more by using the latest technology through Office Essentials, Office Boost and Office Platinum. Each service provides an office in a box solution with internet broadband, desk phone, smartphones, unlimited calls and data, which are designed to cater to every communication component a small business owner needs to have a fully functioning office at an affordable price.Gary Cobain, Head of Digicel Business said Digicel Business is committed to supporting the Papua New Guinean Governments goal to grow the SME community from 49,500 to 500,000 by 2030, by making telecommunications more affordable and easier to access.Today, Digicel Business is proud to promote entrepreneurship in PNG by offering small businesses the opportunity to have access to an international standard telecommunication infrastructure they need to thrive, he said.As the largest and most comprehensive telecommunications provider in Papua New Guinea, Digicel Business is excited to launch this offering to new and existing customers to help them and their business succeed long-term.Those business packages are the first of a series of innovative solutions designed to help local small businesses, and encourage their growth, productivity and profitability without compromising quality and value. It offers an opportunity for businesses to deliver quality services to their clients at an affordable price.Depending on which package they select, customers will have access to an internet connection of 5 Mbps to 10 Mbps download speeds and from 10GB to 45GB of data usage per month. In addition, the plans include free minutes, unlimited calls, and a free mobile internet broadband data volume of 1.6 GB with free smartphones.With these smart packages from Digicel Business, small business owners do not have to pick the services they think they may require. Each package has everything a small business needs for their connectivity solutions, such as broadband internet connectivity, desk phones, landline, and Closed Users Group (CUG) plans for up to 10 employees. They also feature 24/7 Digicel Business support, meaning that small enterprises will have access to a dedicated support team, anytime of the day by calling 126.These affordable packages are an expression of our commitment to constantly innovate as we continue to provide the best connectivity and data network services throughout Papua New Guinea, Gary said. He continues to add, We also want to provide SMEs access to the same quality of services enjoyed by big organizations to drive their growth and sustainability. At Digicel Business, we are strong supporters of Small and Medium Enterprises and we want to be at the forefront of empowering them to benefit the countrys economy. When small businesses have the support they need, they bring jobs into the market, creating more opportunities for our youth and can bring more stability to our economy.Instead of having to choose from numerous services and technologies, we have made the process easy for business owners to simply choose a package based on the number of staff they employ. Companies will also get these services at a better rate than if they were to purchase them all individually. When one takes an in-depth view of what has been happening in and to America it appears that this nation, which should be rapidly advancing into the 21st century is, instead, caught up in a state of regression; and the reason is that it has a government led by politicians who possess absolutely no vision of the direction that this country should take in the future. Let's make a brief comparison between the governments of the U.S. and China. Clearly China is a nation that is racing into the future; America, on the other hand, is standing still, stuck in neutral. China develops 5 and 10-year plans and sets ambitious objectives; I've never heard the U.S. government announce any kind of plan for the future, let alone set any specific objectives. China has a thriving economy while America's, which once was vibrant and growing, is largely stagnant. China's economy is being fueled by a manufacturing sector that once belonged to America but now is owned by China. What's left of U.S. manufacturing is miniscule in comparison. One of America's few thriving business sectors can be found in the trucking industry. We see huge truck distribution facilities popping up all over America that operate in support of the massive number of trucks that flood our highways and interstates; why are so many needed? Well it's because they are very essential in the distribution of Chinese products. I'm sure the Chinese government greatly appreciates this help in moving their products around this country. Our democracy should be growing stronger but it is barely alive and this country is well on the way to becoming a full-fledged oligarchy. We have a Congress controlled by Corporate America; our election process is being poisoned by corporate money. Instead of making universal healthcare a top priority to provide coverage for every American, this backward Congress, now totally controlled by Republicans, is planning to launch attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare, which if successful, will be devastating to many millions of Americans. Another of their targets will be Social Security (which just happens to be an entity that funds and operates itself and has nothing to do with government spending) and which should be hands-off to the agents of destruction that inhabit Washington. Let's talk about U.S. CEOs who, collectively, earn from 400 to 500 times the median salary for workers. For CEOs in the U.K., the ratio is 22; in France, it's 15, in Germany it's 12, Britain is 25, Sweden 13, (Germany 11, and in Japan it's 10. That is incomprehensible, it's absolutely ludicrous. America should be experiencing a significant reduction in the incidence in violence but violence has now become embedded in this society and culture. What other developed nation is plagued by mass shootings of its citizens; which one has children in grade schools and college students that can and have been gunned by crazed individuals who can easily obtain a high-powered gun? One would think that a country that many like to call exceptional would have an exceptional government but the one we have at this point in time is probably the worst one in the history of this nation. Almost every advanced nation in Europe and Scandinavia has free tuition or generous subsidies and grants for its students, from the time they enter school to when they attend college. But that's not true in America in which some 42 million current and former students have, collectively, incurred a massive student loan debt of $1.3 trillion. Apparently, for these craven politicians, providing free tuition in community colleges and doing something to alleviate the massive student loan debt is totally out of the question, but preparing to give the rich in this country more tax cuts is a far greater priority. None of the other developed nations of the world have military empires located all over this planet; they are not engaged in invading and occupying other nations; they don't depose leaders of other nations. But the U.S. military empire stays firmly entrenched all over the world. What other countries are using deadly drones to fly into the air space over sovereign nations and rain Hellfire missiles down upon suspected terrorists as well as innocent civilians? Has any other nation declared itself to be the world's policeman, playing the role of prosecutor, judge and jury to determine the fate of other nations? Which other developed country has 15% of its citizens dependent on food stamps and the same number living below the poverty line? Which one has a massive inequality of income in which some 400 Americans own more wealth than 50% of other people in this country? Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Trump is a paradox: he is both an open book, unable to hide his volatile emotions, and, at the same time, a man it is impossible to understand, man whose true intentions are concealed. He speaks out of not only both sides of his mouth but through his theatrical body language. When a man gives contradictory pronouncements ("NATO is obsolete" and "I am a big fan of NATO.")we are puzzled. He is either lying or keeping his options open: it is impossible to know from his public rhetoric what he really thinks. Therefore, he cannot be understood. He brags about being a mystery and, like Nixon, thinks that being perceived as mad, or unpredictable, is a great strategic move. How did that work out for Nixon? Here is how Nixon explained it to Haldeman: "I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that, "for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry--and he has his hand on the nuclear button" and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace. Here is an exchange with Chris Matthews in March: MATTHEWS: Well, why would you"--"why wouldn't you just say, "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about nuclear weapons. Presidents don't talk about use of nuclear weapons"? TRUMP: The question was asked"--"we were talking about NATO"--"which, by the way, I say is obsolete and we pay a dis -- MATTHEWS: But you got hooked into something you shouldn't have talked about. TRUMP: I don't think I"--"well, someday, maybe. MATTHEWS: When? Maybe? TRUMP: Of course. If somebody -- MATTHEWS: Where would we drop"--"where would we drop a nuclear weapon in the Middle East? TRUMP: Let me explain. Let me explain. Somebody hits us within ISIS"--"you wouldn't fight back with a nuke? " MATTHEWS: OK. The trouble is, when you said that, the whole world heard it. David Cameron in Britain heard it. The Japanese, where we bombed them in 45, heard it. They're hearing a guy running for president of the United States talking of maybe using nuclear weapons. Nobody wants to hear that about an American president. TRUMP: Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?" This brief exchange brings out both his Nixonian theory of unpredictabily as a negotiating tactic.......and his laying out plans no other President has ever discussed publicly while at the same time endorsing the idea of keeping your true intentions concealed. Trump is a Nixon Republican in adopting this madman theory and in using Nixon's Southern Strategy on steroids. This suggests that the contradictions he rationalizes as smart thinking will bring him down. He is also aligned with all the far right parties in Europe, with their focus on expellling immigrants. For instance, he wants peace with Russia but all his foreign policy advisors and possible Secretaries of State (he is running a beauty contest with what he called "the finalists.") are anti-Russian neo-cons with the stated goal of trashing the Iran deal and, as Bolton said, bombing Iran to end their non-existent nuclear weapons program. This like a man hiring arsonists to put out the fire! So is this his famous unpredictability (which of course brought Nixon down in disgrace) or a clear message that his goal is war? it is impossible to know until we look at the advisors we have chosen, whose views are an open book because they have been the source of war propaganda going back to Reagan. His advisors are the visible face of the dark side, the Deep State. When a leader uses both mystery (What the hell does he really intend?) and contradiction, and at the same time is a master snake oil salesman who has mastered the art of winning by making everyone else lose, we are bewildered. He made money on 6 bankruptcies: "I am the King of Debt....I love Debt..." the words of a heavily leveraged speculator, which explains why his threats to end the power of Wall St is belied by a list of "finalists" for Secretary of the Treasury from Wall St. Add to that that his first foreign policy advisor is James Woolsey, former chief of the CIA and Wall St speculator (the CIA is Wall St, based on the revolving door since Dulles), was the guy who led the rush to war against Irag by claiming he had evidence that Saddam was complicit, the Big Lie that, along with the fiction of an active WMD program, justified a criminal war. Poll: 70% believe Saddam, 9-11 link WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nearly seven in 10 Americans believe it is likely that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, says a poll out almost two years after the terrorists' strike against this country." He lied, he is guilty of the propaganda that rationalized a war that has slaughtered half a million and continues........and he is Trump's choice to advise him. If Trump crosses him well the CIA has ways to deal with those who cross them. When Trump sabotages the Iran deal (he will claim Iran has violated the agreement and free repayment of their money), the drums of war will roll. Russia, China, and iraq---all strong allies with economic and military ties--will turn on the US....and the peace initiative will be exposed as the fraud that it is. Most of us like the idea of peace with Russia (and let us note he has financial ties in Russia...as in 21 other nations) but why then has he hired anti-Russian war mongers to lead his foreign policy team? We are in the wilderness.... Copyrighted Image? DMCA Battle of the Wilderness: The War for Freedom That being said, when things are unclear, the likely outcomes are unexpected,and we have surprises such as black swans. This is how Trump, a born rich member of the financial and media establishment but a political outlier, using the Nixon madman/racist strategy, came to power, something very few predicted. See my article Trump is Winning! Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Tulips, Washington Park, Albany NY (Image by Bear Kosik) Details DMCA I am not condemning the casting of the show. We certainly could stand to see fewer pinkish people and more women on stage or in films and television. As a playwright, I create quite a few roles that can be played by anyone with any genetic heritage and many that are not sex specific. Characters in my novels tend to have mixed backgrounds since the novels are set in the future and that seems to be the genetic path humans are taking. However, the Supreme Court is far more representative of American diversity save for continuing to have too few women, than the group of actors stalking the boards at the Richard Rodgers Theater. I am happy to see underrepresented groups overrepresented. I agree with Justice Ginsburg that an all-female SCOTUS should not raise any more eyebrows than the all-male line-ups on that highest bench did for almost two centuries. I look forward to that and an at-least half-female Congress even more than seeing a female POTUS. This isn't about swinging some moral pendulum to compensate for past prejudices. When I looked at the countries that have had female heads of government or state, I found that those women did little to improve the status of women in their societies. A far more likely route to raising female standing is for greater representation in legislatures and courthouses. Another of the ironies is that the cast is playing to an audience that has mostly paid ten times the cost of a typical Broadway ticket. People able to see Hamilton performed on Broadway (at least those who are not given comped or house tickets) either have incomes many times mine or more space on their credit cards than me. My only hope of seeing this show is to have my mother get an extra seat when the touring company visits the Smith Center in Las Vegas. The price, including roundtrip airfare from Albany, NY, will still be lower than almost every seat available for the foreseeable future for the show's presentation in Manhattan's Theater District. So, all those people applauding the cast's statement and all those people booing Governor Pence when he entered lack much diversity in terms of socioeconomic status. They probably also lacked much in the way of heritage diversity, too. I have yet to go to any Broadway performance of any play or musical where the audience wasn't almost entirely pinkish. Hamilton may draw a more POC proportion, but more is relative and a suspicious measure when the base is so close to zero. The most reckless irony is the insistence that the cast members represent American values better than the POTUS and VP-elect. Counting votes for the Libertarian candidate, about fifty percent of the people who bothered to vote endorsed a set of values that does not reflect the values the cast is promoting. Progressives and liberals have this notion that inclusiveness and community are enduring features of our political culture, but they aren't even aspirational values to more than half of the population. The 2016 presidential campaign made clear that a majority of Americans place their dubious Second-Amendment right to bear arms above any of the First-Amendment liberties. It made clear that most Americans think it unnecessary to apply the Fourth-, Fifth-, and Sixth-Amendment protections to resident nationals of other countries and even Muslim USA citizens. Is this a bad case of miseducation regarding our constitutional freedoms? Absolutely! Unfortunately, our system of government does not require that voters have any sort of understanding of the principles laid out in the US Constitution or any of the other founding documents of this country. Donald Trump knew that and exploited it. However, are American values based on texts written over two centuries ago or the living principles held by citizens today? The fact is that the authors of those texts were more closely aligned with the view of American values expressed by Trump supporters than the desiderata of the left. Claiming diversity, inclusiveness, and community welfare as American values ignores history. Those are values that have struggled to find acceptance. The only First-Amendment rights that have been warmly embraced are the right to speech and self-expression and freedom of religion. Trump supporters and their ilk demand that anything they say is protected speech, no matter how racist, incendiary, or bigoted their words are. Their agenda is Bible-based, so they are stout offenders of church-state separation in the name of their religious freedom. Extremists love to believe that liberties are absolute, despite the clear record of conditions placed on their exercise. I Have Manhattan (Image by Marcello Rollando) Details DMCA My Grandmamma taught me, we mustn't allow America to pay the ultimate price of the distortion of once upon a time. Touching my forehead like ET, she'd add, the Good Ol' Days are the devil's trick on those who live looking backwards. It's easy to keep the faith, hope and love in your heart and cherish all, when all is well: plenty of friends & money, bright future, fulfilling occupation -- that Joie de vivre, when you feel you are the positive difference, embellishing the inhalation of every living thing. However, the character & temperament, courage & strength, stability & security and even power & might of a nation is translucent in how its people treat one another. My first NYC employer, Holocaust survivor, Mr. Weinberg, was forced to divide masses of incoming Jewish prisoners by deciding who went to the workers' barracks, and who entered the line for showers. This is the Good Ol' Days for people like David Duke, Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn. Will this Thanksgiving remake America First into Restricted skyscrapers hotels & clubs, like the good ol' days of Jim Crow & Operation Wetback? College degrees don't make elitists, but degrees of greed do. Not having a university education doesn't make one uneducated, but following someone just because, he speaks his mind, defeats freedom as much as, The Patriot Act. Potentially, We the People are the sum-total of the biblical Abraham & Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul & all the forgotten African-American suffragettes, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Tammy Duckworth and all those male, female, gay and straight people who, in uniform, preserve, protect and defend the future of education, equality and justice for all -- the very freedom for which we stand at Standing Rock. Yes, it's easy to create a registering system for keeping an eye on those Muslims. Just follow the well documented example set by 1930's Germany, or ask Carl Higbie or for an insider POV, George Hosato Takei. We are not the divided nation Media & GOP preach: the popular vote elected the first female President of the United States, Democrats narrowed the GOP obstructionist margin, and, the sun rose on Wednesday November 9, 2016, with Trump still facing multiple lawsuits. With American optimism, let us move our nation and national mind-set, forward, as the right direction avoiding man's inhumanity to man, knowing common sense and common decency require more than emailing, tweeting, blogging and carrying protest signs. While street violence is illegal, every American has the right to peacefully assemble in the office of federal, state and local elected officials -- to petition government. It's not just the bigotry, misogyny, islamophobia and homophobia -- it's the ineptitude around which the inept surround themselves in times of mass hysteria. Towering misinformation feeds desire for revenge in those for whom seeing beyond their back porch is neither a manageable feat, nor feasible concept. You do the Hokey-Pokey and you turn USA around, is what the good ol' days are all about. Sadly, minds closed by the good ol' days, need another trip down short-term memory-loss lane, chocking on America First, blinded by the smog of climate denial, before realizing, there is no greatness in a me first nation. The only wall we need focus on preventing, is the wall of bluster the self-absorbed have built between themselves and what's best for all. Even primetime television, fueling our soul with humor, reflects greatness in America's diversity -- but freedom's oxygen, is action. Crossposted from Axis of Logic Paul Craig Roberts, one of the most reliable progressive Anglophone journalists wrote "the day after" under the heading "The Working Class Won the Election? What Kind of Trump Administration?" The US presidential election is historic, because the American people were able to defeat the oligarchs. Hillary Clinton, an agent for the Oligarchy, was defeated despite the vicious media campaign against Donald Trump. This shows that the media and the political establishments of the political parties no longer have credibility with the American people. The fundamentally most important thing in this conflictual situation where we are now, is six short words: We do not need an empire.The world has suffered during this unilateral regime for many decades, on an ever increasing level since 9/11. We have had enough of all these conflicts. Now for the details. First a warning about how little we really know about Trump today, in November 2016. We know much more about Hillary Clinton since she has shown all her cards during her tenure as foreign minister (Secretary of State). What is needed now is united and strong pressure from the American people to make Donald Trump listen and understand. We do not want any more oligarchs who totally turn their backs on the American people and just go on enriching the 1% -- the multinational corporations and their executives. This has now been the norm virtually since the 1980s with the Reagan era, and Bill Clinton who followed in Reagan's footsteps -- with gusto. This kind of politics has had a catastrophic effect on the lives of the working class and eventually even on the middle class, which is also a working class. The only ones who are not working are the "Big Money Men" who live on the work done by others, on stock market speculation and more or less shady money transactions. Those people have seen their capital increase to shameless multibillions. The people have more clearly than ever before showed that an oligarchic regime does not carry water. Trump must remain a question mark until further notice, even if he claims that he intends to create jobs and reduce the horrendous economic inequality in the United States. He is of course a stalwart capitalist, but he also seems to be a realist who sees where the shoe pinches. And pinch it does, in the most disastrous way. He seems to be one of the very rare super-rich men who clearly recognize that the status quo would lead directly to Gotterdammerung. Middle America sees Trump as a populist. His victory in 'the swing states' - Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and Iowa clearly shows that the working class sees in Trump a man who is on their side. The cry for more jobs became a sesame to stunning victories for the Republican candidate. for In the world's richest country, a large majority does not have access to the higher education they ought to have a right to. And this just for economic reasons. The wide-spread poverty in this rich country is a shameful reality. Good health care is inaccessible to the lower income holders or to the unemployed. The most basic human rights that European countries have taken more or less for granted since the Great Depression of 1929 are non-existent in the United States. A society simply can not work in the long run under these conditions. What we do know with some certainty is what can now hopefully be avoided with the defeat of Hillary Clinton. The hostility and the massive propaganda against Russia and Putin which reached hysterical and vulgar decibels in the Western media will probably become more low-toned, at least after the initial anti-Trump hysteria has died down. These media now stand there with egg on their face and they quite clearly feel embarrassed by their total lack of foresight. The result of this U.S. election in 2016 will definitely go down in history as a total fiasco for all the media and the oligarchs who own these media, the neoliberal neoconservative establishment, which Hillary Clinton was the tool for -- with great conviction. It has become clear that the elections were rigged by both sides, and that the 'Deep State' was (and is) divided between the two candidates. It has also been proven by Greg Palast that millions of people didn't get their votes counted, mainly people of one minority or another. [1] Now, if Trump indeed gets any of his promises realized, we can first of all expect a rapprochement between Russia and the U.S. and the threatening cloud of a looming World War III may now dissolve. That I consider to be a sufficient reason to feel great relief that Hillary Clinton seems to be history. We can expect an end to the war in Syria, which is not a civil war but a war that was created and supported from beginning to end by the U.S. together with Israel, Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states. If all goes well, we must be able to hope for some sort of solution even to the chaos in Iraq, in Afghanistan, which is an even more complicated problem, and of course the incredibly shameful destruction of Yemen. Reuters estimates that the war in Iraq by itself has cost U.S. citizens over $2 trillion. Nobel prize-winning economist, Joseph Stieglitz, sets the sum higher. He wrote a book titled 'The $3 trillion War'. It is uncertain whether the sanctions against Russia, which will run out on January 31, 2017 according to the latest renewal by EU, will or will not cease. The Financial Times wrote on November 10 -- Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Secretary Clinton Delivers Remarks at the Human Rights Day Town Hall Meeting (Image by U.S. Department of State) Details DMCA URGENT! Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 1.7m votes at last count. Exit polling indicates she also won key states which suspiciously showed Trump "victories" of 1%. Hillary Clinton must initiate a recount in key states MI, WI, NC, PA, FL, Ohio. If the assault on democracy and respect for the votes of all citizens is not challenged, how can we ever again hope for an election that reflects the will of the people? Please contact: Senator Gillibrand (212) 688-6262 https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/contact/ Congresswoman Nita Lowey (914) 428-1707 https://lowey.house.gov/contact/email (her web site will not accept email from anyone outside her district, so use the phone!) Tell them: * Please contact Hillary Clinton and urge Hillary to press for a recount * We need a recount of the ballots in key states MI, WI, NC, PA, FL, Ohio * The person with standing to get recounts in those key states is Hillary Clinton. * Clinton won the popular vote * Exit polls showed her winning key battleground states that she later "lost" when the vote counts from hackable voting machines came in * The deadline for requesting a recount in Wisconsin is this Friday, so time is very short. * more than 1.1 million predominantly black, Hispanic, Islamic, and Asian-American citizens were stripped from the voter rolls WANT TO KNOW MORE? Read below: USA Today calls for recount, How the vote was "Flipped and stripped" http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/11/18/election-audit-paper-machines-column/93803752/ Still time for an election audit: Column This should be standard -- and it's easy, too. Ron Rivest and Philip Stark 11:26 a.m. EST November 18, 2016 A Washington Post--ABC News poll found that 18% of voters -- 33% of Clinton supporters and 1% of Trump supporters -- think Trump was not the legitimate winner of the election. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has called on Congress to investigate the Russian cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee and the election. There are reasons for concern. According to the director of national intelligence, the leaked emails from the DNC were "intended to interfere with the U.S. election process." The director of national intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Security Agency concluded that the Russian government is behind the DNC email hack and that Russian hackers attacked U.S. voter registration databases. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). "To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans." -- Department of Justice Mission Statement For those inclined to "wait and see" and "give him a chance," the nomination of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions lll for US attorney general should lay to rest any thought that Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric was mere political hyperbole. Even when measured against Trump's previous leading candidates for the position, namely Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani, the nomination of Sessions is especially egregious. Sessions' particular unfitness for the position stands out even in an era that has seen successive less-than-stellar candidates serve at attorney general. Countless articles have been written detailing Sessions' racist past. He reportedly called a black federal prosecutor "boy" and advised him to "be careful what you say to white folks." While serving as US attorney in Alabama, Sessions was reported to have called the NAACP and the ACLU "un-American" and "communist-inspired." Sessions is further reported to have said both groups "forced civil rights down the throats of people." Numerous witnesses came forward with similar claims during the 1986 hearings into Sessions' nomination to the federal bench. It was learned during the hearings that Sessions called a white civil-rights lawyer a "disgrace to his race" and referred to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a "piece of intrusive legislation." A Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee took the unusual step of failing to advance Sessions' nomination to the full Senate for consideration. In short, he was deemed to be completely unfit to serve as a federal judge. The voters of Alabama have nevertheless seen fit to send Sessions to the US Senate as their representative where he has served since 1996. Ironically, he serves on the same committee that had previously voted down his judicial nomination. And now with a 20-year record in the US Senate that includes virulent anti-immigration hostility, utter disdain for the rights of the accused, and seemingly unconditional fealty to law enforcement, Sessions has emerged as Trumps' nominee for US attorney general. Sessions' nomination signals the Trump administration's determination to fulfil some of the more incendiary promises made during the campaign. The on-again, off-again Muslim ban cannot be realized without the willing assistance of the US attorney general. Sessions leaves little doubt that he would gleefully endorse even the most outrageous plans of the new administration. As if the aforementioned were not in itself disqualifying, there is an incident in Sessions' past career as a federal prosecutor that is even more disturbing. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). The other night I watched a documentary, "Zero Days", about Stuxnet and cyberwarfare. It made it abundantly clear that the clumsy attempt at cyberwarfare against Iran (somewhat like using exploding cigars to try to assassinate Castro) has had many negative effects and has made us and the rest of the world much more vulnerable to cyberwarfare with destructive and, perhaps, deadly consequences for civilian populations. Stuxnet was the creation of the US and Israeli intelligence services. Apparently without US knowledge the Israelis modified it to be more aggressive and destructive and released it upon the nuclear industry of Iran. It is a program that takes on a life of its own and, once released, cannot be controlled or stopped. The goal was to create havoc and be destructive of the Iranian centrifuges used in the nuclear industry. It did some damage and created some havoc; however, it was released and spread across the world like a deadly and contagious disease. Although it was supposed to be such a covert operation that it could never be traced back to either the US or Israel, it quickly was. And, although there is still official denial (no one in the government is allowed to speak of it without risk of harsh penalties), it is clear that it is more like an open secret. It is somewhat like the Israelis insisting there has never been any official decision to expand settlements into the occupied territories. Besides Stuxnet showing the world how to develop a cyber weapon that can be physically destructive and making nearly every phase of modern life vulnerable to such attacks, it set a new standard for cyber behavior. If the US can do this to another nation, then anyone can also do this to the US or any other country of its choosing. It is much like when we made torture OK for us to use, we made it OK for anyone else to use against us or anyone else. We continue to give up more and more of the moral high ground in service of the Security State and their desire for absolute knowledge and control of every contingency. More specifically, although we slowed down the Iranian nuclear program, they quickly recovered and moved forward more effectively. The recent agreement has contained the potential directions that development can go. (I do think it is ironic that Israel, a nuclear power, is so adamant about how disruptive another nuclear power in the region might be. It sounds a little like the US not wanting Russia to have the bomb after WWII--not wanting anyone to be able to challenge their overarching power.) The other element is that taking out and destroying a part of a nation's industry or infrastructure is the equivalent to bombing it. Although it is done electronically rather than with bombs it is very much like an attack... an act of war. If anyone did that to the US we would be likely to see it as an act of war and retaliate with an overt act of war. The deepest issue, and the reason that these people on the documentary are risking speaking out, is that we... the citizens of this nation... are not aware of what is happening in our name and on our dime. In particular we are unaware of the vulnerability to our infrastructure that is the consequence of these actions. The documentary's point being that we cannot begin to find an international protocol to contain and control cyberwarfare if everything about it is secret and not open to public discussion and involvement. To resolve any problem, you must first acknowledge the problem, understand the problem and then explore potential solutions. This cannot be accomplished within the halls of a self-serving secret intelligence and security structure. We are not allowed to have an open discussion of what has potential deadly consequences for all of us, much less talking to others who might pose a similar threat for us. It is like the Dr. Frankenstein story--someone has the arrogance of power--the hubris--to overstep and create something powerful and wonderful in its own way, but which takes on a life of its own and steps away from its creator (supposed master) to say I am now independent and will decide my life for myself--you are not the boss of me. The iconic story is instructive about how overreach can have the unintended consequence of a monster we cannot control and who may turn on us. It does not work with our kids, who move away and have lives of their own. It did not happen when we rebuilt Germany or Japan after the war. It did not happen with our man, Saddam Hussein, in Iraq, or our attempts at puppet governments in Iraq later or Afghanistan. It did not even work with the Tea Party here at home. We need an open discussion of how to stop creating these monsters to serve our purposes, only to find that they take on a life of their own and become powerful and independent beings in themselves. To hide behind secrecy and the security state to avoid dealing with a very real issue of consequence is its own kind of arrogance and hubris. The thinking behind it all is that internally they will be able to manipulate the issue and engineer some solution and our involvement will only be distracting to this important work. "Trust us, we will fix this." It is about not being willing to take responsibility for their actions, not to be accountable. It is the height of arrogance and cowardice and we are all left totally vulnerable because of it. This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here. [Note for TomDispatch Readers: As we enter the grim Age of Trump, a lot of good places will undoubtedly be looking for help. This website is one of them. In that light, I just wanted to remind you that, in return for a donation of $100 or more ($125 if you live outside the United States), you can go to the TomDispatch donation page and find quite an impressive range of books, including ones by Nick Turse and myself. Whichever one you decide on, the author will send you a signed, personalized copy of it. We can always use the help, of course, and I guarantee you that you won't regret the reading! The next TD piece will be posted on Sunday, November 27th. Tom] It couldn't be stranger when you think about it (which few here care to do). In the latter part of the twentieth century and the first years of this one, Washington did what no power in history had ever done. It garrisoned the globe with a staggering number of military bases in a remarkably blanket fashion (China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and a few similar places aside). In these years, it just built and built and built. At one point, there were something like 1,000 installations in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, from bases large enough to be small American towns to tiny combat outposts. In 2015, there were at least 800 significant U.S. bases in foreign countries (and more small camps and places where U.S. military equipment was pre-positioned for future use). No great power, not even Britain at its imperial height, had ever had such a global military "footprint," such an "empire of bases," and yet in this country it was as if no one noticed, as if it were of no importance at all. The media rarely even acknowledged the existence of such bases. They were never considered news. They played no part in American politics. They went largely unmentioned in "the homeland," despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of American military personnel, their families, private contractors, and others cycled through them annually. Particularly in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, those bases reflected a growing belief in Washington that it might indeed be possible for a single nation, the planet's "sole superpower," to militarily dominate the planet, lock, stock, and barrel. As a result, investment in the U.S. military proceeded apace and the urge for it to be everywhere only spread. At one point in recent years, the Pentagon's budget was larger than those of the next 10 countries combined, including a number of allies; and as Nick Turse has reported, by 2015, the Pentagon had created a vast secret military, its Special Operations forces, which played a role in 147 countries, a figure for the record books. Meanwhile, new drone bases (on which we have no count) were being built in significant numbers to ensure that a Hellfire missile could be delivered to anyplace in the Greater Middle East, much of the rest of Eurasia, or northern Africa on more or less a moment's notice. Nor did Washington's efforts stop there. In these last years, the U.S. has conducted bombing campaigns and other kinds of military activities in no less than seven countries. And yet here's what's notable: unlike other imperial powers with such garrisons in their heyday -- the Romans, the French, the British, the Soviets -- the U.S. managed to dominate next to nothing, to impose its will on no place militarily. Instead, in the post-9/11 era, under military pressure from Washington, country after country, area after area passed into a state of chaos, not order, and it seemed to make no difference what form that pressure took. Neither this tale of failure nor the costs of such militaristic fantasies to the American taxpayer have yet been fully grasped here. As we enter the new era of Donald Trump, amid a welter of conflicting signals, only one thing seems clear when it comes to the U.S. military. Whatever extreme figures end up in key posts in the Trump version of the national security state, as TomDispatchregular William Hartung indicates today, yet more money will be sent swirling down the Pentagon's drain. It's like going into hock to finance your own imperial decline. Tom A Pentagon Rising Is a Trump Presidency Good News for the Military-Industrial Complex? By William D. Hartung As with so much of what Donald Trump has said in recent months, his positions on Pentagon spending are, to be polite, a bundle of contradictions. Early signs suggest, however, that those contradictions are likely to resolve themselves in favor of the usual suspects: the arms industry and its various supporters and hangers-on in the government, as well as Washington's labyrinthine world of think-tank policymakers and lobbyists. Of course, to quote a voice of sanity at this strange moment: it ain't over till it's over. Eager as The Donald may be to pump vast sums into a Pentagon already spending your tax dollars at a near-record pace, there will be significant real-world obstacles to any such plans. Let's start with a baseline look at the Pentagon's finances at this moment. At $600 billion-plus per year, the government is already spending more money on the Pentagon than it did at the peak of the massive military buildup President Ronald Reagan initiated in the 1980s. In fact, despite what you might imagine, the Obama administration has pumped more tax dollars into the military in its two terms than did George W. Bush. According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, the U.S. currently spends four times what China does and 10 times what the Russians sink into their military. So pay no attention to those cries of poverty emanating from the Pentagon. There's already plenty of money available for "defense." Instead, the problems lie in Washington's overly ambitious, thoroughly counterproductive global military strategy and in the Pentagon's penchant for squandering tax dollars as if they were in endless supply. Supposedly, the job of the president and Congress is to rein in that department's notoriously voracious appetite. Instead, they regularly end up as a team of enablers for its obvious spending addiction. Which brings us back to Donald Trump. He's on the record against regime-change-style wars like Bush's intervention in Iraq and Obama's in Libya. He also wants our allies to pay more for their own defense. And he swears that, once in office, he'll eliminate waste and drive down the costs of weapons systems. Taken at face value, such a set of policies would certainly set the stage for reductions in Pentagon spending, not massive increases. But those are just the views of one Donald Trump. Don't forget the other one, the presidential candidate who termed our military a "disaster" and insisted that huge spending increases were needed to bring it back up to par. A window into this Trump's thinking can be found in a speech he gave in Philadelphia in early September. Drawing heavily on a military spending blueprint created by Washington's right-wing Heritage Foundation, Trump called for tens of thousands of additional troops, a Navy of 350 ships (the current goal is 308), a significantly larger Air Force, an anti-missile, space-based Star Wars-style program of Reaganesque proportions, and an acceleration of the Pentagon's $1 trillion "modernization" program for the nuclear arsenal (now considered a three-decade-long project). Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that, if Trump faithfully follows the Heritage Foundation's proposal, he could add more than $900 billion to the Pentagon's budget over the next decade. Trump asserts that he would counterbalance this spending splurge with corresponding cuts in government waste but has as yet offered no credible plan for doing so (because, of course, there isn't one). You won't be surprised to learn, then, that the defense industry, always sensitive to the vibes of presidential candidates, has been popping the champagne corks in the wake of Trump's victory. The prospects are clear: a new Pentagon spending binge is on the horizon. Veteran defense analyst David Isenberg has convincingly argued that the "military-industrial-congressional-complex," not the white working class, will be the real winner of the 2016 presidential election. The Forbes headline for a column Loren Thompson, an industry consultant (whose think tank is heavily funded by weapons contractors), recently wrote says it all: "For the Defense Industry, Trump's Win Means Happy Days are Here Again." The stocks of industry giants Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman rose sharply upon news of his election and the biggest winner of all may be Huntington Ingalls, a Virginia-based manufacturer of aircraft carriers and nuclear attack submarines that would be a primary beneficiary of Trump's proposed naval buildup. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Would I ever lie to you? (Image by rev. dan) Details DMCA "The ONLY bad thing about winning the Presidency is that I did not have the time to go through a long but winning trial on Trump U. Too bad!" Donald Trump knows his way around lawsuits: after all, he's spent the better part of 46 years embroiled in them. The approximate figure is 3500. And the man who says he "never settles" has settled 13 of them for undisclosed amounts which may or may not total more than his current settlement of $25 million. Again, I don't settle cases. I don't do it because that's why I don't get sued very often ** because I don't settle, unlike a lot of other people. We have a situation where we will win in court," he said. And he has benefited in this case ... In more ways than one: Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Progressive Content Not Found Sometimes, authors delete their progressive content after publishing. To see if the progressive content was renamed or re-published, please click here. If you come visit South Korea, where I live, youll more than likely pass through Incheon International Airport, and there quite possibly witness a variety of displays of traditional Korean culture, from acrobatics to aristocratic processions to a variety of musical performances. Since the rebuilding of the country after the Korean War, attention has turned to recovering the arts and customs of the past and, in one way or another, making them relevant to the present. Placing them in the middle of an ultramodern transportation facility is one; interpreting the stuff of relatively recent popular culture with them is another. A few years ago we featured the skills of Luna Lee, a player of the gayageum, a twelve-stringed Korean instrument dating back to the sixth century. Specifically, we featured her renditions of Jimi Hendrixs Voodoo Chile and Stevie Ray Vaughans Little Wing, meetings of modern composition and traditional East Asian performance reminiscent of what Japanese koto player June Kuramoto and her band Hiroshima pioneered in the 1970s. But the Korean musical sensibility brings a different set of emotions into play, and now you can hear them hybridized with the psychedelic, operatic, virtuosic rock of Pink Floyd in Lees versions of Another Brick in the Wall, Comfortably Numb, and The Great Gig in the Sky, all of which must have posed a formidable challenge to convert into gayageum music. My ancestors played the gayageum in a small room, so the sound did not need to be loud, writes Lee on her Patreon page, but my music is performed with modern instruments such as the drums, bass and the guitar. So I had to redevelop my gayageum so that the sound would match that of the modern instrument. I had to increase the volume and pressure, develop tone and increase the sustain sound. And hoping to express the sound of gayageum more diversely like that of the guitar, I had to study guitar effectors and amplifiers and test them to see if they would fit to the sound of the gayageum. Lees work of pushing the gayageum into new musical realms continues: in other videos, she tries her hand at adapting songs by everyone from the Rolling Stones to R. Kelly to Tiny Tim to the late Leonard Cohen. But something about her multiple visits to the territory of Pink Floyd feels right. Perhaps, should we find ourselves in another great progressive rock era, the gayageum will be the first instrument to join the subsequently expanded field of instruments in both a technological and historical sense let onto the stage. Stranger things have happened there, as the Floyd well know. Related Content: Watch Jimi Hendrixs Voodoo Chile Performed on a Gayageum, a Traditional Korean Instrument Stevie Ray Vaughans Version of Little Wing Played on Traditional Korean Instrument, the Gayageum Hear Lost Recording of Pink Floyd Playing with Jazz Violinist Stephane Grappelli on Wish You Were Here Ultra Orthodox Rabbis Sing Pink Floyds Wish You Were Here on the Streets of Jerusalem Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities and culture. Hes at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer, the video series The City in Cinema, the crowdfunded journalism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Angeles Review of Books Korea Blog. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook. First American Woman to Win Civil Case in Afghan Courts Kabul, Afghanistan - 11 August, 2016 - OMNIA owner and CEO Leah Tedrow wins a three-year court battle with Q Kabul Hotel Owners and local property magnet Hamidullah Qasemi and family.The Afghan Supreme Court ruled in favor of OMNIA in the ongoing three-year battle between the company and the Q Kabul Hotel, owned by the Qasemi family, consistent with the unanimous rulings handed down by both the Primary and Appellate Courts before it, on the matter. OMNIA sued the Hotel owners for two separate breaches of contract, gross negligence and criminal intent to do bodily harm, coercion, corruption, retaliation and oppression.OMNIA was hired by the Qasemi family to retrofit their building into an expatriate hotel, now called the Q Kabul Hotel, and manage the business. OMNIAs initial contract with the owners was only for 60-days to handle all the marketing, admin, internal works and advise on all the renovations and conversion works, security measures and engineering. The actual construction works were carried out by the Qasemis. When the hotel owners fell 30-days behind schedule, OMNIA extended the initial contract by 30-days at no additional charge, signing a second 5-year contract to manage the hotel during that time frame and opened the hotel on 1 Sep 2012. The problems had begun even before we opened the hotel, says OMNIA owner and CEO Leah Tedrow, They still had not paid us for the remaining amount on the first contract and paid us absolutely nothing on the second contract. We had to essentially sit outside their offices for them to meet with us, demanding and begging them to complete their work so we could open the hotel on 1 September. They only ordered the kitchen equipment 3-days before opening, despite our request to order it a month before, and they were still installing it on opening day! It was then we began to hear the rumors they had no money, were in serious debt and had signed our contracts knowing they could not pay us. They were doing everything on credit and favor all over town and it was a mess.Twenty-eight days after the hotel opened and the signing of the 5-year management contract with OMNIA, the Qasemis issued a termination letter demanding that OMNIA vacate the premises in 18-hours with no explanation, violating the terms of the contract. We had 28 guests in the hotel at the time, with conferences scheduled with several NGOs and Embassys. We tried to reason with the Qasemis but then found out they had given Etisalat a tour of the building and had been offered $4.2 million up front to lease the building for three-years, even though our projections for the hotel had net incomes at around $6million plus per annum - but they wanted the lump sum, with complete disregard to the current contract and guests, some of whom had just moved in on 12-month leases. We met with Etisalat and showed them our contract. They had no idea about the contract, hotel guests and leases, nor that it needed a further $1.2 million in renovations for the entire building to be functional. They had been told we were employees working for the Qasemis during the tour and that the building was fully operational. They were livid they had been lied to, especially as it had just been approved by their board, and immediately wrote to the Qasemis pulling the deal off the table and refusing any further business dealings. Once that happened, it got pretty western, says Tedrow.Court documents show the Qasemis then began a campaign of terror against OMNIA staff and guests, removing plumbing so there was no hot water in the hotel, refusing food deliveries, draining all the kitchen cooking gas, changing internet passwords to deny them outside communications and access, and issuing death threats to OMNIA staff. We had to send all of our female Afghan staff home as the Qasemis began threatening them and their families, and then they began the death threats against the expat staff and trying to have me arrested every morning. They openly bribed police and would wait outside the courts and Attorney Generals office trying to bribe the people I had just spoken to, to have the case thrown out or delayed. I spent 15-hours a day going from court to court, CID, and Ministry office to Ministry office, to get help and justice. We were living on the grounds at the time and I remember having to post a security guard outside my room and sneak out the back into a another room, just in case they tried to break in and do harm. After a month of constant harassment, attempted arrests and threats, I was finally able to have the Deputy Minister of Interior issue an order of protection and no arrest, valid throughout PD 107. The threats stopped, and we finally came to an agreement to let it play out in the courts. OMNIA then engaged the help of the late Dr Azizullah Ludin, then Chairman of Afghanistans High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption, who assigned an attorney to the case for oversight because of the corrupt practices employed by the Qasemis and stated at the time that he was, deeply ashamed of the behavior and practices of my fellow countrymen, especially in the way they have treated a foreign woman who is a guest in our country.The Primary, Appellate and Supreme Court unanimously ruled the Qasemis were in breach of contract on both counts and were ordered to pay the remaining sum owed on the first contract but denied the claim of over $500,000 owed to OMNIA on the second contract, stating the monies owed to all vendors and suppliers on the second contract was the responsibly of the Qasemis and would not go to OMNIA. We lost a great deal of money on the second ruling, as many of our staff salaries and expenditures were rolled up with that claim, says Mrs Tedrow, but we won on principle and thats really more important to me - setting the record straight. Unfortunately, all the local suppliers owed money, will have to go directly to the Qasemis to collect or sue - but at least the path has been cleared for them through our case. Sadly, the Qasemis are refusing to pay us the court ordered amount, reinforcing their lack of integrity and continued disregard for the rule of law. We are now in the process of bringing criminal charges for failure to pay the court mandate, with the help of the Huquq department, who are charged with ensuring implementation of all court verdicts.The court case has shed light on gaps in the system for expatriates operating and doing business in Afghanistan. The hardest part, in the beginning, was not knowing where to go for help. There were no guidelines or how to guides on how to pursue a civil or criminal case, for expats in Afghanistan. That was when I later found a few unsung heroes at the US Embassy who helped me through this, in spite of the no involvement policies of the Embassy at the time, and why I began work with OSAC to help create some mechanisms for expats doing business here. We saw a huge rise in civil cases becoming criminal cases through desperation, and I know that efforts are continuing, but more really needs to be done to support and protect expats doing business there. Even with the progressive new appointments of more female Ministers and Members of Parliament in Afghanistan, it is still so disappointing to see that many Afghan businessmen do not share the same principles of respect or integrity when dealing with women, or expats in general for that matter, in business. There are always exceptions to this, of course, but really, Im just glad that we were finally able to prevail through the system and show people it is possible, whether youre an expat or a female. It just took a great deal of tenacity, muscle and sweat over the last three years!OMNIA continues the pursuit of finalizing the case verdict and implementation through the Afghan Judicial system. We will never stop until this is done and we will leave no stone unturned. I just wish Dr Ludin, who was one of the greatest champions throughout the ordeal, was here to share in our victory.OMNIA was a turnkey life support, marketing and business solution services provider in conflict, post-conflict and developing nations. The company no longer operates in Afghanistan and has since been reconsolidated.OMNIAContact: ltedrow@omnia-worldwide.com+1.202.455.8932House #4, Pul e Mahmoud SquareShashdarak, Kabul, AfghanistanWord Count: 1,463 Global Smart Appliances Market to grow at a CAGR of 23.48% during the period 2016-2020: Key Vendors LG, Haier, Samsung, Whirlpool, Electrolux http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=860274 http://www.researchmoz.us/ict-market-reports-96.html http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG http://deep-research-report.blogspot.com/ ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " Global Smart Appliances Market 2016-2020 " to it's Large Report database.About Smart AppliancesThe global household appliances market is experiencing steady growth with the growing middle-class economy, improved disposable income levels in a number of countries, increase in labor costs, busier lifestyles, and the availability of a range of home appliances at competitive prices. With increasing digitalization, consumers have become tech-savvy and have strong knowledge regarding the use and benefits of all modern appliances. Also, the influence of social media on the Gen Y and the millennial population is further encouraging them to purchase appliances that can provide convenience and comfort.Technavios analysts forecast the global smart appliances market to grow at a CAGR of 23.48% during the period 2016-2020.Download free Sample PDF report with TOC:Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global smart appliances market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the retail sales of smart appliances worldwide.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:APACEuropeMEANorth AmericaTechnavio's report, Global Smart Appliances Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Read All ICT Market Research Reports @Table of ContentPART 01: Executive summaryHighlightsPART 02: Scope of the reportMarket overviewTop-vendor offeringsPART 03: Market research methodologyResearch methodologyEconomic indicatorsPART 04: IntroductionKey market highlightsPART 05: Market landscapeMarket overviewGlobal smart appliances marketPART 06: Five forces analysisPART 07: Market segmentation by product categorySummary by productSmart kitchen appliancesSmart laundry appliancesOther smart appliancesPART 08: Market segmentation by distribution channelPART 09: Geographical segmentationSmart appliances market in AmericasSmart appliances market in EuropeSmart appliances market in APAC and MEAAbout ResearchMozResearchMoz is the world's 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. ResearchMoz's 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.Contact Us:Mr. NachiketAlbany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074 / Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:Follow me on Blogger at: Global Fatty Methyl Ester Sulfonate (FMES) Market: Environment-friendly Characteristics to Encourage Mass Adoption, finds TMR Global Fatty Methyl Ester Sulfonate (FMES) Market http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=9497 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/fatty-methyl-ester-sulfonate-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com ALBANY, New York, November 16, 2016: The consumption of fatty methyl ester sulfonate (FMES) is expected to intensify over the next couple of year across several industries owing to its physiochemical properties, says Transparency Market Research in a research report. The market intelligence report is titled, Fatty Methyl Ester Sulfonate (FMES) Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Trends, and Forecast 20162023.According to the report, on account of rising demand, fatty methyl ester sulfonate finds application in the manufacturing of products such as liquid detergents, house detergents, washing powder, slurry, and soap. Fatty methyl ester sulfonate is a derivative of palm oil. It is used as a washing agent owing to its calcium ion stability and the high detergency it exhibits. FMES also functions as a softening agent and emulsifier.Get the PDF Brochure for more Professional and Technical industry insights:Fatty methyl ester sulfonate is further employed in institutional and industrial cleaners. The prime end users of fatty methyl ester sulfonate are industries such as detergents and personal care. It can also be used in the manufacturing of oil field chemicals. The sodium salts present in fatty methyl ester sulfonate is used as a potential emulsifying agent in the plastic industry. It is also employed as a release agent in the printing inks and rubber industries. As FMES is extracted from natural sources such as coconut oil and palm oil, its demand is expected to gain momentum over the next couple of years.The global fatty methyl ester sulfonate market is anticipated to witness significant growth in the coming years. Owing to the growth of the personal care industry in emerging economies such as South Korea, Thailand, India, and China, at present Asia Pacific is the leading region in terms of the consumption of fatty methyl ester sulfonate. The expansion of the textile and personal care industries is projected to aid the growth of the global FMES market in the region. North America also accounted for a sizeable share in the global FMES market in 2014. The demand for fatty methyl ester sulfonate has gained momentum over the last few years owing to the proliferating market for personal care products in Canada and the U.S.Browse the full Research report @:Manufacturers of FMES can gain from the emerging markets in developing economies such as Saudi Arabia and Brazil. The market for FMES in the Middle East and Africa and Latin America are likely to exhibit promising growth over the forecast period. The growing per capita income of consumers in Brazil, China, and India, along with rapid urbanization and growing consumer awareness, is likely to fuel the demand for FMES.The key players involved in the manufacturing of FMES are China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), Fenchem, Krishi Oils Limited, KLK OLEO, P&G Chemicals, Wilmar International Ltd., Lion Corporation (S) Pte Ltd., and Chemithon Corporation.About UsTransparency 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.Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Australia's Newest Fintech - Set to Shake up a Backwards Industry www.loanseeker.com.au Melbourne Wednesday 23 November 2016A new online mortgage finance platform, Loanseeker, empowers Australian consumers for the first time to broker their own home loan, with real-time support and advice, triggering the onset of a new era in property finance.Launched today, Loanseeker redefines the way consumers secure a mortgage, establishing the thirdmajor wave in the property finance industry: consumer-brokered home loans.The Loanseeker online service gives the consumer access to the tools and information that traditional brokers use to find a home loan, across a wide range of lenders, providing them with the power to decide what is best for them.Creator and of Loanseeker, Matt Reece, said: The Australian property industry is ready fordisruption and in desperate need of a technology shake up.For the first time in Australian history, Loanseeker puts the consumer in the drivers seat to broker their own mortgage.Secondly, Loanseekers home loan experts that provide advice do not personally receive salescommissions. This is a big break from the way that traditional mortgage brokers operate.Loanseeker takes out all of the filters and pre-decisions that traditional brokers apply before making a recommendation to a home buyer and instead offers full transparency, putting decision making power in the hands of the consumer, he said.Most financial transactions and research is now conducted online and the power has shifted tothe consumer across virtually every industry. Home loans are one of the last financial servicesto make the move, due to the enormity of the purchase and the perceived complexity of theprocess.Loanseeker allows consumers to access real-time home loan rates based on their personal situation -not just advertised rates. These next generation tools that in the past only a traditionalmortgage broker would have access to allow them to calculate their borrowing power acrosslenders, save and share their data with someone else getting the home loan, and select theoption that best suits their needs. The entire system is built on the premise that if people had theright knowledge and access to information, they could do better for themselves.The entire Loanseeker loan application process can be done from a desktop, tablet and smartphone,and is supported by a team of experts who can help with real-time advice, when a consumerwants it.Mortgage brokers have historically been incentivised and rewarded by the size of the loan theysell and the lender they recommend. Loanseeker home loan experts are not paid any sales commissions; they are salaried employees incentivised on consumer satisfaction. The commission that Loanseeker as a business receives from lenders in no way affects the likelihood of a home loan being recommended to a consumer.Experts are available from 8.00am 10.00pm on weekdays and to 5pm on weekends.To get started or for more information, visit:Media ContactMatt Reece, Loanseeker CEOE: matt.reece@Loanseeker.com.auM: 03 93984862Loanseeker is a online platform that lets consumers broker their own home loan deals with the help of their team of expert mortgage brokers530 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria Masterbatch Market Set to Grow Exponentially During the Forecast 2020 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/2991 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/2991 Masterbatches are solid or liquid mixture of additive or pigments used for coloring or enhancing other properties of polymers such as UV stabilizing, flame retardation, antistatic and antilocking. Masterbatches can be used by several technological methods including injection, blow, spinning and others. Growing end user markets such as packaging, automobile and healthcare is boosting the demand of masterbatch market. Moreover, increasing demand of plastics from construction and luxury goods packaging industries are further driving the global masterbatch market. Among the end-user industries, packaging accounts for the largest share in global masterbatch market. Packaging industry uses all types of masterbatches, wherein color and white masterbatch are the most commonly used segments. Food and beverages manufacturers increasing interest in enhancement of packaging colors is escalating demands for the color masterbatches.Request to view Sample Report @The raw materials for masterbatch production include pigments, carrier, dispersant and some additives. Masterbatch market can be classified into four segments - additive, color, white and black. Additive masterbatche is the fastest growing segment which finds its application in customized plastic products in industries such as automotive, electronic appliances, textile, pharmaceutical packaging, and food and beverages packaging. Color masterbatche is used in the production of plastics for automobiles, electronic appliances, flexible packaging for food and beverages and medicine packaging. Black masterbatche is mainly used in construction, automotive and electronic appliance industries.The demand for light weight vehicles is escalating globally due to European Unions concern for reduction in green house gases. Increasing the plastic content in vehicles reduces their weight and carbon emission, and also increases fuel efficiency. This is leading to replacement of metal parts in the vehicles by plastic components. This shows growth opportunities for the masterbatch market for the forecasted period (2014-2020). However, the rising oil prices and stringent environmental laws related to non-biodegradability of plastics are posing significant challenge to the growth of plastic industries which is in turn affecting the masterbatch market.Asia Pacific was the largest market for masterbatch in 2013 owing to high demand of plastics from construction and automobile industries. Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East are expected to witness high growth rates during the forecasted period.Request to view Table of content @Masterbatch market in Europe and North America is consolidated, whereas the masterbatch market in Asia Pacific has a fragmented structure where china alone is a home to about 500 masterbatch manufacturers. Due to large number of mergers and acquisition taking place, rivalry in the masterbatch industry is expected to reduce during the forecasted period.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 Smoke Detector Market Is Expected To Generate Huge Profits by 2020 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3281 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/3281 Smoke detector is a device that can senses smoke, providing an indication of possible fire, thus providing security to the commercial and residential people. In case of commercial and residential security, smoke detector issue a signal to a fire alarm control panel, whereas household smoke detector popularly known as smoke alarm, provide audible or visual alarm from the detecting object itself. Smoke detector basically consists of two major parts, sensor (which senses any smoke within the primacies) and loud electric horn (creating loud sound within the primacies making the individuals with the primacies about certain fire). Amount of current required to run single smoke detector is 9-volt battery or 120-volt house current. Also, smoke detectors are enclosed in a disk-shaped plastic enclosure of about 150 millimeters in diameter and 25 millimeters in thickness.Request to view Sample Report @On the bases of working style global smoke detector market can be bifurcated into photoelectric detectors (have photocell within it, when light fails to reach the photocell due to smoke the attached alarm sets off providing signal of certain fire.) and ionization detectors (have two opposite charge plates, when smoke enters the chamber it neutralizes the ion particles dropping the current between the plates which triggers the alarm). Commercial, industrial, and residential buildings are the major end-users of smoke detector system which is powered by the building power with external attachment with the battery for power backup.North America has largest market share for smoke detector system, followed by Asia Pacific and Europe. Asia Pacific region is expected to overtake North American smoke detector market in the forecasted period. Developing market of Asia Pacific and Europe are expected to boost the global smoke detector market. China and Indian market are expected to witness highest growth in coning future.Request to view Table of content @Increase in injuries and deaths due to fire in the commercial and residential building is driving the global smoke detector market. Additionally, increasing urban population demands private and government sectors across the globe to invest in better infrastructure facilities. Construction of residential and commercial buildings, healthcare centers and educational institutes leads to the demand for adequate security from fire, increasing overall demand for smoke detector system. For infrastructure development, the U.K governments public sector investment is expected to rise by USD 4.9 billion to about USD 77.7 billion in 2013-14 over 2012-13. It is further expected to increase to about USD 83.0 billion in 2014-15. With the increase in infrastructure investment, demand for smoke detector is expected to increase.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 Lead Acid Battery Market Poised for Steady Growth in the Future http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-54 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-54 www.futuremarketinsights.com Future Market Insights, in its latest report titled, Global Lead Acid Battery Market Analysis and Opportunities Assessment, 2014-2020, states that the global lead acid battery market accounted for US$44,689 Mn. in 2014, and is expected to reach US$58,552 Mn. at a CAGR of 4.6% during the forecast period. Asia Pacific, which accounted for the major chunk in the global lead acid battery market, is expected grow at an estimated CAGR of 4.5% during the forecast period.By application type, the global lead acid battery market is segmented as transportation, stationary industrial, motive industrial, stationary industrial, commercial, residential and grid storage. Transportation and stationary industrial collectively contributed to around 77.9% of market revenue in 2014. Transportation was the largest end-use application in the global lead acid battery market in 2014, and is anticipated to continue its dominance through 2020. Stationary industrial is the second largest contributor to the global lead acid battery market, and is expected to register the fastest CAGR of 8.6% during the forecast period.The report finds that grid storage is one of the smallest end-use application segments in the global lead acid battery market, but is anticipated to register a robust CAGR of 7.3% during the forecast period.Request Free Report Sample@Lead acid batteries are predominantly used in passenger cars, commercial vehicles and two wheelers. In addition to that, demand for lead acid battery has also surged due to the increasing adoption of UPS, owing to urbanization and industrialization. Adoption of grid storage technology in developing countries such as India and China is expected to fuel the global lead acid battery market. In addition to that, an increase in the demand for electric vehicles is expected to further accelerate the expansion of the lead acid battery market globally.Moreover, key challenges in the lead acid battery market are raw material price volatility, and emission standards. Lead is the essential raw material used in the manufacturing of lead acid batteries. Lead prices account for approximately 49% of the overall cost of the lead acid batteries. Any fluctuations in lead prices affect the overall profitability of lead acid battery manufacturers.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published new lead emissions standards under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) in November 2008. The new standards curb lead emissions by restricting off-site concentration standards for lead in air from 1.5 mg per cubic meter to 0.15 mg per cubic meter. These factors are inhibiting the growth of the lead acid battery market.Send An Enquiry@Region-wise, Asia Pacific is the largest contributor in the global market, and is expected to continue its dominance till 2020. Currently, the Asia Pacific lead acid battery market is valued at US$ 15,297 Mn and is expected to reach US$ 19,881 Mn. by 2020. North America and Western Europe are other major markets contributing 21.6% and 18.7% respectively, to the global lead acid battery revenue. Eastern Europe accounted for the lowest contribution in terms of revenue in 2014, but is expected to register the highest growth at a CAGR of 5.5% over the forecast period.The degree of competition in the global lead acid battery market has been analyzed in the report, which also presents the comparative view of the key strategies and financial outlook of major companies operating in global lead acid battery market. These include Johnson Controls INC, Exide Technologies, GS Yuasa Corporation and EnerSys.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: Laboratory Information Systems Market Analysis, Trends, Forecast, 2015-2025 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-875 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-875 www.futuremarketinsights.com Future Market Insights (FMI) delivers key insights on the global laboratory information systems market in its latest report titled, Laboratory Information Systems Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2015 - 2025. In terms of revenue, the global laboratory information systems market is projected to register a healthy CAGR of 9.0% over the forecast period owing to various factors, regarding which, FMI offers detailed insights and forecasts.The market has been segmented on the basis of end user, component, mode of delivery and regions. On the basis of end user, the market has been segmented into hospitals, clinics, independent laboratories and others. Clinics are usually installed with well-supported laboratory information systems for better information about both patients and indications at hand. The segment has been estimated to account for maximum revenue share in the global laboratory information systems market in 2015. Revenue contribution of the clinics segment is expected to increase at a CAGR of 10.0% during the forecast period. Hospitals segment is expected to be the second largest revenue contributor to the global market accounting for US$ 824.9 Mn by 2025 increasing at a CAGR of 8.5% over the forecast period.The report further segments the market on the basis of components into software, hardware and services. Services segment is expected to account for largest market share over the forecast period due to adoption of new pricing model strategies by major players in the market. However, software segment is projected to account for significant absolute $ opportunity during 20152025, owing to rise in product enhancements and advent of innovative LIS systems over the forecast period.Request Free Report Sample@In terms of mode of delivery, the laboratory information systems market is expected to witness substantial growth in the next few years. Executing database maintenance, back-up and retention services through cloud-based delivery mode and increasing customisation and standardisation of data by way of dedicated IT skilled persons in on premise delivery mode are major factors expected to drive revenue growth of the cloud-based and on-premise segments respectively over the forecast period. Currently, cloud-based delivery mode segment accounts for major share of the global laboratory information systems market.The primary barriers in the market include high costs related to LIS software and services and lack of skilled labour, for day-to-day operations and maintenance of information. In spite of substantial investments in the field of laboratory information systems, lack of qualified professionals is expected to slow down growth of the LIS market during the forecast period. Moreover design flaws in software can tamper test results generated through LIS and is expected to adversely affect the global laboratory information systems market to a certain extent. These factors are expected to affect adoption of laboratory information systems (LIS) over the forecast.The primary trend in the laboratory information systems market is an increase in development of healthcare information systems, rising healthcare per capita spending and increasing demand for integrated medical systems and precise handling of patient data. Other trends include increasing demand for LIS from smaller hospitals with less than 100 beds in developed nations for faster market capitalization and to provide quality care for patients. This is mainly attributed to LIS enabling systematic documentation, eliminating paper work and chance of errors associated with clinical tests report writing, and thereby enables a streamlined workflow.Send An Enquiry@This report assesses trends driving growth of each segment on global as well as regional levels. North America has been estimated to dominate the laboratory information systems market with maximum market share in 2015. Among emerging markets, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and Eastern Europe are estimated to witness high CAGRs over the forecast period.Some key players identified in the global laboratory information systems market are CompuGroup Medical, Cerner Corp, McKesson, Evident, Medical Information Technology, LabWare, Sunquest Information Systems Inc., SCC Soft Computer, Epic Systems Corporation, etc. The report also provides individual strategies followed by these companies in terms of enhancing software products portfolios, market consolidation and software innovations. The report concludes with strategic recommendations for players in the market and also new players planning to enter the market, which could help them in the long run.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: Global Butter and Margarine Market: Rising Purchasing Power and Declining Prices Driving Consumer Demand, notes TMR http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=4780 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/butter-margarine-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com The demand for butter and margarine rides on the rising disposable incomes of the consumers, notes Transparency Market Research in a report titled Butter and Margarine Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 20152023. Although the improving purchasing power and standards of living of the consumers are indicative of the projected growth of the butter and margarine market, increasing concerns over the prevalence of obesity are likely to restrict the markets development through the forecast period.Download the Butter and Margarine Industry Fact Sheet by 2023:Government restrictions pertaining to the manufacturing and marketing of butter and margarine also pose a restraint to the overall growth. In addition to this, the availability of substitutes threatens the market. Nevertheless, the falling prices of these products have upped their consumption in most developing countries and this offers players immense scope for growth.Based on usage, the butter and margarine market can be bifurcated into spreadable and non-spreadable. By product type, the market comprises cream and whipped butter, liquid margarines, cultured and uncultured butter, butter margarines, and others. The demand for butter is relatively higher and the sales of margarine takes a hit owing to the inclusion of additives.The global market for butter and margarine can be segmented on the basis of geography into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Rest of the World. North America accounts for a significant share in the overall market in terms of revenue and is likely to retain its positive streak throughout the forecast period. The butter and margarine market in the region is fueled by the high consumption of baked and packaged foods.Asia Pacific is projected to exhibit healthy growth over the coming years, with China and India emerging as the front-runners. The rapidly growing economies in these countries has resulted in an increase in disposable income. This, in turn, has enabled consumers to increase their spending on luxury food items such as desserts, pastries, and confectionery. This, combined with the declining prices of margarine and butter, is projected to lead to higher sales in APAC.Browse Full Report With ToC:The report includes a dedicated section on the competitive landscape of the butter and margarine market. The key vendors operating in this market, both domestic and international, have been identified and profiled in detail. Aspects such as company and business overview, financial standing, product portfolio, recent developments, and business strategies have been taken into account while assessing the current and future performance of these companies. The top companies participating in the global butter and margarine market include Dean Foods Company, Kraft Foods, AMUL India, Farmers Cooperative Creamery, Arla Foods, OJSC Creative Group, and FrieslandCampina.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: New Research Report on Breast Pumps Market, 2016-2026 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-967 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-967 www.futuremarketinsights.com "Breast Pumps Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2016-2026, a new report by research and consulting firm, Future Market Insights (FMI) forecasts the global breast pumps market to increase at 5% CAGR through 2026 and surpass US$ 2 Bn in revenues. The report offers 10-year forecast and analysis on the basis of product, technology, application, and region. Key companies profiled in the report include Koninklijke Philips N.V, Pigeon Corporation, Jarden Corporation, Goodbaby International Holdings Ltd., Medela Inc., Ameda Inc., Hygeia Medical Group II, Bailey Medical, Handi-Craft Company, Mayborn Group Limited, and Linco Baby Merchandise Works Co., Ltd.Breast pumps havent undergone the same level of innovation as other medical devices, prompting the Make the Breast Pump Not Suck hackathon at MIT Media Lab in 2014. The hackathon received massive media coverage, bringing daunting challenges associated with breast pumps to the limelight. While breast pumps have enabled women to maintain their milk production and provide nutritious feed to their babies in their absence, using the pumps has been a complicated affair. High cost, deafening loud motors, and difficulty in cleaning numerous parts has forced many women to wean.Request Free Report Sample@The winners of M.I.Ts hackathon presented interesting, futuristic ideas that could change the breast pumps landscape for the better. Hands-free, discrete, and easy to clean the winning products incorporated features that women have been yearning for a long time. Manufacturers looking to gain a competitive edge need to work on including these features in their offerings.Global Breast Pumps Market: Challenges and OpportunitiesGlobal demand for breast pumps will continue to grow, as the percentage of working moms increases, especially in developing countries. Breast pumps use as a life-saving device for infants who cannot feed directly from the breast is also expected to contribute to global demand.According to FMIs report, double electric breast pumps are witnessing higher demand than single electric- and manual- breast pumps. Ease of use and faster expression of milk are the key factors driving demand for double electric breast pumps. Overall, demand for breast pumps is higher from individual consumer (s) vis-a-vis hospitals.Send An Enquiry@High Demand Expected in Emerging EconomiesNorth America and Western Europe are the two largest markets for breast pumps globally, with the former accounting for nearly 35% revenue share of the market in 2015. Developing economies promise myriad growth opportunities to manufactures, as the breast pumps market in these region is still in its infancy. According to FMIs report, the Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) breast pumps market is anticipated to witness a CAGR of 7.1% CAGR, whereas the Eastern Europe breast pumps market is expected to increase at 4.5% CAGR. Russia is the most lucrative market for breast pumps in Eastern Europe, and is projected to increase at 4.6% CAGR during the forecast period.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: FMI Releases New Report on the Peppermint Oil Market 2016-2026 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2135 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2135 www.futuremarketinsights.com Peppermint oil is derived from extraction of oils from flowers and stem of peppermint herb. The steam distillation process is used for extraction of oil. Peppermint oil is used medicines due to its therapeutic benefits. The healthcare uses of peppermint oil include digestive system simulation and for soothing headaches, muscle pain, cold, sinus etc. They are used extensively in oral care products because of cooling effect and its ability to kill bacteria responsible for bad breath. Peppermint oils are also for flavoring in food and beverage industry. And they are also used as safe natural food additive. Peppermint oil is an aromatherapy ingredient, which helps in stimulation and relaxation of body. It acts as skin toner in cosmetic products. In 2016, Basilica Botanica, a Los Angeles-based beauty products manufacturer launched a gift set of premium essential oils consisting of peppermint oil.Peppermint Oil Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe rise in demand for aromatherapy treatments is expected to drive the growth of global peppermint oil market. The increasing consumer awareness regarding the use of safe natural and organic products is expected to boost the growth of global peppermint oil market. Increasing disposable income and awareness of personal care has resulted in demand for oral care and confectionery products in rural areas, which is a major driver for the growth of global peppermint oil market. The recent outbreak of Zika virus and diseases such as dengue and malaria has increased the demand for natural mosquito repellents and the use of peppermint oil in these repellents is expected to increase the demand. The fragrance ingredients and essential oils market recorded high growth rate, which is expected to increase the demand for peppermint oil.Request for sample report:However, the rise in cost and decline in production of peppermint oil is expected to hamper the growth of global peppermint oil market during the forecast period.Peppermint Oil Market: SegmentationOn the basis of application,the global peppermint oil market can be segmented as follows:-Oral ProductsMouthwashToothpasteOral SprayConfectionary ProductsCandiesChewing GumCough and Throat LozengesPharmaceutical ProductsAnalgesic BalmsRubbing AlcoholDrugsMedicated OilsTobacco ProductsCigaretteChewing TobaccoFragrance ProductsSoapShampooBathing OilAftershave LotionsPeppermint Oil Market: Region Wise OutlookThe global peppermint oil market can be divided into five regions, namely North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Middle East & Africa (MEA). North America and Europe holds major share in terms of market value in global peppermint oil market. North America has a significant share in the production of peppermint oil. The mature essential oil market in Europe is expected to boost peppermint oil market in the region. APAC is expected to register high CAGR over the forecast period. This is attributed to the rise in demand for natural and organic cosmetic and fragrance products in the region. The upsurge of investments in healthcare and pharmaceutical industry is anticipated to propel the growth of global peppermint oil market. Latin America is expected to project high growth rate during the forecast period, owing to the rapid growth of food and beverage industry in the region.Request for TOC:Peppermint Oil Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in the global peppermint oil market are as follows:The Lebermuth Company, Inc.Essex Laboratories LLCVinayak Ingredients (INDIA) Pvt., Ltd.Elixarome LimitedAOS Products Private LimitedDe Monchy AromaticsHindustan Mint & Agro Products Pvt. Ltd.Arora Aromatics Pvt. Ltd.Foodchem International CorporationBhagat Aromatics LimitedShanti ChemicalsAromatic And Allied ChemicalsParas PerfumersAbout 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: Global Sulfur Analyzers Market 2016- ABB, LECO, Bruker, Teledyne, Thermo Scientific and PerkinElmer. Sulfur Analyzers http://bit.ly/2gcJcGf http://bit.ly/2ggAynP Global Sulfur Analyzers Industry 2016 Market Size, Share, Trends, Global Price, Company Profiles, Demand, Insights, Analysis, Research And Forecast 2016-2021.The recent report on Sulfur Analyzers market throws light on the various factors governing the market across the globe and especially in China. The report, titled Sulfur Analyzers assesses the growth of the Sulfur Analyzers market and estimates the valuation of the overall market by the end of the forecast period. The report provides an overview of the market and lists down the key drivers and restraints which will affect the market during the forecast horizon. Analysis of Porters Five Forces on Sulfur Analyzers market in China and rest of the world has been mentioned in the report. The report also compiles insightful information about the key players in the market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The report segments the Sulfur Analyzers market in China and rest of the globe on the basis of product types and end-use application segments. The report analyzes the entire value chain of the Sulfur Analyzers market and forecasts the market size and revenue to be generated by each of the segments. Various micro- and macro-economic factors governing the global and the Chinese Sulfur Analyzers market has been mentioned in the report. In China, the present slow growth of the economy and the impact of the governments latest initiatives have been taken into account while forecasting the growth of the Sulfur Analyzers market in the region.The report discusses in details about the vendor landscape of the Sulfur Analyzers market. The market has been analyzed on the basis of market attractiveness and investment feasibility. The report lists down the key players in the Sulfur Analyzers market and provides crucial information about them such as business overview, revenue segmentation, and product offerings. Through SWOT analysis, the report analyses the growth of the key players during the forecast horizon.The report determines the leading players in China as well as in the global market. The company profiles of the major participants operating in the China as well as global Sulfur Analyzers market have been reviewed in this study.Browse Complete Report with TOC @About Us:QYResearch 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. 1-855-465-4651 Global Medical Tapes Market is Anticipated to Increase to US$ 1,757.2 Mn by 2024 End http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3435 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/medical-tapes-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/ Global medical tapes market is expected to register a CAGR of 5.8% during the forecast period 20162024. In this report, the global medical tapes market is tracked in terms of value and is calibrated to obtain market revenue estimates.Request to view Sample Report @Rising incidences of Healthcare Acquired Infections (HAIs), product line extensions from manufacturers, increasing innovation, concern about patient safety among clinicians, and development of single patient use tapes are major factors driving the growth of the global medical tapes market currently. Other trends boosting market growth are increasing awareness regarding the use of medical tapes for securement among physicians and patients and rising incidence of wounds, burns, and injuries. In addition, medical tapes manufacturers in the global medical tapes market are focusing on introducing differential products with enhanced safety and applications to increase their market share.However, adoption of alternative treatment methods, increasing incidence of Medical Adhesive Related Skin Injuries (MARSI), and a lack of guidelines regarding proper selection and usage of medical tapes are expected to hamper the growth of the global medical tapes market.The global medical tapes market is segmented based on product type, application, distribution channel, and region. On the basis of product type, the market has been segmented into adhesive tapes, elastic tapes, silicone tapes, paper tapes, and silk cloth tapes. The silk cloth medical tapes segment is expected to remain the largest segment, registering a CAGR of 5.0% in terms of value over the forecast period. The wider application of silk cloth medical tapes in various healthcare conditions and easier availability is expected to contribute to their growing popularity. The silicone tapes segment is expected to emerge as the most preferred product type for both patients and physicians globally over the forecast period, and is expected to register a CAGR of 6.6% during the forecast period 2016-2024.On the basis of application, the global medical tapes market has been segmented into wounds & injuries and surgeries & securement. The wounds & injuries segment dominated the global medical tapes market in revenue terms in 2015 and is projected to continue to do so throughout the forecast period. The hospitals segment is estimated to account for 44.6% revenue share of the global medical tapes market by 2016 end owing to increased number of hospitalizations.On the basis of region, the market has been segmented into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. This report assesses trends driving each market segment and offers analysis and insights about the potential of medical tapes in specific regions. Asia Pacific is estimated to dominate the global medical tapes market with maximum value share of the overall market by the end of 2016. By 2024, the North America and Asia Pacific markets are expected to account for over 60% revenue share of the global medical tapes market. In terms of value, Asia Pacific is estimated to be the dominant market, registering a CAGR of 7.0% over the forecast period.Request to view Table of content @Some of the key companies covered in the global medical tapes report include 3M, Johnson & Johnson, Paul Hartmann AG, Scapa Group PLC, Andover Healthcare Inc., Ad Tape & Label, and Medtronic Plc. These companies are primarily focused on enhancing their market share by entering new markets and by introducing innovative and cost-effective medical tapes in order to gain a higher market share and to strengthen their respective position in the global medical tapes market.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) 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. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who 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 PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.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 Microsensor Market To Make Great Impact In Near Future by 2026 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2168 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2168 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/microsensor-market www.futuremarketinsights.com Microsensors are widely used in applications, to detect a change in environment and produce a corresponding output signal. These sensors are used in collaboration to improve the functionality of the device they are implemented in. Microsensors are popular because of their small size and low power consumption, hence enterprises are investing in this market to meet customers increasing demands. However while designing circuits, engineers have to be careful about the specifications of the microsensor to achieve the desired response. Microsensors are used in different types of information processing systems, and with the introduction of new technologies such as IoT, their applications will also increase.Request for sample report:Microsensor Market: Drivers and RestraintsMicrosensor technology is revolutionizing the semiconductor industry. High adoption rates of microsensor technology is driven by factors such as their low cost benefits, better sensitivity, and accuracy. Moreover, increasing popularity of smart wearable devices that use microsensors for various fitness tracking options such as counting heart-beat, measuring blood pressure, etc. is also expected to drive the growth of microsensors market. Chemical and medical applications widely deploy microsensors, to meet their high accuracy requirements. However, microsensors are not compatible with all circuits, packaging of microsensors is a problem and other device deficiencies such as offsets and non-linearity are factors hindering the growth of the microsensors market.Microsensor Market: SegmentationMicrosensors can be segmented on the basis of type of microsensor, type of input signal, verticals, and region. The different types of microsensors are micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), biochips and nanosensors. On the basis of input signal, microsensors can be segmented into thermal, radiation, mechanical, magnetic, chemical and biological signals. Microsensors are used in various verticals such as automotive, medical, consumer electronics, chemical, food and others. Region wise, the market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East and Africa.Request for TOC:Microsensor Market: Regional OutlookNorth America region is leading the microsensors market, owing to increase in use of smart devices. Asia Pacific and Japan, are also prominent leaders with numerous sensor vendors located in this region. Western Europe is also expected to witness a moderate growth in the near future, as the government is willing to invest in upcoming technologies. Latin America and Middle East and Africa are expected to witness a slower growth than compared to other regions.Microsensor Market: Competition LandscapeThe key players involved in microsensors market are Robert Bosch Gmbh, STMicroelectronics, Analog Device, Inc., Texas Instruments Incorporated, OMRON Corporation, Knowles Electronics LLC, InvenSense, Inc., Goertek, MEMSIC, Inc. and Kionix Inc.Browse full report: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: Global Hemoglobinopathy Market is Expected to Witness Significant Growth US$ 788.2 Mn by the End of 2024 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/10007 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/hemoglobinopathy-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/ In terms of revenue, the global hemoglobinopathy market is projected to register a healthy CAGR of 8.3% over the forecast period owing to various factors, on which Persistence Market Research offers detailed insights.Request to view Sample Report @Most health insurance companies, including government programs in the U.S. and Europe provide insurance coverage for hemoglobinopathy therapy under the CPT code. This creates a favorable environment for the growth of the global hemoglobinopathy market. Various government initiatives are being carried out for detection and management of hemoglobinopathy in high disease prevalence regions across the globe, giving a fillip to the global hemoglobinopathy market. Advancements in diagnosis techniques have led to the development of new tests that have enabled clinicians to provide effective diagnosis and therapeutic assistance to patients. Rising awareness about these disorders coupled with various public and private initiatives is also fueling the growth of the global hemoglobinopathy market in the regions with a high prevalence of sickle cell anemia and thalassemia.Lack of awareness regarding hemoglobinopathy disorders among the populace especially in underdeveloped countries is a major factor hampering growth of the global hemoglobinopathy market. The lack of a permanent cure for hemoglobinopathy disorder is also one of the restraints affecting the global hemoglobinopathy market.The global hemoglobinopathy market is segmented based on indication type, test type, end users, and region. Based on indication, the market is segmented into sickle cell disease, alpha thalassemia, and beta thalassemia. Beta thalassemia segment is expected to register a significant CAGR of 8.7% during the forecast period. Sickle cell disease segment is anticipated to grow with a CAGR of 8.3% over the forecast period.The market has been segmented based on major types of diagnostic tests such as red blood cell (RBC) count test, genetic testing, hemoglobin by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) test, hemoglobin isoelectric (Hb IEF) focusing, hemoglobin electrophoresis (Hb ELP) test, and hemoglobin solubility test. The genetic testing segment is expected to expand at the highest CAGR of 9.2% over the forecast period due to increasing adoption of preventive measures such as genetic counseling and testing. Increasing popularity of prenatal and premarital genetic screening make these tests an attractive opportunity for market players.Based on end users, the market has been segmented into hospitals, diagnostic laboratories, and clinics. The diagnostic laboratories segment is anticipated to account for the highest market share over the forecast period, registering a CAGR of 8.9% due to availability of dedicated equipment, reagents, and trained technicians required to perform rather complex diagnostic procedures like genetic testing, Hb HPLC, and isoelectric focusing.The global hemoglobinopathy market has been segmented into five major regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), and Middle East & Africa (MEA). North America and Europe are expected to dominate the global hemoglobinopathy market with maximum market share in 2016. North America and Europe collectively have been expected to account for more than 50% of the total global hemoglobinopathy market share in terms of value in 2016. Among emerging markets, Asia Pacific is estimated to exhibit the highest CAGR of 9.3% over the forecast period, due to an increase in the diagnosis rate.Request to view Table of content @Some key players in the global hemoglobinopathy market identified in the report include Abbott Diagnostics, Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., Danaher Corporation, Mindray Medical International Ltd., Nexcelom Bioscience LLC., Nihon Kohden Corporation, PerkinElmer Inc., Siemens Healthineers, and Sysmex Corporation. The individual strategies of these companies in terms of increasing focus on rare diseases, initiatives to increase disease awareness, and enhancing distribution base have been discussed. The report concludes with strategic recommendations for players already present in the market and new players planning to enter the global hemoglobinopathy market, which could help them in the long run.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) 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. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who 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 PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.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 Ugandas Agri Minister Bamulangaki confirmed for Agribusiness Congress East Africa in Kampala next week Some 150 regional agri experts expected to gather for event www.agri-eastafrica.com Agriculture shining bright for Uganda will be the theme of the keynote address by the Hon. Ssempijja Vincent Bamulangaki, Ugandas Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, during the opening session of the upcoming Agribusiness Congress East Africa in Kampala on 29 November.The organisers of the event have confirmed that the Minister will address some 150 agri experts that are expected to gather for the fourth edition of Agribusiness Congress East Africa hosted by The Grain Council of Uganda in Kampala with the official support from the National Agricultural Advisory Services and the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries of Uganda. It is the first time that this regional event is taking place in Uganda.The opening session, which starts at 09h00 on Tuesday, 29 November, will also feature: Keynote address: Paradigm shift in agriculture- Dr Sinare Y Sinare, Chairman, Agriculture Council Tanzania, Tanzania Eastern and Southern African market opportunities in agribusiness- Argent Chuula, CEO, Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA) - Specialized Agency of Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), ZambiaInterviews with several of the Agribusiness Congress East Africa expert speakers and partners can be viewed on the event website.Agribusiness Congress East Africa is a regional platform for discussions and knowledge sharing, to address those pertinent issues which are preventing the East African agricultural industry from truly flourishing as a global agribusiness hub.The event enjoys wide support from the local and regional farming sector, including the Grain Council of Uganda (TGCU), National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), Uganda National Farmers Federation (UNFFE), Uganda Seed Trade Association (USTA) and Agricona.Well-known agri suppliers including Engsol, John Deere, Mascor, Tafe, Case, Chief Industries, Irrico, Rivulis and Toyota are event sponsors.Agribusiness Congress East Africa will offer market access to more than 200 million people through Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and South Sudan. Agriculture accounts for almost 30% of GDP in East African countries while staple foods represent 75% of total agricultural products traded. Agriculture employs more than 60% of the population in the region.Official press conference:Venue: The Grain Council of Uganda head office, Plot. 59 Bandali Rise, BugolobiDate: Monday, 28 November 2016Time: 09h00Agribusiness Congress East Africa dates and location:Conference: 29-30 November 2016Event location: Kampala Serena Hotel, Kampala, UgandaAgribusiness Congress East Africa is organised by Spintelligent, a well-known trade conference and expo organiser on the continent, with particular expertise and experience in energy, infrastructure and agricultural development events; including the long-running flagship shows such as Agritech Expo Zambia, the East African Power Industry Convention in Nairobi and African Utility Week in Cape Town.Senior communications manager: Annemarie RoodbolTelephone: +27 21 700 3558Mobile: +27 82 562 7844Email: annemarie.roodbol@spintelligent.comWebsites:Postal address: PO Box 321, Steenberg, 7947, South Africa Shift from Conventional Treatment Channels to Boost Telehealth Services Market Globally http://bit.ly/2fAaCSO http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/telehealth-services-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ Modern world is shifting from the age old concept of conventional medical treatment to technologically well-equipped treatment services. Thus the concept of telehealth services is gaining attention. In telehealth service there is an exchange of remote data between the patient at home and their doctor(s) to assist in diagnosis and monitoring patients with long term ailments. Among other techniques it includes fixed or mobile home units to measure, analyze and monitor body temperatures, blood pressure, sugar level and various other vital parameters for clinical evaluation at a remote location by using phones or wireless medium. Telehealth services have increase awareness among the individuals about their own health assisting both the patients and the doctors. Telehealth is advantageous in a way that it reduces the number of patient visits, thus saving time and also is a very cost effective service and thus can be availed by a large number of population.Obtain the Future Market Structure of Telehealth Services at:Doctors and clinicians, by this service can constantly monitor and guide the patient about their long term ailment, ultimately reducing the mortality rate. Moreover, it has also lead to drastic decrease in incidences of emergency admission. This has changed the perception of conventional medical practice, which forms the major driver for the market. Telehealth is not only restricted to long term ailments, but also has a wide range of applications like dentistry, counselling, physical and occupational therapy, disaster management and consumer and professional education.The rate of using telehealth services is influenced by many factors such as the availability and cost of existing conservative health services in meeting patient requirements; the requirement of medical licensing, the policies of governments with respect to coverage, and payment for telehealth services. Modern techniques are being administered in telehealth service market like store-and-forward method, real-time, remote patient monitoring, remote training, and electronic consultation. With the use of all these techniques, telehealth service market is gaining popularity.The global telehealth services market is segmented on the basis of end user, type, application, and geography. Clinical and non-clinical are sub-segments of the type segment. Clinical uses comprise diagnosis of disease, disease management, advice on prevention from diseases, promoting good health, and using telephonic medium to deal with emergency situations. Non-clinical uses of telehealth services include distance education, movement of patient and remote admission, research programs on telehealth services, health data management, and providing online information.On the basis of application, the market is segmented into dermatology, cardiology, gynecology, neurology, and orthopedics. The global telehealth services market is segmented on the basis of end user into telehome, telehospital, assisted living, worried well living, and facility. On the basis of geography, the telehealth services market is segmented into Latin America, North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Rest of the World.Interpret the Existing Market Analysis of Telehealth Services at:Key players operating in the global telehealth services market, which have been included in the report for the purpose of study are: LifeWatch AG, Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc., McKesson Corporation, CARDIOCOM, LLC, Polycom, Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., AMD Global Telemedicine, Inc., Cisco Systems, InTouch Technologies, Inc., Philips Healthcare and Honeywell HomMed LLC.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global 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 data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Cleaning Robot Market Headed for Growth and Global Expansion by 2021 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/7484 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/7484 Cleaning robots helps to detect the position of the area to be cleaned, estimates the path to reach the detected position and cleans the area with the help of vacuum cleaner attached. The camera is mounted on the roof so that the robot can easily navigate an area and clean the room using vacuum cleaner attached with the robot. Cleaning robots are widely used in commercial, healthcare, and other applications for cleaning floors, windows, lawns and pools. Moreover, cleaning robots constantly capture video and images and can sense the movements of any object or living thing.. It can be used to sound alarms in case of unwanted movements being noticed, thus ensuring security. Cleaning robot maintains the log of unclean and cleaned area in the secondary storage which helps to keep a track of records for future assistance.Request for Sample Copy@The cleaning robot market can be segmented on the basis of product, end-use application and geography. On the basis of product type, the cleaning robot market can be categorized into pool robot, window robot, floor robot, and lawn robot. Based on the end-use verticals, the cleaning robot market can be segmented into residential, commercial, industrial, and healthcare applications. Furthermore, on the basis of geography, the cleaning robot market is classified into five major regions including North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. North America is the most dominant market for cleaning robots owing to the presence of well-established cleaning robot manufacturers and high labor cost.Smaller size and ability to fit in limited space as compared to traditional robots is one of the key factors which is driving the adoption of cleaning robot, globally. The cleaning robots can also clean in areas with hazardous environment and where the human entry could prove fatal. These robots save labor cost and time since a single machine can perform the work of multiple laborers in lesser time. This is one of the factors fueling the demand of cleaning robots across the globe. Furthermore, the technological advancements, especially in visualization and sensing equipment is expected to trigger the growth of cleaning robotics market over the forecast period. The emergence of futuristic robotics is supporting the innovation of low cost, smaller size and technologically advanced cleaning robots. However, the low battery life and durability issues are some of the factors hindering the growth of cleaning robotics market.Request for Table of Content@Some of the key players in cleaning robotics market include Dyson Ltd. (U.K.), Ecovacs Robotics, Inc. (U.S.), Infinuvo (U.S.), iRobot Corporation (U.S.), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands), LG Electronics, Inc. (South Korea), Neato Robotics, Inc. (U.S.), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (South Korea), Intellibot Robotics LLC (U.S.), Moneual Inc. (US), and Yujin Robot Co., Ltd (South Korea).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 Harrows Market Headed for Growth and Global Expansion by 2024 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/10379 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/10379 The rising demand for agricultural farm machinery is one of the prominent factors which is driving the harrows market demand worldwide. This is majorly supported by the growing demand for food which is expected to rise substantially owing to the significant increase in global population during the forecast period. Rising food demand has encouraged the adoption of advanced farming practices to increase crop yields which is further resulting in the demand for agricultural machinery globally. The global harrows market is driven by increasing adoption of farm machinery for mechanization of farming operations which resulted in increased production and profitability by achieving timeliness in farming operations. This in turn helps farmers in optimum utilization of costly inputs such as fertilizers, seeds, and irrigation among others.Request for Sample Copy@Farm mechanization also helps in the preservation of the farm produce, which further improves profitability and cost effectiveness by reducing post-harvest losses. Similarly, increasing awareness about the importance of technology in agriculture is also an important factor which is fueling the growth of the harrows market globally. This increasing awareness can be attributed to rising adoption of farm tractors and other agricultural machinery which yields high productivity gains. Moreover, Low purchasing power and high cost with low technology adoption is currently challenging the wide-scale adoption of farm machinery tools including harrows. The market growth is also inhibited by growing urbanization and decreasing farmlands. In order to counter this restraint, governments worldwide are promoting and encouraging the adoption of farm machinery tools by providing subsidies on this equipment, thereby allowing manufacturers to offer the equipment at lower rates.The global harrows market can be segmented on the basis of types, and various geographical regions. Based on different harrows types, the market has been segmented into disc harrow, chain harrow, tine harrow, and chain disk harrows. Based on various geographical regions, the market is classified into North America, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. In Asia Pacific, countries such as India and China are witnessing the shift in overall population. Growing population is responsible for increasing food demand in Asia Pacific, which in turn will fuel the demand for harrows for effective farm production in this region. In North America, rising need for enhanced productivity is also one of the major factors that are triggering the market growth. Likewise, in European countries such as Germany, governments are offering subsidies on agriculture and farm machinery, to promote the use of technology in farm production. This is further reinforced by increasing technical expertise, intense competition, and the presence of a large domestic market is expected to boost the harrows sales in Europe.Request for Table of Content@Some of the key players in the global harrows market include S.P. Industries, Deere & Company, AGCO Corporation, Iseki & Co., Ltd., HARROWS DARTS, Kelly Engineering, and Agroking Implements Industries, among 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 Operational Predictive Maintenance Market Headed for Growth and Global Expansion by 2024 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/10394 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/10394 The operational predictive maintenance market has been experiencing massive growth in the recent years due to rise in demand for transforming maintenance operations and reducing asset downtime. Moreover, increasing demand for big data and Internet of Things (IoT) and rising focus of organizations on reducing operational cost is further expected to fuel the growth of operational predictive maintenance market during the forecast period. However, lack of training for operators and lack of trust in predictive maintenance technology is hindering the market growth. Increasing demand for real time steaming analytics and increasing demand from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is expected to create huge opportunities for the companies operating in operational predictive maintenance market.Request for Sample Copy@The global operational predictive maintenance market is segmented on the basis of components, deployment type, application, and geography. Based on the component, the global operational predictive maintenance market is classified into solutions and services. Further, services segment is further categorized into system integration, training and support, and consulting. Based on the deployment type, the global operational predictive maintenance market is further segmented into cloud-based and on-premise. Among these, cloud based operational predictive maintenance solutions market is expected to show swiftest growth enabling enterprises to reduce their dependence on data mining specialists, data integration and IT. In terms of application, the market is segmented automotive, energy and utilities, healthcare, manufacturing facilities, government and defense and transportation and logistics. Among these, manufacturing facilities are expected to hold the major market share for operational predictive maintenance market due to high deployment rate by manufacturers to reduce the maintenance cost consequently increasing the profitability.On the basis of geography, the global operational predictive maintenance market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. Among these, North America is expected to lead the operational predictive maintenance market in 2016. The growing big data market and high adoption of IoT are contributing to the growth for operational predictive maintenance market in the North America region. Moreover, heavy investments made by countries such as China, Japan, Korea, and India in Asia-Pacific to enhance the efficiency of production assets is further expected to offer sufficient growth opportunities for the operational predictive maintenance market in this region.Request for Table of Content@Some of the leading companies operating in the global operational predictive maintenance market which are transmuting the market with technology innovation are IBM Corporation, SAS Institute Inc., Software AG, General Electric, Robert Bosch GmbH, Rockwell Automation, Inc., PTC, Inc., Schneider Electric, Svenska Kullagerfabriken AB, and Emaint Enterprises, LLC.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 Iron Ore Mining Market Professional Survey Report 2016 http://www.reportbazzar.com/request-sample/?pid=549464&ptitle=Global+Iron+Ore+Mining+Market+Professional+Survey+Report+2016&req=Sample http://www.reportbazzar.com/product/global-iron-ore-mining-market-professional-survey-report-2016/ http://www.reportbazzar.com/discount-form/?pid=549464&ptitle=Global+Iron+Ore+Mining+Market+Professional+Survey+Report+2016&req=Discount http://www.reportbazzar.com/ This reportMainly covers the following product typesThe segment applications includingSegment regions including (the separated region report can also be offered)USAChinaEuropeSouth AmericaJapanAfricaThe players list (Partly, Players you are interested in can also be added)BHP BillitonRio TintoValeUS SteelCDIICliffsAK SteelWith no less than 15 top producers.Data including (both global and regions): Market Size (both volume MT and value million USD), Market Share, Production data, Consumption data, Trade data, Price USD/MT, Cost, Gross margin etc.Request Sample Report:Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Iron Ore Mining1.1 Definition and Specifications of Iron Ore Mining1.1.1 Definition of Iron Ore Mining1.1.2 Specifications of Iron Ore Mining1.2 Classification of Iron Ore Mining1.3 Applications of Iron Ore Mining1.4 Industry Chain Structure of Iron Ore Mining1.5 Industry Overview and Major Regions Status of Iron Ore Mining1.5.1 Industry Overview of Iron Ore Mining1.5.2 Global Major Regions Status of Iron Ore Mining1.6 Industry Policy Analysis of Iron Ore Mining1.7 Industry News Analysis of Iron Ore Mining2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Iron Ore Mining2.1 Raw Material Suppliers and Price Analysis of Iron Ore Mining2.2 Equipment Suppliers and Price Analysis of Iron Ore Mining2.3 Labor Cost Analysis of Iron Ore Mining2.4 Other Costs Analysis of Iron Ore Mining2.5 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Iron Ore Mining2.6 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Iron Ore MiningBuy Complete Report:3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Iron Ore Mining3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Iron Ore Mining Major Manufacturers in 20153.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Iron Ore Mining Major Manufacturers in 20153.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Iron Ore Mining Major Manufacturers in 20153.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Iron Ore Mining Major Manufacturers in 20154 Global Iron Ore Mining Overall Market Overview4.1 2011-2016E Overall Market Analysis4.2.1 2011-2015 Global Iron Ore Mining Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2015 Iron Ore Mining Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2011-2015 Global Iron Ore Mining Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2015 Iron Ore Mining Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2011-2015 Global Iron Ore Mining Sales Price4.4.2 2015 Iron Ore Mining Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)4.5 Gross Margin Analysis4.5.1 2011-2015 Global Iron Ore Mining Gross Margin4.5.2 2015 Iron Ore Mining Gross Margin Analysis (Company Segment)5 Iron Ore Mining Regional Market Analysis5.1 USA Iron Ore Mining Market Analysis5.1.1 USA Iron Ore Mining Market Overview5.1.2 USA 2011-2016E Iron Ore Mining Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.1.3 USA 2011-2016E Iron Ore Mining Sales Price Analysis5.1.4 USA 2015 Iron Ore Mining Market Share Analysis5.2 China Iron Ore Mining Market Analysis5.2.1 China Iron Ore Mining Market Overview5.2.2 China 2011-2016E Iron Ore Mining Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.2.3 China 2011-2016E Iron Ore Mining Sales Price Analysis5.2.4 China 2015 Iron Ore Mining Market Share AnalysisEnquiry Before Buying:About Us:Reportbazzar.com is your trusted source for the most inclusive and informative assortment of market research reports designed to empower you with the latest in industry information that translates to time and cost savings for your business. We not only help you give wing to your latent business ideas but also facilitate you in taking the best informed and strategic decisions that guarantee success in your most promising business endeavors.Contact Us:ReportBazzarUnited States30 Wall Street, 8th floor,New York, NY 10005.US: +1 (212) 389-6363India: +91 20 66528525Email Id: sales@reportbazzar.comWebsite: Agricultural Films Market in APAC region to grow at a CAGR of 6.17% over Forecast period 2015-2019 http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=310649 http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=E&repid=310649 http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG Albany, NY, Nov 22: Agricultural films are new-age films used in modern farming technologies. They are made from a variety of plastic resins, such as different grades of polyethylene (PE), ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH). They are used as mulch and to cover silage bales. They are also used in greenhouses for controlling the temperature and moisture of soil, eliminating weeds, reducing the use of herbicides, storing and growing crops in greenhouses, and preventing soil erosion. However, owing to disposal and pollution hazards, they are being replaced by non-biodegradable alternatives. The key customers of agricultural films are crop growers, processors, and retail packagers of agricultural and horticultural produce.The agricultural films market in APAC to grow at a CAGR of 6.17% over the period 2015-2019. The agricultural films market in APAC can be segmented based on application and products.Technavio's report, Agricultural Films Market in APAC 2015-2019, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. It also covers the landscape of the agricultural films market in APAC and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion on the key vendors operating in this market.Get a Sample Research PDF with TOC:Key vendors- AEP Industries- BASF- Berry Plastics- Kuraray- Mitsubishi PlasticsOther prominent vendors- Agriplast Tech- Allied Plastics- Al-Pack Enterprises- Charu Agroplast- Dimple Polymers- Dow Chemical- Essen Multipack- Henan Yinfeng Plastic- Ira Agrotech & Research- Iris Polymers- J K Polyfilm- Mono Industries- Neelgiri Tarpaulin- Ocean Agro- Qingdao Huaxuyang Industrial and Trade- Sashanka Agro Tech- Saurya Polypack- Shanghai Hitec Plastics- Shivam Polymers- Tilak Polypack- Vrunda Vitthal PolynetEnquiry 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: Industrial Fasteners Global Market Emerging Growth 2016 - 2020 http://www.researchbeam.com/global-industrial-fasteners-2016-2020-market http://www.researchbeam.com/global-industrial-fasteners-2016-2020-market/request-sample http://www.researchbeam.com/global-industrial-fasteners-2016-2020-market/purchase-enquiry http://www.researchbeam.com/ Industrial Fasteners are efficient tools used to connect two or more parts of a product, enabling the development of a superior quality and reliable end-product. Various types of industrial fasteners such as externally threaded, standard, and aerospace grade are used across sectors such as automotive, construction, mining, marine, nuclear, petrochemicals, railways, and aerospace. Several application-specific fasteners engineered with higher strength and durability to meet the specific needs of end-users are available in the market. Research Beams analysts forecast the global industrial fasteners market to grow at a CAGR of 4.05% during the period 2016-2020.Read Full Report with TOC @Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global industrial fasteners market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of fasteners in various end-user segments and the average price of various types of industrial fasteners, vis-a-vis nuts, bolts, and screws among others, have been considered in determining the market size.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEAResearch Beam's report, Global Industrial Fasteners Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Download PDF Sample @Key vendors Acument Global Technologies Alcoa Bulten ITWOther prominent vendorsAmerican Industrial Partners, Atlas Bolt and Screw, Air Industries, Ajax Metal Processing, Allfast Fastening Systems, Aoyama Seisakusho, ARaymond, ARNOLD Umformtechnik, ASYST Technologies, Automatic Screw Machine Products, Avibank Manufacturing, AVK Industrial Products, AAA Aircraft Supply, baier & michels, Cardinal Fastener, Cherry Aerospace, Cold Heading Company, Delo Screw Products, Wurth Des Moines Bolt, Dokka Fasteners, Doncasters, EBC Industries, EJOT Holding, Pentair Engineered Electrical & Fastening Solutions, Fabristeel, FACIL Flexible Fastening Solutions, Fastenal, Fatigue Technology, Federal Screw Works, Ferry Cap & Set Screw, Fontana Luigi SpA, General Fasteners, GESIPA Fasteners USA, Global Fastener Alliance, SPS Greer Stop Nut, Hilti, Infasco, Indiana Automotive Fasteners, KAMAX Holding, Nedschroef Ultra Fasteners, Lamons, LISI, MacLean-Fogg, Marmon, MNP, Monogram Aerospace Fasteners, Nitto Seiko, Nucor, Nelson Stud Welding, Net Shaped Solutions, Nifco, Nylok, Pan American Screw, Park-Ohio Holdings, PB Fasteners, Penn Engineering, PIOLAX, Powers Fasteners, RB&W Manufacturing, Robertson, Sundram Fasteners, Saturn Fasteners, SFS, Shanghai Prime Machinery, Shur-Lok, Southco, Specialty Bar Products Company, Stanley Black & Decker, Supply Technologies, TriMas Corporation, and Western Builders Supply.Market driver Increased demand from end-users such as nuclear and construction industries For a full, detailed list, view our reportAsk for Discount @Market challenge Structural adhesives are alternatives to mechanical fasteners For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend Eliminating defective fasteners with 3D inspection For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this report What will the market size be in 2020 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?Table of ContentsPART 01: Executive summaryPART 02: Scope of the reportPART 03: Market research methodologyPART 04: IntroductionPART 05: Market landscapePART 06: Market driversPART 07: Impact of driversPART 08: Market challengesPART 09: Impact of drivers and challengesPART 10: Market trendsWith 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: Turbine Market in South Africa is Expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.3% over 2015-2019 http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=301322 http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=E&repid=301322 http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG Albany, NY, Nov 22: A turbine is a mechanical device consisting of revolving rotors and blades, which transforms rotational energy into usable energy. The fluid used for the rotation can be steam, gas, or other combustion products such as CO2 and carbon monoxide. There are three types of turbines: steam, gas, and CCGT. Steam turbine extracts thermal energy from steam and converts it into mechanical energy. Gas turbine is generally used in gas-fired power plants where an internal combustion engine is placed, in which the fuel is mixed with air and ignited. Because of the growing awareness about the environmental pollution caused by thermal power plants, most of the newly constructed gas-fired power plants are CCGT plants.The Turbine market to grow at a CAGR of 4.3% over the period 2014-2019. The report includes the present scenario and the growth prospects of the turbine market in South Africa for the period 2015-2019. Based on type, the market can be segmented into three: steam, gas, and CCGT.Get a Sample Research PDF with TOC:Technavio's report, Turbine Market in South Africa 2015-2019, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects in the coming years. The report includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key Vendors- Alstom- GE- Hitachi- SiemensOther Prominent Vendors- ABB- MAN PrimeServKey Market Driver- Huge Potential for Coal Resources- For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey Market Challenge- Rising Costs Delay Power Plant Operations- For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey Market Trend- Implementation of Carbon Tax- For a full, detailed list, view our reportEnquiry 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: Luxury Cyprus hotel boosts online revenue with eRevMax Cyprus based luxury property, the Rise Hotel, has selected eRevMax for improving online bookings and exposure. The hotel has been using LIVE OS, the innovative new hospitality platform as a way to centralize call to actions from multiple providers to improve business efficiency.Located in the heart of Larnaca, the Rise Hotel is popular luxury destination offering 42 rooms and 6 suites. The team uses various services within LIVE OS including the Channel Manager Web to update rate and inventory (ARI) across all connected travel channels and receive reservation directly delivered into their hotel management system. They also use Managed Rate Reports to monitor competitors pricing for a more effective rate strategy.LIVE OS is a revolutionary new platform and we are glad to be using it for our property. Given that we cater to luxury travellers across EMEA and America, its important for us to maintain real-time availability in all leading OTAs. With LIVE OS, there are no more spread sheets - we manage everything directly from this innovative platform. We can track our business performance in real-time and that has boosted online revenue drastically. To top it all, its a fairly simple to use platform with a beautifully designed user interface making everyday tasks fun, said Olga Peppas, Hotel Manager, Rise Hotel.Alin Lazar, Sales Manager for Europe at eRevMax commented, In the last couple of years inbound tourist arrivals to Cyprus has registered healthy growth, especially a significant rise in tourists from the UK. With the help of LIVE OS, Rise Hotel is better positioned to manage their online business with direct visibility into demand sources and suggested recommendations for attracting more bookings.LIVE OS by eRevMax is a unique hospitality operating system that integrates with any service provider requested by the hotels to offer a single point of access for multiple solutions. Partners benefit by getting direct visibility to the eRevMax Hotel Network while making technology integration to new and exciting hotel clients much easier.eRevMax is a travel technology company that helps hotels to maximise online revenue opportunities through real-time distribution, market intelligence and connectivity solutions. The company provides specifically tailored solutions within its core product brands RateTiger, RTConnect and LIVE OS.RateTiger product suite offers the industrys leading ChannelManager for online distribution, Shopper for rate benchmarking and BookingForce to help drive direct bookings from the hotels brand.com. RTConnect provides seamless 2-way XML integration of channel management functionality with the hotels central systems. LIVE OS offers hotels a single sign-on platform to access multiple applications, while offering technology partners a chance to get in front of hotels allowing greater distribution of promotional opportunities.eRevMax is working closely with over 200 certified channel and technology partners as well as 9000 hotels worldwide helping them increase revenue opportunities and streamline business processes.eRevMax12th Floor, Tower 1, DLF IT ParkBlock - AF, 08 - Major Arterial RoadRajarhat, Kolkata - 700156 Global Base Station Antennas Market 2016 - Tongyu Communication, CommScope, Amphenol, KATHREIN-Werke, RFS, Procom, Ace Technologies Corporation, Guangdong Shenglu, Guangdong Kenbotong http://www.fiormarkets.com/report-detail/10740/request-sample http://www.fiormarkets.com/report/global-base-station-antennas-market-outlook-2016-2021-10740.html www.fiormarkets.com www.9dimenreports.com This report provides detailed analysis of worldwide markets for Base Station Antennas from 2011-2016, and provides extensive market forecasts (2016-2021) by region/country and subsectors. It covers the key technological and market trends in the Base Station Antennas market and further lays out an analysis of the factors influencing the supply/demand for Base Station Antennas, and the opportunities/challenges faced by industry participants. It also acts as an essential tool to companies active across the value chain and to the new entrants by enabling them to capitalize the opportunities and develop business strategies.Request for sample report atThe term base station is used in the context of mobile telephony, wireless computer networking and other wireless communications and in land surveying: in surveying it is a GPS receiver at a known position, while in wireless communications it is a transceiver connecting a number of other devices to one another and/or to a wider area. In mobile telephony it provides the connection between mobile phones and the wider telephone network. In a computer network it is a transceiver acting as a router for computers in the network, possibly connecting them to a local area network and/or the internet.The performance of a base station antenna, or a BSA, is a key factor in the overall performance and quality of the cellular communication link between a handset and the radio, and by extension, the performance of a cell, or of an entire cellular network. The BSAs influence on coverage, capacity, and QoS is extensive, and yet there exists no comprehensive, global, standards focusing on the base station antenna.Access full report atGlobal Base Station Antennas Market Outlook 2016-2021 , has been prepared based on the synthesis, analysis, and interpretation of information about the global Base Station Antennas market collected from specialized sources. The report covers key technological developments in the recent times and profiles leading players in the market and analyzes their key strategies. The competitive landscape section of the report provides a clear insight into the market share analysis of key industry players. The major players in the global Base Station Antennas market areTongyu Communication (China), CommScope (USA), Amphenol (USA), KATHREIN-Werke (Germany), RFS (Germany), Procom (Denmark), Ace Technologies Corporation (Korea), Guangdong Shenglu (China), Guangdong Kenbotong (China), MOBI (China), Comba Telecom (China), Huawei (China), Fiber Home (China).The report provides separate comprehensive analytics for the North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Rest of World. In this sector, global competitive landscape and supply/demand pattern of Base Station Antennas industry has been provided.Fior Markets is a leading market intelligence company that sells reports of top publishers in the technology industry.Our extensive research reports cover detailed market assessments that include major technological improvements in the industry. Fior Markets also specializes in analyzing hi-tech systems and current processing systems in its expertise.We have a team of experts that compile precise research reports and actively advise top companies to improve their existing processes. Our experts have extensive experience in the topics that they cover.Fior Markets provides you the full spectrum of services related to market research, and corroborate with the clients to increase the revenue stream, and address process gaps.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog: Piling Sheet, Anchoring Equipment, and Trench Shoring System Market to Grow at a CAGR of 5.8% by 2024 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/piling-sheet-and-anchoring-equipment-and-trench-shoring-system-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/11848 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com Increasing number of infrastructure projects in faster growing economies and the recovering construction sector in relatively mature economies is expected to propel the demand for piling sheets, anchoring equipment, and trench shoring systems globally. An increase in mining exploration and excavation activities in some key geographies such as Canada, South Africa, and India are further likely to fuel demand. According to Persistence Market Research, rising adoption of aluminium trench boxes and replacement of traditional piling sheet wall structures are some of the key market trends likely to be witnessed in the coming eight years.For More Information Request TOC (desk of content material), Figures and Tables of the report @The global piling sheet, anchoring equipment, and trench shoring system market is anticipated to witness a cumulative Y-o-Y growth of 5.8% during the period 20162024. In a new report titled Piling Sheet, Anchoring Equipment, and Trench Shoring System Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 20162024, Persistence Market Research provides insights on the global piling sheet, anchoring equipment, and trench shoring system market performance over an eight-year forecast period (20162024).Sales revenue of the global piling sheet market is expected to increase at a CAGR of 5.5% during the forecast period. The global anchoring equipment market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 4.7% during the forecast period. Sales revenue of the global trench shoring system market is expected to increase at a CAGR of 3.8% during the forecast period. The cold rolled piling sheet sub segment is expected to witness relatively faster growth in terms of revenues as compared to the other piling sheet sub segments. In the anchoring equipment segment, the strand anchor segment will remain the largest segment with an estimated revenue contribution of 46.5% in 2015. The drill hollow bar segment is expected to ramp up in higher revenues as compared to the threadbar and helical anchor segment. In the trench shoring system segment, the slide rail shoring system will account for maximum revenue contribution of 42.1% by 2024 end as compared to other segments. The pipe grabber segment is expected to expand at a higher rate as compared to the pipe puller segment during the forecast period.On the basis of the region, Asia Pacific recorded a dominant market share of 37.3% in terms of value in 2015. The Middle East & Africa and Latin America piling sheet, anchoring equipment, and trench shoring system markets are expected to witness thriving demand during the forecast period characterized by an increasing growth of the infrastructure sector in these regions. The U.S market is expected to witness moderate growth in terms of revenue during the forecast period. Europe will witness sluggish growth owing to gradual economic recovery during the 20162024 period; however, the market is expected to grow after 2019.The Asia Pacific piling sheet market is expected to witness the highest CAGR of 6.7% in terms of value. The Asia pacific trench shoring system market is expected to exhibit a strong growth of 6.4% over the forecast period owing to escalating demand from economies such as India and China. Sustainable demand for soil stability equipment in residential and non-commercial infrastructure projects in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia is expected to translate into collective incremental opportunity of US$ 210.6 between 2016 and 2024. The North America regional market is expected to represent incremental dollar opportunity of US$ 453.3 Mn over the forecast period.Request Report Sample @The report profiles some of the leading companies operating in the global piling sheet, anchoring equipment, and trench shoring system market such as ArcelorMittal SA, ThyssenKrupp Bautechnik GmbH, TWF Tiefbautechnik GmbH, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation, DYWIDAG Systems International GmbH, Skyline Steel LLC, Williams Form Engineering Corporation, SBH Tiefbautechnik GmbH, Spantec GmbH, and Con-Tech Systems 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: Coffee Drinks Market Trends in China http://www.reportbazzar.com/request-sample/?pid=528352&ptitle=Coffee+Drinks+Market+Trends+in+China&req=Sample http://www.reportbazzar.com/product/coffee-drinks-market-trends-in-china/ http://www.reportbazzar.com/discount-form/?pid=528352&ptitle=Coffee+Drinks+Market+Trends+in+China&req=Discount http://www.reportbazzar.com/ This study focuses on Chinas Coffee Drinks market trends. In the two past decades, the market has been growing at a fast pace. The dramatic expansions of the manufacturing capabilities and rising consumer consumptions in China have transformed Chinas society and economy. China is one of the worlds major producers for industrial and consumer products. Far outpacing other economies in the world, China is the worlds fastest growing market for the consumptions of goods and services. The Chinese economy maintains a high speed growth which has been stimulated by the consecutive increases of industrial output, imports & exports, consumer consumption and capital investment for over two decades. Rapid consolidation between medium and large players is anticipated since the Chinese government has been encouraging industry consolidation with an effort to regulate the industry and to improve competitiveness in the world market.Request Sample Report:Although China has enjoyed the benefits of an expanding market for production and distribution, the industry is suffering from minimal innovation and investment in R&D and new product development. The sectors economies of scale have yet to be achieved. Most domestic manufacturers lack the autonomic intellectual property and financial resources to develop their own brand name products.This new study focuses on market trends and forecasts with historical data (2005, 2010 and 2015) and long-term forecasts through 2020 and 2025 are presented.The primary and secondary research is done in China in order to access up-to-date government regulations, market information and industry data. Data were collected from the Chinese government publications, Chinese language newspapers and magazines, industry associations, local governments industry bureaus, industry publications, and our in-house databases.Asia Market Info & Dev Co. is one of the leading sources for up-to-date market information and research on the fastest-growing Chinese markets. We have published over 2,000 reports focusing on the Chinese markets, industry forecasts and company profiles. We provide hard-to-find market data and analyses. Our publications are intended to help international marketers identify business opportunities and promote their product sales in the Chinese markets.Buy Complete Report:TABLE OF CONTENTSI. INTRODUCTIONReport Scope and MethodologyExecutive SummaryII. BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTEconomic OutlookKey Economic IndicatorsIndustrial OutputPopulation and LaborForeign InvestmentForeign TradeFinancial and Tax RegulationsBanking System and RegulationsForeign ExchangeTaxes, Tariff and Custom DutiesMarket TrendsTechnology DevelopmentMarket DevelopmentMajor Industry DevelopmentRegional DevelopmentEnterprise DevelopmentLabor Market DevelopmentIII. COFFEE DRINKS MARKET TRENDSCoffee Drinks Market TrendsCurrent Market AnalysesMarket Development TrendsMarket ChallengesMajor ProducersCurrent IssuesFood LegislationPackaging LegislationChinese Retail Market TrendsConsumer Income TrendsConsumer Spending Trends by RegionNortheastNorthSoutheastEnquiry Before Buying:About Us:Reportbazzar.com is your trusted source for the most inclusive and informative assortment of market research reports designed to empower you with the latest in industry information that translates to time and cost savings for your business. We not only help you give wing to your latent business ideas but also facilitate you in taking the best informed and strategic decisions that guarantee success in your most promising business endeavors.Contact Us:ReportBazzarUnited States30 Wall Street, 8th floor,New York, NY 10005.US: +1 (212) 389-6363India: +91 20 66528525Email Id: sales@reportbazzar.comWebsite: Crude Sulfate Turpentine Market - Global Trend, Growth Forecast & Industry Outlook Analysis Report 2015-2022 http://www.decisiondatabases.com/contact/download-sample-13261 http://www.decisiondatabases.com/ip/13261-crude-sulfate-turpentine-market-report http://www.decisiondatabases.com/contact/buy-now-13261 www.decisiondatabases.com The new research report on Crude Sulfate Turpentine Market offered by DecisionDatabases.com provides Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast Till 2022.Get Free Sample Copy @The report on global crude sulfate turpentine market evaluates the growth trends of the industry through historical study and estimates future prospects based on comprehensive research. The report extensively provides the market share, growth, trends and forecasts for the period 2015-2022. The market size in terms of revenue (USD MN) is calculated for the study period along with the details of the factors affecting the market growth (drivers and restraints).A glimpse of the major drivers and restraints affecting this market is mentioned below:A. Drivers> Increasing demand for personal care products such as perfumes, detergents, and soap> Increasing preference of consumers towards eco-friendly productsB. Restraints> Distillation requires high investments> Low recovery of black liquor through the kraft processFurthermore, the report quantifies the market share held by the major players of the industry and provides an in-depth view of the competitive landscape. This market is classified into different segments with detailed analysis of each with respect to geography for the study period 2015-2022.The comprehensive value chain analysis of the market will assist in attaining better product differentiation, along with detailed understanding of the core competency of each activity involved. The market attractiveness analysis provided in the report aptly measures the potential value of the market providing business strategists with the latest growth opportunities.The report classifies the market into different segments based on type and application. These segments are studied in detail incorporating the market estimates and forecasts at regional and country level. The segment analysis is useful in understanding the growth areas and probable opportunities of the market.The report also covers the complete competitive landscape of the worldwide market with company profiles of key players such as Arizona Chemical Company LLC, DRT (Derives Resiniques ET Terpeniqes), Dujodwala Paper Chemicals Ltd., Harting S.A., International Flavors & Fragrances Inc., Lawter Inc., Pine Chemical Group, Privi Organics Limited and Renessenz LLC. A detailed description of each has been included, with information in terms of H.Q, future capacities, key mergers & acquisitions, financial overview, partnerships, collaborations, new product launches, new product developments and other latest industrial developments.For More Information about this Report:SEGMENTATIONS IN THE REPORT:1. By Type:> Alpha-Pinene> Beta-Pinene> Delta-3-Carene> Camphene> Limonene> Other2. By Applications:> Aromatic Chemicals> Adhesives> Paints and Printing Inks> Camphor> Other3. By Geography:> North America (NA)> Europe (EU)> Asia Pacific (APAC)> Rest of the World (RoW)Major Table Of Contents:1. INTRODUCTION2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY3. MARKET ANALYSIS4. CRUDE SULFATE TURPENTINE MARKET ANALYSIS BY TYPE5. CRUDE SULFATE TURPENTINE MARKET ANALYSIS BY APPLICATION6. CRUDE SULFATE TURPENTINE MARKET ANALYSIS BY GEOGRAPHY7. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE OF THE CRUDE SULFATE TURPENTINE COMPANIES8. COMPANY PROFILES OF THE CRUDE SULFATE TURPENTINE INDUSTRYOrder a Complete Crude Sulfate Turpentine Market Research Report @DecisionDatabases.com is a global business research reports provider, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics. DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research report, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains.Our expert research analysts have been trained to map clients research requirements to the correct research resource leading to a distinctive edge over its competitors. We provide intellectual, precise and meaningful data at a lightning speed.3rd Floor,Fountain chambers,Nanabhai Lane,Fort, Mumbai - 1E-Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.comPhone: +91 99 28 237112Web: Oilfield Equipment Rental Market in the Middle East to grow at a CAGR of 12.43% over Forecast 2015-2019 http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=301268 http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=E&repid=301268 http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG Albany, NY, Nov 22: The extraction of oil and gas requires a wide range of oilfield equipment. These equipment are usually rented by oil and gas operators to lower their capital expenditure. Increase in oil and gas exploration, especially development of unconventional reserves, is expected to result in the growth of the oilfield equipment rental market. Oilfield rental equipment can be classified into drilling equipment, well completion equipment, and well intervention equipment based on the stage at which they are used during exploration and production.The oilfield equipment rental market in the Middle East to grow at a CAGR of 12.43% in terms of revenue over the period 2014-2019. Technavio's report, Oilfield Equipment Rental Market in Middle East 2015-2019, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the landscape of the oilfield equipment rental market in the Middle East and its growth prospects in the coming years. The report also includes segmentation based on equipment type and application. The report also includes a discussion about the key vendors operating in this market.Get a Sample Research PDF with TOC:Key Vendors- FMC Technologies- Schlumberger- Superior Energy Services- Tasman Oil Tools- Weatherford InternationalOther Prominent Vendors- Aos Orwell- Basic Energy Services- Chesapeake Oilfield Services- Ensign Energy Services- Greene's Energy Group- Key Energy Services- Oil States International- Precision DrillingMarket Driver- New Discoveries of Oil and Gas in Middle East- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket Challenge- Variations in Demand and Lack of Customization- For a full, detailed list, view our reportEnquiry 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: Software Defined Perimeter Market - Industry Analysis, Growth, Trends Forecast Upto 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=16916 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/software-defined-perimeter-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Software defined perimeter (SDP) which is also known as a "Black Cloud", is an approach to computer security which is evolved from the work done at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) under the Global Information Grid (GIG) Black Core Network initiative around 2007. Software defined perimeter is a security framework that has been developed by cloud security alliance, a not-for-profit organization promoting security assurance within cloud computing. This framework is based on the Department of Defense's "need-to-know" model. The mentioned model states that all endpoints attempting to access a given infrastructure must be authorized and authenticated prior to entrance. Successful network-based attacks such as man-in-the-middle attacks, denial-of-service attacks, and lateral movement and server vulnerabilities attacks such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting are lowered due with the adoption of SDPs.Get Sample Report Copy :The global software defined perimeter is driven by the growing demand for cloud-based software defined perimeter solutions as it is cost-effective and feature more scalability in comparison to the traditional software defined perimeter. Organizations are rapidly deploying security testing solutions either on-premises or on cloud to ensure efficient security solution to the organization. Moreover, organizations are increasingly adopting these solutions to minimize human intervention in security functionalities and enable synchronization between security policies and enterprises dynamic computing environment which in turn is boosting the deployment of software defined perimeter. However, factors such as increased adoption of freeware security applications is expected to hamper the market growth. Lack of security awareness on virtual environments is also thwarting the growth of SDP market. Learning about SDP now and starting to plan accordingly could have significant benefits for the security team are opening new opportunities for the participants in software defined perimeter market. Also increasing number of connected devices due to IoT are expected to create growth opportunities for the SDP market.The software defined perimeter market is segmented on the basis of deployment type, application, component type, end-user and region. In terms of deployment segment, the market can be classified as cloud and on premise. The application segment includes security and authentication. The market can also be classified on the basis of component used for building the software, such as software and service. The software can be further segmented as end-point, controller and gateway. The service segment can be further broken down into consulting, system integration and operation and maintenance. On the basis of end-user, the market can be classified into banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), technology, manufacturing, electronics, telecom and healthcare and life sciences among others.The market segments in terms of geographical regions include North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Latin America, and Middle-East and Africa (MEA). The North America market is expected to generate high revenue as there is high focus on innovations obtained from research and development and technology in the developed economies such as the U.S. and Canada. Moreover, the APAC region is expected to exhibit high growth potential due to the high demand for adoption of cloud based software defined perimeter from Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in this region during the forecast period.Browse The Market Research Report of Software Defined Perimeter Market :Industry participants dominating the software defined perimeter market with the most significant developments are Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., Cisco Systems, Inc., Intel Corporation, Symantec Corporation, EMC RSA, Fortinet, Inc., Juniper Networks, Inc., Palo Alto Networks, Cartes Networks, Inc., Catbird, Inc., Vidder,Inc., Cryptzone North America Inc., Trusted Passage, and Velo Cloud Networks, Inc. among others.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: Threat Detection System Market - Industry Analysis, Growth, Trends, Forecast Upto 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=16919 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/threat-detection-system-market.html Security is often defined as a combination of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of assets. An attacker is named a threat and can be a human being or an autonomous computer program. The system deployed to detect this threat is called as threat detection system in order to ensure security of organization in an efficient manner. The key factor fuelling the demand for the threat detection system is increasing terrorist activities and government initiatives in order to protect public infrastructure such as airports, malls and railway stations among others. Threat detection system includes explosive detector, intrusion detector, radiological and nuclear detector, and others.Get Sample Report Copy :The global threat detection system market is driven by the growing demand for threat detection system due to increasing threat of terrorist activities, rising territorial conflicts, and geopolitical instabilities. Also, increasing need for large-scale surveillance systems is driving the demand for threat detection system. Moreover, high demand for threat detection devices such as explosive detectors, video surveillance systems, and biometric systems from airports and shopping malls in order to assure public safety is expected to boost the market growth. However, threat detection system does not really provide a cost-effective and/or operational response to the real need of the industry which is hindering the market growth, both in aviation security, and even more so in transportation and public security tasks. Also, Concerns over intrusion of privacy and technological limitations associated with the threat detection systems is expected to impact the adoption of threat detection system. Increasing demand for biometric systems from commercial establishments and demand for upgrading existing infrastructure with advanced security systems is expected to create new opportunities for the players operating in the threat detection market.The global threat detection system market is segmented by product, application and geography. On the basis of product, the market can be segmented into dosimeter, laser, radar, video surveillance, and biometric. Among these, video surveillance is expected to dominate the market due to increasing need for reconnaissance at commercial places, industry premises, and public avenues. The market can also be classified on the basis of various applications, such as defense, public infrastructure, commercial, industrial, institutional and others including residential. The market segments in terms of geographical regions include North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, and Middle-East and Africa (MEA).North America is expected to create growth opportunity for the players operating in the threat detection market, followed by Asia- Pacific and Europe. Moreover North America is witnessing a continuous increase in the research & development activities, particularly in high-energy laser system technologies owing to which, the region is expected to dominate the market during the forecast period. In North America, the U.S. is expected to lead the threat detection systems market in terms of revenue during the forecast period owing to government initiatives in this country.Browse The Market Research Report of Threat Detection System Market :Industry participants dominating the threat detection system market with the most significant developments are Smiths Group PLC, Safran S.A., FLIR Systems Inc., Thales S.A., Rapiscan Systems Inc., RAE Systems Inc., Chemring Group plc, ChemImage Sensor Systems, Mirion Technologies Inc., and Axis Communication AB among others.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.State Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700 FPSO Market: Global Industry Size, Share, Segments Analysis and Forecast 2015-2021 https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/sample/fpso-market https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/inquiry/fpso-market https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/report/fpso-market http://www.zionmarketresearch.com FPSO stands for Floating Production, Storage, and Offloading. An FPSO vessel is a type of floating production system that is used for the offshore production, storage, and offloading of oil and gas. Usually, it is a vessel that is a converted oil tanker or a newly constructed FPSO unit. An FPSO often resembles a ship, equipped with production and processing facilities onboard. FPSOs comprise offloading facilities for the transportation of processed oil and gas to onshore receiving facilities through a shuttle tanker. These vessels are used to extract or receive raw hydrocarbons from sea beds, which are then processed in onboard processing facilities.Get a copy of free Sample Report @The installation of fixed processing and production facilities is technically very complex and costly in remote oil and gas production areas; this, in turn, increases the demand for FPSOs excluding the need for fixed processing facilities. Marginal fields and challenging environments have been others factors that act as driving factors of FPSO market expansion. The considerable expansion in oil & gas exploration and production in deep water, ultra-deep water, and offshore fields is expected to boost the global FPSO market growth over the forecast period. Increasing consumption of oil & gas globally, particularly in power generation and transportation sectors has made companies explore more hydrocarbon reserves.On the basis of type, the global FPSO market is segmented as converted FPSO systems, new-build FPSO systems, and redeployed FPSO systems. Presently, the market is dominated by the converted FPSO systems segment. On the other hand, the demand for new-build FPSO systems has decreased owing to the reduced costs of oils in oil and gas exploration industries. Based on the water depth, the market has been segmented into shallow water, deepwater, and ultra-deepwater systems. On the basis of equipment, the FPSO market is segmented as nitrogen generation, seawater injection, fuel gas treatment, produced water, crude oil separation, and chemical injection.Know more before buying this report @North America and Europe are the dominant players of the global FPSO market and are anticipated to witness considerable growth in coming years owing to mature oil & gas reserves. In addition, South America and East Africa are also expected to experience significant growth due to recent offshore E&P developments and deep water oil field discoveries. Further, Brazil is expected to emerge as a major FPSO market in this region due to rising oil & gas activities along with considerable government support. Recent deep sea oil & gas reserves in South China Sea, North Sea, and Gulf of Mexico are expected to positively impact the global market growth in the near future.Major players dominating the global FPSO market are Bumi Armada Berhad, MODEC, Inc., BW Offshore, Bluewater Energy Services B.V., COSCO Shipyard Group Co. Ltd., and Yinson Holdings Berhad. Other key players in the market are Sembcorp Marine Ltd., Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd., Teekay Corporation, and SBM Offshore N.V.Browse detail report with in-depth TOC @FPSO Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeUKFranceGermanyAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East and AfricaAbout UsZion Market Research is an obligated company. We create futuristic, cutting edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from cardinal industries. Our database is been updated constantly in order to fulfill our clients with prompt and direct online access to our database. Keeping in mind the clients needs, we have included expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends in this database. Last but not the least, we make it our duty to ensure the success of clients connected to usafter allif you do well, a little of the light shines on us.Contact US:Zion Market Research4283, Express Lane,Suite 634-143,Sarasota, Florida 34249, United StatesTel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll-Free No.1-855-465-4651Email: sales@zionmarketresearch.comWebsite: Text Analytics Market: Emphasis on Obtaining Clear Insights about Consumer Priorities to Drive Market http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=9668 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Rising focus of technological giants such as Microsoft, IBM, Google, and Apple towards improvement of text analytics techniques and principles has granted momentum to R&D activities in the field of text analytics in the past few years. And now, new and highly effective text analytics solutions are entering the market at a rapid pace and demand for effective solutions is soaring, notes Transparency Market Research (TMR) in a recent report.As the demand from consumers rises at a sustained pace and the influx of highly efficient text analytics solutions continues to remain swift, the global market for text analytics will witness development at a rapid pace in the years to come, points TMR. Some of the leading vendors in the global text analytics market are IBM Corporation, SAP SE, RapidMiner, Inc., Attensity Group, Inc., Lexalytics, Inc. Microsoft Corporation, and Angoss Software Corporation.Get Sample PDF atThe market for text analytics market will exhibit growth at a momentous pace across the entire globe as well from 2015 to 2024. The global market, which valued at US$2.82 bn in 2015, will exhibit a CAGR of 17.6% from 2016 to 2024, and rise to US$12.16 bn by 2024.Rising Popularity of Social Media Analytics to Drive MarketThe global text analytics market is majorly driven by the rising volumes of structured and unstructured text data across organizations, which is triggered primarily from a continuously rising user base on social media platforms, expanding web of the Internet, and the increased use of mobile communication devices. Rising awareness about the enormous value of text analytics principles in gaining an extensive understanding of consumer preferences, maturing technology, and improved computing power of computers are also encouraging the favorable development of text analytics market.Cloud-based Solutions to Gain Maximum ProminencePresently, on-premise text analytics solutions are the most preferred mode of deployment, with nearly 84% share in the global text analytics market in 2015. While most companies prefer on-premise solutions owing to the added security and safety they grant to business critical data, a large number of companies are considering cloud-based solutions owing to their flexibility and cost-competitive nature. The number of companies wanting to make this shift is rather large and vendors in the text analytics arena must tackle the opportunity on priority.While the market for on-premise text analytics solutions deployment will continue to lead the market in terms of revenues till 2024, a large number of medium- and small-sized companies will opt for cloud-based solutions. As a result, cloud will gain the most prominence and lead to the most lucrative returns in the years to come. TMR states that the cloud-based deployment segment will expand at the fastest CAGR of 20.2% from 2016 to 2024.North America and Europe Markets to Compete Fiercely for Top SpotRapid technological advancements, a major share of population active on social media platforms, and rapid growth of mobile technology have bolstered the demand for effective text analytics solutions in developed regions such as North America and Europe. Although the text analytics market in North America has an upper hand in terms of market valuation, it will witness significant competition from Europe in terms of overall pace of development of the market. Over the period between 2015 and 2024, North America text analytics market is expected to expand at a 17.8% CAGR, rising from a valuation of US$1.09 bn in 2016 to US$4.75 bn by 2024. During the same period, the market in Europe is expected to expand at a minutely lower 17.2% CAGR.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.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Rebars Market size is forecast to surpass USD 90 million by 2024, growing at more than 11% CAGR https://www.gminsights.com/request-toc/upcoming/698 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/698 https://gminsights.wordpress.com http://www.fractovia.org https://www.gminsights.com Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Rebars Market size was over USD 45 million in 2015, and is forecast to surpass USD 90 million by 2024, growing at more than 11% CAGR.Increasing composites demand from construction and transportation sectors owing to strong outlook towards truck & tailors production and commercial infrastructure are expected driving factors to stimulate global fiber reinforced polymer rebars market size growth.Request for Reports Table of Content@Major FRP rebars projects in North America includes Sierrita de la Cruz Creek Bridge, Pierce Street Bridge, Taylor Bridge Manitoba, Lima OH, Quebec, and Wotten. In addition, it is also used in decks for top or bottom mat. As per National Bridge Inventory (NBI), in the U.S. approximately 145,000 bridges were physically deficient in 2010. FRP rebars adoption in the construction application enhances service life and reducing cycle costs.North America FRP rebars market size is set to witness significant growth, particularly for panel & sheets due to increase in demand from recreational construction, truck & trailers, and vehicles. Moreover, abundant raw material availability, manufacturing industry growth, plant capacity expansion, and penetration in non-residential construction are key factors fueling regional industry growth.Inquire More About This Report@Construction industry expansion in China and India owing to economy growth and increase in manufacturing capacities is projected to foster APAC FRP rebars market size growth. Europe, driven by Germany, France, and UK FRP rebars market, may witness significant gains owing to acceptance from public infrastructure authorities are potential factors influence regional demand.MEA is noted to be a potential region for industry growth due to presence of large scale construction activities. Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar are predicted to be the major contributing countries. FRP rebars are ideal for bridges, highways, & buildings application owing to their excellent strength-to-weight ratio which is superior to any traditional rebar.Fiber reinforced polymer rebars market application includes highways, buildings & bridges, marine structures & waterfronts, and water treatment plants. Highways, buildings & bridges is set to witness fastest growth, rising need for construction and restoration due to insufficient maintenance, harsh environmental conditions, and architecturally deficient structure.Global FRP rebars market share is driven patents, mergers & acquisitions, and agreements. Major industry players include Pultrall, Hughes Brothers, Marshall Composites Technologies, BP Composites, Pultron Composites, Armastek, Dextra Group, A.T.P., Firep International, Sireg, and International Grating.Read our insightful industry blogs:Contact Us:Jack DavisCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1 888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.29L Atlantic Avenue, Suite L 105Ocean View, Delaware Global ICT Spends in Telecommunications Sector - Future Perspective to 2019 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/analysis/784604 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/784604 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/ "The Report Global ICT Spends in Telecommunications Sector - Future Perspective to 2019 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Global ICT Spends in Telecommunications Sector - Future Perspective to 2019; report is a comprehensive outlook built using Kables extensive market research covering the spends across ICT market. The statistics within the report provides a top-level overview and detailed insights into the operating environment of the Technology and Energy sector at individual country level.Kable has considered buying behavior / ICT spends across hardware, software, services, communications and staff. It acts as an essential tool for companies active across the ICT market and for new players considering entering the market; ensuring right business decision making.Countries covered within the report include: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United StatesView Report AtKey Findings"Global ICT Spends in Telecommunications Sector - Future Perspective to 2019" provides the readers with potential spends value on ICT within Global Telecommunications sector during the period 2016 through to 2019In particular, it provides information of potential spends by individual countries for the following categories at segment level:BPO ServicesCloud ServicesEnterprise Communications ServicesIT HardwareIT ServicesSoftwareDownload Sample copy of this Report at :SynopsisGlobal ICT Spends in Telecommunications Sector - Future Perspective to 2019; is an exhaustive research report outlaying future perspectives of ICT project spends globally. The report provides year on year spends value within the Energy markets across 30+ countries; split across BPO Services, Cloud Services, Enterprise Communications Services, IT Hardware, IT Services, and Software categories and further at segment levels for the period 2016 to 2019.ReasonsToBuyUnderstand the opportunities for ICT market in the Telecommunications sector and how it is set to change in future.Make effective business decisions by recognizing the opportunities within each of the core areas of ICT sectorRealign your sales initiatives by understanding the current strategic objectives of the Global ICT Sector.Enhance your market segmentation with detailed breakdown of opportunities within selected technology categories.Table of Contents1 Introduction1.1 What is this Report About?1.1.1 Definitions1.2 Methodology2 ICT Market Opportunity in the Telecommunications Sector: Global2.1 ICT Market Opportunity in the Telecommunications Sector by Value2.2 ICT Market Opportunity in the Telecommunications Sector by Category: Global3 ICT Market Opportunity in the Telecommunications Sector: Argentina3.1 ICT Market Opportunity in the Telecommunications Sector by Value3.2 ICT Market Opportunity in the Telecommunications Sector by Category: Argentina3.3 ICT Market Opportunity in the Telecommunications Sector by Category and Segments3.3.1 BPO Services Market Value3.3.2 Cloud Services Market Value3.3.3 Enterprise Applications Market Value3.3.4 Enterprise Communications Market Value3.3.5 Enterprise Mobility Management Market Value3.3.6 Information Management Market Value3.3.7 IT Hardware Market Value3.3.8 IT Security Software Market Value3.3.9 IT Services Market Value3.3.10 Software Infrastructure Market Value4 ICT Market Opportunity in the Telecommunications Sector: Australia4.1 ICT Market Opportunity in the Telecommunications Sector by Value4.2 ICT Market Opportunity in the Telecommunications Sector by Category: Australia4.3 ICT Market Opportunity in the Telecommunications Sector by Category and Segments4.3.1 BPO Services Market Value4.3.2 Cloud Services Market Value4.3.3 Enterprise Applications Market Value4.3.4 Enterprise Communications Market Value4.3.5 Enterprise Mobility Management Market Value4.3.6 Information Management Market Value4.3.7 IT Hardware Market Value4.3.8 IT Security Software Market Value4.3.9 IT Services Market Value4.3.10 Software Infrastructure Market Value5 ICT Market Opportunity in Telecommunications Sector: Austria5.1 ICT Market Opportunity in Telecommunications Sector by Value5.2 ICT Market Opportunity in Telecommunications Sector by Category: Austria5.3 ICT Market Opportunity in Telecommunications Sector by Category and Segments5.3.1 BPO Services Market Value5.3.2 Cloud Services Market Value5.3.3 Enterprise Applications Market Value5.3.4 Enterprise Communications Market Value5.3.5 Enterprise Mobility Management Market ValueMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.State Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz The Global Robotic Vacuum Cleaner market is expected to cross US$3 million by 2021 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/analysis/873538 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/873538 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/ "The Report Global Robotic Vacuum Cleaner Market - Strategic Assessment and Forecast Till 2021 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"A recent report released by Beige Market Intelligence, Global Robotic Vacuum Cleaner Strategic Assessment and Forecast till 2021, covers the present scenario and growth aspect of worldwide robotic vacuum cleaner market for the period of 2016-2021. This market research report includes a detailed market segmentation of the Worldwide Robotic Vacuum Cleaner MarketBy ProductFloor CareVacuum OnlyVacuum and MoppingMopping OnlyPool CareBy Distribution ChannelsOnlineRetailSpecialty StoresSupermarkets and HypermarketsBy GeographyAPACEuropeNorth AmericaROWBy CountryCanadaChinaEgyptFranceGermanyJapanMexicoSouth KoreaUSView Report AtRobotic Vacuum Cleaner Market Size and DynamicsThe analysts at Beige Market Intelligence expects the worldwide robotic vacuum cleaner market to reach approx. US$3,166.9 million by 2021 with a CAGR of more that 11.6%. In developed regions, the growth in the construction industry will contribute to the demand for robotic vacuum cleaners. Robotic vacuum cleaners are increasingly marking their presence among end-users worldwide. The floor care segment of the market offers a lucrative opportunity for vendors as the demand for floor care robotic vacuum cleaning devices has been increasing globally. Pool cleaning robots are popular in European countries whereas in US the demand of pool cleaning robots is comparatively low.Robotic Vacuum Cleaner Market Trends, Drivers and ChallengesThe latest trend emerging in the robotic vacuum cleaners market is increased adoption of smart robotic vacuum cleaners among end-users across the world. However, adoption of smart home concept and increased sales and marketing of the robotic vacuum cleaners on internet are the emerging trends in the market. Robotic vacuum cleaners have become a popular sensation in the modern consumer electronics market. The demand is growing at a phenomenal rate across the world. The entry of low cost new variant in the market has propelled the growth of robotic vacuum cleaner market. Also, Increased domestic use of the robotic vacuum cleaners, as they are less time consuming and easy to use, is going to propel the sale of the robotic vacuum cleaner.Robotic Vacuum Cleaner Market Geographical AnalysisThe report includes the market analysis of different regions such as North America, APAC, Europe and ROW. The report outlines the major market share holder and the market size analysis of all the regions and provides the market size and forecast of the key countries.The penetration of robotic vacuum cleaners in the APAC countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, and Australia is increasing rapidly. For instance, the demand for robotic vacuum cleaners in Japan witnessed a surge in 2015 from 2014 against the demand for traditional vacuum cleaners. APAC will continue to dominate the worldwide robotic vacuum cleaner market till 2021. Europe will likely account for 30.83% and 33.13% market share, in terms of revenue and unit shipment, respectively, in 2021. The robotic vacuum cleaners market in North American is characterized by demand for advanced robotic vacuum cleaners with autonomy in functioning and navigating.Robotic Vacuum Cleaner Market Market Share & Key VendorsThis market research profiles the major companies in the Global Robotic Vacuum Cleaner Market and provides the competitive landscape and market share of key the players. The report covers the entire market outlook regarding the value chain operating within the market.Download Sample copy of this Report at :The major vendors included in the report areiRobot, ECOVACS ROBOTICS, Maytronics Group and Aqua Products.The emerging vendorsDeLonghi, Dyson, Groupe SEB, Hanool Robotics, Hayward Industries, Hitachi, Hoover, LG, Mamirobot, Matsutek Enterprise, Metapo, Miele, Neato Robotics, Moneual, Panasonic, Pentair, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Taurus, Toshiba Lifestyle Products, Vorwerk, Yujin Robot and Zodiac.Why should you buy Global Robotic Vaccum Cleaner Market report?The report gives reasonable answers for the following questions which leads you to know the in- depth market analysis such asHow has the market been performing and what are some of the current changes which are expected to change the landscape in the coming years?What are the various factors that can affect the market and in what way over the next few years?What are the emerging trends and challenges for the market over the next five years?What is the market size and market forecast for each product segment?Which regions are going to have the largest market share and what are the factors propelling the market growth in that region?Which are the key countries and the market size and market forecast in the key countries?Which companies are the key vendors in the market?What are the strategies used by the top vendors, and what are the opportunities to grow?Which companies are the emerging vendors in the market?Table of ContentsSection 1 Research MethodologySection 2 Report Coverage2.1 Report at a Glance2.2 Descriptive Summary of Worldwide Robotic Vacuum Cleaner Market2.3 Scope of the Study2.3.1 Definition of product2.3.2 End-user Segments2.3.3 Base year2.3.4 GeographySection 3 Market Research Methodology3.1 Geographical Segmentation3.2 Vendor Segmentation3.3 Common Currency Conversion RatesSection 4 Market Landscape4.1 Introduction to Robotic Vacuum Cleaners4.2 Average Selling PriceSection 5 Key Market Trends5.1.1 Year-on-year Impact of Market Trends5.1.2 Impact of Market Trends on Geography in 2015Section 6 Key Market Growth Drivers6.1.1 Year-on-year Impact of Market Drivers6.1.2 Impact of Market Drivers on Geography in 2015Section 7 Key Market Restraints7.1.1 Year-on-year Impact of Market Restraints7.1.2 Impact of Market Restraints on Geographies in 2015Section 8 Value Chain Analysis8.1 Value Chain Analysis of the Worldwide Robotic Vacuum Cleaner MarketSection 9 Worldwide Robotic Vacuum Cleaner Market9.1 Historical Market Size9.2 Market Size and Forecast 2015?2021MarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.State Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz Plasticizers Market - Global Scenario, Trends, Industry Analysis, Size, Share And Forecast, 2011 2018 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=753 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/global-plasticizers-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ http://globalresearchanalysis.blogspot.in/ Plasticizers are a group of materials that increase the plasticity of polymers, making them more flexible and bendable without breaking. The flexibility of plastics is one of their most prized qualities, leading to rapid growth of the global plasticizers market in the last few years. Key industries such as automotive, consumer goods, and healthcare are exhibiting a growing demand for components and devices made from flexible plastics, which have several ergonomic and structural benefits, making them the key consumers of plasticizers. According to the report, the global annual for plasticizers is likely to reach 13.2 mn tonnes by 2018.The report delivers a review of the historical development pattern exhibited by the global plasticizers market and a comprehensive overview of its present condition. The plasticizers markets most recent figures are analyzed with the help of industry-standard metrics and reliable forecasts regarding the markets future growth trajectory are presented in the report. The all-inclusive analysis of the market presented in the report makes the report a must-have accessory for players in the global plasticizers market.Download And Get Sample PDF File Of Plasticizers Industry :The global plasticizers market can be segmented by product type into phthalates, epoxy, polymeric, aliphatic, trimellitates, and phosphates. On the basis of application, wires and cables, adhesives and elastomers, paints and varnishes, coatings and coated fabrics, films and sheets, and floorings and wall coverings are among the key contributors to the global plasticizers market.Global Plasticizers Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe changing lifestyle of newly prosperous consumers in emerging regions such as Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America is a key driver for the global plasticizers market. The increased purchasing power of consumers in developing countries has led to a rise in the demand for consumer electronics, which use flexible plastics in various components and thus contribute significantly to the global plasticizers market. The expanding consumer electronics industry in China, in particular, is a key contributor to the Asia Pacific plasticizers market and is likely to remain so in the coming years.The booming automotive industry in Asia Pacific countries such as China, India, South Korea, and Indonesia is another crucial driver for the global plasticizers market. While the increasing disposable income of consumers in this region has led to a growing demand for automobiles, the increasing number of automotive manufacturing facilities is the key factor contributing to the regional market for plasticizers.On the other hand, the presence of nonbiodegradable and possibly toxic components in plasticizers has become a key restraint on the global plasticizers market. In recent years, environmental laws aimed at minimizing the damage caused to the environment by human activities have become the norm rather than the exception, making the position of the plasticizers industry untenable in some regions and applications. While this has led to the development of bioplasticizers, which are environmentally viable and thus represent a significant step for the plasticizers markets future development, environmental laws are likely to remain a constraint on the plasticizers market in the near future.Browse Market Research Report with Free Analysis :Global Plasticizers Market: Geographical SegmentationThe report examines the performance of the plasticizers market in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. While North America and Europe remain key consumers of plasticizers, Asia Pacific is the leading contributor to the global market. India and China are the regional leaders in the Asia Pacific market and are likely to remain so thanks to their booming manufacturing sectors. In the coming years, the demand for plasticizers from Russia and Brazil is expected to be crucial for the development of the plasticizers market in the Rest of the World.The report also profiles leading players in the global plasticizers market in order to explain the markets competitive dynamics. Key companies examined in the report include BASF, Eastman, ExxonMobil, Ferro, Teknor Apex, and Shandong Hongxin.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. TMR's experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Visit : Global LED Lighting Market Philips Electronics N.V., Osram Opto, Cree Incorporation, Zumtobel AG, Toshiba Corporation, Digital Lumens, Inc. Global LED Lighting Market http://bit.ly/2fYC1OU http://atozresearch.com/global-led-lighting-market-research-reports/ http://bit.ly/2gxQJzT http://atozresearch.com/ Global LED Lighting Market for Residential, Architectural and Outdoor Applications: Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast 2014 2020The reports provide quantitative analysis of the global LED lighting market and estimations in terms of revenue (USD Million) during the forecast period from 2015 to 2020. The study highlights key factors responsible for market growth of LED lighting market and provides restraints and challenges faced by the market. It also provides the level of impact of drivers and restraints on the market between 2015 and 2020. The market is illustrated with respect to different segments along with opportunities that are expected to arise during the forecast period.Request Sample Report:This report provides comprehensive view of the LED lighting market to the readers. The study analyses the market in and across value chain. Study of Porters Five Forces model of the LED lighting market helps to understand the strength of the buyers and suppliers participating in the lighting market. Some additional parameters such as attractiveness analysis, wherein segments are benchmarked based on their market size, growth rate and general attractiveness. Market attractiveness analysis provides the information about the most attractive and least attractive market segments by application and region.The report provides detailed segmentation of the LED lighting market based on application and regional. On the basis of application segment the report has been segmented into industrial lighting, outdoor lighting and architectural lighting. The regional segmentation includes the current and forecast demand for North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa with its further, Bifurcation into major countries including U.S., Germany, France, UK, China, Japan, India and Brazil.Browse detail report at:The report includes detailed competitive landscape of the global LED lighting market. It includes company market share analysis, product portfolio of the major industry participants. Some of the major players in the market such as Philips Electronics N.V., Osram Opto, Cree Incorporation, Zumtobel AG, Toshiba Corporation, Digital Lumens, Inc., Cooper Industries Plc and GE lightings.This report segments the global market as follows:LED Lighting Market: Application Segment AnalysisIndustrialArchitectureOutdoorLED Lighting Market: Regional Segment AnalysisRead Report TOC:North AmericaU.S.EuropeGermanyUKFranceAsia PacificChinaIndiaJapanLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East&AfricaAbout A to Z ResearchA to Z Research 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. A to Z Research is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air. We have market research reports from number of leading publishers and update our collection daily to provide our clients with the instant online access to our database. With access to this database, our clients will be able to benefit from expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends.Contact US3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442, USATel: +1-386-310-3803GMTTel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No.1-855-465-465Email: martin@atozresearch.comWebsite: Global Mercury Market Analysis and Forecast to 2020 http://www.indexbox.co.uk/store/world-mercury-market-report-analysis-and-forecast-to-2020/ http://www.indexbox.co.uk/store/world-mercury-market-report-analysis-and-forecast-to-2020/ http://www.indexbox.co.uk/store/world-mercury-market-report-analysis-and-forecast-to-2020/ www.indexbox.co.uk IndexBox has just published a new report World: Mercury - Market Report. Analysis And Forecast To 2020 (This report has been designed to provide a detailed analysis of the global mercury market. It covers the most recent data sets of quantitative medium-term projections, as well as developments in production, trade, consumption and prices.Global mercury trade displayed two very distinct trends over the period under review. From 2007 to 2012, global mercury exports showed robust growth, until the trend suddenly switched in 2013. In 2014, exports fell to below half of the previous year's value, and continued to fall through the end of the period under review, amounting to 34 million USD in 2015. Overall, there was an annual increase of 0.9% throughout the analyzed period.According to IndexBox estimates, Mexico emerged as the major global supplier of mercury. 2015, Mexico's mercury exports totaled 14 million USD, which accounted for a 41% share in terms of global exports. Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, and Switzerland were the other key global suppliers of mercury in 2015, with a 42% combined share of global exports.Indonesia (+113.8% per year) and Mexico (+55.3% per year) were the fastest growing exporters from 2007 to 2015. Mexico significantly strengthened its position in the global mercury export structure, growing its share from 1% in 2007 to 41% in 2015.On the other hand, Bolivia (16%, based on value terms), India (16%), Colombia (14%), Singapore (9%), and South Africa (7%) were the leading destinations of mercury imports in 2015. Imports to every major importer grew at extraordinary rates, with Bolivia leading the way with a 115.8 CAGR from 2007 to 2015. Bolivia increased its share of imports by +16 percentage points over the period under review.1. INTRODUCTION1.1 REPORT DESCRIPTION1.2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY2.1 KEY FINDINGS2.2 MARKET TRENDS3. MARKET OVERVIEW3.1 MARKET VOLUME AND VALUE3.2 CONSUMPTION BY COUNTRY3.3 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES BY COUNTRY3.4 MARKET FORECAST TO 20204. PRODUCTION4.1 PRODUCTION IN 2007-20154.2 PRODUCTION BY COUNTRY5. IMPORTS5.1 IMPORTS IN 2007-20155.2 IMPORTS BY COUNTRY5.3 IMPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY6. EXPORTS6.1 EXPORTS IN 2007-20156.2 EXPORTS BY COUNTRY6.3 EXPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY7. PROFILES OF MAJOR PRODUCERS3 easy ways to order Follow the link below to review a free sample or to buy the report: Call us +44 20 3239 3063 to discuss your information needs and for special discounts on multi-report orders Email your order to info@indexbox.co.ukPrice: 1490 EUR for Single LicenseSource:IndexBox is a leading market research publisher in the world. We conduct market research and publish reports. You can find more than 25,000 research reports in our web store, which cover global industries and regional markets. All the worldwide marketing data you need is at your fingertips.Company Name: IndexBoxContact Person: Kirill BezverhiEmail: kirill.bezverhi@indexbox.co.ukPhone: +44 20 3239 3063Adress: United Kingdom, LondonWebsite: Global Pyrites Market Analysis and Forecast to 2020 http://www.indexbox.co.uk/store/world-pyrites-market-report-analysis-and-forecast-to-2020/ http://www.indexbox.co.uk/store/world-pyrites-market-report-analysis-and-forecast-to-2020/ http://www.indexbox.co.uk/store/world-pyrites-market-report-analysis-and-forecast-to-2020/ www.indexbox.co.uk IndexBox has just published a new report World: Pyrites - Market Report. Analysis And Forecast To 2020 (This report has been designed to provide a detailed analysis of the global pyrites market. It covers the most recent data sets of quantitative medium-term projections, as well as developments in production, trade, consumption and prices.The global trade in pyrites amounted to 21 million USD in 2015, fluctuating strongly over the period under review. A 35% drop in 2009 was followed by recovery over the next four years, until exports decreased again. Overall, there was an annual decrease of -3.1% from 2007 to 2015.According to IndexBox estimates, Italy continued to lead the way in global supplies of pyrites. In 2015, Italy's exports of pyrites totaled 6 million USD, which accounted for a 26% share in terms of global exports. China, the Netherlands, Peru, and Russia were the other key global suppliers of pyrites in 2015, with a 52% combined share of global exports.The Netherlands (+96.1% per year) and Russia (+19.0% per year) were the fastest growing exporters from 2007 to 2015. The Netherlands significantly strengthened its position in terms of global exports of pyrites, growing its share from 0% in 2007 to 14% in 2015.China (67%, based on value terms), Israel (7%), Germany (5%), Egypt (4%), and Japan (4%) were the leading destinations of pyrites imports in 2015. Imports to China grew at an outstanding pace of +86.7% per year from 2007 to 2015. None of the major importers contracted their imports of pyrites over the period under review. China's share in terms of global imports increased by +66 percentage points, while the share of Germany illustrated negative dynamics (-13 percentage points).1. INTRODUCTION1.1 REPORT DESCRIPTION1.2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY2.1 KEY FINDINGS2.2 MARKET TRENDS3. MARKET OVERVIEW3.1 MARKET VOLUME AND VALUE3.2 CONSUMPTION BY COUNTRY3.3 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES BY COUNTRY3.4 MARKET FORECAST TO 20204. PRODUCTION4.1 PRODUCTION IN 2007-20154.2 PRODUCTION BY COUNTRY5. IMPORTS5.1 IMPORTS IN 2007-20155.2 IMPORTS BY COUNTRY5.3 IMPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY6. EXPORTS6.1 EXPORTS IN 2007-20156.2 EXPORTS BY COUNTRY6.3 EXPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY7. PROFILES OF MAJOR PRODUCERS3 easy ways to order Follow the link below to review a free sample or to buy the report: Call us +44 20 3239 3063 to discuss your information needs and for special discounts on multi-report orders Email your order to info@indexbox.co.ukPrice: 1490 EUR for Single LicenseSource:IndexBox is a leading market research publisher in the world. We conduct market research and publish reports. You can find more than 25,000 research reports in our web store, which cover global industries and regional markets. All the worldwide marketing data you need is at your fingertips.Company Name: IndexBoxContact Person: Kirill BezverhiEmail: kirill.bezverhi@indexbox.co.ukPhone: +44 20 3239 3063Adress: United Kingdom, LondonWebsite: Global Molybdenum Market Analysis and Forecast to 2020 http://www.indexbox.co.uk/store/world-molybdenum-market-report-analysis-and-forecast-to-2020/ http://www.indexbox.co.uk/store/world-molybdenum-market-report-analysis-and-forecast-to-2020/ http://www.indexbox.co.uk/store/world-molybdenum-market-report-analysis-and-forecast-to-2020/ www.indexbox.co.uk IndexBox has just published a new report World: Molybdenum - Market Report. Analysis And Forecast To 2020 (This report has been designed to provide a detailed analysis of the global molybdenum market. It covers the most recent data sets of quantitative medium-term projections, as well as developments in production, trade, consumption and prices.The global trade in molybdenum amounted to 484 million USD in 2015, fluctuating wildly over the period under review. A 61% drop in 2009 was followed by recovery over the next two years, until exports decreased again, continuing to fall for the remainder of the period under review, with the exception of a slight reversal in 2014. Overall, there was an annual decrease of -9.1% from 2007 to 2015.According to IndexBox estimates, China continued to lead by a large margin in global exports of molybdenum. In 2015, China's molybdenum exports totaled 198 million USD, which accounted for a 41% share in terms of global exports. USA, Japan, Germany, and the Republic of Korea were the other key global suppliers of molybdenum in 2015, with a 43% combined share of global exports.Every major exporter of molybdenum posted a decline in exports over the period under review. China increased its share of global exports of molybdenum from 35% in 2007 to 41% in 2015.China (21%, based on value terms), Germany (14%), the Republic of Korea (14%), Japan (10%), and USA (8%) were the leading destinations of molybdenum imports in 2015. Under an overall decline of global imports, Germany posted the most rapid decline of approx. -13.7% rep year over the period under review. China's share in terms of global imports increased by +8 percentage points, while the share of Germany illustrated negative dynamics (-7 percentage points).1. INTRODUCTION1.1 REPORT DESCRIPTION1.2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY2.1 KEY FINDINGS2.2 MARKET TRENDS3. MARKET OVERVIEW3.1 MARKET VOLUME AND VALUE3.2 CONSUMPTION BY COUNTRY3.3 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES BY COUNTRY3.4 MARKET FORECAST TO 20204. PRODUCTION4.1 PRODUCTION IN 2007-20154.2 PRODUCTION BY COUNTRY5. IMPORTS5.1 IMPORTS IN 2007-20155.2 IMPORTS BY COUNTRY5.3 IMPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY6. EXPORTS6.1 EXPORTS IN 2007-20156.2 EXPORTS BY COUNTRY6.3 EXPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY7. PROFILES OF MAJOR PRODUCERS3 easy ways to order Follow the link below to review a free sample or to buy the report: Call us +44 20 3239 3063 to discuss your information needs and for special discounts on multi-report orders Email your order to info@indexbox.co.ukPrice: 1490 EUR for Single LicenseSource:IndexBox is a leading market research publisher in the world. We conduct market research and publish reports. You can find more than 25,000 research reports in our web store, which cover global industries and regional markets. All the worldwide marketing data you need is at your fingertips.Company Name: IndexBoxContact Person: Kirill BezverhiEmail: kirill.bezverhi@indexbox.co.ukPhone: +44 20 3239 3063Adress: United Kingdom, LondonWebsite: 2016 Global Connected Car M2M Connections Industry Report is a professional and in-depth research report. Connected Car M2M Connections https://goo.gl/J1sbqI https://goo.gl/TjNO8b http://www.bigmarketresearch.com Big Market Research adds Connected Car M2M Connections Market new report to its research database. The report spread across 100 pages with table and figures in it.2016 Global Connected Car M2M Connections Industry Report is a professional and in-depth research report on the world's major regional market conditions of the Connected Car M2M Connections industry, focusing on the main regions (North America, Europe and Asia) and the main countries (United States, Germany, Japan and China).The report firstly introduced the Connected Car M2M Connections basics: definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain overview; industry policies and plans; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, capacity utilization, supply, demand and industry growth rate etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.Click for sample Copy @The report includes six parts, dealing with:1.) Basic information;2.) The Asia Connected Car M2M Connections industry;3.) The North American Connected Car M2M Connections industry;4.) The European Connected Car M2M Connections industry;5.) Market entry and investment feasibility; and6.) The report conclusion.Hurry up get discount offer @Table of ContentsPart I Connected Car M2M Connections Industry OverviewChapter One Connected Car M2M Connections Industry Overview1.1 Connected Car M2M Connections Definition1.2 Connected Car M2M Connections Classification Analysis1.2.1 Connected Car M2M Connections Main Classification Analysis1.2.2 Connected Car M2M Connections Main Classification Share Analysis1.3 Connected Car M2M Connections Application Analysis1.3.1 Connected Car M2M Connections Main Application Analysis1.3.2 Connected Car M2M Connections Main Application Share Analysis1.4 Connected Car M2M Connections Industry Chain Structure Analysis1.5 Connected Car M2M Connections Industry Development OverviewAbout Company:Big Market Research is an exclusive online market to get best market research reports for your business needs and strategies. We recommend you to stop browsing as soon as you discover our website.Contact Us:Dhananjay Potle5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesDirect :+ 1-503-894-6022Toll Free : + 1-800-910-6452Email: help@bigmarketresearch.comWeb: cloudKleyer and Infotecs present Cloud Security at Cloud Expo Europe https://cloudexpo.circdata-solutions.co.uk/RFG/publish/CEEF16/ www.cloudkleyer.de www.infotecs.biz www.facebook.com/pages/Infotecs-Gmbh_english/400720220013566 Berlin, November 22, 2016 Infotecs, the international vendor of cyber security and threat intelligence solutions, together with its technology partner cloudKleyer are participating in the largest cloud computing exhibition in Germany. The companies will present their cloud security solutions at stand 680 at Cloud Expo Europe in Frankfurt on November 23-24, 2016.Cloud computing and security are trending topics that cannot be overlooked anymore. However, advanced cloud applications that guarantee the utmost data security are still rare. What is more, many companies are still anxious about losing control over the sensitive data.cloudKleyer and Infotecs want to address this issue. The colocation, cloud, and Internet service provider from Frankfurt am Main has been cooperating with the high-security provider from Berlin since May 2016. The cooperatively developed solution comprises the expertise of both companies: cloudKleyer provides the necessary resources for accessing the corporate data in the cloud, while Infotecs encrypts the data exchange with special preconfigured security gateways. This integrated solution is offered as a service, which allows companies to reduce the costs for the creation of their own infrastructure.The technology partners will present their common solution at Cloud Expo Europe at a shared stand of Cloud-EcoSystem, stand 680. Cloud Expo Europe Frankfurt (CEEF) is considered an established cloud computing and IT infrastructure conference in Europe. Over 200 speakers will share real-world case studies and trends, and over 200 participants will introduce their solutions. CEEF covers the most important cloud-related topics: from the hybrid cloud and infrastructure & security to software-defined data centers and networks. The comprehensive program focuses on vertical markets, including banking and finance, retail, manufacturing, telecommunications and government sector. The conference also touches upon several issues of interest for small and medium businesses. The main topic of this year is the Internet of Things."cloudKleyer has become our technology partner that provides highly specialized cloud services in their data center in Germany," says Josef Waclaw, CEO of Infotecs GmbH. "With the help of the cloud experts, we can now offer our encryption products to partners and clients as a managed security service in the cloud, which is a flexible and highly scalable solution. Cloud Expo Europe is an excellent platform for presenting our common solution to a wide audience of experts.""We benefit from the competence of Infotecs team in the security field. This can be a crucial competitive edge in our branch as many companies keep being skeptical of the cloud applications and still have security concerns," says Jan Weller, Managing Director of cloudKleyer.If you are interested in visiting the event, you can sign up for free at the Cloud Expo Europe website (). At the same time as CEEF, the Data Centre World and Cloud Security Expo events will take place.About cloudKleyercloudkleyer is an experienced German ICT provider. As a one-stop ICT partner, we provide our customers with a range of fully-managed services including colocation, cloud hosting, IaaS and SaaS, consulting, ISP and telecommunication services. cloudKleyer's headquarters and data centre are located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. cloudKleyer's prime address at Frankfurt's Kleyerstrasse gives our customers the necessary edge to obtain highly secure and highly available access to more than 500 carriers and ISPs. Our solution-driven engineering and multilingual customer service focuses on companies who require a straightforward, flexible partner, personal attention and customised solutions. Additional information on the company is available at visit:About InfotecsA leading international security solutions provider and pioneer of software-based VPN solutions since 1991, Infotecs developed its Peer-to-Peer ViPNet technology to deliver greater security, flexibility, and throughput than other solutions on the market. The Infotecs ViPNet Security and Threat Intelligence Platform provides complete multi-layer security in one cost-effective solution. ViPNet is the only solution that supports true endpoint-to-endpoint security and delivers robust, rock-solid security which is scalable, flexible, easy to deploy, manage and maintain. The ViPNet solutions seamlessly integrate into existing networks enabling customers to achieve the right balance of high security with low complexity and low risk. More than 1,000,000 clients, offices, and servers have been securely connected with ViPNet solutions, backed up by an unparalleled world-class support, development, and technical team as well as a strong network of partners. For additional information on the company please visit:ContactInfotecs GmbHAnja MuellerMarketing & CommunicationsOberwallstr. 2410117 Berlin, GermanyPhone: +49 30 206 43 66-52anja.mueller@infotecs.bizTwitter: twitter.com/InfotecsEnglishFacebook: Brian Doyle, one of Oregon's best known authors, a leading figure in the Portland literary community, and the editor of the University of Portland's Portland Magazine, said Monday he has a brain tumor and will undergo brain surgery Wednesday. Doyle said he learned about what he called a "big honkin' brain tumor" on Tuesday, after experiencing severe headaches for months. "The doctor's pretty sure that it's a cancerous brain tumor that he can't fix and can't heal," Doyle said. The goal of the surgery is to chip away at the tumor in hopes of reducing it, setting the stage for chemotherapy and giving him another year or two, he said. While Doyle said Monday he was feeling "poorly," he added that he's "overwhelmed at the moment by love ... it's deeply moving and sort of mind-bending" to be on the receiving end of hundreds of emails, calls and notes. "If I could say anything to everybody, I would say thank you," he said, adding, "I'm quietly very proud to have been called an Oregon writer." Doyle told the University of Portland's student newspaper, The Beacon, that he doesn't fear the surgery. "The thing I'm really upset about is that I don't think I will be able to take care of my wife and children," he told the paper. Doyle, who turned 60 this month, and his wife, Mary, have three children in their 20s and live in Lake Oswego. Under Doyle's editorial watch, Portland Magazine has consistently been ranked among the best university magazines in the country and in 2005 won Newsweek's Sibley Award as the top university magazine in America. Doyle has published more than two dozen books, including novels, short story anthologies and poetry and essay collections. He won the Oregon Book Awards' 2016 Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature for his novel "Martin Marten," a coming-of-age story about a boy and a pine marten growing up amid the wilds of Mount Hood. He's also been nominated eight times for Oregon Book Awards in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. In 2012, his novel "Mink River" was the centerpiece of the annual Lake Oswego Reads community book program. He's also written guest commentaries for The Oregonian/OregonLive, including a well-read piece about what a banking firm decimated on Sept. 11 did for its murdered employees' children. Doyle said Monday that he won't know until after his surgery exactly what type of brain tumor he has and how serious it is. "All this could be a tempest in a teapot," he said. But if it isn't, he wants to remind everyone that "stories are holy and nutritious and crucial. Stories change lives; stories save lives. ... They crack open hearts, they open minds." "It's more important than ever before to hold hands and catch and share stories of substance and grace and defiant courage and irrepressible humor," Doyle said. The alternative is to "allow nothing in our lives but sales pitches and lies." "We could change the world if we told the right story," Doyle said. -- Amy Wang awang@oregonian.com 503-294-5914 @ORAmyW Oregon's Dungeness crab season is starting similar to last year's -- with a ban on all harvesting from Tillamook Head to the California border. Domoic acid, a toxin produced by warm waters and algae, is over safe levels for the second year in a row. The Oregon departments of agriculture and fish and wildlife have closed all commercial and recreational crabbing along the coast and in bays and estuaries. If you are thinking of going across the California border to get your holiday Dungie, you're out of luck there too. Washington is allowing it throughout most parts of the state. Razor clamming is also still banned by the Oregon departments of agriculture and fish and wildlife. Bay clams, however, are safe to harvest. There's still plenty of shellfish that are registering safe levels of domoic acid. Oregon officials reopened mussel harvesting Monday for the entire Oregon coastline. Domoic acid shut down all shellfish harvesting on the Oregon coast for months last year, with Washington and California also experiencing severe delays for both the commercial and recreational seasons. This year, the bloom was not as large and is having less impact on the Oregon shellfish industry. However, with warming ocean waters that foster these blooms, climate and ocean scientists predict domoic acid battles could be a more constant way of life in the future. Oregon officials recommend only eating the adductor muscle in coastal scallops, not the whole thing. Oysters are not affected. If you have questions, call the state's shellfish safety hotline at 800-448-2474 or visit the updated closures website. -- Molly Harbarger mharbarger@oregonian.com 503-294-5923 @MollyHarbarger The shutter came quickly and quietly to the Portland location of First National Taphouse, a Eugene-based brewpub that expanded into a space near Portland State University with dozens of taps and a roster boasting more than 400 bottles. Perhaps it was for the best. A year and a half after its closing, the restaurant was open again, using the same tables emblazoned with a First National's medallion logo, only now supporting a cast of fiery Sichuan and Americanized Chinese dishes. The cooler, once packed with craft beer, now houses a fun assortment of canned Chinese sodas and teas, plus half a dozen domestic bottles that would make any mislaid beer nerds shudder. But, for any office workers looking to mix up the usual cart or fast-casual lunch, Duck House is a welcome addition -- right now, it's serving the best Chinese-style dumplings in downtown Portland, if not the entire city. The dish: Duck House's menu is as expansive as any Chinese restaurant, with everything from General Tso's chicken ($12.95) to pan-fried pork kidney ($15.95), though there is a combustible streak of Szechuan dishes cutting through it all. Some of those sinus-clearing plates are pretty good, like the fire engine red mapo tofu ($11.95) or the crunchy fried Chong Qing hot chicken hidden beneath a cache of face-meltingly hot peppers. But it's the housemade dumplings that make Duck House worth visiting. The xiao long bao, or soup dumplings ($11.95-$12.95), are the best in Portland: a delicate parcel of hot soup and pork (or pork and shrimp) wrapped in a thin, chewy skin. Also good: juicy, gently gamey lamb dumplings ($10.95) and wrinkled Szechuan pork wontons ($9.95) submerged in a pool of Elmo-red chili oil. The takeaway: Not all of the Chinese dishes on the menu are winners -- we recently watched a table order half a dozen dishes only to leave most of them on the table when they walked out. But if you're looking to eat dumplings, and we mean a lot of dumplings, Duck House is the place. Sample menu: Green onion pancake ($7.95), twice-cooked pork belly Szechuan-style ($12.95), dan dan noodles ($7.95), kung pao prawns ($13.95), Peking duck for 12 ($45.95-$55.95; call ahead to reserve) Drinks: Tea (free), draft and canned/bottled beer ($2-$4), canned Chinese drinks ($2-$4) Go: For a downtown dumpling party. Details: Lunch and dinner, Wednesday to Monday; disabled access; reservations; 1968 S.W. 5th Ave.; 971-801-8888 -- Samantha Bakall sbakall@oregonian.com Follow @sambakall An old school bus that Portland volunteers converted into a mobile medical bunk house to shelter activists protesting the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline is inching its way to the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in North Dakota. On Sunday, bus project leaders and climate activists Mike Horner and Harlan Shober arrived in Bozeman, Montana, and were greeted by about 300 people at a rally. Later that day, in subfreezing temperatures 600 miles away in North Dakota, police shot a water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas at pipeline protesters, according to the Associated Press. Some 167 people were treated for injuries, including one elder who was revived from cardiac arrest by medics administering CPR, said Angela Bivens, a volunteer attorney working at Standing Rock with the National Lawyers Guild. Up to 20 people were injured severely enough to be taken to Bismarck, N.D., hospitals, Bivens told AP. The Morton County Sheriff's office said in a news release that protesters used "aggressive" tactics in attempting to open the bridge on Highway 1806, the main road between the Standing Rock reservation and Bismarck, North Dakota's capital city. One officer was struck in the head with a rock, and protesters also threw burning logs, according to the department. As violence escalates and winter bears down on protesters camped near the Missouri River, 28 tribal leaders in Washington state issued a letter Monday to President Barack Obama, insisting he stop and reroute the Dakota Access Pipeline. Declaring their solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the tribal chairs wrote, "We support their call to deny the easement of the Dakota Access Pipeline and to reroute the pipeline away from tribal lands, waters and sacred places." On Sunday night, the community of Cannonball opened its school gymnasium for emergency relief, and the Standing Rock tribe's emergency medical service department and volunteer medics assisted demonstrators at the main camp. Treatment was given to protesters for hypothermia, blunt trauma because of rubber bullets and contamination from tear gas, according to the elders' release. The Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council called for an immediate end to the use of water cannons in freezing temperatures. "As medical professionals we are concerned for the real risk of loss of life due to severe hypothermia under these conditions," the council wrote in a statement that was included in the elders' release. Concern that members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their supporters could suffer from hypothermia and other medical emergencies drove Horner and Shober to come up with the idea of converting a school bus into a heavily insulated, mobile medical bunk house. After about 300 volunteer hours, the medical bus with 12 bunks is ready to be used by people who are injured, sick or suffering from hypothermia, and who need to rest as they recover, says Bonnie McKinlay, a member of the Portland-area Climate Action Coalition, whose members raised money and donated time to the project. The group, which represents 10 organizations that work to educate people about the climate crisis, sees the winter shelter and donated medical supplies helping people at the camp as they face harsh winds and freezing temperatures. When this bus is no longer needed, the Climate Action Coalition will lend it to other groups. Donations are still coming to an ongoing Go Fund Me project. The group hopes to raise enough to convert another bus. Horner and Shober will continue to drive the bus to the Standing Rock protest site. Four other volunteers are following behind in a truck. Some of the volunteers will stay behind to help in the medical village at the protest site, says McKinlay, who will stay in Portland. -- Janet Eastman Associated Press reports contributed to this story. jeastman@oregonian.com 503-799-8739 @janeteastman By Eugene Robinson WASHINGTON -- It is our duty to demand ethical integrity from our presidents, and Donald Trump cannot be allowed to make himself an exception. He is already trying hard to do so. Amid the hustle and bustle of his transition, according to The New York Times, President-elect Trump found time last week for a visit from the Indian partners with whom he is developing a pair of residential towers in Pune, a sprawling city not far from Mumbai. And Trump received a congratulatory phone call from Argentine President Mauricio Macri, with whose father Trump had business dealings in the past. Trump and Macri denied published reports that Trump lobbied for an office building project he and a group of partners want to build in Buenos Aires. Also, when Trump met last week with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump's daughter Ivanka was present. That raised eyebrows because Ivanka Trump, along with her brothers Donald Jr. and Eric, apparently will manage Trump's business empire while he is in office. Trump's lawyer called this arrangement a "blind" trust, but it is no such thing. Rather, it's a way to use the presidency for the Trump family's further enrichment. The real and potential conflicts of interest are legion. The Washington Post reported that "at least 111 Trump companies have done business in 18 countries and territories across South America, Asia and the Middle East" and also places such as Canada, Scotland and Ireland. We know that much -- but very little more -- from the financial disclosure documents Trump filed in May. We would know more had he not broken his promise to release his tax returns. Some of Trump's overseas developments are brick-and-mortar projects financed by big loans, often from foreign banks. Trump's biggest lender, Germany's Deutsche Bank, is negotiating a multibillion-dollar settlement with the Justice Department over abuses that contributed to the 2008 financial crash. Trump will soon be in charge of the Justice Department. Some other foreign business dealings are basically licensing agreements for the use of the Trump brand. According to the Post, Trump's company has been paid "up to $10 million" since 2014 for the right to put the Trump name atop a luxury apartment complex in Istanbul. The owner is an oil and media conglomerate closely allied with the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is conducting a brutal campaign of repression against his critics, including the independent Turkish media. So when dealing with countries where he does business, will Trump put his own financial interests aside and do what is best for the United States? "We shall see" is a far too generous answer. Based on what we have seen in the two weeks since the election, the answer is a simple no. I might feel differently if Trump put his many businesses into a genuine blind trust -- which would mean liquidating as many assets as possible and having the cash managed by an independent trustee. This is probably not practical; his many partners in real estate deals would surely object, since the buildings would lose value once the Trump name was removed. But at the very least, Trump should have his empire managed by some eminent outsider who does not happen to be one of his children. What does the law require? Almost nothing. As president, Trump is exempt from conflict-of-interest statutes. He must file an annual disclosure document listing assets and income but is not compelled to release his tax returns, though recent presidents have done so. There is no law that would keep Trump from continuing to run the Trump Organization while in office. (Arguably, it might be better for him to spend time doing that than trying to deport 11 million undocumented migrants, take away health insurance from 20 million people, ban Muslims from entering the country and reinstitute torture for terrorism suspects.) He does have to reckon with the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which bars public officials from receiving gifts from foreign governments without the consent of Congress. If stalled overseas projects suddenly get moving again after Trump is sworn in, that could be a problem. Primarily, though, it is going to take public pressure to hold Trump accountable. Trump's supporters should recall how he claimed the system was rigged and promised to "drain the swamp." So far, he seems to intend to deepen the muck and make his fabulously wealthy family even wealthier. How Trump handles his business interests must be seen as a simple test of his sincerity. So far he is failing miserably. Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinsonwashpost.com. (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group ZAYED.JPG United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheik Abdullah Bin Zayed, at top, talks to his Algerian counterpart, Mourad Medelci, during the Arab League's emergency meeting in Cairo in this file photo from 2011. (AP Photo/File) By David Ignatius ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- What does Donald Trump's election mean for the Middle East? A group of prominent foreign ministers and policy experts gathered here last weekend to explore the election's implications for the world's most volatile region. The gathering, known as the "Sir Bani Yas" forum, is hosted each year by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the UAE's foreign minister. Comments here weren't attributable, so I can't identify the participants by name. But it included representatives from nearly every Arab country, as well as America, Europe, Russia, China and the United Nations. Change itself was welcomed by the Gulf Arabs, who grew to dislike many aspects of President Obama's Middle East policy. But so little is certain about Trump's positions that even those urging support cautioned that "nobody knows" where he stands. Given Trump's sparse record, several speakers focused on his obvious personality traits. One argued that Trump is clearly a vain man, so flatter him -- as many world leaders have done in their contacts since Nov. 8. Another cautioned that Trump is a volatile man, so don't corner him. A third argued that he's transactional -- a self-proclaimed "deal-maker" -- so look for the deals that will serve the region's interests. Trump's rhetorical volleys against trade drew surprisingly little comment, given that the UAE is a symbol of globalization. Nor did his anti-Muslim remarks draw any rebuke. One prominent attendee said at least Trump would be anti-Shiite (hard on Iran) as well as anti-Sunni, which he claimed Obama has been. Perhaps in these mercantile city-states, people doubt that Trump could reverse the momentum of diverse, multicultural global commerce even if he wanted. The build-out is just moving too fast: At a backyard dinner in Dubai hosted by Afghan media mogul Saad Mohseni, I met young entrepreneurs investing in East African logistics networks, Saudi supermarkets, South Asian power grids and a raft of other projects. Two issues facing Trump garnered special focus at the Sir Bani Yas discussions. The Iran nuclear deal is the first conundrum. Throughout the campaign, Trump suggested he would scrap the agreement or renegotiate it. But there was near-unanimity here that Trump should accept the agreement as a done deal, and focus instead on curbing Iran's aggressive behavior in the region. This consensus included even officials who had been among the agreement's strident critics. "Only someone who wants to send us into the unknown world would tear it up," said one prominent Gulf Arab official. "Nobody is really against the deal," said another, after sharply criticizing the way it was negotiated. Many in this group hoped that Trump would be tougher in challenging Iranian provocations. Trump said during the campaign that if Iranian gunboats harassed U.S. Navy ships in the Gulf, he would blow them out of the water. That's the kind of anti-Iran pushback the Gulf Arabs want to see (albeit with someone else's ships at risk). Trump's willingness to consider allying with Russia in Syria was the second big, overarching issue. Many Arab officials here backed the Syrian opposition against President Bashar Assad, so you might think that any hint that Trump would partner with Moscow would be anathema. But in the Middle East, political support tends to go with a winner, and Russia looks like the strong player in Syria these days. Representatives of the Syrian opposition spoke movingly of the human cost of Russia's intervention, and argued that the fall of Aleppo would mean permanent war. Russian speakers made some of the most provocative comments at the conference. Hillary Clinton's intervention policies would have driven America toward "an abyss" and a "kinetic collision in Syria," said one. "Now, with Trump, we have at least taken a step back." Could a new U.S.-Russian dialogue -- which draws in Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the other Middle East players -- stabilize this region and calm its fratricidal sectarian wars? Several speakers explored that possibility. A Gulf Arab suggested such a concert of nations, including the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus the regional powers. An American expert recalled the Madrid peacemaking conference in 1991, after the end of the Cold War. A Russian recalled the 1815 Congress of Vienna that brought peace to a fractured Europe. As Don Corleone convened the "five families" in "The Godfather," so, too, perhaps, might Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin gather America, Russia, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. But experts warn against "Yalta II" -- a new Russian-American attempt to designate "spheres of influence" that carve up the region. There were no answers here about life in the new world of Donald Trump, but so many intriguing questions. David Ignatius' email address is davidignatiuswashpost.com. (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group Donald Trump election Hundreds of protesters blocked an intersection in downtown Portland earlier this month -- one of more than a dozen such rallies that prompt this writer to question the concept of accepting the results of fair elections. (Stephanie Yao Long/Staff) Dan Laschober Against the backdrop of wanton destruction of property and people getting injured, the rioters in Portland ostensibly protesting the outcome of the presidential election have opened my eyes. I now clearly see the folly of accepting fair elections and how passe is the notion of being elected on the basis of one's ideas and principles. So, now that I am fully woke, here's how this voter intends to treat the recent results. Kate Brown is not my governor. Until such time as she roots out the corruption and commits to a truly transparent administration, she does not speak for me. Furthermore, her unwillingness to accept the economic realities of PERS, the anti-Constitutional attacks on Second Amendment rights and her willingness to be at the beck and call of unions who fund her campaigns is unacceptable and disqualifies her from serving as my governor. Should she refocus her efforts on improving educational outcomes, finding ways to trim government, and cease signing off on mindless and unhelpful legislation like 'coal to clean,' I might reconsider my position. Tina Kotek is not my Speaker of the House. Given the relentless assault on free markets and economic liberty by someone who has never held a real job, she cannot be taken seriously in her current capacity. However, being of an accommodating nature, I will agree that should Ms. Kotek eventually realize it's not government's role to dictate what price people pay for labor between consenting parties, that it's not her job to determine what qualifies as a fair rent, and that taxing people and private enterprise like one milks a cow has its limits, I might be persuaded to listen to her ideas again. Share your opinion Submit your essay of 700 words or less to commentary@oregonlive.com. Please include your email and phone number for verification. Ron Wyden is not my U.S. Senator. Billed as a champion of the elderly, Mr. Wyden continues to lie about Social Security financial health, has made no effort to fix Obamacare as he promised six years ago, nor has he apologized for his role in the failure of Cover Oregon and the waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. As Finance Committee Chair, Mr. Wyden's futility in addressing issues of tax simplification and American competitiveness, the hemorrhaging of Social Security, a doubling of the national debt in only eight years, and inaction on the depleted Highway Trust Fund lead me to conclude he is not up to the job. After almost four decades in Washington, it's doubtful this lifelong politician can win my confidence. But let it be known, should he uncharacteristically assist the Congressional Republicans and the new administration in their efforts to improve Americans' well-being and work to rein in the federal government, I will be the first to recognize his official standing. Sure, these people were just re-elected to their respective public offices, but that's no longer relevant in the new America which rejects this quaint notion. I, for one, am thrilled at my newfound ability to dismiss elected officials as I see fit, rejecting those who trigger my hyperbolic imagination and welcoming into the fold those who think correctly. For that, Portland, I thank you. Dan Laschober is a software consultant and former U.S. Senate candidate who lives in Wilsonville. TRUMP HOTEL.JPG Donald Trump's hotel in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/File) By Noah Feldman President-elect Donald Trump is poised to violate the foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution, at least according to the chief ethics lawyer of the George W. Bush administration. The idea is that when foreign officials stay in a Trump International Hotel to ingratiate themselves with the president, they'll be giving him an emolument -- that is, a form of payment -- in violation of Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution. And The Washington Post recently reported that Trump's Washington hotel actively solicited diplomats with a reception that included a tour of a 6,300-square-foot suite that goes for $20,000 a night. This suggestion prompts three questions, none of which I could have answered without research: What the heck is the foreign emoluments clause? Does it cover Trump's conduct? And if it does, who, if anyone, can bring a case in court to do anything about it? The clause itself says that "no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State." I teach constitutional law for a living and am the co-author of what my publishers assure me is the leading constitutional law casebook; let me tell you, I've never given the foreign emoluments clause more than a moment's thought before. The framers didn't spend much time on it, either. They cribbed the language almost verbatim from Article VI of the Articles of Confederation, altering it only to add the exception for the consent of Congress and to leave out state offices, which the Articles covered. The idea behind the clause is pretty intuitive: If federal officials can be compensated by foreign governments, they can be bought. The worry went back to England, where France paid many Parliament members and other government officials in the 17th century. It was also relevant to the framers' world. General James Wilkinson, a Revolutionary War veteran who later held the highest rank in the U.S. Army from 1800 to 1812, was for much of that time a paid agent of the kingdom of Spain -- not that anyone knew it until later. It's pretty clear that the clause was intended to stop foreign governments from currying favor with federal officials through gifts. In spirit, therefore, it would prohibit Trump from taking favor-currying gifts. But what about the letter of the law? Trump's hotel, after all, may be overpriced, but its guests would get beds and a roof over their heads. Their payment therefore isn't a gift. Is it an emolument? The answer is a qualified yes. Richard Painter, Bush's ethics lawyer, has said that government officials may legally engage in ordinary business transactions such as the sale of an automobile or real estate at face value to a foreign government, but that the Constitution would be violated by a sweetheart deal or special benefits for the official. I think the clause covers hotel rooms, even without special benefits. An "emolument" in 18th century English didn't just mean a free gift. It included ordinary compensation for services or other profit, such as salary or fees. A hotel room rented with the goal of profit should count. On my reading, then, Trump can't receive any direct payment of any kind from a foreign government, including a fee for services. But suppose he does it anyway. Who has the authority to stop him? Here things get pretty murky. To go to federal court and allege a violation of the Constitution, you must have standing -- which means you need to have suffered a concrete injury as a result of the unlawful conduct. And you need a statute that authorizes your lawsuit. It's been suggested that competing hotels would be injured by Trump's hotel taking their business, and that this would give them standing to sue. Maybe, although a court might not accept this theory of standing. The point of the clause isn't to protect against competition, and the other hotels aren't injured by Trump transacting with foreign governments per se. Even if the hotels do have standing, there isn't an obvious federal law to authorize a suit. The competitors' constitutional rights haven't been violated, so they can't use 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, the statute that allows for such suits. If no private party can sue, that leaves Congress, which could treat the receipt of foreign emolument as a high crime or misdemeanor and therefore as grounds for impeachment. Under this Congress, that seems unlikely. What that leaves is public pressure to enforce the clause. Trump should take that pressure seriously, and divest himself from any business of any kind with foreign governments. Hotel rooms may be small potatoes. But other businesses may be bigger -- and the Constitution matters, even if it isn't easily enforceable in court. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View Noah Feldman, a Bloomberg View columnist, is a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard. Federal prosecutors must tell the court on Dec. 12 how they plan to proceed with the remaining seven Oregon standoff defendants set to go to trial in mid-February, U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown ordered Monday. The prosecutors must say what charges they intend to pursue against each of the defendants or if they plan to seek a further delay in the Feb. 14 trial. During a brief status conference, Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel told the judge that the government is still evaluating evidence and considering other charges against the seven in light of last month's acquittal of occupation leader Ammon Bundy and other key figures. He asked for several more weeks to decide. The judge wasn't pleased. "You can't keep a trial date with maybes and ifs. It's just not good enough,'' Brown said. "If the government is going to proceed against one or more defendants, it should be able to say so.'' Earlier Monday, prosecutors indicated in an email sent to defense lawyers that they wanted to confer about delaying the February trial. In court, however, prosecutors didn't make any mention of their interest in a possible delay until a defense lawyer brought it up at the very end. "We may seek to do that, your honor,'' Gabriel told the judge. He said prosecutors wanted to further talk with defense lawyers. Six men and one woman still face a federal conspiracy charge in the case stemming from the 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge over government control of public land. Defense lawyers, including Oregon's federal public defender, and some of the defendants themselves have urged the government to drop all charges in the wake of the across-the-board acquittals on Oct. 27 of Ammon Bundy, brother Ryan Bundy, Shawna Cox and four others on conspiracy, weapons and other charges. Those scheduled for trial: Jason Patrick of Bonaire, Georgia; Duane Leo Ehmer of Irrigon; Dylan Anderson of Provo, Utah; Sean Anderson and his wife, Sandra Lynn Anderson, of Riggins, Idaho; Darryl W. Thorn of Marysville, Washington; and Jake Ryan of Plains, Montana. They were among 26 people indicted on a conspiracy charge. Eleven others pleaded guilty to the charge, though two of those defendants have asked to withdraw their pleas. The government dropped charges against another, Pete Santilli. Only Patrick was present in court Monday. He asked the judge why she gave him only four extra days to decide whether he wanted to go to trial last September or delay his prosecution until February, but now is granting prosecutors three extra weeks to review evidence and make their decisions on how to proceed. The judge told Patrick that this matter isn't comparable. "There are seven of you who are accused,'' she said, and set the Dec. 12 deadline for the government to report back to her. The judge called the defense lawyers' request for 2,000 potential jurors to be summoned "extraordinary'' and said she didn't feel that such a large pool was warranted. For the first trial, 1,500 jurors were summoned and sent written questionnaires to fill out first before the jury selection process in court got underway. Defense lawyer Jesse Merrithew, who represents Jake Ryan, said the defense wants to make sure potential jurors aren't biased by a "new prejudice,'' resulting from October's verdicts and "whether the verdict was correct or not.'' The judge suggested that matter could be raised as a reason to continue the February trial. Yet, she added, "I'm very much inclined to stay focused on Feb. 14,'' noting that date was set months ago. The judge ordered both defense and prosecutors to submit any suggested changes to the first trial's jury questionnaire to her also by Dec. 12. Additional questions likely will include whether the potential juror is familiar with the first Oregon standoff trial and the verdicts. -- Maxine Bernstein mbernstein@oregonian.com 503-221-8212 @maxoregonian Tuesday 22 November 2016 9:39am Associate Professor Peter Fineran Bacteria can boost their own immune systems by talking to each other, surprising new research from the University of Otago shows. The findings by a team led by Associate Professor Peter Fineran of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology appear in the international journal Molecular Cell. Associate Professor Fineran says that in the same way that humans are susceptible to viruses like influenza and measles, bacteria also need to defend themselves against viruses. As humans, we have evolved sophisticated immune systems that enable our bodies to fight the viral infections that render us ill. Amazingly, bacteria although single celled organisms often possess similar adaptive immunity called CRISPR-Cas systems. But the way that these CRISPR-Cas systems function is very much different to our own immune systems, he says. His teams research provides new insight into how groups of bacteria collectively defend against viral threats. People have long understood the advantages of living in communities and bacteria are no different, often residing in close quarters to share resources. However, there are also potential drawbacks to community life as high-density bacterial populations are more vulnerable to the spread of viruses just like people in a crowded bus or a daycare centre, he says. The breakthrough came when the researchers discovered that the ability of bacteria to gauge the number of cells in their communities enabled the bacteria to boost the power of their CRISPR-Cas immune systems to prevent viral outbreaks. Associate Professor Fineran says the bacteria sense the population density by talking to each other using a form of chemical communication known as quorum sensing. The higher the population density, the stronger the communication between cells becomes, which results in greater coordination of immune defenses, he says. Adrian Patterson, a PhD student and first author on the paper, says the study shows that bacterial cells preemptively elevate their immunity when they are most at risk of a virus spreading through the population. They both increase their ability to generate new immune memories and strengthen existing immunity by up to 500-fold, Mr Patterson says. The role of CRISPR-Cas in providing bacteria with viral immunity was only discovered in the past decade. The systems create genetic memories of specific past viral infections by taking little snippets of the viruses DNA and storing them in memory banks to aid in recognising and destroying future infections. One of the least understood aspects of the CRISPR-Cas field is how bacteria control the activity of these systems. Too much activity can result in an autoimmune-like disease, killing the host cell, but too little activity might allow viruses to wipe out entire bacterial communities. The teams research shows that by openly communicating with each other, bacteria strike the right balance between these two outcomes. Dr Simon Jackson, second author of the study, says bacterial immune systems are fascinating to study. Lately we have made significant advances in understanding how they function. The really exciting part of our most recent discovery is that we predict the communication-based coordination of CRISPR-Cas immunity to be widespread throughout bacterial species. The teams research was supported by a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship from the Royal Society of New Zealand and through its Marsden Fund. For further information, contact: Associate Professor Peter Fineran Department of Microbiology & Immunology University of Otago Tel 64 3 479 7735 Email: peter.fineran@otago.ac.nz http://micro.otago.ac.nz/our-people/peter-fineran/ This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate This years Michigan Adoption Day was celebrated Monday, with eight children finalizing their forever homes with the help of a special guest who also was adopted: Superman. This is our favorite day, Midland County Probate Judge Dorene S. Allen said while opening the proceedings. Adoptions are private cases, and the cases heard for Adoption Day were special in the fact that the families agreed to participate in open court. Allen has multiple traditions for the day, including signing each childs order with a special light up pen, which is then given to the child. First up were the adoptions of Dawson, age 2, and Devin, age 4. The boys, dressed in button down shirts and little vests, sat on the laps of their forever parents, Torie and Paul Rodgers, in front of Allen while she read the orders. Were just happy theyre going to be part of our family now officially, Torie said. Paul added he was happy to have the adoption finalized after 2 1/2 years of work to make it happen. The boys were the first of the day to participate in another Adoption Day tradition being the judge in their own proceedings. Allen explained to them about the gavel: It looks like a hammer, but its not, she said, asking each if theyd like to hold it. Then, she helped each one strike the gavel and said, Court is closed. Later on, it was Margarets turn for her special day, which she had chosen to refer to as her coronation day. For this special occasion, she arrived wearing her princess dress. Her mother, Clara Harrand, said the 3-year-old has been watching Frozen and picked up the concept from the movie. So, shes been happy about coronation day, Clara said later with a laugh, while Margaret insisted on eating her piece of cake all by herself. Everything has to be independent. The day included two grandparent adoptions, as well as the step parent adoption of Paige, 11, and Logan, 15. This is a good example of the power of grandparents, Allen told Doris Robinson, who adopted Sophia, age 4, and Sherrie Corner, who adopted Aleczander, 2, and Carlie, 4. Its great to have a safety net that we have no doubts about. Superman handed out gift bags with a book and stuffed animal to each adoptee. Superman, you made it, Allen told him from the bench. It was a good experience, said Superman, also known as Steve Wixson, Midland County public guardian. Its just nice to see good things happening. Also in court Monday morning was U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, who presented the 2016 Angels in Adoption Award to Theresa and Chad Walters of Midland County. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Looking for a relaxing, enjoyable experience? Gather some friends. Head to Traverse City. Turn north on M-37, travel up Old Mission Peninsula until reaching Bonobo Winery. Once there, grab a glass of wine, view a picturesque sunset over Grand Traverse Bay and experience all that Traverse City has to offer. Thats the ambience that Todd and Caroline Oosterhouse envisioned as they started Bonobo in 2010 when they planted their first grapes. Instead of being rushed, we like for people to be relaxed. Just let people come in and enjoy themselves, Todd said. If there is a place to go in Traverse City, I always say it is here. You kind of capture all of what is Traverse City, whether it is the food, the wine, the sights and being treated a certain way. Caroline agreed. We offer more of an experience with the food and seating and the level of service. Just the comfort and the views. Thats why we wanted to start something different, said the Midland native, who is the daughter of Tom and Holly Valent. Upon arrival at Bonobo, the first stop is the warm and inviting tasting room. Here, wine connoisseurs can sample the dry wines at the bar, sitting on a couch by the fireplace or out back on the porch. Were going for something a little bit more drier, more European style. Not a lot of the added sugars, said Caroline, as she and Todd sat down with the Daily News. Sugars mask imperfections in wine and weve been enlightened by a very good wine maker who has kind of schooled us on how to still have amazing wines without the added sugars. Next stop is out back to the westward facing porch, which captures a spectacular view overlooking the Grand Traverse Bay and the nearly 20 acres of vineyards. The mild and sunny fall afternoon saw a gathering of people milling around on the porch with a glass of wine, complimented by savoring small plates and pairings by American chef, writer and restaurateur Mario Batali. To be taken seriously in the wine world you really want to show whats actually coming from your soils, not just putting sugars in there to mask imperfections, Todd said. With the Traverse City area up and coming, if you really want to make a splash, you need to have people say, I can tell this is from Old Mission Peninsula. Initial wines from Bonobo included Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc. Eventually our goal is that you would taste the terroir of Old Mission Peninsula. If you can capture that in a bottle with as little alteration as possible, thats the end goal, Caroline said. The wine list includes eight to 10 different wines. We have about three different chardonnays on the menu, Todd said. We try to keep (our selection) at a minimum, but give the audience a chance to actually see the difference. Why is my chardonnay different then somebodys down the road? We really try to pride ourselves on doing a really great chardonnay. As wine lovers proceed through a tasting, the goal is to distinguish the difference between each individual wine. We dont want you to taste something at the beginning and then get to the end and ask, What was the difference? Todd stated. Following graduation from Dow High, Caroline taught school for a couple of years in northern Michigan then relocated to Austin, Texas, where she met Todd. A love for Michigan brought the Oosterhouses back after the birth of their first child. Todd and his brother, Carter, had been talking about big plans for a vineyard and starting a business up here. I was happy to come back along on that ride, Caroline said with a laugh. Todd was just as happy to return to his native town and co-own the winery with brother, Carter, and wife, Amy. Who doesnt want to come back to Traverse City if youve grown up here? Todd said. We were coming back in the summers and my brother, Carter, lives in Los Angeles and comes back in the summers. The lure of Traverse City began the pursuit of a permanent transition for Todd and Caroline. We just started looking at different industries. What was happening in the area? What was changing? We started talking about it in 2008 when the economy wasnt so robust, Todd said. At that point, the area was just starting to be recognized and praised for its quality of wine. Tasting rooms became more than just tasting rooms, now they became a place to hang out, to have experiences, to enjoy the atmosphere, Todd said. We really wanted to embellish that. The winery name, Bonobo, comes from the Bonobo Conservatory in the Republic of Congo. Bonobos are a great ape species found exclusively in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are endangered and may become extinct in the next 75 years. Only between 50,000 and 75,000 remain in the wild today. We are a socially conscience group anyway. My brother and his wife have been involved with a lot of different environmental concerns, Todd said. Those environmental concerns extend to the growing side also as Bonobo doesnt use herbicides or pesticides. Its important for people to understand that we try to be as natural as possible, Caroline said. It starts in the vineyard with very natural farming practices, even exploring the biodynamic farming, which goes beyond organic. Our whole team is very passionate about that. In the local area, patrons may purchase wines from Eastman Party Store, at 5205 Eastman Ave. To contact Bonobo, or for more information, call (231) 282-9463 or go to bonobowinery.com This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Andrew Liveris, chairman and CEO of The Dow Chemical Co., recently met with Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, Saudi Arabias deputy crown prince, second deputy premier and minister of defense. The two discussed Dows existing investments in the kingdom and potential future opportunities aligned to the companys growth strategy and Saudi Arabias Vision 2030, according to a news release. Dow has been a strategic partner in Saudi Arabia for nearly four decades and is the largest foreign investor in the country, Liveris said in the news release. We look forward to playing a key role in helping advance the Saudis Vision 2030 plan designed to create a vibrant society and a thriving diversified economy. In June, Saudi Arabia unveiled plans to more than triple its nonoil revenue by 2020 while cutting state handouts to counter falling energy prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. That same month, Dow became the first company to receive a trading license from the Saudi government, allowing 100 percent ownership in the countrys trading sector and expanding Dows long history of partnership and investment in the kingdom. The trading license advances Dows ability to deliver high-value, innovative products that will benefit the country in the areas of sustainable development, energy-efficiency, oil and gas, alternative energy and water. Dow maintains several joint ventures in the region including a joint venture with Juffali & Brothers, and Saudi Acrylic Monomer Company (SAMCo). Additional strategic investments in the country include Sadara Chemical Co. (Sadara), Dows joint venture with Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Saudi Aramco), agreements with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) to construct a new Dow Middle East Research and Development Center, and a Reverse Osmosis manufacturing facility the first unit of its kind outside of the United States. Dow currently has more than 500 employees in Saudi Arabia. In August, Dows Sadara Chemical Co. started its mixed feed cracker, producing ethylene and propylene to be used in a variety of plastics and specialty chemical products. It is a joint venture between Dow and Saudi Aramco, worth an estimated $20 billion in investments according to its website. Sadara is located in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia, and is anticipated to produce more than three million tons of products every year. The nations recent presidential election brought out people from all walks of life to get involved in the political process, many for the first time. And based on what Ive been reading, hearing and observing, many of those new to the political process have been turned off by what theyve seen from Democrats, particularly those camped out in the partys Left Wing, following the election of Donald Trump to the White House. Harsh rhetoric. Bitterness and bullying. Protests that stop traffic, intimidate citizens and block customers from entering businesses. What Americans are witnessing is an aggressive and intolerant segment of Democratic Party in action, and that has to be a concern for fair-minded Democrats who dont want to be associated with that type of behavior. But thats exactly the connection and thats not a good recipe to grow a party, especially after losing such a bitter and close presidential election. Here is what is disturbing about whats transpired so far post-election a lack of leadership from Democrats to denounce these actions. Rioting in Portland and Philadelphia, and other cities. Traffic blocked in San Francisco and Los Angeles and Chicago. A Trump voter videotaped being beaten in Chicago. Violence, intimidation and verbal assaults. That is how the Democratic Party is viewed these days by many Americans. Someone in the party needs to realize this, step up and tell these rioters and other thugs to knock it off, but, so far, that has not happened. Peaceful protest is one thing, but damaging property, intimidating citizens and wrecking havoc in our nations cities is totally unacceptable. Hillary Clinton could have said something. So could have President Obama. Both have chosen to ignore speaking out against the violent protesters, who, like it or not, are rioting in support of Democrats. The silence makes no sense. And that silence does not go unnoticed because the public notices. People talk and share thoughts on social media. Americans are concerned about the lawlessness in these protests. It doesnt attract them, it repels them. The media wont be a truth-teller, and speak out against these acts, either. That silence, too, is noticed by the public, whose trust in the mainstream media is justifiably at an all-time low. If theres one thing that the 2016 election taught us, its that the mainstream media is firmly behind the Democratic Party, and has a very difficult time holding the party accountable. After losing the November election, Democrats are doing a lot of soul-searching. Theyre talking about everything from how to get more voters to the polls to getting new blood in the leadership ranks. Theyre looking for answers to win future elections. So heres a simple start: Party leaders need to take a firm stand and boldly speak out against the rioting and violent acts committed in the partys name. They need to strongly denounce it, and not remain silent. Not just now, but when future acts happen as well. That simple but profound action alone would be a good start in reconnecting with voters, and help the Democratic partys credibility in the eyes of many disappointed and frustrated Americans. Chris Stevens writes columns for the Editorial page. Email him at stevens@mdn.net BLOOMINGTON Motorists traveling through Central Illinois this week for Thanksgiving should have no problems with winter weather, according to meteorologists with the National Weather Service in Lincoln. We will have a dry forecast on Thursday, and its going to be about as close to a normal fall day as you can have, said Kirk Huettl, a meteorologist with the NWS. Tuesday will be mostly cloudy with a high near 46 degrees and then showers are likely on Tuesday evening, Huettl said. The overnight low will be around 40 degrees. We are going to still be well above freezing, so there shouldnt be any danger of slick roads, he said. Showers are likely on Wednesday, with a high near 49 degrees. On Thursday, the high will be around 45 degrees, he added. Thats right about average for this time of year, he said. The warmest Thanksgiving Day for Bloomington-Normal was a high of 68 degrees on Nov. 25, 1915. The coldest Thanksgiving morning was 1 degree below zero on Nov. 23, 1950. There is no snow expected on Thanksgiving Day, but it has happened in the past. Four inches of snow fell on Nov. 30, 1893. In 1975, a major snowstorm hit Central Illinois before Thanksgiving, leaving 7 inches of snow on the ground on Nov. 27. There has been snow on the ground on eight out of the past 112 Thanksgiving Days, which is as long as those records have been kept. Friday and Saturday will be about the same as Thursday, he said. There is a chance for some rain on Saturday night, and maybe going into Sunday, but still, we will be well above freezing and we shouldnt have any hazardous weather around here. This is my sixth year highlighting favorite books that are diverse but not about diversity. I get a lot of raised eyebrows and questions about this peculiar genre. Well, there are a lot of books out there that are diverse and about diversity meaning that they are written by an author from a minority group and are specifically about that particular group's unique life experiences. For example, Jennine Capo Crucet's "Make Your Home Among Strangers" is a devastating story about the trade-offs a first-generation college student makes when she leaves home for that "better life" all immigrant parents wish for their children. Lizet's experiences are universal to any first-in-their-family to attend college. But her Cuban-American identity struggle in the shadow of the circa-2000 Elian Gonzalez drama makes for a story that has particular resonance for Latino readers. This is fantastic obviously, writers of color often pursue literature in order to tell their own stories. Equally wonderful, however, is when an author gets to write for a very broad audience on a topic not specifically associated with his or her ethnicity. As Puerto Rican novelist and founder of La Casita Grande Editores, a new publishing house specializing in Latino and Caribbean literature, Jonathan Marcantoni recently told me, "The biggest challenge in the Latino publishing scene is getting stories that go outside of immigration, identity and the American Dream narrative, which is what Latino authors are stuck in. It's almost an unspoken rule that if you tell a story, it has to include one of these things, and as a result there aren't too many science fiction, crime or romance novels written by Latinos and other writers of color that stand on their own as genre works." This is why it's so important to highlight when such authors and books do come along they have stories to tell that are meant for everyone and aren't anchored by the few topics that have been deemed authentic and acceptable for nonwhite authors. So here are the top three barrier-breaking books I read in 2016. First, "Night at the Fiestas: Stories" by Kirstin Valdez Quade. This is a book I internally summarized as short stories about children being traumatized by their callous parents' enigmatic behavior. An excerpt: "When she'd taken off the dress today, Monica hadn't even felt cold, so filled was she with the dark exhilaration of punishing Cordelia. In giving away Cordelia's lovely, meaningless inheritance, she'd made an adversary of her 7-year-old daughter, and now even that she held against her." The stories aren't all about parents and children, but if you like lots of relationship-driven, quietly tense scenarios that veer toward being too painful to read, Valdez Quade delivers it in beautiful prose. Next, something more my cup of tea: A business book written by someone even more unique than a black swan a Hispanic quantitative analyst who left the loving embrace of Goldman Sachs for the high-flying world of high-tech startups. Part bootstrap how-to, part insider look at the machinations of venture capital, "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez begins with a biting description of what it's like to be a product manager at a conference room table with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. It skyrockets from there. "Chaos Monkeys" is not without its faults Garcia Martinez is emblematic of a sexist, high-tech bro culture and giddily compounds it with references to his being a Latin lover. But if you already can't stand spoiled, entitled Silicon Valley types yet crave an insider look, I guarantee you'll enjoy this book. Last, but definitely not least in terms of plain fun is "IQ: A gritty, emotional, and clever thriller about a brilliant young private detective helping inner-city Los Angeles residents," by Joe Ide. Ide, a Japanese-American author serves up an uber-smart, clean-eating Sherlock who just happens to live in the 'hood. This description doesn't do "IQ" justice, because there's nothing in this book that is pat, or even completely familiar. Isaiah Quintabe is so urban cool that he alternates between being an action hero and steering lady callers to his apartment away from his pet chicken (I.Q. takes payment from his clients in cooked and raw foodstuffs, among other things). He is darkly moody and, of course, breathtakingly clever. In short, he's as captivating as the South Central Los Angeles characters he dwells among. Don't miss it. I couldnt help but notice news reports lamenting the failures of the American electorate this past election. According to a couple of national news channels, we elected a bigoted racist. Another newspaper article expressed concern for Americas inability to elect a woman president. The article went on to explain how other nations have done so, but we have failed in this task. Nothing in this article expressed any concern that our recent female presidential candidate was perhaps flawed and carried a lot of baggage. The post-election, big city protest marches were the main story coming out of America the day after the elections. Unfortunately, the liberal media, echoing the DNC talking points over and over the past several presidential elections, have successfully stamped into the mindset of minority and inner-city citizens that any white Republican male candidate is affluent, a bigot, anti-woman, anti-labor, etc. No wonder these protests occurred. If I believed my next president to be all these things, I would be protesting, too. I did not vote for Trump, but I dont view his anti-open border, immigration vetting, and law and order stances as racist or bigoted. These are common sense policies warmly embraced by most Americans. Rick Skelley, Bloomington Sexism and racism gave us our president-elect. Our horrifying message: A misogynistic, racist bully gets the most prestigious position in the world over the most-qualified person ever to seek that office. Women are just objects, and the man who boasts about sexual assault and being a sexual predator becomes president instead of the extremely talented, dedicated, intelligent woman with a stellar public service record. She is an exceptional role model for the world. A lying narcissist who opened his campaign with racist appeals (against Mexicans, Muslims, African Americans and our own president) and closed it with anti-Semitic sentiments is our next president. The Trump White House is now a shopping mall for their businesses buy the bracelet Ivanka wore on "60 Minutes" while security clearances are sought for his kids. Politifact determined that over 70 percent of Trumps statements were mostly false or worse. Clintons percentage is 27 percent. True or mostly true statements: 53 percent of Clintons but only 9 percent for Trump. Clinton voluntarily disclosed 38 years of tax returns, Trump zero. Emails? Trump destroyed countless that he was court-ordered to release for numerous lawsuits against him. Trumps specific obligations are murky, including to Russia and substantial debts to foreign entities, but we know connections exist. Trumps national security adviser, Michael Flynn, is a dinner guest of Putins. Along with KKK Trump victory rallies, hate crimes are on the rise and our children are being bullied. This isnt what America should be. Brenda Wernick, Bloomington Neucel in Talks with Union to Restart Port Alice Dissolving Pulp Mill Nov. 22, 2016 Neucel reportedly would like to restart its Specialty Cellulose pulp mill in Port Alice, British Columbia, Canada, and on Nov. 14 met with Unifor Local 514 to talk about ways to cut fixed costs. We need to reduce our fixed costs, and wages are a large part of fixed costs, said Neucel's Vice President of Human Resources Warren Beatty, who added that in order for the company to restart pulp production, they need to change the way we do things. We need a process to make those changes, which was why we asked to reopen the collective agreement. According to a news story in the North Island Gazette, Neucel has recently been looking at ways to cut financial costs during the pulp mill's production curtailment, and they made a request to the 514 union to reopen the five-year collective agreement that was signed back in 2013. The 514 Union held a meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 14 to discuss Neucel's request to reopen the agreement, which is currently in effect until Dec. 31, 2017. "The company put forward a request," said 514 Union President Don Vye. "We have due process to respond to them, so we put forward the information to a meeting on Tuesday night. Senior officers and wage delegates voted 96 per cent in favor to arrange a meeting to sit down and tell the company we are willing to discuss some specific areas of cost reduction." Beatty told the North Island Gazette, The union requested some additional information at the meeting, which we are currently in the process of giving them. The union will then decide whether to accept it, or to make other recommendations by Dec. 19. Neucel curtailed production in March of 2015. The downtime, which was the result of low prices for the company's dissolving wood product, was originally intended to last for six months. But after the six-month timeframe, poor market conditions remained and the production curtailment was extended indefinitely. However, market conditions are improving and Neucel is hoping it can reduce operating costs and get the mill back up and running. The market price for our product is strengthening, which is why we are now working towards restarting the mill," Beatty is quoted as saying in the North Island Gazette's story. SOURCE: North Island Gazette Stora Enso Vessel Collects Climate Data from the Baltic Sea Nov. 22, 2016 - While the Stora Enso vessel TransPaper travels between Northern Finland and Continental Europe carrying board and paper to our customers, it is also helping researchers gather climate data from what is one of the world's most sensitive waters, the brackish Baltic Sea. The boat is equipped with an automated device collecting air and water samples at regular intervals for environmental research. It measures, for instance, salinity, chlorophyll, alkalinity, phosphate/nitrate levels, and the concentration of cyanobacterias. In addition, measurement of the sea surface temperature is used for modeling ice coverage in Bothnian Bay. The sampling is organised by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) and the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE). Measuring the conditions of the sea 3-4 metres below the surface, water samples are automatically collected at 15 locations along the vessel's weekly route. To follow the real-time data delivered from the vessel TransPaper, visit: Baltic data. Stora Enso is a leading provider of renewable solutions in packaging, biomaterials, wooden constructions and paper on global markets. To learn more, please visit: www.storaenso.com SOURCE: Stora Enso North American Wood Fiber Prices Continued Downward Trend thru 3Q 2016 Wood fiber costs for pulp mills in Canada and the US have fallen over the past year as a result of higher availability of residual chips from the continent's sawmills, reports the North American Wood Fiber Review. The biggest price declines have been in the US Northwest and Northeast regions, but prices have also fallen quite dramatically throughout Canada. Nov. 22, 2016 (Press Release) - Prices for wood fiber consumed by the pulp industry in North America have fallen over the past year in all regions of the continent with the exception of the US South, reports the North American Wood Fiber Review (NAWFR). The biggest declines have been in the northwestern and northeastern US where prices have fallen between 10-15% from the 3Q/15 to the 3Q/16. In the US Northwest, where a majority of the fiber furnish is sawmills residuals, prices have fallen 11% in one year but are still higher than the 25-year average price. Current price levels for softwood chips in Washington and Oregon are the second highest in North America, behind the Lake States region. The lowest cost regions for chips are the US South, British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec. Healthy operating rates at the sawmills in the Pacific Northwest and high chip inventories at the region's pulp mills are the major factors behind the recent price declines, and this downward trend is likely to continue into the 4Q/16. The high supply of residual chips has resulted in less demand for costlier roundwood chips, leading to declining pulplog prices. The average prices for Douglas-fir and hemlock log prices were 13% lower in the 3Q/16 as compared to the 3Q/15, according to the NAWFR. Chips and pulplogs prices in the US South, which have been nearly unchanged for over a year at levels close to the highest since the 1980's when NAWFR started tracking prices in that region, also showed some modest easing during the fall but not to the degree seen in other regions in North America. Canadian wood fiber prices, in US dollar terms, have come down substantially from their record highs in 2012. Pulp mills throughout Canada have become much more competitive over the past few years and have gone from having the highest wood fiber costs in North America five years ago to currently having the lowest costs on the continent. In British Columbia, wood chip prices would most likely have fallen more than they have the past year had it not been for the commonly used formula linking chip prices to the NBSK pulp price, a price that has stayed fairly stable the past year. Wood Resources International, publisher of the North American Wood Fiber Review, is an internationally recognized forest industry-consulting firm. For further information, please visit: www.woodprices.com. SOURCE: Wood Resources International LLC Just last Sunday's finale season of "WAGS Miami," Darnell Nicole bravely discussed her separation from Reshad Jones while they were in Croatia having dinner. She is being listened to by her support group but they themselves also had trouble holding back tears. The single mom got the support she badly needed. Darnell explained after looking at Nicole's daughter, Cree, if she has the strength that would keep her standing up despite the pain and vowed that they will all be there to keep on standing and moving forward. This "WAGS Miami" moment is different from the previous emotional event, as per Online News Sources. The confrontation was between the best of friends in "WAGS Miami." Darnell Nicole sought the attention of Ashley Nicole Roberts while they were in Croatia for not understanding her tough situation with Reshad Jones whom she was splitting. Ashley, who is experiencing the opposite after getting engaged to Philip Wheeler, did not quite know how to deal with her friend. Despite being happy, she was there explaining her struggles to Vanessa Cole. She's supposed to be on top of the world, preparing for her wedding. With the best friend having a heart-breaking love life, she can't enjoy the feelings. Ashley wanted to be there for her but she's somewhat getting drowned emotionally from the balancing act thus showing a somewhat insensitive attitude. Reshad Jones demanded Ashley to return the engagement ring. Nothing is much more painful than that in the relationship arena. She managed to privately talk to Darnell, who openly expressed how she felt. No matter how bad the arguments were, they are for real. She told Ashley that she is hurting too with her sorrow and that she's also hurting her without knowing it. Darnell clarified that she loves Ashley and that's a beautiful thing. She blamed it all to herself that she's trying to survive the developments of her life right now and that she did not have the privilege to be able to tolerate someone who is treating her bad nor straighten her out. Don't miss WAGS Miami reunion Sunday special for Ashley's response at 10 p.m., on E! As the long wait for "Game of Thrones" Season 7 drags on, fans rely on leaks and spoilers from set to get updates on their favorite characters. The latest exciting news is that GoT Season 7 will finally see the Stark children to reunite. Also, the HBO production crew has been spotted recently in Spain, filming a huge battle scene which involves Lannister colors. Will Jamie Lannister fight for or against Queen Cersei? After being separated way back in Season 1, the Stark siblings are likely to see each other again in GoT Season 7. Actors Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Isaac Hempstead Wright and Kit Harrington have all been spotted in the same filming location dressed in their Stark garbs. However, the Independent reports that the reunion may not be an entirely happy one. The Starks have led different lives since being estranged from each other, and there are talks that Sansa (Turner) and Arya (Williams) will find conflict amid their reunion. Meanwhile, another unit of HBO crew has been spotted in Barrueco de Arriba, Spain. "Game of Thrones" fan site Watchers on the Wall reports that GoT is filming a huge battle scene involving a Dothraki ambush and the Lannisters. Photos from the set show caravans being attacked by Dothraki warriors. The caravans reportedly belong to the Lannisters. Is Jamie present in the attack? Moreover, the Dothraki are obviously under orders from Daenerys herself. Will there be a Daenerys-Jamie-Cersei meeting soon? Actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jamie in the series, has already been sighted in Spain recently. His sidekick Bron (Jerome Flynn), is confirmed to be in the location as well. However, actress Emilia Clarke, who portrays Daenerys, is said to be still in Belfast two days ago. Based on recent spoilers, we know that Jon Snow and Daenerys will indeed meet in the upcoming season. With the Stark siblings reuniting plus Jamie brushing off with Daenerys' soldiers, it looks like "Game of Thrones" Season 7 is gearing up for major reunions and resolutions. What do you think will happen in GoT Season 7? We'd love to hear your thoughts, please leave your comments below! "Moana", Disney's highly anticipated animated film with its iconic musical twist is set to hit overseas big screens next week under a different movie title. And the reason behind the quick change in name is as un-Disney as it can be. A change of movie title for movie screening abroad is quite a common practice in Hollywood for various reasons including cultural differences and market positioning. But according to Movie Fone, the makers of the hidden mickey has far greater reasons for the change in name of its latest animated film "Moana". The iconic maker of fairy tales that has been loved by both children and children at heart alike was quick to change its "Moana" film title as soon as they learned its Italian connotation. Disney's Polynesian princess' "Moana" shares her name with an Italian Pornstar. Moana Pozzi, an Italian Pornstar was one of the biggest names of Italian adult film industry. According to Variety, Moana Pozzi was hard to miss. In fact, the name Moana stands as a famous Italian household title despite the pornstars early death at age 33. During her brief life, Moana Pozzi was a superstar. From the reputation she built in the adult film making industry, Moana rose to become a television personality. She took her career to new heights in modelling and films. During her later years, the pornstar was even able to pursue her career on politics. Many experts believe that the pornstar's name relation to Disney's animated film "Moana" will serve as the film's advantage. However, in spite of the positive association of "Moana" in the country, Disney respectfully declined the offer. The iconic animated film creator did not want to associate its heartwarming story of "Moana", a young Polynesian girl who conquers the seas to be associated with an adult film superstar. For its Italian release, Disney decided to change the movie title from "Moana" to "Oceana." Despite the unforeseen change in the movie's title, Disney is positive that this beautiful film will successfully warm our hearts once more. Are you staying tune for "Oceana" slash "Moana"? Parenting is all about trying new techniques just to deal better with kids. Parents have a sense of responsibility and care over their children regardless of their race, culture, social and financial status. Life after becoming parents is a whole new experience and it could be overwhelming at times. Parenting is just as complicated for royal couple Kate Middleton and Prince William as for other common people. In a recent trip to Vietnam to attend the third international conference on illegal wildlife trade, Prince William shared the experience of parenting, according to Vanity Fair. Prince William told the local TV that it wasn't easy to get into parenthood because it's an entirely different lifestyle. Kate Middleton's husband explained life as a single and an independent person, and becoming a parent are two different phenomena. For adequate upbringing of children, it is necessary that both parents must give time and understanding to their children and their needs, as well to as their relationship as husband and wife. The Duke of Cambridge also admires the efforts of his 34-year-old wife in displaying the best examples as both a mother of their two kids, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, and as a spouse. Being a parent, Prince William wants the royal children to be more aware of the world around them, to have a nonmaterialistic approach towards life and must take inspiration from the lives of the people who have been an inspiration to the world. According to E News, the Duke of Cambridge admitted that the struggle was really on his adjustments as a father. But when it comes to their future, it is always a major concern and no parents could ignore thinking about it. Being a brother, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's firstborn son Prince George's attributes seem to be similar to Prince Harry. Princess Charlotte's childhood, on the other hand, has a lot to explore and Prince William intends to learn more about it . Meanwhile, being a parent requires to be more careful and insightful, But as for Prince William, even those couples that have been living in highest standards cannot explain nor escape the demands of parenting based on those aforementioned characteristics. A daycare owner who attempted to hang a toddler was arrested by authorities in Minneapolis. Nataliia Karia, 42, tried to flee the scene when her attempt towards the 16-month-old baby failed. Another parent who was dropping off her child at Nataliia Karia's Uptown Daycare heard the toddler's cries and saw that the boy has been hanging on a noose in the basement. The daycare owner was no longer in the scene, The Washington Post reports. Ambulance rushed the toddler to a nearby hospital for treatment and observation. According to Star Tribune, he's supposedly "doing fine" after what police describes as a "horrific" incident. A few blocks from the daycare center, the Minneapolis Police Department received calls about a woman causing a rampage. While driving a gold minivan, witnesses saw how he hit two men who were also later treated at a hospital. She also bumped a pregnant woman's car, who was unharmed but shaken from the incident. The rampage occurred for at least 25 minutes before Nataliia Karia was arrested. According to witnesses, she also attempted to jump off a bridge and was visibly distressed. Police confirmed that the daycare owner was also evaluated at a hospital before being sent to the Hennepin County Jail. The authorities released a statement on Facebook. Uptown Daycare is also under investigation along with Nataliia Karia. According to KTSP, the site has a license to operate and has done so since 2009. But following the incident, the daycare's license was immediately revoked. The parents of the children who also go to the daycare were notified by the authorities. Chaplains working with the police were on the site to assist parents in case they have questions about what happened. But at the moment, police still do not know what caused the daycare owner to hang the toddler. Her case is still under investigation. Adventure parks are breeding grounds for kids' ingenuity to run amok, as well as their parents' frenzied imagination. Hammers, cement, fire posts, bricks and boards can all make for a child's dream fort but for some mothers and fathers, they build in anxiety and constant questioning. All who take risks eventually get hurt at some point. So again, a very concerned parent may ask, "Are adventure playgrounds worth the risk?" "In a documentary on The Land, a Welsh adventure playground, a play worker describes the difference between risk and hazard: a risk you take on knowingly; a hazard is unexpected, like a nail sticking out of a board. The play workers are there to remove hazards and leave the risk," The New Yorker cites. Even though the younger kids under 6 require constant adult supervision, the older children are set free to explore on their own with facilitators nearby, to assess risks and manage them efficiently. Sometimes, the real danger is not found on the perils of the nearby streets and other hazards but on over-protecting the children. Yes, they might scrape their knees or trip and fall but such are part and parcel of growing up, testing boundaries and learning how to be safe. According to The Guardian, play has long been deemed as a vital part of a child's wellbeing and satisfaction, not to mention a boost to the development of their future life skills. Kids, who seem aloof, may have had lesser social interactions, which can be derived during playtime. The others lacking in confidence may have been less exposed to skill-building activities. The step of faith mothers and fathers take towards adventure playgrounds is a calculated one. In fact, The Huffington Post adds, "At Kolle 37, an Adventure Playground in Berlin where kids can build their own three-story forts with wood and nails, two children have broken bones and a couple have stepped on nails over the course of five years." This type of playground is less dangerous than it appears. In fact, the benefits of setting the children free far outweigh the risks. A school bus crash took place in Chattanooga, Tennessee resulting to the death of six children. A total of 35 students were on board when the incident took place Monday. CNN reported that the school bus slammed into a tree causing it to split apart. A spokeswoman for the Hamilton County District Attorney's Office confirmed the death toll but the scene was still active that is why the Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher did not give a precise number of children killed in the crash. The children on the bus are said to be from the kindergarten until the fifth grade. They are attending Woodmore Elementary School. Officials are saying that the bus turned over on its side before striking a tree. Authorities were called to the scene just before 3:30 p.m. The process of removing all of the children inside the bus took hours before it was completed. A total of 23 victims were taken to the Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga. It is unclear what the cause of death of the killed victims was, CBS News reported. "Certainly, speed is being investigated very, very strongly as a factor in this crash," Fletcher said of the possible reason for the crash. The driving conditions were also clear and dry during the crash. A warrant was issued to remove the informational box on the school bus in order to review the video and see what took place before the crash. The driver is said to be cooperative and is now talking to investigators. The National Transportation Safety Board is also requested to check the area to help with the investigation. Governor Bill Haslam released an issue regarding the matter. He said that the government's thoughts and prayers are with the victim in the tragic school bus crash. He pointed out that it is always a sad situation when a crash involves children. Haslam promised to do what they can in order to assist the families as well as the local authorities. A Texas woman reportedly faked her own pregnancy that when the time came she was expected to have her baby, she allegedly went to extreme measures in order to have an infant. The woman was alleged of killing a mother who just gave birth then subsequently abducting the newborn baby. The Texas woman was identified as 34-year-old Yesenia Sesmas. The mother killed was identified as Laura Abarca-Nogueda, 27 years old. The baby, who was only a few days old during the alleged abduction was identified as Sophia Gonzalez. Sesmans allegedly killed Abarca-Nogueda then fled the scene with Gonzalez from Kansas to Texas. Gonzalez, now 10 days old, and was found unharmed in Dallas on Saturday morning at the residence of Sesmas, Huffington Post reported. The baby was first taken to an area hospital and was reunited with her family hours after. The father of Gonzalez, who's also Abarca-Nogueda's boyfriend, discovered the dead body of his girlfriend on Thursday afternoon last week after he arrived from work. He then called the police to report his missing baby. Accordingly, Sesmas and Abarca-Nogueda have known each other for a few years but police won't say what their relationship was, CBS News reported. Sesmas is originally from Texas but has been going to Wichita then back to Texas in the past months. Wichita Police homicide detective Lieutenant Todd Ojile said in a statement that an anonymous tipster called police leading to the home of Sesmas in Dallas. It remains unclear why Sesmas claimed that she was pregnant when in fact that she was not. The case remains under investigation. Three other people were living at the home where Sesmas was caught and where the baby was found. Those people are Sesmas' boyfriend, her son and a niece. All of them were questioned but have since been released. Sesmas is now booked at a Dallas jail and is on a felony warrant for kidnapping and first-degree murder. She is awaiting extradition to Kansas. The confessed killer of Jacob Wetterling was sentenced to 20 years behind bars not for the murder of the child but for child pornography possession. Jacob Wetterling's punishment is part of a plea deal as he admitted to killing the boy and showed where his body was buried. NPR reported that the killer, identified as 53-year-old Danny Heinrich, admitted to killing 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling earlier this year. The admission came three decades after Jacob Wetterling went missing crushing the hopes of the child's parents that he is still alive. Due to the plea deal, Danny Heinrich will never face murder charges. He has to serve only the sentence handed down regarding the federal child pornography charge. During the sentencing, Danny Heinrich said that he is sorry for his evil acts that he has done against the victims and their families, as well as the shame that he has brought to his own family. He added, "The suffering and pain they have spoken today I will always remember. Mr. and Mrs. Wetterling: the heinous acts, the selfishness are unforgivable for what I have taken away from you." The mother of Jacob Wetterling, Patty, said that Danny Heinrich did not have to kill Jacob Wetterling because all her son wanted to do was to go home. Danny Heinrich said in his story that the boy asked him if he could go home after he was sexually assaulted. Nearly 30 years ago, Danny Heinrich abducted Jacob Wetterling, sexually assaulted him and killed him with a gun. Heinrich said earlier this year that he heard the siren coming from a police car and he panicked so he killed Jacob Wetterling while he was facing away from him. Another boy was sexually assaulted by Danny Heinrich but that boy was let go. Heinrich will not face charges regarding the other sexual assault, USA Today reported. It is possible that after Danny Heinrich completes his 20-year sentence, he might be subject to civil commitment as a sex offender. Judge John Tunheim calls the killing of Jacob Wetterling as one of the most horrible crimes he has seen. The four-year-old British girl, who was the subject of a viral black and white photo showing her emotions as she underwent processes in an attempt to battle cancer, has passed away. The little girl's family announced the heartbreaking statement on Facebook. The four-year-old girl was identified as Jessica Whelan of Clayton-le-Moors, England. Her father, Andy Whelan, said on the Facebook page set up for Jessica that she passed away at 7 a.m. on Nov. 20 and that he felt both sadness and relief that his daughter has found peace. Andy said that Jessica will no longer suffer or feel the pain of the physical constraints of her body. Andy added, "My princess has grown her angel wings and has gone up to play with her friends and loved ones. She will now watch down over her little brother and ourselves until one day we are reunited again," Fox News reported. Jessica was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer found in the small glands on top of the kidneys affecting mostly children five years old and below, in September 2015. More than 100,000 people have joined the Facebook group for Jessica but the black and white photo that her father captured was what made her fight viral. The viral photo was uploaded on Oct. 29 on the Facebook page for Jessica and Andy, a photographer, was the one who took the snap. He shared a lengthy caption alongside the snap saying that it is important to capture the truth and the reality of a situation and that it is too easy to capture the joy of life but the torture that people have to see is discarded, CNN reported. He pointed out that capturing the emotions of his daughter was the most difficult snap he ever made. Andy noted that a few days ago, Jessica was given a few weeks to live and that the photo was taken when she would push away her family as she was in pain. He also said that the photo is a sight they often see and is the true face of cancer. In the black and white snap, Jessica's blood vessels are protruding and her tears are running down her cheek. Her body is also stiffened due to the pain she is feeling. Andy said that he uploaded the photo in hopes of making people aware of the darkness of childhood cancer and maybe someone could do something so that no other child has to suffer. He concluded his caption by saying, "Please I beg of you, as a heartbroken father, it is too late for my daughter, but childhood cancer needs to be cured. No family should have to go through this hell." This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact the Parsons Sun office at (620) 421-2000 if you have any questions The Bad Rich Man in Hell, by James Tissot (1836-1902) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] *** (7-8-14) *** Luke 16:24 (RSV) And he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame. This is the Abraham of the Bible: long dead by that time, being asked to do something by a rich man (16:19, 22), traditionally known as Dives (which is simply a Latin word for rich man). His answer was, in effect, no (16:25-26). Thus failing in that request, he prays to him again for something else: Luke 16:27-28 And he said, Then I beg you, father [KJV: I pray thee therefore, father], to send him to my fathers house, [28] for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment. His request is again declined (16:29). So, like any good self-respecting Jew (Moses even negotiated with God), he argues with Abraham (16:30). But Abraham states again that his request is futile (16:31). So, the next time anyone tells you that you cant pray to or request intercession from a dead man, or anyone but God, show him this passage and let the fun begin! It also shows (in a fascinating way) that not only can dead saints hear our requests, they also have some measure of power to carry them out on their own. Abraham is asked to send a dead man to appear to Dives brothers, in order for them to avoid damnation (yet another [potential] instance of dead men like the prophet Samuel to Saul communicating to those on the earth). Abraham doesnt deny that he is able to potentially send Lazarus to do such a thing; he only denies that it would work, or that it is necessary (by the logic of if they dont respond to greater factor x, nor will they to lesser factor y). Therefore, it is assumed in the story that Abraham could have possibly done so on his own. And this is all told, remember, by our Lord Jesus. It is disputed whether it is a parable or not (several textual factors suggest that it is not; e.g., parables do not use proper names), but even if it is, it nevertheless cannot contain things that are untrue, lest Jesus be guilty of leading people into heresy by means of false illustrations or analogies within His common teaching tool: the parable. *** James Jay Austin [Reformed Baptist]: Parables are hypothetical stories Christ used to make His points as well as cloak them from being understood by those that it wasnt intended for. This argument wont work because they were both dead talking to one another so its not a prayer but a discourse. Ground control to John come back from outer space my man Matt. 6:6 But YOU, when YOU pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your FATHER who is in secret, and your FATHER who sees what is done in secret will reward you. This is only place Christ taught us peons how to pray as well as to whom. (that i know of) Its irrelevant to note the usual purpose of parables: to confirm the blind in their blindness and disobedience, etc. They still cannot contain false principles or false illustrations: things cannot be done in parables that are forbidden in actual life. This is Jesus teaching! Whether Dives was dead or not is also irrelevant to the argument at hand, since standard Protestant theology holds that no one can make such a request to anyone but God. Hes asking Abraham to send Lazarus to him, and then to his brothers, to prevent them from going to hell. That is very much, prayer: asking for supernatural aid from those who have left the earthly life and attained sainthood and perfection, with God. Quibbling about whether it was a parable (an argument that fails, anyway, as shown) or whether the requester was dead does not allow Protestants to escape the internal difficulties for them, as mentioned. Nor does this argument [from Matthew 6:6] prove your point. Taken absolutely, it would exclude prayer to Jesus, yet St. Stephen prays to Jesus, as he is being martyred (Acts 7:59). Thus, it doesnt exclude that, and logically, it doesnt exclude asking for the intercession of others, alive or dead. Jesus also taught us to pray, of course, with the Lords Prayer (Our Father . . . ). Protestant theology teaches that we cant talk to anyone who is dead, let alone make intercessory requests to them. Yet Saul talked to the dead Samuel, Moses and Elijah appeared at the Mount of Transfiguration, the Two Witnesses of Revelation come back to life again (and talk to folks), etc. Mr. Armstrong if you could please show a scriptural reference as to Christ teaching us to pray to Steven or Ezekiel etc. so that I may be able to better understand.. Jesus told this story, and in the story is a guy praying to a dead man, to request things that the dead man appears to be able to fulfill by his own powers. That is quite sufficient to prove the point. It IS the teaching of our Lord Jesus, and you must reckon with that. So far, your arguments have failed to establish the points you are trying to make, which are assumed in Protestant theology (but contrary to this passage and others). Hence the cloak. Above you argued that Jesus taught that only the Father can receive prayer, but I already disproved that by showing that Stephen prayed to Jesus in inspired Scripture. Your ultra-literalism in interpreting the Bible aint workin . . . Bill Gray: The fallacy of your argument using Luke 16:19-31 is that it does not represent a believer in this world praying to someone other than God. The rich man in that Scripture passage is dead, as are Abraham and Lazarus. So, yes, after death, when Lazarus and Abraham were in the same Hades/Paradise (later to be relocated to Heaven/Paradise) they have communion, i.e., can talk just as we will be able to talk with our family and friends in heaven after we die. And, while still in Hades, obviously they could communicate with the rich man who was in Hades/Torment, the other side of Hades. That in no way justifies anyone still alive in our mortal bodies praying to those who have already died and are in heaven or hell. We still have only One Mediator between man and God Jesus Christ. No mediatrix, no saints just Jesus Christ. So, your argument is built upon sand. My argument did not have to do with a believer in this world praying to someone other than God. One must understand that which he is critiquing, before setting out to refute it. My argument is in my title: [when I was interacting with this person, my original title was: In the Bible, Does anyone Ever Ask [Pray To] a Dead Man to Intercede or Intervene to Fulfill a Request?] The answer, as proven in Luke 16, is yes. It remains true that Protestant theology, generally speaking, forbids asking a dead man to intercede (thus, a dead man asking this is part of the larger category that remains forbidden in that theology), and makes prayer altogether a matter only between man and God. You stated it yourself (as one such good and sincere Protestant): Here (in the inspired revelation of Scripture, in a teaching story given by our Lord Jesus), Abraham is functioning as a mini-mediator. He is being asked to accomplish certain things. An intercessory request was made of him, not God. In fact, God is never mentioned in the entire story (!!!); whereas according to you, He certainly ought to have been, because you falsely claim that there is no mediatorial function for dead saints helping us get to God or to fulfill any (moral / good) request of ours. So why did Jesus teach in this fashion? Why did He teach that Dives was asking Abraham to do things that Protestant theology would hold that only God can do? And why is the whole story about him asking Abraham for requests, rather than going directly to God and asking Him: which would seem to be required by your theology? But instead, God is not mentioned at all in the story. No one can deny the exact assertion I have made here, and its proof from the Bible: though it is in tension with Protestant theology. I yield to the Bible over mens traditions any day. We mustnt allow our theology to contradict the inspired, infallible Bible. Praying to the dead is strictly forbidden in the Bible. Deuteronomy 18:11 tells us that anyone who consults with the dead is detestable to the Lord. The story of Saul consulting a medium to bring up the spirit of the dead Samuel resulted in his death because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance (1 Samuel 28:1-25; 1 Chronicles 10:13-14). Clearly, God has declared that such things are not to be done. This assumes that all such communication between those in heaven and those on earth is occultic and forbidden (divination, seers, mediums, necromancy, etc.). But it is not, and I explain why here: Invocation of the Saints = Necromancy? You have to explain why the prophet Samuel appeared to tell Saul of his impending death. This was the real person, not a fake demonic spirit. Jesus and Peter both talked to dead people when they raised them, too. You also distorts the story of Samuel and Saul: 1) Its true that consulting a medium was a forbidden practice, but you ignore that fact that the real Samuel actually appeared and foretold Sauls death. Thus, even though he was wrong in how he tried to communicate to him, God does not forbid all interaction between dead men in heaven and those on earth, as proven by this and other passages such as what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration. 2) Its not true that Saul died because he consulted a medium (though he was dead-wrong to do so). The very text cited proves this; where the prophet Samuel tells him exactly why he is to be judged and will die: 1 Samuel 28:18-19 (ESV) Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalek, therefore the Lord has done this thing to you this day. [19] Moreover, the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow you band your sons shall be with me. The Lord will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines. Bill cited an article that states: So, in order for a dead person to receive prayers, the dead individual has to hear the prayer, possess the power to answer it, and know how to answer it in a way that is best for the individual praying. Well, thats fascinating, isnt it?, in light of what I have already noted. How is it that in Jesus own story, Abraham can: 1) hear Dives prayer. 2) is capable of answering it on his own (by sending Lazarus to five brothers on earth, to warn them), and; 3) know how to answer the prayer. He does this by refusing two different requests (in the second instance, using reasoning very similar to Jesus elsewhere: His statements about the seeking of signs and miracles). And, as I also noted, God is never mentioned in the entire story. Its all about Dives asking / praying to Abraham for two different requests. Folks, this just aint how its supposed to be, from a Protestant perspective. All the emphases are wrong, and there are serous theological errors, committed by Jesus Himself (i.e., from their perspective). That should be enough to raise the red flags for any serious Christian who believes in biblical inspiration and the deity of Christ (both of which dictate that no such error can possibly exist). When that happens, Ill follow the Bible rather than mens traditions that conflict with it, every time. Whether Luke 16 is a parable or not, does not allow Protestants (by commonly held beliefs about parables) to escape the difficulties here for them. Arguably, my contention is even stronger if it is a parable, for in a non-parable, stating historical facts, a person could do or say something theologically incorrect. But in a parable taught by an omniscient Jesus, Who is God, in an inspired, infallible revelation, falsehood could not be enshrined. Jesus is teaching His hearers something, and it cant be a falsehood or contain theological error, since arguments by analogy (basically what the parables are) must be true analogies. My view, however, is that it is not a parable, and that Jesus uses the account in order to teach certain things (it illustrates what He wishes to teach). Parables dont have proper names: let alone that of a familiar figure like Abraham. I dont recall any other parables being set in Hades / Sheol, either. They are usually quite earthy: using agricultural and master / servant word pictures. Parables also usually are prefaced by a statement (usually by the Bible writer, not Jesus) that the following words are a parable. The main point, of course, is you cannot serve God and mammon: which he stated six verses before He began this story (and implied also: the last shall be first and the first, last); also, that hardness of heart is not overcome even by extraordinary miracles. Secondary to the points He wishes to make (but no less true in principle) is the fact that a dead man could be prayed to (rather than God) for a request. And the dead man (in this case, the historical person, Abraham) could answer requests on his own (though no doubt by Gods power). God isnt mentioned in the entire story, which runs 13 verses. This is the whole point I am utilizing it for, for my present apologetics purposes, and nothing brought forth by our two Protestant friends who disagree with my conclusion, overthrows my conclusion. Not even close: they havent yet touched it at all. The burden of those who disagree is to interact with the biblical arguments I made (including my linked paper about communion of saints not being necromancy or occultic). My entire argument was biblical from start to finish. ***** Meta Description: Jesus story of Lazarus & Abraham (Lk 16) shows that we can ask dead men (i.e., beings other than God) to fulfill intercessory requests. Meta Keywords: afterlife, hades, intermediate state, Lazarus and Abraham, netherworld, purgatory, sheol, communion of saints, intercession of the saints, invocation of saints, Prayer, praying to saints, prayer to a dead man I wrote, yesterday, about an Indiana lawmaker who plans to propose a full abortion ban in the next legislative session. I noted that if lawmakers are going to ban abortion they should also cover womens medical expenses, require paid maternity leave, subsidize childcare costs, and make higher education and job training programs more affordable. After all, I argued, if theyre going to require women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, thats only fair. Of course, abortion opponents have objections to this argument. They want to see abortion banned, but they do not think lawmakers are at all obligated to defray any of the financial needs mentioned above. There are, in my experience, two primary objections: First, women should not have sex if theyre not in the position to have children, and if they do, its their job to deal with the consequences. Second, women can always give children they dont believe theyre in a position to raise up for adoption, so theres no need to defray the costs of childrearing. These objections are worth addressing. Sex Is a Part of Life Its all well and good to say that women shouldnt have sex if theyre not prepared to have children, but real life doesnt work like that. Human beings have a strong sex drive, and sex is an important part of most adults lives. Even abstinence-only sex education does not appear to change when teens begin to have sex. Regardless of whether lawmakers think they should be having sex, most women will have sex whether they feel theyre prepared to raise children or not. Some of those women will inevitably become pregnant. We could help prevent women who are not financially prepared to raise children from having unintended pregnancies by ensuring that they have access to longterm birth control, including IUDs and implants. These methods tend to be both the most effective and the most expensive. Numerous studies have shown that when teens and low-income women are offered free access to longterm birth control, the rate of unintended pregnancies they experience drops. However, lawmakers who impose restrictions on abortion tend to oppose offering women free or low-cost longterm contraceptivescontraceptives that allow women to most effectively choose when they are or are not ready to have children. I have seen abortion opponents argue that women who have sex when they arent in a position to have children and become pregnant should face the consequencesi.e., struggling with the financial costs of raising that child. However, the woman isnt the only one who suffers in this situation; the child suffers too. Besides, this framework positions the child as a consequence to be borne. When has that framing ever worked out well? If lawmakers take steps to ensure that these women can afford to raise the children they will now be required to raise, they can help ensure that that childrearing will be a joy (and not a punishment)for both the woman and the child. Finally, whether or not lawmakers approve of the sex a given woman was having, theyre the ones requiring her to carry an unintended pregnancy to term. Lawmakers may view women who become pregnant unintentionally as irresponsible, but in fact, banning abortion takes away an avenue for exercising responsibilitywomen who abort are often doing so because it is the responsible thing to do. In taking away abortion, lawmakers are making the choice to require that woman to continue her pregnancyand if theyre going to force a woman to bear a child she otherwise need not bear, they have an obligation to ensure that she can afford to raise it. Adoption Is Not Magic When I point out that attempts to restrict abortion should be coupled with social programs to ensure that women can afford to raise the children that result from unintended pregnancies, I am frequently informed that a woman does not have to raise a child she bearsshe can give it up for adoption. This is presented as a win-winwomen dont have to raise or financially provide for children that result from pregnancies they didnt intend to have, no abortions required. There are several problems with this response. To begin with, lets not underestimate the invasiveness of pregnancy. Pregnancy comes with a variety of health risks. Some women spend months on bedrest. Even absent major medical problems, women who have jobs that require a lot of standing may find the last few months of pregnancy tryingand then theres childbirth and recovery. We dont force women to become surrogates for a reason. While abortion opponents might argue that this is simply part of the packagethat when you have sex you open yourself up to the possibility of undergoing pregnancyabortion renders this untrue. Women can still choose. If lawmakers ban abortion, it is that ban, and not womens decision to have sex, that will ultimately force women to undergo pregnancy whether they want to or not. There is a reason the rate of domestic infant adoptions has decreased: Single women who become pregnant and carry to term now choose to keep their babies, rather than giving them up for adoption. Today, 40% of all births are out of wedlock. Having a baby outside of marriage no longer carries the same level of stigma it once did; today, women who become pregnant out of wedlock and choose to carry it tend to keep the baby rather than giving it up. Given this context, take steps to ensure that these women can raise their children themselves rather than assuming women in tight financial situations will give their babies up for adoption? Forty-nine percent of abortion patients are below the poverty level. I am severely uncomfortable with requiring a woman to choose between raising a child in grinding poverty and giving it up. I understand that women have long faced this choice. I understand that women who do give infants up for adoption often do so because they believe their child will have a better life in an adoptive home than what they could give them. I am in no way denigrating that choice. I know many people who are adopted, or who have adopted. I am absolutely in support of adoption. However. In our country, we have a history of coercive adoption. I do not like that history. I believe in choice, and that means raising that child should at least be an optionand that requires ensuring that there are social programs in place to defray some of the most prohibitive costs involved in that undertaking. Finally, not every baby is adoptable. The majority of abortion patients are women of color. While healthy white infants are often in high demand, babies with disabilities or medical problems, or babies of color, may wind up in foster care rather than in the arms of a couple desperate to have a child. Our foster care system is chronically underfunded, and outcomes are often poor. Proponents of adoption argue that adoption offers women with unintended pregnancies the chance to know that their children are in loving homes, but this is not always true. After all, our foster care system is full of children who are legally adoptable, and yet not adopted. Infants may fare better, but this is not a universal given, and would not necessarily remain true if the adoption market were flooded with new infants. Conclusion Any argument that women should close their legs if they dont want the expense of raising children, or that women who cant afford to raise children should simply give their baby up for adoption, rests on a number of problematic assumptions. Women who might choose abortion if the procedure is available would not necessarily choose adoption if required to carry that pregnancy to term. Any attempt to require women to deal with the expenses of raising an unintended child as a consequence of having sex when they werent financially prepared to raise a child punishes the child as well as the woman. This is not that complicated. No lawmakerin Indiana or elsewhereshould be allowed to even talk about banning abortion without someone pointing out the incumbent obligation to ensure that women faced with unintended pregnancies they must now carry to term are financially able to adequately care for and raise that child. Ohand Ill add mental healthcare to the list I outlined in my previous post. Patna: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday addressed an all-party meet at the Bihar Assembly Library to justify his decision to impose total prohibition in Bihar despite strong protest against it. With leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), Hindustani Awam Morcha, and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party present at the meeting, Kumar reminded the people that drinking or selling alcohol was not one of the many fundamental rights of the citizens and hence by imposing total prohibition in Bihar, he was not trampling on the rights of the people as being suggested by the opposition or a certain section of the society. "I am doing it for the welfare of the people of Bihar where alcohol used to play a major role in domestic abuse and poverty. We cannot afford to water it down otherwise all good done by it would vaporize in a momen," he said. Denying the label of an autocrat, the Chief Minister said that he believed in democracy and encouraged people to have a debate on prohibition but he ruled out withdrawing it completely saying since the ban on alcoholic drink, Bihar had become a much happier state while also adding Rs. 5000 crore in the state exchequer. "I don't want any debate on withdrawing prohibition from Bihar. However, I am open to suggestions and ideas as to how to make prohibition more successful in the state," he said. Imposing his personal view on drinking, Kumar said that he had been against alcohol from his very childhood days. "Alcohol is very bad. I have been against it since I was very young. Some politicians and liquor manufacturers are afraid that prohibition will become very successful in Bihar and then it will lead to imposition of prohibition in other states. That is why they are opposing my policy of total prohibition by calling it 'Talibani' and 'draconian'. Instead of criticizing the policy, they should help us make Bihar an alcohol-free state and by offering suggestions so innocent people are not arrested under the new law," he said. Opposition leaders, not in a mood to be sermonized by the Chief Minister, however, told him to withdraw all laws that are even tougher than those reserved for murderers and rapists. "What kind of law is this when the law-breaker gets a punishment that is even tougher than a serial killer or rapist? All such laws should be immediately scrapped," said BJP leader Prem Kumar. Meanwhile, apprehending Patna High Court to go against it, the Bihar government on Monday moved the Supreme Court seeking transfer of all cases related to prohibition from Patna High Court to Supreme Court. It may be recalled that the Patna High Court on September 30 had quashed the new liquor laws holding it was, in its current form, unconstitutional. To circumvent the High Court order, the Nitish government reworded some of the Excise laws and presented it as a new one to prevent it from being scrapped. Iran, EU resolved to strengthen JCPOA: President Rouhani 11/22/16 Source: Press TV Iran and the European Union (EU) are resolved to "strengthen" a nuclear agreement between the Islamic Republic and world powers, says the Iranian president. "With all their might, Iran and the European Union are seeking to strengthen this important multilateral agreement and to use the post-JCPOA opportunities," President Hassan Rouhani made at a joint press conference with his visiting Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor on Tuesday November 22, 2016. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani (R) and his Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahorin Tehran Pahor has traveled to the Iranian capital at the head of a large economic delegation. Known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal was struck in July 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, namely the US, Britain, Russia, France, China, plus Germany. It introduced certain restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of all nuclear-related sanctions against the Islamic Republic. There has been speculation that an incoming US administration may violate or unilaterally scrap it. Elsewhere in his remarks, President Rouhani said, "The Islamic Republic attaches importance to [its] EU ties, and this meeting is a step toward invigorating relations with the EU as well as with Slovenia." The Iranian chief executive said the visit by Pahor, the first one in 25 years, and the reopening of the Slovenian Embassy in Tehran, which has been scheduled for Wednesday, indicate the countries' "strong resolve" to develop bilateral ties. Iran-Slovenia Trade meeting in Tehran Slovenia's Foreign Ministry announced in March 2013 that the country had decided to shrink its diplomatic network as part of general austerity measures and was closing its embassy in Tehran in response to the then-difficult financial and economic situation in Slovenia. During the Tuesday meeting, Iran and Slovenia signed three memoranda of understanding on cooperation in the areas of economy, telecommunication, and nanotechnology. For his part, Pahor hailed Iran's commitment to the JCPOA, urging all concerned parties to live up to their obligations as per the deal, which he said serves as a sign that all international conflicts can be resolved through diplomacy and negotiation. He said the visit at the head of the economic delegation indicated that a "new chapter" had opened in relations with Iran. Pahor communicated his country's determination to elevate the ties to the premium level and increase commercial transactions with Iran. The Slovenian head of state also extended an invitation to Rouhani to visit Slovenia in the future. Tablet vs 2-in-1 laptop: Which is better? It's hard to decide a winner here: the only way to determine it is to consider exactly what you need and want from your device of choice. Some people find them annoying but animated GIFs can be a lot of fun, at least the first few times you see them. After that they tend to lose their appeal, especially when youre trying to read something right next to them. Most of the major browsers dont offer a built-in way to control them. For those who care, however, you can take control of animated GIFs on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox through the magic of add-ons and extensions. Google Chrome Animation Policy for Google Chrome. Google created its own extension, called Animation Policy, to help Chrome users gain control of GIFs in their browser. Built as an accessibility extension, Animation Policy allows you to choose between allowing animated images, allowing them just a single occurrence, or disabling them altogether. Once youve installed the extension from the Chrome Web Store, click on the lighting-bolt icon that appears to the right of the address bar. Now just choose which option youd prefer. Personally, Id go with allowing the animation to run only once. That way you can get the joy of animated GIFs without the annoyance. Mozilla Firefox Firefox has an even better add-on for stopping animated GIFs, called ESCape From Them GIFs. All you do is install it from Mozillas add-on catalog and restart your browser. The next time youre tired of seeing a GIF on a webpage just hit Esc on your keyboard and the GIF stops. This includes every GIF on a webpage. Even a page filled with animated GIFs, like Giphy, will stop with one key press. Hit Esc again and the GIFs start moving again. As for Microsofts browsers, Internet Explorer users can turn off GIFs completely by going to Internet options > Advanced and unchecking Play animations in webpages. Once you restart your PC, Internet Explorer stops playing GIFs. Edge, Microsofts newest browser, currently doesnt have a way to stop GIFs, but maybe someone will make a browser extension for it in the future. A man who sexually assaulted and beat up a 16-year-old Temecula girl, threatening to kill her family if she didnt comply with his demands, was sentenced today to five years in state prison. Lance Jacquest Dhuyvetter, 29, of San Diego pleaded guilty this month to statutory rape, assault likely to produce great bodily injury and domestic abuse for the April 2015 offenses against the now-17-year-old victim, whose identity was not disclosed. In exchange for his admissions, the Riverside County District Attorneys Office dropped charges against Dhuyvetter of false imprisonment, forcible rape, forced oral copulation and furnishing drugs to a minor. Superior Court Judge Stephen Gallon certified the terms of the plea agreement and imposed the sentence stipulated by the prosecution and defense. Gallon also credited Dhuyvetter with nearly three years jail time which included state-mandated credits aimed at relieving prison crowding effectively cutting the sentence to just over two years. According to sheriffs investigators, Dhuyvetter and the victim were in a brief dating relationship that she broke off in mid-April 2015, which enraged him. The teenager told detectives that Dhuyvetter repeatedly called her cellphone number and coerced her to meet with him after the break-up, culminating in an April 18 rendezvous during which he drove her to a Temecula hotel. According to a bail-setting affidavit filed by the sheriffs department, at one point, he struck the victim, which caused her to fall off the bed and hit her head on the dresser, leaving a cut above her left eye, the affidavit stated. Sheriffs investigators alleged that the defendant directed the girl to perform oral sex, and a short time later, he had intercourse with her. Dhuyvetter drove the girl home the next morning but kept up his threatening behavior over the next seven days, investigators said. On the night of April 25, the defendant told her that unless she agreed to remain in a relationship with him, he would harm her and her parents, according to court papers. The following day, after her mother left their home to go shopping, leaving the victim alone, Dhuyvetter tried to break into the residence but fled when she told him shed call 911 if he didnt leave. Dhuyvetter was arrested without incident less than a week later after the family contacted sheriffs deputies. Dhuyvetter had no previous documented felony convictions. A little-publicized provision of the firearms ballot initiative Prop. 63 approved by California voters this month did what an Inland assemblywomans legislative attempts could not. The theft of a firearm worth less than $950, which became a misdemeanor under 2014s Prop. 47, is once again a felony after voters overwhelmingly approved Prop. 63. In 2016, Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, co-authored AB 1176 along with Assemblymen Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove, and Adam Gray, D-Merced. The bill would have made stealing a firearm worth less than $950, which is the threshold for grand theft, once again a felony the notion being that anyone who would steal a gun would likely use it for a felony. But Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the bill in July. With Prop. 63s passage, defendants convicted of theft of a firearm again face 16 months in prison instead of up to a year for a misdemeanor conviction. Anyone who steals a firearm is up to no good and should be charged with a felony, Melendez said in a statement provided by her capitol office. San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon, who had supported Melendezs efforts, said in a statement: I am pleased the theft of a firearm has been restored to a prison felony punishment, which is an appropriate sentence for criminals who will steal and possess guns. Regardless of the value of a firearm, it is always dangerous in the hands of a person who victimizes our communities during the commission of their crimes. Under Prop. 63, anyone purchasing ammunition must have a permit; courts are required to ensure that anyone who cannot legally own a gun does not have one; and the possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines is prohibited. Previous law stated that anyone who legally acquired a firearm that uses only large-capacity magazines before 2000 could continue to possess those magazines. Now they cannot. Anyone in possession after July 2017 will be guilty of an infraction or a misdemeanor. That last provision riled the many critics that exist despite the proposition passing by more than 62 percent of the votes that have been counted so far. Those critics say criminals dont pay attention to laws and that Prop. 63, which was proposed by Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom penalizes law-abiding residents. Predictably, Prop 63 backers like Gavin Newsom didnt stop with logical solutions to gun violence. Instead, they criminalized not only gun theft, but gun owners with neither criminal records nor intent with his unconstitutional proposition, Melendezs statement said. UPDATE: Regarding a job in the Trump administration, Hunter spokesman Joe Kasper said: If (Hunter is) offered an opportunity hell certainly consider it but he loves what he does now and the great folks he represents so right now his plan is to continue doing what hes doing. Malloy also noted that Hunter put his home on the market before the election. Kasper said the Hunter family is looking to sell their home but it has absolutely nothing to do (with) a possible opportunity. For Malloy to link the two, it comes off a bit desperate on his part. ORIGINAL POST: Democratic congressional candidate Patrick Malloy is already looking ahead to his next campaign and he thinks it could come sooner than expected. Malloy, an Escondido real estate agent who lost to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, on Nov. 8, announced Tuesday, Nov. 22 that he plans to run again in Californias 50th Congressional District, which includes part of San Diego County and most of Temecula. In a news release, Malloy raised the prospect of a special election to fill a vacancy in the 50th should Hunter take a job in Donald Trumps administration. Hunter, a Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who was one of the first congressmen to endorse Trump, has been mentioned as a pick for secretary of defense. Although we still have some ballots to count, I want to declare that no matter what, we will see the name Patrick Malloy on the ballot in the next election for U.S. representative in CD-50, Malloy said. Assuming Hunter stays in Congress, Malloy will have to finish first or second in the 2018 primary for the 50th District to earn a rematch. Even if he does that, Malloy faces steep odds. About 43 percent of the 50th Districts voters are registered Republicans compared to 27 percent for Democrats. Declaring early didnt work out well for other Inland congressional hopefuls. Republican Paul Chabot and Democrat Tim Sheridan announced plans to run in 2016 shortly after losing in 2014, only to lose their rematches against Reps. Pete Aguilar, D-Redlands and Ken Calvert, R-Corona, respectively. On the plus side for Malloy, he did gain a greater percentage of the vote 36.1 percent than Hunters Democratic challengers in 2014 and 2012. Facing his ouster as Menifees mayor and a $60,000 fine for campaign finance violations, Scott Mann announced his resignation in an email received by the city clerk Friday, Nov. 18. In accordance with the Menifee Municipal Code, I hereby tender my resignation as Mayor, City of Menifee effective November 17, 2016, Mann wrote. I tender this resignation for personal reasons and to streamline the transition process to new leadership upon certification of the election results by the Riverside County Registrar of Voters. City Clerk Sarah Manwaring said that because the communication came in late afternoon Friday while she was out, the city did not put out a public announcement until Monday, Nov. 21. City Councilman Greg August, the mayors designated substitute, will serve as acting mayor until Dec. 7 when mayor-elect Neil Winter is scheduled to be sworn in, Manwaring said. According to the registrars last election update Friday, Winter had received 52.1 percent of the votes, with Mann at 47.9 percent. Winter had 1,290 more votes than Mann, making it unlikely any remaining uncounted ballots would make a difference. Countywide, about 73,000 votes remain to be counted, the registrars website states. While Dec. 8 is the deadline for certifying the results, Registrar Rebecca Spencer typically completes the job before then. Winter said his lead has been trended upward during the updates and he believes that stems from votes being cast later in the election cycle after the California Fair Political Practices Commissions announcement of punitive actions being taken against Mann. Mann has until Dec. 1, 2016, to pay the $60,000 in a settlement agreement in which he admitted using $44,894 in campaign funds for personal expenses, including travel, dining, taxes, vehicle repair and registration, and a family wedding in Malibu. FPPC Communications Director Jay Wierenga responded in an email Monday that Manns status has no bearing on the agencys handling of his case, which is scheduled for formal action by commissioners on Dec. 15. He said commission representatives do not comment on pending settlement agreements. Following the disclosures of violations, several officials, including council colleagues, had expressed their belief that Mann should have resigned in advance of the election, but they had no power to force his resignation since he was elected by voters. A majority of council members voted on Nov. 2 to issue a formal censure of Mann for violating the citys code of ethics and stripped him of his committee and commission memberships. Mann in an interview Monday refused to comment on the fine and FPPC-related issues, nor what he intends to do in the future. I have stepped aside for personal reasons, he said. I shared my departing comments at the last council meeting, and I wish the city of Menifee the very best. At the councils Nov. 16 session, Mann gave a farewell speech. Ive given a lot to this city, and Im very proud of what weve collectively done, said Mann, who had served as mayor since 2012 and was a member of the citys first council with incorporation in 2008. Winter said restoring public trust will be his immediate focus. My first priority is to heal the city, he said. Now, I have to prove to the citizens that they can trust City Hall again. Contact the writer: 951-368-9690 or michaelwilliams@pressenterprise.com Re: Our school administrators are overpaid [Letters, Nov. 20]: Accolades to Glen Chaffin on a well thought-out and well written letter on the state of education in California. Maybe a change is needed, like term limits is badly needed for Congress. We sorely need more limits on administrative salaries and sick day pay accumulations for teachers and administrators; staying healthy and in school shouldnt be an incentive but a requirement. David Scott, Beaumont Love conquers hate, through education In the aftermath of the election, there has been a rise in hate crimes against Muslims and other minorities, which is truly unfortunate. As an Ahmadi Muslim, I believe the best way to counter bigotry and intolerance is with education, love and dialogue. Most people fear what they dont know. I invite people who are skeptical about Islam to go to TrueIslam.com, which provides responses to common misconceptions. It is our effort to conquer hatred with love through understanding. Ahsan M. Khan, Chino They just dont get it Very recently, The New York Times rededicated itself to journalism. The Los Angeles Times has admonished its reporters to keep their personal ideology out of their stories. Facebook and Google are now cracking down on fake news sites spewing lies. Suddenly they get it, after the election, of course. Meanwhile, our current president announced in Lima, Peru, that he partially blamed the Democratic Partys loss on low-population Republican states that get two senators just like a highly populated state like California. Imagine that. If it werent for that pesky Constitution, he believes the Democrats might have actually won. On second thought, no, they never will get it. Mike Talarico, Riverside Trump will represent everyone Enough is enough! One of the stars of the Broadway musical Hamilton asked if the new administration will represent and protect all Americans. If President Obama was asked if he would represent all America, think of the outrage from the media. Cries of racism would be heard around the world. Democrats, give it up. Your policies have been rejected and we do have a president who represents all American citizens. Charles Hurt, Calimesa 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. The much publicised government job website, www.GLMIS.org.gh, which will become effective from November 30 this year, has been greeted with mixed reactions. This follows the launch of the website by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Haruna Iddrisu, at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday, November 16, 2016. Dubbed: Ghana Labour Market and Information Systems (GLMIS), the minister said there will be space on the website where various public and private institutions can advertise employment openings for the public to be aware of. While majority of people remained lukewarm to the news, other people displayed strong sense of emotion. In an interview with Today, event planner, Camry Tagoe, said: Great initiative, this website will allow majority of the youth who are technologically inclined, and are always on the internet have good information on job availability. My area is security, and I believe this will aid most graduates in the hunt. A student, Abubakar Nawas, also expressed joy at the initiative, saying it will further curb the recruitment scams we have witnessed for the past year as well as keep graduates informed of job opportunities in the government sector. Another student, Issac Nkansah, also lauded the initiative, but offered some useful suggestions. According to him, with the health sector, they know the number of students they trained and graduate every year, and with this available data, they know how to post workers to various facilities. Same can be done across all professions. National service person, Fatima Derby, however, expressed disappointment in the labour ministrys innovation. I dont see how this makes any difference to the alarmingly huge unemployment gap in this country. A website? How is this different from the adverts in the newspapers that people apply for? If the government really wants to be useful it should create employment opportunities in the many under-utilised sectors of the economy. It should make policies to support and incentivise small businesses and entrepreneurs. This website idea is not brilliant at all, he averred An unemployed graduate, Martin Ocrah, also called it a white elephant project claiming the public sector was full of protocol and favouritism. Source: Today Newspaper Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Out of the 14,000 persons who fall victim to road crashes in Ghana annually, 2000 of them lose their lives, the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) has revealed. According to Mr David Osafo Adonteng, Director of Planning and Programmes, NRSC, the deaths and injuries associated with road crashes were not an individual and family issue but a national tragedy which must be tackled collectively. Mr Adonteng led a delegation compromising the staff NRSC, Puma and Simon Frimpong Transport to commemorate World Day of Remembrance For Road Traffic Victims in Tema. Activities for the day included a church service at Tema Joint Church and a donation of assorted items including wheel chairs, disinfectants, fruits, toilet rolls, stretchers and walking aids to the Accident and Emergency Ward of the Tema General Hospital (TGH). The delegation also visited and interacted with patients, nurses and doctors on duty at the ward. Mr Adonteng said road crashes was a leveler which victimised all manner of persons irrespective of economic or social class, ethnic origin, profession, sex or political and religious persuasion. According to him, breadwinners easily became economic liabilities on families, relying on someones sympathy because they had been incapacitated through road crashes. He called on the media, law enforcement agencies, road users to be active in the nations quest to minimise road crashes and its associated difficulties spearheaded by the Commission. Dr Lawrence Ofori-Boadu, Emergency Specialist, TGF, thanked the NRSC and its partners for the visit and donation. He appealed for more oxygen dispensers, monitors, trollies, wheel chairs, ambulances and a truma surgeon. According to him, the Hospital was overwhelmed with daily cases of emergencies and accidents because it served as a referral point for all cases in and around Tema including the Accra-Tema motorway, Tema Akosombo motorway, Tema-Aflao motorway and the Tema Ashaiman road which were accident prone. He said motor bicycle riders from Ashaiman topped the list of victims of road crashes at the centre while industrial accident victims come in with severe conditions. According him, the Hospital relied on the National Ambulance system which most of the time arrived late. He appealed to government to expand and upgrade the Tema General Hospital to properly serve the about I million people in its catchment area. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Asokore Traditional Council in the New Juaben Municipality on Monday evening brokered peace between the two rival parties, the ruling National Democratic Congress and the opposition new patriotic after the Chief of Asokore, Nana Antwi Panyin ll summoned the leaders of both parties to his palace following a bloody clash last Sunday. The Parliamentary Candidates for the NDC and NPP, Haruna Apau-Wiredu and Nana Adjei Boateng who doubles as the incumbent MP respectively, promised their commitment to ensuring peace before, during and after the election. The Chief, troubled by last Sunday clashes which led to the injury of at least 10 supporters from both parties, impressed on the leaders to control the supporters to also commit to peace despite provocation instead use the right channel to redress their grievances . Meanwhile,the Traditional Council has cancelled all health walk activities by the NDC and NPP in New Juaben North constituency . However, the Deputy Eastern Regional Police Commander, ACP ACP Nuhu Jango, after a meeting with the two parties, has directed that they should not hold political programs simultaneously to avert clashes, hence time table for their political activities assigned on rotation which includes Health walk. Source: kasapafmonline Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video In what could be described as a sharp U-turn after initial backlash, the Paramount Chief of the Offinso Traditional Council, Nana Wiafe Akenten, has predicted victory for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). The popular Asante Chief is backing the biggest opposition party with his prayers to achieve a resounding victory in the December 7 polls. Not only is the chief wishing victory for the NPP, Nana Wiafe Akenten IV also stated emphatically that if he had money, he would have given the party enough to embark on its campaign. Nana Wiafe Akenten made the statement when the wife of NPP's running mate, Mrs. Samira Bawumia, together with the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the party, Mr. Bernard Antwi Boasiako popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, paid a courtesy call on him at his palace in Offinso. His comments follow a controversy earlier this week when he gave his seat to the President, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama to sit on, after claiming the President and the NDC government had performed creditably well. But in a sharp U-turn, Nana Wiafe Akenten told Mrs. Samira and her entourage that he prays the NPP wins the elections. This was after the regional NPP Chairman had requested for his prayers and support. Chairman Wontumi, on his part, thanked the Offinsohene for the assurance and promised to work assiduously to ensure victory for the NPP. Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/ email:[email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Over the weekend, while campaigning in the Upper West Region, the President of Ghana and leader of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), His Excellency John Dramani Mahama opted to use very ethnocentric and divisive campaign language. The President, while addressing party supporters in Lawra as part of his campaign tour of the Region, made comments to suggest that the New Patroitic Party (NPP) only uses northerners to win power and dump them afterwards. The President alleged that if vice-presidential candidate of the NPP Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia decides to contest as presidential candidate in the NPP, he is likely to be rejected by the party. He then went on to cite the NPP presidential race in 2008 in which 16 other candidates contested the then vice-president of the erstwhile President Kuffour administration, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, for the Presidential candidacy of the party. President Mahama also allged that unlike the NPP, the NDC gives everyone the chance to ascend to the high office including northerners and it is that opportunity in the NDC that has made it possible for him to become president after the demise of the late President, John Evans Atta Mills. The MFWA considers the comments of President Mahama highly divisive and unfortunate and condemns same in no uncertain terms. As a leader of the country, President Mahama is expected to act in ways that will unite rather than divide the people of this country. The MFWA therefore calls on the President to publicly apologise for his comments. We take this opportunity to urge other political figures to avoid the use of hate speech, ethnocentric and divisive comments in their political campaigns. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Following Todays expose about the deplorable state of a 22-kilometre road from Kasseh (Ada Junction) that links Ada-Foah in the Dangme East District of the Greater Accra Region few months ago, President John Dramani Mahama and his government have quickly moved to construct the road, seemingly to garner more votes in the district during next months elections. When Today visited Ada-Foah on Friday, November 7, 2016, it observed that the 22 kilometre road has been tarred. A portion of that road has also been asphalted, giving it a new face. Today spotted some major roads within the principal streets of Ada-Foah which had also been tarred making business activities in the area very easy. Today was reliably informed that the project was on the priority list of President Dramani Mahama and it was in fulfillment of his 2012 campaign promise to deliver Better Ghana Agenda in the area of social amenities to the people of Dangme East District which is one of the electoral strongholds of the National Democratic Congress. The project, this newspaper gathered, is a full asphalt road and will cost the central government amount of 27 million Ghana cedis. It would be recalled that Today in its Thursday, October 15, 2015 edition with a banner headline: Fix Our Roads Now or ElseAda-Foah Chiefs Charge Govt, reported that the chiefs and residents of neglected and rejected Ada-Foah in Dangme East District have lashed out at the Mahama administration over the poor state of roads in the area. Consequently, in that report the paper stated that chiefs and people of Ada-Foah have served notice of their intention to stage protests against the government to compel it to refurbish deteriorating roads in the area. The report continued that the angry chiefs and people of Ada-Foah complained of the bad nature of the road from Kasseh (Ada Junction) which links Ada-Foah, and from Big Ada to Azizanya in Dangme East. But the government in a quick response moved to redeem that promise of giving the Kasseh to Ada Foah road a face-lift. Speaking in an interview, some residents, particularly commercial drivers, who ply the road could not hide their joy. They lauded President Dramani Mahama for fulfilling his campaign promise made to them during their annual Asafotufiam Festival in 2015 to fix the Kasseh-Ada-Foah road. However, even though some residents commended the President for tarring the road, majority of them were of the view that the road network from Sege to Lolonya (22km) and Sege to Mepe was also in the very bad state and called on President Mahama to do something about it before the country goes to the polls. Source: Today Newspaper Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Parliamentary candidate for the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) in the Adentan constituency of the Greater Accra Region was a delight to watch as he engaged a cross-section of his constituents about his partys plan for the constituency when voted into power. The PPP parliamentary candidate for the area, Alhaji Mohammed Muftao, also used the platform to pledge to engage in an issue-based campaign ahead of the December7, polls. The PPP candidate made the pledge during a parliamentary debate organised by the municipal office of the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) with support from the European Union at the End-Time Assemblies of God Church Hall in Accra. Meanwhile, candidates for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), National Democratic Congress (NDC), and Convention Peoples Party (CPP) contesting for the parliamentary seat in the Adentan constituency; failed to turn up for the debate. When it got the turn Alhaji Muftoa, he called on the gathering to ensure that they maintain the peace the constituency has enjoyed over the years before, during, and after the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. As a parliamentary hopeful, one of the things I would do is to listen, when you listen and communicate you are able to provide for the needs of the people he noted. Speaking in an interview with Today after the event, Acting Municipal Director of NCCE, Madam Sylvia Osei-Bonsu, thanked the identifiable groups and individuals who took time off their busy schedule to attend the programme. However, she could not hide her disappointment in the NPP, NDC and CPP candidates who failed to show up. Some of the participants who came all the way from Adjiriganor and Malejon to enquire from the candidates, especially that of the NPP and NDC about policies they have put in place to develop the area, felt disappointed about the failure by other candidates to be part of the debate. Their failure to meet with us shows that both the NPP and the NDC candidates do not respect us. If not they would have shown up to interact with us, one of the members said. Source: Today Newspaper Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Embattled businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome says he holds no grudge against the former president Jerry John Rawlings for calling him a thief in a judgement debt scandal. The NDC financier said the former President who is a friend would not have come to that conclusion if he was made aware of the full facts of the case. President Rawlings in March 2015, described Woyome as a thief despite a High Court ruling that said the businessman was not guilty in any criminal conduct when he pocketed GHC51.2m as a judgement debt payment. Former President Jerry John Rawlings was of the belief that state officials acted in concert to help free Woyome of any crime. "I just read that the thief called Woyome had been freed. Why? Because his accomplices [Betty Mould and one other person] who were in government were not produced in court for vital evidence to incriminate him. Rawlings said. Speaking on Joy News channel The Pulse Monday, Woyome blamed the media for the greatly misinforming the public since the scandal broke in 2011. He said the media for five years having mounted a vilification "concert" against him every day "including Sunday". He condemned journalist for insisting that the payment was illegal. According to him, the court said it was unconstitutional but not illegal because he obtained judgement for the payment through a court of competent jurisdiction, the High Court. It was the Supreme Court which held that because per the constitution Woyome's agreement with the state was not approved by parliament, the subsequent payment for his services could not be grounded in law. Alfred Woyome also said the Supreme Court which ordered him to pay back the money was also misled to come to the conclusion that they did in July 2014. According to Woyome, the money was lawfully owed him and he has the right to spend it the way he deems fit. The state had begun a process to question him in court about his assets in a bid to help retreive the money. But the state in a u-turn declined to do so explaining that it had reached an agreement on a payment plan hence there was no immediate need to orally examine Woyome. But former Attorney-General who won judgment against Woyome in 2014 to pay back the money, took up the opportunity to do the state's work. The Supreme Court granted his application last week Thursday and set November 24 for the highly-anticipated showdown. Woyome stressed in the interview with Joy News' Francis Abban that has pledged again to pay back the money. Despite promising to pay back the money by December 2015, Alfred Woyome has reneged. "My word is my bond", he told Francis and added that he will do this although he strongly disagreed with the 2014 ruling. Woyome said he would not challenge the Supreme court decision but warned that after coughing out the money, the state will pay him so much more than it took. Source: myjoyonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Trade and Industry Minister has taken a swipe at the biggest opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) by describing their actions and utterances as akin to that of their forebears, the United Party (UP). According to Dr. Ekow Spio Garbrah, the NPP is attacking President Mahama's unparalleled achievements as far as infrastructural development is concerned because that is the same thing they did to the Nation's first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah. ". . we know their traits and they are doing all they can to destroy President Mahama and his achievements because it is these same people who in 1966, together with the American CIA overthrew Kwame Nkrumah's government and destroyed over 300 industries he set up. "Their sole aim was to tell the people of Ghana that Nkrumah had done nothing. And I tell you honestly that the NPP has the attributes of the UP tradition. They have only metamorphosed in name and not character," he told Kwame Nkrumah Tikesie on OKAY FM. Spio Garbrah further traced the various transformations in name of the political tradition till the present one, NPP, and called on all Ghanaians to disregard all the negative and baseless assertions being made against the person and administration of President Mahama. "They began by calling themselves the United Party (UP), then Progress Party (PP), later the Popular Front Party (PFP) and now the New Patriotic Party (NPP) so they have always changed in name but their character and members remain," he claimed. Dr. Ekow Spio Garbrah made this statement on the back of a promise by the Presidential Candidate of the NPP, Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo to build one factory in each district and also one dam in a village across the length and breadth of Ghana, should he be voted into power as President. ". . we would have been far ahead by this time, we assembled many things including radio sets, refrigerators, we had the Nsawan Cannery where we canned fruits and vegetables. We had a glass factory and a sugar factory . . . all these were run down by the UP tradition, now NPP, so we must be wary when we hear them talk about 'one district, one factory' because it is deceitful." To him, the only hope to this country at this moment is President John Dramani Mahama because he is leading the way to revamp all the factories that were destroyed. " . . he is the one who has been able to put life in the Komenda and Asutwari Sugar Factories after the forefathers of the NPP ruined them over forty years ago," he said. Source: Prince Obimpeh/ Peacefmonline.com/ Email: [email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video "My problem with Electoral Commission is that I think it's shameful that you'll charge the media to cover the elections. We're not a very sincere people. We would like to cover things up," Multiple award-winning host of Peace FM's flagship programme 'Kokrokoo' turned the heat on the Electoral Commission (EC) over the Commission's charges for accreditation for media practitioners in the country. The EC asked the various and interested media houses that seek to cover the 2016 Elections to pay money before they receive accreditations to give field reports on the elections. Each media house is required to meet the financial charges by the Commission or forfeit its election coverage. Responding to the EC's order, Mr. Sefa Kayi, affectionately called "Chairman General" for his unmatched broadcast acuity, lambasted the Commission for being unfair to the media. He expressed his resentments, saying the EC's decision is "just like State protocol asking journalists to pay money to cover the 6th March Independence anniversary. I don't think it's a very good thing you've done. Sadly, we won't talk about it. We'll push it under the carpet but you're denying journalists the right to report the truth and the situations that happen to people. I don't think it's a smart thing to do. I don't know why as a journalist or as part of the media here, we should pay money..." Chairman General therefore cautioned the EC stating emphatically that "if we're not careful, we'll end up reporting disaster. Little things like what the Electoral Commission has done to us as journalists is what starts this small (small) things. What is 10 cedis to you from a journalist? What is 20 cedis to you from a journalist? We've done it since 1992. Why are you charging us? "Because you want us to pay for accreditation, what is accreditation? A piece of paper with our names and lamination and we have to pay for it to cover elections that have to do with the future of this country. I am not very happy as a media person." Watch video below: Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Following the ban on public activities in the Ashanti Region, the Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party(NPP) Mr. Bernard Antwi Boasiako aka Chairman Wontumi, has taken the party's campaign to another level by interacting with churches and religious bodies. The NPP Chairman has been visiting churches and religious gatherings over the past weeks, explaining the party's policies and programmes to the congregations. He has so far visited including New Israel Church of God and Redemption Victory Church in Kumasi where he was welcomed by a massive crowd of congregants who eagerly expressed their delights at the visit. Chairman Wontumi in a separate addresse charged the congregants to keep praying for Ghana and the NPP for the country's salvation. He said the destiny hinged on the outcome of the December 7 elections. Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/ email: [email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Following earlier reports of Melbournians being hospitalised due to thunderstorm asthma, 20-year-old law student Hope Carnevali has been identified as one of two people to die following yesterdays storm. Carnevali died after waiting on her front lawn for an ambulance that, due to overwhelming demand, took more than 30 minutes to arrive. Her family, who attempted CPR throughout the wait, have described Carnevali as a kind-hearted, beautiful woman. According to an Ambulance Victoria Spokesman: There were two cases] where patients with respiratory symptoms were unable to be revived by paramedic crews. Our thoughts are with the families of those patients. We will carry out a full clinical review into these cases. And in whats looking like an honest-to-god epidemic, paramedics fear more deaths may have occurred during the night that are yet to be formally announced. With most ambulances experiencing a six-fold increase in demand throughout the night, an unnamed intensive care paramedic said that hed heard of numerous deaths. The uptake in demand also meant hospitals ran short on key resources such as oxygen and Ventolin before the Health Department sent out more this morning. Despite these difficulties, some people were able to access help. Guo Lo rushed himself to St. Vincents Hospital while struggling to breathe, and told 9News that: I felt like I was dying. They [medical staff] saved my life. Source: The Age. Photo: Facebook. Sydney has been dealt a devastating own from the Time Out Global Cities Index, which ranked them third least fun on their list of world cities lagging brutally behind its smug, moustachioed cousin, Melbourne, who came in second. The survey was a tally of the responses from 20,000 people across 18 cities, who were asked 81 wildly specific questions, like how much they love their city or how safe they feel or how often they have hangovers ultimately aiming to assess the citys fun level on six factors: dynamism (does it feel exciting), inspiration (does it feel nice), food and drink (does it taste nice), community (does it feel friendly), sociability (can you party) and affordability (can you afford rent). Melbourne came off looking pretty schmick, being beaten only by Chicago, which, in all fairness, has roughly ten thousand million more things to do. 74% of Melbournians strongly agreed that they love their city (the highest amount of any city on the list), which either means they truly do like it there OR theyre just very willing to lie out of civic pride, which still says something. Sydney, however, despite only beating Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, did come out with a few wins of its own, coming first in the categories of most hangovers, most workplace flings and most one night stands so clearly only boring for a very specific definition of boring. The city also arguably got the most important win of the day: kicking Melbournes ass at group sex. While 1% of respondents from Melbourne said theyd had sex with more than one person, Sydney came in at a bloody yuge 9% so keep in mind your mates from Sydney are probably 9 times more likely to be down for a threesome if you feel so inclined. On top of all that, 40% of people in Sydney answered that they had taken drugs in the last year as compared to only 33% of people in Melbourne. Motherfuckers like to party apparently. Using the advanced statistics I barely learnt in the engineering degree I dropped out of: I think its safe to conclude Melbourne is the more fun city according to people who are boring, and Sydney is a more fun city for people that like to fuck and take drugs. Nice. Source: Time Out. Photo: Chloe Sargeant. Kylie Jenners been teasing *something* for days, what with the drop of her Kylie Cosmetics holiday collection and the sudden appearance of a standalone KJ merch site with countdown to its launch in 18 days (want a long-sleeve with her boobs on it? Youre in luck!). Now we know the makeup empire shes built from the ground up which has so far netted her $8.75 million in rev is getting its first brick and mortar store at the massive Westfield Topanga in Canoga Park, California just in time to boost her coffers for Christmas. it was all just a dream ?? coming soon to the Topanga Westfield Mall. I grew up at this mall .. Crazy ?? 12.9.16 A photo posted by Kylie (@kyliejenner) on Nov 21, 2016 at 11:28am PST Kylie, 19, designed the interior herself and it should look familiar if you follow her on social media, cos part of it is meant to look like an exact replica of the bedroom in her recently-purchased Hidden Hills mansion. Other cool stuff: therell be a mammoth, Kris Jenner-style Xmas tree in-store, with Kylie Cosmetics makeup and merch hanging from its branches. As well as, obviously, the full range and special holiday gift sets. The doors fling open on Friday, December 9, and its *supposed* to run on typical store hours but if youre ever tried actually buying a Lip Kit you know that aint gonna happen. Those bad boys literally fly off shelves, with every restock since the very drop in November 2015 selling out in 17 minutes tops. In other words: its gonna be a bloodbath. Photo: Instagram / @kyliejenner. UPDATE: Ambulance Victoria has confirmed two people hospitalised in the wake of storm have died. Executive director of emergency operations, Mick Stephenson, said in a statement that whether or not they [the deaths] are related to this phenomenon we just dont know. The fatalities are currently being investigated. Melbourne is nothing if not the most unpredictable city. After yesterdays scorching 38 degree melt-fest the hottest November day in Melbourne since 2012 a severe thunderstorm swept through the city, churning up pollen, dust and other irritants in the air and prompting hundreds of calls for ambulances from people with asthma. The phenomenon dubbed thunderstorm asthma prompted so many calls to Ambulance Victoria that it had ran out of ambulances within an hour. I think [to call it] a spike in calls would be the understatement of a century, said Ambulance Victorias State Health Commander Paul Holman, who dubbed it an unprecedented phenomena hed never seen before in his 40 years on the job. Its a phenomenon weve only seen rarely before. Within an hour [of the storm hitting] wed received 160 calls, and had run out of resources. At one stage, 190 people required help, and since every single ambulance had been dispatched, paramedics called in help from the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, police and doctors to help with the demand. St Vincents Hospital, which would usually see 120 patients in its emergency department per night, received a whopping 216, and was put on disaster alert. PEDESTRIAN.TV Senior News Editor Cam Tyeson was one of those affected by thunderstorm asthma, and was kind enough to pause his attempts at breathing long enough to give us a quote. The storm rolled through at about 6:10 last night and symptoms were almost instantaneous; restricted airways, trouble catching and holding breath, wheezy cough, etc. It seems like the storm kicked up pollen and other irritants, which doesnt help on a day where the pollen count was already at extreme. I had asthma growing up so this isnt totally unfamiliar to me, but even still its the first major asthmatic event Ive copped in well over 15 years. While my symptoms arent as severe as others and certainly dont require immediate hospitalisation, it still (make no bones about it) both sucks and blows; somewhat ironic given that thats two things I cant do very well right now. The State Emergency Service is still responding to hundreds of calls for assistance, with over 13,000 homes left without power last night and over 350 calls for help in response to damaged homes and trees down. Source: Herald Sun / 9News. Photo: Twitter / Matthew Wu. God Peter Dutton just never stops, does he? And unfortunately for anyone who hoped our newest PM might do anything at all about bigotry in the Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull apparently never fucking starts. Following Duttos congratulatory little chat with Andrew Bolt last week, where both agreed parts of Malcolm Frasers 1970s humanitarian intake of over 250,000 people constituted a mistake because a handful of second-or-third generation Australians have traveled to Islamic State war zones, Dutton confirmed yesterday that he was specifically talking about Lebanese-Australian Muslims. Because denigrating an entire ethnic group for the crimes of a select few is the definition of racism and an incredibly hateful, irresponsible discourse for an Immigration Minister to engage with, let alone support, reporters asked Turnbull today what he thought of Duttons comments. Guess how that went: There is no question that there are lessons to be learned from previous immigration policies and the minister was reflecting on, you know, on policies many years ago. Hes entitled to do thatIm not making any comment on his remarks other than to say that its fair for all of us to reflect on past policies and how effective they were or not and seek to improve. He also lyingly called Dutton a thoughtful, compassionate immigration minister, and naturally threw in a pained, extremely pointless attack at Labor for good measure: The Labor party is constantly envious of Duttons record as an immigration minister, because every day, by his effectiveness, he demonstrates what failures they were when they were responsible for our nations borders. Describing Duttons blatant racism as simply learning from history, and going further in actually praising the guy who just insulted Lebanese Australians, is wildly inexcusable, lazy behaviour for a party leader. It also weirdly conflicts with the half-way decent persona Turnbull curated for years before he was PM, and confirms his previous views on racism were either all an act or mean basically nothing to him now that hes got the top job. Naturally, Twitter was quick to cut through the PMs bullshit and call a racist spade a racist spade: Haaang on: in 2011 Mr Turnbull told us that denigrating immigrants was not OK. So perhaps #SackDutton indeed, hey?https://t.co/b0jSrS5ljy pic.twitter.com/vONxLBP26j Ivana Kovac Kuti (@IKKsays) November 22, 2016 Turnbull wriggling like a worm on a hook to avoid saying anything about Duttons racist attack on Lebanese Australians. Bernard Keane (@BernardKeane) November 22, 2016 Wonder if @PeterDutton_MP thinks my #Italian family should have been kept out of #Australia because of the #Mafia. #auspol Richard Di Natale (@RichardDiNatale) November 21, 2016 Considering Turnbulls piss-weak response to George Christensen and Cory Bernardis disgustingly homophobic language during the Safe Schools debate, we shouldnt have been surprised. Its yet more proof that Turnbulls happy to kowtow to all of the stupid shit the far-right of his party pulls. This is the real PM: a coward, apologist for bigotry, and a massive fkn fizza. Give the video of Turnbulls comments a squiz, if you can stomach it: .@TurnbullMalcolm defends Peter Duttons record as Immig. minister, Lebanese-Muslims angry over migration comment https://t.co/1GKMDpOBh0 ABC News 24 (@ABCNews24) November 22, 2016 Source: Guardian Australia. Photo: Getty, Because 2016 will just not stop being the absolute worst, Payless Shoes AKA Where You Bought Your First Work Shoes has been placed into administration. One of Australias biggest independent shoe retailers, Payless has been kicking since 1980 and currently has 131 stores around the country. Whatever your first job was (shoutout to my fellow bakers out there!), youve probably been to a Payless and known the pleasure of a decent, wonderfully affordable leather work shoe. The business will operate as usual until voluntary administrators Ferrier Hodgson can figure out what to do with it: We are immediately calling for expressions of interest for a sale of the business as a going concern, administrator Jim Sarantinos said. Employees will continue to be paid by the administrators and it was expected that employee entitlements will be fully covered from the assets of the company. Sarantinos also described Payless as one of the best-known independent shoe retailers in Australia, and its too early for Ferrier Hodgson to say exactly what caused the companys current financial problems. My guess? It was our fault. We abandoned Payless when it needed us the most, and its (possible) death will be on our heads. Goodnight, sweet, cheap prince. Source: SMH. Photo: Getty. Its going to be a wild ride for media in the United States to try and squeeze anything out of Donald Trump over the next four years, thats for sure. Hes taking a tactic we in Australia know all too well: the Scott Morrison brick wall strategy, where all info and media is carefully managed, few specifics are mentioned and the narrative is tightly controlled. Trump hasnt done an actual press conference with reporters in yonks, and his supporters would have no issue with that they think the mainstream media are all liars anyway. Hes pushed out a YouTube address about the transition process and its very good at seeming like a plan without nailing any pesky specifics. Trumps transition process has been described in the media as being in disarray, but its probably not worth dwelling on, tbh. Whether or not its true, its pretty clear what well be getting at the end of it: a mishmash of establishment Republicans and anti-establishment DRAIN THE SWAMP mutants. The process it takes to get there is immaterial. Trumps main plans for his first 100 days, which he says will be executed largely through executive orders which dont require the input of Congress are withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, cancelling restrictions on American energy, cutting regulations, protecting American infrastructure, investigating abuses of the visa program and initiating a ban on lobbying for ex-members of the executive. Of course, the specifics arent quite there. For example, though Trump is heralded as the man who will initiate a FDR-scale renewal of American infrastructure, it currently looks like his plan there involves tax credits for developers and construction entities, rather than an actual public works program. Thats the reason Bernie Sanders has abandoned any pretence of working with Trump on infrastructure. Trumps plan to repair our infrastructure is a scam that gives massive tax breaks to large companies & billionaires. https://t.co/05JEyOwddR Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 21, 2016 Its going to be a tough time for the media its likely that Trump is going to continue his scheme of providing updates directly to the American people without having media pick it apart. Thats fine in one respect, and will certainly make his fans happy, but it will make it radically more difficult to hold him to account. So, a lot of media and notably panicking about this, as you might imagine. dear broadcast media: do NOT play Trumps video statement in full unless you want to fully cede press freedom David Mack (@davidmackau) November 21, 2016 Even if youre a Trumpista, you should be slightly concerned about it. Sure, youve thrown a grenade into the establishment, youve blown the whole sick enterprise to Hell but cmon. Simply having the scuzzy orange rodent in the drivers seat isnt going to Make America Great Again. Someones gotta hold him to account. Source: YouTube. Photo: YouTube. A New York man has been captured on video abusing another motorist at a stop light, accusing the man of being an Arab, and a terrorist and telling him that Donald Trump is going to deport him. Fucking Arab motherfucker! Terrorist fucking cock-sucker! he says. I dont care, bro, videotape me! Youre a loser! Youre not even from here, you motherfucker! Trump is president, asshole, so you can kiss your fucking visa goodbye, scumbag! Hell deport you soon, dont worry, you fucking terrorist! the man before driving off. The video has since gone viral on Facebook, with 5.3 million views and 64,000 shares. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has released a statement condemning the recent uptick of incidents of harassment and racial abuse against Muslims, saying they are against everything New York stands for. The video was shown by the Uber driver, whose name is Mohammed, to passenger Chris Cody, an adjunct professor at St. Johns University. I could tell he was upset, Cody said. He didnt tell me exactly why he decided to take a video. I think he was just so shocked by what happened. He then shared the video with his friend Karim Metwaly, a YouTube actor. Theres definitely some Islamophobic and anti-Muslim sentiment out there right now, Cody continued. I dont blame him for being intimidated, especially with the stuff coming out of that guys mouth. Source: Facebook. Photo: Facebook. Extremely loud man Billy Eichner has taken New Yorkers on an emotional roller coaster, by pranking them into believing perpetually stoned comedian Seth Rogen was dead, and then low-and-behold, revealing him to be alive. His latest segment for Billy on the Street morbidly titled Death Rogen allows Rogen the rare experience of witnessing the public mourn for his death. (And if youve never imagined your own funeral, either youre an anomaly or youre lying.) Weve lost so many great artists this year who dont live long enough to see all the many profound ways that people pay tribute to them after theyre gone, explained Billy. Seth can experience what their reaction is while he is still around. Full props to the Aussies who saw through this stitch-up right away. Doin us proud, mates. I hit the street with @Sethrogen in disguise, told people Seth just died & got their reactions! This is DEATH ROGEN: https://t.co/eanZx7JZml billy eichner (@billyeichner) November 21, 2016 Photo: Billy on the Street. We know, we know: your hearts are still raw over the v. sad news Matt & Alex wont be returning as the hosts of Triple J Breakfast in 2017, with their last show scheduled for Friday, December 16th. But with every goodbye comes the silver lining: a blowout sendoff. And the boys is going to be ALL TIME, with a ~free~ rave tour thats going to see them make a pitstop in most major cities. 5 Raves in 5 Days will visit Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth for one last dance off, with DJ sets by the likes of Client Liaison, Gang of Youths, Montaigne, Ball Park Music, Luke Million, Feki feat Gill Bates, Nina Las Vega and a whole heap more. Their victory lap starts next week (!!!), on Monday, November 28, in Perth before wrapping up in Brisvegas on the Friday. Heres everything you need to know: Monday, November 28 Amplifier Capitol, Perth DJ sets by: Drapht, Mosquito Coast, San Cisco and Tired Lion Tuesday, November 29 Fat Controller, Adelaide DJ sets by: Bad//Dreems, Jess Kent, Luke Million, Tigerilla and Trials Wednesday, November 30 170 Russell, Melbourne DJ sets by: Bec Sandridge, Client Liaison, Gretta Ray, Illy, Japanese Wallpaper and Olympia Thursday, December 1 Beach Road Hotel, Sydney DJ sets by: Gang of Youths, Lisa Mitchell, Montaigne, One Day DJs, The Preatures and triple j presenters Friday, December 2 Oh Hello Car Park, Brisbane DJ sets by: Amy Shark, Ball Park Music, Confidence Man, Feki feat. Gill Bates, The Jungle Giants Get yourself there for one last laugh and remember: dont cry because its over, smile because it happened. Photo: Triple J. Tonight, the winner of the tenth cycle of Australias Next Top Model was announced: 16 year-old Aleyna Fitzgerald, from Newcastle, has taken the crown, with the comp having whittled down to her and Byron Bay local Sabine Jamieson. Congratulations Aleyna, you are Australias Next Top Model! #AusNTM pic.twitter.com/t6Qb6J8zgz Aus Next Top Model (@AusNextTopModel) November 22, 2016 Fitzgerald has won a humdinger of a prize package, including a 12-month modelling contract with Priscillas Management, an eight-page spread in ELLE Magazine, a casual Mazda, and a trip to New York during Fashion Week. My heart is quietly aching that all of this is being given to someone who is far too young to ever possibly fully appreciate it/someone who is not me, but I am sure she deserves it. Although there were no incorrect winners announced this year (still one of the finest moments in Australian television history), the result came as a shock to some loyal viewers. Fitzgerald ultimately scored only 0.5 points more than Jamieson in their final challenge, which was a ~modern princess~ themed photoshoot for ELLE Magazine. Jamieson was expected to reign triumphant, and the Internet is pretty devo, given she was a fan fave. I cant believe Kim Kardashian, Hilary Clinton and Sabine were all robbed this year #AusNTM Claire (@ThirdWardTril) November 22, 2016 Sabine got robbed wtf #AusNTM IG: adriandimasi (@adrian_dimasi) November 22, 2016 #AusNTM IM SO ANGRY WHY DIDNT MY BABIE SABINE WIN NONONONONO e?j (@coconutyug) November 22, 2016 Australias Next Top Model is so rigged its not even funny. Sabine was robbed. Quite over this show tbh #AusNTM Danielle Ries (@dani_ries) November 22, 2016 #AusNTM sabine got robbed sorry her photo was killer ari (@ariharrison1) November 22, 2016 so so so proud of sabine #AusNTM ruby (@OkBabyAustralia) November 22, 2016 At the end of the day, though, its no real bd because apparently Jamieson was offered a contract from Priscillas Management right after the finale. So, congrats to all. Let us revel in the success of these aesthetically stunning teenagers. Source: ELLE. Photo: Twitter. Many saw this was coming (but hoped it wasnt true), but unfortunately its now official: Kanye West has cancelled the remaining 21 dates for his Saint Pablo tour in the US. UPDATE: @Ticketmaster confirms that the remaining #SaintPabloTour shows have been canceled. Contact point of purchase for a refund. ?? pic.twitter.com/LKj5GHqt9z TeamKanyeDaily (@TeamKanyeDaily) November 21, 2016 The only notice given regarding the cancellation is from Ticketmaster and Live Nation. A representative for Kanye also confirmed the cancellation to Rolling Stone. Yesterday, we published a story after he cancelled Sunday nights show at The Forum in Los Angeles, which delved into the fact that most media are saying this is stock-standard OTT Kanye behaviour, but his fans are becoming legitimately worried for his mental health and wellbeing. The show in LA was supposed to make up for a previous show, which was halted halfway through due to Ye completely losing his voice. Fans have become worried in the last week or so, after the rapper has became more erratic than usual; his rants about Donald Trump, Jay-Z and Beyonce worried fans in the first place they were disjointed, breathless, and inconsistent. Then, the show cancellations began. Not to mention that right after he cancelled his LA show, the uploads of old, bizarrely-framed, out-of-focus Maison Martin Margiela lookbooks to Instagram began; he posted 99 photos in less than 24 hours. While theres plenty of fans are happy to blame this on Kanyes ego (a common scapegoat), it aint the case. Cancelling a major (not to mention well-received) national tour halfway through is far beyond ego its very unlike him, and its concerning. Our heart honestly goes out to ya if youre by chance holding a now-worthless ticket in your hand. Its truly one of the most shithouse feelings; no matter the reason behind the cancellation, you cant help but feel as though they let you down. But Ye doesnt seem to be doing so crash-hot right now, and health always comes first. Were hoping he rests up and gets the help and support he needs. Source: KanyeDaily. Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty. #PM-apology PM apologizes for quip at press briefing on Itaewon tragedy Prime Minister Han Duck-soo issued an apology Wednesday for making a quip at a media briefing with foreign journalists with regard to the Halloween crowd crush in Itaewon. "Re... #football Tottenham's Son Heung-min leaves Champions League match early after collision Son Heung-min of Tottenham Hotspur was forced to leave his club's latest UEFA Champions League match early following a collision with an opposing defender. Son was subbed out in... Screen Shot 2016-11-22 at 10.40.53 AM.png Pictured is Barry Ernest as seen in the documentary "A Coup in Camelot." Ernest is a Harrisburg man who spent 35 years looking into Victoria Adams, one of the witnesses of The Kennedy Assassination. A Harrisburg man who spent 35 years investigating a witness' account of the Kennedy assassination is featured in the documentary "A Coup in Camelot." Barry Ernest is one of the people who is interviewed in the film. He wrote 2013's "The Girl on the Stairs," which documents his investigation into what Victoria Adams saw and heard in Dallas on the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. "She was mentioned only briefly in the Warren Report and not much evidence was available concerning her, but she triggered some interest in me when I first got interested in looking into this subject in 1967," Ernest said in an interview with PennLive last week. Ernest said he interviewed several of Adams' coworkers who can back up her account of the day's events. He added that he has reviewed documents in the National Archives that contradicts what the investigating body -- also known as the "Warren Commission" -- said happened following the shooting. Ernest previously worked as a staff writer and reporter for the York Daily Record and Sunday News in York; and as a cops and federal courts reporter for the Syracuse Herald-Journal in Syracuse, New York. He then worked as a speechwriter for the Pennsylvania Department of Commerce starting in 1979 and as a director of communications for the Pennsylvania Department of Community Affairs. Ernest has also worked on the campaign trail for former Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh. Today, Ernest is retired. He still does some writing here and there but said "I've calmed down quite a bit." The following are excerpts of PennLive's conversation with Ernest about his book and his appearance in "A Coup in Camelot." The film is available on iTunes, Amazon Video Direct, Google Play and Vimeo OnDemand. The DVD and Blu-ray can also be purchased through the film's website. What did Victoria Adams see on that day? "She worked on the fourth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, and she and three other women were looking out the window of their office as the motorcade went by. When the final shot occurred, she and a co-worker ran down the back staircase of the building to get outside to see what was going on. "The problem that the Warren Commission was confronted with was that Lee (Harvey) Oswald was on the sixth floor of the building and had to come down the same stairs in order to get into the second-floor lunchroom where a confrontation occurred between him and a police office and a building manager. "The timing between when Oswald left the window and arrived in the second floor lunchroom was very crucial in the 90-second-or-less window in order to get there... the dilemma was she didn't hear or see anyone on the stairs at that time, and the stairs were very old, wooden, rickety ... As I went further into researching her story, I found that how (the Warren Commission) dealt with it was to just ignore her. They said she was wrong in her timing, and she went down the stairs much later than when she said she did it." Who were the people who confirmed this for you? "When you read her testimony... she is very adamant about the timing of when she came down the stairs, and she mentioned something the Warren report didn't bother to look into. There was a co-worker that went with her who could've confirmed the timing of her descent. There were two other women at the window with her who could've confirmed the timing of when she and her coworker left the office and went down. None of those women were questioned by the Warren Commission..." "Ultimately, I interviewed the women who went with her down the stairs, and she confirmed the timing of their descent and I discovered, in 1999, a document in the National Archives that proved that she had come down from the stairs when she said she did." How did it prove that she came down the stairs when she said she did? "Here's the scenario that the Warren Commission introduced. Oswald fired three shots from the sixth floor window. He takes a route across the sixth floor, hides his gun on top of the stairs and then runs down the back staircase and, for some reason... he gets off the stairs and goes into a lunchroom there and buys a Coke. At this point, an officer who was riding a motorcycle in the motorcade, when the shots are fired, he sees pigeons flying off the sixth floor. This raises some suspicion with him, so he dismounts and runs into the depository where he meets the building manager and they, in turn, run from the ground floor to the second floor where the officer sees a suspicious man through a window in the lunch room and confronts him with his gun drawn. That person is Lee Oswald. When the building manager said he works there, the officer holstered his gun and continue on up to the roof." "In 1999, going through the files on (Victoria) Adams, as I did every time I went to the (National Archives), I found a document that hadn't been there before. It was a letter from Martha Jo Stroud, who was the assistant U.S. attorney in Dallas, forwarded to the Warren Commission the transcript of (Victoria) Adams' testimony... the key line is the last paragraph where her supervisor... was quoted saying that she saw the building manager and police man coming up the stairs after (Victoria) Adams and her coworker went down the stairs...the bottom line to that is that (Victoria) Adams went down in advance of seeing the policeman and building manager come up the stairs, proving that she did go down the stairs when she said she did." "The other key element (was that she) didn't see Lee Oswald come down the stairs after she saw the girls descend the stairway. What that means is that Lee Oswald had to be down below the fourth floor before the girls went down, which is impossible based on the timeline the Warren Commission set up for his descent down the stairs." So why isn't her story a bigger deal today? "It should be bigger. This is a story that, in my opinion, not because I wrote it, is very crucial to the timeline of what the government had of what Oswald did immediately after the shots were fired. I can't explain why the media doesn't show more of an interest in the legitimate controversy that's coming out, the contradictions that are coming out by legitimate researchers looking into this. I suspect that a lot of it is due to the fact that the books that are coming out now are ridiculous. They deal more with speculation and wild-eyed theory rather than honest legitimate research." What do you hope the documentary and book will accomplish? "I hope it's educational. I hope it informs people of this story and other stories. I think the documentary, for the most part, is factually oriented. I think it's designed to educate this generation on something that occurred over 50 years ago and hasn't fully been resolved." For more information about the documentary, visit A Coup in Camelot's website. Time isn't kind. It's relentless. It moves forward and stops for nothing. The SS United States knows this well. Once the flagship of America, a symbol of the country's ingenuity and technological prowess, it now lies rusting. Its helm faces an Ikea parking lot in South Philadelphia rather than the open sea. This is the ship that people lined eight blocks in New York City to see in 1952 for its maiden voyage. This is the ship that claimed President Harry Truman, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor as passengers. It was glamorous. It was powerful. It was magnificent. For years, the SS United States was sealed tight in an effort to preserve it in a moment of time. Workers' items were left onboard, waiting to be picked up on a day that never came. Decades later, time has done its best to wound the SS United States. Rust creeps up its hull. Moss covers sections of its deck. Its interior frames are laid bare, exposing the skeleton of the ship that once was the jewel of the American maritime experience. Every day that passes, the SS United States decays more. Time is its enemy. Its champion, the conservancy that is fighting so hard to save it, is powerless to fight against it. Photos of the decaying SS United States But the conservancy has hope. It's a dream that one day someone will swoop in and give the ship the monetary boost it needs to regain some of its former glory. But as time passes, the dream gets harder and harder to realize. The SS United States as it arrived in New York City on June 25, 1952 to begin its maiden voyage. (AP photo/File) The perfect ship Susan Gibbs is the granddaughter of the SS United States' creator, William Gibbs. She's the head of the SS United States Conservancy, which owns the ship and is trying to save it. "This is just an extraordinarily important expression of American history," she said, standing on the ship's deck. "It's the only great ocean liner we have left afloat. "It's America's flagship, the greatest ship we, as nation, ever produced," she continued later. "It would be an unbelievable tragedy for us to let this extraordinary historical monument slip through our fingers." In 1952, the SS United States was a modern marvel. Legendary naval architect William Gibbs had built a ship that broke records and captured the country's imagination. It was the pride and joy of its' owner, the United States Lines. Workers break for lunch from the liner, SS United States at Newport News Shipbuilding, 3/19/1952. neg: 52-167 At 990 feet long, it would be the tallest building in Pennsylvania if placed upright. It was not only big, but fast. The SS United States claimed the prestigious Blue Riband award on its maiden voyage, a prize given to the ship that travelled across the Atlantic the fastest. It was the first U.S. vessel to win the honor in nearly 100 years. The SS United States still holds the record for fastest passenger liner to cross the Atlantic in both directions. That was thanks to the propulsion system, which was virtually kept a state secret for decades due to the SS United States' role as a backup troop transport. The system was designed by Elaine Kaplan, one of the few female engineers at the time. It was revolutionary and included the use of both five-blade and four-blade propellers. Its aluminum body also helped keep it light. About 2,000 tons were used to construct the ship. The aluminum was found in everything from the glamorous funnels (the tallest on a ship at the time) to the cabin keys. "She's probably the best technology ever constructed in her time," said Michael Flynn, vice president of interpretation and visitor experience at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia. More vintage photos of the SS United States But the perfect ship, in Gibbs' mind, needed to be more than fast. It needed to be safe. He boasted that the ship was virtually fireproof and unsinkable and set about doing everything he could to ensure that it would be. "He took it to an obsessive degree," Susan Gibbs said. "He was kind of a legend for it." The famous quip was that the only wood on the ship was the butcher's block and the Steinway piano. The piano, however, was fireproof, as Thomas Steinway, president of the firm, proved to Gibbs. Steinway brought a piano out, doused it with gasoline and lit it on fire, according to Steven Ujifusa's book "A Man And His Ship." While the gasoline burned, the piano didn't. It was only then that Gibbs allowed the pianos onto the ship. Even today, the SS United States' safety standards are exceptional. For years, the Safety of Life at Sea standards mandated that every ship be able to stay afloat with as many as two compartments flooded. The United States could stay afloat with five. The passenger tales Just before its maiden voyage on July 3, 1952 the ship was opened to the public for one day. Nearly 25,000 people paid the $1 admission fee to see the ship. It became the preferred method of travel for celebrities. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor regularly traveled on it, and other famous visitors included Prince Rainier of Monaco, Salvador Dali and his pet ocelot, and Sean Connery. Even the Mona Lisa traveled on the ship, en route to an exhibition in New York City and Washington, D.C. Joe Rota, 83, worked as an elevator operator on the ship (and later as a photographer). He recalled talking to Prince Rainier and Marlon Brando as well as the usual passengers. "The people that traveled with us, passengers -- even today when we have an opportunity to speak to people who made one trip, it was one of the highlights of their lives," he said. "It represented all that was beautiful," said Dr. Harold Goldfarb, 82, who worked as the ship's surgeon. "When you would get aboard the ship, you would relax elegantly and enjoy the break and the time to get to the old world." For some of the passengers, the SS United States was the gateway to a new life. A menu from the SS United States. Heinz Bayer, 78, was one of those passengers. He emigrated from Germany in 1965, buying a ticket on the SS United States and arriving in New York City with only a few suitcases. Today, he lives in the Poconos. "It is not fair to say that this is just a ship," he said. "It is more than a ship. It is for people like me, a way into a new life ... and a new world. It becomes like a mother that takes you someplace where you're safe, and the SS United States had been my mother in regards to that." For decades, Bayer has carried with him his passenger list. It never leaves his side. "I remember every single day the opportunity I had and how I feel the gratitude to the ship and its staff," he said. But the heyday of the SS United States would be brief. The end of the ocean liner era Airplanes became the popular mode of transportation to Europe in the 1960s. A plane could get you to your destination in a matter of hours, whereas the SS United States, while fast, would take at least three days. At the same time, crew unions exerted their power. They refused to let the ship lay off crew members during light seasons. The result was that on some voyages there were 761 passengers and 941 crew members. It lost $8 million in 1966. Finally, on the completion of its 400th voyage on Nov. 7, 1969, it went to Newport News Shipyard in Virginia, where it had been made, for a tune-up. The shipyard crews started work on the ship as soon as it came in, before being called off suddenly. The United States Lines had decided to retire the SS United States. And with that, the SS United States was done. Its 17-year career ended without any bells or whistles - just a whisper and a closed door. "It's just like everything else that happens: The train replaces the horse and carriage, the automobile replaces the train and the airplane trumps the ship purely because it was faster," Flynn said. The timing was bad for the ship. "She missed her real era to shine," Flynn said, elaborating later "If she was just 40-50 years earlier, she'd probably be much more famous than she is today." Cabins on the SS United States. While the interiors of the ship have been gutted, you can still make out where bathrooms would have been. Julia Hatmaker | jhatmaker@pennlive.com The attempts to save her Since then, the ship has changed owners multiple times, each with their own dreams for the great ocean liner. All fell through. As time passed, the liner's furnishings were sold at auction and its interiors gutted to rid it of asbestos. The ocean liner seemed destined to become scrap metal in 2010, but at the last minute the SS United States Conservancy came up with the funds to buy it, thanks to a $5.8 million donation by H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, a Philadelphian philanthropist. The conservancy has hunted for a development partner since then to help turn the ship into a mixed-use space to include restaurants, hotel rooms, a museum or offices. It costs about $60,000 a month, mostly for docking, maintenance and insurance, to keep the ship going. The conservancy is just focused on keeping the lights on, figuratively speaking. "Even doing something as logical as painting the funnels so it looks like something is underway ... would cost a half a million dollars for all sorts of complex technical reasons," Susan Gibbs said. "It has been our sense that any meaningful work on the ship can only commence once the ship is brought into dry-dock and the restoration really begins." One of the SS United States' famous funnels, as seen in Nov. 2016. Julia Hatmaker | jhatmaker@pennlive.com There was hope this year, when Crystal Cruises expressed interest in refurbishing the boat and spent about $1 million on a feasibility study. The result, however, was grim. "Unfortunately, the hurdles that would face us when trying to bring a 65-year-old vessel up to modern safety, design and international regulatory compliance have proven just too great to clear in both a technically and commercially responsible manner," said Crystal President and CEO Edie Rodriguez. The company donated $350,000 to the conservancy instead. In the past, the SS United States always managed to stay afloat, no matter what sort of financial storm it faced. Susan Gibbs is hoping that's true again. For now, the ship is safe until the beginning of 2017. Beyond that is anyone's guess. But Gibb's isn't giving up on the ship. "She's not done yet." To help save the SS United States, donate to the SS United States Conservancy. For more information, visit . Six people were displaced by a house fire officials believe a 4-year-old boy ignited in the 500 block of Arnold Street Sunday morning, according to a Lebanon Daily News report. Four children and two adults were left without a home after crews extinguished the blaze, the report said. Officials didn't immediately know how the boy set the fire that started on a bed on the second floor. The boy linked to the blaze was injured and rushed to the hospital. Details on his condition were not immediately available, however. A cat died in the fire. Efforts to extinguish the blaze were hampered by strong winds that ripped through the midstate Sunday, according to the report. The fire reportedly caused $50,000 of damage to the home, and a neighboring residence took on smoke damage. The pedestrian struck and killed by a train in Lebanon Monday was a 51-year-old man, but police have yet to release the victim's name pending the notification of family. Police responded to a set of railroad tracks along North Eights Street after a Norfolk Southern train heading east struck the man on the northern set of tracks at about 4:34 p.m. The man died at the scene, police said. Witnesses said the man, who was by himself, initially stopped at the southern set of railroad tracks. He then tried to run across the tracks, but tripped and fell into the patch of the oncoming train just west of the North Eight Street crossing, according to police. Police said there is no marked or lighted crossing where the man was struck. For a second time Middletown Borough Council voted against accepting a $500,000 matching grant the state awarded the town to help renovate the historic Elks Theatre. During a two-and-a-half hour special meeting Monday night called to reconsider its vote last week, council voted 4-2 to reject the grant from Pennsylvania's Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, Middletown Mayor James Curry told PennLive via email. Last week, council cast a mirror vote against accepting the grant over concerns of whether the borough could come up with the matching funds. Council has to notify the state by Nov. 28 whether it will accept the grant, which was sought by the borough Industrial and Commercial Development Authority in 2014-15. The borough would then have six months to complete a detailed application for the funds, which would come as reimbursement for work done on the theatre, located at 4 W. Emaus St. PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A Philadelphia police officer has been charged with shooting his son in the back during a dispute over the use of the family car. Officer Dorion Young has been charged with attempted murder and other counts in the Labor Day shooting. District Attorney Seth Williams says the son had retreated to his bedroom when Young broke the door down and shot the 19-year-old with a personal weapon during a struggle. They say a second bullet bounced off the officer's shoe. Williams says the son had to have his spleen removed and continues to recover from his injuries. The 46-year-old Young is in custody and does not have a lawyer listed in court records. Police officials have suspended the 25-year veteran and plan to dismiss him. Artur Samarin sentencing at Dauphin County Court Artur Samarin, the Ukrainian man who posed as a Harrisburg High student, arrives at the Dauphin County Courthouse for sentencing, Tuesday, November 22, 2016. Samarin is sentenced on his guilty pleas to fraud and sex crime charges. He admitted to lying about his identity to secure a free public education as a student at Harrisburg High School and to having sex with a 15-year-old girl he met at school. Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com (Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.) Artur Samarin gave no excuses Tuesday as a Dauphin County judge sentenced him to prison for masquerading as a Harrisburg High School student and for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl he met in class. But the 23-year-old Ukrainian man did offer an explanation. "I made a huge mistake to pursue my American dream," Samarin told Judge Deborah E. Curcillo. Moments later, Curcillo sentenced Samarin to 11 1/2 to 23 months in county prison, plus 7 years on probation. That comes in addition to the 2-month jail term a federal judge imposed on Samarin in a fraud case last week. Curcillo also ordered Samarin to pay $44,038 in restitution to the school district for his ill-gotten education. Samarin's prison stays could be rather short since he already has served about 9 months in the county prison following his arrest in February. His lawyer, Adam Klein, told Curcillo that Samarin expects to be deported and already has contacted the Ukrainian Consulate in New York City. "He is not fighting deportation," Klein said. "He wishes to return home." Samarin did come to the U.S. legally, Klein noted, but stayed after his visa expired and took on the fake persona of teenager Asher Potts. Klein blamed Samarin's "adopted parents," Stephanye and Michael Potts, for concocting the con. Both are facing federal fraud charges. "He unfortunately ran in to a couple of con artists who took advantage of him," Klein said. He said Samarin has cooperated with investigators, "especially with the Department of Justice investigation of the Potses." Klein asked for a time-served sentence. First Assistant Assistant District Attorney Fran Chardo insisted that Samarin deserved more jail time. Chardo said the restitution figure came from the school district. "Frankly, I don't ever expect to see that money," he said. The girl Samarin admitted molesting when he pleaded guilty in September to county charges including statutory sexual assault, theft by deception and records tampering wasn't in the courtroom. "She frankly didn't want to have to see (Samarin) again," Chardo said. Klein insisted that, despite his illegal ruse, Samarin "has done a lot for this community" by helping with food banks, enrolling in Junior ROTC and participating in student government. "He really in many ways was a credit to the Harrisburg School District," Klein said. Besides, he said, "It would serve the taxpayers not to have to house and feed Mr. Samarin." Klein called one witness, retired Harrisburg teacher Edith Goodson, who praised Samarin for his politeness and academic determination. She said Samarin would help tutor the few other pupils she encountered who were interested in learning "while I was trying to control the chaos around them." As for the school district's restitution demand, "Not one penny of that money was wasted on Artur," Goodson insisted. "He is a fine young man and he was here for all the right reasons." "You are and always will be the most impressive male high school student I've ever had the pleasure of meeting," she told Samarin. That made Chardo visibly angry. "This is an adult who sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl," the prosecutor said. "He deserves every minute he serves in prison." Samarin will have to complete his county prison term before starting his stint in federal prison and ultimately being deported to the Ukraine. HAVANA CARS ART.jpg American cars on a street in Havana. Cuba (Shutterstock.com photo) By Michael A. MacDowell The Cuban people's anticipation about their new relationship with the United States is palpable. Michael A. MacDowell (PennLive file photo) But as we found, after a week's visit there, most Cubans' excitement is tempered with a sense of realism. They realize that their country is not ready for an onslaught of Americans. Cuban infrastructure is clearly an issue. The crumbling facades of the beautiful colonial style buildings in downtown Havana and elsewhere are very slowly being restored by government employees, but the Cuban bureaucracy is overwhelming. One sophisticated architect, with whom we spent an hour, explained that he started in the "Bureau of Architecture and Reclamation" ten years ago when there were 200+ employees. Today there are 10,000 "working" in the Bureau all of whom are government employees. One can imagine that management problems abound. Havana's port, which in theory would allow large cruise ships to dock, thereby not placing inordinate burdens upon small and inadequate hotel space in Havana, can barely handle the 650 people on a relatively small liner that currently docks there bi-weekly. The thought of a 4,000-passenger ship cruising into Havana was overwhelming to our guide. The Cuban people we met were friendly, open and well-educated. There were few panhandlers on the streets. Education and health care are "free." They, like almost everything else, are paid for by the revenues from Cuban businesses, 90 percent of which are outright owned by the government. The remainder pay heavy taxes. Despite this Cubans remain entrepreneurial. Many have opened restaurants, paladores, often in their homes. The food there is usually good as are the treats from some privately owned bakeries. Cuban are also resourceful and innovative. They manage to keep 1950s era American automobiles running. The driver we had said his car had more than 2,000,000 kilometers on the odometer. The engine had been replaced many times by Russian tractor engines. In a break from the l940s and l950s there seem to be few in any drug problems in Cuba. This is good news. However, there are no drug problems because there's no money. The government salary that all Cubans receive from the government is the equivalent to about $60-$80 a month whether they be a physician or a bus driver. Cuba has two internal currencies. The Cuban peso is worth about 4 cents. It is used for domestic transactions mainly in "ration stores" where subsidized essentials such as beans, rice, cooking oil and rum are sold to Cubans. The Cuban Convertible Currency or "CUC", used by nonresidents, is worth about $1. Cubans who work in the tourist industry receive gratuities in CUCs. With tips and their government salary chambermaids often make more than Dentists in the topsy-turvy economy. The Cuban government has few sources of hard currency. In fact, Cuba's most profitable export is its trained health care professionals who are sent to other countries. Most hard currency comes to Cuba through the salaries these healthcare workers send back to their families. Exporting your brightest minds in this way does not sound like a good formula for economic growth. In its own lethargic way the Cuban government is trying to encourage investment. Some Spanish and French firms have built hotels, but they're doing so cautiously. When Americans have tried to make initial investments in Cuba things have not gone well. With the blessings of the Obama administration, American entrepreneurs Saul Berenthal and Horace Clemmons sought permission from Cuba to construct the first American factory there since 1959. According to the Associated Press, Cuba first lauded the plans for the factory to build small tractors, but after more than a year courtship the Cuban government dropped the idea without any explanation. Resourceful Cuban mechanics won't even have U.S. tractor motors to replace the Russian ones in their l957 Chevrolets. It seems to the casual observer that an industrious and genuinely pleasant population of 11 million Cubans is mostly being kept at bay by an immense bureaucracy steeped in socialist thinking. Opening the country to U.S. tourists will help, but without a serious re-examination of the many archaic aspects of Cuba's controlled economy, few improvements will be made. The secret will be how to keep the Cuban industriousness, spirit, love of life and an endearing culture alive while their economy transitions into the twenty-first century. Michael A. MacDowell is President Emeritus of Misericordia University. He is also the Managing Director of the Calvin K. Kazanjian Economics Foundation. He lives in Harveys Lake, Pa.. FAKE NEWS GOOGLE IMAGE.jpg This screenshot of Google provided by The Washington Post shows false election results being shared at the top of Google search results for the election. (Screenshot from Google) (Screenshot from Google) By Petula Dvorak Charnice Milton. Petula Dvorak (Washington Post) That's whom those two guys cranking out fake news in a California apartment should have given some thought to during this election cycle. Milton was a 27-year-old journalist fatally shot at a bus stop in Southeast Washington last year, on her way home from covering a late-night community meeting at Eastern Market. She was used as a human shield in a gun fight, her killing still unsolved. And she was at that deadly place because of the precise way she practiced her craft, the real journalism that so much of America walked away from during the presidential campaign. Instead of relying on the kind of quality reporting done by dedicated, trained journalists who value facts, too many Americans devoured the kind of fake news that the likes of Paris Wade and Ben Goldman vomit into the universe. "Our audience does not trust the mainstream media," Goldman, 26, told The Washington Post's Terrence McCoy, who hung out with the fake news guys during election week and who describe themselves as the "new yellow journalists." Puhleeze, guys. You don't get to call yourselves any kind of journalists. These knobs, who were unemployed restaurant workers six months ago, make more money pounding out false news from a California beach town rental than the vast majority of legitimate journalists who devote their lives to covering school board meetings, city council sessions, community gatherings - the ones who stay until the very end of a late meeting to make sure they don't miss a thing. Like Milton did. Fake news hucksters don't leave their apartment to find stories, they don't interview any humans, they don't have any sources. They are part of the snake oil empire that had more engagement on Facebook in the past three months of the presidential campaign "than the top stories from major news outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, NBC News and others," according to an analysis by BuzzFeed. "There's not a ton of thought put into it," Wade told The Post, about the way he manufactures fake stories from his sofa, such as: "BREAKING: Michelle Obama holds Feminist Rally At HER SLAVE HOUSE!" or "THE TRUTH IS OUT! The Media Doesn't Want You To See What Hillary Did After Losing." And what do they get for this? "YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE I TRUST TO REPORT THE TRUTH." That's the kind of love they get from a faithful reader. I wish readers like that got a chance to hang out with these two guys, trolling the universe from their living room, sometimes making the average American worker's yearly salary in just one month of fabricated news. And then I wish those readers had followed Milton around on her beat one day. Milton wasn't one of The Post's foreign correspondents dodging gunfire in a war zone. Nor was she bloodied while trying to interview people during a riot. And she wasn't running toward a deadly tornado while everyone else ran in the other direction. Those are all things real reporters do. Last year, at least 72 journalists were killed around the world doing some of those things, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Milton was at a community meeting late at night to chronicle picayune details about merchant parking, Farm Fresh Tuesdays, neighborhood brochures and construction progress. They are the kind of stories just about all real reporters have written at some point in their careers. And, like so many of them, Milton was determined to stay until the very end of the meeting so she wouldn't miss a fact. A vote. A topic. So she got it right for her readers. And because she stayed so long, she had to take a late bus, which put her in an unsafe place and led to her death. The kind of reporting she did is in danger of disappearing as local newspapers struggle to make money in the digital age. And the explosion of fake news has further eroded the media landscape. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said last week that the company is trying to find ways to curb the hoaxes and fake reports that rocket across the globe using its engine. "The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically," he wrote in a post, explaining that Facebook has a balancing act in finding the right place between censorship and propagating dangerous untruths. For anyone who cares about democracy in the age of Trump, there is nothing more disturbing than two guys sitting on a couch, fabricating stories and counting the cash they get with thousands of clicks. Charnice Milton didn't do that. We have to find a way to honor her life and her work by valuing real reporting. Petula Dvorak is a columnist for The Washington Post, where this piece first appeared. State Capitol Gov. Tom Wolf has vetoed a bill that would block the release of the names of police officers involved in deadly force incidents for at least 30 days, in what supporters say would protect them from "mob mentality" harassment. (Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com) This post was updated at 7:19 p.m., Nov. 22, with reaction from State FOP President Les Neri and This Stops Today Harrisburg member Angela Kirkland. Gov. Tom Wolf angered many in the law enforcement community Monday when he vetoed a bill that would require, in most cases, a 30-day cooling off period before the names of a police officer involved in a shooting or other deadly force incident could be released to the public. It seemed unlikely by Monday night, however, that that anger will trigger immediate action in the form of a veto override attempt in the waning days of the 2015-16 legislative session, which expires Nov. 30. No session days are scheduled between now and the end of the month. Instead, the bill's prime sponsor, Rep. Martina White, R-Philadelphia, was already talking about reintroducing the bill next year. With swifter passage - entirely possible given the overwhelming 151-32 House and 39-9 Senate majorities HB 1538 received this session - a mid-session veto by Wolf would almost certainly face an override test. Wolf said Monday he was not sold on White's bill because he thinks placing more restrictions on information about police use of force issues at this time would only deepen mistrust between police and the communities they serve. Wolf also said he believed it's best to continue to give local elected officials, chiefs of police, and investigating agencies the latitude to handle such cases as they see fit. The governor's decision drew sharp responses, however, from leaders of unions that represent rank-and-file officers. John McNesby, president of the Philadelphia-based Lodge No. 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police, called Wolf's veto an act of "abject political cowardice... and spinelessly caving to the howling mob of anti-police hate groups." White was just as outraged. "I think this is the second-biggest mistake the governor has made in what will likely be a short career," the freshman lawmaker from the city's Northeast, said, explaining that she ranked the veto right behind Wolf's unsuccessful insistence on personal income tax increases in 2015. White's bill, in most cases, would make it illegal to identify any officers being investigated in a use of force incident for at least 30 days or the completion of the investigation, whichever is shorter. After 30 days, the decision to make the officer's identity public would revert back to the discretion of the police agency or investigating body. But in all cases - and just like civilian suspects - the involved officer's name would still have to be released publicly at the end of any investigation if they were charged with any criminal offense. In a late compromise, the bill also exempted district attorneys and the state Attorney General's office from its provisions, meaning they could name personnel under investigation as they saw fit. The goal, White said, is to create a safe space for the officer and his or her family at a time when passions about an incident are likely running highest. "In today's day and age where people are posting video... with no understanding of why the officer had to react that way," White said, "we're trying to allow time for the fact to come out" before they're judged by this "mob mentality." State Fraternal Order of Police President Les Neri said the reality that any incidents can now result in a quick story setting the narrative for everything that follows, adds a dangerous layer of hesitation to an already stressful job. "If this trend continues, law enforcement officers will be forced to second-guess every decision they have been trained to make in the service of protecting their communities," Neri said. White's bill - introduced last year - started as a reaction to former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey's policy of immediately naming cops involved in most police-involved shootings. But it's also a debate that echoes the turmoil in many American cities after a series of highly-publicized, officer-involved shootings and other incidents that have left unarmed African-American men dead. Wolf's veto did have its supporters, too. "There is nothing fair or open about withholding information from the public after someone has been injured or killed by an employee who is on the taxpayers' payroll," said Reggie Shuford, executive director state office of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Make no mistake: This legislation was backlash to the grassroots movement of people calling for fairer treatment by the police." One could see that reflected in last month's roll calls on HB 1538: Of the 18 African-American members of the General Assembly present for the final passage votes last month, 17 voted against White's bill. In Harrisburg, a member of one of those grassroots groups, "This Stops Today Harrisburg, also applauded Wolf's veto. "The assertion that there is a war on police officers and that they must be protected from all possible consequences of their actions is laughable," said city resident Angela Kirkland. "... Waiting at least a month to even release the name of an officer who has killed or otherwise used excessive force in the line of duty speaks to the common practice of waiting until the dust settles. Of course the police would want this." White, one of two Republicans in the Philadelphia delegation and just re-elected to a second term in the House, was already focused on next year. "While we need transparency whenever police are involved in a shooting, we owe our officers basic protection from threats," she said Monday. "That's why I will reintroduce this bill in the 2017-18 session." More days of rain, snow predicted for this winter The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently predicted that the Great Lakes region will have more frequent precipitation than usual this winter. 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Thank you very much! Fuku Matcha Kyoto Cafe is now in Hatyai! Have you heard of Fuku Matcha Kyoto Cafe? It is a popular green tea pop up restaurant with dozens of outlets in Bangkok. Now, they have one in Hatyai. Fuku Matcha Kyoto Cafe is a Thai food company influenced by the ever tasty matcha (green tea) from Kyoto Japan. They import premium and quality matcha and tea from Kyoto Japan so they can produce the best Matcha tea and desserts. Thus, they offer only fresh milk and non dairy creamer as part of their main ingredient. The Thais love Japanese food and we blogged so many Japanese cafes and restaurants in Thailand. Fuku Matcha is another good example of selling quality product and food to its customers. We found Fuku Matcha Kyoto Cafe by luck. They are located on the 4th Floor of Central Festival Hatyai. They are just next to Freshly Breeze. They offer matcha and hoji (roasted green tea with rice) tea and ice cream. We ordered the matcha ice cream. The verdict? The matcha ice cream is soft with intense green tea flavour. The beauty of it is it is not too sweet. The texture is similar to soft serve and this is very enjoyable. Trust us, it is worth to drive all the way to Central Festival Hatyai for this if you are in town. Dont forget many other good restaurants in this mall. Glad to stumble upon this place in Central Festival Hatyai. We spent the whole venturing around the mall, shopping and eating. If you are planning to visit Hatyai, remember to try this Fuku Matcha Kyoto Cafe in Central Festival Hatyai on the 4th floor. Remember to register for the One Card at the Tourist Information counter (near Uniqlo) for additional discounts and also the card can be used in Central malls all over Thailand. Now, dont say we bojio! Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/fukumatchathailand/ Fuku Matcha Kyoto Cafe Hatyai Address: K408, 4th Floor, Central Festival Hatyai Kanchanavanich Road, Hatyai District Songkhla, Thailand Website: http://www.centralfestival.co.th/hatyai/en GPS: 6.99172, 100.48493 Wilson Ng A Father and traveler who enjoys to eat, shop, travel and taking pictures with Samsung S22 Ultra and Sony ZV-1. Im a full time blogger, youtuber and father for two. I used to travel around 17 International trips per year but now staying at home. Remember to follow us at www.instagram.com/placesandfoods and www.youtube.com/placesandfoods. For advertisements or features, contact me at [email protected] See author's posts Mission accomplished: Adam Ondra completes second free ascent of Dawn Wall Adam Ondra from the Czech Republic, climbing together with Pavel Blazek, has completed the second free ascent of Dawn Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite. Considered the hardest big wall in the world, this climb was freed by Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson between 2014 and 2015. That's all folks: after 8 days on the wall, yesterday Adam Ondra completed the first free repeat of Dawn Wall on El Capitan, the most difficult big wall climb in the world freed by Americas Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson between 27 December 2014 and 14 January 2015 after they had invested the previous seven years exploring its 32 pitches. Ondra arrived in Yosemite valley for the first time in his life in mid-October and almost immediately set to work on this immense challenge. He received information about the routes sequences, and also how to use Friends and jumars, from Caldwell, Jorgeson and another valley expert, Alex Honnold, who in doing so displayed great sportsmanship. Ondra then began attempting the pitches together with his climbing partner Pavel Blazek. Climbing predominantly at night he concentrated his efforts on the central section of the route which, with two 9a pitches and one graded 8c+, constitutes the technical crux of the entire climb. The duo checked-out the upper section only once, blazing to the summit before hauling 40kg of food, water and gear to the portaledge at half-height. Ondra was now poised for his ground-up, single push to the summit. The two set off on Monday 14 November at 2:46 in the morning and yesterday afternoon, on Monday 21 November, they reached the summit having free climbed all its 32 pitches in the process. Time will be needed for an in-depth analysis, but what we know for certain is that the 23-year-old found Dawn Wall to be far more difficult than he had initially expected. Not only the three crux pitches - "without having the beta, some of the sections look just impossible" he stated earlier - but also the lower section of the climb that turned out to be both technically tricky and psychologically demanding. During his final push Ondra encountered unexpected difficulties on pitch 14 which, despite seven attempts, refused to be climbed free forcing Ondra to wait another nerveracking day while the rock cooled down and better friction arrived. A masterclass in climbing then enabled him to redpoint the infamous 14th pitch and also the 15th, both graded 9a, after which he justifiably felt "on cloud nine". The next day Ondra breached the final hurdle that barred his way to summit glory, namely the 16th pitch, opting for the version chosen in January 2015 by Tommy Caldwell, i.e. the Loop Pitch. Ondra continued on to the Wino Tower and although only eleven pitches remained to be climbed, due to uncertain weather forecast the duo decided to take a rest. Yesterday the clouds slowly dissipated and without any particular difficulties they reached the summit. All that remains for Ondra and Blazek to do, once they descend back to the valley floor together with the photographers Heinz Zak and Christian Wild, is to climb back up the face and remove the portaledge and gear. What will remain impressed in everyones minds is this great battle fought to perfection by Ondra who, after having reached the absolute maximum in sport climbing (redpoints up to 9b+ and onsights up to 9a), after having bouldered up to 8C+ (until only a few days ago the absolute maximum in bouldering), can now add the most difficult big wall in the world to this list. Dawn Wall, climbed free in just 8 days. Truly impressive credentials to say the least. End of pitch #25 . @adam.ondra @blackdiamond #dawnwall #elcapitan #yosemite #liveclimbrepeat #blackdiamond Un video pubblicato da Pavel Blazek (@pavelblazek) in data: 21 Nov 2016 alle ore 12:45 PST Share Tweet 5.12b5.13a,5.13c,5.12b,5.12d,5.13c,5.14a,5.13d,5.13c,5.14a,5.13c,5.14b,5.13b,5.14d,5.14d,Dyno Pitch 5.14d, Loop Pitch 5.14c,5.14a,5.13c,5.13c,5.13c,5.13c,5.12c,5.9,5.11,5.11,5.11d,5.11c,5.12c,5.12b,5.13a,5.12a,5.12b32 Something went wrong, please try again later. Invalid email Something went wrong, please try again later. Want all the latest cases and top crime stories from Plymouth? Sign up for our new email updates on Crime & Punishment The mother of a woman who was murdered by her ex-partner said she was "absolutely let down' by the police, as watchdogs call for a review of the 'silent' 999 call system. Stephanie Power said she had never received an apology from Devon and Cornwall Police following the murder of her daughter, 36-year-old Kerry Power. She has also added her voice to an investigation into the force by the Independent Police Complaints Commission , saying her daughter should have been assessed as a high risk person by officers. The body of 36-year-old Miss Power was found by her ten-year-old son Ollie on the morning of December 14, 2013 at their home in Tailyour Road, Crownhill. Miss Power, who worked at Thornbury Primary School, in Estover as an administrative assistant , had been strangled by her ex-partner David Wilder, as her son slept upstairs in his bed. Bus driver Wilder, aged 42, was jailed for life with a minimum tariff of 17 and a half years in July 2014 at Taunton Crown Court after he pleaded guilty. The court was told how Wilder claimed he had killed his ex-partner because he could not stand to let her go after she ended their relationship weeks before. The court also was told how in the days before the killing, Wilder bombarded Miss Power with texts and phone calls, stalked her and turned up drunk at her house, but his demands for a reconciliation were rejected. In a victim impact statement read out in court, Ollie said: "I now have a sad and miserable life because of you. "You have ruined my life and you should be ashamed of what you have done. You have ruined my life and my family's life." The month following her death the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) revealed they were investigating Devon and Cornwall Police after learning Miss Power had been in contact with the force in the weeks leading up to her murder. The watchdog has also called for a review of the Silent Solutions system which sees silent 999 calls assessed and responded to by the emergency services. The IPCC have now revealed Miss Power first called police on November 28, 2013 with concerns about damage to her car. Eight days later she complained that her ex-partner Wilder was stalking her, and she was visited by police the following day. She was murdered one week later after he broke into her home and attacked her. The IPCC said its investigators carefully examined the interactions between Miss Power and Devon and Cornwall Police, from her initial contact with them in November. An IPCC spokesman said: "We identified occasions where information was not recorded properly and police records were not robustly checked, which may have contributed to a 'standard' risk grading being applied to Miss Power's complaint, rather than a higher risk grading which better reflected her situation. "We also concluded that at the time of Miss Power's murder, Devon and Cornwall Police had not fully implemented ACPO [Association of Chief Police Officers] guidance on dealing with allegations of stalking. "In the Lead Investigator's opinion, a PCSO and two police officers had a case to answer for misconduct. Devon and Cornwall Police disagreed that the PCSO and one of the police officers had case to answer and proposed that their actions be dealt with by way of performance procedures, which the IPCC accepted. The other police officer has since retired from the force and will face no further action. "The IPCC Commissioner also considered that the performance of two call handlers, a sergeant, an inspector and a Detective Superintendent may have fallen short of the standard expected. Devon and Cornwall Police have agreed that they should be dealt with by way of performance procedures. "The investigation also identified concerns with the 'Silent Solution' system, which is used by police forces across England and Wales and helps handle the large amount of hoax 999 calls the system receives. It is also intended to help people who are in danger or need assistance, but cannot speak to an operator. "The evidence gathered indicated that Miss Power may have been advised by a Devon and Cornwall police officer that if she were to make an emergency call from her mobile phone, but did not speak, emergency assistance could still be dispatched. "Miss Power made a 999 call when her ex-partner broke into her house, but she did not respond to the operator's instructions and was transferred to the 'Silent Solution' system. "Because there was no response to commands from the automated voice system, the call was not transferred to Devon and Cornwall Police. "In 2014, local learning was issued to Devon and Cornwall Police urging them to ensure it is made clear in their interactions that police do not necessarily respond to all silent emergency calls. "We have now made national recommendations to ensure there is better accountability for the system, and that its effectiveness is reviewed. We have also recommended that the issues identified in this investigation are formally considered by the 999/112 Liaison Committee, which is the body that coordinates and oversees the emergency call system." Stephanie Power remains utterly heartbroken at the loss of her daughter, whom she described as "my best friend". She said: "Ollie has said he wants to be a policeman when he gets older, but I hate the police they absolutely let Kerry down. "The only time we needed them, they weren't there. "The police are so, so at fault. "I was in the house on December 7 when the lady from the police came to speak [to Kerry] Silent Solution. I was with her. "Nothing at all was said [about pressing the number '5' twice]." Stephanie, now 67, said she is doing her best to raise her grandson but the death of her daughter, and of her husband of cancer just five months later, has worn her down. Fighting down sobs, she said the police should have looked at the whole picture and all the evidence before assessing Kerry as being a "standard" risk rather than a high one. She said: ""We found out months later he had tried to strangle his last wife. "They should have flagged it up to her when she first went to them about what kind of person he was. Kerry was never told and we didn't know until she was murdered. "I feel that the police have never ever apologised and we don't want to call any one person on this, but there absolutely were flags on him. "It was a death which should never have happened. "We had Jane Monkton-Smith [expert in domestic homicide and stalking] and she did her own assessment. She said Kerry should've been put down as high risk and she wasn't." IPCC Associate Commissioner Tom Milsom said: "My heartfelt thoughts remain with Miss Power's family, who lost a much loved mother, sister and daughter in tragic circumstances. "The person responsible for her murder is David Wilder, who is currently serving a life term in prison. "However, our investigation found that opportunities to identify the risk that David Wilder posed to her were not fully recognised by Devon and Cornwall Police, for reasons including the poor use of police systems for recording and research, gaps in training, and delays in the force implementing the ACPO Stalking Screening Tool. "Following the IPCC investigation, the Assistant Coroner for Plymouth, Torbay and South Devon also adopted several of our recommendations and took those concerns directly to the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police, the Home Office, and the Metropolitan Police Service, which is responsible for hosting and monitoring the 'Silent Solution' system. "The responses the Assistant Coroner received include a commitment to increased domestic abuse training by Devon &amp;amp; Cornwall Police alongside proactive improvements already made, and improved accountability, monitoring, and training in the emergency call system." Speaking on behalf of Devon and Cornwall Police, Assistant Chief Constable Sharon Taylor said: "This has been a tragic and long-running case for everyone involved and our thoughts remain firmly with the family and friends of Kerry Power, who was murdered by David Wilder in December 2013. We are deeply sorry for their loss. "The Force acknowledges the organisational learning points which are contained within the IPCC's report. It is of regret that a combination of factors lead to the series of organisational issues set out in the IPCC's report. We are sorry for any failures on our part at that time. "As a consequence of Ms Power's death, the Force quickly committed significant resources to identifying issues and implementing changes as a result of which the entire approach to domestic abuse, stalking and harassment has changed. Significant progression has been made in these areas with key improvements including a dedicated and planned programme of short and long term training, the creation of specialist posts with expertise in stalking and harassment and improved processes throughout the organisation. "The Force is grateful for the acknowledgment within the IPCC's report of its proactivity in identifying and addressing many of these issues. The Force continues to dedicate resources in this area, which includes the progression of some additional issues identified within the final version of the IPCC's report. "As confirmed by the IPCC, having received the final report and considered its conclusions, the Force considered that various officers and members of police staff should be the subject of performance procedures, which the IPCC agreed with. Those performance procedures are already well underway. (Image: Picture posed by model) "As for the national Silent Solution system, the Force has a policy that gives staff clear guidance about how the system works and how to deal with a silent 999 call. The Force looks forward to understanding any future developments following the IPCC's recommendations in this area." Deputy Chief Constable Alan Todd, the Council Lead for National Contact Management, said: "The national 'silent solutions' system enables people to contact the emergency services without speaking by detecting background noise and prompting the caller to press '55' if they want to be directed to police. "Our steering group has reviewed the system and concluded that it is effective at enabling people who are unable to speak to contact the police while filtering out the huge volumes of accidental 999 calls made every day. "However, the system is only effective if people understand how it works. The IPCC investigation into the police handling of the murder of Kerry Power demonstrates the tragic consequences of people not knowing the system works. "We are now considering how we can best educate the public and police officers about the system to ensure that those at risk of harm get the help they need." *********** A section from the IPCC report which explains in detail the Silent Solution (Metropolitan Police Automated Voice Response system: "British Telecom (BT) provided an explanation that when a member of the public dials 999 their call with initially be routed to BT. BT will try to establish which emergency service is required by asking a set of questions. "A great deal of emergency calls are without service request, meaning the caller does not respond to the BT call handler. "In order to deal with such calls, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) introduced a system in 2001 which allows BT call handlers to filter such calls. "Call handling agents must follow carefully designed procedures and if following navigation through such procedures, they cannot decide whether an emergency authority is needed, the call will be connected to the Police Voice Response System (also known as 'Silent Solution'). "The Police Voice Response System is hosted by the Metropolitan Police and features a recorded message which seeks to identify genuine emergency calls. "In the event the caller does not follow the recorded instruction, the call will be terminated by the BT call handler and the relevant police force will not be notified. "In the event the caller does follow the instruction, the BT call handler will override the system and transfer the call to the relevant police force." IPCC Report: "On 14 December 2013, at 1.11am, Miss Power made an emergency call from her mobile phone. Her call was answered by a BT call handling agent who tried to establish which emergency service she required. "Miss Power did not directly respond to the questions or instructions provided by the BT call handling agent, who subsequently transferred her call through to the Metropolitan Police Voice Response System, also known as 'Silent Solution'. "Miss Power did not follow the recorded instruction to press the number '5' twice in the event she required emergency assistance and her call was subsequently terminated by the BT call handling agent. Devon and Cornwall Police were not notified of Miss Power's emergency call. Miss Power was murdered after she made this emergency call. "On 14 December 2013 at 9.48am, Mr Wilder dialled 999 and reported that he had strangled his partner who was not breathing. He also reported there was a ten year old child upstairs in the property, unharmed. "The Police Control Room requested an ambulance at 9.50am. Police arrived at 9.55am and commenced CPR on Miss Power at 9.57am. At 9.58am the attending officer reported that paramedics had announced life extinct and that the male at the scene (Mr Wilder) was in custody. The child present at the address was Miss Power's son." According to the IPCC's investigation, there is currently no specific ACPO lead for 'Silent Solution'. The Met Police Communications Control Centre (Met CC) revealed there has been no review or monitoring of the Silent Solution system for a number of years and there is "no current provision to monitor" how different forces train control room staff on the scheme. The IPCC found the Met CC was "unaware of any publicity which might have been circulated regarding the 'Silent Solution' system and did not believe the public have been made aware of it". The U.S. Department of Justice has fined the Denver Sheriff's Department for making U.S. citizenship a job requirement for its deputies during a hiring spree in 2015 and early 2016, reports the Denver Post. The sheriff's department will pay a $10,000 fine and will have to sort through old applications to identify people who were eliminated from consideration because they were not U.S. citizens, according to a news release from the justice department. The department must reconsider those applicants for future jobs, the justice department said. In an emailed statement, sheriff's spokesman Simon Crittle said, "The Denver Sheriff Department maintains its commitment to treat all people with dignity and respect, and is proud to have one of the most diverse workplaces in Colorado. "While we didn't commit this violation intentionally, we accept responsibility and are taking steps to clarify policy and amend language in hiring documents." Photo: Facebook NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill is urging New York City officers to stay vigilant after four police officers were shot, one fatally, over a 12-hour span across the country Sunday, reports the New York Daily News. "The safety of the men and women of the NYPD is my top priority. As you perform your duties today, and every day, please maintain awareness of your surroundings at all times," O'Neill wrote in an "officer safety message" distributed Monday. "Watch out for your fellow officers, and never become complacent. Thank you for your unceasing hard work and professionalism, and always remain safe." San Antonio police Detective Benjamin Marconi was shot and killed by a gunman who ambushed him outside the police station Sunday afternoon as he was writing a traffic ticket for a motorist. Two officers in Missouri and one in Florida were all shot and wounded in separate attacks the same day. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print One bright spot for Democrats on Nov. 8 was that they were able to pick up a governorship in North Carolina, an office that had been held by Republican Gov. Pat McCroy since 2013. McCrory, of course, is most famous for signing a bill into law that essentially legalized discrimination of the LGBTQ community and barred transgender people in his state from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. The people of the Tar Heel State rightfully rejected McCrory earlier this month by electing Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper, but that hasnt stopped the GOP governor from trying to steal back his job. As Slate notes, [McCrory] seems intent on delaying the formal declaration of a winnerand delegitimizing the voting processin order to let the Republican-dominated legislature ignore the true result and re-install McCrory as governor for another four years. The states Republican House Speaker has even left open the possibility of packing the courts, and he says that the legislature does, indeed, have the power to give McCrory his job back even though nearly seven thousand more voters chose Cooper. Tweet: NCs GOP Speaker leaves door open to court-packing & affirms the legislatures authority to make McCrory Governor. https://t.co/CKyiujCqIR pic.twitter.com/PoHBxDwsB2 Taniel (@Taniel) November 22, 2016 Luckily, even Republican officials in the state have rejected most of McCrorys challenges, but the Republican is now trying a different strategy, according to Slate: Despite the utter lack of evidence to support allegations of fraud, McCrorys team has launched a misinformation campaign to cast a pall of suspicion over the results. His campaign spokesman asked, Why is Roy Cooper fighting to count the votes of dead people and felons? McCrorys close ally and current state budget director, Andrew T. Heath, also tweeted that Durham County has 231,000 residents over the age of 18 but 232,000 registered voters, implying fraud. (In reality, Durhams 2015 voting-age population was about 235,600, and the county has only 193,659 active registered voters; its Republican-controlled election board already unanimously rejected a complaint alleging malfeasance.) Now McCrorys lawyers are targeting black American voter outreach groups for purportedly violating minor procedural rules while helping voters fill out absentee ballots. The governor has falsely accused these groups of conducting a massive voter fraud scheme. The Republican governor, who lost fair and square, seems to be following the playbook that Donald Trump put forward prior to the Nov. 8 election if you lose, then it must be rigged. Instead of gracefully accepting the wishes of North Carolina voters, McCrory is shamefully trying to discredit and ignore them. McCrorys behavior isnt just bad for democracy in North Carolina. Its bad for our country as a whole. Both parties in the Tar Heel state should stand together and make sure he doesnt get away with it. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print This is what America has gotten itself into. It is being reported that President-elect Trump raged at NBC News because they showed photographs of his multiple chins during their campaign coverage. NPR reported, Trump lit out after Zucker, criticizing his former business partner (Zucker was head of NBC during Trumps Apprentice franchise on the network) for CNN. He turned then to NBC, saying it was the worst, criticizing its reporters, and saying it could not even come up with a flattering picture to broadcast. His complaint: the networks photographs showed him with multiple chins. NBC President Deborah Turness replied that wasnt true NBC right now is using a photograph that shows Trump in very flattering way, she said. Trump also criticized a reporter who he said was in the room who had moderated a debate but who he had been told was very upset when Clinton lost. Presumably that was a reference to ABCs Martha Raddatz or NBCs Lester Holt. There is a ton of spin surrounding this meeting, but the basic fact is that Donald Trump used the meeting to criticize the press. Trump continues to believe, quite possibly correctly, that if he complains enough, he will continue to get positive coverage. This is not how the Fourth Estate/Executive Branch dynamic is supposed to work, but we are talking about a president-elect who appears to be so shallow that he complained to a television network about the fact that his double chins were shown. The complaints that Trump is voicing about the press coverage echo those heard in countries with authoritarian regimes where the press is expected to only portray the countrys leader as perfect and strong. Trumps gripes may seem petty, but they reveal what he thinks the press/president relationship should be. The DC press consistently complained about limitations to access over the past eight years, but the Obama years may end up looking like a paradise of press freedom in comparison to what Trump is expecting. It cant be said often enough. In a meeting where the president-elect was supposed to be working on his future relationship with media, Trump complained about his double chins being shown on television. Journalists better prepare for a fight, because if the Trump standard for press freedom is only coverage that makes him look good, the First Amendment will be under assault. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Apparently, the fruit does not fall far from the tree, and Donald Trump is not the first rotten apple to fall. The Washington Post tweeted the following announcement that Donald Trumps grandfather, Friedrich Trump, was formally kicked out of Bavaria in 1905 for dodging military service: Newly unearthed letter shows how Trumps grandfather begged to stay in Germanyhttps://t.co/QRkIXaK9Eb Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 21, 2016 Influential German daily newspaper Bild (literally, picture) broke the story, revealing letter written by Friedrich Trump to Prince Luitpold of Bavaria, begging the ruler not to deport him. Friedrich, you see, had left in 1885 at the age of 16, to get rich in the wilds of North America. As the Post explains, Trump went on to make his fortune out west, including a stint running taverns and brothels amid the gold rush in Canadas Yukon territory. He mined the miners, as one chronicler put it, and his Arctic restaurant became one of the more infamous institutions of the territory. Oh dear. Some things really do never change, do they? Friedrich Trump returned to Bavaria in the early 1900s but since he had skipped out without completing his obligatory service in the Bavarian army (like grandson Donald would later dodge service in the United States Army) he was labeled a draft-dodger and had to go. His letter was an appeal, and as the Post tells us, it failed: The American citizen and pensioner Friedrich Trump, currently residing in Kallstadt, is hereby informed that he is to depart the state of Bavaria, or face deportation, authorities said in a document dated February 1905, according to Deutsche Welle. In America and Canada, Friedrich Trump exhibited the same ability as his grandson to escape financial disaster, leaving Seattle right before floods and avalanches destroyed the nearby railroad and development plans for the town were scrapped, and pulled off the same timely maneuver in Canada when the gold rush finally ended. It is a shame the United States could not have done the same to its own Trump draft-dodger. Any number of those who are already or are about to become victims of Trumps no-morals avariciousness would happily pen the rejection letter. We would be spared now the specter of a white nationalist grifter in the White House well, in Trump Tower since living in the White House implies honest labor as opposed to the corrupt pocket-lining he can do like a dark lord in his tower. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print The media sold the reaction to leaving his meeting with The New York Times as cheers, but the video shows Trump being booed in public in New York City. Video: UPDATE: Donald Trump is greeted with cheers as he leaves meeting with the New York Times https://t.co/31saOhI0wR pic.twitter.com/tvAp4HPUyq CBS News (@CBSNews) November 22, 2016 CBS News tweeted this clip as Donald Trump is greeted with cheers as he leaves meeting with the New York Times. However, the CBSN began the narration of the clip by saying that Trump was cheered, which was true if you ignore all of the boos. By the end of the video, the CBSN anchor changed his description, Alright, so a mix of cheers, and some boos, I think. There were some people cheering for Trump, but there were also some people booing. It was disingenuous for CBS to tweet the story as Donald Trump being cheered. Trump was booed. It is virtually unprecedented in modern American political history for a president and vice president-elect to be booed while appearing in public. Instead of trying to whitewash away the boos, the mainstream media should be discussing them. The boos that greeted Donald Trump are a sign of the division within the country. Each person who boos Trump or Pence is voicing their disapproval of the new administration. The jeers are an important development that should not be swept under the rug by the corporate media. The president-elect getting booed is a really big deal. The press isnt going to make our national divisions vanish by pretending that voices of displeasure and dissent dont exist. The American people need an honest media, and downplaying displeasure over Trump is not trustworthy behavior. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print I know. This almost writes itself; you knew it was coming. Donald Trumps foundation appears to have done the very thing Trump accused Hillary Clinton of being corrupt over. We already knew about the ongoing investigation into the Trump Foundation for self-dealing by the New York Attorney General, but David A. Fahrenthold struck again, having found that President-elect Donald Trumps foundation admitted to the IRS that it used its charity money to help the leaders, their businesses or families. At the risk of repeating myself, its called self-dealing. That admission was contained in the Donald J. Trump Foundations IRS tax filings for 2015, which were recently posted online at the nonprofit-tracking site GuideStar. A GuideStar spokesman said the forms were uploaded by the Trump Foundations law firm, Morgan, Lewis and Bockius, Fahrenthold reported Tuesday in the Washington Post. Fahrenthold was alerted to the filing by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). Things get even stickier according to Philip Hackney, who told Fahrenthold that this disclosure leads to the question why its the first time the charity has admitted to self-dealing. He said that, since the prior years returns were signed by Trump, that opened the president-elect to questions about what he had missed and how. Trump has not explained where the assets are that his foundation purchased for him, his wife, and others or how these situations were charity, other than a spokesperson claiming that his bar hanging a $10,000.00 picture of him purchased by the foundation was a favor for the charity, as it was providing storage. Its unclear what transactions they are admitting to as self-dealing. These rules prohibit the trustees themselves, certain family members, managers, and other disqualified persons from benefiting from the philanthropic activities of the foundation, explains the National Center for Family Philanthropy in a straightforward manner that cant really be misinterpreted. But wait. Now for the real punch in the gut. Donald Trump repeatedly called the Clinton Foundation the most corrupt in political history. Trump also called for it to be shut down, saying they were lining their own pockets (that is, self-dealing, which is what the Trump foundation just got caught admitting it did) and taking care of donors: Hillary Clinton is the defender of the corrupt and rigged status quo. The Clintons have spent decades as insiders lining their own pockets and taking care of donors instead of the American people. It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history. What they were doing during Crooked Hillarys time as Secretary of State was wrong then, and it is wrong now. It must be shut down immediately. But Fahrenthold found that the Trump Foundation took a $150,000 gift from the foundation of Viktor Pinchuk, the fourth richest man in the Ukraine and an oil and gas pipe magnate. Yes, thats right this is the same Pinchuk whose donations to the Clinton Foundation raised questions about conflicts of interest. The donation was made as part of an agreement for Trump to speak at a time when he was already a presidential candidate. From the Washington Posts Tuesday article: A spokesman for Pinchuks foundation said that the gift was made as part of an agreement for Trump to speak via video link to a conference Pinchuk organized in September 2015. The conference, called the Yalta European Strategy annual meeting, was held in Kiev. At the time of his 20-minute speech, titled How New Ukraines Fate Affects Europe and the World, Trump was already a presidential candidate. Pinchuk is the guy described thusly by Newsweek, Hillary Clintons Big Benefactor Has Trade Links with Iran and In November 2014, the now-retired Republican congressman, Steve Stockman, wrote to the US Department of the Treasury, questioning Interpipes dealings with Iran. So Donald Trumps foundation took money from the very person that was a source of his claims that Hillary Clinton was corrupt. He took it while running for president. So many of Trumps accusations have turned out to be projections that it would behoove the press to look behind him whenever he starts making accusations. In the age of distrust of the media, Fahrentholds relentless digging into Trumps financial issues should remind everyone that there are reporters putting it all on the line to do their job. No doubt Fahrentholds reporting is part of the reason the Washington Post finds itself blacklisted right now by the Trump team. This could explain why Donald Trump is declining to make good on his campaign promise to Lock her up!. If theres one thing Donald Trump is good at, its feeding red meat to willing marks. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print During his interview with The New York Times, President-elect Donald Trump inaccurately declared that he would have no conflicts of interest becauseThe President cant have a conflict of interest. Maggie Haberman of The New York Times is one of the journalists and editors who live-tweeted the interview. She tweeted Trumps troubling answers on conflicts of interest: Trump on his businesses/conflict q's: "The law's totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest." Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 "In theory I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly. There's never been a case like this,"he says of his tangles Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 Trump says "in theory" he could continue signing checks at his company, but he is "phasing that out now" and giving to his kids. Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 Trump has taken the exemption of the president and vice president to Title 18 Section 208 of the U.S. code and turned into a moral superiority of the president. Of course, the president can have a conflict of interest. It doesnt matter what the statute states, ethically, presidents are human beings who are capable of conflicts of interest. The president-elect is also constitutionally bound not to accept gifts or compensation from foreign governments under the Emoluments Clause. What is troubling about Trumps answer is that he justified conflicts of interest, and the president-elect is demonstrating a view of executive power that is above the law. President-elect Trump appears to be laying the groundwork for corruption on a massive scale. The Electoral College will choose Donald Trump, and it looks like the president-elect is preparing to pillage America. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) has issued a statement condemning a National Policy Institute conference in Washington, where white supremacist leader Richard Spencer led the crowd in a rousing chorus of hate, complete with enthusiastic Hitler salutes. And no wonder: this was the sort of thing Trumps supporters eat up: Spencer implied that the media was protecting Jewish interests and said, One wonders if these people are people at all? He said that America belongs to white people. This is Trumps message, a white mans call to arms issued to rallies full of white people all across America. Look at the photo above, a 1943 Nazi propaganda poster provoking hatred of Jews and ask yourself: has anything changed? Here is the USHMMs statement in full: MUSEUM CONDEMNS HATEFUL RHETORIC AT WHITE NATIONALIST CONFERENCE; CALLS ON THE NATION TO CONFRONT HATE SPEECH WASHINGTON, DC The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is deeply alarmed at the hateful rhetoric at a conference of white nationalists held on November 19 at the Ronald Reagan Building just blocks from the Museum. According to press reports, Richard Spencer, the leader of the National Policy Institute a white nationalist think tank that sponsored the conference, made several direct and indirect references to Jews and other minorities, often alluding to Nazism. He spoke in German to quote Nazi propaganda and refer to the mainstream media. He implied that the media was protecting Jewish interests and said, One wonders if these people are people at all? He said that America belongs to white people. His statement that white people face a choice of conquer or die closely echoes Adolf Hitlers view of Jews and that history is a racial struggle for survival. The targeting of Jews was central to Nazi racist ideology. The Germans attempted to kill every Jewish man, woman and child they could find. Nazi racism extended to other groups. By the end of World War II, the Germans and their collaborators had murdered six million Jews and millions of other innocent civilians, many of whom were targeted for racial reasons. The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words. The Museum calls on all American citizens, our religious and civic leaders, and the leadership of all branches of the government to confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a living memorial to the Holocaust, inspires citizens and leaders to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by donors nationwide. Learn more at ushmm.org. As the USHMM states, the Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words. And those words were not imposed from above but embraced from below. As British historian Richard Evans has observed (The Third Reich in History and Memory, 2015), Over the past decade and a half, Nazi Germany has come to appear to growing numbers of historians as a political system that rested not on police terror and coercion but on popular approval and consent. When you see a CNN panel debating whether or not Trump should admit Jews are people, you know were in trouble. Make no mistake. This is where it begins. To enthusiastic cheers and arms raised in the Hitlergru, or Hitler salute (literally, Hitler greeting). And by the way, Hitler too ran against corruption, and yet presenting Germany with a regime full of corruption. Like Nazi populism, another template for Donald Trump. Photo: He is to blame for the war! The Nazis sought to provoke hatred of Germanys Jews by transforming the popular perception of them from ordinary neighbor into internal enemy guilty of warmongering and betraying Germany from within. Mjolnir [Hans Schweitzer], artist; 1943.Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC. There are five candidates vying for three open seats on Clemson City Council. We asked the two incumbents and three newcomers what they think is most important for Clemson's residents and council. Read moreMeet the candidates: 5 vying for 3 seats on Clemson City Council 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 AUSTIN Officials with Hormel Foods Corporation announced Monday they have entered into an agreement to sell Clougherty Packing LLC, parent company of Farmer John and Saag's Specialty Meats, along with PFFJ, LLC farm operations in California, Arizona and Wyoming, to Smithfield Foods Inc. The deal, with a purchase price of $145 million in cash, is expected to close within 30 days. "We appreciate the Farmer John, Saag's and PFFJ employees' dedication and commitment to their customers and consumers. While the businesses have performed well, they no longer align with our company's growth strategies," said Jim Snee, president and chief executive officer. "This divestiture also allows for the integration of the pork processing facility at Farmer John with the majority of the live production operations which supply the facility, and are currently owned by Smithfield," Snee said. "We will work together to ensure a smooth transition for our employees and customers." Farmer John harvests about 7,400 hogs per day and, in fiscal 2016, the businesses accounted for about $500 million in sales and earnings per share of about 3 cents. If there was an award for the person who goes farthest above and beyond her motherly and culinary duties at Thanksgiving, the winner might be Rochester's Josephine Camilleri. Because her grown children are all on the East Coast and come home for Christmas, and not Thanksgiving, she goes to them. That's fine, you say, but Camilleri takes it one step further by taking many of the dishes along. Frozen. In her suitcase. I was incredulous when I heard this, and envisioned cranberry sauce and soup making a thawed mess in her Samsonite. That's not what happens. How Camilleri goes about it all is genius. The week before the holiday, she cooks what she is going to take, wraps it very well and puts it in her freezer. ADVERTISEMENT "After it has all been in there for that long, it is hard as a rock," she said. Just before she and husband Michael head to the airport usually the Wednesday before she puts it all in a soft cooler and fits it into her suitcase. You might call this her own take on meals in a box. "When we get to the hotel it is all still frozen," she said. "Remember, too, the suitcase goes into the hold of the plane, where it is very cold. In fact, sometimes on Thanksgiving Day it's a challenge to get it all thawed." How did this all get started? Two of Camilleri's sons live in New York City; her daughter in Washington, D.C. "One of the first years we went to New York, I planned to prepare everything at one of the apartments. It turned into the most frustrating experience. First of all, he didn't have the proper pots and pans. There were no spices or herbs. Knives? None that would work. "Another thing the kitchens in the city are very small," Camilleri said. "I learned on the spot how hard it is to cook a big meal like that when you are not in your own kitchen with your own equipment." The next year, the family ordered the Thanksgiving meal from a well-known New York deli. "It was almost inedible," she said, "so that's when I decided to make everything we needed at home and bring it." ADVERTISEMENT What she takes is impressive: butternut squash soup, eggplant parmesan, beans with pine nuts, cranberry sauce, and a fruit and nut stuffing. She does make a potato dish from her native Malta when she gets there. Herbs, knives and a potato peeler are also packed. What they buy at the destination is the turkey, already roasted, pies from a bakery, bread and the wines. What about the gravy? "No one likes it," she said. And mashed potatoes? "No one cares for those, either." A few other fruits and vegetables come to the table because their daughter is a vegetarian. When Thanksgiving is celebrated at her daughter's in D.C., the turkey comes from a well-known market, Harris Teeter. "I call ahead and have them hold one for me," Camilleri said. "It is a wonderful turkey which is not available here a Butterball that is sous vide. I put that into the oven for an hour. It is juicy and wonderful." (Sous vide is a technique where food is sealed in an airtight plastic bag, then simmered in a water bath for a specified amount of time and temperature.) Camilleri shared some of her recipes and promises they are just as good when they are not packed in a suitcase. Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States of America. Whether this invokes fear or joy, it's something that will be a reality for the next four years. However, one thing that we simply cannot ignore is that America is not the greatest anymore. According to the Huffington Post, the United States ranks 34th in life expectancy, 28th in general education, and 54th in political trust. The one thing we are ranked No. 1 in, however, is incarceration rate per capita. These statistics show that something must be done to improve America's way of life so that we can get back to being competitive and on top. However, I believe that Donald Trump is not the person that will make America great again. His radical policies and unpredictable temperament clash too much with Congress and the current batch of elected officials, however dissatisfied the people might be with them. He hinted before the election that he would not accept the results if he lost. ADVERTISEMENT At the same time, Hillary Clinton was not the best candidate, either. Her failure to mobilize the so-called Obama Coalition of minorities and young people speaks to her inability to connect with people. Considering the numerous disparaging remarks that Trump made against people of color, a surprisingly low number of them turned out to vote for her. Her email scandals and refusal to release transcripts of Wall Street speeches apparently showed voters that she was not someone to trust. In addition, the Democratic Party needs to do a little soul-searching. Although Hillary Clinton came off as cold and calculating at times, the failure of the Democrats to capture the presidential office, the Senate, or the House of Representatives shows that there is a deeper root problem, not just Clinton. It shows that while Democrats have experienced a surge of popularity with recent immigration trends and the war in Iraq, something must be changed because the groups that are supposed to be supporting them are not supporting them in the numbers that they need. Trump's successful run to the White House exposes an underlying divide on a scale that this country has not seen since the Civil Rights movement, or even the Civil War. This election also showed the divide between men and women and race. Hillary Clinton won the non-white vote in every single state, while Donald Trump won the white vote in nearly every state. She won only 41 percent of the overall male vote, while he won a mere 42 percent of the overall female vote. This election also showed that when divided by race or education, whites voted heavily in favor of Trump. Trump won more than half of the votes cast by white women, a vast majority of white men, a narrow majority of college-educated whites, and a wide majority of non-college-educated whites. Meanwhile, no matter how the person-of-color vote was broken down, Hillary Clinton won that vote in every state. Every single time. This divide hasn't been seen since the antebellum area, albeit back then, it was geographic sectionalism, whereas it is now racial sectionalism. There are two things that we can take out of this election. The first is that we need to re-examine our democratic system. Many people, myself included, came into this election viewing the vote as choosing the lesser of two evils. In a nation where anyone can run for president, that definitely should not be the case. The second is that something must be done to unify the American populace. The sectional divides that this race has exposed are so deep that almost nothing can be accomplished without some sort of unifying force. ADVERTISEMENT As Americans, often nothing is as important to us as individual rights and freedom. But there's also the concept of our connection as part of one American people. In 1782, Congress approved the Seal of the United States, bearing the words "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one. This isn't a situation of "You are American" or "They are American" or even "I am American." In order for our nation to prosper, we must all embrace the fact that despite our numerous differences, we are all Americans. The Pilgrims and Native Americans never could have imagined, as they shared that first Thanksgiving meal, that, nearly 400 years later, their ancestors would honor and celebrate that symbolic gathering by storming into Target for $29 Amazon Fire Streaming Sticks. Almost no one from 1621, I bet, could have imagined $29 streaming sticks! Every few years including this year we head to Michigan for Thanksgiving. Which means, by 8 p.m. Thanksgiving night, six or so women my wife and stepmom and sisters and sister-in-law -- will be sitting around my parents' dining room table. This, though, will be no idle chatter. These six will be organizing and marking dozens of newspaper advertising inserts and using laptop computers and smartphones to access Black Friday websites. They will be planning driving routes and coordinating shopping teams and synchronizing meeting spots and times. Sister-in-law Tammi will be sharing tips from in-store reconnaissance missions she completed earlier in the week. Gens. Eisenhower and Montgomery couldn't have paid much more attention to detail when planning the Normandy invasion. ADVERTISEMENT If my parents ever get a bigger table, I won't be surprised to see The Six outfit it with a scale model of major shopping sectors. They will be pushing tiny models of our vehicles along the map tabletop with long wooden sticks. Every so often, during their strategy meeting, I walk up behind them and pick up a flier and yell something like, "Look at this! All yarn skeins are 30 percent off at JoAnn Fabrics from 5 to 6 a.m.!" Or, "Hey, have you seen this Kohl's ad? Free holiday Jingle Bear with purchase of two pairs of women's extra plush slippers! While supplies last!" Or, "You guys are not going to believe the deal I have just found! All Glade Plug-Ins are BOGO at Target!" They look at me in exactly the same way that I'm guessing Gens. Eisenhower and Montgomery would if I said those things to them. The Six are not alone. According to the National Retail Federation, a projected 140 million shoppers will spend more than $50 billion over Black Friday weekend. An estimated 18 grandmothers will get into fistfights over the last copy of "Gears of War 4." This year, though, I have a vested interest in Lindy's post-Thanksgiving Day shopping. Our upstairs television died a few months ago, and we decided to wait until Black Friday to find a cheap HDTV. We should, I realize, be able to survive thrive, even as a one-TV family. And, in some ways, we have. We've played more board games. Listened to more music. Played more chess. ADVERTISEMENT But, I'm embarrassed to admit, we've also missed Ol' Upstairs TV. My mother-in-law bought it for us, incidentally, during a Black Friday sale a decade or so ago. It was $39. It was big. It was one of those offbrands that tries to sound like an onbrand, maybe hoping to occasionally trick an elderly TV buyer who is both hard of hearing and doesn't see well. I think our old TV was a Sunyo. Or a Vagnamox. Or a Banasonic. So, secretly, I have been researching HDTVs on Consumer Reports. I have been logging on to Black Friday websites to search through scans of leaked newspaper fliers. I have, through my research, found a few 26-inch HDTVs for less than $100. These items are what is known in Black Friday parlance as "doorbusters" literally, merchandise priced so low it is designed to force consumers to break down the store's doors in order to have a chance to buy it. I have faith in The Six. If they can figure out a way to find a cheap HDTV, they will. For under $100, we know it won't have the best resolution. We know it won't have picture-in-picture. We know there's a good chance it will be a Senith or Zylvania or Joshiba. We'll just be happy to get it. And even happier if Lindy also can score, to go along with it, a $29 streaming stick. This column previously appeared in Rochester Magazine. ELGIN First-time candidate Elise Diesslin won a seat on election night just not the one she expected. The Elgin Democrat had spent months running against Mazeppa Republican Rep. Steve Drazkowski f or the House District 21B seat . She knew she faced an uphill climb. After all, she was going up against a six-term incumbent in a district that leans heavily Republican. She ended up losing to Drazkowski by a vote margin of 65 percent to 35 percent. "My loss wasn't too surprising. Disappointing? Yes. But not too surprising," Diesslin said. But last week, the 26-year-old got some truly unexpected news. Her father, who also lives in Elgin, told her he had heard a rumor that she had won the most write-in votes for an open seat on the Elgin City Council. Diesslin said she knew a few people planned to write her name down, but she hadn't thought much about it. So Diesslin looked up the city's website, found out the date of the next city council meeting and showed up. It turns out that there were two open Elgin City Council seats but only one candidate incumbent Craig Ziebell had filed to run. He received 93 percent of the vote. But that still left one more seat on the council to fill. And that is where Diesslin comes in. She received five write-in votes more than anyone else. At last week's council meeting, Diesslin was asked if she would be willing to serve on the council and she accepted the position. ADVERTISEMENT The lifelong Elgin resident said she is thrilled to have won a seat on the city council. "I'm excited," she said. "It will really be fun to do it. It will be work, certainly I imagine, but work worth doing." House Minority Leader Paul Thissen helped recruit Diesslin to run for the Minnesota House. He said he has never heard of a legislative candidate running for office who ended up winning a local election instead. "I'm thrilled. She's exactly the kind of person we need stepping up, especially in greater Minnesota. Lots of youth and energy. I think she'll be fabulous," Thissen said. Diesslin's campaign manager, Keith McLain, was also excited to learn Diesslin will get a chance to hold public office. "It shows when you stand up for your community and work really hard that they see that," he said. "Despite her not winning the election that she desired to be in the Minnesota statehouse, I think it's really cool the local community said, 'Here's this young person who wants to be involved in politics. Let's give her a shot.'" Elgin Mayor Rich Hall said that since he became mayor eight years ago, he cannot recall an election where not enough people have filed to fill all the open seats. He said he is looking forward to working with Diesslin. "She grew up in town, and it's always nice to get a fresh perspective and hear what her thought process is going to be. New blood is always good," Hall said. ADVERTISEMENT The mayor said Diesslin can expect to be kept busy. There are plenty of issues that need to be addressed in the town of just over 1,000 people. City officials will be considering building a new city hall and fire hall and trying to figure out how to encourage more development. Hall added, "I'm excited to see her come on board." Chronic wasting disease has once again reared its ugly head in southeastern Minnesota's deer herd. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources on Tuesday announced that two bucks shot north of Preston this month have tested positive for the always-fatal neurological disorder, which is similar to mad-cow disease but is not known to affect humans. Dr. Lou Cornicelli, wildlife research manager for the DNR, said Tuesday that although the state will act aggressively in response to this outbreak, there are reasons to be optimistic about the long-term outcome. "We do think we caught it early," he said. "We've collected about 450 samples within 15 miles of these two deer, and these are the only two positives. The fact that these two deer were close together could tell us that perhaps we're dealing with a local issue that we can hopefully manage as we have in the past." The past incident he referenced was in 2010, when a hunter-killed doe near Pine Island tested positive for CWD. That prompted the DNR to create a 300-square-mile CWD zone in which hunters and professional sharpshooters culled the deer herd aggressively. About 5,000 deer were shot and tested over three years, and none tested positive for the disease, other than the original doe. ADVERTISEMENT Until now, that doe was the only wild deer ever to test positive for CWD in Minnesota. Still, Tuesday's announcement wasn't entirely unexpected. Southeastern Minnesota is surrounded by states dealing with CWD which is why the DNR was looking for it. "With expanded infections in Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri and other states, we decided to go back to the southeast, which really represents one of our higher-risk areas, and do a fairly comprehensive surveillance program," Cornicelli said. The level of concern was high enough that when the firearms deer season began on Nov. 5, hunters in the southeast region weren't allowed to register their deer online or by phone; rather, they had to go back to the old system of taking their deer to a registration station, where tissue samples could be taken for CWD testing. Ban on feeding deer The DNR will implement a plan similar to that used in the Pine Island area six years ago. "Our goal is to do what we can to limit the spread or eliminate the disease entirely," Cornicelli said. "It's our hope that we'll take what we learned in Pine Island and other parts of the state and apply that in this area, to work with hunters and landowners to lower deer densities as much as we can." Chronic wasting disease is highly infectious and can spread rapidly in areas with high concentrations of deer, so in addition to reducing the size of the herd through intensive hunting, the DNR will also impose a ban on feeding deer a ban that could cover much of southeastern Minnesota. "In Pine Island, the actual CWD zone was just 300 square miles, but the feeding ban encompassed four counties," Cornicelli said. "Banning feeding is one of the most important things we can do to limit disease spread. When you feed deer, you bring them into unnatural contact with each other. So we ban feeding over a much broader area." ADVERTISEMENT Once there is snow cover, the DNR will likely use helicopters to conduct an aerial survey of the area to estimate the deer population in the CWD zone and look for areas that should be the focus of intense hunting efforts. A surprising location Cornicelli said the state's game managers were somewhat surprised by the location of the infected deer. The disease is widespread in western Wisconsin in some areas, the infection rate in adult bucks has topped 25 percent so it was assumed that if and when CWD showed up in Minnesota, it would likely be found near the Mississippi River. That wasn't the case. "We just don't know where these deer came from," Cornicelli said. One area of possible scrutiny will be farms in the area that raise domestic elk and/or deer. Across the nation, numerous game farms have been infected with CWD, including an elk farm near Pine Island and several others in northern Minnesota. Such farms have long been seen by some hunters as a possible source of the disease in wild deer. Cornicelli said that there are about 10 domestic deer/elk farms within 10 miles of where the infected deer were shot, but he said it's too early to speculate about any possible link. The DNR is still waiting for test results from more than 300 samples of deer killed by hunters. Once those results are in probably early next week Cornicelli said the boundaries of the CWD zone will be set. No immediate changes in hunting regulations will take place. The muzzle-loader season starts Saturday and will continue into early December, and the archery deer season goes through Dec. 31. No-limit hunting? ADVERTISEMENT In January, the rules will change. Landowners in the CWD zone will be asked to shoot as many deer as they can. Rules regarding antler-points will be suspended, so it will be legal to shoot any deer. Cornicelli said permits will be issued at no cost, and the DNR will do everything within its power to make the process simple. "In the Pine Island zone, when someone harvested a deer, they called us, and we went to them, took our samples and then called them when the results came in three days later," he said. "We had a real personal relationship with these landowners and catered to their needs. It worked quite well, and it's our hope to do that again." Hunters will have the option to keep any deer they shoot, or the DNR will take deer that test negative and have them processed for donation through food shelves. The towns of Preston and Lanesboro almost certainly will be included in the CWD zone, and it's possible that Chatfield will, too. Cornicelli said that the DNR can't authorize the discharge of firearms within city limits to reduce urban deer herds, but the department would be ready to work with the towns if that's an option they'd like to pursue. A new downtown skyway could be demolished by the city in January, if two private developers can't come to agreement about a future skyway extension. "I have no problem tearing it down," said Rochester City Council member Nick Campion of a short skyway that spans an alley connecting 318 Commons to the former Paine Furniture building. "Work it out or we'll tear it down." The threat is to demolish a private skyway owned by HGA principal Hal Henderson and Grant Michaletz to connect their buildings for their tenant, the University of Minnesota Rochester. The council voted 4-3 to revoke the permit for the skyway, but defered a decision on the removal or demolition until the Jan. 4 council meeting. Campion, Mark Bilderback, Council President Randy Staver and Michael Wojcik voted in favor of revocation. Council members Mark Hickey, Ed Hruska and Sandra Means opposed that action. This move is to "leverage" the developers to reach an agreement with neighboring property owner Helen Roland about a future skyway to connect 318 Commons to a building Roland proposes to the south, at the corner of Fourth Street and First Avenue Southwest. That's the former Creative Salon site. ADVERTISEMENT The city wants to eventually build off that skyway to connect to future developments south across Fourth Street and down First Avenue to the planned UMR campus. When the council approved a revocable permit for the 318/Paine skyway in February, they told Henderson and Michaletz to work out a deal with Roland. The alley skyway was built this summer. However, the council has not seen any progress on the other skyway agreement. They hope revoking the permit will inspire some movement. "The idea is not to tear down the skyway. The idea is to use it as leverage," said Wojcik. ""As it stands now, it's bad for everyone in Rochester." Staver proposed that the city staff look into another possible option to provide a skyway link to eventually cross Fourth Street. "Since there is an impasse to south, I wonder if it is possible to build a (skyway) spine down that alley," he said. "That might even be a better solution." His rough vision is to connect a skyway suspended over center of the alley to form a T connection with the short alley skyway. If that is possible, then maybe that alley skyway could extend over Fourth Street. Staver asked for city staff to report on the viability of that idea by the Jan. 4 meeting. Minnesota is top turkey producer MINNEAPOLIS Minnesota is king when it comes to raising the bird that could be the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving meal. The state's 450 turkey farmers raise about 18 percent of all the birds sold in the U.S., making Minnesota first in production behind North Carolina and Arkansas. Minnesota is expected to produce 44 million turkeys this year. The most recent national Agriculture Census shows turkey production particularly high in central Minnesota, including Kandiyohi County. The Jennie-O Turkey Store is the nation's second-largest turkey processor with Minnesota plants in Willmar, Melrose, Montevideo, Pelican Rapids and Faribault. Associated Press ADVERTISEMENT Church sign vandalized with spray paint MASON CITY, Iowa Police are investigating after a church sign in Mason City that promoted God's unconditional love was vandalized with spray paint. This is the second time in the past year that the sign outside the First Congregational United Church of Christ was vandalized. Someone painted over the word gay when the sign declared, "We are a sanctuary for the least, lost, gay & straight, female, Muslim. For all! God's love wins!" In March, someone painted the sign when a message was posted promoting a performance by the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus. The Rev. Chuck Kelsey says he hopes to be able to move past this and maybe even talk with the person responsible. It likely will cost between $200 and $300 to repair the sign. MINNEAPOLIS A Minnesota man who abducted, sexually assaulted and killed 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling 27 years ago apologized in court Monday for his "evil acts" as he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a child pornography count that let authorities close the books on a mystery that had haunted the state for nearly three decades. Danny Heinrich, 53, led authorities this summer to the field where he buried Jacob's remains. As part of his plea bargain, prosecutors agreed not to charge Heinrich with murder. "I am truly sorry for my evil acts," Heinrich said as he stood before U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, Jacob's parents, Patty and Jerry Wetterling, and the boy's siblings. Heinrich told them his actions were "heinous" and "unforgivable" and apologized for what he took away from them. He said he kept silent for nearly three decades because of his fear. But he offered no explanation for why he killed Jacob. When he confessed in court in September, Heinrich quoted a handcuffed Jacob as saying, "What did I do wrong?" ADVERTISEMENT Jacob's mother, Patty Wetterling, said Heinrich deliberately set out to hurt a child the night he abducted Jacob on Oct. 22, 1989, while her boy was biking with his brother and a friend near their home in the central Minnesota community of St. Joseph. She pointed out that by Heinrich's own admission, he put two bullets into his gun and shot Jacob with them. "You didn't need to hurt him. He did nothing wrong. He just wanted to go home," Patty Wetterling said. Patty Wetterling also told her son's killer she won't "waste a minute of time" thinking about him "from this day forward." The sentence was the maximum the law allowed, and Heinrich technically could complete it in 17 years with good behavior, but the plea deal allows state authorities to seek his civil commitment as a sexual predator at the end of his federal prison term, which could prevent him from ever going free. Tunheim said he "won't pretend" the sentence is only about child pornography. "What you've done is so heinous, so brutal and so awful that I don't believe society will let you go free," Tunheim said. While some of Jacob's siblings said they want Heinrich to spend the rest of his life in prison, the family agreed with prosecutors and investigators that the plea deal was their best hope of learning Jacob's fate. Early during the investigation, authorities questioned Heinrich, who maintained his innocence. But he came under renewed scrutiny when authorities decided to take a fresh look at the case around the 25th anniversary of the kidnapping. As part of that effort, investigators used new technology to go back to a sex assault case of a 12-year-old Cold Spring boy that happened nine months before Jacob's disappearance. They found Heinrich's DNA on that boy's sweatshirt and used that evidence to get a search warrant for Heinrich's home in Annandale, where they found his child pornography collection last year. ADVERTISEMENT After months of denials, Heinrich agreed in late August to confess to killing Jacob and the Cold Spring sex assault. Heinrich detailed his crimes in chilling detail in court in September, recounting how he drove the boy to a gravel pit near Paynesville and molested him. After a patrol car with siren and lights passed nearby, he fired two shots at Jacob's head, killing him. Patty Wetterling became a national advocate for missing children after Jacob's disappearance. A 1994 federal law named for Jacob requires states to establish sex offender registries. The Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Ogunwusi, on Tuesday unveiled a uniquely designed Moremi Statue of Liberty, with a charge on governments to meaningfully engage the youths. A statement signed by Moses Olafare, the Director of Media and Public Affairs in the palace in Ile-Ife, Osun State, said that the Ooni dedicated the statue to the economic liberation of the African youth. Mr. Olafare said that historic unveiling event was witnessed by over 5,000 youths, adding that the Ooni extolled the virtues of Moremi Ajasoro, a celebrated historical heroine in Yoruba culture. He said that the monarch also described youth as the greatest accessories for the development of any nation, who must be given utmost attention by the various African governments. According to him, the monarch decried the redundancy of youth, blaming it on patronage of foreign goods and services. These Nigerian and African youth are naturally endowed, and with the level of their education or training, they are the materials needed to develop this country and the continent of Africa. It surprises me that our governments across Africa still encourage capital flight by always giving the jobs to foreigners at the expense of our youth, several of whom are more qualified and competent to do the jobs. I am proud to say that this project is the first of its kind; 100 per cent indigenous; involving about 200 youths and all the materials used were sourced locally from the 774 local government areas in Nigeria. I want to stress that Nigeria has manpower that can create, construct, and build standard and original goods. I, therefore, appeal to African governments to empower youths and give them the chance to display their capacities, Ooni Ogunwusi was quoted as saying. (NAN) The Nigeria Shippers Council has been allocated 83 hectares of land by the Borno State government to build the proposed Maiduguri dry port. The approval was given after the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council, Hassan Bello, visited Gov. Kashim Shettima, to inform his of the federal governments readiness to build the port. The council had secured the approval of the Federal Ministry of Transport in 2006 to build a dry port in Maiduguri. The project suffered setback due to the Boko Haram insurgency. Mr. Bello said the Maiduguri dry port would have all the features of an international port similar to ports in Lagos, Port Harcourt and other parts of the country. He said the proposed port, when completed will take care of all import and distribution of goods from Nigeria to countries like Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Sudan and Central Africa. Containers that are bound for this region of the country are going to be shipped by railway as soon as they arrive Lagos or any port, he said. A port is not meant to be warehouse, it is a place for clearing goods. We dont have any need of stocking containers in Lagos, we will transport them to Dry Ports as they land from ships. Goods will be cleared here in Maiduguri without the need to go to Lagos or any other port. The project will create at least 5,000 jobs apart from the economic benefits associated with Ports. There will be Customs, NDLEA, freight handlers, agents of all kinds all in Maiduguri. The benefits are so enormous, he said. Gov. Shettima said he was elated by the news of the proposed port, especially on the job creation aspect of the benefits. If we are serious about addressing the Boko Haram insurgency, we have to fix Borno and rest of the north-east, he said. Borno is to the north-east, what Kano is to the north-west; Borno is to the north-east, what Lagos is to the south-west and what Port Harcourt is to the south-south. It is expectant that if the economy of Lagos boils, the south-west would catch cold. Borno is gateway to export of goods to Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Sudan and Central Africa. Borno has the chunk of the northeast population. I am quite glad that the Nigerian Shippers Council is committed to this dry port in Borno because that project is capable of making huge impact in the economy of Borno with multiplier effects on the rest of the northeast. We will give the NSC all the support to ensure the success of this project, Mr. Shettima said. Thousands of English-speaking Cameroonians on Tuesday violently protested what they called attempts to marginalise them in the mainly French-speaking West African nation. Protesting their second-class citizenship status, demonstrators erected barricades with burning tyres and set several houses on fire in Bamenda, the capital of the North West Region, and Buea, the capital of the South West Region. English speakers, who live mainly in those two regions, say the government makes fewer public funds available in their parts of the country than in regions dominated by French-speakers. We have no roads, no hospitals, no water, nothing, Bamenda resident Fidelis Manchou told journalists. Police fired shots into the air and tried to disperse the crowds with tear gas. (dpa/NAN) The immediate past executive secretary, Plateau Muslim Pilgrims Board, Salisu Mohammed, has owned up to diverting N94 million from funds paid by intending pilgrims. Mr. Mohammed made the confession on Tuesday in Jos, while testifying before a Judicial Commission of Inquiry setup by the Plateau government to probe activities of former Governor Jonah Jangs administration. He told the commission that the money was diverted into sponsoring himself and some politicians on pilgrimage. The funds were diverted from no fewer than 131 intending pilgrims, who paid for slots to travel to Saudi Arabia for the 2013 Hajj, he said. According to him, they were disqualified from participating in the pilgrimage because I was instructed, verbally, by the then Secretary to State Government (SSG), Prof. Shedrach Best, to do so and use the money to sponsor some political VIPs, he said. The VIPs and I sponsored ourselves, with the fund collected from the pilgrims, to attend the World Islamic Conference in the United Kingdom and to the Hajj itself, he further explained. Mohammed, however, revealed that the payees had neither gone on the pilgrimage nor had their monies refunded to them. He said he wrote to the then governor, Jonah Jang, asking for the remittance of the money and got an approval; but that the money was not released up till the time Mr. Jang left office in 2015. The chairman of the commission, Stephen Adah, who was visibly miffed, expressed bitterness over the development and wondered why the former official got involved in such an unholy action. He frowned at the act of depriving persons from performing spiritual rites for some selfish reasons, after they had paid the fees. Mr. Adah promised that the commission would look into the matter and force those responsible to refund the monies to the owners. (NAN) More than three months after a top Army officer who was dismissed from service without query or indictment filed suit for redress at the National Industrial Court, Nigerian military has refused to enter appearance to defend its action. This has opened the Army to accusations of deliberately shunning the court and frustrating the applicants push for justice, court documents reviewed by PREMIUM TIMES showed. Under the procedures and rules of Nigerias industrial court, respondents are obligated to file defence within 14 days of receiving originating processes; and in this particular case, court records revealed military authorities, including the Defence Minister, Chief of Army Staff and the Chief of Defence Staff, were served on August 15, 2016, over three months ago. Abdulfatai Mohammed, a retired lieutenant colonel, was one of the 38 senior officers compulsorily retired by the Nigerian Army on June 9, 2016, citing professional misconduct during the 2015 general elections and involvement in the arms procurement fraud. But PREMIUM TIMES extensive investigations of the controversial exercise prompted by service exigencies according to Army spokesperson, Sani Usman, a colonel showed the Nigerian Army abruptly ended the careers of some of the officers, including Mr. Mohammeds, without query, indictment by any panel or even informing them of what their offences were, thereby raising question of arbitrariness. So, while a few were queried, asked to face panel and indicted, others had their careers abruptly cut short for reasons that smack of high-level arbitrariness, pettiness, witch-hunting and partisanship by authorities of the Army. Apart from relying on Paragraph 09.02(e) of the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers to petition President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr. Mohammed like other affected officers, who feel arbitrarily forced out of service, also approached, on August 12, the National Industrial Court to seek reinstatement. He asked the court to declare that his compulsory retirement constituted an unfair dismissal and punishment without factual basis at all and is as a result of wrongful, unconstitutional, illegal and invalid. In the June 9 letters seen by PREMIUM TIMES to the affected officers, including Mr. Mohammed, their compulsory retirement was hinged on provisions of Paragraph 09.02c (4) of the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers (HTACOS) 2012 (Revised). The referenced section 09.02c (4) of the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers 2012 (Revised), shows the officers were laid off on disciplinary grounds i.e. serious offence(s) but the actual serious offence was not stated. However, in a July letter conveying the appeals of 22 of the affected officers to President Buhari in line with military rules, the Chief of Defence Staff, Gabriel Olonisakin, a General, gave formal reason why the Army terminated Mr. Mohammeds career prematurely as involvement in election matters. Yet, the military authorities have not been in court to defend their action and the reason the officer was sent out of service. On September 7, Ibrahim Etsu, counsel to the Army Council, Armed Forces Council, Chief of Defence Staff and the Defence Minister, approached the court, acknowledging the military did fail to enter appearance within the stipulated time, citing administrative bureaucracy; and asking to file memorandum appearance out of time. Even so, court records revealed, as at Monday, October 21, Mr. Etsu, a staff in the legal department of the Ministry of Defence, has not returned to the court for the militarys statement of defence. Consequently, Mr. Mohammed, on October 18, filed a fresh motion before the industrial court, seeking accelerated hearing and that judgement be given, relying on Order 8 rule 5(1) of the National Industrial Court, because clearly the intention of the defendants is to delay the hearing of this case by dilatory tactics. Where a defendant or respondent fails to file a Memorandum of Appearance within the stipulated time, or fails to file appropriate processes in defence of the action within the prescribed time, and fails to file a declaration of intention not to defend an action, the court may proceed and hear the matter and give judgement, the referenced court rule states Narrating his ordeal, Mr. Mohammed told PREMIUM TIMES that even after his application for accelerated hearing over a month now, the case had not been assigned to any judge. They (military authorities) have used their offices and they have exploited my vulnerability and acted to dress me in the dirty garb of a criminal I have been greatly traumatized by the news of my compulsory retirement based on the allegations of non-existent serious offences I never knew about or took part in. His lawyer, Abdul Muhammed, disclosed to this newspaper he would meet with the President of the NIC later this week to ask that the case be assigned. Mr. Etsu, the defence counsel, told PREMIUM TIMES he was not going to comment on this report, citing no authority to do so. Also the Minister of Defence, through his spokesperson, Tukur Gusau, a colonel, claimed ignorance of the court process or that the Minister had been served. But PREMIUM TIMES obtained court document filed by Mr. Etsu, stating the Minister and others had been served. Sixteen political parties have supported the call for the postponement of the November 26 governorship election in Ondo State. The call is coming days after the main opposition, Peoples Democratic Party, made the same demand, citing security threats. Nigeria currently has 29 registered political parties and twenty eight are taking part in the Ondo election. In a statement on Monday, signed by the leaders of the parties, the political groups said the call was made to avert what they described as an impending political crisis that could occur if the election goes ahead as planned. According to them, major political parties were enmeshed in crisis that could affect the election. The gravely unfortunate scenes playing out in both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressive Party (APC), the ruling party in the state and the major opposition political parties are clear indications of major political crises brewing unabatedly in a state known for peace, political stability and tranquility and harmony, the statement said. Another critical concern is the growing level of violence and insecurity in the Ondo political environment precedent to the governorship election on Saturday. In recognition of this ugly fact, we also take this opportunity to call on the relevant security agencies (the Police, DSS, NSCDC, etc.) to immediately put pressure on INEC to shift the election date to a possible date after the court processes have been completed, but within the constitutional provisions, to guarantee peaceful and healthy political environment for the election. Parties listed in the statement are African Democratic Congress (ADC), Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Better Nigeria Progressive Party (BNPP), Democratic Peoples Congress (DPC), and Democratic Peoples Party, (DPP). Others are National Conscience Party, NCP, People for Democratic Change, PDC; Labour Party, LP, Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN), United Democratic Party, UDP; Advanced congress of democrats, ACD, Peoples progressives party, PPP, Peoples Redemption party PRP, United Progressives Party, UPP and Independent Democrats, ID. The parties said the action of the Independent National and Electoral Commission, INEC, so far, have left much to be expected. Just a few months ago, in the Edo governorship election, INEC upheld the candidacy of the Senator Markafi-led faction of the PDP as the authentic group to file a candidate for the party. Now, in the Ondo State governorship election slated for Saturday, 26 November, 2016, the same electoral umpire is upholding the governorship candidacy of the Senator Sheriff-led faction of the party. We must allow some time (after the court verdict) for frayed nerves and tension to begin the soothing process of easing, for true and fair elections to hold in Ondo State, the groups said. The PDP made a similar call for the postponement of the election after an Appeal Court in Abuja adjourned an application filed by a governorship candidate of the Makarfi faction of the party, Eyitayo Jegede. The party told journalists in Abuja that the shift was necessary to resolve the legal dispute over the partys candidate for the state election. The National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Dayo Adeyeye, said it would be wrong for INEC to continue with the election as planned for November 26 since the matter was before the Supreme Court. The call was however rejected by the All Progressives Congress, APC. Also, INEC described the call as unnecessary. The Resident Electoral Commissioner for Ondo State, Olusegun Agbaje, told PREMIUM TIMES that the issue in court was a pre-election matter which the electoral body was not obliged to wait until it was decided. An attempt by the Senate to bring to an end the lingering crisis between the Academic Staff Union of Universities and the Federal Government, failed Monday after an eight-hour meeting between both sides was deadlocked. The two sides failed to agree on lecturers earned allowances. The chairman, Senate Committee on Tertiary Education and TETFund, Jibrin Barau, disclosed this Monday night in Abuja. The Senate had last Tuesday resolved to mediate between the Federal Government and ASUU. The lecturers want improved pay and work conditions. ASUU declared a warning strike a day before the Senates resolution, complaining about the failure of the government to implement terms of the 2009 and 2013 agreements. The strike ends Wednesday amid fears of a looming indefinite strike. Mondays meeting with the union resolved all issues except earned allowances, Mr. Barau, APC Senator representing Kano South, said. You can see that weve been talking for about eight hours, said Mr. Barau. We have deliberated and, thanks to God, we have resolved all the issues; we have agreed on all issues except one. It is about the earned allowances that need to be paid to the university lecturers. The government, due to paucity of fund, proposed a certain amount of money but ASUU thought otherwise; that the money was quite inadequate. The union said it was going back to its members, make consultations and get back to us. We do hope they will come back with good news. He however could not say when the next meeting to resolve pending issues would hold. Every section in this meeting will go back to their base or constituency and report what transpired and at a later date reconvene to trash out the remaining issues, Mr. Barau said. He said the next meeting would. While declaring the warning strike, ASUU president, Biodun Ogunyemi, said at the University of Abuja on Monday, Many aspects of the 2013 MoU and the 2009 agreement with the Federal Government have either been unimplemented or despairingly handled. The agreements are: Payments of staff entitlements since December 2015, funding of universities for revitalisation, pension, TSA and university autonomy and renegotiation of 2009 Agreement. Mr. Barau had told the Senate that ASUU was agitating for the smooth running of public universities and staff welfare. The Nigeria Police Force has fired several officers for criminal misconduct. A spokesperson for the police, Don Awuna, said at a press conference on Tuesday that the personnel erred and compromised in discharging their duties and betraying the official oath of office. Their offences include aiding and abetment of cattle rustling, robbery and kidnapping in the northeast. The officers were arrested, subjected to internal disciplinary measures and punished according to the gravity of their offences, he said. The police statement says in part: CASE I: ARREST OF NINE (9) POLICE PERSONNEL FOR UNPROFESSIONAL CONDUCT, AIDING AND ABETMENT OF SERIOUS CRIMES e.g. CATTLE RUSTLING, ROBBERY AND KIDNAPPING IN THE NORTH-EAST. SUSPECTS: i. EX. ASP Yuguda Abbah ii. EX. Sgt Habila Sarki iii. EX. Diphen Nimmyel iv. EX. Sgt Yasan Danda v. EX. Sgt Abbas Mailalle vi. EX. Sgt Bwanason Tanko vii. EX. Sgt Donan James vii. EX. CPL Idris Salisu ix. EX. CPL Zakari Kofi The interrogation and confessions of the Ex-Policemen also led to the arrest of principal suspects and recovery of many arms and ammunition: SUSPECTS: i. Mayo Chadi Aliyu M ii. Atiku Ibrahim iii. Ali Mohammed iv. Abdulrahman Umar v. Umar Daudu vi. Ibrahim Umar vii. Ibrahim Mallam viii. Adamu Lolo ix. Suleiman Buba x. Ahmed Adamu xi. Gidado Garba xii. Sani Dan Alhaji xiii. Inusa Mohammed xiv. Mohammed Wari xv. Mohammed Rabiu xvi. Hammadu Abdullahi xvii. Umar Adamu xviii. Idi Juye xix. Yusuf Abdullahi EXHIBITS RECOVERED: i. Fourteen (14) AK 47 rifles with numbers intact ii. Three (3) other AK 47 rifles with numbers etched out. iii. One (1) Pump Action iv. One (1) locally made pistol v. Forty-two (42) empty magazines vi. Three hundred and sixty three (363) rounds of AK 47 live ammunition vii. Seventy one (71) K2 live ammunition viii. Twenty five (25) live cartridges. In the month of October, 2016 one Alhaji Hodi Adamu, a notorious armed robbery suspect was arrested by the Police in Adamawa State. The suspects confession led to the arrest of two other suspects namely: Rabo Bello M and Oliver Honiol M whose voluntary confessions led to the arrest of the nine (9) Police personnel mentioned above for various roles they played through their actions and inactions which are considered as disciplinary infractions. The principal suspects and the dismissed police officers will soon be charged to court. CASE II: ARREST OF A VICIOUS KIDNAPPER/ARMED ROBBERY SUSPECT AND FOUR (4) POLICEMEN FOR AIDING AND ABETMENT OF CRIMINAL ACTS IN KOGI STATE. SUSPECTS: i. Zakari Yau Isiaka (a notorious kidnapper/Armed Robber) Principal suspect ii EX. Sgt Musbahu Yahaya iii EX. Sgt Ugenlo Sylvester iv. EX. Sgt Musa Umar v. EX. CPL Omale Edicha EXHIBITS RECOVERED: i. One AK-47 Rifle ii. ONE G3 Rifle iii. ONE Baretta Rifle iv. One Assault Rifle v. Ten (10) 7.62mm life ammunition; vi. Two (2) k2life ammunition; vii. Two (2) AK-47 magazines; viii.Three (3) K2 magazines; and ix. Two (2) G3 magazine On the 16th of August, 2016 four (4) Policemen mentioned above serving with the Kogi State command were arrested for compromising and conspiring with one Zakari Yau Isiaka, a notorious armed robber, kidnapper and murderer who has been on the wanted list of the Police in Kogi State. The suspect confessed to having been actively involved in many armed robberies, kidnappings and murder cases within Kogi and other North-Central States. Five (5) assorted rifles and different calibers of ammunition were recovered from the suspect and other members of his gang. The dismissed policemen were interrogated and found to have conspired and compromised their call to duty. CASE III: CONSPIRACY TO SUPPLY EXPLOSIVES TO MILITANTS IN LAGOS AND OGUN STATES SUSPECTS: i. Abiodun Amos alias SENTI M ii. Ex-SGT Laibi Opakegba M Ex-SGT Laibi Opakegba was intercepted discussing with one Abiodun Amos alias SENTI on how to source and supply red dynamite to militants. The said Abiodun Amos , a 43 year old militant who is a native of Ese-Odo L.G.A of Ondo state was arrested at the bank of Majidun River in Ikorodu area of Lagos State while in possession of two (2) AK-47 rifles. He named other members of his militant group. The Court of Appeal will on Tuesday afternoon continue hearing in a case that will determine who the candidate of the PDP in Saturdays governorship election will be. Jimoh Ibrahim and Eyitayo Jegede, chosen by two different factions of the party, seek to be the candidate with Mr. Ibrahim currently recognised by INEC. The Court may also decide who the rightful candidate is after hearing arguments from all parties. Tuesdays decision by the Appeal Court follows a Supreme Court ruling earlier in the day ordering the lower court to continue hearing the matter. The Supreme Court dismissed an application filed by a factional leader of the PDP in Ondo State, Biyi Poroye, who is of Mr. Ibrahims faction. Mr. Poroye, a factional chairman of the PDP asked the court to determine the jurisdiction of a panel set up by the Appeal Court President, Zainab Bulkachuwa. The panel was created after a petition filed by Mr. Poroyes counsel, Beluolisah Nwofor, accused the former panel led by Jummai Sankey of fraud. Following that petition, the first panel under Ms. Sankeys leadership withdrew their participation in the matter on November 1. Days later, Ms. Bulkachuwa instituted the new panel, led by Ibrahim Salauwa. But dissatisfied with the decision, Mr. Poroye, through his counsel, made another request demanding the dissolution of the new panel. When that application was refused by the appellate court, he (Mr. Poroye) approached the Supreme Court to challenge the decision of the Appeal Court. He also prayed the highest court to compel the lower court to suspend sitting. On October 18, the Appeal Court suspended its sitting till further directive was received from the highest court of law. On Tuesday a five-member panel of the Supreme Court, led by the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, dismissed the application for lacking in merit. The court also asked Mr. Nwofor to pay over N5 million as damages for abusing the panel at the appellate court. Pro-government and anti-government protesters clashed in Benin on Tuesday over the alleged plan of the Edo Government to build N300 million retirement homes for former Gov. Adams Oshiomhole and his deputy. The pro-government group and members of some civil society organisations (CSOs) fought at Ring Road, Benin, when the latter marched through the streets over the amendment of the law for the pension of the governor. Edo State House of Assembly last week amended the 2007 Pension Rights of the Governor and Deputy Governor Law to include the provision of a building valued N200 million for a former governor and N100 million for his deputy. Justin Okunobor, the speaker of the assembly, had said that the new provision was justified as there was an existing law on pension benefits for former governors and deputies. Civil society groups have criticised the move. Anti-government protesters, under the aegis of Edo Civil Society Organisations, had converged on the museum ground in Benin as early 8 a.m. and marched toward the Anthony Enahoro House of Assembly Complex to announce their rejection of the new pension benefits. The civil society groups were confronted by those who support the amendment, who prevented them from gaining access to the major entrance of the building. The challenge resulted in the CSO members running away, while security operatives who had taken position at strategic positions around the assembly premises watched. Some protesters sustained injuries during the fight which lasted about an hour, while some vehicles and public address systems used by the CSOs were vandalised. As a result of the fight, passersby scampered to safety. The spokesperson for the civil society groups, Osazee Edigin, said his members were attacked by thugs allegedly sponsored by the government. They mobilsed thugs to attack us and we are trying to revive a guy who fainted, the thugs have taken over Ring Road, Edigin said. The Chief Press Secretary to Edo Governor, John Mayaki, said the state government recognised the rights and freedom of citizens to express their opinion on public issues and would not do anything to infringe on their freedom. Mr. Mayaki said there was no iota of truth in the claim of the CSOs as the government would not in any way attempt to gag the peoples freedom. (NAN) A military general court martial in Maiduguri, Borno State, on Tuesday sentenced a soldier to 18 months in prison for unauthorised possession of live ammunitions outside his assigned duty post. The court also ruled that three officers would not be promoted for periods ranging from 18 months to two years. The officers were found guilty of professional misconduct in the frontline. The court martial, headed by Olusegun Adeniyi, a Brigadier General, tried Private Mcdonald Chukwu on a two-count charge after he was caught at a bus station with 89 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunitions inside his travelling bag. He was arrested by a female police sergeant, Sarah Peters, who frisked his bag as he was about to board a commercial bus in Maiduguri. Mr. Chukwu, in an earlier statement, admitted being in possession of the ammunitions, but said he forgot them in his bag when he returned from his duty post, as he hurried to get money from an ATM machine to travel. He later disowned the statement, saying the ammunitions were not found in his bag. An Army Major, Usman Inyam, was made to forfeit 18 months of his seniority status, for professional misconduct that involved his abandoning duty post in such a manner that may have endangered the lives of troops in the frontline. His lone charge indicated that as a commanding officer in charge of infantry troops in Takumbare area of Gwoza local government, Mr. Inyam abandoned a post usually frequently used by Boko Haram insurgents when under attack by soldiers. Mr. Inyams records saved him from a harsher punishment. Another Major, Mr. Bello, a commander of tank battalion, was also punished for the same offence. He will forfeit his seniority by 20 months, while a captain, Christopher Leche, was stripped for two years. Forfeiting their seniority status means the three officers will not be promoted within the stated periods. The court martial would continue its sitting on Wednesday when it is expected to deliver judgment on more cases before it. The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has warned Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) to stop blackmailing the Federal Government over outstanding debts allegedly owed them by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA). A statement in Abuja on Tuesday by Hakeem Bello, Special Adviser, Communications to the minister, stated that Mr. Fashola gave the warning at a meeting with power sector operators in the country. Mr. Fashola was reacting to the advertorial placed by the Association of Electricity Distributing Companies (AEDC) on the debt owed DisCos by MDAs. He said government would not succumb to blackmail and would only pay verified debts. Mr. Fashola also advised the DisCos to pursue the debt issue in their capacities as Discos and not under the aegis of any association. He said that although the constitution guaranteed freedom of association, the privatisation that resulted in the transfer of the distribution asset of power was not held between the Federal Government and any association. According to the minster, the DisCos have so far failed to provide details of such debts for verification. Fashola said Let me say without any equivocation that government will not succumb to the blackmail, at least not the Federal Government of Nigeria. He said that government had provided an online platform where it requested all the DisCos to submit details of their debts to that platform for government to verify it. I think that advert should have told Nigerians how many DisCos have complied with that instruction. That advert should also have told Nigerians how much was owed and to which DisCo. So while I respect the rights of association, indeed our constitution allows freedom of association. But the Nigeria government will not pay its debts estimated to be about N100 billion under the aegis of an association. That is not how to resolve debts, every DisCo knows how much power it supplied. Debts are not calculated by estimates. It is either N100 billion or less than N100 billion but not an estimate, the minister said. He promised to respond on behalf of government to provide the other side of information, anytime the DisCos go to the public without giving them the full information. (NAN) The Regional Office of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime is organising a Conference on supporting the implementation of the ECOWAS Drug Action Plan through Effective Regional Drugs Enforcement Cooperation in Abuja from 22-24 November 2016. The conference is part of the Support to ECOWAS Regional Action Plan on drug trafficking, organized crime and drug abuse in West Africa a project funded by the European Union (Abuja Office) and implemented by UNODC in collaboration with Member States of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The activity is expected to be a significant step in supporting the implementation of the ECOWAS Action plan on drugs. The action plan benefits from assets and strengths that are: a confirmed political will, regional instruments, expertise from member States and financial commitment from donors. The free movement of goods and people within the ECOWAS area, as a principle, generates economic opportunities and fuels the regional integration. But the side-effects are related to increased opportunities for organized criminal groups to traffic illicit goods and engage in smuggling across borders. Another major issue that further contributes to the current state of affair is laundering of the proceeds of criminal activities, especially across borders. This conference is designed to provide pragmatic solutions to illicit drug trafficking Law Enforcement related-challenges, regional coordination challenges and legal challenges that can arise in investigating cross border cases. The ECOWAS Member States are expected, during the conference, to Review the scope of Member Countries efforts at domesticating relevant international and regional conventions and protocols (UN, AU ECOWAS, etc.) against transnational/organised criminal activities; Explore and propose concrete ways by which ECOWAS Member States can Enhance information sharing, legal cooperation and coordination including Mutual legal assistance; Mobilise the support of the international community for the implementation of the Regional Action plan against illicit drug trafficking and transnational crime associated with it; and Facilitate networking of policy makers, experts, practitioners and other stakeholders in order to sustain an open and productive dialogue on the issues. Around 70 experts drawn from regional and international organisations such as INTERPOL, UNODC, ECOWAS and the Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) are expected to discuss major issues faced by the region with a view to proffering solutions. UNODC has provided technical assistance to West African States for 20 years, through its Regional Office for West and Central Africa (ROSEN) in Dakar, Senegal, and 10 other local offices based in different countries within the region. As the guardian of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) and its Protocol, as well as the three Conventions on international drug control, UNODC is mandated to assist the Member States to strengthen their national responses on the matter, in line with their international obligation. As a week nationwide warning strike by university lecturers ends on Tuesday, the teachers are threatening to go on an indefinite strike if their demands are not met. A meeting with the Senate on Monday failed to resolve the issues. Ifeanyi Abada, the Chairman of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) Chapter of the Academic staff Union of Universities (ASUU), made this known on Tuesday in Nsukka, Enugu State. ASUU was left with no option than to proceed on the one-week warning strike; failure to meet our demands, we will go on an indefinite strike, Mr. Abada told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). He said that the chapter complied fully with the warning strike directive. The National Executive Committee (NEC) made efforts to resolve this issue with the government but government remained unyielding. The strike compliance in UNN is total, no lectures, no examinations, no departmental and faculty meetings, as members will not participate. UNN chapter will not renege on the directive of the national body until government addresses all the issues raised. Our monitoring team is moving round; any lecturer found teaching will be sanctioned accordingly, he said. According to Mr. Abada, among the demands of ASUU is that universities be exempted from the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy. He noted that ASUU was also demanding the Federal Governments implementation of an agreement it entered into with ASUU in 2009. Amarachi Okafor, a student of the UNNs Department of Psychology, urged the government to meet ASUUs demands to avoid an indefinite strike. I urge ASUU to consider the plight of students, who will be spending extra years as well as their parents who have been sponsoring them, she added. Another student, Emma Ochi of the Department of Mass Communication, pleaded with ASUU to consider the interest of students and avoid an indefinite strike. I want Federal Government and ASUU to resolve their misunderstanding amicably in the interest of students and tertiary education in this country, he said. Meanwhile, academic activities are still paralysed in the university as a result of the warning strike. (NAN) The Assisted Fertility Centre (AFC) at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos, on Tuesday celebrated the birth of its first In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) baby born through assisted reproductive technology. Osato Giwa-Osagie, professor and coordinator of the centre, made this known during a verification visit by a team from the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Abuja. He said, We are officially announcing the birth of a baby through our efforts in this centre. The baby boy, whose parents want to remain anonymous, was born on November 5. We are very glad, especially as our effort is working; we want to increase the number of our successes, as such, we call on the government for more support and funding. Mr. Osagie said of all the 45 IVF clinics in Nigeria, only five were government-owned, adding that they were located in Abuja, Ilorin, Benin, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja and LUTH in Lagos. The National Hospital, Abuja, is the first public IVF Centre; there are only five of such public health IVF centres in Nigeria. We need more centres to help more people; we can help other centres to stand, especially as we have the expertise and nurses who are available to train others. We also need more public sector involvement in the funding of IVF Centres, Osagie said. Also, Moshood Tijani, the Head, Monitoring and Evaluation of FRC, commended the efforts of the centre. According to him, the feat has shown that much can still be achieved in Nigeria with adequate funding and support. He called for support to enable more government-owned hospitals to set up IVF centres. In her remarks, Kuburat Lemomu, the Matron of the AFC, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the treatment for the mother of the baby commenced in January. We started the process in January and the recovery was in February. The treatment cycle took six to seven weeks and she was tested positive for pregnancy in March. The mother of our baby started her ante-natal care with us, after which she left for Canada, and that is where she was delivered of the baby, Lemomu said. She encouraged couples who needed assistance with conception to avail themselves of the services of the centre. (NAN) Thousands of police officers deployed to maintain peace and order during Saturdays gubernatorial election in Ondo State, are stranded at several locations across the state, PREMIUM TIMES learnt on Tuesday. The Nigeria Police Force had earlier announced that no fewer than 26,000 officers would be deployed to forestall any outbreak of violence when residents go out to cast their ballots. The officers were drafted from other states including Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, which contributed 500 personnel each. Officers from other states are still being expected, but those who have arrived since Sunday, said the police leadership made no provision for their welfare. Some of the officers, who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES on the condition of anonymity Tuesday night, said the police knew they would be deployed for several months but failed to make adequate preparation. We are in serious trouble here, an officer said. You see policemen passing the night in the open and being unable to feed. The officers complained that apart from sleeping under makeshift tents, they have no access to proper sanitation and could barely keep their electronic devices on as there are no places to charge their batteries. Some of them said the unbearable situation had compelled them to call their friends and family for soft loans. I had to call my old friend in Jos to send me loan me N10, 000 for me to even be able to survive, the officer said. But he was only able to transfer N8, 000 which I immediately withdrew from the ATM. The officer said he slept in a guesthouse that charged N1, 200 per night in the state. You know the kind of service they will offer in such a place, he said. How can they expect us to properly monitor elections when were not even properly fed or get good sleep? Police spokesman, Don Awunah, said he was aware of the plight of his colleagues and efforts were already underway to ensure that they receive their pay as soon as possible. Yes, were aware at the headquarters that they have not been paid, Mr. Awunah said. But we implore them to take it easy as the Inspector-General is working on their finances. They will start receiving payment alert before the election begins in four days since we already have their personal accounts. The officers said they dont know how much they will likely get as per diem for participating in the election. Nobody told us how much we would be paid or when, an officer said. They however assured they will do their best. This is a service to the motherland, an assistant superintendent of police said. We will do what we can and leave those responsible for this suffering were going through to posterity. The United Nations Development Program has thrown its support behind Not In My Country, a campaign against social epidemics launched by Akin Fadeyi. The campaign also secured a partnership with the UNDP sister agency, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Mr. Fadeyi said in a statement to PREMIUM TIMES. The partnership will be covered under the Project on Support to Anti-Corruption in Nigeria and will be funded by the European Union. Under the partnership, the capacity of several civil society organisations in Nigeria will be enhanced, the statement said. This commendable support is coming after a strict shortlisting process and other global standard measures, Mr. Fadeyi said. It will reawaken us as a nation, specifically against ingenious acts of citizen-corruption, poverty and environmental unfriendly acts. We have such ambition to influence our social space which has suffered social corrosion and a depletion of societal core values with debilitating effects on our collective psyche, Mr. Fadeyi said. Mr. Fadeyi listed other civic groups that are benefitting from the anti-corruption grants that would come from the partnership to include: Youth Progressive Association in Taraba, African Network for Environment and Economic Justice, Justice Development and Peace Commission and Alliance for Credible Election. Others are: African Centre for Rural Development and Environment, Self-Help Development Facilitators, Catholic Caritas Foundation of Nigeria, Integrity Organization and The New Generation Girls and Women Development Initiative. Mr. Fadeyi launched Not In My Country, an episodic narrative that deploys humour to underscore societal ills and appeal to Nigerians to shun sharp practices, in 2007. President Muhammadu Buhari has highlighted some off his administrations challenges and successes in the security situation in Nigeria. Mr. Buhari highlighted this in a speech he delivered on Saturday at the graduation ceremony of the senior executive course 38 of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS. The speech was delivered on the presidents behalf by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Read the delivered speech below. I am delighted to be here with you this morning on the occasion of the graduation ceremony of the Senior Executive Course 38 of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, our nations foremost institution for policy, research and training. It is re-assuring to note that since the establishment of the institute 37 years ago, the national institute has provided a vibrant platform for policy intellectuals and thought leaders on critical issues of national development. The institute is to be commended for the quality of research and policy output that has been generated over the years. The innovative ideas that have been proffered by this intellectual power-house have positively influenced national policy and development of our nation through the years. It is also specially heart-warming to note that some of the current members have contributed significantly to improving the infrastructure here at the institute and that the entire Senior Executive Course 38 of 2016 have donated a block of two shelters to accommodate all of the participants. Your altruism and generosity is a mark of the leadership efforts that we are confident will define the new Nigeria. Please accept my sincere condolence on the sudden passing of your course mate, Maimuna Abdullahi, who incidentally was present at the presentation ceremony of your course to me at the Presidential Villa only two weeks ago. As has become traditional, the Special Guest of Honours speech at NIPSS graduation usually seeks to address some crucial policy issue, this is as it should be, our foremost policy think tank ought to be a place where thoughts, ideas and evolving policies in government are laid out and interrogated. Today permit me to speak briefly on the law and order challenge in Nigeria. (The law and order challenge in Nigeria, its scope, its implications and the critical pathways for resolving the issues that attempt this matter of law and order.) It is clear that a stable, safe and prosperous society must be the desire of every group of policy makers and executors. It is probably true to say also that the chief function of government is the protection and assurance of the security of lives, livelihoods and the properties of the citizenry. Indeed at the conceptual level, it explains the reason why individuals and communities give over their right of self-help and self-protection and even vengeance to the state; and the state cannot afford to compromise these responsibilities in anyway. Indeed many nation-states in exercising that duty of ensuring security find themselves unfortunately prioritizing the maintenance of law and order over individual and sometimes communal rights. In recent years, Nigeria has had to deal with fairly significant and sustained breaches of the norms of law and order; these include the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast, several cases of herdsmen and farmer clashes, and also cattle rustling, facility and pipeline sabotage in the Niger Delta, kidnappings for ransom and the Shiite-Army and Police clashes with pro-Biafra agitators in the southeast among others. But beginning with the Boko Haram insurgency, although in the past year, the capacity of the Boko Haram as a military force and to hold territory has, to a level, been degraded, much laws and instability has resulted, and it is essentially a rag-tag left-over that still carry out the itinerant ambushes and raids especially in border territories. But almost over 2 million people have been displaced in the Northeast, some in IDP camps, but most in host communities, with orphans in the tens of thousands. As the insurgents fled very many small border hamlets, they left behind women and children that they had held in captivity, in many cases badly malnourished. Several local and international humanitarian organisations, working in the region have worked hard with the government to contain the large number of individuals of malnourished and dying children. I ordered the establishment of an inter-ministerial task-force of relevant line ministries to create more order and synergy with the humanitarian organisations, NGOs and the UN agencies. Barely two weeks ago, I also formally inaugurated the Presidential Committee on Northeast Initiatives (PCNI) headed by General T.Y. Danjuma, Rtd, to coordinate both official and private initiatives in the region and also ensure that the state governments have the same power to rehabilitate in a particular area where they have found their competence useful. Only recently, Dikwa Local Government had some of the public buildings, schools, hospitals rebuilt, and the PCNI provided the material while the state government, the builders, artisans and labourers executed the job. Still the humanitarian tragedies are immense and the losses are enormous. No farming has taken place in many of the villages and communities for over three years. Farmlands in many cases have been mined by the fleeing insurgents and because they are largely at various communities, the deprivation of livelihood and economic opportunities is big. Invariably, this dents agricultures 32 per cent contribution to our GDP. Although the terrorists still hold several persons captive, the nation recently received the cheering news of the rescue of 21 of the Chibok girls after practically two years in captivity. They were reunited with their families. Government is, and as I have said repeatedly, committed in ensuring that all the girls and all those who are in captivity are returned safely. Over twenty thousand Nigerians have lost their lives in the Boko Haram insurgency. The cost of rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure in the Northeast is enormous. The education of children in many communities has been stalled for years. The military have shown tremendous professionalism and patriotism. The reports of humanitarian organisations and the activities have been very salutary indeed. Turning to Fulani herdsmen and farmer clashes, this has had an unfortunate long history. Disputes have arisen, use of essential resources, farmlands and grazing areas and water, farmers complaining of invasion of their farms and destruction of their crops by cattle, climate change and the continuous decrease in grazing land have led to even greater complications and the dire needs that have continually presented this particular problem. More recently, the disputes have turned more violent with the arming of herdsmen with guns. There is also evidence of the infiltrations of the ranks of the herdsmen by North African youths who have been involved in the civil conflict between Libya and Mali. The proliferation of small arms in these conflicts has probably made them more available to criminal acts. Cattle rustling has also been a prominent breach of law and order. Early last year, governors in the northwest came together to launch combined operations against (the) crime, but the collaboration of the police and the armed forces achieve considerable successes in stemming the tide. It is evidence that stronger, more robust and more effective law enforcement is necessary to deal with all of these violent attacks. My firm orders had been that even the bearing of arms without license is illegal and persons found with arms must be arrested and prosecuted. No quarter can be granted to anyone who perpetrates violence or promote its occurrence in anyway. There is nothing noble about the banditry and criminal violence that we have seen more frequently and we must prevent their continuing occurrence. Turning to the Niger Delta, the attacks on pipelines and export facilities in the Niger Delta is a different law and order challenge. The damage has far reaching consequences for the national economy, the perpetrators are few and their motives are not necessarily aligned. The huge degradation of the environment and the criminal neglect of the region due to corruption, failed policies and the continuous vandalisation of facilities has created a vicious cycle of environmental damage, poverty and violence. The economic dimensions of the disruptions in oil and gas production caused by militant activities in the region are grave indeed. The blowing of four strategic oil facilities and oil fields, the Trans Forcados pipelines to the terminal, the Qua Iboe terminal, the Brass pipeline, the Trans-Niger pipeline and the Nembe creek trunk line access both of which convey exports to the Bonny terminal, led to a decline in output from budgetary provisions of about 2.2 million barrels per day to about 1.1 million or sometimes less than 1.1 million barrels per day. In August 2016, the loss of over 1 million barrels of oil per day translated to the loss of over 60 percent of gross revenues. This is compounded by the comparatively low price oil regime. When oil revenues crash, even the non-oil economy is affected because 52 percent of our non-oil sector revenues depend on oil. Real GDP growth is directly linked to the price of crude and the relationship between oil price, oil export, and GDP growth rate remain as important as ever. Besides, as of February 2016, we were generating 5,000 Mega Watts of power for the first time in the history of the country but that same month the attack on Trans Forcados pipeline led to a 40 percent loss in gas for power. We suffered a sharp drop in power output to less than 2000 Mega Watts of power at some points. The implication of these despicable acts of sabotage on the vast majority of our people and even our people who live in the Niger Delta trying to make a living is definitely obvious. While we have made it absolutely clear that criminality under any guise will not be tolerated in any part of the country and the sabotage of national assets is a heinous crime. We have nonetheless opened several channels of communication with all relevant groups in the Delta. We remain firmly of the view that all legitimate issues can be resolved when there is commitment on the part of all to the good of our neighbours and the development of our nation. The clean-up of the Niger Delta beginning with Ogoniland is an irrevocable commitment, it will be irresponsible of this generation of leaders to ignore or worsen the environmental degradation in the region. This is why the continual vandalisation of pipelines ultimately jeopardizes the lives and the livelihood of the present and the next generation. There is no question at all that the security, law and order come first in order of priority. As we have seen, violators of the law completely undermine our economic potentials and harm the poorest amongst us the most. The policies of the government on law and order are quite clear: first, we believe in the dignity of every Nigerian regardless of status, tribe or religion. As a soldier, l pledged my life to defend this nation, since my youth; I have in adulthood, twice sworn, as Head of State and President, to defend the laws and constitution. Our constitution grants the right to life and with it I believe, the right to be protected from the violation of ones cause or property and l take that oath seriously. It is therefore the position of government that this criminal conducts cannot be tolerated in any form. Every criminal act must be accounted for. It must remain clear that impunity has come to an end in our country and there would be consequences for violations of the law. This is why we are working diligently to improve the nations capacity to maintain law and order. We are supporting the incremental provision of state-of-the-art equipment of crime fighting especially using technology. Recently we commissioned a central criminal database of police in Abuja which will greatly assist in crime detection and prosecution. Our system of criminal justice from investigation to prosecution and adjudication by the court needs to be re-engineered. A long delay in the trial process has impaired the credibility of our capacity to hold offenders to account. Our problem, it seems, is not access to justice, it is exiting our justice system once you have access to it. I have charged the judiciary often, and I do so again, on the task of developing a firm blueprint for a justice system that works, a system that delivers result. When a person remains accused for years, it is bad for both the accused and the justice system. When a system does not deliver the result that it is created to deliver, self-help is the only option and of course the breakdown of law and order which it is meant to prevent inevitably follows. Your Excellencies, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, l received a report of these graduating senior participants a few weeks ago, the theme of the report is Strengthening the Institutional Mechanisms for Poverty Reduction and Inclusive Development. It is insightful, practical and solution -oriented. I again commend the course for the very useful contributions to our understanding of critical issues in the eradication of poverty. Our approach as a government to the issue is multi-pronged. We believe that the economic policy must remain market-driven and the private sector-led, but the state must intervene where market forces would be slow or ineffective. This is why in the 2016 budget, we provided the largest social intervention allocation in the history of budgeting in our country with the sum of N500 billion. The sum is to provide the targeted intervention measures including 500, 000 volunteer graduate programme. And the employment of those who have graduated began yesterday. The first phase is the employment of 200, 000 volunteer corps graduates who will be paid for their services as they teach, render public health services as well as agriculture extension services in their various local government areas. The fund also includes micro-credit facilities for market women and artisans and traders. We intend to satisfy at least a million market women, artisans and traders. The programme also include the Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme for one million poorest of the Nigerian families. We are working hand-in-hand with the World Bank in identifying the poorest families in the various communities. The sum of N5000 a month will be given to the women who are in these families in other to facilitate the feeding of their children and other sundry matters. I have been briefed by the Vice President on some of the challenges facing the National Institute and I am pleased to inform you that we are addressing these problems. Already, the processes leading to the review of establishing the institute has progressed very well, being the nations foremost policy think-tank, conditions of service of the institute will be made more attractive to engage and retain strong academics and other Nigerians who have a relevant high level practical experience. The government will continue to provide the necessary financial support within the limits of the available resources. The present economic realities has made it practically impossible for government alone to actually satisfy all the financial demands, hence the need for the institute to try funding through policy research, linkages, consultancies and corporate Nigeria. l have been informed that some spirited Nigerians have already begun discussion with the institute on various areas of intervention. These are commendable partnerships. l use this medium to call on other private sector leaders to emulate the examples of those who are already speaking to the institute on ways of assisting them. Im equally aware of the support of some of our agencies like the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC and the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN and the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria, ANAN in the area of infrastructure. I thank them all and l also urge that they continually look at other areas of assisting NIPSS in achieving its most important policy objectives. Finally, let me congratulate the wives, husbands, family and friends of the graduands, for the day and moment belong to the new MNIs. Congratulations on the successful completion of this programme. l have no doubt that this very intensive programme has not only expanded your outlook and perspectives, it has also deepened the understanding and commitment of Nigerians and the resolution of these challenges. Your training has placed you in a position to positively impact the future of this nation. That future has already arrived and I pray that this will be the beginning of greater possibilities and elevations for you. God bless you and God bless Nigeria! Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau on Monday said the South West All Progressives Congress governors who were absent at the Saturday APC Mega Gubernatorial rally in Akure, Ondo State, had sent in their apologies. Mr. Lalong, who is the Chairman of Ondo APC Governorship Campaign Council, made this known to State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The Akure APC rally, which was witnessed by President Muhammadu Buhari, Senate President Bukola Saraki, and other prominent members of the party, was attended by only Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun from the South West. APC governors from Imo, Kano, Kogi, Jigawa, Nasarawa and Edo states attended the rally. The governors of Lagos, Oyo and Osun states, Akinwumi Ambode, Abiola Ajimobi and Rauf Aregbosola respectively, as well as former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, were also absent at the event. Governor Lalong, who was accompanied by the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Kayode Fayemi, however, explained that all the prominent APC personalities who failed to attend the rally had offered useful and convincing explanations. He said that the national leader of the party, Tinubu, was not at the rally due to ill-health. He added that we explained their absence. They sent in their apologies. You heard what happened there. As far as we are concerned, the President, who is the leader of the party, was at the rally. The national chairman was also there, as far as we are concerned, everybody was there. If a leader was not there and he said he was not there because of ill-health, we prayed that God will heal him. Mr. Lalong said he was in the Villa to thank the President for attending the Ondo rally. He noted that we have come to thank the President for going to Ondo for the grand finale rally. Mr. Tinubu had opposed the emergence of Rotimi Akeredolu as APC governorship candidate in Ondo. He, therefore, demanded the resignation of the national chairman of the party, John Odigie-Oyegun, whom he said had derailed from the path of progressives. Mr. Odigie-Oyegun, however, dismissed the call, saying the partys primary election was free and fair. (NAN) The Nigerian Army on Monday responded to a PREMIUM TIMES story showing that a man the army said was amongst five militants killed by soldiers in the Niger Delta, was actually pastor who had been kidnapped a few days before. The Army had distributed the photos of the body of Andrew Anthony, founder of Ambassadors Glory Churches International in Port Harcourt, to the media and said he was amongst those killed when soldiers raided a location in Port Harcourt on August 26. A spokesperson for the Army, Sani Usman, who been contacted before the report was published, but failed to comment, said the story was an attempt to portray the Nigerian Army in bad light. The Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, has however ordered a thorough investigation into the details provided in the report, he said. Mr. Usman said Mr. Anthony was killed by his captors. He also denied that the Army circulated photographs of Mr. Anthonys body to the media, and claimed the Army assisted the family in recovering the corpse of the late pastor. But the statement by Mr. Usman failed to factually disprove details released in this newspapers report. Mr. Anthonys family said it was shocked by the Armys amateur lies. PREMIUM TIMES report was based on the accounts given by security operatives, family of the victim, and other sources informed about the incident. Mr. Anthony, a father of three children, was arriving at his residence in the evening of August 18 when gunmen swooped on him and drove him to their den in a riverine community about 20 kilometres from Port Harcourt. He was killed a few days later while negotiation between his family and the kidnappers was still underway. Police confirmed that Mr. Anthonys family reported his abduction and the Anti-Kidnapping Unit had commenced rescue operation before he was killed during a military raid. Yet, Mr. Usman claimed that some family members confirmed that they never reported the kidnapping of Mr. Andrew to the police. Rather, they were negotiating with the kidnappers on their own without recourse to any security agency before the raid on the militants camp. That claim is false. Not only did the Rivers State police spokesman, Omoni Nnamdi, confirm that the kidnap was reported, four policemen attached to the Anti-Kidnapping Unit in Port Harcourt told this newspaper a report was made and police were on the case before Mr. Anthony was killed. Mr. Anthonys family said the Armys rebuttal raised even more questions. John Anthony, the twin brother of the deceased who was extensively referenced in the original article, said the Armys explanations did not add up. Im completely shocked, Mr. Anthony said. I cant believe a major government department like the Army could be telling these kinds of amateur lies. Too many questions are left unanswered, including the other militants supposedly killed in the raid. Also, is the Army telling us that someone distributed the statement on their behalf? When our family and later PREMIUM TIMES called their attention to the story showing pictures of my brother being labelled a militant, why didnt the Army disown the statement then and make redress? Mr. Anthony said it was not smart for the Army to say it killed other militants even after the officer that led the operation said they only shot at them and were not sure if they were killed or not. The person that led the operation already said they only wounded the militants who might have died in the bush. That claim is highly suspect on its own. So how smart is the Armys claim about five militants they supposedly killed? We challenge them to show us the other militants that were killed in the operation rather than dragging such an important institution in the mud, Mr. Anthony said. Mr. Usmans position followed a similar claim after PREMIUM TIMES exclusively reported some 83 soldiers were missing after a Boko Haram attack. He denied the report in October, even when the story was true. A few days after the report, Mr. Usman released a statement saying scores of soldiers were not missing, creating a fissure with the statement of the Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole in the northeast, Lucky Irabor, a Major General, who admitted that scores of soldiers were missing. The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Abuja Division of the Appeal Court to continue its hearing in the ongoing legal battle for the Ondo States Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship ticket. The Appeal Court had on October 18 suspended hearings into the various applications pending the decision of the highest court. The applications were brought to the Appeal Court by a factional candidate of the party, Eyitayo Jegede, who challenged the decision of the Federal High Court in Abuja to replace him with another contender for the ticket, Jimoh Ibrahim. While both candidates belong to the PDP, Mr. Jegede was picked by the Ahmed Makarfi faction of the party, and Mr. Ibrahim represents the camp of former Borno governor, Ali Sheriff. A three-member panel of the appeal court led by Ibrahim Salauwa set aside the matter to await the decision of the Apex Court. Applications regarding the forthcoming elections were taken to the Supreme Court by a factional leader of the party in Ondo state, Biyi Poroye, who represents Mr. Sheriffs faction. On Tuesday, a five-man panel of justices led by the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, ordered the Appeal Court to proceed with the matter. The Senate has summoned the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, over his claims of multibillion dollars oil and gas deals with India and Chinese firms. Mr. Kachikwu, in an interview with This Day in June, said Nigeria signed Memorandums of Understanding with several Chinese firms during a road show in the Asian country on $80 billion new investments, spanning five years, in the oil and gas industry covering pipelines, refineries, gas and power, facility refurbishments and upstream financing. He also hinted at new investments worth $20 billion from Sinopec and Chinese National Offshore Oil Company in the Nigerias oil and gas sector. In October, Mr. Kachikwu, through a statement by the Director of Press in the Petroleum Ministry, said Nigeria was set to sign with India an investment deal which would see the Indian make an upfront payment of $15 billion to Nigeria for crude purchases. But on Tuesday, the Senate resolved the Minister should appear before its committees on petroleum, gas and foreign affairs to explain the terms of the deals and the their implications for the economy. The Senates resolution followed a motion by Clifford Ordia (PDP-Edo). In his remarks, Senate President Bukola Saraki expressed appreciation to Mr. Kachikwu for his initiatives but emphasised the need for transparency. The Court of Appeal in Abuja has said it will continue with its hearing of the PDP crisis once all parties have been served. The spokesperson for the appellate court, Saadatu Musa, told PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday evening that a ruling by the Supreme Court has paved the way for the immediate continuation of the mater. The Supreme Court has thrown out the application preventing the continuation of the matter at the Appeal Court. That means it should continue immediately. However all the parties have to first of all return to the division to be served before the time of hearing will be fixed, she said. Based on the Supreme Court ruling nullifying an application for the suspension of Appeal Court hearing on the Ondo governorship tussle, reporters on Tuesday afternoon assembled at the appellate court, expecting a continuation of the hearing. The matter had been suspended at the appellate court on November 18, following an application by a faction of the PDP, led by former Borno State governor, Ali Sheriff. Mr. Poroye, a factional chairman of the PDP in Ondo, from the faction led by Mr. Sheriff, had asked the court to determine the jurisdiction of a panel set up by the Appeal Court President, Zainab Bulkachuwa. The panel was created after a petition filed by Mr. Poroyes counsel, Beluolisah Nwofor, accused the former panel, led by Jummai Sankey, of fraud. Following that petition, the first panel under Ms. Sankeys leadership withdrew their participation in the matter on November, 1. Days later, Ms. Bulkachuwa instituted the new panel, led by Ibrahim Salauwa. But dissatisfied with the decision of Ms. Bulkachuwa, Mr. Poroye made another request, demanding the dissolution of the new panel. When the application was refused by the appellate court, he (Mr. Poroye) approached the Supreme Court to challenge the decision of the Appeal Court. He also prayed the highest court to compel the lower court to suspend sitting. On Tuesday a five-member panel of justices at the Supreme Court, led by the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, dismissed the application for lacking in merit. The court also asked Mr. Nwofor to pay over N5 million as damages for abusing the panel at the appellate court. While the tussle for the PDP ticket continues, the faction of the party led by Ahmed Makarfi has called for the postponement of the November 26 election. That call has been rejected by the electoral commission, INEC, which recognises Jimoh Ibrahim of the Ali Sheriff faction as the PDP candidate for the election. Justice Mohammed Idris of a Federal High Court Lagos, on Tuesday refused to restrain a fellow judge from taking steps in relation to the frozen $15.5 million allegedly belonging to Patience Jonathan. Mr. Idris declined an application by counsel to the former first lady, Ifedayo Adedipe, who sought an order to restrain Justice Babs Kuewumi from taking further steps on the frozen sum. Mr. Adedipe had urged the court to stop Justice Kuewumi from making any forfeiture orders, in respect of the said sum, which was frozen by the EFCC, until the determination of an interlocutory application on the subject. It will be recalled that Mrs. Jonathan had instituted a fundamental rights suit against the EFCC, claiming the sum of $200 million as damages for inconveniences suffered. In her suit, she had joined the EFCC, Skye Bank plc, and a former aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, Warampo Dudafa, as respondents. Also joined in the suit are four companies: Pluto Property Ltd, Seagate Property Development and Investment Company Ltd, Transocean company Ltd and Globus Integrated Service Ltd. Mr. Dudafa was charged alongside the four companies before Justice Kuewumi, on 15 counts of money laundering. Representatives of the four companies, which the EFCC said were used by Mr. Dudafa to launder the said money, had all pleaded guilty to the offences. The said $15.5 million is the same sum which the former first lady claims belongs to her as sole signatory to the accounts of the companies. When the case was called on Tuesday, Justice Idris acknowledged a letter from counsel representing Skye Bank, Lanre Ogunlesi, stating that he was indisposed and could not attend the court. The judge added that since Mr. Ogunlesi has requested for a new date to enable him appear in court, the hearing of the application on notice could not proceed. Meanwhile, before the court could adjourned the case, Mr. Adedipe had urged the judge to direct the EFCC not to tamper with the subject matter of the case pending the hearing of the interlocutory application. In response, counsel to the EFCC, Rotimi Oyedepo, urged the court to dismiss the application on the grounds that the accounts which housed the money had been frozen. He urged the court to dismiss the application with a wave of hand; adding that there was already an order of court convicting four defendants for warehousing proceeds of crime. In a short ruling, Justice Idris held that he could not go into the merits or demerits of the interlocutory application, until it is moved. He ordered accelerated hearing of the case and said that he could not make any order that will be prejudicial to the outcome of the main suit. He consequently adjourned the case to December 7 for hearing of the main application. In her suit, Mrs. Jonathan is urging the court to issue an order discharging the freezing order, and restraining the EFCC and its agent from further placing a freezing order on the said accounts. (NAN) Former Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi, a close ally of a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has refuted the claim by Plateau State Governor Solomon Lalong that the conspicuous absence of Mr. Tinubu at last Saturdays Ondo State APC governorship rally was a result of Tinubus ill-health. In a press release issued in Lagos on Tuesday, Mr. Afikuyomi described the claim credited to the Plateau State governor as absolutely incorrect. According to Mr. Afikuyomi, I travelled to the United States of America with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to witness the recent US elections. We traversed a number of cities together where we engaged with a number of Nigerians who are genuinely concerned about the state of affairs in our dear country. Jagaban was in a remarkable state of mental and physical wellness. When we ended our trip, I saw him off to the airport in Chicago from where he headed for Europe again. I still met with him in Europe thereafter. It is therefore absolutely incorrect and most embarrassing for anyone to attempt to invent such a laughable reason for Asiwaju Bola Tinubus absence at the rally. The fact that somebody went for medical check-up does not mean he is ill. In the likely event that Asiwaju, like all mortals, was ill at all, I doubt if Mr. Lalong would be the first to know by reason of relationship, proximity and trust. Prominent politicians like Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun have been speaking with Jagaban Tinubu. Governor Amosun particularly communicated with him a day before the Ondo rally and he can never claim not to have spoken with him. I have also remained in constant touch with Asiwaju Tinubu since my arrival in Nigeria. We speak daily as a matter of fact. I have been inundated with calls by friends, associates and other well-meaning Nigerians trying to ascertain the veracity of this ludicrous claim. I hereby ask all friends and lovers of Asiwaju Tinubu to dismiss the claim and know that he is hale and hearty. Mr. Tinubu, former APC Interim Chairman, Bisi Akande, and three governors from the South-west-Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo) and Akinwunmi Ambode (Lagos), were not at the rally. Governor Lalong had in his capacity as the Chairman of the Ondo State Governorship Campaign explained that Mr. Tinubu was absent at the rally due to ill health. Mr. Lalong was quoted to have told State House Correspondents after visiting President Muhammadu Buhari that, if a leader was not there and he said he was not there because of ill-health, we have prayed that God will heal him. The Nasarawa State Chapter of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) says it has adopted traditional method of oath taking to tackle cattle rustling, armed robbery and other criminal acts among its members. The Chairman of the association, Mohammed Hussaini, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lafia on Tuesday. We adopted a traditional method to control cattle rustling, armed robbery and kidnapping involving members whereby all Herdsmen in every community are made to take an oath by eating kola nuts after chanting some incantations, and the method is yielding positive results. Cattle rustlers, armed robbers and kidnappers do not fear God, so begging them to stop their evil acts because of God would amount to waste of time and efforts, hence the adoption of oath taking. We have traditionalists that specialise in administering the oath to members as a way of controlling social vices and criminalities and the nemesis for violators is almost immediate, Mr. Hussaini said. He said the initiative would complement the efforts of conventional security agencies at tackling security challenges involving the unions members. The chairman said many members of the association who belonged to criminal gangs and perpetrated various crimes had repented and denounced their membership of such syndicates. He said the association would not shield criminal elements and promised to expose anyone caught or discovered to be involved in any criminality to the law enforcement agencies. Mr. Hussaini, however, appealed to governments at all levels and well-meaning individuals to assist herdsmen whose cows were rustled or killed as a result of clashes with farmers in the state. (NAN) The Dangote Group said on Tuesday it had signed a contract with the Federal Government for the construction of a 42.5 km Obajana-Kabba Road in Kogi. According to a statement by the regional spokesman of the conglomerate, Jibrin Abubakar, in Abuja, work will commence in full on the project after signing the document in Abuja. The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, Magaji Gusau, signed on behalf of the Federal Government, while the Adviser to the President of the Dangote Group, Joseph Makoju, signed on behalf of the group. Mr. Makoju said the exercise was a milestone in the history of Nigeria. The rigid pavement is to be built by the AG Dangote Construction Company. The project will cost the Group N11.5 billion but the job was awarded to the Group on tax concession basis at N5.24 billion. The difference of N6.2 billion is part of the corporate social responsibility of the Dangote Group. The Managing Director of the AG Dangote, Ashif Juma, said the contract duration was 24 months, but that the Group had set a target for its completion at 16 months. It would be recalled that the Dangote Group commissioned the 26 Km Itori-Ibese concrete road in Ogun in June. (NAN) The Ondo State House of Assembly on Tuesday called on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to extend the November 26 governorship election as a matter of urgent public importance. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the assembly presided over by the Deputy Speaker, Fatai Olotu, unanimously voted in favour of the extension of the election date. Mr. Olotu said the extension would not have any adverse effect or offend any electoral law. Its necessary that all the pending matters in court concerning all political parties participating in the election be resolved. The outstanding court cases have generated a lot of security threats to the extent that tension is now palpable in the city. Elections are meant to be free and fair, and conducted in an atmosphere devoid of tension, he said. Earlier, Olusiji Akindiose, representing Ondo East, moved the motion on the need to extend the date for the governorship election in Ondo State. He said that INEC and the highest authorities had to listen and see the danger in the fact that the election shouldnt be rushed. It must be done with feelings that people are safe and the assurance that votes will count. Out of 28 political parties participating in the election, 20 are agitating for an extension, which I dont think is too much, he said. The Deputy Majority Leader and member representing Ese-Odo constituency, Vincent Obadiah, seconded the motion. A similar call by a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was rejected by INEC which said it could not postpone the election because of an intra-party squabble. Similarly, the assembly confirmed three persons as members of the Ondo State House of Assembly Service Commission. They are Yekini Olanipekun, Henry Akinsuroju, and Afolabi Akinsiku. The three persons were former members of the assembly. Earlier, Bode Adeyelu read the message from Governor Olusegun Mimiko requesting for the confirmation of the appointments. Mr. Obadiah, who is the chairman of the assembly committee on selection, submitted the report of the screening and said the three persons were qualified for the post. Responding on behalf of other members, Mr. Olanipekun promised to justify the confidence reposed in the members to perform their jobs diligently. (NAN) A local health supplier has earned a national award for its effort to bring diversity to the workplace. Dearborn-based Hollingsworth recently received the 2016 CVS Health Supplier Diversity Rising Stars Award in recognition of its support in providing warehousing, kitting and logistics services and solutions. The honor was presented at the 2016 CVS Health Supplier Diversity Ruby Awards ceremony in Providence, R.I. The awards recognize the distinguished contributions of CVS Health business partners and leaders. Accepting the award for Hollingsworth were Michael McNamara, President; Scott Motherwell, Director of U.S. Sales; and Jeremy Haynes, General Manager of Hollingsworth Columbus, Ohio. Diversity is critical for the organizations ability to innovate and adapt in a fast-changing environment, and is essential to the growth and prosperity of any company, McNamara said. Diversity of perspectives, experiences, cultures, genders, and age breeds innovation and is certainly a key component of our success. The honor weve received from CVS Health reflects the commitment of our team and the fact that 80 percent of our employees and 10 percent of our vendors are minorities. Headquartered in Dearborn, Hollingsworth has emerged as a leading solutions provider to the manufacturing and distribution communities, including in the areas of fulfillment and distribution, kitting and packaging, assembly and sequencing, vendor managed inventory and transportation and freight Management. The company is committed to a diverse workplace and making a positive contribution to the communities in which it operates. Source: Hollingsworth ( Read 8787 Times) Source : The impact of declaration of PM Narendra Modis speech on 8th November 2016 has been and is going to be massive on Indian economy and society in many ways. On 09/11/2016(our own 9/11), a lot of things changed but masses of Bharat are happier than that of India as they have little to hide.Demonetization has to be done abruptly and should be considered as creative disruption for the economy. Hopefully, it should force many to work in white and would force them to become part of tax paying individual/organization. Hopefully, this is going to be a great initiative for the country in long term but in short term( at least 1-2 quarter), economy is going to be affected adversely due to abrupt shortage of liquidity. Moreover, short term will be how short will depend on further follow up actions taken by the Government.Further, implementation should have been better executed to ensure minimum pain to the masses. Shortage of currency with banks, defunct/non-availability of cash in ATM have created a lot of problem in the fortnight after demonetization. The images on few television are troubling. An elderly man crying helplessly for want of cash/medication, death of few persons while standing in queue for getting cash is certainly very disturbing. Even some guys are reaching bank/ATM at mid night and waiting for cash at least for initial few days certainly not show arrangements in good light.The Government and RBI should be very proactive to ensure that pain does not run too long and economy does not get too much adversely impacted.Demonetization might be helpful in breaking back of insurgents and Naxals funding. Even there will be huge impact on the big fishes of economy, who have millions and billions of rupees in cash. But, one must remember that demonetizing Rs. 500/Rs. 1000 currency, is not the all in one solution of the ills facing the economy black money, crime, insurgency etc, as is being discussed in many news channels. Many of the big fishes have their a lot of black money is stashed in the form of real estate/ land (mostly benami) and gold. There need to be concerted effort to tackle all them. Further, generation of black money need also be stopped with serious effort. One major step can be transparency in political funding as this is a major reason of black money generation. Lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey against four school districts and a charter school over alleged discriminatory enrollment practices have been settled, the ACLU announced. The affected school districts included Port Republic, where Superintendent John Davis said the problem was an outdated website, and the issue could have been resolved with a phone call rather than litigation. The ACLU had filed complaints with the districts in October over concerns that requirements in their student enrollment procedures could discourage or prohibit undocumented immigrants from enrolling in school. Such requirements could include requiring Social Security numbers or other information that people without valid immigration status cannot obtain. Federal law requires public schools to admit all students, regardless of immigration status. The ACLU said while there was no evidence that any of the schools had turned away immigrant students, any requirements that might discourage parents from even attempting to register are prohibited. In each case, officials agreed to remove the offending requirement from district forms, to clarify on registration information that documents revealing immigration status will not be required and to reimburse the ACLU-NJ for the filing fees associated with the lawsuits. Davis said the Port Republic school board still believes this litigation could have been avoided and did not represent what the district requests when parents seek to enroll students. Davis issued a statement that said: The Boards registration practices are consistent with the guidance provided by the New Jersey Department of Education. That being said, the Board did not want to engage in lengthy and protracted litigation when it represents such a small community with severely limited taxpayer dollars. Therefore, the ACLU and the Board engaged in discussions to settle this dispute in a mutual and cooperative manner. The other affected schools were Fair Lawn School District in Bergen County, Jersey City Global Charter School in Hudson County and the Jamesburg School District and Spotswood School District in Middlesex County. VINELAND City officials say they will enforce a notice of unsafe structure that could lead to the demolition of the troubled South Jersey Ice and Cold Storage building. The building underwent a $500,000 emergency federal project earlier this year to prevent a potential ammonia gas leak, a job that also forced the evacuation of more than 30 nearby residents. The citys decision to en-force the notice follows its up-holding by the Cumberland County Construction Board of Appeals and despite a Superior Court lawsuit filed by the company in an attempt to have the notice overturned. We are proceeding, said Michael Benson, the attorney representing the city in the case. The next step is to reinspect the building in the 500 block of East Pear Street now that tons of ice that covered some walls and ceilings have melted, Benson said. That thaw allows city inspectors to better determine the buildings structural integrity, he said. The June 7 notice lists the reasons for its issuance as floor, roof, walls not stable. We dont know what the current condition of the building is since it was thawed out, Benson said. Benson said the city may seek a Superior Court order to get into the building, charging that company officials are denying the city access. Company officials couldnt be reached for comment. The county Construction Appeals Board upheld the notice Nov. 2. Board Chairman William Rafferty said the panel found the city followed the book the New Jersey Uniform Construction Code in issuing the notice. The board also heard testimony from current and former city inspectors who said they found rusted metal stairs, rotted floor planks, corroded steel support beams, main steel support beams being held up by temporary scaffolding and walls left unsupported after being broken through to provide room-to-room access. One witness called the building an accident waiting to happen. As for the companys lawsuit, Benson said the city considers the legal action to be frivolous. We feel strongly about that, Benson said. Problems with South Jersey Ice and Cold Storages building, parts of which are almost 100 years old, were discovered after the company reported possible structural concerns with the building. The company needed to report the problem to the city because the city holds the mortgage on the building through an Urban Enterprise Zone loan. A subsequent inspection resulted not only in the issuance of the notice but in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency taking action to prevent what it feared could be an ammonia gas leak because of the poor condition of the companys refrigeration system. The EPA wound up spending about $500,000 on the project, which began July 2 and lasted until late August. The work included removing 9,700 pounds of anhydrous ammonia from the plants refrigeration system. The substance is considered a toxic material that can irritate the eyes, skin and respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts with short-term exposure. The ice that accumulated inside the building melted during the project. The EPA said it will recoup the $500,000, which also covered the cost of housing nearby residents who had to be evacuated, from the company. The unsafe-structure notice gave South Jersey Ice and Cold Storage until July 10 to comply with the demand to vacate or tear down the building, make repairs or provide an engineering report that shows the building is structurally sound. Benson said the city will still sit down with them and listen to them if they have some plan (about) what theyre willing to do with the building. Repayment of some of the $550,000 UEZ mortgage loan is also in dispute in Superior Court. The citys UEZ sued the company, owner Mark DiMeo, Hilda M. DeMeo and Crystal Ice-Bridgeton LLC on Sept. 26. Crystal Ice was a Bridgeton ice house that burned in 2008. Crystal Ice and South Jersey Ice and Cold Storage are part of a company called Hilmark Inc. Hilmarks address is the same as South Jersey Ice and Cold Storage. According to the UEZ lawsuit, the company failed to make monthly payments of $3,662.75 in April, May, June, August, September and October 2015, and each month through September of this year. Hilmark filed for bankruptcy in 2014, and the defendants were declared in default of that loan in July, the suit states. The UEZ now seeks payment of the outstanding $464,103.96, along with late fees and interest, according to the lawsuit. 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. Messe Wien -- Vienna, Austria -- 28-29 November NAPERVILLE, Illinois, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Aasonn, LLC, a premier global provider of HR-as-a-Service workforce advantage solutions, today announced that the company is a Platinum-level sponsor at SAP SuccessFactors' annual SuccessConnect conference. SuccessConnect is the premier event for HR professionals, where industry influencers, current and prospective customers, technology partners and solution experts come together to share experiences, best practices and new innovations. The conference will be held 28-29 November at the Messe Wien in Vienna, Austria. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120208/CG49534LOGO Former Formula One driver and three time F1 World Champion Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda will take the main stage at SuccessConnect 2016 to share his story. SuccessConnect will feature dozens of additional industry luminaries that will present authoritative insights and perspectives during keynotes and in-depth sessions. The event will assemble SAP SuccessFactors customers and partners, including Aasonn, as well as industry analysts and thought leaders, to discuss major trends impacting HR, and how cutting-edge cloud-based solutions are transforming the role of HR in the digital economy. Aasonn's continued cooperation with SAP SuccessFactors is helping companies digitise HR practices and accelerate business execution. Aasonn has leveraged its understanding and proven track record within the Human Capital Management (HCM) arena, and combined this expertise with market-leading SAP SuccessFactors solutions to help organisations transform HR operations for workforce competitive advantage. One of the most experienced implementation partners of SAP SuccessFactors solutions, Aasonn is the partner of choice for a significant number of SAP SuccessFactors customers. At SuccessConnect 2016, Aasonn customer Libbey Inc. will lead a breakout session on how the company successfully implemented SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting. Libbey is one of the largest tableware manufacturers in the world supplying glassware, tableware and home decor to retail foodservice and business-to-business customers globally. More information about the presentation, "Libbey's Successful Approach to Implementing SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Globally," can be found here. Additionally, Aasonn will be exhibiting at Booth #11, where it will be demoing its latest solutions. "Aasonn has helped over 2,000 customers thrive using SAP SuccessFactors solutions and completed more than 5,000 cloud-based HR projects, which is why SuccessConnect has proven to be such an indispensable annual conference for Aasonn's customers," said Randy Womack, CEO of Aasonn. "SuccessConnect brings Aasonn customers from around the world together for technical training, professional networking and strategic insights into how to derive maximum business value from their investments in SAP SuccessFactors solutions." SuccessConnect 2016 will deliver exclusive content and keynotes from SAP and SAP SuccessFactors executives, customers, industry thought leaders and other well-recognised leaders. The event will also include programs for prospective customers who want to learn more about how SAP SuccessFactors solutions can help businesses foster environments where success is simply human. To register and for more information on SuccessConnect 2016, please visit http://www.sapsuccessconnect.com/en_us/vienna.html. About Aasonn Aasonn provides cloud-based human capital management and benefits services HR organizations can utilise to impact workforce competitive advantage and business performance. Aasonn's offerings comprise unmatched experience and best practice expertise with cloud-based implementation; full-service HR Operations with on-shore call centres; innovative self-service technologies for an enhanced employee experience; and actionable insights to optimise your workforce. Aasonn is an industry leader in the transformation of SAP HR systems, processes and employee experience. For more information about Aasonn, visit www.aasonn.com or call (888) 718-1562. SAP, SuccessFactors and SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. See http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx for additional trademark information and notices. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Partner Contact: JD Davis Vice President, Global Marketing jdavis@aasonn.com Related Links http://www.aasonn.com SOURCE Aasonn, LLC SIMI VALLEY, California, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- AIRBORNE WIRELESS NETWORK (OTC QB: ABWN) is pleased to announce that on November 22, 2016, it closed a $1,200,000 private placement funding transaction. Pursuant to that transaction, the Company sold 1,500,000 shares of its common stock for a purchase price of $0.80 per share, for a total of $1,200,000. In addition, pursuant to that transaction, the Company granted to the purchaser of those securities a warrant to purchase for a period of one year an additional 1,500,000 shares of the Company's common stock at a price of $1.25 per share. The purchaser of these shares is a non-US person. No commissions, etc. were paid. Airborne Wireless Network www.airbornewirelessnetwork.com info@airbornewirelessnetwork.com 805-583-4302 This release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of the company's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results may differ materially from those set forth in the forward looking statements. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, availability of capital, general industry conditions and competition; general economic factors; the impact of industry regulation; technological advances; new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges in new product development; manufacturing difficulties or delays; dependence on the effectiveness of the company's patents; and the exposure to litigation, including patent litigation, and/or regulatory actions. Related Links http://www.airbornewirelessnetwork.com SOURCE Airborne Wireless Network PEORIA, Illinois, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT/Euronext: CATR) informs its stockholders that today, in accordance with Section 16(a) of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, 1 Form 4 (the report on Form 4 being a statement of beneficial ownership of its officers, directors and 10% owners) was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). In addition, on November 14, 2016, 3 Forms 4 were filed with the SEC. Caterpillar files electronically with the SEC required reports on Form 8-K, Form 10-Q, Form 10-K and Form 11-K; proxy materials; ownership reports for insiders as required by Section 16(a) of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended; and registration statements on Forms S-3 and S-8, as necessary; and other forms or reports, as required. All of the forms and reports filed electronically with the SEC are available on the SEC Internet site (www.sec.gov). Caterpillar also maintains an Internet site (http://www.Caterpillar.com ) and copies of its annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and any amendments to these reports filed or furnished with the SEC are available free of charge through Caterpillar's Internet site (www.Caterpillar.com/secfilings) as soon as reasonably practicable after the relevant document has been filed with the SEC. CONTACT: Rachel Potts, Corporate Public Affairs, +1-309-675-6892 This is a disclosure announcement from PR Newswire. SOURCE Caterpillar Inc. LONDON, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CollabNet (www.collabnet.com), a global leader in enterprise software development and delivery solutions that help customers create high-quality applications at speed, and Clarive Software, a leading provider of DevOps software that serves global organizations with critical and complex systems, are pleased to announce a strategic partnership. This global partnership grants CollabNet the right to offer Clarive solutions globally. CollabNet will also be the exclusive representative of Clarive Software and its solutions in the United States and Canada. The integrated solution will be available as both a hosted service and an on-premise solution. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150505/213850LOGO "This partnership is another milestone in Clarive's rapid growth and the company's intention to increase trust and collaboration between Development and Operations through automation, integration and DevOps intelligence," said Rodrigo Gonzalez, CEO at Clarive Software. "CollabNet is an ideal partner because they understand the complexities and challenges of enterprise software development, and their solutions focus on increasing collaboration and transparency across tools and processes." Together Clarive and CollabNet can deliver a new level of value to organizations that want to bring Development and Operations closer together through increased collaboration, integration, automation and visibility across all platforms, all environments and all development methodologies. "We are pleased to announce this new partnership with Clarive," said Flint Brenton, CEO of CollabNet. "Software development is a critical success component for all organizations. Private and public sector organizations alike are looking for effective solutions to align software development with operations. CollabNet has long been at the forefront of delivering market-leading solutions that enable the delivery of high-quality software at speed. The combination of Clarive and CollabNet solutions will now help organizations achieve their goals for continuous delivery by enabling the rapid deployment of releases." Clarive Software is the leading provider of a DevOps solution for organizations that are evolving, rebalancing their application architectural landscape from a few highly interconnected architectures to a number of loosely coupled micro services and adjusting the end-to-end delivery processes accordingly. CollabNet helps enterprises and government organizations develop and deliver high-quality software at speed. Its flagship product, TeamForge, is the industry's leading open platform for enterprise software development, delivery and collaboration. The companies will go to market this year, and customers in North America can contact CollabNet for information on Clarive solutions available to them. Share This: New @CollabNet partners with Clarive Software #Clarive Software partners with CollabNet #Clarive Software North America #DevOps for the enterprise About Clarive Clarive Software provides a DevOps lifecycle management platform for the evolving enterprise across every platform and environment. Founded in 2010, the company is headquartered in Spain and today has offices in the Brazil, UK and Belgium. Its senior management team has close to 25 years of practical experience in ALM, release and deployment management. Clarive has been named as Gartner COOL Vendor DevOps 2015, and its product gets great recognition from analysts within OVUM, Gartner and Forrester as well as within its rapidly growing customer community. About CollabNet CollabNet helps enterprises and government organizations develop and deliver high-quality software at speed. CollabNet is winner of the 2016 Best of Interop Award and the "Best in Show" winner in the application lifecycle management (ALM) and development tools category of the SD Times 100 for 13 consecutive years, recognizing TeamForge for its innovation. Also a gold winner of the 2016 Golden Bridge Awards, CollabNet offers innovative solutions, provides consulting and Agile training services and proudly supports more than 10,000 customers with 6 million users in 100 countries. For more information, please visit www.collabnet.com. Contact: Laura Balboni Catapult PR-IR lbalboni@catapultpr-ir.com 303-581-7760 Related Links http://www.collabnet.com SOURCE CollabNet The construction industry is recognised as a prime economic mover in Malaysia and projected to remain robust in 2017, as Budget 2017 was announced in October 2016 by the Prime Minister. Significant investments were made in public infrastructure projects, which include the East Coast Rail Line, construction of rural bridges and roads, new schools, schools for the poor and the improvement of the water supply network. Therefore, the opportunities created in the booming construction industries have attracted the gaze of companies in the region. Exhibitors Techtronic Power Tools (M) Sdn Bhd , UAC Berhad, Xinyi Energy Smart (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Jana Tanmia Resources, Bubble Deck Construction Sdn Bhd, Protasco Berhad, Ply Tec Fencing System Industries Sdn Bhd, Perceptive Profile Sdn Bhd and other companies have confirmed their participation in Ecobuild SEA 2017. Event visitors include a wide range of participating groups including government procurers, wholesalers, architects, contractors and consultants. Ecobuild Southeast Asia 2017 has co-located events, such as Asean Solar 2017, Ecolight Asean 2017, Energy Efficiency, Greenbuild Asia, Construction Show, AseanREI and Construction Career Fair. These events are expected to attract more than 15,000 attendees from around the world, to engage in activities and to interact with the key industry players. Ecobuild Southeast Asia is serving to connect the entire built environment supply chain in one seamless experience. CDP points will be gained upon attending paid conferences organised by the supporting stakeholders, as such Master Builders Association Malaysia, The Chartered Institute of Building, Kubena and Urban Forum. Meanwhile, free-to-attend seminars are organised into streams, presenting a number of topics that include quality, safety and professionalism, as well as environmental sustainability, productivity and internationalisation, reflecting the categories emphasized under CITP. Seminar speakers range from industry experts to innovators and practitioners from Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia, Public Works Department Malaysia, Malaysia Structural Steel Association, The Institution of Fire Engineers, The Chartered Institute of Building, Nuclear Malaysia and International Workplace. Also, International Construction Week and Ecobuild Southeast Asia offer a perfect platform to the next generation of the construction industry. Young designers will be challenged to join "MSSA/CIDB Open Ideas Competition Youth 2017 -- Dome in Steel [YouDo]", which is co-organised by Malaysia Structural Steel Association. This competition promises a highly challenging project that involves designing an innovation, sustainability and cost effectiveness steel dome. This project for the youth will see more than 10 universities of 30 teams and 150 students competing for the MSSA Challenge trophy and prizes. Also, business matching will be organised by Matrade and CIDB to bring in overseas buyers. The goal is to connect dedicated local suppliers/exhibitors with premier buyers for sourcing purposes. The connections are arranged by business matching specialists through face-to-face meetings. For any enquiries, kindly contact us at +603-21768788 or email ecobuildsea@ubm.com. For more information, visit www.ecobuildsea.com. About UBM Asia (www.ubmasia.com) Owned by UBM plc listed on the London Stock Exchange, UBM Asia is the largest trade show organiser in Asia and the largest commercial organiser in China, India and Malaysia. Established with its headquarters in Hong Kong and subsidiary companies across Asia and in the US, UBM Asia has a strong global network of 30 offices and 1,300 staff in 24 major cities. We operate in 20 market sectors with 230 exhibitions and conferences, 23 trade publications, 20 online products for over 1,000,000 quality exhibitors, visitors, conference delegates, advertisers and subscribers from all over the world. Related Links http://www.ecobuildsea.com SOURCE UBM Asia (Malaysia) LOD, Israel, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Company's revenues in the third quarter of 2016 amounted to approx. USD 644 million, compared to approx. USD 647 million in the third quarter of the previous year; Gross profit in the third quarter of 2016 amounted to approx. USD 173 million, compared to approx. USD 209 million in the third quarter of the previous year; Profit before tax in the third quarter of 2016 totaled approx. USD 93 million, compared to a profit of approx. USD 126 million in the third quarter of last year; Net profit in the third quarter of 2016 totaled approx. USD 70 million compared to a profit of approx. USD 93 million in the third quarter of last year; The EBITDA amounted to approx. USD 142 million, compared to approx. USD 173 million in the third quarter of last year; The EBITDAR amounted to approx. USD 180 million, compared to approx. USD 193 million in the third quarter of last year; The Company's cash and deposit balances as of September 30, 2016 totaled approx. USD 219 million; The number of passenger segments in the third quarter of 2016 increased by about 13% compared to last year; The Company's seat availability increased by about 7.5% and RPK increased by about 8%; The Company's market-share of passenger traffic at Ben-Gurion Airport increased in the third quarter of 2016 to approx. 31.5%, indicating a growth of about 5% compared to approx. the third quarter of the previous year. Load factor in the third quarter stood at approx. 87.3%, compared to 87% in the third quarter of last year; The Company's revenues in the first nine months of 2016 amounted to approx. USD 1,578 million, similar to the previous year; Gross profit in the first nine months of 2016 amounted to approx. USD 322 million, compared to approx. USD 364 million in the first nine months of the previous year; Profit before tax totaled in the first nine months of 2016 approx. USD 106 million, compared to a profit of approx. USD 128 million in the first nine months of last year; Net profit totaled in the first nine months of 2016 approx. USD 83 million, compared to approx. USD 94 million in the first nine months of last year. David Maimon, EL AL's CEO : "The Company presented today a net profit of approx. USD 70 million and a growth in all operational parameters, including an increase of about 13% in passenger segments, a market-share increase to 31.5% and a load-factor increase to a level of 87.3%. In the third quarter of 2016 we presented revenues similar to the third quarter of last year, notwithstanding the challenging competition and the drop in flight ticket prices. The third quarter was affected by the pilots' sanctions, which have been continuing for many months, causing disruptions in EL AL's operations. Said disruptions are expressed, inter alia, by delays and cancellations of departing flights. During the period of this report, the company was further compelled to lease aircrafts, a move that affected the Company's expenses, in order to avoid cancellation of flights due to the continued sanctions. We are committed to ensure the Company's success and prosperity, which is the source of livelihood of thousands of households from the family of EL AL, and are determined to do the utmost to bring the Company back to normal operations, and above all, restore the trust of our customers." Dganit Palti, El Al's CFO, stated: "We completed the third quarter of 2016 with revenues similar to the third quarter of last year, due to a significant increase in the number of passengers, notwithstanding the increased competition and the continued trend of decrease in flight ticket prices. Operating results increased, despite a saving of USD 23 million in fuel expenses (about 17%). The growth in expenditure was mainly affected by an increase in operations and disruptions in manning flights as well as the need to find alternative solutions. EBITDA in this quarter totaled approx. USD 142 million and the Company's cash and deposit balances total approx. USD 219 million." Main Data for the Nine and Three-Month Periods Ended September 30 (in USD millions) January - September July - September 2016 2015 Change 2016 2015 Change Operating revenues 1,578 1,578 (0%) 644 647 (1%) Operating expenses (1,246) (1,214) 3% (470) (438) 7% Gross profit 322 364 (9%) 173 209 (17%) EBITDA 248 266 (7%) 142 173 (18%) Profit before income tax 106 128 (17%) 93 126 (27%) Profit for the period 83 94 (12%) 70 93 (25%) Profit and Loss Results for the Three-Month Period Ended on September 30, 2016: Operating revenues operating revenues decreased in the reported period by approx. USD 3 million (about 0.6%) compared to the third quarter of the previous year, with a drop of approx. 1.3% in passenger flights. Revenues were affected by two opposing trends the continued trend of decrease in flight ticket prices due to the intensified competition and the impact of the drop in fuel prices, and on the other hand, a significant increase occurred in the number of passengers carried by the Company and in passenger revenue per kilometer (RPK), as a result of an increase in operations. In the Cargo Segment, the Company's revenues decreased by approx. 4.2%, mainly due to a drop in the yield of Ton-Kilometer, offset by an increase in the amount of Ton-Kilometer flown. Operating expenses operating expenses increased in the reported period by approx. USD 32 million (about 7.3%) compared to the third quarter of the previous year, after a saving of USD 23 million in jet fuel expenses. This growth mainly results from an increase in operations, disruptions in manning flights (which began in October 2015 and continue until the publication of the Report) and the need to find alternative solutions in connection therewith, as well as due to an increase in depreciation expenses, mostly due to an increase in the number of the company's aircrafts. Jet Fuel Expenses the Company's jet fuel expenses, including hedging impact, declined by approx. 23.4% (about 17%) compared to the corresponding expenditure of the previous year, as a result of a significant drop in the price of jet fuel, offset in part by an increase in the amount of jet fuel consumed due to the growth in the scope of the Company's operations (about 9% growth in flight hours). Selling Expenses no significant change occurred in selling expenses and general and administrative expenses compared to the third quarter of the previous year. Financing Expenses net financing expenses amounted to approx. USD 6.4 million , compared to approx. USD 6.5 million in the third quarter last year, along with a moderate growth in interest expenses as a result of an increase in the Company's debts, offset by income from price differences. Profit for the Period profit before tax in the reported quarter totaled approx. USD 93 million , profit after tax totaled approx. USD 70 million, constituting about 11 % of the turnover, compared to profit before tax of approx. USD 126.5 million in the third quarter of last year and profit after tax approx. USD 93.0 million , constituting about 14.4% of the turnover. The change in profit is mainly attributed to the increase in operating expenses. Cash flows from operating activities in the third quarter of 2016, the Company generated positive cash flows from operating activities of about USD 22 million , compared to positive cash flows from operating activities of about USD 108 million in the third quarter of last year. This decrease mainly resulted from a drop in the Company's profit before tax, as explained above, in a total amount of USD 33.8 million (the Company's tax expenses are not cash flows), as well as, materially, from a number of other factors related to the timing of certain payments and receipts, as provided below: A payment of about USD 18 million for renovation of leased engines. Since the Company pays the lessor maintenance reserve on an ongoing basis over the lease term, it is expected to collect the said amount in subsequent periods from the maintenance reserve. September 2016 salary totaling about USD 15 million was paid to the employees in September 2016 in lieu of October 2016 , due to the timing of the Holidays. Timing differences totaling about USD 16 million in respect of ongoing cash flow account settlement with the Ministry of Defense. It should be clarified that, the timing differences are a one-time event and do not indicate the Company's cash generation capacity from its operating activities. Profit and Loss Results for the Nine-Month Period Ended on September 30, 2016: Operating revenues remained unchanged in the reported period compared to the first nine months of the previous year, with a growth of approx. USD 11.9 million (about 0.8%) in passenger flights and a drop of approx. USD 12.3 million (about 9.6%) in the cargo segment. The passenger segment reported an increase in operations which resulted in an increase in revenues, mostly offset by the impact of the continued trend of drop in flight ticket prices, in view of the decrease in fuel prices and the intensified competition. In addition, the Company's revenues during this period were adversely affected by the erosion of exchange rates of currencies in which the sales transactions of the Company are made, in relation to the dollar. Operating expenses increased in the reported period by approx. USD 32 million (about 2.7%) compared to the first nine months of the previous year, following a saving of about USD 85 million in the Company's jet fuel expenses. The gross increase of approx. USD 117 million mainly results from an increase in operations, disruptions in manning flights (which began in October 2015 and continue until the publication of the Report) and the need to find alternative solutions in connection therewith, as well as due to an increase in depreciation expenses, which is mainly the result of an increase in the number of the company's aircrafts. Profit for the Period profit before tax in the reported period amounted to approx. USD 106 million , and profit after tax amounted to approx. 83 million, constituting about 5.3 % of the turnover compared to profit before tax of approx. USD 128.4 million in the same period last year and profit after tax of approx. USD 94.3 million , constituting about 6.0% of the turnover. The change in profit is mainly attributed to an increase in operating expenses, Balance Sheet Data as of September 30, 2016: Current Assets - amounted to approx. USD 471.3 million , reflecting a growth of approx. USD 77.0 million compared to December 31, 2015 . This growth mostly resulted from an increase in cash balances compared to the cash balances at the end of 2015 (see cash flow analysis below), due to a seasonal increase in the Customer item and an increase in the Receivables item. Current Liabilities - amounted to approx. USD 842.3 million , with no significant change compared to December 31, 2015 . This is due, on the one hand, to a seasonal increase in the Revenues item from pre-sale of airline tickets, offset by a decrease in the Derivative Financial Instruments item and a decline in the Employee Liabilities item due to early payment of September salary as explained above. Working Capital the Company has a working capital deficit of approx. USD 371.0 million compared to a deficit of approx. USD 448.8 dollar as of December 31, 2015 . It shall be noted that a substantial part of the working capital deficit does not reflect short-term cash flows, as hereinafter explained. The Company's current ratio as of September 30, 2016 rose to approx. 56% compared to 46.8% as of December 31, 2015 . The working capital deficit as of September 30, 2016 consists of two substantial components which are included in the Company's Current Liabilities items and are characterized by current business cycle; however, the Company is not required to use cash-flow sources in the short term in order to repay these components: prepaid revenue from the sale of airline tickets and from the Frequent Flyer Club, to be settled by providing future flight services, and liabilities to employees for vacation, which are expected to be paid over several years but classified as a short-term liability in accordance with accounting principles. Moreover, loans in an aggregate amount of about USD 78 million , the original maturity date of which is in April and July 2017 , are expected to be settled over a period of 4 years, therefore they will be classified starting from the execution of the long-term agreement. It shall be noted that the working capital is affected, inter alia, by the seasonality of operations. Non-Current Assets amounted to approx. USD 1,274.6 million , showing a growth of approx. USD 4.8 million compared to their balance as of December 31, 2015 , mainly as a result of receiving three 737-900 aircraft, less current depreciation. Non-Current Liabilities - totaled approx. USD 624.5 million , similar to their balance as of December 31, 2015 . Said increase resulted mostly from loan balances, offset in part as a result of the increase in deferred tax liabilities, mainly from the profit before tax for the period (offset by the impact of the decrease in corporate tax) as well as the improvement in the fair value of jet fuel derivatives, which in accounting terms were designed to serve as hedging instruments. Equity amounted to approx. USD 279.1 million . The growth of approx. USD 84.3 million compared to equity as of December 31, 2015 , mainly resulted from the profit for the period and the impact of the Company's hedging instruments on the equity funds, in a net-of-tax amount of approx. USD 39.2 million , offset by the impact of liabilities for employee benefits on the equity funds, in a net-of-tax amount of approx. USD 5.4 million . Additionally, the equity increase was partially offset by a dividend of approx. USD 33.4 million , which was declared and paid during the period. It shall be clarified that this notice does not replace reading the financial statements of the Company as of September 30, 2016 About El Al El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) is the National Air Carrier of Israel. In 2015, El Al recorded revenues amounting to nearly USD 2.1 billion. El Al carries about 5 million passengers a year. The Company operates flights to about 34 direct destinations around the world and many other destinations by means of cooperation agreements with other airlines, thus it currently operates 43 aircrafts, 28 of which are owned by the Company. (www.elal.com) Details of Conference Call A conference call took place on Wednesday, November 22, 2016, at 15:30 to review the results. Persons interested in participating in the conference call are invited to call: 03-9180687. A recording of the conference call will be available to those interested starting from November 22, 2016, at 17:00, until November 29, 2016, via phone number 03-9255927, as well as on the Company's Investor Relations website at: www.elal.com/investor-relations starting from November 23, 2016. For further details : Dafna Cohen Amir Eisenberg Head of Group Business Control and Investor Relations CEO El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. Eisenberg-Eliash Ltd. +972-3-9717439 +972-3-7538828 dafnac@elal.co.il amir@pr-ir.co.il SOURCE EL AL Israel Airlines LTD Passive Optical LAN is based on Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology and involves a single centralized active equipment, a simpler network and thin-client end-point devices, which are centrally managed. Nokia's POL solution can deliver more than 50 percent cost savings over traditional copper-based Ethernet LAN. Nokia's POL solution is based on the centralized access node 7360 ISAM FX, variety of end-user devices and advanced management system. The solution delivers Gigabit speeds to each user or connected device and enables smooth evolution to 20x more capacity, reusing the same cabling and same access node, making it a game changing solution for LAN. Another key benefit of Nokia's POL solution is its management system the 5571 PCC (POL Command Center) -- a highly intuitive tool for easy configuration, auto-activation, fault reporting, proactive network monitoring and troubleshooting of a LAN. "Nokia's POL solution provides military-grade security and data encryption," said Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Priya Sharma. "And as optical fibres are resistant to electromagnetic interference, POL is ideal for use in sensitive environments such as hospitals, where cameras and machines can interrupt data transmission." Nokia continues to see strong demand for its POL solution worldwide. GPON is a field proven, mature technology, designed for simplicity and efficiency and Nokia's successful fibre projects and partnership programs have helped it cater to companies of all sizes. "Nokia's primary focus is not on delivering the most inexpensive solution to customers but to present value-added solutions at competitive prices," noted Sharma. "Significantly, the Ethernet-based LAN lasts nearly 5 to 7 years, whereas the POL solution lasts at least 50 years, translating to greater lifetime cost savings." For understanding customer needs in the LAN market and for developing a novel product to address those needs, Nokia richly deserves the 2016 European Local Area Network New Product Innovation Award. Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has developed an innovative element in a product by leveraging leading-edge technologies. The award recognises the value-added features/benefits of the product and the higher return on investment (ROI) it offers customers, which in turn improves customer acquisition and overall market penetration potential. Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognise companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry. To learn more about Nokia's POL solution, you can download their free whitepaper titled "Addressing Issues In The Local Area Network" or visit their solution page. About Nokia Nokia is a global leader in the technologies that connect people and things. Powered by the innovation of Nokia Bell Labs and Nokia Technologies, the company is at the forefront of creating and licensing the technologies that are increasingly at the heart of our connected lives. With state-of-the-art software, hardware and services for any type of network, Nokia is uniquely positioned to help communication service providers, governments, and large enterprises deliver on the promise of 5G, the Cloud and the Internet of Things. http://nokia.com About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, collaborates with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that could make or break today's market participants. Frost & Sullivan's Growth Partnership supports clients by addressing these opportunities and incorporating 2 key elements driving visionary innovation: the Integrated Value Proposition and the Partnership Infrastructure. The Integrated Value Proposition provides support to clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation, including research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation, and implementation. provides support to clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation, including research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation, and implementation. The Partnership Infrastructure is entirely unique as it constructs the foundation upon which visionary innovation becomes possible, including 360 degree research, comprehensive industry coverage, and career best practices as well as Frost & Sullivan's global footprint of more than 40 offices. For more than 50 years, Frost & Sullivan has been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector, and the investment community. Is your organisation prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics, and emerging economies? Contact Us: Start the discussion Join Us: Join our community Subscribe: Newsletter on "the next big thing" Register: Gain access to visionary innovation Contact: Chiara Carella P: +44 (0) 207.343.8314 F: 210.348.1003 E: chiara.carella@frost.com Related Links http://www.frost.com SOURCE Frost & Sullivan PORTLAND, Oregon, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Research Beam has added a report, titled, "Global 3D Glasses Market Research Report 2016." The report offers an extensive analysis of production, revenue, growth rate, and market share of each segment of the industry. In addition, the study includes a comprehensive analysis of key manufacturers, marketing strategies, industry chain structure, and market effect factors. Insights on the market competition, drivers, and opportunities are offered along with current market trends. The research is a useful source of information and guidance for manufacturers worldwide to gain insights on development trends and take necessary steps for business growth. Overview of the global 3D glasses market is offered based on product overview and development scope, segmentation, and market size. Detailed segmentation is offered in terms of type, application, and geography. Types analyzed in the research polarization, active shutter, and chromatic aberration. Tables offer detailed information on major manufacturers of each type of 3D glasses. Production market share of each type is offered for 2015 with the help of a figure. Find More Details: http://www.researchbeam.com/global-3d-glasses-market-research-report-2016-market Applications discussed in the study: 3D movie, 3D Game, and others. Consumption market share of applications for 2015 is provided in a tabular format. Regions analyzed in the research: North America, Europe, Japan, China, Southeast Asia, and India. Revenue and growth rate of each region for the historic period, 2011-2016 and the forecast period, 2016-2021 are covered in the report with the help of tables. Market competition: Manufacturers is offered in terms of production, revenue, and average price. Competitive situation and trends are also highlighted with the help of market concentration rate, market share of top three and top six manufacturers, and strategies adopted by market players to strengthen their position in the industry. Production, revenue, and market share are outlined for aforementioned regions for the historic period with the help of tables. Price and gross margin are also highlighted in a tabular format for the historic period. In addition, supply, consumption, import, and export analysis are offered for the historic period. Production, revenue, and price trends for each type are discussed with the help of tables. Consumption, growth rate, and market share for applications are also outlined along with drivers and opportunities. Analysis of Key manufacturers: The report offers an extensive analysis of key manufacturers operating in the market along with business overview. Basic information, manufacturing base distribution, and information about its competitors is provided. In addition, price, revenue, production, and gross margin analysis for each manufacturer is offered with the help of tables. Enquire About Report : http://www.researchbeam.com/global-3d-glasses-market-research-report-2016-market/enquire-about-report Manufacturing Cost Structure, Marketing Strategies, and Market Effect Factors: Manufacturing cost analysis is offered based on raw materials analysis, proportion of manufacturing cost, and manufacturing process analysis. Industrial chain structure is analyzed based on upstream raw materials and downstream buyers. Marketing strategies are mentioned in the report to help new entrants and leading manufacturers in gaining insights to expand their business. Market effect factors are analyzed based on technological progress and consumer needs. Research findings and conclusions are offered at the end of the report. Key manufacturers analyzed in the study are Samsung SONY MI Microsoft Google Realmax EPSON ODG HTC GIMI Request Sample @ http://www.researchbeam.com/global-3d-glasses-market-research-report-2016-market/request-sample 3D Glasses Market Report by Regions: 1.United States 3D Glasses Market Report 2016 Notes: Sales, means the sales volume of 3D Glasses Revenue, means the sales value of 3D Glasses This report studies sales (consumption) of 3D Glasses in United States market, focuses on the top players, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each player, covering Samsung SONY MI Microsoft Google Realmax EPSON ODG HTC GIMI Split by product types, with sales, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided into Polarization Active Shutter Chromatic?Aberration Split by applications, this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of 3D Glasses in each application, can be divided into 3D movie 3D Game Others 2.Europe 3D Glasses Market Report 2016 Notes: Sales, means the sales volume of 3D Glasses Revenue, means the sales value of 3D Glasses This report studies sales (consumption) of 3D Glasses in Europe market, especially in Germany, UK, France, Russia, Italy, Benelux and Spain, focuses on top players in these countries, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each player in these Countries, covering Samsung SONY MI Microsoft Google Realmax EPSON ODG HTC GIMI Market Segment by Countries, this report splits Europe into several key Countries, with sales (consumption), revenue, market share and growth rate of 3D Glasses in these countries, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), like Germany France UK Russia Italy Spain Benelux Split by product type, with sales, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided into Polarization Active Shutter Chromatic?Aberration Split by application, this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of 3D Glasses in each application, can be divided into 3D movie 3D Game Others About Us: We have a large database of quality and precise market research reports that will be very beneficial for your organization. Reports that we sell our authentic in nature and from reputed publishers, hence it can help you with your growth opportunities. To survive the fierce competition and locate different avenues, one must be privy to high end and quality market information. So, we try and provide you with latest market information by getting high market research reports from our clients. Research Beam will always make sure to bring most ethical and high quality reports. We value your relationship with us and look forward for a long-term relation. Contact Us: James Jordan 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States U.S. & Canada Toll Free: + 1-800-910-6452 International: + 1-503-894-6022 UK: + 44-845-528-1300 India: +91 20 66346070 Fax : +1 (855) 550-5975 Email: help@researchbeam.com Web: http://www.researchbeam.com SOURCE Research Beam OCEAN VIEW, Delaware, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Oil And Gas Analytics Market size is expected to exceed USD 21 billion by 2024; as per the latest research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160418/799556-a ) Low crude oil prices coupled with high cost investment in exploration and production of conventional and unconventional resources will drive the industry growth. U.S. based Cobalt has explored natural gas in the Zalophus 1 well at Block 20 offshore Angola. Such exploration activities will need advanced service platform including hardware and software support. Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/685 Increasing downstream demand owing to rapid refinery expansion to fulfil petroleum demand will drive global oil and gas analytics market size. These services will help to reduce the downtime and maintenance cost for refining industries. Increasing exploration and production to suffice growing demand for energy will enhance the oil and gas analytics in future. Increasing investments in digital technology by petroleum industry has increased the workforce productivity and reduced cost, which will further encourage the oil and gas analytics market size. Upstream oil and gas analytics market share is expected to witness highest growth, with increasing offshore drilling further complimenting revenue generation. It helps to obtain real time data at minimum cost which may favor the industry growth in coming years. TIBCO Software Inc., executed digital technology to optimize E&P cost. Increasing rivalry involving refinery & volatile feedstock has forced downstream players to utilize oil and gas analytics services, which will improve processing and refining efficiency. Browse key industry insights spread across 124 pages with 216 market data tables & 11 figures & charts from the report, "Oil And Gas Analytics Market Size By Deployment (On Premise, Hosted), By Service (Professional, Cloud, Integration), By Application (Upstream [Exploration and Drilling, Field Surveillance and Monitoring, Production Planning and Forecasting, Equipment Maintenance Management, Asset Performance, Workforce Management], Midstream [Pipeline SCADA, Fleet, Storage Optimization], Downstream [Commodity Trading, Demand Forecasting, Pricing, Refining]), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Norway, UK, France, Italy, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Nigeria, Angola, Brazil, Venezuela), Price Trends, Growth Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016 - 2024" in detail along with the table of contents: https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/oil-and-gas-analytics-market Key insights from the report include: U.S. oil and gas analytics market size for hosted deployment segment, was valued over USD 800 million in 2015, and will grow at a CAGR of over 19% from 2016 to 2024. Bakken Shale exploration and production activity have deployed hosting for oil and gas industry. Professional services in France and gas analytics market size are likely to reach over USD 300 million by 2024. Rising adoption of big data platform in France for improving operationally efficient production will drive the oil and gas analytics market share. Field surveillance and monitoring for India is projected to reach over USD 100 million by 2024. Analytics helps upstream sector to obtain real time data at low cost which also manage operations in better way with new capabilities and by reducing risk factors. Cloud services were valued at over USD 1.2 billion in 2015 and is expected to witness gains of over 20% during the forecast period. Angola on-premise deployment demand was USD 17.50 million in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 25.8%. Norway exploration and drilling analytics demand was over USD 50 million in 2015, is expected to expand at a CAGR of over 15% by 2024. Key players catering this industry are Accenture, Cisco Systems, Inc., Cognizant, Deloitte, Drillinginfo Inc., Microsoft, SAS Institute Inc., Oracle, SAP SE, Tableau Software, Teradata, IBM, TIBCO Software Inc., Hitachi, Ltd., Capgemini, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/685 Oil and gas analytics market research report includes in-depth coverage of the industry with estimates & forecast in terms of revenue in USD million from 2013 to 2024 , for the following segments: Global Oil And Gas Analytics Market By Deployment On-Premise Hosted Global Oil And Gas Analytics Market By Services Professional Cloud Integration Global Oil And Gas Analytics Market By Application Upstream Exploration and Drilling Analytics Field Surveillance and Monitoring Analytics Production Planning and Forecasting Analytics Equipment Maintenance Management Analytics Asset Performance Analytics Workforce Management Analytics Midstream Pipeline SCADA Analytics Fleet Analytics Storage Optimization Analytics Downstream Commodity Trading Analytics Demand Forecasting Analytics Pricing Analytics Refining Analytics The above information is provided on a regional and country basis for the following: North America U.S. Europe Norway UK France Italy Asia Pacific China India Japan & South Korea Indonesia Middle East and Africa Saudi Arabia Qatar Nigeria Angola and South & Central America Brazil Venezuela Browse Related Reports: Oil Storage Market Size By Reserve (Commercial Reserve, Strategic Reserves), By Material (Steel, Carbon Steel, Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic), By Fuel (Crude Oil, Gasoline, Aviation Fuel, Middle Distillates, LNG, LPG), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada , Mexico , Germany , Netherland, Spain , Belgium , Russia , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Armenia , Kyrgyzstan , Azerbaijan , Moldova , Tajikistan , Turkmenistan , Ukraine , Uzbekistan , China , Japan , South Korea , Singapore , UAE, Saudi Arabia , Iran , Egypt , South Africa , Brazil , Argentina ), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016 - 2025 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/oil-storage-market Industrial Gas Turbine Market Size, Industry Outlook Report, Regional Analysis (U.S., Germany , UK, Italy , Russia , China , India , Japan , South Korea , Brazil , Mexico , Saudi Arabia , UAE, South Africa ), Application Development, Price Trend, Competitive Landscape & Forecast, 2016 - 2023 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/industrial-gas-turbine-market About Global Market Insights Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology. Contact Us: Jack Davis Corporate Sales, USA Global Market Insights, Inc. Phone: 1-302-846-7766 Toll Free: 1 888-689-0688 Email: sales@gminsights.com Web: https://www.gminsights.com SOURCE Global Market Insights Inc. Phoenix appoints Yvain Ballini to oversee the development of European market and lead technical sales of its ModelCenter offering BLACKSBURG, Virginia, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Phoenix Integration, developer of ModelCenter, the leading framework for process automation and design space exploration, announces the appointment of Yvain Ballini as Regional Manager of the European Territory. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161118/441317LOGO Mr. Ballini brings 15 years of experience in the engineering simulation software industry across a variety of roles, from software development and application engineering, to technical sales and sales management. Yvain started his career in 2002 at Altran (Italy) as a consultant in software development; then served in technical sales and sales management roles at OPTIS (France), a provider of simulation software in the field of optical simulations. Most recently, he was Switzerland Country Manager at ANSYS. He has strong technical skills and a strong grasp of the issues facing all companies that need to solve technical challenges to meet their market imperatives. Yvain said, "I am absolutely delighted to have joined Phoenix Integration since I am convinced that Phoenix has an incredible opportunity with ModelCenter: linking Model Based Systems Engineering with design and simulation technology, and allowing industry to automate and optimize its simulation workflows are strong drivers of innovation." "Yvain's breadth of experience, his multi-lingual skills, and his high level of energy, combine to make him an ideal leader of our European operations," said Jane Trenaman, Chief Executive Officer of Phoenix Integration. "We are thrilled to have Yvain join the Phoenix Team." Yvain will be based in Lyon, France. About Phoenix Integration Phoenix Integration's ModelCenter is the environment for Model Based Engineering. ModelCenter is a vendor-neutral software framework for creating and automating multi-tool workflows, optimizing product designs, and sharing engineering data and knowledge. It is used by leading organizations worldwide to reduce development costs, improve engineering efficiency, stimulate innovation, and design more competitive products. Successful applications can be found in multiple industries, including aerospace, automotive, defense, electronics, energy, heavy industry, and shipbuilding. For more information, visit www.phoenix-int.com. Media Contact J. Cunningham Phoenix Integration 586.484.8196 jcunningham@phoenix-int.com SOURCE Phoenix Integration CARPIGUET, France and NYON, Switzerland, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Following BKW's press release of 7th of November, 2016 confirming the signing of the final agreements, Samfi Invest Group is pleased to announce that financial close has been achieved for the acquisition of 4 wind farms totalling 49MW located in France with an option to acquire an additional 16 MW farm. With 22 turbines, the initial 49 MW will produce around 120 GWh of electricity per year, equal to the annual consumption of more than 18,000 households. Alain Samson, founder and President of Samfi Invest Group, commented: "We are happy to have been advised by Green Energy Trade, which presented us to BKW, to successfully close this transaction and look forward to completing the construction for BKW. This transaction permits us to consolidate our position as a leader in wind and solar development in Europe." Steve Bourbonnais, the founder & CEO of Green Energy Trade, commented that, "We are delighted to have worked with Samfi Invest Group on structuring the sale of this significant wind portfolio for BKW, which demonstrates the vast opportunities in this growing market despite the challenges of cross-border transactions." About Samfi Invest Group Samfi Invest Group is an independent French wind developer established in 2005, which has a team of 18 experienced professionals focusing on Western, Midi Pyrenees and South East France. The Company has developed several wind projects that enabled it to own and operate an installed base of 78 MW by 2011, and more than six hundred MW's in development. About Green Energy Trade SA Green Energy Trade SA (GET) is a Swiss professional renewable energy investor, structured to develop and execute bankable utility scale projects with a 1 GW global target. GET sources, develops, advises and constructs solar & wind projects with a focus on repowering and storage. About BKW Energie AG The BKW Group is an international energy and infrastructure business based in Bern and employs almost 5,000 people. The diversity of the Group's expertise allows it to offer its customers a full range of tailored services. BKW designs, builds and operates infrastructure to produce and supply energy for businesses, households and the public sector. The BKW Group offers a wide range of services, from building technologies, infrastructure engineering and digital business models for renewable energies to traditional multi-utility infrastructure services. The company is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (ISIN code: CH0130293662) and the BX Berne eXchange. Contact: Steve Bourbonnais, info@g-e-t.ch, Tel: +41-787683673 SOURCE Samfi Invest Group and Green Energy Trade SA The Xineos family of advanced CMOS X-Ray detectors serves as the industry benchmark for minimally invasive image-guided diagnosis and treatment of diseases, and for routine screening and advanced breast tomosynthesis modalities. Xineos detectors deliver superior clinical performance at reduced patient dose, in real time with no compromise in image resolution, and live at the heart of today's highly innovative interventional X-ray imaging systems. Switchable saturation dose, high dynamic range, calibration stability and unsurpassed low dose signal-to-noise performance makes them the preferred image sensing solution for a wide range of applications. Further, Xineos detectors enable earlier diagnosis of medical anomalies, increasing the opportunity for early intervention, patient recovery, and reduced treatment costs. The following are featured in the Teledyne DALSA booth: The Xineos-2329 high speed image capture at 49.5m pixel pitch for superior resolution for breast tomosynthesis and mammography screening procedures. Excellent environmental stability with the lowest noise performance in the industry. high speed image capture at 49.5m pixel pitch for superior resolution for breast tomosynthesis and mammography screening procedures. Excellent environmental stability with the lowest noise performance in the industry. Xineos -2222HS and Xineos-3030HS 9"and 12" equivalent detectors with 152m pixel size designed for real time surgical and cardio vascular procedures. The industry's only flat detectors to surpass the low dose clinical imaging performance of image intensifiers. and 9"and 12" equivalent detectors with 152m pixel size designed for real time surgical and cardio vascular procedures. The industry's only flat detectors to surpass the low dose clinical imaging performance of image intensifiers. Xineos -2022HR and Xineos-3030HR 9" and 12" high resolution detectors with 99m pixel pitch for advanced clinical and scientific applications. and 9" and 12" high resolution detectors with 99m pixel pitch for advanced clinical and scientific applications. Xineos-1 515 6" equivalent high resolution detector with 99 pixel pitch, featuring embedded real-time image processing and seamless switchable saturation dose modes for combining high dynamic range and superior low dose detectability in a single detector. 6" equivalent high resolution detector with 99 pixel pitch, featuring embedded real-time image processing and seamless switchable saturation dose modes for combining high dynamic range and superior low dose detectability in a single detector. Xineos-1511 new medium size detector featuring 99m pixel size, offering excellent low dose diagnostic image quality, switchable saturation dose modes and embedded real-time image processing in a compact, cost effective footprint. new medium size detector featuring 99m pixel size, offering excellent low dose diagnostic image quality, switchable saturation dose modes and embedded real-time image processing in a compact, cost effective footprint. Xineos-1501 and Xineos-2301 new ultrafast scanning detectors with 99m pixel pitch, supporting switchable saturation dose modes and image readout in excess of 300fps readout at the native pixel resolution. Visit Teledyne DALSA at RSNA - Booth #3716. Please see our online RSNA Press Kit at http://rsna.vporoom.com/TeledyneDALSA Where: RSNA 2016 McCormick Place Chicago, Illinois, USA Stand 3716 When: November 27 December 2 For additional information, contact sales.sensors@teledynedalsa.com. Media Note: For additional information, watch our X-Ray Imaging video. Images and additional information can be found in our media kit. About Teledyne DALSA's Life Sciences Products and Services Teledyne DALSA provides state-of-the-art image sensing, capture and processing solutions to medical, dental and scientific equipment manufacturers. Building on more than 30 years of proven capability and innovation, our team of imaging specialists delivers leading-edge product design. Our manufacturing processes are tailored to comply with the stringent quality, reliability and traceability requirements of the medical and scientific X-Ray community. For more information, visit http://teledynedalsa.com/imaging/markets/medical/ About Teledyne DALSA Teledyne DALSA is an international technology leader in sensing, imaging, and specialized semiconductor fabrication. Our image sensing solutions span the spectrum from infrared through visible to X-ray; our MEMS foundry has earned a world-leading reputation. In addition, through our subsidiaries Teledyne Optech and Teledyne Caris, we deliver advanced 3D survey and geospatial information systems. Teledyne DALSA employs approximately 1400 employees worldwide and is headquartered in Waterloo, Canada. For more information, visit www.teledynedalsa.com. All trademarks are registered by their respective companies. Teledyne DALSA reserves the right to make changes at any time without notice. Sales Contact: sales.sensors@teledynedalsa.com Related Links http://www.teledynedalsa.com SOURCE Teledyne DALSA DUBAI, UAE, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Meritxell Huch, from Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge - UK, is the winner of the Hamdan International Award for Medical Research Excellence for the topic of Liver Disorders, according to an official announcement that was given recently in Dubai. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/441994 ) H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, the UAE Minister of Finance and the Patron of the Award, will honor Dr. Huch in a grand ceremony to be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on 14 December, alongside with 14 prestigious personalities and organizations from USA, France, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco. "Dr. Meritxell Huch's research is focused on the contribution of stem cells to the regeneration of adult liver and pancreas tissues as well as on the development of organoid cultures for these endodermal organs (stomach, liver and pancreas). She has established a new culture system that maintains the self-renewal status of liver stem cells in vitro, while differentiation towards functional liver cells can be induced by modulating key signaling pathways", as mentioned in a report recently issued by the Hamdan Medical Award. "Dr. Huch and colleagues located the specific type of stem cells responsible for this regeneration. By isolating these cells and placing them in a culture medium, the researchers were able to grow organoids. Dr. Huch is now moving on to testing it with human cells, which would not only be more relevant to research into human disease, but would also lead to the development of a patient's own liver tissue for transplantation", the report said. Beside Dr. Huch, 2 US scientists won the Hamdan International Award for Medical Research Excellence namely; Professor Sanford Markowitz, Case Western Reserve University, School of Medicine, Cleveland Ohio, for the topic of Colon Disorders, and Professor David Tuveson, Deputy Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Centre, New York, for the topic of Pancreatic Diseases. Notably, Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences is a non-profit organization that honors researchers around the world who carry out distinguished medical research to serve mankind at large. Also, the Award works towards stimulating scientific interaction and enriching scientific research among doctors within the UAE and overseas. SOURCE Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences MUNICH, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Easy payment via POS terminals and mPOS transactions Enchilada Group already benefiting from new payment options The global payment service provider Wirecard has partnered up with food retail specialists Gastro-MIS, a company that already integrated software solutions in more than 4000 cash registers in Germany. Today, card payments are already an integral part of the food service industry. Consumers are increasingly used to carrying less cash and prefer to use more flexible alternatives in restaurants, bars and cafes. Wirecard will be offering together with Gastro-MIS participating restaurateurs a mobile point of sale (mPOS) solution in addition to standard terminals at the point of sale (POS) in future. For this partnership, Wirecard will provide hardware as well as processing and acceptance of all common forms of payments at the POS. Additionally, the payment expert will act as the acquirer for cashless payment processing. The relevant payment solution is integrated into the existing cash register system depending on the restaurant and counter. Dr. Mirco Till, CEO of Gastro-MIS: "Wirecard interfaces enable easy connection. The restaurateur benefits from an holistic cash register system with integrated payments." Catharina Tiede, Senior Partner Manager at Wirecard, adds: "We are really excited that, together with Gastro-MIS, we are able to optimise the payment process not just for customers but also for staff. We offer increased convenience and satisfaction, especially with the mPOS solution: Restaurant operators are then easily able to convert smartphones or tablets to act as a checkout as a convenient way of offering card payments. We are making flexible, secure and quick payments possible." The clients are restaurants for example from the Enchilada Group franchise - this includes more than 130 branches, for example dean & david - whose customers can already benefit from an expanded range of payment options. In addition, many more customers have already been secured. 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. About Gastro-MIS: Gastro-MIS GmbH, headquartered in Grafelfing, Munich, is a one-stop provider of software and service solutions for the food industry. Their products include: software for till systems (Amadeus II) and browser-based cloud services for corporate management, online reservations and online vouchers. These are perfectly coordinated systems using common data and a consistent operating concept across all areas. Services such as finance and payroll accounting complement the concept. You can find out more at http://www.gastro-mis.com . Wirecard Media contact: Wirecard AG Jana Tilz Tel.: +49(0)89-4424-1363 Email: jana.tilz@wirecard.com Gastro-MIS media contact: Gastro-MIS GmbH Maren Losch Tel.: +49(0)89-87-86-9-293 Email: maren.loesch@gastro-mis.de SOURCE Wirecard AG NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- From innovative tech toys and licensed characters to enriching playthings that teach and inspire, 100 finalists for the prestigious 2017 Toy of the Year (TOTY) Awards were unveiled today by the Toy Industry Association (TIA). Between now and January 15, 2017, consumers can visit www.ToyAwards.org to vote for their favorite toy picks in each of the 14 categories including new categories for 2017, like Action Figure of the Year, Doll of the Year, Rookie of the Year, and Vehicle of the Year. The TOTY winners will be announced in February. "This year's TOTY finalists represent the finest examples of play value, originality and innovation across the hundreds of companies that make the U.S. toy industry the strongest in the world," said Steve Pasierb, president & CEO of the Toy Industry Association. "Perhaps most importantly, these outstanding nominees have brought joy, laughter and learning to millions of children and families around the globe. We send each TOTY finalist good wishes and look forward to honoring the top toys of the year at the TOTY Awards gala in just a few months!" This year's finalists were selected from 700 nominees submitted by more than 250 companies of all sizes. A more rigorous and transparent judging method was introduced this year, with 25 judges, including toy and play experts, retailers, academics, and journalists, reviewing and ranking products in specific categories relevant to their areas of expertise. The judges then participated in a live discussion to debate any categories that did not draw an undisputed roster of finalists during the judging period. They considered each product's creativity, originality and innovation; design and promotion; excellence; and marketplace acceptance before narrowing the field to the slate of finalists. The winners in each of the 14 categories and the coveted "Toy of the Year" will be selected based on votes from mass and specialty toy retailers, media, TIA members, and consumers. The "People's Choice" award winner will be selected solely by consumer votes cast at www.ToyAwards.org. The honorees will be announced at a TOTY Awards ceremony held on Friday, February 17, 2017 at the Intrepid Air and Space Museum as the kick-off to the 114th North American International Toy Fair. The celebration will include the induction of toy industry trailblazers into the esteemed Toy Industry Hall of Fame. The TOTY Awards gala is open to industry stakeholders only. Tickets for the event are available for purchase through February 10th. Proceeds will benefit the Toy Industry Foundation, which partners with generous toy companies throughout the year to bring brand new toys to children in need. See the finalists in each category below. Online images are available at ToyAwards.org/Press More information about the TOTY voting and selection process can be found in the "About the Awards" section of www.ToyAwards.org. ACTION FIGURE OF THE YEAR Toys that include action figures and their play sets/accessories DC Super Hero Girls Action Figure Assortment by Mattel, Inc. Fossil Hunter Lottie by Arklu, Ltd. by Arklu, Ltd. IAmElemental Series 1/Courage Lunch Box Carrying Case With Complete Set of Action Figures by IAmElemental PJ Masks Headquarters Playset by Just Play Pokemon Throw 'n' Pop Poke Ball Duel Set by TOMY Stikbot by ZING Transformers Generations Titans Return Fortress Maximus Action Figure by Hasbro, Inc. ACTIVE/OUTDOOR TOY OF THE YEAR Toys that are designed for active/outdoor play 3-in-1 EZ Fold Wagon by Radio Flyer Air Hogs Helix Sentinel Drone by Spin Master Ltd. Bunch O Balloons by Zuru Hot Wheels Sky Shock RC Vehicle by Mattel, Inc. Sky Shock RC Vehicle by Mattel, Inc. Nerf N-Strike Modulus Tri-Strike Blaster by Hasbro, Inc. Sky Viper v2400FPV HD Streaming Drone with FPV Headset by SkyRocket Toys VEX Robotics Zip Flyer by HEXBUG Xtreme Cycle Moto-Cam by WickedCoolToys ACTIVITY TOY OF THE YEAR Arts and crafts, construction and other indoor toys that inspire creative play through various forms of activity Circuit Scribe Maker Kit by CircuitScribe Crayola Air Maker Sprayer by Crayola, LLC K'NEX 3-in-1 Classic Amusement Park Building Set by K'NEX Brands Lionel Mega Tracks Corkscrew Chaos Master Set by Lionel Mighty Makers Directors Cut Building Set by K'NEX Brands Mover Kit by Tech Will Save Us My Fairy Garden Magical Cottage by Play Monster COLLECTIBLE OF THE YEAR Toys that compose a set; can include novelty playthings, miniature versions of existing lines, licensed collectibles, etc. Dorbz by Funko, LLC Gift 'ems by JAKKS Pacific LEGO Minifigures - The Disney Edition by LEGO Systems, Inc. Num Noms by MGA Entertainment Pop! By Funko, LLC Shopkins Season 6: Chef Club by Moose Toys Pty Ltd Tonka Tinys by Funrise CONSTRUCTION TOY OF THE YEAR Toys that include building and engineering sets Arckit Go Colours by ARCKIT Div. of MBM Building Systems Grippies Builders by Guidecraft USA Inc. Builders by Guidecraft Inc. LEGO Friends Amusement Park Roller Coaster by LEGO Systems, Inc. Marine Rescue Center by Build & Imagine Meccano Micronoid by Spin Master Ltd. Tinkerbots by Tinkerbots Walking Robot 45PC Set by Magformers, LLC DOLL OF THE YEAR Toys that include plush, baby, toddler, and fashion dolls, and their play sets/accessories Barbie Fashionista Doll by Mattel, Inc. Fashionista Doll by Mattel, Inc. Disney Frozen Northern Lights Elsa by JAKKS Pacific Elena of Avalor Adventure Dress Doll by Hasbro, Inc. Project Mc2 Experiments with Doll Sets by MGA Entertainment Shopkins Core Shoppies by Moose Toys Pty Ltd Stargazer Lottie Doll by Arklu, Ltd by Arklu, Ltd WellieWishers by Mattel, Inc. GAME OF THE YEAR Children's board, card, electronic, or other physical game formats or puzzles (does not include video games or apps) Bloxels by Mattel, Inc. Circuit Maze by ThinkFun Inc. Escape Room the Game by Spin Master Ltd. Imhotep by Thames & Kosmos Maze Racers by FoxMind Games Simon Air Game by Hasbro, Inc. Speak Out by Hasbro, Inc. Yeti in My Spaghetti by PlayMonster! INFANT/PRESCHOOL TOY OF THE YEAR Toys that are developed for infants/preschoolers (up to 5 years) Doc McStuffins Toy Hospital Care Cart by Just Play Go! Go! Smart Friends Enchanted Princess Palace by Vtech Enchanted Princess Palace by Vtech IO Blocks Vehicles by Guidecraft USA Inc. Vehicles by Guidecraft Inc. Razor Jr. T3 Scooter by Razor USA LLC LLC Robot Engineer by Thames & Kosmos Wash 'N Go Wooden Car Garage by KidKraft Zoomer Marshall by Spin Master Ltd. INNOVATIVE TOY OF THE YEAR Toys that utilize innovative design, technology, or manufacturing processes to enhance play value CHiP by WowWee USA , Inc. , Inc. Cozmo by Anki Fisher Price Think & Learn Code-a-pillar by Mattel, Inc. Think & Learn Code-a-pillar by Mattel, Inc. Hatchimals by Spin Master Ltd. Mebo by SkyRocket Toys Project Mc2 H2O Car by MGA Entertainment Special Edition Battle-Worn BB-8 with Force Band by Sphero LICENSE OF THE YEAR Character or property that has had success spreading its brand throughout the industry DC Super Hero Girls Disney's Elena of Avalor Paw Patrol Pokemon Shopkins Star Wars Trolls ROOKIE OF THE YEAR A new company (created within the last 2 years) that has brought to market an outstanding toy 3DoodlerStart Essentials Pen Set by WobbleWorks Acids, Bases and pH Chemistry Kit by Yellow Scope CogniToys Dino by CogniToys Geometry Strategy by Games by Bright of Sweden IAmElemental Series 1/Courage Lunch Box Carrying Case With Complete Set of Action Figures by IAmElemental Malia's House by Build & Imagine Superhero Will by Wonder Crew SPECIALTY OF THE YEAR Toys primarily distributed through specialty retailers Automoblox C9 Sportscar by PlayMonster! Design & Drill BrightWorks by Educational Insights BrightWorks by Educational Insights Flappy Animated Elephants by Gund a Division of Enesco LLC LEGO Disney Castle by LEGO Systems, Inc. Melody Doll and Book by Mattel, Inc. Nano Nitro Slingshot by HEXBUG Perplexus Q-bot by PlayMonster! TECH TOY OF THE YEAR Physical toys that are electronic or interact with a smart-phone, tablet or gaming device Air Hogs Connect: Mission Drone by Spin Master Ltd. CodeGamer by Thames & Kosmos LUMI by WowWee USA , Inc. , Inc. MOTA JETJAT Ultra Streaming Nano Drone by MOTA Sky Viper Hover Racer by SkyRocket Toys Wonder Workshop's Dash & Dot by Wonder Workshop Zoomer Chimp by Spin Master Ltd. VEHICLE OF THE YEAR Toys that are powered or non-powered vehicles, and their play sets/accessories Air Hogs Star Wars X-wing vs. Death Star, Rebel Assault - RC Drones by Disney Consumer Products Disney Princess Carriage by Dynacraft Go! Go! Smart Wheels Treasure Mountain Train Adventure by Vtech Treasure Mountain Train Adventure by Vtech Hot Wheels A.I. Intelligent Race System by Mattel, Inc. A.I. Intelligent Race System by Mattel, Inc. LEGO Technic Porsche 911 GT3RS by LEGO Systems, Inc. Telsa Model S for Kids by Radio Flyer XPV RC Skateboarding Mikey by JAKKS Pacific Follow TOTY on Twitter at #TOTY2017 Media Assets Available at www.ToyAwards.org/Press SOURCE Toy Industry Association Related Links http://www.toyawards.org BARCELONA, Spain, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ABTL0812 is administered in combination with carboplatin and paclitaxel Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO, Barcelona ) and Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO, Barcelona ) lead the study, which includes other centers in Spain and France The biopharmaceutical company AbilityPharma announced the initiation of the first Phase 2 Trial with its targeted drug candidate ABTL0812 as first-line therapy to evaluate its efficacy and safety combined with paclitaxel and carboplatin in 80 patients with advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer or squamous lung cancer. The study is initially being conducted in Barcelona at Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) and Institut Catala d'Oncologia (ICO) by Dr. Ana Oaknin and Dr. Ernest Nadal as principal investigators for endometrial cancer and lung cancer respectively. Dr. Jordi Rodon (VHIO) is the coordinating investigator. Additional sites in France and Spain will be added over the next 6 months. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441707LOGO ) "ABTL0812 has shown to be extremely safe in patients during the Phase 1b with initial efficacy and high activity on biomarkers", said Dr. Carles Domenech, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of AbilityPharma. "Additionally, the high efficacy observed in combination in preclinical models make us expect good results in the Phase 2". About ABTL0812 ABTL0812 causes cell death by autophagy through the overexpression of TRIB3, an endogenous Akt regulator. It is a first in class fully differentiated oral targeted anticancer compound inhibiting the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway without being a direct kinase inhibitor. Its unique mechanism of action was published at Clinical Cancer Research in 2015. In the phase 1/1b clinical trial (29 patients), ABTL0812 showed the best safety and tolerability compared to other inhibitors of the pathway; without dose-limiting toxicities. The efficacy was comparable to the best PI3K/Akt/mTOR inhibitors; remarkably 2 patients had extremely long disease stabilizations (14 and 18 months). About Ability Pharmaceuticals AbilityPharma (http://www.abilitypharma.com), a fast grower in the Catalan and Spanish biopharmaceutical sector, is focusing on creating the future of oncology by developing innovative therapies to address unmet medical needs. Current shareholders include its founders, private investor and the VCs Inveready and SODENA, and has financial support from ACCIO, CDTI, ENISA and MINECO In April 2016, AbilityPharma signed a territorial license agreement with SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc to develop and market ABTL0812 in Greater China Contact Carles Domenech, PhD CEO [email protected] +34-935-824-411 http://www.abilitypharma.com SOURCE Ability Pharmaceuticals SL NEW YORK, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ABO Capital, a leading international investment firm headquartered in Angola, announced today that it launched a new global website. The new website offers comprehensive information on ABO Capital and its CEO Zandre Campos. Formerly known as Angola Capital Investments, ABO Capital and its new website represent the development and evolution of the company. Mr. Campos has dedicated his career to bettering the country of Angola and his reach has expanded to the African continent and the rest of the world. Under his guidance ABO Capital continues to bring excellence to Africa by improving economies and working in global emerging markets. "We are very excited by the launch of our new website and our new global presence," said Mr. Campos. "It truly represents our mission of creating value for developing countries in Africa while contributing to international countries' economic development." Visitors to the new site can learn more about Mr. Campos and the ABO Capital team. Company news is consistently updated and a featured projects page highlights projects including Sphera Global Healthcare, ETG and Unchartered Play. Zandre Campos is the chairman and CEO of ABO Capital, a leading international investment firm in Angola. ABO Capital invests in companies in the energy, transportation, hospitality, healthcare, technology and real estate sectors. Visit the website here: http://www.abocapital.net/ About ABO Capital ABO Capital, formerly Angola Capital Investments, is an international investment firm that invests in companies in the healthcare, technology, energy, transportation, hospitality and real estate sectors throughout Africa. The mission of ABO Capital is to create global value for developing countries in Africa, while contributing to their economic development. About Zandre Campos Zandre Campos is one of the great, innovative business leaders and global entrepreneurs emerging out of Africa. Currently, he is chairman and CEO of ABO Capital, an international investment firm headquartered in Angola with holdings throughout the Globe. Mr. Campos was named one of the Top 25 African business influencers and was a recipient of the Distinguished Business Excellence Award by African Leadership Magazine. He is frequently quoted as an expert on Africa in the media and is a recurring contributor for The Huffington Post and US News & World Report. He recently addressed both students and professors at the NYU Africa House on the opportunities in Africa. SOURCE ABO Capital Related Links http://www.abocapital.net WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ACON Investments ("ACON") announced today that its affiliate, ACON Latin America Opportunities Fund IV, L.P. ("ALAOF IV"), has acquired an equity stake in Dori Alimentos S.A. ("Dori" or the "Company"). Dori is one of Brazil's leading manufacturers and distributors of snack and candy products. ALAOF IV is ACON's fourth pool of capital dedicated to making equity and quasi-equity investments in companies in Latin America. Founded in 1967, Dori is based in Marilia, Sao Paulo and operates three manufacturing plants with a total of approximately 2,100 employees. The Company sells its products nationwide and also exports to more than 60 countries. In the twelve months ending October 2016, the Company had more than R$650 million (US$190 million) in revenues. Through its investment, ACON will support the existing shareholders and management team, led by Vitor Barion, the Executive Chairman of the Board, and Pedro Lobo, the Chief Executive Officer, who will continue to implement their ongoing growth plan for Dori. Proceeds from the investment will be used to reduce short-term debt financing and to fund the Company's working capital and expansion plans. Vitor Barion said, "The entire management team is excited about our partnership with ACON. We appreciate their support and look forward to working with ACON to further strengthen Dori's position in the Brazilian snack and candy market as well as in the export markets it serves." "Dori has established itself as a leading player in the market for snack and candy products in Brazil," said Andre Bhatia, a Managing Partner of ACON. "We have been very impressed by the executive team, the strength of the brand and the positioning of its products throughout Brazil," added Bhatia. "ACON's investment supports Dori's expansion plan, focused on further increasing its distribution footprint and on enhancing its product portfolio," remarked Rodrigo Galvao, ACON's Managing Director based in Sao Paulo. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. About ACON Investments ACON Investments, L.L.C. is a Washington, DC-based international private equity investment firm that manages private equity funds and special purpose partnerships that make investments in the United States and Latin America. Founded in 1996, ACON and its principals have managed over $4.8 billion of capital. ACON has professionals in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, and Bogota. For more information, visit www.aconinvestments.com. CONTACTS: Midhat Pawlak ACON Investments, L.L.C. +1 202-386-9767 Rodrigo Galvao ACON Investments, L.L.C. +55 11 3017 7666 SOURCE ACON Investments, L.L.C. Related Links http://www.aconinvestments.com "With this campaign, we are trying to reaffirm the relevance of Aflac and supplemental insurance with a new generation of customers," said Gail Galuppo, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Aflac. "With a penchant for living life to the fullest, young adults are unsure why Aflac is a valuable addition to their overall benefits. When an injury or illness strikes, it can have an impact on more than just their health and finances it can have a ripple effect on their overall lifestyle." "Ski Patrol," directed by Martin Granger with cinematography directed by Oscar-nominated Robert Yeoman, opens on a snowy mountain with a young man lying on the ground after a serious fall. Two ski patrolmen assess the situation and comment about how the injury looks like a real nasty "moving-back-in-with-his-parents," implying that the costs associated with his injury could force him to change his lifestyle and move back home. The young man retorts, "What? No, I just broke my leg!" The patrolman explains, "No, it's a full-blown move-into-the-basement. You're gonna be outta work, and without that money from Aflac, you might miss your rent." The hurt man then whines, "But I just moved out...." True to his style, the Aflac Duck makes a comedic appearance in the commercial, decked out in a ski hat and scarf to make sure everyone, including younger consumers, knows that health can change, but the life they love doesn't have to. Integrated campaign takes inspiration from social media to reach target audience The new campaign has a significant focus on digital media as well to reach millennials who predominantly consume content online. The visual identity of the campaign was inspired by the lifestyle imagery young adults are accustomed to seeing, creating and engaging with every day on their personal social media pages. The copy contrasts what a routine injury might appear to be on the surface level to how it could impact a person's finances and, ultimately, his or her lifestyle. Aflac wants consumers to think in practical terms, like how many date nights, concerts, new shoes or vacations they might miss due to a broken arm, injured knee, slipped disc or worse. "The effect of an illness or injury doesn't stop at the doctor's office. It can unravel someone's entire life," added Galuppo. "Young adults need to understand that supplemental insurance like Aflac's doesn't just help cover their entire body; it helps cover their lifestyle. That's why Aflac stands by our promise to be there for our customers in their times of need big or small." The campaign will include easy-to-understand content designed for digital, search and online video advertising, social media posts on the Aflac Duck's popular social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube) and public relations support, including partnerships with a number of online influencers. Out-of-home advertising in New York City and cinema advertising will showcase the campaign on some of the biggest screens available. To learn more about Aflac's supplemental insurance, visit aflac.com/lifestyle. 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 leader in voluntary insurance sales 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. Media contact Kristen Fraser, 706.243.5543 or [email protected] Analyst and investor contact Robin Y. Wilkey, 706.596.3264 or 800.235.2667; FAX: 706.324.6330, or [email protected] Video - http://youtu.be/-Sf2IErxEjc Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100423/CL92305LOGO SOURCE Aflac Related Links http://aflac.com LOS ANGELES, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Amerlux recently supplied its Avista LED light engines as part of a major retrofit project in the downtown Los Angeles area. Since the late 1920s, GE lamps were used to provide light for the streets of downtown LA during its modern revitalization. The Bureau of Street Lighting reported that more than half of its streetlights have already been retrofitted to LED, including 600 fixtures with Amerlux Avista light engines. This retrofit project saves the taxpayers of Los Angeles almost 80 percent in energy costs and provides better color rendering for enhanced visibility, safety and security throughout the community. "Our Avista is the perfect LED light engine for exterior lighting applications throughout downtown LA and other cities cross the nation," explained Amerlux CEO/President Chuck Campagna. "This revolutionary LED engine helps customers convert outdoor fixtures to LED with significant cost savings that will meet critical lighting and power budgets and energy code compliance." Before the retrofit project, the City of Los Angeles illuminated its streets with 250-watt High Pressure Sodium at a 25-foot mounting height with a 100-foot spacing. During this project, Amerlux placed 600 60-watt Avista LED luminaires in downtown Los Angeles, from 2nd Street to 9th Street on the following roads: Main Street; Spring Street; Hope Street; Olive Street; Figueroa Street; and Olympic Boulevard. The Avista LED Light Engine, featuring over voltage and short circuit protection with a 10kV surge protector, was used to replace older, less efficient High Pressure Sodium lamps in post top mounted fixtures in area and pedestrian settings. The height adjustable light engine is field adjusted to optimal performance and operates on automatic AC incoming voltage sensing 120-277 volt systems. Avista can be used in traditional post top and other fixtures designed for street lighting, parks, pedestrian walkways, recreational areas, parking lots, schools and municipalities. Constructed with an anodized aluminum heat sink, the IP66-rated Avista is engineered with exceptional thermal management and stringent efficacy levels, using a cast aluminum fitter plate with a sealed LED chamber, and street-specific optics. The 41-watt Avista delivers a high efficacy of 100 lumens per watt and a total of 4,990 lumens for safety and security, with a 4000K CCT and a long life of 50,000-plus hours. Avista is also available in a 57-watt model and directs symmetrical or asymmetrical light precisely where it is needed. The LED engine's height can be adjusted in the field from 12 to 16 inches, to accommodate a variety of lighting fixtures and provide maximized performance. Avista is DesignLights Consortium (DLC)-certified and available on the Qualified Products List, which offers leading-edge, high quality, high efficiency commercial lighting solutions that help offer customers utility rebates. About Amerlux Amerlux creates lighting designed around its customers and will stop at nothing to help realize their vision. Amerlux works closely with customers every step of the way, from design through construction, to ensure total success and total satisfaction. Amerlux is fueled by a passion to consistently deliver in a fraction of the time of competitors, even on short-run custom orders, and that includes making sure every order is accurate, every product performs flawlessly, and every customer is successful. Amerlux speaks the language of light for design and construction professionals around the world by manufacturing a broad array of optically superior, energy efficient lighting solutions for the retail, supermarket, hospitality, commercial and exterior lighting markets. Amerlux products and services include track lighting, recessed downlighting and multiples, pendants, linear fluorescents, and custom lighting systems, as well as support for energy reduction plans that can be used as a guide to state, city and local utility rebate programs for maximum energy savings and utility incentives. The company's domestic and international clients receive the support of Amerlux's highly trained specification sales force, as well as expert service from initial design to on-time delivery made possible by strategically located manufacturing, warehousing and shipping locations. Contact: AMERLUX, LLC 178 Bauer Drive Oakland, New Jersey 07436 www.amerlux.com [email protected] T 973.882.5010 F 973.882.2605 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120118/NY36894LOGO SOURCE Amerlux Related Links http://www.amerlux.com LONDON, November 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Managing Partner of the Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management, Anton Kreil, is to step down from delivering Vacation Mentoring Programmes to Retail Traders in February 2017 in order to concentrate more time and effort on the day-to-day management of global operations at the Institute. Vacation Mentoring Programmes at the Institute of Trading and Portfolio management have proven to be an extremely popular resource for Retail Traders learning how to trade through the Institute for the last two years. Trader Vacation Programmes occur over a 14-week period with the first 10 days of Trader Mentoring held at Five Star resorts around the world, with One-on-One and group training delivered by Anton Kreil and Institute Senior Trading Mentors. The remaining 12 weeks of the 14-week Trader Mentoring Programme period occurs over Skype and Institute chat systems when delegates return to their respective geographies globally in One-to-One and group sessions each week. Delegates trade with their own capital and the Institute backs groups with real money also. The Institute has now held eight Trader Vacation Mentoring Programmes over the last two years (quarterly) in Thailand, the Turks and Caicos Islands, South Africa and Brazil. The Institute has now officially launched programmes in the United States restricted only to U.S. and Canadian citizens and plan to hold eight programmes a year globally in order to grow with the popularity and demand of the Programmes. Thus, Managing Partner of the Institute Anton Kreil will be stepping down from delivering Vacation Mentoring Programmes to Retail Traders in February 2017 in order to concentrate on the day-to-day management of global operations at the Institute and to therefore manage the growth of the company. Kreil's final Trader Vacation Mentoring Programme that he will attend and deliver himself will occur in Phuket Thailand from January 26th to February 5th, 2017. Therefore, this will be the last opportunity for Retail Traders to receive One-on-One training from Institute Managing Partner, Anton Kreil. As of February 2017, all Vacation Mentoring Programmes held outside the United States will be delivered by Senior Trading Mentors, Jason Mcdonald, Tristan Edwards, Gregoire Dupont and Hichem Djouhri. Vacation Mentoring Programmes held in the United States will be delivered by Senior Trading Mentors Raj Malhotra and Ben Berggreen. Kreil will no longer attend the Vacation Mentoring Programmes in person. The curriculum will be delivered by the Institute's Senior Trading Mentors globally and Kreil will manage the Programmes via an oversight function from the Institute's Headquarters in Singapore. Speaking today about this announcement Anton Kreil made the following comment: "As the Institute has grown, I have found myself continually taking more and more of a Management role in overseeing the operations that I founded and built. It's really just a natural occurrence of business evolution. Our Curriculum is the best in the world because it works and our Senior Trading Mentors are more than capable of delivering our curriculum to Institute students. As the Institute grows it is necessary for me to delegate this responsibility to our Mentors and concentrate on many of the exciting projects we are set to launch in 2017, and beyond." Applications for the Institute's Vacation and Remote Mentoring Programmes must be made via the Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management website by clicking, here. For more information about ITPM, please click the following links: Institute PTM Video Series Information Institute PTM Video Series One Month Institute PTM Video Series Lifetime Institute Trading Accounts For all Press Enquiries Please use this contact form: http://www.instutrade.com/contact-us SOURCE Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Associated Materials, LLC (the "Company") and its wholly-owned subsidiary, AMH New Finance, Inc. ("AMH Finance" and, together with the Company, the "Companies"), today announced the preliminary results for their previously announced debt tender offer (the "Tender Offer") to purchase for cash any and all of their outstanding 9.125% Senior Secured Notes due 2017 (the "Notes"). The terms and conditions of the Tender Offer are set forth in the Offer to Purchase, dated November 3, 2016 (as the same may be amended or supplemented from time to time, the "Offer to Purchase") and the related Letter of Transmittal (as the same may be amended or supplemented from time to time, the "Letter of Transmittal"). The table below identifies the principal amount of the Notes tendered as of 5:00 p.m. New York City Time on November 18, 2016 (the "Early Participation Deadline"). The Early Participation Deadline has now passed and withdrawal rights have terminated. Notes CUSIP No. Outstanding Principal Amount Principal Amount Tendered as of the Early Participation Deadline Total Consideration to be Paid(1) 9.125% Senior Secured Notes due 2017 04570V AC7 $830,000,000 $660,398,000 $660,398,000 (1) Comprised of (a) tender offer consideration of $970 (the "Tender Offer Consideration") and (b) an early participation payment of $30 (the "Early Participation Payment"), in each case, per $1,000 principal amount of Notes accepted. Accrued and unpaid interest will also be paid as described below. Each $1,000 principal amount of Notes validly tendered pursuant to the Tender Offer after the Early Participation Deadline but at or prior to midnight, New York City Time, at the end of the day on December 2, 2016, unless extended or earlier terminated (such date and time, as the same may be extended, the "Expiration Time") and accepted for purchase by the Companies will receive the Tender Offer Consideration. Holders who tender their Notes pursuant to the Tender Offer after the Early Participation Deadline may not withdraw their tendered Notes. In addition to the Tender Offer Consideration and Early Participation Payment, as the case may be, Holders who validly tender Notes that are accepted for purchase by the Companies will receive a cash payment representing the accrued interest in respect of those Notes from the last interest payment date (which was November 1, 2016) to, but not including, the Early Settlement Date (as defined in the Offer to Purchase) or December 5, 2016 (the "Final Settlement Date"), as applicable, for Notes purchased by the Companies pursuant to the Tender Offer ("Accrued Interest"). The Tender Offer Consideration, Early Participation Payment and Accrued Interest with respect to Notes validly tendered prior to the Early Participation Deadline and accepted by the Companies is expected to be paid on the Early Settlement Date, which is expected to be November 22, 2016. The Tender Offer Consideration and Accrued Interest for Notes tendered after the Early Participation Deadline but at or prior to the Expiration Time and accepted by the Companies is expected to be paid on the Final Settlement Date. Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Ducera Securities LLC are acting as dealer managers for the Tender Offer and have retained Global Bondholder Services Corporation to act as the information agent and depositary for the Tender Offer. Questions regarding the Tender Offer should be directed to Goldman, Sachs & Co., the lead dealer manager for the Tender Offer, by phone at (800) 828-3182 (toll-free) or at (212) 357-1452 (collect). Requests for documents relating to the Tender Offer should be directed to Global Bondholder Services Corporation by telephone at (212) 430-3774 (banks and brokers) or (866) 470-3700 (toll-free). This press release is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation to buy any of the Notes nor is it a solicitation for acceptance of the Tender Offer. The Companies are making the Tender Offer only by, and pursuant to the terms of, the Offer to Purchase and the related Letter of Transmittal. The Tender Offer is not being made in any state or other jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities, blue sky or other laws of such state or other jurisdiction. None of the Companies, the dealer managers, the information agent or the depositary makes any recommendation in connection with the Tender Offer. About Associated Materials, LLC Associated Materials was founded in 1947 when it first introduced residential aluminum siding under the Alside name and is a leading, vertically integrated manufacturer and distributor of exterior residential building products in the United States and Canada. The Company produces a comprehensive offering of exterior building products, including vinyl windows, vinyl siding, vinyl railing and fencing, aluminum trim coil and aluminum and steel siding and related accessories, which are produced at the Company's 11 manufacturing facilities. In addition, the Company sells complementary products that are manufactured by third parties, such as roofing materials, cladding materials, insulation, exterior doors, equipment and tools. The Company also provides installation services. "Safe Harbor" Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements related to the Company's outlook for the future, as well as other statements of beliefs, future plans and strategies or anticipated events, and similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and, except to the extent required by applicable securities laws, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any of them to reflect actual results, any changes in expectations or any change in events. If the Company does update one or more forward-looking statements, no inference should be drawn that it will make additional updates with respect to those or other forward-looking statements. For additional information concerning risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, and risks to the Company's business in general, please refer to the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 2, 2016, as such factors may be updated from time to time in its periodic filings with the SEC. For more information about the Company and its products, please visit: www.associatedmaterials.com. SOURCE Associated Materials, LLC Related Links http://www.associatedmaterials.com PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Atlantis, Paradise Island (the "Resort") today announced that a recent data security incident may have compromised the security of payment information of some customers who used debit or credit cards at food and beverage and retail locations at the Resort between March 9, 2016 and October 22, 2016. We have engaged professionals who have corrected the issue and customers can now safely use their credit and debit cards at the food and beverage and retail locations at the Resort. This incident did not affect credit and debit cards used to make or pay for hotel reservations or purchases made by guests who charged their food and beverage or retail purchases back to their room. What Happened? The Resort began investigating unusual activity after receiving reports from its credit card processor. The Resort immediately began working with third-party forensic experts to investigate these reports and to identify any signs of compromise on its computer systems. On October 21, 2016, the Resort discovered suspicious files on its computer systems that indicated a potential compromise of customers' credit and debit card data for some credit and debit cards used at food and beverage and retail locations at the resort. Since that time, the Resort has been working with third-party forensic investigators to determine what happened and what information was affected. The Resort has confirmed that malware may have captured data from some credit and debit cards used at food and beverage and retail locations at the Resort. The Resort has removed the malware at issue to contain this incident and implemented additional procedures in an effort to prevent any further unauthorized access to customers' credit and debit card information. This incident did not affect credit and debit cards used to make or pay for hotel reservations or purchases made by guests who charged their food and beverage or retail purchases back to their room. What Information Was Involved? Through the ongoing third-party forensic investigations, the Resort confirmed that malware may have captured credit and debit card data from some credit and debit cards used at food and beverage and retail locations between March 9, 2016 and October 22, 2016. The information at risk as a result of this event for credit or debit cards used at the impacted locations includes the card number, expiration date, CVV and in some instances, cardholder name. This incident did not involve customers' Social Security numbers as this information is never collected by the Resort. This incident did not involve customers' PIN numbers, either. What We Are Doing. "The Resort takes the security of our customers' information extremely seriously, and we apologize for the inconvenience this incident may have caused our customers," Howard C. Karawan, President and Managing Director of Atlantis, Paradise Island, stated. Mr. Karawan expanded, "We continue to work with third-party forensic investigators to ensure the security of our systems on behalf of our customers and would like to take this opportunity to remind customers to remain vigilant against fraud by reviewing their financial account statements regularly and reporting any suspicious activity." For More Information. The Resort has established a dedicated assistance line for individuals seeking additional information regarding this incident. Customers can call (877) 223-3689, Monday through Friday (excluding U.S. holidays), 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST and provide reference number 1141111816 when calling. Customers that live in a country that does not support toll free numbers in the North American Numbering Plan, please phone 1-814-201-3667, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday (excluding U.S. holidays). Customers can also find information on this incident and what they can do to better protect against fraud and identity theft at www.atlantisbahamas.com. What You Can Do. The Resort encourages all customers to remain vigilant against identity theft by reviewing their financial account statements regularly and monitoring their credit reports for suspicious activity. Customers should immediately report any unauthorized charges to their card issuer. The phone number to call is usually on the back of the credit or debit card. Under U.S. law, individuals over the age of 18 are entitled to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit bureaus. To order a free credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call, toll-free, 1-877-322-8228. Customers may also contact the three major credit bureaus directly to request a free copy of their credit report. The Resort encourages customers who believe they may be affected by this incident to take additional action to further protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss. At no charge, customers can have these credit bureaus place a "fraud alert" on their file, alerting creditors to take additional steps to verify their identity prior to granting credit in their name. Note, however, that because it tells creditors to follow certain procedures to protect the customer, a fraud alert may also delay customers' ability to obtain credit while the agency verifies their identity. As soon as one credit bureau confirms a customer's fraud alert, the others are notified to place fraud alerts on the customer's file. Should customers wish to place a fraud alert or have any questions regarding their credit reports, they may contact any one of the agencies listed below. Equifax Experian Transunion P.O. Box 105069 P.O. Box 2002 P.O. Box 2000 Atlanta, GA 30348 Allen, TX 75013 Chester, PA 19022 1-800-525-6285 1-888-397-3742 1-800-680-7289 www.equifax.com www.experian.com www.transunion.com Customers may also place a security freeze on their credit reports. A security freeze prohibits a credit reporting agency from releasing any information from a customer's credit report without the consumer's written authorization. However, customers should be aware that placing a security freeze on their credit reports may delay, interfere with or prevent the timely approval of any requests they make for new loans, credit mortgages, employment, housing, or other services. If a customer has been a victim of identity theft and provides a credit reporting agency with a valid police report, the agency cannot charge the customer to place, lift or remove a security freeze. In all other cases, a credit reporting agency may charge a fee to place, temporarily lift or permanently remove a security freeze. Customers will need to place security freezes separately with each of the three major credit bureaus listed above if they wish to place a freeze on all of their credit files. To find out more about how to place a security freeze, customers can contact the credit reporting agencies using the information below: Equifax Security Freeze P.O. Box 105788 Atlanta, GA 30348 1-800-685-1111 (NY residents please call 1-800-349-9960) www.freeze.equifax.com Experian Security Freeze P.O. Box 9554 Allen, TX 75013 1-888-397-3742 www.experian.com/freeze/center.html TransUnion Fraud Victim Assistance P.O. Box 2000 Chester, PA 19022 Fraud Division 1-888-909-8872 www.transunion.com/credit-freeze/place-credit-freeze Customers can further educate themselves regarding identity theft, fraud alerts and the steps they can take to protect themselves, by contacting the Federal Trade Commission or their state attorney general. The Federal Trade Commission can be reached at 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20580, www.ftc.gov/idtheft/, 1-877-ID-THEFT (1-877-438-4338); TTY: 1-866-653-4261. The Federal Trade Commission also encourages those who discover that their information has been misused to file a complaint with the Commission. Customers can obtain further information on how to file such a complaint by way of the contact information listed above. For Maryland residents, the Attorney General can be reached at: 200 St. Paul Place, 16th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202; 1-888-743-0023; and www.oag.state.md.us. For North Carolina residents, the Attorney General can be contacted by mail at 9001 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-9001; toll-free at 1-877-566-7226; by phone at 1-919-716-6400; and online at www.ncdoj.gov. For Rhode Island residents, the Attorney General can be contacted by mail at 150 South Main Street, Providence, RI 02903; by phone at (401) 274-4400; and online at www.riag.ri.gov. An unknown number of Rhode Island residents may be impacted by this incident. Customers have the right to file a police report if they ever experience identity theft or fraud. Please note that in order to file a crime report or incident report with law enforcement for identity theft, customers will likely need to provide some kind of proof that they have been a victim. Instances of known or suspected identity theft should also be reported to law enforcement. This notice has not been delayed as a result of a law enforcement investigation. SOURCE Atlantis, Paradise Island Related Links http://www.atlantisbahamas.com The careful curation of each auction has been overseen by Auctionata | Paddle8 Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer Alexander Gilkes , a London native and by Auctionata | Paddle8 UK CEO Patrick van der Vorst. "The Paddle8 Pad" was conceived to showcase property that spans all aspects of the 21st century collector's lifestyle while presenting a distinctly curated point of view on collecting. Offerings will include Post-War and Contemporary Art, Prints and Multiples, Photographs, a Private Collection of Latin-American Contemporary Art, Asian Art, Jewellery and Design. Presented by renowned British experts and auctioneers including Alexander Gilkes, Patrick van der Vorst, and Edward Rising, and hosts like George Lamb, the auctions will be held in an entertaining and inspiring live show format. By revealing the interesting stories behind the objects on sale, each livestream auction broadcast will provide an immersive experience for bidders and viewers, and can be followed via desktop and mobile device from anywhere in the world. Alexander Gilkes comments: "The Paddle8 Pad auctions will mark the first collaboration between our recently merged platforms: Auctionata and Paddle8. Using Auctionata's cutting-edge livestream technology and Paddle8's curatorial prowess, the sales have been built for the 21st century. Collectors worldwide can now follow, bid on and collect works with ease across various categories through an innovative and entertaining video format". Patrick van der Vorst adds: ""We are absolutely thrilled to be launching "The Paddle8 Pad" in London. The Paddle8 specialists have done an excellent job in curating these auctions with the aim of delighting and captivating modern collectors from across the world. Combining the expertise of Paddle8's UK team with Auctionata's technology, we can now offer exceptional pieces of contemporary art, luxury accessories and collectibles in a high-end setting where our customers can discover the stories behind the objects and make more meaningful purchases". Online Catalogues: http://bit.ly/paddle8padpm Trailer Video: http://bit.ly/yt-p8pad Press Kit: http://bit.ly/2fBpbFL Auction Details: Fine Jewels Tuesday, Nov 29, 2016, 2 pm CET An exceptional range of jewellery from ancestral heirlooms to dazzling gems of today. From Edwardian to Art Deco, Modern to Contemporary: this striking selection of luxury jewels includes desirable pieces from the likes of Van Cleef & Arpels, Cartier, Boucheron, Tiffany, Verdura and Buccellati. The P8 Pad: Start Collecting (Part 1) Tuesday, Nov 29, 2016, 9 pm CET An eclectic gathering of covetable works curated for today's emerging collector. The sale features paintings, works on paper, prints, photography, and sculpture by artists such as Marcel Dzama, Jannis Kounellis, Ned Vena, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and more. Objects of Design Wednesday, Nov 30, 2016, 4 pm CET The most exquisite form meets uncompromising function in this selection of top tier 20th and 21st century design. Striking contemporary pieces by emerging designers such as Philip Michael Wolfson, Alessandro Zambelli and Fredrikson Stallard, and contemporary masters such as Zaha Hadid and Ron Arad, are offered alongside perfectly engineered classics from Fornasetti and the Eameses. A Collection of Contemporary Jewels Wednesday, Nov 30, 2016, 6 pm CET A stunning array of signed contemporary jewellery from a celebrated maker that features fantastically colorful gems in exquisitely delicate settings. Photographs curated by Lou Proud Friday, Dec 2, 2016, 2 pm CET Renowned photographs specialist Lou Proud has curated an eclectic collection featuring some of the most ground-breaking and revered names in 20th and 21st century photography. Key genres of photojournalism, fashion, classic greats and contemporary works are all represented in a sale sure to delight the photo aficionado and beginner collector in equal measure. 1,000 years of Asian Art Saturday, Dec 3, 2016, 2 pm CET Centuries of Asian art are represented in this carefully curated selection of Asian ceramics, bronzes, screens and works on paper that spans potteries from the Tang Dynasty to Contemporary inks on paper. Highlights of the auction include: a pair of guardian earth spirits from the Tang Dynasty, a Sancai glazed pottery horse and important Contemporary works by Gu Wenda, Zeng Xiaojun and Wang Tiande. The P8 Pad: Start Collecting (Part 2) Saturday, Dec 3, 2016, 4 pm CET Get inspired to deck the walls with this impeccable selection of paintings, works on paper, prints, photography, and collectibles from contemporary artists such as Gormley, Murakami, Hirst, Varadi and more at accessible prices. Editions Monday, Dec 5, 2016, 3 pm CET Innovative printmaking of the 20th and 21st centuries is celebrated in this prints and multiples auction, showcasing editions by the modern masters Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro to leading post-war printmakers Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Keith Haring all the way to contemporary stars John Baldessari and Banksy. Contemporary Art Monday, Dec 5, 2016, 8 pm CET Featuring some of the most influential artists of our time, this sale surveys major movements of contemporary art in the Americas and Europe, including the 'New' Ecole de Paris, Abstract Expressionism, Zero, Pop, Postmodernism, and Emerging Contemporary. Beyond Geometry: A Private Collection of Latin-American Contemporary Art Monday, Dec 5, 2016, 10 pm CET The line, the circle, and the square are captured in boundless explorations of light, movement, space, time, and color in this fascinating auction, which features a stunning single owner collection articulated around Art Abstrait Construit, Abstraction Geometrique, Optic art, and Kinetic art by Latin-American artists. Press Contact Luisa Elster Director PR & Corporate Communications Phone: +49 30 610 8061 29 Email: [email protected] About Auctionata | Paddle8 Auctionata | Paddle8 is the global online leader in art and luxury collectibles. Through innovative livestream auction formats, charity auctions, private sales, and a curated online shop, the recently merged platforms offer a seamless online process to sell and purchase art, design, classic cars, watches, jewelry, and wine. With around 800,000 registered users, Auctionata | Paddle8 is one of the ten biggest auction houses worldwide outside of China. The company has offices in Berlin, New York, London, Los Angeles, Rome, Zurich, and Madrid and is thus represented in the most important international markets. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442066 SOURCE Auctionata | Paddle8 Related Links http://www.auctionata.com NEW YORK, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Synopsis The report provides a detailed look into the infrastructure sector in Australia, 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 Spending on infrastructure construction in Australia is expected to rebound in the next five years, after negative growth in the early part of the decade. The total value of the infrastructure construction market reached AUD43.7 billion (USD32.9 billion) in 2015, according to Timetric, down from AUD48.7 billion in 2010, and significantly below its highest point AUD62.7 in 2012. Output is projected to grow to AUD46 billion by 2020 (in nominal value terms). This growth in spending is based on the assumption that a number of the large-scale transport projects move ahead as planned, including the WestConnex Motorway and Badgerys Creek Airport in New South Wales and the Melbourne Metro Rail Tunnel in Victoria. Scope - A concise analysis of the administrative, economic and political context for infrastructure in Australia. - An in-depth assessment of the current state of infrastructure in the UK, 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 Australian 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 your expansion strategy. Key Highlights - Timetric is currently tracking 460 large-scale infrastructure construction projects in Australia. These projects have a total investment value of AUD535 billion (US$382 billion). - Railway and Roads projects account for over 60% of the overall infrastructure project pipeline with a combined value of AUD333 billion (USD250 billion). - In December 2015, the Australian government gave its annual infrastructure statement which included details of AUD50 billion in infrastructure investment, primarily in land transport. This future investment should contribute to improving Australia's global infrastructure ranking in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index, which at 16th place represents a well-developed physical infrastructure, but one that is below other advanced economies such as the UK, US and Canada. - In response to the Productivity Commission inquiry into public infrastructure, the Australian government is undertaking infrastructure reforms focused on improving planning, project selection and delivery, better use of existing assets and investigating the wider use of road user charging. Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04068864-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 (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/441993-INFO ) The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted by Adrian Lopresti, PhD, and Peter Drummond, PhD, of Murdock University, in Perth, Western Australia, and will be published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, volume 207, January 1, 2017. BCM-95 was studied for its effects on Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and anxiety in more than 110 subjects, aged 18-65 years. Three groups of subjects received twice-daily doses of 250 mg BCM-95 combined with 30 mg of saffron, or 500 mg and 1000 mg BCM-95 alone. The groups were compared to each other, and collectively against a placebo. "The positive results of this clinical study support findings that BCM-95 could help patients who suffer from depression, or could reduce anxiety in depressed adults," says Shavon Jackson-Michel, ND, Medical and Scientific Affairs Advisor for DolcCas Biotech. "BCM-95 is high potency and can be effective even in smaller dosages-as little as 500 mg per day-and has a completely neutral flavor." Depression treatment responders were qualified by attaining a 50% decrease in their IDS-SR 30 score over the 12 weeks of the study. The BCM-95 and BCM-95-plus-saffron groups collectively showed decreased depression symptoms at each of the 4-week intervals, with little difference found between groups. Although the placebo groups also improved over the first 4 weeks, those improvements were not maintained throughout the full 12-week study. Measurements of present anxiety and generalized anxiety in the BCM-95 groups during the 12 weeks decreased by 7 and 6 points, respectively, over the placebo group. Interestingly, the atypically depressed subgroups were found to be the most responsive to BCM-95treatments over the duration of the study, with a 65% decrease in IDS-SR30 score. Atypical depression, has been found to be associated with higher inflammatory markers, like C-reactive protein (CRP), IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor- (TNF-) of which curcumin, a potent anti-inflammatory, is a known modulator. Few differences in effectiveness of low doses of curcumin over high doses were observed, or of low-dose curcumin with and without saffron. However, the early identification and exclusion of 30 subjects that were placebo-'sensitive' or had unstable symptoms might have affected the ability to discriminate small, between-group differences. "BCM-95 is backed by dozens of clinical research studies that show numerous health benefits," notes Benny Antony, PhD, Joint Managing Director for Arjuna. "BCM-95 curcumin is manufactured by synergistically combining curcumin and essential oil of turmeric, without synthetic additives. The therapeutic benefits of turmeric can be attained at its best by combining curcumin with ar-turmerone, an active compound derived from essential oil of turmeric." Arjuna and DolCas have full control on BCM-95's supply chain, from farm (grown in Arjuna fields by its farmers) to finished supplement, minimizing the chance of contamination. Arjuna and DolCas recently received self-affirmed GRAS status for BCM-95 turmeric extract following a comprehensive review by a panel of qualified experts. The pure, high-potency ingredient is now available for use not only in food and supplements but also in medical foods. Visit us at Hi Europe in Frankfurt, Booth # C29. For more information, contact: Company contact DolCas Biotech, LLC Mr. Nipen Lavingia VP of Business Development Tell: +1-973-347-1958 ext. 213 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.dolcas-biotech.com Press Contact NutriPR Liat Simha Tel: +972-9-9742893 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.nutripr.com Twitter: @LiatSimha SOURCE DolCas Biotech, LLC In response to consumers' demonstrated desire to bring the craft cocktail movement into their bars and homes, Behind the Bar makes available for one-off and bulk orders thousands of items that support the preparation, service, and consumption of cocktails, spirits, and wine. Behind the Bar carries everything from small-batch shrubs and Boston shakers to brandy warmers and Spanish porrons, and has one of the largest selections of cocktail bitters in the world. Behind the Bar also offers its own line of bar tools that marry professional-grade performance with exceptional value. Items carrying the Behind the Bar name include weighted bar spoons in various finishes, a soda siphon, and handblown mixing glasses, with plans to expand the line over time. In addition to offering a unique shopping experience, Behind the Bar is an information resource. Via its blog, visitors can access cocktail recipes, how-to articles, and product information. Both aspects of the site service Behind the Bar's mission to equip drinking enthusiasts with the tools, ingredients, and knowledge to imbibe well at home. Behind the Bar is the cocktail-, spirit-, and wine-focused offshoot of KegWorks, a leading retailer of draft beer equipment and bar rail for more than 15 years. Behind the Bar is an online retailer of fine bar tools, cocktail bitters, premium drink ingredients, glassware, and bar equipment. We are a company of spirited drinking enthusiasts who strive to help cocktail hobbyists and professional bartenders pursue their craft. Behind the Bar is committed to enhancing our customers' enjoyment of adult beveragesone stiff, neat, up, wet, dry, sweet, sour, balanced, tall, or short drink at a time. KegWorks is a leading merchant of draft beer equipment, home brewing supplies, beer glassware, novelty drink accessories, custom bar rails, and other "Tools for Drinking." KegWorks was founded on the premise that people deserve to drink well, often, and with gustono matter their drink of choice. To that end, our product selection is carefully curated to optimize our customers' drinking experienceswhether that be savoring craft beer at a nanobrewery, a game of beer pong at the weekly tailgate, or something in between. Trisha Charles VP of Product [email protected] Video - http://origin-qps.onstreammedia.com/origin/multivu_archive/PRNA/ENR/KEGWORKS-behindthebar.mp4 SOURCE Behind the Bar Related Links https://www.behindthebar.com (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 ) Browse 84 market data Tables and 78 Figures spread through 206 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Biometric System Market" http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/next-generation-biometric-technologies-market-697.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report. The future growth of the biometric system market is expected to be driven by rising use of biometric technology in financial institutes and healthcare sectors, government initiatives in adoption of biometric system, and increasing use of biometric systems in criminal identification. Fingerprint recognition technology in the biometric system market held the largest market size for a single factor authentication segment in 2015 Fingerprint recognition is one of the oldest, simple to install, and low-cost technology; therefore, it is more commonly used. In travel and immigration, fingerprint recognition technology is used in e-passports, e-visas, and driving licenses to authenticate an individual. In the consumer electronics industry, fingerprint recognition technology is used in laptops, computers, and smartphones, among others. Hence, fingerprint authentication finds numerous applications and is widely adopted by many industries. Travel and immigration sector held the largest share of the biometric system market in 2015 Many governments have set some stringent rules and regulations in the travel and immigration sector to improve the overall security. Countries such as the U.S. and the U.K have passed some stringent laws. In the U.S., according to Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, it is mandatory to use biometrics in visas. This factor would drive the growth of the biometric system market in the travel and immigration sector. Moreover, countries such as Japan, Singapore, and the U.S. have deployed biometric systems in airports to improve the overall security. North America held the largest share of the biometric system market in 2015 North America held the largest share of the Biometric System Market in 2015, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific. The U.S. held the largest share of the biometric system market in North America owing to strong demand in government and security sector. The U.S. has made considerable investments in setting up biometrics-based security solutions at its borders and airports through its customs and border protection (CBP), a government agency to monitor the influx of immigrants and tourists. The United States citizenship and immigration services have made e-visa and e-passport mandatory for new applicants. All these developments have led to the growth of the biometric system market in North America. Inquiry Before Buying: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=697 Major players in this market include Safran SA (France), NEC Corporation (Japan), 3M Cogent, Inc.(U.S.), Fujitsu Ltd. (Japan), BIO-Key International, Inc. (U.S.), Precise Biometrics AB (Sweden), Secunet Security Networks AG (Germany), Thales SA (France), Aware, Inc. (U.S.), Cognitec Systems GmbH (Germany), Cross Match Technologies (U.S.), Fulcrum Biometrics, LLC (U.S.), Daon, Inc. (U.S.), and Facebanx (U.K.). Browse Related Reports Access Control Market by Type (Hardware, Software & Services), Hardware (Magnetic Stripe, Proximity & Smart Cards, Biometrics, Electronic Locks (Electromagnetic, Electric Strike, Wireless), Controller/Server, Geography - Global Forecast to 2022 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/access-control-market-164562182.html Fingerprint Sensors Market by Type (Swipe, Area & Touch), Technology (Capacitive, Thermal, Optical), Application (Mobile Devices, Travel & Immigration, Government, Military & Defense, Banking & Finance) and Geography - Global Forecast to 2022 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/fingerprint-sensors-market-169519533.html Subscribe Reports from Semiconductor Domain @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Knowledgestore.asp About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is the largest market research firm worldwide in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical info graphics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository. Contact: Mr. Rohan MarketsandMarkets 701 Pike Street, Suite 2175, Seattle, WA 98101, United States Tel : 1-888-600-6441 Email: [email protected] Visit MarketsandMarkets [email protected] http://www.marketsandmarketsblog.com/market-reports/electronics-and-semiconductors Connect us on LinkedIn @ http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets SOURCE MarketsandMarkets DALLAS, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina has your solution for celebrating the holidays with friends while saving some dinero on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Start the biggest shopping weekend on Friday, November 25th with an all-day-all-night happy hour offering 50% off the largest selection of margaritas, including a choice of House Margaritas, Borderita Grande, Coronarita, Fruit Margaritas and Swirl Margaritas. Restrictions apply*. "Thanksgiving weekend marks the start of the holiday season," said Ashley Zickefoose, Chief Marketing Officer for On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina. "After a full day of shopping for others, we want to offer our guests a treat for themselves, all in the spirit of a great deal on our most popular drink specials." Cyber Monday On The Border will continue the spirit of saving on Cyber Monday, Nov. 28th with 20% off online to-go and catering orders. Bring all of your favorite On The Border burritos, fajitas, and tacos home with you by using promo code "20CYBER" at checkout to receive the 20% off discount for online orders of $30 or more. Best of all, our endless tortilla chips and house-made salsa are free with all meals. The Cyber Monday deal is not valid on orders previously placed. Excludes tax, delivery fee, and gratuity. Cannot be combined with other offers or discounts. For more information about these incredible holiday specials at On The Border, visit online at www.ontheborder.com. To get the scoop on other great deals and insider info, join Club Cantina. It's free to join, and the rewards are worth it! 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. *Price and participation may vary by location, void where prohibited by law. Local laws apply regarding the days and times alcohol is available for purchase. This offer is valid dine-in only. Contact: Mitchell Rodriguez 888.869.7899 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441895LOGO SOURCE On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina Related Links https://www.ontheborder.com CARROLLTON, Texas, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Volunteering efforts come in many packages and forms. Shannon Davis, Community Service Manager at Blue Jay Wireless, came up with a unique event for her #giveaday. The #giveaday initiative is where Blue Jay employees take one out of every 10 work days and give back to the community by volunteering. Ms. Davis organized an invite-only Pub Crawl to raise money for the Samaritan Inn of McKinney, Texas, in the wake of Homeless Awareness Week. The Pub Crawl, aptly themed "Bringing Homelessness to a Crawl," took place in Addison, Texas, and all donations collected were designated for the Samaritan Inn, the largest homeless program in Collin County. Fifty participants, including representatives from Blue Jay marketing, compliance and operations departments, along with other employees from the corporate world and beyond signed up for the fun event to raise money for a great cause. The group visited four participating establishments in Addison. Logie's on Beltline, Cafe Gecko Addison, Social House Addison and Sherlock's Baker Street Pub Addison all hosted the "crawlers" on their fundraising tour. Each location donated resources to the cause, as well. Shannon Davis added, "It was a very successful event, thanks in part to the cooperation of several local businesses, and it was honestly a lot of fun to get a diverse group of people in a different setting to raise money for such a great cause." Overall, $4000 was raised for the Samaritan Inn during the event. Participants raised $2000, along with a participating corporate match program brought the grand total to $4000, that allowed Blue Jay Wireless to donate the full amount to the Samaritan Inn. This event raised both money and awareness to help bring homelessness to a crawl. For more information about the Samaritan Inn, visit http://www.thesamaritaninn.org. Also, for more about Blue Jay and their #giveaday program, go to https://www.bluejaywireless.com/why-bluejay/. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160412/354282LOGO SOURCE Blue Jay Wireless MARLBOROUGH, Mass., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) today announced the close of its acquisition of EndoChoice Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: GI). With the completion of the acquisition, EndoChoice will become part of the Boston Scientific Endoscopy business. EndoChoice is an Alpharetta, Georgia based company focused on the development and commercialization of infection control products, pathology services and single-use devices for specialists treating a wide range of gastrointestinal (GI) conditions. The two organizations announced a definitive agreement on September 27, 2016 for Boston Scientific to acquire the EndoChoice business at a cash price of $8.00 per share for an approximate total of $210 million. "We are excited to provide physicians more comprehensive solutions to help assess, diagnose and treat patients with GI conditions," said Art Butcher, senior vice president and president, Endoscopy, Boston Scientific. "Boston Scientific is a leader in the field of endoscopy and we are committed to providing innovative products and services to meet the changing and growing needs within the field." The expanded portfolio will deliver a comprehensive array of GI services and devices for physicians in group practice settings as well as hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers. The combined business will reach growing areas within the GI continuum of care, including infection control and pathology lab services. Boston Scientific continues to evaluate strategic options for the Full Spectrum Endoscopy (FUSE) colonoscope, and anticipates providing an update on its plans for the platform by the end of the year. The acquisition is expected to be breakeven to Boston Scientific adjusted earnings per share in 2017, and accretive thereafter. The transaction is expected to be less accretive (or dilutive, as the case may be) on a GAAP basis, due to amortization expense and transaction and integration costs. EndoChoice generated approximately $75 million of total sales in the twelve-month period ended September 30, 2016. About Boston Scientific Boston Scientific transforms lives through innovative medical solutions that improve the health of patients around the world. As a global medical technology leader for more than 35 years, we advance science for life by providing a broad range of high performance solutions that address unmet patient needs and reduce the cost of healthcare. For more information, visit www.bostonscientific.com and connect on Twitter and Facebook. For more information on the Boston Scientific endoscopy business visit http://www.bostonscientific.com/en-US/medical-specialties/gastroenterology.html. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words like "anticipate," "expect," "project," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "intend" and similar words. These forward-looking statements are based on our beliefs, assumptions and estimates using information available to us at the time and are not intended to be guarantees of future events or performance. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding our adjusted earnings per share, our product launches and product performance and impact. If our underlying assumptions turn out to be incorrect, or if certain risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from the expectations and projections expressed or implied by our forward-looking statements. These factors, in some cases, have affected and in the future (together with other factors) could affect our ability to implement our business strategy and may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the statements expressed in this press release. As a result, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any of our forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause such differences include, among other things: future economic, competitive, reimbursement and regulatory conditions; new product introductions; demographic trends; the closing and integration of acquisitions; intellectual property; litigation; financial market conditions; and future business decisions made by us and our competitors. All of these factors are difficult or impossible to predict accurately and many of them are beyond our control. For a further list and description of these and other important risks and uncertainties that may affect our future operations, see Part I, Item 1A Risk Factors in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which we may update in Part II, Item 1A Risk Factors in Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q we have filed or will file hereafter. We disclaim any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in our expectations or in events, conditions or circumstances on which those expectations may be based, or that may affect the likelihood that actual results will differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. This cautionary statement is applicable to all forward-looking statements contained in this document. Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures To supplement our consolidated financial statements presented on a GAAP basis, we disclose certain non-GAAP financial measures including adjusted earnings per share. Adjusted earnings per share excludes goodwill and intangible asset impairment charges; acquisition-, divestiture-, litigation- and restructuring-related charges and credits; certain discrete tax items and amortization expense. Non-GAAP measures such as adjusted earnings per share are not in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States. The GAAP financial measure most directly comparable to adjusted earnings per share is GAAP earnings per share. The difference between our estimated impact of the acquisition on our GAAP and adjusted earnings per share relates to amortization expense on acquired intangible assets and acquisition-related net charges, which primarily include exit costs and other fees. These amounts are excluded by the Company for purposes of measuring adjusted earnings per share. Management uses adjusted earnings per share along with other supplemental non-GAAP measures to evaluate performance period over period, to analyze the underlying trends in our business, to assess its performance relative to its competitors, and to establish operational goals and forecasts that are used in allocating resources. Non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted earnings per share, should not be considered in isolation from or as a replacement for GAAP financial measures. We believe that presenting non-GAAP financial measures in addition to GAAP financial measures provides investors greater transparency to the information used by our management for its financial and operational decision-making and allows investors to see our results "through the eyes" of management. We further believe that providing this information better enables our investors to understand our operating performance and to evaluate the methodology used by management to evaluate and measure such performance. CONTACTS Catherine Brady 508-683-4797 Media Relations Boston Scientific Corporation [email protected] Rosie Ireland +44 (0)7585 403359 Media Relations Europe Boston Scientific Corporation [email protected] Susie Lisa, CFA 508-683-5565 (office) Investor Relations Boston Scientific Corporation [email protected] SOURCE Boston Scientific Corporation Related Links http://www.bostonscientific.com Kids on Stage: The Charades Game for Kids (ages 3+): The perfect first game for active three-year olds. Each player takes a turn acting out animals, objects or actions while the other players guess. Encourages imaginative skills. Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood Welcome to Main Street Game (ages 3+): Based on the PBS hit, join Daniel Tiger and friends on a journey through Main Street. Players fill their backpacks with unique gifts from Baker Aker's bakery, Music Man Stan's music shop and other locations along Main Street. Encourages social skills. Shimmer and Shine Genie Friends Forever Game (ages 3+): In this cooperative game, based on the popular Nickelodeon show, players join Shimmer, Shine, Tala and Nahal as they work together to decorate a dazzling gift for their best friend, Leah. Encourages social skills and cooperation. Scavenger Hunt for Kids (ages 6+): It's the amazing indoor search game for kids! Players have two minutes to search for silly stuff like a purple shirt, a funny hat and other items around the house. Reinforces literacy skills and vocabulary. These new games join the Briarpatch portfolio of classic games, including Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, Pete the Cat Groovy Buttons Game and The Very Hungry Caterpillar Spin and Seek ABC Game. The backbone of the Briarpatch brand is the company's Play 'n Learn System, which helps parents understand the developmental aspects of each game. To learn more about the company's Play 'n Learn System and its entire line of learning games, visit www.universitygames.com/playnlearn. About University Games Founded in 1985, University Games has developed and manufactured over 500 games, puzzles, and children's learning and activity sets. The company philosophy has always been to offer products that encourage fun, creativity and imagination for kids, families and adults. The company offers a wide array of products under the University Games, Briarpatch, BePuzzled, U-Create, Great Explorations and Front Porch Classics brands. Find us at www.universitygames.com or www.facebook.com/UniversityGamesUSA. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442329 SOURCE University Games Related Links http://www.universitygames.com ANNAPOLIS, Md., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Common Voices is working to promote and share information from the Coalition's newest advocate, Sher Grogg during the 2016 Holiday season. The Advocates' Coalition is kicking off a holiday safety campaign titled "Do it For Don" the campaign bears the name of Grogg's brother Don. "Don's employees always had the mantra of 'Do It For Don'; he would want me to spread information that could save another families' lives, so it seems only appropriate that we would use this hashtag to spread the word about Christmas Tree Safety to all Americans", said Sher Grogg. "The tragic fire that claimed 6 members of my family was started by their Christmas tree. Don died trying to save his loved ones. There are simple steps that everyone should know to keep their family safe. We also know that if the house had fire sprinklers, the outcome would have been much different." Grogg lost her brother, sister-in-law, and their four grandchildren in an Annapolis, MD fire in January of 2015. She has educated herself regarding fire, flashover, and the resulting destruction. Sher become an advocate for fire safety and fire sprinklers in the year and 10 months since her family tragedy. She credits finding Common Voices as a key part of her recovery process, even though nothing will ever be able to bring her family members back. Helping to educate others in their memory, eases the pain. "As fire chiefs, we know one of the most effective ways to minimize the loss of life and property is to have working smoke alarms and fire sprinklers," adds Shane Ray, President of the National Fire Sprinkler Association (NFSA). "Fire is fast, but fire sprinklers are faster and control the fire until the firefighters arrive." "The U.S. fire service has endorsed fire sprinklers as one of its major strategies to keep firefighters and citizens safe," says Chief Ronald J. Siarnicki, Executive Director of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF.) "Firefighter Life Safety Initiative #15 states that the enforcement of codes and the installation of fire sprinklers is a priority and tragedies like this underscore the importance of fire sprinklers." For details about the Holiday Safety Campaign "Do It For Don!" and how you can participate (including a contest for fire departments who share the flyer with their local Christmas Tree Lots) visit www.fireadvocates.org and look for the Holiday Safety Campaign button on the homepage. For more details about the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation's Life Safety Initiatives, please visit www.firehero.org. About Common Voices: Common Voices (www.fireadvocates.org) is an advocates' coalition of members who all have been directly affected by fire. By bringing their voices together, they hope to educate others regarding fire and its devastating impact. Their mission is to create a fire-safe America by sharing their stories, creating resources that educate and sharing fire statistics. CONTACT: Vickie Pritchett 615-533-0305 SOURCE Common Voices Related Links http://www.fireadvocates.org Echoing the themes of this year's show, Canon U.S.A. is proud to support the discovery of learning opportunities to broaden participation in the larger medical community by taking part in the RSNA Research and Education Foundation (the Foundation)'s Campaign for Funding Future Research. As reported by the Foundation, in 2016, it awarded more than four million dollars in grants to 101 investigators and educators. With the support of a donation by Canon U.S.A., matched by the recipient's sponsoring department, grant recipient Mark Alexander Forsberg, BS, along with his scientific advisor Jaydev K. Dave, Ph.D., and clinical advisor David J. Eschelman, MD will research whether traditional image quality phantoms and/or patient images can characterize the distinguishing performance of commercially available advanced vendor-specific image and signal processing algorithms, and automatic exposure rate control logic. According to Mr. Forsberg, this grant will help lay the groundwork for the development of continuous fluoroscopic quality assurance during clinical practice in real-time. New technologies highlighted in this year's booth will include: DR Tablet Solution Helping healthcare facilities make the move to DR in a cost-effective and efficient way, this solution consists of a tablet 2 and a choice of a Canon wireless CXDI Digital Radiography System, which includes CXDI Control Software NE. The CXDI Control Software NE features an auto-detection mode that allows the CXDI detectors to automatically detect X-rays for exposure without the need of a typical X-ray generator interface and cables. Helping healthcare facilities make the move to DR in a cost-effective and efficient way, this solution consists of a tablet and a choice of a Canon wireless CXDI Digital Radiography System, which includes CXDI Control Software NE. The CXDI Control Software NE features an auto-detection mode that allows the CXDI detectors to automatically detect X-rays for exposure without the need of a typical X-ray generator interface and cables. Scatter Correction Feature of CXDI Control Software NE (Grid-free Imaging) New at this year's RSNA exposition is the optional Scatter Correction (grid-free imaging) feature of CXDI Control Software NE. The Scatter Correction feature eliminates the need to use an anti-scatter grid during certain types of X-ray examinations, which streamlines workflow for technologists and makes positioning more comfortable for patients, as compared to using the detector with a grid. Eliminating the need to align the grid can help shorten exam times and increase productivity. Some of the other solutions featured in the booth will include: RadPRO SOLTUS 100 Mobile Digital X-ray System The RadPRO SOLTUS 100 Mobile Digital X-ray System which, when used with a compatible Canon CXDI digital detector, provides short exposure times and fast imaging acquisition. Easily folded for transportation and storage needs, it can serve as an ideal solution for ambulatory services and surgery suites, as well as humanitarian organizations. Sold with the customer's choice of a Canon CXDI-501G or CXDI-701C Wireless digital detector, the RadPRO SOLTUS 100 Mobile Digital X-ray System includes a user-friendly touch screen, 20-foot line-in cable for easy connectivity and 10-foot hand exposure switch. The RadPRO SOLTUS 100 Mobile Digital X-ray System which, when used with a compatible Canon CXDI digital detector, provides short exposure times and fast imaging acquisition. Easily folded for transportation and storage needs, it can serve as an ideal solution for ambulatory services and surgery suites, as well as humanitarian organizations. Sold with the customer's choice of a Canon CXDI-501G or CXDI-701C Wireless digital detector, the RadPRO SOLTUS 100 Mobile Digital X-ray System includes a user-friendly touch screen, 20-foot line-in cable for easy connectivity and 10-foot hand exposure switch. RadPRO OMNERA 400T Manual-Positioning Digital Radiographic System A true "workhorse" in the radiography room, this high-quality, manual positioning system is constructed from rugged aircraft aluminum and has the ability to support up to a 650-pound patient load. Helping provide the high throughput needed in high-volume hospital imaging departments, this elevating six-way table's lightweight design and auto-tracking features can help reduce the physical demands placed on radiography technologists, whether in the trauma room or in a radiography room. A true "workhorse" in the radiography room, this high-quality, manual positioning system is constructed from rugged aircraft aluminum and has the ability to support up to a 650-pound patient load. Helping provide the high throughput needed in high-volume hospital imaging departments, this elevating six-way table's lightweight design and auto-tracking features can help reduce the physical demands placed on radiography technologists, whether in the trauma room or in a radiography room. RadPRO Mobile 40kW FLEX PLUS Digital X-Ray System Featuring the telescopic column and fast processing times which make it easy to capture high-quality diagnostic images, this digital X-ray system, released earlier this year, includes the Enhanced Workflow Package which is intended to help healthcare professionals save time by accessing existing HIS/RIS/PACS systems and removing unnecessary steps within the exam workflow. This new feature also allows users to complete routine imaging tasks from the mobile X-ray system, eliminating the need to access healthcare information systems from a separate, dedicated workstation. Featuring the telescopic column and fast processing times which make it easy to capture high-quality diagnostic images, this digital X-ray system, released earlier this year, includes the Enhanced Workflow Package which is intended to help healthcare professionals save time by accessing existing HIS/RIS/PACS systems and removing unnecessary steps within the exam workflow. This new feature also allows users to complete routine imaging tasks from the mobile X-ray system, eliminating the need to access healthcare information systems from a separate, dedicated workstation. RadPRO DELINIA 200 Digital X-Ray Acquisition Cart Equipped with a computer, access point, touch-screen monitor, detector holder and a choice of the Canon CXDI-701C, 801C or 401C Wireless Digital Radiography Detector (each of which includes CXDI Control Software NE), the RadPRO DELINIA 200 Digital X-ray Acquisition Cart allows for easy sharing of detectors among multiple areas of a healthcare facility, such as the radiography room, trauma room, OR and ER. The CXDI Control Software NE features an auto-detection mode that allows the CXDI detector to automatically detect X-rays for exposure without the use of a typical X-ray generator interface and cables. The detectors are designed to work with currently installed fixed room or mobile system X-ray generators, which can help improve cost-efficiency. In addition to the products listed above, visitors to the booth will also have the opportunity to view the RadPRO FM Floor Mounted Radiography System and RadPRO URS Universal Radiography System. Virtual Imaging will also showcase its service programs such as Protection Plus, which is sold separately. This program provides unlimited repairs and replacements3 as well as loaner systems during repair times for eligible Canon detectors purchased from Virtual Imaging and its authorized dealers. Designed for busy imaging departments, the Protection Plus Program is convenient, cost-effective and reduces downtime on-site. About Virtual Imaging, Inc. Virtual Imaging, Inc., a Canon Company, combines unmatched experience, extensive resources and broad business functions. Virtual Imaging collaborates with large complex hospitals, imaging centers, private physician offices and government organizations to support them in becoming efficient, high-performance healthcare providers and professionals with the latest in digital radiography technology. Virtual Imaging assists in the forward advancement of our clients, from strategic planning to day-to-day operations, with our commitment to providing products and services for diagnostic equipment, imaging solutions, and digital flat panel technology. In addition to healthcare organizations, Virtual Imaging also provides solutions to the U.S. veterinary sector and to the security industry a field deployable radiography system for military use and a full-body security screening system to help address the security needs of jails, prisons and other high security environments. About Canon U.S.A., Inc. Canon U.S.A., Inc., is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions to the United States and to Latin America and the Caribbean (excluding Mexico) markets. With approximately $31 billion in global revenue, its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), ranks third overall in U.S. patents granted in 2015 and is one of Fortune Magazine's World's Most Admired Companies in 2016. Canon U.S.A. is committed to the highest level of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all of the products it distributes. Canon U.S.A. is dedicated to its Kyosei philosophy of social and environmental responsibility. In 2014, the Canon Americas Headquarters secured LEED Gold certification, a recognition for the design, construction, operations and maintenance of high-performance green buildings. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company's RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss and follow us on Twitter @CanonUSA. For media inquiries, please contact [email protected]. Based on weekly patent counts issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office. Availability and specifications subject to change without notice. 1 The DR Tablet Solution and all RadPRO products are sold by Virtual Imaging, Inc., a Canon company, and its authorized dealers. 2 Manufactured by a third party. 3 Replacements are at the sole discretion of Virtual Imaging and may be new or used. Additional conditions and restrictions apply; see Terms and Conditions, available by calling 866-288-9729, for full details. Canon and CXDI are registered trademarks of Canon Inc. in the United States, and may be registered trademarks, or trademarks, in other countries. RadPRO, SOLTUS, OMNERA and ,DELINIA are registered trademarks of Virtual Imaging, Inc., a Canon company, in the United States and may also be registered trademarks or trademarks in other countries. All other referenced product names, and other marks, are trademarks of their respective owners. Document No. MK-0307, Rev. 1 Canon U.S.A. website: http://www.usa.canon.com For sales information/customer support: 1-800-970-7227 [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442067 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160119/323578LOGO SOURCE Canon U.S.A., Inc. Related Links http://www.usa.canon.com PORTLAND, Ore., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The CFA Society Portland is pleased to announce that it will shortly rename its annual scholarship program the Carl Burgdorfer Scholarship Program in honor of its past President and long-time dedicated member of the Society's Board of Directors, Carl Burgdorfer, CFA. This year the scholarship program will award a total of $12,000 to six students, one from each of six area colleges that the Society works with so that students can further their career entree into the world of finance. These $2,000 individual scholarships will be formally awarded in early 2017. Scholarships are funded by the Society's investment account. "I am incredibly flattered to have this worthy annual scholarship program named in my honor," said Carl Burgdorfer who maintains close relationships with area colleges and universities on behalf of the CFA Society Portland. "To me, these scholarships represent a way to give back and to help graduates who seek to work in the finance and investment industry realize the array of career opportunities that exist through their pursuit of the Chartered Financial Analyst certification program." Burgdorfer, who currently works as Senior Vice President in the US Bank Private Client Group, as well as an adjunct professor at Oregon State University and the University of Oregon, serves as the Society's University Liaison and has been an active member of the CFA Society Portland's Board of Directors for over a decade. For the past six years he has also spearheaded the Society's involvement with the annual CFA Institute's Research Challenge in which teams of college students in the Oregon and Southwest Washington State region are given a company to fully research and then must present their research to a panel of judges. "Carl has been a vital member of our Society and has been incredibly instrumental as our University Liaison in encouraging graduating college students to prepare for a successful career," said Allen Bond, CFA, current President of the CFA Society Portland in announcing the newly dubbed Carl Burgdorfer Scholarship Program. "We are so fortunate to have Carl paving the way for our next generation of investment industry participants to start and grow their chosen careers." For more information about the Carl Burgdorfer Scholarship Program or the CFA Society Portland, please contact: [email protected], or visit: https://www.cfasociety.org/portland/pages/default.aspx SOURCE CFA Society Portland Related Links https://www.cfasociety.org/portland/pages/default.aspx The CH2M Foundation partners with organizations in CH2M's operating countries to develop sustainable communities; to promote science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education; and to foster employee engagement. As Foundation Board President O'Keefe will preside over a five-member board of directors comprised of CH2M employees from offices around the world. O'Keefe will work with executive director, Ellen Sandberg, to carry out the mission of the CH2M Foundation and the proper stewardship of the foundation's funds. "Patrick has served as a board member of the CH2M Foundation since 2012, and has skillfully and strategically contributed to our successful philanthropic endeavors. As executive director, I'm grateful and honored to count on Patrick's leadership in the coming years to continue our positive impact," says CH2M Foundation Executive Director Ellen Sandberg. O'Keefe has spent the majority of his 25-year career with CH2M, holding key roles on some of CH2M's most iconic programs locally and abroad including serving as Manager of Closure Support for the Rocky Flats Closure Program. The $7 billion, 10-year project represented one of the largest and most complex environmental restoration efforts at the time, converting a former nuclear weapons facility to a National Wildlife refuge. O'Keefe is a graduate of Colorado State University and has made his home in the Denver area where he is solidly engaged in the community through leadership and volunteer activities. "Our people make a difference in communities around the world through their daily work. The CH2M Foundation reinforces their commitment by focusing on areas of critical importance to our employees and the communities we serve. I am honored to facilitate this important work through my role as CH2M Foundation Board President," says O'Keefe. CH2M launched its corporate foundation in 1992 to honor the firm's foundersHolly Cornell, Burke Hayes, Jim Howland and Fred Merryfield, and support their legacy of strengthening communities through engineering. Today, the CH2M Foundation is a robust philanthropic organization, which was relaunched in 2013 with a refreshed mission and strategic programs. The CH2M Foundation supports organizations around the globe awarding $1 million annually. Since 2013, the foundation has donated more than $3 million to STEM education initiatives, and through employee volunteers has built five pedestrian bridges in Nicaragua, Panama and Rwanda. While the CH2M Foundation supports an extensive global program, it also has a deep local connection in Denver, currently working with five Denver-based strategic partners: Denver School of Science and Technology Public Schools; Girls Inc. of Metro Denver; Engineers Without Borders; Water For People; and Bridges to Prosperity all of which support our mission to promote STEM and sustainable communities. About CH2M CH2M leads the professional services industry delivering sustainable solutions benefiting societal, environmental and economic outcomes with the development of infrastructure and industry. In this way, CH2Mers make a positive difference providing consulting, design, engineering and management services for clients in water; environment and nuclear; transportation; energy and industrial markets, from iconic infrastructure to global programs like the Olympic Games. Ranked among the World's Most Ethical Companies and top firms in environmental consulting and program management, CH2M in 2016 became the first professional services firm honored with the World Environment Center Gold Medal Award for efforts advancing sustainable development. Connect with CH2M at www.ch2m.com; LinkedIn; Twitter; and Facebook. Contacts: Lorrie Crum CH2M, Corporate Marketing and Communications +1 720 286 0255 [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442159 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160315/344421LOGO SOURCE CH2M Related Links http://www.ch2m.com PLYMOUTH, Michigan, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Changan Automobile announces its collaboration with Plug and Play Tech Center. This new partnership will be launched with a signing ceremony at Plug and Play. Media representatives are invited. Changan, China's highest-selling domestic automotive brand, is seeking to connect with inventive startups to explore potential business development, investment, licensing, and acquisition opportunities. Plug and Play, a self-described "global innovation platform," facilitates those connections through its industry-specific business accelerator programs. The Plug and Play campus in Sunnyvale, California is a beehive of activity. Many enthusiastic startup companies have established offices and workspaces to be near potential customers and investors partnered with Plug and Play. Changan is an Anchor Partner, which is the highest level of corporate participation. This affords the company maximum access to startups innovating in the mobility space. Changan managers from various functional areas will rotate in and out of their Plug and Play office to evaluate startups and their offerings for potential business opportunities. "We get to work within this ecosystem where a lot of these companies are doing cutting-edge things," said Dave Weber, Manager - Intelligent Vehicles. "Changan is quick to adopt new technology. (We're pleased to be) at the forefront where we have first crack at new technology (that) gives Changan the opportunity to excel." The following Changan Automobile executives will attend the signing ceremony: Wei Li Vice President, Global Changan Jugang He Vice President, Global R&D Center Zhiwei Zhong President, Changan US R&D Center Ying Wang Director, Changan Product Planning About Changan Automobile Today's Changan Automobile has roots in a manufacturing enterprise which was established in 1862 in Shanghai. The company entered the automotive market in 1984 and now has 12 production locations, 32 automotive related plants, and 90,000 employees around the world. Changan is the highest-selling domestic Chinese automotive brand. In 2015, Changan became the first Chinese brand to sell a million vehicles in a single year. For more information, visit: http://www.globalchangan.com About Plug and Play Tech Center Plug and Play Tech Center is a global innovation platform. We connect startups to corporations and invest in over 100 companies every year. Since inception in 2006, our programs have expanded worldwide to include entrepreneurs from 24 countries, providing necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley. With over 6,000 startups and 126 official corporate partners, we have created the ultimate startup ecosystem in many industries. Plug and Play provides active investments with 180 leading Silicon Valley VCs, and more than 365 networking events per year. Companies in our community have raised over $3.5 billion in funding, with successful portfolio exits including Danger, Dropbox, Lending Club, PayPal, SoundHound, and Zoosk. For more information, visit: http://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com or email Sobhan Khani ([email protected]) to learn more about the programs at Plug and Play. Contact: Lori Rhodes Phone: (734) 259-6831 Email: [email protected] Web: www.changanus.com SOURCE Plug and Play Tech Center Related Links http://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com WILMINGTON, Del., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ChiroFusion, Inc., the nation's premier provider of affordable, cloud-based EHR software for chiropractic professionals, announced it has been named Delaware Tech Business of the Year by Technical.ly Delaware at the organization's annual awards celebration on November 18, 2016. Every year, the Delaware Innovation Awards honors the most promising individuals, companies and initiatives in the Delaware tech scene during the Delaware Innovation Week. The Delaware Innovation Week 2016 is Technical.ly's second annual week-long celebration of technology and innovation happening on November 11-19, 2016. "We are thrilled and humbled to have received this award and work every day to live up to the high standard of excellence that it symbolizes," said ChiroFusion President and CEO Damon Cozamanis, DC. "The team at ChiroFusion consists of brilliant and dedicated individuals whose hard work ensures that we continue to maintain our technology leadership." About ChiroFusion ChiroFusion is the premier provider of affordable, cloud-based practice management software for chiropractic professionals. The company prides itself on delivering superior quality chiropractic software and exceptional customer service, while remaining true and real to its valued clients. In 2016, ChiroFusion was named to the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies in America with 1545% growth over a three-year period. For more information about ChiroFusion, visit www.chirofusionsoftware.com or call 1-877-210-3230. Related Links Company Info Contact Information This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com. SOURCE ChiroFusion Related Links http://www.chirofusionsoftware.com ATLANTA, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CINC (Commissions Inc.) today announced it ranked 58 on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America. CINC grew 1,761 percent during this period. CINC's chief executive officer, Duane LeGate, credits the company's 1,761% revenue growth and unmatched technology to constant feedback from the best in class real estate teams. He said, "CINC created a unified vision from day one, which has been the company's motivation to provide the best in class software now powering almost one in every 20 real estate transactions in the US." "Today, when every organization can be a tech company, the most effective businesses not only foster the courage to explore change, but also encourage creativity in using and applying existing assets in new ways, as resourcefully as possible," said Sandra Shirai, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications industry leader. About CINC Founded in Marietta, Georgia in 2011, CINC (Commissions Inc.) is the leading provider of web-based real estate marketing and CRM software for elite agents and teams across North America. The solution includes a consumer website that integrates with local MLS data, a complete CRM platform that allows real estate agents to nurture clients and monitor their business, and access to two mobile apps (CINC Agent App and Houses.net). Built with the support and input of some of North America's top brokers, CINC powers the business for thousands of agents and connects them with millions of consumers every month. CINC has been highlighted as Atlanta's Top Workplace by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, one of the Top 40 Innovative Technology Companies in Georgia by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), the 5th fastest growing company by the Atlanta Chapter of The Association for Corporate Growth (ACG),and a Pacesetter Honoree by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. About Deloitte's 2016 Technology Fast 500 Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies both public and private in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2012 to 2015. Contact: Jamie Quenzer [email protected] 855-259-7277 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160627/383673LOGO SOURCE CINC (Commissions Inc.) DENVER, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CoBank, a cooperative bank serving agribusinesses, rural infrastructure providers and Farm Credit associations throughout the United States, today announced it is launching a new program for veterans with disabilities from America's rural communities. In partnership with its customers and the nonprofit group No Barriers USA, CoBank will sponsor up to 50 veterans from rural areas across the U.S. to participate in outdoor expeditions that challenge them mentally and physically and help them to transform their lives. Cooperatives and other eligible CoBank borrowers will be able to nominate veterans from their local communities to participate in the No Barriers Warriors program, with CoBank covering the full cost for each veteran, including travel expenses. Selected veterans will go through the program in 2017. "Every American owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the men and women who serve in the armed forces and protect our country," said Bob Engel, CoBank's chief executive officer. "Those who are wounded or injured in the course of duty are even more deserving of our thanks. At CoBank, we want to do our part to honor veterans and repay them for their service to the nation." Engel noted that over 5 million of the nation's 22 million veterans are located in rural areas and called on the bank's customer base to help identify deserving participants for the No Barriers program. "Rural America produces a disproportionate share of the nation's military personnel," Engel said. "We need our customers to help make this program successful by nominating individuals from their communities who would benefit from the No Barriers experience. We look forward to partnering with our customers in this effort, which we believe has the potential to change the lives of rural veterans who have been disabled as a result of their military service." No Barriers was co-founded by Erik Weihenmayer, an internationally renowned mountain climber and the only blind person in history to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. Weihenmayer has been a regular speaker at CoBank meetings over the past several years and has shared his inspirational message about overcoming barriers and challenges to live a life rich in meaning and purpose with the bank's customers and employees. "Through the Warriors program, No Barriers has been working with veterans with disabilities for years," said Weihenmayer. "We've seen the transformation that takes place when veterans are able to overcome the mental and physical challenges involved in one of our expeditions, and then apply the skills they've learned to the challenges faced in their day-to-day lives. We're grateful to CoBank for their partnership and the opportunity to serve even more of our nation's veterans with disabilities." Nominations of rural veterans with disabilities to participate in the 2017 program are due from CoBank customers by May 1, 2017. Detailed information about the nomination process and requirements is available here. About CoBank CoBank is a $120 billion cooperative bank serving vital industries across rural America. The bank provides loans, leases, export financing and other financial services to agribusinesses and rural power, water and communications providers in all 50 states. The bank also provides wholesale loans and other financial services to affiliated Farm Credit associations serving more than 75,000 farmers, ranchers and other rural borrowers in 23 states around the country. CoBank is a member of the Farm Credit System, a nationwide network of banks and retail lending associations chartered to support the borrowing needs of U.S. agriculture, rural infrastructure, and rural communities. Headquartered outside Denver, Colorado, CoBank serves customers from regional banking centers across the U.S. and also maintains an international representative office in Singapore. For more information about CoBank, visit the bank's web site at www.cobank.com. SOURCE CoBank Related Links http://www.cobank.com NEW YORK, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Concordia Co-Founders, Nicholas Logothetis and Matthew Swift, have announced Concordia Europe, a Summit that will highlight the potential for effective collaboration between businesses, governments, and non-profits in addressing the region's greatest challenges. The Summit will take place in Athens, Greece and will address topics including the refugee crisis, the Sustainable Development Goals, regional security, Brexit, and the future of the European Union. Concordia Europe will host leaders from politics, business, and non-profit organisations from across the continent and around the world. Commenting on the launch of Concordia Europe, Matthew Swift, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO stated: "Concordia was built on the belief that collaboration across sectors can provide immense impact to the most pressing social and economic issues of our time. As we enter our sixth year of operation, next year's agenda will represent a great period of growth for Concordia. It is our hope that our powerful platform will continue to expand beyond the U.S., by continuing to convene great minds, advance shared value principles, and positively impact lives in communities throughout Latin America and Europe in 2017." At its New York Summit this past September, Concordia hosted the Private Sector Forum on Migration and Refugees, which mobilized a community of cross-sector leaders to act collectively in response to the current crisis. The Private Sector Forum was held in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Columbia University's Global Policy Initiative, and the International Organization for Migration, featuring David Miliband of the International Rescue Committee, Mayor Giorgos Kaminis of Athens, and an announcement by George Soros of Open Society Foundations committing $500 million towards the refugee crisis. Concordia Europe will harness the momentum of those strategic dialogues and build upon discussions towards solutions in human mobility, connectivity, workforce development, transit, and resettlement, among others. The inaugural European Summit will also expand upon recent Concordia programming narratives conducted in response to the Brexit and cross-sector priorities when looking at the future of the European Union. Sessions conducted at the New York Summit were held in partnership with the Atlantic Council and featured the participation of President Nicos Anastasiades of Cyprus, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of Malta, as well as First Vice-President Frans Timmermans and Vice President Kristalina Georgieva of the European Commission, among others. Discussions encouraged regional leadership to engage citizen concerns, to prioritize structural reforms, and to evolve and adapt to the deepened interdependence resulting from globalization and the changing needs of their populations. With the recent results of the American elections, added pressures to international monetary policy and regional security will also be discussed at the upcoming European Summit. Follow Concordia on Twitter @ConcordiaSummit and Facebook at facebook.com/TheConcordiaSummit for upcoming Summit news and highlights and further details of Concordia Europe in Athens. About Concordia Concordia is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that enables public-private partnerships to create a more prosperous and sustainable future. As equal parts convener, campaigner, and idea incubator, Concordia is creating a new model for how a nonpartisan, non-profit can have a global impact. www.concordia.net Contact: Regina Hubard 646-568-1388 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442084LOGO SOURCE Concordia Related Links http://www.concordia.net HOUSTON, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- For the seventh consecutive year, Cornerstone Home Lending, Inc. has been named a Houston Chronicle Top Workplace. Cornerstone has achieved this distinction since 2010. Cornerstone is also the highest ranked company among mid-sized mortgage lenders in Houston. Willie French, Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Cornerstone Home Lending, Inc., credits the company's open communication between managers and staff for creating a healthy and proactive work environment. "Our employees' honest feedback is key. We encourage their input and ideas to help us be a better company for our customers, our co-workers, and our communities." Cornerstone offers many initiatives and activities that support and recognize its employees. The CARE Program provides financial aid to employees or immediate families experiencing crisis or hardship. Cornerstone also holds monthly fun day gift card drawings, fundraising events to benefit the CARE fund and community non-profit organizations, and an annual appreciation event with catered lunches and health and wellness amenities. "It's an honor to be recognized as a Top Workplace by our employees for the past seven years," says Marc Laird, Chairman and CEO of Cornerstone Home Lending, Inc. "I am truly inspired by their commitment to our mission, vision, and convictions and am grateful they chose Cornerstone as their work family." The Top Workplaces list recognizes Houston's leading 150 employers, from small companies with 50 employees to large companies with more than 500 people. Evaluations are based on survey responses from 76,694 area employees. WorkplaceDynamics, a research firm on organizational health and employee engagement, conducts the surveys. The winning companies are chosen based on qualities such as alignment, effectiveness, connection, and management. The survey also asks respondents about other factors such as employee engagement, confidence in company leadership, and compensation and benefits. To learn more about Houston's Top Workplaces, please visit http://www.chron.com/business/top-workplaces/. ABOUT CORNERSTONE HOME LENDING, INC. (NMLS 2258) Established in 1988 in Houston, Texas, Cornerstone exists to make a positive difference in people's lives. The company operates with integrity, listens to determine the appropriate loan product that meets its clients' home financing needs, and is dedicated to meeting the agreed-upon closing date. For more information, please visit www.HouseLoan.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150922/269604LOGO SOURCE Cornerstone Home Lending, Inc. Related Links http://www.houseloan.com ATLANTA, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) earned the top overall score for the 6th consecutive year on the Business Travel News (BTN) Airline survey, sweeping all ten categories and bettering 2015 scores in each. This win celebrates the outstanding performance and industry-leading customer service Delta people provide every day. "Each year, we set 'Win BTN' as a company-wide goal and all 80,000 Delta people set out to deliver by providing an industry-leading customer experience around the globe," said Steve Sear, President International & Executive Vice President Global Sales. "This win marks six years in a row of Delta outperforming our competitors in the eyes of the business travel community and the fourth year that we've ranked highest in every category. This achievement, and being named No. 1 again this year by BTN readers, further validates our ongoing commitment to creating a seamless travel experience for our customers." BTN voters, who manage tens of billions of dollars in annual, corporate travel spend, select the top U.S. carrier in the survey based on their perceptions of airline performance in negotiating and maintaining preferred programs, delivering service and providing value. This survey provides important validation of an airline's efforts to provide the best experience for corporate customers. No other airline has been selected six consecutive times in the survey's 19-year history. "Our innovative approach to this business is what differentiates Delta from our competitors," explained Bob Somers, Senior Vice President Global Sales. "And that innovation is in response to what our customers want to see. We seek feedback from Corporate Travel Managers (CTMs) and business travelers through focus groups, advisory board meetings and call centers, just to name a few. Then we listen, act and listen again, building our business around their needs." Delta has delivered for the customer by achieving record-setting operational performance and cancelling the fewest flights. Investing in corporate customers this year, Delta's Global Sales team expanded their industry-first Operational Performance Commitment, introducing an Operational Excellence Calculator that quantifies the savings of choosing Delta. The team also launched Delta Edge Meetings to link business and meeting travel and made contracts easier with the roll-out of Legal-Easy. Delta's culture of continuous innovation is core to the airline's ability to create a seamless travel experience for the business and leisure customer alike. Improvements across the business help take the stress out of travel, like implementing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) baggage tracking technology, developing a groundbreaking turbulence app for smoother flights and powering dynamic updates on the Fly Delta mobile app. "Being selected as the top overall airline for the 6th year is an honor," said Kristen Shovlin Vice President Sales Operations and Development. "But we also see this win as a responsibility to keep delivering for our customers and continuing to exceed expectations. Thank you to our corporate travel manager and travel agency partners for your continued trust, confidence and loyalty in allowing us to serve you and your travelers." 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 six consecutive years. With an industry-leading global network, Delta and the Delta Connection carriers offer service to 312 destinations in 54 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. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090202/DELTALOGO SOURCE Delta Air Lines Related Links http://www.delta.com ASE, a non-profit organization established to improve the quality of automotive repair and service through the testing and certification of technicians and parts specialists, partnered with Gates to recognize a top automotive instructor who displays commitment to his or her students and to the automotive service industry. To qualify for the Gates Tools for Schools/ASE Instructor of the Year award, candidates must have registered as an instructor through ASE, be Master Auto Certified + L1, and have taken at least one ASE test in the last 12 months. They also had to be: a registered Gates Tools for Schools member, a Gates Performance Center administrator with students enrolled in their class, and currently contracted to teach automotive technology. Rowland bested thousands of ASE technicians who competed for top honors within this category. He and other educators and technicians were honored by the ASE at the annual Fall Board Meeting held November 16th in Concord, North Carolina. Rowland has been a technician for 36 years. Originally from northern Illinois, Rowland served in the U.S. Navy from 1973 to 1980 as a missile technician. He's always enjoyed working on cars, getting his start by working on his and his friends' vehicles. Eventually this hobby turned into a career. Rowland enjoys the feeling of a job done right and having a satisfied customer express their appreciation. When he's not teaching, Rowland's hobbies include taking his classic cars and trucks to car shows and building model railroads. For more information concerning the ASE Tech of the Year or the Tools for Schools program, please contact Bobby Bassett at 601-954-4152. About Gates Corporation Gates Corporation is the world's leading manufacturer of power transmission belts and a premier global manufacturer of fluid power products. Our highly engineered products are critical components used in diverse industrial and automotive applications where the cost of failure is very high relative to the cost of our products. We provide a differentiated value proposition to our customers by offering a complete portfolio of premium product and service solutions for both replacement and first-fit applications across our targeted end markets, which encompass process and specialty, construction, agriculture, energy, transportation, and automotive. We sell our products globally under the Gates brand, which is recognized by distributors, original equipment manufacturers, and installers as the premium brand for quality and technological innovation, a reputation which we have built for over a century since our founding in 1911. As an engineering leader with a strong foundation in research and development, Gates is committed to advancing the science of motion performance by developing safe, forward-thinking products, services, systems, and solutions, as well as fostering long-term customer and employee relationships. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Gates employs over 14,000 people across 106 locations in 30 countries. If it moves you, there's a good chance Gates has a part in it. Gates. Powering Progress. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441869 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150521/217971LOGO SOURCE Gates Corporation Related Links http://www.gates.com The Spicer Rui Ma TZL16 hydrodynamic transmission is now in production for several Chinese original-equipment manufacturers. Engineered for 17-tonne ZL50 wheel loaders, this powershift transmission supports applications requiring 150 to 180 kW (200 to 245 hp) of engine output power. Delivering improved durability, the Spicer Rui Ma TZL16 transmission has been designed with proven internal components from Dana's extensive line of transmissions already available for the off-highway market. A four-speed transmission platform offers enhanced productivity, and pre-production testing has demonstrated an improvement in fuel economy up to 25 percent. For the Chinese agriculture industry, Dana is currently conducting pre-production tests with manufacturers on the Spicer Rui Ma AG105 steer axle for mid-sized tractors with engines from 60 to 101 kW (80 to 135 hp). An optional paddy field valve seal is available to support farming applications involving rice cultivation. "Spicer Rui Ma was first introduced at Bauma China 2012, and since then we have consistently delivered a quality complement to Dana's flagship Spicer brand of technologically advanced drivetrain solutions," said Aziz Aghili, president of Dana Off-Highway Drivetrain Technologies. "Offering significant technological advantages over traditional competitive products, Spicer Rui Ma axles and transmissions are designed specifically to meet the needs of the Chinese market. These components draw from a complete portfolio of innovations that reduce vehicle downtime, extend the working life of vehicles, improve operator comfort, and increase overall productivity." Earlier this year, the Spicer Rui Ma brand won the 2016 Shanghai CSR Excellence Award recognizing outstanding corporate social responsibility (CSR) and successes in green innovation. This is a further recognition of the Spicer Rui Ma brand's achievements in CSR, and for the company's creation and implementation of environmentally friendly business practices. Visitors to Bauma can view Dana's full line-up of drivetrain innovations for off-highway vehicles in hall N5, stand 210. To learn more, visit www.dana.com/offhighway. About Dana Incorporated Dana is a world leader in the supply of highly engineered drivetrain, sealing, and thermal-management technologies that improve the efficiency and performance of vehicles with both conventional and alternative-energy powertrains. Serving three primary markets passenger vehicle, commercial truck, and off-highway equipment Dana provides the world's original-equipment manufacturers and the aftermarket with local product and service support through a network of nearly 100 engineering, manufacturing, and distribution facilities. Founded in 1904 and based in Maumee, Ohio, the company employs more than 23,000 people in 25 countries on six continents. In 2015, Dana generated sales of nearly $6.1 billion. Forbes Magazine has again selected Dana as one of America's 100 Most Trustworthy Companies. For more information, please visit dana.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/19990903/DANA SOURCE Dana Related Links http://www.dana.com "As off-highway vehicles have evolved into increasingly complex and highly technological systems, expectations have also risen from both OEMs and operators demanding a smoother, quieter ride. The industry today requires a blend of fuel economy, performance, and driveability," said Roland Friedl, head of sales and product management for Dana Rexroth Transmission Systems. "The HVT R3 from Dana Rexroth is a premium solution that delivers this optimized mix of efficiency and driving performance. We can provide support for customers interested in this high-quality solution in China, and around the world." Driven by the "Made in China 2025" initiative, Chinese markets are experiencing a rapid shift toward sophisticated, high-tech equipment for construction applications. Aligning with the program's guiding principles to make manufacturing innovation-driven, Dana Rexroth shares similar ideals focusing on a relentless drive for continuous improvement and technologies that deliver excellence. A product of the joint venture between Dana Incorporated and Bosch Rexroth, HVTs from Dana Rexroth significantly reduce fuel consumption by decreasing engine speeds throughout the duty cycle and also at idle, when speeds can drop to as low as 600 rpm. Application analysis demonstrates the possibility of further savings without compromising performance through engine downsizing. Dana Rexroth HVTs enable sensitive, precise vehicle positioning with a stepless drive that offers improved acceleration while maintaining tractive effort. They optimize the operating point of the diesel engine by decoupling engine speed from drive speed, and maintenance costs are reduced by utilizing hydrostatic braking and wear-free directional reversing without clutches. The HVT system designed by Dana Rexroth helps reduce complexity for equipment manufacturers, since the entire system of gears, clutches, and hydrostatic units is managed by an advanced electronic control unit and optimized for efficiency by a single supplier. At Bauma China in hall N5, stand 210, Dana will exhibit the Dana Rexroth HVT R2 supporting power outputs from 135 to 210 kW (180 to 282 hp). The HVT R2 was the first hydromechanical variable transmission from Dana Rexroth, and it has been in production since early 2016. The HVT R2 is featured on Kalmar's new Gloria generation of reach stackers as part of the highly efficient Kalmar K-Motion drivetrain. About Dana Rexroth Transmission Systems Established in 2011, Dana Rexroth Transmission Systems is a 50-50 joint venture formed by Dana Incorporated (NYSE: DAN) and Bosch Rexroth AG to develop and manufacture advanced drive transmissions for the off-highway market. Dana Rexroth develops and manufactures hydromechanical variable transmission (HVT) systems that combine Dana's expertise in off-highway transmission engineering and manufacturing with Bosch Rexroth's deep experience in hydraulics and systems. Targeted for use in off-highway applications, the advanced HVT systems developed by Dana Rexroth are focused on meeting customer needs for improved fuel economy, productivity, emissions, and maneuverability. Dana Rexroth Transmission Systems is based in Arco, Italy. For more information, visit www.danarexroth.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/19990903/DANA SOURCE Dana Rexroth Transmission Systems Related Links http://www.danarexroth.com "Today's students are tomorrow's storytellers and with this tutorial we're working to introduce them to the technological skills they will need to bring their stories to life," said Jimmy Pitaro, chairman, Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media (DCPI). "By bringing together Code.org and Disney filmmakers, we've created a program that we hope will inspire kids all over the world to try coding for themselves." Over the past two years, Disney has hosted two Hour of Code tutorials, featuring characters from Disney's Frozen and from Star Wars. In total, almost 40 million students have participated in these tutorials to learn the basics of coding. "We've found that kids are much more likely to try computer science if it contains topics they are interested in, like their favorite Disney stories and characters," said Hadi Partovi, CEO of Code.org. "Our work with Disney over the past two years has helped Hour of Code reach record numbers, inspiring millions of children of all ages to try coding and pursue an education in computer science." Disney Hour of Code Events: Disney is working with leading organizations to host events around the world in an effort to reach millions of parents and students during CS Education Week (December 5-11) to introduce kids to coding. These events include: Apple Stores: All 487 Apple stores worldwide will host block-based coding for young coders workshops featuring the "Moana: Wayfinding with Code" tutorial during their Hour of Code session December 5 through 11. Code.org: Code.org will feature "Moana: Wayfinding with Code" tutorial on its site and will educate thousands of teachers and community leaders about how to use the Disney tutorial in their lessons. Register participation in a Disney Hour of Code here: HourofCode.com/Disney. Family Code Night: "Moana: Wayfinding with Code" will also be part of direct family engagement in home and school learning. Parents and educators eager to bring new coding education to their kids can sign up today to receive the free "Moana Family Code Night Event Kit," shipping in January. Family Code Night is a delightful high-impact elementary school event at which children and their parents do their first hour of coding, together, as part of a whole-school evening program that any school can put on. Celebrating family engagement in CS education, the Moana Family Code Night Event Kit will let any parent help their principal and school or youth group put on this family computer science learning event with a theme inspired by the film. Sign up for the free Kit today at http://www.familycodenight.org/Moana. Disney Network: Disney will promote the "Moana: Wayfinding with Code" tutorial across its global channels in an effort to reach millions of families. Tutorial and toolkit found here: Disney.com/HourofCode. Moana: Wayfinding with Code Tutorial: The story of the "Moana: Wayfinding with Code" tutorial centers around Moana and Maui as they sail through unknown territory across the ocean. As students follow Moana and Maui's travels, they learn basic coding commands that help steer the boat. Along the way, students are introduced to conditionals, sequences and loops while they master the art of navigation. When Moana and Maui are suddenly attacked by the Kakamora coconut-clad warriors, they must use their coding skills to dodge their pirate projectiles and penetrate their defenses. "The artistry and innovative technology used to create "Disney's Moana" is rooted in the types of skills that kids will develop by learning the basics of computer science," said Osnat Shurer, producer of Disney's Moana. "We hope that Moana's fierce determination and sense of adventure encourages children to try this tutorial and learn the skills they need to become future filmmakers and storytellers." Disney's Hour of Code uses a visual programming language with "Blocks" that kids simply drag and drop to write code. This visual programming language is a fun and easily understandable way to teach basic coding skills. This type of visual programming lays the foundation for text-based programming. For educators, parents and leaders looking to host their own hour of code event in their communities, they may access the tutorial and download the Disney Hour of Code Digital Toolkit at Disney.com/hourofcode in both English and Spanish. Events may be registered at HourofCode.com/Disney. Contact: Kirsten Erickson Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media 818-931-3886 [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441957 SOURCE The Walt Disney Company Related Links http://www.disney.com RICHMOND, Va., Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Dominion Resources will once again mark the holiday season by providing more than $1 million in grants to help feed, shelter and care for people across communities where the company operates. Donations will be shared by 140 non-profit organizations that provide critical community services in 13 states. This is the second year that Dominion has given more than $1 million in Critical Community Needs grants through its charitable arm, the Dominion Foundation. "While the Dominion Foundation works year-round to support worthy charitable causes, these grants are earmarked for programs that deliver basic necessities such as shelter, nutritious meals and medical care, to people in need," said Thomas F. Farrell II, chairman, president and CEO of Dominion Resources. "It is especially fitting during the holidays to support organizations that are improving lives and building greater stability in the places we call home." In total, $587,000 in grants will go toward feeding those in need, $273,000 for providing shelter and $267,500 for medical care. Examples of this year's grant recipients include: The Arlington, Va. , Free Clinic for its Community Bridge program, connecting patients to vital advanced medical diagnostic and treatment at no-/low-cost. , Free Clinic for its Community Bridge program, connecting patients to vital advanced medical diagnostic and treatment at no-/low-cost. The For Kids emergency shelter for homeless families in Norfolk . . FeedMore, Inc., in Richmond , for distribution of healthy food in 34 Central Virginia localities. , for distribution of healthy food in 34 localities. The Greater Cleveland ( Ohio ) Food Bank for its holiday food campaign. ( ) Food Bank for its holiday food campaign. Calvert Hospice in Prince Frederick County, Md. , for its Burnett Calvert Hospice House. Eligible organizations in Connecticut, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming were encouraged to apply for grants of up to $50,000 each. More than 300 applications were considered, with selections made based on an organization's demonstrated ability to serve communities, meet basic human needs, and prevent future need. 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/North Carolina Power, Dominion East Ohio, Dominion Hope, Dominion Transmission, Dominion Carolina Gas Transmission, Millstone Power Station in Connecticut and Dominion Questar in Utah and Wyoming. 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 about Dominion and the Dominion Foundation, visit www.dom.com. SOURCE Dominion Resources Related Links http://www.dom.com "DTE Energy is an innovator in assuring that women-owned, minority-owned and small businesses alike have tangible opportunities to bid on company contracts," said Hale. "As a woman and minority-owned business, contracts from companies such as DTE are integral to assuring my success. I look forward to more events like this in the future." More than 100 Detroit and minority-based businesses attended the Supplier Immersion Day Summit. The event, which resulted in $2.5 million in minority contracts with DTE, advised business owners on how to do business with DTE, provided mentoring, and equipped business owners with tools to help them save on their energy bills. Working in collaboration with DTE were Rev. Wendell Anthony, pastor of the Fellowship Chapel and president, Detroit Branch NAACP; Bill Ross, president, Booker T. Washington Business Association; Bertram Marks, attorney and pastor, First Community Baptist Church; and Ken Harris, president and CEO, Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce. "We're pleased with the success of the faith-based immersion day held at our Fellowship Chapel," Rev. Anthony said. "This program is a tremendous success on a number of fronts. I believe that progress begins with a sincere desire to make progress, not just by words, but through deeds." DTE is pleased as well, according to Tony Tomczak, executive director, DTE Corporate Services and Corporate Procurement Officer. "We have more than tripled our Detroit business-spend over the past five years," Tomczak said. "So far this year, our company has spent $270 million through October with Detroit businesses much of it as a result of our outreach through numerous supplier events held throughout the year." DTE continues to invest heavily in Michigan-based suppliers including Detroit-based and minority-owned businesses, Tomczak said. About DTE Energy DTE Energy (NYSE:DTE) is a Detroit-based diversified energy company involved in the development and management of energy-related businesses and services nationwide. Its operating units include an electric utility serving 2.2 million customers in Southeastern Michigan and a natural gas utility serving 1.2 million customers in Michigan. The DTE Energy portfolio includes non-utility energy businesses focused on power and industrial projects, natural gas pipelines, gathering and storage, and energy marketing and trading. As one of Michigan's leading corporate citizens, DTE Energy is a force for growth and prosperity in the 450 Michigan communities it serves in a variety of ways, including philanthropy, volunteerism and economic progress. Information about DTE Energy is available at dteenergy.com, twitter.com/dte_energy and facebook.com/dteenergy. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140924/148236 SOURCE DTE Energy Related Links http://www.dteenergy.com The construction industry is recognised as a prime economic mover in Malaysia and projected to remain robust in 2017, as Budget 2017 was announced in October 2016 by the Prime Minister. Significant investments were made in public infrastructure projects, which include the East Coast Rail Line, construction of rural bridges and roads, new schools, schools for the poor and the improvement of the water supply network. Therefore, the opportunities created in the booming construction industries have attracted the gaze of companies in the region. Exhibitors Techtronic Power Tools (M) Sdn Bhd , UAC Berhad, Xinyi Energy Smart (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Jana Tanmia Resources, Bubble Deck Construction Sdn Bhd, Protasco Berhad, Ply Tec Fencing System Industries Sdn Bhd, Perceptive Profile Sdn Bhd and other companies have confirmed their participation in Ecobuild SEA 2017. Event visitors include a wide range of participating groups including government procurers, wholesalers, architects, contractors and consultants. Ecobuild Southeast Asia 2017 has co-located events, such as Asean Solar 2017, Ecolight Asean 2017, Energy Efficiency, Greenbuild Asia, Construction Show, AseanREI and Construction Career Fair. These events are expected to attract more than 15,000 attendees from around the world, to engage in activities and to interact with the key industry players. Ecobuild Southeast Asia is serving to connect the entire built environment supply chain in one seamless experience. CDP points will be gained upon attending paid conferences organised by the supporting stakeholders, as such Master Builders Association Malaysia, The Chartered Institute of Building, Kubena and Urban Forum. Meanwhile, free-to-attend seminars are organised into streams, presenting a number of topics that include quality, safety and professionalism, as well as environmental sustainability, productivity and internationalisation, reflecting the categories emphasized under CITP. Seminar speakers range from industry experts to innovators and practitioners from Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia, Public Works Department Malaysia, Malaysia Structural Steel Association, The Institution of Fire Engineers, The Chartered Institute of Building, Nuclear Malaysia and International Workplace. Also, International Construction Week and Ecobuild Southeast Asia offer a perfect platform to the next generation of the construction industry. Young designers will be challenged to join "MSSA/CIDB Open Ideas Competition Youth 2017 -- Dome in Steel [YouDo]", which is co-organised by Malaysia Structural Steel Association. This competition promises a highly challenging project that involves designing an innovation, sustainability and cost effectiveness steel dome. This project for the youth will see more than 10 universities of 30 teams and 150 students competing for the MSSA Challenge trophy and prizes. Also, business matching will be organised by Matrade and CIDB to bring in overseas buyers. The goal is to connect dedicated local suppliers/exhibitors with premier buyers for sourcing purposes. The connections are arranged by business matching specialists through face-to-face meetings. For any enquiries, kindly contact us at +603-21768788 or email [email protected]. For more information, visit www.ecobuildsea.com. About UBM Asia (www.ubmasia.com) Owned by UBM plc listed on the London Stock Exchange, UBM Asia is the largest trade show organiser in Asia and the largest commercial organiser in China, India and Malaysia. Established with its headquarters in Hong Kong and subsidiary companies across Asia and in the US, UBM Asia has a strong global network of 30 offices and 1,300 staff in 24 major cities. We operate in 20 market sectors with 230 exhibitions and conferences, 23 trade publications, 20 online products for over 1,000,000 quality exhibitors, visitors, conference delegates, advertisers and subscribers from all over the world. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441493 Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441492 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441495LOGO Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441494LOGO SOURCE UBM Asia (Malaysia) Related Links http://www.ecobuildsea.com NEW YORK, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Empire State Building announced today the launch of its 23rd annual Empire State Building (ESB) Valentine's Day Weddings Contest where 13 couples will be chosen to have the wedding ceremony of their dreams on ESB's 86th floor Observatory. The lucky 13 will join Yanqiu Wang and Huan Yang of Chongqing, China, winners of ESB's Valentine's Day contest on Weibo and WeChat, which took place on August 9, 2016 Chinese Valentine's Day. "The Empire State Building's annual Valentine's Day Weddings will give 13 stateside couples and one couple from China a unique wedding experience," said Jean-Yves Ghazi, Director of the Empire State Building Observatory. "Since its opening in 1931, the iconic setting has inspired countless love stories on-screen and in the hearts of the over four million annual visitors to our world-famous Observation Deck, and we're delighted to make dreams come true on the most romantic day of the year." To enter, engaged couples and those seeking to renew their vows can submit their love stories via http://bit.ly/2gyTIYP starting today, November 22 through December 12, 11:59 p.m. EST. Couples must be over the age of 18 and have a valid New York State marriage license at the time of the wedding ceremony in order to marry. Vow renewals can be performed with a valid New York State marriage license. All 14 couples will receive one night complimentary accommodations at the Grand Hyatt New York and will be treated to an exclusive continental breakfast at STATE Grill and Bar, located in the lobby of ESB. Following the ceremony, each couple will enjoy ESB's open-air, one-of-a-kind 360-degree views of New York City and beyond for photos. Additionally, one randomly-selected couple will win a honeymoon package to the all-inclusive Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. For complete details, please visit www.facebook.com/empirestatebuilding. For more information about Grand Hyatt New York, Hard Rock Hotels, and STATE Grill & Bar, visit https://newyork.grand.hyatt.com/, https://www.hardrockhotels.com/all-inclusive-resorts.htm and www.stategrillesb.com. About the Empire State Building Soaring 1,454 feet above Midtown Manhattan (from base to antenna), the Empire State Building, owned by Empire State Realty Trust, Inc., is the "World's Most Famous Building." With new investments in energy efficiency, infrastructure, public areas and amenities, the Empire State Building has attracted first-rate tenants in a diverse array of industries from around the world. The skyscraper's robust broadcasting technology supports all major television and FM radio stations in the New York metropolitan market. The Empire State Building was named America's favorite building in a poll conducted by the American Institute of Architects, and the Empire State Building Observatory is one of the world's most beloved attractions as the region's #1 tourist destination. For more information on the Empire State Building, please visit www.empirestatebuilding.com, www.facebook.com/empirestatebuilding, @EmpireStateBldg, www.instagram.com/empirestatebldg, www.youtube.com/esbnyc or www.pinterest.com/empirestatebldg/. About Empire State Realty Trust Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: ESRT), a leading real estate investment trust (REIT), owns, manages, operates, acquires and repositions office and retail properties in Manhattan and the greater New York metropolitan area, including the Empire State Building, the world's most famous building. Headquartered in New York, New York, the Company's office and retail portfolio covers 10.1 million rentable square feet, as of September 30, 2016, consisting of 9.4 million rentable square feet in 14 office properties, including nine in Manhattan, three in Fairfield County, Connecticut and two in Westchester County, New York; and approximately 707,000 rentable square feet in the retail portfolio. SOURCE Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. Related Links http://www.esbnyc.com WASHINGTON, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On Monday evening, November 21st, the best and brightest in government contracting gathered at the Hyatt Reston Town Center to celebrate the SmartCEO, "2016 GovStar Awards Finalists." At the end of the evening, Enlightened, Inc. stood as the winner of the Star Workplace Award, for medium size companies. The "SmartCEO GovStar Workplace Award" is presented to those government contractors with second-to-none workplaces. President and CEO, Antwanye Ford and Executive Vice President and CFO, Andre Rogers accepted the award and highlighted the importance of collaboration and the ability to celebrate wins, no matter big or small as the key to continued motivation and a desire to exceed client expectations as the backdrop of Enlightened's success. "Enlightened's culture of mutual respect and teamwork positions the company to celebrate both professional and personal employee accomplishments together," said Antwanye Ford, President & CEO of Enlightened, Inc. "The government contracting industry is one of the most challenging, multifaceted and competitive sectors in business. Enlightened's membership in this arena is proof positive of the passion that each and every employee comes to work with and their unwavering desire and drive to succeed." About the GovStar Awards The GovStar Awards program honors local government contractors for their technology innovation, workplace environment, growth, veteran support and impact on the industry and the marketplace as a whole. Government contracting is an extremely competitive and growing industry in the Greater Washington market, and the federal government is the largest consumer of products and services in the U.S. The GovStar program recognizes the many commendable attributes of Greater Washington-area companies striving for excellence in this complex and competitive sector. Each year, an independent committee of local business leaders selects the winners based on their growth, innovation, corporate culture, veteran support and industry impact. Finalists are profiled in the November/December issue of Washington SmartCEO magazine and celebrated at an awards reception in November, where category winners are announced live. About SmartCEO SmartCEO's mission is to educate and inspire the business community through its award-winning magazine, connections at C-level events and access to valuable online resources. SmartCEO's integrated media platforms reach decision makers in the Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Long Island, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, metropolitan areas. About Enlightened Enlightened, Inc. ("Enlightened") is an award-winning, HUBZone certified, Information Technology (IT) and Management Consulting firm dedicated to helping our clients achieve success in meeting their objectives and solving their problems. Enlightened provides the highest level of service to our clients because we are thinking about their problems even when they are not. SOURCE Enlightened, Inc. SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants, a retail property, casualty insurance brokerage and employee benefits consultant, announced today that it has been named a 2016 Elite Agency for the second year in a row by Insurance Business America, a publication that reports on the latest achievements in insurance and also provides the latest in business best practices in a continually evolving industry. EPIC was included in the list of 50 top agencies due to its tremendous growth since inception in 2007, from $12 million in revenue to an expected $250 million by year-end. With a focus on upper-middle-market accounts, EPIC provides brokerage and consulting services through four primary business units: property & casualty, employee benefits, specialty practice and programs and private client services. The firm was also recognized for its national construction specialty group, the growing market opportunities of its specialty programs division and the recently launched cyber risk and insurance portal for small to mid-sized businesses. "It's an honor to be recognized as an Elite Agency for two consecutive years, for our leadership, innovation and unique culture," said Peter Garvey, President of EPIC. "We have had tremendous growth in recent years, and a big part of that success is our team's dedication to providing the highest possible level of service and value to our clients." To view the full list of 2016 Elite Agencies, go to http://www.ibamag.com/us/rankings/elite-agencies-2016/ About EPIC EPIC is a unique and innovative retail property and casualty and employee benefits insurance brokerage and consulting firm. EPIC has created a values-based, client-focused culture that attracts and retains top talent, fosters employee satisfaction and loyalty and sustains a high level of customer service excellence. EPIC team members have consistently recognized their company as a "Best Place to Work" in multiple regions and as a "Best Place to Work in the Insurance Industry" nationally. EPIC now has more than 850 team members operating from offices across the U.S., providing Property Casualty, Employee Benefits, Specialty Programs and Private Client solutions to more than 13,000 clients. With more than $200 million in revenues, EPIC ranks among the top 20 retail insurance brokers in the United States. Backed by the Carlyle Group, the company continues to expand organically and through strategic acquisitions across the country. For additional information, please visit www.epicbrokers.com. *LOGO for media: Send2Press.com/mediaboom/16-0308-epic-insurance-300dpi.jpg This release was issued through Send2Press, a unit of Neotrope. For more information, visit Send2Press Newswire at https://www.Send2Press.com SOURCE EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants Related Links http://www.epicbrokers.com In the campaign, brand ambassador Karlie Kloss represents #ExpressLife and brings to life key customer mindsets of the holiday season: Arrive in Style, Get in the Spirit, Holiday Parties Every Weekend, and Snowbound all Season, while grounding each life moment in the perfect products. This new integrated marketing and advertising campaign will premiere across digital, social media, broadcast and in-store platforms this month. As a digital layer of the campaign, EXPRESS reveals its Expressionistsfearless individuals who set out to inspire the world and build their own success story by transforming their passion into their career. From an award-winning chef to beauty and wellness experts, they are as unique as they are driven. They celebrate and express their lives in new and unexpected ways, and share their personal recommendations for hosting and toasting, beauty, gifting, and healthy holidays. They not only stand up, but stand outone expression at a time. The Expressionists cast includes: mixologist Elliot Clark, Founder Apartment Bartender; beauty vlogger Deepica Mutyala, Founder, Deepicam; DIY maven Erica Domesek, Founder, P.S. I Made This; wellness expert and advocate for holistic living Francheska Medina, Founder HeyFranHey and chef and environmental advocate Gabe Kennedy. "This holiday season, we encourage our customers to embody the spirit of Karlie and the Expressionists by living their best #ExpressLife while celebrating with family and friends," said David Kornberg, president and chief executive officer of EXPRESS. "We are thrilled to partner with inspiring individuals who will reimagine the holiday season through the EXPRESS lens. We know that real people with real purpose resonate with our customers and we are excited to share their stories." Customers can get in on behind-the-scenes action by following @Express on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook and @ExpressMen on Instagram. About EXPRESS, Inc.: EXPRESS is a specialty apparel and accessories retailer of women's and men's merchandise, targeting the 20 to 30-year-old customer. EXPRESS has more than 35 years of experience offering a distinct combination of fashion and quality for multiple lifestyle occasions at an attractive value addressing fashion needs across work, casual, jeanswear, and going-out occasions. The company currently operates more than 650 retail and factory outlet stores, located primarily in high-traffic shopping malls, lifestyle centers, and street locations across the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. EXPRESS merchandise is also available at franchise locations in Latin America and the Middle East. EXPRESS also markets and sells its products through its e-commerce website, www.express.com, as well as on its mobile app. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441829 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130910/NY76292LOGO SOURCE Express, Inc. Related Links http://www.express.com MIAMI, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Fathom, the pioneer in social impact travel and Carnival Corporation's (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK) 10th and newest brand, today announced a Black Friday and Cyber Monday special on select sailings to the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Travelers who book this offer between November 25 and 28 can take advantage of impressive savings on balcony staterooms priced at interior rates. Through the sale, upcoming seven-day voyages are priced at $249 for the Dominican Republic and $1,999 for Cuba. Eligible sailings for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale include December 18, January 1 and January 15 sailings to the Dominican Republic and March 19, April 2 and April 16 sailings to Cuba. "The holidays are about meaningful experiences and sharing them with family and friends the root of our Fathom experiences," said Tara Russell, president of Fathom and global impact lead for Carnival Corporation. "We want to make those types of important experiences even more accessible to travelers this season by offering special deals to those who want to travel deep and create one-of-a-kind human connections across the world." From booking a trip to connect with family to gifting the voyage to a loved one, those who take advantage of this holiday deal to go on a Fathom journey to the Dominican Republic will have the opportunity to travel deeply into local communities for unforgettable human impact experiences without breaking the bank. Whether it is helping cultivate cacao plants and organic fertilizer at a nursery or participating in adult-learning programs to teach small groups of local Dominican community members conversational English, travelers can ring in the new year by enriching the life of local Dominicans as they participate alongside them to tackle community needs in the country. In Cuba, travelers can visit the historic ports of Havana, Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba and participate in unique shore excursions that provide fun and engaging ways to build new bridges to a rich and vibrant culture that, until now, most U.S. travelers have only seen in photographs. Some highlights include the island's famously friendly people, Spanish and French colonial architecture, traditional Cuban music and dance, restaurants with genuine Cuban cuisine, museums, cathedrals, coastal fortresses, the cannons on San Juan Hill, the shores of Cojimar that were Ernest Hemingway's favorite fishing village and much more. Black Friday, Cyber Monday Deal Specifics Fathom's Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer is available for balcony cabins only. For more information or to book, travelers can call 1-855-932-1795 or their travel professionals between November 25 28 and reference code "RF1." This promotion is not available for bookings on fathom.org, is non-refundable and cannot be combined with any other offers. Black Friday and Cyber Monday prices for seven-day trips to the Dominican Republic are set to $249 per person based on double occupancy and include all meals on the ship, onboard social impact immersion experiences, three on-shore social impact activities and related supplies. These prices do not include taxes, fees, port expenses and gratuities. Estimated taxes, fees and port expenses vary by sail date and range from $124.54 to $125.56 per person. Gratuities are estimated at $80.50 per person. Full payment is due at the time of booking. Black Friday and Cyber Monday prices for seven-day itineraries to Cuba are set to $1,999 per person based on double occupancy and include all meals on the ship and lunch while in the three ports, onboard experiences and select on-the-ground activities. These prices do not include taxes, fees, port expenses, visa and gratuities. Estimated taxes, fees and port expenses vary by sail date and range from $144.74 to $165.98 per person. The required travel visa is $75 per person and gratuities are estimated at $80.50 per person. To secure a spot on a future sailing, a non-refundable $600 per person deposit is required at the time of booking and final payment is due 90 days prior to departure. About Fathom Travel Fathom is the newest brand in the Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK) family, which carries nearly 11 million travelers a year to communities around the world. Fathom invites travelers to embrace the possibilities ahead and to journey into the heart of a destination. Fathom serves travelers hungry to experience the world richly and with purpose. What sets Fathom apart is the rich and playful onboard and onshore journey, its alongsided partnership approach with its partner countries paired with a unique business model that allow travelers to travel deep, build community with like-minded travelers and become immersed in another culture. Fathom offers uniquely different round-trip voyages from Miami to two of the Caribbean's most desired destinations: the Dominican Republic and Cuba. In the Dominican Republic, travelers have the opportunity to work side by side with local residents in existing programs that matter to the communities, like planting trees, making chocolate, and creating life-saving water filters. In Cuba, travelers visit the port cities of Havana, Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba and enjoy on-the-ground activities that provide the opportunity to interact directly with Cuban people and gain insight into their everyday lives, rich culture and history. The Fathom experience is brought to life aboard the 704-passenger MV Adonia. The smallest ship in the P&O fleet, the Adonia is the ideal home base to engage, mobilize, educate and equip travelers on every Dominican Republic trip allowing for personal enrichment while participating in activities that unite strangers to become part of something bigger together. For Cuban voyages, passengers enjoy premium accommodations including all the amenities of a modern hotel, plus the convenience of having to unpack only once while seeing the breadth of the island. Every night, Fathom travelers return to the comforts of the Adonia, where they can relax knowing that all the details of travel are handled. For more information about Fathom or to book a voyage, contact your Travel Professional, call Fathom toll-free at 1-855-932-8466 or visit www.Fathom.org. SOURCE Fathom Related Links http://www.fathom.org PITTSBURGH, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Federated Investors, Inc. (NYSE: FII), one of the nation's largest investment managers, today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire certain investment management related assets of Horizon Advisers and reorganize the portfolios of three Hancock Horizon funds into comparable mutual funds managed by Federated's advisory subsidiaries. While the Hancock Horizon Funds will continue to offer a range of equity, fixed-income and alternative mutual funds, approximately $431 million in one fixed-income and two equity funds will transition to Federated funds with comparable investment objectives and strategies. Horizon Advisers, an unincorporated division of Whitney Bank, serves as investment advisor to the Hancock Horizon Funds. In relation to the agreement, approximately $144 million will be transitioned from the Hancock Horizon Value Fund to the Federated MDT Stock Trust, approximately $131 million will be reorganized from the Hancock Horizon Growth Fund to the Federated Kaufmann Large Cap Fund, and approximately $156 million will be transitioned from the Hancock Horizon Core Bond Fund to the Federated Total Return Bond Fund. "Federated has a longstanding history of providing investment solutions for a variety of market conditions, and our boards are confident that as shareholders of these three funds focus on their own financial goals and objectives, they will benefit from the opportunity to access the Federated funds," said David Lundgren, chief investment officer for Horizon Advisers. "Horizon Advisers remains committed to our remaining 10 Hancock Horizon mutual fund strategies. Our focus will continue to be on niche asset classes where we feel our Hancock Horizon Funds provide great value to our shareholders." The boards of directors of Federated Investors, the Federated Funds and the Hancock Horizon Funds have approved the transactions and related reorganizations, which are now subject to the approval of shareholders of the Hancock Horizon Funds. Completion of these transactions also is subject to certain regulatory and other customary conditions. The Hancock Horizon shareholder meetings to approve the transitions are tentatively scheduled for late January 2017, and the transactions are expected to be completed shortly thereafter. "As the investment management landscape evolves, firms continue to approach Federated about opportunities for business transactions that can provide them with the opportunity to better accommodate their strategic plans," said Joe Machi, director of alliances at Federated. "We are pleased Horizon Advisers chose to work with Federated, and we continue to look for opportunities with insurers, banks, broker-dealers and investment advisors as they evaluate their long-term goals." Federated Investors, Inc. is one of the largest investment managers in the United States, managing $364.3 billion in assets as of Sept. 30, 2016. With 123 funds and a variety of separately managed account options, Federated provides comprehensive investment management to approximately 8,500 institutions and intermediaries including corporations, government entities, insurance companies, foundations and endowments, banks and broker/dealers. For more information, visit FederatedInvestors.com. Horizon Advisers is an unincorporated division of Whitney Bank (established 1899) which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hancock Holding Company. Whitney Bank manages assets for institutional and high net worth clients including pension plans, endowments, foundations, government entities, corporations, trusts, and estates. Whitney Bank uses these trade names: Hancock, Hancock Bank, and Whitney. For more information, visit hancockhorizon.com. Certain statements in this press release, such as those related to the structure of the transaction, asset transition levels, future transaction prospects for Federated, and the meeting or closing dates of the transaction, constitute forward-looking statements, which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements of the company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Other risks and uncertainties include the possibility that Federated does not successfully complete the acquisition or completes the transaction in a manner or timetable different from that described above, as well as the risk factors discussed in the company's annual and quarterly reports as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result, no assurance can be given as to future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements, and neither the company nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of such statements in the future. Federated Securities Corp. is distributor of the Federated funds. A prospectus/proxy statement with respect to the proposed transaction will be mailed to shareholders and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Investors are urged to read the prospectus/proxy statement because it contains important information. The prospectus/proxy statement and other relevant documents will be available free of charge on the SEC's Web site at www.sec.gov or by calling 1-800-341-7400. SOURCE Federated Investors, Inc. Related Links http://FederatedInvestors.com During his remarks at the National Press Club, Gen. Basbug discussed the July 15th coup attempt and U.S.-Turkey relations. Throughout the discussion, Gen. Basbug drew upon his extensive military experience, which culminated in his service as Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) between 2008 and 2010. He emphasized that his views are solely his own and do not reflect those of any political party or organization. July 15th and the Threat of FETO The General told the audience that the target of the July 15th attempted coup was the Turkish nation and democracy and that there is no doubt that the coup attempt was organized by followers of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Turkish cleric. The Turkish government has labeled this organization the Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization (FETO). Gen. Basbug emphasized that FETO is recognized as a terror organization on the basis of a legal decision. He said that FETO has been working since the 1980s to infiltrate state institutions and eventually replace Turkey's secular government with one based upon religious rules. He noted that this assessment is supported by a 2005 ruling of a State Security Court. A decade later, the truth of this assessment became clear with the July 15th coup attempt. For the General, one of the central questions following July 15th is how Turkey should respond to ensure that the threat from FETO is eradicated. He said that in order to prevent further threats from FETO, it is essential for Turkey to conduct a correct analysis of the organization regarding its composition and how it was formed. This would require a thorough social analysis. Gen. Basbug also mentioned that views that the ruling party of Turkey are similar to the Gulen community are incorrect: one is a political party; the other is not. If the Turkish people do not favor the ruling party, they can vote them out. While there may be political responsibility for the infiltration of FETO into state institutions, the biggest responsibility lies with FETO. The organization still poses a serious threat to Turkey, and the state's response must be equally serious. He noted that there is a crucial difference between Turkey's past military coups in the 60s, 70s, and 80s and the coup attempt of July 15th: the latter's goal was to change the secular structure of the Turkish government. The General emphasized that he does not see the events of July 15th as a military coup but as a violent, armed coup conducted by FETO. U.S.-Turkey Relations: Current Issues and Possible Scenarios The General expressed his belief in the importance of the U.S.-Turkey relationship. He noted that there are currently two main issues between the U.S. and Turkey that are affecting relations between both countries. The first is the U.S.'s support of the PYD in Syria, and the second is what the U.S. will do with regard to the requested extradition of Fethullah Gulen. Gen. Basbug addressed the military-to-military relationship by drawing on his experiences in leadership positions in the TSK during the 2000s. He noted the difficult state of relations in 2003 following the Sulaymaniyah incident (during which Turkish military personnel were detained by U.S. soldiers and interrogated in northern Iraq). This incident significantly damaged military-to-military relations. The General took over the position of Deputy Chief of the General Staff following this incident and worked over the course of the following years to bring military-to-military relations back to normal. By the time that he became Chief of the General Staff, the relations had healed, and during his tenure in that position, the foremost issue in military-to-military relations with the U.S. was Turkey's fight against the PKK. Regarding U.S.-Turkey cooperation in Syria, the General emphasized that each country has its own national interests and that this is natural. Cooperation between militaries is not about giving up interests but instead about finding common ground. He said that current U.S. support of the PYD may fit within the U.S.'s short-term interests in Syria, and it is ultimately a tactical decision. However, the Turkish public is uncomfortable seeing its NATO ally supporting the PYD, as it is an organization that was founded by Abdullah Ocalan, making it effectively the Syrian wing of the PKK. He noted that U.S. support of the PYD is destructive to U.S.-Turkey relations as well as to the U.S.'s long-term goals in the region. In the same way, he said that Turkey's decision to work with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as part of Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria is also misguided. However, there are legitimate reasons as to why Turkey is conducting this current operation. According to Gen. Basbug, the U.S. did not listen to the many suggestions that Turkey has provided since the Syria conflict began, including suggestions for a no-fly zone and U.S.-Turkey military cooperation. As a result, Turkey was forced to act in northern Syria. The General said that the U.S. should halt support to the PYD and expressed his hope that the administration of President-elect Trump will bring positive changes to the Syria situation. He noted that the U.S., Turkey, Iran, and Russia share the desire to see the preservation of Syria's territory. While it won't be easy, the only option to end this crisis is for these four countries to come together to resolve their differences. On the current security situation in Iraq, he said that the demographic makeup of Mosul and Tel Afar must be preserved; he noted that there are already changes underway, especially in Mosul, and there is the danger of ethnic cleansing. Of special concern to Turkey are the Turkmen communities, and Turkey would not be able to turn a blind eye if there was a conflict between these communities and the Iraqi central government. The other major issue for Turkey in Iraq is the presence of the PKK in northern Iraq. The General emphasized that Turkey needs the U.S. to stand by its side on this issue. The PKK is a terrorist organization that benefits from safe zones in northern Iraq, and these safe zones must be eradicated if Turkey is to solve its struggles with the PKK. He noted that throughout his service in leadership positions in the TSK, he expressed Turkey's need of U.S. support on this issue, but unfortunately it was not forthcoming. The Turkish Heritage Organization (THO) is a non-profit organization founded to promote discussion and dialogue around issues of importance in the U.S.-Turkey bilateral relationship as well as Turkey's role in the international community. Learn more at: http://turkheritage.org/ or on Twitter @TurkHeritage. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442100 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150423/201251LOGO SOURCE Turkish Heritage Organization Related Links http://turkheritage.org The four-level, 37,000-square-foot building housing the store marks the debut of the retailer's expansion. It offers customers a signature mix of Forty Five Ten's curated point of view, with more depth and breadth in ready-to-wear, home, beauty and jewelry than it has been able to provide in its original 8,000-square-foot location. Known for an edited and stylish assortment of lines, the new store features several expanded merchandise categories: Rare Beauty (exclusive fragrances, color and treatment); a fine jewelry salon with new introductions from Monique Pean, Sidney Garber and Fred Leighton; a shoe salon with highlights like Prada, Miu Miu, Gucci and Francesco Russo; books and stationery by Smythson, Connor and an Assouline shop; tabletop collections from Hermes, St. Louis, Puiforcat, Georg Jensen, Baccarat and Christofle. Designer shop-in-shops include: Azzedine Alaia, Celine, Marc Jacobs, Maison Margiela (all women's) and Berluti (men's). "This move and expansion is, in large part, about a desire to be at the epicenter of Downtown's rather young renaissance," Bolke says. "Dallas is unfinished in many ways, so it feels like we are a part of this evolving momentum and potential. If I didn't believe that we could deliver a truly unmatched retail experience, we wouldn't be here." The new location offers unique connectivity to downtown's most vibrant urban landscape, which includes The Joule hotel, a Headington Companies property located directly across Main Street situated in several beautifully restored 1920s-era structures. This synergy between hospitality and retail provides customers with rare access to a signature menu of lifestyle amenities. From shared concierge services to culinary expertise, The Joule is an integrated partner in providing comprehensive customer service across multiple dimensions. In addition to Neiman Marcus, Forty Five Ten on Main is situated close to several other boutiques, along with spa/fitness facilities, and multiple restaurants. Led by the project's design architect, Droese Raney Architecture, notable names from many corners of the industry assisted in the interior and exterior design. A dark brick exterior features custom steel, floor-to-ceiling windows and custom metal work. Interior details feature finishes in copper, rose gold, blackened steel, walnut, and Arabescato marble with bronze accents. Custom textiles have been fabricated through the brand partners such as KnollTextiles and KnollLuxe, as well as highlights from their collections with couture talents including Proenza Schouler, Rodarte and David Adjaye. The store houses a collection of blue-chip artwork including Tracey Emin, Catherine Opie, Juergen Teller, Jose Davila, Mario Testino, Bruce Weber and Russell Young. Beyond the interior spaces, the Elm Street motor court, one of the store's two main access points, features a mesmerizing 25-foot tall stainless steel kinetic sculpture, Lucea by noted American artist Anthony Howe, the beneficiary of recent notoriety as the designer of the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic cauldron. Additionally, the store's fourth-floor terrace features a bird's-eye view to artist Tony Tasset's 30-foot sculpture Eye, which is positioned below in a 20,000-square-foot, outdoor event space operated by The Joule. Located on the first floor, and managed by The Joule, is the Copper Bar, an intimate yet social coffee and Champagne bar with offerings such as espresso, daily bakery treats and midday snacks, all with a focus on Moet, Veuve Clicquot, Ruinart and Dom Perignon. With the growth of the business, Bolke has added key industry leaders over the past year, most notably Nick Wooster (Fashion Director Men's) and Taylor Tomasi Hill (Vice President Creative, and Fashion Director Women's) to lead the buying teams on the edited assortments of iconic and emerging designers In celebration of the opening, Forty Five Ten collaborated with publisher Assouline on a collection of photography by luminary Ruven Afandor. The 80-page book, The Eccentrics, is comprised of portraits shot specifically for this project featuring some of the industry's most notable and beloved personalities including: Iris Apfel, Donna Karan, Patrick McDonald, Douglas Little, Dita Von Teese, Kelly Wearstler, and Dallas-raised supermodel Erin Wasson. Fashion journalist and author Hal Rubenstein provided the accompanying text to this limited-edition tome, available exclusively at Forty Five Ten and Assouline stores worldwide. For more information, please contact Suzanne Droese at Droese Public Relations or visit www.fortyfiveten.com. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441731 SOURCE Forty Five Ten Related Links http://www.fortyfiveten.com WASHINGTON, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- China's leading media monitoring and analytics firm Fountainfo officially becomes a member of the world's largest media intelligence federation FIBEP. Fountainfo is represented at the 48th FIBEP World Media Intelligence Congress in Washington D.C. to present the eight-year-old company's steadfast growth success as well as its high potential business performance. The Congress also formally acknowledges Fountainfo as the only newly-inaugurated FIBEP member from the Greater China region which thus marks the beginning of Fountainfo's collaboration with more than 120 corporate members in over 60 countries towards jointly exploring and supporting the future of media intelligence industry. The current media landscape in China is transforming at an exponential speed. The multiplicity of media types, complexity of technology application means as well as creativity and flexibility of communications channels, coupled with the large audience base and their interaction in China, have all posed mammoth challenges in measuring PR impact and providing comprehensive media monitoring and analysis. In face of this evolving media environment, Fountainfo is constantly attuned to clients' needs and continues to enhance its technical standards, accelerate product development that has since generated three core product lines with unique service objectives, content and formats. These are namely the self-service accounts FI CLOUDInfo, customized corporate product FI SMARTInfo as well as government and public opinion monitoring offering FI GOVInfo -- all of which are targeted at providing customers with comprehensive media data analysis and tailor-fit product service solutions. On Fountainfo's initiation into the federation, Mr. Florian Laszlo, the Secretary General of FIBEP, said, "We are delighted to welcome Fountainfo into our FIBEP family. This undoubtedly broadens our reach in the Asia Pacific region and particularly, the China market which will be beneficial to the synergy and future cooperation of our corporate members there. Fountainfo's extensive product and service offerings in Greater China and its wide-ranging coverage of media types have certainly convinced us of the dynamic development and exciting prospects of the region's media monitoring and analysis industry." Daisy Lu, Fountainfo's Partner and General Manager, said, "We are very excited and honored to join FIBEP. This world-class, well-regarded federation has not only provided a platform for Fountainfo to network with top professionals around the world but also served as an invaluable knowledge bank for us to obtain the most up-to-date information within the industry. Becoming one of FIBEP's members will greatly help Fountainfo to further grow our business in a global context while enabling us to better develop our expertise. Furthermore, we are glad to actively share any valuable experience we have gained in the China market with other enterprises in this field as well as continue to bring more value-added media monitoring solutions and services to our customers." Since its establishment, Fountainfo has been committed to providing customers with monitoring services across media platforms from traditional, online to social media. The company has over 200 clients from renowned brands in automobile, sports, finance, real estate, healthcare, B2B, luxury and FMCG industries as well as PR agencies. Becoming a member of FIBEP is a major leap for Fountainfo in not only broadening its international perspective but also bringing its sophisticated products and services to more customers worldwide. About FIBEP FIBEP is the world's media intelligence federation with over 120 corporate members in over 60 countries. The federation and its members are focused on providing globally-driven, enterprise-scale solutions in the fields of PR distribution, journalist databases, media monitoring, media analysis, as well as consulting services and SaaS platforms. The federation was founded in 1953 in Paris and now hosts a broad range of activities including the FIBEP World Media Intelligence Congress, several annual workshops, senior-networking sessions, youth-development programs and a variety of high-impact research studies. About Fountainfo Founded in 2008, Fountainfo is established by a team of professionals with extensive media monitoring and PR consultancy background. With the rise of new media alongside the rapidly transforming traditional media landscape in terms of its communication means, channels, content as well as patterns during its development, Fountainfo, as China's leading all-media monitoring institution, has effectively integrated multi-channel media data information in a highly-efficient way through SaaS platform -- gradually developing from traditional clipping business to services that fully cover print and social media thereby offering clients diversified products, including advanced customized report service and self-service online system service, i.e. FI CLOUDInfo, FI SMARTInfo and FI GOVInfo. SOURCE Fountainfo PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- This Cyber Monday, global tour operator Friendly Planet Travel is offering travelers a savings of up to $1100 off per person, on their air inclusive packaged tours to over 40 countries, including Cuba, Egypt, China, South Africa, Peru, Kenya, Galapagos and much more. All Friendly Planet Travel's immersive small group packages include airfare, first class and deluxe accommodations, guided touring, most meals and more. The sale begins at 12:01 am ET on Monday, November 28th, 2016 and will last for 48 hours. "Travel is a transformative experience that lifts people out of their current circumstances to discover new truths, mostly about themselves," Peggy Goldman, founder and chairman of Friendly Planet Travel. "The power of travel is so important, and travel deals such as our Cyber Monday deal are a great way for people to travel more often and discover more places." Connecting the world through authentic and affordable travel experiences, Friendly Planet Travel is a global tour operator offering personalized service and expertly curated itineraries to some of the most iconic and fascinating international destinations. Friendly Planet Travel makes cultural travel possible for more people through small group and customizable journeys to Asia, Africa, Central America, South America, Europe, the Middle East and was one of the first to offer people-to-people travel to Cuba. From small group tours to expert guides and diverse offerings, Friendly Planet Travel offers the best value in the industry. For a complete list of tours on sale and to book, visit www.friendlyplanet.com/CyberMonday. Contact: Devyn Barker 646-650-2186 [email protected] SOURCE Friendly Planet Travel Related Links http://www.friendlyplanet.com BELLEVUE, Wash. and MANHASSET, N.Y. and MORRIS, Conn., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Global Good Fund, The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research at Northwell Health and Sanguistat, Inc, are partnering on clinical trials of the Neural Tourniquet to evaluate the efficacy of bioelectronic medicine in treating blood loss associated with postpartum hemorrhage. "Postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal deaths worldwide. It kills close to 80,000 women in Africa and Asia, and around 6,000 in the U.S. each year," said Kevin J. Tracey, MD, president and CEO of the Feinstein Institute. "Lab tests show that vagus nerve stimulation in mothers suffering from postpartum hemorrhage may reduce life-threatening bleeding." The Neural Tourniquet is a medical device that uses electronic nerve stimulation to reduce blood loss. Similar applications of bioelectronic medicine are already being used to treat epilepsy, depression, and cluster and migraine headache, and hold promise for treating rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases where inflammation plays a critical role. The 'Tourniquet' was licensed to Sanguistat, Inc, for development from the Feinstein Institute, where the initial research was conducted and where clinical trials are underway. Global Good will advise on the clinical trial and product's potential introduction into developing regions. Sanguistat President and CEO Ronald M. Burch, PhD, said, "The Neural Tourniquet could represent a major breakthrough in treating bleeding. If successful, it would have tremendously positive implications, not only for women giving birth, but also for soldiers wounded in battle, for patients in emergency rooms, and for patients with chronic bleeding diseases such as hemophilia. We are delighted to partner with Global Good and the Feinstein Institute to make this much-needed therapy available for developing regions." "All postpartum hemorrhage deaths are tragic, but they are all too common in low-income countries, where many women suffer from anemia and lack access to the necessary obstetric care. When these mothers die, the tragedy also impacts their children's health and education, and perpetuates the cycle of poverty," said David Bell, director of Global Health Technologies at Global Good. "If this technology proves successful, the partnership with the Feinstein Institute and Sanguistat could mean the difference between life and death for mothers around the world who suffer from postpartum hemorrhage." About The Feinstein Institute The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research is the research arm of Northwell Health, the largest healthcare provider in New York. Home to 50 research laboratories and to clinical research throughout dozens of hospitals and outpatient facilities, the 2,000 researchers and staff of the Feinstein are making breakthroughs in molecular medicine, genetics, oncology, brain research, mental health, autoimmunity, and bioelectronic medicine a new field of science that has the potential to revolutionize medicine. For more information about how we empower imagination and pioneer discovery, visit FeinsteinInstitute.org. About Global Good Global Good is a collaboration between Intellectual Ventures and Bill Gates to invent technology that improves life in developing countries. With support from a coalition of NGO, government and business partners, we conceive, develop and deploy inventions for the poorest parts of the world. Global Good combines IV's unique invention prowess with the expertise of leading humanitarian organizations, forward-looking governments, and commercial partners that share our vision. Together, we invent, develop, and deploy commercially-viable technologies that improve life in developing countries. www.globalgood.com About Sanguistat, Inc. Sanguistat is a clinical-stage, private, emerging medical device company developing the Neural Tourniquet peripheral surface electrode-mediated neurostimulation of the vagus nerve to reduce bleeding in response to trauma or disease. The Company's approach is expected to potentially deliver valuable products to address areas of high unmet medical needs. SOURCE The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research NATICK, Mass., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - In October, IT leaders from some of the world's largest and most data-intensive organizations convened in Boston for Nasuni's Fifth Annual Summit. The summit brings Nasuni's customers and partners together with the company's engineers, executives and employees to discuss best practices, share ideas and plan for the continued advancement of solutions that radically change how enterprises address their file-related challenges, including storage, backup, disaster recovery, collaboration and mobility. A provider of Enterprise File Services to distributed organizations, Nasuni created the world's first cloud-native filesystem, UniFS, and uses the public, private or hybrid cloud in much the same way that traditional storage vendors use commodity disk drives in their boxes. With Nasuni, enterprises benefit from the almost limitless capacity and inherent resiliency of the cloud, and all file-related operations occur on a system that features military-grade encryption and centralizes control including provisioning, permissions and encryption keys solely under corporate IT. This year's summit included presentations and panel conversations with numerous luminaries in the disciplines of storage, backup, disaster recovery and sync-and-share. Notably, two distinguished executives for both IBM and Microsoft's cloud operations spoke at the event. Russ Kennedy, senior vice president at IBM, and former senior vice president of product strategy and customer solutions at Cleversafe which was acquired by IBM last fall discussed the drivers behind IBM's new IBM Cloud Object Storage unveiled on the day of the summit. Vamshidhar Kommineni, principal PM manager for Azure at Microsoft, also discussed Microsoft's cloud-related investments and developments. Other customers and partners who spoke at the summit included: IT architect at Burns & McDonnell Lee Biggendon, director at Nephos Principal architect, storage and backup infrastructure at Ecolab Rich Kucharksi, vice president of solutions architecture at Simplivity In addition, celebrated analyst Curtis Preston, "Mr. Backup," presented a thoughtful and entertaining session on the future of strategies to safeguard and replicate file data. Finally, Nasuni's engineering team presented proposed enhancements to the company's product development roadmap while seeking customers' feedback both at the summit and in the weeks and months to come all while updating customers on the continued growth and expansion of UniFS. Updates included: More than 300 global enterprises now deploy Nasuni's Enterprise File Services in 59 countries; More than 2.1 billion global file-locking events have now occurred; More than 12 petabytes (PB) of client data are currently stored; and More than 21.4 billion files are under Nasuni's management, with some 64 million more added each week. "The willingness of our customers to take the time to discuss their experience with our solution enables us to move forward in our effort to solve every file challenge enterprises face," said Andres Rodriguez, president and CEO. "It's great to see this summit foster an even stronger dialogue between our customers and our employees, including the engineers who write our code. At our summit, we are relentless asking what we can do better and what needs attention because that is how we advance our alternative to the costly, unsustainable, antiquated and broken approaches to storage, backup, disaster recovery and sync-and-share that have held enterprises hostage for years." About Nasuni Nasuni provides an integrated solution to store, protect, share and access all enterprise files. Powered by UniFS, the first cloud-native file system, Nasuni transforms enterprise file infrastructure. With unlimited scale, continuous versioning and high-performance distributed file access, Nasuni delivers the complete suite of Enterprise File Services all at a significantly reduced cost. Nasuni is privately held and based in Natick, Mass. For more information, visit www.nasuni.com. Social Media Links Twitter: www.twitter.com/nasuni LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nasuni The Nasuni Cloud Storage Blog: http://www.nasuni.com/blog All company and product names are property of their respective owners. For more information, contact: Jeff Miller PR Manager LEWIS 541.207.3461 [email protected] SOURCE Nasuni Related Links https://www.nasuni.com/ GORE-FLIGHT Microwave Assemblies earned the highest recognition with a platinum award for product innovation. The assemblies are lightweight solutions that provide a true 'fit-and-forget' installation option and ensure reliable performance for the life of the system. GORE-FLIGHT Microwave Assemblies, 6 Series were recognized for providing the most cost-effective solution that ensures mission-critical system performance for military and civil applications. "It is a great privilege to be named among the other esteemed members of the aviation industry to receive one of the prestigious Military & Aerospace Electronics Innovators Awards," said Jim Foreman, Gore Product Specialist. "The dedication and hard work of our Associates make this product's continued success and recognition possible." Alan Bergstein, publisher of Military & Aerospace Electronics (www.militaryaerospace.com), said, "This prestigious program allows Military & Aerospace Electronics to celebrate and recognize the most innovative products and services in the military electronics industry. Our 2016 Honorees are an outstanding example of companies who are making an impact." The Innovators Awards are judged based on the following criteria: Innovation; Value to the User; Sustainability; Meeting a Defined Need; Collaboration; and Impact. The 2016 Military & Aerospace Electronics Innovators Awards Honorees are featured in the November Issue of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine as well as on www.militaryaerospace.com. About Military & Aerospace Electronics Published since 1990, Military & Aerospace Electronics delivers time-sensitive news, in-depth analyses, case studies, and real-world applications of new products, industry opinion, and the latest trends in the use of mil-spec, rugged and commercial off-the-shelf components. The Military & Aerospace Electronics brand includes the magazine, website (www.militaryaerospace.com), email newsletters and webcasts. About The Military & Aerospace Electronics 2016 Innovators Awards program The Military & Aerospace Electronics Innovation Awards celebrates the most innovative applications of aerospace and defense electronics technology products and systems. Awards are presented to organizations that demonstrate excellence in the use of a product or system. Submissions are accepted from designers and integrators. Users of military and aerospace electronics systems are also permitted to nominate products. About W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. Gore is a technology-driven company focused on discovery and product innovation. Well known for waterproof, breathable GORE-TEX fabric, the company's portfolio includes everything from high-performance fabrics and implantable medical devices to industrial manufacturing components and aerospace electronics. Founded in 1958 and headquartered in Newark, Del., Gore posts annual sales of more than $3.2 billion and employs approximately 10,000 associates with manufacturing facilities in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan and China, and sales offices around the world. Gore is one of a select few companies to appear on all of the U.S. "100 Best Companies to Work For" lists since the rankings debuted in 1984. The company also appears regularly on similar lists around the world. Learn more at gore.com. GORE, GORE-TEX, and design are trademarks of W. L. Gore & Associates Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442157 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161004/415065LOGO SOURCE W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. Related Links http://www.gore.com The donation is part of the Goya Gives campaign, a series of annual donations that serves to encourage others to participate in both the message and act of helping those in need. Goya has a long history of providing aid to those impacted by natural disasters and has made significant donations worldwide, including states affected by Hurricane Sandy, Katrina and Isaac, as well as in Ecuador, Mexico, Haiti, Chile, Peru and El Salvador. About GOYA: Founded in 1936, Goya Foods, Inc. is America's largest Hispanic-owned food company, and has established itself as the leader in Latin American food and condiments. Goya manufactures, packages, and distributes over 2,500 high-quality food products from Spain, Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America. Goya products have their roots in the culinary traditions of Hispanic communities around the world; the combination of authentic ingredients, robust seasonings and convenient preparation makes Goya products ideal for every taste and every table. For more information on Goya Foods, please visit www.goya.com For more information & photos: Natalie J. Maniscalco 845.659.6506 / [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441938 SOURCE Goya Foods Related Links http://www.goya.com NEW YORK, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Haymarket Media Inc. has formed a partnership with Decision Support in Medicine (DSM) to integrate the DSM clinical decision support content into the 13 brands within the Haymarket Medical Network. The DSM database covers thousands of diseases in multiple therapeutic categories, written by physician experts in each field of medicine. The information is updated regularly to inform healthcare professionals (HCPs) with what they need to know before, during, and after a patient consult. Every disease-specific section offers step-by-step recommendations and succinct direction on screening, diagnosis, and treatmentsall of which is supported by the latest evidence-based data. Each section in the DSM database discusses the screening, presentation, differential diagnosis, pathophysiology, recommended testing, treatment options and information for the patient and caregivers. With this partnership, Haymarket intends to provide the HCPs that visit the brands in the Haymarket Medical Network with a more robust and comprehensive offering of clinical information when they are engaged with news and features about the same disease. The DSM material will be integrated within relevant content on each of the Network's websites, where HCPs can navigate through this reference material and benefit from a deeper scope of clinical data without leaving the brand's website. The expectation is that by supplementing Haymarket's content with a thorough reference like DSM, HCPs will be able to access quick and concise clinical data and more efficiently treat their patients. "Our clinical brands already provide timely, evidence-based information to hundreds of thousands of HCPs each month," said Jim Burke RPh, SVP of Digital Products at Haymarket. "We have also integrated a comprehensive drug database and, more recently, CME opportunities for HCPs into all of our brands. The partnership with DSM is another step in Haymarket's commitment to deliver timely and relevant content to HCPs, with the goal of improving patient outcomes." About Haymarket Media, Inc. Haymarket Media Inc. (HMI), a global publication and communications company founded in 1957 with North American Headquarters in New York City, publishes titles in 23 languages and in more than 100 nations. SOURCE Haymarket Media Inc. Related Links http://www.haymarket.com NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Attorney General of Louisiana Charles C. Foti, Jr., Esq. and the law firm of Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") are investigating the proposed sale of Headwaters Incorporated ("Headwaters" or the "Company") (NYSE: HW) to Boral Limited (ASX: BLD). Under the terms of the proposed transaction, shareholders of Headwaters will receive only $24.25 in cash for each share of Headwaters that they own. KSF is seeking to determine whether this consideration and the process that led to it are adequate, or whether the consideration undervalues the Company. If you believe that this transaction undervalues the Company and/or if you would like to discuss your legal rights regarding the proposed sale, you may, without obligation or cost to you, e-mail or call KSF Managing Partner Lewis S. Kahn ([email protected]) toll free at any time at 855-768-1857. To learn more about KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General, visit www.ksfcounsel.com. Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC 206 Covington St. Madisonville, LA 70447 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160819/399590LOGO SOURCE Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Related Links http://www.ksfcounsel.com NEW YORK, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hennessy V.S, the world's best-selling Cognac, and graduate students from Pratt Institute, the renowned New York City-based college of art and design, today announced that Project Wild Rabbit will come to life for art connoisseurs during Miami's Art Basel on December 1, 2016. Now in its fifth year, the partnership between Hennessy and Pratt graduate students is grounded in an unwavering commitment to provide opportunities for the next generation of artistic talent. This year's challenge will enlist a selection of artists from multiple creative disciplines to create original artwork inspired by Hennessy's Wild Rabbit campaign and the Cognac brand's "Never stop. Never settle." mantra. The Wild Rabbit, representative of the ever-evolving pursuit to push past the limits of one's potential, is what fuels those who "Never stop. Never settle." when it comes to achieving success. Since 2012, Hennessy V.S has brought the power and mystery of the Wild Rabbit to life through an integrated marketing campaign highlighting cultural icons including hip hop artist Nas, musicians and filmmakers. For Hennessy, the 250-plus-year pursuit of perfection in Cognac is the brand's own Wild Rabbit. This year, a selection of Pratt graduate students will tell their own Wild Rabbit story through original artwork, which will be displayed on Hennessy's digital channels and thereby provide the artists with exposure through the company's platforms, before the artwork makes its way to Miami on December 1st. Leading up to Art Basel, each piece will be reviewed & judged by a panel of artistic luminaries that includes Pratt alumnus Kadir Nelson, and Hennessy limited edition artists Futura, among others. Consumers are invited to cast their votes for their favorite Wild Rabbit-inspired piece starting November 18 November 28 by visiting Facebook.com/Hennessy all participating consumers should be over 21. Two finalists, one selected by the esteemed judging panel and one by popular vote, will accompany Hennessy to Art Basel to present their work at the Project Wild Rabbit Gallery. In addition to a once-in-a-lifetime platform to propel their careers through an experience at Miami's Art Basel, both winners will receive seed money to jumpstart their professional passion. The Project Wild Rabbit winners will be officially announced at a private reception at The Market Gallery (1420 Alton Rd, Miami Beach, FL 33139) on December 1, 2016. Please visit www.hennessy.com for more information and Facebook.com/Hennessy from November 18 November 28 to cast your vote for this year's Project Wild Rabbit winner. About Hennessy In 2016, the Maison Hennessy celebrates over two and half centuries of an exceptional adventure that has linked two families, the Hennessys and the Fillioux, for seven generations and spanned five continents. It began in the French region of Cognac, the seat from which the Maison has constantly passed down the best the land has to give, from one generation to the next. In particular, such longevity is thanks to those people, past and present, who have ensured Hennessy's success both locally and around the world. Hennessy's success and longevity are also the result of the values the Maison has upheld since its creation: unique savoir-faire, a constant quest for innovation, and an unwavering commitment to Creation, Excellence, Legacy, and Sustainable Development. Today, these qualities are the hallmark of a House a crown jewel in the LVMH Group that crafts iconic and prestigious Cognacs. Hennessy is imported and distributed in the U.S. by Moet Hennessy USA. Hennessy distills, ages and blends spanning a full range: Hennessy V.S, Hennessy Black, V.S.O.P Privilege, X.O, Paradis, Paradis Imperial and Richard Hennessy. For more information and where to purchase/ engrave, please visit Hennessy.com About Pratt Founded in 1887, Pratt Institute is a global leader in higher education dedicated to preparing its 4,700 undergraduate and graduate students for successful careers in art, design, architecture, information and library science, and liberal arts and sciences. Located in a cultural hub with historic campuses in Brooklyn and Manhattan, Pratt is a living lab of craft and creativity with an esteemed faculty of accomplished professionals and scholars who challenge their talented students to transform their passion into meaningful expression. SOURCE Hennessy V.S Related Links http://www.hennessy.com/us SKANEATELES FALLS, N.Y., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Global medical technology company Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC), today announced its Welch Allyn subsidiary's entrance into the connected home monitoring market with its new Welch Allyn Home Hypertension Program. According to the American Heart Association, one out of three adults in the US has high blood pressure and approximately 46% of those don't have their condition under control, which contributes to approximately 1,000 deaths per day.1 The National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, has stated that, "Reducing systolic blood pressure by only 12-13 mmHg could reduce deaths by 13 percent."2 And, the combination of home blood pressure devices, communication and clinical support has been shown to reduce systolic blood pressure by 20 points.3 The Welch Allyn Home Hypertension Program will enable patients to monitor their health outside the physician office using the clinically trusted Welch Allyn Home Blood Pressure Monitor. Patients can seamlessly sync their monitor to a smartphone app (available through the App Store or Google Play) that allows them to engage in their progress towards healthy BP goals. For practitioners, this data will transmit to the free Clinical Portal, which provides practitioner visibility to patient compliance against treatment recommendations and an organized view of accurate information. The Clinical Portal is a secure cloud-based platform, allowing for physicians to access patient data at any time. "The statistics show that monitoring blood pressure within the home can have true lifesaving potential," said Alton Shader, president, Front Line Care. "The Welch Allyn Home Hypertension Program demonstrates our commitment to innovation, patients and their caregivers with easy-to-use technology and the accuracy found in our multi-parameter hospital-grade monitors." To learn more about the Welch Allyn Home brand, please visit www.WelchAllynHome.com. About Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. Hill-Rom is a leading global medical technology company with 10,000 employees worldwide. We partner with health care providers in more than 100 countries by focusing on patient care solutions that improve clinical and economic outcomes in five core areas: Advancing Mobility, Wound Care and Prevention, Patient Monitoring and Diagnostics, Surgical Safety and Efficiency, and Respiratory Health. Around the world, Hill-Rom's people, products, and programs work towards one mission: Every day, around the world, we enhance outcomes for patients and their caregivers. Visit www.hill-rom.com for more information. 1 American Heart Association and American Stroke Association. 2016 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics Update. 2 CDC - National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention - http://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/infographic.htm 3 Effectiveness of Home Blood Pressure Monitoring, Web Communication, and Pharmacist Care on Hypertension Control: A Randomized Controlled Trial, JAMA. 2008;299(24):2857-2867. doi:10.1001/jama.299.24.2857 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130123/DE47178LOGO SOURCE Hill-Rom Related Links http://www.hill-rom.com WASHINGTON, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Silicon Valley huge networking company Cisco will be challenged to demonstrate its commitment to transparency and fair employment in Cisco's operations in Israel/Palestine at its upcoming Annual Shareholder Meeting. Cisco has significant operations in Palestine-Israel. Its own 2012 Corporate Sustainability Report admits that while Arabs make up 20 percent of the population in Israel they are less than 0.4 percent of the high tech industry workforce. The Capitol Hill-based Holy Land Principles, Inc. has, for the second year, a Proposal/Resolution pending before Cisco's Annual Meeting on December 12 at Cisco's headquarters in San Jose. The Holy Land Principles an 8-point corporate code of conduct for American companies doing business in Palestine/Israel are pro-Jewish, pro-Palestinian and pro-company. The Principles do not call for quotas, reverse discrimination, disinvestment/divestment or boycottsonly for fair employment by American companies. The Principles do not try to tell the Israelis or Palestinians what to dothey only call on Cisco and the other 543 American companies doing business there to sign the Holy Land Principles. The Principles are based on the very effective Mac Bride Principles, which have powerfully advanced fair employment for Catholics in Northern Ireland. Please visit HolyLandPrinciples.org for more information. In particular, view the Animated Internet Video, which presents the issue in a very compelling way. It is the big existential question for American companies in the Holy Land that no longer can be ignored. THE PROPOSAL/RESOLUTION Fr. Sean McManus President of the Holy Land Principles. Inc. and the Irish National Caucusexplained: "Our Cisco Proposal/Resolution calls on Cisco at reasonable cost and omitting proprietary informationto disclose the breakdown of its workforce in the Holy Land using the nine job categories which are utilized in the U.S. Department of Labor's EEO -1 Report (Equal Employment Opportunity): 1.Officials and managers; 2. Professionals; 3. Technicians; 4. Sales; 5. Office and clerical; 6. Craft Workers (skilled); 7. Operatives (semiskilled); 8. Laborers (unskilled); 9. Service workers." (See text of Proposal/Resolution: http://www.holylandprinciples.org/cisco-shareholder-resolution-for-2016/). Fr. McManus explained: "Cisco proclaims that it is proud of its fair employment in Israel/Palestine. Now we are providing them with a way to verify, following the adage of President Reagan, 'Trust but verify.' Surely, this is an eminently reasonable request to make of Cisco? How could Cisco reasonably refuse? This Resolution is also entirely consistent with the Reggie Principles, which Cisco says it endorses." Fr. McManus concluded: "The Holy Land Principles are filling a vacuum that was crying out to be filled. Shareholder proposals/resolutions, as we've come to know them, sprouted in 1972 and, since then, they have become almost compulsory for the Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) community, for faith-based justice and peace communities and for all those concerned with Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) issues. Yet fair employment by American companies in Israel/Palestine had never been raised in the boardroom or anywhere else until we launched the Holy Land Principles on International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2012. How extraordinary is that. Talk about the elephant in the (board) room! How could this, the most obvious of issues, have been so blatantly and flagrantly ignored? And now that the issue has been raised, who can argue against its legitimacy and moral correctness? Shareholder advocacy that ignores this issue brings discredit to all. It is the missing link in many faith-based or value-based Corporate Responsibility organizations. This moral and ethical vacuum had to be filled, and now that it is being filled, we confidently look to the good faith and decency of all Cisco investors." Fr. Sean McManus President Holy Land Principles,Inc. P.O. BOX 15128 Capitol Hill Washington, DC 20003-0849 Tel. 202-488-0107 Fax. 202-488-7537 [email protected] SOURCE Holy Land Principles Related Links http://www.HolyLandPrinciples.org PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Hypertension and prehypertension in children often go undiagnosed, according to a new study published today in Pediatrics. The study focused on children with abnormal blood pressures across the United States, and is the first to show a widespread underdiagnosis of these conditions by pediatricians in children ages 3 to 18. Researchers analyzed the electronic health records of 400,000 children from nearly 200 pediatric primary care sites across the country, between 1999 and 2014. They found that only 23 percent of those who had blood pressures consistent with hypertension at multiple primary care visits were diagnosed with the disease, and only 10 percent of patients with symptoms of prehypertension were diagnosed. Of those children and adolescents with diagnoses of hypertension for at least a year, only 6 percent of those who needed anti-hypertension medication received a prescription. "Although over 95 percent of children and adolescents are checked for high blood pressure, doctors taking care of children are not putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together in terms of interpreting the results and following the appropriate guidelines for treatment," said lead author David Kaelber, MD, chief medical informatics officer of The MetroHealth System and professor of pediatrics, internal medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University. He is also the co-chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics task force that is rewriting the pediatric blood pressure guidelines. Pediatricians were more likely to diagnose hypertension and prehypertension in children who were tall, male, overweight or obese. Additionally, they were more likely to recognize the diseases in children with more abnormal blood pressure values and/or more frequent blood pressure reads. The researchers found that underdiagnosis could still occur in these populations. "The new reality for pediatricians is that we're taking care of more and more children who are winding up with chronic conditions, such as hypertension, that were previously seen primarily in adults," said senior author Alexander Fiks, MD, MSCE, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), faculty member at CHOP's PolicyLab and director of the Pediatric Research in Office Settings network at the American Academy of Pediatrics that coordinated this research. "This study shows that many pediatricians are not responding to this new reality not only are we underdiagnosing hypertension, but we're often not providing recommended treatment to children with the condition in order to minimize health risks." Hypertension (high blood pressure) is one of the ten most common chronic diseases in childhood, and predisposes children to adult hypertension. Children with hypertension can also show early signs of cardiovascular disease, that if left untreated can increase long-term morbidity and mortality. In 2007, Dr. Kaelber found that within one health care system, studying approximately 15,000 pediatric patients, less than 25 percent with hypertension were diagnosed. The current study used "big data," combining electronic health record data from almost 200 practices around the U.S. to show a very similar result at the national level. The authors said this demonstrates the importance of combining electronic health record data across many practices and health systems to examine treatments and outcomes that rarely occur. This study, which was also conducted by Weiwei Liu, MS; Michelle Ross, PhD; A. Russell Localio, PhD; Janeen Leon, MS, RDH, LD; Wilson Pace, MD; and Richard Wasserman, MD, will appear in the December issue of Pediatrics. Ross and Localio are from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The Health Resources and Services Administration (grants R40MC24943, UB5MC20286 and UA6MC15585) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development supported this research. Limitations: Researchers relied on standard clinical (non-research), in-office blood pressure measurements, as well as electronic health records to identify prescribing of antihypertensive medications. David Kaelber et al, "Diagnosis and Medication Treatment of Pediatric Hypertension: A Retrospective Cohort Study," Pediatrics, published online Nov. 22, 2016, to appear in print Dec. 2016. About The MetroHealth System: The MetroHealth System is an essential health system committed to providing health care to everyone in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and improving the health of the community overall. Its 7,300 employees deliver care to everyone at its main campus, just west of downtown Cleveland, and at more than 25 other MetroHealth locations. It also provides health care at more than 40 additional sites in Cuyahoga County through community partnerships such as the School Health program. MetroHealth is home to Cuyahoga County's only verified Level I Adult Trauma Center and Level II Pediatric Trauma Center, and it is one of two adult and pediatric burn centers in the state of Ohio verified by the American Burn Association and the Committee on Trauma of the American College of Surgeons. In the past year, MetroHealth provided more than one million patient visits in its hospital and health centers. MetroHealth also is an academic medical center committed to teaching and research; each of its active physicians holds a faculty appointment at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. MetroHealth has earned Magnet status, which places it in the top six percent of all hospitals nationwide for nursing excellence. MetroHealth's mission is, "Leading the way to a healthier you and a healthier community through service, teaching, discovery and teamwork." For more information, visit metrohealth.org. About PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is dedicated to achieving optimal child health and well-being by informing program and policy changes through interdisciplinary research. Founded in 2008, PolicyLab is a Center of Emphasis within the CHOP Research Institute, one of the largest pediatric research institutes in the country. With more than 25 highly-regarded faculty and 35 passionate staff who bring expertise from myriad of fields covering health, research and health policy, our work focuses on improving public systems, improving health care delivery and improving child health outcomes. For more information, visit http://www.policylab.chop.edu. About Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 535-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents. For more information, visit http://www.chop.edu. Tina Arundel, Media Relations Manager The MetroHealth System [email protected] or 216-778-5370 Lauren Walens, Communications Manager PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia [email protected] or (267) 426-9837 SOURCE PolicyLab at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia Related Links http://www.policylab.chop.edu NEW YORK, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Two colossal questions come to mind when reading the bold title above: "Are these children in Israel?" and "How can this still be happening?" Many incorrectly assume that the former Soviet Union, specifically Ukraine and Belarus, have no Jewish population since the majority have immigrated to either the US or Israel in the 1980s and 1990s. This is not the case. Thousands having been left behind, had children, and now these Jewish children are in continuous risk of abuse, abandonment and exploitation. These children often enduring malnutrition and falling victim to drug and alcohol abuse desperately need everyone's attention. Some of these children are homeless and many are suffering due to the political unrest that the Ukraine has been experiencing for years. As we comfortably read this article in our safe and secure environments, there are 45,000 Jews currently living in Odessa, 2,500 of whom are Jewish children that are either homeless, abused, abandoned, or worse! On September 27th, 2016, TiKVA Children's Home celebrated its 20th Anniversary at TiKVA's Annual Gala at Espace NYC with guests from around the world. This special evening raised over $750,000. Our Lifetime Humanitarian Award was presented by Jeff Kaye, SVP of the IFCJ received by Mark and Jacob Schimmel, as we honored their parents, Harry and Anna Schimmel. The Schimmels are international philanthropists, who came to TiKVA Children's Home in Odessa while visiting the Ukraine back in 2000. The Schimmels made TiKVA Children's Home an important part of their life, and have been passionate supporters of our life-saving mission since. The Distinguished Service Award was presented by Andrew Stamelman, EVP, to Max Kleinman, a long time TiKVA Board Member and senior consultant with Jewish Federations of North America, Associate Professor of social work at Rutgers. The sponsors of TiKVA's 20th Anniversary Gala were VITAQUEST International, The Schnier Family, The Stephen Milstein Family, Ed & Leah Frankel, The Tom Leydiker Family and EIN Capital. TiKVA Children's Home was founded in 1996 with a commitment to provide orphaned, abandoned, abused and homeless Jewish children of Odessa, Ukraine with food, shelter, education, counseling and a warm loving environment. To learn more about TiKVA Children's Home, and to donate please visit www.TiKVAOdessa.org. TiKVA Children's Home is a registered non-profit charitable organization with 501(c)(3) status. Media Contact: [email protected] / Yanna Bagelman 917-517-7879 Related Links Photo Gallery Video Gallery This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com SOURCE TiKVA Children's Home Related Links http://www.tikvaodessa.org LONDON, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mobile payment use grows in Latin America With B2C E-Commerce growing rapidly, the online payment landscape in Latin America remains dynamic. Credit card was the leading payment method used by online shoppers in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Dominican Republic in 2014/2015, according to research cited in the report by yStats.com. However, credit cards meet intense competition from alternative payment methods, including cash on delivery, PayPal and local banking schemes. For example, in Brazil, over half of online shoppers paid by credit card, as of 2015, and around one third used local banking method Boleto Bancario, as yStats.com's report reveals. In Mexico, debit cards and PayPal were used by about 50% of online shoppers, only slightly behind credit card use. In Colombia, nearly a quarter of online shoppers chose cash on delivery to pay for their purchases made over the Internet. Another important trend in digital payments in Latin America is the growing use of mobile payment methods, spurred by the rise of mobile shopping and smartphone penetration. In Argentina, the share of online payment users who made payments via mobile phones doubled in 2015, while in Brazil it was already close to one half. Furthermore, in Mexico, over 50% of consumers with bank accounts reported that they would probably or definitely use mobile payments in the future, according to a 2015 survey cited in yStats.com's report. For individual Market Report purchases: 1. A "Single User License" means that only one (1) individually named user of an organization shall be entitled to access the report 2. A "Site License" means that up to ten (10) users within a given geographical location (i.e. country) of an organization shall be entitled to access the report 3. A "Global Site License" means that up to ten (10) worldwide users of an organization shall be entitled to access the report In all cases, the term "organization" refers to the purchaser's specific company only and excludes any third parties, including affiliates. Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/2787560/ 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 VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. (CSE: LDS), (OTCQB: LDSYF), and Borse Frankfurt Exchange (XETR: LD6) ("LDS" or the "Company") is very pleased to announce that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (the "MOU") with Azonic Health Sciences, LLC ("Azonic") and its affiliated companies for the distribution of its CannaStrips line of products. The arrangement would place CannaStrips in hundreds of current medical marijuana dispensaries and into the anticipated new retail stores throughout California. Brad Eckenweiler, CEO of Lifestyle Delivery Systems states, "The passage of Proposition 64 in the state of California legalizes the adult recreational use of cannabis for over 39 million residents and more than 100 million annual adult visitors. This is more than just a significant potential market increase, it represents more than 100 times the current number of legally registered medical marijuana users in the state that are now capable of purchasing CannaStrips. We also believe that the smokeless benefits of Cannastrips are ideally suited to the stringent California smoke free legislation, which restricts smoking of any kind in most public and commercial areas - a restriction that would not apply to CannaStrips. We are very excited for the prospects of offering the Lifestyle Delivery Systems' CannaStrips Technology to over 100 million possible new customers." The California market upon legalization will represent a market value greater than the rest of North America combined including Canada. The Company has recently made modifications to increase production capacity in anticipation of the expanded distribution network required to meet the projected 2017 market demand. About Azonic Health Sciences, LLC. Located in Simi Valley, CA, Azonic is an advertising, distribution and promotion company representing over 800 business and associations in the medical marijuana industry in California. About Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. The Company's technology produces infused strips (similar to breath strips) that are not only a safer, healthier option to smoking but also a new way to accurately meter the dosage and assure the purity of the product. From seed to sale the ingredients are tested for quality and composition throughout the formulation and production processes, insuring each and every product produced with our technology is safe, consistent and effective. U.S. Department of Commerce: California Statistics http://industry.visitcalifornia.com/Industry/Research/CaliforniaStatisticsTrends/ On behalf of the board of directors of Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. Brad Eckenweiler CEO & Director FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: [email protected] 1-866-347-5058 Cautionary Disclaimer Statement: The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release. Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all forward looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to the Company's limited operating history and the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information. SOURCE Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. Related Links http://www.lifestyledeliverysystem.com CARMEL, Ind., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mainstreet Student Living has announced a new initiative to raise funds for a new student living community in Central, South Carolina. Helping with this effort is Oregon-based CrowdStreet, a crowdfunding marketplace and software platform that connects accredited investors with institutional-quality real estate investments. Mainstreet Student Living is seeking upwards of $1.8 million on behalf of MS Vita SWU, LLC through a private placement offering solely to accredited investors under Rule 506(c) of Regulation D promulgated by the SEC under the Securities Act of 1933. "We are excited about our first online fundraising experience and to partner with CrowdStreet for this initiative," said Justin Farris, managing director of Mainstreet Student Living. "Our mission is to transform collegiate lives and, with this initiative, it enables us to pursue high-quality opportunities to further growth and innovation in student housing." The 68,000 square-foot, on-campus student living development at Southern Wesleyan University will boast 114 units, 243 beds and feature a state-of-the-art clubhouse, study lounges, a resident lounge with television, a fully-functional kitchen and much more. The $9.3 million community is projected to be complete in August 2017. Southern Wesleyan University was founded in 1906 and is a student-focused learning community devoted to transforming lives by challenging students to be dedicated scholars. The main campus totals approximately 350 acres and current enrollment totals 1,883 students. In addition to the main campus, Southern Wesleyan University has six other satellite campuses located throughout South Carolina. About Mainstreet Capital Partners, LLC Mainstreet Capital Partners, LLC is a U.S. registered broker-dealer focused on the health care sector and student housing opportunities. Mainstreet Capital Partners is focused on, but not limited to, opportunities in health care development, health care acquisitions, health care operations and student housing. For additional information, visit www.maincap.com. About Mainstreet Student Living Mainstreet Student Living is the premier investment, development and management firm of student housing communities throughout North America. Dedicated to a student-centric approach, Mainstreet Student Living develops communities that allow students an opportunity at a true live and learn environment. Our redefinition of the student experience fuels design innovation, creative investment opportunities and provides students with a life-changing experience. For additional information, visit www.mainstreetstudentliving.com. About CrowdStreet CrowdStreet is a software and services company disrupting the commercial real estate industry by enabling innovative real estate operators and developers to efficiently engage in online capital formation, communicate with investors, distribute investment documents and centralize ongoing investor relations. For additional information, visit www.crowdstreet.com. Disclosures This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction. Any such offer will be made only by means of appropriate definitive legal documentation relating to the investment opportunity and is subject to the terms and conditions contained therein. Mainstreet Capital Partners, LLC (a member of FINRA and SIPC) may act solely as placement agent in connection with any potential offering, the terms of which shall be effected pursuant to Regulation D under the Securities Act of 1933 or other applicable exemption from registration under state and federal securities laws. The securities offered in the Offering will not be and have not been registered under the Securities Act and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration requirements. This release, like many written and oral communications presented by Mainstreet, and its authorized officers, may contain certain forward-looking statements regarding our prospective performance and strategies. Forward-looking statements, which are based on certain assumptions and describe future plans, strategies, and expectations of Mainstreet, are generally identified by use of words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "plan," "project," "seek," "strive," "try," or future or conditional verbs such as "could," "may," "should," "will," "would," or similar expressions. Mainstreet's ability to predict results or the actual effects of our plans or strategies is inherently uncertain. Accordingly, actual results may differ materially from anticipated results. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. Except as required by applicable law or regulation, Mainstreet undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date on which such statements were made. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442095LOGO SOURCE Mainstreet Capital Partners, LLC IRVINE, Calif., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Talk Marketing and M2G Media, the creators of the documentary "Silenced As Toxins Rise", are proud to announce the launch of their crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Exposing the truth that has been kept secret for too long Their mission is to raise worldwide awareness about heavy metals poisoning through a targeted viral campaign on social media. The team is now ready to release the project to the public and ask for moral and financial support. Please use this direct link to pledge They would never disclose how toxins are dangerous We are all invited to actively contribute to maximize the awareness about how heavy metals and toxins are silently killing us. This mass fundraising effort proceeds from a worldwide tragedy that concerns everyone. Many heavy metals tragedies in the USA have been silenced. The funds will allow them to finish the documentary explaining how and why it happened and it's still going on. This round of fundraising is expected to last 35 days, finishing in December 2016. The objective is to raise $70000 US to finalize the initial production stages. Donators get interesting perks in return for their contribution: early access to the movie, DVD with bonus contents and various promo items. They hope the documentary will not hit theatres "This funding will allow us to ramp up our visibility and marketing strategy to deliver a strong documentary. This funding will strengthen our "they don't want people to know" position, raising public awareness and allowing people to make informed health decisions." - Chad Murdock, M2G Media's co-owner and producer "Everybody is concerned about this silence trend. A crowdfunding campaign reinforces the people com- mitment. It is the best way we found to stay independent and keep the freedom that we have and need to produce this unfiltered documentary: what we discovered is alarming and you have to know it!" - Karl Andre Talbot, Talk Marketing owner and co-producer About M2G Media and TALK Marketing M2G Media is a diversified, experienced media production company. The 3 partners all together have 75 years of experience in the industry. Their specialties are direct response marketing, corporate communications and event media production. www.m2gmedia.com TALK Marketing is an agency based in Quebec, Canada. They offer turnkey commercialization strategies to Canadian and U.S. businesses. Their specialties are branding, video production and digital solutions. www.talk.marketing Website www.toxins-movie.com Media Contact Chad Murdock 15215 Alton Parkway, Suite 300 Irvine, CA 92618 e: [email protected] p: (949) 502-7601 Press Kit toxins-movie.com/press SOURCE M2G Media Related Links http://www.m2gmedia.com CHICAGO, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. currently represents the largest single market for meal kits worldwidea channel that has quickly grown to a multi-billion dollar industry over the last several years. This year, consumers have numerous new options to order the ingredients for their Thanksgiving meal from a meal kit service. As the busy holiday season approaches, many consumers are open to the ideaindicating an important shift in consumer preferences when it comes to food sourcing. "Many players in the meal kit business are testing holiday packages as a way to expand the ways in which they serve customers," says Erik Thoresen, principal with Technomic's technology advisory practice. "Thanksgiving represents an important opportunity to build awareness among non-users, particularly as large groups of family and friends gather together." The actual number of consumers turning to meal kits this Thanksgiving is still a very small number compared to the tens of millions of households that will be preparing meals using store-bought ingredients. Several meal kit companies are going up against traditional grocers to capture a portion of the Thanksgiving Day food dollar as reported by Technomic's latest consumer research. Highlights from Technomic's November 2016 survey of 1,500 consumers on meal kits include: Consumers under age 35 are more than twice as likely than older consumers to have used a meal kit service within the last three months While only 16% of non-users would consider ordering their Thanksgiving dinner from a meal kit company, the percentage jumps to 51% among existing meal kit service users dinner from a meal kit company, the percentage jumps to 51% among existing meal kit service users Forty-three percent (43%) of meal kit users believe that a Thanksgiving dinner from a meal kit company would boost the quality of their Thanksgiving day feast, compared to only 17% of non-users "Thanksgiving and other holidays represent a useful opportunity for meal kit companies to build awareness and gain exposure among consumers as they gather together to celebrate," comments Thoresen. Technomic will complete a larger study on meal kits and the consumer direct channel in advance of the Consumer Direct Conference which will be held at Google Chicago on March 16, 2017. To learn more, purchase the full Consumer Direct Study or obtain registration or sponsorship details for the conference, please contact Erik Thoresen at 312-506-3815 or [email protected] About Technomic Only Technomic, a Winsight company, delivers a 360-degree view of the food industry. We impact growth and profitability for our clients by providing consumer-grounded vision and channel-relevant strategic insights. Our services range from major research studies and management consulting solutions to online databases and simple fact-finding assignments. Our clients include food manufacturers and distributors, restaurants and retailers, other foodservice organizations, and various institutions aligned with the food industry. Visit us at technomic.com. About Winsight, LLC Winsight, LLC is a business-to-business media and information services company specializing in the convenience-retailing, restaurant and noncommercial foodservice industries. Winsight has an extensive media portfolio including four publications, CSP, Restaurant Business, FoodService Director and Convenience Store Products, a suite of digital products including websites, e-newsletters (Restaurant Business Daily and CSP Daily News) and webinars, plus video products, mobile and tablet apps, custom marketing solutions and the convenience-retailer intelligence tool, CSPedia. The Winsight Events group produces six exclusive, large-scale executive-level conferencesRestaurant Leadership Conference, FARE Conference, Outlook Leadership, Convenience Retailing University, FSTEC and MenuDirectionsin addition to more than 12 major EduNetworking conferences and advisory meetings. Winsight recently acquired Technomic, Inc., a food industry provider of primary and secondary market information and advisory services. Winsight is a recognized leader in the markets it serves. For more information on Winsight and its brands, go to WinsightMedia.com. CONTACT Erik Thoresen Principal Technomic, a Winsight Company + 1 312-506-3815 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110428/CG90692LOGO SOURCE Technomic Inc. Related Links http://www.technomic.com Ontario's Humber River Hospital CIO Receives 2016 CanadianCIO of the Year Award WESTWOOD, Mass., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- MEDITECH is pleased to congratulate Peter Bak, CIO at Humber River Hospital (HRH), the first fully digital hospital in North America located in Toronto, Ontario, on receiving the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) 2016 CanadianCIO of the Year Award (public sector). "This is a tremendous accomplishment and MEDITECH is proud of Peter Bak and HRH's hard work, which sets an example for other healthcare organizations striving to improve efficiency, safety, and quality while fundamentally enhancing the patient care experience," President and CEO at MEDITECH, Howard Messing said. "What HRH has achieved goes beyond the integration of typical hospital information systems and software, by bringing together clinical, business, and facility automation systems in ways that have not been seen before in healthcare." The ITAC CanadianCIO of the Year Award is presented to outstanding CIOs in either the private sector, public sector, or not-for-profit sectors demonstrating business and technological vision, entrepreneurship, capacity to drive enterprise transformation, and measurable operational strength delivering shareholder or stakeholder value. "On behalf of the innovation and transformation team at Humber, I'm honored to receive the CanadianCIO of the Year Award from ITAC. This award and the success of Humber's digital project is the result of hospital-wide communication and collaboration of all stafffrom care providers to executive leadership," Bak said. "The journey to become the first fully digital hospital in North America took an enormous amount of planning and not just with our staff, but with MEDITECH as well. MEDITECH's integrated Electronic Health Record (EHR) was a key piece of HRH's roadmap to becoming 100 percent digital." Bak recently accepted the award at the 2016 Ingenious Awards, an annual celebration of excellence in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) by Canadian organizations. A MEDITECH customer for over two decades, HRH is leveraging MEDITECH's EHR to support their patient care goals. Since implementation, CPOE and Physician Documentation (PDoc) utilization in their inpatient setting is at 100 percent. In addition, HRH is taking healthcare integration and cancer treatment to a whole new level, as the first adopter of MEDITECH's Oncology Management solution with the 6.x EHR platform. The regional 656-bed acute care hospital's innovative technologieswhich also include self-serve on-line tools and robots that mix and administer medicationsenable staff to spend more time focusing on patient care and safety. About MEDITECH Today, more than 2,400 institutions worldwide use MEDITECH's 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. Contact Paul Berthiaume Senior Manager, Marketing Communications MEDITECH 781-774-5742 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160822/400164LOGO SOURCE MEDITECH Related Links http://www.meditech.com TEL AVIV, Israel, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- MedyMatch Technology Ltd., ("MedyMatch") the deep learning and artificial intelligence company, announced today that after several years of extensive research and development, it has achieved a major milestone in the availability, for research, of an artificial intelligence based technology that can help detect the presence of intracranial hemorrhage or brain bleed which can occur in cases of brain trauma and stroke. Subtle bleeds are difficult to detect and if misinterpreted or missed by a physician can lead to serious patient injury and even death. Per the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA), stroke is the fourth leading cause of death and one of the top causes of preventable disability in the United States. Affecting 4% of U.S. adults, it is forecasted that by 2030 there will be approximately 3.4 million stroke victims annually in the U.S., costing the healthcare system $240 Billion on an annual basis. It is anticipated that this new technology will come to the marketplace in several forms: a patient specific computer assisted detection ("CAD") tool used by physicians in the emergency room to assist in the detection of intracranial bleeds; a prioritization algorithm operating within a PACS or on a CT to help prioritize cases based on the potential presence of a bleed; and as a tool to provide insights into populations to proactively identify bleed cases. Deployment will be customer driven as either a cloud or on-premises based solution, with near zero foot-print and seamless integration into a hospital enterprise, integrating smoothly into clinical workflow. "The generalized 3D deep vision platform approach has the promise to tackle many diseases. We have developed the capability to consider the full richness of medical imaging along with any other patient data," said Gene Saragnese, Chairman & CEO of MedyMatch. "Our platform and A.I. approach will facilitate rapid decision support development, clinical discovery and propel MedyMatch into adjacent decision support opportunities." It is envisioned that MedyMatch's technology will assist physicians and not replace them, essentially providing a virtual "second set of eyes" to help physicians assess radiology images as accurately as possible. "Consideration of the whole patient differentiates MedyMatch from traditional CAD applications," said Dr. Jacob Cohen, Chief Technical Officer of MedyMatch. "While traditional CADs strictly focus on pixel data, MedyMatch's technology applies deep learning and computer vision ("Deep Vision") to interpret the full richness of the 3D imaging data together with the patient's Electronic Medical Record ("EMR"), allowing the system to consider the 'whole' patient." MedyMatch's goal is to harness clinical understanding in conjunction with computer vision and deep learning to provide real time artificial intelligence-based clinical decision support to physicians in the emergency room. To accomplish this, MedyMatch considers all the multidimensional patient data; raw imaging concurrently with other relevant patient data at the leading edge of machine learning technologies. About MedyMatch Technology, Ltd. MedyMatch utilizes advanced cognitive analytics and artificial intelligence to deliver real-time decision support tools to improve clinical outcomes in acute medical scenarios. The foundation of clinical discovery and value creation lies in the deep clinical understanding of how to utilize the right data (electronic medical record, medical imaging, and genomic data). The MedyMatch team of artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning algorithms experts along with its medical and science advisory boards are achieving breakthroughs in standards of cost and care. To learn more, please visit http://www.medymatch.com. Join the conversation at #medymatch and follow us on twitter at @medymatch. Caution: Limited by Federal (or United States) law to investigational use. For More Information Contact: Michael Rosenberg Corporate Development Officer & CFO [email protected] +972-52-323-7334 SOURCE MedyMatch Technology, Ltd. WASHINGTON, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mesothelioma Compensation Center says, "One of the most heartbreaking calls we get almost every week is the call from the wife, adult son, or adult daughter about the fact that their dad died a year or two ago and the doctor mentioned possible mesothelioma, but the family never had an autopsy done. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441551 Medical Doctor/Mesothelioma Asbestos Warning Sign Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441553 "If you do not have medical proof that includes a pathology report that confirms mesothelioma, compensation for this rare cancer may not happen. If you or a loved one has recently been told mesothelioma is a possibility, please call us anytime at 866-714-6466 so we can explain exactly what you should do." http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.Com If a medical doctor has implicated the possibility of mesothelioma, the Mesothelioma Compensation Center recommends the following: "The person should agree to have a biopsy done to confirm a mesothelioma diagnosis." "If the pathology report confirms mesothelioma, we urge the diagnosed person or their family to call us immediately so we can arrange for one of the nation's leading mesothelioma to contact you about were exposure to asbestos took place." "To get the best possible mesothelioma compensation, it is incredibly vital for the diagnosed person to be alive because only they will know the specific details of how or where they were exposed to asbestos as we would like to discuss anytime at 866-714-6466." "If the loved one is suspected of having mesothelioma (by a medical doctor) but the person is too weak to have a biopsy performed, the family should get skilled and experienced attorneys involved and an autopsy should be done when the person passes away." http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.Com The Mesothelioma Compensation Center specializes in assisting specific types of people who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma. The Center's top priority is assisting US Navy Veterans, shipyard workers, oil refinery workers, public-utility workers, chemical plant workers, manufacturing workers, power plant workers, plumbers, welders, electricians, machinists, nuclear power plant workers, hydro-electric workers or oil and gas production workers who have been diagnosed with this rare cancer caused by asbestos exposure. In most instances a diagnosed person with mesothelioma was exposed to asbestos in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, or 1980's. http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.Com The states indicated with the highest incidence of mesothelioma include Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Louisiana, Washington, and Oregon. However, a diagnosed person with mesothelioma could live in any state including California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, or Alaska. The average age for a diagnosed victim of mesothelioma is about 72 years old. This year between 2500, and 3000 US citizens will be diagnosed with mesothelioma. US Navy Veterans comprise about one-third of all-people who will be diagnosed with mesothelioma each year in the United States. The Mesothelioma Compensation Center says, "Before you hire a law firm to advance a mesothelioma compensation claim for yourself or a family member please call us at 866-714-6466 to ensure you are talking directly to the nation's very best mesothelioma attorneys." http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.Com For more information about mesothelioma please refer to the National Institutes of Health's web site related to this rare form of cancer: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mesothelioma.html Media Contact: Thomas Martin [email protected] 866-714-6466 SOURCE Mesothelioma Compensation Center Related Links http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.Com "Miami Beach has hosted Art Basel since 2001 and its organizers keep returning to our city because it has everything an Art Fair the size and scope of Art Basel could ever want or need," says Peggy Benua, Chair, Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority (MBVCA). "Just Art Basel welcomed almost 100,000 people to the convention center last year. With additional Fairs across the city including SCOPE and UNTITLED., this is going to be another successful Art Week on Miami Beach." Grisette Roque, Executive Director of the MBVCA, says Art Basel Miami Beach is itself a reflection of the city, "Sophisticated, global, unpredictable, creative, colorful, full of life and energy; the Fair and the city are indelibly intertwined. Art Basel and Art Week are transformative events that take this city to a different level; we are always excited when they arrive." Visiting for Art Basel and Art Week? This is one of the most exciting times of year to visit Miami Beach. Follow our guide to discover where to stay, what to eat and what to see all week long. WHERE TO STAY The Confidante Miami Beach: As an official partner of this year's Art Basel, this Art Deco gem will be offering preferential rates during the week. The Confidante remains one of Miami Beach's best kept secrets with its all-night eateries, beach front cabanas and rooftop spas. The Betsy Hotel: This upscale boutique hotel is home to one of Art Basel's premiere events: The Fridge Art Fair. The Betsey is the only Forbes 4-Star and AAA Four Diamond boutique hotel on Miami Beach. Sagamore, The Art Hotel: The Sagamore is well known for its Art Basel Sunday brunch, attended by celebrities, influencers and artists. The hotel's central South Beach location and relatively affordable room rates make it a central location for navigating Art Basel. The Delano: One of Miami Beach's most popular hotels, the Delano has been trendy since the day it opened. From their trend-setting pop up night clubs to their well-known restaurants and bars, this property is the place to be during Art Basel. ART FAIRS North Beach Located from 63rd St to 87th street, this northern stretch of white sand and charming architecture, is known for being serene and chill. With dozens of bustling neighborhood restaurants and stores, North Beach will feature several Art Fairs this year. Miami Project: Returning for its fifth consecutive edition, Miami Project will house dozens of world-class art exhibitions When: Dec. 1 - 4, 2016 Where: 6625 Indian Creek Drive on Miami Beach Tickets: $20 one-day pass; $35 multi-day pass NADA Art Fair Miami Beach: The New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) is the definitive non-profit arts organization dedicated to the cultivation, support, and advancement of new voices in contemporary art. When: Dec. 1 - 4, 2016 Where: Deauville Beach Resort, 6701 Collins Avenue on Miami Beach Tickets: $20 single day; $40 run of show Mid-Beach Located from 30th to 63rd St, this strip of paradise includes a famous elevated boardwalk perfect for strolling, skating, and jogging. Pulse Miami Beach: Pulse is known for the discovery of emerging to mid-career artists. When: Dec. 1 - 4, 2016 Where: Indian Beach Park, 4601 Collins Avenue on Miami Beach Tickets: $25 one-day pass; $40 multi-day pass X Contemporary: is recognized for bringing untold stories in modern, contemporary, and global art movements to an international art audience. When: Nov. 30 - Dec. 4, 2016 Where: Nobu Hotel, 4525 Collins Avenue on Miami Beach Tickets: $20 one-day pass South Beach Attracting not only the rich and famous but hundreds of thousands of tourists each year, South Beach is today a quintessential reference point in American Pop culture. Known for its beaches, Art Deco architecture, restaurants, luxury hotels, nightlife and sexy beaches, many Art Fairs make this portion of the city home during Art Basel. Scope Miami Beach: The 16th edition of SCOPE Miami Beach returns to the sands of Ocean Drive and 8th Street. Featuring 125 International Exhibitors from 22 countries and 57 cities, SCOPE Miami Beach expects to welcome over 50,000 visitors over the course of 6 days. When: Nov. 29 - Dec. 4, 2016 Where: Scope Pavilion, 801 Ocean Drive on Miami BeachTickets: $35 general admission; $100 VIP Ink Miami Art Fair: Come see Contemporary Art at its finest with exhibitions presented by the renowned International Fine Print Dealers Association. When: Nov. 30 - Dec. 4, 2016 Where: Suites of Dorchester, 1850 Collins Avenue on Miami Beach Tickets: Admission is free Satellite: Making an anticipated return, the Satellite Art Fair is known for its renowned EXPERIENTIAL exhibitions and a lively music and performance art program. When: Dec. 1 - 4, 2016 Where: The Parisian, 1510 Collins Avenue on Miami Beach Tickets: $10 About Miami Beach Recently named 2016 North America's Leading Tourist Board by the World Travel Awards and first place in the 2016 edition of the Travvy Awards, presented by travAlliancemedia in the category of "Best Wedding Destination, U.S. & Canada" and a winner in the 2014 and 2015 Magellan Awards by Travel Weekly in the categories of "Destinations | Mobile App" and "Overall Spa Destinations| U.S and Canada" respectively, Miami Beach is a favorite destination among travelers worldwide. Renowned for its unparalleled culinary offerings, extravagant nightlife, rich culture, luxe shopping and plush hotels, Miami Beach is home to unique museums, the New World Symphony, Miami City Ballet, Miami Beach Convention Center, international festivals and art exhibitions, boat and auto shows, over 187 boutique and resort hotels and 12 public parks; it is no wonder the beautifully diverse city is one of the world's most popular vacation destinations. Boasting seven miles of breathtaking beaches, Miami Beach is easily accessible from the Port of Miami and Miami International Airport. The City of Miami Beach has been named one of the top cities worldwide for 'walkability' and is equally easy to navigate by bike or boat. Known for its year-round sunny skies, the vibrant destination not only produces its own branded sun care line, MB Miami Beach Suncare, but has been ranked by TripAdvisor as number one in 2011's Top Winter Sun Vacation Rental Getaway Destinations and was also part of Top 25 Beaches in the World and Top 25 Destinations in the U.S. Miami Beach is like no other place in the world! Visit Miamibeachapi.com for more information. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442244 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150720/238565LOGO SOURCE Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority Related Links http://www.miamibeachapi.com DENVER, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (cUAS) industry is gaining momentum as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) opens up the sky to public and commercial drone operators, and this week, the FAA and the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS), managers of the FAA-designated Nevada UAS Test Site, teamed together with Northern Plains UAS Test Site to test counter-UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) technology at the Denver International Airport (DIA). Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) that enter the protected airspace around airports can pose a serious threat to manned aviation safety. The FAA and its partners are working to evaluate new technologies for detecting unmanned aircraft near airports, and this DIA FAA test represents a major milestone in the right direction for developing minimum operational performance standards for drone detection at major airport and critical infrastructure locations. "With the FAA UAS Test Site designation, Nevada was given an incredible opportunity to lead in the research and development of a commercial drone industry," said Tom Wilczek, Aerospace and Defense Industry Specialist for the Governor's Office of Economic Development. "This latest test proves that safety and privacy remain paramount concerns in developing a thriving unmanned aerial systems industry, and Nevada is grateful and excited to be a lead participant in these groundbreaking efforts." "We flew over a half dozen fixed-wing and multi-rotor drones during the ground detection system testing in Denver," said Chris Walach, Director of the Nevada UAS Test Site. "As the FAA-designated Air Mission Lead for both UAS Test Sites, our mission was to fly the scenarios per the FAA test cards under every imaginable flight profile that an airport would see [drones] intruding in their airspace. During the main FAA Pathfinder demonstration on 16 November 2016, the flight crews experienced high winds with gust over 20-25 knots and winds at the maximum for the smaller drones; however, despite the high winds, all Nevada flight teams executed their test cards with precision and a high-degree of safety. Walach continued, "This was a first: two UAS Test Sites jointly executing a very high profile FAA Pathfinder mission in Class B Airspace. The Nevada Team did exactly what a World Series UAS Team could have done in any high-profile scenario - achieving the first to fly in the Class B National Airspace which occurred day and night through multi-aircraft operations under severe cold-weather and snow conditions. Simply put, these tests mark a big step forward in developing a Counter Unmanned Systems industry." The Nevada Team included Nevada-based Eye in the Sky UAS, Colorado-based UASUSA, North Dakota-based ISight RPV Services, and the Nevada UAS Test Site flight team. Eye In The Sky Unmanned Aerial Systems was proud to fly the first series of Rotary-wing UAS in Class B airspace, as part of the FAA's Pathfinder Program for UAS Detection at Airports and Critical Infrastructure. Hand-selected by the Nevada UAS Test Site, Eye In The Sky flight team flew the various test cards using the InstantEye Gen3 and DJI Advanced platforms at Denver International Airport (DIA). "This is a major milestone for the Unmanned Aerial Systems Industry and for safely integrating UAS into the National Airspace System," said Rinaldo F. Brown, Director of UAS Operations for Eye In The Sky Unmanned Aerial Systems. "This project was an exciting chance for us to help advance the UAS industry, while also expanding our own technical capabilities. That combination made it a valuable and rewarding project for our team," said Adam Overvold, Chief Pilot, ISight RPV Services. "UASUSA was proud to demonstrate the Tempest's performance, and to be the first fixed-wing commercial drone launch in Class B Airspace held at Denver International Airport. The purpose was to support and study drone flight safety, a significant stepping stone to move the UAS industry forward," said Skip Miller, founder and CEO UASUSA. Nevada's Silver Springs Airport participated as the primary training location for all flight crews. "It was an honor and privilege to participate with NIAS in this historic event with our clients," said Kay Bennett, Silver Springs Airport Owner and Manager. About the Governor's Office of Economic Development Created during the 2011 session of the Nevada Legislature, the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) is the result of a collaborative effort between the Nevada Legislature and Governor Brian Sandoval to restructure economic development in the state. GOED's role is to promote a robust, diversified and prosperous economy in Nevada, to stimulate business expansion and retention, encourage entrepreneurial enterprise, attract new businesses and facilitate community development. More information on the Governor's Office of Economic Development can be viewed at www.diversifynevada.com. About the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS) On behalf of the Nevada Governor's Office of Economic Development, NIAS helps to grow the Autonomous Systems Industry through business teaming, partnerships, research and development, and education awareness in order to bring in business and jobs to the State of Nevada and to facilitate full and safe UAS integration into the National Airspace System. Learn more at www.nias-uas.com or www.flynevada.com. About Eye in the Sky Eye In The Sky Unmanned Aerial Systems, with Training locations in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Carrabelle, Florida focused on UAS Training, to include Part 107, Maintenance and Support Operations. Our focus on First Responders, Search and Rescue, and unique Payload R&D has allowed us to participate in industry-changing projects shaping the future for UAS support. About UASUSA UASUSA, based in Longmont, Colorado, is a leader in fixed-wing drone manufacturing and operations. Our unmanned aircraft systems, such as the Tempest, are civil servants in the air. We are helping governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations resolve some of society's biggest commercial, environmental, and scientific challenges. UASUSA's deep experience with small UAV flight, system efficiency and performance, result in unparalleled mission capability. About ISight RPV Services ISight RPV Services, based in Grand Forks, ND, provides Remotely Piloted Vehicle operations to agriculture, critical infrastructure, wildlife management, insurance, and emergency services companies, enabling them to unlock the value and efficiency of collecting data with unmanned aircraft. We maintain a fleet of innovative UAS platforms and a team of professional pilots to meet a wide range of customer needs. SOURCE Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS) Related Links http://www.nias-uas.com FREDERICKSBURG, Va., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- PAS Systems International Inc., announces the market release of the AquilaScan Oral Fluid Drug Screener designed for law enforcement. AquilaScan is an affordable, handheld, qualitative screening instrument with a simple to use field data management system. The device leverages oral fluid which is a better indicator of recent drug use than urine without the complicated logistics of urine testing. This combination of superior methodology and simple field usage makes AquilaScan ideal for law enforcement. About the AquilaScan Device AquilaScan hand held oral fluid drug screener plus data management system. The device is simple to operate. A disposable sponge is used to swap the inside of the subject's mouth. The sponge is then placed in a test cassette which is then inserted into the portable analyzer unit. Results are promptly displayed and can be printed, stored or downloaded to a computer. "AquilaScan is a 3-in-1 ergonomic electronic analyzer with built-in printer, customizable data management system and driver's license scanner. This integrated approach serves to eliminate possible sources of human errors and ensures a clear chain of custody" stated Jarel Kelsey, President of PAS Systems. The AquilaScan device is presently nearing completion of advanced field trials with law enforcement agencies in several states. These studies will provide real world usage results as well as valuable feedback for device evolution and additional features important to the law enforcement community. PAS will release field trial updates as they are completed. About PAS Headquartered in Fredericksburg, Virginia, PAS Systems International, Inc., is a 20 year leader in the manufacturing of fuel cells and the development of alcohol detection devices utilized by law enforcement, in the workplace and elsewhere. The PAS mission is to leverage the highest quality impairment detection technologies to enhance public safety. In addition to a diverse set of proprietary alcohol detection devices, PAS has expanded its focus to meet the increasing demand for advanced drug detection devices. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442192 SOURCE PAS Systems International Inc. DENVER, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- General Cannabis Corporation (OTCQB: CANN), the comprehensive resource to the regulated cannabis industry, announced today that Duncan Levin, the managing partner of Tucker Levin, PLLC, and former federal prosecutor, has been elected to the Board of Directors. Levin is a highly respected expert in the legal aspects of anti-money laundering, internal investigations, and anti-fraud. After a lengthy career at the senior-most levels of state and federal law enforcement, Mr. Levin now regularly consults with a variety of businesses facing complex challenges, including regulatory, investigatory, and anti-fraud issues. Prior to founding Tucker Levin, he served as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice specializing in money laundering and asset forfeiture and on the senior staff of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, where he was Chief of Asset Forfeiture and supervised money laundering cases. As the forfeiture chief for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., Levin oversaw all criminal and civil asset forfeiture and money laundering on a wide variety of cases, including international corruption, white-collar fraud, identity theft, organized crime, terrorist financing, and narcotics cases. He was the primary liaison with U.S. Department of Justice on the forfeiture of $1.9 billion in the HSBC OFAC sanctions case and $350 million in Standard Chartered OFAC sanctions case, as well as the OFAC/AML cases against BNP Paribas and ING. "Duncan's background and expertise helps elevate General Cannabis to a new level of industry-leading professionalism," said Robert Frichtel, Chief Executive Officer of General Cannabis Corp. "His unique perspective on complex legal issues will help us navigate through uncharted territory in our burgeoning industry and position General Cannabis as the premier consulting firm in the field" "General Cannabis is poised to be the unparalleled industry leader, and I'm delighted to join the board during this period of dynamic growth," said Levin. "The Cannabis industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in the country's economy, and General Cannabis is well positioned to be the leader in all aspects of providing the widest possible range of support services ranging from real estate and grow facilities to security and financing." Prior to joining the District Attorney's Office, Levin served as an Assistant United States Attorney at the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, where he handled money laundering, asset forfeiture, and Bank Secrecy Act cases. He reported in that position to U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, who is now the United States Attorney General. Levin is a graduate of Yale College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and Yale Law School. He started his legal career as a line prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, focusing on financial crime. Levin has lectured extensively on money laundering, suspicious activity reporting, AML/OFAC, and asset forfeiture for the U.S. Department of Justice and the District Attorney's Office. He serves on the Criminal Law committee of the Bar Association for the City of New York. About General Cannabis General Cannabis Corporation is the comprehensive resource for the highest quality service providers available to the regulated Cannabis Industry. We are a trusted partner to the cultivation, production and retail side of the cannabis business. We do this through a combination of strong operating divisions such as real estate, consulting, security, financing and the distribution of important infrastructure products to grow facilities and dispensaries. As a synergistic holding company, our subsidiaries are able to leverage the strengths of each other, as well as a larger balance sheet, to succeed. Our website address is www.generalcann.com. Safe Harbor This presentation contains forward-looking statements which relate to future events or General Cannabis' future performance or financial condition. Any statements that are not statements of historical fact (including statements containing the words "believes," "should," "plans," "anticipates," "expects," "estimates" and similar expressions) should also be considered to be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, condition or results and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as result of a number of factors, including those described from time to time in General Cannabis' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. General Cannabis undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements made herein. SOURCE General Cannabis Corporation Related Links http://www.generalcann.com NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- OnDeck (NYSE: ONDK), the leader in online lending for small business, announced today that Noah Breslow, Chief Executive Officer, and Howard Katzenberg, Chief Financial Officer, are scheduled to present at the J.P. Morgan 2016 Fintech & Specialty Finance Forum in New York on November 30, 2016 beginning at 12:30 p.m. E.T. The presentation and live audio webcast will be available on the company's Investor Relations website https://investors.ondeck.com at the time of the event and for 90 days following the event. About OnDeck OnDeck (NYSE: ONDK) is the leader in online small business lending. Since 2007, the company has powered Main Street's growth through advanced lending technology and a constant dedication to customer service. OnDeck's proprietary credit scoring system the OnDeck Score leverages advanced analytics, enabling OnDeck to make real-time lending decisions and deliver capital to small businesses in as little as 24 hours. OnDeck offers business owners a complete financing solution, including the online lending industry's widest range of term loans and lines of credit. To date, the company has deployed over $5 billion to more than 60,000 customers in 700 different industries across the United States, Canada and Australia. OnDeck has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and operates the educational small business financing website BusinessLoans.com. For more information, please visit www.ondeck.com. OnDeck, the OnDeck logo, OnDeck Score and OnDeck Marketplace are trademarks of On Deck Capital, Inc. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150812/257781LOGO SOURCE On Deck Capital, Inc. MIAMI, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- PEN Inc. (OTCQB: PENC) ("PEN" or "the Company"), a leader in developing, commercializing and marketing consumer and industrial products enabled by nanotechnology, today announced that the Company's Chairman and CEO, Dr. Scott Rickert, will speak at the inaugural 2016 Horasis Asia Meeting held in Bangkok, Thailand from November 27 28. The Horasis Asia Meeting aims to be Asia's foremost gathering of the region's most senior leaders from business and government and is poised to be the ideal platform to explore and advance regional cooperation, impact investing and sustainable growth. With the support of the Thai government, as well as Bangkok-based Sittipol Holdings and the Horasis Community, participants will discuss the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for Asia. Dr. Rickert is participating in a Boardroom Dialogue Session titled Investing in Asia (The Study), which will explore how varying volatility in Asia is impacting investors, how best to stimulate the investment climate, regional hot-spots and other current trends. Other leaders participating in the discussion with Dr. Rickert include: Beh Swan Gin , Chairman, Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), Singapore , Chairman, Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), Joseph Cha , Partner, Fuel Capital Partners, Korea , Partner, Fuel Capital Partners, Korea Harry C. Hui , Founder and Managing Partner, ClearVue Partners, China , Founder and Managing Partner, ClearVue Partners, Don Lam , Chief Executive Officer, Vina Capital , Vietnam , Chief Executive Officer, , Rob Morrison , Chairman, H.R.L. Morrison & Co, New Zealand , Chairman, & Co, Bernard Pouliot , Chairman, Quam Limited , Hong Kong SAR , Chairman, , Hong Kong SAR Yoshiki Sasaki , Chief Executive Officer, Japan Strategic Capital, Japan , Chief Executive Officer, Japan Strategic Capital, Susheel Saraff , Chairman, Saraff Global, Thailand , Chairman, Saraff Global, Arun Sharma , Chief Investment Officer, IFC, USA , Chief Investment Officer, IFC, Vikram Khanna , Associate Editor, Business Times, Singapore "In recent years, Thailand has been staging a dramatic comeback and is now on the cusp of becoming one of Asia's strongest performing economies. I look forward to exchanging ideas with other global business leaders and senior government officials to help advance the region's economic, political and social agenda with a focus on sustainable growth," said Dr. Rickert. About Horasis: Horasis as an independent international organization is committed to enacting visions for a sustainable future through the active participation of global business leaders in series of annual meetings. In addition to the Global China Business Meeting, Horasis holds meetings on India, Russia and the Arab world. For more information, visit www.horasis.org About PEN Inc. PEN Inc. (OTCQB: PENC) is a leader in developing, commercializing, and marketing consumer and industrial products enabled by nanotechnology that solve everyday problems for customers in the health, transportation, military, sports, and safety industries. Through PEN's wholly-owned subsidiary Nanofilm Ltd., the Company develops, manufactures and sells products based on nanotechnology including the ULTRA CLARITY brand eyeglass cleaner, CLARITY DEFOG IT brand defogging products and CLARITY ULTRASEAL nanocoating products for glass and ceramics. The Company also sells an environmentally friendly surface protector, fortifier, and cleaner through a wholly-owned subsidiary, PEN Technology, LLC. The Company's Applied Nanotech, Inc. subsidiary in Austin, Texas functions as the Design Center conducting research and development services for government and private customers and new product development for PEN focusing on innovative and advanced product solutions in the areas of safety, health, and sustainability. For more information about PEN, visit www.penc.us. Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties concerning our business, products, and financial results. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted. More information about potential risk factors that could affect our business, products, and financial results are included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015, and in reports subsequently filed by us with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). All documents are available through the SEC's Electronic Data Gathering Analysis and Retrieval System (EDGAR) at www.sec.gov or from our website listed above. We hereby disclaim any obligation to publicly update the information provided above, including forward-looking statements, to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. SOURCE PEN Inc. Related Links http://www.penc.us "I am pleased to welcome KeVita into the PepsiCo family. Under the leadership of CEO Bill Moses, KeVita has become an innovative, highgrowth brand that is transforming the functional beverage space," said Chris Lansing, general manager and vice president, PepsiCo Premium Nutrition. "This announcement is further evidence of PepsiCo's focus on delivering Performance with Purpose by continuing to evolve our health and wellness offerings to meet consumers' changing needs." KeVita is a leader in fermented probiotic and kombucha beverages with three product lines and live probiotics in every bottle. With over two dozen flavors of Sparkling Probiotic Drink, Master Brew Kombucha and Apple Cider Vinegar Tonic, all KeVita drinks are certified organic, non-GMO, gluten-free and vegan. KeVita has a loyal and rapidly growing consumer base in the fast growing functional beverage space. "Joining the PepsiCo family will give us an opportunity to extend KeVita's trend-forward beverages to a broader audience, while staying committed to our core values," said Bill Moses, CEO and co-founder of KeVita. "We're looking forward to more consumers experiencing the KeVita brand and to leveraging PepsiCo's marketing and distribution capabilities." Upon closing, which is subject to regulatory approval, KeVita will continue to operate independently with its production and bottling facilities located in Oxnard, California. About PepsiCo PepsiCo products are enjoyed by consumers one billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. PepsiCo generated more than $63 billion in net revenue in 2015, driven by a complementary food and beverage portfolio that includes Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Quaker and Tropicana. PepsiCo's product portfolio includes a wide range of enjoyable foods and beverages, including 22 brands that generate more than $1 billion each in estimated annual retail sales. At the heart of PepsiCo is Performance with Purpose our goal to deliver top-tier financial performance while creating sustainable growth and shareholder value. In practice, Performance with Purpose means providing a wide range of foods and beverages from treats to healthy eats; finding innovative ways to minimize our impact on the environment and reduce our operating costs; providing a safe and inclusive workplace for our employees globally; and respecting, supporting and investing in the local communities where we operate. For more information, visit www.pepsico.com. About KeVita KeVita is a leader in fermented probiotic and kombucha beverages with 3 refreshingly accessible product lines and live probiotics in every bottle. Crafted since 2009, KeVita has grown from a kitchen in Ojai, California to over 20,000 retail locations across North America. KeVita uses only the purest ingredients and pairs age-old techniques with modern technology to provide the finest quality, flavor, and functionality in the market. This commitment to quality continues through their advocacy for rigorous testing and transparency in fermented beverage labeling. For more information, visit http://www.kevita.com. Cautionary Statement Statements in this communication that are "forward-looking statements" are based on currently available information, operating plans and projections about future events and trends. Terminology such as "believe," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "project," "anticipate," "will," or similar statements or variations of such terms are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain such terms. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted in any such forward-looking statement. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: changes in demand for PepsiCo's products, as a result of changes in consumer preferences, increased taxes on our products or otherwise; changes in or failure to comply with, applicable laws and regulations; imposition by any jurisdiction (within or outside the U.S.) of new or increased taxes or other measures that impact our products and the timing thereof, disagreements with tax authorities or additional tax liabilities; PepsiCo's ability to compete effectively; PepsiCo's ability to grow its business in developing and emerging markets or unstable political conditions, civil unrest or other developments and risks in the markets where PepsiCo's products are made, manufactured, distributed or sold; unfavorable economic conditions in the countries in which PepsiCo operates; increased costs, disruption of supply or shortages of raw materials and other supplies; failure to realize anticipated benefits from PepsiCo's productivity initiatives or global operating model; business disruptions; product contamination or tampering or issues or concerns with respect to product quality, safety and integrity; damage to PepsiCo's reputation or brand image; failure to successfully complete or integrate acquisitions and joint ventures into PepsiCo's existing operations or to complete or manage divestitures or refranchisings; changes in estimates and underlying assumptions regarding future performance that could result in an impairment charge; PepsiCo's ability to recruit, hire or retain key employees or a highly skilled and diverse workforce; loss of any key customer or changes to the retail landscape; any downgrade or potential downgrade of PepsiCo's credit ratings; the ability to protect information systems against or effectively respond to a cyber attacks or other cyber incidents or other disruption; PepsiCo's ability to implement shared services or utilize information technology systems and networks effectively; fluctuations or other changes in exchange rates, including the impact of currency controls or other currency exchange restrictions; the impact of deconsolidating our Venezuelan subsidiaries; climate change, or legal, regulatory or market measures to address climate change; failure to successfully negotiate collective bargaining agreements or strikes or work stoppages; any infringement of or challenge to PepsiCo's intellectual property rights; potential liabilities and costs from litigation or legal proceedings; and other factors that may adversely affect the price of PepsiCo's common stock and financial performance. For additional information on these and other factors that could cause PepsiCo's actual results to materially differ from those set forth herein, please see PepsiCo's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. PepsiCo undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441904 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140415/73233 SOURCE PepsiCo NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Below are experts from the ProfNet network who are available to discuss timely issues in your coverage area. You can also submit a query to the hundreds of thousands of experts in our network it's easy and free! Just fill out the query form to get started: http://prn.to/queryform. EXPERT ALERTS How E-Commerce Businesses Can Protect Themselves From Cyber Breaches Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Holiday Retail Trends and Issues Holiday Spending: How to Better Budget and Plan to Avoid Debt Benefits Communication MEDIA JOBS Senior Reporter Law360 Reporter Citywire Americas Senior Data Reporter TheStreet, Inc. OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES Speaking on a Panel: Best Practices From the Pros Career Crossroads: BlogHer Co-founder on Shattering That Online Glass Ceiling 10 Top News Sites That Rock Their Music and Entertainment Coverage ------------------------------------------------------------------- EXPERT ALERTS: How E-Commerce Businesses Can Protect Themselves From Cyber Breaches Neill Feather President SiteLock "Over 760,000 websites are breached each year, and it is estimated that 60 percent of small businesses fold within six months of a breach. Consumers are seeking assurances from the brands where they shop and expect them to do everything in their power to secure the websites themselves and, in turn, protect customer data. During the profitable holiday shopping season, it is imperative for online retailers to demonstrate that they are doing so." Feather is available to provide tips for how e-commerce businesses can protect themselves. He can also discuss findings from a new SiteLock survey about cybercrime and online holiday shopping, including: 60 percent of consumers abandon e-commerce retailers after a cybercrime occurrence; e-commerce sites are 1.5 times more likely to be compromised than a website that does not sell anything online; one in five consumers will avoid online holiday shopping this season; Millennials are the most concerned consumers. Survey: http://prn.to/2g1Ps1B ProfNet Profile: http://www.profnetconnect.com/sitelock Website: http://www.sitelock.com Contact: Sara Faxon, [email protected] Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Holiday Retail Trends and Issues Noelle Nelson Assistant Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behavior University of Kansas School of Business Nelson can discuss trends and issues surrounding Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday retail period: "This year, we're seeing not just that some stores are choosing to close on Thanksgiving but also a continued 'Black Friday Creep.' While it might have seemed -- based on 2015 -- that the pendulum was swinging back toward more limited shopping hours in general, now it seems that some stores are clearly still competing heavily on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. If anything, the new 'trend' is that certain categories of stores are continuing the intense Black Friday marketing, while other categories are moving away from that." Nelson is the co-author of several articles and working papers on consumer behavior and marketing issues. Contact: George Diepenbrock, [email protected] Holiday Spending: How to Better Budget and Plan to Avoid Debt Rod Griffin Director of Public Education Experian Experian recently released its holiday spending survey results for 2016, and Griffin can discuss these results, as well as what is putting consumers into debt this holiday season -- and how to better budget and plan for next year: "What consumers don't realize is that after the merriment of the holidays, they won't be having such a happy new year, because they will be saddled with debt. With a little bit of planning, consumers can save themselves a lot of stress and put themselves in a better financial position in 2017." Griffin is director of public education for Experian. He is responsible for Experian's national consumer education programs and supports the company's community involvement and corporate responsibility efforts. He speaks regularly at regional and national financial literacy events and supports various national consumer education initiatives, including the LifeSmarts Consumer Knowledge Competition, for which he serves on the Corporate Advisory Board, and the Jumpstart Coalition for Financial Literacy. For more than 15 years he has written Ask Experian, an online consumer credit advice column. He holds a B.S. in journalism from the University of Kansas, has a Fair Credit Reporting Act certification from the Consumer Data Industry Association and is a Center for Financial Certifications Certified Financial Counselor. Contact: Corynne Randel, [email protected] Benefits Communication Amanda Lannert CEO Jellyvision "The world is bored and confused when it comes to 'anti-fun' topics like health insurance, benefits, financial wellness and debt management. To effectively communicate benefits programs to employees, we believe in injecting humor into the conversation. Humor helps people de-stress so they can make better, more informed decisions about their benefits." As CEO of Jellyvision, a rapidly growing employee communications technology startup, Lannert is an expert on a variety of topics, including open enrollment, human resources and benefits communications. She has grown Jellyvision from 30 to 300 employees in the last three years, due in part to her approach to corporate culture. Jellyvision boasts a number of culture perks, including unlimited vacation days, made up holidays like Mustache Day, a company band and an annual Work from Anywhere Week, which attracts individuals from all different walks of life to come work for the company. Lannert has been recognized on several occasions as leader for women in business and technology -- an industry that is deprived of diversity -- and for her commitment to mentoring other young women. She serves on advisory boards at 1871, Healthbox Industries, and The Starter League, where she also teaches. Website: www.jellyvision.com Contact: Kaitlin Myers, [email protected] **************** MEDIA JOBS: Following are links to job listings for staff and freelance writers, editors and producers. You can view these and more job listings on our Job Board: https://prnmedia.prnewswire.com/community/jobs/ Senior Reporter Law360 Reporter Citywire Americas Senior Data Reporter TheStreet, Inc. ***************** OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES: Following are links to other news and resources we think you might find useful. If you have an item you think other reporters would be interested in and would like us to include in a future alert, please drop us a line. SPEAKING ON A PANEL: BEST PRACTICES FROM THE PROS. Not all media panels are created equal, but they're an important avenue for audiences to connect with you, beyond reading your stories and following on social media. Consumers want to learn about your experience in the media industry. And, as niche topics have increased, so has the demand for print journalists, bloggers, YouTubers, and influencers to share their stories. Here are some tips on what to do before, during and after a panel presentation: http://bit.ly/2fgPBwk CAREER CROSSROADS: BLOGHER CO-FOUNDER ON SHATTERING THAT ONLINE GLASS CEILING. Elisa Camahort Page , chief community officer of New York -based SheKnows Media and co-founder of BlogHer, shares her thoughts on the creation of BlogHer and shattering an online glass ceiling: http://bit.ly/2fxBqDd , chief community officer of -based SheKnows Media and co-founder of BlogHer, shares her thoughts on the creation of BlogHer and shattering an online glass ceiling: http://bit.ly/2fxBqDd 10 TOP NEWS SITES THAT ROCK THEIR MUSIC AND ENTERTAINMENT COVERAGE. The number of music and entertainment news sites today is endless. For journalists, the beat has become extensive, ranging from festival and concert coverage to the cultural impact of music. While some traditional publications have moved away from having music-specific reporters, others will do whatever it takes to keep these niche editors. Here are our 10 favorites, in no specific order, that help their audiences get their music fix: http://bit.ly/2eFWHhM **************** PROFNET is an exclusive service of PR Newswire. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150416/199234LOGO SOURCE ProfNet Related Links http://www.profnet.com MENLO PARK, Calif., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- For the fifth consecutive year, the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) has named Jim DeLoach, a managing director at global consulting firm Protiviti, to its 2016 NACD Directorship 100 list. DeLoach is being recognized in the Governance Professionals and Institutions category. The NACD Directorship 100 list, published annually, identifies the most influential members of the boardroom community including directors, corporate governance experts, journalists, regulators and advisors. "Jim has evolved into one of the most well-respected and trusted leaders in the corporate governance arena. His deep insights into the integration of business strategy and risk management have positioned him as a top industry expert and thought leader," said Joseph Tarantino, president and CEO, Protiviti. "We're extremely proud of Jim for receiving this honor yet again from the NACD, which further solidifies his role as a leader in the governance and risk management space and emphasizes his continued contributions to the industry." With more than 40 years of experience, DeLoach focuses on helping organizations successfully respond to government mandates, shareholder demands and a changing business environment in a cost-effective and sustainable manner. He assists companies in integrating risk and risk management with strategy setting and performance management as a member of Protiviti's solutions leadership team. A prolific writer, DeLoach also leads Protiviti's thought leadership strategy and has published more than 300 articles over the past 15 years, discussing topics ranging from governance, managing business risk and effective internal controls. DeLoach is the author of Protiviti's Board Perspectives: Risk Oversight series and The Bulletin, as well as the primary author of the firm's blog, The Protiviti View. In 2000, the Financial Times published his book, Enterprise-wide Risk Management: Strategies, becoming the first book written on the subject of enterprise risk management. Additionally, DeLoach contributes monthly articles to CorporateComplianceInsights.com and the NACD publication Directorship. He is based in Protiviti's Houston office. "NACD is honored to recognize the achievements and commitment to boardroom excellence exemplified by these exceptional individuals. Effective corporate directors and governance leaders are nothing short of essential to the success of the enterprise from creating and sustaining long-term value to serving as a guiding light in times of disruption," said Ken Daly, CEO of NACD. NACD Directorship 100 honorees are selected by a group that includes the previous year's honorees, an advisory panel of judges and NACD Directorship readers and staff. The 2016 honorees will be celebrated at the 10th Annual NACD Directorship 100 Gala on November 30, 2016 in New York City. The full list of the 2016 NACD Directorship 100 honorees can be found at https://www.nacdonline.org/directorship100/2016honorees.cfm. About Protiviti Protiviti (www.protiviti.com) is a global consulting firm that delivers deep expertise, objective insights, a tailored approach and unparalleled collaboration to help leaders confidently face the future. Through its network of more than 70 offices in over 20 countries, Protiviti and its independently owned Member Firms provide clients with consulting solutions in finance, technology, operations, data analytics, governance, risk and internal audit. Protiviti has served more than 60 percent of Fortune 1000 and 35 percent of Fortune Global 500 companies. The firm also works with smaller, growing companies, including those looking to go public, as well as with government agencies. Protiviti is a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Half (NYSE: RHI). Founded in 1948, Robert Half is a member of the S&P 500 index. Protiviti is not licensed or registered as a public accounting firm and does not issue opinions on financial statements or offer attestation services. Editor's note: Photos available upon request. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090115/AQTH541LOGO SOURCE Protiviti Related Links http://www.protiviti.com ASHEBORO, N.C., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Pugh Lubricants ("Pugh") is pleased to announce an investment from Tenex Capital Management. Pugh is one of the largest lubricant distributors in the Southeast, servicing the automotive, commercial, and industrial markets from locations in Asheboro, NC; Richmond, VA; Charleston, SC; and Nashville, TN. Started in 1947, the company will continue to be managed by the third and fourth generations of company founder John Q. Pugh, Jr. "We are very excited about this opportunity to work with Tenex and leverage their extensive financial and operating capabilities. This relationship further strengthens our position in the market and creates a foundation for future growth while allowing us to maintain our reputation for quality service earned over nearly 70 years in business," remarked Mike Pugh, President of Pugh. Mike Green, CEO of Tenex Capital Management commented, "We are pleased to partner with the Pugh family to support accelerated growth and expand the reach of the Pugh brand while preserving the Company's focus on best-in-class customer service. We believe our teams bring highly complementary skills and share a common vision that will serve all customers, employees and shareholders well." Stephens Inc. served as financial advisor to Pugh. The transaction was effective as of November 11, 2016. About Pugh Pugh Lubricants is a distributor of nationally branded and private label finished lubricants, antifreeze, and other ancillary product lines throughout the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, and portions of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. For additional information, please visit www.pughlubricants.com. About Tenex Tenex Capital Management is a private equity firm that invests in middle-market companies. Tenex uses an in-house team of hybrid investment professionals skilled in operational leadership, investing and capital markets structuring to maximize long-term value creation. Tenex's deep operating experience allows the firm to collaborate with management teams to capitalize on business and market opportunities. Tenex has established a successful track record investing in diverse industries, including industrials, manufacturing, and health and business services. For additional information, please visit www.tenexcm.com. This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com SOURCE Tenex Capital Management on Behalf of Pugh Lubricants ALBANY, New York, November 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The global market for release liners demonstrates a fragmented and a highly competitive landscape due to a large pool of manufacturers, finds a new research report by Transparency Market Research (TMR). At the forefront of this market are Mondi Group, 3M, Avery Dennison Corp., Gascogne Group, Rayven Inc., UPM, and Loparex Holding B.V. Currently, these players are concentrating on technological advancements of their existing products and novel marketing strategies to gain an edge over their competitors. However, over the coming years, their focus is expected to shift towards product innovation to seize a greater share of this market. Mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships are also projected to gain prominence among players looking for expansion in the near future, states the report. Download Sample PDF Brochure for Professional & Technical insights at http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=10997 According to TMR, the global market for release liners is likely to expand its opportunity at a CAGR of 6.30% during the period from 2016 to 2024, increasing from a value of US$10.0 bn in 2015 to US$17.0 bn by the end of the forecast period. Researchers predict the consumption of release liners to cross 66,278 mn m2. Among application segments, the pressure sensitive label stocks segment led the global market in 2015 with US$5.4 bn in revenues and is expected to remain dominant throughout the forecast period. Asia Pacific to Witness Continued Demand for Release Liners The report also analyses the global market for release liners in terms of its geographical presence. Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, North America, and Europe are the prime regional markets for release liners across the world. In 2015, Asia Pacific led the overall market with US$3.2 bn in revenues. Thanks to the presence of release liner manufacturers and vendors in a large number, this regional market is likely to witness continued dominance over the forecast period. Besides, the rise in the construction of new manufacturing units in various Asian economies, such as Malaysia and Indonesia is also anticipated to support the Asia Pacific market for release liners in the coming years. The demand for release liners is also projected to experience a healthy rise in the Middle East and Africa over the next few years, states the report. Browse Regional PR: http://www.europlat.org/global-release-liner-market.htm Growing Emphasis on Better Labeling of Products to Fuel Demand for Release Liners "The growing emphasis on better labeling in a number of end-use industries is the key driving force behind the tremendous rise in the demand for release liners," says an analyst at TMR. In addition, the increasing investments in the food and beverage and the pharmaceutical industries, aimed at improving the packaging quality, is anticipated to reflect remarkably on this market over the forthcoming years. Apart from this, the market is also expected to benefit significantly from the substantial rise in international trade, leading to the increasing demand for quality packaging and labeling, notes the study. High Cost of Release Liners to Limit Market's Growth While the growth prospects of the global market for release liners are bright, the high cost of release liner products may limit their demand in the coming years. The high initial investments needed to setup manufacturing units are also restricting players to expand their businesses, impacting the overall market negatively, reports the study. The study presented here is based on a report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) titled "Release Liner Market (Application - Envelopes and Packaging, Graphic Arts, Hygiene, Industrial, Medical, Pressure sensitive label stock, and Tapes; Labeling Technology - Adhesive applied, In-Mold, Pressure sensitive labeling, and Sleeving; Substrates - Film, Glassine, Polyolefin Paper, Clay Coated paper, and Art paper) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2016-2024." The global release liner market has been segmented as below: By Application Envelopes and Packaging Graphic Arts Hygiene Industrial Medical Pressure sensitive label stock Tapes By Labeling Technology Adhesive applied In-Mold Pressure sensitive labeling Sleeving By Substrates Film Glassine Polyolefin Paper Clay Coated paper Art paper By Region North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany U.K. France Spain Italy Russia Poland Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China Japan India ASEAN Australia & NZ Rest of Asia Pacific Latin America Brazil Mexico Rest of Latin America Middle East & Africa (MEA) GCC South Africa North Africa Rest of MEA & (MEA) Related Research Reports by TMR: Stretch and Shrink Film Market: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/stretch-shrink-film-market.html End-of-line Packaging Market: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/end-of-line-packaging-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 Transparency Market Research 90 State Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207 Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Transparencymarketresearch SOURCE Transparency Market Research LONDON, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- DelveInsight's, "Retinoid x receptors Beta (RXRs) Agonists-Pipeline Insights, 2016", report provides in depth insights on the pipeline drugs and their development activities around the Retinoid x receptors Beta (RXRs) Agonists. The DelveInsight's Report covers the product profiles in various stages of development including Discovery, Pre-clinical, IND, Phase I, Phase II, Phase III and Preregistration. Report covers the product clinical trials information and other development activities including technology, licensing, collaborations, acquisitions, fundings, patent and USFDA & EMA designations details. DelveInsight's Report also provides detailed information on the discontinued and dormant drugs that have gone inactive over the years for Retinoid x receptors Beta (RXRs) Agonists. DelveInsight's Report also assesses the Retinoid x receptors Beta (RXRs) Agonists therapeutics by Monotherapy, Combination products, Molecule type and Route of Administration. Please note: This report requires certain updates. We have all the information available but require 3 business days to complete the process and ensure it is as up-to-date as possible. Certain sections in the report may be removed or altered based on the availability and relevance of data for the indicated indication. Scope - The report provides competitive pipeline landscape of Retinoid x receptors Beta (RXRs) Agonists - The report provides pipeline products under drug profile section which includes product description, MOA, licensors & collaborators, development partner and chemical information - Coverage of the Retinoid x receptors Beta (RXRs) Agonists pipeline on the basis of target, MOA, route of administration, technology involved and molecule type - The report reviews key players involved in the therapeutics development for Retinoid x receptors Beta (RXRs) Agonists and also provide company profiling - The report also gives the information of dormant and discontinued pipeline projects - Pipeline products coverage based on various stages of development ranging from preregistration till discovery and undisclosed stages - Provides pipeline assessment by monotherapy and combination therapy products, stage of development and molecule type Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4351260/ 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 PEACHTREE CITY, Ga., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- For decades, Rinnai has been fiercely committed to delivering nothing less than the absolute best and enhancing lives by changing the way water is heated. Through teamwork, technology and innovation, Rinnai has become one of the world's largest gas appliance manufacturers, specializing in high-efficiency residential and commercial tankless water heaters and home heating solutions. As a result, consumers have come to expect a best-in-class experience from Rinnai, regardless of whether they visit a wholesaler, retailer or dealer. Rinnai customers trust that they will receive an exceptional interaction with Rinnai across all channels, and the Internet is no exception. As such, Rinnai America Corporation (RAC) is pleased to launch a new eCommerce Program that will include, among other things, an Authorized E-Tailer Agreement and an Internet Minimum Advertised Price (IMAP) Policy. Demonstrating RAC's commitment to quality, this initiative will establish a formal, "Authorized E-Tailer Program." To qualify, E-Tailers must demonstrate the willingness and ability to provide an exceptional Rinnai-branded online experience. Authorized E-Tailers will (a) provide a platform for digital merchandising, (b) support consumers with product research & selection assistance, and (c) deliver superior customer service. All Authorized E-Tailers will be required to sign agreements with RAC that govern the terms of their ongoing participation in the program. Authorized E-Tailers will be exclusively permitted to source products through Rinnai's distribution partners and use Rinnai digital assets to sell Rinnai products online. In conjunction with the Authorized E-Tailer Program, RAC will implement a new Internet Minimum Advertised Price (IMAP) Policy, covering select Rinnai products. An IMAP Policy will ensure a consistent and consumer-friendly experience while preserving the equity of the Rinnai brand across the Internet. RAC's current distributor agreement does not normally allow distributors to sell to customers who resell Rinnai products through the Internet. However, following the launch of Rinnai's new eCommerce program, all distributors will be permitted to sell products to Authorized E-Tailers for the purpose of online consumer sales. In the coming weeks we will communicate complete program details including our new E-Tailer Distribution Policy. The current list of Authorized E-Tailers, IMAP Policy, and IMAP model level detail will be available at partners.rinnai.us/etailer after December 15, 2016. For more information about Rinnai and the company' product portfolio, visit www.rinnai.us. About Rinnai Rinnai America Corporation, a subsidiary of Rinnai Corporation in Nagoya, Japan, was established in 1974 and is headquartered in Peachtree City, Ga. Rinnai Corporation manufactures gas appliances including tankless water heaters, a wide range of kitchen appliances and heating and air conditioning units. As the technology leader in its industry, Rinnai is the largest gas appliance manufacturer in Japan and is the No. 1 selling brand of tankless gas water heaters in the United States and Canada. Annual corporate revenues, including those of its subsidiaries, are in excess of $3.1 billion. With a global perspective to create 21st century products for the home and business, Rinnai Corporation commits itself to safety and the pursuit of comfortable lifestyles. For more information about Rinnai's entire product line, visit www.rinnai.us. FOR INFORMATION Katie O'Neill three (404) 835-4527 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161013/428439LOGO SOURCE Rinnai America Corporation Related Links http://www.rinnai.us PRINCETON, N.J., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sandoz today announced a collaboration to increase access to medicines by donating up to USD 10 million of stock annually to Americares, a health-focused relief and development organization that responds to people affected by poverty or disaster with life-changing health programs, medicine and medical supplies. The initial donation will include over 25 Sandoz products for treatment for infections, cardiovascular conditions, eyecare, skin conditions and musculoskeletal pain. It is part of the global Sandoz commitment to combine a broad portfolio of off-patent, added-value medicines with innovative services and corporate responsibility programs to improve access to medicine, medical information and medical capacity. Product donations will be made available throughout the year to Americares. The number and selection of products may change based on specific and on-going medical needs. "Limited access to healthcare poses a significant barrier to long-term social and economic development around the world," said Peter Goldschmidt, President of Sandoz Inc. "Our collaboration with Americares will hopefully help thousands of people receive treatments that would otherwise be unavailable to them. At Sandoz, we are passionate about helping people around the world access high-quality medicine with a particular emphasis on meeting specific health needs in underprivileged communities." According to the World Health Organization, more than 400 million people lack access to essential health services and more than two billion cannot afford the medicines they need. In addition, with the global population projected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030 and with most of this growth in developing countries, ensuring broad access to medicine and healthcare is an increasingly critical issue. "This new collaboration with Sandoz will allow us to increase deliveries of some of the most essential and desperately needed medications to partner hospitals and health clinics in over 90 countries," said Americares President and CEO Michael J. Nyenhuis. "Together we will give more patients in need a pathway to good health and opportunity so they can reach their full potential." Our commitment to corporate responsibility Sandoz, the Novartis generic and biosimilar pharmaceutical division, is committed to driving global access to medicines, medical information and medical capacity through a range of programs, including philanthropy, zero-profit, social ventures, specifically targeting those most in need. These include: Sandoz sponsors the New Life and New Hope initiative, a program to improve maternal and child health and to reduce mortality associated with childbirth. The program has provided training for over 100 Ethiopian midwives so far, impacting well over 40,000 mothers and children. Sandoz partners with the UN to deliver key antibiotic amoxicillin (dispersible tablets, 250 mg: the WHO preferred pediatric formulation), to help avoid millions of preventable deaths from pneumonia. Breathe Africa , launched by Sandoz in 2015 in Zambia is a respiratory health and education program aimed at improving diagnosis and treatment of asthma by sharing expertise and donating key medicines. The program supports European doctors working with local healthcare professionals to improve asthma diagnosis and treatment. In addition, Sandoz operates two of Novartis Group's leading access-to-medicines programs: The Novartis Malaria Initiative has provided more than 800 million treatments without profit since 2001 primarily to the public sector in malaria-endemic countries. Novartis Access, launched in 2015, is a Group-wide initiative that supports expanded access to our medicines in low- and lower-middle income countries. The program focuses on affordability and availability of 15 on- and off-patent medicines addressing key noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, respiratory illnesses, and breast cancer. Sandoz has supported Americares since 1989. Over the years, Novartis and Sandoz together have donated more than USD 230 million worth of medicine to Americares. We have revitalized the collaboration to continue to provide medicines to remote communities around the world as well as communities in crisis. Americares has delivered more than USD 13 billion in humanitarian aid to 164 countries, including the United States, since it was established in 1979. About Sandoz Sandoz is a global leader in generic pharmaceuticals and biosimilars. As a division of the worldwide Novartis Group, our purpose is to discover new ways to improve and extend people's lives. We contribute to society's ability to support growing healthcare needs by pioneering novel approaches to help people around the world access high-quality medicine. Our portfolio of approximately 1000 molecules, covering all major therapeutic areas, accounted for 2015 sales of USD 10.1 billion. In 2015, our products reached more than 500 million patients and we aspire to reach one billion. Sandoz is headquartered in Holzkirchen, in Germany's Greater Munich area. Sandoz is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Sandoz_global at http://twitter.com/Sandoz_Global About Americares Americares is a health-focused relief and development organization that responds to people affected by poverty or disaster with life-changing health programs, medicine and medical supplies. Each year, Americares reaches more than 90 countries and all 50 U.S. states with over $600 million in innovative health programs and quality medical aid. Americares is the world's leading nonprofit provider of donated medicine and medical supplies. For more information, visit americares.org For further information: Eric Althoff Novartis Global Media Relations +41 61 324 7999 (direct) +41 79 593 4202 (mobile) [email protected] Chris Lewis Sandoz Global Communications + 49 8024 476 1906 (direct) + 49 174 244 9501 (mobile) [email protected] Leslie Pott Sandoz US Communications +1-609-627-5287 +1-201-354-0279 [email protected] Novartis Investor Relations Central phone: +41 61 324 7944 North America: Samir Shah +41 61 324 7944 Richard Pulik +1 212 830 2448 Pierre-Michel Bringer +41 61 324 1065 Sloan Pavsner +1 212 830 2417 Thomas Hungerbuehler +41 61 324 8425 Isabella Zinck +41 61 324 7188 e-mail: [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441847LOGO SOURCE Sandoz Related Links http://www.sandoz.com SANY SRT series trucks are largely used in large surface mining sites for transportation of OB, Coal, Iron ore, limestone, bauxite, etc., and in quarry segments. These trucks come with six core features that have a unique competitive advantage and is fundamental to SANY's mining equipment range. The trucks are equipped with high-strength frames and are 20% stronger than any other product in the same category. It has a gross horsepower of 480kW, 650HP @ 1,800rpm and a payload capacity of 60 U.S tons (55 metric tons). SANY off-highway mining trucks are known for their safety, reliability, durability, comfort and cost effectiveness. Commenting on the launch, Mr. Deepak Garg, CEO, SANY Heavy Industries Pvt. Ltd., said, "With our foray into the mining segment, we want to set new benchmarks for SANY India. SANY India will offer complete mining solutions and partner with big mining companies for end-to-end solutions. SANY has shown its commitment to the Indian market by announcing various investments across the country and is currently gearing up to realize this vision globally." Commenting on the launch, Mr. Dheeraj Panda, BU Head and VP of Excavator and Mining, SANY Heavy Industries India Pvt. Ltd., said, "We are excited to enter the mining sector in India. Since mining is a crucial segment adding significantly to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country, we believe there is a huge potential for us in this market. With the launch of our new world-class product range, we are confident in our ability to contribute meaningfully to the growth of the industry." With the launch of the new SRT series of off-highway dump trucks, SANY India will be offering mining solutions to the iron & coal, power, cement and construction industries. Currently, SANY will be importing these truck series as CBUs (Completely Built Units) from China. SANY aims to continuously innovate and design products that meet its customers' requirements and thus helps them in growing their businesses. The company will also introduce new solutions as per demand in the segment going forward. About SANY SANY Group (SANY) is a leading global heavy machinery manufacturer with plants in the US, Germany, Brazil and India, and business covering over 100 countries and regions worldwide. The company has been recognized as one of the most innovative and successful companies in the world, and its concrete machinery is ranked No. 1 globally. For more information, please visit: www.sanyglobal.com, or follow Sany Group on Facebook and YouTube. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441956 SOURCE SANY Related Links http://www.sanyglobal.com WASHINGTON, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Maria Contreras-Sweet, Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), is encouraging all Americans to "shop small" at local businesses and "dine small" at local restaurants and bars as part of Small Business Saturday on November 26. "Small Business Saturday is about supporting local businesses, the pillars of economic stability and job creation in communities all across America," said Contreras-Sweet. "This celebration helps bring vital activity into our nation's 28.8 million independent businesses during the important holiday retail season. Now in its seventh year, Small Business Saturday is our day to express our economic patriotism and give back to the locally-owned enterprises that do so much for our communities." This year marks the seventh Small Business Saturday, an annual celebration of America's small business community coordinated by SBA in partnership with American Express, Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) and others. On Small Business Saturday 2015, more than 95 million Americans spent a combined $16.2 billion at independent neighborhood retailers and restaurants often purchasing locally-sourced and unique handmade gifts for loved ones or "dining small" at their favorite local eatery. Contreras-Sweet added: "Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and the heart of our communities. These small businesses have been responsible for creating two out of every three net new jobs in the U.S. According to the Kauffman Foundation's 2016 Main Street Entrepreneurship Index, small business survival is up over the past year but businesses are staying smaller. That size difference can mean local shops rely even more on support from their communities. Shopping and dining small on November 26 and throughout this holiday season supports these men and women who are building and running America's best small businesses." Post your own photos, show your support or follow along on social media with @MCS4biz, @SBAGov, #SmallBizSat, #ShopSmall, #Dine Small. For more details visit www.sba.gov/SmallBusinessSaturday and for a full listing of the Small Business Saturday Coalition members, please visit www.shopsmall.com/SUPPORTERS. Cosponsorship Authorization #16-2050-36. SBA's participation in this cosponsored activity is not an endorsement of the views, opinions products or services of any cosponsor or other person or entity. All SBA programs and services are extended to the public on a nondiscriminatory basis. ABOUT THE U.S. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (SBA) The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) was created in 1953 as an independent agency of the federal government to aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns, to preserve free competitive enterprise and to maintain and strengthen the overall economy of our nation. The SBA helps Americans start, build and grow businesses. Through an extensive network of field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations, the SBA delivers its services to people throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S.Virgin Islands and Guam. www.sba.gov Contact: Terry Sutherland (202) 205-6919 Internet Address: http://www.sba.gov/news Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Blogs Release Number: 16 -87 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110909/DC65875LOGO SOURCE U.S. Small Business Administration Related Links http://www.sba.gov During his acceptance speech for the award, Walter thanked Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, after which the Innovation Award was honored for his contributions to the healthcare field through Abraxis BioScience and NantWorks and the event was sponsored by Merrill Lynch. Among the most popular figures to bridge Hollywood and the once-obscure fields of computer science and artificial intelligence, O'Brien joked that "It's great to be recognized as a thirty-year overnight success." Only a handful of people have had a major network television show based off their life in their own lifetime. Scorpion Computer Services, provides intelligence-on-demand to the U.S. government, military and a number of Fortune 5000 firms. O'Brien's firm also provides strategic counsel to some of the most influential people in the world across politics, finance and technology. Best known for the firm's "high IQ" recruitment and retention, the company works with some of the highest "emotional quotient" individuals to manage complex and sensitive projects for its clients. ABOUT WALTER O'BRIEN Walter O'Brien is the founder and CEO of Scorpion Computer Services, Inc., and CEO of Scorpion Studios. He is the Executive Producer and the inspiration behind the hit CBS television drama, Scorpion, with over 26 million viewers in 180 countries. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has certified Walter O'Brien as being a person of national interest to the United States and granted him an Extraordinary Ability EB 1-1 Visa. He has worked with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, plus Navy and Air Force systems to deploy artificial intelligence that protects American military personnel. In addition he has worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies including the world's largest mutual fund, Fujitsu, Trados, Oracle Corporation, Baltimore Technologies and Critical Path. O'Brien serves as chairman or board member for Strike Force Solutions, Talentorum Alliance Houston Technology Center and Lawloop. O'Brien regularly donates his time to charities and the community in general to encourage all generations to celebrate intelligence. He is a frequent media commentator, public speaker and radio show guest. O'Brien provided the seed funding for TaxiWatch Kilkenny, a suicide prevention program that has saved 100 lives since its inception in 2015. Also in 2015 O'Brien contributed to the next XPRIZE selection as part of XPRIZE Visioneering. ABOUT SCORPION COMPUTER SERVICES, INC. Scorpion Computer Services is the internationally recognized problem-solving consultancy led by computer-security expert and hacker "Scorpion" Walter O'Brien. For over two decades Scorpion Computer Services has contributed to the greater good by managing geniuses as they transform Scorpion client ideas into reality. From confronting and solving issues of national security to rescuing failing businesses, Scorpion Computer Services is the brainpower behind solving global issues, proving "smart is cool." The company's clients include government, military, a number of Fortune 5000 firms as well as start-ups and small-and-medium sized businesses with opportunities across cutting-edge information technology solutions, transportation and logistics, business efficiency and marketing. ABOUT LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL No media source keeps their finger on the pulse of the region's business better than the Los Angeles Business Journal. Each week, more than 98,500 CEOs, executives, senior managers, and other influential decision-makers rely on the award-winning Business Journal for the business news they need most. This loyal readership is a powerful group of potential clients and customers for your business. Media contact: Jordan French [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441657 SOURCE Scorpion Computer Services Related Links http://www.scorpioncomputerservices.com "Most older adults want to stay in their homes, but they also want to feel safe and family members want the reassurance that their loved ones are protected and they are getting the care they need," noted Steve Barlam, MSW, LCSW, CMC and LivHOME Founder. "With LivHOME Connect, families and care professionals are just one touch away. The client can instantly connect with a licensed nurse at any time, not only talking with them, but seeing them as well. Families can stay connected using their smartphone to receive important updates and to communicate with LivHOME professionals. By integrating new technology, LivHOME can quickly visualize what is happening and triage the situation appropriately, providing both clinical and psychosocial support without the need of someone being in the client's home at all times." LivHOME urges families to use the upcoming holiday season to examine their elderly loved ones living at home to see if they may be in need of additional assistance. For a list of warning signs to monitor, visit the LivHOME website at http://www.livhome.com/senior-decline-holidays. If seniors need assistance beyond caregiving, LivHOME Connect can provide: Immediate connection with a licensed nurse 24/7. Scheduled medication reminders and calendar events. Shared photos to create memories with the family. Wellness surveys to understand how the individual is feeling today, allowing families and professionals to monitor responses and make adjustments in care. Thoughtful management of chronic conditions. Health and wellness data that can be shared with physicians and responsible parties. The LivHOME Connect system already has an impressive track record in helping seniors stay on track with their Plan of Care and safe in their homes. About one in four alerts so far resulted from the client touching the "Call Me" button on the home screen that immediately connects them to a licensed nurse. About one in three alerts were responses to questions to home care and status surveys, which can trigger an alert, while another one fourth were calendar events that expired without a response from the client. "LivHOME Connect has been enthusiastically received by seniors, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and families, who see it as a great way to keep in touch and make sure the individual is cared for at all times," noted Barlam. "For example, one of our clients pushed the 'Call Me' button when her power unexpectedly shut off, leaving her in total darkness at night. We were able to provide her with reassurance right away and stayed with her on the line until the situation was resolved." To see a video of the LivHOME Connect in action, click http://www.livhome.com/stay-connected/. The LivHOME Connect system is available in Southern, Northern, and Central California; Chicago, Houston, Boston, and the areas around Arlington, Virginia and Silver Springs, Maryland to people using LivHOME services. About LivHOME: LivHOME is one of the nation's largest providers of professional in-home care solutions. Founded in 1999, it enables older adults to remain in their homes for as long as possible, offering integrated care solutions in caregiving, care management, and the latest home care technology. For more information, visit http://www.livhome.com/. Media Contact: Joy Scott Scott Public Relations 818-610-0270 [email protected] Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDT4m5YcAdg Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161015/429084LOGO SOURCE LivHOME, Inc. Related Links http://www.livhome.com CHARLOTTE, N.C., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- German-based hubergroup USA, Inc., ("Huber") agreed to pay $2 million, plus interest, to settle a lawsuit initiated by John A. Dickson III, CEO of Nation Ford Chemical, alleging it violated the federal False Claims Act by misclassifying certain products being imported into the United States from India as ink, rather than pigment, to avoid paying higher import duties applicable to pigment. Duties upon pigments, a component of inks, are much greater than the duties imposed upon finished inks. The Settlement Agreement was filed under seal on July 26, 2016, and the seal has since been lifted. Huber, a successor to hubergroup USA, Inc., Hostmann-Steinberg, Inc., and Micro Inks operates an ink manufacturing facility in Kankakee, Illinois. Mr. Dickson initiated the whistleblower lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Case No. 3:14-CV-559. Under the federal False Claims Act, private citizens such as Mr. Dickson can sue on behalf of the United States and share in any recovery. Mr. Dickson received a portion of the Government's recovery from Huber, which did not admit liability. Mr. Dickson had previously filed a lawsuit under the federal False Claims Act against Toyo Ink SC Holdings Co. Ltd, and its affiliates, which was settled for $45 million. In that lawsuit, Mr. Dickson alleged that Toyo Ink misrepresented the country in which its products had originated, in order to avoid antidumping and countervailing duties that had been established to protect United States businesses from unfair foreign pricing and government subsidies. (See https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/japanese-based-toyo-ink-and-affiliates-new-jersey-and-illinois-settle-false-claims-allegation.) Reflecting on both lawsuits, Mr. Dickson said, "These cases take a lot of work. However, it is good when U.S. Customs receives the amount due, because import tariffs protect American manufacturing jobs. Based upon my research, it appears that for at least the last several months, Huber has been properly classifying its products as pigments, which I believe reflects an ongoing benefit from my efforts." The lawsuit was captioned UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ex rel. JOHN A. DICKSON, III, Plaintiff v. HOSTMANN-STEINBERG INC., et. al., Civil Action No. 3:14-CV-559 (W.D.N.C.). The law firm of James, McElroy & Diehl, P.A., in Charlotte, North Carolina, represented Mr. Dickson in both the lawsuit against Huber and the prior lawsuit against Toyo Ink. About Nation Ford Chemical Founded in 1977, Nation Ford Chemical is one of America's most respected custom manufacturers of specialty organic chemicals. NFC's products, including Sulfanilic Acid (CAS#121-57-3) and PANA (N-Phenyl-1-naphthylamine, CAS#90-30-2), are sold worldwide through offices in the United States, Europe, and China. NFC has a diverse background in toll manufacturing custom chemicals with production at our 27-acre site in Fort Mill, South Carolina, USA. For more information, visit www.nationfordchem.com. Media Contact: Brooke DiDomenico, Communication Director 803.548.3210 [email protected] SOURCE Nation Ford Chemical Related Links http://www.nationfordchem.com EDDIE Award and More Than 15 million Paid Users Reinforce the Value of Collaborative Game-based Learning for Teaching and Learning CALGARY, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - SMART Technologies Inc., a leading provider of collaboration solutions, today announced that SMART Learning Suite (SLS) has been awarded with the Multi-Subject Collaborative Learning System category by the Education Software Review Awards (EDDIEs). The SMART Learning Suite software has also reached 15 million paid users as of early September 2016. In addition, more than 346,000 different game-based activities have been created and implemented by teachers and students this year. SMART has developed two short videos and an infographic that offer greater insight into the implementation of gamification in the classroom. The videos are accessible via SMART's education channel on YouTube. To gain a greater understanding of gamification's role in the classroom, visit youtube.com/watch?v=YHi6J5geA34&feature=youtu.be. To learn how to best foster gamification in the classroom, visit youtube.com/watch?v=Ht6HYIURUZE. To view the infographic, visit http://edblog.smarttech.com/2016/11/building-21st-century-skills-digital-games-infographic/ Launched in January 2016, SMART Learning Suite is an integrated educational software platform designed to enable educators to easily and quickly create dynamic, interactive, and engaging learning experiences. The suite provides educators with more opportunities to individualize and differentiate instruction, check for student understanding and to integrate content no matter the subject, grade level or instructional pedagogy. Connecting students, teachers and devices, SMART Learning Suite harnesses technology to innovate lessons, increase engagement and as a result, improve educational outcomes. "I am thrilled to see that 15 million educators globally are using SMART Learning Suite in the classroom, and that it has been recognized by the EDDIE Awards as a leader in its category. This is especially exciting given the fast rate of adoption - less than one year," said Warren Barkley, Chief Technology Officer, SMART Technologies. "Education software has been shown to significantly improve student outcomes when combined with effective pedagogical practices, particularly in building students' skills in the '4Cs': creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication."* Mr. Barkley continued, "4C skills are imperative for today's students to be successful in tomorrow's workforce. At SMART, we are proud to bring valuable tools to educators and students to achieve their goals inside and outside the classroom." The SMART Learning Suite also includes the following software: Industry-leading SMART Notebook A premiere lesson delivery software that facilitates engaging and interactive learning experiences while providing the flexibility to respond to the needs of learners in real-time. Award-winning SMART amp A web-based collaborative learning platform that enables student co-creation and fosters student collaboration on devices. SMART response 2 A formative assessment software for use on student devices that allows teachers to create question sets to complement lessons in under five minutes. SMART lab A simple and customizable software platform that enables teachers to create game-based learning activities in less than five minutes. Recently, SMART lab added Monster Quiz, a team-based game that includes both thematic visual and auditory cues to create a game environment that elevates students out of their ordinary classroom experience. For more information about SMART's comprehensive education software bundle SMART Learning Suite visit smarttech.com/sls. About SMART Technologies Inc. SMART Technologies Inc. is a world leader in simple and intuitive solutions that enable more natural collaboration. We are an innovator in interactive touch technologies and software that inspire collaboration in both education and businesses around the globe. To learn more, visit smarttech.com. *Source: Global Study Titled 'Teaching, Technology and Learning: Understanding the Interconnection', https://home.smarttech.com/en/about-us/news/research/fusing-tech-and-teaching 2016 SMART Technologies. All third-party product and company names are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. To view a list of SMART trademarks please visit our Trademarks and Guidelines page . SOURCE SMART Technologies Inc. Related Links www.smarttech.com "Michigan is reinventing the way the world moves. We are second-to-none when it comes to automotive and technological innovation, and we remain committed to making sure that stays true for generations to come," Snyder said. "This world-class facility will put Michigan at the forefront of the autonomous movement to ensure we lead the way as the auto industry transforms into the mobility industry." Located on the 335-acre Willow Run site, where B-24 bombers were made during World War II, the Center will be a purpose-built facility designed for research, education, testing, standards-convening, product development, validation and self-certification for connected and automated technologies as well as future mobility. "We envision the American Center for Mobility as a global hub for connected and automated vehicle technologies supported by Michigan's high concentration of automotive expertise," said John Maddox, president and CEO of the Center. "We are excited to be partnering with the state of Michigan to establish a fully-capable, real-world testing and innovation center that will be instrumental in putting self-driving cars on America's roads." U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, and U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, who have advocated for the project in Washington, joined Snyder at the groundbreaking and expressed their strong support. The American Center for Mobility is designed to enable technology and to accelerate the development of voluntary standards to improve transportation systems and ensure U.S. competitiveness worldwide. The Center will be available for use by private industry, government, standards bodies and academia and will serve as a technology hub, allowing companies to lease office space, garages and other amenities. There also is sufficient room for additional economic investment by companies looking to expand existing or build new facilities close to the testing ground. "The American Center for Mobility represents a turning point for the automotive industry and will play a key role in revolutionizing the global transportation landscape," said Steve Arwood, CEO of the MEDC. "This investment will not only solidify Michigan's place as the home for automotive innovation, but also help fuel new economic activity and create more and better jobs across the state." Earlier this month, Willow Run Arsenal of Democracy (WRAD) Landholdings Limited Partnership completed the purchase of the property from RACER Properties LLC, which paved the way for construction of the new facility. The property at Willow Run was acquired from Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response (RACER) Trust following a $1.2 million purchase agreement that was reached in July with WRAD, which will then lease the property to the American Center for Mobility. In addition to manufacturing B-24 bombers during World War II, Willow Run has also served as the location of a powertrain plant for General Motors Co. In 2011, RACER Trust took title of the property and demolished most of the factory. It sold the remaining portion of the historic bomber plant to the Yankee Air Museum, which is converting it to the National Museum of Aviation and Technology at Historic Willow Run. "This is the start of a new era at a site incredibly rich with history," said Maddox. "While there are many well-known transportation and manufacturing innovations at this site, the first use of this property was as a teaching orchard developed by Henry Ford. We're planting an apple tree here today to honor the heritage and continue the tradition of innovation, education and good stewardship." Snyder and Arwood both praised the collaborative efforts of several public-private organizations that made this project a reality, including: the Michigan Strategic Fund, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Charter Township of Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Community Utility Authority, Washtenaw County (including the Water Resource Commission and the Road Commission), RACER Trust, Ann Arbor SPARK, DTE Energy, Yankee Air Museum, Wayne County Airport Authority, Michigan Department of Transportation and other state, regional and local businesses. More information on the American Center for Mobility can be found at www.acmwillowrun.org. To learn more about the future of mobility and why it's important to Michigan, visit www.planetm.com Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441834 SOURCE Governor Rick Snyder WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) will honor Brenda Seggerman, an Environmental Health and Safety Engineer at Hydrite Chemical Company, and Karli Greene, a Human Resources specialist with CJB Industries, Inc., with the SOCMA President's Leadership Award for their exceptional contributions to the specialty chemical industry through advocacy and service at the association's 95th Annual Dinner, December 5, in New York. Seggerman is the recipient of the 2016 President's Leadership Award for Excellence in Advocacy because of her significant involvement as SOCMA's small entity representative on the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) panels that dealt with two parallel rulemakings The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Risk Management Program (RMP) Rule and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA's) Process Safety Management (PSM) Rule. "SOCMA was very fortunate to have Brenda volunteer for both the RMP and PSM SBREFA processes, and we greatly appreciate Hydrite for allowing her to serve the association in this capacity," said SOCMA Government Relations Director Dan Moss. "Brenda's work was highly praised by the Small Business Administration and, in many respects, became the core of SOCMA's own comments on these relevant issues. Congratulations, Brenda, on this well-deserved honor." Greene, our 2016 recipient of the President's Leadership Award for Excellence in Service, contributed her time and expertise to create a new chapter on formulation for SOCMA's Chemical Operator Training (COT) program. "CJB recognized the COT needed some enhancements to reflect the needs of companies like themselves who do blending but not necessarily reaction chemistry," said Dr. J. Holland Jordan, Managing Director of ChemStewards. "Karli led the charge in creating this new chapter, and we appreciate CJB Industries for enabling her to contribute to this effort." "As I step into my new role at SOCMA, I truly appreciate that we have members such as these who selflessly give of their time to assist our membership, improve the value of SOCMA and represent the interests of the specialty chemical industry," said SOCMA President and CEO Jennifer Abril. "This is what truly makes our membership great. Congratulations, ladies, on a job well done." About SOCMA Since 1921, SOCMA has represented a diverse membership of small, medium and large chemical companies located around the world. www.socma.com. Media Contact: Jenny Gaines Director, Marketing and Communications (202) 721-4123 [email protected] SOURCE Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates Related Links http://www.socma.com The Lanzate! Program, which was recognized in 2015 by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, is geared toward Hispanic college students with economic need who attend school far away from home. Students from across the nation completed online entries and submitted essays conveying how receiving a travel award would help them achieve their educational goals. In 2015, a student studying in Milwaukee wrote about the strain of finding herself more than 1,000 miles away from her family who lived in Austin, Texas. The student wrote "Studying in the Milwaukee area has made it difficult for me to see them; last Thanksgiving was my first holiday away from my family due to our inability to afford my travel expenses. My future college degree is not only mine, but a combination of hard work from my family and me. Receiving the Lanzate! scholarship would greatly ease my family's financial strain to travel for my graduation and subsequently allow us to celebrate a great accomplishment together." A panel of judges made up of college professors and educational advocates met to determine the award recipients. Recipients were awarded between one and four roundtrip tickets for travel for themselves or a family member. Southwest donated 400 one-way e-passes to encourage students to continue on their paths to higher education. "Southwest Airlines has been proud to partner with HACU for 12 years as we work together to assist Hispanic youth throughout the country in making their dreams of higher education come true," said Christine Ortega, Southwest Airlines Senior Advisor, Community Affairs & Grassroots. "This travel can make it possible for a student to go home for the holidays. Sometimes that connection with family and home can make the difference between graduating and dropping out." "The entries received this year demonstrate how important family visits are to a successful higher education experience for Hispanic college students," said HACU President and CEO Antonio R. Flores. "As an organization whose mission is to champion Hispanic success in higher education, HACU is honored to partner with Southwest Airlines' Lanzate! Travel Award Program to help college students stay connected with their families as part of their higher education journey." To learn more about Southwest Airlines, visit the Southwest Airlines Community. ABOUT HACU Founded in 1986, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) represents more than 450 colleges and universities committed to Hispanic higher education success in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Latin America and Spain. HACU is the only national association representing existing and emerging Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). The association headquarters are located in San Antonio, Texas, with government relations offices in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento, California. This year, HACU is celebrating 30 years of championing Hispanic education. Information is available at www.hacu.net. ABOUT SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO. In its 46th year of service, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) continues to differentiate itself from other air carriers with exemplary Customer Service delivered by more than 53,000 Employees to more than 100 million Customers annually. Southwest operates more than 3,900 departures a day during peak travel season across a network of 99 destinations in the United States and eight additional countries with additional Cuba service to Havana, Cuba, beginning Dec. 12, 2016, and Santa Clara beginning Dec. 15, 2016, both routes subject to governmental approvals. Based on the U.S. Department of Transportation's most recent data, Southwest Airlines is the nation's largest carrier in terms of originating domestic passengers boarded. The Company operates the largest fleet of Boeing aircraft in the world, the majority of which are equipped with satellite-based WiFi providing gate-to-gate connectivity. That connectivity enables Customers to use their personal devices to view video on-demand movies and television shows, as well as nearly 20 channels of free, live TV compliments of our valued Partners. Southwest created Transfarency, a philosophy which treats Customers honestly and fairly, and in which low fares actually stay low. Southwest is the only major U.S. airline to offer bags fly free to everyone (first and second checked pieces of luggage, size and weight limits apply, some airlines may allow free checked bags on select routes or for qualified circumstances), and there are no change fees, though fare differences might apply. The airline proudly unveiled a bold new look: Heart. A new logo, aircraft livery, interior design featuring a new seat and Flight Attendant galley, Employee-designed uniforms, and an updated airport experience all showcase the dedication of Southwest Employees who connect Customers with what's important in their lives. From its first flights on June 18, 1971, Southwest Airlines launched an era of unprecedented affordability in air travel described by the U.S. Department of Transportation as "The Southwest Effect," a lowering of fares and increase in passenger traffic whenever the carrier enters new markets. With 43 consecutive years of profitability, Southwest is one of the most honored airlines in the world, known for a triple bottom line approach that contributes to the carrier's performance and productivity, the importance of its People and the communities they serve, and an overall commitment to efficiency and the planet. The 2015 Southwest Airlines One Report can be found at SouthwestOneReport.com. Book Southwest Airlines' low fares online at Southwest.com or by phone at 800-I-FLY-SWA. SOURCE Southwest Airlines Co. Related Links http://www.southwest.com DALLAS, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- As Black Friday and Cyber Monday loom right around the corner and sales begin to surface from every nook and cranny, Hotels.com is making travel a priority by offering travelers discounts of 50% or more. GETTING THE BEST DEAL: Whether you're a travel enthusiast looking to score a deal for yourself, or are planning ahead to gift the perfect trip this season - Hotels.com is offering 50% or more off on over 300 hotels during the four-day sale in North America alone. Travelers can also get up to an additional 99% off using a Black Friday mystery coupon. If looking to make the most out of Black Friday deals - travelers can also opt into Secret Prices*on Hotels.com by subscribing to emails to get up to 30% off their already discounted rates. HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE: The Hotels.com four-day sale starts Friday, November 25 and lasts through Monday, November 28. During this period, Hotels.com will be offering special Black Friday through Cyber Monday deals to help travelers save the most money when planning their next trip. BLACK FRIDAY SALE TRENDS: According to Hotels.com data, during the 2015 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale, travelers wanted to stay local with only 8% searching for international destinations, a much lower number than the four weeks prior to that weekend. Most were looking for bright lights and big city trips with Las Vegas, New York, Orlando, Los Angeles and Miami topping the list as the most visited destinations. Travelers also took more time than usual as they searched for the best travel deal and more opted for a longer getaway with 35% spending between 1-2 hours deciding on their final travel plans and booking stays for 2-3 nights. WHERE TO GO: Whether it's a warm getaway to relax at a hotel like the Westgate Lakes Resort & Spa Universal Studios Area in Orlando, Florida or a trip for beignets and etouffee in New Orleans at the Catahoula Hotel travelers can steal these trips with steep discounts from Hotels.com. The below hotels are available at 50% off or more for the upcoming sale, and are located in the cities that were determined to be the most visited destinations for Black Friday in 2015. With prices starting at only $60 per night, these destinations can't be missed. 1. Grandview at Las Vegas Las Vegas, NV Rooms starting at $322 per night** 2. Iberostar 70 Park Avenue New York, NY Rooms starting at $129 per night** 3. Westgate Lakes Resort & Spa Universal Studios Area Orlando, FL Rooms starting at $60 per night** 4. The Garland Los Angeles, CA Rooms starting at $151 per night** 5. Grand Beach Hotel Surfside Miami, FL Rooms starting at $143 per night** 6. Hotel Huntington Beach Orange County, CA Rooms starting at $81 per night** 7. PUBLIC Chicago Chicago, IL Rooms starting at $77 per night** 8. Carlsbad by The Sea Resort San Diego, CA Rooms starting at $67 per night** 9. Hotel Whitcomb San Francisco, CA Rooms starting at $75 per night** 10. Catahoula Hotel New Orleans, LA Rooms starting at $95 per night** Top 20 Destinations Visited for Black Friday 1. LAS VEGAS 2. NEW YORK 3. ORLANDO 4. LOS ANGELES 5. MIAMI 6. ORANGE COUNTY 7. CHICAGO 8. SAN DIEGO 9. SAN FRANCISCO 10. NEW ORLEANS 11. WASHINGTON D.C. 12. FORT LAUDERDALE 13. DALLAS 14. ATLANTA 15. PHOENIX 16. HOUSTON 17. SAN ANTONIO 18. NEW JERSEY 19. BOSTON 20. FLORIDA KEYS *Data pulled from 2015 Notes to Editors Data used is correct as of November 17, 2016. * Secret Prices are available to Hotels.com app users, Hotels.com Rewards members and individuals who unlock Secret Prices on the website by subscribing to Hotels.com by email. Secret Prices will be shown where the "Your Secret Price" banner is displayed on your search results. Available on selected hotels and selected dates only. Subject to full terms and conditions. **Prices quoted include taxes and fees and are subject to availability at the time of booking. All prices quoted are 'from' prices and are accurate as of November 17, 2016. About Hotels.com: Hotels.com L.P. operates Hotels.com, a leading online accommodation booking website with hundreds of thousands of properties ranging from international chains and all-inclusive resorts to local favorites and bed & breakfasts, together with all the information needed to book the perfect stay. Special apps for mobile phones and tablets can also be downloaded enabling customers to book on the go with access to 20,000 last minute deals. 2016 Hotels.com, LP. Hotels.com, The Obvious Choice, Hotels.com Rewards and the Hotels.com logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Hotels.com, LP in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. CST # 2083949-50 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160302/340017LOGO Press Contacts: Dominique Dorais Hill+Knowlton Strategies Phone: (347) 405-0270 Email: [email protected] @hkstrategies Taylor L. Cole, APR Hotels.com North America Phone: (469) 335-8442 Email: [email protected] @TravelwithTLC SOURCE Hotels.com Related Links http://www.hotels.com THIEF RIVER FALLS, Minn., Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Fourteen lucky students attending Student Day at electronica in Munich won prizes sponsored by Digi-Key Electronics, a global electronic components distributor. At the end of Student Day, "Captain Jack Sparrow" announced the winners of the raffle giveaway in true pirate fashion. Students won 1 of 4 e-bikes or 10 InstaLab kits. 2016 electronica Student Day Winners Sponsored by Digi-Key Electronics Announced by "Captain Jack Sparrow" The InstaLab was created to have enough gear to turn an electronics student's dorm room into their own maker space. The kit includes over 20 different products from many of Digi-Key's trusted supplier partners. Some of the products include an oscilloscope, function generator, a HTU21D Humidity, Temperature Sensor Xplained Pro Platform Evaluation Expansion Board, and a Digi-Key Ruler. Digi-Key Electronics was a Platinum Sponsor of Student Day at electronica Munich as part of their continuous commitment to supporting education and STEM at all levels. They also encourage students to attend the 2018 electronica event where there will be more exciting giveaways and great opportunities to learn about the electronics industry. About Digi-Key Electronics Digi-Key Electronics, headquartered in Thief River Falls, Minn., USA, is an authorized global, full-service distributor of electronic components, offering more than five million products, with over 1.3 million products in stock and available for immediate shipment, from over 650 quality name-brand manufacturers. Digi-Key also stocks over 10,000 boards and modules to assist in any student's design or project. The company's best-in-class website features a wide variety of online resources including Product Training Modules (PTMs), conversion calculators, how-to articles and videos, datasheets, multimedia libraries, and much more. Additional tools and access to Digi-Key's broad product offering can be found at www.digikey.com. Editorial Contact for Digi-Key Electronics Tami Dowers Marketing Communications Manager 1.800.338.4105 x2398 [email protected] [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441556 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413615LOGO SOURCE Digi-Key Electronics Related Links http://www.digikey.com CITY OF INDUSTRY, California, November 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sugarmade, Inc. (OTC:SGMD) today announced preliminary results for the quarter ending September 30, 2016. During the quarter, the Company produced approximately $1.1 million in revenue with gross margins rising to 38%. Additionally, the Company reduced operating expenses on a percentage basis by more than 30%. As a result of the rising gross margins, significant reductions in expenses and higher non-operating income, the Company expects to report a net income of approximately $141,000. Over the past year, the Sugarmade management team has refocused sales efforts toward higher gross margin products and meaningfully restructured operations to cut costs. "With the stabilization of the core business operations, we are now well prepared to address the growing opportunity in cannabis packaging with our new CannaShroud and DabBox product lines, commented CEO, Jimmy Chan. "Thus far, we are very pleased with the level of interest in these products. We are also very excited about our upcoming launch of our Sriracha Seasoning Stix product line under a license agreement with Irwindale, California based, Huy Fong Foods, Inc., that producer of real Sriracha hot sauce." About Sugarmade, Inc. (OTC:SGMD) Sugarmade, Inc. is a product and brand marketing company investing in products and brands with disruptive potential. Sugarmade's brands include CarryOutSupplies.com, Sugarmade Tree Free Paper, FreeHand ThumbTray Dabbox and CannaShroud, the world's first Cannabis specific shipping systems. During November 2016, the Company will be launching Sriracha Stix, a revolutionary culinary seasoning product under official license from Irwindale, California-based Huy Fong Foods, Inc., the maker of Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. For more information on the Company's products, please visit http://www.Sugarmade.com. For inquiries please contact Jimmy Chan at +1(888)982-1628 or [email protected]. SOURCE Sugarmade, Inc. ROSEVILLE, Minn., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Over 100 families in Minnesota and South Dakota are wondering how they are going to make ends meet after showing up to work yesterday morning at Lakeville Motor Express, a Roseville-based trucking company, only to find a sign on the door saying that the company had permanently closed. It is not uncommon for new companies to open and old ones to close, but the circumstances of this closure have many crying foul. "It didn't close; the freight is still there, the trucks are still there and the customers are still there. All they did was change the logo on the trucks. Now they are saying they won't even pay the employees for work they had already done or benefits that have been accrued and are owed," said Teamsters Local 120 Business Agent Virgil Christoffersen, who represents roughly 90 employees who worked for Lakeville Motor Express. Earlier this fall, Lakeville Motor Express executive Travis Hoeschen started a competing company called Finish Line Express (FLE). Over the past several months, trucks, customers and property have been siphoned off from Lakeville and moved over to FLE. Many customers have told Local 120 that they had called Lakeville Motor Express and were sent an FLE truck instead. "They are doing this to undercut labor costs and drive down the entire market. Every step of this has been done in an underhanded and dishonest fashion. The icing on the cake, that we should all be outraged by, is that there are over 100 families who, without notice, are all of a sudden wondering how they will get by, how they will put food on the table at Thanksgiving, and presents under the tree at Christmas," said Bill Wedebrand, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 120. Local 120 President Tom Erickson vowed that the union would pursue all legal avenues available to stop this kind of business strategy from working. "If what they did isn't illegal, it should beperiod. This is not right, not moral and not Minnesotan. These executives should be ashamed of themselves," Erickson said. Teamsters Local 120 proudly represents 11,500 members in the states of Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota. We serve members in a variety of industries, from freight, airline, warehousing, and foodservice in the private sector, to police officers and city workers in the public sector. Our local union negotiates industry-leading contracts, and defends our members' rights every day. Contact: Bill Wedebrand, (651) 343-1719 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100127/IBTLOGO SOURCE Teamsters Local 120 Related Links http://www.teamster.org #ISurvivedEbola was launched in the fall of 2014 in collaboration with UNICEF. The 30 short films at the heart of this campaign document the experiences of Ebola survivors from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. It also features radio dramas in 12 languages, billboards, music videos, and a strong web presence. These stories were broadcast through local, national and international channels to educate West Africans on crucial health recommendations while dispelling myths and promoting survivor reintegration. Sean Southey CEO of PCI Media Impact accepted the awards for the survivors at the campaign's core: "PCI Media Impact has produced social and behavioral change media for over 30 years. As the Ebola crisis spread, we realized we could use our expertise to shift the narrative around the pandemic. With support from the Paul G. Allen Foundation and Vulcan Productions, we helped survivors tell their own stories, fighting stigma while sharing life-saving information with those who needed it most. We accept these awards with gratitude and appreciation on behalf of the courageous Ebola survivors who put their communities first, sharing their stories to save the lives of others." As a result of its integrated platform approach, #ISurvivedEbola reached more people in West Africa during this crisis than any other media campaign in history. An independent review shows that nearly 50% of the population in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea came into contact with the campaign. It found that people exposed to the campaign were more likely to engage in lifesaving behaviors and welcome survivors into their communities. Learn more about PCI Media Impact and Vulcan Productions. Video - http://origin-qps.onstreammedia.com/origin/multivu_archive/PRNA/ENR/ISurvivedEbola-Trailer-HD.mp4 SOURCE PCI Media Impact Related Links http://www.mediaimpact.org TORONTO, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Real Time Medical is pleased to announce the expansion of Real Time Medical's DiaShare workflow and productivity platform within the area of cardiology at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Currently in its sixth generation and designed to support multi-ology environments, DiaShare has been enhancing productivity and helping improve the quality of diagnosis from single hospital entities, to healthcare enterprises, to country-wide deployments. "We were looking for a way to bring information from our legacy cardiology system into the rest of our workflow," said Dr. Mendelson, Vice Chair of Radiology IT and Senior Associate Clinical Informatics at Mount Sinai and the co-chair for Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE). "Our positive experience with DiaShare in radiology has prompted us to expand the use of the platform into cardiology for the integration of our cardiology data into our imaging infrastructure. This platform expansion will allow us to leverage our existing technologies to improve our workflow in a cost-effective way." Real Time Medical Co-Founder and CEO, Ian Maynard, explains that one of the reasons Mount Sinai was originally interested in using DiaShare was because of its ability to unite disparate systems. "Since 2013, we have been working with Mount Sinai to eliminate manual workflow steps. Accomplishing a high degree of clinical productivity is most possible with a vendor-neutral platform that is also multi-ology applicable. We are pleased to help Mount Sinai achieve greater interoperability with a single solution that integrates data across multiple medical disciplines." In 2013, Real Time Medical successfully implemented DiaShare in a project for Mount Sinai to provide tele-radiology services to several New York imaging clinics. The cardiology system expansion is planned to go live this summer. The Mount Sinai Hospital is a recognized leader in healthcare IT. In 2012, Mount Sinai was awarded the HIMSS Enterprise Davies Award of Excellence for use of health information technology, which is a testament to the culture of health IT innovation that the institution has cultivated over the years. About Real Time Medical Real Time Medical is a diagnostic workflow innovation company. It develops vendor-neutral, context-aware workflow management software solutions. These solutions organize diagnostic reporting services across medical disciplines. Real Time Medical's diagnostic sharing platform, DiaShare, improves the timeliness, efficiency and quality of service delivery to patients. It provides workload balancing, critical results communication, and prospective or retrospective peer review. Real Time Medical also operates the only nationwide, round-the-clock radiology service in Canada, using its DiaShare workflow management platform. Real Time Medical has worked with about 50 hospitals and clinics across Canada, USA and Europe. For more information please visit: www.realtimemedical.com Contact: Real Time Medical Ian Maynard, P.Eng., M.Sc., MBA CEO & Co-Founder [email protected] SOURCE Real Time Medical Related Links http://www.realtimemedical.com Maple Hill traces its roots to 2003 and is today the top-selling grass-fed yogurt brand in the natural channel. The family owned brand was formally founded in 2009 when Founder & CEO Tim Joseph began making and selling organic, 100% grass-fed yogurt products from his dairy farm to local retailers in upstate New York. Maple Hill has since grown from two farms to over 100 as of the end of 2016, representing 25% of all organic dairy farms operating in New York State. "Maple Hill Creamery is challenging conventional thinking that you can't produce milk with 'just grass'. We are committed to growing a community of regenerative grass farmers and demonstrating how 100% grass-fed dairy is the 'new' organic by benefitting the cows, consumers, the farmers and the land," said Tim Joseph, Maple Hill Creamery Founding Farmer & CEO. "Partnering with Sunrise Strategic Partners is an exciting new chapter for Maple Hill. We look forward to leveraging the Sunrise team's operational expertise and industry relationships to grow the brand." Grass-fed dairy supports humane animal treatment, offers financial prosperity for family dairy farmers, creates superior quality dairy products, and encourages environmental sustainability. The 100% grass-fed practices of Maple Hill represent a return to a "closed loop" model of dairy farming where cows eat the best food for themgrass from pasture and baleageand are allowed to socialize and spend most of their time on pasture. Due to this, Maple Hill's grass-fed cows live on average at least as twice as long as conventional dairy cows, and have fewer health issues. In addition to these practices, holistically-managed grass-fed dairy farming contributes environmental benefits including improved farm soil and nutrient density. Holistic planned grazing regenerates the soil, supports wildlife biodiversity, sequesters carbon and limits pollution of waterways. Additionally, many consumers will find benefits in the lipid profile of 100% grass-fed whole milk dairy products. Third-party tests of Maple Hill's dairy products show higher concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids than omega-6 fatty acids (a 1:1 ratio) versus other national dairy brands (ranging from 2:1 to 7:1), as well as higher levels of beta-carotene. "Maple Hill Creamery is one of the fastest-growing dairy brands in the natural channel. What started as a specialty regional yogurt company in 2009 has become a national dairy brand, and consumers can now find Maple Hill Creamery in over 6,000 retailers across the US, from Whole Foods Market, Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, and Sprouts Farmers Market to select Kroger banners, as well as thousands of independent grocers and specialty retailers," said Steve Hughes, CEO and Co-Founder of Sunrise Strategic Partners. "As consumers and retailers begin to understand the value and benefits of 100% grass-fed there is significant opportunity to scale this brand. I'm looking forward to working with Tim and the entire Maple Hill team to bring 100% grass-fed dairy to more consumers." The investment from Sunrise will enable Maple Hill to invest in the expansion of the team, as well as sales, marketing and supply to support the brand's rapid growth. This marks the fifth investment for Sunrise, a brand accelerator that provides growth capital and expertise to early stage health and wellness brands to support their development, add strategic value and share guidance on tactical priorities. About Maple Hill Creamery Maple Hill Creamery is a farm-family owned dairy manufacturer founded in 2009, and is widely recognized as the preeminent leader in the emerging 100% grass-fed dairy category. They are the first dairy brand to receive the Pennsylvania Certified Organic 100% Grassfed Certification. Since day one, Maple Hill has stood by their conviction that 100% grass-fed organic dairy farming is better for everyone from cows to consumers. 100% grass-fed dairy farming produces the highest quality milk, supports the healthiest lifestyle for cows, improves the fertility of grazing land, and allows farmers to prosper. The Maple Hill Creamery Milkshed now numbers over 100 small farms, and will continue to transition New York State dairy farms to 100% grass-fed organic in 2017. Maple Hill Creamery products are available nationwide in over 6,000 retailers, including many specialty and independent retailers. For more information, visit www.maplehillcreamery.com, and follow us on Twitter @MapleHillCream, Facebook (www.facebook.com/maplehillcreamery), and Instagram @maplehillcreamery. About Sunrise Strategic Partners Sunrise Strategic Partners, LLC ("Sunrise"), based in Boulder, Colorado, provides growth capital and expertise to emerging brands in the healthy, active and sustainable living space that resonate with millennials, have a strong proof of concept and have reached approximately $10-$20 million in revenue. The Sunrise team is deeply experienced in scaling brands and supports these investments by adding strategic value and guidance on tactical priorities. Sunrise Strategic Partners was founded by Steve Hughes, founder of Boulder Brands, in partnership with Trilantic North America, a leading private equity firm. For more information, visit www.sunrisestrategicpartners.com. About Trilantic North America Trilantic Capital Management L.P. ("Trilantic North America") is a private equity firm focused on control and significant minority investments in North America. Trilantic North America's primary investment focus is in the business services, consumer, energy and financial services sectors. Trilantic North America currently manages four private equity fund families with aggregate capital commitments of $5.9 billion. For more information, visit www.trilantic.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160328/348635LOGO Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442197LOGO SOURCE Sunrise Strategic Partners Related Links http://www.sunrisestrategicpartners.com IRVINE, Calif., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division today announced that its VIPedge cloud-based business communication solution has won a 2016 INTERNET TELEPHONY Hosted VoIP Excellence Award winner, as published in INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine. "We are very proud to receive a 2016 INTERNET TELEPHONY Hosted VoIP Excellence Award. VIPedge delivers the advantages of a fully-featured business telephone system in the cloud at an affordable cost," said Brian Metherell, vice president and general manager of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division. "Congratulations to Toshiba for being honored with an INTERNET TELEPHONY Hosted VoIP Excellence Award for innovation in IP communications. Toshiba has consistently demonstrated outstanding quality and has delivered exceptional solutions for its customers," stated Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. Toshiba's VIPedge delivers a competitively priced, comprehensive unified communications feature suite based on Toshiba's 135+ years of industry experience. VIPedge gives users the advantages of Toshiba's IPedge business telephone system in the cloud without needing to purchase an entire telephone system, allowing companies to pay a monthly service fee scalable to meet system size and usage needs as an alternative to the capital purchase of an on-site telephone system. VIPedge helps businesses: Save money on local, long distance and international phone service. Gain the advantages of IP communications. Benefit from an alternative to purchasing and installing telephony equipment and managing the ongoing administration and maintenance that follows. Enjoy the flexibility to add new users on-demand or quickly get new locations up and running. Receive consistency and continuity across a network of locations, regardless of the deployment in the cloud, on site, or a hybrid of both solution types. Benefit from a built-in survivability solution that ensures communications continue during outages. Take advantage of the latest business applications and emerging innovations by simply subscribing to them as a service. About INTERNET TELEPHONY Magazine INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine has been the IP Communications Authority since 1998. Beginning with the first issue in February of 1998, INTERNET TELEPHONY has been providing unbiased views of the complicated converged communications space. INTERNET TELEPHONY offers rich content from solutions-focused editorial content to reviews on products and services from TMC Labs. INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine reaches more than 225,000 readers, including pass-along readers. For more information, please visit www.itmag.com. About TMC TMC is a global, integrated media company that supports clients' goals by building communities in print, online, and face to face. TMC publishes multiple magazines including Cloud Computing, IoT Evolution, Customer, and Internet Telephony. TMCnet is the leading source of news and articles for the communications and technology industries, and is read by as many as one million unique visitors monthly. TMC produces a variety of trade events, including ITEXPO, the world's leading business technology event, as well as industry events: Asterisk World; AstriCon; ChannelVision (CVx) Expo; DevCon5 - HTML5 & Mobile App Developer Conference; IoT Evolution Conference & Expo; IoT Evolution Developers Conference; MSP Expo; Real Time Web Communications and more. For more information about TMC, visit www.tmcnet.com. About Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. Telecommunication Systems Division (TSD) Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division is one of the six business units of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. (TAIS) and offers business communication solutions for SMB enterprises and enterprises with multi-site or regional locations. Toshiba's VIPedge cloud-based business telephone solution and the IPedge and Strata CIX systems offer Voice over IP, voice mail and unified messaging, conferencing and collaboration, unified communications applications, networking, mobility and more. Together with Toshiba's PCs, tablets, copiers, and surveillance video cameras/recorders, Toshiba's Telecommunication Systems Division helps enterprises maximize business efficiency in communications and mobility. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., TAIS is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation. For more information, visit www.Telecom.Toshiba.com. About Toshiba Toshiba Corporation, a Fortune Global 500 company, channels world-class capabilities in advanced electronic and electrical product and systems into three focus business fields: Energy that sustains everyday life, that is cleaner and safer; Infrastructure that sustains quality of life; and Storage that sustains the advanced information society. Guided by the principles of The Basic Commitment of the Toshiba Group, "Committed to People, Committed to the Future," Toshiba promotes global operations and is contributing to the realization of a world where generations to come can live better lives. Founded in Tokyo in 1875, today's Toshiba is at the heart of a global network of 550 consolidated companies employing 188,000 people worldwide, with annual sales surpassing 5.6 trillion yen (US$50 billion) (as of March 31, 2016). To find out more about Toshiba, visit www.toshiba.co.jp/index.htm. For additional information, or to purchase Toshiba telecommunication products, visit http://www.telecom.toshiba.com for an Authorized Toshiba Dealer. Follow us on Facebook (ToshibaPhoneSystems), Twitter (toshibaphonesys) and LinkedIn (Toshiba-telecommunication-systems-division). 2016 Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. All product, service and company names are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. Information including, without limitation, product prices, specifications, availability, content of services, and contact information is subject to change without notice. Toshiba PR Contact: Teri Sawyer, T&Co. 714-801-1687 [email protected] TMC Contact: Stephanie Thompson Manager 203-852-6800, ext. 139 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150408/197413LOGO SOURCE Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division Related Links http://www.Telecom.Toshiba.com (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140911/647229 ) Growth in tourism is the prime factor that drives the travel insurance market. According to UNWTO, international tourist arrivals grew at a rate of 4.4% in 2015 to reach a total of 1,184 million, with North America witnessing the highest inbound travel. With the growing tourist traffic, increased incidences of loss of luggage, important documents, medical emergencies, and natural calamities are being registered. To mitigate the risk associated with such incidences, more number of travelers are opting for travel insurance. Summary of the Travel Insurance Market Report can be accessed on the website at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/travel-insurance-market In addition, there are several countries, where travel insurance is mandatory for obtaining VISA. For instance, to visit countries, such as the U.S., France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Finland, and Poland among others, travel health insurance is a must. In order to analyze the world travel insurance market, it is segmented based on insurance cover, users, distribution channel, and geography. Travel insurance cover is available for single trip, annual multi-trip, and long stay trips. Among the mentioned policies, single trip travel insurance policy dominated the market in 2015, accounting for around 71% of the overall market revenue owing to increase in popularity and affordability of year-round city breaks, increase in family travelers, shopping trips abroad, and winter sun holidays. Annual multi trip travel insurance policies are expected to be the fastest growing policy type during the forecast period. User segment comprises senior citizens, education travelers, family travelers, business travelers, backpackers, and fully independent travelers. In 2015, family travelers occupied a prominent share of the overall market revenue, followed by senior citizens. In addition, business travelers segment is anticipated to grow at the fastest CAGR of 9.7% during the forecast period, owing to increased international trade, overseas business expansion, and increase in business travel expenditure. Travel insurance policies are sold through insurance intermediaries, insurance companies, banks, insurance brokers, insurance aggregators, and others. In 2015, across all regions, traditional channel encompassing insurance intermediaries consisting of tour operators and travel agents accounted for around half of the overall sale of travel insurance policies and is projected to lead the market during the forecast period. Insurance aggregators is anticipated to be the fastest growing channel owing to the widening usage of internet worldwide. The segment is projected to register a CAGR of 11.5% during the forecast period. Though, Europe accounted for the majority of revenue in 2015, its relative share in the global revenue is projected to decrease during the forecast period owing to recent incidence of Brexit. Asia-Pacific travel insurance market would exhibit prominent growth during the forecast period owing to increase in the number of travel insurance users which include backpackers, senior citizens, and business travelers. From a growth perspective, travel insurance market in LAMEA is anticipated to witness the fastest CAGR of over 10% during the forecast period, on account of increase in demand of travel insurance policies from Latin American and Middle East countries. Key Findings of Travel Insurance Market In 2015, Europe was the highest revenue-generating region, followed by Asia-Pacific . was the highest revenue-generating region, followed by . Single trip travel insurance policies would continue to be the major revenue generating segment throughout the analysis period. Family travelers occupied prominent share of the overall market revenue in 2015 and would continue to lead the market over 2016-2022. Insurance intermediaries would be the highest- revenue generating market segment throughout 2014-2022. Key players profiled in this report are CSA Travel Protection, USI Affinity, Seven Corners Inc., Travel Safe, MH Ross, Allianz Global Assistance, Travel Insured International, AIG Travel, and InsureandGo. Read similar market research reports on Banking Financial Services & Insurance Market Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/banking-financial-services-&-insurance-market-report About Us: Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions". AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: Rahul Thakur 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States Direct: +1-503-894-6022 Toll Free: +1 (800) 792-5285 (U.S. & Canada) Fax: +1 (855) 550-5975 E-mail: [email protected] Website: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com SOURCE Allied Market Research LONDON, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Muslims are staying away from the U.S. in droves following the election of Donald Trump. In fact, in the fourteen days since the U.S. presidential election, searches for U.S.-bound flights from Arab countries are down by a staggering 70% compared to October's numbers, reports CheapFlightsFinder, home of the world's first Meta-Meta Flight Search. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161122/442045LOGO Where would Muslim travelers now prefer to spend their vacation time? The U.K., Turkey, and Malaysia, all of which are seeing spikes in CheapFlightsFinder.com searches originating from primarily Islamic countries. "We obviously can't speak to each traveler's reasoning for searching flights to a particular country, but we can say for certain what the data is showing, which is that in the last two weeks, the vast majority of Muslim travelers appear to have decided against flying to the United States," said CheapFlightsFinder CEO Shahab Siddiqui. "Is there a correlation to Donald Trump being elected president? The numbers seem to suggest that." While the majority of Turkish and Malaysian citizens practice Islam, the same cannot be said of the U.K. Could that country's recent spike in airfare searches originating from Muslim countries be related to the U.S. elections? Perhaps. In January of this year, the Pew Research Center estimated that approximately 1% of the American population was Muslim in 2015, while approximately 4.8% of the U.K.'s population was Muslim that same year. Though Islam is practiced by a pronounced minority of citizens in both countries, CheapFlightsFinder's data could be interpreted to mean that Muslim travelers now feel safer visiting the U.K. than they do visiting the U.S. "The U.S. travel industry could be in for a bit of a depression in the weeks and months to come, particularly until the world has a better sense of what America will look like under a Trump administration and whether that might affect travelers visiting from other countries," Siddiqui speculated. "We plan to keep a close watch on the data here at CheapFlightsFinder and will continue to report on trends as we see them developing." About CheapFlightsFinder Founded in 2008 and recommended by Arthur Frommer, the Daily Mail, and the Times Online, CheapFlightsFinder is a leader in travel savings. The company's Meta-Meta Flight Search was the first search engine to compare every leading airfare comparison search engine to give travelers as much as a 20% discount over the lowest fares found elsewhere. Along with helping consumers save money on airfare, CheapFlightsFinder collects and reports on travel-related data to highlight the influence of global political and economic events on world travel trends. Learn more at http://www.cheapflightsfinder.com. CONTACT: Shahab Siddiqui CheapFlightsFinder 07957 191 342 [email protected] http://www.cheapflightsfinder.com SOURCE CheapFlightsFinder.com Related Links http://www.cheapflightsfinder.com SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Diligent Consulting Inc. (Diligent), a federal information technology (IT) services company, announced today that they have been awarded a SeaPort-e Indefinite Delivery / Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. The U.S. Navy has selected Diligent and partner CACI International Inc. as part of this award which gives selected companies ability to compete on functional task orders. The Government estimates a maximum of $3,960,000,000 of services will be procured per year via orders issued under the SeaPort-e. www.diligent-us.com/seaporte "Diligent is thrilled to be selected by the Navy for this multiple award IDIQ contract. It will allow us to leverage our success providing outstanding IT services across multiple government customers in support of the Navy and affiliated agencies"; said Diligent's COO, Mr. Rick Riney. SeaPort-e is the Navy's electronic platform for acquiring support services in 22 functional areas including Engineering, Financial Management, Information Technology, Information Assurance/Cyber Security and Program Management. The IDID supports Navy Systems Commands (NAVSEA, NAVAIR, SPAWAR, NAVFAC, and NAVSUP), the Office of Naval Research, Military Sealift Command, and the United States Marine Corps. Founded in 2001 in San Antonio, TX, Diligent provides IT Solutions, Application Development and Modernization, Cyber and Intel Solutions and IT Professional Services to government and private sector clients. Having opened its "Software Center of Excellence" in 2011, Diligent leverages SEI-appraised Maturity Level 3 CMMI-DEV processes, Service-Oriented Architecture and Enterprise Architecture capabilities, and its Evolution SolutionSM to rapidly design, deploy, and maintain advanced software solutions. Diligent also has a certified ISO 9001-2008 Quality Management System. For more information, visit www.diligent-us.com. Logo- http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441698LOGO SOURCE Diligent Consulting Inc. Related Links http://www.diligent-us.com ATLANTA, Nov. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Vertera Spine, a developer of medical devices using advanced biomaterial technologies, today announced that the COHERE Cervical Interbody Fusion Device has been recognized by Orthopedics This Week as one of the Top Ten Best Spine Technologies for 2016. COHERE features Vertera Spine's patented porous PEEK (polyetheretherketone) Scoria biomaterial technology, a porous architecture that seamlessly integrates with solid PEEK to mimic the cancellous to cortical transition of native bone. Every year, Orthopedics This Week recognizes the engineering teams and inventors who develop and successfully translate innovative products into clinical use to treat back pain. This year, winning technologies were selected based on creativity, innovation, demonstrated ability to solve a critical clinical problem and their potential long-term impact on improving spine surgery. While porous metal and porous metal-coated PEEK implants have found their way into spine fusion applications, COHERE is the first and only porous PEEK fusion device to reach clinical use. By having porous PEEK Scoria on the superior and inferior sides, COHERE provides an environment that supports bony tissue ingrowth while retaining the mechanical properties and imaging capabilities of traditional PEEK. COHERE has been available under a limited market release to a select group of surgeons since May 2016. COHERE was considered a viable recipient of this year's Spine Technology Award due to the extensive research presented on porous PEEK Scoria. The biomaterial's mechanical properties and in vitro cellular response are reported in a study recently published in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research.1 Performed by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, results of the study show that porous PEEK elicits an elevated in vitro osteogenic response compared with both smooth PEEK and smooth titanium. While prior studies have shown a similar improved osteogenic response on porous titanium, this is the first study to suggest PEEK Scoria's porous architecture can improve the osteogenic response to PEEK. Furthermore, the study also revealed that porous PEEK Scoria exhibits the appropriate fatigue strength to withstand loading seen in the spine and a higher interfacial shear strength than bone. Likewise, another study recently published in Journal of Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials demonstrates that PEEK Scoria maintains its porous architecture under similar compressive loading seen in the spine while also exhibiting the same wear resistance as regular PEEK. "We are honored to have our COHERE cervical device with porous PEEK Scoria technology selected amongst an elite group of cutting-edge technologies," said Stephen Laffoon, Vertera Spine director of Engineering and one of the COHERE device inventors. "The recent publication of studies on porous PEEK Scoria exemplifies our continued commitment to not only validate our own porous PEEK technology, but also advance the fundamental understanding around the role of the implant in driving osseointegration." About Vertera Spine: Vertera Spine is a privately-held medical device company that develops and commercializes multifunctional implants that use or complement its patented porous technology to address critical clinical needs in spine surgery. The company has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Georgia Research Alliance, and Duke Angel Network to translate its growing technology portfolio into commercial products. For more information, visit www.verteraspine.com or call 678.705.9039. COHERE and Scoria are registered trademarks of Vertera Spine. 1Torstrick FB, Gall K, et al. Do Surface Porosity and Pore Size Influence Mechanical Properties and Cellular Response to PEEK? Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, 2016. 474 (11): 2373-2383. 2Evans NT, Gall K, et al. Local deformation behavior of surface porous polyether-ether-ketone. Journal of Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials, 2017. 65: 522-532. SOURCE Vertera Spine Related Links http://www.verteraspine.com RICHMOND, Va., Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Virginia Health Information provides details on services offered in many hospitals in the Commonwealth. In addition to comparisons on the quality of care consumers receive, VHI provides Annual Licensure Survey Data (ALSD) collected from ambulatory surgical centers, hospitals, nursing facilities, as well as some free standing physician offices at www.vhi.org/alsd. What is ALSD and how does it benefit businesses, planners, purchasers and policymakers? Reports in the Annual Licensure Survey Data provide data on patient services provided, the number of procedures, cases, licensed & staffed beds, patient days, occupancy rates, and services for specific types of care. Easy-to-use Excel spreadsheets allow the user to dissect the data in analyses for public planning, research and Certificate of Public Need requirements, to achieve health policy goals. During the 2016 General Assembly, Virginia's Certificate of Public Need process reform efforts were, and continue to be, a hot topic. Annual Licensure Survey Data is just one of the many pieces used by the OLC (Office of Licensure and Certification) in administering the COPN program. The 2017 General Assembly session may include continued efforts to reform this program following the delay of House Bill 350. For more information about the future of COPN reform, click here to view Senate amendments to House Bill 350. VHI is a trusted, unbiased source in providing data tools that aid in improving health care transparency. The files contained in the ALSD are reasonably priced and available to order by visiting, www.vhi.org/alsd. VHI is a nonprofit health data organization collecting and making available a wide variety of health information to assist businesses, consumers, health care providers and others in making better health care decisions and to improve the quality of care. Visit www.vhi.org for more information. Press Contact: Virginia Health Information Michael T. Lundberg, Executive Director Phone: 804-644-7026, Toll Free: 1-877-VHI-INFO Web Site: www.vhi.org Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20131210/DC30453LOGO SOURCE Virginia Health Information Related Links http://www.vhi.org Recognised for dedicated delivery of business impacting RPO solutions across EMEA LONDON, Nov. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- WilsonHCG, a global talent solutions leader, today announced it has been named to HRO Today magazine's 2016 Baker's Dozen Customer Satisfaction list for recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) in EMEA for the second consecutive year. Additional recognitions have been awarded to WilsonHCG for the HRO Today Services and Technology Association Award for excellence in engagement strategy for the European market. For the Baker's Dozen recognition, results are based on a confidential survey of RPO buyers and customers within the region, evaluating breadth of service, size of deals, and performance quality. The annual rankings were announced on 9th November by HRO Today Magazine at HRO Today Forum Europe, and WilsonHCG placed fourth in the EMEA listing, moving up one rank from 2015. "This is a testament to our EMEA team's dedication to high-quality service delivery," said Jesper Bendtsen, EVP Global Strategy. "To be recognised by HRO Today two years in a row is a significant achievement. With our customers' objectives in mind, we continue to drive process innovation and quality improvements that result in them hiring great talent." "We are extremely honoured to be recognised by HRO Today as a leading recruitment process outsource provider within EMEA for the second year," said John Wilson, CEO. "Our rapid growth within the region reflects our ability to drive business-impacting results for our client's. We look forward to continuing to exceed our client's expectations, by fostering a culture where creativity, collaboration and transparency drive our strategic talent solutions." While attending the HRO Today Forum Europe, in Edinburgh (8 10 November), John Wilson, CEO, served as a panelist member where he discussed topics such as, the future of RPO, innovative technologies impacting candidate engagement, and blended workforce solutions, to name a few. "It's no surprise that WilsonHCG has been recognised with multiple HRO Today awards this year it is a true testament to their ability to deliver excellent customer service and maintain a highly engaged workforce," said Elliot Clark, CEO of HRO Today magazine. "As a global talent solutions leader, WilsonHCG will continue to grow into new regions and we are excited to see what 2017 holds for them." In September, WilsonHCG was recognised in the 2016 RPO Baker's Dozen list for the sixth year in a row among the top global enterprise recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) providers. ABOUT WILSONHCG WilsonHCG is a global talent solutions leader that operates on the principle of providing true partnership to its clients. Delivering business-impacting talent solutions including recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), talent consulting, contingent workforce solutions and executive search WilsonHCG is transforming its clients' businesses through their talent. Founded in 2002, the company's global headquarters is located in Tampa, Florida. While optimizing clients' talent strategies is essential, WilsonHCG recognizes the relationships it develops lead to the results its clients realize. Better People, Better Business. Contact: Jessica Lang, (813) 280-7746, [email protected] SOURCE WilsonHCG Related Links http://www.wilsonhcg.com "Women who are remarrying, celebrating a special anniversary or renewing their vows love our Xpandable diamond and gemstone rings," added Mr. Picchiotti. "Not only for their exquisite designs, but because they expand to fit any fingerand they will never need resizing." Beauty Meets Comfort and Fit Xpandable rings by Picchiotti use innovative technology to overcome a myriad of consumer challenges concerning comfort and fit. A groundbreaking hidden mechanism allows each ring to expand over the knuckle and "snap back" into place with ease. Xpandable bracelets work the same way, ensuring a comfortable fit and eliminating the often difficult obstacle of a clasp. "After years of observing many of our best customers struggle to fit diamond rings over their knuckles, we developed an elegant solution that is totally invisible to the eye," said Mr. Picchiotti. A Fine Jewelry Revolution The Picchiotti team invented the expandable fine jewelry concept after nearly a decade of research and development. Picchiotti's ingenious merger of technology and design has resulted in a revolution in the jewelry industry. "Having launched the category of expandable fine jewelry, we continue to innovate across different price points," said Mr. Picchiotti. "New Xpandable designs in both our "Fashion" and "Classic" lines are in development." Where to Find It The Xpandable Collection by Picchiotti currently includes 83 different designs. Selections are available at Neiman Marcus and fine jewelers in the U.S., and at leading jewelers around the world. Celebrating 50 Years of Design and Innovation Picchiotti, the preeminent name in fine Italian jewelry, will celebrate its 50th year in business in 2017. Anniversary plans include a robust advertising and social media campaign and a commemorative book by renowned jewelry historian and Financial Times contributing editor, Vivienne Becker. For more information, visit www.xpandable.it or call Toll Free 1-855-570-9900 from the U.S. Contact: Maria Carola Picchiotti Corso Garibaldi, 137 Valenza (AL) Italy Tel: +39 0131 95 30 81 Fax: +39 0131 94 63 22 www.picchiotti.it [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161101/441607 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160516/368665LOGO SOURCE Picchiotti Related Links http://www.xpandable.it 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 Mumbai, Nov 18 : Sensing the sentiments of the citizens post demonetisation, the Mumbai Congress will hold 'Note Pe Charcha' sessions with the public from November 22, a party leader said on Friday. "The people of the country have been put to great hardships due to the sudden demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1,000 notes. We shall organise mass discussions on its fallout at railway stations, grounds, near bank queues or other public spaces," Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam said. The Congress will explain the impact of the government decision to the public and elicit peoples' opinions, especially since six persons have died while in queues to withdraw money in Maharashtra. This would be followed up by processions, sit-in demonstrations and other forms of protests all over Mumbai, which has taken a severe knock post-demonetisation. Nirupam said trade and commercial activities were on the verge of collapse as people have no money to buy food and other basic necessities. Hotels, restaurants, shops and malls, cinemas and all other sectors of the economy had reported a drop of 70-80 per cent drop in business. Meanwhile, the Congress has made arrangements to provide drinking water, tea, coffee and biscuits to the people who queue up outside banks and ATMs. Baghdad, Nov 19 : At least 40 militants from the Islamic State (IS) terror group and three policemen were killed on Saturday in several attacks against army barracks in northern Iraq. The attacks targeted Iraqi security forces in the town of al-Qayyarah, located 55 km south of the IS stronghold of Mosul. The head of the Security Committee of the Nineveh Provincial Parliament, Mohamed Ibrahim al-Bayati, told Efe news that the offensive was launched by a group of over 200 militants who crossed the Tigris river in small boats and then headed for al-Qayyarah. According to al-Bayati, the clashes were very intense and lasted for more than four hours. During the battle, several suicide bombers were able to cross Iraqi security lines and break into the barracks, where they detonated their explosive vests. Three policemen were killed in the blasts and three other officers were seriously wounded. Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 20 : In a surprise move, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who completes six months in office next week, on Sunday inducted trade union leader M.M. Moni into the cabinet as the Electricity Minister. The swearing in of Moni is expected to take place very soon. A first time legislator and a state Secretariat member of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Moni told the media that he was happy to have been given more responsibilities and would do his best. Ever since the resignation of Industries Minister E.P. Jayarajan, the number two in the Vijayan cabinet, after he allegedly appointed relatives in the government, the portfolio was handled by Vijayan. The fresh decision came at the end of three days of party meetings of the CPI-M. The portfolios of two other ministers were also shifted. Kadanapally Surendran, who was the Electricity Minister, will now get the Cooperation and Youth Affairs portfolio, which was held by A.C. Moideen, who becomes the new Industries Minister. Tirupati, Nov 21 : Telugu Desam Party MP N. Sivaprasad staged a novel protest in this temple town on Monday over the difficulties faced by people due to demonetisation of high value currency notes. The Lok Sabha member from Chittoor, who is known for his antics, dressed as a folk performer and staged the protest outside the State Bank of India (SBI) branch on Tilak Road. Holding a 'veena', the TDP leader performed 'Burrakatha' to highlight the problems faced by people in the wake of demonetisation of the Rs 1,000 and 500 notes. 'Burrakatha' is an oral storytelling technique performed in the countryside of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for sharing mythological stories or to highlight a contemporary social issue. Sivaprasad, along with a couple of co-performers, narrated how people were suffering by standing in long queues for cash and how the situation had affected marriages and treatment of the sick. He told reporters that while the move to spike high value currency notes was aimed at curbing black money, the failure to take alternate measures had hit hard the common man. Sivaprasad lamented that the move was not achieving the desired results. He wondered if 'acche din' promised by the government were for hoarders of black money or for common man. The MP, who has acted in a few Telugu films, made it clear that as an artist he was highlighting the sufferings of the people. The TDP is a partner in the BJP-led government at the Centre. Party president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had long been demanding demonetisation of major currency notes. He, however, expressed displeasure over lack of proper arrangements to mitigate the problems faced by people. Washington, Nov 22 : Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's selection for White House chief strategist, on Sunday said that he was an "economic nationalist" and he rejects racist and anti-Semitic elements of the nationalist alt-right movement. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bannon, cast himself as a strident opponent of "globalism" -- including free trade deals that Trump has bemoaned, CNN reported. "I'm an economic nationalist. I am an America first guy," Bannon was quoted as saying. "And I have admired nationalist movements throughout the world, have said repeatedly strong nations make great neighbours. I have also said repeatedly that the ethno-nationalist movement, prominent in Europe, will change over time. I've never been a supporter of ethno-nationalism," he added. Bannon said that "the black working and middle class and the Hispanic working and middle class, just like whites, have been severely hurt by the policies of globalism." He noted that he had urged Trump to reach out to minority communities on the campaign trail. "I was the one who said we are going to Flint, Michigan, we are going to black churches in Cleveland, because the thrust of this movement is that we are going to bring capitalism to the inner cities," Bannon said in the interview. London, Nov 22 : In a major expansion of its London operations, social media giant Facebook is reported to have plans to hire 500 more staff in Britain. Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook's head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is set to address the Confederation of British Industry's annual conference on Tuesday about the plans to hire 500 more staff in Britain, thus increasing its headcount by 50 per cent to more than 1,500, The Telegraph reported on Monday. Facebook is preparing to move into spacious new offices in central London's Fitzrovia district next year -- one of several big moves planned by Silicon's Valley's best known names to bolster their presence in the country. Last week, Google revealed that it will open a new London head office that will result in 3,000 new British jobs by 2020. Apple also plans to set up a new headquarters in the redeveloped Battersea Power Station in the capital, while Amazon has said since the Brexit vote that it plans to create an extra 1,000 British jobs. New Delhi : Title: Soldier Spy; Author: Tom Marcus; Publisher: Michael Joseph/Penguin Random House UK; Pages: 326; Price: Rs 699 In today's world of uncertain and unexpected violence, an implacable enemy, with thoughts of spectacular mass murder on their minds, may be next to us without we even suspecting their presence or intentions -- and our very homes, public spaces and transport are the new battlegrounds. Who can we depend upon to protect us? Just a handful of men -- and women -- whose original remit of unmasking traitors and preventing enemy agents from stealing national secrets, has expanded to supplement police's efforts to track and foil terrorists planning to unleash mayhem on the streets. Though less glamorous than their counterparts working overseas, the secret security services are an equally vital part of espionage and national security and their work no less exacting or lethal. And how exactly they work, with long and uncomfortable stakeouts interspersed with high-speed car chases -- and ceaseless observation in the shadows of ever-present personal danger from targets as well as other threats -- is told in this high-octane, engrossing but visceral account by a former operative of Britain's MI5. And Tom Marcus cites that old yardstick of terrorism, where the security service have to be lucky every time while the terrorist has to be lucky just once. The MI5 describes its employees as "ordinary people, who do extraordinary things", with "a very strong ethos of public service" despite knowing "their work often goes unnoticed in the public domain"; as people "intensely committed to keeping the country safe", and who are "tirelessly professional and ethical in the way they conduct their work". Marcus met the parameters -- some more than his colleagues -- and a little too well. "Some people join the service out of a sense of duty, some out of wanting to do some good by removing the evil. I did it because it's all I knew. I'm a hunter of people and I'm damn good at it," he says. And this he seeks to prove, as right at the onset, he recounts one key operation, in which he, dressed in urine-smelling rags, tries to keep vigil on an Islamic radical planning mass murder at a local school. He also uses this episode to underline how his service is different from the police, both in methods and objectives. For the first, he tells us that "the people we hunt never know we're there, and even when they end up in court they still don't know how they got caught". Their aims diverge, for "police like to arrest quickly, to remove the threat to the public as soon as possible" while his service knows that this "doesn't defeat the problem, it merely takes away one of the foot soldiers" and they want to roll up the whole network not only take "this one attack out of the equation" but use it to "identify, and stop, ten others". And Marcus shows what kind of demands it makes on the operatives, with one incident where he, out shopping, is on the verge of killing a man behaving suspiciously before he realises that the crime he observed is not the one he was trained to curb. In this account, which has been cleared by his agency and thus liable not to reveal to much operational secrets, Marcus not only provides us with a ringside view of their missions, mixing their pursuit of Islamist terrorists -- on which he provides an apt perspective -- with those of the various Irish splinter groups and Russian and Chinese spies, but also the perils and the moral ambiguities in their work where they only know a bit of the picture and some orders may seem puzzling (the ISI pops up here). He is also candid in showing how keenness and dedication lead him to some rash actions, over-aggression, unflagging commitment that eventually led to nightmares and a condition where he could no longer go on. An incisive view of some of the leading security challenges before democratic states, Marcus' account -- and especially his fate -- is also an unvarnished and uncomfortable look at the means used to counter them and the costs they take on the combatants. It is also a captivating account that leaves any espionage fiction far behind. (Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in) Kolkata, Nov 22 : West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress candidates were way ahead of rivals in the vote count on Tuesday to the two Lok Sabha seats and one assembly seat where by-polls were held on Saturday. The BJP has emerged as a surprise package by moving up to the second place in two out of three constituencies ahead of the Left Front and the Congress. Trinamool Congress nominee Partha Pratim Roy has taken a lead of around 94,000 votes at the end of third round of counting in Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat, while BJP's Hem Chandra Burman was running in the second place ahead of Left Front partner All India Forward Bloc's Nripendranath Roy. In Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency, Trinamool Congress Dibyendu Adhikari Ahas left behind his nearest rival CPI-M candidate Mandira Panda by two lakh votes at the end of the seventh round of counting. The Trinamool was also comfortably places in the Monteshwar assembly seat of Burdwan, with its candidate Saikat Panja opening up a huge 76000 vote lead at the end of the seventh round of counting over his closest rival Biswajit Poddar of the BJP. CPI-M's Md Osman Goni is Anow in the third place. The Cooch Behar seat fell vacant after the death of Trinamool's Renuka Sinha, while Tamluk has gone to the hustings as the incumbent MP Suvendu Adhikari became a minister in Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's Cabinet. Trinamool lawmaker Sajal Panja's death caused the Monteshwar assembly by-poll. New Delhi, Nov 22 : The sloppy and slouchy image of private security guards -- an industry estimated to touch Rs 64,000 crore ($9 billion) by 2018 -- around the country is set for a huge makeover to turn them into smartly trained personnel with skills of international standards. Aimed at tapping the growing international and national demand for Indian private security guards, the public-private Security Sector Skill Development Council (SSSDC) is coming up with centres of excellence across the country that will act as a veritable assembly line of private security personnel. SSSDC has tied up with the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, along with several international institutes, for the centres of excellence that are to come up across all the parliamentary constituencies in the country. "Not just domestically, there is a huge requirement of Indian private security personnel internationally. Once these centres of excellence are fully operational, they will open up flood gates of opportunities for Indian youth," SSSDC chairman Vikram Singh told IANS. "They will be not just trained in terms of security management but also provided other skills, including communication and language. The centres will be an assembly line of smartly-trained, international-standard security officers," added Singh, who also heads the Central Association of Private Security Industry (CAPSI), which, along with the National Skill Development Corporation, set up the SSSDC. The first such centre will come up in the National Capital Region in the next two months. "The new centres will incorporate global standards and best practices for the private security industry," said Singh. "Besides the ministries of defence and skill development, we have tied up with British, Australian and Irish institutions for the centres, and the curriculum has been drawn up as per the National Skill Policy of the Indian government," said Singh. Currently employing over seven million people, the private security sector is anually growing at 25 per cent. Quoting an FICCI report, Singh said the industry is slated to reach Rs 64,000 crore by 2018. Along with the growing urbanisation, the retail boom and increasing security concerns in society has boosted the industry, which has received a further push thanks to the demonetisation process initiated by the Narendra Modi government. "The demand for Indian private security personnel in the international arena has been steeply growing, particularly in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. The centres of excellence are being set up to cater to that burgeoning demand," said Singh. With a share of nearly 90 percent, manned guarding is the largest component of the private security services industry -- the rest being cash services which involves ATM replenishment, cash pick-up and delivery for banks and large corporate houses. The SSSDC's initiative comes in the wake of Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajiv Pratap Rudy harping on the need to provide security guards various skills required to compete in the global markets. Addressing the recently held Security Skills & Leadership Summit 2016 in Bengaluru, Rudy said it was very important for the security industry to focus on product presentation and quality services. "Our security guards need further smart training and skilling to enter global markets.With enhanced skilling, the industry can train security guards for global markets," Rudy said at the summit. The private security sector currently has over 300 SSSDC standardised training centres across India, producing skilled security guards engaged mainly in manned guarding and cash services. (Anurag Dey can be contacted at anurag.d@ians.in) New Delhi, Nov 22 : The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day on Tuesday as the opposition noisily protested against the demonetisation, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of behaving like a dictator and pushing ordinary people into hardship. The House witnessed uproarious scene as a united opposition reiterated its demand to discuss the demonetisation issue under the rule which entails voting. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge reiterated the demand to suspend Question Hour and start the discussion but Speaker Sumitra Mahajan did not permit it. She urged them not to disturb the Question Hour but the opposition parties continued their protest. A miffed Mahajan said it was not fair to disrupt the House and urged the slogan-shouting opposition leaders to take their seats and let the Question Hour continue. As Minister of State for Home Affair Kiren Rijiju rose to reply questions related to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, opposition members led by the Congress and Trinamool Congress rushed towards the Speaker's podium demanding an adjournment motion. "Don't disturb the minister. You cannot disturb the minister. It is not the proper way to raise the issue concerning the common people," Mahajan said. But the opposition did not relent and continued shouting slogans: "Modi sarkar hosh me aao" and "Modi teri tanashahi nahi chalegi, nahi chalegi". Mahajan then adjourned the House till 12 and said: "It pains when elected representatives behave like this." When the House at 12 noon, opposition members including from the Congress, TMC, Samajwadi party and Nationalist Congress Party trooped towards the Speaker shouting slogans. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the people of the country were with the November 8 demonetisation decision. "Go and see the sense outside. People are with the government over demonetisation. We are ready to discuss the matter. As and when the chair orders, we are ready to discuss the matter," Kumar said. Kharge countered and said the opposition too was ready for a debate. He sought Modi's presence in the House. "We want a discussion because the poor, farmers, labourers are dying. Marriages are breaking up. Lives are being spoiled," Kharge said. TMC leader Sudip Bandopadhyay urged the chair to rise on the occasion and allow the discussion under the rule which entails voting. "What is the harm in discussing under voting provisions? Why is the government shying away? If House is not running, the ruling party is also responsible for it," he said. Kumar rose to respond and reiterated that the government was always ready to discuss the issue -- in Parliament and outside. "We have won the Shahdol and Lakhimpur Lok Sabha constituency seats. What is the signal? People's voice is clear. They are against black money and corruption," he said. As the opposition parties didn't relent and continued their protests, the Speaker adjourned the House for the day. Los Angeles, Nov 22 : Denis Villeneuve, director of the forthcoming Hollywood film "Arrival", says that he is not a fan of visual effects and has tried to minimise their use in the film as well. "I don't like green screens. I don't like the actors to be in contact with something that doesn't exist, I like them to be surrounded by something real," Villeneuve said in a statement. "I asked Patrice (production designer) to build the interior of this spaceship, That was a big gift for the production because we were able to create the massive tunnel and the chamber. There were no visual effects, it is all real, and the actors were able to feel the strangeness of that room," he added. "Arrival" features actors Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg and Tzi Ma. The film revolves around Louise Banks -- essayed by Adams. She is an intuitional linguist and gradually communicates with aliens, thereby drastically altering the way she understands her life and quite possibly saves the world from a war. The film will hit the theatres on Friday in India. Mumbai, Nov 22 : Filmmaker Hansal Mehta has wrapped up shooting for the Las Vegas schedule of his upcoming film "Simran". "And it's a Las Vegas wrap! 'Simran'," Mehta wrote on Tuesday. "Simran", which stars Kangana Ranaut and National Award winning actor Sohum Shah, is being shot in the US and is said to be based on a real life story. It will release next year. According to reports, Kangana will be seen as a 30-year-old divorcee in the movie. "Simran", which is slated to release in 2017, is co-produced by T-Series honcho Bhushan Kumar and Shailesh Singh. Agra, Nov 22 : Actor Ali Fazal has finished shooting his Hollywood film "Victoria and Abdul" here. He said it was a "beautiful wrap". The film, helmed by Stephen Frears, is based on a novel by Shrabani Basu. It revolves around the relationship shared by Queen Victoria and Abdul, who was a munshi in her government. It also shows his journey on how he became one of the most powerful figures in the court. The role of the queen is played by Oscar-winning actress Judi Dench and Abdul is essayed by Ali. Talking about completing the film's shooting on Monday, Ali said in a statement: "I've been away from home since the last three months. It was a beautiful wrap... mixed emotions. I FaceTimed Judi from the Taj Mahal. She would've loved it." "Now I am gearing up for 'Fukrey Returns'. It's not easy to move from one to the next, but the Indian film industry prepares you for that. We are and have been used to multi-tasking with films." Gaza, Nov 22 : The Hamas movement on Tuesday hailed an Egypt court's order to overturn former Islamic President Mohamed Morsi's life sentence and a retrial in the case relating to communicating with the movement. Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman, said the court ruling "certifies that Egypt is still concerned about the Palestinian cause and stands to the side of all Palestinian powers and parties", Xinhua news agency reported. The Court of Cassation ruled earlier in the day that former President Mohamed Morsi and 21 others will be retried. Morsi and the 21 leaders, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, were earlier accused of collaborating with Hamas. New Delhi, Nov 22 : There has been a steady rise in attempts by terrorists from Pakistan to sneak into Jammu and Kashmir since a militant commander was killed in July, Parliament was told on Tuesday. Minster of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre told the Rajya Sabha: "As per assessment, there has been an increase in infiltration attempts after the killing of Burhan Wani (on July 8 this year)." The minister said the Indian Army had adopted a "robust" counter-infiltration strategy along the Line of Control (LoC), with an appropriate mix of technology and human resources to check infiltration. "Innovative troop deployment, pro-active use of surveillance, monitoring devices and the Anti-Infiltration Obstacle System have enhanced the ability to detect and intercept terrorists attempting to infiltrate/ exfiltrate," the minister said. In a written reply to the Lok Sabha last week, Bhamre had said that in 2016 there were 167 ceasefire violations along sections of the International Border and LoC with the army until November 14. In parts of the International Border with the Border Security Force (BSF), the total number of ceasefire violations was 210 until November 1. Last year, there were 152 ceasefire violations along the LoC and International Border with the army and 253 along the International Border with the BSF. Srinagar, Nov 23 : Three soldiers were killed, and one of them was beheaded on the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir - in action that the army said bore the "signature" of the Pakistan Army's Border Action Team. Pakistan has denied the allegations. The soldier who was mutilated has been identified as 31-year-old Rifleman Prabhu Singh from Khirjankhas village in Jodhpur district, Rajasthan. The other two soldiers are Gunner Manoj K Kushwah and Rifleman Shashank K Singh, both from Gazipur district of Uttar Pradesh. The beheading is the second incident of mutilation of a soldier's body in less than a month. The army has vowed "heavy retribution for the cowardly act". The incident took place in Machhil sector of the Line of Control (LoC), which divides the state between India and Pakistan, in Kupwara district. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was briefed about the situation by Army Vice Chief Lt. Gen. Bipin Rawat, officials said on Tuesday. "The cowardly act of mutilating the body of one of the Indian soldiers had all the signatures of a BAT (Border Action Team) operation by Pakistan army using terrorists and its soldiers," said officials. "3 soldiers killed in action on LC in Machhil. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act," the army's Northern Command said in a tweet. Spokesperson of Pakistan's Foreign Ministry M. Nafees Zakaria denied mutilation of any Indian soldier by Pakistani forces. "Pakistan strongly rejects the false and baseless Indian media reports regarding the alleged mutilation of an Indian solider on the LoC," Zakaria said in a tweet. "These reports are a fabrication and a blatant attempt to malign Pakistan. "As a professional force, Pakistan army isn't involved in any such unethical and non-professional activity and neither supports any such action," he said. The opposition Congress questioned what the Indian government was going to do about the incident. "If our soldiers are being brutalised in this manner the responsibility is of the government squarely. the question that needs to be asked is what is the government going to do about it," Congress leader Manish Tewari said. On October 28, the body of 27-year-old Indian soldier Sepoy Mandeep Singh was mutilated by terrorists, who fled back to Pakistani part of Kashmir under supportive fire cover by Pakistani troops. In response, the Indian Army carried out a heavy assault in Keran sector of Jammu and Kashmir, destroying four Pakistani posts. According to figures given by Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre in the Lok Sabha last week, till November 14 this year, eight Army personnel have been killed and 59 injured. In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Bhamre also said that there has been an increase in infiltration attempts since the killing of militant leader Burhan Wani on July 8. This was not the first time that Pakistan has mutilated bodies of Indian soldiers. During the Kargil war in 1999, Captain Saurabh Kalia, and Sepoys Arjunram Baswana, Mula Ram Bidiasar, Naresh Singh Sinsinwar, Bhanwar Lal Bagaria and Bhika Ram Mudh of 4 Jat Regiment were captured by Pakistani troops and brutally tortured. On January 8, 2013, Pakistani soldiers entered Indian territory in Krishna Ghati sector of the border and killed two Indian soldiers -- Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Indian officials said bodies of both were mutilated, and Hemraj's body was decapitated. Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention protects captured military personnel, some guerrilla fighters, and certain civilians. It applies from the moment a prisoner is captured until he or she is released or repatriated. One of the main provisions of the convention makes it illegal to torture prisoners and states that a prisoner can only be required to give their name, date of birth, rank and service number if applicable. Ghaziabad, Nov 22 : The Allahabad High Court has slapped a fine of Rs 15 lakh on a farmer for misleading the court about not being compensated for his land acquired for Ganga Water Project in Ghaziabad. Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) law officer Rajendra Tyagi said on Tuesday that Banarsi Dass Kaushik -- a farmer of Prahaladgarhi area -- filed a writ petition in Allahabad High Court in 1982. Kaushik's 4.25 acre land was acquired by Avas Vikas Parishad for Ganga Water Project which handed over a total of 50 acre land to GDA for the Ganga Water Project in 1980. The Avas Vikas Parishad made it clear that it had deposited the compensation amount of Rs 80 lakh for Kaushik's land with the Additional District Magistrate (Land Acquisition) but he did not collect it and misled the court. In his petition, Kaushik claimed that neither the Avas Vikas Parishad or GDA compensated him for the land that was acquired in 1980. Taking a serious view of the matter, the Allahabad High Court had ordered the Principal Secretary (Housing), GDA Vice Chairman and Commissioner of Avas Vikas Parishad to appear before the court. The GDA on Tuesday made it clear before the high court that the authority had paid Avas Vikas Parishad Rs 2.66 crore for the acquired land. The farmer has no direct link with GDA and it was a conflict between Avas Vikas Parishad and Kaushik. After verifying that Kaushik misled the court by hiding the payment-related information, the high court slapped him with az fine of Rs 15 lakh on Tuesday, said GDA official Rajendra Tyagi. Kolkata, Nov 22 : Eight people, including a doctor, two quacks and the owner of a nursing home, have been arrested from West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district for allegedly running a child smuggling racket, a senior CID officer said on Tuesday. Acting on a tip-off, the Criminal Investigation Department personnel raided Sohan Nursing Home and Polyclinic in Baduria in North 24 Parganas district on Monday night and recovered three infants who were about to be smuggled, the officer said. "We have arrested eight people, including Ashadul Jaman, the owner of the nursing home," CID (DIG) Bharatlal Meena told media persons. The accused were presented in the Basirhat court on Tuesday. Four of them were remanded to police custody for 14 days. "Three doctors, including a retired doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata and a doctor from Bongaon, are involved in the smuggling racket. We will arrest them soon," he said. According to CID, a non-government organisation named Subodh Memorial Trust Institute and a local clinic were also part of the racket. "They used to tell the parents that the newborn has died and then smuggle the infant hidden in biscuit packages via the NGO. A newborn male-child was sold for around Rs two lakh while a girl-child was handed over for Rs one lakh," Meena confirmed. "The racket was active for almost three years and we fear they have trafficked around 25-30 infants during that period. Some of the infants were trafficked to other states as well," he said. Satyajit Sinha, the owner of the NGO, and two women from the clinic, Nazma Bibi and Utpala Bapayari are the prime suspects. The arrested people have been slapped with various charges like kidnapping (IPC 369), exploitation (IPC 370) and criminal conspiracy (IPC 120B). Ranchi, Nov 22 : Jharkhand Governor Draupadi Murmu on Tuesday said the government should think 1,000 times before tabling any bill in the assembly. "The opposition should play a constructive role and the ruling party should think 1,000 times before tabling any bill in the assembly," said Murmu while speaking on the 16th foundation day of Jharkhand assembly. Her observations come amid the stand-off between the ruling and opposition parties over bringing amendments in the two land acts -- the Chotanagpur Tenancy CNT and Santhal Pargana Tenancy (SPT). The government should think whether the bill is in favour of the people and the state, the governor added. "Time should not matter but the government should solve the issue. People are aware and understand what is happening inside and outside the assembly. The assembly should formulate the policy considering people's interest," Murmu said. After the proposed amendments, the agricultural land could be used for non-agricultural purposes. Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das is adamant about bringing the amendments to the land acts while the opposition is against it. Patna, Nov 22 : A Bihar court on Tuesday framed charges against Rocky Yadav, son of Janata Dal-United MLC Manorama Devi and three others accused of killing a class 12 student Aditya Sachdeva in Gaya in May this year. The Gaya civil court has framed charges against Rocky, his father Bindi Yadav, cousin Tony Yadav and Rajesh Kumar, the security guard of his mother. "The court will start witness proceedings from November 30," a district police official in Gaya said. Rocky was accused of shooting student Aditya Sachdeva after his Swift car overtook Rocky's Land Rover on May 7. Rocky was arrested on May 11 and is currently lodged in Gaya Central Jail. In October, Rocky was granted bail by the Patna High Court but later the Supreme Court cancelled his bail and he was sent back to jail. According to police, Rocky has confessed that he killed Sachdeva. Rocky's mother Manorama Devi, suspended Janata Dal-United MLC, is a powerful figure and his father Bindi Yadav is a criminal-turned-politician in Gaya. Damascus, Nov 22 : Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hailed the Russian stance on fighting terror in Syria on Tuesday, saying such a stance proves Moscow's "natural status" as a superpower. "The Russian policies, whether at the international level or the war on terror in Syria, prove Moscow's natural status as a superpower based on its principles, values and adherence to the international law," Xinhua news agency quoted Assad as saying during his meeting with the Russian delegation in Damascus. The president further underlined the importance of Russian support to Syria at all levels, particularly economically as it contributed to alleviating the suffering of the Syrian people, who have been reeling under economic sanctions for years. Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and head of the Russian delegation to Syria Dmitry Rogozin said the main goal behind the military, economic and political support provided to Damascus is to reinforce the Syrian people in the face of terrorism. Russia has been a staunch ally of the Assad administration, shielding the Syrian government in the UN Security Council against many punitive resolutions adopted by the Western powers. Moreover, the Russian army has also stepped into the Syrian conflict, backing the Syrian army with air power and logistic support. New Delhi, Nov 22 : A united opposition on Tuesday stepped up its attack on the government, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi, over demonetisation of high value currency. Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) took to the streets, while 10 political parties braced for a protest inside Parliament House on Wednesday. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, in a dig at Prime Minister Modi, questioned his alleged absence from both Houses of Parliament, which has been unable to function due to chaos over the demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes. "Why is not the Prime Minister coming to Parliament? Why isn't he coming to Parliament and speaking," asked Gandhi. "The Prime Minister can speak on TV, can speak at a pop concert, but why not in the Parliament," asked Gandhi referring to Modi's Saturday address at a Coldplay concert. The Congress has announced a protest with 10 other opposition parties, including the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, Nationalist Congress Party, the Left parties, the Janata Dal-United, on Wednesday near Mahatma Gandhi's statue in Parliament. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has been at the forefront of the protests against demonetisation, will lead a protest at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Wednesday. Prime Minister Modi, ddressing the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting in the morning, urged the members to counter what he called "misinformation" being spread by the opposition parties on the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. According to sources, the Prime Minister said the demonetisation decision is just a "beginning of the government's crusade against black money and corruption", and such type of actions will be continued. Hundreds of Aam Aadmi Party took to the streets to protest the demonetisation move. More than 50 AAP leaders, including Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, were detained - and then freed - after leading a protest, from near Jantar Mantar monument towards Parliament. "Demonetisation has destroyed people's lives while it has had no effect on black money," Sisodia addressed the gathering. Delhi ministers Gopal Rai, Kapil Mishra and Satyendar Jain were also part of the protest. Several AAP members of the Delhi assembly also joined the noisy protest, carrying placards demanding the reversal of the November 8 demonetisation of high value currency that has led to a cash chaos. Meanwhile, Shiv Sena, which had joined the protest march led by Trinamool Congress earlier, took a complete U-turn in their stance on demonetisation. A delegation of Shiv Sena MPs met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and lauded the move as "a bold and historic decision" and assured their full support. Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Tuesday reiterated the opposition's demand in the Rajya Sabha that Prime Minister Modi should attend the debate on demonetisation in the House. The Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said: "He (Modi) should listen to the debate." The Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M) on Tuesday blamed Prime Minister Modi for continued disruptions in Parliament over demonetisation, and claimed that Modi's continued avoiding both Houses was a "contempt" of Parliament. "If the discussion is on one of Prime Minister's announcements, he should be there to listen to the debate...It is incumbent upon Prime Minister to come to both Houses on day one itself. But he is still not doing so," CPI-M General Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Sitaram Yechury said in a press conference here. Moscow, Nov 22 : Russia on Tuesday accused the United Nations of sabotaging peace negotiations between the Syrian regime and rebels. Addressing a press conference in Minsk, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura had been sabotaging Resolution 2254, which stipulates the organisation of peace talks, Efe news agency reported. He said this left the Syrian government no choice but to accept the patriotic opposition's initiative and organise Syrian dialogue itself. According to Lavrov, Moscow would support the celebration of such talks in Damascus and opposition groups both in Syria and in exile were seriously studying the possibility. He said even the groups closest to Saudi Arabia were aware that refusing to negotiate until the beleaguered Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stepped down, was a dead end. At the end of April, the High Negotiation Committee -- the main Syrian opposition representative in Geneva -- abandoned the peace talks until Moscow and Damascus ceased all military operations in Aleppo. Russian aviation suspended its aerial attacks against Aleppo over a month ago, but last week launched a mass attack against Islamist positions in Syria. New Delhi, Nov 22 : Frequent adjournments over the demonetisation issue with the opposition adamant on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence stalled business in both house of parliament for the fourth successive day on Tuesday. The opposition, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party, Nationalist Congress Party and the Left, continued to create ruckus in both Houses, which riled Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairmain P.J. Kurien, who expressed their annoyance quite explicitly. While, in the Lok Sabha, Mahajan said that "it pains when elected representatives behave like this", in the Rajya Sabha, Kurien was annoyed enough to say that "this kind of behaviour (by members) is to be condemned". "I am sorry, I am not able to run the House in order... I am helpless," said Kurien. The Lok Sabha witnessed uproarious scene as a united opposition reiterated its demand to discuss the demonetisation issue under a rule which entails voting. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge reiterated the demand to suspend Question Hour and start the discussion but Mahajan did not permit it. When the House met at noon after an adjourment, opposition members, including from the Congress, Trinamool, and the Samajwadi Party, trooped towards the Speaker's podium shouting slogans. Parliamentary Affairs Minister H.N. Ananth Kumar said the people of the country favoured the November 8 demonetisation decision. "We have won the Shahdol and Lakhimpur Lok Sabha constituency seats. What is the signal? People's voice is clear. They are against black money and corruption," he said. As the opposition parties didn't relent and continued their protests demanding Modi's presence, the Speaker adjourned the House for the day. In the Rajya Sabha, as soon as the House met for the day, Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Sharad Yadav demanded compensation for the families of those who have died post-demonetisation as a result of shock or exhaustion while standing in long queues in front of banks or ATMs. "The government should give Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of the people who have died since demonetisation," he said. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati supported his stand and also demanded Modi's presence in the House. Minister of State (MoS) for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi urged the chair to start a discussion on the demonetisation issue and accused the opposition of avoiding a discussion. At this, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad retorted: "We are ready for discussion, but the Prime Minister should come to the House." Meanwhile, the opposition members streamed towards the Chairman's podium and started shouting slogans. The Chair adjourned the House for half an hour. As soon as the House met again at 11.30 a.m., the opposition members again started loudly demanding Modi's presence. "Pradhan Mantri sadan me aao (Prime Minister come to the House)," they shouted. Naqvi again asked the Chair to initiate discussion on demonetisation. "When the discussion (on demonetisation) started, there was no logic or facts in their (opposition's) arguments. They struggled for arguments all through. The discussion should not be in bits and pieces. Please allow a discussion," he said. But Azad said: "If he (Modi) can give speeches all across the country, what stops him from coming to this House." The House was then adjourned amidst pandemonium till noon, then till 12.30 p.m., again till 2 p.m. and finally for the day. Islamabad, Nov 22 : Pakistan on Tuesday summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh over ceasefire violations and also mentioned alleged violation of the Pakistani maritime zone by an Indian submarine. An official statement said Director General (South Asia & SAARC) Mohammad Faisal summoned the Indian Deputy High Commissioner and "strongly condemned the unprovoked ceasefire violations" on November 21 in which four civilians were killed and 10 others were injured. "The Director General also condemned the violation of Pakistan's Maritime Exclusive Economic Zone by the Indian naval submarine on 14 November 2016 in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)," the statement said. The Indian Navy has denied the submarine's presence in Pakistan waters and rejected the allegation as a "blatant lie". Manila, Nov 22 : The Philippine and US militaries on Tuesday agreed to scale down their joint military exercises, reduce deployment of US forces in the Philippines and focus more on humanitarian activities. A Philippine military official said the agreement was forged here during a meeting attended by Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Gen. Ricardo Visaya and head of the US Pacific Command Adm. Harry Harris, Xinhua news agency reported. The official said US troops, military aircraft and equipment will also be reduced. A statement issued at the end of the annual Mutual Defence Board - Security Engagement Board (MDB-SEB) meeting said both sides reaffirmed the "robust" military relations between the two allies. "The successful completion of the MDB-SEB (meeting) ensures continued, robust relations between the US and the Philippine militaries," the statement said. Both sides said they "look forward to continued, close cooperation in areas central to both our national and security interests including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, counterterrorism, cyber-security, and maritime security." The high-level security meeting traditionally discusses the details of the joint exercises that both militaries plan to conduct next year. But the statement did not mention the details of next year's joint military activities. The Philippine defence department had said earlier that it wants the number of joint exercises to be reduced from current 13 to about six or seven. The defence department had also indicated that it wants to scrap the annual joint exercises like the Amphibious Landing Exercises and the Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training or CARAT naval exercises, and just push through with the Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) Exercises. Padilla said the two sides also discussed the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that Washington and Manila signed in 2014. Many nations will decide there's no point moving ahead with trade pact in the absence of the United States US President Barack Obama's landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership was already on life support before his successor, Donald Trump, promised American voters worried by the impact of globalization that he would kill it and bury it. Now that the Republican-dominated Congress has announced it will not discuss ratification of the TPP during the remainder of Obama's term, all that is left for the outging president to do is read the funeral oration for the proposed Pacific Rim trade pact that had been the keystone of his administration's so-called "pivot to Asia". That may come when Obama joins other regional leaders for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru. The demise of the TPP, which was to group 12 regional states in a wide-ranging, US-led trade alliance, offers an opportunity for China to assume leadership of an alternative free trade area. President Xi Jinping, who was to be in Lima for the Nov 19-20 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, was widely expected to press for a Pacific partnership that, unlike TPP, would include both China and Russia. Obama's sponsorship of the TPP had been viewed by Beijing as a potentially hostile attempt to write the trade rules for the benefit of the United States in the face of China's growing economic might. As things have turned out, the US administration's failure to secure domestic support for the deal is likely to leave it marginalized in future regional trade agreements. Trump's hostility to the TPP, which he described during his election campaign as a disaster "pushed by special interests who want to rape our country", won the backing of voters in traditionally industrial states who blame foreign competition, particularly from China, for job losses. In an otherwise divisive campaign, it was a theme that united the candidates. Hillary Clinton went cool on a pact that she had previously supported, while her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders, echoed Trump's view that it was disastrous. The potential US partners in the TPP will almost certainly decide that there is no point moving ahead with the trade pact in the absence of what would have been its most powerful partner. Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, the host, has said of the moribund pact: "It can be replaced with a similar deal, but without the United States." Speaking to Russia Today, he said: "I think it would be best to have an Asia-Pacific deal that includes China, and includes Russia as well." That alternative is likely to come in the context of negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Talks on the RCEP, a mega grouping that could embrace almost half the world's population, were launched four years ago. As the results of the US election came through, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop reflected: "We see TPP as an important economic manifestation of the United States' presence in our region. Should it not go ahead, then the vacuum that would be created is most likely to be filled by RCEP." Raul Salazar, a senior Peruvian trade official, told China's Xinhua in November: "China has contributed largely to pushing the idea of a free-trade area. Peru holds the position that we need an Asia-Pacific free-trade area." What might be termed the "pivot to China" became apparent as a result of the uncertainties over trade prompted by the US political campaign. Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, for example, said during a visit to Beijing in October that he would reduce long-standing ties with the US in favor of better relations with China. With the US on the retreat, and with a protectionist president heading for the White House, the way appears open for China to take the lead toward a proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific that Beijing has long championed as a rival and an alternative to the US-dominated TPP. The writer is a senior editorial consultant for China Daily UK. (China Daily European Weekly 11/18/2016 page11) We are honored and grateful to be a recipient of the Youth Opportunity Fund grant, as it will help us continue to deliver our research-validated career training programs to hundreds more young adults - Guylaine Saint Juste, Year Up NCR Executive Director The Citi Foundation and Americas Promise Alliance announced that Year Up National Capital Region (NCR) has been awarded a grant from the 2016 Youth Opportunity Fund, an initiative that supports programs that connect youth to opportunities that increase their employability and prepare them to compete and thrive in a 21st century economy. Now in its second year, the Youth Opportunity Fund is part of the Citi Foundations Pathways to Progress initiative, and supports organizations that empower urban youth, ages 16 to 24. The Fund focuses on nonprofits in 10 of the largest U.S. cities: Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Newark, St. Louis, San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, D.C. Year Up NCR is one of 12 organizations selected in 2016 to receive a one-year, $250,000 grant that will support the delivery of Year Up's research validated career training program to 400 young adults, now the largest group of students annually, who will find a pathway to college and careers in just one year as a result of their participation. We are honored and grateful to be a recipient of the Youth Opportunity Fund grant, as it will help us continue to deliver our research-validated career training programs to hundreds more young adults in the National Capital Region for 21st century careers, said Guylaine Saint Juste, Executive Director of Year Up NCR. The Youth Opportunity Fund supports programs that address youth unemployment through partnerships with select municipal governments and collaborations across industries, including IT, technology, healthcare, the service industry and environmental sustainability. The 2016 cohort will add opportunities in construction, clean technology and communications. To date, 24 organizations have received support, reaching more than 7,000 youth. Since we launched the Youth Opportunity Fund, grantees have demonstrated what it takes to give young people the chance to unlock their full career and economic potential, said Brandee McHale, president of the Citi Foundation. We are excited to support the innovative work of this new cohort of community partners and look forward to promoting their learnings and success. Students who earn a high school diploma have a greater chance of becoming employed, but without the right skills and connections, better job opportunities may be out of reach, said John Gomperts, president & CEO of Americas Promise. The Youth Opportunity Fund helps to even the odds by giving more young people the training and support they need to get on a path to adult success. In its first two years, over 70,000 young people have been impacted by the Citi Foundations Pathways to Progress initiative, a three-year, $50 million commitment to give 100,000 low-income youth in the U.S. the opportunity to develop workplace skills and leadership experience. About Year Up Inc. Year Up's mission is to close the Opportunity Divide by providing urban young adults with the skills, experience, and support that will empower them to reach their potential through professional careers and higher education. Year Up achieves this mission through a high support, high expectation model that combines marketable job skills, stipends, internships and college credits. Its holistic approach focuses on students' professional and personal development to place these young adults on a viable path to economic self-sufficiency. Year Up currently serves more than 3,000 students a year at sites in Arizona, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Jacksonville, the National Capital Region, New York City, Philadelphia, Providence, Puget Sound, San Francisco Bay Area, and South Florida. To learn more, visit http://www.yearup.org or http://www.youtube.com/yearupinc. About Americas Promise Alliance Americas Promise Alliance leads an alliance of organizations, communities and individuals dedicated to making the promise of America real for every child. As its signature effort, the GradNation campaign mobilizes Americans to increase the on-time high school graduation rate to 90 percent by 2020 and prepare young people for postsecondary enrollment and the 21st century workforce. For more information, visit http://www.americaspromise.org. About the Citi Foundation The Citi Foundation works to promote economic progress and improve the lives of people in low-income communities around the world. We invest in efforts that increase financial inclusion, catalyze job opportunities for youth, and reimagine approaches to building economically vibrant cities. The Citi Foundations More than Philanthropy approach leverages the enormous expertise of Citi and its people to fulfill our mission and drive thought leadership and innovation. For more information, visit http://www.citifoundation.com. More than 1400 families fully repaid The EB-5 Program works. It has been invaluable as a resource for investment in Philadelphia projects. CanAm Enterprises LLC (CanAm) is pleased to announce that its 30th EB-5 Partnership Loan from the PIDC Regional Center has repaid on November 22nd, 2016. This marks the milestone of 1,423 investor-families fully repaid, further establishing CanAm as one of the leading sponsors of EB-5 investments. The $45 million EB-5 loan helped finance the redevelopment of a former historic building to a boutique hotel located across the square of the Independent Bell of Philadelphia. An estimate of 1,387 new, permanent jobs were created as a result of the projects completion. All of the 90 investors and their families have met the job-creating requirement and received residency status. The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program(EB-5) is administered by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The Program provides qualified foreign investors with the opportunity to earn conditional or temporary two-year visas in return for investing $500,000 in businesses located in high unemployment areas that create or retain at least ten permanent full-time jobs for U.S. workers. In 2003, New York-based CanAm Enterprises partnered with the Philadelphias PIDC to create the PIDC Regional Center, which has become one of the most successful EB-5 Regional Centers in the nation. Over the past ten years, PIDC Regional Center has raised $620.5 millions of foreign investment that has helped the economic growth in Philadelphia. CanAm President and CEO Tom Rosenfeld, a Philadelphia native, started this business in Philadelphia following a highly successful similar program in Canada starting in 1987. In partnership with PIDC, we do exhaustive research to find qualified projects for investment, and we work just as hard to ensure that our borrowers follow the job creation formula required by the EB-5 model, Rosenfeld said. We follow the law to the letter. We constantly monitor all of our projects to ensure that the job creation goals are being met, and we work with our investors and the federal government to keep them fully informed about the status of the Regional Center projects. The program works, said PIDC President, John Grady. It has been invaluable as a resource for investment in Philadelphia projects. The partnership between CanAm and PIDC has succeeded in attracting hundreds of millions of dollars to the city, and we look forward to working together to bring even more investment to Philadelphia in the years to come. When the CanAm PIDC Regional Center received its designation, it was one of only a handful of active Regional Centers nationwide. Today, there are well over 1,200 designated Regional Centers, and CanAm has also successfully launched Regional Centers in Pennsylvania, Los Angeles, Hawaii, New York, Florida and Texas. Even as the Program has grown, the CanAm PIDC Regional Center remains one of the pioneers and most enduring success stories. It has been an amazing 13 years, and we are very proud to have been part of some of the most important projects in the Philadelphia region, added Rosenfeld. ### About PIDC PIDC is Philadelphias public-private economic development corporation. A non-profit founded in 1958 by the City of Philadelphia and the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, PIDCs mission is to spur investment, support business growth, and foster developments that create jobs, revitalize neighborhoods, and drive growth to every corner of Philadelphia. Over the last 58 years, PIDC has invested nearly $14 billion of financing and more than 3,100 acres of land sales which has leveraged over $25 billion in total investment and assisted in retaining and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in Philadelphia. For more information about PIDC, visit http://www.PIDCphila.com and follow us @PIDCphila on Twitter. About CanAm Enterprises, LLC With three decades of experience promoting immigration-linked investments in the United States and Canada, CanAm has a long and established track record. Based on a reputation of credibility and trust, CanAm has financed more than 53 project loans and raised more than $2.3 billion in EB-5 investments. CanAm exclusively operates seven USCIS-designated Regional Centers that are located in the City of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the County of Los Angeles, the State of Hawaii, the Metropolitan Region of New York, the State of Florida and the State of Texas. For more information, please visit http://www.canamenterprises.com LTC Savannah, GA Location We help families treat and then guard against Super Lice." In a recent interview, Charlie Bruce, owner of LTCSavannah, responded to area parents's concerns about the growing spread of super lice. Bruce explained "So-called super lice are just a strain of head-lice and, like ordinary head lice, are not dangerous but are a lot harder to eliminate because they have become resistant to traditional, permethrin-based, over-the-counter lice treatment products." Additionally, he said, " Like ordinary head lice, super lice can cause turmoil in school and even close summer camps because an infestation can spread easily through close personal contact and sharing personal belongings." Bruce went on to explain that, "According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are an estimated 6 million to 12 million cases of head lice infestations per year just in childrenages 3 to 11 years. Like most parasitic invasions, the sooner in the life cycle that head lice are discovered and treated, the better. No child or adult is immune. In fact, children or staff members with head lice are barred from some schools and most summer camps." Mr. Bruce emphasized the importance of families getting regular head lice checks or screenings in order to identify the presence of head lice or their eggs to control and prevent a wider infestation. With reference to his own company, Bruce said,, LTC Savannah is happy to bring its gold standard lice treatment and repellent serviceseven against Super Liceto Savannah area families. Our certified lice technicians conduct head checks and are trained proprietary treatment protocol, developed by LTCs medical director, pediatrician Dr. Elin Cohen. Additionally, LTC Savannah's technicians use only LTC's pediatrician-recommended line of safe, all-natural, non-toxic lice treatment and repellent products that have proven effective treating more than 250,000 families and hundreds of schools and camps since 2005. LTC Savannah also offers its parent company's unique Lice Insurance programs to schools and camps in which a team of certified technicians visit schools and camps to perform periodic head lice checks. Administrators and parent organizations at scores of schools and camps have praised the programs for helping them maintain lice-free environments throughout school years and camp seasons. Again, according to Charlie Bruce,"Folks in Savannah or anywhere in or near Chatham County, can get help defeating the annoying and disruptive infestations of head lice by calling LTC Savannah at (912)-663-2772 any time of day or night for treatment in the privacy of their homes." Deepak Sheth and Dr. Jeffrey Post Deepak Sheth and Dr. Jeffrey Post The Foxfire Diamond had its first public viewing in America on November 17 when it was unveiled in a ceremony in the Harry Winston Gallery at the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The Foxfire Diamond will be on display for three months at the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History, Nov. 17 through Feb. 16, 2017. This will be the first time it has been made available to the public. Weighing more than 187 carats, the Foxfire diamond will be presented alongside the renowned Hope diamond in the Harry Winston Gallery. The two billion year-old, 187.63 carat Foxfire Diamond is the largest uncut, gem-quality diamond mined in North America. It was unearthed in 2015 at the Diavik Diamond Mine, operated by Rio Tinto, in one of the most remote corners of the world130 miles from the North Pole in the Barren Lands of Canadas Northwest Territories. The Diavik Foxfire takes its reference from a term used in Canadian folklore, to describe the resemblance of the Northern Lights, to the brush of fox tails in the sky. The Foxfire Diamond is truly exceptional, one of the great treasures of the Earth, said Dr. Jeffery Post, Chair of the Department of Mineral Sciences and curator of the National Gem and Mineral Collection. We are delighted that our visitors will have this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view North Americas largest gem-quality diamond in its natural form. Diamonds of this carat weight were not believed to exist in North America. Because of this, the equipment at the Diavik Diamond Mine was configured to sift out stones smaller than six carats. The 187.63 carat diamond should technically have not survived, but its uncommonly flattened shape enabled it to safely pass through the crushers. The Foxfire was discovered and uncovered in epic feats of engineering that are in themselves quite remarkable, all the while being respectful of the environment and those who have lived on the land for centuries, said Arnaud Soirat, Chief Executive of Rio Tintos Copper & Diamonds. In June of 2016, the Foxfire Diamond was acquired in a competitive international auction by Deepak Sheth, President of Amadena Investments LLC. In electing to preserve the diamond intact, Sheth has maintained both the diamonds dazzling physical characteristics and its unique story. The combination of the Foxfires exceptional size of 187.63 carats, fascinating provenance and ethical pedigree will ensure this two billion year-old diamond takes its place in history books. We may never again see a diamond of this size and quality from a North American diamond mine, said Deepak Sheth. "Further, we are honored to partner with the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History to present our diamond alongside the world-renowned Hope diamond. The Foxfire Diamond has boldly earned its place in history, as the largest known, uncut, gem-quality diamond mined in North America. The National Museum of Natural History is one of the most-visited natural history museums in the world. Opened in 1910, the museum is dedicated to maintaining and preserving the worlds most extensive collection of natural history specimens and human artifacts. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (closed Dec. 25). Admission is free. For more information, visit the museum on its website and on Facebook and Twitter. Amadena Investments LLC, is a New York Based company specializing in rare and fine quality collectable diamonds. Visit us at http://www.foxfirediamond.com or contact us at info(at)amadenainvestments(dot)com Press Contact Amy Rosi Aros Communications arosi(at)aroscommunications(dot)com (212) 953-5177 Africa-based IT security consulting firm Sylversys has partnered with Silicon Valleys Atricore in the latest expansion of IT security and IAM for the African marketplace. Properly known as Sylversys Consulting International, the firm has offices in Ghana, Mali, Senegal and Burkina Faso and is currently setting up operations in Nigeria. By combining Sylversys local reach and IT infrastructure expertise with Atricores first-class identity and access management solutions, the two companies can provide budget-friendly security to a market that is vital to the world economy and growing, yet traditionally underserved. The partnership is especially promising in cases where enterprise or government entities need to implement IAM, yet have potential or ongoing security risks in their IT infrastructure. In these cases, expertise in auditing and mitigating security risk is essential to cut off potential or currently active cyber threats before implementing the identity and access management solutions that are vital to business success. In Africas expanding marketplace, top-notch solutions to these challenges and the local support to implement and support them, has been sparse. At Sylversys, we have seen that Information Security is not fully taken into account by businesses and organisations both in the public and private sectors, when planning or implementing their IT infrastructure and solutions, says Serge Philippe Ouedraogo, CEO at Sylversys. We want to fill this gap and become the reference information security solutions provider in Africa. We are proud to join forces with Atricore. As a global Managed Services Provider in IT, we address the technology challenges of businesses and governments in Africa, added Adama Diouf, Vice President, Business Solutions at Sylversys. Partnering with Atricore brings us the final building block we need to complete our Security Operations Center offering with their first class IAM solution. Cybercrime is a growing global phenomenon which, according to a 2013 report by Symantec, Inc., is increasing at a more rapid rate in Africa than in any other area of the world. Cybersecurity experts estimate that 80 per cent of personal computers on the African continent are infected with viruses and other malicious software. Cybercriminals have long considered Africa as an opportune environment for their criminal acts. Statistics indicate that Africa is very prone to cyber-related threats due to the high number of domains, coupled with very weak network and information security. For organizations without a formalized information security capability, the creation from scratch of a security operations center that enables centralized visibility, alerting and investigation can be a daunting task. The combination of a quality security program backed with a strong identity and access management solution is a key success factor. Sylversys has a long track record of successfully delivering cybersecurity solutions for all kind of firms and has deep knowledge of Atricore products, says Atricore CEO Gianluca Brigandi. As a result, we know we have a trusted partner in Sylversys to take the lead in West Africa. Silicon Valley-based Atricore powers businesses worldwide with quick and easy IAM, providing budget-wise and time-effective identity and access management solutions. For more information, please visit the Atricore web site at http://www.atricore.com. Sylversys Consulting International is a solutions integration firm with a specialty in providing secure computer and network products/solutions for businesses and organizations in the private and public sector. Find more on Sylversys at http://www.sylversys.com. 2016 Google Lime Scholars at the Retreat Being selected as a Google Lime Scholar is one of the best experiences of my life. The Google Scholars Retreat excited me about the company, and by the end of an awesome few days I knew I wanted to come back to Google as an intern the following summer. I did twice and will return full time upon graduation next summer! Access to knowledge is our thing. When it comes to higher education for promising scholars, we don't want anything to stand in the way. That's why Google is proud to support the work of Lime Connect since 2008. Google is committed to helping the innovators of the future make the most of their talents by providing scholarships and networking retreats for computer science students with disabilities. Recipients of the 2017 Google Lime Scholarship will each receive a scholarship for the 2017-2018 academic year. Scholars will be invited to attend the annual Google Scholars' Retreat at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, in Summer, 2017. Candidates will also be considered for software engineering internship opportunities with Google. Scholarships will be awarded based on the strength of candidates' academic background and demonstrated passion for computer science - $10,000USD for those studying in the US and $5,000USD for those studying in Canada (based on tuition costs). Eligibility Requirements 2017 Scholarship Applicants must match the following criteria: A current undergraduate, graduate or PhD student enrolled at a university in the U.S. or Canada (freshmen/first years and international students studying in the U.S. or Canada are eligible to apply); and also Continuing current studies or intend to be enrolled in or accepted as a full time student in a new program (e.g., graduating and pursuing an advanced degree) at a university in the U.S. or Canada in the 2017-2018 academic year Pursuing a Computer Science or Computer Engineering degree, or a degree in a closely related technical field (such as software engineering; or electrical engineering with a heavy computer science course load) Maintaining a strong academic performance A student with a visible or non-visible disability (defined as someone who has, or considers themselves to have, a long-term, or recurring, issue that impacts one or more major activities that others may consider to be a daily function); this definition also includes the perception among others that a disability exists. We know that 90% of disabilities on campus are invisible, and candidates with all disabilities are encouraged to apply Exemplify leadership and demonstrate a commitment to and passion for computer science and technology Previous Google Lime Scholars are unfortunately not able to be considered This scholarship is not open to current high school students. For more information, and to apply, go to http://www.limeconnect.com. Application deadline is Midnight PST on Sunday, December 4, 2016. High potential university students, and alumni, with disabilities who are not a match for this particular opportunity are encouraged to join The Lime Network - an exclusive online community that provides access to professional development webinars as well as notification of scholarships, The Lime Connect Fellowship Program and internship and full time career opportunities. Lime Connect is a not for profit organization that is rebranding disability through achievement. The organizations focus is to attract, prepare and connect high potential university students and alumni for scholarships, a Fellowship Program and internships and full time careers with their corporate partners showcasing the vast strengths and benefits that are found in disabilities and providing candidates who happen to have disabilities the confidence to realize their dreams. For more information on Lime Connect, visit http://www.limeconnect.com. On Wednesday, November 23 starting at 11 am, over 1,000 homeless people in Atlanta will enjoy a pre-Thanksgiving day feast at an event called The Day Before. The meals will be served at the Our House shelter located at 173 Boulevard NE, Atlanta, GA 30312 and at the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless located at 477 Peachtree Street, NE, Atlanta, GA 30308. Three local companies have teamed up to create and coordinate this event including: Renewal Design-Build of Decatur, Jim N Nicks Bar-B-Q of Atlanta and Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q of Atlanta who will be cooking and serving traditional Thanksgiving meals. Sysco Atlanta generously donated all 80 turkeys for the event. Additional funds raised will be used to purchase socks, hats and clothing for the homeless. Its a great feeling to help those in need, says David Michelson, President of Renewal Design-Build. We are passionate about our commitment to our community, and we welcome opportunities to pitch in and help. Its been gratifying to see other companies so eager to join in and make this a bigger and better event. We also hope to raise awareness so more individuals and companies get involved and make a difference in our community. Event History: Two years ago, Anthony Hamilton, Jobsite Ambassador with Renewal Design-Build, organized an event to feed 500 people in Atlanta. He collected donations from employees and clients. When he started to organize the event again this year, he mentioned it to Mike Hufler, a partner with Jim N Nicks Bar-B-Q. Hufler got excited and reached out to Jeremy Chambers, owner of the Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q in Atlanta, and Jonathan Fox, owner of Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q, who both readily agreed to help. Here is a link to an 11 Alive feature about Anthony Hamilton and the 2014 event he coordinated: http://www.11alive.com/news/local/southwest-atlanta/good-samaritan-provides-hundreds-with-hot-meals/253273064 Hamilton created the family tradition of feeding the homeless the day before Thanksgiving years ago. My inspiration for the event came from memories of my own childhood and knowing what it was like to be hungry and in need, said Hamilton. I was helped by many good people along the way, and I wanted to instill the value of caring for others in my two sons. You never know when you may be on the other end and need a helping hand. ABOUT Fox Bros. BAR-B-Q: Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q is an award-winning barbecue restaurant located just south of Little Five Points in Atlanta. They are known for their unique Southern-style barbecue with a Texas flair. The Fox brothers developed a sauce that mixes the flavors of Texas with the heat of the South. It's a tomato-based sauce with a hefty splash of vinegar and a southern sweetness, with a subtle blast of Texas heat. We call it "Sweet with Heat. Today Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q has become an Atlanta staple, with favorites like the renowned Beef Brisket and the Smoked Wing Basket. Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q has been featured on Good Day Atlanta, CBS Better Mornings, The Weather Channel, TLC and Fox News. For more information and reservations please call 404-577-4030 or visit http://www.foxbrosbbq.com. Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q is located at 1238 DeKalb Ave. Atlanta Ga. 30307. Connect with us on Facebook at Facebook.com/FoxbrosBarBQ or on Twitter @FoxBrosBarBQ. ABOUT Jim N Nicks Community Bar-B-Q: Jim N Nicks started cooking pork low and slow in 1985 when Nick, along with his dad Jim, reclaimed an old pizza parlour on Clairmont Avenue in Birmingham, AL where they opened the first Jim N Nicks Bar-B-Q. Thirty years later, with 34 restaurants in 7 states, Jim N Nicks Bar-B-Q has become a Southern institution. Jim 'N Nick's specializes in Hickory Smoked BBQ and Southern Food in a made-from-scratch, fresh daily kitchen. We are proud to say we don't have freezers. For us it's about great food and technique rooted in tradition and hospitality that reflects our care for our staff and our guests with friendly service and Southern Hospitality. Local owners are taught the recipes and techniques, which they then pass on to the cooks and pitmasters in each location. Jim N Nicks has been supporting its local communities since 1985. Jim N Nicks Atlanta is located at 4574 S Cobb Dr, Smyrna, GA 30082. Connect with us on Facebook at Facebook.com/JimNNicks or on Twitter @JimNNicksBBQ. About Renewal Design-Build: Celebrating 15 years of service to Atlanta, Renewal Design-Build is a full-service design-build firm specializing in the renovation of older homes. Renewal delivers Atlantas best home renovation experience with inspiring design and excellent craftsmanship that exceeds expectations. They renew homes and lives with concierge service and an on-time, on-budget guarantee. Renewal offers a wide variety of remodeling services from kitchens and master baths, to additions and whole-house renovations. Founded in 2001, Renewal Design-Build has earned more than 80 prestigious national and local design, construction and customer service awards. What they value even more are the accolades they earn every day from their clients. To learn more about why Renewals clients consistently rate them as market leaders in customer satisfaction, please call 404-378-6962 or visit them online at http://www.RenewalDesignBuild.com. Find Renewal Design-Build on: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/renewaldesignbuildinc/ Houzz: http://www.houzz.com/pro/renewaldesignbuild Twitter: @renewaldb Hotel Shangri-la Santa Monica Guests can enjoy panoramic ocean views and first-class gastronomy that blends Californian comfort, fine dining and hushed intimacy at the most joyous time of year. Celebrate Thanksgiving in style taking in the majestic Pacific Ocean views at Santa Monicas timeless Hotel Shangri-la. Here guests can enjoy stunning ocean views and first-class gastronomy that blends Californian comfort, fine dining and hushed intimacy at the most joyous time of year. Hotel Shangri-la at The Oceans festive calendar specially created menus ranges from a traditional Thanksgiving Day Feast, Christmas Day dining and New Years Eve dinner and entrance to one of LAs most glamorous New Years Eve parties dancing into the night at Onyx - the chic rooftop bar that boasts the best views of the Santa Monica skyline and Pacific Ocean. Thanksgiving: Relax and unwind in The Dining Room for a tranquil meal with loved ones without the stress of holiday cooking. There is no better place where you can take in the ocean views while tucking into a bountiful feast. Only the freshest local produce, handpicked from the Santa Monica Farmers Market, is used. The traditional Thanksgiving menu begins with an appetizer of Pumpkin Spice Soup; choice of two salads Wild Mixed Greens or Persimmon Salad; main course selection of Roasted Turkey with classic trimmings, Honey Glazed Ham or Pan Seared Branzino. No holiday feast would be complete without topping off the meal with sumptuous Classic Pumpkin Pie or Grand Marnier Bread Pudding. The special family style Thanksgiving Feast will be served on Thursday, November 24th from 1pm-10pm. Adults are $65* per person. Children 12 & under half price and complimentary for five years & under. Christmas Day Dining: Dinner at Hotel Shangri-las ocean view Dining Room promises a meal to remember. Only the freshest local produce, handpicked from the Santa Monica Farmers Market, is used. Some stand out dishes include: Foie Gras Watercress and Frisee salad, Brioche Toast, with a Cherry Gastrique; Poached Pear salad with baby mixed greens, Blue Cheese crumble and Champagne vinaigrette; Roasted Turkey with all the trimmings or Grilled Beef Prime Rib with grilled asparagus, potato gratin, Cipollini onions and demi glaze. The featured desserts are Meyer Lemon Creme Brulee, Homemade Chocolate Bread Pudding and Apple Tart. Christmas Dinner is served from 10am-10pm. Adults are $75* per person and Children 12 & under half price and complimentary for five years & under. New Years Dining: There is nothing quite like New Years Eve at the timeless Hotel Shangri-la. Begin the celebrations in The Dining Room with dinner before starting the big countdown to 2017 at The Masquerade Party at ONYX. Seating reservations are available between 4pm 9pm for a delicious three-course dinner and complimentary glass of champagne for $95* per person. New Years Masquerade Party: With cocktails, canapes live DJs, champagne and dancing into the night, the Shangri-Las Masquerade Party will have all the elements for a not-to-be-missed celebration at ONYX. Celebrate the arrival of 2017 relishing the vibes and the best 360-degree views of the Santa Monica skyline and Pacific Ocean. Enjoy a welcome glass of champagne on arrival and at midnight, bites including chocolate covered strawberries, popcorn cones, hors doeuvres and a Martini from the Martini Luge to ring in the New Year. Tickets are $100*per person and tickets limited. Two-night minimum required for New Years Eve. A timeless luxury room starts from $500 per night plus tax. * Based on hotel availability. Rates subject to change. * All prices exclude tax and gratuity. Reservations are highly recommended and can be made by calling (310) 394 - 2791 ext. 2022. About Hotel Shangri-la With its rich history and enviable location, the Hotel Shangri-la has been the ultimate clandestine relaxation retreat. Overlooking the Pacific since 1939, the hotel is a striking beacon of Art Deco elegance, a chronicle of the golden era of Hollywood a quintessential nexus of culture. It boasts 71 guest rooms and suites, a lush courtyard with pool and cabanas, gourmet restaurant and Santa Monicas only open-air rooftop bar and lounge. For more information, visit http://www.shangrila-hotel.com AIM Solder, a leading global manufacturer of solder assembly materials for the electronics industry, is pleased to announce that Carlos Tafoya, International Technical Support Director, recently joined the SMTA Training Committee. The SMTA Training Committees mission is to make training materials more affordable and accessible, accounting for current and emerging SMT and packaging technologies. As a contributing member, Carlos is responsible for translating training materials into Spanish, to support the engagement of Spanish-speaking audiences. Carlos Tafoya received his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Texas El Paso. He joined AIM in 2005, bringing with him over two decades of experience in the electronics assembly industry. Carlos currently oversees AIMs technical support teams based in USA, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, China and India. For technical support, Carlos may be reached at ctafoya(at)aimsolder(dot)com. About AIM Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, AIM Solder is a leading global manufacturer of assembly materials for the electronics industry with manufacturing, distribution and support facilities located throughout the world. AIM produces advanced solder products such as solder paste, liquid flux, cored wire, bar solder, epoxies, lead-free and halogen-free solder products, preforms, and specialty alloys such as indium and gold for a broad range of industries. A recipient of many prestigious SMT industry awards, AIM is strongly committed to innovative research and development of product and process improvement as well as providing customers with superior technical support, service and training. For more information about AIM, visit http://www.aimsolder.com. WebRezPro Property Management System Our combined solution equips properties with even deeper customer and campaign insights to make the most of existing demand and gain a competitive edge WebRezPro cloud property management system by World Web Technologies Inc. is pleased to announce direct integration with NAVIS Narrowcast, the #1 reservation sales optimization and management solution designed to increase hotel revenue and profit from existing demand. The combined solution arms reservation agents with enhanced customer data to maximize call conversions, and automates direct online revenue tracking to measure and optimize marketing ROI. NAVIS Narrowcast unifies online and telephone leads into a single database, delivering actionable, real-time intelligence to agents at the point of sale, empowering them to capture and convert more direct bookings. The interface between WebRezPro and Narrowcast allows WebRezPro to automatically contribute reservation data to the Narrowcast lead database, eliminating the need for agents to manually look up or enter guest information during the call, and ensuring more accurate and complete guest data. The integration also enhances campaign revenue tracking by automating the tracking of campaign-generated bookings coming through the WebRezPro online booking engine, contributing to a more complete picture of marketing ROI via both online and offline (phone) booking channels. Were thrilled to add WebRezPro as a technology integration partner, said Kyle Buehner, CEO at NAVIS. We know when hotels and vacation rental management companies are able to align their sales and marketing teams, systems and data, they immediately benefit from an improved ability to capture more high-profit direct revenue. Our integration extends this powerful revenue performance strategy to more in the hospitality industry. We are very pleased to have established a partnership with NAVIS that allows us to offer our customers a more streamlined process of capturing and connecting vital sales and marketing data, said Frank Verhagen, President of World Web Technologies. Our combined solution equips properties with even deeper customer and campaign insights to make the most of existing demand and gain a competitive edge, continued Verhagen. About NAVIS NAVIS is the #1 reservation sales and marketing platform for the hospitality industry. Because we believe technology should make you money, not cost you money, we developed our game-changing Revenue Performance Platform to transform teams into revenue makers, enabling them to drive, capture and convert more direct bookings. We deliver actionable guest insights so departments can seamlessly sell and market together. The result is always a dramatic increase in direct sales and profit. We guarantee it. Founded in 1987, NAVIS is a privately held company with headquarters in Bend, Oregon and a growing East Coast office in Orlando, Florida. The company has been awarded Top Workplaces by The Oregonian for four consecutive years and named one of the 2016 Top 100 Workplaces in Central Florida. To learn more visit https://www.thenavisway.com/. About WebRezPro WebRezPro is a powerful, easy-to-use cloud property management system for all accommodation types and sizes. The fully integrated and automated system saves lodging operators time and boosts revenue by streamlining and modernizing front desk and back office operations. Bringing the benefits of the cloud to properties in 40 countries, WebRezPro is a product of World Web Technologies Inc., an Internet marketing and software company for tourism and hospitality since 1994. For more information, visit http://www.webrezpro.com. eAutoAppraise.com It's all about creating that initial relationship with the customer by having insight into what they want and what they can afford before they ever step foot in your showroom. It changes the entire dynamic of the interaction. PCG Research inspected the installation, functionality, and design of the trade-in software across all major website platforms including CDK Global, Dealer.com, Dealer eProcess, DealerFire, DealerInspire, and DealerOn. After in-depth comparison to several top competitors, PCG determined eAutoAppraise to have unrivaled intelligence not only when it comes to valuing a customers vehicle, but also for providing pertinent information that vastly facilitates the initial interaction between consumers and dealers. Unlike other automotive trade-in solutions that fail to connect the user with automatic next steps, eAutoAppraise integrates directly with each dealers inventory and pre-qualifies customers for financing in real-time through their exclusive partnership with CreditMiner. The platform conducts live soft credit pulls without requiring a social security number or DOB, empowering dealers without involving protected consumer information. eAutoAppraise is a trusted source, as they do not share secured data or market to people who have engaged with the dealership. Its all about creating that initial relationship with the customer by having insight into what they want and what they can afford before they ever step foot in your showroom, says Barry Brodsky, Managing Partner of eAutoAppraise. It changes the entire dynamic of the interaction when you have a tangible starting point for the conversation. eAutoAppraise is designed for mobile first and its the only application in the industry that allows customers to easily upload a walk-around video or photos of the car theyd like to sell or trade-in. Its also intelligent enough to know which new vehicle theyre interested in based on which VDP they clicked from, and they are then immediately prompted to set up an appointment. The platform provides interactive validation reporting that shows dealers which vehicles are in high demand and how to stock their inventory accordingly. More importantly, eAutoAppraise is 100% OEM-compliant. Customizable banners seamlessly integrate into dealer websites with a unified look and feel rather than appearing as an obtrusive third-party plugin. The technology ensures OEM brand protection by conforming to each manufacturers colors and themes. In the October 2016 Report, Brian Pasch, Founder of PCG Consulting said, eAutoAppraise represents a quantum leap forward offering seamless design, increased functionality, actionable analytics and ease of use which will help dealers solve problems with their current online trade-in process, and create new sales opportunities. About eAutoAppraise eAutoAppraise is the next generation trade-in platform that has changed the relationship between dealers and car buyers. Backed by several OEM endorsements, eAutoAppraise empowers dealerships with exclusive, actionable consumer data and robust, interactive reporting not customarily available to todays dealers. Featuring two products in one, eAutoAppraise is both a trade-in or sell us your vehicle application as well as an inventory and payment-prescreening tool. The platform generates high quality, low-funnel, incremental leads with a closing ratio of 25-30%. After completing the 100% OEM-compliant, customizable form, customers are presented with the value of their car (provided by NADAguides) as well as what replacement vehicle they have selected and if they are pre-approved for purchase. The customers value report is also integrated with Google Maps for step-by-step directions to the dealership, making eAutoAppraise the ideal package for todays self-directed shopper. For more information visit eAutoAppraise.com or call 866-795-8903. Applied Predictive Technologies (APT) announced today that the company has been selected as a winner for Washington DC SmartCEOs Corporate Culture Awards. The Arlington-based company currently serves leading consumer-facing companies across the world, delivering predictive analytics software to help enable data-driven decision-making. SmartCEOs Corporate Culture Awards celebrates 50 companies in Greater Washington DC that have successfully championed a positive, productive and performance-driven culture, and have worked with their employees to develop successful organizational practices. APT was recognized for its continued efforts to foster a vibrant corporate culture. For example, APT recently launched three diversity groupsAPT Pride, APTs Womens Leadership Network, and APTs Latin Network. APT also invests heavily in employees professional development and training, and contributes philanthropically to both local and global organizations. Simultaneously, APT focuses on building a collegial and collaborative workplace, offering a game room, multiple firm-wide social outings throughout the year, and 24-hour Hackathons where employees come together to solve the most difficult computational and engineering challenges facing Big Data analytics, among others. Jaime Nespor-Zawmon, President of SmartCEO, stated, The 2016 Corporate Culture Award winners have realized that running a company is more than head count and the bottom line. Its about creating a place where creativity, energy and ideas are cultivated. Through this they are able to not only enhance performance and sustain their companies competitive advantages but also enrich the lives of those they employ and inspire them to make a greater impact on the world. Were honored to celebrate with the leaders of Washingtons top company cultures and recognize them for building true performance-driven cultures. APT CEO Anthony Bruce commented, We are honored to receive this award. Building a great company culture starts with recruiting world-class talent and then fostering an environment of training, mentorship, feedback, and collaboration in which team members will quickly grow, develop and succeed. Most importantly, it requires listening to team members about opportunities for the Firm to improve and acting on their ideas. Bringing people with different perspectives and diverse backgrounds together in an inclusive environment fuels innovation, and that has been the top priority at APT since its founding. About SmartCEOs Corporate Culture Awards The Corporate Culture Awards program honors companies that foster a creative, collaborative workplace culture to enhance performance and sustain a competitive advantage. Smart leaders understand that culture is a companys greatest asset, driving performance and growth. Whats more, a successful culture is actively and intentionally cultivated and developed. Corporate Culture Awards winners will have championed for a positive, productive culture in their organization, and will have worked with employees to develop successful cultural practices. The final roster of winners will be chosen by an independent committee of local business leaders, profiled in SmartCEO magazine, and celebrated at a high-energy awards event. About SmartCEO SmartCEOs mission is to educate, inspire and connect CEOs through its award-winning magazine, high-energy C-level events and access to valuable online resources. SmartCEOs integrated media platforms reach business decision makers in the Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, metropolitan areas. About APT APT, a Mastercard company, is a leading cloud-based analytics software company that enables organizations to rapidly and precisely measure cause-and-effect relationships between business initiatives and outcomes to generate economic value. Our intuitive and proprietary Test & Learn software utilizes sophisticated algorithms to analyze large amounts of data, enabling business leaders to conduct experiments and allowing them to make optimal decisions and implement business initiatives at scale. APT also offers products that support decision-making for specific business needs including transaction analysis, space planning, promotion design, category management and location selection. APTs client portfolio features some of the worlds best known brands, including Walmart, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Victorias Secret, American Family, SUBWAY, TD Bank, T-Mobile, and others. APT has offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, London, Bentonville, Taipei, Tokyo, Sydney, and Chicago. Visit http://www.predictivetechnologies.com to learn more. A performer in an opera costume. [Photo/China Daily] Chinese art and culture will be under the spotlight at London's Southbank Centre next month with the launch of a new festival of events that will include music, film, dance, comedy, theater and literature. Among the highlights of the China Changing festival will be an operatic adaptation of Hamlet, a master class by the Hong Kong Dance Company's top performers, and a film about the role of Chinese laborers during World War I. Next month's events mark the start of a Chinese program that will begin in the middle of December and extend into 2018. The launch on Friday will give audiences a taste of what will be available in the months to come and showcase the most current and innovative artists from China, as well as both established and up-and-coming British-based Chinese artists and those from Southeast Asia. Jude Kelly, artistic director at the Southbank Centre, said: "In some ways, China is changing at a breakneck pace, and in others it feels timeless." She said the China Changing festival will give audiences a chance to see "wonderful works and artists, some in the UK for the very first time, that give us deeper understanding of this vast and diverse country." Zhang Jun, one of China's most popular opera stars, will perform a re-imagined telling of Shakespeare's Hamlet, drawing on the classical techniques of Chinese Kunqu Opera. Project New Earth, presented by London-based British East Asian performance company Chinese Arts Space, tells the story of the World War I Chinese Labour Corps in two films and two live performances. Dance fans will be treated to performances by senior members of the Hong Kong Dance Company who will share excerpts from The Legend of Mulan and L'Amour Immortel. The festival highlights the strengthening of cultural ties between Britain and China following President Xi Jinping's visit to the UK last year in what was heralded as "a golden era of UK-China relations". Some 500,000 pounds ($625,000) of UK government money is being contributed toward the financing of the festival. Since the launch of our new visually engaging website, we have seen a lower bounce rate and users tend to spend a longer amount of time on the site. Over the past few months, One Touch Property has updated their website to ensure it complies with new UX and design criteria. One of the most pressing reasons why One Touch was so keen to have their website redesigned was to ensure it was mobile-friendly and responsive, as Google now penalises website which are not. The new website is also more closely aligned with the companys new branding, and includes the new logo and company colours. It is also worth noting that the url has changed to more closely reflect the company name, from investmentrentalproperty.co.uk to onetouchinvestment.co.uk. Users will now be able to easily identify all different types of investments on offer, from student property investments to buy to let property investments. Each sector is colour-coded to ensure that they can be distinguished between quickly. Information is presented in a more visually engaging way, with a feature slider displaying the latest property investments, and key features displayed in a checklist format. One of the new websites most innovative features is the ability for a user to request a call back and specify a timeframe in which they wish to be contacted. This allows sales teams to contact potential investors at a time which is convenient for them, enhancing their overall experience and allowing better communication with overseas investors. Arran Kerkvliet, investment director at One Touch Property, comments the new website allows for sales staff and potential investors to work together in a more cohesive manner. Users can complete forms on the new website that detail what investments they are searching for. This information is then integrated into our CRM system so sales staff know which properties they should present. Since the launch of our new visually engaging website, we have seen a lower bounce rate and users tend to spend a longer amount of time on the site. We believe this is because the website has the functionality to present more relevant information to the user and they have more opportunities to explore our site. We have also noticed that our website is performing better when we analyse it using certain SEO tools such as Alexa. The aim of the website redesign was to ensure that users have a better experience and to eliminate factors that would have a detrimental effect to search engine rankings. Through implementing new best practice guidelines One Touch Property aims to be the property investment company that champions the digital age, providing investors with information using modern techniques instead of through a stifling corporate medium. One Touch Investment welcomes feedback on their new website. Entrants will have the opportunity to win a 50 M&S voucher by following the link above and sharing their thoughts. November 22, 2016: DiabetesSisters, the national 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the lives of women with diabetes, has been awarded a Dexcom One Step Ahead Foundation in support of its signature PODS Meetup Program. The PODS Meetup Program offers monthly peer-support meetings to all women living with diabetes providing education, networking and a non-judgement zone to discuss successes and challenges of living with diabetes. The Dexcom One Step Ahead Foundation also awarded grants to four other diabetes organizations, including: American Youth Understanding Diabetes Abroad (AYUDA), College Diabetes Network, Riding On Insulin, and Type-1-Today/Children with Diabetes (CWD). Each organizations programs aligns to the Foundations focus on assisting people living with diabetes, their caregivers, to better understand their medical condition, manage their diabetes more effectively and to live healthier lifestyles. The grants were awarded by the employee-funded philanthropy, launched by Dexcom employees dedicated to doing more for the diabetes community. "Dexcom employees recognize the need to educate, support and empower those struggling to manage this complex condition, as well as their caregivers," said Claudia Graham, SVP of Global Access at Dexcom who serves as chair of the newly formed foundation, and is living with Type 1 diabetes. "Their commitment goes above and beyond their daily work to have a lasting, positive impact on the diabetes community." Its an honor to be among other diabetes organizations receiving grants, said Anna Norton, CEO of DiabetesSisters. We strive to provide services and programs that positively impact people living with diabetes. Out PODS Meetup Program will continue to grow and thrive, thanks to the generosity of Dexcom employees who are committed to helping us share our mission. About DiabetesSisters A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, DiabetesSisters is the only organization worldwide focusing exclusively on women living with diabetes. Our mission is to improve the health and quality of life of women living with and at risk of developing diabetes and to advocate on their behalf. DiabetesSisters has a 10,000-member peer network that unites women with diabetes for the purpose of support, education, and advocacy. Signature programs include monthly peer support meetings (PODS Meetups); the Life Class Webinar Series and online blogs, forums, and expert resources; and conferences throughout the US. For more information, visit http://www.diabetessisters.org. About The Dexcom One Step Ahead Foundation: A Dexcom Employees Foundation The Dexcom One Step Ahead Foundation: A Dexcom Employees Foundation works to support the missions and purposes of tax-exempt organizations that provide services and programs to people living with diabetes and their caregivers in the United States. Run by its own Board of Directors, comprising Dexcom employees and external participants, the Foundation will provide monetary grants to organizations designated by the IRS as 501(c)3 Public Charities so that these organizations can assist people living with diabetes as well as their caregivers to better understand their medical condition, to manage their diabetes more effectively, and to live healthier lifestyles. WPC Healthcare, a leading provider of data science solutions, together with Dr. Todd Gary of Middle Tennessee State University, has had their work to identify new approaches to the early identification and treatment of sepsis published in the International Clinical Pathology Journal, a peer-reviewed, open access journal. The paper highlights the fact that sepsis is not well understood, and theres no standard approach to diagnosis and treatment. The authors look at the evolving definition of sepsis over its long medical history, the controversy over the current definition of sepsis, and the development of a sepsis screening tool. This year, the Journal of the American Medical Association, published a new definition for sepsis, sepsis-3, proposed by an international committee of experts. The WPC Healthcare paper is designed to assist the medical community in understanding the origins of the new sepsis-3 definition and proposes ways data science can help in the diagnosis and treatment of sepsis. Sepsis claims the lives of five million people worldwide every year, says Mingle. Were looking for a way to better understand and predict, with a high degree of accuracy, who has or is likely to develop sepsis, says Mingle. WPC initiated a Visiting Scholars Program earlier this year to foster exchange and innovation in data science through collaboration with Tennessee universities. Dr. Todd Gary, of Middle Tennessee State was the first recipient and is collaborating with WPCs Chief Data Scientist, Damian Mingle. Data science approaches, such as machine learning, predictive analytics and data mining, are beginning to be applied to the large database of information available to researchers. The WPC approach to sepsis leverages non-clinical data and demographic information to create a sepsis screening tool that shows promise for the rapid identification and treatment of sepsis. As a data science company, we know how to transform data into actionable insights that create, improve, and enhance processes, says Ray Guzman, chief executive officer for WPC Healthcare. Using data science to help clinicians identify who has sepsis, is likely to develop sepsis in the hospital or who might readmit with sepsis can significantly reduce costs and more importantly help save lives. Along with Mingle and Gary, Dr. Ashwini Yenamandra, a graduate student in data science at Lipscomb University, and a scientist at Vanderbilt University, authored the paper. They submitted their extensive review of sepsis evolving definition to ICP in September; the journal published the entry on October 19. The swift publication, and the open access format of ICP is part of a larger trend shaping medical and scientific research. Open access journals allow researchers to post results at a swifter pace while still being peer-reviewed. About WPC Healthcare WPC supports building the information IQ of every client to ensure healthcare is ready for whatever comes down the road next month or next year. WPC Healthcare is the right partner to optimize business and technology processes fueled by accurate, organized data. WPC is an expert in healthcare data, including reimbursement, compliance, integration and predictive analytics. With the right mix of technologists, subject matter experts and data scientists, WPC offers payers, providers and health systems the decision support and business intelligence to transform data into understanding. To learn more visit http://www.wpchealthcare.com Starlight Brave Gowns help sick kids feel like superstars! When kids are comfortable in the hospital, they literally feel better. Starlight Brave Gowns combine super soft fabric and awesome prints. They are the best hospital innovation I have seen in years. Starlight Childrens Foundation today announced the launch of a major new program, Starlight Brave Gowns, with program partner Michaels, North Americas largest arts and crafts specialty retailer. Starlight Brave Gowns are made of high-quality, comfortable fabric and feature brightly colored, creative designs that will revolutionize childrens hospital gowns and help sick kids feel like superstars. Michaels is providing ten inaugural designs and donating 10,000 gowns to launch the new program from Starlight whose mission is to brighten the lives of seriously ill children and their families. Being a sick kid stuck in the hospital is tough, and having to wear a thin, drab hospital gown that blows open in the back makes the experience even worse, said Chris Helfrich, Starlight CEO. Starlight Brave Gowns are fun to wear and make a sick kid feel good, inside and out. Our goal is to bring laughter, fun and joy to sick children by delivering millions of these gowns to childrens hospitals and other facilities across the United States. For just $25, anyone can donate a Starlight Brave Gown. Dr. Cara Natterson, a pediatrician, author and member of the Starlight Board of Directors, praised the program: When kids are comfortable in the hospital, they literally feel better. Starlight Brave Gowns combine super soft fabric and awesome prints. They are the best hospital innovation I have seen in years. "We are proud to continue our partnership with Starlight and to take this next step with them in their important work of brightening the lives of seriously ill children and their families," said Michaels CEO Chuck Rubin. Our mission has always been to inspire and enable creativity and it is our hope that our gowns will not only inspire but uplift these brave patients and their families. We are so grateful to Michaels for getting behind the Starlight Brave Gowns program to revolutionize childrens hospital gowns as we know them and put smiles on the faces of millions of sick children, said Helfrich. Michaels is in a class of their own in terms of putting charity at the forefront of their mission. Originally conceived by entrepreneur and philanthropist Summer Germann to honor her 10-year-old brother who passed away from pediatric cancer in 2002, Starlight Brave Gowns are made for boys and girls ages 2 through 12. Made in the USA, the gowns are manufactured to meet strict hospital infection and safety protocols, and are specially designed to allow for easy access to heart monitors as well as IVs on both sleeves. Additional gown designs, including seasonal options, will be unveiled throughout 2017 and beyond. To view and download photos of children wearing three Starlight Brave Gown designs, please click here. Learn more and donate a Starlight Brave Gown for $25 to a seriously ill child at http://www.starlight.org. Working with ImageX has helped transform Trinity University's web development processes. ImageX is proud to announce the one-year anniversary of being named the top Drupal Development agency by Clutch.co, a research firm based in Washington, D.C. dedicated to identifying the leaders in a variety of digital industries. ImageX was awarded this spot over 12 months ago when their overall client satisfaction scored climbed to 4.8/5 after nine client project reviews. One year and 14 client reviews later, that score now resides at a near flawless mark of 4.9/5. Clutch.co reviews project work by agencies using several scored criteria, including the prominent technology used, agency services offered, quality of deliverables, ability to maintain the project schedule, budget-to-value obtained and as a result of the project, and what the client's willingness is to refer the agency upon project completion. ImageX has consistently delivered near perfect reviews across a wide body of work spanning several sectors including higher education, government, non-profit, enterprise B2B, and media. The project work reviewed by Clutch.co ranges from complete web redesigns, complex integrations, migrations, re-platforming and rescue projects. Project budgets are equally as diverse, ranging from $10,000 to $1,000,000. "It was an honor to be recognized as the leader in Drupal development a year ago, and we are equally humbled celebrating a year later while still holding the top spot," said Brent Wilker, Vice President, Business Development of ImageX. "The recognition belongs to the project team at ImageX who bring passion and enthusiasm to their work every day, without fail." "ImageX has competed effectively in our web development research for a full calendar year, steadily increasing their standings," explained Joshua Margolin, Principal Analyst at Clutch.co. "That's not easy to do, but their commitment to client satisfaction has produced a healthy stream of references more than willing to convey their overwhelmingly positive feedback." Jeanna Balreira, Associate Director of Creative Services at Trinity University, contributed a review of ImageX's work to Clutch.co over a year ago. "Working with ImageX has helped transform Trinity University's web development processes. They are as committed to lifelong learning as we are, and this type of educational partnership, from brainstorming to implementation to training, has grown our team's success exponentially." About Clutch.co Founded in 2012, Clutch.co's purpose is to identify leading software and professional services firms that deliver results for their clients. They do this through an innovative research process that melds the best of traditional B2B research and newer consumer review services. Clutch has become recognized as the go-to resource for buyers and sellers of app development services. With a successful track record under their belts, they are now expanding into other technology, marketing, and business consulting segments and have researched and reviewed 500+ companies covering 50+ markets. Visit http://www.clutch.co About ImageX Founded in 2001, ImageX is web agency that specializes in open source content management systems, and has delivered more than 250 web sites to some of the world's most prestigious brands, including Apple, Samsung, Adidas, A&E, Time Warner, Disney, Adobe, The Discovery Channel and Stanford University. To see more of our work visit http://www.imagexmedia.com Dr. Gregory Toback, New London, CT Periodontist, Speaks at Annual AAP Meeting Dr. Gregory Toback recently had the honor of speaking on dental implants and periodontology at the 102nd annual meeting held by the American Academy of Periodontology. As a trusted periodontist in New London, CT, Dr. Toback had the pleasure of lecturing alongside other distinguished professionals in the field of periodontics. The meeting attracted more than 2,000 dental professionals from around the world. This is the second occasion that the American Academy of Periodontology has asked Dr. Toback to speak at its annual conference. The event is held in collaboration with the Japanese Society of Periodontology and the Japanese Academy of Clinical Periodontology. As a member and Diplomat of the American Academy of Periodontology, Dr. Toback understands the core values of this organization are to further enhance successful periodontal practices, achieve new heights in innovative research and enable clinicians to provide patients effective periodontal care. Dr. Toback and his esteemed associate, Dr. Marianne Urbanski, offer a variety of cutting-edge treatment techniques, at their practice Shoreline Periodontics and Dental Implants including laser dentistry using the LANAP protocol and state-of-the-art dental implants. Their practice holds two locations in New London, CT and Westerly, RI. Dr. Toback recommends dental implants as an option for those missing one or several teeth as a result of periodontal disease, injuries or other causes. Implants are a preferred tooth replacement option because their natural appearance allows them to blend into an attractive and seamless smile. They are also known for their superior durability and stability when compared to other tooth replacement options and are strong enough to last for many years with proper care. Patients who wish to improve their dental health and appearance by receiving dental implants or periodontal disease treatment are invited to schedule a consultation with authorities in their field, Drs. Toback and Urbanski, respected periodontists in New London, CT. New patient appointments may be arranged by calling Shoreline Periodontics and Dental Implants at 860-443-2428. About the Practice Shoreline Periodontics is a periodontal practice offering personalized dental care for patients since 1998 and is located in New London, CT and Westerly, RI. Leading periodontist, Dr. Gregory A. Toback, received his B.A. from St. Johns University and his Doctorate of Dental Medicine from the University of Connecticut. He also received advanced training in periodontics and dental implants at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. Dr. Toback focuses on minimally invasive surgeries, offering the LANAP protocol and belongs to a small group of dental professionals currently providing the Chao Pinhole Surgical Technique for treatment of gum recession. Dr. Marianne Urbanski has been voted one of Connecticuts top dentists for more than seven years by Connecticut Magazine. Dr. Urbanski graduated cum laude from the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts where she earned a Bachelors degree in Biology. She also received her Doctor of Dental Medicine degree and her Masters of Dental Science degree from the University of Connecticut Dental School. Dr. Urbanski prides herself on offering caring, professional care to each patient. To learn more about Shoreline Periodontics and their dental services visit their website at http://www.shorelineperio.com or call 860-443-2428 for the New London, CT location, or 401-596-0000 for the Westerly, RI office. Civitas has won ASLA Colorados 2016 Presidents Award for its Haven Project with New York Restoration Project (NYRP), creating a connected open space system in New Yorks South Bronx. Creating healthier cities is at the heart of our firms mission, says Civitas founding principal Mark Johnson. Urban design and landscape architecture firm Civitas has won the highest honor Presidents Award of Excellence from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Colorado Design Awards for the second year in a row. The honor was awarded to The Haven Project Community Plan, Civitas transformative master plan for the New York Restoration Project (NYRP) to create a network of connected open spaces to improve quality of life in New Yorks South Bronx. In addition, Denver, Colorado-based Civitas received the ASLA Colorado Landmark award for Denvers Larimer Square. The firm also received two Merit Awards, for its Wayzata Lake Effect Vision Plan on Minnesotas Lake Minnetonka and for its Northern Arizona University Master Plan for the Flagstaff, Arizona, campus. ASLA Colorados Presidents Award is bestowed by unanimous jury vote for an outstanding contribution in the advancement of the Landscape Architectural profession, which exemplifies the ethics upon which the profession was founded, according to the organizations announcement of 2016 award winners. In 2015, Civitas in collaboration with W Architecture and Landscape Architecture also received the Presidents Award for its St. Patricks Island Park in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Taking the idea that green space promotes health to the next level, this years Presidential winner The Haven Project has been designed specifically to measure and monitor its mission of encouraging active lifestyles and achieving health impacts. Creating healthier cities is at the heart of our firms mission, says Civitas founding principal Mark Johnson about the project. With NYRPs leadership we will be able to directly impact public health in a part of New York City where health improvements are most needed." ASLA Colorados Landmark Design award recognizes a distinguished landscape architecture project completed between 15 and 50 years ago that retains its original design integrity and contributes significantly to the public realm of the community in which it is located. 2016 Honor Award winner Larimer Square, one of Civitas first projects begun some 30 years ago, transformed a poorly repaired streetscape and vacant historic buildings into Denver's premier shopping and dining destination. The much-copied Larimer Square project also was recently named one of Americas 11 Most Beautiful Streets by Curbed.com. ASLA Colorados Professional Design Awards recognize exceptional accomplishments by Colorado and Wyoming landscape architects and represent the work done across the country and across the globe by these individuals and studios, says the organization. Independently judged by a jury from the ASLA Washington Chapter, this years winners were selected from more than 75 submissions. A complete list of ASLA Colorados 2016 award winners is available here. About Civitas: Founded in 1984 with the core purpose of creating healthier cities, Denver-based Civitas, Inc., is an idea-based practice of urban designers, architects and landscape architects engaged in strategic planning for urban change and project design for built works. A consultancy and a design studio, Civitas advises on a wide range of strategies for re-imagining urban life and places, working in U.S. cities coast to coast and around the world. For additional information visit civitasinc.com. Media contacts: Anne McGregor Parsons, Word PR + Marketing, anne(at)wordprmarketing(dot)com, 303.777.7667 Michael Macauley, CEO of Quadrant Information Services, reviews implications of automation for insurance carriers A lot of people thought it was going to happen with cars first but the application of this technology is much more practical for the trucking industry. In October, a self-driving truck from San Francisco startup company Otto, a subsidiary of Uber, drove a trailer loaded with 2,000 cases of Budweiser more than 120 miles across Colorado, while the driver relaxed in the back seat. With this foray into cargo transportation, Uber announced the launch of Uber Freight, a platform to connect shippers and trucks. A lot of people thought it was going to happen with cars first, said Michael Macauley, CEO of Quadrant Information Services, but the application of this technology is much more practical for the trucking industry. Macauley, whose company is a leading supplier of pricing analytics services to property and casualty insurance carriers, noted that the primary motive for the impending widespread adoption of self-drive trucking is economic. Anheuser-Busch, on whose behalf the maiden Uber/Otto beer delivery was made, estimates that using fuel-efficient, self-driving trucks could lower the companys diesel consumption by 20% to 35%, for an annual savings of $40$50 million.2 One group not likely to benefit from autonomous trucking, noted Macauley, is truck drivers. Figures from the American Trucking Associations show that there are more than three million truck drivers in the United States, and that almost ten million peopleone of every 15 workers in the countryis employed in the trucking business on some level. There is growing concern that if commercial trucking becomes completely or even largely automated, it will be economically devastating for small towns in America that thrive by way of supporting the long-haul trucking industry.3 Nevertheless, if the technology lives up to its current promise, a large-scale disruption of the trucking industry seems not only inevitable, but already under way. Mining giant Rio Tinto, for example, is now using a fleet of 240-ton driverless trucks to move iron ore in two of its Australian mines, stating that its cheaper and safer than using human drivers. Morgan Stanley has estimated that the freight industry could save as much as $168 billion annually by harnessing autonomous technology. The projected savings would come from lower labor costs ($70 billion), better fuel efficiency ($35 billion), increased productivity ($27 billion), and fewer accidents ($36 billion).4 A wide-open question, said Macauley, is what the resulting industry might look like. The development of self-driving vehicles in recent years has been primarily a competition between technology companies and automakers working independently of each other; that dynamic changed markedly earlier this year, however, when Google announced it would expand its testing of autonomous vehicles by installing its technology in a fleet of minivans made by Fiat Chrysler. The deal was a major departure for Google, which had previously chosen to work mostly on its own in creating and testing self-driving vehicles. For Fiat Chrysler, the arrangement allows the company to gain access to Googles expertise in driverless cars rather than develop its own technology.5 One thing that seems certain is that the self-drive transportation industryboth trucking and non-truckingwill go through a lot of change and development before it reaches any sort of stability. Along the way, insurance carriers will need to provide coverage appropriate to the risk levels that exist at each stage, at rates that allow them to be both competitive and profitable, said Macauley. He admitted that for the industry, this will represent a steepand continuouslearning curve, but emphasized that Quadrant will be focused on providing accurate, timely data to help customers compete in the rapidly changing environment. About Quadrant Information Services: Quadrant Information Services, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA, provides pricing analytics solutions for property and casualty insurance companies. Quadrant gives actuary, product development, pricing, sales, and marketing personnel at its client companieswhich include all the major insurance carriers in the United Statesthe data they need to make accurate, data-driven decisions. An industry innovator since its founding in 1991, Quadrant has provided the P&C insurance field with a long series of technological advances, including InsureWatch, the industrys first cloud-based pricing tool, which allows the user to produce unlimited combinations of reports with the click of a mouse. For more information, and to learn why Quadrant is for insurance companies that are tired of losing the right customers and winning the wrong ones, please visit http://www.quadinfo.com. 1. Isaac, Mike, Self-Driving Trucks First Mission: A 120-Mile Beer Run, New York Times, October 25, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/technology/self-driving-trucks-first-mission-a-beer-run.html. 2. Anand, Priya, Ubers Self-Driving Truck Just Made Its First Delivery, BuzzFeed News, October 25, 2016. https://www.buzzfeed.com/priya/a-self-driving-uber-truck-just-made-a-beer-delivery?utm_term=.nyNdeR9Ry#.ioXl7J8J0. 3. Markoff, John, Want to Buy a Self-Driving Car? Big-Rig Trucks May Come First, New York Times, May 17, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/technology/want-to-buy-a-self-driving-car-trucks-may-come-first.html. 4. Solon, Olivia, Self-driving trucks: whats the future for Americas 3.5 million truckers? The Guardian, June 17, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/17/self-driving-trucks-impact-on-drivers-jobs-us. 5. Vlasic, Bill, and Boudette, Neal, Google to get Chrysler Minivans for Self-Driving Tests, New York Times, May 3, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/technology/google-fiat-chrysler-minivans-self-driving.html?_r=0. 6. Fountain, Henry, A Slow Ride Toward the Future of Public Transportation, New York Times, November 4, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/technology/want-to-buy-a-self-driving-car-trucks-may-come-first.html. 7. Briodagh, Ken, MaaS Global Whim App Wins Nordic Smart Cities Award, IoT Evolution, November 3, 2016. http://www.iotevolutionworld.com/iot/articles/426797-maas-global-whim-app-wins-nordic-smart-cities.htm. Simplus, a Gold Salesforce Consulting Partner and leader in Salesforce Quote-to-Cash implementations, today announced a U.S. partnership with PolSource. Based in Poland, PolSource has more certified Quote-to-Cash consultants than any other Salesforce partner in Europe. Salesforce Quote-to-Cash, formerly known as SteelBrick, offers CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) and Billing software solutions. Simplus, one of SteelBricks oldest partners, recently closed a $7.3 million Series A. The company plans to use this funding to acquire other Salesforce Quote-to-Cash partners. Strategic acquisitions and partnerships will allow Simplus to strengthen its position as the leading Quote-to-Cash partner. For example, this collaboration with PolSource provides the resources, talent and expertise needed to support enterprise companies. This partnership will deepen our bench of resources and give us greater ability to scale as the premier Salesforce CPQ and Billing implementation partner, said Ryan Westwood, CEO of Simplus. This provides us with the capacity to support businesses of all sizes, especially the enterprise. Simplus is a focused and highly qualified U.S.-based CPQ partner and an excellent match for both our local and global client engagements, said Adam Bartkowski, CEO of PolSource. We are very excited in the value our close partnership can bring to the Quote-to-Cash client community For customers of Simplus or PolSource, this partnership will increase available resources to their projects. Project pace will increase and customers will gain access to expert Quote-to-Cash talent. As of this release, PolSource employs 11 certified Brown Belts, the highest Salesforce CPQ accreditation available. When considering a partner, we wanted a company who mirrored and complemented our strengths. We looked for an organization that focused heavily on high customer satisfaction with a highly experienced team. We are excited to say that PolSource has both, Kyle Hanagarne, vice president of professional services at Simplus said. For more information about Simplus, visit http://www.simplus.com or call (855) 256-8391. Salesforce and others are among the trademarks of Salesforce.com, Inc. ABOUT SIMPLUS Simplus is a leading Gold Consulting Partner of Salesforce Quote-to-Cash implementations, providing solutions to help enterprises streamline quoting, sales, service, finance, operational and marketing workflows and business processes. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Simplus has certified staff with expertise in Salesforce Quote-to-Cash, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Pardot. Simplus has worked with many of todays leading brands, including Winston Brands, Box, Zendesk, SurveyMonkey, Franklin Covey and more. For more information about Simplus, please visit http://www.simplus.com, or follow Simplus on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. ABOUT POLSOURCE PolSource leverages innovative cloud and mobile platforms such as Salesforce, iOS and Google to drive significant returns on investment for its clients. Headquartered in Poland, PolSource also has consulting teams stationed in the U.S., Europe and throughout the United Kingdom. PolSource has worked with companies such as Coca-Cola, Toyota, Cisco and T-mobile. To learn more about PolSource, please visit http://www.polsource.com. Sterling Talent Solutions This is a noteworthy distinction because it validates our commitment to providing employers hiring peace of mind through our cloud-based suite of background screening, drug and health testing and onboarding solutions, said Clare Hart. Sterling Talent Solutions (http://www.sterlingtalentsolutions.com) is pleased to announce their inclusion in HRO Todays 2016 Bakers Dozen Customer Satisfaction List of Top Background Screening Providers. This is a noteworthy distinction because it validates our commitment to providing employers with hiring peace of mind through our cloud-based suite of background screening, drug and health testing and onboarding solutions, said Clare Hart, chief executive officer at Sterling Talent Solutions. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to all of our clients whether they participated in this survey or not. Without you, our global base of more than 50,000 clients strong, we dont get to deliver our unparalleled background screening and hiring solutions experience. HRO Today invited 40 consumer reporting agencies to participate this year and whittled the list down to 13 companies based on surveys of both the general marketplace and clients of each provider. The overall rankings were based on the following categories: Breadth of Services (Sterling Talent Solutions was rated #1 here) Size of Deal (Sterling Talent Solutions was rated #2 here) And most impactful to the overall rankings was Quality of Service (Sterling Talent Solutions was rated #9 here) Sterlings overall ranking was #7. Hart also acknowledged her team of nearly 4,000 employees who helped achieve this lofty distinction saying, this honor is a testament to your hard work, energy and drive to be the best in the background screening industry. Check out the full list of rankings here. About Sterling Talent Solutions: Sterling Talent Solutions provides hiring peace of mind by delivering a simpler, smarter background screening and onboarding experience for employers worldwide. Our comprehensive suite of cloud-based background screening and onboarding solutions deliver accurate, reliable results and tools to maintain compliance throughout the hiring cycle. With 20 offices in nine countries and growing, our team of more than 3,900 employees proudly serves over 50,000 customers around the world, including 25% of the Fortune 100. Sterling is accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), a distinction earned by fewer than 10% of all background screening companies. Visit http://www.sterlingtalentsolutions.com. Chestnut Global Partners Generating this comprehensive, well documented ROI Report through our software packages takes minutes, not hours, and pays for itself in a matter of months. Chestnut Global Partners (CGP), a provider of culturally-aware employee assistance and wellness programs to companies worldwide, today announces that its EAP ROI Calculator will be included in Harting EAPs software offerings: Daybreak EAP and the web-based Premier EAP. The ROI Calculator uses standard financial terminology and measures to give company benefits managers, HR personnel and CFOs a true baseline of their EAPs effectiveness in reducing costs associated with employee issues. It generates the Internal Rate of Return and Net Present Value (metrics used in capital budgeting to measure the profitability of an investment). Harting EAP customers can use the Calculator to answer the fundamental question: is the savings sufficient to offset the cost of the EAP? The EAP ROI Calculator uses data from Daybreak and Premier, and enables each organization to tailor it to their unique demographics, such as covered employees, industry, occupation, region, and utilization rates. To promote ease of use, the Calculator contains baseline data derived from published studies and research, which may be overridden with actual client data. What the ROI Calculator Assesses: Reduced presenteeism and absenteeism (calculates savings from reduced productivity losses); Reduced employee out of pocket expenses associated with visits to benefit based providers; Reduction in accidents caused by distraction with issues; Reduced costs associated with turnover (voluntary or involuntary due to performance issues), including replacement, relocation, retraining, and disability costs; and Reduced medical costs of co-morbidities associated with stress. While the success of employee assistance has historically focused on utilization rates, client satisfaction, and surveys of symptom reduction or problem resolution, the most reliable measure is how EAPs affect specific workplace outcomes, including absenteeism, presenteeism, turnover, and workplace accidents, said CGPs Lou Servizio, the architect of the EAP ROI Calculator. The Calculator brings EAP in line with the data-driven metrics used in other business units, and gives CFOs a sophisticated tool to properly weigh the value of their EAP. Given Hartings presence and reputation in the EAP market, its an honor having our ROI calculator embedded in their software. Organizations can use the Calculator in conjunction with CGP's Workplace Outcome Suite (which is also embedded in Harting EAPs software), a short, psychometrically tested and validated instrument that comprehensively assesses the efficacy of their EAP. The tool evaluates the EAP based on five critical "constructs": absenteeism, presenteeism, work engagement, life satisfaction, and workplace distress. "Including the ROI Calculator in our software is a significant value-add, enabling EAPs to prove the real world return to the companies they serve, said James Harting, President of Harting EAP. Generating this comprehensive, well documented ROI Report through our software packages takes minutes, not hours, and pays for itself in a matter of months. The report provides insights into financial returns, cost savings, utilization, outcomes, and increased productivity. About Chestnut Global Partners Chestnut Global Partners (CGP) is a behavioral health organization based in Bloomington, IL that offers a full range of culturally aware employee assistance and related workplace services. CGP combines EAP with wellness, disability, high risk maternity, employee safety and compliance management programs, designed to promote employee well-being, improve performance and reduce absenteeism. Chestnut Global Partners serves companies in over 150 countries, including Brazil, China, India, Mexico and Russia. Chestnut Global Partners Division of Commercial Science develops and deploys scientific assessment technologies, outcome measures, and analytical methodologies so that EAPs, wellness companies, disease management entities and purchasers the world over can determine the effects and/or worth of their programs. For more, visit http://www.chestnutglobalpartners.org. More than 3,000 MCHS employees participate in the standardized uniform initiative Uniform Advantage (UA), partners with Miami Childrens Health System (MCHS) to design a custom print and standardize uniform colors by job function. The uniform showcases the new branding of the health systems flagship facility, Nicklaus Childrens Hospital, and its network of outpatient centers. UA worked with MCHS to launch the health systems first standardized uniform program, which was implemented at all system facilities, including the 289-bed Nicklaus Childrens main campus and nine outpatient centers, extending from southern Miami-Dade County to Palm Beach County. As a result of the organizations commitment to providing its staff as much variety as possible, the program features a one-of-a-kind printed scrub top design. UAs in-house design team presented the concept of incorporating the new Nicklaus Childrens logo design elements in a custom print that could be worn by all clinical departments. The printed scrub top features hearts in each of UAs classic color selections assigned to a department under the new uniform program. The flexible print design allows each team the option of the print top with a solid pant, or a solid top and solid pant. The Youve Got Heart top is sold exclusively to Nicklaus Childrens employees. As of July 11, 2016 more than 3,000 MCHS employees participated in the standardized uniform initiative. The uniform program is supported by UA with a custom web portal where employees can go online, select a department, and view available uniform options. Employees are also able to shop at one of UAs 9 South Florida retail locations where additional services include free ship-to-store orders and payroll deduction. Every month, UA features an extraordinary healthcare professional as the Scrub Superstar of the month on their blog and social sites. Octobers Scrub Superstar of the month, Shamira works as a Registered Nurse at Nicklaus Childrens Hospital. For more information on Uniform Advantages uniform programs, visit their website or UA Corporate Solutions. About Uniform Advantage Uniform Advantage has represented style, quality and, above all, customer satisfaction for more than 30 years. As the first division of UA Brands, the chain was launched with a single South Florida store in 1985. Today, the company operates 29 retail locations in key markets across the U.S.; e-commerce and print catalog divisions; plus designs and manufactures its own proprietary healthcare apparel lines. The companys corporate office is based in Plantation, Florida with a distribution center near Atlanta, Georgia. Learn more at http://www.UniformAdvantage.com or by calling 800-283-8708. About Miami Childrens Health System Founded in 1950 by Variety Clubs International, Nicklaus Childrens Hospital, part of Miami Childrens Health System, is South Floridas only licensed specialty hospital exclusively for children, with more than 740 attending physicians and over 220 pediatric subspecialists. The 289-bed nonprofit hospital is renowned for excellence in all aspects of pediatric medicine and routinely has many programs ranked among the nations best by U.S. News & World Report. The organization has grown and evolved into the Miami Children's Health System (MCHS) which includes Miami Children's Health Foundation, the organization's 501c3 fundraising arm; a network of 10 nonprofit outpatient centers situated in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties; Pediatric Specialists of America, a nonprofit physician practice subsidiary; a management services organization, and an ambulatory surgery center, as well as an e-commerce line of children's wellness and safety products that support the hospital's mission of serving the regions pediatric population. MCHS is the regions only healthcare system exclusively for children. Hyperwallet, a leading global payouts provider to millions of independent workers, today revealed its partnership with USA Media Rights, a music and media rights company providing a broad range of music business services. Through this strategic alliance, USA Media Rights will continue to connect Hyperwallet with music industry organizations to improve the processing and delivery of royalty payments for recording artists, music producers, and songwriters worldwide. Historically, it has not been a priority for the music industry to make sure royalty payments reach recording artists, record producers and songwriters in a way of their choosing, explained Erik Steigen, CEO of USA Media Rights. The process of getting paid can be extremely cumbersome. Several of the larger companies still require physical paperwork to be signed and notarized in order to process basic necessities such as changing a mailing address or the contact information for authorized representatives, not to mention the initial set-up for payment. As the music business becomes increasingly international, there are a tremendous number of globally-dispersed contributors that have difficulty receiving their hard-earned royalties. We believe Hyperwallet is the solution to that issue. USA Media Rights has been instrumental in bringing Hyperwallet into the music industry, said Brent Warrington, Hyperwallets CEO. With their vast experience as industry insiders, they recognized that royalty payments were an area where we could work together to improve the experience for music organizations and artists alike. We admire USA Media Rights commitment to their clients success and look forward to our ongoing partnership. Utilizing Hyperwallets global payout network, music organizations are expected to substantially reduce the frustrations that come with cross-border royalty payments, where payees have traditionally been subjected to high foreign exchange fees and lengthy delays. Hyperwallet will enable international artists to quickly receive their royalties in their local currency, in addition to providing a range of diverse payout options and a self-serve online earnings portal. About Hyperwallet Hyperwallets payout platform provides growing organizations with a frictionless, transparent, and reliable way to manage payments and enhance the payees experience anywhere in the world. Trusted by enterprise, ecommerce, and on-demand platforms, Hyperwallet makes it easy to pay up to 7 billion people in a singular payment environment. Put your payees in control with enhanced financial management tools, integrated payment tracking technology, and user-friendly compliance and identity verification. Hyperwallet has offices in San Francisco, Austin, and Vancouver. You can learn more at http://hyperwallet.com. About USA Media Rights USA Media Rights is a music and media rights company established by Erik Steigen in 2012 and built on over 20 years of music business experience. Clients and partners include songwriters, recording artists, music producers, publishers, record labels, talent managers and other service companies. For more, visit http://www.USAmediarights.com. VirtualPBX Dash now offers inbound call recording VoIP users come from all industries, many of which have a strong need to record and archive telephone conversations. Now with Dash, they can do just that. VirtualPBX is delivering more features to the award-winning Dash business telephone system. By unveiling an inbound call recording option, users of the popular business VoIP platform will be able to record any inbound call. The company is introducing the feature into a beta program this week that will allow any Dash customer to use the feature and contribute to the final product due in early Q1. VoIP users come from all industries, many of which have a strong need to record and archive telephone conversations, said Lon Baker, VirtualPBXs COO. Now, with Dash, they can do just that, he added. Introducing a call recording feature onto a hosted telephone network is nothing new for VirtualPBX, though this is the first time it has been available on the Dash family of products. From that experience, VirtualPBX was able to ascertain the exact types of functions, saving and storage options, and interface that VoIP customers would find most helpful in this latest iteration. Having built call recording and one-click storage option integrations into VoIP before made developing Inbound Call Recording for Dash that much easier, added Baker. Additionally, much to the satisfaction of early users during the development process, none of the same high-gloss and seamless functionality that has fueled Dashs success is lost in this latest feature. Inbound Call Recording is included as an option on each users list of feature options, and can be added by anyone on an account with administrator privileges. The feature will continue to be available at no cost through the beta period, with updated pricing information finalized for the beginning of the New Year. For more information about VirtualPBX hosted business phones, call recording, or any of the other features on a cloud phone system, visit VirtualPBX.com. About VirtualPBX VirtualPBX was founded in San Francisco in 1997 and brought some of the first commercially available hosted PBX service to market for small business owners. Born from the advent of the hosted telecom industry and driven by the innovative vision of its founders, VirtualPBX continues to deliver leading edge telephony products for business. Backed by award-winning, local, in-house support teams, VirtualPBX offers an array of services including disaster recovery, network monitoring and optimization, and professional system management. VirtualPBX Contact Rachel Anderson Vice President of Design & Marketing 888.825.0800 Ext. 339 Rachel.Anderson(at)VirtualPBX.com ComplianceOnline Medical Device Summit 2017 3rd Annual ComplianceOnline Medical Device Summit 2017 ComplianceOnlines Medical Device Summit is back for its 3rd year. The summit is set to take place on 8th and 9th June 2017 in Boston, MA. This annual summit brings together former FDA office bearers, industry and regulatory specialists from around the world to address key issues in compliance, quality and innovation. This event will benefit all medical device professionals whether they are new entrants in the field or middle management or veterans. Register for early bird tickets to one of the largest gatherings of medical device industry experts this year. The medical device industry continues to experience rapid growth rates. This success has brought along with it a number of challenges relating to quality, regulatory compliance, technology, innovation, supply chain optimization and more. This year's summit will provide a venue for policy makers, industry experts, professionals and executives to discuss and debate these challenges as well as explore new strategies and opportunities for growth. The increasing threat of cyber-attacks, the fast pace of technical developments and the regulatory hurdles that these bring up, developing a global strategy for labelling, UDI granular interpretation and challenges and opportunities in digital health -these are topics that the industry as a whole needs to discuss and debate and strategize on. ComplianceOnline Medical Device Summit 2017 convenes industry experts to: Innovate new ideas for advancements in medical device technologies Plan for successfully executing regulatory inspections by providing industry best practices Build FDA compliant quality management systems Interact with leading minds in the industry Deliberate the current state of medical device laws and technology and government oversight Scale factors for successful medical device commercialization Enhance risk management strategies for the safe, effective and efficient use of medical devices The event will also be an exclusive business opportunity for medical device companies stalls will be available for organizations to exhibit their latest products and technological innovations. From a marketing and branding perspective, the event provides unrivalled opportunity for both established as well as up-and-coming medical device companies and their suppliers. Boston promises to be a great location for the summit, providing world class dinning and attractions. With hundreds of daily flights to international locations, and a thriving downtown, Boston will not disappoint. For more information on this summit or to get a complete list of speakers, sessions, visit the event website here. Dates: Thursday, June 8, 2017 (8.00 AM- 4.30 PM) and Friday, June 9, 2017 (8.00 AM- 4.30 PM) Location: Boston, MA Registration Cost: $1,699.00 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 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 Girls with their Kuros! pepper spray cans after a drop earlier this year - Photo by Danny Pata Over the last few years weve seen firsthand how a little can of pepper spray can boost these womens courage and self-esteem This November, Kuros! and Willi Hahn Enterprises will provide 2,000 cans of SABRE pepper spray to women in Manila, Philippines. In the Philippines, women and young girls are the targets of violence and sexual assault on a daily basissometimes even in their own homes. This is why Kuros!, a US based lifestyle brand committed to changing womens lives on a global scale, continues their efforts in Manila with another distribution of their police strength pepper spray. Over the last few years weve seen firsthand how a little can of pepper spray can boost these womens courage and self-esteem, said Kuros! founder Kuro Tawil. Kuros! has delivered free pepper spray across four continents. In the Philippines they have teamed up with Gabriela, the Alliance of Filipino Women working for freedom and democracy, to reach vulnerable women across the country. Willi Hahn Enterprises, a local retailer of high quality outdoor sporting goods, is also a major player in the project. They will be delivering the pepper spray this November in honor of the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Hahn is our importer and distributor in the Philippines and is key in getting our sprays to the women who need them, said Tawil. They are working hard to help make their communities feel safe, and we couldnt ask for a better partner. The pepper spray they will be distributing is made by SABRE, the number one brand trusted by police and consumers worldwide. Each bottle features the highest strength formula on the market and contains up to 25 bursts each so women can protect themselves from multiple threats. About Kuros! is a humanitarian lifestyle brand whose buy one, give one business model has put vital self-defense products in the hands of women around the world. From South Africa and India to El Salvador and Manila, theyre giving women a fighting chance at protecting themselves from assault and living their fullest lives without fear. Osborn served as BlueInGreen's President and Chief Technology Officer during its initial stages as a University of Arkansas startup. "Dr. Osborn has been a friend and mentor to the entire team at BlueInGreen, but his impact reaches far beyond this company." - Product Manager Jessica Hart BlueInGreen co-founder Dr. Scott Osborn has been named the Engineer of the Year by the Arkansas section of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE). Osborn, who is also an associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of Arkansas, was chosen for his ongoing contributions to the engineering profession, both inside and outside of the classroom. In 2004, Osborn and Dr. Marty Matlock, a professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of Arkansas, co-founded BlueInGreen with support from VIC Technology Venture Development. Osborn holds 12 patents related to gas dissolution for water treatment, wastewater treatment, ecological restoration, oxidation and pH adjustment. "Dr. Osborn has been a friend and mentor to the entire team at BlueInGreen, but his impact reaches far beyond this company," said Product Manager Jessica Hart. "His ideas, innovation and instruction have directly and indirectly benefited many people around the world." A licensed professional engineer, Osborn served as BlueInGreen's President and Chief Technology Officer during its initial stages as a University of Arkansas startup and worked with its team of engineers to design and implement the company's first commercial installations. BlueInGreen's systems are currently being used at 27 sites in 14 states and Canada, treating over 700 million gallons of water each day. The company has contributed significantly to the economy of Arkansas through sales revenues, grants and investor funding. Osborn was previously named a Ford Foundation Design Fellow, where he worked to introduce engineering design into the curriculum at the Dwight Look College of Engineering. Osborn is also a recipient of the Massey-Ferguson Educational Gold Medal, awarded for the advancement of engineering knowledge and practice in agriculture soil. He has helped establish biological engineering programs at Louisiana State University, Texas A&M University and the University of Arkansas. "Dr. Osborn is a gifted engineer-educator who is a passionate and effective teacher," said Dr. Lalit Verma, Head of the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering. "He utilizes his industry experience in preparing students to be successful engineers to address problems in sustainable food, water and energy systems." Osborn serves as a technical lead on BlueInGreen's Advisory Board. He is currently working in cooperation with BlueInGreen and Core Brewing Company, based in Springdale, Ark., to develop a new application for the company's pH adjustment line in order to make the beer carbonation process less expensive and more environmentally friendly, while also improving beverage quality. "We all owe a huge debt to Scott," said CEO Chris Milligan. "He's a one-of-a-kind teacher and entrepreneur, and his selflessness and leadership directly reflect our company's core values. In many ways, BlueInGreen would not be the same without Scott's early work." ### About ASABE ASABE is an international scientific and educational organization dedicated to the advancement of engineering applicable to agricultural, food and biological systems. Further information on the Society can be obtained by contacting ASABE at (269) 429-0300, emailing hq(at)asabe(dot)org or visiting asabe.org. About BlueInGreen BlueInGreen, LLC is a water treatment company that provides the world's most efficient method of delivering dissolved oxygen, carbon dioxide and ozone into water. The company offers cost-effective solutions for aeration, pH adjustment, oxidation and odor control. For more information, visit blueingreen.com. Globalization Partners, a global PEO and employer of record firm that helps companies expand internationally, today announced it has been named the winner of a silver level Stevie Award in the Fastest Growing Company of the Year category in the 13th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Additionally, CEO Nicole Sahin was awarded a bronze level Stevie Award for her work successfully leading Globalization Partners through to tremendous growth since it was founded in 2012. The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are the worlds top honors for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run. All individuals and organizations worldwide are eligible to submit nominations public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small. The 2016 awards received entries from 31 nations and territories. Nicknamed the Stevies for the Greek word for crowned, the awards were presented to winners on November 18 during a dinner event attended by more than 500 people at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. The event was broadcast on Livestream. More than 1,400 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration in more than 90 categories, including Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Company of the Year, Startup of the Year, Women Helping Women, and Women Run Workplace of the Year, among others. Stevie Award winners were selected by more than 160 professionals worldwide who participated in the judging process this year. Over the past three years, Globalization Partners has achieved more than 16,196.5 percent revenue growth and expanded its global client base to include several Fortune 500 companies. Sahin has led the company to accomplish these milestones while maintaining a 100 percent client retention rate and expanding the companys geographic reach to more than 150 countries. Globalization Partners has received incredible recognition in 2016 for these accomplishments. Most recently, the company was acknowledged by The Boston Globe Magazine as a Top 100 Women-led Business in Massachusetts. Prior to that, Globalization Partners was ranked number six on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies in the U.S. It was the number one women-led business on the list. "While I'm honored to be recognized within a category of strong, successful women leaders in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year Category, I am especially proud of my team for the work they've done to make us one of the Stevie Awards Fastest Growing Companies of the Year," said Sahin. "We will remain committed to not only growing our organization to be the best in the industry, but also to reshape what it means to be a woman in business." Each year we think the quality of achievements portrayed in Stevie-winning nominations couldnt possibly get any better, and each year the amazing women who are recognized in this program prove us wrong, said Michael Gallagher, Stevie Awards founder and president. We are thrilled and humbled to be able to recognize so many outstanding women in the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and to share the stories of their achievement with the world. Details about the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the list of Stevie Award winners are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women. ABOUT GLOBALIZATION PARTNERS Founded with the goal of making it easy to hire employees in other countries while minimizing the legal, HR and tax red tape that companies typically encounter, Globalization Partners empowers companies to hire the most talented people in more than 150 countries without first incorporating in each country. Using tailored International PEO Services and our Global Employer of Record Platform, we minimize the risk of global expansion and enable fast entry into new markets. Less risk. More reward. Streamlined Global Employment. ABOUT THE STEVIE AWARDS Stevie Awards are conferred in seven programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 10,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 60 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com. 2016 Elavon Arch Award USBSI would like to take this opportunity to extend its gratitude toward all merchants and business partners who have made these exceptional accomplishments possible." US Bankcard Services, Inc. (USBSI) received recognition at the 2016 Elavon Awards in New Orleans, Louisiana, a milestone year as Elavon celebrated its 20th annual conference. In addition to winning the Elavon Arch Award for the seventh year in a row, USBSI received the following Top Producer awards: 1st place for the Highest Activation Count in the West Coast Region, 3rd place for the Highest Activation Count in the Overall Channel, and 3rd place in the Overall Channel for the Highest Portfolio Volume. USBSI is proud to be a seven-time Elavon Arch Award winner, and the only Merchant Service Provider (MSP) to receive this special recognition for all seven years it has been presented. The Elavon Arch award is presented annually to MSPs who have surpassed 1.5 billion dollars in transaction volume. USBSI also achieved the highest number of new accounts out of all Elavon MSPs on the West Coast. USBSI ranks third in Overall Channel Highest Activation Count and Highest Portfolio Volume among Elavons 250+ MSPs in the United States. USBSI would like to take this opportunity to extend its gratitude toward all merchants and business partners who have made these exceptional accomplishments possible. Your loyalty and ongoing support, along with recognition from Elavon, reminds us once again how important it is to excel in the service we provide to businesses nationwide, said Chris Chang, President and CEO of US Bankcard Services, Inc. USBSI looks forward to being able to serve, partner, and grow with its merchants and local communities in the upcoming year of 2017 and beyond. About US Bankcard Services, Inc.: US Bankcard Services, Inc. is a top rated MSP that offers competitive rates, incredible customer service, and cutting edge technology with its credit card processing service. USBSI also offers a wide array of value-added services, including sure3 online turn-key solutions, gift card services, check guarantee, PCI-DSS compliance consultancy, and 24-7 multilingual customer service and technical support. US Bankcard Services, Inc. is a registered MSP / ISO of Elavon, Inc. Georgia and a registered ISO of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Walnut Creek, CA. For more information about merchant bankcard services please visit us at usbsi.com or call us at: 1-888-525-8558. Dundas ranks first for Visual Design Standards in the world's largest survey of BI software users The fact that this survey uses actual end-users for product feedback of our software makes the recognition a very meaningful achievement for our team. Troy Marchand, President, CEO & Co-Founder of Dundas Data Visualization Dundas Data Visualization, Inc., a leading, global provider of Business Intelligence and Data Visualization solutions, announced today that they received first place for Visual Design Standards and have been recognized as a leader in several categories in The Business Application Research Center (BARC) BI Survey 16. The BARC BI Survey 16 is the worlds largest survey of business intelligence (BI) software users measuring selection and usage of BI products. The BI Survey 16 is based on findings from the worlds largest and most detailed annual survey of a sample of over 3,100 business intelligence (BI) end-user respondents. Dundas has been recognized as a leader across five different areas, amongst a total group of 37 BI dashboard products that were analyzed in detail. Its a fantastic honor to be recognized with a first place ranking for Visual Design Standards in the BI Survey 16 from BARC, said Troy Marchand, President, CEO and Co-founder, Dundas Data Visualization. Dundas has a strong history as an innovator in visualization software, so to receive top honors for Visual Design Standards is a wonderful accomplishment and testament to our goal of developing products that help businesses better understand and visualize their data. The fact that this survey uses actual end-users for product feedback of our software makes the recognition a very meaningful achievement for our team. According to the BI Survey 16, customers of Dundas Data Visualization give Dundas BI consistently high ratings resulting in Dundas being a leader in big data analytics, collaboration, operational BI and overall product satisfaction. Download headline results of Dundas in BARCs BI Survey 16 today. About BARC - http://www.barc-research.com Business Application Research Center (BARC) is a leading enterprise software industry analyst and consulting firm delivering information to more than 1,000 customers each year. For over twenty years, BARC has specialized in core research areas including Data Management (DM), Business Intelligence (BI), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Content Management (ECM). Along with CXP and Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), BARC forms part of the CXP Group the leading European IT research and consulting firm with 140 staff in eight countries including the UK, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. About Dundas Data Visualization, Inc. http://www.dundas.com Dundas Data Visualization is a leading, global provider of Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Visualization solutions. Dundas provides organizations with the most flexible, innovative and scalable BI, dashboard and reporting software, through a fully embeddable BI platform, enabling users access to all their data for better decisions and faster insights. For more information, contact: Lynda Phillips, Marketing Communications Manager, Dundas Data Visualization, Inc. 416.467.5100 x 167 George Soros becomes a wanted man in Russia as Putin issues international arrest warrant George Soros is an enemy of freedom and conservative ideals. The man is single-handedly responsible for funding many of the most twisted liberal endeavors and has been fighting against things like freedom of speech and the Second Amendment for decades because he knows how valuable they are. If the American people have the right to fight back against the powers that be physically or verbally then people like Soros stand no chance and he knows it. For the longest time, Soros has been pulling the strings of many members of the federal government. He was telling Hillary Clinton every move she should make long before she made it, as revealed by the Wikileaks DNC email hacks. Soros is the worst kind of political influence imaginable, because he has managed to get his way for so long that it has become common. He is far too used to it. It makes a lot of sense that he wanted Hillary Clinton to be victorious over Donald Trump. Without Clinton in office, Soros loses much of his power and Donald Trump isnt going to cower to financial bribery the way that Clinton did for so many years. Ray Starmann of US Defense Watch reports, Obviously Soros wants to be like Goldman Sachs One can say that Soros and Goldman Sachs are ideologically part of the same brotherhood. Their strategy is a little different, but the end result is the destruction of lives via the economic system (be it capitalism or socialism) and political manipulation. While the United States federal government put up with Soros corruption for a long, long time, Russia doesnt appear to be so kind to the man. Vladimir Putin has reportedly issued an international arrest warrant for Soros as he believes the man to be extremely dangerous. It goes to show just how awful Soros is that Putin of all people finds him to be corrupt and twisted. We are currently in the midst of a very serious cultural war that spreads all over the world. People like George Soros have been the metaphorical puppet masters behind many of the problems we have all been facing, so for him to be viewed as a globalist threat is a good thing. We need to stop pretending these people have the best interests of our country in mind. They only care about generating more power and money for themselves. They need to be treated like the criminals that they are. Sources: USDefenseWatch.com MorningNewsUSA.com Business2Community.com BenefitEd, a Nelnet company, has created a program to help employers offer student loan repayment as an employee benefit. It leverages Nelnets existing relationships with loan providers and payment processing companies to provide a single source for the enrollment, management, and distribution of payments. Companies will be able to customize their benefit to fit the needs of their unique employee base and recruitment needs. Nearly 40 million people carry student loan debt post-graduation, and BenefitEd provides employers and employees a way to help ease the burden. According to data from the Americans for Student Assistance, 73% of student loan borrowers say that their education loans have caused them to put off saving for retirement. BenefitEd gives employers a new tool to enable employees to plan and save for the long term. BenefitEd can become a pillar of employer benefits packages, giving companies a competitive edge that can help reduce turnover and save resources spent recruiting and training new employees. Companies looking to implement student loan repayment benefits are really leading the way, addressing a real unmet need. said Michael Riordan, BenefitEd director of business development, Weve seen a lot of interest from HR professionals, and were excited to be one of the first companies to help employers offer student loan relief. There are currently over 600 employees already receiving loan repayment benefits through BenefitEd. Employers also have the option of directing this benefit toward a 529 college savings plan. BenefitEd was founded on the expertise of Nelnet, who for almost 40 years has been a leader in student loan servicing. Nelnets in-depth knowledge of the student loan industry gives BenefitEd a unique edge when it comes to designing a product aimed at helping those with student loans. Interested employers can visit YouBenefitEd.com to learn more about the program and its benefits. ## About BenefitEd Founded in 2016, BenefitEd aims to help employers recruit, retain, and engage employees by offering them the benefit of aiding with their student loan repayment. BenefitEd is a product of Nelnet, which provides a variety of innovative products that help students throughout their educational lifecycles, and the Innovation Hub, which uses an entrepreneurial and innovative mindset to leverage Nelnets strengths to develop ideas and launch new businesses. Wild-Type and 5XFAD Alzheimers disease (AD) model brains revealing elevation of BChE in AD. SPECT imaging has provided us the first direct in vivo evidence that the TRV6001 label can cross the blood-brain barrier -- lead author Drew DeBay Cubresa Inc., a medical imaging company that develops and markets molecular imaging systems, today announced that their compact SPECT (Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography) scanner was used in a study by Dalhousie University and Mount Saint Vincent University researchers in Halifax, Nova Scotia to help evaluate the diagnostic potential of a new molecular label that could lead to the early detection of Alzheimers disease in living patients. Alzheimers disease (AD) is a progressive neurological condition that causes dementia and for which there is no FDA-approved treatment for the underlying disease. There is a need for a non-invasive way to detect and diagnose the disease in living patients because definitive diagnosis still requires post mortem examination. The study was performed by Dr. Sultan Darvesh and his research group at BIOTIC (Biomedical Translational Imaging Centre) at the Izaak Walton Killam Health Centre in Halifax, and was partially funded by TREVENTIS Corporation of which Dr. Darvesh is a scientific co-founder. SPECT imaging provides 3D information with a high degree of sensitivity and specificity for detecting the presence of a particular radiolabeled enzyme, in this case the BChE (butyrylcholinesterase) enzyme. Prior research has shown that elevated BChE expression levels are associated with abnormal -amyloid (A) plaques in the brains of Alzheimers patients. The novel molecular label, TRV6001, was synthesized and determined to bind to BChE with high specificity before being injected into 5XFAD mouse models of Alzheimers Disease. TRV6001 is still under development and has not yet been shown to be safe or effective in humans. SPECT imaging has provided us the first direct in vivo evidence that the TRV6001 label can cross the blood-brain barrier and actually exhibits higher retention in the brains of AD mice (whose BChE level is markedly elevated) than in normal control brains, said lead author Drew DeBay, Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Medical Neuroscience, Dalhousie University. In addition, the retention in BChE-associated brain structures was shown to closely follow the known histochemical distribution of BChE that has been previously established in AD mouse models. Up to now there have been many false-positives, said Dr. Sultan Darvesh, FRCPC, Professor at the Department of Medical Neuroscience, Dalhousie University. Previous labels were able to bind to A plaquebut A is also present in cognitively normal people. BChE, which we are detecting, is notably absent in the non-Alzheimers brain. Alzheimers disease affects so many people and causes such pain and suffering for individuals and their families, said George Abe, CEO of Cubresa. Were pleased to know that our SPECT scanner has contributed to a big step towards developing effective treatments and monitoring their effect. The research was presented this year at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC), the world's largest forum for the dementia research community, in Toronto, Canada. Detailed caption for associated image: Representative WT (wild-type, left column) and 5XFAD (Alzheimers model, right column) brains at the mid-coronal level. Row A: Histochemical staining of BChE, revealing marked elevation of BChE in AD, notably in the cerebral cortex. C = cerebral cortex, H = hippocampus, BG = basal ganglia, Th = thalamus, A = amygdala. Scale bar = 1mm. Row B: CT with co-registered MR at the same level as Row A. Row C: SPECT images acquired at 4 mins post-injection with co-registered CT/MR and ROIs. Marked retention in the cerebral cortex is evident in the 5XFAD brain compared to the WT brain and to a lesser extent in amygdala, hippocampus, basal ganglia and thalamus. Images courtesy of the Darvesh group and BIOTIC. About Cubresa Inc. Cubresa is a medical imaging company that develops and markets nuclear imaging systems that enable researchers at leading universities, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies to non-invasively visualize and measure biochemical processes at the molecular level. Applications for Cubresas products include preclinical drug development, disease research in oncology, neurology, and cardiology, as well as clinical diagnostics. Cubresa has operations in Boston, Massachusetts and Winnipeg, Manitoba. Visit http://www.cubresa.com for more information. About Dalhousie University Dalhousie University is internationally known as one of North Americas most welcoming universities. Founded in 1818, Dalhousie is one of Canadas oldest universities, attracting more than 18,500 students from around the world. Located on Canadas East Coast, the university blends world-class academic programs with leading-edge research. Visit http://www.dal.ca for more information. About Mount Saint Vincent University Recognized as a leader in distance and experiential learning, and based on a strong tradition of social responsibility, Mount Saint Vincent University takes a personalized approach to education to nurture socially responsible global citizens. Founded in 1873, the Mount has been nationally recognized for having one of the lowest student-to-professor ratios, for providing students early access to valuable research opportunities, for its legacy in the advancement of women, and for facilitating critical advancements in food security, healthy aging, literacy, and childhood development. Visit http://www.msvu.ca for more information. About Izaak Walton Killam Health Centre and the Biomedical Translational Imaging Centre The IWK Health Centre is the Maritime region's leading health care and research centre dedicated to the well-being of women, children, youth and families. In addition to providing highly specialized and complex care, the IWK provides certain primary care services and is a strong advocate for the health of families. The IWK is a global leader in research and knowledge sharing, and a partner in educating the next generation of health professionals. As part of the IWK Health Centre, the Biomedical Translational Imaging Centre (BIOTIC) has an explicit mandate to translate medical science innovations with industry partners using clinical and preclinical imaging tools to produce next-generation healthcare advances. Visit http://www.iwk.nshealth.ca for more information. About TREVENTIS Corporation TREVENTIS is headquartered in Southeastern Pennsylvania and has research operations in Halifax and Toronto, Canada. The company is focused on the discovery and development of disease-modifying small molecule drugs for a variety of dementias including Alzheimers. In addition to its therapeutic programs, TREVENTIS has a novel approach to the development of diagnostics for early diagnosis and monitoring treatment effects in Alzheimers disease. Visit http://www.treventis.com for more information. What style do they want for their custom cabinets? What type of materials will work best in the space? We have a new blog project on our website to help the community with these and other questions. Cepero Remodeling, a leader in custom design services for Miami, West Palm Beach, and Fort Lauderdale, is proud to announce a new blog project. With Florida residents searching for advice about trendsetting custom designs, the new blog and its postings highlight tips and details about custom kitchens, kiosks and displays. The company serves the cities of Miami, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and the surrounding areas, but the new blog and its posts serve the interests of anyone interested in custom design services. When creating a custom kitchen or kiosk there are a lot of elements to consider, said Aily Schwartz, general manager at Cepero Remodeling. "What style do they want for their custom cabinets? What type of materials will work best in the space? We have a new blog project on our website to help the community with these and other questions. There are already five informational topics and more on the way! To review the new blog for Cepero Remodeling, please visit: http://ceperoremodelinganddesign.com/our-blog/. Information about custom designed kitchens, cabinets and kiosks can be found. Details regarding supermarket displays and mall cart designs can also be reviewed. Stand-Out Style: Custom Design Services for Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach Miamis Art Deco District has been a world destination since the 1920s. Early in the century, art deco architecture was considered a unique and modern style. Tourists travel to Miami to enjoy the pale ice cream colors and sleek look of the art deco buildings existing today. If visitors are interested, more deco beauties can be found in Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. From buildings to shop displays and custom kitchens, Florida continues to set trends. Many Miami locals may decided to create a store display or custom kitchen sporting a trendy look. Reading expert advice for custom design services may be the first step; hence, by creating this blog, Cepero Remodeling is really focusing on leveraging the local community. Florida residents can review expert information regarding custom design services. If a West Palm Beach resident desires an art deco style kitchen with custom cabinets, the site offers support. If a Ft. Lauderdale business owner is looking to create an eye-catching mall kiosk, details about custom design services is available. Florida residents interested in creating a special piece of furniture for the home or office can also learn how to begin the process. Trendsetting modern style can be found all over Miami. The best advice for custom design services to showcase the latest modern look is easy to find. About Cepero Remodeling Based in Miami but serving the greater South Florida area such as Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, Cepero Remodeling is known as the place to go for custom design services. Using CNC machine technology, the company designs and builds custom commercial displays, custom POP displays, and store fixtures. In addition, the company does custom closet and custom kitchen cabinet designs as well as custom office furniture. Cepero Remodeling Web. http://ceperoremodeling.com/. Courtesy Archives, A.K. Smiley Public Library A building like this needs its historical significance salvaged. We want to honor that and tell its story. A new ownership group, intent on salvaging the Redlands landmark formerly known as Joe Greensleeves, announces the purchase and re-opening plans of new restaurant Greensleeves Steakhouse. The restaurant space at 220 Orange Street is one of the oldest early business buildings left standing, originally constructed in 1892. Greensleeves Steakhouse will pay homage to the rich Redlands history and sense of community through the display of pictures and stories from the historic town. Set to open in early December, Greensleeves Steakhouse invites you to be a part of the #SaveGreensleeves campaign, bringing prolific Redlands history into the building decor. The new owners are calling for members of the community to submit old photos and/or written stories of their beloved Redlands. These submissions will be incorporated into the interior design of the space, truly celebrating Redlands and the towns resonant history. The initial phase will involve minor cosmetic changes, while the subsequent phase calls for major renovation plans based on community input. The owners, also local business owners in the surrounding areas, have a vested interest in the community, with the goal of getting former Joe Greensleeves employees (some with the restaurant for decades) back to work as soon as possible, before the holidays. Joe Greensleeves announced permanent closure in September of this year, after closing in April due to a minor kitchen fire. A building like this needs its historical significance salvaged. We want to honor that and tell its story, states Ronnie Dawood, member of the ownership group. This century-old space in downtown Redlands, recognizable by its iconic green awning, was originally constructed as the The Phinney Block building, housing the Redlands Board of Trade and Chamber of Commerce. Built with brick from local yards, the original owner, Mr. Mo Phinney, was a Redlands pioneer citrus grower and civic worker. Phinney was the most prolific investor on Orange Street, with four buildings completed on the street. The Redlands welcoming festivities for President McKinley in 1901 and President Roosevelt in 1903 were also planned in what is now Greensleeves Steakhouse. "Redlands is the hidden gem of the Inland Empire, and we are proud to put a spotlight on this incredible community," the ownership group agrees. To submit photos and stories, please contact the group at info(at)greensleevessteakhouse(dot)com or 909-335-1752. About Greensleeves Steakhouse Greensleeves Steakhouse, due to open in early December, is located in the heart of Redlands, California at 220 Orange St. For more information and to join our email list, visit http://greensleevessteakhouse.com. Like us on Facebook Antonio Nieves, new Personal Injury Attorney at Steinger, Iscoe & Greene Mr. Nieves is so grateful for the ability to help others who have suffered injuries through no fault of their own and it is that passion that makes a great personal injury attorney. Past News Releases RSS Steinger, Iscoe & Greene Hires... Steinger, Iscoe & Greene... Steinger, Iscoe & Greene... Steinger, Iscoe & Greene is excited to welcome Antonio Nieves aboard their personal injury law firm. Mr. Nieves brings a passion for helping victims of injuries to the firm, as well as fluency in both English and Spanish. He graduated from Florida Atlantic University in 2011 and received a Juris Doctorate from Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law in 2015. Mr. Nieves spent much of his childhood in Venezuela before moving to Boca Raton in 2001. He completed his Bachelors in Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University, then attended law school at Nova Southeastern University. Because of his background, Mr. Nieves is completely fluent in both Spanish and English. He brings this skill to assist with Spanish-speaking clients who may want to speak to an attorney directly without having to use an interpreter. Mr. Nieves is so grateful for the ability to help others who have suffered injuries through no fault of their own, said Michael Steinger, and it is that passion that makes a great personal injury attorney. We are always looking for that special someone, like Antonio Nieves, to join Steinger, Iscoe & Greene. Before he became an attorney, Mr. Nieves worked at Kaplan University as a student manager with the military department. He thoroughly enjoyed helping active duty military members, veterans and their spouses, becoming very passionate about helping people in the process. He attended law school and got involved in the personal injury field while in law school because it allowed him to have a direct impact on a clients life and help them through a difficult situation. About Steinger, Iscoe & Greene Steinger, Iscoe & Greene is a proven legal team whose number one goal is to get injury victims throughout Florida every dollar they truly deserve for their injuries. The firm and its partners, Michael S. Steinger, Gary T. Iscoe, & Sean J. Greene have successfully recovered over one billion dollars for their clients and handled thousands of cases, including: auto accidents, bicycle accidents, birth injuries, product liability, catastrophic cases and workers compensation, since 1997. The entire legal team is committed to representing and fighting for injury victims best interests, giving each client insight into their individual rights as it relates to the law. With more than 30 lawyers, 140 legal professionals, and offices throughout South Florida - Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Port St. Lucie, Okeechobee, Ft. Myers, Orlando, Tampa and San Diego, California, the firm is ready to advocate for the best interests of injury victims coast-to-coast while offering the No Fee Guarantee. Jackie brings a wealth of experience using analytics to inform and prescribe recommendations for constituent growth for all her clients, said Michael Peterman, VeraDatas CEO. VeraData (http://www.veradata.com), a leading decision science firm serving the commercial and nonprofit sectors, announced that they have hired Vice President of Client Services, Jackie Smith. In this new position, Smith will be responsible for leading VeraDatas client-facing experts, driving customer success by providing strategic guidance and engagement recommendations. The result of which provides customers with a success blueprint and expansion roadmap to achieve their overall goals. Jackie brings a wealth of experience using analytics to inform and prescribe recommendations for constituent growth for all her clients, said Michael Peterman, VeraDatas CEO. During this time of rapid expansion, we are pleased to add Jackie in a leadership role, working with our existing clients to ensure their continued success, said Peterman. Smiths background includes brand and direct response using an omni-channel approach. Prior to joining VeraData, Jackie was the Director of the Media Solutions Team at Masterworks. Previously, she was the Media Director for the Non-Profit Vertical at Merkle and the Domain Group. Some of her non-profit clients include: Feeding America, Susan G. Komen, National Multiple Sclerosis Society and Dana Farber. Faith-based clients include; Prison Fellowship, Salvation Army, Feed the Children and several rescue missions. Earlier in her career she was a media buyer for such brands as General Motors, Jiffy Lube and Exxon Mobile, to name a few. VeraData wants to strengthen their partnerships with their clients, said Smith. We leverage predictive analytics and machine learning to create unmatched intelligence. Predicting response delivers highly potent return on investment allowing our clients to achieve their goals with increasing effectiveness. Were doing some interesting and progressive work and Im excited to join the company and be a part of it. About VeraData VeraData is a leading decision science firm, organized around a core of deep analytics and machine-learning expertise, with one of the industrys most innovative predictive/prescriptive marketing engines. The firm offers clients a suite of data driven digital and direct marketing and analytic solutions including performance based lists and modeling, donor analytics, integrated search and social, list management and list brokerage. Founded in 2007 by several successful entrepreneurs, VeraDatas team includes applied and theoretical mathematicians and computer scientists. VeraData currently has approximately 50 employees serving more than 450 organizations in the United States, Europe and South America. VeraData is a Google Partner and is recognized in its industry for developing a best-in-class prescriptive analytic technology. VeraData is based in Fort Myers, Florida, with additional offices in the U.S. and Europe. For more information, call (239) 204-5000 or visit http://www.veradata.com. Web Design and Company - St Louis This is a great opportunity to connect with other business owners, and give back to the business community. Forbes is a great resource for helping other businesses succeed, and we look forward to being a contributor in the Forbes community Web Design and Company, a St Louis-based Web Design and SEO/Marketing company, has been accepted into the Forbes Agency Council, an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. David Kley joins other Forbes Agency Council members, who are hand-selected, to become part of a curated network of successful peers and get access to a variety of exclusive benefits and resources, including the opportunity to submit thought leadership articles and short tips on industry-related topics for publishing on Forbes.com. Forbes Councils combines an innovative, high-touch approach to community management perfected by the team behind Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) with the extensive resources and global reach of Forbes. As a result, Forbes Council members get access to the people, benefits and expertise they need to grow their businesses and a dedicated member concierge who acts as an extension of their own team, providing personalized one-on-one support. David Kley, Owner of Web Design and Company, states: "I am pleased to become a member of the Forbes Agency Council and I look forward to helping other businesses be successful in their ventures. This is a great opportunity to connect with other business owners, and give back to the business community. Forbes is a great resource for helping other businesses succeed, and we look forward to being a contributor in the Forbes community." Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, says, We are honored to welcome David Kley and Web Design and Company into the community. Our mission with Forbes Councils is to curate successful professionals from every industry, creating a vetted, social capital-driven network that helps every member make an even greater impact on the business world. Web Design and Company is locally owned and operated in St Louis, Missouri at 3015 Salena Street Ste 202, 63118. Both their standard and premium SEO tools, as well as, their Web Design and SEO services are available to businesses nationwide. For more information on the St Louis SEO company and the products and services they provide, you can visit Web Design and Company's website at webdesignandcompany . com. About Forbes Councils Forbes partnered with the founders of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) to launch Forbes Councils, invitation-only communities for world-class business professionals in a variety of industries. Members, who are hand-selected by each Councils community team, receive personalized introductions to each other based on their specific needs and gain access to a wide range of business benefits and services, including best-in-class concierge teams, personalized connections, peer-to-peer learning, a business services marketplace, and the opportunity to share thought leadership content on Forbes.com. For more information about Forbes Agency Council, visit forbesagencycouncil.com. 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. The critical health damages of Agent Orange did not end with the Vietnam War Agent Orange is a toxic herbicide combination of two very destructive chemicals 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. This deadly poison was used to destroy trees and ground cover during the Vietnam war between 1961 and 1972. The devastating effects of Agent Orange are still lingering in the skins and bodies of the military men and women who served, as well as the land and the people of Vietnam. Twelve million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed over Vietnam, as reported by Naturalsociety.com. This was enough toxic herbicide to cover 18,000 acres, which is one forth of the countrys land mass. Two thirds of the Agent Orange utilized in the war was also contaminated with TCDD, a form of dioxin, another killer Monsanto chemical. Dioxin alone is associated with at least 15 classes of cancer . . . and several birth defects. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush signed the Agent Orange Act, which included a mandate to conduct on-going independent scientific investigations by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) about Agent Orange and any medical conditions caused by its exposure. The final IOM report was written between 2012 and 2014. Bladder cancer, hypothyroidism and Parkinson like symptoms were added to a long list of Agent Orange linked diseases, which already included Chronic B-Cell Leukemias, Hodgkins Disease, Parkinsons Disease, Prostrate and Respiratory Cancers, Ischemic Heart Disease and multiple myeloma, among others. Its difficult to imagine the suffering that continues. The Vietnamese people still call it The American War. In the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of people in America were protesting what our leaders called the Vietnamese War. More than 58,000 names of veterans who died there are engraved on the Vietnam memorial wall in Washington, D.C., a stunning piece of work by Maya Lin that was fraught with its own controversy. Have we remembered the thousands that have died, or those who are still suffering, as a result of Agent Orange? Apparently not. One half of the deadly Agent Orange concoction, 2,4-D, is now touted as a new ingredient in genetically modified corn and soy and cotton, courtesy of Dow Crop Sciences. To give this new GMO crop an extra death punch, they combine 2,4-D with glyphosate. Whats even more troubling, is the name of this product. They call it Enlist. Sources: NationalAcademies.org NaturalSociety.com Science.NaturalNews.com YouTube.com Presidency.ucsb.edu Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (Photo credit: Institute for Southern Studies) On November 26, independent booksellers around the country will be celebrating Indies First on Small Business Saturday (the Saturday after Thanksgiving), with author events, flash storytimes, discounts, and cake as a way to offer their customers a relaxed alternative to the frenzied shopping experience of Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday selling season. Now in its third year, Indies First is the brainchild of Sherman Alexiewho hired a party bus to take him and a group of authors to visit three local Seattle bookstores this year. The idea behind Indies First has quickly taken hold and bookstore in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia will be participating this year. To support booksellers efforts, an array of publishers made special offers as did Baker & Taylor, which is providing extra margin and faster shipping on all trade books this week and next. Libro.fm, the digital audiobook provider that recently partnered with the American Booksellers Association, is working with 35 stores to give away a free audiobook on Indies First. The goal, according to cofounder Mark Pearson, is to drive traffic to indie bookstores. Customers will get to select from more than nine digital audiobooks, including Alexies The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. This years Indies First spokesperson, Lena Dunham, will be visiting Book Soup in Los Angeles. In an open letter to authors, which was posted on the ABA website, she wrote, I wouldnt be who I am without support from independent booksellers and singled out indies as places for learning, community-building, and falling in love with strangers. Dunham will be joined at Book Soup by Aris Janigan (Waiting for Lipchitz) and Jade Chang (Wangs vs. the World). A sampling of other bookstore events planned for Saturday include Eso Won Books of Los Angeles, which is offering a special sale all day along with food from Marcus Samuelssons The Red Rooster Harlem. Across the country, New York Citys Books of Wonder will hold events with Caldecott medalist Jerry Pinkney and Caldecott Honor artists Melissa Sweet and Pamela Zagarenski, among others. In Palmyra, N.Y., The Dog Eared Book is also participating in Candlelight Night, which will take place on the same day in its historic village. Carolers and a hayride on Main Street are part of the festivities. Parnassus Books in Nashville is donating a portion of its days sales to two local charities: Book em and Nashville Humane Association. The store is promising a bevy of local authors who will be handselling. A full schedule is available on IndieBound.com. This inside account of the life and trial of the infamous Dutch criminal Willem Holleeder, written by his sister, was published earlier this month and immediately hit all the bestseller lists in the Netherlands. The author, Astrid Holleeder, is currently in hiding. Book title: Judas First published: November 5 by Lebowski Publishers Format: Paperback Acquiring Editor: Oscar van Gelderen Author: Astrid Holleeder is the sister of the notorious Dutch criminal Willem Holleeder, one of the men who in 1983 kidnapped Alfred Heineken, then the CEO and chairman of the board of the Heineken brewing company. Holleeder is currently on trial for his alleged involvement in six killings. Astrid worked as a lawyer until 2015, when she retired from her job and went into hiding ahead of testifying against her brother. Van Gelderen says, The book is called Judas because Holleeder is suspected of organizing the killing of his brother-in-law, but also because Astrid feels she betrayed her brother because of her testifying against him." The trial is ongoing. How Its Performed: Van Gelderen says, The book was written and edited in complete secrecy and launched on November 5. We told booksellers two weeks before pub date: 'Just order the book. We cannot tell you whats it about, nor the name of the author or the title. You will find out when books land at your store.' All major book chains trusted us and ordered big quantities. We shipped a complete print run of 80,000 copies to all major bookstores, and the book sold out within hours. It landed on the #1 spot of all Dutch bestseller lists. A second print run also sold out, and a third print run is underway. Rights have sold to Politiken in Denmark and its new Swedish imprint, Polaris. Multiples offers have come in from German publishers. Why They Think Its Working: The secrecy with which the book was published was important to create awareness and prevent legal actions that may have delayed or prevent its publication. Van Gelderen also says that a 40-minute prime time television special on November 4 helped to launch the book. Astrid was Willem Holleeders consigliere and she and her sister secretly recorded him confessing to murdering his brother-in-law. Van Gelderen says the pitch has been: A true crime book for women. This is the Dutch version of Narcos, told from the perspective of brave women who have dared to stand up to their criminal brother. Its universal story about family, crime, loyalty, hate and love. Swedish Authors Book on Preparing for Death Sells in 15 Languages The Gentle Way of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson has now been sold in 15 languages by Susanna Lea Associates. Sales have been made to Nan Graham at Scribner in the U.S., Canongate (UK), Scribe (Australia), Fischer (Germany), and Bonniers (Sweden), among others. When the authors husband died, she began to explore the concept of death cleaning, or, ordering your life before you die, so your loved ones dont have to. The word for this in Swedish is Dostadning. French Book on ISIS collects Sales Published last month by French house Le Seuil, which also controls all rights, Le Djihad Et La Mort by Olivier Roy looks at the Islamization of radicalism, according to the publishing house. Rights have been sold to Oxford University Press (U.S.), Feltrinielli (Italy), Hurst (U.K.), among other houses. The bookwhich Le Seuil calls "polemical"looks at the youths who join ISIS and their estrangement from society. Norwegian Meditation on Silence Makes Noise Abroad Norways Stilton Literary Agency control rights to Silence in the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge, which has now sold to publishers in 23 territories, including Bruna (the Netherlands), Knopf (U.S.), Einaudi (Italy), and Flammarion (France). Kagge Forlag published in Norway earlier this year. The author, who has written books on mountaineering/exploration and art collecting, explores questions such as where silence is, and why it is important in our age. Classic Turkish Novel Sells for world English Originally published in 1971 and considered a classic in Turkey, The Disconnected by Oguz Atay just sold to the U.K.'s Oneworld Publications in a world English rights deal. The author has received praise from Nobel winner Orhan Pamuk, and the book recently sold to Stereoma in Greece and binooki in Germany. Amy Spangler at Turkey-based AnatoliaLit Agency controls rights. In the novel, an engineer tries to learn why his friend committed suicide. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Certified crop advisers, consultants, farmers, agribusiness professionals and students will learn more about nutrient management, soil and water conservation, pest control and a variety of other topics at the 2016 Indiana Certified Crop Adviser Conference. Co-sponsored by Purdue Extension and the Indiana Certified Crop Adviser (CCA) Program, the conference will be held Dec. 13-14, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, at the Indianapolis Marriott East, 7202 E. 21st St. Matthew Pearson, fertilizer program administrator with the Office of Indiana State Chemist and one of the conference organizers, said the event is one of the largest of its kind in the country and annually draws hundreds of attendees from throughout the Midwest. It is an excellent opportunity to explore critical issues with nationally recognized speakers, network with other CCAs, and earn continuing education credits, he said. Speakers include Purdue Extension specialists and College of Agriculture faculty and staff as well as educators and industry leaders from throughout the country. There will be 32 presentations in four tracks: nutrient management, soil and water management, pest management and crop management. Participants can follow one track or choose sessions in multiple tracks. Each morning session will be repeated in the afternoon so participants will have an opportunity to attend all sessions presented each day. CCAs can earn up to 16 continuing education units. Private applicator credit will also be available. For CCAs, the price is $225 for both days or $125 for one day. For other participants, the cost is $325 for both days and $175 for one day. Early registration is recommended. Registration prices will increase by $25 after Dec. 7. The complete program schedule is available on the Indiana CCA website at https://indianacca.org/Conference. To sign up, go to https://indianacca.org/Register. Writer: Darrin Pack, 765-494-8415, dpack@purdue.edu Source: Matthew Pearson, 765-494-1547, pearsonm@purdue.edu Agricultural Communications: (765) 494-8415; Darrin Pack, dpack@purdue.edu Agriculture News Page Older adults suffering from arthritis and other muscle and joint conditions can benefit from low-impact exercise. Thats the finding of a new study authored by researchers at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Effects of a Culturally Tailored Low-Impact Exercise Program for Chinese Older Adults in NYC was presented at the American Public Health Association annual meeting on Nov. 1, in Denver. The study examined an exercise program conducted in New York Citys Chinatown and Flushing, Queens, among a group of Chinese Americans. Asian seniors have the highest rate of physical inactivity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are also less likely to seek health care because of cost and language and cultural barriers. Nearly a third (29 percent) live in poverty, and 75 percent had limited English proficiency in 2012. The weekly classes, which were free and open to all community members, lasted for eight weeks. They featured gentle activities such as stretch band, floor mat and chair exercises. The classes bilingual instructors also integrated Chinese breathing techniques and meditation. Overall, the program was very well-received, said Minlun (Demi) Wu, MPA, research coordinator in the department of public and patient education at Hospital for Special Surgery. After completing the classes, statistically significant differences were found in pain intensity, physical function, balance and confidence about exercising without making symptoms worse. Researchers used participant surveys to evaluate physical function, balance, fatigue, stiffness and other health indicators. Between September 2011 and July 2016, 256 adults completed the survey. More than nine in 10 (93 percent) of participants were female, and 73 percent between 60 and 79 years of age. According to the surveys, participants reported significant improvements in ability in daily life activities, such as kneeling, stooping, climbing stairs, bending over, bathing, getting dressed or carrying groceries. Those who took the survey also reported several things about the programs effects: 84 percent experienced less pain, 95 percent experience less stiffness, 92 percent reported less fatigue and 95 percent reported improved balance. All said that they were very satisfied with the program and would recommend it to others. TRY THIS Steps to better digestion this holiday season Cheer and goodwill aren't the only things Americans share during the holiday season. We also swap germs, overindulge in seasonal foods and spirits and stew in stress all of which can lead to digestive woes. You know you'll have to work hard at self-control if you don't want the numbers on the scale to climb by the end of the holiday season, but you also can take steps to minimize stomach upset, indigestion, bloating, reflux and general intestinal distress during the holidays. Here are some things you can do to feel better: -- Stay hydrated. The hectic pace of the holidays may make you forget to drink enough water. What's more, overindulging in holiday libations like cocktails, wine, champagne and beer actually can dehydrate your body. -- Promote gut health. If your digestive tract is already in good shape, it will be better equipped to handle occasional holiday overindulgence. Taking a probiotic supplement can support the growth of good gut bacteria that aid in digestion. -- Reduce portion sizes. Do you give yourself license to overindulge during the holidays, figuring you'll pay for it later when you step on the scale? Large portions can also make you pay for them right away when you feel indigestion or reflux after finishing a big meal. Reducing portion sizes can help ease holiday strain on your stomach and digestive tract. -- Limit variety. Mixing too many different foods can lead to stomach upset. Choose just a few favorites to have at each meal. -- Keep exercising. In addition to its positive physical effects, exercise also can help relieve holiday stress a contributor to holiday stomach upset. Whether it's an hour at the gym or 30 minutes on a yoga mat in your living room, it's important to maintain an exercise regimen throughout the holidays. More Content Now IN THE QC Alzheimers community education classes The Alzheimers Association will offer free community education on the basics of dementia care, and a special class on caring for people with dementia through the holidays. Classes are for people who are newly diagnosed, family and professional caregivers, or anyone with an interest in caring for people with dementia, according to a news release. Two classes will be presented, back-to-back. The first class, The Basics," held on each class day from 1 to 2:30 p.m., is a primary introduction to Alzheimers and related diseases. It explores how dementia differs from normal aging and how memory diseases are diagnosed and treated, the release states. The second class, which will run from 3 to 4:30 p.m. on class days, Holiday Tips," will provide suggestions and techniques for caring for people with dementia during the holidays. Classes will be offered: -- Today, at the Lutheran Living Senior Campus Event Center, 2421 Lutheran Drive, Muscatine. -- Wednesday, Nov. 30, at the Tri-City Jewish Center, 2750 30th St., Rock Island. Those who are interested are encouraged to attend both classes, but may attend one or the other. Registration is required in advance for each class, by calling 1-800-272-3900. To register online, visit alz.org, browse to Caregiver Center, Community Resource Finder, Alzheimers Association Programs and Events. For more information, contact Jerry Schroeder, 563-324-1022, ext. 8212, or jschroeder@alz.org A Davenport man is accused of having between 100 and 200 pounds of marijuana in his home. Nathan James Hall, 37, was charged last week in Scott County District Court with one count of a controlled substance violation and one count of a used or expired drug tax stamp, court documents say. On Nov. 16, police went to Mr. Hall's residence in reference to a narcotics investigation, according to an affidavit filed against Mr. Hall. Police say that, in his basement, they found between 100 and 200 pounds of marijuana in numerous plastic totes. Police say they also found digital scales, packaging material and about $7,800 cash and that, post-Miranda, Mr. Hall admitted the marijuana was his. The affidavit also said Mr. Hall failed to purchase or affix the Iowa state drug tax stamp required by law. Mr. Hall was booked in the Scott County Jail and, about six hours later, met the requirements for release on a $10,000 bond. His arraignment is set for Dec. 8 with a preliminary hearing scheduled Dec. 18. CHICAGO - Former Chicago Alderman Edward Vrdolyak pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges alleging he obstructed an IRS investigation into a secret deal he cut in the 1990s to pocket millions of dollars from the massive tobacco lawsuit settlement without doing any work. Dressed in a sharp gray suit, Vrdolyak, who turns 79 next month, shuffled slowly up to the lectern when the case was called before U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve. Vrdolyak, his gray hair thinning, kept his hands folded in front of him during the 10-minute hearing, answering, "Yes, your honor," when the judge asked him if he understood the charges and the conditions of his bond. At one point, when St. Eve held up a document and asked Vrdolyak if it was his signature at the bottom, the former alderman squinted and reached for his glasses. The two-count indictment charged Vrdolyak with obstructing the Internal Revenue Service and evading taxes. The more serious charge carries a maximum of five years in prison if convicted. Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu told the judge that prosecutors intended to turn over more than 150,000 pages of discovery in the coming weeks, including information about tax returns filed by Vrdolyak, his wife and his law firm, the Vrdolyak Law Group. Vrdolyak was freed on a $20,000 recognizance bond. After the hearing, Vrdolyak's lawyer, Michael Monico, said he intended to "vigorously" contest the charges. He said Vrdolyak had been holding hundreds of thousands of dollars in escrow while awaiting word from the IRS on what he owed but instead the government "for whatever reason, they still saw fit to indict." "It's disturbing, but Mr. Vrdolyak is a strong man and he's going to fight this," Monico told reporters in the lobby of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. He said it was very sad that "a man of his age is going to have to go through this." The indictment made public last week marked the second time in the past decade that Vrdolyak was alleged to use his insider status to cut a big money deal despite doing little or no work. Vrdolyak, who earned the nickname "Fast Eddie" for his ability to work the political angles to his own benefit, is accused this time of muscling in on one of the biggest bonanzas of them all - the record $9.2 billion settlement with the tobacco companies from the late 1990s. The charges alleged Vrdolyak worked out a secret deal with other attorneys to collect as much as $65 million even though he'd done no work on the tobacco case. The indictment did not make clear how much the former alderman actually pocketed. The $9.2 billion settlement in Illinois' suit sparked controversy after it was revealed that then-Attorney General Jim Ryan had negotiated a contingency arrangement promising 10 percent of the payout to four law firms that handled the litigation. That figure was dramatically reduced after years of court arbitration, but in the end, Ryan agreed to pay a total of $188.5 million to several law firms. One of those firms was Seattle-based Hagens Berman, which was headed by attorney Steve Berman. According to the indictment, Berman, identified only as Individual B, entered into a secret agreement in 1996 to pay Vrdolyak and another Chicago attorney, Daniel Soso, fees from the settlement and hide the payments from the attorney general and tobacco companies. The firm has denied any attempt to conceal payments, and Berman has not been charged with wrongdoing. Soso, a former Chicago police officer who once ran for alderman with Vrdolyak's backing, was originally charged alone in May 2015 with failing to pay about $780,000 in taxes related to the settlement money. Vrdolyak was added as a defendant to a superseding indictment filed earlier this month in Soso's case. According to the charges, in 2005, while investigating Soso for failure to pay income taxes, the IRS learned that he had been receiving large payments from Vrdolyak and failed to report the income, the charges alleged. The IRS then served Vrdolyak with a levy notice requiring him to pay the IRS instead of Soso because of all the back taxes owed. That November, Vrdolyak sent a fax to an IRS investigator claiming that he was no longer paying Soso and therefore he owed no money. The fax stated that if there were any payments made in the future he "intended to honor the 2005 levy served on him" and remit the funds to the IRS, according to the charges. But according to the indictment, money again began changing hands two years later, with Soso hiding funds paid to him by Berman and Vrdolyak in accounts used by his relatives and girlfriend. In 2011, Vrdolyak sent payments totaling $170,000 to Soso, including checks that a Vrdolyak relative wrote, the indictment alleged. Despite Vrdolyak's reputation for skirting criminal probes, the case marks the second time in less than a decade that the onetime political powerhouse faced criminal charges. In 2010, Vrdolyak was sentenced to 10 months in prison for his role in a $1.5 million real estate kickback scheme that had links to the federal probe that felled then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich. In that case, Vrdolyak pleaded guilty to helping rig a Gold Coast real estate deal so he could secretly split a $1.5 million finder's fee with corrupt insider Stuart Levine, a close friend who later wore a wire on Vrdolyak. In 2009, U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur spurned prosecution calls for prison and sentenced Vrdolyak to probation. But prosecutors appealed, and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later ordered that a different judge resentence Vrdolyak, calling Shadur's punishment a "slap on the wrist" that ignored Vrdolyak's status as one of Chicago's most influential insiders. The appeals court also held that Shadur gave too much weight to dozens of letters - including one from then-Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher - attesting to his acts of generosity. In October 2010, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly sentenced Vrdolyak to 10 months in prison as well as five months in a work-release center and an additional five months in home confinement. EAST MOLINE -- In the bright, airy dining hall of Hope Creek Care Center, a couple of dozen residents on Monday crafted wreaths out of paper plates festooned with leaves of gratitude. "In the middle, it says 'I am grateful for ...' and then you make the leaves here," explained Phyllis Rannals, 83. The leaves formed a circle. "Mike; that's my son-in-law," she said, pointing to a leaf bearing his name. "I'm thankful for my children, food, Hope Creek," she said. Ms. Rannals said the camaraderie of the Hope Creek staff and other residents is welcome, since she's used to big family get-togethers at holiday time. Her mother was one of 11 kids. Mrs. Rannals had 62 first cousins growing up in northwest Iowa. Most of them are still there, she said. The wreaths were one of the holiday-themed activities leading up to Thursday. But there always are activities and outings at the 245-bed facility owned by Rock Island County. "It's like a holiday every day here," said Kenneth Shuman, Hope Creek's director of activities and volunteer services. "We do a lot of stuff every single day. We have a lot of fun." Residents and staff work on crafts, quilts, pictures and decorations -- many sold at the annual Christmas Bazaar planned this year for 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 3 at the center, 4343 Kennedy Drive, East Moline. The fundraiser, which helps keep the residents' outings and activities going strong, also will include cinnamon rolls, coffee, lunch, raffles and prizes. "Everything we do, we try to remain as self-sufficient as we can," Mr. Shuman said. This week's activities are an occasion for thankfulness. Rita Sandoval, of Silvis, was articulate on that theme as she helped her husband, Joseph, with their gratitude wreath. Mr. Sandoval has been a Hope Creek resident since he was incapacitated by a stroke on Thanksgiving Day a year ago. Denny, one of the couple's children, also died last year. "Everything was crushing in on me," Ms. Sandoval said. "But God doesn't give you more than you can handle." Mr. Sandoval entered Hope Creek on a gurney. Now he can walk, with the help of a walker, and is determined to walk by himself by the end of the year. He lives in Hope Creek's secured memory wing; because of the stroke, he's a risk to wander. Activities at the center help his memory, Mrs. Sandoval said. "The staff is wonderful here," she said. "I couldn't ask for a better place to put my husband. "They take care of everybody so good here," Ms. Sandoval said. "Games like 'Wheel of Fortune' help his memory. It makes him more active, like you're not left out and everybody's involved. I'm here every day for him." They'll be married 60 years in February. They raised a family on Hero Street, where Mr. Sandoval's brother, William, is one of the heroes. "He was killed in the service," Mr. Sandoval said. Even in difficult times -- or maybe especially -- the couple believes there are thanks to be given. "I just tell God I thank Him for everything he's given us -- the years we've been married, my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren," Mrs. Sandoval said. "If it wasn't for my church (Grace Bible Fellowship) and my pastor (Donnie Plemons) ... " She paused. "I just have a lot to be thankful for," she said. "I still have faith I'm going to walk," her husband said. "I'll walk. I'll make it." Resident Evelyn York's wreath had the names of sisters, cousins, brothers and pets. "I'm thankful for giving, and taking -- and giving," she said with a smile. And that she can still sew, a lifelong activity. "Good weather," resident Ingrid Hodshire listed among her thanks, along with family and pets. She said she has family in East Moline, where her father is a retired police officer and her brother is a current one. "I'm grateful we have food and can get together," she said. MILAN -- Leaders in Milan, Moline, East Moline and Silvis are one step closer to consolidating their public safety answering points (PSAP) to a Milan location in order to meet state requirements. An intergovernmental agreement is now approved by the village of Milan to bring the PSAP to the third floor of the administrative building in Milan. Illinois law requires that the current five PSAPs in the area between Rock Island and East Moline be narrowed down to three. According to Mayor Duane Dawson, once everything is moved over, that will leave the Rock Island County Sheriff's Department, the city of Rock Island and the new combined center in Milan. The Rock Island Arsenal is not counted towards the state's requirements. Monday night's vote is just the beginning of figuring out the move. "I'm sure we'll have much more paperwork to take care of," Mr. Dawson said, adding that more specifics, such as a timeline, will come later. The consolidation efforts have been in the works for quite awhile. "We're going to be ready," Mr. Dawson said. "Milan will be a good central answering point and it's a great use for our building's third floor." Each municipality will pay rent, including the village of Milan, for access to the PSAP. The agreement also leads way to a feasibility study, paid for by all parties, to determine what is needed at the future PSAP. The board also: -- Approved the semi-monthly and miscellaneous bills totaling $59,723.38 -- Approved the annual police pension report and municipal compliance report. The police pension fund is down about $277,144 from the previous fiscal year, which village leaders say is due to a bad quarter in investments. -- Heard a resident concern regarding leaf burning. Currently, Milan has no ordinances regarding burning leaves, but resident Paul Lene is hoping the village will reconsider because it bothers his allergies and makes it difficult to breathe. NEW YORK (AP) Researchers say a severe birth defect caused by Zika infection may not be apparent at birth but develop months afterward, further confirmation that the virus can cause unseen damage to developing babies. The findings come from a study of 13 Brazilian babies whose heads all appeared normal at birth but then grew much more slowly than normal. Most people infected with Zika never develop symptoms, but infection during pregnancy can cause devastating birth defects, including microcephaly, in which a baby's skull is much smaller than expected because the brain hasn't developed properly. Microcephaly is diagnosed based on a measurement of the baby's head circumference. It can be done during pregnancy using ultrasound, or after the baby is born. Doctors then compare the measurement to standard sizes of other kids, based on gender and age. The study focused on 13 babies born in Brazil late last year and earlier this year. All had head heads that were a little small at birth, but within the normal range. Over the next five to 12 months, doctors noted their heads weren't growing at normal rates. Eleven were eventually diagnosed with microcephaly. Many of the children also developed other problems that have been linked to Zika, including epilepsy, problems swallowing, muscle weakness and inflexible joints. Dr. Peter Salama, chief of emergencies at the World Health Organization, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that understanding of the complications from Zika continues to evolve. "We are also learning lot every day," he said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the findings Tuesday. The authors were a team of researchers from Brazil and the United States. "This is certainly the first detailed description of these kinds of cases," said Dr. Ganeshwaran Mochida, a pediatric neurologist at Boston Children's Hospital. The study confirms that the absence of microcephaly at birth doesn't mean there are no abnormalities in the children of Zika-infected mothers, CDC officials said. The findings, while discouraging, are not a surprise to scientists. A study out of Brazil earlier this year suggested that one in five cases of microcephaly likely had head sizes in the normal range at birth. And microcephaly has also been diagnosed months after birth in cases caused by other germs. Still, it is likely to further worry potentially infected parents who may grow alarmed by signs that their newborn's head is a little small, said Dr. Thierry Huisman, a Johns Hopkins University professor of radiology who has studied Zika-affected children. The CDC now recommends monitoring babies born to Zika-infected women after birth, but the agency is looking at whether additional imaging should be recommended, said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden. Investigators are working to determine what proportion of Zika-infected women have babies with birth defects, and how the risk varies based on when during the pregnancy the infection occurred. Earlier research has suggested that 1 percent to 14 percent of Brazilian mothers infected in the first three months of pregnancy had babies with microcephaly and that the risk falls when infections happens later in the pregnancy. WHO's Salama called the risk "small but significant, but it's definitely a moving target as well." ___ Online: Go To The Polls And Pull The Lever We hope everyone turns out to pull the lever next Tuesday (Nov. 8). Actually, new voters wont know what we are talking about, as the... Letters To The Editor Street Closure Dangers Neighbors, Friends, Citizens of NYC/QUEENS: Many may not know that NYC has decided to close off miles of streets to cars in... "What we are really designing this for is the squeezed middle, the people on average incomes who get $800-$1000 worth of tax relief," said Luxon. 2 hours ago Evolution Rail will build 65 EMUs for use on the Cranbourne, Pakenham and Sunbury lines in Melbourne and maintain the fleet for 30 years at purpose-built depots in Pakenham East and Calder Park. The trains will be assembled at Downers facility in Newport, Victoria, which will undergo a $A 16m upgrade. CRRC will also establish a new regional headquarters in Melbourne. The first of the new trains, which will have 20% more capacity than existing EMUs, will be delivered for testing by November 2018, and will enter service on the Cranbourne-Pakenham Line from 2019, with all 65 trains available by 2026 when Melbournes metro tunnel opens. The project is being privately financed and Evolution Rails debt partners include Westpac, Bank of China, Bank of Communications, HSBC, ISBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, Mizuho Bank, and UOB. Equity financing will come from Plenary (30.1%), Downer (10%), CRRC (10%), and funds managed and advised by Partners Group (49.9%). Talgo submitted the strongest technical bid, which is worth 35 points from an overall score of 100, while Renfe says CAF provided the best economic offer, which is worth 65 points. Talgo, Alstom and Siemens submitted two offers each for differing train configurations, and each offer has been scored separately. Talgos offers scored 28.1 and 29.6 in the in the technical section of the bid, followed by Alstom (25.1 and 24.5), CAF (22.6), and Siemens (21.3 and 21.5). For the initial tranche of 15 320km/h trains, CAF submitted a bid of 321.3m and 549.6m for 30 years' mainteance. Talgo is offering a price of 337.1/337.5m (depending on the variant) with a 449m bid for the mainteance contract. CAF's train would seat 487 passengers, while both Talgo variants would seat 521. Talgo is pledging availability of 99.09% for both variants against 91.15% for the CAF train. At least 10 of the trains will be allocated to cross-border operation between France and Spain, and will therefore be equipped with three different electrification systems, and three different signalling systems (ETCS, TVM 430 and Asfa). This is Renfes second attempt to find a supplier for its next-generation high-speed train. In May an administrative court ruled against Renfe and ordered the company to restart the procurement process after suppressing a clause that required bidders to manufacture most of the components for the trains in Spain. DB will work with mobile providers Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica as well as two network technologies (3G and 4G) to enable WLAN hotspots on trains. However, when the service is poor, a new information portal, which is also available offline, ill provide news, and up-to-date travel and tourist information. DB aims to provide all of its passengers with permanent internet access, and has measured the mobile network coverage on 21,000km of its network. The minimum data rate of 10MB/s could be reached by Telekom customers on 54% of the network, while Vodafone provided coverage of 44% and Telefonica 33%. However, a combination of the three networks can cover 87% of the network, meaning passengers on a 1h 30min trip would be without reception for only 15 minutes. Further investment is essential for reliable provision of the system. DB is in talks with telecommunication companies about further expansion of the network. The phase-out of coal for electricity generation announced by Canadas greenish Liberal government Nov. 21 will have no impact on the countrys Class I railways. Thats because nearly all of CN and Canadian Pacific steam coal haulage originates and terminates within the U.S. CN and CPs coal haulage businesses are almost entirely driven by overseas demand for steel-making metallurgical coal. That market has improved substantially over the past few weeks after several years of slumping demand from China. Relatively little steam coal is mined or consumed in Canada, whose massive hydro-electric power stations built in the mid-20th century export their substantial surpluses to the U.S. Ontario, the countrys biggest power consumer, eliminated coal entirely several years ago. Steam coal consumption is now limited to the four coal-producing provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta and is generally mined in situ at power plant sites. Some 80% of the countrys electricity production derives from water power, nuclear reaction or wind. Just 11% comes from coal. For CN, coal carloads totaled 438,000 in 2015 but three-quarters of that originated and terminated in the U.S. President-elect Donald Trumps promise to free coal from environmental constraints is far more significant to Canadian railroads than is their own countrys phase-out to meet its Paris Accord commitments. Most of CNs domestic loadings are met coal for export with a small amount of thermal coal for export to the U.S. CNs total coal revenues in 2015 were C$612 million, representing a mere 3% of total freight business. Met coal accounted for 245,000 carloads and 22% of CPs bulk freight revenues in 201510% of total freight revenues. Our Canadian coal portfolio is comprised almost entirely of metallurgical coal shipments, with more than 28 million metric tonnes (MMT) transported in 2013equating to approximately 245,000 carloads and C$560 million of revenue, according to CPs current Investor Fact Book. The vast bulk of CP coal loadings originate at Teck Resources five high-mountain coal mines perched on the British Columbia side of the continental divide and destined for ocean terminals near Vancouver, B.C. CP relays a small quantity of Powder River Basin steam coal as interchange traffic for delivery to power plants in Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa. There is some intermittent traffic of PRB steam coal from CPs Sweetgrass, Mont., interchange with BNSF to Prince Rupert, B.C. for shipment to Asian power plants. None of that traffic will be affected by Canadas coal plant phase-out. Many Western officials worry that the strengthening of ties between Russia and Turkey signifies an increasing eastward drift in Turkish policy and a weakening of Turkey's ties to the West. The signing of a major new gas agreement with Russia during President Vladimir Putin's visit to Istanbul last month has reinforced these concerns and has raised a number of important questions. How serious and durable is the rapprochement? Does it represent a long-term restructuring of the security order on NATO's southern flank or simply a short-term attempt for both countries to gain greater diplomatic freedom to maneuver? The end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet threat had a profound impact on Turkish foreign policy and relations with Russia. Geostrategically, it removed the main rationale for the U.S.-Turkish security partnership and reduced Turkey's dependence on the United States for its security. At the same time, it opened up new diplomatic opportunities in areas that had been neglected or were off limits to Turkish policy during the Cold War. No longer a flank state, Turkey found itself at the crossroads of a new strategic landscape that included areas where it had strong historical, political and economic interests particularly the Middle East, Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Turkey sought to exploit the new flexibility and greater maneuvering room provided by the new, more open post-Cold War international environment to expand economic ties with its neighbors. This was part of a broader process of adapting Turkish foreign policy to the new strategic challenges posed by the end of the Cold War. In the last two decades this process has gained considerable momentum, especially in the economic field. Today Russia is Turkey's number one trading partner and its largest supplier of natural gas. Industrial projects in Russia account for about a fourth of all projects carried out by Turkish construction contractors around the world. Russian investment in Turkey, especially in the energy, tourism and telecommunications sectors, has also increased significantly in recent years. Political ties have gradually improved as well. In December 2004, President Putin became the first Russian head of state to visit Turkey in 32 years. The visit was crowned by a joint declaration on the Deepening Friendship and Multi-Dimensional Partnership between the two countries, which set out an agenda for future cooperation in a number of cultural, economic and political areas. Since then, high-level political and economic contacts have visibly increased. At the same time, Turkey's relations with the United States and Europe have become more strained and difficult. Sharp differences over Iraq and the Kurdish issue have been compounded by differences over Iran and most recently Syria. These growing strains with Washington and the stagnation of Turkey's relations with the EU gave important new impetus to the opening to Moscow.... The remainder of this commentary is available on nationalinterest.org. F. Stephen Larrabee is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation, its Distinguished Chair Emeritus in European Security, and a member of the Pardee RAND Graduate School faculty. This commentary originally appeared on The National Interest on November 21, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis. Mexicos Intituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (IFT) has set the deadline for the final analogue TV stations to cease broadcasting. Although most users have had DTT at home for almost a year, the smallest local TV stations were given extra time to complete the digital switchover. According to the IFT , 460 stations are still working under the analogue system. By 15 December, 303 stations will stop broadcasting, while the rest will do so on 31 December.The stations involved are required to tell affected viewers about the analogue switch-off as some TVs and set-top boxes will need to be adjusted in order to get local digital signals.Through this move, the Mexico will become the first Latin American country to have a 100% digital TV system.However, this is the official figure. External reports have indicated that a large portion of the population have been without DTT and, therefore, free-to-air (FTA) TV, for almost a year. The less optimistic reports show that over 22% Mexicans are not getting FTA TV at home. U.S. court denies new trial for Victor Bout MOSCOW, November 21 (RAPSI) The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a ruling of a lower court, denying to hold a new trial for Victor Bout, a Russian national who is serving a 25-year sentence for conspiring to kill Americans, according to court records obtained by RAPSI. In June 2015, Bout filed a petition for a new trial in his case in light of newly discovered evidence. In October, a U.S. court denied the petition to review the case against Bout. This evidence was supposed to prove that Bout could not conspire with the UK national Andrew Smulian, who was allegedly recruited by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Moreover, according to defense, the evidence also suggests that Smulian perjured against Bout. Additionally, credibility of testimony given by of the DEA employees raised some questions during preparation for trial. The Court of Appeals dismissed arguments of defense, refusing to acknowledge provided information as newly discovered evidence and denied to return the case for a new trial. Bout was arrested in Bangkok in March 2008 and taken to the United States. In November 2011, he was convicted of conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, including military officers and employees, and of selling millions of dollars worth of weapons, including hundreds of portable surface-to-air missiles and over 20,000 AK-47s, to the Colombian rebel group FARC. Bout has consistently denied the charges. Russia attempted to have him extradited from the U.S. under the 1983 Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, but without success. Bout is currently serving time in the Marion federal prison in Illinois. Moscow court set to hear Google lawsuit against antimonopoly watchdog MOSCOW, November 22 (RAPSI) The Moscow Commercial Court will hold on December 6 a preliminary hearing on a suit brought by Google Inc. against Russias Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) over a 500,000 rubles ($8,000) fine, according to court records. On November 2, FAS held Google Inc. and Google Ireland Limited liable for their failure to comply with the regulators order and fined the companies 500,000 rubles (about $8,000) each. Date of hearings in Google Ireland Limiteds lawsuit against FAS has not been set yet. Yet in September, Igor Artemyev, the Head of FAS, stated that the agency was ready to fine Google every two weeks if the company failed to comply with the antimonopoly watchdogs orders. In case we see the process is dragged out, we will meet every two weeks to impose new fines on them for failing to comply with the order, he said. It will continue until the final victory [is achieved - ed.] and final court judgement [is passed - ed.], according to Artemyev. The deadline for Google to comply with the FAS order requiring the company to remedy the violation by refraining from installation of its products on mobile devices and allowing installation of applications developed by third parties expired on August 29. FAS has dismissed Googles petition to extend this term. On August 17, the Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals dismissed an appeal filed by Google against a ruling that the U.S. company had broken Russian anti-monopoly legislation by abusing its dominance on the Russian market of mobile applications. In early August, FAS announced that it had fined Google 438 million rubles ($6.7 million) for violating administrative legislation. On September 18, 2015, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) found Google guilty of violating the legislation. On March 15, 2016, the Moscow Commercial Court dismissed Googles petition requesting to abolish the FAS decision and order issued in September 2015, which stated that the company had violated the Federal Law on Protection of Competition and accused it of abuse of dominance on the market of preinstalled applications in the Android operating system. Mayor Koshurnikov implicated in Rusnano embezzlement case appeals detention Context Police raid Moscow office of Rusnano corporation MOSCOW, November 22 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) Denis Koshurnikov, mayor of Pereslavl-Zalessky, implicated in a criminal case opened on charges of embezzlement of more than 1 billion rubles ($15.5 million) from state-owned technology corporation Rusnano has appealed his detention, RAPSI learnt in Moscow's Basmanny District Court on Tuesday. Koshurnikov, who was elected mayor in July 2012, is suspected of abuse of office. According to case papers, Rusnano invested over 1 billion rubles in the construction of NTpharma pharmaceutical complex in Pereslavl-Zalessky, 150 kilometers (85 miles) northeast of Moscow, since 2010. The object had to be completed in September 2012, but the project company repeatedly rescheduled the facility commissioning. Investigators along with the Interior Ministry and Russias Federal Security Service found that construction works at the object had not been conducted for years. However, funds received by NTpharma from Rusnano have been embezzled. Therefore, the facility has not been put into service yet. Investigators believe that in 2011 two NTpharma top managers, Yevgeny Sultanov and Rustam Ataullakhanov, purchased a land plot from a firm belonging to Koshurnikov to give the appearance of handling of work on the project realization. As the acquired plot is located within the national park Pleshcheevo, permit issuing for the construction was inadmissible. However, Koshurnikov, then head of Pereslavl region, gave such permit. Sultanov and Ataullakhanov have been arrested on suspicion of embezzling funds allocated by Rusnano for the pharmaceutical complex construction. On November 18, Sultanov was placed under house arrest; Ataullakhanov was put in detention as well as Koshurnikov. Alleged organizer of 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis admits guilt in part MOSCOW, November 22 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) Khasan Zakayev, an alleged mastermind of the hostage taking at the Dubrovka theater in southeast Moscow in 2002 that left 130 dead, partially admitted guilt, RAPSI learned in the Moscow Military District Court on Tuesday. Zakayev partially admitted his guilt in relation to transfer of weapons in 2001 and 2002, RAPSI correspondent was told by the courts representative. Earlier, the hearing was adjourned in order to respect the rights of victims. There about 900 injured persons in the case living in different regions; not all of them have been summoned, according to a judge. The Moscow District Military Court began hearing the case on November 2. Only about 55 victims attended the court. A prosecutor said that 68 victims have not been notified. Investigators claim that Zakayev was a member of a criminal gang headed by Chechen separatist leader Shamil Basayev and assisted in organizing the terrorist attack and taking of hostages at the theater. In 2002, he allegedly organized transportation of weapon and homemade explosive devices to Moscow for terrorists. A group of terrorists led by Movsar Barayev took hostage the audience and participants of the Nord-Ost musical on October 23, 2002. 40 attackers were killed. Zakayev is the only one who was arrested, victims lawyer Igor Trunov said earlier. The majority of hostages were released in an operation planned by Russian security services. Shamil Basayev who was reportedly killed in 2006 and Gerikhan Dudayev who is still at large are among the organizers of the attack, according to investigators. Russian Supreme Court upholds ruling in Kalashnikov trademark case MOSCOW, November 22 (RAPSI) The Supreme Court of Russia has upheld lower courts rulings in favor of the firearms maker Kalashnikov Concern in the trademark dispute with M. T. Kalashnikov, a firm established by the designer of the AK-47 assault rifle, according to court records. The court held that arguments specified in M. T. Kalashnikov firms appeal do not prove material breach of substantive and procedural law and cannot be cause for review of the judicial acts under cassational procedure. Thus, the firms appeal was dismissed. The claim was filed by the Concern in June 2014. The plaintiff requested termination of legal protection of Kalashnikov trademark due to the brand not being used by the right holder. Kalashnikov Concern is interested in obtaining the rights because it produces full-scale models of weapons, including the AK-47. The disputed trademark was registered by M.T. Kalashnikov in 2004, and its legal protection was extended in late 2012 through 2022, according to Rospatent patent agency. The trademark is applicable to a list of goods including clothes, headwear, toys, gaming machines and table games. The ruling in favor of M.T. Kalashnikov was handed down on December 23, 2014. The court ruled that there was no reason to terminate the legal protection of the trademark. However, the Presidium of the Intellectual Property Court in May 2015 granted a motion for reconsideration. In April 2016, the Intellectual Property Court reconsidered the case and ruled in favor of the Concern. In July, the decision was upheld by the IP Courts Presidium. M. T. Kalashnikov turned to the Russian Supreme Court. M.T. Kalashnikov was established in 1999 by Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the famous rifle, his daughter and grandson, according to BIR-Analitik database. Mikhail Kalashnikov was 94 when he died on December 23, 2013. Kalashnikov Concern is an association of the largest companies in the Russian small arms industry. It was established in 2013 and includes Izhmash, the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant, the Vyatskie Polyany Machine Building Plant Molot, the Koshkin Automatic Lines Design Bureau (Klimovsk) and NITI Progress. The group exports its products to 27 countries including the United States, the UK, Germany, Norway, Italy, Canada, Kazakhstan and Thailand. Admin of social network group charged with pushing teens to suicide MOSCOW, November 22 (RAPSI) Philipp Budeykin, aka Philipp Fox, an administrator of a closed group on social network Vkontakte, was charged with inciting teenagers to commit suicide, Russias Investigative Committee said in a statement Tuesday. Budeykin refused to testify, according to the statement. A criminal case was opened in May after several Russian media outlets reported about so-called Groups of Death, numerous groups where young people were encouraged to kill themselves. Investigators claim that from December 2013 to May 2016 eight Groups of Death were registered on Vkontakte network. Fifteen teenagers from various regions of Russia were members of these groups and committed suicide. Searches were conducted in ten regions of Russia. About ten people testified in the case against Budeykin who was arrested on November 15. He remains in detention since his arrest. Putin ratifies agreement with China on measures against terrorism MOSCOW, November 22 (RAPSI) Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a federal law On ratification of Agreement between Russian Federation and Peoples Republic of China on cooperation in fighting terrorism, separatism and extremism, the presidents press-service announced on Tuesday. The legislation was adopted by the State Duma on November 11 and by the Federation Council on November 16. This law ratifies agreement between Russia and China, which was signed on September 27, 2010. In particular, the agreement introduces exchange of information regarding prevention and fighting terrorism, separatism and extremism, holding regular meetings and consultations, cooperation in border regions of two countries as well as a number of other measures. The presence of Bernie Sanders in television commercials this fall in support of a California ballot initiative on drug pricing demonstrates the ongoing appeal the Vermont senator has for the Golden States many liberal voters, despite his ill-fated presidential campaign. It would be hard to imagine two states more different than Vermont and California, but, politically speaking, invoking Sanders support for initiatives in Americas most progressive income tax state makes a lot of sense. However, in the wake of Californias successful campaign to extend the countrys highest taxes on the wealthy, new studies are warning that the next recession will have a serious impact on the states finances. The recent passage of Proposition 55 over the protests of even the states most liberal editorial boards will extend Americas top income-tax rate which was originally promoted in 2012 as temporary of 13.3 percent on incomes over $1 million through the year 2030. But that doesnt tell the whole story. The states next three top rates going down to 10.3 percent on Californians making over $263,000 are the highest in the United States. In 1995, California raised 36 percent of its income-tax revenues from the top 1 percent; in 2014, 48 percent of income-tax revenues came from this same group. But theres trouble in brewing in Sanders tax paradise. As the Los Angeles Times pointed out in an editorial against Prop 55: A tax structure that depends too heavily on a small group of people, however wealthy they may be, also presents an insidious social and political problem. One of the worst effects of a tax system that depends on the 1 percent to raise a significant portion of revenues is volatility. Even before the last major tax increases, the fluctuations in Californias income-tax revenue looked like the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Fifteen to 30 percent rises and dips from year to year have been a regular occurrence since 2000. A larger driver of the volatility is another Bernie-nomics staple: capital gains taxes. The golden state taxes those nefarious earnings from Wall Street and land sales the same as it does income, adding grease to the tracks of the states revenue train whenever theres a downturn. Analysts of Californias plight are beginning to notice. In the governors May budget revision, the states own Department of Finance modeled the prospect of a recession of average magnitude in 2017. Such an event would result in a $55 billion drop in state revenue over three years thats billion with a b out of a total state general fund that reached $122 billion this past year. In other words, they predict a 15 percent drop in revenues each year until the next presidential election. In April, Moodys gave a fiscal stress test to the countrys four most populous states to help determine each states ability to withstand a recession in the next two years. California finished fourth due to its revenue volatility, weak financial flexibility, and lower reserve levels. These factors contribute to Californias bond rating the lowest in the country. The states financial officers are not unaware of these impending storm clouds. In June, State Controller Betty Yee, a Democrat, issued a report running over 80 pages, Comprehensive Tax Reform in California: A Contextual Framework, that reviews the myriad proposals offered over the years meant to bring stability to the states revenues. In an interview about the document, Ms. Yee began by saying, I wanted to give the public a lot to chew on, and concludes, what Im trying to do is have this conversation before the whole thing collapses. While the Controllers report is comprehensive, the options have been well known for years. All have been discussed at one point or another from extending sales tax to services and moving from current corporate taxes to a Net Receipts Tax, to nearing Californias third rail: property taxes. None addresses the volatility question without looking at the progressive income-tax structure. Is such a step be possible in deep blue California, populated as it is with so many Bernie Bros? An encouraging prospect can be seen in the bluer state to our west: Hawaii. There in a primary race won by Sanders with almost 70 percent of the vote state legislators actually held to their promise of making a recent income-tax increase temporary, dropping their three top marginal rates and reducing the highest from 11 percent to 8.25 percent. In refreshing words from the office of Hawaiis Democratic Governor David Ige, the governor is committed to working within the states means, examining ways to become more efficient as a way to increase revenues as opposed to raising taxes. In other words, Aloha, Bernie-nomics. Pete Peterson is dean of Pepperdines School of Public Policy. In the wake of a uniquely unpredictable U.S. election, international relations scholars are now trying to predict how a Donald Trump administration will affect American foreign policy. The president-elects repeated criticism of Chinese trade policy during the campaign has brought even more attention to the crucial U.S.-China relationship. Regardless of the president, a fragile Chinese economy is entering a tense phase, and Trump's election suggests that American domestic economics are likely to further raise the stakes. Until recently China had been alarmed at the possible passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which could put them at a trading disadvantage compared to member states. Trump -- who pledged to abandon TPP during his campaign -- has no doubt eased more than a few minds in Chinese policymaking circles. Unfortunately, the real estate moguls willingness to abandon the TPP reflects lower support in the United States for free trade, which is just as bad for China. China's economy is still heavily reliant upon exports, especially exports to the United States. Diminished returns from free trade will put increased pressure on China's already weakened economy, and the likelihood of civil unrest in the country will increase. China is a large economy, mostly by virtue of its population. GDP per capita remains just below $8,000, and that GDP is not equally distributed, meaning the common Chinese has little wiggle room before economic contraction becomes catastrophic. Put simply, China can ill afford to reduce exports. Trump's victory reflects dissatisfaction with globalization in the United States. Such dissatisfaction has manifested itself around the world, and consequently was likely to find home in America eventually. While on balance free trade has been good for the United States, not everyone has benefited equally. Additionally, globalization has imposed unwelcome changes to domestic social structures. Support from free trade skeptics has freed the president-elect from some constraints to renegotiate free-trade agreements, and puts pressure on him to do just that. China is thus faced with a "Hobson's choice." If Beijing attempts to accommodate American demands, it risks domestic unrest as its economy contracts. If China refuses to accommodate changes, then it risks a punitive American response, potentially producing a trade war it cannot afford. China cannot even threaten to cut off production access in the long term, as Washington could simply return to the TPP to fill that need. The United States, for its part, is similarly positioned. Domestic pressure demands adjustment of the Sino-American trade relationship, but any attempts to put direct pressure on China risk blowing up that relationship, destabilizing China and imposing significant costs on the American consumer. Importantly, no change in global trade is guaranteed to return American manufacturing jobs, either. The status of the Chinese and U.S. domestic political economies imperils the Sino-American relationship. China cannot accept significant revision in the trade relationship with the United States. The incoming U.S. administration is unlikely to maintain the status quo. As such, these two countries seem to be inexorably on a collision course, with possibly disastrous consequences. This bleak outlook may be an unavoidable facet of institutional and economic change in the international system. The United States deliberately established the liberal international trade regime because it believed trade was unambiguously beneficial. China joined that regime hoping global trade would bring prosperity without domestic political reform, thereby avoiding the Soviet Union's fate. Both countries got what they wanted out of trade, but trade also changed both countries, creating the dilemma we see now. While conflict may be unavoidable, disaster is not. Each country must remain mindful of the pressures the other experiences and negotiate in good faith. If Washington and Beijing can work to resolve this conflict in the least destructive way possible, it will set a precedent for future cooperation under conflict, even when stakes are high. If, on the other hand, China and America are unable to work together to solve this conflict, it bodes ill for future prospects in Asia and the world. Donald Trump has made himself out to be the master of "the deal" in the business world, but this will be a deal unlike -- and more important than -- any he has negotiated before. On Sunday night, as the returns were being counted in the first round of the French presidential primary for the conservative Les Republicains party, the nations political landscape shuddered not once but twice. Taking by surprise commentators and pollsters, former Prime Minister Francois Fillon came in first with 44 percent of the vote, outdistancing the favorite, former Prime Minister Alain Juppe. But -- and here the earth shifted a second time -- he also doubled the score of his onetime boss, former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who finished a distant third. Overnight, Nicolas Sarkozy -- who for better and worse had dominated the French political scene for nearly two decades -- became history, while the man he condescendingly referred to as his collaborator became Frances future. During the five years he served as prime minister, Fillon was widely seen as the brake to the bling-blinging of his boss. Stolid, steady, and sturdy, Fillon offered a soothing contrast to the sharp elbows and jutting jaws that marked Sarkozys confrontational approach to politics. Either unable or unwilling to turn politics into performance, governance into spectacle, Fillon at times was dismissed as Mister Nobody. But, of course, only a Mister Somebody can win, as did Fillon, nearly half of the four million votes cast in the conservative primary. (Intriguingly, about 15 percent of those who voted in the open primary situate themselves on the political left.) Moreover, he is a somebody who in less contentious and more constant fashion embraces many of the policies on which Sarkozy had campaigned. The chance to have someone with Sarkozys values, without having to deal with Sarkozy himself in the Elysee, proved irresistible. As the political commentator Jeremy Collado remarked: Francois Fillon was the alternative for those who wanted to avoid Nicolas Sarkozy, all the while remaining firmly on the right. The differences run deeper. Not only cynics saw Sarkozy as an opportunist, ready to use ideas and ideals as a means, not an end. On the other hand, Fillon has always been, for better or worse, a true believer. Belief, in fact, has always informed his life. Born in the Vendee, the region whose Catholic population fiercely opposed the secular mission of the Revolution, Fillon is a devout Catholic. When French politics was overtaken in 2012 by the debate over the legalization of gay marriage, Fillon never hid his opposition. In his campaign book, Faire (To Make), he devoted an entire chapter to his Christian faith and Catholic practice. While he concedes that the gay marriage law must be respected, he insists still on reining in what he calls its excesses -- namely, giving homosexual couples the right to adopt children. Not surprisingly, Fillon won the support of Sens Commun, or "Common Sense," an influential Catholic organization closely aligned with the Manif pour Tous (Demonstration for All -- a pun on the gay marriage movement, Mariage pour Tous) movement that had led the massive protests against the gay marriage law. Along with Fillons stance on gay marriage, his remarks on Islam have also galvanized conservative Catholics. While avoiding Sarkozys inflammatory language, Fillon has nevertheless spoken bluntly about what he considers to be the unique challenge posed by Islam. There is, he declared, a concrete problem with radical Islam. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, and Sikhs do not threaten our national unity. Perhaps because he assumes it is understood by one and all, Fillon neglected to add that the vast majority of French Muslims do not threaten Frances unity, either. Given the prohibition to ask voters their religious orientation, French pollsters can only speculate over the size of Fillons Catholic vote. Tellingly, though, areas with a high concentration of practicing Catholics voted in their majority for Fillon. For example, Fillon won 52 percent of the vote in the city of Angers, neighboring the Vendee. As a thirtysomething project manager observed: For a long time, Ive mostly voted by default. With Fillon, though, I am voting for my own Christian values. Along with the dogma of the church, Fillon holds to the dogma of the free market. Both critics and colleagues have compared him to Margaret Thatcher in his goal of reducing the size of the state bureaucracy and freeing employers from the constraints placed on them by socialist governments. He intends to bury the 35-hour workweek -- replacing it with the 39-hour week to which employers can add nine hours of overtime -- as well as loosen the laws that govern the hiring and firing of employees. In addition, he vows the elimination, between 2017 and 2022, of 500,000 positions from the state bureaucracy -- a campaign promise that eclipsed even Sarkozys goal of 350,000 eliminated positions. Quite simply, as the centrist magazine LExpress noted, Fillon promises blood and tears. It remains to be seen whether blood and tears will be on the Elysees menu come 2017. If Fillon defeats the more centrist and flexible Juppe in this Sundays second round, he will almost certainly face Marine Le Pen, the leader of the extreme rightwing National Front in the second round of next years presidential election. While their conceptions of France differ in fundamental respects, the combined weight of Fillon and Le Pen will shift the next five years of French politics considerably to the right. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate Blac Chyna says she didn't have weight loss surgery following her daughter's birth this month. ADVERTISEMENT The 28-year-old model explained her slimmed-down figure Sunday on Snapchat after sharing a post-baby video nine days after welcoming daughter Dream with Rob Kardashian "Okay, so I posted a picture of my belly yesterday and the only reason it got that flat, you guys, is from breastfeeding and breast pumping and my body already being small before my pregnancy," Blac Chyna said. "And for everybody that... yeah, sorry, try again," she added in a post with the caption "Not surgery guys." "Don't get me confused or whatever. I'm not saying I lost all my baby weight, which I have not. I still have, like, 40 pounds to go," the "Rob & Chyna" star revealed. "I did have a C-section so I cannot really lift anything or work out, so I have to wait until my six weeks is up and then I can do so." Blac Chyna had showed off her flat post-baby stomach on Instagram the day previous, writing, "9 days postpartum with my 2nd child." Some moms request to have a tummy tuck directly after their C-section, and many suggested the star had done so. "Tummy tuck!!! Setting a horrible example of unachievable results for the average woman," one person wrote. FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON THE ALL-NEW GOOGLE NEWS! Reality TV World is now available on the all-new Google News app and website. Click here to visit our Google News page, and then click FOLLOW to add us as a news source! , We're sorry, this article is not currently available Posted by Jay on at 11:01 AM CST Marvel has sent out solicitations for their February 2017 titles, including 4comics and 2 TPB's!(of 5)Cullen Bunn (W) Luke Ross (A)Cover By Rod ReisSKETCH VARIANT COVER BY Rod ReisVariant Cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUEVariant Cover by Mark BrooksACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHERStar Wars 40th Anniversary Variant Cover by Terry DodsonANIMATION VARIANT COVER ALSO AVAILABLEMOVIE VARIANT COVER ALSO AVAILABLEBred on hate, fear, and anger steeped in the ways of darkness and trained to kill. Darth Mauls time as apprentice to Darth Sidious has long been cloaked in shadows, but at last we will reveal his tale of revenge. From writer Cullen Bunn (DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE, WOLVERINE) and artist Luke Ross (STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, HERCULES) comes a tale of rage unleashed as Darth Maul prepares for his first encounter with the Jedi.32 PGS./T $4.99JASON AARON (W) SALVADOR LARROCA (A)Cover by STUART IMMONENACTION FIGURE VARIANT BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHERStar Wars 40th Anniversary Variant Cover by Meghan Hetrick Master Yoda finds himself overpowered and captured! Imprisoned within the caves, the master must become a student once more. Plus Ben and Luke feel the ripples of the Jedi Masters tale!32 PGS./Rated T $3.99KIERON GILLEN (W) KEV WALKER (A)Cover by Kamome ShirahamaStar Wars 40th Anniversary Variant Cover by Pepe Larraz Aphras father has led her straight into danger of course. Her business on Yavin 4 concluded, Aphra journeys off in search of one of the most powerful weapons imaginable!32 PGS./Rated T $3.99CHARLES SOULE (W) PHIL NOTO (A/C)Variant Cover by REILLY BROWNStar Wars 40th Anniversary Variant Cover by MICHAEL WALSH Things are heating up for Poe Dameron and super-spymaster C-3PO! The First Order is on their tail and Terexs evil cronies as well. Not to mention Whos feeding information to the First Order in the first place?32 PGS./Rated T $3.99Written by JOHN JACKSON MILLERPenciled by BONG DAZO, DUSTIN WEAVER, SCOTT HEPBURN, ALAN ROBINSON & BRIAN CHINGCover by TRAVIS CHARESTDaze of hate, knights of suffering! Fugitive Zayne Carrick joins forces with the Jedi Masters who killed his fellow Padawan in a bid to save the galaxy from the Mandalorians! But will the megalomaniac Lord Adasca outmaneuver them all? Then, in a story that reverberates across every era of Star Wars, the clandestine Jedi Covenant is rocked by a terrifying vision of the far future and one of its Shadows, Celeste Morne, faces the monstrous task of recovering an ancient Sith artifact! But will Zayne Carrick achieve vindication at last, clear his name and end his days as a renegade? Plus: the ultimate guide to the state of the galaxy 4,000 years before the rise of the Empire! Collecting STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC #19-37 and STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC HANDBOOK.480 PGS./Rated T $39.99ISBN: 978-1-302-90377-0Written by KIERON GILLEN, JASON AARON & CHRIS ELIOPOULOSPenciled by ANGEL UNZUETA, LEINIL FRANCIS YU, MIKE MAYHEW, JORGE MOLINA & CHRIS ELIOPOULOSCovers by DAVID AJA, TERRY DODSONThe adventures of Luke Skywalker and friends continue! The rebel crew is en route to a prison base with an important captive. Unluckily for them, they arent the only ones with their eyes on this prize! Then, take a walk on the Dark Side with Sgt. Kreel and an elite group of Imperial soldiers aboard the Star Destroyer Harbinger! Its a nigh-indestructible weapon of war and its also the target of the rebels new top-secret plan. Never afraid of defying the odds, Luke, Han and Leia are determined to make this the Harbinges last flight. But Kreel and his SCAR Squad specialize in taking down rebels hard! Plus: more entries from the journals of Obi-Wan Kenobi, including a showdown with the Wookiee bounty hunter Black Krrsantan! Collecting STAR WARS (2015) #15-25 and ANNUAL #1.280 PGS./Rated T $34.99ISBN: 978-1-302-90374-9Trim size: oversizedSTAR WARS VOL. 2 HC DODSON COVER (DM ONLY)280 PGS./Rated T $34.99ISBN: 978-1-302-90721-1Trim size: oversized In the age of the internet, social justice causes gain traction quickly, but after a few cool videos or interesting articles and a flurry of viral activity, they usually step out of the spotlight. Voter guide: Race previews, what to know before you vote news SHARE Murder victim Terri Lynn Ray loved riding horses, as shown in this Record Searchlight file photo. Terri Lynn Ray By Record Searchlight Staff Redding police announced today that an investigation into the 1976 murder of a 15-year-old Anderson High School girl has been reopened. The body of Terri Lynn Ray was found on July 7, 1976, near the Clear Creek Bridge on Highway 273. She had been stabbed 15 times. Many of the wounds were on her arms, as if she'd tried to block the blade as her attacker slashed at her again and again. An autopsy found no signs of sexual assault. Although police said investigators aggressively worked the case, the number of leads declined over time and the case went cold. Now 37 years later, police said they have developed new leads and have reopened the case. Investigators say they are hopeful that these new leads, coupled with advances in DNA technology, will help identify the suspect. Several items of evidence were submitted to the California Department of Justice DNA lab for analysis. Police are also asking for the public's assistance in solving the crime A reward of up to $5,000 is being offered by Shasta County Secret Witness for information leading to the arrest of the suspect in this case. Those with any information about the murder of the teen are asked to call police at 225-4214 or Shasta County Secret Witness at 243-2319. On Aug. 30, 1976, an 18-year-old girl was arrested in the case after she confessed to the crime under hypnosis. The teen, who was a minor at the time of the 15-year-old girl's death, was kept in custody at the Shasta County Jail for more than a month. But she was freed when investigators determined she had a credible alibi. Her false confession was used nationally as example that helped invalidate the use of hypnosis as a police tool. A 17-year-old boy was also taken into custody less than a week after Terri's murder, but he was quickly released. 'There has to be an 18-month transition.' 'But if the government had some prior knowledge that the high value notes were being used for an imminent terrorist activity in the country, then we have to accept the step.' Anil Bokil explains the math behind his idea to Anup Roy. On November 8, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi stunned the nation by stating that the existing Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes will no longer enjoy the legal tender status, members of a small advocacy group Artha Kranti Pratisthan in Pune rejoiced. The nation seems to be heading towards the path the group's founder Anil Bokil has been pushing for more than 16 years. Bokil and his team, most of whom left well-established careers to be part of the movement to 'eradicate black money' in the Indian economy, met all senior politicians, policymakers, central bank officials, bank officials, religious leaders from all faith, and anyone who cared to give them time -- not to mention holding public awareness campaigns through the length and breadth of the nation, to push for their radical ideas. In subsequent interviews with the media, the group claimed credit for the banning of high value note, as they had met the prime minister several times, most recently in February 2016, pitching for their idea of steps that should be taken for 'India's economic rejuvenation.' The rejuvenation plan is so simple and radical that it can be passed on as utopian. Yet, members of Artha Kranti are passionate about their economic philosophy and have dedicated their lives to further the cause. Not only that, the group members say the plan has convinced senior BJP leaders like Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. The group advocates abolishment of all taxes, scrapping high value notes, setting an upper cap for cash transactions and forcing everyone to transact through the banking system, and pay a transaction tax. Surely the economic philosophy has influential backers. For example, Artha Kranti's 'Model Finance Bill' has been drafted by B R Atre, former joint secretary and legislative counsel, ministry of law, justice and company affairs. Professor Hrishikesh Vinod, director of the Institute for Ethics and Economic Policy at Fordham University, New York, in his book Handbook of Hindu Economics and Business, has dedicated one full chapter to Artha Kranti. Time has thrown the spotlight on 55-year-old Anil Bokil and his activities -- the engineer turned philanthropist, and self-proclaimed economist -- and the media from all over the world are scrambling to get a slice of him. Business Standard travelled to Pune on the same allure. Bokil, tall and slightly gaunt, chatted at a tea shop and then at his one BHK rented apartment, which also doubles up as Artha Kranti's office. Bokil says his idea is based on Kautilya, the famed Mauryan era economist and policymaker. "According to Kautilya, tax collected should be like a honeybee collecting nectar from a flower. You should not harm the flower at any cost. Instead, you exchange and pollinate," said Bokil, sipping his cutting chai. As he went on explaining his ideas about economics, visitors dropped by to say hello. One young person waited patiently for the interaction to be over to take a selfie with Bokil. "Most of these young guys didn't even know my name a few days back," Bokil chuckled as we talked more about his views on scrapping of high value notes and the ensuing hardship witnessed by people. There is chaos outside banks and ATMs, some people have died standing in the queue, and cash-driven economic activities have come to a near halt. "This is temporary. But let me say we are not responsible for all these. Artha Kranti never suggested overnight banning of high value notes," Bokil said. "There has to be an 18-month transition. But yes, if the government had some prior knowledge that the high value notes were being used for an imminent terrorist activity in the country, then we have to accept the step. I am saying accept, not that this is what we preferred," he said. "As per Artha Kranti, if you have to ban a particular value, you have to print the exact replacement in the next smaller value denomination. The transition should be smooth, without giving trouble to anyone." Bokil explained his idea of an ideal transition: First, abolish the existing taxation system, except for customs or import duties, completely. All the transactions above Rs 2,000 should be routed through the banking channel that would attract a bank transaction tax (BTT), say of two per cent, deducted at source. The central government, state governments and the local bodies get a share of this tax, which the banks transfer after deducting their fee. Cash transactions, meanwhile, would not attract any tax. Second, withdraw high value currencies in phases so that the highest denomination available is Rs 50. In the final phase, all cash transactions above Rs 2,000 or so should be restricted. Above this limit, there would be no legal protection. Bokil further explains the math behind his idea: As per the 2015-2016 Budgetary Estimates, the combined tax revenue of the central and all the state governments was about Rs 20 lakh crore, plus Rs 1 lakh crore more for the local bodies like municipal corporations. However, as per the Reserve Bank of India estimates, the average monthly bank transaction volume is Rs 120 lakh crore. Therefore, the same level of tax revenue can be generated through putting a BTT of only 1 per cent. If it was so simple, why didn't others think about it? Bokil has an equally simple explanation: "Our society has become so complex that it cannot take simple thoughts anymore. We are happy going against gravity, but not falling towards gravity. You don't need a big key to open a big lock." While Bokil's math sounds simple, it leaves out critical factors. For example, a large chunk of the RBI number could be because of the interbank currency market transactions. The interbank transactions are done at such a wafer thin margin that tax is levied on the profit and not the volume. And then there is also the question of the same value getting taxed again and again down the value chain. Bokil insisted that the tax would be paid by the receiver only when the money is credited in his account and therefore the question of multiple taxation is irrelevant. There could be valid criticism against the scheme, but the Artha Kranti team is happy that Prime Minister Modi met them several times and each meeting far exceeded the time allotted. In September 2013, Modi gave the Artha Kranti team a 9 minute window, but the meeting went on over 90 minutes. Modi met Bokil and his team two more times, and for hours. Interestingly, Modi is not the only one who showed interest in their ideas. Pratibha Patil, when she was governor of Rajasthan, wrote in March 2007 to then Speaker of the Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee to give Bokil an opportunity to present his line of economic thoughts before the Members of Parliament. Nitin Gadkari, as Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, wrote in October 2002 to Sudheendra Kulkarni, advisor to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to give 'serious attention' to Bokil's transaction tax concept. Andhra Pradesh's Chandrababu Naidu even incorporated some of Artha Kranti's suggestions in his election manifesto, Bokil claimed. He met Rahul Gandhi in 2012. Gandhi suggested he meet his expert team of advisors at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. The foundation members received Bokil's suggestions well and updated Gandhi. However, not all were in a mood to pay attention to Bokil's tax reforms. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who was joint commissioner of Income Tax in New Delhi before joining politics, met Bokil and his team sometime in 2015. A few seconds after Bokil started presenting his theory, Kejriwal started walking away, stating, 'mere ko tax samajh main nahi ata (I don't understand tax),' Bokil narrated, visibly frustrated. Bokil claims he is neither linked to any ideology nor does he have any penchant for politics. Artha Kranti is run by volunteers who pool their own money. But the group received Rs 25 lakh (Rs 2.5 million) as bank loan, against the guarantee of a Congress MLA, to publish their magazine Arthapurna. The loan has been repaid since then by the volunteers. Bokil leads a spartan life. "I really can't think beyond Artha Kranti. We have to implement it in the country, and then if time permits, in the entire world." But he reckons that it would be a long shot. After Modi's announcement, Bokil is getting interview calls from the BBC, Al Jazeera and other global media organisations, not to mention from every media house in India. He recently received an invitation from Warwick University to present a talk on his economic philosophy. "I eventually may not go there. Rather, I would use this momentum to take the movement to the grass root level," Bokil said. But does he really need to spread the word more? He smiled and said, "My job is done. Maza aa gaya (it's fun)." IMAGE: Women queue outside a bank to exchange their money in Allahabad. Photograph: PTI Photo Around 2,500 engineers and 45,000 cash management employees step up efforts to complete the target of recalibrating 12,500 ATMs every day. Nupur Anand reports. Pulled-down shutters and long queues outside ATMs had been a common sight in the last two weeks. But as a task force of around 50,000 workers have begun working round the clock and recalibrating the ATM networks, the number of ATMs that are up and functioning has steadily increased from 3,000 on last Tuesday to approximately 75,000 by end of the day. Last week, a task force was set up under Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor S S Mundra with the idea to increase the speed of recalibration of the ATM network. This task force includes members of the RBI, the ATM manufacturing company, cash logistics firms, banks etc to ensure that these ATMs can be up and running soon. Players explain that the employees working on this mammoth task of recalibrating 202,801 ATMs (data till August 2016) is around 50,000. This includes around 2,500 engineers and about 47,000 employees of the cash management firms. And the total number of cash vans available for this task is only 8,800. To make matters more challenging, at any given point of time it takes about 5 employees to come together to recalibrate an ATM and coordinating this to fix up the vast ATM network had become a huge challenge. But now with the coming of the task force, there are about 28 employees, one representative from every organisation in the process, who are sitting in one control room stationed out of Mumbai and monitoring the situation closely. "The resources that the industry has are limited and we suddenly can't hire people or increase the number of cash vans," explains Rituraj Sinha, President, Cash Logistics Association of India. "Therefore," he added, "this timely intervention by RBI and government of forming a task force has been extremely beneficial as we are all able to pool in the resources and collaborate." He explains that with the coming together of these players, the resources can be exploited more effectively. " For instance if a cash van is in Sangli, then he will know which particular engineer can be available for an ATM near them, he will know that person's address and can reach them without wasting time. This helps us in avoiding any duplication of sorts as we know which ATM has been recalibrated and cash vans can rush there instead of waiting," explains Sinha. This task force has also been zeroing in on high footfall areas such as hospitals, stations etc and is ensuring that the ATMs are recalibrated in these areas faster. There has been a gradual decline in the number of people waiting outside ATMs in the last two days and the bankers and the ATM manufactures expect this numbers to go down steadily. Experts explain that typically in one ATM cassettes (cash tray) 2,500 notes can be loaded and without recalibrating these ATMs could load only about Rs 2,50,000 as compared to close to Rs 60,00,00. As a result, the ATMs were running dry sooner leading to a need for quicker replenishment which had been difficult. Vipin Jain, CEO, Logicash Solutions, a cash management solutions company explains that typically the average ticket size of a withdrawal from an ATM is Rs 2,000-2,500 and therefore if the ATMs are recalibrated in the next few days, the chaos that has been after effect of demonetization will ease. He adds that one thing that has been critical to ensure quick progress of the ATM network is-the pace of execution. "Now that everyone has polled in their resources that big challenge of speed has been taken care of. Moreover, our employees have been working for 16-18 hours a day since the date of the announcement, employees are not taking leaves and now with companies doing it in a more organized way we can see that more ATMs are up and running." With the progress made in the last few days the players are hopeful that the ATM network can be restored in the next ten days at least in the urban areas. Now, the hinterland may remain a challenge and may take longer due to logistics issue. In order to address this, the government is even using helicopters and Indian Air Force planes, to move the cash quickly from the printing press to the main distribution centres. Lenders are also increasingly encouraging the use of micro ATMs and partnering with banking correspondents to make cash available to customers. Apart from this it has also been allowed that money can be withdrawn swiping the cards at 2,500 petrol pumps (the scale will be ramped up to 20,000 gradually), which use State Bank of India point of sales. Image: People wait to withdraw money at SBH Melapally in Hyderabad on Monday. Photograph: PTI Photo 'A bit of foresight would have helped.' 'Isn't it common sense that this is sowing and wedding season?' 'The plan is indeed unquestionably revolutionary, but better preparedness could have avoided such teething troubles.' Archis Mohan, Sanjeeb Mukherjee, Arup Roychoudhury and Shreya Jai report from New Delhi. Who were the men and women Prime Minister Narendra Modi consulted before banning the big notes? The answer to that question is hard to find, but Business Standard spoke to bureaucrats and politicians to piece together what went behind the decision of November 8. Bureaucrats hardly spoke initially, but as queues got longer outside banks and ATMs went cashless, there were murmurs in the corridors of power that demonetisation was executed without much thought to details. Some officials, who were now firefighting, confided in whispers that they were not kept in the loop. A source told Business Standard that bureaucrats have now started sharing pre-demonetisation anecdotes, fearing that they may be held responsible by the political leadership for poor execution. Those with their ear to the ground even pointed to the "subterranean propaganda" by the government's supporters of how the bureaucracy sabotaged the PM's plan. A senior bureaucrat, who was part of the November 8 Cabinet meeting, which approved the decision to demonetise, said little consultation took place. "The plan was already in place. We were called to be apprised about it," a secretary of a key department, requesting anonymity, said. Last week, Power Minister Piyush Goyal told the Rajya Sabha that the Reserve Bank of India Board of Governors took the decision, Cabinet approved it and the PM announced it. But those in the know claimed that the slot for the PM's speech, telecast at 8 pm on state broadcaster Doordarshan, had already been booked by the time the formal Cabinet meeting started around 6.30 pm. "A bit of foresight would have helped. Isn't it common sense that this is sowing and wedding season? The plan is indeed unquestionably revolutionary, but better preparedness could have avoided such teething troubles," said an IAS officer in a core economy department. The decision was a bolt from the blue for most ministers as well. Janata Dal-United leader Sharad Yadav told the Rajya Sabha that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was made aware of the decision at a very late stage. 'If you knew, you would have surely advised against it,' Yadav said. Jaitley permitted himself a smile, but didn't get up to correct his 'old friend.' During the weekend, a senior minister confessed to a group of journalists that the government had no assessment of the impact demonetisation has had in rural and semi-urban areas, and whether new currency notes have reached these areas. Neither the PM nor senior ministers have contested claims by a Pune-based outfit, ArthaKranti, that it was behind the idea. The outfit had given BJP leaders a presentation before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Its leading light Anil Bokil has also claimed to have met the PM in July for a meeting that lasted nearly 90 minutes. The jury is still out on how much planning went into it. The PM said 10 months of preparation went behind the decision, but no official has so far elaborated on the planning before the move. Bureaucrats, who were in the know, were working to a quick deadline, it is learnt. In the process, several minute details were glossed over. Then there are tales about how some bureaucrats had raised concerns about the multiple cascading effects of the move. "But the support from most other senior bureaucrats, as well as among the ministers, drowned these voices," a source said. However, finance ministry bureaucrats maintained that much planning, and even consultations, were carried out. But they admitted that the number of "money mules" or "surrogates" was not accounted for. Another gap in planning was that nobody thought acceptance of new Rs 2,000 notes would be a problem. When the plan was being deliberated upon, all stakeholders involved were in agreement that a higher denomination note was needed, another source said. "The RBI is known to have proposed Rs 2,000, Rs 5,000 or Rs 10,000 denominated notes. There is now an acknowledgement that a decision was reached without considering how the new notes would be accepted by people." There's much talk on the role played by the central bank as well. Officials pointed out that RBI Governor Urjit Patel should have provided realistic assessments on how this plan should be carried out, especially since it has all the data it needs regarding the rural and urban distribution of banks and ATMs and the printing capacity at mints around the country. Questions are also being asked as to why only Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das has been given the responsibility of interacting with the media, and through it to the larger public. And why has not much been heard from other senior planners, including Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa, Financial Services Secretary Anjuly Chib Duggal and indeed RBI Governor Patel? IMAGE: A long queue outside the Reserve Bank of India in Delhi, November 13, 2016. Photograph: Kamal Singh/PTI Photo Experts claim impact of breather limited as most hybrid vegetable seeds are sold by private companies. With sowing in the rabi season slowing down because of acute cash crunch in rural areas thanks to the demonetisation drive, the Centre on Monday allowed farmers to use old Rs 500 currency notes to purchase seeds. But, they would be able to do so only from central and state government outlets and agriculture universities. That apart, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also directed banks to provide funds to farmers through cooperative banks. The easing of norms would, however, have only a limited impact on farmers except those who grow cereals, said players in the seeds sector and experts, as more than 80 per cent of the hybrid vegetable seeds are sold by private companies. For wheat, rough estimates showed of around 3 million tonnes of seeds required, almost 50 per cent is reused, while the remaining is purchased from the markets. In 2016-17, official sources said, the total requirement of wheat seeds had been estimated to be 1.17 million tonnes, while the total requirement of chana (chickpeas) seeds have been estimated to be around 0.17 million tonnes. Wheat sowing in many parts of Punjab is already over as the time till November 15 is considered ideal for sowing, which also implies that farmers there might have tied up their seeds and fertiliser requirements before demonetisation. But in areas where sowing hasnt started yet such as eastern India, this decision might have some impact, R K Gupta from the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research told Business Standard. The official order, which marks the second major relaxation the Centre announced for farmers, after allowing them to withdraw up to Rs 25,000 per week from their own KYC complaint bank accounts to buy seeds, has come at a time when rabi sowing has been completed in more 37 per cent of the normal acreage. Though, officially, the Centre believes the slowdown in sowing has nothing to do with the cash crunch on account of demonetisation, ground reports from the major wheat-growing states of Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh showed sowing had come to virtual standstill in many parts, as farmers dont have money to purchase seeds, pesticides and fertilisers. If the crunch continues for next few weeks and sowing is delayed further, it might have a severe impact on the final harvest as November is the most important month for sowing rabi crops. Good residual moisture in the soil, along with filled reservoirs, has brightened the prospects of a bumper rabi harvest. However, the crisis generated in rural India due to demonetisation could derail all the gains. Hopefully, the definition of units or outlets belonging to the central or state governments would imply state cooperative federations such as MARKFED in Punjab and HAFED in Haryana. Though, this is not sufficient. The norms need to be eased further as of the total seed sale, the private sector also has a substantial share, Ajay Vir Jhakhar of Bharat Krishak Samaj said. The vegetable farmers are unlikely to be benefitted from this relaxation as most hybrid vegetable seeds are produced by the private sector. In case of vegetables, the seed business is dominated by private players. Vegetable seeds are expensive. Hence, it would be difficult for farmers to make payment in lower denomination notes to the private outlets, given the current situation. The government should allow farmers to purchase agri inputs paying by Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination, said Kalyan Goswami from the National Seed Association of India. Sameer Sawant, general manager, Namdhari Seeds, too, said move wont have any impact on vegetable and other farmers and nothing will move at the dealers end. Earlier, the Centre besides relaxing the withdrawal limit for farmers had also permitted APMC-registered traders to withdraw up to Rs 50,000 per week. Image used for representational purposes only. Photograph: Reuters. Advisory in this regard was issued by the Gujarat government three days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. Cooperative dairies like the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, which sells milk under the Amul brand, are happy they had pushed for cashless transactions with milk farmers at the right time. The drive has been on for over a year and the Gujarat government recently issued an advisory to district milk unions to route all milk transactions through banks. "We have been for long discussing with dairies on going cashless. However, there was some resistance so we had requested the Gujarat government to send an advisory in this regard," said R S Sodhi, managing director of the GCMMF, the country's largest dairy cooperative, which works with over 3.6 million farmers affiliated with over 18,000 village cooperative societies that handle around 17 million litres of milk a day. A source confirmed an advisory in this regard was issued by the Gujarat government on November 5, three days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. Sources said dairy cooperatives were using this circular to push farmers to open bank accounts and accept payment in their accounts. Sodhi said the state government circular and the demonetisation were not linked even remotely. Most dairy farmers in Gujarat are women and the state government wants their payments to be transferred to their bank accounts. Office-bearers in the village cooperatives, however, prefer to deal in cash. With the demonetisation, they are being forced to pay into bank accounts. Around 50% of the farmers associated with the GCMMF have bank accounts. The federations 18,000 societies disburse Rs 450 crore a week. Other dairy cooperatives, including the Karnataka Milk Federation, which procures 7 million litres of milk daily from 14,000 societies, is also planning to route its Rs 20 crore daily payment to farmers through bank accounts. A similar plan is in place at the Maharashtra State Milk Producers Association. The Centre has been encouraging direct payments into farmers' bank accounts for over a year now through several schemes like the e-National Agriculture Market (e-NAM). Since April 2016, when the Centre introduced e-NAM, 17 states and one UnionTerritory have modified their APMC Acts to make this possible. Speaking at a recent conference, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh had said online payment to farmers was possible through the e-NAM portal and he urged states to encourage direct transfers to farmers bank accounts. Around 585 markets are planned to be integrated with e-NAM in the first phase by March 2018, of which 400 will be integrated by March 2017. Singh said the e-NAM platform was connected to 250 markets in 10 states and detailed project reports for integrating 399 mandis had been received from 14 states. All these had been approved, he added. 'With the country is a crisis that directly affects hundreds of millions, we will know if Modi has grip,' says Aakar Patel. Two of the things Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he would bring to Delhi were decisiveness and governance. He has other qualities also, of course, and people voted for them just as they did for these two named above. Modi is not a dynast and he has worked his way to where he is based only on merit. He has the reputation of being honest and there are no reports of high level corruption in the Union Cabinet as there were in Manmohan Singh's time. However, these two qualities have been on display in recent days and we should look at how they have affected India. Decisiveness is the ability to take decisions quickly and firmly. This is often seen as a virtue. Being indecisive is seen as a weakness though often indecision is only another name for thinking something through carefully. And if there is uncertainly or turbulence beyond tolerable limits, one does not decide. On the other hand, the virtue of being decisive can also be seen as certitude, meaning being sure one is right intuitively rather than through knowledge. Sanjay Gandhi was also decisive. He was a barely literate (10 standard dropout) man who was given great power. He wielded it poorly and Indians suffered in unimaginable ways for his arrogance and his confidence that he knew what was right for all of us. The second ability, governance, can be described by another word used by military historians. That word is 'grip'. It means the ability of a general to be in total charge of his command. Knowing what his side is capable of and being prepared. Julius Caesar had grip and he had control over his armies in a time when communications was poor and supply lines very long. Though his record in battle is mixed, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery is thought to have had grip. He was not clueless as many other generals on the British side in the Second World War were. Narendra Modi showed us his decisiveness when he acted to make useless the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes Indians held. This was sold as an act that would end or severely attack black money. We have not yet been told how that will happen except for Modi saying that the corrupt and the wealthy sitting on piles or warehouses of cash would now only have worthless paper. Those who have run business, and I have owned and run a manufacturing and a services business, know that black money does not work like that. It is used, just like white money is used, as a means to expand business. It is held in goods and in property. In the purely liquid form, as cash, it is not particularly useful. The second reason given was that it would dent terrorist activity because that was being done by counterfeit money. Almost anything today can be sold as a good idea to Indians if it can be attached to terrorism. The media is less likely to question it. Anyway, so Modi showed a flash of decisiveness. As a result of it, we are living through days when the wretched of India, the hundreds of millions of poor who live on cash alone, are being used in an experiment. The Opposition is terrified of Modi, with a couple of parties excepted, and that means that the demonetisation has not itself been opposed so far. Because this terrorism thing was stuck to it, the Congress is too afraid to demand a rollback. They are not sure of the public mood and believe that there is enthusiasm for the act. Meanwhile, this act of casual cruelty is bringing suffering and trauma to millions. Watching the Gujarati news channels I was struck by how the English ones seem to be reporting from another country. Modi has told us the suffering Indians are going through will be justified by the dividend we will reap on January 1. We shall see. But meantime, having shown us decisiveness, he now needs to show us governance. The government has bumbled along since Modi's triumphant announcement. It has been doing things seemingly in reactive mode. It has been raising and lowering withdrawal limits, relaxing rules for some states arbitrarily, and introducing ad hoc administrative measures like inking of fingers. Where is the talent and ability needed to bring calm to the chaos that anyone could have anticipated when the government makes a move of this magnitude? It would not be incorrect to say that at the moment it seems to be missing. This is his chance. With the country is a crisis that directly affects not a handful of people (as terrorism does) but hundreds of millions, we will know if Modi has grip. Aakar Patel is Executive Director, Amnesty International India. The views expressed here are his own. You can read Aakar's earlier columns here. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Karnataka Lingayat Education Society centenary celebrations in Belagavi, Karnataka, November 13, 2016. Photograph: PTI Photo Perhaps one aspect of the way modern media particularly print and news television works need some soul-searching: Their tendency to frame news stories as a conflict between two personalities, says Ajit Balakrishnan. IMAGE: The Chicago Tribune's front page on November 9, 2016, says it all. I am in anguish, frightened I feel homeless in America. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. I was not listening to one of those homeless folks who accost you in street corners in New York begging you for a dime. These words are from Thomas Friedman, writing in the New York Times, soon after Donald Trumps victory in the US presidential elections was announced. Was this the same Thomas Friedman, the man you could safely say is the most successful columnist in the world, whose book celebrating globalisation, The World is Flat, has won every major prize in the world and has been on every bestseller list? Why did a Donald Trump victory cause him so much distress? What happened to his prophecy that globalisation is a force that involves the integration of free markets, [and] nation states to a degree never before witnessed? Why has that upbeat optimism suddenly turned into anguish? What was wrong if his fellow Americans had just elected a man whose slogan was that he would Make America Great Again? One would have imagined that Americans of all people have little to complain considering the dominance of that country in the world today: America accounts for 40 per cent of the worlds defence spending, polices the world with 250,000 troops in 700 bases across the world, the US dollar is the international currency of choice, the US effectively controls the major international economic institutions, through its Silicon Valley companies America controls virtually all of Information Age technologies. Why then a feeling that America has fallen behind and needs stern action and a new leadership to get back to the front? According to Breitbart News, whose executive chairman, Stephen Bannon, is a key member of Mr Trumps team, since the 1990s, 5.8 million jobs, which account for a third of the high-tech sectors jobs in America, have been lost because of offshoring. In addition, the US balance of trade on advanced technology products has fallen from a $35-billion surplus in 1992 to a $92-billion deficit by the end of 2015. After the election verdict, American media, both print and television are going through a great deal of introspection about how they got it so wrong -- practically all of them had spent the months in the run-up to the presidential election poking fun at Mr Trump and predicting a sure failure for him are now scratching their heads and wondering how they missed the grass roots support that Mr Trump so obviously (in hindsight) had. Perhaps one aspect of the way modern media particularly print and news television works need some soul-searching: Their tendency to frame news stories as a conflict between two personalities. As a recent scholarly study by The Project for Excellence in Journalism in the United States puts it, Three narrative frames -- conflict, winners and losers, and revealing wrong doing -- account for 30 per cent of all stories, twice the number of straight news accounts... [and] this penchant for framing stories is even more pronounced at the top of the front page. Explanatory frames, those that reveal how things work, how they fit into larger trends or historical context accounted for a mere 12 per cent of all stories. With news journalism citizens are not adequately educated on the pros and cons and context of issues -- every news story is presented as a combat between two personalities. The trend in Indian media is similar. No really in-depth analysis or reports have been done in Indian news media about the topics that stare you in the face: Indian company executives, senior civil servants, newspaper editors, doctors, dentists and lawyers being forced to spend Rs 50 lakh or more a year to send their children to study in US, British and Australian universities taking on the large expense of a foreign degree for their children; the sense of angst among powerful communities such as the Jats, the Patels and the Marathas whose children yearn for entry into an urban professional life; the large-scale advertising and promotion of apartments priced at Rs 5 crore or more, an amount outside the reach of practically anyone in India; why India has to import practically all its mobile phones; what true role gold plays in our society and economy that we have to import about $50 billion of it every year (the argument that it is for middle class marriages is too facile to take seriously). What are the larger societal implications of all this? In America, the true underlying issues which need to be addressed, are, according to The Washington Post, how to reconcile the contradictory pulls of a slow-growth economy and the spiralling demand for social security and medical care benefits from an ageing society, which is leaving very little funds for making school and college education affordable and renewing infrastructure such as highways and bridges. Instead of focusing on candidates and their ideas for solving these real issues, much of media coverage revolved around Mr Trumps tax filings and hair style and Mrs Clintons private email server. In India, the true underlying issue is to how to provide relevant education at the school and post-secondary level and create matching jobs and affordable housing for millions of young people, and if our political leaders are not forced by the media to focus on these issues we could also face soon a societal implosion. Ajit Balakrishnan (ajitb@rediffmail.com), founder and CEO of Rediff.com, is the author of The Wave Rider, a Chronicle of the Information Age. The Communist Party of India-Marxist is seeking legal opinion on moving a contempt notice against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for announcing policy matters like demonetisation outside Parliament but not coming to the House to explain them. If the prime minister makes a major policy announcement outside Parliament, particularly when it has been summoned by the President, it is incumbent that he comes to both Houses to explain the issue. This has not been done, party general secretary Sitaram Yechury told a press conference in New Delhi. We are examining the issue and we would like to move contempt notice against the PM after discussing with other Opposition parties, Yechury said, criticising Modi for his arrogance and obduracy in not facing Parliament. He asked whether the prime minister can make a policy statement outside Parliament when the House has already been summoned by the President. According to us, he cannot. But that has been done, Yechury said. Yechury said the prime minister was making statements after statements outside Parliament when it was in session but not inside and this amounts to utter contempt of Parliament. We are examining the possibility of moving contempt proceedings against him and are seeking legal opinion. We will hold consultations with all opposition parties. In a democracy, people are supreme as they elect representatives to Parliament and the government is answerable to Parliament. Since the PM is not coming to Parliament, it is a breakdown of the parliamentary system, he said. He also asked why the government was not giving out the names of bank defaulters, alleging that over Rs 11 lakh crore have been siphoned off from the banks and termed non-performing assets as the biggest scam. On the demonetisation issue Yechury said people are facing serious problems and till date about 74 have died due to problems faced fot the demonetisation move and the government refusing to condole their deaths in the House. He also chided the media for not seeming to recognise that there is an Opposition in the country and carrying only what the ruling party says. Myth is being generated that the people are hailing the (demonetisation) move. It is an abnormal situation where the people cannot use their own money. It is violation of their fundamental right to property. How can you deny me from using my own property, the CPI-M leader said, adding that now new routes to exchange old currency have been provided via Nepal, Bhutan, Dubai and Singapore. He said all Opposition parties will meet on Wednesday to chart out the future course of action amid the logjam in Parliament. The defence ministry will review all cases of blacklisted firms as it prepares a new list of such entities following the new policy unveiled by it which is a mixture of heavy fines and graded banning. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday said that the Director General (Acquisition) will draw up a list as required under the new policy and hence old cases will also be looked into. "That does not mean they will be taken out. Don't interpret... they will be examined. What is the status, how many years they have been blacklisted for and why they were blacklisted," Parrikar said on the sidelines of a seminar in New Delhi. He said that as per the new policy, there has to be a new list. "So the list will have to be re-ascertained," the Minister said. The review will include about a dozen firms that came under blanket blacklisting in the previous regime, a move which the forces were unhappy about as it proved detrimental to their modernisation plans. Some of the firms like Singapore Technologies have approached the courts seeking removal of blacklisting. Singapore Technologies' argument is that it has been wrongly blacklisted since no contract was ever awarded to it and neither is it mentioned in the charge sheet filed by the CBI in connection with a bribery case involving the then Ordinance Factory Board chief. Under its new liberalised blacklisting policy for arms companies, India will now be open to doing business even with a banned firm if there is no alternative available to its weapon system or equipment in the market. This can be done on the grounds of national security, operational military readiness and export obligations, after the vice-chief of the Service concerned, the chief of the integrated defence staff or the additional secretary (defence production) signs a certificate to that effect and gets permission from the "competent authority", who is the Defence Minister. Another key element of the new policy is that unlike the blanket ban of 10 years, the government has said that ban on serious defaulters will be for minimum five years. The policy does not mention the maximum time period for ban. Called the 'Guidelines of the Ministry of Defence for Penalties in Business Dealings with Entities', the policy, which has been in the works for long, aims to ensure probity and transparency in defence deals without affecting the modernisation plans. "An updated list of entities with which business dealings have been suspended or banned by the competent authority and/or against which financial penalties have been imposed shall be maintained on the official website of the Ministry of Defence," the policy read. Listing out six reasons for which companies can get banned, it says that violating the integrity pact, indulging in corrupt practices and endangering national security would be treated most seriously while non-performance and any other grounds would invite a less harsh penalty. Talking about penalties, it said that for the lesser offence of non-performance, the ban would not exceed three years. The new policy says that orders of banning business dealings with an entity may be extended to its allied firms by specific order of the competent authority. It also makes it clear that the period of suspension of business dealing with an arms company shall not ordinarily exceed one year pending a probe into the corruption allegations. A review of the suspension order will be undertaken every six months. The suspension time can, however, be extended for additional six months. "The total period of suspension of business dealings with an entity shall not exceed the maximum period of banning of business dealing with an entity for the same cause of action," the policy read. It also calls for banning of agents or employees of a company who are convicted for any act of impropriety. She was allegedly beaten to death for refusing to get Rs 8,000 in new currency notes from her parents, reports M I Khan from Patna. A woman was beaten to death by her in-laws, allegedly for refusing to exchange old banknotes worth Rs 8,000, which were part of a 'dowry instalment', with new banknotes from her parents. Seema Devi was allegedly beaten to death by her in-laws in Narayanpur village under the Bihta police station in Patna after she refused to exchange the old currency notes that she brought as as part of dowry from her parents' home. 'My sister's in-laws were mentally and physically harassing her for dowry after her marriage a few years ago. On November 16, she took Rs 8,000 from our parents in old notes as a part of the dowry. As soon as she handed it over to her in-laws, they asked her to exchange it with new notes. She refused to do that, following which, they beat her to death,' Seema's brother Sudhir Kumar, a resident of Chitnawa village under ther Maner police station in Patna, alleged in his complaint. 'We had given a hefty sum as dowry at the time of marriage, but her in-laws sought even more. They started torturing her. Later, as per an agreement, we had to give Rs 3 lakh to them in instalments,' Sudhir Kumar alleged in his complaint. "On the basis of my complaint, the police has started an investigation," he said. Neighbours of his sister's in-laws informed him about the incident. "Soon after we were informed, we reached there. Her in-laws had left her body in the house and fled," Sudhir said. Ravinder Ram, who is in charge of the Maner police station, said the police will take tnecessary action against the accused named in Sudhir Kumar's complaint. The National Investigation Agency, probing funding and other activities of Zakir Naik-led Islamic Research Foundation, on Tuesday claimed that Islamic State recruit Abu Anas received Rs 80,000 from the foundation as scholarship in October 2015. Anas, a resident of Tonk in Rajasthan, had quit as an engineer in a Hyderabad-based company when he was arrested by the NIA in January for allegedly planning to carry out a terror strike ahead of Republic Day. The NIA claimed the probe into the IRF funding and distribution of money showed that Anas, who was among 16 people arrested at that time, had received Rs 80,000 from the proscribed IRF as scholarship in October 2015. Anas, named in a charge sheet in June, and is at present at Tihar Jail, had planned to go to Syria, the NIA alleged. The NIA has been conducting searches since November 19 and have raided at least 20 premises in Mumbai which are connected to the proscribed IRF or its trustees. During the search operations, video tapes and DVDs of Naik's public speeches, documents related to property and investment, financial transactions, foreign and domestic funding of the proscribed IRF as well as its associated companies, and electronic storage devices have been recovered by the NIA, it said. The NIA alleged that IRF, which was banned by the Union Cabinet last week under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, had close connections with some companies dealing in media, perfumes and solution. The documents seized during the searches pertain to inflow and outflow of foreign and domestic funding were being scrutinised. The NIA also blocked the website of IRF, which was allegedly promoting "hate speeches" of Naik. If the Islamic preacher fails to respond to the NIA summon, a red corner notice will be issued against him through Interpol by it. The NIA is still trying to block Naik's Facebook page, Twitter account and YouTube videos that contain alleged "objectionable" material and may seek help from authorities in the US where the servers of Internet giants like Google and Yahoo are located. Naik has been booked along with unnamed IRF officials under section 153-A of IPC (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) beside various sections of UAPA. Opposition parties disrupted the proceedings of the Parliament for the fourth consecutive day on Tuesday over the demonetisation issue. Rajya Sabha Opposition parties joined hands to stall pre-noon proceedings in Rajya Sabha demanding Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of each of the 70 persons who lost their lives post demonetisation and the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the debate on the issue. The rare unity in opposition parties brought Congress and TMC as well as SP and BSP together as their slogan-shouting members trooped into the Well of the House, even as treasury benches countered them demanding resumption of the debate on the issue. Deputy Chairman P J Kurien first adjourned the House till 1130 hours and then till noon. No sooner were the listed papers laid on the table, Sharad Yadav (JD-U) said the government should pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to kin of the 70 persons who lost their lives due to hardships caused by withdrawal of 500 and 1000 rupee notes. Naresh Agarwal (SP) and Mayawati (BSP) said Modi should be called before starting discussion on the demonetisation. "He should come and listen to the pain people have faced because of his decision," Mayawati said. Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad (Cong) said the opposition is ready for discussion on the issue but prime minister should come to the House first. As he spoke, members of the BJP moved into the aisles raising slogans. At this point, TMC members carrying placards of "Financial Emergency" trooped into the Well, with Congress members following suit. As they shouted slogans from the Well, Kurien said, "You cannot speak in the Well. Shouting in the Well is of no use. If you go back to your seats, I will give you time (to speak)." He told Azad that he was ready to accept his notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of business. "Mr Azad, I am ready to admit your notice under 267 if only there is order in the House." As BJP members also created a ruckus, an angry Kurien snapped at them. "Why should treasury benches do this? Mr Minister, why should treasury benches to this," he asked Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. With pandemoneum continuing, he said this was "blatant indiscipline." "Both sides do not want discussion. Not only the opposition, but treasury benches are also disrupting the proceedings. That is very unfortunate," he said before adjourning the proceedings till 1130 hrs. When the House assembled at 1130 hours, Agarwal (SP) alleged that the Prime Minister does not listen and such a "dictatorial attitude" has never been successful. His remarks led to noisy protests by BJP members. As several BJP members started speaking at same time, the Deputy Chairman again said "I fail to understand why treasury benches were disrupting" the proceedings. To this, Naqvi said government only wants that debate on the demonetisation, which started on November 16, should be resumed. Amid uproar, the Leader of Opposition said 70 people have died due to the "wrong decision" of the Prime Minister. "Opposition is for discussion and debate. (Our) demand for (presence) of the Prime Minister in the House is not anti-national," the senior Congress leader said. Naqvi again sought starting the debate and said replies would be given to all the questions of the Opposition members. Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) demanded that the prime minister who announced the demonetisation decision should be present in the House. Kurien said he understood the demand that the prime minister should intervene or reply to the debate, but "your demand that he should be here is not possible". Azad again said the entire opposition wanted the discussion on demonetisation to resume, but the Prime Minister should come to the House and listen to the concern of the MPs. "He (Prime Minister) can speak outside, why cannot he speak in the House," Azad asked. In an effort to bring order in the House, Kurien said during the discussion each member can demand for presence of the Prime Minister in the House. Mayawati (BSP) demanded compensation for those who reportedly died following demonetisation. As uproar continued, Kurien said that he can call the finance minister in the House as the matter relates to the finance ministry, but not the prime minister. As the Congress, TMC and BSP members trooped into the Well, the Chair was forced to adjourn the House till noon. When the House resumed proceedings at noon, Chairman Hamid Ansari called for Question Hour but the protesting Opposition members kept demanding the presence of the prime minister in the House, as TMC members trooped into the Well. With continued ruckus, the House was adjourned for the third time for 30 minutes. When the House met again for Question Hour at 1230 hours, members from opposition including Congress, SP, BSP, JD-U, CPI and CPI-M rose from their seats shouting slogans over the death toll in the demonetisation drive announced by the government. Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari asked Prem Chand Gupta (RJD) to ask his question on lack of medical services in rural areas, but it could not be heard due to the sloganeering by members. Senior JD(U) leader Sharad raised the issue of death of over 70 people so far in the demonetisation drive and asked who was responsible and what the government was doing about it. Amid constant din in the House, Ansari adjourned the House till 2 pm and then for the day. Lok Sabha Opposition ranks in the Lok Sabha were boosted on Tuesday with All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam members joining them in their noisy protest on demonetisation, as the government vehemently resisted their demands, including a debate under a rule which entails voting, forcing the House to adjourn for the day. Amid noisy Opposition protests in the Well which continued right from the start, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar insisted that the government was willing to debate every aspect of the issue and went on to cite BJP's win in the bye-polls in Madhya Pradesh and Assam to claim that people have endorsed the government's decision against black money and corruption. Opposition parties like TMC and CPI(M) too have won in the bypolls in West Bengal and Tripura, ruled by them. Mallikarjun Kharge (Cong) and Sudip Bandhopadhyay (TMC) said they wanted a debate but demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence and that the Speaker admit their adjournment motion, which will result in division of votes and passage of a resolution, on demonetisation. They received a shot in the arm when P Venugopal (AIADMK) spoke about "suffering of people" due to shortage of currency notes and said his party had also given an adjournment notice. Opposition parties cheered as he spoke. The AIADMK is perceived to be more sympathetic to the treasury benches on many issues. "Government is willing to start a debate. I don't think that the opposition parties are in support of black money, fake currency and terrorism when the whole country is supporting the Modi government over its decision," Kumar said. Kharge said they too were ready for a debate but wanted Modi's presence and that their adjournment notice be admitted. Equating Speaker Sumitra Mahajan with a mother, he said she should hear them to which she retorted that a mother would want all her children to live together happily. Like previous days, Opposition members trooped into the Well and began protesting as soon as the House met at 1100 hours. The Speaker carried out most of the Question Hour amidst noisy scenes before adjourning the House briefly till noon. After laying of the listed papers, she adjourned the House till Wednesday as opposition parties remain unrelenting. Members of Congress, TMC, Left parties, SP and AAP were demanding discussion on the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 under Rule 56, that entails voting. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was seen in his seat having a discussion with AAP MP from Punjab Harinder Singh Khalsa. As members of Congress, TMC, Left parties and AAP were raising slogans in the Well, NCP and RJD members stood in the aisles in solidarity with the other protesting opposition members. AIADMK members were also in the aisles raising the issue of Tamil fishermen injured allegedly in firing by Sri Lankan Navy. Ignoring the slogan shouting opposition members, Speaker allowed the Question Hour to continue amidst noisy scenes. When some opposition members tried to bring a placard denouncing the demonetisation move in front of Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju, who was replying a question related to his Ministry, the Speaker tried to intervene and asked the MPs not to disturb the minister. "This is not good. Everyone will be shown on TV, but don't disturb the Minister. If you want to discuss something, raise it before the government. People are in pain, tell the government. But this is not the way to highlight people's grievances," Mahajan said asking them to return to their seats. However, an unrelenting opposition continued to raise slogans. The Speaker again appealed to the opposition members to participate in the debate saying that the disruption of proceedings would not solve the problem. "I am really pained. If you are people's representatives, you should stand by them," she said. Due to continued pandemonium, the Speaker first adjourned the House till noon, and after laying of papers for the day. Photograph: PTI Photo In a cross-Line of Control attack by suspected Pakistani terrorists, three Indian soldiers were killed, with body of one of them being mutilated in second such incident in less than a month, triggering outrage in this country. The ambush on army patrol took place in Machhil sector of Kashmir, following which the Indian Army vowed heavy "retribution". "A counter-infiltration patrol party of Indian army was ambushed by terrorists ahead of the fencing along LoC in forest belt in Machhil sector in Kupwara district today," a senior army officer said. Three soldiers were killed in the attack, he said, adding the body of one of them was mutilated. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was briefed by Vice Chief of Army Lt Gen Bipin Rawat about the killing. Condemning the incident, Parrikar tweeted, "Condemn the cowardly & brutal killing of our soldiers & mutilation of one of them. Salute these brave martyrs for their supreme sacrifice." Earlier, Army's Northern Command spokesman tweeted, "3 soldiers killed in action on LC (Line of Control) in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated." He said the "retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act." A defence spokesman said heavy cross-Line of Control shelling was going on at four places in Machhil sector from 3.30 pm. "Around 1530 hour, heavy cross-LoC shelling has started from both sides at Dana Machhil, Ashni, Ringsar and Ringsar Payeen in Machhil sector of Kupwara district," he said. Indian Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh also protested the incident to Pakistan when its deputy high commissioner was summoned by the foreign office in Islamabad to condemn "unprovoked ceasefire violations". Singh, who was called in by Director General (South Asia and SAARC) Mohammad Faisal, also conveyed that Pakistani troops were deliberately targeting the civilian areas, resulting in heavy casualties. Sources said he also took up the issue of repeated ceasefire violations by Pakistani forces as well as their usage of artillery and 120 mm heavy mortars. Pakistani forces were giving cover fire to infiltrators and there was increased activity of terrorists near the Pakistani posts, Singh told the Pakistani side. Meanwhile, Pakistan has rejected India's charges as "false" and "baseless". Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria in a series of tweets said the reports about the mutilation were aimed at maligning Pakistan. "Pakistan strongly rejects the false & baseless Indian media reports regarding the alleged mutilation of an Indian solider on the LoC. These reports are a fabrication and a blatant attempt to malign Pakistan," he said. Zakaria said as a professional force, Pakistan Army isn't involved in any such "unethical & non-professional" activity. He said the Pakistan Army never supported any such action. However, he said, Pakistan is fully prepared and ready to respond to any misadventure across the LoC, Working Boundary or the International Border. This is the second such incident of mutilation of the body of an Indian soldier in the same sector since October 28. On that day, terrorists, aided by the cover fire by Pakistani Army, had crossed the Line of Control and killed an Indian army jawan and mutilated his body in the Macchil sector. One attacker was killed in that incident. In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani Border Action Team in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days. Representative image In a setback to the opposition Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra, the party could win only one of the four seats it held during the biennial elections held for six local bodies constituencies in the state legislative council. The voting was held on Saturday and the counting of votes took place on Tuesday. The NCP retained only Pune local bodies seat while Congress retained Nanded and wrested Sangli-Satara local bodies constituency from NCP. The BJP retained the Jalgaon local bodies seat. The Sharad Pawar-led party lost Bhandara-Gondia to BJP and Yavatmal to Shiv Sena. The loss in Sangli-Satara is a huge blow to NCP as it had earlier refused to yield to Congress's demand for 3:3 formula of seat-sharing for the six seats. The NCP leadership had earlier lambasted former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan for sticking to the demand that his party get Sangli-Satara constituency in the seat-sharing. State NCP chief Sunil Tatkare had earlier alleged the alliance fell through because of Chavan's adamant attitude. He had also questioned how Congress could demand the seat when NCP had more numbers. The NCP backed an independent in Nanded, the stronghold of state Congress president Ashok Chavan. As per the figures given by state electoral office, Amar Rajurkar (Congress) polled 251 as against 208 votes received by independent Shyamsunder Shinde. Congress's Mohan Kadam bagged 309 votes as against 246 by Shekhar Gore(NCP) in Sangli-Satara. In Yavatmal, Tanaji Sawant of Shiv Sena defeated Congress's Shankar Bade. Sawant polled 348 votes as against 78 of Bade. Notably, the NCP had backed Sawant. In Pune, Anil Bhosale of NCP bagged 440 votes as against 133 of Ashok Yenpure (BJP). Congress candidate Sanjay Jagtap finished a poor third with 71 votes. In Jalgaon, Chandulal Patel (BJP) polled 421 votes. Independent Vijay Patil polled 90 votes while remaining six independents drew a blank. In Bhandara-Gondia, Parinay Phuke of BJP trounced NCP's Rajendra Jain, who polled 137 votes and Praful Agrawal of Congress who got 112 votes. In the 78-member Upper House, Congress now has 20 members, the NCP tally has been reduced to 23, while BJP has 18, and Shiv Sena has nine members. However, NCP continues to be the single largest party in the House. Photograph: PTI Photo In a development that should worry the government which hoped that terror funding had been badly hit by the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, new currency notes were recovered from the possession of the terrorists who were killed in an encounter on Tuesday in Jammu and Kashmir. Currency notes of Rs 2,000 denomination were among the items recovered from the two terrorists who were killed in the encounter with security forces in north Kashmirs Bandipora district. Acting on specific intelligence inputs about the presence of terrorists in Hajin village of Bandipora, security forces had on Tuesday launched a search operation in the area. As the forces were conducting the search operation, the terrorists fired upon them, leading to an encounter in which two terrorists were killed. "The currency has been handed over to police for further probe as to where from the currency notes were obtained by the terrorists," a senior army official said. "From the appearance, they (slain militants) seem to be foreigners... when they had infiltrated into the valley will be known in due course of time," he added. The identity and group affiliation of the terrorists are still being ascertained. The recovery, perhaps the first since the government announced the demonetisation move on November 8, has rung alarm bells as government agencies had expected that the hawala channels through which terror funds flow would run dry after the the scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Experts have been saying that the impact of demonetisation on terror activities will be felt in the immediate future, but the long term benefits are questionable. In a policy brief for the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, Col Vivek Chadha (Retd) writes: 'Pakistan and J&K based terror groups while impacted, will be able to recuperate faster, as they are financed by the Pakistani State, rich donors in West Asia, voluntary collections in Pakistan, FICN or drug money. None of these can be impacted in the long term and to the extent that terror organisations are unable to sustain themselves. However, the impact will certainly be felt in the immediate and midterm future, wherein, the cash available for sustaining activities like civil disobedience in Kashmir Valley, will be sucked out of the terror economy.' A powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit northeastern Japan on Tuesday, triggering tsunamis along the coast including a one-metre (3.3-foot) wave that crashed ashore at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant. The quake struck on Tuesday morning at about 06:00 local time (2:30 am IST on Tuesday), the Japan Meteorological Agency said, adding that the epicentre of the quake, which was felt in Tokyo, was off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 25km, the agency said. A 60cm (2ft) tsunami was observed at Fukushima's Onahama Port and a 1.4 meter (4.5ft) tsunami at Sendai shortly after the quake, according to public broadcaster NHK. "We saw high waves but nothing that went over the tidal barriers," a man in the city of Iwaki told the NTV television network. The Japan Meteorological Agency advisory said: "Damage due to tsunami waves is expected. Evacuate immediately from coastal regions and riverside areas to a safer place such as high ground or an evacuation building. Tsunami waves are expected to hit repeatedly. Do not leave safe ground until the warning is lifted." NHK showed footage of what appeared to be sea water flowing up a river in Miyagi prefecture though none of it surged beyond the river's banks. Shinkansen bullet train services were temporarily suspended in the region and Sendai airport in Miyagi, north of Fukushima, was closed. Authorities said that a total of six people were lightly injured including five in Fukushima prefecture and one in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo, while two other people were hurt in Miyagi prefecture. In 2011, an earthquake and tsunami struck the same area killing thousands and destroying parts of the coastline. All Japan's nuclear power plants on the coast threatened by the tsunami are shut down in the wake of the March 2011 disaster, which knocked out Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, spilling radiation into the air and sea. A spokeswoman for Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, told Reuters the cooling system for a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at the reactor at its Fukushima Daini Plant had been halted. A spokesman said the cooling system had restarted soon after. No other damage from the quake has been confirmed at any of its power plants, although there have been blackouts in some areas, the spokeswoman said. Image Courtesy: Japan Meteorological Agency Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu lawmaker in the US Congress, met president-elect Donald Trump amidst speculation that she is being considered to be made the American Ambassador to the United Nations. Gabbard, 35, who was re-elected for her third consecutive term on November 8, was among the first politicians to meet Trump in New York. She has been a vocal critic of President Barack Obama on confronting the radical Islamic terrorism. "President-elect Trump asked me to meet with him about our current policies regarding Syria, our fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face," she said hours after meeting Trump in New York. Amidst speculation that she is being considered for the position of US ambassador to the UN, Gabbard -- a Democrat -- defended the meeting as in favour of national interest. "Let me be clear, I will never allow partisanship to undermine our national security when the lives of countless people lay in the balance," said the Congresswoman from Hawaii. The presidential transition team confirmed the meeting, but it did not respond to questions on her being a potential candidate for a senior position in the Trump administration. "Wouldn't want to qualify specifically any potential administration positions, other than this is an opportunity for the president- and vice president-elect to get together with the congresswoman and receive her input on several different ideas," Jason Miller, communication director for Trump transition team told reporters during a conference call. "She obviously has a very distinguished track record. But it would be a little premature to start putting out specific potential administration positions," Miller said. Gabbard said she felt it was "important to take the opportunity to meet with the president-elect now before the drumbeats of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government -- a war which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families." "While the rules of political expediency would say I should have refused to meet with President-elect Trump, I never have and never will play politics with American and Syrian lives," she said, adding that Americans cannot allow continued divisiveness to destroy the country. Gabbard, who had been a strong supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders during the Democratic presidential primary nomination, said she had a frank and positive conversation in which they discussed a variety of foreign policy issues. "I shared with him my grave concerns that escalating the war in Syria by implementing a so-called no fly/safe zone would be disastrous for the Syrian people, our country, and the world," she said. "It would lead to more death and suffering, exacerbate the refugee crisis, strengthen ISIS and Al Qaeda, and bring us into a direct conflict with Russia which could result in a nuclear war," Gabbard said. They discussed her bill to end America's "illegal war" to overthrow the Syrian government, and on defeating Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups who pose a threat to the American people, she said. IMAGE: US Representative Tulsi Gabbard. Photograph: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images Freedom on the Net 2016 - India Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2016 - India, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834008e13.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. Country: India Year: 2016 Status: Partly Free Total Score: 41 (0 = Best, 100 = Worst) Obstacles to Access: 12 (0 = Best, 25 = Worst) Limits on Content: 9 (0 = Best, 35 = Worst) Violations of User Rights: 20 (0 = Best, 40 = Worst) Population: 1.311 billion Internet Penetration: 26 percent Social Media/ICT Apps Blocked: No Political/Social Content Blocked: Yes Bloggers/ICT Users Arrested: Yes Press Freedom Status: Partly Free Key Developments, June 2015-May 2016 Authorities ordered service providers to temporarily shut down local mobile internet service in at least 23 separate reported cases, purportedly to prevent unrest or even cheating in an exam (see Restrictions on Connectivity ). Regulators passed strong net neutrality regulations following sustained digital advocacy, prohibiting service providers from charging more for some data services (see Digital Activism ). The Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of laws criminalizing defamation (see Legal Environment ). At least 17 people were arrested for information circulated on WhatsApp, including group administrators based on content shared by other group members (see Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities ). In May 2016, the Central Monitoring System was reported to be operational in New Delhi and Mumbai, allowing direct government surveillance of online traffic (see Surveillance, Privacy and Anonymity ). In June 2015, journalist Joginder Singh died in Uttar Pradesh when assailants set him on fire after he posted allegations about a local official's wrongdoing on Facebook (see Intimidation and Violence). Introduction: Internet freedom declined slightly in 2016, offsetting gains made in 2014 and 2015. The number of network shutdowns ordered by local authorities increased dramatically. Internet penetration increased during the reporting period, as India overtook the United States to become the world's second largest internet consumer base behind China. Both government and nongovernmental entities made efforts to bridge the digital divide. After effective digital campaigning, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) introduced strong net neutrality protections in 2016, prohibiting differential pricing by service providers for different content or applications. However, other developments undermined internet freedom. Local authorities ordered service providers to temporarily shut down internet access in at least 23 reported incidents in various states. In 2016, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition challenging the use of broad powers provided to state governments under the criminal procedure code to shut down internet services. The Supreme Court also upheld laws criminalizing defamation which apply to both online and offline speech. Arrests for online activities declined in mid-2015. Many were based on Section 66A of the IT Act, which the Supreme Court declared was unconstitutional in March. But arrests increased again during the coverage period of this report under other sections of the IT Act and provisions of the penal code. At least seventeen people were detained for content circulated on WhatsApp, including group administrators who were not responsible for the content. India continues to lack a codified law to effectively protect privacy. A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court is considering whether privacy is a fundamental right at all. Although there were no reported instances of unlawful surveillance during the reporting period of coverage, this may be due to the extreme opacity of the regulatory framework governing surveillance. In May 2016, officials said the government's Central Monitoring System an ambitious nationwide mass surveillance program became operational through regional monitoring centers in New Delhi and Mumbai. Obstacles to Access: Internet penetration in India continued to increase in 2016 with mobile penetration playing a significant role. Inadequate infrastructure remains a significant obstacle to access, especially in rural areas; however, various governmental and nongovernmental efforts to improve access nationwide are underway. There was a sharp increase in both the frequency and duration of ICT shutdowns ordered by local authorities. The top ten internet service providers (ISPs) still hold almost the entire market share, but strong competition among them continues. Availability and Ease of Access India had the second largest number of internet subscribers in the world after China in 2016, having recently overtaken the United States.[1] Official statistics recorded 331 million subscribers in December 2015,[2] though only 20 million had fixed-line connections.[3] However, internet penetration remains low, reaching 26 percent in December 2015,[4] up from 21 percent in December 2014.[5] Mobile penetration was much higher, reaching 82 percent by December 2015.[6] India was ranked 155 out of 189 countries in terms of mobile broadband penetration by the Broadband Commission.[7] India's average connection speed was 3.5 Mbps, one of the lowest in Asia,[8] and far below the global average, which Akamai documented at 6.3 Mbps in the first quarter of 2016.[9] Fifty-nine percent of all internet users had narrowband subscriptions in 2015,[10] down from sixty-eight percent in 2014.[11] Despite overall growth, India still has one of the world's lowest adoption rates for high speed broadband (faster than 10 Mbps), at just 4.8 percent,[12] though that rate grew by 180 percent during the course of 2015.[13] The minimum speed required to qualify as broadband in India has been 512 Kbps since 2012,[14] though the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended raising the threshold to 2 Mbps.[15] The Global Information Technology Report by the World Economic Forum and INSEAD ranked India in eighth place out of 139 countries for affordable internet access in 2016.[16] It was previously in first place,[17] and per minute cellular and fixed broadband tariffs are still among the lowest in the world.[18] Fixed broadband internet service cost an average INR 1676 (US$ 25) per month.[19] India ranked 81 out of 140 countries for infrastructure in 2016, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index.[20] Though up from 87 the previous year, the results suggest poor infrastructure is still an obstacle to access. India ranked a low 98 for electricity supply;[21] and 120 for technological readiness, the capacity of a country to fully leverage ICTs in daily activities.[22] Only 26 percent of all Indian schools had a computer in 2015.[23] That figure was higher in secondary schools and above (66 percent),[24] though of those, only 37 percent were connected to the internet.[25] Public and private sector initiatives to improve access are underway. News reports announced government plans to provide free public Wi-Fi zones in mid-2015,[26] targeting 25 top cities by population.[27] Some public Wi-Fi zones have already been established in places like Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Patna.[28] During the coverage period of this report, Google partnered with public sector company RailTel to provide free Wi-Fi at over 400 railway stations,[29] starting with 100 by the end of 2016.[30] At least 15 stations were already connected in May.[31] The Digital India Programme launched in 2014[32] by the Department of Telecom (DoT) and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) is expected to be implemented by 2018.[33] It aims to connect India's Gram Panchayats, institutions of self-government for rural areas,[34] via fiber-optic cables,[35] ensuring universal broadband access with accompanying e-literacy programs. Internet-connected Common Service Centers (CSCs) aim to cover all 250,000 Gram Panchayats;[36] as of March 2016, 157,000 had been established, with 20,000 operated by women.[37] The program proposes to use satellites, balloons, or drones to push faster digital connections to remote parts of the country,[38] as well as Multiple System Operators (MSOs) such as cable TV services, which already have last-mile connectivity.[39] As a result of the Digital India Programme, electronic transactions related to e-governance projects almost doubled in 2015;[40] citizen and public records are being digitized through crowd-sourcing efforts;[41] and Digi Locker, a service which provides secure online storage of essential documents such as birth certificates, has more than 2 million registered users.[42] Digital India also provides capital to develop new technologies.[43] Language remains a barrier to access. With 22 official languages, only about 12 percent of the population of India speaks English,[44] yet more than half the content available online is in English,[45] and over 100 languages were unrepresented online in 2013.[46] Projects to encourage local language usage are underway, and there were nearly 127 million local language users on the internet by 2014.[47] Hindi-language web content grew by 94 percent in 2015, compared to 19 percent growth in English content.[48] Google's Indian Language Internet Alliance (ILIA) seeks to link all local language content available to a single platform,[49] making the content more visible and easier for consumers to navigate.[50] Critics fear this could divert traffic from the original pages, resulting in loss of revenue and readership,[51] but so far ILIA has partnered with 30 organizations.[52] In 2014, the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), which operates and manages Indian domain names, launched the Dot Bharat domain for local language URLs.[53] Indian start-ups, such as online marketplace Snapdeal, Quikr, which offers online classified advertising, and Hike messenger, have also introduced services in local languages.[54] Studies have shown that economic and social conditions result in barriers to internet access for women. In 2015, only 29 percent of Indian internet users were women,[55] falling to 12 percent in rural areas.[56] Growth in the number of female internet users is higher than for men in urban areas, though not overall.[57] Google has partnered with Tata Trusts to launch the Internet Saathi scheme for promoting digital literacy among rural women.[58] The initiative initially aimed to reach 45,000 villages.[59] In December 2015, Google CEO, Sundar Pichai said the project would expand to 300,000.[60] Restrictions on Connectivity The Indian government does not routinely block the protocols or tools that allow for instant, person-to-person communication, although local authorities can restrict ICT connectivity and usage during times of perceived unrest. The number of these shutdowns has increased significantly in the past two years.[61] During the coverage period of this report, local authorities issued orders to providers to shut off specific services in 23 reported cases, including local mobile phone service, SMS, wireless, and occasionally fixed-line internet access, for periods ranging from a few hours to several days.[62] In one instance, the state government in northeastern Manipur blocked wireless internet and SMS services for seven days following violent protests.[63] Although the majority of shutdown orders cited security or public order threats as reasons, mobile internet was blocked for four hours across Gujarat in February 2016 to prevent cheating in a state entrance exam.[64] Local authorities increasingly used Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (1973) to justify these orders, which permits broad state action to curb any violation of law and order;[65] it does not specify telecommunications.[66] The use of this general law to order shutdowns was upheld by the Gujarat High Court in September 2015,[67] and the Supreme Court rejected a petition challenging it in early 2016.[68] Other laws used to justify shutdowns also lack specificity. Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, which permits the central government to order website blocks (see Limits on Content) has been considered to apply to blocking of service. Section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act, which allows state and central authorities to order that any message not be transmitted in public emergencies, has also been cited in support of service disruptions.[69] As in past years, Jammu and Kashmir had the highest number of documented incidents, including a shutdown that affected both mobile and fixed-line connections, in some cases for weeks at a time, in summer 2016 (outside the coverage period of this report).[70] During the coverage period: On June 5, 2015, mobile and fixed-line internet services were suspended in the Jammu region in the wake of protests by Sikhs over the removal of posters of Sikh separatist leader Jarnail Bhindrawale before the anniversary of his death. [71] In August 2015, mobile phone and internet services were suspended for a few hours during a state government function to celebrate independence day. [72] In September 2015, police ordered the suspension of mobile internet services for 82 hours during the Muslim festival of Eid. [73] The Jammu and Kashmir High Court had banned beef based on a petition from hardline Hindus, a decision some Muslim groups said they would protest. [74] One news report said the decision to suspend the internet was made after ISPs clarified that it was not possible to slow down internet speeds. [75] In October 2015, mobile internet services were suspended for two days in Jammu and Udhampur amid tensions surrounding the recovery of cow carcasses in Udhampur district. [76] In April 2016, mobile internet was blocked for almost six days in five districts in Kashmir, following violent protests against the alleged molestation of a girl in Handwara on April 12.[77] After Jammu and Kashmir, the highest numbers of shutdowns were recorded in the state of Gujarat[78] : In September 2015, district commissioners banned mobile internet for almost seven days in the cities of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot after protests by the Patel community; [79] the ban was repeated for 24 hours in April 2016 when the protests resumed. [80] Some news reports said the shutdowns targeted specific applications like WhatsApp, [81] but the only orders documented related to the internet as a whole. In September 2015, mobile internet was suspended for 24 hours in Godhra, Gujarat to prevent circulation of a derogatory message about Islam on social media. [82] In February 2016, mobile internet was blocked for four hours across Gujarat to prevent cheating in a state entrance exam.[83] While shutdowns remained local to states, they were implemented in more of them than ever before. In December 2015, police blocked mobile internet to quell unrest after caste and communal clashes in at least four districts in Rajasthan;[84] in October, internet had been separately suspended for 24 hours in one of those districts, Bhilwara, following communal clashes.[85] Shutdowns were also documented in Haryana in response to violent protests by the Jat community in February and March 2016;[86] and for one day in Bokaro, Jharkhand during the Hindu festival of Ram Navami.[87] In Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, both mobile and fixed-line internet services were shut down on May 17 and 18, 2016, due to communal tensions.[88] Submarine cables connect India to the global internet. Ten are consortium owned; the rest are private.[89] These undersea cables are mainstays of mobile and internet communications and any damage to them leads to service disruptions. In January 2016, Agartala in Tripura became operational as a gateway to the international internet via an optical fiber cable linking to Cox's Bazar in southern Bangladesh, facilitating connectivity in north-eastern states.[90] Mumbai and Chennai already serve as international internet gateways.[91] There are four cable landing stations in Mumbai, and three in Chennai; Digha, Kochi and Tuticorin also have one cable landing station each.[92] BSNL, the state-owned telecom operator, owns two cable landing stations; the rest are privately owned. Tata Communications, the world's largest owner and operator of fiber network,[93] and Bharti Airtel, both of which are also major telecom operators, own three stations each.[94] These cable landing stations, where submarine cables meet the mainland, have imposed hefty fees on ISPs; however, lower charges came into effect in 2013.[95] Over 80 percent of telecommunications towers are privately owned.[96] Market share is split between Indus Towers, a joint venture between Bharti Infratel, Vodafone, and Idea Cellular (31 percent); BSNL (18 percent); and Reliance Infratel (12 percent), according to May 2015 figures.[97] Bharti Infratel, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, is one of the largest tower infrastructure providers, having a 42 percent equity interest in Indus Towers and owning 10 percent of towers independently.[98] ICT Market There are 133 operational ISPs in India.[99] While there is no monopoly, the top 10 ISPs control over 98 percent of the market.[100] Bharti Airtel holds the highest market share, worth 25 percent, followed by Vodafone with 20 percent. BSNL, Idea and Reliance have slightly over 10 percent market share each.[101] There are 14 mobile operators,[102] with Bharti Airtel controlling almost 24 percent of the market,[103] followed by Vodafone (19 percent), Idea (17 percent) and Reliance (10 percent).[104] The universal license framework, for which guidelines were published in November 2014,[105] reduced the legal and regulatory obstacles for companies by combining mobile phone and ISP licenses, instead of requiring separate licenses for each sector. Licensees must now pay a high one-time entry fee, a performance bank guarantee,[106] and annual license fees adjusted for revenue.[107] In 2011, the Indian government introduced rules under Section 79 of the IT Act requiring cybercafes to obtain a government-issued ID number in addition to a license, as well as to register and monitor customers.[108] Critics said the rules were "poorly framed,"[109] but penalties for noncompliance are unclear, and enforcement has reportedly been patchy (Common Service Centers are exempt, and operate under separate guidelines).[110] Regulatory Bodies India's principal ICT institution is the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.[111] It consists of two departments the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). DoT manages the overall development of the telecommunications sector, licenses internet and mobile service providers, and manages spectrum allocation;[112] DeitY formulates policy relating to information technology, electronics, and the internet.[113] In July 2016, the Ministry was divided in two. DeitY became the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), while the DoT and Department of Posts were placed under the Ministry of Communications.[114] Internet protocol (IP) addresses are regulated by the Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers (IRINN).[115] Since 2005, the registry has functioned as an autonomous body within the nonprofit National Internet Exchange of India.[116] The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), an independent regulator, was created in 1997 to regulate the telecom, broadcasting, and cable TV sectors.[117] The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act mandates transparency in the exercise of its operations, which include monitoring licensing terms, compliance, and service quality.[118] Its reports are published online, usually preceded by a multi-stakeholder consultation.[119] An amendment to the Act in 2000 established a three-member Telecommunications Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal chaired by a former senior judge.[120] Yet appointment and salary decisions for members remain in the hands of the central government. Further, while the TRAI Act initially barred members who had previously held central or state government office, amendments in 2014 diluted that prohibition, allowing them to join the regulator two years after resigning that position, or earlier with permission from the central government. Members may undertake commercial employment, except with telecom service providers.[121] TRAI opinions, however, are generally perceived as independent and largely free of official influence.[122] During the coverage period, it framed regulations prohibiting discriminatory tariffs for data services (see Digital Activism).[123] Limits on Content: Content blocking of pornographic and terrorism related material and copyright restrictions continued to take place during the coverage period. There was a significant rise in digital mobilization, especially over net neutrality, resulting in strong regulations against differential pricing for data. Blocking and Filtering Blocking of websites takes place under Section 69A of the IT Act and a 2009 subordinate legislation called the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules ("Blocking Rules"). The Blocking Rules empower the central government to direct any agency or intermediary to block access to information when satisfied that it is "necessary or expedient" in the interest of the "sovereignty and integrity of India, defense of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above."[124] Intermediaries failing to comply are punishable with fines and prison terms of up to seven years.[125] The Blocking Rules apply to orders issued by government agencies, who must appoint a "nodal officer" to send in requests and demonstrate that they are necessary or expedient under Section 69A.[126] These requests are reviewed by a committee which includes senior representatives of the law, home affairs, and information ministries, and the nodal agency for cybersecurity, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN).[127] The "designated officer," who chairs the committee, issues approved orders to service providers; the committee must also notify the source or intermediary hosting the content, who may respond to defend it within 48 hours.[128] In emergencies and upon written recommendations from the designated officer, the secretary of DEITY may issue blocking orders directly, but the content must be unblocked if the designated officer does not obtain the review committee's approval within 48 hours.[129] Indian courts can order content blocks without government approval. The designated officer is required to implement the court order after submitting it to the secretary of DEITY. Court orders can be challenged in a higher court, but internet users are not consistently notified of their implementation.[130] ISPs are not legally required to inform the public of blocks and the Blocking Rules mandate that executive blocking orders be kept confidential.[131] A 2014 transparency report issued by Verizon stated that the Indian government required the company to block access to websites, but that it was precluded by law from identifying how many blocking requests were received.[132] The 2011 cybercafe rules stated that cybercafes "may" install commercial filtering software "to avoid access to the websites relating to pornography, obscenity, terrorism and other objectionable materials."[133] It is not clear how many complied. In the landmark Shreya Singhal case decided by the Supreme Court in 2015, the petitioners challenged the constitutionality of Section 69A citing opaque procedures among other issues.[134] In March 2015, the Supreme Court upheld Section 69A and the Blocking Rules,[135] saying safeguards within the section were adequate, narrowly constructed, and not in contravention of the provisions of the Constitution of India.[136] At the same time, the court read the Blocking Rules to include both the right to be heard and the right to appeal, changing the way Section 69A has been interpreted. It is now clear that blocking orders must provide a written explanation, allowing them to be challenged by writ petition, and that reasonable efforts must be made to contact the originator of the content for a pre-decisional hearing before the blocking order is issued.[137] However, given the requirement in the Blocking Rules that the orders and actions based on them be kept confidential,[138] it remains to be seen how and whether the judgment will be effectively implemented.[139] According to a statement made in Parliament by the Minister of Communication and Information Technology, the government blocked 844 social media pages between January and November 2015. Among these, 492 URLs were blocked under Section 69A, and 352 were blocked in compliance with court orders.[140] In most cases, there is no information about the content targeted through these orders. However, there were some reports of overbroad content blocking affecting legitimate online activity. In February 2016, the DOT ordered ISPs to block jihadology.net, an online academic repository curating primary source material on the Arab Spring,[141] even though news reports said ISIS recruitment videos remained easily accessible through Google search after a campaign by the anti-terrorism squad resulted in 94 websites being reportedly blocked.[142] In another case in May 2016, the domain names marketplace BuyDomains.com was blocked by some ISPs and mobile internet providers. Visitors were informed that the URL was "blocked under instructions of the Competent Government Authority or in compliance to the orders of Hon'ble Court," with no further details given.[143] Since 2011, courts have blocked content relating to copyright violations through broad John Doe orders, which can be issued preemptively and do not name a defendant.[144] ISPs have occasionally implemented such orders by blocking entire websites instead of individual URLs, irrespective of whether the websites were hosting pirated material.[145] In 2012, the Madras High Court ruled that John Doe orders should not be used to block entire websites.[146] These potentially overbroad orders continue to be issued.[147] In July 2015, Phantom Films were granted a John Doe order by the Bombay High Court for blocking websites that may be used to pirate its movie 'Masaan'. In October 2015, the Delhi High Court granted a John Doe order to Fox Star Studios for the movie 'Prem Ratan Dhan Payo.' Similar orders were issued throughout the year by various High Courts.[148] Separately, in October 2015, the IT minister for the State of Telangana met with police officials, ISPs and representatives of the Telugu film industry to address movie piracy, citing loss in industry revenue. Following this, ISPs were directed to block around 200 unspecified websites to prevent piracy.[149] The IT Act and the Indian Penal Code prohibit the production and transmission of "obscene material,"[150] but there is no specific law against viewing pornography in India, except child pornography, which is prohibited under the IT Act.[151] In the case of Kamlesh Vaswani v. Union of India , the petitioner asked the Supreme Court to direct the government to block all online pornography in India.[152] In the past, the government has informed the Supreme Court that it is not technically feasible to block pornographic sites and that doing so would violate the constitution.[153] On July 31, 2015, however, the DoT ordered ISPs to block access to 857 URLs for allegedly pornographic content.[154] The notification said that the websites were found to be violating morality and decency under Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India, read with Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act.[155] There was widespread outrage over the ban on social media, and a few days later the government reversed it.[156] Subsequently, the government informed the Supreme Court in the Kamlesh Vaswani matter that it would only block child pornography,[157] on grounds that the government did not want to indulge in "moral policing" or become a totalitarian state.[158] While the ban was withdrawn, officials told ISPs that they were "free not to" disable any of the 857 URLs, as long as the URLs did not host child pornography,[159] effectively putting the onus on the ISPs to decide on the legality of the content on a case-by-case basis. Most ISPs continued to block the full list,[160] calling the instruction "vague and un-implementable."[161] In January 2016, news reports said telecom companies and ISPs were considering an agreement with New Zealand-based technology company Bypass Network Services to introduce parental controls over pornographic content.[162] Content Removal A 2008 IT Act amendment protected technology companies from legal liability for content posted to their platforms by others, with reasonable exceptions to prevent criminal acts or privacy violations.[163] Intermediaries Guidelines issued in 2011 under Section 79 of the IT Act required intermediaries to remove access to certain content within 36 hours of a user complaint.[164] In the 2015 judgment of Shreya Singhal v. Union of India , the Supreme Court read down Section 79 and the intermediary guidelines,[165] and companies are no longer required to act on user complaints.[166] Court and government takedown orders, furthermore, are only legitimate if they fall within the reasonable restrictions provided for under Article 19(2) of the constitution. Unlawful content beyond the ambit of Article 19(2) cannot be restricted. Thus, the court restricted the earlier broad grounds for takedown notices.[167] Intermediaries can separately be held liable for infringing the Copyright Act 1957,[168] under the law and licensing agreements.[169] The Shreya Singhal decision has had no impact on the legal framework on intermediary liability for copyright infringement. A 2012 amendment limited liability for intermediaries such as search engines that link to material copied illegally, but mandated that they disable public access for 21 days within 36 hours of receiving written notice from the copyright holder, pending a court order to remove the link.[170] Rules clarifying the amendment in 2013 gave intermediaries power to assess the legitimacy of the notice from the copyright holder and refuse to comply.[171] However, critics said the language was vague.[172] Separately, private companies disabled content from being viewed within India during the coverage period. Users disputed some of those interventions. In May 2015, the nonprofit organization Sikhs for Justice said Facebook had blocked its Indian page;[173] the page was accessible again in 2016. Administrators for the Facebook pages "Indian Atheists," and "Indian Atheists Debate corner" said their pages had been temporarily blocked by the platform in June.[174] The reason for these interruptions is not clear. In November 2015, Facebook users were temporarily unable to share news articles from Facebook pages operated by websites The Wire ,[175] and Faking News ,[176] but the content was later reinstated. A Facebook spokesperson said that the content was mistakenly identified as spam.[177] Several international companies reported receiving a high number of requests to remove content from Indian courts or government representatives. Facebook reported removing over 30,000 pieces of content based on these requests in 2015, up from 11,000 in 2014,[178] but said it would require more formal notification to do so in 2016 based on the Supreme Court's ruling in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India .[179] Google reported receiving 259 content removal requests affecting 1,606 items between July and December 2015, and said it complied with 38 percent of requests based on court orders and 10 percent from government agencies and law enforcement. The reason most commonly cited for the request was defamation.[180] Twitter received 40 requests for content removal from July to December 2015, of which 1 was court ordered and 39 were from police or government agencies, but said it did not comply.[181] Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation Online media content is diverse and lively. The internet has given a voice to people in remote areas, helping them become a part of the public discourse. During the coverage period, the Dalit Camera Action YouTube channel was established to address the lack of Dalit voices in the mainstream media.[182] It provides original content and reposts media related to Dalits, a traditionally marginalized group in the Hindu caste system. The mobile news service CGNetSwara allows people in rural areas of central India to submit and listen to audio news reports, averaging 200 calls per day and driving the emergence of online reports on local issues that do not reach the mainstream media.[183] The Delhi-based company Gram Vaani operates a Mobile Vaani initiative using an interactive voice response system to disseminate reports by mobile phone users to different audiences and stakeholders. It enables over 80,000 households across 12 states to create their own media.[184] In general, self-censorship is not widespread. Internet users in conflict regions may avoid addressing sensitive political or religious issues which other journalists and activists report freely. Some institutions and individual writers self-censor due to fear of reprisal from political organizations.[185] No noteworthy examples of self-censorship were documented during the coverage period, though the issue was discussed. In July 2015, the Economic Times took down a news report published in the June 30, 2015 edition of the paper from its website, titled, "Sec 377 maybe scrapped says Gowda."[186] Section 377 of the penal code criminalizes homosexuality. Law Minister Sadananda Gowda said on Twitter that the Times had misquoted him in the article,[187] but observers commented on the unusual nature of the retraction, suggesting it indicated self-censorship amid a "drought of progressivism."[188] Writers and other public figures separately reported being subject to abuse on social media for criticizing what they described as religious intolerance.[189] However, there were no reports of paid commentators manipulating political content. Social media and communication apps drew some increased scrutiny. In February 2016, news reports said the government was setting up a special media cell, the National Media Analytics Centre (NMAC), to monitor online narratives perceived to be against the government, and counter them with positive press releases and other campaigns.[190] In an unprecedented move, the District Magistrate of Kupwara, a district in Jammu and Kashmir, issued a notice in April 2016 requiring administrators of WhatsApp groups sharing news to register with the local District Social Media Centre.[191] The administrators would be liable for "any irresponsible remarks/deals [sic] leading to untoward incidents" posted by group members, according to the notice,[192] which followed a week of violence after the alleged rape of an underage girl by army personnel.[193] Local media and student organizations objected,[194] and how the notice will be enforced remains unclear. Digital Activism Throughout 2015, civil society groups used digital tools to mobilize public opinion on net neutrality, the principle that providers should not discriminate against certain content or data. In December 2014, Bharti Airtel considered preventing customers with regular mobile data packages from accessing Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications, angering consumers.[195] Separately in February 2015, Facebook launched Internet.org later renamed Free Basics in collaboration with Reliance Communications and other corporations. The service offered limited offline access to certain websites at no cost for Reliance customers without full internet access.[196] Facebook described the program as a means to provide some experience of the internet to communities who would otherwise go without,[197] but consumers feared it would erode net neutrality by establishing companies as the arbiters of which content and services would be available for free.[198] Others criticized the program as interest philanthropy, resulting in profits for participating companies under the guise of improving access,[199] and questioned the security implications of routing users' personal data and web traffic through servers operated by a single company, making them more vulnerable to cyberattack or surveillance.[200] Facebook addressed some of these concerns, opening Free Basics to a wider range of content providers, among other measures, but Free Basics remained widely identified with the net neutrality controversy unfolding in parallel over differential pricing.[201] The TRAI initially supported service providers, and outlined a regulatory framework for consumers to pay for communications applications such as Viber, Skype, and WhatsApp in a March 2015 consultation paper.[202] More than a million people submitted comments opposing the measure, arguing that it violated net neutrality principles.[203] On December 9, 2015, the TRAI conducted a public consultation on the subject,[204] and produced a second consultation paper.[205] This second consultation involved more than half a million people,[206] including academic institutions[207] , civil society groups[208] , digital activists, and the public,[209] as well as telecommunications companies and a robust counter campaign by Facebook.[210] Following this, the TRAI issued a tariff order on February 8, 2016 explicitly prohibiting differential pricing for data services.[211] This order meant that proposals to charge consumers different prices for select content or applications, including Free Basics, were "effectively declared illegal."[212] Violations of User Rights: There was a sharp increase in the number of arrests for online speech during the coverage period. Seventeen people were arrested for content distributed on WhatsApp; other cases involved Facebook content. The Supreme Court upheld laws criminalizing defamation, which will impact online speech. The Central Monitoring System was reported to have become operational through regional monitoring centers in New Delhi and Mumbai from May 2016. Legal Environment The Constitution of India grants citizens the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression,[213] including the right to gather information and exchange thoughts with others within and outside of India.[214] Press freedom has been read into the freedom of speech and expression.[215] These freedoms are subject to certain restrictions in the interests of state security, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency and morality, contempt of court, defamation, incitement to an offense, and the sovereignty and integrity of India. However, these restrictions may only be imposed by a duly enacted law and not by executive action.[216] The right to privacy has been read into the right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of the constitution.[217] The Indian Penal Code (IPC) criminalizes several kinds of speech, and applies to online content. Individuals could be punished with a jail term ranging from two to seven years for speech that is found to be seditious,[218] obscene,[219] defamatory,[220] "promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language,"[221] committing acts "prejudicial to maintenance of harmony,"[222] or consisting of statements, rumors, or reports that may cause fear, alarm, disturb public tranquility, or promote enmity or ill will.[223] Internet users are also subject to criminal punishment under the Official Secrets Act for wrongful communication of information that may have an adverse effect on the sovereignty and integrity of India.[224] The IT Act criminalizes certain online activity in particular. The act bans the publication or transmission of obscene or sexually explicit content in electronic form, and the creation, transmission or browsing of child pornography.[225] Section 66A of the IT Act, which criminalized information causing "annoyance," "inconvenience," or "danger," among other ill-defined categories, led to several arrests for social media posts from 2012 through early 2015 before it was struck down by the Supreme Court on March 24, 2015.[226] The court affirmed that freedom of speech online is equal to freedom of speech offline, and held that Section 66A was an arbitrary and disproportionate invasion of the right to free speech outside the reasonable restrictions specified in Article 19(2) of the constitution.[227] A more recent Supreme Court judgment upheld laws criminalizing defamation (Sections 499 and 500 of the IPC and Section 119 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) as consistent with the Indian Constitution.[228] This judgment has a significant impact on internet freedom, as the sections are often invoked against online speech and dissent.[229] Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities In a new and worrying trend, multiple people were arrested across India for online speech, including seventeen for content distributed on WhatsApp.[230] This includes three WhatsApp group administrators who were arrested for material posted by third parties in their groups.[231] Arrests based on social media content have been documented in India in the past under Section 66A of the IT Act, but outstanding prosecutions were dropped after the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in March 2015.[232] During the coverage period, charges were filed instead under the penal code or other sections of the IT Act, such as Section 67, which prohibits the transmission of obscene content via electronic media, or Section 66D, which prohibits use of computer resources to impersonate someone else to commit fraud. The following prosecutions involving posts shared on WhatsApp occurred during this coverage period: In June 2015, a WhatsApp group administrator was arrested in Nagpur, Maharashtra for posting content that "hurt the religious sentiments" of another member of the group. He was remanded to magisterial custody and later released on bail. [233] In July 2015 police in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, arrested a school student for objectionable images and text on WhastApp which triggered communal tension; news reports said a court sent the student to a remand home. [234] In the same month, in Hadra, Madhya Pradesh, police arrested four men for allegedly posting derogatory remarks against the Chief Minister on WhatsApp. [235] They were charged with 'promoting disharmony' and released on bail a day later. [236] In November 2015, the Maharashtra police ordered the arrest of a 17-year-old from another state for circulating a message on WhatsApp which they said had sparked a riot in the town of Amravati. The boy was arrested in his home in Uttar Pradesh and brought to Maharashtra, where he was charged with hurting religious sentiment under Section 295A of the IPC and denied bail because his family could not prove his age. [237] In December 2015, a textile shop owner in Tamil Nadu was arrested for sharing a satirical image depicting the Chief Minister in an undergarment on WhatsApp. He was charged with Section 346 of Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act and Section 3 of Harassment of Women Act. [238] In March 2016, a journalist was arrested in Chhattisgarh for allegedly posting an obscene message about a senior police officer on a WhatsApp group. He was charged with publishing obscene material under Section 67 of the IT Act and Section 292 of the IPC. The journalist accused the police of abuse in custody. [239] The journalist was released on bail in June. [240] In May 2016, a person was arrested in Jharkhand for allegedly posting religiously inflammatory content in a WhatsApp group. Charges were filed under Section 295A of the IPC and Section 66D of the IT Act. A case was also registered against the group administrator.[241] A handful of Facebook users were also charged based on posts: Eight charges based on Facebook content were reported in Uttar Pradesh in July 2015; news reports did not specify the ages of those charged but described all eight as youths. One individual in Sambhal was arrested under Sections 153A, 505, and 504 of the IPC for allegedly sharing an "objectionable" post about a politician on Facebook. [242] Separately, charges were filed against seven people in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh for hurting religious sentiment on Facebook. At least one who posted the comment was detained; police were also investigating the other six who had liked or commented on the content. Charges were filed under Sections 153B, 295A, and 504 of the IPC, and the IT Act. [243] In February 2016, a Facebook user reported that he had been arrested two hours after posting about a local leader. Though the post did not name the leader, a politician from the Trinamool Congress, the ruling party in the state of West Bengal, said he planned to prosecute the man for defamation.[244] Police said the man had been arrested to maintain peace.[245] All these cases are currently pending. Various prosecutions initiated in the previous reporting period were dropped for lack of evidence.[246] Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity There is limited opportunity for anonymity on the internet in India. Prepaid and postpaid mobile customers have their identification verified before connections are activated.[247] There is a legal requirement to submit identification at cybercafes[248] and when subscribing to internet connections. The effective implementation of privacy rights remains a significant issue. Communications surveillance may be conducted under the Telegraph Act,[249] as well as the IT Act,[250] to protect defense, national security, sovereignty, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, and to prevent incitement to a cognizable offense. Section 69 of the IT Act appears to add another broad category, allowing surveillance for "the investigation of any offence."[251] The home secretary at the central or state level issues interception orders based on procedural safeguards established by the Supreme Court and rules under the Telegraph Act.[252] These are reviewed by a committee of government officials of a certain rank, and carried out by intermediaries.[253] A similar framework applies to the IT Act.[254] Interception orders are not reviewed by a court and are limited to 60 days, renewable for a maximum of 180 days.[255] In emergencies, phone tapping may take place for up to 72 hours without this clearance, but records must be destroyed if the home secretary subsequently denies permission.[256] Eight separate intelligence bodies are authorized to issue surveillance orders to service providers under these circumstances.[257] Around 7,500 to 9,000 telephone interception orders are issued by the central government alone each month, according to a 2014 report citing information revealed in a right to information request.[258] Online intermediaries are required by law to "intercept, monitor, or decrypt" or otherwise provide user information to officials.[259] Where the Telegraph Act levied civil penalties for non-compliance with an interception order,[260] while also creating the possibility of loss of license, the IT Act carries a possible seven year jail term.[261] Unlawful interception is punishable by just three years' imprisonment.[262] Some improvements to the framework have been made. On January 2, 2014, the government issued "Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for Lawful Interception and Monitoring of Telecom Service Providers," which were viewed by journalists but not publicly available.[263] The procedures restricted interception to a service provider's "chief nodal officer," and mandated that interception orders be in writing.[264] Rules issued in 2011 under the IT Act increased protection of personal data handled by companies.[265] However, they do not apply to the government; critics say they create a burden on multinational companies, particularly in the context of the outsourcing industry.[266] These improvements failed to address the framework's inconsistencies. In 2012, a government-appointed group of experts said the Telegraph and the IT Acts are inconsistent with regard to "permitted grounds," "type of interception," "granularity of information that can be intercepted," the degree of assistance from service providers, and the "destruction and retention" of intercepted material." These differences, it concluded, "have created an unclear regulatory regime that is not transparent, prone to misuse, and that does not provide remedy for aggrieved individuals."[267] In 2015, the government was finalizing the draft of the Privacy Bill to be tabled in the Parliament.[268] This may be delayed pending another deliberation, however. In August 2015, a three-judge bench of the Indian Supreme Court requested the Chief Justice to formulate a larger bench to decide whether privacy is a fundamental right in India.[269] License agreements require service providers to guarantee the designated security agency or licensor remote access to information for monitoring;[270] ensure that their equipment contains necessary software and hardware for centralized interception and monitoring; and provide the geographical location, such as the nearest Base Transceiver Station, of any subscriber at a given point in time.[271] Under a 2011 Equipment Security Agreement that did not appear on the DoT website, telecom operators were separately told to develop the capacity to pinpoint any customer's physical location within 50 meters.[272] "Customers specified by security agencies" were prioritized for location monitoring, with "all customers, irrespective of whether they are the subject of legal intercept or not," to be monitored by June 2014.[273] The agreement remains effective, though various GSM operators lobbied for the clause to be removed from the license agreement because of compliance issues.[274] In 2014, an amendment to licensing conditions mandated government testing for all telecom equipment prior to use, effective in 2015.[275] Cybercafe owners are required to photograph their customers, arrange computer screens in plain sight, keep copies of client IDs and their browsing histories for one year, and forward this data to the government each month.[276] ISPs setting up cable landing stations are required to install infrastructure for surveillance and keyword scanning of all traffic passing through each gateway.[277] The ISP license bars internet providers from deploying bulk encryption; restricts the level of encryption for individuals, groups or organizations to a key length of 40 bits;[278] and mandates prior approval from the DoT or a designated officer to install encryption equipment.[279] Since 2011, officials have sought to prevent international providers from encrypting user communications,[280] and required some, such as Nokia and BlackBerry, to establish local servers subject to Indian law under threat of blocking their services.[281] In 2013, BlackBerry confirmed their "lawful access capability" met "the standard required by the Government of India," though business customers would not be affected.[282] The Indian government also seeks user information from international web-based platforms. Google reported that the government made 3,081 user data requests and 4,820 requests to access accounts between January and June 2015, the highest number of requests from any single government.[283] Google made disclosures in 44 percent of the cases.[284] The government requested access to 5,115 Facebook accounts between January and June 2015 and data was produced by Facebook in 45 percent of cases.[285] The government made 141 account information requests to Twitter between June and December 2015, the highest by any government so far; Twitter said it produced data in 4 percent of cases.[286] Besides retrieving data from intermediaries, the government's own surveillance equipment is becoming more sophisticated. The Central Monitoring System (CMS) allows government agencies to intercept any online activities, including phone calls, text messages, and VoIP communication directly using Lawful Intercept and Monitoring (LIM) systems on intermediary premises.[287] In May 2016, the Minister for Communications and IT stated that the monitoring centers in Delhi and Mumbai are now operational, and that centers across the country are being put into operation in a phased manner.[288] In 2015, news reports said a lab under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was preparing to launch "NETRA," short for Network Traffic Analysis, a system to sweep online content for keywords like "bomb."[289] The timing for the release is unknown. Intimidation and Violence While there was no systematic violence against internet users in the coverage period, some users have been periodically targeted in reprisal for online activities. In June 2015, a murder related to online content was reported in Uttar Pradesh. Joginder Singh, a freelance journalist who managed two Facebook pages was set alight during a raid on his home by local police officers shortly after he posted details of an investigative report accusing a state minister of involvement in illegal mining and land seizure online. He died of burn injuries after giving a statement about the attack, saying the officers questioned him about the posts, beat him, and poured petrol over him before setting him on fire.[290] On December 27, 2015, photographer Rafeeque Taliparamba's studio in Kerala was burnt down after he questioned certain Islamic practices in a WhatsApp group.[291] Technical Attacks According to one report, cybercrime affects nearly half of India's net users.[292] India had a conviction rate of just 0.7 percent for cybercrime in 2014.[293] However, most cybercriminals appear to act for economic motives, rather than to suppress online speech. Notes: 1 Harriet Taylor, "Mary Meeker: India now has more internet users than US", CNBC, June 1, 2016, http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/01/mary-meeker-india-now-has-more-internet-users-that-us.html; Vlad Savov, "India rises past the US to become the internet's second biggest user", The Verge, June 2, 2016, http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/2/11837898/india-internet-user-population-stats-mary-meeker-2016; "India Pips US in Number of Internet Users", Huffington Post India, June 2, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/06/02/india-internet-usage_n_10259450.html. 2 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2015, May 18, 2016, p. ii, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/QPIR_Oct_to_Dec-15.pdf; the International Telecommunication Union separately estimated penetration at 26 percent in 2015. International Telecommunication Union, "Percentage of Individuals Using the Internet, 2000-2015," http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 3 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2015, May 18, 2016, p. ii, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/QPIR_Oct_to_Dec-15.pdf. 4 International Telecommunication Union, "Percentage of Individuals Using the Internet, 2000-2015," http://bit.ly/1cblxxY; Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2015, May 18, 2016, p. ii, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/QPIR_Oct_to_Dec-15.pdf. 5 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2014, May 8, 2015, p. ii, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/Indicator_Reports%20-%20Dec-14=08052015.pdf.. 6 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2015, May 18, 2016, p. i, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/QPIR_Oct_to_Dec-15.pdf; Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Highlights of Telecom Subscription Data as on April 30th 2016, Press Release No. 49/2016, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PressRealease/Document/Press_Release_No.49_20_june_2016_Eng.pdf. The ITU reported mobile penetration at 79 percent in 2015: International Telecommunication Union, "Mobile-cellular subscriptions," http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 7 Broadband Commission (ITU & UNESCO), The State of Broadband 2015: Broadband as a Foundation for Sustainable Development, September 2015, p. 89, http://www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/reports/bb-annualreport2015.pdf (2014 figure). 8 Akamai, The State of the Internet, Q1, 2016 Report, Vol. 9 No. 1, June 29, 2016, p. 28, https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/akamai-state-of-the-internet-report-q1-2016.pdf. 9 Akamai, The State of the Internet, Q1, 2016 Report, Vol. 9 No. 1, June 29, 2016, p. 12, https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/akamai-state-of-the-internet-report-q1-2016.pdf. 10 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2015, May 18, 2016, p. 28, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/QPIR_Oct_to_Dec-15.pdf. 11 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2014, May 8, 2015, p. 29, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/Indicator_Reports%20-%20Dec-14=08052015.pdf. 12 Akamai, The State of the Internet, Q1, 2016 Report, Vol. 9 No. 1, June 29, 2016, p. 29, https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/akamai-state-of-the-internet-report-q1-2016.pdf. 13 Akamai, The State of the Internet, Q1, 2016 Report, Vol. 9 No. 1, June 29, 2016, p. 29, https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/akamai-state-of-the-internet-report-q1-2016.pdf. 14 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, "TRAI's Recommendations on the National Broadband Plan", May 4, 2011, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/Recommendation/Documents/Reply_DOT_Broadband_modified[1] .pdf. 15 Report on Need for Reviewing Definition of Broadband, May 24th 2016, TRAI, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/Recommendation/Documents/Letter_to_Secretary_DOT_24_may_2016.pdf. 16 Silja Baller, Soumitra Dutta, and Bruno Lanvin (Eds.), Global Information Technology Report 2016, World Economic Forum and INSEAD, p. 111, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GITR2016/WEF_GITR_Full_Report.pdf. 17 Thierry Geiger, Soumitra Dutta, and Bruno Lanvin (Eds.), Global Information Technology Report 2015, World Economic Forum and INSEAD, p. 172, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_IT_Report_2015.pdf. 18 Silja Baller, Soumitra Dutta, and Bruno Lanvin (Eds.), Global Information Technology Report 2016, World Economic Forum and INSEAD, p. 111, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GITR2016/WEF_GITR_Full_Report.pdf. 19 Silja Baller, Soumitra Dutta, and Bruno Lanvin (Eds.), Global Information Technology Report 2016, World Economic Forum and INSEAD, p. 111, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GITR2016/WEF_GITR_Full_Report.pdf.. 20 Klaus Schwab, The Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016, World Economic Forum, p. 200, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/gcr/2015-2016/Global_Competitiveness_Report_2015-2016.pdf. 21 Klaus Schwab, The Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016, World Economic Forum, p. 201, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/gcr/2015-2016/Global_Competitiveness_Report_2015-2016.pdf. 22 Klaus Schwab, The Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016, World Economic Forum, p. 200, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/gcr/2015-2016/Global_Competitiveness_Report_2015-2016.pdf. 23 Flash Statistics: School Education in India 2014-15, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, p. 26, http://dise.in/Downloads/Publications/Documents/U-DISE-SchoolEducationInIndia-2014-15.pdf. 24 Flash Statistics: Secondary Education in India, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, p. 12, http://dise.in/Downloads/Publications/Documents/SecondaryFlash%20Statistics-2014-15.pdf. 25 Flash Statistics: Secondary Education in India, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, p. 13, http://dise.in/Downloads/Publications/Documents/SecondaryFlash%20Statistics-2014-15.pdf. 26 Digital India, DeitY, http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Digital%20India.pdf. 27 Anirudh Vohra, "Free Wi-Fi: Digital Dilemma", The Financial Express, February 21, 2015, http://www.financialexpress.com/article/economy/free-wi-fi-digital-dilemma/45804/. 28 "25 Indian cities to get free public Wi-Fi by June 2015", India Today, December 17, 2014, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/technology/story/25-indian-cities-to-get-free-public-wi-fi-by-june-2015/1/407214.html. 29 Shruti Dhapola, "Explained: What is Google's Wi-Fi at 100 railway station project and how will it work", Indian Express, December 17, 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/explained-what-is-googles-wifi-at-railway-station-project-and-how-will-it-work/. 30 Shruti Dhapola, "Explained: What is Google's Wi-Fi at 100 railway station project and how will it work", Indian Express, December 17, 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/explained-what-is-googles-wifi-at-railway-station-project-and-how-will-it-work/. 31 "Google, RailTel's Free Wi-Fi Service Comes to 5 More Railway Stations", Gadgets 360 NDTV, May 10, 2016, http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/google-railtels-free-wi-fi-service-comes-to-5-more-railway-stations-835810. 32 "Digital India A programme to transform India into digital empowered society and knowledge economy", August 20, 2014, http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=108926. 33 Digital India, DeitY, http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Digital%20India.pdf. 34 Constitution of India, Article 243(d). 35 National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN), Bharat Broadband Network Limited, http://www.bbnl.nic.in/content/page/national-optical-fibre-networknofn.php. 36 CSC 2.0 Scheme, Common Service Centres Scheme, DeitY, Govt. of India, http://csc.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=174&Itemid=331. 37 Pranav Mukul, "Govt to set up 1 lakh common service centres in rural areas: Ravi Shankar Prasad", Indian Express, March 23, 2016, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/govt-to-set-up-1-lakh-common-service-centres-in-rural-areas-ravi-shankar-prasad/. 38 "Centre ready to use satellites, drones to connect to rural India: Ravi Shankar Prasad", Economic Times, February 4, 2015, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-02-04/news/58795885_1_digital-india-ravi-shankar-prasad-pilot-project. 39 "DoT to provide internet via MSOs, cable operators", Times of India, February 16, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/DoT-to-provide-internet-via-MSOs-cable-operators/articleshow/46261597.cms. 40 See http://etaal.gov.in/etaal/YearlyChartIndex.aspx; "Digital India: E-governance transactions double in 2015", Times of India, January 11, 2016, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Digital-India-E-governance-transactions-double-in-2015/articleshow/50532400.cms?. 41 Neha Alawadhi, "Digital India: Government digitizes 2 million public records' characters", Times of India, December 15, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech%20news/Digital-India-Government-digitizes-2-million-public-records-characters/articleshow/50185112.cms. 42 See https://digilocker.gov.in/; Muntazir Abbas, "Digital India: Government wants municipalities to replicate Rahuri's DigiLocker Model", Economic Times, April 28, 2016, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/telecomnews/Digital-India-Government-wants-municipalities-to-replicate-Rahuris-DigiLocker-model/articleshow/52026878.cms. 43 Ashish K Tiwari, "Government launches Rs. 2200 crore Electronics Development Fund", DNA, February 16, 2016, http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-government-launches-rs-2200-crore-electronics-development-fund-2178223. 44 IMRB-INT, IAMAI Internet in India 2014, October 2014, p. 14; "Local language content to boost India's internet penetration: IAMAI", August 4, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Local-language-content-to-boost-Indias-internet-penetration-IAMAI/articleshow/48346892.cms. 45 Usage of Content Languages for Websites, W3Techs, http://w3techs.com/technologies; http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_language/all. 46 "Speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues", 2001 Census of India, http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement1.aspx; IMRB-INT, IAMAI Internet in India 2013, June 2013, pp. 15-16, http://www.imrbint.com/downloads/Report-BB55685%20IAMAI%20ICUBE_2013-Urban+Rural-C1.pdf. 47 IMRB-INT, IAMAI Internet in Local Language 2014, October 2014, p. 14; "Local language content to boost India's internet penetration: IAMAI", August 4, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Local-language-content-to-boost-Indias-internet-penetration-IAMAI/articleshow/48346892.cms. 48 "Local language content will boost internet usage: IAMAI", Times of India, February 17, 2016, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Local-language-content-will-boost-internet-usage-IAMAI/articleshow/51025569.cms. 49 "Google will Destroy Local Newspapers with Indian language Internet Alliance", Firstpost, November 3, 2014, http://www.firstpost.com/business/corporate-business/google-will-destroy-local-newspapers-with-indian-language-internet-alliance-1995349.html; Nandagopal Rajan, "Big Boost for Hindi as Google Ropes in partners for Indian Language Internet Alliance", Indian Express, November 4, 2014, http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/technology-others/google-kickstarts-indian-language-internet-alliance-focus-first-on-hindi/. 50 "Google will Destroy Local Newspapers with Indian language Internet Alliance", Firstpost, November 3, 2014, http://www.firstpost.com/business/corporate-business/google-will-destroy-local-newspapers-with-indian-language-internet-alliance-1995349.html; Nandagopal Rajan, "Big Boost for Hindi as Google Ropes in partners for Indian Language Internet Alliance", Indian Express, November 4, 2014, http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/technology-others/google-kickstarts-indian-language-internet-alliance-focus-first-on-hindi/. 51 "Google will Destroy Local Newspapers with Indian language Internet Alliance", Firstpost, November 3, 2014, http://www.firstpost.com/business/corporate-business/google-will-destroy-local-newspapers-with-indian-language-internet-alliance-1995349.html; Nandagopal Rajan, "Big Boost for Hindi as Google Ropes in partners for Indian Language Internet Alliance", Indian Express, November 4, 2014, http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/technology-others/google-kickstarts-indian-language-internet-alliance-focus-first-on-hindi/. 52 "Google to concentrate on local language content", Hindustan Times, July 6, 2015, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/technology/story/google-to-concentrate-on-local-language-content/1/449440.html. 53 Anoop Verma, "Internet domain names in Indian languages", Financial Express, February 2, 2015, http://computer.financialexpress.com/magazine/internet-domain-names-in-indian-languages/8613/. 54 Kunal Doley, "Looking local: Snapdeal, Quikr, Hike, others launch vernacular language support, Financial Express, January 24, 2016, http://www.financialexpress.com/article/industry/companies/looking-local-snapdeal-quikr-hike-others-launch-vernacular-language-support/201082/. 55 Press Release on Internet in India 2015, IAMAI, November 17, 2015, http://www.iamai.in/media/details/4486. 56 Press Release on Internet in India 2015, IAMAI, November 17, 2015, http://www.iamai.in/media/details/4486. 57 Press Release on Internet in India 2015, IAMAI, November 17, 2015, http://www.iamai.in/media/details/4486. 58 Meghna Rao, "Google launches 'Internet Saathi' for women in rural India", Business Standard, August 25, 2015, http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/google-launches-internet-saathi-for-women-in-rural-india-115082500329_1.html. 59 Meghna Rao, "Google launches 'Internet Saathi' for women in rural India", Business Standard, August 25, 2015, http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/google-launches-internet-saathi-for-women-in-rural-india-115082500329_1.html. 60 "Google to partner with India's 'Internet Saathi' program: Ravi Shankar Prasad", DNA, December 16, 2015, http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-google-to-partner-with-india-s-internet-saathi-program-ravi-shankar-prasad-2156455. 61 Sarvjeet Singh, "Incidents of Internet Shutdowns in India (2012 onwards)", Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi, https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BycAZd9M5_7NOExCRnQ3Q1pqcm8. 62 Sarvjeet Singh, "Incidents of Internet Shutdowns in India (2012 onwards)", Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi, https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BycAZd9M5_7NOExCRnQ3Q1pqcm8. 63 "Internet blocked in Manipur to quell violence", Live Mint, September 3, 2015, http://www.livemint.com/Politics/ZFX1zHdhZ827jnqirpzZqO/Internet-blocked-in-Manipur-to-quell-violence.html; Iboyaima Laithangbam, "Curfew continues in Manipur; internet blocked", The Hindu, September 2, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/internet-blocked-in-manipur-to-check-communal-flare/article7607186.ece; Binalakshmi Nepram, "Manipur violence: Why the protest and what are the demands", Indian Express, September 6, 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/blogs/summer-of-revolt-why-manipur-is-one-of-the-worst-conflict-affected-states-in-south-asia/; "Manipur government lifts block on internet", Economic Times, September 9, 2015, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-09-09/news/66363391_1_internet-services-gaikhangam-manipur-government. 64 "To beat exam cheats, Gujarat to block mobile internet today", Times of India, February 28, 2016, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/To-beat-exam-cheats-Gujarat-to-block-mobile-internet-today/articleshow/51173461.cms. 65 Nakul Nayak, "The Anatomy of Internet Shutdowns II (Gujarat & Constitutional Questions)". CCG-NLU Blog, September 1, 2015, https://ccgnludelhi.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/the-anatomy-of-internet-shutdowns-ii-gujarat-constitutional-questions/; Nakul Nayak, "The Anatomy of Internet Shutdowns III (Post Script: Gujarat High Court Verdict)", CCG-NLU Blog, September 19, 2015, https://ccgnludelhi.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/the-anatomy-of-internet-shutdowns-iii-post-script-gujarat-high-court-verdict/. 66 Samanwaya Rautrey, "Supreme Court upholds Internet ban by States", Economic Times Tech, February 12, 2016, http://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internet/supreme-court-upholds-internet-ban-by-states/50955292; Chinmayi Arun, "Demarcating a safe threshold", Indian Express, February 24, 2016, http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/demarcating-a-safe-threshold/. 67 Nakul Nayak, "The Anatomy of Internet Shutdowns III (Post Script: Gujarat High Court Verdict)", CCG-NLU Blog, September 19, 2015, https://ccgnludelhi.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/the-anatomy-of-internet-shutdowns-iii-post-script-gujarat-high-court-verdict/ 68 Samanwaya Rautrey, "Supreme Court upholds Internet ban by States", Economic Times Tech, February 12, 2016, http://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internet/supreme-court-upholds-internet-ban-by-states/50955292. 69 Nakul Nayak, "The Anatomy of Internet Shutdowns I (Of Kill Switches and Legal Vacuums)". CCG-NLU Blog, August 29, 2015, https://ccgnludelhi.wordpress.com/2015/08/29/the-anatomy-of-internet-shutdowns-i-of-kill-switches-and-legal-vacuums/; Apar Gupta, "Section 144 and the power to impose an internet curfew", Economic Times, September 19, 2015, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-09-19/news/66706176_1_mobile-internet-section-144-central-government. 70 http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/mobile-services-partially-restored-in-kashmir-shutdown-continues-for-43rd-day/story-4bGgEKZbmXSiAJmLdlrvkJ.html 71 "Authorities Reach Agreement With Sikhs in Jammu, But Nervous Calm Prevails in City", NDTV, June 6, 2015, http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/authorities-reach-agreement-with-sikh-community-in-jammu-769205 72 "Mobile phone, internet services snapped in Valley on Independence Day", Economic Times, February 9, 2013, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-08-15/news/65525213_1_mobile-internet-services-independence-day-bakshi-stadium 73 Mir Ehsan and Arun Sharma, "J&K suspends internet services in the state for 2 days", Indian Express, September 25, 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/to-avoid-tension-during-eid-ul-zuha-govt-ban-internet-in-jk-for-two-days-from-tomorrow/; Two-day Internet ban in Kashmir Valley on Eid, The Hindu (Sept. 25, 2015), http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/twoday-internet-ban-in-kashmir-valley-on-eid/article7687069.ece; Peerzada Ashiq, "82-hour internet ban on Eid fuels anger in Kashmir", The Hindu, September 28, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/internet-ban-on-eid-fuels-anger-in-kashmir/article7699176.ece. 74 "J-K high court asks state govt to strictly enforce beef ban", Hindustan Times, September 13, 2015, http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/j-k-high-court-asks-state-govt-to-strictly-enforce-beef-ban/story-QDhQyZv4VqUaQEm531pPTO.html. 75 Basharat Masood, "J&K govt plans three-day mobile internet ban in Valley", Indian Express, September 24, 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/jk-govt-plans-three-day-mobile-internet-ban-in-valley/. 76 "Mobile internet services cut to calm tension in Udhampur", Indian Express, October 9, 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/mobile-internet-services-cut-in-jammu-after-recovery-of-cows-carcasses/ 77 "Mobile Internet Restored in Kashmir, Restrictions Lifted for a Few Hours", The Wire, April 18, 2016, http://thewire.in/2016/04/18/mobilet-internet-restored-in-kashmir-restrictions-lifted-for-few-hours-30024/. 78 Sarvjeet Singh, "Incidents of Internet Shutdowns in India (2012 onwards)", Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi, https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BycAZd9M5_7NOExCRnQ3Q1pqcm8. 79 "Hardik Patel detained in Surat, mobile internet services suspended across the state", Indian Express, September 19, 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/gujarat/hardik-patel-other-paas-leaders-detained-in-surat-ahead-of-planned-agitation/. 80 "Curfew in Mehsana, Patel agitation turns violent", Business Standard, April 17, 2016, http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/curfew-in-mehsana-patel-agitation-turns-violent-116041700486_1.html; Vadodara tense, mobile data services suspended, Hindustan Times, Sept. 28, 2014, http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/vadodara-tense-mobile-data-services-suspended/story-wVinjaYdxN8Eq2RONs0wsJ.html. 81 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-34074466 82 "Gujarat: Internet services in Godhra suspended for 24 hours", Indian Express, September 28, 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/gujarat/gujarat-internet-services-in-godhra-suspended-for-24-hours/ 83 "To beat exam cheats, Gujarat to block mobile internet today", Times of India, February 28, 2016, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/To-beat-exam-cheats-Gujarat-to-block-mobile-internet-today/articleshow/51173461.cms. 84 Amit Anand Choudhary, "Government can block net for law and order: Supreme Court," Times of India, February 12, 2016, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Government-can-block-net-for-law-and-order-Supreme-Court/articleshow/50950023.cms; Ashish Mehta, "Rajasthan police to ban internet usage as per needs to maintain communal harmony", Times of India, December 20, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rajasthan-police-to-ban-internet-usage-as-per-needs-to-maintain-communal-harmony/articleshow/50258271.cms. 85 "Communal tension in Rajasthan cities", The Hindu, October 24, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/communal-tension-in-rajasthan-cities/article7800532.ece 86 "Jat quota stir: Mobile internet services blocked in Rohtak after clashes over reservation", The Indian Express, February 19, 2016, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/rohtak-jat-reservation-mobile-internet-blocked-haryana/; "Jat reservation: Mobile internet services suspended in several Haryana districts", The Hindu, March 18, 2016, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/jat-reservation-agitation-mobile-internet-haryana/. 87 Alok KN Mishra, "Internet services blocked in Bokaro after communal tension", Times of India, April 16, 2016, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ranchi/Internet-services-blocked-in-Bokaro-after-communal-tension/articleshow/51856786.cms. 88 Sarvjeet Singh, "Incidents of Internet Shutdowns in India (2012 onwards)", Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi, https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BycAZd9M5_7NOExCRnQ3Q1pqcm8. 89 The ten are: SeameWe-3; SeaMeWe-4; SeaMeWe-5; Asia-Africa Europe-1; Bay of Bengal Gateway; SAFE; Bharat Lanka Cable System; SEACOM/Tata TGN-Eurasia; IMEWE; and Europe India Gateway. See Submarine Cable Map, TeleGeography, http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/country/india. 90 India's new internet gateway via Cox's Bazar to open late January, says minister, http://bdnews24.com/neighbours/2016/01/13/india-s-new-internet-gateway-via-coxs-bazar-to-open-late-january-says-minister; "Agartala Becomes India's Third Internet Gateway", NDTV Gadgets, March 23, 2016, http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/agartala-becomes-indias-third-internet-gateway-817331. 91 Tripura to become 3rd international internet gateway of India, July 4 2015, http://news.webindia123.com/news/articles/India/20150704/2634628.html. 92 India, Submarine Cable Networks, http://www.submarinenetworks.com/stations/asia/india. 93 "Tata Communications Invests in Seaborn Networks' Undersea Cable", NDTV Gadgets, January 19, 2015, http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/tata-communications-invests-in-seaborn-networks-undersea-cable-650955. 94 India, Submarine Cable Networks, http://www.submarinenetworks.com/stations/asia/india. 95 "TRAI Specifies Access Facilitation Charges for Submarine Cable Landing Stations", Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, December 21, 2012, http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=91106. 96 Indian Tower Industry: The Future is Data, Deloitte, June 2015, p. 7, https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/in/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/in-tmt-indian-tower-industry-noexp.pdf. 97 Indian Tower Industry: The Future is Data, Deloitte, June 2015, p. 7, https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/in/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/in-tmt-indian-tower-industry-noexp.pdf. 98 Indian Tower Industry: The Future is Data, Deloitte, June 2015, p. 7, https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/in/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/in-tmt-indian-tower-industry-noexp.pdf. 99 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2015, May 18, 2016, p. 103, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/QPIR_Oct_to_Dec-15.pdf. 100 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2015, May 18, 2016, p. 30, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/QPIR_Oct_to_Dec-15.pdf. 101 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2015, May 18, 2016, p. 30, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/QPIR_Oct_to_Dec-15.pdf. 102 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2015, May 18, 2016, p. 89, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/QPIR_Oct_to_Dec-15.pdf. 103 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2015, May 18, 2016, p. 8, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/QPIR_Oct_to_Dec-15.pdf. 104 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators October December 2015, May 18, 2016, p. 9, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/QPIR_Oct_to_Dec-15.pdf. 105 Guidelines for Grant of Unified License, Department of Telecommunications, November 13, 2014, http://www.dot.gov.in/sites/default/files/Amended%20UL%20Guidelines%2013112014.PDF. Guidelines and General Information for grant of licence for operating internet services, 24 August 2007, available at: http://www.dot.gov.in/data-services/internet-services. 106 Draft License Agreement for Unified License, Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications and IT, page 22, available at: http://dot.gov.in/sites/default/files/Unified%20Licence_0.pdf. 107 Draft License Agreement for Unified License, Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications and IT, page 22, available at: http://dot.gov.in/sites/default/files/Unified%20Licence_0.pdf.Guidelines and General Information for grant of licence for operating internet services, 24 August 2007, available at: http://www.dot.gov.in/data-services/internet-services; Guidelines and General Information for grant of licence for operating internet services, 24 August 2007, available at: http://www.dot.gov.in/data-services/internet-services; The TRAI has recommended steps so as to incentivise telecom operators to expand operations by suggesting that revenue generated by these companies from their non-telecom activities be excluded while calculating their AGR. This would help to reduce the revenue share that these companies would have to pay to the government as well as reduce their license fees and spectrum charges. Shauvik Ghosh, Trai recommends non-telecom activity be excluded from AGR, Live Mint, 7 January 2015, available at: http://www.livemint.com/Industry/7ivGrxiayiOsumswo1KMlN/Trai-recommends-nontelecom-activity-be-excluded-from-AGR.html. 108 Department of Information Technology, Information Technology (Guidelines for Cyber Cafe) Rules, 2011, http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR315E_10511(1).pdf; Notification, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, March 16, 2012, http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR153E_242012.pdf. 109 Bhairav Acharya, "Comments on the Information Technology (Guidelines for Cyber Cafe) Rules, 2011", Center for Information and Society, March 31, 2013, http://bit.ly/13KCBY5. 110 Department of Information Technology, Guidelines for the Implementation of the Common Service Centre Scheme in States, October 9, 2006, http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/downloads/policiesandguidelines/csc/cscguidelines.pdf. 111 Organizational Structure, Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India, http://www.dot.gov.in/about-us/organizational-structure; Organization Chart, DeitY, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India, http://deity.gov.in/content/organization-chart. 112 Profile, Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India, http://www.dot.gov.in/about-us/profile. 113 Functions of Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India, http://deity.gov.in/content/functions-deit. 114 http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/deity-becomes-a-new-ministry-leg-up-for-ravi-shankar-prasad/articleshow/53285683.cms 115 IRINN, IRINN Policy Version 1.1, http://www.irinn.in/pages/static/IRINN_V1.pdf. 116 About Us, Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers, http://www.irinn.in/pages/static/about_us.html. 117 History, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, http://www.trai.gov.in/Content/History.aspx. 118 Section 11(4), The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997. 119 "DTH operators should provide inter-operability of STBs, says TRAI Chairman", The Economic Times, December 10, 2013, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-12-10/news/45035128_1_dth-operators-dth-licence-dth-service-providers; TRAI released the draft of: 'The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (Fifteenth Amendment) Regulations, 2014' for comments from the Stakeholders, January 29, 2014, http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReaddata/ConsultationPaper/Document/draftTCCCP%2015%20AMEND%202014final.pdf. 120 Section 14, The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997; The tribunal was empowered to adjudicate between the licensor (DoT) and the licensee; between two or more service providers; between a service provider and a group of consumers; and to hear appeals against TRAI decisions. 121 Amendment to the TRAI Act, 1997, http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Recent%20Acts/Telecom%20Regulatory%20Act,%202014.pdf. 122 "Trai wants Auction of 3G Spectrum After Formation of New Govt", The Indian Express, February 12, 2014, http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/trai-wants-auction-of-3g-spectrum-after-formation-of-new-govt/1225198/. 123 TRAI Lays Down Historic Order Protecting Net Neutrality, The Wire, February 8, 2016, http://thewire.in/2016/02/08/trai-lays-down-historic-order-protecting-net-neutrality-21090/. 124 Section 69A(1), The Information Technology Act, 2008. 125 Section 69A(3), The Information Technology Act, 2008. 126 Rule 6, Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009. 127 Members must be of the rank of joint secretary or above, see Rule 7, Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009. 128 Rule 8, Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009. 129 Rule 9, Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009. 130 Melody Patry, "Index on censorship digital freedom India: Digital freedom under threat?", Xindex , November 2013, p. 9, http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2013/11/india-online-report-freedom-expression-digital-freedom-1/; See also Jyoti Panday, The Internet Has a New Standard for Censorship, The Wire, 29 January 2016, http://thewire.in/20386/the-internet-has-a-new-standard-for-censorship/. 131 Rule 16, Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 132 "Verizon Releases Transparency Report", January 22, 2014, http://newscenter.verizon.com/corporate/news-articles/2014/01-22-verizon-releases-transparency-report/. 133 Rule 6(5), Information Technology (Guidelines for Cyber Cafe) Rules, 2011. 134 Common Cause v. Union of India [W.P.(C) No. 21 of 2013]; PUCL v. Union of India [W.P.(Crl) No. 199 of 2013]. 135 Shreya Singhal v Union of India, (2015) 5 SCC 1. 136 Shreya Singhal v Union of India, (2015) 5 SCC 1. 137 Chinmayi Arun, "The Case of the Online Intermediary," The Hindu, April 7, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/shreya-singhal-case-of-the-online-intermediary/article7074431.ece. 138 Rule 16, Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009. 139 Chinmayi Arun, "The Case of the Online Intermediary," The Hindu, April 7, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/shreya-singhal-case-of-the-online-intermediary/article7074431.ece. 140 PTI, "Government Blocked 844 Social Media Pages Till November: Prasad, NDTV, December 18,2015, http://gadgets.ndtv.com/social-networking/news/government-blocked-844-social-media-pages-till-november-prasad-779619 141 Shashidhar KJ, "Government blocks Jihadology, an academic site on source material from Jihadis", Medianama, February 3, 2016, http://www.medianama.com/2016/02/223-jihadology-internet-blocks 142 Zeeshan Sheikh, "Sites blocked but ISIS literature, videos freely available on Internet", Indian Express, January 30, 2016, http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/sites-blocked-but-isis-literature-videos-freely-available-on-internet/ 143 Riddhi Mukherjee, "BuyDomains blocked once again in India", Medianama, May 27, 2016, http://www.medianama.com/2016/05/223-buydomains-blocked-once-again-in-india/. 144 Kian Ganz, "Update: Bombay HC Passes First Anti-piracy John Doe Order, as Law Firms Commoditise the New Vertical", Legally India , June 15, 2012, http://bit.ly/KIibkI. These orders are passed by virtue of the inherent powers of the court under Section 151 of the Civil Procedure Code read with Rule 1 and Rule 2 of Order 39 of the Civil Procedure Code which deal with temporary injunctions. 145 Ananth Padmanabhan, "Can Judges Order ISPs to block websites for Copyright Infringement", January 30, 2014, Center for internet and Society , http://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/john-doe-orders-isp-blocking-websites-copyright-1. 146 M/s. R.K. Productions Pvt. Ltd. v. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited & 19 Others, C.S.(OS) 208/ 2012 (June 22, 2012), The High Court of Judicature at Madras (India). 147 Nikhil Pahwa, Four John Doe orders for blocking websites in the last month alone, Medianama, June 13, 2016, http://www.medianama.com/2016/06/223-john-doe-orders-india/. 148 Nikhil Pahwa, Four John Doe orders for blocking websites in the last month alone, Medianama, June 13, 2016, http://www.medianama.com/2016/06/223-john-doe-orders-india/. 149 "Telangana plans anti-piracy policy to save films", Deccan Chronicle, October 29, 2015, http://www.deccanchronicle.com/151029/nation-current-affairs/article/telangana-plans-anti-piracy-policy-save-films 150 Section 67, The Information Technology Act 2000. 151 Section 67(B), The Information Technology Act 2000. 152 W.P.(C).No. 177 of 2013. 153 Chinamyi Arun and Sarvjeet Singh, "Online Intermediaries in India," available at: http://ccgtlr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/CCG-at-NLUD-NOC-Online-Intermediaries-Case-Studies.pdf. 154 Order no. 813-7/25/2011-DS (Vol.-V), available at: http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/dot-morality-block-order-2015-07-31/at_download/file; "India blocks access to 857 porn sites", BBC, August 3, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-33754961. 155 http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/dot-morality-block-order-2015-07-31/at_download/file. 156 Nadia Khomami, "India lifts ban on internet pornography after criticism", The Guardian, August 5, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/aug/05/india-lifts-ban-on-internet-pornography-after-criticisms; Aditya Kalra, "India withdraws order to block pornography sites," Reuters, August 5, 2015, http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/08/05/india-porn-ban-idINKCN0QA0KK20150805. 157 Sarvjeet Singh, "We are not a totalitarian state and cannot be asked to moral police: AG tells SC in the Porn Petition", CCG-NLU Blog, August 10, 2015, https://ccgnludelhi.wordpress.com/2015/08/10/we-are-not-a-totalitarian-state-and-cannot-be-asked-to-moral-police-ag-tells-the-sc-in-the-porn-petition/. 158 Sarvjeet Singh, "We are not a totalitarian state and cannot be asked to moral police: AG tells SC in the Porn Petition", CCG-NLU Blog, August 10, 2015, https://ccgnludelhi.wordpress.com/2015/08/10/we-are-not-a-totalitarian-state-and-cannot-be-asked-to-moral-police-ag-tells-the-sc-in-the-porn-petition/; Krishnadas Rajagopal, "Not for moral policing: Centre, The Hindu, August 11, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/central-government-on-pornography-ban-we-are-not-a-totalitarian-state/article7522036.ece. 159 Leo Mirani, India has lifted its online porn ban-ISPs are going to keep blocking it anyway", Quartz, August 05, 2015, http://qz.com/473063/india-has-lifted-its-online-porn-ban-but-isps-are-going-to-keep-blocking-it-anyway/. 160 Nikhil Pahwa, India's porn ban hasn't exactly been lifted: it's conditional & up to the ISPs", Medianama, August 4, 2015, http://www.medianama.com/2015/08/223-porn-india-ban/. 161 Nikhil Pahwa, India's porn ban hasn't exactly been lifted: it's conditional & up to the ISPs", Medianama, August 4, 2015, http://www.medianama.com/2015/08/223-porn-india-ban/. 162 TNM Staff, "Soon parents in India may be able to prevent their children from watching porn", News Minute, January 19, 2016, http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/soon-parents-india-may-be-able-prevent-their-children-watching-porn-37876. 163 Section 79, The IT (Amendment) Act 2008; Section 72A, IT (Amendment) Act, 2008. 164 Rule 3, Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011,; Pritika Rai Advavi, "Intermediary Liability in India", http://www.epw.in/special-articles/intermediary-liability-india.html. 165 Shreya Singhal v Union of India, (2015) 5 SCC 1. 166 Shreya Singhal v Union of India, (2015) 5 SCC 1. 167 Shreya Singhal v Union of India, (2015) 5 SCC 1. 168 In the Copyright Act, 1957, Section 51(a)(ii) read with Section 63 of Act the criminalizes use of any place for profit for the communication of the work to the public where such communication constitutes an infringement of the copyright, exempting only those who are unaware or have no reasonable grounds for believing that such communication would constitute infringement of copyright. Moreover, Section 51(b) read with Section 63 also prohibits sale, hire, or distribution to the prejudice of the copyright owner, as well as exhibition in public and import to India of infringing copies also amount to infringement of copyright, with no exemptions. See, Pritika Rai Advani, "Intermediary Liability in India", Economic & Political Weekly, December 14, 2013, Vol. XLVIII No. 50, p. 122. 169 The guidelines and license requirements for intermediaries also prohibit the carrying of communication that infringes copyright or other intellectual property rights. Guideline 1.3(27), Guidelines and General Information for Grant of License for Operating internet Services, http://www.dot.gov.in/data-services/internet-services; Unified License Agreement, Rule 38, http://www.dot.gov.in/sites/default/files/Amended percent20UL percent20Agreement_0.pdf. 170 Specifically, any providers offering "transient or incidental storage of a work or performance purely in the technical process of electronic transmission or communication to the public" through "links, access or integration." See, Pranesh Prakash, "Analysis of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012," Center for Internet and Society, May 23, 2012, http://bit.ly/JSDMLg; Ministry of Law and Justice, "Copyright (Amendment) Act 2012", June 7, 2012, http://bit.ly/Kt1vlQ. 171 Ministry of Human Resource Development, "Copyright Rules 2013", March 14, 2013, http://bit.ly/YrhCS5. 172 Chaitanya Ramachandran, "Guest Post: A Look at the New Notice and Takedown Regime Under the Copyright Rules, 2013", Spicy IP, April 29, 2013, http://bit.ly/16zSzWf. 173 John Ribeiro, 'Facebook sued in US court for blocking page in India", PC World, June 3, 2015, http://www.pcworld.com/article/2930872/facebook-sued-in-us-court-for-blocking-page-in-india.html 174 Sneha Johari, Facebook blocks and unblocks Indian Atheist page in 48 hours; reason?", Medianama, June 8, 2015, http://www.medianama.com/2015/06/223-facebook-blocks-indian-atheists-page/ 175 Satyabrata Pal, "When Mr. Modi went to London:, The Wire, November 17, 2015, http://thewire.in/2015/11/17/when-mr-modi-went-to-london-15802/ 176 Prachand Patrakar, "When dogs decide not to bark", Faking News, November 14, 2015. http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2015/11/14/dogs-decide-not-to-bark/ 177 Sneha Johari," Facebook blocks certain news articles; transparency?", Medianama, November 19,2015, http://www.medianama.com/2015/11/223-facebook-blocks-news-articles-india/ 178 Facebook transparency report, July-December 2015 accessed at: https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/India/2015-H2/ 179 [Note: In 2016, informed by the decision of the Supreme Court of India last year amending the proper interpretation of the Information Technology Act 2000, we ceased acting upon legal requests to remove access to content unless received by way of a binding court order and/or a notification by an authorised agency which conforms to the constitutional safeguards as directed by the Supreme Court.]" http://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/India/2015-H2/ 180 Google Tranperancy Report, January to June 2015, accessed at: https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/government/IN/ 181 https://transparency.twitter.com/removal-requests/2015/jul-dec 182 Amrit Dhillon, "Dalit Voices, loud and clear", The Hoot, February 2, 2016, http://www.thehoot.org/media-watch/media-practice/dalit-voices-loud-and-clear-9148 183 "India: Use Mobile Technology to Bring News to Isolated Tribal Communities", International Centre for Journalists, available at: http://www.icfj.org/knight-international-journalism-fellowships/fellowships/india-using-mobile-technology-bring-news-is-0. 184 "Gram Vaani", http://www.gramvaani.org/; "How Mobile Vaani Works", http://www.gramvaani.org/?page_id=15. 185 "Literary Censorship in the era of Internet," Times of India, February 21, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/Literary-censorship-in-the-era-of-internet/articleshow/46319279.cms 186 Scroll Staff, "Not only is BJP refusing to scrap Section 377, it's back to saying gays have a 'genetic disorder'", Scroll.in, June 30, 2015, http://scroll.in/article/737871/not-only-is-bjp-refusing-to-scrap-section-377-its-back-to-saying-gays-have-a-genetic-disorder 187 Sadananda Gowda @DVSBJP tweet on: 10:18 PM, June 29, 2015 accessed at: https://twitter.com/DVSBJP/status/615751206535720960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw 188 Vikram Johri, "A strange retraction", The Hoot, July 1, 2015, http://www.thehoot.org/media-watch/media-practice/a-strange-retraction-8420 189 David Barstow and Suhasini Raj, "Indian Writers Return Awards to Protest Government Silence on Violence," New York Times, October 17, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/world/asia/india-writers-return-awards-to-protest-government-silence-on-violence.html?_r=0 190 Ministry of Truth: New government cyber cell will weed out 'negative narratives' against state, track those inciting 'trouble', http://www.firstpost.com/india/ministry-of-truth-new-government-cyber-cell-will-will-weed-out-negative-narratives-against-state-track-those-inciting-trouble-2640812.html?utm_source=fp_hp. 191 Vivek Pai, ""WhatsApp news groups "need to register with Social Media Centre in Kashmir", Medianama, April 19, 2016, http://www.medianama.com/2016/04/223-whatsapp-newsgroups-register-kashmir/; Speed News Desk, "Admins of news WhatsApp groups in Jammu and Kashmir now need a license", Catch News, April 29, 2016, http://www.catchnews.com/national-news/whatsapp-group-admins-need-to-get-license-in-jammu-and-kashmir-1461057064.html 192 Circular No. DCK/PS/2016/(160)297-305, Office of the District Magistrate, Kupawara, Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Freedom on the Net 2016 - Iceland Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2016 - Iceland, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834008f13.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. Country: Iceland Year: 2016 Status: Free Total Score: 6 (0 = Best, 100 = Worst) Obstacles to Access: 1 (0 = Best, 25 = Worst) Limits on Content: 1 (0 = Best, 35 = Worst) Violations of User Rights: 4 (0 = Best, 40 = Worst) Population: 330,800 Internet Penetration: 98 percent Social Media/ICT Apps Blocked: No Political/Social Content Blocked: No Bloggers/ICT Users Arrested: No Press Freedom Status: Free Key Developments, June 2015-May 2016 Iceland continues to have one of the highest rates of internet access in the world, with an internet penetration rate of 98 percent in 2015 (see Availability and Ease of Access). In 2015 and 2016, the activist hacker group Anonymous attacked Icelandic government websites to protest against commercial whaling (see Technical Attacks). Introduction: Iceland has one of the highest rates of internet and social media usage in the world, according to the World Economic Forum.[1] There was no change in the internet freedom environment in 2016. Internet and digital media play a vital role in Icelandic society, and Iceland is an international leader when it comes to promoting free speech. In 2010, the Icelandic parliament launched a new media initiative protecting free speech, aiming to make Iceland a safe haven for journalists and whistleblowers.[2] Following in the wake of the country's financial collapse in 2008, social media platforms such as Facebook were integrated into the process of creating a new constitution.[3] The "crowdsourced constitution" process continued in 2015 and 2016.[4] On April 5, 2016, Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson stepped down from his post under growing public and political pressure after leaked documents known as the Panama Papers revealed his links to undisclosed offshore assets. The papers, leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca and published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, identified shareholders of thousands of offshore companies, which have been linked to tax evasion. Two days later, he was replaced by Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson from the same Progressive Party.[5] In early 2016, polls showed that the Pirate Party, which supports online freedom, could become the largest in parliament in the parliamentary elections scheduled for October.[6] In early 2015, a series of bills primarily submitted by the Pirate Party failed to pass in parliament.[7] The bills sought to address data retention and whistleblower protection, among other issues. Obstacles to Access: Iceland is one of the most connected countries in the world, with the highest percentage of households with access to the internet in Europe. There are very few obstacles to accessing the internet; however, the ICT regulatory agency's ability to address concerns about concentration in the market has been limited. In 2013, the government passed legislation to address this issue, allowing the Competition Authority some oversight powers with regard to regulating media concentration. Availability and Ease of Access According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Iceland had an internet penetration rate of 98 percent in 2015, compared to 97 percent in 2013 and 93 percent in 2009,[8] with only a minimal difference in usage between the capital region and other regions of the country, or between women and men.[9] This is the highest percentage of internet users of all European countries; the average household internet penetration rate within the European Union was 81 percent in 2014.[10] Broadband connections were put into operation in 1998, and by 2006, slightly less than 90 percent of Icelandic households had internet access. The percentage of households with high speed internet connections, such as ADSL or SDSL, has increased greatly in recent years.[11] In 2007, the Icelandic city of Seltjarnes became the first municipality in the world where every citizen has access to fiber-optic internet service.[12] In 2015, the vast majority of the population was connected via broadband (73 percent), while a growing number connected via fiber-optic cable (26 percent).[13] In addition, 82 percent of Icelanders had access to the internet via a mobile connection in 2014.[14] Mobile penetration was 114 percent in 2015, according to the ITU.[15] More than half of internet subscriptions (54 percent) have speeds of 50 to 100 Megabits per second (Mbps), and almost a quarter are 100 Mbps or faster (23 percent).[16] Accessing the internet via computers and mobile phones is very affordable: a basic internet subscription with 5 GB of data costs around ISK 3,750 per month (US$29), and a basic mobile phone connection with 500 Mb of data costs around ISK 690 per month (US$36).[17] The average monthly salary is approximately ISK 555,000 (US$4,310).[18] With near ubiquitous access, Icelanders are frequent internet users, with 95 percent connecting to the internet daily or almost daily, and 99 percent connecting every week in 2014.[19] Furthermore, 84 percent of individuals used social networks, 95 percent read news online, 95 percent sent or received emails, 36 percent stored electronic content online, and 66 percent used internet commerce.[20] Restrictions on Connectivity There are no government-imposed restrictions on connectivity in Iceland. The country has been connected to the internet via the NORDUnet network in Denmark since 1989. The following year, a leased line to NORDUnet in Sweden was established, and the link was gradually upgraded. The Nordic connection was supplemented in 1997, when ISnet established a direct connection to Teleglobe in Canada, which was upgraded when the line was moved to New York in 1999.[21] Iceland has multiple channels connecting the country to the international internet, including connections to the international backbone through three submarine cables: FARICE-1, DANICE, and Greenland Connect. The Reykjavik Internet Exchange Point (IXP), which exchanges internet traffic among internet service providers (ISPs) located in Iceland, is operated independently of the government by the top-level domain registry ISNIC. ICT Market Iceland's ICT market is competitive and relatively diverse. Siminn is the main internet and telecommunications operator in Iceland and runs fixed-line and mobile voice call services, as well as internet services and broadband television. Siminn is based on a merger between Landssimi Islands, which was privatized in 2005, and the company Skipti ehf. The companies Tal and 365 merged under the banner of 365 in July 2014.[22] Of all the ISPs, Siminn holds the largest market share (49 percent), followed by Vodafone (28.4 percent), 365 (13.6 percent), and Hringdu (4.9 percent), with the remaining companies comprising 4.2 percent. Regarding market share in mobile broadband, Siminn leads slightly with the largest market share (35.3 percent), followed by Nova (33.4 percent), Vodafone (26.8 percent), and 365 (3.7 percent).[23] Regulatory Bodies The main regulatory body governing information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Iceland is the Post and Telecom Administration (PTA), an independent center under the direction of the Ministry of the Interior. The Ministry is responsible for the legal matters relating to online content. The PTA supervises development, logistics, and fair competition in the field of telecommunications networks. Decisions of the PTA may be referred to the Rulings Committee for Electronic Communications and Postal Affairs. The Rulings Committee consists of three persons appointed by the Minister of Transport and Communication. The chairman and vice chairman must comply with the competence qualifications applying to Supreme Court judges. Committee members are appointed for a period of four years.[24] A new media law established on September 1, 2011 stirred debate in subsequent years.[25] While the intention of the law was to create greater press freedom through a comprehensive framework governing broadcast, press, and online media, it also established an oversight body, the Media Commission, which prompted discussion of possible government influence over the press. According to the law, the Minister of Education, Science and Culture appoints five people to the Media Commission for terms of four years at a time. Two representatives are appointed in accordance with a nomination by the Supreme Court, one in accordance with a nomination by the standing Committee of Rectors of Icelandic Higher Education Institutions, and one in accordance with a nomination by the National Union of Icelandic Journalists. The fifth member is appointed by the minister without an outside nomination.[26] The Media Commission has no authority to deal with media concentration issues (a major topic of public debate in Iceland), but legislation passed as an amendment to the media law in March 2013 gave another government agency, the Icelandic Competition Authority, oversight of competition cases when media companies are concerned, in consultation with the Media Commission. Thus, the Competition Authority can look at issues such as plurality and whether there will be a decrease in newsrooms resulting from mergers and acquisitions, for example. According to the bill, the Media Commission shall in such cases give its opinion from a media authority's perspective.[27] In July 2014, the Prime Minister appointed a working group to review the laws, regulations and administrations of regulatory authorities and evaluate how principles of good regulations and practices are met. In 2014, the Minister for Education, Science and Culture appointed a consulting group to research the feasibility of the merger of four regulatory authorities: the Media Commission, the Post and Telecom Administration, the Icelandic Competition Authority, and the monitoring part of the National Energy Authority. The research concluded with a positive assessment from the consulting group that was presented in government, however, the possible merger has been stalled since the presentation of the report.[28] Limits on Content: Access to information and online communication is generally free from government interference. Iceland is not a member of the European Union, although the country is part of the European Economic Area and has agreed to follow legislation regarding consumer protection and business law similar to other member states.[29] In February 2016, the committee for the crowdsourced constitution publicly issued three draft bills for public comment Blocking and Filtering Political, social, and religious websites are not blocked in Iceland. Social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and international blog hosting services are freely available and are used by a large part of the population. Similar to other Nordic countries, ISPs in Iceland filter websites containing child pornography. The ISPs collaborate with the Icelandic Save the Children (called Barnaheill) and participate in the International Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE) project which solicits reports of illegal content[30] In addition, pornography in general is illegal in Iceland, although the ban is not strongly enforced, and online pornography is not blocked. In October 2014, the Reykjavik District Court ordered two ISPs (Hringdu and Vodafone) to block the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay and the largest private Icelandic torrent website, Deildu.[31] The court order came after the music rights group STEF and the motion picture association SMAIS reported the torrent websites to police in 2013 due to copyright infringement, since much on the content on these sites is pirated material. In May 2014, the Supreme Court declared that only STEF could seek the injunction. In September 2015, a local news outlet reported that all major ISPs in Iceland had agreed to block access to the sites following the court order, but that proxy servers to circumvent the block were widely available. Asta Gudrun Helgadottir, a member of parliament for the Pirate Party, criticized the ban as internet censorship.[32] Prior to the blocking, in April 2013, The Pirate Bay website had relocated from Sweden to Iceland and acquired an ".is" domain name, after the Swedish authorities attempted to seize its domains. Within a week of the move, however, the site chose to relocate again outside of Iceland, even though ISNIC stated it had no intention of trying to seize the domain.[33] According to Icelandic law, the registrant is responsible for ensuring that the use of the domain is within the limits of the law.[34] In 2013, then-Minister of the Interior Ogmundur Jonasson proposed two new bills in an effort to uphold and reinvigorate an existing law banning pornography and gambling online that is vaguely worded and rarely enforced. The ban focused on making it illegal to pay for pornographic material with Icelandic credit cards, in addition to creating a national internet filter and a blacklist of websites that contain pornographic content.[35] Opponents led by Icelandic member of parliament and free speech activist, Birgitta Jonsdottir, deemed that the ban would limit free speech online, a position that was supported by academics and free speech advocates from outside Iceland.[36] The plan for banning pornographic content online has been stalled since the change in government after the parliamentary election on April 27, 2013. Since then, there have been no changes to the relevant legislation, and no changes have been formally proposed.[37] Content Removal There were no problematic incidents of content removal during the coverage period of this report. Icelandic law number 30/2002 establishes a system of takedown notices for IP addresses or other online content that violates the law, in accordance with the Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament. The Ministry of the Interior is responsible for handling matters related to online content, and the appeals process for disputing the removal of content goes through the independent courts in Iceland. ISPs and content hosts are not held legally liable for the content that they host or transmit. Claims regarding intellectual property rights are handled by the Icelandic Patent Office, which is dependent on international cooperation, and Iceland is party to a number of international agreements in this field. Moreover, as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Iceland has adapted legislation to the provisions of TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). Furthermore, the Agreement on the European Economic Area has led to several legislative amendments in Iceland that align with the directives and regulations of the European Union. In October 2014, the domain hosting company ISNIC, which operates the Icelandic .is domain, was forced to shut down a website for the first time when it discovered that the domain was being used by the self-described Islamic State terrorist group.[38] The ISNIC board made the decision based on regulations holding the registrar responsible for ensuring that the use of the .is domain does not violate Icelandic laws. No similar incidents were reported during the coverage period of this report. Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation Iceland has a vibrant digital sphere, and almost all traditional media, including print, radio, and television, offer versions of their content online. Self-censorship is not a widespread problem in Icelandic online media, and there are very few instances of government or partisan manipulation of online content. The websites of some newspapers, like the daily Morgunbladid , are among the most popular Icelandic-language sites.[39] Internet banking is widely used, and a large majority of Icelanders (93 percent) are online bank users.[40] E-governance initiatives have been successful in Iceland, and in recent years, public institutions have started a migration process from proprietary to free and open software.[41] On January 1, 2015, the public administration in Iceland switched to eInvoicing, which includes digital management of payments and storage of receipts. The Ministry of Finance also encourages private companies to use the electronic invoice system.[42] In addition, the government promotes the use of digital signatures and electronic filing, and since 2008, the use of digital signatures is supported through legislation such as the Public Administration Act.[43] In 2013, the electronic Mobile ID, which expands digital identification to phones, was launched. Several public administration services are accessible via Mobile ID reached via the official e-service portal online. Mobile ID can be used to log into public systems, as well as to sign documents.[44] Digital Activism Digital tools are widely used for social, political, and civic activism in Iceland. In summer 2015, a digital campaign to raise awareness on sexual abuse grew from a women's group on Twitter, followed by a campaign on Facebook. Women who had experienced sexual violence, or who knew someone else who had been a victim, changed their profile picture to a specific emoji in yellow or orange, in order to speak out about the problem.[45] The popularity of social media sites like Facebook has been used to engage the population in the process of redrafting the Icelandic constitution over the past few years. The existing constitution is an almost exact copy of the Danish constitutional text, which was adopted when Iceland gained independence from Denmark in 1944. In the wake of the Icelandic financial crisis in 2008, the population demanded an extensive review of the country's constitution.[46] A 25-member council consisting of ordinary residents helped draft a new constitution and worked through sixteen versions in four months based on 16,000 comments from Icelandic citizens using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.[47] A majority of the population voted for the draft constitution in a national referendum on October 20, 2012,[48] though a law has yet to be passed in parliament. In 2013, the prime minister appointed a committee on constitutional affairs to continue the work on the constitution, in accordance with an agreement reached by parliamentary parties. Emphasis continues to be on transparency, informed debate, and public participation. In February 2016, the committee on constitutional affairs publicly issued three draft bills for public comment, concerning natural resources, environmental issues, and a referendum on the initiative of a share of voters, and comments and feedback were made public.[49] According to a poll from January 2016, the Pirate Party led by Birgitta Jonsdottir, which supports online freedom, would become the largest in parliament with almost 42 percent of the votes if elections were held at the time of the poll, followed by the Independence Party, with 23 percent.[50] Parliamentary elections were scheduled for October 2016. The Icelandic Pirate Party is aligned with a network of other similarly named political parties throughout the world that also promote a platform of free expression, and was the first Pirate Party to win seats in a national election in 2013.[51] Violations of User Rights: Iceland has a strong tradition of protecting freedom of expression that extends to the use of the internet. The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative seeks to develop legal frameworks for protecting the press, bloggers, and whistleblowers from illegitimate prosecutions or harassment. Individuals are rarely prosecuted for social or political content posted online, though libel laws remain a concern. In late 2015, Icelandic government websites were the target of several cyber attacks from the activist group Anonymous as a protest against Iceland's commercial whaling activity. Legal Environment Freedom of expression is protected under Article 73 of the Icelandic constitution.[52] The Icelandic Media Law, which came into effect in September 2011, established several legal protections for journalists that extend to the online sphere, including editorial independence from media service providers' owners and the protection of anonymous sources.[53] Despite strong protections for free speech, libel and insult are criminal offenses subject to fines or a prison sentence of up to one year. According to Article 51, journalists cannot be held responsible for potentially libelous quotes from sources, but they can be held responsible for libel in their own content.[54] Journalists consider the court's practice with regard to libel laws to be too rigid, leading to lawsuits that aim to silence critical press. In the past few years, the government has pursued several legislative and policy initiatives to enhance internet freedom. In June 2010, following the 2008 financial crisis and inspired by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, the Icelandic parliament approved a resolution on the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, which aims to create a global safe haven with legal protection for the press, bloggers, and whistleblowers.[55] In 2012, the Minister of Education, Science and Culture appointed a committee of experts to report on online and offline challenges freedom of expression and information and propose recommendations for their promotion.[56] In 2013, the new Minister of Education, Science and Culture assigned funding for the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative and appointed a new committee to undertake the task of decriminalizing defamation, among other duties. A member of the committee expects that at least two bills will come out of this work.[57] In early 2015, a series of bills to further the objective of establishing Iceland as a safe haven for free speech were submitted to Parliament, primarily by the Pirate Party, but were not passed.[58] The bills included whistleblower protections, the removal of a clause on data retention, and a resolution establishing an office of independent oversight for police wiretapping procedures and other comparable investigative measures.[59] In June 2015, blasphemy was repealed as a criminal offence under Article 125 of the Penal Code. It had carried penalties of fines or imprisonment for up to three months.[60] The Pirate Party had proposed repealing it in Parliament in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in France in January 2015.[61] Other legislative efforts are ongoing. A parliamentary resolution on equal access to the internet concerning the benefits of a free and unrestricted internet and the protection of user rights, was adopted in late 2014 and awaited implementation in mid-2016.[62] Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities Icelandic internet users are periodically prosecuted for their online activities, particularly for libel. In May 2015, an Icelandic woman was charged with libel and fined ISK 50,000 (US$385) as well as her own legal fees of ISK 1.2 million (US$9,230) for comments posted on Facebook. The comments suggested that the Chairman of Eyjar and Miklaholt District Council had been bribed with a tractor by her neighbor Olafur Olafsson, but the court found no evidence of such a gift, or that the woman was repeating gossip. The woman apologized and removed her remarks.[63] Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity Following revelations in 2013 that U.S. and UK intelligence agencies have been collecting and storing massive amounts of user data from online communications around the world, free speech activists in Iceland such as Birgitta Jonsdottir expressed concern that Iceland's efforts to protect journalists and whistleblowers from surveillance may ultimately prove ineffective.[64] Iceland is part of a greater international surveillance network that cooperates with the activities of the "Five Eyes Alliance" the intelligence operations agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.[65] Currently, the Electronic Communications Act of 2003 implements data retention requirements mandated by Iceland's inclusion in the European Economic Area.[66] The law applies to telecommunication providers and mandates the retention of records for six months. It also states that companies may only deliver information on telecommunications in criminal cases or on matters of public safety, and that such information may not be given to anyone other than the police or the public prosecution.[67] The government does not place any restrictions on anonymous communication. No registration is required when purchasing a SIM card in Iceland. Intimidation and Violence There have been no physical attacks against bloggers or online journalists in Iceland. Technical Attacks In November and December 2015, the internet activist group Anonymous attacked several Icelandic government websites, including those operated by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the Prime Minister's Office. The attacks were a protest against Iceland's commercial whaling activity and were flagged on social media under the hashtag #OpWhales.[68] A similar attack was carried out in January 2016, disabling government websites for a short while.[69] In December 2015, a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack hit the telecom company Vodafone, temporarily forcing its website to crash by overloading it with requests, without anyone claiming responsibility.[70] Since June 2013, the Icelandic National CERT, operating within the Post and Telecom Administration in Iceland, has been the national center point for cyber security incidents and participates in international efforts and cooperation.[71] In July 2015, the Ministry of the Interior published a new ICT security policy that aims to increase resilience, raise awareness about security issues, and extend collaboration to organizations including the United Nation and the European Union, in addition to NATO.[72] Notes: 1 World Economic Forum, The Global Information Technology Report 2015 , bit.ly/1yutYRc. 2 International Modern Media Institute (IMMI), https://immi.is/. 3 Robert Robertson, "Voters in Iceland back new constitution, more resource control," Reuters , October 21, 2012, http://reut.rs/Myiq8g. 4 Email interview with employee at the Legislative Department at the Office of the Prime Minister, March 3, 2016. 5 Charles Duxbury et al., Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson steps aside after release of 'Panama Papers', The Wall Street Journal , April 6, 2016, http://on.wsj.com/1RWC4bo. 6 Anna Margret Bjornsson, "Almost Half of Icelandic Nation now wants the Pirate Party", Iceland Monitor , May 3 2016, http://bit.ly/1PTk2T9. Despite gains, the Pirate Party won 14.5 percent of the vote on October 29, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/30/iceland-elections-ruling-centre-right-party-pirate-party. 7 Email interview with member of the Icelandic Media Commission, January 14, 2016. 8 International Telecommunication Union, "Percentage of individuals using the internet," 2015, 2013 & 2008, http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 9 Statistics Iceland, " Statistical Yearbook of Iceland 2015", http://bit.ly/1QUsztW 10 Statistics Iceland, http://www.statice.is; Eurostat, "Digital economy and society statistics households and individuals," June 2015, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Digital_economy_and_society_statistics_-_households_and_individuals. 11 Birgir Gudmondsson, "Media Landscapes Iceland," European Journalism Centre, 2010, http://bit.ly/1zkzQg5. 12 Idega, "Seltjarnes," http://bit.ly/1JGg0zu. 13 Post and Telecom Administration, "Statistics on the Icelandic Electronic Communications Market for the First Half of 2015," http://bit.ly/1nKMrUO. 14 Statistics Iceland, " Statistical Yearbook of Iceland 2015," http://bit.ly/1QUsztW. 15 International Telecommunication Union, "Mobile-cellular subscriptions," http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 16 Post and Telecom Administration, "Statistics on the Icelandic Electronic Communications Market for the First Half of 2015," http://bit.ly/1nKMrUO. 17 Siminn Iceland, http://bit.ly/1c3gke0 and http://bit.ly/1rjhFSU. 18 Statistics Iceland, " Statistical Yearbook of Iceland 2015," http://bit.ly/1QUsztW. 19 Statistics Iceland, " Statistical Yearbook of Iceland 2015," http://bit.ly/1QUsztW. 20 Statistics Iceland, " Statistical Yearbook of Iceland 2015," http://bit.ly/1QUsztW. 21 Cathy Newman, "Iceland Internet Diffusion," http://bit.ly/1QxYiP9. 22 Fanney Birna Jonsdottir, "365 og Tal rda sameiningu," Visir , July 22, 2014, http://bit.ly/22hYNTR. 23 The Post and Telecom Administration, "Statistics on the Icelandic Electronic Communications Market for the First Half of 2015," http://bit.ly/1nKMrUO. 24 The Post and Telecom Administration, "Rulings Committee," [in Icelandic] http://www.pfs.is/Default.aspx?cat_id=146. 25 Email interview with former employee at the Icelandic Media Commission, Jan 29, 2014. 26 Fjolmidlanefnd, "The Media Commission," http://fjolmidlanefnd.is/english/. 27 Fjolmidlanefnd, "The Media Commission." 28 Email interview member of the Media Commission, January 14, 2016. 29 OpenNet Initiative, "Nordic Countries," https://opennet.net/research/regions/nordic-countries. 30 INHOPE, http://www.inhope.org. 31 Reuters, "Iceland court orders Vodafone to block Pirate Bay," RT , October 17, 2014, http://bit.ly/1El2WIc. 32 Paul Fontaine, "Icelandic ISPs will block Access to Pirate Bay and Deildu", Reykjavik Grapevine , September 16, 2015, bit.ly/1pIqYgE. 33 Stan Schroeder, "The Pirate Bay Moves to the Caribbean," Mashable , May 1, 2013, http://on.mash.to/1VULcwP. 34 ISNIC, "Domain Rules," https://www.isnic.is/en/domain/rules. 35 "Banning the Sex Industry Naked Ambition," The Economist , April 20, 2013, http://econ.st/12q1wwM. 36 "Iceland's Porn Ban Effort Draw Fire from Abroad," IceNews , March 17, 2013, http://bit.ly/1lFHkD2. 37 Email interview with member of the Icelandic Media Commission, January 14, 2016. 38 39 Gudmondsson, "Media Landscapes Iceland." 40 Statistics Iceland, http://www.statice.is. 41 Gijs Hillenius, "IS: Public administration in Iceland is moving to open source," ePractice Community, European Commission, April 4, 2012, http://bit.ly/1EBAntk. 42 Gijs Hillenius, "Iceland Government has Switched to eInvoicing," ePractice Community, European Commission, February 25, 2015, bit.ly/1Xsf2KK. 43 IDABC European eGovernment Services, "Study on Mutual Recognition of eSignatures," July 2009, http://bit.ly/1zzwczv. 44 Review Gemalto, "How mobile ID conquered Iceland," January 9, 2015, http://bit.ly/22gTzLH and Azazo.com, "The Icelandic Minister of the Interior signs this press release, using Mobile ID in CoreData," February 25, 2014, http://bit.ly/1QUhLLf. 45 Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith, "Women in Iceland are changing their Facebook profile pictures to yellow and orange sad face to highlight the prevalence of sexual violence," The Independent , June 10, 2015, ind.pn/1M4izy1. 46 Robertson, "Voters in Iceland Back New Constitution, More Resource Control." 47 "A Proposal for a New Constitution for the Republic of Iceland", drafted by Stjornlagara , a Constitutional Council, appointed by an Althingi resolution, March 24, 2011, http://bit.ly/1gFFBEX. 48 Julia Mahncke, "Iceland's grassroots constitution on thin ice," Deutsche Welle , March 13, 2013, http://bit.ly/XmC9Hj. 49 Email interview with employee at the Legislative Department at the Office of the Prime Minister, March 3, 2016; and the website on the work with the draft constitution and constitutional matters in general: http://www.forsaetisraduneyti.is/stjornarskra/ and bit.ly/1nKNzrz. 50 Vala Hafstad, "Pirate Party Support Exceeds 40 Percent", Iceland Review , January 28, 2016, bit.ly/1PHx3pg. 51 Interview with employee at the Icelandic Media Commission, May 17, 2013. 52 Constitution of the Republic of Iceland, http://www.government.is/constitution/. 53 Media Law No. 38, art. 24 and 25, April 20, 2011, http://bit.ly/15C05KS. 54 Media Law No. 38, April 20, 2011, http://bit.ly/15C05KS. 55 IFEX, "Authorities create a safe haven for press freedom," June 23, 2010, http://www.ifex.org/iceland/2010/06/23/safe_haven/. 56 Email interview with former employee at the Icelandic Media Commission, Jan 29, 2014. 57 Email interview with member of the Icelandic Media Commission, January 14, 2016. 58 Email interview with member of the Icelandic Media Commission, January 14, 2016. 59 Disclosure of Information and Protection of Whistleblower Bill, case no. 453, http://bit.ly/1VV5xY8; and IMMI, "A bill on Whistleblowers, removal of Data Retention and more," March 25, 2015, http://bit.ly/1PvI2zQ. 60 International Press Institute, Media Laws Database, http://bit.ly/1RjVMui 61 Kevin Rawlinson, "Iceland Repeals Blasphemy Ban after Pirate Party Campaign," The Guardian , July 3, 2015, http://bit.ly/1D1If4K 62 Email interview with member of the Media Committee, April 29, 2015; IMMI, "Data Protection," http://bit.ly/1X7lvLU; and the Icelandic Parliament, "Resolution on the internet," http://bit.ly/1I3o8tx. 63 Iceland Monitor, "Iceland Facebook libel fine," May 28, 2015, http://bit.ly/1HOCpaP 64 Alex Hern, "NSA surveillance hinders Iceland's attempts to be a haven for free speech," The Guardian , November 19, 2013, http://bit.ly/1vR6s9M. 65 Carly Nyst, "The Five Eyes Fact Sheet," Privacy International, November 26, 2013, http://bit.ly/1LwbVOI. 66 Electronic Communications Act No. 81, March 26, 2003, http://bit.ly/1MF6rSA. 67 Icelandic Media Initiative, https://immi.is/index.php/projects/immi. 68 Iceland Monitor, "Anonymous pursue Iceland Cyber Attacks", December 10, 2015, http://bit.ly/1OjGcxC. 69 Iceland Monitor, "Government Offices suffer Cyber Attack", January 12, 2016, http://bit.ly/1mTOVAM. 70 Paul Fontaine, Vodafone Falls Prey to Cyber Attack", the Reykjavik Grapevine , December 9, 2015, http://bit.ly/1RjFyRX. 71 Post and Telecom Administration in Iceland, http://bit.ly/LXusIn. 72 Gijs Hillenius, "Iceland boosts ICT Security Measures, Shares Policy," ePractice Community, European Commission, August 28, 2015, http://bit.ly/1SPsSYw and Icelandic National Cyber Security Strategy 2015-2026, http://bit.ly/1QUMgBU Copyright notice: Freedom House, Inc. All Rights Reserved Freedom on the Net 2016 - Georgia Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2016 - Georgia, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834009213.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. Country: Georgia Year: 2016 Status: Free Total Score: 25 (0 = Best, 100 = Worst) Obstacles to Access: 8 (0 = Best, 25 = Worst) Limits on Content: 6 (0 = Best, 35 = Worst) Violations of User Rights: 11 (0 = Best, 40 = Worst) Population: 3.7 million Internet Penetration: 45 percent Social Media/ICT Apps Blocked: Yes Political/Social Content Blocked: No Bloggers/ICT Users Arrested: No Press Freedom Status: Partly Free Key Developments, June 2015-May 2016 In a triumph for online privacy, the Georgian Constitutional Court reversed the State Security Service's powers to directly access users' telecommunications data in April 2016 (see Surveillance, Privacy, Anonymity ). WordPress and YouTube were briefly blocked while the authorities attempted to restrict access to content hosted on the platforms (see Blocking and filtering ). Internet user Sulkhan Tsuladze was detained for a month for a forum post describing a fictional attack on the US Ambassador to Georgia which online activists said was intended as a joke (see Prosecution and Detention for Online Activities). Introduction: The Georgian government rarely restricts access to content online, though two isolated blocking incidents involving WordPress and YouTube were documented during the coverage period of this report. Internet access and usage continues to grow, particularly involving social networks. State bodies and several politicians have also increased their use of the internet and social media to share information with citizens and attract support. The government continues to integrate e-services into a unified governmental portal, though not all agencies are responsive when engaging with citizens online. There are few indications of censorship or online content manipulation by the Georgian authorities or internet service providers (ISPs). Georgians continue to freely use social media tools to document and respond to significant political and social events. The advent of diverse interactive maps and platforms enables users to report matters in the public interest. The number of online campaigns launched by activists and civil society members has significantly increased over the past years. However, unreliable and politically biased content, including anti-Western propaganda, also proliferated online. In recent years, legislative amendments and court decisions have gradually increased checks on the ability of authorities to conduct surveillance of citizens online. In 2016, the Constitutional Court ruled against the government's practice of accessing user metadata without oversight, further shoring up privacy online. However, leaked recordings of private conversations between public officials have raised concerns of unauthorized surveillance. Obstacles to Access: The number of internet and mobile phone subscriptions in Georgia continues to grow, but high prices for services, inadequate infrastructure, and slow internet speeds remain obstacles, particularly for those in rural areas or with low incomes. The government has said it will address these challenges during the next few years, but has not outlined an exact strategy to overcome the digital divide. Availability and Ease of Access Internet access continued to grow during the reporting period. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 45 percent of the population had access to the internet in 2015, compared to 43 percent in 2013, and just 20 percent in 2009.[1] According to a countrywide survey conducted by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), 46 percent of the population accessed the internet on a daily basis in 2016,[2] and the most active internet users were located in the capital. Only 2 percent of Georgians are unfamiliar with the internet altogether.[3] There is a slight gender gap, as over 51 percent of men use the internet compared to 47 percent of women.[4] ISPs offer DSL broadband, fiber-optic, HSPA/EVDO, WiMAX and Wi-Fi connections. Since 2015, 4G LTE internet access has been slowly made available for Georgian consumers.[5] The average cost for an internet connection is US$20 per month, though the lowest price for a faster 8 Mbps DSL connection is about US$25 per month.[6] There were approximately 631,000 fixed-line broadband internet connections in 2015,[7] up from about 419,000 in 2012. Mobile phone penetration is greater than that of the internet and has grown from 64 percent in 2009 to 129 percent in 2015.[8] Mobile phones significantly outnumber landlines, and reception is available throughout the country, including rural areas. The vast majority of households access the internet from a home computer or laptop (89 percent) rather than from personal mobile phones (43 percent).[9] The use of mobile devices to connect to the internet may be limited by high costs. However, some providers are offering new and somewhat less expensive services, including CDMA and EVDO technologies. The government of Georgia lacks a comprehensive strategy outlining a clear and long-term vision for developing internet infrastructure throughout the country. In February 2014, Georgia's Innovation and Technology Agency was established in order to promote the use of innovation technologies in various fields and the commercialization of innovative technology research and development.[10] Among other programs, it is tasked with ensuring broadband internet access to all citizens (at least 2,000 settlements) by the end of 2017.[11] In July 2015, the Georgian government established the non-commercial legal entity Open Net to build broadband infrastructure. Reports said the project, costing about US$150 million, will be funded by the Cartu Foundation, set up by Georgian tycoon and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili. The move came after a tender to major telecommunications companies to expand infrastructure failed, because it was seen as unprofitable. Civil society organizations expressed concern over the lack of transparency and inclusiveness of the project, noting that it was not based on a comprehensive assessment of the market, and could perpetuate lack of competition in the sector.[12] Many restaurants, cafes, bars, cinemas, and other public places provide Wi-Fi access, allowing customers to use the internet on their personal devices. In 2013, as part of a plan to improve infrastructure for local self-governance, the State Services Development Agency began developing community centers where local citizens can access the internet and online resources including Skype, bank services, telecommunication services, and electronic services developed by the state.[13] As of May 2016, 33 centers were operating in different regions and districts throughout the country. Restrictions on Connectivity The Georgian government does not place any restrictions on connectivity, and the backbone internet infrastructure is owned and operated by private companies. Despite expanding internet access, many users complain about the quality of connections and suffer from frequent outages. Users submitted 36 complaints about the poor level of telecommunication service in 2015, according to the Georgian National Communication Commission.[14] The telecommunications infrastructure in Georgia is still weak, and users may experience disconnections from the international internet up to two or three times per month for a few minutes at a time, during which time they can access only Georgian websites. Connection speeds are generally faster for accessing content hosted in Georgia. Many factors undermine the connection to the international backbone. The major underground fiber-optic cable is often threatened by landslides, heavy rain, or construction work along the roads. In previous years, infrastructural problems led to country-wide internet disruptions, though no such outages were reported in 2015-2016. ICT Market According to the Law of Georgia on Electronic Communications, telecommunications companies must be licensed before offering services. There are currently more than 130 entities registered as ISPs in Georgia, 10 of which are large networks of governmental services or corporations that are closed to the public and serve only their own employees or branches.[15] Most ISPs are privately owned. Two ISPs controlled more than two-thirds of the market as of mid-2016: SilkNet with a 41 percent market share, and Caucasus Online, with 27 percent.[16] Consequently, competition is minimal.[17] Three ISPs Geocell, Magticom and Mobitel are also mobile operators. The mobile internet market is also dominated by two main providers, Magticom and Geocell.[18] The Georgian internet market is expected to undergo significant changes, as Magnitcom is set to purchase the retail segment of Caucasus Online by the end of 2016.[19] Experts do not anticipate any changes to the price of service. Regulatory Bodies The Georgian National Communication Commission (GNCC) is the main media and communications regulatory body and is also responsible for regulating online media, although there have yet to be many test cases regarding the latter. The GNCC mostly deals with mobile operators, as well as television and radio broadcasting licenses. There is no significant difference between GNCC procedures for handling traditional media and those pertinent to telecommunications and internet issues. Criticism surrounds the commission's alleged lack of transparency and independence. In order to increase the legitimacy of GNCC, new rules for the nomination of candidates and the selection of the Head of Commission came into force on October 27, 2013. A new chairman of the agency was elected by the commissioners themselves instead of the president of Georgia in May 2014. Despite this positive development, the revelation that an advisor to the new chairman was also employed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs raised speculation that the central government was attempting to interfere in the work of the regulator and collect data on its activities.[20] However, civil society representatives have confirmed that the agency is gradually becoming more open to engagement with and monitoring by various civil society stakeholders.[21] Limits on Content: Though censorship online remains rare in Georgia, the government briefly blocked access to WordPress and YouTube in two separate incidents within the coverage period. Nevertheless, web content is not subject to systematic manipulation by government agencies. On the contrary, online content is becoming quite diverse and internet users are increasingly using social media tools to organize and disseminate information about matters of public interest. The government of Georgia is increasingly engaging with citizens in policy-making discussions by establishing online communication platforms. Blocking and filtering Georgian users can freely visit any website around the world, upload or download any content, establish their own website, and contact other users via forums, social-networking sites, and instant messaging applications. YouTube, Facebook, and international blog-hosting services are freely available. An isolated incident of government-initiated blocking occurred in November 2015, when the State Security Service blocked the entire WordPress platform for a short period in an attempt to restrict access to a website hosted by WordPress which was disseminating videos by a pro-Islamic State group.[22] Activists contacted the administrators of WordPress.com through Twitter to resolve the issue and the company corresponded with the government. All websites hosted by WordPress were subsequently unblocked apart from the page disseminating the videos. In a separate incident, YouTube was blocked twice by authorities following the release of sex videos depicting Georgian politicians. The first incident lasted for 20 minutes on March 11, 2016, and affected only Caucasus Online users. Three days later, YouTube was inaccessible again for about an hour for users of Caucasus Online and Silknet. Aside from these isolated incidents, government blocking and filtering is not a major hindrance to internet freedom in Georgia. There are no blacklists of websites that should be blocked, and no laws that specifically govern the internet, require online censorship, or ban content such as pornography or violent material. Though legal regulations, particularly those involving copyright or criminal law, are considered to apply to internet activities, they have not been exploited to impose significant content restrictions. However, in December 2015, some representatives of the government announced their intention to introduce "proper" regulations of online casinos.[23] Content removal During the coverage period of this report, observers reported no cases of content removal directed at individuals or online media representatives were observed. Georgian laws protect users against intermediary liability, with the Law on Freedom of Speech (2004) stating that no entity will be held responsible for defamatory content generated by unknown or anonymous individuals.[24] To date, intermediary liability and forced removal of online content have not been significant impediments to online freedoms in Georgia. Websites hosting pirated material are available, but not widely visited. Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation The online media environment in Georgia is becoming increasingly diverse, and content on a wide range of topics is available. However, a recent Transparency International report indicates that a number of online media outlets, some of which demonstrate bias and are affiliated with political parties, coordinate informally to disseminate news.[25] These groups effectively dominate the online media landscape, making it difficult for smaller outlets to attract advertising revenue. The Georgian government funds some of these outlets through contracts.[26] Some have links to Russia, and have been known to push an anti-Western agenda.[27] While there is no systematic or pervasive government manipulation of online content, Georgian internet users self-censor to some extent. Representatives of particular professions sometimes prefer to abstain from expressing themselves freely on social networks. For instance, civil servants in some cases may exhibit self-censorship online due to fear of reprisals from higher officials. In February 2016, a former civil servant was allegedly forced to submit a resignation letter after he used his Facebook account to criticize the government.[28] Inadequate revenues sources, combined with a lack of technological knowledge, hamper the expansion of traditional media outlets to the internet. At present, most online media outlets face difficulty in attracting advertisers, diversifying content, obtaining multimedia skills, and competing with traditional media. The private sector limits online advertising based on the comparatively small audience. Even though the Georgian blogosphere has grown impressively, there are few bloggers who create content that has an impact on the political agenda, or who spark widespread discussion online. Minorities and vulnerable groups are represented online through a small number of forums and blogs. During the last three years, LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex) activists have started to use online tools for coordination, distributing information, and protesting discrimination in the public sphere. Additionally, online media outlets, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and some public institutions have started using digital tools to disseminate information. The majority of internet users (75 percent) report that they connect to the internet to check social networks. Other activities frequently carried out by Georgian internet users include searching for news (55 percent), and sending or receiving email (23).[29] Twenty-six percent of people consider the internet as one of their main sources of information.[30] Facebook is the most popular website, with bloggers and journalists increasingly using it to share or promote their content, and engage readers on current events. Civil society activists and others also use it as a tool for discussion about political and social developments. State bodies have also become increasingly active online. For example, departments in the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Finance's unit for Tax Inspection, and others have developed online platforms that allow citizens to register and receive services, apply for identification cards, or file tax documentation. Since September 2013, more than 70 e-services have been integrated in a unified governmental portal, My.gov.ge. Citizens can also use it to make requests for public information about the government budget and expenditure. Several central government agencies have introduced discussion platforms where citizens can express their views regarding various policy issues or use social networks to engage their constituencies directly. For example, the Govern From Home project helped local government to livestream official meetings, giving citizens the opportunity to participate via the internet.[31] Most importantly, in June, 2015, the government of Georgia announced an upcoming online petitions platform allowing citizens to submit proposals.[32] In mid-2016 it had yet to be launched. Digital activism Political and civil society groups post calls for action on Facebook and use social media to communicate with their supporters. Though most forms of online activism lack significant offline impact, the influence of such activities is gradually increasing. The most successful example of the reporting period was the "Beka is not a criminal" campaign in support of Beka Tsikarishvili, who faced up to fourteen years imprisonment for possessing 65 grams of marijuana. The extensive online campaign included a viral video recorded by Tsikarishvili in which he criticized Georgia's drug policy, as well as an online petition protesting against strict punishments for possessing marijuana. Demonstrations in support of Tsikarishvili that were held in several large cities were organized via social networks. On October 24, 2015, the Constitutional Court ruled that imprisonment for possession of up to 70 grams of marijuana is unconstitutional. Violations of User Rights: Over the past couple of years, the government has progressively passed laws bringing transparency and accountability to its surveillance practices, and the authorities now require oversight to access user telecommunications data. Despite this positive progress, concerns about government surveillance continue to linger following leaks of private conversations between public figures. Users remain free to express themselves online without fear of retaliatory violence or harassment, though the passage of a new law criminalizing public calls for violent actions has sparked concerns about a possible chilling effect on free speech online. Legal environment Civil rights, including the right to access information and freedom of expression, are guaranteed by the Georgian constitution and are generally respected in practice.[33] The Law on Freedom of Speech and Expression makes it clear that other "generally accepted rights" related to freedom of expression are also protected even if they are not specifically mentioned.[34] Furthermore, Article 20 of the constitution and Article 8 of the Law of Georgia on Electronic Communications include privacy guarantees for users and their information, though the law allows privacy rights to be restricted by the courts or other legislation.[35] Online activities mainly cases of alleged defamation, which was decriminalized in 2004[36] can be prosecuted under the Law on Freedom of Speech and Expression and the law on Electronic Communication. The unlawful use or dissemination of personal data online resulting in "considerable damage" is illegal under the criminal code, with penalties of up to four years in prison.[37] In June 2015, amendments to the Criminal Code criminalized "public calls to violent actions" aimed at "causing discord between religious, racial, ethnic, social, linguistic or other groups," punishable by fines and community service. Repeated offences resulting in injury or death are punishable by up to 5 years in prison.[38] Despite the narrow framing of the law, human rights defenders have claimed that its provisions could be selectively applied to target legitimate expression online. Lawmakers attempted to introduce a blasphemy law that would have imposed fines on insults to religious feelings. However, the controversial bill was withdrawn in February 2016.[39] Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities Georgian citizens are generally free to express themselves online without fear of legal sanction. The authorities periodically investigate internet users who threaten violence online, and civil society groups say their response can be disproportionate. In April 2016, the Tbilisi City Court placed internet user Sulkhan Tsuladze in pre-trial detention for a month after he predicted a fictional attack on the US Ambassador to Georgia on the Georgian internet forum, Forum.ge. Tsuladze was accused of threatening to commit an assault on a person enjoying international protection. Human rights organizations criticized the detention as unjustified, arguing that Tsuladze is known for provocative speech and that the post was intended as a joke.[40] He was released on bail and court hearings were pending in mid-2016. An investigation was also launched after Shota Aphkhaidze and Lago Lado Sadghobelashvili, both members of far-right organizations, posted calls for violence targeting the US embassy and followers of opposition party United National Movement (UNM) on Facebook.[41] Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity In a triumph for privacy online, the Constitutional Court ruled in April 2016 against the Georgian security agency's unrestricted access to telecommunications and internet data. The Public Defender, in addition to a number of NGOs, successfully petitioned the court, arguing that the agency's use of black boxes to access data in real time, as well as requirements that companies retain user metadata for two years, violated Georgian citizens' right to privacy as enshrined in the Constitution.[42] The ruling must be implemented by March 2017.[43] The decision of the Constitutional Court follows several legislative amendments restricting the government's surveillance powers. In August 2014, the parliament passed a package of legislative amendments that increased oversight mechanisms for government surveillance practices.[44] Law enforcement agencies are now required to present higher standards of justification to obtain a court warrant for surveillance, and limit requests to investigations involving national security, or to prevent disorder and crime. Subsequent amendments in November 2014 introduced a "two-key system" to protect personal data, whereby the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must seek permission from the Office of the Personal Data Protection Inspector, in addition to obtaining a court order, before it can access telecommunications data held by companies. The Supreme Court of Georgia proactively publishes surveillance data annually. The latest data show that the number of motions to request wiretaps made have decreased.[45] Despite these positive developments, recordings of private, politically sensitive conversations leaked online revived public concerns over illegal eavesdropping in 2015. The exchanges took place on Viber, an instant messaging and VoIP application, between Mikheil Saakashvili, ex-president of Georgia and former governor of Odessa in Ukraine, Nika Gvaramia, director of Rustavi 2 TV broadcaster, and members of the political opposition. The recording was published by a murky website called "Ukrainian WikiLeaks," which is hosted and registered in Russia.[46] An investigation into the unauthorized recording was launched by the State Security Service,[47] and the Office of the Personal Data Protection Inspector.[48] On November 1, 2014, the mandate of the Personal Data Protection Inspector was extended to cover the private sector. The office is authorized to check the legality of any data processing by private organizations, either on its own initiative or in response to a citizen's application. Inspectors can impose measures provided for by the law for violations, including fines.[49] The office's latest report identified major challenges and deep-rooted systematic problems undermining personal data protection including public or private organizations processing large amounts of data by without proper legal grounds; the illegal disclosure of personal information to other states or international organizations; and failure to limit the use of data for direct marketing campaigns.[50] According to the Personal Data Protection Inspector, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and private companies violated data protection rules on six separate occasions in 2015.[51] There are no restrictions on the use of anonymizing or encryption tools online. However, individuals are required to register when buying a SIM card. ISPs and mobile phone companies are also obliged to deliver statistical data on user activities concerning site visits, traffic, and other topics when asked by the government. Cybercafes are not obliged to comply with government monitoring, as they do not register or otherwise gather data about customers. Intimidation and violence During the coverage period of this report, no cases of extralegal intimidation or physical violence directed at individuals for their online activities were reported in Georgia. Furthermore, there were no reported examples of women, LGBTI individuals, or members of ethnic minority populations being harassed or threatened specifically because of their use of ICTs. Technical attacks Cyberattacks against opposition websites have not been a significant issue in Georgia, with the latest major attacks occurring in 2008 and 2009 in relation to political tensions with Russia. In 2012, the Data Exchange Agency started monitoring Georgian websites for the presence of malicious code, hacking, or other suspicious activities, publishing the results regularly on their website,[52] and on their Facebook page.[53] The Agency's "Safe Internet Check My IP" service examines the security of the IP address on users' computers, informing them of the nature of any viruses detected. Nevertheless, government websites remain subject to occasional hacking incidents. Within the coverage period, the official websites of the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Ministry for Diaspora Issues and the State Ministry for Reconciliation and Civic Equality were hacked.[54] Notes: 1 International Telecommunication Union, "Percentage of individuals using the Internet,"2000-2015, http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 2 Caucasus Research Resource Centers, "Survey on Public Policies,June 2016," accessed September 27, 2016, http://caucasusbarometer.org. 3 Caucasus Research Resource Centers, "Survey on Public Policies, June 2016." accessed September 27, 2016, http://caucasusbarometer.org. 4 International Telecommunication Union, "Percentage of individuals using the Internet, 2000-2014." http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 5 "2015 the year full of new developments" ZETI.GE. [in Georgian] January 12, 2015, http://zeti.ge/menu_id/23/id/755/. 6 Comparative data from two major ISP's prices (SilkNet and Magticom). 7 Georgian National Communication Commission, "Annual Report 2015,"[in Georgian] June 2016, http://gncc.ge/uploads/other/1/1976.pdf. 8 International Telecommunication Union,"Mobile-cellular telephone subscriptions, 2000-2015," http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 9 Caucasus Research Resource Centers, "Caucasus Barometer 2015 Georgia," accessed September 27, 2016, http://www.crrccenters.org/caucasusbarometer/. 10 Official website of Georgia's Innovation and Technology Agency, accessed February 15, 2016 http://gita.gov.ge/en/agency. 11 Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, "High Quality Internet to be Accessible to Every Region in Georgia" January 15, 2015, accessed February 15, 2016, http://bit.ly/1EH2msg. 12 Ucha Seturi,"Problems of the Cancelled Governmental Contest Broadband Internet to Every Citizen and Recommendations of IDFI," Institute for Development of Freedom of Information, July 21, 2015, http://bit.ly/1LwMf5D. 13 For more information, see: State Services Development Agency, "Community Center," [in Georgian] http://sda.gov.ge/?page_id=5555. 14 Georgian National Communication Commission, "Annual Report 2015." 15 List of the internet service providers released by Georgian National Communication Commission, "Internet Provaiderebi," http://bit.ly/1Tw9Ndl. 16 However, the situation changed after the coverage period in August, 2016, when Magticom gained 26 percent of the market, while Silknet controlled 41 percent of the market. Georgian National Communication Commission: Analytical Portal, accessed February 15, 2016, http://analytics.gncc.ge/. 17 Institute for Development of Freedom of Information, "Internet Freedom in Georgia Report N5," December 10, 2015, http://bit.ly/1XYIrkp. 18 As of December, 2015, Magticom possessed 39 percent of subscribers, which was followed by Geocell with 38 percent. The share of the third company, Mobitel accounted for 17 percent of this market: Georgian National Communication Commission, Analytical Portal, http://analytics.gncc.ge/. 19 Caucasus Online, "Joint Statement of Caucasus Online LLC. and MagtiCom," May 31, 2016, http://www.co.ge/en/news/240/. 20 Transpareny International Georgia, "Security Officers ('ODRs') existing malpractice," October 6, 2014, http://www.transparency.ge/en/node/4693. 21 Interview with Levan Avalishvili, Board Chairman of Institute for Development of Freedom of Information, October 10, 2016. 22 "Georgia Blocks Access to Pro-Islamic State Websites," Civil.Ge , November 24, 2015, http://bit.ly/1KBLYPW. 23 "Kvirikashvili: Online Casinos Without Regulations are Very Harmful," Tabula.Ge , [in Georgian] December 29, 2015. http://bit.ly/1OorUen. 24 Faig Alizada, "WILMAP: Georgia," The Center for Internet and Society, Stanford University, http://stanford.io/1FIxwCU. 25 Transparency International Georgia, "Who Owns Georgia's Media," November 19. 2015, http://bit.ly/1oZeqkJ. 26 Transparency International Georgia, "Who Owns Georgia's Media," November 19. 2015, http://bit.ly/1oZeqkJ. 27 Nata Dzvelishvili & Tazo Kupreishvili, "Russian Influence on Georgian NGOs and Media," Damoukidebloba.Com , July 22, 2015, http://bit.ly/1L46V61. 28 Reported on Facebook: [Georgian] http://on.fb.me/1Qanygt. 29 Caucasus Research Resource Center, "Survey on Public Policies 2015," accessed February 15, 2016, http://caucasusbarometer.org. 30 Caucasus Research Resource Center, "NDI: Public attitudes in Georgia, June 2016," accessed October 17, 2016, http://caucasusbarometer.org. 31 Municipality of Ozurgeti, "Sakrebulo answered citizens' questions," [in Georgian] April 11, 2015. http://ozurgeti.org.ge/?p=7988. 32 Government of Georgia, "An Electronic Petition Portal is to be Launched." June 3, 2015, http://bit.ly/1TumRzD. 33 The Constitution of Georgia, 1995, [in English] http://bit.ly/1L4F5nN. 34 Article 19, "Guide to the Law of Georgia on Freedom of Speech and Expression" (London: Article 19, April 2005) http://bit.ly/1KMt5WJ. This law offers protections like absolute freedom of opinion, political speech and debates, obtaining, receipt, creation, keeping, processing and disseminating of any kind of information and ideas. The law specifically mentions that it is applicable to the internet as it defines "media as print or electronic means of mass communication, including the Internet." 35 The law is available in English on the Georgian National Communications Commission website at: "Legal Acts," http://bit.ly/1OH6yhO. 36 Under the Law, the burden of proving that information is incorrect lies with the plaintiff. It also draws a distinction between defamation of a private person and defamation of a public person, setting stricter requirements for proving the defendant's guilt in the latter case. 37 Legislative Herald of Georgia, "The Criminal Code of Georgia," [in Georgian] http://bit.ly/1VADDwp. 38 Legislative Herald of Georgia, "The Criminal Code of Georgia," [in Georgian] http://bit.ly/1VADDwp. 39 "Bill Against 'Insult of Religious Feelings' Dropped," Civil.Ge , February 15, 2016, http://civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=28985. 40 Georgian Young Lawyers' Association, "GYLA Responds to Pre-trial Detention of Sulkhan Tsuladze," April 22, 2016, http://bit.ly/1YP8JBK. 41 Institute for Development of Freedom of Information, "Internet Freedom in Georgia Report N5," December 10, 2015, http://bit.ly/1XYIrkp. 42 Public Defender of Georgia, "Constitutional Claim regarding Georgian Law 'On Electronic Communications'," February 2, 2014, http://bit.ly/1x7JpZj. 43 "Court Rules Georgia's Surveillance Regulation Unconstitutional," Civil.ge , April 14, 2016, http://civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=29102. 44 "Georgia Introduces Stricter Regulation of Secret Surveillance," Democracy & Freedom Watch , August 5, 2014, http://bit.ly/1ow5Bws. 45 Institute for Development of Freedom of Information, "Secret Surveillance in Georgia: 2015-2016," April 7, 2016. https://idfi.ge/en/regulating-secret-surveillance-in-georgia. 46 "Wiretapped Recordings of Saakashvili Discussing Rustavi 2 TV Leaked," Civil.Ge , October 30, 2015, http://bit.ly/1RDqIra. 47 "State Security Service Says it Probes into Leaked Saakashvili Wiretapped Recordings," Civil.Ge , October 30, 2015, http://bit.ly/1T2wxDm. 48 "Kaldani about the Examination of the Existence of Court Permission," Netgazeti.Ge , October 30, 2015. http://www.netgazeti.ge/GE/105/News/51703/. 49 Office of the Personal Data Protection, "The Mandate Of The Personal Data Protection Inspector Extends to The Private Sector," news release, assessed February 20, 2016, http://bit.ly/1DZRPEM. 50 Ibid 51 Office of the Personal Data Protection, Annual Report 2015, [in Georgian] http://personaldata.ge/ge/publications/annual-report. 52 Data Exchange Agency, homepage, http://dea.gov.ge. 53 CERT, Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/certgovge. 54 Institute for Development of Freedom of Information, "Internet Freedom in Georgia Report N5," December 10, 2015, http://bit.ly/1XYIrkp. Copyright notice: Freedom House, Inc. All Rights Reserved Freedom on the Net 2016 - Ethiopia Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2016 - Ethiopia, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834009513.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. Country: Ethiopia Year: 2016 Status: Not Free Total Score: 83 (0 = Best, 100 = Worst) Obstacles to Access: 23 (0 = Best, 25 = Worst) Limits on Content: 28 (0 = Best, 35 = Worst) Violations of User Rights: 32 (0 = Best, 40 = Worst) Population: 99.3 million Internet Penetration: 12 percent Social Media/ICT Apps Blocked: Yes Political/Social Content Blocked: Yes Bloggers/ICT Users Arrested: Yes Press Freedom Status: Not Free Key Developments, June 2015-May 2016 Internet and mobile phone networks were repeatedly disrupted around the country, particularly in the Oromia region during antigovernment protests that began in November 2015 (see Restrictions on Connectivity ). Social media and communications platforms were temporarily blocked several times to restrict information about antigovernment protests and police brutality (see Blocking and Filtering ). News websites were newly blocked for reporting on the Oromo protests and a severe drought, adding to a growing blacklist (see Blocking and Filtering ). In May 2016, blogger Zelalem Workagenehu was sentenced to over five years in prison for leading a digital security course (see Prosecutions and Arrests for Online Activities ). Prosecutors challenged the release of members of the Zone 9 blogging collective, after they were acquitted of terrorism charges in 2015 (see Prosecutions and Arrests for Online Activities). Introduction: Internet freedom declined in the past year as the government cracked down on antigovernment protests and the digital tools citizens used to organize them. Starting in the Oromo region in November 2015 as a protest against the authoritarian government's plan to infringe on land belonging to the marginalized Oromia people, the movement spread across the country in the subsequent months, turning into unprecedented demonstrations seeking regime change and democratic reform. In a heavy-handed response, the authorities frequently shutdown local and national internet and mobile phone networks to prevent citizens from communicating about the protests. Social media platforms and communications apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Skype, and IMO were also temporarily blocked at different times. In October 2016, the government imposed a six-month state of emergency on October 17, resulting in another internet shutdown lasting several days. Under the state of emergency, accessing or posting content related to the protests on social media and efforts to communicate with "outside forces" are criminal offenses. News websites and blogs reporting on the protests were permanently blocked in 2015 and 2016. Separately, critical news about the current drought the worst the country has experienced in 50 years was systematically censored. Meanwhile, the authorities arrested and prosecuted several bloggers, sentencing blogger Zelalem Workagenehu to five years in prison in May 2016. He was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the government for facilitating a course on digital security. The government's persecution of the Zone 9 bloggers continued. Though four of the bloggers were acquitted in October 2015, the prosecutor appealed their release to the Supreme Court, and they were repeatedly summoned throughout the year. The legal environment for internet freedom became more restrictive under the Computer Crime Proclamation enacted in June 2016, which criminalizes defamation and incitement. The proclamation also strengthens the government's surveillance capabilities by enabling real-time monitoring or interception of communications. Obstacles to Access: Internet and mobile phone networks were deliberately disrupted in many parts of the country throughout the year, particularly in the Oromia region during largescale antigovernment protests that erupted in November 2015. Meanwhile, poor infrastructure, obstructionist telecom policies, and a government monopoly on the ICT sector make ICT services prohibitively expensive for the majority of the population. Availability and Ease of Access Ethiopia is one of the least connected countries in the world with an internet penetration rate of only 12 percent, according to 2015 data from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).[1] Mobile phone penetration is also poor at 43 percent, up from just 32 percent in 2014.[2] Low penetration rates stem from underdeveloped telecommunications infrastructure, which is almost entirely absent from rural areas, where about 85 percent of the population resides. A handful of signal stations service the entire country, resulting in network congestion and frequent disconnection.[3] In a typical small town, individuals often hike to the top of the nearest hill to find a mobile phone signal. Access to ICT services remains prohibitively expensive for most Ethiopians, largely due to the government's monopoly over the telecom sector, which provides consumers with few options. Prices are set by state-controlled EthioTelecom and kept artificially high.[4] Price cuts announced in February 2016 mitigated some of the financial strain,[5] bringing mobile internet prices to ETB 5 (US$ 0.25) per day for 25 MB of data or ETB 3,000 (US$ 140) per month for 30 GB. Nonetheless, the lower cost 25 MB package is extremely limited considering a standard Google search uses up to 79 KB alone. Regularly loading websites containing 1 GB of multimedia content could cost US$ 9 a day. William Davison, Bloomberg's Ethiopia correspondent, described the issue on Facebook in March 2016: "It cost me 44 birr ($2.05) to watch Al Jazeera's latest 3-minute dispatch on Oromo protests using 4G network on my phone, which is not that much less than the average daily wage of a daily laborer in Ethiopia."[6] Ethiopians can spend an average of US$85 per month for limited mobile or fixed wireless internet access. Better quality services in neighboring Kenya and Uganda cost less than US$30 a month. Telecommunication devices, connection fees and other related costs are also beyond the means of many Ethiopians. As a result, Ethiopia has among the lowest smartphone ownership rates in the world at only 4 percent according to a recent Pew survey.[7] In April 2016, EthioTelecom proposed a new pricing scheme to charge more for the use of popular Voice-over-IP (VoIP) platforms such as Viber and Facebook Messenger on mobile devices.[8] This would make smartphone usage even more expensive. Consequently, the majority of internet users still rely on cybercafes for internet access. A typical internet user in Addis Ababa pays between ETB 5 and 7 (US$ 0.25 to 0.35) for an hour of access. Because of the scarcity of internet cafes outside urban areas, however, rates in rural cybercafes are higher. In addition, digital literacy rates are generally low. For the few Ethiopians who can access the internet, connection speeds have been painstakingly slow for years, despite the rapid technological advances improving service quality in other countries. In a test conducted in the capital Addis Ababa,[9] the average connection speed during one week in March 2016 was 1.2 Mbps five times slower than the average 5.5 Mbps connection speed in Kenya. According to Akamai, the average connection speed in Ethiopia was 3 Mbps in the first quarter of 2016, significantly lower than the global average of 6.3 Mbps (Kenya's average speed was documented at 7.3 Mbps in the same period).[10] In practice, such speeds result in extremely sluggish download times, even of simple images. Logging into an email account and opening a single message can take as long as five minutes at a standard cybercafe with broadband in the capital city, while attaching documents or images to an email can take eight minutes or more.[11] On mobile connections, Akamai found Ethiopia had the world's slowest average load time, at 8.5 seconds.[12] Compounding Ethiopia's onerous access issues, severe drought in 2015 and 2016 has had a negative impact on the country's hydroelectric electricity production,[13] resulting in frequent and extended power outages that limit users' ability to access the internet even further.[14] Restrictions on Connectivity The Ethiopian government's monopolistic control over the country's telecommunications infrastructure via EthioTelecom enables it to restrict information flows and access to internet and mobile phone services. In 2015-16, the flow of online traffic into, within, and out of Ethiopia registered a significant decline, likely as a result of network throttling, repeated internet shutdowns, and increased blocking. As a landlocked country, Ethiopia has no direct access to submarine cable landing stations; thus, it connects to the international internet via satellite, a fiber-optic cable that passes through Sudan and connects to its international gateway, and the SEACOM cable that connects through Djibouti to an international undersea cable. All connections to the international internet are completely centralized via EthioTelecom, enabling the government to cut off the internet at will. Internet and mobile phone networks were disrupted in many parts of the country throughout the year. Oromia, the largest of the federal republic's nine regional states, has experienced frequent telecom network since November 2015 saw the start of largescale demonstrations against the government's plan to appropriate Oromia territory.[15] The protest movement escalated and remained ongoing in late 2016, leading the government to declare a six-month state of emergency and shut down mobile internet services nationwide for several days in October.[16] In an incident unrelated to the protests, internet services on computers and mobile devices were shut down for 24 hours in July 2016, ostensibly to prevent students from cheating during national university exams.[17] The ICT shutdowns have been costly. Network disruptions between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2016 cost Ethiopia's economy over US$ 8.5 million, according to the Brookings Institution.[18] ICT Market The space for independent initiatives in the ICT sector, entrepreneurial or otherwise, is extremely limited,[19] with state-owned EthioTelecom holding a firm monopoly over internet and mobile phone services as the country's sole telecommunications service provider. Despite repeated international pressure to liberalize telecommunications in Ethiopia, the government refuses to ease its grip on the sector.[20] China is a key investor in Ethiopia's telecommunications industry,[21] with Zhongxing Telecommunication Corporation (ZTE) and Huawei currently serving as contractors to upgrade broadband networks to 4G in Addis Ababa and expand 3G networks elsewhere.[22] The partnership has enabled Ethiopia's authoritarian leaders to maintain their hold over the telecom sector,[23] though the networks built by the Chinese firms have been criticized for their high cost and poor service.[24] Furthermore, the contracts have led to increasing fears that the Chinese may also be assisting the authorities in developing more robust ICT censorship and surveillance capacities (see Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity).[25] In December 2014, the Swedish telecom group Ericsson also partnered with the government to improve and repair the mobile network infrastructure,[26] though ZTE remains the sector's largest investor. Onerous government regulations also stymie other aspects of the Ethiopian ICT market. For one, imported ICT items are tariffed at the same high rate as luxury items, unlike other imported goods such as construction materials and heavy duty machinery, which are given duty-free import privileges to encourage investments in infrastructure.[27] Ethiopians are required register their laptops and tablets at the airport with the Ethiopian customs authority before they travel out of the country, ostensibly to prevent individuals from illegally importing electronic devices, though observers believe the requirement enables officials to monitor citizens' ICT activities by accessing the devices without consent.[28] Local software companies also suffer from heavy-handed government regulations, which do not have fair, open, or transparent ways of evaluating and awarding bids for new software projects.[29] Government companies are given priority for every kind of project, while smaller entrepreneurial software companies are completely overlooked, leaving few opportunities for local technology companies to thrive. Cybercafes are subject to burdensome operating requirements under the 2002 Telecommunications (Amendment) Proclamation,[30] which prohibit them from providing Voice-over-IP (VoIP) services, and mandate that owners obtain a license from EthioTelecom via an opaque process that can take months. In the past few years, EthioTelecom began enforcing its licensing requirements more strictly in response to the increasing spread of cybercafes, reportedly penalizing Muslim cafe owners more harshly. Violations of the requirements entail criminal liability, though no cases have been reported.[31] Regulatory Bodies Since the emergence of the internet in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Telecommunications Agency (ETA) has been the primary regulatory body overseeing the telecommunications sector. In practice, government executives have complete control over ICT policy and sector regulation.[32] The Information Network Security Agency (INSA), a government agency established in 2011 and controlled by individuals with strong ties to the ruling regime,[33] also has significant power in regulating the internet under the mandate of protecting the communications infrastructure and preventing cybercrime. Limits on Content: News websites known for their reporting on the Oromo protests joined Ethiopia's growing list of blocked content, while social media and communications platforms were blocked for periods of time throughout the coverage period for their role in disseminating information about the demonstrations and police brutality. The government manipulates online content, disseminating propaganda to convince Ethiopians that social media is a dangerous tool co-opted by opposition groups to spread hate and violence. Blocking and Filtering One of the first African countries to censor the internet,[34] Ethiopia has a nationwide, politically motivated internet blocking and filtering regime that is reinforced during sensitive political events. More websites were newly blocked during the Oromia protests that began in November 2015. Targets included the websites of US-based diaspora satellite television stations such as Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) and the Oromo Media Network (OMN), which provided wall-to-wall coverage of the antigovernment protests. Ayyantuu.net and Opride.com, prominent websites also known for their reporting on the protests, were also blocked.[35] In an apparent attempt to restrict news about the protests from spreading, social media and file-sharing platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Dropbox were repeatedly blocked for periods of time throughout the protests.[36] The blocks on social media first impacted networks in the Oromia region but later spread to other regions,[37] and eventually manifested in a shutdown of entire internet and mobile networks for days a time (see Restrictions on Connectivity). Unrelated to the protests, the authorities blocked access to social media and communications platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Viber, IMO, and Google+, to prevent cheating during university examinations on July 9 and 10, 2016.[38] The blocks followed a 24-hour internet blackout for the same reason (see Restrictions on Connectivity). A government spokesperson stated that blocking social media during the exam would help students concentrate. However, some progovernment media organizations and commentators seemed to have exclusive access to social media during the block,[39] which reinforced the belief that the government imposes restrictions on citizens while keeping the web open for its own advantage. Viber and IMO, two popular voice-over-IP applications, remained blocked until July 20, according to local sources.[40] Separately, coverage of a severe drought the worst the country has experienced in 50 years was systematically censored in the past year, with news websites and blogs blocked for reporting on the impact of the disaster that strayed from the government's official narrative.[41] In total, over one hundred websites are inaccessible in Ethiopia.[42] A manual test conducted on the ground in mid-2016 confirmed that a large number of the websites tested by Freedom House each year since 2012 remained blocked. Blocked sites include Ethiopian news websites, political party websites, and the websites of international digital rights organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Tactical Technology Collective. Select tools such as text messaging apps and services on Google's Android operating system on smartphones were also inaccessible, but at irregular intervals and for unclear reasons.[43] Notably, several websites that hadn't been updated for years and appeared abandoned became accessible again in 2016, likely because the authorities deemed them no longer threatening. The social media curation tool Storify first blocked in July 2012[44] was also newly accessible during the coverage period,[45] in addition to the URL shortening tool Bit.ly.[46] To filter the internet, specific internet protocol (IP) addresses or domain names are generally blocked at the level of the EthioTelecom-controlled international gateway. Deep-packet inspection (DPI) is also employed, which blocks websites based on a keyword in the content of a website or communication (such as email).[47] Digital security tools are also pervasively blocked in Ethiopia, including Tor, the circumvention tool that enables users to browse anonymously, which been blocked since May 2012.[48] As social media platforms were blocked in the past year, diaspora-based activists publicized virtual private networks (VPNs) to circumvent the censorship, but certain VPNs were also subsequently blocked.[49] Local sources suspected progovernment commenters were flagging the same tools to be blocked by the authorities. The Amharic translation of the Electronic Frontier Foundations' "Surveillance Self-Defense" web guide was blocked two weeks after it was published in October 2015.[50] One source reported that key terms such as "proxy" yield no search results on unencrypted search engines,[51] reflecting the government's efforts to limit users' access to circumvention tools and strategies. Some restrictions are also placed on content transmitted via mobile phones. Text messages to more than ten recipients require prior approval from EthioTelecom.[52] A bulk text message sent without prior approval is automatically blocked, irrespective of the content. There are no procedures for determining which websites are blocked or why, precluding any avenues for appeal. There are no published lists of blocked websites or publicly available criteria for how such decisions are made, and users are met with an error message when trying to access blocked content. The decision-making process does not appear to be controlled by a single entity, as various government bodies including the Information Network Security Agency (INSA), EthioTelecom, and the ICT ministry seem to be implementing their own lists, contributing to a phenomenon of inconsistent blocking. This lack of transparency is exacerbated by the government's continued denial of its censorship efforts. Government officials flatly deny the blocking of websites or jamming of international satellite operations while also stating that the government has a legal and a moral responsibility to protect the Ethiopian public from extremist content. Content Removal Politically objectionable content is often targeted for removal, often by way of threats from security officials who personally seek out users and bloggers to instruct them to take down certain content, particularly critical content on Facebook. The growing practice suggests that at least some voices within Ethiopia's small online community are being closely monitored. For instance, during the various legal proceedings involving the Zone 9 bloggers in 2015, friends and reporters who posted pictures and accounts of the trials on social media were briefly detained and asked to remove the posts.[53] During protests in Oromia, activists who wrote messages of solidarity for the protestors on Facebook were also asked to delete their posts.[54] Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation Lack of adequate funding is a significant challenge for independent online media in Ethiopia, as fear of government pressure dissuades local businesses from advertising with politically critical websites. A 2012 Advertising Proclamation also prohibits advertisements from firms "whose capital is shared by foreign nationals."[55] The process for launching a website on the local .et domain is expensive and demanding,[56] requiring a business license from the Ministry of Trade and Industry and a permit from an authorized body.[57] While the domestic Ethiopian blogosphere has been expanding, most blogs are hosted on international platforms or published by members of the diaspora community. Despite Ethiopia's extremely low levels of internet access, the government employs an army of trolls to distort Ethiopia's online information landscape.[58] Opposition groups, journalists, and dissidents use the contemptuous Amharic colloquial term, "Kokas," to describe the progovernment commentators.[59] Observers say the Kokas regularly discuss Ethiopia's economic growth in favorable terms and post uncomplimentary comments about Ethiopian journalists and opposition groups on Facebook and Twitter. In return, they are known to receive benefits such as money, land, and employment promotions. The government also manipulates online content through propaganda that aims to convince Ethiopians that social media is a dangerous tool co-opted by opposition groups to spread hate and violence.[60] That characterization has been debunked by research. The University of Oxford and Addis Ababa University analyzed thousands of comments made by Ethiopians on Facebook during general election in 2015, finding that hate speech was a marginal proportion of the total comments assessed.[61] Meanwhile, increasing repression against journalists and bloggers has had a major chilling effect on expression online, particularly in response to the spate of blogger arrests that have increased in the past few years (see Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities). Many bloggers publish anonymously to avoid reprisals.[62] Fear of pervasive surveillance has also led to widespread self-censorship. Local newspapers and web outlets primarily publish reporting by regime critics and opposition organizations in the diaspora. Few independent local journalists will write for either domestic or overseas online outlets due to the threat of repercussions. Digital Activism Despite oppressive conditions caused by poor access and the hostile legal environment, online activism has gained considerable momentum and influence in the past year, particularly as traditional media coverage of current events has become increasingly narrow and dominated by pro-government voices. Notably, social media and communications platforms helped tech-savvy Ethiopians launch the widespread antigovernment protests in the Oromia region in November 2015. Online tools have been essential to the #OromoProtests movement, enabling activists to post information about the demonstrations and disseminate news about police brutality as the government cracked down on protesters.[63] The use of such tools to fuel the protest movement led the government to block access to several platforms throughout the year, and shut down internet and mobile networks altogether (see Blocking and Filtering and Restrictions on Connectivity). Violations of User Rights: The new Computer Crime Proclamation enacted in June 2016 criminalizes defamation and incitement; observers say it could be invoked to suppress digital mobilization. The proclamation also strengthens the government's surveillance capabilities by enabling real-time monitoring or interception of communications. Several bloggers were arrested and prosecuted, with one blogger sentenced to five years in prison, while prosecutors challenged the acquittal of the Zone 9 bloggers. Legal Environment Fundamental freedoms are guaranteed for Ethiopian internet users on paper, but the guarantees are routinely flouted in practice. The 1995 Ethiopian constitution provides for freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and access to information, while also prohibiting censorship.[64] These constitutional guarantees are affirmed in the 2008 Mass Media and Freedom of Information Proclamation, known as the press law, which governs the print media.[65] Nevertheless, the press law also includes problematic provisions that contradict constitutional protections and restrict free expression, such as complex registration processes for media outlets and high fines for defamation.[66] The Criminal Code also penalizes defamation with a fine or up to one year in prison.[67] Meanwhile, several laws are designed to restrict and penalize legitimate online activities and speech. Most alarmingly, the 2012 Telecom Fraud Offences Law extends the violations and penalties defined in the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation and criminal code to electronic communications, which explicitly include both mobile phone and internet services.[68] The antiterrorism legislation prescribes prison sentences of up to 20 years for the publication of statements that can be understood as a direct or indirect encouragement of terrorism, which is vaguely defined.[69] The law also bans Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services such as Skype[70] and requires all individuals to register their telecommunications equipment including smartphones with the government, which security officials typically enforce at security checkpoints by confiscating ICT equipment if the owner cannot produce a registration permit, according to sources in the country. In June 2016, the Ethiopian government passed a new Computer Crime Proclamation that criminalized an array of online activities.[71] Civil society expressed concern that the law would be used to further crackdown on critical commentary, political opposition, and social unrest.[72] For example, content that "incites fear, violence, chaos or conflict among people" can be punished with up to three years in prison, which could be abused to suppress digital campaigns.[73] Other problematic provisions ban the dissemination of defamatory content, which can be penalized with up to 10 years in prison,[74] and the distribution of unsolicited messages to multiple emails (spam), which carries up to five years in prison.[75] To quell escalating antigovernment protests that began in the Oromia region in November 2015, the government imposed a six-month state of emergency on October 17, 2016 that included restrictions on certain online activities.[76] In addition to shutting down the internet for several days, the authorities criminalized the access and posting of content related to the protests on social media, as well as efforts to communicate with "terrorist" groups, a category that includes exiled dissidents. Penalties for violating the state of emergency include prison terms of three to five years.[77] Prosecutions and Detention for Online Activities In the past few years, the authorities have intensified their crackdown against bloggers and online journalists, using harsh laws to arrest and prosecute individuals for their online activities and silence dissent. The most high-profile prosecutions were against six bloggers from the critical Zone 9 blogging collective, who were arrested in April 2014,[78] and charged with terrorism under the harsh Anti-Terrorism Proclamation in July.[79] The bloggers were accused of intent to overthrow the government, an offense under the criminal code, by encrypting their communications to disseminate seditious writings.[80] Despite widespread international condemnation, the detainees were denied bail and brought to court dozens of times for over a year,[81] until two of them were unexpectedly released without charge in early July 2015, immediately before U.S. President Obama visited Ethiopia. The four remaining Zone 9 bloggers were acquitted in October 2015,[82] though they were barred from leaving the country.[83] The prosecutor contested their acquittal and appealed to the Supreme Court, and the four were summoned in December 2015 and in October 2016.[84] They were scheduled to return to court in November 2016.[85] Several other bloggers were arrested and prosecuted in the past year, including Getachew Shiferaw, editor-in-chief of the online newspaper Negere Ethiopia , in December 2015.[86] Negere Ethiopia is known for its affiliation with the opposition as well as its coverage of the Zone 9 trials. Shiferaw remained in pretrial detention in mid-2016.[87] The prominent opposition member Yonatan Tesfaye was arrested in December 2015 and charged with terrorism based on Facebook posts that criticized the government's handling of the Oromia protests.[88] He remained in prison in mid-2016 and faces the death sentence if convicted.[89] Tesfaye's Twitter handle has been active during his detention, leading to suspicions that the officials have been using his account to bait potential dissidents.[90] In April 2016, blogger Zelalem Workagenehu was found guilty of terrorism and sentenced to over five years in prison in May.[91] He was first arrested in July 2014 on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government after he facilitated a course on digital security. In the same trial, bloggers Yonatan Wolde and Bahiru Degu were acquitted after spending nearly two years in detention on terrorism charges; they were also arrested in July 2014 for applying to participate in Workaegnehu's digital security course.[92] Workagenehu has appealed to the Supreme Court.[93] The ongoing antigovernment protest movement has also led to numerous arrests, some for digital activities, including posting or "liking" social media content about the protests. In October 2016, police arrested Seyoum Teshome, a well-known academic and blogger for the Ethiothinktank.com website who had published an article about the Oromia protest movement in The New York Times .[94] Meanwhile, the well-known dissident journalist and blogger Eskinder Nega is serving an 18-year prison sentence handed down in July 2012 under the draconian anti-terrorism law for criticizing the law itself in an online article.[95] Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity Government surveillance of online and mobile phone communications is pervasive in Ethiopia and was strengthened under the new Computer Crime Proclamation enacted in June 2016, which enables real-time monitoring or interception of communications authorized by the Minister of Justice and obliges service providers to store records of all communications and metadata for at least a year.[96] There are strong indications that the government has deployed a centralized monitoring system developed by the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE to monitor mobile phone networks and the internet, according to a 2015 Human Rights Watch report.[97] Known for its use by repressive regimes in Libya and Iran, the monitoring system enables deep packet inspection (DPI) of internet traffic across the EthioTelecom network and has the ability to intercept emails and web chats. Another ZTE technology, known as ZSmart, is a customer management database installed at EthioTelecom that provides the government with full access to user information and the ability to intercept SMS text messages and record phone conversations.[98] ZSmart also allows security officials to locate targeted individuals through real-time geolocation tracking of mobile phones.[99] While the extent to which the government has made use of the full range of ZTE's sophisticated surveillance systems is unclear, the authorities frequently present intercepted emails and phone calls as evidence during trials against journalists and bloggers or during interrogations as a scare tactic.[100] Meanwhile, exiled dissidents have been targeted by surveillance malware. Citizen Lab research published in March 2015 said Remote Control System (RCS) spyware had been used against two employees of Ethiopian Satellite Television Service (ESAT) in November and December 2014. ESAT is a diaspora-run independent satellite television, radio, and online news media outlet, based in Alexandria, Virginia.[101] Made by the Italian company Hacking Team, RCS spyware is advertised as "offensive technology" sold exclusively to law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, and has the ability to steal files and passwords and intercept Skype calls and chats.[102] While Hacking Team has said that the company does not deal with "repressive regimes,"[103] the social engineering tactics used to bait the two ESAT employees made it clear that the attack was targeted. Moreover, analysis of the RCS attacks uncovered credible links to the Ethiopian government, with the spyware's servers registered at an EthioTelecom address under the name "INSA-PC," referring to the Information Network Security Agency (INSA), the body established in 2011 to preside over the security of the country's critical communications infrastructure.[104] INSA was already known to be using the commercial toolkit FinFisher to target dissidents and supposed national security threats. FinFisher can secretly monitor computers by turning on webcams, record everything a user types with a key logger, and intercept Skype calls.[105] Given the high degree of online repression in Ethiopia, political commentators use proxy servers and anonymizing tools to hide their identities when publishing online and to circumvent filtering, though the tools are also subject to blocking (see Blocking and Filtering). Anonymity is further compromised by strict SIM card registration requirements. Upon purchase of a SIM card through EthioTelecom or an authorized reseller, individuals must provide their full name, address, government-issued identification number, and a passport-sized photograph. EthioTelecom's database of SIM registrants enables the government to terminate individuals' SIM cads and restrict them from registering for new ones. Internet subscribers are also required to register their personal details, including their home address, with the government. During the antigovernment protests in 2016, state-owned ICT provider EthioTelecom announced plans to require mobile phones to be purchased from Ethiopian companies and to create a tracking system for all mobile devices in Ethiopia. Observers believe the plan aims to allow the government to track and identify all communications from subscribers on its network.[106] While the government's stronghold over the Ethiopian ICT sector enables it to proactively monitor users, its access is less direct at cybercafes. For a period following the 2005 elections, cybercafe owners were required to keep a register of their clients, but the requirement has not been enforced since mid-2010.[107] Nevertheless, some cybercafe operators have reported that they are required to report "unusual behavior" to security officials, who also visit cybercafes (sometimes in plainclothes) to ask questions about individuals or monitor activity themselves.[108] Intimidation and Violence Government security agents frequently harass and intimidate bloggers, online journalists, and ordinary users for their online activities. Independent bloggers are often summoned by the authorities to be warned against discussing certain topics online, while activists report that they are regularly threatened by state security agents.[109] Ethiopian journalists in the diaspora have also been targeted for harassment.[110] Amidst escalating antigovernment protests in 2015 and 2016, the authorities reportedly harassed, detained, and abused several people who used their mobile phones to record footage of demonstrations. Meanwhile, imprisoned bloggers reported being held in degrading conditions and tortured by prison guards seeking to extract false confessions.[111] Yonatan Wolde and Bahiru Degu were re-arrested shortly after their acquittal in April 2016 and released the next day, reporting that officials had threatened their lives.[112] Technical Attacks Opposition critics and independent voices face frequent technical attacks, even when based abroad. Independent research has found that Ethiopian authorities have used sophisticated surveillance malware and spyware, such as FinFisher's FinSpy and Hacking Team's Remote Control Servers (RCS), to target exiled dissidents.[113] There were no reports of technical attacks against human rights defenders or dissidents during the coverage period, though hacktivists launched attacks on government websites, including the Ministry of Defense, as a form of digital protest alongside the largescale Oromo demonstrations.[114] Meanwhile, the Information Network Security Agency (INSA) reported that they had foiled at least 155 cyberattacks in 2015. Critics said they used the data to justify cracking down on the internet.[115] Notes: 1 International Telecommunication Union, "Percentage of Individuals Using the Internet, 2000-2015," http://bit.ly/1cblxxY 2 International Telecommunication Union, "Mobile-Cellular Telephone Subscriptions, 2000-2015," http://bit.ly/1cblxxY 3 Endalk Chala, "When blogging is held hostage of Ethiopia's telecom policy," in "GV Advocacy Awards Essays on Internet Censorship from Iran, Venezuela, Ethiopia," Global Voices (blog), February 3, 2015, http://bit.ly/1OpDvzz 4 Ethiopia Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband and Forecasts , Paul Budde Communication Pty Ltd.: June 2014, http://bit.ly/1ji15Rn 5 Misak Workneh, "Ethio Telecom announces new mobile internet packages, tariff revisions," Addis Fortune , February 23, 2016, http://addisfortune.net/articles/ethio-telecom-announces-new-mobile-internet-packages-tariff-revisions/ 6 William Davison's Facebook post, March 26, 2016, https://www.facebook.com/william.davison.33/posts/10153956834545792?pnref=story 7 Jacob Poushter, "Smartphone Ownership and Internet Usage Continues to Climb in Emerging Economies," Pew Research Center, February 22, 2016, http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/02/22/smartphone-ownership-and-internet-usage-continues-to-climb-in-emerging-economies/ 8 Eskedar Kifle, "Ethio telecom may charge for VoIP apps," Capital Ethiopia, April 6, 2016, http://mereja.com/news/1149276. 9 Test conducted by Freedom House researcher in March 2016. While the speed test should not be interpreted as a standard speed for the entire EthioTelecom network speeds, the data we gathered from a repeated speed tests over a span of a week from March 16 to March 21, 2016 suggest that Ethiopia's average speed lags behind the average speed of the region. Nearly same figures were reported by speed-test services such as http://testmy.net and http://www.dospeedtest.com. 10 Akamai, "Average Connection Speed," map visualization, The State of the Internet , Q1 2016, accessed August 1, 2016, http://akamai.me/1LiS6KD 11 According to tests by Freedom House consultant in 2016. 12 Akamai, "State of the Internet, Q1 2016 Report," https://goo.gl/TQH7L7. 13 William Davison, "Ethiopia Sees Nationwide Power Cuts While Drought Dries Dams," Bloomberg, December 1, 2015, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-01/ethiopia-sees-nationwide-power-cuts-while-drought-dries-dams 14 Mengisteab Teshome, "Ethiopia: Power Outage Taken as 'Business As Usual' Residents," The Ethiopian Herald, September 4, 2015, http://allafrica.com/stories/201509040955.html 15 Endalk Chala, "Ethiopia Locks Down Digital Communications in Wake of #OromoProtests," Global Voices (blog), July 14, 2016, https://globalvoices.org/2016/07/14/ethiopia-locks-down-digital-communications-in-wake-of-oromoprotests; Moses Karanja et al., "Ethiopia: Internet Shutdown Amidst Recent Protests?" OONI, August 10, 2016, https://ooni.torproject.org/post/ethiopia-internet-shutdown-amidst-recent-protests/ 16 Stephanie Busari, "Ethiopia declares state of emergency after months of protests," CNN, October 11, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/09/africa/ethiopia-oromo-state-emergency/; Endalk Chala, "Ethiopian authorities shut down mobile internet and major social media sites," Global Voices (blog), October 11, 2016, https://globalvoices.org/2016/10/11/ethiopian-authorities-shut-down-mobile-internet-and-major-social-media-sites/ 17 Paul Schemm, "Ethiopia shuts down social media to keep from 'distracting' students," Washington Post, July 13, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/13/ethiopia-shuts-down-social-media-to-keep-from-distracting-students/ 18 Darrell M. West, "Internet shutdowns cost countries $2.4 billion last year," Brookings Institute, Center for Technology Innovation, October 2016, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/intenet-shutdowns-v-3.pdf 19 Al Shiferaw, "Connecting Telecentres: An Ethiopian Perspective," Telecentre Magazine, September 2008, http://bit.ly/1ji348h. 20 "Ethio Telecom to remain monopoly for now," TeleGeography, June 28, 2013, http://bit.ly/1huyjf7 21 Paul Chapman, "New report explores the Ethiopian telecoms, mobile and broadband market insights, statistics and forecasts," WhatTech , May 1, 2015, http://bit.ly/1L46Awu. 22 "Out of reach," The Economist , August 24, 2013, http://econ.st/1l1UvJO. 23 "Out of reach," The Economist . 24 Matthew Dalton, "Telecom Deal by China's ZTE, Huawei in Ethiopia Faces Criticism," The Wall Street Journal , January 6, 2014, http://on.wsj.com/1LtSCkD. 25 Based on allegations that the Chinese authorities have provided the Ethiopian government with technology that can be used for political repression such as surveillance cameras and satellite jamming equipment in the past. See: Addis Neger , "Ethiopia: China Involved in ESAT Jamming," ECADAF Ethiopian news & Opinion , June 23, 2010, http://bit.ly/1LtSYI9; Gary Sands, "Ethiopia's Broadband Network A Chinese Trojan Horse?" Foreign Policy Blogs , Foreign Policy Association, September 6, 2013, http://bit.ly/1FWG8X1. 26 ENA, "Ericsson to take part in telecom expansion in Ethiopia," Dire Tube , December 18, 2014, http://bit.ly/1PkZfvA. 27 The Embassy of the United Stated, "Doing Business in Ethiopia," http://1.usa.gov/1LtTExh. 28 World Intellectual Property Organization, "Ethiopia Custom Regulation: No 622/2009," http://bit.ly/1NveoeB. 29 Mignote Kassa, "Why Ethiopia's Software Industry Falters," Addis Fortune 14, no. 700 (September 29, 2013), http://bit.ly/1VJiIWC. 30 "Proclamation No. 281/2002, Telecommunications (Amendment Proclamation," Federal Negarit Gazeta No. 28, July 2, 2002, http://bit.ly/1snLgsc. 31 Ethiopian Telecommunication Agency, "License Directive for Resale and Telecenter in Telecommunication Services No. 1/2002," November 8, 2002, accessed October 20, 2014, http://bit.ly/1pUtpWh. 32 Dr. Lishan Adam, "Understanding what is happening in ICT in Ethiopia," (policy paper, Research ICT Africa, 2012) http://bit.ly/1LDPyJ5. 33 Halefom Abraha, "THE STATE OF CYBERCRIME GOVERNANCE IN ETHIOPIA," (paper) http://bit.ly/1huzP0S. 34 Rebecca Wanjiku, "Study: Ethiopia only sub-Saharan Africa nation to filter net," IDG News Service, October 8, 2009, http://bit.ly/1Lbi3s9. 35 "Ayyaantuu website blocked in Ethiopia," Ayyaantuu News, March 3, 2016, http://www.ayyaantuu.net/ayyaantuu-website-blocked-in-ethiopia/ 36 Felix Horne, "Deafening silence from Ethiopia," Foreign Policy in Focus, April 12, 2016, http://fpif.org/deafening-silence-ethiopia/; Endalk Chala, "Ethiopia locks down digital communications in wake of #OromoProtests," Global Voices (blog), July 14, 2016, https://advox.globalvoices.org/2016/07/14/ethiopia-locks-down-digital-communications-in-wake-of-oromoprotests/ 37 William Davison, "Twitter, WhatsApp Down in Ethiopia Oromia Area After Unrest," Bloomberg, April 12, 2016, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-12/twitter-whatsapp-offline-in-ethiopia-s-oromia-area-after-unrest 38 Nicole Orttung, "Why did Ethiopia block social media," Christian Science Monitor, July 12, 2016, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0712/Why-did-Ethiopia-block-social-media?cmpid=gigya-tw 39 According to activists who were able to circumvent the blocks and observe the social media activities of progoverment users. 40 @befeqadu Twitter post, July 17, 2016, https://twitter.com/befeqadu/status/754725025610104833 41 Christabel Ligami, "Defying censorship, hunger stories emerge from Ethiopia," Equal Times, April 29, 2016, http://www.equaltimes.org/defying-censorship-hunger-stories?lang=en#.WBJZxMmFs6E; "Ethiopian police detain journalists reporting on drought, escort them back to capital," Committee to Protect Journalists, August 17, 2016, https://cpj.org/2016/08/ethiopian-police-detain-journalists-reporting-on-d.php 42 Test conducted by an anonymous researcher contracted by Freedom House, March 2015. During the test, some websites opened at the first attempt but were inaccessible when refreshed. 43 @AtnafB Twitter post, July 17, 2016, https://twitter.com/AtnafB/status/754711725967024131 44 Mohammed Ademo, Twitter post, July 25, 2012, 1:08 p.m., https://twitter.com/OPride/status/228159700489879552. 45 Mohammed Ademo, "Media Restrictions Tighten in Ethiopia," Columbia Journalism Review , August 13, 2012, http://bit.ly/1Lm2npk. 46 Ory Okolloh Mwangi, Twitter post, November 6, 2013, 9:20 a.m., https://twitter.com/kenyanpundit/status/398077421926514688. 47 Daniel Berhane, "Ethiopia's web filtering: advanced technology, hypocritical criticisms, bleeding constitution," Horns Affairs , January 16, 2011, http://bit.ly/1jTyrH1 48 "Tor and Orbot not working in Ethiopia," Tor Stack Exchange, message board, April 12, 2016, http://tor.stackexchange.com/questions/10148/tor-and-orbot-not-working-in-ethiopia; "Ethiopia Introduces Deep Packet Inspection," Tor (blog), May 31, 2012, http://bit.ly/1A0YRdc; Warwick Ashford, "Ethiopian government blocks Tor network online anonymity," Computer Weekly , June 28, 2012, http://bit.ly/1LDQ5L2. 49 Ismail Akwei, "Ethiopia blocks social media to prevent university exam leakage," Africa News, July 10, 2016, http://www.africanews.com/2016/07/10/ethiopia-blocks-social-media-to-prevent-university-exam-leakage/ 50 Endalk Chala, "Defending against overreaching surveillance in Ethiopia: Surveillance Self-Defense now availabile in Amharic," Electronic Frontier Foundation, October 1, 2015, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/defending-against-overreaching-surveillance-ethiopia-surveillance-self-defense-n-0 51 A 2014 report from Human Rights Watch also noted that the term "aljazeera" was unsearchable on Google while the news site was blocked from August 2012 to mid-March 2013. According to HRW research, the keywords "OLF" and "ONLF" (acronyms of Ethiopian opposition groups) are not searchable on the unencrypted version of Google (http://) and other popular search engines. Human Rights Watch, "They Know Everything We Do," March 25, 2014, 56, 58, http://bit.ly/1Nviu6r. 52 Interview with individuals working in the telecom sector, as well as a test conducted by a Freedom House consultant who found it was not possible for an ordinary user to send out a bulk text message. 53 Reporters prevented from reporting on the trial of Zone9 Bloggers. See, Trial Tracker Blog, http://trialtrackerblog.org/home/. 54 Kevin Mwanza, "Is Ethiopia restricting access to social media in Oromia region?" Afk Insider, April 13, 2016, http://afkinsider.com/123180/ethiopia-restricting-access-social-media-oromia-region/ 55 Exemptions are made for foreign nationals of Ethiopian origin. See, Abrham Yohannes, "Advertisement Proclamation No. 759/2012," Ethiopian Legal Brief (blog), September 27, 2012, http://bit.ly/1LDQf5c. 56 "Proclamation No. 686/2010 Commercial Registration and Business Licensing," Federal Negarit Gazeta , July 24, 2010, http://bit.ly/1P3PoLy; World Bank Group, Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency, Economy Profile 2015, Ethiopia , 2014, http://bit.ly/1L49tO6. 57 Chala, "When blogging is held hostage of Ethiopia's telecom policy." 58 "Ethiopia Trains Bloggers to attack its opposition," ECADF Ethiopian News & Opinions , June 7, 2014, http://bit.ly/1QemZjl. 59 The term "Koka" is a blend of two words: Kotatam and cadre. Kotatam is a contemptuous Amharic word used to imply that someone is a sellout who does not have a respect for himself or herself. 60 Endalk Chala, "Ethiopia protest videos show state brutality, despite tech barriers," Global Voices (blog), January 6, 2016, https://advox.globalvoices.org/2016/01/06/ethiopia-protest-videos-show-state-brutality-despite-tech-barriers/ 61 Iginio Gagliardone et al., "Mechachal: Online debates and elections in Ethiopia. Report One: A preliminary assessment of online debates in Ethiopia," working paper, October 2, 2015, http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-06-23-mapping-online-hate-speech 62 Markos Lemma, "Disconnected Ethiopian Netizens," Digital Development Debates (blog),November 2012, http://bit.ly/1Ml9Nu3. 63 Jacey Fortin, "The ugly side of Ethiopia's economic boom," Foreign Policy, March 23, 2016, http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/23/no-one-feels-like-they-have-any-right-to-speak-at-all-ethiopia-oromo-protests/ 64 Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (1995), art. 26 and 29, accessed, August 24, 2010, http://www.ethiopar.net/constitution. 65 Freedom of the Mass Media and Access to Information Proclamation No. 590/2008, Federal Negarit Gazeta No. 64, December 4, 2008. 66 Article 19, The Legal Framework for Freedom of Expression in Ethiopia , accessed September 10, 2014, http://bit.ly/1Pl0f33. 67 Criminal Code, art. 613, http://bit.ly/1OpHE6F. 68 Article 19, "Ethiopia: Proclamation on Telecom Fraud Offences,"legal analysis, August 6, 2012, http://bit.ly/1Lbonjm. 69 "Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No. 652/2009," Federal Negarit Gazeta No. 57, August 28, 2009. 70 The government first instituted the ban on VoIP in 2002 after it gained popularity as a less expensive means of communication and began draining revenue from the traditional telephone business belonging to the state-owned EthioTelecom. In response to widespread criticisms, the government claimed that VoIP applications such as Skype would not be considered under the new law, though the proclamation's language still enables the authorities to interpret it broadly at whim. 71 "Ethiopia Computer Crime Proclamation Text Draft," Addis Insight, May 9, 2016, http://www.addisinsight.com/2016/05/09/ethiopia-computer-crime-proclamation-text-draft/ 72 Kimberly Carlson, "Ethiopia's new Cybercrime Law allows for more efficient and systematic prosecution of online speech," Electronic Frontier Foundation, June 9, 2016, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/ethiopias-new-cybercrime-law-allows-more-efficient-and-systematic-prosecution-online; Tinishu Soloman, "New Ethiopian law targets online crime," The Africa Report, June 9, 2016, http://www.theafricareport.com/East-Horn-Africa/new-ethiopian-law-targets-online-crime.html 73 Article 14, "Crimes against Public Security," Computer Crime Proclamation, draft text at http://www.addisinsight.com/2016/05/09/ethiopia-computer-crime-proclamation-text-draft/, http://hornaffairs.com/en/2016/05/09/ethiopia-computer-crime-proclamation/ 74 Article 13, "Crimes against Liberty and Reputation of Persons," Computer Crime Proclamation. 75 Article 15, "Dissemination of Spam," Computer Crime Proclamation, 76 "Seven things banned under Ethiopia's state of emergency," BBC News, October 17, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37679165 77 "Social media blackout in Ethiopia," Jacarandafm, October 17, 2016, https://www.jacarandafm.com/news-sport/news/social-media-blackout-in-ethiopia/ 78 "Six members of Zone Nine, group of bloggers and activists are arrested," [in Amharic] Zone9 (blog), April 25, 2014, http://bit.ly/1VJn6ow. 79 "Federal High Court Lideta Criminal Bench court, Addis Ababa," http://1drv.ms/1OqAjlC. 80 Endalk Chala, "What You Need to Know About Ethiopia v. Zone9 Bloggers: Verdict Expected July 20 ," Global Voices (blog), July 17, 2015, http://bit.ly/1jTDO9b. 81 Ellery Roberts Biddle, Endalk Chala, Guardian Africa network, "One year on, jailed Ethiopian bloggers are still awaiting trial," The Guardian , April 24, 2015, http://gu.com/p/47ktv/stw; "Nine Journalists and Bloggers Still Held Arbitrarily," Reporters Without Borders, "Nine Journalists and Bloggers Still Held Arbitrarily," August 21, 2014, http://bit.ly/1P3TW4I. 82 Committee to Protect Journalists, "In Ethiopia, Zone 9 bloggers acquitted of terrorism charges," news statement, October 16, 2015, https://www.cpj.org/2015/10/in-ethiopia-zone-9-bloggers-acquitted-of-terrorism.php. 83 Gregory Warner, "Freed from prison, Ethiopian bloggers still can't leave the country," NPR, May 31, 2016, http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/05/31/480100349/freed-from-prison-ethiopian-bloggers-still-cant-leave-the-country 84 "Netizen Report: Ethiopia's Zone9 Bloggers Go Back to Court," Global Voices (blog), March 30, 2016, https://advox.globalvoices.org/2016/03/30/netizen-report-ethiopias-zone9-bloggers-go-back-to-court/ 85 "Netizen Report: As Protests Rage in Ethiopia, Zone9 Bloggers Return to Court," Global Voices (blog), October 21, 2016, https://globalvoices.org/2016/10/21/netizen-report-as-protests-rage-in-ethiopia-zone9-bloggers-return-to-court/ 86 "Ethiopia arrests second journalist in a week, summons Zone9 bloggers," Committee to Protect Journalists, press release, December 27, 2015, https://www.cpj.org/2015/12/ethiopia-arrests-second-journalist-in-a-week-summo.php 87 "Getachew Shiferaw The Price of Freedom of Expression in Ethiopia," Ethiopian Human Rights Project, May 3, 2016, http://ehrp.org/getachew-shiferaw-the-price-of-freedom-of-expression-in-ethiopia/ 88 Salem Soloman, "Ethiopia's Anti-terrorism Law: Security or Silencing Dissent?" VOA News, May 31, 2016, http://www.voanews.com/a/ethiopia-anti-terrorism-law-security-silencing-dissent/3356633.html 89 "Ethiopia: Release opposition politician held for Facebook posts," Amnesty International, press release, May 6, 2016, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/ethiopia-release-opposition-politician-held-for-facebook-posts/; "Facebook post leads to serious charges for Ethiopian politician," Enca, May 6, 2016, https://www.enca.com/africa/facebook-post-leads-to-serious-charges-for-ethiopian-politician 90 @befeqadu Twitter post, April 12, 2016, https://twitter.com/befeqadu/status/719963259911188480/photo/1 91 Tedla D. Tekle, "Ethiopian blogger and activist sentences to five years and four months," Global Voices (blog), May 16, 2016, https://advox.globalvoices.org/2016/05/16/ethiopian-blogger-and-activist-sentenced-to-five-years-and-four-months/ 92 Tedla D. Tekle, "'I was forced to drink my own urine,': 'Freedom' for netizen after 647 days locked up, but not for all," Global Voices (blog), May 2, 2016, https://globalvoices.org/2016/05/02/i-was-forced-to-drink-my-own-urine-freedom-after-647-days-locked-up-but-not-for-all/ 93 "Co-blogger Zelalem Workagegnehu's appeal heard, appointed to tomorrow," De Birhan (blog), July 20, 2016, http://debirhan.com/?p=10035 94 "Oromo protests: Ethiopia arrests blogger Seyoum Teshome," Al Jazeera, October 5, 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/oromo-protests-ethiopia-arrests-blogger-seyoum-teshome-161005071925586.html 95 Such trumped-up charges were based on an online column Nega had published criticizing the government's use of the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to silence political dissent and calling for greater political freedom in Ethiopia. Nega is also the 2011 recipient of the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award."That Bravest and Most Admirable of Writers: PEN Salutes Eskinder Nega," PEN American Center (blog), April 13, 2012, http://bit.ly/1Lm89Y7; See also, Markos Lemma, "Ethiopia: Online Reactions to Prison Sentence for Dissident Blogger," Global Voices , July 15, 2012, http://bit.ly/1OpKaKf; Endalk Chala, "Ethiopia: Freedom of Expression in Jeopardy," Global Voices Advocacy , February 3, 2012, http://bit.ly/1jfIEO3. 96 Article 23, "Retention of Computer Data" and Article 24, "Real-time Collection of Computer Data," http://hornaffairs.com/en/2016/05/09/ethiopia-computer-crime-proclamation/ 97 Human Rights Watch, "They Know Everything We Do," 62. 98 Human Rights Watch, "They Know Everything We Do," 67. 99 Ibid, 52. 100 Committee to Protect Journalists, "Ethiopian Blogger, Journalists Convicted of Terrorism," January 19, 2012, http://cpj.org/x/47b9. 101 Bill Marczak et al., Hacking Team Reloaded? US-Based Ethiopian Journalists Again Targeted with Spyware , Citizen Lab, March 9, 2015, http://bit.ly/1Ryogmr. 102 Hacking Team,"Customer Policy," accessed February 13, 2014, http://hackingteam.it/index.php/customer-policy. 103 Declan McCullagh, "Meet the 'Corporate Enemies of the Internet' for 2013," CNET , March 11, 2013, accessed February 13, 2014, http://cnet.co/1fo6jJZ. 104 Marczak et al., Hacking Team Reloaded? US-Based Ethiopian Journalists Again Targeted with Spyware. 105 Fahmida Y. Rashid, "FinFisher 'Lawful Interception' Spyware Found in Ten Countries, Including the U.S.," Security Week , August 8, 2012, http://bit.ly/1WRPuap. 106 Endalk Chala, "Ethiopia Locks Down Digital Communications in Wake of #OromoProtests." 107 Groum Abate, "Internet Cafes Start Registering Users," The Capital republished Nazret (blog), December 27, 2006, http://bit.ly/1Lm98aX. 108 Human Rights Watch, "They Know Everything We Do," 67. 109 SIMEGNISH (LILY) MENGESHA, "CRAWLING TO DEATH OF EXPRESSION RESTRICTED ONLINE MEDIA IN ETHIOPIA," Center for International Media Assistance (blog), April 8, 2015, http://bit.ly/1IbxFie. 110 " ," ECADAF Ethiopian News & Opinion , April 12, 2015, http://ecadforum.com/Amharic/archives/14790/. 111 Tedla D. Tekle, "'I was forced to drink my own urine,': 'Freedom' for netizen after 647 days locked up, but not for all." 112 Tedla D. Tekle, "'I was forced to drink my own urine,': 'Freedom' for netizen after 647 days locked up, but not for all." 113 Marczak et al., Hacking Team Reloaded? US-Based Ethiopian Journalists Again Targeted with Spyware. 114 Kinfemicheal Yilma, "Hacktivism: A New Front of Dissent, Regulation," Addis Fortune, February 14, 2016, http://addisfortune.net/columns/hacktivism-a-new-front-of-dissent-regulation/ 115 "Ethiopia: The cyber attack that probably never was," Zehabesha, July 13, 2016, http://www.zehabesha.com/ethiopia-the-cyber-attack-that-probably-never-was/ Copyright notice: Freedom House, Inc. All Rights Reserved Freedom on the Net 2016 - Estonia Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2016 - Estonia, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834009613.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. Country: Estonia Year: 2016 Status: Free Total Score: 6 (0 = Best, 100 = Worst) Obstacles to Access: 0 (0 = Best, 25 = Worst) Limits on Content: 3 (0 = Best, 35 = Worst) Violations of User Rights: 3 (0 = Best, 40 = Worst) Population: 1.3 million Internet Penetration: 88 percent Social Media/ICT Apps Blocked: No Political/Social Content Blocked: No Bloggers/ICT Users Arrested: No Press Freedom Status: Free Key Developments, June 2015-May 2016 Estonia continues to be one of the most digitally advanced countries in the world. The Estonian Internet Foundation has consolidated its role in raising awareness about key concerns surrounding digital trends and governance of the free internet (see Availability and Ease of Access and Regulatory Bodies ). In June 2015, the European Court of Human Rights upheld an Estonian Supreme Court decision from 2009, stating that content hosts may be held legally liable for third-party comments made on their websites. Since then, major online media publications have removed the functionality for anonymous comments on their websites and continued active moderation to limit hate speech (see Content Removal). Introduction: Estonia's advanced internet freedom environment continued to make gains thanks to increased internet access and online participation among citizens. Estonia in one of the most wired and technologically advanced countries in the world. With a high internet penetration rate, widespread e-commerce, and e-government services embedded into the daily lives of individuals and organizations, Estonia has become a model for free and open internet access as a development engine for society. When the country regained independence in 1991 after nearly 50 years of Soviet rule, its infrastructure was in a disastrous condition. The country's new leadership, however, perceived the expansion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as a key to sustained economic growth and invested heavily in their development. This progress has continued with support of all following governments. After the first internet connections in the country were introduced in 1992 at academic facilities in Tallinn and Tartu, the government further worked with private and academic entities to initiate a program in 1996 called Tiger Leap, which aimed to establish computers and internet connections in all Estonian schools by 2000. This program helped build a general level of technological competence and awareness of ICTs among Estonians. Today, with a high level of computer literacy and connectivity already established, the program's focus has shifted from basic concerns such as access, quality, and cost of internet services to discussions about security, anonymity, the protection of private information, and citizens' rights on the internet. In addition, the majority of users conduct business and e-government transactions over the internet: in 2016, 99.6 percent of banking transactions were done with e-banking services, and 96 percent of people declared their income electronically.[1] With regard to freedom of expression online, recent court rulings on intermediary liability in Estonia have posed some concerns. On June 16, 2015, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued a ruling that reaffirmed an earlier Estonian Supreme Court decision regarding the legal liability of content hosts for third-party comments. The Grand Chamber of the ECtHR found that a company's legal liability for comments posted by its users did not sufficiently interfere with the freedom of expression guarantees enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights; therefore, intermediaries could be held responsible for third-party content published on their website or forum, even if they delete the content upon notification.[2] Since February 2016, several major media companies have removed anonymous comments functions from their online portals. Over the past couple of years, the issue of privacy for individual users on the internet has become a widely debated topic in Estonia, with a particular focus on the privacy policies of global service providers. The Digital Agenda 2020 for Estonia, established by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, outlines howboth technological and organizational conditions will be developed to ensure that people will always know and be able to decide when, by whom, and for what purpose their personal data is being used in the public sector.[3] The same agenda also launched an "e-residency" program to offer its secure and convenient online services to the citizens of other countries. Services include digital authentication, digital signatures, encrypted transmission of documents and other electronic communications, and access to all Estonian public and private sector online services.[4] Obstacles to Access: Estonia continues to be one of the most connected countries in the world with regard to internet access, and Estonian internet users face very few obstacles when it comes to accessing the internet. Availability and Ease of Access The number of internet and mobile telephone users in Estonia has grown rapidly in the past 20 years. According to statistics from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), internet penetration in Estonia reached 88.4 percent in 2015, compared to 84 percent in 2014 and 79 percent in 2013.[5] There were also nearly 2 million mobile phone subscriptions in 2015, translating to a mobile phone penetration rate of 148 percent.[6] This figure is commonly attributed to the widespread use of internet-enabled mobile devices, the growing popularity of machine-to-machine (M2M) services, and the use of more than one mobile phone by individual Estonians. The first public Wi-Fi area was launched in 2001, and since then, the country has developed a system of mobile data networks that enable widespread wireless broadband access. In 2011, the country had over 2,440 free, certified Wi-Fi areas meant for public use, including at cafes, hotels, hospitals, schools, and gas stations, and the government has continued to invest in public Wi-Fi.[7] In addition, a countrywide wireless internet service based on CDMA technology has been deployed and is priced to compete with fixed broadband access. Three mobile operators cover the country with mobile 3G and 3.5G services, and as of April 2016, 4G services covered over 98 percent of Estonian territory.[8] Municipalities in rural areas have been subsidizing local fiber and wireless internet deployment efforts, and the country's regulatory framework presents low barriers to market entry, enabling local startups to proliferate. Estonians use a large variety of internet applications, including search engines (85 percent of users), email (83 percent of users), local online media, news portals, social-networking sites, instant messaging, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.[9] Estonian Public Broadcasting delivers all radio channels and its own TV production services, including news in real time over the internet; it also offers archives of its radio and television programs at no charge to users. Restrictions on Connectivity There were no government-imposed restrictions or disruptions to internet access during the past years. ICT Market The Estonian Electronic Communications Act was passed in late 2004 and has been bolstered by a number of amendments added to help develop and promote a free market and fair competition in electronic communications services.[10] Today, there are over 200 operators offering such services, including six mobile operators and numerous internet service providers (ISPs). ISPs and other communications companies are required to register with the Estonian Technical Regulatory Authority, a branch of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, though there is no registration fee.[11] Regulatory Bodies The main bodies in charge of regulatory issues in the telecommunications sector include the Technical Regulatory Authority and the Estonian Competition Authority.There have been no recent known cases of government interference with the telecommunications sector through regulatory bodies, or of regulators abusing their powers. The Estonian Internet Foundation has taken an increasingly larger role in discussions and awareness-building surrounding key concerns about digital trends and governance of the free internet, notably by organizing "Internet Day" annual conferences since 2015.[12] The foundation was established in 2009 to manage Estonia's top level domain, ".ee."[13] With its multi-stakeholder foundation, the organization represents the Estonian internet community internationally and has succeeded in overseeing various internet governance issues such as the domain name registration process. In February 2012, the Estonian Internet Foundation was admitted to the Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries (CENTR). During last three years the domain registration and annual fees have dropped from a 20 annual fee to a 7 annual fee, together with a 40 percent decrease in the registrar's deposit, a decrease in the registrar's service fees, and an unlimited number of domains for each user.[14] Limits on Content: Estonians have access to a wide range of content online, and very few resources are blocked or filtered by the government. However, a 2009 court ruling on intermediary liability for third-party comments was upheld by several European Court of Human Rights decisions, including most recently in June 2015, which may increase censorship or content removal, particularly on forums or other websites with public comment sections. Blocking and Filtering There are very few restrictions on internet content and communications in Estonia. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many other international video-sharing and social-networking sites are widely available and popular. Estonians use the internet for uploading and sharing original content such as photographs, music, and text a higher percentage of people in Estonia (32 percent) use the internet to publically share self-created content than do people in any other country in Europe.[15] A 2010 law on online gambling requires all domestic and foreign gambling sites to obtain a special license or face access restrictions. As of February 2016, the Estonian Tax and Customs Board had over 1,000 websites on its list of illegal online gambling sites that Estonian ISPs are required to block.[16] The list of blocked sites is transparent and available to the public. Content Removal There have been some instances of content removal related to online communications. Most of these cases involve civil court orders to remove inappropriate or off-topic reader comments from online news sites. Comments are also sometimes removed from online discussion forums and other sites. Generally, users are informed about a given website's privacy policy and rules for commenting, which they are expected to follow. Most of the popular online services have established policies that outline a code of conduct for the responsible and ethical use of their services and have enforcement policies in place. In June 2015, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) upheld a 2009 Estonian Supreme Court decision establishing intermediary liability over third-party comments on internet news portals.[17] The debate began in 2008 when the victim of unflattering and largely anonymous comments on a news story filed suit against the popular Estonian news site Delfi , claiming that the web portal must be held responsible for defamatory reader comments and screen them before they become public.[18] In 2009, the Estonian Supreme Court upheld the rulings of lower courts, stating that Delfi was not a passive intermediary since the site already exerted control over its comments section by removing those that violate their own rules; therefore, it could be held liable for defamatory or otherwise illegal content prior to publication. Website owners argued that they did not have the capacity to monitor and edit all comments made on their sites. The Estonian Supreme Court ruling was previously upheld in October 2013 by the European Court of Human Rights, which stated that the company's liability for defamatory comments was not a "disproportionate interference" with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights guaranteeing freedom of expression.[19] The case was then referred to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, which also upheld the decision June 2015. Beginning in February 2016, one of the major independent media companies, Postimees Grupp, discontinued the possibility for anonymous comments on its online portals in February 2016. The public broadcasting ERR followed suit, while the independent media house Ekspress Group added a registration system for its online comments section. As a result, the number of comments on online outlets has reportedly declined.[20] Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation Estonians have access to a wide array of content online, and there are few economic or political barriers to posting diverse types of content, including different types of news and opinions. Additionally, Estonia has the largest functioning public-key infrastructure[21] in Europe, based on the use of electronic certificates maintained on the national identification (ID) card. More than 1.2 million active ID cards are in use, which enable both electronic authentication and digital signing, and over 40 percent of active ID cards have been used for these purposes.[22] The Digital Signature Act, adopted in 2000,[23] gives an individual's digital signature the same weight as a handwritten one and requires public authorities to accept digitally-signed documents. Estonian ID cards were used to facilitate electronic voting during the parliamentary elections in 2007 and were used again in the 2009 municipal and European Parliament elections. During parliamentary elections in March 2015, 176,491 votes were cast over the internet, representing over 30 percent of all votes from Estonia.[24] In 2016, 96 percent of citizens filed their taxes online, making the web services offered by the tax department the most popular public e-service. Over 63 percent of internet users regularly use e-government services, and 77 percent of these users have indicated their satisfaction with such services.[25] Digital Activism Social media use in Estonia is fairly widespread, and Estonians often make use of such sites to share news and information and generate public discussion about current political debates. In addition to discussions, netizens also actively participate in online petitions that can be initiated by anybody and joined for free.[26] Violations of User Rights: Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are protected by Estonia's constitution and by the country's obligations as a member state of the European Union. Anonymity is unrestricted, and there have been extensive public discussions on anonymity and the respectful use of the internet. Internet access at public access points can be obtained without prior registration. Over the past few years, the government has succeeded in reducing the number and severity of cyberattacks against its infrastructure. Legal Environment According to the constitution of Estonia, everyone has the right to freely obtain information and to freely disseminate ideas, opinions, beliefs, and other information. In addition, everyone has the right to the confidentiality of messages sent or received. In general, these rights are well protected. Any restrictions on these rights must be necessary in a democratic society and shall not distort the nature of the rights and freedoms restricted.[27] Narrow limits on freedom of expression relate to the incitement of national, racial, religious or political hatred, violence, or discrimination, which are prohibited and punishable by law. Estonia is currently in the process of amending the penal code to establish a framework on hate speech criminalization in the country and thereby comply with the European Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA,[28] issued November 28, 2008, on "combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law." In July 2012, the Ministry of Justice initiated proceedings to amend sections 151 and 152 of the penal code, which would lead to a new legal norm regarding hate speech-related legislation in Estonia.[29] This process was previously a topic of significant public debate within the country, but the present government has taken more cautious positions on proceeding with this initiative. Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities There were no cases of prosecutions or detentions for online activities during the coverage period. Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity Estonia has strong privacy protections for its citizens. The Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), first passed in 1996 and updated in 2008,[30] restricts the collection and public dissemination of an individual's personal data. No personal information that is considered sensitive such as political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, ethnic or racial origin, sexual behavior, health, or criminal convictions can be processed without the consent of the individual. The Data Protection Inspectorate (DPI) is the supervisory authority for the PDPA, tasked with "state supervision of the processing of personal data, management of databases, and access to public information."[31] In 2015, the Chancellor of Justice (Ombudsman) processed several cases related to online privacy and data protection.[32] The Ombudsman is an independent official whose duties are to ensure that legislation in Estonia complies with the constitution, and that the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Estonian people are protected. In three cases during the spring of 2015, the Chancellor strongly and clearly argued for the users' right to privacy with regard to the protection of private data in public databases. The Chancellor of Justice's office has taken a leading role in interpreting the constitution in cases related to privacy and private information on the internet in Estonia, establishing new standards for the protection of user rights online. Data retention practices established under the 2005 Electronic Communications Act,[33] which aligned with EU legislation, were thrown into doubt by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in April 2014, when the court found the European Data Retention Directive (2006/24/EC) to be invalid and in contravention of articles 7, 8, and 52(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights.[34] The ruling was lauded among privacy proponents who had long argued that requirements for the blanket retention of data constituted mass surveillance and far exceeded what was necessary for law enforcement purposes. However, the decision has also prompted debate among legal experts and different reactions by governments, with some member states now suspending their national implementations of the European directive, while others are drafting new data retention laws in order to compel internet service providers to continue to store user data.[35] According to a report by the Estonian Parliament Security Authorities Surveillance Select Committee, which oversees the practices of surveillance agencies and security agencies, there were over 2,700 cases of information requests based on court orders in 2014, a decrease of 4 percent from the previous year.[36] The select committee was established to exercise supervision over the legality of surveillance and the activities of the Security Police.[37] The committee monitors the activities of the Security Police Board to ensure conformity with the constitution, the Surveillance Act, and other regulations on security agencies. Intimidation and Violence There have been no physical attacks against bloggers or online journalists in Estonia, though online discussions are sometimes inflammatory. Technical Attacks Awareness of the importance of ICT security in both private and business use has increased significantly since a series of cyberattacks against Estonian websites and government organizations in the spring of 2007. To protect the country from future attacks, the government adopted a five-year Cyber Security Strategy in 2008 that focused on the development and implementation of security measures that would increase competence in cyber security, improve the legal framework, bolster international cooperation, and raise public awareness.[38] Estonia's cybersecurity strategy is built on strong private-public collaboration and a unique voluntary structure through the National Cyber Defense League.[39] With more than 150 experts participating, the league has simulated different security threat scenarios as defense exercises that have served to improve the technical resilience of Estonia's telecommunication networks and other critical infrastructure over the past few years. Also in 2008, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established a joint cyber defense center in Estonia to improve cyber defense interoperability and provide security support for all NATO members. Since its founding, the center has supported awareness campaigns and academic research on the topic and hosted several high-profile conferences, among other activities.[40] From 2009, the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence has organized an annual International Conference on Cyber Conflict, or CyCon, bringing together international experts from governments, the private sector, and academia. CyCon has focused on international cooperation and the legal, regulatory, military, and paramilitary aspects of cybersecurity, with the goal of ensuring the development of a free and secure internet. Notes: 1 Estonian Information System's Authority, "Facts about e-Estonia," accessed June 2, 2016, http://bit.ly/2cjJcTH 2 European Court of Human Rights, Case of Delfi AS v. Estonia, Judgement, June 16, 2015, http://bit.ly/1hu6nIr. 3 Digital agenda 2020 for Estonia, accessed June 11, 2016, http://bit.ly/2dENc0n 4 "What is e-Residency?" e-estonia.com, accessed June 22, 2016, http://bit.ly/2dEOWqz 5 International Telecommunication Union (ITU), "Percentage of individuals using the Internet 2000-2015," accessed October 10, 2016, http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 6 International Telecommunication Union (ITU), "Mobile-cellular subscriptions 2000-2015," accessed October 10, 2016, http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 7 Public Wi-Fi Hotspot database in Estonia, accessed June 15, 2016, http://wifi.ee/leviala/ 8 Annual report of the Estonian Technical Regulatory Authority 2015, accessed June 25, 2016 http://bit.ly/2eJ8EAf. 9 Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, Margit Keller, and Kristina Reinsalu, "1.1.4 Quality of Life and Civic Involvement in Information Society," Information Society Yearbook 2009 (Tallinn: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, 2010), http://bit.ly/2eofxJA. 10 "Electronic Communications Act," Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, accessed October 11, 2016, http://bit.ly/2eoeKbB. 11 Technical Regulatory Authority, "Commencement of Provision of Communications Service," accessed February 15, 2015, http://bit.ly/2dSKMtP. 12 Interneti Paev, accessed June 2, 2016, http://paev.internet.ee/2016. 13 Estonian Internet Foundation, accessed June 30, 2016, http://www.internet.ee/en/. 14 ".ee domain price to drop to 7 euros", Estonian Internet Foundation, accessed June 1, 2016, http://bit.ly/2dSKCTf. 15 "Individuals Using the Internet for Uploading Self-Created Content to Any Website to Be Shared," Eurostat, accessed June 11, 2015, http://bit.ly/2dItUGb. 16 The list of restricted websites can be found on the Estonian Tax and Customs Board website: "Ebaseadusliku kaughasartmangu serverite domeeninimed" [Illegal gaming servers, domain names], Tax and Customs Board, accessed June 10, 2016, http://bit.ly/2d56Gw1. 17 "CASE OF DELFI AS v. ESTONIA", Grand Chamber judgment, accessed June 18, 2015, http://bit.ly/1hu6nIr. 18 Kaja Koovit, "Big Businessman Goes to War Against Web Portals," Baltic Business News, March 18, 2008, http://bit.ly/2dND70r. 19 "European Court strikes serious blow to free speech," ARTICLE 19, October 14, 2013, http://bit.ly/1Bf9pcV. 20 Postimees, "Hate speech a security threat," Eurotopics.net, January 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/2d8kYrf. 21 A public-key infrastructure (PKI) is a system for the creation, storage, and distribution of digital certificates, which are used to verify that a particular public key belongs to a certain entity. The PKI creates digital certificates that map public keys to entities, securely stores these certificates in a central repository, and revokes them if needed. 22 See the web portal for the ID-card system, http://id.ee/?lang=en. 23 "Digitaalallkirja seadus" [Digital Signature Act], Riigi Teataja, accessed May 21, 2013, http://bit.ly/2di154f. 24 Vabariigi Valimiskomisjon (Electoral Commission), "Statistics about Internet Voting in Estonia," accessed October 11, 2016 http://bit.ly/2e3L9Qz. 25 Kristina Randver, Kodanike rahulolu riigi poolt pakutavate avalike e-teenustega, Jaanuar 2010 [Citizens' Satisfaction with the Provision of Public E-Services, January 2010] (Tallinn: TNS Emor, 2010), http://bit.ly/2da2nL8. 26 Petitsioon [Petitions], accessed October 11, 2016, http://petitsioon.ee 27 Constitution of the Republic of Estonia [English translation], June 28, 1992, http://bit.ly/2dIm4MT. 28 EUR-Lex, "Access to European Union Law," accessed May 5, 2013, http://bit.ly/2d4YKuV. 29 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "Tenth and Eleventh Periodic Report on the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination in Estonia," January 2013. 30 Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate, "Inspectorate," March 14, 2015, http://bit.ly/2dYLoNz. 31 Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Privacy International, "Republic of Estonia," in Privacy and Human Rights 2006: An International Survey of Privacy Laws and Developments (Washington: EPIC, 2007), http://bit.ly/2e38qaI. 32 "Tasks and jurisdiction of the Chancellor of Justice," accessed June 2, 2015, http://bit.ly/2dYL956. 33 Electronic Communications Act, translation to English, http://bit.ly/2eccx3T. 34 The ECJ court ruling pertained to the cases Digital Rights Ireland Ltd ( C-293/12) and Karntner Landesregierung (C-594/12) and is available at http://bit.ly/1yF25p3. 35 Martin Husovec, "First European Constitutional Court Suspends Data Retention After the Decision of the Court of Justice of EU," The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, April 28, 2015, http://stanford.io/2dGBfaF. 36 Overview of Parliament Select Committe activities, http://bit.ly/2e6wLbo. 37 "Security Authorities Surveillance Select Committee," Riigikogu: The Parliament of Estonia, June 16, 2016, http://bit.ly/2dGCGpr. 38 Cyber Security Strategy Committee, Cyber Security Strategy (Tallinn: Ministry of Defence, 2008), http://bit.ly/2e6v2my; See also: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communication, "Cyber Security Strategy 2014-2017," accessed October 11, 2016, http://bit.ly/2fdtquG. 39 "Estonian Defense League's Cyber Unit," Kaitseliit [Defence League], accessed October 11, 2016, http://bit.ly/2dhXTFC. 40 "Cyber Security Conferences," Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence (CCD COE), accessed October 11, 2016, http://bit.ly/2dIPzSy. Copyright notice: Freedom House, Inc. All Rights Reserved Freedom on the Net 2016 - Ecuador Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2016 - Ecuador, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834009813.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. Country: Ecuador Year: 2016 Status: Partly Free Total Score: 41 (0 = Best, 100 = Worst) Obstacles to Access: 8 (0 = Best, 25 = Worst) Limits on Content: 12 (0 = Best, 35 = Worst) Violations of User Rights: 21 (0 = Best, 40 = Worst) Population: 16.1 million Internet Penetration: 49 percent Social Media/ICT Apps Blocked: No Political/Social Content Blocked: No Bloggers/ICT Users Arrested: Yes Press Freedom Status: Not Free Key Developments, June 2015-May 2016 The use of copyright infringement notices to take down content critical of the government has become common practice. While a Spanish firm acting on behalf of Ecuador's public institutions has been behind many of these requests, government institutions have also started to issue removal requests claiming copyright infringement (See Content Removal ). Defamation lawsuits and frequent verbal attacks continued to threaten critical commentary online, and two politicians were sentenced to 15 and 30 days in jail for their comments on social media ( Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities ). Evidence mounted that Ecuador's government engages in surveillance of a wide range of individuals, as leaked documents have exposed illegal spying on politicians, journalists and activists (see Surveillance, Privacy and Anonymity ). Several online news outlets suffered cyberattacks after publishing articles detailing the links between Ecuador's intelligence agency and Hacking Team, and others were attacked while covering antigovernment protests in June 2015 (see Technical Attacks). Introduction: Ecuador's internet freedom climate deteriorated during this period, threatened by politically motivated content removals, frequent legal and verbal attacks against government critics online, and cyberattacks against news sites. While internet access continued to increase over the past year, Ecuador's a contradictory position on internet freedom has become more pronounced. The government of President Rafael Correa, who came into power in 2007, has been an early adopter of information technology, and online platforms played a central role in the party's initial election campaign. Through its Ministry of Telecommunications, the government has engaged in widespread campaigns to improve internet access and digital literacy all over the country. The protection of foreign whistleblowers such as Julian Assange (despite recent tensions)[1] and Edward Snowden, who was granted safe passage in order to travel to Russia, have given Ecuador fame as a defender of internet freedom. However, this image contrasts with the reality at home. Heavy control on the printed press has been slowly transitioning to the online world. Takedowns, cyberattacks and phishing malware are part of the everyday lives of activists, journalists and political dissidents. The government has not been proactive in defending citizens against these threats; instead, it has actively exerted control over the digital space. The abuse of copyright infringement notices, progovernment troll centers, and heavy sanctions for private media under the 2013 Communications Law all continued to present limits on content. President Correa has repeatedly encouraged the public to "use the law" against his critics on social media and to dox users who insult him. Moreover, a series of leaks have provided compelling evidence of active monitoring of the public web and government targeting of opposition figures for surveillance. Legal actions against alternative media because of their posts on blogs, Facebook and Twitter also point to active monitoring of the online sphere. Obstacles to Access: Internet access continued to increase during this coverage period. The quality of service has improved and become more readily available with the expansion of 4G technology. However, zero-rating programs have drawn criticism over uneven access to online content and applications as the current legal framework has proven to be ineffective in defending net neutrality. Legislation approved in early 2015 has raised questions about the independence of the new regulatory body, as well as the scope of a provision that grants the government the power to take over telecommunications services in times of national emergency. Availability and Ease of Access Internet access in Ecuador has steadily increased in the last few years. The Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS), a new high speed fiber-optic cable completed by a consortium of operators in August 2015,[2] represents part of a larger advance in infrastructure improvements in Ecuador. As the country's fiber-optic cabling continued to expand from 45,000 km in 2015 to 59,861 km in 2016,[3] PCCS is expected to multiply local internet consumption capacity by 60.[4] As of 2015, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) measured internet penetration in Ecuador at 48.9 percent, compared to 45.6 percent in 2014 and 35 percent in 2012.[5] According to an Akamai report from the first quarter of 2016, Ecuador's average internet speed was 5.3 Mbps.[6] Multiple internet subscription options are available. Broadband (commonly used in urban zones) and satellite connections (often used in rural areas) have become increasingly popular in recent years. According to the Agency for Regulation and Control of Telecommunications (ARCOTEL), 9.4 percent of the population had fixed internet subscriptions at the end of 2015, while 38 percent had mobile internet subscriptions.[7] Although mobile phones continued to be taxed as luxury items along with other electronic devices such as computers and tablets,[8] there were 12.8 million mobile phone subscriptions in 2015, representing 79.4 percent of the population.[9] In December 2015, the government relaxed import quotas by allowing every user to import a phone valued up to US$ 2,000 every year.[10] For local cell phone assemblers, tariffs dropped from 3 to 1 percent. However, mobile internet penetration continued to be unevenly distributed, as the richest 20 percent of the population owned 60 percent of smartphones.[11] Cell phones, along with clothing, are the biggest market for contraband in the country.[12] In early 2015, Movistar and Claro reached a deal with the government to access the radio frequency bands to improve 3G connectivity and install 4G services, in exchange for paying over US$ 300 million and improving 3G coverage. This contract will expire in 2023 and is expected to reach more individuals than previous attempts to introduce 4G technology.[13] Government data for 2015 shows 7.5 percent using 4G technology,[14] which is available in 49.6 percent of the territory.[15] These numbers are expected to increase with the digital television switchover as it will free more spectrum for mobile use.[16] While fixed and mobile broadband internet with low download capacity (500 Mb) is affordable for most users, Ecuador has the steepest price in the region for higher download capacity (1 GB) adjusted for purchasing power parity.[17] It is unclear to what extent these plans offer full connectivity as the three mobile operators in the country sell zero-rated services in at least 67 different modalities.[18] Facing increasing demand, small internet retailers provide internet access to Ecuadorians for less than US$1 per hour. Even though prices per Mbps for both fixed and mobile broadband dropped by 25 percent in the last year,[19] socio-economic factors continued to impact internet access. Some 17.7 percent of families in urban areas had internet access compared to 8.5 percent in rural areas. Access also varies across and within provinces, as users are more concentrated in the most economically active centers. For example, in 2013, an average of 8 to 10 percent of rural households in Ecuador's Amazon and mountainous regions had internet access, and only 4 percent in the coastal region.[20] Ecuador has shown improvements in expanding internet access to rural areas over the past three years through programs facilitated by the Ministry of Telecommunications (MINTEL). Ecuador's state-run Infocentros community centers with network access that began to be installed in June 2012 provide free internet in 78 percent of rural cantons in the country.[21] Infocentros have played an important role in reducing digital illiteracy (from 21.4 percent in 2012 to 12.2 percent in 2015) by offering free workshops across the country.[22] MINTEL's mobile classrooms project, intended to offer access to those without Infocentros nearby, has also benefited more than 380,000 people since its inception.[23] MINTEL and the Ministry of Education expect to provide full access to all public schools through its National School Connectivity Plan.[24] The National Secretariat of Higher Education has also taken steps to provide free Wi-Fi in public and private universities.[25] The number of cybercafes has multiplied since 2009, from 1,355 to 2,667 as of January 2016.[26] Restrictions on Connectivity Ecuador's physical infrastructure is not highly centralized. The government does not place limits on bandwidth, nor are there reports of control over infrastructure, although a provision in the 2015 Organic Law of Telecommunications grants the president the power to unilaterally take over telecommunications services in times of national emergency.[27] Civil society groups have raised concerns about the scope of this provision and its potential abuse by the government because of its vague standards and lack of oversight by an independent and impartial court.[28] In June 2015, protesters against the government in Quito and Guayaquil encountered service problems. Explanations for these problems range from network saturation to the possible presence of cell phone jammers.[29] Local police did report the use of this equipment during the Pope's visit in July 2015,[30] but it is unclear if this equipment has been used to prevent demonstrators to communicate. On December 3, 2015, during popular riots over constitutional reforms proposed by the government, several users reported problems accessing Twitter images across the country.[31] The blocking did not affect all users in the same way nor was it related to a specific ISP, as was the case of Venezuela in 2014.[32] The problem was initially dismissed as a technical failure on Twitter's end. However, minutes later the company declared having investigated the issue without discovering any technical problems on their end.[33] Independent researchers performing tests on the servers that provided Twitter images to the country found different responses within the Ecuadorian territory.[34] According to Aldo Cassola, a network security researcher, if Twitter's performance was not compromised, this could either be a case of routing issues or potentially the effect of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack to Twitter's Content Delivery Network.[35] ICT Market Ecuador has 14 major internet service providers (ISPs) covering 99 percent of users and 329 small ISPs providing access to the rest of the market. State-owned National Telecommunications Corporation (CNT) dominated the fixed-line market, with over 55 percent of subscriptions, followed by Suratel (13.3 percent) and Telconet (10.3 percent). Mobile internet service providers, on the other hand, are an oligopoly: Conecel (Claro) represented 58 percent of active cellular accounts, Otecel (Movistar) 32 percent, and CNT, 10 percent.[36] This concentration of suppliers does not negatively impact users, according to the National Superintendence of Market Power Control.[37] In February 2015, the New Telecommunications Act entered into force, allowing the government to impose specific obligations to dominant operators with high market power based on their income; and to impose fines depending on the number of users.[38] The amount of such fines also experienced a tenfold increase,[39] collecting US$ 25 million through October 2015.[40] There have been no reported government restrictions for new companies in the ICT sector. However, it has become difficult for small entrepreneurs to start an ISP in highly populated areas, mainly due to the number of competitors. As a result, they have migrated to outlying provinces.[41] Registration with ARCOTEL, although a simple process, is mandatory for cybercafes. Regulatory Bodies In February 2015, Ecuador's National Assembly passed the Organic Law of Telecommunications. Not to be confused with the similarly named Communications Law passed in 2013, the Organic Law on Telecommunications radically changed the regulation of the telecommunications sector. The new telecommunications law created a regulatory body, the Agency for the Regulation of Telecommunications (Arcotel), which is attached to the Ministry of Telecommunications and is responsible for the technical aspects of administration, regulation, and control of the telecommunications sector and the radio-electric spectrum.[42] Arcotel's directors are all appointed directly by the president, which may undermine its independence.[43] Arcotel's effort to redistribute radio-electric frequencies has notably been criticized for being politicized and lacking transparency. In response to the removal of its frequency, the director of the National Union of Journalists claimed this was an act of retaliation for their "firm and critical stance [against] policies implemented by the government."[44] Efforts by access providers and other internet-related organizations to establish self-regulatory mechanisms are allowed and, to a certain extent, promoted. Examples of this include the public assistance to develop public and private Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT) by EcuCERT; the local internet exchange point (NAP.ec) managed by AEPROVI, and the Ecuadorian IPv6 Task Force, among others. The allocation of digital assets, such as domain names or IP addresses, are not controlled by the government, nor are they allocated in a discriminatory manner. Limits on Content: As the online public sphere has gained prominence as a forum for political and social discussion in Ecuador, the government has sought to exert control over content through a variety of mechanisms. The use of copyright law to censor critical content has become common practice, and public institutions have started to directly issue copyright infringement notices to take down content. Social media have especially been at the center of efforts to manipulate public opinion online in favor of the government, as journalists and government critics suffered retaliation for sensitive posts . Blocking and Filtering The government does not engage in systematic blocking or filtering of content in Ecuador. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and blog-hosting services are freely available. There were no reports of the government blocking tools enabling circumvention of online filters and censors. Reports have pointed to past instances of blocking of specific domains at government request. An allegedly leaked internal memorandum from Telefonica (Movistar) noted an instance in 2014 when the Ecuadorian Association of Internet Providers (AEPROVI), which controls over 95 percent of the country's internet traffic, blocked access to specific domains at the government's request.[45] While the authenticity of the memorandum has not been confirmed by Telefonica, public documentation from SUPERTEL (now ARCOTEL) shows that the government and private ISPs have collaborated in the past to block specific domains to combat piracy,[46] and that AEPROVI maintains a cooperation agreement with ARCOTEL since 2012.[47] The text of the agreement remains unknown to the public, and it is unclear what mechanisms ARCOTEL and AEPROVI use to block internet domains. Likewise, mechanisms for public accountability are not in place or have not been disclosed. Content Removal The use of copyright law to censor online content has been widely recognized for years in Ecuador. Tweets, images, blog posts, and videos were taken down as the result of complaints made by Ares Rights on behalf of Ecuadorian institutions, including the National Secretariat of Communications (SECOM), the National Secretariat of Intelligence (SENAIN), and the state television network (ECTV).[48] Ares Rights, a company based in Spain, claims that the country's privacy laws forbid them from disclosing any document detailing the relationship with its clients.[49] While the government has not confirmed its participation in these requests, it has not acted against the abuses of others on the government's behalf either.[50] Moreover, public institutions have started to make their own requests to remove content for allegedly violating copyright protections. In March 2015, SECOM sent a letter to Fundamedios, a freedom of expression advocacy organization, stating that they would take legal actions if the latter would not remove the distinctive image of the National Secretary of Communication from one of their tweets.[51] Investigative portals such as Focus Ecuador and Mil Hojas have also been targeted with complaints from SECOM,[52] and the institution has even added a copyright symbol to the Presidency's official YouTube channel.[53] In December 2015, Fundamedios received a notice from CloudFlare and Amazon Web Services about new complaints made by Ares Rights on behalf of SECOM.[54] Ecuador Transparente, a website operated by the Associated Whistleblowing Press, was also targeted by Ares Rights after publishing secret documents that contained information about political spying. The request was made on behalf of Rommy Vallejo, head of SENAIN.[55] Besides the use of copyright law to target critical content online, a study released in August 2016 revealed the growing number of takedown requests for alleged violations of Twitter rules, such as the publication of private information. Between April and July 2016, Fundamedios recorded 806 takedown requests against 292 Twitter accounts. Approximately 30 of these accounts, which corresponded to antigovernment users with high numbers of followers, were suspended after receiving repeated complaints. Ares Rights continued to be behind many of these requests.[56] Showcasing efforts to actively monitor and remove specific content on social media, in September 2015, Buzzfeed uncovered a US$4.7 million contract dating from 2012 between the Mexican company Emerging MC and SENAIN, in which the former was required to "predict, anticipate and eliminate" material on social networks that "damage or may damage the integrity of persons, public or private institutions (...) promote or incite violence or acts contrary to the public welfare and morality (...) represent a plagiarism of identity [and] threats, identity theft, defamation, slander and insults." Buzzfeed also published the subsequent payments and the company's report on removed content.[57] The media and communications regulator, the Superintendency of Information and Communications (Supercom), has aggressively pursued print media (including all media with an online presence)[58] under accusations of unbalanced reporting and "media lynching" an allegation that is often applied to investigative reporting in Ecuador. The Communication Law passed in 2013 grants Supercom the power to audit, intervene, and control all information and media, as well as to enforce regulations governing information and communications. Corrections, sometimes scripted by Supercom, are often issued to media outlets on the basis that articles fail to provide appropriate context. However, civil servants oftentimes avoid commenting on stories prior to publication.[59] Additionally, the law holds websites liable for content posted on their sites by third parties unless such parties are identifiable through personal data such as their national ID number. News outlets that have allowed readers to post comments critical of the government on their websites have faced removal requests, and others have closed their comments section entirely. Media, Diversity, and Online Content Manipulation Although the 2013 Communications Law gives the government broad authority to censor media content, Supercom has especially used the law to sanction privately-owned traditional media outlets, which are mostly offline. The government's broader restrictions on traditional media outlets likely affect digital content associated with these outlets both by encouraging self-censorship and by restricting financial resources for independent media. Mainstream media outlets such as El Comercio, El Universo or Expreso have lawyers that review "sensitive" notes before publication. Cases of corruption and investigative journalism are covered with extreme caution. El Comercio , for example, failed to publish a seven-series report on Hacking Team. Activists have also turned down invitations from mass media to talk about the subject after suffering harassment from anonymous sources.[60] Attempts to reprimand progovernment media under current legal provisions have been less successful.[61] "Whether you like it or not, you self-censor, you are very careful about your words and the headlines, often we would even ask each other how to redact a tweet," confessed a journalist working for a private newspaper, who requested anonymity.[62] As the Communication Law gained momentum, print journalists posting sensitive content on social media have also been reprimanded, further contributing to self-censorship. The former political editor for El Comercio , Martin Pallares,[63] was fired by the newspaper after 13 years of service for failing to comply with the paper's guidelines for "good practices on social networks."[64] Similarly, Orlando Perez, editorial director of El Telegrafo , has reproached his columnists and even journalists working at other outlets for social media posts that were allegedly untruthful or "harmed the newspaper."[65] Although the Communications Law exempts social media users from sanctions, the government has issued gag orders during states of emergency under Article 8 of the Telecommunications Act.[66] On August 15, 2015, President Rafael Correa signed a decree forbidding "the dissemination of unauthorized information [regarding the eruption of Cotopaxi Volcano] by any means of social communication, whether public or private, or via social media."[67] One month later, Minister of Security Cesar Navas announced that a first complaint will be filed with the Attorney General's Office against certain Facebook users for publishing "unscrupulous" opinions.[68] New media outlets have emerged and thrived online, offering a wide range of political and social viewpoints.[69] However, the online media landscape remains highly distorted by state-owned or state-managed mass media outlets, which often use unidentified sources in order to propagate stories. On June 24, 2015, state-operated TV stations EcuadorTV, GamaTV and TC Television, broadcasted a video stitching together separate conversations from two private group chats on Telegram and WhatsApp in order to claim that a "soft coup d'etat" was being planned by "the wealthiest families in Quito." The group chat members were conversing about the protests against the government that took place at the end of that month and, according to one of the victims of the privacy breach, the chats were manipulated and juxtaposed to change the narrative.[70] The media refused to turn over any information about the video (which first appeared online) or to allow the victims to explain themselves.[71] Several reports on state-sponsored troll farms in Ecuador also reveal efforts to skew public opinion in favor of the government.[72] According to Catalina Botero, former Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, investigations have identified the IP addresses of these computers in government offices.[73] Private firms like Emerging MC have also been implicated in the manipulation of social media content (See Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity). While there is a general mandate to protect Net Neutrality in the Telecommunications Act outlined in the objectives (Article 3) and principles (Article 4 and 66) of the Law Article 64 allows ISPs to establish "tariff plans consisting of one or more services, or for one or more products of a service, in accordance with his or her authorization certificates." The rule book for the TelCo Act not only missed a clear definition of net neutrality but reaffirmed that the only limitation for tariff plans was the requirement for ISPs to clearly state the limitations of "any discounts, promotions or bonuses for purchasing services."[74] Digital Activism Social media is paramount to the organization of protests in Ecuador. In 2015, proposed economic measures and constitutional reforms notably an amendment to establish communication as a public service generated huge public outcry (see Legal Environment). The website lasremiendas.com and the hashtag #ArchivenLasEnmiendas ("File the amendments") were widely used to highlight dissatisfaction with the proposals. On June 8, 2015, Congressman Andres Paez posted a YouTube video on his Facebook page calling for a rally outside Quito's airport, which went viral and reached thousands of views in a few days.[75] A demonstration called "Black Sunday" was held the following week.[76] Right after the 7.8 earthquake that hit Ecuador on April 16, 2016, killing 661 people and injuring tens of thousands, a government imposed media blackout rendered social media the main source of information for victims and onlookers alike.[77] In the weeks after the tragedy, volunteers organized themselves through social media, mapping affected zones and gathering further volunteers, money and equipment to help those affected. Live reports of lost and found people, online fundraising campaigns and automatic alerts were all crucial to recovery efforts. Digital activism, however, does not always produce concrete results. After the publication of leaked emails that linked Hacking Team to the National Secretariat of Intelligence (SENAIN), several organizations published a statement in defense of privacy that was disseminated through several websites.[78] While they managed to gain public notoriety, trending on Twitter on July 13 with #PrivacidadYA, this did not lead to physical mobilizations or public protests. Violations of User Rights: The country faces several threats to free expression, including criminal provisions against libel, government regulation and oversight of media content, and concerns about judicial independence. Recent leaks have shed light on the extralegal monitoring of environmental activists, politicians and journalists, as well as on the role of the National Secretariat of Intelligence beyond its stated mission. Harassment and threats against social media users have become common place, and in some cases have also taken place offline. Legal Environment A lack of legislation specifically targeting online speech has allowed journalists and bloggers to enjoy relatively higher levels of freedom online than offline. Ecuador's Constitution guarantees "universal access to information technologies and communication" (Article 16.2), and confers the ability to exercise one's right to communication, information, and freedom of expression (Article 384). The latter, however, was amended by the National Assembly in December 2015 to include the mandate that " communication as a public service will be provided through public, private and community media" (emphasis added). The move to categorize communication as a public service has especially raised criticism for undermining freedom of expression as a human right and opening the way for broad government regulation of media outlets.[79] Although Article 71 of the Organic Law of Communication, adopted in 2013, already included similar wording on communication as a public service, a constitutional amendment would cement and strengthen this principle.[80] The 2013 Communication Law calls for the establishment of a government committee to regulate media and issue civil and criminal penalties to journalists or media outlets that fail to report in a manner that the regulator deems fair and accurate. Although Article 4 states that the law "does not regulate information or opinions expressed by individuals on the internet," the definition of social media outlets in Article 5 includes "content which can be generated or replicated by media outlets on the internet." Follow-up legislation in 2014 exempted bloggers and social media users from regulation under the Communications Law, but expanded the definition of "mass media" to include "those [websites] that operate on the internet, whose legal status has been obtained in Ecuador and distribute news and opinion content."[81] Changes to the penal code that entered into force in August 2014 eliminated criminal charges for insult, but retained them for slander and libel.[82] Article 179 restricts protections for whistleblowers by establishing a prison sentence of six months to one year for any person "who, by virtue of his/her state or office, employment, profession, or art, has knowledge of a secret whose divulgement might cause harm to another and reveals it." The article makes no exception for revealing information in the public interest. Article 229 places further restrictions on divulging information by banning the revelation of registered information, databases, or archives through electronic systems in a way that violates the intimacy or privacy of someone else, with no exceptions for whistleblowers or journalists. Article 307 establishes a penalty of five to seven years in prison for creating economic panic by "publishing, spreading, or divulging false news that causes harm to the national economy in order to alter the prices of goods." In early 2015, Carlos Ochoa, the country's Information Superintendent, declared that reforms are being prepared to amend the Communication Law, but said that new regulations on social media would need further public debate across the country before being considered.[83] Regulation on the protection of personal data are also being developed.[84] Finally, the National Assembly has presented a new bill that would allow the takedown of websites without a court order.[85] The lack of judicial independence is another ongoing concern. A 2014 report from the Due Process of Law Foundation has noted how "Ecuador's justice system is currently being subjected to political usages that seriously jeopardize judicial independence in those cases where the government's interests are at stake."[86] Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities Lawsuits for defamation have increasingly threatened online users. During the coverage period, two politicians Sebastian Cevallos and Jeannine Cruz Vaca were sentenced to 15 and 30 days in jail, respectively, for "defamatory" content posted on Twitter under article 396 of the Criminal Code, which punishes "expressions that discredit or dishonor." Bolivar Castillo, mayor of Loja and an ally of the government, said that he sued Jeannine Cruz to set a precedent. Cruz had posted a video and tweet criticizing the mayor's management of a water sanitation project.[87] Previously Castillo had sued La Hora newspaper because they "failed to provide in-depth coverage" of one of his public speeches.[88] The suit against Cevallos was filed by a civil servant and niece of the former labor minister, after Cevallos tweeted about an alleged case of nepotism.[89] Online writers have also incurred high penalties in civil libel cases. On July 22, 2015, the National Court of Justice ordered a blogger to pay a fine of US$ 46,000 for "moral damage" against President Correa. Blogger Miguel Palacios Frugone had previously sued President Correa for libel after the president called him a "rapist." President Correa responded in kind by countersuing Palacios for defamation over 20 articles that he produced on his blog "Desde mi Trinchera" ("From my Trench").[90] In June 2015, journalist Roberto Aguilar from EstadoDePropaganda.com, a blog critical of the government's control over mass media, was sued on charges of defamation by Fernando Alvarado, the legal representative of the National Secretariat of Communications.[91] The complaint was finally dismissed five months later. The Security Coordinating Minister, Cesar Navas, also announced the beginning of legal proceedings against social media users who posted "unscrupulous" comments in the aftermath of the Cotopaxi volcanic eruption in August 2015.[92] A presidential decree issued on August 15 had forbidden "the dissemination of unauthorized information by any means of social communication, whether public or private, or via social media."[93] Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity The National Secretariat of Intelligence (SENAIN) is in charge of producing "strategic SIGINT [signals intelligence] for the integral security of the state, society and democracy." Created in 2009 by a presidential decree, SENAIN has continuously expanded its capacities and budget, reaching US$ 58 million in 2015. Most of the budget has been allocated to "special expenses for communications and counterintelligence."[94] A secret document published by the whistleblowing website Ecuador Transparente in June 2014 outlines what SENAIN considered as "risk factors and threats against democratic stability." These included political parties,[95] "local movements", mass media, private banks, chambers of commerce, environmental and indigenous organizations, rural communities and unions. In July 2015, Italian spyware company Hacking Team was compromised and their financial and commercial transactions exposed. While the National Secretary of Intelligence, Rommy Vallejo, quickly noted that SENAIN had no contractual relationship with Hacking Team,[96] leaked documents have suggested otherwise and researchers have sought to establish a connection. Firstly, National Representative Lourdes Tiban held a press conference showing documents (from February 2013) previously leaked by Anonymous Ecuador, in which the former National Secretariat of Intelligence, Pablo Quezada, authorized Illuminati Lab to act as an intermediary between SENAIN and Hacking Team.[97] Secondly, Robotec (Colombia) and Theola (Belize) were identified as intermediaries between SENAIN and the Italian Company.[98] Thirdly, several researchers, helped by the victims exposed in the Hacking Team database, were able to confirm the veracity of the documents.[99] Finally, the governments of Chile[100] and Cyprus[101] recognized the authenticity of the leaks the first week after they came out. According to a technical analysis by "ilv", a Tor Project developer, the government targeted judges, members of the national electoral council, political parties and political movements.[102] On August 4, 2015, Ecuador Transparente made public 31 secret documents from SENAIN corresponding to intelligence gathered between 2012 and 2014. Among the targets were Mauricio Rodas, mayor of Quito; politicians Alvaro Noboa, Gilmar Gutierrez, Dalo Bucaram, Mery Zamora and Andres Paez; environmentalists Matt Finer, Joke Baert, Sigmund Thies and Kevin Koenig; cartoonist Xavier Bonilla; and journalists Maria Josefa Coronel and Carlos Vera. Grassroots environmentalist organizations, like Pachamama and Yasunidos, were also targeted. Both groups, apparently, had their telephone calls and emails intercepted.[103] As shown in the documents leaked by Ecuador Transparente, SENAIN also made use of information gathered by public agencies and stored in the government platform www.datoseguro.gob.ec. This website, administered by the National Directorate of Public Data Registry, claims that their data is encrypted in transit and on its servers.[104] Public entities, however, are legally obliged to provide any information required by SENAIN as long as this request has been communicated to the president.[105] While President Rafael Correa has stated that everything done by the Intelligence Agency is within the rule of law,[106] it is unclear whether interception was authorized by a judge, since the president later declared that "any use of SENAIN equipment for national security purposes" is authorized by the district attorney.[107] The National Secretariat of Intelligence is accountable to the executive power and to a specialized committee of the National Assembly, where they present a report every three months in reserved sessions. Nevertheless, the legal representative of SENAIN is not required to answer every question asked.[108] The Comptroller General may also investigate SENAIN in the area of competence. Besides the abovementioned mechanisms, there is no oversight body in place to guard against abusive use of surveillance technology. Content intercepted during internet surveillance is admissible in court and can be used to convict criminals under Articles 476 and 528 of the Criminal Code. There have been several indications of government monitoring of blogs, social media and websites. The contract between Emerging MC and SENAIN, made public by Buzzfeed , requires the company to "predict, anticipate and eliminate" material on social media.[109] In previous reports from 2013, "marketing company" Illuminati Lab displayed monitoring of Ecuadorian social media as a success story of their company.[110] In April 2016, SENAIN published a press release threatening legal action in light of "unfounded publications made by (...) some Twitter users" related to the Panama Papers leak.[111] In 2011, SENAIN signed a nondisclosure agreement with the Chinese firm Huawei.[112] The company is a partner of state-owned CNT and their technology is widely available in the country. Additionally, under the rules of the telecommunications law, ISPs are obliged by ARCOTEL to "provide technical, economic, financial, legal documents, and in general, any form or request for information" and to "allow inspections to facilities and systems."[113] Finally, the Subsystem for Interception of Communications or Computer Data (SICOM) of the General Attorney requested Hacking Team's assistance to build a country-wide monitoring center to access PCs, laptops, cellphones and tablets.[114] The system currently allows interception of voice calls and text messages (SMS) of criminal suspects.[115] Neither anonymous nor encrypted communications are prohibited in Ecuador. Registration of cell phones and SIM cards, however, is mandatory for every citizen.[116] News sites are also required to prove the identity of commentators, or are otherwise liable for the latter's wrongdoing. ISPs are required to submit the IP addresses of their clients without a judicial order on request by Arcotel.[117] Finally, mobile operators were required to implement technology that would automatically provide the physical location of cellphone users for emergency purposes, within an accuracy range of 50 meters.[118] Intimidation and Violence Social media influencers in Ecuador often face harassment, both online and offline. On July 29, 2015, a bouquet of flowers was thrown at activist Paulina Munoz by an unknown man on the street. She also disclosed that her Facebook page and email had been compromised and used to threaten her.[119] Similarly, a Twitter user critical of the government received what was labeled as a "Christmas gift" from two unidentified senders. When he opened it, he found a box representing a coffin, a disemboweled cat, pictures of his wife and children, and a message that "granted" him 24 hours to close his Facebook and Twitter accounts.[120] Previous victims of harassment have also received offline threats because of their online activities, such as Gabriel Gonzalez, creator of the satire page Crudo Ecuador,[121] and journalists Betty Escobar[122] and Andres Mendoza.[123] Online threats are also a common occurrence, especially fueled by the heated atmosphere amplified by the president's weekly speeches calling on supporters to dox and prosecute dissidents.[124] In January 2016, President Correa called for the public to "use the law" against his critics on social media.[125] Days later, several Twitter accounts critical of the government were suspended. Most of them were reactivated without any explanation as to why they were sanctioned.[126] Correa also has encouraged his followers to find and release personal information about users who insult him[127] as well as investigative journalists, like those reporting on the Panama Papers.[128] Privacy activists Rafael Bonifaz and Alfredo Velasco denounced threats to their families as an aftermath of their follow-up on the Hacking Team scandal.[129] Andres Delgado, who broke the story on the online magazine Gkillcity.com, lost internet access and received threats via WhatsApp.[130] Other victims include lawyer Silvia Buendia, who was threatened with having her limbs amputated; news outlet La Republica Digital , which received a message stating "I hope someone burns your facilities with all of you inside"; and Pamela Aguirre, a member of the ruling party who also received death threats for her activity promoting President Correa's reelection.[131] Technical Attacks The year 2015 saw an extensive campaign of phishing and malware attacks targeting civil society and public figures in the country. Ecuador is the fourth country with the highest number phishing attacks in the world.[132] In December 2015, Citizen Lab revealed an analysis of a series of malware attacks in Ecuador and other countries. High-profile journalists working on domestic and regional politics, like Janeth Hinostroza; civil society organizations, activists and politicians working on environmental issues and freedom of expression, like Cesar Ricaurte; and members of the parliament were known targets of the so-called Packrat malware.[133] Journalist Jose Maria Leon reported that one day after the publication of the Hacking Team leaks, Gkillcity.com had its Twitter account hacked and deleted and their office internet access was interrupted. "One month before, we immediately remembered, someone hacked our Facebook account." Gkillcity, along with Milhojas.is and Planv.com; all received distributed-denial of service (DDoS) attacks after publishing articles detailing the links between SENAIN and Hacking Team.[134] Four different media sites reported attacks while providing live coverage of antigovernment protests.[135] The website censuracom.ec was inaccessible for several days due to DDoS attacks, as reported by Fundamedios, a freedom of expression watchdog, which had its website attacked at the same time.[136] Several social media accounts criticizing the government had also been suspended.[137] In August 2015, Mil Hojas Foundation published a document linking previous attacks against Bananaleaks.com (a website that published information against the government) and its associated Twitter account to "Eye Watch," a registered trademark of Emerging MC, the company allegedly hired by SENAIN for US$ 4.69 million.[138] Ecuador has the fourth-highest number of phishing attacks in the world.[139] Between January 2015 and October 2015, there were 1,254 allegations of cybercrimes in Ecuador, according to the Attorney General, of which 800 (63 percent) were for misappropriation of money or information through electronic means. The most common type of financial malware were SMS trojans (67 percent), followed by spyware (23 percent). The province of Guayas registered 49 percent of all malware attacks in the country, followed by Pichincha with 43 percent.[140] The Counter-Intelligence and Strategic Technological Operations Center of SENAIN handles the technical aspects of the country's cybersecurity, and EcuCERT, has been in operation since 2014.[141] In early 2016, Ecuadorian police created a special unit to deal with cybercrime with a team of 200 agents working in research and intelligence.[142] Notes: 1 Nick Miroff, "Ecuador cuts off Internet access for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange," The Washington Post , October 19, 2016, http://wapo.st/2ejNvA6. 2 Sofia Ramirez, "Un nuevo cable submarino se instala," [A new undersea cable is installed], El Comercio , Quito, July 14, 2015, http://bit.ly/2dv79sA. 3 Ministerio de Telecomunicaciones y Sociedad de la Informacion (MINTEL), "Seguimos creciendo en el despliegue de las telecomunicaciones: Ecuador ya cuenta con 59.861 km de fibra optica," [The deployment of telecommunications keeps growing: Ecuador already has 59,861 km of fiber optic], January 28, 2016, http://bit.ly/1RQd8of. 4 Vicepresidencia de la Republica del Ecuador, "Cable submarino de fibra optica en su etapa final de instalacion," [Undersea cable in the last stage of installation], accessed September 29, 2016, http://bit.ly/21ctrM8. 5 International Telecommunication Union, "Percentage of Individuals using the Internet," accessed September 29, 2016, http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 6 Akamai, State of the Internet Report, Q4, 2015 report, accessed September 29, 2016, http://akamai.me/2b5MgzU. 7 Agencia de Regulacion y Control de las Telecomunicaciones, "Servicio de Acceso a Internet," [Internet Access Service], accessed September 29, 2016, http://bit.ly/1qcC7Xs. 8 "Equipos tecnologicos pagan mas por nuevos aranceles," [Technological devices will pay more with new duties], El Mercurio , January 28, 2015, http://bit.ly/21Ojo5z. 9 International Telecommunication Union, "Mobile-cellular phone subscriptions 2000-2015," accessed September 29, 2016, http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 10 Ecuadorian Foreign Trade Commission, Resolution 049-2015, December 29, 2015, http://bit.ly/1Jxl6zx. 11 Jaime Albuja, Andres Navas, David Paguay, Andrea Moreno & Pablo Najera, "Technological GINI: a study of the inequality in Ecuador," 2015 Second International Conference on eDemocracy & eGovernment (ICEDEG). 12 Javier Ortega, "Poderosas mafias del contrabando penetran en Quito con celulares ilegales," [Powerful contraband mafias penetrate Quito with illegal cell phones], El Comercio , April 23, 2015, http://bit.ly/1z1k4qN 13 Mercedes Alvaro, "Ecuador Signs 4G Contracts With America Movil, Telefonica," The Wall Street Journal , February 18, 2015, http://on.wsj.com/1DsXlo9. 14 Agencia de Regulacion y Control de las Telecomunicaciones (ARCOTEL), "Servicio Movil Avanzado," [Advanced Mobile Phone System], March 2016, http://bit.ly/1p7oE2U. 15 Augusto Espin, "Rendicion de cuentas MINTEL 2015," [2015 MINTEL Report], March 23, 2016, http://bit.ly/24ZRUb9. 16 A complete blackout of TV signals is programmed for the end of 2016. See: Ministerio de Telecomunicaciones y Sociedad de la Informacion. "Ecuatorianos deben adquirir televisores con estandar ISDBT-TB," [Ecuadorians must acquire televisions with ISDBT-TB standards], September 30, 2014, http://bit.ly/1QyBCAJ. 17 Maria F. Viences & Fernando Callorda, "La brecha digital en America Latina: precio, calidad y asequibilidad de la banda ancha en la region," [The digital divide in Latin America: price, quality and affordability in the region], Dialogo regional sobre sociedad de la informacion , January 2016, p. 18, http://bit.ly/1UG7nJP. 18 Apertura Radical, "Carta a MINTEL y SENESCYT: Para favorecer la innovacion deben modificar la Ley de Telecomunicaciones," [Open Letter to MINTEL and SENESCYT: In order to promote innovation you must modify the Telecommunications Law], April 1, 2015, http://bit.ly/1R06yMq. 19 Maria F. Viences & Fernando Callorda, "La brecha digital en America Latina: precio, calidad y asequibilidad de la banda ancha en la region," [The digital divide in Latin America: price, quality and affordability in the region], Dialogo regional sobre sociedad de la informacion , January 2016, http://bit.ly/1UG7nJP. 20 Ministerio de Telecomunicaciones y Sociedad de la Informacion, "Analisis del porcentaje de hogares con acceso a internet," [Analysis of the percentage of households with internet access], March 2015, http://bit.ly/1RMVwXO. 21 There are 833 Infocentros with over 6 million visits since they were first implemented in 2010. See: Ministerio de Telecomunicaciones y Sociedad de la Informacion, "Infocentros comunitarios," [Community infocenters], accessed March 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/1iPMYxq. 22 Augusto Espin, "Rendicion de cuentas MINTEL 2015," [2015 MINTEL Report], March 23, 2016, http://bit.ly/24ZRUb9. 23 "El exito de los Infocentros Comunitarios y las Aulas Moviles," [The success of community infocenters and mobile classrooms], April 9, 2014, http://bit.ly/24JaHbv. 24 Ministerio de Telecomunicaciones y Sociedad de la Informacion, "Conectividad escolar," [Scholar connectivity], accessed March 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/1OVJDKB. 25 "El Codigo Ingenios propone redes gratuitas de internet en las universidades," [The Ingenios Act proposes free internet network in universities], El Telegrafo , January 10, 2016, http://bit.ly/1PnG94e. 26 Cybercafes initially provided internet access in commercial zones but adjusted their market as the demand shifted towards low and middle income users around 2011. See: "Cibers crecen aliados a tareas escolares y cabinas telefonicas," [Cybercafes grow along with schoolwork and payphones], El Universo , June 27, 2011, http://bit.ly/1oWW6IB; Total number of cybercafes obtained from: Agencia de Regulacion y Control de las Telecomunicaciones (ARCOTEL), "Servicio de Acceso a Internet," [Internet Access Service], http://bit.ly/2dNKJgW. 27 Asamblea Nacional Republica del Ecuador, Ley Organica de Telecomunicaciones [Telecommunication Law], http://bit.ly/2fsPlKj. 28 Katitza Rodriguez, "Leaked Documents Confirm Ecuador's Internet Censorship Machine," Electronic Frontier Foundation, April 14, 2016, http://bit.ly/1W144NE. 29 Alfredo Velazco, "The Internet, a Staging Post for Protests in Ecuador, is under threat," Global Voices, June 28, 2015, http://bit.ly/1QObmyR; See also: Aldo Cassola, Twitter post, June 13, 2015, 7:50 a.m., http://bit.ly/2ej6zhW. 30 Juan Carlos Mestanza y Javier Ortega, "Las Fuerzas Armadas y la Policia, listas para dar seguridad al Papa," [The Military and The Police ready to protect the Pope], El Comercio , July 3, 2015, http://bit.ly/1YACaYM. 31 "Usuarios de Twitter denuncian que sus fotos no se visualizan en Ecuador," [Twitter users denounce they cannot visualize their pictures in Ecuador], El Comercio , December 3, 2015, http://bit.ly/1XCiTJw. 32 The Associated Press, "Twitter reports image blocking in Venezuela," USA Today , February 14, 2014, http://usat.ly/1pwXB0R. 33 Twitter @Policy, Twitter post, December 3, 2015, 3:24pm, http://bit.ly/2f5ldb4. 34 Servers 192.229.163.25 and 104.244.43.103 were accessible from the U.S. but connection timed out when connecting from Ecuador. See: Ivan Muela, "Bloqueo de imagenes de TWITTER en Ecuador?," [Blocking of Twitter images in Ecuador?], December 3, 2015, http://bit.ly/1QGjh4M. 35 Aldo Cassola, Computer Scientist and Professor, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, interview on March 6, 2016. 36 An ISP was considered "major" if it had at least 50,000 users. See: Agencia de Regulacion y Control de las Telecomunicaciones, "Servicio de Acceso a Internet," [Internet Access Service], accessed January 2016, http://bit.ly/1qcC7Xs. 37 Superintendencia de Control de Poder de Mercado, Expedientes SCPM-CRPI-2015-020 (May 4, 2015) and SCPM-CRPI-2015-052 (September 30, 2015). 38 America Movil, "Annual Report," December 31, 2104, http://bit.ly/1pqOpeL. 39 "Mayor multa para 'malos' operadores economicos," [Bigger fine for 'bad' economic operators], El Universo , December 14, 2015, http://bit.ly/1NPojKS. 40 Sofia Ramirez, "USD 420 millones recaudo la Arcotel seis meses del 2015," [USD 420 million collected by Arcotel during six months in 2015], El Comercio , October 7, 2015, http://bit.ly/1N1G7jZ. 41 Rodrigo Barahona, Former Internet Service Provider, Interview March 14, 2016. 42 Asamblea Nacional Republica del Ecuador, Ley Organica de Telecomunicaciones [Telecommunication Law]. http://bit.ly/1Kvdp7W. 43 Leticia Pautasio, "Ecuador: Ley de Telecomunicaciones entra en vigencia y Arcotel inicia sus funciones," [Ecuador: Telecommunications Law enters into force and Arcotel starts its functions], TeleSemana.com, March 6, 2015, http://bit.ly/22lJayl. 44 Fundamedios, "Arcotel permanently removes independent journalists association's frequency," December 12, 2015, http://bit.ly/1PcWbxg; Plan V, "La Arcotel y los riesgos de la redistribucion de frecuencias," [Arcotel and the risks of frequency redistribution], February 22, 2016, http://bit.ly/1WFXJW1. 45 Apertura Radical, "El gobierno ecuatoriano y la Asociacion de Proveedores de Internet trabajan juntos para bloquear el acceso a paginas web," [The Ecuadorian government and the Ecuadorian Association of Internet Providers (AEPROVI) collaborate to block access to specific websites], http://wp.me/p3jTIV-8t. 46 Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones, "Informe rendicion de cuentas 2014," p.64, [2014 Supertel Report], January 13, 2015, http://bit.ly/22ufifv. 47 Convergencia Latina, "La SUPERTEL firmara hoy un convenio de cooperacion con la asociacion de ISPs" [SUPERTEL will sign cooperation agreement today with ISP associaiton], April 17, 2012, http://bit.ly/1XNlCxV. 48 Maira Sutton, "State Censorship by Copyright? Spanish Firm Abuses DMCA to Silence Critics of Ecuador's Government," EFF, May 15, 2014, http://bit.ly/1lKGvUY; See also: Alexandra Ellerbeck, "How U.S. copyright law is being used to take down Correa's critics in Ecuador," Committee to Protect Journalists, January 21, 2016, http://bit.ly/1Lu5Uoj. 49 Adam Steinbaugh, "Ares Rights: Our Acts On Behalf of Ecuador Are Private," December 19, 2014, http://bit.ly/1ZpH37t. 50 Enrique Arosemena, former director of the State-owned TV station 'Ecuador TV,' denied a contract with Ares Rights but insinuated that Ares Rights was using the name of Ecuador TV to censor online. In 2014, he announced legal actions against the firm but they never materialized. See: "Arosemena: 'EcuadorTV no tiene contrato con Ares Right'," [Arosemena: EcuadorTV does not have a contract with Ares Rights], La Republica , April 28, 2014, http://bit.ly/1T5ys9b. 51 "Ares Rights dice que los documentos sobre la SENAIN filtrados por Ecuador Transparente son reales," [Ares Rights: Senain documents leaked by Ecuador Transparente are real], Apertura Radical (blog), December 28, 2105, http://bit.ly/1Vi2MxJ. 52 Fundamedios, "Gobierno realiza tres denuncias mas para deshabilitar portal de investigacion Focus Ecuador" [Government issues three more complaints to disable the investigative portal Focus Ecuador], May 20, 2016, http://bit.ly/25c52Kg; See also: Fundamedios, "Secom denuncia a portal Mil Hojas por uso de documentos donde aparece el logo de "la marca pais"" [SECOM denounces Mil Hojas for using documents with the "country brand"], June 3, 2016, http://bit.ly/1PaOh9i. 53 "Presidencia de la Republica del Ecuador SECOM" [Presidency of the Republic of Ecuador SECOM], YouTube channel, accessed October 18, 2016, http://bit.ly/2eh4TSx. 54 Alexandra Ellerbeck, "How U.S. copyright law is being used to take down Correa's critics in Ecuador," Committee to Protect Journalists, January 21, 2016, http://bit.ly/1Lu5Uoj. 55 "Ares Rights dice que los documentos sobre la SENAIN filtrados por Ecuador Transparente son reales," [Ares Rights: Senain documents leaked by Ecuador Transparente are real], Apertura Radical (blog), December 28, 2105, http://bit.ly/1Vi2MxJ. 56 Fundamedios, "806 denuncias en contra de 292 cuentas de Twitter, revela monitoreo" [806 complaints against 292 twitter accounts, monitoring reveals], August 9, 2016, http://bit.ly/2b1JhKg. 57 James Ball & Paul Hamilos, "Ecuador's President Used Millions Of Dollars Of Public Funds To Censor Critical Online Videos," BuzzFeed , September 24, 2015, http://bzfd.it/1Lu6kee. 58 Follow-up legislation in 2014 exempted bloggers and social media users from regulation under the Communications Law, but extended the law to cover "all media with an online presence" (see Legal Environment). 59 Fundamedios, "Pedidos de rectificacion y replica: el mecanismo favorito de los funcionarios estatales para imponer su verdad," [Requirements for corrections and response: civil servants' favorite mechanism to impose the truth], October 15, 2015, http://bit.ly/1X6l3gU. 60 Andres Delgado, "El miedo de vigilar a los vigilantes," [The fear of watching the watchers], blog post, January 15, 2016, https://eff.org/r.xdr2 61 Superintendencia de la informacion y la comunicacion, "SUPERCOM desecha denuncia contra medios y entidades relacionadas con comunicacion," [SUPERCOM rejects complaint against media and communication related entities], April 1, 2015, http://bit.ly/1RmtTF9; See also: "Ley de comunicacion no aplica a enlaces sabatinos de Correa," [Communication Law does not apply to Correa's weekly broadcasts], Ecuador Times AR, June 4, 2014, http://bit.ly/1PsA4Da. 62 Online interview, February 11, 2016. 63 Martin Pallares, "Ecuador's Political Eruption," The New York Times , September 1, 2015, http://nyti.ms/1o5i1g4. 64 Fundamedios, "Journalist fired for his comments on Twitter," August 20, 2015, http://bit.ly/1SgDttn. 65 Fundamedios, "Columnist reports censorship by State operated newspaper," August 5, 2015, http://bit.ly/1UPUIVC. 66 Understood as "aggression; international or internal armed conflict; serious internal disturbances, public calamity; or natural disaster or national, regional or local emergency." 67 Presidencia de la Republica de Ecuador, Decree 755, August 15, 2015, http://bit.ly/1PwqAa7. 68 Fundamedios, "Ministro anuncia inicio de procesos legales contra personas que divulgaron rumores sobre el volcan Cotopaxi en redes sociales" [Minister announces legal procedures against people that disseminated rumors on the Cotopaxi volcano on social networks], September 22, 2015, http://bit.ly/1NRR4rd. 69 During this period of coverage for example, after only two months of activity the website 4pelagatos.com, which is operated by journalists Roberto Aguilar, Martin Pallares, Jose Hernandez and social media specialist Juan Gabriel Gonzalez, best known as CrudoEcuador, received nearly two million visits from more than half a million unique users. See: 4Pelagatos, "Gracias a nuestros lectores," [Thank you to our readers], March 20, 2016, http://bit.ly/21CuAN2. 70 Rebeca Morla, "Correa Officials Thumb Their Noses at Their Own Communications Law," PanamPost , July 7, 2015, http://bit.ly/21Hhezh. 71 TV channels refused to provide information about how they got the information and to allow Valdivieso his right to respond, as mandated by the Communications Law. Ecuador Inmediato, "Andres Valdiviezo sobre chats presuntamente conspirativos: De la mentira se ha pasado a algo peor, el montaje (AUDIO)," [Andres Valdiviezo about allegedly conspiring chats: From lies we have moved to something worse], July 4, 2015, http://bit.ly/1q2qRg8. 72 Fundacion 1000 hojas, "Troll center: derroche y acoso desde las redes sociales" [Troll center: waste and harassment on social media], http://bit.ly/1xwV6yx; See also: Samuel Woolley, "#HackingTeam Leaks: Ecuador is Spending Millions on Malware, Pro-Government Trolls", August 4, 2015, http://bit.ly/2cUSYMl. 73 "Catalina Botero compara acciones de Bukele con Correa en Ecuador," La Prensa Grafica , February 19, 2016, http://bit.ly/1pVJfaX. 74 Andres Delgado, "The Final Blow to Net Neutrality in Ecuador," January 3, 2016, http://bit.ly/1Pheecy. 75 Andres Paez, YouTube channel, video statistics through March 25, 2016, http://bit.ly/2fp15Bp. 76 Focus Ecuador, "Personajes del ano 2015," [People of the Year 2015], December 15, 2015 http://bit.ly/1SfWOrW. 77 4 Pelagatos, "El terremoto cuarteo la comunicacion correista," [The earthquake cracked the government's communication], April 16, 2016, http://bit.ly/GUW99Z. 78 David Bogado, "Hacking Team y Ecuador: Pronunciamiento En Defensa De La Privacidad," [Hacking Team and Ecuador: a statement in defense of privacy], Electronic Frontier Foundation, July 13, 2015, http://bit.ly/1J4t7pc. 79 Silvia Higuera, "Ecuador declares communication "a public service"; Fundamedios considers it a "serious setback"," Journalism in the Americas, December 8, 2015, http://bit.ly/1OS1mWp; See also: Fundamedios, "Assembly approves amendment to constitution that makes communication a public service," December 2, 2015, http://bit.ly/1NtiDpz; John Otis, "How Ecuador's plans to make communications a public service is threat to free press," Committee to Protect Journalists (blog), January 20, 2015, http://bit.ly/1PEHiKg. 80 Asamblea Nacional, Ley Organica de Comunicacion [Organic Law of Communication], June 25, 2013, http://bit.ly/1pgZrCC. 81 Decree 214, Art. 3, January 27, 2014, http://bit.ly/208xLfH; See also: Alianza Regional, "Articulo XIII: Informe sobre control estatal de las redes sociales" [Article XIII: Report on state control of social networks], May 2016, http://bit.ly/1rQZOWx. 82 Ministerio de Justicia, Derechos Humanos y Cultos, Codigo Organico Integral Penal, 2014, http://bit.ly/1juCXok. 83 "Carlos Ochoa: Regulacion a redes sociales necesita antes un gran debate en el pais," [Carlos Ochoa: Social media regulation requires a big national debate], El Universo , February 11, 2015, http://bit.ly/1Rtn30v. 84 The project has not been made public, its focus and scope are unknown. See: Derechos Digitales, "Latin America in a Glimpse," November 6, 2015, http://bit.ly/1REQWOD. 85 Usuarios Digitales, "Boletin de Prensa: Proyecto de Ley organica de proteccion de los datos personales Impactara la libertad de expresion y flujo de informacion?" [Press Release: Law Proposal for Protection of Personal Data, Will it impact freedom of expression and the free flow of information?], September, 19, 2016, http://bit.ly/2dBdz5T. 86 Luis Pasara, "Independence in the Ecuadorian justice reform," Due Process of Law Foundation, July 2014, http://bit.ly/1l9TIGu. 87 Lineida Castillo, "2 personas sentenciadas en 52 dias por comentar en Twitter," [Two people sentenced in 52 days for commenting on Twitter], El Comercio , January 6, 2016, http://bit.ly/1PMKkLB. 88 Fundamedios, "Mayor reports newspaper that failed to provide in depth coverage," May 1, 2015, http://bit.ly/1q2rHto. 89 Cuenca: politico condenado a 15 dias de carcel por denunciar presunto caso de nepotismo en Twitter [Cuenca: politician condemned to 15 days in jail for denouncing alleged case of nepotism on Twitter], La Hora , November 11, 2015, http://bit.ly/2dybSaJ. 90 Belen Marty, "Rafael Correa Fines Columnist for Libel and Calls Him a Rapist," PanAm Post, July 29, 2015, http://bit.ly/1OLlF9g; "Miguel Palacios sobre sentencia a favor del presidente Correa: 'Me siento una hormiga enfrentando a King Kong'," El Comercio , July 27, 2015, http://bit.ly/1OLnTFA. 91 Fundamedios, "Journalist Roberto Aguilar is called to make judicial confession at the request of Communication Secretary," June 25, 2015, http://bit.ly/1NkR53D. 92 Fundamedios, "Ministro anuncia inicio de procesos legales contra personas que divulgaron rumores sobre el volcan Cotopaxi en redes sociales" [Minister announces legal procedures against people that disseminated rumors on the Cotopaxi volcano on social networks], September 22, 2015, http://bit.ly/1NRR4rd. 93 Presidencia de la Republica de Ecuador, Decree 755, August 15, 2015, http://bit.ly/1PwqAa7. 94 Secretaria Nacional de Inteligencia, "Programacion Anual de la Politica Publica," [Annual Program for Public Policy], February 11, 2015, http://bit.ly/1pQ7SG2. 95 Cited as right-wing political parties are: PSC-MG, PSP, CREO, Concertacion and SUMA. Cited as left-wing parties are: MPD, Pachakutik, certain factions of the socialist party. See: Ecuador Transparente, "Reporte de la Inteligencia Ecuatoriana (SENAIN) sobre factores de riesgo y amenazas a la estabilidad democratica," [Report by Ecuadorian Intelligence (SENAIN) about risk factors and threats to democratic stability], December 28, 2015, http://bit.ly/1Q3yJ6v. 96 Fundamedios, "Senain warns it will take legal action against those who release information linking it to hacking team," July 16, 2015, http://bit.ly/1XVLaXm. 97 Andreina Laines, "Lourdes Tiban asegura que si existio relacion entre la Senain y Hacking Team," [Lourdes Tiban assures that there is a relation between Senain and Hacking Team], Ecuavisa, July 30, 2015, http://bit.ly/1UlK2y8. 98 Rebeca Morla, "Ecuadorian Websites Report on Hacking Team, Get Taken Down," PanamPost , July 13, 2015, http://bit.ly/1oebLCI. 99 Associated Press, "APNewsBreak: Leaked Hacking Team emails suggest Ecuador illegally spied on opposition," Fox Business , August 6, 2015, http://fxn.ws/1Rmaa9M. 100 Carlos Gutierrez, "Chile confirma la compra de software a Hacking Team," [Chile confirms software acquisition from Hacking Team], FayerWayer, July 7, 2015, http://bit.ly/22Qp7EZ. 101 Cale Guthrie Weissman, "The Hacking Team fallout continues, as the head of intelligence for Cyprus steps down," Business Insider , July 13, 2015, http://read.bi/1MsWwS3. 102 Ilv, "Hacking Team, Chile & Ecuador," July 11, 2015, http://bit.ly/1PxVA9x. 103 Associated Whistleblowing Press, "Ecuadorian intelligence agency spied systematically on politicians and activists," August 4, 2015, http://bit.ly/1MsYGRI. 104 Direccion Nacional de Registro de Datos Publicos, "Preguntas Frecuentes," [FAQ], March 26, 2016, http://bit.ly/1pDBXrr. 105 Law of Public and State Security, Article 17. 106 Article 22 of Law of Public and State Security states that it is prohibited to gather information, produce intelligence or store data on individuals because of "ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, private actions, political preference or adhesion or membership to partisan organizations." 107 The Criminal Code provides in Article 5.10 that "everyone is entitled to their personal and family privacy and records and searches cannot be done (...) except by order of the competent judge." The Telecommunications Act provides in Article 77 that interception of data and messages can only be done "when there is an express order of a competent judge, as part of an investigation of a crime or for reasons of public security and the state, according to those established by law and following due process." On the other hand, Article 470 of the Criminal Code states that personal communications to third parties cannot be recorded without their knowledge and authorization, except as expressly stated in the law and previous court order. As for the interception of computer data, Article 476 of the Criminal Code allows it, as part of a judicial process only. See: ANDES, "President Rafael Correa denies that Secretary of Intelligence hired Italian Company Hacking Team," July 17, 2015, http://bit.ly/1PxXRS6. 108 "Rommy Vallejo acudio a la Asamblea Nacional para presentar su declaracion trimestral de cuentas," [Rommy Vallejo attended the National Assembly to present its quarterly statement], El Comercio , August 5, 2015, http://bit.ly/1SQSeq3. 109 James Ball & Paul Hamilos, "Ecuador's President Used Millions Of Dollars Of Public Funds To Censor Critical Online Videos," BuzzFeed , September 24, 2015, http://bzfd.it/1Lu6kee. 110 Monica Almeida, "Illuminati destaca como su 'caso de exito' a campana de Rafael Correa en redes," [Illuminati highlights as "success case" their Rafael Correa campaign in networks], Dec. 10, 2013, http://bit.ly/1iu99pX. 111 Secretaria Nacional de Inteligencia, "Comunicado de Prensa," [Press Release], April 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/1TP9NYp. 112 Secretaria Nacional de Inteligencia, "Convenio de Confidencialidad," [Nondisclosure agreement], June 30, 2011, http://bit.ly/1VPadNd. 113 Presidencia de la Republica del Ecuador, Executive Decree 864, January 25, 2016, http://bit.ly/25rkkvZ. 114 Plan V, "Los secretos del nuevo Proyecto Galileo," [The secrets of the new Galileo Project], July 8, 2015, http://bit.ly/22FDFKW. 115 Fiscalia General del Estado, "La interceptacion de llamadas se hace solo bajo la autorizacion de un juez," [Call interception is done only under the authorization of a judge], July 21, 2015, http://bit.ly/1Mu8c70. 116 Derechos Digitales, "Freedom of Expression, Encryption and Anonymity, Civil Society and Private Sector Perceptions," May 21, 2015, http://bit.ly/1UvKTN4. 117 See Article 29.9, ARCOTEL, "Reglamento para abonados de los servicios de telecomunicaciones y valor agregado," [Telecommunication Service Subscribers and Added Value Regulation], July 20, 2012, http://bit.ly/25rl1W4. 118 Servicio Integrado de Seguridad ECU 911, "Informe de Gestion Anual 2015," [Annual Report 2015], February 19, 2016, http://bit.ly/1MuS6Kp, and Ecu 911, "Geolocalizacion," [Geolocation], http://bit.ly/2e3vfsH. 119 Fundamedios, "Activist gets bouquet as threat and reports she is the victim of harassment," July 29, 2015, http://bit.ly/1RBDbx5. 120 "Tuitero denuncia amenazas de muerte," [Twitter user denounces death threats], La Republica , December 25, 2015, http://bit.ly/1NSyqv0. 121 Silvia Vinas, "What Happened When I Joked About the President of Ecuador," The New York Times , May 1, 2015, http://nyti.ms/1E2DoiV. 122 Marcela Estrada, "Ecuador: Censorship Beyond Borders Draws Human-Rights Condemnation," PanamPost , May 16, 2014, http://bit.ly/21PxsGH. 123 Fundamedios, "Journalist receives several messages threatening him to death," May 17, 2015, http://bit.ly/1ZGSyYe. 124 Fundamedios, "President calls for revealing Twitter user's identity and prosecute those who respond to his challenge in social networks," January 11, 2016, http://bit.ly/1VBGsiW. 125 Fundamedios, "President calls for revealing Twitter user's identity and prosecute those who respond to his challenge in social networks," January 11, 2016, http://bit.ly/1VBGsiW 126 Fundamedios, "Twitter keeps suspending accounts from users that are critical with the government," January 19, 2016, http://bit.ly/1o53eC7. 127 Usuarios Digitales, "Presidente pide identificar tuiteros que 'insulten' en internet," [President asks to identify twitter users who insult on the internet], June 7, 2016 http://bit.ly/1QdQJ4y. 128 Paola Navarrete, "Latin American journalists investigating the Panama Papers suffer criticism and retaliation," Journalism in the Americas, April 27, 2016, http://bit.ly/21hq2Nr. 129 Fundamedios, "Digital rights activists threatened through Twitter," July 14, 2015, http://bit.ly/1qbZqAE. 130 Andres Delgado, "El miedo de vigilar a los vigilantes," [The fear of watching the watchers], Blog Post, January 15, 2016, https://eff.org/r.xdr2. 131 Fundamedios, "The activist Silvia Buendia was threatened on Twitter," February 8, 2016, http://bit.ly/1RC1Wcx, "News portal receives threats of arson through social networks," November 18, 2015, http://bit.ly/1UqYdCf, Redaccion elcomercio.com, "Jose Serrano anuncia que investigara las amenazas a Pamela Aguirre," [Jose Serrano says he will investigate threats to Pamela Aguirre], March 13, 2016, http://bit.ly/1URK6pf. 132 Maria Vergelis, Tatyana Shcherbakova, Nadezhda Demidova, Darya Gudkova, "Kaspersky Security Bulletin, El spam en 2015," [Kaspersky Security Bulletin, spam in 2015], February 5, 2016, http://bit.ly/1MuS6Kp. 133 John Scott-Railton, Morgan Marquis-Boire, Claudio Guarnieri, and Marion Marschalek, "Packrat: Seven Years of a South American Threat Actor," Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, December 8, 2015, http://bit.ly/1U3dFkI. 134 Jose Maria Leon, "El dia que tuvimos miedo," [The day we were afraid], Gkillcity.com, July 13, 2015, http://bit.ly/25t7ygw. 135 Teresa Mioli, "Cyberattacks push Ecuadoran [SIC] news sites offline during protest coverage," Journalism in the Americas, June 12, 2015, http://bit.ly/1SfU8KT. 136 "El reporte sobre la censura que fue censurado a las 48 horas," [The censorship report that was censored after 48 hours], Plan V, January 25, 2016, http://bit.ly/1JBmxgK. 137 Fundamedios, "Social networks continue suspending accounts and critical content against the Ecuadorian government," January 28, 2016, http://bit.ly/1REFFaP. 138 Fundacion 1000 hojas, "Operacion Walkiria: Asi censuraron a Bananaleaks," [Walkiria Operation: This is how they censored bananaleaks], August 28, 2015, http://bit.ly/1URRe52; See also: James Ball & Paul Hamilos, "Ecuador's President Used Millions Of Dollars Of Public Funds To Censor Critical Online Videos," BuzzFeed , September 24, 2015, http://bzfd.it/1Lu6kee The trademark was registered by I3 Ventures in 2015, however it remains under the same registrant of Illuminati Lab company http://bit.ly/1ZHkawo. 139 Maria Vergelis, Tatyana Shcherbakova, Nadezhda Demidova, Darya Gudkova, "Kaspersky Security Bulletin, El spam en 2015," [Kaspersky Security Bulletin, spam in 2015], February 5, 2016, http://bit.ly/1MuS6Kp. 140 Dmitry Bestuzhev (@dimitribest), Twitter posts on October 30 2015, http://bit.ly/1VPBXRO. 141 Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); Organization of American States, "Cybersecurity: Are We Ready in Latin America and the Caribbean?" March 2016, http://bit.ly/1qatSLC. 142 ANDES, "Ecuador crea unidad especial para enfrentar ciberdelitos," [Ecuador creates special unity against cybercrime], February 3, 2016, http://bit.ly/1MM284J. Copyright notice: Freedom House, Inc. All Rights Reserved Freedom on the Net 2016 - Bangladesh Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2016 - Bangladesh, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583400a113.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. Country: Bangladesh Year: 2016 Status: Partly Free Total Score: 56 (0 = Best, 100 = Worst) Obstacles to Access: 14 (0 = Best, 25 = Worst) Limits on Content: 14 (0 = Best, 35 = Worst) Violations of User Rights: 28 (0 = Best, 40 = Worst) Population: 161 million Internet Penetration: 14 percent Social Media/ICT Apps Blocked: Yes Political/Social Content Blocked: Yes Bloggers/ICT Users Arrested: Yes Press Freedom Status: Not Free Key Developments, June 2015-May 2016 Religious extremists claimed responsibility for the April 2016 murder of Xulhaz Mannan, the founder of a magazine that promoted LGBTI issues both online and off; as well as the October 2015 murder of Faisal Arefin Dipan, a publisher of books authored by slain blogger Dr. Abhijit Roy; and the murder of blogger Niladri Chattopadhyay Niloy in August 2015 (see Intimidation and Violence ). Journalist Probir Sikdar was arrested under the ICT Act for publishing a comment about a government minister on his Facebook page (see Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities ). In November 2015, the government ordered service providers to temporarily block Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Viber; the same day, internet service was inaccessible nationwide for more than an hour (see Restrictions on Connectivity and Limits on Content). Introduction: Internet freedom declined after the highest number of fatal attacks by religious extremists targeting online activists in Bangladesh on record in 2015. During the coverage period of this report, blogger Niladri Chattopadhyay Niloy, and publisher Faisal Arefin Dipon, who was closely associated with another blogger, were fatally attacked. In the earlier part of the year, Abhijit Roy, Washiqur Rahman, and Ananta Bijoy Das were killed in separate incidents, each in reprisal for views they had expressed online. Attacks continued in 2016: Xulhaz Mannan, who founded Roopbaan, a magazine which used social media to advocate for the LGBTI community, was killed in April. Attacks on secular bloggers started in 2013, when Asif Mohiuddin was attacked by extremists, and blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider was killed outside his home. They were singled out in part because of their prominence in the 2013 Shahbag Movement, broad antigovernment protests which grew out of the response to a war crimes tribunal verdict against a religious leader. Protesters said the verdict was too lenient, and religious extremists organized to punish the movement's leading figures and others they perceived as promoting secular, liberal values. In the past year, Facebook and other social media services were blocked for more than two weeks to prevent unrest after the Supreme Court upheld death penalties handed down by the same tribunal for war crimes committed in 1971. The government of the Bangladesh Awami League party under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina officially encourages open internet access and communication as core tools for development. Private commercial stakeholders have also helped in the proliferation of internet usage. Bangladesh further benefits from a vibrant if often partisan traditional media industry, though journalists face threats and legal constraints. Online news outlets were required to register with the government in 2015. Checks on bloggers and online activity are arguably harsher due to the 2006 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act. The act was used for the first time in 2013 to arrest four bloggers who had been vocal on different social issues and religious extremism. In August 2013, an amendment was passed increasing the penalty to a minimum of 7 years, up to a maximum 14 years in prison.[1] Police no longer need a warrant to make arrests under the amended act, and the number of prosecutions is increasing. On August 2015, journalist Probir Shikdar was arrested under the ICT Act on charge of defaming a minister online. He was later freed on bail. There were at least four other arrests for criticizing or making fun of the government or sharing "harmful links" on Facebook. At the end of the reporting period, the government was looking to revise some clauses of the ICT Act. The attacks by religious extremists, along with the fear of arrest under the ICT Act, have created a climate of intimidation that fosters self-censorship among bloggers and internet users. Obstacles to Access: The number of internet users in Bangladesh is steadily on the rise. More than 90 percent of users access the internet via mobile phone providers, which recently began offering faster 3G service. The government has decreased the price of bandwidth significantly over the last decade. However, users complain about the high cost of private internet service. Availability and Ease of Access The International Telecommunication Union reported internet penetration in Bangladesh at 14.4 percent in 2015, the lowest in South Asia.[2] Government estimates were closer to 39 percent.[3] Mobile phone penetration was just over 80 percent, according to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.[4] While ICT usage is increasing fast, Bangladesh is lagging behind globally. The World Economic Forum 2015 Global IT report ranked Bangladesh 109 out of 143 countries worldwide, with infrastructure and regulatory environment scoring poorly, though overall communication service was comparatively affordable, a factor that is driving growth.[5] The government has decreased the price of bandwidth significantly over the last decade.[6] According to the Alliance for Affordable Internet, 80 percent of the population in Bangladesh can afford a 500 MB mobile broadband plan based on income one of the highest percentages among less developed countries.[7] However, users complain about the high cost of private internet service in rural areas. The ability to access localized information and create content in Bengali has contributed to the popularity of local blog hosting services.[8] Although no statistics are available, the higher concentration of economic activities and critical infrastructure in urban areas indicates there are likely to be more internet users in cities. The government's 2009 "Digital Bangladesh by 2021" program seeks to integrate internet access with development efforts in national priority areas, such as education, healthcare, and agriculture.[9] In 2016, 4,547 Union Digital Centers had been established by the government to provide low-cost internet access and related e-services in poorer communities.[10] Restrictions on Connectivity The government occasionally restricts the use of mobile service during elections and other times of possible unrest. No directives to shut down the internet were confirmed during the coverage period, though access was interrupted at the end of 2015, when the government blocked Facebook and other popular social media services, supposedly to ensure state security (see Blocking and Filtering). At the same time as the order was given, internet service was shut down for more than an hour due to what news reports described as a "misunderstanding,"[11] adversely affecting communication and commercial activities, especially in the aviation industry.[12] Bangladesh's physical internet infrastructure was historically vulnerable, relying on the undersea cable SEA-ME-WE-4, which connects Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Western Europe.[13] Since late 2012, however, Bangladesh is also connected via an international terrestrial cable managed by private companies, reducing the risk of being completely cut off.[14] ICT Market Approximately 96 percent of users access the internet via mobile phone providers, which only recently began offering faster 3G service. The remainder subscribe to fixed lines, either through a traditional internet service provider (ISP), the fixed telephone network (around three percent), or via one of the three wireless WiMax operators (one percent).[15] In 2015, 119 ISPs were operating nationwide, with no clear market leaders.[16] Mobile connections are provided by six operators.[17] Grameen Phone, owned by Telenor, had the biggest market share with 43 percent of the total customer base, followed by Banglalink with 24 percent, and Robi with 21 percent. The remaining three, Airtel, Citycell, and the state-owned Teletalk, had a total customer base of 11 percent in June 2016. Regulatory Bodies The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), established under the Bangladesh Telecommunications Act of 2001, is the official regulatory body overseeing telecommunication and related ICT issues. The current administration amended the act in 2010, passing telecommunications regulation to the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications and making the BTRC an auxiliary organization.[18] This move created administrative delays in a number of basic processes like the announcement of new tariffs or license renewals.[19] In 2014, the Ministry of ICT merged with the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, with the goal of streamlining many ongoing projects and related industries.[20] In addition, the prime minister's office has an Access to Information (A2I) program supported by the United Nations Development Program, which has considerable influence over top-level ICT-related decision making.[21] Limits on Content: The BTRC blocked Facebook and several other social media service and communication applications for more than three weeks on November 2015, citing reasons of state security. There were no reports of state manipulation of online content. Online news portals were instructed to complete mandatory registration. Blocking and Filtering Content relating to religious issues or offending state leaders is subject to censorship in Bangladesh. Domestic websites, including the most popular news sites, ProthomAlo , BDNews24 , and Banglanews24 , were not subject to targeted blocking during the coverage period of this report. Immediately after, however, in August 2016, news reports said the BTRC had ordered the blocking of 35 news websites for the first time.[22] Officials gave no reason for the blocking, though many of the sites were affiliated with the political opposition. International social media and communication apps, however, are regular victims of government censorship. On November 18, 2015, the BTRC ordered service providers to block Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Viber, supposedly in order to ensure state security. The shutdown was ordered an hour after the country's Supreme Court upheld the death penalties handed down to 1971 war criminals Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed by a tribunal in 2013.[23] The government ordered Facebook to be unblocked after 22 days. On December 13, the BTRC emailed an order to ISPs to block Twitter, Skype, and lmo.[24] A day later, the order was rescinded for reasons that remain unclear. All other services were also unblocked by mid-December.[25] In early 2015, several social network applications were also blocked or severely disrupted for four days. Mobile service providers were ordered to block Viber, WhatsApp, LINE, Tango, and mypeople,[26] supposedly on grounds that terrorists were using the platforms, which are also used by opposition activists and other internet users. In 2012 and 2013, netizens in Bangladesh also experienced blocks on YouTube and Facebook. The BTRC censors content primarily by issuing informal orders to domestic service providers, who are legally bound through their license and operations agreements to cooperate. Service providers have described official censorship as ad hoc in nature, without proper follow-up mechanisms in place to ensure compliance,[27] though orders appear to be becoming more formal. On January 19, 2015, mobile operators reported receiving official, written directives from the BTRC to block access to specific social media applications until January 21, when the services became accessible again.[28] No appeals have been documented in response to censorship directives. Content Removal During the 22-day period when Facebook was blocked, news reports said government officials met with representatives from the company and requested them to set up an office in Bangladesh, subject to local content restrictions and government requests for user data perceived to be threatening security in Bangladesh. Facebook representatives did not comment after the meeting.[29] Between July and December 2015, Facebook reported restricting four pieces of allegedly blasphemous content based on government requests; no content was restricted during the same period the previous year.[30] Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation Bangladesh enjoys a vibrant offline and online media industry, though self-censorship on specific topics is increasing among particular communities. Blocking of social media platforms and communications apps also threatened the diversity of online content (see Blocking and Filtering), though many people used VPNs to bypass blocking.[31] In 2015, Bangladeshi online news outlets and the online versions of daily newspapers were directed to go through mandatory registration by December 15. The country's print media has been subject to registration requirements like this since the pre-independence period. Through an official Press Information Department handout,[32] the government justified registration as a tool to stop the abuse of media to destabilize society.[33] No penalties were reported for noncompliance. There were no other documented economic constraints imposed by the government or other institutions specifically targeting online media outlets, nor documented instances of commentators with undeclared sponsorship manipulating political debate online. Online media practitioners and social media commentators reported a climate of self-censorship on political and religious topics during the coverage period of this report, which saw fatal attacks on bloggers and several criminal charges in relation to digital activity (see and Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities). Dozens of bloggers have fled the country, and associates of other victims have closed their blogs or sought refuge with diplomatic missions (see Intimidation and Violence).[34] Digital Activism The Shahbag movement, which was initiated by Gonojagoron Mancha (a group primarily comprised of the Bangladesh Online Activists' Network), is the country's most significant example of online activism to date. The protests began in response to a February 2013 war crimes tribunal verdict involving the leader of the country's largest political Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami critics said the verdict was lenient but quickly grew to encompass broader political and economic issues.[35] In its early stages, the movement spread through blogging, Facebook, and mobile telephony.[36] Twitter, which was not widely used in Bangladesh, gained popularity as a tool to broadcast information about Shahbag.[37] During the coverage period of this study, no comparable instances of online activism with national impact took place in Bangladesh, though internet users continued to use digital tools and social networks to raise funds for social causes.[38] The blocking of popular platforms and messaging services undermined these activities (see Blocking and Filtering). In addition, the government warned users of tools like WhatsApp and Viber of possible censorship or arrest. Officials said they were concerned about the use of the tools to advance criminal activities and terrorism.[39] Violations of User Rights: The year 2015 saw the most casualties for online activists in Bangladesh on record. During the coverage period of this report, blogger Niladri Chattopadhyay Niloy, and publisher Faisal Arefin Dipon were fatally attacked by religious extremists, along with an LGBTI activist. In August, 2015, a public university teacher was found guilty of sedition and sentenced in absentia to three years of rigorous imprisonment, which includes hard labor. He had made a derogatory comment about the prime minister on Facebook in 2011. Other arrests under the ICT Act within the coverage period of this report included that of journalist Probir Sikdar. Legal Environment Article 39 (1, 2) of Chapter 2 in the Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh recognizes freedom of thought, conscience, and speech as a fundamental right.[40] Online expression has been traditionally considered to fall within the scope of this provision. The judicial system of Bangladesh is independent from the executive and the legislative branches of government, but critics say it can be partisan. Police and regulators generally bypass the courts to implement censorship and surveillance without oversight.[41] The Information and Communication Technology Act of 2006 is the primary legal reference for addressing issues related to internet usage. Though it defines and ostensibly protects freedom of expression online,[42] it introduced punishments for citizens who violate others' rights to communicate electronically: Section 56 of the act defined hacking as a crime punishable by up to three years in prison, a fine of BDT 10,000,000 (US$125,000), or both. However, under Section 57, different types of violations involving social, political, and religious content distributed electronically are punishable by a minimum of seven years of imprisonment and fines up to BDT 10,000,000 (US$125,000).[43] On August 19, 2013, the ICT act was amended, increasing the maximum prison term from 10 to 14 years.[44] Sections 68 and 82 respectively contain provisions for a Cyber Tribunal and Cyber Appellate Tribunal to expedite judicial work related to any cybercrime. In 2016, there was one Cyber Tribunal in Dhaka, headed by a low-ranking member of the judiciary. The Appellate Tribunal, which can dissolve the Cyber Tribunal's verdicts, had yet to be formed.[45] Before the 2013 amendment came into effect, police had to seek permission before making ICT-related arrests.[46] Now no warrant is required, and offences under the act are non-bailable, meaning suspects must apply for bail at a court.[47] The harsher provisions in the ICT Act may reflect the government's insecurity regarding internet activism and security. More legal revisions were underway during the coverage period of this report, when the government was actively formulating the Digital Security Act 2015 to address cybercrime. This law will replace Sections 54-57 of the ICT Act when passed, according to Law Minister Anisul Huq.[48] While introducing harsher penalties for freedom of expression online, however, the government has simultaneously made some progress in catching the killers and masterminds responsible for the assassinations of bloggers. The biggest success was the fast-tracked trial and verdict delivered in the case of Ahmed Rajib Haider, a secular blogger who was murdered in 2013 (see Intimidation and Violence). On December 30, 2015, eight members of the extremist group Ansarullah Bangla Team were found guilty of carrying out or assisting in the murder. Two were sentenced to death, one in absentia, and another was sentenced to life imprisonment. Five other members of the same group received jail terms ranging from three years to ten years[49] Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities Arrests and prosecutions under the ICT Act have been documented since 2013, when the law was first widely applied. The most talked about arrest within the coverage period of this report concerned journalist Probir Sikdar. On August 16, 2015, Probir Sikdar was arrested and later sued for libel under the ICT Act for publishing a comment about a government minister on his Facebook page. In that comment, he said that the minister, a businessman, and a convicted war criminal were responsible for putting his life in danger.[50] He had previously reported on the three men and their alleged activities during the 1971 war in a 2001 news report. Following protests from local and international civil rights organizations, he was released on bail on August 19.[51] In mid-2016, the charges remained pending. A disproportionate sentence was also reported during the coverage period, though the defendant did not report to the court to serve the time. On August 12, 2015, a court in Dhaka sentenced public university teacher Ruhul Amin Khandker in absentia to three years of rigorous imprisonment, which includes hard labor, and a fine of BDT 10,000 (US$ 125) for sedition. The charge was filed in relation to a comment about the prime minister made on Facebook in 2011.[52] Other cases were reported during the coverage period: On August 18, 2015, ruling party politician Wasim Sajjad Likhon filed a case under the ICT Act against Islam Jahurul, who the politician said desecrated an image of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and disseminated it on Facebook. [53] On December 3, officers of the special Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) forces in Dhaka arrested Towhid Hasan from Pirojpur, Tanvir Ahmed from Shariatpur, and Omar Faruk from Sirajganj, apparently for using Facebook while it was blocked. The three men, 21, 18, and 22 years old respectively, "propagated against the country's constructive activities" by "using blocked Facebook ... to share harmful links and provoke others to use the links," news reports said, citing an RAB press release. [54] It was not clear which law they were charged under, and the nature of the content they are accused of sharing was not reported. Though other officials threatened the users of proxy servers with repercussions in 2015, [55] VPNs are widely used in Bangladesh. On December 10, RAB officers arrested satirical writer Refayet Ahmed, the administrator of the popular Facebook page MojaLosss? ("Are You Making Fun?"), for making "provocative Facebook posts against the government and the state."[56] The page won popularity for using satire to talk about corruption and other social problems. A case was filed against Refayet under the ICT Act. On December 14, he was freed on bail.[57] Outstanding cases under the ICT Act against four bloggers prominent in the Shahbag Movement, Asif Mohiuddin, Rasel Parvez, Mashiur Rahman Biplob, and Subrata Ashikari Shuvo, appear to be on hold.[58] The four, whose blogs were briefly blocked in 2013, were then detained for harming religious sentiment and released on bail. Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity According to Article 43 of the country's constitution, Bangladesh recognizes its citizens' right to privacy and correspondence.[59] However, there is no specific privacy or data protection law in Bangladesh, leaving internet and mobile phone users vulnerable to privacy violations, predominantly through the voluntarily sharing of information via mobile phones and the internet.[60] Although the government does not require individuals to register to blog or use the internet, registration became mandatory for online news portals during the coverage period (see Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation). Since the end of 2015, citizens are also required to provide biometric details, in addition to national identity cards and related personal information, to obtain a mobile connection.[61] Citizen rights groups raised concerns about the security of the process and possible usage of biometric data by third parties.[62] The government can request telecommunications providers retain the data of any user for an unspecified period under the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Act 2001.[63] The Act was amended in 2010 and allows government mechanisms to intercept electronic voice or data communications from any individual or institution to ensure the security of the state without a court order; the act also requires domestic service providers to cooperate, though without clear provisions detailing procedures or penalties for noncompliance.[64] During the coverage period, local news reports said the home ministry had submitted a proposal to purchase approximately US$ 25 million worth of equipment from foreign companies to upgrade its mobile telephony, internet, and related surveillance networks. The proposal asked the cabinet committee on economic affairs to relax procurement regulations to facilitate the purchase, which would enable the National Telecommunication Monitoring Center (NTMC) to conduct "lawful interception" to assist local law enforcement agencies. The center has operated under the home ministry since February 2014, the news reports said. Foreign companies listed in the proposal include U.S. firms Verint Systems and SS8, German firms Trovicor and UTIMACO, the Italian firm RCS, the Chinese firm Inovatio, and the Swiss firm New Saft.[65] The companies advertise equipment capable of analyzing data traffic, calls, emails, and audiovisual materials online. In 2014, the UK-based nonprofit Privacy International reported that Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion, a special forces unit implicated in human rights abuses, was seeking to purchase mobile surveillance technology from a company based in Switzerland. The technology would allow police to "indiscriminately gather data from thousands of mobile phones in a specific area and at public events such as political demonstrations," according to Privacy International.[66] The same year, leaked documents about a Bangladesh law enforcement agency's 2012 purchase of FinFisher software distributed by Gamma International to monitor digital traffic was published on Wikileaks.[67] According to Facebook, the Bangladesh government made three requests to the social network service provider for information on three Facebook users between January and June 2015, but Facebook did not comply.[68] Intimidation and Violence Blogger Niladri Chattopadhyay Niloy and Xulhaz Mannan, the founder of a magazine on LGBTI issues with a well-established online following, were murdered between June 2015 and May 2016. Faisal Arefin Dipon, a publisher who worked with another murdered blogger, was also killed. This continued a violent trend. Between February 2013 and June 2016, at least 39 people were murdered in Bangladesh by religious extremists targeting high profile proponents of secular viewpoints.[69] "Atheist bloggers" were particularly singled out as key instigators behind the 2013 Shahbag Movement (see Digital Activism) which catalyzed the campaign of killings.[70] Armed assailants hospitalized blogger Asif Mohiuddin with serious stab wounds in January 2013;[71] now overseas, he believes he remains on a hit list.[72] In February, leading Shahbag activist Ahmed Rajib Haider was murdered.[73] Police found a series of posts targeting Rajib and other key figures in the movement on the blog Sonar Bangladesh , which the BTRC subsequently blocked.[74] Though Al-Qaeda networks claimed responsibility in some cases,[75] police have say local radical groups, notably Ansarullah Bangla Team, recruited and trained students and religious teachers to execute the targets, frequently using machetes.[76] Eight members of the group have been convicted for their involvement in the killing of Ahmed Rajib Haider in 2013, though two remain at large (see Legal Environment). In 2016, Deputy Inspector General Monirul Islam, who heads a counterterrorism unit established in February, told the New York Times that these arrests had slowed the group's activity in 2013 and 2014, but that it had reorganized and resumed its campaign with renewed intensity since then.[77] In April 2016, armed men killed Xulhaz Mannan in his apartment in Dhaka along with a friend.[78] Mannan founded Roopbaan , a print magazine serving the LGBTI community, in 2014. Homosexuality is a criminal offence in Bangladesh.[79] The magazine had limited distribution because of the sensitivity of the topic,[80] but formed part of a wider advocacy network that used social media to create community online and advocate for LGBTI causes, including an annual Rainbow Rally coinciding with Bengali new year celebrations, which was cancelled in 2016 as a result of permit issues and threats.[81] Ansarullah Bangla Team claimed responsibility for the murders.[82] The year 2015 saw unprecedented physical violence against online activists and their colleagues: On February 25, two unknown assailants attacked the Bangladeshi-American atheist blogger Dr. Abhijit Roy and his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya on the Dhaka University campus. Abhijit Roy managed the blog Muto-Mona ("Free Thinker") from America, and had returned to attend an annual book fair. Dr. Roy died and his wife was badly injured. [83] The Ansarullah Bangla Team claimed responsibility on Twitter. [84] On March 2, Rapid Action Battalion officials arrested Farabi Shafiur Rahman, a radical Islamist who had threatened Roy and shared his location and photographs with others. [85] On June 19, 2016, a key suspect in Abhijit Roy's murder was killed during a gun battle with police in Dhaka. [86] On March 30, blogger Washiqur Rahman, known for his critical writings about Islam, was hacked to death near his home in Dhaka. [87] Bystanders detained two of the attackers, both students from Islamic seminaries, at the scene; a third fled. The police later charged four people with murder, including the alleged mastermind. [88] On May 12, Ananta Bijoy Das, another prominent contributor to Muto-Mona , was killed by four masked men armed with machetes in the northeastern Bangladeshi city, Sylhet. [89] Ananta Bijoy was one of the founding members of Gonojagoron Mancha, the coalition of activists who started the Shahbag Movement. [90] News reports say he had received death threats from extremists and had tried to leave the country to attend a press freedom event in Sweden, but was denied a visa. On June 8, 2015, police arrested a suspect in connection with the murder. [91] On August 7, Niladri Chattopadhyay Niloy, a blogger and member of Gonojagoron Mancha, the main organization behind the Shahbag Movement, was killed in his home by four unidentified assailants armed with cleavers. Ansarulla Bangla Team claimed responsibility. [92] On August 14, two suspected members of the group were arrested in connection with the murder. [93] On August 18, police arrested three more members of the same organization, suspected of planning and executing the murders of Abhijit Roy and Ananta Bijoy Das. [94] On November 18, three more people were arrested in connection with Niloy's murder; one had threatened Niloy on Facebook, and two who claimed responsibility for the murder online. [95] On October 31, Faisal Arefin Dipon, a publisher of books by Abhijit Roy, was hacked to death in his office in Dhaka.[96] Ahmed Rahim Tutul, another publisher of Abhijit Roy's work, was attacked and badly injured in Dhaka on the same day, along with two secular writers, Ranadeep Basu and Tareque Rahim.[97] In early 2016, no one had claimed responsibility for these attacks and no arrests had been made, though Ansarullah Bangla Team was suspected.[98] On June 15 of 2016, the police arrested a suspected militant Sumon for the attack on Tutul. On August 23, a suspected leader of Ansarullah Bangla Team, Moinul Hasan Shamim was arrested for Dipon's murder. On September 3, Abus Sabur was arrested on suspicion of masterminding both of those accounts.[99] This disturbing series of fatal attacks on secular bloggers has increased security concerns in the online activist community. A handful of bloggers left the country or sought asylum abroad during the coverage period of this report.[100] Others have expressed their determination to continue writing.[101] Technical Attacks No cyberattacks on online news sites and blogs were documented in Bangladesh during the coverage period. A high profile invasion of a computer at the central bank took place, and was used to transfer millions of dollars to a bank in the Philippines, highlighted cybersecurity vulnerabilities.[102] ISPs have informally organized a Cyber Emergency Response Team to deal with malicious online threats.[103] Notes: 1 Mohosinul Karim, "Punishment increased in amended ICT act," Dhaka Tribune , August 20, 2013, http://bit.ly/1UBQH85. 2 International Telecommunication Union, "Percentage of Individuals Using the Internet, 2000-2015," http://bit.ly/1cblxxY; Muhammad Zahidul Islam, "Bangladesh has lowest internet penetration in South Asia: ITU", July 28, 2016, http://www.thedailystar.net/business/bangladesh-has-lowest-internet-penetration-south-asia-itu-1260400. 3 Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, "Internet Subscribers in Bangladesh June 2016", accessed on August 1, 2016, http://www.btrc.gov.bd/content/internet-subscribers-bangladesh-june-2016. 4 Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, "Mobile Phone Subscribers in Bangladesh June 2016", accessed on August 1, 2016, http://www.btrc.gov.bd/content/mobile-phone-subscribers-bangladesh-june-2016. 5 "The Global Information Technology Report 2015", World Economic Forum, accessed in August 1, 2016, http://reports.weforum.org/global-information-technology-report-2015/economies/#economy=BGD. 6 Muhammad Zahidul Islam, "BTCL cuts the price of bandwidth by 42%", Dhaka Tribune , April 4, 2014, http://bit.ly/PySyKZ. 7 http://a4ai.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/A4AI-2015-16-Affordability-Report.pdf 8 ThinkTechHawaii, "Somewherein: The First Social Media Company in Bangladesh with Syeda Gulshan Ferdous Jana," YouTube video, 45:53, August 28, 2014, https://youtu.be/iVXsFDYLcQU. 9 "Strategic Priorities of Digital Bangladesh," Access to Information Program, October 2010, http://bit.ly/1g9Zqvs. 10 "Union Digital Center", Access to Information (a2i) Programme, accessed in August 1, 2016, http://www.a2i.pmo.gov.bd/content/union-digital-center. 11 "Internet restored after an hour's block", The Daily Star, November 18, 2015, http://www.thedailystar.net/country/internet-blocked-across-country-temporarily-174304. 12 "Internet access restored in Bangladesh after brief shutdown", BDnews24, November 18, 2015, http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2015/11/18/internet-access-restored-in-bangladesh-after-brief-shutdown. 13 Faheem Hussain, "ICT Sector Performance Review for Bangladesh," LIRNEasia , 2011, http://bit.ly/1VNLUTITLE. 14 "Bangladesh Connected with Terrestrial Cable," BDNews24 , December 8, 2012, http://bit.ly/1ga1Gmk. 15 Faheem Hussain, "License Renewal of Mobile Phone Services: What a Country Should Not Do (A Case Study of Bangladesh)," (paper, Telecommunication Policy Research Conference, George Mason University, VA, USA, September 21-23, 2012), http://bit.ly/1FyaNEc. Abdullah Mamun, "New Player in WiMAX," The Daily Star , July 15, 2013, http://archive.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/new-player-in-wimax/ Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, "Internet Subscribers in Bangladesh February, 2014," accessed on April, 2014, http://www.btrc.gov.bd/content/internet-subscribers-bangladesh-february-2014 16 Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, "List of Internet Service Provider (ISP)", accessed on August 1, 2016, http://www.btrc.gov.bd/sites/default/files/operater_list/Internet_Service_Provider(ISP)_%E2%80%93_Nationwide.pdf. 17 Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, "Mobile Phone Subscribers in Bangladesh in June 2016", accessed on August 1, 2016, http://www.btrc.gov.bd/content/mobile-phone-subscribers-bangladesh-june-2016. 18 S.M. Shahidul Islam and Abdullah-Al Monzur Hussain, "Bangladesh Telecommunication (Amended) Act, 2010," Manual of Cyber Law in Bangladesh , (Dhaka: Central Law Book House, 2011), 241-264. 19 Faheem Hussain, "Telecom Regulatory Environment in Digital Bangladesh: Exploring the Disconnects between Public Policies/Regulations and Real World Sector Performance," (presentation, Sixth Communication Policy Research South Conference by LIRNEasia and Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 2011). 20 "Telecoms, ICT ministries merge," Telegeography , February 11, 2014, http://bit.ly/1K8lBK6. 21 UNDP Bangladesh, "Access to Information (II)," accessed on August 8, 2015, http://bit.ly/1ixvvPu 22 "BTRC orders blocking of 35 news sites," The Daily Star , August 4, 2016, http://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/btrc-orders-blocking-35-news-sites-1264981. 23 "Social networking sites closed for security reasons, says Minister Tarana Halim," BDNews24, November 18, 2015, http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2015/11/18/social-networking-sites-closed-for-security-reasons-says-minister-tarana-halim. 24 Ishtiaq Husain, "Twitter, Skype, Imo blocked in Bangladesh," December 13, 2015, http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2015/dec/13/government-blocks-twitter-skype-and-imo. 25 Agence France-Presse, "Bangladesh Lifts Ban on All Social Media," via Express Tribune , December 14, 2015, http://tribune.com.pk/story/1010061/bangladesh-lifts-ban-on-all-social-media/. 26 Muhammad Zahidul Islam, "Viber, Tango blocked in Bangladesh," Dhaka Tribune , January 19, 2015, http://bit.ly/1OzIY3z; "WhatsApp, mypeople, line also blocked," The Daily Star , January 19, 2015, http://bit.ly/1KEythE. 27 UNDP Bangladesh, "Access to Information (II)," accessed June 2013, http://bit.ly/1ixvvPu, Interviews with seven experts who requested anonymity, 2013, Bangladesh. 28 "Viber, WhatsApp unblocked in Bangladesh", BDNews24 , January 22, 2015, http://bit.ly/1FyaAkv. 29 Muhammad Zahidul Islam, "Bangladesh asks Facebook to filter content", December 7, 2015, http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/facebook-asked-filter-content-183622. 30 Facebook, "Bangladesh, July 2015-December 2015," Government Requests Report , https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/Bangladesh/2015-H2/. 31 "Internet users defy Facebook ban in Bangladesh", Deutsche Welle, November 20, 2015, http://www.dw.com/en/internet-users-defy-facebook-ban-in-bangladesh/a-18863635 32 Press Information Department (PID), accessed in July 25, 2016, http://www.pressinform.portal.gov.bd/ 33 "Registration mandatory for online newspapers", Dhaka Tribune, November 9, 2015, http://archive.dhakatribune.com//bangladesh/2015/nov/09/registration-online-newspapers-made-mandatory. 34 Geeta Anand and Julfikar Ali Manik, " Bangladesh Says It Now Knows Who's Killing the Bloggers," June 8, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/09/world/asia/bangladesh-killings-bloggers.html?_r=0. 35 Mohammad ShahidUllah, "Shahbag People's Movement: New Generation Challenging the Unjust Structure," Voice of the Oppressed , February 18, 2013, http://www.voiceoftheoppressed.in/tag/bangladesh-online-activist-network/ 36 Tamanna Khan, "Shahbag beyond Boundaries," The Daily Star , March 29, 2013, http://bit.ly/1OdiSoR. 37 Faheem Hussain, Zyma Islam, and Mashiat Mostafa, "Proliferation of Twitter for Political Microblogging in a Developing Country: An Exploratory Study of #Shahbag," Research funded by the Asian University for Women Faculty Research Fund, 2013. 38 "Concert for Kombol," Dhaka Tribune , December 12, 2014, http://www.dhakatribune.com/entertainment/2014/dec/12/concert-kombol 39 "WhatsApp, Viber to be blocked, when needed: PM", The Daily Star, November 11, 2015, http://www.thedailystar.net/country/whatsapp-viber-be-blocked-pm-170767. 40 S.M. Shahidul Islam and Abdullah-Al Monzur Hussain, "Right to Information Act, 2009," Manual of Cyber Law in Bangladesh , (Dhaka, Central Law Book House, 2011) 1-47. 41 "The Historic Masdar Hossain Case and the Independence of Judiciary of Bangladesh: A Compilation," WahabOhid Legal Aid , March 12, 2013, http://wahabohidlegalaid.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-historic-masdar-hossain-case-and.html, M. Moneruzzaman, "Judiciary independence still on paper," The Bangladesh Chronicle , January 15, 2013, http://bit.ly/1MbZnO5. 42 S.M. Shahidul Islam and Abdullah-Al Monzur Hussain, "Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006", Manual of Cyber Law in Bangladesh , (Dhaka, Central Law Book House, 2011) 90-91. 43 Bangladesh National Parliament, Act No. 39, Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006, http://bit.ly/1Nqa8wC. 44 A Legal Aid and Human Rights Organizations (ASK), "ICT (Amendment) Act, 2013: Right to Information and Freedom of Expression under Threat," October 9, 2013, http://www.askbd.org/ask/2013/10/09/ict-amendment-act-2013-information-freedom-expression-threat/ 45 A Legal Aid and Human Rights Organizations (ASK), "ICT (Amendment) Act, 2013: Right to Information and Freedom of Expression under Threat," October 9, 2013, http://www.askbd.org/ask/2013/10/09/ict-amendment-act-2013-information-freedom-expression-threat/ 46 Ellery Roberts Biddle, "Bangladesh's ICT Act Stoops to New Lows," Global Voices Advocacy , September 18, 2013, http://bit.ly/1O1Lxy9. 47 "Changes To ICT Law Act against freedom of speech: Rizvi," TheBangladesh Chronicle , September 10, 2013, http://bit.ly/1K8oz1l. "Changes to Info Technology Law: Ominous draft cleared by govt," Priyo News , August 20, 2013, http://bit.ly/1LXLZdm. 48 "Bangladesh making Digital Security Act to tackle cyber crimes," BDNews24, January 10, 2016, http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2016/01/10/bangladesh-making-digital-security-act-to-tackle-cyber-crimes. 49 "Bangladesh court awards death to 2, life term to 1 for blogger's murder," International Business Times , December 31, 2015, http://www.ibtimes.co.in/bangladesh-court-awards-death-2-life-term-1-bloggers-murder-661570. 50 "Journalist Probir Sikdar sued for libel under ICT Act for writing against Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain," BDNews24 , August 17, 2015, http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2015/08/17/journalist-probir-sikdar-sued-for-libel-under-ict-act-for-writing-against-minister-khandker-mosharraf-hossain. 51 "Journalist Probir Sikdar released on bail," Daily Star , August 19, 2015, http://www.thedailystar.net/country/journalist-probir-sikdar-gets-bail-129166. 52 "University teacher jailed for Facebook post on Bangladesh PM," The Daily Star , August 13, 2015, http://bit.ly/1VNPKXq. 53 "Case filed for distorted image," BDNews24 , August 19, 2015, http://bangla.bdnews24.com/bangladesh/article1013243.bdnews. 54 "3 held for using Facebook in alternate ways," New Age , December 3, 2015, http://newagebd.net/181108/3-held-for-usingin-alternate-ways/. 55 "Proxy servers to access Facebook will soon be unavailable: State Minister Tarana," BDNews24, November 29, 2015, http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2015/11/29/proxy-servers-to-access-facebook-will-soon-be-unavailable-state-minister-tarana. 56 "Hours after lifting ban on Facebook, Bangladesh arrests satirist for anti-govt posts," First Post , December 11, 2015, http://www.firstpost.com/world/hours-after-lifting-ban-on-facebook-bangladesh-arrests-satirist-for-anti-govt-posts-2542090.html. 57 "'Moja Losss' admin freed on bail," New Age , December 14, 2015, http://newagebd.net/184424/moja-losss-admin-freed-on-bail/. 58 "I have to help the people of Bangladesh", DW , April 22, 2014, http://bit.ly/1Kaf2vd. Email interview with Asif Mohiuddin's legal counsel. 59 Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, March 26, 1971, http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/pdf_part.php?id=367 60 Faheem Hussain and Mohammad SahidUllah, "Mobile Communication and Internet in Bangladesh: Is Privacy at Risk for Youth Population?," Media Watch , Centre for Communication Studies, 2013. 61 "Bangladesh launches registration of mobile phone SIMs with biometric details, BDNews24 , December 16, 2015, http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2015/12/16/bangladesh-launches-registration-of-mobile-phone-sims-with-biometric-details. 62 Md. Joynul Abedin, "Biometric SIM Registration and Public Anxiety," Daily Sun , March 10, 2016, http://www.daily-sun.com/printversion/details/119870/Biometric-SIM-Registration-and-Public-Anxiety-. 63 Telecommunications Industry Dialogue, "Bangladesh," https://www.telecomindustrydialogue.org/resources/bangladesh/. 64 Abu Saeed Khan, "Bangladesh Telecommunication (Amended) Act, 2010," (presentation, Third South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 14-15 January 2013). 65 Rejaul Karim Byron, "Bangladesh to purchase modern surveillance equipment," August 3, 2015, http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/govt-buy-new-surveillance-tools-120967. 66 EdinOmanovic and Kenneth Page, "Who is Selling Surveillance Equipment to a Notorious Bangladeshi Security Agency," Privacy International, April 29, 2013, https://www.privacyinternational.org/?q=node/427 67 RezaulHauqe, "WikiLeaks reveals Bangladesh's spyware purchase," BDNews24 , November, 2, 2014, http://bit.ly/1NqbIhO. 68 https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/Bangladesh/2015-H1/#. 69 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/09/world/asia/bangladesh-killings-bloggers.html?_r=0. 70 Al Jazeera, "Bangladesh Opposition Protests turn Deadly," February 22, 2013, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/02/2013222103554838445.html. 71 "Blogger knifed in Dhaka," BDNews24 , January 14, 2013, http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2013/01/14/blogger-knifed-in-dhaka1 72 Pantha and Rezwan, "Bangladeshi Blogger Writes About Prison Experience," Global Voices , July 28, 2013, http://bit.ly/1LXOeh4. Austin Dacey, "Bangladesh's Atheist Blogger Still Wants to Talk," Religion Dispatches , December 12, 2013, http://bit.ly/1UHFYE7. 73 "Blogger Brutally Killed," The Daily Star , February 16, 2013, http://archive.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=269336 74 "12 Blogs, Facebook Pages Blocked," BDNews24 , February 20, 2013, http://bit.ly/1EVHMHB. 75 "Al-Qaeda branch claims responsibility for murder of writer-blogger Avijit Roy, "The Daily Star , May 13, 2015, http://bit.ly/1QoOBm8. 76 Geeta Anand and Julfikar Ali Manik, " Bangladesh Says It Now Knows Who's Killing the Bloggers," June 8, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/09/world/asia/bangladesh-killings-bloggers.html?_r=0. 77 Geeta Anand and Julfikar Ali Manik, "Bangladesh Says It Now Knows Who's Killing the Bloggers," June 8, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/09/world/asia/bangladesh-killings-bloggers.html?_r=0. 78 Saad Hammadi and Aisha Gani, "Founder of Bangladesh's first and only LGBT magazine killed," The Guardian , April 25, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/25/editor-bangladesh-first-lgbt-magazine-killed-reports-say-roopbaan. 79 Ashif Islam Shaon, "Where does Bangladesh stand on homosexuality issue?" Dhaka Tribune , April 27, 2016, http://archive.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2016/apr/27/where-does-bangladesh-stand-homosexuality-issue. 80 "First local magazine for gays launched," Daily Star , January 20, 2014, http://www.thedailystar.net/first-local-magazine-for-gays-launched-7611. 81 Rezwan, "LGBT Activists Arrested at Bengali New Year March, Later Released," Global Voices Advocacy , April 15, 2016, https://advox.globalvoices.org/2016/04/15/lgbt-activists-arrested-at-bengali-new-year-march-later-released/; Agence France-Presse, "Bangladesh 'rainbow rally' cancelled over permit issues," via Daily Mail ,April 13, 2016, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3538373/Bangladesh-group-hold-rainbow-rally-despite-threats.html. 82 Eliott C. McLaughlin, Don Melvin, and Tiffany Ap, "Al Qaeda group claims responsibility for Bangladesh LGBT hacking murders," April 25, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/25/asia/bangladesh-u-s-embassy-worker-killed/. 83 "Assailants Hack to Death Writer Avijit Roy, Wife Injured," BDNews24 , February 26, 2015, http://bit.ly/1LKI5SS. 84 "Ansar Bangla-7 Claims Avijit killing responsibility," ProthomAlo , February 27, 2015, http://bit.ly/1XMijXa. 85 Oliver Naughland and SaadHammadi, "Atheist blogger Avijit Roy 'was not just a person ... he was a movement'," The Guardian , March 7, 2015, http://gu.com/p/46dez/stw. 86 BBC News, "Bangladesh Avijit Roy murder: Main suspect killed by police," June 19, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36570021. 87 "Knife attack kills Bangladesh blogger Washiqur Rahman," BBC, March 30, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32112433 88 Jason Burke, "Bangladesh police charge four men with murder of blogger," The Guardian , March 31, 2015, http://gu.com/p/475tn/stw. 89 Joseph Allchin and Victor Mallet, "Third Secular Blogger Killed on Bangladesh Street," Financial Times , May 12, 2015, http://on.ft.com/1IYL2wO. 90 "Bangladesh Blogger Ananta Bijoy Das Hacked to Death," BBC , May 12, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32701001 91 CID Arrest Sylhet Press Photographer as a Suspect Over Blogger Ananta Bijoy Das Murder," BDNews24 , June 8, 2015, http://bit.ly/1ga9t3z. 92 "Bangladesh blogger Niladri hacked to death in Dhaka," Daily Star , August 8, 2015, http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/blogger-killed-once-again-123493. 93 BBC News, "Bangladesh blogger Niladri hacked to death in Dhaka," August 14, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33926342. 94 BBC News, "Bangladesh blogger killings: police arrest three people," August 18, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33971810. 95 Al Jazeera, "Bangladesh arrests three men over murder of blogger," November 18, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/bangladesh-arrests-men-murder-blogger-151118140032685.html. 96 The Associated Press, "Secular publisher hacked to death in latest Bangladesh attacks," via The Guardian , October 31, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/31/faisal-abedin-deepan-bangladesh-secular-publisher-hacked-to-death. 97 The Associated Press, "Publisher of secular books killed, three bloggers wounded in Bangladesh," via Indian Express , December 25, 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/world/neighbours/bangladesh-three-bloggers-attacked-one-critical/. 98 "DB suspects Ansarullah's link to Dipan murder," Daily Sun , November 1, 2015, http://www.daily-sun.com/printversion/details/87753/DB-suspects-Ansarullah%E2%80%99s-link-to-Dipan-murder. 99 Arifur Rahman Rabbi, "Publisher Dipan murder mastermind held," Dhaka Tribune , September 4, 2016, http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2016/09/04/publisher-dipan-murder-mastermind-held/. 100 Communication with local rights organizations reflected this information. However, rights organizations do not publicize the details of individual cases for security reasons. 101 Saeed Ahmed, "Washiqur Rahman: Another secular blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh," CNN , March 31, 2015, http://cnn.it/19v17k8. 102 Raju Gopalakrishnan and Manuel Mogato, "Bangladesh Bank official's computer was hacked to carry out $81 million heist: diplomat," Reuters, May 19, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-heist-philippines-idUSKCN0YA0CH. 103 Bangladesh Cyber Emergency Response Team, accessed April 2013, http://www.bdcert.org/v2/ Copyright notice: Freedom House, Inc. All Rights Reserved Freedom on the Net 2016 - Armenia Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2016 - Armenia, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583400a513.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. Country: Armenia Year: 2016 Status: Free Total Score: 30 (0 = Best, 100 = Worst) Obstacles to Access: 6 (0 = Best, 25 = Worst) Limits on Content: 10 (0 = Best, 35 = Worst) Violations of User Rights: 14 (0 = Best, 40 = Worst) Population: 3 million Internet Penetration: 58 percent Social Media/ICT Apps Blocked: Yes Political/Social Content Blocked: No Bloggers/ICT Users Arrested: No Press Freedom Status: Not Free Key Developments, June 2015-May 2016 In July 2016, amid clashes between an armed militant group and authorities, Facebook was briefly unavailable for users in Armenia across several ISPs (see Blocking and Filtering ). In April 2016, hostilities broke out between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory. Throughout the conflict, online commentators were encouraged to practice self-censorship (see Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation ). In June 2015, police targeted journalists livestreaming the Electric Yerevan protests in the capital, beating them and confiscating their equipment (see Intimidation and Violence ). In July 2015, a trial commenced against the creators of satirical YouTube Channel "SOS TV", with police seeking an apology and payment of a fine for a video which they claim insults the Armenian police force (see Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activity). Introduction: Internet freedom remained largely uninhibited in the past year, though Armenia's overall score declined somewhat after police physically attacked journalists livestreaming protests in Yerevan. The past year in Armenia has been marked by periods of civil unrest and regional conflict. In late 2015, a constitutional referendum changed the country from a semi-presidential system to a parliamentary republic, a change which critics say would allow President Sargsyan to serve beyond his second term in office. The referendum was marred by suspicions of ballot stuffing and pressure. In April 2016, hostilities broke out between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory, resulting in casualties on both sides. Later, in July 2016, armed anti-regime militants clashed with police in the capital. While Armenians are generally free to express themselves online without restriction or fear of sanction, some incidents of censorship occurred during and after the coverage period, coinciding with the periods of violence and unrest. Facebook was briefly restricted in July 2016 while armed militants were challenging the authorities, and netizens were pressured to self-censor as violent clashes briefly resumed on the Nagorno-Karabakh frontline. However, historically the internet has remained relatively free in Armenia, with gradual improvements in infrastructure and accessibility connecting more of the population. Activists regularly use social media as a tool to promote their causes, and opposition and independent media flourish online. Obstacles to Access: Internet access in Armenia continues to grow, though growth slowed somewhat in 2015, possibly due to market saturation. The internet penetration rate increased to just over 58 percent. The ISP market is relatively diverse, with foreign as well as local providers competing for customers, though an urban-rural divide persists, limiting access and quality for those living outside major cities. Availability and Ease of Access According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the internet penetration rate reached just over 58 percent in 2015, compared with 42 percent in 2013 and just 15 percent in 2009.[1] Average internet speeds more than doubled in 2015 reaching 17Mbps compared to 8.7Mbps in 2014, according to government figures.[2] By the end of 2015, there were 289,102 fixed-line broadband subscriptions, representing an increase of 29,217 relative to the same period in 2014. In December 2015, mobile broadband subscriptions reached 244,443, an increase of 13,669 over 2014.[3] The mobile penetration rate reached 124 percent in 2015.[4] Based on reports provided by mobile operators, more than 1.6 million mobile phones out of a total of 3.5 million were connected to the internet as of December 2015.[5] The use of internet connected phones increased by 2.3 percent (85,071 subscribers) compared with the same period last year. Internet is ubiquitous in Armenia's capital Yerevan with most cafes, universities, and many schools providing free Wi-Fi access. There is also Wi-Fi connectivity in some of Yerevan's public buses, the metro, some railway stations, and some taxis. In contrast to the diverse market in Yerevan, the capital city, many villages have only one or two mobile broadband services from which to choose. Approximately 60 percent of rural towns are covered by fixed-line broadband. 3G services are available to almost 100 percent of the population, covering 90 percent of the country (excluding mostly unpopulated mountainous regions).[6] Many operators are also offering three-in-one packages including IP television and fixed telephone services; the average price for this package with an average speed of 20 Mbps is AMD 10,000 (US$22).[7] Restrictions on Connectivity The government does not typically restrict internet access, though in an isolated incident Facebook was reportedly unavailable for approximately 40 minutes in July 2016 during a period of civil unrest in Yerevan (see Blocking and Filtering). In practice, the Armenian government and the telecommunications regulatory authority, the PSRC,do not interfere with or try to influence the planning of network topology. Operators plan and develop their networks without any coordination with either the government or the regulatory authority. Moreover, the regulatory authority requires service providers to indicate any technological restrictions in their public offers. Armenian internet users enjoy access to internet resources without limitation, including peer-to-peer networks, voice and instant messaging services. Access to the internet in Armenia is ensured through four backbone networks that use fiber-optic cable systems. The international internet connection is made possible by five telecommunication operators[8] . At the network level they are interconnected with fiber-optic cable systems operating in the territory of the Republic of Georgia. There is also a fiber-optic connection through Iran, which is limited in capacity and mostly serves backup needs.[9] In the past, physical damage to the cables in the territory of Georgia has caused disruptions in internet access.[10] While there have been no major disruptions in the recent years, the limited number of connections to and from the country present challenges in ensuring uninterrupted internet access. ICT Market Armenia was one of the first post-Soviet countries to privatize the telecommunication industry. Since the mid-2000s, the Armenian mobile and ISP market became increasingly diverse, with Armenian users able to choose from three mobile service operators and dozens of ISPs, 46 percent of which are foreign-owned. Internet service providers offer ADSL, fiber-optic and cable access, WiFi and WiMax wireless technologies, general packet radio services (GPRS), EDGE, CDMA and 3G technologies (UMTS/WCDMA), and 4G LTE. All three current mobile operators offer 2G and 3G+ networks, and two operators offer 4G LTE network services. However, 4G LTE services are available only in limited locations, including Yerevan, Gyumri, Vanadzor, Dilijan, and Tsakhkadzor.[11] According to the Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) there are 71 ISPs in Armenia. However, an analysis of data published by service providers shows that the four leading operators together control approximately 90 percent of the market for internet access, and 96 percent of the total revenue from internet service. The regulatory authorities in Armenia primarily focus on companies with significant market power, one of which is Armenian, while the other three are foreign-owned. The four major providers are Ucom with 40 percent market share, Armentel (Beeline) with 36 percent, Vivacell-MTS with 15 percent, and Rostelecom with 7 percent. The fastest growing ISP is Rostelecom, a cable provider with 31,161 subscriptions, an increase of 9,265 subscribers in one year, while Armentel (Beeline), the largest ADSL broadband internet access provider, is losing ground.[12] There are three mobile operators in Armenia. The largest mobile internet provider is the local company Ucom,[13] followed by VivaCell-MTS and Armentel (Beeline). Armentel (Beeline) is owned by Vimpelcom, one of largest mobile operators in Russia; Vivacell-MTS is owned by Mobile TeleSystems, another of the largest mobile operators active in Russia. In 2013, Ucom was issued a license allowing its entry into the telecommunications market, but acquired Orange Armenia from France Telecom in August 2015 instead of building up its own network. Regulatory Bodies The concept of an independent regulatory authority was implemented in 2006 with the adoption of the Law on Electronic Communication. Armenia has chosen a multi-sector regulatory model in which one body, the PSRC, is in charge of the regulation of energy, water supply, and telecommunications services. The PSRC's authority, mechanisms of commissioners' appointments, and budgeting principles are defined under the Law on State Commission for the Regulation of Public Services.[14] The Law on Electronic Communication contains provisions guaranteeing the transparency of the decision-making procedures of the commission: all decisions are made during open meetings with prior notification and requests for comments from all interested persons posted on the website.[15] The PSRC is accountable to the National Assembly in the form of an annual report, but the parliament merely takes this report into consideration and cannot take any action. However, one of the weakest provisions of the Armenian regulatory framework is the absence of term limits for commissioners. The members or commissioners of the PSRC are appointed by the president of Armenia in accordance with the recommendations of the prime minister. Once appointed, a commissioner can be dismissed only if he or she is convicted of a crime, fails to perform his or her professional duties, or violates other restrictions in the law, such as obtaining shares of regulated companies or missing more than five PSRC meetings. This dependence on the political leadership has been shown to undermine regulatory independence in the past, including in the media sector.[16] In 1995, the broadcasting license of the independent television company A1+ was suspended for refusing to broadcast only pro-government material, and in 2002 its broadcasting frequency was awarded to another company. Despite a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in 2008, which stated that the regulatory authority's refusal to reinstate the company's broadcasting license amounted to a violation of freedom of information, the license was never reinstated.[17] Amendments to the Law on Electric Communication removed the need for internet service providers to obtain a license, instead requiring that they simply notify the regulator of their provision of internet services or the operation of a telecommunication network.[18] Public access points such as cafes, libraries, schools, universities, and community centers are also not required to obtain a license to offer internet access unless they offer services for a fee. According to a separate licensing law, nonprofit entities are not required to obtain a license for the provision of internet services.[19] In spite of three well-established ICT-related nonprofit associations, self-regulation of the industry is significantly underdeveloped in Armenia. The oldest nonprofit institution is the Internet Society (ISoc), which is the national chapter of the worldwide ISoc network. At the early stage of internet development in Armenia (1995 through 1998), ISoc Armenia was the primary internet policy advocate and industry promoter. However, after the establishment of the independent regulatory authority, ISoc no longer plays as much of a regulatory role, as most industry disputes are filed with the PSRC. ISoc continues to maintain the registration of domain names, and despite the lack of formal dispute resolution policies, it carries out the registry function effectively with minimal influence from government authorities or the regulator. As a result, the Armenian ICT market enjoys a liberal and non-discriminatory domain name registration regime. ISoc Armenia registers domain names according to ICANN recommendations and best practices. Isoc's board is composed of service provider managers, and in general, the Society's policy agenda is strongly influenced by the interests of traditional providers that started their business in the mid-1990s. Another well-established industry association is the Union of Information Technologies Enterprises (UITE).[20] Though industry self-regulation is one of the main goals of the Union, so far it has not developed any significant policies for industry regulation. Both ISoc Armenia and UITE are founders of a third notable nonprofit institution, the ArmEx Foundation, which was established with the sole purpose of creating a local data traffic exchange point. Other founders include leading ISPs as well as mobile and landline telecommunication operators. Limits on Content: The Armenian government does not consistently or pervasively block users' access to content online. In an isolated incident, Facebook was reportedly briefly unavailable during clashes between police and armed groups in July 2016. The most common incidents of censorship of online content relate to blocking and filtering of platforms and websites by the Russian regulatory authority, which affects access to the same content for some internet users in Armenia, since Armenia receives some of its web traffic through Russia. However, these cases are promptly resolved by internet service providers once reported by users. Blocking and Filtering In general, online content is widely accessible for internet users in Armenia. However, during times of civil unrest, the government has been known to restrict access to social networks and other websites. On July 17, 2016, as a group of opposition gunmen stormed a police station in Yerevan after calling for an armed rebellion via Facebook, users reported that they were unable to access Facebook through major ISPs, including Armentel (Beeline) and Ucom.[21] Connectivity was reportedly restored within approximately 40 minutes. The most prominent case of online censorship occurred in March 2008 during post-elections clashes.[22] The government declared a state of emergency and restricted certain media publications, including independent internet news outlets. The security services demanded that the Armenian domain name registrar suspend the domain names of opposition and independent news sites, and requested that ISPs block certain outside resources, such as some opposition pages on social network platforms, particularly the blog platform LiveJournal, which was popular among opposition and civil society activists. Armenian authorities were strongly criticized by international observers for restrictions on access to internet resources.[23] After the events of 2008, Armenian authorities have been very cautious about restricting internet content, though the most recent Facebook restriction could indicate that the government remains willing to block social media platforms. Due to the fact that some internet users in Armenia receive filtered traffic from Russian ISPs, there have been a few cases where websites blocked in Russia are incidentally blocked for users in Armenia. For example, in July 2015, a Russian opposition media outlet and a gambling website, both blocked in Russia by a court decision, were blocked in Armenia as well. Following the first reports, Beeline started to work toward unblocking the websites and restored them later that same day.[24] According to Article 11 of the Law on Police,[25] law enforcement authorities have the right to block particular content to prevent criminal activity; in practice, such blocking cases have been limited to locally-hosted, illegal content such as illegal pornography or copyright-infringing materials. For example, in 2012 the police blocked the website Armgirls.am for disseminating pornographic content and for hosting bulletins of women working in the Armenian sex industry.[26] Article 263, section 20 of the criminal code stipulates that the production and dissemination of pornographic materials or items, including printed publications, films and videos, images or other pornographic items, advertisements, or sales is punishable by a fine in the amount of five hundred times the minimum monthly salary in Armenia, or imprisonment for up to two years. Any decision of a law enforcement body to block particular content can be challenged in court by the resource or content owners, and if the court rules that the measure was illegal or unnecessary, the resource or content owners may claim compensation. Additionally, Armenia is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights; therefore, any such decision can also be challenged at the European Court of Human Rights. Content Removal In May 2015, an episode of a web series satirizing the police response to protests in Yerevan was removed by YouTube. The video was flagged by the police for removal for copyright infringement since it contained a copyrighted clip of a news report, though it was likely targeted because it was mocking police behavior.[27] The Armenian police also took the authors of the web series, SOS TV, to court claiming the episode contained insults towards the police. The trial began on July 28, 2015, with the police seeking a public apology and a fine of AMD 2 million (US$4,200). SOS TV continued to refuse to apologize for their satirical clip Internet service providers involved in transmitting illegal content, such as child pornography, or content related to online crime or cyberterrorism, are not liable for carrying such content, provided that they had no prior knowledge of it. Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation Armenian internet users are able to access a wide array of content online, though online media outlets based within the country are subject to financial and political pressures. Similar to traditional media outlets such as television or printed press, Armenian internet news resources are exposed to political pressure. In some cases, journalists are not allowed to deviate from the editorial policy of online media outlets, which are often linked to one of the political parties. Such pressure has the potential to affect the overall situation of freedom of speech in the country, though online publishers and individual bloggers strongly resist self-censorship. Indeed, there is a wide diversity of opinion on social media, and virtual battles between supporters and opponents of the government are often observed. A variety of independent and opposition web resources provide Armenian audiences with politically neutral, or oppositional opinions. However, throughout the flare up of hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory, expression online was skewed by the Defense Ministry's appeals to citizens to refrain from discussing the situation on the frontline on the internet, for fear of revealing "war secrets" to the other side. Online commentators practiced self-censorship, and discussions online often turned hostile when publications or users were perceived to be publishing unfavorable information or figures about Armenia's standing in the conflict.[28] Digital Activism Young activists campaigning against energy price hikes utilized Facebook to mobilize thousands of supporters in a major protest movement, which blocked Baghramian Avenue, a central street in Yerevan, for two weeks starting from June 22, 2015, and also reverberated in the regions.[29] The protest action known as Electric Yerevan attracted international media coverage after the police used force and water cannons to break up protestors on June 23,2016. The movement regrouped and went on protesting, forcing the authorities to promise concessions, including a temporary price freeze while a special commission investigated the reasons for the increase, as well as government subsidies for some of the most vulnerable social groups. In another example of digital mobilization, an activist group called "No Pasaran" (You Won't Pass It),[30] campaigned between September and December 2015 against constitutional amendments which may allow Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to serve for a third term. Activists relied on social media to spread their message, sharing informative videos and communicating via Facebook. The constitutional changes were ultimately passed in a referendum held on December 6, 2015, a move which was criticized by local and international observers amid suspicion of irregularities in the voting process.[31] Violations of User Rights: There have been few cases of prosecutions against internet users or bloggers for content posted online. While Armenia eliminated criminal penalties for defamation in 2010, concerns over high financial penalties for defamation persist, though the number of cases and the fines have decreased in recent years. Journalists from print and broadcast media have been subject to intimidation and attacks, though no cases of violence against online journalists were recorded during this coverage period. Legal Environment The Armenian constitution was amended following a referendum held on December 6, 2015. The new constitution continues to guarantee freedom of speech in Article 42, irrespective of the source, person, or place, applying to both individuals and media outlets. In 2003, Armenian media legislation changed significantly with the adoption of the Law of the Republic of Armenia on Mass Media (also referred to as the Media Law).[32] One the most positive changes was the adoption of unified regulation for all types of media content irrespective of the audience, technical means, or dissemination mechanisms. The Television and Radio Law contains additional requirements on content delivery, but it does not regulate news, only erotic or violent programs, as well as advertising, the mandatory broadcast of official communications, and rules on election coverage and other political campaigns. Content delivered thorough a mobile broadcasting platform or the internet is subject to the same regulations. In a positive development, the Constitutional Court of Armenia ruled on October 20, 2015 that journalists are not obliged to disclose their confidential sources, with the exception of cases involving serious crimes or where people could be in danger. The case was brought to the court after state prosecutors dropped controversial charges brought against Kristine Khanumian, editor of the ilur.am news website, for refusing to disclose the confidential source behind a June 2014 report that accused a senior Armenian police officer of assaulting two men. The charges were subject to criticism from international organizations.[33] Overall, Armenian criminal legislation grants journalists certain protections related to their profession. According to Article 164 of the criminal code, hindering the legal professional activities of a journalist or forcing a journalist to disseminate or withhold information is punishable by fines or correctional labor for up to one year. The same actions committed by an official abusing their position is punishable by correctional labor for up to two years, or imprisonment for up to three years, and a ban on holding certain posts or practicing certain activities for up to three years.[34] However, neither criminal law nor media legislation clearly defines who qualifies as a journalist or whether these rights would apply to online journalists or bloggers. In May 2010, the Armenian National Assembly passed amendments to the administrative and penal codes to decriminalize defamation, including libel and insult, and introduce the concept of moral damage compensation for public defamation.[35] The initial result was an increase in civil cases of defamation, often with large fines as penalties. In November 2011, the Constitutional Court ruled that courts should avoid imposing large fines on media outlets for defamation, resulting in a decrease in the number of defamation cases. Defamation has been used by Armenian politicians to restrict public criticism (see Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activity), though it is not considered to significantly curb oppositional viewpoints or media independence. Since 2003, when the concept of cybercrime was first introduced in the Armenian criminal code,[36] criminal prosecution for crimes such as illegal pornography or copyright infringement on the internet demonstrates that Armenian law enforcement authorities generally follow the practices of the European legal system, and neither service providers nor content hosts have been found liable for illegal content stored on or transmitted through their system without their actual knowledge of such content. The downloading of illegal materials or copyrighted publications is not prosecuted under Armenian legislation unless it is downloaded and stored for further dissemination, and the intention to disseminate must be proved. Armenia is a signatory to the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime, and further development of Armenian cybercrime legislation has followed the principles declared in the Convention. Armenian criminal legislation also prohibits the dissemination of expressions calling for racial, national, or religious enmity, as well as calls for the destruction of territorial integrity or the overturning of a legitimate government or constitutional order.[37] These laws apply to expression both online and offline. Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities No cases of imprisonment or other criminal sanctions for online activities were recorded over the past year. However, cases of civil liability, such as moral damages compensation for defamation, have been recorded several times over the past few years.[38] There were 15 civil defamation and insult suits against journalists and the media in 2015, according to the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression.[39] Of these cases, 13 included online media or media outlets that also have an online presence. Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity The newly adopted Law on the Protection of Personal Data came into effect on July 1, 2015.[40] The law is intended to ensure the implementation of the right to personal privacy with respect to the processing of personal data, bringing Armenian legislation regarding personal data in line with the European standards and international obligations. The law created the Agency for Protection of Personal Data, which started operating in October 2015. The agency is headed by Shushan Doydoyan, the founder of the Freedom of Information Center of Armenia, and will have the authority to appeal decisions of state agencies where they violate the right to privacy with regard to personal data. The collection of an individual's personal data by the government is allowed only in accordance with a court decision in cases prescribed by the law. The monitoring and storing of customers' data is illegal unless it is required for the provision of services. Personal data can be accessed by law enforcement bodies only with a court decision. Motions must be justified, and if not, the defense attorney may insist on the exclusion of evidence obtained. Nonetheless, the courts support most data requests from law enforcement bodies. Anonymous communication and encryption tools are not prohibited in Armenia; however, the use of proxy servers is not very common. Individuals are required to present identification when purchasing a SIM card for mobile phones. No registration is required for bloggers or online media outlets, though tax authorities may question bloggers or media outlets on revenue-related issues (advertisements or paid access). Armenian legislation does not require access or hosting service providers to monitor traffic or content. Moreover, the Law on Electronic Communication allows operators and service providers to store only data required for correct billing. Cybercafes and other public access points are not required to identify clients, or to monitor or store their data and traffic information. Intimidation and Violence There were eight documented cases of physical violence against journalists in 2015, according to CPFE.[41] A number involved journalists and media personnel covering the June 2015 protests against energy price hikes in Yerevan or the December 6, 2015 constitutional referendum. On June 23 2015, police attacked journalists live-streaming the Electric Yerevan rally on Baghramian Avenue (see Digital Activism). Four police officers are under investigation in connection with the attacks. On July 29, 2016, a group of plainclothes men attacked at least 14 journalists while they were covering clashes between riot police and protesters marching in support of armed gunmen who had occupied a police compound in Yerevan.[42] Some of the journalists were hospitalized as a result of the attacks; some of their equipment was broken. Armenian authorities promised to investigate the attacks. Technical Attacks Technical attacks target both government websites and civil society groups in Armenia. Most of the attacks are believed to originate in Azerbaijan. On June 19 and 20, 2015, a large number of Armenian websites were hacked by groups which news reports said were based in Azerbaijan. The hackers targeted state websites, including the sites of various Armenian embassies.[43] Notes: 1 International Telecommunication Union, "Percentage of Individuals Using the Internet," http://bit.ly/1QYT4u2 . The Armenian Ministry of Transport and Communication estimated internet penetration at 55.29 percent in 2015. 2 Armenian Ministry of Transportation and Communications, "Report on Results of Work and Implementing Priority Objectives in 2015, " [in Armenian] http://bit.ly/1QwsdZ7 3 Ministry of Transportation and Communications, "Report on Results of Work and Implementing Priority Objectives in 2015, " [in Armenian] http://bit.ly/1QwsdZ7 4 Business 24 (b24.am) business newswire, "Number of Mobile Subscribers in Armenia, Q4, 2015," April 13, 2016, http://bit.ly/2c5hd8T. 5 Business 24 (b24.am) business newswire, "Number of Mobile Subscribers in Armenia, Q4, 2015," April 13, 2016, http://bit.ly/2c5hd8T. 6 This information was derived from reports published on several mobile operators' websites, including MTS (Mts.am), Beeline (Beeline.am), and Orange Armenia (Orangearmenia.am). 7 Panorama.am, "2 Million People Use The Internet in Armenia. Enterprize Incubator Foundation,"March 21, 2015, http://bit.ly/1X6i5rS. 8 Hetq.am, "The Owners of Armenian Internet," [in Armenian], October 6, 2015, http://bit.ly/1UOOp3Q. 9 Noravank Foundation, "The Problems of Armenian Internet Domain," [in Armenian], January 12, 2016, http://bit.ly/1QDh61R. 10 The Guardian, "Georgian woman cuts off web access to whole of Armenia," April 6, 2011, http://bit.ly/1nsMLau. 11 EIF, ICT Industry Report , (Armenia, 2014), http://bit.ly/1OYd3ri. 12 Rostelecom, "Reports," http://bit.ly/1GmOszd; Roseltelecom, Report 2015 , [in Armenian] http://bit.ly/1Sto5f2. 13 Orange Armenia 2015 Report, http://oran.ge/1QFb9OD 14 The Law on Public Services Regulation Commission was adopted by the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia on December 25, 2003. 15 Article 11 of the Law of the Republic of Armenia on Public Service Regulation Commission. 16 There are three independent regulatory authorities in Armenia that are part of the executive, but not a part of the government. These three authorities are the public utilities regulator, the broadcasting regulator, and the competition authority. 17 In September 2012, A1+ began broadcasting on the airwaves of Armnews. During this time, A1+ was nonetheless able to continue publishing news content on its website. For further information on Meltex LTD and Mesrop Movsesyan v. Armenia: European Court of Human Rights, "Article 10 Judgement," in "Information Note on the Court's case-law," June 2008, http://bit.ly/1MPDVhi. 18 Law of the Republic of Armenia on Changes and Amendments to the Law on Electronic Communication of April 29, 2013, Official Bulletin No 05/29(969), June 5, 2013. 19 Art. 43, Law of the Republic of Armenia on Licensing, May 30, 2001, with several amendments from 2002-2012. 20 Union of Information Technology Enterprises, "UITE History," accessed April 30, 2013, http://bit.ly/1PungBq. 21 Mashable, "Facebook reportedly blocked in Armenia during unrest in the capital," July 17, 2016, http://on.mash.to/2c2lGGa. 22 Reports on the number of people killed vary; according to the official report from the Council of Europe, eight people were killed. Thomas Hammarberg, "Special Mission to Armenia," Council of Europe, Commissioner for Human Rights, March 12-15, 2008, http://bit.ly/1OOJ6OH. 23 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, "Observation of the Presidential Election in Armenia," published April 8, 2008. 24 "Ej.ru and bet365.com blocked by Russian Roskomnadzor in Armenia," Samvel Martirosyan (blog), July 1, 2015, http://bit.ly/1QI6NpZ. 25 "Episode of Satirical Web Series Removed from YouTube After a Complaint from Armenian Police," ePress , May 26, 2015, http://bit.ly/1MPFw6F. 26 "Armenia's Police block a site offering intimate services," Media Max , March 23, 2012, http://bit.ly/1W2n54J. 27 SOS, Facebook Page, http://on.fb.me/1PuqZin. 28 "Keep the Military's Secrets," Ministry of Defense, May 4, 2015, http://www.mil.am/hy/media/video/67; Defense Ministry Statement, May 4, 2015, http://www.mil.am/hy/media/video/65. 29 "No to Plunder", Facebook Page, http://on.fb.me/1YviXYl. 30 "No Pasaran," Facebook Page, http://on.fb.me/1TrULXm. 31 Transparency International anticorruption center, "Final Report: Observation Mission for the Constitutional Amendments Referendum of the Republic of Armenia on December 6, 2015," http://bit.ly/1TKloXX; OSCE/ODIHR Election Expert Team, "Armenia, Constitutional Referendum, 6 December, 2015, Final Report," http://bit.ly/1U37CiP. 32 The Law of the Republic of Armenia on Mass Media of December 13, 2003, http://bit.ly/2cBhAdK. 33 OSCE, "Forcing journalists to disclose confidential sources infringes work of media in Armenia, OSCE representative says," July 16, 2015, http://bit.ly/1R6cahX; Reporters Without Borders, "Journalist Prosecuted for refusing to reveal her source," July 21, 2015, http://bit.ly/1M6eoMZ. 34 Art. 164, Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia as amended on January 6, 2006, accessed April 30, 2014, http://bit.ly/1jxplj9. 35 Concept of compensation for moral damage caused by defamation was introduced by adding Article 1087.1 to the Civil Code of the Republic of Armenia, Official Bulletin of the Republic of Armenia, 23 June 2010 No 28(762). 36 Cybercrime was defined under the new Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia, adopted on April 18, 2003. The first prosecution case for the dissemination of illegal pornography via the internet was recorded in 2004. 37 Art. 226 and 301 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia, accessed April 30, 2014, http://bit.ly/1jxplj9. 38 "Demanding Financial Compensation from Armenian News Outlets is Becoming Trendy," Media.am, March 3, 2011, http://bit.ly/1MPHcx1. 39 CPFE, "Annual report 2015", http://bit.ly/1USZ9y4. 40 National Assembly of Armenia, "The Law on Protection of Persoanal Data" [in Armenian], http://bit.ly/1R7RMTT 41 CPFE Annual Report 2015, http://bit.ly/1USZ9y4 42 Committee for the Protection of Freedom of Speech, "Statement by Armenian Media Organizations," 30th July, 2016, http://bit.ly/2drc9IZ. 43 "Embassy Websites Targeted in A Massive Attack," [in Armenian] Samvel Martirosyan (blog), January 20, 2016, http://bit.ly/1LREvwh. Copyright notice: Freedom House, Inc. All Rights Reserved Freedom on the Net 2016 - Argentina Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2016 - Argentina, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583400a613.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. Country: Argentina Year: 2016 Status: Free Total Score: 27 (0 = Best, 100 = Worst) Obstacles to Access: 6 (0 = Best, 25 = Worst) Limits on Content: 9 (0 = Best, 35 = Worst) Violations of User Rights: 12 (0 = Best, 40 = Worst) Population: 43.4 million Internet Penetration: 69 percent Social Media/ICT Apps Blocked: No Political/Social Content Blocked: No Bloggers/ICT Users Arrested: No Press Freedom Status: Partly Free Key Developments, June 2015-May 2016 An emergency decree issued in December 2015 under newly-elected President Mauricio Macri has brought swift changes to Argentina's regulatory framework with the creation of the National Communications Authority (ENACOM). A special commission under the Ministry of Communications will be in charge of drafting a new law to unify digital and broadcast media legislation (See Regulatory Bodies ). On the grounds that certain state-run media served partisan interests under the former government, thousands of news items disappeared from the website of news agency Infojus Noticias in February 2016. The articles, which covered issues such as institutional violence, gender-based violence, crimes against humanity and money laundering, were republished on a new website in May 2016 (See Content Removal ). In the lead-up to President Macri's inauguration in early December 2015, Pagina 12 denounced a cyberattack on its website which lasted nearly a week. News outlet Diario Registrado also reportedly suffered a similar attack on December 11, and a few days later Clarin reported a two-hour long attack (See Technical Attacks). Introduction: Marked by the presidential handover and a series of regulatory changes affecting the digital and broadcast media sectors, Argentina's internet freedom environment remained strong as internet penetration continued to increase during this period. After 12 years of governments led by Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her late husband, Nestor Kirchner, the election of a center-right government headed by President Mauricio Macri in November 2015 has significantly shifted public policy priorities. On December 29, 2015, President Macri issued a Necessity and Urgency Decree (DNU 267/2015), merging the Federal Authority of Audiovisual Communication Services (AFSCA) and the Federal Authority for Information Technology and Communications (AFTIC) into a new regulatory body: the National Communications Authority (ENACOM). The move sparked criticism among opponents, notably due to the possibility of unwarranted executive influence in the composition of the new regulatory body, comprised of four directors chosen by the executive branch and three proposed by the parliament. The use of emergency decrees to significantly amend the regulatory framework also came under fire. Aiming o promote convergence and more homogenous norms, a special commission will be in charge of drafting a new law to unify digital and broadcast media legislation introduced under the previous administration. The government does not regularly block or filter the internet, and lower courts have further clarified takedown criteria following the landmark decision by the Argentine Supreme Court on intermediary liability in October 2014, which established a judicial notice and takedown system. During the coverage period, one case of blocking due to a court order was reported, as part of a criminal case against software developer Joaquin Sorianello, who had detected a security deficiency in the e-voting system developed for mayoral elections in the city of Buenos Aires. However, several bills introduced in Congress in 2015 and 2016 would regulate the removal or blocking of content. Some of them seek to implement the so-called "right to be forgotten," giving individuals the power to request search engines to delist certain information. Others bills aim to regulate intermediary liability in general, establishing either a judicial notice and takedown system for all cases, or a judicial notice and takedown system for some cases and an administrative, or private notice and takedown system for others. All of these bills remained at early stages in the legislative process. Obstacles to Access: Access to the internet has increased consistently in Argentina over the past decade. However, there are still infrastructural weaknesses that contribute to a digital divide, especially between urban and rural areas. Barely a year after Congress approved the Argentina Digital Law, newly elected President Mauricio Macri issued a decree changing several provisions, including modifications to the regulatory entity. It also created a commission to reform and unify legislation to promote convergence between the telecommunications and audiovisual sectors. Availability and Ease of Access Internet access has consistently been on the rise in Argentina. Statistics published by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) showed a 69 percent internet penetration rate in the country by the end of 2015, up from 65 percent in 2014, and 34 percent in 2009.[1] Some 33 million people representing 80 percent of the population actively use the internet, according to a report published by We Are Social in January 2016.[2] An emergency decree issued by newly-elected President Macri in December 2015 introduced reforms to the Argentina Digital Law, which was approved by Congress in December 2014 with the aim of guaranteeing socially and geographically equitable telecommunications services to all citizens. Under the emergency decree, a special commission will be in charge of drafting a new law to promote convergence between the telecommunications and audiovisual sectors, by unifying the Broadcast Media Law and the Argentina Digital Law. According to the decree, such changes would: "allow better decision-making by the national government and would provide legal certainty and predictability."[3] The National Institute of Statistics and Census (INDEC) recorded some 15.4 million residential internet access points in September 2015 up from 13.3 million in September 2014.[4] Mobile access points represented 60 percent, an increase of nearly 16 percent from 2014, while fixed internet access points represented 40 percent, up by 5 percent from 2014. According to INDEC's national survey in October 2015, 67 percent of homes in the country had access to computers and 61.8 percent had access to the internet.[5] The majority of ISP subscriptions are broadband, while dial-up connections account for less than one percent of the total.[6] In another report from June 2015, INDEC stated that there were 2.9 million internet subscriptions belonging to organizations, which represents a 20 percent increase over the previous year.[7] Some 390 of these institutions, which include schools, libraries, and nongovernmental organizations, benefited from free internet access, according to INDEC's September 2014 report.[8] The Buenos Aires open government website lists more than 400 public access Wi-Fi spots in the capital city.[9] Measurements of internet speed in Argentina vary, but a range of sources show that the country lags behind global averages in broadband speed. Akamai reported an average broadband speed of 5.3 Mbps in Argentina in the first quarter of 2016, compared to a global average of 6.3 Mbps.[10] According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Argentina registered broadband download speeds of 6.34 Mbps in 2015, below the regional average of 7.26 Mbps.[11] Mobile phone penetration continues to grow in Argentina, as INDEC's national survey noted a penetration rate of 89.6 percent in 2016, considerably higher than fixed phone lines at 62.4 percent.[12] ITU estimated 144 mobile phone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in 2015.[13] Not only did mobile subscriptions increase, but telephone services registered a 15.2 percent decrease in urban calls, according to INDEC.[14] Mobile phone penetration could increase even further with the announcement of fare increases for fixed phone lines in March 2016.[15] Prices for mobile phone subscriptions are relatively high in Argentina, and it was labeled as one of the most expensive countries in Latin America for mobile services in 2014.[16] In August 2014, the government launched a prepaid mobile phone plan with affordable prices,[17] which was extended under President Macri's government.[18] In February 2016 the National Modernization Ministry also announced an agreement with mobile phone companies operating in the country to swap 2G mobile technology for devices with 4G.[19] Despite the launch of 4G networks, the Cisco Visual Networking Index 2014-2019 estimated that only 10 percent of users in Argentina will be using 4G networks by 2019.[20] An average fixed-broadband plan costs US$40 per month according to the ITU,[21] or U$S32 according to the Regional Dialogue on Information Society (DIRSI),[22] whereas the minimum monthly salary in the country is around US$404.[23] Given changes introduced in the Argentina Digital Law, there is a chance the prices are going to increase even further in 2016.[24] According to a policy brief by DIRSI, broadband plans have gotten more expensive, with an estimated price variation of 40 percent between 2014 and 2015.[25] In May 2016, President Macri announced heavy infrastructure investments through the "Federal Internet Plan," promising to bring quality broadband to 29 million people within the space of two years.[26] The initiative would use and expand the fiber-optic network developed under the previous government's "Argentina Connected" plan launched in 2010. Contracted to the state-owned company ARSAT, this project sought to extend approximately 58,000 kilometers of fiber-optic cable across the country,[27] with the ultimate goal of reaching more than five million people.[28] Also as part of the Argentina Connected initiative, Argentina's first telecommunications satellites, Arsat-1 and Arsat-2, were launched in October 2014 and September 2015, respectively.[29] The planned construction of Arsat-3 was suspended in March 2016, as authorities worked on making Arsat-2 financially independent.[30] This announcement has been criticized by the previous administration, as well as news about layoffs at ARSAT.[31] Under the Argentina Connected Plan, the National Ministry of Planning, Public Investments and Services also reported the establishment of more than 280 Access to Knowledge Centers, public spaces that provide free access to ICTs.[32] The "Digital Country Plan" (Plan Pais Digital) launched in June 2016 will also seek to provide free public Wi-Fi in more than 1,000 municipalities across the country.[33] Under the previous government, the Connect Equality initiative launched in 2010 sought to foster basic digital education across the country.[34] As of March 2016, more than 5.3 million netbooks had been delivered to public high school students. In March 2016, members of the program reported layoffs,[35] although the incoming government defended their plan to continue developing the project.[36] According to information published on the official website, more than 120,000 networks were delivered so far in 2016.[37] Restrictions on Connectivity The Argentine government does not place limits on bandwidth, nor does it impose control over telecommunications infrastructure. There have been no reported instances of the government cutting off internet connectivity during protests or social unrest. There are currently 18 functioning Network Access Points (NAPs), which help manage internet traffic efficiently.[38] NAPs are strategically distributed in the biggest cities all over the country.[39] ICT Market There are approximately 816 licensed providers offering internet services in Argentina, which indicates a diverse digital technology spectrum.[40] For a company to offer Internet services, it must first obtain a license from the national communications entity, which became ENACOM in December 2015.[41] In May 2016, Resolution 2483/2016 announced a simplified license registration process for ISPs.[42] The application fee increased from ARS 5,000 (US$333) to ARS 20,000 (US$1,330).[43] Although generally speaking there are no onerous obstacles to entering the ISP market, around 90 percent of the broadband market is concentrated in three companies: Telefonica, Telecom Argentina, and Cablevision (Grupo Clarin).[44] The mobile market is also concentrated in the hands of a few companies, namely Movistar (Telefonica), Claro (America Movil) and Personal (Telecom Argentina).[45] While Decree 267/2015 ostensibly aims to promote convergence, competition and investment, it is still unclear what effect these reforms will have on the ISP market. Some critics, including telecommunications expert Martin Becerra, have argued that the reforms favor the needs of certain companies, and suggest that the new government is encouraging greater concentration.[46] The decree notably categorizes cable TV providers as ICT services, thereby releasing them from obligations in the Broadcasting Law. Some experts have contended that this decision could have a negative impact on standards such as pluralism, diversity, and local content production.[47] In March 2016, ENACOM approved the sale of Telecom Argentina to Fintech, and Nextel to Grupo Clarin's internet and cable TV provider, Cablevision.[48] Also in June 2016, Nextel announced the purchase of five wireless broadband companies with radio spectrum in the 900 MHz and 2.5 GHz bands, which will enable the deployment of 4G LTE cellular network in the metropolitan area and several towns. According to Nextel, this was a necessary step to preserve competitiveness in the mobile sector.[49] Regulatory Bodies Through the Necessity and Urgency Decree (DNU 267/15) issued on December 29, 2015, President Mauricio Macri created the National Authority for Communications (ENACOM), thereby dissolving the Federal Authority of Audiovisual Communication Services (AFSCA), the Federal Authority for Information Technologies and Communications (AFTIC).[50] A previous decree on December 23 had already placed AFSCA and AFTIC under trusteeship for 180 days, replacing their heads with new appointees.[51] While Decree 267/15 received final approval in Congress on April 6, 2016,[52] these changes prompted heated debate within the country. Seeking to promote convergence and more homogenous norms, the decree establishes a single entity to regulate the whole system. ENACOM operates within the Ministry of Communications and has a directorate comprised of four directors chosen by the president and three proposed by Congress. ENACOM decisions can be approved by a simple majority and its members may be removed by the president.[53] One concern raised was the possibility of undue executive influence in the composition of the new regulatory body. While the justice minister justified the decrees as "emergency measures,"[54] the use of emergency decrees to significantly amend the regulatory framework also came under fire.[55] The executive body that regulates and registers domain names is NIC.ar. All websites with the ".ar" country code Top-level Domain must be registered with that entity. As of December 2015, registration of any domain ending in ".com.ar" requires an annual fee between ARS 220 and ARS 650 (US$15 and US$43) per year.[56] While these prices are quite affordable, they could deter some users. NIC will also require users to provide a tax ID number to register domains, which must be requested from the Federal Administration of Public Revenue (AFIP) by providing biometric data.[57] Limits on Content: The groundbreaking ruling on intermediary liability issued by the Supreme Court of Justice in October 2014 has set a precedent for lower court judgments. One case of blocking due to a court order was reported, as part of a criminal case against a software developer who reported a security deficiency in the e-voting system for local elections in Buenos Aires. On the other hand, the current government reportedly removed thousands of online materials from a state-run legal news site, before republishing them on a different site. Finally, several bills that establish mechanisms for removal of content were submitted to the Congress in 2015 and 2016, and may still be debated before the end of the legislative year. Blocking and Filtering Internet users in Argentina have access to a wide array of online content, including international and local news outlets, as well as the websites of political parties and civil society initiatives. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and international blog-hosting services are freely available. There is no automatic filtering of internet sites, web pages, platforms, social media sites, or blogs. Law 25.690, however, requires ISPs to provide software that can allow users to choose to limit their own access to "specific websites."[58] In the past few years, there have been cases of blocking or content removal on grounds of copyright infringement on content sharing platforms. In 2014, a civil court ordered ISPs to block access to IP addresses associated with The Pirate Bay, a website that facilitates peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol, on the grounds that The Pirate Bay included links to copyright protected content.[59] However, users in Argentina can currently access The Pirate Bay through its many mirror sites.[60] One reported case of blocking by judicial order took place in July 2015 as part of a criminal case against software developer Joaquin Sorianello, who had detected a security deficiency in the e-voting system developed for mayoral elections in the city of Buenos Aires (see Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities). The judge ordered the telecommunications regulator to request ISPs to immediately block access to part of the site Justpaste.it, where information obtained from the e-voting system's software source code was published. The judicial order was issued to prevent the spread of sensitive information, but it was still available in other parts of the same site and on other sites. Several controversial bills introduced in Congress were still up for debate by the end of the coverage period (see "Content Removal" for more information on bills related to the removal of personal data or discriminatory content). Outside the period of coverage of this report, in August 2016, a municipal internet blocking bill in Buenos Aires was introduced in the legislative chamber.[61] The proposal enabled municipal prosecutors to block applications or domain names with the purpose of preventing "unlawful conduct." The bill was widely criticized because the blocking order did not need to be issued by a judge and the wording concerning what might be deemed as "unlawful" was very broad and vague.[62] Also, the bill did not fit national rules on jurisdiction, which confers powers to regulate internet to the federal government, not a municipal one. Finally, it was withdrawn before it was debated by the Buenos Aires City Legislature.[63] Content Removal Under the argument that certain state-run media coverage favored partisan interests, a case of temporary removal of content attracted attention during this coverage period. In February 2016, employees of Infojus Noticias, a news agency created under Fernandez de Kirchner and affiliated to the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, reported that thousands of news items had been removed from its website.[64] The employees denounced that all but 1,200 out of 15,000 articles had been removed from the site, covering judicial issues linked to human rights, crimes against humanity and financial crimes. In response, Justice Minister German Garavano argued that "no article had been erased," and subsequently explained that the site was facing a process of transformation to move away from what he called a "political propaganda site," and that the removed items would be made available in a different format.[65] The dispute escalated with the presentation of two judicial claims, one by the Prosecutor of Institutional Violence (PROCUVIN),[66] and the other by the Buenos Aires Press Union (SiPreBa).[67] Both claims requested the judiciary to order the national government to immediately republish the removed articles, to uphold freedom of expression and the right to access public information. Finally, the judicial claims were withdrawn when in May 2016 the articles were reposted on a new website.[68] During this coverage period, lower courts clarified certain takedown criteria following the landmark decision by the Argentine Supreme Court regarding intermediary liability. After celebrity Belen Rodriguez sued Yahoo and Google for search results that linked her name to sexual and erotic content, the Supreme Court confirmed in October 2014 that intermediaries should not be liable for third-party content if they did not have knowledge of alleged third-party violations.[69] The ruling established that intermediaries must remove unlawful content only if they are notified by a judicial order, thus favoring a judicial takedown regime over a "notice and takedown" system. The court also stated that if the content involves "manifest illegality," there is no need for a judicial order and it only requires a private communication to the intermediary. More recent decisions have established criteria to avoid generic injunctions on matters of freedom of expression online. In June 2015, the Tribunal II of the Federal Court of Appeals of the City of Buenos Aires ruled that precautionary measures are able to determine "prima facie" if content is unlawful.[70] However, this measure must not be dictated in general terms and infringing sites have to be individualized in order to be removed. This resolution was supported by another ruling from the same court,[71] confirming that a generic order is not sufficient to generate liability. Several bills submitted to Congress have sought to implement mechanisms for content removal. Some of them regarded the "right to be forgotten," including a proposal to introduce an online form through which people will be able to request removal of information directly to the search engines, without judicial review.[72] Digital rights activists have raised concerns that such a system could leave the door open to abuses by government and private parties, and encourage search engines to implement self-censorship mechanisms. Others sought to regulate all the activities of intermediaries and included "notice and takedown" systems for cases of "manifest illegality," such as content that facilitates crimes; put an individual's human life at risk; advocacy of national or racial hate; child pornography; or content that produces serious danger to the individual's honor, image or intimacy.[73] Lastly, a new bill on intermediaries was introduced in 2016; unlike the others, it rejects private or administrative notice and takedown systems and establishes that in all cases a judicial order is necessary to remove online content.[74] These bills are still at the early stages of the legislative process and remain in different commissions. Many of the bills will expire if they are not discussed by the end of 2016.[75] Another controversial bill approved by the Commission of Human Rights of the Chamber of Representatives in July 2015 would have expanded the current meaning of "discriminatory act" to include comments in social networks, blogs, forums and other online media.[76] Criticized for restricting freedom of expression and violating the constitution and international human rights treaties,[77] the bill ordered online media to take preventive measures to tackle discriminatory content, by monitoring comments published on their sites. It established a new criminal offence for those posting discriminatory comments, as well as shifting the burden of proof on the person who comments. While an amended version of the bill removed provisions addressing online media and social networks, it maintained broad and ambiguous language to define "discriminatory acts."[78] The National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI) held public meetings with civil society organizations to reach consensus for new legislation on anti-discrimination, based on the bills already submitted.[79] Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation Argentina has a relatively open and diverse online media environment, as well as high rates of social media use. According to a map developed by the National Data Protection Authority, there are seven social networks with more than a million users in the country.[80] Self-censorship among bloggers and online users is not widespread in Argentina, although some isolated instances of harassment may elicit self-censorship in particular cases (see Intimidation and Violence). The government of President Macri has announced a significant reduction in the budget for official advertising, a decision which may affect the current media landscape, including digital media.[81] The discriminatory allocation of official advertising, both at the federal and local levels, has played a major role in shaping media content in Argentina. Despite multiple court rulings ordering the government to comply with equitable allocation of official advertising,[82] the government has repeatedly come under fire for providing substantial funding through advertising to media outlets that are favorable to the government, while cutting off advertising for critical organizations.[83] According to recent research, half of total funds allocated to official advertising from 2009 to 2015 were distributed among 15 media organizations, 12 of them allegedly close to the Fernandez de Kirchner government.[84] In June 2016, the Public Communication Secretary issued an administrative resolution regulating the allocation of official advertising to media outlets, including digital media.[85] The resolution states that funding must be allocated according to objective criteria, such as media reach, relevance of the message, geographic zone and promotion of the federalism and plurality of voices. Digital Activism Argentinians continue to use social media as a tool for political mobilization. In June 2015, after several women were murdered, a group of journalists and activists called for a demonstration to advocate for concrete action to reduce violence against women. Digital activism played a crucial role in more than 200,000 people gathering in front of Congress on June 3, 2015.[86] The march went viral on social media with the hashtag #NiUnaMenos (Not One Less) and generated more than 270,000 tweets during the mobilization.[87] A second #NiUnaMenos march took place the following year, on June 3, 2016, once again rallying thousands of people around the country and encouraging significant social media engagement.[88] Violations of User Rights: Argentina has relatively strong privacy protections and authorities must obtain a judicial warrant before conducting surveillance. Argentina does not suffer from high levels of violence against journalists, but during the period of coverage three cases of cyberattacks against news outlets were reported. A judicial order was issued to raid the house of Joaquin Sorianello, a software developer who had discovered a security vulnerability in the electronic voting system used in local elections in Buenos Aires. Legal Environment Freedom of expression is guaranteed by the National Constitution.[89] Argentina explicitly established online freedom of expression protections through a presidential decree issued in 1997,[90] which were expanded by the Congress in 2005 to include "the search, reception and dissemination of ideas and information of all kinds via internet services."[91] Defamatory statements regarding matters of public interest were decriminalized in 2009,[92] following the Inter-American Court of Human Rights' ruling in "Kimel vs. Argentina."[93] Some laws impose criminal and civil liability for online activities. Law 11.723 holds liable those who, by any means, reproduce content that violates intellectual property, and establishes sanctions ranging from fines to six years in prison. In November 2013, Congress approved a law amending the penal code and establishing penalties of up to four years imprisonment for online contact with a minor carried out "with the purpose of committing a crime against [the minor's] sexual integrity."[94] The law generated concern among academics and civil society organizations because of its vague wording.[95] In 2008, the government passed a law on cybercrime,[96] which amended the Argentine Criminal Code to prohibit distribution and possession of child pornography, interception of communications and informatics systems, hacking, and electronic fraud. Some of the terms used in the legislation have been criticized as too ambiguous, which could lead to overly broad interpretation. In November 2015, the General Prosecutor's Office created the Specialized Prosecutor's Unit on Cybercrime for the investigation of computer-related crimes (see Technical attacks).[97] The government has further committed to promoting the values of democracy and human rights online. In June 2016, Argentina joined the inter-governmental Freedom Online Coalition, which supports internet freedom and the protection of fundamental human rights.[98] Argentina is the third Latin American country, and the first from South America, to join the coalition. Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities In June 2015, ten days before municipal elections in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Joaquin Sorianello, a software developer, discovered a security vulnerability in the electronic voting system that leaked SSL certificates used in the machines that transmitted data from voting locations to the vote counting center, and proceeded to report the vulnerability to the company in charge of the voting system, Magic Software Argentina (MSA).[99] On July 4, just two days before the elections, the Cybercrime Division of the Metropolitan Police of the City of Buenos Aires raided the house of Sorianello, by orders of the Judge Maria Luisa Escrich, and proceeded to confiscate his electronic devices,[100] on the grounds of violation of Article 183 of the Penal Code,[101] by which Sorianello was accused of causing damage to IT systems. In an interview on March 15, 2016, Sorianello stated that his case was not moving forward and that MSA never appeared at any hearing nor presented any document regarding the case.[102] At the end of July 2016, Sorianello was dismissed from the case on the grounds that, although it was established that Sorianello entered the computer system of the company MSA Group, he did not do so in an unlawful manner nor did he cause any harm; on the contrary, it was to give notice to the company that the security system was vague and could be easily breached. Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity The Argentine government does not impose restrictions on anonymity or encryption for internet users. Bloggers and other online users are not required to register with the government and can post anonymous comments freely in online forums. Law 25.891 determines that telecom operators must register users' identification information when purchasing a mobile phone or prepaid SIM card.[103] This law was introduced in 2004 as part of an effort to tackle the resale of stolen mobile phones and SIM cards, but it has not yet been regulated, even after multiple attempts to explicitly enforce the creation of a database for the registration of users' identification information when buying mobile phones and SIM cards.[104] In general, Argentina has strong privacy standards rooted in the constitution, as well as data protection laws with standards that compare to those in Europe. In addition to legal conditions for the collection of video surveillance images[105] and guidelines to protect privacy in the development of applications,[106] the National Directorate for Protection of Personal Data has issued legal requirements and privacy recommendations relating to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones.[107] According to the National Intelligence Law, a court order is necessary to conduct surveillance of private communications.[108] Until December 2015, the only state body that was legally allowed to conduct surveillance was the Department for Interception and Captation of Communications (DICOM), dependent on the Public Ministry.[109] However, Decree 256/15 transferred DICOM to the Supreme Court,[110] which later replaced DICOM with the Directorate of Captation of Communications (DCC).[111] The DCC is presided by a judge, appointed by lottery, for the duration of one year. Argentina does not systematically collect metadata, although a 2013 resolution by the Secretariat of Communications raised some privacy concerns. Resolution 5/2013 regulating the quality of telecommunications services states that providers should "guarantee the free access of the CNC [the regulatory body in 2013, now ENACOM] to installations ... and [should] give them all the information that is required in the set manner and timeframe." It also establishes a period of three years for service providers to keep all collected data.[112] However, the article in question states clearly that the data will be used to calculate quality indicators, and the resolution mentions the obligation to respect personal data. Since its passage in 2013, there has been no evidence to suggest that this provision was implemented in an unlawful or abusive way. Although there is little to no information available regarding covert or unlawful surveillance, and although these practices do not seem to be widespread, two main cases can be highlighted in 2015. First, emails leaked from Hacking Team in July 2015 revealed exhanges between the Italian spyware company and Argentine companies that claimed to have ties with state actors (such as the Federal Intelligence Agency, the Army and the Federal Police). The companies appeared to have been interested in acquiring Hacking Team's products, but it was not possible to confirm the completion of a transaction or direct contact between the government and Hacking Team from the emails.[113] Second, in December 2015, Citizen Lab published research showcasing an extensive malware, phishing, and disinformation campaign active in several Latin American countries, including Ecuador, Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil.[114] Regarding Argentina, Citizen Lab noted the targeting of political figures in the malware campaign, such as the deceased prosecutor Alberto Nisman and the journalist Jorge Lanata. Moreover, on October 20, 2015, former deputies Laura Alonso and Patricia Bullrich filed a complaint for alleged illegal spying on journalists, politicians, public prosecutors and judges carried out by the Federal Intelligence Agency.[115] However, the day after the complaint was filed, one of the judges stated that it was submitted without documents to support it.[116] The government requested data on a number of users in 2015, mostly for criminal investigations. Between July and December 2015, Google received a total of 436 requests for data disclosures of 569 Google accounts, and disclosed information in 59 percent of cases.[117] During that same period, Yahoo received a total of 184 data requests related to 220 Yahoo specified accounts: 33 percent of requests were rejected, 46 percent resulted in the disclosure of non-content data (basic subscriber information, such as name, login details, location and IP address at the time of registration), 14 percent resulted in content being disclosed, And in 7 percent of cases, no data was found.[118] Microsoft received a total of 789 law enforcement requests related to 919 specified user accounts, of which 71 percent resulted in the disclosure of non-content data, 19 percent resulted in no customer data being found, 10 percent were rejected for not meeting the legal requirements.[119] Facebook received a total of 892 data requests regarding 1,047 specified user accounts, out of which 71 percent resulted in the disclosure of some data.[120] Between January and December 2015, Twitter received a total of 7 account information requests regarding 17 specified accounts (including Twitter, Periscope, and Vine accounts); none of them resulted in the production of data.[121] Intimidation and Violence Although there were no known cases of bloggers or ICT users being subject of extralegal intimidation or physical violence by state authorities or other actors, the Argentine Forum of Journalism (FOPEA) reported 94 cases of harassment against journalists throughout the country in its 2015 report of attacks on press freedom, of which 12 percent were against digital news media. The report shows a decrease in the overall number of reported attacks, compared to 178 cases recorded in 2014. Technical Attacks Cybercrime remains an increasingly important issue in Argentina. In November 2015, the Public Ministry created the Specialized Prosecutor's Unit on Cybercrime (UFECI), which can take part in any legal process where it would be necessary to conduct research into digital environments.[122] Although there are no known public statistics or reports from the official program that was in charge of cybersecurity activities in the public sector, the National Program of Critical Infrastructure of Information and Cybersecurity (ICIC), there were three reported cases of cyberattacks against news websites: Pagina 12, Diario Registrado and Clarin . News outlet Pagina 12 claimed to have suffered a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on its website lasting from December 3 to 8, during which time users were not able to access the website. On December 9, 2015, the Attorney General's Office launched an investigation through UFECI,[123] but there have been no official statements about the status of the case since. This case led the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Edison Lanza, to state that the attack was a direct violation of freedom of expression.[124] Shortly after this incident, news outlet Diario Registrado denounced a similar attack on December 11 that impeded certain users from accessing the website.[125] Another news outlet, Clarin , also reported a DDoS attack for a period of two hours on December 13, but the attack did not result in a complete shutdown of the website.[126] Decree 13/16 created the post of Undersecretary of Technology and Cyber Security under the Ministry of Modernization, in charge of developing the strategy for technological infrastructure, as well as a national cybersecurity agenda, thus absorbing the functions of the National Program of Critical Infrastructure of Information and Cybersecurity (ICIC), which was created in 2011.[127] Notes: 1 International Telecommunication Union (ITU), "Percentage of Individuals using the internet, 2000-2015," accessed September 1, 2015, http://bit.ly/2bw4qL4. 2 We are Social, "Digital in 2016" [Sources: ITU, Internet World Stats, CIA, national governments ministries and industry bodies, UN, U.S. Census Bureau for population data], http://bit.ly/1T462wk. 3 Decree 267/2015, December 29, 2015, http://bit.ly/1UycLzB; See also: Jose Crettaz, "El resumen del DNU que reforma las leyes de medios y de telecomunicaciones" [Summary of the DNU that reforms the media and telecommunications laws], La Nacion , December 30, 2015, http://bit.ly/1YPd0JP. 4 National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC), "Informe sobre los accesos a Internet" [Report on Internet Access], March 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/1RBIRqU. 5 INDEC, "Encuesta Nacional sobre Acceso y Uso de Tecnologias de la Informacion y la Comunicacion" [National Survey on Access and Use of Information and Communication Technologies], Results for May-July 2015, October 5, 2015, http://bit.ly/1UL3hQq. 6 INDEC, "Accesos a Internet" [Internet Access], December 16, 2014, http://bit.ly/1G6JS1H. 7 INDEC, "Accesos a Internet" [Internet Access], September 15, 2015, http://bit.ly/1VvFNzr. 8 INDEC, "Accesos a Internet" [Internet Access], September 15, 2015, http://bit.ly/1VvFNzr. 9 Buenos Aires Data, "List of Public Wi-Fi spots," accessed September 2016, http://bit.ly/1Fp42mz. 10 Akamai, "Internet Broadband adoption," State of Internet Report 2016, http://akamai.me/1OcG9aE. 11 CEPAL, "Estado de la banda ancha en America Latina y el Caribe 2015," [State of Broadband in Latin America and the Caribbean 2015], July 2015, http://bit.ly/1SPjYeJ; "Las conexiones de internet mas rapidas y mas lentas de America Latina" [The quickest and slowest internet connections in Latin America], BBC Mundo , August 16, 2015, http://bbc.in/1UTlHNB. 12 INDEC, "Encuesta Nacional sobre Acceso y Uso de Tecnologias de la Informacion y la Comunicacion" [National Survey on Access and Use of Information and Communication Technologies], Results for May-July 2015, October 5, 2015, http://bit.ly/1UL3hQq. 13 ITU, "Mobile-cellular subscriptions," 2000-2015, http://bit.ly/2bfvlcE. 14 INDEC, "Informe de prensa de servicios publicos" [Press Release on Public Services], November 2015, http://bit.ly/1REZ0vG. 15 The recent decree allowed companies to establish prices for fixed telephone services, which had not been modified for 15 years due to previous government regulations. See: "Acuerdan un aumento de 185% en el abono para la telefonia fija" [Agreement to increase fixed telephone rates by 185 percent], Clarin , March 27, 2016, http://clar.in/25ujOx5. 16 Laura Zommer, "Nuestros precios de celulares, al tope del mundo" [Our mobile phone prices, the highest in the world], La Nacion , November 10, 2014, http://bit.ly/1tThzAr; Diario BAE, "Argentina y Brasil, los paises mas caros de la region para hablar por celular" [Argentina and Brazil, the most expensive countries in the region to talk on mobile phones], Media Telecom , March 4, 2015, http://bit.ly/1Pp1Va6. 17 "Todo lo que hay que saber del Plan Prepago Nacional" [All there is to know about the National Prepaid Plan], Telam , August 8, 2014, http://bit.ly/1mlM3F6. 18 "El Gobierno prorrogo el plan prepago nacional con descuentos de hasta el 50%" [Government extended national prepaid plan with discounts of up to 50 percent], Telam ,August 30, 2016, http://bit.ly/2db3bkz. 19 "El Gobierno preve lanzar un plan canje de celulares para mejorar las comunicaciones moviles" [Government plans to launch a swap plan for cellphones to improve mobile communications], La Nacion , February 22, 2016 http://bit.ly/20RkRlP; "Como es el plan canje de celulares que el Gobierno lanzara en 30 dias" [The cell phone swap plan that the government will launch in 30 days], La Nacion , February 23, 2016, http://bit.ly/1oFgoqI. 20 Jose Crettaz, "Movilidad 4G: en 2019, solo el 10% de los dispositivos usara la nueva red"[ 4G mobility: in 2019, only 10 percent of devices will use the new network], La Nacion , February 6, 2015, http://bit.ly/1C1MpIk. 21 ITU, Measuring the Information Society Report, 2014, http://bit.ly/1NUbnkf. 22 Guillermo Tomoyose, "Un mapa interactivo muestra el nivel de acceso a Internet en la Argentina," [An interactive map shows the level of access to Internet in Argentina], accessed MarcTITLE016, http://bit.ly/1TgNfxY. 23 Resolution 4/2015, Infoleg , http://bit.ly/1WURePJte. 24 Decree 267/2015, Infoleg , http://bit.ly/1UzLvkT. 25 Maria Fernanda Viecens, "Precio, calidad y asequibilidad de la banda ancha: las disparidades entre los paises de la region son muy importantes" [Price, quality and affordability of broadband: disparities between countries in the region are very important], DIRSI Policy Brief 2016, http://bit.ly/1TAPpcm. 26 "En que consiste el Plan Federal de Internet que presento hoy Mauricio Macri" [The Federal Internet Plan presented today by Mauricio Macri], La Nacion , May 17, 2016, http://bit.ly/1NxeQu8. 27 Ministerio de Planificacion, Plan Nacional de Telecomunicaciones "Argentina Conectada" [National Telecommunications Plan of Argentina Connected], 2010-2015, 51-55, http://bit.ly/1rW9rMr. 28 "ARSAT presta servicios al 30% de la poblacion del pais" [ARSAT services 30 percent of the population in the country], Revista Fibra , December 9, 2015, http://bit.ly/1SdSBHL. 29 "Lanzan el Arsat 1, el primer satelite geoestacionario" [Arsat 1, the first geostationary satellite, is launched], Infobae , October 16, 2014, http://bit.ly/1zd1Otw; "El Arsat-1 llego a la orbita geoestacionaria" [Arsat-1 reached the geostationary orbit], La Nacion , October 27, 2014, http://bit.ly/1wv256C; "Lanzaron con exito el Arsat-2 y ya esta en orbita" [Successful launch of Arsat-2, now in orbit], Clarin , October 30, 2015, http://clar.in/1KTyt8h; "Lanzaron el satelite argentino Arsat-2 desde la Guyana Francesa" [Argentine satellite Arsat-2 launched from French Guyana], Perfil , October 30, 2015, http://bit.ly/21H3N2g. 30 "Arsat suspendio la construccion del tercer satelite argentino" [Arsat suspended the construction of the third Argentinian satellite], March 29, 2016, La Nacion , http://bit.ly/1pYQBun ; "Por el congelamiento del proyecto Arsat-3, peligran 600 puestos de trabajo" [Freeze on Arsat-3 project puts 600 jobs at risk], Clarin , March 29, 2016, http://clar.in/1RFHyaj. 31 "Denuncian despidos por "cuestiones politicas" en Arsat" [Dismissals for "political reasons" are denounced in Arsat], La Nacion , January 12, 2016, http://bit.ly/1VwO5qW; "Arsat admite que despidio a 22 empleados:," [Arsat admits that 22 employees were fired], La Nacion , January 13, 2016, http://bit.ly/1pGctKR. 32 Ministry of Planning, "Logros del Programa NAC, del Plan Nacional Argentina Conectada" [Accomplishments of National Argentina Connected Program], News release, September 18, 2014, http://bit.ly/1ROnMww; See also: "Access to Knowledge Centers," NAC Official website, accessed August 23, 2016 http://bit.ly/1B0CDrw. 33 Casa Rosada, "El presidente Macri lanzo en Salta el Plan Pais Digital" [President Macri launched the Digital Country Plan in Salta], June 15, 2016, http://bit.ly/2cg5rL6; See also: Pais Digital Official website, http://bit.ly/2bVljA0. 34 Decree 459/10, http://bit.ly/1biJ9C5; See also: Government of Argentina, "Conectar Igualdad" [Connect Equality], http://bit.ly/1Ebzusv 35 "Desde Conectar Igualdad denuncian mas de 1000 despidos" [More than 1,000 dismissals denounced from Connect Equality], La Nacion , March 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/1RvN8PQ; "Denuncian 1000 despidos en el programa Conectar Igualdad" [1,000 dismissals denounced in the Connect Equality Program], Perfil , March 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/1o6FzBf; "Conectar igualdad: entre la inclusion pedagogica y la inclusion ciudadana" [Connect Equality: between pedagogical inclusion and citizen inclusion], ADC Digital , March 10, 2016, http://bit.ly/22vSXBN; "Denuncian despidos en el programa Conectar Igualdad" [Dismissals denounced in the program Connect Equality], Infobae, March 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/1UkLUYs. 36 "El Gobierno confirmo la continuidad de "Conectar Igualdad" y nego despidos" [Government confirmed continuation of Connect Equality and denied dismissals], Telam , March 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/1MlZd7U. 37 "Conectar Igualdad supero la entrega de 120.000 netbooks en 2016" [Connect Equality exceeds delivery of 120,000 netbooks in 2016], Conectar Igualdad website, September 2, 2016, http://bit.ly/2cYIewV. 38 CABASE Camara Argentina de Internet, "NAPS en funcionamiento," http://bit.ly/1JtNxJI. 39 Map of Network Access Points (NAPs) 2015, Argentine Chamber of Internet (CABASE), http://bit.ly/1LH9yK9. 40 ENACOM, "Informacion de las prestadores" [Information Regarding Providers], http://bit.ly/22w0uAF. 41 National Communications Commission, Decree 764/2000, September 5, 1998, http://bit.ly/1Ry8Mws; ENACOM "Licencia Unica de Servicios de Telecomunicaciones," [Licence for Telecommunications Services], http://bit.ly/1LH4ln9. 42 "Government adopts the "multistakeholder" model for the development of Internet" Convergencia Latina , May 18, 2016, http://bit.ly/20XqAYj; "ENACOM publico el nuevo Reglamento de Registro de Servicios TIC" [ENACOM published the new Regulation for the Registration of ICT Services], Revista Fibra , May 18, 2016, http://bit.ly/1V9mxrY. 43 Resolution 2483/2016, Official Bulletin, May 16, 2016, http://bit.ly/1X2OTFy. 44 Martin Becerra, De la concentracion a la convergencia , [From concentration to convergence], Buenos Aires: Paidos, 2015, 64; See also: Leticia Pautasio, "Estadisticas: mercado de telecomunicaciones de Argentina" [Statistics: telecommunications market in Argentina], Telesemana , August 4, 2015, http://bit.ly/1T6Jjf8. 45 Leticia Pautasio, "Estadisticas: mercado de telecomunicaciones de Argentina" [Statistics: telecommunications market in Argentina], Telesemana , August 4, 2015, http://bit.ly/1T6Jjf8. 46 "Restauracion," Martin Becerra's blog , January 14, 2016, http://bit.ly/1RG65fw; "Los especialistas opinaron sobre el decreto 267" [Expert opinions on decree 267] Revista Fibra , January 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/2cdjStz; "Diversas perspectivas sobre la convergencia" [Diverse persepectives on convergence], Revista Fibra , http://bit.ly/2cPOGq3. 47 "El decreto 267 y el fin de los debates" [Decree 267 and the end of debates], Revista Fibra , January 8, 2016, http://bit.ly/2cM3yV6 48 "Aprobaron las ventas de Telecom a Fintech y Nextel a Cablevision" [Sales of Telecom to Fintech, and Nextel to Cablevision, are approved], La Nacion , March 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/1WC6Yqw. 49 "Nextel compro espectro y da otro paso para ser el cuarto operador movil" [Nextel acquired spectrum and takes another step towards being the fourth mobile operator], La Nacion , June 24, 2016, http://bit.ly/28VmUH0; See also: "Pelea por el control de las redes" [Fight for the control of the networks], Pagina12 , August 2, 2016, http://bit.ly/2cCPSdN. 50 DNU 267/ 15, http://bit.ly/1UycLzB. 51 "Oficial: el decreto de Mauricio Macri para intervenir la Afsca y la Aftic por 180 dias" [Official: Macri's decree to intervene in Afsca and Aftic for 180 days], La Nacion , December 23, 2015, http://bit.ly/2eGCA2m. 52 "El Congreso puso punto final a la ley de medios del kirchnerismo" [Congress puts final stop on Kirchner media law], Infobae, April 6, 2016, http://bit.ly/2cLKxQA. 53 ENACOM, "Que es Enacom?" [What is Enacom?], http://bit.ly/1LHw47b. 54 "Garavano: "Vamos a sacar muchas medidas por decreto"" [Garavano: "we are going to issue many measures by decree"], La Nacion , December 20, 2015, http://bit.ly/22i1w0C. 55 "Audiencia en la CIDH sobre los DNU's de Macri" [Hearing in IACHR on Macri's DNU], Martin Becerra's blog , April 8, 2016, http://bit.ly/2cLcgCA. 56 NIC Argentina, Registration Fees, https://nic.ar/nic-argentina/aranceles. 57 "Exigiran CUIT, CUIL y clave fiscal para registrar dominios .com.ar" [They will require CUIT, CUIL and tax ID to register .com.ar domains], Telam, May 31, 2016, http://bit.ly/29iWE8w; "Que necesito para operar? [Guide provided by NIC.AR to register a domain], http://bit.ly/29tV425; AFIP, "Tramite para obtener la "Clave Fiscal" para Personas Fisicas" [Process to obtain the "tax ID"], http://bit.ly/2d6wM2T. 58 Law 25.690, http://bit.ly/1UqLHCO. 59 National Judicial Branch, Civil Court 64, Argentine Chamber of Phonograms and Videograms Producers (CAPIF), and others with The Pirate Bay, on precautionary measures, March 2014, http://bit.ly/1UqOdsG. 60 "Pese al bloqueo, varios sitios permiten ingresar a the Pirate Bay en la Argentina" [Despite blocking, various sites enable access to the Pirate Bay in Argentina], Infotechnology ,July 3, 2014, http://bit.ly/1qTe7E2. 61 "Polemica en Argentina por un proyecto de ley que habilita el bloqueo de Internet en Buenos Aires" [Controversy in Argentina on Internet blocking bill], Telesemana.com,August 31, 2016, http://bit.ly/2ciMBOt. 62 ADC Digital, "Un proyecto de ley que pone en riesgo la libertad de expresion en Internet" [A bill that could jeopardize freedom of expression on the Internet], August 29, 2016, http://bit.ly/2cQZxfL; Access Now, "Sociedad civil y organizaciones academicas preocupadas por proyecto de ley para bloquear sitios web y aplicaciones en Argentina," [Civil society and academic organizations concerned about internet blocking bill in Argentina], August 29, 2016, http://bit.ly/2bPGYLX. 63 "Frenan el proyecto de ley para bloquear sitios web" [Internet-blocking bill was stopped], Minutouno.com , September 1, 2016, http://bit.ly/2cDwqNL. 64 "Denuncian la eliminacion del 90 por ciento de las notas del sitio Infojus Noticias" [Deletion of 90 percent of items on the Infojus Noticias site denounced], Cronista.com ,February 4, 2016, http://bit.ly/1RkHYRc. 65 "Garavano justifico haber eliminado los articulos de Infojus" [Garavano justified elimination of Infojus articles], Cronista.com , February 24, 2016, http://bit.ly/1o6HhT2. 66 "Amparo por Infojus" [Protection for Infojus], Pagina 12 , February 27, 2016, http://bit.ly/1UMxChC. 67 SiPreBa, "El SiPreBa reclama al gobierno que reponga las notas de Infojus Noticias" [Press Sindicate of Buenos Aires requests the government to repost the items of Infojus Noticias], March 2, 2016, http://bit.ly/1VEok8a. 68 See website: http://archivoinfojus.gob.ar/; See also: "Una buena para Infojus Noticias" [Good news for Infojus Noticias], Diarios de Buenos Aires , May 6, 2016, http://bit.ly/1r5NKPT. 69 Supreme Court of Justice, "Rodriguez, Maria Belen c/ Google Inc. s/ danos y perjuicios," October 28, 2014, http://bit.ly/1UGGjrD. 70 Argentine Federal Court of Appeals on Civil and Commercial Matters, II, "Giovanetti, Laura c.Yahoo Argentina y otro," June 2, 2015, http://bit.ly/2bXF72p. 71 Argentine Federal Court of Appeals on Civil and Commercial Matters, II, "Albertario, Claudia c. Yahoo Argentina y otro s/ danos y perjuicios," June 2, 2015 (link not available). 72 Bill 0444-S-2015, http://bit.ly/1JcOVA4; Bill 1906-D-2015, http://bit.ly/1q26VKn; Bill 4388-D-2015, http://bit.ly/22vQ1Ft. 73 Bill 1865/15, http://bit.ly/1EtTeKs; Bill 3842-D-2015, http://bit.ly/21H3rIY. 74 Bill 942/16, http://bit.ly/2cfPULJ. 75 See Law 13.640 for information governing the legislative process: http://bit.ly/1KA2uJm. 76 National Bill Against Discrimination (9064-D-15), http://bit.ly/1MKrmAW. 77 Association for Civil Rights (ADC), "Regular comentarios en Internet: el proyecto de ley antidiscriminacion es inconstitucional" [Regulating comments in the internet: the anti-discrimination bill is unconstitutional], July 22, 2015, http://bit.ly/1HS2aVJ; Beatriz Busaniche, "Proyecto de ley antidiscriminacion: una supuesta solucion que amplia los problemas" [Anti-discrimination bill: a supposed solution that expands the problems], Via Libre Foundation, July 17, 2015, http://bit.ly/21G9Sfi; Center of Legal and Social Studies (CELS), "Proyecto de ley antidiscriminacion" [Anti-discrimination bill], August 20, 2015, http://bit.ly/22uOmQv. 78 Bill 9064-D-2014, http://bit.ly/1RG5mYz. 79 National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism (INADI), "Dialogo por la nueva ley antidiscriminatoria" [Dialogue for a new anti-discrimination law], June 2, 2016, http://bit.ly/1VCbw2s. 80 National Directorate for the Protection of Personal Data, "Primer mapa argentino de las redes sociales," [First Argentine map of social networks], August, 2015, http://bit.ly/1Y0fekF. 81 Jose Crettaz, "El fin de la pauta oficial esta cambiando drasticamente el mapa de medios" [The end of the oficial pattern is dramatically changing the media map], La Nacion , March, 2016, http://bit.ly/1R68Zqt. 82 Judicial Information Center, "La Corte Suprema declaro la constitucionalidad de la Ley de Medios," [The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Media Law], October, 2013, http://bit.ly/1Kdidjj. 83 Martin Becerra, "La pauta que los pario," Martin Becerra's blog , March, 2016, http://bit.ly/1V3naCp. 84 Jose Crettaz, "Pauta oficial 2009-2015: todos los nombres y los montos cobrados" [Official guidelines 2009-2015: all names and the amounts charged], La Nacion , November, 2015, http://bit.ly/1RllekQ. 85 Resolution 247-E/2016, http://bit.ly/2d6Ge4Z. 86 "Argentine marches condemns domestic violence", BBC, June, 2015, http://bbc.in/1SXuUoa; See also : "Argentina protesta contra la violencia machista: 'Ni una menos'" [Argentina protests against gender violence: 'Not One Less'], Univision , June, 2015, http://bit.ly/21SFfDv; "Historica marcha contra la violencia machista" [Historic march against gender violence], Clarin , June, 2015, http://clar.in/1KB2azu. 87 Guillermo Tomoyose, "Del mundo online a la marcha: el mapa con las repercusiones de #NiUnaMenos en Twitter" [From the online world to the march: the map with the impact of #NiUnaMenoson Twitter], La Nacion , June, 2015, http://bit.ly/1Jayd8P. 88 "Una multitud en otro grito contra la violencia machista" [A crowd in another cry against male violence], Clarin , June 4, 2016, http://clar.in/29qR9AZ. 89 National Constitution, Article 14, http://bit.ly/1K2LdgL. The constitution was amended in 1994, and Article 75 (22) now recognizes numerous international human rights treaties with constitutional status and precedence over national laws. 90 Decree 1279/97, December 1, 1997, http://bit.ly/1JCs3dP. 91 Law 26032, http://bit.ly/1EzDJA5. 92 Law 26551, http://bit.ly/1ZH7UvP. 93 "Kimel vs Argentina," Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 2008, http://bit.ly/1SrPsUN. 94 Law 26904, http://bit.ly/1JCto4j. 95 "Nuevas criticas a la ley de grooming reavivan debates irresueltos" [New criticism on grooming law revives unresolved debates], Infotechnology , March 22, 2014, http://bit.ly/PYofy8. 96 Law 26388, http://bit.ly/U6ZyAE. 97 Resolution 3743/15, http://bit.ly/1WVqvm2. 98 "Freedom Online Coalition welcomes Argentina as its 30th member," Freedom Online Coalition, June 2016, http://bit.ly/29skEVl. 99 "A diez dias de los comicios portenos, descubren filtraciones de seguridad en el sistema de voto electronico" [Ten days before elections, security leaks in the electronic voting system are discovered], Telam , June 26, 2015, http://bit.ly/1GXzkCa. 100 "La Policia Metropolitana allano el domicilio del especialista que denuncio fallas en el sistema de voto electronico" [The Metropolitan Police raided the house of the expert who reported vulnerabilities in the electronic voting system], Telam , July 4, 2015, http://bit.ly/1KEE98N. 101 Law 11.179, art. 183, http://bit.ly/1gbsj6k. 102 Camila Selva Cabral, "Privatizar el voto no es una buena idea" [Privatizing the vote is not a good idea], News Agency Communications Science, University of Buenos Aires, March, 2016, http://bit.ly/1USSZ24. "Sobreseyeron al programador que revelo fallas en el sistema de voto por Boleta Unica Electronica" [They dismissed the programmer who revealed flaws in the electronic voting system], La Nacion , August 2, 2016, http://bit.ly/2b5n37y. 103 Law N 25.891, http://bit.ly/1ojOlMi. 104 See bills: 6538-D-2010 http://bit.ly/1XZWodz, 0212-D-2012 http://bit.ly/1Sk1gWN, 8141-D-2012 http://bit.ly/1RNTo5w, 2986-D-2014 http://bit.ly/1ojOI9K, 2583-D-2014http://bit.ly/1WUVeQd, 9439-D-2014 http://bit.ly/1UzQUbI, 1076-D-2015 http://bit.ly/1RxfYd8 105 Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, Disposition 10/2015, http://bit.ly/25EGjlI. 106 Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, Disposition 18/2015, http://bit.ly/1RjhmQb. 107 Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, Disposition 20/2015, http://bit.ly/1fDgI4M. 108 Law 25.520, Art. 5, http://bit.ly/1bp2vWp. 109 Law 27.126, Art. 17, http://bit.ly/1CLiBGU. 110 Decree 256/15, http://bit.ly/1RI8wLr. 111 Judicial Information Center, "La Corte Suprema creo la Direccion de Captacion de Comunicaciones del Poder Judicial" [The Supreme Court created the Directorate of Captation of Communications of the Judiciary], February 15, 2016, http://bit.ly/1Urvf5d; See also: ADC, "Reflexiones sobre la creacion de la Direccion de Captacion de Comunicaciones" [Initial reflections on the creation of the DCC], February 19, 2016, http://bit.ly/2dtGQkc. 112 Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services, Communications Secretariat, Resolution 5/2013, http://bit.ly/1VaT2BX. 113 Leandro Ucciferri, "Hacking Team y sus planes para hackearen Argentina" [Hacking Team and their plans to hack in Argentina], Tecnovortex , July, 2015, http://bit.ly/1PDwEgS. 114 John Scott-Railton, Morgan Marquis-Boire, Claudio Guarnieri, and Marion Marschalek, "Packrat: Seven Years of a South American Threat Actor," Citizen Lab, December 2015, http://bit.ly/1U3dFkI. 115 "Denuncian espionaje de la Secretaria de Inteligencia a jueces, politicos y periodistas" [Denounced: spying by the Intelligence Agency against judges, politicians and journalists], La Nacion , October 20, 2015, http://bit.ly/1OGTcm2; "Denuncian que el Gobierno hizo espionaje ilegal sobre politicos, jueces y periodistas," [They claim that the government carried out illegal spying on politicians, judges and journalists], Clarin , October 20, 2015, http://clar.in/21RuOzZ. 116 "Casanello afirmo que la denuncia de Alonso y Bullrich se presento "sin documentacion ni listados"" [Casanello declared that the complaint by Alonso and Bullrich was presented "without documentation nor listings"], Telam , October 21, 2015, http://bit.ly/1OIvSEC. 117 Google, Transparency Report , July December 2015, http://bit.ly/1qezDI9. 118 Yahoo, Transparency Report , July December 2015, http://bit.ly/1RIaRGm. 119 Microsoft, Transparency Report , July December 2015, http://bit.ly/1WUWhj1. 120 Facebook, Government Requests Report , July December 2015, http://bit.ly/2ejRQhw. 121 Twitter, Transparency Report , 2015, http://bit.ly/21Rvfu7. 122 Public Prosecutor's Office, "Gils Carbo creo la Unidad Fiscal Especializada en Ciber-delincuencia" [Gils Carbo created the Specialized Prosecutor's Unit on Cybercrime], November 18, 2015, http://bit.ly/1RFfaFe. 123 "Bloqueo digital a la libertad de expresion" [Digital block against freedom of expression], Pagina 12 , December, 2015, http://bit.ly/1QeDhMC. 124 "El ataque es una violacion directa de la libertad de expression" [The attack is a direct violation of freedom of expression], Pagina 12 , December 9, 2015, http://bit.ly/1lYkoR0. 125 "Hackearon el sitio Diario Registrado.com" [The website DiarioRegistrado.com was hacked], La Nacion , December 15, 2015, http://bit.ly/2bZRznr. 126 "El sitio de Clarin recibio un ciberataque durante dos horas" [Clarin's website received a cyberattack for two hours], Clarin , December 14, 2015, http://clar.in/1jYP0Rg. 127 Decree 13/2016, http://bit.ly/1pHX4J7. Copyright notice: Freedom House, Inc. All Rights Reserved Freedom on the Net 2016 - Angola Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2016 - Angola, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583400a713.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. Country: Angola Year: 2016 Status: Partly Free Total Score: 40 (0 = Best, 100 = Worst) Obstacles to Access: 14 (0 = Best, 25 = Worst) Limits on Content: 7 (0 = Best, 35 = Worst) Violations of User Rights: 19 (0 = Best, 40 = Worst) Population: 25 million Internet Penetration: 12 percent Social Media/ICT Apps Blocked: No Political/Social Content Blocked: No Bloggers/ICT Users Arrested: Yes Press Freedom Status: Not Free Key Developments, June 2015-May 2016 The administrator of a critical Facebook news page was arrested in February 2016, while 17 youth activists were convicted in March on charges of sedition that were substantiated by a single Facebook post (see Prosecutions and Arrests for Online Activities). SIM card registration requirements were enforced in 2016, threatening mobile phone users' rights to communicate anonymously (see Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity). Leaked Hacking Team emails in July 2015 led to heightened concerns over unlawful surveillance of online and mobile communications (see Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity). Introduction: Internet freedom in Angola grew more tenuous during the report's coverage period, as the authoritarian government under President Jose Eduardo dos Santos took a more aggressive stance towards the internet and its users. While the government did not employ any technical censorship tactics to limit online content, the president publicly condemned social media during his New Year speech in January 2016, threatening to impose restrictions on platforms for allowing citizens to criticize the government. In August 2016, after this report's coverage period, the National Assembly approved a set of bills to create a new state-controlled regulator called the Angolan Social Communications Regulatory Body. Local analysts said the bills will enable the government to control and censor critical information posted on social media or elsewhere online. Meanwhile, the government ramped up its crackdown on online activities. In October 2015, police arrested Domingos Magno, who administrates the Facebook page for the citizen news website Central Angola 7311 . Two days prior to Magno's arrest, he received threats on Facebook, leading observers to believe that he was targeted for his online activism and writings, which have caught the attention of the authorities before. Separately, in March 2016, 17 youth activists were sentenced to between two and eight years in prison on charges of sedition. The prosecution's main piece of evidence was a Facebook post naming a hypothetical new cabinet, though it was not clear that any of the defendants wrote it. Surveillance became a greater concern, as SIM card registration requirements were enforced, reducing user anonymity and increasing the threat of unchecked government surveillance of users' communications. Internal emails leaked from the surveillance company Hacking Team in July 2015 revealed efforts by Angola's intelligence agency to acquire Hacking Team's notorious Remote Control System (RCS) in 2013, further exacerbating surveillance concerns. Obstacles to Access: Internet and mobile phone penetration remained low, hindered largely by high costs and poor infrastructure that limit access primarily in urban areas. Senior government officials have direct and indirect shareholder participation in many Angolan ICT companies, providing the government with some level of control over the sector. Availability and Ease of Access Access to the internet is low in Angola, with a penetration of 12.4 percent in 2015, according to the latest available data from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).[1] Mobile phone penetration, while much higher at 61 percent, is below the continent's average of 76 percent. High costs remain the main hindrance to increasing ICT access for the majority of Angolans whose median annual per capita income was US$720.[2] Unlimited internet subscriptions cost an average of US$150 per month, while USB dongle devices that provide wireless access cost between US$50 and $60. In urban areas, slightly more affordable subscriptions start at US $50 per month but can still cost as much as US$100 per month for reliable connections. Consequently, few Angolan households have internet access at home. Mobile internet packages come at a monthly cost of about US$45, while internet cafes charge approximately US$1 for 30 minutes. Those who are able go online at their workplaces, especially in the capital, Luanda. In rural areas, voice and data services can be twice as expensive and of much poorer quality, subject to frequent cuts and extremely slow connection speeds as a result of poor infrastructure. According to the latest data from Akamai's "State of the Internet" report, average broadband connection speed in Angola is 2.7 Mbps (compared to a global average of 6.2 Mbps).[3] ICT access is further hindered by the country's fractured electricity system that serves less than 40 percent of the population, mostly in urban areas.[4] Restrictions on Connectivity There were no restrictions on connectivity to internet or mobile phone networks reported during the coverage period. Angola's domestic backbone is currently comprised of microwave, VSAT, and fiber-optic cables. Connection to the international internet goes through the West Africa Cable System (WACS) and South Atlantic 3 (SAT-3) cable, the latter of which is operated by the state-owned Angola Telecom, which may enable the government to partially control internet connectivity if desired.[5] In 2014, Angola began construction on the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS), a submarine fiber-optic cable connecting Brazil and Angola that aims to reduce the bandwidth costs associated with the distance that internet traffic currently has to travel from Europe and the United States.[6] Construction of SACS is expected to be completed by late 2016. ICT Market Senior government officials have direct and indirect shareholder participation in many Angolan companies, including ISPs and mobile phone providers, providing the government with some level of control over the ICT sector. The state oil company, Sonangol, owns three of the country's eighteen ISPs (MSTelcom, Nexus, and ACS) and is a major shareholder in two others, UNITEL and Angola Cables, the former of which is the largest ISP.[7] The national telecom company, Angola Telecom, in addition to providing its own internet services, is also a major shareholder in Angola Cables, with 51 percent.[8] Mobile phone services are provided by two private operators, UNITEL and Movicel, both of which have indirect ownership ties to the government. For example, 75 percent of UNITEL, the larger mobile phone operator with 80 percent of the market,[9] is held by three entities: Sonangol; a business venture run by Leopoldino do Nascimento, the president's lieutenant general;[10] and the president's billionaire daughter, Isabel dos Santos, according to news reports. Both Leopoldino do Nascimento and Isabel dos Santos sit on the board of UNITEL.[11] Meanwhile, 80 percent of Movicel is split between five ostensibly private Angolan companies Portmill Investimentos e Telecomunicacoes with 40 percent, Modus Comunicare with 19 percent, Ipang-Industria de Papel e Derivados with 10 percent, Lambda with 6 percent, and Novatel with 5 percent that have majority shareholders who are senior officials within the president's office. For example, the majority shareholders of the Angolan investment company Lambda include Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technologies Jose Carvalho da Rocha, his deputy, and members of both their families.[12] Movicel's remaining capital is held by two state enterprises, Angola Telecom and Empresa Nacional de Correios e Telegrafos de Angola, with 18 percent and 2 percent, respectively.[13] The 2011 Law on Electronic Communications and Information Company Services further enhances the government's ability to control the country's ICT sector.[14] On paper, the law aims to ensure that ICTs in Angola are developed to play a fundamental role in ensuring citizens' universal access to information, transparency in the public sector, and participatory democracy. It also sets broader goals of poverty alleviation, competitiveness, productivity, employment, and consumer rights.[15] Nevertheless, this legislation includes several provisions that, if implemented with bad intentions, can threaten online freedom.[16] In particular, the law's provision for universal access to information is dependent upon the state's "creation and promotion of conditions that enable all citizens to access ICT."[17] Accordingly, the law enables the head of government to "intervene when internet service providers jeopardize their social functions or there are situations that gravely compromise the rights of subscribers or users."[18] Because the law does not define "the social functions" or "situations" that could be compromised or the scope of intervention allowed, analysts believe that the law empowers the country's authoritarian president to control the ICT sector at will. Regulatory Bodies The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (MCT) is responsible for oversight of the ICT sector, while the Angolan Institute for Communications (INACOM), established in 1999, serves as the sector's regulatory body. Reporting to the MCT, INACOM determines the sector's regulations and policies, sets prices for telecommunications services, and issues licenses. On paper, the regulatory body was set up as an independent public institution with both financial and administrative autonomy from the ministry,[19] though in practice, its autonomy is fairly limited. According to reports by the ITU and World Bank, INACOM is not autonomous in its decision making process,[20] in part due to the ministerial appointment of the director general who can be dismissed for any reason. In addition, the MCT has been known to influence staff appointments, while other ministries are often involved in sector policy, leading to politically influenced regulatory decisions. Laws to establish a new Angolan Social Communications Regulatory Body with a remit to control online content were approved in August 2016 (see Legal Environment). Limits on Content: Online content remained uncensored and unrestricted during the coverage period, though the government may be seeking assistance on censorship strategies from other authoritarian regimes. Legislation passed in August 2016 may give the government more censorship powers. Blocking and Filtering To date, there have been no known incidents of the government blocking or filtering ICT content in Angola, and there are no restrictions on the type of information that can be exchanged through digital media technologies. Social media and communications apps such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and international blog-hosting services are freely available. Nevertheless, censorship of news and information in the traditional media sphere is common, and the president publicly stated intentions to regulate social media speech during his New Year speech in January 2016. The government subsequently followed through with the passage of bills in August that reportedly empower a new regulatory body with the ability to control online speech (see Legal Environment). In another concerning development, the independent online news outlet Club-K reported in July 2015 that the Angolan authorities had been seeking technical assistance from North Korea to restrict access to critical websites.[21] Content Removal There were no reports of forced content removal during the coverage period, though informal government demands on users to remove content from the internet have been documented periodically. In one case, a Facebook user arrested in April 2015 for a critical post about a military general was forced to remove the post and apologize in exchange for his release.[22] In May 2015, a court found journalist and blogger Rafael Marques de Morais guilty of criminal defamation for his 2011 book implicating the Angolan military in alleged torture and corruption in the country's diamond industry. In addition to a six-month suspended prison sentence, the court ordered all online copies and references to de Morais's book to be removed.[23] Given the impossibility of the task, observers believe the court intended the demand to serve as a threat, leaving open the possibility of holding de Morais responsible if the content remained accessible. However, there were no reports of restrictions on the book's accessibility online since the May 2015 ruling, and it remains available outside Angola. Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation As a result of low rates of ICT access, radio, television, and print outlets which are subject to high levels of government interference remain the primary sources of information for the majority of Angolans. The president and members of the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party own and tightly control a majority of the country's media outlets, including those that are the most widely disseminated and accessed. Of the dozen or so privately owned newspapers, most are held by individuals connected to the government. Independent news outlets critical of the government do exist, with Folha8 being the most prominent, though its audience is reached primarily through its print publication. Rede Angola , an independent news blog based in Portugal, is one of the main sources of alternative and independent online news on Angola,[24] alongside the news blogs Club-K and Maka Angola , which is run by journalist Rafael Marques de Morais. Nonetheless, the online information landscape lacks diversity and is unable to represent a variety of groups and viewpoints throughout the country due to both the concentration of internet access in urban areas and the limited space for critical voices in Angola's general media sphere. In addition, independent outlets, both online and in print, are constrained economically by the lack of advertising revenue from both state and private sources, since it is often denied to news outlets that publish critical stories about the government. According to an Angolan media observer, Rede Angola struggled to receive advertising revenue from both private and public sources in 2015 due to the critical cartoons it often publishes. It has only managed to stay afloat through financing from its wealthy owner, a Brazilian political communications mogul. Government efforts to manipulate online content are periodically reported. Some independent online news outlets report receiving regular calls from government officials directing them to tone down or refrain from reporting on certain issues. For example, in 2015, editors at Rede Angola , reportedly received instructions from the authorities not to publish any news about the ongoing defamation case against journalist and blogger Rafael Marques de Morais (see Content Removal).[25] Self-censorship is pervasive and commonly practiced by journalists in both state-run and private print outlets, though bloggers and social media users are less reluctant to express criticism of the president and ruling party. In the past few years, the internet and social media have become the last frontier for independent voices, with journalists, activists and opposition parties increasingly turning to digital platforms as a means to sidestep the country's longstanding restrictions on traditional media. Nevertheless, there have been anecdotal reports of online self-censorship becoming more prevalent, reinforced by the recent arrests of social media users and bloggers.[26] Taboo topics related to corruption, abuse of power, land grabs, police brutality, and demolitions are often avoided. Digital Activism Social media is the leading platform for citizens to criticize the government and react to alleged wrongdoings. Youth groups in particular have increasingly flocked to Facebook to call out government corruption, reflecting a gradual weakening of the culture of fear within civil society.[27] Digital activism was significant following the arrest of 17 youth activists in June 2015 and helped mobilize protests against their extended pre-trial detention and ill-treatment in prison. Nonetheless, subsequent arrests of protesters and the Facebook page administrator for the news website Central Angola 7311 have led to a more muted use of digital media to organize and provide critical commentary in the past year (see Prosecutions and Arrests for Online Activities). Violations of User Rights: New legislation passed in August 2016 empowers the government with the ability to control social media and penalize online speech. The administrator of a critical Facebook news page was arrested in February 2016, while 17 youth activists were convicted in March on charges of sedition based on a Facebook post. Leaked Hacking Team emails in July 2015 led to heightened concerns over unlawful surveillance of online and mobile communications. Legal Environment The Angolan constitution provides for freedom of expression and the press, though in practice, the authorities routinely flout these rights. Stringent laws regarding state security and defamation run counter to constitutional guarantees, such as Article 26 of the 2010 state security law that penalizes individuals who insult the country or president in "public meetings or by disseminating words, images, writings, or sound" with prison sentences of up to three years.[28] The 2006 press law holds authors, editors, or directors of a publication criminally liable for libelous content.[29] If the author does not reside in the country or the text is not signed, the law establishes the circumstances in which the editor, director, or both may be held criminally responsible for grievous content.[30] Defamation is a crime punishable by imprisonment, while politicians enjoy immunity from all prosecution. Meanwhile, the judiciary is subject to considerable political influence, with Supreme Court justices appointed to life terms by the president and without legislative approval. The Law on Electronic Communications and Information Company Services, enacted in August 2011, provides for citizens' rights to privacy and security online, among other provisions regulating telecommunications. Nevertheless, the law also includes problematic aspects that may infringe on internet access (see ICT Market).[31] In August 2016, after this report's coverage period, the National Assembly approved a set of bills that creates a new state-controlled regulator called the Angolan Social Communications Regulatory Body.[32] Local analysts said the bills will enable the government to control and censor critical information posted on social media or elsewhere online.[33] The legislation came after President dos Santos called for stricter regulation of social media in January 2016.[34] Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities Arrests and prosecutions for online activities have become more frequent in the past few years. In October 2015, one of the main reporters for the "Central Angola 7311" citizen news site and an administrator of the group's Facebook page, Domingos Magno, was arrested en route to hear the State of the Nation address. Charged with "false pretenses" for allegedly possessing a false press pass, he spent one month in prison, during which time he was interrogated in relation to his online activities. He also received threats on Facebook prior to his arrest (see Intimidation and Violence).[35] The charges were still pending in mid-2016. In a high profile case, 17 activists were convicted of sedition in March 2016 and sentenced to between two and eight years in prison. The charges stemmed from their participation in a book club at which they were discussing a book about civil disobedience to authoritarian rule. As the sole piece of evidence of the group's alleged plot to overthrow the government, the prosecution introduced a Facebook post that proposed a hypothetical alternative government, with prominent activists named in key government positions.[36] On appeal, the Supreme Court granted the activists conditional release under house arrest in June 2016. Surveillance, Privacy, and Anonymity The government's ability to monitor and intercept the data and communications of Angolan citizens without adequate oversight is a major concern, particularly among human rights activists and journalists, though the full extent of the government's surveillance capabilities and practices is unknown. Sophisticated spyware discovered logging activities on an investigative journalist's laptop in 2013 suggests that, at a minimum, the government engages in the targeted surveillance of select individuals (see Technical Attacks).[37] Investigative reporting over the past few years has unearthed different government plans to implement electronic monitoring systems that could track email and other digital communications.[38] Recent investigations have revealed increased engagement with the Chinese government on surveillance methods.[39] In June 2015, Wikileaks published leaked internal emails from the Italian surveillance equipment company Hacking Team, which revealed efforts by Angola's intelligence agency, SINSE, to acquire Hacking Team's notorious Remote Control System (RCS) in 2013.[40] Sold to numerous repressive regimes around the world, RCS spyware has the ability to steal files and passwords and intercept Skype communications, among other features. The documents did not reveal whether the Angolan government eventually purchased or installed the spyware. Meanwhile, SIM card registration requirements enacted in 2014 were enforced in 2016, threatening mobile phone users' rights to communicate anonymously. Users were given until the end of February 2016 to register existing SIM cards or be disconnected. SIM cards must be registered directly with INACOM, the ICT regulator that operates under government oversight (see Regulatory Bodies). The process requires an identity card or driving license and tax card for national citizens, or a passport with a valid visa for visitors.[41] Strong state influence in the ownership structure of Angola's telecoms, particularly mobile phone operators, suggests that the authorities are likely able to wield their influence over service providers and require them to assist in the monitoring of communications, if desired.[42] Such interweaving of political and business interests through family connections is compounded by the lack of rule of law. Intimidation and Violence Violence and harassment against journalists in the traditional media sphere is common in Angola, and online activists have been increasingly targeted. Two days before Domingos Magno was detained in October 2015 (see Prosecutions and Detentions for Online Activities), he received warnings through his Facebook page advising him to distance himself from his friends who were known political activists and opposition figures, or face serious consequences. While covering a peaceful protest against the detention of the 17 youth activists in August 2015, Rafael Marques de Morais, who runs the Maka Angola blog, was repeatedly detained and released, and his camera equipment was repeatedly seized and returned. Marques was later held at the airport in September 2015 when returning from a trip to South Africa, supposedly due to a computer error involving outdated orders banning his movement out of the country.[43] Technical Attacks Independent and diaspora news websites have been taken down by technical attacks in the past, though there were no reported incidents during the coverage period. In early 2015, the critical news blog Maka Angola was attacked and taken down for several days at a time in the lead-up to the criminal defamation case against the outlet's owner, Rafael Marques de Morais (see Content Removal). A frequent target of technical violence, de Morais was previously attacked with customized malware on his personal laptop,[44] which international experts linked to a multinational with strong ties to Angolan military officials.[45] Marques now receives technical assistance from Jigsaw's Project Shield, which protects websites from powerful technical attacks.[46] The hacking collective Anonymous claimed responsibility for taking down more than 20 Angolan government websites in response to the convictions of 17 youth activists in March 2016.[47] Notes: 1 International Telecommunication Union, "Percentage of Individuals Using the Internet, 2000-2015," http://bit.ly/1cblxxY. 2 Glenn Phelps and Steve Crabtree, "Worldwide, Median Household Income About $10,000," Gallup World, December 16, 2013, http://bit.ly/1j9SsIK. 3 Akamai, "State of the Internet, Q1 2016 Report," https://goo.gl/TQH7L7, accessed August 1, 2016. 4 World Bank, "Access to electricity (% of population)," accessed July 31, 2014, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS. 5 "Sistema de Cabos da Africa Ocidental entra na fase final" [Cable system in Western Africa in final phase], Portalangop , October 27, 2012, http://bit.ly/1ZdV7BZ. 6 NEC, "Angola cables to build the world's first submarine cable across the South Atlantic," press release, November 4, 2014, http://bit.ly/1MfbXqw. 7 Sonangol's telecom subsidiary, MSTelcom, discloses its full ownership of Nexus and ACS in: Sonangol Noticias , "9 Aniversario da Mstelcom: Ligando o Pais e o Mundo," August 2008, n 17, Sonangol. 8 "Telecommunications in Angola," Moses Malone , http://mosesmalone.ga/Telecommunications_in_Angola. 9 Instituto Angolana dos Comunicocoes, "Estatisticas," http://bit.ly/1R0kxgq. 10 The investment company: Portmill, Investimentos e Telecomunicacoes. 11 Kerry A. Dolan, "Isabel Dos Santos, Daughter of Angola's President, Is Africa's First Woman Billionaire," Forbes , January 23, 2013, http://onforb.es/1s19TrQ. 12 Rafael Marques de Morais, "The Angolan Presidency: The Epicentre of Corruption," Maka Angola (blog), accessed October 20, 2015, http://bit.ly/1R0kDod. 13 Rafael Marques de Morais, "The Angolan Presidency: The Epicentre of Corruption," Maka Angola (blog). 14 Assembleia Nacional, Lei das Comunicacoes Electronicas e dos Servicos da Sociedade da Informacao (Lei n 23/11), art. 5. 15 Ministero Das Telecomunicacoes e Tecnologias de Informacao, "The commitment of Angola in Communications and IT sector according to the Recommendations of the World Summit on the Information Society," (presentation, Geneva, Switzerland, June 2013), http://bit.ly/1jemlbh. 16 Miranda Law Firm, "Angola: Legal News," April-July 2011, http://bit.ly/1GxSrn7. 17 Assembleia Nacional, Lei das Comunica coes Electronicas e dos Servicos da Sociedade da Informacao (Lei n 23/11), art. 5. 18 Assembleia Nacional, Lei das Comunica coes Electronicas e dos Servicos da Sociedade da Informacao (Lei n 23/11), art. 26, 2. 19 Russell Southwood, "The Case for 'Open Access' Communications Infrastructure in Africa: The SAT-3/WASC cable Angola case study," Association for Progressive Communications, accessed August 30, 2013, 5, http://bit.ly/1N1sn8O. 20 International Telecommunication Union, "Angola Profile (latest data available: 2013)." 21 "Regime ensaia sistema para banir sites criticos," Club-K , July 27, 2015, http://bit.ly/1JUHyfl. 22 Interview by Freedom House consultant in May 2015. 23 Paul Gallagher, "Celebrities join signatories calling on Angolan president to drop prosecution of blood diamonds author Rafael Marques de Morais," Independent , June 2, 2015, http://ind.pn/1hsfGbM. 24 Rede Angola website: http://www.redeangola.info/. 25 Based on interviews with anonymous online journalists and editors. 26 Based on interviews with internet users and bloggers. 27 Central Angola 7311, website, http://centralangola7311.net/; Central Angola 7311, Facebook page, http://on.fb.me/1VGCP7Y. 28 Human Rights Watch, "Angola: Revise New Security Law, Free Prisoners in Cabinda," December 9, 2010, http://bit.ly/1RvD6tN. 29 Art. 71, 2, Assembleia Nacional, Lei de Imprensa (Lei 7/06), 2006, http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=179557. 30 Art. 71, 2, Assembleia Nacional, Lei de Imprensa (Lei 7/06), 2006. 31 Art. 71, 2, Assembleia Nacional, Lei de Imprensa (Lei 7/06), 2006, art. 26, 2. 32 D Quaresma Dos Santos, "Angola passes laws to crack down on press and social media," The Guardian , August 19, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/19/angola-passes-laws-to-crack-down-on-press-and-social-media 33 D Quaresma Dos Santos, "Angola's latest ply to silence critics: A regulatory body to censor social media," Maka Angola (blog), August 16, 2016, http://www.makaangola.org/2016/08/angolas-latest-ploy-to-silence-critics-a-regulatory-body-to-censor-social-media/ 34 Divya Kishore, "Media outlets in Angola face tighter restrictions after legal crackdown," International Business Times , August 20, 2016, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/media-outlets-angola-face-tighter-restrictions-after-legal-crackdown-1576942 35 Rafael Marques de Morais, "President's speech nabs another political prisoner," Maka Angola (blog), October 20, 2015, http://www.makaangola.org/2015/10/presidents-speech-nabs-another-political-prisoner/ 36 Zenaida Machado, "Dispatches: Basic Rights Still a Pipe Dream in Angola," Human Rights Watch, March 31, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/03/31/dispatches-basic-rights-still-pipe-dream-angola 37 Janet Gunter, "Digital Surveillance in Angola and Other "Less Important" African Countries," Global Voices Advocacy , February 26, 2014, http://bit.ly/1LjKxn4. 38 See, Freedom on the Net 2015 , "Angola" country report, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2015/angola. 39 Freedom House consultant interviews, May 2016. 40 Daniel Finnan, "Kenyan government asked Hacking Team to attack dissident website," Radio France Internationale , July 17, 2015, http://rfi.my/1jc5CVp. 41 See, INACOME's website, http://www.inacom.gov.ao/registo/index.html 42 For instance, the top adviser to the head of the Intelligence Bureau at the Presidency, General Leopoldino do Nascimento, is also the chairman and shareholder of Unitel. Meanwhile, the head of the Intelligence Bureau, General Manuel Helder Vieira Dias "Kopelipa," holds a majority share (about 59 percent) in Movicel. The deputy CEO and Chief Technology Officer of Unitel, Amilcar Safeca, is the brother of Aristides Safeca, the secretary of ICTs who in turn is a shareholder of Movicel. 43 Rafael Marques de Morais, "There is no place like home unless you are banned," Maka Angola (blog), September 10, 2015, http://www.makaangola.org/2015/09/there-is-no-place-like-home-unless-you-are-banned/. 44 There is a detailed account of how the malware was discovered during an international conference. See: Michael Moynihan, "Hackers are Spying On You: Inside the World of Digital Espionage," Newsweek , May 29, 2013, http://bit.ly/1s29LJY. 45 Gunter, "Digital Surveillance in Angola and Other 'Less Important' African Countries." 46 Alfred Ng, "Google's Project Shield defends free speech from botnet scourge," CNET, September 29, 2016, https://www.cnet.com/news/google-project-shield-botnet-distributed-denial-of-service-attack-ddos-brian-krebs/ 47 "'Anonymous' hackers cyber-attack Angolan government," March 30, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35927474 Copyright notice: Freedom House, Inc. All Rights Reserved Title Response of the Armenian Government to the report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) on its visit to Armenia from 5 to 15 October 2015 Publication Date 22 November 2016 Country Armenia Citation / Document Symbol CPT/Inf (2016) 32 Cite as Council of Europe: Committee for the Prevention of Torture, Response of the Armenian Government to the report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) on its visit to Armenia from 5 to 15 October 2015, 22 November 2016, CPT/Inf (2016) 32, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58343b4a4.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Comments The Armenian Government has requested the publication of this response. The CPTs report on the October 2015 visit to Armenia is set out in document CPT/Inf (2016) 31. 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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. 'Shame on us all' for failing to stop annihilation of eastern Aleppo, UN aid chief tells Security Council Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 21 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, 'Shame on us all' for failing to stop annihilation of eastern Aleppo, UN aid chief tells Security Council, 21 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834464340d.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. 21 November 2016 - Emphasizing that month after month he returns to the Security Council with new reports of ever-worsening human suffering in Syria, the top United Nations humanitarian official today urged the 15-member body to act now and end the protracted conflict. "I am more or less at my wit's end [] I had hoped to say today that last month I put it all on the table and frankly it's still just as terrible and leave it at that - shame on us all for not acting to stop the annihilation of eastern Aleppo and its people and much of the rest of Syria too," the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O'Brien, said in a Council briefing held at the UN Headquarters in New York. "All the facts and reports I gave last month have not, not one of them, been changed, qualified, denied or proven wrong, by any one of you or anyone beyond this room," he added. Mr. O'Brien, also the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said that he has long called for a lifting of all sieges, which have become one of the most prevalent and insidious aspects of this merciless conflict. This time last year, the number of besieged people stood at 393,700. Six months ago it stood at 486,700. Today, it is estimated that a total of 974,080 people - nearly one million Syrians - are living under siege. New locations included Joubar in Damascus, and Hajar Al Aswad, Khan al-Shih, and multiple areas in the enclave of eastern Ghutah in Rural Damascus, he said. Since cross-border humanitarian operations began over two years ago, the UN has conducted 420 convoys, or nearly four a week on average, delivering health aid sufficient for nine million people, including vaccinations for two million people, and food for three million people, many on a monthly basis, among other assistance. "Unfortunately, I must report to this Council that since the last reporting period none, not one, of our inter-agency convoys were able to deliver aid cross lines," he said. UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien briefs the Security Council. UN Photo/Amanda Voisard In October, the Security Council failed to adopt two draft resolutions to end the bloodshed in Syria's besieged eastern Aleppo. "I hear the argument that this Council should not pass a resolution because it would be 'premature,'" he said. "It is never, never too premature to save a life. It is never too soon for you to find a solution to this conflict and end the suffering of the Syrian people." Repeated pleas to protect health care 'always fall on deaf ears' Also addressing the Council was the World Health Organization's (WHO) representative in Syria. "Before the conflict began, Syria had one of the most advanced health care systems in the Middle East," said Elizabeth Hoff, who has been in that position for more than four years. She said that as the country had reached middle income status, noncommunicable diseases were becoming the predominant health concern, and national vaccination coverage rates were 95 per cent. Syria's thriving pharmaceutical industry produced over 90 per cent of the country's medicines and exported its products to 53 countries. "Now, almost six years later, the picture is starkly different," she said, noting that health care services have been devastated, with over half the country's public hospitals and primary health care centres either closed or only partially functioning. Almost two thirds of all health professionals have left the country, and domestic production of medicines has dropped by two thirds and vaccination coverage rates have dropped by half, she said. The direct targeting of health care facilities is the most visible violation against the health care system in Syria today, but there are others as well, including the militarization of health care facilities by several parties to the conflict, the targeting of health care personnel, and the denial of medical and surgical supplies in many areas. "Denying ordinary citizens access to health care is an affront to our common humanity," she warned. "As the global health agency, we take seriously our responsibility to speak out against these abuses whenever we can [] Nonetheless, our repeated calls for protecting health care, facilities and personnel, always fall on deaf ears," she deplored, appealing to all members of the Council to use every last ounce of their influence to bring an immediate end to the suffering in Syria. Earlier today at the UN Office in Geneva, Switzerland, the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, briefed reporters on his meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad. "It is fair to say that Minister Mouallem denied that any bombing of eastern Aleppo hospitals had taken place," Mr. de Mistura said, noting that the denial contravenes the reports of bombings from WHO and other sources on the ground. As for one of the main elements of the UN proposal for Aleppo, which called for autonomy by leaving the local and existing independent administration intact, the Syrian Government, through Minister Mouallem, "categorically rejected the idea of maintaining the current local administration." The envoy said, however, that they discussed that there could be a creative formula to resolve this disagreement. Mr. de Mistura said they agreed on the need to fight terrorism. In wake of violence, UN entities in Colombia underscore their commitment to protect civilians Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 21 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, In wake of violence, UN entities in Colombia underscore their commitment to protect civilians, 21 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834477f40c.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. 21 November 2016 - Expressing concern over recent violence, including killings, that targeted social leaders in several conflict-affected areas in Colombia, the United Nations Mission in the country, as well as the UN Country Team, underlined the need to protect civilians and to build communal harmony. "We support the decision of President Juan Manuel Santos to convene a high-level meeting of the National Human Rights Commission and the Attorney General's decision to advance investigations into the latest facts presented," the Mission said in a statement today. "We hope that speedy investigations, as requested by the Office of the Ombudsman, and the measures that may be taken by the various State agencies, will contribute to protect the civilian population and create greater tranquillity among communities," it added. According to the Mission, there is a fear among the affected social organizations that the violence could undermine confidence in a stable and lasting peace on the eve of the expected signing of the final peace agreement in the country. The final peace agreement, to be signed between Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP), provides for the implementation of several measures aimed precisely at ensuring security for leaders of social organizations, human rights defenders as well as for political action, in particular through the installation of the National Commission on Security Guarantees. The statement further noted that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is undertaking field missions to verify the alleged incidents and that the results will be made public once the missions have been completed. The Mission and the Country Team, comprising UN agencies, funds and programmes on the ground, also reiterated their commitment to protect the civilian population, within the framework of their respective mandates and to provide continued support to build peace and respond to the expectations of the Colombian population, particularly in the conflict-affected territories. If passed, Israeli legislation would be 'another nail in the coffin' for two-state solution UN expert Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 21 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, If passed, Israeli legislation would be 'another nail in the coffin' for two-state solution UN expert, 21 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583447b540d.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. 21 November 2016 - A new piece of Israeli legislation would enable the confiscation of privately owned Palestinian land and if passed, would deal yet another severe blow to hopes of lasting peace in the region, according to a United Nations human rights expert. Michael Lynk, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, expressed deep concern over the proposal to legalize more than 100 illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank. The legislation passed its first reading in the Knesset on 16 November. According to Mr. Lynk, the unauthorized outposts have been set up on private Palestinian land, deep within the occupied West Bank, and are considered illegal under current Israeli domestic law. To retroactively legalize them would be "another nail in the coffin for the two-state solution," he said. "These outposts undermine the Palestinian right to self-determination, violate their rights to property, freedom of movement, and development, and continue to confine the Palestinians into smaller and smaller cantons of non-contiguous lands within their own territory." If adopted, the legislation would allow the Israeli State to appropriate private Palestinian lands where the outposts have been built, thereby repurposing them for use by Israeli settlers. The Special Rapporteur emphasized that international law prohibits the confiscation of private property, such as proposed by the current law. "The Knesset should not be giving the green light to theft by changing the law," said Mr. Lynk, adding that violating international law would be neither lessened nor mitigated by the bill's proposed measures to compensate Palestinians whose land has been unlawfully taken. The current draft follows a recent ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court that the Amona outpost must be evacuated by 25 December - thereby rejecting a request for delay from the Israeli Government. "Among the purposes of this legislation is to regularize the legal status of Amona," said the Special Rapporteur. Mr. Lynk was alarmed to note that some senior Israeli cabinet ministers not only supported the bill, but were also openly calling for annexation of large parts of the West Bank. "The international community must be very clear with the Government of Israel," he said. "The annexation of occupied territory likewise would be a profound breach of international law. If Israel proceeds with either step, the international community must be prepared not only to condemn the action, but also to adopt appropriate measures to reverse these violations." "An occupying power is expressly prohibited from transferring its civilian population into an occupied territory. This violates the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949, and is contrary to numerous UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, as well as a major advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice in 2004," he said. Mr. Lynk is part of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, which is part of the Council's independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Rapporteurs are neither UN staff, nor are they paid for their work. Ban welcomes Haiti elections, urges parties to show statesmanship as process moves forward Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 21 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Ban welcomes Haiti elections, urges parties to show statesmanship as process moves forward, 21 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834482f40c.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. 21 November 2016 - Welcoming the holding of elections in Haiti on 20 November, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today stressed that the process "is crucial to ending the current governance vacuum" and urged all the parties involved "to show statesmanship at this critical time for the country." "He salutes the people of Haiti for having peacefully expressed their democratic right to vote. He commends the Haitian institutions, in particular the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and the Haitian National Police, for their leadership and professionalism during and in the lead up to the polls," said a statement issued by Mr. Ban's spokesperson, which also welcomed the role of Haitian institutions in ensuring an environment conductive to the holding of the polls. The Secretary-General's statement went on to stress that the electoral process is crucial to ending the current governance vacuum in Haiti and urged all parties involved, in particular Presidential candidates and political party leaders, to show the utmost statesmanship at this critical time for the country. "[Mr. Ban] calls on them to reject and discourage all forms of violence and intimidation and place the national interest above any other consideration. He urges all actors to await the results proclaimed by the CEP and only use legal channels for any eventual challenges," it said, adding that the UN chief also reaffirmed the commitment of the United Nations to extend its full support to the Haitian people in the fulfilment of their democratic aspirations. On 14 February 2016, the Haitian National Assembly elected Jocelerme Privert as the island nation's interim President, one week after former President Michel Martelly departed without a successor. Mr. Privert served as interim President for 120 days, and an election had been scheduled for 24 April, following an agreement - known as the 5 February Agreement - between Haitian stakeholders to preserve institutional continuity and further the electoral process. The Provisional Electoral Council further postponed the long-delayed elections in the wake of Hurricane Matthew, pending completion of an assessment of the impact on the electoral process. Prior to the disruption caused by the storm, which made landfall on 4 October, technical preparations had largely been on track for the holding of the polls. Iraq: Government-Backed Forces Detain, Beat Villagers Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 22 November 2016 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Iraq: Government-Backed Forces Detain, Beat Villagers, 22 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583449054.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. A prominent group within the Iraqi government-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), detained and beat shepherds, including a boy, from a village near Mosul on November 3, 2016, on suspicion of Islamic State (also known as ISIS) affiliation, Human Rights Watch said today. Victims and witnesses said that members of the League of the Righteous (Asa'ib Ahl al-Haqq), detained 10 shepherds and hit at least five of them, in some cases repeatedly, including the boy. The shepherds, who had fled the village of Aadaya, were stopped and held in the village of Ghazeel for several hours. The fighters released them but stole about 300 sheep, the village's entire flock. "Civilians fleeing ISIS are already risking their lives to get to safety," said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Government forces should be doing all they can to protect and assist them, not abuse and rob them." Human Rights Watch visited a camp for displaced people south of Mosul, on November 15, and interviewed 10 residents of Aadaya, 35 kilometers southwest of Mosul, who fled their homes along with the entire population of about 500 people, on the morning of November 3, after an airstrike damaged a few buildings. The area is still under ISIS control, but ISIS fighters did not prevent the villagers from leaving. The residents said that the whole population walked 10 kilometers south before reaching fighters who identified themselves as al-Tufuf Bridage, a small force within the PMF located in al-Tassa village. Villagers said the forces searched the group and checked their identity cards, then loaded them onto cars, and drove them south toward the Jadah camp for internally displaced people. The group of 10 shepherds continued on foot with the 300 sheep from the village. When the villagers in the cars reached Ghazeel, seven kilometers further south, at about 2 p.m., they came across a group of League of the Righteous fighters, who identified themselves and had their forces' logo displayed on flags and badges. Five men from the group told Human Rights Watch they heard the fighters accusing the group of being ISIS-affiliated and saying they would detain or kill them. An al-Tufuf Brigade commander intervened and ordered the League of the Righteous fighters to let the villagers through, which they did, the villagers said. The cars arrived at Jadah camp, 65 kilometers south of Mosul, at about 4 p.m., the villagers said. Three men and two boys, aged 14 and 15, said they were among the 10 shepherds who had remained with the sheep. They said they arrived at Ghazeel on foot at about 4 p.m., where six League of the Righteous fighters surrounded them and forced them into the yard of a nearby abandoned house. Two guards questioned them one at a time inside the house. The shepherds said the guards asked them whether they were ISIS-affiliated and whether they knew of other ISIS affiliates. The 15-year-old said that during questioning, one of the fighters slapped him on the back of the head. Another man, age 40, said they slapped his cheek once during the questioning. The others said they were not beaten during this initial questioning. The two guards then moved five of the detained men to a second nearby house, and kept the other five, including the two boys, in the yard of the first home with the sheep. The guards and four other fighters then questioned the men taken to the second house, bringing them out for questioning one by one. One, age 20, said that he was the first taken outside. For about 15 minutes the fighters accused him of being ISIS and asked him the same questions about ISIS affiliation again as they hit him with their hands, kicked him to the floor, and shot a bullet over his head. Another, age 22, said he was the last to be taken out for questioning. As six fighters questioned and accused him for about an hour, he said, they pushed him to the ground, then beat his feet with a stick. Then they stood him up, bound his hands behind his back and continued to beat his legs and feet with a stick, he said. He said he felt at least three electric shocks to his hands. His eyes filled with tears as he said that the fighters also "did things to my body." He did not want to elaborate. After the beating he could no longer walk and so the fighters got three of the other villagers to carry him to a truck, where they covered his leg with a blanket. The fighters ordered the other men and the boys into the truck and drove them to Jadah camp. The fighters kept the sheep, and the men were afraid to ask why, or how to get them back. The theft of the entire flock left the villagers with nothing. When they got to the camp around 8 p.m., the 22-year-old said, he was rushed into an ambulance and from there to a clinic at the camp, where doctors told him his left foot was broken. Human Rights Watch saw his cast. Doctors asked him how he broke his foot but he would not tell them, fearing retribution, he said. The shepherds Human Rights Watch interviewed said that another one of the men taken to the second house, who Human Rights Watch was not able to interview, appeared to be in pain in the car and said fighters had beaten his legs. He was also taken away in an ambulance. They said that the other two men in the group taken to the second house did not show any signs of abuse. All security forces and armed groups should abide by international law and respect the absolute ban against torture and ill-treatment, Human Rights Watch said. The ban against torture and ill-treatment is one of the most fundamental prohibitions in international human rights law. No exceptional circumstances can justify torture. Iraq is a party to key international treaties that ban torture under all circumstances, even during recognized states of emergency, and require investigation and prosecution of those responsible. Torture, cruel treatment, and outrages upon personal dignity are war crimes. Parties to an armed conflict are prohibited from pillaging, or forcibly taking private property belonging to civilians in an area it has taken over from an adversary, for their personal use, and it constitutes a war crime. Iraqi authorities should investigate all suspected crimes, including pillaging, torture, murder, and other abuses, committed by members of any side in the conflict, in a speedy, transparent, and effective manner, up to the highest levels of responsibility. When evidence of criminal responsibility emerges, prosecutions should follow. Those conducting such criminal investigations and making decisions about prosecutions should be independent of those being investigated, outside any military chain of command and free from political interference in their decisions. The authorities should ensure the safety of all witnesses. "Civilians fleeing ISIS are abandoning almost all they have to escape," Fakih said. "It is inexcusable that fighters are robbing them of the few assets they are able to leave with." Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch China: Passports Arbitrarily Recalled in Xinjiang Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 21 November 2016 Related Document(s) One Passport, Two Systems: China's Restrictions on Foreign Travel by Tibetans and Others Cite as Human Rights Watch, China: Passports Arbitrarily Recalled in Xinjiang, 21 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583449844.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 Chinese government's new policy of recalling passports restricts foreign travel for many residents of Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch said today. The policy, applicable to residents of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region since at least October, gives police wide power to scrutinize residents' proposed visits abroad. The government's blanket recall of passports allegedly for reasons of "collective management" follows similar passport restrictions in the Tibet Autonomous Region, but has not apparently been imposed elsewhere in China. Xinjiang is home to 10 million predominantly Muslim Uighurs, and ethnic and religious discrimination against them is rampant, prompting some to flee. "Chinese authorities have given no credible reason for taking away people's passports, violating their right to freedom of movement," said Sophie Richardson, China director. "Doing so across an entire region is a form of collective punishment and fuels resentment toward the government in a region where tensions are high." On October 20, 2016, the Shihezi Public Security Bureau (PSB) Immigration Office issued a statement on its official microblog account announcing that all passports registered in that area must be submitted to local police stations for an "annual review," following which the police would hold them for "safekeeping." The notice, dated October 19, warned that those who failed to turn in their passports risk being barred from leaving the country. It stated that those wishing to retrieve their passports must first apply for "an approval to leave the country" at their neighborhood government offices (Ch: ) before making an application at the PSB. Explanatory notes that accompanied the notice said the deadline for submitting the passports was February 28, 2017. The original October 19 notice has since been removed from the website, but can be accessed elsewhere. A call to an immigration officer in Shihezi PSB confirmed the policy on October 26. Calls to seven immigration offices in various locations across Xinjiang Fukang City, Karamay City, Korla City, Tacheng Prefecture, Manas County, Aksu Prefecture, and Karakax County between October 27 and November 2 also confirmed the policy. However, it appears that the policy has not yet been announced in Urumqi, the autonomous region's capital city. With the exception of one officer in Dabancheng District in Urumqi, several immigration officials in other Urumqi districts said that they have not received instructions to recall passports. The officials who confirmed the recall to Human Rights Watch said the order was issued by the PSB at the regional level and had been rolled out across Xinjiang. They also confirmed that there would be an "annual review" of the passports, following which the police would hold them for "collective management" (Ch: ) or "collective safekeeping" (Ch: ). The officers did not respond to callers' questions about why it would be safer for the police to keep the passports, only that it was to "make management easier," or that it is "merely a change of management." All the officers reached, except the one in Shihezi, said the passports must be handed in by the end of October. The passport policy does not seem to have been applied consistently across Xinjiang. The explanatory note issued by the Shihezi immigration office states that those who reside abroad with valid long-term foreign visas are not required to hand in their passports. Other officers said individuals should "wait for phone calls from the local police stations" before handing them in. In Tacheng Prefecture, the officer said they would consider exceptions such as impending travel; in a follow-up call on November 2, an officer in the same office said the recall had not yet taken place. When asked for an official statement of the new policy, one officer said, "Documentation is not for you to read." "That authorities won't even explain this restrictive policy, let alone provide its basis, suggests another crude effort at undercutting Xinjiang residents' rights," Richardson said. "It's hard to see why such a move is necessary but it's easy to see why there would be a harsh reaction." The officers provided little information as to how people could get their passports back. Two said they had received the instructions to recall them but none on how to return them. Two others said the passport holders have to "explain their situation" about why they need their passports back or apply at the local police stations. Yet another two said a "proof of travel" document from the neighborhood office would be required; another said such a document could also be purchased from a certified travel agency. Residents in Xinjiang are already subjected to a more onerous passport application process than other citizens in China. Xinjiang applicants are required to submit their bio-data to the police, which includes a blood (DNA) sample, a voice sample, a 3D image of themselves, and their fingerprints, according to a media report. Calls to four immigration offices, as well as to a government-approved travel agency, also confirmed that this bio-data is required for all passport applications, regardless of ethnicity, across the region. In addition, Xinjiang applicants are required to submit extra supporting documents other than those commonly required elsewhere in China, such as copies of identity documents of the family and friends they intend to visit. In the past, police held the passports of Xinjiang residents whose documentation had been processed through travel agencies for "collective safekeeping." In those cases, people had to apply and pay a fee each time they traveled to get the passports back; Xinjiang authorities announced that such restrictions had been dropped and that individuals could keep their own passports as of August 2015. But this new recall reverses and expands this policy and gives police who already are empowered to approve all passport applications in China additional power to approve each foreign visit. The passport recall in Xinjiang has no basis in Chinese law. Article 2 of China's Passport Law states that "no organization or individual should illegally seize passports." Article 15 states that the courts, the procuratorates [office of the prosecutor], the police, the state security, and administrative supervisory authorities can seize passports only "where necessary for handling a case," and only the passports "of the parties of a case." As a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Chinese government is prohibited from taking actions that would interfere with the right that "everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own." That right is only subject to restrictions that are provided by law and are strictly necessary for national security, public safety, or public order, and are consistent with the other rights. A blanket restriction without basis in the law does not meet that standard. The disparate impact of the policy on the Uighur Muslim population is also discriminatory. "Seizing the passports of an entire region violates both Chinese and international law," Richardson said. "It does nothing to combat crimes or produce the 'stability' Beijing says it wants. Authorities should immediately abandon these arbitrary, discriminatory policies." Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch Afghanistan: Shia Bombing Spotlights Need to Protect Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 21 November 2016 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Afghanistan: Shia Bombing Spotlights Need to Protect, 21 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58344a814.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 Afghan government should develop a security plan to better protect minority Shia during high-profile public events, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 21, 2016, a suicide bomber killed at least 32 worshippers, including children, and injured 50 others, at a Shia mosque in Kabul during observance of the religious ceremony of Arbaein. Since July, a wave of sectarian suicide attacks has injured or killed more than 500 members of the Shia community. Insurgents who affiliate themselves with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for this attack, their fourth on gatherings by Afghanistan's Shia community since July 2016. The group also said they carried out two attacks during the Shia ceremony of Ashura on October 11, in Kabul, and on October 12, in the northern province of Balkh, that altogether killed at least 32 people. The group also claimed a July 23 attack against a demonstration by mainly Hazara Shia in Kabul, killing at least 85 and injuring 413, the deadliest attack in Afghanistan on civilians since 2002. "ISIS has stepped up its horrific and unlawful attacks on Shia public gatherings, making no place safe," said Patricia Gossman, senior Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The government, Shia leaders, and civil society groups should work together to develop appropriate ways to improve security during vulnerable public and religious gatherings so that Shia community members can exercise their basic rights." The security environment is worsening for all Afghans in the face of an intensifying insurgency, claiming high levels of civilian casualties as fighting increasingly happens in densely populated areas, Human Rights Watch said. However, the wave of targeted attacks on Shia Hazaras is largely attributable to the emergence of insurgent groups affiliated with ISIS, underscoring the increasing vulnerability of the Shia community beyond active battlefields and in urban areas under government control. The plight of Hazara Shia in neighboring Pakistan highlights the dangers of unhindered escalation of sectarian violence, Human Rights Watch said. Pakistan's besieged Hazara communities have faced targeted mass attacks by the extremist anti-Shia militant group Lashkar-e Jhangvi for more than a decade. Lashkar-e Jhangvi has already conducted attacks on large religious ceremonies in Afghanistan in 2011, when an attack on an Ashura gathering killed more than 60 people. Since then, other groups have adopted similar tactics in Afghanistan, including seeking out Hazara bus passengers and executing them, and attacking Shia places of worship. "Insurgents who are responsible for atrocities targeting a specific ethnic or religious community as part of an attack on a civilian population are committing crimes against humanity," Gossman said. Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch Chad: Community radio station closed, manager detained Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 22 November 2016 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Chad: Community radio station closed, manager detained, 22 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58344b694.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. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the local authorities to reopen a community radio station in southern Chad that has been closed arbitrarily for the past week and to release the station's manager. Based in Kelo, in the department of Tandjile Ouest, Radio Barkadje was closed on the orders of the department's prefect on 14 November after reporting a resumption of violent clashes between herders and cultivators in an ongoing conflict over land use in the region. Kelo is 400 km south of the capital, N'Djamena. The station's interim manager Edmond Kandi Weidigue was summoned and questioned by the police the next day. The police chief accused Radio Barkadje of fuelling the conflict and implied that the local authorities had been keeping an eye on the station ever since its coverage of recent public sector strikes. Defending the station's coverage, Weidigue said its role was to "report what happens in rural areas in order to help the population to understand the need for peace and non-violent cohabitation." He was taken into custody at the end of the interrogation and is still being held, although he has not been charged. "We urge the authorities to reopen the radio station at once and to release its manager," RSF editor-in-chief Virginie Dangles said. "Radio Barkadje just did its job by providing the rural population with coverage of events that directly concern them. Its closure is arbitrary and illegal." Media outlets and journalists are often harassed by the Chadian authorities. Journalism is risky and reporters are exposed to censorship and arrest. As RSF reported at the time, Madjissembaye Ngardinon, a reporter for the newspaper Abba Gade, was arrested in June while covering a police operation. At the same time, it is becoming harder for Chadians to access news and information. Even since the election that returned President Idriss Deby Itno to power in April, Chadians have been denied access to social networks and mobile Internet. To avoid online surveillance and censorship, Chadians must use encrypted applications or Virtual Private Networks, but these are not accessible to most of those seeking information via the Internet. Chad is ranked 127th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index. Myanmar: End crackdown on women and journalists reporting on sexual violence allegations Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 21 November 2016 Cite as Article 19, Myanmar: End crackdown on women and journalists reporting on sexual violence allegations, 21 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58345e994.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. ARTICLE 19 is concerned by the ongoing crackdown against victims of sexual violence speaking out on abuses in Rakhine State, as well as government pressure against media houses and journalists reporting on allegations of human rights violations by the Myanmar military. Over the past two weeks we have seen a concerted effort to repress media coverage of sexual violence against minority women in Rakhine State, allegedly carried out by the military, and worse still, censure of both journalists and those women that have spoken out, said Thomas Hughes, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. Women in Myanmar are already marginalised, particularly those from ethnic and religious minorities, and it takes huge courage for them to speak out on culturally sensitive issues such as sexual violence, particularly in conflict zones, he added. Faced with such disturbing allegations, a democratic government should have immediately launched an independent investigation to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice. Instead, the government has banned the media from visiting the area, women who have spoken out have been subject to derogatory comments by public officials, and journalists and their editors have been sacked under government pressure. This sends a worrying message to women across Myanmar he added. A journalist and an editor at the daily newspaper The Myanmar Times have both been sacked for supposedly bringing the newspaper into disrepute and undermining national unity. Their sacking came after the Information Ministry contacted the newspaper to lodge a complaint regarding an article published on 27 October alleging sexual violence and human rights violations by the military in Rakhine State. The article reported on allegations that dozens of local minority women had been raped by security services. The Ministrys complaint came shortly after the presidential spokesperson criticised the journalist on Facebook. Only journalists from the state-run media have been officially allowed to visit the area in Rakhine State where the rapes allegedly took place. As such, reporters from the The Myanmar Times and other international media houses such as Reuters have reverted to covert investigations. Women victims speaking out on the alleged abuses have also been censured. Myanmars state newspapers have said that the women and journalists reporting on their claims are making false allegations, a claim that has been re-published by the presidents office. A parliamentarian for Rakhine State and Chairperson of the Rakhine Investigative Committee laughed when faced with the allegations, and told the BBC they could not be true on the basis of degrading and demeaning statements about the minority women. Sacked Myanmar Times investigative journalist Fiona MacGregor, who has previously covered ARTICLE 19s work on gender-based censorship in Myanmar, is known for her reporting on sexual violence in the country. Her article stated in the opening sentence that allegations of sexual violence were unable to be verified due to the government denying journalists access to the area. On 13 November, Myanmar Times editor and employee of 13 years Douglas Long was also sacked. Myanmar Times staff have been told since MacGregors sacking that the management is developing a new editorial policy and until that has been decided, no further news on the daily violence in Rakhine State will be published. In response The Myanmar Times has been running an ad warning its readers of the blackout: ARTICLE 19 calls for a full investigation into allegations of sexual violence against women in Rakhine State and the censure of journalists reporting on these in order to ensure perpetrators are brought to justice, and calls on the government to ensure their protection from further attacks. ARTICLE 19 urges the Myanmar government to reverse its decision to block media access to conflict zones in Rakhine State, and reiterates to government officials at all levels the important role of a free and independent media in the democratic transition process, in particular in highlighting and bringing accountability for human rights violations and rampant corruption. Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19 Egypt: Lift the travel ban against Mozn Hassan, repeal the NGO law and cease the harassment of civil society Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 19 November 2016 Cite as Article 19, Egypt: Lift the travel ban against Mozn Hassan, repeal the NGO law and cease the harassment of civil society, 19 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58345ef54.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. Egyptian civil society faces a pattern of restrictive measures, including legislative restrictions, criminal investigations and travel bans. Parliament announced the adoption of a new highly restrictive NGO law on 15 November, while numerous human rights defenders, including award-winning womens human rights defender, Mozn Hassan, are subject to travel bans and criminal investigations. ARTICLE 19 calls for the new NGO law to be repealed, the travel bans to be lifted and for the criminal investigations against NGOs for receiving foreign funding to be dropped. Travel bans The harassment of Mozn Hassan, Executive Director of Egyptian feminist organisation, Nazra for Feminism Studies, is emblematic of the Egyptian governments approach to alternative voices in general. On 25 November 2016, Mozn Hassan, is due to receive the Right Livelihood Award, known as the alternative Nobel prize, for promoting equality and the rights of women, however she is unable to travel to receive her award in person, as she is subject to a travel ban. On 27 June 2016 Hassan learned that she was subject to the ban, when she attempted to travel to Beirut to participate in an Executive Committee meeting for the Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD) Regional Coalition for the Middle East and North Africa. Hassan has been officially under investigation since March 2016, when she was summoned for questioning, along with other staff from Nazra, as part of case 173/2011, or the foreign funding case. The Egyptian government claims to be fighting extremism, while Mozn Hassan, who has worked tirelessly for equality and womens rights, consistently countering extremist views, is facing harassment and restrictions; said Saloua Ghazouni, who directs ARTICLE 19s Middle East and North Africa Programme from its regional office in Tunis. Pluralistic and diverse public debate is crucial for ensuring stability, but the Egyptian government is targeting the very people promoting those values; She added. Hassan is not the only Egyptian human rights defender subject to a travel ban: at least twelve other human rights defenders implicated in the foreign funding case are subject to bans. A travel ban was also issued to human rights lawyer Malek Adly on 2 November, and to human rights lawyer Ahmed Ragheb on 15 November. Ragheb had been attempting to fly to Morocco for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Restrictive legislation On 15 November, Egypts already narrow civic space was further restricted with the parliaments announcement of its approval of a new NGO law. Egyptian online news outlet, Mada Masr, reported that the discussion of the draft was carried out in secret. In September a different draft NGO law had been submitted to the State Council by the government, which imposed heavy fines for several offenses, however the version announced by parliament on Tuesday is far more severe. The newly announced law has a number of alarming provisions which allow for up to five years imprisonment for a range of civil society activities, such as cooperating with foreign organisations, including international bodies such as the UN, without a permit. Egyptian civil society had previously been involved in drafting an NGO law in 2013, however the draft did not progress after the Minister of Social Solidarity at the time, Hassan al-Borai, left his post. The replacement minister, Ghada Waly did not continue the process of consultation with civil society and instead withdrew the draft. A pattern of restrictions Travel bans against activists, harassment of NGOs through on-going judicial investigations and extremely restrictive laws amount to a pattern of abusive behaviour by the Egyptian authorities. On-going long-term investigations against civil society organisations such as the foreign funding case, which opened just five months after the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, have a severe chilling effect on public debate, creating an atmosphere of fear and repression. The case began when authorities raided 17 NGOs, accusing them of a conspiracy against Egypt. Then foreign NGOs were forced out of the country in 2013 when a court ordered the closure of several foreign human rights organisations and sentenced their staff. Civil society organisations came under increased pressure in 2014 when the Ministry of Social Solidarity announced that all Egyptian and foreign NGOs working in Egypt had to register with the Ministry of Social Solidarity before 2 September 2014. The foreign-funding case was re-opened in early 2016 and in September the assets of several human rights defenders and organisations were frozen, raising concerns that criminal sentences may be issued soon. By preventing Egyptian human rights defenders from travelling for their work and restricting their interactions with foreign NGOs and international bodies, it appears that the Egyptian government wants to prevent their contact and connection with the international human rights community; said Ghazouni. We stand in solidarity with Egyptian civil society: the travel bans must be lifted, the foreign funding case dropped and the repressive NGO law repealed. This would go some way to proving the Egyptian governments commitments to upholding human rights and promoting a diverse and tolerant society, she added. ARTICLE 19 calls on the Egyptian government to: Lift the travel ban against Mozn Hassan, and all other human rights defenders Drop the foreign funding case in its entirety and cease harassing civil society Repeal the new NGO law and reopen discussion of the draft NGO law prepared in collaboration with Egyptian civil society. Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19 Malaysia: Government must protect and facilitate BERSIH 5 Protest Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 18 November 2016 Cite as Article 19, Malaysia: Government must protect and facilitate BERSIH 5 Protest, 18 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834602d4.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. "Today's raid on the BERSIH 5 protest organisers' office and the detention of key civil society leaders nationwide shows the extent to which the government is intent on undermining fundamental human rights in order to stop public criticism," said ARTICLE 19's Head of Asia Programme, Oliver Spencer. "The Malaysian authorities must take urgent action to ensure that the right to protest is protected, respected and facilitated, in full compliance with international human rights standards," he added. ARTICLE 19 is concerned by the ongoing government crackdown against the BERSIH 5 protest movement, a peaceful protest planned for 19 November 2016, and its organisers, Bersih 2.0, a coalition of Malaysian NGOs formed in reaction to reports of government corruption and mismanagement which campaigns for free and fair elections in the country. Bersih 2.0 has faced threats of arrest and claims by senior officials that the BERSIH 5 protests are illegal. On 18 November, the day before the protest was due, Bersih 2.0's offices were raided by government officials, who allegedly confiscated equipment and took organisers to the police station. Reports are also coming in of other Bersih 2.0 leaders, students and party workers being taken into police stations nationwide in preparation for tomorrow's rally. BERSIH 5 participants and organisers have also been subject to intimidation by the informal non-state group known as the 'Red sShirts', who have close links with the governing party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). Since the announcement of the BERSIH 5 protest on 14 of September 2016, its organisers have reported death threats, harassment and intimidation, including from the Red Shirts. The BERSIH 2.0 Chairperson, Maria Chin Abdullah has received death threats twice. The BERSIH convoy that was held throughout the country in the build up to the forthcoming protest has also been disrupted by the Red Shirts. More than three incidents have ended with physical violence and confrontation where members of the BERSIH convoy were assaulted by members of the Red Shirts. ARTICLE 19 is concerned that the Royal Malaysian Police and the Attorney General Chambers of Malaysia - who have an obligation to facilitate the protests - have not taken any steps to either protect Bersih 2.0 organizers or ensure participants in the BERSIH 5 protests will be safe, despite the very real threat of violence posed by Red Shirt counter-demonstrations or potential agent provocateur actions. ARTICLE 19 reminds the Malaysian authorities that international law requires that States actively protect protesters, alongside other people, against any form of threats or violence by those who wish to prevent, disrupt or obstruct protests, including counter-demonstrators. The government should facilitate counter-protests within sight and sound of the original protest, in so far as this is possible, and deploy adequate resources to that effect. They should ensure that potential disorder arising from disagreement or tension between opposing groups is not used to justify the imposition of restrictions on the protest. ARTICLE 19 is also alarmed by the recent announcement from the Inspector General of Police about plans to use force against BERSIH protesters in order to close down the demonstrations. In the past, the Malaysian government has been condemned for its heavy-handed use of unnecessary and excessive force against protests critical of the government. ARTICLE 19 is also concerned about police "advice" to the public not to attend the protest. Under international human rights standards, States must ensure, in domestic law and in practice, that the overall approach to policing protests is never guided by the anticipation of violence and/or the use of force; rather, it should be guided by the principle that the use of force against protesters by law enforcement is restricted. ARTICLE 19 will join civil society organisations and the media in monitoring the Malaysian government's actions during BERSIH 5. We call on the Malaysian authorities to: 1. Respect, protect and fulfill all rights involved in the protests, in particular the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. These are protected both under international human rights law and the Malaysian Federal Constitution; 2. Ensure that everyone in Malaysia has the freedom to take part in protests without discrimination on any grounds, including political opinion or affiliation; 3. Facilitate BERSIH 5 protests by taking reasonable and appropriate measures to enable protests to take place without participants and organisers fearing physical violence or violations of their human rights, while minimising disruption and risks to the safety of members of the public affected by the protest; 4. Fully respect international human rights standards related to use of force, in particular the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, the standards elaborated by special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council (namely the Joint Report of Special Rapporteurs on the proper management of assemblies), as well as the Use of Force: Guidelines for Implementation of the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (issued by Amnesty International in August 2015); 5. Guarantee that organisers and protesters are not subjected to sanctions of any kind on the basis of acts committed by others during protests. Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19 Title Fourth Report Submitted by the Republic of Moldova Pursuant to Article 25, Paragraph 2 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities Publication Date 16 June 2015 Country Republic of Moldova Citation / Document Symbol ACFC/SR/IV(2015)005 Cite as Council of Europe: Secretariat of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Fourth Report Submitted by the Republic of Moldova Pursuant to Article 25, Paragraph 2 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, 16 June 2015, ACFC/SR/IV(2015)005, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583463344.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Title Fourth Report Submitted by the Slovak Republic Pursuant to Article 25, Paragraph 2 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities Publication Date 28 January 2014 Country Slovakia Citation / Document Symbol ACFC/SR/IV(2014)001 Other Languages / Attachments Slovak Cite as Council of Europe: Secretariat of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Fourth Report Submitted by the Slovak Republic Pursuant to Article 25, Paragraph 2 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, 28 January 2014, ACFC/SR/IV(2014)001, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583466364.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Title Comments of the Government of Sweden on the Third Opinion of the Advisory Committee on the Implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities by Sweden Publication Date 16 November 2012 Country Sweden Citation / Document Symbol GVT/COM/III(2012)006 Other Languages / Attachments Swedish Cite as Council of Europe: Secretariat of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Comments of the Government of Sweden on the Third Opinion of the Advisory Committee on the Implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities by Sweden, 16 November 2012, GVT/COM/III(2012)006, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58346a024.html [accessed 2 November 2022] Israel/OPT: Drop baseless charges against Palestinian human rights defender Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 22 November 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Israel/OPT: Drop baseless charges against Palestinian human rights defender, 22 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583471ad4.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. Israeli authorities must drop all charges against Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro, who is facing prison time for his internationally recognized peaceful activism against Israel's illegal settlements in the city of Hebron, Amnesty International said today. Issa Amro's trial is due to begin on 23 November at Ofer Military Court in the occupied West Bank. "The deluge of charges against Issa Amro does not stand up to any scrutiny. In their determination to silence him and stifle his human rights work, the Israeli authorities have apparently even reopened a closed case file. If he is convicted we will consider Issa Amro a prisoner of conscience," said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International. "As well as dropping the baseless and politically motivated charges against Issa Amro, the Israeli authorities should investigate his allegations of beatings in custody, and the physical and verbal abuse hurled at him by settlers, the army and the police. People who speak out about human rights abuses should be protected, not assaulted and harassed." Issa Amro is a Palestinian human rights defender who runs the Youth Against Settlements group in Hebron. He and his group are committed to non-violent activism against the illegal settlements in Hebron and the discriminatory restrictions placed on Palestinians by the Israeli authorities in the city. Issa Amro documents human rights violations in the city, organizes peaceful protests and distributes information about the settlements and the Israeli military occupation to visitors, journalists and diplomats. On 7 June 2016, 18 charges were levelled against Issa Amro at Ofer Military Court, some going back as far as 2010. They range from "insulting a soldier" to "assault". Some of the charges, such as "participating in a march without a permit", are not internationally recognizable criminal offences. One of the charges of assault refers to an incident in a protest on 20 March 2013 that took place after Issa Amro had already been arrested and was therefore not present. A video from the scene clearly shows another man was responsible for the incident, in which a settler's camera was broken. The protest was a peaceful one that coincided with US President Barack Obama's visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Protesters wore masks of Obama's face, wore T-shirts with "I have a dream" written on them, and waved the Palestinian flag - actions that the authorities considered political, and therefore criminal. Issa Amro told Amnesty International that he immediately realized that the charges were solely motivated by his activism, especially as many were from so long ago, and one case had previously been closed. His lawyer, Gaby Lasky, said that it was extremely unusual for cases to be re-opened in this way, and that the proper procedures to do so had not been followed by the police. A charge from 8 July 2013 relates to a conversation with a border policeman in which Issa Amro asked to be given back his ID after the border policeman took it for an ID check and kept Issa Amro waiting for half an hour. He said he told the policeman: "I want my ID back, I am not wanted, and if you had called to check you would know this. But you have not called, I know, I am not stupid." According to Issa Amro the policeman appeared to mishear this as "you are stupid", resulting in a further charge of "insulting a soldier". Issa Amro said that he was then taken to the police station and hit so hard in the back by a police officer that he still has to take medication. He said the officers would not let him go to hospital for three hours, and that they ensured he went to a Palestinian facility so that news of his beating would not be reported in Israel. "Issa Amro has faced a sustained campaign of harassment and assault at the hands of the Israeli military and settlers because of his activism. His case is emblematic of the climate of increasing hostility towards activists who protest the settlements, which are illegal under international law," said Magdalena Mughrabi. "We believe that he is facing trial solely for the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of expression and assembly. Imprisoning Issa Amro would be a travesty of justice and would silence yet another important critical voice in the Occupied Palestinian Territories." Background Amnesty International has documented a pattern of attacks on Palestinian human rights defenders, including Issa Amro, in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). An escalation of acts of intimidation by the government and attacks and threats by settlers and other non-state actors have created an increasingly dangerous environment for activists in Israel and in the OPT. Hebron is one of two Palestinian cities in the OPT that have illegal Israeli settlements inside them. The Israeli authorities have long imposed a set of severe and deeply discriminatory restrictions on movement on Palestinian residents of Hebron that have amounted to collective punishment. Israeli forces in Hebron frequently fail to prevent attacks on Palestinians by settlers, and almost never hold those responsible to account. Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International Libya: UN voices extreme concern at worsening humanitarian situation in Benghazi Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 22 November 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Libya: UN voices extreme concern at worsening humanitarian situation in Benghazi, 22 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834722e40c.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. 22 November 2016 - The United Nations is extremely concerned by the continued worsening humanitarian situation in Ganfouda area in the Libyan city of Benghazi due to increased hostilities over the past week, a senior UN aid official in the North African country said today. I am extremely worried by the impact on civilians of intense fighting in and around the Ganfouda area, the Libya Humanitarian Coordinator a.i.,Ghassan Khalil, said in a statement. He also noted that many people remaining in the area have limited or no access to drinking water or food, while other essential goods and medical supplies are running critically low. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Ganfouda district has been inaccessible for many months for aid organizations, leaving civilians in dire and urgent need of protection and humanitarian assistance. The Humanitarian Country Team stands ready to assist as soon as access is granted by all parties. Dr. Khalil called on all parties to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and civilian infrastructure in the conduct of hostilities. The sick and injured must be allowed to seek and receive medical assistance and civilians and captured fighters alike must be treated humanely, regardless of their origin or political affiliations, he said. Women and children should receive special assistance and protection. Those civilians wishing to leave should be allowed to do so in safety and dignity without delay, he added. Following six months of armed conflict in 2011, Libya has been plagued with fresh violence and political divisions. Beijing Encroaching on Moscow's Military Dominance in Tajikistan Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Umed Partov Publication Date 17 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 185 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Beijing Encroaching on Moscow's Military Dominance in Tajikistan, 17 November 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 185, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583475244.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. Link to original story on Jamestown website China has unexpectedly begun taking steps to become more militarily active in the small Central Asian republic of Tajikistan. Moreover, it is pushing for closer joint military and security cooperation with Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. These moves could position China as a potential regional counterweight to Russia, whose military role in Central Asia is exemplified by the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTOof which Tajikistan is also a member) as well as Russia's largest foreign military base, which is located on Tajikistani soil. On October 2024, a combined 10,000 military personnel from the National Army of Tajikistan and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China were mobilized together to engage in a five-day counterterrorism exercises in Tajikistan's Ishkoshim region, which borders on Afghanistan (Centre1.com, October 26; News.tj, October 20, 21; Sputnik-tj.com, October 19; Regnum, October 20). To date, neither Beijing nor any of its regional partners have publicly commented on China's sudden interest in bilateral military cooperation with Tajikistan. According to Tajikistani and Russian security experts, Beijing's growing military activity in Central Asia is highly unusual. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, China has promoted its economic interests in this region, but it had always maintained a largely invisible military presence (Centre1.com, October 26; Ozodi.org, August 11). Some analysts posit that Dushanbe's sudden appetite for Chinese military investments and cooperation is linked to the deteriorating security situation along its border with Afghanistan, and to security threats emanating from radicalized followers of the banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) (see EDM, October 14; Sputnik-tj.com, October 19; News.tj, August 11; 24tv.ua, August 8). Historically, the politico-economic elements of Dushanbe's multi-vector foreign policy have largely been tolerated by Moscow. But the recent developments in Sino-Tajikistani military relations might ignite new tensions between Moscow and Dushanbe (News.tj, August 11). Even though Moscow has not publicly protested China's unprecedented military steps in Tajikistan, these developments are almost certainly raising discomfort inside the Kremlin. Russian influence in Central Asia, particularly in Tajikistan, is significant. And although over the last quarter century Moscow's grip on the region has somewhat loosened, Russia still sees Central Asia as falling within its exclusive sphere of influence. The Russian military base in Tajikistan has existed for over 70 years, and the new bilateral agreement reached in 2012 allows it to remain there until 2042 (Riafan.ru, October 18). Considering this long-term, institutionalized presence of Russian boots on the ground in Tajikistan, it is particularly surprising that in late summer 2016, Beijing actually undertook concrete steps to form a regional counterterrorism coalition of sorts, bringing together Tajikistan along with Pakistan and Afghanistan (Knews.kg, News.tj, Ozodi.org, August 11). The process for establishing this military coalition was kicked off after a February 25, 2016, high-level meeting in Beijing between Ramazon Rahimzoda, Tajikistan's minister of internal affairs, and Guo Shengkun, the state councilor and minister of public security of China (Chinamil.com, February 26). Following this meeting, the chiefs of the armed forces of China, Tajikistan and Pakistan met together in Dushanbe. One of the outcomes of the meeting was an agreement to launch a joint counterterrorism center in Dushanbe for Tajikistan's Ministry of Interior and China's Ministry of Defense. In addition, Chinese officials pledged $70 million in military assistance for the Afghan security forces. These progressive steps culminated last August in a quadripartite meeting of the heads of the armed forces of China, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The four pledged to join together in a military coalition to bolster their collective counterterrorism efforts and cooperate on providing greater regional stability (Regnum.ru, October 20; Knews.kg, News.tj, Ozodi.org, August 11). In the past, Russia had expressed interest in putting together a similar "alliance." The heads of state of Russia, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan met on multiple occasions in 20092012, with the goal of forming a joint regional security and stability mechanism following the withdrawal of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan. But the initiative spearheaded by Russia never came to fruition (Sputnik-tj.com, April 3). By undertaking a more central role in providing security in Central Asia, Beijing appears determined to mitigate the physical risks to doing business in the region. China may also be seeking to ensure its own border with Tajikistan is safe from militants and insurgent groups arising in Afghanistan and the wider area. In their joint counterterrorism exercise on October 2024, Tajikistani and Chinese troops engaged in a simulated battle against a terrorist group that infiltrated Tajikistan with a mission to destabilize Xinjiang. Reportedly, the two militaries successfully neutralized this threat during the course of the exercise. Tajikistan's minister of defense, General Sharali Mirzo, believes this shared experience of mutual support will have long-term positive consequences for the two countries' armed forces and their ability to work together in the future (News.tj, October 20, 24). Many countries like Tajikistan, which suffer from enormous socio-economic problems, strongly favor establishing closer ties to China. Unlike Russia, which is itself struggling with an economic crisis, China is more generous when it comes to investing in foreign countries' domestic economies and building up their local infrastructure. And in terms of military assistance, China has already spent $15 million to construct apartments for military officers in Dushanbe. It has also agreed to build new military facilities for Tajikistani border troops (Ozodi.org, October 19; Pressa.tj, October 20). Compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars that Russia has for years been spending on military assistance to Tajikistan (see EDM, October 16, 2013), the Chinese aid remains quite small. But it nevertheless represents the opening of a tangible new area of cooperation. Moscow's silence regarding Beijing's military-sector initiatives in Central Asia could imply that the Russian government is giving China the benefit of the doubt: presumably, Russia may trust that China's main objectives are simply to provide security for its multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects under the Silk Road Economic Belt and to fight international terrorism. However, it is quite possible that Beijing is in fact positioning itself in preparation for the eventuality that the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU)which Tajikistan may eventually joinends up closing China off from Central Asia economically. Either way, the quadrilateral China-Tajikistan-Pakistan-Afghanistan military coalition will likely be a stepping-stone for Beijing's future military expansion in the region. As such, it can serve as a long-term lever for China to diminish Russia's overall influence in Central Asia. Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation Russian Ethnic Minorities Repudiate Proposed Law on the Russian Nation Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Vadim Shtepa Publication Date 17 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 185 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Russian Ethnic Minorities Repudiate Proposed Law on the Russian Nation, 17 November 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 185, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834759fa.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. Link to original story on Jamestown website At an October 31 meeting of the Interethnic Relations Council, President Vladimir Putin approved the idea to adopt the "Law on the Russian Nation" (rossiyskaya natsiya), which would legally define the term (Kremlin.ru, October 31). This proposal, and its potential legalistic consequences for the country's non-ethnic-Russians has sparked widespread controversy and discussion within society and throughout the various regions of the Russian Federation. In most world languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, etc.) the word "Russian" refers both to Russians as an ethnic group, and to Russia as a state. However, in the Russian language, there is a clear distinction between the words "russkiye," indicating the ethno-cultural community, and "rossiyskiy," which refers to the country of Russia. The proposed Law on the Russian Nation consciously uses the second form of the word in Russian. Nonetheless, according to the president of the Russian National Strategy Institute, Mikhail Remizov, "The term 'Russian nation' [rossiyskaya natsiya] is perceived both by ethnic Russians and by other peoples of Russia as an attack on their identity" (Novyi Den, November 4). After Putin's endorsement of this law, the leader of the Just Russia Party, Sergei Mironov, proposed including language into the bill describing the "state-forming" status of the ethnic-Russian people. Moreover, he advocated that the Law on the Russian Nation become a basis for state ideology (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, November 8). The Russian Constitution explicitly forbids the adoption of a state ideology, but many of the country's current politicians have increasingly been calling to overturn this ban (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, November 10). Naturally, the embrace of a state ideology would harken back to the era of Soviet Communism, while the proclamation of a dominant role for the Russian ethnicity could spark inter-ethnic conflicts across Russia. According to the 2010 census, ethnic Russians represent about 80 percent of Russia's population. Nevertheless, the country is traditionally considered "multinational," given the presence inside Russia of 21 national republics and 4 autonomous regions inhabited by other ethnic groups. Even the column "nationality" in Soviet-era passports referred to ethnicity. Current terminological confusion, fraught with inter-ethnic problems, persists because of this heritage. Therefore, unlike in Europe or the United States, the word "nation" in Russia is treated not as a mark of citizenship, but as signifying membership in an ethnic group. For these and numerous other reasons, the representatives of various national republics within the Russian Federation have been openly critical of the proposed Law on the Russian Nation. For example, Ivan Shamaev, a deputy in the local assembly of the Siberian Sakha Republic (Yakutia), rejects the term "Russian nation" itself, arguing that it marginalizes Russia's national (i.e. ethnic) diversity (Regnum, November 2). This view is shared by Dr. Damir Iskhakov, a prominent ethnologist from Tatarstan: "If the concept of the 'Russian nation' is adopted as law, it would effectively mean the state's non-recognition of many nations" (Proufu.ru, November 4). Karelian journalist Andrei Tuomi, meanwhile, has directly compared this desire of the Russian authorities to construct a unified imperial nation with German Nazism (Mustoi.ru, November 8). Ekaterinburg economist Evgeny Yushchuk has suggested that the idea of enshrining into law the notion of a "Russian nation" sets up the conditions for pushing through radical administrative territorial reform and the abolition of national republics within the Russian Federation (Politrussia.com, November 7). Indeed, such an outcome might become feasible if the proposed legislation specifically identifies the "Russian nation" (rossiyskaya natsiya) as the only nation recognized by law: this would make the existence of the country's national republics appear illogical. Because Russia lacks a true federalist system (see EDM, May 13), the state policy is based on unitary slogans. So perhaps the Law on the Russian Nation was in fact designed to bolster "patriotic" mobilization, which has been faltering under the negative influence of Russia's economic crisis. However, in practice, civic nation are created not by legal laws, but through social and historical processes. And as Ukrainian journalist Valery Portnikov has noted, this process can be observed in real life, not just in the history books: "I watched it in the Ukrainian example. I saw quite a fantastic solidarity in Maidan 20132014. Civic nations are born in uprisings, wars and reforms. Without any decrees and laws" (Grani, November 3). In contrast to other former Soviet republics, the Russian Federation was not born a historically new country. Rather, it considers itself a direct continuation of the Soviet Union and the tsarist Russian Empire before it. As a result, imperial consciousness has continued to shape modern Russian society and impeded the emergence of a new civic nation. The pro-Kremlin expert Konstantin Kalachev has explicitly stated that the proposed Law on the Russian Nation is an extension of the imperially grounded ideas of the "Russian Spring"a triumphalist narrative about Russia being on the march, which gained in popularity after the annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine (Gazeta.ru, October 31). Furthermore, the unitary "Russian nation" idea looks like an analogue of the "Soviet people," which was explicitly written into Leonid Brezhnev's 1977 Constitution. When the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1991, then-president Boris Yeltsin tried to replace the notion of the "Soviet people" with "Russians" (rossiyanei.e. residents or citizens of the Russian state), but this word failed to take root in common parlance. Instead, Russians prefer to use the word russkiye, which has a clear ethnic-based connotation. Today, Putin's neo-imperial policies are, thus, a synthesis of the legacy of the "Soviet people" combined with the nationalist idea of the "Russian world" (Russkiy mir). Igor Eidman, a Russian sociologist who has emigrated to Germany, believes that ideological propaganda is most effective when it is based on a primitive but effective substitution of notions in people's minds. "The Putin regime is identified with the interests of the Russian people. Accordingly, those who oppose Putin are declared opponents of Russia," he has noted (Deutsche WelleRussian service, November 11). Moscow-based professor Boris Sokolov fears that the Law on the Russian Nation will end up being used in an equally repressive manner as other recent Russian legislation. Sokolov argues that this law may justify the prosecution of those who deny the "unity of the Russian nation" (Day.kyiv.ua, November 2). Indeed, the aforementioned October 31 meeting of the Interethnic Relations Council also proposed organizing a "Year of Russian National Unity." Presumably this may fall next year, in 2017. If so, the year's commemorations may explicitly seek to eclipse the 100th anniversary of the February Revolution of 1917, when Russia overthrew absolute monarchy and briefly became a democratic republic. Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation Liberal Economist Minister in Russian Cabinet Arrested for Alleged Bribe-Taking Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Pavel Felgenhauer Publication Date 17 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 185 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Liberal Economist Minister in Russian Cabinet Arrested for Alleged Bribe-Taking, 17 November 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 185, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834762e4.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. Link to original story on Jamestown website The arrest (on November 15) of Alexei Ulyukaev (60), the minister of economic development of the Russian Federation, dominated the news coming out of Moscow this week. Ulyukaev is accused of soliciting a $2 million bribe from RosneftRussia's largest state-owned oil major. Ulyukaev was promptly ousted by President Vladimir Putin and placed under house arrest. Officials have stated that Ulyukaev has been under surveillance by the Federal Security Service (FSB) since at least this past summer: His phone was tapped and the premises electronically bugged. Last summer, Ulyukaev publicly disagreed with plans to sell the state-owned oil company Bashneft to Rosneft, arguing that this did not represent real privatization. Rather, it was more like moving a valuable asset out of one state pocket and shoving it into another. Nevertheless, on October 10, Rosneft purchased a majority share in Bashneft for some 330 billion rubles ($5 billion), without any other potential buyers allowed to bid for this highly profitable asset. Ulyukaev was arrested in the Rosneft headquarters after allegedly accepting $2 million in cash as gratitude for reversing his position on the Bashneft sale. Rosneft reportedly alerted the authorities that Ulyukaev demanded a payoff. FSB agents waited for him at the Rosneft offices, while the $2 million in $100 bills allegedly meant for him was marked with invisible ink and placed into two suitcases. Ulyukaev's lawyers told the press this was a provocative sting operation and that their client never touched the money. Sources in the FSB claim Ulyukaev touched the handle of one of the money cases that was also tainted with invisible ink and that there is ample evidence of criminal wrongdoing (Interfax, November 16). Ulyukaev is known for having been a prominent member of the group of liberal economic and political reformers in the team of Yegor Gaidar (prime minister of Russia from June to December 1992), who drastically overhauled Russia from a centrally-planned Communist state to a market-orientated economy, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. After Putin took over the Kremlin in 2000, Ulyukaev was appointed first deputy of Putin's favored economic guru, thenfinance minister Alexei Kudrin. In 2004, Ulyukaev became first deputy head of Russia's Central Bank. In 2013, Ulyukaev joined Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's Cabinet as minister of economic development. An unnamed "source in law enforcement" told the Rosbalt news agency, "Ulyukaev, together with other top state officials, was under secret FSB surveillance and wiretapping for many months." These officials were allegedly conspiring to stop the purchase of Bashneft by Rosneft. The investigation was apparently initiated and led by an FSB officer, General Oleg Feoktistov, who recently took over as chief of Rosneft's security service while continuing to actively serve in the FSB. (In Russia, this is known as "pricomandyrovaniye"a military or security serviceperson is ordered to take a position in another department or private company, but continuing active service and receiving pay, benefits and directives from both employers.) Ulyukaev was allegedly preparing to retire from government service and solicited a $2 million payout from Rosneft as a retirement benefit. Security officials hope other top officials that opposed the Bashneft buyout may still be arrested, if Ulyukaev implicates them under interrogation (Rosbalt, November 16). According to information leaked to the business daily Vedomosti, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich and Putin's economic aide, former minister of economic development Andrei Belousov, who both publicly criticized the proposed purchase of Bashneft by Rosneft, were under secret FSB surveillance and wiretapping since the summer, together with other lesser officials. Putin apparently was informed about the secret FSB investigation and surveillance activities. The CEO of Rosneft, Putin's former right-hand man Igor Sechin, evidently used his connections with the FSB and the Kremlin to smash any opposition to his drive to further enlarge his oil firm (Vedomosti, November 16). According to a recent report by Transparency International, Russia is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe and Central Asia. Russian citizens feel helpless when faced with overwhelming state and government corruption (Interfax, November 16). Still, the Ulyukaev case seems peculiar against the background of Russia's sea of corruption. For one thing, the alleged $2 million bribe seems too small by Moscow standardsparticularly in comparison with the multi-billion-dollar cost of the Bashneft purchaseto warrant all the tumult created by the public arrest of a sitting cabinet minister. And second, why would Ulyukaev have risked threatening the formidable and influential Sechin simply to extract the relatively meager sum of $2 million? Was Alexei Ulyukaev's downfall a relatively isolated incidentthe result of Igor Sechin's vengefulness, organized by FSB General Feoktistov? Or is it, in fact, a manifestation of more substantial shifts within the Russian ruling elite? Ulyukaev, who was pushed out of power in the second half of the 1990s, together with the rest of the "Gaidar team," refrained from becoming embroiled in any political controversies after Putin returned him to the ruling elite in 2000. A Duma deputy from the ruling United Russia party, Elena Panina, believes Ulyukaev's arrest will lead to the subsequent disgrace of other liberal economic officials and a radical change in Russia's economic policies. She predicts that Russia may start to abandon more open-market policies in favor of greater protectionist trade and financial restrictions. According to the Russian parliamentarian, the election of Donald Trump to the White House signals the death of free trade and open market liberalismand Russia must follow suit (RIA Novosti, November 15). Rosneft is itself up for partial privatizationsome 19.5 percent of the state-held stock (worth over $10 billion) will be up for sale soon to partially cover the state budget deficit. Reportedly, Rosneft might be allowed to buy back its own stock under the guise of privatization, which would make Sechin even more rich and powerful (Kommersant, November 16). As billions of dollars of assets change hands, the FSB has publicly acknowledged it is secretly wiretapping and investigating cabinet ministers and top Kremlin officials (see above). The practice of placing top government and party officials under surveillance was routinely carried out by the FSB's predecessor security services during Joseph Stalin's rule; but this was specifically forbidden after his demise. So does the Ulyukaev case portend the replay of certain elements of Stalinist state terror, or is this just another fight for resources within the Russian elite, fueled primarily by greed? Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation China and CEE Countries Push for Broader Economic Cooperation in Riga Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Olevs Nikers Publication Date 16 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 184 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, China and CEE Countries Push for Broader Economic Cooperation in Riga, 16 November 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 184, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5834776e4.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. Link to original story on Jamestown website Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang's historic visit to Riga, Latvia, on November 4, marked the opening of a new chapter in relations between Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). During his three-day visit, Li met together with the heads of governments of 16 CEE countries. The summit resulted in a string of far-reaching economic agreements. Notably, officials signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the Silk Road economic zone and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative. MoUs were also signed regarding cooperation between Chinese and CEE think tanks, on the promotion of cooperation in the field of tourism, as well as cooperation between small- and medium-sized enterprises (Lsm.lv, November 5). The Chinese prime minister's visit to Latvia was a milestone event in the sense that it enhances the opportunities for Europeans to attract new technology, investment and knowledge. At the same time, China is exploring new ways expand its exports, looking for secure and reliable channels. The CEE region is becoming a distinct link within China's new Silk Road, which will more directly connect East Asia to Europe. With this collection of strategic transit projects, Beijing is hoping to carve out new export markets for its companies as China's domestic economy slows (NRA, November 4). The aforementioned "16 + 1" summit hosted by Riga was in fact initiated by Beijing. And in addition to the meeting of heads of government, the event brought together 650 representatives of companies from China, Latvia and other CEE countries. The participating businesses spanned the transport, finance, investment, trade and tourism sectors. During the 16 + 1 summit, China launched a 10 billion euro ($10.67 billion) investment fund to finance projects in Central and Eastern Europe. The fund is aiming to raise a total of 50 billion euros ($53.47 billion) in project financing for sectors such as infrastructure, high-tech manufacturing and consumer goods. While targeting the CEE region, it could extend to the rest of Europe and other areas, if relevant to China-CEE cooperation. Chinas Deputy Commerce Minister Gao Yan noted that, last year, Chinese companies already invested more than $5 billion in CEE countries (Lsm.lv, November 6). Symbolically, during Li's visit to Latvia, the first rail cars loaded with containers arrived in Riga from the Chinese city of Yiwu, on November 5. Carrying textiles, plumbing and household goods, the train traveled more than 11,000 kilometers across Russia to Riga in 16 days (YiwuZabaikalskRiga). "Riga has already become one of the major global transit points, and direct rail transport to Latvia is being considered the most promising mode of freight to Europe," said Yiwu's Deputy Mayor Kyong Tao (Delfi.lv, November 5). This route is planned to be developed for regular railway consignments every month. Given the great interest in this rail corridor, additional trains will to be organized from Yiwu to Riga in the nearest future. Since Latvia established diplomatic relations with the PRC 25 years ago, bilateral cooperation has covered health care, culture, education and science. An agreement on defense cooperation was also signed between the two countries in Beijing, in December 2006. And since that time, military observers from the two countries have been present at each others' military exercises and participated in several exchange programs. A high-level Chinese military visit took place in April 2015 (Mfa.gov.lv, accessed November 6). China is becoming an increasingly important trading partner for all three of the Baltic StatesLatvia, Lithuania and Estoniaas their access to and interest in the Russia market has gradually eroded following the restoration of their independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. Moreover, the Baltics' exports to China have been growing. Ten years ago, in 2006, Latvian exports to China accounted for only 10 million euros, while currently they have grown to more than 100 million euros ($106.75 million). Latvian food exports to China, in particular, have found new niches thanks to the certification of a number of dairy and fish manufacturers. In addition, Latvian timber products, cosmetics and electrical equipment have also been making substantial inroads in China (Tvnet.lv, November 5). According to the Latvian Minister of Economy Arvils Aseradens, Latvia is a destination point for 13,00015,000 tourists from China annually. He suggested that in order to multiply this number, establishing direct flights between the two countries could help a lot. Such a plan was in fact discussed in a business forum during the 16 + 1 summit in Riga (Tvnet.lv, November 4). Moreover, according to Minister Aseradens, "Chinese companies are currently looking for opportunities to cooperate with the port of Riga and other Latvian ports [Ventspils and Liepaja], and they are looking at the other promising projects in the transport and logistics sector, such as 'Rail Baltica' [planned railroad that will connect Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia] for example" (Tvnet.lv November 4). Estonian Foreign Policy Institute researcher Aap Neljas has noted that the idea to reduce barriers to Chinese investment and cooperation are frequently discussed among European countries. But paradoxically, current Chinese-European cooperation most strongly reflects China's direct interests, rather than Europe's. "Until now most of the projects that have been implemented reflect Chinas priorities alone. In turn, the Central European countries, such as Estonia, would like to see more new investments that can provide jobs, promote exports and also increase more direct cooperation between the partners. In addition, I think that cooperation between Central European countries and China should be conducted in accordance with the EU's general standards and rules," Neljas argued (LSM.lv, November 5). The Baltic States and the other CEE countries are actively looking forward to expanding their cooperation with China. And the recent 16 + 1 summit in Riga certainly generated new instruments for cooperation. Increased economic relations with China and East Asia are clearly a high priority for EU member states, which are seeking new markets and investments. But the challenge for them to navigate will be ensuring that local and European interests, norms, and legislation are properly safeguarded and defended. Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation US Elections and Economic Concerns Dominate Internal Debates in Belarus Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Grigory Ioffe Publication Date 16 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 184 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, US Elections and Economic Concerns Dominate Internal Debates in Belarus, 16 November 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 184, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583478534.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. Link to original story on Jamestown website The United States' presidential election elicited genuine interest in Belarus. On November 8, at 7:30 PM Minsk time, while voting was still in its early phase, the US embassy held a reception marking the event. The reception was attended by at least 300 people, representing the government, media, think tanks, the vast majority of the opposition, and even Russia's ambassador to Belarus, Alexander Sourikov. Guests were encouraged to participate in mock elections, in which Hillary Clinton won in a landslide (Tut.by, November 8). Just like in the US itself, Belarusian experts and pundits largely failed to forecast the actual outcome. And yet, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka did accurately predict Donald Trump's victory as early as two months ago (Naviny.by, November 9). Immediately after Trump's win, the US elections became the central theme of discussion within the print and Internet media as well as politically minded talk shows on Belarusian TV. On one such show, Forum, which airs on CTV (the episode was broadcast on October 14), Tatyana Korotkevich posed a rhetorical question as to why Belarusians pay more attention to US elections than to their own. Korotkevich was a 2015 presidential hopeful and remains the leader of the Speak the Truth civic campaign in Belarus. Her own response to this question was that Belarusian people enjoy watching a genuine electoral process that is not overshadowed by suspicion that the vote would be rigged. However, she was shouted down by some other guests on the show, notably Oleg Gaidukevich of the Liberal Democratic Party. Nonetheless, Korotkevich was arguably on target. Of utmost interest to Belarus's domestic analysts are two issues: Is Trump's victory akin to last summer's Brexit (whereby voters in the United Kingdom chose to leave the European Union) and a harbinger of looming government takeovers by social conservatives (e.g. Marine Le Pen) in Europe? And what, if anything, will be the outcome of Trump's election for Belarus? Interest in the first issue is related to the fact that Lukashenka is often considered a spiritual brother of these Western social conservatives. The aforementioned Gaidukevich is an aspiring cheerleader for this line of thought. Even more natural is Belarusian's interest in the latter issue. While it is difficult to speculate on the implication of Trump's victory for Belarus, it is noteworthy that the opposition-minded pundits are fixated on a zero-sum game approach. To them, Trump's treatment of Belarus stands in inverse proportion to his treatment of Russia. If it remains hostile or grows even worse, then Belarus may count on some carrots from Washington. But if it improves, Belarus may be "left at the mercy of Russia," they fear. Both Andrei Dynko, the editor-in-chief of the leading opposition newspaper Nasha Niva, and Paval Usau, a political commentator, firmly stick to this view (Svaboda.org, November 12). For the opposition, the notion that Belarus may be seen as a self-styled actor on the European scene is not even considered a possibility as long as Lukashenka is at the helm of power. And this is despite Belarus' peace-brokering initiative in conjunction with the conflict in Ukraine and other foreign relations initiatives. In the meantime, Belarus's independent diplomatic overtures have lately been bearing fruit when it comes to diversifying the destinations of its exports. First, a deal was finalized with the United Arab Emirates during Lukashenka's visit, on October 30November 6, for export of Belarusian-made crawler tractors for transporting tanks. This contract is based on a previous deal, from 2007, when a transaction with the same buyer led to the delivery of 200 such vehicles (Naviny.by, November 13). Later, during the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Minsk, on November 11, the two sides discussed several important contracts. Erdogan and Lukashenka also attended the inauguration of a mosque in Minsk (Tut.by, November 11). To overcome Belarus's economic doldrums, the country will need not only new destinations for its exports, but also to energize its foremost sectors of domestic growth. One of them is information technologies (IT). According to Yury Zisser, the founder and owner of Tut.by, a popular Belarusian news and analysis portal, Minsk should improve the business environment by decriminalizing so-called "unregistered entrepreneurship," cutting back on penalties for innocuous clerical mistakes, and avoiding arrests of prominent businessmen. The "Catch-22" situation local entrepreneurs often find themselves inwhereby, they can either build a successful business and then have it taken away by the authorities, or build an unsuccessful business and end up in jail for itmust be eliminated, Zisser argued (Tut.by, November 10). Despite persistent problems, however, Belarus is already the world leader in per capita export of IT products: $74. For comparison, Russia's per capita IT exports equal $19; in India the figure is $41; and in the US it is $43. In 2016, the export revenue of the Minsk-based High-Tech Park, with 160 resident companies and 24,000 employees, will exceed $1 billion. After the first Minsk Start-up Weekend was conducted back in 2009, the number of such events in Belarus has skyrocketed. Thus, in 2016, 174 technology and start-up events have taken place in the Belarusian capital, and most of them were attended by foreigners. Besides EPAM, Belarus's largest IT company, the Belarusian tech firms with the highest name recognition across the world are Wargaming, MAPS.ME, and MSQRD. These apps as well as the world-famous messenger Viber, were created by Belarusian software developers without any state support whatsoever. Of importance are business incubators, where inexperienced entrepreneurs can obtain useful advice. The oldest and most successful entity of this type, ZAO MAP, is located in Kolodishchi, near Minsk (Tut.by, November 10). Just 11 years ago, there was no High-Tech Park, and Belarusian computer programmers used to emigrate in droves. Now, despite all the crises, Belarus's IT business is expanding dozens of percentage points per year. Zisser has asserted that in about 15 years, Belarus will become the third-largest producer of software in the world, after the US and Israel (Svaboda, November 10). When and if this happens, a demand for a new political environment will be generated, meaning Belarusians will likely become more energized by their own elections as well. In the meantime, Western foreign policy toward Minsk can either act to support or hinder this long-term trend gradually remaking Belarus. Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation After Leaving Odesa, Saakashvili's Political Future Even More Uncertain in His Native Georgia Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Vasili Rukhadze Publication Date 16 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 184 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, After Leaving Odesa, Saakashvili's Political Future Even More Uncertain in His Native Georgia, 16 November 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 184, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583478e04.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. Link to original story on Jamestown website Mikhail Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia (20042013), resigned from his post of governor of Ukraine's Odesa region, on November 7. Justifying his decision, Saakashvili accused President Petro Poroshenko's administration of supporting corruption in the region and the country in general. In his emotionally charged address, Saakashvili vowed to continue his fight to rid Ukraine of corruption (Rustavi 2, November 7). Saakashvili's resignation, after a bit over a year in the job, calls into question not only on his own political future, but also that of the so-called "team of reformers"several other former Georgian politicians and government functionaries brought over to Ukraine to help the new political regime carry out ambitious political reforms. Some of them, in fact, already dropped out of the Ukrainian government. In March 2016, David Sakvarelidze, Ukraine's deputy attorney general, who previously served in the same role in Georgia under Saakashvili's government, was sacked from his post for an alleged "grave violation of prosecutorial ethics" (Ukraine Today, March 29). Sakvarelidze has tried to reinvent himself as an opposition politician in Ukraine; in May, he announced the creation of a new political party, which curiously still does not have a formal name. Sakvarelidze had identified Mikhail Saakashvili as one of the main "leaders and drivers" of the party (Reporter-ua.ru, Zik.ua, May 24). Over the summer, some experts even speculated that Saakashvili, then still a governor, was indirectly (and secretly) involved in the creation of Sakvarelidze's new political faction (Odessa Talk, June 28). It is highly likely that Sakvarelidze and his political group will now join forces with Saakashvili, since the latter is no longer part of the Ukrainian government. Moreover, in May, Eka Zguladze, another former Georgian official, who served as Ukraine's deputy interior minister since December 2014, resigned from her post. To date, Zguladze has not formally entered Ukrainian politics. She has, however, accepted a proposal to work on the interior ministry's reform team, leading a special group of advisors (Ukrainian Information Agency, May 11). It yet to be seen whether Saakashvili's resignation will convince her to join forces with him. Additionally, on November 14, Khatia Dekanoidze, Georgia's former minister of education, who followed Saakashvili to Ukraine, resigned from her post as Ukraine's national police chief. She stated with regret that her powers were no longer sufficient to make significant changes within the agency (Kyiv Post, November 14). It is still unclear whether Dekanoidze intends to join Saakashvili's opposition faction in Ukraine; yet, in all likelihood, she will. Saakashvili's own political future in Ukraine is uncertain. But a further question now being raised is how Saakashvili's resignation from the governorship of Odesa will affect political life in his home country of Georgiaand particularly regarding his party, United National Movement (UNM). After UNM's major defeat in last month's parliamentary elections (October 8 and October 30), Saakashvili's grip on his Georgian party is rapidly slipping away. A number of UNM's senior members have come out to openly challenge his leadership (see EDM, October 11, November 2). Gigi Ugulava, one of the party's most prominent leaders, who is currently serving a prison sentence for alleged abuses of power, even wrote a lengthy letter from his cell regarding Saakashvili's future role. He bluntly urged UNM to elect a new leader and adjust to new political realities (Rustavi 2, November 4). Saakashvili seems well aware of the deepening rift within the party. In a step of political maneuvering, the former president himself said that UNM should elect a new leader. However, a couple days later, he lashed out against "one or two [unnamed] whimsical persons from UNM" who were allegedly responsible for the party's defeat in the October elections (Civil Georgia, November 10). Most likely, Saakashvili's statement was addressed against one of the party leaders, Giga Bokeria, and his faction in UNM. So far, Saakashvili looks to be struggling to find his political place in post-election Georgia (as well as in Ukraine). He is certainly attempting to garner any political support, whether foreign or domestic. Right after Donald J. Trump's November 8 victory in the presidential election in the United States, Saakashvili posted on his Facebook page a number of pictures and videos featuring his friendship with the then still businessman. Saakashvili's posts particularly featured him and Trump in 2011, when the latter visited Georgia to promote his business projects there (Facebook.com/SaakashviliMikheil, accessed November 14). Saakashvili's decision to resign as governor of Odesa so soon after his party's defeat in Georgia's parliamentary elections does not seem to be a coincidence. Most likely, realizing that he would not be able to return to power in Georgia, he has immediately repositioned himself on Ukraine's national political stage by moving into the opposition. Former president Saakashvili seems to be seeking to attain greater political power in Ukraine. However, his political opportunism may once again take him back to Georgiaspecifically, if the Georgian Dreamled government in Tbilisi runs into a serious economic crisis within the next four years. Any ensuing social upheaval in Georgia could open up a possibility for Saakashvili to return as an opposition leader who can bring order back to the country. But now that Saakashvili has become a full-time opposition politician in Ukraine, will he have enough time and other resources to also follow and be involved in Georgian politics? Moreover, can he be an opposition leader in two countries at the same time? Few if any such precedents exist to date. Surely, some within Saakashvili's own UNM party may also question the rationale of such an undertaking. Following his resignation as governor, the once-powerful leader of Georgia is now fighting for political survival. While trying to find his place and, if possible, attain political power in Ukraine, his place in Georgian politics remains murky. But he does not seem too far gone yet: he could still potentially return to Georgia, if the political-economic situation there begins to really turn sour for the government in Tbilisi. The following months will certainly provide more insight into Saakashvili's political future. Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation In Syria, Moscow Orchestrating Another 'Circassian Genocide' Publisher Jamestown Foundation Publication Date 15 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 183 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, In Syria, Moscow Orchestrating Another 'Circassian Genocide', 15 November 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 183, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583479394.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. Link to original story on Jamestown website The Russian government killed or expelled nearly the entire Circassian nation from the North Caucasus in 1864, after this group resisted the Russian Empire's advance there for more than a century. To this day, the Circassians remember this as their "genocide." Now, the Russian government is committing an analogous act by refusing to recognize that the Circassians of Syria have the right to recognition as refugees. Moreover, Russia is blocking them from leaving that war-torn country, in which Moscow is a belligerent, and resettle in their historical homeland. The reason for this inhumane policy, Circassian activists say, is that the Circassians of Syria are "living testimony to the [genocidal] expulsion of [their nation] to the Ottoman Empire" 150 years ago. Prior to the beginning of the war in Syria, there were approximately 50,000 Circassians living within its borders. Now, according to Circassian activists, there remain no more than 20,000. Some have been killed, many are already internally displaced persons (IDP), but most of that missing 30,000 have fled abroad-the overwhelming majority to Turkey, Jordan and European countries. Russia has officially taken in fewer than 3,000, even though the North Caucasus is the historical homeland of the Circassians and even though far more than that have sought entry. The exact number of Circassians from Syria in the North Caucasus is uncertain because it appears there are more there than the Russian authorities know about (Caucasustimes.com, November 10). But there is no question that Moscow has turned most away. This year, for example, Russian officials set a quota of 65 for the number of Circassians who could return to Adygea. Moreover, officials in Maikop say that "no one has received the status of refugee, two have been expelled for violating Russian laws, and four have left Russia" on their own. The remaining 59 have been given only temporary residence permits. Circassian groups, like the International Circassian Association, have long called on Moscow to treat the Circassians of Syria as a special case, but the Russian foreign ministry has absolutely refused. Consequently, Moscow's policies have put the Circassians of Syria who want to come to the North Caucasus in an impossible position. On the one hand, those who do reach the North Caucasus on the basis of the quota cannot ask for asylum as such, lest they lose all social guarantees. And on the other, because few Syrian Circassians know Russian, they are almost precluded from being integrated into Russia's legal space in the way that Tajiks or Uzbeks are generally able to do-a reality that has especially infuriated the Circassians and highlighted the way in which Moscow is singling them out. As a result, Circassian activists say, many of the Circassians who do manage to come to Russia feel compelled to return home, despite the violence and the threat of death that hangs over them there. According to Maikop journalist Anzor Daur, "today there is a crisis in the repatriation of Circassians." Many of their leaders, he says, now despair that they will save the Circassians of Syria or even be able, in the future, to restore the Circassian nation's homeland as they have long sought (Onkavkaz.com, November 13). Neither Russian nor Western human rights activists have devoted much attention to this ongoing tragedy. But the leaders of Circassian groups are not only perfectly aware of it but are, in fact, worried that it may point to the end of their hopes for a revival of the nation and of a recognized Circassian homeland in the North Caucasus. For the OnKavkaz.com portal, Daur has interviewed two such Circassian leaders. Their words clearly highlight the way in which Moscow's policies in this may be contributing to an ultimate destruction of the Syrian Circassians (Onkavkaz.com, November 13). One of the reasons Russia has been able to get away with this is that Moscow has not actually articulated a clear policy of keeping the Circassians of Syria out of Russia, Timur Zhuzhuyev, the head of the Adgye Khase youth organization of Karachaevo-Cherkessia noted. Although he could not say "that there is an unpublished decision of the Russian authorities not to take in the Circassians," Moscow has done almost everything it can to keep them out by throwing up roadblocks. Meanwhile, the Circassians of Syria are dying; and no one is demanding that something be done about it. Adam Bogus, the president of the Adyge Khase of the Republic of Adygea, is far more pessimistic. He said that after some progress in the run-up to and immediately following the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympiad, almost all efforts to improve the situation of the Circassians in the North Caucasus and to allow Circassians from Syria and elsewhere to return there have "in practice completely ceased." "I already do not believe in the rebirth of the Circassians. Vladimir Putin had set the task of forming an all-Russian nation, which must absorb all the other peoples of the country. We certainly, will be near the front on this path of assimilation," he said. Thus, the prospects for the Circassians of Syria and the Circassian nation as a whole appear quite bleak indeed. It would be a tragedy if, after attracting the world's attention to the tragic events of 1864 (see EDM, May 6, 2013; May 27, 2014), the Circassians of the North Caucasus and elsewhere proved unable to do the same concerning the looming potential "genocide" of their people in Syria in 2016. - See more at: https://jamestown.org/program/syria-moscow-orchestrating-another-circassian-genocide/#sthash.MRzi9BGq.dpuf Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation Surkov's Hacked E-Mails Offer Glimpse Into Kremlin's Policy in Abkhazia Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Valery Dzutsati Publication Date 22 November 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 183 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Surkov's Hacked E-Mails Offer Glimpse Into Kremlin's Policy in Abkhazia, 22 November 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 183, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58347b874.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. Link to original story on Jamestown website On October 23 and 25, a team of Ukrainian hackers, known as Kiberkhunta (Cyber-Junta), unveiled a massive number of e-mails that belonged to the notorious Russian official Vladislav Surkov. Prior to 2013, Surkov was responsible for Russia's domestic policies in Vladimir Putin's administration. After 2013, Surkov focused on Russian foreign policy-specifically, Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well as, unofficially, on Ukraine. While Russia's involvement in Ukraine and its backing of the Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" had been an open secret for a long time, the revelations publicized by Kiberkhunta were still important due to the intriguing details they provided. The Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab confirmed that the leaked documents appeared to be authentic (Meduza.io, October 26). Much attention has been paid to the situation in Ukraine and Russia's involvement in it, but there has been relatively little focus on the situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Surkov's hacked e-mail account provided a rare glimpse into Moscow's dealings with the government in Abkhazia, headed by the former KGB official Raul Khajimba. At the same time, the leak caused a public scandal in the Georgian breakaway region, as the opposition accused the territory's leader of selling out the interests of Abkhazia. In one such e-mail exchange regarding Abkhazia, Surkov's aide, Mikhail Mamonov, reported that Raul Khajimba signed a "public agreement" that put limits on the real estate acquisitions by non-citizens. Signing such an agreement was apparently contrary to the understanding between the Kremlin and Khajimba. The latter explained to Russian officials that he did that to "win over the young people" and reassured them that the "public agreement" was just a declaration and he would comply with the terms of the pact reached with the Kremlin earlier. Despite Khajimba's apologies and explanations, Surkov's aide concluded that the signing of the "public agreement" without permission from Moscow was a "negative signal." The e-mail is dated August 11, 2014-that is, in the run up to August 24 presidential elections that Khajimba won (Site.ua, October 26). Raul Khajimba was a low-ranking KGB officer in Abkhazia during the Soviet period. Subsequently, he participated in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. Khajimba unsuccessfully entered the presidential race in Abkhazia in 2004, 2009 and 2011. In May-June 2014, Khajimba led a coup that unseated Alexander Ankvab and won the presidency in August 2014. Surkov's e-mails indicate that Moscow's officials quite literally hand-manage every move of their proteges in Abkhazia. At the same time, they also indicate that regional actors sometimes disobey and try to defend their moves by appealing to popular opinion. The informal agreements between Khajimba and the Kremlin about allowing foreign nationals to buy property in Abkhazia were reached back in 2014. And yet, it is noteworthy that, as of November 2016, Abkhazia has not complied with them. Currently, Russian citizens are still not officially allowed to buy property in Abkhazia. Hence, a large black market now operates, which is rife with fraudulent schemes and opaqueness (TASS, November 10). According to the 2011 census, ethnic Abkhaz comprise about 51 percent of the total population of Abkhazia. In 2011, the total population of the territory was estimated at 241,000. Prior to the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992-1993, ethnic Abkhaz comprised about 18 percent of the population, while ethnic Georgians were the plurality there, with 46 percent. Following extensive ethnic cleansing aided by Moscow, ethnic Abkhaz became the majority of Abkhazia. Given their precarious demographic situation, however, the Abkhaz do not want to pave the way for other ethnic groups to take over the republic. Following the Russian-Georgian war of 2008, Moscow officially recognized Abkhazia as a sovereign state, but no other significant country followed Russia's example. Hence, Abkhazia's small economy is fully dependent on the benevolence of Russia. The only significant buyers of real estate in Abkhazia are Russians, but in the view of many Abkhazians, that would marginalize the native population of the republic once again; therefore, the Abkhaz people are quite resistant to calls to open their real estate market for foreigners, which in the Abkhaz context means-to Russians. Opposition figures in Abkhazia lashed out at the government of the republic. The leader of the Ainar Party, Tengiz Jopua, stated that Raul Khajimba and all his team lied to the people of Abkhazia with the sole purpose of gaining political power. Another opposition figure, Alkhas Tkhagushev, rhetorically asked if the Abkhazian government did Surkov's bidding or served the people of Abkhazia (Ekhokavkaza.com, October 27). The hacking of Surkov's e-mails revealed the Kremlin's tight control over Georgia's breakaway territories. Since 2014, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Russia signed a number of agreements that further diminished the political autonomy of these statelets (see EDM, November 24, 2014). The Kiberkhunta leaks expose the lies of the leadership of these breakaway regions to both their supervisors in Moscow and their people. In Khajimba's case, he apparently attempted to navigate between the harsh demands imposed on him by Moscow and popular expectations at home. - See more at: https://jamestown.org/program/surkovs-hacked-e-mails-offer-glimpse-kremlins-policy-abkhazia/#sthash.MMtbx8SI.dpuf Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation Morocco: Convictions Based on Tainted "Confessions" Publisher International Federation for Human Rights Publication Date 21 November 2016 Cite as International Federation for Human Rights, Morocco: Convictions Based on Tainted "Confessions", 21 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/583492bd4.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. Moroccan courts recently sentenced two French citizens in unrelated cases to prison based largely on "confessions" written in Arabic, which they cannot read, Human Rights Watch, FIDH and Amnesty International said today. Both defendants repudiated the confessions once they learned their contents. The cases illustrate a pattern of Moroccan courts, well-documented by the three organizations, , of relying on police statements as proof of guilt. The courts frequently ignore or hastily reject defense arguments that the police used questionable methods to obtain the statements and falsify their contents. "In Morocco, even if the police prevent you from reading your "confession" or type it in a language you don't understand - once you sign, you're basically on an express train to prison," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. Police detained and questioned both Thomas Gallay, 36, and Manuel Broustail, 32, in French without a lawyer present, and then had each sign the purported minutes of their respective statements in Arabic, also without a lawyer present. In separate trials, a Rabat court sentenced Gallay to six years in prison and Broustail to four years, both on terrorism-related charges. Each has appealed. The appeals trial of Gallay and his co-defendants is scheduled before the Rabat Court of Appeals on November 23, 2016. Both men said the police used pressure and deceit to persuade them to sign the statements, their lawyers told Human Rights Watch. Gallay said police agents read back to him in French what he had actually said to them, and assured him that the document was merely administrative paperwork he had to sign before they released him. Throughout Gallay's 12-day pre-arraignment detention following his arrest on February 18, 2016, the police did not tell him what he was accused of, and said they were questioning him about an acquaintance, said his lawyer, Abderrahim Jamai, who is based in Kenitra. Broustail told his lawyer, Abdelaziz Nouaydi, that the police told him in French that the typed Arabic statement contained harmless details about his identity, personal and professional life - and promised to release him once he signed. He said that the police slapped him several times when questioning him. Each man professed shock, after his lawyer later translated the statement into French, that they had signed a detailed, self-incriminating statement, the lawyer for each man said. Gallay, who until his arrest worked remotely from Essaouira for a French firm as a micro-electronic engineer, repudiated the contents of the statement in front of the investigating judge hearing the case. He denied assertions in the statement that he had any connection to Islamic State (also known as ISIS) or to any terrorist activity and that he had ever converted to Islam. The investigating judge nevertheless sent Gallay for trial on charges related to forming a terrorist group, along with eight Moroccan co-defendants. A minor, also charged in the case, was tried separately. Gallay maintains that he knew one casually, had met two others very occasionally, and had never met any of the six others, his family said. The First Instance Criminal Chamber of the Rabat Court of Appeals, the chamber that hears terrorism-related cases, found him guilty on July 14 of financially aiding persons aiming to commit terrorist acts, holding unauthorized public meetings, and organizing activities within an unrecognized association. The court sentenced all of his co-defendants to terms of between 4 and 18 years. The court's written judgment showed that it based the verdict against Gallay largely on his own purported confessions and on police statements in which the co-defendants implicated one another. The judgment does not reflect the language issue or his recantation other than to say, "he was free to sign or not to sign; and if not, the burden was on him to prove it." Seven of the codefendants also disavowed their statements at the trial while the eighth stated that he had no information linking Gallay to armed groups or activities. Gallay, who his family says has no prior criminal record in any country, is in Sale prison. On October 14, Human Rights Watch and FIDH sent a letter to Moroccan authorities expressing their concerns about the trial, but have received no response. Manuel Broustail, a former French soldier who had converted to Islam, was moving his family from Angers, France to Sefrou, Morocco, when police arrested him upon his arrival at Fez airport on March 6. He had spent about two months under house arrest in Angers under a French Interior Ministry order after the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. Moroccan police searched Broustail's luggage, as well as the home he had recently purchased in Sefrou, and seized a number of knives and two non-lethal air guns. They held him for 12 days in pre-arraignment detention, with no contact with a lawyer. The police statement in Arabic that Broustail signed said he was an explosives expert who was leading a group of extremists in Angers, had praised the Paris attacks, was planning terrorist acts against French interests, and had failed to inform French authorities upon learning that an acquaintance was planning an attack on a police station. Broustail also "confessed" that the seized knives and air guns were for training purposes and that he had uploaded extremist material onto his computer, which police also seized. After he saw a translation of his confession, Broustail categorically repudiated it during a hearing before the investigating judge on March 18, his lawyer said. Broustail said that he was a pious Muslim, but denied being an explosives expert or having any connection to terrorist groups, and said that the knives and air guns were relics of his army service, for household use, and not for any terrorist purpose. He denied uploading extremist content onto his computer but acknowledged that a friend may have done so. The investigating judge, in his report sending Broustail for trial, did not address his allegation that the police had deceived and pressured him into signing the statement. He wrote that Broustail's effort to disavow it was no more than an attempt to evade culpability. The Rabat Court of Appeals tried Broustail alone and convicted him on October 20. The prosecution based its case solely on his repudiated "confession" and the materials seized. The court sentenced him to four years in prison on charges of forming a gang to prepare and commit terrorist acts; possessing illegal arms in the framework of a collective plan to grievously harm the public order; praising terrorism, and failing to denounce a terrorist offense. The court has not yet issued its written judgment. Broustail has filed an appeal but no date has been set. He is in Tifelt 2 prison. Morocco's Code of Criminal Procedure guarantees the right of anyone accused of a criminal charge to consult a lawyer within the first 24 hours of custody, or within the first six days in terrorism cases under certain conditions. However, Moroccan legislation does not give the defendant the right to have a lawyer present during the police interrogation or when the statement is presented for signature. "Morocco is obligated to ensure that the right to a fair trial is guaranteed in practice as well as in theory," said Dimitris Christopoulos, president of FIDH. "The effective protection of a range of other civil liberties very much depends on whether the Moroccan government enhances safeguards in the justice system and halts systematic fair-trail violations." Additional Details of the Thomas Gallay case Police arrested Gallay, who holds French and Swiss citizenship, on February 18, 2016, in Essaouira, where he lives, and took him to Rabat. Gallay's family said that the police did not inform him of the charges he faced. This would violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), article 9(2) and the Moroccan constitution, article 23, which states, "any person who is detained must be immediately informed, in a manner that is understandable to him, of the reasons for his detention." His family said that police who arrested him gave him no information, while personnel who placed him in pretrial detention said he was not under suspicion but was needed for the investigation into a co-defendant, M.L. In pre-arraignment detention, he signed two statements in which he "confessed" to converting to Islam, supporting Islamic State (ISIS) and giving money to a co-defendant who he knew supported ISIS, and organizing meetings with the same co-defendant and others at his home. Gallay signed the more detailed and self-incriminating statement on February 19, before he had access to his lawyer. Gallay's family said that, contrary to what the police minutes state, Gallay was unable to notify them of his arrest. This would violate Morocco's Code of Criminal Procedure, which states in article 67 that "the judiciary police officer must notify the family of the detainee as soon as a decision is taken to place him in garde a vue." Gallay learned the contents of the police statements only when he went to court. He immediately repudiated them, his lawyer said, denying all of the assertions. Abderrahim Jamai, Gallay's lawyer, said that during both the investigative phase and the trial, he unsuccessfully challenged the admissibility of Gallay's police statements and asked the court to summon the agents who interrogated his client to testify. The court in its written judgment stated that it heard no reason that would warrant suppressing those statements, citing article 290 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides that in misdemeanors offenses leading to prison sentences of under five years, statements prepared by the police are to be deemed trustworthy in the absence of proof showing the opposite. The court convicted Gallay on three charges: 1. Financially assisting persons for the commission of terrorist acts (articles 218-1 (para. 9), 218-6 and 218-7 of Law 03-03 of May 28, 2003 on Combating Terrorism); 2. holding public meetings without prior authorization (articles 3 and 9 of Law n 1-58-377 of November 15, 1958 on Public Gatherings); 3. conducting activities inside an unauthorized association (articles 5 and 6 of Law n 1-58-376 of November 15, 1958 on the Right of Association). The court sentenced Gallay to six years in prison, and expulsion from Morocco upon completing his prison term. He has been detained since his arrest, the court having rejected motions to provisionally release him before trial. The other defendants in the case received between 4 and 18 years in prison. At trial, all of the defendants except M.L, who was represented by a pro bono counsel and received by far the longest sentence (18 years), recanted their statements to the police. At trial, M.L. contested parts of his police statement, including where he linked Gallay to terror-related activities. Defendant Mohamed Masbouqi had no lawyer present when police questioned him or handed him his statement to sign, his lawyer, Ali Amar, told Human Rights Watch. Masbouqi signed without reading it because the police assured him they would release him afterward, Amar said. He added that Masbouqi was shocked when, before the investigating judge, he learned what he had "confessed" to. A Pattern of Accepting Disavowed Confessions with Insufficient Scrutiny In its 2013 report, "Just Sign Here": Unfair Trials Based on Confessions to the Police in Morocco, Human Rights Watch documented several criminal trials in which the defendants credibly alleged that the police had either tortured, coerced or tricked defendants to sign statements without reading them. Appearing before the judge, those defendants disavowed the police statements, claiming they were fabricated. This did not, however, prompt the court to investigate in any serious way whether the defendant's statement was accurate and voluntary before using it as the main basis for a guilty verdict, even though the Code of Criminal Procedure states in article 293 that no statement is admissible in court if obtained using violence or coercion. The United Nations special rapporteur on torture reached similar conclusions in a 2013 report. Under article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Morocco is a party, everyone has the right "to have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court" and "not to be compelled to testify against himself or to confess guilt." The UN Human Rights Committee, the authoritative commentator on the covenant, has held that the right to an interpreter "enshrines another aspect of the principles of fairness and equality of arms in criminal proceedings. This right arises at all stages of the oral proceedings." Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and FIDH urge Moroccan authorities to amend domestic legislation in accordance with international law and standards to ensure that the right to a fair trial is adequately protected, in particular that a detained person has the right to "prompt access to a lawyer and, unless the person has waived this right in writing, shall not be obliged to answer any questions or participate in any interrogation without his or her lawyer being present," in keeping with the Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Fair Trial and Legal Assistance in Africa, 2003. Legislators should also adopt legislation to ensure that no one is subjected to improper pressure or deceit to sign a statement, including in a language the person cannot read. Lawmakers should also revise article 290 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that in cases involving penalties of no more than five years of prison, allows judges to presume the credibility of statements prepared by the police unless the defense can prove the opposite. This provision undermines the presumption of innocence and a defendant's right to "equality of arms," that is, the possibility to present evidence on the same basis as the prosecution. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considers that article 290 of the Penal Code contradicts the presumption of innocence by reversing the burden to prove guilt through evidence, and instead creating a burden to prove innocence. DUBAI, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Investment management firm Arcapita said on Tuesday it had acquired a privately-held portfolio of three housing schemes for senior citizens in the United States for around $110 million. The "senior living communities", located in the metropolitan areas surrounding Washington D.C. and Atlanta, follow the Bahrain-based company's acquisition of three similar schemes in Colorado for a total of $87 million earlier this year. The properties will be managed by an affiliate of Arbor Company, a community management company, it added. (Reporting by Tom Arnold; Editing by Mark Potter) The minaret of a mosque and the Dome of the Rock in a Palestinian neighbourhood in east Jerusalem's Old City (AFP Photo/Ahmad Gharabli) Jerusalem (AFP) - It is 4:30 am and Mufeed Shawana is rushing to Al-Aqsa Mosque, as the first Muslim call to prayer of the day rings out across the Old City of east Jerusalem. But he stops short when asked how he feels about the prospect that the sound echoing from the minarets could soon be dampened. "It upsets me. The calls to prayer have happened for 1,400 years." A bill backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ban mosques around Israel and annexed east Jerusalem from using loudspeakers to amplify late night and early morning azans, or calls to prayers, has been approved by a ministerial committee ahead of a parliamentary debate and voting. It has been temporarily blocked but the government is still confident of pushing it through. Shawana argues that nobody would deny Jews their own religious rituals, which are "their right". "This is our right," he adds, before disappearing inside the mosque. The dispute around high-decibel minarets is not unique to Israel, which argues that other states, including in Europe and North Africa, have similar restrictions to those it is looking to implement. But it has touched a raw nerve in Israel, where many in its minority Arab population -- around 17.5 percent of the whole and overwhelmingly Muslim -- believe Netanyahu's rightwing government is systematically persecuting them. They also worry that their connection to Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam, is under threat. Large numbers of Israeli Jews view the azans as noise pollution, with the bill's sponsor Motti Yogev, of the far-right Jewish Home party, arguing they disturb the peace of hundreds of thousands of people. He has also claimed that in some cases they are used by religious leaders to incite against Israel. In its current draft, the law would prevent the summons to worshippers between 11:00 pm until 6:00 am from being relayed on loudspeakers. Palestinians and Arab Israelis have organised protests against the ban, with an Arab Israeli MP performing the azan in Israel's parliament to the fury of some of his Jewish colleagues. Story continues The Arab League called the bill "a very dangerous provocation". Arab Israelis, who largely identify as Palestinians, are the descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. On Tuesday Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported a mosque in the Arab Israeli city of Lod was fined 750 shekels ($193) for playing the call to prayer too loud. - 'Terrible noise' - Beit Safafa in southern Jerusalem is a Palestinian village in east Jerusalem flanked by Israeli neighbourhoods, including the area of Pat, a few hundred metres (yards) away. In a passionate sermon at Beit Safafa's mosque, Najih Bkeirat, a religious leader from Al-Aqsa visiting for the weekly Friday prayers, railed against the Israeli plans. "It is very clear the Israeli occupation with this law, or the attempt at this law, wants to Judaise the city. They don't want to hear Arabic prayers in the city, they don't want to see churches in the city," he later told AFP. "The prayers represent a racket but the Israeli Jewish celebrations, celebrations at night you hear until dawn, they don't represent a racket?" he asked. For Israelis in Pat, turning the volume down is only fair and they accuse the Palestinians of being unreasonable. "We are a Jewish neighbourhood next to an Arab village -- the noise is terrible. I have a little kid who cannot sleep," said Ayelet Sadeh, 42. Just like Bkeirat and Shawana, she sees calculated malice rather than cultural misunderstanding behind the actions of the other side. She points to the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, when life in Israel grinds to a standstill for a day, as an example -- pointing out Muslim prayers continue that day. "Sometimes," she said, "it feels like they are doing (it out of) spite." - 'Forbidden fruit is sweet' - Health Minister Yaakov Litzman of the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism blocked the bill as he was worried it would silence the weekly siren alerting Jews to the start of the Sabbath, or holy day. An Israeli official told AFP the authorities were confident they'd find a way to pass the bill "while protecting religious freedom for all and the right of all to be free from excessive noise". There are more than 400 mosques in the country, including east Jerusalem, according to Israeli government figures, and implementing any law could be tough. "Forbidden fruit is sweet," Bkeirat said, suggesting Muslims would organise loud prayer calls from homes. "If they ban the prayers, every house will become a prayer house -- every house will pray, every person," he said. "Day and night, until the occupation understands they cannot interfere in religious issues." Woodland Park, CO -- (ReleaseWire) -- 11/22/2016 --Habitat for Humanity of Teller County, (Habitat Teller) invites Coloradans to support our efforts to put God's love into action by helping families to build strength, stability, and self-reliance through shelter. Make our mission possible by donating to us on Colorado Gives Day, December 6, 2016. Presented by Community First Foundation and FirstBank, Colorado Gives Day is an annual statewide movement to celebrate and increase philanthropy through online giving. The event is powered by ColoradoGives.org, a year-round, online giving website. Search for our profile on the site and make your safe and secure donation in a few easy steps. "The donations we receive on Colorado Gives Day help us do more to support the community and ensure more families are able to live in safe affordable housing," says Jamie Caperton, Habitat Teller's Executive Director. "Our goal is to raise $10,000 this year, which is a big part of our annual operating budget. Our homeownership program works because of the investment required by our families. It's truly a hand-up, not a hand-out. When a family partners with us, a journey begins out of the cycle of poverty and into a life of stability and community connection." Colorado Gives Day donations also mean that Habitat Teller has a chance of getting a share of the $1 Million Incentive Fund. Community First Foundation and FirstBank have each contributed $500,000 to create a $1 Million Incentive Fund, one of the largest gives-day incentive funds in the country. Every nonprofit receiving a donation on Colorado Gives Day receives a portion of the fund, which increases the value of every dollar donated. For example, if Habitat Teller receives 10 percent of the total donations made on Colorado Gives Day, they will also receive 10 percent of the $1 Million Incentive Fund. Habitat Teller will also hold a Colorado Gives Day campaign rally at their current build site at the Clock Tower Condos project, in Woodland Park, CO, on Tuesday, November 29th at 10 a.m. The November 29th rally is being held in conjunction with the nationwide Giving Tuesday celebration and will be led by Habitat's executive director, Jamie Caperton and Woodland Park's Mayor, Neil Levy. Habitat staff will also be available to lead tours of the facility showing the renovation progress to date. "When families in our community are given the ability to build a better life story, it benefits everyone. Housing may seem like one piece to the puzzle, but it leads to a more complete, stable picture for Teller County schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods," said Caperton. Community First Foundation, a leading foundation dedicated to fueling the power of community to drive positive change, and FirstBank, Colorado's largest locally owned bank, have partnered to present Colorado Gives Day for the past seven years. By making fundraising simple for nonprofits and giving easy for donors, Colorado Gives Day is one the most successful events of its kind in the nation. Last year, $28.5 million was raised for Colorado nonprofits in just 24 hours. Since its inception in 2010, $111 million has been donated on Colorado Gives Day. For more information about Habitat Teller please visit our Colorado Gives Day website at http://www.coloradogives.org/HabitatforHumanityofTellerCounty. For more information about Colorado Gives Day, please visit ColoradoGivesDay.org. About Habitat for Humanity of Teller County People in Teller County and all over the world partner with Habitat for Humanity to build or improve a place they can call HOME. Habitat homeowners help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay an affordable mortgage. Other projects completed in the community include Las Casas in Woodland Park, a Historic Housing Project in Cripple Creek, a home renovation in Guffey and 31 homes build throughout Teller County. Learn more at http://www.tellerhabitat.org. About Community First Foundation Since 1975, Community First Foundation has been helping generous donors and innovative nonprofits come together to improve the quality of life and create positive change in Jefferson County, the Denver metropolitan area and beyond. We serve as a connector, partner, collaborator and resource to fuel the power of community for the greater good. We are proud to use our energy, leadership and trusted stewardship of financial resources to energize giving across our state, strengthen nonprofits, support donors and find new ways to address community needs. For more information, visit CommunityFirstFoundation.org. About FirstBank FirstBank operates more than 115 locations in Colorado, Arizona and California. FirstBank is the largest locally owned banking organization in Colorado, serving more than 650,000 customers. Since 2000, FirstBank has contributed more than $45 million and thousands of volunteer hours to charitable organizations. FirstBank is unique in that a majority of its stock is owned by management and employees. For more information, visit efirstbank.com. Indiana American Water's $22M water treatment facility up & running in Mooresville Indiana American Water recently cut the ribbon on its $22 million water treatment facility as part of the largest investment the company has ever made in Mooresville. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below This just in... HONG KONGA prominent underground church leader in northern China has voiced concern over the fate of worshipers detained over the weekend. Zhang Mingxuan, chairman of the China Association of House Churches, said that the worshipers had been warned over their attempts to contact him and that he is worried about their treatment in detention. The detained Christians had contacts with us. They were openly active in the Handan area and this is why the local government is angry at them, Zhang said, referring to a city in the south of Hebei province. They always wanted to cooperate with the China Association of House Churches, and this is why they were targeted in a crackdown, he said. Handan detentions Police and staff members from the Handan City Bureau of Religious Management stormed the house church congregation Saturday, detaining between 20 and 30 worshipers. Among those detained were Pastor Li Cuixiang, a member of the government-banned China Association of House Churches, and Wu Jianghe, a pastor from a house church in neighboring Beijing municipality. Police have threatened to keep the church members locked up for two weeks. One of the detainees was able to telephone a friend before his cell phone was confiscated, and revealed that the group was being held in an unknown detention center in Handan. Calls to the cell phones of pastors Li and Wu went unanswered Monday. On Sunday, the U.S.-based China Aid Association, a religious freedom watchdog in China, urged Chinese authorities to immediately release all detained Christians in Handan. Puhui raid China Aid Association said in a separate development that security personnel had raided a Christian congregation on Dec. 25 in Korla city in Chinas northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Five worshipers were detained in the raid on Puhui Farm and security personnel burned 30 books, including a Bible. Zhou Xia, a Christian from the Puhui Farm congregation, said Monday that the chief of the farm and security personnel searched our homes and seized copies of the Bible. She added that although the five worshipers had been released, each was made to pay a 5,000 yuan (U.S. $730) fine and was warned not to contact any Christians. New crackdown on churches Pastor Zhan Gang, secretary general of the China Association of House Churches, protested the new crackdown on house churches in China. Our organization condemns these crackdowns. The persecuted are our brothers and sisters, and we are infuriated by the harassment and suppression they have suffered, he said. "House" churches, which operate without official registration documents and without the involvement of the local religious affairs bureaus, come in for surveillance and repeated raids, especially in more rural areas of the country, according to overseas rights groups. Officially an atheist country, China has an army of officials whose job is to watch over faith-based activities, which have spread rapidly in the wake of massive social change and economic uncertainty since economic reforms began 30 years ago. Party officials are put in charge of Catholics, Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, and Protestants. Judaism isn't recognized, and worship in unapproved temples, churches, or mosques is against the law. In its most recent report on human rights in China, the U.S. State Department said freedom of religion is permitted to varying degrees around China. Original reporting by Xin Yu for RFAs Mandarin service. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated by Ping Chen. Written for the Web in English by Joshua Lipes. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han. A long line of Myanmar residents in the town of Muse in northern Shan state wait to cross the border into southwestern China's Yunnan province, Nov. 22, 2016. Police in Myanmars northernmost Kachin state have increased security amid fighting by four ethnic militias that have joined forces to attack government targets in neighboring Shan state, leaving 10 dead and forcing thousands of residents to flee their homes. On Tuesday, fighting flared up between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and government army along the Mongkaung-Hpakant road, which stretches from Shan state to Kachin state, prompting police to increase security, said Lieutenant Colonel Myo Thura Naung of the states police force. We have warned our police to be very careful and remain alert about the security [situation], he said. On Sunday, the KIA, Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and Arakan Army (AA) launched coordinated attacks on military outposts, police stations, and a trade center in Muse and Kutkai townships in northern Shan state. Ten people have been killed near Muse, a town known for cross-border trade and smuggling, according to the office of State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been overseeing the peace process to end fighting between ethnic armed groups and the government military. Thirty-three others have been injured in the clashes, her office said. Some of the residents of Muse, which sits on the Shweli River across from Ruili in southwestern Chinas Yunnan province, have fled over the border after hearing rumors about the clashes, local residents said. All shops and homes in Muse had closed their doors on Tuesday morning, and the situation there was stable as of evening, residents said. Muse resident Naw Bauk told RFAs Myanmar Service that district administrators and township police officers advised community leaders not to worry as police beefed up security in the town. The town is silent because local residents are becoming afraid and fleeing, he said. No official announcement has been issued yet. Some people have warned others by shouting [in the Shan language] for them not to be concerned and to remain at home. But because the Burmese dont understand the language, they are running and fleeing. Patrolling the roadways The four militias on Monday released a joint statement requesting civilians in the area to take precautions, according to the Shan Herald Agency for News. The statement also said that the Myanmar military had continued to attack ethnic armed groups, including those that signed a nationwide cease-fire accord with government in October 2015. The government excluded the AA, MNDAA, and TNLA from signing the agreement. The same day the statement was issued, clashes occurred at Nangpatlun village between Kutkai and Muse, and armed groups stopped a car along the Kutkai-Muse road and detained the driver and passengers, according to locals. In response, the government military has positioned security guards along the Lashio-Muse highway, they said. Local residents also said the KIA, MNDAA and AA attacked the Muse police station, damaging shops in the vicinity though no one was injured. Meanwhile, activities along the 105-mile trade zone southeast of Muse in Shan states Kutkai township have come to a standstill because of the clashes, and the militia groups have warned locals not to travel, residents said. The trade flow stopped for the entire day, said Tun Oo, the general secretary of the Muse-Namhkam Trade Association. Armed groups took car keys from every vehicle, said truck driver Sine Myint. Drivers who had extra keys drove away, but we had to sleep in the cab because we didnt have an extra key, he said. Armed groups opened fire on us while we were sleeping and wounded my elder brother in the arm. Heading across the border Those who fled from villages because of the hostilities are staying at monasteries in Muse, where there are now more than 2,600 internally displaced people, residents said. About 3,000 others have fled to China to escape the fighting, where they are being provided with shelter and medical care, according to Chinas foreign ministry. The country has put its security forces on high alert in response to the clashes. Thaung Tun, who works for Garuna Free Funeral Service, said his firm was not only arranging funerals for those who have died, but also helping injured people and delivering food and medicine. Hong Liang, Chinas ambassador to Myanmar, on Tuesday called for an immediate ceasefire in the northern part of the country while attending the opening ceremony of the new Myanmar Chinese Cooperation & Communication Center and Chinese Enterprises Chamber in Myanmar Tuesday in Yangon. Hong said China is very concerned about the conflicts and urges all parties involved to exercise restraint and take measures to reach an immediate ceasefire so that peace can be restored along the border area, according to an embassy news release. He also said China supports Myanmars peace progress, and that the only path to real national reconciliation and long-term peace is through peaceful negotiations. Tin Maung Htun, speaker of Yangons regional parliament, attended the opening ceremony along with dozens of representatives from Chinese and Myanmar enterprises. Kachin and Shan states are hotbeds of illegal drug and smuggling activities where ethnic rebels have engaged in periodic hostilities with the Myanmar army during the last few years. Reported by Kyaw Myo Min, Thet Su Aung, Ye Htet, Kan Thar and Kyaw Thu for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. An international rights group has urged the Afghan government to develop a "security plan" to better protect the minority Shi'a community during high-profile public events. Human Rights Watch (HRW) made the call in a statement on November 21, a day after a suicide bomber killed at least 30 worshipers at a Shi'ite mosque in Kabul during the observance of a religious ceremony. Militants affiliated with the extremist Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the attack -- their fourth on gatherings by Afghanistans Shi'a community since July, according to HRW. The New York-based group also said that sectarian suicide attacks have injured or killed more than 500 Shi'a in Afghanistan since July. The IS group has "stepped up its horrific and unlawful attacks" on Shi'ite public gatherings, "making no place safe," HRW researcher Patricia Gossman said. "The government, Shi'a leaders, and civil society groups should work together to develop appropriate ways to improve security during vulnerable public and religious gatherings [...] so that Shi'a community members can exercise their basic rights," she added. A bombing has targeted Pakistan's paramilitary force in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing three officers and wounding at least five other people. Police said the bomb went off on November 22 as a truck of the Frontier Constabulary paramilitary force was passing by. Zulfiqar Babakhel, a spokesman for Peshawar's main hospital, said two of the wounded were critically injured. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the banned Tehreek-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack. Overall levels of militant-linked violence have fallen since the Pakistani military launched a large-scale operation in 2014 to wipe out militant bases in the northwestern tribal districts, but militant groups continued to carry out periodic bloody attacks. Based on reporting by RFE/RLs Radio Mashaal, AFP, and AP A Serbian nationalist leader who is accused of plotting to kill Montenegro's prime minister may have helped send fellow Serbian militants to Crimea to support Russia's seizure of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, a recorded conversation suggests. In the recording of a video call from March 2015 that was obtained by RFE/RL, the head of the Serbian Wolves organization, Aleksandar Sindelic, told a Serbian political scientist that he has ties with the Russian Defense Ministry and discussed the fate of another nationalist, Bratislav Zivkovic. Zivkovic, a commander of Serbia's ultranationalist Chetnik movement, was one of a group of five activists tasked with manning patrol on a road in Crimea alongside Cossacks in March 2014, according to a report from the peninsula at the time by the Reuters news agency. Russia seized control of Crimea that month after sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegal by Ukraine and 100 UN member states. In April 2014, an armed conflict between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists erupted in the Donbas region, northeast of Crimea. In the recorded conversation with political scientist Vencislav Bujic, Sindelic suggested that he had vouched for Zivkovic with the Russian military, enabling him to travel to Crimea and help Russia secure and maintain control over the peninsula. "When they were checking him, while he was in Crimea, he had a guarantee that I gave him here [in Serbia], and he passed the check at the time," Sindelic said in the conversation, which Bujic said took place on March 11, 2015. Sindelic said that he had since lost his trust in Zivkovic and intended, during a trip to Moscow that he was planning to begin the following day, to "go straight to the Russian Defense Ministry" and warn officials about him. In its report from Crimea dated March 14, 2014 -- two days before the referendum -- Reuters cited Zivkovic as saying that the Serbs were there to prevent violence but were willing to fight to ensure the ethnic Russian majority won the right to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. 'Assassination Plot' Sindelic was one of 20 Serbians and Montenegrins arrested in Montenegro on November 16 in connection with the alleged plot to assassinate then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic in October and incite a coup in order to prevent the country from joining NATO. Montenegrin authorities have alleged Russian involvement, and on November 18 prosecutors released the names of two Russians -- Eduard Shirokov and Vladimir Popov whom they accused of organizing a criminal group to carry out the alleged plot. Sindelic has reportedly testified that he was drawn into the plot by "two nationalists from Russia" he had met while fighting alongside the Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The whereabouts of the two Russians named by prosecutors are unknown. Montenegrin authorities announced the 20 arrests on October 16, alleging that the detainees were suspected of planning to carry out attacks after polls closed in the parliamentary election that day that was billed as a choice between closer ties with Russia and with the West. Djukanovic -- whose pro-Western party won the most votes but fell short of a majority -- resigned on October 25 after suggesting that Russia was involved in the alleged coup attempt. Russia has denied involvement. Montenegro's president named a close Djukanovic ally as prime minister-designate on November 10. Ten years ago, Vladimir Putin got away with murder. Ten years ago, Kremlin agents assassinated a British citizen on British soil. Ten years ago, Russia launched what one lawyer called "a nuclear attack on the streets of London." Ten years ago, Russia truly went rogue. Now it's not that Putin's Russia was exactly a model global citizen before the brazen killing of Aleksandr Litvinenko back in November 2006. But when Litvinenko was lethally poisoned by Kremlin agents after drinking tea laced with the rare radioactive isotope, polonium, in a London hotel, it marked a turning point. It heralded Russia's transformation from being a mere international pain in the ass to being a full-blown outlaw state. It was the point where the Kremlin stopped even pretending to play by international rules and stopped pretending to abide by normal standards of decency. Months later, Russia would launch a wave of cyber attacks on Estonia's parliament, banks, and government offices. Less than two years later, Russian tanks would roll into Georgia. And just over seven years later, Putin's little green men showed up in Ukraine. A decade ago, Vladimir Putin got away with murder in the heart of London. And ever since Aleksandr Litvinenko died on November 23, 2006, the world has been living with the consequences. Keep telling me what you think on The Power Vertical's Twitter feed and on our Facebook page. An amateur video that has emerged on social media appears to show Iranian police officers beating a man, running over him with a motorcycle, and then firing at him. Police said they will investigate the video posted online on November 1. It is not known when the video was recorded. Some reports suggested that the footage was recorded in the southern Tehran neighborhood of Naziabad, which has been the scene of anti-regime protests triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained in mid-September by Iran's notorious morality police for "improperly wearing" her hijab. RFE/RL could not independently verify the video. "A special order has been immediately issued to investigate the exact time and place of the incident and identify the offenders," the police said in a statement published by Iranian media. "The police absolutely do not approve of violent and unconventional behavior and will deal with the offenders according to the rules," the statement added. The video recorded at night in an alley shows about a dozen purported police officers beating a man who is lying on the ground. A person who is recording the scene from a building across the street is heard cursing the aggressors. Damn you, damn you," a male voice says in the video. At one point, a man in police uniform riding a motorcycle appears to run over the man. Shortly after, another uniformed man beats the victim with a baton, then another one shoots him at close range. The man initially tries to cover his head with his hands. Later, his legs appear to be motionless. The man recording the scene is heard saying, "He died, he died." The video comes amid a brutal state crackdown on nearly seven weeks of antiestablishment protests that erupted following the September 16 death of Amini. Women have removed and burned their hijabs, the mandatory Islamic headscarves, while many of the protesters have called for an end to the Islamic republic. "Woman, life, freedom" and "Death to the dictator" have been among the main chants of the protesters. The authorities have claimed that Iran's enemies are behind the unrest. More than 250 people have been killed in the crackdown, according to rights groups. Several thousand more have been arrested, including many protesters as well as journalists, lawyers, activists, digital rights defenders, and others. Without providing any evidence, Iran's police chief, General Hossein Ashtari, claimed last month that "counterrevolutionary groups abroad" wore police uniforms and fired into the crowds. He claimed some of the alleged fake police officers had been arrested. Amnesty International said on Twitter that that the video was "another horrific reminder that the cruelty of Iran's security forces knows no bounds." "Amid a crisis of impunity, they're given free rein to brutally beat and shoot protesters," the London-based rights watchdog added while calling on the UN Human Rights Council to "urgently investigate the crimes." The shocking scenes have caused outrage among Iranians on social media with many condemning the violence. "These brutal conditions are a sign that the establishment is on the verge of collapse," Abdollah Momeni, a prominent activist and former political prisoner, said on Twitter, adding that the violence reflected the regime's "fear of the people." Shadi Sadr, a human rights lawyer and the co-founder of the rights group Justice for Iran, told RFE/RL that the international community needed to do more to pressure the Islamic republic to stop its crackdown on protesters. "The actions taken by the international community so far have not deterred the Islamic republic from stopping the bloodshed," Sadr said. 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. NATO has accused Russia of "aggressive military posturing" following reports it has deployed anti-ship missiles in the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad. In a statement to the Associated Press, NATO said the missile deployment near the alliance's borders "does not help to lower tensions or restore predictability to our relations." The Kremlin has defended Russias military buildup, citing NATO's "expansion" toward the country's borders. "NATO is indeed an aggressive bloc," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on November 22. "Russia certainly has every sovereign right to undertake necessary measures on the entire territory of the Russian Federation." The comments come a day after a senior Russian lawmaker was quoted as saying Moscow would deploy the S-400 missile-defense system and nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad. Viktor Ozerov, chairman of the defense committee in the upper house of parliament, said in remarks reported by RIA news agency that Russia was forced to react to the planned U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe. The U.S. State Department said the deployment of the S-400 and Iskander systems in the Russian territory bordering NATO member-states Lithuania and Poland "is destabilizing to European security. Moscow had previously said it was sending Iskanders to Kaliningrad as part of routine drills. Moscow's relations with NATO have plunged to levels of acrimony unseen since the end of the Cold War following Russia's military seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and an ensuing war between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists. Based on reporting by Reuters, TASS, and Interfax Human rights groups say that "honor" killings are still widespread in Pakistan. It is the murder of someone -- usually a woman -- who has been blamed for a perception of bringing dishonor on the family. The government has taken steps to respond to the problem, but it shows little sign of abating. (RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal) "Bullets are constantly landing in our village and if we had any chance to leave, we would." That's how a resident described the situation in Marchak, a Turkmen village located just across the border from Afghanistan. According to Turkmenistan's government, however, the description given to RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, is not true. Fighting in neighboring northwestern Afghanistan has grown significantly worse over the last three years. Attacks and battles in the once relatively peaceful Afghan provinces of (from west to east) Herat, Faryab, Badghis, and Jowzjan are now common and have caused Afghan First Vice President Abdul Dostum Rashid to make several trips to the area to lead operations to reclaim territory lost to the Taliban and its militant allies. Afghan media has reported on this, including fighting that took place along the border with Turkmenistan, but in Ashgabat officials say there is no security problem along the frontier. Marchak villagers say otherwise and recently Azatlyk was able to speak with several people from the village (which is not to be confused with the district and village of the same name across the border in Afghanistan). Given the nature of Turkmenistan's government, which is known to retaliate against its citizens when they speak with foreign media, or provide information that conflicts with the official narrative, the names of these villagers will not be given. That they spoke out at all shows their desperation. 'Officially' No Problems Exist Marchak is in the Tagtabazar district of Turkmenistan's Mary Province, and is situated close enough to the Afghan border that stray rounds are landing on their side of the frontier, according to the residents. They explain that the sounds of gunfire to the south are becoming routine, and that military helicopters are flying over their village as they apparently patrol the border. "Recently, a girl was hit [in the hand] by a bullet," one villager claimed. "The government paid her hospital costs but police came and asked her to sign a statement and not tell anyone about the incident." There were about 1,000 people living in Marchak before the recent problems started. Some of those who had relatives living in other parts of Turkmenistan left. But few of the villagers have that option, so most continue to live in Marchak. On their own initiative, locals built a protective shelter for residents to hide behind when fighting is particularly fierce on the Afghan side of the border. But it would be difficult for the villagers of Marchak to receive much help from the government because their problems apparently do not officially exist. Toymyrat Bugaev from RFE/RL's Turkmen Service contributed to this report A Moscow State University student accused of attempting to join the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in Syria has retracted her confessions. Aleksandra Ivanova (aka Varvara Karaulova) said at her trial on November 22 that she signed a written statement confessing that she supported the activities of the IS group after investigators threatened her with being sent to prison for 20 years. Ivanova, 20, was detained in Turkey in June 2015 while trying to cross into Syria, and went on trial in October. Her lawyers insist she never planned to join IS and was used and manipulated by an IS recruiter. Ivanova legally changed her original name last year while in custody. Based on reporting by RIA and TASS ON MY MIND Three years ago, everything seemed possible. Three years ago, ordinary Ukrainians gathered on Kyiv's Independence Square to demand a better life and a more democratic, less corrupt, government. Three years ago, the Euromaidan was born. And it is worth remembering the "Euro" part. The popular uprising that eventually overthrew the corrupt and autocratic regime of Viktor Yanukovych was driven by a desire to be part of Europe. It was a genuine middle-class uprising in support of European values. The flags many of them were waving -- in addition to the Ukrainian flag -- was the flag of the European Union. And it is also worth remembering -- especially in this age of Euroscepticism -- that the more than 100 protesters who were killed during during the Euromaidan, died for the values of Europe. They became, perhaps, the first people in history to die for the idea of Europe. IN THE NEWS Russia says it will deploy surface-to-air missiles and nuclear-capable Iskander systems in the exclave of Kaliningrad in retaliation for NATO deployments. And the U.S. says the move is destabilizing for Europe. Moscow authorities have detained a political activist at an improvised memorial near the Kremlin where Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was gunned down last year. A Russian court has sentenced a man to 12 years in prison for being a member of the banned Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Ukraine's security service says it detained two soldiers along the administrative border with the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula, and accused them of being deserters from the Ukrainian army. Russian law-enforcement says two more suspected members of what they call a Ukrainian "saboteur group" have been arrested in Russian-annexed Crimea. Russia's Yuliya Zaripova has been stripped of the gold medal she won in the women's 3,000-metr steeplechase at the 2012 London Olympics. Vandals have desecrated a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in the eastern Belarusian city of Mahileu. Thousands of Ukrainians marked the third anniversary of the beginning of mass protests that ultimately ousted President Viktor Yanukovych and prompted Russia to annex the Crimea Peninsula and back an insurgency in the east. WHAT I'M READING Putin Eyes Paris In his column for Bloomberg, political commentator Leonid Bershidsky writes that "Putin is winning the French election." "While it's unclear how well Russian President Vladimir Putin will get along with Donald Trump and his team of Republican hawks, it looks as though he has already won the French presidential election," Bershidsky writes. "The front-runner in the primary election of the French center-right, Francois Fillon, is nearly as enthusiastic a Russophile as Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, and the center-left hardly stands a chance in next year's presidential election." Putin Eyes Washington Vladimir Frolov has a piece in The Moscow Times on how Putin is hoping to gain geopolitical advantage from Trump's presidency "Overall, Russias preliminary assessment of Trumps emerging national security team is leaning toward weak and dysfunctional, compared to Moscows streamlined and instantaneous decision-making," Frolov writes. "Having a JV team in Washington operating on false policy assumptions that generally align with Russias interests and objectives is net geopolitical gain for the Kremlin- or at least so it seems." Meanwhile, William Pomeranz, deputy director of the Kennan Institute, has a commentary in Reuters on how Putin's friendship with Trump could turn out to be costly. "If Trump truly is a dealmaker...Putin will have to sacrifice some of the core policies anti-Americanism, economic protectionism that have facilitated his consolidation of power," Pomeranz writes. "New complexities to old problems also are likely to arise in any rapprochement with the United States, most notably in eastern Ukraine. Before Putin counts his winnings which could be substantial it is necessary to consider what the consequences of success might mean for him." Putin's Siloviki International Mark Galeotti, a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague and a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, has a piece in OpenDemocracy on how Russian security services collaborate with counterparts in other authoritarian regimes. I also recommend Mark's new Facebook page on Russian affairs: @markgaleottionrussia. New Report: Targeting Post-Soviet Dissidents Abroad The London-based Foreign Policy Center released a report today titled: "No shelter: the harassment of activists abroad by intelligence services from the former Soviet Union." Adam Hug, the report's editor, says it "shines a spotlight onto the murky activities of these security services who flout national, European and international law to target dissidents abroad. It shows how exiles who remain inside the former Soviet Union are facing a constant risk to their safety but even in Western Europe they are not free from the long arm of the security services. The findings will be discussed at a launch event in the UK Houses of Parliament at 18:00 London time on November 22. Mourning A 'Lost' Past Kirill Kobrin, editor of the Russian journal Neprikosnovennyi Zapas, writes in OpenDemocracy that "post-Soviet people have spent two decades mourning a society that never existed." The State Department And RT On the War on the Rocks blog, Matt Armstrong, a governor on the Broadcasting Board of Governors and author of the blog MountainRunner, weighs in on the recent combative exchange between State Department spokesman John Kirby and a representative of the Kremlin-directed media outlet RT. European Defense Strategy Veteran Kremlin-watcher Edward Lucas, author of the book The New Cold War, has a short piece up on the Center for European Policy Analysis website on European defense planning. 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. Ukrainian authorities have released a video showing what they say was the detention of two military deserters who had defected to Russia, escalating a standoff between Kyiv and Moscow over the fate of the two men. Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) chief Vasyl Hrytsak showed the video at a November 22 briefing in Kyiv, in an apparent bid to bolster Ukraine's claim that the men were apprehended after crossing into mainland Ukraine at a checkpoint near the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula. They are accused of being deserters who defected to Russia from the Ukrainian army after Crimea was seized by Russian forces in March 2014. Russia's Defense Ministry a day earlier accused the SBU of kidnapping the men in Crimea on November 20 and bringing them back to Ukraine. Speaking in Minsk on November 22, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the detentions an "illegitimate provocation." "The detentions were essentially carried out at the Chonhar checkpoint," Hrytsak told reporters, referring to the crossing in Ukraine's Kherson region just north of Crimea. The video, which the SBU also posted on YouTube, showed the alleged detentions taking place on a bridge between two flagpoles -- one flying the Ukrainian flag, the other flying Russia's -- as the two men scrambled to get back to the Russian-controlled side. The Russian Defense Ministry identified the two detainees as Russian servicemen Maksim Odintsov and Aleksandr Baranov. The video released by the SBU includes an interrogation with one of the men who admits to having deserted the Ukrainian military, though it is unclear from the footage the nature or degree of potential duress he may have been subjected to. Hrytsak told reporters in Kyiv that the detainees, who face desertion and treason charges, had returned to mainland Ukraine to purchase higher-education diplomas in order to become officers in the Russian military. Russia's state-owned TASS news agency cited a spokesman with Russia's Black Sea Fleet as saying that Odintsov and Baranov were lured over to Ukrainian territory and then immediately detained by the SBU. Russia's seizure of Crimea following the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 -- and its backing of armed separatists in eastern Ukraine -- triggered international sanctions targeting Moscow and shattered relations between the two former Soviet neighbors. With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, tvrain.ru, TASS, Reuters, Interfax, and AFP Ukrainian authorities say they have arrested a teacher accused of trying to sell a 13-year-old girl for $10,000. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov reported the case on Facebook on November 22, with photos of the girl and 52-year-old teacher. The girl was living at a boarding school in the eastern Kharkiv region for orphans and children from broken homes. Ukrainian media named the suspect as Halina Kovalenko, a teacher of Ukrainian and Russian languages. Avakov said the buyer hinted that the girl's organs would be removed, paying the teacher 1,000 hryvnyas ($39) for photos of her and her medical records. "They got this seller 'red-handed' when she took the girl out of the boarding school, brought her to the buyers, and received money," the minister said. Based on reporting by Interfax and the BBC NEWBURG, Md. A Maryland board voted Monday to build a new, $765 million Gov. Harry W. Nice Bridge over the Potomac River connecting Maryland and Virginia. Under the plan approved by the Maryland Transportation Authority Board, construction will begin in fiscal year 2020. The current bridge, which carries Route 301 over the river, will be torn down. The new bridge is slated to be completed in 2023. This 75-year-old bridge has only one narrow lane in each direction, and citizens here often face up to four-mile backups during the summer months and more significant delays from just one disabled vehicle or during routine maintenance projects, Gov. Larry Hogan said after the boards vote by the waters edge. Simply put, Marylanders deserve better. Plans call for building a new four-lane bridge. It will include a bike and pedestrian path, Hogan said. The bridge connects Charles County in Maryland and King George County in Virginia. The project would be funded with Maryland Transportation Authority cash as well as debt. The Republican governor and the Democrat-controlled legislature have battled over transportation issues over the first half the Hogans first term. In this years legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill to require the transportation authority to put aside $75 million each year from fiscal year 2018 through 2027 to pay for a new bridge. Hogan vetoed the bill, saying the administration already was moving forward with a plan. On Monday, Hogan said the administrations proposal will complete the bridge seven years earlier and save about $200 million. Sen. Thomas Mac Middleton, a Charles County Democrat who sponsored the legislation, thanked the board in person for its vote on Monday. Middleton pledged to do what he could to help move the project forward, calling it great news for people who live in southern Maryland. A man thought to be the "Soul Patch Bandit," who was wanted in a string of bank robberies across the Richmond region, was caught Tuesday in Petersburg, police said. Acting Police Chief William Rohde said the man was arrested shortly after he allegedly robbed a Wells Fargo bank branch at 3360 South Crater Road. Rhode said detectives tackled the man outside the bank. Officers also found a handgun, Rohde said. The man, whose name has not yet been released, also is wanted on a murder charge in Newport News, Rohde said. The suspect was known for a small tuft of facial hair, sometimes called a soul patch, directly below his lower lip. The man is suspected in several bank robberies in the Richmond region: Oct. 18: Wells Fargo branch in the 80 block of South Airport Drive in Henrico. Oct. 28: Wells Fargo branch in the 8100 block of Mechanicsville Turnpike in Mechanicsville. Oct. 29: Wells Fargo branch in the 5600 block of Brook Road in Henrico. Nov. 7: Union Bank & Trust in the 3100 block of the Boulevard in Colonial Heights. Richmond Commonwealths Attorney Michael N. Herring plans to issue findings next week that will publicly conclude a multi-agency probe of potential overlap between Mayor Dwight C. Jones church and the administration of city business. Herring said in an email Tuesday that he hopes to publish the report Nov. 30. He would not say whether he planned to pursue charges as a result of the probe, which was triggered by a city auditors report critical of Jones public works director, Emmanuel O. Adediran, and bolstered by the mayors own request in January that Virginia State Police investigate. The scrutiny at one point attracted the attention of FBI officials who asked questions about the citys procurement process, according to people with knowledge of the investigation. Herring declined to detail the results Tuesday but stressed in an earlier interview that although a multijurisdictional grand jury expanded the investigation to allow scrutiny of Jones himself, the focus remained on whether criminality occurred in the overlap involving Adediran. Jones lawyer, Richard Cullen, chairman of the McGuireWoods law firm, said in an email Tuesday that Jones welcomed the end of the review, which spanned 10 months. Mayor Jones has cooperated fully with the investigation and looks forward to its conclusion, Cullen stated. Herring had hoped to issue the report months earlier but said scheduling conflicts among state police investigators and members of his office and the city auditors office thwarted a swifter resolution. Jones requested the investigation to restore faith in his administration after City Auditor Umesh Dalal found that Adediran had spent time during working hours overseeing construction of a Chesterfield County location for First Baptist Church of South Richmond, where Jones is senior pastor. Although city policy allows for limited personal communication during business hours, critics have said Adedirans work went too far. The auditors initial review concluded that Adediran spent at least 38 hours at work on church-related conference calls. Subsequent scrutiny of his work email account triggered by a Freedom of Information Act request yielded additional church-related communication. Adediran agreed to relinquish 38 hours of vacation time as a consequence. He came to the city about 18 years ago as a mechanic working for the citys Parks and Recreation Department making $29,800 annually. He now makes $132,000 a year leading a department with 328 full-time workers and an annual operating budget of about $41 million, according to a division spokeswoman. He is represented by Richmond lawyer James B. Thorsen, who has declined repeatedly to make his client available for an interview. Thorsen has called Dalals report defamatory and said Adediran has spent far more time working on city issues after the close of business days than on church matters between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. But Jones drew scrutiny in the aftermath of the report, which sharpened after his press secretary said a half-dozen church members held executive positions in his administration. In the wake of the audit, a former city official told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he resigned after facing political pressure to place a church member in a high-ranking budget position last year. City employees and the public have been put in a position to doubt and wonder about an area that I have worked to keep separate during my time in office, Jones wrote to state police Superintendent W. Steven Flaherty in a letter dated Jan. 14. Jones defended his leadership at the time and said he had not broken a promise he made upon taking office in 2009 not to mix his public and private responsibilities. He was included in at least 107 email messages to and from Adedirans city email address related to church construction, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. He also was included on church-related emails sent and received by church clerk Pamela Branch during her work day at the Richmond Ambulance Authority. The authority severed ties with Branch, who served as legal director and head of human resources, after discovering she had been performing church work on the clock against authority policy. Officials have said both Branch and Adediran volunteer their time for the church and do not receive any compensation for that work. A state police spokeswoman did not return a request for comment Tuesday. The investigation provided a political football for candidates vying to replace Jones this year, but public discussion of the matter faded as the campaigns accelerated. As for Jones, with his second and final term winding down, he has invested much of his time and energy in pursuing revitalization of the citys impoverished East End. With the Thanksgiving holiday a few days away, Richmond City Public Schools released the results of a budget analysis at a special meeting at Virginia Union University on Monday. The analysis, conducted by the nonprofit Bellwether Education Partners, was written to increase understanding of the RPS budget and help identify opportunities to optimize the budget. Lina Bankert, who presented the study for Bellwether, said the goal of the report was not to come up with direct recommendations but to help decision makers and the public to understand what the issues are and whats at stake. For observers familiar with Richmonds budget, the report is a recitation of the districts financial woes that many will find puts to paper statements school administrators make on a regular basis. Whether its staffing, facilities and/or classroom size, many of the issues Bellwether addressed are ones the school district is already addressing. Our hope for this work is that it created a little more of a shared understanding of common language and an appreciation for some of the constraints and the realities, as well as the possibilities, that Richmond Public Schools and the city have in front of them. And also an understanding that the path forward for Richmond Public Schools is not just about Richmond Public Schools, Bankert said. She added, We strongly urge a community conversation because these are decisions that are not unilateral. About 100 people packed into the Living and Learning Center at the university on Monday night for the special meeting after the regularly scheduled board meeting. The report was commissioned by the city, representatives from the Richmond Management Roundtable and the district. The cost of the study was $65,000, with the city and district contributing $5,000 each. Chief among the issues facing the school district, according to Bellwether, is that it is serving a high-need student body with a disproportionate number of children living in poverty and with special needs, categories that require more funding than average students do. Bellwether found that the district deals with twice the number of students who are economically disadvantaged and 1.5 times the number of students with disabilities as the average statewide division. To get a better sense of what Richmonds school district is dealing with, Bellwether compared it with three districts with similar demographic makeups and that are about the same size Norfolk City Public Schools, Newport News Public Schools and Portsmouth Public Schools. The study found that Richmond schools receive a total of $2,200 more per student than the other three districts $12,700. According to the study, 73 percent of the school districts budget goes to classroom instruction, support and leadership. Relative to these peers, RPS has a higher share of economically disadvantaged and limited English proficient students and a much higher share of students with disabilities, the study found. And, the report continued, all three of these districts show high student achievement compared to RPS on the Standards of Learning tests in 2014-15, overall and for most sub-groups. Despite these challenges, funding formulas make it harder for Richmond to try to make ends meet, Bellwether found. The districts state funding is calculated based on the Local Composite Index, a formula that calculates a communitys ability to pay for its schools. The calculation largely depends on a localitys real estate values, gross income and taxable sales. Richmond typically ranks as one of the richest communities in the state and thus qualifies for some of the lowest levels of school funding, officials have said. Because of the issues Richmonds school district faces, this formula is actually harmful because the city has one of the highest wealth factors while concurrently serving a greater concentration of high-needs students, Bellwether reported. Because of the way the index is calculated, city government and the federal government contribute more than the state. This places a higher burden on the city to fund schools and creates a greater reliance on federal funds, challenges other districts do not have to face. The report found that based on the index, Richmonds portion of the school budget is 75 percent higher than the three comparable districts. Dana T. Bedden, Richmonds school superintendent, said its not uncommon for capital cities to face funding issues like Richmonds because of the number of businesses that call capitals home. Many of those cities also have issues with poverty. He said many states have looked for alternative funding models to help deal with some of the concerns. Compounding the problem for Richmond schools is that of its nearly $360 million total budget, only $150 million is flexible, according to the study. Thats largely because money earmarked for school nutrition thats for economically disadvantaged students and special education for students with disabilities cannot be used for any other purposes. All this is not to say that theres not a better way to optimize the budget and be more efficient, Bankert said. Along with the budget analysis, Bellwether provided some ideas that could help the district create additional flexibility. Those include consolidating schools to create more efficient staffing levels and establishing minimum enrollment levels for certain electives as well as partnering with the city for bus service and sharing nursing positions between small and nearby schools. Bellwether said the district will need to evaluate and move forward, when possible, with decisions that optimize the budget within the existing parameters and support a productive dialog around Richmonds collective investment in a district that supports outstanding student outcomes through efficient and effective schools. We welcome the review and scrutiny because were always striving to do better, said Jeff M. Bourne, Richmonds School Board chairman. A Rockbridge County man was convicted Tuesday of abducting and assaulting a woman he held captive in his home for six days. Under a plea agreement reached in Rockbridge County Circuit Court, Ward Wayne Lawhorne was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. But in exchange for his pleas of no contest to four felonies, prosecutors agreed to drop a charge that he raped the woman during the ordeal in May. At an earlier hearing, questions posed to the woman by Public Defender Eric Sisler suggested that she might have consented to having sex with Lawhorne during a weeklong binge of drug use at his home near Natural Bridge. A plea agreement resolving the case was accepted by Judge Anita Filson, Commonwealths Attorney Christopher Billias said. "We reached a resolution that both sides were not crazy about, but could live with," Billias said by email later Tuesday. "That is the nature of pleas, each side has to give something to get something." Earlier testimony has shown that the woman met Lawhorne at a party in May and later agreed to go with the 50-year-old to his home, expecting that they would smoke methamphetamine and probaby have sex. But Lawhorne turned violent the first night punching her in the eye and knocking her out, the woman testified during a preliminary hearing in July. When she awoke, the woman said, she found herself handcuffed to a bed. Although Lawhorne later unlocked the handcuffs, he made it clear the woman was not free to leave showing her a revolver and keeping the front door padlocked from the outside, she said. He told me a soulless whore like me deserved to die, the woman testified. He said it would be nothing to him to take me out in the woods, hogtie me, cut me up and feed me to the turtles. During her earlier testimony, the woman was asked by Lawhornes attorney why she didnt try to fight off his sexual advances or flee from his home when presented with opportunities to escape. How can you resist when you cant see [through an injured eye] and youre handcuffed? she replied. After spending six days in the home, the woman was allowed to go on a shopping trip with Lawhornes mother. She ran from the car when they stopped to buy groceries, then hitched a ride to the home of a friend, who called police. Lawhorne had faced up to life in prison. He accepted a plea agreement that set his punishment at 27 years in prison for abduction, malicious wounding, and possessing a gun and ammunition as a violent felon. The agreement suspended all but seven years of mandatory time on the gun and ammunition charges. Del. Jennifer L. McClellans path to becoming the Democratic nominee for a Richmond-area state Senate seat became clearer over the past week as a potential rival, Del. Lamont Bagby, announced he will not seek the office. Bagby, D-Henrico, said in a Facebook post last week that he will not run for the 9th District seat being vacated by Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, who is heading to Washington as the newly elected representative of the redrawn 4th Congressional District. On Monday, McEachin submitted a formal resignation letter to Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a first step that will allow the governor to set the date for a special election. McEachins resignation, filed one day after Virginia certified its election results, is effective Jan. 1. McAuliffe, who is returning from an overseas trade mission, has not yet set an election date. The election presumably would be called before the General Assembly convenes Jan. 11. The governors office said Tuesday that it could not provide a tentative date. McClellan and Bagby had expressed interest in McEachins soon-to-be former seat, setting up the prospect of a contested primary between the two Richmond-area Democrats. On the evening of Nov. 14, the same day McClellan formally announced her campaign, Bagby said in a Facebook post that he plans to stay in the House. Im posting this now so that I cant change my mind in the morning, Bagby said. With Bagby out of the hunt, McClellan appears to be the clear favorite in the Democratic-leaning district. Last weekend, McEachin and Democratic Party of Virginia Chairwoman Susan Swecker attended McClellans official campaign kickoff and office opening, according to a post on McClellans campaign Facebook page. Michael Dickinson, a strip club impresario and perennial candidate for elected office, has announced an independent run for the seat. A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. Appalachian Powers Jesse Corl read to about 60 kindergarten students gathered in the library at Glenvar Elementary School on Nov. 17. Corl was one of more than 300 employees who read to 17,000 students at 418 elementary schools in Virginia, Tennessee and West Virginia as part of Appalachian Powers Read to Me Day. Corl read to the kindergarten students, as well as the schools first- and second-graders. He did such a great job that the schools principal has already put in a request to have him back next year. Read to Me Day is a celebration of reading, designed to show the importance of reading aloud to foster a love of reading. Children who enjoy reading will read more. Research shows that when children become good readers by third grade, they are more likely to perform well in other subjects and graduate high school. It is the key building block to developing skills that lead to college and career success. Corl read the book Gingerbread Man: Loose in the School, by Virginia author Laura Murray. The books are purchased by Appalachian Power and the readers then donate the books to the schools. This was Appalachian Powers 16th year for Read to Me Day. At Glenvar Elementary, the pupils Skyped with the author after Jesse read the book. What a blast! Submitted by Teresa Hamilton Hall "You may not know the name Houda Benyamina, but youre probably going to hear much more about her. The filmmaker made waves with her feature debut Divines, which won the Camera dOr at Cannes, and was snapped up by none other than Netflix. The movie is now streaming on the service, and Hollywood has taken note, with the director landing an American agent, and it has allowed her to meet with some name brand actors about her next movie. According to Les InRocks, James Franco and Robert Pattinson are among the actors that Benyamina has discussed her next project with. The untitled film is apparently a love story and costume drama set against the backdrop of war, but theres no further details at the moment. It all seems pretty early on, and casting still down the line, but it speaks to the heat Benyamina has generated that shes nabbing this kind of attention from Hollywood types." "about to realize a long delayed and costly project as Idols Eye (the story of a petty thief who steals a sapphire belonging to the Mafia boss of Chicago), which will feature Robert Pattinson, Rachel Weisz and Sylvester Stallone (replaces last time Robert De Niro). It is assumed that the film will be next March, the actors are confirmed, but it was an enormous debt of that frustrated filming for which was all ready, so the budget went to the clouds, because more than I think the $ 25 million. In addition, because that cost and that mishap, we cannot film in Canada, so we must find new locations. I will only do it if, as it seems now, it will have basically French control. It no longer interests me to work in the current conditions of Hollywood with producer despots and delirious. The only good thing of this experience is to be able to shoot Stallone, Pattinson or Weisz. The best of Hollywood, no doubt, are its actors." Robert Pattinson is continuing his flirtation with French Film Directors. There were two updates this week with new movie news for Rob and both are with French filmmakers. Add this to his role in the upcoming Claire Denis led High Life filming next year and we see a French connection!From The Playlist An update on Idol's Eye Oliver Assayas was in Argentina to attend the Festival of Mar Del Plata and was interviewed by La Nacion (The Nation).(Thanks Flavia for the tip) A delegation from South Africa representing the Gauteng Growth and Development Agency met with GJEPC committee members on 16 Nov.2016 to discuss plans for their upcoming Industrial Development Zone (IDZ), says a report in gjepc.org. The Agency is promoting the Gauteng IDZ located near the O.R.Tambo International Airport in South Africa. The SA delegation outlined the plans for the new IDZ and assured assistance in terms of finance and logistics if required, to potential investors setting up businesses or factories at the IDZ. IDZ will also have a Refinery that is being set up by Metal Concentrators, a renowned refiner and supplier of precious metals in South Africa. The GJEPC Chairman, Praveenshankar Pandya suggested that the Zone should also make sure there is an assured supply of rough diamonds from the mining companies to those setting up units, to which delegation agreed to consider the suggestion. Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished Peter Fassbender/Twitter Canadian government and transportation officials gathered last week to celebrate the completion of updates to the New Westminster SkyTrain in New Westminster, British Columbia. Randeep Sarai, member of Parliament for Surrey Centre, Peter Fassbender, Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development and Minister Responsible for TransLink, Mayor Jonathan X. Cote, city of New Westminster, and Kevin Desmond, CEO of TransLink, all took part in the celebratory meeting. We are happy to celebrate the completion of these important accessibility and safety upgrades which will enhance the rapid transit experience for nearly 1,600 passengers who travel through the station each hour, Desmond said. The station upgrades, which representatives say have revamped its capacity, safety and accessibility, include the addition of a new elevator, escalators and stairs. New glass panels and improved lighting have been installed, with enhanced station visibility from street level also achieved. Construction on the station began in the spring of 2015 and wrapped up this fall. The stations upgrades carried a cost of CA$12 million (US$ 8.9 million), and the Canadian government committed CA$2.1 million (US$1.6 million) of that cost through the Building Canada Fund. The government of British Columbia also allocated CA$4.2 million (US$3.1 million), with the remaining funds contributed by TransLink. The government of British Columbia is pleased to celebrate the completion of upgrades to the New Westminster SkyTrain Station, which improves integration into the neighbourhood, and enhances accessibility, safety and capacityall essential features of a modern and efficient public transit system. With these upgrades, our government can continue to create [livable] communities that are serviced by an effective and integrated transit network that meets the needs of the travelling public, reduces congestion, and meets our climate action goals, Fassbender said. The New Westminster Station is the third of seven total stations along the Expo Line that will undergo improvements by TransLink through funding from both the federal and provincial governments. Crews are currently working at the Commercial-Broadway, Metrotown and Joyce-Collingwood stations, which are said to be some of the systems busiest stations. I am pleased to see this investment in transportation infrastructure in New Westminster come to fruition. If the Phase 1 of the 10-Year Vision is approved by the Mayors Council, there will be more of this to come across the region and there will be lots to celebrate, Mayor Cote said. Commodity currencies such as the Australian, the New Zealand and the Canadian dollars strengthened against their major currencies in the Asian session on Tuesday amid risk appetite, following the surge in crude oil prices. Crude oil delivery for January is currently up by 0.47 percent or $48.71 per barrel. The crude oil prices rose amid optimism that OPEC members will agree to reduce output at a meeting next week. Also, the comments from Russian leader Vladimir Putin that a deal with OPEC to curb supplies is imminent, led to increase the crude oil demand. Reports quoting Putin said the Kremlin expects Saudi Arabia and other members of the cartel to finalize such a deal on November 30. Monday, the Australian and the Canadian dollars showed mixed trading against their major rivals. The aussie fell against the U.S. dollar and the euro, and held steady against the yen. The loonie rose against the yen and the euro, while it fell against the greenback. The NZ dollar rose 0.24 percent against the U.S. dollar, 0.69 percent against the yen, and 0.37 percent against the euro. In the Asian trading, the Australian dollar rose to a 6-day high of 81.94 against the yen, from yesterday's closing value of 81.59. The aussie may test resistance around the 83.00 area. Against the euro and the U.S. dollar, the aussie advanced to 4-day highs of 1.4373 and 0.7395 from yesterday's closing quotes of 1.4417 and 0.7365, respectively. If the aussie extends its uptrend, it is likely to find resistance around 1.40 against the euro and 0.76 against the greenback. The aussie climbed to 0.9917 against the Canadian dollar from yesterday's closing value of 0.9882. On the upside, 1.02 is seen as the next resistance level for the aussie. The aussie edged up to 1.0444 against the NZ dollar from an early near 2-week low of 1.0416. The aussie is likely to find resistance around the 1.07 region. The NZ dollar rose to a 5-day high of 0.7084 against the U.S. dollar and nearly a 10-month high of 78.48 against the yen, from yesterday's closing quotes of 0.7065 and 78.27, respectively. If the kiwi extends its uptrend, it is likely to find resistance around 0.73 against the greenback and 0.79 against the yen. Against the euro, the kiwi advanced to nearly a 2-week high of 1.5002 from yesterday's closing value of 1.5036. The kiwi is likely to find resistance around the 1.48 region. The Canadian dollar rose to 1.3397 against the U.S. dollar and 82.70 against the yen, from yesterday's closing quotes of 1.3417 and 82.56, respectively. If the loonie extends its uptrend, it is likely to find resistance around 1.30 against the greenback and 84.00 against the yen. Against the euro, the loonie advanced to 1.4241 from yesterday's closing value of 1.4258. The loonie is likely to find resistance around the 1.40 region. Looking ahead, Swiss trade balance for October is due to be released in the pre-European session at 2:00 am ET. At 2:45 am ET, Reserve Bank of Australia Assistant Governor Christopher Kent will deliver a speech titled "Australia's Economic Transition - State by State" at the Australian Business Economists Conference Dinner, in Sydney. At 4:30 am ET, U.K. public sector finance data for October is slated for release. At 6:30 am ET, Bank of England MPC Member Kristin Forbes is expected to speak at the JP Morgan Cazenove "Best of British" Conference, in London. In the New York session, Canada retail sales data for September, U.S. existing home sales data for October and U.S. Richmond manufacturing index for November and Eurozone consumer confidence index for November are set to be announced. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Distribution and outsourcing Group Bunzl Plc (BZLFY.PK,BNZL.L) announced Tuesday that it has entered into agreements to acquire two further businesses in France and Denmark. Prorisk and GM Equipement are principally engaged in the sale of a variety of personal protection equipment and first aid related products to both end users and distributors throughout France. The aggregate revenue of the businesses in the year ended December 31, 2015 was 7 million euros. Completion of the acquisition is expected to take place by the end of January 2017. Sbe Compagniet, which is based near Copenhagen, is a distributor of cleaning & hygiene related products, principally in the hotel, restaurant and catering sectors, in Denmark. Revenue in the year ended 30 April 2016 was 113 million Danisk kroner or about 13 million pounds. Completion of the acquisition is subject to clearance of the transaction by the Danish competition authority. Frank van Zanten, Chief Executive of Bunzl, said, "The purchase of Prorisk and GM Equipement will add further scale to our safety in France and increase the breadth of our product offering in this important market. The proposed acquisition of Sbe Compagniet will complement our existing cleaning & hygiene operations in Denmark and extend and expand our business there." For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News